Techno lives in the mountains, outside Crisis City. It's a long walk to get there, but Shadow doesn't tire easily, Blaze walks with determined steps, and Silver skitters up and down the trail, sometimes ahead of them, sometimes behind them, looking at the scraggly plants and faint patches of snow. The smoke and smog from Iblis aren't as bad up here, Shadow noted, and this was good.

It means Iblis' power is limited.

The sun is even peeking out through the clouds of ash and smoke.

"Look, a dandelion!" Silver, off the trail again, is kneeling by a plant with a yellow flower.

"Don't eat the whole thing," Blaze said.

"I know, I know," Silver is already plucking the green leaves off the plant.

"It's a weed," Shadow said. His tone was indifferent but he was interested in the answer Blaze gave.

She glanced at him. "Maybe for you but not for us. It's an edible plant. If Silver eats all the leaves, it might die. And the flower is important. If it gets pollinated, maybe there'll be more.

Silver came back with five leaves in his hand. "Anyone?"

Blaze shook her head. Shadow did the same.

"You sure?"

"I'm fine," Shadow said. Breakfast had been small again, and Shadow had let Silver eat most of it for him.

Sometimes it was good to not need to eat a lot of food.

Blaze added, "you know I would rather have them cooked. Go ahead."

Silver ate the leaves one at a time as they walked.

"How much farther?" Shadow asked.

"Maybe another five minutes," Blaze replied. "We're looking for a crack in the wall in these cliffs that should be coming up."

It does, as she had said, and they squeeze through the crack, one after the other. Silver's telekinesis glowed blue as he bounded on ahead, even though the tunnel is pitch black and the light he gives off is faint at best. Blaze opened a flame in her hand, and she and Shadow followed at a more measured pace.

The tunnel takes them deeper and deeper, and finally comes out into what seems to be a cave but might be something carved out and made to look natural. It's a wide room, floor flat enough even though it's not exactly even. The door at the end of the room is not a natural feature. It's mechanical.

Silver bounded up to the door and typed a code into the keypad. "I hope Techno has some food for us!" The door slid open, and the light behind it was as bright as the sun.

Shadow's been in a number of secret bases in his time, and generally doesn't feel that they're impressive. But this is the most impressive place he's seen since he was freed from stasis. It's wide, and brightly lit. Glimmering electronics are along one wall. In the middle of the room is a wide raised bed of tomatoes and corn and other plants that runs almost the length of the room.

"Oh hi guys. It's been awhile." The kitsune that appears is a dirt-brown color with three tails, but other than that, he's a spitting image of Tails. He wears a single lens of dark red over one eye, gloves and shoes. A belt around his waist has pouches on one side and a small empty holster on the other. "Are you-?" he saw Shadow and stopped. "Shadow the Hedgehog."

At Shadow's curt nod, he went on. "You're really alive."

"Um, Techno," Blaze cut in. "Can I talk to you for a moment? In private?"

"Uh, sure." He glanced at Silver and Shadow. "Help yourself to some tomatoes. The corn isn't quite ripe yet. Oh, and Silver, the turnips are at the other end of the garden. Wash the dirt off first."

Blaze and Techno walk down to the other end of the room. Silver was already floating excitedly over the garden, looking for red tomatoes.

Shadow waited, his arms crossed over his chest, as Silver inspected and then selected a red tomato and started eating it like and apple. "These are amazing! Do you want one Shadow?"

"No, thank you," Shadow replied. He kept his eyes on Silver but his ears on Blaze and Techno. They talked in low tones, but in spite of this, Blaze had seriously underestimated his hearing.

"You know they say that he is the one who released Iblis?" Blaze asked.

"I don't know who 'they' are," Techno replied. "Grandpa never believed it. You know that people had a hard time telling him apart from Sonic. Maybe there's a similar explanation here. Anyway, if you didn't trust him, why'd you show him where I live? If he is with Iblis we're all in a lot of trouble now."

Blaze looked concerned.

