Author's note: So. Much. Exposition. I apologize in advance. Also, science mixed with fantasy equals lots of, um, creative tweaking, soooo if I happen to have any astrophysicist readers out there … have a slice of pizza 🍕 and carry on.

And to veteran reviewers 000Marie198, E-Rank, and Noonui: I *never* confuse my gratitude for indigestion. Unless pizza is involved. But THANK YOU anyways :3

Happy Holidays!

Chapter 15: Time is Relative

Seconds dragged in the aftermath of the Artificial Chaos' destruction. Even the trailing smoke of the charred helmets seemed to have stilled in the air, afraid of making any sudden movements.

It took Shadow a long exhale to relax his hands from the clenched fists they were holding. His palms hurt from his fingertips digging in.

Sonic was already shifting, no longer Super but certainly alive. He pulled himself up on his knees slowly, and Tails jogged in from Shadow's side to help him.

Chaos 0 found the ability to move, as well, though at a much slower pace than the hedgehog.

"Hey," a voice called from his right. Shadow blinked, turning towards its source. Rouge was staring worriedly at him.

"You all right?" she added when she had gathered his attention.

Shadow blinked again, not really sure how to answer that loaded question. His gaze dropped to his hands and he realized belatedly that he, too, no longer harbored a Super State.

Had that ended with his use of the negative energy?

Could it truly be called that, with the amount of absolute power he had momentarily possessed?

The entire last minute felt surreal.

There was something else, too: a dull, yet broad heaviness, like someone had placed invisible weights across his body. His legs trembled under the strain.

"Here."

For the second time, Shadow realized Rouge was still there. His focus was completely shot, but he started to understand why when he saw what she was offering to him.

Nodding, he took the inhibitor rings and clasped them onto his wrists and ankles, letting out a small breath of relief as the heaviness gradually dissipated.

While he may have tapped into whatever the negative energy was, it was clear that he had not found complete control of it.

A groan of annoyance came from across the room, and both Shadow and Rouge glanced over at Sonic, currently rubbing his snout.

"You've got the Chaos Emeralds, Shads?"

An instinctive growl came out at hearing the unwanted nickname, but it was prematurely halted by the question's content.

Shadow felt his own wave of frustration when he replied, "No, I do not."

"Fan-chili-tastic."

Tails was hovering next to Sonic, but had turned towards Chaos 0. The fox child seemed hesitant to help, but still offered his hand to the water creature's obvious struggle to stand. It was as stubborn as the rest of the group, though, because it ignored the attempted assistance and pulled itself to its feet unsteadily.

Sonic searched around for something, then focused on his sidekick. "Where's Knux?"

Watching Chaos 0 worriedly, it took Tails a second to realize someone was talking to him. "Oh, uh, he's in the computer room. Sonic, there's something you've gotta see—!"

"Whoa, calm down bud," he said, pointing to the remains. "In case you missed it, Shadow took care of our problem."

"That's the problem!"

"Um. What?"

"They were trying to help us!"

Sonic balked at that, but Shadow could not suppress a sinking realization. Maria's voice replayed in echoes around him, distorted and jumbled but distinctly her.

"In what world is throwing electric blue lightning that sucks our souls out HELPING?!"

"It's not like that. I mean, okay, at first I thought it was, too, but I have a theory on what they were trying to do with that. When the Master Emerald disappeared and Knuckles fainted we went to—"

"Disappear? Faint?!"

"I did not faint."

All four occupants jolted at Knuckles' sudden arrival behind them. Chaos 0 anticipated it, however, as it had already begun to walk towards the echidna.

"Knuckles, you're okay!" Tails exclaimed, but slowed his approach when Knuckles held a palm out to stop him.

Chaos 0 passed Shadow and Rouge, closing the distance between it and the Guardian. Knuckles bowed his head when they stood facing one another, and Chaos 0 waited motionlessly as the echidna closed his eyes and began to chant.

It was similar, but not identical, to the dialect Shadow briefly heard in the storage room, when Knuckles had been repairing the Master Emerald. The hedgehog inexplicably tilted his head at the familiarness of the words, feeling as though he could have heard the same stanzas in another time and place, from what felt like an eternity ago.

