Chapter Two

Back in the black wastes of space, Arnold Rimmer pulled off his wig and rubbed the smooth center of his forehead, where the metallic H that had marked his hologrammatic status had once protruded.

"Ace?" the computer prodded. "Ace, are you all right?"

"Don't call me that, Computer," Rimmer said through a scowl. "Not when we're alone."

"Oh, Arnold, not another sulk," said the computer. "Why are you being like this? You've been Ace for five years now—"

"Two," he corrected. "The first three were training. Training that you said shouldn't have taken more than a few months, if you remember."

"—and you've done a darn fine job carrying on the flame," the computer continued in a firm voice. "I don't understand this thing inside you that can never accept success, especially after such a clever victory."

Rimmer didn't acknowledge her words. He just turned his eyes to the window, staring out at nothing in particular. "That girl was right, you know. The Princess Angela," he said. "I'm not happy. I suppose I should be…successful mission and all that… But, to tell the truth, I'm sick of it. Sick of the act, sick of the costume, sick of the stupid butch voice." He scowled. "Just because the first Ace smoked two packs of those little girly cigars a day and dressed up in a shiny flight suit that made him look like a holiday traveler trapped in Heathrow Airport after a snowstorm, why should I have to suffer for it?" (1).

"Arnie—"

"No, I mean it!" Rimmer said. "If it really is my destiny to do this hero lark day after day, year after year, why can't I ever do it as myself? Why does the credit for all my hard work always have to go to boost the reputation of that dead git? Why?"

"Arnie, I've told you time and again," the computer said patiently. "You do get the credit. His reputation, his legend, is yours too. You are Ace Rimmer. You've earned the name a hundred times over, and then some."

"That's just it, though," Rimmer protested. "I may be doing his job, even doing it well, but that doesn't make me Ace. I hated Ace. Even now, I can't stand the thought of his smug face, that conceited, self-satisfied, overachieving bastard. Did I tell you about the first time we met? He just burst on the scene with his broken arm and perfect hair and started making assumptions. I was still in my soft-light form then, but he kept prattling on, making demands as if that didn't even matter. I ask you, how could I be expected to bring that simpering mechanoid Kryten back online when I couldn't even touch the doorframe without my hand passing through it? And all those engine performance questions he kept hurling at me—for all he knew I'd been the ship's cook! Dancing around Starbug's hold with Lister as if he were the host of a kids' TV show..." Rimmer shook his head in disgust. "Everyone seems to forget: if Saint Ace hadn't lost control after his first dimension jump and crashed into our ship, we never would have needed his smegging help in the first place."

"Look, you said it yourself, Arnold," the computer said. "That Ace is dead. He's gone, and so is the Ace that came before you."

"You mean James-smegging-Bond," Rimmer muttered. "The man who shagged his way across eighty-six dimensions before catching a Nazi bullet with his lightbee."

"I mean, there's no point complaining about them. The job is yours now and, despite a few rocky patches to begin with, you've done spectacularly so far. In fact, you're one of only three Ace Rimmers who ever bothered to learn how to pilot this ship manually, without any backup from me. That makes you a genuine flying ace, at least in my book. "

"It's just not good enough, Computer," Rimmer insisted, making her wonder if he'd even heard her words. "Ace may be physically dead, but his legend lives on, bigger than us all. And no matter how many times you go on about 'taking up the flame' and 'the great relay race,' the bare, basic truth of the matter is that I'm not Ace. I'm an actor playing Ace. When my predecessor died, he handed me the costume and the role and you taught me the lines and the moves. But I didn't earn that name, or his rank of commander. I never made it to Space Corps Special Services. I'm just a private, a lowly Second Technician, all scrunched up and hiding behind a much grander character. And now, no matter what I do, no matter how heroic or selfless or stupid or whatever… It's not me that gets the credit, it's the legend. And if I screw up, the legend makes up for it."

He shook his head, his features pinched and his gaze light years away. "My whole life I've had to live in the shadow of someone else: my brothers, my mother—even myself! Back on Red Dwarf, when Holly activated my hologram to keep Lister sane, I knew I wasn't the same man I'd been. Arnold Rimmer was dead. I was just his ghost, a computer generated holographically simulated personality inspired by a detailed brain scan of the original. Over the years, I struggled with the knowledge that I was filling a dead man's shoes. And now, I'm doing it again, aren't I? Only here, I can never let up, never be myself.

"I ask you, Computer, how can I be a hero, a role model for kids like Angela, if I can't even step out of this ship without wearing this smegging costume!"

The computer made a noise rather like an electronic groan. He was so difficult when he got like this! Most of the other Rimmers had had their hang ups, but when this one got into a slump, the bitterness and low self-esteem that had been a fundamental aspect of his psychological make-up for so many years came pouring out of him like sewage from a freshly unblocked drainage pipe. "Arnold, listen—"

"No, I'm through listening. I told you, I'm sick of it! Sick of the stupid James Bond voice, sick of the ridiculous floppy wig, sick of the BacoFoil flight jacket. Sick of the women swooning for a man they think I am. Not for me. Never for me. I've had enough of the pretense. If I can't earn a reputation on my own, I don't want to be lumbered dragging his around."

