Life onboard ship had quieted down for weeks now.
Kochanski was going mad. She couldn't touch anything, so she had to rely on others to help her. And if the others weren't around, that meant the Skutters. Bob and his wife Madge were the leaders of the pack of fifty little droids, and they did their best, but Kochanski had trouble keeping her patience when they would keep fouling up. Their attempts to turn the pages of her favorite books had resulted in a few torn pages.
She paced up and down the corridors in a mad rush one day. The most exciting thing that had happened recently was when one of the Skutters went bananas and completely rewired the ship back to front, and she, Rimmer and Kryten had spent days trying to undo it all. Fortunately, they got it done before anyone triggered the auto-destruct mechanism, but that was rendered moot when it was revealed that Holly had gotten rid of the bomb millennia ago.
The frustration of not being able to touch was driving her bonkers. There had to be something to do. Something to fix this. She just couldn't stand it.
Walking around the ship, she found her way to Rimmer's quarters. She poked her head in the door. What she saw took her by surprise.
Rimmer was sitting at his desk with several large sheets of paper, hunched over with a paintbrush in one hand and holding the current sheet down with the other. He occasionally glanced up at the room's monitor, which currently displayed a photo of the Jupiter rise. Then she saw that he had a palette of water colors set next to him. She watched him in fascination for a long time. It was interesting to see him do something that didn't involve war games or making timetables or struggling to be an officer.
Realizing he hadn't heard her enter, she waited until he was done with his current brushstrokes and was looking at the screen again when she cleared her throat. He jumped a little and whirled around to see her already a few steps through the entrance. He froze in that position for a solid seven seconds.
Kochanski peered over his shoulder at the painting, which she had to admit, looked rather…
"It's good," she said awkwardly.
Rimmer blinked before the thought registered with him. Compliments were not something he was accustomed to, so it took him off-guard. "Er… well, it… I mean… I… I just thought… you know… got nothing better to do. Might as well do something… constructive…"
Kochanski smirked. "Ran out of inventory, eh?"
"One of the benefits of being one of only two organic creatures on the ship – we go through food almost as slowly as a supermodel."
"Well, I'm glad to see you've got a hobby to keep you occupied. It's very healthy. Wish I could find a hobby, but alas, there aren't many things for a hologram to do around here…"
"Aren't you Miss Sunshine and Giggles today?"
She made a face at him and sat down on his bunk – briefly falling through it before her light-bee corrected course. "I'm just so sick of all this. Sick of this ship, sick of this life… No job, no friends, nothing to look forward to, nowhere to go…"
Rimmer set down his paintbrush and turned in his swivel chair to face her. "… You're unhappy, aren't you?"
"Am I that transparent? I just wish things had been different. Never should've joined the Space Corps. My life would've been so much better if I'd just done something else with my… well, life."
"What would you have done?"
"I don't know… Being a navigation officer always seemed like the best option. Looking back, there are other things I should've tried. I could've gone into classical music. Could've been a big star or something."
"Did you play an instrument?"
"… Look, I'm fantasizing here, okay? Don't spoil it with 'logic'."
At that moment, the image of the Jupiter rise was replaced with a video call from Kryten asking them to join him in the science lab. Something "unusual" was happening.
It transpired that the photo developing fluid had mutated during the last three million years – probably due to being exposed to the radiation leak – and had caused some of Kryten's old photos to come to life, like little video clips playing repeat.
The trip to Nazi Germany was a tad odd.
"Fascist Dictator Monthly?" Kochanski demanded, glaring at Rimmer.
"What?" Rimmer asked, vaguely aware he'd done something wrong. "I don't admire what he did. Just the military part of it. The leadership of it."
"You're sick."
After they'd explored the possibilities and figured out how these timeslides worked, Kochanski gathered them all in her quarters to trawl through her photo albums.
"Why are we so determined to find a picture of you?" Cat asked, going through them. "Are you naked in any of them?"
"Not to the extent of my knowledge," she replied, looking over Kryten's shoulder at a few of them. "I need one from when I was young. From before I joined the Space Corps."
"And what will you tell your past self?" Rimmer asked. "You're going to need to give her something to work with. Can't just walk up and say, 'Hey, kid – that career path you're so passionate about? Drop it. See ya!'"
"I have some ideas! I just need to give myself something better."
Holly shook her head. "I don't see why you don't just pack it in. The past is the past. You have to make do with what you have. If you change the past in any way, the results could be catastrophic."