Gerald Robotnik had studied everything there was to know about the so-called water deity, along with the even less documented ancient Echidnean culture, all in his quest to find a cure for Maria. And even Maria herself had been fascinated with the historical (or perhaps more accurately, legendary) events leading to the formation of the Chaos Emeralds.

Shadow had been surrounded by their research in his first years aboard the ARK. They would speak aloud the illusive words on paper, repeating and studying them relentlessly, but they were never able to successfully translate the language. Listening now, Shadow wondered if it wasn't so much the words, but the intonation that had mattered all along.

Less than a minute into the mantra, a sparkle of green light emitted from the echidna's glove. It was no larger than a marble, forming from nothing, but quickly swirled and expanded with exponential growth. Shadow shut his eyes when the rays became blinding, opening them a mere moment later to find the room dark, and Chaos 0 gone.

Knuckles' outstretched hand fell to his side, his attention returning to the remaining Mobians in the room.

"Chaos and the Master Emerald are together again," he replied to their stunned silence.

"But ... wait, where did the Master Emerald go?" Tails asked. "It disappeared, and then you fai—uh, fell unconscious, and then—"

"They had taken it," Knuckles interrupted, his eyes accusatory as he looked to the remnants of the Artificial Chaos upon the floor. "She—it was in the process of healing me when it was stolen, leaving myself and Chaos powerless." As if to add insult to injury, he kicked one of the scorched helmets and let it skitter across the floor. "The Master Emerald was freed with their destruction, as was Chaos and I."

Rouge let out a small giggle of disbelief. "All right, Red, come on, you were out cold. How would you even know any of that?"

Sonic shook his head wildly at her inquiry, slicing the air with his hands.

"Shh, don't get him started!" he hissed.

Knuckles glared. "For your information, the Master Emerald told me," he said, directing his answer to Rouge.

The bat's brows rose almost comically.

Knuckles was prepared to continue with whatever ludicrous explanation he had, but Tails mercifully cut in, evidently stuck on earlier information. "That doesn't make sense. Why would they take the Master Emerald?"

"Uh, are you kidding?" Sonic incredulously asked. "Wasn't that the whole reason Knux turned it into a spiderweb bomb? You know, to keep them from stealing it?"

Tails absently shook his head. "No. I mean, yeah, that was Knuckles protecting it, but the A.C.'s weren't after it." He paused for a beat, eyes widening. "Unless they took it so they could put it in that interdimensional space for safekeeping!"

Knuckles outright growled at that. "It was not theirs to take, Tails. I am its Guardian, and it is only safe now because it is a part of me."

"And what do you mean safekeeping?!" Sonic exclaimed. "Aren't—weren't they the bad guys, here?"

The fox ignored Sonic's comment, eyes widening further at Knuckles' previous statement. "You can make the Master Emerald a part of you?"

The echidna merely nodded his head once. A flickering memory entered Shadow's mind, when Knuckles had done something similar to the Master Emerald.

During their last venture onboard the ARK, Knuckles had somehow shrunk the jewel so he could travel unhindered. Then, when it was needed to defeat Biolizard, Shadow had actually witnessed the echidna releasing the Master Emerald to its original size, in order to utilize its power.

Shadow supposed it wasn't unheard of for Knuckles to somehow make the gem a part of his own essence, then. It was likely that the presence of Chaos 0 could also help him absorb and maintain the energy, if needed.

Sonic was unperturbed by this, as well, and just shook his head at the knowledge, chuckling. "One day you're going to teach me that trick, Knucklehead."

"It is not an easy feat to accomplish, hedgehog," Knuckles argued, "nor one I care to impart."

"Why? Trying to impress the gals with your pocket-sized Master Emerald?"

Rouge smirked. "Is that what you did before, Red? I was wondering how you were hauling that big beauty around. I think that's a trick I'd like to learn, too."

Knuckles snarled at both of them. "It is not 'pocket-sized', and it is not a trick! It takes a considerable amount of concentration and—"

An alarm began blaring through the ARK's interior, stopping the conversation on all fronts.

What functioning red lights remained started flashing throughout the corridors, and Shadow felt every single one of his muscles tense. Haunted memories of a fateful day over fifty years ago flashed in rhythm to the warning signal, and he had to mentally force it away.

"For the love of cheese, what now?" Sonic whined.

Tails' hand latched onto the blue hedgehog's arm worriedly. "That's the evacuation warning … if there are any other escape pods functioning here, then that must be Eggman!"

