"Future Echoes"
This is an SOS distress call from the mining ship, Red Dwarf:
the crew are dead, killed by a radiation leak.
The only survivors were Sonic the Hedgehog, who was in suspended animation during the disaster, and his pregnant pet hedgehog, who was safely sealed in the hold.
Revived three million years later, Sonic's only companions are a life form who descended from his hedgehog, and Shadow the Hedgehog, a hologram simulation of one of the dead crew.
I am Knuckles, the ship's computer, with an IQ of 6000. The same IQ as 6000 Gym teachers.
The corridor echoed with the sound of humming as Sonic came strolling down to the nearest food vending machine.
"Can I helpth you?" the machine against the wall asked politely.
Sonic cocked his head on one side. "You've got a lisp."
"Yeth I know. Thith malfunction hath been reported to the Skutterths. Thorry for the inconvienienth."
Sonic shrugged. "All right then. Can you give me a deep fried chili dog with relish and a black coffee? Decaf! Decaf coffee?"
In reply, the machine whirred and opened a hatch, revealing a pair of black wellington boots.
"Your voice isn't the only thing not working," Sonic responded dryly, pulling out the footwear and examining them, unimpressed.
"Yeth I know," the machine replied, "Thith altho hath been reported to the Skutterths. Thorry for the inconvienienth."
"Could you just TRY to give me a black decaf coffee?" Sonic then asked, watching the machine whirr and open it's hatch again.
There was a clang as something metallic fell out.
"...That's a bucket."
"Thorry."
Then another noise came down the corridor and a jogging Shadow, decked in full white sports garb, made himself known while making a tuneful bugle sound. He came and jogged on the spot beside Sonic and shot him a smug smile.
"Morning Sonic, how's life in hippy heaven you moulding baboon-bellied space louse? So what's the plan for today then, hmm? Slobbing in the morning, followed by slobbing in the afternoon and then maybe a snooze before the main evening slob? You're a disgrace to the species."
Having said that, he turned and gaily jogged off away.
Sonic watched him go and sighed tiredly.
"Good morning, Shadow."
He gave up on seeing anything resembling a coffee.
A little later on, Sonic was packing a bag - storing things away for his intended trip into stasis. Silver was sat on a stool, nibbling away at dried cat food as he looked through Sonic's photo collection.
"Who's that guy?" he asked, pointing to one photo.
"That's my grandma," Sonic replied, "Great old lady. Got expelled from school once because she looked at the headmaster when I came bottom in French."
Silver didn't get that explanation so he went on looking through the pictures until he gave a snort and bristled his quills.
"WHO IS THAT?" he shrieked.
On the screen, where Silver had been looking through the slideshow of photos, there was a picture of a smiling, golden-furred fox.
"That's my pal, Tails. My best mate," Sonic answered wistfully, stuffing a shirt into his suitcase, "The only good picture I got of him. Camera shy, poor little begger."
"He's your friend!?" Silver spluttered, arching his shoulders in a defensive mode. "No wonder you're so ugly."
Sonic gave the silver coloured hedgehog a glare.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he protested, "He's a good-looking fox, actually. Well, he was..."
"Fox?" Silver repeated with a growl, "What's a fox?"
Then Sonic sussed that, because Silver had raised himself in the bowels of a space ship away from others, he hadn't learnt to break his animal isntincts and override them. Foxes were, after all, a hedgehog's enemy out in the wild. It was a good thing he hadn't been told about badgers.
"A fox is another animal," Sonic said, shaking his head.
"Ugh... nasty," Silver sneered, wrinkling his nose at the photo, "Look... this, uh... fox... it better not be around here in any place 'cause, if he is, I may have to chase him!"
"Oh yeah?" Sonic smiled, not bothering to tell him that, in the wild, it was the other way round. "You know how big they are? They're about 18 foot long and they've got teeth as big as your leg."
"Yeah?" Silver coughed, getting to his feet and backing away nervously, "Well, maybe I could chase him anyway..." He then legged it down the corridor, leaving Sonic alone.
"...Wish he WAS around here..." Sonic murmured, scratching his neck and glancing around the room. Then his face fell as his gaze landed on the glass tank on the side. "Aw, look what's happened to Muttski." He peered into the misty tank where his pet 'snails' were oozing around. One had dried up in an unattractive, shrivelled heap. Of course, they weren't real snails - they were cyborg snails, with slightly organic bodies and metal shells.
After taking him out and fiddling a bit with the wires inside, Muttski slimed its way back to life.
"Hey! There you are!" Sonic cheered, returning him to the tank where he slipped and slid around in his oozy slime, as happy as a mechanical snail could be.
Returning back to his bunk to continue packing, he barely noticed Shadow come into the room though he did hear a pair of footsteps which meant Silver must have followed the hologram in.
"What's he looking at?" Shadow sneered, still coming to terms with the fact that Silver was a person in his own right and not just some simple wild animal to ignore and look down on. He was still in a bad mood from dealing with a frustrated Knuckles and a smart aleck talking toaster.
"Who?" Sonic asked, rolling up a pair of pants.
Though Shadow thought himself far too disciplined and civilised to give in to ancient Mobian behaviour, he shamed himself by baring his teeth at Silver and giving a quiet warning growl when the paler hedgehog had done another turn around him, his faze frozen in a stunned expression.
"That idiotic hog," he snarled, straightening his back to appear taller, something that Silver, much to his disgust, had no choice but to respond by 'snuffing' crossly back.
