S Peter Davis
All characters (C) SEGA, Archie and SP Davis 2004 (unless otherwise noted.
Used without permission
Four: Cityin the Sky
There's no sensation to compare with this,
Suspended animation, a state of bliss,
Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky,
Torn, tied and twisted,
Just an earthbound misfit, I.
- Pink Floyd
Shiny happy people holding hands,
Shiny happy people laughing.
- R.E.M.
TRUST
I
"Wake up, Sonic"
Sonic's eyes slowly opened, blinked twice, and stared at the chameleon standing over him.
"Where... are we"
The room was not familiar in the least. Strange, drab yet soothing decor all around. And, for the first time since before Sonic could remember, he was lying on a frightningly comfortable bed.
"You know!" Espio replied, a look of confusion on his face, "The hotel? The great friggin' resort in the sky"
"We're dead?" Sonic asked. Espio just threw a pillow at him. The hedgehog chuckled and picked himself up. "I remember. Heck, I haven't slept two nights in a row in the same place since January sometime... you just try that and see how much you remember in the morning"
Espio sat down on a sofa, throwing his arms up behind his head. His scales changed colour to match the decor. "Isn't this great! I've never stayed at a place like this before. Heck, I haven't spent a single night outta the desert all my life"
Sonic walked to a window and opened the blinds. "Yeah, well this is a far cry from the desert, buddy boy"
Clouds. As far down as the eye could see were clouds, enormous carpets of thick white cotton, and occasionally the hedgehog could catch a glimpse of the planet Mobius, far below. They were a very long way up, which was why it was called Stratospherion - The City of Clouds.
II
(When I see birches bend to left and right across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them)
Sonic didn't hang around in the Crux Desert for long after the unfortunate, terrifying encounter with his old enemy Mecha Sonic. He and Espio headed north to recover Cinos' trail, and after only a few days in the desert they began to see a dramatic increase in plant life. After a week, they came upon their first farm.
When they had well and truly returned to civilisation, Espio had wanted to meet with some of the locals to talk and perhaps score a few hot dinners, but Sonic had assured him that was a bad idea. It didn't take a powerful intellect to figure out why. When the two intrepid journeymen passed close by the villages and farms of these northern lands, many of the people became clearly nervous, even afraid. They retreated to their dwellings and worked the latches on their doors. It wasn't simply a paranoia of outsiders that caused this effect, Sonic had come to know this from his previous travels through the sparsely populated lands such as these.
Cinos had been through here.
In a way, the blanket of paranoia that cloaked their travels served them a benefit. Cinos was not a difficult individual to track if someone could only figure out the key. Such was his nature, Cinos left a trail of fear behind him just as sure as a rocket leaves a trail of smoke.
(But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that.)
Sonic found that trying to explain his quest to a steadfast atheist such as Espio was a difficult task. The chameleon always stopped short of ridicule when Sonic spoke of such things as the Old Ways and their implications for the stability of all existence. Espio, as amiably as possible, held to his convictions. Nobody could hack into the powers of the universe with a bunch of old rocks, no matter how many porcupines danced and chanted around them. A rock was a rock. And what Espio said made a lot of sense to Sonic, who had never exactly embraced Cinos' claims. At times, when the journey was hard and the rewards few, when Sonic was homesick and exhausted, the only thing that really stood between him and a total denial of the power of the Old Ways was his memory of how he had felt staring at the symbol on the stone deep within the Pit of the Chameleon Cabal. That symbol, that Rune, the way it seemed to bypass his eyes and slice directly into his brain like a scalpal.
That, and the powerful mental bond he had established with Espio in the dark of the caves, an experience unlike anything he had ever known.
(Often you must have seen them loaded with ice a sunny winter morning after a rain)
Espio spoke rarely of the Awakening, and every time Sonic attempted to bring it up, the chameleon changed the subject just as quickly as he was able. iThe topic frightens him/i Sonic realised/iit frightens him badly. There will be a time when you will need to talk about this, when you won't have a choice, but for now, let it rest. Let him work it out for himself. There is time./i Sonic couldn't let up about it in his own mind, though. He turned it over and over again, and when he went to sleep he dreamed about it. For a few moments, he and Espio had shared a mind. Telepathy was the territory of science fiction and children's fantasy, not to mention the schizophrenic and the insane. But was that what his Awakening had been? Not just telepathy, he figured, not a communication between minds, but a imelding/i of minds. It gave him shivers just thinking about it, but he couldn't put the topic on a shelf. It served as his first true taste of the scope of Cinos' operation.
(They click upon themselves as the breeze rises, and turn many-colored as the stir cracks and crazes their enamel)
One day, about two weeks after their departure from Newton, Sonic felt Cinos slide. His heart sank, for he knew that his twin's trail would dry up... and a few days later, it did. Cinos had vanished from their Mobius without a trace, and his trail came to a solid dead-end. Sonic didn't know for what reason his twin had slipped into the antiverse, but rather suspected that the dark hedgehog knew he was being followed. It seemed he would be a fool not to.
Espio did not understand the concept of the antiverse, and Sonic had a hard time finding the words to explain it. It was another world, and it was here, yet it wasn't here. You didn't have to travel to find it, you just had to slide into it like slipping between your bedsheets. At one time, Espio crossed his arms and asked Sonic to show him, to slide into the antiverse right here and now. And Sonic had tried, had made a genuine attempt to repeat what he had done in the basement of Hawke's Manse while Cinos' cultists glared at him with their dead eyes. But it was to no avail. It was easier to slide into one's own reality than out of it, and although Cinos appeared to have mastered the art of two-way travel, it was still lost on Sonic. This didn't help him to convince Espio he wasn't crazy.
Only a few days later, Sonic woke up from a horrific nightmare in the middle of the night, and knew instantly that Cinos had returned to their world. He had just slipped away long enough to cover his tracks, and Sonic feared that if he changed his route significantly, if he suddenly cut east or turned around, they would never find him again. It was a risk they would have to take.
(Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust)
Weeks passed, and Sonic and Espio came to the ocean. The gentle waves teased the rocky shoreline and stretched to an infinity out to the north, hugging the curve of Mobius' horizon like a wet blanket. iThat's all she wrote/i Espio had said, and the chameleon had appeared quite overjoyed, seeing the ocean for the first time in his life. Sonic wasn't quite so enthused. If they had hit the northernmost edge of the continent, then his dark twin's path really was a mystery.
All was not lost, however. Less than a day's journey along the coast brought them to a city - the first that Sonic had seen since Point Adrien. It was called Sun Port, a homely and friendly little seaside county, a great place to holiday. But despite whatever Espio may have thought, they were not here on vacation.
They spent a single night in Sun Port, and on the second day, they learned about Stratosphereon. A number of cruise ships passed through Sun Port's bustling docks as they made their way around Westerica's northern coastline, but none of them were quite like Stratosphereon. The City of Clouds was a cruise ship not of the sea but of the iair/i, a flying resort that carried thousands of people from one city to another every week. The ocean cut into the mainland to the west in a wide gulf, and Stratosphereon took six days to traverse it, moving between Sun Port and its sister city on the other side, Storm Port, and docking for the seventh as it refuelled and reloaded.
The best thing about Stratosphereon was that it was completely free to board. Accommodation and food aboard was a different story.
(Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away you'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen)
When Sonic saw the City of Clouds for the first time, he was struck instantly with a pang of homesickness. It looked a little like the Floating Island, the home of his sometime friend (and fulltime rival) Knuckles the Echidna. Knuckles would probably have been offended by the comparison, being that his was a natural paradise to contrast the highly manufactured-looking floating resort now before him, but it was easy to look at that massive hovering mass float in over the water in the early morning sunlight and swear that he was back home.
Cinos may have covered his tracks well, but it occurred to him there was an alternative to sniffing around like lost dogs trying to retrieve the scent. The alternative was to learn.
If knowledge was a weapon, then Sonic had come to this fight unarmed. Cinos had done his homework on the five Runes, and the information Sonic had inherited was minimal. If he truly was to compete with his dark twin on any kind of level field, then he was going to have to do some research of his own.
Espio had needed no encouragement to board Stratosphereon. In fact, Sonic had feared that the chameleon might knock him unconscious and idrag/i him up there if he wouldn't go willingly. The problem Sonic had was that the City of Clouds would take them kilometres off the path of Cinos, a fortnight round trip. But the tides had turned when he learned of Stratosphereon's claim to fame in the intellectual community - the largest and most comprehensive library on Mobius - or off of it.
Cinos was sly, and Sonic intended to prove that he was just as sly. The plan had changed. His days trying to hunt Cinos like wild game were over. From today, he resolved that he would learn everything he could about these Runes. And then he would go after them himself.
(They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, and they seem not to break; though once they are bowed so low for long, they never right themselves)
III
There was something strange about the people of Stratosphereon.
Sonic didn't need to spend more than a few hours mingling in the resort's shopping district to be able to pick up on it. He couldn't tell precisely what it was about the place, but it was clear that something was awry.
Now, there was nothing wrong with people smiling. A lot of smiles were a sign of a happy society, a successful community. Politeness was one thing, and that was fine, but what he found in Stratosphereon was something else altogether. People he had never seen before, and who he would certainly never see again, stopped to shake hands with him on the street and chat about nothing. iInstitutionalised/i thought Sonic, iThey love to see a stranger./i Strange, but perhaps understandable. Once he bumped into somebody in a crowded place and was knocked down, and the person he had bumped into actually started crying. About twenty people tried to console the both of them and make sure they were both all right.
That, he icouldn't/i explain.
Taking this into account, the city itself almost seemed to be a huge kindergarten for adults. One of the oddest things about the architecture of this floating resort (and something that Sonic didn't even notice at first, only to say that there was isomething/i amiss that he couldn't quite put his finger on) was that there seemed to be no icorners/i anywhere. Edges were rounded off and neutralised, points were sanded down to flat surfaces or padded with rubber. There was nowhere for Sonic to hurt himself, nowhere to fall over and scrape his skin on the soft ground. And everything was painted in shades of soft pinks and blues, white and tranquil green. It was almost like the designers had been afraid that strong colours might drive people into some kind of sensory-induced frenzy of violence. Sonic had never been in a more structurally benign place in his entire life.
But the oddities of the people of Stratosphereon weren't Sonic's primary concern, and so he tried to shelve the seed of worry that was growing in the back of his mind, and tried to convince himself that it was nothing but a culture gap. There were more important things to think about.
"Let's go find this library, then," Sonic suggested. "Aw, come on, we're working already?" Espio replied, "Can't we have some fun first? We've got, what, five days up here"
Sonic's shoulders slumped. "Espio, this is awful important. I might need all five days. But if not, we'll have some fun afterwards. See what this bird has to offer us"
"Okay, okay. Let's go. But if this gets too boring I'm running off on my own." Sonic nodded and opened the door to the outside, letting the light and sounds of the City of Clouds into the roomy cabin.
Beyond their accomodation, Stratospherion was a multi-layered complex of shops, transport and people. Mobians bustled past, going about their daily activities, each with a grin that made it look like there was nothing in the world they would rather be doing. An enormous billboard declared what was probably some kind of city motto: iSTRATOSPHEREON: TRANQUILITY, SERENITY, LIBRIA/i. ("What the heck is Libria?" Sonic asked. Espio shrugged.) They made their way into the crowd to try and locate the giant library that was supposed to be amidst it all somewhere. First, they needed a map.
There was a small newsagency just off the road, with a shifty-looking lizard sitting behind it. When he saw the hedgehog and chameleon approaching, he smiled and hit a button on his cash register.
iCha-ching/i Sonic put his hands on the counter. "Do you have any"
"Cigarettes?" the lizard interrupted, "Yeah, we've got filtered, unfiltered, extra mild"
"Yuck!" Sonic exclaimed, "No! I want a"
"Newspaper"
"No"
"Magazine? What, then"
"A imap/i"
"Why didn't you isay/i so?" the newsagent demanded, rummaging underneath his counter, "I tell you what, these kids today with their cryptic- Here we are. Two bucks"
Sonic handed over two dollars, and the lizard gave him a map. Now Sonic and Espio had about five dollars left, after this and the accomodation. (It was just a stroke of luck that they had any money at all. A kindly farmer near Storm Port had given them a meal and some cash. It seemed that the best in mobian nature was closer to the Stratosphereon circuit, but nobody smiled more than the people of the City of Clouds themselves.
"Sure you don't want any cigarettes?" the lizard asked, "Nobody ever buys cigarettes. Nope. Haven't have one sale that I can remember. Then again, it is a nasty habit. Terrible, in fact. Makes people unhappy, come to think of it. Ain't no room for unhappy people here, no room at all. Darn glad there ain't any smokers up here.. what the heck am I doing selling cigarettes? Have I gone completely mad? Forget I said anything, just forget it. Good day to you, this stand is closed"
He reached up and slammed the shutter down in Sonic's face.
