BLOODLINES

                        A Sonic the Hedgehog Story

                            by Daniel J. Drazen


Pause for bourgeois legalities: "Sonic the Hedgehog" and most
other characters and situations in the following story are
copyrighted trademarks of Sega Incorporated, Archie Comics and/or
DIC Productions.  Permission to reproduce this specific material
is granted by the author, provided you don't try and make a buck
off of it.  I may be a grown-up cartoon fan, but I also know my
way around Title 17 (the Copyright Law) of the U.S. Code.
(c)1995, Daniel J. Drazen.


                                 Chapter 4


     Sally had, from her earliest days, been groomed as the
successor to the throne of Mobius by her father.  In her had been
cultivated the arts and virtues of leadership.  It was now that
they would be put to the test.
     "Sandy, she can't stay here.  Whatever's wrong with her, she
may have a chance if we can get her to Knothole."
     "But she can't endure hard travel, and that's what faces us
in crossing the Great Plain.  We'd need about five days to get to
Knothole on foot."  As Sandy spoke these last words, she gave
Sally a look that told her what she was afraid to ask: Sandy
didn't think that their mother had five days left.
     "Sonic, you've got to get back to Knothole.  Tell Dulcy to
get here as fast as she can."
     "You sure about this, Sal?"
     "Sonic, there's no other way!"
     "Wait; who's Dulcy?"
     "I'll tell you later, Sandy.  Then you've got to get a
message to Uncle Chuck; have him come to Knothole at once.  He's
the only one who has the kind of knowledge we need.  We'll also
need a place for her to stay; we can use my hut."
     The hedgehog's usual bravado was gone; the situation was
way too serious.  With a simple "Hang in there, Sal," he was on
his way.
     Only after Sonic had left on his errands did Sally cross to
the shadowy figure and kneel beside her.  Sandy did the same and
touched the figure on the shoulder.
     "Mother," Sandy said softly, "Mother, she's here."
     The figure slowly turned her head toward them.  The face was
sunken, pale and etched with pain.  Whatever disease she was
fighting against had already exacted a terrible price, and would
soon demand payment in full.  Yet Sally could plainly see her own
face in that of the one lying before her.  And even now, so close
to death, Sally could see a hint of what had once been great
beauty in the face of the sufferer.  Sally had never thought of
herself as beautiful--even if she were to admit it, it wouldn't
have been seemly to do so--but she could see it in this person,
whoever she was.  The possibility that this frail sufferer could
indeed be her mother was now impossible to ignore.
     The figure slowly opened her eyes and looked at Sally.  It
seemed that it took her a while to focus her gaze.  Then, she
slowly reached up and caressed Sally's cheek.  Tears began to
well up in her eyes, and the corners of the parched mouth turned
upward.
     "Sally...my lost child..." was all she could manage in a
congested whisper of a voice.
     Sally started to call her "Mother," choked on the word, then
collapsed on the figure's metallic breast, pouring out the sorrow
she had carried for so many years.  It was some minutes before
Sally could pull herself together enough to speak: "I never knew
what happened to you.  I thought...I didn't know WHAT to think!"
     "We were supposed to have been killed," Sandy said, her
voice full of controlled rage, "and we would have been if
Robotnik had had his way."
     "But what happened to you?  And how did you ever find me?"
     "I'll leave the first question for now--it's too long a
story.  As for finding you, we almost didn't.
     "It was about three months ago that the Nomads we were
travelling with brought in a stranger: someone from the East who
seemed too eager to purchase weapons that the Nomads had their
eye on.  I overheard the conversation between the Nomad chiefs
and this stranger who called himself 'Dirk.'"
     "I know a Dirk!  He's the leader of the Eastern band of
freedom fighters."
     "That's what he admitted, after some questioning and after
swearing the Nomad elders to secrecy.  Even then I don't think I
would have been interested until he spoke of a 'Princess Sally'
who was leading another group of fighters.
     "Mother had spoken of you often, so I knew the name.  She
told me how we had been separated after we had been born, and how
she and I had to leave Mobotropolis.  On a chance, I cornered
Dirk after he'd left the elders.  I kept my veil in place so he
couldn't have known why I was so interested in this 'Princess
Sally.'  I could only learn from him that you lived in the Great
Forest, in some hidden place called Knothole.  Then I let him go.
