Shadows of the Future
Chapter Six
"Every 'Rose' Has Its Thorn..."
(Explanations, rating, and disclaimers can be found at the beginning of Chapter One.)
It was the morning of the same day that Knuckles, across the city, was touring with Lorinda and the sun was already blazingly bright as the five captive Mobians staggered out of their cell--TOO bright for this early, Sonic thought irritably. As a nocturnal creature, he did not at ALL appreciate being woken up before 6:00 a.m. All the others seemed to feel the same way, judging from their bleary gazes and shuffling feet. Only Jolt--well-named, he thought--was as hyper as ever. Sonic sighed. Squirrels. Save me from the chipperness of squirrels. That was one thing that got on his nerves about Sally, too, he reflected. Morning people should be outlawed.
Ah, Sally, he thought, I wonder where you are now. Heck, I wonder where I am now.
"GET back in line!" roared a deep voice behind him, and Sonic turned around to see an echidna who seemed to be about the size of a SWATbot looming over him with a whip--a sinisterly GLOWING whip. Sonic gulped and quickly placed himself directly behind Tails, who happened to be the person in front of him.
The little procession--five Mobians and four hulking echidna guards--continued down the streets of the city. It was a beautiful early-summer day, with that lovely, breezy carefree feeling you can only find by waking up EARLY on a summer morning, and Sonic grudgingly admitted to himself that, if the circumstances were different, he would have been GLAD to wake up when he did. But as it was...
The city was an interesting one, very advanced, gleaming buildings, etc. Scores of happy echidnas were already strolling down the broad marble-paved avenues, laughing, chatting, buying things at the store, exchanging gossip, riding in hovercars and floating scooters on their way to work or school. The sun was shining, the breezes blowing, music was playing softly in the distance, presumably from the open window of a music shop. On the surface, it all seemed so pleasant.
But these people practiced SLAVERY!
Sonic wondered cynically how many of these shiny, happy people whipped their slaves. Did that adorable little girl with the bows on her pink head-spines have a slave to tie them for her? Did that neatly-pressed businessman beat the cook if she spilled a single drop of soup?
Sonic shuddered. The entire thing was absolutely repugnant to him.
They came out into an open courtyard, which was evidently the marketplace they'd heard mentioned, because the area was filled with a combination of the typically huge guards and other unhappy prisoners like themselves, all with iron collars around their necks and drab grey clothes on their bodies. With one key difference--though the prisoners varied from individual to individual--their ages ranged everywhere from only 5 years old to upper middle age, and had expressions on their faces ranging from shock and disbelief (new slaves like themselves, he supposed) to anger and determination, to misery, and finally a calm, weary resignation--but ALL of them--every single one--were echidnas. We must look REALLY strange to these guys, then, thought Sonic with a wry half-smile on his face.
"Market-Day now begins!" boomed a new voice. A tall, elegant female echidna standing on a podium announced through some kind of amplifier. "Merchants, line up to present your wares!"
As everyone scrambled for a place in line, Sonic suddenly realised two things: One, that slaves were not the only thing being sold in the square. Lining all sides of the enourmous round plaza were all kinds of carts, stands, and tents, selling everything from fruit to weapons, to...other things...he quickly placed a hand over Tails' eyes as an extremely scantily-clad, voluptuous female echidna beckoned briefly in Sonic's direction, then got a disgusted look on her face as she noticed his collar. Sonic glared at her and they passed by.
The other thing he noticed was how HUNGRY he was! None of them had eaten for over a day, maybe more. Close to his left was a cart selling some kind of spiced meat-sticks. The aroma wafted tantilizingly to Sonic's nostrils. Not quite chili-dogs, but close enough. He had no idea what they were made out of and he didn't care at this point; he was STARVING! Sonic was just about to reach out a hand and pluck one off the cart when he had a sobering thought--in a society like this, they probably KILLED slaves who were caught stealing. With a silent gulp, he put his wayward arm back where it belonged.
The line finally stopped moving--next to a non-tempting newsstand--and Sonic braced himself for action. This is it, he thought. This is when we do our plan.
But as it turned out he was quite wrong--the slave auction had indeed begun, but it would be HOURS before it was the turn of the five Mobians. By the time they were halfway to the front of the line, all of them were faint from low blood sugar. The guard nearest them noticed this and started passing around a strange drink. When he got to Sonic, the hedgehog doubtfully took a sip. It didn't quite seem to be alchoholic, but it had the same effect--it shocked the system while also making him feel a bit muzzy-headed--with the added effect of making him feel as energized as if he had just eaten a five-course meal and then slept for an entire day. But his stomach still felt just as empty. Still, it was an improvement.