Sonic turned to see what was going on just as Silver made a disgruntled retreat out of the room, looking over his shoulder with a snooty expression. But Sonic wasn't paying any attention to what the primitive hedgehog was doing - he was too busy also staring at Shadow in complete amazement. It was no wonder Silver had been in awe.
Shadow had been one for his self-proclaimed 'immacualte' appearance and had always stated that quills, when styled correctly, were what seperated the men from the boys.
"...Shadow what have you done to your quills?" Sonic asked, stifling a giggle.
Instead of strong red flecks along his black spines, he was now sporting lavender coloured ones and instead of them being broad and imposing, they were now hanging down like... well, rather like the female of the species often groomed their quills.
"Knuckles did it," Shadow stated, a pleased smirk on his face as he stood tall and proud in the centre of the room, his chest rising as though he thought himself the manliest creature to ever walk.
Sonic rolled his eyes, finally understanding; Shadow must have cheesed Knuckles off when he had asked for his routine standard quill-cut which he had to recieve from the computer directly, seeing as he was now dead and composed entirely of light. To pay Shadow back, Knuckles had given him a different quill-cut.
"Why?" the blue hedgehog asked, eagerly ancipating the answer as he hid his grin behind his hand.
"I ordered him to," Shadow answered smoothly.
Sonic couldn't hold it in anymore and he let out his first laugh. "Looks ridiculous."
"May look ridiculous to you but I like it like this," Shadow retorted, annoyed, "I feel like a man!"
"Yeah and you'd probably get one looking like that."
"Nothing wrong with short broad quills, Sonic - gives a sense of dignity, a sense of discipline."
"Have you even seen it?" Sonic asked, raising his eye sceptically.
"I don't need to see it to know I look good," Shadow smiled, turning around to look at his bunkmate, "This is a quill-cut designed for action, not for poncing around in." He moved over to the sink to admire himself. "But you are what you look and I look... like a complete and total twit! Knuckles!" he snarled poisonously.
The ship's computer, busy trying to navigate light speed, let out a crackle.
"This is a recording: I'm afraid Knuckles is busy at the moment. If you'd like to leave a message, wait until the bleep. Bleep."
"Knuckles, this is Shadow. Remember me? Shadow!" the dark hedgehog went on ranting, "Shadow the Hedgehog, the poor goit you made to look like Tina Turner. I'll see you toast in the fires of hell for this."
From across the room, the electrical toaster gave an excited whirr.
"Did someone say they wanted toast?" it sang merrily.
"Shut up!" Shadow snapped and then his ears swivelled back as he heard Sonic clip down a case. "And what are you doing?" he demanded, watching his bunkmate pull his bag off the top bunk.
"I'm going into stasis. I told you," Sonic replied, walking towards the door.
"Stasis?" Shadow repeated, his eyes growing as he followed, "What for?"
"Well, Knux suggested it, seeing as we're going through light speed," he explained, dumping the bag down in the corridor and heading for the Drive Room, "but then I thought, what the heck? Why not stay in there until we get back to Mobius?"
"But..." Shadow squeaked, "that's 3 million years away! You can't leave me alone for 3 million years - I'll go peculiar!" He touched his lavender quills nervously and gulped. "Knuckles," he sighed, "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. Can I please have my own quills back? Pretty please with sugar on?"
A pause.
"I'll think about it, Shadow," the computer replied.
Giving the air a very rude gesture, Shadow turned and scampered after Sonic who, by now, had propped up his legs on the desks in the Drive Room, looking through some old booklets.
"Knux was supposed to have told you," he said as Shadow hurried in, his quills now having returned to normal, "I thought you didn't mind."
"Mind? Mind!? Why should I mind?" Shadow laughed insanely, "300,000 millenia ALONE while you're in suspended animation. I'll be fine! I'll do a Crossword book, that should kill a couple of centuries."
"Knux can switch you off until we come back out," Sonic said comfortingly as he lowered his stasis booklets.
But rather than be comforted, Shadow rolled his eyes.
"Even better," he scoffed. "Switch me on, switch me off, like I'm some battery powered sex aid."
"Come on, Shadow, don't give me this," Sonic groaned, throwing down the booklets and holding his head.
"Don't give you what, Sonic? I'm dead. Or hadn't you noticed?"
"I KNOW you're dead! Don't winge on about it! I mean, you're still everything you were when you were alive - same personality, same everything."
"Apart from the miniscule detail that I'm a stiffie."
"Look, death isn't a handicap like it was back in the olden days. It doesn't screw your career up straight away."
"Don't know if you've thought about it like this but if you were interviewing two people for a job and one of them was dead, which one would you choose? When was the last time you saw a dead newsreader?"
Sonic took a moment to rapidly think and then his face brightened.
"Ah! Channel 27 had a hologram read the news!"
"Oh groovy Channel 27," Shadow whooped, voice dripping in sarcasm, "Big smegging deal! You Living still hate us Deadies."
"Shadow," Sonic sighed, growing tired of this argument, "if I want to go back to Mobius, I'm gonna have to go into stasis! It's going to take 4000 years just to turn around! You can't do a three point turn when you're this close to light speed, you know."
"Really?" Shadow sniggered, "Where did you read that? The Ladybird book of Astro Navigation? Or is that something you've been told from illegally running at Mach 50 speeds?"
Sonic rolled his eyes. "It's true."
