PROLOGUE
The FX-474, nicknamed Night Hawk, dropped like a stone. With the coaxial tilt-rotor system locked into descent mode, she gave the appearance of a novelty circus act, trying to balance two spinning plates on the end of her arms. Inside the cockpit, the GUN pilot broke out a grin. It was one of his favourite analogies for the vehicle. Unfortunately, it also proved that downtime between missions was both too frequent and too tedious. The grin became a frown beneath his helmet.
He decided to just get on with finishing the landing sequence.
Outside the cockpit windows, normality returned to the cavernous hangar bay. The natural daylight that had followed the Night Hawk inside was quickly being extinguished. Huge banks of halogen lamps snapped on to replace it with artificial illumination. It was as though a hundred blazing eyes were opening to watch the return of the fresh-faced pilot. He suddenly felt very self-conscious. For a third time, he checked his systems. It would be such a shame to foul up the finale of his triumphant trip. Especially since the seat in which he sat was worth thousands, let alone the rest of the almighty aircraft.
Wheels unfurled from the belly of the Night Hawk and gently kissed the concrete. The act was over, spinning plates slowing until they became motionless rotor blades. Pilot thanked vehicle and waited for the whine of her two engines to dissipate before relishing the joy of his hearing. All the same, he hoped to fly again soon.
The hangar bay sealed itself with a rumbling crash of gears. The towering blast shield was snugly back in place above them, shutting out the dangers of the world and providing both security and stealth. There was much to hide. Along the side wall, which matched the size of the tallest waterfall at Gigan Rocks, a handful of surviving Sky Hawk robots returned to their recharge portals. Wings folded and metallic beaks tucked away, almost as though distrust of the blast shield added some natural urge to hide. The pilot knew Night Hawk was not immune to the same fear. Inside the hour, she would be refuelled, repaired, reloaded and then pushed aside, into her alcove.
But not before she had delivered her precious cargo.
A tall gentleman of nearly sixty years marched across the landing pad with pride. The lines of his uniform were perfectly pressed, and the cut of his silver hair matched. Keen eyes stared directly ahead. There was not a single ounce of redundancy to his body, limbs finely honed with military precision... and rightly so, the pilot thought, for the head of the military. He certainly set an example to his soldiers.
There was a brief salute from the GUN Commander to the cockpit. It was the closest he would come to lavishing praise. The pilot returned the salute with starch and an enthusiasm that made his arm ache.
Then the Commander’s attention went elsewhere.
The pilot relaxed. He lifted the helmet away from his flattened hair and gently rubbed his temples. A conversation began to echo around the vast hangar bay, somewhere on the landing pad. Somewhere out of his vision. He failed to care. In that moment, the pilot was the least important person to return.
And frankly, he was glad of it.
ACT ONE
“I always knew this day would come.”
The GUN Commander levelled his heterochromia at the hedgehog. Green and brown eyes narrowed as they watched Rouge the Bat introduce Shadow to the cold, gaping chasm of the hangar bay. Shadow, in response, ignored everything. All the soldiers, all the robots, all the weapons and tanks were blanked as the Commander stole focus.
There was nothing on which to elaborate. Recent events between them had been resolved to a tidy conclusion, but it was still a reminder. It was a reminder of the confusion... and of the pain. For both of them.
Rouge broke the silence. “You boys have met before?”
“Yes, we have,” the Commander told her, his gaze still resting on Shadow. Then, as if used to conduct a bolt of lightning, he straightened and blinked. “But there’s no time for a history lesson, Agent Rouge. We’ve got a situation developing. Your debriefing will have to be put on ice for the time being.”
“What about the Chaos Emerald?”
“I can spare a dispatch team to return it to Angel Island. It’s you I need.” He turned sharply on his heel. “Walk with me, I’ll explain as we go.”
