Hi, sorry it has taken so long for this chapter to come online. I hope it was worth the wait. Krytens day continues.
16:00hrs Laundry Room
"Right that's Mr Listers laundry all sorted, now what's next?" said Kryten as he scanned his internal daily task list.
Shopping trip – Complete with some emotional loss
Breakfast – Complete
Morning Laundry – Incomplete due to mechanical failure
Cleaning Duty C Deck - Complete
Lunch – Skipped due to ship wide alert
Afternoon Laundry – Complete
Systems repair slot – Not started
Prep Dinner for Mr Lister and Mr Cat – Not Started
Downtime – Not Started
Additional
Listerslife lessons (Warning ensure spare boot disk is with you, in case of system lock)
Rimmer Assignment – Not started (OVERDUE)
Kryten saw that Mr Rimmerstask was overdue and tutted. He really must get round to this task sooner or later, however the thought of trawling around the ship with Mr Rimmer in tow did nothing for his circuits. Rimmer had informed him that they must count the number of ship-wide inlet vents and frankly he didn't know why Mr Rimmer hadn't just asked Holly. After all it was surely on the ships database, but Rimmer had been very firm, and insisting that the task was of up most importance to ship wide safety. Kryten thought about the last time he had pointed out that the vents were a trivial part of the overall ships maintenance and they should in fact be insuring that the ships release valves had no pressure was building up to dangerous levels. Rimmer had been most rude telling him to go stick his head down a waste unit. Kryten had made a mental note to thank Mr Lister because if it was not for Mr Listers and his life lessons he would have dually done as Mr Rimmer had requested.
Life lessons had stretched his programming far beyond that of his off the shelf remit. He was now working with Mr Lister on something called sarcasm and was looking forward to today's lesson.
He decided to take his system repair slot, and walked back to his closet.
He opened the door to his closet and entered the small room that was allotted to him, well it was a stretch calling it a room, some estate agents might of used he words 'Micro boutique.' But he called it home.
"OH look who's swaggered back in lads, its Mr fancy human friend's himself." grumbled spare head three.
Kryten ignored him and decided to sit. Kryten had no need to sit but he liked the notion and so parked his plastic behind down on the small stool he had acquired from B deck.
He turned and addressed spare head two. "I need some help with my repair program, do you mind?" he asked holding the small cable out in front of spare head two.
"OH very well, but if you cleared down some of those useless files you hold in that head of yours we would not have to go through this process every month." Said Spare head two as Kryten released the flip top catch and plugged the lead into the now exposed socket just inside spare head twos skull.
"There not useless, you're just jealous because they are in my head not yours." Said Kryten.
"What would I want with a load of information on 20th Century pop art?" stated Spare head two scanning Krytens files.
"Mr Lister say's it will help me with my rebellious training and as it happens I quite like it." Said Kryten.
Spare head three chipped in. "What all that squiggly nonsense and splashing colours about crap, look lad in my day we knew how to do art. Get a naked 3000 series in the room and perform a deep scan, now that's art!" said spare head three with a far off gaze on his screwed up face.
"Look can we just get on with this please, I have a very busy afternoon?" said Kryten getting all flustered at the time this was taking.
"Alright Alright keep your modem on." Said spare head two.
The process didn't take long and while Kryten waited for the system alert to tell him that all had finished he practiced something else Mr Lister had been teaching him, he began to day dream.
Kryten thought about his adventures back on the Nova 5, oh those were the days. He pictured the three girls sitting around the table, each laughing and chatting. One time they had even let him sit in on a game of twister but that had not lasted very long. They had asked him to not play anymore after he fell on NAME giving her a broken leg in the process.
His system blipped up a complete message, snapping him out of his day dream.
"Oh good, another months clean up finished." Said Kryten unplugging spare head two.
"So I guess you're be buggering back off to your swanky panky friends again and leaving us here alone." Said spare head three.
"Look you both know, I have duties to perform and I will be back later." Said Kryten getting up.
A message alert blipped up on his small closet vid screen, it was Rimmer.
"Kryten, I've got a job for you, meet me in the drive room pronto." Said Rimmer, blipping back off the screen without waiting for a reply.
"Oh bother, I am just never going to get my duties finished today." Tutted Kryten, stepping outside and heading for the nearby lift.
1700hrs Drive Room
Kryten walked into the room and immediately noticed that Mr Rimmerwas pacing the room with an air of worry about his person.
"Arrhh Kryten it's you." Said Rimmer noticing him enter.
"Well yes sir, you did asked me to come straight away." Said Kryten secretly dreading the trivial task Rimmer had made up for him this time.
"I want you to come with me." Said Rimmer walking out the other exit to the room.
Kryten duly followed the Hologram out.
A while later they arrived outside Mr Rimmers sleeping quarters and Rimmer ushered him in.
Inside Rimmer stood in the middle of the room his hands linked behind his back while he rocked on the heels of his hologramatic shoes. "Do you see that?" he said looking to the far side of the room.
Kryten scanned the room, everything looked normal.
"I am sorry sir but I don't see anything?" he stated.
Rimmers arm snapped out from behind his back and pointed to the open storage locker. "That." He simply said as if Kryten should know what he was referring too.
