***
Sonic awoke in a dark place. He lay where he was, his head throbbing, inhaling the scents of foreign herbs and a strange room. Was he in Knothole? It must be the middle of the night, for it was pitch black. There were muffled voices outside ... the whole village must be awake.
He tried to turn his head and discovered his head was pinched between two pieces of wood. The tiny movement sent a hot pain through his neck. He tried to move his arms and discovered they were in casts. And his legs...
Below his waist was nothing. It was as if he had been cut in half--there was nothing there. Why was it so dark? He wanted to see! He struggled feebly, but stopped when pain erupted throughout his body. But there was no pain from his legs. Where were his legs?
"Hello?" he croaked. He heard a door open and several people walk in. It must be very dark outside, for he saw no light from the opening door. Or maybe his eyes were bandaged.
"He's awake," said one voice in surprise. Sonic felt a hand touch him lightly on the chest, and another on his forehead. "Lie still. We've got your head in a vice. Your back is broken."
"You ... the doctor?" Sonic asked, struggling to form words.
"Yes, I'm Doctor Ranith."
"My ... legs?"
There was a pause, and Sonic's stomach knotted. "Paralyzed?" he whispered.
"Yes," said the doctor. "We lack the facilities to treat you better, but my assistant says she knows a treatment for spinal injuries. If we act fast, you may regain the use of your legs in the next few days."
Another pair of hands touched Sonic's face, and a cup was held to his lips. "Drink this," said a raspy female voice. "It's the beginning of the treatment."
Sonic drank it, although it tasted like mud mixed with grass. He didn't want to be paralyzed. He wanted to run. As the cup was withdrawn, he relaxed and lay still. How had he got here? His memory was scattered like broken pieces of a mirror, with only bits and pieces here and there. He remembered a wooden railing, and the glint of the sun on metal, and a feeling of fear and desperation. But trying to connect the pieces made his head pound.
"Try to rest now," said the doctor's voice. "We'll check in when it's time for the next draught."
They left him alone in the dark with his pain and his fragmented thoughts. His arms hurt, his sides hurt when he inhaled, and his head was throbbing as if something had hit him. His back hurt whenever he tried to move. He wanted to go back to sleep, but now that he was awake, the pain was horrible. He half wished that it were worse so he would faint and escape it.
After a while he heard the door open and heard the light, trotting footsteps of someone young. "Hi," said a girl's voice. "I'm Amy. My dad found you. What's your name?"
"Sonic." At least he still knew his name.
"Where ...?"
"Dad calls it Petra, but everyone else just calls it Home. This is one of the caves. We all live in caves here."
"What time ... is it?" he asked her.
"Oh, five or six. The sun's not down yet."
His breathing sped up. Oh no. He didn't need this, oh no, please. "But ... it's dark."
He heard Amy's breathing in his ear as she leaned close to him. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
Darkness. Pitch darkness.
"Can't see."
"Oh my gosh," said Amy. "You must be blind."
The blunt statement in an honest little girl's voice tore through Sonic's brain like a lightning bolt. Blind. He was blind. Paralyzed and blind. The two absolute worst things that could ever happen to him.
Lying there, helpless and suffering, he began to cry.
***
Amy sat on a stool beside the shelf where the blue hedgehog lay, and was distressed to see his tears. She had never seen boys cry before. Girls, yes, but not boys. She had always assumed boys didn't know how to cry. But now this poor stranger was crying, his useless eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"Don't cry, Sonic," she said, wiping his face, for he could not move his arms to do it himself. "You'll get better. Skratcher can cure anything."
"Blind," he whispered, incapable of voicing the horror and shock he felt.
Amy patted his cheek the way her mother did, and whispered, "Shh. It'll be all right."
She sat with him until he slipped into an exhausted sleep. Then she left the cave and found Ranith standing outside. He had overheard everything.
"He's blind," she told him.
"Yes," he said heavily. "I wondered if he might have some brain swelling. His sight may return in time, and it may not. But at least he's alive."
"Yeah," said Amy, looking over her shoulder at the bandaged hedgehog on the bed. "Poor, poor Sonic."
***
Sally sat at the table in the underground war room in Knothole, staring at the wall. Sonic was nowhere to be found. They had combed the canyon for him until she and Bunnie were ill from the heat. Sonic was gone.
The only explanation she had was that another robot had come behind Robotnik and taken Sonic's body to Robotropolis. It was a thin theory, but might explain why Robotnik had chased herself and Bunnie into the woods. But that could also be attributed to Robotnik's malicious sense of humor.
She rested her head in her hands and cried for a few minutes. Then she resumed staring at the wall as her thoughts chased themselves in circles. Sonic must have been taken to Robotropolis. In which case he may have been robotized already. She could check the records.
