CHAPTER 32: Meeting Again

"What a day," Amy said to herself as she filled in the ledger forms for the restaurant's various asset and expense accounts. Beside the ledger book was the general journal, from which she was taking the information she'd gathered from various source documents, such as the tape from the register, invoices, etc. Off to the side of her desk, she had unwisely placed her cup of coffee. It was only half-empty/full, but there was still enough to make a serious mess of the papers on the desk should it tip over. "Talk about busy... As if the thought of Sunday isn't enough to make me wanna go home and knock myself out." A few seconds later, a loud noise outside her door made her jump. Tails peeked his head in a few seconds afterward, one eye covered with a gauze pad and some electrical tape. His entire body was covered in flour, and a small cloud began to float in through the door.

"Might wanna be a little careful when you come out, Amy," he said. "Lance slipped and dropped a huge sack of flour. It's everywhere out here."

"Alright, thanks for warning me," Amy said. She pointed at the gauze pad. "How's your eye doing?"

"Still stings a bit, but it's doing better," Tails said. "If I'd been any quicker, the rock might've hit me dead-on and REALLY screwed me up."

::FLASHBACK::

"Hey Miles!" Clyde called out from behind Tails during Ag class.

"Shut up, Clyde!" Tails snapped as he jerked around to glare at Clyde- and got nailed right in the face by a rock thrown just as Clyde had called Tails by his real name. The rock hit the corner of his left eye, just barely missing his eyeball. Clyde was dragged off to the principal's office while Tails was sent to Mrs. Broome, who felt that the bleeding welt warranted gauze and tape. The medical tape sucked, though, so Tails made a mental note to replace it with better tape after school.

::END FLASHBACK::

"You've really got to do something about those guys," Amy said. "I mean, keep it within reason, but you need to get them to stop somehow. The last thing I want is to hear that those jerks took it too far and you wound up hospitalized."

"I'm working on it," Tails said. "Looks like it'll probably have to go on a little longer before I get what I'm shooting for, though."

"Do I wanna know what you're shooting for?" Amy asked.

"Someone to follow me everywhere I go from the moment I step onto campus till the moment I leave," Tails said.

"Good luck," Amy said, "because you'll need it."

"Maybe I'll get that lucky," Tails said. "Oh, by the way, we're only about fifteen minutes from closing time, and the last customers just left. Want us to go ahead and close everything up?"

"Yeah, you can go ahead and do that," Amy said. "I doubt anyone's gonna have time to come in, order something, wait for you guys to fix it, then shovel it down."

"Alright," Tails said. He pulled his head back out to the hall and closed Amy's door behind him. About four seconds later, Amy's phone rang.

"Crap," Amy said. "At this rate I'll never finish." She picked up the phone and held it to her ear. "Thank you for calling Rose's Diner, Amy Rose speaking. How may I help you?"

"Amy, this is Vector, from Chaotix Detective Agency," Vector's voice replied.

"Oh my God," Amy said. "I'm so sorry, I forgot to pay you for your help."

"Don't worry about that," Vector said. "That's actually not why I called. I've been busy ever since you asked me to dig around for information about weapons developers. That's actually the issue I wanted to discuss with you."

"You found something?" Amy asked.

"Well, I didn't find anyone with a skull logo, but I found apossible candidate," Vector said. "If the guy who attacked you still has you in his sights, you're in real danger. This line could be bugged, too. I'd prefer to speak to you in person. When's the soonest we an arrange that?"

"We're just closing up here," Amy said, "so I'm free any time tonight."

"Can you be here in maybe thirty minutes?" Vector asked.

"Yeah," Amy said. "That won't leave me time to drop one of my employees off at home, though, so would it be alright if I brought him along?"

"I'd prefer it, actually," Vector said. "It's probably best if you have someone with you as much as possible until we know whether or not this thing's over."

"Okay," Amy said. "I'll see you in thirty." After a quick exchange of goodbyes, Amy got up, chugged the last of her lukewarm coffee, then left her office. Tails was just walking past with a push-broom, cleaning up the flour. Amy pointed at the wall. "I'll ask Katie to finish that up, Tails. We've gotta leave a little earlier than I thought. I just got a call concerning that robot we asked you to check out the other night."

