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The Protocol Cy-Fox Omnibus


Cy-Fox Unit

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No Matter How Improbable

 

“I’m telling I can do this but I’m telling you I cannot do it,”

The fox that spoke had one visible eye, the empty lid of the other covered by a patch.  He pursed his lips, muzzle wrinkled and greyed by stress and age and adjusted his peaked cap. The person he spoke to was an equally aged human that wore a white labjacket, blue turtleneck and gray slacks, bald save for a large drooping grey mustache.  He had his arms bound by chains to the armrests of the chair that he occupied.

 

“You must do it,” the human pleaded, trying to lean forward. The fox shook his head and adjusted his khaki Eisenhower jacket. “You’ll never be able to live with the consequences.” The human raised his hands up. “You’ll be saving a life that should not have been extinguished. I know it’s unnatural but-”

“That’s not the consequence I’m talking about,” his mysterious visitor said, crossing his arms. “I attempted the unimaginable, and I succeeded. I crossed into this universe and took a son that wasn’t mine, forty-two years from now.  And since then, not a day has passed without me feeling the burden of that act.”

 

“What kind of burden?” Professor Gerald Robotnik asked, tilting his head. The fox sighed and moved closer to the man, kneeling down beside his chair. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone here. Where I came from, my planet was in a state of war. My King had betrayed all sense of decency and was going to use terrible new weapons. He was intent on becoming Death, Destroyer of Worlds as the human Oppenheimer put it.” Robotnik raised his eyebrows in recognition.

“I had an oath to the Crown that I had to follow but I also had an oath to the Realm and to common sense. I acted with the help of the most magnificent woman I know that was working on the program. We acted and prevented King Frederick from using those weapons and we forced his dark claws off of the throne, exiled him into space. Then we married and Rosemary bore me a son. Miles was his name.” The fox took off his hat and pressed it in against his chest, raising his head to look into Robotnik’s eyes. “Little did I know, there was still parts of the Royal Intelligence Service that were still loyal to the king. They had poisoned her with the very materials she worked with and they poisoned him as well as a result. At first it seemed Miles was out of danger. Just an extra tail. He was gifted, he showed promise. But as time went on, they were feeding her more and more and ultimately it had gotten to where they could not handle it. I lost my wife and my son to cancer and the best medical minds and technology could do nothing for it.” He pursed his lips. “You tried everything that you could for them. You were my friend Gerald. You knew my struggle well with what you had to endure with Maria.”

 

Robotnik’s fingers tightened and the fox raised his free hand up to grasp them. “I cheated Gerald. I came to this universe several decades from now with your help. I took a son that was not mine. I watched him grow up, I had him go through treatments to manipulate his genetics so that he would become one of my kind, and I had his memories conditioned. I had his life scheduled for him and he rebelled. We argued and he ended up joining the Space Navy. He became bitter and used that energy to become a commissioned officer. He sits in front of a console with no ambition, no drive. He suspects there is more than what I tell him. He suspects that he does not belong there.” The fox stood up slowly and replaced his hat. “If I pull your Maria from that station, there will be repercussions. You don’t know how things will be changed by these actions, but they will be. It is our not our place to adjust the universe and your counterpart will never be able to look at Maria again and you will not be able to think of her without knowing that just like every time I look at my son!”

 

Gerald cast his eyes downwards. “You expect me to just leave her there. You said so yourself,” He struggled against his bounds. “We do not know the repercussions. For all we know things will be different with her presence there where you come from. You being here alone, confiding in me is proof that one person can make all the difference General Prower. If your purpose of visiting me tonight was to torture me with this unfulfilled opportunity, then you have succeeded and done what the men in gray have failed to do. Either you are a well-trained psy-ops officer for GUN or a figment of my imagination. What I want to believe is that you are a man of your word. What I want to believe is that you are a man that is willing to do what is necessary to make the universe better, trying to atone for your lost son. If you seek forgiveness then the way to it is saving her. Take Maria away from that dreadful place and create a new life for her. I beg you! Amadeus, please! If you are my friend, please-” He struggled against his chains again, grasping at the fox’s jacket and started to sob uncontrollably.

 

Slowly Amadeus’ hand worked its way against the human’s fingers as he extricated himself gently and then smoothed out the wrinkles in his uniform. He bent his head down and turned away to move towards the exit. He could feel tension in his chest muscles, his conscience eating at him. Slowly, he turned his head to look back at the ruined man and nodded. “I will open Pandora’s Box. But not for you. Not for me. But for her. Creator help us both if you are wrong.”

 

Chapter 1

The return was uneventful as Amadeus had ventured through the return portal into the laboratory of the Gerald, actually known as Geralt, from his universe. The wiry Swedish-American scientist stabbed his index finger into a control on the tablet application that he was using to control the portal system, causing the swirling blue glow behind the fox started to fade out into nothingness.

 

“It went well?” Geralt asked, running his left hand through his balding, grey-blond hair. Amadeus fixed his eye upon him and nodded once. “He’s imprisoned, for crimes he did not even commit. Misunderstood, he lost as we have lost ourselves. He appealed to me to go and take his Maria away from there. I told him I would, despite myself.”

