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Chapter Text

“What are you working on, Doctor?” Agent Stone asked as he climbed into Dr. Robotnik’s mobile laboratory and then carefully placed a latte with steamed Austrian goat milk on the table next to him.

The doctor was tinkering with some kind of metal box, covered in switches and wires, and as soon as he noticed that Stone had entered the room, he quickly turned to him and said, “I wouldn’t expect you to understand the earth-shattering ramifications of this discovery, Agent Stone, but I’ll try to simplify it into something that even your feeble little mind can understand. I’ve invented a device that will allow me to travel through the depths of the space-time spectrum and conquer other planes of reality. With this simple device, we won’t have to stop at world domination or even taking over the universe, not when I have the entire multiverse at my fingertips.”

“That’s incredible,” Stone said as he looked over Robotnik’s shoulder, admiring the Multiverse Transporter.

“And do you know the best part?” Robotnik said. Agent Stone was about to answer, but Robotnik quickly pushed him away and then said, “No, of course you don’t.” Robotnik suddenly looked towards Stone, broke out into a wild, manic grin, and then said, “The best part is that it’s finally ready for human trials!”

“Will you need a test subject, sir?” Agent Stone asked.

“I’ve got one,” Dr. Robotnik said as he gestured towards himself. “You see, Stone, I’m not normally fond of playing guinea pig, but the first person to step foot in another universe will surely be recognized as a trailblazer in the scientific community, a genius beyond compare, remembered for all eternity. It will be a tremendous honor to become the first person to use the Multiverse Transporter, to travel on its maiden voyage, and that tremendous honor should belong only to its creator. Which is to say, yours truly.”

Dr. Robotnik placed his hand over the red button, while Stone looked at him quizzically and then said, “Are you sure you want to do this right now, Doctor? We have a meeting in fifteen minutes with Major Bennington about the Pacific Northwest blackout.”

“First of all, nobody cares,” Robotnik said. “Second of all, I’m returning to the lab immediately as soon as I’ve proved that the Multiverse Transporter works. Quick and easy, no problemo, piece of cake. If I’m not back in five minutes, hit the Emergency Override switch.”

That sounded reasonable to Agent Stone, so he watched as Robotnik ran a few last-minute tests on the Multiverse Transporter, and then, as Stone waited next to the Emergency Override switch, he turned to Robotnik and said, “Good luck, Doctor.”

“I won’t need it,” Dr. Robotnik insisted as he slammed his hand on the red button. “My inventions always work!”

Agent Stone smiled slightly - after all, in all of his years of working for Robotnik, he’d never once seen one of his creations fail. It was one of the many perks of working for the smartest person on the planet, the greatest scientific genius the world had ever seen. Dr. Robotnik had never been wrong before.

But there was a first time for everything.

Within seconds, Agent Stone realized that something was amiss with the Multiverse Transporter. As soon as Robotnik hit the red button, he slumped back into his chair, his eyes closed, apparently unconscious. Stone’s heart pounded as he rushed to the doctor’s side, tapping his shoulder, shouting his name, but after a few minutes, Dr. Robotnik awoke again. He glanced around the lab, a strange, anxious look in his eyes, and then he ran a hand across his face and started playing with his mustache.

“Did I forget to shave this morning?” he asked.

“Doctor?” Agent Stone said as he slowly approached Robotnik. “Are you okay?”

“What’s happening?” Robotnik asked Stone. “Who are you? Who’s this ‘doctor?’”

Agent Stone sat down across from Robotnik and carefully studied him. He looked exactly the same as he had before he pressed the red button, but Stone’s heart sank when he realized that the doctor didn’t seem to recognize him in the slightest. Stone briefly wondered if temporary amnesia was a side effect of multiversal travel, and then he handed Robotnik his latte with steamed Austrian goat milk, hoping that might calm him down.

“I think you forgot to drink your morning latte,” Stone said, and sure enough, the doctor eyed the steamed Austrian goat milk latte suspiciously for a moment before taking a sip.

“Huh,” he said as he downed the rest of the latte. “I’m getting a weird aftertaste, but it’s still better than the Mococoa that Meryl’s always trying to get me to drink.”

And that was when Agent Stone suddenly realized that the man sitting across from him was not Dr. Robotnik.

Agent Stone looked back towards the Multiverse Transporter, panicked, but he quickly figured out where Robotnik had gone wrong. There was a circuit board on the side of the machine that had blown out, likely during the electromagnetic pulse from the previous day - the very same EMP that he and the doctor were supposed to be investigating. He needed the doctor back if they were going to figure out what caused the blackout, so he grabbed onto the Emergency Override switch, but just as he was about to pull it, the man suddenly asked, “So who are you again?”

Stone took a deep breath - he hated to admit it, but the stranger that Robotnik had inadvertently pulled from another universe probably deserved an explanation. “My name is Agent Stone, and I’m Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s personal assistant.”

“Agent?” the man said before muttering under his breath, “I knew someone was following me…”

“No, it’s just my first name,” Stone said, much to the man’s relief. “The doctor and I build drones for the U.S. government.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Agent Stone,” the man said with a smile as he shook Stone’s hand. “I’m Truman Burbank. I sell insurance for a living.”

Agent Stone sighed in disappointment and then said, “You know, I was really hoping you had a PhD or two or…five. That would make it a lot easier to explain how you got here.”

“Yeah, sorry I’m not more impressive,” Truman said. “I wanted to be an explorer, but I guess I was born in the wrong generation for that.” As he said that, Stone pulled out his phone and Googled Truman’s name, while Truman glanced over his shoulder. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m not getting anything relevant when I search your name,” Stone said. “I don’t think you exist in this universe.”

“In this universe?” Truman said. “Am I in another universe?”

Agent Stone nodded and then said, “My boss built a machine that was supposed to take him to your reality, but one of the circuit boards failed, so it sent his consciousness to your universe without sending his body. So what I think happened is that he took yours, and now you’re here. As Dr. Robotnik.”

“So it’s a Freaky Friday situation,” Truman summarized. “I don’t know why you didn’t just say that.” Truman then gestured towards the nearest mirror and asked, “Do you mind if I, uh, see what I’m working with?”

“Go ahead,” Stone said as he turned back towards the Multiverse Transporter. It had been five minutes since Robotnik left, so he pulled the Emergency Override switch and then looked expectantly towards Truman, hoping that he and Robotnik had been switched back, but unfortunately, Truman was very much still Truman.

“Okay, this is really strange,” Truman said as he headed back towards Agent Stone. “I’m older, and I’m wearing these weird goth clothes, but my face? That’s still me. That’s still my face. It’s uncanny.”

“That’s probably why Robotnik swapped with you and not someone else,” Agent Stone said dismissively as he worked on the Multiverse Transporter. He tried replacing the broken circuit, but when he turned on the device again, it wouldn’t start.

“Can I shave the mustache?” Truman asked. “It’s really bothering me.”

“Not unless you want Dr. Robotnik to kill you when he comes back,” Agent Stone said as he continued to inspect the Multiverse Transporter. He would have to do a hard reset if he wanted to fix the device, but if he remembered correctly, that would take at least two hours.

Two hours.

Stone and Robotnik had a meeting with Major Bennington in ten minutes.

And the great Dr. Robotnik still had the brain of an insurance agent.

Agent Stone supposed that it could be worse. If his theory was correct, then Robotnik was stuck in Truman’s body, and Stone was absolutely certain that the doctor would be bored out of his mind selling insurance. He’d probably already given a few of Truman’s coworkers a tongue-lashing, and some part of Stone wished that he was there to see it, that he still had the doctor by his side.

“I’m sorry, Truman,” Agent Stone finally said. “I’m really trying to switch you and Robotnik back, but I don’t think I can do that until I reset the Multiverse Transporter. It’s going to take a little while.”

“That’s okay,” Truman said. “I…I think I need a break from everything. I was trying to take a vacation when I was back in Seahaven, but…all of these strange things kept happening to me.”

“Like what?” Stone asked.

“There were these weird radio signals, and there was that cop that knew my name when I reached the edge of town even though I hadn’t told him. And traffic seems to follow me wherever I go, and they told me I can’t book a flight to Fiji for another month…”

“Sounds like you’re just a bit paranoid,” Stone said.

“And my wife keeps hawking products to the wall, and there was a break room behind the elevator, and then my dead dad came back to life…”

“I take that back,” Agent Stone said to Truman. “You’re not paranoid. That’s…that’s insane. Those are things that happen on TV, not in real life.”

“Sometimes, I get the feeling that my life isn’t actually…real,” Truman admitted, and that was when Agent Stone got a sinking feeling in his stomach as he remembered that Dr. Robotnik was stuck in Truman’s universe. If Truman’s life wasn’t real, then neither was Robotnik’s, and Stone didn’t exactly have much in the way of details, but it sounded like something was very, very wrong in Truman Burbank’s reality.

Agent Stone looked back towards the Multiverse Transporter, and he swore to himself that he’d bring the doctor back to his home dimension if it was the last thing he did.

Chapter Text

As far as Dr. Robotnik was concerned, the important thing was that the Multiverse Transporter worked. He’d woken up somewhere new, some boring house in a boring suburb in Nowheresville, U.S.A. Honestly, it really didn’t matter where he was exactly, but it was a resoundingly successful experiment, if he did say so himself.

“That's one small step for man, one giant leap for me,” Robotnik declared to himself. “Now all I need to do is press the homing button on my Robotnik Control Glove and…”

That was when Robotnik caught a glimpse of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Somehow, he’d discovered the fountain of youth during his trip across the multiverse - he looked much the same now as he had when he first started working with the government twenty-five years ago. However, when he looked at his hands, he noticed a much bigger problem: his Robotnik Control Gloves were gone. In fact, all of his gear had gone missing, replaced by a rather ridiculous set of pink pajamas.

In an instant, Robotnik knew exactly what had gone wrong. A mechanical mastermind such as himself would have never made such an amateur mistake, so it was obviously the electromagnetic pulse from yesterday. The EMP had fried the circuit board that was supposed to send his body across the space-time continuum, and his brilliant brain had gone to this universe and chosen this poor schmuck, whoever he was, as a suitable host.

A lesser man would die in this universe, but Dr. Ivo Robotnik would be home in time for his 8:30 AM meeting.

“AGENT STONE!” Robotnik shouted, hoping that his trusty assistant could somehow hear him through the multiverse. “SEND ME BACK RIGHT NOW!”

It obviously didn’t work, but it was worth a try, and now that Robotnik knew that asking for help from his not-so-trusty assistant didn’t work, he could move on to more efficacious methods. He needed to know who he was, where he was, and where he could find the materials to build a new Multiverse Transporter so he could return to his home universe in one piece. Perhaps there was a tool kit in the house that he could borrow…

“Truman!” a woman’s voice called. “You’re going to be late!”

That answered one question. The man whose body he currently inhabited was named Truman, and judging by the wedding ring on his finger, that was his wife. Robotnik had never had a family before, and as far as he could tell, it was nothing more than an emotional quagmire, full of mushy, irrational feelings. He immediately decided that he wouldn’t get the wife involved unless he absolutely needed to.

What Dr. Robotnik really needed more than anything were his Badniks. He wouldn’t be able to build a new Multiverse Transporter without his precious babies, his eggie-weggies, and he doubted that this Truman had any military-grade spare parts lying around, so he would just have to improvise. He tiptoed out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, and as he looked around, he realized that none of the technology in this universe was from this millennium, let alone this year, but there were a few useful items sitting around. There was an alarm clock, a smoke detector, a ceiling fan, a television set, some spare batteries, and best of all, a tool kit next to the nightstand.

He started with the alarm clock. Dr. Robotnik began to pry open the front panel, but just as he was about to remove it, Truman’s wife knocked on the door. “Truman!” she said. “I need to talk to you! Why don’t I make you a cup of Mococoa with all natural cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mount Nicaragua?”

“Fetch me a latte with steamed Austrian goat milk instead - I’m overdue for my eight o’clock caffeine fix,” Robotnik said as he locked the bedroom door and then turned back to the alarm clock. “Now, where were we?”

While Truman’s wife yelled something completely irrelevant about not knowing what Austrian goat milk was and needing to talk to him immediately about something “important,” Dr. Robotnik picked up the screwdriver again. However, just a few moments later, the TV suddenly blinked on, displaying a photo of someone being violently electrocuted by a giant alarm clock.

“And now for a special presentation on The Dangers of Dismantling Common Household Appliances…”

“Do I look like an imbecile to you?!” Robotnik shouted at the TV as he hurled a wrench at the screen and then frantically tore open the alarm clock. He carefully snipped each of the wires inside, but just as he reached for the battery, he felt his fingers curl around something else entirely.

A hidden camera.

So the house was bugged. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried to spy on the doctor - those Pentagoons didn’t trust Robotnik in the slightest - but he hadn’t expected Truman and his walking commercial of a wife to be anything more than common drones, soon to be ruled over by their mechanical overlords, hardly worth keeping tabs on.

Dr. Robotnik hastily constructed a rudimentary Badnik from the remains of Truman’s alarm clock, attached the camera to the front of the drone, and then set it to scan the house for any additional cameras. While he waited for the drone to return, he picked Truman’s wallet up off of the nightstand and flipped through it. Apparently, Truman’s driver’s license had been issued by “Seahaven Island Township,” with no state listed, his phone number was “1-555-555-5555,” and his wallet was stuffed to the brim with gift cards to everywhere from Olive Garden to Kaiser Chicken to the Mococoa Beverage Company. Robotnik stared at the wallet for a moment, and then, as if on cue, his Badnik returned, with the number “356” blinking through the camera lens.

There were 356 cameras hidden inside of Truman’s house.

Even for a high-stakes CIA investigation, that would be overkill.

Dr. Ivo Robotnik was nothing if not a scientist, and in the face of overwhelming evidence, he had to make some revisions to his previous hypothesis. The house wasn’t bugged. This was a film set, a mise en scène, if you will. The man whose body he occupied was an actor, and “Truman Burbank” was his character. It was a simple, elegant explanation for everything that had happened so far, and it pointed to a simple, elegant solution to his predicament.

All he had to do was find the exit and walk off the set.

While he was still in the bedroom, Dr. Robotnik dug through Truman’s closet, threw on the darkest suit he could find, and built three more Badniks, along with a crude version of his Control Gloves and a frame for the Multiverse Transporter. He couldn’t activate the Transporter yet - it was powered by a Phantom Ruby he’d found while on a totally evil vacation in Albuquerque, and he’d have to find this universe’s equivalent if he wanted to return home. However, as the Badniks buzzed around him, he could tell that victory was close at hand. He’d be back in his lab investigating the electromagnetic pulse that had sent him into this blasted universe before he knew it.

Robotnik made his way down the hallway, but before he could leave the house, he ran into Truman’s wife again. “Where’s my latte?!” he asked her.

“We’re all out of Austrian goat milk,” she said. “But could I interest you in…”

“Then BUY SOME! Agh, does anyone know how to make a proper latte in this universe?” Dr. Robotnik said before taking another step closer to Ms. Product Placement or whatever the hell her name was. “Oh, by the way, I know you’re an actress, this is a soundstage, this place has three hundred cameras watching me at all times, yada yada, so if you wouldn’t mind, could you kindly tell me where the exit is?”

“Truman, you know where the front door is,” she said, gesturing across the room. “But we need to talk. I want a divorce, and I’ve already drawn up the paperwork, I just need you to sign here, here, and here…”

“Sayonara!” Dr. Robotnik shouted as he ran out the front door with his Badniks, completely ignoring his wife’s protests as he made his way out of the house. He breathed in the fresh air, and he took comfort in the knowledge that he was finally free from all of those actors, truly the dregs of human society…

“Good morning!” all of Truman’s neighbors shouted in unison, as if they’d been waiting all day to say their lines.

