Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The hedgehog's heart was in the wrong place. 

Doctor Starline pressed his hands against the patient’s midsection, an inch below his ribcage, and felt the pulse of a beating heart against his fingertips. A quiet gasp escaped his throat. Hedgehog hearts were meant to be higher in their chests, behind the breast plate . . . why was this one so low? 

Of course, there was always a chance that he was misremembering hedgehog anatomy. There weren’t many hedgehogs around Starline’s home on Victoria Island. It was his first time ever treating one. However, he’d made sure to check his Mobian animal-type reference book prior to the consultation. He was fairly certain it said hedgehog hearts were in a different location. Either his memory was failing him, or this was a very weird hedgehog. 

He continued his inspection of the patient’s body, looking for injuries that would explain his unconscious state. Despite his best efforts, he found nothing. The black-and-red hedgehog appeared to be perfectly healthy. 

“You said a fishing boat found him on a garbage patch, correct? Was he unconscious the whole time?” The question was directed to Doctor Niran, the man actually responsible for the hedgehog’s care. Starline’s specialty was in Mobian medicine, which meant that he was often called for consults whenever the other doctors at the hospital were given a patient whose anatomy they knew nothing about. All medical schools devoted lessons to Mobian medicine, but the species varied so widely across animal-types that most doctors only bothered to study the most common ones in their areas. Like Starline, Doctor Niran had likely never seen a hedgehog in his life. Starline was simply considered more equipped to look at the patient because he exclusively worked on Mobian medical cases. 

Doctor Niran didn’t answer him. Confused, Starline looked over his shoulder to discover that Niran wasn’t standing where he was a few minutes ago. He wasn’t even in the room anymore. Now, this wasn’t entirely abnormal—Starline was known for getting fixated on his work to the point that his surroundings faded away entirely. But it was definitely strange for a patient’s primary doctor to leave mid-consult, and Niran was known for doing everything by the book. Only an emergency could have pulled him away. 

Starline rounded the bed and opened the door to peek into the hallway. There were other cases he needed to work on. If Niran wasn’t nearby to help, he would have no choice but to leave and explain later. He didn’t have time to sit around and wait for him to get back. 

The first thing he noticed in the hallway was the blood. It was smeared across the linoleum floors, seemingly spread around by human-sized footprints. Bloody handprints on the walls were equally large. And down the hall—

His heart jumped to his throat. Bodies were littered around the reception area, a pile of scrubs, hospital gowns, and lab coats alike. He stepped out of the room slowly, approaching the reception desk as quietly as he could in fear that the one responsible for the massacre was still around. He checked each room in the hallway as he made his way to the end, noting a common scene among them: the sheets were thrown off the beds, drip bags and equipment in disarray, and their doors wide open. Only one patient was still in their bed—a kangaroo whom Starline had sedated while treating their burn wounds just yesterday. The significance of the patient’s species did not occur to him until he reached the reception area and took in the depth of the scene there. 

Every dead body was human. He found Doctor Niran among the bodies, killed by a hard blow to the side of his head. His breaths became shallow as he checked out the other bodies, hoping to ascertain what kind of weapon was used in this massacre. What he found confused and terrified him. The deaths were primarily caused by blunt force trauma. Some were caused by gashes across the throat or chests. In the hands of the victims were scalpels, saws, trays, and other heavy objects that could be used to bludgeon someone to death. 

The variety of wounds revealed that there was no sole perpetrator. They had all fought each other to the bloody end. 

Movement under the reception desk caught his attention. He peered below, where he found himself locking eyes with a wombat nurse backed against a filing cabinet. The wombat flinched at the eye contact and put her head in her hands. 

“I don’t know what happened,” she whispered, words muffled by her gloves. “They just started attacking each other out of the blue. I hid down here. I don’t know if they forgot about me, or just decided to leave me alone, or . . .” 

The nurse broke down into tears. Starline watched as a growing feeling of dread settled into his bones.

“Were you the only Mobian working here?” he asked. With a sob, the wombat nodded and curled up tighter against the cabinet. 

Starline swallowed nervously. Okay. For an unknown reason, all humans in the hospital had stopped what they were doing and slaughtered one another until no one remained. Mobians were unaffected. Why?

“Stay here. I’m going to look for other survivors.” 

He exited the reception area and returned to the main corridor. As he walked down the hall, he heard a voice call out from down the hallway. It was loud and commanding. As Starline got closer, he realized it was coming from the hedgehog’s room. 

Inside, he found the hedgehog sitting upright in his bed. He beckoned for Starline to come closer. 

“Robotnik told me all about you when I was in space. I thought the other one was an outlier, but I guess you’re all the same.” The hedgehog titled his head to the side, looking Starline up-and-down with a curious expression. “You look like some kind of scientist. Tell me: why can’t I join your mind?”

The words were like a lightning rod to the heart. They formed a claw that reached back through time, tearing through layers of disappointments and resignations to pierce the skin of a version of himself that he’d buried long ago. They dragged him forward and cracked the egg of his future wide open, flattening trails that he’d once deemed too difficult to travel. The hedgehog shrunk Starline’s world until it was small enough to crush in his hands.

He cradled the globe gently, feeling its oceans and mountains press against his webbed fingers. Then he applied pressure.

“That’s funny,” Starline said. His voice was barely a whisper. “I knew a Robotnik once, too.” 

Sonic was sick often.

It happened at random; sudden, brief illnesses that wracked his body and typically left within a day’s time. They most commonly manifested as headaches and nausea, but he was sometimes prone to chills and feverish symptoms as well. He dreaded the fevers more than anything else—they tended to last a bit longer, knocking him off his feet for days at a time. Since there was nothing he hated more than staying still, finding himself bedridden with a fever was always a nightmarish experience for him. 

