A/N: Sorry for the slight delay. I have hit an unexpected snag in my progress with this fic due to feeling the need to catch up with nine serieses of a new fandom, but I hope to get some work done on this story this week, so here you go with the next chapter. Hope you are still enjoying it!


VII. Revealing Rimmer

Rimmer waited until his alter ego had definitely left, locking the door behind him, before he rolled to his side to face the screen and call on Holly again. He still found it a bit strange to see him back in his male form – he had gotten used to having a female computer around.

"So you've told him, have you," Holly said by a way of greeting.

"Can I just have something against the headache, please, Hol?"

"I'm not your mum."

"No, you're not. I would never have asked my mother for headache pills," Rimmer snapped back, missing the Wildfire. "Just do it, would you?"

Holly didn't even seem to hear him – or ignored him deliberately. "There is a way out of this, you know. I could wipe your memory."

Rimmer was silent for a moment, considering. Wipe his memory? Forget all about why the Wildfire was wreck, why ten trillion people and eleven dimensions no longer existed, delete the reason for his guilt and, therefore, the guilt? Ten years ago, he probably wouldn't have hesitated. Just after the accident, he definitely wouldn't have hesitated. Holly had never offered to wipe his memory then – but then, his guilt hadn't been enough to kill him. Forgetting – it would mean being puzzled over the Wildfire's destruction for a while, until she was fixed, deleting all blackbox recordings of the incident, wiping the flight recorder, the repair log of his lightbee, squabbling with Lister, who, though he hadn't asked yet, was bound to, and then – back to being Ace. Back out there, to a life so stressful that Kryten's worry balls would shrivel and die, back to the costume, the wig, the loneliness.

"Stay out of my head, you poor excuse for an AI."

"Oi! No need to get nasty."

"Just leave me be, Holly, all right?"

"Have it your way." And Holly left, without doing anything about the headache.

In the end, Rimmer was forced to climb out of the bed, stumble into the shower cabinet to find the first-aid box and swallow one of the nanite generated painkillers, even though his hologrammatic stomach was less than thrilled at the intake of real food, and then crawl back into bed, pulling the covers smelling of Kryten's favourite washing detergent and Red Dwarf ship issue synthetic over his head.

"Arn? Arnie? Arnooold. Oi, bonehead!"

Arnold jerked out of his slumber, staring at the skylight above his bed – and straight into the leering face of his brother Howard, Frank hovering just behind him. They had broken open the skylight – but that was not the worst bit. The worst bit was that Howard was holding a glass with a very, very large and ugly spider, just ready to tip it over and down onto Arnie's bedsheets. He let out a tiny, undignified squeak and tried to scramble away – but he was tangled up in the sheets and didn't get far.

The spider dropped to the roaring laughter of his brothers. It sat there, just shy of his feet under the covers, stunned, staring at Arnie out of murderous black eyes. The boy had frozen in shock. He had not had any food for two days and had tried to sleep through the pounding headache and growling stomach, but how could he when that… thing was in the room. He stared, breath coming in short, sharp gasps, until he was full out hyperventilating, his brothers' laughter echoing eerily in his ears.

Then Howard dropped the glass, squishing the spider then and there – and they were gone. Arnie bit his lip until it bled to stop the scream dead in his throat, then scooted out of the bed, eyes fixed on the disgusting black splotch on his favourite sheets. He took his pillow with him and retreated into the furthest corner of the room, hugging the pillow, and unable to take his eyes off the… thing, not trusting it to be dead, his skull pounding with a headache that made his eyes water.

And suddenly, the spider rose off the sheets – twice, thrice, ten times as large as it had been, mandibles clicking as it advanced on Rimmer, who cowered in the far corner of the cargo hold, blocking its access to the only door into the station. He cradled his gun, knowing there was only one bullet left, and having no idea where to hit that horrible mutant GELF to put all other GELFs to shame. Susan was chattering away in his head, something about the exoskeleton – but he could hardly hear her over the rushing of blood in his ears. He took aim as the… thing scuttled closer and fired. The spider burst apart – bits and pieces scattering into all directions, sharp shards of chitin bouncing off his hard light form as he tried to shield his face with his arms.

And then – everything around him exploded in the dizzying whirl of a dimension jump – only it wasn't. Lilac shards of matter, bits and pieces of dimensions, shot around him, not touching, but each fragment cutting into his innards as though someone had stuck a knife into his lightbee, and his head was splitting with a tearing sound, and finally he screamed and screamed and screamed-

"For smeg's sake, Rimmer! Holly, do something! Wake him up!"

