Chapter 6 - New Life
Author's Note - Some Sonic fans may notice I've excluded writing about Amy's proficiency and use of Tarot that her official origin in the games describes. In case you are wondering, I left this out simply because I lack knowledge of how Tarot actually works. So, consider this a semi-alternate universe I guess.
"LEE, FOR GOSH SAKES HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO FIX THE DARN AIR CONDITIONER?"
Lee came plodding out of the kitchen scarfing down a bagel.
"Good Lord, woman. I told you last night I would get it this morning."
"You've been saying that since last week! I will NOT have our guests burning up in the middle of July just because of your laziness."
"Hey." Lee half shouted. Roy came out of the kitchen with his perpetual cup of coffee. "I've been busting my butt around here nonstop with the list of stuff you keep giving me that's growing bigger and bigger and maybe if you would stop griping about how urgent this is and how urgent that is MAYBE I would actually be able to FINISH something!"
"Well excuse me for trying to keep an orderly place around here! And you have NOT been busting your butt! How many times do I catch you laying around watching sports all day?"
"A man has got to have SOME kind of freaking past time with the kind of work YOU load me down with."
They argued like this every morning. Lee and Valerie were the owners of the room and board I was living at. They were both really nice people but they were always arguing with each other. Roy had said that they really loved each other and the yelling didn't mean a whole lot. It was just something they did. I couldn't imagine having a relationship with someone where all we did was yell. But to each his own, I guess.
Eventually, Lee sulked off to look at the air conditioning unit, and Roy following behind him like an obedient lap dog chit-chatting the whole way. Roy worked downtown at the local glass mill. When he was off duty, he pretty much spent his whole time here tailing someone (usually Lee) with a cup of coffee in hand talking their ear off. I think Lee kinda got annoyed at Roy following him everywhere sometimes, but if he did, he never said anything.
Every morning Valerie would make the entire breakfast for the guests herself. Lunch and dinner you were on your own. I was sitting at the table contently munching down some eggs and bacon. I was currently the only one at the table. Some of the others had already left for work and others were sleeping in. Some, like Wayne, had already rushed out the door and took some to go, scarfing down as they went, much to Valerie's dismay.
"What good is a decent meal if you don't take time to sit down and enjoy it?" She would always say.
John walked into the room and took a seat. "Mornin' Valerie." He said with a smile. Her mood brightened up a bit when she saw him. "And how are you doing this morning, John?"
"Oh, I can't complain." He said. "How are you this morning, Amy?"
"I'm just fine." I said with a smile.
John was a very pleasant person. He was always in a bright mood and treated every one he met like they were the center of the universe. He would always ask me how my job or studies were going or how my parents were doing oversees. I always felt really bad about lying to him. I think he may have kinda picked up on the fact that I was lying about certain things and he had stopped pressing further. He was a really nice guy like that.
Valerie brought him some breakfast and we chatted casually for a bit. I always felt good about myself talking to him. He was on staff at the local church and worked full time on the grounds doing whatever needed to be done. A bit of a Jack of all trades.
Adam entered the room. Adam was the complete opposite of John. He was always finding faults in everything and everyone. Every now and then he would get off on a tangent of whoever had currently pissed him off and would spend weeks ranting about all that person's shortcomings from the day they were born until someone else pissed him off and they became his new target.
"And how are you doing this fine morning?" John asked with a friendly smile as Adam took a seat. Adam grunted in response.
"Trevor screwed up again at work last night. I had to take all the heat for it. It seems that guy is ALWAYS screwing something up or another."
"I'm sorry to hear that." John said. Adam continued ranting.
"Just last week we were headed to Station Square to work on a job and before we left I told him; 'Now you make sure that ladder is on the truck securely and all the straps are fastened tight!' He insisted everything was fine; that's how he always is. Always sure of himself and doesn't need anyone assisting him. God wonders how a person like that even SURVIVES from day to day. Anyways, we are going down the freeway, right? And I just happen to take a glance in the rear view mirror, and you know what I see? Take a guess."
Not even allowing time for a response, he continued.
