Ch. 4 CYBER startup

The first moment was the strangest for her, to suddenly exist where she didn't before. In that moment, she simply was. No words to express this nothing, no sense of anything but simply existence. But suddenly, information flooded into her mind, more information than a human would learn in their lifetime. Information, the application of that information, and the ability to learn are all implanted artificially. Her eyes open for the first time.

"Activation complete". She heard her voice say that, but she didn't speak it.

Her fresh eyes drink in her surrounding details. She was in a medium-sized room, dimly lit but immaculately clean. As her artificial senses catch up to her newfound existence, she finds where she is. She is in the lab of Dr. Ivo Robotnik aka Dr. 'Eggman', her creator and boss. At the moment she doesn't feel anything, how could she? This was simply her reality until new variables changed it.

"Greetings C.Y.B.E.R.". She looks across the room for the sound of the voice, noting a round man with a red coat and an orange mustache. She identified this as her boss, Dr. Robotnik.

She pauses for a second, her final systems falling into place. "Greetings, Doctor".

Dr. Robotnik chuckles as if he's pleased with himself. He stands up from his chair, pulling the goggles off of his eyes and putting them up on his forehead, his equally blue glasses underneath now showing. He walks out from around the desk to stand directly in front of CYBER as she stands inside the wicked 3D printer. A bit of remaining heat curls off of her freshly printed metal skin. Nozzles that dispensed the purple paint retract into the roof of the printer as CYBER pushes open the tempered glass door. She steps out and stands about five feet tall in front of the Doctor. Her sensors picked up every detail, her supercomputer brain processing it up and down. She stands loosely at attention, looking up at the Doctor, and smiles with sharp teeth. The Doctor smirks in return but it's not a friendly smile, it's a devious smile.

"What are your orders?". CYBER stands patently, arms folded behind her back.

"You are soon going to be introduced to your new team". Dr. Robotnik tucks his hands behind his back as if expecting something.

Right on cue, the door to his office whooshes open and three androids walk in. The two in the front are identical, completely indistinguishable from each other in appearance and posture. Indistinguishable from the real Shadow, if he was here. The third looks similar to the first two, except it has a more slouched posture, and its lip is curled in perpetual disappointment. A long crack trails from its left brow, snaking across its left eye and terminating on the left side of its nose. Throughout the scar, small bits of silver can be seen peeking through the synthetic fur. The three line up, the third falling in next to the other two after it came through the door last. The identical ones stand at attention, with the scratched one standing straight with a slight delay.

"Shadow squad reporting for duty". They say with varying levels of enthusiasm.

"As you can see, CYBER" The Doctor turns back to her. "This team has only three members".

"Is that bad?" CYBER's smile is gone, replaced with a look of curiosity. Her robotic eyes scan the three androids, noting both their subtle, and not-so-subtle differences.

Dr. Robotnik chuckles. "They are a security team, I also have a second security team, The 'Metal mobian Squad', who have four members".

The three Shadow Androids all study CYBER. The one on the right looking at her with his head tilted slightly to the right, the one in the middle looking at her with an upturned nose, and the last one staring intensely, almost emotionlessly, with its single functioning eye.

CYBER stares at her soon-to-be teammates, copying their abilities. Not only is she downloading their abilities, but she is searching her systems and discovering her own abilities.

"So I have been made to round out the team?" CYBER crosses her arms and looks across the faces of the three androids. While most could hardly tell the three apart, her sensors were hyper-complex and so she picked up the most minute differences.

"How astute CYBER, let me introduce you to the team". The Doctor turns away from CYBER to face the Shadow Androids.

"Now… all three of them would like to be called Shadow, but obviously that would be too confusing" Dr. Robotnik puts his index finger across his chin, smiling in an amused manner.

He then points at the two androids who have both eyes intact. "These two always stand next to each other in the same way, that one on the right, that one on the left". As he points, the one on the right grumbles a bit, and the one on the left turns its head slightly away.

"I have dubbed that one Dextral" The Doctor points at the one on the right. "And that one Sinister" he points to the one on the left.

"That one, I didn't name," Dr. Eggman points to the third one, the one with the scratched-out eye. "The others call him Scuff".

The one called Scuff looks down and away, almost ashamed, its good eye goes down, and its scratched-out eye doesn't move at all, staring straight forward. That eye never blinks, even when the other does.

