"Confidence and Paranoia"
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.
We have been travelling through the galaxy now for three million years and there are many things we've discovered. The highest form of life is a Human and the lowest form is a Human who works for the post office.
It was the second time that Sonic had tried watching the film.
The first time, he had been interrupted by a bored Knuckles who was claiming that he had read every book in existance and was now depraved of anything else to read and so was asking Sonic if he would delete all memory files pertaining to Agatha Christie novels just so he could read them again without knowing the verdicts of all the mysteries and murders.
Hoping that it would keep him occupied for another few weeks, Sonic had complied and was currently trying to get back into the film.
Once again, Sonic felt tears stinging his eyes watching Todd the fox looking lost and alone in the strange forest as he tried desperately to find shelter from the rain, his heart utterly breaking from having just been released into the wild by his devoted human caregiver. How was Todd to know that she had done it for his own good? The hunter next door wanted to shoot that poor fox and to make matters worse, his best friend was a hunting dog and he was being trained to hunt Todd down and...
Shadow swanned himself into the room and ruined it, ordering the screen off with a flourish.
"Had a good day, Sonic?" he asked cheerfully as he went to inspect himself in the mirror. He paid no mind to Sonic, busy burying his face into his pillow with an anguished moan. "Scrummed enough chockies? Watched enough drivvel, have you?" He smirked at his bunkmate's tear-stained face. "Look at you - you're turning into a sad middle-aged woman. Next thing you know, you'll be varnishing your claws and buying girdles."
"Oh yeah?" Sonic growled in irritation, wiping his arm across his face with an unattractive, blubbery snort. "And what have you done that's so great?"
"I've achieved 17 things today from my daily goal list," Shadow answered. He was wearing his all too often seen smug smile again. "Whereas you've never achieved anything ever in your entire life."
"Actually, I've been up to the officer's block."
Shadow wheeled around on his heels, his eyes widening and all traces of a smug smile now completely dropped to the floor.
"When?" he demanded in a shrill voice.
"This morning," Sonic replied, biting the loose sheath from one of his claws before he slipped his glove back on.
"But it hasn't been decontaminated!"
"You said it had last week!"
"No, I said it was on last Thursday's daily goal list."
"And you haven't done it yet?"
"...Tomorrow. It's on tomorrow's daily goal list. Item 24. Right after 'Learn Portugese'."
Sonic sat up and rubbed one of his ears. "Thanks a lot," he groaned.
Shadow turned back to give the mirror his preferred attention, his concern now spent, and asked, "Why were you mooching around up there anyway?"
"I was looking for Amy Rose's dream recorder," Sonic replied and a small half-smile appeared on his face. "She dreamt about me 3 times, you know. It was in the log."
"So?" Shadow scoffed before he asked Knuckles to clean his teeth.
"I mean, it must mean something," Sonic reasoned, "You don't dream about someone you don't feel something for."
Shadow looked to be in a grimace, his jaw moving from one direction to another, as an invisible holographic toothbrush went about cleaning his sharp teeth.
"Sonic," he gurgled with his mouth full through invisible holographic toothpaste, "I once had a dream about a wild baboon - it doesn't mean I want to go to bed with it. Trust me, you want to take a good long look at yourself. Then you'll see just how ridiculous you appear to other people."
"If I could talk to Amy for just one second," Sonic mumbled, "I might be able to find out."
He had tried, previously, to persuade Shadow into turning himself off temporarily so that he could talk to Amy's hologram instead but the Grouchy Hedgehog from Glumsville had said no, shockingly, claiming that Sonic wouldn't let Knuckles turn him back on again.
"If you were like me, you wouldn't have these problems," Shadow was saying, rubbing his muzzle as his teeth cleaning was brought to a finish.
"Come on Shadow, the only reason you knocked about with those twits from the 'Love Disbelievers Society' is because you could never get a date," Sonic huffed.
"No it wasn't," Shadow bit back, "I happened to agree with their philosophy that love is a sickness that holds you back from your career and makes you want to spend all your money."
"You could never get a date because you let your mum buy all your casual clothes."
"There was nothing wrong with my casual clothes!"
"Your trousers were so short that when you crossed your legs, you could see your knees."
"What about Molly Magruder? That was a date."
"She had been hit on the head with a wrench! She had concussion."
"That had nothing to do with it - she was crazy about me."
"Yeah, she kept calling you Leon."
"She went to bed with me."
"Because she had wonky vision and she thought you were someone else." Sonic shook his head. "Face it, Shadow, you don't know what love is."
"Oh yes I do," Shadow replied and climbed onto his bed, "Love is a device invented by bank managers. Lights!"
The lights dimmed and Shadow prepared to go to sleep. Sonic lifted his legs back and also settled himself down, his face softening.
"Love is... Love is what makes us different from animals," he said, "Wild, feral, primitive animals, I mean, you know, the smaller ones that still feel comforting defecating wherever they want."
"No," Shadow smiled, closing his eyes, "What makes us different from those animals is that we don't use our tongues to clean our own genitals."
Even that was a large presumption, he thought.
If they were back on Mobius, it would have been the equivilent to waking up in the early hours of the morning when Sonic stirred, having broken out in a hot sweat and shivvering at the same time, breathing heavily and feeling a pounding in his head.
"...Lights... Lights." he called out in a trembling voice as he leaned closer to the edge of his bunk. "Shadow, are you awake?" he asked desperately, blinking as the lights gradually got brighter, "Shadow? Are you awake?"
Shadow sat up sharply, groggily blinking his own eyes and trying to focus on the wall. "What? Yes, Ma I-...! W-Wait what time is it?"
"I don't feel well," Sonic muttered miserably, his quills drooping down around his face as he hugged his damp pillow.
"Half past three?" Shadow exclaimed, frowning at the digital clock and shaking his hologram brain awake.
"I feel really ill..." Sonic squeaked weakly, pawing at his blankets to collect them all up in his arms.
