iii. Modulation

Professor Gerald Robotnik sat at his computer, regarding the results on the screen with an almost hesitant delight. Project: Shadow, the black hedgehog, was in fact repairing DNA damage; further, an extract of his cells, had actually corrected the NIDS defect when added to a solution of affected rat cells. In the three years since he had awakened, Shadow had become not merely a little brother but a best friend to Maria; the hedgehog would do anything she asked, and anything Gerald asked on her behalf - which was why he'd ended up spending several hours with an arm under a UV lamp to simulate sunburn. That had been the quickest way Gerald had come up with to induce DNA damage, although it hadn't been as simple as he'd expected. The fur that protected Shadow's skin had to be shaved, and then it had taken a much longer exposure than Gerald had anticipated to cause a sunburn. Shadow had merely asked could the contraption be arranged so he could access the computer with his other hand and put up with it. When the sunburn finally occurred, he had additionally put up with having a few punch biopsies taken and a few days later when the burn had healed had given up a few more bits of skin. Gerald was still amazed that within the week not only had the punch sites healed but the fur regrown, leaving no indication that anything had happened. But the first set of biopsies had shown damage at the genetic level, as in humans (and normal dokan) while the second had shown no damage at all, where there should have been residual, permanent changes.

Shadow had offered further samples when Gerald informed him of the results, but Gerald had told him with a laugh that he'd already cultured out some of the cells from the punch samples and in fact those made with damaged cells had repaired themselves during the culturing the process. He hadn't missed the hedgehog's not-quite-suppressed relief - he would serve as a guinea pig for Maria, but if he didn't have to he'd rather not. Those cell cultures had been used for the test whose results were currently on-screen.

It worked. It actually worked!The hesitant delight gave way to a more determined elation. I must tell Shadow... But not yet. The hedgehog and Maria were out skating in the corridors they had come to call "the Loop", and Gerald was still adamant about not telling Maria about his progress until he was certain of a cure. It would be too cruel to raise her hopes and then dash them if the experiment failed. The Biolizard, the Chaos rats - both had proved dead ends, even though the research had not been in vain; that research had led to the creation of Shadow. And Shadow really is a success in himself, even if he didn't offer hope for a cure. Gerald sometimes forgot why he'd created the hedgehog, at least insofar as his status as a military project and potential weapon. As an Ultimate Life Form - Shadow was intelligent, incredibly fast, strong and tough (all dokan were compared to humans but Shadow was exceptionally so), he learned fast and preferred to arrive at his own conclusions. He was neither talkative nor demonstrative except around Maria, tending towards an outward reserve that made people often forget he was present, but he was exceptionally observant. And, as Black Doom had intimated, he had control over his Chaos powers.

Unlike the rats and lizards, he seemed to be able to absorb Chaos energies from the environment, although the presence of Chaos Drives or especially the Chaos Emerald greatly aided the process. He could manipulate the absorbed energies in a variety of fashions - down in one of the shielded weapons rooms he'd demonstrated a "blast" ability that had slagged a few scrap materials left around. That had been a major drain on his power though, most of the time he used the energy for more minor displays. He could produce balls or bubbles on energy of several sizes and occasionally would blow on his fingers as if they were a bubble wand and produce as stream of varicolored globes of energy that invariably made Maria laugh. The energy could be modified to be no more tactile then a soap bubble, to be as solid as steel, or to deliver an electric-type shock; and Shadow could direct and dismiss them as easily as he could summon them. He could produce the globes in fewer numbers but larger sizes and had inadvertently trapped Mokie in a solid one once. Most of the people on the ARK were familiar with Shadow by now, but for some reason the boy had always been oddly wary of Shadow; now, although he had not been hurt by the bubble, he seemed downright terrified of the hedgehog. Shadow's other major power was the ability to actually stop or drastically slow down time from the hedgehog's perspective; combined with his incredible speed, it would be very difficult for an enemy to stop him. Shadow could also teleport, which presumably used energy in proportion to the distance traveled, although the ARK was small enough that no distance on it used much energy, even out in the fizz field. (That episode had nearly given Gerald a heart attack, as well as setting off proximity alarms all over the ARK. Shadow and Maria had decided to test both his powers and whether dokan really could breathe out in the zone of thin air that surrounded the colony asteroid. The answer was yes, but both had gotten into trouble over that maneuver.)