There was no definite cause for his condition. The only time he’d seen a doctor about it was when he was fourteen, after a three day-long spell of nausea made Amy so nervous that she consulted the resistance’s medic against his will. The medic had asked him a few questions about his past, felt his stomach and listened to his heart, and then expressed her professional opinion: Sonic wasn’t sick, just extremely anxious. 

Psychosomatic was the term she’d used. Apparently, his brain was sick enough that it was making his body feel sick, too. It didn’t make a lot of sense to him. During Eggman’s occupation of the East Pacific islands, he’d never felt scared—only very, very angry. 

Her diagnosis especially didn’t make sense now, a whole year after he’d found Tails on Cocoa Island and learned the truth behind Eggman’s success. The little fox had single-handedly purged every potential source of stress from the world, freeing not just the two of them but every other animal on the planet, too. There was nothing left for Sonic to fear. 

And yet, here he was, sitting as still as he could in the Chao Garden as he tried not to throw up his breakfast. He’d come up here to help Knuckles with the Chao. Instead, he could do nothing but watch his friend do all the work while he struggled to survive wave after wave of debilitating nausea. 

Grass prickled the undersides of his legs as he watched the last few Chao climb out of the pool and gather with the others beside Knuckles’ cart. Its wooden compartment was filled with the various shapes and colours of the unique fruit that grew around Angel Island. The Chao weren’t very good at foraging for themselves, so Knuckles put aside some time every few days to pick fruit from tree branches too high for the little creatures to reach and made sure they had enough food to go around. It seemed like the echidna did a lot to take care of the Chao. Sonic liked to help out whenever he visited, but today he’d fallen too sick to even get off the ground. It was embarrassing, and he felt bad for Knuckles, who usually used Sonic’s presence as an excuse to take a break from his duties. He hadn’t been able to do that today and it was Sonic’s fault. 

Well, not really his fault. He didn’t want to be sick—it just happened sometimes. There was no point in fighting it. He couldn’t control when it struck him or how long it stuck around. All he could do was wait for it to pass. 

It didn’t take long to distribute the fruit amongst the Chao. A couple of them finished their pieces quickly and tried to climb up the side of the cart for more, which only made Knuckles shout at them angrily before he gently grabbed them and placed them down on the grass. The Chao didn’t seem very upset about the scolding—if anything, they seemed to find it funny, letting out mischievous giggles like they’d been trying to make Knuckles mad on purpose. Sonic couldn’t blame them. Knuckles was a very fun animal to annoy. 

Once all the Chao finally calmed down, Knuckles stepped over their small bodies and made his way over to Sonic. He sat beside him without saying a word, content to observe the Chao eat and play in silence. Sonic glanced over to his friend curiously, where he watched him fiddle unconsciously with the bracelet Amy had given him last year. It looked kind of heavy. He wondered if it was comfortable to wear. 

“Does it bother you?” Sonic asked. 

Knuckles followed his gaze to his wrist. He blinked in surprise and then responded, “No. It used to, before I understood what it meant. The fox never explained his plan to me. Amy helped me understand when she gave me the bracelet, and now . . . I don’t like it, but I’ll do it if I have to.” 

It was strange to hear uncertainty in the echidna’s voice, but Sonic could understand his hesitation. Knuckles had spent his whole life protecting the Master Emerald. Thanks to Tails’ deterrence, he was now expected to destroy it at a moment’s notice. No wonder he was so conflicted. 

“It probably won’t ever happen,” Sonic said, although he doubted it would do much to make Knuckles feel better. Amy and Tails had likely already told him the same thing. Still, repeating it to himself helped Sonic when he thought about things too much—maybe it would help Knuckles, too. 

The echidna scoffed. “You’re pathetic. If you want to worry about me, you can do it when you’re not about to puke all over the garden.”

The comment made Sonic want to shrink away in embarrassment. He brought up his knees and pressed his face into them, waiting for the feeling to pass. Why couldn’t this episode just end already? All this sitting around was making him miserable. There were better things he could be doing right now, and he was sure the same was true for Knuckles, who probably hadn’t planned on babysitting a sick person all morning. It wasn’t fair for either of them. 

“You don't have to sit here with me,” Sonic mumbled into his leg fur. “It should go away soon. I’ll be fine.” 

He heard Knuckles shift in place, but it didn’t seem like he was leaving. Sonic risked a glance from the corner of his eye. Knuckles was leaning back on his paws, more relaxed than he’d been before. It looked like he was in no rush to go anywhere. 

“The Chao used to live everywhere. Now, these are the only ones left,” Knuckles said slowly. His words halted Sonic’s spiral of guilt in place and piqued his curiosity. Where was Knuckles going with this? “It makes sense. They’re resilient, but also difficult to keep alive. I almost killed them many times while learning to take care of them on my own. They are sensitive to changes in their water. If anything is wrong with the pool here, they get really sick. Even little things can set them off. One time, they started falling ill because a frog had laid eggs in the water. They only got better when I moved the eggs to a pond on the other side of the island. I used to be really confused about how they managed to survive in the wild. If some frog eggs were enough to kill them, how could they make it on their own in nature? But now, I think I understand. Do you know how they did it?”

Sonic didn’t know much about the Chao, so he was intrigued to learn about Knuckles’ discovery. He turned his head to look at his friend, resting his cheek against one of his knees as he continued to hug them against his chest. “No, I don’t. Tell me.” 

“They survived because they were never alone. No matter where they lived, there were always animals like us around to help them. When the planet changed, we couldn’t take care of them anymore. That’s why they nearly went extinct.” Loss was a common thread in stories about the past. Sonic had become numb to it all years ago—there were only so many times he could hear something upsetting before he got tired of feeling that way all the time. Knuckles did not appear to share his feelings. He gestured to the garden around them with a proud smile. “There were only a dozen Chao here when I was younger. In a decade, their numbers have reached around sixty. They’re repopulating. If they continue at this rate, I may need to find them a bigger garden soon. Or move some of them to the islands with you. I could teach the villagers how to take care of them again, and maybe even plant seeds for the fruit trees the Chao like so much in their farms. What do you think? Could it work?”

