Rimmer sat back in his chair, pretending he was enjoying the flush of memories his old home movies were pouring on him. To sit there and watch his insane father, his ice queen mother and his psychotic brothers all tormenting him was so spirit draining that he just smiled even more. After all, this was how it was supposed to be, right? You're supposed to pretend you like your family, even if they're not even remotely likeable. Or tolerable. Or humane.

His fake smile grew even more as he watched a video his brothers had taken of him with his head shoved down the toilet. The smile grew emptier as they dumped detergent on him as well, laughing maniacally as they did so.

There was a clatter nearby that mercifully allowed him to look away from the screen. It was Kryten, fiddling with some of his cleaning supplies. "Oh, apologies, sir!" he exclaimed awkwardly, clutching a small paper bag. "I was just getting a, er… uh… sorry…"

Rimmer hid his disappointment that he wouldn't be able to leave his seat after all. "No, Kryten, it's all right," he said in as casual-yet-superior a voice as he could muster. "I was just watching some of the old home movies."

Kryten came around to look, and Rimmer pretended he wanted him to by pointing to the screen.

"That's me, there. Those are my brothers: John, Frank, and Howard. God, we were close," he lied blatantly. "'The Four Musketeers', we used to call ourselves. Well, 'The Three Musketeers', actually - they always let me be the Queen of Spain. Marvelous. I mean, yes, I was the butt of the occasional practical joke, but I mean, er, nothing sinister."

Kryten peered over his shoulder. On the screen, two boys in scout uniforms were hammering wooden stakes into the ground. The stakes were tied to the arms and legs of a third boy in scout uniform. One boy smeared jam onto the bound boy's face as the other holds up a tin, labelled "Ants", to the camera, and then began pouring it onto little Arnie's face.

"Just the usual boyhood pranks," Rimmer brazenly continued, as though this was very normal. "You know: apple-pied beds, and black-eyed telescope, and, one time, they even hid a small land mine in my sand pit. They took it from my father's gun cabinet. I mean, how were they supposed to know it was going to go off? Marvelous guys."

Kryten just nodded. He didn't really understand human relationships, so he figured this horror show must be totally normal.

The video switched to a shot of a woman reading a book entitled Better Schools Guide.

"And who's that?" he asked. "An old girlfriend, Mr. Arnold, sir?"

Rimmer's benign smile slid off his face, looking a tad disturbed. "Hardly."

Kryten laughed awkwardly at his mistake. "Ah, no. Not really your type, I suppose - silly old trout like that."

"… She's my mother."

Kryten balked in horror. "Oh, I am so SORRY, sir!" he wailed.

"Just forget it."

"Oh, how can I forget it, sir?! I compared your mother to a foolish, aged, blubbery fish! I said she was a simple-minded, scaly old piscine! I estimated she was an ugly, lungless marine animal with galloping senility! A putrid amphibious gill breather with…," he paused to sob, "…with less brains than a mollusk!

"Just. Forget it," Rimmer said forcefully, secretly glad of the distraction. Now, sadly, he had to return to pretending he was content. On another shot of his mother, he paused it. "Ah, there she is - magnificent woman. Very prim, very proper. Some say austere. Some people took her for cold, thought she was aloof. Not a bit of it - she just despised idiots. No time for fools… Tragic, really. Otherwise, we would have got on famously."

Kryten nodded, still feeling horrendously guilty. "Well, if you'll excuse me, sir, I'll go now - this is clearly a very private family moment. I've no fish to embarrass you further. I'll let myself trout… OH, SIR, I…!"

"Just go," Rimmer groaned.

Kryten left, weeping as he went.

Rimmer shook his head and turned back to his videos. He briefly wondered if he ought to just shut it off and do something else. Kryten's comments had made looking at his mother a bit weird now. He had some other things to do, surely.

He reached to switch off the screen when a familiar voice spoke to him.

"Arnold Rimmer, what do you think you're doing?"