The trio started to walk away from the Night Hawk. They headed for a door in the nearest wall which quickly juxtaposed the bare metal and unrefined edge of the hangar bay with a clinical slice of chrome. As the conversation was yet to include him, Shadow took a moment to look around. Multiple corridors branched off into the distance. Blue strip lighting pulsed along the floors like a network of veins. Every few meters, frosted glass panels suggested hundreds of rooms. This was most certainly not the GUN Fortress he had visited before. This was somewhere new, somewhere underground... somewhere massive. Shadow started to slow his pace and fall behind. It felt like being swallowed by the future. A small part of him, deep within his brusque persona, admitted to being impressed.
“Hey, Shadow...!”
It was Rouge. She had noticed his absence and was urging him to catch up. The hedgehog forgot his rule-clad surroundings. He acted on instinct. With a burst of flame, rocket-powered sneakers closed the gap in the blink of an eye. Sighing, the Commander folded his arms and looked decidedly unimpressed.
“Well, your first job can be to buff those out,” he growled.
Shadow turned. Black ribbons of residue spanned the corridor’s polished chrome floor, betraying his actions. Suddenly the Commander’s words registered and he wheeled back to staring up at him. “First job?”
“Rouge just brought me up to speed,” the human clarified. “I know of your unique talents firsthand, and can vouch for your character... that is to say, I hope I can vouch for your character. But working alongside GUN is one thing. Working for us, as an agent, is a whole different ballgame. Like any other recruit, you’re gonna demonstrate that you’ve got what it takes to make the grade.”
Wings fluttering, Rouge took the reins. It was her neck on the line, anyway. She was the one who officially recruited the hedgehog. “Using your Chaos Blast to lay waste to trains and buildings is all well and good, sweetie, but missions that call for such levels of destruction are rare. Sometimes it’s all about having a sensitive touch...” She winked playfully.
“I think he gets the point, Agent Rouge,” the Commander said firmly.
“You’re no fun,” the bat pouted. She hastily added a “Sir” to combat his scowl.
Shadow remained silent throughout the lecture. He could see where it was leading to and if he was honest, he hated the idea. He was what he was. Not a weapon to be used. Not a piece on an international chess board to be moved or bartered, no... had they forgotten? For that matter, had he? He was the Ultimate Lifeform. He had a power like no other. If that power was to be restrained by rules and regulations, perhaps this idea was doomed to failure. Then he paused. Was that the point of all this? Was his arrogance the problem? Maybe heroism was about taking the right orders and fighting the right battles.
Regardless, the Commander reached for a frosted pane of glass. It slid aside at his gesture and revealed a sparse chamber set into the silver walls. There was a bench, a desk and a small sign that simply read GUN Academy – Proving Ground – Agents.
“Your training begins here, Shadow. Try not to destroy the whole place while you’re at it.”
They left him and continued to walk. Corridors blended into one another, punctuated only by a handful of small embossed markings that denoted section, storey and sublevel. It was a seemingly endless intestine of chrome. Rouge fought to keep her balance as the Commander turned a corner and appeared to confidently know his way around. She was thankful when they eventually reached an elevator.
Doors slid shut. A motor hummed overhead. Seconds passed.
Suddenly the Commander lunged for the emergency stop button. He slapped it with a frightening urgency and braced himself as the compartment shuddered to a halt. Pulsing blue lights turned an eerie red.
Rouge flapped her wings to keep from falling. “What was that for?”
“Listen to me.” The Commander even growled when whispering. He dipped his head low and turned away from the deactivated security camera just to be safe, seizing the attention of the bat. “What I am about to say does not, I repeat, does not leave this elevator. I need your word on this one, Agent Rouge.”
She nodded quickly, powdered eyelids batting.
“The GUN mainframe was hacked. They cut through our cyber-defences like they were tissue paper and they knew exactly what they were looking for. Very professional. Terrifying skill, like nothing I have ever seen before.” He paused only to sigh. It was clear he had been desperate to share this news. “A case file was stolen. It had details of the Black Arms, namely data and intel we collected about them during the invasion. Before I even noticed the file was missing, the hackers were long gone. Totally untraceable, meaning they could have been anybody... and anywhere.”