“Guten morgen, my fellow bottom-feeding suburban scum!” Robotnik replied as he waited for his Badniks to scan the surrounding area, but if these knuckleheads were any indication, he was still on camera. However, before he could find out just how many cameras were filming him at that very moment, a Dalmatian suddenly jumped up onto him, and a gust of wind flew right into Robotnik’s face and blew apart one of his Badniks.

“That’s it,” Robotnik said as he pushed the dog out of his way and collected the broken pieces of his precious machine off of the sidewalk. “Of all of the infinite realities, this one is by far the worst of the worst, the biggest garbage dump in the whole multiverse! I’ll have to come back later and egg-xact my revenge on this dismal dimension.”

Dr. Robotnik continued down the street, attempting to piece the broken Badnik back together while the others scanned the environment and got to work dismantling all of the hidden cameras. Eventually, he made it to a beach, and surely, he figured that that couldn’t be part of the set. He’d surely made it out by now, so all he had to do was figure out how to get to Albuquerque from here…

That was when he spotted a wire sticking out from a nearby rock, and when he pulled on it, he found yet another hidden camera. Somehow, despite all of his best efforts, Dr. Robotnik was still on a film set, still being watched.

“HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” Robotnik shouted as he threw the rock into the ocean, but all of a sudden, the doctor looked up at the sky, and as he watched the clouds float by, seemingly on a loop, his brilliant brain came up with a brilliant idea, one so impossibly ingenious that he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought of it earlier.

“One small step for man, one giant leap for me,” Dr. Robotnik said to himself with a smile as he headed back into Seahaven. “I’ll be out of here in no time.”

Chapter Text

“So here we are,” Truman said as he stepped out of the mobile laboratory and smiled as he admired the lush, forested scenery. “Green Hills, Montana. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Montana before, although maybe we drove through it on that trip to Mount Rushmore, which I’m just now realizing might not have actually happened…wait, why is everyone looking at me funny?”

“Dr. Robotnik’s reputation precedes him,” Agent Stone explained.

“And what is that reputation exactly?” Truman asked.

“Brilliant, magnificent, the smartest person on the planet,” Agent Stone said with a faraway look in his eyes. “Some might also say he’s a bit…psychologically unstable.” He paused for a moment, and just as they were about to approach Major Bennington, Stone said, “You might just want to let me do the talking.”

“Sure, okay, I can do that,” Truman said, and with that, Truman and Stone walked up to Major Bennington. As far as Stone was concerned, the plan was simple. They just had to scan the area and find the source of the electromagnetic pulse that had fried Dr. Robotnik’s Multiverse Transporter and brought Truman to this universe, and hopefully, by the time they figured it out, the Multiverse Transporter would be reset, and Stone could switch Truman and Robotnik back.

“Good morning!” Truman said to Major Bennington. “And in case I…”

“Hi, I’m Agent Stone, and this is my boss, the esteemed Dr. Ivo Robotnik,” Stone interrupted before glaring at Truman and then displaying a digital badge for Major Bennington. “We’ve been assigned to lead this investigation, so we’d appreciate it if you could step aside and let the two of us take a look around.”

“Of course,” Major Bennington said, and he stepped out of the way as Stone typed some instructions into his Robotnik Control Gloves. In a lot of ways, the Badniks were more or less autonomous: all Agent Stone had to do was initiate a sweep sequence for ten miles in every direction, and the doctor’s drones would search the area all on their own. Stone pressed a few more buttons, and within seconds, a swarm of Badniks flew out of the truck and started scanning for any sign of whatever had caused the EMP. So far, everything was going exactly according to plan, at least until Commander Walters arrived on the scene and walked up to Truman and Stone.

“I thought I’d come to check in on the investigation, but it seems to be in good hands,” Walters said.

“Thank you, sir,” Agent Stone said with a smile, while Truman, to Stone’s great relief, discreetly walked in the opposite direction as soon as he saw Commander Walters coming towards him. “You can rest assured that the doctor and I will get to the bottom of whatever it is that caused this power outage.”

“Speaking of which, Robotnik seems to be in a better mood than usual,” Commander Walters said as he gestured towards Truman, who was aimlessly wandering around the baseball diamond.

“He’s been wanting to get out of town for a while now,” Stone said, and technically, that much was true. “Cabin fever, I think.”

“You know, I had to convince the other military leaders to let him come here. They all thought I was crazy, but I suppose Dr. Robotnik’s perfect operations record speaks for itself,” Walters said. He then paused and asked, “Do you two want to meet up for lunch after this? I have a few more special projects the doctor might be interested in. There’s an Olive Garden just down the road, and let me tell you, you just have to try the Never Ending Pasta Bowl.”

That was when Truman came back, pulled Stone aside, and abruptly said to Commander Walters, “Thanks, but no thanks, I think we’re alright. Come on, Agent Stone, we have things to do!”

Truman then pressed something on his Robotnik Control Gloves in an apparent attempt to summon the Badniks back to the truck, but instead of doing that, he just crashed one of Robotnik’s drones into a nearby tree. “What are you doing?” Stone whispered to him as the two of them headed back towards the mobile laboratory.

“You’re in on this, aren’t you?” Truman said.

“In on what?” Stone said.

Truman waited until they’d re-entered the lab, and then he said, “Last week, I found a $50 gift card to Olive Garden on the ground, and now, that guy’s trying to get us to go to Olive Garden with him? I thought you were telling me the truth when you said I was out of Seahaven, but this is exactly the sort of thing that keeps happening to me. You two were talking about the investigation, and then out of nowhere, he changed the subject to pasta bowls.” He then paused for a moment and then said, “I bet this mustache isn’t even real.” Truman then attempted to take off the mustache, but he winced in pain as soon as he started pulling on it. “Ow, never mind,” he said, gently massaging his face. “That is definitely real.”

“Truman, you’re not in an Olive Garden commercial,” Agent Stone assured him. “Commander Walters is just weirdly obsessed with the place.”

“Prove it,” Truman said.

“I hate Olive Garden,” Agent Stone said. “I hate their salads, I hate their breadsticks, and I especially hate the Never Ending Pasta Bowl. It’s just too much pasta.” Stone stayed silent for a few minutes, and then he said, “See? Nothing happened. The men in black didn’t come to take me away. I’m telling you the truth.”

Truman still seemed a bit skeptical, but eventually, he sighed and said, “Maybe we should go to Olive Garden. I ate breakfast an hour ago, but I’m still starving.”

“You ate breakfast an hour ago, but the doctor didn’t,” Agent Stone said. “Dr. Robotnik gets caught up in his work sometimes and forgets to eat unless I tell him to. I’m sure that’s why you’re hungry.”

Agent Stone immediately went to look up some nearby restaurants, and he and Truman eventually agreed to stop in at a no-name greasy spoon diner just outside of Green Hills. The food was bad and the coffee was even worse, but the biscuits and gravy were filling enough, and their chances of encountering any more instances of product placement were slim. Truman devoured his meal voraciously, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, and Stone wondered just how much time Dr. Robotnik had spent tinkering with the Multiverse Transporter this morning, just how badly he’d neglected his own needs in favor of his precious machines.

While Truman ate his breakfast, Agent Stone replayed the day’s events in his mind, and what stung the most was that Major Bennington and Commander Walters hadn’t even noticed that Robotnik was gone. They’d been nicer to Truman than they’d ever been to the doctor, even though he and Stone had barely made any progress in the investigation. They didn’t appreciate the doctor’s brilliant mind, his devious schemes, his top-of-the-line technology, the way he would have solved this whole mystery in a matter of minutes.

The military brass simply couldn’t recognize a true genius when they saw one.

Once he and Truman were done eating, Agent Stone went back to the truck to check on the Multiverse Transporter, and his heart sank when he saw that it was still going through the reset sequence. While Stone played with the Multiverse Transporter, trying to speed up the process, Truman climbed back onto the truck, his black trenchcoat billowing in the wind just like the doctor’s did, and Stone suddenly felt a strange lightness in his chest, followed by a massive rush of resentment as he remembered that Truman wasn’t the doctor, that he was just an imposter pretending to be the magnificent Dr. Robotnik. The real Robotnik, meanwhile, was surely out there somewhere, lost in the multiverse, searching for someone to make him his long overdue eight o’clock latte.

While Stone continued to work on the Multiverse Transporter, Truman sat down behind the lab’s main hologram screen, clearly a little bewildered by the controls, and before Stone could stop him, he accidentally touched the screen and pulled up Robotnik’s Tunes of Anarchy playlist. “How do I turn this off?” Truman asked as The Chemical Brothers started blasting over the laboratory speakers.

Stone frantically ran over to the hologram screen and pushed a few buttons, and as soon as he’d turned off the music, he sighed in exasperation and then said, “Listen, Truman, I only have to put up with you for another fifty-six minutes and thirty-eight seconds, and then I’m sending you and the doctor back to your respective home universes. And those fifty-six minutes are going to be a lot easier for both of us if you don’t talk to anyone, don’t touch the doctor’s things, and don’t do anything too…spontaneous. Understood?”

“And you wonder why I don’t trust you,” Truman said as he looked out the window, only to discover that the Badniks were all flying back towards the truck. “Wait, why are they doing that?”

“They’ve collected all of the data they need,” Agent Stone explained as he looked out the window and admired Robotnik’s precious ovoid drones. He and Truman waited there for a few moments, watching the Badniks flying in, and then, before they knew it, a push notification blinked onto the lab’s hologram screen.

Truman clicked to open up the notification, revealing what appeared to be a picture of a footprint, and he looked towards Agent Stone, smiled, and said, “I think we found something.”

Chapter Text

That morning, Louis Coltrane was busy doing the same thing that he always did when he wasn’t playing Marlon: sitting around in his house, drinking beer, and playing Street Fighter. Louis was technically on call to jump into character at any moment if Truman decided to pay him a visit, but Truman was supposed to be at work by now, so he probably had the next few hours to himself. And sure, Marlon’s on-screen best friend had been behaving erratically over the last couple of days, but the producers were certain that bringing his father back from the dead had placated him, so Truman Burbank was probably back to his regular routine by now.

As Louis took another swig of his beer, he suddenly heard the show’s creator speaking to him through his earpiece. “We need you at the Seahaven City Power Plant,” Christof said. “Truman’s having some sort of psychotic episode.”

“He…what?” Louis said as he picked up the TV remote and changed the channel to The Truman Show. Truman was nowhere to be found, but there was a live feed of the exterior of the power plant and the flying, egg-shaped robots that were guarding the door. “What’s going on?”

“He found a camera in his house this morning, he knows that he’s being watched,” Christof said. “Hannah also said that he’s been acting strangely. He kept asking her for Bavarian sheep’s milk, and he wouldn’t sign the divorce papers she gave him.”

It was supposed to be Hannah Gill’s last day playing Meryl Burbank today. Louis and Hannah weren’t friends exactly, but they did have a few things in common, just by virtue of being lifers on The Truman Show. He’d been pushed into acting at the age of seven in order to pay for his older brother’s medical bills. She’d been a washed-up child star, addicted to fortune and fame and desperate to prove to the world that she wasn’t a little girl anymore. Both of them had been on the show for longer than they’d initially planned. Both of them had done a few things they regretted for the sake of The Truman Show.

Louis had thought about quitting before, but Christof had a way of keeping his lead actors in line, dangling bonuses and product endorsements and featured storylines right in front of their noses just as they were beginning to think that being on The Truman Show wasn’t worth it. Louis had always been too much of a coward to leave, but he admired Hannah for summoning up the courage, even if Truman had inadvertently screwed over Christof’s attempt to write her out of the story.

“So what’s Truman doing in the power plant?” Louis asked Christof. “And why don’t we have footage of him?”

“He forced all of the actors out, locked himself inside, and destroyed all of the cameras,” Christof explained. “We don’t know what he’s doing in there, but he’s built a dozen or so flying robots to keep members of the cast and crew out of his way.”

“Okay, there’s no way Truman built those himself,” Louis said with a chuckle as he watched the robots fly across the screen. “He’s not MacGyver.” Just as Louis said that, one of the extras walked just a little too close to the door of the power plant, and a cable suddenly sprouted out of one of the drones, grabbed onto her, and threw her to the other side of the street. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just call the cops?” Louis said.

“Truman isn’t seriously hurting anyone, and he doesn’t have a real escape plan,” Christof said. “At this point, all he’s doing is throwing a very elaborate temper tantrum. He doesn’t need the police, he needs a friend. And I need you to be that friend for him, Louis. He trusts Marlon more than anyone else in the world, and if you tell Truman that the cameras are all in his head, he’ll believe you.”

It didn’t seem like Louis had much of a choice. “Okay, fine,” he finally said to Christof as he got off of the couch and headed towards the door. “I’m going over there now.”

Louis hopped into his car and drove to the power plant, and just as he got out of the vehicle, before he could even think about approaching the building, the door swung open, and Truman dramatically walked through the doorway. He looked like a mess: he was wearing a dark brown suit jacket that Louis hadn’t seen in ages, a pair of tiny rectangular sunglasses that he’d apparently stolen from Optical Illusions, and a set of oven mitts that had been retrofitted with some kind of keypad. Worst of all, he appeared to be carrying a giant explosive device, cobbled together from various spare parts and pieces of scrap metal.

Louis did a double take, just to make sure that he wasn’t the one having a mental breakdown, but before he could say anything, Truman came up to him and said, “Hello? Pointless side character? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a vertical launch system to assemble, and I would highly recommend leaving the intersection if you like having your empty little head in one piece.”

Louis approached his onscreen best friend, fighting back a quiet sense of devastation. Christof had warned Louis that Truman wasn’t doing well, but he hadn’t told him that his co-star was fully delusional. Truman didn’t even seem to know who Louis was, and after spending most of his life by his side, seeing the lack of recognition in his eyes hit surprisingly hard.

“Truman, are you feeling okay?” Louis finally asked.

“Hmm, let’s unpack that, shall we?” Truman said. “Based on a combination of weather patterns, aerial observations, and good old-fashioned infinitesimal calculus, I’ve determined that we are currently standing inside of a structure in the shape of an oblate spheroid, and moreover, I’ve calculated its exact height, radius, and diameter, indicating that the quickest way out of this place is up. So, no, I’m not ‘okay,’ but I will be as soon as I launch this short-range ballistic missile, obliterate the upper interior surface of the dome, and finally bid adieu to this universe forever. So, Mr. Whatever-Your-Name-Is, if you wouldn’t mind, could you step aside and let me do the honors?”

“It’s Marlon, my name is Marlon,” Louis said. “Come on, Truman, you know me. We’ve been best friends since we were kids.”

“You must be mistaken,” Truman said. “I don’t have ‘friends.’ What an utterly worthless concept. You go out for drinks once, and then next thing you know, some idiot shows up with a six pack of beer and thwarts all of your brilliant schemes!”

With that, Truman walked back into the power plant to retrieve a few more parts for his launch system, and a few minutes later, he returned to finish setting up the missile. The technology appeared to be convoluted and complex, and Louis couldn’t help but question how he’d done it. Truman Burbank was the most surveilled person on Earth - how had he turned into an expert-level rocket scientist without anyone noticing?

“How did you build this thing?” Louis asked as soon as Truman re-emerged from the power plant, dancing around as he set up the vertical launch system. “Have you been taking an engineering course or something? I know there’s one at the community college down the road.”