"I know it's true - I do happen to have taken that astro navigation exam. 9 times!" Shadow snipped. "10 if you count the time I had my spasm."
"You'll only be turned off until we get back to Mobius," Sonic tried reasoning.
"...Where you won't need me so I won't get switched back on," Shadow finished for him, acidly.
"I dunno," Sonic shrugged, "We might be able to cure you. Maybe the Mobian race has made great advances like that while we've been away."
"Oh yes, I expect they cured death the instant we left the planet," Shadow scoffed, "I expect the doctor's surgeries are packed with the dead. 'Hello Mrs Johnson, take one of these three times a day and you'll soon be living again. Carol, next corpse please!'"
"Well they might!"
"Yes, Sonic, they might if the planet hasn't blown up."
"Yeah, or if the ants haven't taken over."
"Well, you'd be in your element if the insects take control," Shadow laughed. "You'd get a decent job at last. You could run for government. Probably even make it as a male model, IF you don't eat all of them."
With a final sigh, Sonic ended the conversation by getting up and walking out, quills bristled in aggitation. Shadow watched him got, conflicting emotions stirring within him.
"Twit," he spat under his breath, looking away in a complete sulk.
To prepare for their time in stasis, Silver was organising his thousands upon thousands of blingy outfits and trying to be cruel to himself in working out which one he was going to wear first and which he would have to leave behind.
Meanwhile, Sonic was cleaning his fur.
While most considered Sonic a bit of a bum, in truth he was very proud of his brilliant blue fur which was why he was content to wear clothes - so he could drop food and stain the clothes and not his fur underneath. At the moment, he was stood, shirtless, in front of the very mirror that Shadow had his purple quill discovery and was busy rubbing a slightly soapy flannel through the peachy down on his chest.
Just as he was preparing to twist his head round to clean some of the spines on his back, there was a bright flash outside the window and all of Red Dwarf shuddered, nearly throwing Sonic off his feet.
"What was that flash?" he asked the air, clearly addressing the computer.
"We've broken the light barrier 22 hours early," Knuckles answered, his red face appearing on the screen near the door. He sounded like he was being bounced around and his eyes kept darting to look at things that Sonic couldn't see.
"Oh..." Sonic mumbled, "...everyone all right?"
"I... I can't do it," Knuckles randomly moaned, "I can't cope. We're going at the speed of light."
"Knux," Sonic said slowly, "is everyone all right?" He himself had only run at light speed a couple of times until he'd been caught and punished. Those kinds of speeds on the ground were prohibited due to the unimaginable damage it did to the environment and the living beings IN that environment.
"No, I'm not," Knuckles whined, "I thought I could navigate at light speed but I can't wrap my head round it." His head then spasmed, looking as though he had actually tried ducking. "Gordon Bennet! That was a close one!" he chuckled nervously.
"What's the problem?" Sonic asked, confused, "You're supposed to have an IQ of 6000."
It wasn't hard to see that, since the last time Knuckles was operational, some 3 million years ago, he hadn't been nearly as clueless as he was now.
"We're travelling faster than the speed of light," the super computer answered with a sneer, unable to believe that it was Sonic he was having to explain this too. There was a clue in the guy's name, wasn't there? Speed was meant to be his specialist subject! "That means by the time we see something, we've already passed through it. Even with an IQ of 6000, it's still 'Brown Trousers' time. I'd better go." With that, the holographic face was gone.
Sonic forgot that not everyone could comprehend speeds that were too fast for their own thinking time. To be honest, he wasn't sure if HE could half the time. He wasn't allowed to run fast anymore - especially not on a mining vessel in deep space.
So he shrugged and turned to face the mirror again, swirling the flannel in the warm water as he quietly sang under his breath.
"...let me show you just what I'm made-..."
He stopped as he realised tha this reflection in the mirror wasn't exactly doing what it should be doing. As in, it wasn't acting like a mirror anymore and more like a film reel... of Sonic still washing. Although, of course, Sonic himself had stopped to watch as his 'reflection' carried on.
The Sonic In The Mirror shouted something inaudible over his shoulder and pulled out a loose quill before Shadow In The Mirror appeared beside him a second later, staring back at a bewildered 'watching from the correct side' Sonic through the mirror as though he were a zoo exhibit.
The two hedgehogs in the mirror were obviously talking to one another but Sonic couldn't hear a word they were saying although the Sonic In The Mirror did point at him briefly.
"Shadow! Shadow!" Sonic yelled over his shoulder, rubbing his shoulders in discomfort. He reached round and pulled out a loose quill just before Shadow came running in, standing beside him.
"What is it?" Shadow asked, a slight touch of almost-genuine concern in his voice.
"You see anything weird in that mirror?" Sonic asked, pointing at the reflection.
Shadow stared at it for a while, his keen eyes glazing over every inch.
"...That's you, you ugly gimp!"
"No, it was..." But when Sonic looked again, he realised that the mirror had returned to normal now that the real Sonic and Shadow had seemingly 'caught up' with their reflections. "...it was really odd. Forget it, it doesn't matter." He sighed and shook his head, deciding that Shadow wouldn't believe him if he told him.
"What doesn't matter?" Shadow asked but Sonic shook his head again and waved a hand.
"Forget it."
"Fine!" Shadow huffed, "Well, if you have any more problems with nothing and things that don't matter, just scream out my name hysterically and I'll come pelting down the corridor."
Saying this, the darker hedgehog promptly stormed off but not without making a rude face at the back of Sonic's head.
