Fugitive

Chapter 1: Gemini

Interrogations have a long history of unpleasantness. This one was no different.

The prisoner's hands were cuffed to a sturdy bar welded into the stainless steel table. The table itself was securely bolted to the floor, as was the uncomfortable chair on which he sat. As far as he could tell, the room contained no potential weapons. Even the single flickering lightbulb was contained by a cage attached to the ceiling.

One of the nauseating hospital green walls was taken up by a large two-way mirror. The linoleum tile, which had probably been white at some point, was now a sick yellowish brown trimmed with a number of disquieting red stains. Under the table was a rusty grate covering a drain. The stains seemed to flow into it, as if someone had done a poor job of washing something away.

All in all, it was a situation he wanted to remove himself from as quickly as possible. The cuffs, at least, would be no problem.

"I like to think of myself as a reasonable man..."

Now if only this bastard would leave.

The man who had been questioning him was of average height and build. He wore a gray pinstripe suit and a hat that came low enough to cover his brow. A pair of dark sunglasses hid his eyes. His appearance suggested that he had never seen combat. He sure acted like tough shit, though, the way he leaned over, palms flat on the table, and sneered at the two-tailed fox across from him.

"So I'm going to give you one more chance," he continued. "Where is Sonic the Hedgehog?"

He spat out the words with the laughable conviction of a man who truly thought himself terrifying. He gave Tails the pathetic impression of a chihuahua baring its teeth.

You'll have to do better than that, the fox thought, silently glaring into where he guessed the man's eyes were. The interrogator's sneer grew wider.

"Are you even listening to me?"

He wasn't.

"Fine," the man hissed. "Have it your way." He turned and nodded at the mirror. After a moment, a man wearing a black hood and a rubber smock entered carrying a metal tray. The man in the suit made his exit, throwing one final sneer over his shoulder as he did. Tails made a mental note that the door did not appear locked before turning his attention to the tray. It was adorned with an array of sharp objects, some of them particularly sinister-looking devices he had never seen before.

The hooded man picked up a straight razor and flipped it open. He ran his thumb across the blade, making a big show of how sharp it was. Tails scoffed. He had, of course, been trained to withstand torture.

But that didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell.

Tails hissed in pain as the razer slashed across his face. He couldn't see out of his right eye. For a moment he was afraid he had been blinded, but after blinking a few times realized that it was just full of blood pouring from the fresh gash. The relatively mild injury had been intended to scare him, not cause any real damage. On anyone else, it might have worked; quite a bit of blood was dripping onto the floor. The cut was deep and would probably require stitches, but Tails knew that head injuries always bleed a lot.

The fox quickly regained his composure. The torturer seemed disappointed as he closed the razor and placed it back on the tray with a grunt. He reached for another device, one Tails did not recognize. It looked somewhat like an eggbeater. He rotated a key on the side and the device split into several sections at one end. As he continued to rotate, the flaps expanded further. He closed the device again.

Suddenly, he reached for the fox's head. Caught by surprise, Tails made to bite his hand. The hooded man was fast, grabbing him by the jaw and pulling his mouth open. The fox struggled, but the man's powerful grip kept him in place as the device was forced into his mouth. He slowly began to turn the key again.

Tails could feel the object's leaves expanding in his mouth. He tried to pull away, but it wouldn't fit past his teeth anymore. His eyes grew wide as he suddenly realized what it was for.

Fuck! He's going to break my jaw!

His breathing quickened as the device stretched his mouth open painfully. He closed his eyes and tried to remain calm and centered like he had been taught.

Okay, Miles, stay cool. This is going to hurt, but the pain will only be temporary. Stay calm because if you reveal anything then these guys are going to find Sonic and then find Knothole and then destroy Knothole and then there'll be nobody to FUCK HE'S GOING TO BREAK MY FUCKING JAW FUCK!

The fox screamed thrashed, desperately trying to escape. There was a sudden crash followed by the sound of glass hitting the tile. The torturer leapt back with a muffled yell and scrambled out the door, leaving the device in Tails' mouth.

Tails wasted no time lifting his left foot onto the table and fumbling around in his sock for the bobby pin he kept there. He located it and set to work freeing himself.

The cuffs were the old-fashioned steel kind with standard-issue ratcheting locks. Evidently, the new electronically-locked carbon fiber variety didn't fit into their budget. It was practically an insult. He had the cuffs off in less than five seconds.

He reached for the device in his mouth and gingerly turned the key. The device expanded again and he let out a silent scream.

Wrong way...

Carefully, he turned it the other way, and thankfully the flaps began to retract. He removed the object from his mouth and tossed it on the floor, where it landed on some shards of glass. He took in his surroundings as he painfully tested his jaw.