Rouge waited for the answer to the obvious question.
“It happened while you were aboard the armoured train, fighting the Nemesis. That gives you an alibi,” the Commander explained, “as you can’t have been doing both. That also makes you the only person I can trust with this.”
“You mean...?”
Silver hair shook in anger. “Nobody just walks through our firewalls like that. We were all distracted by the pursuit. It would have been child’s play to let somebody in while our backs were turned.” He reached over and cancelled the emergency stop, allowing the normal blue lighting to return. The motor started to hum again. The security camera blinked back to life and saw nothing improper.
Thank goodness it could not see inside the Commander’s head.
The rage would have shorted its circuits.
Elsewhere in the facility, Shadow the Hedgehog was no longer impressed.
He sat, sneakers dangling in midair, on the bench provided. The desk he faced was still empty and the sign remained unchanged. GUN Academy – Proving Ground – Agents. He definitely wanted to be an agent, but the rest of the words frustrated him. An academy. Who were they trying to fool? It was a classroom, for children. Children who needed to learn. And proving ground... he had to prove himself? Had he not done that already? The Commander knew his talents. Rouge had witnessed his power.
They were treating him like a child, and he hated it. As time passed, the patience he had called upon started to wear thin. It was just an empty desk and a pointless sign. And it was insulting.
So when the floor suddenly wrenched open beneath him, he was rightly shocked.
Hopefully, the panic in his scream went unnoticed as he fell.
ACT TWO
Out of control, head over heels, over and over in the darkness he fell.
The sides of the seemingly endless rift were smooth and offered no purchase. Gloved hands frantically scrabbled for anything to break his fall. They failed. His black spines were screeching into the polished metal like fingernails on a chalkboard. Eyes cartwheeled in the gloom. He had long since stopped screaming.
Deeper and deeper down the tube he slid. He wondered if he would reach the core of the planet and get roasted alive. With a flash of inspiration, he ignited his rocket-powered sneakers. Rather than slow his rapid descent, however, they simply threw him against the opposite side of the tube. Nose crunched and face flattened. Then he started to fall again, only this time, backwards. More screeching, more sliding. Another yell. Mercifully, his stomach was relatively empty.
Finally, the end came. Shadow was unceremoniously dumped into a cave.
He rolled for a few meters along the floor, dust clinging to his spines and sneakers, before slamming into a rock. The fact it was unnaturally flat and angled gently failed to register with the hedgehog. Head spinning, limbs shaking, he tried to stand. More dust clogged his lungs and he coughed heavily. Vision returned slowly. The darkness of the fall made the light at the end of the tunnel painful to see.
“So, you’re supposed to be the Ultimate Lifeform, eh?”
Shadow froze. The voice forced his senses to come flooding back. He was not alone. In a rush, he stood and turned towards the source of the sound. He had landed in a small cave, lit by a small selection of bright orange lamps. The glow they produced was like a flame that did not flicker. There was only one door, a heavy iron thing with no obvious handle. Four rocks of varying sizes, like the one he had just been hugging, were scattered across an otherwise empty surface of brown dust. Shadow ignored the layer of it sticking to his spines and faced the voice.
It belonged to a human GUN officer. “I’m not very impressed yet, Shadow.”
“Who are you, and how do you know my name?”
The officer made a distant, almost mocking chuckle. He was around six feet tall, wearing a uniform that matched the Commander’s grey tunic for neatness, yet missing several medals and insignia. Handsome features and hair still retaining its original blonde tones put a safe guess at his age somewhere in the late thirties. Cold blue eyes showed no emotion. The image of a younger, tougher breed of GUN was completed by black leather gloves and knee-high leather boots.
“Three strikes,” he said calmly, ignoring the question. “They can be anywhere on the body and must be made with intent to kill.”
Shadow did not need to be told twice. The cruel method of transporting him down here had been deliberate, designed to make his temper not so much ‘boil over’ as ‘vaporise the pot’. In a heartbeat, he went down on one knee and threw out a flattened hand. A deadly spear of white energy leapt from between the fingers. It hissed and crackled as it shot across the cave, aiming directly between the blue eyes of the officer.
