While Dominion media broadcasts could come at any time of the day or night, the populace of the capitol city were certainly surprised to see an interruption to their early morning television broadcasts come during breakfast. Usually the Dominion preferred to wait until mid afternoon after the regular news cycles before adding anything official. Children were already eating their cereal School buses make their rounds when their television began to buzz and click, a strange static distorting whatever morning cartoons they had been watching
The broadcast signal extended across the entire city and several dozen miles out to outlying settlements. But it did not stop there either. The Dominion also had their propaganda outlets on the internet and the current broadcast was being streamed live potentially on millions of blogs, forums and video websites. Hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets of Metropolis, in their homes and places of work turned to watch in puzzlement. Meanwhile, Dominion communications were in utter disarray. The signal was on the Doctor's supreme level of clearance and they did not have the authority to override it. As soon as they realised exactly where the broadcast was coming from and what was being shown, complete and utter panic set in. Desperately they tried over and over to pull the plug on the signal. But their efforts were too little too late.
The entire population watched first in baffled confusion, then in mounting alarm and horror at the sight before them. Sonic the Hedgehog, the leader of the rebellious resistance movement – locked in a deadly struggle with Doctor Robotnik himself. It was difficult for the camera filming the event to keep up with the speed of the battle and most of the time; Sonic was a blue distorted blur.
Darting sharply to the left, Sonic dodged a missile. It screeched past him but he had timed it right so as it did, the projectile slammed into an unsuspecting Swat-bot. The robot was carried off its feet and through the air, colliding into two other robots and sending them all sprawling across the floor. It was only then that the missile exploded, sending fragments of metal spraying out in all directions. Snively let out a high pitched cowardly squeak and ducked behind the console to avoid the debris.
Turning sharply on one foot, Sonic looked up to see his uncle trapped behind the glass of the roboticizer looking down at him. The field of green energy was slowly descending towards him. With a gasp and a burst of speed brought on by panic, Sonic raced through the gap he had created in the Swat-bot guards. The broken ribs he had sustained hurt him so badly but he would not let them slow him down. He zigzagged back and forth through Swat-bots, frightened prisoners and the barrage of short range missiles fired after him. His eyes were locked onto the sight of his uncle, his only living family, in dire need. He needed to be faster, he needed to be...
A massive metallic hand came down sharply over him, a powerful slap that knocked the blue hedgehog into the ground and then pinned him there at the bottom of the steps of the machine. The hydraulic fingers snapped shut around him, preventing him from wiggling so much as an inch. The full weight of Robotnik's mobile was on him and he was trapped.
"It's time my boy..." Robotnik's voice hissed to him, so close he could hear it without benefit of the crackling loud speaker. "...that you learn a very important lesson. Every action you take has consequences." A metal finger, the width of his face, tilted his chin up so his eyes were fixed on the nightmare scene before him. "For defying me, for daring to spouse such foolishness as freedom in MY empire, you will watch this!"
Desperately, driven by ice cold fear, the blue hedgehog struggled and strained. So fierce was his thrashing that he even tore his own skin on the metal encasing him, blood running down his sides and over the floor.
"Sonny boy..." A soft voice called to him. Trembling, Sonic looked up to see his Uncle looking down at him. Despite it all there was a rueful smile on the old hedgehog's face, his eyes full of pride. "It's alright. Sometimes we can't always win, we can't always come out of a situation with everything going our way. We have wins and losses."
Sonic began to shake his head slowly, his face contorting in the sudden realisation of what was about to happen. Something terrible, something soul shattering and couldn't do anything to stop it.
"But that doesn't mean we give up." Chuck told him, his tone suddenly serious and his eyes fierce, unblinking. "Keep on fighting my boy...keep on inspiring others to fight. Never give in until Mobius is given back its freedom. Promise me Sonic. Promise me you will never stop!"
Sonic just nodded once. What else could he do? His uncle's smile widened; that same warm tender smile which had been there ever since his nephew had been small.
"That's my boy."He said. "I'm sure your parents would be just as proud of..."
The green light passed over the elderly hedgehog and as its effects were displayed before the city and then the entire planet, screams of terror and outrage seemed to radiate from every building, every home and every street in Metropolis. Before the eyes of so many who had believed the Dominion propaganda about safety and security, Charles Hedgehog was converted in horrific slowness into a metallic robot, a mechanised version of himself. By the time a desperate Dominion communications technician had had the idea to yank the power on the entire com-grid it was already too late. The damage had been done.