"Glad you could come," Vector said as Amy and Tails walked into the brightly-lit office. "Didn't happen to notice if anyone was tailing you on the way here, did you?"

"No," Tails said shortly. Amy giggled slightly. Charmy looked up from a table off to one side, glanced at the new arrivals, then shook his head before returning to his math book.

"What- oh," Vector said, realizing what he'd just said: asking about people tailing them in the presence of a two-tailed fox. "Sorry, pun not intended."

"You said you'd found some stuff out, right?" Tails said.

"Yeah, I was getting to that," Vector said. "Might wanna sit down, because this'll take a few minutes." Amy and Tails promptly sat down in front of Vector's cluttered desk. "First off, I did an Internet search on major weapons researchers, manufacturers, and distributers. Almost everything I turned up tied into pro- and anti-gun control arguments."

"Frickin' liberals," Tails muttered.

"Both sides were just as guilty as the other," Vector said. "I came up with a few names, and after I sifted through them, I found one that sprang up much more recently. Its name is DefTech. It's supposedly a defensive weapons researcher, manufacturer, and distributer, all in one. Its market would be the government, but I did a little digging of my own variety and found out that they've made a few shadier deals on the black market. Not prefabricatedmerchandise, either. Designs. Blueprints."

"To who?" Amy asked.

"The files didn't say," Vector said. "The buyer or buyers were listed as anonymous."

"Why would they list illegal arms sales in their computerized sales documents?" Tails asked. "Why not just keep them on paper?"

"The government requires big dealers like that to record all their transactions on computers," Vector said. "They also go in periodically and check out the written documents, just in case. Normally this wouldn't be allowed, but these are some big players we're talking about."

"Wouldn't the government require them to give the names of the buyers?" Tails asked.

"They would, but they could get away with it if they were never given a name to begin with," Vector said. "I still haven't figured out how they could answer the very obvious questions of 'Why did you sell without a name' and 'How did you sell without a name', but apparently they did. My only guess was that they sold them C.O.D. to a random dealer on the black market, didn't bother with a name, then left him to do his own thing. I would think they'd be shut down and charged with treason for that, since it could have gone to some enemy country, but that hasn't happened either. I would guess that's because they've got something the government jerks really want to get their paws on, and they won't dare shut DefTech down until they get it."

"Did the records say what kinds of weapons?" Amy asked.

"Not really," Vector said. "I personally don't see how any of these can be considered defensive weapons, but the records indicated that some kind of new detection gear, very powerful handheld weaponry, and prototype robotic equipment were among the big sellers."

"Robotics!?" Amy and Tails exclaimed in unison.

"Hey!" Charmy yelled. "Keep it down! This is hard enough without the noise!"

"Sorry," Amy said to him, then turned back to Vector. "Did they say what kinds of robotic equipment?"

"Nope," Vector said. "I figure, though, if someone knew how, they could adapt the detection stuff and weaponry for use by robots and create a pretty effective combat force."

"Hm..." Tails began, crossing his arms over his chest. "That would explain a little bit. If it was a prototype, that might explain its poor shielding, and the defective internal explosive."

"Yeah, it's possible," Amy agreed.

"Well, that's about all I found out about DefTech," Vector said. "I did some digging through news articles ever since DefTech sprung up. I figured that whoever bought the blueprints would probably need some rather exotic stuff to build them with. I think I was right. My search turned up a bunch of articles about break-ins at high-security government facilities and secret materials being stolen. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they probably were."

"Weapons," Tails said.

