The Robotnik Complex
Chapter 13
Location: Knothole: Hut 53
Brian slowly opened his eyes. It was dark all around him. He slowly sat up and realized he was in his Hut, in his bedroom, back in Knothole. He was covered in a light sheet. 'What happened?' Brian thought to himself. 'The last thing I remember is...the shuttle, Swat-Bots...Snively.' He threw the sheet off of his body and stood on the floor. He still had his boots on. He walked out the door of his bedroom. He headed toward the kitchen. He pulled the filter basket out of the coffee pot and put a new filter bag in. He pushed it back into place and hit the power swich. He sat down and layed his head aganst the cool wood of the table. "Brian." Said Sonic who had walked up behind him. Brian sat up and looked behind him. Sonic was standing behind him, Sally was laying on the couch sleeping. Brian looked at Sonic in a quizical manner. "What are you two doing here? Brian said as he stod up and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Well, after we got back to the village and you were still passed out, we were worried about you so we carried you here and stayed to make sure nothing was wrong." Brian nodded. "I'm fine now, just still a little shaky from using so much energy. Hello Sally, Sit." Brian, Sally, and Sonic all sat down at the table, Brian sipping his coffee. "How did you do that, save us? If you hadn't been there, I don't know what would have happened. Thank you." Brian sat his cup down. "Remember me telling you that I could tap into energy, and use it for my own purposes?" Sonic and Sally both nodded their heads. "Well, that's not exactly true. I know exactly where the energy is coming from." Brian paused to sip at his coffee. "Where does it come from?" Sally asked, intrigued. "Electromagnetic Radiation." Sonic just looked at Brian for a second, and then a look of understanding passed over his features. "You mean like, light?" Brian smiled. "Yes, and everything else on the spectrum." Sally looked at him. "How do you concentrate the energy?" Brian pulled his watch off his hand and pushed a few buttons. Brian sat the watch in the middle of the table and a 3-D hologram of his body appeared in mid- air. He pointed to one of fifteen black spots that appeared inside the hologram. "These are selenium sulfide power cells connected to my central nervous system. The WatchCom sends a signal through my system to tell these cells to charge 10%, 20%, depending on what I tell them to do. The hightest i've used them was at 40%, and even then the energy discharge knocked me out for 5 days. To transport us to the shuttle, I used 5% and was asleep for..." Sonic glanced at the wall clock behind Brian. "About 6 hours. And since you told us you told us you hardly even sleep a hour, we got worried. Now, about Snively..." Brian nodded his head. "I already have a explanation for...him...That's odd..." Sonic stood up. "What? What's wrong?" Brian gave Sonic a quizical look. "I feel...hungry...I mean really hungry!" Sally shrugged. "So, go to the kitchen and get something to eat." Brian shook his head. "No, I shoudn't be hungry. I don't feel hunger like regular people, a monitor in my WatchCom tells me when I need food. And even then It's something small, like a piece of bread. But I feel really hungry... Does Dr. Quack have a medical scanner?" Sally and Sonic both nodded their heads. "I need to use it. Something's wrong."
