ADAPTION chapter seven
Sonic muttered to himself about heights as he climbed. He looked over his shoulder; Knuckles was directly below him, then Tekno, then Rouge, "Hey, Rouge! Any idea how much farther we have to climb?"
Rouge clicked her tongue again, "Not much, another twenty feet maybe."
Sonic, mildly elated by the prospect of getting solid ground under his feet, started climbing a little faster.
As he reached the top he slowed and looked carefully over the edge.
Nothing, it was pitch dark up here, but then, it was pitch dark everywhere down here. He swung himself up over the edge and stood up. A moment later Knuckles climbed over the edge. They both leant down and gave Tekno a hand up, but Rouge refused it, she was an excellent climber anyway and needed no help.
Tekno switched her flashlight on again and moved it slowly around the tunnel they were now standing in.
They were all startled when the light passed over a chamber containing what looked like a sleeping figure.
"What the.?"
Knuckles moved over to it and looked in, taking the torch from Tekno.
"Whoever he was. he's very dead."
The others moved closer and agreed, on closer inspection the figure was definitely not sleeping. He was floating in the centre of the tank, perfectly preserved. Bits of wire were sticking out of him at odd angles; parts of him seemed to be made of metal. Those bits of him that were still flesh were emaciated, there was no muscle left on his body. The worst bit though was the wire trapped round his throat; it was wound so tightly that his head was nearly severed.
Tekno shuddered, and turned away. The others followed after a moment's contemplation.
There were more of them as they walked down the hall, on both left and right, all dead, some the same as the first, others simply having died of less visible means. All looked emaciated though, as if they had been in there a long time before they passed away, it gave the suspicion that those with wires wrapped round their throats had committed suicide. It was a chilling scene.
After maybe two hours of walking Sonic started to say something, but the words died in his throat when he caught sight of something moving ahead of them.
Whatever it was, it moved closer and stopped just outside the range of the torchlight. For a moment there was a hint of metal and flesh, then only shadows, and a rasping voice.
"What are you doing here? Who are you?"
Another voice joined it, "Why are you come?"
There was movement all around them, as figures that had been invisible in the shadows slowly revealed themselves, though all stayed out of range of the torch.
The freedom fighters were surrounded by low mutterings in a hundred different voices, young and old, male and female. With the muttering there was the faint sound of metal scraping on stone, the swish of what were probably wires, or tails. Once or twice there was a glint of emerald green.
Knuckles and Sonic both felt the change in the air around them, both felt the unseen presence of the master emerald, and knew what it was they had found.
Porker slowly opened his eyes. The room was dark, silent, the air old and musty. There was an oppressive feeling in the air that made him think of the many times he had been underground.
He sat up and looked around. It was dark, but not so dark he couldn't make out where he was. The small room was obviously one of the dungeons from the old map; the walls were old limestone, grimy and damp, the floor covered in old rotting rushes and hay. In one corner there was a suspicion of manacles and a long heavy chain attached to the wall at one end.
He was lying on an old wooden plank, hanging from the wall at a right angle, held up by thick chains, rusted with time, looking for all the world as if they would drop him any minute. He swung his legs over the end and stood up, swore as his head hit the low ceiling.
Rubbing his head, and wishing he had gone with the others instead of giving into his fear and staying behind, he crouched and tried to figure out what the hell had gone wrong.
Obviously Bowen had captured him, and he had used one of the NeoBorgs to do it. What puzzled him was the way she had apologised to him before she knocked him out. He thought for a moment and then wondered how the hell they had found the safe house as well.
The only thing he could think of was that someone had told Bowen which of the files he was hacked into at the precise moment he'd left the room. And that was impossible, because only he and Tekno knew.
He sighed and sat on the driest part of the damp floor he could find to puzzle it through. It was his way of ignoring the fear that was encroaching upon his very being.
Dr Bowen looked up at Amy and Tails in their separate rejuvenation tanks. He had noticed the energy flow increase in their outputs and was wondering about it all the more. When he looked at Sampson's this morning he had become suspicious, her output was identical to theirs.
He had missed something, and it irked him.
