For the disclaimer, please see the first chapter.
A/N: Thanks so much everyone for your kind reviews :) I really enjoyed reading them! Here are my responses!
cazflibs: Thank you! I agree with you about the amount of fics written about series I! This is my first attempt at one – I've tried to make Rimmer a little meaner here as he comes across that way in that series before he softens up a little. :) But it's great fun to write!
staticrhubarb: hehe, that's too true! I hope you enjoy this chapter! The bombshell is partially revealed, as you'll see! I've been too evil with the ending this time! XD I'm really glad you're enjoying the story!
Sunrise over the Tango factory: Thank you so much! Hehe, there was so much to reveal to him that it was really fun to think of ways to do it :) I'm so glad you're enjoying this fic so far!
Zombie Kitty: Thank you! Hehe, yeah there are bound to be a few factual errors in here XD The book and TV show contradict so much and this is sort of a melding of the two, so there's things all over the place! Thanks so much for your kind review!
Star-Stallion: Hey there! Thanks so much for reviewing! I'm so glad you're enjoying it! I don't usually update again this quickly but this seems to just be flowing off my keyboard! I think I have a Red Dwarf plot bunny on my hands!
WildfireDreams: Yay! I have so much sympathy for Rimmer when I watched Red Dwarf so I'm so glad this comes across in my writing! Thank you so much for reviewing, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
I think I've been rather evil with the ending of this chapter XD I don't usually write endings like that but I thought it was a neat place to stop. :) I hope you enjoy! All reviews are much appreciated, and I will reply to any comments you have! So, without further ado…
This is the First Day of the Rest of Your Death
--Chapter Two--
"So come on then," Rimmer said, disappointment still etched upon his face, "where is he?"
"On last check, the shopping mall," Holly replied. The man was in a terrible state. Holly had watched, half in disbelief, at Lister's drunken rages. The news that the human race was extinct, that his dream of returning to Earth was now almost certainly impossible, had taken a great toll on his sanity. He simply couldn't cope. Holly felt a great deal of sympathy as he watched him stumble aimlessly about, all ambition and drive drained out of his now pointless existence. At one point, a quite disturbing thought occurred to him. Maybe I should have left him, he'd thought. Maybe I should have never let him out. He'd quickly shaken it off.
"What's he doing there?" asked Rimmer irritably. The mall was floors away, and the prospect of a three-hour lift ride did little to lighten his mood.
"He's in a bit of a state," said Holly. "I don't think he knows where he is, to be perfectly honest. The news came as quite a shock to him."
"News?" Rimmer echoed. "What news?" He creased his brow in confusion. Time for bombshell number two.
"The news," said Holly, "that at this particular moment, we are precisely three million years away from Earth."
At first, this statement did not sink in. Rimmer mulled over it for a while, the enormous digit doing circles in his mind. Three million years was such a ridiculous, no, impossible figure that it didn't bear worth thinking about. One million years was bad enough; three was taking the smeg.
"Three million…" Rimmer's voice trailed off. He thought for a while. "And the human race?"
"Extinct, I'm afraid."
The thought then occurred to Rimmer that this was much more serious than he'd first imagined. First the sudden death of the crew, but now to learn that the entire human race was gone? Wiped out? And at that moment, a vision appeared to him; he was seated at the captain's table, decked in the glorious white uniform of the Space Corps. A bowl of hot, steaming Gazpacho soup stared up at him, sneering, whilst all around the table officers hooted and jeered, their faces red from laughter and wine. He felt all blood drain from his face, turning it a sickly, ghoulish white. He would never obtain that elusive gold bar. There was no-one to give him that gold bar. And a single word escaped his lips.
"…Smeg."
Lister wandered hazily through the main walkway of the Red Dwarf shopping mall and took another swig from his whisky bottle. He had no interest in looking for bargains. This was just another room in the ship to him. Rows of shops lined the walls, each advertising their products in glowing, obtrusive neon letters. Some had fared better than others. Even to Lister, the food shops were a definite no-go. In the fashion section, moth-eaten clothes hung from lonely hangers, whilst some had disintegrated altogether. It was a desolate, miserable, depressing place to be – and Lister fit right in.
He shouted something incoherent, and thrust the half-empty bottle in front of him as if to make some sort of crude, threatening gesture. He wasn't sure if the hallucinations were caused by the drink, or if they were purely a product of the loneliness which gnawed constantly at his insides; or indeed, a bizarre combination of the two. In his mind there were people everywhere he went; invisible crowds, cheering and clapping him as he wandered from room to room. The sound of their dreamlike voices filled his ears like a strange white noise, one which drowned out even the sound of his own.
"Cheers," he slurred, saluting his invisible audience. He gulped down another mouthful of drink and attempted to take a step forward.
Losing his balance, he stumbled to the right and knocked a bright red fire extinguisher from the wall. The device clattered to the ground and began to spin in circles, emitting a strange and smoke-like gas that proceeded to fill the room. In his already weakened state he was easily overwhelmed. The pungent chemical stench was too much to bear. Stumbling back, he coughed a few times, raised his bottle in one final toast to his imaginary crowd, and collapsed onto the cold metal floor.
Meanwhile, Rimmer was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he and Lister just possibly might be the only two human beings left alive in the entirety of the universe, which, as you can imagine, was quite a big idea for one small man to ponder.
"So they're all dead," he asked for the tenth time.
"Yes, Arnold," sighed Holly.
"And the human race is extinct."
"Yes, Arnold."