"Egghead escaped too? Chaos, we can't catch a break, can we?"

"We were all trapped in that limbo. How did he get out without an emerald?" Rouge asked.

Shadow felt Tails' eyes on him, but chose to ignore it as the fox answered, "Since the Artificial Chaos are gone, I don't think that limbo exists anymore."

Sonic only shrugged at that. "Welp! Where to, bud? We gotta stop him!" Sonic slammed a fist into his palm, ready for action.

Tails shook his head. "We can't go. There's something I need to show you."

That threw Sonic, apparently, because he did a double-take at the fox kid. "Wait, what? Still? Why can't you just tell me?"

Tails only cringed, and even Rouge looked oddly troubled when Shadow glanced her way. "I don't think you'll believe me."

"Li'l bro, last year we searched for Eggman in some spooky, decrepit castle that turned upside down on us. Believe me, I think I'm openminded enough for whatever you're about to say."

The fox glimpsed at Rouge, and she shrugged in return. He sighed, but eventually answered with one jarring statement: "There's a blackhole on the ARK."

"See, was that so—uh. Wait; what?"

They were mostly settled into the ARK's computer room. It was one of the auxiliary ones, according to Shadow, but Sonic was pretty sure the term "computer room" was used loosely at this point.

Minus the giant hole in the floor, a good portion of the surrounding walls and furniture broken down, and only one of the monitors up and running—with the rest looking like what happens to decaying corpses—then sure, it could probably, maybe, classify as a computer room.

Sonic sat atop a desk near Tails' sole working computer, watching as the fox turned off the alarms and pulled up the surveillance system. Sure enough, camera footage showed Eggman and his robot minions hurriedly exiting into a working escape vehicle.

Based off the data Tails obtained, supposedly that vehicle was brought here intentionally months prior, which settled uneasily in Sonic's gut. How long had Eggman been scheming all of this?

They had seen footage of Eggman getting kidnapped in his laboratory, but … was that video planted?

The blank prison, or inter-demo phase of something-or-other Tails had described it as, supposedly dissolved as soon as Shadow had taken out the last of the Artificial Chaos.

Well, Sonic guessed there was no supposed about it, considering that was the only way Eggman could have escaped.

To add to the confusion, the wannabe deities had teleported the Master Emerald into that blank prison, right after Knuckles had successfully repaired it. It knocked both Guardians out (which Sonic and Shadow had witnessed with Chaos 0, at least), but any reason why remained fuzzy. The consensus from one two-tailed fox insisted the Artificial Chaos were trying to protect the Master Emerald, while one very temperamental echidna said they were trying to steal it (and eradicate him and Chaos 0 in the process).

Neither argument made much sense, honestly. Chaos 0 had already given his Chaos Emeralds to Shadow and Sonic by that point, in order for them to become Super. He had been the weakest of the three to target.

Did it have anything to do with that weird water-tentacle connection between the two Chaos creatures?

Super Sonic had used what was left of his energy to separate them, afraid that the Artificial Chaos had somehow wounded Chaos 0. But the hero could not disregard the flashes of pictures that had taken over his vision when he pulled apart their connection, even as momentary as they were.

Blue and yellow light fading into each other...

Shadow and a young human girl, side-by-side in a hospital room...

An older male human, fastening inhibitor rings onto an unconscious Shadow's wrists...

And Mobius, pure in pale yellow luminescence, receding into darkness.

The images had come and gone so fast that a lot had been missed in-between those brief, recognizable visions. Sonic could only focus on protecting Chaos 0 in the heat of battle, but reflecting on it now ... had the Artificial Chaos been trying to communicate with Chaos 0?

And then Tails had an even crazier theory, suggesting that the beams of energy Artificial Chaos had been shooting was to place them all back into that washed-out world.

And for what reason? To protect them, too?

Sonic scoffed to himself. He was by no means a genius, but he did know there were a lot of ways to not make it feel like you're trying to utterly destroy someone, and painful streaks of negative energy was not a great first impression. At all.

"Tails."

"Yeah, Sonic?"

"This stuff about the Artificial Chaos."

"What about them?"

"You're saying they teleported the Master Emerald into that interditto place—"

"Interdimensional space."

"Whatever. They put the gem in there to protect it."

"Yes."

"Which goes against everything else they've been doing."