"Nervous fellow," Sonic said after a moment's silence.
"Least we got the map," Espio said, "Let's check it out and find this library"
The map revealed the library to be a large building near the centre of the city. The hedgehog and chameleon departed again into the crowd, looking back at the newsstand only once, which now had a large "CLOSED" sign outside it. Sonic pondered about the strange behaviour of the citizens of this bizarre resort, and by chance his gaze shifted upwards. There was a bridge above the path they were walking on, and both trails were packed with people. But, on the bridge, Sonic caught a glimpse of something blue disappearing into the crowd, and his heart skipped a beat.
"He's here," he said, tugging on Espio's tail.
The chameleon looked back at him. "Huh? Who"
"I'll give you a clue, he's handsome and evil"
"Here"
"Yeah... keep walking, I don't want him to know he's been seen."
IV/Cinos
Rasputan was startled out of his trance when the door to the cabin was opened without a knock. He spun around, wide-eyed, his hands trembling.
"Can't a guy have ten minutes to himself? I'm trying to contact the astral plane here, Kinnos, it takes a very intricate degree of concentration"
"You've had forty minutes to yourself, and I'll do whatever I want to do," the hedgehog replied, "He's here, you know. I thought we shook him off, but the creep is resilient. I should know"
"You're sure?" The porcupine started to tidy the mess he had made on the floor of the cabin, extinguishing candles and sweeping up herbs.
"Don't question me." Cinos' voice had a particular tone to it, and Rasputan knew that if he didn't heed the dark hedgehog's warning he might find himself dying in a corner. It was better to remain silent and keep to himself.
Cinos stormed about with a thundercloud over his head. "I hate this place," he spat, "The way everyone walks about... I want to kill everybody I see." He sat down and stared at the sharpened point of his flipknife. "iEverybody. I. See./i"
"Me too," Rasputan replied, "It's really"
"Someone tried to ishake/i my ihand/i," Cinos interrupted, "I was going to drag him into a dark place and put a knife in his throat, but there iare/i no dark places here. Everywhere is out in the open. I thought I was going to throw up"
There was a bowl of fruit on the table in front of him, and the hedgehog stabbed a grapefruit with the knife so hard that it half-exploded, juice puddling all over the table.
Now he looked up at Rasputan, and for a moment it looked like he had murder in his eyes. iThis cabin is private/i he seemed to think, iI could spill some blood in here and nobody would see./i But the look faded, much to his companion's relief, as brighter thoughts came to his mind and his mood improved.
"I found the museum," he said, "I can almost feel iit/i in there, calling out to its long-lost sibling." He pointed to the corner of the room, where a slab of rock was resting against the wall. The rune from the Pit of the Chameleon Cabal.
"Nothagodos yearns, too," Rasputan replied, "I can feel it. Up here." He tapped his head. "It's having an Awakening of its own"
"Wakey wakey," Cinos said to the stone, "Rise and shine."
V
"Excuse me," Sonic said, "Is this the library"
He and Espio stood in a deep, high-ceilinged building lined with bookshelves. Each one towered well above his reach, and each had a ridiculously tall ladder attached to it with wheels. It seemed that it would be easy enough to get lost in here, and wondered if there were skeletons at the end of any of these book-lined corridors. The entire place smelled like old paper.
The tall, well-clad fox he had addressed looked at him for a moment, then looked back towards the hundreds of rows of bookshelves lined like monoliths along the silent corridors. He turned to Sonic again.
"Actually," he said, "I think this is the aquarium"
To Sonic, the fox looked more like a maître d' for some expensive restaurant than a librarian. He was tall and stood as straight as a ruler in his clean and crisp dark blue suit. He seemed to have dyed the white fur on his snout so as to create a jet-black pencil thin moustache that manufactured an air of refinement and arrogance that was probably quite fashionable among types such as himself.
Espio nudged Sonic with his elbow. "He's being sarcastic," he said.
"Yeah, I got that," Sonic replied. He turned to the librarian. "Listen, I was hoping you could help me with some research I'm doing"
"Well I'd say you're certainly in luck," the fox said, and his eyes lit up as though the urge to do research was the key to his heart. For the look of him, it probably was. He extended a hand to shake with Sonic. "Niles is the name," he said, "Niles Wilkinson-Price, Curator of the Library and Museum of Stratosphereon. If it's not on record here, it's not worth knowing. So tell me, my dear hedgehog, what is it that you seek"
"Uh, I want"
He grasped the hand that Niles offered him, and suddenly felt faint, as though touching the fox and looking into his eyes was too much for him. His eyes were too deep, like wells, and he had to pull his arm away quickly. Niles appeared mildly offended.
"-I want to find out about, um, some old religions," Sonic stammered.
Niles cocked an eyebrow. "Specifics? We do have a vast collection dealing with echidnean"
"Porcupinian," Sonic interrupted, "I'm looking for information on something they call the Old Ways, involving runes"
The librarian narrowed his eyes and cocked his head a little, as though trying to figure out whether Sonic was being serious.
"And what exactly would a couple of youngsters such as yourselves want to know about the runic tablets of the Old Kind"
Sonic was about to reply, but Espio butted in, seemingly tired of not being primarily involved in this conversation.
"Our business is our own!" the chameleon insisted, "Why don't you get your butt up one of those ladders and get us what we want to know? Unless of course you think you might get a crease in your shirt"
Sonic nudged him hard enough to hurt, and the chameleon looked quizzical. As for Niles, the librarian's face had cycled through at least a dozen shades of red over the past few seconds, and finally settled upon one.
"Well I never!" the fox stammered, "I tell you, you just try to be of some sodding assistance in this world, and all you get is... is..."
"I apologise about my friend," Sonic said, but he had a feeling that Espio's outburst in combination with his own rude refusal to shake hands had offended this character's sensibilities enough to ruin their chances of any decent assistance. Sonic would have been more polite, but his proximity to Niles really had stirred some strange feelings, feelings which hadn't been as unpleasant as they had been bizarre and frightening. But they weren't entirely new. He had felt the same thing once before, and only fairly recently.
"I can't just tell you what you want to know," Niles said sulkily, "I'm not sure I would if I could, to tell you the truth, not with your attitude. Everything about porcupines is in section TZ, shelves 1963 to 1970 I believe. Have fun"
"But that's, like, seven whole shelves," Sonic protested, "I don't have time to look through that many books"
"It sounds to me that you're in search of somebody who gives a darn," Niles replied.
"Have you read them"
"Not all," the fox muttered, and he started doing something else in a clear attempt to communicate his lack of interest. "Some"
"Well, can't you just itell/i us"
"Look here! I can't remember every word of every book I've ever read, and if I could I wouldn't spend my valuable time explaining it to you! If you're interested in porcupine irunes/i why don't you visit the museum"
"Why would we do that?" Sonic asked.
"Because we have one of them here. It came back with an el Carrion expedition only a few months ago, it's one of our more popular"
Niles was unable to finish his sentence, because Sonic had already left.
VI/Cinos
Sonic would think it unfortunate that he hadn't set out only a short time earlier that day. As it happened, a few moments before he and Espio entered the library, Cinos burst through the doors of the museum.
A lot of people who were standing around, looking at paintings and old rusty artifacts, looked up at him in surprise. He didn't care to keep a low profile, in fact he kept the highest profile possible, walking loudly into the museum and stomping around like he was everybody's business. The unusually polite people of the City of Clouds appeared not to be annoyed, going back to whatever they were doing. Cinos didn't make it easy, though. He smugly bumped into people, shouting an extremely sarcastic "iOh! I'm sorry mister/i" or "Excuse ime/i, ma'am!" and then flipping them off or blowing a raspberry and laughing like a hyena. He leaned back, and then ran full pelt down a hallway, reaching dangerous running speeds among the delicate artifacts that lined the halls, and then jumping into a flying skid. People yelled and jumped out of his way as he wreaked his havoc upon the establishment. He observed an old hat, belonging to some long dead celebrity, and grabbed it, sitting it on his head. He danced a jig in a display of small pots from some old civilisation, slagged on a painting and then threw the hat into the crowd of astonished people like a frisbee. Running into another skidding sprint, he came to a large room with lots of tapestries, and in the center was a display cabinet. Inside this cabinet was a single flat stone with a mark on it. The mark looked like a bent-up letter "t". The inscription on the plaque that went with it was long and detailed, but Cinos cared naught about any of it. He whipped out a small string-tied satchel, fat with whatever was inside it, and turned to the gathered audience for one more performance. The dark hedgehog, mad with excitement, held up the bag and, as later reports would indicate, shouted something like "iPeople of Stratosphereon! Explore your dark side/i!" before spinning around and pitching the bag as hard as he could at the display cabinet like a baseball. Whatever was inside it went off like a bomb, showering debris all over the museum and charring some of the walls black. The area was choked with smoke, and by the time it cleared Cinos was gone, as was the rune. His laughter still echoed.
VII
"Libria has been breeched," demanded a disembodied and powerful voice that seemed to resonate from everywhere at once. Sonic and Espio both cried out in shock when the voice, neither male nor female and eerily emotionless, echoed through the city. The other citizens seemed to take the news badly, and scattered almost immediately. Before they knew what was even happening, Sonic and Espio found themselves in the middle of a stampede.
"Stratosphereon is in lockdown," the voice continued, "Illibria has been declared. You will return to your residence. You will await libria. You will not loiter. You will not delay."
"What is libria?" Espio asked.
"Little buddy, I don't have the vaguest idea," Sonic replied, "But I have a feeling it's a problem for us. If there really is a rune in Stratosphereon, I'd like to get to it as soon as possible, but I don't think that's gonna be an option with everybody like this"
"Adroits will be released to return your peace of mind. Libria will be restored promptly. You will not loiter. You will not delay."
Sonic noticed the faces of the people who were rushing past, and noticed something that shocked him even more than the booming announcement of the God-voice. The crowd that he had mistaken for being panicked were really anything but. They were prompt, yes, but they were as calm as cattle. Some were even still smiling. Sonic couldn't help but wonder whether this was some kind of bizarre game, a tradition, a practical joke that the regulars of the city played on unsuspecting newcomers. It was something he wanted to believe, but somehow he doubted it. The people hurried past as though this was just another thing to be done in the City of Clouds, and they did it without argument. They did not loiter, they did not delay.
Before too long, the crowd had dispersed entirely, like a flock of pigeons spooked by a cat. Only Sonic and Espio remained standing, looking bamboozled.
The Museum of the Clouds, as the large sign above the entrance declared, stood a few metres from where they were, but it would have been almost impossible to enter, as the tide of people was rushing out of it like water in a flooding river. Had they arrived mere moments earlier, they would have seen that the first of these refugees was a cackling blue hedgehog with a stolen artifact. As it was, their tardiness in beating Cinos to the second rune was unrealised.
When everyone had fled, the area fell silent. Ten minutes earlier, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to imagine the walkways and pavilions of Stratosphereon being devoid of people. The area had emptied as though it had been on fire, and now it was as still as the dead of night.
"Should we be doing something?" Espio asked.
Sonic hadn't been able to hear Espio's voice moments ago unless the chameleon had shouted in his ear. Now he could probably hear a whisper at ten meters.
"I'm not sure," the hedgehog replied, "I don't think I like this"
"I'm darn positive I don't like this," the chameleon responded.
It took a little while to realise that there was something else happening that wasn't quite right. The light was dimming, the streets looking increasingly dull by the second, exactly as though a cloud were passing over the sun. It was for this reason that Sonic hadn't picked up on the strangeness of this phenomenon, until it got a little darker than was normal, at which point it struck him that all the clouds were actually below them, and there should be nothing at all between the flying resort and the sun.
He looked up, and saw that it was the isky itself/i that was darkening, the sun blinking out like a spent bulb no brighter than the silvery disc of the moon. But that wasn't quite right - only an illusion. What was really happening was that the huge domed windows that encased the city and protected it from the elements were actually tinting themselves, growing darker.
"Check it out," Sonic said, and the city was already bathed in a twilight ambience that continued to fade. Espio looked up to where he was pointing, and by the time he looked down again, Sonic had vanished completely. Not a single ray of light streamed into the city, although it was the middle of the day. It was like an enormous photographic darkroom. The city had deactivated their sense of sight just as surely as if their eyes had been poked out. Suddenly the wide open courtyard was very, very small.
"You still there?" Espio whispered.
"Yes"
"Stay with me"
The chameleon grabbed hold of Sonic's arm, and they stood so close that their bodies touched. The power of the darkness was in itself frighteningly intense, and Sonic figured that was largely the point of it. There was no vision, and with the city so empty there was no sound. The hedgehog and the chameleon, both individuals with a large span of interpersonal distance, had to grab a hold of each other to make as much use as possible out of the one sense they still had. It seemed that to let go of each other might be to drift away into the void.
