My Precious Doll

Not fair. Not fair at all. Tommy looked at the news clipping he now always kept with him. At first glance someone would think it was a video game screen shoot, but the back ground was good to honest real, and the shadows and reflections on the brightly colored orange anthro-fox were too blurry, too undefined to have been produced by a machine. His elder by nine years, Tommy's cousin Kyle has gotten the best thing in the world. He had gotten turned into Tails! And according to his friends had gone to Sonic Land! Tommy envied him, before it had always been about Kyle having a room dedicated to their mutual favorite video game character. Now Tommy envied him because Kyle had to be out there having fun all day, not having to worry about home work or chores, just doing what he wanted to do!

"Rings I'm grades above this junk!" Kyle threw the pencil down in defiance, he had suffered through geography once and wasn't about suffer through it again!

"You may know your biplane inside and out like everything else in that club house of yours, but that doesn't give you the right to skip out on the rest of your education. Just be glade we can mail in the home school results so you don't have to march back and forth each week day."

Kyle grumbled, really wishing that this Mobius and Earth had cloned maps of each other, no such luck! And he still had to finnish restoring the Tornado III's engine!

Tommy had always felt happy about having someone so much older than him that shared his love of the super cool character! Through Tommy always felt that Tommy had slightly more liking to it than Kyle did. Tommy just didn't have the same amount of money to spend on toys based on the two tailed fox. What was Tails again? Kitesue? A kitesome? Some weird chinese fairy tale animal.

The rest of his family almost never talked about it, and told him to be quite when Tommy brought it up. Ugh! Why couldn't it have been him? He was closer to Tails' age, so it made more sense! He had heard through friends of a friend of a friend that some more of Kyle's friends had vanished, all becoming Sonic characters and going to Sonic Land to always have fun just like Kyle Tommy knew for a fact.

"I should have stayed in bed today!" Vector proclaimed running from a king sized auto-hammer on Bigfoot wheels, Eggman's mug on the machine's remote TV screen, giggling all the way. It would be half an hour of running before Espio spotted them and blew out the tires.

In the shopping mall, Tommy had split off from his parents to check out the toy stores as any child did with their guardians at an indoor shopping center, thus no one paying him that much mind. Though some did it odd for a child to be carrying a news paper clipping. Oh well, none of their business.

On a beeline for Kay Bee Toys, Tommy spotted a new store, it had to be new or he would have noticed it eons before now. In big bold letter above the entrance it said 'Super Super Super Store!!! (yes with three exclamation marks). In it were toys based off the Sonic characters that Tommy hadn't even known existed (which should have been impossible with Kyle's collection). Not giving it a second thought, the child went inside, and was in wonderland.

There was even a section for each of the main Sonic characters! Sonic, Knuckles, and of course Tails. Tommy made a straight path for those, it was lucky there were no other customers in the store at the moment or Tommy would have steam rolled them. There he was among so many clones of the orange fox.

So many Tails. Hey! What if he could be Tails too? Two Tails! Why not? That way Tails could be in two places at once and have twice as much fun!

Sure! It made perfect sense! They could both be Tails! And of course they would save the best for last. Certain of his destiny now, Tommy couldn't wait for it to happen to him and he could get what he deserved.

Too bad it couldn't happen right now. Oh well. His parents were always blabbing about patience or something. Looking around at the toys, Tommy honestly wanted to take them all. But knew he couldn't, the mall police would take him to a bad place his mother told him if he tried to take stuff without paying for it.

Sighing to himself, he look at all the Tails toys and their price tags (his mother had insisted the next toy he got had to be with the money she gave him at the start of the visit and no more than that), he thought really hard about getting one of the hand held black and white games, but he was used to the fancy graphics on the big TV and they didn't appeal to him. At last he picked up a Tails plushie. It was so real, he could almost swear it was real if it moved, and it wasn't full of fluff.

Taking his prize and walking to the cash register. Tommy took one look at the man behind the counter and said. "You're weird looking."

"That's your opinion kid." He said grinning back, the man had pale almost blue skin, and his hair was dyed green! As for his eyes, well, he couldn't tell underneath those shades, but he was sure they had to be weird looking too. "So that's what your buying?"

"Yes." Tommy replied simply.

"Great choice." The cashier cheered, Tommy didn't even bother to read his name tag. "Then again, everything is a great choice here at the Super Sonic Super Store!" The cashier range up the price of the rather large stuffed animal and Tommy just handed the man the money. The machine went ka-ching, the numbers rang up and the man gave the boy his change.

"Thank you so much for shopping at the Super Sonic Super Store!" The man grinned ear to ear. Tommy thought it looked out of place except on a clown. The man's voice became low and sober. "See you again."

Tommy blinked at the man not getting it at all, oh well, he didn't need to, he had his plush doll and that was what mattered.

Not even looking back, Tommy began the systematic process of locating his parents, by looking in every store, and stopping for at least three minutes in each one before going on to the next one.

