This "Echidnaopolis" place seemed to imitate a giant blur.
Echidnas of every shape, size and description—wearing every manner of aesthetically repulsive "clothing"—wandered around in seeming mindlessness. Lights of every color in the visible spectrum shone from every possible point of purchase. Wailing sounds—Knuckles realized with a shock that some considered it music—echoed forth from every meeting point of roads. There were enormous numbers of roads here, and every one of them was covered in echidnas.
Of course, Knuckles noted with pride, there was really no way to overload his systems. He could always pick out any sound or sight or smell he so desired. The cornucopia of choices offered to him did not trump his abilities. He was thankful for that. What bothered him, rather, was that there was no way to judge the countless individuals that were swarming over and around him. Actions were the only way to judge a person's morality, and he never saw enough of any single echidna to come to any conclusions. This irritated him to no end.
"That round building," Myla suggested. Knuckles led her forward. He was unaware that he was violating the organized "flow" of traffic; however, given his nakedness and muscular, intimidating appearance, all echidnas were giving him a wide berth.
Once inside, Knuckles realized he had no idea what to do. Myla did, however, and walked straight for a wall. He saw that on every wall were glowing panels of light with pictures and what he recognized as words.
Myla glanced back at him, turned to the panel, and raised a paw. Knuckles couldn't quite see what she was doing, but he supposed her paw was under her clothing. The next thing he knew she had a small bag in her paw and was placing its contents into a slot in front of her.
Knuckles had no idea what any of that meant, but as soon as Myla was done an echidna appeared on the panel of light. "Hello," it said.
"Hello," Knuckles replied, but Myla shushed him.
"Would you like a run-down of today's top stories, sports info, classifieds, or a search for a specific news item?"
"Run-down," Myla said.
"Please," added Knuckles.
Myla shook her head more, but the echidna on the panel understood. "In today's news, our top stories are:
"One. A new study finds that species on Earth's other seven continents may be developing sentience! Fluke, flawed study, or something to fear?
"Two. The investigation into the alleged double-dealing of the Master of the People continues. Was he in the wrong? Does anybody care? Should you care? We'll tell you!
"Three. The latest numbers show that crime is still going up, but our poll shows people are getting more used to it. Moral complacency and you—stay tuned!"
(Knuckles mentally cursed his own species in every way he knew how. Why did he have to be related to such dangerous, insane, immoral monsters?)
"Four. This report is hot! There is a report that certain sections of Echidnaopolis are missing! More on this as it develops.
"Five. The demand for energy increases, causing rolling blackouts in some colonies. A debate has begun as to how to solve this energy problem.
"Six. Today begins a series of experiments that could change society as we know it! Learn more about the marvelous item we have discovered, the Servant Jewel."
"That one!" Knuckles blurted.
"Why that one?" asked Myla.
He grimaced, then leaned in closer and whispered. "Whatever language an animal speaks, I can tell when he is speaking about the Master."
"That giant jewel you told me about?" she said, whispering in return (to Knuckles' gratitude).
"Yes. We must learn about this—especially as to why he called it the Servant Jewel." Knuckles had a great fear about that nomenclature, but he'd wait to draw his conclusions.
Myla did something to the panel of light. The echidna stopped talking, but then began again. His words held Knuckles bound in mute terror.
"The Servant Jewel is a gigantic emerald, larger than an echidna. It was discovered only recently. When it was found at an excavation sight, scientists quickly realized that immense powers are locked inside. They theorize that if they can release this power, all of our recent problems with energy will be alleviated and any future problems will never come to pass. Given the weight of this great experiment, it will be held in the center of Echidnaopolis in the famous "Hidden Palace" laboratories. As they will require quite a bit of power, these are located directly above our primary geothermal power plants. The experiment will begin around 10 a.m. today.
"Residents are advised not to leave the capitol, as there is nothing to fear from this experiment."
"That's it," whispered Myla.
"They tampered with the Master," Knuckles said. "Somehow it removed them from time—banished them from the planet. Thus the full power of the Emerald was never unleashed."
"But it's begun coming back. Whatever was keeping Echidnaopolis banished has weakened, and it's breaking down. Everything is coming back like it was." She looked at him in horror. "Everything's coming back thinking it's 10 in the morning. That means the laboratory will come back at the moment they begin the experiment!"
He caught her meaning and her horror with it. "They will unleash the Emerald a second time. The damage they could render is unimaginable! They cannot control the Emerald—they proved that already. But it is a Child of Chaos; there is no way the same outcome could occur again. I feel it will be far, far worse. If the Master is unleashed, it will destroy this island and everyone on it certainly, and no one knows how much more!"
"Way too much anyway you look at it."
He nodded. "We must return to the Hidden Palace as quickly as possible. I must join with the Master and find out how to stop this disaster. Come!"
She nodded. She grabbed her sack and returned it to its spot—down the front of her dress.
This drew Knuckles' attention, for the first time, to her breasts.
With some effort, Knuckles stifled his reaction. He had more important things to think about! There was no way to exorcise his thoughts, but he could contain them for the time being. "Come with me," he said, his voice betraying the struggle in his mind.