Who effortlessly shifted his weight and dodged the attack.
The reaction time had been mere fractions of a second. Shadow glared in disbelief. Meanwhile, the officer raised a wagging finger and began to tut, clearly an addict for the control he wielded.
“No, no, no,” he said. “No weapons and no special powers. I meant hand-to-hand.”
“Fine,” Shadow growled.
There was a pause. Dusty stared at clean.
“Oh,” the officer added with a raised eyebrow, “and I am timing you.”
Shadow leapt straight for him.
High above the cave in which battle commenced, Rouge the Bat followed the Commander into the nerve centre of the entire facility. It was the most impressive of the sights GUN had to offer. The room itself was huge, one sweeping circular wall covered in plasma screens of all shapes and sizes. Beneath those screens, around the edge of the circle, were dozens of workstations all manned by dozens of GUN agents and officers. The clicking of keyboards reverberated like the chattering of tiny insects. And if that were true, they certainly had the most expensive hive in the world.
In the direct centre of the room was the Commander’s chair. It was slightly elevated above everybody else: mostly to afford a position of authority in times of crisis, but also partly to stroke the ego of whomsoever was in charge. Ever the gentleman, the Commander offered it to Rouge. She declined, never the lady.
The largest of the plasma screens towered above them. It announced the room as the GUN Command and Mainframe Control Network Traffic Hub. Thankfully for those who valued their vocal chords, everybody just called it the Bullpen.
Since his colleague neglected to sit, the Commander took his chair and reached for a nearby data pad. “Keep nodding as though I’m still giving orders,” he suggested in a low tone, making a big theatrical show of writing nothing. Rouge complied. “Now, we have to isolate the computers in the Bullpen. If we can make sure they weren’t responsible for letting the hackers in, we’ll know that nobody here was to blame. At least then we can stop all this whispering.” Rouge nodded again.
She allowed herself a quick, suspicious glance around the workstations. Most of the people on duty wore headsets anyway. All were glued to their screens, burying themselves in the business of the day. The whispering, therefore, was probably a superfluous coating of drama to the task at hand, but she let the Commander continue to do so. She got the impression that he never got out much. Give an old man his kicks.
“I hope you realise,” she told him as he worked, “that my fee just went up. A lot.”
“Just because you’re the only person I can trust doesn’t mean I have to like you,” came the punchy reply. It also came, however, with a slight grin. “At least I always know where I stand when dealing with you, Agent Rouge. Everybody is driven by a loyalty, whether to country or jewellery.”
“Right,” the bat smiled. “And all we have to do is find somebody who’s misplaced theirs.”
The Commander stopped working and frowned at her. “Jewellery?”
Rouge shook her head. “Loyalty...!”
Somewhere behind them, a throat was cleared. The chair spun along with Rouge’s head and settled to face the young Night Hawk pilot they both recognised from earlier in the hangar bay. He was looking considerably fresher than the sweat-covered assortment of armour that had returned from the desert. There was a damage report in his hand, barely a few lines, and a repair schedule that was even shorter.
“Everything checks out, sir,” he said as he handed the report to the Commander.
“Glad to hear it,” the superior officer barked. The lines of text were given the most fleeting of glances from dual-coloured eyes before being placed to one side. “What’s the status of the dispatch team?”
“They have the emerald secure, sir. They’ll be leaving for Angel Island within the hour.”
“Good. Dismissed.”
As the pilot smiled, saluted and disappeared from the Bullpen to get some much-needed rest, the Commander returned his attention to Rouge. What greeted him was an expression of pure enlightenment, the dawning of an answer he was desperate to hear. With his gruff tone back to a whisper, he urged her to speak.
“What? What is it?”
“The Chaos Emerald...” she whispered herself, though not intentionally. “Of course...!”
Human glared at bat. “Of course what?!”
