FicWad

PROJECT MOBITROPOLIS
S Peter Davis

All characters (C) SEGA, Archie and SP Davis 2004.
Used without permission
To contact the author; trojan_masters@hotmail.com

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IRON TRAP

Knuckles the Echidna was married to his solitude, but we've already established this fact. What we don't yet know are the exact details of how the echidna came to be involved in this situation directly. Behind the scenes of Mobitropolis, a giant chess board was being set. The pieces would soon begin to move, but not before the black team recruited one more pawn. Or, perhaps more aptly, a knight. It happens that Knuckles, in the due course of his daily activities about the solitary Floating Island, detected a presence in his domain late one morning, and this was immediately obvious to him, having been alone for so long, and being as viciously protective of his island as he was.
"Who goes there?" he demanded, and he held his fists ready, bladed knuckles waving with menace in the humid living quarters. Somebody was standing in the shadows and, although partially obscured, they were not hiding. In fact, they clearly wanted to be seen. The shadowed figure stepped towards Knuckles, and the echidna stepped back - not out of cowardice so much as concern that the stranger was armed.
"Hello there," the figure said, flippantly as if he was unaware of the tension of the situation.
"Who are you?" Knuckles asked again, and his guarded surprise began to change into anger. He noticed that the stranger's hands contained only a large satchel, no weapon, and he immediately bared down on the intruder, waiting for an excuse to make the first attack.
"I wouldn't," the other warned, "If you lay a hand on me, I have five guards positioned nearby who will have you dead several times over before you even hit the ground. I wouldn't dream of underestimating your own fighting abilities, my dear echidna, but these are elite Royal Guards. Better fighters than even you, by far."
"Five?" Knuckles asked, "Is that all? You could have made it ten, that would almost be a challenge. Right now you have less than that many seconds to tell me who you are and why you're here, before I knock you down, and even then I probably will anyway."
His intimidation proved annoyingly futile. The stranger spoke in the same tone as he might with a close friend, it was a high class accent, a politician's voice so polite (even when the words themselves were rude) that it revealed itself as a habit. His confidence made Knuckles start to wonder if there really were soldiers in the shadows who could take him down at a moment's excuse.
"My name," the intruder said, "Is Sir Martin Acorn, Crown Prince of the kingdom of Mobitropolis. I know who you are."
"Yeah, sure," the echidna replied, "The future king of Mobitropolis put down his duties for the day and made a special trip to this filthy rock to speak to me. People come here from time to time, but they usually come up with something believable."
"You don't believe me," the supposed prince said.
"No, I don't," Knuckles replied, "You think I'm going to give you the grand tour just because you tell me you're royalty? That's such an insult that I'm not even going to make this easy on you."
The guardian moved to attack, but the intruder quickly pulled open the drawstring satchel and thrust its contents between himself and the raging echidna. Knuckles slowed to a stop at the sight of it.
"Do you know what this is?" the prince asked.
The rage left Knuckles' face, replaced by a number of other uncertain expressions. He looked from the object to its bearer, and back again. "It's... a rock."
"I think you know that's not true, Knuckles. You've seen this before. Perhaps not in actuality, but you've known about it. You know what this is."
Knuckles looked up at the prince. "Where did you get this?" He reached for it, but the prince held it back, covered it again.
"That's only a taste," he said, "It might have taken the span of an entire lifetime for any one expedition to locate one. We, with our tools and advanced techniques, have found five."
"Five," Knuckles repeated in awe, and then the wonder left his face to be replaced once again with irritation. "Why would you bother telling me? You're here to gloat?"
"Far from it," Prince Martin replied, "As you know, there are seven to be found. As it happens, we are having unforseen difficulty locating the other two. That is why we have decided to enlist the help of the one person who is familiar with the legend in its entirity."
"You speak as if I've already agreed to this," Knuckles said.
The prince smiled, "You will."
"Oh yeah? Why should I?"
"Because we have an offer that even you cannot resist. I'm not naive enough to think that you would have any use for our money out here, nor any other manner of wealth. That's why I'm offering you the stones themselves. We need these seven stones, Knuckles, but only for a... temporary study. If you helped to complete our collection, then we would eventually complete the bargain by donating that very collection to you, in its entirity."
Knuckles frowned. "I don't have to help you do squat."
"Of course not," the prince replied, "And nor do we require you to. With our techniques, we will certainly be able to find the remaining two eventually. However, we are operating on a preferred deadline that it's very much in our interest to honour. It might take longer for us to find them ourselves to our own inconvenience, but in that case we would have no incentive to share such a find with you, being that you weren't even interested enough in the stones to help us look for them. What I'm offering is the chance for you to be a part of something, Knuckles! A part of history! You know that they belong here, on this island, with you. It would fill an emptiness centuries old! It would make this place whole. You know this is true."
And he did.
Knuckles put his hand against his temple in frustration. The stranger had been controlling this situation from the moment he set foot on the island, and the echidna didn't like to be played. Worse, he was beginning to believe that he was who he said he was. How else could he have found what he had found, if not for a massive search party? Even if he was lying about the other four, he had at least one, and the stones were lost. Very lost. Their search area was the entire world, and there was no map but for ancient legend. Legend that Knuckles, of anybody, knew best. It would take a very dedicated worldwide expedition and the finances of a king - or perhaps a prince - to recover them.
The intruder was smiling at him, and they stared wordlessly at each other for quite a time. The stone glowed in its satchel with a soft but eerily luminescent red light that seeped through the cloth, and the echidna's eyes soon fell on it with fascination.