"Doctor, Dr. Quack, are you in here!" Brian shouted as he walked into the Knothole Infirmary. Dr. Quack came out of his office. "What do you need Brian?" Quack asked as he walked over to where Brian stood. "Doctor, I need to use your medical scanner. I think something may be wrong with one of my cybernetic implants." Dr. Quack turned and pushed open a door. "Follow me." Brian walked with Quack through a short hallway, with a serious expression on his face, and finally through a door. Dr. Quack flicked a few swiches on the wall and the room was bathed in light. He walked over to a control panel and pushed a few buttons. A portion of the floor opened up and a medical bed layed low to the floor. Next to it a bar about a meter long came out of the floor by the head of the bed. Brian noticed a joint a little over halfway to the top. After the joint was what look liked a black light tube. 'That must be the sensor.' Brian thought. "Lay on the bed." Dr. Quack said from behind the control panel. "I have no idea what you want me to look for though." Brian layed on the bed. "Just set it so after the scan I can look at it myself." Quack pushed a few more buttons on the console. "Are you ready?" Quack asked Brian. Brian nodded his head. Quack budhed a button on his console and the lights in the room went out. The scanner bent at the joint and light up. It emitted a bright dark green light. It started with Brian's head, and slowly moved down his body toward his feet. When it reached his feet 2 minutes later, it backtracked to his head and shut off. The scaning arm went back into the floor, and the room lights came back on. Brian got up and went to the terminal. Quack was sitting in a rolling chair. He pointed to a chair beside him and Brian sat down. "Use the mouse." Quack said while gesturing to the pointing device in front of Brian. Brian layed his hand on the device, and loked at the screen in front of him. On the screen was a perfect 3-d model of his body. Brian clicked and highlighted his lumbar region on his spinal cord. The computer zoomed in on the section. Brian rotated his body so his back was flat aganst the screen. Along his spinal cord, 3 on each side, were 6 dark spots, shaped like circles. The circle in the middle, on the right side of Brian's back , had a dent on the left side, where it connected with his nervous system. "Shit, can you swich to x-ray viewing?" Brian said to Dr. Quack, who reached over and pushed a button. The surface of the implant became visable, along with the crack over it's surface.
Brian stood outside the doctor's, not beliving what had happened. 'It's a regulator.' Brian recalled saying to the doctor, as they carfully studied the rest of Brian's implants to be sure there was no other damage. 'My body functions. The force seemed to think that anyone who was to become a guardian was to have as many weeknesses removed, so what that paticular implant did was to continully charge and release lyphatic fluid with protein complex. It almost eliminated my need for solid food. Now it's broke.' Dr. Quack seemed unconcerned. 'So what?' He had said. 'That's not important. We have a ready supply of nutrition here in the village.' Brian had shook his head at this. 'From the implant, selenium sulfide is leeking into my body. I'm fine now, but slowly, it will kill me, and the implant can't be removed.' Brian sighed. 'I need to talk to Chuck about the robotisizer. It was originally for medical purposes, so...' Brian walked up the path, away from the clinic, and turned right onto the main road. 'Right now I'm hungry. First I'll eat, then I can talk to Charles.
As it turned out, Chuck was sitting in the Kitchen, in the corner, waiting for Tails and Amy. Brian walked up to the table. "Charles, may I have a moment to ask you something?" Chuck looked up at Brian, then gestured to the seat opposite of him. "What do you need, Brian" Charles asked. "I need to know exactly how far can the robotisizer repair internal damage." Charles layed his hands and looked down. He sighed, which came out slightly odd since it sounded mechanical. "You have to understand, the components created by the robotisizer can't co-exist with organic tissue. Before I say any more, I am trusting that this will be kept secret." Brian nodded his head. "Good. Now before you ask 'What about Bunnie, understand this. Even now, even though she dosn't know it, she is being killed by her mechanical limbs. Your just waisting time on your arm. It's all or nothing, and all comes with the sacrafice of your mind...and my soul. Mine is a special case. I saved my energy up from the inside for years, not fighting, and in the end, I needed outside help, and even then I almost didn't free my mind. Why do you want to know now, when I already left the scamatics in the workshop?" Brian layed his head down on the table before answering. "One of my cybernetic implants ruptured and is slowly releasing selenium sulfide into my system. I'm dying." Brian lifted his head up. "And your robotisizer is-...was my last hope..." Chuck leaned forward. "Can't you have Dr. Quack remove them?" Brian shook his head and stood up. "I need to get to work. There has to be a way to reseal the implant. Thank you, Charles." Charles stood up. "Call me Chuck, Uncle Chuck." He offered his hand to Brian, which Brian shook.
Amy and Tails walked into the kitchen just as Brian was leaving. They saw he was carring a bottle of water in his pocket and eating a apple. "Hey, Brian. Where are you going? I thought you didn't need food?" Tails said to Brian as they passed. "I need to get to the lab, I'll explain later. See ya two." Brian walked out the door, heading toward the lab. They walked over to the table Uncle Chuck was sitting at. "What's with Brian?" asked Tails, who was pouring a cup of coffee out of the pot the cook on duty, Antoine, brought over. Amy also questioned Uncle Chuck. "Yeah, he was in a real big hurry to get to the lab. And Uncle Chuck told them.
