Lister stared at Holly's face on the television in barely concealed shock. One minute, his landlady had been in the kitchen talking with him, and now she was just a head on a screen.
"You all right, Dave?" the head asked concernedly.
"How the hell are you doing that?" Lister demanded, leaning over the back of the sofa to squint his eyes in confusion.
Holly let out a low whistle. "Well, it wasn't easy, I'll tell you that much. We had to patch me through to just the right frequency to link with your mind properly…"
"Where are you now? You were here just a second ago!"
"Was I?" She seemed surprised.
"Of course you were! You were eating ice cream!"
"Was I indeed? How fascinating…"
Lister jumped over the couch and gripped both sides of the TV, looking at the image closely, trying to get a better look. "Where are you now?"
"I'm on Red Dwarf."
"…What? But Red Dwarf's not real! It's just a ship in my dreams!"
"Yeah, it is. Don't worry. Kryten and I have been working on a few theories. We think we've just about got it sussed."
"How can you be working on theories if you're just a dream?" Before she could answer, Lister turned away from the TV in frustration. "Oh, why am I talking to you? I'm dreaming right now, aren't I? This whole thing is a nightmare!"
"Yeah, it is," agreed Holly.
Lister stopped and looked back in confusion. "Eh?" he asked, wishing he'd thought of something a bit more intelligent.
"This whole thing is a nightmare. Nothing is real."
"…You too? First Dr Curo, and now you? Holly, for god's sake, what is going on?"
"This whole thing isn't real. This life, this flat, even the people – they're all fakes."
Lister swallowed heavily, gripping an end table as he leaned against it. "What the hell are you talking about? How can it be fake?"
"Well, to roll out an old chestnut of mine – you're hallucinating."
"I… I am not…"
"Oh, yeah? Watch this…" Holly suddenly vanished from screen.
Lister stared with confusion at the screen, and once he was certain she wasn't coming back, he looked around the room worriedly. And then a voice came from the kitchen that made him jump.
"Oi! Dave? Where'd you go?"
He turned around and stuck his head in the kitchen, stunned to see Holly standing in the middle of the room, looking at him in confusion. "Hol?"
"Where'd my ice cream go?" she asked, before spotting it on the counter. "Oh, there it is," she said, picking it up again. "I must be getting a bit senile."
But Lister was still shocked. "Holly, how'd you do that?"
"How'd I do what?" she asked, scooping another mouthful ice cream into her mouth.
"You… You were just… You were on the TV just now…"
Holly raised an eyebrow. "Was I? Now…when you say I was on the TV…what exactly do you mean by that?"
"I mean you were on TV! Your face was on the screen and everything!"
"When?"
"Just now!"
"…You sure it was me?"
"Of course I'm sure!"
"…Okay, what was I doing?"
"You were talking to me!"
Holly looked at him for a long moment, looking understandably skeptical. "I was talking to you?"
"Yeah!"
"Through the TV?"
"Yeah!"
"…Dave, I think you should eat more sprouts. I think all those curries are finally turning your brain into mutton."
Lister leaned against the doorframe and let out a hiss of frustration. "Holly… I don't think you're the only one going senile," he sighed, rubbing his temples.
Holly tutted and patted his shoulder. "Never mind," she said kindly. "Just try and get some sleep. Maybe that'll – "
But she never finished her sentence. All Lister heard after that was the sound of the ice cream carton and spoon once again hitting the floor with a clatter. He stared down at the mess in a stupor.
Almost as if in a trance, he left the kitchen and headed straight for the TV, where he saw a familiar blonde-lined face waiting for him.
"You believe me now?" the Holly on the screen asked.
"How are you doing that?" he demanded.
"It's my presence in this dream. Apparently, whenever one of us appears in this world, our counterpart in the dreamscape is cancelled out. We're not exactly clear as to how, but apparently we can't all exist at the same time as each other. It's a bit like the mirror universe, in that respect…"
"Holly…," Lister sighed, rubbing his head tiredly. "What the hell is going on? This is a dream?"
"Yes, it is."
"Why am I dreaming it?"
"The rogue simulant that shot you. It fired some sort of hallucinogenic dart into your forehead that infiltrated your mind. Your bloodstream was infected, and we've been keeping you in the medical unit all this time. We've been trying to keep you going all this time, but it's been touch and go. We raided the derelict and found data on the drug, and we've been working for some time to try and find a cure. We've managed to conjure it up and inject you with it, but the drug is pretty strong."
"So let me get this straight…," Lister said slowly. "You're saying that my life on a spaceship is real? I really am the last human being alive in a godless universe with only you guys for company?"