Rimmer froze. The woman on the screen – his mother – had lowered her book and was glaring at him down the length of her nose. She looked considerably pissed.

"… Mother?!" he squeaked, frozen in mid-switch-off.

"Don't you dare switch me off, you sorry excuse for a sperm," she said in her fake prim and proper voice. "Show some respect for your family."

"But… you can't… I mean… this is just a video…"

"That's no excuse to ignore your family, young man. Look where you are without us."

"I'm the last human being alive, trapped in deep space!"

"And still a lowly technician. Why can't you be more like your brothers?"

"I… Mother, it's a bit late in the game for this, isn't it? I mean, you're all dead three million years ago…"

"And you're still a nobody. My son, the zero. Can't imagine where I went wrong with you, you little prat."

Rimmer felt something flare up inside him. He couldn't believe this. Three million years into deep space, and his mother was still giving him merry hell. "Mother, please, stop…"

"Don't tell your mother what to do," she sneered. "It's time you were more like your brothers."

The image suddenly switched to the three young boys – John, Frank and Howard. They all waved mockingly at him.

"Look at our little brother," John said mockingly. "All grown up, and still can't make anything of himself!"

"If only he were still here so we could give him a wedgie!" Howard added.

"Oh, not to worry," said Frank. "We've still got him right here!"

Rimmer watched in shock as his brothers reached out of frame and dragged his younger self into the shot. The littlest Rimmer flailed and squirmed, trying to get free.

"No," Rimmer said. "Stop it! Leave me… er, him… alone!"

But they couldn't be reasoned with.

"Come here, Bonehead!" they laughed, taking the poor boy and pulling on his tiny white y-fronts. The little boy screamed and wailed, tears streaming down his face.

Now Rimmer knew what was going on inside him. It was anger. Full on anger, boiling inside of him. That would later explain why he didn't go and get help while this was going on. Why he didn't get Holly to contact Kochanski or Kryten to come help him. The fury he felt was blinding him to the logical course of action.

"Stop it! Just stop it!" he shouted, pounding on the console.

"Arnold Judas Rimmer, shut up!"

Rimmer felt his stomach drop. He knew that voice. Not him, he thought. Anyone but him…

The shot flickered and changed to that of his father. Rimmer Sr. peered at him from the monitor.

"Father," he faltered.

"You're a damned failure, son. You're the reason for all my strokes and brain clots. You're why I'm a miserable excuse for a human being. Knowing that one of my sons is such a boneheaded embarrassment."

The fury grew bigger in Rimmer's stomach. Just the sight of this git was driving him mad. "I didn't do a damn thing to you," he hissed.

"You were a disappointment. A complete waste. I ought to have had you euthanized when you came bottom in Algebra."

"Shut. Up," Rimmer said through his clenched teeth. "Just shut up. You don't know a damn thing about me."

"You're a loser who will never amount to anything. My son, the vending machine repairman…"

"Oh, go to hell!" Rimmer finally snapped. "Just go to so much hell, father! I hate the Space Corps, I hate being in space, and you know something else? I. Hate. YOUUUUUUUUU!"

He finally ran out of wind and took a moment to get his breath back, leaning against the console, glaring at the image of his father staring back at him.

Then, his father smiled a sickly smile. "Good," he hissed.

The entire screen seemed to ripple like a pebble thrown in a lake. The image of his father made a sickening squelching sound, and the next thing Rimmer knew, there was a large protruding sucker attached to his forehead. His eyes crossed and his jaw unhinged as he felt every scrap of anger drain out of his body.

He didn't hear Kochanski come skidding into the room behind him, her hologrammtic feet soundlessly come to a halt. Holly had alerted her that a nonhuman lifeform had been crawling around the science decks. The shouting had brought her running. She had figured Rimmer was finally having that emotional breakdown she had always suspected to be on the horizon.

