Former Champion (Vanderbrook Champions Book 5)

by Edmund Hughes

  Now, there was a warm, almost soothing quality to it that Malcolm was sure had been an essential part of the original design. It felt like someone had merged a futuristic living habitat with an expensive hospital room, comfortable, but antiseptic.

  The room they’d first entered when they’d flung themselves through the portal now felt more like a kitchen than a conference room. Malcolm noticed that the table had a latch on it. He lifted it open and found a variety of food packed neatly away.

  He picked out some beef jerky sealed in airtight wrapping, and a pouch of some kind of juice with a straw attached to drink from. Tapestry had gone deeper into the ship. He figured she could probably use some time to herself.

  He settled down into one of the seats, strapping himself in and carefully opening the packages. Crumbs and liquid droplets were not something he wanted to experience in zero gravity.

  The food improved his mood almost instantly. Malcolm could see a path forward now. They would make it to Europa, find Savior, rescue him, and then return to Earth. Savior would be able to stand a chance against Second Wind. The Champion Authority would rise again.

  And then, I’ll live happily ever after. It’s all so simple and straightforward… And it will never go that smoothly.

  The spaceship suddenly felt confining to him. Which, he had to grant, it was. He and Tapestry were basically prisoners of their circumstances. They were in the same situation as men living aboard submarines, trapped in a small, unchanging vessel for months at a time.

  He took a slow breath, forcing himself to stay calm. Malcolm had just finished eating his food when he heard Tapestry scream.

  CHAPTER 19

  Malcolm threw himself down the hallway, flying faster than it was safe to as he hurtled toward the origin of Tapestry’s scream. It had come from the direction of the exercise chamber. Malcolm noticed immediately as he entered that the hatch to the small chamber he’d seen before was now closed.

  “Tapestry!” he shouted.

  “I’m… okay,” she said. “I just… wasn’t expecting this.”

  There was a switch next to the hatch. Malcolm pressed it, and the hatch opened. Tapestry was floating inside the tiny room, but what caught his attention wasn’t her, but the walls.

  Each one, along with the ceiling, the floor, and even the back of the hatch, was covered with a high definition display. All of them were currently showcasing a park on Earth, grass, trees, and people walking around. The room was a simulation chamber, and Tapestry had apparently activated it by accident.

  “Neat,” said Malcolm. “This must be for the crew’s entertainment.”

  “That sounds about right,” said Tapestry. “I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

  “Maybe you should try it again after a month or two of staring at blank walls,” said Malcolm.

  Tapestry slid out through the hatch, scowling as she went by him.

  “You haven’t eaten yet,” said Malcolm. “Come on. I think you’ll be in a better mood once you have a full stomach.”

  He showed her what he’d discovered under the table. Tapestry didn’t seem that enamored with the selection of food, though she eventually picked a few things out to nibble at.

  While she ate, Malcolm’s curiosity got the better of him. He floated back to the simulation chamber, pausing outside briefly before slipping in. The screens activated as soon as he closed the hatch, plunging him into a darkness lit only by the blue menu on one of the screens in front of him. The options “Past”, “Present”, “Future”, and “Personal” stood in a neat little row.

  Malcolm considered for a moment before selecting “Past”. The screens shifted, displaying rows of tiny thumbnails, like the viewing gallery for the camera on his old phone. He singled out one that was of a park and pressed it with a finger.

  A park seems safe enough. Right?

  All the screens shifted. Malcolm found himself in a wide open park, with green grass displayed by the screen underneath his feet and a deep blue sky smudged with cotton candy like clouds above. There was a large pond in front of him with a man and a woman pedaling a swan boat. They were holding hands and appeared to be very much in love. A family sat on a blanket to his left, with three children playing monkey in the middle with foam ball.

  It brought a nostalgic ache to Malcolm’s heart. He’d played games like that with Danny and his friends, as a child. How long had it been? He didn’t even know if there were any safe parks left in the country, anymore.

  The wind was blowing in the simulation, and he felt a little frustrated by the fact that he could see the grass swaying without being able to feel it. He suddenly wanted to be in the simulation, or rather, he wanted to make it real.

  The simulation chamber, Malcolm realized, was there as much for motivation as it was for recreation. It was there to remind the astronauts of what the world had been like, and presumably, what it could be like again.

  It didn’t motivate Malcolm, at least not during his first experience with it. It made him want to lie down in bed, and deepened the weight on his shoulders. Failing was not an option for him and Tapestry, and that opened them both up to so many desperate situations, and so much danger.

  He left the simulation chamber in a daze, his eyes only slowly adjusting to the bright LED lights of the rest of the ship. He floated through the ship slowly, feeling half tempted to curl up into a little ball, or maybe crawl into one of the tethered sleeping bags he’d seen before.

  Malcolm found Tapestry in the cockpit, sitting in the captain’s chair. She had a scowl on her face and was pressing the buttons that controlled the communication system, to no avail.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  She made a noise and turned her scowl onto him.

  “I need to get a message to Melanie,” said Tapestry. “So much has happened that I didn’t even stop to think about letting her know that I’m okay when we were talking to Melvin.”