 

“Something I was contemplating to do myself now that we have a cure for the disease,” Geralt reached up and took his round-framed glasses off, massaging his forehead for a moment before dropping the hand down. He continued to hold his glasses. Amadeus shook his head. “In a dangerous environment you would end up getting shot or worse. I should be the one to go back, I have the training. I might even be able to bluff my way past the boarders.”

 

“I suppose you are correct, my friend,” Geralt said quietly. “I would need to have a bed set up in here and the compound ready anyways.” He moved closer to the fox and replaced his glasses, looking up into his face. “Old friend, I know you of all people expect order to be the driving force in the universe and that it is to be kept in place. This is the most complex moral dilemma one could come across. Do we try to save one life by taking her away from the world that she knew and start her over here, or do we just let her die in the name of order? I know you had a similar dilemma with Miles. Protecting and preserving an innocent life is the choice you’re making here. You even have my counterpart’s blessing. Do not feel guilty, your soldier’s honor will stay intact.”

 

The fox nodded slowly. “Or so everyone is telling me. I may need to disguise myself as human, as one of them. I should probably look over the footage that we captured from the ARK attack and review it, that way everything looks accurate.”

 

“The nanotechnology lab here has a prototype helmet that you could use,” Geralt replied, moving over to his desk. “Its systems are controlled by eye-tracking and thought processing via fMRI scanning. Target who you want to masquerade as and the helmet will holographically project it on its outer surface, accounting for the environment. It even gives off heat and tactile feeling, like that of skin and hair if necessary.”

 

“Sounds complex,” Amadeus tilted his head. Geralt nodded in agreement. “They are constantly trying to miniaturize the components necessary and make it modular. Try to bring it back in at least one piece, General.”

 

“If this gadget works correctly as you say, then there shouldn’t be much danger at all,” The fox moved closer to the human and pats his shoulder. “I’ll let you know when I have everything. Get me through there on the day of the attack and I’ll bring you a granddaughter.”

 

“You already have a plan started?” Geralt settled down at his desk. Amadeus raised his ears and started to make his way out. “I’m always working on a plan. Worked for that Rommel that you all compared me to in ‘85.”

 

Geralt crossed his arms and looked down upon his desk, reflecting. Amadeus had been thirty-three at the time, a Lieutenant Colonel in the 1st Royal Guard Regiment, the one responsible for defending the former Kingdom of Acorn if an invasion had set upon the homeland. The comparison to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was apt. Both men were intelligent tacticians and had wrestled with their conscience in the face of their terrible leaders. Only Hitler had not lived to secure nuclear weapons, Frederick Acorn did. The troops were indoctrinated to swear fealty to Hitler, but Amadeus’ troops were wiser. They all saw the writing on the wall as he did. There was no forced suicide and a state funeral for Amadeus Prower.  He lost an eye to a Loyalist sniper known by the code name of Fang, but in the end he had secured the future for his kind. A new Republic of Mobius, born to new light that shattered the threatening shadow of nuclear holocaust.

 

Once the launches by King Frederick had been detected, the human expeditionary force that was on standby to cross the Warp Gate had went through, the first live humans to do so. Soldiers, spacers, marines, diplomats, artists, politicians and scientists. What of the attempted strike on the echidna tribes that the Acornians were at a stalemate with that launched was shot out of orbit by the human ships before they could complete their lethal arc. To the Mobians, it was as if they were witnessing their mythological gods preventing disaster. But when the ships started to make planetfall, it soon became clear that both races were no longer the sole occupiers of the universe. They were neighbors now and the humans, wise with their own tumultuous conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries were determined to make their first impression a positive one.

 

Geralt had been one of the exobiologists with the expeditionary fleet. He was 41 at the time and his son Poul was in high school, one of the many whose eyes were glued to the TV. He had pointed at the screen, exclaiming “Det är min pappa!” when the professor had knelt down beside Colonel Prower, working to staunch the bleeding from his ruined eye socket at the king’s Launch Test Facility. No questions, no judgment, the light skinned, blond haired ‘alien’ had just adjusted his glasses and did what he could before calling for a stretcher. He thought that this would probably be the last time that he would’ve seen Colonel Prower, being carried away by UN and Red Cross-armbanded Bundeswehr medics.

 

He was surprised when Amadeus had come to later on at the prefab base that they had set up on the ground and asked for him. The slender fox had sat up on his cot and asked him in perfect English for his name and role. After Geralt told him, he had asked if the eye could be saved but unfortunately it was useless. At most it would have been a blind filler. With a nod, the fox seemed to accept his fate. Geralt then suggested that a human-made prosthetic could be swapped in to restore his vision. Amadeus waved his hand dismissively. “An eye is a small price to pay to unseat a tyrant,” he had said. “An eyepatch will suffice, not that I am ungrateful for the offer Doctor. I do however ask that I be given the privilege of your friendship.” He offered his hand to the surprised human, who took it slowly.

 

Geralt was there when the United Nations General Secretary had offered Amadeus the option to stand for the elections for the commander in chief role in the new Mobian government. The fox looked to him, then the gold braid epaulet on his shoulder and shook his head with a small smile. “I am not a politician Mister Secretary. I am a soldier and my place is to lead soldiers. I will be content with my position on the General Staff. The king’s youngest son Maximilian should be the one that you look to. He has an iron conscience and I can personally confirm he has taken part in no atrocities. Let him stand for election. Perhaps the Acorn name will end up rehabilitated.”