Silver came pushing his clothes rack of suits down the corridor, humming away happily as he strutted behind them, stopping in front of a stunned Sonic.
"What are you doing?" the blue hedgehog asked increduously, staring at the tightly packed row of suits and outfits of varying colours and patterns.
"I'm doing what you said to do," Silver answered simply, looking pleased with himself.
"I said to take a few essential basics that you couldn't bear to leave behind."
"Right!" nodded Silver, "These are all I'm taking. Just these... and the other ten racks."
Sonic touched a velvet sleeve of one of the jackets. "You can't take all of this. There's no room."
Silver frowned and looked at the rack of clothes, deep in thought.
"...Okay, then... I'll leave... um... this!" He pulled out a small red satin hankerchief. "I'll just have to do without it."
Sonic shook his head and planted his hands on his hips. "You can take two suits and that's it."
"Two suits!?" Silver shrieked and turned away angrily. "Then I'm staying!"
"You can't stay. By the time I come out, you'll be dead."
"Two suits IS dead," Silver huffed, crossing his arms as Sonic walked back to the Drive Room. "Hey!" he called after him, "if I cut off my leg and leave that behind, can I take three?"
"We're going into stasis in ten minutes!" Sonic shouted back down the corridor, "I'll meet you in the sleeping quarters."
Turning back to the Drive Room, Sonic caught sight of Shadow entering from the doorway on the other side.
"Yo, Shadow," he said, leaning against the wall, "I've been thinking."
Shadow looked confused. "What?"
"You know, with going into stasis and everything."
"How did I do what?"
Sonic stopped and frowned at him as he tilted his head on one side. That hadn't made sense at all.
"...What do you mean?" he asked, a little puzzled, especially as Shadow didn't seem to be looking at him when he spoke.
"Sonic, don't be a gimboid," the black and red hedgehog suddenly scoffed, out of the blue.
"I'm not being a gimboid!" Sonic protested but was completely thrown when Shadow turned away from him, looking at the doorway he had come through, clearly having a conversation with someone he couldn't see.
"I've just been in the Library, thinking," Shadow was saying with a sigh, "and I've decided... Shut up!" Sonic jumped. Who was Shadow talking to? "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I've decided that when you go into stasis, I'm going to stay behind. I want to be left on."
"What, on your own for the rest of your life?" Sonic asked to a Shadow that wasn't even looking at him but this Shadow was looking confused again.
"What things?" he asked the thin air.
"Eh?" Sonic tried waving his hand in front of Shadow's fave but got no response or reaction other than:
"I said WHAT?"
"What's going on?" Sonic gulped, wondering why he was suddenly invisible and why he couldn't see whoever it was that Shadow was talking to.
"You are space crazy!" Shadow decided with a laugh.
"I'M space crazy?" Sonic cried, "You're the one who's space crazy!"
There was a pause before Shadow shrugged his shoulders. "Well it probably IS deja-vu, it certainly sounds like it." Then there was another hesitation, just as if he were listening to an answer, before he shook his head and walked away, leaving through the same door Sonic had just used.
Sonic hopped on over, hoping to catch sight of him as he left but he couldn't see him anymore. He turned, utterly bewildered, and jumped a mile when he discovered Shadow walking in through the other door - AGAIN.
"AH! Shadow! I've just seen you walk outta that door!" he yelled, throwing himself back and gesturing wildly to the doorway beside him.
Shadow looked confused.
"What?"
"How did you do that?" Sonic asked, looking from Shadow to the door.
"How did I do what?" asked the hologram, tilting his head on one side.
"Just that second! You walked out of that door!"
"Sonic, don't be a gimboid," Shadow scoffed.
"I swear, on my grandmother's life, I just saw you walk out of that door... " Sonic insisted, pointing before hurrying over to the other door on the opposite side, passing Shadow on the way, "...and then you came in this one!"
He must have teleported! That was Shadow's own forbidden superpower.
Shadow had turned to watch him. "I've just been in the Library, thinking, and I've decided..."
"Shadow, I'm telling you!" Sonic cried.
"Shut up! As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I've decided that when you go into stasis, I'm going to stay behind. I want to be left on."
That was when Sonic stared at him in amazement. "...Shadow, you've come in and said exactly these things."
"What things?" Shadow asked, annoyed.
"You said that," Sonic nodded.
"I said WHAT?" Shadow said in exasperation.
"And that!" Sonic went on, "You said that."
Shadow laughed. "You are space crazy!"
Sonic dug his hands into his pockets, re-living the entire conversation. "And then you said, 'well it probably is deja-vu'."
Shadow merely shrugged. "Well it probably IS deja-vu, it certainly sounds like it."
Frowning, Sonic turned away and nodded his head to the first door.
"Go on then, shake your head and walk out," he muttered - which Shadow did, leaving by the very door that Sonic had now seen him walk out of twice.
And that was when it struck Sonic: Shadow had been talking to him. The invisible person that Sonic couldn't see in the Drive Room had been him, a Sonic that had already had that conversation before.
There was something weird going on and Sonic dashed after the hologram.
"Shadow, listen - would you listen?" he called.
Shadow, on the other hand, had very little interest in Sonic's peculiar behaviour. First it was the mirror which, Sonic claimed, had nothing wrong with it. Now Sonic claimed that Shadow was saying and doing things twice? It made no sense and he didn't want to hear whatever nonsense Sonic was going to try spewing at him next.
