Disclaimer: Sonic and all related characters and settings are copyright Sega Corporation. None of it belongs to me, but all property is theft, man. Whatever that means.
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Chapter Nine - Ill-Fated Research
When Sonic opened his eyes again, all he saw was rock. His body was numb, and the only sounds he could hear were those from his own body, like his quickened heartbeat and deep breathing. He felt frozen, frightened and helpless. Was this, he wondered, what it felt like to be dying?
He felt a jolt against his wrist, and finally realised that he was suspended. At first he thought his arm had by chance got trapped in a jag of rock, but he then felt a warm grip tighten around it. Outside sounds returned to him as he glanced up slightly.
"Sonic? I'll-- I'll pull you in."
Sonic felt himself being tugged over the top of cliff. Armies of raindrops attacked him relentlessly, but his rescuer had a tight hold and would not let him go. The relief Sonic felt when his knees grazed against the soaked grass was indescribable. His head slowly lifted up, and he found himself looking at Dr Robotnik's shocked face. He tried to say 'thank you', but his frigid blue lips could barely mouth the words.
"What were you doing here?" Robotnik blurted, his face gradually regaining colour, "it's that machine, isn't it?"
He spoke with the same harsh tone as he had all the time he had been on the island. But he had just saved Sonic's life.
"I needed to see it again," Sonic stammered quietly. He managed to get up on his legs and stagger in the direction of the capsule.
Robotnik followed him, and said nothing.
"And yes, I know exactly what your involvement with it was." Sonic frowned slightly.
"Hey…"
"Don't worry, I don't want to talk about that now. Tomorrow morning, I'll show you how I found out." Sonic finished.
They made it back to the capsule, and clambered inside. Even in this state of exhaustion, Sonic still couldn't sleep. He still hadn't figured one thing out. As if it were to contain the answer to all his questions, Sonic looked over to the parcel again in desperation. As it happened, it did contain the answer to his main problem, and it always had. It just depended on how Sonic was thinking at that particular time.
Tails and Eggor left the bridge at about 7 in the morning-- long before Sonic and Eggman were up. Last night, Tails had managed to fix Eggor's speech unit, but in the process he had accidentally snapped a tiny resistor that had got in the way. Well, the workings of Eggor's head were very intricate, and Tails didn't have access to delicate tools at the moment.
"What's broken now?" Tails enquired.
"It's my personality unit, alright?" Eggor snapped rudely, "my personality has been affected-- you got a problem with that? Why is it your business? Shut up!"
"I see what you mean," Tails muttered.
The robot obnoxiously clanked over to where the tiger's still body lay. It was still a little damp from the rain last night, but thankfully a sheet of metal casing had kept the parts relatively dry. Eggor tore out the component he wanted-- a small colourful resistor.
"Do you want me to connect that?" Tails said idly.
"Are you saying I can't connect a small, delicate piece of equipment into the back of my own head?" Eggor screamed angrily, "I can do a better job than any useless little two-tailed freak fox!"
"Alright, alright! I was only offering to help." Tails threw up his arms in a despairing manner.
Eggor nodded aggressively, and flipped up a small door on the back of his head. Both his metal hands reached back behind his head, the resistor held precariously between two fingers. He looked like his stiff arms could barely reach the back of his head, never mind perform repairs on it!
The little piece of electronics slipped out from his fingers and dropped harmlessly into the water, where it floated on top of the steady, shimmering surface. Eggor grunted once, then trudged into the water to retrieve it. He snatched it up and tried again to insert it into the back of his head, standing up to his chest plate in water.
"You be careful!" Tails shouted from the bank, "You really don't want to get water in your head!"
"Get water in my head. How stupid do you think I am?" Eggor span around, and as he did so a foot got caught in a loop of seaweed that was imbedded in the seafloor, "now shut up and--"
Eggor was yanked back by the seaweed when he walked, toppling forwards. The resistor flew out of his hands again and landed back in the water, bobbing around innocently.
"This is ridiculous!" Tails exclaimed, running into the water and scooping up the small object. As Eggor floated on his front in the water, Tails inserted the resistor in his head, and flipped the door shut. It took a while for Eggor's master control system to register the new settings. After it did, he just lay there on the water surface, paralysed with trauma.
"I apologise unconditionally!" he blurted, "I had no control over my thoughts! It was just the damage done to my personality unit!"
"Forget it," Tails smiled, "I didn't take it personally."
"You don't know what I was thinking about my Master!" Eggor replied, horrified.
Tails laughed heartily for a moment, and then he noticed something.
"Eggor… you can float." He said quietly.
"Yes, I am also designed to be totally water-proof," Eggor said in that promotional video voice again, "so I can bathe Dr Robotnik" he added quietly.
Tails's face scrunched up with the effort of trying to push that disturbing mental image out of his head. Then, he flew out of the water and stood on Eggor's hunched back. The robot dipped very slightly further down, but he was still floating steadily on the surface.
"Eggor," Tails began, "I have a wicked idea…"
"A little higher… yeah, that's it. Now swing it to the right… no, RIGHT! Yes, now lower."
When Sonic and Dr Robotnik had finally woke up --around 11:00AM-- they had immediately made their way down to the cliff again. Sonic really didn't want to go back down into the water, so Robotnik had to climb down the half-destroyed slope and swim over to the machine to reconnect the cable. Of course, he had to tie the cable around a hook on the device, since the old clip was destroyed when Sonic had removed it. As the ramp was impossible to climb from within the water, Robotnik was now gripping hold of the machine's cable while Sonic swung it around using the controls. Water poured out of the open door as it was lifted up awkwardly, and eventually the machine came to rest on the moist grass.
Dr Robotnik slid off the shiny surface and landed on the floor in a heap. Sonic performed a mighty leap from the control platform and landed beside him, grinning inanely.
