"The Present Darkness"

A work of Sonic the Hedgehog "Fan-faction" by Glazius Falconar

I would if I could, but I can’t help but say:

This story and all new characters, situations, and theories are copyright (©) 1997 by the author, Glazius Falconar (aka Paul Arezina). You can’t change the text in this story or charge others money for the sole purpose of reading it without my expressed written permission. All situations and characters relating to the Sonic the Hedgehog Saturday morning series as aired on ABC are copyright SEGA, DiC, and/or Archie Comics, and are used (particularly the plot line for "Blast to the Past" and the character of Julayla the lynx) without permission. The concept of the World Wide Web (and the tank and bathyscaph) is copyright H. G. Wells. Read some of his works if you get the chance. The title is a slight alteration of Frank E. Peretti’s "This Present Darkness." It’s a great novel and worth reading… if you have a few days. If you’d like to post this on your website, question my theories, exercise your right to free speech through flaming (for which I will exercise my right to free speech via 1000 identical letters in your inbox), or really, really enjoy using your e-mail program, feel free to contact me using the email at the end.

Ahh… the sunrise! I’m an early riser - as are most members of my clan - so I can usually look forward to enjoying the supreme spectacle that it is. Even though my scientist’s mind told me that I was not really watching the sun rise but the earth rotate so that the sun became visible, and the gradual diffusion of colors upward was a result of nothing more elegant that the Tyndall effect in the atmosphere, it retained a certain poetry that always inspired me. Especially on a forested planet like Mobius Prime, where my finely tuned falcon’s eye could watch the delicate play of shadows on the forest floor and the leaves above for what seemed like hours without ever getting bored.

And then I turned around. For directly behind me was a scene which could only be seen as a total and utter contrast to the pastoral beauty of a sunrise: Robotropolis. It had formerly been known as Mobotropolis, a gleaming white city which was probably the best symbiosis of nature and sapient life I’d ever seen… not counting the product of years of environmental rehabilitation which we on Avis Prime were fortunate enough to experience every day. Mobotropolis had been exquisitely beautiful… until one day, when a megalomaniacal human-like sapient named Julian Robotnik decided to take over the world. And sadly, that meant tearing down all the remnants of the old rule. Robotropolis, a name which fit that terrible city perfectly, was swathed in pollution, so that a sunray barely ever reached its streets, and reminded me of nothing so much as a giant mechanical scrap heap. It was a city of metal towers which could be called skyscrapers… simply because the "sky" was only a few dozen wingspans up, thanks to the ubiquitous smog. And towering over it all was a huge ovoid structure, where Robotnik presumably supervised the conversion of the rest of the planet to what he held to be some sort of ideal.

But that scientific part of my mind which the Academy had trained so well kept asking me how… and when… and why… such a thing could be done. And today, I resolved, would be the day I’d find out. But how to do it? I might be able to pick up some information by hanging around "Knothole", the base for a group of guerillas who called themselves "Freedom Fighters". Since part of Robotnik’s plan to take over the world included turning all his prisoners into mechanical servants, the name seemed appropriate. However, I quickly rejected that idea; Knothole seemed to be more of a military retreat than a summer home for the Royal Family… though the huts and the scenery almost seemed to suggest otherwise… but even if something like a library existed, I rather doubted it would contain any books about Robotnik’s takeover. By the same token, I rather doubted that what little remained of Mobotropolis would contain any references to Robotnik’s takeover. And any films that the behemoth owned would likely be heavily edited to remove all references to any possible mistakes he had made. The only way to get truly accurate information would be to actually see the takeover happening. Fortunately, I had the means to do that, thanks to the Academy and my mentor, Professor Raptarius. "Mark?"

"Active, Glazius. Please state request."

"Mark, remember the binary temporal search you performed a few days back?"

"Affirmative, Glazius. Search algorithm remains stored in memory. Memory banks at 1.5648% of total capacity."

"Excellent, Mark. Now I’d like you to do it again, with a few changes. The target date is 50 years in the past" - when I knew that city didn’t exist - "the event you are to look for is the conversion of Mobotropolis to that metallic monstrosity which the local sapients call ‘Robotropolis’, and when you have brought me within one planetary rotation of that event, you are to take me to a full seven planetary rotations before the conversion occurs." I suspected that, although Robotnik had been planning to take over Mobius Prime for years before it had actually happened, his plans would come to a head rather quickly. The extra time would also give me some opportunity to assess Mobian technology at the point before Robotnik took over. It would be interesting to see what things such a vastly mixed group of sapients as these Mobians were developed. "Begin binary translation, Mark."

"Affirmative, Glazius… Translating…"

The world blinked in and out about every three seconds as Mark got its bearings and processed the spacetime folds which allowed me to move back in time. The first two jumps in time took me to time periods where Robotropolis didn’t exist; it was a fairly recent development, as I’d observed earlier. Mark finally stopped translating, moving me from a time period where Robotropolis existed in all its polluted glory to one just a few days before the unpleasantness had descended.

I decided to have a look around Mobotropolis to see what technological innovations the Mobians had made before I had Mark pseudo-sync me with the local timestream. I activated my air generator and flew straight for the gleaming outline of Mobotropolis. It seemed such a pity that it would no longer be there in a few days…

The city was just as I’d seen it fifty years before the present. If anything, it seemed to have grown more beautiful in the interim. The fountains were a little more ornate, the parks just a bit larger… and the buildings taller and slimmer than they had been. I imagined that architecture had taken a few steps since I last saw the city, allowing buildings to be built taller without fear of collapse in a strong wind. It appeared that the Mobians were slowly redesigning their cities… this one, at least… so that buildings took up very little of the ground space, letting nature be better interspersed with these artificial constructs. We didn’t have that problem on Avis Prime… since every Avian could fly, there was no need for buildings to have more than a few ground-based supports… and a central shaft, to let sunshine to the ground below. Coupled with a few plants which grew well in the shade, this arrangement allowed most of the residential and commercial sectors of Avis Prime to be covered in greenery… what the?

