ALICIA ------ "Hmm, let's change that hair a bit... Perfect!" "How about nanites for self-repair?" "Good idea... Wish David was here to help us..." "Hmm, so _that's_ what I look like with green eyes..." "These systems could use some major improvements..." "Agreed. Nicole, work on the CPU upgrade, see if we can do a better job on this." >> Working, Sally... Projected improvements to CPU design are 300% << "Wonderful!" "Iron Lips left a lot of room for improvement here." "Yeah, all his bots are expendable..." "So was everyone else to him..." * * * There was quite a crowd gathering around Rotor's hut, overhearing much of the above conversation inside. He and Sally have been working on some unknown project for about a day and a half now, and speculation was flowing amid the curious crowd. "You don't think it could be a de-roboticizer, do ya, Sonic?" Tails piped. "Nah, Joseph's already working on that, lil' bro, " Said Sonic. "I'll bet it's a new kinda waycool power generator." "Hmmph!" Antoine snorted. "_I_ think it's as plain as vanilla that they are building a radar system!" "Yeah, right, Ant..." Sonic smirked. "Like you've got inside information on the project. Suuuure..." "Of course I am having information, you fuel," Antoine replied indignantly. "I happened to have been a fly on the floor in that meeting, and..." "A fly, eh?" Sonic folded his arms. "Yo, Tails, could ya go get me my flyswatter?" Antoine looked like he was going to throw a fit when Bunnie stepped in. "Alright, boys, break it up! Ahm sure Sally n' Rotor'll let us know what they're buildin' when they're ready..." As if on cue, the door to Rotor's hut opened, causing all conversation in the crowd to cease. Sally poked her head out of the doorway and giggled. "Alright, you guys, we don't need to keep you in suspense any more..." She smiled and stepped outside. "What we've been working on is a robot that Rotor here found in Robotropolis, to help us out with various tasks here in Knothole." "Well, hey, Sally girl," Bunnie said, "Does this mean Ah actually get ta have a break for more'n three seconds?" This produced laughter from the crowd. Sally chuckled. "Yes, Bunnie. That, and an extra hand to help keep Knothole safe." "This ain't a SWATBot ya rebuilt, is it Sal?" Sonic queried. "No, Sonic, of course not." Sally replied. "Noone would feel too comfortable with one of those walking around Knothole, and they take up too much space and energy. What we rebuilt has a bit more of a... familiar look to it." The crowd buzzed a bit, and Sonic spoke up. "Ok... So, what's it look like, then?" Sally smiled and said "You're about to find out." She then called back into the hut, "Ok, Rotor, bring her out." "Gotcha, Sally!" Rotor called out, then walked out with a remote control device. He fiddled with it a bit, causing a figure to walk out, causing a collective gasp to come from the crowd. The robot they saw looked almost like an exact duplicate of Sally herself, right down to the fur and hair. There were distinguishing marks, such as the green boots it had instead of blue, green eyes, and the silver-like color of it's bangs. In lieu of a vest like Sally's, it instead wore a bright green wristband on each wrist. Despite these differences, the resemblance this robot had to Sally was uncanny, and to some, unnerving. "Uh, Sally..." Bunnie said above the increased buzz in the crowd, "Ain't this th' same robot that..." "Yes, Bunnie, it is." Sally replied. "Rotor found her during his scavenging run on Robotropolis a couple of days back." "I'm not so sure this is a good idea, Sal..." said Sonic. "You remember what this thing did when Robuttnik was still around..." Yes, Sonic, of course I do." Sally replied. "You can relax, though, we wouldn't rebuild her with out reprogramming her. If there's going to be a robot out there that looks like me, I'd rather have it work on _our_ side." A bit of laughter came from the crowd. "We also made some major improvements to her," Rotor added, smiling. "We kept the personality matrix Robotnik copied from Sally here, but improved her Central Processing Unit by 300% so she could be a free-will bot, build her own personality on what she already has." A few nodded at this. Sonic scratched his head and said "Central Processing Unit?" "Her 'brain', Sonic," Sally replied. "Yeah, her brain. I knew that." Sonic smirked. Sally rolled her eyes as Rotor continued. "We also gave her a more efficient power supply and electronics system to replace the one taken out of her. I also gave her an internal com-unit, tied into our scrambled system, _and_ I even used some of the notes left over from when we made David Prower to give her a nanite-based self repair system! Pretty cool, huh?" More people nodded, a slight murmur going through the crowd. Tails looked up at the robot and asked, "So what are we gonna call her, Aunt Sally? RoboSally?" Sally