There iwas/i a sound, though. Too faint at first to register, but it grew in intensity. A kind of irritating electric buzzing noise.
"Do you hear that?" Espio asked, and Sonic could hear the panic in his voice. "It's electricity I think, they're gonna electrocute us Sonic they're gonna fry us we have to move"
"No," Sonic replied, and he tried to sound calm and controlled although his voice cracked and Espio could probably feel the force of his heartbeat, "It sounds like insects"
And it did. As the buzzing loudened, it was clearly the droning of some kind of swarm of something. Bees or hornets, was Sonic's guess. And none too small.
He was about to suggest that they make a run for it, but the thought was severed by a glimmer of light in the corner of his eye. He glared into the void to make sure it wasn't his imagination, though he had no idea which direction he was looking.
There it was again, a flicker of light. It cut into his retina like a knife and he had to squint to make it out. The buzzing was coming from that direction.
"Sonic, what- what-" Espio was stammering.
The points of light were many, now. Spotlights moving across the ground. Every so often they illuminated an object, and Sonic saw that one thing stand alone in a sea of black nothingness. Whatever was making that buzzing - hundreds of somethings - each one seemed to be equipped with a searchlight. They went about cataloguing everything in the area, possibly everything in the entire city, as though there was a stocktake that needed to be done urgently. That probably wasn't far from the truth. Sonic was reminded about the story of the shoemaker and the elves.
"Should we run?" Espio. He tugged on Sonic's arm.
Sonic thought they probably should. But the elves of Stratosphereon worked quickly, and there was an explosion of painful brightness as one of the searchlights illuminated him. He lost contact with Espio and fell onto his backside, shielding his eyes with his arm.
"Source of illibria has been identified," that voice boomed again, and Sonic couldn't properly see the thing that had spoken for the piercing light that it shined in his tender eyes. "Disparity will be removed and balance restored. Have a nice day."
VIII/Cinos
The dark hedgehog huddled in a corner, his arms wrapping the stolen rune protectively like a mother snake ready to lash out and destroy whomsoever dared to approach. When the lights came back on, he nearly did. If somebody had been standing there in the darkness, anybody, they would have been dead before they saw him strike. But Cinos was alone, and he had to squint almost to the point of closing his eyes completely when the dome windows of Stratosphereon let the sun shine in again.
So the city in the sky did indeed have a dark side, a side that it didn't reveal unless it was truly offended. For a few moments, Cinos was at home here. The city had turned, had been like a Chagrin Las Mortis of the sky, and it had thrilled him, made his black and rotten blood run red. He could make peace with a city that flirted with the darkness so readily. In an instant his opinion of Stratosphereon had completely changed. He had wanted to rip this place to shreds in his fury, to dance in the tattered remains of its offensive purity. But the city was not pure, and he saw that now. These people were not filled with joy and spritely mirth, as he had first thought, no no no. They were filled, saturated, with fear. It drenched them to the point of raving lunacy. Stratosphereon was not a paradise, it was an asylum.
Cinos laughed, hissing and chuckling to himself as he walked the empty pathways, the stone under one arm and his other hand holding the flipknife ready to strike at a moment's excuse. The next person he saw, he might just laugh in their face and leave them to their torturous existence, rather than perhaps more kindly bleeding them dry.
His amusement didn't last very long, though. He was struck with a rather sickly feeling that he soon realised came from the stone under his arm. The Rune of Fleg, so it had been named in scripture, objected heavily to being moved. Or, perhaps, only to being moved by Cinos. It defended itself, as it was more than capable of doing, by way of injecting him with a feeling of discomfort that began in his gut and seemed to pump through his veins into every cell in his body.
"You don't like me much, do you?" Cinos asked the stone, "Your brother is more or less indifferent to whose company he finds himself in, but you're different, aren't you? You actually like all this happy-happy-shiny-shiny bullpucky. My company is as uncomfortable to you as yours is to me." He laughed. "Well, that's tough cheese, I'm afraid. You're going to help me whether you like it or not, that's your lot and you're bound to it. I guess we'll - what is it they say? - we'll just have to learn to get along."
IX
The moments after Sonic's encounter with the buzzing drones (had he heard them referred to as Adroits, once upon a time?) were as hazy to him as the dreams of delirium. Every so often he opened his eyes and caught a lucid glimpse of his surroundings, but sleep always conquered him again.
He was on a moving platform, like a gurney, strapped down on his back. His limbs were useless. He was moved through a long, white tunnel until he came to
sleep
strange beings, the likes of which he had never seen before, looked down at him with great interest. He tried to shield himself from them but they
sleep
shackled onto a chair and being prodded, the beings holding him down and he recoiling from their touch but unable to resist as
sleep
asked questions that didn't make sense to him, something about an artifact, a crime of which he was surely innocent. He tried to tell them he didn't know what
sleep
didn't believe him, said they had recorded him, but he couldn't remember... the hog was very insistent and furious that he wouldn't say
sleep
on the move again, and saying he would never be set free until he told them what they wanted to know
sleep.
X
Espio didn't care to offer the courtesy of being quiet in the enormous Library of the Clouds. One thing to be said about Espio the Chameleon was that politeness had never been one of his virtues while in the throes of a tantrum, and he was determined to get some answers from these bizarre people if he had to raise the roof to get them.
The librarian, Niles Wilkinson-Price, smiled and began to offer the usual greeting and offer of service, but Espio wasn't about to let him get a word in edgeways until he was invited to.
"What the heck is with this place?" he demanded.
Niles cocked a single eyebrow, in the way that he was so apt to do when he either didn't understand the question or wasn't willing to answer it.
"I'm afraid I don't quite know what"
"You heard me!" Espio exclaimed. Several people studying in the library looked up at him.
"Excuse me," Niles said, "But I'm going to have to ask you to please keep your voice down"
"The heck I will!" Espio raised his voice a register, in the name of spite. "The lights just went out and a bunch of weird ithings/i swarmed in and took my friend away, and now nobody is willing to tell me what happened. Is everyone here iinsane/i? Where have you people taken him"
Niles' expression had changed, now, and his brick-wall facade had broken away to reveal- Nervousness? Anxiety? Fear?
He leaned in close to Espio and spoke in a tone so low it was almost a whisper.
"Look, calm down, for your own sake. Anger is illibric, and if you don't stop shouting right now, they're going to find you and deal with you"
"Who?" the chameleon asked, "Who will find me? What will they do"
"While you're in Stratosphereon, my young lad, you either stay happy or they will imake/i you happy. And for pete sakes, if you're inot/i going to calm down, at least take your sodding mood outside, or else they might change their mind about leaving ime/i alone"
"Please," Espio said, whispering now, "Just tell me what's happened to Sonic"
"I don't have an ounce of sympathy for your blue friend," Niles replied, "He was daft enough to steal a very valuable item out of my museum. To commit a sodding icrime/i. Here! The Adroits took your friend to Libria for realignment, and well they should, the little vandal"
"Sonic didn't do anything!" Espio protested loudly, "You've got the wrong guy"
Niles hushed him, now clearly nervous, looking around as though they were being watched.
"Where is this Libria?" the chameleon asked more quietly.
"You can go visit your sodding little delinquent friend if you want," replied the exasperated librarian, "You can do just about anything in Stratosphereon as long as you don't look like you intend to cause any trouble. Just don't forget to curb that temper of yours. Anger is what they hate most of all."
XI
An enormously obese hog, his tusks almost long enough to touch his forehead, stood before Sonic when he opened his eyes. Between the two of them was a barred gate like a prison cell, and the hog was dressed in the formal attire of an authority figure. The expression on his long, angular face was one of deep disappointment and bitter displeasure.
"I wonder," the hog said, "whether you have decided to tell me what I want to know"
"And what is that?" Sonic wanted to say. What came out was slurred and barely discernable.
The hog sighed and folded his arms. "You mainlanders. You send your delinquents up here, offended by our paradise, but you never count on the repercussions. The excuses always vary but the intentions are always the same"
"I didn't do anything wong!" Sonic tried. It came out as "Idundonuffinrong..."
"You're only prolonging your own misery," the hog replied, "Your guilt is not under question. We have video feed, audio data, biophysical and genetic identification"
"Win- Win-," Sonic tried. He frowned and gathered his strength. "Twins."
"So you've been claiming. But even identical twins don't share half of the incriminating evidence we have against you. Unless you and your twin share the same fingerprints. The same DNA"
Sonic lolled his head back and floated on the sublime tranquility of the muscle relaxant in his veins. There was very little he could do, he realised, to prove his innocence. After all, he and Cinos were in many ways the same person. In all likelihood the only differences between them were spiritual ones.
"I'm going to give you some time to gather your senses," the hog announced, "And I shall return when you've decided to tell me what I want to know"
Sonic hadn't heard the final sentiment. He was lost in a state that wasn't quite sleep, but he was far from aware.
XII
It didn't take Espio very long to locate the place that Niles the librarian had called Libria. People in the City of Clouds were always more than willing to help in any way they could, and there was always kind of dreamy, worshipful gaze in their eyes whenever Espio mentioned the name of the place.
Libria stood in roughly the centre of the complex, and its name was spelled out in big, silver letters over a wide, open doorway. A very homely feel radiated from the building, as well as a deeper and almost hidden sense of malaise and malice. The way that people walked about, smiling and laughing, playing in the corridors, it was difficult to believe that only a couple of hours ago the city had been a dark and desolate place, swarming with invisible regulators who hunted with spotlights and spoke with cold, genderless robotic voices.
Duality was definitely a recurring theme in this adventure, and Espio was reminded of the story that he still wasn't entirely sure he believed, about twin worlds and twin hedgehogs on opposite sides of the very same coin, vying for the fate of everything. The chameleon had almost seen the antiverse when the lights went out in Stratosphereon, had almost caught a glimpse of a world that lay beyond this one and had turned as sour as milk left out of the fridge. There was an explanation, of course - Sonic's stories had gotten to him, infected his imagination. Just the same as how you feel itchy when someone is talking about fleas.
(and then there was the Awakening, where he actually connected with your mind so deeply that you were one person for a few moments. Explain that)
But he couldn't. And didn't want to.
The inside of Libria looked to Espio almost like a small city within the larger one (but Stratosphereon was still very small as cities went, so that made Libria almost a compact city, a city in a suitcase). But as far as he could tell, it wasn't a city where people lived. Almost everyone in this impossibly crowded complex was wearing a uniform of some kind, and everyone without exception was wearing a smile on their dial, like they all had the greatest job in the world. Espio could tell almost straight away that this was where the City of Clouds was run. It was the engine of this floating paradise, and these were its engineers.
There were more than just mobians walking around in here, too. Espio was stunned to see robots milling about, as well. In a world where mechanical things were shunned and hated, here there were a large number of them wandering about in what seemed to be total harmony with the people with whom they co-inhabited this resort of the sky. He was reminded of the lonely robots who had led an exiled existence in the desert town of Newton, and thought they probably would have loved to have known about this little slice of heaven.
What Espio didn't understand was where he might find Sonic in this place. He had expected to find something more like a prison, where the undesirables of society were tucked away and hidden so as not to offend the unnatural purity of the rest of the city. What he found instead was this pristine modern palace of white and silver, emblazoned with murals of multi-coloured stick figures holding hands and smiling, with flowers and happy suns. It made the rest of the city look almost depressing.
"Gag me," the chameleon muttered, and made his way through the crowd towards a map of the complex that was displayed inside the entrance.
Espio's eyes fixed on the area labelled Realignment Center. He remembered Niles had mentioned something about realignment. The word sent a shiver down his spine, although he wasn't sure what it implied. Perhaps that uncertainty itself was the source of this uneasy feeling. Choking down his dread, he entered the hub of Stratosphereon's operations, and he was the only one not smiling.
The Realignment Center was just where the map had placed it. To Espio it looked like a dentist waiting room, with a reception desk off to the side, near an inviting doorway leading into a hall. There was a sign over the doorway that said iPlease check in with reception before proceeding/i and had a picture of a dopey little stick figure reaching for a door and scratching his head in muddled confusion.
"Can I help you?" asked the smiling, happy receptionist. Espio looked around and saw that nobody else was waiting.