"Feel better?" asked the guard. He had to shout to be heard over the noise of the auction.
Sonic nodded.
"Good. Can't have ya lookin' sick when ya gets up on that block--ya won't sell fer much!" The guard tilted back his ugly head and laughed coarsely, then went down the line to give the drink to Amy, behind him.
* * *
Finally, it was their turn. The five Mobians were all put on the platform together. "Here we have a bunch of exotic FOREIGN slaves," announced the tall purple lady echidna, whom Sonic supposed was the auctioneer. "From a land so far off nobody even knows its name, they come. There's nothing like them anywhere on Arellus! Be the first on YOUR block to own something nobody else can! How much am I bid?"
The crowd went silent. Sonic went a bit pale. They had been COUNTING on the noise and confusion of the crowd to help them escape, but now...
"Come on, who wants to own a piece of a far-off realm?" said the auctioneer, who was starting to look almost as worried as Sonic but for different reasons. "Bidding starts at 50 denarii! What am I bid for these fine specimens?"
Silence.
More silence.
A little bit more silence after that.
"Cough."
Silence.
Now getting quite exasperated, the auctioneer grabbed hold of Electra, who was the closest to her, by the arm and dragged her to the front of the podium. "If you don't want them in a group, you can purchase them seperately! Let's start with this young lady. What am I bid for this fine specimen?"
Electra snarled and bared her sharp teeth at the auctioneer in an expression that clearly said, "Get your hand off or I'll BITE it off."
Completely unfazed, the auctioneer went on, "Just look at how healthy her teeth are! A slave in such good condition is hard to find!"
"Can she read and write?" asked a little old man brown echidna, peering nearsightedly at her through very thick glasses.
The auctioneer looked at her. Electra nodded, thinking it didn't really matter anyway.
"Good. I need a new sorter for my library. My last one died last week. Ten denarii."
"TEN denarii, we have ten denarii bid for this fine young lady," boomed the auctioneer so loudly that Electra cringed. "Does anybody else want to bid?" Pause. "Ten denarii going once, ten denarii going twice....SOLD to the man in the front row!"
The little old man stumbled foward to take Electra's hand as the auctioneer let her go. He pressed some kind of plastic device into the auctioneer's hand. It looked sort of like Sally's computer "Nicole" only flatter and smaller. The auctioneer tapped her finger on it twice and handed it back to him.
This was it, Electra thought, tensing herself to make a massive electric shock. It's time for the plan. Now, while no-one is holding onto me for a second...
But before she could do anything, her new owner touched a button on the collar of his shirt--and they both disappeared in a flash of light!
The four remaining Mobians all stared at each other in gaping, open-mouthed shock. Electra's power had been crucial to their plan--not to mention she'd been the one who had master-minded it. What were they going to do NOW?
Sonic's scattered thoughts were interrupted by the loud voice of the auctioneer, who had somehow gotten ahold of his arm and dragged him to the front of the podium without his noticing. "What am I bid for this fine young specimen? An excellent worker, I tell you! Just LOOK at him! Bidding starts at 10 denarii."
"Huh." snorted a middle-aged man in the front row. "Worker my tail! How much could he possibly lift with those spindly little arms? And those legs! How do they keep that round fat body upright?"
FAT?!! Sonic had half a mind to punch that guy's face clean off. He was the most athletic person on Mobius! His body was just...NATURALLY round, that's all! It was a genetic condition! Fat, indeed!
The auctioneer frowned. "Seven denarii, do I hear SEVEN denarii for this fine young man?"
What?! wondered Sonic in disbelief. I'm being MARKED DOWN?! I've never been so insulted in my life!
"SCREW this!" he yelled aloud, and put his part of the plan into action anyway. He lunged free of the auctioneer's hand and flung himself into a spin-dash, revving up several times to make sure he'd have adequate power. When he finally released, he had enough speed to bowl through the entire crowd, knocking people over and smashing them aside, before he finally crashed through the row of carts at the edge of the plaza and rolled to a stop in the street beyond.
Sonic sat up dizzily and got his bearings for a moment. He felt as if his...EVERYTHING was going to be sore for a month. He hurt in places he didn't even know he had PLACES. And some kind of weird, sticky purple fruit from that last cart had exploded all over his face.
But he was FREE.
Not for long, though, as he caught sight of the slave-guards crashing their way through the crowd. They were moving much faster than he thought they could have, for their bulk.
He would have liked to wait for his friends to catch up to him, but he couldn't see them at this distance, and the guards were almost on his heels. Regretfully, he leapt to his feet and poured on the speed.
