Not long had passed when Rimmer finally arrived. He felt a little sense of foreboding when everyone's chatter had ceased once he entered the room. All of this was bad enough already. He knew they were all talking about it, probably poking fun at his less than desirable position. He definitely didn't want any of them here for this, especially not Lister. That's the last thing he needed. He knew one of them was bound to work it out. He really hoped they didn't, though. His only comfort was telling himself over and over that they were morons.

"Don't go." He stated, pointing a finger out the door.

"Don't worry. I didn't even plan on it!" Cat replied with his oblivious and optimistic toothy grin.

"I don't mean it!" Rimmer tried, beginning to get more irritated with himself. He bit his fist so hard that if he were actually alive, he might have bled.

"I think he wants us to leave." He said to the Cat before turning his eyes back to the hologram, "That what you want, Rimmer...?"

Rimmer scrutinized him for a few moments before trying to nod. Sadly, it came out as him shaking his head no. So, he grabbed his face and forced it up with much difficulty and then down again. He repeated this process a few times.

Lister had a smirk and then commented, "This is getting painful to watch."

Cat was holding his ground and waving his finger around, "Uh-uh. No way. I ain't leaving. Not until I find out if whatever dorko over here's got is contagious or not. I mean, I don't wanna die! I'm way too sexy to die!"

"Rest assured, Mr. Cat. If anyone around here is to do any dying, it will be Mr. Rimmer" Kryten said, giving the stylish humanoid a nod that set him at ease.

"Man, you sure know how to cheer a guy up!" He returned with a happy smile, blissfully unaware of Rimmer's look of disgust in the background.

"I love you all.." The hologram said bitterly. Once the words left, he tried biting his tongue off but was interrupted by Lister grabbing his arm and pushing him towards the examination bed forcefully.

"Get on up there.." He folded his arms as he watched Kryten place a helmet with many blinking lights and buttons on Rimmer's head along with some other wires. He made some explanation of how the device worked and then directed all of them to a screen which showed a green background, along with a light green outline of Rimmer's body. There was some red matter floating along his image.

"What the hell is that?" Lister wondered, tapping the screen as if it would bring some clarification.

"That's the effect of the energy that hit him." Kryten answered.

"So, what's it doing, then? Is it some kind of virus?" He smirked and then looked at the Cat, "Imagine that, a virus that makes you tell the truth. I wouldn't mind having me a bottle o' that. Spikin' him every now and then…"

Rimmer attempted to sit up, having a look on his face as though he wanted to strangle the other men but Kryten made him sit back down.

"To answer your questions further, I suppose yes, it is an ailment of some sort. Indestructible he may be, but as a hard light hologram, he seems more susceptible to certain conditions.." Kryten replied.

Lister shook his head, "A dead man and he's still getting sick. Isn't that just stupid? I thought being dead was as ill as you could get."

"Well, it does make sense, Sir, if you don't mind me disagreeing. In this day and age, holograms are evolving into more like humans all the time. It's the same with androids. We started out as robots, doing humans bidding and then through enough time and certain influences" He nodded at Lister, "We've been able to break our programming and become, or at least hope to be, as human as the likes of you. Which, I must say, is a great honor. So, it is only natural to think that creatures that are like humans can suffer from ailments"

"I guess so. Just sounds terrible to me. I mean, what kind of privilege is it to be sick?"

"Can we not get back to me now? I'd rather not skip your little speech about hologram and android rights…Don't fix me now. Pronto. On the double!" Rimmer interrupted. He just wanted to be back to normal as quickly as possible so he could forget this whole thing hadn't happened.

"Yes, yes, of course, Mr. Rimmer.." The Android nodded, returning to him. He analyzed the screens and the helmet, trying to collect as much information as possible. Upon doing so, he spoke again, "It would appear the energy or…virus, whichever you wish to call it, is unstable. Whatever that beam was that we went through seems damaging to holograms. I'm not sure there is even a cure"

"Can't we just reboot him or something? Wouldn't that fix the error?" Lister wondered.

"I don't think it's that simple. According to my data, the corruption is mutating"

"Into what?" He asked with curious eyes. Kryten didn't appear to have the answer to the question.