"Uh, yeah, maybe," he said. His eyes had wandered to a colourful poster with a hand pointing to him. iYOU can help sustain paradise/i it announced, iReport illibric behaviour to central investigations. Just dial 0/i "I'm looking for my friend Sonic. He's supposed to be here, I think"
"Oh, I'm so sorry," the receptionist replied, looking a little sullen behind her smile and apologetic, "Your friend has been classified a Class Three behaviour offender, so I'm afraid he can't have any visitors at this point in time. He's been quarantined until such time as he can be designated reliable for"
"What the heck is a Class Three behaviour offender?" Espio demanded, "Sonic didn't do anything wrong, he was just standing there with me when these things hauled him away and took him here"
The receptionist looked a little uneasy behind her smile, nervous, even a little afraid, and Espio realised he hadn't been wearing his smile. It was now that he began to grow angry. The people of Stratosphereon were all clearly idiots with their buffoon smiles and random arrests. This particular mobian's obviously false smile was just enough to send him right over the edge. Even Niles in the library had the audacity to cluck back when challenged, to respond like a normal person, although he did so in a reserved and pompous way. He had warned Espio that the people of Stratosphereon didn't respond well to anger, but what were they going to do? Ask him politely to lower his voice?
"A Class Three," the receptionist explained, "is a behaviour rating assigned to a perpetrator of any violent act or antisocial crime up to and including robbery, displays of public indecency"
"We were minding our own business!" Espio shrieked, "Can't you people get it into your heads that he wasn't doing anything wrong? He was with me the entire time! He wasn't stealing anything or committing antisocial crimes, he wasn't doing anything at all"
The receptionist looked very uneasy, now, and her smile had almost faded completely (but not completely, never completely). "Sir? I- I think that"
"Who is in charge here?" Espio yelled, and he was so enjoying his intimidation that he acted even angrier than he really was. "I want to speak to someone in charge of this mess! Who is in charge?"
"I am"
Espio turned to see that the doorway under the polite sign now had somebody to fill it. An enormous hog, the only person Espio had seen in this city who didn't have even the vaguest trace of a smile, looked down at him from his great vantage point. He was flanked by several of the robots that the chameleon had seen wandering about Stratosphereon.
Suddenly, he didn't feel quite so intimidating.
"You're in charge, huh?" He tried his best to hide his nervousness, but his voice trembled and he knew it.
"Yes," the hog replied, "I am. I think we have a great many things to discuss, you and I. Beginning with your attitude. That is not the way we speak to one another in the City of Clouds."
XIII
It didn't look like any prison cell Sonic had ever seen before, and in the course of his many adventures he had seen quite a few. The walls were adorned with the kinds of posters one might see in a primary school classroom, with advice like Winners don't steal and A friendly city is a happy city and Larry Libria sez: "Remember your manners!". He would have found it a joke if it didn't seem so serious.
That wasn't even the strangest thing about this prison, not by far. The strangest thing was the fact that there was no door.
The cell stood as wide open as an office cubicle. There weren't even any of the robot soldiers that had been referred to as Adroits patrolling the area. He could see the exit to the complex, unguarded and inviting, meters from where he sat. And yet he didn't even put a foot outside the designated area of his small cell. He was careful not to let his arm reach outside when he stretched. The only thing scarier than a prison with bars, padlocks and guards was a prison that didn't need any of them.
There were others here, as well. Not many - two, maybe three. He couldn't see them from where he was, but could hear. One of them spent almost the entire time crying softly. Sonic had been locked up for at least half a day (and that's only the time he spent lucid), and the crying hadn't let up even once as far as he knew. He had tried to communicate with any of the other prisoners, but nobody spoke back, even though it was impossible that they couldn't hear him.
He knew the sun was going down, because the complex was open and let in a lot of natural light. Either night was almost upon them, or someone else had triggered the city's wrath. He decided it was the former, because it had been just about twelve hours since dawn, by his calculations, and there were no loudspeakers proclaiming a breech of libria.
Sonic felt tired, but he didn't want to sleep. He had slept too much already, thanks to the unhealthy cocktail of drugs his captors had put into his system, and his sleep was uneasy, full of hallucinations. When he'd been coming out of his drugged state and climbing the long stairway back to lucidity, the illusions had been worse. For about an hour he had semi-slept in this strange cell, only to be constantly spooked awake by the certainty that there were giant lizard-monsters in there with him. The creatures made a bizarre attack cry - wibble-kee! - and he shouted and scrambled to protect himself. But it was only his mind playing tricks on him, every time. And once, just once, it had been Cinos who he saw standing in this cell with him, a ring of rune stones under his feet, the great white wyrm coiled around him, aglow with the powers of the Old Ways.
But now he was haunted by none of it, for whatever had been introduced to his system had worn off and left him only the slightest bit drowsy. If he slept, he figured it would be strong enough to plague him with the visions again, so he didn't give it that satisfaction.
Night had come, and the lights in the prison with it, for about three hours before he looked up from where he sat (staring at those posters - he thought that they were there for a reason, that staring at them for long enough would actually begin to brainwash a person) and was shocked to see Espio coming towards him, a huge smile on the chameleon's face. iHe's talked them into letting me out! He's posted bail or something/i "Hey there, champ!" Espio exclaimed.
"Buddy, am I glad to see you!" Sonic replied, excited. "I knew I brought you along for a reason"
Espio laughed - a little too long and hard, Sonic thought, but thought little of it.
"Just thought I'd check out how my bestest buddy is doing, in this lonely old jail cell. This place sure is pretty at night, isn't it"
"Sure," Sonic replied, "So listen, are we going, or what? Are they letting me out on good behaviour or something"
The smile didn't leave Espio's face. As a matter of fact, it widened. "Nope!" he said.
This was followed by about two minutes of silence, the two staring back at each other and Sonic waiting for Espio to continue speaking. When it was clear that he wasn't going to, Sonic made a gesture with his fingers and said "Um, so"
Espio laughed again. This time, Sonic realised there was something strange about that laugh, something a little unnatural. There was nothing really to laugh about.
"You!" Espio said as though Sonic had been kidding, "Now, you know they can't just let you out of here, Sonic"
"Why not?" Sonic asked, exasperated.
"I was gonna come here and sort everything out for you, but after I got here they took me aside and told me why you were here! And I have to say, you've been a real Mr Naughtypants"
Sonic checked Espio's face for signs that he was joking, sure that they would be there, even though the joke wasn't particularly funny and wasn't in the spirit of Espio's sense of humour anyway.
"Espio"
The chameleon looked happy, but in a very dumb, absent kind of way. It was the bliss of the ignorant, a child's innocent glee. He laughed again. "Don't worry, Sonic, they're not gonna hurt you. This is a inice/i place, remember? They're just waiting for you to tell them where you stashed the rune you took, and once you've done that, everything can go back to normal. They'll even let you know the secret to being as happy as everyone else here! They're not all freaks, you know. We only thought that because we thought it was too good to be true. It was a really mean and ignorant thing to think, really. I told them I was sorry." He blushed, as though he was a little embarrassed. When Espio blushed, his entire body turned rose-coloured.
"Espio..." Sonic said again, "I didn't take the rune, remember? I was with you, all along"
"Yeah, that's what I thought, but they showed me the tapes and stuff, and told me all this other evidence they have, and there's really no question." He laughed yet again. "You're igood/i, Sonic! You really should put that skill towards something other than stealing! You could be a really good magician or something"
"What have they done to you?" Sonic growled, "What have these twisted lunatics done to you"
"We didn't do anything to him that he wouldn't have wanted," announced a strong, familiar voice, and the huge hog with the blue uniform approached Espio from behind, putting a big hand on the chameleon's shoulder. His face was stony and as cold as a glacier.
"Who are you?" Sonic spat.
"My name is Judge Snortzworth," the hog replied, "I keep the peace in Stratosphereon. I keep the libria. Your friend is happy and only wants the best for you. I can show you how to be as happy as him for as long as you like. If you let me"
"Bugger you and bugger libria," Sonic shot back. Espio appeared hurt by the outburst, Snortzworth angered. "What is libria?" the hedgehog demanded, "What is this sacred rule I'm supposed to have broken?"
Snortzworth frowned, shifting his weight from side to side as he paced slowly back and forth outside Sonic's open cell. Espio just smiled and looked around as though reflecting deeply about how wonderful everything in the world was.
"Libria is a state of mind," Snortzworth said, "A unity, a sense of contentment. Nobody in Stratosphereon needs to worry about the pressures of life, nobody needs ever contemplate suicide or conspire to harm another. As long as the corruption of the outside world doesn't poison our well of happiness, we remain pure, life remains good. But the corruption does come. And that's what I'm here for"
"You drug them," Sonic hissed, "Forced happiness isn't real happiness"
"Ha!" The hog seemed for the first time to be almost amused, but only in a sarcastic and condescending way. How could someone so bitter possibly be in charge of people's happiness? It boggled Sonic's mind.
"Happiness is a drug," Snortzworth said, "You experience mirth when your brain secretes a certain kind of chemical. When you feel anemic, you ingest iron. When you feel lethargic, you ingest sugar. You take calcium for your bones and protein for your muscles. Anger and depression are treatable conditions, just like anything else. You take a pill and it goes away. We've never had a complaint yet"
"You're playing God," Sonic protested, "Don't you see that"
"I wouldn't say so," Snortzworth replied, "In fact, I resent the accusation. God has done a pretty rotten job of things. His people rape, kill and rob each other blind every day. Ours don't. I should remind you which of us is on trial for malicious vandalism. Nobody from Stratosphereon"
"Nobody from Stratosphereon has that option," Sonic grumbled.
Snortzworth smiled for the first time. "Precisely"
"And how do you get away with all this? How can you do this to people and get away with it?"
"One of the reasons we took to the sky," the hog replied, "Between Torion and Westerica, never more here than there, we are citizens of no nation. International airspace. When you're here, you follow our laws. Our ways. You only need to think of this as unreasonable for as long as you retain the greed and intolerance of your ground-dwelling life. You will realise in time that we are right to do what we do. Your friend has realised this"
"It's true, Sonic," Espio said with a smile, "Life is so iawesome/i here. I've never felt so good"
"Yeah? Well there's one thing wrong with your theory," Sonic said.
"Oh?" Snortzworth asked, "And what might that be"
"You're frowning"
The hog cocked an eyebrow.
"If your world is so fantastic," Sonic said, "Why don't you take your own drug"
"In an ideal world, there would be no reason for people like me," Snortzworth said, "But the world isn't nice. It's hard. I'm hard because I have to deal with it. I love this city too much to let people like you march in and take it apart brick-by-brick." He leaned in close to Sonic. "You have the rest of the night to think about giving back what you took. In the morning, I'm afraid we will have to start doing things the hard way, and that won't be pleasant for either one of us"
"Me either," Espio said, shaking his head, "I don't want to see you get hurt, Sonic. Don't be such a Negative Nelly! You have no idea what you're missing!"
XIV
Sonic figured that he probably should have realised from the beginning that Stratosphereon wasn't protected by the laws of nations, and had he known this he would have been much more wary of the place. The Adroits were a give-away. The cold and genderless regulators of the city, the only ones who could really be ihard in a world that is hard/i. Robots were illegal on Mobius, and the quickest and easiest way for anyone to remind the world of Robotnik's brutal genocide would be for a city to implement a robot police force. There was no legal precedent for anybody to interfere with the activities taking place in Stratosphereon, and being that it was politically pacifistic, it was likely that nobody on the ground really cared.
Snortzworth had been right about one thing: The world was hard.
But Sonic was in no position to be contemplating the ethical ramifications of Snortzworth's utopia. He had missed the warning signs that the City of Clouds was a trap, and had allowed it to snap shut on him. Even if he escaped from their prison, it wouldn't change the fact that the city was suspended six hundred meters over the open ocean. Any escape would only be partial and probably temporary. The most frightening thing was that, by morning, he might not even care. If they got to him with that libria drug, his quest for the runes would end there and then. He would forget his problems and, with them, his responsibilities. He thought of himself smiling and dancing hand in hand with Espio and the rest of the assimilated folk of Stratosphereon, too set in his new life in the clouds to care about the Freedom Fighters and their plight... and shuddered.
"You've sure done a great job, Sonic old buddy," he said to himself, "Caught by the enemy for the third time. And Espio ain't going to bust you out this time either, he's too busy picking posies. Some fine hero you've turned out to be"
He considered trying to slide into the antiverse again, to escape the trap that way, but then he remembered Cinos' warning in the chameleons' pit.
"You only skip over the fence when you know what's on the other side," the dark hedgehog had said. Sonic imagined sliding out of this world and into the next, only to fall from the sky like a hailstone and drown in the ocean of the antiverse. Definitely not a good idea.
It was about an hour after Snortzworth and Espio had left him to his thoughts, and someone else entered the prison complex, wheeling some kind of large trolley-basket. For a moment he was sure that the governing powers of Stratosphereon had come to give him an injection of happiness-serum, and tensed up for a fight. But the trolley was full of books, and the person at its helm was only Niles, the uptight librarian. Sonic was somewhat relieved by his presence - anybody that arrogant was likely to have his brain intact.