“Commander, I know who hacked the GUN mainframe!”
ACT THREE
“Y’know, for a guardian, he’s not very good at guarding those emeralds.”
Military boots and pink-toed high heels stood side-by-side on the concrete floor. High above, the blast shield of the hangar bay was yawning open to release a small helicopter into the ever-darkening evening. It kept a respectful speed while still inside the immense walls of the subterranean facility. Only when it hit open sky did it accelerate and quickly disappear from view. The blast shield reversed direction and closed.
The Commander watched until he could see no more of the outside world. His weathered face was contorted into a pensive expression. “Are you absolutely certain it’ll be safe out there, Agent Rouge?”
“It all makes sense. The Chaos Emerald was just a diversion,” Rouge explained. “When I was aboard the train, I tried to bluff the Nemesis. They dismissed the emerald as a piece of junk.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Come on, Commander, think about it! A train is still a train, no matter how armoured! The destination is a fixed point and we had them totally covered! If they really wanted to steal a Chaos Emerald, they would have made it far less easy to track, wouldn’t they?”
“So we were tricked,” the Commander mused. “Lured by the perfect bait.”
“And while we were chasing that bait, somebody hacked the mainframe.” The bat had to admit, it was a very bold plan. She started to recap. “Okay, so we’re no closer to finding the traitor inside GUN. But what we do know is that the Nemesis are much larger and more organised than we previously thought.”
“It sure looks that way. Damn it, and we’re running out of people to trust.”
Rouge had an idea.
“Well, what about Shadow...?”
At that exact moment, Shadow the Hedgehog was in no position to help.
For the third time in a row, he fell against the hard cave floor and felt pain spread from the impact. What made it all the more degrading was that it was the fifth round of combat with the arrogant GUN officer. The rules remained unchanged: three strikes, anywhere on the body, made with the intent to kill. Shadow spat dust from his mouth and got to his feet. It was taking longer to do so each time.
They had taken a break from fighting two rounds ago. Despite Shadow’s insistence to keep going until he won a round, the officer had forced target practice on him instead. He had armed the hedgehog with a standard 9mm handgun. Small holographic targets had appeared in mid-air and begun to dart around the cave. Shadow fired clip after clip. To begin with, he hit every target. Then the officer had said something about increasing the difficulty level, and the odd bullet went astray. By the seventh difficulty level, Shadow was missing more than half the targets.
“A shame,” the officer had teased. “I practice at level fifteen.”
The shooting had continued until there were no more bullets in the ammunition crate. Again the fighting had resumed and again, Shadow had been summarily trounced. Now standing with fury and humiliation burning in his eyes, he stared at the GUN officer and doubted what he saw. No mere man could be this fast, or this strong.
And even if they could be, it would not quell the jealousy. Defeat did not come naturally to the black hedgehog. His was the ultimate power... or rather, was supposed to be. Finding a being to match and beat him, especially when they did so with arrogant nonchalance, was the rudest of awakenings. Being here was a hugely trusting step and, not for the first time, he doubted whether it was a step worth taking. Only Maria kept him in the cave. Even so, the image of her face was clouded by anger.
For a brief and dangerous second, Shadow touched the golden rings that were clamped around his wrists. He felt the calling of the destruction he could cause. It was taunting him from the back of his subconscious. Daring him, like a school bully.
Do it. Take them off.
Show this GUN officer the ultimate power.
Vaporise him.
“Alright, we’re finished here. I’ve seen enough for my report.” It was the officer. He was not even out of breath. Not a single particle of dust clung to his uniform, quite the opposite of Shadow’s filthy fur and spines. “You should return to the facility. There’s an elevator through the iron door. Get yourself cleaned up.”
“No,” was the immediate protest. “I want to fight again.”
The officer shook his head. “That may be so, but I have wants too. Like the want not to kill you. Not to mention the want to finish my report before dinner. We’re done here, okay? It’s over. Sorry.”