“I don’t need community college, I have five PhDs. Five!” Truman said. “Oh, and by the way, Mar-lunkhead, my name isn’t Truman, it’s Robotnik. Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Quintuple Harvard graduate, confirmed smartest person in the world, first human ever to travel the multiverse. Surely, you’d recognize my incomparable genius if you weren’t a denizen of this absurd reality.”

“Dude, you’re not a mad scientist from the multiverse,” Louis said. “You’re having a psychotic break. Let’s get you home, okay?”

“Your name isn’t Marlon, is it?” Truman said. “You’re just some spoiled, narcissistic, two-faced actor, pretending that your life matters because oh look, you were on the telly, you’re almost famous. I bet your mommy’s so proud of you, playing Best Friend #7 on The Robotnik Show. So what’s your real name?”

“Marlon,” Louis said. “My name’s Marlon.”

Just as he said that, one of Truman’s flying robots picked him up and pinned him against the wall, and as Louis struggled to break free, Truman circled around him, like a shark circling around a drop of blood in the ocean. “You see, Marlon, I’m not trying to hurt you,” Truman said, although it very much seemed like he was. “My one and only goal is to leave this soundstage, find the Phantom Ruby, and reconstruct my Multiverse Transporter so I can return to a superior plane of reality, which is to say, home sweet home. But if I have to tear this counterfeit conurbation apart brick by boring brick in order to make that happen, then that’s what I’ll do. So I’ll ask you again, what is your real name?”

Louis wanted to tell the truth. He wanted to say that his name was Louis Coltrane, that Truman was wrong about being a mad scientist and right about everything else, but he thought about what his life would be like if The Truman Show was cancelled, and he stopped himself. He didn’t have any friends on the outside, and he had no real job prospects. He was barely even an actor - most of the time, he couldn’t tell where Marlon ended and Louis began. His bachelor’s degree from “Seahaven College” was fake, and he played a vending machine operator on the show, but he didn’t even know how to do that right. Plus, there was Eddie, the beloved older brother that he almost never got to see, who’d gotten sick again and needed another spinal surgery, three weeks of physical therapy, and a new wheelchair, and that would cost his family a fortune if he didn’t stay on The Truman Show. Louis wanted to tell Truman the truth, but he didn’t feel like he had much of a choice.

So he looked to his best friend and said, “Truman, I swear, my name’s Marlon, there’s no dome, there are no cameras, and none of us are actors. If you launch your missile, it’s going to land way out there in the ocean, and then you’d have to get on a boat and clean it up, and I know you don’t want to do that. Can we just go home?”

“Well, Marlon, if you’re so sure, then why don’t we run an experiment?” Truman said as a malicious grin spread across his face. “Am I right, or is this lying halfwit smarter than the U.S. military’s top weapons manufacturer? Let’s find out.”

With that, Truman pressed one of the buttons that he’d installed into his oven mitts, and the launch system aimed the missile upwards and fired it at the sky. It sailed through the air, climbing higher and higher, until sure enough, the missile crashed into the top of the dome and exploded in a cloud of fire, smoke, and dust. A loud bang echoed throughout the set, and then the ceiling of the dome shattered, opening up a massive hole and exposing the sky above them - the real sky, complete with the harsh rays of the morning sun.

“Hmm, would you look at that?” Truman said as chunks of concrete rained down onto the street next to him. “I was right as always. Note the lack of surprise.” He then turned towards Louis and said, “Fetch me a latte with steamed Austrian goat milk - it’s been eons since my last caffeine fix, and I’m starting to get a mild bout of cephalgia, which is a sure sign of my genius brain turning to mush.”

Honestly, it sounded like Truman was just getting a headache after forgetting to take his vitamin D supplements, but that didn’t matter when the set was falling apart around them, Louis’ fellow actors were beginning to panic, and the star of The Truman Show was behaving like a madman. “Truman, come on, listen to me!” Louis shouted as he finally managed to break free from the flying robot. “I know you’re in there! This isn’t who you are!” Truman, of course, wasn’t listening, and all of a sudden, a massive piece of concrete fell directly in front of Louis, nearly breaking his foot.

“Calling all cast members currently in the East Quarter, we’re going to need you to evacuate the set for your own safety as quickly as possible,” one of the producers said into Louis’ earpiece. “Look for the #42 buses headed towards the ferry terminal, try to exit in a calm, orderly manner, and whatever you do, don’t let Truman board the bus.”

As Truman laughed and then retreated back into the power plant, Louis took one last look at him, and he realized that something was deeply wrong. Louis wasn’t exactly a great friend - he just played one on TV - but he had spent a lot of time by Truman’s side. He’d seen him at his best and at his worst: he’d seen him act like the joyous inspiration that Christof so firmly believed that he could be, but he’d also seen him cheat on math tests, get drunk at parties, and forget to pay his parking tickets. Truman had also come dangerously close to discovering the truth over the last few days, and last night, he’d seemed like he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. The argument with Meryl had scared Louis as much as anyone, but he’d held firm to his belief that Truman was a good guy at heart, a kind person who was simply well past his breaking point.

Louis had never seen Truman act this rude or spiteful towards anyone before, let alone his best friend, but it went deeper than that, didn’t it? Truman had never shown the slightest bit of interest in engineering. He’d almost failed out of Algebra II when they were in high school. Two weeks ago, Louis and Truman had built a deck together, thanks to a sponsorship coming in from IKEA, and that had taken up most of the weekend, and even after they were done, they’d still had a few screws left over. Even if Truman believed that he was some kind of super-genius, he would never be able to perfectly build dozens of drones in a matter of hours, and the more he thought about it, the more Louis began to suspect that he hadn’t been talking to his best friend at all.

He was dealing with an imposter.

Just as the #42 bus arrived on the scene, Louis ran up to the nearest camera, hidden away in a bush, and he leaned in close, making sure that Christof, the producers, and everyone watching The Truman Show would be able to hear him.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, agitated and panic-stricken, tightly gripping onto the hidden camera while debris from the ceiling continued to rain down on the set. “I don’t know who did this, or how, or why, but they must have replaced him with someone else. Because that guy…that guy over there sure as hell isn’t Truman Burbank.”

Chapter Text

“So…do you see anything useful in this image?” Truman asked Stone as the two of them studied the footprint that was displayed on the screen in Robotnik’s laboratory.

Agent Stone took a closer look, but the photograph was blurry and nearly impossible to decipher. The footprint appeared to be small and vaguely humanlike, as if it was from a child’s sneaker, but a little kid couldn’t have possibly knocked out power across the entire tri-state area. “No, nothing at all,” he finally said to Truman.

“Yeah, me neither,” Truman said. “Well, I guess we’re back to square one! Maybe we should just drive around for a while until you figure out how to reset the Multiverse Transporter. I’ve always wanted to see Montana.” He immediately climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck, and then he asked Stone, “Can I borrow your information rectangle?”

“My information rectangle…you mean my phone?” Stone said as he dug his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Is that what phones look like in your universe?” Truman said as he took Agent Stone’s cell phone and then clicked around on the Internet, his expression alternating between confusion and fascination until he finally found what he was looking for, which was apparently a map of the state of Montana. “There’s Green Hills,” Truman said as soon as he’d found it on the map. “Right in the middle of Glacier Country. Looks like there’s a library, a police station, something called Karen’s Coffee…what’s Pin-Demonium?”

“No idea,” Stone answered.

“Let’s go there,” Truman said as he buckled his seatbelt and then used Robotnik’s Control Gloves to turn on the speaker system, and as Mozart’s fourth horn concerto started playing, he pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the highway towards Pin-Demonium. Agent Stone climbed into the passenger seat of the truck, and as he watched Truman drive through Green Hills, he wondered if he’d perhaps underestimated the multiversal intruder’s intellect. For someone who had initially looked at the doctor’s Spotify account like it was some form of eldritch magic, Truman had figured out how to use Dr. Robotnik’s more advanced technologies surprisingly quickly. He was obviously still a dullard compared to the doctor - who wasn’t? - but he wasn’t nearly as stupid as Stone had first suspected, despite a few worrying gaps in his general knowledge.

Even so, Agent Stone’s new companion was starting to get on his nerves. Admittedly, Stone felt a little bad for Truman: he couldn’t imagine how frightening and disorienting it must feel to be stuck in someone else’s body, and he couldn’t imagine how miserable Truman’s universe must be if he thought that driving around middle-of-nowhere Montana was the height of luxury. On the other hand, there were so many things that Agent Stone couldn’t stand about Truman: his dorky smile, his overly friendly demeanor, the way he seemed to be going out of his way to mess up the doctor’s laboratory, the simple fact that he wasn’t Dr. Robotnik.

Maybe it wasn’t fair to compare them, but Stone couldn’t help himself. The entire reason he came into work every day was to see Robotnik, to watch his brilliant mind at work, to stand by his side as he chewed out their colleagues and cracked jokes that only Stone would ever understand. Dr. Robotnik brought passion and excitement into Stone’s life, the genius of his revolutionary technology matched only by his wild dance moves and his well-deserved ego, and every morning, Agent Stone served the doctor his latte with steamed Austrian goat milk, hoping that Robotnik would say that he loved the way he made them, because that was the closest he would ever get to saying that he loved Stone. He took pride in the fact that the smartest man alive considered him to be indispensable, and now, after less than two hours away from the doctor, Stone’s life felt mundane and aimless, like a grayscale filter had been applied to his entire existence, like he was trapped in a truck on a road going to nowhere, like he’d driven past the same tree four times in the past five minutes…

“Are we going in circles?” Stone asked Truman.

“I get a little nervous around water,” Truman admitted as he stopped at the nearest stop sign and then gestured towards the suspension bridge in front of him, the one crossing the Flathead River. “My dad drowned when I was a kid. We went sailing, and…”

“Didn’t you say earlier that your dad magically came back to life?” Stone said.

“You’re right,” Truman said as he took a deep breath. “He did, which means there’s nothing to be scared of. I just have to get over this completely irrational phobia I’ve had…for the last twenty-two years of my life.”

“Do you want me to drive?” Stone asked.

“No, no, I’ve got this,” Truman said as he slammed his foot on the gas, sending the truck flying across the bridge at nearly ninety miles per hour. As Stone nervously clutched onto his seatbelt, he looked back towards the Multiverse Transporter, towards the timer telling him that he still had another forty-five minutes with Truman before the reset sequence was finished, and as they hurtled down the road, Agent Stone counted down the seconds until he could see Dr. Robotnik again.

A few minutes later, Truman and Stone pulled into the parking lot of Pin-Demonium, which was apparently the local bowling alley, and Truman insisted on going inside and wasting a few of Robotnik’s quarters on the arcade cabinets, but before long, he got bored and decided to hit the road again. There were plenty of picturesque lakes and mountains surrounding the bowling alley, and Truman drove around town for a while, awestruck by the scenery, while Agent Stone tuned out Truman’s classical music, carefully studied his face, and pretended that he was still the doctor, which was easy enough to do as long as he didn’t start talking. Stone had fallen for Robotnik’s personality first, as hard as that was for anyone else to believe, but he appreciated his physique too. He admired the curls of his mustache, the fit of his trenchcoat, the intensity of his gaze, and as he stared at the doctor, Stone imagined that he and Robotnik were on a road trip together, enjoying a sweet moment of silence…

“Hey, Stone, can I ask you a personal question?” Truman suddenly asked. Stone broke himself out of his daze, thought about that for a moment, and then nodded, well aware that Truman wouldn’t be in this dimension for too much longer. “Are you and the doctor together?” he asked. “As a couple?”

“No,” Agent Stone said as he gazed off into the distance. “What made you think that?”

“I know you don’t like me - you’re not even pretending to like me - but you haven’t left me alone since I got here, and sometimes, you get this starry-eyed, lovestruck look on your face, and I thought that was the easiest way to explain it,” Truman said. He looked worried for a second, and then he said, “You’re not into…”

“No, of course not,” Agent Stone answered before Truman could even finish the question. “You’re not my type.”

“Good,” Truman said. “I mean, it would be okay if you were, it’s just…I’m straight, it would be awkward.”

“I actually do have feelings for the doctor, as unprofessional as that is to admit,” Agent Stone said before Truman could dig himself any deeper. “But he doesn’t feel the same way. He despises the whole human race, he thinks we’re stupid and unreliable and inefficient. He sees me as a sycophant.”

“You’re not a sycophant,” Truman scoffed. “Your boss isn’t even here, and you’re still fawning over him. I can’t believe he hasn’t noticed that.”

“Emotions are a bit of a blind spot for the doctor,” Stone said. “He’s never had a family or even a friend before. Neither of us have, really.” Agent Stone sighed, barely able to believe that he’d just poured his heart out to a man he’d just met, and then he said, “You’re only the second person that I’ve told all of that to.”

“Who’s the other one?” Truman asked.

“My security clearance officer,” Stone said. “They thought that my infatuation with Dr. Robotnik might be a liability, but I try my best to keep my personal life under wraps.”

“I’m sorry,” Truman said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Agent Stone was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “If you want to, maybe you could tell me something about yourself, and we’ll call it even.”

Truman sighed and then said, “Well, uh, the reason why I wanted to ask you about your relationship with the doctor is because I haven’t had anyone look at me like that in years. My wife can’t stand me, and the only other person I’ve ever met who’s given me that starry-eyed look is in Fiji right now.”

“Is that why you were trying to go there?” Stone asked with a slight smile.

Truman nodded and then said, “Her name is Sylvia. We met in college, and we only ever went on one date, but…it felt really special.”

Truman smiled at the ground, and Stone caught a glimpse of that lovestruck look that he’d been talking about. It was odd seeing it on the doctor’s face - Stone had thought that Robotnik was entirely immune to affairs of the heart. He’d known Dr. Robotnik for seven years at that point, and if the doctor had ever felt the slightest bit of affection for anyone or anything other than his machines, he’d certainly never shown it. And yet, there it was, that starry-eyed lovestruck look on the doctor’s face, and Agent Stone had to remind himself that it was Truman thinking about Sylvia, not Robotnik thinking about him.

“After we kissed for the first time, Sylvia tried to tell me something, but it didn’t make much sense,” Truman said. “And then her dad showed up - or maybe it wasn’t her dad, I don’t know - and he said they were moving to Fiji. I never saw her again after that.”

“You know, Truman, the more you tell me about your life, the more I worry about you,” Stone said.

“I told you there was something strange going on,” Truman said. He paused for a while, and then he said, “You know, I’m glad that your Dr. Robotnik has someone looking out for him, because I’m not sure I have that. Meryl hates me, my neighbors and coworkers don’t care, my mom’s acting weird…maybe Marlon, but if there is a conspiracy going on, then he’s in on it too.” Agent Stone gave him a sympathetic look, and as they pulled up to a traffic light, Truman glanced towards the Multiverse Transporter, and for a few moments, he sadly gazed into the middle distance, apparently lost in thought. “The thing is…” Truman said as he turned back to Agent Stone. “I don’t know if there’s anyone in my universe who cares about me. Or at the very least, I don’t know if there’s anyone who cares enough about me to want me back.”

Agent Stone knew that feeling all too well, the feeling of being alone in a crowd, the feeling of desperately wanting someone that you could never have, the feeling of loving freely and never once having that love returned, but even so, he asked, “What about Sylvia?”

“I don’t know,” Truman said. “It’s been almost ten years. Do you think she still remembers me?”

That was when Stone smiled, and before he could get lost in another daydream about running off into Truman’s universe to rescue the doctor, he turned to his new friend and said, “I’ve never met her, but if she’s anything like me, then I’m sure that Sylvia remembers you just fine.”