Brian walked over to Rotor who was putting a new case on Brian's computer. "Rotor, you about done?" Rotor put another screw in and turned around. "Yep, I made scamatic's of all the major circuit junctions and replaced the capacitors." Brian patted him on the shoulder. "Cool. Do you have the blueprints for the robotisizer?" Rotor walked over to the wall and pulled a 12 inch by 12 inch book from a shelf. "Here. Are you starting construction?" Brian shook his head. "I need to find out how this thing works, and see if I can make it better." Rotor chuckled. "God luck. It took the best minds on Mobius 15 years to develop what your looking at right now. "Yeah, and my money says I can make it lean and mean, but not a killing machine." Rotor shook his head. "Well, if you need help, I'll be in the back room. Rotor left Brian sitting by the bench, a note pad out, frantically scribbling.
A few hours later, Rotor came out of the back. He decided that he was leaving early, as everything he had to do was done. He walked over to where Brian was sitting, still writing . "Hey, I'm going to--whoa!" Sitting next to the notebook Brian was writing in was 2 others. When rotor flipped through them, they were all full, every single line. "Find anything interesting?" Rotor asked Brian, his voice dripping with saurcasm. "Yeah, I discovered..." Brian paused to write down some more. "...This is...going to take...forever...and a day to... figure out!" Brian picked up the notepad he was using and slammed it down. He put his hand on the table and dropped his head on top of it. "This fucking thing is more complex that it needs to be." Rotor reached into his jacket and layed his keys on top of Brian's notes. "Lock up when your done and leave the keys in the mailbox. OK? Good luck!" Brian nodded, and continued writing.
Tails walked into the lab about 20 minutes after Rotor left. "Hey Brian, How you doing?" Brian jumped in his seat. "Tails! I didn't here you come in!" Tails walked over to the lab bench and sat down. He picked up a notebook and glanced through it. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted to talk to you for a sec." Brian nodded and continued writing. "About what?" Tails sat the notebook back on the pile. "Uncle Chuck told me whats wrong." Brian sighed and sat down his pen. "It's nothing anyone can do anything about. I might as well do what I can to help you guys out before I become too sick from the toxins." Tails pounded his fist on the table. "Stop thinking so negative! There has got to be a way out of this!" Brian just shook his head. "The implant was never meant to need repair or be replaced. It was supposed to be so durable it could last forever...I guess that was wrong." Tails shook his head. "You havn't been here a week and already all the senior Freedom Fighters trust you! They let you bring back our main enemy just because you said he was your brother." Brian raised his head. "How is Ian anyhow?" Tails looked confused. "Who?" Brian shook his head slightly. "Snively, his real name is Ian Floyd. At least it was..." Tails sighed. "I'm sorry. He's still in a coma. The funny thing is, it wasn't caused by you striking him. Dr. Quack said it's being caused by Snive-Ian's brain. Anyway, the doctor said that he should come out of it in a day or two." Brian slowly nodded. "Me and him...We have a lot to talk about..." Brian sat there looking off into the distance. "Brian, It's alright to be afraid, fear in a situation like this is only natural." Brian again nodded his head slowly. "It's not that I'm afraid of dying...It's that I still want to see tomorrow." Tails nodded. "There's nothing wrong with that. It's called survival." Tails stood up. "It's getting late. I'm gonna get going. Later." Tails turned around to walk out the dor but Brian stopped him. "Tails..." Tails turned and looked at the man. "Yeah?" Brian scrached the back of his head. "Be careful. You don't want you or Amy to get hurt. Just be safe." Tails looked shocked. "How did you know about me and Amy? Not even Sally noticed!" Brian smiled. "I have very keen senses. I'll see you tomorrow." Tails noddedn his head. "Good night, Brian." Brian cracked his knuckles and sat back down to write again. This was going to be a long night.
