No ownership of the Red Dwarf characters is implied or inferred. Copyright belongs to others and no infringement is intended. If it was intended, I wouldn't be posting here, now would I, where I could be caught red-handed by anyone who wanted to find me….

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Arnold Judas Rimmer was a hologram.

He'd forget that sad fact once in awhile—like when he was listening to his Greatest Hammond Organ Hits records, or flipping casually—well, obsessively, really—through his collection of photographs of twentieth century telegraph poles. But that little self-deception was short-lived: when he wanted to change records, or turn the page of the photo album, he'd have to ask Holly to do it for him. "Turn," he must have said thirty-seven times last night, the last time he took refuge in his telegraph poles. Ohhh, there was the Morse 1750. That was always a nice one. Tall, strong, proud. Beautiful. Unconquerable. Arnold could be like that. There was another shot of it on the next page. Lost in his fantasy, Rimmer reached out to turn to the next image.

And his hand went right through the book.

Scowling because his brain had played a cruel trick on him, letting him feel so normal for a moment that he tried to attempt the impossible, Rimmer threw an irritated look up at the screen on the wall. "Turn," he ordered impatiently, and then he waited.

"Okay, Arnold," the blonde head of the ship's computer replied. She didn't bother remarking on Rimmer's foul mood. If she responded every time the mining ship Red Dwarf's ex-Second Technician and chief chicken soup machine de-gunker spoke rudely to her, she'd be going on longer than it took a politician to get to his point. No, she decided today, just easier to let him get on with it.

The page turned. Rimmer concentrated on the Morse 1750. Stared at it. Tried to become one with it. Tried to imagine himself as tall, strong, proud, like that Western Red Cedar. But in his mind all he could see was a matchstick—and a burnt-out one, at that. "Oh—never mind," he dismissed the attempt aloud irritably. He stood up and walked away from the book, his eyes alighting on some of his favorite cut-out phrases. Arnie's Number One. Rimmer Does It Best. He did it best, all right, he thought, taking quick, angry strides out of his quarters. He made a mess of his life—and his death—better than anyone else he knew.

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Dave Lister, the last human, was the lowest ranking person on Red Dwarf—or the highest ranking, if you didn't count Rimmer, who was dead, after all, and did a dead man really get to outrank a living human being? Yes, Lister was a human being, no matter how often Rimmer tried to convince him otherwise. To Cat, the life form evolved from his pregnant stray Frankenstein, the feline to whom Lister indirectly owed his life since he wouldn't turn her into the ship's Captain and so ended up in stasis when the radiation leak aboard Red Dwarf happened and killed everyone else aboard—Rimmer included—Lister was even God, the one who protected the Holy Mother and promised to take all the cats to Fuschal—er, Fiji. So no, the number of curries eaten by this Scouse bloke did not remove him from the running as a human. He had merely proven that it was possible for a person to eat eleven hot curries, each with two pints of wicked strength lager, and still get up in the morning. As long as you included in the definition of "up" kneeling in front of the bog, puking your guts out and vowing never to touch another curry for the rest of your life.

That was a whole week ago, however, and Lister was just starting to warm up to the idea of a bit of madras sauce on his cornflakes dinner when Rimmer walked into their quarters, walked straight over to his bunk, and laid down, crossing his arms behind his head, saying nothing.

"Hey, you're just in time, Rimmer," Lister said, already warming up to make the hologram's life just a little more miserable. After all, that's why Rimmer had been the one person whose presence had been resurrected—to keep Lister sane. And what could be saner than trying to drive someone else crazy? "I'm about to experiment with a new combination: chutney, chili and madras sauce with just a sprinkling of curry powder in a pint of lager. You want some?"

Rimmer's ex-stomach curled at the idea. He suspected, somehow, that Lister's did, too. But that wouldn't stop him from actually going through with it, just to make Rimmer sick. "People who drink that concoction should be in freak show booths at the circus." A beat. "Bottoms up."

Lister grinned to himself; he'd gotten Rimmer rolling in just one sentence! Brutal! "It wouldn't hurt you to take a few chances every now and then, Rimmer," he said, resigning himself to the cornflakes and madras sauce with a lager chaser. "Otherwise at the end of your life you'll look back and say, 'I should've, I could've, I would've."

"I'm already at the end of my life," Rimmer reminded him. "Didn't you notice the big H on my forehead? I'm dead. I'm deceased. I only exist because Holly projects me. What else could I should've, could've, would've?"

