Author's Notes: This one is a tad long, but then again, 'The Inquisitor' is one of my all time favorite episodes, so it couldn't be avoided. Everyone enjoy!
The weeks that followed the holoship remained largely uneventful, but Kochanski saw Rimmer seeming somewhat more cheerful lately. He continued his usual nasal whinging and kept his snarking in tip-top shape, but he now seemingly possessed a twinkle in his eye. It seemed having had someone fall for him boosted his confidence just a bit and made him more self-assured.
In other words, she had created a monster.
During a routine salvage run in Starbug, she came into the cockpit, only to be greeted by some loud scattering jazz music from the sound system. Rimmer sat at the pilot's controls, his head gently bobbing to the music as he checked over the readout screen. The man could sure as hell multi-task.
"Having a good drive, Mr Armstrong?" she asked over the tunes.
Rimmer raised an amused eyebrow. "Miles Davis, actually," he replied. "Take a seat. Kick back. I've got it under control."
Kochanski rolled her eyes. "Really? Because I don't know how much more of this good mood I can take. You're likely to crash land us in the Land of the Teletubbies at the rate you're going."
He grimaced. "Perish the thought."
Kryten entered carrying a mug. "Coffee, sir," he announced. "Cream, no sugar."
"Thanks, Krytie."
As Rimmer took the mug, Kochanski motioned Kryten to join her in the corner. "For smeg's sake, can't we do something about him? Switch out the jazz with some alternative goth or whatever the hell it's called?"
"Mr Rimmer seems perfectly fine to me, ma'am."
"I know, and it's driving me bonkers. He actually asked me 'how's it hanging' the other day."
"Oh dear… Perhaps it's just a phase to overcome. His feelings for Commander Crane are new and foreign and, therefore, exciting. Perhaps we just need to 'ride it out', as Mr Rimmer would say."
Kochanski nearly gagged. "He said 'ride it out'?!"
Their discussion was rudely interrupted when the music suddenly cut and the ship began to shudder. They looked over at Rimmer, whose forehead creased like it always did when something confused him. He wrestled with the controls as Cat came storming in from the mid-section.
"What the hell was that?!" the startled feline demanded.
Holly appeared on the monitor, looking frazzled. "Strange, we changed course!"
"Are you sure, Holly?" Kryten asked. "There's no course change programmed."
As if on cue, the ship lurched once again, somehow even sending Holly at a comical angle. "And again!" she announced. "Mark one-eight-zero! A complete turn! We're turning back to Red Dwarf!"
Rimmer made a grab for the controls, but he only received an electric shock in return.
"We're locked out!" exclaimed Holly.
"This is not a malfunction!" Kryten realized. "Something is controlling the craft!"
"Holly, any traffic around?" Rimmer asked, trying to spot something out of the ordinary through the plexiglas viewscreen.
"Nothing on the local scan."
Just as Kryten proceeded to pontificate upon how the utter impossibility of this occurrence, Rimmer suddenly went into a spasm, sending his left arm sticking out and his face contorting horrifically.
"I am in possession of the human known as 'Rimmer'," a deep growly voice unnecessarily shouted. "Do not attempt to resist me."
Cat just about managed to pick his jaw off the floor. "Is he 'Hulking out' on us?!"
Kryten ignored him. "Who are you?" he asked loudly.
Rimmer's body spasmed as the voice shouted again. "Tremble at my name, for I am the Inquisitor!"
The mech's eyes widened in recognition. "The Inquisitor?"
"Your vessel is under my control. It will return to your mothership where you shall face judgement. You will each present a case to justify your existence. If you fail, you will be deleted."
With another spasm, Rimmer slumped as his mind reasserted itself, allowing him to be himself once more.
Kochanski ran over to him. "Rimmer, are you okay?"
Rimmer's head lolled briefly as his eyes refocused. "Auntie Em, is that you…?"
"Suggest we run him through the Mediscanner as a precaution, ma'am," said Kryten, already moving to help Rimmer to the mid-section.
