Chapter 12
The sky is falling
Voices crying out in desperation
Hear them calling
Everybody, save yourself!
-Plumb, Late Great Planet Earth
_____________________________________
I had no idea if the others had taken a Ghost. I had no way of contacting them, because we had no radios or communicators. All I knew was that Knuckles and I were late in keeping our half of the plan--half an hour late. But if all the Shellizaas in Diamonda were after us, there would be no one watching the Ghosts.
We were a long way from the white crystal and Sulfire's cage. The crystals around us were red with six sides. "Red," panted Knuckles. "This can't be a good section. Red is for war and violence."
"Like echidnas?" I panted. He smirked. We kept running.
We were passing out of the red section and entering violet when the monkeys appeared. They lived in the red crystals, and came swarming out to join the mob, running on all fours. "I hate it when you're right," I said.
"Me too," said Knuckles. "Almost there, now."
We weren't, but he said it to reassure me. We kept running, but I was tiring. I was packing forty pounds of metal, and did not have the stamina to run half the city. Knuckles took my hand and towed me along. Blast this body of mine! It always let me down.
I turned my left hand into my laser pistol, and aimed a blast into the crowd behind us. A monkey screeched and doubled over, clutching a foreleg. Good, the more apes out of commission, the better. I fired more shots, each striking at random among the mob. What I wouldn't give for Jazz's T-D-1.
We zigzagged down side streets and followed thoroughfares, and the mob began to slow down and pant for breath. I sneered back at them. They were like Devan Shell--lots of brains and not much brawn. Hadn't Jazz said something about them all being his handpicked cronies? Who knows what nefarious things they had been working on until now.
We arrived at the dragon's cage with a three-block lead, and Knuckles and I were sucking wind. I had to stand with my hands on my knees and gasp for breath, but Knuckles had the energy to climb up on the cage foundation and examine the lower lock.
The dragon lowered its head and sniffed him. "There are many enemies pursuing you."
"I know," I heard Knuckles snap. "How do you open this?"
I straightened up and climbed up on the foundation with Knuckles. Now that my breath was returning, I could examine the latch while keeping an ear out for the muffled roar of the mob.
The latch was a pair of vertical sliding bolts. It took Knuckles and me to lift them and open the latch. Then we looked at the other latch, twenty feet above us.
"Can you climb these bars?" I asked Knuckles.
He tried, but his knuclaws couldn't get a purchase on the smooth metal. He slid back with a curse, then looked at me. "What do we do?"
I looked at the dragon, which was watching us with red eyes glowing in the afternoon light. "Could you lift us up?" I asked timidly, thinking of the monkey it had dispatched. The dragon looked at its paws, then extended one, palm upward.
Knuckles and I stepped through the bars and climbed onto the dragon's hot paw. It lifted us to the level of the latch, and it took me a moment to gather the nerve to stand up. It was horrifying being within the power of a creature so dangerous. But the dragon was gentle with us, and held its paw against the bars so we could reach the latch.
We grasped the two bolts, and heaved.
Nothing happened.
We tugged, lifted, and twisted the bolts, but they did not move. Upon closer inspection we found a keyhole. "Of course!" I said, laughing. "You need a key to open it! Of all things!"
At the bottom of the latch was a round hole where the peg slid through. Knuckles knelt and peered inside it. "We might be able to work the mechanism from here," he said, sliding his hand up inside. He fumbled with it a moment, eyes fixed on the horizon. "Yeah," he said, withdrawing his hand. "Zephyer, reach inside there. You'll feel a little gear that moves. Hold it to one side and let me try the bolts."
I did as he said and felt the little gear. I pushed it, and Knuckles heaved open one of the bolts. At that moment the mob arrived at the foot of the dragon's cage. We must have looked odd, kneeling on the dragon's scaly paw, which was held so high. The dragon focused its semi-psychic attention on them, and some of them cowered. But others pushed to the front, pulled out concealed guns, and began firing at us.
"Hurry, Knux," I said as he strained to lift the remaining bolt.
"I can't," he grunted. "There must be another gear--"
The dragon's claws flexed. "I will push," it rumbled, and set its enormous weight against the door.
Everything happened at once. The bolt snapped before I could withdraw my hand from the inside of the lock, and some part of the mechanism clamped down on my arm. I screamed. The dragon lowered its paw and set Knuckles aside without looking at him, its attention focused on the Shellizaas. It flung the gate open and exploded into the open with a roar. The mob scattered.
I found myself dangling by one arm from the open door, twenty feet above the pavement.
I was not concerned about how high I was, or the chaos raging below me. What worried me was the pain. I had not had any feeling in my body since being robotized, and even when I did, it was distant, like pressure or vibration. But this was a horrid pinching, close and personal, as if my arm were being crushed in a vice. I dangled from the lock as the gate gently swung back and forth. The dragon was gone by now, but I could hear it roaring. There were no Shellizaas in sight, except for three unfortunate individuals who had taken the brunt of the dragon's wrath.
Hanging there, I was sorry I had released it, and wished I had gone home, the way Knuckles had wanted.
"Zephyer?"
I looked down and saw Knuckles standing below me.
"What happened?"
"The lock closed on my arm," I said, trying to hold back tears. It hurt, and I was unaccustomed to pain.
"Can you pull it out?"
