Beyond the secret door was a tall corridor held up by rounded arches every few feet. The tower above was styled as a grimy, no-frills mechanics-shop, but the walls down here whispered a sterile, sleek and metallic modern architecture. Light pods on the wall released green shadows into the dark tunnel and fluorescent tubes at her feet marked the pathway.
Lights. Rouge could not let this go: there were lights – or rather, spots where the darkness was not so deep. Down here, darkness prevailed. And there was more: the breath of ventilation and fresh air, and the omnipresent hum of electricity.
"He never left," she whispered. "He just went underground. This place is still working!"
Immediately, she merged with the shadows. Maybe The Doctor wasn't here himself, but something had to be guarding this secret stronghold. Final Egg still lived. The upper levels had been abandoned, but Robotnik must have prepared to hide and scheme here yet.
A sudden thought made her smile. How much was the knowledge of this bunker worth to the Intelligence Division? Wouldn't they be mad to know that while they searched the house, The Terrorist hid safe underneath the floorboards. If she could get out of here, then her snitching might be exchanged for amnesty.
Rouge moved with purpose: the exit was a priority, but so was assessing the capabilities of this secret base.
Robotnik had obviously designed the bunker as a last resort, because the floor plan was far too minimalist for his excessive preferences. The first floor was just a corridor leading to the freight elevator. Floor two was much the same, except that egg-shaped doors lined the hall, and slid open when they detected motion. Rouge slinked down a few of these, and found that the bunker branched out like an ant colony. There was a main tunnel, with adjacent pathways leading to large chambers. There seemed to be some method of organization to the secret base, because every room on floor two stored robots.
Deactivated, thankfully, and clipped into storage alcoves. There was a private stockpile of munitions and war-machines down here.
She skipped down to level five and promised to check the rest on her way up. It was the same dark and quite corridor, but down here, there seemed to be some action. Behind the walls, she could here the bleating and chirping of small animals, something like the commotion of a barnyard. Rouge intuited this floor to be a research facility, complete with test subjects.
She slinked about, wondering whether she could peek in on the metal scientists, when a door at her back swished open. Rouge ducked behind an archway. From her belt of goodies, she produced her makeup compact, with its hand-mirror just perfect for sneaking a look around corners.
A comical, toy-like badnik – perhaps an upgrade of the elite Eggrobo series – clomped into the hallway. Its body was cherry-red with pipe-cleaner limbs, and owned clunky hands and feet that looked like snow boots and oven mitts. The face, of course, was Robotnik's. There was no mistaking the pointy nose, moustache and mad grin.
the Super-Eggrobo carried a caged animal in its hands. It pivoted on perfect ninety-degree angles and marched up the hall. Rouge pressed herself into the corner, but her caution was unfounded: the lackey was so consumed with its duties, that it just clanked by with a blissful grin on its face. It didn't even give her a passing glance.
The little raccoon inside the cage did. Foaming at the mouth, it snarled and rushed the bars of its pen, trying to leap at the intruder. The animal charged with such force, and the Eggbot was so occupied in its marching, that the animal knocked its cage from the robot's hands. The little prison clattered to the floor and the raccoon dashed out the broken door with a rabid snarl. It jumped her.
The Eggbot stopped and inspected its hands. It looked around and found the empty cage on the floor. Its blue eyes flashed and swept across the floor.
Rouge was doing her best to keep quiet, but the raccoon had no such inhibitions: its paws were hooked into her boot and it shook a bite of leather in its mouth. She hissed and tried to nip the crazed thing by the back, but her fingers became interesting delicacies the moment they dropped near. Rouge didn't know what could be worse: catching rabies once the bugger gnawed through her shoes, or discovery and capture by the Eggbot.
The Eggbot was looking and listening, and its sensors picked up the scuffle a few archways back. It homed in on the sound with clomping footsteps.
Rouge saw there was only one chance. She went low and nabbed the striped tail, yanking with violent force. She threw the raccoon down the hall and dashed its body against the floor.
The Eggbot immediately changed course and followed the flying rodent like a homing beacon. It marched straight on to the opposite side of the hallway and picked up the body. Rouge held her breath and waited.
The badnik stared at the unconscious animal in its hands, beeping and whirring as though something was amiss. It stood tall and swept its blue eyes around the room. Rouge tensed.
Footsteps stomped for her position. Oh rats! Rouge sighed and loosened up for combat.
Eggbot jogged past Rouge with nary a glance and retrieved its dropped cage. It stuffed the lump of fur back inside, and resumed its militant strides down the hallway and to a far-off room. The doors hissed open, shut.
Rouge exhaled. She staggered out of the shadows and let her hand rest on one of the many egg-shaped doors. What a close call!
The door beneath her fingers slid open and she lost her balance, falling until she caught herself on the chest of the Eggbot opening the door. The 'bot looked down at the thing caught on its chassis and let out a few curious beeps.
So much for stealth. Rouge jumped and kicked the robot in the head. It tipped and crashed to the ground, flailing its limbs like an overturned turtle. She bolted through the doorway and dashed down the dark hallway. She didn't stop until she reached the adjacent room.
A terminal on the wall with a big, green button called her attention. She mashed it, and an armor-plated security door closed off the room. Heavy locks bolted into place. The keypad screen flashed in the darkness: Lockdown Engaged.
Rouge guarded her back against the door and assessed the room. No computers, no crates, no robots. The room was all darkness, a black void orbiting the single source of light: a tube of glass. The luminous cylinder ran floor to ceiling with a circular control panel dominating the construct at waist level; it released a green glow, like a radioactive dye, into the blackness.
She squinted, and took edgy steps towards the tube, wondering if this was the power-source of the bunker. The glow of the device was impure: there was a black stain inside, silhouetting the eerie glow. Something was inside.
As she drew nearer, features came out: bubbles rose through the green tank, and cables dangled out of the ceiling and into the black outline at the container's core. Rouge stole closer, and the darkness took shape, sprouting arms, legs and a head crowned with sickles.
Her footsteps rippled through the cavern, and she brought herself right next to the glass coffin. She drew back and gasped.
"Shadow?"