Kochanski crinkled her nose at the computer. "I prefer you when you're senile sometimes."
"I still say you need a plan," Rimmer said, resuming the search.
"Here's one, ma'am," Kryten announced, holding up a photo. "Judging by the lack of facial creases, you appear at least ten years younger in this photo."
Rimmer bit back a snicker while Kochanski glared at the mech. She looked at the photo. It was her outside her school. She had long brown hair and a very colorful bodysuit on.
"What the hell is that?" Cat exclaimed, looking disgusted. "You look like an explosion in a skittle factory!"
"Hey, that was glam back in my time!" Kochanski said defensively.
"Right," Rimmer snorted. "Because 'glam' is a word that the cool kids used."
Kryten took out the photo. "Let's run this down to the science lab and process it in the developing fluid. I'll make up a slide for you to use, ma'am."
Within a few hours, it was all set up. They were peering up at the screen with the image of young Kochanski outside her school. The image seemed to be on a repeat of just a few short seconds.
"So what do we do? Go in there and tell her not to grow up?" Cat asked.
"Hardly," Kochanski replied. "I'm just going to tell her not to join the Space Corps. Not to become an officer."
"And then what will you tell her to do?" Rimmer asked. "Any sort of Plan B she can follow? What else would you have done if not join the Space Corps?"
She shrugged. "I don't know… I mean, I had interests back then. Horses, photography, foreign languages, gardening… Hell, I could learn to play an instrument and be in one of those symphonies I'm always listening to."
"Why don't you just nick something invented during your time and tell her to 'invent' it? Retire and become a millionaire overnight?"
"Because I don't care about money. My parents were well enough off. All I need to do is set myself on a new track."
"It's all set, ma'am," Kryten told her. "We just need to step inside."
Kochanski took a deep unnecessary breath. "Come on, boys. Come meet me as a teenager. Cat – hands off."
"Never even crossed my mind," the feline replied innocently.
They all stepped into the photo, and suddenly, they were on Earth. The warmth of springtime, the chatter of people and the crunch of the sidewalk really took them all by surprise. Rimmer took a deep breath. He hadn't been on Earth all that much. It was so different from Io. The air was a touch more polluted, and yet, that somehow made it smell all the more real.
"Where are we?" Kryten asked.
"It's a cyber-university," Rimmer explained. "It's where the elite and privileged go to become even more neurotic. They plug themselves into a mainframe and interact with computer-generated environments. CG professors, CG friends, CG pets… Basically, they learn how to live in a world where everything is perfect, and then leave expecting nothing less than."
"Rimmer, that is a gross generalization," Kochanski objected, trying to alternate between showing indignation and finding her past self. "Cyber-College is about learning about your place in the universe."
"You mean, learning that it revolves around yourself?"
Cat snorted. "Hate to break it to ya, Officer BB, but the universe revolves around yours truly."
Kochanski smiled benignly at him before turning in the direction of her past self. She had to hurry before she exited the frame of the photo and they couldn't follow. Fortunately, she stopped briefly to get a drink from the water fountain, enabling her to catch up. Motioning for the others to keep their distance, she walked up behind herself.
"Excuse me? Er… Kris?"
Young Kochanski looked up at her name and saw Kochanski standing over her, smiling awkwardly. This woman wearing a gray khaki uniform with a big H emblazoned on her forehead.
"Who are you?" she asked. "Are you faculty? Only faculty are allowed to be holograms on campus."
"Well, not really. I'm just here to visit you. You see…," she quietly braced herself, "… I'm your future self."
Young Kochanski looked nonplussed by the revelation. "… Okay?"
"… I'm telling the truth! See? Look at my ID tag. 'Kristine Kochanski'."
"Right… I'm sure there's no way you could've possibly forged that."
"Well, what do you want me to do? Mind meld with you? Just trust me. I really am you. Remember that time we tried using Nair on our unibrow and it burnt for two months after that?"
Young Kochanski's eyes widened. "How did you know about that? I never told anyone about that!"
"I know. We told our parents we'd just shaved it off and it never grew back after that."
"… Oh my god… Are you really me?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
"But… you're a hologram."
"I am, yes. I'm afraid we died in an accident on a mining ship."
"My god… so we died middle-aged?"
Kochanski's eyes widened. "Oi! I wasn't even twenty-six yet!"
