Author's note:
Int. A steep hill in a city. Day
A long road rolls down the hill. It's covered in a thick fog. Suddenly an overly large trolley bursts through the fog like a locomotive. The trolley contains several human occupants, whilst a few more are outside it. These include:
*Judas and Ace are at the back of the trolley. They're taking potshots to bitch slap each other.
*John Noonan is also in the trolley trying the ignore the advances of JayVee.
*The Cat hangs onto the side staring daggers at Noonan.
*Lister hangs onto the other side, laughing and smoking a cigarette.
*Rimmer hangs on for dear life at the back of the trolley.
*Kochanski and Shayne sit at the side of the road. Neither are the least bit amused.
*At the front of the trolley, stands Tyler Bateman, slapping the side of the trolley as if it were a racing horse.
Various explosions go off around them, spreading a whole mess of crap everywhere. Kryten runs after the trolley tidying up. Rimmer jumps off in a panic. The Cat falls off and drags Noonan over the edge with him. Lister climbs into the trolley to take Noonan's place and opens a can of beer.
As the trolley rushes towards the camera, Tyler manages to shout out...
Tyler: Hi, I'm Tyler Bateman and welcome back to F13: Hero.
The trolley finally hits a curb and over turns. It's human contents is flung out and hits the side of Starbug.
Fade to black.
Lister: (OS) Let's do that again.
My Gift to You
"I watched you change into a fly,
I looked away you were on fire,
And I watched a change in you,
It's like you never had wings,
Now you feel alive,
I've watched you change."
Change (in the House of Flies) - Deftones
"Oh look… Lister's here. Goody, goody."
Lister drank in the scene laid out in front of him. He had stormed into Quarantine with intention of giving Judas a good kicking. He knew he would feel all his anger seep out of every pore as he stomped on Judas's head. Instead, he had found Judas out of his cell, smiling broadly whilst his younger doppelganger, Ace, aimed a gun directly at his forehead. Lister recognised the gun as being the one they had confiscated from Judas before his incarceration.
"What the smeg is going on here?" Lister cried,
"Ah, Skipper." Ace said staring intently at Judas, "Be a chap and shove off. Judas and I have some… unfinished business."
Judas let out his weasely laugh.
"Unfinished business?! Ha! Like it, Ace, like it."
Now that Lister's anger had subsided, it suddenly occurred to him that letting a sociopath, like Judas, out was a very, very bad idea. Almost as bad as calling Shayne by her first name.
"Look Ace, let's just pop Judas back into his cell and we can talk about it, yeah?" Lister suggested.
"You don't get it, do you?" Ace coughed.
Lister brought his hands up as if in surrender.
"Ok mate. C'mon then tell me about it?"
Judas sighed. He had been stood with a gun to his head for about ten minutes and this new line of soul searching between Lister and Ace wasn't what he needed. As if sensing Judas's apathy, Ace threw him back into his cell.
"Oh, you dirty motherfucker!" Judas managed to shout as Ace shut the door. "We were about to have some fun."
After locking Judas away, Ace strode over to Lister and grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him towards him until they were almost nose-to-nose.
"Look, I know what he told Rimmer." Ace said, all traces of his usual bravado long since gone. "I know, but for God's sake Lister, this isn't your fight. This is what Judas does. He pours poison into people's ears. He's an emotional vampire. Watching yours and Rimmer's relationship crumble would be like a four course meal to him. All he does is lie and kill. Yet, remember this, Schmidt was not a lie. He was a real pervert. He is the constant in mine, Judas and Rimmer's lives. Now that he's remembered, Rimmer will need you more then ever. Please Listy, leave this room and go back to him."
Lister exploded. How dare he be patronised? Especially by him. The original Rimmer.
"Oh fuck off, Arnold! What do you mean this isn't my fight? It's as much mine, as it's Rimmer's, as it's Cat and as it's fucking Kochanski's. What makes you so special?"
Ace lightened his grip on Lister.
"Judas has made it his life's mission to kill every generation of Ace he gets hold of. I'm next in line or hadn't you noticed, dick head! But more then this…"
"What?"
"He…"
"What, Ace? What Rimmer? What makes you so important?" Lister pushed Ace away from him.
"HE KILLED MY FUCKING WIFE, OK?!" Ace screamed.
Lister stopped breathing. He looked to his left to see Judas stalking back and forth in his cell. A wide grin tattooed o his face. Lister looked back at Ace… Rimmer… whoever. He was married. He used to have a wife. A Mrs Arnold Rimmer. Lister didn't know what to do. Should he hug Ace and offer him comfort? Or would Ace see that as unnecessary empathy?
"Ace…"
Ace wiped an angry tear from his eyes and held a hand up to silence Lister.
"Please, I don't want to talk about it. Please"
Lister wanted to talk. He had originally come here to defend his and Rimmer's honour, but now… Ace walked back over to the door to Judas's cell. He looked over at his old roommate and Lister was suddenly aware that someone was stood behind him. A beige plastic hand gripped his shoulder and Lister spun round to find Kryten looking at him with an intensity Lister had never seen on his face before.
