I gasp for air as I collapse to the ground, even though it's only been a few seconds since we left the hospital. However, travel by Chaos Control is very different from travel by warp ring and I know which one I prefer. It feels like I'm being stretched through a very tight tube. My lungs are compressed, and I can't take a breath. There's no harm done, since the whole thing takes all of about two seconds, but the sensation is one I'll never get used to. I've done it several times before, and I respond the same each time. I collapse to the ground as soon as my feet hit it, coughing and choking.
I will never get used to that! I think to myself. It's then that I realize just how noisy it is. I hear shouting, banging, idling vehicle motors, and the general babble of tons of people talking at once.
I look up. We've arrived near Relic's house at the edge of Rocky Hill Zone. It's a nice house, built partially into the surrounding hill, like all residences in this area. The front lawn is outlined with a white picket fence, and the flowers and ornamental shrubs are nicely landscaped and outlined with decorative stone tile. An old marble statue stands in the center of a circular patio surrounded by budding camellia shrubs.
The place would look pretty if it isn't completely overrun with cameras, recorders, large, fancy-looking equipment, detectives, cameramen, news broadcasters, reporters, journalists from about ten different news presses, and what looks like half the Rainbow Valley Police Department. Everyone is rushing about the scene, moving cameras and recording equipment, searching through the hedges and flower beds, and barking orders to their subordinates.
My mouth falls open.
"You okay, mate?" Someone asks. I turn, which is hard to do, because I'm still sprawled on the ground like some demented spider. Rocky is standing over me with a concerned expression on his face. He offers me his hand to help me up and I take it gratefully.
"Thanks." I say, reaching down to dust off my clothes. I'm still wearing my white and pale blue nurse uniform. My hat has fallen off, and sits in a limp white lump on the grass. I pick it up and put it on, tucking my long, droopy bangs underneath.
"When did you hear about…?" I hesitate to find the right words. "…all this?"
"About two minutes before we got here." Rocky replies. "I was helping Tails fix my Extreme Gear board in the workshop when Silver came rushing in to tell us what had happened. He was working at Uncle Chuck's and saw it on the television. Apparently it's on every TV news corps and radio broadcast from Snottingham to Furville."
"Well, something like this is big news." I say, gesturing to the uproar behind me. "Hence the crazy scene before us."
"Yup." He agrees. "I wonder what really happened?" Shaking his head, he moves off to speak to Shadow. I walk over to where Julie-Su, Knuckles, Vector, and Rouge are speaking to a tall blue chameleon who I assume is the one in charge. I can hear their conversation as I get closer.
"…And you're positive there was nothing unusual about Mighty and Ray before they left last night?" The officer is saying. He has a deep, growling voice, and doesn't sound too pleased to be there. Nor, apparently, does Julie-Su. She is scowling at the officer, and looks like she wants nothing more than to pound him flat for wasting her time.
"I told you a dozen times already." She snaps, trying in vain to keep a calm composure. "There was nothing different about them, nothing. Somebody at the party would have noticed if anything was wrong."
The officer turns to the small and rather ferrety dingo behind him, who is furiously taking notes on what Julie-Su just said. "You got all that, Art?" The dingo nods absentmindedly, not taking his eyes off the notebook.
The officer starts to talk to Vector, but I don't really catch what's being said. My mind is going a million kilometers an hour.
Something doesn't add up. I think. Suppose somebody kidnapped them. If Mighty, Relic, and Ray reached the house before they got kidnapped, then why was the house broken into? The kidnapping must have happened before the three reached the house.
Retracing their steps in my head, I turn and head off toward the edge of the forest, where the police have set up a perimeter with yellow tape. As I get closer, I see that the wide, obnoxiously yellow tape is emblazoned with the words: CRIME SCENE! DO NOT CROSS! Gazing off into the distance past the perimeter, I can see the gravel pathway winding through the woods in the direction of Knuckles' house. I pause in front of the tape fence, trying to imagine what might have transpired last night around eight PM.
Fixit would most likely be in the lead, shining his flashlight ahead so the group could see. Mighty and Relic would be right behind him, probably holding hands and talking. Ray would be trailing behind like he always does. They'd be walking along, not even paying attention until…
Hmmm. I ponder, tapping my foot, like I always do when I'm thinking. Supposing this was, in fact, a kidnapping and not something else, they'd need to have the element of surprise. That's the only way they'd be able to take Mighty.
Hmm…I reckon whoever kidnapped them did it somewhere along the forest road. If anyone were to try and ambush them, it would be somewhere in these woods. They're not incredibly dense, but on a dark night it would be so easy to hide behind a tree and not be spotted.
I suddenly have an idea. What if there are clues along the path the police missed? I wonder. It doesn't look like they've thought to check the forest.
I'm about to head off and find somebody and tell them my hunch, but then stop. Why shouldn't I look for clues myself? I reason. After all, I am part of the SSS Team. I have as much right to search the woods as anybody. And besides. I say to myself. I'm an Argentian. Forests are my home turf. I'd be twice more likely to spot a clue than a bumbling policeman.