When the sun rose in Mobitropolis, it slid a golden sheet of light over the angular buildings and the ordered symmetry of the city, a beautiful sight that brought with it the promises of a new day. But this was not an ordinary day for Blue, the homeless and simple-living hedgehog who now referred to himself exclusively as Sonic. This morning he did not awaken in a garbage can. Two days ago his only friends were pickpockets, his only home a street corner; he knew nothing of politics, he didn't even remember his own name. Now he was entangled in some kind of revolutionary action force, actually planning an espionage mission into the heart of the palace to retrieve top secret government files. An army of six stood in the shadows of an alleyway, making sure to keep an eye out for SWAT-bots as they schemed, and Sonic, still unaware of the scale of the impending upheaval, went along with all of this with growing fear. The implications of what Kethriel had told him did not fully hit home until later - the idea of this supposed nanotechnology revolution, the creation of a weapon which would be turned against the lower class of Mobitropolis and somehow 'robotize' them as mindless automoton slaves, a kind of genocide that created revinue rather than bodies and waste. Like murder, only user-friendly. Sonic willed the image of Rat and Bosley into his mind, his friends, scooped up by a maniac King Martin Acorn and made into robot slaves, as good as killed. The connotations were more than merely alarming, they were beyond imagining. It was unknown whether the theoretical process of robotization was reversible, the entire concept was based on too-vague rumours and fragments of information learned by contacts and spies trawling around the government, but it seemed generally accepted among the 'Freedom Fighters' that Martin's rise to power would, one way or another, render a future resistance impossible. Therefore it seemed a unanimous policy that one shouldn't think or talk too much about robotization or similar ideas, being that whatever happened after the coup was irrelevant to a movement designed to prevent the coup at all costs.

The Palace of Mobitropolis wasn't quite a castle, and wasn't quite a modern structure either. A kind of medieval architecture stayed with it, circular spires long since out of use, lended the city the briefest glimpse of a time long past. The palace was once a real castle - Mobitropolis was an ancient city. The first royal family had ruled the area over two thousand years earlier. The kingdom was then known as Mobii-Khrensix, old language for the Jewel of Mobius. The Greyblack clan ruled for several hundred years before two great wars between three Kingdoms, known as the Ridgewars, wiped most of them out, and an heir from the Acorn clan rose to power. The kingdom changed its name (after the war, foreign languages changed the local dialect) to Mobi-Ontopolix and then finally to Mobitropolis. This palace was the only unchanging relic through these changing times, the buildings around it shifted their image as technology evolved.
The palace was also a fortress. It had seen three major wars in its time, the first Ridgewar and the second, and the Android Wars. Its walls had never been breeched. Now it was stronger than ever, the more decorative stone walls reinforced by hard metals from the modern age, adding to its resiliance. The palace was an iron trap, a steel bunker. One reason the Acorns had reigned for so much longer than their cousins the Greyblack clan, was because no invading force had yet been able to enter the palace, despite levelling the city a number of times through history. Now, the Freedom Fighters had to make their way inside. It was possible, but strategy was key.

