“Just what the fuck happened here?”

“What the fuck indeed, Knux. Although I can play the dumb card and just pretend I don’t know what you mean.”

“Your apartment! It’s all messed up!”

“Yeah… yeah…. my fault on that one.”

“I ask again: what the fucking hizzle?!”

“I didn’t hear you ask that the first time!”

“What’s this dead body doing here?”

“Sleeping is my guess.”

“I didn’t come here for sass, hedgehog.”

“Okay, no need to get racial.”

“Stop saying that!”

“Self-defense, honest. I couldn’t help it! The fucker kept on pounding me into my bones and I just couldn’t take it anymore. You can’t go to step two without step one, I dare you to try. All my bric-a-brac is messed up. I have insurance, don’t I?”

“No.”

“Sorry, guys, am I late?” Oh great, Tom the Cop is here. I knew I shouldn’t have called 911.

“I don’t even want you here, Tommy, so how could you possibly be late?”

“You kidder. What do we got here- Oh! Oh damn. That’s a mess. The red stuff is blood, right?”

“For his sake, I hope not.”

“Damn, you did his ass good. Hey Knuckles.”

“Don’t fucking talk to me, pig.”

“Sheesh, don’t get all racial on me. Right, Sonic?”

“Oink oink, bacon.”

“You kidder. Good job with dispatching the villain, nonetheless. I’ma call you Captain Sonic from now on.”

“Oh no you’re not, Tom! Think of what that’ll do to my rep! My street cred! My height!”

“Criminals love Captains!”

“Like hell.” This can’t possibly get worse. Unless, say, Amy were to walk in.

“Hey guys! SONIC! WHAT HAPPENED?!!!111!”

Fuckin hell. “Go away, Amy.”

“Oh my poor sweet baby.” She jumps into my arms and starts caressing my groin. “The big mean human-shaped robot didn’t hurt you, did he? I know what you need: some good upright sexin.”

“Sexin, Amy? Really, be more unoriginal. I dare you.”

“Sonic dares people when he gets cranky, Amy.”

“Don’t talk to me, pig.”

“But- oh screw it, never mind. Must’ve been a hell of a fight, Sonic.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Is that where you got that scratch on your face?”

“The scratch, yes… the jagged horizontal line across my face, right?”

“Jagged? You make it sound so… rustic.”

“Well trust me, there was more earlier. I was so hurt, man. What can I say, I’m just a giant pussy. Yep. One big pussy. Don’t trust the fate of the world to this guy, I’m tellin ya. One big fuck up, this guy.” I’m point at myself, just so they aren’t confused.

“Uh, yeah, totally,” Knuckles chimes in. “This guy couldn’t carry a wedding cake two steps without some help. Why, just the other day, I punched him in the face and he started crying. Really! Started bawling like a kid who got stabbed in the prick, let me tell ya. I don’t normally tell the unbridled truth, but my God, I’ve never before in my life seen such a pathetic, worm-like creature resembling a woman’s genitalia.” He points at himself too.

“Knux! What’s the big deal?”

“What? I thought we were doing a joke or something.”

“What- no! No no no! Look, let’s just get out of here. I’m tired of being in the middle of this. I want to forget it ever happened.”

“You want that then, yeah, we’ll have to walk out.”

That comment is strange… but I follow him out the door anyway. I guess my apartment wasn’t safe after all. How did the robot find me? Some plot hole, no doubt. Or it’s an inside job. Knuckles or Tom. What was Knuckles doing there, anyway? How did he arrive so quickly after the fight?

And more importantly, when did he arrive after the fight?

And more importantly… I don’t even remember the fight!

We’re back in his car but I haven’t said anything yet. I’m afraid to, honestly. If the poor guy explodes and the car careens off a cliff or something, I’m out a sidekick, and there’s no way I’m using Amy, not for anything. Besides, I still don’t know if Knuckles is on the up and up. Conversations with him are WEIRD to the max, like with everyone else. It’s possible it’s a ruse, but you know what they say: if the cover is too good then it isn’t a cover, it’s a surface.

