-= Day Zero, Part Two =-

III. Complicity

Present day.

Queen Nicole of the Acorn throne sat cross-legged in the freshly manicured grass of the Castle Acorn courtyard, a pot of coffee in hand. She wrapped her velvet nightgown tightly around herself, and stared at the sun through closed eyes, feeling the pink-gold morning rays soaking into her skin, the bulbous dots of dull red and orange swirling around behind her eyelids.

For the past few years, this had been her morning ritual, harkening back to the first months of her life in her android cat body, when the war against Robotnik and Naugus had reached its crescendo. In here, she could collect her thoughts and renew the connection to her lithe synthetic body - whenever things got rough, a good night's rest and a visit to the courtyard to meditate had never failed to give her the fresh perspective she needed.

Behind came the sound of heavy footsteps thudding against the grass, making her eyes snap open. The way the buckles jingled and jangled told her who it was before he spoke.

"Good morning, Griff," she said to the morning air.

"Hello, your highness. It certainly is a lovely morning..."

In the years following Naugus and Robotnik's simultaneous defeat, Griff had been appointed War Minister, if only by virtue of a desperate lack of volunteers at the time. He may have been the best choice of a bad lot at the time, but he'd taken his job seriously, keeping careful mind of the future security of the Acorn empire, and the, until recently, merely simmering tensions between Trema, capital of Mobius North, and Mobotropolis of the South.

"How's the army shaping up?" Nicole asked, stretching and opening her eyes to look at him.

"It's..." Minister Griff frowned. She asked him this every day, and it had become a sort of running joke between them; after all, the populace of Mobius South had now gotten used to the idea of an everlasting peace. He'd never really figured out if it was just Nicole's jovial demeanour or some kind of cruel jibe, but he normally found it amusing. Normally.

Whatever the tone was on less urgent occasions, Nicole was not joking now. "It's...?"

"The Mobius South Army stands ready, your highness. I made an inquiry this morning as to how the outer city defences are holding up. They're solid. Border security reports things are running smooth."

"That's good to hear," Nicole nodded. "But don't issue any alerts, just keep it business as usual." She got to her feet, taking another long sip of coffee - it was a high quality brew, cultivated from the old Robotropolis reserves. Robotnik's reserves.

Griff leaned back against the base of a tall statue next to him, carved in the image of King Maximilian. "That's the plan, your highness. Is... the morning routine working for you today?" He looked at her, studying the circles under her eyes.

Nicole smiled, appreciative of his apparently genuine concern. "It's working quite well, I think. I'm feeling much better today."

"Nice." He smiled. He knew she was lying. But despite his profession, he'd never been fond of confrontations. Maybe that was why she'd elected to keep him in his position.

The feline queen didn't doubt he saw through it too. Meditating only worked if she'd actually slept the night before, and Nicole had been awake until the dawn, running the last evening's events over and over in her head. She'd bathed three times during the night. She still felt like she hadn't washed any of the blood off.

They began walking back toward the interior. "So... have you heard much of the initial reaction to what happened last night?"

"I've heard a little," Griff said, staring at his feet.

She smirked. "Not good, I presume?"

He looked at her for a second, but turned his gaze to the surrounding scaffolding when he saw her looking back. She carried a smirk on her face, but her eyes looked worried... very worried.

"Well..." he began. "I don't think you did it. That's all I can say."

"Welcome back to Knothole, your highness!"

Rotor bowed as she left the hovercraft with Griff in tow, reaching for her hand. She gently patted it away, but made up for the gesture with a quick hug - the formal gesture of extending one's hand was something she could appreciate, but she did not like being treated as a superior by those that she considered to be close friends.

"How's everyone been around here?"

The walrus scratched the back of his head, his matted, frayed baseball cap moving up and down with the motion. "Pretty good, 'till last night of course. What happened?"

Nicole grimaced, her tiny black nose wrinkling up. "We'll get to that at the meeting, Rotor. What else has been going on around here?"