 

Amadeus as Chief of the General Staff ended up engineering the rapid upgrade of the Republic Forces with human assistance. He had toured the ARK, as well as various cities on Earth. The media had turned him into the first alien celebrity, naming him as the heir apparent to Rommel, Patton and Schwarzkopf. Over time though, he started to retreat out of the spotlight to dedicate himself to his work. When Maria Robotnik had been born, a year earlier, Amadeus had showed up in the night after taking a shuttle through the Gate and sat for an hour with the bundle of blanket and child in the crook of his arm. After returning Maria to her mother, he had joined Geralt at the Swede’s ancestral home and took part in a blitz of wine and cigars that left him thoroughly wrecked the next morning, but intent on securing another chapter for his future. Of course he had invited the Robotniks to his wedding in 2090, one of the highlights that Geralt kept being a photograph of the fox eying the slice of cake that Geralt’s wife Johanna had prepared for it along with one year old Maria in his lap.

 

They had experienced loss though close to each other as well. Maria had died when she was five from an aggressive illness that human science did not seem to be able to identify or eliminate, at least not then. Then Miles had died six years later with Rosemary as a result of radiation poisoning and the cancers that developed from them. Two heartbroken men had come together to share grief and to seek a solution. Amadeus had gotten his son back, in a sense.

 

Now the fox was going to repay his debt.

 

Chapter 2

 

Amadeus stared at the wafer thin screen before him in the quarters that were set for him on the ARK’s executive level. He reached for the screen, causing the video application that he was using to project its playback controls. The screen was frozen on the dead girl that was lying against the wall close to the cargo ejection control station on the other ARK. The footage was taken from various angles by the security cameras from the entire incident and he had played a very dangerous game to make a copy of it while on Prison Island after speaking with the other Gerald.

 

The facility seemed to be a generation or two behind, in fact the troopers were carrying Heckler & Koch MP5s and other late 20th and early 21st century weapons. Just like the trooper who had dealt the killshot to Maria Robotnik. The fox growled softly and pressed the restart button for the section he marked. Four troopers in body armor, pointing their MP5s at unarmed civilian scientists. One in particular moved towards a tube, staring at it for a few moments. Then he seemed to look past it, noticing something.

 

Maria had been standing behind a console, obviously afraid of what was unfolding. The trooper started to take off after her and she disappeared through a nearby hallway. The door at the end closed behind her and the trooper took up position, reaching towards the control. It wouldn’t open, it was locked. Smart girl, the general thought as he watched the frustrated trooper step back and pepper the console with a full automatic burst. If only the doors were better designed like ours. The fusillade caused the console to explode internally, forcing the door open.

 

The trooper leveled his weapon at the girl. She was getting to release capsules from Gerald Robotnik’s experiments down to Earth. “Let go over the lever!” he yelled. Maria stared at him, frozen as he tightened his finger on the trigger. “Don’t fool around with me!” The human yelled angrily as she pulled down and he fired several bursts. Amadeus slammed the palm of his hand against the gesture control to pause, staring at the trooper.

 

“Undisciplined thug!” the fox snapped out loud with disgust as he stood and leaned forward, feeling tremors in his legs and arms. “If you did this under my command I would have had you court martialed and hung. Soldiers do not execute unarmed civilians, and especially young girls! You call yourself guardians?” He reached for a bottle of Scotch that sat upon the desk, one that he had been given by the United States Military Academy at West Point. The fox pulled the cork out and brought it to his muzzle, tipping it back so that the warm, smoky liquor rolled freely. He swallowed with a sharp flaring of his nostrils before setting the bottle down. “I will show you butchers what a real guardian, a real soldier does in the name of honor!”

 

Amadeus stepped away from his desk and opened the armoire in the room, revealing clothing sealed within a plastic zippered bag. He grunted and started to remove his Republic Army uniform, hanging the jacket up, folding the khaki slacks and his white shirt, stacking them on top of each other. He kept his socks and his underleggings on, staring at himself in the mirrors on the armoire’s inner door panels. 50 years old and a general staff officer and he was going to muster out on a one man special operations raid.

 

Fortunately aside from his lost eye, there wasn’t much else wrong with him. He was still mobile and kept to the former Royal Academy’s exercise regimen. He reached for the plastic bag and removed it from its hanger, unzipping it. A dark blue jumpsuit, a black tactical vest, gloves and boots for his size of feet. He would need to keep his tail within the jumpsuit. The fox unzipped the jumpsuit and climbed into it before zipping it back up. Then he stepped into the boots and started to lace them up. Finally he stuck his arms into the vest and zipped that up as well, sticking his hands into the gloves. He looked down at the empty holster and reached into one of the recessed shelves of the armoire, withdrawing his sidearm from it, a modern H&K UGEP handgun.

 

Instead of firing projectiles, the weapon fired a directed beam of energy at its target. Depending on a selector switch where the safety would be on a projectile gun, he could fire a beam meant to cause a non-lethal burning sensation or at the maximum level, burn a hole through conventional body armor and certain types of vehicle armor. It did not appear that the GUN troopers even got to this stage of development. He holstered the weapon and looked down at himself. I may as well be dressing as the SS or the Royal Acornian Household Guard, he thought.