He exited the building. As he ran, he felt a paw on his shoulder. Glancing back, he saw it was Myla's. He realized that she'd thought ahead—that contact would ensure that he knew she was there. His appreciation for her increased.
He mentally checked his distance to the Emerald. Cross-checking with the position of the sun, he soon had his exact location. He had a plan on how to get to the Hidden Palace quickly. As he looked down, however, he realized it might be harder than he thought. How could he dig through who-knew-how-deep rock?
He stopped abruptly. She ran into him, but it didn't affect him in the least. He turned to face her. "Can we get down somehow?"
"Down where?" she said, shouting to be heard over the noise.
But Knuckles' attention had just been diverted, for he heard someone crying, "Stop! Thief!"
Knuckles knew all about thieves, and whirled to find the one in question. There! There was an echidna, bleeding and lying prone upon the road, pointing vainly at the back of another.
No, Knuckles grimly corrected, not in vain.
He catalogued both echidnas' appearances in a heartbeat, the launched into the air.
It was difficult, in the thick crowd, to avoid echidnas, but not insurmountable to so skilled a gymnast as Knuckles. He whirled, leapt, ran, and occasionally crashed through the crowd. To him, it was almost amusing—he was so active, moving laterally so much, yet he was gaining on the echidna in front so very quickly.
He caught the echidna before it could even get to the next intersection of roads. Caught it and ran it down. All the way down, into the ground, where the echidna's breath burst from its lungs like the snap of a tree branch.
Knuckles ripped the stolen article—a container of sorts—out of the echidna's hands and stood. He backed away a few steps, wanting to move away but too experienced to turn his back. The echidna got to its feet, snarling.
She—the echidna thief was a she, Knuckles noted for reference—tried to pull a knife from its clothing without being seen. Very amusing, Knuckles thought—so incompetent. She rushed him.
She ran right into his kicks.
The first one connected with her chin. The blow snapped her head up and killed her momentum. Her rush was ended, and she was stunned.
Knuckles had the advantage. He drove it home without even thinking about it. He planted the foot that had kicked, pivoted, and finished her off.
The second kick was a side kick, launched with the full energy of leg and buttocks. It hit square in the chest, between the breasts—form perfect, maximum impact. The energy was such that the blow knocked her into the air. She flew several echidna-lengths over the crowd that had gathered until she hit the side of a building.
Knuckles idly wondered how many bones he'd broken.
He turned and saw the echidna that had been robbed. He pressed the container into his hands, saying, "Take better care of it—there are few such as I," and walked to where Myla was patiently waiting for him.
"Good job. I wish I could have helped, but you did fine. You wanted to go down?" she said.
"Yes." The compliment, while superfluous, felt good.
She pointed. "There!" He tracked her finger to a metal circle in the middle of the road. Upon closer inspection, he saw the grips on it. Obviously they were too small for his hand, but his fingers should be able to do it.
He walked to the circle, stripping his gloves. He turned to Myla, saying "Hold these, please." She was staring at his hands, he realized. In another moment, he realized why—she'd never seen his hands with his gloves off, and they looked—Knuckles had to admit—rather grotesque. The barbs weren't knuckle barbs per se; they grew directly out of his paw, out of the same bones that connected to his fingers. They weren't covered with skin, they were simply exposed bone—a jarring, dull white against his red fur. He knew that he would be repulsed, if he didn't live with them.
Even so, she managed to grasp his gloves. That taken care of, he turned, slipped his fingers into the holds, and easily pulled the circle out. He then turned to Myla, the circle in his hands. "Shall we exchange?" he said.
Despite herself—Knuckles could see her resisting, to no avail—she laughed. He dropped the circle and took back his gloves, quickly putting them back on. "So, what are we doing?" she asked.
"Going down," he said. He noticed that, although most echidnas were staying far away from him, three echidnas dressed alike were headed purposefully in his direction. Rather than risk a conflict with more of what he guessed to be hoodlums, he dropped into the hole.
He was absolutely correct in his knowledge of where he was and what he was in; he was absolutely wrong in his guessing what it would be like. For this was—he saw it, reassuringly, marked on the wall—the Hydrocity Inc system.
And, by the Master, it stank!
Even though he wasn't in the main waterway—he was standing on a service pathway above it—the stench abused his sense of smell worse than any natural stench he encountered under normal circumstances. It smelled like concentrated dung, though he wasn't quite sure why that would be.
Knuckles toned-down his nose nerves quite a bit as he called back to Myla, "Come! Hurry!"
She dropped in; he made sure to catch her. She obviously hated the smell as much as he did. "Phew! Why are we in the sewer?"
"It is the fastest way," he replied, "and normally it does not smell like this."
"Normally in your world, right?"
"Yes. Not in this world. Hold on to my shoulders," he said. "This path will lead to where I am familiar. Then we will be able to get to the Hidden Palace."
He ran down the pathway at a moderate speed, carefully watching his footing, until he came to a brighter area. He knew, internally, that he was getting very much closer to the center of the island; that showed in the sudden shift in the Hydrocity Inc's look. Luminous fungi, cultivated by Knuckles, kept the area fairly well-lit, while the pathways were far cleaner. Unfortunately, the water was not; the water from the city's sewer had flown down here and contaminated the normally crisp water below. Nevertheless, the smell was far less revolting than before.