Glancing around to make sure nobody is paying attention, I ignore the message on the caution tape and duck underneath it. I get to my feet and head off towards the woods before anyone spots me. Along the way, I scan the grass and the gravel path for clues.
Hmmm… I think again. Of course, the path has to be gravel, and not something like dirt or mud that could leave footprints. Perhaps somebody could have left marks in a tree or bush? Pleased with my own cleverness, I follow the path even farther into the woods, stopping when I can no longer see the house. I scan my entire surroundings. The forest is about as typical as you can get. I see lots of trees (primarily oak, chestnut, and white birch), and dense undergrowth (including huckleberry bushes, vanilla leaf, monkshood, baneberry, red alder, and multiple varieties of ferns.) The trees are of an average age, covered in moss, and spaced pretty far apart. Dozens of different possible scenarios of last night run through my mind.
"Possible vantage points…" I mutter aloud, trying to visualize things from a theoretical villain's point of view. "…Could be from behind the trees, inside the red alder bushes, or up in the trees…" I look up. Though the leaves are young and fresh, allowing the March sunshine to peek through, on a dark night, they would easily hide a strike team sitting in the topmost branches of the oaks or chestnuts.
"…Or a small ship…" I wonder aloud. "They could position it right over the canopy, and then thugs could drop right over Mighty, Ray, and Relic. They might not have been paying enough attention to notice any engine noise. But still…" I ponder some more. "Are there any engines powerful enough to keep a small ship airborne yet be silent enough not to be noticed by three people alone on the road at night?" The idea, while still a possibility, seems highly unlikely. I make a mental note to ask Tails about engine noises later.
"Well, then." I say to myself. "If that idea isn't likely, then maybe one of my other scenarios might be?" I begin searching the ground for any sign of disruption, such as a heavy footprint on the ground beside the path, bent or misshapen bushes, scuff marks on tree bark, broken branches, or scattered leaves.
"Huh." I snort. Several minutes of carful searching has yielded nothing. No scuff marks, no footprints, no broken branches, no nothing. I am disappointed, to say the least.
"What am I missing?" I wonder aloud, staring around me at the quiet forest. That's when I spy a flash of purple down near the middle of the gravel path. I freeze. There it is, a small glimmer of orchid purple, like an LED bulb on a string of Christmas lights.
What's that? I wonder, stepping over to the mysterious sparkle. A jewel?
As it turns out, the mysterious object is, in fact, a jewel of sorts. It's a small, spherical bead on a twisted hemp cord. With a start, I realize that this is the necklace I always see Relic wearing. The lobster-claw clasp at the back is broken, and the ends of the cord are all jumbled, like my climbing rope whenever I accidentally drop it out of a tree.
Hmm… Hemp is known to keep its shape if it's subjected to force, such as bending or pulling. I examine the necklace even closer. The vertex of the oval appears to be right at the bead. The cord is stretched and bent sharply around the bead, creating a sort of wonky horseshoe shape.
A scene suddenly unfolds in my mind. Relic, surrounded by enemies, fumbling for the large bead at her throat, tugging the necklace free just as her kidnappers reach for her, and dropping the necklace behind her as they grab her and drag her off…
I stare at the little pile of twisted hemp lying limply on the gravel. My heart is pounding. I've just found a clue. A clue that will take us closer to solving this mystery.
v
I race back to the house the way I had come, ducking under the caution tape fence just as Rocky and Sonic catch sight of me. They hurry over.
"Where have you been?" Rocky demands. "Sightseeing?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." I say, stopping to push my stubborn bangs back under my hat. "I found a clue in the forest. Relic's necklace."
"Did you now?" Sonic asks, raising his eyebrows. "I told those horn-heads they'd want to check the path. Good job."
He races off, leaving Rocky and me standing there next to the tape fence. In a few moments, he comes back, followed by a female raccoon officer with blue eyes, curly red hair, and a rather pointy face. Her uniform is clean and pressed, and I think I detect a whiff of some sort of strange perfume as she approaches. The name on her uniform says "F. Wally." They all follow me into the woods, listening as I explain my theories – even the far-fetched ones, and the clues I had been searching for.
Officer Wally's face brightens as soon as she sees the necklace. She turns to Rocky.
"Go and find Officer Hardy and his crew." She barks in a voice that sounds used to being followed. Rocky has no choice but to obey. He turns and scampers off down the path.
"Now, girl." She says, turning to me. "You say you found this exactly as it is?" Her voice is very serious. "Did you touch or disturb it in any way?"
In spite of myself, my insides clench. Who did she think I was? Some simple village lass? If it weren't for me, they wouldn't have found this lead in the first place. Well, then. I think. If that's what she thinks, better live up to her expectations.
"No, ma'am." I say in my most innocently girlish voice, trying to keep my face straight. "Does breathing on it count as touching it? Because I kinda did that when I bent down to take a closer look."
