-1Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans

Chapter 23: Bexley

Summary: Bexley finally remembers.

Warnings: Language, violence, apparent character death, explicit sexual situations, Ace/Bexley

Beta: Rack

Chapter Rating: MA(18 )

(ooo)

Chapter 24: Bexley

(ooo)

"You know." Ace stared at James steadily. He was in completely new territory now. He'd never before got to the point of being found out. "How?"

"I suspected. As you know Nelsen was a sexual monster of the most depraved sort. Funny that." James shrugged. "When I first met him he was bland as a primary school health class. But the fear vaccine makes us all bloom." He sipped his beer. "You shouldn't have chosen a personality you didn't have the stomach to emulate. As soon as Nelsen stopped… well, forcing himself on his staff… I knew something was up. I didn't know, at first, if Nelsen hadn't contracted some sort of groinal malaise or if he'd somehow been replaced. So I decided to test you—with your other self." James folded his arms.

Ace clapped. "Congrats. You got me."

"Do you think you were ever some sort of threat?"

"I'm not your enemy." Ace replied, feeling about a couple billion dimensions worth of tired.

"Oh yes. You're right in a military sense. You have no resources to oppose me in any effective way, yet—" James looked up at Ace. "I find myself unable to kill you."

"I have been told I'm quite a hassle to kill."

James' lips quirked against his glass. "Not what I meant, and you know it."

Ace offered a lopsided smile. "We share so much in common. You want to destroy the universe. I want to save it. I'd say that's a start to a beautiful… er… antagonism."

"Why do you care?" James asked.

"About what? Saving the universe. Because I'm an all-around great guy and somebody to look up to."

James sat down in an overstuffed chair. "I think we are the similar, you and I. Driven by the same desire not to be attached to anything. Yet impotent to stop it."

Ace's fingers twitched. "What's your point?"

"Why do you want to save a cesspit of a mistake populated by psychotic Agnoids, stagnant holograms and increasingly monstrous GELFs?"

"Why do you want to destroy it?"

"I looked into the world and touched its emptiness." James' stared out his view screen. "What is there left to do?"

"I thought you were driven by the desire not to be attached." Ace folded his arms over his chest.

"That too. I suppose everything any of us say is just justification for our base psychological processes." James shoulders slumped. He looked defeated, even in triumph.

Ace squinted at James. "I've never been able to see the Lister in you."

"I'm the Lister that gave up trying to find a connection to anything."

"Ah. Post-modern ennui Lister. Must collect the whole set," Ace grunted. "So, at the risk of cutting this fascinating discussion short, could you skip to the part where you explain what evil thing you're going to do with me?"

James chuckled softly. "You bloom, of course." He pressed his control and the surveillance footage fast-forwarded to a still of Rimmer's face as Ace choked him. He was at the edge of terror. Ace, on the other hand, looked… excited.

Ace paled.

James turned away. "For centuries of your time I used you to kill with kindness. All to poke the dimensions in the right direction. My direction. And as they winked out, one by one, I watched you age and degrade. But I never saw you lose yourself. I'm amazed to see you now, two hundred years after I wore you out like a cheap shoe, still somewhat yourself. But patience does pay… the bud ripens, ready to burst."

Ace stared at James's hands, unable to look at anything else.

James's hands twitched. His voice was low. "Did it tear you up inside, being with me instead of him?"

Ace glanced up. James looked torn as he compulsively fiddled with his glass it till it was equidistant from each side of the table. He poured another pint and downed it. "I'm giving you Bexley."

Ace's hands fisted at his side. He wanted to wrap his fingers around James and throttle him. But not this time. Not again. Too much was at stake.

James turned, watching Ace with haunted eyes. James' voice hitched, as if his words tumbled out against his will. "Indeed. I wonder how long it will be before you lose yourself and tear one of us apart with your bare hands?"

James' com beeped on his wrist. He brought it up. "Yes?"

The small image on his com spoke. "Sir. There's been an illegal transport off the ship."

"Off the ship? From where?"

"Commander Nelsen's quarters. Whoever did it used a dangerous antique. A matter paddle. I didn't think… I mean, we haven't seen those things for millions of years. I barely stopped them being ionized in the PIE field. I—"

James turned off his com, his eyes closed.

Ace waited.

James carefully picked up his pint glass and threw it against his view screen. It shattered and ale splattered all over James, his desk and his bookcase. James flicked off drops of fluid beading on his suit's arm, took a breath and turned to look at Ace. "No doubt this is the work of your Unionists." James' hands fisted. "Regardless. Your dangerous stunt achieves nothing."

"Is it?" Ace asked.