In my rather random flight over Mobotropolis, I had passed over what looked to be an outdoor eatery of some type. They were grilling… what looked to be some sort of cuts of meat? There were carnivorous sapients, that much I knew… but when just about every species is sapient, who do you eat? Unless… it almost seemed as though they had to… "Mark, scan the grill down there. Is that actual sapient muscle being cooked?"

"Scanning… Negative, Glazius. Substance appears to be a vegetable-based construct, with various structural proteins and flavoring chemicals added to mimic the feel and taste of meat."

As I’d thought. The Mobians had developed a rather primitive replication system, creating food that looked like meat but really didn’t come from any live animal. Enough to satisfy carnivores… and not endanger the remainder of the population. I flew over an outdoor market and had Mark perform a few more scans… hmmm… it certainly appeared that this replication technology hadn’t spread yet. Most of the fruits, vegetables, and grains were natural, as opposed to flavored and textured vegetable pastes - legumes, unless I miss my guess - as the meats were. I imagined the process was still in its infancy and that it could get rather expensive… or at least more expensive than normal farming. Whatever food the Mobians used as a base for the meat substitutes would have to be grown… to say nothing of the chemical synthesis required to produce the appropriate flavoring, odor, and coloring. But it was rather a nice start…

I continued flying rather aimlessly around town, taking in the sights, as it were. But there are some things which need to be seen in action to be appreciated… "Mark, begin incremental translation, double-speed. Ignore incoming sound waves for now."

"Beginning translation, Glazius."

The world streaked by. Not so much that it became a blur, but fast enough for me to see… hang on… "Mark, is that a magnetically elevated train?"

"Structure is similar, Glazius…"

As Mark said this, a rather sleek vehicle whizzed by underneath me… couldn’t see any wheels… hmm… "Mark, scan the street. Actually, scan a wingspan below the street and work your way up to ground level. What’s down there?"

"Scanning, Glazius… compiling data… displaying diagram…"

As I’d thought; a magnetically elevated movement system. It certainly saved on fuel… but wouldn’t the field screw up electronics… no, you fledgling, it decreases as the inverse square of the distance. The magnets were as close to the street level as possible, making the required output much less than it would be otherwise… and as I swept Mark around, I saw that the gauss diminished to background levels by the time it reached the sidewalks. I also saw more than a few overpasses… wouldn’t be safe to cross the street… not with anything magnetic on, at least. What else was down there? Hmmm….

A few dozen fiber-optic cables… probably what they used for communication… and far enough from the magnetic field to be distortion-free, essentially. Subterranean wiring had been used in Avian cities as well… until our spacetime-folding technology rendered it obsolete. Why bother with wires when your appliance is literally microns away from the nearest power plant? Speaking of which… I also saw power conduits down there. And sewage pipes… with a resident population of what looked to be… "Mark, scan for presence of artificial genetic markers in the bacteria in the pipes."

"Scanning, Glazius… 74.6% probability that the bacteria were genetically engineered, due to large number of internal plasmids and minimal intergenic material."

"And what are they doing?"

"Scanning… bacteria appear to be breaking down nitrogenous waste into nitrate components."

Meaning that the Mobians could extract them, quite possibly. A rather nice waste-recycling system… I turned my attention back to the power conduits. "Mark, trace the flow of electricity in those subterranean wires and guide me to the source."

"Scanning residual magnetic fields… tracing source…" A yellow arrow appeared in the air and swung back and forth a few times as Mark traced the path of the current. "Source located, Glazius."

"Good work, Mark." I followed Mark’s yellow arrow, expecting to find perhaps a solar plant or a hydroelectric power source… possibly even a nuclear reactor. With the lack of pollution… that was odd… I’d just entered what looked to be Mobius’s industrial sector and there was no smoke or even steam coming from any of the buildings. Attached to the smokestacks were what looked to be… well, I never… distillation columns! "Mark, scan the area for pollutants."

"Scanning, Glazius… one source detected, with exceedingly high concentration of effluent gases."

So they weren’t getting rid of it entirely, but they were storing it… as the air left the smokestacks (rather erroneous, in this case, as they did not smoke…) it was cooled by some mechanism so that the heavier gases simply dropped out of the mix, leaving only water vapor, carbon dioxide, and similar light gases to float back up into the atmosphere. Pipes ran from each column to some sort of central tank… looked to be heavily reinforced… if it ever sprung a leak, with that much toxic gas… Mobotropolis would… look like Robotropolis! Robotnik must have loosed the valves or something when he took over. Why was still a mystery, though…

I resumed my hunt for the city’s power supply. Perhaps they’d figured out how to tap a Chaos Emerald… perhaps… ah, the power plant! I flew through an open window and had a look around. The plant seemed to be piled high with stacks of tubes… hmm… it felt a bit like home in here… "Mark, ambient temperature."

"Ambient temperature is currently 50.0 degrees Celsius."

