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Whenever Shadow went missing, Rouge could usually find him at GUN’s shooting range. It was a vast, concrete facility buried in the subterranean levels of GUN’s headquarters in Central City. Above their heads, civilians were going about their daily lives while GUN agents trained to protect them, hidden from sight below their feet.
Rouge stood on one of the observation decks, staring through the thick, bulletproof glass. There were dozens of booths, and she could see Shadow at the far end of the range. His inhibitor rings glimmered as he reloaded his pistol. He refused to use a speed loader. He refused to wear ear protection. He refused to listen to the agents who suggested that he should use a standard-issue Beretta instead of a Colt 1911.
Despite the soundproofed walls and thick glass, Rouge could still hear the faint cracks of gunshots, and her ears twitched. She didn’t like loud noises. Her ears were sensitive after all. In that sense, she’d picked the worst possible candidates to form Team Dark.
Shadow had used to have a softer speaking voice in the past, but it had grown harsher and rougher over the years. She couldn’t blame him, but she missed the quiet conversations they’d used to have. His metal shoes clanged on nearly every surface, and his temper had a short fuse. He used guns even though he didn’t have to; he was a living weapon.
Omega was just as bad. It often felt as though he had turned his synthesised voice to the highest possible volume and snapped the dial off his control panel. He was a walking armoury, and he would draw weapons on people and machines alike at a moment’s notice. He was far too trigger-happy, but GUN rewarded that kind of attitude. Shoot first, ask questions later.
Rouge cringed, resting her elbows on a ledge below the glass and shrinking inwards. Sometimes she couldn’t understand what drew Shadow to use guns despite everything he had been through, especially when he didn’t need them. The same pistol that he was holding in his hands was the same make and model that had belonged to the GUN soldier who had killed Maria. Didn’t using it remind him of his past? If he had truly ‘moved on’, then why did he keep clinging to relics of a bygone century?
She tilted her head, studying Shadow from afar, as though today would be the day when his opaque motivations finally became crystal clear. Then again, maybe this was what ‘moving on’ looked like for him – a refusal to let his past dictate who he would fight alongside or what weapons he would use. Even so, she felt her chest begin to ache.
Rouge heard the chime of an elevator, followed by the sound of someone walking towards her. She’d recognise that swift stride anywhere, and she glanced up to see Abraham Tower join her at the railing. ‘Hi, Abe.’
He didn’t call her out on her lack of ceremony. He had told her to call him “Commander” once, and she’d dug her heels in so hard that he’d never spoken of the matter again. He hadn’t recruited her or Shadow or Omega for their manners or their loyalty. They were a nightmare to deal with, and she knew it. They caused collateral damage and disobeyed direct orders and stole government property… but he still kept calling them back for more missions.
‘Agent Rouge.’ He followed her line of sight, and his gaze landed on Shadow. The lines in his face deepened. GUN’s various training facilities all had observation decks. GUN saw everything. GUN heard everything. GUN monitored every aspect of their agents’ lives, and the headquarters’ architecture reflected that. But it also meant that GUN’s senior officers didn’t have the choice to look away from unsightly things.
Shadow’s shoulders were rigid, and his movements were mechanical. Load, raise, fire, lower, reload, again, and again, and again. He showed no signs of stopping. Bullet casings were gathering around his feet like piles of gold coins. You would think that the target at the end of the laneway would have been shredded by now, but it wasn’t. His aim was so precise that only a single bullet hole was visible, right between the silhouette’s eyes. The timer on the wall of the booth was constantly resetting, and the numbers flashed as though they were struggling to keep up.
Abraham said nothing, but the longer he watched, the stiffer his posture grew.
‘What’s the matter?’ Rouge asked, but her words belied a strong bitterness. ‘You should be thrilled. Look at him go,’ she said, waving her arm lazily as though she were a parent bragging about their child’s ability to ride a bike. ‘Wow.’
‘Do you think it brings me any joy to see him like this?’ Abraham asked. His voice was scathing, and her fur bristled in response. ‘You and I both know that Shadow isn’t here to improve his skills. He can’t physically fire off rounds any faster with that gun. He can’t break his personal record anymore. He’ll only break the trigger or break his fingers, but it won’t matter, will it?’ He slammed his hands down on the railing and said, ‘He’ll just get another gun from the armoury, and he’ll just heal his hands. He’ll keep coming back here, and I can’t stop him – none of us can stop him!’
His voice rang in Rouge’s ears, and she took an uncertain step backwards. Her arms went slack and fell to her sides.
For 50 years, Abraham’s goal had been to hunt Shadow down and stop him from destroying the world, but his ambitions had been built on lies, and they had crumbled beneath the weight of the truth. Shadow might not care about humanity, but he wanted to protect the world. The only thing he was destroying was himself, one bullet at a time.
Abraham’s heterochromatic eyes flickered, and he grimaced. ‘… Sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Besides, you’ve said it yourself—’ Rouge muttered, and her wings swept back and forth restlessly, ‘—neither of us can talk him down.’