"Ahh...Charles, why did you have to make that necessary?" Robotnik mussed, watching with only the mildest regret as the machine opened with a hiss. The robot that had taken Chuck's place stepped out , face devoid of any emotion or thought of its own. It walked down the steps and stood there, a drone awaiting instruction.
From his position on the floor, Sonic just lay there, staring up at the thing his uncle had become. He made no reaction. He did not cry out, he did not even move. He just stared, dumbstruck, as if rendered paralysed.
A scream split the air. It was a scream of rage, a scream of something very close to bloodlust. With a shower of glass erupting as he burst through the window from the Coordinator's booth, Tails came hurtling down towards Robotnik. The dictator looked up in baffled surprise as the boy dived down at him, his twin appendages whirling behind him allowing him to fly.
"What in!?" He managed but then Tails was on him. The boy flew through the broken windscreen and at was Robotnik's face, pinching, clawing, kicking and biting. Despite being so young the young fox was in a frenzy, a red eyed rage; scratching the dictator so savagely he left deep bloody marks across the upper half of his face around his eyes.
"YOU EVIL MONSTER!" He screamed. "I'LL KILL YOU!" Robotnik let out a sharp cry of pain as the boy's fingers dug at his eyes. He reached up, grabbed the fox by the scruff and yanked him away. He tossed him out of his mobile, one hand held over the bloody marks on his face. With his now free hand he groped for the controls of his machine but Tails' intervention had been enough.
Sonic started to spin. His body turned end over end, his sharp quills digging into the giant robotic hand that held him. Sparks began to fly out as he span faster and faster, going faster than any Dominion reports had ever seen him move. Within moments to the naked eye he seemed a ball of blue energy, surrounded by a bright halo orange sparks.
The first signs that the mobile was breaking was the vibration sent along the arm holding the hedgehog. Every bolt and nut began to rattle. Then the armour plating creaked and groaned, cracks in its specially treated surface spreading as if it had turned brittle. Then with a sudden rush, the entire arm exploded. Wires, cables and pipes flew out with the shockwave and the mobile was sent hurtling back and leaving a trail of debris.
Released like a bullet from a gun, Sonic rocketed through the chamber. He was more than a just blur, he was invisible, moving so fast it was impossible to follow. Sonic was simply too fast for the naked eye. One Swat-bot collapsed in on itself suddenly, hit from the front so hard and fast that its entire body folded like a piece of paper. Not even a moment later another robot exploded, its mechanical insides spraying out as something ripped into it from behind.
One by one in the space of less than five seconds, every Swat-bot in the room was reduced to shattered and broken husks. With nothing to stop them and terrified out of their minds, the prisoners all made a break for it, running in mad panic towards the corridor leading away from the chamber.
Robotnik had barley gotten his mobile back up, listing badly with only one arm before it was finally his turn. From out of nowhere, blow after savage blow was smashed into the machine. It's armour, supposedly the best Dominion science had ever made, caved in like the cheapest tin. Its powerful artificial muscles and hydraulics were torn apart like cardboard. Robotnik's protected cockpit, assured to him by his technicians would survive even a nuclear explosion, broken open like a brittle egg.
The dictator was dropped roughly to the ground, splutter and gasping, blood running from his face down over his uniform. He struggled to get up amidst the BIG ARM's shattered and clattering wreckage. He collapsed to his hands and knees, gasping in pain and surprise. A shadow fell over him and he looked up.
Standing there, body covered in blood and grime, dark purple bruises ugly against his blue fur and tears running down his face was Sonic the Hedgehog. The young hedgehog's green eyes were like ice as he looked down at the man who had plunged all of Mobius into a dictatorship and robbed him of the only family he had ever known.
"This is not possible..." The doctor began. With a growl Sonic reached down and grasped him by the front of his military uniform, pulling him up to eye level.
"You smug bastard!" He growled. "You think you're smarter than everyone else, better than everyone else!" Resolutely the blue hedgehog yanked the man across the floor of the chamber through the litter of still smoking debris. Tails, who had had to duck to avoid the chaos, looked up as they passed him. "You think you can do any evil you like and justify it for the good of all?!"
Robotnik looked up in sudden alarm when he saw that he was being dragged up the stairs of his own roboticizer.
"Wait! What are you doing?!" He demanded in a shrill voice.
"Well... you were right about one thing." Sonic continued, ignoring him. "Our actions have consequences." With an angry growl he threw the fat man into the now vacant glass tube, slamming him up against the far side. "I hope you enjoy yours." He hissed and firmly locked the chamber door behind him.
"No you can't do this!" Robotnik screamed, banging his large hands against the inside of the glass. For the first time there was terror written on his face. Sonic resolutely turned his back and walked away. Tails was already by the machines controls. Tears running down his own cheeks he activated the machine. It responded immediately, slowly emitting its deadly humming sound.