Rimmer thought for a while. "If so," he said, "then how did Lister survive?"
"The stasis pods' sealing mechanisms are the safest known to man," Holly explained. "Nothing can get in, and nothing can get out. Since time is frozen inside the pod, radiation cannot pass through it and affect the subject inside." He sounded decidedly pleased with himself; this was one piece of information his core program had retained. "I simply reset the counter on the pod when we exited the Solar System, so he would not be released until the radiation reached a safe enough level."
Rimmer snapped his fingers. "Of course!" he said. "The stasis pods!" So that's why he'd made it through the accident! He smiled to himself. The other technicians had laughed at his 'boothing'. He recalled, gritting his teeth, how they'd said it was a petty excuse for the simple fact that Rimmer's social life was, quite frankly, nonexistent. Rimmer had always staunchly opposed this notion. He'd told them time and time again, nose upturned, that he would enjoy socialising when he had a full five years of boothing clocked up – a full five years of not ageing. Then, he'd said, they'd see who's laughing. His reasoning was this: Try going to the ship's disco when you're 80. It'll be a whole lot easier when you're only 75.
A red blip suddenly appeared on one of the Drive Room's monitors. The console nearby began to beep, the sound getting faster and more urgent. Rimmer was rapidly torn out of his thoughts. "What's happening?"
"I'm not sure," said Holly. "The signal seems to be originating somewhere on C-Deck. He paused, "Hang on, I'm getting a picture." The screen jumped into life. It flooded with white; a choking, billowing white which enveloped the entirety of the camera's range. There was no floor, no ceiling, nothing of any identity. It was totally impenetrable.
"Well this certainly makes things a whole lot clearer," Rimmer sneered.
"What's wrong?" asked Holly.
"What is wrong, you goit," said Rimmer, "is that it would be a great deal better if we had a picture that doesn't look like primetime Spanish television."
Holly ignored the insult. "It's the best I can do, I'm afraid."
"So where is this?" Rimmer asked, hands on hips. The picture was strange, grainy; it moved and shifted, almost as if clouds of sand were swirling up in some alien Sahara.
"The shopping mall," said Holly. "The anti-fire system's been deployed. Dave must've activated a fire extinguisher. Revolutionary, those are."
"Revolutionary?"
"Right on," said Holly. "Problem is, they were meant to deal with large-scale fires - big ones. That gas is capable of putting out a raging inferno, but also fills a room faster than it takes a ZX-81 to crash."
"Is it dangerous?" Rimmer didn't much like the thought of having to risk his own life because of his bunkmate's careless mistake. But something inside him worried for Lister's safety; maybe it was the fear of being totally alone in space with only a senile computer for company that forced him to ask the question; maybe it was something else entirely. But it was there.
"Not really," Holly replied. "Though in the state he was in, it's impossible to tell. He's had so much drink he's forgotten who I am, and keeps calling me Norman." He considered this for a moment. "Though I'm not complaining. I think it's a rather fetching name myself."
"What's wrong with you, Holly?" snorted Rimmer. "We're discussing an urgent situation, not engaging in idle chit-chat!" Something was different about the balding computer; this was not the Holly he'd known before, the Holly who could answer countless questions at the blink of an eye. He seemed to have trouble answering even the simplest of queries without digressing from the topic at hand.
"I'm sorry," said Holly. "Three million years alone hasn't done wonders for my sanity chip. I'm wondering if it might be a little loose, to be perfectly honest."
"I'm betting it's a lot more than that." Rimmer folded his arms. "So who's going to go and fetch him? The skutters?"
Holly's answer came decidedly slow. "I think it might be best for you to go, Arnold."
Rimmer's face fell. He felt as if a ton of bricks had just been emptied from the cargo bay and dumped on top of him. "Me?" he said in a ridiculously high-pitched voice, "Why me?"
"He's in desperate need of company. I thought the sight of a human face might, well…cheer him up a little. Help him recover, get him back on his feet."
After a good few minutes of persuasion, Rimmer reluctantly agreed. Though in truth, this in part owed to the fact that he could not wait to see the look on Lister's face when he realised his superior was still around. In all of this turmoil and confusion, this was the one thing he secretly relished. It'll take more than a nuclear explosion to bring me down, he thought with a little smile. You can't get rid of Arnold J. Rimmer that easily.
Holly sensed his impatience. "Arnold—"
"Not now, Holly," Rimmer interrupted him. He looked about the enormous room, thinking to himself. Three million years was a long time; who knows what sort of creatures he might find aboard the ship? Though he suspected his worries were mostly unfounded, he felt it best to be prepared. Squinting to see further, he noticed a rack of bazookoids at the far end of the room.
Holly tried again, "But Arnold—"
"Holly, whatever it is, it can wait," Rimmer said, waving his hand dismissively at the monitor. Holly rolled his eyes. It was clear the hologram was in no mood to listen.
Rimmer approached the weapon rack. He'd never had use for a bazookoid before; they were mainly of use in the larger engineering jobs, when an explosive force was required to clear an area or open a stubborn weld. They looked simple enough; a few buttons in assorted colours ran down their sides, labelled clearly in both English and Esperanto, and a large hand-grip was fixed to the top to help the wielder manage their immense weight. He chose the one nearest to him and reached for the handle.
And that was when Rimmer realised that something was Very Wrong Indeed.
To be continued…
Yes, it's an evil cliffhanger! XD
Please review:)I've loved reading your reviews so far! I'd really like to know what you think of this chapter!