"My tooth!" a shout came from down the corridor as Silver went hurling past them, one paw to his mouth, "My tooth! I think I lost my tooth!"
"Silver, wait!" Sonic cried, stopping as the pale hedgehog went sprinting by in one direction and the dark hedgehog went storming off in another. "Shadow, listen!"
Deciding that Silver was more likely to bite him than a hologram, Sonic went after Shadow.
In the sleeping quarters they discovered... Silver. Silver with his paws inside the tank of cyborg snails.
"I'm gonna eat you little snail-ey," he sang, "I'm gonna eat you..." He then noticed Sonic and Shadow. "Oh! Uh... ah, I was just making sure your snails were okay. I wasn't going to eat them!"
He couldn't work out why both hedehogs were staring at him.
"He... just walked passed us!" Shadow exclaimed, looking down the corridor.
Sonic scratched his quills thoughtfully. "It must be something to do with light speed."
"Knuckles," Shadow asked out loud, "what's going on?"
"It's light speed, I bet it is."
"Is your name Knuckles?" Shadow growled to which Sonic childishly mimicked him.
"Is your name Knuckles?"
"Knuckles!" Shadow called, a bit louder, as Silver slunk miserably from the tank.
Because he had only learnt from Wild hedgehogs, Silver still saw snails and slugs and worms and other insects as edible food which Mobian hedgehogs, while still able to eat (and enjoy) them, had learnt to leave alone as it was deemed 'primitive' behaviour and not socially acceptable.
So Silver was feeling cheated out of a meal right about now.
"Hmm?" Knuckles' weary voice came over the speakers as his face appeared on the screen.
"What is going on?" Shadow asked, still a little sore about being given a hedgehog sow's quill-cut by the computer a while ago.
"Look," Knuckles replied, also still sore about what Shadow had said to him that lead to giving him a hedgehog sow's quill-cut, "I'm a tenth generation, AI, hologramatic computer. I'm not your mum."
"Yes," Shadow growled sarcastically, "fantastic."
"Well, what do you want THIS time?" Knuckles asked, smirking, "A hand with your homework? Or would you like me to sew little nametags to your Sports kit?"
"Knuckles," Shadow said slowly, "watch my lips: What. Is. Hap-Pen-Ning?"
"With the mirror and Silver and everything?" Sonic added, just for clarification.
"Oh that," the computer nodded, "You're seeing future echoes. Didn't I explain this to you?"
"What are future echoes?" Shadow asked. Silver had perched himself on Sonic's bed, swinging his legs down.
"How simple do you want this?" Knuckles asked to which Shadow hesitated a moment to think about it.
"Uh, so Sonic can understand it," he answered.
A pause.
"...Oh dear."
"It's difficult, I know."
"Well," Knuckles tried explaining, "we're travelling faster than LS, right?"
"What's LS?" Sonic groaned, getting to his feet.
"Light speed," the talking Toaster, from across the room, chipped in smugly.
"Swot bot," Sonic hissed. He and Shadow had never liked that proud little toaster.
"Consequently," Knuckles went on explaining, "you're catching up with things you're about to do before you've actually done them."
"Ah, so we're seeing bits of the future?" Shadow then said, looking as though he were understanding.
"Yes."
"See? I told you it was light speed!" Sonic chortled, pleased with himself, "You should have asked me."
"Can they see us?" Shadow asked, refering to the future images of themselves.
"Of course not," the Toaster drawled in a belittling tone, just as fed up with them as they were with him. No-one paid the sentient appliance any attention.
"So, wait..." Sonic continued, "Are you saying that Silver is going to break his tooth sometime in the future?"
"Yes. I didn't think you wanted it THIS simple."
"Hey!" Silver instantly protested in a loud voice, "Ain't nobody gonna break MY tooth."
Then Shadow asked, "How long is this going to last?"
"Until the reverse thrust takes effect and we drop below light speed," Knuckles replied.
Shadow had paced a few laps around the room but he now stopped, staring at the wall.
"...What's that photograph?" he asked quietly, narrowing his eyes at one of the polaroid photos that made up Sonic's collection of pictures by his top bunk.
"It's me and Jules, isn't it?" Sonic replied, looking fondly at the infamous photo of himself holding his pet hedgehog, Silver's ancestor, which had turned out to be pregnant. That had been the photo that got him into trouble and, consequently, saved him from being wiped out by Shadow's Plate Drive disaster.
"No," Shadow said, pointing, "The one with the babies."
"Babies?"
Sure enough, among the photos there was a small glossy image of Sonic holding two hoglets, both as blue as he was.
"Never seen it before!" Sonic told them, moving closer to get a better look.
"Knuckles," Shadow called, "is this what you were calling a future echo?"
"Yes, of course it is," the Talky Toaster decided to answer and then added a quiet, "...bozo," under its non-existant breath.
"Two babies?" Sonic murmured, touching the photo, "How do I get two babies?"
There was no doubt that they were his; Sonic's blue colouring was extremely rare, even back when there were more Mobians around. In fact, doctors had estimated that he was the only Hedgehog of his colouring left which Shadow had always said was the ONLY reason that girls took notice of him.
It left the question... who had helped make the two babies?
Sonic glanced over to Silver and Shadow who both looked at each other's crotches sceptically. As far as they were concerned, everyone on Red Dwarf was male... they presumed.
The trip into stasis had been considerably delayed by this new discovery but it wasn't long before Sonic decided he'd wasted enough time and he was heading off to go and remind Silver that he was only to bring two suits with him.