"Well you ARE really ill," Shadow grumbled, cross at being woken so early and more cross that he couldn't plump his pillow, not feeling very compassionate at all.
"No, I mean, REALLY ill," Sonic sniffed, slipping off from his bunk with his blanket wrapped around him. "I'm going to the medical unit. I don't feel very well." He shuffled from the room on weak shaky legs, disappearing down the corridor looking like a frail monk.
"Lights," Shadow muttered, leaning back in the dark again. "Ah Ms Magruder, where were we?"
Sonic, however, was still slowly staggering about, panting and sweating.
"I don't feel well," he whimpered dileriously to himself, vision becoming hazy, "I feel really hot..." No sooner had he said that, his legs buckled and he dropped to the floor in the middle of the corridor in a mass of blankets.
Silver was having a fine time of jumping around the corridors, running his hands over the walls as he sang and danced in what he considered to be his territory. He'd scratched his quills against enough pipes as a way of 'marking' them and, what with two other hedgehog boars on ship, Silver needed to routinely mark his territory on a daily basis.
"This is mine! And this is mine!" he laughed, rubbing the side of his face along the surfaces and grooving his head spines into the metal. "All this is mine and I'm claiming all this as mine too!"
He stopped and stepped over a small patch of ground.
"...Except for that bit," he decided, "I don't want that bit."
Curling in his head, Silver rolled on down the corridor and turned a corner, brushing against the walls and pipes again.
"Hey! This has been a good day!" he grinned as he straightened up on his feet again, "I've slept six times and I made a lot of things mine! Tomorrow, I'm gonna see if I can breed or something." Then off he went again, sliding around in his sparkly sequin coat with the pearl buttons. "Ooh yeah yeah, I'm gonna get it," he sang, "Ooh yeah yeah, I'm gonna get it. Ooh yeah yeah... I... think I found it..."
He trailed off as he caught sight of something in the next corridor, crumpled up on the floor in an elegant mess. Hoping it was something female, Silver hurried forward but stopped when he realised that it wasn't female at all.
"Oh, it's you," he sighed and then frowned, bending down to sniff the bundle of cobalt quills. "Hey, Blue Guy, you're sick!" he told the unresponsive Sonic. "Helpless and unconscious. If you weren't my friend, I'd steal your shoes." He stood back up, brushed himself down and then decided it was time for a snack. Without another look back, Silver was gone.
Knuckles, meanwhile, had sounded an alert throughout Red Dwarf:
"Emergency. Emergency. There's an emergency going on. ... It's still going on. It's still an emergency. Will Shadow please hurry to White Corridor 59. This is an emergency announcement."
Silver was enjoying his chicken meal and didn't give the announcement any real thought. Not even when Shadow ran in.
"Quick! Sonic's fainted and he needs help! Quick!" he cried, dashing away when Silver jumped to his feet. But after Shadow had gone, Silver sat back down again.
A few seconds later, Shadow returned, having realised that Silver hadn't followed.
"Didn't you hear me?" he asked crossly, looking from Silver to the two Skutters that were following the hologram. "Did anyone hear me? Sonic's in trouble. Blue Guy, you know? Has. Fainted. I can't pick him up. Come NOW!"
Silver jumped again, prompting Shadow to lead the way at a run. Then, as before, Silver sat back down now that he had been left alone and resumed his meal. When Shadow returned a few seconds later, he didn't look the least bit impressed.
"Is there something wrong with you?" he asked venomously, "Sonic's collapsed!"
"Yeah?" Silver shrugged. He'd already seen Sonic. What was the big deal?
"What do you mean 'yeah'? He needs help!"
"...And?"
"And if you don't help him, he might die."
"Oh no!" Silver sighed, "That's too bad. I really liked him too."
"So come and help him!" Shadow shouted, never one for having a great deal of patience. He clenched his fists, getting more and more frustrated.
"And interrupt my lunch!?" Silver cried, aghast.
It was coming up for 4:00 in the morning and, for a wild hedgehog, that was still around the time that some would be roaming around looking for insects and carrion to chew on. For a wild hedgehog - that was technically lunchtime.
"What is more important, a fellow hedgehog's life or your smegging lunch?" Shadow asked, enough wild ancestry in his veins to not argue with whether a meal at 4 in the morning counted as lunch or not.
Silver pointed a knife warningly at the darker hedgehog.
"That doesn't even deserve an answer," he purred, returning to his meal quite happily.
Shadow glared at him for a moment and then gave up, giving a mighty huff.
"Right, okay, fine!" he spat and pointed sharply at the two Skutters, "You come with me and you get the stretcher."
Sonic stared warily at Gamma the Skutter in front of him. There was a thermometer clasped between its claws and it was pointing dangerously at Sonic's face.
"Shadow, let the medi com take my temperature," he begged.
"They've got to learn," Shadow replied and resumed giving the Skutter his directions. "Now, down... down... ah, stop! Now, very, very... very slowly... forward."
Sonic yelped as the thermometer went right into his left eye and he instinctively batted the device away, hissing in pain.
"They've got to learn," Shadow said, slightly amused by the incident - as he would be.
"I nearly lost an eye!" Sonic growled at him, leaning away from the Skutter who had retrieved another clean thermometer and was advancing on him again.
A malicious smile appeared on Shadow's face and he casually examined his fingers.
"...How about a rectal thermometer?" he suggested.
"I'm all right!" Sonic cried hurriedly, slightly worried that they might try that which made him tighten everything from the waist down. "I'm fine now."
"No, you're not fine," Shadow disagreed sternly, "And it's your own smegging fault for going up to the officer's block before it was decontaminated."
"I just wanted to have a look around."
"You just wanted to go in Rosy's quarters and wallow in self pity and look where it's got you!"
"I'm all right. I've got a touch of pneumonia, that's all."
"It's not pneumonia," Shadow groaned, "3 million years ago it was pneumoia, but since then it's bred and mutated so now we don't know what it is!"