She hadn't been expecting to see a long slimy fleshy nozzle protruding from the monitor suckling on Rimmer's forehead.

"Rimmer?!" she cried, trying to alert his attention.

But Rimmer's eyes slid shut, and he collapsed to the ground, the strange appendage still slurping from him. It was a long time before whatever it was emerged. Kochanski let out a yelp as she gazed at the monstrosity that had apparently been hiding inside the console. It was a humongous slimy reptilian creature with several rows of teeth that slobbered messily all over the floor.

It towered over Kochanski for a long few moments before disappearing, somehow replacing itself with a cloud of mist that disappeared instantly.

"Holly? Call the Cat and Kryten, and tell one of them to bring a stretcher," Kochanski ordered.

All three hovered over Rimmer's frail form on the medi-bed.

"Is he okay?" Cat asked.

"As far as we can tell, yes," Kochanski confirmed.

"So where'd the creature go?"

"Turned into a cloud of mist and just dissipated. Probably reformed somewhere else."

"So what is it? Some kind of alien?"

"No, it's from Earth," Holly announced. "Manmade. I checked out its DNA profile. Some kind of genetic experiment that went wrong."

"Apparently, it was an attempt to create the ultimate warrior," Kryten explained. "A mutant that could change shape to suit its terrain and deceive its enemies."

"So what did go wrong?" Cat asked.

"It's insane."

"It feeds off the negative emotions," Holly elaborated. "Fear, guilt, anger, paranoia - drains them out of its prey."

"It's a sort of emotional vampire," Kryten continued. "It changes shape to provoke a negative emotion. In Mr. Rimmer's case, it took him to the very limit of his fury, and then sucked out his anger."

Kochanski nodded in understand. "So now Rimmer's incapable of anger."

"Precisely."

"What are we going to do?"

At that moment, Rimmer sat up, smiling an annoyingly chirpy smile. "Well, I hope nobody minds me throwing some ideas out there," he said pleasantly, "but perhaps we could reason with it over tea and biscuits?"

Kochanski was brought up short. She knew what he was going through, but she hadn't expected the change to be quite abrupt. "Rimmer, you're ill," she said calmly. "Just lie down. We'll handle this."

"How very kind!" Rimmer said brightly. "Why don't we all just get together and have ourselves a little powwow, shall we? We need to ascertain a course of action. Now perhaps we should start by going 'round the room and introducing ourselves. Who wants to go first?"

"Rimmer, we know who we all are. We need to figure out what to do about the creature."

"That's lovely, Kristine. Thank you very much. What ideas do you have to bring to this forum?"

"Well, hunting it down and killing would be a good place to start…"

"Yes, well… that's very nice, Kristine. Certainly an option. But I feel we should all contribute ideas. That's what makes us a team."

Kochanski motioned to Kryten, who took out a syringe and gently stuck it in Rimmer's arm.

"Oh, how very kind, Kryten! What was that?"

"Just a little something help you relax, sir."

"Oh, splendid! A bit of meditation should help the planning process! Now let's all just sit back and relax… about… every…"

His eyes rolled up in his head, and he keeled over into a deep slumber.

Kochanski sighed with relief. "Oh, thank god. I hate cheerful people. Now then, we need to figure out how we're going to track this thing. Holly – do you know where it's got to?"

"Pretty sure it's heading down to the cargo decks."

"Oh dear," murmured Kryten. "There's lots of places it could hide down there."

"Then we'll carry the bazookoids and be prepared. We'll seal the door from the inside so Rimmer can't get out. God knows we don't need someone full of pep and school spirit. Let's move."

Well, that went tits up quickly.

Their attempt to attack the polymorph in the cargo decks didn't go according to plan. They managed to track it down, and they used the heat-seeking setting on the bazookoids to blast it. However, it transformed into a lamppost, meaning the heat-seeking balls of energy went zooming past it before doubling back on them. As the Cat was the only one producing heat, he was therefore chased around the cargo bay until he finally trapped them in a lift.