That is a bit off-putting to CYBER, so she approaches Dextral first. "Greetings Dextral, I am CYBER!". She says in a friendly manner, holding out her hand.

"Ugh, another obstacle…" Dextral keeps his arms crossed and looks at CYBER judgmentally.

"Ok?" This significantly dampens CYBER's mood, but she moves to the next one.

"Greetings, Sinister, I like your nickname" CYBER offers a compliment, but quickly loses hope that it will do anything. Sinister just takes one look at her and wordlessly turns his nose up at her, peering down at her coldly.

CYBER quickly abandons this task and makes her way to the one with the broken eye. "I'm CYBER," she says to him with little enthusiasm, still holding out her hand. To her surprise, he takes it and gives her one good shake.

"I'm… Scuf" he flinches a bit, his good eye closing halfway. He looks like he doesn't enjoy that nickname, it seems that none of them enjoy their nicknames.

"Well, I'm excited to work with you all" CYBER steps back from the three androids, her smile has mostly faded.

"As of today, you are the second security team" Dr. Robotnik looks back and forth slowly between the three androids and CYBER. "You will rotate your patrols daily, beginning on deck 1 on the first day, then rotate decks in this order: 1, 3, 5, 2, 4, command deck." The Doctor looks at CYBER, his neck turned to face her "Is that clear?"

"Yes sir!" CYBER looks away from the androids to address Dr. Robotnik.

"Good, then, you are dismissed" The Doctor finally returns to his chair, pulling it out, and when he sits down, it automatically puts the chair back in for him.

Scuff is the first to turn to leave, followed by Dextral and Sinister. CYBER takes a moment to glance at the back of Dr. Robotnik's bald head before she follows the three androids.

—-

At Sonic's humble abode, about a mile or so outside of the nearest city, the legendary blue Hedgehog sits, watching TV. Sonic is leaning back in his seat, lying so far down on the couch, his chin is pressing into his chest. He stares at the TV, watching the news.

"What the heck?" He throws his hands up in the air, sitting upright in his seat.

He had absolutely no interest in the story on the TV, he was waiting for an emergency broadcast or something.

"Eggface hasn't reared his mustache in months!". Sonic crosses his arms, tapping his foot quickly against the ground.

Just then, Tails and Knuckles exit Tail's laboratory, Knuckles wearing a large pair of goggles

"Maybe he finally died of a heart attack" Knuckles offers loudly.

"Knuckles!" Tails scolds him.

"What?" Knuckles turns back toward Tails.

"What's with the shades?" Sonic says, jumping up from his seated position and walking over to the two.

"These?" Knuckles points to the black goggles on his face. "They are night-vision goggles, Tails made them for me so that I can see in the dark while guarding the master emerald"

"Where is that old thing anyway?" Sonic says, referring to the master emerald. "Shouldn't you be guarding it?"

"Oh, It's in Tails' vault, he built a generator that lets Angel Island stay in the sky for a day, so that I can visit and take the Master Emerald with me" Knuckles takes off the goggles because it is bright outside of the workshop.

"You sure that's a good idea? We already have two chaos emeralds in the vault, we probably shouldn't keep them so close together" Sonic walks over to his friend's side.

"Don't worry Sonic, my vault is so secure, even Rouge would need years to crack it" Tails stands up straight up like he's proud of himself.

"Either way, I'm bored out of my mind!" Sonic looks between his two friends. "Not a single robot has fallen from the sky for a week!".

Tails and Knuckles look at each other, it's not a good sign. Eggman doesn't usually just stop all activity completely.

"Well, we could spar?" Knuckles offers.

"Maybe there are some mundane crimes you can stop?" Tails put his index finger on his chin in a thoughtful gesture.

"Yeah, but there's not any that are interesting enough to-" Sonic is suddenly cut off by the news in the other room blaring.

"BREAKING NEWS, a gang war downtown has left civilians baffled, and police response has been slow…" The TV blares on in the background.

"That's my cue!" Sonic says, winding back his arms before zooming out the door, leaving it wide open behind him as he zooms off towards the city.

Knuckles turns to Tails, shaking his head. "Well, thanks for the goggles, Tails, but I think I'm heading home. can you grab the Master Emerald for me?"

"Sure thing" Tails gives one last look at the open front door before turning to go back into his workshop.

Thanks for reading, feedback is appreciated!