An apology was nowhere near good enough. The repeated lack of answers, alongside being treated like a child, would never stop irritating Shadow. Not if they were left like this. Not if this was it. And so, with energy he barely had, he tore across the cave and blocked the lone door. Tiny plumes of smoke rose from his overused sneakers, the afterburners in desperate need of a replacement, as he held up his arms and scowled at the officer.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he threatened. “Not until you tell me who... what you are!”
There was a laugh. The worst possible response.
“Look at you,” the officer sneered, “taking charge and giving orders!” A tight leather glove ran through short blonde hair as more laughter resonated around the cave. “Well, I suppose you have worked awfully hard, despite your obvious shortcomings. Perhaps I should answer some of your questions.”
Shadow lowered his outstretched arms but did not step aside.
“My name is Captain Stone,” the officer revealed. “I am human, contrary to your suspicion, and I am also second-in-command of the Guardian Units of Nations. My duties include all new intake training and evaluation.”
They were not the desired answers. “Impossible. You can’t be human!”
Stone just gave a twisted smile.
Then the edges of his uniform began to flicker. It was a strange, almost ghostly effect that gradually dawned on Shadow. He had seen it already in the cave... with the holographic targets he had been shooting. More and more of Captain Stone began to dissolve. Strong arms faded into his torso and booted feet retreated from the ground. All blended into grey until the last pixel of the image vanished, as though sucked through an invisible plughole in the man’s stomach.
The twisted smile remained in Shadow’s mind. It goaded his pride. He had been duped by a trick of the light, a computerised projection of Stone rather than Stone himself. Controlled forcefields had deflected his blows, not limbs with razor-sharp reactions. No wonder he had failed to keep pace. Shadow seethed. The speed of sound was something he had experienced before, but the speed of light was just plain cheating.
Everything had been engineered to humble the Ultimate Lifeform.
And it had worked.
EPILOGUE
Captain Stone, the real Captain Stone, almost collided with his superior officer just outside the door to the Bullpen. Both men were eagerly rushing to find one another. Both were also unaware of their shared topic of conversation. There was little warmth between them, GUN being far more to either than simply a career.
“Ah, Stone, excellent,” the Commander grunted first.
Stone nodded. “I was just coming to see you, sir, and to deliver my report.”
“And I was just coming to read it.”
There was nothing left to say. Stone preferred to allow his report to do the talking, and so he handed it over to the Commander without ceremony.
The clipboard and headed paper was a deliberate touch. Anybody with basic clearance knew that the older officer was, at heart, a gentleman of the traditional variety. For the GUN second-in-command, pandering to that affectation was precisely calculated. Stone saw the briefest flicker of gratitude cross the weathered visage and silently fed on it. One day the Commander would retire. Or be killed. Or be removed by the President. And on that glorious day, Stone wanted no rival.
The Commander scanned the document.
“Subject: potential agent status candidacy of Shadow the Hedgehog...” he mumbled aloud as he went. “Height, three-three... artificially processed transgenic hedgehog... jet shoes... age thought to be... uh-huh... Space Colony ARK, created by... uh-huh, yeah, I know that bit... and that...”
A page was turned. The mumbling suddenly stopped.
Eyes widened at what they read. They returned to the beginning and went over each word carefully. Stone found it difficult to loom over his superior, being the shorter of the two, but felt as though he was nonetheless.
The Commander finally turned on him. “You can’t be serious?”
“Unfortunately, I am, sir.”
“But we have been shown, time and again, that his abilities are extraordinary! He can decide victory for either side!” Exasperation was a rare thing to see in the Commander, but it was on full display here. “I put Shadow through the proving ground as a formality... hell, out of curiosity! If you officially submit this report into the archives, Stone, you will be making the mistake of your career!”
Stone calmly took his report back and slotted it under his arm. “I stand by my words, sir. And with all due respect, if you seriously consider formalising our relationship with Shadow, then the mistake will be yours.”
The Commander could scarcely believe the words used in Stone’s conclusion.
“Shadow the Hedgehog should never be made an agent of GUN.”
Written by Glenn Scully