     "At that time, Mother's health was beginning to seriously
deteriorate.  When I told her what I had learned from Dirk, it
was as if she'd been given a new life.  She had to see if you
were still alive, so we abandoned the Nomads and began travelling
to the Great Forest.  We stopped frequently and made as good time
as possible.  Finally, Mother became so weak that I feared to
take her any further; that's when we arrived here.  I vowed I'd
find you and bring you to Mother.
     "I arrived at the Great Forest not knowing where to begin,
and then I spied your watchtower.  I thought I'd hide myself
until someone showed up, then I'd follow them back to Knothole.
The first one to show up...well, I was surprised to find someone
else who was...."
     "What?"
     In answer, Sandy rose and tossed aside her cloak.  Her right
arm, from her shoulder to her fingertips, had been roboticized.
"Robotnik did this to me when I was four years old.  I'll always
remember the look on his face when he did it--the joy he took
from reducing a living being to some kind of machine.  You saw
what he did to Mother--he changed her piece by piece.  It was
painful, and it took months.  He called it 'science;' I call it
torture!"
     Sally was stunned, not so much by Sandy's roboticized arm as
by the hatred with which she spoke.  "You...you must have seen
Bunnie," she managed to say.
     "I guess that was her name.  Anyway, I also saw one of
Robotnik's crafts pull up next to her on the platform.  I didn't
hear the craft until it was too late; he must be using some kind
of silencer on the engine."
     "Never mind that; what happened?  Bunnie tells me you
started fighting the SWAT-bots single-handed."
     "The only worthwhile things I learned from my years with the
Nomads were their ancient fighting techniques.  That's one of the
reasons Robotnik has managed to leave the Nomads alone all these
years, and how we've stayed hidden from them.  I made short work
of the bots--it's easy if you know how," she added as an aside. 
"Then I waited for Bunnie to come to, for she'd fallen and was
unconscious.  When she called me by your name, I knew I had found
you."
     "Hey, Sally!  You in here?" someone called out from the
corridor.
     "In here, Dulcy!" Sally answered.
     "You never did say who this Dulcy is."
     "She's our ticket back to Knothole, and..."
     "Hi!"
     Sandy turned and found herself looking into the face of a
dragon.  An adolescent dragon, to be sure, but it was still
something she hadn't counted on seeing.  Sandy immediately drew a
curved Nomad knife from its sheath.
     "Hey, hold it!" Dulcy protested.  "I'm on your side!"
     "Sandy, this is Dulcy.  She's going to fly us back to
Knothole."
     "You've made friends with a dragon?"
     "Pleased to meet ya!" Dulcy said as she extended a claw. 
Sandy replaced the knife, turned and walked back to where Queen
Alicia lay.
     "Is that your Ma?" Dulcy asked.
     "Yes, and that's my twin sister, Sandy."
     "Oh, wow, I didn't know you had a twin sister!"
     "Neither did I, until tonight."
     "Oh, yeah.  Well, we better get going."
     Sally and Sandy carefully bundled up their mother, then
placed her inside the pouch on Dulcy's abdomen.
     "You're going to be OK, ma'am," Dulcy said as she was tucked
in, then she spoke to the girls: "You two can saddle up once we
get outside, the ceilings are too low in here."
     Leaving the fire to die out on its own, they made their way
out onto one of the open ledges that served as nesting sites.
Sally had only just shown Sandy how to sit in the two-seated
saddle on Dulcy's back when the dragon stepped off of the ledge
and began falling.  Before anyone could say anything, Dulcy had
spread her wings and caught an updraft from the canyon.  A few
seconds later Dragonsnest was just a fading blur on the horizon
behind them.
     "Hey, Sandy!" Dulcy called back.  "You're doing pretty good!
You ever ridden a dragon before?"
     "I've never even SEEN a dragon before!"  It was obvious from
her tone that she'd rather be doing anything else at the moment.
     "Look!" Sally called out.  "That's the edge of the Great
Forest up ahead!  We'll be in Knothole before long."