Brian glanced up from his fifth notebook to his watch and saw that it was almost 2 in the morning. He looked down at his notes. Every theory and every idea that was behind robotisization were now in these notebooks that he had spent the night tirelessly writing so that he might find something to cling to, some fragment of a distant hope. But he found none. The only thing he could do was hope that the leak in the power cell didn't get any worse. If it didn't, it was likely he could live out at least 2 more years before he became too sick to work, and then die in 3. Not much, but something... "Damn it all to hell...It's useless." Brian grumbled to himself, even as he collected his notebooks and walked over to the drafting board to begin working on his design for the revised robotisizer. He knew it was going to be a long night and he wanted some coffee. He checked Rotor's office, but the door was locked. 'Damn, it looks like I'll have to go to the kitchen. He grabbed the keys off the table and walked out of the lab, closing and locking the door behind him.
Brian walked into the kitchen and looked around. No one was there so he just grabbed a coffee pot off the front table and went to the instant machine in the corner. Brian put the pot unger the spout and held the button down. A stream of black liquid came out of the machine and began to fill the pot. Brian sighed and knocked his head on the surface of the machine lightly. A minute later he drew his head back and looked at the pot. 'Almost full, god enough...' Brian thought as he turned around holding the pot handle. He walked out the door, unaware that someone was watching him.
Brian stood in front of the drafting board, a prototype drawing of the main control board for the robotisizer in front of him. He placed a hand on his forehead and sighed. This was taking a lifetime of study and research and putting it into a couple of weeks, maybe less. "But it's happining," Brian said to himself. "It's really happening..." Brian put down the pencil and ruler he had been drawing and writing with. "Fuck this, I'm going to sleep." Brian said. He picked up the keys Rotor had given him and shut off the lab's lights. He turned and walked out the door, locking it behind him. He began heading toward his hut. 'With the regularlator shut down, I might actully sleep normal... I've already begun to get my normal appitite back.' Brian thought as he walked in his front door. He shuffled toward his room, kicking off his shoes on the way. He sat down on his bed and took off his socks. He layed back and pulled the covers over his body. He slowly, but steadly, fell into Dream-State sleep for the first time in what seemed like a million years, although his dreams were only a couple of light-years and a few thousand years away.
Chapter 13
Location: Knothole: Hut 53
Brian slowly opened his eyes. It was dark all around him. He slowly sat up and realized he was in his Hut, in his bedroom, back in Knothole. He was covered in a light sheet. 'What happened?' Brian thought to himself. 'The last thing I remember is...the shuttle, Swat-Bots...Snively.' He threw the sheet off of his body and stood on the floor. He still had his boots on. He walked out the door of his bedroom. He headed toward the kitchen. He pulled the filter basket out of the coffee pot and put a new filter bag in. He pushed it back into place and hit the power swich. He sat down and layed his head aganst the cool wood of the table. "Brian." Said Sonic who had walked up behind him. Brian sat up and looked behind him. Sonic was standing behind him, Sally was laying on the couch sleeping. Brian looked at Sonic in a quizical manner. "What are you two doing here? Brian said as he stod up and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Well, after we got back to the village and you were still passed out, we were worried about you so we carried you here and stayed to make sure nothing was wrong." Brian nodded. "I'm fine now, just still a little shaky from using so much energy. Hello Sally, Sit." Brian, Sally, and Sonic all sat down at the table, Brian sipping his coffee. "How did you do that, save us? If you hadn't been there, I don't know what would have happened. Thank you." Brian sat his cup down. "Remember me telling you that I could tap into energy, and use it for my own purposes?" Sonic and Sally both nodded their heads. "Well, that's not exactly true. I know exactly where the energy is coming from." Brian paused to sip at his coffee. "Where does it come from?" Sally asked, intrigued. "Electromagnetic Radiation." Sonic just looked at Brian for a second, and then a look of understanding passed over his features. "You mean like, light?" Brian smiled. "Yes, and everything else on the spectrum." Sally looked at him. "How do you concentrate the energy?" Brian pulled his watch off his hand and pushed a few buttons. Brian sat the watch in the middle of the table and a 3-D hologram of his body appeared in mid- air. He pointed to one of fifteen black spots that appeared inside the hologram. "These are selenium sulfide power cells connected to my central nervous system. The WatchCom sends a signal through my system to tell these cells to charge 10%, 20%, depending on what I tell them to do. The hightest i've used them was at 40%, and even then the energy discharge knocked me out for 5 days. To transport us to the shuttle, I used 5% and was asleep for..." Sonic glanced at the wall clock behind Brian. "About 6 hours. And since you told us you told us you hardly even sleep a hour, we got worried. Now, about Snively..." Brian nodded his head. "I already have a explanation for...him...That's odd..." Sonic stood up. "What? What's wrong?" Brian gave Sonic a quizical look. "I feel...hungry...I mean really hungry!" Sally shrugged. "So, go to the kitchen and get something to eat." Brian shook his head. "No, I shoudn't be hungry. I don't feel hunger like regular people, a monitor in my WatchCom tells me when I need food. And even then It's something small, like a piece of bread. But I feel really hungry... Does Dr. Quack have a medical scanner?" Sally and Sonic both nodded their heads. "I need to use it. Something's wrong."