In the hallway, Gamma and Omega the Skutters approached Sonic, whirring and clicking. One had a note in it's small grasping hand.
"What's up guys?" Sonic asked, taking the note and reading it out loud: "'Don't go into stasis. Please don't leave us with Shadow'?"
The Skutters whined and dipped their little heads to nod.
"I'm sorry, guys, I've got to. We need you," Sonic sighed as comfortingly as possible, "I've got to get back to Mobius... Oh, don't do that!"
The Skutters had started swinging their armed necks back to hit their heads against the wall behing them over and over again.
"I don't care what it's like," Sonic went on, referring to Mobius, "It's got to be better than this. I don't care if the Orcas have taken over..."
He was cut off, however, by the whole ship shaking and temporarily being thrown into a second of darkness as a loud BOOM was heard from the Drive Room.
"WHAT WAS THAT!?" Sonic yelled to no-one in particular, clutching his hat and sprinting down the corridor.
He eventually found a very pale, thunderstruck Shadow standing rigidly beside the consoles in the Drive Room.
"What was that?" Sonic demanded, repeating his earlier question as he looked around but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
"Brace yourself for a bit of a shock, Sonic, but I just saw you die!" Shadow blurted, staring at the ground with wide red eyes.
"WHAT?!" Sonic screeched, every quill standing straight.
"I did tell you to brace yourself!"
"You didn't give me much of a chance!"
"I gave you AMPLE bracing time."
"No you didn't! You didn't even pause!"
"Well I'm sorry, I've just had a rather nasty experience! I have just seen someone I know die in the most hideous, HIDEOUS way!"
"Yeah!" Sonic cried and thumped his chest, "ME!"
Shadow gestured to the consoles. "You were fiddling around with the navi comm..."
"I don't wanna know! I DON'T wanna know!" Sonic immediately shouted, covering his ears.
Shadow blinked at him. "You don't want to know how you died?"
"No!" Sonic snapped back loudly, slumping down in a seat as far from the 'death' zone as possible and turning around. He swallowed and then turned back. "Was it quick?" he timidly asked.
"Well, I wouldn't say it was SUPER fast, like how fast you can get sometimes," Shadow smirked, making a show of putting his finger to his chin, "I mean, not if you count the thrashing around and the agonised squealing."
Sonic glared at him, one sharp fang revealing itself as his upper lip curled up on one side of his mouth.
"You're really loving this, aren't you?" he growled.
Shadow looked mock offended.
"What a horrible thing to say!" he gasped but, truth be told, there was a sadistic part of him that did like to torture Sonic in whatever way possible.
"It was definitely me?" the blue hedgehog asked uncertainly.
"Oh yes," Shadow nodded, looking very sure of himself.
Sonic shook his head again. "I don't wanna know... How old did I look?"
"...How old are you now?"
"25. How old did I look?"
"Erm... mid-twenties," Shadow answered, witholding the urge to giggle.
"SMEG!" Sonic cursed, jumping up and kicking the chair. "I'm not ready! I'm not smegging ready!"
"You did seem surprised," Shadow agreed, not very helpfully.
"Ah!" Sonic suddenly pounced, "Did you actually see my face?"
"You were wearing a hat, but it was definitely you."
Hearing that, Sonic ripped off his hat and threw it to the ground as though it were contagious.
"Well there you go - I won't wear a hat," he snarled, kicking it away from him. "Can't happen without a hat, can it? I can live without a hat!"
"Sonic," Shadow gently said, "it HAS happened! You can't change it any more than you can change what you had for breakfast yesterday."
"No, it hasn't happened, has it?" Sonic desperately reasoned. "It has 'will have, going to have happened' happened, but hasn't actually 'happened-happened yet' happened, actually."
"Poppycock," Shadow retorted, "It will be 'happened', it shall be 'going to be happening', it will be 'wasn't event' but could 'will have been taken place in the future'. Simple as that." He folded his arms and raised his head, a triumphant gleam on his face. "Your bucket's been kicked, baby."
"Says you," Sonic huffed, slumping down again.
"Says me and Albert Caneinstein, thank you very much," Shadow corrected, "Albie and I happen to agree on this one. It's called the theory of relativity."
"Right okay, okay..." Sonic mumbled, getting to his feet again, a glimmer of an idea in his mind. A fleeting shred of hope. "Right... Silver broke his tooth in a future echo, right? Now if I can stop him breaking it..."
"Can't be done," Shadow quipped from behind him.
"...then I can stop me from dying!"
"Can't be done," Shadow quipped again.
"Now how would Silver break his tooth?" Sonic said thoughtfully, ignoring Shadow in the background who had now pretended to hoist an imaginary coffin onto his shoulder and was solemnly walking around the room humming the funeral march. "He'd have been eating something... Eating something hard..."
Sonic stiffened.
"My robot snails! He'd have been eating my robot snails! Knuckles! Where's Silver?"
"Just going into your sleeping quarters, Sonic."
"Oh smegging hell!" Sonic cried, bolting for the hallway with Shadow right behind him, still being the devoted coffin bearer to his bunkmate's imaginary future coffin and now having to revert his tune to a slightly sped up version of the funeral march.
Silver had just waltzed (literally) into the room.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm back and feeling good," he announced to the empty area, "How am I looking?" He whipped out his handheld mirror. "...Good! You know, sometimes I wish I was someone else - then I could kiss me! Now I think I'll investigate..."