"Robotnik is speaking in parliament today," Kethriel said, "From eight to midday, he will be away from his office. Midday is the deadline - if you're not out of the palace by then, it's game over. That means that you have six hours from now. I went through all of this last night, but I'll recap."
He held a rough diagram, which the Freedom Fighters, and Sonic, looked over with great concentration.
"Robotnik has guards posted here, here and here. Remember that these are robot guards, SWAT-bots, type three, elite units, so you need to remember your training for robot evasion and don't treat them like mobians or else they will bring you down. Sonic, just follow Rockfall's lead, he's team leader so what he says goes. There are only four terminals connected to Robotnik's personal network. Two in the laboratory, one in his office and one in the machines factory in the scientific development and design complex. Robotnik's lab is one of the most well-guarded sections of the entire palace, so we'll probably never see even the low-security experiments, let alone make our way into the second level to the computer terminals."
"Or if we did," Slick interrupted, "We wouldn't get out again."
"That's right. That's why our best bet is Robotnik's private office, accessable through the vent in the ceiling. Bunnie will watch Robotnik's movements from an unused storage area outside the parliament, and the rest of you will descend the unpatrolled staircases of the east wing down to the engineering level, where you will enter the air conditioning ducts. Don't forget, the ducts are long and narrow, you can not turn around, so you have to get your route perfect the first time. If you emerge from the wrong vent, you'll almost certainly be caught."
Sonic gulped, and hoped nobody heard it. Slick just smiled and put his hands on his hips in a smug, almost arrogant, gesture. "Don't worry," he said, "I'll go first. Got the map memorised, it's all up here."
"Robotnik has guards posted outside his office," Kethriel continued, "And they will hear you if you make a sound. Once you've breached the office, you'll have total radio silence, and you can't so much as sniffle, or else the 'bots will be on you like ants on a chilli-dog."
"You and your chilli-dogs," Rockfall grumbled, with a half-cocked smile.
"Hey, they're good, don't mock them," Kethriel replied, "If that's everything, then we should begin. I'll be waiting for you at eleven hundred hours, at the rendezvous we discussed. If you take longer than that, then just get out of there and back here, no matter how close you are to the ticket. I want you guys right out of there and on your way to Knothole by midday, success or not."

It was two hours later when Bunnie Rabbit crept through the hollow backstage of the parliament hall and watched the politicians seat themselves. It was a difficult angle, and at first she worried that she wouldn't be able to see properly and would need a new vantage point. Luckily, though, she at last spotted Ivo Robotnik, vast and slow though he was, dressed formally in a massive business suit and flanked by two other politicians, enter the hall and seat himself awkwardly in the too-small chair at the bench for the Minister of Science. He removed his spectacles to clean them, and Bunnie saw his eyes - tiny marbles in deep, dark craters, only visible by the white points of light reflecting from them. Suddenly he froze, and with those craters he squinted so hard that his entire head seemed to burst into wrinkles, and with a quick, spasmic jerk Bunnie pulled her head around behind the obstacle she used for shelter, fearful that the minister had seen her. But there was no outcry, no disruption of any kind, and she carefully looked again. Robotnik had netted his fingers together on the bench before him, spectacles replaced. She thought herself silly to have reacted as she did; Robotnik was obviously blinder than a bat without his glasses. Still, she decided to find a less conspicuous point of view, if only for her own peace of mind. She watched him as she moved, just to make sure he wasn't watching her. He combed his frankly incredible moustache with one hand, and then ran it over his cueball-bald head and straightened his papers. If he saw her, he made no indication.
"Bunnie to Rockfall, I have a visual on Robotnik," she said, speaking into a two-way radio. While she kept her eyes on Robotnik, she idly noticed that the bench for the Minister of Defence was empty. This didn't concern her, though, and it stayed in the back of her mind.
Elsewhere, Slick, Rockfall and Sonic stood at the base of a dark and dusty flight of stairs. The corridor had apparently been used once for easy access to the engineering level, but now that most of the mechanical and electronic inner workings of the palace were maintained by robots (who never actually had to leave the engineering level at all), it was evidently rare that it needed to be used any more.
Rockfall heard Bunnie's announcement through the radio, and replied by saying "Roger that." He pulled something like a shotgun out of his pack, and loaded it.
"Are we going to need that?" Sonic asked.
Rockfall, slightly irritated, turned to him. "I'll put it this way, Quick," the armadillo said, "If we do, then it'll only be to blast our way out of here and back to Knothole. This is a mission of stealth, but it pays to be prepared, and if it comes to the crunch, I'm not going to surrender down here. Now, is everybody ready?"
Without waiting for a reply, he opened the double-doors which led to the engineering department. Almost immediately, Sonic saw thousands of robots milling around, machines of dozens of different designs, all working for some particular purpose and paying absolute attention to it. His first reaction was shock, but the others seemed unconcerned.
"How will we get past them?" Sonic stammered, "They'll see us!"
"Nah, don't worry kid," Slick replied, "You have to stop thinking of them as mobians. These are just robots, worker drones, they're not concerned with us. Some of them can't even see you, and those who can don't care. They're just all here to do what they're all here to do. Now, SWAT-bots, those are the ones you need to look out for. There might be one or two down here patrolling, or there might not be any. We really don't know."
They passed through the crowd of busy robots, and most of them moved out of the way, politely, almost apologetically. It was fairly clear why nobody had bothered to guard this area - it was difficult to imagine what harm could be done down here. Control booths and panels jutted out from the walls for such things as climate control, air conditioning, waste removal and water flow. Signs were posted everywhere warning that people without clearance shouldn't touch anything, but doing so would probably only create momentary chaos until the robots fixed the damage. There were closed doors leading to areas such as the power generation department and et cetera, which Sonic figured were probably surveilled or patrolled. There was a vast window to his left, and he saw a giant vat full of green muck being churned by giant machines, regulated by more busy drones.
"Sewage," Slick told him, "They use it on the gardens, among other things. That's one reason that Robotnik's technology-state is such an easy sell. Everything gets recycled now. There's almost zero waste. Nobody thinks about the disadvantages to having robots control everything, as long as Robotnik's keeping the liberals happy with crap like this and throwing a bone to the conservatives with the ARK satellite defence project. It's almost funny, really. These mindless, mechanical lunkheads are actually soothing the political tension between the right and the left, and both wings are collapsing at Martin's feet."
Sonic smiled and nodded. He had absolutely no idea what liberal and conservative meant, but he was sure that what Slick was saying was in some way insightful nevertheless.
"We're here," Rockfall said. There was a vent in the wall, only just big enough for a mobian to fit through. The palace's ventilation system. They began to unscrew it. The engineer robots were indifferent to their meddling.