Something different had happened to these three that hadn't happened to all the others, and he meant to find out what.
He turned round and slammed open the door to the hall. There was no one around so he stalked down the hall and opened the door that led to below, he switched the light and carefully followed the stairs down. When he reached the bottom a few minutes later he turned right, grabbed a torch from an alcove and followed the hallway until he reached another doorway.
He pulled out a key on a length of chain from his pocket, unlocked the door, stepped through and closed it behind him, locking it again he switched on the torch and followed a second set of stairs down then along a hall to the left until he saw a candle, burned almost to the base.
The candle was lighting up an ancient oak doorway, giving some light through the tiny barred window. He looked inside, Porker was curled up in the damp floor, apparently asleep, using his rolled up jacket as a pillow.
Bowen unlatched the doorway and opened it, stepping inside he kicked a small stone from the floor at Porker.
"Wha.?"
Porker sat up bleary eyed, saw Bowen and scooted backwards until he hit the wall. He stopped there and looked at Bowen in panic.
"What do you want with me?"
Bowen smiled down at him, lifting the torch to shine in his captives' eyes. Porker lifted a hand to block the light and blinked at him.
"I just want to ask you a few questions my friend."
"We have been here for so long now it feels like this is the only way we have ever lived."
The freedom fighters had been taken to the dungeon homes of Bowens' failed experiments, it had taken a further half hour to reach them. Apparently, the instant they had reached the top of the ladder the NeoBorgs' had known, and had been following them, watching their every move. When they had gotten too close to the living area, that was when the Neo's had revealed themselves.
"Why don't you escape? Leave this place? You could live anywhere on Mobius, you could go home, why stay here?"
The Neo's all shook their heads sadly. Sonic and Knuckles had been taken to the leaders of the group, leaving Tekno and Rouge to talk with the remaining cyborgs.
"You do not understand our plight. Even though Bowen has forsaken us, forced us to live down here like rats, we are still connected to him. The programming he forced on us may not be complete, but it holds us to him, his every word is our command, and he commanded that we stay here and do only as he says. Therefore we cannot leave."
The girls looked at them in sympathy.
"So that's why you still take part in the raids of villages around Mobius? Bowen still made use of you now and then?"
The one who had explained it to them nodded and Rouge shook her head in sympathy. Tekno leaned forward, "May I.?"
The same one nodded and held out his hand, it was made entirely of metal, as was his entire arm. Wiring was threaded through it here and there, crisscrossing over the metal muscles, serving as replacements for veins and arteries.
Most of the NeoBorgs around them had at least one metal appendage, some were more metal than flesh, there were a very few who had escaped the rampaging nano technology.
Tekno looked closely at his arm and turned the hand over, palm upwards. She was surprised when there was a glint of green in his palm. "Oh! The emerald shard.?"
He nodded. "But. The emeralds in the new NeoBorgs are all embedded in the chest."
"Yes, there are a few of the latest of our family that have it in the breast bone, but most of us the emerald was merged into a random part of the body. Back at the beginning of his experiments there was no order, no rhyme nor reason to the way he created us."
Tekno and Rouge looked around at the NeoBorgs, every one of them moved aside a part of their clothing, a glove or an eye patch, revealing the emerald shard.
"It's horrible, what he did to you all." Rouge said quietly, "How? How could someone do something that terrible.?"
Sonic and Knuckles were given the same story by the leaders, in slightly more detail. Each one of them had been carried away by the first or second wave cyborgs almost a year ago, they had all been placed in glass chambers filled with a green liquid, gone through intense pain and woken up with emeralds embedded in parts of them, and those unfortunate enough, bits of their very bodies ravaged by the nano tech.
Every one of them retained their memories, in whole or in part, they all knew who they were, had been before the experiments, but every one of them had to live through the horror of no longer controlling their bodies, a simple word from Bowen would send their minds into confusion, and they would come out of it with no memory of what they had done.
Sonic had reeled when they first met these leaders, as the chief of them he recognised. It was the NeoBorg who had taken Amy and Tails only a week ago, Sonic remembered him perfectly, from the glowing green eyes, to the nano- ravaged arms.