"Mr Lister Sir, it's time you left." Kryten requested.
The mechanoid grabbed Lister's arm and forcefully, yet gently, escorted him out of the room. Lister pounded his fists against the window of the door. Kryten knew he was doing wrong, but Ace had explained everything and he knew he had to help. He smashed his fist into the keypad on the wall. With it broken on this side, there would be no way Mr Lister could get back in.
On the other side, Lister was furiously tapping in numbers into the keypad. 2704. 5646. 1981. Each time he was met by the buzz that signalled an error code.
"Holly, what's going on?" Lister cried, "Open this door."
Holly's face appeared on the monitor above the door. He looked somewhat remorseful.
"I'm afraid I can't do that Dave. Kryten has overridden the lock."
"C'mon! Open the smegging door!"
Lister continued to pound his fist against the door. All in some vein effort to break it down. He could feel the skin breaking on his knuckles, but he didn't care. Something was going on and he was desperate to know what.
Back inside, Kryten had joined Ace by his side as Judas walked out his cell.
"So, is this it?" Judas asked. "After three months inside that piss hole and this is the best you've come up with to get rid of me. Ace Rimmer, a man ten years my junior, and a 3 million year old toilet brush parading as a ship's medic?"
Judas tensed his shoulders back until they clicked. He removed his jacket and folded it neatly over the back of a chair. These motions almost threw Ace and Kryten off. It was the equivalent of Caesar taking a piss up a wall just as Brutus was about to stab him. Finally, Judas walked right up to them and smiled.
"Let's do it." He laughed.
Ace and Kryten stormed forward and the fists began to fly. Chairs and files were thrown and computers broken. Despite the fact he was up against two other people, Judas was putting up a hell of a fight. In fact, at one point he managed to take off three of Kryten's fingers with his teeth. As Kryten nursed his wounds, Ace reached for the gun in his pocket. That was in his pocket. There was an audible cock of a gun and Ace began to wonder when it was exactly Judas managed to pick his pocket. However, he didn't wonder for long because Judas pulled the trigger and Ace took the full force of the blast in his chest. His chest burst open and the familiar green light of a damaged hologram poured out giving the room an eerish tint.
Through the small window of the door, Lister watched. Tears were pouring down his face and blood dripped down his knuckles.
"Jesus! Holly, the fucking door!" he cried. "Override the lock."
"I'm sorry, Dave." Holly said. "I really am. My orders have been given. No one is to enter or leave. Sorry."
Lister slammed his fist into the fire alarm near him. If Holly wouldn't help, surely someone else would.
Back inside, the pain of being ripped open was beginning to get to Ace. So much so, he failed to realise that the fire alarm was ringing. He stumbled around the room, trying to maintain his composure. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Judas tearing Kryten's arm off and beating the sanitation droid around the head with it. Under any other circumstances, Ace would find this somewhat perversely funny. However, under these circumstances…
"Kryten!" Ace shouted.
"Yes sir!"
"I think we only have one option left."
Judas now had Kryten in a headlock, but despite this Kryten was trying to nod.
"I quite agree. It's been a pleasure, sir."
"Same to you."
"Oh and sir?"
"Yes." Ace gasped, now struggling for life.
"You're a Smeeee." Kryten laughed. "You're a Smeeeeeeeeeeeeeg Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeead."
Ace coughed up a laugh. Judas let go of Kryten and walked up to Ace. His victim's laughing whilst he was murdering them, was not something he appreciated.
"What the fuck is going on?" he shouted.
Ace spat in his face and his smile grew bigger.
"Let him have it Holly." Ace cried.
The air lock flew open. With Judas's craft having long been detached from Starbug, the contents of the room was starting to get sucked out into the dark reaches of space. That included Judas, Ace and Kryten.
Lister watched through his pathetic little window and watched as his friends and Judas disappear into the darkness of space.
"No! Oh Jesus no." Lister cried.
He couldn't be sure, but he could have sworn he saw a small explosion in the distance. If he was right, then Kryten had set his self-destruct mechanism. He fell to his knees and wept. As he did Cat, Shayne and Kochanski came bounding down the corridor.
"What's going on bud?" Cat said.
"Lister? Lister! Why are you crying?" Kochanski said kneeling next to Lister and putting her arm around him.
"He's dead. They're dead." Lister sobbed.
Shayne looked through the window of the door and let out a huge sigh.
"Fucking hell." she whispered. "What happened here?"
Lister tried his best to explain. As he did, Rimmer and JayVee joined them. Lister stopped his story mid way and held out his arms for Rimmer. Rimmer knelt down and hugged Lister with all his worth. He kissed Lister all over his face.
"I'm sorry." Rimmer cried.
Holly watched the group and decided that he was not the person Dave wanted to see right now. However, he would do soon. There was an awful lot of explaining to do.