The parliament rose to their feet when the king entered, but neither of his children were present. Sally, it was later learned, had wished not to attend for unsaid reasons, and Martin was away on business matters (visiting a certain floating island, we can suppose). King Acorn himself, however, was the only presence required to begin the proceedings.
Bunnie was not very interested in the political meeting, she focused her attention on the radio (Rockfall announced his team was opening the vent, and she gave a 'roger that'), but her ears pricked up partway through the floor discussion when somebody mentioned the existance of certain 'resistance factions' which, it had been learned, were propping up in the Great Forest outside the patrolling range of the SWAT-bots, and that they were quite probably planning a coup against the throne. Bunnie was unsure of whether or not they were referring to the Freedom Fighters, but if they were, they were certainly dangerously misinformed as to the group's actual intentions. It was eventually decided that the matter warranted watching, but it was no immediate threat.
It wasn't long before Robotnik himself stood to address the parliament. He spoke about Project Mobitropolis, and its progress.
"My friends, the time is almost upon us," he announced, "After ten long years of construction, Project Mobitropolis is nearly complete. I recieved confirmation yesterday that the final supply shuttle has docked successfully, and the engineers are assembling the final components according to schedule."
There was an applause from the parliament.
"Wonderful news, Dr Robotnik," the king said, "Tell me. What are the plans for next Monday regarding the satellite?"
"I'm glad you asked," Robotnik replied, "To show the citizens of Mobitropolis that ARK is completely benign, I intend to shuttle up there myself, and set the station into operation personally."
Bunnie was now so interested in the speech that she almost forgot her duties. When she heard Rockfall announce that his team had reached Robotnik's office, she fumbled with the radio before giving the delayed 'roger that'. As soon as she had finished saying it, a heavy hand clamped around her wrist and pried the radio from her hand. Shocked, she turned to face Packbell, the Defense Minister.
From his place, Robotnik smiled.