Then, the polymorph disguised itself as an attractive woman and stroked Cat's ego until it could suck out his vanity. Then, when Kryten found him, it disguised itself as Kochanski and berated the poor mech for failing them, and then sucked out the resultant guilt. So now, she had a Cat with no self-respect, and a Kryten with no shame. Interesting little gang she had going on here.

Unfortunately, it was causing her go a bit mad. As the polymorph had managed to disguise itself as pretty much anything on the ship, it was making her jump at every single thing that so much as twitched.

"It's got to be somewhere," she whispered, pacing the room while the others loafed around.

"Well, it'll come for you first," Kryten said with a nonchalant shrug. "You're the one that poncing about like a nervous flamingo in an earthquake."

"I am doing no such thing! I'm just… keeping my wits about me!"

"Ha! What wits?"

Rimmer held up his hands placatingly. "Now, now, let's not be rude to each other. All that pacing is really good for her legs!"

"Oh, screw you, Rimmer."

"That's lovely. Thank you very much."

Cat just slouched in the corner, drinking from a bottle of hooch he'd found. "It'll kill me first," he slurred. "No good piece of shit like me deserves to be killed."

"Indeed," agreed Kryten. "I'd do it myself, but you're not worth getting up for."

"I know. Sorry to be an inconvenience."

Kochanski rubbed her eyes and approached the nearest monitor. "Holly, what've you got? Have you found it yet?"

Holly shook her head. "Sorry, Kris. I think it's learned to disguise itself from my scanner. It's more elusive than Wally."

"How convenient…," Kochanski sighed. She turned away to worry some more, but then she stopped and looked at Holly again. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" she asked warily.

Holly blinked. "Pardon?"

"For all I know, you're the polymorph yourself! It could be anything!"

"I'm really not."

"How the hell am I supposed to trust you? Any of you? Any one of you could be the polymorph, and here I am, just 'la-de-da-ing' about while you lot plot to kill me! And here I am, a two-dimensional hologram, with no way to defend myself! What the smeg am I supposed to do? Eh? Why am I asking you? You're the polymorph, aren't you, Holly?"

She pointed a long accusing finger at Holly's screen. The blonde computer avatar regarded her for a long moment before she began to put her so-called IQ to work.

"Wait… maybe this is what the polymorph wants," she said slowly. "It hasn't attacked because it's waiting for you to go mad with paranoia."

"Then when the hell is it going to strike? It could literally be anything! It's probably disguised itself as the very air particles in this room, waiting to reform and snatch me!"

"Cool it, Krissie. This isn't helping."

"No, I bet it isn't, Holly – if it really is you!"

"If only I could eat popcorn, this'd be a real treat," Kryten sighed.

Then she froze, staring at a small alarm clock sat on the bedside table.

"What's that?" she asked.

"What's what?" Rimmer asked pleasantly.

"Where did that clock come from?"

"I'm afraid I've no idea. It's a lovely one, though, isn't it?"

"Was it always there? It can't have been! I'd remember it! It must be the polymorph!"

"So what do we do about it?" Cat asked, still slouched over.

"Destroy it! Someone kill it before it's too late!"

"Right then," Kryten said brightly. He got up from his seat, took the clock and hurled it against the wall, where it smashed into pieces that scattered on the floor.

Rimmer tutted sadly. "Oh dearie me," he sighed. "Such violence. Couldn't there have been a more peaceful way of dealing with this?"

"Not that anyone cares about my opinion," Cat said, "nor should they, but that looks like an ordinary clock to me."

"I don't care," Kryten shrugged. "I enjoyed destroying it."

"Well, as long as you're happy, then we're happy," Rimmer said brightly.

Kochanski knelt down amongst the pieces of the clock, trying desperately to sift through them for the polymorph's entrails, but she couldn't touch them. "It's not here," she wailed. "Where is it?!" She got to her feet and railed at the ceiling. "Damn it, you monster! I know you're watching me! Get out here and show yourself!"