     Actually, this wasn't the part of the journey that Sally was
looking forward to, for she knew what Sandy and her mother didn't
know: that Dulcy's landings needed a lot of work.  That was the
strongest argument against using Dulcy to carry the Queen to
Knothole, but the alternatives weren't any better.
     Soon they were skimming over the trees.  After several
minutes, Sally pointed out some lights fluttering through the
foliage below, then a fire-lit clearing where Dulcy would land. 
Sally braced herself for one of Dulcy's usual clumsy landings.
She began reproaching herself for the plan but stopped when Dulcy
said: "We're here!"  Sally hadn't felt a thing.
     Sliding off of the saddle on Dulcy's back, Sally and Sandy
lifted their mother from Dulcy's pouch and placed her onto a
makeshift stretcher.  Bunnie and Rotor then bore the stretcher to
Sally's hut.
     "Dulcy," Sally said as she turned back to speak with the
dragon, "that landing was...."
     "Hey, I just hope your Ma's gonna be OK."
     "Thanks," she said quietly, then ran to catch up with the
others.
     Inside Sally's hut, lights were lit, the bed had been turned
down, and water was heating in a nearby fireplace.  The stretcher
was placed near the bed and Sally and Sandy began putting their
mother into the bed.  Bunnie and Rotor helped, but Bunnie's
attention was mainly on Sandy.
     "Oh mah stars, you ARE twins!"
     "Sandy," Sally began, "this is...."
     "We met," both Sandy and Bunnie managed to say in unison.
     "Rotor, could you tell everyone to keep their distance until
the Queen...until Mother has had a chance to rest?  I don't think
a lot of people crowding around will do her any good."
     "Sure, Sally.  And maybe I'd better tell...."
     Rotor was interrupted by the crashing sound of crockery
hitting the floor.  All eyes turned to the doorway.  There stood
Rosie, Sally's old nanny.  She looked at Queen Alicia with wide
eyes, then those eyes rolled upward and she went into a dead
faint.  Sally and Bunnie helped her up off the floor and seated
her in a nearby chair.
     "She looked like she'd seen a ghost!" Bunnie said.
     "She probably thought she did," Sandy added.  "Mother once
told me that only a handful of people in the palace knew that
twins had been born, and they'd all been sworn to secrecy."
     "Well, the secret was safe with Rosie. She never said
anything about my having a twin sister."
     Just then, from outside the hut there was a sound like the
sound barrier being seriously tested.  A moment later, Sonic
entered the hut.
     Someone followed him inside, someone whose body shone with a
metallic gleam in the hut's candlelight.  This was Sonic's uncle,
Sir Charles Hedgehog, once one of the leading scientific minds of
Mobius.  He was also one of the first to have been roboticized,
and it was only by a perseverance that managed to awaken some
spark of his old self that Sonic had been able to free his Uncle
Chuck's mind from Robotnik's control.  Now Uncle Chuck, as
everyone in Knothole called him, used his roboticized form to his
advantage and lived the life of a spy in Robotropolis, keeping
the Knothole freedom fighters informed of developments.
     But Sandy had no knowledge of these things yet.  At the
first sight of Uncle Chuck, she immediately reached for her
knife.
     "No!" Sally said, "he's on our side."
     "First a dragon, now a robot.  You've made quite an
interesting assortment of friends!"
     As for Uncle Chuck, he stood in the doorway transfixed as he
recognized the figure in Sally's bed.  Then, without a word, he
crossed over to the side of the bed and dropped to one knee,
bowing his head.
     "I am at your service, my Queen," he said softly.  He raised
his head and looked into her face.  "I...I never thought I'd see
this day!"
     "My days...may be few," the Queen managed to whisper.
     "Don't talk like that, Mother!" Sally said.  "Uncle Chuck is
going to do everything he can to help."
     "And the most helpful thing we can do is to let the Queen
rest," Uncle Chuck added.  "Everyone except the princesses, go
back to bed; I want to talk to them.  And to Rosie, once she
wakes up."


     The residents of Knothole were up and about even earlier
than usual the next morning.  Mostly, though, they were clustered
near Sally's hut discussing the events of the night just ended. 
In obedience to Uncle Chuck's order, the freedom fighters stayed
outside the hut.  However, as a spontaneous gesture, they began
leaving flowers, fruit, personal items and other objects near the
door and on the porch.  It was clear that their loyalty to the
Queen had not dimmed.