"Listen, you know, I told you about how Sonic was arrested for crimes he never committed. If humans are saying this, most of them need to have their eyes checked. I don't believe it."

"You put too much faith in your Grandfather's stories," Blaze replied.

"You don't put enough faith in them," Techno countered. "You're too wired up lately. You should spend the night. Take a bath. You know my water recycling system is top of the line. You'd have to get to Ark to get one as good. Take a break from worrying."

"You sure I can't get you a tomato?" Silver interrupted the intense eavesdropping.

"I'm sure," Shadow replied, annoyed. Blaze and Techno were walking back toward them now.

"You're all invited to spend the night, if you want," Techno offered. "I know you have to go a long ways to get back to where you came from."

"Where are the Chaos Emeralds?" Shadow asked, and the change of topic was almost as jarring as the question.

Techno sat down in a chair near a computer mounted in the wall. He opened a cabinet in the wall. Inside it were three drawers. He pulled open one drawer and took a box of worn white metal from it. This he tossed to Shadow. Then he pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapped one tail around himself clockwise, another counter clockwise, and the let the third come up over his head, the white tip dangling over his forehead.

It was Blaze who answered the question. "Iblis destroyed the Chaos Emeralds. After he was released. After Sonic the Hedgehog, well..."

"I know what happened to Sonic. I was there when Iblis was released," Shadow informed her bluntly.

"Did you have anything to do with it?" Blaze asked.

"Other than try to stop it? No." Shadow pulled the lid off the box. A long tower of purple crystal, glowing, lay on a piece of black velvet inside.

"Whoa," Silver's eyes widened as he hovered over Shadow's shoulder to see what was inside. "Is that a real piece of a Chaos Emerald?"

"It is," Shadow said, pulling the fragment out of the box. He could feel it's power.

"Grandpa thought that maybe there was a possibility that the Emeralds hadn't actually been destroyed, just broken. He thought that maybe he could find the pieces and fix them." Techno explained. "This was all he ever found, though."

"When Iblis was released...was anyone able to do anything to prevent him from destroying the world?" Blaze asked, and he voice was small.

"No," Shadow said quietly. "But we tried."

It was Silver who broke the long silence that followed. "Anyone want a tomato?"

(-)

Techno's underground lair has lights that mimic daylight and dim automatically at night. The setup was designed to match sunrise and sunset, every day of the year. It had been Tails' design.

The rooms here are spacious, the beds are comfortable, but Shadow has spent too much time sleeping already. He slips from the bed and slides his shoes on. On the other bed in the room, Silver is snuffling quietly, sound asleep.

The door slides open with a quiet hiss as Shadow approaches it and closes just as silently. The lights in the hallway are in Moonlight Mode now, but whatever phase of the moon they're supposed to be imitating gives enough light for Shadow to see where he's going.

Shadow had intended to see about breaking into Techno's computer and looking for any information that might help him find whatever is left of the Chaos Emeralds. When he comes into the room, though, he finds that someone else is already up.

Techno is busy in the garden, putting red tomatoes into a basket. He's very hard to see; the white tips of his tails are what gives him away as he bends over another plant. He puts the tomatoes in his hands into the basket very gently, and then notices Shadow's approach. "Couldn't sleep either?"

"What happened to Tails?" Shadow asked.

"You are just as blunt as he told me you would be."

"Hmph!"

"Since you ask so nicely, I don't know exactly." Techno bent over another plant. "He was looking for you. He was working with a bat. They left one day, and after that, I don't know." Techno put the next handful of tomatoes in the basket, came to the edge of the bed, and sat on the metal railing. He wrapped his tails around and over himself before he went on. "He was found dead after that. People believe that Iblis killed him and maybe that is what happened. But he was well known enough that word of his death got back to me so, that's how I know. Usually people just disappear. Oh, the bat, uh, I think her name was Rouge. She died too."

That stings, a little. Shadow had known that after all the time that had passed, the chance of Rouge's survival would have been slim, but it still hurts in a way that hasn't since he watched Maria die.