 

Out of habit, he placed his peaked cap back upon his head and made his way back to Geralt’s laboratory. The human looked up at his hat and then the GUN uniform. “There’s no patches,” he said as a way of greeting. Amadeus looked down at the outfit and shrugged his shoulders. “I figure that for as long as I’ll be there that they won’t be able to notice too much.” He held his hand out and Gerald produced a mini-tablet. “There is your emergency recall of course. Though I would prefer that you try to get her back through the portal. The effects of recall have been untested.”

 

“He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one, dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel. As your Poe would say.” Amadeus took his hat off and handed it to the scientist as he picked up the holo-mask helmet that he had asked for. “The tablet also controls the helmet, you can use its camera to capture someone’s facial features and headgear. Otherwise there are defaults.”

 

“I’ll figure it out. Were you able to get me the coordinates I asked for?” The fox raised his ears and looked at the portal’s anchor-frame, which Geralt had not activated yet. “Date, time and position of the ARK relative to the planet. I’ll be putting you in a side room that opens into the hallway Maria had went through.”

 

“I’ll grab the man and try to incapacitate him. Worst case scenario is I have to burn him. What could that universe need with such an undisciplined butcher anyways?” Geralt fixed the fox with a stare. “You can’t necessarily execute a man that hasn’t committed a crime yet. Besides, killing him might have repercussions on the rest of the raid.”

 

“True enough,” Amadeus said grimly, flexing his fingers. “Activate the sequence, I’m ready to go through.” Geralt held up his own tablet, a full-sized one and started the activation program. Space Station ARK in their timeline was responsible for maintaining the Warp Gate that bridged the distance between the Mobia and Sol star systems through a wormhole powered by the Chaos Emeralds within a special reactor in the ARK’s Engineering section. They still provided excess energy and became the primary power source for the station, backed by the ARK’s original fusion reactors. One of the many reasons why the station was popular with physicists and electronic engineers, there was power to spare.

 

The principles of the portal were that of the Warp Gate itself, but instead of just bridging the distance between space, it also bridged time and by adjusting the quantum signature of the tunnel’s exit point, one could step into another timeline, like what Amadeus had done earlier. This had been the first timeline in fact that Geralt had opened up into when he first figured out the process. Amadeus stared at the frame as the same multi-colored energies that were in the Warp Gate’s ring started to form within it. He waited for Geralt’s signal, the human speaking up after a few minutes. “It’s ready General.”

 

The fox turned and placed his hand on the human’s shoulder for a moment, then withdrew it, passing into the energy field, the familiar sensation of diving underwater hitting his face before he was sucked through at normally impossible speeds.

 

Chapter 3

Amadeus bent forward and coughed after emerging on the other side of the portal. Bright red blood ran down his nostrils and he wiped it with his sleeve. He did not recall having a nosebleed before he left or even when he transited between the timelines before. The fox straightened his body and pointed his ears forward towards the closed door. He could make out some of the idle conversation between the GUN troopers in the large room to the left. Then he could pick up the sound of quick footsteps and the door opening. He tracked the sound with his ears and steeled himself for his next move.

 

Heavier footsteps to follow, the trooper that had killed her. Would kill her. The one man that shattered the lives of three people. Maria, her grandfather and Amadeus himself. The fox’s ears pointed to the right, indicating to him that the G.U.N trooper was going to try to breach the door. Amadeus pressed the control and ducked his head out, withdrawing the UGEP. No sense getting into a risky hand to hand fight, he was going to use his era’s superior technology to his advantage. He flicked the selector switch on the weapon from ‘Safe/No Charge’ to ‘Level 2’ and then pointed it at the human’s back firing twice into him. The trooper went down to one knee, a strangled yelp of pain rising from his throat. Amadeus leaned in and grabbed his mouth, stifling the yelp and then forcefully dragged the man back through the way that he came, closing the door. He lowered himself to his haunches and stared at the human with contempt.

 

“What is your name?” the fox growls quietly. The human started to reach for his gun and Amadeus leveled the UGEP at him. “Just give an excuse you fool. Burning you into ash would bring me to fulfillment. We look down upon assassins of children where I come from.” The human gaped at him and was about to protest but the fox grunted sharply. “Don’t deny it, I saw it all unfold before my own eyes. You went down there and you fired upon a defenseless little girl. No weapon, no threat.” His index finger tightened on the trigger of the UGEP. “How does it feel being in her shoes now? At someone else’s mercy, fear in your mind. Is the person holding the gun a soldier or a butcher?” He lowered the weapon and then grabbed the trooper by the neck, squeezing hard on the arteries, causing the human to drift into unconsciousness.

 

Amadeus stared down at the human and cast his helmet off. The average male face, clean shaven, light brown hair. He opened the downed trooper’s eyes with both hands and stared. Blue eyes, that was uncommon. The helmet he wore started to project the trooper’s face and helmet over his vulpine features. The fox then unslung the MP5 from the trooper’s body and passed his left arm through the loop so that it would rest at his right side. He retreated through the door and went for the door Maria had locked, punching in the reverse of the sequence that she had entered from the security footage. The door parted and the fox took a careful step forward.