One of the other researchers, who was interested in martial arts, had given both Shadow and Maria training in some basic moves. Gerald had been amused that his granddaughter actually was more interested in the lessons than Shadow, who was supposedly made to be a weapon. (When shadow had asked for the Project: Shadow specs, Gerald had given him a copy of the original project, with the primary immortality focus, not the modified version demanding a living weapon.) The hedgehog did indeed display the curling ability that Rafe had, and another way he made Maria laugh was by rolling down the slope in mid run. Hedgehog bowling, she'd called it and set up targets for him to aim at. They'd also (with a slight hint from Gerald to Maria) developed a similar game where he did a sort of jump-curl at targets. That had also set off alarms one day, when Maria had collected a bunch of helium balloons after a party and tied them around the course at different heights for Shadow to pop with his quills. The staccato popping had resulted in a call to security about someone shooting off a gun. Most often though, the course was used for racing, with the pair setting up obstacles for each other. Gerald had kept a close eye on that at first until he was certain that Shadow did understand that Maria was more fragile than the hedgehog himself, but in truth Shadow had never put up anything Gerald considered dangerous. Maria herself had tried some things that Gerald had not approved of when he found out - usually long after the fact - but he trusted the hedgehog both to take care of her and, as Shadow gained experience with "real life", to also moderate the girl's occasional excesses. The hedgehog had ended up in the unusual position of being more mature in judgement and thinking than his older "sister", while still being younger in life experience.

Gerald logged off the computer, deciding that a celebratory dinner was in order - even if the next step fell through, the successful experiment was a major advance - and headed for the Loop to see what the pair were up to and ask what they wanted for dinner. He found Shadow weaving and jumping through an obstacle course Maria had set up, while she cheered him on. Gerald paused a moment on the sidelines - was the hedgehog actually increasing speed midair as he homed in on his targets? He is. He's jumping up, then picking up speed as he changes direction towards the bull's-eye. Incredible! Another application of his Chaos Control, I suppose. Gerald had just opened his mouth to greet the pair when the alarms went off.

Gerald and Maria both jumped and stared around as the sirens blared and the red lights started flashing. Shadow flicked out of his curl midair and landed in a crouch, pivoting as he landed towards one of the hallways at the top of the ramp. Gerald followed Shadow's gaze with his own in time to see something move, but couldn't quite see what was there. As he unconsciously stepped forward for a better look Shadow shouted "Maria! Go with the Professor. Father, get her out of here!"

Gerald caught Maria's hand as she reached him and turned to run, calling over his shoulder, "Shadow, you come too!" just as the speakers crackled to life. He thought he saw the hedgehog stagger slightly as he turned to follow, raising a hand to his head; but since Shadow almost immediately caught up with the humans and glided along just ahead of them he ignored it.

"ALERT! ALERT! ALL EMERGENCY PERSONNEL REPORT TO EMERGENCY STATIONS. ALL CIVILIANS CLEAR THE CORRIDORS. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES OR STAY WHERE YOU ARE IF YOU ARE NOT CURRENTLY IN TRANSIT! ALERT! ALERT!..." the message repeated loudly and mindlessly. Then Gerald caught a key word in a different voice as they turned into the passage that connected to his wing. "...ECHIDNA MEET MR. LIZARD AT THE DEEP CAVERN. REPEAT. MR. ECHIDNA MEET MR. LIZARD AT THE DEEP CAVERN. ALERT! ALERT!..." The general alarm resumed but Gerald barely noticed. Dr. Jansen was sending out a Mr. Echidna call...the Biolizard was loose.