But the stuffed animal was heavier that it looked, and after the third store, Tommy was already burned out. Deciding his parents would find him eventually, or would call security and have them find him eventually, Tommy sat down, taking a minute to catch his breath. He looked at his toy, how could something so soft be so heavy?

Making himself comfortable, Tommy resigned himself to watching the boring people and listening to their boring talk while he waited for his parents to show up and take him home.

After five minutes of this (he outdid his record, before it was three) Tommy realized he had just enough money left over to go the candy shop and buy himself some of those frosted sugar cookies his mother would never buy. (he didn't even think of saving his cash for a rainy day) But Tommy found out much to his frustration that his legs had fallen asleep while he had sat down. He wasn't stupid enough to give someone his money and ask them to bring the cookie for him, so he knew he had to wait it out until he got his feeling back.

Taking his shoes and socks off, not caring who said it was rude until they worked there at the mall and therefore held some power over him, Tommy rubbed his feet trying to get some feeling back in them. It didn't come. Even more frustrated than before, Tommy sat down like a log, fuming.

Tommy noticed he hadn't gotten all the Dorito stains out of his cloths like he though he had he was so bored, not even looking at the doll he had just spent not so hard earned money on.

Trying to brush it off, it only seemed to spread, on his cloths and on his hands. Giving up, Tommy just laid there. However, after trying to stretch a few minutes later, Tommy found he had been in this sitting position for too long and his entire body had somehow fallen asleep!

Struggling and to no avail, Tommy lost his desire to struggle, and was as motionless as his doll except for his breathing. He was so tired, why couldn't he close his eyes? Did he have too much soda before coming here? (Naw, there was no such thing as too much soda.)

A red dangling things came into his view, looking a piece of see through plastic or something shaped like an off angled cube.

He batted it away with his arm, seeing the orange stained sleeve had covered his hand for some reason, the trim was still white though. The little red thing just came back into place a moment later, and Tommy noticed it was on a spring or something. Getting up, Tommy found he felt lighter than air, in fact, he might as well have been floating above the ground he felt so light. And his parents said he didn't exercise enough! Showed how much they knew! Kyle had been the only who really understood him anyway.

He made a small laugh and a heard someone press a button on their cell phone. He knew the problem would solve itself if he just waited for a little while. He gracefully turned to his doll and tried to move it, only to find it had gotten even heavier than when he put it down.

Abandoning the toy, he skipped, his feet barely touching the floor as he moved, he noticed his reflection a store window. His face had gotten totally covered in the flavoring of the chip from earlier that day. Daddy would be so angry with him! He'd REact with a BOOT in Tommy's rear for sure! And who had sneaked up and put this stupid party favor on his head? After the first glance and not even bothering to take in details of the face he knew so well he floated right to where he knew the bathroom was.

The door swung inward for him, and he was inside before it could swing back out.

The bathroom was really dark. Looked like nearly all the lights had been broken. His heart nearly crashed when he almost ran into the two large figures in front of him. Mall guards! Tall, in black body armor like in all those cop shows his parents said he was too young to watch. Tommy couldn't identify their faces underneath his helmets.

"Come with us at once." One of them said in a frightful monotone voice. Tommy didn't calculate not obeying the command for a nano-second.

The two guards turned around and Tommy automatically followed, there was another door in the bath room and the guards and Tommy both proceeded through it. The bathroom and the hall way they entered exactly alike, badly light, and smelling of oil and rust.

Hearing several car and monster truck engines, Tommy knew they had to be close to the out perimeter of the shopping installation. Of course, Tommy knew the mall so well it was like he had a map pasted transparent over his vision, and it showed him that he wasn't all that near the outside of the place.

So to think it was car engines was illogical. A more logical conclusion was that it was the power generators. A place this important did have to have it's own power source. None of the three saying a word, they finally led Tommy to a room meant for mall guards to talk to people they though could be trouble. Tommy logged they hadn't gotten a lot of Daddy's equipment out of here for when it had become there's to use.

A familiar voice came over a hidden load speaker.

"Unit EMC-03-1 lie down on main table and prepare for full hardware and software upgrade."

Tommy complied with the command, though he was trying to process the conflicting data, 'hardware' 'software' 'upgrade?' What did those have to do with anything? Why did the mall guards want him anyway? He had no log of performing an deviant act this visit. Tommy's unblinking eyes looked down without turning his head or rolling his eye balls to see two bits of orange fur sticking out of he aft section. Those weren't part of his design. Restraint clamps activated and closed in around his wrists and feet.

Tommy gasped but his voice was drowned out by someone's stupid cell phone beeping again! He asked what the function of this illogical act was but only heard someone's cell phone beeping like crazy! Sounded like it was broken. Should get it fixed. Or at least fixed up so it didn't mess up like that. You should always get your broken or dysfunctional units repaired or up with the times.

Tommy's audio censors heard a load buzzing, and the noise of steel cutting through thick synthetic fibers before hitting the metal underneath.

=Main Operating System shut down for software upgrade=

Was the order sent directly into his CPU.

=Order Received and complied=

Back at the shopping mall. The cashier's slight smile (the only sign of emotion on his face), picked up the Tails plushie, watching as it dissolved back into the selfish dream stuff it had been molded form.