"Roger that," came Bunnie's crackling voice through the radio.
"Why'd that take so long?" Slick asked, nervously.
"I don't know," Rockfall replied, "It doesn't matter. She said it. If there was trouble, she would let us know. Let's get down there and get this done. Slick, strap up."
The office was bland and devoid of decoration, the walls painted a tasteless and imposing battleship gray, the desk neat and featureless. While most mobians chose to personalise their private space to their own liking, and an office was therefore a good indication of its resident's personality, it nevertheless seemed almost like Robotnik had literally no personal taste whatsoever. His mind seemed almost like that of one of his machines - blank, efficient, colourless and plain. The only exception was a small trinket he kept beside his computer. It was a sno-globe, a round glass bauble full of water and glitter. It also contained a small, white object that was difficult to identify. It was a bone - a vertebra. The glitter swirled around it morbidly.
With no sound apart from the almost inaudible rubbing of a vinyl strap against metal, Slick the weasil descended into the office from the opened vent above. Two sets of eyes watched from the darkness beyond, those of Sonic and Rockfall. With a frown, Slick realised that Robotnik's computer was facing away from him; he would have to either move around the desk or turn the computer itself. Not willing to leave any indication of meddling, he decided it would be the former. Looking at the closed door, his forehead began to dampen. Beyond that door were two robot guards with hypersensitive audio sensors.
The dust in the vent almost made Sonic sniffle, or worse, sneeze. But fear stopped his body's functions. He didn't want to be the one who got everybody killed, not when he was already a somewhat unwelcome addition to the team. He and Rockfall kept a tight hold on the strap as it was fed into the office.
Slick touched down softly and winced as the floor creaked a little. He froze, but no SWAT-bot army came bursting through the door. A needle could have dropped and the sound would have been deafening. He began to creep around the desk towards the computer, which was switched on, an uncreative screensaver drifting around the monitor screen. Slick paused at the sight of the vertebra sno-globe. What a bizarre and morbid decoration. It wasn't tacky at all, in fact the bone looked real and the globe was smooth and polished.
The computer made a beeping sound when its keyboard was touched, and Slick winced again, hurriedly muting the speakers. "Here we go," he mouthed soundlessly. It was time to use the dozens of codes he had memorised. He began to type, slowly so as not to make a sound on the keyboard, identifying himself as Ivo Robotnik and using the minister's private password (it was 'LennardYates', the name of the mobian who formulated the relativity theory). For a terrible moment it dawned on him that Robotnik may have changed his password since the previous hacking attempt, and that the SWATs would burst through the door at any moment. But the computer was satisfied, and Slick was granted access to the deepest secrets of the Science Minister's impressive network.
'Project Mobitropolis, Mother Hen Project', Slick mouthed the words as he read. The file was so interesting that he almost didn't notice that it was no longer silent. But notice he did, and he almost gasped in shock when he heard voices and footsteps approaching. Frantically he moved to escape somehow, but he knew in the back of his mind that this was it, he was going to be caught.
The handle turned, and Andreas Packbell burst into the room.
The office was empty.
Packbell's eyes fleeted from one wall to the other. He marched over to the computer and grabbed the monitor, spinning it around to face him. A user login prompt was all that showed on the screen.
The Defence Minister was flanked by two SWAT-bots. He turned to them now. "Watch this room," he said, "Watch the vent, the window, everything. Make sure nobody gets in."
He left the office, and the robots remained behind, guarding the entrances.
Heart racing furiously, body lubricated by profuse sweat, Slick really was slick as he raced back through the ventilation system, his straps dragging behind him and followed by Sonic and Rockfall. They worried that the robots might hear them scrambling through the steel vents, but they were not persued. Only when they emerged again in the engineering department did Slick have a chance to catch his breath.
"Curses!" Rockfall exclaimed, and spat on the ground, "It was a trap! Robotnik knew we were coming!"
A cleaner drone approached them and began to clean up his spit from where it landed.
"You're telling me," Slick rasped, "Great job pulling me back up so fast, I was sure I was done for."
Rockfall narrowed his eyes. "Thank Sonic," he replied.
Sonic shook his head and shrugged.
"Man, you are quick," Slick said, "I'm running out of lives to owe you."
"Did you get anything?" the armadillo asked.
"Aw man, no!" Slick replied, "I mean, not enough. There's something big going on, really big, there's a whole mess of files about it. I think it's all going to hit the fan by the end of the week, Keth's right."
Rockfall sighed and checked his watch. "Ten fifty. We have to get back." He spoke into his radio. "Bunnie, mission abort, I repeat, mission abort. Regroup at the rendezvous point at eleven-fifteen, that's over."
"Hey wait a second, we can't just give up now!" Sonic protested, "We have to get those files, don't we?"
"Oh yeah, how? In an hour, Robotnik will be back, and he's got his office guarded. There's no way we're getting in there today."
Sonic glanced around at the engineer robots, milling around, doing their respective jobs. "What about what Kethriel said?" he asked, "That's just one of four terminals. There's another one in the... the what? The machines factory?"
"That's on the other side of the palace, in a different building entirely." The armadillo spoke into his radio again, "Bunnie, confirm that please? Do you read, over?"
Slick looked highly concerned, "I'm with Sonic," he said, "We're running out of time, Rock. We might not have another day to waste on this thing. Robotnik was expecting us to break into his office, he might not forsee us going to the machines complex as well. He probably doesn't even know that we know he has a terminal there, it's not common knowledge."
Now Rockfall was angry. He seemed to struggle to keep his voice down. "Look," he said, "Kethriel's orders were to regroup at eleven-hundred, whether it's a success or not. Robotnik knows we're here, there are probably SWAT-bots descending on us as we speak, and there's no way we can pull off an operation like that within an hour."
"We can," Slick replied, "If we're quick."