"My original is coming either way. Here or there. It doesn't matter. It will all end."

Ace's lips quirked. "But there gives your original a chance to slip through your fingers. You forget how many times I've been through this—"

"It doesn't matter!" James brought his fists down on his desk.

Ace said nothing. He watched blood pool under James' fist and kept his face passive.

"But just in case it does…" James picked the glass out of his palm. He glanced up, not looking at Ace. "I suppose I can't completely trust my ship-class Holograms anymore. The whole ship is… threaded with your converts. I know that much." His gaze slipped over to Ace; there was a certain ugly satisfaction in James' eyes. "I'll have to send Company Simulants over. And I'm not responsible for the ungodly mess they will make."

(ooo)

"I'm having trouble locking onto Lister." Kryten tapped the input panel mounted over his groinal attachment. "His signal is moving all over the ship. I'm sorry, ma'am—" Kryten threw his hands up in disgust. "I can't do anything."

Metal screeched against metal. Kochanski turned.

Arnold had sat bolt upright in his cot.

"Arnold?" Kochanski stepped towards him.

"No time!" He barked and jumped up off his cot. He stood, glancing around, stumped by Bob's devastated control room."Where's Lister?"

"We haven't found him yet." Kochanski replied. "We're trying to get hold of his signal."

Rimmer closed his eyes. "He's still on the Silo."

"Yes."

"Keep trying to find him. I'm going to the Wildfire."

"Why?" Kochanski caught his shoulder.

He shrugged out of his grip. "I've got to—"

She stared at him. "We saw what was written on your hand. Kryten figured it out."

"Yes, sir. Bob was kind enough to help with the… er… procurement."

"Bob?" Arnold glared down at the little skutter. "I have to put my trust in a mendacious little pocket calculator on treads once again?" Arnold's nostrils were on full. "Life is never without it's precious little moments."

Bob squealed and did an abrupt three-sixty, running over Arnold's foot and buzzing away. Arnold screeched and bent over double, clutching his foot. He swore then called after Bob, "That hardly hurt you tin rat!"

"What was that about?" Kochanski watched Bob disappear through the doorway.

Arnold ignored her question. "How did you get me back?"

"The matter paddle," Kochanski replied.

Kryten looked up from his scanning to point at the now charred and smoking paddle. "For some reason it shorted out on the way back."

"Because of the PIE field." Rimmer shook his head. "Those things were banned. We're lucky we didn't end up in the middle of a bulk-head or a bit of vaporized carbon in Tween's core."

"Erm," Kryten protested. Kochanski glared at him. "But, sir, we used it multiple times…"

Rimmer blinked at Kryten, his face blank. "Oh, yes. I remember now." He shuddered. "My God, we were lucky. Do you realize the failure statistics on those things? Why do you think that technology was abandoned?"

"You know your stuff," Kochanski said.

Rimmer offered her a look of contempt. "How else do you think I'm going to re-program the Wildfire so Lister can pilot it?"

Kochanski ignored his attitude. "Dave pilot the Wildfire?"

Bob zipped between them, a set of needles in his claw. Arnold took them and held them up to the light. "How do I know this won't kill me? The last time—"

Bob spread his claw wide in a gesture of innocence.

"Right. This should be enough to finish what needs to get done." Arnold pocketed the needles. He stopped, staring. "I have trousers. When did that happen?"

Kochanski blushed. "I, uh, found some. Kryten helped."

Arnold glanced at the wobbly mechanoid and shuddered. "That is the stuff of nightmares."

Kryten didn't seem to take offence. "Are you going to the docking bay, sir?"

"It's where the Wildfire is, isn't it?" Arnold sneered.

Kochanski grimaced. What had she seen in him? Oh right. That was what she had seen in him. She gave Arnold a disapproving look and glanced over Kryten's consol. "Is there any pattern to the signal movements?"

"Good idea, ma'am." Kryten concentrated on the console. "I'm running some comparisons now."

"Right." Arnold stood. "Since Bob hasn't killed me or turned me rabid, I'm off. Ta." He set off towards the door.

Kochanski put her hand on his chest, stopping him. "What are you planning?"

"If Lister can pilot the Wildfire's PIE, we won't be stuck to the StarTransit™ lanes."

"What's the range?"

"Anywhere in the Universe."

(ooo)

Ace pulled himself to his feet and staggered till his hand hit a wall. He'd passed out from the shock of having the voxel-morph pulled out of his spine. His head felt like a disco dance nightmare, a pounding beat behind his eyes and endless visual effects cheese projected on his retinas.

Ace followed the wall to a bed and sat down.