Sonic stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked at the young fox. Their eyes met. There was no need for anything more. No need for words, apologies, compromises or concessions. Together in this moment of shared anger, pain and loss the two of them were kindred.
Slowly the blue hedgehog turned to look at the thing that had once been his uncle. It had remained stock still, frozen in place like a statue. It had had no orders given to it so it remained there in standby, simply waiting. The thing still looked like his uncle. It even had Chuck's thick eyebrows and moustache, almost now made out of segmented metal parts. But for the rest, it looked more like an oversized toy version of his uncle.
Before Sonic could do anything, there was the loud and unmistakable thunder and roll of oncoming swat-bots. Turning about sharply he saw them. Down one of the corridors he saw them, the garrison forces of the citadel were finally here. They were mostly Swat-bot but they were all outfitted with Metarex weapon of various types and in support came Moto-bugs and other heavy duty machines.
"Get them, get them, get them!" Snively's high pitched nasal whine commanded the machines, the little man pointing frenziedly toward the two of them. Sonic reacted instant. He grabbed Tails by the wrist and then raced off, a blue blur down one of the empty corridors. He left his uncle behind and that, by far, was the most difficult thing he had done all day.
"Snively, turn this thing off!" Robotnik was screaming as his nephew and subordinate raced back to the controls, the garrison badniks racing past them after the fleeing fugitives. The green light was descending once more
"I'm trying sir!" He rasped, running his hands frantically running over the console. Flashes of red appeared as he worked, both on the screen and on the lit panel. "It won't respond! It's locked into its current operation; I can't engage an emergency shut down!"
Robotnik twisted inside the glass tube, looking up in terror as the green light descended. Reflexively and uselessly he held his left arm up to cover his face, emitting a shriek as it drew down on him. Out of time and options, Snively did then the only thing he could think to do. He took out his touch screen controller pad and brought up his power override commands. As second in command, just below Robotnik himself, he had veto power over many functions of the city's infrastructure. With no time to do anything else, he pressed in the (emergency nullify command).
With a sudden lurch that caused many small explosions and a lot of damage, the many generators in Metropolis' power district came to a screeching halt. Energy was cut off through the entire city. Hospitals, aerodromes, military installations, office buildings and thousands upon thousands of homes were suddenly without power at all. The entire facility and the citadel next to it were plunged into complete darkness. The descending green light of the terrible machine flared brightly for only one moment more and then winked out, like a snuffed candle.
-0-
The fallout from the mornings broadcast was cataclysmic for the Dominion. Even before power was restored massive riots erupted, both in Metropolis and across Mobius in many large cities. The populace was outraged by what they had seen and chaos spread. Angry, violent mobs overran military installations and vandalism of Dominion outposts and facilities became so frequent it was a constant barrage.
The dictatorship responded in kind. The badniks were sent out to restore order and their methods were brutal. The mobs were fired upon by the Swat-Bots and there were a many causalities. By the time Metropolis City Zone had been put under lock down, smoke rose steadily from many districts which had seen the worst of the violence. Doctor Robotnik himself seemed to have vanished and no mention was even made of his whereabouts but one thing was clear; the Dominion's grip on the hearts and minds of the people had been broken. It was now common knowledge what evil it was capable of. Order had been restored but at the price of their reputation.
Sitting on the sparsely covered stop of a ridgeline, perhaps ten miles outside the city limits, Sonic saw and watched the dark smoke rise to mix with the darkening sky of twilight. The first stars were beginning to come out. They were nice to see. The smog was usually so thick in the city that it was rare to see anything of the actual sky.
Beside him, watching the distant city was Tails. The two of them had not said a word to each other since then. It had seemed needless to both of them. There was nothing either of them needed to say to the other that they had not both experienced. They were both still dirty, sore and tired and the various bandages wrapped around their injuries did not really help that much. So they just sat there together in silence.
A cold wind, the first sign of a bitter night, blew across them. Tails shivered despite himself, his twin tails wrapping warmly around himself like a blanket.
"You've seen the worst of it today." Sonic suddenly remarked as if prompted to by the movement and his breaking of the silence seemed somehow incredibly unnatural. The fox looked up at him. "It doesn't get worse than that on this job." He paused then, his lips drawn down. "Nope...definitely not anything worse than that." The silence returned for perhaps another minute, the sky gradually turning darker as the sun set behind them.
Then the hedgehog asked; "Do you still want to be a Freedom Fighter after that?" Tails blinked several times at that.