Did it have to be so soon that they started with the questions? The meeting was still a half-hour off, after all, and anything she could do to put it off seemed appealing.

"Just the usual stuff, I guess. Chuck's finally finished going over all that code you dropped in last year for the roboticiser. I've had a look at it too, but it's a little over my head."

"Did he get anything useful from it?"

"Sorry, but not really, from the sound of things. Robotnik had made this enormous amount of changes to the source that Chuck had originally given him, to the point that it's almost like a whole new codebase. Can't even imagine how many years it must've taken him to get it all working, and all done in secret..." He shuffled a little, shifting his balance from one flat foot to the other. "In any case, the only way we'll ever do a deroboticiser at this point is by total reverse-engineering. Chuck's original code is just too old. And it'll take... well, years, with a team like ours."

The queen nodded, looking up into the lush Knothole canopy and taking a deep breath. "Don't worry, we're in no hurry. We still have all the roboticised citizens we were able to recover in cold storage. They won't be going anywhere."

Every time Rotor thought about that, he shivered. The roboticisation process did not completely transform living tissue to circuits and steel - the brain and heart survived the process intact, and without Robotnik's command signal being sent anymore, their internal preservation systems had shut-off. It was only until a few months after that it was noticed by some of the Mobotropolis scientists that this had happened, until they'd started to notice a particularly unpleasant smell coming from one of the bots. They'd nicknamed it 'brain rot' - and who could say, after taking so long to notice that, how many of these Mobians had been affected by the condition? Would any of them even be alive after the procedure was over?

They started through the damp grass, taking the bridge over the stream, heading past the power ring pool.

Nicole hadn't been here for a good few months, but she enjoyed it every time she saw it. Mobotropolis was a city on the mend, and reconstruction progressed steadily despite the young age average and severe skill deficit. Knothole, on the other hand, looked barely any different than what it had when the coup had happened eighteen years ago, even after a total rebuild when the fallout from the Adramalech battle had reduced half of it to cinders.

The air was cool and pure against her fur. The steady flow of the river provided the background to the backdrop, punctuated by the musical calls of birds echoing out from among the trees. She was glad that the Freedom Fighters had deigned to keep Knothole obscure from the general populace. It was a sanctuary then and it was still a sanctuary now.

They passed by Lupe's cabin - formerly Princess Sally's. It had been the only one that was left untouched by the Adramalech fallout, and it seemed only fitting that they'd chosen to keep Sally's statue out the front of her own place. Lupe had had her reservations about moving in, but space was short and the others had outright refused to go in for all the memories the place conjured up - at the time, years had already passed since Sally had been lost, but no one had really been able to let her go. There had been no funeral, and no body recovered. Just a series of silent, private goodbyes.

The night that they'd gone through to gather all of Sally's personal effects and transport them for storage in the castle was one of the most heartbreaking Nicole could remember.

Her statue, built by Lupe and Knuckles, still stood proud in the centre of the clearing, eyes of emerald gleaming in the shafts of sun. Knuckles had stopped by every day to make sure it was clean. Maybe it was some kind of atonement. Lupe had told her in the past that he was still suffering a kind of survivor's guilt, though guilt in any shape or form, was not something he'd ever admit to harbouring to anyone.

"Morning." The voice came from above - tilting her head and turning on her thermal imaging, she could see 'Sheriff' Knuckles perched high above at the edge of a clearing, legs dangling over the edge of the thick branch he'd sat himself on.

"Hello, Knuckles!" Nicole called out. "Why don't you come down?"

"No thanks. I'll be there for the meeting."

"Suit yourself!"

Griff squinted, scanning the canopy for the elusive echidna. "I can't even spot him."

Knuckles' natural red colour didn't lend itself well to blending in, but the dark brown leather he wore helped to cover up his obviousness, and he'd well learned in his youth how to blend in and go unnoticed, looking on quietly from the shadows.