"Doctor, Dr. Quack, are you in here!" Brian shouted as he walked into the Knothole Infirmary. Dr. Quack came out of his office. "What do you need Brian?" Quack asked as he walked over to where Brian stood. "Doctor, I need to use your medical scanner. I think something may be wrong with one of my cybernetic implants." Dr. Quack turned and pushed open a door. "Follow me." Brian walked with Quack through a short hallway, with a serious expression on his face, and finally through a door. Dr. Quack flicked a few swiches on the wall and the room was bathed in light. He walked over to a control panel and pushed a few buttons. A portion of the floor opened up and a medical bed layed low to the floor. Next to it a bar about a meter long came out of the floor by the head of the bed. Brian noticed a joint a little over halfway to the top. After the joint was what look liked a black light tube. 'That must be the sensor.' Brian thought. "Lay on the bed." Dr. Quack said from behind the control panel. "I have no idea what you want me to look for though." Brian layed on the bed. "Just set it so after the scan I can look at it myself." Quack pushed a few more buttons on the console. "Are you ready?" Quack asked Brian. Brian nodded his head. Quack budhed a button on his console and the lights in the room went out. The scanner bent at the joint and light up. It emitted a bright dark green light. It started with Brian's head, and slowly moved down his body toward his feet. When it reached his feet 2 minutes later, it backtracked to his head and shut off. The scaning arm went back into the floor, and the room lights came back on. Brian got up and went to the terminal. Quack was sitting in a rolling chair. He pointed to a chair beside him and Brian sat down. "Use the mouse." Quack said while gesturing to the pointing device in front of Brian. Brian layed his hand on the device, and loked at the screen in front of him. On the screen was a perfect 3-d model of his body. Brian clicked and highlighted his lumbar region on his spinal cord. The computer zoomed in on the section. Brian rotated his body so his back was flat aganst the screen. Along his spinal cord, 3 on each side, were 6 dark spots, shaped like circles. The circle in the middle, on the right side of Brian's back , had a dent on the left side, where it connected with his nervous system. "Shit, can you swich to x-ray viewing?" Brian said to Dr. Quack, who reached over and pushed a button. The surface of the implant became visable, along with the crack over it's surface.
Brian stood outside the doctor's, not beliving what had happened. 'It's a regulator.' Brian recalled saying to the doctor, as they carfully studied the rest of Brian's implants to be sure there was no other damage. 'My body functions. The force seemed to think that anyone who was to become a guardian was to have as many weeknesses removed, so what that paticular implant did was to continully charge and release lyphatic fluid with protein complex. It almost eliminated my need for solid food. Now it's broke.' Dr. Quack seemed unconcerned. 'So what?' He had said. 'That's not important. We have a ready supply of nutrition here in the village.' Brian had shook his head at this. 'From the implant, selenium sulfide is leeking into my body. I'm fine now, but slowly, it will kill me, and the implant can't be removed.' Brian sighed. 'I need to talk to Chuck about the robotisizer. It was originally for medical purposes, so...' Brian walked up the path, away from the clinic, and turned right onto the main road. 'Right now I'm hungry. First I'll eat, then I can talk to Charles.
