Snively's back, and he has a fate worse than death for Bunnie. To save her, Kenal must reveal a secret that could cost him his friends...or rescue his dreams. Poison For A Secret Written by: Adrian Tymes [Legal disclaimer: This story is based on characters created by SEGA and DiC Productions, and Bookshire Draftwood and Commander Packbell by David Pistone. Permission is granted to freely distribute this story, so long as: a: no recompense of financial value is received or given by the person who distributes the story, and b: the distributed copy is identical to the story as originally authored. In other words, don't sell it, and don't alter it. Copyright (c) 1997, all rights reserved, et cetera.] ****** Time: A few days after "A Rogue's Burden" ****** The peace and quiet was nearly enough to send Packbell into a panic. Nearly every day for the past several months, Sonic had been involved in a raid on Robotropolis. Every time he showed up, Packbell's resources would go down. But, for the past few days, Sonic had been conspicuously absent. His scouts had seen occasional glimpses of the other Freedom Fighters, but the telltale signs of near-supersonic transit had not been recorded since a Void portal had been detected 79 hours ago. While it was certainly possible that Sonic had somehow become trapped in the same prison as Nagus and King Acorn, Packbell was not in the habit of acting on small probabilities. Sonic's allies had only attacked once during that time, and the results were not nearly as devastating as when Sonic had lead their charge. Packbell knew that his enemies would not give him a break without good reason, but he was at a complete loss to explain their recent lull. It was almost as if they had taken a vacation...but who would take a vacation in the middle of a war? ****** "Mah stars, Roty," Bunnie beamed. "Takin' a break 'til Sonic gets back 's the best lil' idea you've had in a LONG time." She yawned, and rearranged herself on the pile of soft scrap metal she had found. "But why'd we have to come back to Robotown's junkyard jus' when I was ready to git some beauty sleep?" "First off, you don't need beauty sleep. You can't improve on perfection." Rotor's comment caused Bunnie to blush so hard that she almost missed his continuation. "Second, we need to test my new sensor suppresser. If this thing works, we can blank out any piece of Robotropolis within a kilometer of here. Packbell's forces will be totally blind while they're in that area." He continued to fiddle with the guts of a cylindrical collage of metal and plastics that, at first glance, appeared to be a stab at abstract sculpture. "All right. But why'd we have to drag Mister Sourpuss along?" Kenal glanced at Bunnie, but kept his face pointed towards Robotropolis, hastily scanning for trouble. "Chaperone. Sally didn't trust you and Rotor alone together." His fur stood on edge, as if he expected the workerbots marching at the far limit of his vision to suddenly head his way at any moment. "Yeah, right. We c'n keep apart when we have ta. Ah think Sally-girl jus' wanted you outta the village for awhile. You were goin' stir crazy with nothin' to do." She snorted a laugh. "Even sugar-hog knows how to relax every now and then." "I am relaxing," he frantically replied. "Suuure you are. Why, you're the vera picture of serenity." She giggled, then smiled and silently watched her prey. "Keep it down, you two," Rotor complained from somewhere within the cylinder. "Until we get this online, we're robots if they see us." "You mean, like Bunnie?" Kenal replied. A sudden *CLANG* announced the end of Rotor's work. "Kenal..." Rotor popped his head out of the machine. "Bunnie's not a workerbot, any more than you are!" Kenal looked suspiciously at Rotor, then spat back, "Yeah, right. She's still partly metal." "That doesn't matter. All that matters is what's inside." Rotor crawled out of the cylinder. "Robotnik might have been mostly flesh, but he was more of a robot than Bunnie will ever be. Or you, now." Kenal lowered his face to point at the ground. "Don't be so sure of that," he whispered to himself. "What?" "Nothing," he replied in a more audible tone. "Now, apologize to Bunnie." "No can do." "Ahem." "I'm serious. I can't apologize to her." "And just why not?" "'Cause she's not here." Rotor looked around quickly. Bunnie, along with the pile she had been laying on, were now missing. "She was just here. Something must have grabbed her." Rotor looked hard at the ground where Bunnie had been. "She would have seen it and warned us if it flew. Help