It sounded nice, but Sonic couldn’t quite figure out Knuckles’ underlying intention here. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I was just thinking about it. The Chao only survived because I was here to take care of their environment. Sometimes, maybe that’s all you need to get better. The right conditions.”

Sonic bit the inside of his cheek. “What if those don’t exist anymore?”

Knuckles hummed and narrowed his eyes in thought. “The world is always changing, so maybe what you're trying to heal back to doesn't exist anymore. If that’s true, then your only option is to bring what you know into the new world and find a way to make it work for you. Healing always moves forward, which means you can’t heal against change. You can only heal into it. Otherwise, you’ll just get stuck.” 

Stuck. Was Sonic stuck? 

Sure, maybe he was stuck in place right now. Nausea had a tendency to do that to you. Metaphorically, though . . . he wasn’t sure why he would be stuck. Or why Knuckles seemed to think he was. He didn’t hate change. And he wasn’t sure what exactly he was meant to be healing from. 

The conversation was a rare show of tenderness from Knuckles. And still, it angered him. Did Knuckles really see him this way? Did he think he was this broken—so fragile that he had to beat around the bush when he tried to comfort him? 

The more he thought about it, the worse his indignation became. Sonic pushed his face back into his knees so Knuckles couldn’t see his expression. “I’m not stuck,” he growled.

Thankfully, Knuckles didn’t contest his point. He didn’t say anything at all. The two of them fell into a strange silence, one that made Sonic wonder why Knuckles wasn’t pushing back. The two of them used to argue all the time. If Knuckles was choosing not to engage, then he must have thought that Sonic couldn’t be reasoned with. Like he was too irrational to even listen.

That was fine. Sonic had never been much of a rational animal, anyways. 

He hugged his knees a little tighter against his chest, and then settled in to ride out the rest of his sickness in silence. 

By midday, Sonic recovered enough to return to the surface. He flew the Tornado to South Island, touching down on the worn out landing strip whose cracks and potholes rustled his landing gear. The nearby plane hangar had been repurposed into a storage shed, so he parked the plane on some grass nearby and secured a tarp over the cockpit in case a storm rolled through. The sky was clear and it certainly didn’t feel like it was going to rain, but there was a danger in assuming that sort of thing. The world was a very weird and random place. Who was he to predict its future?

A short dash away from the landing strip was Eggman’s decommissioned launchpad. During his race to the ARK, the Doctor had left behind a lot of advanced equipment around this part of South Island. It was now a hub of activity, busy with Restoration personnel who were in charge of dismantling the equipment and finding a way to share it equitably to the other islands. Sonic helped out whenever they needed him, but there wasn’t all that much for him to do around here. Taking apart rocket technology didn’t require super speed. He mostly just wound up running whatever errands Amy assigned him.

“Hey, Sonic!” 

Speaking of which . . .  Sonic looked over to the direction of the voice, where he found Amy waving at him from the entrance to one of the many Restoration tents around the launchpad. He smiled and zipped over to stand beside her. 

“Hi, Amy,” he said with a small wave. “Long time no see!”

Amy rolled her eyes at him fondly. “I saw you two days ago.”

“Two days can be a long time.” Based on her appearance, it seemed like Amy had been sleeping better than the last time he’d seen her. “Are the villagers still keeping you up all night?”

Amy lived in an apartment in Metropolis Zone, so she was staying in a nearby village while she helped with the launchpad. The villagers shared a few big cabins together that were organized by sleep-types. Unfortunately for Amy, the only cabin with space for her had been the one designated for nocturnal animals, which meant that her roommates were wide awake whenever she was trying to sleep. The arrangement had resulted in many sleepless nights since she moved to the island a couple months ago.

“I slept on the ground in here last night.” She gestured to the canvas tent behind her. “I stole one of the village’s blankets to cover the grass I was laying on, so I guess I’ll have to return it when I’m done. Do you think they’ll be mad?”

The question perplexed him. “Why would they be mad? Did they need it for something?”

Amy frowned. “I don’t think so . . .” 

“Then I’m sure it’s fine,” he said with a shrug. 

“Okay, cool. Thanks.” Suddenly, Amy’s entire demeanour changed. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a pointed look. “Sonic, where is your cell phone?”

Uh oh. If she was asking, then she must have been trying to reach him while he was on Angel Island. “In the Tornado,” he replied. 

“When was the last time you bothered to charge it?”

Sonic grimaced at her frustrated tone. He lost his charger a few weeks ago, when he’d let someone use it and then forgot to pick it up again afterwards. It was probably still plugged into Spiral Hill’s ring-powered generator. Whoops. 

Looking back, the phone itself had disappeared in the past few days, too. He was pretty sure it had slipped below the Tornado’s pilot seat somewhere, but he couldn’t be bothered to look for it. Why would he? The phone’s battery had been dead for nearly a month. Even if he found it, it wasn’t like he would be able to use it, anyways. 

Amy didn’t need to know any of this. It would probably just make her want to tear her quills out. “I think I last charged it a week ago,” Sonic lied. 

The pink hedgehog groaned and ran a paw down her face. “Sonic, I gave you that phone for a reason. What if there was an emergency?”

Sonic glanced around the launchpad nervously, looking for signs of disaster. “Was there an emergency?”

“Ugh. No. Well, not really.” Amy gestured east, towards the rest of South Island. “Tails hasn’t come over to help in a few days. He swore he’s fine over the phone, but I don’t believe him. I’m too busy organizing stuff here to spend a whole day walking there and back. Can you go check on him?”