She knew that Abraham thought the only person who could convince Shadow to stop was long gone – taken from them with a single gunshot – but that wasn’t true. Sonic had been able to break through to him, but Sonic wasn’t here right now. She didn’t think that he would ever willingly descend into the depths of GUN’s headquarters to shake some sense into his rival, not after the organisation had tried to frame him for Shadow’s crimes.
‘Isn’t there anything we can do?’ Abraham said, and he sounded somewhat uncertain. It was a stark contrast with his usual unwavering resolve.
Suddenly, the main entrance to the shooting range unsealed, and Omega lumbered through the doors. Even though the glass, Rouge could hear a chorus of groans and a few panicked shrieks. Several trainees stepped back from their booths, confused about the sudden fuss. Abraham turned slightly, giving Rouge a hopeful look, but she said nothing.
Omega had been designed to protect Shadow and stop him from going too far, but the way in which he carried out his directives was very literal. He would shield Shadow in combat, and he would physically halt him from pursuing an enemy if he thought it would result in a disadvantagous outcome. But Omega couldn’t protect Shadow from the countless emotional microabrasions he incurred from choosing to work from GUN, even if he wanted to. He chose not to stop Shadow from spending countless hours at the shooting range. If anything, Omega encouraged it. He thought that Shadow should embrace being a weapon. He thought that Shadow should revel in the carnage. He thought it was good for him.
‘We can’t do anything to stop Shadow,’ Rouge said wearily, watching as Omega joined Shadow at his booth. ‘And we can’t force him to cope differently.’ Shadow looked up with a faint smile. The metal beneath his feet was scuffed and worn from his constant visits. ‘But I wish that –‘
A piercing rattle of a rotary cannon echoed behind the glass, and Rouge slapped her forehead with one hand as Omega sprayed every target in the range with indiscriminate fire. The agents with common sense bolted for the doors, but several began to protest, only to panic and bolt as Omega swung the canon in their direction.
Abraham heaved a sigh. ‘I’m going to dock his pay this time, I swear.’
‘That doesn’t do anything, and you know it. He’s a robot, and GUN provides him with ammunition and maintenance.’
‘Then I’ll start rationing his bullets…’
Abraham trailed off, and Rouge turned her focus back to the shooting range. Shadow and Omega were the only people left, and Shadow was showing Omega his gun, likely explaining how to reload it.
Omega watched in silence. His head swivelled, and his lenses gleamed as he took in the piles of bullet casings, the flickering clock, and the punctured target in the far distance. Then he took Shadow’s hand and began to pry it from the pistol grip, one finger at a time. Shadow froze, resisting. He seemed almost… frightened.
But Omega finally pulled the weapon free and held it out of Shadow’s reach. They seemed to be arguing, and a moment later, Omega tossed the gun away and brandished his rotary cannon in Shadow’s direction. A Chaos Spear appeared in Shadow’s hand like an ugly streak of lightning, and they flew at each other. Clouds of dust rose from broken concrete, and the light of gunfire burned hot.
She and Abraham exchanged glances. ‘Are you going to dock Shadow’s pay for this as well?’
Abraham grunted. ‘That would be just as effective, I’m sure. I don’t care what they do at this point, as long as they don’t bring the building down on our heads.’
Rouge pressed a finger to her earpiece. She’d seen them fight each other often enough to know that they were sparring, but she still said, ‘Behave, boys. Don’t kill each other.’
‘We can’t die –‘ Shadow snapped, and he fell back, his fingers interlocking with Omega’s as the robot tried to pin him down.
‘Your concern is needless,’ Omega added, and his voice distorted as Shadow slammed one foot against his exterior. ‘I am programmed not to harm him.’
Something about his phrasing caught Rouge’s attention, and she stared at the two of them as they fought. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics weren’t universal, but they had guided countless scientists as they had made Isaac Asimov’s fictional writings a reality.
Law 1: A robot cannot injure or allow a human to come to harm.
Shadow wasn’t human, but that didn’t make the principle behind the law any less valid. Maybe Omega had finally decided that his inaction would allow Shadow to come to harm… albeit harm that wasn’t strictly physical. Or maybe it wasn’t a matter of programming. Maybe he had looked at Shadow with his unblinking lenses, quantifying visual datapoints – pain, hurt, and distress – and decided that it was more important to intervene than it was to encourage Shadow to keep heading down this path.
Shadow and Omega had both been programmed, in a sense, whether that was through the implantation of artificial memories or instructions in their code. As they fought, coming to blows, with the pistol lying abandoned on the floor, Rouge caught a glimpse of Shadow’s face as he finally pushed Omega off.
His fangs flashed, and his eyes burned. At a glance, it looked like a pained grimace. It looked like anger. But she knew him better than that. It was a smile. It was relief. It was a sight that she hadn’t seen in a very, very long time.