Sonic was no longer listening to him anymore, instead thinking about Amy.
"Why didn't I ask her out? What's the worst she could have said?" he moaned, leaning on his hand miserably.
Shadow wasn't helping the situation in the slightest. "She could have said, 'no, you're a filthy, stinking, loathsome, disgusting object I wouldn't be seen dead with in a plague pit'."
"She could have said yes!" Sonic protested, "Stranger things have happened."
Shadow tilted his head on one side, lifting his chin thoughtfully. "Only two spring to mind, Sonic: the spontaneous combustion of the Mayor of Knothole in 1546 and that incident in 12th century Spagonia when it rained earthworms."
Sonic still wasn't listening, it seemed.
"It's this theory that I came up with," he went on murmuring to himself, "that everyone has two people inside them. You've got your confidence and your paranoia and your confidence is the guy that says 'Hey, you're great! You're dead sexy - everybody loves you!' and your paranoia says 'You're stupid and useless! You're ugly and everybody hates you!"
"Odd," Shadow muttered sarcastically, looking to the scanners, "according to these readings, you're clinically dead."
"And what had happened was my confidence had just about persuaded me to ask her out and as I was walking up to her, he'd go on a business trip to the Emerald Coast or something and I've be left with my paranoia saying 'you must be joking, she's gonna laugh in our face!'."
Shadow looked ready to fall through the floor he was so un-thrilled.
"Sometimes," he said, "you can be really perceptive and other times, like now, you can rant and drivel like a complete looney."
"Just take me to my bed," Sonic squeaked again, his face the picture of misery and pathetic-ness.
"All right," Shadow nodded. Of course, he couldn't physically do that, being a dead hologram and all, so he turned expectantly to Omega the Skutter who was manouvering the powered chair. "Okay, you know how it works, so release the mechanism very, very gently..."
With a mighty crash, Sonic was thrown across the room and ended up a heap of blue spines against the wall.
It took an hour for Shadow to direct the Skutters into successfully moving Sonic from the medical bay back into the sleeping quarters and, by that time, the blue hedgehog was exhausted, seconds away from dropping asleep. He was out cold the moment his head hit the pillow.
With nothing else to do, Shadow mooched around the sleeping quarters and then decided to practice his arm salutes, convincing himself that they counted as hologramatic excercises.
It was while he was 'excercising' both arms, absent-mindedly hoping that Silver was choking on his precious meal somewhere, that he became aware of Sonic's fidgiting. His bunkmate started to wiggle about and grasp at the blankets and at his pillow, his face twisting in a manner that suggested he was in the midst of a dream.
"Quick..." he muttered in his sleep, "Get an umbrella. Get an umbrella."
Shadow paid him little mind. It wasn't often that Sonic talked in his sleep and Shadow usually ignored him unless he was chatting about something embarassing that he could use to blackmail or taunt Sonic with later.
"It's raining," Sonic whined quietly, restlessly arching his body, "It's starting to rain."
All of a sudden there was a soft 'plop' as something landed beside Shadow. He didn't look to see what it was until he heard two more 'plops' behind him. He turned around in surprise to find that there, wriggling about on the floor, were three fat earthworms.
'Plop' 'Plop' 'Plop'. Three more worms fell from nowhere, bouncing off the metal ground and squiggling about, knotting themselves up in their panic.
Bewildered, Shadow stepped around them just as another worm fell on his head and passed straight through him. Shuddering, Shadow hopped away and pressed back against the wall as worm after wiggling worm started to fall from the ceiling, dropping to the floor until there were hundreds of the creatures, all wiggling around each other in a large mass. They were covering the shelves and the table and the chairs. Some had even fallen onto Sonic, still sleeping and unaware of the sudden infestation of falling worms.
"Knuckles, what's going on?" Shadow called, backing out into the corrdor which was free of 'worm rain'.
"Huh?"
"What's happening?" Shadow asked, turning his nose up at the multitude of slippery pink invertebrates.
"Hercule Poirot has just stepped off the steaming train," Knuckles answered him, unhelpfully, "If you want my opinion, I think they ALL did it."
Shadow glared up at the hallway ceiling. He wasn't referring to Knuckles' book!
"Why do we have to have YOU as the ship's computer?" he growled, "We'd have been better off with a bucket full of sheep slop."
"If you've got a complaint, come straight out with it," Knuckles sighed.
The black and red hedgehog waved his hands wildly at the room he was just in. "Why is it raining worms in our sleeping quarters?"
Knuckles thought about it for a second. Why he had to think about, Shadow wasn't able to say.
"I'd be lying if I said I knew," the computer replied eventually, "The only comprehensible thing I've got on record is the incident in 12th Century Spagonia when it rained earthworms."
Shadow was about to give the computer another cutting insult and tell him that he'd already brought that incident up already today, when an older looking chipmunk appeared out of nowhere dressed in a long blue coat and wearing a brilliantly golden chain around his neck. He took one look at Shadow and promptly went up in flames, leaving behind a charred pile of ash where he once stood.
"It really is going to be one of those days," Shadow commented, stepping over the pile and distancing himself as far from the sleeping quarters as possible.
Sonic woke up and stretched his long legs and arms, pleased to find that he didn't feel quite so lousy anymore. Shadow was nowhere to be seen and Sonic was thankful for that.
As if sensing he was had awoken, another hedgehog's face poked itself round the doorframe and beamed at him.
"Hey! You're awake!" Silver chirruped, sauntering over with a bag in his paw.
"Yeah, just woke up," Sonic nodded, propping himself up on his elbow.
"I brought you some presents!" Silver smiled, shaking the bag as he held it up.
Sonic was touched! Silver primarily only thought about himself thanks to his wild genes and upbringing and everyone was well aware that he found it difficult to ignore the instinct to joust his 'rival males' out of the room whenever he entered. Perhaps Silver was beginning to respond to Sonic's attempts at forging a friendship.
