Hop To It - Break 4

I’d like to think I was raised pretty well. My parents were good folk and I grew up watching the standard assortment of morality-affirming children’s shows that taught such lessons as don’t lie, sharing is caring, and stealing is wrong. As I got older, of course, I discovered that there was nuance to these lessons. Sometimes a lie to spare someone’s feelings really isn’t all that bad. Sharing is nice, but you gotta recognize when the other guy is the one being selfish. As for stealing… well, Humi was challenging those beliefs more than they had been before, but I had still, once or twice, looked the other way when I saw a customer swiping a candy bar. And everyone stole things from work, even if they didn’t think of it as stealing--this box cutter was mine now, and it wasn’t like anyone missed it. We had more box cutters than employees, who cared?

Another lesson that was imparted to me when I was young was a respect for authority, but over time I developed my own idea of how to hand out my respect. That is, everyone started with a baseline amount, but if they lost it, earning it back was an uphill battle.

I bring this up because as we approached the downed Egg Carrier, we were boxed in by G.U.N. drones, which did not endear me to them very much.

I hadn’t gotten a chance to see the Carrier much before it got shot down. The one in the ocean was a lot more intact; I wondered if Chaos had used high-pressure water to knock it out of the sky, since it looked like a lot of the paint had been scoured away.

G.U.N. agents had erected a perimeter fence around it, and it took us fifteen minutes to find the checkpoint to get inside, which is when the beetle drones happened.

Two human agents approached, carrying rifles that thankfully they weren’t pointing at us. If they had been, they would have lost all their respectability in one swoop.

“Halt! This is a restricted area,” the male of the pair said. “State your names and purpose.”

Tails raised his hand. “I’m Tails! Er, Miles Prower. You guys asked me for help?” He seemed thoroughly unbothered by the situation. I guess dealing with Robotnik for years inured you against facing down firearms.

The agent’s eyes narrowed behind his visor. “You? What are you going to do?”

The other agent elbowed him and they conferred quietly. After a minute, the woman stepped forward. “Sorry, but we’ll need to see some ID so that we can confirm your identity.”

Tails titled his head, confused. “...I’ve got two tails?”

“Maybe you can show them your pilot’s license?” I suggested, crossing my fingers that he was actually a registered pilot.

“That will suffice,” the woman confirmed.

“Oh, I keep that in the plane, though…” He started patting his pockets anyway, and I sighed because I was getting a vision of the future, no Emerald required, and it looked tedious. “I’ve never had to do this before…”

I spared a glance at Humi, and was slightly worried to see her staring a hole through the nearest beetle drone.

“Listen,” I began, trying to get some kind of control over the situation, “We’re here at you guys’ request. Isn’t there someone you can call?” I snapped my fingers. “No, wait, the call came through the Mayor’s office. The secretary, her name was… it was some kind of punctuation mark, what’s the squiggly dash symbol called again?”

“A tilde?” Tails offered.

“Tilda, that was her name.”

The agents gave each other a look. “I don’t--”

“What is going on over here?!”

Both agents stiffened to attention, and the robots moved into a tighter formation as another woman approached, shorter than either of them but commanding a much greater presence.

She took in the situation with a glance and scowled. “Trellis! Gable! Why are you harassing the expert?”

“We weren’t harassing anyone, sir!” the woman, Trellis, shouted.

“Oh no? Then I suppose that means you think a dozen armed Beetles constitute an appropriate greeting for two children and their escort?!”

“No, sir, Captain!” Gable, the man, said, sweating.

The captain sighed, aggravated. “Get back to your patrol, men. I’ll take care of this.”

The two agents beat feet. The captain pulled a gizmo out of her pouch and pressed a button, sending the drones flying away. That done, she pulled her helmet off and revealed short, cropped blond hair and black stud earrings. She gave us a disgruntled look.

“Sorry about all that, fellas. We’re all on edge over here, but that’s no excuse for not being more on top of things.” She gave me and Humi a look. “I know who Mr. Prower is, but these are…?”

Tails smiled. “This is Humi, my assistant for today,” he said, not noticing Humi tensing up. “And that’s Heyu. They’re with me.”

“I actually do have my driver’s license if you still need an ID,” I said half-jokingly, putting a hand on one of my belt pouches.

She shook her head. “That won’t be necessary.” The G.U.N. agent straightened. “I’m Captain Julie Palisade, and I’m the one in charge of this operation. If you’ll follow me.”

