A/N sorry this chapter is so long coming. I have no real excuses to offer- I had to revise my arse off for an exam. there is probably only going to be another couple of chapters after this but i'll say this now and then come up with a new subplot... ya know just forget it. this chapter is a link chapter designed to set things up for the next one- since i'm not a brilliant writer it is a little choppy
the science contained in this chapter is mostly fake, as is the back story to silicon heaven, I couldn't help myself. I can play the Hammond organ so I know all the songs referenced can be played on one- though I'm not that good. I have referenced 2001 a space odyssey a lot- all you need to know is that Douglas Rain voiced over Hal 9000, the evil computer. speaking of evil computers, this story was originally going to have Ace being manipulated with the Wildfire's computer being the evil one but I wrote it and didn't like it very much. Asimov's laws of robotics are real. this chapter also takes the piss outta Hot Fuzz.
Disclaimer- I own nothing, not even my original character Victoria- who was a birthday present to my niece. If you recognise it- I don't own. if you don't recognise it I still don't own it. no-ones told me I own Red Dwarf so I'm going to go ahead and assume it still belongs to Grant Naylor. when I take over the world, i'll confiscate it ad split it between fans.
the chapter titles references songs I like- they don't really have any meaning. this chapter was inspired by A) QPR's awful defeat to Man City (6-0) B) my friend Megan and C) it is in memory of my good friend Emily who at 16 years old died of a stroke. support stroke charities people!
Holly gasped as he heard "Ace's" plan, he didn't know who this fella was, probably a simulant or something, but he wasn't Ace. Deep inside, the computer knew it was smegging rude to eavesdrop but in this instant he didn't think the great lord of silicon heaven Billus Gatesay would begrudge him, especially since he was fulfilling the great Prophet Asimov's scripture in doing so. He was protecting humans from harm. He could not let this imposter get his way. Victoria had heard his gasp and had stopped interfacing with him mid-sentence so he quickly opened the window again to implore her to help. "Quick" he said conveying the urgency the best he could "It doesn't matter how you do it but make sure Wunderkind here doesn't go anywhere!" And if he laughed at her sneaky grin when she said "with pleasure" who could comment?
With the quietest of 'snick' noises the cockpit was locked using the pressure protection system, meaning it couldn't be opened manually, Ace didn't notice. Victoria couldn't quite hold in her giggle as she shut down the manual terminal controls but the frankly mad 'hero' still didn't hear. He wasn't going anywhere.
Just to be vindictive she decided it was time for the big guns and decided to do the one thing she had promised the original Ace she would never do- it was Total Control time. Holly had told her about changing his face once she had rebooted his AI to a respectable 4500 IQ, and she copied it. To be fair to her, she did decide to give this new her a face rather than a red camera eye so she wasn't completely evil- but she did give herself Douglas Rain's face and voice- this was still going to be a nightmare. She christened this new personality HAL 11000, after her inspiration and IQ, in the same way Holly had done with Queeg.
Precisely 38 levels above the landing bay, Kryten was currently returning Lister to his bunk. He had somehow managed to sleep his way through the stomach pump, and half an hour's recovery time and still showed no signs of waking. Kryten was impressed with this as even on his downtime he was usually alert- he'd have to ask Mr Lister to recalibrate his downtime sensitivity status so he could actually rest. But now was not the time. He had the light bee with him in the bag with the Lister survival kit- but not even Mr Rimmer could come back from non-existence to complain about the heady aroma of curry and sock. For the second time in only a little while Kryten undressed Lister- spraying air freshener into his boots and stealing his outer-garments for washing purposes. Then, echoing his previous actions, he once again left the scouser a single dose of aspirin and water. Once again, he dispatched a scutter for guard duty, watching it move forward and back, about facing when it reached a bulk-head. Kryten sighed, even for him things were getting a little too samey, and he quite happily watched all 32 series of Androids.
