FicWad

Metal fingers flew over the console. "One minute to launch." Sir Charles Hedgehog winced and grimaced as the synthesised voice flared over the speaker. Reams of computer code flashed up and down the screen as he desperately tried to find a line he could break. It looked like it had been written by a robot without any idea of how a human would use the language, and all the names were confusing and unhelpful.

"Fifty seconds to launch." Distracted by the voice again, Sir Charles turned his attention back to the screen. Ah, here was a place. It looked like this section was designed to hold a set of co-ordinates, so if he wiped them clear... Well, it was a simple enough trick. He brought the entry cursor down to the point to start typing at.

"Forty seconds to launch." Argh, that voice! Once again Sir Charles looked back down, typing in the line it would take. Just one line, but he could tell something was wrong. The co-ordinates were held /here/, he thought quickly, so what was this co-ordinate set over /here/?

"Thirty seconds to launch." It was too late to dwell. The package needed to be uploaded before the ten-second mark, otherwise the cables would be severed and it would be too late. Sir Charles assembled the program, hoping that he had not made a mistake. Seconds passed... compiling... linking... done. '0 errors,' reported the screen.

"Twenty seconds to launch." Sir Charles relief was short-lived - he needed to get the program uploaded /now/. He hit the directory listing - tense two seconds passed - then the new filesystem appeared. He was pushing the file on so fast he was surprising himself. Uploading... uploading... uploading... done. File received, 24146 bytes. Folder write-protect, he commanded. Sending command... sending... sending...

Snap. There went the cables. "Ten seconds to launch," clamoured the robotic voice again. But Sir Charles saw on his screen, 'Permissions updated', and knew that the command had been received. He was relieved, but it was a gamble - if it worked, the satellite would be useless and irreparable. If he had messed up his bug, he would not be able to reconnect through radio to fix it.

"Five." Sir Charles looked upward to the speaker on the wall that the voice was coming from. He was in a boxy metal room with one side made of glass, showing the outside view: a massive indoor terminal, just a very large room loaded with unused and probably unusable space vehicles. He looked away from the screen for the first time in a while and below him, on the ground of the terminal, was the satellite, hooked up to a crane for easy take-off. His distracted mind never caught the final numbers of the countdown, but then he felt the vibrations and grabbed the chair for support as the speaker sounded:

"Lift-off."


Slowly Sonic awoke, listening quietly to the birds and his own memory. He could remember the anger of yesterday, but the night had dulled it, as if he were looking at the scene through dusty glass. He felt weary, and Nintex had become just another someone in the background.

When Sonic crawled into the community hut, some time later, much of the food had already been claimed. Sally looked up from her table at the other end and waved at him. Sonic waved back, grabbed three slices of toast from the racks and navigated through the tables to her.

"Hi, Sal," Sonic said.

"You look tired."

"So do you."

"That's from this," Sally said, glancing down at her hand where Nicole was busy listing filenames. "I was working on this. The problem with robots is that they make so many files that it takes years to sort through all of them."

Sonic finished a mouthful. "How far are you?" he asked, bending round to see the screen.

"Well, I've gone through most of them. I'm almost done. It's all okay except for this satellite launch he's planning. Looks like it's aimed for us."

"What, you mean, looking for us?"

"I can't make it out," Sally said, and she sounded frustrated. "I think it's meant to search for us, but half of this is English and half is illegible computer code. And Nicole doesn't understand it, either. I mean... I mean, just look at this." She turned the screen to Sonic. It was displaying pure gibberish, a long stream of random symbols. "It's so irritating."

"Well, we do know he's up to something," Sonic said, putting a hand on Sally's wrist for support. "Maybe we ought to check it out. Sal, does it say when the thing goes up?"

Sally said, "Yes."


Sir Charles let his death-grip on the seat relax as the unnatural vibrations calmed, then faded. He had forgotten, in his haste to alter the program, that he would see the craft's launch. The force of lift-off was strong enough to jar his senses, and he would have lost his footing if he had not grabbed the chair.

The craft was dart-shaped, sleek black, with a long solar panel on either side. Sir Charles subconsciously watched it rise, following the streak of orange light from its engines, until it disappeared above the roof and out of his line of sight. Slowly he made to get up again, feeling rather awkward, and composed himself, not really realising that he was alone.

The speaker clicked again, drawing his attention. "Lift-off confirmed successful, the satellite is flying straight on course. We should have a triangulation of Knothole's location within five minutes."

"Excellent," said a new voice. Robotnik. "I don't even think they know. Is our tracker still transmitting?"

"Yes, sir. We have the signal but we can't properly track it without the craft in orbit. Estimated time, three minutes."

Sir Charles listened. He was aware that his time was limited; that at any moment someone else could enter the room. Technically, though, he had the right to be here. And if it wasn't Snively, then he should be able to hold his place. And he had to know what was going on. The satellite could track Knothole; that much had been public network information for days. But Robotnik made it sound like someone at Knothole was sending signals for him. And that was dangerous. But he would know in a few minutes whether his edit had worked.

Silence. For a while Sir Charles was left to his own thoughts; they weren't helpful. If Robotnik knew Knothole's location... well, Knothole had been ravaged once by Robotnik. It seemed so long ago. But now Sir Charles was looking at the same thing again... and it terrified him. Sonic was there. Sally was there. With three little numbers, Robotnik could win over the resistance.