"Seriously?! What the hell happened to our face?! Where'd all those lines come from? And who're those blokes watching us and laughing?"
Kochanski turned back and saw Rimmer and Cat were struggling not to laugh at the conversation taking place behind them while Kryten just looked awkward.
"Got something to say, Rimmer?" she snapped.
"… Permission to snigger, ma'am," he replied.
"Permission refused."
"Gonna have to snigger anyway, ma'am…"
Scrunching up her nose at him, she readdressed her younger self. "Ignore them. They're… my crew."
"Your crew?"
"Yes. Nostrils over there was stuck in stasis while the rest of us died in a radiation leak. I was resurrected as a hologram to keep him sane. Come Jivin' over there is descended from a pregnant cat that was smuggled onboard, and we rescued the droid from a crashed ship. And now that I'm saying all this out loud to someone else, I realize how ridiculous this all sounds, so apologies for that."
"So… in the future, we're doomed to die horribly and be stuck as a ghost for all eternity?" young Kochanski asked, looking increasingly sick.
"Yes, I know. It's not the ideal future. But we've found a way to come back in time. You deserve a better future than this…"
"Damn right, I do!"
Kochanski blinked at the abruptness of her answer. "Er… yes, yes, you do."
"I'm in the top cyber-school in Glasgow! I deserve better than ending up as an electronic ghost with a bunch of dorks to hang out with!"
"Well, I mean… that's a bit harsh. I mean…," Kochanski said, physically feeling the others glaring at them through the back of her head.
"No, you're right! Thank you so much for coming back and telling me all this! I almost wasted my life on this nonsense! What do I have to do to avoid all this?"
"Er… just don't join the Space Corps."
"Good. Thank you. I'm grateful. Is there anything else I should know?"
"No, no, I think that covers it…"
"Okay… I'll… I guess I'll go try to figure this out… Thanks again… me."
"You're welcome, me."
Young Kochanski shot one more derisive glare at the other three before turning and walking off into the distance.
Kochanski slowly turned back to the others, her face a clear mixture of bemusement and embarrassment. "Yes, well," she said, walking over to them. "That… went well? I guess?"
Rimmer raised an eyebrow. "Yes, well, we can hardly accuse her of being closed-minded."
"Where's she get off calling me a 'dork'?" Cat demanded. "Who does she think she is? What a bitch."
"Hey, that's still me we're talking about," Kochanski snapped.
"No kidding!"
Kryten cleared his throat. "Sirs, ma'am, perhaps it's time we returned to our time. Tampering with the past will no doubt cause some changes."
"Fingers crossed," Rimmer grumbled, already turning and leaving.
Kochanski winced. She'd forgotten just what a teenage pain she was in the past. Probably should've left the others behind so they didn't hear anything. Shaking her head, she followed them through the portal, and they soon found themselves back in the science room aboard Red Dwarf.
"So what happens now?" Cat asked.
"Well, now we wait and see if time has changed," Holly replied from her monitor.
They didn't need to wait long, though. Kochanski looked down at herself and saw something that made her digital heart race. "It's happening! I'm disappearing!" she cried. But that was it. She vanished altogether.
And moments later, so did Cat and Kryten.
Rimmer was left standing by himself in the science room. He looked around in confusion before looking up helplessly at Holly's screen. "What happened?!" he cried.
"Looks like her plan worked," Holly replied. "Kochanski changed time so she never joined the Space Corps. That means she never dated Lister, so he never brought his pregnant cat onboard, and we never rescued Kryten."
"So what, I'm all alone now?"
"Just you and me for all eternity. 'S good, innit?"
"You must be joking… Wait, why do I remember the original events if they never happened?"
"Time is still sorting itself out. We're at the eye of the storm, as it were, so we still have memories of what happened. They'll fade over time, though."
"Smeg that. We've got to fix this. We're getting her back. Find her."
At first, it was easy maintaining his memories. For the first few hours, Rimmer could remember everything that happened perfectly clearly. However, as he went about his day, waiting for Holly to finish her search in the new history database, he kept noticing little things disappearing. Something of hers, something of Cat's, or something of Kryten's – they'd just kind of fade out of existence. Photos, articles of clothing, mops…
Rimmer couldn't help but worry. As much as he didn't like them, he didn't like the idea of them just blipping out of existence.
He was relieved when Holly called him to the sleeping quarters to reveal what she had, but her expression was surprisingly solemn.
