iv. The Beginning of the End

The words and numbers flowed across the screen. Gerald had to actually cover his mouth to avoid a very undignified whoop, but that would have brought Maria and Shadow running and it wasn't quite time...but almost. He was all but there! He read the results a third time, then a fourth hunting desperately for the error, the bit he was misreading... No. It's real! It's REAL! His heart pounded in his chest as if he'd been running a marathon. I did it! I'm not overlooking anything, the therapy has CURED the gene altered rats! CURED them! Their DNA is cleared of the NIDS error; it WORKS!

Now if it will just work on humans... He'd used himself as a guinea pig before. He didn't have NIDS, of course, but this was just to see if humans had a different reaction to the extract, not to test whether it worked or not. There wasn't time to set up a proper test, ask for volunteers; he was worried by things he'd heard from ARKauai - and by some things he hadn't heard. The Gizoid was there, the researchers were amazed - but he had no specifics and it worried him. It worried him more now than it had when he passed the Gizoid over. If I'd known then what I know now...would I have handed it over?

While on Earth he had gotten in touch with his dokan friends - even Todd, albeit briefly! - though he hadn't had a chance to visit them. Misty had shipped him a new book on the ancient Babylonian cuneiform and while awaiting the results of his current experiment, he'd gone back to work on the stone tablet that had been found with the Gizoid. He'd finally managed to get the entire text reasonably well translated, he thought. He retrieved a fresh sample of the potential cure from the lab fridge, and loaded a syringe while he frowned over his most recent translation results.

'When the Gizoid had all it could absorb, it was the god of wrath and all was destroyed.' I do NOT like the sound of that. It already contained so much - he remembered the reams of material that had overloaded several computers - how much more will it take to reach 'all it could absorb'? I need to get that Chaos Emerald back, and soon. But how? He shelved the thought a moment as he swabbed his arm and then carefully injected himself with the extract. Ouch! That stings. After a moment the pain faded, leaving only the usual soreness of an injection. James would think I'm crazy. They all would, testing this stuff on myself. I probably am, at that; but there's no TIME to go through the channels and it's in the best scientific tradition - of course that tradition doesn't tell you how many people died from their own experimentation. But if there was no reaction, then he could tell Maria what he'd found, and if she wanted to try it...he had run the usual computer scenarios and cell culture tests and found no indications of probable toxicity in human tissues. But the computers were only as good as the data already entered, and this was a completely new product, not a slight variation on an antibiotic that already had good info on human reactions to 15 other variations; and the cell cultures could miss things simply by lacking body systems. Antifreeze itself did little harm to the body - but antifreeze processed by the liver could destroy the kidneys completely. Now he would see how his body processed and reacted to--

The Priority tones erupted from his computer, making him jump. He moved over and cued the communications link. A grim-looking colonel glared out of the screen. "Professor Gerald Robotnik, you are ordered to report to Alternate Research, Kauai immediately. A shuttle will arrive to pick you up in two hours. Be ready to depart at that time."

"What?" exclaimed Gerald. "I can't--"

"This is not a secure connection, you will be properly briefed on the flight. Two hours." The connection ended. Gerald was left gaping at the now-blank screen. ARKauai. The Gizoid. What have I done?

Two hours later he was boarding the shuttle as directed, a small suitcase in one hand. Maria had been distressed at his sudden departure; he thought Shadow might be as well, but the red and black hedgehog was often hard to read, even for Gerald. Gerald wasn't exactly thrilled himself, but... He'd left the pair in each other's care again, they complemented each other. He was met at the shuttle's ramp by two guards who silently escorted him to a seat. There were no other passengers and the guards returned to seats just behind the pilot's compartment. Once the shuttle had launched, one of the soldiers brought him an envelope, sealed and well-marked with restrictions and warnings. Opening it, he found that his forebodings were true. The Gizoid had gone on a rampage and destroyed most of the buildings on Kauai. Sixteen people had died and a number of others had been injured before GUN had managed to subdue the robot. Shivering with a sudden chill, Gerald remembered the translation from the stone tablet. 'When it had absorbed enough...all was destroyed.' At least it only had the one Emerald. What might it have done with more? According to the report, the robot had eventually been mired with glue bombs that slowed it down long enough for a very brave volunteer to get behind it and remove the Chaos Emerald. Gerald frowned. How did they remove the Emerald from behind? There's no way anyone could open the chest plate from behind. But you couldn't do it from the front with the robot fighting mad. He rubbed at his moustache. Something didn't make sense. Unless they had some weapon too secret for even his clearance, which he supposed was possible. After all, Kauai was - or had been - a facility for the research of just that sort of item.

