Chapter 3: The Meaning of Futility
---
She hardly noticed the falling. There wasn't any sensation of her stomach
dropping away, or her inner ears screaming in protest. Traveling down the Void's
gateway wasn't much like moving at all, she noticed. It seemed instead that you remained
motionless, floating in empty air, while the world itself shifted around you. The same
forces that prevented any escape from within the prison dimension made travel inward
absurdly easy.
Tracking your speed while inside the portal was nearly impossible. Not only did it
not seem like she was moving at all, in the portal but there were no landmarks or
discernible distances to measure. Sally knew that she must have been moving quite
quickly, though, for at the end the ride came to a very sudden stop.
Things became all too real again. Sensation returned. This time, Sally could feel
herself falling, could sense the air whirling past her. She couldn't see anything but a dark
gray blur. Something struck her body hard and without warning, a surface with the rough
grainy texture of rock. It must have been a floor, or a wall; she couldn't tell which. She
didn't have time to move her hands out in front of her to absorb the blow. She felt her
skull crack against the rock, hard, and everything went black.
She didn't know how long she had remained unconscious. It must have only been
a few seconds, because when she returned to awareness, the disquieting howling of the
Void's portal still permeated the air. She found herself lying on the floor of the same
rocky quality. It was a cavern of some sort; strange machines lay strewn about the floor
like rubble, casting even more bizarre shadows in the Void's unearthly light.
The Void itself was contained in a tunnel that coiled away from the main chamber
itself. The portal was growing continually more violent. When she stared at it, the light
and sound emanating from the vortex had become so intense, so violent, that Sally could
hardly distinguish the two senses. It had become one horrifying intermix. Her eyes
threatened of going blind, her ears screeched of deafness. Quickly, she cast her gaze
away, but not before seeing a silhouette of a man outline against the portal. His arms
were raised as if struggling with the Void itself.
She clenched her eyes shut. A voice carried across the winds, on the verge of
being drowned out by the violence of the portal.
"Close, damn you!" it shouted. "Close!"
The King snarled fiercely, fighting with the gateway of the Void. Almost
undetectable against the hurricane of light, energy streaked away from his fingertips into
the portal, which obstinately refused to close. Naugus had never instructed him on using
his magical talents to open the Void, but he thought he had learned enough to attempt
opening the portal on his own. It was clear that he hadn't. Something had gone wrong.
The portal itself had become too unstable, out-of-control. Surely Naugus, no matter how
far away he was, would detect this.
Lightning arced away from him, into the portal. The energy was so powerful that
the King didn't dare look directly at the gateway itself. The only sign that the portal's
energy was abating was that the light created by Max's own magic was more visible
against the vortex's intense aura.
Finally the portal shut, screeching like the laws of physics themselves were on the
verge of snapping in half. Max lowered his arms, heaving a sigh of relief.
Gradually, he became aware of another's presence in the lab. He whirled around,
thinking that it was Naugus. He hadn't seen or heard anybody enter through the doorway,
but with the sensory overload coming from the Void's portal, it would have been
impossible too. Instinctively, he held his arms in the air in front of him like a shield.
Instead he saw a small mass of brown fur sprawled helplessly across the ground.
Sally groaned, and shook her head to clear it of the impact, and the remnants of
the invasive light and sound. She only opened her eyes when the blazing visual inferno
had died away. A bruise was forming under the fur on her forehead; she had been moving
*fast* when she hit the rock. Sally made a quick mental note to have Bookshire check her
over for signs of a concussion back at Knothole.
Then she remembered where she was: the Void had claimed her. There wasn't any
way to get back to Knothole.
She rose slowly to her feet, glancing around the cavern. Without the light from the
portal, she could see her surroundings much more clearly. Most of the odd machines
strewn around were clustered near what appeared to be the cavern's only doorway. None
of them were recognizable or had any obvious purpose. On a few machines, she was able
to recognize simple components, such as gears or other moving parts, although as to what
purpose drove them all she was left in the dark.
Where the Void's portal had been was now a solid rock wall. An adult brown-
furred squirrel, in a bright blue outfit, stood staring that it and breathing heavy. He looked
exhausted. There was something about him that tugged at Sally's mind, but her mind was
too frazzled by the blow to her skull to place it.
As if to emphasize the injury, she started to lose her balance. Dizzy, she reached
out to grab and support herself on one of the nearby apparatuses. Sally imagined her inner
ears spinning around in endless circles.
The squirrel turned around to face her, and suddenly Sally was able to place his
face. Her breath caught in her throat, but a single word managed to escape.
"Daddy!"
The shock was too much. She stumbled backwards, losing her grip on the
supporting apparatus. Her confused inner ears told her that gravity itself was shifting.
Sally fell unceremoniously to the ground, landing flat on her back. Air rushed out of her
lungs in a sharp exhale.
Before he even had a chance to think, Max Acorn found himself rushing over to
his daughter's side, cradling her in his arms. Nothing else mattered now, not Naugus, not
the Void, not Mobotropolis. The only thing in the world now was the fact that his
daughter was hurt, and that he was there to help her.
Sally didn't try to fight or move away, but only gazed upward at her father as he
brushed aside a tuft of red hair to see the injury. The bruise didn't look too bad, but the
King was no expert on cranial trauma. He knew, though, she had been able to pull herself
to her feet before. That was a good sign.
"Daddy, is it really..."
"Shhhhhh, child," he hushed her. "Don't try to move. It's all right."
He felt her limbs sag with relief, as if his word alone had lifted the tensions and
ordeals of over a decade of torment. Max remembered the way that she had, as a child,
accepted anything he said as nothing less than the absolute truth. He was once again
struck by how much and how little had changed.
"It's been so long," she whispered, noticeably calmer.
"Why am I here, though?" she asked. "What happened?"
"I brought you here," the King said, still tenderly rubbing his fingers across the
injury. He was hesitant to say what had to be said next. "Sally, I saved your life."
Thankfully, her composure didn't disintegrate into panic. "From what?"
"Julian."
This time it did, but she didn't panic for the sake of herself. Concern for the others
flashed in Sally's eyes. "Robotnik was in Knothole? Then-"
"No, no," the King sighed, "that's not it at all." He had been expecting to feel joy
upon saving his daughter's life, even if it meant condemning her to the Void, but now he
didn't feel any different. Even with her right here, he felt as if he were still mourning her
death. "In two months time, you were going to be captured in one of the city's
warehouses." He leaned forward. "Sally, you were going to be roboticized!"
"In two months?" her gaze fell back to the wall that had been the portal. "Then
how do... how do you know?"
"I can't really explain it, except to say that this place exists *outside* of time. I
hardly understand it myself."