"Aw, you shouldn't have bothered," the blue hedgehog smiled back. He was aware that these 'presents' could just be some dead bugs but even THAT was special because it meant that Silver had thought to give Sonic food that a hedgehog would naturally keep for himself.
"Ha, I'm just that kinda guy," he chuckled and then dug around in his bag with his other hand. "Let's see what we got in the magic bag here... I got you some grapes!" He pulled out... what was once probably a bunch of grapes but was now devoid of any fruit whatsoever. "Got you an orange!" he added, after tossing the bare bunch to Sonic's crestfallen face and then pulling out some curly orange peel, also dropping it on the bed.
"Thanks a lot, I feel better already," Sonic muttered, defeated and disappointed.
"Well, all this enormous generosity has made me tired," Silver decided, letting out a yawn, "I'm going to bed."
A fresh blast of cooler air hit Sonic as the silvery hedgehog took a hold of his cover and pillow and whipped them off him, settling himself down on Shadow's bed without a second thought. All Sonic was left with were his bare bunch of grapes and his curly orange peel.
It was while Silver was getting himself comfortable that Shadow arrived, immediately noticing his bright-eyed bunkmate.
"You're awake," he noted, approaching the bed.
"Yeah, but I'll be asleep in a minute," Silver said with a wink.
Shadow sneered at him but didn't give him a response. He asked Sonic, "How do you feel?"
"Fine," Silver replied, before Sonic had a chance, "just don't ask me any more questions, I'm trying to sleep!"
"Shut up you stupid hog and get out of my bed!" Shadow growled, gripping his fists.
Silver looked affronted. "If you're gonna speak to me like THAT," he cried, "I'll take back my presents!" Jumping to his feet in a foul mood, he snatched up his bag and the grape bunch and the orange peel, pouting like a child.
Shadow returned his attention to Sonic once more. "How do you feel?" he asked again.
"Hurt!" Silver wailed, running from the room.
"I feel great," Sonic sighed, trying to smile a bit but feeling strangely heartbroken that Silver had taken back his presents. They may have been rubbish but they were still presents.
"Listen Sonic," Shadow began, "You had a fever, okay? And you started to hallucinate, all right? Only your hallucinations were solid."
Sonic's ear twitched. "What d'you mean 'solid'?"
"I mean they were real, alive, solid," said Shadow.
"Solid?"
"Solid."
"What do you mean they were solid?"
"Okay, I'll put it another way," Shadow tried again, "You had hallucinatios, right?"
"Yeah?"
"And they were solid."
Sonic shook his head, still not understanding.
"I told you it wasn't ordinary pneumonia!" Shadow tutted, "I told you it was mutated! I knew something like this would happen."
"Okay," Sonic murmured, wondering if he could fall back off to sleep again soon, "so what did I 'hallucinate'?"
"First of all it was worm rain," Shadow answered which prompted an amused grin to appear on his bunkmate's face.
"Worm rain? Yeah, I actually dreamt that!"
"Well it actually happened," Shadow said in an almost accusing way, as though his bunkmate had solidified his dreams personally just to spite him.
Sonic looked around the room, not seeing anything that indicated abnormal weather conditions, and asked, "Where's all the worms?"
Silver then poked his head in again, eyes glittering in delight as he licked his lips. "Somebody ate them!"
"Then," Shadow went on, ignoring Silver quite successfully, "the Mayor of Knothole spontaneously combusted..." It was here that Shadow suddenly sighed. "...and then you hallucinated two people in the Drive Room."
"What two people?" Sonic asked.
"Apparently," Shadow replied, his face dropping as his voice oozed contempt, "one of them is your confidence and the other is your paranoia."
The two hedgehogs, one alive but bewildered and the other dead and annoyed, entered into the Drive Room where, just as Shadow had said, there were two new arrivals - both hedgehogs and slightly resembling Sonic.
One was sat the desk, looking utterly miserable as he stared balefully into his cup of watery tea and the other was sat at the center desk, tucking into a meanl from one of the food dispensers.
"See what I mean, Sonic?" Shadow huffed, glaring at the two hedgehogs as though the ywere nothing more than insects that had somehow got into the house and needed a good powdering.
Sonic examined them with his mouth hanging open just slightly. It was easy to tell which one was which; Paranoia was dark blue with blank eyes and white stripe going down his head and back, giving the impression that he'd rather be dying in a hole somewhere, while Confidence was a gleaming gold, spines curling up, with a pair of red eyes that shone when he caught sight of Sonic entering the room.
"Hey! It's the King!" the golden hedgehog crowed delightedly, rising to his feet, "Mr Beautiful!" He came up to Sonic and took him in both hands, embracing him and kissing his cheek before he turned his attention to Shadow, leaving Sonic stunned into a gormless silence. "Hey you," he sniggered, "what does 'H' stand for? Horace?" He burst out laughing at his own joke and then, a second later, was guiding Sonic towards the table. "Make room, Horace, Mr Beautiful wishes to dine."
Shadow stood fuming by the consoles with his arms tightly folded as the idiotic golden bafoon went about making a huge fuss over the blue hedgehog.
"Have you lost weight?" Confidence asked with a smile, "You're looking great! Is this guy totally perfect or what?"
Shadow was more than ready to give his exact opinion to that question but he doubted if he would be heard.
"You're my confidence?" Sonic finally found the words to say, glancing up as the smile widened on the golden hedgehog who was in the midst of massaging Sonic's shoulders.
"Oh I just love your voice, it makes me go all... ugh, it's great!" Confidence shivvered, his eyes closing in pleasure.
"I just don't understand it," Sonic went on, his voice still a little weak from his illness, "you look kinda like me except for the fur colour and eyes. I remember seeing something like that in a comic book..."
"I'm all the things you associate with 'confidence', King," Confidence drawled, eyes half lidded in a way that made Shadow want to hurl out into space.
