Red Dwarf Fanfic: Last Humans
Chapter 27: Dave
Summary: Everything comes down to a single question.
Warnings: Language, violence, character death
Beta: Rack
Chapter Rating: T(13 )
(ooo)
Chapter 27: Dave
(ooo)
//Ship Serial No: Silo INDP556790
//Ship's Time: 13:15-06.04-003.000.345
//AI-List-Silo: PIE ACTIVATION COMPLETE
//AI-List-Silo: LOCATION UNKNOWN
"What do we do now?" Kochanski asked. She and Bexley had left Red Dwarf's docking bay in the Wildfire. Red Dwarf's distended underbelly hung above them. Beyond it, rising over the far edge of Red Dwarf's bulk, was the sickle-shaped Silo. She crouched behind the cockpit chair in the closet-sized crawl space. A thick film of stickiness coated the floor. Kochanski swallowed her disgust.
"Should we use Ace's light bee?" she offered.
"Ace's light bee?" Bexley asked. "Ace is on Red Dwarf."
"No. The other Ace. I have it right here." She fished in her jacket and brought out the hard lump of metal. "There."
Bexley grinned. "Yeah, yeah! That'll help." He picked it up and set it down beside the PIE engine. "I can't pilot the PIE. But maybe…"
"What?" Kochanski asked.
"We keep out of sight, right? And when James activates his PIE, I'll turn ours on and it'll resonate in the PIE field. We'll see what happens." Bexley nodded at the light bee as he fished out a few wires and twisted them together with another set from the PIE. "I think this has got a bit of the Silo mainframe in it. It's got a bit of Dave in it. Maybe it'll call your Dave out here."
"That's a lot of 'we'll sees' and 'maybes'." Kochanski frowned.
"That's the PIE, yeah?"
"Who's James?"
"Dave's grandson. Silo's Captain. Omega Group Leader. Yeah."
Kochanski considered this. "How's he involved?"
"Me original—that's the original Dave Lister, yer son I believe—somehow used the PIE to resurrect the entire Red Dwarf. He disappeared a long time ago, but he's reappearing soon. Here, probably. It's about where he disappeared. When he does he'll find James, who was his clone, waiting for him. He raised him as a son. Ace arranged it so that James is still alive when he meets his father. He was hopin' Dave would be alive too. To meet his son."
"I don't understand."
"Ace spent a lotta time travelin' the dimensions after he stole Red Dwarf. He saw things. Said he killed James more times then he could count and the same thing kept happenin' over and over. So instead of keepin' Dave away, he brought him to. And he didn't kill James." Bexley sighed. "He told me this hundreds of times. I never remembered."
"Why?"
"James corrupted me short term memory and screwed around with me sense of meself. He used me… to keep Ace prisoner." Bexley paled. "He used me." His hands clenched over his hand rests.
"I'm sorry. I mean, about the questions." She glanced back at the Silo. "Dave's in there. Rim—" she choked. "How can he meet his… our son now?"
"I don't know." Bexley stared out the cockpit. "Maybe the universe doesn't want to be saved."
Kochanski lapsed into silence. She felt numb. "You said you knew me before?"
Bexley tightened and grew quiet.
Kochanski slipped down the back of the command chair, curling over her knees.
"I married yeh."
Kochanski blanched. "Oh. I don't know what to say—"
"Don't expect yeh teh say anythin'." Bexley turned to look at her. His eyes were mournful. "It's hard seein' yeh. Again."
The Silo shuddered. Kochanski pulled herself up to get a better view of it. A gentle "wumph" filled the space around her.
"That's it," Bexley said. He flicked open the PIE release. He leaned back, catching Kris behind the neck and kissing her.
As he turned back to the controls, she touched her lips.
"Bye, Kris. It was good seein' yeh." He pressed the button.
(ooo)
Lister sat, naked except for a towel, beside Alpha. "So how does this work?" he asked, holding Alpha's hand and Kel's.
Alpha pulled a bottle of marijuana gin from behind the banana bean bag and poured a shot with his free hand into air. A glass formed around the liquid.
"That's how, eh? Brutal." Lister took his shot. "Where's all the others?"
"Around," Kel replied, knocking back his gin.
Lister followed suit. As soon as it hit the back of his throat, he wasthere. "Fast."
Alpha grinned and offered up the bottle as cheers.
Lister offered up his own glass. His arm extended out into the infinite space suddenly replacing the closet's back wall. He watched tens of thousands of Listers offering their own cheers, like an army salute that stretched forever. Even with so many, there still was room in the back wall for more. His mouth went dry. He shivered and lowered his arm. "There yeh are," he said, hushed.