During the flight back to Red Dwarf, Kryten told them the story of the Inquisitor - about how he started off as a self-repairing droid that lasted until the end of time, whereupon he realized there was no God and decided that the only reason for existence is to live a worthwhile life. Now this demented 'droid travelled all of time and space, removing the worthless from existence, ensuring that only those who truly seized the day would live.
Needless to say, the crew were not optimistic.
Once they disembarked Starbug, they wandered through the corridors, apprehension growing in their abdomens as every sound made them jump.
Kochanski cleared her throat to sound brave. "So where is he?"
No sooner had she spoken than a great big powerful white light nearly blinded them. Shielding their eyes, they peered between their fingers at the towering figure before them. Between his deformed skull mask and his flowing black robes, the 'droid before them cut a very imposing figure.
"See me now and tremble! The Inquisition begins! Prove to me you are worthy of the honor of life, or drink deeply from the well of nothingness for all eternity!"
Cat grimaced. "I hate these 'either/or' questions."
"Who is to be first?"
Rimmer put a finger to his nose. "Not it!"
Alas, the Inquisitor gestured, and Cat, Kryten and Kochanski became enveloped in a pulsating blob of blue energy, leaving him standing alone.
"The human. You shall be first."
Rimmer squeaked. "... But I said 'not it'!"
His eyesight left him briefly in a flash of yellow and green before he found himself standing in a dark room filled with candles, and sitting upon a very uncomfortable-looking throne sat the Inquisitor, glaring at him from behind that mask.
"You have been granted the greatest gift of all: the gift of life. Tell me, what have you done to deserve this superlative good fortune?"
Rimmer blinked as he attempted to gather his thoughts. "Well, I say this with the highest respect, but what gives you the right to ask - no, actually - demand that answer of me, Your Magnificence?" he added hastily, throwing in a curtsey, and then a bow, for good measure.
"All must answer to the Inquisitor!"
Rimmer swallowed and forced the next question out. "But how do I know I'll get a fair hearing?"
The Inquisitor was silent for a moment before leaning back in his throne, having apparently decided that was a fair question. "Because, like all who stand before the Inquisitor, your judge shall be…"
He paused as he lifted his mask and revealed… Rimmer's face!
"... yourself!" he finished.
Rimmer felt whatever hope he had drain away. "Oh, smeg."
"Oh, smeg indeed, matey!"
"Everyone is judged by their own self?"
"It's a bit metaphysical, I know, but it's the only fair way. Now then, justify yourself."
Rimmer tried to think of something. "Well, first, I - "
"Liar!"
"I've done good things!"
"No, you haven't!"
"In my heart, I've always tried to do good things."
"No, you didn't!"
Rimmer tried hard not to get irritated. "Look, in my own way, I've tried to lead a good life."
"When?"
Rimmer sputtered for a moment, but then something came to him. "Look, okay, fine, I admit, before the accident, I wasn't a good person. Hell, even after getting stuck out here, I was… I was…"
His other self smirked. "A slimy, despicable, rat-hearted, green-discharge of a man?"
Rimmer glared at him but didn't disagree. "In any case, I've been trying to be a better person. I learned that I can't spend the rest of my days trying to be what my parents wanted me to be. I need to be better. Fine, yes, I'm nothing, but I want to be better." He hung his head briefly. "I know I've had a late start, but… doesn't the fact that I want to try count for something?"
His other self regarded him for a moment before lowering the mask, and Rimmer felt himself being taken somewhere.
Kochanski was the last one to be judged after Cat and Kryten. She experienced a brief flash of color before looking into the eyes of herself in the throne.
"Well, well, Krissie," her Inquisitor self murmured. "Got yourself into a spot of bother, have you?"
Kochanski squirmed briefly. "Look, I know I didn't always make good decisions in my life, but come on! I hardly wasted it!"
"And what did you do that was so impressive, hmmm?"
"Well, I mean, I did well in school, passed with honors, got into the Space Corps, became an officer… Not exactly sitting on my backside all day watching soap operas, was I?"