The Palace was a roughly rectangular construction, encircling a large courtyard area in the centre. There was one entrance through the outer gates, but it was unguarded during the day because the front sections of the building were open to the public. Getting around the palace was a different story entirely. Families and tourists filled the museum and the public library, which were subsections of the southernmost rooms, and tried to catch a glimpse of officials and royals, although they rarely did. It had been pure luck that the regulators of the palace had neglected to guard the ventilation systems, but SWAT-bots were posted in front of every door that was refused to the general public. The parliament meeting hall and the private library were the two main no-go areas of the southern wing. Beyond the private royal courtyard, the large open section dividing the palace, was the highly guarded northern wing, the living quarters, the private dining halls and recreation centres of the royal family themselves. Also here was the strategic centre of top secret government projects, intelligence agencies and the hub of technological activities in the kingdom. Robotnik's labs were all here, as well as the so-called Iron Ward, the machines factory, the birthplace of the robots that were now a commonplace fact of life in the Kingdom of Acorn.
A vent popped open under the storm-gutter around the rim of the palace roof, and a blue hedgehog poked his head out.
"Hoo-whee, we're pretty high," he commented.
"Hey let me see," Slick said from behind him. Sonic grunted and shifted position, but the vent wasn't wide enough.
"I'll have to climb out." He turned around and grabbed a hold of the gutter, worried that it wasn't affixed very tightly and it might break off. The metal rim held his weight, though, and he scrambled onto the roof of the palace, through decoratory murder-holes and onto the stone surface. He turned and reached down to help Slick do the same.
The ventilation system was divided into two parts, one for each wing, and so it was impossible to break into the north section through the vents. Nobody was entirely certain how security was arranged in the northern wing, so Sonic had figured that one possible way to circumvent it was to literally pass over it. Rockfall had been unimpressed with the plan, but agreed eventually to stand watch and man the radio as Sonic and Slick made their way to the machines factory.
Now they almost forgot their duty as they observed the private royal garden from a great height. There was a lake in the middle, with ducks and swans, and great oaks stood surrounded by patches of roses, tulips and lilies, among other beautiful flowers and hedges. It was an inspiring sight, a beauty that Sonic couldn't remember having seen in all his life, certainly not on the streets of Mobitropolis. Slick began tugging on the hedgehog's arm, and he snapped out of it.
"It's beautiful," the weasil said.
"Yeah," Sonic replied, "Incredible."
"Let's go. Are you ready?"
"Yeah."
With no small difficulty, Slick found a way to scale Sonic's back. The hedgehog grunted at the weight, but he was strong and Slick was light. He held Slick's legs under his arms, and his passenger put his arms around the hedgehog's neck, like a very large child on the back of a very small father. When Slick had a good solid hold, he gave the nod, and Sonic took off running across the palace roof.
If anybody had seen them from below, they would probably have blinked and wondered if they had really seen anything at all. A SWAT-bot was a different story - a robot knows exactly when it has seen something, for it has no imagination. But such a thing might believe that it simply spied a bird or a possum scurrying around up there. Sonic wasn't running as fast as he could with such an extra weight, but it was nevertheless a journey that was over in a manner of moments. It wasn't known whether they were seen, but there wasn't any outcry.
Slick had to stifle a terrified scream. When they had stopped, he showed Sonic a number of small wounds and grazes that he had suffered as a result of the short trip. "You stabbed me," he muttered, "You're about as sharp as you are fast."
He reported their position to Rockfall, and then they glanced down at the northern wing of the palace, a much quieter, more manicured and much more secure section of the palace, and a place that they most certainly should not be.
Sonic had a slightly uneasy feeling that he attributed to this fact. Unlike many of his friends on the street, Sonic harboured very little ill will towards the monarchs of Mobitropolis, partly due to a guilty conscience he carried with the suspicion that he probably deserved his difficult life (why forget your past unless it's one too terrible to remember?) and partly because he believed it was passing the buck to blame the government for his hardships. Now, here he was, committing crimes against the palace that could lead him into worse trouble than he could imagine. It was true that he wasn't exactly straight as laces, being that he had until now made a living from working crowds and picking pockets. But that was petty thievery, and what he was doing now would be called espionage, perhaps even terrorism.
Whatever else, Rat would probably be proud of him.
His worry now was that he was being conned for his skills, that maybe he really was breaking a team of terrorists into the palace, and maybe all Slick really intended to do was assassinate the king and make Sonic take the fall for it.
He thought back two days, thought back to the moment he had decided to help Slick escape the SWAT army. There had been nothing evil or rebellious about the weasil that day. Nothing but sheer fear and horror, a pitiful kind of... what? Not innocence. Maybe confusion. Like somebody who tried his best to help and was being persecuted for it. The mouse who pulled the thorn from the lion's paw and was eaten up afterward. Sonic trusted this ragtag group because they were all almost useless at what they did, not a determined posse of terrorist usurpers, but a fearful group of people who have heard something horrible and volunteered their limited skills to help fight it. All except Kethriel, he was a hardy and competant leader, he knew what he was doing. But even after knowing him such a short time, Sonic thought it unimaginable that Kethriel could even be capable of evil.
He looked at Slick again, who looked back with impatience. He wasn't sure he wanted to commit any more felonies, but he would complete this mission. Its urgency was clear to him.
"What are we waiting for?" Slick asked.
"Nothing," Sonic replied, "Let's go."