Sally opened Nicole's screen and instructed her to make a wireless connection to the mainframe. The computer did as instructed. "Sally, air quality is poor in Robotropolis today. Connection may be faulty."
"Okay. Look for robotization records," said Sally. Dealing with bad air quality was an everyday occurrence. The only time the city's air pollution problem cleared up was during a winter windstorm.
Nicole displayed the latest robotizer records, and Sally studied them. The robotizer had last run at 8:35 AM, before the race had taken place. Neither Sonic nor Tails had been robotized, she was relieved to see. She commanded Nicole to search the medical records (maybe one of them had been committed to Robotnik's "experimental" hospital?), but came up nil. Record-wise, Robotropolis had been quiet lately.
Uh oh.
She paged back through the records. Yes, activity had dropped off sharply a little over a week ago, about the time she had bombed the refinery. A drop in activity precipitated some new scheme of Robotnik's, as his attention wandered from tormenting Mobians to constructing some horrible machine.
She called up factory charts and invoices, and saw that production had been increased. He was building something ... lots of them. She tried to access the current design database, and hit a password prompt. These things were always password protected. "Nicole, decode encryption," she said.
"Working, Sally," replied the computer.
Halfway through the decryption process the connection was terminated, and Sally had to reconnect. She restarted the decoder program and waited, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. If Robotnik tried something, without Sonic or Tails it could be difficult to stop him. She felt crippled without having Sonic to run a recon mission. iOh Sonic, where are you?/i
The decryption finished, and Sally accessed the design database. The things being built looked like tanks with chainsaws protruding from the front. This chainsaw could swivel in any direction. There were also hovertrucks in production, all with flat beds.
She paged through the designs, and made the connection. Robotnik was going to assault the Great Forest itself.
Frantically she searched for something that would tell her how many units had been produced. Maybe there was still time to sabotage them. Maybe they could stop production.
She found a table of numbers, and studied it.
Two minutes later she was pounding on the door of Rotor's workshop. The walrus let her in, trying to pretend he had been working and not standing about, planning futile attempts to find Sonic.
"Rotor," she panted, thrusting Nicole into his hands, "we need to find the biggest weakness these machines have."
He looked down at a mechanical drawing of a tank with a chainsaw. "What's this?"
"It's part of a logging unit," said Sally. "The first squadron is coming today. They're going to cut down the Great Forest."
Sonic awoke in a dark place. He lay where he was, his head throbbing, inhaling the scents of foreign herbs and a strange room. Was he in Knothole? It must be the middle of the night, for it was pitch black. There were muffled voices outside ... the whole village must be awake.
He tried to turn his head and discovered his head was pinched between two pieces of wood. The tiny movement sent a hot pain through his neck. He tried to move his arms and discovered they were in casts. And his legs...
Below his waist was nothing. It was as if he had been cut in half--there was nothing there. Why was it so dark? He wanted to see! He struggled feebly, but stopped when pain erupted throughout his body. But there was no pain from his legs. Where were his legs?
"Hello?" he croaked. He heard a door open and several people walk in. It must be very dark outside, for he saw no light from the opening door. Or maybe his eyes were bandaged.
"He's awake," said one voice in surprise. Sonic felt a hand touch him lightly on the chest, and another on his forehead. "Lie still. We've got your head in a vice. Your back is broken."
"You ... the doctor?" Sonic asked, struggling to form words.
"Yes, I'm Doctor Ranith."
"My ... legs?"
There was a pause, and Sonic's stomach knotted. "Paralyzed?" he whispered.
"Yes," said the doctor. "We lack the facilities to treat you better, but my assistant says she knows a treatment for spinal injuries. If we act fast, you may regain the use of your legs in the next few days."
Another pair of hands touched Sonic's face, and a cup was held to his lips. "Drink this," said a raspy female voice. "It's the beginning of the treatment."
Sonic drank it, although it tasted like mud mixed with grass. He didn't want to be paralyzed. He wanted to run. As the cup was withdrawn, he relaxed and lay still. How had he got here? His memory was scattered like broken pieces of a mirror, with only bits and pieces here and there. He remembered a wooden railing, and the glint of the sun on metal, and a feeling of fear and desperation. But trying to connect the pieces made his head pound.
"Try to rest now," said the doctor's voice. "We'll check in when it's time for the next draught."
They left him alone in the dark with his pain and his fragmented thoughts. His arms hurt, his sides hurt when he inhaled, and his head was throbbing as if something had hit him. His back hurt whenever he tried to move. He wanted to go back to sleep, but now that he was awake, the pain was horrible. He half wished that it were worse so he would faint and escape it.
After a while he heard the door open and heard the light, trotting footsteps of someone young. "Hi," said a girl's voice. "I'm Amy. My dad found you. What's your name?"