His vision settled into a wobbly groove, and he glanced around himself. He was in one of those awful Space Core regulation bunk-rooms. One indistinguishable from the next. It was close to the external bulkhead, giving it an almost imperceptible and completely disorientating slant. The room was familiar. Cold recognition trickled down his spine.

He glanced at the door. "Door," he said. It remained firmly shut.

Someone started a muffled, mangled version of "Lunar City Seven." Ace glanced over, recognizing the soft hiss as the shower door slid open.

Out popped a wet man with long dreads. He began towelling himself off without even noticing Ace. As he wiped down his dreads, he slammed the heavy house arrest bracelet he wore around his wrist into his forehead. "Ouch!"

Bexley. Ace's throat tightened. He tried to clear it with a cough.

Bexley turned. "Oh, hi. Didn't see you come in." Lister's clone propped his leg up and looked at Ace in bemusement. "What did you do to your hair?"

"What? Hair?" Ace brushed his hand through his locks. He paused, swallowed and rushed Bexley, gathering the man up against his chest. Bexley grunted in surprise. Ace buried his head against Bexley's shoulder, took a deep breath, then pulled him to the bed.

"Woah," Bexley said. "This is a change." He chuckled and ran his fingers through Ace's blond hair. "Weird."

"I love you." Ace breathed into his ear.

"Definitely a change," Bexley replied. "Change for the better, mate."

Ace didn't try to explain. But he did pause.

"What's wrong?" Bexley asked. "Seemed like it was getting goin' an—"

Ace pressed him down kissing him. "It is." Would it still work? Ace caught Bexley's jaw, biting too hard, wanting to press his body into the man.

He continued to bite and lick and scratch; a little rough. Bexley protested with a chuckle – "I knew yeh were a closet perv"—then seemed to reach that stage of arousal when pain dulled and the mind focused.

Ace slipped between Bexley's legs, his trousers open. Bexley stopped him, "We've never—" Then he sat up to fish under his mattress for a bottle of handcream... kept for those nights Bexley'd pretended to be asleep and fooled no-one.

The cream was cold. Ace kissed and rubbed against him till Bexley relaxed. And then he slipped in. "Push down," Ace said.

"I didn't think—" Bexley gasped and curled against Ace.

It seemed almost instantaneous. Bexley grabbed the shoulders of Ace's jacket, indenting the bacofoil. His head was shoved against Ace's shoulder, biting down on a mouthful of uniform. He shuddered. Cum splattered over Bexley's belly.

Ace finished and sat back on his haunches. He pressed his thumbs into his eyes, not saying a word. Hope slid into his chest—and caught—like a fish hook. Would it work?

(ooo)

Kochanski pressed her thumb against the ident-pad and dialled up her authorization code. "Docking bay."

The lift whirred into life. She and Arnold stood, close but not touching.

Rimmer bobbed, rocking onto the balls of his feet, "You know, I was resurrected by Dave… I mean, the real Dave, not the clone. Lister's grandfather. Or his grandson." He shrugged. "He used the PIE to do it." Rimmer grimaced. "He was very attached to me. Or him."

"Yes?"

"The Rimmer that was resurrected in this body remembers that. The Rimmer that was resurrected as a hologram doesn't. It's hard to remember one thing and a completely opposite thing at the same time."

"I can imagine," Kochanski offered.

"Lister doesn't remember," Rimmer continued. "I realize now, why. He's not the original Lister. I thought he was ignoring me for you. I never explained why I was angry." He leaned against the lift wall. "I'm a coward, you see." Rimmer edged away from her, eyes down. "At some level I thought… if he saw you with me, he'd realize you weren't with him. At least that's why, the first time…" He leaned his forehead against the lift wall. "I'm sorry, Kris."

Kochanski swallowed, dry mouthed. "Stop." She held up her hand.

"Why?"

"This sounds like goodbye. And I don't want to hear it."

Rimmer stared at her as if he wanted to say something more. The lift doors opened. They walked through the corridor to the docking bay entrance in silence. Kochanski punched in her authorization code. The two storey doors trundled open.

They remained silent as they walked into the bay towards the Wildfire's docking station. Kochanski couldn't look at Arnold, she was having a hard time breathing around the tight lump in her throat. Her wrist consol beeped. She brought it up, "What's up, Hol?"

"Wait a mo'. Kryten's saying something." Hol turned to look off-screen. "What's that? Oh. Right." He bobbed back to centre. "Kryten's flailin' and yellin' about you getting Rimmer shielded or they're going to find him again. I picked up a scan—"

"Shielded? With what?"

Holly bobbed away. The screen was blank.