"Outside of time?" she asked quizzically.
"I hardly understand it myself. But I saw it, Sally. I saw it happen." He took a
deep breath. "You must have some idea of how difficult that was. I couldn't bear to-"
Sally's next question took the King completely by surprise. "Where's Naugus?"
His composure faltered, and he took an unintentional step backward. Sally was
able to slowly pull herself up to at least a sitting position. She met her father's gaze with a
hard stare, boring into his eyes.
"How do you know about Naugus?" he asked, breathless.
She frowned in confusion. "What do you mean, how do I know about Naugus? I,
uh, met him the last time I was here. Remember?"
"You've been inside the Void before? But that's- that's impossible."
She looked at him helplessly. "Don't you remember?"
"Remember what?" Max demanded.
"Naugus tried to trap some of my friends in here, and exploit Sonic's speed to
escape the Void. That's when I saw you for the first time since the coup." Max stared,
wide-eyed and numbed, at her. She tried again desperately. "That's when you gave me
the list of the other Freedom Fighter groups."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Max said, feeling more lost than he
ever had, even when he had witnessed his daughter's death. At least then he had
understood what was happening.
Sally bit her lip. "Exactly how... does time behave around here, again?"
"No. Oh, no. It must be something has happened in your past, but," the King
hesitated, trying to force the words out of his dry throat, "has yet to happen in my future.
Bean, this is the first time I've seen you since you were five years old."
"This is too much," Sally was finally able to rise to her feet, albeit unsteadily. Her
right hand still gripped a nearby table for support, while her other hand hovered delicately
over the bruise still blossoming on her forehead.
"All that matters now is that you're here. You're alive." He reached forward to
embrace his daughter, but she shrugged him away, questions still burning in her eyes.
"In two months, you said... what happens?"
"It'll happen during a foray into the city. Peacebots-" the King stopped himself,
"SWATbots will ambush and capture you. They'll kill your friends."
"Kill?" Sally gasped. "What about Sonic?"
"He... he dies," the King confessed.
Sally's shoulders sagged, and she looked sharply away. Max thought for a
moment that she would burst out into tears. Then she straightened, and turned back again
to face him, her expression hidden behind a mask of resolve. "Then I have to get back.
There's still so much to do."
"Back?" Max said, unable to contain his shock as one surprise continually
overcame another. "But you'll die. No, worse than that."
Sally shook her head. "Doesn't matter. If I know about it I can stop it." Max
tried to look away from her eyes, but couldn't bring himself to.
"What if you can't?"
"Then at least I'll be out there, fighting." The fact that she didn't want to be
saying this, to her father of all people, was clearly betrayed in her voice "Even another
two months of life out there, doing what's right, helping other people, would be better
than an eternity trapped in here." She gestured towards the closed portal. "Out there I
can fight to put an end to Robotnik. That's a goal that means more than just my life, or
the lives of my friends."
The King finally to look away from his daughter, but that didn't stop her from
talking.
"We're not talking about individuals, here, father," she said, voice strained.
"We're talking about entire civilizations. That's what's worth more than my life. Two
months of fighting to save Mobotropolis is worth more to me than a lifespan of inactivity."
"I-I can't do it, Sally," Max said. Before he had been unable to look away from
her; now he was struck by an inability to even glance in her direction. "It doesn't even
matter that I don't want to. Once inside the Void, nothing can escape. You're trapped
here with the rest of us."
"What?" Sally seemed surprised for a moment, as if this hadn't even occurred to
her. "No, that can't be true."
"The portal," the King tossed his hand absently in the direction of the silent tunnel,
"it does nothing but suck you in here. You must have felt it on your way in. It's like it
has its own field of gravity that does nothing except pull down here. Trying to escape it
would be like trying to jump across the Great Plains with only a single leap."
"We've escaped from the Void before," Sally said urgently. The thought hit the
King with the same impact as a runaway steamroller. He had spent the last two years of
his life convincing himself that escape was impossible.
"How?"
"Sonic," the Princess said. "His speed can fight the Void's pull long enough to
escape. He's done it before."
"That's ridiculous," Max protested.
"There's still a way that we can set this right. We have to get Sonic in here," Sally
insisted. The King forced himself to look at her. "Daddy... he can take both of us out of
here."
"I don't know if-"
A third voice cut Max off.
"What is this, lackey?"
Max felt his jaw tighten; he instinctively reached out to protectively grab his
daughter's hand. Sally let out a startled gasp, backing away from the workshop's
doorway. A moment ago, it had been closed.
Ixis Naugus stood in the entrance, cape billowing around his stout form. Pointed
teeth were barred behind cracked lips twisted into a snarl.
Max Acorn felt his hopes and dreams for his daughter's safety extinguished in the
wizard's gaze. He couldn't see Sally, but felt the pressure of her hand squeezing his.
Naugus took a step inward, propelled by the fury burning in his eyes.
"I don't even need to ask what happened here. I suspected as much when I felt
you open the portal. If you had any *talent* in the magical arts, you might've kept this
hidden." The sorcerer's voice dropped to a low, throaty growl. "Instead you almost
destroyed my workshop with your clumsiness. Can't you even control a simple portal,
lackey?"
Ever since being cast into the Void those many years ago, the King's life had been
spiraling out of control. His daughter was the only anchor to sanity and independence that
he'd ever found, and right now he held on to her hand as if it were the only link he had to
life itself. He squeezed until it hurt; he felt Sally gripping back with equal strength.
"Please, Naugus. For the past two years my family has been the only thing I've ever
wanted, or even needed," he beseeched, praying that his words would not fall on unfeeling
ears.
Naugus only shook his head in disdain. He raised his arm. "Don't waste time
saying hello, Sire. It only makes saying goodbye that much harder."
His fingers snapped.
The King stumbled forward momentarily, losing his balance without knowing why.
For a moment, he was afraid that Naugus had struck him with a magical energy bolt.
Then he felt his fingers slip around nothingness, and the palm that had been clasped
around his daughter's hand clench around open space.
Sally was gone.
Air rushed in to fill the empty vacuum where Sally's body had been with a *pop*
that grated against Max's eardrums. He gaped at the bare space for a long moment,
feeling his heart sink further with each passing second.
"You killed her!" he stuttered at last.
"Nothing so barbaric," Naugus said. "I merely erased her from time. Reached
backwards to the point where you opened the portal and stopped it from doing so."
Max glanced quickly back at the portal's tunnel, then back at the sorcerer. "You
mean she's back in the real world?"
"To her, this has never happened," Naugus said. A smile temporarily brightened
his face. "She'll still die in the warehouse, of course. I told you, lackey. There's nothing
left out there for you."