Rimmer didn't like where this was going. He hated how grim things were seeming. If he didn't get back to his usual self soon, he was bound to go even madder than he already was stuck in space with this lot. He was taken out of his thoughts when he saw Kryten eyeing him with purpose. He met his stare and rose an eyebrow.

"Before we can go any further, I believe I need to ask you some questions."

"Q-Questions?" Rimmer repeated.

"Yes. Some very personal, possibly invasive personal questions. The sort that would probably make any normal man uncomfortable to the highest degree." Kryten replied, causing Rimmer's face to fall.

He knew this was coming. He just knew it. He stared apprehensively at Kryten, then at the Cat and Lister. This was their plan all along: Embarrass the Smeg head. Have a good old laugh and material for teasing for months! Well, no Siree. He wouldn't be having that.

Rimmer subtly removed his helmet, along with all the wires and wore one of his typical smiles that went with the expression when he was about to cowardly run off from something undesirable. And this wouldn't definitely be filed under undesirable. He slid off from the side, "You know, I think I haven't…" He said, his pitch going a little higher than normal, "…changed my mind!" Then he began to run, not caring if he'd knocked anything over in the process. He just needed to get away before any questions were asked and he felt compelled to answer.

As soon as Lister saw him trying to get away, he cocked his head and shouted, "Grab him, Cat!" Then they both lunged for him before he could leave the room. Barely a moment later, all three of them were on the floor. Kryten tried to explain that everything would be alright but the stubborn hologram wasn't having any of it. He kept struggling and mentally cursing his hard light drive. Oh, sometimes he missed the days when he could just walk right through things. Mainly, times like this.

"I don't know what you're playing at! You haven't been talking to Lister, have you?! You just don't want my secrets!"

Lister tried calming the struggling Rimmer, "For Smeg's sake, we're just trying to help ya!"

"What he said!" the Cat agreed, "Besides! We've already read your diary! The darkest thing in there is that time when you accidentally wore one of the monkey's socks!"

"I believe you!" Rimmer replied, his tone remaining skeptical as he continued to push forward. His fingers wriggling towards the door in vain.

"Rimmer" Lister coaxed, but still got resistance from the apprehensive git. "Arnold, man, listen." Rimmer stopped struggling for a moment to meet the other man's eyes as he spoke, "Trust us, come on. We're your friends"

"Speak for yourself! This is news to me!" The Cat chimed in but Lister ignored him, focused on his bunk mate.

Rimmer wanted to be rude and spout his programmed responses of how he didn't believe it for one second. That there was some ulterior motive just like the last time he'd claimed that they were friends. But something in his eyes made him want to believe his words. Maybe he was just getting soft, he didn't know but he relented. "Okay, Listy…"

He got up and back in the chair. In the background, Cat was whinging as he tred to straighten out his clothes which he claimed got mussed by trying to hold down Rimmer. Lister however found something curious.

"Hey, Kryte…?" He began, "That there…If negative is positive and positive is negative, shouldn't that have been backwards…?"

"He makes a good point." Rimmer spoke up and was stunned. He jumped out of the chair and laughed, "I'm better! I'm not switched around anymore. Oh, how fabulous." He made a victorious fist and looked very pleased as he stared at the ceiling, "I get to go back to being that annoying bastard nobody likes!"

"Well, that was weird…" Lister said, exchanging glances with everyone "Was it just temporary, then? It just wore off?"

While everyone, save for Cat, were either celebrating or wondering what the smeg had just happened, Kryten was taking a second look at his calculations and at another device of his, the same he'd used when they first found out about Rimmer's condition.

"I hate to spoil your happiness, Sirs, but according to this. It's still here. The mutation. It's simply affected a different part of his personality." Kryten brought up, showing off his screen to Lister.

"What you mean?"

"Well, uh, now, instead of his intentions just being backwards, it appears to have just eliminated his ability to lie altogether. Among other functions…" He replied, before the two of them looked back at Rimmer. "Like for example, his will power…"

"That probably didn't take much effort, then…" Lister snickered a little, "He didn't have much will power to start with…What's it mean? He's just going to start doing things, saying things without thinking about it?" He folded his arms, "I'm gonna need me some popcorn.."