She turned and led us through the checkpoint, and I got a good look at our mission.

The Egg Carrier was in worse shape than I thought, and as we approached I felt an inkling of dread settle into my stomach. Plating was stripped off, massive holes dotted the hull from where something inside had exploded, and an alarming number of G.U.N. robots were in pieces the closer we got to the ship.

Captain Palisade saw me looking and explained. “Some idiot triggered a perimeter defense while exploring the bridge. We’ve disabled most of the outside weapons, but we haven’t been able to shut down the defenses again.”

My eye twitched. “Most?”

She pointed out a seemingly innocuous section of ground that had been roped off with caution tape. “Don’t step in that circle.”

I laid my ears flat. It made me a smaller target. “Tails, are you sure you wanna do this? Humi?”

“The first Egg Carrier wasn’t that hard to walk through,” Tails said, blasé. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

Humi smiled nastily. “I’m going to tear this place to pieces.”

“Mr. Prower proved his mettle when he disarmed Eggman’s missile,” Palisade said firmly. “I don’t want to waste hardware and personnel throwing them against a wall until it falls over when I can send in one expert and let them take care of it.” She glanced at Humi. “One and a half, I mean.”

Humi’s eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth.

Tails beat her to it. “Humi’s a big help! She’ll make the job go twice as fast.”

Humi’s jaw clicked shut and she flushed. I smirked, then shook my head. “Can we at least get a couple hardhats? It would make me feel better about sending us into this deathtrap.”

“You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to,” Tails said.

I quirked an eyebrow at him. It would be highly irresponsible of me to let two children go into an area that the international police force was hesitant to enter. And I was about to say as such, when I picked up on an approaching noise and turned to see what it was.

A stout, balding man in a brown suit was striding towards us, another G.U.N. agent trailing behind him. “Hello, everyone! I’m glad I caught you!”

Captain Palisade groaned, rubbing her temple. “Hello, Mayor Gildenhall. What do you want this time?”

The mayor ignored her, strolling right up to Tails and taking his hand to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you properly, young man, an absolute pleasure. Without your efforts, Dr. Eggman would have utterly destroyed our fair city!”

I looked out past the perimeter fence at the mostly-destroyed city and decided not to say anything.

“I-It’s n-not a b-big d-deal,” Tails said, struggling to pull his hand away as he was shaken up and down. He finally managed it and rubbed his fingers. “S-Sonic did most of the work… but I’m happy I was able to help.”

“Humble, too. Good lad.” Unexpectedly, Mayor Gildenhall then turned to me and smiled widely. “And Mr. Fiver! It’s good to meet you as well! I’ve heard a lot about you!”

He had? Why? Who told him anything about me? I hardly knew anyone. My eyes narrowed as I shook his hand, trying to make sense of this. What did I do that would make the Mayor of Station Square take note of me?

“Fiver?” Humi asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Is that your name?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes. My name is Hayden Fiver, but please keep calling me Heyu. It’s what I’m used to.”

“Mr. Heyu, then,” the Mayor said happily. “Are you speaking for young Miles?”

I blinked. “He prefers Tails,” I murmured, looking at him. The fox shrugged. It felt wrong to speak for him, since I wasn’t his guardian the same way I was… attempting to be Humi’s, but then again I still wasn’t sure how to codify my relationship with her so that wasn’t saying much I don’t think. “...I guess that depends on what you want to talk about.”

“If I may,” Palisade interrupted. “The sooner we get this done, the better, so why don’t Prower and… Humi, get going while you talk with Fiver, sir?”

“Now hold on,” I started, since I really didn’t want to let these kids out of my sight with all these soldiers around; it made me nervous.

But Humi talked over me. “I’m cool with that!”

“Then it’s settled!” The Mayor declared before I could get a word in edgewise. He draped an arm over my shoulder and started dragging me away.

“Hey, hold on.” I ducked under his arm and looked back at the two geniuses. “Listen. I guess this is happening, so watch each other’s backs and be careful, okay?”

Humi smiled. “Puh-shaw, we’ll be fine Heyu! We already took care of stuff like this when it was in one piece, we can handle it broken. What’s the worst--”

“Do not finish that sentence,” I warned. I let out a sigh. “Alright. Get them a pair of hardhats, if you please,” I said to the Captain.