Knuckles found what he was looking for: a small carved wooden thing, floating in the water. Knuckles referred to it as a bark, for it was hollow; it seemed to him like bark without a tree.
Knuckles rarely, if ever, used it, as he preferred to run. In this case, though, he realized it offered numerous advantages, not the least of which was a chance to release the Emerald and ease the strain on his mind. Under the circumstances, he found this appealing.
The bark was large enough to hold them both, as Knuckles pointed out to Myla. Soon they were both in the bark, floating down the deceptively swift current, headed for the center of the island.
In this moment of relaxation, Knuckles' mental barriers came down. Instantly, his thoughts ran wild. The lot of them was trumped by the single thought from earlier.
The notice of Myla's anatomy.
He shivered, for the intensity of the incident had not decreased for its long imprisonment. Feelings and emotions never before experienced flooded his whole body. He blocked them from escaping, holding himself from acting or saying anything, but the thoughts lost none of their energy. Rather, without outlet, they rattled around in his skull, crashing about like an angry rhino in a small cave.
This condition only intensified given the situation—they were alone in close quarters; he could feel her very breath upon him! That cold breath contrasted with the warmth of her body's heat, and the combination at this range was driving his mind out of control.
Knuckles caught a common thread, something all of these sensations had in common in either origin or purpose.
An urge to reproduce.
It shocked Knuckles—not for its obscenity, for that meant nothing to him, but in its audacity.
How could he possibly do such a thing?
A sudden physiological response gave him a pretty good idea of "how", but he distastefully stuffed the response—that hadn't been what he'd meant! His dilemma was more in the fact that the Master had neither prepared him for such an eventuality as this nor given instructions on how to handle it.
The Master was not intelligent. This Knuckles knew; for all the knowledge contained inside it, there were very little the Master had ever done with that knowledge. Very little it could do, to be sure. However, Knuckles' first memories were of receiving knowledge from the Master—all the sorts of knowledge he would need to defend it. No, not receiving; more like requesting. His memory began with the imperative to guard the Emerald, and he began asking questions of it. Questions it could handle; but it had no initiative of its own.
For that reason, he'd never had any knowledge concerning… whatever it was he was feeling now.
Attraction. Lust. Caring. Powerful emotions he'd never known.
Internally, he cursed yet again. He hated how she could produce such weakness in him!
And all of it because of a single moment in which he'd let his guard down!
He tried desperately to seek some kind of order to his thoughts. Myla did have several appealing characteristics, he admitted to himself—good intelligence, high morality, and (he noted quite hesitantly) some aesthetic appeal. If he were to choose a mate, he could do far worse.
But it was a weakness! A soft spot for Myla opened up avenues for attacks into him. Myla was not as strong as he; she would be a liability. He could see his attentions being split by a clever enemy. And if she were somehow corrupted, an attacker would have an easy way to strike at Knuckles—and thereafter the Emerald.
Yet there were other factors that he—against his better judgement—had to include in his assessment. Would he be weaker without her? Furthermore, what did SHE think about the situation?
In this situation, he relied upon Myla to help him grasp the world of echidnas. So, if she were to die suddenly, he would be weaker already. However, her presence was beneficial for more than her purposes as liaison; it seemed to balm him, to comfort him and aid him. It was hard to accept this; he'd hardly realized it as it happened, and he didn't want to believe it.
He had always felt better when he acted alone. He knew himself, and he knew he was reliable; he made no mistakes in judging his own capabilities. Somehow, ever since he'd met Myla, he'd concentrated on justifying his need to be alone. As he reviewed the past, in many cases he'd rejected her help and had looked for reasons to reject her. He'd degraded her to justify his solitary condition. He was no better than the echidnas that closed their doors to their neighbors.
And yet she had helped him. Even when she'd done nothing at all, her presence was both soothing and invigorating. To his astonishment, he felt that this, too, was desirable, almost necessary.
He had a hard time trying to project what his life without her would be like.
And he felt something—quite apart from the simple mechanics of mating, but tied to it—an emotion or mix of emotions somehow even more powerful than the brute urge to reproduce. It had existed for some time, his biology had ignited it, but it was there just the same and apart from biology.
Just as mating was the act of joining between creatures, so was this emotion the manifestation of the very real bond between him and Myla.
He could feel it! Elusive and immaterial it was, but as real as the bark beneath him, and strong as a burst of chaos energy.
The thought frightened him. Yet at the same time, it was very exciting. And that alone set him on edge.
There was one more unknown in his calculations. What did she think about him, their situation, or anything? He could not guess her thoughts; there wasn't even a way to tell if she felt back any of what he felt towards her.
He took that back. There was a way: ask her directly. However, Knuckles found that solution absolutely unacceptable-- for reasons he could not describe, even to himself.
He didn't want to make any conclusions now. This was good, as he felt that any conclusion would do more harm than good. Besides, it meant she would be with him a bit longer, at least. That notion had assumed unusual importance in his mind, but he had not the heart to fight it.