"You found her?"
"Yes… Rather wish I hadn't."
"Why? What'd you find? Can't be that bad."
Holly pulled up the file. "Kristine Kochanski. Dropped out of Cyber-School at age 18. Her parents were so disappointed that they cut her off from their money."
Rimmer winced. "Ouch."
"She went off the rails a tad after that."
"How 'off'?"
"She had to get a menial job to pay the bills. Worked in a diner for a few years. Developed a drinking problem. Didn't really have the social skills necessary to get a better job. Tried going back to school but couldn't afford it. Eventually met a man, fell in love and got married, but he ended up being abusive. She didn't divorce because he had money. So she used that money to buy that drug called 'Bliss'. She eventually overdosed at age fifty-seven."
"… That's way off the rails."
She glared at him, making him realize this was going to be trickier than he'd thought.
"So…," he went on, "… I'm guessing that isn't the ideal life she wanted."
"I told you lot not to do this," Holly said sternly. "No such thing as small when you're messing about with history. Not to mention going in there without giving her past self a goal or something to aim for. This is what happens when you don't have a plan."
"Hey, I'm not the one who screwed everything up! You can lecture Kochanski once she's back," Rimmer snapped irritably.
Holly blinked. "Back? Kochanski? How are we going to do that?"
"We're going to use the photos while they still exist. There must be another photo of her at that age. One where she hasn't had a chance to drop out yet. We can talk her into joining the Space Corps after all."
"We can talk her into dying in a nuclear explosion at age twenty-five?" Holly asked doubtfully.
"… Yeah, that's going to be a tough sell, isn't it?"
"New plan, please."
"Right… Okay… what if we find a way to prevent her from going back in time in the first place?"
"Hard to do when she was never her in the first place."
"Okay… but if we can find a way to get back in time and make her past self not remember the conversation… Make her forget that she met her future self."
Holly mulled it over. "Well… I mean, we'd need a memory-altering drug…"
"Do we have any?"
"I'll have the skutters scrounge up the medical unit for some."
"Good. In the meantime, I'm going to find a photo while we still have some. Maybe there's another one from that same day."
Rimmer was seriously discouraged when he found the once full photo album was almost empty. Most of the photos that been there from post-school had disappeared from time itself as they'd never happened. It narrowed down his search, definitely, but it freaked him out a lot. Their lives were disintegrating before his eyes.
Flipping through the album some more, he tracked down a few photos from the school, and he soon found one from Kochanski's dorm. Seemed like a selfie she taken with a wall-mounted camera. He knew they didn't have roommates in cyber-school. Everything was computer generated. He could make out the edge of a computer console that she would no doubt plug herself into later that day.
After confirming the photo's date, he raced back to the science room. He found the skutters setting up the slide projector.
"Let's hurry this up," he ordered. "I don't know how long this photo is going to exist for."
Holly appeared on the monitor. "We found the right drug," she announced. "Is the photo from the same day?"
"Seems to be from a few hours after the first one, yes."
"Okay, then we just need to adjust the dosage to delete the last few hours of her memory."
"How do I administer it?"
"Hypo-gun. How up to drugging a teenage girl are you?"
"… Please don't say it like that."
"It's what you're doing."
"I'm saving her life!"
"In a really weird way."
"Do you want to get into semantics, or do you want to save her from a drug overdose?"
"By giving her a drug underdose?"
"Just shut up and convert this photo for me."
A few arguments later, the photo had been recreated as a slide, which was being projected onto the screen.
Rimmer stared at the image in silent wonder. It was a repeating loop of young Kochanski smiling innocently up at the camera. Her insults from earlier were still fresh in his mind, but he had to remind himself that, despite everything, Kochanski was a much better person than that. She'd grown and matured into a fine young woman who Rimmer – not that he'd ever say it out loud – was proud to serve under.
Pocketing the hypo-gun with the correct amount of drug, he took a deep breath and walked his way up the steps and into the dorm room.
The resulting scream of terror almost made him dive back through.
"Where the bloody hell did you come from?!" young Kochanski shrieked. "How'd you get in my room? How'd you just… appear out of nowhere?! What the hell are you?! I'll have you know my parents are well-connected! We'll have you locked away for that crap outfit alone!"
Rimmer briefly peered down at his uniform in bemusement before looking at her again with newfound irritation. "Look, just calm down for a moment, okay? I'm from the future!"