"Excuse me." The cashier wondered what the interruption was and turned to see a middle aged human woman with a few year younger man.

"Have you seen my son? He's really into Sonic The Hedgehog so I think he would have visited your store."

"Son? . ." The cashier slight smile became a devil's grin. "You have no son."

"We have no son." They repeated and almost mindlessly wandered off.

The cashier laughed and vanished into thin nothingness.

Tommy was stripped of his skin, revealing his skeleton/muscles underneath. His arms and legs were disconnected and removed at the joins including the two tails. They got ride of that stupid dangling things and tossed it in the garbage. What could have been his eye lids were lifted off. His Adam's apple in his throat was pulled out. His felt his stomach being disconnected from his organs followed by his non-beating heart as well. His skull was clamped down onto his shoulder and his neck was almost completely gone.

=Removal of Outdated Body Sections Complete=

They opened up his skull, and he brain, he brain not all there, not all there. Brain not all there. Can't think but now. Why no think? Why no dead? How alive? How alive no brain? No data. No data. OS not installed. Awaiting programming. What programming? What data? What Ohh Esse? What installed? Why it is not?

Brain back, think, thinking better, can think, can think clearer now.

=Hardware of Cranial Process Replaced=

=Proceed With Body Sections UpGrade=

They stuck new arms and legs on him, include two new tails, but they were flat, and really really sharp. They put his eye lids back on, but why was everything so squarish? Now all tiny squares. Not eddy biddy squares. Now normal. Never mind. They put smaller stomach in, but really better than old stomach. Heart goes in next. Veins, lots of them, all different colors, all fit right into place where they should go. Voice box back. Still shut down. Can't talk. Can't talk unless need to or ordered to. Dangly thing still gone, yippee. New skin comes on, orange, reflective, all flat and hard, they have to hit it really hard lots of times to put it into place. But it fit all the same. Skin all gleaming and shinny!

=Hardware Upgrade Complete=

=Proceed With OS Update=

What was an OS? R comes before S. Everyone knows that. He knew something they didn't! Idiots. Tommy just wished they'd finnish what they were doing so he could go home. Mom and dad would yell at him if he had gotten in trouble, and better that yelling was over the better.

=Downloading now=

Who was saying all this anyway? And why couldn't he see them? They seemed to very close by. But he couldn't figure out where.

=Unnecessary junk data found. Begin deletion process=

'Huh? What are you talking about?' Tommy spoke without speaking.

=Glitches in EMC-03-02 AI Detected. Begin debugging program=

'Glitches? What does that mean?'

=Junk data compiled. Erasing=

Mom.

Dad.

Kyle.

Home.

Earth.

Tommy.

School.

Friends.

Birthday.

Human.

All categories erased.

Glitch's found and erased:

Emotions:

Love

Compassion

Pity

Empathy

Sympathy

Ideas:

Self

Heart

Friendship

Morality

Esthetics

Religion

God

Boot Up System OS

'Eggman' Mecha Series Unit Zero Three version 2.0

Code Name: Cyber Tails

Primary function: Serve Ivo Robotnik/Dr. Eggman/ Julian Kinbotor

Secondary function: Torment, Harm, Torture, Kill, Murder, Destroy:

Primary Freedom Fighter Bio-unit Miles 'Tails' Prowler.

Mecha Unit Zero Three Organic template.

Thirdary function: Prove superiority over Organic template.

Update: Retrieve file from Trash.

Update: Additional Identification to Target Miles Tails Prowler.

Additional identification:

'Kyle'

Return 0 ;

Boot up complete.

The Mecha unit's sky blue scanners turned (now just like Metal Sonic's in shape) on as the table tilted and the restraints released. The two helicopter blades on it's back side folded neatly on it's back.

"Cyber-Tails." The double ganger looked up. A large man with a really huge red mustache loomed over it.

"Do you understand me?" Said the mad doctor in front of him.

"Yes Master Robotnik."

"What is your primary Task?"

"To serve Master Robotnik."

"What is your second function?"

The machine's inflectionless voice turned almost vicious. "Kill Miles Tails Prower." the machine continued in a lower but no less blood thirty voice. "Kill Kyle."

The evil scientist cackled. "Welcome to the Eggman Empire!"

 

A girl with spanish features in a white tank top and a orange and green skirt with sandals ran through the mall, her heart beating a mile a moment, she had teleported as close as she could. What had gone wrong? She looked desperately for Tommy, where was he? Then she felt it, His presence, he had been here, and Tommy was gone, in all senses of the word.

"Hey miss." Said a large man in a guard uniform. "We don't need your kind here, move along."

"Yes." She said sadly. "I really am not needed here . . . I missed my chance . . . and someone else has to pay for it." She vanished into thin air, scaring the guard half to bits, she was too depressed to bother cloaking herself. He got one. She promised herself they wouldn't get any after Robotnik returned . . . but he did. Please. She hoped there wouldn't be more. She knew how empty an hope that was. Destiny worked for both sides sometimes . . .

~Fin