"So much work going towards self-improvement is impressive," her other self agreed. But then, she raised an eyebrow. "So how much of that work went towards helping others?"
"I helped people, plenty."
"Oh sure, holding doors open for old ladies, giving to charity… but what about your life?"
"My what?"
"You know your regrets."
"Everyone has those."
"You aren't very forgiving of yourself, though. How you let men walk all over you, let them yank you around, what you let Tim do to you…"
Kochanski's nostrils flared at the mention of his name. "I kicked him to the curb."
"A little late, though, wasn't it? Pity you didn't do that in the first place. Could've spared you-know-who the heartbreak…"
"No, stop it. Don't you dare."
Her other self smirked. "You know you could've done better."
"... Well, so could everyone."
The Inquisitor lowered the mask, and the growling scratchy voice returned.
They all found themselves in the corridor again, and the Inquisitor stood across from them some thirty feet away.
"The Inquisition is over," he announced. "Three of you have failed to become that which you might so easily have been. You have lived without merit, and so not lived at all!"
The four of them looked at each other in horror, immediately trying to figure out who had been the sole victor of this pointless inquisition. Before they could voice any sort of opinion, the Inquisitor aimed a finger of his gauntlet at them, firing a dark green laser. After a flash of light, they all looked again.
The Cat had disappeared.
It took a few seconds for the implications to truly hit, but when they did, Rimmer's voice rang out in its whiny way. "You can't be serious!"
Kochanski's brain sputtered into realization. "The Cat?! He's the only one of us who lived a worthwhile life?!"
"He is a vain and selfish creature," the Inquisitor explained, "and by his own low standards, he has acquitted himself, whereas the three of you could have been so much more."
The Inquisitor pressed a button on his gauntlet, and the three of them felt cold steel wrap around their ankles and wrists as shackles and manacles wrapped around them, binding them together.
Kochanski stared at the chains incredulously. "How the hell is this possible?!" she cried. She attempted to touch Kryten's shoulder, but her hand still passed through it, even as the manacles clanked against him.
With another click on his gauntlet, the Inquisitor enveloped the trio in a red-orange energy bubble.
"What the hell is this?" Rimmer asked.
"Best guess: we are being surgically removed from time. Every memory of us, every action we ever performed is being dissolved. Our lives are being undone," Kryten explained, clearly not guessing at all.
When the light faded, the Inquisitor readied his gauntlet again. "It is complete. The time-lines are knitted. Causality is healed. All that remains is to remove your physical forms from existence."
The trio looked at each other with the sort of bleak helplessness one normally only felt in truly dreadful situations, such as death, disease or shopping on Black Friday.
Then, a flash of light erupted behind the Inquisitor, and to their astonishment, a second Kryten appeared, holding what appeared to be a time gauntlet like his.
"Perfect!" he proclaimed. " Ah, now, what did I do next?"
Rimmer, Kryten and Kochanski stared, gobsmacked, as the other Kryten produced some kind of light-up chainsaw, which he proceeded to make use of by slicing off the startled Inquisitor's hand, sending his gauntlet crashing to the floor. As the droid howled in pain, he kicked it across the corridor to the befuddled trio for Rimmer to pick up.
"Now, hurry! Take the gauntlet and go!" the other Kryten yelled.
Rimmer hefted the gauntlet in his hand, still staring in amazement. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"I don't have time to explain! I've come from the future to rescue you. Now you must go! Hurry!"
"What about me? I mean... you... I mean... us?!" Kryten asked, clearly just as confused.
"I'm afraid we get killed."
"Wh - ?! Killed?! How?!"
"While I'm standing here explaining this to you, the Inquisitor jumps me from behind, like this."
On cue, the furious Inquisitor let out a growl and slammed the future mech against the metal wall and proceeded to crush his angular head against it.
"I forgot to say, before you reach the final confrontation in the storage bay, you must have decoded the gauntlet's controls."
Kochanski gawked in confusion. "And you don't know that because…?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am," future Kryten replied as his face became increasingly crumpled. "I must preserve the flow of time to ensure everything occurs appropriately! All I'm at liberty to divulge is that my last words are 'enig'."