"No, because—"

"Because you think they were slinging streaks of lightning to teleport us to that broken television set, too."

Tails let out a puff of annoyed air. "Interdimensional space, and yes. I think they were trying to—"

"Protect us, I know. You've only said it about thirty times, now." Sonic crossed his arms defiantly. "Again, giant beams of painful negative energy does not scream to me, 'Hey, friends, let's have a block party!'"

"I get that. That's what I thought, too, but after seeing this footage I'm about to show you, and reviewing the data that had been collected over the past few weeks, I've found that, um … uh, why are you looking at me like that?"

Tails explanation trailed at Sonic's stern stare. It did not let up, nor did it take longer than a few seconds for the fox to figure out what it meant. He sighed out loud and said, "I know," right when Sonic started,

"I would just like to say—"

"I know."

"—that the one bit of advice you gave—"

"I know."

"—was that these guys were BAD."

"Sonic, I know!"

"Just sayin'."

"Look," Tails said with another drawn-out sigh, "I thought they were bad. We all did."

"I'm still confused by this turn of events."

"Here. Watch this," Tails said, pulling up the camera footage. Shadow and Knuckles hovered close, but Rouge kept back.

This must've been what they'd both seen earlier.

Jumping off the table, Sonic turned towards the monitor, too, squinting at the faded, choppy footage.

It showed a room with a lot of pipes, and not much décor. Shadow mumbled, "That's a part of the reactor shield," when he saw it, which meant nothing to the hero, but was as good of a name for it as any.

At first, that was all that seemed to be there. Sonic was about to say as much, but began to notice a perpetual distortion in the center of the room. Easily confused as static in the beginning, perhaps, but as he watched the feed it kept a distinct swirling pattern. It took even longer before it became alarmingly clear that the architecture near the epicenter of the vortex was actually disappearing, and what looked like a blip in the footage was gradually growing.

To anyone who'd seen a lick of science fiction, that definitely appeared to act like a blackhole.

"That's—that's here? Now? On this ship?!" Sonic asked, not even sure if we wanted the question answered.

"Yes."

"How are we even alive, then?" Shadow asked.

"I … I don't know, honestly. But all the data confirms it. The emitting radiation … the, the gravitational pull. But…" On the last word, Tails' voice grew frustrated, pulling up additional data that was pure gibberish to Sonic. His brother understood it, however, because he started pointing at specific parts. "But it doesn't make sense. See? It's all in a time-still. It's not growing or shrinking."

"How?" Shadow repeated. "Was this created by the Artificial Chaos?"

"Or Eggman?" Knuckles accused.

"Both, I think," Tails answered. "Eggman was telling the truth about manipulating the hardware on the few remaining A.C.'s left on the ARK. He essentially broke their internal regulation, and was allowing for limitless negative energy to absorb into them."

It didn't go unnoticed by Sonic when Shadow studied his inhibitor bracelets at that.

"The problem," Tails continued as he exited out of the recording, "was that Gerald Robotnik's designs weren't meant to harbor that much energy.

"I mean, theoretically, I don't think anything can harbor infinite energy…" he paused when Knuckles made an obnoxious grunt. "Okay, Master Emerald withstanding, I guess."

He hummed in approval.

"Anyways, check this out."

His sidekick pulled up another recording, similar to the first one. Surprisingly, despite the timeframe showing one week later in the corner, it appeared as though the blackhole had maintained its size, despite noticing visible growth in the first video.

"See? It's not growing. It's not shrinking. It's literally holding this shape, and—granted, I'm no astrophysicist here, but—I can't even begin to figure out how. Except, here … they're in the same room with it!" The fox quickly fast-forwarded the recording, stopping when the three Artificial Chaos appeared in the background.

Sonic was not into science fiction that much, but he was pretty confident that standing next to a blackhole was impossible. Somehow.

"They should be getting spaghettified!" Tails exclaimed.

"Uh, what?" Knuckles asked, appalled.

"Like … does that mean what I think it means?" Sonic added, again not sure if he wanted an answer.

"If you think it means that their bodies should be vertically stretching out like a noodle as they are brought towards the event horizon, then yes."

Knuckles and Sonic looked at one another with disgust. "Yeah, could have gone my whole life not knowing that," the latter commented.

Tails was unfazed by the digression. "But they're not! They're … they're completely intact and doing something to contain a blackhole."