Kochanski glanced around the hanger. Blue midgets sat in a row along the near wall, the one under the bay of flight tower stations, an eight-by-twelve grid of pods, all dark except for one in the lower right. In it a flight controller appeared to be slumped over in his chair and under it blinked an emergency station sign.

Kochanski ran towards it. All emergency stations were stocked with lead-lined suits—in case of accidental hard-space exposure.

She thumbed the station open and pulled out the first suit, shoved her shoulder under it and heaved.

It barely folded. But she managed to release the catch and get it moving.

By the time she reached the Wildfire, she was exhausted and shaking. "Arnold!"

He popped his head out from under the Wildfire's fuselage.

"Get this on!" She shoved it at him. "No time to explain!"

He pulled himself up and took it from her hands. Unzipping the back, he stepped in. "Don't know if I can do work in this. It's like doing a tango with three great aunts latched onto both arms and a leg—"

"Look." Kochanski gasped, hands on her knees to keep herself somewhat upright. "Just put it on."

"I'll have to leave the helmet and gloves off."

She waved him away and brought up her wrist consol. "Hol?"

"Sorry 'bout that, Kris. Just a bit of confusion. Kryten said "lead suit" an' I thought he'd said "mad root". Spent five minutes tryin' to call up botanical pest control and tell them the salad is dodgy."

"It's okay now," Kochanski replied, watching Arnold try to wedge fifty pounds of suit—and himself—back under the fuselage. "I figured it out. So what's happening with evil-Lister?"

"Nothing's happened yet, Kris—"

A clang startled her. She glanced back at Arnold. He was staring at a dropped socket wrench and rubbing his jaw.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He shook his head. "I just…" He looked up at her and a ghost of fear crossed his eyes. "I just couldn't remember how to re-wire the fuel injection system. No, not that. I felt like I couldn't do it. Like I'd just screw it up. Don't worry. I got it now." Arnold scooped up his socket wrench and returned to his work.

"This is…" Kochanski swallowed. "It's a bit of a gamble, isn't it?"

Arnold looked up at her. "What? This immunosuppressant thing?" He grinned nastily. "Very much so. Too much and I become a coward. Too little and I'm a monster."

Kochanski backed towards the hanger bay doors, watching Arnold. "I'm going to go help Kryten get Dave back." She glanced at the needles on the floor next to Arnold. "I hope Bob knows what he's doing."

(ooo)

Ace watched Bexley sit up and scrabble back from him, till his back hit the wall.

"I'm sorry." Ace stared at the ground.

Bexley's voice shook. "It had to be done." Bexley pulled his trousers back on. "I understand the mechanics. Non-somatic systems retain voxel-Ts longer and produce aggressive, colonizin' strains." His voice was robotic. Bexley closed his eyes. "Yeh did it more'n once too. It didn't work before."

Ace bowed his head into his hands. "It didn't work because the change lasts an hour, maybe two. Tops." Ace swallowed. "What James did to you… I can't even begin to understand it. He somehow fixed your awareness to a single day in your own past."

"The Ts'll have evolved a bit in you over all these years, Ace." Bexley said. "Maybe it'll last longer."

Ace went silent, his eyes closed. He wanted to speak to all the things hanging in the air between them. But there was no time. "We've got to get out. Any ideas?"

Bexley jerked his head towards the door lock. "I might be able teh over-ride it." He glanced around. "You got an acetylene torch?"

"What do you need cut?"

Bexley pointed to the metal panel above the lock mechanism.

Ace stepped over to it, took a deep breath and slammed his fist into the wall. Pain radiated up his arm. He paused a moment to shake it out and punched it again.

Bexley edged up to him. "That hurts, yeah?"

"Yes." Ace hissed. The wall was starting to pucker. He kept at it till his arm was throbbing. A ridge of metal raised along the seam. Ace caught his fingers under it and pulled. The panel peeled back.

Bexley stepped up, fiddling in the wires embedded in the wall. "Get me toenail clippers and Rimmer's twist ties," he said, picking out a few wires.

Ace fished in the cupboard over the sink, and found nothing. He walked over to the bed, knelt down and saw a soft metallic glint in amongst the mounds of dust-bunnies and assorted ossified pompadoms. He pulled it out along with a handful of scattered twist ties.

"Here." He handed the mess to Bexley.

Bexley picked out the nail clips and a twist tie. Using the sharp edge of the clips, he began to strip a wire. Before he could finish the door slid open.

"Did you?" Ace asked. "I didn't think—"

"I didn't." Bexley replied and stood.

"Gift horse and all that." Ace shrugged. "Skipper's been captured. We've got to get him out." Ace edged out the door, looking down the hall. "Not even a guard. Too easy." Ace trotted down the hall.