  “I think they closed the communications channel from their side,” said Malcolm. “You might have to wait until they get in touch with us.”

  Tapestry glared at him.

  “Don’t you have anyone back on Earth that you care enough about to check in with?” she asked.

  Rose… If she even remembers me.

  He shook his head, avoiding her gaze.

  “No,” he said. “Not anymore.”

  “Liar.” Tapestry’s fingers left the command console, and she turned her full attention onto him. “I know the truth, Malcolm. All of it.”

  The tone of her voice let him know that it was finally time for them to have a certain conversation. One they’d both been avoiding since the start of their post collapse reunion. The shadow of Second Wind hung over them both. The shadow of Malcolm’s lies, mistakes, and deception.

  “He told me,” said Tapestry. “Your copy. He explained everything on that night he confronted us in my house. His first night as a demon. He gave me… a detailed series of events. A timeline, practically, from when Rose first came into your life. Of how she’d been living in your apartment, and you’d been hiding her from me, right under my nose. Like I was just some kind of… idiot. Just your idiot partner who didn’t deserve any part of the truth.”

  Malcolm felt his face burning with shame. It was only made more intense by the anger and hurt he could hear in Tapestry’s voice. He’d kept secrets from her for far too long. How could he expect she’d react to the truth?

  “He told me that you loved her,” said Tapestry, in a quiet voice. “That you and her were… involved like that. And that it was more serious than what we…” She paused, and blinked her eyes several times. “Anyway, I know about it. So don’t waste your time making yourself sound like a fool with more lies.”

  Malcolm hung his head. He didn’t have any defense for what he’d done, for what he’d kept from her.

  “I’m sorry, Tapestry,” he said. “I wish… I’d done things differently.”

  “I do, too.” For a moment, it seemed as t
hough she’d leave it at that. But then Tapestry shook her head, and a cracked smile came across her face. “I don’t think you fully understand how much it hurt when… he betrayed me. The callousness of it. I’d actually fallen in love, with him. Your copy, Malcolm. Not you. And then…”

  She closed her eyes and let out a small, bitter laugh.

  “He didn’t stab me in the back,” she said. “He stabbed me in the heart, and twisted the blade. As though it wasn’t enough for him to turn into a demon and push me away… He had to explain it all to me, and make me aware of just how badly duped I’d been. It was a double betrayal, once by him… and once by you.”

  “Tapestry…” Malcolm wanted to apologize again, and again, if he could. But he knew she wouldn’t let him. It wouldn’t do anything to solve her pain or change the past.

  Tapestry waited, as though expecting more from him. Several seconds went by, and Malcolm realized that by saying nothing, he’d also done the wrong thing. He could already feel her pulling away from him, trudging up old emotions, and reminding herself of all the reasons why he couldn’t be trusted.

  She gave up, both on the communications console and on him. He reached for her as she floated by him and through the connecting hallway. She slapped his hand away, not hard, but with enough deliberateness to be a solid rebuke.

  CHAPTER 20

  Malcolm spent several hours in the exercise room, trying to tamp down his emotions with exhaustion. The stationary bike worked about the same as it would have back on Earth, though it felt much floatier without gravity.

  He found clean clothes for the both of them in one of the storage rooms. There was a small bathroom and shower, specially designed for the sealed environmental conditions of the ship, and he rinsed off his sweaty body before changing into one of the plain blue jumpsuits that composed the standard astronaut wardrobe.

  Tapestry had already zipped herself into one of the sleeping bags and managed to fall asleep, or was at least very good at pretending. It was a bit unnerving to look at her. Her head peaked out from the top of the sleeping bag, but the rest of her was securely zipped in. It was like looking at a cross between a body bag and a balloon on a string.

  Malcolm settled into one of the sleeping bags himself. He closed his eyes once he was zipped in. He thought about comforting memories from back on Earth. He thought about what Melvin might have to report to them and how things would change when they finally got Savior back to earth.

  It took him far longer than expected to drift off. The lights on the ship were bright and omnipresent, and between the glare and his usual troubled thoughts, he slept fitfully.

  When he awoke, Tapestry had already left her bag and was in another part of the ship. Malcolm took his time getting up, dreading having to talk to her after the discussion they’d had the night before.

  But if Tapestry was holding a grudge against him, she was doing it on a backburner. She gave him a small smile as he floated into the meeting room, tossing a vacuum sealed granola bar in his direction.

  “Melvin got in touch through the communications console,” she said. “I already sent him a message back letting him know I was about to wake you up.”

  “And you let him know about Melanie?” asked Malcolm.

  Tapestry’s smile widened slightly, and she nodded.

  “It was close to an hour ago when I sent my message,” she said. “His response should reach us pretty soon.”

  Malcolm nodded slowly, chewing his granola bar thoughtfully.

  “We’re going to have our work cut out for us,” he said. “If we can’t rely on Jade for portals anymore, we’ll have to carry out this mission in the same way the original crew would have.”

  “I know,” said Tapestry. “Think you’re up for it?”