"Why didn't Tails share this technology?" He doesn't really care, but he would like to know why neither Blaze nor Silver were bothered by the difference in their circumstances.

"He said it wasn't ready for that and anyway, there's no way to mass produce the stuff." Techno's voice was muffled as he had by now hidden his muzzle in his tails, and Shadow was struck at once with the realization that Techno was too young to be doing this; that someone had left a child in charge of a facility that he wasn't ready to run. Tails had been building spaceships at Techno's age, true, but he had had Sonic to blunt the worst of the emotional impact that came with the turmoil of fighting and support him through it.

By the looks of it, Techno had no one.

But harsh as it sounds, there's no time to worry about that now.

"I meant what I said earlier. We need to find the Chaos Emeralds, or whatever is left of them," Shadow said.

"But how? I mean, the Chaos Emeralds have been gone for so long and there's no trace of them that I can find anywhere, and maybe Grandpa could have but he'd not here," Techno was talking faster and faster, and as he did, something else had begun to happen. Vines had begun springing up and growing around them in earnest. Shadow tried to step back out of the way, but the vines were coming up too fast.

"Techno!"

"And maybe Grandpa does have a program that will let us find the emerald shards but if he has one on the computer I can't find it and I've looked and I-"

"Techno!"

The kitsune froze, then noticed what had happened. "Sorry," he muttered, and the vines, which had wrapped Shadow up completely and by now flowered and were forming tiny pumpkins, began to retreat back to the garden.

"What are you?" Shadow asked, stepping clear of the last vines that had untangled themselves from him.

"I'm Mobian through Grandpa. Grandma was a Seedrian, so I have power over plants, too," Techno admitted.

"Cosmo," Shadow realized.

Techno sat up a little straighter, his face now fully emerging from his tails. "You knew my Grandma?"

"Y-es." It was a way to describe their past together.

Techno hunched down again. "I can make plants grow. Not a great power to have in these times." At Shadow's questioning glance, he shook his head. "These lights in here imitate the sun. There's barely any sun outside and I hate it. Grandma did too. And I can tell when Iblis or one of his minions gets close. He's destruction and I'm growth. I don't need any alarms to tell me when Iblis is near. He makes me feel sick. Literally."

A new though occurred to Shadow. "Is Angel Island still around? And does that echidna still guard it?"

Techno nodded.

"Still at it..." Shadow mused. "I want to see him."

Techno considered it. "Angel Island floats above the ash cloud that blankets the world. I can track it's trajectory if..." he trailed off, unwrapped himself from his tails, and went to the computer. "Do you think that Knuckles knows what happened to the Emeralds?"

"He's the guardian of the Master Emerald and as a good place as any to start my search," Shadow's tone was decisive.

Techno nodded and began to type.

(-)

When Silver and Blaze enter the main hall the next morning, they find Techno engaged in rapid-fire typing on his computer. A nearby printer spits out another sheet of paper. Shadow, leaning against the wall, examines a sheet of paper while popping something that looks like a bean into his mouth.

"What's going on?" Silver asked.

"We are going to Angel Island," Shadow said as calmly as if there was nothing more than the weather being discussed.

"Are we gonna stop Iblis?" Silver asked excitedly.

"We?" Shadow looked at him.

"I want to help! I want to make the planet, well, better than what it is now!" Silver insisted.

Shadow looked at Blaze, who refused to meet his eyes.

"Remember what Grandpa said?" Techno asked, his typing now back up to top speed.

"No. I never knew him!" Blaze countered.

"No risk, no reward," Techno went on glibly.

"Come on Blaze, we can trust Shadow!" Silver insisted. "We have to do something. The world's not getting any better. There is no future to look forward too. Something has to change."

Blaze sighed. "Alright. I'll trust you."

Shadow was looking at his papers again, indifferent. He had already planned to go to Angel Island with or without them and their decision didn't really impact him either way.

"We leave in an hour," he told them.

I know you're out there, Mephiles. I will find you and you will pay for what's happened.