The computer sighed. "None of the other Aces were ever like you. They reveled in the Ace persona."

"Yeah, well... Maybe that's what comes from all those years of being a hideous failure. Now I've finally tasted some success… I feel I want to achieve something, really achieve something, that I can call my own."

"But you have," the computer insisted. "For years now, you've owned this role. Those experiences, those triumphs, they were all yours. The name doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it?" Rimmer scoffed. "Those people out there want a flashy, overbearing, fatheaded hero to swoop out of the sky and fix their problems for them. They have all these overblown expectations of what Ace is supposed to be. But, what no one seems to realize is that it's not a game, this life. It's not some childish doodle in an algebra notebook. It's real. It involves real people and real consequences. And here's me in my tin foil costume, putting on that macho voice and asking desperate people in mortal peril to trust me. No, not to trust me. To trust the legend." He shook his head in shame. "It's a travesty. A con."

"Arnie, don't let's start this—"

"All my life, I've been a failure."

"And here it comes." The computer sighed tiredly.

"Even as a child, the very thought of Arnold J. Rimmer made me cringe. I used to disappear into my imagination for days at a time, dreaming I was someone else. Someone worthwhile. Well, now I am that someone, but not as myself, no, only as a prop for something grander, a link in an endless chain. It's like some bad cosmic joke," he said. "I get to be the hero I always imagined, but only by assuming the name and reputation of another man. By living a lie." He shook his head.

"The way I see it, if I can't prove myself a hero as myself, without the Ace legend hanging over me, I might as well pack it in and head back to Starbug. The old posse may have been a pack of cretinous, inept space bums, but at least I didn't have to pretend with them. I mean, yes, Lister was a fetid slob with the personal hygiene of a diarrhetic seagull, but deep, deep down, buried somewhere far beneath all his irritating, disgusting habits and traits, he was, at heart, an honest man. And it's taken me all these years to realize that, somehow, somewhere along the line, a bit of that honesty must have rubbed off on me." He made a face. "I always said that little gimboid was contagious."

"So, is that what you want, then?" the computer asked. "To face danger alone, without Ace's reputation to back you up?"

Rimmer's bitter expression slackened at that. "Well, no. Not exactly," he said. "It's just…"

"Look, I think I understand, Arnold." The computer's tone gentled. "You've come a long way these past five years, but when it comes down to it, you've never actually faced up to your own demons. And until you do, you will always feel unworthy of your place as Ace."

Rimmer straightened. "I never said I was unworthy—!"

"Arnold," the computer interrupted. "I think it's time—oh my…"

"Computer?" Rimmer said, leaning forward in concern. "Are you OK?"

"I… I'm not sure. I feel…rather spaced. You don't think I could have picked up a virus…?"

Rimmer paled, his own issues sluiced aside as he suddenly remembered that flash of static on the viewer, just before the lead Simulant ship had exploded. His fingers flew over the controls, scanning the computer's mainframe. "A virus. A Simulant virus… Oh smeg, please, don't let it be that..."

"Arnold?" The computer's voice sounded weak and frightened. "I—I can't see. I think…my sensors…"

"Don't worry, Computer," Rimmer said, already hard at work using the control panel to work out a set of multidimensional coordinates and a flight plan. "I'll get you out of this."

"Do you know what it is?"

Rimmer bit his lip. "It's all right, Computer. I've seen this before," he said, struggling to keep his voice calm and reassuring. "It's called the Armageddon Virus: a nasty bit of tainted code the Simulants like to transmit to attacking vessels just before they get blown across the bridge to Silicon Hell."

"The Armageddon Virus! But, Arnold…"

"I know they say it's terminal, but trust me, there is a way to cure it. If we can just make the jump…"

Reality swirled and bent around them as Rimmer input the course instructions and piloted the ship to the one reality where he knew there was an antidote for the Armageddon Virus. He only hoped the virus his Starbug had contracted all those years ago was similar enough to the virus infecting the Wildfire computer for Kryten's Dove Program to work.

NOTE: (1) Last December, when I was trying to travel home for Christmas, I lost almost a full week with my family because I was trapped living in Heathrow Airport while they tried to clear the snow off the runways. They passed out crinkly silver survival blankets (I still have mine), and the material reminded me a lot of Ace's suit. For days, the halls were filled with people wrapped up in little clusters, like baked potatoes. Terrifying experience. Being alone, stranded thousands of miles from home, no certainty when or if you'd get out or if you'd have to abandon your chance at seeing your family all together and retreat back to school. Probably why I sank so hard into my latest Red Dwarf obsession. But, as Holly said, you've got to laugh, haven't you.

It's a creepy feeling wondering if you're talking to yourself. If you're out there, and you're reading, please handshake. Any and all feedback would be appreciated! :)