Spoils
Flying high over the vast Mobian plains, the Tornado barely disturbed the dead of the night. It had been in the air for just about three hours, which had been sufficient to cross the border out of Servinia into the Republic of Mobius. While Tails and Amy respectively occupied the pilot's and passenger seats, Sonic stood on top of the plane as he had done so many times in his adolescence, most memorably when he and Tails had repeatedly pursued Dr. Eggman's infamous Death Egg. As the time neared midnight, Tails proceeded to lower the plane to land it into a small airfield a bit outside a provincial town.
Once the plane was safe in a hangar, Tails quickly dealt with the airport officials before meeting his friends to look for an inn. As they had predicted, there was one just outside the airport, designed for travelers who needed to spend a night for early morning flights.
Instead of asking for separate rooms, Sonic told the clerk they were looking for a single room with a king-size bed. Sonic consciously thought the three of them would easily fit in such a large bed, but in truth he was just reluctant to let Amy be separated again now that he had just found her.
The motel suite was just like any other: small, bland, and dimly lit. Its main room was furnished with the standard apparatus: a bed, a bedside table, a larger cabinet upon which sat an old television, an armchair, and not much else. Yet despite its modest, generic appearance, Sonic and Tails immediately recognized its potential for 'fun'. Sonic enthusiastically jumped on the bed. "Hey, this is awesome!"
"Yeah," said Tails, "check this out, they have this cool coffee machine, and it comes with cookies! The whole works!" Of course, Tails hated coffee; he was just interested in the cookies.
Meanwhile, Amy had taken off her jacket. She very neatly folded it, even making sure to smooth out every single visible crease, then set it gently near the side of the bed; her two friends didn't notice at all, however.
"Hey buddy," said Sonic, "why don't you put our shit over on that chair in the corner?" Tails obliged; their 'shit' amounted to only two small plastic bags plus Amy's knapsack. "And Amy's jacket, too," Sonic said, picking it up and throwing it to Tails, inadvertently destroying Amy's careful folding effort along the way.
As soon as he had done that, Sonic's jaw dropped. He had just noticed Amy suddenly backed up against the wall, looking extremely tense and staring at the chair where Tails had untidily left her jacket. She seemed very unsure at what to do; Sonic and Tails were goggling at her strange behavior, but Amy seemed to completely ignore them.
For a moment she stayed put, still pushing against the wall behind her; when it looked like nothing was about to happen, she cautiously walked over to the chair. She then very curiously hesitated for a while, but finally proceeded to fold her jacket once again the same way as before and placed it neatly on the chair.
Sonic and Tails looked at each other; each was as confused as the other.
"Okay… Um, why don't you guys have a seat?" Sonic said nervously, trying to smooth things out. "This king-sized bed is really cool…"
"Yeah, let's see what's on TV!" Tails suggested.
The television only had the major broadcast channels; Sonic and Tails soon found themselves rather bored, and they were more interested in hanging out with Amy anyway, even if she couldn't really communicate. At one point, they stumbled upon some old footage of the defunct rock group The Measles playing their singalong favorite "Hey Dude."
"Ah jeez. I've heard this, like, a billion times," Tails said; he dully murmured the lyrics along with the band. "Hey dude… don't feel so bad…"
Sonic discreetly motioned for Tails to look at Amy. Surprisingly, the pink hedgehog looked transfixed by the band's performance.
Amy was moved because she actually knew this song from a long time ago – from boarding school, even if rock was forbidden to listen to (only commercial pop was allowed, because the school received contributions from major teen-music labels). What happened was her teachers had forced her to start learning the piano (because it was a "girl's instrument") and to play the accompaniment for the school chorus. Amy grudgingly obliged, but had her revenge at their first concert, when she ruined it by deliberately playing the wrong chords the whole way through. It had earned her a very serious beating and the contempt of her peers, but she had achieved her goal – she was dismissed from the chorus and her piano lessons. Part of their program had been the song "Hey Dude"; however, Amy was now very much surprised to realize it was originally a rock song played with guitars.
"Hey, guessed you hadn't heard that in awhile, huh?" Tails asked once it was over.
Amy just kind of vaguely nodded; she didn't know if the song was considered a masterpiece or not (it seemed to bore her friends), but it made her feel good – it was a sort of relic of her life before her kidnapping.
"Hey, Amy," said Sonic after a little while, turning down the volume, "you're sure you still have those $10,000, right?"
Amy frowned. She shook her head – she had much more than that.
"Wait – you don't have that cash anymore? I thought you said you did…"
Amy put up her index – one minute, guys. She immediately fetched her knapsack and, upon rejoining her friends, emptied its contents by holding the open knapsack upside-down. The huge mass of money unceremoniously piled atop of the bed in a pyramid. Sonic and Tails were utterly astonished at Amy's huge fortune.
"Holy moley…" said Tails unconsciously.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Sonic swore, forgetful of his speech. "Holy Mother of God! I've never seen so much cash in my life!"
"Me too… Wow. This has honestly got to be one of the ugliest things I've ever seen," Tails commented, still stunned.
"Oh Jesus, this is really fucking scary. This is a lot more than ten grand. It's gotta be at least ten times that, if not much more."
Amy's delight at showing her fortune turned into confusion and disappointment when she understood her friends weren't taking it very well. Though this money had so far proved more problematic than helpful, she had been rather proud of it ever since grabbing it. This was her booty for having succeeded in murdering her boss, an act for which she still felt self-righteous. Most of all, she also felt this money was her deserved payment for years of forced labor. Along with murdering Catherine, her fortune was the only achievement she felt proud of in two years – essentially, the two successful initiatives she had taken. Very hurt at her friends' disapproval, she mutinously pointed at the pile of cash and then jerked her thumb towards her chest – it's mine, it's all mine!