She nodded assent. “Of course. I have a few ground rules for them myself.”

That did make me feel a little better, and earned G.U.N. a few points back.

“All done?” the Mayor asked. “I have a lot to talk about, you know!”

“...Yeah, okay.”

Let’s get this over with.

I kept one ear pointed behind me as the Mayor led me a ways away, towards where a small desk had been set up inside a tent. A woman was seated at it, typing away on a laptop. I assumed she was the Mayor’s secretary, Ms. Tilda. She looked up as we approached and rose to set up a pair of folding chairs.

“Thank you, Mary,” Gildenhall said, taking a seat in the one with arms.

“Sir.” She nodded at me before retaking her own seat and resuming work.

I looked behind me in time to see Humi and Tails entering the Carrier. I stepped in the tent. “What are you two doing out here, anyway?” I asked, sitting down. “I know City Hall is probably a wreck, but this is an active military…” I waved vaguely, searching for the correct word. “...uh, zone. Is that the best place to set up shop?”

“Why not?” the Mayor asked jovially. “This is well out of the observed range of those guns, and I’m surrounded by the best guards available.” He glanced around conspiratorially. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of characters who have been trying to approach me this past week. Parasites, the lot of them.”

I felt my brow furrow as I tried to figure out how to respond to that. 

What did I know about the Mayor? Not much. I didn’t even know his name until Captain Palisade said it. I didn’t engage with politics much. All I knew about the mayor of Station Square was that there must be one, but I didn’t know anything about him or what he did.

…Wait, hold on, yes I did. A memory shoved its way to the front of the queue: a year and a half ago, three months after I started working at Invent-Tory’s, there was a crash outside the building that knocked over a streetlight and tore a huge pothole in the road. Both were fixed good as new only a week later, and Tory gushed about the mayor taking care of his city.

Well. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was encouraging.

I took too long to respond, and Mayor Gildenhall kept going on his own. “At any rate, I wanted to talk to young Tails about finding a way to reward his service to our city. But he’s busy, and speaking to his guardian is the better option anyway.”

I choked on air. “Oh, uh,” cough “I’m not his guardian.” I chuckled. “I suppose I’ve been keeping an eye on him since the thing with Chaos, but it’s not, like, official or anything.”

“Really?” Gildenhall’s mustache twitched. “Well, if you say so. But regardless, let’s talk. You and all of Sonic’s friends deserve something for your efforts.”

…Hm. That was tricky. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. “Okay, first of all…”

------------------------------

[Humi]

Rule number one of living on the streets: steer clear of cops. For every officer that wanted to help you there were two that pretended you didn’t exist and three who went out of their way to make your life a little more miserable.

Captain Palisade seemed nice enough for a cop, the way she told off those jerks giving them a hard time, but then she had to go and spoil it with her rules.

“All Eggman tech on board is now the property of G.U.N. Keep damages to a minimum as you work, because the more we have to study, the better prepared we can be in the future.”

Humi stuck her tongue out at the nearest camera. So lame!

“It’s not that big a deal,” Tails said for the third time.

“It is to me!” Humi threw her hands up, nearly unbalancing herself thanks to the backpack on her shoulders. “Look at all this stuff!”

As if in response to her declaration, a panel on the wall unfolded and a gun emerged. Before it could properly prime, Humi had drawn her potato cannon and fired a monkey wrench at it.

Two more popped out of the floor, and Tails destroyed them with a bomb painted to look like his head. Humi wanted to laugh at that, but she was still too frustrated.

“Oops, looks like we aren’t keeping damage to a minimum,” she sneered. “How do you get your scrap if you don’t scavenge off of Eggman?”

“I do sometimes, but mostly I just buy the raw materials myself.” Tails shrugged. “Recycling is fine, but I prefer machining parts so they’re exactly what I need. Honestly, it’s really cool how you make all that scrap work for you.”

“I guess.” 

Honestly, she was tempted to just take things anyway. It’s not like stupid G.U.N. would know if she hid things in her pocket… Was it really stealing if they hadn’t gotten their hands on it yet? The rule was finder’s keepers, after all.

“Oh, look!” Tails pointed, distracting her. “One of G.U.N.’s robots!”

She perked up. It was several of them actually; two of those flying Beetles and one humanoid mech, all torn to pieces.