It had taken some time for him to calm down and listen, but Knuckles managed it by pointing out the fact that these people had no idea what he was on about, they remembered nothing of what they did when Bowen commanded them.
"We believe that now he has perfected this experiment of his, he will send for us and have us killed, slaughtered like cattle."
The other leader nodded, "He has no more need for us, we have become obsolete since he perfected the merging. The only reason he kept us in the first place was so we could collect more victims for his trials."
The two freedom fighters nodded, "If there was any way we could help.?"
Knuckles raised his eyebrows at them all.
"No, the only way you could help us would be by killing Bowen and his underlings. We would never again have to listen to their voices, do as they command."
Sonic gave Knuckles a look, "Well, to put it simply, that's one of the reasons we're down here. We're trying to find a way into the labs, to destroy them and kill Bowen" Knuckles frowned at him, there had been no mention before this of killing Bowen, as far as he had been concerned, finding the NeoBorgs was what they had come here to do. Sonic had been hiding the way he felt from them all, and that was unlike him to say the least, there was a quiet fury in his voice now that made Knuckles shiver.
The NeoBorgs were all pleased at his words and decided amongst themselves a guide to take the team to the higher levels.
"OUF!"
Porker thudded against the far wall of a new room, higher up in the building, and slid down it until he was sat limply, leaning on it for support. His jacket was thrown at him; he didn't flinch when it landed on his up drawn knees.
Through tear filled eyes he looked around, the room was a sterile white, floor to ceiling; the door was stainless steel and the only way in or out.
Bowen had taken him up to the laboratories, waiting inside them were two other doctors, a shifty looking man and smart uptight woman.
They'd strapped him to a chair and pumped him full of some drug that nearly knocked him out, made him lose all self-control. He had answered every question they asked, he'd been unable to stop. They now knew everything, from Melissa to Amy and Tails, to Sonic and the others in the dungeons below them.
He rested his head on his knees and closed his eyes, gripping his jacket in tight fists.
".I'm sorry." He whispered to the silent room.
".sorry."
Sonic muttered to himself about heights as he climbed. He looked over his shoulder; Knuckles was directly below him, then Tekno, then Rouge, "Hey, Rouge! Any idea how much farther we have to climb?"
Rouge clicked her tongue again, "Not much, another twenty feet maybe."
Sonic, mildly elated by the prospect of getting solid ground under his feet, started climbing a little faster.
As he reached the top he slowed and looked carefully over the edge.
Nothing, it was pitch dark up here, but then, it was pitch dark everywhere down here. He swung himself up over the edge and stood up. A moment later Knuckles climbed over the edge. They both leant down and gave Tekno a hand up, but Rouge refused it, she was an excellent climber anyway and needed no help.
Tekno switched her flashlight on again and moved it slowly around the tunnel they were now standing in.
They were all startled when the light passed over a chamber containing what looked like a sleeping figure.
"What the.?"
Knuckles moved over to it and looked in, taking the torch from Tekno.
"Whoever he was. he's very dead."
The others moved closer and agreed, on closer inspection the figure was definitely not sleeping. He was floating in the centre of the tank, perfectly preserved. Bits of wire were sticking out of him at odd angles; parts of him seemed to be made of metal. Those bits of him that were still flesh were emaciated, there was no muscle left on his body. The worst bit though was the wire trapped round his throat; it was wound so tightly that his head was nearly severed.
Tekno shuddered, and turned away. The others followed after a moment's contemplation.
There were more of them as they walked down the hall, on both left and right, all dead, some the same as the first, others simply having died of less visible means. All looked emaciated though, as if they had been in there a long time before they passed away, it gave the suspicion that those with wires wrapped round their throats had committed suicide. It was a chilling scene.
After maybe two hours of walking Sonic started to say something, but the words died in his throat when he caught sight of something moving ahead of them.
Whatever it was, it moved closer and stopped just outside the range of the torchlight. For a moment there was a hint of metal and flesh, then only shadows, and a rasping voice.
"What are you doing here? Who are you?"
Another voice joined it, "Why are you come?"