He wondered why they had sent for him. A court-martial, perhaps? Or whatever they call it for a civilian employee. He had warned them about the robot, but knowing the government and the military, they'd still consider it his fault. No matter what, he had to get back to the ARK in time to finish his experiments and cure Maria. With the sort of macabre fascination that drew people to watch videos of disasters, he read and reread the report until the shuttle landed. Tucking the envelope into his bag, he unstrapped himself and walked up the aisle to the exit. As he reached the top of the ramp he stopped cold.

It wasn't Kauai. This island had a large fort-type of military installation and a lot of raw jungle, not the sprawling research facilities and "tame" jungle he was familiar with. No one would be strolling through that vegetation; you could hike if you had a machete, but it would be hard work. "Where are we?" he asked his escort. He received a sort of grunt and a wave of the hand towards the massive installation. 'I've got a bad feeling about this', he thought, mentally quoting Han Solo as he moved towards the concrete fortress.

Once inside he realized he was on Prison Island. A place where, rumor had it, no one escaped and few left; the place where James Scott had been certain all the Project: Shadow researchers were going to end up. He sat for over an hour in a nearly bare lobby with a couple of ten-year-old National Geographics and a very fake potted plant that was more dust than plastic as the only points of interest. Finally he was admitted to the base commander's presence and informed that he had been brought down to repair the Gizoid. Clearly the uncontrolled actions of the robot were a malfunction of some sort, and he was expected to repair and reprogram it as needed to make it into a controllable weapon. The power it possessed was clearly quite exciting to the commander, who seemed to think the robot merely needed a slight adjustment to keep it from going out of control again. The fact that it had destroyed a base and killed sixteen people was only a concern because it was their own base and people. Just a bit of fine-tuning to point it at enemy targets and everything would be fine.

In vain Gerald protested that he had a critical experiment in process, that he was his granddaughter's guardian and she was alone on the space colony, that the Gizoid was inherently uncontrollable as he had stated from the first. None of this mattered, he could return to the ARK as soon as the Gizoid was "fixed". Finally Gerald gave up and let himself be escorted to his new quarters, a bedroom, bathroom and lab with the Gizoid already in residence. The Chaos Emerald, he was told, was in one of the base's storage safes and would be available when he needed it. There were no bars in evidence here, but he'd come through several doors that would have done good duty as air locks. He would not be leaving until they let him go. Silently he dropped his bag on the dresser top and went into the lab, where he gazed at the Gizoid and considered his options. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could (he hoped) leave. At least Maria and Shadow were safe on the ARK, and he could look forward to her delight at learning he had discovered a possible cure - as soon as he got out of here. With a sigh he sat down and started replotting the Gizoid's circuits, hoping for an inspiration.

Miles over his head, a fleet of GUN shuttlecraft were gathering around the Space Colony ARK, gliding into the docking bay one after another to pick up their loads of bewildered civilians. GUN soldiers patrolled the corridors, escorting those who were called to each shuttle in orderly fashion and ensuring that those who were not yet called remained in their quarters. The school was evacuated first, the sickbay and research wing would be last to allow patients to be prepared for transport and experiments to be put on hold. Or so the announcements claimed. Not even the soldiers patrolling the medical and research sections were aware that in reality, no evacuation was intended for those areas. A second group of soldiers, aloof from the ones running the evacuation, had quietly disembarked and were preparing their equipment in the now-vacant classroom. Once the civilians were all clear, they would relieve the soldiers patrolling the medical and research wings. However, patrolling was not part of this group's orders.