Chapter 16

Shadow vanished behind the metal door before Rouge could even call his name. "Your friend is going to get himself killed," Espio surmised darkly.

This is why I work alone. Rouge thought with an irritated sigh. "Shadow will be fine. For now, me and the lizard will scope out the base."

Charmy buzzed forward and handed Espio a tablet and a glass lens. "Be careful."

"I'd rather go alone." Espio replied with a sidelong look at Rouge.

"That makes two of us, but we all have to make sacrifices." Rouge broke the cover of the tree line and went to the edge of the ravine. A metal city painted in neon and coated in barbed wire rested in the gorge. The depth was so great that Rouge could not see the bottom. She smirked as Espio approached. "It's a long way down. Pity you can't fly."

"I don't need to." Espio walked straight into the gap. Instead of plummeting to his demise, Espio's feet clung to the sides of the rock face, allowing him to run straight down.

Rouge scoffed and flew down beside him. Together, they descended into the base of the gorge. Halfway down, the light dimmed as the sunlight struggled to break through the jungle of metal scaffolding and immense neon towers. Hundreds of screens displayed Eggman's insignia in bright, rapidly shifting colors.

"This Eggman sure thinks a lot of himself."

"Some men feel small, so they constantly try to show off how strong or important they are." It took him a minute, but when Espio finally got the joke, his growl of anger made Rouge chuckle.

When the duo finally reached the bottom of the ravine, the light had faded completely. At the street level, Eggman's base was a dilapidated, war-torn hellscape. Buildings made of rusted iron and pipe rested beside others made of cold steel. Brick buildings with a dozen chimneys shot black smog into the sky, shrouding the entire area and clogging the lungs of any living being who dared to trespass. Darkness mixed with industrial light created a forlorn ambiance of unknowable terror and menacing vigilance.

Rouge moved as silently and as imperceptibly as the invisible chameleon. Blending into the background and remaining unseen was not a matter of shifting one's hues or an attribute of a species. It was about patience. To that end, Rouge was just as invisible as Espio.

Three steel clad mechs marched within a foot of her, yet saw nothing. Rouge's heart rate was slow and steady. Even this deep in enemy territory, when the slightest mistake could spell her demise, Rouge was calm.

The more she looked around, the more Rouge inferred about the base. It was clear to her that there had been no central plan. Eggman had simply added building on top of machines and fuel sources that had long gone to waste. To that effect, many machines roamed aimlessly through the streets. These metal relics had long ago abdicated their functions to crueler and more powerful variants. Now ghosts of blueprints past, they served only to reflect the early career of their master when Eggman's creations were cruder and exposed their inner gears and wires. They cringed and fled to the shadows when their younger, armored, and deadlier brethren marched past.

The active guardians prowled the streets on high alert. Their red eyes burned and they searched every nook and cranny for trespassers to gun down. Rouge had heard the distant echo of blaster fire several times already, but had yet to locate the source.

"I think he will be in that building, towards the center." Espio's voice issued out of nothingness. Rouge checked and noted that one tower rose higher than all the rest.

"Wanna bet that is where all the gunfire has been coming from?" Rouge whispered.

"Guards are on alert. More so than is usual, I would guess."

"Are you scared? You can always run back to your friends if you're feeling the heat."

"I have a job to do," Espio replied, with absolutely no humor in his tone.

Rouge shrugged. "Very well. Follow me then."

Rouge kept close to the ground and avoided the areas lit by the massive flood lights as much as possible. She looked back to see if Espio was following. When he entered the light, Rouge noted that his outline was visible. So he can't become totally invisible. Rouge filed the discovery away, hoping she would not have to make use of the intel.

The central tower was guarded by three mechs wielding large rifles. Rouge perched on a window of the opposite building. She had a good view of the guards and the main street leading out of the tower. Espio stuck to the sheer side of the glass. "I'll take them out," He said. There was a flash of silver and suddenly, three ninja stars appeared out of thin air.

"Cool it." Rouge countered. "You take these three out and you'll only draw ten more in their place." She snatched one of the ninja stars, unfurled her wings, and took to the air before Espio could respond. When Rouge was right above the mechs, she tossed the ninja star at the ground in the dark area just beyond the reach of the closet flood light.

At once, the mechs reacted with alarm. Carried along by wheels, they shot forward, rifles raised and ready to fire. None of them noticed Rouge land softly behind them and slip quietly inside the tower. Rouge closed the door and smiled when she noticed something shimmer beside her. "You made it? I'm impressed."

"You're not as quick as you think," Espio hissed. The two of them had entered the main reception hall. Rouge was surprised to find the room unguarded. A twin set of elevators waited at the far end of the room beside the entrance to a long hallway.