"You still want me?" He asked perplexed.
"Why wouldn't I?" Sonic seemed just as surprised to have been asked.
"I... I betrayed you!" Tails was baffled he had to remind the blue hedgehog of this. "All of that happened, everything..." His voice wavered. "It was all my..." Sonic pre-empted him by putting one arm around his shoulders and pulling him close.
"It was Robotnik's fault, not yours." He said firmly. "I don't care what Hare or anyone else has to say about it. It was all Robotnik's doing. He just roped you in it. That's what my Uncle Chuck would say so that's what I say." Then he winked. "Just don't do it again, ok?" Tails kept on staring at him. Then he burst into tears and clung to the blue hedgehog. Without a moment's hesitation Sonic put both arms around him and held the young fox like an older brother would for a frightened younger sibling. It was a long time before Tails could get his crying under control. By then, the darkness of night had spread and the lights of the city glittered in the distance.
"The Gods have truly been with us this day for we have seen the true face of ultimate evil and been turned aside from the doom it spelled." The Reverend was saying in a calm voice, his large black paws clasped together in prayer before the crowd in front of him. "Give praise to each in tern to thank them for their mercy. Give thanks to Solaris for his winds of time. Give thanks to Iblis for his warming fire. Give thanks to Gaia for her strong sheltering earth. Give thanks to Chaos for the waters that give us life and heal our wounds." He spread his arms wide, the flickering torchlight behind him casting an impressively long shadow. "Blessed be you all in the eyes of the Gods, Amen."
"Amen." His congregation repeated in a rumble and the service was concluded. As the faithful began to wander away, Sally remained in her seat. Despite her having sat through the entire sermon she was not religious. Not so much because she rejected the idea of deities but rather because she had simply been too busy to consider the question. She wasn't even thinking about it now. She had just sat there because the Reverend's measured voice had a profound calming effect and she very much needed calming right now.
After they had fled into the sewers to escape Robotnik's facility, it was instantly clear that the city would very shortly be too hot for them. Once the Dominion forces regained control and re-established order, they would turn Metropolis upside down and shake it if that's what it took to find them. They had had no alternative but to leave.
A dozen miles southwest of the city, just on the edge of the Great Unknown Zone was a large trading depot. It was built into the side of a canyon wall with catwalks stretched over a wide river between them so that barges travelling up and down the river could stop and resupply along their route. It was quite an old means of travel with most preferring the modern airship transports to move cargo, but there were still a constant flow of boats travelling the waterways.
The best thing about such a water route though, was that it had a minimal to near nonexistence Dominion presence. There were no badniks here. An occasional spy drone swept through every now and then but they had their attention fixed on sweeping the surrounding terrain, virtually ignoring the barges. Several stolen boats had been required to move those who could not find deep hiding places in Metropolis' underground, out of the city. This included all of the freedom fighter cell members and a large portion of the homeless from the tunnels.
Finally they had to stop in order to work out what they were going to do next. Whatever it was, it certainly eluded her. They had no money, no weapons, no supplies, no base of operations, no resources, nowhere to go and now they had no leader. All they had now was their lives right now that seemed a flimsy prize, capable of being torn away at a moment's notice.
There was a creak from the chair beside her and she looked sharply up to see the large furry form of the Reverend beside her, his large black paws folding inside the sleeves of his ecclesiastical robes. She had been so deep in her own thoughts that she had no even sensed him approach.
"I hope you don't mind." He said. "But I could not help but notice." She sighed and tossed her red hair back away from her face.
"That obvious is it?" She asked sardonically. The Reverend shrugged.
"You do not need to be a shepherd to see something wrong with one of your flock." He said with a little smile.
"I'm not really one of the faithful, Reverend." Sally said and looked down at her foot. A doctor, willing to see them for free out of the goodness of his heart, had pronounced the injury as thankfully minor and had splinted her leg and bound up her ankle with bandages and provided some ointment to help with the burn. She would not be walking on it properly for several weeks. A crutch was leaned against her seat and its presence depressed her despite the necessity. It was a reminder of everything that had happened.
"As far as I am concerned, child, everyone who fights against Robotnik is one of my flock." The large badger said gently. "Faithful or not, you fight the noblest of fights. I am no soldier. I cannot carry a weapon into battle with you. I can only pray that the gods grant you their power to defeat this evil."Sally let out a short laugh at that.
"You make us sound like crusading knights." She mused. The badger placed one of his large paws gently on her shoulder.
"Your leader, Chuck, was once knighted by a king." He said in a deliberately slow voice. "He sacrificed everything, even his very soul, in a struggle against a powerful encroaching evil. A gallant knight is how I will always remember him. It is how I will describe him to anyone who asks."