Okay… this made a sort of sense… the Mobians were using fuel cells. I really hadn’t studied power generation, which on Avis Prime was largely a matter of efficient solar collectors. The Desert of Glass was actually named that because it was literally covered in photovoltaic arrays… that much solar power ran a planet rather easily. But what I did remember was that fuel cells used a constant supply of… well… fuel to generate power. Oxide fuel cells, it looked like… just passing oxygen through a tube, and taking advantage of the reactions that occurred to generate a little electricity… and a lot of heat. I looked down and, sure enough, there were fans blowing in the floor. One set fed air into the fuel cells, the other presumably exhausted the hot air. I imagine that Mobotropolis could take advantage of an improvised central heating system in the wintertime. Could… as in past tense. Some of the pollutants in the cloud had to come from burning organic substances… but why would Robotnik use such inefficient methods of generating energy when he had much better ones available to him? Or did he… hmmm… I’d have to see the exact mechanics of his takeover, but I was beginning to suspect what he’d done… I flew outside the power plant and resumed my tour of the city.

Then a strange idea crept into my head. Why not see what the "Freedom Fighters" were like as children? Not exactly in the spirit of my assignment… but it would help to get a better understanding of those who were fighting for the safety of the planet… and give me a glimpse of daily life in Mobotropolis. But who to focus on… hmmm… "Mark, access the Mobian criminal database in my native timestream."

"Accessing, Glazius…"

"Perform a search, Mark. Scan the most wanted list, and give me the first six names whose current whereabouts are near Knothole."

"Scanning…"

A holographic display popped up, with names and dossiers for Sonic Hedgehog, Princess Sally Alicia Acorn, Bunnie Rabbot, Antoine D’Coolette, a walrus-like sapient known simply as "Rotor", and Miles "Tails" Prower. The flying fox! The name seemed somewhat appropriate, considering his rather unique features… but according to his dossier, he wasn’t born yet in the alien timestream I was visiting. Fair enough then. "Mark, locate these sapients, with the exception of the two-tailed fox. Display their current locations on a holographic map of Mobotropolis… and cease incremental translation for now."

"Complying, Glazius…"

The world stood still, and Mark projected a map of Mobotropolis in the air. Five dots appeared… two in what looked to be some sort of palace. I’d check on those last. I headed for the nearest dot… which I recognized as Sir Charles’s workshop! It would be interesting to see how he managed to keep up with his nephew, who had been endowed with the ability to warp spacetime and pseudo-accelerate to incredible speeds. Assuming, of course, that Sonic had learned to control the warping…

The door to Sir Charles’s workshop was open, so I flew in and began micro-fluttering near the ceiling. I had a quick look around, and saw a few machines which looked somehow familiar… an early version of the Roboticizer… and what looked to be that strange machine which generated Power Rings, still under construction! Every culture has its technical geniuses, and Sir Charles was apparently filling that role rather nicely. I also made out plans for the conversion of "Knothole" - the guerillas’ base… so he had designed it - from a military retreat to a summer home of sorts. I flew under a low archway to see Sonic and his uncle seated at a table, eating… "Mark, that looks suspiciously like Terran food."

"Confirmed, Glazius. Though the meat is an augmented soybean paste, the construct as a whole correlates almost perfectly with a Terran ‘chili dog’."

Now why would hedgehogs be eating chili dogs? Terran hedgehogs ate worms and insects, primarily… but then again, I wasn’t exactly scouring the desert floor for helpless mice. Sapience allows for a rather marked broadening of the palate… or so I’d picked up from my studies. Though I imagined that the attraction was due to the spices rather than the meat itself… but enough of that. "Mark, resume incremental translation, normal speed, with aural buffering active." I wanted to see the young Sonic in action.

And act he did. A pyramid of chili dogs - about thirty or so - vanished in a matter of minutes. Uncle and nephew picked up cloths in unison and dabbed away the errant smear of chili sauce.

"Great lunch, Unc. Your chili dogs are always the best."

"It was your idea to give it the double shot of hot sauce this time, Sonic."

The young speedster smiled. "Hey, the hedgehog knows."

Sir Charles laughed. "Very well, then. Now, how ‘bout we head to my workshop? I’ve got something there that I think you’ll be interested in… or would you rather head to the palace to play with your friends?"

"You read my mind, Unc."

Sir Charles smiled. "Okay, Sonic, you can go. Just try to be back in time for dinner…"

"No way would I miss it!"

"… and try not to knock over any pedestrians this time," he added in a rather admonishing tone.

Sonic looked a bit embarrassed. "Sorry, Unc. You heard, huh?"

"Yes, I did. But it was nice that you stayed to help Mrs. Gillespie pick up her groceries. Just be more careful, Sonic, or that speed of yours could get you in some serious trouble."

Sonic nodded. "I’ll try, Unc."

"That’s all I want you to do, Sonic." Sir Charles hugged his nephew, who walked to the door and shut it behind him… and a small dust cloud came wafting in from outside. Sir Charles sighed. "His father’s speed and his mother’s attitude… what a combination…" He then headed to his workshop, and I thought as I absently watched him tinker with the Power Ring generator…

It appeared that Sir Charles was adapting rather well to being a single parent… but I wondered what had happened to Sonic’s real parents. Perhaps they were still visiting the Confederation… hmm… if a peace had recently been negotiated, Robotnik would have all the incentive he needed to take over the city. On top of that, Sonic’s parents would probably still be finalizing the details over in the Confederation’s capital. Coming home to Robotropolis… not a pleasant experience, to say the least. Perhaps they caught sight of Robotropolis from a distance and just gave up… but based on what little I’d seen of them, I knew they wouldn’t despair easily… hmm…

At any rate, it appeared that the strange process I saw Sonic subjected to really did infuse him with the energy needed to warp spacetime and achieve a high apparent velocity. I can only imagine what he was like as a young child… oh boy… but it appeared that Sir Charles had adapted to Sonic rather well. It also appeared that he loved his nephew… and that the love was returned, albeit reluctantly, by the young Sonic. And Sonic had made a few friends… the better to support him when his uncle was roboticized… what an experience that must have been, if he saw it happen. I flew out the open skylight and headed for the next dot on Mark’s map of Mobotropolis.