"... 'Enig'?"
"Yes! Eniggggggg - "
The future Kryten's voice unit stuttered into nothing as the rest of his head became a metal pancake.
The Inquisitor glared at them from down the corridor, causing them all to jump back in horror.
"Sir! Ma'am! We have to go!" Kryten cried, tugging on the chains.
"Kryten, he just killed you!" Kochanski shouted, trying to force herself away.
"Kris, come on!" Rimmer yelled, tugging her chains behind them. "We'll find time to avenge him later! Right now - run!"
They charged their way through the corridors, hoping to put more distance between themselves and the droid before he got his act together. After a few minutes of stumbling along with their shackles, they made it to a locked door. Rimmer slapped his hand against it, but instead of opening it, Holly appeared on a wall monitor.
"You are not registered as personnel of this vessel. Please state your name and clearance code," she said, sounding a bit flat compared to her usual endearing air-headedness.
"Holly, it's us!" Kochanski said urgently.
"Please state your name and clearance code," she repeated.
Rimmer hissed out his irritation and said loudly, "Rimmer, A, triple zero, one six eight!"
"I have no record of your palm print," she replied. "Intruder alert. Intruder alert."
Her bored-sounding voice echoed over the emergency claxon that threatened to rupture their eardrums. Kryten slapped his own hand on the door lock.
"Initiating override!" he shouted.
The claxons silenced, and once again, she asked, "Please state your name and clearance code."
"Logon name: Kryten. Registration code: Additional zero zero one."
"I have no record of your CPU ident."
The claxons came on once again as the three of them looked at each other in horrified realization.
"We don't exist here anymore," Kochanski realized.
A cloud of steam suddenly erupted from around the door, causing Rimmer to turn away in pain.
"Tear gas!" Kryten exclaimed, making room so they could escape.
They ran for another door down the corridor, but it only hissed the same stinging sensation into Rimmer's eyes. He cursed in Ionian and staggered back into the corridor's midpoint to rub his eyes.
Then, the door hissed open, and a familiar fabulously-dressed humanoid strode in, toting a bazookoid.
"Cat, thank god!" Kochanski sighed with relief.
That relief evaporated like a rain puddle in the Sahara when she found herself staring down the wrong end of the Cat's weapon.
"Move so much as an eyebrow, and you're dogmeat," he said.
"Whoa! Hey! Bad kitty!" she snapped. "Don't make us get the spray bottle out!"
"Ma'am," Kryten interrupted. "He has never met us before. We are limbo people, between realities. They have no memory of us."
"Oh great," muttered Rimmer. "Is this going to get any more confusing?"
At that moment, another person walked through the hatchway behind Cat, and his appearance brought them all up short. The man had pale skin, flared nostrils, unmanageable hair and a red shirt and black vest with black trousers. He seemed to be attempting to look brave, but his jiggling right leg clearly wanted to be elsewhere.
"Good, you got them," he said in a broad Ionian accent. "Who are they?"
"Haven't gotten that far, bud," Cat replied. "But whoever they are, the pale one's got your lame-ass fashion sense."
Rimmer stared at his other self in shock. "Oh god… Let me guess. He's me."
"More accurately, sir, he's an alternative you," Kryten explained. "One of the many Arnold Rimmers who never got a chance to exist."
"What are you talking about, and what the hell do you want?" the other Rimmer demanded.
"We're on the run from this insane robot trying to delete us from history," Kochanski explained hurriedly.
"I'm you from an old timeline," Rimmer added.
The other Rimmer raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Either that, or you're an insane person who's stolen some of my clothes."
"And you'd have to be really insane to do that," Cat added.
"Look, I'm you, and I can prove it," Rimmer insisted.
"Oh, really," his other self sneered. "Then you probably know that I'm the kind of rough-and-tumble, hardened Astro, ex-Marine type guy you do not trifle with."
Kochanski snorted, but Rimmer just laughed. "No, you're not!"