There was movement all around them, as figures that had been invisible in the shadows slowly revealed themselves, though all stayed out of range of the torch.
The freedom fighters were surrounded by low mutterings in a hundred different voices, young and old, male and female. With the muttering there was the faint sound of metal scraping on stone, the swish of what were probably wires, or tails. Once or twice there was a glint of emerald green.
Knuckles and Sonic both felt the change in the air around them, both felt the unseen presence of the master emerald, and knew what it was they had found.
Porker slowly opened his eyes. The room was dark, silent, the air old and musty. There was an oppressive feeling in the air that made him think of the many times he had been underground.
He sat up and looked around. It was dark, but not so dark he couldn't make out where he was. The small room was obviously one of the dungeons from the old map; the walls were old limestone, grimy and damp, the floor covered in old rotting rushes and hay. In one corner there was a suspicion of manacles and a long heavy chain attached to the wall at one end.
He was lying on an old wooden plank, hanging from the wall at a right angle, held up by thick chains, rusted with time, looking for all the world as if they would drop him any minute. He swung his legs over the end and stood up, swore as his head hit the low ceiling.
Rubbing his head, and wishing he had gone with the others instead of giving into his fear and staying behind, he crouched and tried to figure out what the hell had gone wrong.
Obviously Bowen had captured him, and he had used one of the NeoBorgs to do it. What puzzled him was the way she had apologised to him before she knocked him out. He thought for a moment and then wondered how the hell they had found the safe house as well.
The only thing he could think of was that someone had told Bowen which of the files he was hacked into at the precise moment he'd left the room. And that was impossible, because only he and Tekno knew.
He sighed and sat on the driest part of the damp floor he could find to puzzle it through. It was his way of ignoring the fear that was encroaching upon his very being.
Dr Bowen looked up at Amy and Tails in their separate rejuvenation tanks. He had noticed the energy flow increase in their outputs and was wondering about it all the more. When he looked at Sampson's this morning he had become suspicious, her output was identical to theirs.
He had missed something, and it irked him.
Something different had happened to these three that hadn't happened to all the others, and he meant to find out what.
He turned round and slammed open the door to the hall. There was no one around so he stalked down the hall and opened the door that led to below, he switched the light and carefully followed the stairs down. When he reached the bottom a few minutes later he turned right, grabbed a torch from an alcove and followed the hallway until he reached another doorway.
He pulled out a key on a length of chain from his pocket, unlocked the door, stepped through and closed it behind him, locking it again he switched on the torch and followed a second set of stairs down then along a hall to the left until he saw a candle, burned almost to the base.
The candle was lighting up an ancient oak doorway, giving some light through the tiny barred window. He looked inside, Porker was curled up in the damp floor, apparently asleep, using his rolled up jacket as a pillow.
Bowen unlatched the doorway and opened it, stepping inside he kicked a small stone from the floor at Porker.
"Wha.?"
Porker sat up bleary eyed, saw Bowen and scooted backwards until he hit the wall. He stopped there and looked at Bowen in panic.
"What do you want with me?"
Bowen smiled down at him, lifting the torch to shine in his captives' eyes. Porker lifted a hand to block the light and blinked at him.
"I just want to ask you a few questions my friend."
"We have been here for so long now it feels like this is the only way we have ever lived."
The freedom fighters had been taken to the dungeon homes of Bowens' failed experiments, it had taken a further half hour to reach them. Apparently, the instant they had reached the top of the ladder the NeoBorgs' had known, and had been following them, watching their every move. When they had gotten too close to the living area, that was when the Neo's had revealed themselves.
"Why don't you escape? Leave this place? You could live anywhere on Mobius, you could go home, why stay here?"
The Neo's all shook their heads sadly. Sonic and Knuckles had been taken to the leaders of the group, leaving Tekno and Rouge to talk with the remaining cyborgs.
"You do not understand our plight. Even though Bowen has forsaken us, forced us to live down here like rats, we are still connected to him. The programming he forced on us may not be complete, but it holds us to him, his every word is our command, and he commanded that we stay here and do only as he says. Therefore we cannot leave."