Max felt the muscles in his arms tense. He could never truly recall what happened
next; his memories were blurred by pain. The nearest explanation he could think of was
that something inside him just snapped. It was as if logic and sanity were gone, vanished
alongside his daughter. The only thing that remained was puerile emotion.
"You son of a bitch!" Max Acorn launched himself at Naugus. As heir to the
royal throne of Mobotropolis, his childhood training in combat tactics had been quite
inclusive. Long-forgotten doctrines of self-defense came back to him: he held both his
thumbs out, ready to strike into Naugus's larynx.
The wizard wasn't even moderately surprised, and shot the King's legs out from
underneath him with a magical shove.
Max had been ready for such a strike. He rolled to absorb the impact with the
floor, and kept his hands extended out in front of them, switching tactics. He kept his
fingers interlocked against each other, in a splayed pattern. That was important for what
had to happen next. His hands began to glow with a light all their own.
In the Void, magic was even easier to create and manipulate than in the real world.
That was what allowed amateurs like Max to even consider casting their own spells. He
let his mind focus on his goal, exactly as Naugus had instructed him, and let the magic
swirl in his consciousness. That was the essential concept of magic: focusing on your
goal.
A bolt of wild, untamed energy leapt from Max's hands and surged towards
Naugus. It struck the wizard in the face, narrowly glancing of the bony horn in the center
of his forehead. The magical weapon hadn't been very strong, but Naugus staggered
backwards in surprise. If it hadn't been for the workshop's nearby rock wall, he would
have fallen completely off his feet.
Truth be told, the attack stunned the King as much as it did the old wizard. But he
was determined not to show it. "Don't try anything, Naugus. I can defend myself. Now
bring her back!"
Naugus carefully rubbed his damaged horn. The blast had chipped away some of
the rough, bony material. Barred teeth glinted in the light.
"Are you sure you want to challenge me?"
"I don't want anything except my daughter."
Naugus's hand shot outwards, a bolt a livid green energy shooting from his
fingertips. The King didn't have time to fire back. He held his arm up to block the blow,
casting a minor defensive spell at the same time. Max only saw the magical bullet
shooting towards his face, and focused on the goal of protecting himself from it. A shield
of compressed air sprung up from his arm just as the bolt struck. The magical shield
absorbed the energy harmlessly.
Before he had come to the Void, he had imagined magic being much more difficult
to use. But all he had done as he cast the shield was focus on his goal of self-
preservation... and it had appeared. Max's confidence surged upwards.
"Bring her back!"
Naugus growled, and clenched his fist as if grabbing something. The King felt the
magic shield tremble, as if Naugus actually *had* managed to grab a hold of it. Then,
with a single twist of the wizard's wrist, the shield wrenched itself away from the King and
vanished in midair.
Another bolt of raw magic poured from Naugus's hand, and this time it didn't
miss. Max felt the bone in his nose crack as it bashed him in the face. It was as if his head
was on fire; he didn't even feel himself slam backwards into the floor.
Feebly, he held up his arm and tried one last time to cast an offensive spell at
Naugus. Another blast of the wizard's energy swatted it to the ground and drove iron
spikes of pain into his chest.
"You amateurs disgust me."
Max heard footsteps somewhere nearby his fallen form. It might have been
Naugus, but he could concentrate on nothing more than the pain. "Another lesson, then?"
the wizard rasped angrily. "You'll be lucky if you survive this time."
For the first several hours, there was nothing more than the pain. No questions, no
interrogations, no commands, just pain. Only when the King had already been thrashed to
within an inch of his life did Naugus ask the question. The King wavered in and out of
consciousness, barely able to hear his words.
"If you don't give me the right answer the first time, you will have outlived your
usefulness as my servant, and I will kill you." Warm, rancid breath spilled across Max's
ear. "Why do you live?"
It didn't even matter to Max that he only had one chance. He would've answered
the same in any case, and truthfully.
Maximillion Acorn had been broken.
"To serve you, Master Naugus," he sobbed.
---
Life afterwards didn't seem like living at all. The King lost track of how much
time had passed since the incident: weeks, definitely, maybe even months. The only thing
he knew for certain was that each morning he had to awaken to face the knowledge that
his daughter was dead, and that he had tried for all he was worth and couldn't save her.
He came to crave sleep. At least then he was allowed a modicum of peace, if not
contentment. In dreams he didn't even have to reflect on the tragic irony that the part of
his existence he looked most forward to was oblivion.
To consume his spare waking hours, Max concentrated solely on learning more of
the magical arts. It disturbed him that he couldn't say why or for what purpose. He
didn't dare to use them to challenge Naugus. He now knew, through bitter experience,
that he would need almost a lifetime of study and practice to even be a remote threat to
the wizard.
After the King's last bout of 'insubordination', Naugus wasn't going to offer to
teach the King anything more about magic. So what new knowledge he did pick up he
had to glean from ancient textbooks and manuals pilfered from Naugus's workshop.
Stealing the books had been risky, but he knew that not even Naugus could keep an eye
on him every minute of the day. So he waited until the time was right, and quietly took
them back to his own throne room.
The arcane lore was difficult at best to understand, but what Max garnered from
them was able to bolster his fledgling skills. There was one symbol in particular, though,
that the King failed to understand. It had never been present in any of Naugus's lessons,
though perhaps that cagey sorcerer had omitted it by design. The symbol appeared
regularly in many of the later pages of the textbooks.
Perhaps this was something that Naugus himself had missed out on, the King
mused. There *had* to be more to magic than simply visualizing your goal and waiting
for it to happen. Some ingredient must be missing. Mayhap this was it.
Ixis Naugus was even more icily intolerant to the King than before. Sometimes, all
that was necessary to provoke a burst of excruciating electrical pain was to turning his
back on the wizard. Naugus had never done that before; his sparse 'lessons' had always
had some kind of purpose or provocation.
It was a particularly effective treatment, however. Before, the King had only been
afraid of Naugus. Now he was deathly terrified of him. He couldn't help himself; it was
almost an unconscious reaction. Whenever Naugus so much as entered the room,
memories of the pain shuddered down his spine, and he saw himself groveling, doing
anything, to avoid another lesson.
They certainly weren't the proudest days of his life, but he survived.
There were only a few things in the Max's life that he regretted, and would never
forgive himself for. Allowing himself to be blinded long enough for Julian to take over
was the gravest among these. Not being strong enough to save his daughter's life was
another. The most recent, though, was what he did to Ari one night in the months since
he last saw Sally.