The last of the echidna, now approaching the twilight of his early years, had historically possessed all the makings of an outcast even when he'd first shown up in Knothole. He'd spent half of his youth alone as the sole survivor of the disaster of Angel Island at the hands of Naugus and Lazar, but he'd also been gifted/cursed with an all-consuming sense of duty and loyalty. He truly was a natural-born guardian, a quality that had, at first, seemed appropriate for drafting him into the Mobius South Army.

It only took a week of constant complaints during their regular training, however, for Griff to come to the conclusion that Knuckles was not a team player, and he'd been reassigned an unofficial position as lookout for Knothole - one that he'd been all too happy to accept. He kept watch over the tiny village almost obsessively, and shared very little of himself with others. The only one who'd managed to get even remotely close to him had been Lupe, and even then things were hot and cold. But Nicole had long noticed the two saw something in each other, that perhaps no one else could see. Some rumours had been going around that she even knew his real name, which she'd neither confirm nor deny.

When they finally made their way to the war room, Antoine, Bunnie and Chuck were already waiting. Chuck was sitting quietly in his chair, tapping away at his MX-50 handset - the one that once, had been Nicole's body. Now, it'd been repurposed as a general computer with an AI that Rotor had developed - it was basic and did not have much of a personality, which suited Chuck just fine (though it did often exhibit signs of Rotor's subtle brand of humour in its operations, such as the file system being christened 'TUNA-FS').

"Your highness," he nodded, tiny red dots in the glossy black of his eyes blinking.

Antoine leaned forward, resting his chin on one hand, while Bunnie worriedly pressed a wet face-washer to his temple.

"Really, it is feeling quite better now, ma cherie," he mumbled when he saw Nicole walk in, immediately sitting up straight and straightening his collar.

Bunnie frowned, lifting the wet cloth for a moment to observe the swelling. "But darlin', that lump in yer noggin's still the size of a golf ball..." She studied his face, then perked her ears up when she saw Nicole, Rotor and Griff standing in the doorway.

"How are you doing, Antoine?" Nicole asked. "It seems you took a real beating yesterday."

"I ain't let him outta mah sight since you fellas shipped him back on the transport last night," Bunnie laughed. "Rosie said it was a classic concussion, do ya mind if we keep 'im here at home for a couple more days?"

Griff ran a hand over his face. "Give me a break..."

Nicole nodded amiably, though not without giving Griff a brief scowl. "Go for it. He's been pushing himself hard as of late."

A few minutes later, Knuckles and Lupe had bowled in, quietly taking their seats. It had been a long time since they'd last held a meeting in this room with everyone there, and no one had ever looked forward to it. A war room meeting meant bad news, and hard decisions. Today would be no different.

"So..." Nicole started, looking down the oak table at the rest of the group. "We'll get this over with, now."

"Did you do it?" Knuckles asked.

"Knuckles!" Griff glared at him, nostrils flaring. "Are you seriously accusing her of murder?"

"No, I'm asking her."

"You have absolutely no excuse for acting like -"

"It's okay, Griff." Nicole raised a hand, speaking quietly, reservedly. Griff sank back in his seat. He knew that voice of hers. "And no, I didn't do it," she said.

Knuckles leaned back with his arms folded, and nodded, apparently satisfied with her answer.

"Ah don't understand it then..." Bunnie squeaked. "Christof was their leader... what good reason would two a his lackeys have to knife him in the back and then off 'emselves as well?"

"Christof and Nicole were about to sign a peace treaty," Chuck told her. "Obviously someone didn't want it signed. It's no big secret that a lot of the folks in Trema still harbour a lot of hatred for us in the south, and maybe they weren't keen on seeing an alliance form."

"That seems like the most obvious scenario," Nicole nodded gravely. "The problem is that nothing I say will mean anything without any evidence to back up what I say. There were two eyewitnesses, one of which I couldn't even recognise."

"And how about you, sugah?" Bunnie asked, turning to Antoine. "Remember anything? Anythin' at all?"

The coyote grimaced, shaking his head. "I am remembering not one thing, not before or after. I recall my queen heading into tze meeting room, then..."

"Then what?" Lupe asked, leaning forward.