On the surface, it wasn’t strange for Tails to occasionally disappear for a few days at a time. He liked to spend time on his own here and there, which was something Sonic could relate to as well. However, it was a little weird for him to do it now, when the Restoration was taking apart Eggman Empire infrastructure. Tails always stuck around when the empire was involved. Just like the animals who’d been hurt by Eggman’s schemes, Tails also needed to watch the remnants of his empire fall—for closure, or maybe even something like vindication.

So why wasn’t he here now?

“Do you need him for anything?” Sonic asked. Tails would want to know if there was a technical problem that needed fixing. 

“No. I just want to make sure he’s okay.” 

There was a worried expression in Amy’s eyes. Hoping to ease her concern, Sonic pressed a paw against his forehead in a mock salute and stepped back. “Aye, aye. I’ll report back in a bit.”

Sonic took off from the launchpad, picking up as much speed as he could before he reached the other side of the island. South Island wasn’t very big, so he only got to run for a few seconds before the workshop came into view and he had to dig his heels into the dirt to slow down. He skidded to a stop beside the workshop’s small fruit and vegetable garden, where he could sometimes find Tails when he was at home. He wasn’t there.

On a normal day, Sonic would look for Tails elsewhere on the island. Usually, the beach was a safe bet—it was a short walk from the workshop, so Tails liked to spend time there as well. Unlike Sonic, he was comfortable with swimming and enjoyed floating in the calm waves on sunny days when the water wasn’t too cold. If the weather was shabby, he could also be found on the beach building all kinds of structures out of the sand. He never wore gloves when he played in the sand. Sometimes, Sonic caught him feeling the sand between his tender pads, completely entranced as though it were his first time holding the grain in his paws. Or like he was afraid that every day on the beach would be his last.

Sonic didn’t bother to check the beach today. From where he stood in the grass, he could make out the sound of someone speaking from inside the workshop. Was Tails talking to someone? He knew that Cream called often to ask for help with her schoolwork, so maybe he’d just been busy the past few days because he was helping her with a big problem. Although, Sonic didn’t think Cream was old enough to receive such rigorous homework yet . . .

Not that he would know. Sonic had tried school exactly one time and never went back. Ugh, talk about mental torture.

The workshop didn’t have a door. Tails had insisted on keeping the entrance open when they built his workshop together, but had faced a dilemma when South Island’s many nocturnal snakes, spiders, and annoying bugs kept getting into his home while he was asleep. As a compromise, Tails decided to secure a mesh curtain over the wooden door frame that he could remove during the daytime. He typically took it down as soon as he woke up. Today, the mesh was still attached when Sonic pushed it aside to enter the workshop in the early afternoon. Weird.

Inside, he was greeted with another strange sight: between Sonic’s visits, Tails had rearranged his furniture.

 The desk was now on the other side of the workshop, where it was currently sandwiched between two bookcases. Those were turned so their backs were no longer against the wall, each one hugging either side of the desk to create a box-like formation. The setup resembled one of those office cubicles he’d seen in human movies and television shows. Tails was seated at his desk, working on something Sonic couldn’t see from the doorway.

He didn’t understand the new setup. The bookcases especially didn’t make sense—there was no reason for them to be closer to the desk. Tails had built them in anticipation of amassing a collection of science books, but there weren’t many books in circulation these days so his shelves mostly sat empty. It would be that way until the United Federation allowed the islands to import goods again. Other than to create an intentionally suffocating work environment, what purpose did it serve Tails to keep his meagre book collection close by?

Suddenly, the sound of crackling static erupted from the desk. “. . . survivor of the Canberra hospital massacre . . . humanity at risk. . .” 

The cadence of English words didn’t surprise him. Despite Amy’s improvement to near fluency in Mobian, Tails still communicated with her almost exclusively in English. Sonic was used to hearing the language spoken around him. However, the voice was not one he recognised, and it made him curious.

Sonic walked over to the desk and stopped behind Tails’ chair. “Hey, buddy!” He put a paw on the fox’s shoulder and leaned over to peek at what he was doing. “What’cha working on?”

Tails was writing diligently in a graph notebook. There was a small radio on the corner of the desk, which was now spitting out nothing more than garbled static. Tails put down his pencil with a groan and reached forward to fiddle with the radio’s antenna.

“Hi, Sonic. I’m, uh . . . I don’t know how to explain it. Mostly, I’m trying to listen to the news, but the reception here sucks.” He rotated the antenna slowly. When it hit a specific angle, words broke through the radio’s speaker again. Some kind of advertisement was playing. Tails bit his lip and held up the radio to Sonic. “Can you hold the antenna in place? I can’t concentrate on what they’re saying and keep it in place at the same time.”

Sonic took the radio in his paws, careful to keep the antenna in the correct location. “Since when did you listen to the news?”

“Since Vanilla called to tell me about something weird on the other side of the world. I think they found Shadow a few days ago. I’m trying to get more information, but radio stations from the United Federation don’t reach South Island very well. We’re too far away.” The advertisement ended and stern, human voices took over the program. Tails put a finger over his snout. “Sorry, no more talking right now. I need to listen.” 

“The city of Canberra remains on lockdown as officials investigate a sudden outbreak of violence that resulted in hundreds of deaths four days ago. The epicentre appears to be a hospital in the east end of the city, where survivors forced to quarantine inside describe the scene as being the result of a ‘human mind virus’. That’s right—only humans were affected by whatever happened there. Mobians were completely unharmed. What do you think happened?”

Another host on the radio show cut in. “You know what I find interesting? Outside the hospital, the only deaths were from a group of fishermen. All of them were out that morning on the same boat. Now, one of the fishermen survived, and I think it’s worth noting that he lives outside the city. The mind virus is clearly constrained by distance.” 

Tails made a weird expression. “Mind virus . . .?”