At one point Rouge had returned her interest to the screen, along with the rest, and finally inputted, "Not to play devil's advocate here, but … I thought the whole point of blackholes was that they couldn't be seen?"

"We're not seeing it. All we're seeing is the accretion, and the matter that's being affected around it."

"Then are we sure that it's even a blackhole?" Shadow debated.

"It's not like anything I've ever seen. But every instrument on this blasted dilapidated ship supports it, and whether the Artificial Chaos created it or not, they're clearly trying to contain it in the video, which also supports that they were trying to help us in the first place!"

"They have a funny way of showing it," Knuckles muttered.

"Well," Rouge said with hands planted on her hips, "what's that basic principle? The simplest explanation is usually the correct one?"

Knuckles snorted. "Nothing about this is basic, or simple."

Rouge slapped him on the arm, but Tails was starting to look seriously stressed out about the situation. Sonic laid a hand on his shoulder to halt his typing and offered, "Come on, guys, let's take ten, all right? This is a lot of information to digest."

Shadow scowled at him. "Whether or not we are dealing with a true blackhole, you do realize that the entire planet could be in danger?"

"Hey, I've seen enough sci-fi to know that this ain't good, Shads. But I think we need to take a breather and—"

"And let the world perish while your friend 'takes ten'?"

Sonic stood up straighter at that, his own withering glare set on the black hedgehog. "All right, Shadow, back off."

"Do you realize how much time we've lost waiting on your incessant lingering and backing off?"

"Not as much time as we're about to lose if you don't—"

"Stop it, guys!" Tails cried, arms waving at them erratically. "Shadow, there is no right answer to your question. Everything we know about blackholes tells us something even this big would have already swallowed up Mobius in a heartbeat.

"Technically, this blackhole could be no larger than the size of a couple of atoms. We wouldn't know since we can't see it. But even so, it should be continually absorbing matter, which means it would be growing."

One of his hands rubbing his eyes, Tails continued, "And if it's not absorbing matter, it would be evaporating, and the resulting radiation would be enough to blow the ARK up, as well as the moon, and probably cause some impressive damage on the planet itself."

There was an extended silence after that comment. Sonic finally said, "Oh," not because he needed to fill in that gap of awkwardness, but because he was relatively positive there wasn't another more appropriate response to a statement like that.

Tails paid no mind to the group's reaction, or lack thereof. He gazed at Shadow's inhibitor rings, brows furrowing in that dogged pursuit of truth that Sonic was all too familiar with. "If negative energy is truly Chaos energy, but just from another time in existence, then too much of it in one spot could possibly cause a singularity like this, where time and space are broken down.

"But if the Artificial Chaos were the ones that created it, then why are they trying to contain it? And why did they bring the Chaos Emeralds here? Would they have brought the Master Emerald here, too, if it hadn't been electrified?"

His sidekick groaned, and this time both hands came up to rub his entire face in frustration. "I just don't get it."

A beep resonated from the computer. Tails stopped and looked over at it, eyes widening. "Guys … I think that's Eggman."

"What, is he calling us to gloat?" Sonic sarcastically asked, walking up to the monitor anyways.

Tails typed in a command, and a full-screen display of Eggman's mug took over.

Sonic appropriately said, "Gah!" followed by a sound of gagging. Collecting himself from his dramatic acting, he saluted to the screen and began, "Hey Eggman, how's it hang—"

"Hold on, Sonic," Tails interrupted. "It's a recording, not a live feed. Here." With that, the fox played the video and Eggman began to speak, though the picture wobbled with heavy static.

"Oh ho ho ho hoo, greetings Sonic Hedgehog and friends. I'm sure you're all wondering what exactly has happened, hmm?

"I do apologize for not giving my typical reveal in-person. But time is not on your side!"

The man cackled again, and when his head bent to one side Sonic could barely make out what appeared to be a ship.

"I think he's on his escape ship," Tails confirmed.

Eggman eventually got control of his giggling and said, "I would like to start by saying that it was partially true, what I told you during our imprisonment: I was not sure what I was expecting by allowing the Artificial Chaos to pull in limitless negative energy. It is not unlike opening a wormhole and simply watching to see what happens!

"Chaos energy from spacetime—what my grandfather erroneously called negative energy—seems to have their properties adversely affected by traveling through a dimensional gateway. When in contact with 'true' Chaos energy, they neutralize one another, in fact."