"No thing..." He frowned. "Only... all black, and fuzzy..."

"What about the window?" Chuck asked. "The window was shattered when Nicole came out. That person could've knocked you out when he came through. Do you remember it breaking? Anyone coming through?"

"Non," he said, growing increasingly uncomfortable with all the sets of eyes upon him.

"Are you sure?" Chuck asked him again. "If you remember anything..."

"I am sure."

"Anything..."

"I said I am sure!" Antoine snapped back at him. "I cannot be making myself any more clear!"

Chuck frowned, nodding slowly. "I'm sorry, Antoine. It's just that things are looking desperate. What about you, Nicole? Are you sure of what you saw?"

"I'm absolutely positive of what I saw. I think whoever it was that came through the window, was only planning on trying to stop what went down. He actually apologised to me before he left. Antoine must've already been out to it by then."

"Did you see his face?" Knuckles prodded.

Nicole shook her head, rubbing her forehead with two fingers. "I couldn't see anything clearly by then. There was still blood in my eyes..."

No one said anything more for a while.

"Then..." Griff leaned back in his chair, folding one leg over the other. "We've got no witnesses except for Nicole herself. Antoine's knock gave him amnesia, there are no cameras in the hall or the meeting room, and no one even heard any of the commotion over the storm outside." He breathed long and deep. "We're screwed."

"How can ya say that, Griff?" Bunnie said, her ears folding back under her blonde hair. "All the signs still point to there bein' some foul play goin' on with the whole shebang. Glass don't shatter into a building unless you're comin' in from the outside. Nicole, you been our queen for seven years now, and you ain't put a foot wrong. Ya think no one's gonna be able to take your word?"

Nicole shook her head. "I doubt it. Some of our own, maybe. The North, well... no. I don't think so. Half of them still resent us for even being here, after what Robotnik and Maximilian did to them during the Great War." She sighed, running a hand through her long, jet-black hair. "A lot of them, have just been waiting for an excuse to hit back at us. Now they'll have one, if we don't do something."

She looked around the room, slowly, at the faces that now stared at her. Here she was, surrounded by her closest friends and her most trustworthy servants, but all the same, she felt... alone. Completely and utterly alone.

"But it isn't fair!" Rotor cried out, slamming a fist against the table, making every fitting in the room rattle. "They can't do this!"

"Life rarely is," Nicole whispered.

The walrus grimaced, staring down at the wood grain before him. "Wait... there might be a way to retrieve some proof..."

Griff's eyebrows shot up. "Yes...?"

"Well... you're an android, Nicole..." Rotor looked at her, not quite sure of how to phrase things. He looked like he was sorry for even entertaining the thought of asking. "You've got a brain like the rest of us, but you can be... hooked up..."

Chuck said nothing, but frowned when he heard the idea.

"I've considered that," Nicole said. "Maybe it's a possibility, retrieving my memories straight from my cyber-brain. But I'm not fond of the idea..."

"What kind of problems could there be?" Griff pressed. "We've got to try whatever we can to get some proof that you're innocent!"

Chuck spoke up next: "There are three problems. One, it's dangerous because we'd be the ones doing the diving, and a wrong move could kill her. Two, the Mobian brain doesn't store memories in any kind of organised order. They need to be triggered, which is something we can't do from the outside, and can you imagine how much information the average brain accumulates in a lifetime? Which brings me to number three..." he fell silent for a bit, twiddling his thumbs, listening to the faint click-click-click as the bolts and joints moved.

"Number three...?"

"If they jacked into my brain," Nicole finished, "They'd be able to see everything." She closed her eyes tight, more and more uncomfortable with the idea by the second. "Every single one of my memories, thoughts and feelings would be laid bare."

Griff stared out the window, watching one of the exotic Mobius birds cutting its way across the hole in the lush green canopy. "Would you be able to consent to that?" he asked.

"Hmph." Nicole looked at him until he turned his gaze away from the window and made eye contact. "Would you be able to, Griff?"