Hrrmph, was the sound he made when he wheeled the trolley up to Sonic's cell and saw who was sitting inside. "I must say, it pains me to even consider offering you a book, considering your obvious contempt for such things as culture and history. But offer I must, for it is my job to do so. Just please don't take any important books, if vandalism is on your mind. Wreck something tasteless, like this." He held up a book by somebody named SP Davis, who Sonic had never heard of.
"Don't be such a Negative Nelly," Sonic said, echoing the words of his librified friend. "How come iyou've/i managed to escape the joy police"
"I don't raise a fuss," Niles explained. "Less than half of the people you see walking around out there have actually been irealigned/i with the libria drug. The rest have adapted"
"So you've actually bred out diversity," Sonic said, "Created a nice little cult of living robots, taught them it's not okay to be sad once in a while, that being a real person is a breech of libria. Congratulations"
Niles appeared mildly offended. "Not me!" he protested, "I've done no such thing! I just curate a bit of sodding culture!"
"But you see it being done and look the other way"
"Yes, I'd like to keep my brain the way it is, thank you." The fox looked directly into Sonic's eyes, and Sonic felt the same strange, swimmy feeling that he had earlier, the last time he had sustained eye contact with this individual. Slightly faint, as though he could get lost in the fox's eyes and never escape.
"Look," Niles said, and started to turn away, "I have no desire to explain myself to you, dear hedgehog, and if you want to engage me in such a discussion, then I retract my offer of reading material, good day to y"
"iWait/i!" Sonic shouted, and with his signature speed he shot forward and grabbed Niles by the wrist. The fox shrieked and fought back, fearful of being attacked.
"Look at me," Sonic demanded.
Niles was shouting in alarm, but he looked into Sonic's eyes again and his shouts faded to a whisper. The moment Sonic had grabbed him, all the sounds in the world had stopped, had fell silent as though the attention of all reality was focused on the two of them. Time itself had frozen.
"Look at me"
Sonic had been here before, had felt this strange ipot pourri/i of emotions not too long ago, and under similar circumstances. Now somehow he knew that this was the only way forward, that it had to be done.
With Niles squirming in his solid grip, Sonic slipped into his second Awakening as though visiting an old friend.
XV
Niles was caught at first in the calmness of shock, but when realisation settled in, he reacted badly, much worse than Espio had. He rejected it completely, and his body faded very quickly. Sonic was afraid that their connection would sever, and urgently tried to radiate a sense of calm onto the terrified fox. His mind, partially connected to Sonic's, absorbed enough of his calm to remain where he was. For now.
The two of them stood opposite each other in what seemed like the biggest library in the universe, bigger than the one that Niles curated in the City of Clouds by maybe a thousand times. Rows and rows of shelves went on to near infinity in all directions. If Niles noticed, he didn't seem to care. Wide-eyed and frantic, he bombarded Sonic's mind with loud and chaotic questions that made the hedgehog recoil. He could feel the fox's distress, and felt himself beginning to share it.
(-bloody sodding don't sodding want to be here scared cripes what where am I who are you stop this and stop it now or I'll thrash the life out of you sodding hedgehog let me out let me out let me)
Sonic felt as though he was holding Niles in place, and that it was like holding back an electric train. He couldn't keep up his mental strength for long, eventually the other's panic would win out and break their connection and he knew it.
Stop it, he commanded, Please! Listen to me! Calm down and listen to me
(You're in my head!) Niles shrieked, (Who are you that you think you can go rummaging around in my head?)
You can see into mine as well.
(Maybe I will, then! See how you like it)
Sonic felt a very powerful pressure on his mind, probing into it, invading it, reaching as far as it could and thrashing about. Shivers, he thought, Is this what it feels like for him? No wonder he's distressed.
The bookshelves around them began to rock and shift about as though they were alive, the pages in the books ruffling and flipping about by themselves.
Listen to me. Sonic projected his thoughts towards Niles. Relax, let this happen. It's important. He felt Niles withdraw from his mind.
(Important for you. This is your Awakening, not mine. You don't see the ethical ramifications associated with sifting through somebody's mind like this)
I-
Niles may have been right. The contents of a person's head were the most private possessions anybody had, and ordinarily the mind was the safest place in the world for secrets. Without Niles' full consent, he was committing the most dastardly invasion of privacy imaginable.
(How do I know what you know?) Niles demanded, (Tell me that)
We can bring our minds together. We can make them-
(-merge)
Sonic could feel Niles' resistance weaken. As it did, the books stopped shifting and the cases fell dormant.
Let me see what I want to know. You can keep-
(-the rest of it a secret)
-but focus on the memories that you will-
(-let me see. Let your memories-)
-become my memories.
(What is it you need?)
Information.
Sonic turned to the books in their shelves and saw them fly past his vision. Were the bookshelves flying past him, or was he flying past them? He supposed it didn't matter. Every book was blank, the spines were devoid of a title, and somehow he knew that every page would be empty and unmarked. Blank books full of white, blank pages.
(What information?)
Read my mind and see for yourself.
(You need to know about)
Runes.
Some of the books had words on them, now. Not many, but a few. Sonic hoped that it would be enough. Niles may not consciously remember what he knows about the Runes and the Old Ways, but the mind retains a huge amount of information. What the librarian had picked up might still be in here, bits and pieces of knowledge he had absorbed in his life and which hadn't interested him enough or been important enough to him to remember. Sonic hoped. He started to pick up books and took them with him. Some of the books he saw weren't about Runes or porcupines or anything at all, and he tried to discriminate about what he took.
(Don't read about what you don't need to know, dear hedgehog. My mind is not yours to explore)
It became more and more difficult by the second to select the appropriate material from the fox's mental library. The information that Sonic wanted was hidden among hundreds of tomes which had materialised titles and readable text. Many of these books were about the Arack Empire, even most of them, and Sonic had an idea that Arack was never far from his mind. Why, he couldn't say, and at this moment it was irrelevant. They were running out of time. The music was ending and it was almost time to get off the dance floor. And if Sonic's hunch was accurate, they wouldn't get another chance to make a connection like this. Not with each other.
Niles' image began to fade, and Sonic felt their connection weakening.
Stay true, Niles, just for a moment longer, stay-
(-true. I will try, but I am-)
-weakening, yes. I only need a moment, a few seconds, a flash...
One book seemed to glow with an ethereal energy, dimming the other volumes around it. The words on its cover shone so bright that they filled his mind's eye with golden light, and Sonic knew instantly that the book contained exactly what he needed to know. He reached out with the hand that his Awakening projected onto his mind, reached out and clutched the warm, incandescent tome...
XVI
Niles shrieked and pulled his arm away so hard that he might have fallen over backwards, if not for the trolley of books behind him.
"What the devil was that?" he demanded.
"I-" Sonic began calmly, but realised there was no really good answer to that question, at least none that he knew himself. "I'm not sure. It's something that needs to happen, I know that much"
"What do you mean it needs to happen?
The image of Father Thaldymort, dressed heavy in his robes and cloaks, came to Sonic's mind. The priest held his rosary to his forehead and whispered a prayer to the god of whatever religion he followed, and seemed to look up for a moment to address the hedgehog. Sonic couldn't understand what it was that the Father said, but no doubt the gist of it was that there were forces at work higher than either of them could see with their eyes or touch with their fingers. (And what was that moving beneath the priest's robes? Coiling itself around his neck and poking its white tube of a head out of his collar)
"I'm not sure whether I believe in fate," Sonic said, "But I think that, one way or another, we were meant to meet each other. Just like Espio and I were meant to meet. I don't think I can win this without you... I have a feeling I couldn't even make it half-way"
"Win what?" Niles was shrinking back, scrambling to add space between himself and the hedgehog he so obviously feared, but there was something else written on his face. Something that told a deeper story.
"You know the answer to that," Sonic said, "Don't you? I can read it all over you"
Niles frowned and gritted his teeth. Sonic visualised a feeble toadfish puffing itself up like a balloon and splaying its quills, and he had to fight back a smile.
"What have you done to me?" the fox growled, "These sodding pictures in my head, these memories that aren't mine."
"You were in my head and I was in yours," Sonic explained, as calmly as he could. He didn't want to fight with Niles, because he still had the strong feeling that the librarian's assistance was imperative to his success, and possibly his survival. "Actually, I think it's more than that. I think that, for a few moments, our minds were... well, the same mind. Mixed together like two liquids."
"Bollocks," Niles spat.
Sonic squinted a little. "I don't know what that means."
"It means you're lying, or crazy, or both. Everything you're saying is on the far side of impossible, and then some. And I won't suffer to hear another word of it. Good day."
He began to storm away, his book-trolley in tow.
"You're scared!" Sonic called, "I know you are, and I'm sorry! But you have to help me, and you know why! You're scared because you've been in my mind and you know what I'm saying is the truth!"
"I don't have to do anything I don't want to do," Niles said, "All I want to do is live in peace and not raise a fuss, and I never would, if not for you people. You come into my library, into my life, and try to ruin everything, just when everything starts looking up for me at long last. Well, I'm not going to let you. No matter what mind-tricks you use on me, I'm not going to be pulled into your little game of mischief. I bid you again, sir, good day."
XVII
Niles left the prison compound of Libria with a frown on his face, but corrected himself as soon as he returned to the public eye, wearing his best and most well-practiced false smile. Because iLarry Libria sez: "Remember your manners!"/i, and while Larry Libria was fiction, the consequences for not following his advice certainly weren't.
He wheeled the book-trolley through the crowded aisles, nodding and smiling whenever someone greeted him (which was frequently) and muttering under his breath. What nerve that hedgehog had. iHelp/i him? iHelp/i an incarcerated and illibric criminal delinquent simply because he could work some kind of dime-store illusion against an unsuspecting librarian who only wanted to do his job and mind his own business? What kind of idiot did the kid take him for?
He's just another one of Them he told himself, He might have four limbs instead of eight, but he's as crafty as an Arack and every bit as immoral. He saw Espio the Chameleon wandering about the facility like a child one quarter of his true age, drifting as though in a beautiful dream, his arms spread out at his sides. The first dose of libria was always the most intense. He looked as though he was filled with such joy that it might just kill him. When he saw Niles, his face brightened even more and he waved frantically with both hands. Niles was momentarily afraid that the chameleon was going to run over to him and hug him. He remembered speaking to the chameleon on two other occasions earlier that very day, and being met with nothing but hostility. This version of Espio was no more capable of hostility than your average plush toy.
"I warned you," Niles said quietly, while smiling and waving back, "Don't you ever say I didn't warn you"
Espio, too far away and too preoccupied to hear the librarian's words, clapped his hands together and danced through the crowd. The people, some of them recipient to the libria treatment and some of them merely so submerged in the culture of Stratosphereon that they didn't need to be, all but ignored his bizarre behaviour (after all, it wasn't so bizarre) and went on with their work, making sure the Way of Libria was ever upheld. Occasionally a robot clunked its way through the crowd, but Niles had long since become used to the fact that the robots and the people of Stratosphereon could almost be mistaken for each other, in the right light.
Such was the price of libria.
And God (if there ever were such a critter) knew that it was still better to reside here in this paradise of robots living and dead, than to remain in the service of that abominable Empire, legs and webs and all.
Niles returned with his trolley of books to where it was always kept, in the basement of his cherished library, and not in the restocking shelves upstairs. After all, the same books would need to be taken out the next night to be offered to the poor unfortunates (or fortunates, whichever way you wanted to look at it) awaiting the libria treatment. The books he selected for this purpose were little more than scrap anyway, heaven forfend he offer any of his good books to a pack of convicted vandals. Niles was loathe to throw away any book, no matter its condition, but these were as close to expendable as he could bear.
He slumped in a chair and sighed. The hedgehog in the prison had asked him to do something that would without a doubt wreck his life a second time, and had offered him nothing in exchange for this extreme disservice, nothing but the vague assurance that it was fate that they should work together. It was a fallacy, a cop-out, fancy words that really meant zip. What does a person say to such a request? Surely there was only one obvious answer. The librarian, brimming with contempt and bitterness, stared at the book-trolley with his head in his hands. He had dipped into the mind of this mobian who he barely even knew from a bar of soap, had ibecome one/i with the hedgehog's thoughts, and it terrified him. He didn't ask for this, for any of this. All he ever wanted was to lead a quiet life, as secluded as possible, doing what he liked to do in peace, away from the responsibilities of what Judge Snortzworth referred to as the Hard World. And now, just as he found his niche in a floating city that shared his outlook, this fell onto his plate out of nowhere. The City of Clouds, he thought, was safe from such complications. Apparently not. Apparently, when the Hard World had you marked on its hit list, the Hard World found you wherever you thought to hide.
The hedgehog had asked him to throw his life away for a cause he didn't care about, and offered nothing but pain and uncertainty in return. The answer to such a request was obvious, and he had responded as such.
But the obvious answer was not the expected one. The world was too hard for that kind of simplicity.