"Dave?"
Lister glanced behind himself. Kris, still wearing Bexley's jersey, stared down at him. "Where are you going?"
"Don't know," Lister grinned.
"I know where you're going. I can't come, Dave. Did you know that?"
"Naw." Lister said. He let his hand drop to his knee. "Is that true?"
Kris nodded, quiet and solemn. "If you go, I'll miss you."
Lister's stomach flopped. He winced. "Kris…" How could he leave her, with her looking at him like that? Like a lost puppy? Lister pushed himself to his knees.
Kel's hand tightened over his. Lister glanced over and Kel inclined his head back to the line of other Lister's.
All of them had a Kris, beseeching them.
Lister felt sick. He glanced back at Kris. Then at Kel. "She's not mine."
Kel shook his head.
"Sorry, Kris," Lister said, and motioned for Alpha to pour him another shot before he lost his nerve. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the other Listers do the same.
"Dave," Kris spoke as he lifted the shot to his lips. Her eyes were wet. "I'll miss you."
Lister swallowed his glass, feeling like he was drinking a cactus knob.
Kris vanished.
"I killed me girlfriend." Lister muttered into his glass. "What now?"
"Yeah, yeah. Feel that?" Alpha set the bottle down.
"What?" Before he could finish the question Lister felt it. Something had shifted inside him. He noticed something above himself and turned to look.
It was Kris. The other Kris. The one from the other dimension. She lay above him on the closet ceiling.
She was frail. Her skin translucent, her body swollen. Her eyes were circled with dark. She looked down at him and that was the worst part. She looked like she was dying and thought he was a hallucination.
"Kris," Lister whispered.
Alpha grabbed his arm. "Yeah. This is good, yeah. Tell her she can't sleep and yeh'll be with her soon."
"What?"
"She has teh step out of her dream, yeah? All the way."
"I don't get it."
"Just tell her, yeah?"
Lister looked up at Kris. In the face of her stricken, horrified look, he grabbed onto Alpha's words. "Kris, I—" He swallowed. "You can't sleep. I'll see yeh soon. Okay? But yeh have teh step outteh yer dream, right? All the way out."
I can't Dave. That's impossible.
Lister turned to Alpha. Alpha shrugged.
Kris's hopeless eyes terrified him. He bluffed. "It's not, Kris. It'll make sense. I promise."
I don't know—
He let go of Alpha's hand and pushed to his feet, reaching out for her. She reached out for him, but she could only lift her hand an inch.
Lister jumped.
"Yeah, yeah!" Alpha cheered. "Bring all yer selves together!"
Lister struggled against the friction. Something was holding him back. He tried to force himself through it. It wouldn't budge.
He had an idea. A slow breaststroke lifted him up. And with each motion of his arms, he felt himself ravel back together, all the separatehims waking up in his mind. Bexley. Kel. Even the original Dave, his own son. And a dark one, distant and sullen, constrained in metal.
A final breaststroke and he was right below her. He smiled. "Hi."
Hi.She smiled back and this time she was able to catch his hand.
(ooo)
Kochanski blinked. Bexley had seemed so sure something would happen. But nothing did. The Red Dwarf still lay below them, and the Silo rose above it, moving towards them.
"Kris?" Bexley turned back to her.
"Yes?" she asked.
"I can't believe… I'm back with yeh!"
"Yes, Bexley." Kris sighed. "I suppose it's a bit startling that nothing happened."
"What are yeh talkin' about?"
"Well, we started out in the Wildfire and we're still in the Wildfire."
Bexley shook his head. "I was on the Silo, Kris. I was in a… virtual world, like Better Than Life."
Kochanski stared at him. "Wait… are you Dave?"
"Yeah!" Dave nodded vigorously. "Who's Bexley?"
"Never mind." Kochanski slipped her arms around his shoulders. "I missed you! I thought I'd never see you again."
Dave hesitated. He grabbed Kochanski's hands in his own. "Yeah. So what's happenin'?"
Kochanski's throat tightened. "Arnold's…" She couldn't finish the sentence.
"What?" Dave paled. "Dead?"
She nodded, pressing her fist against her lips.
"Erm." Dave slumped. He had a glassy look that made Kochanski nervous and sick. "I—"
"He died saving you. Or who he thought was you." Kochanski continued. "I was told… if we got to the PIE we might get him back. Ressurect him, I mean. Again."
