A/N- crap, I didn't mean to write this. But it was in my head in the middle of an exam mock so I have to get it out before the real one. so it can be replaced. but I have writers block for Above and Beyond, and I needed to write something (an update for AaB will be coming.). I saw Car Crash TV, Scrapheap Challenge and Robot Wars on in one day so I took that as sign I need to write do something. Also XI and XII squeeeeeeeeee! I want to go to Dimension Jump next year.
disclaimer: Red Dwarf premiered 10 years before I was born. guess who doesn't own it. if anyone would like to give me the money the boys get or better yet the boys YAY!
just a short oneshot.
After 3 million very long years of solitude, if scutters and piles of white ash weren't included, Holly was about to have company again. To be fair, he could have had company after just 2.4 million years, but he wanted a nice round number and decided to wait for 2.5 million years. Then, of course, he forgot because he was half-way through a millennia long Kevin Keegan Rant-a-thon in which he invented 18,000 new expletives, so he waited until another round number, 3 million. Holly really didn't think that it mattered since the human race was likely dead anyway and even if they weren't would probably see Homo sapiens as something that crawled out of the primordial ooze. Not that Lister was that far gone from primordial ooze anyway.
But it was now or never. The radiation level was beyond safe, lower than Earth when Lister was growing up. But it was the stasis booths that were the problem. The JMC, in true tradition had kitted the Dwarf out with Crapola TM Booths, the cheapest they could get their hands on. Guess what, they leaked. It was a slow leak but Dave would look a whole week older when he got out, not that was bad for someone who is 3 million and 25 years old, but a week here and week there soon built up. There were things he had to do before he awoke Dave, like disinfect the quarters which he'd done by spraying Impulse through the sprinkler system, as not even bacteria could stand it. He'd also had to get the scutters to correctly seal the drive plate, which they'd done happily as soon as they realised it was for Dave. They liked him.
But Holly still had to come up with a way of keeping Dave sane until… whatever the future may hold for him. He had no idea what to do. If he Holly, a computer with the IQ of eight million Justin Bieber fans had gone peculiar as he feared he had, Dave certainly would. Then halfway through a book he was reading, A thousand ways to die by Rasputin, he suddenly had breakthrough. "That's it!" he cried, even though nothing could hear him, "I'll make a hologram!"
He'd tried Captain Hollister first. But the stupid fat goit wouldn't help Lister, instead he seemed rather convinced that there hadn't been an explosion and kept muttering things about "a cat related incident" and "mad, stupid computer". Holly shut him off, the captain was clearly off his rocker. Next he tried Chris Toddhunter but he'd cried when he found out he was dead. Sick of whiny officers already, he was terminated. Brown was up next. But she refused to be ship's hologram after learning she would be dependent on him for showers and clothes. For some reason, she thought he'd perv on her. 'Not likely' thought Holly 'I'm a super computer with an IQ of 6000 not a teenage boy, I don't feel anything for anything with less than 2 terabytes memory'. Well except that ZX81, she was special.
There were some people Holly could discount without turning them on. Peterson was out, he was so drunk when he was recorded that his disc read only as a hangover program. Chen and Selby were a double act, it would be cruel to split them up and he couldn't sustain both. Kochanski was also an automatic out, she'd drive Lister nuts than an Extended Play version of Barbie Girl on eternal loop. McGruder scared him. 'Nuff said. 'And don't get me started on that git Sachez' Holly thought 'always spilling coffee all over my consoles, that one'.
Now he was getting worried. And desperate. There were 1,169 crew aboard when the accident happened. Not a one of them was suitable. He had two options left and neither was pretty. Lister's goited roommate or a clone of Lister himself. Holly was sure they'd get on famously if it came to that, Lister was a nice guy, but it had to be reserved as an absolute last resort.
Regretfully, he loaded the hologrammatic disc of 2nd Technician Arnold Judas Rimmer into the projector. Slowly a tall figure with almost-ginger pubes for hair and huge nostrils formed floating a couple of millimetres of the ground. He watched as the figure repeatedly blinked and slowly became alert before making his move. "Oi, Smeghead! Look over here at the screen." Say what you like about Holly, he was never one for the gentle approach. Rimmer promptly looked over and glared at him, the green eyes his one redeeming feature. 'Now I've got to explain everything before he tries to touch something, falls through it and freaks out' Holly thought brimming with inner mischief. But now wasn't the time. "Listen. You are dead. You are a hologram. You cannot touch anything. Clear?" Holly deadpanned, watching his pause length for maximum effect. Rimmer's face fell, then set in a grim countenance. 'I'm dead? I'm DEAD! Well that's just typical, I never win. My life was a failure and my death will be too' Rimmer though face changing with every word, making Holly have to stifle a chuckle or two. "Why did you bring me of all people back?" he asked aloud virtually shouting, trying to fool the computer into believing that's what he'd been thinking all along, and miserably failing. Holly sighed. "I need you to keep Dave sane Arnold. You are the only one who can keep him sane." Well he wasn't but Holly saw no reason to tell the truth, that Rimmer was the only one to not demand being turned off yet.
Several hours of arguing later, arguing with a smegging dead man, Holly thought with a barely hidden smirk, they finally got to the nub of the matter. "Look, will you do it? It's dangerous, you won't be appreciated and he'll hate you even more than ever" Holly fully expected Rimmer to back out, coward that he was. He was definitely surprised when the response he got was "I'll do it" even if he did sound unsure and rather quiet. "What? Why?" Holly gasped, shocked at the answer he got. "I'll do it, you stupid, pixelated cretin, because I'm pretty sure it's better than non-existence" the smeghead replied gritting his teeth and sounding more like the whiny git Holly knew him to actually be. "What who you are calling a pixelated cretin, you're one now. And don't be sure this is better than non-existence, you're a copy of you from when you were alive so you don't know what being dead is like". He passed the hologram a copy of 'death and how to deal with it' and left to open the stasis booth. He heard a soft "bollocks, that insult sounded so good in my head" from the hologram as he left.
And so three million years after Rimmer killed everyone 'hi, I'm A.J Rimmer, that's a drive plate, and this is Jackass' style, the door opened and the last man alive re-joined the stream of time. And immediately wished he hadn't.