"The ladder is off the truck rolling down the freeway and traffic is piling up for miles down. He starts to pull over like an idiot and I tell him to floor it before someone sees it was us and the company takes the blame for it. Can you believe that he didn't even get fired for it? Boss said we were 'too short on help' and that Trevor was sincerely sorry and that it 'would never happen again'.
Sorry my butt. He's ALWAYS doing stuff like this. Just last week he wrote a check for his friend and forgot to put his SIGNATURE on it. How stupid do you have to be?"
Adam went on for awhile about Trevor this and Trevor that. John just smiled and nodded his head. Poor guy.
"...so last night he was put in charge of organizing the warehouse... HIM... can ya believe... and he..."
"...sometimes just up and leaves the job site when the boss is out of town and goes to the beach! And here I am busting my butt being the good worker that I am, and you know what I found out? He makes a few cents MORE than me. What the heck? He..."
And on and on and on. This is how my mornings typically started out. Sitting here having breakfast chatting with and watching the interactions of the other tenants.
Adam's hatred for most of humanity aside, I liked it here. I was starting to feel comfortable with my new life. I sorta began to feel like everyone I had come to know was like a family I never had. I was a little socially awkward because I wasn't used to being around adults who treated me like an equal. It made me feel more grown up and I really liked that feeling.
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2
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"Excuse me sir..." An overweight middle aged woman walked up to the register. "Do you have ANY more books here or is this all you've got?" She gestured around towards the first floor. Chris looked at her incredulously but not surprised and said with a hint of wanting to say something a little meaner but holding back: "The first floor is mostly cards, magazines, bargain books, and media only. The majority of our books are on the second floor." The woman whipped around surprised. "There's a second floor?" "That would be what the giant staircase by the front door is for." The woman spotted it and began waddling towards it without another word.
"Good Lord, are these people stupid." Chris groaned. "One time I had a lady come up to the reference desk and ask me where the reference desk was."
I laughed. "I had someone yesterday as me where the maps were. I pointed out the Atlases and he got mad and said he wasn't looking for an atlas, he was looking for a book of maps!" I said.
"Yeah, I get one of those every other month." Chris said.
David, our store manager walked by. "Chris, since you aren't busy right now, show Amy how to do holds." Chris gritted his teeth. "I don't ever see you doing much when you're here, fatso." He muttered under his breath. Chris had a tendency to take things just a little too personally. He also didn't like David much. David was kind of a walking rulebook and was rude sometimes with other employees, even in front of other customers. He was usually nice to me though, if a little cold sometimes.
"Alright... everything on these shelves behind the registers... whenever a customer requests you hold a book or we get a special delivery from the warehouse..."
This was what I did during the day. My shift usually ran from 8 to 4 with the occasional night shift. I convinced them as a student that most of what I did was online self study and I planned my classes around work, so I was able to get more hours in better times of the day. Once again, it wasn't a total lie. Working at the bookstore was better than school for me. Everything I needed to educate myself was right at my fingertips. We had a system where employees could check out books from the store for free and return them as long as there was no noticeable wear or the spine wasn't visibly broken. So I checked out as many as I could and read nonstop on my breaks or in my off time. I made a point to read from each section of the store, so I would check out a few books from one section, then I would go on to another. Chris had gotten me interested in the speculation section so I began reading books from that section, starting with the 'Millennium Planet' books. I then went on to books on improving writing technique, psychology, world culture, and science. I also threw some fiction in there. I found I loved romance, fantasy, and suspense. I was a fast reader so I probably read through a minimum of one or two books a day, many more on my days off. As for what I did on my days off...
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3
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It was my off day and I had selected several books to take with me for the trip ahead. Chris was ringing up a lady in front of me. He was typing something on the computer terminal next to the register when David walked by. Chris whipped his head up. "Hey, David. What's the date the new J.L. Stein book comes out?"
"Use the terminal." David said.
"I KNOW you know it off the top of your head. It would be easier to ask you." Chris shot back.
David gave him a look that said, 'You better not question me one more time.'
"USE the terminal."