The first host spoke again. “On that point, I think you should listen to the fisherman’s testimony. He said his group rescued an unconscious hedgehog from a garbage patch near their fishing site on the way home. They dropped him off at the hospital just hours before all the humans killed each other. Clearly, this hedgehog—” 

The radio program was disrupted by a flat tone. It continued for a minute, then the station began to play a traffic report. Before Sonic could worry that he’d changed the channel by accident, Tails took the radio back and turned it off. 

“Well, that pretty much confirms it.” Tails’ voice was distant, almost hesitant. Like he didn’t want to continue his line of thought. “The United Federation is censoring reports about Shadow. My window of opportunity is closing.” 

Sonic gave Tails a desperate look. "What did they say? I didn't understand it all."

Quickly, Tails translated what the radio hosts had been saying into Mobian. He then continued his train of thought. “I’m one of the only people on the planet with access to Gerald’s transmission logs. If those got out, the world would punish the United Federation for letting Gerald send radio signals into space. I wanted to use them as a bargaining tool, but that would mean . . .” Tails gestured to his desk’s cubicle-like setup. “I thought replicating the environment would jog my memory, but I still can’t remember the exact numbers. I have no other choice.” 

The fox pushed back his chair and stood up. When he turned to face Sonic, there was a strange spark in his eye that he’d never seen before. 

“I need to go back to Northstar Island. Will you come with me?”

Floral Forest Village was clearly not the destination Tails had in mind. There was only one other location on Northstar that held any significance to him, but the idea of letting Tails return there filled Sonic with dread.

“Yeah. Why?” Sonic said. It wasn’t a necessary question. Of course, Tails would want company on this specific quest.

Tails took a deep breath. “Because I can’t go back there alone,” he said. One of his paws brushed Sonic’s own, like he was on the verge of holding it for support. Then he stepped away and made for the door. “Come on, we need to prep the Tornado. We don’t have much time.”

Sonic struggled to ignore a developing headache as he followed Tails deeper into the woods. He worried that it would get worse than it was now, an annoying ache in his skull that he could tolerate as long as he shielded his eyes from the sun. Sometimes, he got headaches that felt like something was crushing half his head. They made him dizzy and he was usually forced to find somewhere dark to hide until the pain went away. Tails needed him to be present right now. He really hoped this headache didn’t turn into one of those. 

“We’re here,” Tails announced. Sonic looked around in confusion. Where was the entrance?

Tails grabbed a handful of branches from a bush in front of him. Carelessly, as though it weighed nothing at all, he tossed it over his shoulder. The shrub landed near Sonic’s feet. He noticed a shiny gloss to its leaves—a plastic plant?

A wooden trap door rested in the place the bush used to be. It was locked shut with a combination lock that Tails tackled with no hesitation. Weird. If this was Tails’ first time returning to the burrow since his escape, why did he know the code to the lock? 

“Who put that there?” Sonic asked. Eggman only ever used electronic locks, so it couldn’t have been him. 

“Rouge.”

It had been a while since Sonic last heard about her. “I thought she didn’t work for G.U.N. anymore.”

“She doesn’t. She did this for me,” Tails replied. The lock popped open. Tails removed it from the latch and set it down on the nearby grass. He put his paw over the latch and then . . . did nothing. 

A moment passed with no progress. The puffiness of Tails’ tails told Sonic everything he needed to know: the fox was too scared to complete the final step on his own. 

Sonic kneeled beside him. Gently, he pulled his paw away from the latch and replaced it with his own. “Let me do it,” Sonic said softly. Then he undid the latch and pushed open the door. 

They were greeted by a hole with no end in sight. Now that the door was open, he could see that a thick rope was wrapped around the frame of the trap door. Immediately understanding what it was for, he unwrapped it and tied one of the ends to the door frame using a strong knot he’d learned in the resistance. The other end was dropped unceremoniously into the abyss. 

“It’s twenty metres deep,” Tails said. He took the rope and pressed it into Sonic’s paw. “You go first. I’ll follow.” 

Sonic gave his friend a once over. His fur stood on end and his ears were pressed against the side of his head. It had been Tails’ idea to come here, but was it really a good idea for him to go inside? He was clearly terrified. 

“I can go alone,” Sonic offered. “Just tell me what you need. I’ll find it.” 

Tails shook his head. “No, I want to go. Just not alone.” 

Ah. In order for Tails to feel safe going down there, Sonic had to be the first to arrive and the last to leave. There could be no opportunity for the fox to find himself alone in the bunker again. 

It didn’t reassure Sonic very much, but he knew better than to disagree with Tails right now. If the kit wound up being too scared to go, then he could just stay on top and guide Sonic with his voice. There was no way to know how this was going to go until Sonic did what he was told and entered the burrow. 

“Okay. By the way, I don’t need this.” He passed the rope back to Tails with a forced smile. “Twenty metres won’t hurt me. I have strong ankles.” 

Sonic sat over the edge, dangling his legs in the hole. Then he pushed off with his paws and dropped into the burrow. 

His shoes hit metal after a few seconds of falling. The impact rattled his brain a little, sending a fresh wave of pain over his skull. He winced in pain as he  crawled out of the small opening at the bottom of the chute and stepped down into the burrow. 

“The light switch is on your left!” Tails called from above. “They should still work. Just flip them all.”

Only a small amount of light leaked into the burrow from the chute, so he felt the wall blindly until he stumbled upon a row of plastic bumps and flicked them on. Multiple rectangular ceiling lights activated all at once, casting a cold light over the room. Sonic held his breath and surveyed the burrow slowly, taking in his friend’s prison for the first time. 

Immediately, he felt claustrophobic. The burrow wasn’t small, per se—in fact, it appeared to be somewhat bigger than the workshop on South Island. There was just something about the metal walls and lack of any human touch that made it feel like a prison. Burrowing animals like Sonic were supposed to find comfort underground. There was no such comfort here. 