“Careful, Humi,” Tails said, holding an arm to block her. “I bet if we pass those robots, we’ll be in a lot of trouble!”

Humi tilted her head. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a slightly torn stress ball. She gave it a light squeeze, then tossed it down the hall. It flew through the air unmolested, until the moment it hit the floor.

The floor turned into spikes. Thin needles, as tall as Tails, sluiced up through the grated flooring with the sound of metal on metal, impaling the ball thrice over and tearing it apart.

Humi whistled. “Wow! Why would Eggman even build that?”

“Who knows?” Tails shook his head. “Let’s find a different way down…”

“Are we going down? I was just following you,” she admitted. “I thought we were going up to the bridge to shut it all down.”

“I thought of that,” Tails said, “But G.U.N. turned the security system on by accident once, they might do it again. I think the best way to solve it is to find the ship’s generator and shut it down.”

The mouse hummed. That made sense to her. “The last three hallways we passed were blocked off. Let me…” Pulling a small crowbar out of her pocket, Humi turned to the wall and pried up a panel. “The fastest way is through. Let’s just disable the trap.”

Tails turned to the opposite wall and repeated her steps, and in short order they were both pulling at wires.

“Speaking of generators,” Humi said, “What are you thinking about how to power Iota and Gamma?”

The fox’s tails lashed. “I don’t know yet. Their AI is the main problem, because a thinking machine is really power-intensive. Iota’s going to need something strong just to stay awake, let alone move around.”

Humi paused and looked at the G.U.N. robots. “Well, what do these guys use?”

“Huh?” Tails looked up in time to see her digging through the destroyed mech. “Humi!”

“Aha!” She came back up holding a glowing glass tube with a green crystal inside. “What’s this?”

“That’s a chaos drive.” Tails jogged over and gently took it from her. “I already thought of that, but they’re not quite up to powering an Eggman robot.”

“Good thing we’re building a Humi robot.”

Tails gave her an unimpressed look. “Humi and Tails robot, thank you. And even still.” He held the glass tube gingerly. “I’ve never worked with these things before because they’ve got some drawbacks. For one, they’re hard to make and expensive to recharge because G.U.N. controls their manufacture.”

Humi peered at it. “...Is that a Chaos Emerald fragment in there?”

“I don’t think so. It’s too long for that.” Tails handed it back to her and turned to the Beetles. “I’m pretty sure they were based on the Chaos Emeralds, though…”

Humi tilted her head. “...Hm. I wonder if we could make our own drives.”

“I don’t think so. I’d have to figure it out from scratch, and I’d need at least one Emerald to even begin with that.”

“Like this one?”

“Like wh--” Tails swiveled in place to see Humi holding the white Emerald in her hand, while she smiled cheekily. “Where did you get that?!”

“Remember when that loud red guy got angry at me in Heyu’d kitchen?”

Tails blinked rapidly. “I--yeah, that’ll help.” He frowned. “Why didn’t you say you had that earlier? We probably could have started building a power core already.”

Humi hesitated. “...Heyu reacted weird to it on the other Carrier. I didn’t want him to know about it.”

“Weird how?”

“His eyes got glowy and--” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It just scared me when it happened. But then later he said it showed him the future… I should tell him when we meet back up.”

She looked away, slipping the Emerald back in her pocket and returning to messing with the wires. She jerked a handful out of the wall, and the spikes shot out again with a clunk before dropping. Humi threw a plastic egg into the trap zone, and when nothing happened they moved on.

They walked quietly for a while before Tails got curious. “So, uh. How are things going with you and Heyu?”

Humi gave him a confused look. “What do you mean?”

Tails opened his mouth, then closed it. He took a long moment to compose his thoughts and decide the best way to broach the subject. “...When I first started following Sonic around, it took me a long time to get used to having a friend,” he finally said, quietly. “He was the first person to look at my tails and think they were cool instead of freaky. I used to think that he’d change his mind and decide I was weird after all.” He smiled. “I don’t think that anymore, but I get how you might be feeling right now, you know?”

“...” Humi swallowed. “I haven’t really thought about it. It’s kind of scary. It’s only been a couple weeks, after all. He’s… not the first to say he cared about me. But it felt different when he said it.”

“Like he really meant it?” Tails pressed.

“Maybe. I hope so.” Humi sniffed and changed the subject. “Hey, I think that’s a map like we saw on the other one. Does it say where the engine room is?”