“One robot down, man.”

“Mmm.” Don’t give him anything yet.

“How many left?”

“I dunno… seven?”

“Seven sounds right.” He makes a left turn. He knows where we’re going already. How? “They all gonna look like humans, essay?

“Got me. Wanna build a time machine?”

“There’s that sass again.” He quiets down for a bit. Fuckin a, how big is this town? “I think it’ll be okay, man. Amy’s obsessive, you’re right, but how are you going to feel when she loses interest and starts dating other guys? You’ll feel shitty is what. You’ll yell at her, she’ll back down and go away, you’ll chase after her. I’ve seen it before. It’s possible you can rush ahead to the great sex, skip over the clichés, I’m tellin ya. Who knows, maybe it can work out.”

Enough. “Okay, Knuckles, buddy ol’ pal, I’m going to ask a question, and I want you to be completely honest with me.”

“You’re not going to ask the definition of ‘rush,’ are you?”

“No. Are you square?”

“Shit man, you know me, I’m all about the hot vagina.”

“No no, I mean, are you level?”

“Level as my goddamn dick-”

“No! Stop thinking about sex! It isn’t funny! They technically aren’t even jokes!”

Knuckles starts laughing. Fuck it, who cares.

“Look, man, all I want to know is if I can trust you, because I think you know what’s going on. I think you know what’s happening. And I don’t know when my next moment of clarity is going to be. I’m getting better at controlling things but the system could crash with a vengeance on my cranium. So, please, tell me how I can stop all of this, before it’s too late.”

He’s still chuckling, probably at my after-school-special convincing gambit and my reference to cyber-punk. “I want to show you something, man.”

The car stops. Knuckles shuts off his sweet bitch-ride and steps out of the side door. I follow suit and look up to see a giant sign and a hollow square with two large doors and electricity.

A video store.

“Okay, a video store. So what?”

“Neon sign. Nice, huh? Let’s go inside.”

We do. There are only two cashiers and they have to take care of about twenty people, and when they leave, they have to re-stock the videos. It’s possible that I don’t want to work at a place like this after all.

Knuckles leads me to the Kids section. We stop at a row of tapes on a shelf and he picks one out.

“Check it out.”

I do. “A kids show. So what?”

“Look at the title.”

I do. “‘Sonic the Hedgehog. Two Adventures New to Video! Super Sonic Action!’ So?”

“Terrible likeness, yeah?”

This… “I’m on video?”

“Sure are.”

“… Wacky.”

He picks up another tape. “I’m in it, too.”

Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie. True to its Sega video-game roots, this futuristic 60-minute movie includes a lot of yelling, crashing, and exploding on the way to saving the world. Sonic and his sidekicks are determined to thwart a plan that would turn their Land of the Sky into the equivalent of The Land of Darkness, which lurks beneath the surface (and is obviously the former planet Earth). So they plow through the center of the planet blah blah blah “What’s it mean?”

“Come now, Sonic. You ever watch a movie and wonder if it takes place in the same universe as ours? Could Sean Penn from Mystic River rent Carlito’s Way from this video store and laugh at his own death? Sorry if I ruined it just now. The point is, it’s the same for everyone. We just need to look in the right place.”

“Who the hell is Sean Penn?”

“There’s always a video store.” He pulls out a twenty. “Let’s go.”

**********

Knuckles fronts the money for a motel room for the evening. I’ve been trying to remember the fight but there’s this gap of information. I also can’t seem to remember anything before Tails’ death. Another clue I can’t see. This is the most unfair thing ever.

But it’s fine. It’s fine. The motel room has a VHS player and a television. I’m all alone and the scar on my face has totally healed. I honestly don’t know how much more of this I can handle.

I pull the tape out of its case and push it in. The screen flashes PLAY… PLAY… PLAY… PLAY…