Chapter Text

For someone who thought that The Truman Show was legally dubious, morally wrong, and ethically disgusting in every possible way, Sylvia Van Wilder watched far, far too much of it. It had become a habit, a compulsion to pick up the remote and turn on the television every time she walked into her apartment, to check in on what Truman was up to these days. Sure, it felt a bit voyeuristic, and Sylvia occasionally wondered if the hours she’d spent watching The Truman Show might have cancelled out the hours she’d poured into freeing Truman from his cage, but it wasn’t like they’d ever let her back on set to talk to him again, not after what had happened last time.

The Truman Show had been on for as long as Sylvia could remember, but she hadn’t been allowed to watch it as a kid. Her parents thought it was barbaric, but she’d caught glimpses of the show from time to time - at friends’ houses, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, on the display televisions in the department store. And then Sylvia had grown up and become an actress, and to her family’s horror, she’d impulsively decided to quit her role in a West End musical to move to Los Angeles, California, with youthful, starry-eyed dreams of becoming a Hollywood starlet.

The thing about The Truman Show was that, thanks to the enormous cast and frequent turnover, they were virtually always hiring. It had become an incubator of sorts for up-and-coming actors - a few big name celebrities had even gotten their start there - and if nothing else, acting on The Truman Show was a better gig than driving taxis or waiting tables. The year Sylvia moved to LA, they hired almost one thousand extras, most of them in their twenties, to play students at Seahaven College. Everyone she met in Hollywood encouraged her to audition, figuring that she would be a shoo-in.

She showed up to the Truman Show audition with a “How’s It Going To End?” pin on her sweater, if only to assuage her guilty conscience. She auditioned for a role as an extra, if only because she would get to go home every night, she wouldn’t have to go through a background check, and she wouldn’t have to lie to Truman or even speak to him at all. She promised herself that if she ever did talk to Truman Burbank, she would tell him that he was on a reality show and that everyone and everything around him was fake. He could decide for himself what to do with that information, but he deserved to know.

Sylvia had not expected to fall for Truman, but in the end, she couldn’t help herself. He was handsome and charming in a boy-next-door kind of way, and she liked his kind heart, his sense of humor, his adventurous spirit. She liked his dark brown eyes, she liked the sound of his voice, she liked the way he said hello to just about everyone he came across, even the extras that weren’t allowed to say hello back. She liked that even on a TV set with thousands of wannabe actresses, he looked at her like she was the most beautiful woman alive. But mostly, she just liked him, in every possible way there was to like a person.

And yet, no matter how desperately Sylvia wanted to be with him, no matter how thoroughly he’d melted her heart, she’d promised herself that she would tell Truman the truth, so she did. That day on the beach, she told him that everyone was watching, everyone was pretending, everything was fake, her name wasn’t Lauren, it was Sylvia…

And all that did was get her fired.

Now, almost ten years later, with far too much time on her hands after her acting career had fizzled out, Sylvia Van Wilder was sprawled out in front of the TV in the living room of her apartment, watching Episode #10913 of The Truman Show. She’d noticed that something was off from the second Truman started yelling about some guy named “Agent Stone,” and by the time he left the house, she’d become convinced that the man onscreen was not actually Truman Burbank, no matter how impossible that seemed. She didn’t need Marlon to tell her that Truman wouldn’t insult his neighbors for no reason or threaten to blow up Seahaven just because.

However, after Marlon noticed that Truman wasn’t himself, everyone on the Free Truman message boards seemed to notice too, and some of the speculation as to what exactly was happening inside the Seahaven dome was frankly insane. The leading theory was that the “Truman” onscreen was a shockingly accurate body double and that the real Truman had already left Seahaven, either by choice or as part of one of Christof’s storylines. A few people thought that Truman had died earlier that month - during Episode #10891, when his cough got so bad that all of the fans were practically begging him to see a doctor - and the new Truman was his secret replacement. Some of the other theories were even more outlandish: murder, kidnapping, demonic possession, interference from the Illuminati.

To be honest, Sylvia didn’t know what to think. She wanted Truman to be alive and free as much as anyone else, but if he’d made it out of the dome and was wandering around the streets of Los Angeles, surely, someone would have recognized him by now. The more likely scenario was that he was still trapped in Seahaven, still imprisoned in a gilded cage alongside his mysterious, megalomaniacal lookalike, which meant that, despite the recent weirdness, the rallies and lawsuits and protests would have to go on. Sylvia thought back to her effort to contact current cast members of The Truman Show, a project she’d conceived in an attempt to turn all of her righteous anger into something useful. She made a mental note to try to figure out Louis Coltrane’s schedule - Marlon didn’t seem to know anything about Truman’s whereabouts, but he had seemed genuinely worried about him, and that was more than she could say for most of the Truman Show cast.

Sylvia clicked out of the Free Truman website and turned back to the TV, and at that moment, The-Man-Who-Was-Not-Truman was standing on the sidewalk, punching something into his makeshift gloves and directing his robots to build some sort of egg-shaped rocket out of spare parts from the power plant. The broadcast had been cutting in and out all morning, but it seemed to be working for now, and while Not-Truman continued to work on his rocket, the feed of him and his egg drones played in the corner, and the main screen abruptly cut to the TruTalk newsroom.

“Hello, and welcome to TruTalk, our forum for issues growing out of the show,” the TruTalk host said as he leaned back in his chair. “In light of recent events on The Truman Show, the show’s visionary creator Christof would like to give a statement.”

The screen cut to Christof sitting in his studio, a beret perched upon his head as he stared at the camera. “I’m afraid to announce that what you heard from Marlon is unfortunately correct,” he said. “Truman has, in fact, been replaced with someone else. We’ve conducted an investigation, and we’ve concluded that the set of The Truman Show has been infiltrated by a group of activists who seek to release our star from the idyllic world of Seahaven. The Truman you see on your screen now is merely a body double, and you can rest assured that we are currently conducting an intensive search of the OmniCam dome and its surrounding areas for the real Truman Burbank, who has been whisked away for their nefarious purposes…”

That was when Sylvia furiously picked up the phone and dialed the number onscreen to call in, and a few seconds later, she once again heard, “Hollywood, California, you’re on TruTalk.”

“The Free Truman movement had nothing to do with this,” she said. “You’re the one who held Truman hostage for thirty years, and now you’re treating him like a monkey that escaped from the zoo! You should be ashamed of yourself, you’ve lied to Truman and the audience and that stunt double you have in there right now, and...”

“Ah, Sylvia,” Christof interrupted. “As I said yesterday, I’m always happy to reminisce with former cast members, but you should know that we’ve already chosen Truman’s next romantic interest. We decided to go with someone more in line with our vision for the show.”

“That is not what I’m calling about,” she said angrily. Sylvia had never wanted Hannah Gill’s life, waking up next to Truman every morning in Seahaven, peddling kitchen appliances and hot cocoa, being paid to lie to her husband every single day for the rest of her life. She couldn’t envy a woman who had no freedom, no choice, her whole existence signed away and turned into one of Christof’s storylines. However, even Sylvia had to admit that she wasn’t entirely over Truman Burbank. She’d tried to move on, she’d gone on plenty of first dates with phony businessmen, C-list celebrities, wannabe Marxists who never seemed to practice what they preached, and yet, when she was offered a gig as an assistant producer on a travel show, complete with a free trip to Fiji to shoot the first episode, she’d balked. Part of her wanted to go, but in the end, she couldn’t do it, not when Truman was still trapped in a Hollywood studio, not when he was still dreaming of sailing away to see her, not when she longed for him to hold her close while they laid eyes on those beautiful tropical beaches for the first time together.

But at this rate, Truman would never see Fiji. He’d been manipulated and lied to, every aspect of his life twisted and controlled and commodified and used for the world’s entertainment, and he had no clue how deep the rabbit hole went. She’d tried to tell him the truth that day on the beach, but he’d been confused and oblivious, and then he’d gone back to campus, back to his normal life, like a prisoner returning to his cell. And now, Truman had disappeared, and this imposter trapped in Seahaven was proof of something that Sylvia had been trying to tell the world for years: that if it could happen to Truman, it could happen to anyone.

“I don’t care who it is you’ve got in there now,” Sylvia said to Christof. “He’s trying to get out, so let him out!”

“I know this is going to be difficult for you to believe, but we didn’t put him there,” Christof said. “The intruder broke into the set of The Truman Show through unknown means, and we’ve tried to negotiate, but he has violently resisted all of our attempts to reason with him.”

Just as Christof said that, a group of police officers approached the Seahaven City Power Plant, only to be chased off by a swarm of Not-Truman’s flying drones. “Auf Wiedersehen!” he called out before turning back to his rocket ship. “Well then, now that those useless, donut-eating cops have been dealt with, it’s time to polish off my mechanical marvel, my darling Egg Mobile! Of course, this won’t take more than a minute or two, it’s not like it’s rocket science…oh wait, yes it is.” Not-Truman grinned, put on a pair of makeshift goggles, and then returned to his work, while Christof sighed and turned back to the camera.

“I assume that this imposter is here to make a mockery of the show and promote your radical politics to the live viewing audience,” Christof said. “But Sylvia, please, if you know anything about what’s happened to the real Truman, I would speak up now. It’s for Truman’s own good.”

“I don’t know where Truman is,” Sylvia said. “None of us know, and even if we did, we wouldn’t tell you, of all people.”

However, just as she said that, she noticed the slightest bit of anxiety in Christof’s normally serene expression, and it finally sunk in for her that Christof genuinely had no idea where Truman was or who had taken his place. No one on the Free Truman message boards seemed to know either, and Sylvia couldn’t help but wonder about the logistics - the switch earlier that morning had seemingly been instantaneous. One minute, Truman was goofing around in the bathroom mirror, and the next, he was looking around frantically and complaining about not having his Robotnik Control Gloves, whatever those were. Sylvia didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but there was one theory that would neatly explain everything, as far-fetched as it was…

“What if he’s telling the truth?” she said. “What if this intruder really is a mad scientist from the multiverse?”

“It’s a ridiculous theory, but it’s easy enough to disprove,” Christof said, and a few moments later, the channel switched over to live footage from inside the Seahaven dome, and Sylvia watched as Marlon approached Not-Truman with a six pack of beer and said, “Dr. Robotnik?”

That was when Truman - no, Robotnik - turned towards Marlon, faster than he ever had before, and then he scowled and said, “I asked for a latte with steamed Austrian goat milk! Because my genius brain is in need of stimulation, not inebriation! So, my not-so-loyal lackey, are you deaf, or are you simply too much of a dimwitted drunk to follow directions?”

Christof stared at the screen in shock for a moment, and as Sylvia tried to process all of the implications of everything that was happening, the Truman Show creator picked up another microphone and spoke directly to Robotnik.

“Dr. Robotnik, can you hear me?” Christof said, and Robotnik immediately looked around, trying to figure out where Christof’s voice was coming from.

“It seems that my caffeine withdrawals are causing me to experience acute auditory hallucinations…” Robotnik muttered to himself as he continued to search for the source of the voice.

“You’re not hearing things,” Christof said. “Dr. Robotnik…my name is Christof. I am the creator of a television program that has brought joy and inspiration to millions, and you, through some mad wizardry, have found yourself in the place of our protagonist.”

“It’s not ‘mad wizardry’ - you simply lack the intellectual capacity to understand my technological masterpiece,” Robotnik insisted. “If you’ll allow me to explain…I was supposed to briefly visit this pathetic parallel universe and then immediately return home to my superior plane of existence, but there was a teensy little electrical anomaly that caused a teensy little malfunction with the Multiverse Transporter, and now, yes, I seem to have traded consciousnesses with the hero of your ridiculous, braindead soap opera. Or to put it in a way that your feeble mind might understand…have you ever seen Freaky Friday?”

Christof let out an exasperated sigh, and then he leaned into the microphone and asked, “Where is Truman?”

“Could you at least pretend to listen, you glorified security camera?!” Dr. Robotnik said. “Truman is obviously in my body, which is obviously in my universe. I didn’t think it took an advanced degree in theoretical physics to figure that one out, but humanity never fails to disappoint me.”

As Robotnik spoke, Sylvia imagined Truman waking up in an alternate universe, scared out of his mind, and she wished that she could go to Robotnik’s universe to explain what had happened, to help him figure out where to go from here. But as it was, Sylvia supposed that she at least had her answer as to how The Truman Show was going to end. Truman was out there in an alternate reality somewhere, while Dr. Robotnik was on the verge of escaping from Seahaven. Whenever he was done talking to Christof, Dr. Robotnik would hop into his Egg Mobile and fly out of the dome, and with that, the show would be over. In a way, this was what Sylvia had always wanted, but at the same time, she found herself quickly drafting up a plan to meet Dr. Robotnik outside of the studio, to convince him to switch places with Truman once again. She had no idea what Dr. Robotnik’s universe was like, but she knew that Truman deserved to have the chance to return to his home dimension.

“How do we bring Truman back?” Christof asked Dr. Robotnik, a note of genuine concern in his voice. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s essential to our operation. This is a chronicle of his life, his story, played out over thirty seasons of television. Without Truman Burbank, there is no Truman Show.”

Sylvia never once thought that she’d ever find herself agreeing with Christof, and yet, here she was. She didn’t expect the Truman Show creator to see beyond his own sick self-interest and realize that keeping Truman trapped in an alternate reality would be cruel in and of itself, but for once, Christof and Sylvia were on the same page about something. She supposed that multiversal crises made for strange bedfellows.

“Well, unless you’re looking to change the title of your one-man Big Brother ripoff, you might want to allow me and my machines to take the lead,” Robotnik said to Christof. “You see, before you so rudely interrupted my progress, I was working on leaving this dump to find a magical jewel called the Phantom Ruby, which would grant me the unspeakable power necessary to warp the fabric of space-time and return to my native dimension.” He then looked up at the broken ceiling and said, “Of course, if you insist on continuing to interfere with my exit strategy, I could always renovate the roof of your rotunda again. This set could use a little more natural lighting…”

“Let me make a deal with you, Dr. Robotnik,” Christof said. “I will find you the Phantom Ruby you seek, and in exchange, you will make no further attempts to leave the studio. Once the Ruby has been delivered, you will reconstruct the Multiverse Transporter and exchange places with Truman, which will return our star to his home in Seahaven and allow Episode #10913 of The Truman Show to continue as scheduled. Can we agree to those terms, Doctor?”

“Oh, so now you’re giving me an all-powerful, interdimensional gemstone for free in exchange for doing absolutely nothing?” Robotnik said as a malevolent grin spread across his face. “Don’t mind if I do. In fact, I look forward to our alliance, Christof. Two evil masterminds are always better than one.”

That was when Sylvia furiously reached for her remote and switched off the TV set, silently fuming as her television screen suddenly went dark. She’d thought that calling in would help, she’d thought that discovering the truth of how Robotnik had gotten into Seahaven might set Truman free, she’d hoped that Dr. Robotnik might have enough compassion for the man whose body he currently occupied to try to keep Truman from being sent back to Seahaven, but she’d been wrong, so wrong. Robotnik wasn’t on her side, and Sylvia wasn’t a brave warrior fighting for Truman’s freedom. She was just another helpless spectator, no better than anyone else watching the program and keeping The Truman Show on the air.