"So you want to make this lady here wait why I try to punch something up on a computer that you could've easily just told me yourself."
David looked angry. "September 17th. Come see me in my office when you are done." He walked away.
Chris turned his attention towards the customer with a plastic smile. "September 17th, ma'am. Would you like to place a pre-order?" He looked frustrated.
The customer was pleasant about it, but had a look on her face. Chris noticed and as he was finishing her transaction took the receipt and circled a number on it.
"This here, ma'am, is our customer service hotline. If you call you get entered into a monthly drawing to win a $100 bookstore shopping spree. Our store strives for five stars but please feel free to give it what you felt it was worth. And if your shopping experience was anything but pleasant today please for the love of God describe it in immense detail to the customer service representative."
The lady laughed and thanked Chris for all the trouble and left.
I came up and put my stuff on the counter.
"That ASS!" he exclaimed. "Good God I hope he gets chewed out good by somebody higher up for that."
"I didn't know we had a customer service hotline." I said.
"Oh, yeah." Chris said. "Comes in very handy. Funny story. One time we had this lady who worked in the cafe upstairs. A real troublemaker. Slacked off on her job and picked fights with employees and customers. Well, she got warned that she was on her last strike and if she didn't show some phenomenal improvement that she was going to get canned. So she gets the customer service hotline off a customer's receipt and calls them to let them know about an absolutely wonderful woman who had provided groundbreaking customer service on her visit to our store.
Now, this woman had this particular nasally way of talking so that you could very easily pick her voice out of a crowd of people. And what she didn't know was that each call about our store gets shot back to the store manager himself to listen to the feedback. So David calls her into the office one day, plays the conversation she had had on the hotline, and proceeds to chew her the hell out. Needless to say she was fired on the spot."
"Haha, wow. I wouldn't have wanted to be her!"
"No joke."
He takes my books and starts ringing them out. "THIS is an amazing book." He said, referring too 'Ancient Prophecies Demystified'.
"I've really been getting into some of the stuff that you were showing me on my first day."
"Cool. Tomorrow I'll give you a list of stuff I think you will really enjoy." Chris said as he finished up my transaction. I thanked him and left.
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4
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Several weeks after I started working at the bookstore I decided to take a train out to where the old Abkantis ruins were to see them for myself. I had visited similar ruins back when I was at the orphanage on a few field trips, so there was nothing terribly surprising. I was too scared to go into the ruins themselves for fear of getting lost or falling somewhere and not being able to get out. But I poked around the area for a while. I could see why my parents had become explorers. The sense of adventure and mystery, wandering through ancient ruins uncertain of what you would find, trying to unlock the secrets of an ancient civilization and what our world was like thousands of years ago. Being here, I kinda felt closer to my parents in a way.
I had a copy of 'The Millennium Planet' with me and was using it to help me navigate around the ruins. I was looking for one area in specific:
Never Lake.
The place where it was said that every one thousand years to the second the Little Planet would appear and sow its seeds of time. And find it I did. It was the most breathtaking place I had ever seen in my life. The trees, the flowers, everything was in full bloom and so colorful. I would swear everything had more color to it than anything else in the rest of the world! Everything seemed to be so vibrant and full of life! The water was a crystal clear blue that I had never seen in any kind of lake or ocean before. Contrasted to the world around it, this place seemed to be completely out of place on our planet, totally separated from everything else.
I just couldn't get over how serene and peaceful it was! I began to wonder if perhaps this was a place truly untouched by time. Maybe this place really was magic and sustained by a different energy than the rest of the world. A modern day Garden of Eden, if you will.
It was here that I started coming on all my days off. It was the highlight of my week. I would come here with a stack of books and spend the day lazily reading. I even started to get a nice tan. I thought about what it would be like to come here with a boyfriend. I began to entertain fantasies of bringing Sonic to a place like this and how awestruck he would be. We would just lay there, cuddling for the entire day. It would no longer be only my secret place but his and mine together.
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5
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This pattern of my life continued nonstop for several months. I would work, study, spend my days off at Never Lake, and the rest of the time, I would continue tracking Sonic's activities. I felt like my life right now was almost perfect. I had everything I could ever want. Except, of course, for that special someone to share my life with.