It had been an uncomfortably cold evening, insofar as much as the Void could have
weather. After lengthy, tiresome weeks of researching arcane artifacts and physics
equations to aid Naugus in his never-ending quest to escape the Void, the King had long
since learned to ignore such mundane distractions. Max had just ended one such session
of study and had nothing more to look forward to then sleep and sweet oblivion. He was
about to retire to the false castle's sleeping quarters when Ari had arrived.
The ram had made himself scarce ever since Max's failed attempt to bring his
daughter into the Void. This was more than fine with Max; he knew that he was
paralyzed by psychosis and depression, and no longer had any desire to share the company
of others. He didn't want anybody else to see him in this state.
Yet, here the ram was, standing in front of the throne room's doors and looking as
if he were waiting for the King to say something. "What do you want?" Max asked,
unable to block out the icy bitterness that laced his tone.
"To save Sally's life."
The King could only muster a weary yet sincere glare, and pushed past him
towards his bedroom's doors. "Go away."
Ari moved in front of the King, burly form effectively blocking Max's path. "I'm
serious, your Majesty."
"No, it won't work. It… it was wrong to even try in the first place."
Ari seemed to ignore his words, which only made him angrier. "The armory the
Freedom Fighters tried to infiltrate. There's more then one entrance; the warehouse is
honeycombed with vents, shafts, and tunnels that even Robotnik doesn't know about."
"How do you know about this?" Max demanded.
"I've been sneaking into Naugus's workshop for the past several days, and using
the scrying device when he's not around. With an omniscient hidden camera, it's easy
enough to map out."
The King's well-worn self-preservation instinct kicked in, immediately clearing
away the fog of fatigue. He grabbed Ari roughly by the shoulders. "You *what?*" he
hissed.
Although Ari was easily King Acorn's physical superior, he was still taken aback
by the strength in his grip, and didn't immediately respond.
"You fool!" Max burst out. "If you leave the wards I've erected around here,
Naugus will be able to sense you!" He didn't hold any doubts that Naugus would kill both
Ari and himself if he discovered that the King had kept him hidden here.
"I left here only when I knew Naugus was asleep," Ari insisted, forcibly calm.
"Sire, we have to find a way to get this information to Sally. If she knows about the other
entrances, the SWATbots won't be able to ambush them-"
"No!" The King shoved Ari backwards. "Sally is dead! If you keep doing this,
Naugus will kill us both!"
"It would be worth it if we could save Sally!" Ari shot back.
Then they came, the words that he would never be able to forgive himself for. "If
you don't stop this now, I'll turn you over to Master Naugus myself!"
The worst part of all of this, he would reflect later, was that when he said those
words, he meant them.
Ari stumbled backwards, not from any physical blow, but from pure horror. There
was a moment of long silence that was worth far more than a thousand spoken words.
Seeing the look in the ram's eyes, the King realized the full extent of what he just done.
But before he could speak, Ari was gone, vanished into the shadows.
"Ari… I…"
There was no answer from the darkness. Ari was gone. No sound, no sight of his
retreating form made itself available in the darkness.
"I…"
The King wasn't even able to lose himself in sleep that night. Not after what had
just transpired. So after a restless night, he began to seriously consider Ari's words.
There was more than one entrance to the armory. It all seemed so simple. If only Sally
and her friends had known, they surely wouldn't have tried to sneak in through the front
doors. They wouldn't be ambushed in the corridors of the warehouse; it would be like the
waking nightmare that had consumed his life for the past several months would simply
never have happened.
At first, it was difficult to even take the idea seriously. Many things had changed
in the past few months, but the Void itself wasn't one of them. He was still trapped inside
it, with no way to so much as broadcast a radio signal out. There simply wasn't any way
he could get this information to his daughter.
And if Naugus found out about any of this, he wouldn't hesitate to execute him.
Yet, despite his fears, the King found himself stealing into Naugus's workshop
while the wizard was away, and reactivating the scrying device. Over the course of the
next several weeks, he used it to scout out every last corridor and crevice in the armory
and surrounding warehouse, carefully sketching out a rough map by hand and bringing the
parchment back to his chambers every night. One of the few stable, electronic computers
that existed in the Void was kept there; he's scan the images into its hard drive, and get
ready to copy more of the map tomorrow night.
The futility of all this was never lost on him. Nothing left the Void. It simply
wasn't possible to get any of this data to Sally. Yet he kept sketching maps and layouts,
plotting entrance after entrance, the building's complex air shaft network, everything he
found. The purposeless of his quest didn't slow or stop him; it was the only thing he had
left to do.
So, since he wasn't able to get the map to his daughter, it only seemed natural that
when he finished mapping out the warehouse complex, he move on the other buildings as
well. In the unlikely event that Sally ever found this, she could make use of that as well.
The process was painstaking and deliberate, but within the space of another three months,
Max was able to use both Naugus's scrying device and his ruler's knowledge to map every
major cave and tunnel system in Robotropolis.
In all this time, there was no sign of Ari. The ram had simply and quietly
disappeared after his confrontation with the King. Max could hardly blame him. Despite
the fact that Ari was no where to be found, Max knew that he must have been hiding
somewhere near the throne room. Naugus would have found him otherwise. It was either
that, or… Ari had died.
Every day, as he plotted more and more of the map, the King kept a silent lookout
for Ari, hoping for nothing more than his friend's continued survival.
Max dreaded the day that he finally completed the map. Then there would be
nothing left to do but to act. As his drawings of the city became more and more detailed,
a terrible fear began to well up in his heart.
At last the day arrived. The King had mapped out the last building, scanned in the
last page to the computer. Tonight was the night to act; and the King still had no idea of
how to get any of this information to Sally. But he had to try. It was the night to either
succeed, or die.
Knowing that death was infinitely more likely, the King composed a farewell letter
to Ari, and left it sitting on the floor of his throne room, asking the ram to compose the
epitaph for his tombstone.
"Archive all scanned-in images and compress them into one file," King Acorn
commanded, using the computer's worn-out voice recognition circuits. "Save it to a
holographic disk."
"File name?" the computer's two small speakers grated.
The King scratched his muzzle thoughtfully. Most of the hidden tunnels and
access points, things that would be of most use to the Freedom Fighters, were
underground. "Sub-Ter."
If, somehow, fate decided to grace him by getting the map through to Sally, time
would still likely be limited, so any other message he did get through would have to be
short. He wrote one last letter to his daughter, meant to accompany the compilation of
maps.
"Sally, there's something horrible in all our futures that must never happen. Check
the 'Sub-Ter' file. Use it. It's impossible to tell you anything more. I love you."
He slipped the folded-up note into the pocket of his uniform, even though it wasn't
necessary to take it with him. He had already committed it to memory.
Max turned to face the doors of the throne room. Beyond them, it was only a
short stroll to Naugus's workshop.