As it turned out, Chuck was sitting in the Kitchen, in the corner, waiting for Tails and Amy. Brian walked up to the table. "Charles, may I have a moment to ask you something?" Chuck looked up at Brian, then gestured to the seat opposite of him. "What do you need, Brian" Charles asked. "I need to know exactly how far can the robotisizer repair internal damage." Charles layed his hands and looked down. He sighed, which came out slightly odd since it sounded mechanical. "You have to understand, the components created by the robotisizer can't co-exist with organic tissue. Before I say any more, I am trusting that this will be kept secret." Brian nodded his head. "Good. Now before you ask 'What about Bunnie, understand this. Even now, even though she dosn't know it, she is being killed by her mechanical limbs. Your just waisting time on your arm. It's all or nothing, and all comes with the sacrafice of your mind...and my soul. Mine is a special case. I saved my energy up from the inside for years, not fighting, and in the end, I needed outside help, and even then I almost didn't free my mind. Why do you want to know now, when I already left the scamatics in the workshop?" Brian layed his head down on the table before answering. "One of my cybernetic implants ruptured and is slowly releasing selenium sulfide into my system. I'm dying." Brian lifted his head up. "And your robotisizer is-...was my last hope..." Chuck leaned forward. "Can't you have Dr. Quack remove them?" Brian shook his head and stood up. "I need to get to work. There has to be a way to reseal the implant. Thank you, Charles." Charles stood up. "Call me Chuck, Uncle Chuck." He offered his hand to Brian, which Brian shook.
Amy and Tails walked into the kitchen just as Brian was leaving. They saw he was carring a bottle of water in his pocket and eating a apple. "Hey, Brian. Where are you going? I thought you didn't need food?" Tails said to Brian as they passed. "I need to get to the lab, I'll explain later. See ya two." Brian walked out the door, heading toward the lab. They walked over to the table Uncle Chuck was sitting at. "What's with Brian?" asked Tails, who was pouring a cup of coffee out of the pot the cook on duty, Antoine, brought over. Amy also questioned Uncle Chuck. "Yeah, he was in a real big hurry to get to the lab. And Uncle Chuck told them.
Brian walked over to Rotor who was putting a new case on Brian's computer. "Rotor, you about done?" Rotor put another screw in and turned around. "Yep, I made scamatic's of all the major circuit junctions and replaced the capacitors." Brian patted him on the shoulder. "Cool. Do you have the blueprints for the robotisizer?" Rotor walked over to the wall and pulled a 12 inch by 12 inch book from a shelf. "Here. Are you starting construction?" Brian shook his head. "I need to find out how this thing works, and see if I can make it better." Rotor chuckled. "God luck. It took the best minds on Mobius 15 years to develop what your looking at right now. "Yeah, and my money says I can make it lean and mean, but not a killing machine." Rotor shook his head. "Well, if you need help, I'll be in the back room. Rotor left Brian sitting by the bench, a note pad out, frantically scribbling.
A few hours later, Rotor came out of the back. He decided that he was leaving early, as everything he had to do was done. He walked over to where Brian was sitting, still writing . "Hey, I'm going to--whoa!" Sitting next to the notebook Brian was writing in was 2 others. When rotor flipped through them, they were all full, every single line. "Find anything interesting?" Rotor asked Brian, his voice dripping with saurcasm. "Yeah, I discovered..." Brian paused to write down some more. "...This is...going to take...forever...and a day to... figure out!" Brian picked up the notepad he was using and slammed it down. He put his hand on the table and dropped his head on top of it. "This fucking thing is more complex that it needs to be." Rotor reached into his jacket and layed his keys on top of Brian's notes. "Lock up when your done and leave the keys in the mailbox. OK? Good luck!" Brian nodded, and continued writing.