     Inside, Uncle Chuck had spoken with Sandy, trying to learn
all she knew about how she and her mother had come to be
partially roboticized.  He studied both the Queen and Sandy for
some time.
     "This is an older design," he told Sally and Sandy, "not
like the one Robotnik is using now.  He must have used a
prototype of the roboticizer on you and your mother, Sandy."
     "Somehow," Sandy added bitterly, "I don't appreciate the
fact that we were test subjects."
     As for Rosie, she almost went into hysterics when she came
to.  Uncle Chuck was able to calm her, so that she could tell her
own story:
     "I've not seen the two princesses together since I helped
bring them both into the world.  And no sooner had I done so that
this official-looking swine in a uniform walks into the room. 
There were two police robots with him, there were, and what he
says were orders from the King.  He says the Queen and the
second-born daughter were to be moved that night to the capitol
of the Southern Provinces, while the first-born was to stay with
the King in Mobotropolis.  'Security concerns,' he says!  I
didn't believe him for a second, but the King said to let them
go.  Then he swears me to secrecy not to say that two babies were
born that night.  I didn't understand why, but I obeyed my King,
I did!"
     "And that's why you fainted when you saw Mother and Sandy?"
Sally asked.
     "No, I...well, it was the last I'd heard of them until we
received reports that the Southern capitol had been bombed in the
Great War.  The reports all spoke of there being no survivors
so...."
     "So you thought we'd been killed," Sandy said.  "And we
almost were, too."
     "If only it hadn't been for that war...." Sally added.
     "I've got news for you, Sally.  The Great War ended two
years after we were born."
     The Knothole dwellers looked at Sandy, stunned.
     "Mother and I weren't able to learn that until later, when
we'd talk with other refugees we met on the caravans: the other
side had sued for peace repeatedly.  Those reports were never
carried back to Mobotropolis, which continued sending military
bots to the staging area in the south.  From there, they were
being dispatched to conquer neutral territories all over Mobius. 
Only when they were all under martial law and under the control
of the bots did War Minister Julian move against
Mobotropolis...."
     "...calling himself Ivo Robotnik," Sally said.  "I can see
it all now; why couldn't we have seen it coming?"
     "Well," Uncle Chuck said softly, "never mind the past.
We've got work to do."
     Using a diagnostic program resident in Nicole, he was able
to take readings on Queen Alicia's roboticized parts as well as
her internal organs and systems.  He also had Rosie gather
together a great number of bowls to be sterilized by placing them
in boiling water.
     "Why?" Sally asked.
     "I'm going to need blood samples.  I'm also going to need
paper."
     Uncle Chuck examined a number of Sally's books, found
several with suitable paper, then enlisted Tails to carefully cut
along the margins with a pair of scissors to make paper strips.
     Then it was time to take blood samples.  Sonic, Sally, Rotor
and Bunnie were more than willing to help, even though it meant
nothing so taxing as each of them placing about a dozen drops of
their blood in a bowl.  Antoine was more reluctant, but his
initial reluctance melted as he saw the first few drops of
Bunnie's sample dripping into a bowl, and he promptly fainted. 
Uncle Chuck found it much easier to get the sample from the
unconscious fox.
     "This is a good look for Ant," was Sonic's observation.
Finally, the samples were ready and labelled.
     "I don't suppose you have any of the Queen's medical records
on file," Uncle Chuck asked Sally.
     "I don't know.  Nicole has access to the royal archives but
there's some kind of a security block on them."
     "Level 7?"
     "How did you know!?"
     "Don't worry about it, Sally.  I'm going to need some of
that paper now, Tails."
     Cutting a small strip from the paper, Uncle Chuck dipped one
end of it into the sample of Sally's blood.
     "Nicole," Uncle Chuck ordered, "access royal archives."
     "ROYAL ARCHIVES ONLINE."
     "Sally, is there a small opening near the top of Nicole's
casing?"
     "Yes; I've wondered what that was."
     "If I'm right, it's a biosample access port.  Would you open
it, please?"
     Sally did so, and Uncle Chuck slid the bloodied paper strip
into it.  A few seconds later:
     "GENETIC PATTERN CONFIRMED.  LEVEL 7 SECURITY BLOCK HAS BEEN
REMOVED."