For just a moment, Sylvia had felt a glimmer of hope that Truman might be free out there in the multiverse, or even better, that Dr. Robotnik might escape from Seahaven and bring Truman back to his home universe. She'd even dared to hope that she might get the chance to talk to the man she loved once again, this time outside of the confines of The Truman Show. She desperately wanted Truman to live his life on his own terms, but now, Sylvia knew that he’d never get that chance, because she knew exactly how this story was going to end.

With a prisoner returning to his cell.

Chapter Text

At that very moment, Truman and Agent Stone were driving around Green Hills, blissfully unaware of anything that was happening in Truman’s universe. Stone was still keeping an eye on the Multiverse Transporter, but if he was being honest with himself, Truman was beginning to grow on him. He obviously wasn’t the doctor, but he made for pleasant enough company, even if Truman had become rather obsessed with wandering around the mobile laboratory and tinkering with every little feature of Dr. Robotnik’s technology.

“Hey Stone, can you come take a look at this indicator?” Truman said as he pulled the truck over and then gestured towards Robotnik’s hologram screen. “There’s a huge spike every time we drive past that house over there. 55 Plymouth Road. Do you think it has something to do with the blackout?”

Agent Stone ran over to take a look, and sure enough, the electromagnetic radiation levels outside the truck were off the charts. “I don’t know, but I’ll send the Badniks to investigate,” Stone said as he pressed a few buttons on his Robotnik Control Gloves. The Badniks flew off, and a few minutes later, the screen in the lab lit up with charts and measurements, all of the data confirming that there was something going on at the house down the road. However, it was impossible to find the source of the radiation - the doors and windows were all locked, meaning that the Badniks couldn’t enter the house to investigate further.

Luckily, Agent Stone had a plan.

The first stage of the plan involved running an extensive social media search to determine who exactly lived at 55 Plymouth Road, and within just a few minutes, Stone found a match: @ozzys-best-friend had posted a photo of himself standing in front of the house on Instagram just yesterday. A few further searches yielded more information - @ozzys-best-friend’s real name was Tom Wachowski, his wife’s name was Maddie, they worked as a sheriff and a veterinarian respectively, and Ozzy was their pet golden retriever. Agent Stone then looked up the Wachowskis in the NSA’s database, and sure enough, he found their phone numbers, email addresses, education records, medical records, credit scores, Google search history, and life insurance policy.

The second stage of the plan was getting Truman on the phone with Tom Wachowski, and to Stone’s surprise, the multiversal visitor turned out to be an excellent con artist.

“Good morning, Mr. Wachowski,” Truman said after he’d dialed Tom's number. “I’m calling from Green Hills Insurance Corporation, we just wanted to check in on our customers after the blackout this morning…no, your policy doesn’t cover electrical grid failure, that’s only if you have the supplemental home insurance, which is a scam if you ask me...wait, hang on, you’re Sheriff Wachowski! I don’t know if we’ve met, but I take my dog to Maddie’s veterinary practice every year for her annual checkup…my name’s Truman…did you go to Green Hills High too? Ah, that’s what I love about living in a small town, everybody knows everybody else…I heard from Maddie that you were transferring to San Francisco…I can’t even remember a time when we didn’t have a Wachowski walking the beat on Main Street…I’d love to stop by and congratulate you on the new position before you leave…I’m actually in the neighborhood right about now…I think we have your address on file…55 Plymouth Road? Thanks, Tom, I’ll be there soon, but if I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!”

As soon as Tom stopped talking, Truman hung up the phone, turned to Agent Stone, and said, “I think we got him.”

The third stage of the plan was simply pulling into the driveway of 55 Plymouth Road. As expected, before Truman and Stone even approached the front porch, Tom immediately opened the door and asked, “Hello there, can I help you?”

“Hey, Tom,” Truman said with a smile before Agent Stone could get a word in edgewise. “I’m Truman, and this is my colleague, Stone. I believe we talked over the phone?”

“Oh yeah, Truman from the insurance company,” Tom said, hesitating slightly before holding the door open for Truman and Stone. “Come on in. I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen you around before, but it’s always nice to meet a fellow Green Hills alum. Go Knights, am I right?”

“Go Knights!” Truman said as he waltzed right into the house, with Stone quickly following behind him. As they made their way into Tom’s raccoon-infested kitchen, Stone commenced the fourth and final stage of the plan: searching Tom Wachowski’s house while Truman distracted the sheriff with small talk.

“What’s the occasion?” Truman asked Tom as he approached the kitchen table and gestured towards a half-eaten sheet cake.

“Maddie and I were celebrating my acceptance to the SFPD,” Tom explained. “I’d offer you guys a slice, but it looks like the raccoons got to it first.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Truman said as he sat down at the kitchen table, making sure to obscure Tom’s view of Agent Stone. “Congrats on the job offer, by the way. That’s a big achievement, moving on from your small town life, seeing what else is out there in this great big mixed-up world of ours.”

“Thanks,” Tom said with a sigh as he sat down next to Truman. “It’ll be hard leaving Green Hills behind, but I’m looking forward to doing some real police work in San Francisco, and I’m sure Wade will make a great acting sheriff once I’m gone.”

“Ah, yes…Wade,” Truman said. “I know who that is. He’ll do great. He’s a brilliant officer. Sharp as a tack!”

Tom tilted his head, gave Truman a skeptical look, and then said, “Are we talking about the same Wade?”

While Truman attempted to distract Tom, Agent Stone opened up the kitchen window, allowing a group of mini Badniks to swarm into the Wachowskis’ house. As the Badniks flew upstairs, Stone let out a sigh of relief - the blackout investigation hadn’t reached a dead end after all. Agent Stone wished that Dr. Robotnik was here to see this, but as it was, he hoped that his boss would be pleased with their progress when he returned.

“What kind of insurance do you sell again?” Tom asked Truman.

“I sell life insurance,” Truman said.

“And I sell…” Stone said, but before he could finish his sentence, he noticed a glowing, blue quill lying on the table. “Insurance…insurance…” he said absentmindedly as he studied the quill.

“Insurance insurance?” Tom said.

“Insurance insurance,” Agent Stone said with a smile as soon as he’d slipped the quill into the inside pocket of his jacket for later analysis. “It’s for when there’s a problem with your insurance.”

“We could get you a quote if you’d like,” Truman said.

“No, I’m okay,” Tom said. “Our budget’s a little tight this time of year, and Maddie and I prefer to go with insurance policies that, you know, exist.”

Agent Stone was about to say something, but he noticed some new readings coming in, and just as he was about to direct the Badniks to move closer to the radiation source, he heard some strange noises coming from upstairs. “What was that?” he asked.

“Old pipes,” Tom said before narrowing his eyes in Stone’s direction. “You two don’t really work for the insurance company, do you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Agent Stone said, a small smile plastered on his face. “Truman and I are just your friendly neighborhood insurance salesmen. We’re here to help.”

“Yeah, right,” Tom said, looking around the room for a moment before he turned back to Agent Stone. “Hey, where did your friend sneak off to?” he asked. “He was here just a minute ago.”

Stone looked towards the chair next to him, and to his shock, he discovered it was empty. He searched around for a few minutes, trying to figure out where Truman had gone, and then, all of a sudden, he heard several confused, high-pitched screams coming from upstairs.

This was not part of the plan.

“Truman!” Stone shouted as he raced towards the staircase, but Tom quickly came running after him, and as the sheriff threw a punch in his direction, Agent Stone grabbed onto his arm and threw him down the stairs, suddenly grateful for all of his years of combat training and childhood karate lessons. As the police officer tried to regain his balance, Stone immediately scrambled up the staircase and sprinted into the attic, searching for his multiversal companion.

When Agent Stone finally made it to the top of the staircase, he found Truman standing next to a wooden table, and underneath the table, there was a furry, bright blue creature with large, green eyes, curled up into a ball, as if he was trying to shield himself from the world.

“Wait, wait, you’re not a robot, not a hallucination, and not a little kid in a costume, so…are you an alien? Are aliens real?” Truman said. He looked confused for a second, but then he took a deep breath and said, “Listen, we’re not here to hurt you, we come in peace. And if you want us to take you to our leader…”

“Dude, I’m not that kind of alien. I’ve been here for ten years already, so you kind of missed your window for a first contact scenario,” the creature said as he crawled out of his hiding spot and then looked around nervously. “And if you’re not trying to kill me, then what’s with the flying eggs?”

Truman pressed a few buttons on his Robotnik Control Gloves, sending the Badniks back to the truck, and as the drones flew away, he turned back to the alien. “I’m sorry about that,” Truman said. “What did you say your name was again?”

“I’m Sonic,” the creature said. “Otherwise known as the Blue Blur, the Blue Menace, the Blue Devil, and the World’s Fastest Hedgehog.”

“I’m Truman,” he said. “Truman Burbank. I’m not from around here either.” He paused and then asked Sonic, “Did you cause the power outage?”

“I plead the third, the fifth, the eleventh, the twenty-first, and whichever one stops me from having to answer questions,” Sonic said. “Wait, does that actually work in real life, or does it only work on TV? I haven’t actually been questioned by the government before, but I have seen a lot of cop shows, and I’m pretty sure that’s how this is supposed to go.”

All of a sudden, Tom reached the top of the staircase, surveyed the scene, and then ran up to Agent Stone. “Okay, first of all, you’re under arrest for assaulting an officer of the law,” he said.

“We’re with the feds,” Agent Stone said, brandishing his digital badge. “I apologize for our…unconventional methods, but the doctor and I are contractors with the U.S. Department of Defense, and we’ve been assigned to investigate the Pacific Northwest blackout.”

“So he’s your boss?” Tom said, gesturing towards Truman.

“No, no, I’m just helping with the investigation,” Truman said.

“Truman’s not supposed to be here,” Stone explained. “There was an incident in the lab this morning, it’s a long story.” He paused for a moment, and then he gestured towards Sonic and said, “Mr. Wachowski, can I ask why you have a known enemy of the United States residing in your attic?”

“I’m not anyone’s enemy!” Sonic said before pointing towards Tom. “And he shot me with a tranquilizer!”

“I didn’t mean to,” Tom said.

“And then you guys drove your super evil-looking truck down the street, so I thought you were here to kill me…”

“So I hid Sonic in the attic because he said it was a life or death situation,” Tom said. “We didn’t think you were going to circle around the block five times before coming to investigate, but it gave us time to lock the doors. And then you two pretended to be my insurance agents…”

“Which I told you was just their dumb excuse to walk into your house, but you didn’t listen to me!” Sonic interjected.

“I was trying to be nice!” Tom said. “What if Truman really was my insurance agent?”

“Then we’d have bigger problems, because he’s clearly not very good at it,” Sonic said.

“Hey!” Truman said, a bit offended.

“But…you guys seem nice, so you’re not going to abduct me,” Sonic said as he looked towards Truman and Stone expectantly. “Right?”

Agent Stone wasn’t sure how to answer that. He was well aware that if Dr. Robotnik was here, he would have locked Sonic up in the back of the truck by now, but this wasn’t the doctor’s investigation anymore. Dr. Robotnik wouldn’t be back in time to help, and the Robotnik Manifesto didn’t exactly have a chapter on space aliens, so it was up to Agent Stone to decide what to do about the hedgehog.

Sonic had almost certainly caused the EMP and the blackout, but he was also just a kid - a kid with superpowers, but a kid nonetheless. Robotnik would obviously want Sonic’s energy for his experiments, and he’d want to exact his revenge on the hedgehog for breaking his Multiverse Transporter, but Agent Stone had already stolen one of Sonic’s quills, and no matter how badly Stone wanted to help the doctor, there was something stopping him from going further and kidnapping the alien, something stopping him from taking Sonic and using him to power the doctor’s brilliant machines. His pesky conscience was never an issue when Dr. Robotnik was around - Stone had always followed his boss’s every whim without question or complaint - but perhaps he was growing soft in the doctor’s absence.

“Right,” Agent Stone finally said to Sonic, a slight twinge of guilt in his heart, knowing that this was most certainly not what Dr. Robotnik would have done. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

While Tom breathed a sigh of relief, and Agent Stone wondered if there was a way to take back everything he’d just said, Truman turned to the hedgehog and said, “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? I’ve never talked to an alien before. Unless you count that daydream I had about becoming an astronaut and exploring the Burbank galaxy. But I was picturing little green men in flying saucers, not a blue space hedgehog...”

“Get to the point already!” Sonic whined.

“How did you get to Earth?” Truman asked.

“Longclaw sent me here,” Sonic said. “She was like the Obi-Wan Kenobi to my Luke Skywalker, but, uh, you know how Obi-Wan disappeared halfway through A New Hope? That’s what happened to me. Longclaw was the closest thing I ever had to a mom, and then I led the echidnas right to us. She told me to keep my powers hidden, and she told me that I’d be safe on Earth, but ever since I got here, I’ve…I’ve been all alone.”

Just as Sonic was about to curl up into a ball again, Truman crouched down next to the hedgehog and said, “Hey, it’s alright. I…I get it. I lost my dad when I was a kid, and…that’s exactly how I felt. Alone. Dad used to take me to the beach every weekend, that was our special place, but he drowned when I was seven, and I thought it was my fault. I couldn’t go anywhere near the ocean for years, because I couldn’t bear to think about what happened to Dad. I really thought that I’d never find anyone who cared about me like he did.”

“Did it ever get easier?” Sonic asked.

“I thought so. I met my best friend Marlon that same year,” Truman said. “But then sometimes you find a homeless man who looks exactly like your dead dad, and then he comes back with amnesia after you spent the last two decades thinking he was gone forever, and you just have to accept that everyone you know has been lying to you, and your whole life has just been one gigantic act of fraud…”

“Is he okay?” Sonic asked Agent Stone.

“No, but he will be,” Stone assured him as he reluctantly crouched down next to Truman and Sonic. “I think the point that Truman’s trying to make is that you won’t be alone forever.”

“But that big explosion was my fault,” Sonic said. “I was playing baseball with myself, and I got so angry and sad that lightning started shooting out of my butt!” He paused for a moment and then said, “Look, I’m really, really glad you guys aren’t trying to kill me, but…are you going to turn me in to the government?”

Agent Stone sighed, barely able to believe that he was about to do this, but he turned to Sonic and said, “We’re required to file a report, but thanks to Dr. Robotnik’s perfect operations record, Commander Walters trusts his judgment. We’ll recommend a lenient approach, but Sonic, please don’t do anything like this again. You’ve caused enough trouble with Robotnik’s machines already.”

“You’re just a kid,” Truman added. “Kids make mistakes sometimes. You’re still learning how the world works, so it happens.”

“Thanks, Eggman,” Sonic said.

“Why did you call me that?” Truman asked.

“Eggman?” Sonic said. “Because of the robot eggs. Duh.”

“They’re not mine…” Truman said, still very confused.

Just as he said that, Sonic muttered something to himself about his “rings” and then suddenly ran off, and Agent Stone turned to speak with Truman. “You’re really good with Sonic,” Stone said. “Do you have kids in your universe?”

Truman shook his head, and Stone got the sense that he’d hit a bit of a sore spot. “I don’t mind kids, and my mom would be thrilled if my wife and I had a child, but…my marriage is falling apart,” Truman said. “And even if Meryl and I were going to stay together, I don’t know if fatherhood is for me. I can’t imagine putting my life on hold for eighteen years to raise a baby, you know?”

“I understand,” Stone said. “The doctor’s revolutionary technology has always been more than enough of a legacy for me.”

“So what you’re saying is that you’re having the doctor’s…brainchildren?” Truman said, trying not to laugh at his own joke.

“Shut up,” Stone said, but there wasn’t much venom behind it.

“So are we all good now?” Tom suddenly asked as he looked back and forth between Truman, Stone, and Sonic, who’d just run back into the room. “This isn’t a life or death situation?”