"I can't do that, Dave – I don't have access to his lightbee!"

Lister shook Rimmer by the shoulders again, and yelled straight into the hologram's ear: "Rimmer! Wake up!"

Finally, Rimmer shot upright, nearly butting Lister on the head – his eyes were wide with panic, his mouth still open for a scream which never came. Rimmer swallowed it down with a hiccough as he became aware of his surroundings, his features in control once more though he could not banish the haunted look entirely, his eyes glistening, jaw set and lips pressed together. He averted his gaze.

"What's going on!?" Cat burst into the room, Kryten hot on his heels. They both took in the scene with a single glance – how couldn't they. The room was not very large, nor were there any models dancing the hula in a corner to distract them from Rimmer, sitting on the bunk with hunched shoulders, and Lister, kneeling by his side, the hand that he had used to shake Rimmer awake resting on the mattress as if he wanted to place a comforting hand on the other man's arm but didn't.

"Hey, Toilet Brush Head! That's Ace's room. What are you doing in here?"

Rimmer shot the Cat a glare that was just the slightest bit shaky.

"Mr Rimmer, sir," Kryten began, then his gaze caught on Rimmer's red dressing gown. "Oh, sir – I don't recall washing that gown for you before – didn't you want me to starch it?"

"Oh, shut up, you animated vacuum cleaner," Rimmer said with fervour, which earned him another one of those odd looks from Lister.

"No, seriously." The Cat waved his hand about, his numerous rings glittering fetchingly. "We heard screaming. What's going on?"

"I had a smegging nightmare, that's what's going on! Now leave me alone."

Lister nudged his arm. "Come on, let's get back to the bunkroom. I'm sure Ace won't mind." He placed a bit of undue emphasis on Ace, but Rimmer got his meaning, locking a slightly desperate gaze with him before he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

"Lister? What's going on?" They all stared at nano-Rimmer as he walked in, most certainly not Ace. He instantly looked as though he wanted to sink through the floor. "Oh."

Kryten popped out his eyes, polishing them, before squeaking them back into his eye sockets and staring, open-mouthed. Cat just stared, his head oscillating from one Rimmer to the other. "That's Toilet Brush Head – I can tell from his smell." Cat jabbed a thumb towards nano-Rimmer, completely ignoring the glare. "Then he must be – Alphabet Head? But he died! And where is Ace?"

"I am Ace, you simple-minded feline," Rimmer snapped, not caring at all for the blank look that earned him.

"No seriously, why'd you bring him back? And where's Ace?"

Rimmer got to his feet. Enough was enough. "Would you try to understand, you narcissistic moron? I. Am. Ace."

"No seriously-"

Right, that was it. He couldn't stand this for one more minute or he'd snap. "Look, I'm not going to wait around until you've figured it out. You can do that on your own, or maybe Lister will enlighten you. You will be relieved you won't have to waste valuable napping time by showing me your stupid suits. I'm not going to stick around." He brushed past the three men at the door, stalking away down the corridor, never mind that he was not even wearing shoes, just the white socks that came with his pyjamas.

"Rimmer, wait!" Lister called after him, but the hologram did not even pause. Lister looked at the other Rimmer, who understood instantly. With a soft "right", he also turned and followed his alter ego down the corridor.

Kryten and Cat stared after them until they had disappeared around a corner, then looked back at Lister. The human sighed. "Look, I'll try and explain."

~oOo~

"Come again?"

"Cat, how many times? Ace died, and Rimmer took his place. I've been telling you – this has been going on for ages."

"I get that. Ace dies, and another Ace takes over."

"That's right."

"So what happened to him, and where did Alphabet Head come from? Didn't we drop his lightbee off in space?"

Lister groaned. "Listen – last time Ace visited us, he died. Rimmer became 'im. 'e became Ace. And now 'e's back, only there are now two of them, because the nanites resurrected Rimmer along with the rest of the crew of Red Dwarf."

"So what happened to Ace?"

"Cat!" Lister ground his teeth. He could swear the Cat was being deliberately obtuse sometimes. "Ace is Rimmer. Rimmer became Ace. He is Ace. They are one and the same."

Kryten let out a strange, high pitched giggle, which earned him a glare from Lister. The mechanoid instantly shut himself up and looked ashamed. "I am sorry, Mr Lister. It is just such an extraordinary outlandish concept to grasp. Mr Rimmer becoming Ace – really, sir. Such a great joke."