“I can see light. Did you find the switch?” 

Tails’ voice snapped him back to attention. “Yeah. You can come down now.” 

A pause. “Okay,” Tails responded meekly.

It took a few minutes for Tails to climb down. Sonic waited for him at the bottom of the chute, hoping his presence would ease his descent. He wasn’t sure if it made a difference, but Tails eventually stepped down beside Sonic in the chute. Little victories.

Obeying their unspoken rule, Sonic crawled back into the burrow first. He turned around to help Tails climb down, but the fox didn’t pay him any attention. He was too busy staring at the inside of the burrow with wide eyes, his once terrified expression turning into something like . . . wonder? No, it was surprise. Tails was surprised. 

“It’s bigger than I remember,” Tails commented. He dropped down to the burrow floor and took a few hesitant steps inside. Slowly, his gaze swept over the room. It stopped on something and he huffed out a quiet laugh. “It’s still here. That’s funny.”

Sonic followed his gaze to the back wall, where a broken phone set was sprawled across the floor. “Did you do that?” he asked.

“Yeah. Rouge said she was going to clean the place up, but I guess she decided not to.” Tails’ nose wrinkled. He pointed to the fridge in the kitchenette. “Don’t open that. It might be full of rotting food.”

The second mention of Rouge piqued his curiosity. “I thought you didn’t want anyone to know where the burrow was.” Even Sonic hadn’t been allowed to know its exact location until today.

Tails shrugged and approached the workstation in the middle. “She’s known since I was seven,” he said.

Rouge would always be someone that Sonic couldn’t wrap his head around. During the occupation, she’d played the delicate role of triple agent where she helped G.U.N., Eggman, and the Restoration all at the same time. Then, in the aftermath, her true loyalties had revealed themselves: she was a little more loyal to G.U.N. than the others, but she was loyal to Alhazen most of all. Tails had made it clear multiple times that he couldn’t have escaped without her help. Sonic wanted to trust her the same way Tails did, but . . .

It was hard. And every time Tails unveiled more details about his relationship with her, Sonic couldn’t help but trust her a little less than before.

“She knew?” Sonic said. Tails was nine years-old now, meaning that he would have still been locked in this burrow when he was seven. Rouge had known where he was and consciously chosen not to do anything about it. This realization angered Sonic. He failed to hide his disgust when he asked, “And she just let you stay here?”

“I never asked her to rescue me.” Tails pressed the computer’s power button. He eyed the office chair tucked under the desk beside him, but seemed to decide against sitting down. “I didn’t want her to, either. It would have messed up my plans.”

It was easy for Sonic to get mad about this kind of thing in hindsight. If he’d been in Rouge’s position, maybe he would have made a similar choice and helped Eggman's prisoner destroy everything in his path to escape. He tried to imagine himself in her shoes, but he was forced to stop when his skull began to throb painfully. No matter what strategic value it provided, he wasn’t sure leaving a child in captivity was something he could bring himself to do. He couldn’t even stomach the thought of it.

“There are painkillers in the bathroom,” Tails said. When they met eyes, he shrugged apologetically. A year of exposure to Sonic had certainly taught him by now that the hedgehog preferred his episodes went unacknowledged. As if breaking that rule wasn’t enough, Tails decided to add, “You know, if you think you need one.” 

Wow. Talk about kicking someone while they were down. 

Being consoled by Tails here of all places was mortifying enough, but the suggestion that he use medicine so irresponsibly only made him feel worse. The supply of pharmaceutical drugs on the islands was already reaching critically low levels. Did Tails really think he was up for wasting such a luxury over something as insignificant as a headache?

Sonic reminded himself not to take it personally. Animals who spent a lot of time around humans were prone to this kind of thing. Amy, who had only relocated to the islands a few years ago, often struggled to go a day without unintentionally offending someone in some way or another. Tails’ upbringing on Westside Island made it much easier for him to readjust, but he had a habit of slipping into overcorrection when he realized too late that he was saying something rude—like suggesting Sonic take painkillers to ease the sting of a headache, for instance. 

“Painkillers and a fridge? I had no idea this place was so luxurious.” Sonic scoffed sarcastically. It was a joke, but he supposed there was some truth to it since the workshop didn’t have either of those things. Painkillers and refrigerators were reserved for public use at gathering buildings—provided, of course, that the village or island in question were able to acquire them in the first place. Even basic medical supplies were growing scarce as the United Federation continued to suspend its support to the islands. It wouldn't be much longer until they ran out completely, and when that happened . . .

The pain in his head flared, freezing his thoughts in place. Ouch. Eager for a distraction, he left Tails to the computer and wandered over to the walled-off bathroom. He opened the cabinet below the sink and his heart skipped at what he found: four large medicine kits that, upon inspection, appeared to be fully stocked and completely unused. Each kit had multiple bottles of painkillers. He also found gauze, sterilizing wipes, ice packs, stomach medicine, and even spools of surgical thread for stitches. All items the islands were going to run out of in the near future.

The Restoration would find good use for everything here. Sonic gathered the kits in his hands and joined Tails back at the workstation. “Let’s give these to Amy when we’re done here.”

Tails eyed the med kits. “Good idea,” he said, then turned his attention back to the computer. It seemed to have finally booted up during Sonic’s time in the bathroom, and he watched Tails click through folder after folder as he looked for the correct files. 

“Did you lose them?” he asked. It was probably a stupid question. Sonic had no idea if files could be ‘lost’ the way things could be misplaced in the physical world. The only computer he’d ever used was Amy’s laptop, and even then she’d been around to supervise him the whole time to make sure he didn’t break it by accident. He didn’t really know much about them at all. 

Tails’ ear flicked in annoyance. “Some of the Project Shadow files were smuggled to me. I had to hide them in case Robotnik decided to look through the computer.”