"Yeah, it's good, innit?" Holly grinned cluelessly.
But Lister was still stunned. "But…but what about my life here? I mean I have a job here. I can go places. I can hang out. I can meet people…"
"Dave, the drug does more than make you hallucinate. It's killing you right now. We've been trying to get into your dreams to warn you. We hooked you up to the scanner in the medi-bay, and we've been taking turns trying get here."
Lister's mind flitted back to a few days ago when he'd been trying to repair a vending machine and Rimmer had dropped some papers… "Rimmer tried to get in here at one point, didn't he?"
"Yes. We tried hooking his personality disk to the medical unit, and we transmitted his signal into your mind. He couldn't get a good grip. Apparently the drug forced him out again."
"And then Kryten tried?"
"Yeah, it was after we administered the cure. It's still in your system, but you've got to let it help you."
"But how do I do that?"
"Your body has been fighting it. You've got to accept it entirely. You've got to let it work."
"But how? How do I control it?"
"Talk to Dr Curo. He can help you."
Lister stared at her incredulously. "But the appointment's in a week! If I'm dying from some sort of drug, how can I afford to wait a week?"
"Who says you need to wait? This is a dream, Dave. You can take control of it. Maybe not the whole thing, but parts of it anyway. How about, say, time manipulation?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just focus on next week. Put all your attention on next week."
Lister blinked. "Next week?"
"That's right. You want it to be next week. Focus on next week."
"…Next week…"
Still somewhat reeling from the news that his life was a lie, Lister focused.
Next week…
Next week…
Next week, next week, next week, next week, next week next week next week next week …
"Are you coming or not?" Rimmer demanded.
Lister's eyes sprang open and he turned in shock.
Rimmer was waiting impatiently at the doorway, wearing his jacket and tapping his foot, jingling his car keys. The storm from earlier had apparently passed. Now it was a clear day with the sun shining down.
His eyes flitted to the TV. The screen was blank. Holly was gone.
"Your appointment is in half an hour. You don't want to be late, do you?" Rimmer asked, raising an annoyed eyebrow.
Lister shook his head distantly. "No, man, sorry. Just…thought I saw something. Let's go." And he followed the other man out the door to the car.
Forty-five minutes later, Lister was sitting in the waiting room again. His mind was still racing. This was a dream? The whole thing was a dream?
He glanced at the clock. If this was a dream, why was he just sitting around for three quarters of an hour, waiting for his psycho psychiatrist to turn up? If he could make an entire week go by in the blink of an eye, surely he could make this torture over with in a few seconds.
But he didn't feel like it. It felt like cheating, somehow. There was something nice about the monotony.
He tried to conjure images of his true reality – the reality where was the last human and his only companions were a cat, a hologram, a computer, a robot and a parallel version of his girlfriend. But he was finding it very difficult to do. He struggled with the few memories he could think of, but he just couldn't manage it. It was like they were locked behind some sort of door that he didn't have the key to…
Whatever this drug was, it was trying to make him forget about it…
"Dave Lister?"
He looked up at his name and started at the sight of Dr Curo smiling at him from the door across the room.
"I'm ready for you, Dave," he said.
Lister nodded dumbly and stood up following him towards his office. He was offered the chance to go in before him, and he took it. He stuck his head inside and saw the room hadn't changed since the last time he was here. He warily sat down on the couch again, and he waited for the other man to sit down, taking note that he left the door unlocked.
Of course, this was a dream. That didn't mean that the door was unlocked.
Dr Curo sat down and smiled at him as he took out his clipboard and pen, proceeding to write down some notes on a form. "Well, here we are again, Dave," he said pleasantly. "Goodness, this past week just flew past, didn't it?"
Lister stared at him. "…Seriously?" he asked.
"Have you thought about what I told you before, Dave?" he continued.
"Yeah, I have. This is a dream, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is. You had a nice chat with Holly earlier, didn't you?"
"Yeah…"
"Then you understand what is at stake."
"I'm dying."
"Yes, and I'm trying to help you."
"So what do we do?"
"I'm afraid that there's nothing much I can actually do myself, Dave," Dr Curo replied. "I can only assist, and I assure you that I intend to do so in any way that I possibly can. However, if you want to get out of here, it must be you who does it."
"But I don't understand! If this has been a dream, and you knew about it, why didn't you try to tell me last time?"
"I wasn't supposed to. I only do what I'm programmed to do."
Lister's eyebrows met in a head-on collision over his nose. "You what?"
"I only do what I'm programmed to do," Curo repeated, slower this time.
"…What are you? What the hell are you?"
"Well, it's all in the name, isn't it?"
"What's that?"
"Curo – Latin for 'cure'."