With a smooth slide, he was beside the tank.
"...these! Hee! One little snail-ey!" He lifted the lid and lowered in his paw, searching for the large one he had his eye on. Plucking it from under a piece of bark, he held it in his fingers and grinned victoriously as he rolled it on the shelf. "Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna eat you little snail-ey!" he sang, licking his lips.
But just as he was raising it to his mouth, several pounds of blue fur descended on him with a war cry.
"Silver!"
Sonic wrestled the other hedgehog and caused them both to go careening head first into the desk, faces hitting the surface, as they groped one another's paws. Finally, Sonic wrenched the bewildered snail from Silver's grasp and held it above him with a shout of triumph.
"Yes!" he hollered, "I got the snail! I got the snail! I'm not gonna die! I'm not gonna die!"
Silver, meanwhile, straightened up firmly, smoothing his collar, visibly fuming as his spines began to stick forward.
"HEY!" he hissed, "You creased my suit!" He then grew fearful and tenderly felt his mouth. "My tooth!" he gasped, "No, my tooth! I think I broke my tooth!" Leaping up, he ran from the room, screeching about his tooth, leaving behind Sonic to wallow in self-pity and crushing defeat as he pathetically cradled the, no-doubt grateful, snail.
It was completely the wrong time for Shadow to poke his smug face around the door, beam at his bunkmate's crest-fallen countenence and say, "Sonic, allow me to be the first to offer my commiserations."
Sonic looked at him like a rejected puppy, a puppy that had been once loved and now abandoned on the side of a muddy road in the middle of a torrential downpour of rain.
"You're really really loving this, aren't you?" he whimpered miserably, hanging his head, not noticing as his snail began to climb up his sleeve.
"Come on," Shadow told him comfortingly, putting on an imitation of Sonic's voice as he quoted him: "'death isn't the handicap it used to be in the olden days'."
"Yeah, you're right," Sonic agreed, looking decidedly confident all of a sudden as he plucked the snail off his arm and returned it to the tank. "There's always some good in every situation."
"Absolutely Sonic!" Shadow nodded, beaming away, "And in this case, you're about to do the largest split you'll ever do in your life."
Sonic stared at him, horrified. "I get blown up?"
Shadow twitched his nose and considered for a moment. "...Bits of you do."
"It's not fair," Sonic whined, rubbing his face. "There's loads of things I've never done. Like... I've never had a vindaloo curried chili dog. And I've never read..." He thought about it but gave up. "...a book. And I wanted to have a family! And I wanted to have loads of practice in the things you've gotta do to MAKE a family."
Witnessing this heart-broken lament, Shadow lifted his head.
"Knuckles," he murmured in a serene tone of voice, "I'd like to send an internal memo. Black border. It begins: 'Sonic the Hedgehog, condolences on your passing away... Now what's that poem? ... Ah, Now weary traveller, rest your head, for just like me, you're utterly dead'."
Before Sonic could make a witty or scathing remark to him, Knuckles sounded an alert.
"Emergency! Emergency!" he warned, "There's an emergency going on."
"What is it Knux?" Sonic sighed. His hand was on his chest trying to keep track of his racing heartbeat.
"There's an emergency, Sonic," Knuckles told him, "The navi comm is overheating and I need help in the Drive Room."
Sonic felt his blood freeze as Shadow clapped his hands.
"Ooooooooohhhhhh," Shadow sang, hopping up and down like an excited child.
With absolute calm, Sonic stood up straight and released one final, extra long sigh.
"Well Number 001," he murmured, "your time is up. Okay, what was I wearing?"
"That jacket and that t-shirt," Shadow answered, waving his hand at Sonic's current attire. He had never looked more eager for anything in his life. In fact, he looked the spitting image of a 7 year old child who was impatiently waiting for their parent to finish a conversation with some aunt or uncle so they could go off on their trip to Disney World.
Sonic nodded with a serious expression as he returned his hat to his head, settling it between his ears.
"You said it yourself," he said, "I can't stop it. So let's get it over with." He picked up a broken piece of piping and headed for the door.
"Uh... what's that for?" Shadow asked, nodding to the pipe.
Sonic held it up threateningly. "I'm going out the way I came in: screaming and kicking."
"You can't whack Death on the head!"
"If he comes near me," Sonic promised, "I'm gonna kick his tail off!"
The Drive Room had never felt so hot when Sonic strode inside with a determined posture, eyeing the consoles he had passed by so many times before.
"It can't cope with the influx of data at light speed," Knuckles was explaining, "Could you hook it up to the drive computer?"
The consoles were all sparking and groaning, popping and crackling, which didn't install the greatest confidence.
It was beautifully poetic, in a way, that this was Amy's station. She was Navigational Officer of Red Dwarf and this would have been her job, her task, that Sonic was now bravely carrying out for her. He tried telling himself that Amy Rose had died here, right here, in this chair, at this desk, in front of these consoles and that soon he would join her in the exact same spot.
He picked up the navi comm box and set it down on the side, reaching for the appropriate wires and plugging them in, one by one.
"Six..." he counted as it started to hum in an ominous tone. "...Five..." Shadow poked his head round the door, grinning and holding his hands over his ears. "...Four..." Sonic ignored him. "...Three..." The humming was getting louder, as though it were building up to something. "...Two..." The noise was unbearably loud now and the navi comm box was shaking. "...ONE!"
The noise died and the consoles stopped sparking. Gingerly, Sonic opened his eyes to find that he was very much not dead.