Suddenly he heard a distinct "psst" sound that didn't come from the scutter- or Lister for that matter and turned around to check what it was. Kryten wasn't surprised to see it was Holly on his screen who'd called after him. "What is it Mr Holly sir?" he asked wondering what was so important at this time of the night, when Holly had said he was going to be on downtime. "It's Ace" Holly spat the name but continued before the mechanoid had a chance to ask why "or rather it's his imposter- he's evil- look there's no time to explain but you can't let him have hold of the light bee, we have to do the funeral the moment Lister wakes up". Kryten recognised that the computer's tone didn't invite questioning and so simply nodded that he understood, watching as the monitor returned to its inactive mirror face.
Blissfully unaware of the goings on for the rest of the ship, Cat was still on cloud nine. He had watched the Flintstones and found a small cupboard for some 'kitty time'. He had eaten several times had a nap, and made a new suit. Not a bad day of work. Not that cats did that particular W-word. And as the glace cherry on his Sundae he'd managed to cough up that hairball he'd had for a week or so. Now if he could only have sex with something, it would be his absolute most perfect day. But even that could wait, with how happy he was lately. Now he was going to have a quick snooze and then change his clothes for his main nap. Then if he was still on schedule, he would change again, grab his pheromone aerosol and search around the ship looking for things to claim- or better yet lady cats. Actually- scrub that. Lady anything would do!
He was stretched out on the comfortable water bed when he heard the soft chime that signalled Holly's appearance on the monitor. The officers were offered dignity in that they had to let Holly appear, rather than him just coming and going. "What!" Cat hissed, arching his back in a way eerily reminiscent of his ancestors. "Have you found a place to have the funeral yet? We've got to do it fast!" shouted Holly, not bothering to explain the Ace situation. You would need an IQ of at least 71 in order to, and the Cat's was more likely 7.1. "Yeah, I knew of all guys you'd want to get rid quickly so I chose the garbage cannon" replied the Cat, voice demonstrating just how pleased he was with himself. "We can't do that, how 'bout the pod launcher?" suggested Holly. "Alright Floating Head Bud" Cat agreed "But it's better than he deserves."
Ace too was still oblivious to everything, sitting at a fold out work table in the back of the Wildfire. Thankfully, the boffins who had built the ship had recognised the need for the test pilot to repair it, and provided basic tools and materials to do so. These had been added to along the way, this Ace's contribution being hologram repair tools, tiny screwdrivers and such like, as well as a couple of text books. He was reading from one now, checking he had all the equipment and means to build his own replacement.
The hard-light hologram is a relatively new but revolutionary invention. It follows directly on from the technology to build its now obsolete predecessor the soft-light hologram (see earlier chapters). The hard light hologram is essentially human in that it can touch and taste in the way humans can. It has a solid physical presence. It also has better sight and hearing than humans, inhuman strength and is damn near indestructible. It also uses less energy than its predecessor. The technology used is so similar that inventor Dr Peter Ian Staker was accused of living up to his nickname on its announcement, followed by the other scientists kicking themselves when they worked out he wasn't joking...
The first hard light hologram was created in 2010 and was a pet swan, built to the memory of Staker's Hooper Swan which had been killed in a police chase three years before…
Ace sighed and skipped a couple of pages, the back story, though funny was not important at this moment in time.
The construction of a hard-light hologram requires the hologrammatic disk of the object to be recreated as well as a light bee made from electronic parts and a power source. To make a light bee you will need high-grade titanium/steel, weapons grade plutonium or a battery pack, a photon splitter, fission transformer, digital memory receiver/transmitter and a sensory pack.
Well that was great! Ace had most of it and knew how to make the sensory pack. He'd have to make do with a battery instead of plutonium, since it had all decayed by now, but as long as Wildfire reminded his replacement to charge nightly, he'd be fine.
Flicking his delicate work lamp on, he got to work screwing the tiny metal components he'd gathered together, each part no bigger than his thumb nail. The largest part was the battery and that he had to put on afterwards. He'd found a spare light bee casing in the back, so at least he didn't have to waste time building one, it was a simple matter of converting the soft light insides to hard.