"Look at that!" Sonic cried triumphantly, pointing at the side of the vehicle.
Dr Robotnik picked himself up and glanced at the number printed in strange red lettering on the metal; "63. So what? Maybe it was Useless-Legged-Boat-Thing 63. Maybe there are 62 others. What's that got to do with me?"
Sonic said nothing, and held the door's handle tightly. He slowly opened the door further, as if getting it in a particular position, and then beckoned for Robotnik to walk around and take a look at it.
Dr Robotnik saw the reflection of the number in the mirror-like door. His jaw dropped, and the only thing he could manage to force out was a diminutive "Oh my".
The 63, when reflected, looked identical to Robotnik's EG symbol with the backwards G.
"You were wrong, you see, this thing does belong to you," Sonic began, "or it did, anyway. It was made by Dr Kintobor!"
"I don't understand," Ivo admitted in a low voice, "what's this 63 logo got to do him me, I mean, him?"
"Dr Kintobor joined a team of commissioned researchers when he was in university on a foreign planet. He didn't have a lot of money, and he needed to fund his experiments, so he agreed to create machines for a company. He said he left in the end, but he wouldn't tell me why. Anyway, he was no. 63 in the group, and this was a kind of logo he put on his machines."
Sonic lifted his hand and pointed to the reflection again, "you don't remember much from when you were Kintobor, and anything you do remember is the reverse! Kintobor made notoriously toxic omelettes-- you remembered a recipe for really good ones! Kintobor's logo was this 63, yours was the reverse!" Sonic smiled brightly, but Robotnik's expression changed from confusion to a light snarl. He secretly hated being talked about as the waste product of a scientist's failed experiment.
"Very well worked out, Sonic, " he said sarcastically, "but that isn't going to get us off this island, is it? We still don't know what this is!"
"I do," Sonic replied quickly, still grinning from ear to ear. He picked up something from the floor, something he had surreptitiously brought with him from the capsule this morning. It was the parcel.
"Last night, after I worked out what the machine was, I had a look at this thing again. All this stuff about backwards writing… it made me look at it differently. This rotten package of yours actually contains the answer." He pointed to the first line of the address: 8U2 Marine Way.
"I don't see- oh yes. 8U2 backward looks like SUB. SUB Marine Way-- submarine. You think that thing's some sort of submarine?"
"Yeah!" Sonic shouted excitedly, "that's why it's got legs, to walk over the sea bed! It's weird, but then Kintobor used to collect cacti-- not normal at all. Now let's work out how to use this thing!" Sonic promptly leapt into the machine to examine the controls.
The interior of the machine was disappointingly dull. There were no fancy levers or the like, just one rather uncomfortable-looking chair and a box fixed to a wall. There was also a large window on the top that Sonic hadn't noticed before. Climbing gently into the chair, he flicked open the latch on the box. Inside were the controls, with a note tacked onto them. Sonic picked up the note and started reading:
'Fellow Researcher,
Before I tell you the details and location of the item you have arrived for, I have something else I need to say.
I have decided to quit my job as a commissioned researcher for your organisation. Originally I believed the motives of our employers were benign, but in time they have become more and more sinister. The brief for this last project, I have come to realise, was just a sugar-coated request for a dangerous weapon. Not only am I strongly against the use for technology for military purposes, I admit with no shame whatsoever that I have no talent for creating machines of this nature. The Tigar, named after a friend of mine--'
Sonic beamed at his mention.
'--is a highly flawed piece of robotics, and I strongly suggest it is destroyed. I'd have done so myself, but it would go against my contract and give the company sufficient grounds to prosecute. I wish to now sever all links to this employer, but I implore you to pass my plea onto them. The Tigar is uncontrollable and vicious --even I had no luck in trying to command it-- and must never actually be used for its original purpose.
As I said, it is not legal for me to destroy even a failed piece of equipment, so I have sealed it here for collection as the original plan stated. It is located on the other sector, marked B-864 on the map the commission should have given you, and I have provided this vehicle to travel between the two sectors, should you have landed on this one. The large underground pod on the other sector is able to fly containing both you and the Tigar, and will be able to return you home. Please remember how dangerous the robot is, and observe the safety notices on the containment pod. It is vitally important that you do NOT activate the machine! Ideally, it should never be activated, but at least wait until it is in a secure environment. Thank you.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Ovi Kintobor, AKA Researcher 63'
Sonic curled the piece of paper up and tucked it into his shoe. He wasn't sure whether Kintobor couldn't make a good military robot because he had no talent for that sort of thing (as he had suggested in the letter), or whether his philanthropic nature was subconsciously preventing him from doing so. Either way, it relieved Sonic, who had always worried that the reason for the scientist's effective demise was that he was too much like Robotnik-- messing around with chaos and robots and stuff. Sonic guessed that Kintobor was ashamed of being duped into building weapons, and the fact that he handed the Tigar over to the company in the end, and that was why he never told Sonic why he had left the scheme. However, Sonic was proud of his mentor for giving up what was always a well-paid job for his ethics.
The hedgehog was alarmed when he guessed that the other 'sector' was the second island on which Tails was residing, but then calmed down. The other researcher must've landed on that island first, and would've already taken the monster away.
"Well?" came an indignant voice from outside the submarine vehicle, "have you worked out the controls yet?"
"It looks pretty obvious, just a joystick and a few buttons. There are 'submerge' and 'emerge' buttons, so it must be able to sort of float after all. I hope there's enough power to at least get to the other island."
"I think it's solar-powered," Robotnik muttered, examining the outside of the machine "that's why the surface is covered with these shiny panels."
"That's great, it might be able to take us all the way inland!" Sonic exclaimed, "get your stuff together, dude, we're going home!"