The goat closed his eyes, folding his arms. "I suppose that idea's off the table, then."

"It's true..." Rotor murmured under his breath. "No one should ever have to be put through something like that."

"I won't say it's off the table," Nicole admitted reluctantly, "but I'd like to consider it a last resort. I don't think I'm alone in thinking there are parts of anyone... that no one else should ever see..."

"Then we still haven't come up with an action," Lupe pointed out. "What do you propose, your highness?"

Nicole sighed. "Chuck, Rotor, I'm afraid I'll have to take you two back with us to the city, and get to work on finding out who it might've been that came through the window. He could only have gotten in via the rooftops, so surveillance will be slim pickings, but do absolutely anything you can to get us an ID. Understood?"

"Gotcha," Rotor and Chuck both said in unison. They'd been spending too much time in each others' company.

"Great," Nicole smiled. "Griff, keep at what you do, but don't raise any red flags unless something goes awry. Lupe, I'll need to ask you to do something unpleasant..."

"I've seen my share of unpleasantness, after what happened to my clan..." Lupe said. "What will it be?"

"You're good with words, and you have an urbane manner when it's called for. I'll need someone to deliver an announcement in my absence to say that Christof and I will not be able to make any of our scheduled announcements today."

Lupe's eyes bulged. "You're right. That will be unpleasant. You know the first thing they will ask is 'why', your highness..."

"If they ask, tell them you don't know. Don't implicate yourself, don't announce anything else. The media blackout of the incident will hold, but not for more than a day or two, I suspect. Eventually, someone in the know inside the castle's going to blow the whistle. We need this thing sorted before that happens."

The wolf ran a hand over her mouth, her chest rising and falling slowly. "I will do as you ask, though I'm not fond of lying."

Nicole shrugged. "Nor am I. Rarely in politics can you ever tell the truth and have people believe it."

"What about us?" Bunnie asked, looking at Antoine.

"Just take care of your husband, Bunnie." Nicole said warmly. "And keep an eye on the village while Knuckles is gone."

Knuckles' eyes narrowed. "Come again?"

"Come on," Nicole laughed, despite herself. "Don't you get bored of sitting around in the trees and eating grapes all day? I could use a helping hand while I'm up in the north for the next day or so."

"In the... north..." Knuckles grimaced. "For the next... day or so..." Gods, things just kept getting better and better.

Ten hours later, Knuckles woke up feeling like he'd been tossed into a walk-in freezer overnight.

He peeked through the curtains of the road train's cabin and saw something he never thought he'd see again in his life - the ambrosial green of the south of Mobius had given way to the snow-capped peaks and frozen wastes of the north. The last time he'd seen such beauty was when he'd visit the Ice Cap mountains of Angel Island. Before his friends had used a gargantuan laser cannon to blast the entire island out of the sky.

"Are you awake now, Knuckles?" he heard a gentle voice above his head. He turned around and saw Nicole grinning down at him. He couldn't even remember dozing off. Nor could he imagine how Nicole could possibly be amused when her future - when all of their futures - possibly rested on the outcome of this meeting.

"I was only resting my eyes," he grumbled, voice as raspy as he could make it.

"You'd be the first one I've known to snore while they rest their eyes, then." Nicole walked over and pulled the curtains aside, flooding the darkened cabin with light. "We're here. Help me with the caskets up the back."

"Ugh... alright." Knuckles slowly sat up, scratching the back of his head. One of the annoying things about dreadlocks - the itching. "Why are you laughing, Nicole?"

Nicole smiled, looking out the window. "Sometimes, my friend, you just have to."

As chilled as the climate was outside, the mood in the Office of the Grandmaster of the Brotherhood of Thamael that ruled over Mobius North, felt colder still.

"It's been a long time, Ari," Nicole smiled pleasantly as they stepped into the office. She had kept her attire modest for this trip, with some simple black pants and white vest, which she'd elected to keep done up, all covered with a thick trenchcoat.