  Malcolm grinned at her.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  He ate quickly, and then followed Tapestry into the cockpit, trying not to admire the pleasant effect weightlessness had on her butt. A few minutes went by before a chime sounded, indicating an incoming message.

  “Hello there,” said Melvin. “Amateur astronauts! We have a lot to cover today.”

  It wasn’t just him in frame. Close to a dozen members of ground control were clustered around him, and the expressions on their faces spanned the spectrum, from hope, to anxiety, to disbelief. Melvin held a piece of paper in front of him, probably instructions given to him by the rest of his team.

  “The good news is that the ship is almost entirely intact; the bad news is that there is at least one major repair that will need to be performed on the ship,” he said. “Now, this is going to get complicated, so keep this video message on hand for later review.”

  Calling Melvin’s instructions complicated was a bit like calling a volcano “hot”. He went on and on, veering off occasionally into what seemed like pointless digressions until his ground control teammates prodded him back to his main point.

  Some of the ship’s solar panels were damaged and would need to be replaced. Melvin explained how this would entail one of them performing a spacewalk and doing the repair manually. Malcolm felt a prickle of nervous excitement at the prospect. Tapestry, on the other hand, looked as though she’d been given a death sentence.

  “There’s much more to get you up to speed on than just repairing the panels,” said Melvin. “But this is, uh, how should I say, priority number one? It’s why the ship was running on reserve power when you first came aboard. If the solar panels aren’t repaired… most basic functions including CO2 scrubbing will fail within 48 hours.”

  “Great,” muttered Malcolm. “A timed mission. Just what we needed.”

  “Generally, this would involve the entire crew,” said Melvin. “It’s possible to do with just two astronauts. One should stay inside the ship and relay instructions. The other will… go outside the ship and perform the repairs as carefully as possible.”

  Melvin’s tone was nervous and a little worried, which didn’t do wonders for Malcolm’s confidence in their ability to complete the task. Melvin went on to give specific explanations of where the replacement solar panels were located, how to detach the old ones, and how to connect power cables to them.

  By the end of it, Malcolm was thoroughly overwhelmed. Melvin wished them good luck before ending the message, and instructed them to send an update to ground control as soon as the repairs were complete. Malcolm glanced over at Tapestry and raised an eyebrow.

  “Well?” he said. “What do you think?”

  She slowly shook her head.

  “I think this is going to be a lot more difficult than it sounds,” said Tapestry.

  Malcolm nodded. “I’ll do the space walk. The flying I used to do with my wind manipulation has given me a strong threshold for vertigo.”

  It feels like it’s been an eternity since I last used it.

  “Are you sure?” asked Tapestry. “Malcolm… I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “One of us has to do it,” he replied. “And you’re more detail oriented then me. You’ll be more helpful giving me instructions.”

  She slowly nodded, though she wore her concern openly on her face. She’d put her hair onto a pony tail instead of a bun that morning, and the end of it moved freely in zero gravity. Malcolm felt a sudden, unbidden urge to hug her, and he gave into it. Tapestry hugged him back.

  “Hey,” he said. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll fix the ship, reach Europa, and rescue Savior.”

  Tapestry sighed.

  “This is so far outside the realm of how I imagined things going,” she said. “But I guess there is no turning back now, is there?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question, or…?”

  Tapestry flicked him in the shoulder.

  “Do you need help getting into your spacesuit?” she asked.

  “From you?” He grinned. “Of course.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Climbing into the bulky space suit was, in fact, a two-person process. It wasn’t a heavy
as he’d imagined it would be, but it still felt a bit like putting himself into a futuristic version of medieval armor.

  “I’ll be able to communicate with you through your ear piece,” said Tapestry. “It will be just like when we used those Bluetooth headsets as champions.”

  “Yeah,” said Malcolm, with a slight eye roll. “Just like that.”

  Tapestry frowned, carefully checking the seals on the suit. She had found a manual of shuttle procedures, and was carefully going down the list, making sure they didn’t make any stupid mistakes.

  “Malcolm…” she said. “I’d understand if you backed out of doing this.”

  “I wouldn’t,” he said. “This is our only chance, Tapestry. For rescuing Savior and for getting back to Earth. And it will be a piece of cake compared to facing off against a bank robbery, or a demon.”

  She smiled, but it was more for show than genuine. The helmet was next, and Tapestry carefully pulled it into place over his head.

  “Oh!” she said, remembering something. “You put the diaper on already, right?”

  Malcolm was glad that the radiation protection of the helmet’s face shield obscured the color of his face from her.

  “Yes, Tapestry,” he said. “I put the diaper on. But I cleared myself out already, so hopefully… it won’t be necessary.”

  This is less glamorous than I imagined it, watching astronauts in historical footage.

  “The manual says that there’s a safety line that you’ll need to connect to once you’re in the airlock,” said Tapestry. “Let me know once you’ve done that and I’ll initiate the opening sequence.”

  Malcolm tried to nod, but the helmet made it impossible.

  “Will do,” he said. “Alright, let’s get this started.”

  He pulled himself into the airlock. The inner airlock door closed behind him with such solidity that Malcolm half expected it never to open again. He took a calming breath, keeping his emotions where he needed them.