The two spies approached the elevator, and Rouge risked pressing the call button. There was a low hiss and the elevator doors opened. "Of course.." Rouge exhaled in frustration. The elevator buttons were locked behind a control panel that was password protected. "I guess we'll have to take the stairs."

"I got this." Espio returned to his normal color and approached the control panel. He took the tablet Charmy had given him and attached it to the panel. He then tapped his ear. "Charmy? Can you hear me? I need you to override the elevator."

Rouge heard static on the other end, followed by the bubbly voice of the bee. "Yeah, give me a second. Shouldn't be too hard, a fairly simple encryption. Alright!" The control panel lit up and Espio hit the button to take them to the top floor.

"I suppose working on a team has its advantages," Rouge admitted. The elevator car lurched and then started to rise. A quick glance at the buttons told Rouge they would be in there for awhile as the tower had thirteen levels. She turned to Espio. The chameleon stood as far away from her as possible within the tight confines of the elevator.

Rouge stepped towards him and disarmed him with a few bats of her eyelashes and an alluring smile. Espio stiffened, looking instantly weary and uncomfortable. "Can they always hear you?" She asked, indicating the comm device in his ear.

"Not unless I turn it on."

"Good." Rouge kicked and the heel of her boot pinned Espio to the wall. The sharp edges of her stilettos pricked the skin of the chameleon's neck.

"What are you doing? Let me go?" Espio groaned.

"You're not really in a position to be giving orders." Rouge returned sweetly. There was a flash of movement beside her. Espio held a kunai with his tail and held the point at the back of Rouge's neck.

"I said let me go."

Rouge smiled sweeter than ever, but did not move her leg. "First, I want to know what you are really doing here. I looked up your little group. What's a two bit detective agency doing working with GUN?"

Espio smirked. "What's the problem? You don't trust your bosses anymore?"

"I don't trust anyone."

"Trust this. Let me go or this will be the last elevator ride for both of us." The chameleon's tone was deadly serious. Rouge relaxed and moved her boot away from Espio's neck. He drew back his tail.

"Why are you really here?" Rouge insisted. "How did you get a contract with GUN?"

Espio narrowed his eyes, studying Rouge as if calculating whether or not he could trust her. "We aren't contracted with GUN, or at least, not in the way they think."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we aren't here to dig up dirt on the Eggman, we're here to dig up dirt on GUN itself."

"You're investigating GUN? For who? Who hired you?"

Espio shrugged. "We aren't sure exactly. Someone within GUN got tipped off on something big, some major military conspiracy. They want us to figure out what it is. That's why they arranged for us to get this contract."

"Conspiracy?" Rouge derided. "GUN is a military organization. Conspiracy is a part of its DNA."

"Not like this one. Whatever the top generals are up to has our client scared, scared enough to risk everything."

"So why come here? Why infiltrate Eggman's base?"

"The conspiracy involves Eggman and GUN. If we can't find the evidence here, then we will search for it at GUN headquarters when we return to give our report."

"Will you?" Rouge threatened. "You've just admitted your plan to one of GUN's top agents. How can you be sure I'm not in on the conspiracy?"

Espio smirked. "Don't flatter yourself. Do you honestly think GUN trusts you? Do you think they really respect you? You're just an asset to them, that's why you have no idea what I'm talking about. You think you're here to see if Eggman is building superweapons, but in reality your bosses are making sure that Eggman can't expose them for whatever it is they did with the doctor."

Rouge took a step back. She racked her brain for something witty to say in response, but couldn't think of anything. "Don't take it personal," Espio continued. "That's just the way humans are. It's in their nature to work together, to push out the other. They were always going to keep you in the dark, keep you ignorant of their real plans."

Ding. The elevator came to a sudden stop. Espio vanished into the background as the doors opened. Rouge faced a long dark hallway which climaxed with a great metal door. She tiptoed out of the elevator but did not see any machines to bar her progress.

CRASH! Rouge stopped dead halfway across the room. Something heavy had just been slammed against the far side of the door. "Hide!" Espio urged and not a moment too soon. Rouge had just managed to leap up and hide on the ceiling when the metal door burst open. A bi-pedal badnik with a white polyester coat was thrown backward into the hall. BLAST! BLAST! BLAST!

A dozen more of the same model fired their rifles while retreating towards the elevator. From the other side of the room, a host of metallic mechs came surging forward. The white robots formed up and sprayed the oncoming hoard with rifle fire. Despite their heavy casualties, the gray, less uniform and older looking mechs overcame the bi-pedal badniks. With surprising savagery, they ripped into their robot brethren, tearing them into the smallest pieces of wire and shrapnel.