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah."
"So we should go to the Silo?"
Dave pressed his hands against his eyes. He shook his head and let his hands drop. "Naw. Not the Silo. My grandfather's ship, yeah? That's the PIE we'd need. Our son's."
"How'd we get there? I mean, before James kills us?"
"Don't know," Dave said.
Kochanski glanced out at the Silo, and couldn't take her eyes off the ugly length of the Silo's hooked length, slicing towards them like a blade. Would James take them hostage or simply turn them into fifty cubic meters of debris? The proximity alarm started screeching. Kochanski closed her eyes.
"Look!" Dave pointed to the left side of the Wildfire canapé.
Another craft—looking like a twisted steel filing against the gun metal grey of the Silo's bulk—pirouetted in front of them. It was a twin to the Wildfire—a jet-engine type fighter craft.
"Who's that?" Kochanski leaned over Dave to call up a report on the Wildfire scanners. The thing might as well have been made of lead. It registered as a mass and nothing more.
The ship—whoever it was—was moving faster then the Silo, gaining onthem.
"Is this good news or bad?" Kochanski tried another scan, this time with a pulse charge detonation.
The new ship was hollow. That's all she could tell.
Two magnetic harpoons spagettied towards them, catching them with a shuddering thunk.
Another 'wumph' and the world around them dissolved.
(ooo)
Artificial gravity relieved Kochanski of the acid burn she always got at the back of her mouth in zero-G. It made her now knotted and frizzy hair even worse. She tried to bat it down and finger comb it, then laughed, absurdly. Who cares?
"Are yeh okay?" Dave asked.
"No. But… I've a feeling we'd better keep moving if we want to live." She reached for the Wildfire canopy's manual release. They were in some sort of giant, dark chamber. A single spotlight illuminated the Wildfire but otherwise there was no light.
"Should we open it?" Kochanski looked at Dave.
He shrugged. "No warning lights."
She popped the seal on the canopy, lifted and took a deep breath. It was air. Moist and clean. She waited for Dave to haul himself out of the cockpit and down the ladder.
She followed.
At the bottom of the ladder Kochanski looked around the hanger. It was smaller then Red Dwarf's and there were no surface to land vehicles to be seen. It was empty and dark except for the spotlight on the Wildfire.
As soon as her feet hit the ground an amber LED path lit up in front of them. It meandered through the hangar towards a door. Kochanski looked at Dave. He glanced back at her and shrugged again.
They followed the yellow lit road.
(ooo)
"I'm going to have to start braiding it." Kochanski'd given up on doing anything with her matted hair.
"Yeah. Gets a bit mussed in a scrape." Dave tugged at his dreads. Then he remembered and shrugged. "Never had a problem. Unless Rimmergave me a…" Dave trailed off.
Kochanski said nothing. Silence stretched between them like a thin glass bubble. She couldn't say anything to break it. If Arn's… If Arnold remained unspoken… Unthought. Unacknowledged. They could keep moving. "Do you think there's an end to this?" She asked finally.
Dave gazed along the twisting and twirling LED light path and shook his head. "I don't know."
"It has to have an end."
"I don't know nothin' anymore." Dave's face was hard. He'd stopped smiling since… since before the StarTransit™ drop.
Kochanski missed it. His winning-score smile that could light up a room. It was infectious, as much as she tried to ignore it, and the energy of it went right to her head. But now there was only this man, a grim, unsmiling version of Dave. Probably a perfect counter-part for the grim, unsmiling version of Kochanski walking beside him. She frowned. When it was all over, she'd indulge herself a long, sweaty depression. "It has to end," Kris concluded. "What's happening with the Silo and Red Dwarf, do you think?" Kris bit her lip. Why was she suddenly so chatty? How would he know any more then her?
"I think the Silo is chewing up Red Dwarf bit by bit and spitting it out again," Dave replied.
Kochanski winced. Somehow the thought of that was uglier then it ought to be.
(ooo)
"So we get to the end of this, then what? Who's waiting for us?"
The path of tiny yellow lights arced upwards, still winding and twisting inanely, into darkness. Kochanski tried to make anything out in the black beyond the path and gave up, shivering.
"Our son," Dave replied.
"Our son?" Kochanski stopped short.
Dave stopped a stride beyond her. "Yeah. Our son." He shook his head.
Kochanski lapsed into silence, defeated. Lister started walking again and she hurried to catch up. "I thought the whole going-back-in-time-to-become-your-own-father thing was as weird as it gets."