"For the last time, I'm asking - "
"Fiona Barrington!" Rimmer said triumphantly. "Fifteen years old. We got off with her in our Dad's greenhouse. We thought we got lucky but it turned out all the time that we had our hand in warm compost. How could I know that, and not know you?"
The other Rimmer looked mortified and muttered out the side of his mouth at the Cat. "Not true! Don't fall for it!"
But Rimmer wasn't finished yet. "Our brothers are named John, Howard and Frank! We're super tight with money! We run at the first sign of trouble! We once spent an afternoon on the Samaritan switchboard, and four people committed suicide! Our middle name is Judas, but we tell everyone that it's Jonathan. We sign all our official letters A.J. Rimmer, B.S.C., and B.S.C. stands for Bronze Swimming Certificate."
By now, the other Rimmer had crossed his arms and seemed to find the floor very interesting. Cat, on the other hand, leaned back against the doorframe, clearly impressed. "Gotta admit, bud - dude's got your number."
Just then, the other door hissed open, and two more figures joined their party - a mechanoid like Kryten with a slightly different head, and the other a hologrammtic woman, although taller, different hair and much thinner than Kochanski.
"Rimmer, what the hell is going on?" the hologram woman asked.
Kochanski stared at her other self, stupefied. "Oh my god, are you serious?!" she exclaimed. "You're the alternate me?"
The other Kochanski looked back at her in confusion. "Who the hell are you?"
"They claim to be versions of us from an alternate dimension," the other Rimmer sneered. "But they don't even look like us."
"Intriguing," said the other Kryten, looking his other self up and down.
"Extraordinary," Kryten agreed, looking equally disturbed.
"Look, there's a mad robot with a skull helmet wiping people from history," Rimmer explained patiently. "He's after us, and we just need a place to hide until we work out a plan."
The other Kochanski looked thoughtful. "Well, we can try the brig. Reinforced steel walls. Heart of the ship. It'd take him time to find you."
"If there even is such a creature after you," the other Rimmer said doubtfully.
"Yeah, how do we know these dudes are legit?" Cat asked.
"I suppose you don't," said Kochanski. "But then again, do you really feel like waiting around for the Inquisitor to show up?"
The other Kryten's face sagged in horror. "The Inquisitor?!"
"There'll be time for explanations on the way," the other Kochanski decided. "Come on. Let's get to the lift."
Unfortunately, the journey to the brig was cut short by the Inquisitor's arrival. Having decided apparently that they were all fair game, he proceeded to fire lasers from his gauntlet and blast them, not even bothering with any Inquisition. They all managed to scatter, but the other Rimmer and Kryten were killed in a subsequent explosion.
Kochanski sat in a slump on the floor while Rimmer tried to cut her shackles off with a hacksaw he'd found in a storage cupboard. They'd spent the last hour crawling through ventilation shafts until they'd found shelter in the landing bay aboard one of the Starbugs. Kryten sat off on the other end of the chain, fiddling with the gauntlet, trying to decipher the codes like his future self told him to.
"What's the point?" Kochanski sighed. "We already know we fail."
"That's it. Look on the bright side," Rimmer grumbled, not looking up from his attempts at cutting.
"Nonsense, ma'am," Kryten said cheerfully. "All we know for sure is that I die. Now, if my small gambit can lead the two of you to safety, it will be a move well made. For me, death holds no fear."
Kochanski eyed him sardonically. "Is that right?"
"Ma'am, I am programmed to relinquish my life. That's why the Mechanoid 4000 series was voted "Android of the Year" five years running! I have as much interest in saving my own life as a chronically-depressed lemming."
"Good to know," Rimmer replied, inspecting his now-damaged hacksaw. "Damn, what are these made from? Titanium? Hang on, maybe there's a blow torch down here somewhere…"
"Not one to give up, are you, Rimmer?" Kochanski sighed sadly.
"We're getting out of this," he replied, going through the cupboard that was thankfully only a few feet away. "Excuse me if I'm a bit narrow-minded, but I'm not keen on being erased from existence, no matter how much my life sucks. If I have to drag the two of you out of the fire with me, might as well."