When the fighting was over, the mechs converged around their leader; a robot shaped like a mixup between a rhino and a lizard. "Lord Metal." It spoke into a transceiver built into its arm. "The last of the Cybers have been destroyed. The central terminal is secure."

There was a pause, and then a voice answered. It was cold, harsh and exactly how Rouge expected someone named Lord Metal to sound like, as if his voice moved through rust and gears. "Very well. Regroup in the battery chambers and recharge your surviving soldiers."

The rhino mech accepted the order without complaint. His minions followed him to the elevators and moments later they were gone. Espio appeared out of the shadows. He put the glass lens around his right eye and tapped his ear. "Charmy, are you seeing this?"

"Yes," the bee's voice returned. "Looks like quite the fight, are you alright?"

"I didn't do this. The robots are fighting each other. Can you tell the difference?" Espio inspected the remains of the defeated so-called Cybers.

"These have no internal CPUs. If I had to guess, they are all remote operated from somewhere else."

"And these?" Espio asked while looking over the multitude of broken down gray mechs.

"They seem like standard Eggman designs."

"Ask Vector what he thinks."

A few moments later, the crocodile's voice rang out of the comm. "Could be a civil war. Perhaps these externally programmed robots got hacked or maybe Eggman lost control of the code?"

Espio removed the lens and turned off his comm. He turned to Rouge. "You worked with the doctor before, what do you think?"

"So you did your homework on me? I guess you really are a detective." Rouge gestured to the carnage at their feet. "Eggman would never make such a serious mistake. He may be crazy but he isn't a fool." Rouge pointed at the broken down door which they could now see led into a laboratory. "I think Eggman isn't here, in fact I think he hasn't been here in a long time."

Rouge led them into the laboratory. Dust clogged the air and littered every table and workstation. Espio approached the central terminal and wiped its access board clean of debris. He attached the tablet and tapped his comm. "Charmy, we've accessed the central computer. Can you run a data dump?"

"Sure can but it will take a while. You two had best get comfortable."

Rouge yawned and took a seat at Eggman's chair. The computer monitor turned on and started to shift through various folders and subfolders. Espio stood silent, intently watching the stream of data. Rouge chuckled as she spun the chair around. "You really don't seem to get it. You are in over your head."

Espio snarled in response but did not take the bait. "A team of three against the entire military? I don't think you really understand who you are up against."

"And you don't know us."

Rouge snorted. "Don't I? A little hacker bee, a strong, perceptive lead detective and their ace in the hole ninja, is that the sum of it? GUN is an international military operation. Why take on such a risk? I doubt the payday is worth it."

"What choice did we have? The Chaotix never refuse a paid contract, no matter how dangerous."

"That explains why I've never heard of you. If you want to make it far in this business you need to learn how to keep a low profile and, most importantly, when to stay out of the spotlight."

"And what about our responsibility?" Espio demanded with unwavering ferocity. "If we knew GUN was up to something terrible, how could we just ignore that?"

"Responsibility?" Rouge waved the phrase away. "A spy's responsibility is only to herself and her purse. I've known talented agents who lost themselves in the world of ideals. They thought they could have honor and their life and in the end they always lost both."

"My life is not so precious to me. I would not trade my honor for it."

"You had best be ready to make that exchange if you plan on placing yourself between GUN and the Eggman. These humans are ruthless."

"I know exactly what humans are." A ninja star appeared suddenly in the chameleon's hand. He spun it between his fingers. "I spent my entire childhood in a monastery. Being chosen by the monks was a great honor, but I never had to earn their approval. I washed up on their doorstep abandoned and without even a name. They took me in, taught me the ways of the ninja and gave me a family. Now that monastery is a shopping mall. You don't need to tell me what humans are capable of."

"Espio?" Charmy's voice rang out of the comm.

"I'm here."

"I've shifted through the data and I think I found what we are looking for. A series of messages between Dr. Eggman and someone within GUN codenamed ``Prefect."

Rouge leapt to her feet and rushed to Espio's side so she could speak through the comm. "What did it say?"

There was a long pause. It was Vector who answered. "GUN made a deal with Dr. Eggman. His bases were running low on fuel, so GUN gave him what he needed to create an Ion Battery. This is serious stuff here, plutonium, uranium, the works."

"What did GUN want in return?"

"Eggman's word that he would stand down while they launched an assault on the Space Colony Ark."

Rouge stepped away, her mind racing. Espio turned off his comm. "What does that mean? Why would GUN give so much to Eggman just for a simple promise?"

