Time stood still. The world was tinged with green. Shadow shot past the motionless guards inside the rooftop door and took the stairs two at a time. Every agent he passed was frozen in place, unseeing and unfeeling. He slowed down to a walk, glancing from face to face.

Whenever someone learned about Chaos Control, they always reacted the same way. They were awed. Most people – bound by the constraints of mortality – thought controlling time was a perfect absolution. They fantasised about erasing regrets, saving the people they loved and searching for different futures. In truth, the ability to manipulate spacetime was terrifying.

Shadow stopped outside the conference room and slowly pushed open the double doors.

He had never attempted to travel back in time to save Maria. Even if someone dared to ask him why, there was no correct answer. There were dozens of theories about how time travel worked. It was an art, not a science – a nightmarish art that raised endless questions. His world would be better with Maria in it, but what would that world look like for everyone else? Would rescuing Maria from GUN destroy their current future? Or would his actions only create a secondary timeline, failing to impact the original one?

At this rate, he would never know for sure. Whether it was 50 years ago or in the present, he had never been able to deny Maria's wishes. He could have turned his back on the world, but she'd wanted him to bring hope to humanity. He could have stayed with her in White Space forever, but she didn't want to be frozen in one place in time.

He shook his head and walked between the armed guards stationed outside the conference room, letting the doors swing shut behind him.

He knew that he was getting distracted. His resolve was usually stronger than this … but it had only been a few days since he had seen Maria's face, heard her voice and felt her arms around him once again. Her reappearance was a painful reminder of the life that they could have had. The memory of watching her fade away before his eyes still cut him to the bone, but he had loved her too much to deny her final request – to let her go once and for all.

Shadow approached the conference table. The attending agents and department leaders sat frozen in their seats. Their papers were mid-shuffle. Their conversation was on pause. Shadow rested his hands on one end of the table, staring down its length at Abraham Tower. The commander looked older. His gaze was vacant. Time hadn't been kind to him, but since when had time been anything other than cruel to those who had been pulled into the orbit of Space Colony Ark?

Deep down, Shadow knew that there was no salvaging the past. If he travelled back in time to create a better future, then he wouldn't be here today – because the only way to prevent the destruction and loss that transpired on the Ark would require him to travel back in time and kill his past self, preventing the Ark Disaster before it could occur. Yet he was still here, awaiting the unknown conclusion of a causal loop.

He even had evidence that the causal loop theory was true. Maria's wish had always been for everyone to be happy, even before she verbalised it in her final moments aboard the Ark. And when they were trapped in White Space, he'd promised to keep fighting with that wish in his heart. And right before her death, she'd reminded him of that wish. And in the future, he would remind her of that wish in White Space. It was a neverending cycle that transcended time itself.

Give them a chance to be happy.

His vision began to blur at the edges. After a certain point, using Chaos Control to halt time stopped being effortless and began to demand exertion. He steadied himself against the table and noticed a pencil suspended in midair, perpetually falling to the ground.

The most painful thing about stopping time was that it gave you an eternity to think about what could have been.

His head began to ache, and he could hear static in his ears. Usually, he didn't stop time for this … amount of time. He allowed himself a bitter smirk before placing the pencil back on the table where it belonged. With one last look at the commander, he swung under the table and sat beneath it. The moment he released his mental grip, time resumed.

All he could hear was the sound of Abraham tapping his foot beneath the table.

'Commander –'

'Be quiet.'

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, Shadow noticed a cold glow illuminating the carpet beneath Abraham's chair. He must be holding a touchscreen tablet.

'This proposal concerns Agent Shadow,' Abraham said. 'You all collectively requested this meeting, didn't you? So why didn't you also request that Shadow attend?'

'We wanted to get your approval first, Commander.'

'If you can't convince Shadow to agree to your proposal, then my approval will mean nothing. There are … very few people that he will listen to, and I'm not one of them.'

'Commander, you're the leader of GUN … Doesn't Shadow still have to follow your orders?'

'On the rare occasion that Shadow does follow orders, he only answers to Rouge. She's the leader of Team Dark.'

'… This proposal doesn't concern Team Dark, Commander. It only concerns Shadow.'

'Why don't you take out your sidearm and shoot yourself in the foot while you're at it?' Exasperation began to bleed through in Abraham's voice. 'Shadow is barely willing to cooperate with us as a member of Team Dark, let alone as an individual…' He trailed off and sat forward. The glow of the tablet screen illuminated his patent leather shoes. 'What is this?'

The room went deathly quiet. Shadow's fur stood on end. He'd never heard Abraham use that tone of voice.

'I mentioned something in passing to an aide – in confidence – and the next thing I know, it's been turned into a 40-page proposal!' Abraham slammed a fist down on the table, and Shadow stiffened. 'Which one of you came up with this?'

'… We did, Commander.'

'Public Relations?' Abraham tossed the tablet onto the table and wiped his hand on his trousers. 'Of course it was Public Relations – what has gotten into you, Bridges? I finally give your department a budget, and then you turn around and give me this?'

Agent Bridges, the PR division leader, slowly stood up. 'Sir, we believe this program would align with GUN's ongoing initiatives. With all due respect –'

'Damn your respect – GUN's reputation can only ever be repaired, not restored. What the hell are you trying to accomplish?'

Shadow raised his eyebrows and glanced around. Several agents were tapping their feet or fidgeting beneath the table.

'I have similar questions, Agent Bridges. This project could sabotage one of our greatest assets.' Shadow recognised the man's voice. It was Agent Boulder, the leader of the military division. He narrowed his eyes, glaring at the man's steel-toed combat boots. 'No PR stunt is worth risking the viability of our strongest weapon,' Boulder continued. 'Are you dense?'