"Sonic." At least he still knew his name.
"Where ...?"
"Dad calls it Petra, but everyone else just calls it Home. This is one of the caves. We all live in caves here."
"What time ... is it?" he asked her.
"Oh, five or six. The sun's not down yet."
His breathing sped up. Oh no. He didn't need this, oh no, please. "But ... it's dark."
He heard Amy's breathing in his ear as she leaned close to him. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
Darkness. Pitch darkness.
"Can't see."
"Oh my gosh," said Amy. "You must be blind."
The blunt statement in an honest little girl's voice tore through Sonic's brain like a lightning bolt. Blind. He was blind. Paralyzed and blind. The two absolute worst things that could ever happen to him.
Lying there, helpless and suffering, he began to cry.
***
Amy sat on a stool beside the shelf where the blue hedgehog lay, and was distressed to see his tears. She had never seen boys cry before. Girls, yes, but not boys. She had always assumed boys didn't know how to cry. But now this poor stranger was crying, his useless eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"Don't cry, Sonic," she said, wiping his face, for he could not move his arms to do it himself. "You'll get better. Skratcher can cure anything."
"Blind," he whispered, incapable of voicing the horror and shock he felt.
Amy patted his cheek the way her mother did, and whispered, "Shh. It'll be all right."
She sat with him until he slipped into an exhausted sleep. Then she left the cave and found Ranith standing outside. He had overheard everything.
"He's blind," she told him.
"Yes," he said heavily. "I wondered if he might have some brain swelling. His sight may return in time, and it may not. But at least he's alive."
"Yeah," said Amy, looking over her shoulder at the bandaged hedgehog on the bed. "Poor, poor Sonic."
***
Sally sat at the table in the underground war room in Knothole, staring at the wall. Sonic was nowhere to be found. They had combed the canyon for him until she and Bunnie were ill from the heat. Sonic was gone.
The only explanation she had was that another robot had come behind Robotnik and taken Sonic's body to Robotropolis. It was a thin theory, but might explain why Robotnik had chased herself and Bunnie into the woods. But that could also be attributed to Robotnik's malicious sense of humor.
She rested her head in her hands and cried for a few minutes. Then she resumed staring at the wall as her thoughts chased themselves in circles. Sonic must have been taken to Robotropolis. In which case he may have been robotized already. She could check the records.
Sally opened Nicole's screen and instructed her to make a wireless connection to the mainframe. The computer did as instructed. "Sally, air quality is poor in Robotropolis today. Connection may be faulty."
"Okay. Look for robotization records," said Sally. Dealing with bad air quality was an everyday occurrence. The only time the city's air pollution problem cleared up was during a winter windstorm.
Nicole displayed the latest robotizer records, and Sally studied them. The robotizer had last run at 8:35 AM, before the race had taken place. Neither Sonic nor Tails had been robotized, she was relieved to see. She commanded Nicole to search the medical records (maybe one of them had been committed to Robotnik's "experimental" hospital?), but came up nil. Record-wise, Robotropolis had been quiet lately.
Uh oh.
She paged back through the records. Yes, activity had dropped off sharply a little over a week ago, about the time she had bombed the refinery. A drop in activity precipitated some new scheme of Robotnik's, as his attention wandered from tormenting Mobians to constructing some horrible machine.
She called up factory charts and invoices, and saw that production had been increased. He was building something ... lots of them. She tried to access the current design database, and hit a password prompt. These things were always password protected. "Nicole, decode encryption," she said.
"Working, Sally," replied the computer.
Halfway through the decryption process the connection was terminated, and Sally had to reconnect. She restarted the decoder program and waited, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. If Robotnik tried something, without Sonic or Tails it could be difficult to stop him. She felt crippled without having Sonic to run a recon mission. iOh Sonic, where are you?/i
The decryption finished, and Sally accessed the design database. The things being built looked like tanks with chainsaws protruding from the front. This chainsaw could swivel in any direction. There were also hovertrucks in production, all with flat beds.
She paged through the designs, and made the connection. Robotnik was going to assault the Great Forest itself.
Frantically she searched for something that would tell her how many units had been produced. Maybe there was still time to sabotage them. Maybe they could stop production.
She found a table of numbers, and studied it.
Two minutes later she was pounding on the door of Rotor's workshop. The walrus let her in, trying to pretend he had been working and not standing about, planning futile attempts to find Sonic.
"Rotor," she panted, thrusting Nicole into his hands, "we need to find the biggest weakness these machines have."
He looked down at a mechanical drawing of a tank with a chainsaw. "What's this?"
"It's part of a logging unit," said Sally. "The first squadron is coming today. They're going to cut down the Great Forest."