     "So THAT'S why I could never get anywhere trying to crack a
level 7 block!" Rotor said.  "It's not based on alphanumerics at
all."
     "That's right, Rotor.  A level 7 is based on genetic
sequence pattern recognition.  I didn't know whose pattern was
used, the King's or the Queen's, but I guessed that Sally's
blood would have enough of either of her parents to match.  Now,
I've got tests to run.  Sally, may I have use of Nicole?"
     "Of course, Uncle Chuck.  Sandy and I have...business...to
take care of."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

                                 Chapter 5


     Silently, the two sisters walked past the curious crowds of
freedom fighters who had gathered about the hut.  "Please," Sally
said to them, "this is something we have to do alone.  You
understand."  The freedom fighters murmurred in assent and let
them pass.
     Sally led her sister, in silence, to a small clearing.  Just
beyond, barely visible through the brush, was a pool of water. 
Beneath this was the source of the power rings that gave Sonic
the added velocity he needed at times.
     But that was the farthest thing from the minds of the two
sisters as they entered the clearing.  Before them was a mound of
earth, at one end of which a simple stone of memory had been
placed.  It was the only such mound in the clearing.
     "My mentor, Julayla," Sally said simply.  "She was a good
teacher; I didn't appreciate until much later that she was also a
good friend."
     "You were right, this *is* a good place.  We'd better
begin."
     The two began tearing at the grass, uprooting it and
removing dirt by the handfulls.  As they worked, they talked.
     "Did Mother ever say why we were split up, Sandy?"
     "It wasn't her idea, or Father's from what she could tell.
He was talked into it by Karack, governor of the Southern
Provinces.  He was that 'swine' that Rosie mentioned.  Because
the South took so much punishment during the Great War, leaving
Mobotropolis relatively untouched for most of the fighting, and
because Karack passed himself off as a militarty genius, Father
apparently trusted his judgment.  Maybe if Father had been more
of a skeptic all this never would have happened.
     "Anyway, Karack reasoned with Father that the royal family
needed to be split up for 'security reasons.'  He must have
convinced Father that, if the royal family stayed together, we
could all be wiped out in a single attack.  So Father approved of
the plan.
     "At first, Mother told me, it wasn't such a hardship to be
separated from Father.  I suppose looking after an infant took
much of her time.  But she said she also wrote many letters to
Father.  I don't think any of them ever reached Father, or if
they did, they were altered to say what Karack wanted them to
say.
     "So long as Karack could present himself as a successful
governor in a combat zone, he had Father's ear.  That made it all
the easier when Karack brought his protege to court with a
petition that he be installed in the War Ministry: Julian."
     "So this Karack and Robotnik were on the same side all
along?"
     "Apparently.  It's hard to say who thought he was in control
of whom.  Karack must have been sure he had Julian on a short
leash; we've seen what Julian was capable of doing.
     "I was four years old when the experiments began.  Mother
began to be sick a lot; I'm not certain but I think Julian was
arranging to have someone taint her food so she'd have to be
taken someplace for treatments.  All I knew was that someone
would come to take her away, they'd lock me in my room, and
nobody would let me out no matter how much I pounded on the door
or screamed.  Only when she was back in her room would they let
me out."
     "You sound as if you were being held prisoner."
     "We were; there's no other way to explain it."
     "And Father never suspected anything?"
     "Apparently not; Karack must have let a couple of letters
get through--enough to put his mind at ease.  So he had no way of
knowing what was happening to us.
     "One day, Mother was brought back in and I was let into her
room.  She was unconscious, and when I tried to move her, the
covering slipped off her bed, where she'd been placed.  I...I
can't begin to describe what I felt when I saw what they'd done
to her left foot.  I thought they'd chopped off her real one and
put a metal one in its place.  I was panicked and screaming when
two bots came into the room.  They took me to a laboratory of
some sort.  After that everything was a blur except for
Julian...and that look on his face!  I woke up back in the room
where Mother and I were being held.  My right hand had been
roboticized.  The forearm and upper arm came later on two
different occasions.