"The satellite is transmitting, sir," said the robotic voice. "But it isn't at nearly enough accuracy yet. The co-ordinates... checking..."

"Yes?" came Robotnik's voice.

"They're all zeroes."

Silence for a few seconds.

"And the system is registering no change in the satellite's readouts, sir. It's just sending zeroes."

"What about the autopilot system?" asked Robotnik.

The autopilot system! Sir Charles started at this, and swore. Of course that was what the second co-ordinates were for! But... a robot could link itself to the autopilot network, and would be sent directions to its destination. And then Robotnik would still be able to find Knothole...

Please say it's broken, Sir Charles found himself thinking. Say it thinks Knothole is up in the sky, or underneath the Mobian Sea, or wherever...

"I have connected to the network," the robotic voice replied. "It is directing me north. It does not have much accuracy at this distance, but I believe it is still operational."

Sir Charles slumped back in his seat, defeated. Knothole was indeed north of Robotropolis. The autopilot was still working, and he had write-protected the program, preventing a second edit through a radio connection.

"Very well," Robotnik said. "No change in the zeroes?"

"No change, sir."

"Then we will continue as best as we can. Continue readying the strike force, we will approach them with the autopilot system."

"Yes, sir."

"And if you do find out why the co-ordinate system has failed... you will destroy the one responsible. Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir."

The speaker clicked off. For a moment Sir Charles waited for another signal to come through, but it didn't happen. He had to go, to warn the others...


The door opened. Sally looked up to find Sonic, who had returned from his morning run amidst the Great Forest, striding in. Sally had long since finished her breakfast, but remained, staring intently not at Nicole's screen, but at the hologram she was projecting outwards, depicting Robotropolis.

"Sal!" Sonic called, walking across the room towards her. "What's up?"

"You are, and so am I. We're going out to Robotropolis, Sonic Hedgehog."

Sonic blinked, almost tripping over a chair. "Really? We're after that satellite, right?"

"Yeah," Sally replied, nodding. "We need to destroy it ASAP. Fancy a visit to Sir Charles?"

"Uncle Chuck? Why?"

"Because I reckon he has a clue what's going on, which is more than we can say. Besides, we don't have the firepower here, and I'll bet he has something we can use."

Sonic finally made it to Sally and Nicole's hologram. "Chuck lives here-ish," he said, pointing. "Could we teleport there?"

"Not inside," Sally said, "that's too tight. And Robotnik might notice the energy build-up. But if we drop down /here/, we can pass these buildings and get to his hideout. After that we can ask him for help, and from then on... well..."

"We improvise," Sonic finished.

Sally smiled weakly. "Yeah, we improvise."

It was clearly not the kind of plan she liked. They sat there for silence for a few seconds, then Sonic pointed to one of the tower buildings, not far from Uncle Chuck. "Hey, Sal," he said slowly, "isn't this the refinery building?"

"Oh, gosh," Sally said, suddenly realising. "Sonic, you mustn't point that out to Nintex!"

"I know, I know. I just don't fancy coming home and saying, 'Hi, Nint, we saw your guys while we were gone.' He'd probably snap."

Sally hesitated. "...So what do we do, then?"

"I dunno. He's supposed to be able to take loss. Otherwise he wouldn't be here."

"Now you're talking nonsense," Sally replied. "Being here has nothing to do with it. It's not like he's a Freedom Fighter; he's just here to get his leg fixed. Then we'll probably send him off to one of the other cities."

"Oh, yeah, like Robotropolis," Sonic said, chuckling.

Sally frowned at him. "Sonic Hedgehog, you can be a perfect irritant at times."

"Well, it's true, ain't it? How'd he get there in the first place?"

"Ugh, I don't know, Sonic. Go and ask him, make yourself useful. Run around. Do something. We can't leave just yet anyway. I need to get myself... sorted out."

Sonic laughed, "Washing your hair?" and then dodged her punch.


While Sonic and Sally were in the community hut, Nintex, who had no hut of his own, had slept with Tails. Sally had sent Tails straight to sleep after Sonic's attempt at storytelling, and Nintex had not had a chance for proper conversation until now. He stayed lying down, for his leg's sake, looking up at Tails.

Nintex found the young fox fascinating, and the two hit off well. Tails was naturally quite talkative, and as their conversations continued Nintex could not help drawing - not always accurate - parallels between the two of them.

"Well, I've always been like this," Tails had said, drawing his tails out for Nintex to see them. "I was just born this way. It's just something else unusual about me, but then again, I'd be pretty much a nothing without it. I'm good with computers, I'm very good, but it's a bit more, bit more real to have flight handy."

"Flight?" Nintex had asked, and Tails had demonstrated. /Well/, Nintex had thought, /that's a kitsune power if ever I saw one/. And when Tails lowered, Nintex, remembering Doctor Shepherd, had been hard-pressed not to say the K-word.

After an hour of waking time, Tails showed Nintex his laptop, the best demonstration Tails had of his aptitude with computers. "I built it," he explained, switching it on. "It's got loads of devices, although it's a big bulky for taking on a proper mission. Have a fiddle, and I'll go and get breakfast for you." And he left the hut, and Nintex was suddenly alone with the device.

He bent down, thought for a moment, and started to type...