Of course, it was just Confidence who had materialised and so Sonic looked round to glance at the other hedgehog, the navy blue one with stripes, who had now abandoned his watery cup of tea. This one was gazing at the two of them with an expression that made it clear he couldn't care any less about its own existance.
"And you're my paranoia?" Sonic asked, a little more cautiously.
Paranoia just looked at him as though he had the brain cells of algae and he wrinkled his nose.
"Is that a mustard stain on the front of your trousers?" he said, his voice slow and monotamous, every thing Confidence wasn't.
"What?" Sonic quickly checked his trousers for stains.
"So how are you anyway?" Paranoia went on, not particualrly caring for an answer, "Oh, do you have fleas or is it just ordinary dirt in your spines? My word, you're getting fat, aren't you? Must be all those chili dogs and not enough open spcace on this vessel. You've probably got a terminal disease. Always happens to the people you lease expect, don't you find that? ... Say hello then, why don't you? Only trying to be friendly." Paranoia turned away miserably and went back to hating his own life again.
It had happened so fast that Sonic hadn't time to get upset before Confidence came into the conversatio with another drawling smile.
"Sonny, baby, what can I say?" he gushed and then opened up his question to the rest of the room, "Is he the greatest, most handsome, most fantastic hedgehog ever? Or am I insane?"
"You're insane." Shadow didn't even miss a beat with that one. "Sonic, what are you going to do about them?"
Sonic blinked at his bunkmate in confusion. "Do? What can I do?"
"I think we should arrest them," Shadow said, wagging a finger at the pair of newcomers.
"What for?"
"For being hallucinations."
"Come on, smeg head," Sonic chuckled and then coughed straight after. He relaxed when Confidence sat down opposite him and gave him an encouraging smile. "It's a bit of company, isn't it?"
Confidence toasted that with his food and resumed eating. Paranoia flinched away with a sneer.
"Sonic, you're still sick!" Shadow cried, placing one hand on his hip while he wildly gestured to the two strangers with his other hand, "These two are symptoms of your disease! They're like the spots and measles, the swellings and mumps, the funny walk that comes with Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome. Until they're gone, you won't be better."
"Hey!" Confidence interrupted, getting to his feet and advancing towards Shadow, "Now I know what the 'H' stands for. H-idiot, am I right?" He let out a peel of laughter while Shadow stared at him, the light glinting off his shiny 'H' on his forehead, wishing his hologram body would allow him to strange the golden hallucination.
"You are treading a very thin line, mi-laddo," he informed him as he pointed an authoritive finger in Confidence's face. "'H' stands for 'Hologram'; I happen to be dead."
Rather than instill some form of sympathy or guilt, his words seemed to only amuse the hallucination.
"Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy," he snarled with a smirk stuck firmly to his lips. Leaving Shadow in a state of disgust, Confidence returned to Sonic, his face brightening up accordingly. "Come on King, forget these losers - let's go party!" He scooped Sonic up by his arm and started to lead him from the Drive Room.
"No! I forbid it!" Shadow snapped, baring his teeth and getting flustered again.
"Why?" Sonic asked cheekily and coughed yet again, though he was starting to feel a lot more confident now that his confidence was manifested into physical form.
To everyone's surprise, it was Paranoia that spoke up.
"Why do you never listen to Mr Shadow?" he asked in a slimy tone of voice, "He's so much more experienced, more level-headed, so much better than you."
While Shadow looked ready to burst with ego, if his smarmy smug face was any indication, Confidence began to get puffed up in a different way.
"Hey, no-one is better than Mr Magnificant!" the golden hedgehog hallucination protested, clamping his paw over Sonic's shoulder. Sonic was grinning away proudly. "And no-one tells the Prince of Charisma what to do, right Prince?"
"Yeah, right!" Sonic squeaked happily, sounding like a little kid who was being publicly praised by his older brother in front of his entire school, another indication to Shadow that he was still very unwell. To reinforce that, Sonic let out a few more coughs.
"That's my Sonny boy!" Confidence grinned, steering Sonic away again.
"I don't believe it," Shadow scoffed, holding himself grandly in the company of the one who had elevated him so, "he's socialising with a figment of his imagination."
Paranoia, looking unwell himself, just agreed like a lapdog.
Back in the bunk, Sonic was strumming on his guitar, belting out a song as best as he could on an instrument that was out of tune and in desperate need of a specialist with a voice that had to stop singing every couple of lines so he could cough.
Confidence was sat on the bed beside him, gazing adoringly at the blue hedgehog until the song came to finish.
"You wrote that!?" he gasped.
"Yeah, it was ages ago though," Sonic replied, remembering the hurtful words Shadow had used to describe the song back then.
"That is the greatest love song ever!" Confidence went on gushing.
"Come on..." Sonic chuckled modestly, shrugging off the compliment.
"Ever," Confidence reiterated, "It's so deep! The images..." He went on repeating and re-singing parts of the song with such feeling and then went on to berate the music industry for making such a great deal of the likes of Mozart and Beethoven.
Sonic sat there, getting more and more proud of himself, more and more confident. Then he noticed Confidence discretely picking up a scrap of chili dog from the table.
"What are you doing with that?" he asked.
It was Confidence's turn to blush and reply, "You've embarassed me now. It's just... your lips have touched it. Your lips. The King's kissing lips! And... and I just wanted some proof that I'd met the Duke of Deliciousness!" He laid a hand back on Sonic's shoulder, staring into his eyes.
Sonic raised an eyebrow and blinked at his confidence with a little unsurity.
"You're serious about it, aren't you?" He would have laughed if he wasn't so creeped out.
"Serious about what?"
"I'm a nobody?" Sonic told him, cradling his guitar, "Out of the 169 people on this ship, I rank 169 - bottom of the pile!"
"That's 'cause you didn't want all that career stuff!" Confidence countered, "You wanted that farm on South Island..." He then smirked playfully and plucked a poloroid photo off the wall. "...with you-know-who."