     "From that time on we were treated as prisoners, without
even the pretense of civilized treatment.  From our window we
could see shipments of bots coming in, as Julian prepared for
some kind of assault.
     "Then the day came when Julian had us brought to the throne
room.  He said he was going to 'tie together some loose ends.' 
The first one he took care of was Karack."
     "Let me guess: Robotnik had him roboticized."
     "Robotnik knew all along what kind of petty opportunist he
was up against in Karack.  He would have done Karack a favor by
roboticizing him.  After he was done, Robotnik didn't leave
enough of Karack to pour into one of your boots.  He made Mother
and I watch what happened--I still wake up screaming sometimes,
thinking about it.  Then he ordered us returned to our room."
     "So how did you ever escape?"
     "It wasn't easy.  We were under surveillance every minute of
every day.  Ironically, it was Robotnik who made our escape
possible.
     "The residents of the capitol thought they were safe because
of Karack's dealings with Robotnik, but they were wrong.  With
Karack out of the way, Robotnik had no more use for the city.  He
brought in SWAT-bots and began destroying the whole place.
     "I don't have any clear memories of what happened, but
Mother told me that we were being escorted down a hallway by a
couple of Karack's guards when the palace was rocked by some kind
of explosion--we could never learn exactly what had happened. 
Anyway, in that one moment, the guards panicked and fled, more
worried about saving their own lives than watching us.  That was
all the chance Mother needed.
     "Mother had been born in the Southern Provinces and had
wintered in the palace as a child.  So she knew every inch of the
place, including tunnels and passages nobody was supposed to know
about. She opened one of these and we went inside.  That was the
first time I heard the sound of SWAT-bots.  They were coming down
the hallway, then I could hear the sound of their footsteps
fading as they headed off in the direction of our room.  I'm sure
they were under orders to execute us.
     "We moved along the corridor.  It was darker than night in
there, but Mother held me and whispered that I should be very
quiet.  I could only feel myself being carried onward and
downward, down what felt like a descending pathway.
     "No sooner had we reached what felt like the botton of the
path and a stretch of level tunnel than the ground above us
began shaking violently.  I remember screaming, then dirt raining
down on top of me.  Next thing I knew, I was outside of the city,
in the moonlight.
     "Mother told me later what had happened: bombs had been
placed in select areas of the city and the palace, with the
military bots--now called SWATbots--holding the people captive in
several predetermined locations.  Robotnik apparently got away
after giving the order for the SWATbots to detonate the bombs.
That's how the palace, the capitol and the people were destroyed.
It didn't matter to Robotnik that he lost a number of his
SWATbots--maybe he thought it would look more like a military
strike that way.  Maybe half a dozen Mobians survived the blast
through some twist of fate or other.  Mother and I survived only
because we were underground.
     "We came up through an opening that led to the outskirts of
the city; the city itself appeared to be deserted except for the
bodies.  We were too much in shock at the time to know what to do
or where to go.  We found a house that was still relatively
intact and fell asleep.  
     "The next morning we woke to find ourselves surrounded by
Nomads--apparently they'd come to scavenge the city or what was
left of it.  Because Mother still had some of her jewels with
her, including a brooch studded with gems that was a wedding
present from Father--that's the one I gave Bunnie to show to 
you--and because Mother knew a great deal about the Nomads'
language and customs, we bargained our way onto the caravan.  And
we travelled with the Nomads from that day forward, hiding our
identities when SWATbot patrols came around.  When we heard that
Mobotropolis had been taken and the populace roboticized, it
seemed pointless to go back anyway.  We got used to that life,
but it cost us dearly: we lost all hope that things would ever be
as they were.  And then we ran into Dirk and heard about you.
     "I think that's it," she said as she wiped the dirt from her
hands.
     "So do I.  Let's go."
     Sally and Sandy left the clearing, their task accomplished. 
Sally still had hopes that Uncle Chuck might find a way to
miraculously cure their mother.  In the meantime, they had acted
in accordance with Mobian custom: they had, with their bare
hands, dug their mother's grave.
     They returned to Knothole just as Uncle Chuck stepped out of
Sally's hut.  Sally, despite the physical and emotional
exhaustion she felt, ran toward him.
     "Any news, Uncle Chuck?"