Thanks to sheer luck, a window was open, saving them from having to attempt to open one. It was on the top floor of the palace, and Sonic peered in to make sure it was an empty room before helping Slick and himself climb inside. It was some kind of study, a textbook lay open on a polished pine desk. Sonic glanced at it as he sneaked past. It was a reference book about the Ridgewars.
"Prince Martin's study," Slick whispered, "We should get out of here as soon as possible. Check the hallway."
A patrol of SWAT-bots moved passed the door, and the intruders ducked out of the way. They then moved into the hall and quickly slipped through the nearest open door, into a large bathroom.
"The good thing about the north wing is that there aren't a lot of people walking around," Slick explained, "Just the royal family and their private staff, mostly. A heck of a lot of SWATs, though. But they move always in predictable, repetitive patterns. They're not unpredictable like people are. We can get past them if we stick to our tactics. Come on, I know where we need to go."
They made their way a fair distance through the palace, and had three near-encounters with SWAT patrols. They passed several large bathrooms, and saw one very ornate and comfortable looking bedroom that Sonic was told belonged to Princess Sally. Soon enough they reached a dark staircase, and Slick pulled Sonic aside into the shadows.
"This is it," he said, "This is the most dangerous part. Keep on the lookout, and be ready to zoom outta here at a moment's notice. We're about to enter the belly of the beast."
They called it the Iron Ward, and that was because it was where robots were 'born'. It had an almost mythical, legendary aura about it, being that it was somewhere that absolutely must have existed (robots aren't delivered by storks) but nobody had ever seen it and the nature of it could only be imagined. The legend ranged from the sane and rational to the dark fantasy of a riveted raw iron hospital where mindless android nurses pulled grinding, screaming infant SWAT-bots from the bellies of enormous black machines. The truth, as Sonic found when he descended into the darkness, was that it was nothing more than a dimly lit factory assembly line. A row of unpainted SWAT-bot torsos moved past them as they crossed the dusty floor, staying as close to the wall as possible. There were complete and very operational SWATs standing about, as well, and the intruders slipped past them with almost uncontrollable nervousness. Sonic was untrained for this, and the fear was cutting into him like a blade. Too much longer, and he feared he might blow the whole operation with his nerves.
Soon enough, though, they came to a simple door with a foggy window, and with great stealth, Slick pulled it open and slipped inside. "Wait out here," he instructed, "Tap on the window if there's a problem."
Sonic did as he was told, and there was no problem. He saw a SWAT patrol move past nearby, and one of the robots seemed to hesitate for a moment (Sonic nearly burst with fear, his heart beating a jungle rhythm on the underside of his ribcage) but did not investigate. After only ten minutes of waiting, Slick emerged as quietly as he had entered, a deeply troubled expression on his face.
"What's wrong?" Sonic asked.
"We're leaving."
"Is there a problem?"
"No," Slick replied, "We're done."
"Already?"
"I'm a very fast reader. Come on. Leaving."
Slick's expression worried Sonic greatly, but they wordlessly left the Iron Ward behind them with its unnatural births.

Slick wanted to cut across the royal garden. Sonic had protested, but the guard was down on the southern side (the SWATs had probably been called away to search for intruders) and it seemed like the quickest way to escape the palace. The weasil seemed over-anxious to leave it all behind him and get back to Knothole.
Sonic's folly was to hesitate a moment to take in the beauty of the place. The flowers were all in bloom, and it was truly a sight to behold. The ironic mistake of the fastest thing on Mobius was to be too slow. He saw Slick escape into the public areas of the north wing, and he took a moment to fully absorb the image. When he looked again, the doors were guarded by SWAT-bots.
For a moment he was too stunned to move. Then he realised he was almost in plain sight, and in a panic, leaped into a flower garden, realising too late that they could be roses. They weren't, luckily.
"Hey," somebody said. Sonic's heart caught in his throat. He knew that he was sprung. But robots don't say 'hey', and certainly not in a soft feminine voice. Unsure of how to respond, he didn't respond at all.
There was a chuckle, not a girly giggle but a healthy and almost cultured laugh, before another "Hey!"
Sonic climbed out of the flower bush to face his opponent. He knew almost immediately who it was, and was both afraid and humbled. Princess Sally stood in the garden in a casual but tasteful dress suit, a fur coat draped across her narrow shoulders. She wore a cheeky, curious grin.
"Are you lost?" she asked.
"Uh," Sonic half-replied, "Uhhm, um."
"I'm surprised you got past security," Sally said, and her tone betrayed a certain level of disgust at the reference.
"Yeah," Sonic replied, stupidly.
The princess folded her arms and looked out across the garden. "It's beautiful, isn't it." she commented.
"Beautiful," Sonic agreed, "I've never seen anything... anything like it."
"My father tells me that the whole kingdom was like this, not too long ago," Sally said, "I mean, there were places like this, all over. The robot age... it's just, sort of, dulled the whole place, you know? You and I, we have to hold onto places like this, because they'll be gone before too long." She looked sad, but then she turned to Sonic and smiled. She was beautiful, petite and shapely, and her smile was perfect. The very sight of it mellowed Sonic's fear, drained it away.
"I'd do the polite thing and give you the private tour," she said, "But I'd get in all manner of trouble. You would think, being royalty, that I could do anything I wanted, wouldn't you? The truth is, my leash is shorter than anybody else's in all of Mobitropolis. Think yourself lucky."
"It's okay, I think I've seen enough of the palace for one day," Sonic said, grimly.
"Well, you certainly can't stay here, that's for sure," she replied, "Somebody would pitch a fit. Commoners in the royal garden? It's a right outrage, it is. Although nobody who says that is actually royal. Well, maybe my brother. If my father and I were really free to decide, we'd both invite you for coffee." She snickered at the irony of it. "I'll get you past the guards. I can't follow you into the public area, though, or I'll be swamped by photographers."
"Thanks, uh, uhhm, Your Majesty," Sonic replied, and he didn't know what the proper formality was, so he used the generic one. Sally shook her head and waved it away like the words were an annoying insect. "Don't give me any of that," she said, "I'm glad to have the company. Just don't go spreading it around, or we'll have all sorts of trouble around here."
The SWAT-bots lowered their weapons at the princess' approach, and Sonic was able to move safely through the doors, casting one last smile back at the strangely forlorn princess and her beautiful, rare garden.