Sonic glanced at the photo of a smiling Amy Rose, radiant and care-free, gracing the camera with her innocent green eyes and soft pink fur.
"If she'd have come," Sonic mumured sadly, missing her all the more.
"If? IF!?" Confidence laughed increduously, "And turn down the oppurtunity to become the happiest hedgheog in all Mobian kind?"
Sonic shrugged. "We'll never know now." He turned away wistfully and coughed.
"Why not?"
"She's dead."
"So? So's Shadow. Bring her back."
"I can't. Knuckles can only sustain one hologram and Shadow's hidden all the other personality disks."
"So, find them!"
"I can't."
Confidence gazed at Sonic and shook his head. "King," he said softly, "you can do anything. Anything!"
"Anything," Paranoia groaned back in the Drive Room, broadcasting his own opinions about Sonic, "He can't do anything."
"Oh, I know," Shadow agreed merrily, "I'll bet five."
"D'you know," Paranoia scoffed, "he used to practice kissing on his own?"
"How?" Shadow asked, eyes widening.
The navy hedgehog from Sonic's imagination held up a fist.
"He made lips out of his hand!"
"That is priceless, it really is," Shadow muttered with a smile, torn between deciding if this was hilliarious or downright pitiful as he pictured it in his head.
"17 years old and he used to kiss his own hand," Paranoia sneered, his nose wrinkling in a very unattractive way. He was fully unaware that Sadow had secretly summoned one of the Skutters to pick up a specialised needle from the science bay in order to discretely 'dispose' of the annoying hallucination.
As Paranoia got to his feet, cowering beside Shadow as he related more of Sonic's humiliating moments of the past, Omega came gliding silently in from behind.
"Once," Paranoia said, his face falling, "in front of the whole school, he called his gym teacher, 'Daddy'. I could have died with embarassment!" He hadn't noticed Shadow's twitching excitement as the Skutter drew closer with the enormous syringe.
"What a silly thing to call a gym teacher," Shadow chuckled gaily, eyes flickering between the Skutter and the hedgehog hallucination.
"I'm wracked with guilt!" Paranoia wailed, "I hate him!"
"If you hate him, why do you talk about him so much?"
"Because," Paranoia snarled, "he makes my life one big humiliating, cring-making, guilt-ridden HELL!"
"NOW!" Shadow screeched as Omega held the syringe milimeters from Paranoia, "STAB HIM! STAB HIM! QUICK, STAB HIM!"
Unfortunately, as Shadow remembered a split second later, Skutters were stupid and slow. As a result, Paranoia had time to look round in alarm and catch sight of Omega and the syringe in all their glory.
"...Ah, you haven't met Stabbim, have you?" Shadow hurriedly covered up, masking it with a polite attitude and a 'charming' smile, while the Skutter, rather smartly, dropped the needle and tried bowing his head instead. "He's one of our Skutters. Stabbim, meet Sonic's paranoia, Sonic's paranoia, this is Stabbim."
While Paranoia looked pale and ready to pass out, Sonic and his golden confidence came striding into the room looking, well, confident.
"Yo Shadow, listen, we've been thinking," Sonic began, a kick in his step that told Shadow that his overbearing confident hallucination was influencing him badly. "We think we can get Rosy Rascal back without turning you off."
"Oh," Paranoia spluttered, waving his hands about, "He's drunk! Yes."
"All we've got to do," Sonic continued, a great beam on his face, "is turn off all unnessessary power systems and Knuckles says it will work!"
"Ding dong!" Confidence sang, holding a light bulb over Sonic's head, "Another great idea from the Blue Blur himself!" This was accompanied by a sparkling grin towards an imaginary camera while Sonic held up his thumbs, dancing from foot to foot.
"You've been so obsessed with a girl you hardly know," Paranoia huffed sickly, flattening his ears.
"Hardly knows her?" Confidence gasped, affronted, "You haven't heard his love song!"
"Sonic, you're not having her disk," Shadow flatly replied, his arms returning to their folded position.
"Why?" Sonic challenged with a glare which was almost undermined by a discrete cough, "Because she'll rank above you?"
"But she's a bright, good-looking, intelligent, witty, upwardly mobile officer," Paranoia snuffed, "Why should she be interested in you?"
"Yes," Shadow agreed, "Why should she be interested in you?"
Sonic faced his confidence. "Yeah, why should she be interested in me?"
Confidence was looking off into the middle distance, a dreamy, far-away expression on his face which could have been found on the face of someone who'd taken one too many puffs on burning herbs.
"Hmm?" he murmured, looking to Sonic, "Sorry, I was just thinking about your song. I just... can't get it out of my head." He smiled one last time before he then began to look cross. "Why?" he cried, answering the challenge, "Because you're great! You're an incredibly seductive, charming, charismatic young stud!"
"Oh yeah," Sonic grinned at Shadow and his Paranoia, "I forgot. THAT'S why she would be interested in me."
"Sonic, you're not having her disk or ANY disk," Shadow repeated, turning his nose to the air. HE was the only hologram on board Red Dwarf and THAT was how it was going to stay.
"Come on, King," Confidence purred in Sonic's ear, "You know Shadow - where would he hide them?"
"I don't know," Sonic whined.
"Yes you do."
"No he doesn't," Paranoia heckled from his seat.
"Come on," Confidence went on, ignoring the other hallucination, "Think 'winner'!"
Sonic's quills bristled as he thought about it. Confidence was right. He KNEW Shadow. He knew exactly what kind of person Shadow was, what he was likely to do in a situation, what he'd say and how he'd think. Shadow was spiteful towards Sonic. So what would he do...?
"Outside," Sonic said with a gleam in his eyes. "Outside the ship."
In the background, Shadow looked up sharply, his eyes blazing.
"Er, wrong actually!" he quickly snapped and then moved to stand by the door.
"Where outside?" Confidence asked, milking Sonic's confidence as he took note of Shadow's tight body language.