"You can come out, dear hedgehog, we're safe for the time being," he said, then added, "That is, just for the time being. Very soon I think you'll find that nowhere is safe"
Sonic sat up from under the pile of books in the trolley and looked around to orient himself.
"The library"
"Yes, yes"
The hedgehog climbed out of the trolley and stretched. "Thanks," he said, knowing that such a statement would never cover the magnitude of Niles' deed. Niles seemed to know it, and waved it away with a depressed flick of his hand.
"So what is it that you expect to do now?" the librarian asked, "No escape is really an escape, not up here. You may be out of Libria, but you're still encapsulated above a large body of water, that much hasn't changed. What has changed is that we're both fugitives, now"
"I avoided the happy-gas," Sonic replied, "That's escape enough for me. As for getting off this floating nuthouse, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. First we need to find Cinos and his Runes. Then we can get Espio and blow this popsicle stand"
"And what makes you think I'll continue to help you?" Niles asked.
Sonic shrugged. "At this point, I can't see that you really have a choice."
XVIII/Cinos
"The time has come for us to make our leave," rasped the silhouette in the doorway, and Rasputan's eyes drifted immediately to the stone that the dark hedgehog held under his arm.
"You have it," he whispered, but noticed quickly that Cinos' face was set in an expression of bitter and unpalatable exhaustion, the expression of someone wracked by some irritating and inescapable minor torture. It was enough to bury his sense of humour.
"Of course I got it, you twirp, I'm not here for the fresh air. It radiates happiness, did you know that? It figures that the rune of mirth should wind up in this asylum"
"It boggles the mind," Rasputan replied, "Do you suppose that the stone's energy made these people what they are? Or did it actually seek this place to settle somewhere more in tune with its nature"
"I don't icare/i, Cinos snapped, "That's as pointless as a quiet death. What I care about is finding the last three rocks before this one drives me to suicide." He met Rasputan's eyes for a moment and a shadow passed over his face. "Murder-suicide," he said.
Rasputan shivered a little and hoped that Cinos didn't notice. "Here, K," he said, and held out a kind of linen carrying-case. "It's been soaked in ratseed oil and blessed. It won't drown out the rune completely, that's beyond anyone's ability on this level of the Tower, but it should muffle"
Cinos snatched the bag, dropped the rune inside, and wrapped it tightly in the slightly clammy linen. He closed his eyes and the stress on his face loosened, the wrinkles in his brow releasing.
"Better," he said.
"I held palaver with the Old Gods," Rasputan said with a self-indulgent smile, "Chatted it up real friendly-like. I know our next stop, the only problem is getting there. Stepping off this floating cesspit is one thing, but the Isle of Septennia tends to be a tricky place to find"
"I gave myself a little tour of the facility," Cinos replied, "Found some interesting things. You can leave the escape to me. As for the other problem... well, that's why I keep you around." He grinned, and Rasputan thought that that smile really meant ithat's why I keep you alive/i.
There was a knock on the door, and they both froze, locking eyes. A deep silence loomed over the room for what might have been a minute, and Cinos took in breath to speak again, but he was cut off by another knock, louder this time. The hedgehog's eyes narrowed, and slowly his hand found his dagger, his fingers wrapping intimately around its hilt.
"Who is it?" he called in his most polite tone.
XIX
Sonic wore a coat and hat to obscure his features when he left the private sanctuary of the Stratosphereon library. Sunglasses, too. The only thing he feared was that too elaborate a disguise might make him too conspicuous among the less modest citizens of the city, might make him actually look like a criminal, which was a bad idea. But without the sunglasses he still looked like a blue hedgehog, coat and hat nonwithstanding, and he figured that, all things considered, that was a worse idea.
More worrying at this point was Niles, who Sonic noticed was finding it more difficult by the minute to sustain a realistic-looking smile. Such a nervous fellow was he, and so stressed by his unwilling role in Sonic's enterprise, that his mood was dropping below the threshold of what was safe in the City of Clouds. Every so often Sonic would glance at him and see a scowl on his face, which posed an unspeakable risk. The outside-world equivalent would be if you walked around in public with a nervous look on your face and one hand reaching inside the breast of your coat. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're a threat, but there's a much greater than comfortable chance that you are. Chance enough to cause riots in certain places. Stratosphereon was definitely one of those places. Sonic jabbed Niles roughly whenever he saw that scowl, and each time the fox remembered himself and reverted back to that tried-and-tested false atmosphere of contentedness that he had perfected over the years of living here. Each time Sonic hoped that they hadn't brought attention to themselves. He was sure that the libria treatment dulled the senses and made people less observant, he even thought he was beginning to be able to spot the difference between the drugged people and the lucid ones, but he also knew that many of these people hadn't been treated at all. He wondered how many of them were like Niles, following his philosophy of 'getting along to get along', and how many of them slipped into bad moods occasionally and had to closely monitor their own facial expressions in public. Sonic was more concerned by the idea that some of these people might be 'plants', undercover agents of Libria whose entire job was to walk around watching people's faces and actions. He didn't know whether or not such people existed at all, but the possibility haunted him. He wondered whether Snortzworth realised that, ironically, Libria had created the very atmosphere of paranoia and intense stress that actually bred some of the worst villains in history. Morbidly, he wondered what the statistics of impulse murder sprees was like in Stratosphereon. He decided he didn't want to know.
Right now, his mission was to root out Cinos, and it was a mission that required the services of Niles Wilkinson-Price. Niles, although bitter about his involvement, was smart enough to recognise the fact that he was, like it or not, irrevocably involved. Consciously, he knew he had been ever since he freed Sonic from his impending corrective treatment. But a part of him, even deeper, knew that he had been long before that. This insight had come to him through some kind of mental percolation of knowledge in the course of his joining with Sonic, a phenomenon he still couldn't understand, but that he trusted implicitly, much to his distaste. It didn't mean he had to like it.
Each block of living quarters, like massive apartment buildings (though they were more like dormitories than apartments) had a reception area at the ground level. Although laborious, neither could think of a quicker way to track down Cinos than to interrogate the people in the reception as to whether they had seen Cinos, or even Rasputan. People were happy enough to oblige the questions if they claimed to be trying to track down a friend, but it was Niles who had to ask the questions, while Sonic worked on not drawing attention to himself.
Their victory, therefore, was a product of irony, for it was outside one of these buildings where Sonic briefly removed his hat to scratch at his quills, and one of the building's receptionists, on his lunch break, smiled and waved at him.
"Good morning, Mr Sharpe, hope you're having a marvellous day"
Sonic was caught by surprise, but after a moment he realised the inconspicuous thing to do was to wave back and offer a return greeting. Cinos himself would be likely to flip him off when his back was turned, but Sonic didn't go so far to imitate his clone's etiquette.
He instructed Niles to drop the name Kinnos Sharpe with the reception, and at last they had a room number for Sonic's evil twin. The next step - confrontation - was the more daunting, especially for Niles. Sonic had warned him that Cinos might just as soon try to murder them on sight than look at them, and the fox had said "Oh, jolly good," with a sarcastic flick of his head.
Cinos was in Suite 184, and Sonic wasn't really at all surprised to discover it - he and Espio had taken Suite 481 of another building. The hedgehog and the fox stood outside the closed door and stared in silence at the polished number. A sign was hung on the doorknob.
'PLEASE BE CONSIDERATE! We're a little busy. Have a libric day'
"Perhaps we should come back later," Niles suggested. Sonic looked at his face to see if he was serious, and noted - again, no surprise - that he was.
"You're not scared of him, are you?" Sonic asked.
"If I've ever given you the impression that I'm not a coward, dear hedgehog," Niles replied, "Then I apologise"
"Let's just do this thing, okay? The longer we stand here, the more chance that he'll take us by surprise rather than the other way around"
Niles sighed, raised his fist and held it there for a moment. Sonic was almost sure that he wouldn't follow through, but then the fox rapped politely three times on the door and stepped back.
For a time that was longer than comfortable, not the faintest sound emanated from within the room.
"I suppose he isn't at home," Niles whispered.
"If you believed that, you wouldn't be whispering," Sonic replied, "He's home, all right. That's what worries me. Knock again"
Niles closed his eyes and knocked, louder and clearer.
Sonic almost thought that they would again hear no response, and that perhaps they had been tricked after all, maybe even lured into a trap, but then that gravelly voice, full of menace and yet eerily like his own, called from the other side of the door.
"Who is it"
Not a frustrated demand, but a polite and non-threatening inquiry. Even Cinos had learned how to compose himself in Stratosphereon.
"What do I say?" Niles whispered.
"You're the super of the building and you need to talk to him," Sonic replied.
"I say, sir," Niles called into Cinos' room, "It's the superintendent, I have a matter of some urgency that I need to discuss with you forthwith." He paused, and then added, "I do apologise for the untimeliness of this business, you being preoccupied as I can see that you are, and rest assured that I wouldn't"
The door opened a crack, and Cinos' wild eyes peered through from the inside. "What?" the hedgehog demanded.
"Good sir," Niles said, but then he gulped and hesitated. Cinos' eyes stared through him as though he were barely even there, slowly narrowing, and Niles had picked a certain amount of information about the dark hedgehog's character up from Sonic's mind. He could tell, from the chaotic glint in those eyes, that Cinos wanted badly to slit him wide open where he stood. Probably would, in fact, if his chances of getting away with it were a little higher. It had been a long time since Niles had seen murder in another mobian's eyes. He had fled from evil for so long that he had forgotten what it looked like.
Sonic jabbed him in the side, and he found some courage, though he knew not from where.
"Good sir. I'm afraid there has been an... irregularity, concerning your living arrangements. I know this is wretchedly inconvenient, but I must ask if you could fill out some documents pertaining to your continued residence at"
"I won't be living here much longer," Cinos said.
"Oh," the fox replied, "Well that, um. Well"
"Is there anything else?" Cinos asked, and when it appeared Niles had no response, he began to close the door.
"Wait"
"What"
The hedgehog's ability to sustain his guise of tolerance was slipping, and soon he would probably be unable to control his anger. Niles saw it in his eyes, and Sonic heard it in his voice.
The fox cleared his throat. "Well, uh... well, in light of the frightful clerical error that has led to this confusion, it is my duty and delight to offer you a full refund for the total amount paid to us by you for your living arrangements. I have it for you right here"
Cinos measured him up and down, and Sonic thought for a moment that he didn't believe Niles' story and would not open the door. However, and regardless of whether Niles had actually planned this (he later would insist he had), there was one important detail of this story that made it almost irresistable for Cinos: The prospect of being given money. To Sonic's dismay he didn't open the door after all, but rather than retreat altogether, he reached through the crack and put his hand out for his promised refund. Good enough.
Sonic grabbed the door handle and as hard as he could, his feet against the wall for leverage, he slammed the door on Cinos' arm.
The dark hedgehog wailed and fell back, allowing Sonic to kick it open all the way and barrel through into Cinos' suite. He tackled his twin as he thrashed and snarled, and a fierce charge of static cracked through him. He feared that it was a powerful enough shock to stop his heart, and for a moment he reeled. Cinos, fury beyond imagining creating a roadmap of wrath upon his face, lunged. Sonic felt a fresh burst of pain as something slashed his arm, a dart of blood splashing across the carpet in a crimson streak, and he grabbed Cinos by the wrist moments before his dark twin could stab him in the throat with his dripping dagger.
"I knew it was you brother I knew it I knew it I knew it!" Cinos shrieked. Sonic's palm burned where he held Cinos by the wrist, and crackles of static, seemingly intensified by his twin's rage, needled him wherever else their bodies mingled. The gash on his arm sent fiery telegraphs of pain through his shoulder and to his head. Cinos, unmindful of the painful energies coursing between them from their contact, made furious digging gestures with his dagger, struggling to overcome Sonic's strength and gouge the weapon through his twin's jugular. But Sonic and he were equals in that department, and though neither he or the other could throw one another off, Sonic managed to wriggle from Cinos' grasp and bolt to the other end of the room, away from the deadly sharp weapon.
Both hedgehogs stood across from each other, panting and clutching their injured arms in exactly the same manner; Sonic his right and Cinos his left. Reflections of one another, as though you could ever doubt it.
Rasputan stood in a corner of the room, an expression on his face that Sonic couldn't quite read. Shock? Horror? Or just insanity?
"I wondered if you'd given up," Cinos spat, "Thought you'd gone home. Thought you'd run back to your happy tree friends to make some more daisy chains. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so busy hating you. My heroic, shallow-minded brother from the otherverse"
"You think I don't want to go home?" Sonic asked. "Believe me, there's nothing I'd like more"
"Then go, don't let me stop you. Run away home"
"You first"
"No actually, I think I'll stay"
"You can't win this, Cinos"
Cinos laughed at this. A genuine laugh, none of his usual biting conceit. It almost seemed a joyful laugh, although Sonic knew that what Cinos registered as joy wasn't even in the same galaxy as his own emotional responses.