The two-way mirror hand been shattered, revealing the dark room full of computer equipment behind it. The man in the suit was slumped over the partition, clearly dead. His glasses were snapped in two and his bloodstained hat had fallen to the floor. The black bruises covering his face suggested that he had been beaten and then hurled through the window. Tails stared at the gruesome scene. The torturer must have seen the culprit and fled.

An alarm sounded, snapping him out of his trance. He grabbed the straight razor from the tray and threw a glance over the rest of the items on the tray, thankful he didn't have time to get acquainted with them.

The hallway was bathed in flashing red light. Its layout was unfamiliar to him. He had been unconscious when they brought him in, and they had blindfolded him when they transferred him from the holding cell. He cursed as he realized he had no idea where he was going.

Frantic voices called out from far away in one direction, so Tails hurried off the other way. His face was still bleeding, and he could feel it matting his fur.

The facility was a maze of metal tunnels and it wasn't long before he was lost. He cursed again, wishing the guards hadn't taken his things when they brought him in.

Somebody yelled from around the corner and the sound of heavy boots stomped toward him. Tails ducked into the nearest door. It slid shut behind him with a quiet WOOSH just as the sound of footsteps passed. He held his breath until they faded. The room was an empty closet with no other exits, so he returned to the door. It opened to reveal a guard's back.

Reacting quickly, Tails clamped a hand over the guard's mouth and held the razor to his throat. The guard let out a muffled yell as he was dragged through the doorway. Once it had slid shut again, Tails whispered in the guard's ear.

"Okay, here's what's gonna go down. I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth and you are very quietly going to tell me where the hell they put my things. If you struggle or try to yell for help, I will not hesitate to kill you where you stand. Understood?"

The guard mumbled something that sounded affirmative, so Tails removed his hand.

"Make a right out of this door, take a left at the fork, then the first right and it'll be the second door on the left."

"Thank you."

Tails slammed the guard's head into the wall, knocking him out cold.

He followed the directions, keeping alert for any surprises along the way. The indicated door was marked "PROCESSING". He half-expected to find a patrol waiting for him on the other side, but the room was vacant. Across from him stood a tall metal cage padlocked shut. He examined the lock for a moment, before making a well-placed downward strike with his foot. The lock came free.

The familiar feel of his shoulder holster bearing twin Desert Eagles was comforting. He felt more himself already. He quickly snapped on his wrist communicator and grabbed a gadget that looked like two short metal sticks stuck together. He twisted one and pulled it away from the other. A holographic screen blinked to life in between.

"Map current location," he spoke into the screen.

A green three-dimensional rendering of the facility appeared, revealing even greater complexity than Tails had imagined. He sighed. This place could house a minotaur.

"Find nearest exit."

A series of hallways were highlighted in red, tracing a path from the small blue blip representing his current location. He was relieved to find that the exit was closer than he thought. He quickly memorized the path and deactivated the device.

He drew one of his pistols and slipped out into the hallway once more. The lights were still flashing, but everything had gone silent. The alarm had stopped and he could hear no more voices.

The memorized route led him to an elevator. He had hoped for stairs, but it would have to do. The display inside read 37. Tails wondered briefly whether he had been taken to Robotropolis; nowhere else had buildings that tall anymore. That thought, vanished, however, when the elevator began to rise. Tails made certain that he had, in fact, pressed the button for the first floor.

The elevator continued to rise, but the numbers on the display dropped. 34... 33... 32...

He was underground. He could be anywhere.

Eventually, the elevator rolled to a stop and the doors opened. Tightening his grip on the gun, Tails stepped out into the charred husk of a bombed-out building. By the looks of it, it had been a shop of some sort. The doors slipped closed behind him, blending perfectly into the wall. One couldn't see the seam unless they looked closely. As far as he could see, there was no way to get back in from the outside.

The streets were silent. The small town seemed to have been abandoned. Some buildings were burned, others reduced to rubble. The few that did remain standing had been looted and ransacked. There would be nothing useful left in them.

The place had probably been full of security cameras, so his first order of business should be to get as far away from here as possible, then plan a route back to Knothole later. If he couldn't-

He stopped. Something was seriously amiss here.

Tails hurried into the nearest building, the ruins of a hotel. He turned on his wrist communicator, switched to a secure frequency, and spoke a quick message.

"Gemini. Clover Protocol."

He took off the communicator, tapped a few buttons, and tossed it on the ground. It began fizzle and smoke. A soft red glow emnated from somewhere inside. Tails watched to make sure it self-destructed completely. When it was nothing more than a pile of melted plastic on the concrete, he took off.

Something struck a sour note about his escape. The sudden emergency, the cuffs, the empty halls, finding his stuff so easily... He had caught too many lucky breaks. They wanted him to escape. They would be watching him. Following.

The message had been a simple one. "I've been compromised. Don't come looking for me."

Wherever he went, he couldn't go back to Knothole.