I came upon a fairly large house in the middle of what looked to be a residential district. The only way in was an open window on the second floor, so I flew in, micro-fluttered near the ceiling…

And saw a young walrus seated on a bed, surrounded by a jumble of what looked to be electronic components. He held the remains of some device or other in one hand and was busily disassembling it with what looked to be a screwdriver in the other hand. I realized that this was Knothole’s live-in engineer… or quite possibly could be, if this was mechanical aptitude manifesting itself. Suddenly, he sat upright and began working frantically to put whatever he was working on back together. I imagined that he heard someone coming… "Mark, buffer all aural input, not just speech."

"Activating filters, Glazius…"

Much better. I heard footsteps… coming up the stairs and close to the door to the room I was in. The young walrus redoubled his efforts to reassemble whatever he had been taking apart… but the door opened and his face fell as an older walrus entered the room.

"H…hi, Grandpa Ivan…"

The older walrus gave a cursory glance at the pile of electronics. "I can see that your parents weren’t lying. Seeing as how you look up to me, they wanted me to come talk some sense into you."

The young Rotor looked to be on the verge of tears. "I… I’m sorry, Grandpa. It’s just that…"

"You feel like you have to know what makes it work."

"Yeah… hey, how’d you know?"

The older walrus laughed. "Because, Rotor, I was the same way when I was a boy. I think that’s how I got my start as an engineer. Of course, the Mobotropolis Skyport is put together a lot differently than… is that your alarm clock?"

"Yeah." The young walrus dabbed the tears from his eyes and began picking up the components, trying to fit them together again. "At least, it used to be…"

"Well, I see no reason why the two of us can’t put it back together again."

"You’d help me, Grandpa?"

"Of course. It’s no good to figure out how something works without actually having it work… and at least let me know the next time you want to take something apart. I’ve got tools that would do a lot better than that…" and he pointed to the screwdriver, which Rotor had laid on the bed.

"Grandpa, I… I don’t… thank you, Grandpa."

The older walrus sat down on the bed, careful not to crush any of the pieces of the clock. "No need for that, Rotor. I just wish my grandpa had done the same for me. But no, he wanted me to become a fisher like my father. Now, let’s try and get this back together." So saying, he removed a tiny screwdriver from what looked to be an over-the-shoulder tool belt and took the remnants of the clock from his grandson’s hands. "Hmm… the design’s changed a bit… ah, here it is." He picked up a component from the bed and gently eased it into place as his grandson looked on. The two then began talking about what went where and did what, and I listened for a while…

Apparently, all the clocks in Mobotropolis were synced off of a central timepiece, by radio signals. The central timepiece operated on much the same principle as Avis Prime’s atomic clock; syncing a particular frequency of radiation to a given quantum interval and then measuring the waves of radiation. Interesting to see that the ultimate authority on time was almost the same on Avis Prime, Mobius Prime, and the Terran homeworld.

I then flew out the window I’d entered and headed for the next dot on Mark’s map. So that was how Knothole’s engineer got his start. I’d have to visit his workshop some time to see what he was working on; something told me it wouldn’t be alarm clocks….

I arrived at the location Mark had pinpointed to find a rather large house, surrounded by a fairly well-kept lawn, near the outskirts of Mobotropolis. I circled it a few times, looking for open windows… but there weren’t any. However, there was an open door… leading inside from a roofed porch. I couldn’t fly in, but I could walk, with little problem. I touched down on the lawn and began moving carefully towards the house so as not to disturb anything. Funny… awfully hard ground… I looked down to see that I was stepping gingerly across a well-hidden flagstone path. I felt a bit embarrassed, glad that no one could see me… well of course no one can see you, fledgling! You’ve got that psychic cloak around you… I reassured myself of my psychic cloak’s integrity and headed for the door…

And a young rabbit came out, wearing a somewhat familiar purple jumpsuit. I somewhat shamefacedly realized that I’d expected the younger Bunnie to be partially robotic like her modern counterpart… but Robotnik hadn’t taken over yet, so she obviously wasn’t. And I rather doubted that robotic limbs could grow… a robotic body would essentially be in stasis….

The young rabbit hadn’t taken more than a few steps when a voice called from the house. "Bunnie? Where are you off to now?"

She stopped and called back into the house, "I’m goin’ to the palace, Mama."

An older rabbit, wearing a simple print dress, appeared in the doorway. "Land sakes, child, you been spendin’ more time playin’ with the Princess lately than you been at home with your own kin."

At this, the young Bunnie looked rather ashamed. "I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll stay home today if you want me to."

"Don’t give me those eyes, child… you can go. After all, you got the rest of yo’ life to spend with yo’ kin. Friendship don’t always last that long. Now, go on and play."

"Thanks, Mama! I’ll be home for supper." So saying, the young Bunnie dashed down the path… I rose a few feet to get out of her way, and watched her head down to a street corner. She seemed to be waiting around for something… and got on one of those magnetically elevated vehicles I’d seen earlier. So they were some sort of mass transit system. Of course, with that sort of speed - and a near-total ban on other vehicles which couldn’t magnetically levitate - they could run a lot more frequently than mass transit had a reputation for.

Well… the only two dots left were at the palace… might as well see if I could beat the train… what was I saying? "Mark, take me back two hours in time, and guide me to the palace."