"Nothin' is ever 'as weird as it gets'. It just keeps comin' and comin', like a bad joke with no punch-line."
Kochanski watched Dave's back. "So how did our son turn out?" She thought she might feel some sort of maternal something… but it was all too strung-out. All she felt was confusion and a distant note of guilt.
"I don't know. But his son's a nutter," Dave said and it sounded like he considered it another in a long string of defeats. "All of this—" He rolled his shoulders, to indicate everything, "It's all because a' him. Our son. He moved heaven and earth to resurrect his Arnold."
"His Arnold?" Kochanski asked.
"The original Arnold… He was his Arnold. They were in love, or summit. Love." Dave repeated the word. "But Arnold died."
The note of guilt grew stronger. "Do you think we did that to him?"
"What?"
"Do you think…" she felt sick, "I mean. We left him under a pool table and he never found out why. We abandoned him. Maybe that's why he couldn't—"
Dave closed his eyes. "Yeah. Thought of that."
(ooo)
The path of amber light ended. Kochanski couldn't see anything beyond it.
Dave edged his foot into the darkness. "There's a drop off."
"How deep?" Kochanski craned into the dark.
"Don't know. Let's find out." Dave caught her hand. They stepped out over the edge.
(ooo)
Things faded into reality. A floor. Walls. Two sofas colored twenty-three-ten neon-earth in paisley—old, worn and patched with duct tape. Kochanski took a seat and watched as Dave prodded the staticy outlines of nothing where furniture—a lamp? A coffee table?—ought to be.
She realized someone was sitting beside her and turned.
Dave Lister stared at her. At least Dave Lister as he would be in forty years. His brown eyes were sharp, his body weathered but lean and strong, his dreads greying.
"Hello," Kochanski offered.
Her greeting met hard silence. He examined her the way a vivisectionist would examine a hamster.
She continued. "You're my son, right?"
"Yeah."
Dave turned to his original self and his son, catching Kochanski's hand. "Hi," He said.
"Hi."
"I had to leave you."
"Yes," their son replied. "Otherwise I would never have existed at all."
"But all this—" Dave opened his arms. "The Silo. Bexley.James. You put all of it into motion."
"No," their son shook his head. "You put all of it into motion.""
"But, I—" Dave slumped, defeated. "What can I do to make it better?"
Their son shrugged. "There's nothin' yeh can do. Nothin' yeh should do. Yer not obligated to me."
"But yeh just said—"
"Had a long time to think—talking to the PIE—and come to realize that none of it was yer fault. Yeh believed, when yeh left me, that I would be you. I'd have yer life. An' I would understand, in time. You weren't aware that I'd live every second a' the years between that choice and this moment. An' nearly every one of them in the dark gropin' toward the light."
Kochanski touched Dave's shoulder. "Isn't there anything we can do?"
"To be honest?" Their son glanced from Kochanski to Dave. "Seein' you like this, young and confused…" His eyes gleamed. "Things're already settled." He stood and clapped his hands. "Let's finish this."
Someone materialized beside Kochanski. She turned to look and saw James. The man seemed frozen but his eyes recognized their son, his father, and narrowed.
"Yeh want teh destroy the universe in a spectacular murder-suicide," the original Dave Lister said. "Yeh hate me so much. Yeh hate yerself for bein' part me," He continued. There was no triumph in his voice, only resignation. "Today, I'm gonna end it."
Lister waved his hand. A podium appeared with a simple square button in the centre. "The PIE drive. Me PIE drive." He stepped between it and James. "Take it from me."
Another wave of their son's hand and the James crumpled to the floor. He jumped to his feet and lunged for his father.
Kochanski watched them struggle. The Voter-Colonel appeared younger, but their son was cannier and—at any rate—whatever technology had kept them alive for millions of years, also kept them evenly matched in strength.
She felt a hand on her cheek and looked up. Dave had quietly come to her side. He looked down at her, the weight of all his mistakes in his eyes and nothing of that winning-score smile she loved. At least inher Dave.
"Don't," she said. "Look on the bright side? Right? That's what you do?"
"Yeah," he said. "But now I think… maybe it was just a way to avoid seeing the side that was right in front of me."
Kochanski glanced at original Lister, who was currently fighting out of the James's half-nelson. "I've got to do something." She stepped towards them.
Dave caught her arm. "Kris, they're both too strong—"
She pulled out of his grip and jumped away before he could grab her again. Original Lister was choking, looking about fit to black out. Kochanski caught James' arm, trying to pull him away. His arm didn't budge. It didn't budge the way an iron girder embedded in five feet of poured concrete wouldn't budge.
