Egg Carrier, 2011

"Hey Dr. Eggman!" says Miles, shocking me back into the present, "are you sure you're okay? 'Cause you're sure acting weird." He rolls his eyes. "Well, you always act kinda weird, but this is weird even for you."
"What do you mean I act kind of weird?" I snap at him. He's forgetting that he is in my territory, around an area solely under my command.
"Trying to take over the world isn't weird?" asks Miles.
"It depends on your point of view," I say haughtily. He grins.
"That's absolutely right! I never thought of it that way before!"
I am rather surprised by this statement. I didn't think he would agree with me. I thought he would argue to kingdom come, like his beloved best friend would.
It looks like Miles is flying away from the nest after all.
"So what did ya wanna be?" he asks. He's not going to let it go. He is a child, after all, and children like to hear adults talk about when they were kids. "Of course I wanted to take over the world," I say, looking straight at him. "What else could I have wanted?"
"Minds change easily," says Miles sadly.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well," says Miles, a little shyly, "I wanted to be a doctor once. But how could I be a doctor when I have this?" He lifts a hand under his twin tails and lets them drift back into position. "I need...I needed fixing, so how could I fix anybody else?"
He's still having issues with himself. Interesting.
"And what about what Sonic told you?"
"He tells me a lot of things," says Miles, rubbing at his forehead absently, "and I try to listen to all of them. He gives good advice, you know. But it's hard to remember when people are making fun of you."
"Do people still make fun of you?"
"Yeah," he says, looking at the ground and shuffling his feet a little, "of course they do. Only now it's worse."
He takes a breath, as if to steady himself for a wave of bad memories that was threatening to knock him over. "They call me the sidekick, and the damsel in distress. Sometimes they tell me I'm...I'm gay, just 'cause I follow Sonic. But...I'm not. I'm not like that. He's my brother, nothing more than that, and I don't want him to be."
For some reason he seems to trust me a lot.
Why is that?
I am strangely uneasy at the thought of using this to manipulate him.
These seem to be things he can't even tell Sonic.
Of course he can't.
If he told Sonic, Sonic would tell him not to listen, it wasn't true. He would tell him to go his own way and not worry about anybody else's opinion, 'cause what did it matter anyways?
Some people can't think that way.
Some people have to learn to think that way.
Sonic was born with it. He had never cared what anyone thought, simply because he knew, from whatever point he had become his present self, that he could do anything, and he was able to prove it.
Miles, however, had been insecure from the beginning, due to unusual appearance as well as intelligence. He knew that he could do anything, but was far too afraid to try.
"Then why do you follow him?" I ask, even though I already know the answer, of course. He wants to be like Sonic. He wants a piece of Sonic to rub off on him.
His answer is not what I predicted it to be.
"Because he's my friend," he says simply. "I guess it's kind of pathetic, really, but it's hard for me to get friends. And to have a friend who wants to be my brother? That's something I have to hold onto. That's something I can't lose. If I lose Sonic," he says, blinking hard, "I lose everything." He steadies himself. "But that's why I'm here, doctor," he says in a strong voice. "I'm afraid I didn't catch the reason," I say drily. "Because I never see you WITH anybody. You're always surrounded by robots. No contact with anything...real. I mean, robots are nice and everything, but they don't really compare with a real person."
"So you've decided to be my Sonic?" I ask. He looks at me in shock.
"No no no," he cries, "of course not. I just...I just thought you might like some company for once. I've built a few robots myself, you know. I wouldn't trade my friends for one of them."
I rise from my chair. "Follow me, " I say in an emotionless voice.
Looking a bit frightened, the little fox trails behind me as I take him through my base, one of many scattered here and there for me to retreat to when the time is right. In one of the sublevels I open a door and gesture him inside. There is just one computer terminal in the room.
"These are the original plans of devices created by Dr. Robotnik," I say, "that of course were destroyed by you and your friends. I never could figure out what the design flaws were."
"That's because you think like him," says Miles, eagerly accessing the terminal. "Like this one," he says, pointing at a hoverchair design that would drop a ball onto the ground, then create a magnetic field of sorts that would pull the target towards the streams of electricity shooting from it. "I mean, the charge lasted only so long, and it was really easy to get away from the field. Why was it so weak anyways? I could build a stronger one in my sleep!"
"Dr. Robotnik tended to...overlook things," I say.
"I see that!" says Miles. "Look at this one he used in the Chemical Plant Zone! Getting through the Zone was harder than defeating that machine! It took SO LONG just to create its attack!"
And so he went on, outlining the flaws in each and every one of Dr. Robotnik's machines. Of course he knew what they were; he had had to defeat them, or Sonic had had to. After a while he steps back, though he clearly doesn't want to.
"I have to go," he says. "The others will be wondering where I am." He smiles at me. "I had a lot of fun! Thanks!"
He runs off, tails swishing back and forth. In my control room I watch the Tornado - the original Tornado - take to the sky in the gathering dusk.
Now do I take advantage of that little visit, or do I just let everything go?