"Translating, Glazius…"

I flew off to the palatial structure which occupied what looked to be the geographical center of Mobotropolis. It was an architectural masterpiece… interspersed with greenery in all the right places. A beautiful building… too bad it wouldn’t be around much longer. The doors were open, so I thought I’d take a look around. I flew through the halls, occasionally ducking under chandeliers and rising to evade other Mobians.

This place was huge! I couldn’t even conceive of the time it took to construct it… certainly it hadn’t been built recently. I passed by an expansive banquet hall… and a kitchen which looked like it could easily fill that hall to overflowing. I saw hundreds upon hundreds of rooms… guest quarters, probably, or else the King provided room and board to the civil servants who kept the palace clean. I began to wonder exactly how much power the monarchy had… hmm… wait a minute!

I was flying through a long hallway, filled with paintings of the previous Acorn kings and royal families… and noticed a long row of doors, each with an elaborately engraved nameplate. Crypts, perhaps? I somehow doubted it… this place didn’t appear to be a mausoleum… "Mark, overlay Avis Prime translation on all written materials."

"Affirmative, Glazius…"

Let’s see here… Minister of Justice, Minister of War, Minister of… they weren’t crypts at all. The King had appointed a cabinet of sorts; I imagined each of these ministers had a plethora of assistants, who had assistants, who had… well, perhaps not that far down. Though the King’s word might very well be law, it looked like he left day-to-day operations in the hands of others.

I continued my tour, having Mark silently log my flight so as to construct a map of the palace. I had a feeling it might come in handy later… now this was interesting…

My rather random flight had carried me to the doors of an armory… as Mark translated the word. I thanked the Almighty that someone had left one open just wide enough for me to squeeze in…

Amazing… the walls of the room were lined, not only with phased energy blasters and suits which looked to be reflective in nature, but with swords, pikes, and plate mail as well. I imagined that a finely honed blade would make an excellent final line of defense in case the palace were attacked… energy weapons aren’t very useful at close range…

The clash of steel interrupted my thoughts. Reflexively, I turned in the direction it came from… and saw two foxes dueling. One looked to be no more than a child… and the other seemed to be holding back to compensate for the child’s lack of skill…. He suddenly launched into a whirlwind offensive, striking rapidly and powerfully. The young fox tried to guard against the blows, and was having some success… but one particularly hard stroke wrenched the blade from his hands and flung it across the room. It hit a stone wall with a resounding ping, and clattered to the floor.

The younger fox looked a bit downcast as he went to retrieve his sword. "What’s the matter, Antoine?" asked the older one.

So this was Antoine D’Coolette as a child…

The young Antoine said nothing as he slowly picked the saber up from the floor and sheathed it.

"You don’t need to feel embarrassed, Antoine. Most of my second-year students couldn’t have held out nearly as long. You’ll make a fine member of the Mobian Royal Guard."

Antoine remained silent… I could see that he wanted to say something, but…

"Oh, so that’s it… you’ve found something else which interests you more than being a guard?"

Antoine nodded. "Yes, Father…"

Antoine’s father was captain of the Mobian Royal Guard? His insignia said as much… and it did explain the strange uniform Antoine was wearing in the dossier’s ID photo.

"Well, that’s nothing to worry about."

"I… I was afraid that if I told you, you would…"

The older D’Coolette shook his head. "No, no, Antoine… You see… Jean-Michel!"

Huh? That was a bit sudden…

"Jean-Paul!" exclaimed a voice from across the room. Father and son were joined by a third fox, wearing an apron and what looked very much like a Terran chef’s hat. Antoine looked up. "Hello, uncle…"

"Yes, brother… your nephew has decided to embark on a career other than that of a Royal Guard." At this, the two brothers burst into laughter… and Antoine looked even sadder.

Jean-Michel broke off and tapped his brother’s shoulder. "We weren’t laughing at you, nephew… should we tell him, Jean-Paul?"

"I think he’s old enough to understand. You want to tell him or should I?"

"You should. After all, you’re his father."

"Right… Antoine, your uncle and I… we aren’t really brothers…"

At this, Antoine looked a bit startled.

"…we’re identical twins."

It was my turn to be startled. The two looked almost nothing alike… certainly not now. "Mark, is that true?"

"DNA analysis is impossible without bio-sample. However…" - Mark swept a beam over the two foxes - "… based on phenotypic analysis, there is an 86.7 percent probability that they have identical genomes."

But how had they ended up looking so differently? Hmmm… the young Antoine looked just as confused as I was. "But… that’s impossible…"

"Impossible, eh?" responded Antoine’s father. "En guard, Jean-Michel!" So saying, he drew the saber from his belt. His brother grabbed one from the wall and countered an opening lunge. The two dueled back and forth for a few minutes… then the Captain of the Royal Guard launched the whirlwind series of blows that I’d seen him use against Antoine. His brother parried every one, and struck back with his own rain of slashes and stabs. But he overextended himself enough on one… enough for Antoine’s father to tap him on the chest with the flat of his saber.

"Getting slow, brother?"

"It seems so… I knew I never should have started eating my own cooking."

"Well, you know the saying… Never trust a skinny chef!"

"Or a tubby Captain, no?"

At this, the two brothers had a good laugh. Antoine was a bit awestruck at the display of swordsmanship he’d just witnessed. For that matter, so was I. But I couldn’t speak, whereas Antoine… "You mean… you are… really…"

"It gets even more complicated, Antoine," responded his father. "You see, my brother and I… well, our father trained us as guardsmen, but our mother - your grandmother - always had a way with the kitchen… so we didn’t know what to do… serve the King as guardsmen or as cooks."

