2. Dreams in the Darkness

In a dark room lit only by the glow of a computer screen and a panel of blinking lights, the man who called himself Doctor Eggman glowered at the picture of an echidna. Knuckles the Echidna was prominently featured in an article on some stupid treasure he'd found in the ruins of the Babylonian civilization. "'Among stone cliffs riddled with tunnels and rife with traps,'" Eggman read out loud in a sneering voice, "'this brave explorer risked life and limb to recover this ancient masterpiece.' Emphasis mine," he snorted. "And that so-called 'masterpiece' is nothing of the sort, it's just a common soup bowl. Hrrmph!" He scowled, still smarting over the recent failure of his plan to take control of the world with the Gizoid's help. "Serves me right, counting on a robot to do a person's job," he grumbled.

A faint whine came from the far corner, and two rings of glowing red appeared as Metal Sonic raised his head and opened his eyes. The vocal reply, however came from a smooth, egg-shaped, white dome on his desk, which suddenly popped up to reveal the little robot underneath it. "The information about the Gizoid going out of control if it absorbed too much power was available to you both from your grandfather's notes and your own studies. You decided that you could control it when no one else could, ergo, the failure of the plan was due to your own hubris. You were equally aware that the Gizoid absorbed knowledge of any weaponry it was exposed to, but chose to give it access to the Final Egg Blaster, ergo it was your poor deci–"

The robot's words were cut off with a bang! as Eggman slammed his fist down on its ping-pong-ball head, collapsing the mech back down like a jack-in-the-box. "I'll tell you when I want a lecture," he growled. However, SA-55's words had reminded him that his grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, had believed that the Babylonians were the source of the Gizoid, so perhaps there might be something of interest in those ruins after all. . . .

Sonic found a nice place to spend the night about two hundred miles from the town Jason Blarick lived in. He had filed the boy and his family away in the back of his mind, same as he did with most of the people he met and places he passed through, which wasn't at all the same as forgetting him. He'd filed the striped stone away, as well; he was more interested in new adventures than old ones. The blue hedgehog had spent the afternoon following an old country highway that had been nearly deserted. He had passed an entire four pickup trucks, and one person creeping along the road in a station wagon while a second human sat in the open back monitoring the leashes of three Dalmatians trotting behind the car. But for most of the afternoon he'd seen no one, and now he spread out his bedroll beside a carefully tended campfire. Several hot dogs were roasting on sticks over the fire, with the buns hopefully placed close enough to toast but not so close they'd burn. "Pity there's no chili," he said to himself, "but those cans are just too heavy to haul around." Supper done and the fire extinguished, he rolled himself up in his blankets and went to sleep.

Sonic didn't often remember his dreams, and such dreams as he did remember had always been much like his ideal life - running where he wanted with the wind in his quills, new and exciting sights around every turn. And in dreams there could be some very new and exciting sights indeed. This one started much the same: an endless dirt road, with his shoes sending up soft puffs of dust with every step, while the sun slipped in and out of view behind puffy white clouds above him. He spotted an eagle up there, circling, and a couple of rabbits dashed up a bank, then turned to watch him go by. A whirring sound rose behind him, and he glanced back to see the red, original, Tornado gradually gaining. He was a bit surprised to see that he was piloting the plane, AND riding on the wing, while Tails tailicoptered along side, but in the manner of dreams it seemed completely normal at the moment. Then he heard a shout, and recognized Amy's voice. He slowed, looking for the pink hedgehog - he couldn't avoid her without knowing where she was - and heard her yell again. Uh oh, she sounds mad. But I still don't see her . . . The third shout was still angry, but this time sounded a bit alarmed. He finally placed where the sound was coming from, but the alarm in her tone made him modify his plan. I'll just take a quick peek and make sure she's all right; then I can be gone before she sees me.

Sonic sprinted up the side of a small rise, and stopped. He was looking over Emerald Town Park, and Cream was perched on top of the slide, throwing Cheese at a group of strange-looking robots. Amy was standing at the foot of the slide's steps, whaling away with her PikoPiko Hammer. Every swing of the mallet sent the odd mechanicals flying, but more kept advancing. Sonic jogged close enough to look at a fallen robot. It turned out to be not a robot, exactly, but a giant clockwork toy. Man-shaped, but with the gears rattled out of place by the hammer-blow, nonfunctional. He dodged to the side as another battered clockwork landed where he'd been standing. This one was shaped like a dog or wolf, but still made of metal and wind-up gears. "Sonic!" yelled Amy, catching sight of him, "Help us!"

The blue hedgehog jumped into action, executing chains of homing attacks that were as effective as Amy's hammer swings. As with Eggman's lesser robots, it wasn't the clockwork monsters themselves that were problematic, but merely the number of them. Suddenly the enemies stopped coming, and he found himself surrounded by heaps of smashed toys higher than his head, with Amy halfway up the ladder to see over the top of the piles around her. "What was that all about?" he asked, as he climbed to the top of the heap between them.

The pink hedgehog shook her head. "They're looking for the Dream Caster. They wanted us to take them to him - or her - but Cream and I said we didn't know anything about any such person, and they didn't like that answer. But there were only a couple at first, when I told them to ask someone else, and then they just all poured up like someone had stamped on an ant hill."

"Pretty big ants," commented Sonic, hopping from pile to pile until he reached the slide. Oddly enough, the downhill part of the slide was clear; the attackers had all been focused on the step area. "Are you okay, Cream?"

The young rabbit blinked her huge eyes at him, and nodded until her ears flapped. "Yes, sir, Mr. Sonic. They didn't hurt me or Cheese. Are you okay, Amy?"