Tails walked into the lab about 20 minutes after Rotor left. "Hey Brian, How you doing?" Brian jumped in his seat. "Tails! I didn't here you come in!" Tails walked over to the lab bench and sat down. He picked up a notebook and glanced through it. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted to talk to you for a sec." Brian nodded and continued writing. "About what?" Tails sat the notebook back on the pile. "Uncle Chuck told me whats wrong." Brian sighed and sat down his pen. "It's nothing anyone can do anything about. I might as well do what I can to help you guys out before I become too sick from the toxins." Tails pounded his fist on the table. "Stop thinking so negative! There has got to be a way out of this!" Brian just shook his head. "The implant was never meant to need repair or be replaced. It was supposed to be so durable it could last forever...I guess that was wrong." Tails shook his head. "You havn't been here a week and already all the senior Freedom Fighters trust you! They let you bring back our main enemy just because you said he was your brother." Brian raised his head. "How is Ian anyhow?" Tails looked confused. "Who?" Brian shook his head slightly. "Snively, his real name is Ian Floyd. At least it was..." Tails sighed. "I'm sorry. He's still in a coma. The funny thing is, it wasn't caused by you striking him. Dr. Quack said it's being caused by Snive-Ian's brain. Anyway, the doctor said that he should come out of it in a day or two." Brian slowly nodded. "Me and him...We have a lot to talk about..." Brian sat there looking off into the distance. "Brian, It's alright to be afraid, fear in a situation like this is only natural." Brian again nodded his head slowly. "It's not that I'm afraid of dying...It's that I still want to see tomorrow." Tails nodded. "There's nothing wrong with that. It's called survival." Tails stood up. "It's getting late. I'm gonna get going. Later." Tails turned around to walk out the dor but Brian stopped him. "Tails..." Tails turned and looked at the man. "Yeah?" Brian scrached the back of his head. "Be careful. You don't want you or Amy to get hurt. Just be safe." Tails looked shocked. "How did you know about me and Amy? Not even Sally noticed!" Brian smiled. "I have very keen senses. I'll see you tomorrow." Tails noddedn his head. "Good night, Brian." Brian cracked his knuckles and sat back down to write again. This was going to be a long night.
Brian glanced up from his fifth notebook to his watch and saw that it was almost 2 in the morning. He looked down at his notes. Every theory and every idea that was behind robotisization were now in these notebooks that he had spent the night tirelessly writing so that he might find something to cling to, some fragment of a distant hope. But he found none. The only thing he could do was hope that the leak in the power cell didn't get any worse. If it didn't, it was likely he could live out at least 2 more years before he became too sick to work, and then die in 3. Not much, but something... "Damn it all to hell...It's useless." Brian grumbled to himself, even as he collected his notebooks and walked over to the drafting board to begin working on his design for the revised robotisizer. He knew it was going to be a long night and he wanted some coffee. He checked Rotor's office, but the door was locked. 'Damn, it looks like I'll have to go to the kitchen. He grabbed the keys off the table and walked out of the lab, closing and locking the door behind him.
Brian walked into the kitchen and looked around. No one was there so he just grabbed a coffee pot off the front table and went to the instant machine in the corner. Brian put the pot unger the spout and held the button down. A stream of black liquid came out of the machine and began to fill the pot. Brian sighed and knocked his head on the surface of the machine lightly. A minute later he drew his head back and looked at the pot. 'Almost full, god enough...' Brian thought as he turned around holding the pot handle. He walked out the door, unaware that someone was watching him.
Brian stood in front of the drafting board, a prototype drawing of the main control board for the robotisizer in front of him. He placed a hand on his forehead and sighed. This was taking a lifetime of study and research and putting it into a couple of weeks, maybe less. "But it's happining," Brian said to himself. "It's really happening..." Brian put down the pencil and ruler he had been drawing and writing with. "Fuck this, I'm going to sleep." Brian said. He picked up the keys Rotor had given him and shut off the lab's lights. He turned and walked out the door, locking it behind him. He began heading toward his hut. 'With the regularlator shut down, I might actully sleep normal... I've already begun to get my normal appitite back.' Brian thought as he walked in his front door. He shuffled toward his room, kicking off his shoes on the way. He sat down on his bed and took off his socks. He layed back and pulled the covers over his body. He slowly, but steadly, fell into Dream-State sleep for the first time in what seemed like a million years, although his dreams were only a couple of light-years and a few thousand years away.