The two of them shifted and James' shoulder knocked into Kochanski's chest. She skid to a gasping stop by the couch.
Dave knelt beside her, helping her sit. "No point, Kris. Yeh might as well be fightin' a star transport."
"I… have…" Kochanski closed her eyes. She couldn't catch her breath. "Dave… My Dave. I won't…"
"You won't get back to him?" Dave supplied. "You could use the PIE—"
"No!" She pointed at James. Lister was free and circling James, who watched him without moving. James punched Lister. Lister dodged and James punctured the half-inch thick titanium bulkhead behind him.
"I don't even think we could dent 'em." Dave lapsed into silence.
Kochanski moved to her knees. "Isn't there something—"
James pinned original Lister against the bulkhead, raising him up along the wall, his hands around the other man's throat. Original Lister scrabbled at James's arms, trying to find leverage, purchase.
"I'm going to…" James faltered. Then pressed harder into Lister's neck. "I'm stronger then you now."
"Are you?" Original Lister gasped.
"Y…yes." Even as James said it, his grip loosened. Original Lister slid to his feet, then fell to his knees. James continued, "I'll kill you."
"Then do it," original Lister said, crouched at his son's feet, not looking up.
James dropped to his knees beside original Lister. He stared at the floor. "I… just… I didn't think… we'd meet." James' tears pooled between his hands.
Kochanski jumped and ran towards the PIE.
"Wait, Kris—"
She hit the button.
(ooo)
Dave listened to the Starbug engine. He'd heard an unusual vibration earlier in the day and he was trying to track down the source. It was nothing. He hoped. He could survive a life-systems failure—being hardlight—but not Kris.
He grimaced at his psy-scan monitor. He kept doing that. Thinking she was still aboard and not whisked off into a parallel dimension with a laddish version of himself. Well, Cat then. Do it for Cat. He shook his head, blinked back tears and ran the sound sample through the psyscan's diagnostic Fourier transform. It came back mauve.
Mauve? Dave glanced at the colour coded engine error chart. Mauve fell between red—core meltdown eminent, ejection procedures initiated—and purple—central vacuum exhaust clogged. Mauve didn't seem to have it's own entry. Then again the colour might be a particularly red shade of puce. Dave brought the psy-scanner up, closer to the bluish light fixture. Mauve? Puce?
"Dave?"
He turned. Kris stood, half shadowed, looking at him—shyly—from the hatch-way back to the cockpit. Dave stepped forward, then stopped, baffled. "How did you? Where?"
Kris shook her head. "I don't know. I remember—another Dave, more then one, they were fighting—"
Dave rushed her, pulling her into a hug. She hugged him back after a moment's pause.
"It doesn't matter," he whispered into her hair. His eyes filled with tears. "You're home."
She seemed to stiffen a bit at that word.
"What's wrong?" He held her at arm's length.
Kris looked around her, still subdued and uncertain. She shrugged. "Ask me later."
"Do the others know?"
"I saw them before you. Kryten told me where you were. We should go back, Kryten's making something for us—" She turned.
Dave caught her hand. "Before you go, tell me what colour you think this is…" He tilted the psy-scanner monitor towards her.
"That? Oh, it's burgundy. The light is a bit high on the Kelvin scale, gives everything a blue tinge."
Dave grinned. "I knew you'd have the answer. You're perfect." He leaned over to kiss her cheek and checked burgundy on the chart. "It's nothing. Just a solar panel servo that's catching. Routine maintenance."
Kris smiled.
He closed up the psy-scanner. "Let's go see what Kryten's cooking up for us!"
She slipped her hand in his and they ducked through the hatchway to the galley. Dave glanced over the landing. Kryten was puttering in the kitchen, stirring this, throwing a sprig of home-grown herb into the pot, checking whatever he had in the oven.
They descended the stairs, the galley filled with the smell of cinnamon and cloves.
"Whatever you've got on, it smells wonderful," Dave commented.
"Sir!" Kryten beamed up at them. "I found a mechanoid chef's chip in our last salvage. This'll be a feast to celebrate Miss Kochanski's safe return." He rubbed his hands together joyfully.
Dave walked down the stairs, stowing the psy-scanner on the counter by the bottom landing. "I'm sure it'll taste grand."
"And for you, ma'am… I've accessed some old recipes I had stored in the creaky recesses of my database." Kryten chuckled at his own joke. "I'm making apple crumble."