     "Yes, but I'm afraid it's not good."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

                                 Chapter 6


     Sandy and Sally followed Uncle Chuck into the hut.  Sonic
and Bunnie were inside already, and Rotor and Antoine were busy
bringing items into the hut from the porch.  A small mountain of
flowers was growing near the foot of the bed.
     "It was Bunnie's idea," Uncle Chuck said.  "Now that we have
a better idea of what's happening to your mother, Bunnie thought
she might appreciate seeing some of the things left for her." 
Indeed, Queen Alicia, though still weak and pale, was genuinely
touched by the tributes left for her.
     "What IS happening to her, Uncle Chuck?" Sally asked.  Uncle
Chuck paused.
     "Before I explain, you have to understand I only invented
the roboticizer to enable older folks to live longer lives; I
certainly never meant for them to cheat death."
     "What does that have to do with it?" Sandy asked
impatiently.
     "I actually had the basic process worked out a year before I
finally rejected it--and a year before Robotnik began using it
for his own purposes.  I spent almost that whole year working on
one aspect of the process: bioscreening."
     "Bioscreening?"  Sally asked.  "What's that?"
     "A roboticized body isn't entirely mechanical.  What the
roboticization process does is to reconstruct mechanical analogs
to some of the failed body systems, such as wasted limbs, and use
other systems that are still functioning without replacing them. 
The heart continues to function, serving as an electric motor
once it's been adapted; the brain continues to function as well,
though it appears that the penetration of the brain by the
mechanical components had a lot to do with destroying a person's
will.  That's why I ultimately gave up on the notion of
roboticization.
     "But the body of someone who's been roboticized becomes like
any other machine: it performs mechanical functions and those
functions produce waste products.  I found that the early
roboticizing process produced many unwanted elements, and unless
they were dealt with...."
     "Unless they were dealt with," Rotor spoke up, "they'd have
nowhere to go except back into the body!"
     "That's right.   And...and that's what's killing the Queen."
     It suddenly became very quiet inside the hut.
     "Robotnik must have used an earlier version of the process;
either that, or he simply removed the bioscreening capabilities
from a later design.  Either way,..."
     "Never mind all that!" Sandy snapped.  "Exactly what's
killing our mother?"
     "It's...there are so many things," Uncle Chuck sighed. 
"She's suffering from irregular heart rhythms caused by
electrical interference, her lungs are full of tumors caused by
toxins, her liver has been poisoned by heavy metals...there's
just too much...."
     Sandy turned on her heels, hurled a chair across the hut,
and before the last splinter fell to the floor she was gone. 
Sally rose to follow her.
     "Better let her be, Sally girl," Bunnie said softly.
     "You stay, too, Bunnie.  This is your problem as well." 
Uncle Chuck's words rooted Bunnie to the spot.  
     "You and Sandy are in the same position as the Queen, though
not to the same extent.  The blood samples I took from both of
you confirm it: you're being affected by the same thing that's
affecting the Queen."
     "Is there a..." Bunnie started to ask.
     "A cure?  If caught early enough, yes.  The technology to
detoxify your body is readily available.  Unfortunately, so long
as you're part-robot, you'll only wind up 're-infecting'
yourself, as it were.  Unless you were deroboticized, it would
only be a matter of time before your body started breaking down
from the stress."
     "And Mother?" Sally asked.  Uncle Chuck shook his head
slightly.
     "Uncle Chuck," Sonic asked, "are you saying that anyone
who's been roboticized is going to go through this?"
     "That's about the size of it, Sonic."
     "No way!  I mean, YOU were roboticized yourself and you're
not...."
     Whatever else Sonic had to say died on his lips.  Uncle
Chuck looked at his nephew with robotic eyes, eyes that still
showed a great deal of pain.
     "Sonie, I didn't want to say anything because I didn't fully
understand what was going on and I didn't want to scare you, but
I've felt myself starting to slow down lately.  Not a lot, but
enough to notice.  At first I thought it was just my age catching
up to me, but...."
     "No!"
     "Sonie, listen to me!  I had Nicole run a model of the
progression of this...this disease or whatever you want to call
it.  Based on what she said, and after analyzing my own blood
sample, I've still got about three more good years left in me
before...."
