Knuckles shrieked and the recording crackled with white noise as the volume overwhelmed the pickups. Robotnik looked up from where he'd been taking notes and tapped the desk in annoyance.
"Play that bit again."
Whitman scowled, unimpressed with his sudden demotion to PA, and wound back a few seconds.
"We've done this ourselves," he said. "It's nothing coherent."
"Nothing coherent to you," Robotnik corrected him. "But then you thought the Floating Island was some delirious imagining. There may be other, more specific data you've missed."
There was a knock of the door and Whitman stopped the playback and turned.
"Enter."
A lieutenant pushed the door open and saluted. "Sir."
"Go ahead."
"Dr Fielding is dead, sir. He was killed in the operation. When we arrived at the magazine offices the uh--" He cast a glance at Robotnik sitting behind Whitman. "--aliens--were there too. There was a firefight when they attempted to escape with Fielding."
"They were armed?" Whitman asked.
The soldier frowned then composed himself. "No, sir. But they did put up considerable resistance."
Robotnik chuckled slightly. "They are generally good at that."
"Any casualties?" Whitman asked.
"No fatalities, sir. Some injuries, mainly concussions. A broken shoulder. We lost the chopper."
Whitman pursed his lips. Robotnik waved a hand dismissively.
"It doesn't matter. For our purposes, dead is as good as recovered. The main thing is that the existence of the Chaos Emeralds remains classified." He grinned up at the lieutenant who was now looking determinedly disinterested. "Isn't that right?"
"Sir?"
Whitman scowled. "Dismissed!" he snapped. The soldier saluted and left as fast as respectfully possible.
Whitman turned back to Robotnik. "Was that necessary?"
Robotnik smiled. "It never hurts to remind your staff of the perils of disloyalty I find."
Whitman grunted noncommittally. "So what about this police officer?" He indicated the recording, "Given what it took to extract what little data we managed, I doubt very much Knuckles told him anything."
"I agree." Robotnik said. "But it may be worth keeping an eye on him anyway." He tapped his fingers on the table. "Why do you think Sonic and Knuckles were at the magazine?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," said Whitman. "You're supposed to be the one who knows all about them, why don't you tell me?"
Robotnik smirked. "Very well. I think they were there to eliminate the evidence of their presence here, starting with those who know about it."
"Why?" Whitman asked. "What good would that do them?"
"As I told you--they are wanted criminals on my world. Where better to escape to than a planet where no one knows they even exist?"
Whitman thought about it. "Maybe. So you think they may try to attack the police officer too?"
"I think it's almost certain."
"I'll get someone on it."
"Good." Robotnik returned his attention to the transcript. "Now play that section again."
Sonic reduced his speed to match Knuckles as they ran across the rooftops. Neither of them commented on the fact that progress had been getting steadily slower for the past half an hour.
Knuckles was tense and silent, and it wasn't until he missed an easy jump from one building to the next, and was only saved from a long fall by hasty glide and a scramble up the wall that Sonic realised how badly he was now limping.
Since Knuckles continued as though nothing had happened, Sonic ignored the missed jump and ran on a few paces before stopping and plonking himself down on the raised metal edge of a skylight.
"Something in my shoe," he lied, pulling one off.
Knuckles gave him a suspicious stare but took the opportunity to lean against a nearby heating duct and take the weight off his injured foot.
Sonic made a bit of a business of emptying out his shoe and feeling about in it for an imaginary stone before casually waving at Knuckles.
"How's your foot?"
Knuckles stood up straighter and said shortly. "Fine."
"It looks it." Sonic shot back with unabashed irony. "And I suppose that little detour via a midair drop back there was just for the climbing practice?"
"Maybe I stumbled because I had something in my shoe," Knuckles snapped, shooting Sonic a look that said he wasn't fooled at all by this byplay.
He stared Sonic straight in the eye and walked a few steps towards him, even and steady without a trace of a limp. He then gestured in the direction they'd been running.
"Well, hedgehog?"
But Sonic had seen the echidna bluff before. He'd seen him back down an uninjured enemy when all that was keeping him on his own feet was willpower. He knew where to look for the telltale tension lines around his eyes and the slight stiffness in his movements.
In short, he knew him too well to be fooled.
He also knew him too well to admit this and have it denied.
He shrugged instead.
"We don't have to get there tonight." He looked up at the, still dark, sky. "It'll be getting light soon, we should find somewhere to lay low."
"You're the one who wants to get there at all," Knuckles said.
