'Solitude' By Richard Morgan

Life as the self-appointed 'protector' of the Scrap Brain is by no means a glamourous task. When Zonefox isn't putting his life on the line, he sits and watches the zone though the extensive network of spy cameras set up by Robotnik some years before. His way of life, though relatively simple in theory, pushes his physical and psychological boundaries to the absolute limits. Here Zonefox is motionless, looking between the dazzling monitors in a depressed trance, thinking of his beloved Dee, an ex-comrade of his who now travels the zones of Mobius alone. Zonefox has spent many cold, lonely nights like this, and as Robotnik's influence pushes to the edges of the world, his thoughts of seeing Dee again seem to steadily become nothing more than ambitious visions from a dream that may very well never come true...