"I'm not kiddin' ye! Rimmer is Ace. That's why he was in Ace's room, in Ace's bunk, because he is Ace!"

"Now come on, bud. This is not funny anymore."

"'m not kiddin'!"

"Seriously? Alphabet Head? Are we talking about the same guy? You can't expect me to believe that, buddy."

Lister stood up, annoyed. "Sometimes I think Rimmer is right about you two, you know." And he walked out on them, leaving the cat and the mechanoid sitting in their chairs, stunned.

~oOo~

Rimmer found Ace – well, Rimmer – where he had expected to find him – in the very same place he always went to when he needed to think since they had free reign of Red Dwarf: the Observation Dome. The hologram had changed his clothes somewhere along the line, or asked Holly to change them, however that worked for holograms, and was now wearing a brim, blue military style tunic Rimmer himself could have gotten used to instead of his greyish brown ship issue uniform, and was staring out into space, hands dangling uselessly by his sides. He looked horrible – almost as bad as when Holly had first rebooted him.

"Hey," Rimmer said, and then had no idea how to go on.

Holo-Rimmer turned around to face him, leaning against the safety railings and crossing his arms. "Hey."

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened back there. I'd heard screaming and I thought-"

The other Rimmer shrugged. "It's okay. I had no idea how to explain you taking my place anyway."

"I haven't decided yet."

"Yes, you have, m'laddo. Who are you kidding?"

Rimmer didn't know how to reply to that. "How do you even do the voice?"

'Ace' raised an eyebrow, wrinkling his nose. "Of all the things you could ask me, that's the first you could think of?"

"It's important, isn't it?"

"Yes – but you just do it like we always do. And Susan always has soothers for your throat, if you need them."

"Who is she, then?"

"Oh, the Wildfire's computer. She doesn't really have a name, but it's easier than calling her 'computer' all the time."

"Susan," Rimmer said, trying it out. It sat easily on his tongue.

'Ace' was watching him with a thoughtful expression, it was disquieting.

"Is there nothing you can do about the pain? You look horrible."

Holo-Rimmer seemed surprised for a moment that his alter ego could tell, but he caught himself quickly. "I'll go back to sleep once the excitement has blown over. It should give my lightbee a bit of time to repair some of the damage, bring my T-count back down."

"You could have the bunk – you know, my bunk. I wouldn't mind. And I won't bother you. I wanted to get some revision done, anyway."

'Ace' nodded. "Thanks."
"It's a shame you're dying, really. I think we could really get along."

"No, believe me, it's better this way. Me and me – that never really worked out."

"But I will meet other Rimmers in other dimensions?"

"Oh yes. Beware of the female one. She is disgusting."

"Female Rimmers?"

"Just stay away from her."

~oOo~

Lister headed straight for the bunkroom, which he found locked with the code Rimmer and he used to keep the Cat and Kryten out. He let himself in, and came face to face with two Rimmers, one curled up on the bottom bunk, the other sitting at the table, an astronavigation book laid out before him and a finger pressed to his lips. "Be quiet, Listy. You don't want to wake him."

Lister dropped his hat on the table and slid into a chair. "I don't know what's gotten into Kryten and the Cat. They are bein' complete smegheads about this."

"What were you expecting?"

"Well, they could show some understanding for once."

Rimmer scoffed. "Seriously? A crash dummy and an inbred furball?"

"What's got you into such a good mood?"

"Look, Listy, why don't you go on and repair the Wildfire, eh? Then all our problems will be over."

"Hang on – which Rimmer are ye?"

Rimmer looked honestly startled. "You mean you can't tell?"

"Of course I can't smeggin' tell! You are identical!"

"No, we're not."

"Yes, you are. Smeggin' identical. If I didn't know one of you was the hologram and the other alive, there would be no tellin' you apart."

"But I have completely different memories to him!"

"Yeah, and how am I supposed to see that, man?"

"Look, if you want to keep fighting about whether it is possible to tell us apart, could you do it more quietly? I am trying to catch some sleep," the Rimmer on the bunk spoke up, shifting to his back.

"Sorry, Rimmer." Lister looked over at him. "Smeg, Rimmer, you look horrible. What's wrong, man? And don't say you're fine, because I can tell you aren't."

Rimmer moved an arm up to rest his head on the hand, settling more comfortable into the pillows. "It's just a headache, Listy."

"Didn't know you got those. Didn't know you got nightmares, either."