One of the lightbulbs above her rippled and collapsed in on itself, and a long protruding sucker came down and latched onto her light bee. Kochanski's image flared with static interference as it slurped out her paranoia. Her legs buckled and sagged as she collapsed to the floor, knocked out. The others watched as the sucker retreated back up into the lightbulb, which then changed into a cloud of mist and zoomed off down the corridor.

Rimmer came hurrying over to Kochanski's fallen form with Cat staggering up as well. Kryten couldn't be bothered to get off the bed, thumbing through one of Rimmer's car magazines.

"Oh dear," he said, almost cross. "That was so rude of the creature. I hope no one thinks I'm being rash, but I think it's time we did something about this 'morph."

"I bet it'll be better than anything I come up with," Cat said brightly.

"No doubt," Kryten agreed, still not looking up.

"Call it extreme if you like," Rimmer continued, "but I think it's time we hit it hard and hit it fast with a major, and I mean major, leaflet campaign."

At that moment, Kochanski groaned and stirred, steadily sitting up on the floor. "What just happened?" she asked.

"The creature sucked on you," Kryten said in a bored voice, not caring how rude that sounded.

"Did it? Oh. Well, I seem to be all right."

"Are you sure?" Cat asked.

"Yeah, I don't think it took anything. It's probably long gone by now. Not a problem anymore."

Holly sighed. "It took your paranoia. Now you're not suspicious of anything anymore."

Kochanski shrugged. "Sounds all right to me. What say we all chill out for a bit? Maybe catch a film. There's bound to be something good playing. I'll bet the cinema hot dogs are pretty good."

Kryten laughed abruptly. "Yeah, right. You're so useless! You've no common sense anymore! Without your paranoia, you've no worries, no anxieties. There's no drive to keep you going because you've no fear of failure."

Kochanski shrugged again. "What could be the problem? Sounds all right to me."

"Uh huh. And I've got a bridge I can sell you."

"Do you? How much is it?"

Holly thought it best to steer everyone back on track. "Now hold on a minute," she said. "We need to catch this creature. After all the emotions it's scoffed, it should be easier to find."

"Now hold on," Rimmer said happily. "Just because it's an armor-plated killing machine that salivates unspeakable slobber doesn't mean it's a bad person. What we've got to do is get it round a table, and put together a solution package. Perhaps over tea and biscuits. Kris – what's your suggestion? Don't be shy."

Kochanski shrugged yet again. "If it's still here, maybe it'll leave us alone. Why should it attack again? Maybe we can play cards."

"That's lovely, thank you very much. Cat, what's your contribution?"

"Hey, man, don't ask me. I'm nobody," Cat replied before slouching off to his corner.

"That's lovely. Erm, moving on a step - and I hope no-one thinks that I'm setting myself up as a self-elected chairperson… just see me as a facilitator - erm, Kryten, what's your view? Don't be shy."

Kryten thought for a moment. "Well, I say we send Cat in as a decoy, and while it's busy eating him alive, the rest of us could catch it unawares."

"Sounds good to me," Cat said as he retook his bottle. "I don't mind being eaten if it helps out."

"But won't you be sort of dead?" Kochanski asked.

"It doesn't matter. Trust me."

"Oh. Okay, if you say so."

"And then when it's over," Kryten continued, "we get together and play poker."

"I'm not very good at poker."

"That's okay. The important part is for the hologram to give all her money to the mechanoid."

"I don't think I want to give all my money to you."

"Yes, you do. You told me so."

"I did. Oh, okay, then. As long as you're sure."

Rimmer cleared his throat. "I think we're all beginning to lose sight of the real issue here, which is: what are we going to call ourselves? And I think it comes down to a choice between 'The League Against Salivating Monsters' or, my own personal preference, which is "The Committee for the Liberation and Integration of Terrifying Organisms and their Rehabilitation Into Society." Erm, one drawback with that - the abbreviation is 'CLITORIS'."