"I'm overwhelmed," she deadpanned. She slumped onto her back again. "This is all my fault."
Rimmer and Kryten looked at her in puzzlement. "Ma'am?"
She continued as though they'd never spoken. "Why can't I just leave well enough alone? You two probably would be safe if I hadn't forced you to change."
Rimmer knelt down next to her. "As Napoleon might have said had been in a similar situation, 'eh?'"
She looked up at him. "Well, look at the two of you! I made Kryten break his programming so he could be more independent! I made you learn how to act like a decent human being! If I hadn't done that, you probably would've passed the stupid Inquisition, and I'd be the only one on the chopping block." She felt the tears stinging her eyes. "And now, you're going to die, and it's all my fault."
Rimmer stared at her blankly, so Kryten decided to fill in. "Ma'am, with the greatest respect, that is complete and utter shash."
"Kryten, I know when you're lying. Your right foot jiggles. It's involuntary."
Kryten peered over his knees and saw that, yes, his right foot was indeed jiggling involuntarily. "Nonsense…," he said, trying to force his leg still. "I'm not afraid to die." His leg jiggled harder. "For me, death holds no fear." His leg full-on bounced up and down. "I believe in Silicon Heaven! I believe in an afterlife for androids! Haven't you got through those damn manacles yet!?"
Rimmer responded by whacking him over the head with a spanner. "Kryten, knock it off, you deranged Tonka Toy! Now, for pity's sake, let's put an end to this…" He looked Kochanski dead in the eye. "Look, you don't control me! Yes, you're my superior officer, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to go along with every damn thing you tell me! I have a mind of my own, damn it! So spare me the pity parade, and let's focus on saving our sorry hides, okay?"
Kochanski looked at him in surprise before nodding, swallowing down an urge to remark on how proud she was and focused on the situation at hand. "Right," she said, wiping her eyes and getting up. "Kryten, any luck with the gauntlet?"
Kryten held up the device eagerly. "Ah, yes, I believe so, ma'am! It's a variant of the Enigma decoding system."
Kochanski lit up. "Enigma? 'Enig'! 'Enigma'!"
Kryten caught her meaning. "Of course! My last words! Well, anyway, if this thing works, it should age those manacles by half a million years."
"And if it doesn't work?"
"It'll wipe out the universe."
"Eh, it's not going anywhere fast, anyway," Rimmer grumbled, waving him on.
Kryten pressed a button on the gauntlet, and a yellow-green beam zapped out of it and turned the manacles and chains into powder.
Dusting their wrists off with a sigh of relief, they all got back to their feet.
"Thank god for that," muttered Rimmer. "What now?"
Kryten hefted the gauntlet. "Well, now, we have the power."
That didn't stop all three of them from nearly having a heart attack when they heard the hatch door swing open. Rimmer barely had time to arm himself with the beat up hacksaw when Cat came running in, carrying a bazookoid, followed by the other Kochanski.
"Okay," the frenzied feline declared, "we don't know who you are, but we've seen enough of the other dude to know we wanna be on your side."
"He killed our two crewmates in cold blood," the other Kochanski said, clearly trying to hold herself together. "Who the damn hell is he?!"
"A monster," Rimmer replied, "and we've got to stop him."
"Sirs, ma'ams," said Kryten, "we really must get down to the storage bay. Now remember my message to us - that is where we meet the Inquisitor for the final confrontation."
Cat stared at them incredulously. "That's your plan? We go out there and face him? Nice plan. Shall I paint a bullseye on my face?"
"But what's the final confrontation entail?" asked the other Kochanski.
"We don't know yet," said Kochanski. "But there's one thing I do know, and it's that the Inquisitor can't possibly be any good at his job."
"Ma'am?"
"Well, think about it. He replaced the three of us with people who could have a better chance at life, but look at them. They're in the exact same places we were before. Stranded in space, last human, hologram, etcetera… None of them lived a better life than we did. So what's he going to do? Keep inquisitioning until he finds a version of us that got it right?"