"Sure!" Amy accepted a hand from Sonic and he pulled her up to the top of the heap of clockwork things. Not all were humans or dogs; there were elephants and lions, cars and train engines, dokan and some alien-looking things. Sonic handed Amy down the other side and jumped after her, while Cream slid down the slide to join them. "I wasn't going to let those things hurt any of us, Cream! Although, thanks for coming to help, Sonic - there were an awful lot of them and my arms were starting to get tired."

"I'm not surprised. Although you must have gotten a lot stronger than the last time I saw you fight, considering the number you'd already junked before I arrived." Amy blushed with pleasure, and the little voice in Sonic's head jumped up and down hollering 'What do you think you're doing!' Fortunately, the girl didn't squeal and fling her arms around him, or declare they were getting married, or any of the things he dreaded her doing every time she came near. Instead she just looked thoughtful.

"Have you ever heard of the Dream Caster? Do you know who that is?" piped Cream, as Cheese fluttered in random patterns around the group. The three dokan sat down in Amy's living room, and the maid brought tea.

"Beats me," Sonic shrugged, and frowned at his cup. It was resting on the arm of his chair and faint ripples whisked across the surface in time with the distant ticking. Wait, what ticking? He sat up and lunged for the window, even as Amy jumped that way as well. She was closer and hauled up the blind and they both stared at the terrifying ticking thing approaching at a run–

Sonic jumped to his feet, and stared around. It took him several moments to realize where he was, for the moon had set and the night was fairly overcast. He sat down on his bedroll with a thump and rubbed his face thinking about his dream. He couldn't remember whatever it was that had scared him out of it, just the dread of its now-forgotten appearance. Now that he was awake, all of the dream was fading, and he grasped at the bits he could remember. The Dream Caster. That's what Amy said those, those - what were they? I remember that they weren't robots. Whatever, they were looking for this Dream Caster person, the way Jason said the ones in his dreams were looking for something. I wonder if that's the name of the wizard he saw? He said it had been in his other dreams. So the Dream Caster must be some sort of magician who can control people's dreams. I don't know why he'd want to, but he's not going to get away with it! Even Eggman doesn't barge into people's private thoughts! He stood up and looked around, but couldn't really see anything in the darkness. Eggman's biggest mech could be fifty feet away, and unless it had its lights on he wouldn't be able to see it. "Hocus pocus," he muttered. "Abracadabra." Nothing happened. When nothing continued to happen, he lay down and tucked the blanket around him. Eventually he managed to get back to sleep.

When Sonic woke up the next morning, the sky was heavily overcast, although not raining. He toasted a hot dog bun for breakfast, while trying to remember what he'd been dreaming about the night before. Amy was in it, and I sincerely hope she never finds out I was dreaming about her or I'll never hear the end of it. Cream, I think, but she's usually with Amy. And Amy had a maid, which I know she doesn't. A bunch of, of, robots that were looking for the Dream Caster. He shook his head as if it would jar loose a few more details. He remembered that the robots weren't really robots but not what they'd actually been. But he was quite certain about the Dream Caster, and strongly suspected that that was the wizard that Jason had seen. He sighed as he put out the fire and stowed his bedroll. Checking that the ashes were soaked and cool, he set out down the road again, with something niggling at the back of his mind. Irritated, he increased his pace, trying to clear his mind so he could focus on the cool beauty of the Earth beneath the cold grey light filtering through the clouds. The light intensified the greens somehow, making the grass beside the roads and the trees practically glow in contrast to the muting of other colors. But still the hedgehog felt he was missing something. Something important.

Sonic vaulted over an abandoned car and kicked his speed up another notch, not to his famous super-sonic pace, but to a good hard run that only a true racing vehicle could keep up with. Dust billowed behind him. For some reason, Jason Blarick comment about Sonic's leading the dream-creatures to the ocean popped into his mind. Subconsciously, the blue hedgehog steered towards the shore as he considered the idea.

The idea that Sonic was afraid of water was a vile slander. He had nothing against water per se, but did have a healthy (in his own mind) caution around water deep enough to drown in, because he plain and simple couldn't swim. Tails and a number of other people had tried to talk him into learning, had explained that just because dokan were denser than humans didn't mean they couldn't swim, had insisted he'd be safer if he knew how . . . but as far as Sonic was concerned, the FACT was that if you dropped him into water he'd sink like a stone, and you couldn't teach stones to swim. Cue Tails to bring out a piece of pumice and point out that some rocks can float. Well I can't and so I'll restrict my water activities to places where the levels low enough for me to breathe, or there's a steady stream of big bubbles. Whoa! He'd reached a beach while he was thinking. Unlike Emerald Beach, which was mostly sandy aside from the scattered rock outcrops, this beach was made entirely of pebbles, ranging from tiny to fist sized, with a few as big as a human's head. Intrigued, Sonic walked out onto the shingle. Ha! First time I've gotten to use that term, except in regard to roofs. He picked up a few stones at random to examine, then tossed them away and picked up a few more. They varied in color and size, but were nearly all ovals, polished smooth by the waves. A few showed fresh breaks with sharp edges, but even most of the broken ones had been smoothed and rounded. The stripes on a tan-and-gray pebble reminded Sonic of the bifurcated agate that Jason had given him. The day before he got attacked by those robots. The day before he dreamed about - uh oh. Nah, surely not. Amy and Cream can't possibly be being attacked by, by whatever they were. He dropped the stones and picked up another handful. Don't be silly, Sonic, dreams don't come real like that. Sonic flung that handful away more forcefully than he'd intended and walked down the shingle to hunt for more. His brain kept nagging him. Finally he gave up, and kicked a swirl of the smaller stones into the air as he rocketed for home.