"The locker sir, is there a problem?" Said Kryten not seeing any obvious problem with the standard issue crew locker.
"Problem, I should say so, just look at it." Said Rimmer.
"At what sir, it's a standard issue locker, I believe yours sir." Said Kryten still clueless.
"Yes Yes I know but look closer." Pressed Rimmer.
Kryten walked over and leant in for a closer look at the locker.
"Well what can you see, huh, it's a travesty and a complete lack of respect for senior personnel." Said Rimmer.
"Well your underpants are still all nice and neat and on their little hangers sir. Is there a problem with your pants?" asked Kryten putting extra emphasis on the word pants.
"No there is not. It's open!" said Rimmer again expecting this revelation to explain everything.
"I can see that sir. Would you like me to close it?" Said Kryten
"No, well yes!" said Rimmer himself now sounding slightly confused. "I want you to put a lock on it for me. That smegger has been in there again. God knows what he expects to find, he had been through it enough times." Said Rimmer.
"A lock, what happened to the old one sir?" said Kryten.
"He broke it." Said Rimmer accusingly.
"Who Mr Lister?" asked Kryten.
"Yes look at it, all my worldly things just open for anybody to steal." Said Rimmer pointing at the open locker.
"Sir I fail to see who would want to steal your pants, the Cat would not go near them and Mr Lister stopped wearing them some years back, and I have no use for them. Frankly it's just a set of pants." Said Kryten.
"To you just pants Kryten but to me they are the last link to my real body." Said Rimmer passionately.
"If you say so sir, I'll just pop out and get a new lock for you." Said Kryten leaving Rimmer standing guard over his locker and precious pants.
1730hrs Engineering deck
Kryten searched his fourteenth draw, still not locating any locks suitable for the job. "Oh bother, where are those blasted things." He said getting flustered again.
He tried another and stopped. He looked closer and something told him there was something more in this draw than the pencil sharpener and the novelty rubber but he could not see it. He pulled his spare Psi scanner from his on board storage unit and scanned the draw.
"Oh it's you." He said to the apparently empty draw.
"Well what are you doing in here?" he asked the empty space.
At that moment the Cat danced into the room. "AWwwooow how am I looking." He stopped pulled a small silver mirror out and looked into it. "I am sharp, in fact so sharp you could use me to split the atom baby, AWwwoooow." He said going into another spin
He finally stopped and noticed Kryten. "Hey, what you doing?" he asked.
"I'm talking to this draw sir." Said Kryten
"The draw, why?" enquired the Cat.
"Well it seems I have found the nanobots sir." Said Kryten.
"Nano what?" replied the Cat looking puzzled.
"You remember the little fella's that reanimated Red-Dwarf and the crew." Said Kryten.
"Oh those little fellas, well I want to have a word with them myself, they put me through hell all that orange jump suit wearing in the Tank, I still can't bring myself to go near my orange spandex collection, I think I'm scared for life." Said the Cat in an angry yet pathetic tone.
"OH I am sure they didn't mean for that to happen sir." Said Kryten.
The Cat moved next to Kryten and peered into the empty looking draw.
"Hey you! You owe me some suits for what you did." He said to the space in the draw.
Krytenalso moved his head next to the Cats both looking into the draw. "They say they are sorry, and that you look sharp." Said Kryten looking from the draw to Cat.
"Well that very well may be true, but what about my lovely suits, these little suckers changed them from something to nothing, I had to start again, oh my lovely babies." Said the Cat almost in tears.
Kryten translated the message from the nanobots once more. "They say they will make you a new load just as soon as they work out how to get out of this dam draw."
Cat grinned. "Hey that's easy." He placed his mirror down towards the draw. "Hop on fellas we have some tailoring to do." He said removing the mirror after a few seconds and dancing and spinning back out of the room.
"Well I never, now where is those locks." Said Kryten continuing his search.
He located them in the 67th draw the last one on this floor and decided that if the crew ever needed a pencil sharpener they would never be in short supply given that he had found over 200.
1810hrs – Sleeping quarters.
"There Mr Rimmer, all done. Your pants are quite safe now." Said Kryten closing the locker and snapping the lock shut.
Rimmereyed the lock with suspicion. "Are you sure it's going to be him proof?" he asked.
"Sir, this lock could withstand a small Bolivian navy attack." Said Kryten.
Lister walked in. "Brutal sarcasm Kryters those lessons are paying off."
"Indeed sir." Said Kryten.
Rimmerglared at them both and left them alone.
"What's up Kryts?" asked Lister inspecting the new lock on Rimmers locker..
"Not a lot sir, the universes last underpants are now safe back under lock and key." Said Kryten holding out a small key.
Lister held out the new lock having picked it. "What this lock?" he asked.
"Oh bother, please sir, put it back on I spent all afternoon finding that for Mr Rimmer." Pleaded Kryten.
"OK no bother." Said Lister snapping it back shut.
"Oh thank you sir, now if you would excuse me I have to go prepare dinner." Said Kryten.
"Sure whatever, I'm going to watch a vid." Said Lister jumping onto the lower bunk and flicking the vid player on.