He didn't press the point, however and when Sonic decided on a suitably sheltered spot, he sank swiftly to the concrete after no more than a cursory glance around.
"Since this excursion is your project, you can have the first watch," he said.
Sonic nodded, willing enough. That was a small enough concession if it meant not ending up carrying Knuckles again.
Knuckles slept fitfully, waking to watch the moon set. The lights of the alien city gave it a sickly orange cast, so unlike the clear night skies of the Island that he had to look away and was grateful when the sun rose and he could curl up and shut his eyes against it.
When a decent enough interval had passed that he could reasonably claim he'd rested, he stood up and walked carefully to where Sonic was sitting in the shade from some sort of air intake. He looked up as Knuckles approached and gave an exaggerated yawn.
"My turn?"
Knuckles gave a short nod and turned away as Sonic stretched out where he was.
He wandered to the edge of the roof and settled himself, looking out and down at the teeming city. Noise from the vehicles below filtered up even at this height.
He'd sat like this occasionally at the edge of the Island looking down at the places below. He'd liked it best at night when instead of the sprawl of towns there were just the lights. Pinpoints in the darkness, almost a match to the stars overhead. Cities turned into constellations.
The writings on the Island told him his people had gone to the stars. Had they found somewhere to recreate the imposing beauty of the Island? Or worlds like this one? Hostile and crowded?
Maybe they wandered still. Or maybe their journey had ended not in a new world but in disaster and he was not merely the last on Mobius, but the last of all.
He shook his head firmly. These were nighttime thoughts. Rambling and self-pitying. They contributed nothing to the task in hand and had no place in the daylight with the sun beating down. He drew his feet up to sit cross legged and cast a glance over his shoulder at Sonic.
The hedgehog was sprawled on the warm tarmac with his eyes shut, though the lack of snoring suggested he wasn't as asleep as he looked and indeed it was barely dusk before he was back on his feet.
"A fine sight you'll make for anyone down there," he commented, joining Knuckles at the edge.
"No one here looks up," Knuckles said flatly. "And we're too high, they couldn't recognise me."
Sonic peered over the edge.
"Bit of a different view from home, huh?"
That was such a blatantly obvious comment that Knuckles couldn't muster even an angry reply. He couldn't quite understand why Sonic was trying to make casual conversation at all. He'd known well enough what he was saying last night, he couldn't be so callow as to expect him to just shrug that off. To ignore it and act as if he was here by choice rather obligation?
Something about Knuckles' silence must have penetrated though because Sonic turned and headed back across the roof.
"It's this way."
Even on the move, Knuckles' cold silence was oppressive and Sonic was afraid he might have actually gone too far this time. He'd come pretty close to the mark before with Knuckles. He'd insulted him and made jokes about the Island and the Emeralds and mocked his ability to take care of either, and nearly got thumped for his trouble any number of times. He'd used everything short of bribery and blackmail to get Knuckles to help out against Robotnik, and sometimes it had been not very far short of either.
Ultimately though, even if neither of them would ever admit the fact, it had always been tacitly understood that Knuckles only helped when he chose to. More often than not, he helped in spite of, rather than because of Sonic's cajolery.
Not this time. This time he clearly felt he'd been backed into a corner. And he resented it. Of course he did.
He could have said no, Sonic told himself. He did claim he had a plan all along for getting away from the base without my help.
But no, Knuckles would have seen that as wriggling out of a debt, Sonic realised. Or maybe was afraid other people would see it as wriggling out. Maybe he thought that was worse.
Sonic knew Knuckles thought he was feckless, irresponsible, childish--in short, all the things the echidna prided himself on not being--but contrary to appearances Sonic was thoroughly familiar with the idea of obligation.
He fought Robotnik not just for the challenge--though he wouldn't deny that was part of it--but because he was one of the ones that could. That he was also one of the ones that could move fast enough to be out of reach of trouble and relaxing somewhere far away was not something he considered relevant.
He didn't think of it in any sort of moral stance, it was simply fair play. You could do something to help, so you did.
That seemed to work well enough at home, he saw no reason to change it it. He did feel the occasional pang when he thought of how worried Tails and the others back on Mobius must be but he also knew that beating himself into a mental pulp would not make the blindest bit of difference to them from here.
You did what you could. And right now he could do nothing for them, but he could stop someone else getting hurt because of him. And so could Knuckles, willing or not.
He'd try and resolve that later.
If he could.
---End part 9---