It was time to act.
---
She hardly noticed the falling. There wasn't any sensation of her stomach
dropping away, or her inner ears screaming in protest. Traveling down the Void's
gateway wasn't much like moving at all, she noticed. It seemed instead that you remained
motionless, floating in empty air, while the world itself shifted around you. The same
forces that prevented any escape from within the prison dimension made travel inward
absurdly easy.
Tracking your speed while inside the portal was nearly impossible. Not only did it
not seem like she was moving at all, in the portal but there were no landmarks or
discernible distances to measure. Sally knew that she must have been moving quite
quickly, though, for at the end the ride came to a very sudden stop.
Things became all too real again. Sensation returned. This time, Sally could feel
herself falling, could sense the air whirling past her. She couldn't see anything but a dark
gray blur. Something struck her body hard and without warning, a surface with the rough
grainy texture of rock. It must have been a floor, or a wall; she couldn't tell which. She
didn't have time to move her hands out in front of her to absorb the blow. She felt her
skull crack against the rock, hard, and everything went black.
She didn't know how long she had remained unconscious. It must have only been
a few seconds, because when she returned to awareness, the disquieting howling of the
Void's portal still permeated the air. She found herself lying on the floor of the same
rocky quality. It was a cavern of some sort; strange machines lay strewn about the floor
like rubble, casting even more bizarre shadows in the Void's unearthly light.
The Void itself was contained in a tunnel that coiled away from the main chamber
itself. The portal was growing continually more violent. When she stared at it, the light
and sound emanating from the vortex had become so intense, so violent, that Sally could
hardly distinguish the two senses. It had become one horrifying intermix. Her eyes
threatened of going blind, her ears screeched of deafness. Quickly, she cast her gaze
away, but not before seeing a silhouette of a man outline against the portal. His arms
were raised as if struggling with the Void itself.
She clenched her eyes shut. A voice carried across the winds, on the verge of
being drowned out by the violence of the portal.
"Close, damn you!" it shouted. "Close!"
The King snarled fiercely, fighting with the gateway of the Void. Almost
undetectable against the hurricane of light, energy streaked away from his fingertips into
the portal, which obstinately refused to close. Naugus had never instructed him on using
his magical talents to open the Void, but he thought he had learned enough to attempt
opening the portal on his own. It was clear that he hadn't. Something had gone wrong.
The portal itself had become too unstable, out-of-control. Surely Naugus, no matter how
far away he was, would detect this.
Lightning arced away from him, into the portal. The energy was so powerful that
the King didn't dare look directly at the gateway itself. The only sign that the portal's
energy was abating was that the light created by Max's own magic was more visible
against the vortex's intense aura.
Finally the portal shut, screeching like the laws of physics themselves were on the
verge of snapping in half. Max lowered his arms, heaving a sigh of relief.
Gradually, he became aware of another's presence in the lab. He whirled around,
thinking that it was Naugus. He hadn't seen or heard anybody enter through the doorway,
but with the sensory overload coming from the Void's portal, it would have been
impossible too. Instinctively, he held his arms in the air in front of him like a shield.
Instead he saw a small mass of brown fur sprawled helplessly across the ground.
Sally groaned, and shook her head to clear it of the impact, and the remnants of
the invasive light and sound. She only opened her eyes when the blazing visual inferno
had died away. A bruise was forming under the fur on her forehead; she had been moving
*fast* when she hit the rock. Sally made a quick mental note to have Bookshire check her
over for signs of a concussion back at Knothole.
Then she remembered where she was: the Void had claimed her. There wasn't any
way to get back to Knothole.
She rose slowly to her feet, glancing around the cavern. Without the light from the
portal, she could see her surroundings much more clearly. Most of the odd machines
strewn around were clustered near what appeared to be the cavern's only doorway. None
of them were recognizable or had any obvious purpose. On a few machines, she was able
to recognize simple components, such as gears or other moving parts, although as to what
purpose drove them all she was left in the dark.
Where the Void's portal had been was now a solid rock wall. An adult brown-
furred squirrel, in a bright blue outfit, stood staring that it and breathing heavy. He looked
exhausted. There was something about him that tugged at Sally's mind, but her mind was
too frazzled by the blow to her skull to place it.
As if to emphasize the injury, she started to lose her balance. Dizzy, she reached
out to grab and support herself on one of the nearby apparatuses. Sally imagined her inner
ears spinning around in endless circles.
The squirrel turned around to face her, and suddenly Sally was able to place his
face. Her breath caught in her throat, but a single word managed to escape.
"Daddy!"
The shock was too much. She stumbled backwards, losing her grip on the
supporting apparatus. Her confused inner ears told her that gravity itself was shifting.
Sally fell unceremoniously to the ground, landing flat on her back. Air rushed out of her
lungs in a sharp exhale.
Before he even had a chance to think, Max Acorn found himself rushing over to
his daughter's side, cradling her in his arms. Nothing else mattered now, not Naugus, not
the Void, not Mobotropolis. The only thing in the world now was the fact that his
daughter was hurt, and that he was there to help her.
Sally didn't try to fight or move away, but only gazed upward at her father as he
brushed aside a tuft of red hair to see the injury. The bruise didn't look too bad, but the
King was no expert on cranial trauma. He knew, though, she had been able to pull herself
to her feet before. That was a good sign.
"Daddy, is it really..."
"Shhhhhh, child," he hushed her. "Don't try to move. It's all right."
He felt her limbs sag with relief, as if his word alone had lifted the tensions and
ordeals of over a decade of torment. Max remembered the way that she had, as a child,
accepted anything he said as nothing less than the absolute truth. He was once again
struck by how much and how little had changed.
"It's been so long," she whispered, noticeably calmer.
"Why am I here, though?" she asked. "What happened?"
"I brought you here," the King said, still tenderly rubbing his fingers across the
injury. He was hesitant to say what had to be said next. "Sally, I saved your life."
Thankfully, her composure didn't disintegrate into panic. "From what?"
"Julian."
This time it did, but she didn't panic for the sake of herself. Concern for the others
flashed in Sally's eyes. "Robotnik was in Knothole? Then-"
"No, no," the King sighed, "that's not it at all." He had been expecting to feel joy
upon saving his daughter's life, even if it meant condemning her to the Void, but now he
didn't feel any different. Even with her right here, he felt as if he were still mourning her
death. "In two months time, you were going to be captured in one of the city's
warehouses." He leaned forward. "Sally, you were going to be roboticized!"
"In two months?" her gaze fell back to the wall that had been the portal. "Then
how do... how do you know?"
"I can't really explain it, except to say that this place exists *outside* of time. I
hardly understand it myself."