The Freedom Fighters looked relieved when Sonic reached the rendezvous, but not entirely. Something was wrong. With a sinking feeling, Sonic thought he knew what it was, as they counted their members.
"Thought we'd lost ya," Slick said, but he probably hadn't been truly that concerned. Kethriel gave an acknowledging smile, and Rockfall barely grunted.
"What's up?" Sonic asked.
"There's a problem," Kethriel replied, "We've lost Bunnie."
"Radio silence ever since the heat came down on us in Robotnik's office," Rockfall added, "Not a peep."
"She's been caught?"
"Probably," Kethriel said, "We can't be sure right now. At this point we need to just return to Knothole and think things over."
The clock ticked over to midday. They had made it back in time, with minutes to spare.

In Knothole, tucked away within the Great Forest, spirits were fairly low. Sonic had mistaken it for disappointment aimed towards himself. He wasn't trained in chain of command, and he and Slick had basically contradicted Kethriel's orders in going to the Iron Ward for another shot at the computer network. About the last thing he wanted to do was disappoint Kethriel, who had been so sure of Sonic's ability and potential.
"You did good, buddy," Kethriel assured him later, after nightfall, when he had invited the blue hedehog to his hut for a cup of bitter, cheap coffee. "Very good, in fact. Excellent. You knew your abilities and you acted accordingly. You saw a shot and you went for it. That's why I sent you along on the mission, you did just what I hoped you would. Ordinarily, you'd all be crowd-surfing by now. Only reason you're not is because we're not entirely sure it's worth anything."
"We got the information," Sonic noted.
"Yeah, but the question now is whether Robotnik might change his strategy entirely. He obviously knew what we were going to do, and we almost marched three of our elite agents right into an iron trap. They managed to snare one, Bunnie, and we're all worrying ourselves sick about her as well. We could get her out if she was in a jail cell on spying charges, but it's more likely she's being interrogated by the prince, privately. There's no telling what kind of torture she might go through." He looked down at his mug for a moment, sadly contemplating something. "She has more honour in her pinky finger than everyone else in this camp combined. She'll never speak a word about Knothole, about us. Not that I prefer her torture. If I thought it would help, I'd give her permission to spill her guts out."
"I'm really sorry, Kethriel," Sonic said.
"Hm? Oh! Gosh Sonic, it wasn't your fault," he replied, "Like I said, you did great. You salvaged the mission, in fact. I'd give you a medal, but we don't have any. Look, our leader is coming down to Knothole tonight to confer with us, Slick is going to tell us all what he found out, and I'd like you to be there. I'd like you to meet our leader, Sonic, I think you're ready and so do the others. You're one of the group, now, provided you want to stick with us. Besides, I just want to see the look on your face."
"The look on my face?"
Kethriel winked. "Can't say too much. Go back to your hut, have a shower if you like. I'll call you over when it's time."

Sonic was surprised to find that his hut, formerly a tumbledown mess of leaves and branches, had now been upgraded. Or, at least it was better than it was, though none of the constructions in Knothole were either stable or homely. It was now more solid, partially furnished, and there was a bush shower attached, just a bag of water with holes in the top that could be turned over. He did so, washing away the day in a torrent of cold water.
A couple of hours later, Kethriel collected him and they walked through the forest a little ways, to a large and dimly lit tent in the foliage. Inside, were Rockfall, Slick and Rotor, who greeted him enthusiastically.
It wasn't long before another figure, heavily cloaked in dark rags, was brought inside by two burly assistants. Kethriel smiled at Sonic, as if to reiterate that Sonic was going to be shocked out of his shoes by the answer to this mystery. Indeed, it was a powerful suspense, and he expected just about anything. However, when the leader pulled off a layer of darkness to reveal a face that was powerfully familiar, Sonic realised that he really wasn't too shocked at all to learn that the leader of the Freedom Fighters was actually Princess Sally Acorn. In fact, it made an easy kind of logical sense. And when she smiled at him, he supposed that Sally wasn't too shocked to see him there, either.