Sonic dashed frantically down the street, heedless of the startled expressions of the people around him. Faster, faster, faster. Sonic grinned and forgot his troubles momentarily as the wind whipped through his spines and he turned into nothing but a blue blur, to a spectator's point of view. THIS was more like it, he thought. He was exhilerated. He was doing what he was BORN for. He was in his element, he was in "the Zone", he was....
.....trapped.
Sonic jerked himself to an abrupt halt as he realised that somehow during his speed-induced high, he'd turned into a dead-end alley. The way was blocked off by a heavy metal wall that probably couldn't be broken through by a spin-dash, not that he had any inclination to do THAT again any time soon. And the guards, evidently using some kind of homing technology, came into view only seconds later a few streets away. They hadn't seen him yet, but they would in a moment, and then it would all be over.
Sonic desperately pondered his options. He probably couldn't break through the walls, there were no doors visible, he couldn't dig, climb, or fly. He COULD jump higher than any echidna but the walls were too high even for that. Much as he hated to admit it, it seemed as though there were times when being the fastest thing alive didn't count for much.
"Don't make a sound and do EXACTLY as I say," commanded a voice directly in his ear. Sonic jumped, startled out of his wits. A piece of the WALL seemed to have its hand over his mouth! He blinked and looked again. No, it was a person, wearing some kind of hooded robe that allowed him or her--he couldn't tell which--to blend in perfectly with their surroundings.
"Who are you?" he whispered. The guards were now searching the alley directly next to his and would see him soon. But this person completely creeped him out.
"You are a slave. I am on the side of freedom. That is all you need to know for now," continued the figure in a flat, almost metallic voice. A synthesizer, to disguise the true voice, Sonic supposed. "Now shut up and follow me." The figure held out a small, unfamiliar device and pressed a button.
A strange, glimmering portal appeared in the air two feet in front of them, slowly rotating a few inches off the ground. A strange, glimmering, ROUND portal. In fact, it looked kind of like...
Then the figure shoved Sonic forwards, there was a blinding flash of light, and he was through.
* * *
Jolt dashed down the street, panting for breath. It had been easy to break free of the crowd--after all, squirrels were the most agile things alive and smaller ones were even HARDER to catch--but what wasn't easy was leaving the others behind. She'd seen Sonic's escape--who hadn't?--but where were Tails and Amy? Were they all right?
Her thoughts were interrupted as she caught sight of a strange object directly in front of her. It was large--easily an entire head taller than Knuckles--round, golden, and turning. It was also somehow hovering off the ground.
Jolt didn't know what it was, but she DID know she didn't like the look of it one bit.
However, she was running far too fast to stop in time and careened straight into the thing! She put her hands futilely over her face and tried to brace for the impact.
Instead, she felt a woozy falling-esque sensation, saw a huge flash of light--
--and she and the object both disappeared with a loud clang.
* * *
Tails looked around frantically. Where WAS everybody? The plan had completely failed and the group was falling apart! "SONIC!" he yelled desperately. "ELECTRA!! JOLT!! AMY!!"
"Here," called a voice from behind him. He pushed his way through the crowd to see Amy Rose, completely surrounded by the hulking guards. He gulped. He couldn't help her--not against so many. And the crowd was packed too tightly for him to get through. He didn't even have enough room to spin his tails so that he could fly! Grimly, he watched the scene unfold.
Amy stared around at the circle, eyes huge, her spines all standing on end from terror as they closed in on her. What could she do? She was no warrior, no adventurer!
She felt something then, a lump in her pocket. Of course! The hammer! She wasn't a violent person, but...
Amy whipped out the tiny miniature mallet from her pocket. It instantly changed into a GIGANTIC metal hammer, almost as big as she was, glowing slightly. It was magically light for her but magically heavy for her opponents. Leaping into the air, she twirled around and delivered a resounding blow to the head of one of the guards.
This had quite a spectacular result--and a useful one--but NOT what she had expected.
Instead of simply being knocked unconscious, or disappearing, as she had hoped, the man started spurting blood! Her hammer had completely crushed his skull, and now blood and...other things...were splattered all over her dress!
Amy felt sickened. She had NEVER killed a person before, only whacked a few robots with that hammer! She felt dizzy and weak. "Dead," she murmured, collapsing to her knees. "dead...I killed him...me...dead...." The hammer changed back to its original size and fell into her glove.
The crowd had pulled back from her in alarm and now Tails could fight his way through. "Amy!" he yelled to be heard. "Are you all right?"
No response. The little pink hedgehog had turned a sickly greyish-pink colour and fainted.
Worried, Tails latched onto her collar with his front paws, started whirling his tails like helicopter blades, and airlifted them both out of there before the shocked crowd could do anything.
* * *
They finally reached a quiet rooftop, and Tails set down, panting. Man, he couldn't REMEMBER the last time he'd flown so high at one stretch. Amy stirred and sat up, groggily. "Are you all right?" Tails asked again.