“No, I’m still in big trouble!” Sonic exclaimed. “I lost my Rings in San Francisco, and I need them to go to the Mushroom Planet!”

While Tom and Agent Stone were still stuck on the basics - like what rings were, where this mushroom land was, and why Sonic needed someone to drive him to San Francisco when he was supposedly the world’s fastest hedgehog - Truman jumped in and said, “Sure, I can take you to San Francisco. I’ve always wanted to ride a cable car across the Golden Gate Bridge to Chinatown while eating a loaf of sourdough.”

“And this is why Eggman’s my new favorite person,” Sonic said. “Sorry, Donut Lord!”

As Sonic sped towards Dr. Robotnik’s truck, Agent Stone felt his heart sink into his stomach. Stone had made some concessions over the last few hours, he’d done a few things that Robotnik never would have, but wasting twenty hours on a cross-country road trip for a criminally negligent space hedgehog while his boss was still stuck in an alternate universe was a bridge too far.

He needed Dr. Robotnik back now.

Chapter Text

“No, no, no, we are not taking Sonic to San Francisco,” Agent Stone said as he ran after Truman, his heart shattering as he thought of Dr. Robotnik, stuck in an unfamiliar body, lost in a universe where Stone couldn’t protect him, trapped in Truman’s dimension forever. “Do you even know where San Francisco is?”

“I think it’s in California,” Truman said.

“It’s a straight shot west,” Tom chimed in. “Can’t miss it.”

“You’re thinking of Seattle,” Agent Stone said to Tom, barely bothering to conceal his disdain for the sheriff. He’d shown these common people mercy for long enough, and as Truman and Tom engaged in some dull, meaningless banter, he started to see them in the same way that Robotnik did - as mere obstacles standing in his way - but at least Truman would be gone before too much longer. All Stone had to do was figure out how to get the Multiverse Transporter working again.

All of a sudden, Sonic dashed back into the room and then said, “Okay, so it turns out San Francisco isn’t due west, so I’m going to need your help to find it. But I think the World’s Largest Rubber Band Ball is on the way, so ROAD TRIP! Whoop whoop!”

“Road trip!” Truman cheered. “I’ll go get the snacks!”

“No, we’re going to go back to the truck and talk about this,” Agent Stone said as dragged Truman out of Tom’s house and back into the mobile laboratory.

“Sure, take your time, Eggman!” Sonic called out as Agent Stone slammed the door shut. “It’s not like I have other planets to visit or anything!”

As soon as the two of them were back inside the lab, Agent Stone glared at Truman, his animosity growing by the second, but before Stone could say anything, Truman asked, “Why can’t we go to San Francisco?”

“Because it’s a twenty hour drive, and I am not leaving Dr. Robotnik stranded in your reality for that long,” Agent Stone said.

“Well, that’s not a problem,” Truman said. “We know what caused the blackout now, so I’ll go ahead and prepare a report for your bosses at the Department of Defense, and then we can set out for San Fran. It won’t take twenty hours if I ignore the speed limits!”

Agent Stone let out an exasperated sigh, and while Truman went over to the computer to work on the report, Stone made his way towards the Multiverse Transporter. He ran a few checks on the machine, and to his delight, he found that the device was up and running again. In fact, it had been fully operational for the entire time they’d been inside Tom’s house. All Agent Stone had to do was push the red button and toss the Multiverse Transporter in Truman’s direction, and then, finally, at last, he would have his beloved Dr. Robotnik back.

Stone picked up the Multiverse Transporter and placed his index finger on the red button, but just as he was about to bring the doctor back once and for all, Truman sprinted over to him and grabbed onto the machine. “No, no, Stone, please…don’t send me back there,” Truman said as he yanked the Multiverse Transporter away from Agent Stone. “I’m not going back.”

“Truman, give me that,” Agent Stone snapped as he tried to wrestle the machine away from Truman, but his grip was surprisingly strong. “You can’t stay here forever.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“I need Dr. Robotnik back,” Stone said, his heart breaking at just the thought of losing the one person who made him smile, the one person who gave him a reason to wake up in the morning, the one person who gave his life any meaning at all. “Because I love him, I care about him, and I…I don’t know what I would do if I lost him.”

“Fine,” Truman said, still tightly clinging onto the Multiverse Transporter. “Can we at least wait until after I drive Sonic to San Francisco?”

“No, you’re not taking Sonic anywhere,” Agent Stone said as he let go of the transporter and then slammed Sonic’s quill onto the table. “He can run with infinite energy, he doesn’t need you.” He paused and then said, “Listen, Truman, it’s been nice getting to know you, but you’re not supposed to be here. You’re not Dr. Robotnik, and this isn’t your home. And if your universe is as bad as you say it is, then I refuse to keep the doctor there any longer than I have to. He needs me, and I won’t let him down.”

Just as Agent Stone said that, he looked towards the glowing blue spine, and he felt an irrational resentment building up within him. That superpowered hedgehog had caused the EMP, he’d broken the Multiverse Transporter, he’d taken away the doctor. Sonic was the whole reason that Agent Stone was in this mess in the first place, and for a moment, Stone wondered if it was too late to send the Badniks to destroy the hedgehog.

“Why would you want to stay here anyways?” Stone asked Truman. “You’re in the wrong body. You’d be trading years of your life away for…”

“For freedom,” Truman finished. “I told you there was something wrong with my reality, and this proves it. It was like there was someone else out there controlling my life, and then I came here, and…Stone, I just talked to an alien, and this place still feels a whole lot more real than Seahaven ever did.”

At that moment, Truman slumped into Robotnik’s chair, looking absolutely hopeless, and there it was again. Stone’s pesky conscience. Maybe it was just because Truman was in Robotnik’s body, maybe it was just because Stone couldn’t stand to see that distraught look on the doctor’s face, but Agent Stone froze in place, his heart breaking, conflicted as to what to do next.

“You’re right,” Truman said, his lips quivering as he handed the Multiverse Transporter back to Agent Stone. “I don’t belong here, so…send me somewhere else. Send me to Fiji. Don’t make me go back there.”

Agent Stone took back the Multiverse Transporter, but he couldn’t bring himself to push the button quite yet, mostly because he couldn’t stand to see Truman so miserable, so demoralized, so utterly devastated. He couldn’t stand to see Dr. Robotnik’s eyes well up with tears over the mere prospect of returning home, but Seahaven wasn’t home for Truman, was it? If Stone understood correctly, it didn’t even exist - it was more like a Potemkin village, a façade that Truman had already seen through, a carefully constructed illusion that he could be trapped in forever if Stone sent him back now.

Agent Stone placed the Multiverse Transporter on the table, and while Truman tried to wipe away his tears, Stone began to rearrange the wires on the device. “What are you doing?” Truman asked.

“I’m coming with you,” Stone said as he carefully adjusted the circuit board on the Multiverse Transporter. “I’ve got a plan. I’ll send you back in Robotnik’s body, we’ll find the doctor in your universe, and then all three of us will work together and find out what’s going on. Dr. Robotnik’s brilliant - I’m sure he’ll know what to do, he always does. Once everyone’s safe, I’ll switch you and the doctor back. Do you think that would work?”

“Maybe,” Truman said. “I…I hope so.”

“Okay,” Stone said as he placed his hand over the red button. “We’re both going to have to press the button at the same time if we want to go to your universe.” Truman nodded and placed his hand over Agent Stone’s, and Stone called out, “On three! One…two…”

Before Stone could finish the countdown, Truman abruptly fell unconscious and collapsed into his chair, dropping the Multiverse Transporter onto the floor. “Truman!” Stone shouted. “Are you okay?”

Truman didn’t respond, so Agent Stone picked up the Multiverse Transporter and checked to make sure that his companion hadn’t accidentally pushed the button, but the lights on the machine indicated that the device was still inactive. But then, all of a sudden, Truman opened his eyes, and he scowled, looked around the lab, glanced down at his gloves, and then slowly smiled, as if he was returning home after a long journey...

“Doctor?” Stone asked as a smile began to creep across his face. “Is that…is that you?”

“Agent Stone, fetch me my coffee mug,” Dr. Robotnik said. “Unless all of this multiversal travel has made my watch go haywire, I believe I’m long overdue for my morning latte.”

Agent Stone just about exploded with glee as soon as he heard those words, and he rushed to the kitchen to prepare Dr. Robotnik’s latte. He ran through the motions - brewing the espresso, steaming the Austrian goat milk, etching the doctor’s face and a half-dozen cartoon hearts into the foam - and when he approached Dr. Robotnik again, he couldn’t help but swoon.

“It’s good to have you back, Doctor,” Stone said with a giddy smile as he handed Robotnik his latte with steamed Austrian goat milk. “But, uh, Truman and I weren’t able to activate the Multiverse Transporter, and I didn’t think that his universe had the capacity for multiversal travel, so…how exactly did you get here?”

“Oh, my poor, naive little barnacle,” Dr. Robotnik said as gave Agent Stone an evil grin and then took a sip of his latte. “Allow me to explain…”

Chapter Text

After making his deal with Christof, Dr. Robotnik went back to Truman’s house, sat down in front of the television, and spent the next several hours binge watching Truman’s favorite propaganda piece, Show Me The Way To Go Home. However, just as Robotnik was starting to become a little too emotionally invested in the Abbot family’s small town misadventures, a bright red gemstone with a parachute attached to it dropped right onto Truman’s doorstep. The doctor chuckled over Christof’s ridiculous delivery method, but he quickly rushed outside to collect the final component of the Multiverse Transporter.

Of course, the Phantom Ruby was perfect. It sparkled and shone in the morning sun, bright crimson light reflecting off of every single surface of the icosahedron, and as Robotnik placed his gloved hands on the stone, he could feel the Phantom Ruby thrumming with energy, the same energy that would send him back to his home dimension. It was beautiful. It was dangerous. It was exactly what he needed.

“Mon chéri, vous êtes magnifique,” Robotnik said as he planted a kiss on the top of the blood red stone. “Let’s get you plugged in to the Multiverse Transporter, shall we?”

Dr. Robotnik picked up the frame that he’d built earlier and connected it to the Phantom Ruby, and with that, the Multiverse Transporter was finally complete. He could return to his original universe whenever he wished, but just as Robotnik was about to push the red button and leave this abomination of an alternate universe behind forever, another brilliant idea crossed his brilliant mind, and the doctor realized that he wasn’t quite ready to go home yet. There was one more thing he wanted to do first, while he was in the neighborhood.

Dr. Robotnik walked back to the power plant, taking his Multiverse Transporter with him, and as soon as he got there, he climbed into the Egg Mobile and put on his makeshift flight goggles. “What is he doing?” muttered Christof, who’d apparently forgotten to turn off his microphone.

All of a sudden, the Egg Mobile glided out of the power plant and took to the skies, and as Dr. Robotnik steered the vehicle upwards, he said, “Oh Christof, thank you so very, very much for acting as my personal Phantom Ruby Delivery Service, but did you really think I would keep my promises? Only a fool would pass up the perfect opportunity to make his genius known across the entire multiverse! To become not only the first person to step foot in an alternate universe but also the greatest ruler that this pathetic planet has ever seen!”

Robotnik cackled maniacally and then steered his Egg Mobile towards the opening in the dome, ignoring Christof and the other producers as they said some nonsense about a “weather program,” but he placed his foot on the brake when he was about halfway to his escape route. The Egg Mobile hovered in place, floating in the air over Seahaven, and from this vantage point, the Truman Show actors looked like tiny, terrified insects about to be crushed underneath his boot. These humans were stupid, cruel, weak, and most definitely in his way, and Dr. Robotnik was about to make them suffer.

“I’ve come to make an announcement!” he shouted to his crowd of onlookers. “I’m inviting you all to the grand opening of Robotnik Land, the finest amusement park in the multiverse and the new home base for my interdimensional empire! Don’t worry, all of you halfwitted, cold-hearted thespians can keep your jobs. You’ll be my ride operators, my ticket sellers, my cotton candy peddlers! You’ll never have to leave! I’ll lock the exit, switch the cameras back on, replace half of you with my androids, and leave you all to wonder - do your so-called friends really care about you, or are they just one of my unfeeling, perfectly controlled machines?” Robotnik chuckled to himself and then asked, “Are you seeing the vision yet, my loyal subjects?”

Robotnik grinned, turned back to the steering wheel, and launched his Egg Mobile towards the hole in the ceiling, but just as he approached the aperture, he overheard Christof speaking to one of the other producers. “Simeon, turn up the wind, rain, and lightning,” Christof said. “We need to take down Robotnik’s vehicle before he escapes.”

Almost as soon as Christof said that, a gust of wind sent the Egg Mobile spinning away from the broken roof, and while Dr. Robotnik frantically attempted to course-correct, a torrent of rain came pouring down right over his head, leaving him drenched. He steered the Egg Mobile back towards the opening, but the storm was growing worse by the second, the wind howling and the rain pouring. The Egg Mobile jolted back and forth in the violent tempest, and while Robotnik tried to maintain his balance, a piece of debris came loose from the ceiling and broke the windshield of the Egg Mobile. The doctor shrieked as he jumped away from all of the shattered glass, and he gripped onto the steering wheel and thought of Christof, that pinheaded television producer that had gone and broken his beautiful Egg Mobile, and a burning, all-consuming wrath began to grow within him.

This wasn’t about taking over the world anymore.

This was about revenge.

Dr. Robotnik redirected all of his Badniks and sent them to find Christof, and when he finally located him, hidden in a control room behind the sun, he flew his Egg Mobile right into the eye of the storm, ignoring the thunderclouds forming over his head, the lightning crackling around him, the rain beating against the sides of the hovercraft. As Robotnik approached the control room in his Egg Mobile, he overheard Christof saying, “Turn the wind up higher. As high as it will go.”

“But that’ll kill him!” Simeon protested.

“I don’t care!” Christof exclaimed. “Either we kill him, or he’s going to kill us!”

All of a sudden, another rush of wind blew off Robotnik’s goggles, and then, just when he thought the storm couldn’t get any worse, it started to hail. It began with tiny pellets raining down on his Egg Mobile, a mere annoyance as far as Robotnik was concerned, but then, a large chunk of ice struck the center of the vehicle, causing the floor on the driver’s side of the Egg Mobile to crack. As pieces of the Egg Mobile began to fall out of the sky, Robotnik tried to keep his vehicle steady, dodging the lightning and falling hailstones, but a blast of wind tipped the hovercraft onto its side, sending him flying out of the vehicle. However, just as he was about to fall to his doom, Robotnik grasped onto the edge of the Egg Mobile, and he desperately clung to the side of the hovercraft, dangling hundreds of feet over the ocean, the waves breaking below him, threatening to swallow him whole.

As Robotnik struggled to crawl back onto the Egg Mobile, another hailstone hit the vehicle, and this time, it crashed into the Multiverse Transporter. Robotnik pulled himself up over the edge of the Egg Mobile, trying to take a closer look at his beloved machine, but as he attempted to climb back on to the hovercraft, he spotted a flashing light, indicating that the hailstone had hit the red button. Unless Robotnik pulled the Emergency Override switch, the Multiverse Transporter would send him back to his home universe, and he’d lose his chance to vanquish this vile plane of existence.

“How dare you send me back?!” Robotnik shouted at the Multiverse Transporter as he reached towards the device, his left hand holding him steady while he tried in vain to shut off the Multiverse Transporter with his right hand. “I’m not done with my evil scheme yet, you traitor!”