chuckled and replied, "No, tails, I wanted to give her a better sounding name than that... Something a bit more personal. I've decided to call her Alicia." Many people in the crowd ooohed and ahhhed at this, knowing that Alicia was Sally's middle name. Sally smiled at the reactions and turned to Rotor. "We ready?" Rotor smiled and held his thumb up. "Ready to go, Sally. Bringing her online." he then took his remote and pressed a button on it. This caused numerous signals to run through Alicia's electronic mind... [POWERUP SIGNAL RECEIVED. INITIALIZING TEST ROUTINE] [CPU:100% MEMORY:100% POWER CORE:100% MOTOR SYSTEMS:100% SENSORY SYSTEMS:100% STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY:100% WEAPON SYSTEM:100% SELF REPAIR SYSTEM:100% MISC. SYSTEMS:100%] [TOTAL UNIT FUNCTIONALITY AT 100%. END TEST ROUTINE. INITIALIZING...] [DONE. ONLINE>] Alicia moved a bit as she powered up. She then blinked and looked around at the crowd, who were looking at her in silence. Tails walked up to Alicia, looking up at her for a bit, finally saying, "Uh... Hi!" Alicia looked down at Tails with an inquisitive look, studying the young fox. [IDENTITY: ORGANIC UNIT "TAILS." FREEDOM FIGHTER. FRIENDLY.] After a second of silence, Alicia smiled at Tails and said, in a voice similar to, but slightly higher than Sally's, "Hello..." * * * A few days had passed, and things for Knothole's latest robotic resident had gotten off to a shaky start. Everyone had heard about her past, and aside from Tails, the others had varying degrees of distrust for her, despite her eagerness to help out. Sally and Rotor had complete trust in her, but this was logical; they were the ones that had rebuilt her. She was walking around Knothole, observing the others in their daily routine and noting the abrupt silence that seemed to accompany her presence. She noticed Bunnie having trouble lifting a large fallen tree that had blocked one of the paths, and Antoine nearby attempting to tell Bunnie how to do the job. She walked over and said, "Hello... Do you need any help with that tree?" Antoine seemed to glare at Alicia a bit, and Bunnie replied, somewhat hesitantly, "Ummm.. Sure, Alicia, I guess..." Alicia went to the side of the tree opposite Bunnie and proceeded to help lift it out of the way, her robotic strength making the task much easier. After the tree had been moved out of the path, Bunnie wiped her brow and smiled a bit. "Phew... Thanks, Alicia..." Alicia smiled and said, "You're welcome, Bunnie. I'm glad I could help." She then walked off to observe the rest of Knot hole. As she did, she overheard Antoine comment, quite curtly, "We are being lucky she did not try to squash us as flat as a bird with that tree..." to which Bunnie admonished, "Land sakes, Antoine, ya don't have ta be so rude..." "Alicia, there you are!" She turned to see Sally approaching her. "I'm glad I caught up with you. We noticed some strange activity up on that cliff west of here. I'm not sure if it might be SWATBots or not, so we need someone who can handle themselves to check it out, and I was hoping you would volunteer." Alicia nodded. "I'd be happy to, Sally. I'll get right on it." Sally smiled. "That's wonderful, Thanks Alicia." She then turned towards her hut, only to hear Alicia say, "Sally?" She then turned back. "Yes, Alicia?" "I've noticed that my presence seems to... bother some of the others..." said Alicia. "They don't seem to trust me much at all." Sally quirked her mouth. "Hrm... I feared this might happen..." She then smiled. "Give them time, though, they'll learn to trust you. You've been doing wonderful so far, so I wouldn't worry about it." Alicia nodded. "Well, worrying isn't something I'm capable of... All the same, thank you." "Anytime, Alicia." Sally replied and walked off, thinking to herself... "Not capable... Maybe we can fix that someday..." * * * Alicia made her way to the top of the cliff and looked around. She noted a few indentations in the ground, rather large, metallic boot shaped ones. Activating her internal com unit, she contacted the others. 'Alicia here... Sally, there were definitely SWATBots here, I recognize these footprints, though it doesn't look like a great number of them. I'll remain here and see if they come back.' 'Roger that, Alicia,' Sally replied, 'Just be careful up there.' 