I reached up and tried to pull free, but something tore and a lightning bolt of pain licked down my arm. I squealed and stopped, tears running down my face. "No, I'm trapped." I imagined myself a year from now, still hanging from the lock...
Knuckles gazed up helplessly. "Can you move your fingers?"
I gave them a half-hearted wiggle inside the lock. "Yes."
"Can you feel anything?"
I moved my hand, but could not tell if I was touching anything or not. The pain came in flashes and pulses every time I moved a finger. "I don't know." The lock was broken and I was trapped, that's all there was to it.
"Zephyer," said Knuckles, squinting at the lock, "push down the bolt nearest you."
I stretched my good arm toward it. Fresh pain stabbed my trapped arm, but I had to do something. After two tries I seized the top of the bolt and hung from it, willing it to slide through.
For a long minute nothing happened. Then I felt the pressure on my arm weaken as the gears turned. My arm slipped free. For an instant I hung from the bolt, then lost hold, fell and landed on the cement.
If I weren't robotized it would have pulverized me. As it was, it jarred my legs, but all I cared about was my arm. Between my wrist and elbow was a square dent, as if my arm had been squeezed in the middle. But the bad part was the blood oozing out from underneath my metal and trickling across my hand. I had never seen that happen before.
Knuckles looked grave. "We need to get you home."
"Yes." All I wanted was to shut myself indoors, where all the corners were parallel.
He took my good arm and guided me around the vast, empty cage and up a vacant street. In the distance were rumbles, crashes, and muffled roars from the dragon. There was not a Shellizaa in sight. I didn't blame them for hiding, but then I thought of the way they had attacked us. Maybe they were trying to recapture the dragon. As we walked, I heard a roll of thunder from the cloudy sky.
"Knuckles, are they going to die?" I asked.
"Maybe," he said. "The dragon is really ticked off--I still don't think we should have let it out. And I don't think taking justice into our own hands is a good idea, either."
"Why?" I asked.
He shot me a glare. "Who are we to judge them, Zephyer? We come from a long line of warmongers, ourselves. Do we have the right to condemn these people for things our own people have done?"
Of course not. But that was what I had done, blindly following Jazz's vendetta. "No," I whispered.
"So I finally got through to you," said Knuckles. "Why do you think I've been dragging my feet? Unfortunately, you don't listen to me until you've been knocked around."
We walked in silence through the crystal city. The pain in my arm was overwhelming my senses, making thinking difficult. I had condemned all these turtles to death. Then the stubborn part of me reared up and snarled that if they had not taken our chao and committed atrocities against humans, I would not have cared about them. But maybe it wasn't my place to avenge the humans and chao. After all, this wasn't my argument; it was Jazz Jackrabbit's.
As these thoughts drifted through my mind, Knuckles was leading me at a trot through Diamonda. We were near the center and had half a mile to go. The splitting agony of my injured arm was swallowing the rest of my consciousness. Fascinated, I watched the blood seep from under the crushed paneling, trickle across my curled hand, and drip to the pavement. After a while it mingled with raindrops. I looked up to see that a curtain of rain was being drawn across the crystal tops.
Time was passing. I looked around, the awareness piercing the mists in my head. What time was it? How long had the dragon been out? The sky was low and gray, and the rain had plastered my dreadlocks to my back. Knuckles was drenched. He was looking this way and that, squinting, lips moving as he worked out where to go. I sank back into the mist where there was nothing but the pain that came with every heartbeat. Knuckles would take care of me.
I resurfaced sometime later and found myself climbing the hill on the outskirts of Diamonda. I wondered how we had got there so fast, then realized my feet ached from walking. I had passed the journey in a trance. The pain in my arm was less, but I might be going numb from shock. Well, if that would deaden the pain, I could handle shock.
It seemed to take a long time to reach our camp, and still longer to walk to the trees. I did not know why Knuckles was taking me to the trees, other than it was shelter from the rain, until I saw a group of people huddled in the shadow of the grove. Knuckles led me under the branches and made me sit on the ground, then walked off to Sonic, who was standing watch with his spines slicked down by the rain.
The humans and I stared at each other. I knew they were rescued slaves, but I was past caring. There were fourteen of them, and all had a scar on their backs or arms where chaos machinery had been implanted. None were over fifteen, and some had claw-scars on their bare skin. They were all dressed in thin, expensive clothing, which clung wetly to their bodies.
Zinc and Chimera were there, too. Zinc left the lap of the child holding him and ran to me. He touched my crushed arm, then looked up at me with grief filling his eyes. As he climbed into my laps, I looked at the slaves again.
"Where's Kita?" I whispered.
The children looked at each other, then the boy closest to me said, "She's not here."
I turned my head and looked at Diamonda, which had smoke billowing from it in places, despite the rain. Kita had not been rescued.
The slaves twitched, and I looked up to see a Ghost descending out of the cloudy sky like an aerial manta ray. It extended three legs and landed, and Tails crawled out of the cockpit. He got up and staggered to Sonic, who caught him as he fell. Sonic half-carried Tails toward us and laid him down under the trees. I wondered what had happened to him.
Some of the children moved up and sat around him, stroking his damp fur in a wide-eyed, worshipful way. He smiled and didn't move. Hurt or not, he knew they were thanking him.
Sonic walked up and stood looking at us. His ears were laid back in an anxious expression. "Zeff, Tails couldn't find Kita. She's ... not in Diamonda."