"And then, I had an idea. Your father and I were identical in almost every aspect. We figured that we could try both… he would be a guard one day and a cook the next, and I would be a cook when he was a guard and a guard when he was a cook. It worked rather well… and the two of us slowly worked our way through the ranks. And then, one day…"

"One day… when I was Captain of the Royal Guard and your uncle was the King’s master chef… Felicity came to the palace."

"Mother? What does she have to do with this?"

"You’ll find out, son. Your uncle and I were both very much attracted by her grace and beauty… but then, so was everyone in the palace. And we sat down and decided that we could alternate roles no longer… if for no other reason than, should one of us marry… it would become rather difficult to continue trading places. And, since I was beginning to enjoy being Captain and my brother was taking a liking to the kitchen, well… the rest is, as they say, history."

Antoine looked a bit relieved at this. "So you will not be angry with me if I follow in my uncle’s footsteps?"

At this, the two brothers laughed. "Of course not, nephew, of course not… but don’t feel you have to do anything. You’re much too young to be making up your mind yet. A D’Coolette can be anything he wants to be… just remember that, and it will be true."

Antoine nodded. "Yes, uncle."

The three struck up another discussion, but I had other things on my mind. I flew out of the armory and began flying around the corridors of the palace, looking for the Princess’s chambers. It was interesting to see that some institutions still remained intact… like a Royal Guard. They would probably be ceremonial accoutrements at best… but I wonder… soldiers used to firing laser rifles at long range would be no match for an expert swordsman in tight quarters, as most of the palace’s halls seemed to be. But why have a chef when meals could be easily replicated? Perhaps… well, I saw that replication technology wasn’t exactly as far advanced as it was on Avis Prime… meaning that most dishes would still have to be prepared from organic, not synthetic, ingredients. And from what I knew of the profession, a chef was involved as much in creating appearance as he was in creating taste… hold up, Glazius!

I had just seen the Princess through a doorway I’d flown past. Backtracking a bit, I flew into what looked to be a classroom of sorts and micro-fluttered near the ceiling. It looked as though she was being taught by some sort of cat-like sapient… a lynx, perhaps? She had unrolled some manuscript on a table; Mark translated the title as "A History of the Great Race Wars." Hmm… judging from the look of it… "Mark, radiocarbon analysis on that manuscript. How old is it?"

"Analyzing, Glazius… Manuscript is approximately 2450 of Mobius Prime’s years old, plus or minus 75 Mobian years. Greater accuracy cannot be obtained without a sample."

And yet, it was in amazingly good condition… hmm… "Mark, it’s been treated, right?"

"Affirmative, Glazius. Manuscript has been treated with anti-aging agents similar to those used in the Avis Prime libraries."

Well, that made sense. Mobotropolis’s founding was a direct result of the Great Race Wars, so it seemed only natural that a record should be well-preserved. The Princess abruptly stood up.

"Julayla…"

"Yes, Princess?"

"Why are we doing this now? I’m just a kid."

"An early start never hurt anything, Princess."

The young Sally thought this over for a minute. "But why this? It’s so boring. What good will it do me?"

The lynx simply responded, "As one of my teachers said: The past is only a future that’s already happened."

"Huh?" The Princess and I said the word in unison. But I quickly grasped the meaning of the somewhat bizarre phrase.

"History repeats itself, Princess. And if you know what happened then, you have a better chance of understanding what’s going on now."

"Like the war?"

"Exactly. You’d be surprised how much this war is like the one your ancestor ended all those years ago. For example…"

A voice from the doorway interrupted the lynx. "Princess? Your friends are here." I turned to see… a rodent sapient of some sort. She wore a long hooded cloak, so I couldn’t make out her species very well.

"Rosie!" exclaimed the young Sally. She ran to the doorway and leapt into the cloaked sapient’s arms. Rosie staggered a bit, but managed to keep her balance.

"Gracious, Princess, I’ve never seen you so excited to see your nanny." Rosie took a quick look around the room, saw the lynx - Julayla, was it? - bending over a parchment, and slowly turned to leave as a knowing smile crept across her face. Once outside, she gently set the Princess down. "Your father was the same way when his lessons started."

Sally smiled a bit, and took Rosie’s hand. The two slowly made their way down the stone hallway.

I heard the lynx muttering to herself… "Perhaps this wasn’t the best way to start things…" She then carefully re-rolled the parchment, stepped out into the hallway, and headed down a nearby set of stairs. A little later, I caught sight of her through a window, making her way toward the Mobotropolis library.

The Princess in the near future seemed to be the brains of the Freedom Fighters… apparently, Julayla was the one responsible for piquing her interest in scholarship. It would be interesting to see how she planned to do so… I made a mental note to return to the castle at this time every day to see how. But in the meantime… I’d map Mobotropolis. I had a feeling that the Robotropolis of the future would prove to be remarkably similar. And I had about six of Mobius’s days to do so; then Robotnik would sweep in and I’d return to my own time. I flew out the window and began scanning buildings, and flying through some of the larger ones.