Officer Wally's pointy face hardens into a scowl, but she's spared from answering by the timely arrival of Rocky. He comes hurrying around the corner with a whole horde of officers at his heels. Directly behind him is a rather skinny, grey-furred weasel with a mop of lank reddish hair that's thinning in places. His eyes are a cunning yellow, and he looks well-suited to his work. Funnily enough, however, he's dressed rather sloppily, as if he'd done it in a hurry. His cap is backwards and his shirt is buttoned the wrong way, so that one side of his collar sticks up higher than the other. The embroidered name on the uniform reads 'C. Hardy.'
He barks an order to his men and they all crowd around the necklace, forcing Sonic and me out of the way. Someone snaps a picture with the enormous camera he's holding. Another holds out a metal detector and the crowd of officers thins out slowly out as he begins to sweep the area back and forth with the scanner.
Thinking it best to leave them to their work, Rocky turns to leave, gesturing to Sonic and me to follow.
"C'mon. Let's regroup." He says as we walk down the forest path once more (Sonic runs and is soon out of sight).
"Not me." I say determinedly. "I want to see if there's anything to find in the house."
"The police have already scoured it." Rocky remarks. Then he chuckles. "But at the rate you're going, you might find something else." He laughs good-naturedly and waves as he's hailed by Tails and goes off to speak to him.
I continue through the zoo of policemen and camera crews to the neat tiled pathway between tidily manicured hedges. Everybody is busy with their work and nobody bothers to look at a young girl wearing a matching white hat and coat with the Tommy Turtle Memorial Hospital emblem. That is, nobody bothers except the guard blocking the door.
If not for the Rainbow Valley Police uniform (XXXL, I assume) and the hat jammed onto his massive frame, I would have asked why there was a boulder in front of the door. The grizzly bear bloke is huge, almost five-and-a-half feet tall (which is a considerable height, since most Mobians only reach about three-foot-six), with a shaggy mop of dull chestnut-brown hair escaping his hat that partially obscures the dark, almost black eyes beneath. The name on his coat is faded, but the name 'J. Dennison' is still visible. He's looking at his watch when I first catch sight of him, but he looks up when I approach. The scowl he gives me tells me two things: He's probably not having a good day, and I'm clearly not welcome.
"Hey, girl." He growls in a throaty voice. "Only policemen past this point. Now, scram!"
Humph! I snort to myself. That's the second time in five minutes somebody's called me 'girl.' What am I, a common tree-rat? I keep my cool, however, and try to look as innocent as possible. In the back of my mind, I wonder why Rainbow Valley hired a thug with such rude manners. Probably not just to obscure doorways.
"But I'm a Freedom Fighter." I say, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
At this, his scowl deepens even further, until his eyes are almost obscured by his furrowed brows.
"You heard me!" He barks. "Nobody in, nobody out. Now scram before I have to take you in for trespassing!" He raises his fist threateningly.
I gulp. This bloke clearly means business. After that, my one thought is to get away. Sure, part of me wants to hang around a bit more and see if I can try to outwit him, but my better judgment overcomes it. From what I've just seen, I don't think I want to risk antagonizing this fellow further. He looks like he could knock Knuckles flat and not even notice. But I still cannot resist having the last laugh.
"Alright, sorry." I say a little over-apologetically as I move away. "Sorry I disturbed you. I'll just leave you to your guard duty, because it looks like such an important and meaningful task, keeping little girls from going inside doors." With that, I dart away before he can figure out what I meant. My guess is three minutes at the least, after which I will be long gone.
Smiling smugly to myself, I quickly make my way across the lawn, slowing my pace as I get farther away from the house. I pass several officers on my way, but nobody so much as looks at me except for Hardy and Wally. They're speaking to each other in low voices near one of the reporter vans, but look up when I pass. Their faces are nearly identical: cold and calculating, with a hint of disapproval. I smile sweetly and put my hands in my coat pockets to try and convey the message that I'm not doing anything wrong.
Moving away from them and their rather unnerving stares, I suddenly notice something is different. I glance up at the sky. The sun is sinking ever lower towards the horizon.
But that's impossible! I think, checking my watch. 1:57. Huh. Weird.
I dash up to Sonic, who's busy flipping through a packet of papers one of the officers has just handed him. Before I can say anything, however, a large sheaf of papers discharges from the packet and come cascading down onto the grass.
"Aw, nertz." Sonic mutters, bending down to scoop up the papers. "I really wish Amy was here. She'd know what to do with all this." We gather up the papers, fit them back into their packet, and Sonic resumes his inspection.
Hey, Sonic?" I ask. "How come the sun's so low in the sky, but my watch says it's only two?"
He pauses in his paper-perusing to observe what I had. Then he smacks his forehead.
"Really? It's that late already?" He says.
"What's going on?" I persist.
"We're on Angel Island, Nannekins." He says. "At this time of year, it's about two hours ahead of New Mobotropolis. It's almost four. Which reminds me; we need to regroup with everybody at Knuckles' house." He starts to move off in the direction most of the team is in.
"Why not Headquarters?" I ask, confused.
"Knux's house is closer, especially for the Chaotix!" He calls over his shoulder, beckoning me to follow with the packet of papers. I start after him, and then pause as, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a tiny glimmer of movement near the front porch, where the police thug is standing, now talking to Officer Hardy. When I turn my head to look properly, it's gone.