Part 1
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"Hey Shadow, have you seen this?" Shadow turned to the computer screen as Silver pulled up a file named Cake Recipes.
Subject name: Specimen 343 also known as (Sonic the hedgehog)
Abstract: Subject is a combination of a living body based on Shadow the hedgehog and synthetic parts using titanium alloys as a base. Brain implantation has been successful so far. Body and brain have not rejected each other.
Silver looked at Shadow. "Brain implant? I thought he was just your clone."
"Yes and no." Shadow wobbled his hand like a sea saw. "I think they had to grow his brain separately, but I don't know the details."
Components:
Mechanical parts
Super cell battery: synthetic material capable of storing 15 terra watts of power at once. Charged by a combination of excess energy from bodily function and solar panels lining outer layer of skin.
Cameras: imbedded in eyes. While natural eyes of specimen 343 are in good health, cameras can function as back in event that eyes are no longer usable. Programming allows switching back and forth between eyes and cameras. Camera settings include perception of UV, thermal, and radio portions of light spectrum.
Organic parts
Brain used was that of a human infant.
Shadow and Silver both froze looking at each other. "That can't be right." Shadow read the line again. "Brain used was that of a human infant."
Shadow kept staring at the screen, gritting his teeth. "Ivo. What have you done?" He clenched his fist. "No. It's a trick. Oran must've known I was looking through his stuff. This was put there for me to find."
"It's possible I guess." Silver said. "You'd have to ask Robotnick to know for sure." He kept searching the computer. "I'll check for anything else if you want to go ask him."
Shadow nodded. "Right…" Shadow thought for a moment. "Have your memories altered at all?"
Silver shook his head. "No. At least not anything significant. A few small changes, but the future is still burning. The journal lines up with what I remember. Sometimes I wonder if we even can change the future."
"We will." Shadow said. "Because we have to."
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Part 2
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Dr. Robotnick looked at Sonic's new programming system. He'd been so certain before he was doing the right thing. Whatever else happened, Sonic had become a threat to the public. He had to be stopped. He'd aided a group of extremists, and broken out a wanted criminal. Sonic was a criminal, and he had to go down.
Still, the young hedgehog hadn't killed anyone. In fact he'd avoided injuring anyone. Even those terrorist Knuckles and Amy had never actually taken a life. Not that he had any doubts that Knuckles was willing to kill, but it did give him pause. It wasn't that he had any reservations about taking them down, but he wasn't sure if Sonic was wrong.
Chief Oran had told Robotnick that Knuckles had killed several people, but there were no records of any casualties. The chief had never lied to him, at least, not that he knew of.
He'd have to ask Shadow about it, but until then, he'd give Oran the benefit of the doubt. The man deserved that much.
Robotnick fired up Sonic's new program. James's new signal set up was ready, and it should let him connect with Sonic's main processor. He turned the system on, connecting to a satellite dish at the top of the building.
If he pressed the button, Sonic would be like he had been before leaving, before that girl died. That's all he had to do, press one button. He hadn't told anyone that the program was finished, but then again, no one else knew his code.
Even the best programmer would likely mistake it for Matlab, but that was the purpose. It was a lot harder to hack a system that didn't work like it was supposed to. Though the system was only designed for Sonic, so the building didn't have the same protection.
Robotnick had never been able to convince Oran to use his system, and no one else bothered to learn it. Which meant he could turn off the system, say the program wasn't ready, and buy Sonic some time. He'd pull the trigger if he had to, but for now, he didn't.
He ejected the flash drive and shut down the computer and signal system. Then he walked out of the office for the day.
When he got back home, he couldn't help the feeling that someone was watching him from the bushes. He unlocked the door and stepped inside.
As he closed the door, a rush of wind passed him. Robotnick closed the door, knowing who was behind him. "So. What'd Sonic have to say?"
"He's looking to expose some corruption. I'm looking for an explanation for this."
Robotnick turned around to see a copy of Sonic's schematics. One of the lines was highlighted.
Organic parts
Brain used was that of a human infant.
Robotnick read the line, then looked at Shadow raising an eyebrow. "What do you want to know about it?"
"Is it true?"
Robotnick nodded. "Yes, a child was dying and the doctors couldn't do anything to save him. So, the government stepped in when they saw a possibility for the brain's use."
"Did the parents know?"
Robotnick shrugged. "I don't even know who the parents are. I don't know where the brain actually came from, but Oran made sure no one died."
"Wait, Oran?" Shadow thought for a moment. "Do you have a way to get evidence of his actions?"
"Evidence? Evidence of what?" Robotnick shook his head. "Shadow, what are you trying to do?"
"Trying to find out if the chief broke the law. And if so, holding him accountable. I know this would be the least of crimes, but if that's what finally puts him away, I'll take it."
"Shadow. The evidence never pointed to him in that assassination. I know you think-."
"I know what I heard. I know what I saw. And I will find proof to put him in jail, one way or another."
"Sure, if he's guilty, you'd be putting a criminal away. But what if he's completely innocent?"
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Part 3
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Plink! Plink! Plink!
Stones skipped across the water as Amy and Sonic tried to beat each others' distances. Knuckles had beaten them both over 100 meters, Sonic was still determined to beat Amy.
Tails meanwhile was working on a way to prevent Sonic from shutting down again. It was simple enough to find the roots of the kill code. The problem was that it was linked to so many of Sonic's vital systems. To remove it, he had to completely rebuild parts of his code from the ground up. It wasn't that hard at first, but as Tails got further along, he noticed Sonic's code was a little weird. It looked just like MatLab, but it wasn't quite right, as though someone had changed the language somehow.
The weirdest part was that the differences in the language didn't seem consistent. There had to be some patterns somewhere, but he was having trouble finding where they were. Every so often he'd find a few, and he was certainly making some progress, but it was painfully slow. The canyon walls around made it difficult for any signals to hit Sonic, but it was only a matter of time before someone found them.
Tails had to get the system running before then. Sure he could just turn Sonic back on, but there were other issues too. Sonic's systems didn't just have a fail safe to turn him off. It could be changed. If someone wanted to, they could completely wipe his mind. At least, that's what appeared to be the case. Now that he thought about it, Sonic had a biological brain. Maybe he could separate it from the robotics side. That however, would take time.
There was a temporary fix he'd been working on. He'd been downloading Sonic's memories to a backup drive in case something happened. It would at least get him back to normal if worst came to worst. The only issue was that he'd still be out of a fight for a little while. At the very least, there was nothing in his systems to affect his personality, and filling a few gaps in memory was a lot easier than turning someone back into themselves.
A/N:
Comment responses
@ momijifan
Silver lives with a farm family and tends to name the animals after foods. For example: Beefcake the bull and Hot Dog the pig. The family stopped letting him name animals after Mutton the sheep.