"Something very..." He typed without ceasing. "... dangerous. Dangerous and unethical. And coming from a controversially liberal free thinker like myself, you know it must be bad!"

He gleamed with a little too much pride. Did he actually like being despicable?

*Boop.*

Whatever the case, the door began to split at its center, parting like huge, slow-moving elevator doors. Eggman turned away from the console. "You'll see soon enough," stated the doctor, and not even with the kind of sinister tone the line might have lent itself to. "I had considered using it for my own benefit, but I believe I've learned my lesson about trying to control weapons not of my own creation."

He checked his hobbled-together, makeshift sidearm, then briskly made for the door on his two spindly, spider-like legs.

"I trust you kids will do the right thing with them."

And with that cryptic statement, unless someone tried to stop him, he made a run for it.

Eggman did not stop running to answer Ace. He did call out with something that sounded suspiciously like, "Don't worry," and another piece of a huffed-and-puffed sentence that sounded like, "I'll put you in a very nice robot" ...

Rock made no move to stop Eggman. He instead strode slowly up to the opening door, gun clutched tightly in hand.

His eyes had to adjust. There were a lot of lights on the several-story-high ceiling, but less than half of them were on. Different parts of the room seemed segmented off for different purposes. There were worktables off to one side, like before, as well as storage areas, large computer racks, inactive robots of various makes and models, and, most peculiarly, shelves, upon shelves, upon shelves of what looked like bare metal freezer chests, all with a single glowing red light on each end, and all wired together and routed to some kind of central control unit, or power hub, or... something. The positioning of the boxes also matched the grid-like array of energy sources Sheffer had seen on his radar.



"I think we need a little time to look around," mumbled Rock as he approached the console inside the door. The results of Eggman's apparent hacking—some sort of software that he looked like he'd downloaded to it, possibly something he had already infected their network with prior—sat at the ready, awaiting input. Rock manipulated the interface (unnecessarily laden with Eggman-related imagery), and closed the door behind once everyone was inside, so as to buy a little time to dig around.

If they followed the device deeper in, their stated objective was pretty obvious with a little looking around. Amidst a bunch of miscellaneous lab equipment was a pair of metal-framed, clear-walled cubes with the dark blue Chaos Emerald and the green Chaosol Emerald, glowing brightly for all to see. Yet, out of everything else present, they were the least mystifying of all objects.

Inside the box was confirmation of the correctness of Sheffer's subconscious.

Okay, that's the dry way of putting it. Now for the colorful way:

There was a plastic bag full of clear fluid inside, containing a pale, clammy lump of waterlogged flesh. It was vaguely human shaped, but thin and small, and with a metal helmet enclosing its head. It was not comfortably situated inside the case, but more crammed into it in a partial fetal position, twisted at the waist. It would have been naked, if not for some insubstantial bottoms, not unlike bike shorts. Wires ran into the bag containing the individual through sealed gaskets, and into its helmet, lower back, and other parts, presumably providing some kind of life support.

The liquid suddenly spattered as a hand shot through the plastic, and the figure started scrambling up from its box prison, the three yellow lenses on its helmet glowing brightly.

It tenaciously scratched and pounded at the lid from inside.