"Oh." Kris blinked. "That's loaded with carbs."
"Is it?" Kryten's head jerked back and forth. "Shall I make you something else, ma'am? I believe I have cottage cheese and pineapple, I just thought I might, for a change of pace—"
"No." Kris pushed past Dave and sat at the table. "What you're cooking is fine."
She seemed agitated. Dave moved over to her side and started to rub her shoulders. "You must have been through so much—"
"Stop it," Kris snapped.
Dave's hands recoiled from her back. "I'm sorry."
"Stopthat." She waved at him. "Don't say you're sorry, say I'm being tetchy."
"What? I wouldn't…"
She turned towards Kryten. "Why aren't you throwing snide little comments at me?"
"Ma'am, I would never dream of being rude to you!"
That answer seemed to agitate Kris even more. She got up from her chair; it fell to the ground behind her with a bang. Dave caught her arm, then pulled her close, trying to sooth her. "What's wrong?"
She relaxed a touch in his arms.
"I'm just… feeling out of sorts."
Dave caught the chair back and lifted it into place. He ushered her to sit. "Of course you are. We'll have a good meal and then—" he squeezed her arm and winked.
"The Opera Game!" Kryten jittered with excitement.
Behind the mechanoid's back Dave rolled his eyes. Kris offered up a smile, but she still fidgeted, biting her fingernails.
"Did someone say the Opera Game?" The Cat materialized out of thin air, stepping into a tight little spin. "I'm up for a game. And up whatever it is you're cooking, Kryten. It smells so good. Yaow!"
Dave grinned at Cat's antics and sat down at the table beside Kris. Everything was fine. It had to be. Kris was back. "It's wonderful to have you back, Kris. It's like a dream."
Kris stood, her face drained of colour.
"Kris" Dave stood. "What's wrong?"
She bolted from the galley. Kryten and Cat stared after her. Dave followed.
The corridor beyond the galley was empty. Dave ran to the end and found the storage doors open.
Inside the storage bay, Kris sat on a crate, staring at her hands.
"What's wrong?" Dave caught Kris's hand. She didn't meet his eyes.
"I can't stay." Kris replied. "You don't need me—"
"We do!" Dave countered.
"No. I needed you. I needed you to need me. And you all provided. But you don't need me. You'll do fine without me. You'll be better then fine. I know." Kris stood. She looked at Dave and her eyes shone. "I've got to get back. He needs me."
"Why?"
"I don't even know if this is real. I never did. I always thought… in the back of my mind… what if? What if I'm still in that virtual reality world, that perfect world my parents put me in? I don't even know, here. I don't know if I'm alive or dreaming."
"Kris…" Dave's shoulders slumped. He couldn't catch her gaze. "What about Red Dwarf? The accident, me dying, you surviving by being in stasis—"
"Who knows?" Kris caught the side of his face. "I don't want a dream anymore."
Dave laughed, nervous. "We're far from perfect—"
"No, you are. Even having little imperfections that I can fix is perfect."
"This isn't what you want?"
Kris shook her head.
Dave swallowed. His next words dragged out of him. "Then I have to let you go."
She bowed her head and shook it, as if that had been the final test and he'd failed. Dave panicked, wishing he could take back the words. What did she want? What?
"Goodbye, Dave." Kris looked crushed.
(ooo)
"Don't leave Fiji." John stood, silhouetted against the glaring sun in Dave's front yard.
His words pulled at Dave. Still, Dave resisted. "I can't stay."
John shook his head and turned away, walking down the path to his transport. Dave knew he had a ticket back to the Ganymede station, or maybe Io, an open fare he could cash in any time.
Dave watched him walk away, and watched the man's back get tighter with each step. John was turning into a permanent chiropractic patient.Because of me, Dave thought.
His own lower back twinged. He'd given up gardening because of the pain. He'd been told it was due to tension in his shoulders; he'd never had it before Arn's death.
Not after, either. Not till the day Arn's hologram 'woke' up on Fiji, saw Dave smiling at him, and acted like nothing had happened between them. And nothing had. At least for him.
John ducked into his transport. Dave watched it back up and turn.
Arn had left the same way. No, not the same way. He'd left wanting to end it.
The transport gathered speed.
Dave stiffened. "Wait!"
He began to run. "Wait!"
For a long moment he chased the transport. He knew he wouldn't catch it, even when it slowed to make the turn onto the main road.