Just as Robotnik was about to grab onto the Multiverse Transporter and turn it off, his left hand slipped on a puddle of water, and he suddenly lost his grip on the Egg Mobile. He fell backwards and tumbled through the sky, the storm still swirling around him as he plummeted towards his watery grave, his defeat set in stone, his world domination plans falling apart before his very eyes.

“Later, losers!” Robotnik shouted, but instead of plunging into the icy depths of Seahaven’s man-made ocean, Dr. Robotnik decided to let the Multiverse Transporter return him to his home universe. He closed his eyes and blacked out just before he hit the water, and then, his eyes snapped open, and he found that he was back in his laboratory, as if he’d never left at all.

Dr. Robotnik wasn’t the king of the multiverse. He hadn’t conquered Truman’s Earth, he hadn’t built his theme park, he hadn’t even gotten his revenge on Christof for breaking his Egg Mobile. He’d been beaten by a hailstone, of all things, but before he could fly into a rage or wallow in his defeat, the doctor looked down at his hands, and he couldn’t help but smile. He was wearing his gloves, the real Robotnik Control Gloves with all of their built-in functionalities, not the makeshift ones he’d cobbled together from whatever he could find in Truman’s kitchen. He hadn’t managed to take over Truman’s universe, but at least he was home. At least he had his Badniks, his holograms, his sycophant…

“Doctor?” Agent Stone said as he crouched down next to Robotnik, his big brown eyes filled with concern. “Is that…is that you?”

A bright smile spread across Agent Stone’s face, the barnacle apparently attempting to stroke his boss’s ego once again, and as Robotnik looked towards his assistant, he found that there was something oddly reassuring about Stone’s presence. The doctor couldn’t exactly say that he’d missed his assistant - at least, not any more than he’d missed his lab and his Badniks and not having a television producer breathing down his neck all the time - but he had experienced a minor decline in mental efficiency while Stone was gone, which was surely the reason why he’d failed to take over Truman’s universe. Thankfully, that slight dip in productivity was easy enough to amend…

“Agent Stone, fetch me my coffee mug,” Dr. Robotnik said. “Unless all of this multiversal travel has made my watch go haywire, I believe I’m long overdue for my morning latte.”

*****

“Allow me to explain,” Dr. Robotnik said to Agent Stone as he sipped on his latte with steamed Austrian goat milk. “The second I realized that my consciousness was stuck in that mindless moron’s pathetic bag of flesh, I built a new Multiverse Transporter, and then I left that cursed continuity tout de suite! Obviously!”

Agent Stone got the feeling that there was something that his boss wasn’t telling him, but he knew better than to question the doctor. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help, Doctor,” Stone said. “Believe me, I tried to pull the Emergency Override switch after the Multiverse Transporter failed, but…”

“The Multiverse Transporter didn’t fail, you idiot,” Dr. Robotnik said as he slammed his mug onto the table. “It was sabotaged! It was sabotaged by whatever it was that caused the EMP, and I can’t imagine that braindead reality star made any progress on the investigation…”

“What?” Stone said. “Truman? He’s not a…”

“Try to keep up, Stone,” Robotnik interrupted. “Anyways, since that idiot imposter happened to be in control of my body during my 8:30 AM meeting, we’ll just have to go back to the baseball diamond and call up Major Whatshisface and figure out who did this to my perfect Multiverse Transporter…”

“Actually, sir…” Stone said, but Robotnik wasn’t listening.

“And as for you,” Robotnik said as he gently cradled the Multiverse Transporter in his arms and addressed the machine directly. “Until we figure out who destroyed your circuit board, disrupted the transmission of my corporeal data, and sent me into that paranoid nightmare known only as The Truman Show, you are of no further use to my nefarious schemes. Into the Closet of Abandoned Inventions you go!”

Robotnik then hurled the Multiverse Transporter into one of the laboratory’s backrooms, barely missing Stone’s head in the process, and as Dr. Robotnik stomped back over to the lab’s hologram screen, Agent Stone said, “Truman and I investigated the blackout while you were gone, sir, and we believe we’ve found the culprit. His name is Sonic, he belongs to an unknown alien species, and he didn’t mean to cause a power outage or destroy your Multiverse Transporter. Truman wrote up a full incident report, and it’s almost ready to send to Commander Walters.”

Robotnik immediately ran over to the computer to read the incident report, and as he did, his face went red, his jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed until he got up from his chair, grabbed Stone by the lapels of his suit jacket, and slammed him against a wall. “Agent Stone?” he said as he pressed his face close to his assistant’s. “Do you mean to tell me that you collaborated with the imbecile who got himself stuck in a reality show, and then by some stroke of dumb luck, you discovered a superpowered alien with enough electromagnetic energy to knock out power across a quarter of the United States, and then YOU LET IT ESCAPE?! That hedgehog could power my machines, charge up my Badniks, fuel all of my most fanciful ambitions of world domination. And most importantly, I need to exact my revenge on that little blue freak for stealing away my genius intellect and putting it in the goddamn Truman Show! I hate that hedgehog! How dare you let him get away?!”

Agent Stone honestly wasn’t paying much attention to what the doctor was saying. Instead, he couldn’t help but focus on the warm blush spreading across his cheeks, the way the doctor’s hands felt as they pulled on lapels of his coat, the fact that Dr. Robotnik’s face was only a few inches away from his own, and as Agent Stone gazed into Robotnik’s chocolate brown eyes, he sighed and whispered, “I missed you, Doctor.”

“I missed your lattes,” Robotnik said as he released Stone from his grasp, finally giving his assistant a chance to catch his breath. However, before Stone could fully regain his composure, he glanced outside, and he noticed a familiar blue hedgehog running up to the window of their vehicle.

“Hey Eggman?” Sonic said as he pressed his muzzle against the glass. “Are we going to San Francisco or what?”

Dr. Robotnik furiously glared at Sonic and then pressed a series of buttons on his Control Gloves, sending a battalion of heavily-armed Badniks after the hedgehog. Sonic yelped and then ran into Tom’s pickup truck, and as the Badniks fired at the window, he frantically buckled his seatbelt, looked to Tom, and said, “I don’t know what’s happening, but I was this close to making a real friend, and now Eggman’s trying to kill me…”

At the mention of Sonic’s friend, Agent Stone’s mind drifted back to Truman, and he worked out some of what Dr. Robotnik had said about the alternate universe. The doctor had mentioned something called The Truman Show, and all at once, the pieces of the puzzle came together in Stone’s mind. Truman had been on camera his whole life without his knowledge or consent, he’d been the star of a meticulously-scripted reality show in his home universe, and he’d at least partially discovered the truth, which was why he’d been so paranoid and desperate to leave all the time. And then it hit Stone that he and the doctor had been cruel enough to send Truman back to a universe that even Robotnik had described as a nightmare.

While Tom’s pickup truck drove off down the road, still being chased by the doctor’s Badniks, Agent Stone turned to his boss and asked, “What’s going to happen to Truman?”

“Who knows? Who cares?” Robotnik said as he reached towards the table, picked up Sonic’s quill, and then licked it, mildly electrocuting himself. “Come along, Agent Stone. It seems we have a hedgehog to catch.”

Chapter Text

When Truman Burbank woke up in his home universe, he was underwater.

His heart pounded as he felt the waves crashing against his skin, the sea salt on his tongue, and he tried to open his eyes, but the only thing he could see was the murky water surrounding him. His whole body throbbed with pain, as if he’d fallen from a great height, and he splashed towards the surface, but as soon as he gasped for air, a wave slammed into him and pushed him under again.

Truman grabbed onto a piece of metal debris, apparently the remains of some kind of hovercraft, and he surfaced for just long enough to collect his thoughts. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the water, and sure enough, he was back in his own body and his own universe, his face once again youthful and clean-shaven. Agent Stone was nowhere to be found, and for a moment, he felt like his friend had stabbed him in the back, but if he was being honest with himself, he hadn’t really expected Stone to come. The whole time he was in Stone’s universe, his newfound companion hadn’t been able to stop talking about Dr. Robotnik, about how desperately he wanted to bring him back, and now that they’d switched places again, now that the doctor had presumably returned, Stone wouldn’t have much of a reason to care about what happened to Truman.

The whole day had felt like a fever dream anyways, and maybe that’s what it was. As vivid and lifelike as it had seemed in the moment, Truman had no way to prove that the lab and the mustache and the alien and the insanely devoted personal assistant from the multiverse weren’t all in his head, but the rocking of the boat, the cold water splashing onto his face, the nauseated feeling in his stomach? Those were all real. Maybe a little too real.

However, Truman noticed that the vehicle he was clinging to had one glowing red eye, just like the Badniks in the alternate universe, and he realized that perhaps he wasn’t going crazy after all. Dr. Robotnik had been here, in his body, in his universe, and if this strange hovercraft was any indication, the doctor had tried to leave Seahaven, just like he had.

Truman had made the decision to make a break for it the day before he ended up in Robotnik and Stone’s universe. The idea was that he would dig an escape tunnel from his basement to the yard, and then he’d run to the harbor and sail away. He’d been whisked away into an alternate universe before he could carry out his plan, but even if he hadn’t taken an accidental detour to Green Hills, Truman still would have ended up here, in the middle of the ocean, seawater spraying onto his face.

He knew what he had to do.

He clambered onto the floating chunk of metal, and then he stood up, looked up at the sky, and shouted, “Is that the best you can do? You’re gonna have to KILL ME!”

Then, Truman shifted his gaze slightly, and he froze in place, feeling like his whole world had just come unmoored. He was still caught in the middle of a violent hailstorm, with dark, gray clouds, claps of thunder, flashes of lightning, rain and ice pouring down all around him, but there was a hole, as if someone had fired a missile into the atmosphere, and through that hole, he could see bright sunlight and a clear, blue sky. He stared at the sun, the real sun, until he felt like he was going to go blind, and then a gust of wind hit him, knocking him off of the makeshift lifeboat.

Truman had suspected that something was wrong with his reality, but this was different. This was irrefutable proof that nothing, not even the sky above him, was real. Because someone had gone and punched a hole in the sky.

No, not the sky. The ceiling.

As Truman swam back towards the makeshift lifeboat, he remembered his dad disappearing under the waves, swallowed by the ocean, all because Truman wanted to keep sailing, even when there was a storm coming. But no matter how vividly Truman remembered that day, not to mention the years of grief and trauma afterwards, he knew that it wasn’t real. His dad never drowned, everyone he knew was lying to him, the sky was a dome.

Was anything real here?

The hail continued to pour down in marble-sized pellets, and then, another wave crashed over him, submerging him in the depths of the ocean. Water filled up his lungs until Truman saw his life flashing before his eyes, but then, just before he blacked out, he resurfaced and crawled back on to wreckage, and the storm clouds began to drift apart, giving way to clear skies. The soft, cloudless blue of the dome now perfectly matched the color of the real sky, but that didn’t make Truman feel any better. Someone was out there controlling that dome, puppeteering his life, and that someone thought that he was traumatized enough to turn around and go back to Seahaven.

Truman briefly looked towards the shore, towards his hometown, and then he turned around and stared out at the open ocean. He didn’t know for sure what was out there - Sylvia, Fiji, just another thousand miles of water - but whatever it was, it had to be better than the controlled, artificial world he’d been living in for the last twenty-nine years.

So he picked up a piece of driftwood, and he began to paddle.

He rowed towards the horizon for what felt like forever, and then, just as Truman’s arms were about to give out, just as he was about to collapse on top of the remains of the hovercraft, his makeshift boat crashed into a wall. That wall led him to a staircase, and that staircase led him to a door, and the door led to an exit, a way out of the dome that Truman had been trapped in for his entire life.

And with that, Truman Burbank was free at last.

*****

After the cancellation of The Truman Show, Truman made himself very, very hard to find, which was understandable, considering the circumstances. Before all of this happened, he’d talked of going to Chicago and Atlantic City and San Francisco, but in the weeks and months following his escape from Seahaven, Truman left Sylvia’s West Hollywood apartment only a handful of times, and every time he did, he was swarmed by people who wanted to talk to him or take a picture with him, people who claimed to be fans of the show.

People who had watched every single moment of his life.

As for Sylvia, she’d been a massive help in putting Truman’s life back together. She’d let him sleep on her couch, and she’d found him a lawyer, a therapist, and an agent whose sole job was helping him fend off all of those interview requests. Sylvia was still madly in love with him, and he was still madly in love with her, but Truman remembered how he’d thrown himself into a whirlwind relationship with Meryl after Sylvia’s disappearance, how disastrous their marriage had turned out to be in the end, so he and Sylvia decided to take things slowly this time.

Considering the circumstances.

One morning, three months after Truman left Seahaven, Sylvia returned home from her weekly errand run with a letter. “I’ve got something for you,” Sylvia said, holding out a piece of paper while Truman poured out two shots of espresso. He’d become allergic to routine after leaving the show, unwilling to allow his life to ever become as predictable as it once was. His therapist called it a defense mechanism, but as far as Truman was concerned, it was a completely normal reaction to finding out that he’d been following a script for the first twenty-nine years of his life. He started making a new type of coffee every morning - espressos, cappuccinos, mochas, macchiatos. He’d even tried making Agent Stone’s latte with steamed Austrian goat milk once, even though he still didn’t quite understand the fuss.

“What is it?” he asked Sylvia before giving her a slight smile. Truman loved hearing her talk - her lilting English accent made even the most mundane things sound beautiful, and every time she spoke, it reminded him that he wasn’t back in Seahaven. Because no one there sounded anything like Sylvia Van Wilder.

“There was a man in the dairy section at the grocery store who insisted that he’d met you,” Sylvia said. “I don’t remember him from the show, and I’m not totally convinced that he’s not with the Men In Black, but I did promise him that I’d pass along a message. He said his name was Agent Rock?”

Truman added a lemon slice to a cup of espresso, making an espresso romano, and then he handed the drink to Sylvia, she handed him the letter, and he began to read.

Truman,

I’m sorry I didn’t come to help you. Things got out of hand with the hedgehog, and now, the doctor’s trapped in another world (again). It’s been three months since I’ve seen him, and I’ve been trying to follow his manifesto and wait patiently for his return, but the truth is that I’d go to the ends of the earth if it meant that I could be by his side again, if I could see his face in something other than foam art, if I could make him just one more latte with steamed Austrian goat milk. I’m sure you understand the feeling - I think it’s what drove you to look for Sylvia in Fiji.

I hope you’re doing okay.

Agent Stone

Truman read the letter over one more time, just to make sure that he wasn’t imagining things, just to make sure that Stone really had traveled through the multiverse just to send him an apology, while Sylvia sipped on her espresso romano and then asked him, “Who’s the letter from?”

“Just an old friend of mine,” Truman answered as he put the letter aside. “You wouldn’t know him.”

Sylvia didn’t pry or press him any further, and Truman was grateful for that. He liked having that one memory that hadn’t been broadcast to the entire world, that existed inside of his head and nowhere else. Of course, he still had his questions about whatever had happened with Sonic and Robotnik, but he understood exactly what Agent Stone was talking about when it came to the doctor. Stone was out there somewhere searching for Robotnik in the foam of a latte, just like Truman had been searching for Sylvia in the pages of a fashion magazine, at least until the day when he ran out of the studio and right into her warm embrace. And at the moment, no, Truman wasn’t okay, but he was free. He would never see a stage light falling from the sky or have a rain cloud over only his head again. He would never have to go back to Seahaven.

Well, more accurately, he couldn’t go back, even if he wanted to.