Knuckles had never met Ari before, but he'd heard a few stories about how the ram had helped them out, and once actually double-crossed them, back in the old guerilla days against Robotnik's regime. No one had told him, however, that Ari was a high-ranking acolyte of the Brotherhood. Perhaps not many of them had known.

"It certainly has, your highness," Ari frowned. "And I wish we could be meeting under better circumstances."

"Ari, I-" a small voice came from the door behind them - Knuckles turned his head to see it was Marr, the shy little lynx that had joined Sonic and Tails on their expedition to... wherever. "Oh, sorry. I didn't know you had visitors."

"Marr?" Knuckles started.

The lynx bowed almost imperceptibly, feeling incredibly awkward. "Long time no see, Knuckles."

"Aren't you supposed to be off the continent with Sonic and your boyfriend, or something?"

"Uh..." she frowned, looking up at the desk where Ari sat. "This isn't the time to be talking about that. Perhaps we'll catch up some time after?"

Knuckles waved his hand at her dismissively, turning his attention back to the Brotherhood Grandmaster. Perhaps, they could, if they weren't skewering each other with bayonets by the month's end.

"You two know each other?" Ari's eyebrows furrowed slightly.

"We had a mutual acquaintance in the form of Tails, the kitsune," Nicole filled in. "Do you know him?"

"I remember him, the little fox boy..." Ari nodded. "Yes, I remember Marr telling me about him and Sonic when they were overseas."

"Seems we missed the memo that they were all back," Knuckles smirked, looking at Nicole.

"Marr came back by herself," Ari said politely. "Didn't say much about her travels. I didn't ask, she didn't tell. She just slotted right back in."

Nicole and Knuckles exchanged puzzled glances. Something was wrong there, but now wasn't the time to follow it up.

The ram, decked out in his red vest and black Grandmaster's cape, leaned forward in his seat, curling his fingers together. He was an imposing sight, Knuckles noted. The whole sanctuary was an imposing sight - a dark and grandiose, ancient monastery carved straight out of a mountainside, with everything all black and red, marble and velvet, torches and candles. He remembered Marr rattling on and on years ago about everything the symbol of Thamael, a six-pointed star with an image of an eye in it, stood for. Tails had indulged in the spiel from time to time too, though with a far saner level of enthusiasm.

"Let's not beat around the bush, here." Ari frowned. "This seat belongs to Grandmaster Christof, but now it looks like I'll be occupying it myself for the foreseeable future. My master and two assistants travelled to Mobotropolis with a notion of goodwill and a mind to seal a treaty of lasting peace between our nations."

Knuckles swallowed. This is going to suck.

"And you've come back the next day, with their corpses in the back of a road train!" He glared daggers at Nicole. "If the general population here and among yours hear this tale exactly as I've heard it, we'll be looking at full-scale attacks in days, with the blame for every single slaying that takes place, laid upon your shoulders. Do you understand?"

"I understand perfectly, Grandmaster," Nicole nodded. "That's why I'm here. I didn't hide this or attempt to cover it up. Your received my testimony via electronic mail this morning and it recounts every detail that I'm able to provide. We've returned you the bodies in exactly the state they were after the murder took place. We have submitted as much photographic evidence as we possibly can for your review, and we are conducting our own rigorous investigation into the incident as we speak."

"I've read over all of your correspondence and frankly," he leaned picked up a glass of cognac, and took a sip. "I'm not going to believe a word of it until I have heard the reports of my own acolytes, after they've gone over your castle with a fine-tooth comb."

"That's complete non-sense!" Knuckles blurted out before he could stop himself. "Are you seriously suggesting we allow a bunch of northerners to walk around in the most high-security areas of Mobotropolis like they own the place?"

"That's fine," Nicole butted in, cutting Ari off before he had a chance to explode. "That's absolutely fine. If you send an investigative team in that you can trust, we will provide them with carte-blanche security clearance and provide them with administrator access to all computer accounts, as well as the best lodging we can find."

Ari leaned back in his seat, eyes narrow. "Smart of you."