When it disappeared it left him most of the way down his drive. Dave kept going. Even in his fifties, he could still run a fair ways. And he did. Knowing it was hopeless.
"Wait, John!" He called, turning the corner.
Beyond the thick bank of trees he saw the transport. It was pulled over, waiting. His heart lifted.
John was trotting back towards him. Looking resigned, but maybe a bit hopeful. "Yes?" he said.
Dave stared at him. "Yeh might be right. About Fiji. I worked hard to get here. It was my dream, yeh see?"
John laughed. "I know. To have a farm on Fiji with a horse and sheep."
"And Kristine Kochanski in a white dress."
"That didn't work out."
"Naw. It didn't." Dave grinned. "It worked out for one of me." He considered. "But maybe what I wanted was a farm on Fiji and someone to share it."
"Can you live without him?" John's voice was subdued.
"Livin' without him's not the problem. Have to do that either way. Livin' and seein' what's right in front of me is the problem."
"He might come back to you," John said. They turned the corner to the driveway.
"Yeah," Dave said. "So, what do you say? Do you want to live on Fiji with me?"
"Me?" John said. Then shook his head. "I would have said yes five years ago."
Dave frowned. "You would have?"
"I don't know if I believe you can let him go completely. It's been hard to watch." John worked his lip between his teeth. "Hard to be part of."
"Yeah, but—"
"I think you need to choose someone else to share it." John watched Dave sadly.
"Who?"
John glanced towards the house. "You better go see if Jim's okay. He's been depressed the entire time I've been here."
"Depressed?" Dave asked.
John shook his head and turned away from Dave. "I've got to go if I want to catch my flight."
"If yeh come back, bring somethin' white to wear," Dave called after him.
John stopped. He bowed his head for a moment. "I will."
Dave didn't wait to watch him leave. Instead he jogged back towards the house, biting back tears.
Jim'd be in his room. Dave knew that at least. He entered, letting the door swing shut with a bang. He walked past the draw-string that brought down the ladder to the attic and paused, looking up. Arnold was gone. For good. Nothing he'd done had brought back his Arnold. He was dead.
Dead. Dave turned the word over in his mind. Everything that could be said and done, had been said and done. Dead.
The word brought with it stillness. Dave had cried and fought and tried so hard. He had nothing left to feel.
"Jim?" Dave called out, walking to Jim's door and knocking lightly. There was no answer.
"Jim, I know you're in." Dave thought he should knock again, give the boy time to come round. He turned, then felt a wave of panic. Something was wrong. He pulled Jim's door open and stepped inside.
Jim had a needle poised above his arm. He looked up at Dave.
Dave rushed towards him, slapping the needle out of his hand. "What do you think yer doin'?"
Jim recoiled. "I— It's just that vaccine I told you about—"
"That stuff… It could kill yeh!" Dave shook with fury. He grabbed Jim and hugged him. "What would I do with out yeh?"
"Me?" Jim gasped.
"Yeah, you." Dave he caught Jim's shoulders and held him at arm's length. "Yer my boy, yeah? No matter how yeh came about." Dave hugged Jim again, crying. "I screwed up, not you."
"I wanted you to be happy."
"Look. You aren't responsible for me. I'm responsible for you," Dave said. "You're responsible for you."
Jim watched him. He was still strangely young for sixteen.
"Tell me what you want? What'll make you happy? You don't have to go to college."
"I want to go."
"Then I'll be here, waiting for you to come back."
"I want you to be happy."
"Then I'll be happy," Dave promised, and saying it made the pressure in his chest ease. "I'll do the things that make me happy. And yeh do the things that make you happy."
"You'll garden?"
"Yeah. And I'll ride Jangles."
"You'll get sheep."
Dave laughed. "Yes. I'll get sheep. No. I'll get goats. A goat. And a cow. Is that okay?"
"You'll invite John?"
"I'll invite John. He'll no longer have to invite hisself."
"Good." James smiled.
(ooo)
Bexley stepped into the Red Dwarf's hanger. The PIE had asked him where he wanted to go, and he'd told it.
The ship rocked and echoed with the sounds of explosions. The lights flickered: even the emergency generators had been compromised.
Bodies, not human from the smell of them, littered the hangar floor. An entire battalion of Company Simulants, dead.
Bexley upholstered his gun as he poked through the smoking corpses, looking for a lone human body.
He didn't find one. Perhaps that nutter Ackerman had managed to survive. No matter. Bexley had a job to do.
"I've come back to kill yeh, Ace," he shouted into the empty hangar. A footfall echoed behind him.