"Whois that?" Bexley asked. "Skipper?"

Ace hesitated. "Dave Lister."

"Dave Lister. Yeh mean me father?"

"No. I mean one of James' clones."

"Smeg." Bexley stopped. Ace didn't. Bexley started up again, running till he caught up. "If that's true then James' goin' to—"

"Yes," Ace said. "If I know James, it's too late."

"Yer Voxel-T system… How much yeh have left?"

Ace did a calculation. "About a tenth of a percent. I used up quite a bit on the Silo."

Bexley closed his eyes. "Not enough. Yer gonna slide."

"No choice, Sparks."

They weaved through a kilometre of dull grey hallway. Ace spent the time feeling like smeg. He'd taken advantage of Bexley because he didn't have the strength to say no. Even if it was—plausibly deniably—to save the universe.

Ace stopped at a door. He knocked.

The door opened. Ace ducked inside. The room had a single small desk in the centre. A grey-haired woman in a tidy suit sat behind an adding machine.

Ace stepped up to the desk. "White? On Labour day?"

"I think you'll find Labour day hasn't occurred yet aboard the Silo." The woman countered.

"Hasn't it?" Ace replied.

The figure nodded, punched in a few numbers, cranked the adding machine's handle and waved Ace away.

"Let's go." Ace grabbed Bexley's arm.

When they were out in the hall, Bexley hesitated. "I remember her."

"Yeah. She used to be an Insurgency Agent on Tween before she got a promotion to ship-class Company Hologram."

"She's a Unionist."

"Has been since before I founded it." Ace winked.

(ooo)

The Observatory processing level was deserted. Distantly, Ace heard the sounds of gunfire and screaming. He scanned the room, eyes watering against the brilliant white of the walls. A lavender shape slumped on a table across the room. Dave. Ace noticed two figures, dressed in white and barely visible against the walls, hunched over him. They glanced up at him. One dropped a psy-scan. It hit the floor without a sound.

Ace walked towards the operating table. Halfway there he barked his knee on an invisible field. He ran his hands over the surface, electrical pulses pricking his fingers. "Bexley—"

"I'm on it." Bexley jumped over to the control panel and started punching in codes.

One of the surgeon realized what he was doing and got up to bang on the shield. The other looked between them and his partner, uncertain.

"Nothing in, nothing out. Not even a communications transition," Ace said, grinning. He wished he had a smoke.

An argument started up in the operating theatre. One surgeon—Ace figured him for a Unionist—was reaching for the shield release. The other was trying to stop him. Ace angled towards the non-Union surgeon and braced himself.

The shield slid open.

Ace barrelled into the one surgeon with enough force to slam him against the wall. His com unit skittered along the floor, and Ace kicked it away. He tried to rise and Ace caught his temple with a knee. The man slumped, stunned, and his partner watched Ace for a moment. Then offered a tentative Union greeting. Ace returned it, tilted his head towards the exit—the Unionist took his hint and fled—and turned back to the non-Union surgeon. Ace couldn't knock him out, but he could make the next few minutes of his life miserable. "Get Lister," Ace called to Bexley. He heard Bexley lift Lister off the operating table.

The surgeon roused a bit. Ace menaced him and he subsided.

"I've got him."

Ace stepped away from the surgeon. His stare was hot and angry, waiting for a moment to make his move. Ace didn't give him that moment. He jumped back, outside of the shield, and slapped the outside shield lock, on, and grinned as the surgeon lunged to his feet and pounded on the suddenly solid air.

With them contained, he turned to Bexley. Dave was slumped over Bexley's shoulder. Ace waved him down and Bexley lowered him to the floor.

Dave's head was a gruesome mess of cut skin and broken skull.

Bexley paled.

Ace swore. "He's been processed." He leaned his forehead into Dave's neck, his mouth on autopilot. "He isn't here anymore."

"Here?"

"He's in the Silo now, Sparks."

Bexley stared at him, his face blank, not really understanding. The urge to punch Bexley curled in Ace's fists. It wasn't real to him. He hadn't known Sparks. Not like Ace.

Bexley pounded his knee with a fist. "Wait, wait. I think there's somethin' we could do."

"What?"

"Yer light bee. It has a connection to the Silo mainframe. That could pull him out. In an activated PIE field."

"It doesn't anymore. Whatever that was, it slipped into—" Ace glanced at Bexley. "Rimmer. Rimmer's light bee."

Footsteps.

Bexley hit Ace's arm. Ace looked back.

The surgeon they'd let go couldn't meet Ace's gaze. He'd brought back James' guards.