The next few days passed rather quickly. I saw Julayla and Sally poring over diaries and first-hand accounts of days long past, archeological expeditions, and battles fought generations ago. The Princess seemed to be much more interested in these than the scroll Julayla had originally brought. History coming alive… it’s a pity that not everything can be so well chronicled. Julayla also brought along a few more objective texts, showing the young Sally about observer bias… just to be sure she got her facts straight. And every time, Julayla somehow managed to dig up a diary of a Princess… or an ordinary Mobian child… who was going through the same adjustments Sally was to friends of a different circle, a deceased mother, or a hard-won peace. With this sort of beginning, I had no doubt where Sally’s knowledge had come from. But Nicole was conspicuously absent; where had she acquired it? A question for another time…

In mapping the city, I also had a chance to see how Mobotropolis… particularly its government… reacted to the upcoming peace. Most, if not all, of the citizens were glad to see that the war was over. The upper echelons of government were also pleased, especially the king, but a few, like the Minister of Finance, were a bit disappointed that the war had ended. Whatever else may have happened, the war spurred the local economy… warbots can be a bit material- and labor-intensive, and I wondered where the workers would find jobs after the industries were shut down…. That is, until I saw a proposal, submitted by none other than Julian Robotnik, to continue the production of warbots, modifying their circuitry slightly to act as police officers. The War Minister had attached a schematic, designed by Sir Charles, and I saw some of the converts patrolling the streets already. A pity they wouldn’t fulfill their designed purpose much longer…

As I continued mapping the city, I saw evidence of Robotnik’s mounting takeover. The police robots were being wired to a central criminal database… which was housed in the same storage unit as the database of ordinary Mobian citizens. The converted warbots still had their lasers in place… set on a much lower power now, to stun rather than outright destroy a target, but the capacity remained for them to act as weapons of destruction. Perhaps most ominously, Robotnik had arranged for all quantities of a powerful acid-based chemical defoliant to be shipped to one central location… to ostensibly aid in its neutralization. I began to wonder exactly how clueless these Mobians were about the impending takeover… suddenly, Mark began trilling urgently.

"Warning! Warning! Time-aliens detected!"

Time-aliens? It only made sense that some sapients would try and stop Robotnik’s takeover… but didn’t they know about the dangers of time travel? As far as Avis Prime’s best scientists knew, history could not be changed… and we were as yet unsure of the consequences if someone somehow managed to do it. The only way to find out would be to experiment… something the Prime Law expressly forbade us from doing. Not that many sane beings would be interested in potentially destroying the universe…

"Repeat, time-aliens detected. Suggested course of action?"

"Mark, you know I can’t do anything to intervene… but I would like to see these time-aliens. Take me to them."

"Affirmative, Glazius. Plotting course."

"And, Mark, stop incremental translation."

"Affirmative." The world stopped moving again and I flew out of the building I was currently in and followed Mark’s red arrow to a commons…. No, it couldn’t be… Sonic and Sally? "Mark, am I seeing Princess Sally Acorn and Sonic Hedgehog as time-aliens?"

"Correct, Glazius."

This was getting bizarre. A civilization which wasn’t even broadcasting two hundred solar cycles ago had developed a warp-capable energy source, a way to produce an incredibly finely articulated robotic body, and now a means of time travel? But perhaps it, like the other two improbabilities, was a natural process. A natural means of time travel… hmm… "Mark, scan the time-aliens for presence of Chaos Emerald energy. Ignore that present in the hedgehog’s quills."

"Scanning, Glazius… Presence confirmed. Sapients are holding two objects which contain the core Chaos Emerald structure."

Now this was interesting… another two-piece object. Having Mark postulate the effects on joining would likely blow a few of its circuits, so I began thinking…

Probably, the Chaos Emerald core was somehow warped so that it enabled fourth-dimensional, rather than three-dimensional, motion. It would just need a controlling intelligence… quite possibly, two controlling intelligences, since it was a two-piece object. It would be a relatively simple time machine… but fourth-dimensional motion has all sorts of problems inherent. Or maybe… just maybe…

But I’d have to see more to be sure. "Mark, resume incremental translation. I’d like to keep tabs on these two."

"Commencing translation, Glazius…"

I continued mapping the city, checking up on the native time-travelers every hour or so… from what I could make out of their conversations, they had returned to stop Robotnik’s takeover. Was it actually possible to change history? I had some doubts… and some fears as well… especially if… oh no.

The Sonic and Sally from my native timestream were headed towards Sir Charles’s workshop… and the young Sonic and Sally were there as well. The cataclysmic potential inherent in meeting oneself… I braced myself, then realized that such actions were rather foolish when the explosion would be of universal proportions. I waited… and waited… and… nothing happened? The Sonic and Sally from my timestream pawned themselves off as distant relatives… "Juice" and "Alicia"… but after the children had left, Sir Charles recognized them for who they were. But… shouldn’t something have happened? Unless… unless… "Mark, aside from age, are there any differences between the young Sonic and Sally and these time-aliens?"

"Scanning… Affirmative, Glazius. While the time-aliens are most definitely Sonic Hedgehog and Princess Sally Alicia Acorn, various silent mutations differ in the two… although it appears that the younger Sonic and Sally are undergoing mutation at a somewhat increased rate…"

The upshot of which was that the time-aliens hadn’t traveled fourth-dimensionally, they’d traveled fifth-dimensionally. They had shifted not only through time but also through the infinity of probabilities which comprise the fifth-dimensional universe. The Emerald-powered objects that had brought them here had simply shifted them to an alternate timestream where a Sonic and Sally had arrived in Mobotropolis’s past. They wouldn’t change history, but they most certainly would fulfill it. And when they returned to the future, it would most likely be the future of this probable Mobius… explaining why the universe was trying to make the younger Sonic and Sally identical to their older counterparts.

But if they were native to this universe, that would mean… oh boy… "Mark, estimated time until the conversion from Mobotropolis to Robotropolis."

"Approximately one-half of one planetary rotation remains, Glazius."