"Well, he'd have to send the Skutters..." Sonic reasoned, knowing that Shadow couldn't pick anything up, "...and the disks would have to be safe..."
Shadow plastered a goofy smile on his face and shook his head defiantly.
"Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over with wrong-ability," he sang discouragingly but he was, again, ignored.
"And..." Sonic began to smile, "...they'd have to be right under my nose so he could laugh at me!"
"Wrong and getting wrong-er all the time," Shadow snorted, still smiling although it was with discomfort now and not satisfaction.
"...Outside our sleeping quarters," Sonic suddenly announced, beaming away at his confidence, "The solar panel outside our sleeping quarters!" He turned to face Shadow excitedly, never looking so elated in all his years and confirming that he was still just a child.
"You followed me, you goit!" Shadow hissed as he bared his teeth, looking decidedly 'put-out'.
Sonic began to bubble over with joy.
"Is that where they are?!" he shouted in ecstasy and then gave way to a coughing fit as Confidence looked on like a proud father.
When Shaodw didn't answer, Sonic leapt into the air, coughed again, and made a bolt for the door.
"That's incredible! I did it!" he cheered down the hallway as Confidence followed, shooting a parting, gloating grin over his shoulder towards Shadow and Paranoia as he went.
A little while later, Sonic was waiting for a dust storm to abate outside, kitted up in a shiny spacesuit and a helmet, unaware that Shadow had since made an unnerving discovery in the Medical Bay.
Sonic had tried asking Knuckles if it would be long before the storm passed but the computer had thought he was asking about how close he was to finishing the Hercule Poirot story.
"Hey! How's my Sonny Boy?" Confidence called out cheerfully, marching into the room in a suit that was every bit as shiny as he was gold. "Oh look!" he laughed, "You've got a body lie a coat hanger. How can you make a spacesuit look like evening wear?"
That was when Shadow came marching into the Drive Room, waving a furious finger as he clamped his gaze on the golden hallucination.
"Let me ask you one question..." he growled, stomping across the floor as fiercely as his hologram feet would allow.
"It's no use arguing, Shadow. I'm going," Sonic told him after letting out a couple of chesty coughs.
But Shadow's question was nothing to do with that.
"Who smashed up the Medi Com?" he asked without taking his fierce glare away from Confidence's smiling face.
The Medical Computer was needed to diagnose illness, record symptoms and administer the appropriate medicine and Shadow had discovered it broken into bits and sparking electrical lights.
"He's stalling, King, let's go," Confidence quipped, trying to pull Sonic away. But Sonic was confused and he tilted his head to one side as he tried to comprehend a broken Medi Com.
"Knuckles, give them a punch up," Shadow ordered and, sure enough, on the screen appeared video footage of the Med Com, still sparking and fizzing amidst plumes of smoke.
Frustrated and wanting to get his hands on Amy Rose's disk, Sonic let out a sigh.
"Look, what's in it for them if they smashed up the Medical Unit?" he asked as Confidence squeezed his shoulder. It elicted a weak cough out of Sonic.
Shadow was at his breaking point.
"Sonic, come 'ere," he said, beckoning him. Sonic shuffled over, his cute-boy face doing nothing to soften Shadow up. "You are still sick," he told him, now starting to sound like a fussing mother.
"I. Feel. Great," Sonic insolently bit back and did his very best to swallow the cough that was threatening to rise up his throat.
"You will not-" Shadow stopped mid-scold due to being put off by Sonic's confidence sticking his grinning golden face between them. "...You will not be better until they've gone." He purposefully turned his back on Confidence, leaning as close to Sonic as he dared. "They know that and now they've stopped you from getting any treatment."
Sonic, for one brief moment, looked taken aback and he sent his confidence a questioning look. Shadow should have known better than to think Sonic was going to listen to him, however, for with one dismissive shake of the head, Conidence had the blue hedgehog back under his thumb.
Shadow was losing this fight and he felt bitter about it.
"Where's Paranoia?" he asked seethingly, narrowing his pinky eyes at the gold hallucination. He hadn't seen the sour prince of misery in the last hour or so.
"I don't know, is it someplace near Uruguay?" Confidence chortled which made Sonic giggle and then violently cough, "Who is this joker?"
Shadow, on the other hand, remained stoic for he could see the discomfort Sonic felt when he coughed and he could see the paleness of Sonic's face and the odd quill which had dropped from Sonic's back to litter the floor, the biggest indication that he wasn't well.
"Sonic, they're germs and they're dangerous," Shadow warned, turning away in defeat.
"Storm's passed, Sonic," Knuckles then announced, "Air locks are now released."
Confidence faced Sonic. "What are we waiting for King?"
Sonic was gazing at the back of Shadow's head, rubbing his sore chest, the slightest form of hesitation on his soft features. Something about what Shadow was saying was adding up but... but he really did want to see Amy again.
"Nothing," Sonic firmly replied, walking from the room with Confidence on his heel.
Shadow un-clentched his jaw as he was left alone. "Knuckles, put a trace on Paranoia."
"What's a trace?" Knuckles asked.
"It's space jargen," Shadow replied, more irritable than ever, "It means find him."
Knuckles made a scoffing sound. "No it doesn't, you just made it up to be cool."
"Where is he?" Shadow really had no time for this.
Knuckles' computer face tilted slightly and then, a second later, replied, "Paranoia is no longer aboard this ship."
"Hey, look at that King-o!" said Confidence as he and Sonic shuffled along on the outside walkway of Red Dwarf, heading towards the solar panels, "Me and you on top of the world! Makes you wanna dance!"
And that was what they did, along the walkway, cha-cha-cha-ing in step.
"Hey, here it is!" Sonic announced, stooping down to rummage behind one of the huge silvery panels which were spattered over the ship, while Confidence carried on dancing.
Sure enough, there was a space-tight box strapped securely within the cosy compartment behind the first solar panel and Sonic felt like singing as well as dance.