"Outside of time?" she asked quizzically.
"I hardly understand it myself. But I saw it, Sally. I saw it happen." He took a
deep breath. "You must have some idea of how difficult that was. I couldn't bear to-"
Sally's next question took the King completely by surprise. "Where's Naugus?"
His composure faltered, and he took an unintentional step backward. Sally was
able to slowly pull herself up to at least a sitting position. She met her father's gaze with a
hard stare, boring into his eyes.
"How do you know about Naugus?" he asked, breathless.
She frowned in confusion. "What do you mean, how do I know about Naugus? I,
uh, met him the last time I was here. Remember?"
"You've been inside the Void before? But that's- that's impossible."
She looked at him helplessly. "Don't you remember?"
"Remember what?" Max demanded.
"Naugus tried to trap some of my friends in here, and exploit Sonic's speed to
escape the Void. That's when I saw you for the first time since the coup." Max stared,
wide-eyed and numbed, at her. She tried again desperately. "That's when you gave me
the list of the other Freedom Fighter groups."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Max said, feeling more lost than he
ever had, even when he had witnessed his daughter's death. At least then he had
understood what was happening.
Sally bit her lip. "Exactly how... does time behave around here, again?"
"No. Oh, no. It must be something has happened in your past, but," the King
hesitated, trying to force the words out of his dry throat, "has yet to happen in my future.
Bean, this is the first time I've seen you since you were five years old."
"This is too much," Sally was finally able to rise to her feet, albeit unsteadily. Her
right hand still gripped a nearby table for support, while her other hand hovered delicately
over the bruise still blossoming on her forehead.
"All that matters now is that you're here. You're alive." He reached forward to
embrace his daughter, but she shrugged him away, questions still burning in her eyes.
"In two months, you said... what happens?"
"It'll happen during a foray into the city. Peacebots-" the King stopped himself,
"SWATbots will ambush and capture you. They'll kill your friends."
"Kill?" Sally gasped. "What about Sonic?"
"He... he dies," the King confessed.
Sally's shoulders sagged, and she looked sharply away. Max thought for a
moment that she would burst out into tears. Then she straightened, and turned back again
to face him, her expression hidden behind a mask of resolve. "Then I have to get back.
There's still so much to do."
"Back?" Max said, unable to contain his shock as one surprise continually
overcame another. "But you'll die. No, worse than that."
Sally shook her head. "Doesn't matter. If I know about it I can stop it." Max
tried to look away from her eyes, but couldn't bring himself to.
"What if you can't?"
"Then at least I'll be out there, fighting." The fact that she didn't want to be
saying this, to her father of all people, was clearly betrayed in her voice "Even another
two months of life out there, doing what's right, helping other people, would be better
than an eternity trapped in here." She gestured towards the closed portal. "Out there I
can fight to put an end to Robotnik. That's a goal that means more than just my life, or
the lives of my friends."
The King finally to look away from his daughter, but that didn't stop her from
talking.
"We're not talking about individuals, here, father," she said, voice strained.
"We're talking about entire civilizations. That's what's worth more than my life. Two
months of fighting to save Mobotropolis is worth more to me than a lifespan of inactivity."
"I-I can't do it, Sally," Max said. Before he had been unable to look away from
her; now he was struck by an inability to even glance in her direction. "It doesn't even
matter that I don't want to. Once inside the Void, nothing can escape. You're trapped
here with the rest of us."
"What?" Sally seemed surprised for a moment, as if this hadn't even occurred to
her. "No, that can't be true."
"The portal," the King tossed his hand absently in the direction of the silent tunnel,
"it does nothing but suck you in here. You must have felt it on your way in. It's like it
has its own field of gravity that does nothing except pull down here. Trying to escape it
would be like trying to jump across the Great Plains with only a single leap."
"We've escaped from the Void before," Sally said urgently. The thought hit the
King with the same impact as a runaway steamroller. He had spent the last two years of
his life convincing himself that escape was impossible.
"How?"
"Sonic," the Princess said. "His speed can fight the Void's pull long enough to
escape. He's done it before."
"That's ridiculous," Max protested.
"There's still a way that we can set this right. We have to get Sonic in here," Sally
insisted. The King forced himself to look at her. "Daddy... he can take both of us out of
here."
"I don't know if-"
A third voice cut Max off.
"What is this, lackey?"
Max felt his jaw tighten; he instinctively reached out to protectively grab his
daughter's hand. Sally let out a startled gasp, backing away from the workshop's
doorway. A moment ago, it had been closed.
Ixis Naugus stood in the entrance, cape billowing around his stout form. Pointed
teeth were barred behind cracked lips twisted into a snarl.
Max Acorn felt his hopes and dreams for his daughter's safety extinguished in the
wizard's gaze. He couldn't see Sally, but felt the pressure of her hand squeezing his.
Naugus took a step inward, propelled by the fury burning in his eyes.
"I don't even need to ask what happened here. I suspected as much when I felt
you open the portal. If you had any *talent* in the magical arts, you might've kept this
hidden." The sorcerer's voice dropped to a low, throaty growl. "Instead you almost
destroyed my workshop with your clumsiness. Can't you even control a simple portal,
lackey?"
Ever since being cast into the Void those many years ago, the King's life had been
spiraling out of control. His daughter was the only anchor to sanity and independence that
he'd ever found, and right now he held on to her hand as if it were the only link he had to
life itself. He squeezed until it hurt; he felt Sally gripping back with equal strength.
"Please, Naugus. For the past two years my family has been the only thing I've ever
wanted, or even needed," he beseeched, praying that his words would not fall on unfeeling
ears.
Naugus only shook his head in disdain. He raised his arm. "Don't waste time
saying hello, Sire. It only makes saying goodbye that much harder."
His fingers snapped.
The King stumbled forward momentarily, losing his balance without knowing why.
For a moment, he was afraid that Naugus had struck him with a magical energy bolt.
Then he felt his fingers slip around nothingness, and the palm that had been clasped
around his daughter's hand clench around open space.
Sally was gone.
Air rushed in to fill the empty vacuum where Sally's body had been with a *pop*
that grated against Max's eardrums. He gaped at the bare space for a long moment,
feeling his heart sink further with each passing second.
"You killed her!" he stuttered at last.
"Nothing so barbaric," Naugus said. "I merely erased her from time. Reached
backwards to the point where you opened the portal and stopped it from doing so."
Max glanced quickly back at the portal's tunnel, then back at the sorcerer. "You
mean she's back in the real world?"
"To her, this has never happened," Naugus said. A smile temporarily brightened
his face. "She'll still die in the warehouse, of course. I told you, lackey. There's nothing
left out there for you."