'I will, Sally, thank you. Alicia out.' she said, then sat down on a rock, scanning the area. Her scan was interrupted by an odd whirring sound behind her. Turning quickly, she saw Tails flying over the edge of the cliff. "Hi!" he said. "Oh, Tails, hello..." Alicia replied. "I'm not sure it's safe for you to be up here..." Tails landed by Alicia and said, "I'll be fine, I've been up here before." He smiled. "Just wanted to see how you were doin'." Alicia smiled back. "Why, thank you, Tails... I figured you would be one of the ones to have the least trust in me, considering what I tried to do in the past." Tails shrugged. "That was when Robuttnik was controllin' ya, Alicia. Sally an' Rotor rebuilt ya, though, so that makes ya cool." Alicia nodded and smiled. "Thank you again. It would be nice if the others felt that way." "Yeah..." Tails replied, sitting next to Alicia. "They're treating ya like I treated David when they first made him... Doesn't it hurt your feelings when they treat ya like that?" "Actually, no," Alicia replied. "I don't have any 'real' emotions like you or the others, even David. It's more of a set of responses that I have to certain situations. I'm a free-will robot, not an android." "Oh..." said Tails. "It'd be cool if ya could feel things... Even if ya can't, they still shouldn't treat ya like that." With that, he smiled and hugged Alicia warmly. Alicia blinked, then smiled and hugged back... a bit tightly, causing Tails to emit an 'oof!'. "Oh, I'm sorry, Tails, did I hurt you?" Tails giggled and said, "Naw, I'm fine. You'll get used to hugging people, I'm..." "HALT, FREEDOM FIGHTERS!" A mechanical voice droned. Tails gasped, and Alicia quickly rose to see two SWATBots facing them fifteen feet away, one holding a laser rifle aimed directly at them. [IDENTIFY:ROBOTS, 2, SWATBOT CLASS. VERY HOSTILE. DEFINITE THREAT PRESENT.] "SURRENDER, BY ORDER OF LORD ROBOTNIK." the SWATBot with the rifle droned. "Robotnik... That must mean these are old strays," said Alicia. "Tails, get out of here, I'll handle..." "TRAITORS STILL ACTIVE, USING DEADLY FORCE." The 'bot droned again, and fired at the two, causing them to dive. Alicia rolled up to a crouched position from her dive and faced the armed SWATBot. Taking aim, she fired a blaster bolt from her finger at it, nailing it right in the head. The SWATBot sputtered and sparked, then fell right over as it's head exploded. Tails wasn't so lucky, however. Dodging the laser shot, he tripped on a buried stone and flew head first into a tree, hitting it rather hard. He got up and dizzily staggered about, as the unarmed SWATBot approached him menacingly. Alicia got up and saw the SWATBot about to grab Tails. Moving quickly, she jumped, pouncing on the robot's back. The SWATBot danced around, trying to grab a hold of her, but she managed to grab a hold of it's head and yanked it off with one great pull. She then jumped off, kicking the headless chassis away. She landed on her feet and quickly looked around, then spotted a still-dazed Tails getting dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. "Tails, look out!" Tails staggered in his dazed state, until he was teetering right on the edge, about to fall. Alicia ran to him and grabbed him, quickly pulling him to safe ground. This act, however, caused her to lose her own balance, and she found herself falling straight to the bottom of the cliff. Activating her internal com-unit, she sent out, 'Alicia here... I'm about to need some help, at the cliff's bottom...' Right then, she hit the ground with a resounding thud. [SYSTEM CHECK: MOTOR SYSTEMS:50% SENSORY SYSTEMS:60% STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY:75% POWER CORE 70%. ENERGY CONSERVATION REQUIRED, SHUTTING DOWN TO EXPEDITE SELF-REPAIR] Alicia looked up at the sky, her vision clouded by static. The last thing she saw before blacking out was the silhouette of a familiar hedgehog looking over her. * * * Alicia opened her eyes again to find herself lying on a bed, with Rotor looking over her. "Welcome back, Alicia. How're your systems doing?" "Everything's running at 100%, but I'll definitely need to recharge soon..." said Alicia. She sat up to find Sally, Sonic and Bunnie in the same room. "Where is Tails? Is he alright?" "He's fine," Sally replied, smiling. "He's in his room, resting off that bump he got on his head." Alicia smiled. "That's good. I'm glad I could keep him from falling like I did..." "Yeah, Tails told us about that, and how ya handled those SWATBots up there," said Sonic. "Way past cool job ya did, Ali!" "Yah did good, girl," Bunnie added. "You're a real hero! Everyone's talkin' about bout what ya did, an'..." Sally stepped back a bit and smiled, then took a sip of the lemonade she was drinking, then looked at the glass and chuckled to herself. She then watched Alicia receive her well-deserved praises from the others. She was going to just fine here in Knothole. --> End <-- -- Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Sally, Rotor, Bunnie, Antoine, Knothole, etc. (C) 1996 SEGA of America, Inc. David Prower (C) 1996 Shawn Wolski. Joseph (C) 1996 Joseph DeLaCroix. This story (C) 1996 Pat Carson Jr. This story is not officially affiliated with SEGA of America, Inc. (which is a shame, we fanfic writers should have a chance to have our works drawn and animated professionally and appear in a video game, but you know how corporations are. :)