Eggman kept sending wave after wave of robots and Sonic kept fighting to the best of his ability. Security had tightened heavily across the nation, we were now perpetually in Red Alert status. GUN gave Sonic their full support to the best of their ability but I still felt sorry for all the work Sonic had to do. I wonder if he ever had time just to sit back and enjoy life like I enjoyed mine?
They announced on TV one day that Sonic was going to be interviewing at a TV station in a big city not far from here. I thought about going and hanging around the city all day, just in the slightest hope that I would meet him. But I knew that was near impossible. GUN had the place blockaded almost as much as if the President were visiting. I knew I would never get in. And Sonic didn't really seem to be much of a meet and greet the fans type person. He'd probably slip out of town by the time it was all over.
Instead, I entertained fantasies of him maybe stopping by in Oakfield for a refresher before he went off on another adventure and maybe...
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6
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The day of the interview was one of my days off, and I decided to spend it at the lake. They would show the interview later in the evening and I would tape it as always and add it to my collection.
I was kind of downcast and feeling lonely today. Sonic was so near and yet so far away. I knew the odds of him stopping by here were extremely unlikely, and even if he did, I'd probably just miss him anyways. I thought about returning to town in the evening and everyone raving about how I just missed out... I thought I might go insane if that happens.
I just wish I could get one shot...
It was a bit after noon and I was sitting at the lake as usual reading my book on ancient prophecy that I had checked out from Chris a few hours ago when suddenly my ears began to ring. I looked up to notice that a very heavy breeze had picked up. The trees all began to wildly sway back and forth and the water in the lake began to violently ripple. What was going on? There was no forcast for a storm today, and the sky was completely clear. There wasn't a cloud to be found.
I saw sky began to start getting brighter and brighter.
It couldn't be. I thought to myself.
What would be the odds that I could possibly...
A light flashed over Never Lake. It was so bright that I had to shield my eyes. When the light subsided, I looked up in awe.
Floating exactly over the center of the lake was a tiny planet.
I quickly reached over into my handbag for carrying books and whipped out a small camera. I began furiously taking pictures; Chris was not going to believe this.
There was kind of a humming sound coming from the planet that I could not only hear but feel.
A blue energy field began materializing around the planet, getting stronger and stronger...
This was it. I was actually going to see it sow the seeds of time!
Sonic and everything else that was going on in my life was long forgotten.
I wouldn't have given anything to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity. To think, I was the only person in one thousand years who would actually get to see something like this!
I thought about the prophecies. I decided that I had been foolish for think something could have gone wrong. I mean, in less than a few minutes, it would all be over. And there was no one else for miles around...
A deafening crash came several yards to the right. Startled, I turned to the right and almost dropped my camera. A strange machine had popped out of the ground. On the end of it was what looked like a giant disk with spokes all over it. It came to life as energy crackled out of it and it began to spin.
The faster it started to spin, the more electricity it began to give off. Soon, it began to hum in a similar manner as the energy field above and started to give off a similar blue glow. It seemed like it was trying to synchronize itself with the glow around the Little Planet. A massive electrical wave shot out of the machine and struck the energy field around the planet. The blue energy from the machine mixed with the blue energy around the planet, and in the midst of the electrical current, the blue energy started materializing into a solid object. I gasped when I made out that it was forming a gigantic chain.
The blue field around the planet started weakening. After about ten seconds it sputtered and died. The machine stopped shooting out the current, and a barrier materialized around the machine. The chain was locked into machine and went straight up to the Little Planet.
No, no...
The planet was rooted to our world. Held prisoner. Its ancient ritual disrupted. And it didn't take two guesses to whom the machine could possibly belong too. But how did he know???
I ran and hid in the covering of the trees surrounding the lake. After a minute, I could hear the steady hum of a machine flying overhead. And I saw the very thing I was dreading.
Eggman, the terrorist who had nearly conquered our world, the most dangerous foe our world had ever seen, was flying in a small craft overhead.
He was heading straight for the Little Planet.
