Chapter 6 Sandy and Sally followed Uncle Chuck into the hut. Sonic and Bunnie were inside already, and Rotor and Antoine were busy bringing items into the hut from the porch. A small mountain of flowers was growing near the foot of the bed. "It was Bunnie's idea," Uncle Chuck said. "Now that we have a better idea of what's happening to your mother, Bunnie thought she might appreciate seeing some of the things left for her." Indeed, Queen Alicia, though still weak and pale, was genuinely touched by the tributes left for her. "What IS happening to her, Uncle Chuck?" Sally asked. Uncle Chuck paused. "Before I explain, you have to understand I only invented the roboticizer to enable older folks to live longer lives; I certainly never meant for them to cheat death." "What does that have to do with it?" Sandy asked impatiently. "I actually had the basic process worked out a year before I finally rejected it--and a year before Robotnik began using it for his own purposes. I spent almost that whole year working on one aspect of the process: bioscreening." "Bioscreening?" Sally asked. "What's that?" "A roboticized body isn't entirely mechanical. What the roboticization process does is to reconstruct mechanical analogs to some of the failed body systems, such as wasted limbs, and use other systems that are still functioning without replacing them. The heart continues to function, serving as an electric motor once it's been adapted; the brain continues to function as well, though it appears that the penetration of the brain by the mechanical components had a lot to do with destroying a person's will. That's why I ultimately gave up on the notion of roboticization. "But the body of someone who's been roboticized becomes like any other machine: it performs mechanical functions and those functions produce waste products. I found that the early roboticizing process produced many unwanted elements, and unless they were dealt with...." "Unless they were dealt with," Rotor spoke up, "they'd have nowhere to go except back into the body!" "That's right. And...and that's what's killing the Queen." It suddenly became very quiet inside the hut. "Robotnik must have used an earlier version of the process; either that, or he simply removed the bioscreening capabilities from a later design. Either way,..." "Never mind all that!" Sandy snapped. "Exactly what's killing our mother?" "It's...there are so many things," Uncle Chuck sighed. "She's suffering from irregular heart rhythms caused by electrical interference, her lungs are full of tumors caused by toxins, her liver has been poisoned by heavy metals...there's just too much...." Sandy turned on her heels, hurled a chair across the hut, and before the last splinter fell to the floor she was gone. Sally rose to follow her. "Better let her be, Sally girl," Bunnie said softly. "You stay, too, Bunnie. This is your problem as well." Uncle Chuck's words rooted Bunnie to the spot. "You and Sandy are in the same position as the Queen, though not to the same extent. The blood samples I took from both of you confirm it: you're being affected by the same thing that's affecting the Queen." "Is there a..." Bunnie started to ask. "A cure? If caught early enough, yes. The technology to detoxify your body is readily available. Unfortunately, so long as you're part-robot, you'll only wind up 're-infecting' yourself, as it were. Unless you were deroboticized, it would only be a matter of time before your body started breaking down from the stress." "And Mother?" Sally asked. Uncle Chuck shook his head slightly. "Uncle Chuck," Sonic asked, "are you saying that anyone who's been roboticized is going to go through this?" "That's about the size of it, Sonic." "No way! I mean, YOU were roboticized yourself and you're not...." Whatever else Sonic had to say died on his lips. Uncle Chuck looked at his nephew with robotic eyes, eyes that still showed a great deal of pain. "Sonie, I didn't want to say anything because I didn't fully understand what was going on and I didn't want to scare you, but I've felt myself starting to slow down lately. Not a lot, but enough to notice. At first I thought it was just my age catching up to me, but...." "No!" "Sonie, listen to me! I had Nicole run a model of the progression of this...this disease or whatever you want to call it. Based on what she said, and after analyzing my own blood sample, I've still got about three more good years left in me before...." "Oh, Uncle Chuck, no," Sally whispered. She walked up to him and put her arms around him. Then she asked, "What about the others?" "Nicole estimates that within five years..." He couldn't finish the sentence. Rotor grabbed a chair and Uncle Chuck sat down heavily. "Within five years, anywhere from a third to one half of the roboticized Mobians will be dead or dying. Inside of ten years, nobody who was fully roboticized will be left." The silence in the hut deepened. "What have I done?" Uncle Chuck wailed, burying his face in his hands, "what have I done?" It was the faintest of whispers that caught his attention. The Queen was calling his name. He approached Queen Alicia and knelt next to her bed. The Queen placed her hand on his own. "It's not...your fault. This...is Julian's evil. It is not...your fault." Bunnie turned and left the hut in a daze. She wandered out toward the river that ran next to Knothole, and the bridge that spanned it. She could see someone standing at the middle of the bridge, looking down at the flowing water. It was Sandy. Bunnie walked over to her. "You OK, Sandy?" she asked. Sandy didn't say anything for a minute, until she drew back her cloak. "You see this scar tissue, just where the robot arm ends?" "Uh huh." "One day, when I must have been about eight years old, I felt that the Nomad children had called me 'monster hand' for the last time. I snuck a knife out of one of the tents, took it with me to a secluded spot, and started cutting my arm off. I bit my lip raw trying not to scream out from the pain. I never finished the job; I passed out from loss of blood, and that's how they found me. They told me I almost died that day; I told them I wished I had." She turned. "Bunnie, I don't know how you manage to keep from killing yourself." Bunnie didn't answer, because she didn't have an answer. Mercifully, she was spared from having to answer the question, for Tails walked up to her. He looked unusually sullen. "Somethin' the matter, honey?" Bunnie asked. "I just don't know why everyone's acting so strange, Aunt Bunnie. I mean, I know that it's sad that the Queen's gonna die, but how come everybody's so weirded out about it? It's...." "Scary, right?" "Yeah," he said in a near-whisper, glad that someone else could talk about the feeling he wasn't about to admit himself. Bunnie thought for a few seconds. "Maybe Ah can explain it. You remember what happened last winter, when Sonic had to stay with Antoine until he could get his place rebuilt after Dulcy landed on it?" "Yeah!" Tails laughed. "Antoine really got bent out of shape! You could hear him yelling at Sonic all over Knothole." "That's 'cuz Antoine got used to livin' a certain way, and when he had to get used to Sonic's way of livin', he couldn't handle it." "But what's that got to do with the way everyone's been acting?" "Well, honey, we all of us get used to life, and when we're reminded that we're all gonna have to stop livin' one day, then it's our turn to get bent out of shape. See what Ah mean?" "I think so. Thanks, Aunt Bunnie." He smiled, kissed Bunnie on the cheek, and was off. "Why 'Aunt Bunnie?'" Sandy asked. "Oh, that's jes' what he calls me, same as he calls Sally 'Aunt Sally.'" Bunnie paused. "Y'know, Sandy, that may be the answer to your question." "What is?" "Well, you can see we're not like any fancy kinda army here. It feels more like...like a family. After all, we all lost our real families when Robotnik took over and roboticized 'em. We don't have any kin of our own left, so we have to be kin to each other. Ah think that's what keeps us going." "I see. Well, maybe I'll find something to keep *me* going." "Ah hope so." "You'll excuse me, I'm going for a walk." Sandy walked to the end of the bridge, then turned and began walking along the bank of the river. She studied the bank intently, as if looking for something. Occasionally she would reach into the water and pull out a small stone from the river bed. The first few stones she tossed back into the water. Finally, she found one that suited some purpose of hers. Sitting on the riverbank, she pulled out her knife and slowly and methodically began running the stone against the blade. She didn't stop until the blade was as sharp as a scalpel.