"What?! Another one?! You don't look a thing like me! Unless… oh god, do I get a sex change in the future? Why the hell would I decide to look like you?! Those nostrils are big enough for Father Christmas to leave presents in!"
The irritation was only getting worse. "Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not you. I was with the other you earlier, remember?"
"You're… oh, wait… Yeah, I remember you… What are you, my boyfriend in the future?"
Rimmer grimaced. "You wish. Listen, I'm here to tell you something. Everything your future self said – ignore it. The future you're going to have instead will be much worse."
"Pft. I'm going to be dead in my twenties. I'll be nothing more than an electronic ghost stumbling around deep space with only you, a cat and a robot for company. That's not a future. It's a prison sentence."
"I know, and I'm… sorry… but, that's the hand you were dealt. I didn't ask to be the last human being in a godless universe with no hope of ever getting home or having the career I wanted. No hope of ever falling in love or being loved in return. No hope of getting to be successful and showing my rotten family that I don't need them. But it's the hand I was dealt. And as much as I'd love to find a magical get-out-of-jail-free card to restore my life, I'm stuck here. But you know what? It could be a whole lot worse. You and me in the future – it's not romantic. It's… I don't know… friends, I guess. Or something close to it. I don't know. I have no idea how friendship really works. But your future self and I… what we have is much deeper and… infinitely more complex than anything I've ever had. I've done things I never would've thought myself capable of – like being 'nice'. Making changes to myself. You're… kind to me in the future, and… I need that. I need you… Not that I'd ever say it to her face…"
Young Kochanski looked at him doubtfully. "Aren't you telling it to her face right now? I mean, I am her."
"Well, I mean… not really. Because of this."
In one swift motion, Rimmer pulled the hypo-gun out of his pocket and placed it to her neck. The drug entered her system instantly. She let out a gasp of shock, held his gaze for three seconds, and then promptly passed out on her bed.
Rimmer twirled the hypo-gun on his finger before pocketing it. "If she ever knew any of this, I'd never hear the end of it," he told her sleeping form.
Pleased at his work being finished, he turned and stepped back through the portal onto Red Dwarf, where Holly was waiting for him.
"Right!" he said triumphantly. "Got that done. How much will she forget?"
"Just a few hours. Hopefully enough to forget you lot ever meddling in her life."
"And when will the others come back?"
"I can see the timelines rearranging themselves. Any second now…"
Indeed, no sooner had she finished talking, when Kochanski, Cat and Kryten rematerialized in the science room, looking a little disoriented.
"What happened? Did it work?" Kochanski asked. "Did time change?"
Rimmer looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments. Then he knew what to say.
"Doesn't look like it. Everything seems to be the same."
Kochanski slumped despondently. "Damn…," she murmured. "I mean, I knew it was a longshot. I mean, I don't even remember that day very well, let alone meeting myself…"
"Don't fret, Miss Kochanski, ma'am," Kryten said consolingly. "It just wasn't meant to be."
"I know, I know… I just… I keep wondering all the 'what ifs'."
"Not healthy, Officer BB," Cat said in his all-knowing voice. "Sometimes, I wonder what if I wasn't so good-looking, or what if I had lousy dress sense, but in the end, it's not worth it. It's the hand I was dealt, and that's my cross to bear."
"Yes, Cat, except your situation doesn't suck," Rimmer pointed out.
"Oh, is that what we're talking about? My bad."
Kochanski slumped against the bench. "Just my luck. Stuck here forever, I suppose."
Rimmer stood next to her and instinctively, he started to put a hand on her shoulder, only to immediately regret it. She hated it when he forgot she was a hologram. She'd only get angry. He tried to change course, but he was already about ninety percent through the motion. He tried to be quick, but he only hit her shoulder.
"Hey," she said half-heartedly snapped. "Don't do that."
"Sorry, I was…"
Then, they both realized what happened. His hand had touched her shoulder.
They stared at each other in shock. He gripped her shoulder again, confirming that it was indeed solid. She grabbed his shoulder in return. She could touch him. She felt around the room, grasping the tables and things set around the table.
"What the hell is she doing?" Cat asked, looking really lost.
"I can touch…," she whispered. "I have a body…"
"Hang on," Holly announced, looking very perplexed. "Something has changed. Don't ask me how, but somehow, you're no longer a hologram. You're alive."