Sonic ransacks the mess left behind from the encounter earlier. "Ah! Found it, it's right over here!"
Sonic pulls out a briefcase from the stacks of crates. Just then, voices can be heard scuffling from the back of the alley.
The pair of hedgehogs turned around, and it was none other than the Chaotix!
"Well, if it isn't Sonic and Shadow! How coincidental!", Vector greats warmly.
"How'd you find us here?", Shadow questioned.
"This stranger called us up! He said that we'll find something over here. Hey, by any chance, did you see a breifcase lying over here?", Vector asked.
Sonic replies, "Well, if you're referring to this!"
Charmy exclaimed, "Wow, you got here fast! I wonder what's inside it?"
Sonic glances at the briefcase, "Hmm...I dunno..wait! What's this? A tape recorder? This thing seems rigged! Sssh!"
Espio uses a shrunkien star and pries the lock open, revealing a series of digits and dials in it. He enters '1107' and a soft 'click' could be heard from within, the recording device is deactivated and the handle unlocks itself.
"Amazing! How did you do that?", exclaimed Charmy.
"Simple intuition. It was today's date.", was the answer that Espio gave.
Vector waves to his teammates. "Oh..so whoever that's after it wants it delievered by today. Come, let's get out of here before they find us! It's late now, go get some rest and we'll meet again tommorow morning!."
As the team leaves, oblivious to them, a mysterious figure claded in black scrutinises from a rooftop above.
Mysterious figure ?: "Heheheh..."

The next morning at Base Burrow, Vector, Espio, Charmy, Sonic and Shadow gathered at the desk for a meeting. The atmosphere was tense as they anticipated in eagerness...
Espio calls the rest over, "Hey guys! I checked the briefcase yesterday night while you all were asleep. Look at this."
Espio pours out the contents of the briefcase, scattering a portable flash drive, some blueprint notes and a wireless receiver on the table.
Charmy sighs in disappointment. "Huh, is that all? I thought there were dazzling diamonds in there!"
"Quiet, Charmy! Let's see what Espio had analysed for us." Vector snapped at Charmy.
Espio explains, "Well, it appears that the contents of the hard disk is encrypted, so I can't access it's contents from our labortory. The blueprints can only be viewed under ultralight and they seem to be instructions for building something, but it's written in hexadecimal and I need time to decipher it twice, converting it into numbers and figure out which alphabet it represents. We'll leave that aside first, but what's interesting is this receiver. There were some distorted voices and a loud explosion in the recording, and it seems to be connecting to a remote network over here"
Espio points to a location on the map. Vector and Sonic starred at it, puzzled.
"Didn't Dilapidated Factory shut down years ago? I thought that they went out of business.", asked Sonic.
"Hmm...I dunno. How about let's go ask the town mayor later after lunch? He might have a clue or two on what's going on there.", Vector suggested.
Charmy yells in excitement, "Coool! Looks like there's more to this mysteryy!"

...to be continued in Episode 3!