"Of course I get nightmares!" the Rimmer on the desk protested. "Do you think a lifetime of being bullied and failing at everything of importance isn't going to cause nightmares?"

Lister's glance travelled between them, feeling as though he was talking to some kind of optical illusion and half expecting to find the real, single Rimmer somewhere between them. "No, but you've never screamed before – and you sounded really terrified, too."

Both Rimmers remained silent, bearing identical expressions of mild discomfiture and shame.

"Would you smeggin' stop that? Ye're driving me crazy. Right, which one of you is Ace?"

"I am," they both said, at the same time, without even a second's hesitation from either of them.

Lister was about ready to tear out his hair, but the two Rimmers seemed to find it hilarious, both wearing the same stupid grin on their faces, with the exception, perhaps, of the fact that Lister could see the eyes of the Rimmer sitting opposite him sparkle mischievously while the other had his eyes closed. "Very clever, Rimmer. Now stop it before I get Holly to turn you into soft light."

Bunk-Rimmer sighed. "Very well, Listy, though it is not like he could, anyway."

"Why not?"

"I've made some improvements on the lightbee over the years. When it is at full power, it is completely independent from any computer mainframe. Holly can't mess with it unless I let him. It has been quite useful out there."

"You made improvements on your lightbee? How?"

"The Wildfire is perfectly capable of fully hosting a hard light hologram – didn't you know?"

"No, man. I've really been concentrating on getting the AI back up – perhaps there are automated repair mechanisms."

Rimmer nodded. "There are. Anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah – get some rest, and stay away from Cat and Kryten. They've flipped, man – they are simply refusing to accept that you are Ace."

"Is that so strange?" nano-Rimmer asked. "Even I wouldn't believe it."

"Yeah, but they practically saw it with their own eyes. Besides, it is not like they are going to meet Ace if they walk around the ship now."

"Didn't you say Holly had uploaded the blackbox recordings?"

"Yeah?"

"Mind if I take a look?"

"You know the password?"

"Of course I know the smegging password. I'm Ace – or had you forgotten."

"Don't be like that, Rimmer."

"Just pass me that tablet thing, would you?" Rimmer held out his hand for the electronic reader his alter ego had been using to read in bed, even though it had originally found its way into their room while Rimmer had been a soft light hologram because it could be voice controlled.

Lister would never have stooped to playing fetch for Rimmer, but the hologram look so pale and worn that he decided to indulge him for once.

"The headphones as well, Listy. You don't need to hear this."

"No, but I want to, man! Your visit is the most exciting' thing that has 'appened in weeks!"

"Be that as it may, Lister, I cannot allow you to hear this. This is for the eyes of Aces only."

"What, the sound of you wanking away alone in your bunk?"

"Yes, let's stoop to lame jokes about my sex life, why don't we. Of course not, you moron! There is sensitive information in those blackbox recordings! Top secret information. Why do you think they were password protected in the first place?"

"For the same reason you hide your diary in the A-Z of Red Dwarf?"

Nano-Rimmer slammed his book down on the table. "How does he know that?!"

"Because he's read it. Aloud. To the Cat," Holo-Rimmer explained, hooking up the tablet to the connection socket in the wall of the bunk with the cables that came with it.

"Oi, you don't have to look so scandalised! You've read mine!" Lister told nano-Rimmer.

"Yes, but at least I had the common decency to do it sneakily behind your back!"

"That's what I said." Holo-Rimmer settled the tablet onto his knees. "Holly, can you patch the blackbox recordings through to the reader for me, please?"

"You got it, Arn."

"Thanks muchly."

Lister watched Rimmer punch away on the tablet, finding it incredibly strange that he actually seemed to know what he was doing, even though he was still doing it in a very Rimmer-like way. "Rimmer?"

"Hm?"

"I've been meanin' to ask – do ye enjoy bein' Ace, then? I mean I know you hate the wig and the voice an' all that, but do you enjoy it? You seem pretty eager to get back to it."

"Oh, it's fan-smegging-tastic, Listy. Just dandy. The excitement, the women – oh, the women! You wouldn't believe some of the things I've seen, Listy." Rimmer had never even looked up from the screen, and now proceeded to pluck in the headphones. "Right, here we go. I just need to check something."

Lister looked over to the other Rimmer, who hurriedly burrowed his nose in the astronavigation book. Lister shrugged and decided to leave them to it. He needed to sort things with Cat and Kryten, anyway.