"On the proviso, that any findings uncovered from your investigation, are shared with my own people," Nicole added. "It's paramount that we maintain total transparency on this matter and find out who is responsible for it. You know just as well as I, that even though both of our nations have been making good progress up to this point, we still both have our own wounds to lick. The absolute last thing I could possibly want with your people is another war!"

She watched the Grandmaster nodding, bottom lip curling. "You're right, of course. But is it not entirely possible, if your testimony is to be believed, that two of our men, had gone haywire and conspired to frame you all by themselves? Perhaps they had no higher authority to martyr themselves to?"

"The tone they used seemed to suggest some higher cause of theirs," Nicole recounted. "No one in such a position would be crazy enough to martyr themselves without the notion that they're doing some kind of service. Putting two of those Mobians in the same room, both without any plausible motive or authority to answer to, is even more far-fetched."

"A fair point," Ari surmised. "It's settled then. I'll be sending a unit of two investigators back with you and your... friend, here." He glared at Knuckles, who just glared right back at him. "And how much longer do you intend to keep this matter a secret?"

Nicole shrugged, turning up her hands. "I don't."

"Then I'll need to think about how I'll go about telling my people here that our leader was found dead at your feet... and then tell them not to take any action about it. That'll be all," Ari stood up from behind his desk, to look out the window with his hands clasped behind his back. The window didn't look outside, but rather over the main hall of the sanctuary, where all of the acolytes were shuffling back and forth about their business. "I appreciate your candour in this matter, Nicole. I hope we'll be able to salvage something positive out of it."

"No door closes without another opening," Nicole said quietly. "Your men are welcome to my city any time, but I'd also highly advise you to look into the goings-on back here at the sanctuary. If someone is behind this, trying to throw a wrench in the gears, they're more likely to be here."

"Of course," Ari said, not turning around.

"Come on," Nicole whispered to Knuckles, rising from her seat and turning to leave.

The echidna got up to follow her, but before leaving he turned to Ari. "You think this entire visit's been a farce, don't you?"

"Didn't I say, that'd be all?" Ari said.

Nicole grabbed him by the wrist, and dragged him out of the office.

It was dusk when they returned outside and embarked on the road train again. They settled in the dining car with some synthesised steak and vegetables, and a mug of hot chocolate each. The Brotherhood, as promised, had provided two investigators of their own, who very promptly made their way to one of the other cars and locked the doors without so much as introducing themselves.

"So..." Nicole said. "What do you think?"

"What do I think?" Knuckles stirred some of the gravy around on his plate, chewing idly on a mouthful of steak. It tasted rubbery and fake, and he'd never really been a fan of meat to begin with - but it was hot, and he was cold, and that was enough for him. "I think Ari's full of shit. He's all smiles while we're here. Soon as we're gone, he'll be off to his lackeys to tell 'em to sharpen their blades."

Nicole chuckled, shaking her head. "Has anyone ever told you, Knuckles, that you don't exactly have the most regal conduct?"

"Huh," Knuckles gave her his I-told-you-so look. "I just call a spade a spade."

The queen of Mobius South sighed, leaning back in her chair. Watched the last dark silhouettes of the mountains die away with the sun, until all she could see was her own reflection in the glass. "Remind me never to take you along on any excursion that requires tact again."

The echidna laughed, for the first time that Nicole could recall in recent memory. "Suit yourself!"

"Last stack for tonight, I swear."

Chuck dumped an armload of data discs onto the desk, nearly knocking over Rotor's coffee.

"Is that everything we've got?" Rotor asked him, the bags under his eyes looking more obvious than ever in the dim light. The only source of illumination in the room was his computer monitor, deep in the bowels of the Mobotropolis lab. He'd remembered this lab being one of Robotnik's main labs - he had to admit, the old man had known how to lay out a workspace.

"That's the lot, Rote. Then you can get some sleep. We've still got time, and you're no good to anyone if you're running on fumes all the time."