me search for tracks." Unnoticed by either of them, Rotor's invention hummed to life. In the distance, the orderly march of workerbots became a disorganized, blinded chaos. ****** Nearby, in the Great Forest, a muted *WHUMP* announced Bunnie's arrival on an electromagnetic disk. She quickly found that her metal pieces were not attracted to the disk, but the pile of metal she had been lying on was. That pile, which now covered her almost to the point of smothering, held her firmly against the disk while it descended into a deep pit with a ladder on its side. "Well, well, well," sounded a familiar, snooty voice. "I see you have a magnetic personality, Miss Rabbot." "Cut the chatter, Snively. Ah don't know what you're doing still alive, but ah'll be glad to fix that for yuh." Bunnie struggled against the metal mound, slowly managing to unbury herself. "Oh, I'm afraid I can't allow that." Snively pushed a button on a wall mounted control panel. The mound fell off instantly, but Bunnie's robot limbs were suddenly glued to the disk. "You're probably wondering how I made that pile fly through the air with you on it, and leave the rest of the junkyard untouched. I hid a number of magnets inside the junkyard, each one ready to activate when you got between it and this magnet. But now that you're here, I can just use the disk to keep you here." "So yuh got me. Ah don't see no roboticizer 'round here, an' I doubt Packbell will let you borrow his." "Who says I wanted to roboticize you? Actually, I invited you down here for..." Snively picked up a covered plate. "...some cake." With a dramatic flourish, he removed the plate's cover to show two large pieces of carrot cake. "You went to all this trouble for cake? Shoot, if that's all, yuh could've just asked politely." "Would you have come alone voluntarily, knowing I was down here?" "No." Snively shrugged. "You see my problem." "So, what's the catch? You poisoned the cake or somethin'?" "I knew you'd suspect that. That's why I made two pieces. I eat one, and you eat the other. You choose which." "Hmm..." Bunnie concentrated, and soon replied, "Ah can't see nothin' wrong with that. If you're gonna trick me, at least gimme the one on the left. It's bigger. But, you eat your piece first." "My pleasure." Snively quickly wolfed down his piece, then licked his fingers. "Positively delicious, even if I am a bit biased towards my own cooking. Your turn." With her organic hand, Bunnie reached for the remaining piece. She timidly nibbled at its edges, licked her lips, and suddenly wolfed it down as Snively had. "Anyone who can make somethin' like that can't be all bad." "Maybe not. But they were both poisoned." Bunnie tried to spit the cake out, but too late; she had already swallowed most of it. "Are you crazy? Now we're both gonna die." "I assure you, the poison was only in trace quantities. Anyone with working kidneys has nothing to worry about." He pointed to the metal skin just above where Bunnie's legs met. "What were your words? 'Ah'll be glad to fix that for yuh'," he finished, with a good imitation of Bunnie's accent. Her eyes grew wide as she realized Snively's meaning. "You w-wouldn't," she whispered. Snively snickered as he pulled out a sharp knife. "Oh, yes I will." He cut open Bunnie's artificial covering where he had pointed. No blood leaked from the wound, nor did Bunnie cry out in pain, but the expression on her face clearly showed that she could feel what he was doing. "I may no longer have access to the facilities of Robotropolis, but I still possess my knowledge. I can rebuild my resources elsewhere, or I can try to steal my city back from Packbell. Either way, I will need certain chemicals." He grunted as he removed Bunnie's roboticized kidneys, then set to work on her mechanical arm and legs. "What's this got to do with me?" "You are quite unique, you know. Your biochemistry has been altered by living so long as a partial robot. My toxins will alter your cells to produce what I need. You'll still be quite alive, but I'm afraid that an unavoidable side effect will be the degeneration of your nervous system. One by one, your senses and motor control will cease to function. You will not be able to speak, but you will not be able to stop your own breathing. Never again will you smell a flower, or see its colors. No, you will be left with only one sensation. And do you know what that will be?" Snively finished severing some wires in Bunnie's metal limbs. "Pain. Total, consuming, everlasting pain." He grinned. "Just to give you a preview..." He reached back in, stretching his hand to the place where Bunnie's partial roboticization met her natural body. Bunnie let out a short yelp, then gritted her teeth. "You'll never get away with this." "I already have. I never would've, if your boyfriend's latest toy hadn't hidden my magnet from Packbell's sensors." He turned off the magnet. Bunnie slumped to the floor, but did not move. "He could turn it off at any time. But then, now that I've deactivated your limbs' motors, you won't be going anywhere. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm afraid the poison will take some time to start working. Before it does, I really should go to the bathroom." He laughed as he smashed the pieces of Bunnie he had extracted, climbed the ladder and left. When he reached the top, he pulled a cover over the pit, casting its contents into total darkness. Bunnie tried to rise. Unfortunately for her, Snively had, indeed, wrecked her robot limbs, turning them into useless masses of metal. The rest of her was not strong enough to drag even one of them along, to say nothing of all three. Frowning, she slowly loosened and removed the nonfunctional arm and legs, then crawled over to the ladder. Using her remaining arm and her teeth, she climbed the rungs to the surface, one by one. Nearly an hour after her capture, she finally made it to the top, and braced herself against the cover. It was unexpectedly heavy, to the point where she felt her grip slipping from the recoil of her exertions. The cover lifted enough to admit a small beam of light, bright enough to show the pit's bottom. Bunnie did not need to look to know that she would not survive a fall. ****** Rotor sank to the ground, exhausted. He had spent the past hour searching in vain for Bunnie, and had shifted every piece of scrap in sight at least twice. He knew that nothing could have surprised Bunnie from above, yet there was no sign of anything mobile on or inside the ground. There were a few magnetic repulsor mines, but they were all pointed towards the Great Forest. An extensive search of the forest's edge had come up empty, until the ground rose. Rotor quickly rolled off the moving dirt. Looking back, he saw that the ground where he had been was actually a thin layer of soil over a plastic meter square. A few seconds of patience rewarded him with the sight of a familiar hand pushing its fingers through the crack. "Bunnie?" "In heah," she answered weakly. "Hurry up, Rote, ah'm losing my grip." As if to emphasize the point, her fingers started to slide back inside. He grabbed the hand before it could disappear completely, and used his toes to wedge the pit's cover open. Rolling backwards, he lifted his foot to swing the cover away, and lifted Bunnie out of the pit. He aimed his jump to account for Bunnie's metallic weight, but found her to be significantly lighter than expected. When he looked at her to see why, he gasped. "Bunnie? You...you look terrible." "Ah don' feel s'good," she moaned. "Hang in there, Bunnie. We'll fix you up, but you've got to hold on until we can." ****** Much later, Bookshire smiled as he looked at Bunnie's blood sample through a microscope. "Am I gonna make it?" Bunnie asked from a bed. "Definitely. Snively must've counted on you not making it out. His poison's easily countered." He took a small glass of water, mixed in some tiny white crystals, and held the mixture up to Bunnie's lips. "Drink." Rotor withdrew his hand from Bunnie's still open wound. "There. Snively sure did a job on your parts, but they're fixed now." He brought out a small welding torch to close the tear in Bunnie's thigh. "Mah parts?" Bunnie protested between sips. "Is that all ah am, somethin' to be fixed?" "No, Bunnie, not at all." Rotor put down his torch, and tried to look in Bunnie's eyes. If he felt any fear when he saw a cloudy white where there should have been black, his voice did not show it. "You're a person. You just need to heal..." After Bunnie had emptied her glass, Bookshire walked outside, where Sally and Kenal had been listening. "Good news?" they asked in unison. He shook his head. "Not quite. I made that diagnosis up for her sake, and gave her some sugar water. Her chances are fifty-fifty at best. Snively sure knows his poisons. Only time can cure her now." Sally stood up. "I'd better pull Rotor away so she can rest." Bookshire held up a hand. "No. She needs to stay awake until the toxin is cleared from her system. If she falls asleep, she's dead for sure. Rotor knows this. I'm just worried that he might not stay awake long enough to keep her