Oh, okay. Sonic kept his mouth shut and placed the medicine kits on the floor near the chute so he could use his hands again. With nothing to do but wait for Tails to find the files he was looking for, Sonic wound up checking out the books on the workstation’s shelves. All of them were science books, mostly physics, ranging in thickness and difficulty of subject. He took one off the shelf and observed its cover: Elementary Particles. Fancy. 

“Should we bring up the books, too?” Sonic asked. They could always use more books on the islands, especially science ones.

Tails didn’t look away from the screen. “No. They’re all in English, anyways.” 

Sonic hummed in acknowledgement. He put back the physics textbook and moved on to explore the lower shelves. The lowest shelf didn’t have any scientific materials at all, instead displaying a full row of English children’s books. When he opened one of them, he found Mobian translations of the book's words stuffed between the pages on scrap paper. The writing was big and childish. These must have been written by Tails when he was younger and learning English for the first time.

It tugged on his heartstrings more than anything he’d seen in the burrow so far. His memories of four year-old Tails were seared into his mind by grief. He could recall the young kit’s appearance perfectly. The image of him trapped here alone, learning a new language under the tutelage of someone as terrible as Robotnik . . . it made his face warm, and he blinked rapidly in an attempt to dry his eyes. He rubbed a paw over them and his glove returned damp with tears.

Sonic closed the book and pushed the visual out of his mind. He was here to support Tails. If he was going to get upset about things, now wasn’t the time. 

Thankfully, Tails was too focused on the computer to notice his soured mood. “Sonic, come here,” Tails said. He looked over his shoulder and gestured for Sonic to come closer. “I found it.”

Sonic crossed the workstation to look at the computer screen. A document with many blacked-out sections was displayed on the screen. “Is that the transmission log?”

“Yep.” Tails opened a drawer in the computer desk, where he retrieved a pad of paper and a pencil. He drew a circle in the middle, a smaller circle beside it, and then a big circle that cut through the smaller circle to form a loop. “This is the moon’s orbit around Earth. The circle in the middle is Earth, the small circle here is the moon, and this ring is the moon’s orbit. Do you see it?”

Sonic nodded. “Yeah, I see it.” 

At the southeast of the orbital ring, Tails drew another ring. He then added a small circle on top of the ring. In the middle, he wrote L5. “The Earth and moon form a two-body system, which is where their gravitational forces affect one another and create a stable orbit. That’s why the moon orbits the Earth. Two-body systems sometimes create pockets of gravitational equilibrium—so, an area near the moon’s orbit where the gravitational pull of either body is equal enough that the space there is stable. That’s a Lagrange point.” 

“Uh huh,” Sonic said, although he wasn’t entirely sure what Tails was trying to explain to him. 

Tails added a small circle to the L5 ring. “Humans have used Lagrange points to park telescopes and space stations for a long time. The gravity of the two bodies allows for any object to achieve a stable orbit around these zones. The ARK orbited around Lagrange point five until it blew up.” 

Sonic traced his finger over the L5 orbital ring. “So, it just went in circles here?”

“Correct.” On the other side of the planet, Tails wrote a big ‘V’. “This is the direction the voyager alliance approached the planet from. If the lost voyages find us, they’ll come from this direction, too. The first time I looked at Gerald’s transmission logs, I didn’t take that into account. I saw that he was sending signals into space and assumed he was trying to contact the lost voyages. Now, I see that my initial assumption was wrong: he was sending his signals in the other direction. He wasn’t trying to contact other humans—he was trying to contact different alien lifeforms.”

“Different aliens?”

Tails glanced up to the computer screen and then drew an arrow coming out of the L5 zone. He referenced numbers on the computer as he drew many more, creating a crown-like halo around the Lagrange point. The only place the arrows didn’t point to was the presumed location of the lost voyages.

“Gerald sent transmissions in these directions. At the beginning of his logs, the directions are pretty random. That stops halfway through.” Tails made a big arrow pointing southwest of L5. “Two years after he starts, every transmission is sent in this direction. Over time, the interval time between the transmissions gets shorter. He sends more over less time. Do you think this means the same thing as me?”

Sonic tilted his head. “Um, he sent them in the same direction each time because he finally reached someone?”

“Yes. And then they started getting closer to us.” 

Right. If the aliens were closer to the ARK, then it would take less time for Gerald to receive their transmissions. They could communicate at a higher rate of response.

This begged a single question. 

“Where are they now?” Sonic asked.

Tails bit his lip. “I don’t know,” he said. He ripped the paper explaining Lagrange points out of the pad and threw it away. On the blank paper below, he began copying down all the information from the transmission logs. “Now that Shadow is out in the world, people are going to start asking questions about what happened on the ARK. It won’t be long before G.U.N. deletes their own backup copies to make it harder for other countries to build a case against them. This might even be the only remaining copy of the transmission log in the world. If this gets out, they’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”

Sonic watched him fill the paper with numbers and dates. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to tell the U.F. that I have it. Then they’re going to stop starving us.”

“Starving?” Many supplies were running low, but food wasn’t one of them. It was one of the few items the islands were capable of producing independently.

“Sorry, not literally starving. Metaphorically starving.” Tails stopped writing for a moment, staring at the page distantly. “You know, under the Convention on Cohabitation, they’re supposed to support the East Pacific. It’s part of the deal; in exchange for the continents, they have to help out ‘their’ Mobian Island territory. That’s us. And now they’re effectively blockading us instead.” 

None of this was news to Sonic. It was probably a little rude for Tails to assume something this basic needed explaining, as though Sonic didn’t know much about anything at all, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel insulted by it. The fox was bad at gauging the knowledge levels of other animals. There were times when he overestimated Sonic’s ability to understand things, too. It went both ways, so it wasn’t like Tails thought he was stupid. He just couldn’t tell when something was too advanced to be ‘common knowledge’. 