     "Oh, Uncle Chuck, no," Sally whispered.  She walked up to
him and put her arms around him.  Then she asked, "What about the
others?"
     "Nicole estimates that within five years..."  He couldn't
finish the sentence.  Rotor grabbed a chair and Uncle Chuck sat
down heavily.  "Within five years, anywhere from a third to one
half of the roboticized Mobians will be dead or dying.  Inside of
ten years, nobody who was fully roboticized will be left."  The
silence in the hut deepened.
     "What have I done?" Uncle Chuck wailed, burying his face in
his hands, "what have I done?"
     It was the faintest of whispers that caught his attention. 
The Queen was calling his name.  He approached Queen Alicia and
knelt next to her bed.  The Queen placed her hand on his own.
     "It's not...your fault.  This...is Julian's evil.  It is
not...your fault."
     Bunnie turned and left the hut in a daze.  She wandered out
toward the river that ran next to Knothole, and the bridge that
spanned it.  She could see someone standing at the middle of the
bridge, looking down at the flowing water.  It was Sandy.  Bunnie
walked over to her.
     "You OK, Sandy?" she asked.  Sandy didn't say anything for a
minute, until she drew back her cloak.
     "You see this scar tissue, just where the robot arm ends?"
     "Uh huh."
     "One day, when I must have been about eight years old, I
felt that the Nomad children had called me 'monster hand' for the
last time.  I snuck a knife out of one of the tents, took it with
me to a secluded spot, and started cutting my arm off.  I bit my
lip raw trying not to scream out from the pain.  I never finished
the job; I passed out from loss of blood, and that's how they
found me.  They told me I almost died that day; I told them I
wished I had."
     She turned.  "Bunnie, I don't know how you manage to keep
from killing yourself."
     Bunnie didn't answer, because she didn't have an answer. 
Mercifully, she was spared from having to answer the question,
for Tails walked up to her.  He looked unusually sullen.
     "Somethin' the matter, honey?" Bunnie asked.
     "I just don't know why everyone's acting so strange, Aunt
Bunnie.  I mean, I know that it's sad that the Queen's gonna die,
but how come everybody's so weirded out about it?  It's...."
     "Scary, right?"
     "Yeah," he said in a near-whisper, glad that someone else
could talk about the feeling he wasn't about to admit himself.
     Bunnie thought for a few seconds.  "Maybe Ah can explain it.
You remember what happened last winter, when Sonic had to stay
with Antoine until he could get his place rebuilt after Dulcy
landed on it?"
     "Yeah!" Tails laughed.  "Antoine really got bent out of
shape!  You could hear him yelling at Sonic all over Knothole."
     "That's 'cuz Antoine got used to livin' a certain way, and
when he had to get used to Sonic's way of livin', he couldn't
handle it."
     "But what's that got to do with the way everyone's been
acting?"
     "Well, honey, we all of us get used to life, and when we're
reminded that we're all gonna have to stop livin' one day, then
it's our turn to get bent out of shape.  See what Ah mean?"
     "I think so.  Thanks, Aunt Bunnie."  He smiled, kissed
Bunnie on the cheek, and was off.
     "Why 'Aunt Bunnie?'" Sandy asked.
     "Oh, that's jes' what he calls me, same as he calls Sally
'Aunt Sally.'"  Bunnie paused.  "Y'know, Sandy, that may be the
answer to your question."
     "What is?"
     "Well, you can see we're not like any fancy kinda army here.
It feels more like...like a family.  After all, we all lost our
real families when Robotnik took over and roboticized 'em.  We
don't have any kin of our own left, so we have to be kin to each
other.  Ah think that's what keeps us going."
     "I see.  Well, maybe I'll find something to keep *me*
going."
     "Ah hope so."
     "You'll excuse me, I'm going for a walk."
     Sandy walked to the end of the bridge, then turned and began
walking along the bank of the river.  She studied the bank
intently, as if looking for something.  Occasionally she would
reach into the water and pull out a small stone from the river
bed.  The first few stones she tossed back into the water.
Finally, she found one that suited some purpose of hers.  Sitting
on the riverbank, she pulled out her knife and slowly and
methodically began running the stone against the blade.  She
didn't stop until the blade was as sharp as a scalpel.


To be continued...