But Sonic and Tails looked rather concerned at her attitude. "Amy, you can't be serious!" said Sonic. "This huge pile can't honestly belong to you!"
Amy just crossed her arms, looking sulky.
"Okay, okay, whatever. Let's just maybe inspect it a bit," Sonic suggested, trying to keep the peace.
"I'm not going to touch that stuff. It just looks so gross," Tails grumbled.
"No, look." Sonic was skimming through one of the bundles. "It looks pretty real to me. And they're nonconsecutive, see?"
Tails just shrugged, his face still in a grimace.
Amy was fuming. She thought her friends were unfairly denigrating the only achievement she could hold on to for the little self-esteem she had left, and it made her very resentful. She rather furiously started to collect each bundle of bills and rapidly threw them back in her knapsack. As far as she was concerned, if Sonic and Tails did not respect what she had done, they had no right to start fingering the product of her efforts.
Sonic and Tails exchanged a meaningful, uneasy look. Amy's attitude was very peculiar indeed, and they would have to be patient and tactful. Sonic turned again to Amy: "okay… Okay. It looks like you feel strongly about that money, but you know, you have to realize it looks… uh… crime-related. Drugs, arms dealing, something like that."
Amy just clutched her knapsack to her chest, staring moodily at Sonic.
"Amy, I'm only saying, I mean…" Sonic and Tails were repulsed not so much because the money could be troublesome, but rather because it felt like 'dirty money' – the product of a sinister act. If it was related to a weapons deal, for example, it meant the fortune's owner – Amy – was directly and anonymously profiting from senseless violence done to innocents. However, Amy didn't seem like she would be receptive to this reasoning (she was so touchy she could take it as a direct accusation), so Sonic chose to point out the more obvious drawback. "I just think that it could bring trouble. Maybe some gangsters are looking for this. Also, if someone sees you with this, they'll probably report you to the police… But we won't!" he added quickly when Amy gave a jerk of her head. "We won't ever report you for whatever, but I'm just saying, someone else might do it… someone who's not necessarily your friend. For example, that woman at the store told the Harver police about it, and she only saw a fraction of that cash."
This threat of delation reminded Amy that in the past few days, she had gradually identified the police as aggressors from whom she needed to defend herself. To express that to Sonic, she grabbed a notepad and a pencil from the bedside table and slowly wrote the word "police". She held it up for her friends, who managed to identify the word despite the crude handwriting (Amy's writing skills had essentially retreated to those of an 8-year-old). Amy then fetched her handgun from her jean jacket's pocket and pointed it at the word "police".
"Whoa," exclaimed Sonic, almost horrified. "Amy, are you saying you're ready to shoot any cop that comes your way?"
Amy sort of jiggled her hand – kind of. She then took the notepad and scribbled the word "Harver" just in front of "police"; under the two words, she also wrote (and misspelled) "self-defense", then repeated the motion with the gun towards "Harver police".
Sonic let out a long sigh. He knew he wanted at some point to try and figure out what Amy had become, and why. The pile of money and Amy's bellicose attitude towards the police prompted him to attempt to do so. "Okay, Amy, I really need to ask you this… In the past two years… Did you – and, you know, no one's blaming you if you did – did you, uh, become involved in crime? You know, robberies, gangs, that sort of thing…"
Amy shook her head; she certainly hadn't.
"Okay…" Sonic wasn't sure if Amy was being truthful; after two years, it was possible that she became reluctant to trust even her friends. "Or, did you become a mercenary? We thought we learned some of those people linked to Slug the Machine had something to do with your disappearance, so…"
Amy shook her head – this wasn't true either – albeit very furiously this time. She found she didn't want Sonic to discuss that at all; the word "mercenary" and the name "Slug" had spontaneously agitated her. To change the subject, she held her index over her mouth – shh.
"Okay, okay. Sorry. You don't want to talk about that for now. It's all good. We'll figure it out later."
Amy still looked tense; Sonic had to say something to get her to relax. "Amy, you know… You gotta understand… Whatever you might've done, we're not judging you or blaming you for anything. If you want to blame someone, blame me instead – I–I should've paid more attention when we got back from Ambrosia two years ago. Anyway, the important thing is that we found you. We're really glad you're back."
This wasn't a pretext to pacify Amy; Sonic sincerely meant every word he had spoken. Anyway, it worked, because Amy's figure relaxed. She actually wanted to smile but it didn't quite come out, yet Sonic was happy at her reaction. "Cool," he said smiling, "it's all cool. It's all good, it's all good."
At this point, the three friends were rather tired. Even if Sonic and Tails wanted to further hang out now that Amy was back, Sonic knew they should wrap it up; he also remembered that before tonight, Amy had been sleeping on the street. "Guys, it's 1am, maybe we should try to get some sleep. Amy, I – oh, darn, I – sorry, I hadn't really thought of that; um, you know what, I'll turn off the light, and you can just take off your jeans and shit in the dark."
Unbeknownst to Sonic, Amy didn't understand his suggestion at all, since privacy was still a foreign concept to her. It became a moot point when Sonic switched off the light and he and Tails slipped under the covers, followed by Amy once she had undressed save for her T-shirt.
Normally, Sonic and Tails would have talked long into the night, just like any teenager at a slumber party, but they naturally realized they couldn't do so since Amy was speechless. In any event, they could hear from her breathing that she had very quickly fallen asleep. All was well. Minutes later, they both joined her in the land of Nod.