awake." "So, why don't we just tell her, and let her keep herself awake?" "Snively gave her a neurotoxin; one especially sensitive to emotions. If she thinks she might not make it, she won't make it." Sally whistled. "How long will it take?" "Fifteen hours, at least. Given how long Rotor's been up already, someone else will have to take over for him halfway through." "I'll do it," Kenal volunteered. "It's kind of my fault she's in this mess." "No it isn't," Sally chided. "Snively's the one who poisoned her." "Yeah, but I was supposed to be looking out for her. I blew it." "Don't blame yourself." "Hey, hey," Bookshire sputtered as he waved Sally away from Kenal. "He wants to help, I say let him." He lead Sally a short distance away, while Kenal left to wait for his shift. "Besides, I think he has something in mind." "Like what?" "Bunnie and Kenal have never gotten along well. If he's willing to do this for her, I think he might be about to try to change that." ****** Exactly 450 minutes later, while most of Knothole slept, Kenal returned to Bookshire's hut. "Gee, Rotor, what are you carrying in those bags under your eyes?" Bunnie giggled. "He's right, you know. They look big enough t' carry all of Knothole, and then some." "Yeah...Knothole," Rotor yawned. "I'll keep her company. You get some shuteye," Kenal offered. "N'way. I'mstayin'ere," Rotor mumbled. Bunnie tched. "C'mon, Rote. We've both got to get some sleep." She yawned. "NO! Err...I mean..." Bunnie half-closed her eyes. "Y'all tryin' to hide something?" "No...I just..." "He just meant that he knows I wanted to talk with you," Kenal interrupted. "I do?" Rotor blinked. "Oh, yeah, I do." "Alone." "Huh? Oh." Rotor got up, and stumbled his way out. Bunnie smiled. "You got somethin' to say? Make it quick." She yawned. "Ah can't stay up much longer." "I wanted to apologize for earlier. I should've seen Snively when he grabbed you." "Is that all? Shoot, I..." "No. It's not just that. Every time we run into each other, we...that is, I..." "Wake me up when you figure out what to say." She closed her eyes. Kenal took a deep breath. "We are both robots," he blurted. Bunnie sat bolt upright, her eyes wide open. "What?" "We've both been through the roboticizer, and we both have pieces that it granted." "But you've been deroboticized." "Not completely. When I was deroboticized, my memory had records of all the data that Snively had forced into it. The others could find no way to remove that data without making me insane, nor could they fit it into an organic brain. They had to leave a computer implanted to store it; the same one that Snively installed." "So? Can't you just switch it off an' ignore it?" "I tried that. The computer now tries to take over my brain, to guide my actions. You remember when I didn't want Dulcy tagging along?" "Yeah. You knocked her out but good." Kenal sighed. "I didn't want to be that cruel, especially to Dulcy. But the computer knew I did not want her to follow, and that was the most efficient way it knew to achieve that end." "You mean, it just took over?" "Yes. And I never know when it will. When it does, it's just like being a workerbot again. I know what's going on, but I can't do anything about it. The training just makes it worse." "Training?" Kenal's eyes unfocused. "We call it education, but your only word for it would be training. Every griffin is expected to do what is needed as efficiently as possible. We have techniques that teach us what we need to know in a fraction of the time you would need, but there is a price. You saw it when our assassin, Rikal, was here." "Assassin? She might've been told to kill, but she's only ten years old. Don'cha think that label's a little hard on the child?" "No. There was no room for childishness. She was an adult, just as much as you or I. We do not have 'childhoods'. Our destinies are planned from birth, although there is room for the inevitable unplanned changes. That's one of the reasons I will not return. Here, I can try new personalities. I can even have fun. At least, until the computer takes over, making me act like another griffin...or a workerbot. But that's not the worst part." "What could be worse than that?" "The interface between my brain and the computer is not perfect. Whenever I sleep, the computer randomly pushes memories of my past life into my mind. I have to remember mindlessly following orders, roboticizing prisoners..." He turned away from Bunnie, almost choking on his words. "All my dreams turn into nightmares. I used to wake up screaming in the middle of the