Max felt the muscles in his arms tense. He could never truly recall what happened
next; his memories were blurred by pain. The nearest explanation he could think of was
that something inside him just snapped. It was as if logic and sanity were gone, vanished
alongside his daughter. The only thing that remained was puerile emotion.
"You son of a bitch!" Max Acorn launched himself at Naugus. As heir to the
royal throne of Mobotropolis, his childhood training in combat tactics had been quite
inclusive. Long-forgotten doctrines of self-defense came back to him: he held both his
thumbs out, ready to strike into Naugus's larynx.
The wizard wasn't even moderately surprised, and shot the King's legs out from
underneath him with a magical shove.
Max had been ready for such a strike. He rolled to absorb the impact with the
floor, and kept his hands extended out in front of them, switching tactics. He kept his
fingers interlocked against each other, in a splayed pattern. That was important for what
had to happen next. His hands began to glow with a light all their own.
In the Void, magic was even easier to create and manipulate than in the real world.
That was what allowed amateurs like Max to even consider casting their own spells. He
let his mind focus on his goal, exactly as Naugus had instructed him, and let the magic
swirl in his consciousness. That was the essential concept of magic: focusing on your
goal.
A bolt of wild, untamed energy leapt from Max's hands and surged towards
Naugus. It struck the wizard in the face, narrowly glancing of the bony horn in the center
of his forehead. The magical weapon hadn't been very strong, but Naugus staggered
backwards in surprise. If it hadn't been for the workshop's nearby rock wall, he would
have fallen completely off his feet.
Truth be told, the attack stunned the King as much as it did the old wizard. But he
was determined not to show it. "Don't try anything, Naugus. I can defend myself. Now
bring her back!"
Naugus carefully rubbed his damaged horn. The blast had chipped away some of
the rough, bony material. Barred teeth glinted in the light.
"Are you sure you want to challenge me?"
"I don't want anything except my daughter."
Naugus's hand shot outwards, a bolt a livid green energy shooting from his
fingertips. The King didn't have time to fire back. He held his arm up to block the blow,
casting a minor defensive spell at the same time. Max only saw the magical bullet
shooting towards his face, and focused on the goal of protecting himself from it. A shield
of compressed air sprung up from his arm just as the bolt struck. The magical shield
absorbed the energy harmlessly.
Before he had come to the Void, he had imagined magic being much more difficult
to use. But all he had done as he cast the shield was focus on his goal of self-
preservation... and it had appeared. Max's confidence surged upwards.
"Bring her back!"
Naugus growled, and clenched his fist as if grabbing something. The King felt the
magic shield tremble, as if Naugus actually *had* managed to grab a hold of it. Then,
with a single twist of the wizard's wrist, the shield wrenched itself away from the King and
vanished in midair.
Another bolt of raw magic poured from Naugus's hand, and this time it didn't
miss. Max felt the bone in his nose crack as it bashed him in the face. It was as if his head
was on fire; he didn't even feel himself slam backwards into the floor.
Feebly, he held up his arm and tried one last time to cast an offensive spell at
Naugus. Another blast of the wizard's energy swatted it to the ground and drove iron
spikes of pain into his chest.
"You amateurs disgust me."
Max heard footsteps somewhere nearby his fallen form. It might have been
Naugus, but he could concentrate on nothing more than the pain. "Another lesson, then?"
the wizard rasped angrily. "You'll be lucky if you survive this time."
For the first several hours, there was nothing more than the pain. No questions, no
interrogations, no commands, just pain. Only when the King had already been thrashed to
within an inch of his life did Naugus ask the question. The King wavered in and out of
consciousness, barely able to hear his words.
"If you don't give me the right answer the first time, you will have outlived your
usefulness as my servant, and I will kill you." Warm, rancid breath spilled across Max's
ear. "Why do you live?"
It didn't even matter to Max that he only had one chance. He would've answered
the same in any case, and truthfully.
Maximillion Acorn had been broken.
"To serve you, Master Naugus," he sobbed.
---
Life afterwards didn't seem like living at all. The King lost track of how much
time had passed since the incident: weeks, definitely, maybe even months. The only thing
he knew for certain was that each morning he had to awaken to face the knowledge that
his daughter was dead, and that he had tried for all he was worth and couldn't save her.
He came to crave sleep. At least then he was allowed a modicum of peace, if not
contentment. In dreams he didn't even have to reflect on the tragic irony that the part of
his existence he looked most forward to was oblivion.
To consume his spare waking hours, Max concentrated solely on learning more of
the magical arts. It disturbed him that he couldn't say why or for what purpose. He
didn't dare to use them to challenge Naugus. He now knew, through bitter experience,
that he would need almost a lifetime of study and practice to even be a remote threat to
the wizard.
After the King's last bout of 'insubordination', Naugus wasn't going to offer to
teach the King anything more about magic. So what new knowledge he did pick up he
had to glean from ancient textbooks and manuals pilfered from Naugus's workshop.
Stealing the books had been risky, but he knew that not even Naugus could keep an eye
on him every minute of the day. So he waited until the time was right, and quietly took
them back to his own throne room.
The arcane lore was difficult at best to understand, but what Max garnered from
them was able to bolster his fledgling skills. There was one symbol in particular, though,
that the King failed to understand. It had never been present in any of Naugus's lessons,
though perhaps that cagey sorcerer had omitted it by design. The symbol appeared
regularly in many of the later pages of the textbooks.
Perhaps this was something that Naugus himself had missed out on, the King
mused. There *had* to be more to magic than simply visualizing your goal and waiting
for it to happen. Some ingredient must be missing. Mayhap this was it.
Ixis Naugus was even more icily intolerant to the King than before. Sometimes, all
that was necessary to provoke a burst of excruciating electrical pain was to turning his
back on the wizard. Naugus had never done that before; his sparse 'lessons' had always
had some kind of purpose or provocation.
It was a particularly effective treatment, however. Before, the King had only been
afraid of Naugus. Now he was deathly terrified of him. He couldn't help himself; it was
almost an unconscious reaction. Whenever Naugus so much as entered the room,
memories of the pain shuddered down his spine, and he saw himself groveling, doing
anything, to avoid another lesson.
They certainly weren't the proudest days of his life, but he survived.
There were only a few things in the Max's life that he regretted, and would never
forgive himself for. Allowing himself to be blinded long enough for Julian to take over
was the gravest among these. Not being strong enough to save his daughter's life was
another. The most recent, though, was what he did to Ari one night in the months since
he last saw Sally.