This was not a good time to be getting distracted. Sonic returned his attention to where where he believed Tails’ explanation was leading the conversation. “They’re punishing you,” he said. 

Tails nodded. “Power is like a pie. There’s only so much to go around. The United Federation is mad because I used the Master Emerald to cut a slice for Mobians for the first time. By doing so, I took power away from the U.F. and other human states. They don’t want anyone to think that kind of thing can happen again, so they’re tormenting the islands to make an example out of me.” 

Sonic knew all of this, too. He felt like Tails was trying to reach a point, so he continued to play along. “I thought they were doing it so you would get rid of the Badniks.” 

When Sonic and Tails returned from their trip around the world, they were greeted by bad news: contrary to Tails’ expectations, the United Federation wasn’t interested in returning to their pre-empire arrangement with the islands. They were worried about the Eggman Empire technology left scattered across the East Pacific. Specifically, they were concerned that the Badniks sitting in underground storage units would eventually be turned against them. They refused to provide material support to the islands until the Badniks were destroyed or handed over to G.U.N. Sonic had originally assumed that Tails would destroy the Badniks right away, especially since he hated reminders of Eggman’s control of the islands, but the fox refused to budge on the issue. He believed the blockade would crumble under international pressure, but it was still going strong a whole year later . . .

“They only claim to be scared of the Badniks. Even if I got rid of them, I’m sure they would find something else to complain about. They won’t stop until I rescind my threat to destroy the Master Emerald.” Tails gestured to the data written on the page. “This is like a counter-strike. Once I’ve told the United Federation that I have proof Gerald was contacting aliens, they’ll have two choices: come clean to the world, where they might face heavy penalties, or end their blockade and keep their global standing. Which option will they choose?”

Strategy had never been Sonic’s forte. The gradual worsening of his headache wasn’t making the question any easier to answer. “I don’t know. I’m surprised they’re testing you like this in the first place. Isn’t it dangerous for them?”

“Have you ever played chicken? You know, the game where you charge someone and see who moves first?”

His memories of the game made him smile. “I used to play it with Knuckles all the time. He can punch me even at my top speed, so there was danger for both of us. I was the only one who ever flinched, though . . .” Knuckles was always as steady as a rock. Sonic had gone into each game expecting to lose.

“Okay. Right now, the United Federation is playing a game of chicken with me. The blockade on the East Pacific is like their version of charging at me.” Tails put down his pen and quickly referenced the data against the computer. Once he was certain the numbers were correct, he tore the page from the notepad and folded it into a neat square. He held it up to Sonic. “This is my punch. It’s up to the U.F. to decide if it’s a hit they want to take.” 

The chicken example didn’t help Sonic with the initial question. “I can survive Knuckles’ punch, though. It just hurts a lot.” 

“True. I guess you started to flinch when you realized he was never going to let you land a hit?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Sonic never would have wanted to land a hit on Knuckles, anyways. Not with his spin-dash. The echidna was made of tougher stuff than most, but there was still a chance that a normal spin-dash would kill him. It wasn’t something Sonic was willing to risk. 

Tails reached over to shut off the computer. “That’s because chicken is based entirely on your perception of the other player.” He nodded to the chute, signalling that he was finished in the burrow. “You perceived Knuckles as being someone who wouldn’t flinch, which meant that you had to flinch to protect yourself. The United Federation doesn’t believe I’ll blow up the Master Emerald over a blockade. Obviously, this is true—if that was going to tip me off, I would have done it by now. I’m going to challenge them in return. I don’t know if threatening to release details about Project Shadow will make them flinch, but it will make them realize that I can fight back in ways that won’t end science forever. That should be enough to end their blockade.” 

Sonic followed Tails to the chute’s opening. “Oh, so it’s like a double-edged sword. Threatening them with Project Shadow stuff also means you’re threatening to do more in the future.” 

“Yep.” Tails looked to the medicine kits on the floor. “How are we bringing those up?”

“I already thought of that,” Sonic said. The medicine kits had handles on them, just wide enough for a rope to slip through. He brought them into the chute and slipped the rope through their handles one by one, then tied the end into a thick knot right in front of the first medicine kit. This formed a loop that kept the kits attached to the bottom of the rope. “We can climb up and then pull them up with the rope.” 

Tails blinked. “Oh, good thinking. You’re really smart, Sonic.” Then he crawled into the chute and started to climb the rope. 

What a funny compliment. Sonic turned off the lights and waited until Tails reached the surface. Once the fox was out of the chute, Sonic grabbed the rope and got ready to pull himself up. 

Then he heard a chime from inside the burrow. 

It was a simple, two-note electronic song. He peered back into the burrow, where he saw a green light blinking at him from the darkness. A sound that resembled the chugging of a train engine followed, then stopped after a few moments. 

“Sonic?” At the top of the chute, Tails looked down at him. He was too far away to read his expression. “What’s wrong? Is something there?”

“One of the machines made a noise. Like da-da.” He imitated the chime to the best of his ability. 

Tails was quiet for a long time. “That was my fax machine. Can you see if it printed anything?”

“Roger,” Sonic said. He climbed back into the burrow, opened the lights, and made his way to the workstation. 

The fax machine was no longer making noises. In one of its slots, he found a single piece of white paper.

Sonic took it in his paws and flipped it over. The letter printed on the paper was written in English simple enough for him to read: 

Hello, Alhazen. I will keep this short. 

Aliens are coming. Not the lost voyages. Different aliens—ones so unique that our resemblances to Terran animals won’t save us this time. 

If you want to protect the planet, you must undo your greatest error. You must rebuild the Eggman Empire and use its resources to fight off the invasion fleet. You must fulfill the destiny created for you by Doctor Robotnik.

Please respond at your earliest convenience. 

Dr. Starline

PS: I have Shadow the Hedgehog. He is one of the aliens, too.