It took hours for them to decide on a plan of action. Rimmer remained insistent on bombarding the creature with a poetry slam so that it could express itself freely. Cat wanted to throw himself at the creature's mercy. Kryten wanted to offer up the other three so it would let him go. Kochanski couldn't find any real fault in any of their plans and kept being persuaded by what the others were planning, unsuspicious that there was anything wrong with their ideas.

At last, though, they were walking through the cargo bay. Rimmer had made a large sign that read "Chameleonic Life Forms – No Thanks" while Cat slurped noisily from his wine bottle. Kochanski walked after them with a blank vacant smile while Kryten noisily evacuated his exhaust fumes, not caring that it might be bothering the others.

Eventually, they found it.

Or rather, it found them.

They'd spent so long trying to form a plan that they'd given it time to digest its meal and regain strength. It was now towering over them and prepared to attack again.

Rimmer proceeded to sing Give Peace a Chance while Kryten used a willing Cat as a human shield.

"Kochanski, go distract it!" Kryten ordered. "It won't hurt you!"

Kochanski smiled brightly and shrugged once more. "If you say so!"

She walked up to the polymorph, which snarled. She smiled pleasantly.

Kryten made tracks, still toting his Cat-shield. Rimmer's singing wavered as he realized his techniques weren't working.

"Kochanski, run! It's going to eat us!" he yelled.

"If you say so!"

Kochanski and Rimmer turned and ran after Kryten and Cat. They listened to the polymorph stomping after them, steadily growing bigger, knocking over crates as it fell.

Finally, they reached one of the cargo bay lifts. Kryten got there first and slapped the call button. He glanced over his shoulder. Rimmer and Kochanski were running after him, and they were bringing the polymorph with them. Cursing in machine code, he slapped the button again, but still nothing. He chucked the Cat at them to hold them off and ran behind some crates.

Cat collided with Rimmer, and the two went falling to the ground. Kochanski skidded a halt next to them and glanced down at them curiously, not all that concerned but amused by the accident.

There was a ding, and she looked up to see lift door open. There were two spinning balls of energy inside. She tilted her head curiously at them. They flew out the door, but they were still in heat seeking mode.

The biggest source of heat in the room was just getting ready to gobble them up. The polymorph stopped when it saw the balls of energy, and the 'morph's last coherent thought before they blew it to pieces was oh crap.

It simply disappeared, utterly vaporized. A strong wind knocked them all over, returning their lost emotions to them.

Cat got to his feet and looked down at his sodden clothes. "Damn, what am I wearing?" he demanded.

Kryten staggered out from the crates on his hands and knees, weeping in shame thanks to his newly returned guilt. "Oh, how can you ever forgive me?" he wailed. "Naturally, I shall commit suicide immediately."

He groped around for a bazookoid to put to his lips, but Kochanski waved him away, motioning for Rimmer to keep the weapon out of the mech's reach. "Hey, calm down," she said. "We all did things we weren't proud of. I became a complete airhead with no common sense, and Rimmer here became into a complete loveydovey dork. Kept expecting him to invite us to donate generously to save the whales."

Rimmer made a face as he straightened himself up. "Can't believe I let myself get turned into a hippy. No, actually, it was worse than being a hippy because I was in such a good mood that I wouldn't have needed any of those hand-rolled herbal cigarettes."

Kochanski rolled her eyes. "It's called 'marijuana', Rimmer. Just say the word."

"Let's get out of here," Cat said, heading for the lift. "If I don't get a shower and into some fashionable eveningwear, I'm going to have to resign my post as most handsome guy on the ship."

Nodding in agreement, they all walked off down the corridor.

None of them saw the little slimy monster behind them, smirking and cackling as it retreated into the shadows. The second polymorph would get them one day. It just needed a place to hide.

Maybe in a sock drawer…