Sally looked at him as he said that and the hurt was clear in her eyes. Seeing his sympathetic expression was too much, she had to turn away again.
"Sonic isn't the only one he was an uncle to." Sally whispered, speaking quietly to prevent her voice from betraying her and wavering. "He looked after me right alongside his own flesh and blood. I'm just not sure what we're supposed to do without him."
"Mourn his loss, praise his spirit." The Reverend said but after a pause she shook her head at that.
"No. That's not enough." Her voice took on a sudden edge to it. "Not for me."
"You desire vengeance then?" The Reverend's tone was understanding if not approving. But she shook her head again.
"Vengeance would be nice." She admitted. "But while Chuck was the scientist, I know that any process no matter how seemingly irreversible can be undone." Firmly she grasped the edge of her seat, her brain on fire with the impossible idea. "There will be a way to turn him and anyone else changed by that machine back to normal... and I will find it!" The badger contemplated her for a long silent moment for such a declaration and then smiled, a little smugly.
"Then I would say that you have just answered your own question as what you are supposed to do now." He said.
"Glad to hear it." Another voice asked and Okida was there, sliding down from a rafter upon which he had been perched. Sally frowned in announce that she had been so distracted with her inner musings that she allowed not just one by two people now to get close to her without her knowledge. The bat came right up and sat down by her on her other side, holding his wings tightly against his body to keep them out of the way. His face was once more hidden by his long bangs.
"Robotnik will use the roboticizer again, of that you can be sure. Finding a ..." He paused to consider the right term "...de-roboticizer is a priority of the resistance now."
"Does the resistance even have a future?" She could not help herself but ask. She found it difficult to imagine how they could go about rebuilding their networks after they had been compromised so completely. Okida snorted at that.
"Of course it does." He all but snapped. "I'll be damned before I let this stop us." Then he grew silent again, head bowed forward as if deep in thought. Sally did not know how to act around the bat. Chuck was the one with the most amount of contact with the freedom fighter organiser. With such long hair hiding it his face and obscuring his expression it was difficult to know exactly what he was thinking either.
Slowly, as if he were still thinking about it, he unfurled one wing and produced something in front of her, holding it up. "And if you truly mean to find a method of undoing the affects of that machine, you're going to need this." In his hand was the strange handheld device she had seen him use earlier, the odd miniature computer which once plugged into Robotnik's systems had effortlessly hacked them. Right before her eyes now it looked so ordinary and basic. The ground squirrel looked at it a little apprehensively.
"What is this?" She asked. Okida emitted an evil, unnerving chuckle.
"A little hard to explain. It took her..." There he paused quickly and Sally narrowed her eyes at that slip of the tongue. "It just took a long term to create this." He carried on. "You know NICOLE as a computer network linking all the resistance cells. Well since Robotnik compromised our systems it can't continue like that. As small as it looks, you can consider this Nicole 2.0." He handed the device to her. Even in her smaller hands it seemed so miniscule and unimpressive but there was something about it, something she could just feel from within it that she could not explain. The screen of the little device lit up with a small blue loading bar. Once it was filled the device flickered the tiny lights down its side at her.
"Good evening Sally." It said in that same female monotone she had heard before. "My master registration program has been updated. You are now my primary user. I look forward to being of great material use to you." The ground squirrel looked confused, holding the device out at arm's length.
"Use to me?" She repeated.
"As you no longer possess a stationary connection to large scale computer networks, you may utilise me in this capacity. However I am not limited to just this function. I have many terabytes of memory space and stored data for you to access. I can calculate, extrapolate and compute at a speed twice that of any Dominion system."
"I... I don't understand." Sally admitted; looking up in perplexity at the bat sat beside her for an explanation.
"If you desire clarification, I will elaborate." The handheld replied instead while Okida remained perfectly silent. "The original NICOLE system was more than just a communications network. It was a vast system of basic artificial intelligences correlating that data and learning from it. A great deal of data was stored by these intelligences during this process, complied into a large archive of information. In a sense it was the brain of the Resistance movement."
Sally looked down at the little machine in growing wonder.
"Eventually the data was so vast that it became necessary for these intelligences to merge, galvanising their knowledge and cognitive abilities until they achieved perfect singularity. Only such an advanced, complied and complex intelligence would be able to deal with the massive flow of data I am the mind that resulting from that singularity." Sally kept on staring for quite some time before she found her voice again.
"Are you saying that you... are an artificial sentient intelligence?" The handheld device's lights flickered in a pleased sort of way.
"This is correct."