That would mean that they hadn’t arrived in time to stop Robotnik’s takeover. Likely, the device was imperfect, and took them to the first point in time that matched whatever idea they had. They had probably simply envisioned the city at some time of day, and the device had taken them there on the most recent day that Mobotropolis existed… meaning they’d have to hurry. And apparently, they didn’t…

I followed them to the palace… what had happened to King Acorn, anyway? He wasn’t around in my native timestream, I knew that much… had Robotnik roboticized him or just killed him outright? The time-alien Sally met her father, and they exchanged a few words… then, a wall buckled and caved inward. Probably some sonic weapon… what the… an airship? Where had that come from? "Mark, where did that dirigible originate?"

"Scanning city… it appears that one of Mobotropolis’s skyscrapers is being converted to a command center of some sort. On its top floor is a hangar which appears to be large enough to contain said machine."

Something else Robotnik had done in secret… I flew out the hole before the airship could dock and saw a city in chaos.

As I’d expected, the police robots were busy chasing down citizens and placing them in electromagnetic restraints or stunning them with well-aimed energy pulses. The citizens of Mobotropolis were being herded into the command center, which was rapidly developing an ovoid shape. As I slowly circled the city, somewhat stunned by the spectacle, I caught sight of a minor fleet of airships approaching the city. Reinforcements, perhaps? I micro-fluttered as I watched their approach… each lowered some type of tube to a tank and began drawing liquid upwards… wait a… climb, Glazius!

I beat the air with my wings as rapidly as I could because I realized what those ships were drawing in: the defoliant. It could probably work quite a bit of damage to me as well… if Robotnik was about to do what I thought he was about to do….

Sure enough, the airships began slowly circling the tank, moving in ever-wider circles… and spraying the city with the defoliant. The beautiful marble was eaten away by the acid, releasing hundreds of liters of carbon dioxide into the air every minute… and melting away to reveal a metallic support structure, as I’d originally supposed. A plume of black gases spouted into the air some distance away; the acids had eaten into the containment tank, releasing several years’ worth of pollution into the Mobotropolis skies in a matter of minutes. One of the first areas to feel the impact would likely be the oxide power plant; pollutants could quickly render the hundreds of thousands of fuel cell arrays almost completely inoperable. That, in turn, would force Robotnik to use much less efficient means of power generation. As the airships moved in ever wider circles, I began to wonder if Robotnik had meant to do what had been accomplished here…

After a little thought - and the reduction of Mobotropolis to that polluted city known as Robotropolis - I realized the strategy the War Minister was adopting. He likely realized that there would be sapients who’d escape the dragnet of police robots; he was simply rendering their former homes uninhabitable. If that meant a less aesthetically pleasing city, it mattered very little to him. But those airships hadn’t reached the Great Forest… what had stopped them?

I got my answer as one of the airships was knocked slightly off course. "Mark, link with my digital binoculars, magnification 50-fold."

"Linking, Glazius…"

I lifted my binoculars to my eyes and saw… a minor squadron of dragons - three that I could make out - tearing into the airship. As I watched, one was collared by what looked to be a precursor to a modern "Stealth-bot"… and the robot’s hold was broken - melted, rather - by a 50-foot lance of flame! So they could breathe fire… I shifted my gaze to another airship to see it plummeting to the ground, jet intakes frozen over… ice, too, apparently. Yet another enigma to resolve. I continued to watch as the dragons battled Robotnik’s airships and the few robotic aircraft sent to prevent their interference. A few were captured, but the majority escaped… probably heading for "Dragons’ Nest" or maybe for that cathedral. Well, I had seen how Robotnik transformed Mobotropolis into the monstrosity it was in my native timestream; there was no other reason for me to stay here. "Mark…"

"Warning! Dimensional breach detected!"

Another set of time-aliens? "Nature of the breach, Mark?"

"It appears to be a gate extending to… an unresolvable destination."

"Take me there, Mark."

Mark guided me to… the command center? I flew through the maze of corridors, thankful I’d mapped the building so I could detour around the occasional closed door or SWATbot platoon. I eventually came to a control room of some sort… with the two Robotniks looking through a transparent wall as… King Acorn! So that’s what Robotnik had done to him… he was being drawn irrevocably to the portal and sent to… well, even I didn’t know where. "Mark, gather all the information you can about that portal."

"Scanning, Glazius… scan error… attempting to compensate… scan failed, Glazius."

Something Mark couldn’t even begin to scan… now that was intriguing. What was that portal… was… it had closed somehow? Now they were manipulating dimensional tears… oh boy… this civilization was incredibly advanced in some respects and many generations behind Avis Prime in others. I heard one of the Robotniks call the portal "The Void"… that did not bode well for the King’s future. "The Void"… yet another one of the Mobian enigmas… my assignment was beginning to look almost maddeningly impossible. Best to return home, such as it was… "Mark, return me to my native timestream and teleport me back to my base in the Great Forest."

"Affirmative, Glazius…"

As I began wondering how to describe what I’d seen, a plethora of questions joined the already formidable number in my head. What was that mysterious "Void"? How was the gate to it controlled? What was on the other side… and what had happened to King Acorn? Questions which I could barely begin to conceive guesses for…

Others, I was beginning to develop ideas and plan observations for… like the mystery of the Mobian dragons. They could fly like Terran dragons and breathe fire and ice… could they do anything else similarly spectacular? And where - or what, for that matter - was "Dragons’ Nest"? And what did Robotnik do with the dragons he’d captured? It seemed like all the questions I answered only led to more to be asked… but then again, most science was like that. I realized that this assignment was not going to be easy in the least… although I had been expecting it to be. The fallacies of youth…

This story draws to a close, but more will follow.

Questions? Drop me a line at [email protected].