"Breathe?"

Lister laughed lightly, half-heartedly hiding it from Rimmer. He knew the whole death thing bothered his bunkmate. But as he'd told him before, death wasn't the handicap it used to be. You could still go out and do really good things. Most holograms did, really—well, except for Horace Binglebaum, who went right back to what he'd been doing when he got flattened by a steamroller—being a meter maid.

"Go ahead, Lister: laugh. Someday you'll know exactly what it feels like." Rimmer paused as the irony of the words struck him. "Or doesn't."

"I'm not worried, Rimmer," Lister answered, shoving a spoonful of cornflakes in his mouth. "I'm gonna go out with a bang."

"Everyone on Red Dwarf already did that; your 'plop' won't be anything special. The drive plate exploded, and when the radiation came out everyone went BANG and turned to dust!"

"I was speakin' metaphorically," Lister said through his cornflakes.

"That's your trouble," Rimmer answered, sitting up. The lights in the room started to flicker. "You're always talking in fantasy land. You never—" Lister kept eating as Rimmer's tirade faded in and out of his ears. "—with your smegging grin and—"

The voice stopped. The lights remained out. Lister's spoon paused halfway to his mouth. "Holly, what's going on?" he asked. He looked toward where he expected the ship's computer to be looking back out at him.

"I don't know, Dave; the power is fine. All the generators are working."

"Well, I can't see you. And why don't we have any lights?"

"We do," the computer insisted. "According to the data, the only bulb out on the entire ship is that tiny one that comes on in the linen closet when you open the door, in case you're too embarrassed to have anyone know you have to get the rubber mattress protector out again in the middle of the night."

"Heyyyyyyyyyyyy," came a voice that sounded almost like a purr, but not exactly, since most purrs weren't in the tenor range. "What are you monkeys doing with the lights? I was right in the middle of my evening preen, and now I can't see my mirror The Cat, a tall, dark, smooth-moving creature that could almost have been mistaken for human, only he was more vain than a Latino rock star, and had slightly longer fangs than most people outside of Transylvania liked to admit to having, edged further into the room. "You're gonna have to tell me how good I'm looking," he said. "Tell me the truth—are my teeth too perfectly pearly and white? Would a female be scared she wouldn't be good enough for me?—What am I saying? They'd all worry!"

Lister shook his head. "Ask Rimmer," he said disinterestedly. He tried to see how well his cornflakes were faring in the madras sauce; "I always think you're dazzling."

"Where is he?"

"Over on the bunk," Lister answered.

"Go on; tell me!" the Cat urged the hologram. He made his way to the bunk. "I thought this was one of my sexiest outfits—but it's hard to tell that without the lights on. 'Course, even if you're blind you should be able to sense the sheer magnetism of—hey," the Cat said, atypically interrupting his discourse about his favorite subject: himself. "Where is goalpost head?"

"He's right in front of you."

"No, he isn't!"

Lister turned around. "Yes, he is; he was just—" Lister strained his eyes in the darkness. No… no Rimmer-like forms there. Instinctively, he felt under the table; no, in the crisis, the hologram hadn't taken refuge under there, either. Then he shook his head. He wouldn't know for sure, would he? He couldn't touch Rimmer, anyway. "Hey, Holly—where's Rimmer?"

"He's right there," Holly said.

"Holly," Lister countered with just a touch of annoyance in his voice, "he's not over here, and he's not over there. He isn't anywhere!"

"According to all the available data, Arnold Rimmer is sitting on his bunk." Holly electronically sniffed in offense.

"Well, then, why can't we see 'im?"

"Gee, I dunno," she said with a bit of sarcasm, "maybe it has something to do with the lights being out."

"But you said they weren't out!" Lister replied. The lights flickered again.

"Hey!" Cat exclaimed suddenly, "here he is!"

Lister looked. Sure enough, there was Rimmer, sitting on his bunk—and then, as the lights flickered again, he was gone. When the lights came on, albeit dimly, Rimmer re-appeared, rather translucently, and still gibbering, but this time Lister couldn't make out any of the words. "Buhzitzka, slubbadivvabit," he said to no one in particular.

"What's he sayin'?" Cat asked. The lights flickered. Rimmer disappeared again.

Lister shrugged a guess. "Goodbye?"