In response, Amy crawled over to a corner and quietly retched up her guts for a few minutes.
Tails winced in sympathy. He'd never done something quite like THAT to a person before, but he knew how she felt. When she came back, she still looked awful but at least her normal colour was starting to return.
"So," wheezed Amy, pulling herself to her feet. "Where do we go now?"
Tails shook his head and shrugged. "I have no idea. We'll try to find the others, but I don't know where they went--they could be anywhere by now."
"Well, I think we should get off this roof, first thing," said Amy, shivering. "They can just shoot right at us out of an airplane or something up here. I want to get down into a dark, hidden alley or something where they can't see us."
"Right." said Tails. He crept carefully up to the edge of the roof and looked out, trying to find a suitable place to land. "We could try over there--no, that's too crowded--maybe there? No, too open--ooh, that looks interesting!"
"What?" asked Amy, joining him at the roof's edge.
"That." said Tails, pointing. Amy followed his finger. He was pointing at a HUGE metal building with some kind of strange, enourmous spaceship parked next to it, and a teeming complex of other buildings and pathways around it, all very high-tech. "It must be some kind of launch base. Wow! I've seen the Launch Base on the Floating Island; this one must be even MORE advanced!"
"But we don't have TIME for that, Tails, we have to find Sonic!" Her eyes lit up like two stars when she said Sonic's name. Now TAILS felt like throwing up.
"How do you know Sonic isn't there?" challenged Tails playfully, waggling his eyebrows at her.
Amy just put her hands on her hips and glared at him.
"Okay, okay, we'll find an alley to hide in, sheesh!" said Tails. With a sigh, he turned away from the view of the Arellan spaceport.
"I found a spot," he told her. "Brace yourself." And he grabbed hold of her collar, twirled his tails, and plunged STRAIGHT down off the roof.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIiiiiieeeeee!!!" screamed Amy, clutching futilely for a grip on the air. After all, she had been unconscious the first time Tails had airlifted her. But then she remembered that here, they were runaway slaves and she herself a wanted criminal, so she tightly clamped her mouth on any further screams before anyone heard her.
Tails, panting heavily, stopped twirling his tails and let himself fall--although slowly--the last ten feet. He was really not up to this kind of prolonged airlifting, not after the kind of day--heck, the kind of two (or was it three?) days he'd had. They came to rest in a dim, cobblestone-paved side street, and he leaned against a lamp-post to get his breath.
"Wow," said Amy, "you must be STRONG. How do you do that?"
"No big deal," replied Tails. "I just do, that's all. I carry Sonic all the time and he's a lot heavier than you!"
Footsteps sounded behind them. "Perimeter alert. Subjects nearby. Target on-line." came the sound of a mechanical voice.
"The guards!" said Amy, stricken. "How did they find us so fast?"
"Looks like they have some kind of tracking device," observed Tails. "I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of hidden transmitter in these collars. You know, to prevent prisoners from escaping."
"That's awful!" exclaimed Amy, as they pelted furiously down the back streets of Arellus, past ragged homeless people, stinking piles of uncollected garbage, illicit businesses, and basically all the things that a city's tourist bureau doesn't tell you about. She felt sorry for these people but there was no way she could help them; she had problems of her own. "Isn't there a way to take them off?"
Tails shook his head, his shaggy fur flying back in the wind. "We could, eventually, I guess, but it would take far too long and they'd catch up to us by then. No, I have a better idea."
"Which would be?" Amy panted. They had broken free of the slums area of the city and were now back on shining, beautiful main streets, which now seemed so very fake and wrong. They were heading into some kind of scientific district, judging from all the computers and other, non-recognisable electronics that were on display in the store windows.
"We're gonna hide in a place where there's lots of heavy-duty energies, radiation, transmissions, and junk," explained Tails. "Hopefully strong enough to block the collars' signals. So they won't be able to follow us anymore."
"Sounds like a good plan," agreed Amy, dashing across a strange bridge that seemed to be made out of nothing but energy. "but where do you think such a place might be--?"
She broke off as they rounded a corner and she saw--
--the gigantic spaceship, looming in front of them.
"TAILS!" she yelled in exasperation. But Tails was already running pell-mell into the launch base area. With a sigh, Amy followed him.
As she did so, she caught a glimpse of something strange out of the corner of her eye. It looked like...a gigantic gold ring, floating off the ground. But it was very fuzzy and indistinct, kept flickering in and out of existence, and when she stopped and turned her head to look at it directly, it was gone.
Oh, well, she thought, my imagination must be running away with me. Where HAS that techno-nut Tails gotten himself off to, anyway...?