"I did it!" he laughed, pumping his fists in the air, "I'm not gonna die! AHHH!"
He was interrupted by Silver who jumped him from behind.
"You broke my tooth!" he screeched, jabbing him with his spines.
"It'll probably happen tomorrow or Thursday," Shadow was saying crossly, still sulking, as he and his bunkmate went back towards their room.
"Maybe it won't happen at all," Sonic grinned back, walking beside him with a bounce in his step.
"It was YOU!" Shadow insisted, the first to reach their sleeping quarters, "I saw you, I'm sure of it!" He stopped once he realised that Sonic wasn't listening to him anymore.
Mind you, he had a good reason.
On Sonic's bunk, lounging back, was an ancient hedgehog with half lidded eyes and lungs that rattled ever so slightly. He was unmistakeably Sonic, identifiable from the blue coloured fur, slightly faded, slighty thin in some areas, especially around the face where the fur was stiffer. He was an old man that looked fragile but possibly had the ability to throw you down on your backside if you tried anything.
"Hey, Sonic..." he mumbled, his voice quiet and raspy, "It's me... I mean, you... I mean, I am you..."
Sonic moved closer to the bunk frame, closer to his older self, amazement written on his face.
"This is you age 171," his future self went on, wrapping his clothes around his frail frame, "I know you're there. Because when I was your age, I saw me at my age telling you what I'm about to tell you. Now you've got to tell you when you get to be me."
"Thank heavens you've still got all your marbles," Shadow snorted in the background but he was ignored.
"I've got to tell you," Old Future Sonic croaked, "about Maurice."
Shadow immediately looked to Sonic inquisitively. "Who's Maurice?" he asked.
"I was always going to name my second son, 'Maurice'," Sonic murmured, "After 'Olgilvie Maurice Speedway'."
"Your second son? What were you going to name your first son?"
"Olgilvie. After 'Olgilvie Maurice Speedway'."
A weak cough came from the bunk.
"It wasn't you that Shadow saw in the Drive Room," Old Sonic continued, his paws beginning to shake, "It was Maurice."
Green eyes shining, Sonic slowly faced his bunkmate and cried, "Shadow you saw my son die!"
"Never mind this tot, what about me, old hog?" Shadow pushed forward, his hologram form briefly clipping through Sonic's arm as he huddled at the edge of the bed. "What happens to me? Do I become an officer?"
"I'm gonna have two sons!" Sonic smiled, a sense of purpose and wellbeing rising within him, "Isn't that fantastic?"
"One of them dies," Shadow pointed out.
But Sonic shrugged his shoulders. "Everyone dies," he replied, "You're born and then you die. The bit in the middle is called life that's still to come!"
"Look," his older self faintly spoke, "go get your camera, you haven't got much time. Get your camera and run to the medical unit. Run."
"What about me?" Shadow went on pleading, fingers trying to grip at the bunk sheets as he adopted the form of a child hanging onto his dying father's words, awaiting his inheritence. "What happens to meee?"
"He can't hear us," Sonic reminded him, "He's from the future."
"Yes but if I ask you now, you can remember it and when you get to be him, you can tell me!" Shadow reasoned. His attention was immediately seized when Old Sonic stirred and whispered Shadow's name.
"Shadow? You wanted to know what happened to you?" Old Sonic was sounding faint. "...Come closer..."
Shadow edged nearer, his face becoming more and more hopeful.
"Closer..."
So Shadow came closer, anticipating the answer.
But the older Sonic grinned maliciously and laughed as he suddenly faded out of existance, leaving behind him a fleeting echo of his merriment.
"You smegging Faker!" Shadow hollered in a rage at the empty bunk before wheeling round and pointing an accusing finger at Sonic. "No, YOU smegging Faker! You're all Fakers! I'm surrounded by smegging Fakers!"
Sonic, meanwhile, having enjoyed the entertainment, picked up his camera and scarpered through the door.
Now left with no-one else to scream and screech at, Shadow shouted to the air, "Knuckles, you're a Faker!"
"I'm a what?"
"You heard!"
Down by the medical unit, waiting in the corridor outside like an expectant father, Sonic was waiting with his camera. Shadow, having calmed down, had joined him although he was now sporting his lavender quills again courtesy of Knuckles and his lack of appreciation at being called a 'faker'.
"What's happening Knuckles?" Sonic asked, remembering what his older self had said, "Am I going to see my funeral or something?"
"Look, the faster we go, the more into the future the 'future echoes' are," Knuckles explained, "And now, since we've just started to slow down, the future echoes are nearer to the present. Clear?"
Sonic frowned. "No."
"Tough."
"What I don't understand," Shadow said thoughtfully, "is how you're able to get two sons without a woman on board.
"Neither do I," Sonic smiled, "but it's gonna be a laugh finding out!"
At that moment, the medi doors opened and another Sonic appeared. In his arms were two blue hoglets squeaking and crying and pawing the older hedgehog's chest helplessly.
"I can't see you but I know you can see me," the other Sonic suddenly announced, looking in roughly the direction that Sonic and Shadow were stood. "These are your two sons - this is Olgilvie and this is Maurice. Stop crying and say 'cheese' boys!"
Sonic took a photo of the three of them and later put it up on his wall.
NEXT TIME...
Sonic gets sick and his hallucinations manifest themselves into physical forms. Two of these hallucinations take the form of his Inner Confidence and his Inner Paranoia.