"So what's the plan?" Rimmer asked.
Kochanski thought for a moment, and then began to smile.
An hour later, they'd made it to the cargo bay. Rimmer hefted the gauntlet nervously in his hand. Kochanski seemed pretty sure he'd be able to control it, but he still doubted it.
They all jumped at the sound of the Inquisitor arriving behind them. Rimmer, Kryten and Kochanski immediately ran for cover, but Cat and the other Kochanski froze like deer in terror.
"So, the mortals seek to challenge my mastery!"
With a few quick button-taps on the gauntlet, he fired a pair of lasers. One struck the other Kochanski in the light bee, causing her image to shut down as it clattered to the floor, a smoking husk. The other struck the Cat, rapidly aging him to dust within seconds.
Hidden behind a gantry, Rimmer fiddled with the gauntlet's controls frantically. "Kryten, which code?!"
"Gamma, Delta, one four five," the mechanoid replied before hightailing it in the opposite direction, followed by Kochanski.
Memorizing the combination, Rimmer listened for the Inquisitor's footsteps. Upon hearing them, he swallowed his fear and stepped out into the open. There he stood, at the opposite end of the hall, like a showdown. At once, they both furiously punched buttons on their gauntlets and fired. The two beams met in the middle and canceled each other out. Rimmer tried to do fire again, but the Inquisitor got him first with a yellow-green beam. With a startled cry, Rimmer fell behind a pillar, and when he stood up, he found his clothes didn't quite fit anymore. He saw how tiny his hands were and looked up in horror.
"Oh god," he murmured. "I never wanted to see this age again."
"The sport begins," the Inquisitor sneered, firing the gauntlet again.
Rimmer felt himself grow taller, but his muscles immediately felt weaker as he realized he'd been aged into an old man. "No, stop…," he moaned, realizing he could barely move.
The Inquisitor responded with the back of his hand across the elerly Rimmer's face, sending him crashing to the ground. Right when he was about to erase him from time itself, however, Kryten appeared around the corner behind him, smiling amiably.
"Excuse me, could I just distract you for a second?"
The Inquisitor looked up in confusion before whirling around to aim his gauntlet at Kryten. Rimmer raised his own gauntlet and zapped him with a stream of blue energy that engulfed him entirely, pulsating around his body and freezing him like a statue.
Pleased, Kryten approached and removed the gauntlet from the Inquisitor's hand, tapped a few commands and zapped Rimmer back to his normal age. Kochanski stepped out of hiding as well and strode over. "Not exactly the winner of Whose Line, are you, Kryten?" she drawled.
Kryten shrugged as he fussed with the gauntlet. "It was the best I could ad-lib in the moment, ma'am," he replied.
Rimmer straightened his clothes, looking downcast. "He still got the Cat, and the other Kochanski."
"I know," Kryten said sadly. "Look sir, I've got to go back in time and sacrifice myself in order that we can get into this mess we're in now in the first place." He considered that for a moment before shaking his head. "All in all, today's been a bit of a bummer, hasn't it?"
"How long before he unfreezes?" Kochanski asked.
"Eight point four minutes, if we're lucky."
"Just hope this plan works," murmured Rimmer.
"I know. Gauntlets."
Rimmer and Kryten switched gauntlets and slid them on their hands. After a brief review of what he was supposed to say upon arrival, the mech zapped himself with the gauntlet and disappeared.
Rimmer and Kochanski looked at the spot where he'd stood sadly, trying not to remember the sight of his flattened head, and instead focused on the Inquisitor, still frozen.
"You better be right," Rimmer muttered, setting to work.
"I know," Kochanski replied, leading him away.
When the Inquisitor unfroze, he found himself wrapped up in heavy chains, unable to move from the pillar he was tied to. He struggled, but the job had been done too well.
"Don't even try," Rimmer said from across the room, still holding the gauntlet. "I used to be in the Space Scouts. We know all about tying people up. Me, especially."
"What are you doing?" the Inquisitor sneered.