 

Maria stood there, just like how she had earlier. Her attention was on ejecting the capsules and Amadeus had no intent to stop her. He looked back towards the opposite end of the corridor that he came through. No sign that the trooper was being missed. The fox looked back at the young girl. “I’m not one of them,” he said out loud in his natural voice. A small sound of surprise came from Maria as she looked over at him. “T-Then why are you wearing the same uniform?” she asked, hands tight on the lever. Amadeus kept his hands up and open as he approached her. “It was necessary so that I could get to you safely. I’m here to get you off of the ARK, to safety Miss Robotnik.”

 

“How do I know that you’re not lying to me?” the girl asked, starting to pull on the lever as he approached. Amadeus raised his hands to the helmet. “I can prove it, as long as you take care of the capsules first and promise me that you won’t do anything rash.” He looked down at the readouts with satisfaction as Maria instinctively brought the lever down the rest of the way, the cargo hatch shuddering as it opened and its contents rolled out. Amadeus lifted his helmet off from his head and held it in both hands then blinked. Maria turned her gaze upon him and released the levers, staring at him blankly. “You’re not-“

 

“Human,” he finished for her. “No I am not. Nor am I a mere foot soldier. My name is General Amadeus Prower and your grandfather asked for me to try to save you from this place in case of an attack. We have been friends for some time. You can trust me. The man that was coming after you isn’t going to be a problem, I knocked him out.”

 

Maria swallowed and moved closer to the fox, reaching out to touch his face, as if she didn’t believe he existed. Her fingers brushed against his muzzle and he snorted on instinct. He raised his ears and directed them towards the open door. “There’s not much time. You need to come with me.”

 

“What about the others?” she asked as he reached for her hand. “There is no time, you’re the one I was sent out for.” Maria grasped the fox’s hand and went in step with him towards the door. Amadeus came to a stop and gripped the UGEP, lifting it back out of its holster. The trooper’s squadmates were on the other side, confused at what they were looking at. The fox leveled the weapon at them and growled. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll back off and go the way you came.”

 

“There’s four of us and only two of you!” the lead trooper snapped. “What did you do with Schmitz?” The trooper in the rear moved through the formation and went into the room that Amadeus had originally came through. “Schmitz is down, but alive! There’s something else though, some sort of energy field farther in.”

 

“Keep your distance and get Schmitz out of there and to a field medic. The rest of you, get in execution formation,” the lead trooper said. Amadeus tightened his grip on the trigger of his UGEP, pointing it at the lead trooper’s head. “If you even think of harming the girl, I will make it my last purpose to make certain your blood spills on this station with mine.” He maneuvered Maria’s hand so that she could take the tablet out of his pocket. Geralt’s earlier caution came to mind. The effects of recall have been untested. Well this certainly constituted grounds for emergency recall.

 

“Lieutenant, I don’t know about you but I didn’t join the service to shoot kids,” the trooper to the right of the lead said. “We should just detain them both.” The lead trooper grimaced. “The girl is an accomplice to the foremost criminal scientist next to Mengele. As for the other, he’s either one of Robotnik’s experiments or even worse, some kind of hostile alien. I gave you both a direct order. Execution formation!”

 

Amadeus thumbed the selector switch to a low-intensity burn charge and fired at the light fixture over them, causing the troopers to instinctively take cover and shield their eyes from the bright yellow-white blast. He grabbed Maria and moved away from the doorframe. “Activate the sequence! The red button on the display!”

 

Maria complied, noticing the display showing a bubble effect in wireframe starting to expand outwards. The two heard a low buzzing sound and watched as the world around them seemed to vibrate wildly. Suddenly it felt as if the floor had dropped out from under them and the liquid feeling that Amadeus felt earlier when crossing through the portal hit him. Maria instinctively began to panic and the fox held her tight to his body as they dissolved and were tunneled through the fissure that the emergency sequence created. Reassembly was immediate as well, causing them to fall to a floor.

 

Space Station ARK

Unknown Date, Year 2101 CE

 

It looked like they had returned to Geralt’s office but the human was nowhere to be seen. Amadeus was confused, certainly Robotnik would not have just left with such a critical mission underway. Then he turned his head, noticing the portal frame that he had originally went through was not there. The world around him spun and he holstered his gun, reaching up to hold his head. Maria moved to his side and tried her best to steady the taller fox. “General Prower?”

 

“I’ll..be all right,” Amadeus said with a small growl while raising his head. “I need to get you to your grandfather.” Maria blinked and surveyed Geralt’s office, surprised at how warm and classical it looked, compared to the spartan office that she remembered. “We’re on the ARK, still? But how?”

 

“He will explain everything, once I figure out where he went,” Amadeus moved towards the desk and pressed down on the PTT button for the comm unit. “Find Professor Geralt Robotnik and open a circuit.”

 

A female voice replied almost immediately. “Professor Robotnik is in the Medical Division, Resuscitation Suite 1. Circuit has been opened.”

 

“Geralt?” Amadeus spoke out to the empty air. Suddenly a holographic image showing Resuscitation Suite 1 appeared and the human stared at the camera that was feeding the image. “I don’t have time to welcome you aboard Amadeus. Maria went into cardiac arrest three minutes ago.”

 

The fox and the girl looked at each other with confusion. “That cannot be possible. I have her with me right now and she seems fine.”