"You're used to winning, aren't you," Cinos said, "Sure, why not? You're good, my brother. You always win. You mop the floor with Eggman and his cronies, no sweat. Aliens are coming to blow up the world? Who you gonna call? The blue blur, Sonic the Freakin' Hedgehog, that's who. But this is not like everything else you've done, Sonic. I'm used to winning, as well. Who wins in a fight between two opponents who never lose"
"The one doing the right thing," Sonic replied without hesitation.
"Pre-programmed response, Sonic, groundless, meaningless, unsubstantiated bullpucky. What, did you hear that on a Saturday morning cartoon show? You're smarter than that, brother, we're smarter than that. Think carefully, and really think this time, with your head and not your butt. How many times have you gone up against me and actually won since we set out on this little road trip? Who's collecting all the runes and who's eating all the dust"
Sonic knew the answer but said nothing, trying to formulate a scathing retort to knock Cinos off his soapbox. As so often happens at times like these, he could think of nothing and succeeded only in looking defeated. Rasputan was laughing like a hyena.
"It's not a trick question, Sonic," Cinos said, "It's very simple. Who wins in a fight between two opponents who never lose"
This time, he didn't wait for Sonic to answer. He answered the question himself, with a bitter scowl. "The one," he said, "With nothing to lose"
As though the dark hedgehog's line were some kind of cosmic cue in a universal stage show, the lights in the building were suddenly extinguished, plunging everything into near total darkness. The only light that reached them filtered in through the windows from outside, but it was clearly dimming at an unnatural rate. "Libria has been breeched" commanded the God-voice of Stratosphereon, "You will not loiter. You will not delay."
XX
Judge Snortzworth was forty-two and unhealthy. The last doctor he consulted told him that his life expectancy was somewhere close to fifty, that being the age that his fatal cholesterol-fuelled heart attack would strike, but that he wouldn't live to see it because the stress-fuelled heart attack was waiting for him around the neighbourhood of forty-five. Nevertheless, Snortzworth was never one to let medical advice come between him and his fried chicken. The Judge was biting into a finely marinated leg of poultry when the news came through on his desktop monitor that a code sixteen Libria Breech had occurred, and that all systems were awaiting his command.
It took quite a while for him to figure out what a code sixteen was, precisely. It was not a number that came up too often. And there was little doubt why - a code sixteen was a prison break. A successful escape, too, not merely an attempt. There had been attempts in the past, but never a single escape.
Snortzworth's blood pressure went up.
The hedgehog. He knew it without even having to check. Nothing had run smoothly in Stratosphereon since the hedgehog had arrived and decided to deface their museum. Snortzworth wished he'd never laid eyes on the offlander and his reptillian friend. Things were not supposed to happen this way, they weren't supposed to happen this way at all.
Snortzworth, frowning and cursing, commanded the Adroits to proceed, and this time to hold no punches. Once the hedgehog was neutralised, libria would return to his utopia, and the poisons of the hard world would leave Stratosphereon alone, if not forever than for long enough.
XXI
"Stratosphereon is in lockdown. Illibria has been declared. Adroits will be released promptly. You will not loiter. Libria will be restored. You will not delay."
"They're going to get me!" Niles wailed, "They're coming for me and they're going to put me so deep in libria that I won't be able to feel anything below my neck! Why oh why did I agree to this witchery"
But neither of the hedgehogs paid any attention to him. Sonic and Cinos stared each other down in the rapidly dimming light.
"You see what you've started," Sonic said, "If you just gave them the rune back, they might even decide not to drug you up so much that you'll be making daisy-chains for the rest of your life. I wonder, what would the libria treatment do to someone who's miserable when he's happy and only happy when he's miserable"
"A question for the ages, dear brother, such a shame we'll never find out. So how's about a little game of murder in the dark? I'm game." He waved his dagger in the air, and that was the last thing that Sonic saw before the light vanished and all that was left were the sounds in the room and the wailing of the city siren.
Sonic moved straight away, knowing full well that his clone's first move would be to stab at the place where Sonic had been, and sure enough he heard the swooshing of Cinos' dagger and the passionate breath of a murderer engaged in his hobby. Although Sonic avoided a messy end this moment, he also managed to unblock the path to the door, which Cinos promptly used to escape the premises. Sonic heard frenzied footsteps and then an irritated grunt and a thump that could only be Cinos colliding with a wall, then feeling his way down the hall as fast as he was able. Sonic moved to persue him, but he was grabbed from behind by a strong hand. A burst of light that hurt Sonic's eyes filled the room, and when his pupils adjusted he saw that Rasputan stood there, holding what appeared to be a very bright-burning candle in one hand and Sonic's arm in the other.
"He iwill/i succeed, Billy-Blue," the porcupine said, a hopelessly insane glint in his too-wide eyes, and he chortled that half-idiot laugh that Sonic had come to associate with him more than anything else. "The big K, he's going all the way. The Stones are gonna rocket that 'hog straight up the tower and furnish a room for him at the tippy-top"
Sonic slapped the crazed porcupine out of his way. "If that happens then you're as dead as I am, you fruitcake"
"Oh, maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it'll happen, it's predestined." Rasputan's hands trembled, and Sonic couldn't tell if it was excitement, fear or something else entirely. "They showed me," he said, "The keepers of the Old Ways, the Hidden Ones, they showed me the truth and I saw it with my own two peepers. The Universe and the Antiverse stand apart for five thousand years, and on the final day, a leader draped in blue stands atop a lake of fire with the Whitewyrm coiled around his body. He takes the powers of a thousand generations into himself, and it is he who remakes the world"
"Fairy tales," Sonic snapped.
All at once he heard the buzzing of the Adroits outside the window, saw their silhouettes on the blinds, bathed in the ambience of their strobelights.
"All true," Rasputan said, "Every word, every breath. You can't stop it. I'm smart, see." He tapped his head. "I'm a bright spark, my Ma always said so. I go with the grain, make the most of the inevitable"
"I don't work that way," Sonic said, and snatched the candle from the raving porcupine. "Thanks"
He spun around and bolted for the door before Rasputan could grab him again. Niles, it seemed, had already fled, and Cinos had probably made it a great deal further, although the darkness would have slowed him down and now he himself had a notable advantage over his identical foe, a very ambient candle made out of what looked like blackened animal fat with a stiff black wick that might have been magnesium or something similar. The building was filled with long, flickering shadows, any of which could easily be hiding Cinos, dagger in hand. Sonic wasn't even sure what he intended to do with Cinos once he caught him, but one thing was for certain: If he could end this today, he wasn't about to snub the chance. He wasn't sure he believed that Rasputan's prophecies were anything more than the delusions of a clearly deranged lunatic, but that didn't mean he was going to let Cinos stand atop a lake of fire anytime soon, wyrm or none. The prospect of the dishonourable Kinnos Sharpe esquire being elected the architect of the universe never grew any more appealing.
Sonic rushed down flight after flight of stairs, ever mindful that a blue leg could at any time slip out of the shadows to trip him and break his neck. But somehow he was almost sure that (ladies and gentlemen) Cinos had left the building.
Stratosphereon was in total darkness, but this time Sonic was not helpless. He carried with him the bright-burning candle of Cinos' witch-doctor companion, and the flame bathed the city in an ethereal light. He felt like an archeologist descending into the heart of some ancient tomb.
When he reached the lobby of the apartment building, he momentarily spotted Cinos standing in the doorway and looking back. When the dark hedgehog spotted his twin descending the stairwell, he shouted a curse and ran into the street. Sonic increased his speed, although he knew that racing his brother was akin to a greyhound racing a mechanical rabbit - good for exercise, but little more.
The moment Sonic exited the building and entered the street, he saw the Adroits rounding the corner in persuit, their strobe lights flooding the street with a brightness so intense that his eyes hurt to look at it. They were more than dumb robots, he could tell by their movements, they saw him and they saw his light, the only light in Stratosphereon not emitted by an Adroit, and they came toward him like insects attracted by a flame. Hundreds of patrolling droids, united on his trail. They were fast and agile, difficult to lose. He thought he heard one of them announce that Source of illibria has been identified and Disparity will be removed. Somehow he didn't think their idea of removal would be a very pleasant experience this time. It wasn't difficult to figure out Stratosphereon's policy for when the libria treatment didn't work.
Cinos remained just out of Sonic's reach, running ahead and every so often looking back to see whether he had lost his twin. But Sonic was determined not to be lost, for this time his evil twin would not evade him. Cinos' assertions were wrong, they had to be. Sonic would win this time, the forces of evil could never be so powerful as Cinos believed. Everything Sonic had observed over the past years contradicted it.
Cinos seemed to know where he was going. He weaved through alleys and backstreets as though he knew Stratosphereon like the back of his hand. Sonic knew that the light from his candle was probably, ironically, the only thing allowing Cinos to make his way through the city so easily. But the prospect of extinguishing the light source and losing his twin completely, probably being captured and 'removed' by the Adroits as par for course, was far worse than the alternative. He didn't know where Cinos was headed, but he couldn't run forever.
Soon, Cinos entered a building rather than passing it by. Sonic couldn't tell in the poor light what kind of building it was, but he stepped inside nevertheless. He closed the door behind him to muffle the maddening buzz of the Adroits, and then lifted the candle and squinted to see where he was in the poor light. It was only now that he realised that the candle was dimming quickly. Soon it would fail entirely, and he would be left to himself, and at the mercy of the forbidding darkness, alone with his evil twin.
Rasputan stood atop the roof of the apartment building, a circle of candles burning around him, chewing on his nails and hopping from foot to foot, cackling like a child on the morning of his birthday.
"The time of the Final Awakening is come!" he screamed into the darkness, "The last days! All will fall to their knees before the glory of the almighty Kinnos Sharpe, remaker of the Universe! Reformer of the Antiverse! The time is nigh, and no mortal on this world or any other has the power to stop it"
With these words, he danced. Rasputan danced like two parts lunatic and one part witch, arms flailing and feet stomping as he danced around the circle of candles that flickered innocently in the stillness.
Sonic squinted when his light source extinguished itself, but no amount of squinting could allow him to see in an environment of zero light. The building he was in seemed suddenly very small and suffocating. It was unnerving how the loss of vision could render a person completely helpless, and he did not pity the blind, those unfortunate few who spent every day of their lives in a state of permanant night.
"Cinos!" he shouted into the dark, although he thought it was probably a bad idea. He heard the Adroits somewhere behind him, outside, their searchlights hidden behind the walls. Sonic yearned for those lights, but at the same time he knew that he was doomed if he saw them again.
Rasputan danced in the imposed darkness of Stratosphereon's false night, twirling and kicking out his feet as he laughed and sang in what may have been a foreign dialect or might have been gibberish. His dance was a celebration of victory, for the Hidden Ones had shown him what lay ahead, and what lay ahead was the end of all things. Three more runes lay buried, soon to be recovered by He who would bring about the Apocalypse. And then... then...
A bright light filled the large room where Sonic stood, and he dropped his useless candle and fell back on his haunches, sheilding his eyes. The light itself was an ironic kind of darkness, for it filled everything with white while illuminating nothing. His eyes ached and hid like timid animals behind his closed eyelids as he cried out and clapped a hand over his face. But Sonic knew that such a cowardly action made him nothing more than a sitting duck, and slowly he opened his eyes. As his pupils adjusted to the light, he slowly made out familiar shapes around him. The building was large and open, a massive warehouse of sorts, a
(hangar)
and the horrible lights that seemed all around him shrank to two points, two strobe lights on the front of a green camoflage-patterned biplane, an aircraft that was slowly rolling toward him.
...Rasputan threw his arms up and shouted to the Old Gods, fanning his fingers out, the many rings that adorned them sparkling in the candle-light.
...and shelves of weapons lined the sides of the hanger, as numerous as the bookshelves that lined the walls of Niles' beloved library, pistols and machine-guns and automatic weapons of every kind, and Sonic thought ithis was what Stratosphereon was like before Libria, heck, this is probably what it took to create Libria, a blood-soaked war of kindness, and what was the City of Clouds like before the revolution that transformed it into the zombie-city it was today/i But before he could ponder this too deeply, the plane that rolled toward him opened fire, a deafening storm of bullets that poured in a deathwave from the gun mounted below the propellor, and Sonic just barely had time to duck out of the way before.
...the lunatic dance reached its climax, Rasputan laughing and screaming into the sky, cursing whatever deity sat upon His mighty throne in that dark beyond, vowing that His time was short.
...and the plane turned as Sonic rolled, and the hedgehog realised he had precious little room to move about in this hangar, he was trapped like an animal in a cage, and the biplane opened fire again, ratta-ratta-ratta, Sonic heard the bullets ricocheting off the concrete and striking other planes with a metallic 'ping'. Sonic rolled again, passing just under the gun's range, feeling the rush of wind caused by the bullets ripping through the air just above him, and as he picked himself up he saw the plane begin to turn again.