Kochanski stood next to him, giving the droid an icy glare. "You killed our friends," she said softly. "We want revenge."
"And what are you going to do? Kill me? It'd be interesting to see you try."
She approached him, smiling slightly. "You really suck at your job."
"What?"
"I mean, you prune away at humanity, replacing people that you decided wasted their lives, but look around. You replaced us with other versions of ourselves, and they still wound up making the same mistakes. Still wound up all the way out here. Didn't exactly grasp the brass ring, did they?"
"Right, so what was the plan?" Rimmer asked. "If you couldn't get us right, what about all the others you replaced? The ones you 'fixed', only for them to waste their lives, too? Are you going to go back and judge them? Keep replacing people over and over until you finally get it just right?"
"I will do whatever has to be done," the Inquisitor hissed. "Only those who deserve life will be allowed to live it."
"But it's never going to end, is it?" Kochanski pointed out. "You'll just keep going back and back through time, trying to change everything, but it won't work. You'll never be finished. You'll just keep going and going, trying to fix everything you think is wrong. Take it from a pair of obsessive compulsives. It'll never end."
The Inquisitor hesitated briefly. "No…," he said, vaguely sounding like he was trying to convince himself. "No, you're wrong. One day, I will have molded the human race into perfection."
"Perfection according to you," Rimmer replied, getting up and joining Kochanski. "Has it ever occurred to you that life is enough of a struggle without single-minded gits like you coming along and terrorizing everyone with your judgement? I tried asking you what gave you the right to demand my justification, but you never answered me. You appointed yourself judge and jury over the whole universe just because you couldn't handle the idea that there is no great big reward or punishment at the end of it all. That we only exist by some great big cosmic accident." He leaned in close and smiled smugly. "That's the thing you can't face - that it's all for nothing."
The Inquisitor began to thrash in his chains. "No! You're wrong! I decide everything! And I will until every last thing is worthwhile and justified!"
"I daresay we've upset him," Kochanski murmured.
With a furious growl that reverberated around the metal room, the Inquisitor forced a hand free from his chains and proceeded to rip them off, throwing them to the floor. Rimmer and Kochanski jumped backwards, startled.
"I have seen inside your heart, human," he snarled, "and I know for a fact you can't tie anything worth a damn!"
Rimmer gulped. "Yes, well… slow learner, y'know?"
The Inquisitor finished ripping the chains off and stormed over to them, reaching for the gauntlet. Rimmer let out a squeak and tried to run, but the Inquisitor grabbed him by the collar and flung him to the floor with a crash. He ripped the gauntlet from Rimmer's hand and slipped it back on.
"Time to finish eradicating the vermin," he hissed, pointing a finger at Rimmer as he pressed a few buttons.
A second later, instead of firing out the finger, the orange pulsating energy ripped out of the wrist, engulfing the Inquisitor completely and freezing him in place and beginning the process of erasing him from existence.
"Yeah," Kochanski smiled. "I suppose we could've just done that from the beginning… but we just wanted the last thing you heard was what an incompetent failure you are."
"No! You can't!" the Inquisitor screamed. "All my glorious work will be undone!"
"Good. Then maybe the universe can go back to running without you sticking your nose in."
With a furious growl, the Inquisitor disappeared, dissolved by the gauntlet, which then proceeded to dissolve itself.
Sighing with relief, Rimmer got back to his feet just in time to witness Kryten reappearing in the room.
"Sir! Ma'am! Did it work?!"
"Perfection," Kochanski replied, beaming happily. "Well done, Kryten."
"Oh, it was your scheme, ma'am. I merely reprogrammed the gauntlet."
"So what happens now?" asked Rimmer.
"Well, basically we wait for the time-space continuum to re-order itself."
Not a moment later, the Cat reappeared in the room, looking confused, but then he saw the others and smiled with relief.
Kochanski beamed, and then eyed Rimmer curiously. "So… Fiona Barrington…"
"Oh, don't start!" he moaned.
Author's Note: Next week: Terrorform!