Agent Stone wasn’t the only person who’d written to Truman over the past few months. There was a whole stack of letters sitting on Sylvia’s coffee table, because, as it turned out, there were a lot of people who cared about him, most of whom he’d never even met. He’d even gotten a letter from Marlon, and he still hadn’t figured out how he was going to respond to that one. He wanted to believe his best friend when he said that he was sorry, but they’d known each other for decades, and none of that was real. Marlon had played pretend with him in grade school, he’d talked him into joining marching band in college, he’d been the best man at Truman’s wedding, and he’d still gone and lied to his face over and over again. His name wasn’t even Marlon.

Truman’s friendship with Agent Stone, on the other hand, had been fleeting and circumstantial and barely even a friendship at all, but at least that had been real. It would have been nice if Stone had come with him to Seahaven, like he’d said that he would, but Truman hadn’t needed Agent Stone’s help to escape. He’d done it himself, he’d been so desperate to get out of there that he’d nearly died trying, and now, here he was, drinking his coffee in Sylvia’s apartment, less than ten miles from the fake TV studio he’d grown up in. He’d fought so hard to get out of Seahaven, and now, he couldn’t help but feel like he was wasting his life.

Truman went back through his stack of letters, ignoring the one from Agent Stone, not because he didn’t have anything to say to him, but because unless someone managed to recover Dr. Robotnik’s Multiverse Transporter from the Seahaven dome, he didn’t know how he was going to send a letter to someone who was in another universe. He did write out a reply to Marlon, giving him some vague life updates and asking him if he wanted to grab a beer sometime, because no matter how hurt and betrayed he felt, Truman still missed his best friend. And then he looked back to Sylvia, the one person in the world that he could properly trust, and some part of him wanted to tell her everything. Some part of him wanted to share his memories of Green Hills with her, or even better, he wanted them to make new ones. Together.

There was a map of the world hanging in the living room of Sylvia’s apartment, and Truman traced the route from Los Angeles to Montana. They would go down I-15, passing through Las Vegas and Salt Lake City, Zion Canyon, Death Valley, and Yellowstone National Park, all places as wild and foreign to him as Fiji.

“Sylvia?” he said. “I’ve been thinking about taking a road trip. Just you and me. To northwest Montana. And I know that’s no one’s dream destination, but life is supposed to be a grand, spontaneous adventure where you throw darts at a map and go wherever they land, and, uh, I’ve heard good things about the World’s Largest Rubber Band Ball?”

Sylvia quietly giggled to herself, and then Truman caught a glimpse of that starry-eyed, lovestruck look, and his heart just about melted. She then turned away, a bit flustered, and then she turned back to him, smiled softly, and asked, “When are we going?”

And that was what Truman loved about her. Sylvia hadn’t tried to talk him out of it, she hadn’t tried to change his mind, she hadn’t even asked him about the finances or logistics of going on a twenty hour drive in the middle of his lawsuit against the Truman Show producers, one of the biggest in recorded history. Her only question was “When are we going?”

“I don’t know,” Truman admitted. “It was just an idea. I don’t have a real itinerary put together yet.”

Truman didn’t know what he’d find at the end of that road - it was entirely possible that Sonic, Tom, and Agent Stone didn’t exist in this universe - but that was the point of exploring, wasn’t it? He was going somewhere that he’d never been before. Maybe his old friends existed in this universe, or maybe he’d meet new ones. Maybe Green Hills looked like it did in his memories, or maybe it had changed. Maybe the smallest town in Montana had never even been built in this dimension, maybe it was just an empty field in the heart of Glacier Country, but even that would be an adventure, wouldn’t it?

“Let’s go now,” Sylvia said, and Truman felt like his heart had just skipped a beat, but he nodded, barely able to believe that this was really happening, that it was this easy to escape. It only took them a few minutes to pack their things, and then, they climbed into Sylvia’s car, and as soon as they made it past all of the traffic in LA, the two of them were driving through the California desert, just Truman, Sylvia, and the open road.

Truman reached across the center console and held Sylvia’s hand, and as she gave him a longing glance, he knew Agent Stone was right about one thing. Truman wasn’t okay yet, but someday, maybe even someday soon, he would be.

Chapter Text

Just a few days after Dr. Robotnik returned from his adventure in Truman’s universe, he disappeared again, and this time, it really was the hedgehog’s fault. Agent Stone hadn’t been there when it happened, but he had watched the footage dozens of times, and every time he saw Dr. Robotnik fly through that portal into another world, every time he watched Sonic take the doctor away from him, Stone felt like his heart had been ripped in two. However, no matter how badly Stone missed his boss, no matter how desperately he wanted to find a way to follow him to that mushroom planet, Stone knew that he had to stay behind and follow the instructions in the Robotnik Manifesto. He had to construct a safehouse and await Robotnik’s return, because he couldn’t disappoint the doctor after he’d failed to capture the hedgehog back at Tom’s house. He couldn’t let Robotnik down again, not when he needed him most.

Agent Stone ended up staying in Green Hills after Robotnik’s disappearance - he framed the owner of a local coffee shop for money laundering and then rebuilt her café into a high-tech laboratory according to Robotnik’s exact specifications, and after that, Stone spent his days perfecting his latte art, wondering where Robotnik had gone, steaming his Austrian goat milk, wondering where Robotnik had gone, and not-so-patiently waiting for his beloved boss to return. As the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months, Stone discovered that there were far more than five stages of grief, and “thinking about what happened to Truman Burbank” was one of them, sandwiched right between “crying in the parking lot” and “cleaning every corner of the lab in hopes of finding some sign that Robotnik was still alive.” Stone didn’t exactly regret helping Robotnik chase after Sonic instead of going to Seahaven with Truman, but he did occasionally wonder what had happened after Truman returned home, whether Stone’s friend from another dimension was doing okay without him.

Three months after Dr. Robotnik disappeared, Stone’s curiosity became too much to bear, and he decided to spend his day off digging the Multiverse Transporter out of the broom closet in the Mean Bean Coffee Café and putting it back into working order. He made a few adjustments, and then he fired up the machine, careful not to make the same mistakes that Robotnik did. Once Stone had run a few tests, he pushed the red button, and when he opened his tear-soaked eyes again, he found himself standing next to the counter in Karen’s Coffee, and he couldn’t help but smile, just a little bit. Somehow, the Multiverse Transporter had worked. He’d made it to Truman Burbank’s universe without a hitch.

As soon as Stone found his bearings, he picked up his phone and Googled Truman’s name. The cell phone service here was atrocious, but unlike in Stone’s home universe, there were millions of results, from news stories to video clips to fan clubs to whatever Freetruman.org was. Stone clicked on the first result, which read “Truman Burbank is an American former reality television personality, best known for unknowingly starring in The Truman Show from birth to age twenty-nine,” and he froze in shock for a moment before he breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that Truman hadn’t needed Stone’s help to get out of Seahaven after all. He’d escaped on his own, because of course he had. Truman had been determined to discover the truth about his universe, so that’s exactly what he did.

Agent Stone found a photo too, and after having only interacted with Truman while he was in Robotnik’s body, Stone was surprised by how little he resembled the doctor. Sure, their faces were similar, and they had roughly the same height and build, but Truman was younger than Stone had expected, and his demeanor and sense of style were completely different from Robotnik’s. If nothing else, the doctor wouldn’t be caught dead wearing yellow.

From there, Stone fell down a rabbit hole. He watched a highlight reel of The Truman Show, and then he tried to find out what had become of Truman after he walked up that staircase, but he’d seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth as soon as the show was over. Even the tabloids had only spotted him once in the last three months, at a specialty grocery store in West Hollywood, with Sylvia Van Wilder, the actress who’d played Lauren Garland on The Truman Show, by his side. There were rumors swirling around that the two of them were in a romantic relationship, but it didn’t seem to be anything more than tabloid speculation. Nevertheless, Stone smiled as he realized that Truman was wrong - whether they were in love or not, there was someone in his universe who cared about him after all.

Agent Stone found the paparazzo who’d taken Truman’s photo, and he managed to get her phone number through the NSA database, which thankfully had the same password as it did in Stone’s home universe. Of course, she was more than happy to discuss her methods.

“I’ve been trying to get another photo of Truman Burbank for the last three months, but he’s become very reclusive,” she told Stone. “I see Sylvia…Lauren…whatever her name is at Right On Thyme every Sunday - that’s where all of the Hollywood hipsters do their grocery shopping - but I only caught Truman there the one time. You’ll have a good chance of spotting Lauren if you go between ten and eleven, but she’s like an E-list celeb, and the gossip mags only care about the A-list.” She then paused and said, “I’m a big fan of The Truman Show, you know. I used to watch it every day when I was a kid. I’m still hoping that they do another season sometime, just for old time’s sake.”

That was when Agent Stone hung up the phone, and he immediately decided that as usual, Dr. Robotnik was right. This dimension was the worst.

Nevertheless, Agent Stone followed the paparazzo’s advice, and he flew to LA and took a taxi straight to West Hollywood, arriving at Right On Thyme just before ten. He waited near the doorway, trying his best to keep his mind off of Dr. Robotnik’s disappearance, but just a few minutes later, Stone saw a beat-up sedan pulled into the parking lot. The car had a “Save The Whales” sticker hastily stuck onto the bumper, but when Stone looked closer, he saw that it was covering up a “Say No To The Truman Show” sticker. Then, the driver stepped out of the car, and sure enough, Stone spotted a woman with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, re-reading over her grocery list one more time.

Agent Stone hadn’t found Truman yet, but he had almost certainly found Sylvia.

*****

Sylvia Van Wilder had two grocery lists, actually. One of them was hers, and one of them was Truman’s.

Sylvia’s went like this:

Bread
Spinach
Strawberries
Potatoes
Vegan mayonnaise

Truman’s went like this:

Oat milk (For my coffee)
Brownie mix (I’m baking some as a thank you to my attorney)
Takis (Got addicted, sorry)
Dr. Pepper (I just found out the show had a sponsorship from Pepsi for most of its run, so I never got to try it when I was a kid, and now I want to)
Daikon radish, mung bean sprouts, and tamarind paste (Your friend Sasi offered to teach me how to make Pad Thai, but she said I need to buy some things first)
Thanks Sylvia, you’re the best!! :)

She liked Truman’s list a lot better.

As Sylvia walked through the door at Right On Thyme, she headed straight for the dairy section to pick up Truman’s oat milk, but she was immediately cornered. The man who approached her was dressed in black, with a well-trimmed beard and large, dark brown eyes. He gave off the air of a lost puppy disguised as a suave secret agent, but she’d run into enough crazy Truman Show fans over the last few months to know that despite the melancholy look on his face, this mysterious man was almost certainly up to no good.

“Are you Sylvia Van Wilder?” he asked her.

“No, I’m afraid I’m not who you’re looking for,” Sylvia said, trying and failing to affect her father’s Dutch accent in hopes of throwing off the fan. “I must have one of those faces…”

“I’m Agent Stone,” the man said, apparently seeing through her attempted disguise. “I’m friends with Truman, and I’d like to talk to him. Do you know where he is?”

That only made Stone seem even more suspicious. She might have believed him if he’d been on the show, but she’d never seen this man before in her life. Sylvia wondered if he’d been on one of the early seasons, or if he’d met Truman sometime in the last few months, but it seemed far more likely that Stone was just lying.

Agent Stone. The name sounded familiar, but Sylvia couldn’t quite place it. Maybe he was with the government, but if he was, then what did they want with Truman? They’d been in contact with the Department of Justice a few times thanks to all of the ongoing lawsuits, but Sylvia didn’t see a reason for the FBI or the CIA to get involved in any of that. Maybe Stone was with the Men In Black, and he was about to ask her about aliens and then wipe her memory with his Neuralyzer. He certainly looked the part, anyways.

“No, I don’t,” Sylvia said as she slipped back into her native English accent. “You must have seen the show, Truman and I kissed once many years ago, and then I never saw him again…”

“Then why do you have his grocery list?” Agent Stone said as he gestured towards the piece of paper in her hands.

Sylvia abruptly pulled Stone aside, and then, in hushed tones, she said, “Have you considered that Truman might not want to talk to you? He had the whole world watching him for almost thirty years - is it so crazy to think that he might just want to live a normal life after everything that he went through for your sick entertainment?”

“I’m not some loony fan, Sylvia,” Stone said. “I came here to apologize. I only knew Truman for a few hours, but I wasn’t there when he needed me, and I wanted to tell him I’m sorry.”

So Agent Stone had been on The Truman Show after all. He’d been a background character, just like her, and he regretted it, just like she had. Aside from Sylvia and Louis, most of the Truman Show cast members hadn’t bothered to try to get in touch with Truman, but she wasn’t going to stand in the way of anyone else from his old life who wanted to reach out.

As Agent Stone sadly stared at the floor, Sylvia tore off a piece of her grocery list, fished through her purse for a pen, and scribbled down Truman’s phone number. “Here,” she said as she handed it to Stone. “Don’t go spreading this around, but I’ll let Truman know that you wanted to talk. Maybe you two can meet up sometime, but I should let you know that he’s busy most of this week with the OmniCam lawsuit. I’ll let you two figure it out, but maybe Wednesday would work?”

A strange look appeared on Stone’s face, and then he said, “I…I can’t do Wednesday. I run a coffee shop in Montana. We’re closed today, but I have to be at work for the rest of the week.” He then looked towards Sylvia’s pen and asked, “Can I borrow that?” Sylvia nodded and handed him her pen, and he turned over the piece of paper that she’d written Truman’s number on and wrote down a paragraph or so of text. “This is what I wanted to say to him,” Stone said as he handed the paper back to Sylvia. “Would you mind passing it along?”

“Not at all,” Sylvia said, and just as she was about to grab her carton of oat milk, just as Agent Stone was about to walk out the door, he turned to speak with her one more time.

“If it matters, Truman mentioned you the last time I talked to him,” Stone said.

“Oh, he…he did?” Sylvia said, a faint blush creeping down her neck. “What did he say?”

“He told me about the day you met. He thought that what you had was special,” Stone said. As Sylvia tried to keep herself from turning into a tomato, Stone smiled slightly and added, “I’m glad Truman has someone looking out for him. I know it’s not the same, but I used to have someone like that, someone who was special to me, and now he’s on another planet…”

Sylvia recognized the grief-stricken look on Stone’s face, as if he was struggling to hold himself together, as if he might break down at any moment. It was the same look she’d seen in the mirror the day she was fired from The Truman Show, when she thought that she’d blown her chance, when she thought she’d never speak to Truman again. However, Sylvia had never entirely given up hope, she’d written pamphlets and organized rallies and made phone calls until the day Truman finally escaped, and it didn’t seem like Agent Stone had given up on whoever was on his mind either. “You never know,” she said to Stone, trying her best to comfort him. “Maybe he’ll come back.”

“Maybe,” Stone said. He then said goodbye to Sylvia, and as Stone walked away, she suddenly remembered where she’d heard his name before. When Dr. Robotnik took over Truman’s body, one of the first things he’d done was yell for “Agent Stone.” Sylvia wasn’t sure how exactly Agent Stone knew the mad scientist, or why Robotnik trusted him to operate his oh-so-precious technology, or whether the man that Agent Stone cared about so deeply was the same person who’d schemed to take over the multiverse, but perhaps he was. Maybe even would-be interdimensional tyrants had loved ones.

Who was Agent Stone, really? Sylvia wondered to herself as Stone punched something into his gloves, the exact same way that Robotnik had when he’d tried to take over the world, but Sylvia didn’t have a clue. She’d never met Agent Stone before, she’d never been to his universe, but Truman had.

Maybe he would know what this was all about.