...and as he danced he laughed and snarled and screamed, his wicked grin fierce enough to frighten the angels on their thrones and intimidate the demons who stalked in the shadows.
...and as the plane passed Sonic with a final hail of bullets, Cinos rose from the cockpit, scowling, aiming a pistol with one hand as he steered with the other. "Die, Sonic!" he screamed, and fired the gun twice, missing his target with both shots, but this time he didn't turn to find his target again. The plane rolled straight, and there was an explosive ripping sound as the aircraft plowed through the wall of the hangar. The Adroits that waited on the other side were blown out of the sky, either by a hail of bullets or collision with the plane that seemed to be indestructable.
...as he danced, Rasputan saw a point of light rise above the rooftops, and knew that it was not the robot guards of this city, but the Destroyer of Worlds, come to resume his mission and reclaim what was his. The porcupine slung the bag of runes over his shoulder and screamed unintelligably at the growing light, waving his arms and jumping up and down.
...and Sonic could only watch as the biplane, piloted by his clone enemy, scooped Rasputan up as it passed over the rooftops, and then turned, as though to take another shot at Sonic. But instead it passed overhead, its propellor whirring and chopping, and flew straight at the darkness that encapsulated the city. Sonic thought it would crash, and that was fine - and it did crash, but that did not stop it. He watched as a hole smashed open in the sky, the blackness of the city's dome opening up to the brilliant blue of the daylight outside. The city lit up suddenly and magnificently, it's cloak of darkness torn apart, and the biplane vanished into the cloudless blue beyond. He almost didn't notice when the Adroits surrounded him. It was the buzzing that alerted him to their presence, before they set their spotlights upon him, perhaps fifty or sixty in all. He squinted into their unbearably bright lights, turning in a small circle, and then sat on the concrete, legs crossed and head in his hands.
XXII
"You have made a mistake," Snortzworth spat; he grasped Sonic's arm just below the shoulder, and dragged him along, although Sonic was trying to go willingly. The Judge was considerably taller than him, and he almost picked the hedgehog up as he dragged him.
"A very bad mistake. Or perhaps it was I who made the mistake, not doing this in the first place"
"Taking me to the firing squad, Governor?" Sonic asked.
"We do not execute people in Stratosphereon," Snortzworth replied, "There has never been a prisoner we could not rehabilitate"
"If that's how you'd like to refer to it"
Sonic was taken to the Realignment Centre in Libria and into a cell. He barely had time to register the fact that Espio and Niles were here also, before Snortzworth chucked him with a powerful over-arm throw into the small open room.
Not so open any more, though. Two Adroits with more than a passing resemblance to SWAT-bots guarded the way out, and Sonic figured he would be a fool to think for even a moment that they were the only ones.
"You will be pioneers," the Judge said, "You should feel privelaged. We are about to explore just how deep a mobian can be put under the libria treatment without brain damage"
"I'm excited," Sonic said.
Judge Snortzworth turned and left the complex, leaving behind the robot guards who stared coldly into the cell.
"This is so cool!" Espio exclaimed, and by his smile, one could almost be forgiven for thinking somebody had just told him he'd won a billion dollars in the Libria Sweepstakes. "Did you guys hear that? We're gonna be pioneers"
"How long is he going to be like this?" Sonic asked. He rubbed his sore arm where Snortzworth had clutched him; a little higher, the gash from Cinos' dagger had begun to bleed again. He was lucky, as it didn't appear to be deep enough to require stitches.
"I'm sure I don't know," Niles replied glumly, "I hardly think it matters. In ten minutes we're not going to care much, anyway"
"We're not licked yet," Sonic said, glancing around madly. This couldn't be the end of the road, it simply couldn't be. He'd escaped from worse situations in his time.
"Well I do wish you'd let me in on precisely how we're going to get out of it, dear hedgehog, without me to 'bail you out' so to speak. I can't believe I thought for a second that helping you was going to garner any other result, and now I'm in the same boat"
"Look, there is a way out of this," Sonic replied, "But it's very dangerous. Very dangerous"
"Oh, of that I have no doubt," Niles replied, "I have an inkling that being tangled up with you is simply one thrill after another"
Sonic looked into Niles' eyes. "I'm not sure I can win this fight without you. I haven't been told the rules, I'm just going with my gut. But one thing I won't do is make you follow me against your will. Where we're going is dangerous, and as far as danger is concerned, I have a feeling it's only going to get worse. But I already made a promise to Espio that the place where I come from is a better place than where he was from, it's better than here as well, it's safe and warm and friendly, and it's waiting for me at the end of this journey, unless death is instead. If you come with me and we live through all of this, I'll take you there, both of you. Knothole isn't without its perils, it's no utopia and we have our share of enemies, but every single last mobian in that village is family. I'm asking a lot, I know, and the place we're going next isn't pretty"
"No worse than this," Niles muttered, "What choice do I have"
"Will you come with us"
"Will I regret it"
"I can't say"
Niles sighed and looked up at the Adroits standing guard outside the cell. Soon, libria would come. Then, a bliss so intense that it can only ever be glimpsed in one's worst nightmares.
"Yes, dear hedgehog, loathe as I am to say this, I will come with you"
"Then hold my hand"
Niles was hesitant at first. Hold his hand? Did the hedgehog intend to fly them both out of the City of Clouds, just shoot off like a comic book superhero? But stranger things had happened, he supposed, and all he had to do was remember when Sonic had explored his mind to realise that there was more than one way to travel in this world.
He grasped Sonic's hand, and saw that Espio had one arm around the hedgehog's shoulder, and Sonic appeared almost to be supporting the grinning, bopping chameleon who might have been drunk if not libric. And Sonic's eyes were closed - softly, not squinting, as though he was trying to go to sleep. His head lolled, as though to confirm this.
Niles was struck by the sudden certainty that Sonic had no method by which to break them out of Stratosphereon, and he knew it. For precisely what reason Sonic had wanted them to hold his hand, he couldn't quite say - seeking some form of comfort, perhaps? - but he humoured the hedgehog and allowed him this final act of free will, squeezing a little and feeling Sonic squeeze back. He looked at Espio, his drug induced state of calm unbreakable by any stress of this world, and imagined how it would feel to finally be free of any kind of worry. His only hope was that Snortzworth's threat of brain damage was unfounded.
The Judge entered the prison complex again, flanked by three other mobians in white coats. Their occupations weren't too far removed from those of anesthetists: they were the ones who mixed and applied the libria treatment. Snortzworth and the three doctors began to set up the monitoring equipment, one of the doctors held up a syringe to the light and squirted a little water out of the end.
Who would be the first, Niles wondered? There was a faint breeze blowing through the cell, and he shivered a little. It took him a moment to realise that there was no window in the Realignment Centre, and the doors had been closed. The breeze was an unexplainable anomoly.
"You will feel a sting, and then a cold rush," one of the doctors said, "There will be a moment of nausea, but it will pass. Then you will feel a great happiness"
The breeze was strong enough to be unmistakable, now. It was very cold, and bizarrely seemed to be rushing in one direction, ithrough the walls/i, rather than around them. Where was this wind coming from? And there was more. Dampness? He felt like he was getting wet, his fur matting down against his body. Niles felt dizzy, and grasped Sonic's hand harder.
The doctor was about to say something else, but the message caught in his throat. The four of them were looking into the cell with expressions that may have been anything from horror to sheer fascination, if not both.
"It's the hedgehog!" Snortzworth shrieked, "He's the one"
The syringe dropped to the floor and shattered.
The wind was rushing past with such force, now, and Niles saw his fur blowing fiercely, noticing also that nothing else in the room showed any sign at all of feeling even the slightest breeze. The doctors' hair remained neatly combed and still, but Niles felt as though his own might rip itself out of his skull by the roots, such was the force of the gale. He was wet, saturated, but saw nothing else getting even remotely damp.
"Get them apart!" Snortzworth screamed, "Don't just stand there, hold them still, hold them down!"
One of the doctors broke his rigid stance and leaped toward Niles, grabbing his wrist. But he didn't quite. The doctor's hand went through Niles' flesh, slowly, as though he had tried to grab a stick of soft wax and squeezed too tight. Niles expected his arm to have been squashed like dough, but it was completely intact. The doctor grabbed only air, and now Snortzworth's screams were muffled and far away. All he could hear was Espio laughing and whooping, and all he could feel was that wind, blowing so hard now, and there was more - gravity. It pulled at him so hard he thought he was going to fall right through the floor.
And that's exactly what he did.
Finally he broke his hold on Sonic's hand, as he was ripped downward, out of the prison cell, out of Libria, out of Stratosphereon. The City of Clouds faded and vanished as though it had never existed in the first place, and he was free-falling through some kind of thick, smokey air.
Thunder roared. The wind played with him like a rag doll, and the rain was like bullets. It had not been raining when they had been trapped in Stratosphereon, the sky had been blue and clear mere minutes ago. This was a madness that Niles wasn't sure he could handle.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of falling, he landed in water. Black, viscous water, wild with the storm. He was picked up and thrown, again and again, dashed against the waves. Thunder threatened to burst his ears.
And yet he heard Sonic's voice, like a distant beacon, barely audible over the crashing of the storm and the ocean. "Land!" the hedgehog screamed, "Land! Swim towards the land!"
Niles didn't know which direction the land was, but he swam nevertheless. He swam as well as one could be expected to when one was drowning in something that was almost, but not quite, water, thrown about by the worst storm to hit Mobius since the planet was young.
The water crashed, the thunder roared. Lightning carved apart the sky. Niles swam, all the while thinking that this wasn't quite as much fun as a cup of earl gray and a nice muffin. No, not quite.
XXIII
The storm was immortal. Sonic figured that it had raged for a hundred years and might rage for a hundred more, in this section of the world. It was stronger than they; attempting to wait out the weather would be fruitless, for the weather was far more patient.
The three of them took shelter in a beach cave, far enough out to shore that the crashing tide couldn't reach them. Rain flowed in buckets from the cliffs above onto the eroded beach, and the mouth of the cave seemed almost to be curtained by a waterfall.
Sonic removed his soaked gloves and rubbed his hands together. The water was oily, a little sticky too. It didn't just seem dark from the lack of light, it was actually iblack/i. A black ocean, terrorised by a never-ending storm. The rain was dark, too. This part of the world was very sick.
Niles stood in the mouth of the cave, squinting into the vortex of cloud above, shielding his face from the rain and the wind with one hand, concentrating madly. Sonic knew what he was looking for.
"It's not there," he said, "Stratosphereon is gone. It doesn't exist in this world"
"What do you mean this world?" Niles demanded, still searching the skies, "Of course it exists, where do you think we've just come from"
"It's still up there. It's we who've travelled. Have you ever seen anything even remotely like this on the Mobius you know?" He gestured to the crashing waves of the black, sick ocean.
"Well, if we're not on Mobius, dear hedgehog, please enlighten me as to where we are"
"We're on a version of Mobius. A bad one. A sick one. This is the world that made Cinos"
"That was fun!" Espio exclaimed, "Hey, let's do that again!"
"Never in my lifetime," Niles snapped back, "How long are we going to stay in this sick world, pray tell"
"No longer than absolutely necessary," Sonic replied, "Just let me rest a while. It's easier to slide back into your own world"
"And then"
"And then we push on. We have a long way to go"
The three travellers sheltered from the storm, and even slept a while amidst the cacophony of thunder. For they did indeed have a long way to go, and the world would be as hard as it had ever been.
---
NILES The Fourth Interlude
I've travelled the world from sea to sea and seen remarkable things,
The falls of empires, the rise of mountains, the legacies of kings,
But never again in all my life have I been able to find,
One who ran away so much his life was undermined.
His lived with such a horrid past, one he tried to flee,
And tried to outrun all his fears by moving constantly,
But no mind how far he ran, and no mind how fast,
He found that there just is no way for to escape the past.
I met him on my travels once, a creature full of fear,
He could not be alone at night (there may be monsters near),
And although he ran to make him feel better inside,
There was nowhere in the world where monsters didn't hide.
I asked him, "What was done to you to make you fear the world"
He said "I have seen some things that would make your hair curl,
I do not have the strength to face the horrors of this life,
I just want to live in peace, away from all this strife."
I said, "But Weak of Will, how do you live with such a threat?
Surely, always running is a lifestyle you'll regret"
He replied, "Nobody taught me how to face up to my fears,
And so I never had the experience of my peers."
I've travelled this globe all over, oh the lessons I have learned,
The cultures I have visited, great empires overturned,
But what a lesson I have learned from one who couldn't stand and fight,
And so lived an entire life running away from plight.