 

“If this is your idea of a joke, then you can go to Hell!” Geralt snapped. He looked over at one of his assistants. “Charge to 120 joules,” The assistant affixed adhesive patches to a girl that looked exactly the same as Maria, except with her hair unrestrained by a band. Her skin tone was an ashen gray-blue. With a low snapping sound, her body twitched and Amadeus could hear the constant whine signaling a flat ECG waveform.

Something was wrong here. Amadeus cut the connection and gestured for Maria to follow him out of the office, barging past the professor’s secretary. Maria looked in awe at the architecture around her, more emphasis on glass and alloy finish here. Everything seemed bright and organic here compared to the melancholic, closed-in environment on her ARK. Amadeus led her into an elevator and stabbed at the sterile green button for the Medical Division, then looked down at the girl, the dizzy sensation in his head coming back.

 

“This isn’t my home, is it?” she asked. Amadeus lowered his hands and just stared, uncomfortable with the question. He wasn’t a physicist and he wasn’t expecting to be the one that might have to answer the tough questions. Geralt was supposed to do that but right now he was dealing with her dying before his eyes. Was it the same girl? His thoughts were interrupted by the opening doors and he followed the red line on the floor to the Emergency Wing, stepping through the double doors into Resuscitation Suite 1. Geralt didn’t bother to look at him as he held a syringe full of a clear liquid. He fed it into a central line and pushed down on its plunger, watching the status board before him, still displaying a flat ECG. Distraught, he made a fist and slammed it into the clear board, causing it to shatter, cutting off its alarm tone.

 

Geralt’s assistants backed away and then looked over at the newcomers, now confused. A woman spoke up and raised her hands. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

 

“Who is it?!” Geralt spat, turning on his heel and then blanched as he stared at the fox and then Maria. Then he looked upon the bed where the dead girl lay. He tightened his hands into fists and approached the two. “What are you doing here Amadeus? As a matter of fact, when did you get here and who is this?”

 

“Grandfather!” Maria blurted out and then pressed up against the human, her face growing hot as tears welled from her eyes. “You should know who I am!”

 

Geralt forced himself to look down at her face and slowly opened his fingers. “It’s not possible.” He then looked back at the bed, then back to Maria. “It’s not.” He slowly lowered himself to his knees and took off his glasses, staring at Maria before a strangled cry rose from his throat and the devastated man embraced her.

 

Amadeus was still confused as to what exactly happened. He moved closer to the bed, to the dead girl and blinked. Sure enough Maria Johanna Robotnik was there, dead. Exactly how she looked in her casket when he attended the funeral. Only one possibility came to mind and he motioned for the woman that spoke up earlier. “What day is it, miss?”

 

“Wednesday,” the assistant said quietly.

 

“The complete date, please.” The fox elaborated.

 

“Wednesday, December 21st, 2101.” She said plainly, giving him a strange look.

 

The emergency recall brought him to the correct day but not the correct year. He had arrived nine years earlier than what he was supposed to. His son was with him back on Mobius in their family home near the Staff Headquarters. Was this some sort of miscalculation on Geralt’s part or was some other agent at play here? Something Miles had told him about entropy came to mind now. By taking Maria with him, he had created an uncertainty that had to be accounted for. A paradox and if it were to resolve itself properly to a stable form, entropy had to take part.

 

A young innocent girl taken from her home timeline, replacing her twin that just died like when he replaced his son. How was this entropy going to manifest? Was it going to be here or back over there, or both? He reaches up and massages his temples, a sudden sharp pain coursing through them relentlessly. He didn’t remember falling or even barking out. His left side felt completely faint and his vision blurred. Geralt tore his attention away from Maria and then moved closer to Amadeus, rolling him onto his back. The fox tried to speak but an unintelligible mash of words came from his mouth. His eyes darted around wildly and then suddenly he found himself speaking.

 

“We played God for two lives,” he rasped, fixing his eyes on the human’s face as froth formed in his mouth. “Now we are all sons of bitches.” Then everything went dark, still and cold for the 58 year old general as the first steps to the equation that he wrought began to be resolved.

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    3

The One Less Traveled By

Chapter 1: Midshipman Prower, Departing

Robotnik Family Estate
Malmö, Sweden, Earth
June 27, 2108 – 7:14 AM CEST

“Miles?” The voice that called out to him was that of a late-middle aged woman, Standard with a tinge of a Swedish accent that was neutralized slightly by forty-seven years back and forth between Malmo, Baltimore and Bloomington. The young fox raised his ears slightly as he looked up from his trunk, having packed the uniforms and books that were pre-purchased from the Mobian Space Naval Academy and delivered the previous week. He wore a white collared shirt with a black necktie and gray slacks which had a hole in the back like all of his others, meant for his two tails.

Julianna Robotnik tilted her head with the typical closed mouth smile that she usually had on her face. Teaching part-time classical music, she kept the gears turning at the family estate that had been a home for Miles since his father buried himself in his work as Chairman of the Joint Military Staff back on Mobius, ever since his wife, Miles’ mother, had died eight years ago. Julianna’s husband, Professor Geralt Robotnik was arguably next to the late Colonel Jules Ogilvie, his father’s best friend and saw tactfully that the young fox would be stifled by being put under the watch of the Republic Army’s army childcare program.