He turned, gun ready.
(ooo)
Kochanski woke. She brought her hands up and they wobbled into view, two claws on swollen arms. She panicked, tried to rise and fell back, too weak to move.
Slowly she traced her shoulder with her finger-tips, then her neck and jaw, moving up to touch the wires sprouting from her temple. The shock of wire sticking out of her skull jump started a stream of tears. She gasped and sobbed and then nearly fainted from exhaustion.
She remembered. She'd been unplugged from her perfect childhood. She'd maintained for a few years. Then the one-two knock-out punch. Her mother disappearing into nothing. Her Dave, her real Dave, dying in a navi-comp accident. The awful letter that began, "We regret to inform you…" and ended "died tragically."
She'd gone on leave on Mimas. At some point she'd wandered into a skuzzy back-street game parlor.
Kochanski laughed. Then she coughed till she couldn't breathe. Her mind had made up her Dave and her Cat and her Kryten. Created a world she could be the centre of. And a disaster to rid herself of everything that had hurt her.
And, somehow, that hadn't been good enough, so her mind had createdanother set of Dave, Kryten and Cat. A grittier set with more flaws and fewer answers. And the game, protecting itself, had hid all that from her.
Kochanski raised one arm and looked at it. It was wasted, nearly useless. And although she knew she should be cold, lying as she was on a thin mattress in a room with half a wall missing, she felt warm. Very warm and relaxed and if she just let go, it would all fade away into nothing.
Kris.
Above her, if she looked closely, she could see Dave. Not her Dave, but Dave. Staring back at her in shock.
I'm tired, she thought.
Kris, I— Her hallucination of Dave paused, swallowing. Yeh can't sleep. I'll see yeh soon. Okay? But yeh have teh step outteh yer dream, right? All the way out.
It was too real. Her body dying around her, the tinny taste of weeks of starvation in her mouth. The pins and needles in her finger tips. How could everything around her be real, and him still be there? It made no sense. She'd invented him. That made sense.
"I can't, Dave." Kris's chest heaved. "That's impossible."
It's not, Kris. It'll make sense. I promise.
"I don't know—"
He reached out for her. She reached out for him, but her claw only teetered a bit on her wrist.
Dave struggled against something. He started a breaststroke. It was slow, as if he was moving through honey. But he got close. Close enough to almost touch. He smiled down at her. Hi.
"Hi." She smiled back and this time she was able to catch his hand. With her real hand. The hand that slid out of her dying body like new skin lifting away from an old scab. She stepped all the way out and looked back.Her body was in the midst of a seizure, it thrashed. She felt beyond that, felt out an explanation.
She had created Dave and he was real. She dreamed, he lived.
Kochanski watched her body empty; she emptied with it.
(ooo)
Lister had thought—well, he'd thought that Kris activating the PIE meant they'd all be killed. Instead he was alive—as far as he knew—and everyone else was stuck fast, immobile.
Lister turned to Kochanski. She stood still. Not even blinking. Lister pulled on her arm, slapping her cheek. Nothing woke her. Under his hand her skin still felt warm and alive.
He stepped up to the PIE engine and tried to hit the switch himself. No matter what he did, it didn't move. He looked down at James and leapt back with a yelp.
James was gone.
Craning his neck over the place James had been, Lister tried to search for clues to where he'd gone. Nothing. Not even a sign that he'd been there in the first place. He glanced at Kris. She still stood, frozen.
"Dave."
Lister turned around. His son was awake and stepping towards him. Around them the room dissolved; Kris spun out and elongated, becoming his only axis of reference in a blank, empty world. Lister started to panic, relaxed into the panic and relaxed into the changes— let it all flow. Like a dream. Or a trip.
"This is the PIE," original Lister explained.
"Huh?"
"It says, 'I want to use Dave Lister to do what needs to be done.'"
"What's that?"
Original Lister popped out of existence. It seemed like he'd wanted to explain, but hadn't the time.
Lister's head exploded painlessly—words, gestures, whole personalities were rushing in. He was losing himself in the chaos. He reached out to Kris. Somehow he'd gotten so large, he was holding her in the palm of his hand. As soon as he'd connected, he was whirling around her—she was his centre—as he etched out the shape of the universe.
He flattened and expanded, contracted in some places, blew up in others and everything became very, very light.
When it was done, Dave Lister stepped through the pivot point, into a new universe—another set of infinite dimensions—an answer to his question: Why'd I butcher that smeggin' camphor wood chest?