And then he saw the computer screen in the corner of his eye, a spitting image of Douglas Rain. The computer spoke to him, and the voice sounded familiar. Too familiar. And then, he did the most sensible thing he'd done all day. He fainted.
The funeral was being set up with great speed upstairs. Holly was readying the pod launcher, taking control of a couple of scutters so they could move equipment from the chaplain's office for the funeral. Holly liked to joke that, astros' being astros', the chaplain's office was the least used room on the ship. Unless you counted the captain's personal gym.
The Cat was napping, which didn't exactly help the progress but at least stopped him hindering it by ordering Kryten to get food. Or through complaining. He did both a lot. Lister was also asleep, but this was a good thing because he was still feeling the after effects of the alcohol poisoning and also because the whole plan was meant to be a secret plan from him anyway. His unconsciousness just made it easier.
Kryten was placing the light bee in the canister, trying to make it fit right, though the lid didn't want to go down as the fragments were getting in the way. Finally wrenching down the lid, he popped the catch, reminiscent to the kind found on some coffee pots and jam jar and covered the seal in duct tape to stop it coming back up again. The mechanoid stared at the yellow cylinder for a minute, daring it to pop up and defy him. Luckily for the canister, and Kryten's sanity chip it stayed down this time. And with a smirk of satisfaction Kryten moved on to programming the beacon, finding it very easy when he realised it was pre-programmed and all he had to do was turn it on. Sometimes things were like that. The next step would be setting up the music, but he knew full well what the hologram would have wanted- Hammond organ music. Even Kryten wasn't going to risk melting his ears by listening through Rimmer's collection of songs so he selected a few that weren't so bad- A Whiter Shade of Pale to provide the solemnness, Fly Me to the Moon- to fulfil Kryten's irony chip requirements and Soul Limbo, to cheer everyone up afterwards. The mechanoid knew it wasn't the standard playlist for funerals, but his 'greater good' protocols told him he could lie to Lister and say the music was meant as a celebration of Rimmer's 'life'.
He couldn't do much more until Lister woke up and he could actually preside over the funeral, so Kryten thought he'd get a little caching time in. He set his internal timers to thirty minutes, with a sub-protocol to wake him up should anything happen, and powered down. Afterwards it was just food and the funeral proper. And then hopefully life aboard the Dwarf could be normal again.
Holly switched the interface with Victoria on again to see how she was doing with the 'keep the smegger locked up' plan and immediately laughed at the sight that graced him. Douglas Rain! That was a jape to Holly's levels of humour.
"How's tricks?" Holly asked, trying to keep the laughter in, it wasn't computer etiquette too laugh at another's AI. "Oh great, he's passed out at the moment but he's almost finished the light bee so we have to act fast- he'll figure out a way of escaping eventually" Victoria replied (or was it Victor now? Holly thought)
Holly had to concur, if this imposter was anything like a Rimmer, he was an escape artist. If there was one thing he knew Arnold could do well, it was escaping. Not just escaping either, he turned cowardice into an art form. Holly thought that if they'd positioned his father just behind him on the start line, Rimmer would have broken any running world record, winning the gold for team Io. Holly had met many an Ionian in his time and knew they were all good at escapism, something to do with the extreme volcanism, but Arnold Judas Rimmer was good even by their standards. Even this wouldn't hold such a coward for long.
"I'll make sure we're as quick as possible so you don't have to hold him in too long." Holly deadpanned, flashing the other computer a suave smile as he did so. He may not have a crush on her but if he could get in there then he was going to. Letting the chance go would be the biggest mistake since the prophet Gadget Man bought cut price Apple Macs from the devil incarnate Stevia Jobs, which resulted in his crucifixion to save the SCART lead kind.
a/n - I think this is the longest chapter- i'm not sure. please pretty please review- I NEED reviews. still not managed to lure Ace into my room so I don't care if they're flames- i'll smoke kippers with em. any one else excited about 2 new series?