With a sharp click of her heeled boots, Agent Verity, the biomedical division leader, stood up and leaned over the table. 'Look, I also think that this proposal carries significant risk. But whether GUN likes it or not, Shadow wasn't just created to be a weapon. He was created to protect and heal humanity. He has so much untapped potential –'

'The rodent has all the untapped potential of expired penicillin,' Boulder retorted. 'The first and only attempt to use him as a biomedical asset failed.'

'That's because GUN sabotaged Gerald's Robotnik's work before he could succeed!'

'What would you know? You weren't there!'

'You weren't there either!'

Abraham abruptly stood up. 'None of you were there!' he snapped. 'I'm one of the few people in GUN who was alive when these events transpired, let alone one of the only survivors of the Space Colony Ark incident. You're just dredging up the past – and for the sake of what? Public image? Sit down before I discharge all three of you for disorderly conduct.'

Shadow stared at the carpet. The only sound was the white noise of an AC unit running in the background.

He closed his eyes. He didn't even need a Chaos Emerald for this. With a snap, he was instantaneously sitting in the last empty chair at the table. He crossed his arms and sat in silence. The agent opposite him glanced in his direction, blinked several times, and then turned white. She tugged on her cohort's sleeve, frantically whispering. The agent next to Shadow nearly jumped out of his skin. Abraham grasped the back of his chair to steady himself.

Shadow crossed his arms over his chest. No one said a word, and Abraham sat down again. '… Agent Shadow. When did you get here?'

Shadow looked around the table at every agent until each one of them had averted their gaze. He shook his head. 'Does it matter?'

Agent Bridges cautiously leaned forward and opened his mouth to speak. He held a transparent digital tablet in his hands. With a snap, Shadow reappeared behind his chair and yanked the tablet out of his grip. 'Give me that.' With another snap, he was pacing the length of the table, scanning through endless lines of white text.

'Shadow, you don't need to waste your time on this,' Abraham said. His voice was tense. 'None of us do.'

'Unlike the rest of you, I have all the time in the world,' Shadow muttered.

Abraham held out a hand for the tablet as Shadow passed by him. 'Let me deal with this.' It sounded like an offer of assistance, but Shadow knew it was a warning.

'As you said, there are very few people that I listen to …' Shadow fell silent and stopped pacing. The white text on the screen burned a series of afterimages into his retinas. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears.

In the interests of continuing GUN's internal reforms and improving public image, it is proposed that Agent Shadow will participate in a biomedical program in partnership with Central City Children's Hospital …

For the briefest instant, he was on Space Colony Ark, sitting on Maria's bed during a two-way blood transfusion. She was leaning against his chest, reading a book about constellations. He was brushing her hair. They had needles in their arms, and they were surrounded by PVC tubes filled with blood – tied together by red strings of fate. She looked up at him, and her eyes were bright. They were full of stars.

He stood in the conference room, still holding the tablet. His fingers were burning. His breathing was ragged.

'Shadow,' Abraham said under his breath. He was still holding out his hand. 'For the sake of everyone in this room – including yourself – let me handle this.'

'I don't answer to you, Commander.' He pressed the power button on the tablet, and the screen went dark. He exhaled and looked around the room. 'But now the rest of you have to answer to me.'

Shadow reappeared at the other end of the table and walked behind the backs of the agents' chairs. He heard the faint cracks of straightened spines and the silence of breath being held. 'I was created before most of you were even born,' he said, 'and I'm the one who will have to reckon with the consequences of your actions long after you're all dead and buried.'

He stopped beside Agent Bridges' chair and sat on the edge of the table. The man was shaking in his seat. 'We thought –'

Shadow slammed one foot against the back of Bridges' chair, forcing the agent to look him in the eyes. The thrusters in Shadow's shoes flared. The smell of scorched leather wafted through the room. 'You thought. Did it ever occur to you to ask?' Shadow leaned forward, saying, 'I thought that I might be getting reprimanded or dismissed. You might have been going to suggest that I be shot into the sun, for all I knew – and in hindsight, that would have been preferable.' He lowered his foot and slammed the agent's tablet back down. The device exploded into shards of metal and glass that sprayed across the table.

'T-That wasn't it at all –'

'No.' Shadow got off the table and dropped to the ground. 'You just wanted to use me as a puppet to fulfil your revisionist fantasies.'

'I swear, that wasn't our intention.'

Shadow scoffed, and his voice dripped with bitterness. 'Wasn't it? Didn't you even read your own proposal? Running experimental clinical trials, treating children with immunological conditions, using me to provide biochemical materials …' He backed away from the table, clenching his fists. 'I've heard this story before – I've lived it – and I never want to hear it again.'

'I take it that's a "no", then.' Agent Boulder's voice was completely flat, and his arms were crossed over his chest.

Shadow looked over his shoulder, cutting him a sharp glare. 'Was anything that I just said open to subjective interpretation?'

'Shadow,' Agent Verity said quietly. 'I know that this has been mishandled. And I know that this must be difficult to believe, but some of us genuinely want good things for you –'

'And I want to believe that GUN has changed after 50 years.' Shadow's voice had a rough edge to it, worn down by too much talking. 'But now I'm not sure if it has.' He turned and strode out of the room, pushing open the double doors.

Abraham stood up, knocking his chair over with a clatter. 'Shadow, wait –'

'Just keep talking amongst yourselves,' Shadow muttered. 'Seeing as you're all so good at it.' He stepped out of the room and let the doors fall shut behind him.

The guards on either side of him turned and looked down in confusion. 'Agent Shadow? You weren't cleared to attend this meeting, were you? What are you doing here?'

'I don't …' Shadow trailed off, eyes widening as the ramifications of what had just happened began to sink in. '… I don't know.'

To be continued...