Rouge sighed. "It wasn't for control of the Ark. It was the Eclipse Cannon."

"The weapon that blew up half the moon? I thought it was destroyed."

"It was."

"So…I don't understand-"

Rouge groaned and rubbed her eyes. "Do I have to spell it out for you? Dr. Eggman threatened the entire U.F with his Eclipse Cannon and televised the impotence of its leadership on national television. And this was after the president had come to office with the promise of improved national security."

Espio's eyes narrowed. "So when Sonic ended the threat himself-"

"He shamed GUN and made all its increased funding look like a joke. To the public, Sonic was the only security they needed and seeing a blue hedgehog succeed where their military failed made President Alexander look like a complete fool. It was openly apparent that he would fail to earn re-election." Rouge took a careful step to Espio's left. She had determined that the chameleon was right-handed. He took no notice of her as he was thinking deeply.

"That's why GUN made such a big show out of destroying the Eclipse Canon. It wasn't about protection, it was about fixing their image. But they didn't want to have to fight Eggman for control, so they made a trade for it," Espio deduced.

"And here I thought they were actually trying to be helpful." Rouge was now standing at Espio's blind spot.

He clutched the tablet tightly in his hands. "But why hire us? Why would anyone in GUN feel this information is valuable? Sure, it paints GUN in a bad light but, as you said before, a conspiracy within a military complex is expected."

"It's not just a military conspiracy. This affects everything. President Alexander fueled his reelection campaign off the goodwill of destroying the Eclipse Cannon. In every campaign ad and in every speech, he kept reminding everyone that it was because of him that the super weapon was destroyed."

"But he lied," Espio hissed.

"Did he? He may not have said how he managed to destroy it or what he traded so that he could, but the cannon is gone so no harm done."

Espio looked stunned. "Your president and all your generals are liars. That's okay with you?" He took a wayward step back. Though Rouge had tried to be subtle, her eyes had betrayed her, she had been staring directly at the tablet.

The tone in the room shifted. Espio and Rouge were locked eye to eye. Whatever her original mission had been, her objective had obviously changed. If I secure that tablet, I am sure to get rewarded. "The world is a scary place. To protect it, you have to be willing to do anything. Whoever hired you clearly meant to leverage that information for their own ends. They don't care that what GUN did ensured the destruction of a major threat and kept men in power who are willing to defend the nation."

Espio drew his kunai. All pretexts were tossed aside. "So you're just one of them then? You've sided with the humans?"

Rouge smiled unabashedly. "I choose my side. If I let you leave then my employers will get dragged into the streets by self-righteous idealists who don't know how the world really works. GUN doesn't get applause for playing by the rules, it is a shield, a barrier between the innocent, unassuming nobody and the dark demons who seek to control them."

"The world only works the way it does because people like you allow it to," Espio countered. "Things will only change when enough people take a stand. These people lied, and they leveraged their deceit for more power. The Chaotix will bring them into the light." Espio made a complex series of gestures with his hands and vanished. "Until we meet again," He gloated.

Espio had made a serious mistake. Rouge's eyes were well adjusted to the darkness and she had already figured out how to see through his invisibility. She waited until he was near the door before striking. Rouge's foot struck Espio in the head knocking the chameleon backwards into a table. The tablet went soaring into the air and Rouge leapt up to catch it. Crack!

A ninja star hit the tablet launching it out of her grasp. Espio dropped his camouflage. He wielded three stars in each hand and reared back to throw them. Rouge dived down just in time. She felt the edge of a blade kiss the side of her cheek drawing a red stain. Rouge covered her wound. "You'll pay for that!"

Espio was already gone. When she turned around the tablet was floating in mid air and making for one of the air ducts. Rouge flew after it and tackled Espio to the ground. They struggled and Rouge beat him with her wings while kicking everywhere. He wormed out of her grasp and retreated backward, reappearing in solid form.

"Rouge the Bat, operative extraordinaire of GUN," Espio said with mock respect. "You were honored for helping save the planet on the Ark, but we both know better don't we? You did what you did just to save your neck."

"Can you blame a girl?" She fired back.

"No, but I can tell you to pay more attention."

Rouge looked down to see an ofuda stuck to her chest. Espio had planted it on her during their scuffle. The red inked letters started to shine and Rouge just managed to cover her face when it suddenly exploded into gray powder. Rouge shut her eyes and fumbled her way out of the ball of smoke. She was coughing violently and her eyes stung so bad it was a while before she could open them. By that time Espio was gone.

AN: I will be out of town for a week. Next few chapters will have staggered release dates. Next chapter will be uploaded 3/26