CHAPTER TWO

Nothing happens.

I just stand there, dumbfounded. Of all the things that are supposed to happen when you press the red button, like robot armies and deathtraps and the apocalypse, none of it happened. Hey, if a snowflake fell out of the sky and landed on my nose that would've been something. But no. The one time I get to press the red button, nothing happens.

So I stand there for a minute, tapping my foot and trying to decide which of the thingies on the panel to use next. I decide on a slider on the far left side and go to move it. All of a sudden there's a really loud cracking noise, like someone's just used a giant whip. The ground splits in half.

Between my feet, of course.

I jump back as the ground splits some more, and with a lot of loud crashing noises a massive, sun-blocking tower rises out of the ground in front of me. A dome closes over the control panel, as beyond that a giant fortress appears to dominate the horizon.

And then a snowflake lands on my nose, making me sneeze.

When I open my eyes again there's a sign sticking up out of one of the pieces of the ground that wasn't destroyed by this strange event. There's an arrow and some writing on it informing me that heading in THAT direction takes me into enemy territory.

Well, where else am I gonna go? I follow the arrow.

I get a sense of "I shouldn't go in here", one I don't usually get when I've decided to storm one of Eggman's fortresses, but then again I've never seen a fortress this big before. I mean, just to get to it I have to walk in this massive shadow, and I don't like not being able to see the sun. Also this thing has badly affected the state of the weather, I mean it was nice out before, like nice but not too hot, but now it's cold and dark. There's a whole lot of creaking noises as I continue towards it, I guess the sounds of the fortress settling into its new home, but it's still kind of creeping me out.

I get to the front door (or maybe it's the side door, I didn't go and check the whole thing out) and it opens automatically. It's a fancy door that slides open into the roof. I don't understand why those kinds of doors exist. I mean, do the people who build them consider what would happen if the door just fell down while someone was walking underneath it?

The place is weird. Like really weird. It's like being under a bridge, kinda. There's a whole lot of framework but not a lot of anything else. Like this base is still a work in progress. There's some darkened monitors and a whole bunch of blinking red lights, but that's about it.

I continue walking through this place. It's the biggest base I've ever seen. But I don't think that red button was meant to be pressed yet…

Don't be stupid, I chide myself. That button is NEVER meant to be pressed. EVER.

I walk for what seems to be a really long time, even though I probably haven't. I wonder if Tails got the address wrong.

Then all of a sudden there's a loud noise like someone pulling a giant lever, and a series of lights starts coming on, leading away in front of me. Finally I can see where I'm going, so I start to run.

I reach the end of the row of lights and all that's at the end of it is one giant door. There's another control panel next to it with a bunch of blinking lights. Not much else. No red buttons this time either.

I run my hands over it, not pressing anything, and try to decide what to do. I don't want to mess this up…doing something to this might bring this whole rickety place crashing down around my ears.

Then all of a sudden there's a loud mechanical whirring noise and the door retracts into the ceiling.

With a thud it stops and I step through the doorway.

The room is very dark, with any and all of the light coming from computer monitors on low brightness. It's also the only room I've seen that's complete in any way. There's a whole bunch of wiring hanging from the ceiling and some of it is sparking. That can't be a good sign. There's a floating chair in the middle of the room on an elevated platform, and I can see yet more control panels on its arms. This whole situation is really bizarre to me. It looks like Eggman's not here.

I cross the room in a few short strides and when I'm almost across it I realize there's something I didn't notice before. I guess my eyes needed time to adjust.

It looks like Eggman's boot, just sort of lying there on the floor.

A chill runs through me and I go for a closer look.

And see the rest of Eggman attached to it.