Suddenly, Rimmer's projection seemed to weave in and out. Rimmer looked down at himself, "What's happening?! What's going on?" This got everyone, including Cat's attention. "Well, don't just stand there like idiotic gimboids, help me!"

"And you're sure he's not back to normal?" asked Cat skeptically.

All of a sudden, Rimmer started vomiting out truth after truth to questions no one was even asking and couldn't stop. After a bit of asking, Lister asked, "What's he doing?"

"I told you, Sir, he can't help himself…" Kryten replied, getting some amusement out of this as well.

"When I was young, I always played the girl in all my brothers games. They made me wear dresses and tied me to trees."

"We've all heard that story…" Cat said, unimpressed.

"Yes…but I never said it continued until I was 16..Why am I telling you this? I liked it." He cringed, trying to shut his mouth but nothing was working "I was never very masculine. I think that's why my father was so cruel… In my early soft-light days, I tried cross dressing. I was just curious what it was like. Holly has pictures. But I convinced him to wipe his memory so he didn't know they even existed. I was ashamed…I wish people liked me more. I'm the reason for all my own failures, even though I like to blame everyone else for my misfortunes. I used to wear curlers. But I didn't want Lister to know, so I wore a helmet to bed every night for 3 months."

"You said it was a preparation technique that I wouldn't understand" Lister recalled, wearing a strange and confused look on his face, "And why only 3 months…?"

"It was a phase. I was just trying something new-God, can someone please make me shut up! Before I say something more embarrassing."

"I don't know about anyone else, but I'm having a ball!" Cat said, smiling as he looked up from the notepad he was writing on, "Now, uh, can you just repeat those last few ones. You were talking a little fast"

"I don't know what could be more embarrassing than you wearin' a dress and liking it…" Lister commented.

"It was a phase!" Rimmer defended.

This was getting ridiculous. Now, Lister liked seeing the guy suffer just as much as the next guy, to get back at him for being such a smeghead on a normal basis but this was just being cruel. They needed to help him out.

"Please. Help. I'll do anything. Just make me stop! There are some things that just can't be known. Some things I need to keep to myself!" Rimmer pleaded.

"You mean it gets better?" Cat asked, hopefully.

Lister went up to him, holding his fists out, "You've got to fight it! Turn yourself off, man! Maybe we can fix ya!"

"I can't!"

"Sure you can! Just pretend you're anyone who's met you! That'll do the trick!" Cat offered, earning a glare from Lister.

"Not helping, Cat"

Rimmer started to hyperventilate, clutching his chest and leaning down, bending his knees. He made a few statements between breaths that he couldn't do it, that it was too much. Lister gritted his teeth, suddenly worry that if this went on, Rimmer might actually be gone for good. His projection was flickering more, jumping from soft light to hard light to nearly invisible.

"Krtyen, man! Can't we do somethin'?" He shouted. The android jumped. He hadn't known when he should jump in because he was clearly at a loss for what to do. But he didn't want to let Lister down. So, he stepped before the hologram.

"Mr. Rimmer…" He began and through his heavy breathing, Rimmer looked up at him, "Think. Think hard, through all your secrets and all your truths that want to spill out the second you open your mouth, what is the one you never want to get out?"

"Don't ask me that…" He wheezed, "I might tell you!" He gave a loud grunt, as though trying to hold back the words that desperately wanted to come out. He knew the big secret that couldn't be revealed. The secret that would make him never be able to live comfortably on this ship again.

"Then, if you don't wish to tell me …" He gestured behind him to the other two, "or Mr. Lister or the Cat, wouldn't it be wise for you to switch yourself off?"

He opened his mouth to say 'Okay' but what came out was, "I am sexually attracted to Lister!" Immediately, he clamped his hand over his mouth with an audible squeak.

Oh my God. I did not just say that. I did not just say that.

Fighting the urge to jump out of the nearest airlock, he eyed the silent room, each person who was just staring at him with a look of shock with mouths agape.

"Well, yes…Alright. Switching myself off, then!" He reached inside himself at that moment and turned off, his capsule falling to the floor as he did so. Part of him was hoping they never turned him back on. (

- Sorry if it sucks. I may rewrite this once I finish.