--------------------------------

[Heyu]

“Are you sure you don’t want to be part of the award ceremony?” Gildenhall asked, perplexed.

“I can’t speak for Tails of course, but I don’t really want to make a spectacle of myself,” I said. “I don’t need a reward for doing so little.”

“Little?” the Mayor barked. “Good sir, you are underselling yourself! You and your friends saved lives!”

“I know, but--” I looked outside the tent, just in case the kids were already done and approaching. “--look, how many people died that day?”

The Mayor’s jolly demeanor evaporated. “The count’s still going. They’re still finding collapsed basements, and it’s suspected some were washed out to sea. But the estimate is less than five hundred. It’s a miraculously low number, given what happened, but still a tragedy.”

“Not to mention the lives ruined from losing all their possessions and homes in the disaster.” I sighed. “I just… don’t feel comfortable being rewarded in the wake of a tragedy. Leastways not in some big ceremony.”

I still felt like I failed. Realistically, I knew that there was nothing I could have done to stop Chaos from getting that last Emerald. Even if Mecha hadn’t been there, I couldn’t have run forever. Eventually I would have had to stop, and that stupid puddle would have caught up. But the fact is, I was given the knowledge of what would happen ahead of time. It really felt like I should have been able to do something…

I didn’t explain any of that. I couldn’t, I’d have sounded insane.

“Tails can have his big moment in the spotlight,” I continued. “He doesn’t need to be burdened with the loss of life, he’s still a kid. And he did defuse a bomb. He saved more lives than I did in all that mess. But it’s not for me.”

The Mayor gave me a serious look. “...Mr. Fiver, you and that mouse girl did save lives.” He stood, standing over me as he folded his arms behind his back. “And one life in particular that you saved was my daughter, Maddie.”

I blinked, surprised. I thought back, but nothing jumped out at me. Unless… “Was she one of the ones at that club that Humi built a boat for?” Wait. “Was she the blonde woman?”

The Mayor nodded, smiling. “Yes indeed. Maybe she would have gotten out alright, maybe she wouldn’t have. But because you were there, she did.” He sat back down with a grin, jolly once more. “I insist you let me give you something.”

I folded my arms, ear twitching. “...Well. If you’re insisting. There are one or two things I could use some help with.”

“Go on.”

“Since you mentioned your daughter… I’m not Tails’s guardian, but I made a promise to look after that mouse girl. Humi’s a sweet kid, and I’m not sure what our relationship is yet but I think it would be great if I could bring her into my family.” I smiled to myself. “Problem is, I don’t think she has any official documentation anywhere. She was homeless before, you see, and--”

The Mayor chuckled. “I do indeed. Yes, I think I can manage something. Quite easily in fact, isn’t that right Mary?”

“I’ve already made a note to get adoption paperwork ready, Mr. Mayor,” the secretary responded, not looking up.

“But that’s hardly any trouble. You said you had a second request?”

I scratched the back of my head. “This one’s kind of awkward, since there’s all this construction going on already and I don’t want to take resources away from someone else, but Humi and I are currently living in a ramshackle house out near Mystic Station. It’s built out of an old ruin and doesn’t have any electricity, plumbing, or heat…” Well, we did have some electricity. Tails had set us up a solar panel and wired a few lights for us, but it wasn’t enough to run any appliances.

“That will take some more doing,” the Mayor admitted, “But I can certainly add your home to the list of residences to be rebuilt. And that’s all you want?”

“That’s all I need,” I confirmed.

Gildenhall smiled warmly and took my hand to shake. “Then I say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you. And thank you, of course, as well.”

“No, thank you.”

I let out a breath and felt something uncoil in my stomach. Things were looking up. I looked over at the Egg Carrier, wondering how the kids were doing.

The Egg Carrier’s engines suddenly cut on, and the G.U.N. soldiers went crazy, shouting and raising firearms at the massive structure as it rose a foot off the ground.

Then the whine cut out and it crashed back to earth, throwing up a cloud of dust that settled over the whole block.

“...I’m sure they’re fine.”

-------------------------------

Humi groaned, pushing a fallen panel off of herself as she rose. Across the hall, Tails was upside down against the wall. He slowly tipped over onto his back.

“Okay,” Humi said slowly. “Not touching that again. Still, I know how to hotwire a flying battleship now, so that’s cool.”