"Uhuh..." Rotor took another sip of his coffee, reaching for the first disc in the pile, sliding it straight into the optical drive, and then reaching for another. On the screen, images flickered back and forth of what they'd compiled of all the security footage just before the time of the murder. Unfortunately, the timing couldn't have been better for their guest to go hopping around on the rooftops - the weather was dark and the rain had all but destroyed any possible visibility for most of the security cameras around the city.

"I'm serious, Rotor. This is it. We'll finish this up in the morning."

Rotor rubbed his eyes, watching another tape roll past, this one of a hotel roof. He tapped a command into the console window next to the video footage, and the tape began fast-forwarding by itself. It'd taken him most of the morning, but he'd managed to crank out a simple VIDMAGICK script to automatically scan the videos and alert upon finding any obvious Mobian shapes that they came across, something that Chuck had found most impressive.

Sonic's old uncle was certainly no stranger to computer programming or engineering, but he was old-fashioned, slow and meticulous. Rotor, on the other hand, was a much more cluey and adaptable kid, not quite as sagely on some of the more intricate concepts, but certainly quicker on the uptake.

While Rotor had been working on his script, Chuck had been going practically door to door of every major building in the city, asking them for all of their security tapes from the previous day. He'd been surprised at how forthcoming they'd been with lending him a copy; he wasn't sure if it was just his friendly neighbourhood worker-bot charms, or the royal decree which Nicole had given him to show them that had encouraged their generosity. Probably the latter. There was still about a hundred more discs to go through, but he'd sure had enough at two hundred.

"Do you think we'll find anything?" Rotor asked, sliding another disc into the drive.

Chuck sat down next to him, watching the images flash past on one monitor, all the verbose debug info from Rotor's program scrolling up on the other. "It's not looking good so far, I'll admit, but we've only got to strike gold once."

"Most of 'em, I just can't make out." Rotor frowned, watching one of the tapes. It stopped briefly at a shot of someone walking out on to the roof, making him sit upright, but when he saw it was just one of the locals heading out for a smoke, he sighed and hit fast-forward again. "It's just too dark."

"What's the resolution like on most of them?"

"Lousy," Rotor admitted. "A couple of them are shot in 8K like this one we're looking at now, but most are just standard def-"

"Wait, hold it." Chuck said.

"Huh?" Rotor tapped on the space bar to pause the video, and stared at the screen. "What are we looking at?" The image appeared to be little more than a dim silhouette of the skyline, and a lot of rain.

"Take it back a few frames." It rewound by ten frames, and he leaned in to point at the screen. "See it?"

"Where?" Rotor leaned in.

"There." Chuck's face came up next to Rotor's, his finger pressed hard up against the screen.

Rotor leaned in until his nose was practically rubbing the glass. "Where?"

"Right there!" Chuck tapped the monitor a few times, on a tiny dot against the skyline. "There was a flash of lightning before in this one. Take it back to when it comes up."

"Uh... okay." The walrus still couldn't see it at all, but who was he to argue with him?

He started working his way through in reverse, frame by frame, until a fork of lightning slowly appeared at the bottom of the horizon and started carving its way back up into the clouds. Then, he saw it - a tiny little Mobian figure on the edge of one of the distant buildings, pulling a hood over his head.

"Holy cow..." he breathed. "Now that was well spotted, sir!"

"Heh." Chuck winked as well as he could with his LED-styled red eyes. "Lucky this is an 8K security tape. Zoom it in."

Rotor dragged a box around the tiny figure on the screen, then tapped on 'ZOOM' when it appeared in the context menu that popped up.

Framed by the flash of lightning, the view showed a perfect close-up shot of the mysterious figure, in exactly the attire Nicole had described; all dark leather armour, and a loose cloak and hood hanging over his shoulders.

Rotor clicked back two more frames, until the light clearly showed the Mobian's face. "Oh, man."

Rotor and Chuck both gasped and gave each other the same look.

Chuck looked back at the screen, then back at Rotor. "Is that who I think it is?"

"I don't think there's any mistake about it," Rotor said, taking a final sip of his coffee, now disgustingly cold.

"That's Tails..."