The girls looked at them in sympathy.
"So that's why you still take part in the raids of villages around Mobius? Bowen still made use of you now and then?"
The one who had explained it to them nodded and Rouge shook her head in sympathy. Tekno leaned forward, "May I.?"
The same one nodded and held out his hand, it was made entirely of metal, as was his entire arm. Wiring was threaded through it here and there, crisscrossing over the metal muscles, serving as replacements for veins and arteries.
Most of the NeoBorgs around them had at least one metal appendage, some were more metal than flesh, there were a very few who had escaped the rampaging nano technology.
Tekno looked closely at his arm and turned the hand over, palm upwards. She was surprised when there was a glint of green in his palm. "Oh! The emerald shard.?"
He nodded. "But. The emeralds in the new NeoBorgs are all embedded in the chest."
"Yes, there are a few of the latest of our family that have it in the breast bone, but most of us the emerald was merged into a random part of the body. Back at the beginning of his experiments there was no order, no rhyme nor reason to the way he created us."
Tekno and Rouge looked around at the NeoBorgs, every one of them moved aside a part of their clothing, a glove or an eye patch, revealing the emerald shard.
"It's horrible, what he did to you all." Rouge said quietly, "How? How could someone do something that terrible.?"
Sonic and Knuckles were given the same story by the leaders, in slightly more detail. Each one of them had been carried away by the first or second wave cyborgs almost a year ago, they had all been placed in glass chambers filled with a green liquid, gone through intense pain and woken up with emeralds embedded in parts of them, and those unfortunate enough, bits of their very bodies ravaged by the nano tech.
Every one of them retained their memories, in whole or in part, they all knew who they were, had been before the experiments, but every one of them had to live through the horror of no longer controlling their bodies, a simple word from Bowen would send their minds into confusion, and they would come out of it with no memory of what they had done.
Sonic had reeled when they first met these leaders, as the chief of them he recognised. It was the NeoBorg who had taken Amy and Tails only a week ago, Sonic remembered him perfectly, from the glowing green eyes, to the nano- ravaged arms.
It had taken some time for him to calm down and listen, but Knuckles managed it by pointing out the fact that these people had no idea what he was on about, they remembered nothing of what they did when Bowen commanded them.
"We believe that now he has perfected this experiment of his, he will send for us and have us killed, slaughtered like cattle."
The other leader nodded, "He has no more need for us, we have become obsolete since he perfected the merging. The only reason he kept us in the first place was so we could collect more victims for his trials."
The two freedom fighters nodded, "If there was any way we could help.?"
Knuckles raised his eyebrows at them all.
"No, the only way you could help us would be by killing Bowen and his underlings. We would never again have to listen to their voices, do as they command."
Sonic gave Knuckles a look, "Well, to put it simply, that's one of the reasons we're down here. We're trying to find a way into the labs, to destroy them and kill Bowen" Knuckles frowned at him, there had been no mention before this of killing Bowen, as far as he had been concerned, finding the NeoBorgs was what they had come here to do. Sonic had been hiding the way he felt from them all, and that was unlike him to say the least, there was a quiet fury in his voice now that made Knuckles shiver.
The NeoBorgs were all pleased at his words and decided amongst themselves a guide to take the team to the higher levels.
"OUF!"
Porker thudded against the far wall of a new room, higher up in the building, and slid down it until he was sat limply, leaning on it for support. His jacket was thrown at him; he didn't flinch when it landed on his up drawn knees.
Through tear filled eyes he looked around, the room was a sterile white, floor to ceiling; the door was stainless steel and the only way in or out.
Bowen had taken him up to the laboratories, waiting inside them were two other doctors, a shifty looking man and smart uptight woman.
They'd strapped him to a chair and pumped him full of some drug that nearly knocked him out, made him lose all self-control. He had answered every question they asked, he'd been unable to stop. They now knew everything, from Melissa to Amy and Tails, to Sonic and the others in the dungeons below them.
He rested his head on his knees and closed his eyes, gripping his jacket in tight fists.
".I'm sorry." He whispered to the silent room.
".sorry."