“God morgon, Mrs. Robotnik,” the fox greeted her with a small smile and closed the trunk, standing up. The closest thing to a grandmother that he had, he first felt like an imposition in the first year, staying quiet and attentive to his studies. But the Robotniks reached out and embraced him with warmth and compassion. While his father was dispassionate about his application to the Mobian Space Navy, mainly because Miles knew it did not follow General Prower’s grand plan for his life. A life that was to be drill and being moved around as a chesspiece and possibly being advanced not as a matter of merit but of patronage.

“You have a visitor for breakfast,” Julianna said with a nod of her head. The fox lowered his ears slightly. Was it his father, coming through the Warp Gate to Earth perhaps to give him a final rebuke or perhaps even less likely, encouragement? He closed the trunk and started for the door, Julianna giving him a small hug which he returned with one arm. He slowly moved alongside the human down the staircase, passing the closed foyer into the kitchen/dining area. Suddenly he was almost face to face with a smiling blond haired woman, blue eyes meeting his own. She wore a white tanktop, dark blue scrub pants and a white labjacket, her name in blue embroidery above a pocket. Maria Robotnik, M.S.M. -  Skåne University Hospital.

“Maria,” Miles’ tails raised and started to waggle around. The 19-year-old woman reached out and scratched behind his ears before pulling him into a hug. “You did not think I was going to let you run off to the academy without saying goodbye, did you Utrymmecadet?” she teased in her even more accented English. The fox felt his heart skip a beat and an unnatural warmth to his fur as she gently pressed a finger to the tip of his nose. He allowed himself to flicker his tongue out slightly. Maria was one of Geralt’s grandchildren, only three years older than Miles. She had the academic blood, running straight into her Master’s Degree of Science in Medicine at 16, which she recently completed. Now she was a first-year medical student at Skåne University Hospital, which was about a half hour’s drive away. A prodigy much like him. She stood out to the fox, he secretly had a crush on her since he started to discover that aspect of adolescence three years ago.

“Of course not,” He raised his head up to the woman, who was an unusually tall 5 feet 8 inches, though he wasn’t too far behind her. She pats the top of the fox’s head and his ears flattened slightly. “You didn’t seriously interrupt your summer studies to just see me, did you?”

“Yes I did, I will not be seeing you except perhaps on holidays. Only proper to send you off like this.” Maria explained before drawing back to settle down at the table. Instinctively Miles sat down beside her and looked down at what was set out. Smörgås, an open faced sandwich along with eggs and caviar from a squeeze tube. His first objective though was the coffee. Plucking his Mobian Space Navy mug, Tails took a long draw from it before beginning to eat.

“Going off to fight in space, I still cannot believe it.” Julianna spoke up as she sat at the table. “Of course Geralt had some defense training when he was picked to be part of the landfall on Mobius but he had the UN peacekeepers protecting him. Pay very close attention to what they teach you, Miles. It could mean your life.”

“And I’d rather not have you returned to us in a box,” Maria spoke up, reaching out to pet his head again. Tails flattened his ears as he leaned in to take a forkful of food. Wolfing it down, he leaned back and looked at the two women. “I always pay attention. I’m not out to be the next Ender Wiggin or James T. Kirk.” Though he did have a large spread of science fiction novels ranging all the way back to the 1900s on his tablet.

“Systems Warfare and Engineering, if I remember correctly.” A new voice broke in. Geralt waved his right hand up as he settled down to Julianna’s left as she gave him a look that he returned with an apologetic smile. “I was tending to the greenhouse.” Then he noticed Maria and his smile widened. “I see the prodigal granddaughter has come up for air.”

“I just finished my master’s degree, Grandfather and medical school starts very soon. I want to have the advantage.” Maria took a long sip from her orange juice.

“I know better than that, Maria. You could have gone to medical school right after high school.” Geralt teased. “Taking that masters of science allowed you to maintain parity with your peers. Probably best too with all the men that would have been circling you like sharks. I could see the horrified look on their faces, finding out they were hitting on a sixteen-year-old.” He guffawed. Maria’s face flushed and she lowered her head. Tails tilted his own head.

“She doesn’t need some lecherous frat boy from Baltimore.” Julianna piped up giving Geralt a slight elbow, who smiled knowingly. “I wasn’t that lecherous.”

“Words of an American,” Julianna shot back. Geralt picked up his coffee mug and masked his smile behind a long slurp. Tails took the opportunity to finish his food slowly, while Maria suddenly went on the attack. When Tails finished, Maria reached out and grasped his shoulders. “Everything is packed?”

“Practically,” he said, the heat in his muzzle and face intensifying to where his nose tickled. “Professor Robotnik is taking me back to Mobius once he’s done with his business here.”

“You’ll do fine at the naval academy,” she said before rising up to her feet and moving to the back of his seat. The fox looked up, his nose resting atop of her head as she leaned in to quickly kiss his forehead, her hair covering his eyes. “I’ll miss you,” he mouthed quietly.

Maria released him slowly and went around to hug Geralt from behind. “I’m going to see my study group, Grandfather. Have a good trip to Mobius.”

“I’ve never had a bad one yet.” The sixty-four-year-old laughed softly and reached up to massage her arm. “Don’t forget to unwind every so often. You may be a medical student but you’re also human too.”

