'Gamehead.'
Lister rolled the word over his mental tongue, blank shock practically freezing him.
It had been several weeks after the crew's ill-fated attempt at playing Better Than Life, and he and the Cat sniped more or less regularly at Rimmer for 'ruining' the fantasy with his 'diseased brain.' Lister had seen the looks of dismay the hologram hid behind his sneers, but he didn't care. The smeghead had ruined all their fun, hadn't he?
Or maybe not.
Bored out of his mind, Lister had been making his way through all of the videos and news broadcasts that the most recent (and only) mail pod had brought their way, and on one of the news vids, he found something rather disturbing.
Tens of thousands of people plugged themselves into their own personal versions of Better Than Life… and they never wanted to come out. Thousands of people who had no one to care for them starved to death, and those who did have people left to watch over their gibbering forms wasted away to an essentially brain-dead husk, leaving their loved ones behind to mourn their living dead. These people were called 'gameheads.'
Was that what was going to happen to them if Rimmer hadn't ruined it? Would he and the Cat really have loved it so much in there that they would have starved? Would Rimmer have been left standing there centuries after they first plugged him in like an eerie sentry in a haunted castle?
Lister shivered. It was too creepy to think about.
He snuck a look at his roommate's prone form on the bunk below him. His chest rose and fell slowly with his simulation of sleep. Unruly brown curls and a shining, silver 'H' topped the head of one of the universe's biggest smegheads. His face was surprisingly gentle and innocent in sleep, a fact that belied his truly tortured psyche. Was that man responsible for their continued lives?
Lister shook his head in belated fear and shock.
If Rimmer hadn't come that day, what would have happened to them? Would he have fed them and kept them alive like the loved ones of all those people on Earth?
Lister snorted. Rimmer couldn't touch. All he would be able to do would be to watch them slowly waste away over a period of several days until they eventually dropped dead. And if he had a more normal personality with fewer neuroses, essentially the same thing would have happened.
Rimmer snorted and shifted slightly in his sleep, turning to lie on his side in a vaguely curled position. He looked so peaceful.
Lister turned back to stare up at the ceiling. In all likelihood, he and the Cat owed their lives to the fact that Arnold Rimmer had such a smeggy life that his brain couldn't accept good things happening to him. Lister let out a heavy puff of breath.
One thing was certain.
He wasn't going to be teasing Rimmer about messing up their game anymore.