night." "But you haven't done that, not here anyway." "No. Dulcy's magic chases away the nightmares. I still can not dream, but at least I can sleep peacefully." "It must be painful for you to remember..." Bunnie flexed her metal arm. "And ah guess I just remind you. But you know, there's somethin' I can do. Ah did this for Tails when he had nightmares, maybe it'll work for you too." Kenal curled up next to Bunnie's torso. "I'll try anything." Bunnie started to sing. She methodically scratched behind Kenal's ears as she crooned. ****** When Sally, Rotor, and Bookshire checked in at the end of Kenal's shift, they were surprised to find Kenal asleep in Bunnie's arms. "Shh," she admonished. "Ah think he's dreaming." Sally lifted Kenal away from Bunnie while Bookshire withdrew some blood and ran it through an analyzer. "So? What's the word?" "You're fine." Bookshire looked at Bunnie, and feigned surprise. "But you really need some rest. Did Kenal keep you up all night?" Bunnie rubbed her eyes, which had cleared during the night, but now seemed impossible to keep open. "Ah guess so." Bunnie stood up with help from Rotor, then walked back to her hut. "Looks like someone fell asleep on the job," Sally quipped. "You're welcome," Kenal replied as he fluttered out of Sally's arms and onto a windowsill. "I knew I couldn't keep a conversation going, so I made as if I was about to wake up when she started to nod off." "She wanted to make sure you slept?" Sally frowned in concentration. "How'd you manage that?" "I just pushed the right buttons. I mean, seeing as she's part workerbot..." "Kenal! Don't speak of her like that!" "Like what? It's not like she's going to hear me right now, with Rotor shutting her down." "Kenal!" He smiled as he flew out the window backwards, quickly leaving Sally's line of sight. "I was wondering when he would tell her," Bookshire spoke. Sally looked out the window for Kenal, but did not see him. "Tell her what?" "I promised I would not spread it around, but Bunnie will tell you if I don't. You see..." Sally held up a finger. "Keep your promise. I don't want there to be any secrets between us, but I already know what Kenal's hiding." "You do?" "I figured it out some time ago. It's well hidden, but Nicole was able to detect his computer implant once it knew what to look for." She continued to stare out the window. "Poor kit. I think he actually feels guilty for what it made...and makes...him do. I figured I'd let him tell the others about it when he was ready. Even Dulcy does not know that I know." "But now Snively's forced his hand." "Yes." She sighed. "And, with Snively back, we may have another problem." "How so?" "Snively used to be Kenal's master. If he feels like he isn't accepted here, Kenal may try to return to a place where he did belong. He's rejected Home, so that only leaves Snively for company." Bookshire blinked. "Even Kenal wouldn't voluntarily work for Snively." "Don't be so sure. Kenal spent a long time as a workerbot, long enough to get used to it. I think part of him misses that life." "Surely he knows that he's better off here." "His mind does. His heart..." Sally looked at the tree where Kenal spent most of his nights. "His heart is as lonely as Dulcy's was when we first found her now that he, like her, is cut off from everyone he once knew. I think that's part of the reason they're so close." ****** Early next morning, Dulcy replaced Kenal's blanket, which had fallen off during the night. She quickly warmed it up with a brief lick of flame as she tucked Kenal in. Bunnie, still mounted on Dulcy's back from their dawn patrol, yawned. "Lucky him, gettin' to sleep in." "He needs his rest." Dulcy stroked his headfeathers. "He's still growing." "Yeah, a growin' boy need his dreams." Dulcy swiveled her head around. "He told you, huh?" "What? That computer in his head ain't a big secret, is it?" "Yes it is. Only you, I, Tails, and Bookshire know about it. Why do you think Sally an' Rotor haven't tried to link it to Nicole yet? We'd have tons of data, but..." She rubbed the griffin's ear. "...Kenal might be an outcast. I'm not going to let that happen, not to my Kenal." "Umm, right." Bunnie quickly slid off of Dulcy's back. "I got somethin' to take care of. Talk to you later, Dulcy." She ran towards Knothole's center. Dulcy watched her go, then turned her attention back to Kenal. Trying something Bunnie had suggested during their patrol, she hummed a soft lullaby. Dulcy quickly got lost in her own tune, to the point where she did not hear Kenal purr as he started to dream.