“Yes Grandfather.” Maria moved away and bowed her head. “Goodbye Grandmother.” Julianna nodded with a smile. Then as she stepped away, she gave Tails one last pass of her hand across the top of his head. He sat there, listening to her picking up her bag and leaving through the front door. Then he picked up his plate and moved towards the kitchen to clean it at the sink. Once it was done and rinsed, he set it on a rack and turned to find Geralt behind him

“Walk with me,” Geralt said in a conspirator’s whisper. Tails followed him through the estate through the professor’s study, to the back door. They made his way into his greenhouse refuge and Tails instinctively looked over the various plants that were artfully grown and maintained there. Geralt reached for a drawer in his wooden ‘beater’ desk and withdrew a small box. He withdrew two cigars and held one out to the fox.

“Huh?” Tails rotated the offering in his hand. Geralt laughed softly and sat up on his desk. “This is the very box that your father and I smoked from after you were born. It’s my celebration batch of cigars. Upmann brand, a very famous American president smoked them. John F. Kennedy.”

“The one that kicked off the moon landing initiative,” the fox piped in. The human nodded. “I thought it appropriate that we share a smoke before you go off to fight on moons. But don’t tell Maria and definitely don’t tell Julianna.” He laughed and slapped his knee. “I smoke in here because the filters absorb most of the smell.”

Geralt withdrew a Zippo from his pocket and used it to light his own first, then reached out with the flame still live. Tails matched the human’s motions, leaning in to catch the flame with the tip and then sucked in slowly. He grunted, the smoke a bit alien to him at first but not unpleasant. He held it in his mouth and then slowly let it out through the cigar’s tip.

“Well now,” Professor Robotnik observed, pulling the cigar out from his mouth with a smirk. “You took that a lot better than your father did. He coughed up a storm on his first cigar.”

“I’m not my father,” Tails grunted again as he moved the cigar to the side of his mouth, chewing on it slightly. The human nodded and crossed his arms. “That’s the point, isn’t it? Going to the Space Navy. A new branch, one where you can prove yourself on your merits. To prove that you’re more than your father’s name.”

“All that he seems to be is a name,” The fox straightened up and drew in his breath, causing the tip to glow red before he let more smoke out. “General Amadeus Prower, the hero of the Revolt. The Chief of the General Staff. Father? By mechanics.”

“I wouldn’t be entirely too hard on him. He was rather devastated when your mother died. With his responsibilities, there was no one else that could take them as well as he could. The only relief he had was work. That’s why I offered to have you stay here.” Geralt reflected. “He does care for you, even though his intended career path for you isn’t what you are following. Amadeus can be rather stubborn in some respects, yes. But he tends to listen to me and I’ve stressed how this is the right thing for you to do.”

“I’m grateful,” the fox said with a small nod. “Believe me. I’ve learned so much from you and your family.”

“As your father’s best friend, it was only right.” Geralt smiled toothily, looking like a nearly bald Einstein. “Speaking of family, I noticed that you seem to get nervous around Maria more than usual.”

“I-uh,” The fox inhaled sharply and turned his head, lowering his ears. Geralt laughed. “It’s all right, my boy. It’s that time in your life that you start noticing pretty girls. And Maria is not a bad choice, but you are at a turning point here. Both of you are going into your studies. But I am curious, have you told her?”

“No,” Tails admits, looking back at the human. “Butterflies in your stomach?” Geralt asked and the fox nodded in return. “To be expected. Tell me this, are you certain that you want to do this?”

“I’m sure. It will be at least three years before I am done with my studies at the naval academy anyways. Maria will be either done with or on her final year of medical school when I am finished. Depending on my performance, I might be able to get a posting that will let me return to Earth periodically.” The fox said with another nod.

“I think you will do fine, son.” Geralt smiled. He leaned back, projecting smoke into the air as he gathered a bundle that sat on it before holding it out to the fox. “For those quiet nights if you have nothing to do. The best way to occupy a restless mind that’s idle.”

Tails took up the bundle and carefully undid the twine over top of the butcher’s paper. One of several hardcover books, the first one’s dust jacket having a ship at sea. “Patrick O’Brian. Master and Commander.” He read out loud. “This seems like a well-kept book.”

“They all are. They were my great-grandfather’s. On my mother’s side. He bought them new, one at a time.” Geralt said.

“These were Dr. Watson’s?” The fox’s ears raised up high. He pressed a hand to the cover. To think that these belonged to one of the two men that discovered the structure of DNA and lasted one hundred and thirty-nine years in such a good condition. “I’ll ensure they are looked after.”

“Better yet, ensure they’re read.” Geralt laughed softly. Tails took the cigar out from his mouth and held it away from the books, flicking the ashes at the end. “Now then, once we’re done with our smoke, we’ll get your things in the car and head for Kiruna Spaceport. And remember, if Juliana asks- “

“We weren’t smoking.” Tails laughed and made his way towards one of the armchairs in the refuge, Geralt taking his place in the other. Tails picked up Master & Commander and began to read, taking slow deliberate drags from his cigar every so often. Geralt pulled out his phone and opened his music application, the sounds of seagulls and rolling waves filling the greenhouse along with violin music. He sighed happily, watching the fox read.

 

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