It had been an uncomfortably cold evening, insofar as much as the Void could have
weather. After lengthy, tiresome weeks of researching arcane artifacts and physics
equations to aid Naugus in his never-ending quest to escape the Void, the King had long
since learned to ignore such mundane distractions. Max had just ended one such session
of study and had nothing more to look forward to then sleep and sweet oblivion. He was
about to retire to the false castle's sleeping quarters when Ari had arrived.
The ram had made himself scarce ever since Max's failed attempt to bring his
daughter into the Void. This was more than fine with Max; he knew that he was
paralyzed by psychosis and depression, and no longer had any desire to share the company
of others. He didn't want anybody else to see him in this state.
Yet, here the ram was, standing in front of the throne room's doors and looking as
if he were waiting for the King to say something. "What do you want?" Max asked,
unable to block out the icy bitterness that laced his tone.
"To save Sally's life."
The King could only muster a weary yet sincere glare, and pushed past him
towards his bedroom's doors. "Go away."
Ari moved in front of the King, burly form effectively blocking Max's path. "I'm
serious, your Majesty."
"No, it won't work. It… it was wrong to even try in the first place."
Ari seemed to ignore his words, which only made him angrier. "The armory the
Freedom Fighters tried to infiltrate. There's more then one entrance; the warehouse is
honeycombed with vents, shafts, and tunnels that even Robotnik doesn't know about."
"How do you know about this?" Max demanded.
"I've been sneaking into Naugus's workshop for the past several days, and using
the scrying device when he's not around. With an omniscient hidden camera, it's easy
enough to map out."
The King's well-worn self-preservation instinct kicked in, immediately clearing
away the fog of fatigue. He grabbed Ari roughly by the shoulders. "You *what?*" he
hissed.
Although Ari was easily King Acorn's physical superior, he was still taken aback
by the strength in his grip, and didn't immediately respond.
"You fool!" Max burst out. "If you leave the wards I've erected around here,
Naugus will be able to sense you!" He didn't hold any doubts that Naugus would kill both
Ari and himself if he discovered that the King had kept him hidden here.
"I left here only when I knew Naugus was asleep," Ari insisted, forcibly calm.
"Sire, we have to find a way to get this information to Sally. If she knows about the other
entrances, the SWATbots won't be able to ambush them-"
"No!" The King shoved Ari backwards. "Sally is dead! If you keep doing this,
Naugus will kill us both!"
"It would be worth it if we could save Sally!" Ari shot back.
Then they came, the words that he would never be able to forgive himself for. "If
you don't stop this now, I'll turn you over to Master Naugus myself!"
The worst part of all of this, he would reflect later, was that when he said those
words, he meant them.
Ari stumbled backwards, not from any physical blow, but from pure horror. There
was a moment of long silence that was worth far more than a thousand spoken words.
Seeing the look in the ram's eyes, the King realized the full extent of what he just done.
But before he could speak, Ari was gone, vanished into the shadows.
"Ari… I…"
There was no answer from the darkness. Ari was gone. No sound, no sight of his
retreating form made itself available in the darkness.
"I…"
The King wasn't even able to lose himself in sleep that night. Not after what had
just transpired. So after a restless night, he began to seriously consider Ari's words.
There was more than one entrance to the armory. It all seemed so simple. If only Sally
and her friends had known, they surely wouldn't have tried to sneak in through the front
doors. They wouldn't be ambushed in the corridors of the warehouse; it would be like the
waking nightmare that had consumed his life for the past several months would simply
never have happened.
At first, it was difficult to even take the idea seriously. Many things had changed
in the past few months, but the Void itself wasn't one of them. He was still trapped inside
it, with no way to so much as broadcast a radio signal out. There simply wasn't any way
he could get this information to his daughter.
And if Naugus found out about any of this, he wouldn't hesitate to execute him.
Yet, despite his fears, the King found himself stealing into Naugus's workshop
while the wizard was away, and reactivating the scrying device. Over the course of the
next several weeks, he used it to scout out every last corridor and crevice in the armory
and surrounding warehouse, carefully sketching out a rough map by hand and bringing the
parchment back to his chambers every night. One of the few stable, electronic computers
that existed in the Void was kept there; he's scan the images into its hard drive, and get
ready to copy more of the map tomorrow night.
The futility of all this was never lost on him. Nothing left the Void. It simply
wasn't possible to get any of this data to Sally. Yet he kept sketching maps and layouts,
plotting entrance after entrance, the building's complex air shaft network, everything he
found. The purposeless of his quest didn't slow or stop him; it was the only thing he had
left to do.
So, since he wasn't able to get the map to his daughter, it only seemed natural that
when he finished mapping out the warehouse complex, he move on the other buildings as
well. In the unlikely event that Sally ever found this, she could make use of that as well.
The process was painstaking and deliberate, but within the space of another three months,
Max was able to use both Naugus's scrying device and his ruler's knowledge to map every
major cave and tunnel system in Robotropolis.
In all this time, there was no sign of Ari. The ram had simply and quietly
disappeared after his confrontation with the King. Max could hardly blame him. Despite
the fact that Ari was no where to be found, Max knew that he must have been hiding
somewhere near the throne room. Naugus would have found him otherwise. It was either
that, or… Ari had died.
Every day, as he plotted more and more of the map, the King kept a silent lookout
for Ari, hoping for nothing more than his friend's continued survival.
Max dreaded the day that he finally completed the map. Then there would be
nothing left to do but to act. As his drawings of the city became more and more detailed,
a terrible fear began to well up in his heart.
At last the day arrived. The King had mapped out the last building, scanned in the
last page to the computer. Tonight was the night to act; and the King still had no idea of
how to get any of this information to Sally. But he had to try. It was the night to either
succeed, or die.
Knowing that death was infinitely more likely, the King composed a farewell letter
to Ari, and left it sitting on the floor of his throne room, asking the ram to compose the
epitaph for his tombstone.
"Archive all scanned-in images and compress them into one file," King Acorn
commanded, using the computer's worn-out voice recognition circuits. "Save it to a
holographic disk."
"File name?" the computer's two small speakers grated.
The King scratched his muzzle thoughtfully. Most of the hidden tunnels and
access points, things that would be of most use to the Freedom Fighters, were
underground. "Sub-Ter."
If, somehow, fate decided to grace him by getting the map through to Sally, time
would still likely be limited, so any other message he did get through would have to be
short. He wrote one last letter to his daughter, meant to accompany the compilation of
maps.
"Sally, there's something horrible in all our futures that must never happen. Check
the 'Sub-Ter' file. Use it. It's impossible to tell you anything more. I love you."
He slipped the folded-up note into the pocket of his uniform, even though it wasn't
necessary to take it with him. He had already committed it to memory.
Max turned to face the doors of the throne room. Beyond them, it was only a
short stroll to Naugus's workshop.
It was time to act.