But for some reason, which Sonic couldn't work out, a sense of unnease crept over him.
"Did you hear something?" he asked nervously, wondering if the walkway was squeaking or if that was just him.
"Nope," Confidence replied, "In space, no-one can hear you cha-cha-cha."
Sonic hurriedly, stuffed the box into his largest spacesuit pocket and stood back up.
"You don't think my paranoia could have got here first, do you?" he asked worriedly. After all, he hadn't felt his paranoia set in since it had materialised in physical form so... why would it be back now? Why was his paranoia flaring up so badly?
"Forget him, he's no danger," Confidence said breezily, shuffling from side to side.
"He smashed the Medical Unit," Sonic pointed out.
"No he didn't."
"What d'you mean?"
"I did."
"You did?" Sonic felt his quills go rigid. So Shadow had been right to worry!
"So we can be together, Sonny!" Sonic's confidence smiled through his spacesuit helmet. "You don't wanna get cured - I did it for you!"
"So where did he go then?" Sonic asked with a gulp, talking about his paranoia.
"I killed him. Cha-cha-cha," Confidence answered bluntly.
"What do you mean you killed him, cha cha cha!?"
"Hey," Confidence pouted, stopping his cha-cha-cha dance, "don't look at me like that! He didn't suffer. I just fed him into the waste grinder and flushed his mince into space."
Severely frightened and feeling all the effects of his deceased paranoia now, Sonic began to move slowly back.
"Look, I'm g-gonna go inside now," he said lightly, "It gets a little bit hot - I get claustrophobic in these suits." It wasn't entirely untrue - Sonic DID have claustrophobia which flared up if he was in a tight space he couldn't get out of.
"Take your helmet off," Confidence suggested.
Now Sonic knew the guy had flipped. "What?"
"Your hat. Take your helmet off."
"I'll die!"
"Why?"
"There's no oxygen out here."
"Hey, oxygen's for losers. Come on..."
Sonic was now hurriedly backpeddalling from his confidence as he tried grabbing his helmet.
"I NEED oxygen!" he squeaked, clambering over the bars to get round the twisted hallucination.
"You don't need anything, King, you're the king!" Confidence whined, following him.
"You're crazy!" Sonic insisted, trying to creep as quickly as he could back to the airlock.
"Who told you that you needed oxygen, huh?" Confidence complained, "Some loser who was trying to make you feel small. Look, I'll prove it to you!" The gold hedgehog now stopped a short distance away. "I'll take mine off first. We'll soon see who the crazy one is around here."
"NO!" Sonic screeched as Confidence took his helmet off, exposing himself to the vaccume of space.
Silver whistled a merry tune as he took another shirt from the pile. He was sat surrounded by his clothes as they hung up around him.
"Must you do this now?" Shadow sighed, glowering down at the more primitive hedgehog.
Silver glowered back at him. "I'm doin' my laundry!"
"It's totally disgusting," Shadow sneered.
"What's disgusting?" he growled, but instead of waiting for an answer, he lifted the shirt collar and ran his tongue all along the edge. There was a bar of soap next to him that he used specially for chewing up so he could give his clothes a nice smell.
Sonic ignored both of them and concentrated on finding the right disk in the box. There it was - Amy Rose's disk. He picked it up and headed out of the sleeping quarters.
"Sonic," Shadow called after him. Sonic stopped. "I just want to say... I was right all along. I said they were germs and they were germs."
Sonic shrugged. "Yeah, okay. So what?"
"And I'm just saying now..." Shadow continued, "...that disk will only bring you misery. I just want you to remember that I said that."
"Look," Sonic reasoned, "If she comes back and she's not interested, I can handle it."
"Whatever, Sonic. I just want it on record: that disk is a one way ticket to misery-ville."
Sonic twirled the disk between his fingers.
"Yeah well, I've spent enough time listening to my paranoia," he smiled, "Now I'm going to listen to my confidence."
He turned and vanished down the corridor. After he had gone, Shadow gave the air on of his salutes and marched smugly after him, eagerly looking forward to the show that was going to be given in a few minutes time. Silver, not having a salute to perform, tried mimicking him and then strutted along after Shadow. If there was going to be a show, he didn't want to miss it!
As Sonic practised varying ways of greeting Amy, Shaodw came in and took up a position at his side. He quickly discovered Silver coming to stand at his other side, looking around innocently for the fun to start.
Sonic wondered what Silver would make of Amy. It would be the first female hedgehog he'd clap eyes on. Thinking of that, Sonic shivvered, it might be just as well that Amy would be a hologram if Silver's untamed instincts were anything to worry about. The sooner that hog learnt to control his instincts like Sonic and Shadow could, the better it would be for all of them. At any rate, it would stop Silver trying to shove his spines into them whenever he got too angsty about sharing territory.
"Sonic," Shadow said in a serious voice, "Look, good luck. I mean it."
"Smeg off."
"No honestly, I mean it. Good luck."
Not entirely trusting his genuity, Sonic took a lungful of air and plugged in the disk.
"All right, Knux, switch it on."
There was a buzzing sound and there, materialising in front of them, stood... another Shadow. Another Shadow with the exact same smirk that the original was now wearing.
"Well, he did warn you," the new Shadow shrugged.
"I certainly did," Shadow agreed, unable to keep his glee and smug delight from showing itself, "D'you honestly think I'd put Rosy's disk in Rosy's box where ANY munchkin could find it?" He laughed at Sonic and Silver's dead faces. "You think you had it bad before, Sonic. Now you've got it in sterio, baby!" This was capped off with a double salute from both black hologram hedgehogs.
"Welcome aboard, Shadow," the first greeted.
"Nice to be here Mr Shadow, you son of a gun," the second grinned back.
Next time...
Life on Red Dwarf is a walking nightmare and when a fierce conflict ignites between the two Shadows, there's only one solution - to get rid of one. It's left up to Sonic and Silver to decide which one has to go.