"Weapon components, more like," Vector said. "I doubt the government would just keep weapons locked up. I would think they'd be more keen on using them. There was a massive theft of explosives at a nearby army surplus store not long ago. Did you hear about that?" Both Tails and Amy shook their heads. Vector turned his monitor around to face them, showing the article. He went on, saying, "I'm pretty sure it's related. The range of items taken was pretty specific. C-4, timed detonators, remote detonators, and the like. Last month a load of radio transmitters disappeared en route to the base in the next town. The truck and driver were found in the bottom of a lake by someone practicing SCUBA diving. Those would probably work with the detonators. Also, for some reason, something else caught my eye." Vector turned his monitor back and brought up a different article, then showed it to Tails and Amy.

"Thirty people disappeared at one time!?" Tails read, shocked.

"I don't know why, but I think it could be related, too," Vector said. "What's worse is that the article mentions that over the past couple of years, the same thing has happened dozens of times. The police think that the victims didn't always disappear at one time, though the articles didn't mention why, but they think that they all went to the same place. Some days, as many as fifty missing person reports would be filed within a few hours. A few people have reappeared ever since, though."

"That's good," Amy said. Vector shook his head.

"They were found dead," he said solemnly. "Recently, a couple of bodies were found devoid of any tissue except for bones and some skin clinging to the bones. The skin on each body had very small amounts of some kind of corrosive or digestive fluid in it. DNA tests indicated that they were the Greenes. I did a search on that name, and it turns out that they were among the first reported missing."

"God, what could have happened?" Tails asked.

"I don't know, I really don't," Vector said.

"I'm DONE!" Charmy exclaimed from his table. Everyone look over at him, and Amy noticed he seemed to be looking at the corner Espio had been occupying when she had first hired him to keep an eye on her, rather than looking at Vector, Tails, or herself.

"Good job Charmy," Vector said. He picked up his credit card and tossed it to Charmy. "Go get yourself a hamburger or something. I haven't seen you eat anything all day."

"Okay!" Charmy said with more than a little enthusiasm, then he sped out the door.

"Uh, can you really trust him not to spend everything you've got?" Tails asked.

"I've got a spending limit on it," Vector said. "Keeps me from going overboard with it. Keeps him from doing it even more than it does me. Besides, I keep track of how much I've got, and he knows that."

"Oh," Tails said.

"Does he usually look at the corner when he says he's done?" Amy asked.

"He wasn't kidding at the funeral when he said he'd go to school and do all his work and everything," Vector said. "Guess he thinks Espio's spirit is in the corner watching us or something. Much as I'd like to think the same thing, my head doesn't quite reach as high as the clouds. But anyway, I think I've gone over pretty much everything I wanted to tell you. I'll do some more digging around, but I'm not sure if it'll do much good at this point. I've got this gut feeling that anything else worth knowing regarding this whole situation probably hasn't happened yet."

"We'll see," Amy said, standing up. Tails did the same, and Vector. "I guess at this point the only thing we can do is wait and see."

"Yeah," Vector said. "Keep me posted about anything you think is important, alright? I'll see if I can't start putting all this together and figure out who's doing it."

"I will, don't worry," Amy said. At this point, her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse and answered it. "Hello?"

"Amy, it's me," Rouge's voice said. "Is Tails with you? I already tried his place, but I just got the machine."

"Yeah, he's with me," Amy said. "Why?"

"I went to visit Knuckles today," Rouge explained, "and when I got there, Sonic was already there. We talked for a minute or two, then a robot armed with a shotgun and a 40-millimeter grenade launcher tried to blow us away! We took it down alright, but we wanted Tails to look at it and see what he could find out. It's got a skull emblem on it, and from what Sonic said, you've seen that emblem before."

"Where are you now?" Amy asked.

"We've dragged the robot down to Tails's storage unit," Rouge said. "We didn't want to stick around, in case more showed up."

"Alright, I'll tell him," Amy said. "We'll be down there as soon as we can." Amy hung up, then looked at Tails.

"What's wrong now?" he asked.

"Another robot with a skull marking attacked Sonic, Rouge and Knuckles," Amy said.

I have two things to say:

1. If you thought I was done with the Chaotix boys ever since Espio died, shame on you.

2. Enjoy. Feedback is obviously much appreciated. Also, please note that I'll be going out-of-state for a while, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to get my next chapter up, which is why this one came so soon after the last one.