Prologue

I'm a Freedom Fighter, or rather, was a Freedom Fighter; that's the name Sonic coined for us. It's cheesy, but it fits.

You may have heard of my actions during the Great Struggle, and while in no way do I expect vindication, I expect your judgment to be fair. Will future generations judge me a monster, or a ruthless pragmatist willing to do whatever was necessary? I don't know. Maybe I don't want to know; it's not up to me to decide.

Perhaps you are getting confused; I suppose I have gotten a little ahead of myself. I believe I should begin with the truth: I'm not Sally Alicia Acorn, the younger sister to Elias Acorn and the daughter of Maximillian and Alicia Acorn. I believe it's essential I should get this issue out of the way; even if the world doesn't acknowledge it. This is the truth and the only truth which I can establish with absolute certainty.

But I'm her spitting image, down to even the most minute of details. Admittedly, there have been a few changes; she probably wouldn't have approved of either my fashion sense or hairstyle, and she certainly wouldn't have approved of the collection of scars I accumulated while masquerading in her life.

But if that was all there was to it; if I was just some doppelganger forced into her life by some foreign entity without knowing how or why that would at least be something I could accept. For certain, I was very willing to entertain this theory, but that's simply not the case.

You see, I'm not merely her body double, I share her memories too. I remember life from behind her eyes. I remember her perceptions, her hopes, her dreams and her prejudices. All her memories are my memories. No more, no less. What's worse? I have no other memories besides hers; no other point of comparison to call my own.

Yet, I'm not Sally. I do not follow her thoughts. I don't empathize with her feelings. I don't share her - soul. How can this be possible? How can you share someone's form and memories down to the finest of details and yet be someone different? Is a person not the collective sum of their lifelong experiences?

I still haven't arrived at an answer. It's a question thick with importance, filled with conjecture and overwhelmed with the desperate hope that some answer may be found. If a person truly was the sum of their past, then I had just summed up Sally's life and came to an altogether different result.

I record this philosophical quandary down in my diary. In the hopes that someday I may arrive at more satisfactory answers. I know the real Sally in such times of crisis would have reached out to her close inner circle of friends for counsel and guidance, but it no longer matters what she would do; it's not what I would do. Her friendships are not my own, I admit I'll need their strength for the challenges ahead, but I have no way of obtaining their help without calling upon people who are sure they know me, but really do not. I regret it sometimes, being unable to confide in my compatriots, but how could I have explained my crisis of identity to them when I do not understand it myself?

No, this is a proverbial Gordian Knot which I must unravel on my own.

I think, perhaps, people shouldn't be defined by whom they mingled with. Looking at history, the great men and women of the world have always been defined by their enemies. My father's enemies were the Overlanders, and history will define my father for his imprudence. In his desperation for final victory during the Great War, he turned to one of their own for solutions; a mistake that resulted in his banishment to the Zone of Silence.

Who's my enemy you may ask? This is a subject to which Sally and I share strongly in common.

Imagine if you will, being dragged in chains. Your captors? Cold unfeeling steel. Some are the man-sized SWATbots; others, metallic facsimiles of your fellow Mobians; a foretelling of your inevitable fate. Feel the panic, apprehension and slowly dawning realization of your fate as you are packed together. Perhaps you're with family and friends -there's a mercy in that- spending your final free moments with people you know.

Smell the acrid stench of pollution as the macabre procession drags steadily along. Eventually, you arrive at the end of the journey. In front of you stands the very thing you have heard only in rumours and hushed stories: the Roboticizer. There is little time to gawk and stare. Already, your metallic captors are hard at work, guided by an unseen hand. One-by-one, the unfeeling SWATbots seize members of the crowd. Parents separated from their children, couples are broken apart. Age and physical disability are no object to the SWATbot's scanners. The unfortunate victims are led like lambs into the dreaded machine. Some resist, some turn to flee, but it's futile in the end.

The machine hums to life and before your eyes, flesh and living tissue are warped into their mechanical equivalent. Shrill screams ring into your ears as their bodies twist beyond recognition. Where once stood flesh and blood, a Robian stands instead; their bodies slaved towards the will of Robotnik.

It was nearly a decade since Robotnik's coup d'état. Over a decade since the vast majority of the populace was enslaved and reduced to automatons slaving away at the dictator's megalithic projects. Nearly a decade since Mobotropolis, the once vibrant capital of the Acorn Kingdom, was transformed into the nightmare land of Robotropolis. Our little group was fortunate enough to escape during the early days of the coup. Aunt Rosie, Sally's governess led our exodus of a dozen frightened children through the Great Forest to the former royal retreat, Knothole, which became our new home.

I like that name, 'Knothole', it sounds homely.

In the years since our numbers grew as a steady trickle of survivors stumbled across our little set-up; growing from the dozens to the low hundreds, and in the process becoming a village. Our group too grew and matured, childish pursuits neglected in favour of survival skills like hunting, scavenging, handling high explosives and small unit tactics. We started small, launching forays into the outlying reaches of Mobotropolis for supplies. Now? We're striking back.

Some days, we free captured survivors. Other times, it's for weapons and materials, but most importantly we stay hidden and try to preserve our strength.

Perhaps, there are other groups like us, still fighting the good fight, but it's all baseless speculation. All I know is that whatever we're doing isn't good enough. Genuine success is rare and hard-won. Like the day we freed the roboticized mind of Sir Charles. He's in Robotropolis now, able to pass effortlessly as one of the countless menial Workerbot Robians; that was our first genuine victory. Both an intelligence victory as well as a moral one, knowing our captured families and friends still awaited salvation. But other times, we lose people; more than I find myself comfortable with.

In my dark moments, when I expect my friends and I to be dragged before the Roboticizer, I find myself wondering whether it would be better to ask as a favour from the dictator to go first; if only to be spared the feeling of anguish, of failure. I know this is the only mercy I can expect because if our positions were reversed, I wouldn't show any mercy at all.