Eggman provided a malicious grin. "But, as at least Tails can probably confirm, one of the fundamental properties of matter (even when dealing with mystical energy), is that it cannot be destroyed.

"So, what's happening then, hmm? Any guesses?"

Offscreen, Cubot could be heard happily responding, "Oh, oh! Playing hide-and-seek?"

A loud bonk followed shortly afterwards, and Eggman's face disappeared off the monitor momentarily. When he reappeared, he cleared his throat. "The correct answer is that the matter compresses on itself! And, even more fun, with enough of that compression, gravitational pull continues to increase, to the point that not even light can escape! And what's that called?" The question came out as a singsong before he answered himself:

"A blackhole, that's what! Once formed, the gravitational pull will start attracting surrounding matter."

"Well," Sonic interjected softly, "I guess that confirms it, bud." He also provided Shadow a sharp, cursory glance, enough to get his rival to roll his eyes at him.

Eggman let out a low hum. "Admittedly, I was a little concerned about this scenario, as you can imagine. Since Chaos energy is rather bountiful on our world, it did not take long for this hypothesis to become fact onboard the ARK."

One of the mad doctor's hands came up to twirl his mustache. "But don't you worry your ridiculously-oversized heads. Gerald Robotnik's AI programming on the Artificial Chaos was quite technologically advanced for its time.

"Those creatures were already aware of the dire situation, and somehow used their negative energy to contain—or at least slow down—this blackhole.

"That prison they had created for us wasn't in fact a prison, but a sanctuary. Because, in case you need another little crash-course in physics, there is one element about a blackhole that you might all be forgetting about."

Sonic didn't think it was possible, but Eggman somehow got his face closer to the screen.

"Time runs a little different near one."

No one reacted at first, but a few seconds later Tails was the first to fully digest the words.

"Oh no—oh no no no nono…" His sidekick scrambled to minimize the recording to a quarter of its previous full-screen, and opened up another command prompt, frantically typing.

Eggman had at least pulled his face farther away from the camera, but had not stopped yammering. "That's right! Oh ho ho hoo, things might be moving a little slower in your neck of the woods right now, but back on Earth, I've got all the time in the world!"

"Wait, we're running slower here than back home?" Knuckles questioned dubiously.

"By how much?" Rouge probed, worry seeping through her usually calm exterior.

Tails was still typing, but shook his head. "I—I don't know. I can't connect to any of the nearby satellites. It could be hours … days…"

There was clicking and clacking, but it came from Eggman's video. "I've barely left orbit from the ARK, and it appears we've all lost about…" he chuckled menacingly, "well, would you look at that? It's been almost three months."

Rouge gasped, Knuckles swore, and Tails continued shaking his head in disbelief, typing away. Shadow's hands were curled into tight fists, but outwardly he remained silent and showed no other emotion.

Sonic felt his heart drop to his feet.

Eggman had been snickering again, but did stop long enough to add, "Who knows how much time will pass if you ever get off the ARK!"

"Tails—"

"I—I don't know, Sonic! It's a blackhole, contained by negative energy, and with the Artificial Chaos gone there's no way of even knowing if it'll maintain!"

The doctor was ignorant of their current predicament, apparently, because he inadvertently added salt to the wound by declaring, "I'm sure your artificial friends will help you find a way out of this mess—they must've had a reason for bringing those Chaos Emeralds with them, after all. They certainly took me by surprise when they nabbed my emerald and took me to their interdimensional getaway!"

The doctor let out a low chuckle. "I thought they knew I had been the one to mess with their hardwiring when they locked me away. But it turns out, they were just trying to protect those in possession of a Chaos Emerald. As if to have one meant you were inherently good."

His chuckle turned into a roar of laughter. "Imagine my surprise seeing a jewel thief and Gerald Robotnik's failed Ultimate Lifeform, instead!"

Rouge huffed at the snide comment. Shadow hadn't moved an inch, but his entire posture was as stiff as a board.

"No matter," he said, his laughter finally fading. His voice lowered to a serious tone when he stated, "By the time you get things figured out up there, we'll just see how much of my Eggman Empire has thrived."

He waggled his fingers at the screen. "Toodaloo!"

And with that, the electronic message abruptly ended.