"Would you like any soup, Miss Hollister?"
"No."
"You haven't eaten in three days, Miss Hollister."
Blearily, Hippolyta raised her head from the medi-console that she'd been resting it on. The dizziness rolled over her like a wave, and she blinked and swallowed, her stomach crying out for something, anything, to put in it. But then her brain went and had a stern talking to with the stomach and told it in no uncertain terms that the thought of food made her nauseous. No soup for you.
"Kryten? The thought of spooning that fetid glop into my mouth makes me want to punch your lights out. Smeg off."
"But I put the croutons and cheese in it like you like. All nummy and cheesy and croutony..." Kryten waved the bowl under her nose enticingly, and Hippolyta had to admit that it did smell quite good. She tentatively reached forward and took the bowl of steaming soup in her hands. Kryten then brought a hand out from behind his back and brandished a spoon, with a chipper little, "Tah dah," at her. She took the spoon, dipped it into the bowl, and managed to swallow a bit.
The first sip gave her the stomach for more, and she started shoveling it up faster, making loud slurping noises with each spoonful. Kryten, meanwhile, was clucking over her like a hen.
"You haven't moved from this spot since we lifted off, Miss Hollister. You need to sleep." He had fetched a blanket from somewhere, and he draped it over her shoulders, managing, somehow, to tuck her into her chair.
"I did sleep. I think. A bit." The last three days had been one long nightmare, and the slightest change in Rimmer's condition caused her to either gasp in terror or sob in relief. The EEG bleeped morosely from across the room, its electrodes stuck to Rimmer's temples and the back of his neck. It looked like an octopus had taken up permanent residence on his head. She had tuned her ear to every slight change, every skipped beep, every change in pitch of the machinery. Her eyes rarely left the waveform screen, watching the slow, rhythmic patterns of Rimmer's thoughts made light. The only time they slipped away was when she became so overcome by fatigue that she nodded off where she sat. Then, after she'd awakened, she'd berate herself for slipping in her vigil.
For that's exactly what she was doing; holding vigil. If she were even slightly religious, she'd have been praying herself into a stupor. But the spiritual avenue had been closed off to her years before, leaving her in the cul-de-sac of angry atheism, so all she could do now was keep a running, silent litany. He'll come out of it. He'll come out of it. He must come out of it.
Kryten nodded in satisfaction as she finished her soup, and handed him back the empty bowl. "You should sleep, Miss Hollister. We're going to be at Bai's ship in forty eight hours, we all need to be in tip top condition." He was fiddling with something on the counter, and Hippolyta muzzily figured it was something for Rimmer.
"I'm fine, Kryten. Thanks for the soup." Then, a thought flitted across her exhausted brain. "Kryten, why are you being so nice to me?"
"Miss Hollister?" Kryten had his back to her, and his shoulders hunched up guiltily. She didn't notice.
"You hate me. And Kochanski. You go out of your way to make us miserable. Yet here you are, bringing me soup and tucking me in. What gives?"
Kryten shifted his eyes to the floor and he twiddled his fingers against his chest monitor. "What are you talking about? I'm your crew mate and friend! I like you. I'd even go so far as to say that you're a wonderful human being!"
But she wasn't listening. Her eyes were planted firmly on the EEG again, so when the mechanoid picked something up from the counter, crossed back over to her and swiftly jabbed the hypospray in her neck, she wasn't expecting it at all.
"You bast...ard..." She yawned once, then she was asleep before she could finish closing her mouth.
Kryten scooped her up her limp, borrowed form and laid her out on the cot across from Rimmer's. Then, he moved to the door, opened it and stuck his head through. "She's out. Come in."
Lister came in, followed close behind by The Cat. Lister crossed over to Rimmer's bed and shook his head. "No changes?"
"Nothing, Mister Lister. I'm afraid that Mister Rimmer is effectively dead."
The Cat nodded grimly. Then he took out a paper blower and made a tooting noise with it. "Party time!"
"Cat, shut up." Lister sat down in the chair so recently vacated by Hippolyta and held his head in his hands. "No brain activity at all?"
"Minimal," answered the mechanoid, scanning the EEG read out. "His alpha waves are nonexistent, and he's only just got the basic subconscious functions. If he ever did come out of it, which I doubt, he'd be a vegetable. Unable to feed himself, dress himself, speak, anything."
"So how is that different than normal? He's never been able to dress himself!"
"Cat! Shut up! Or I'll rip your tonsils out and stuff them in your ears." Lister turned to where Hippolyta slept in her drugged state. "Does she know that?"
"Yes, sir. She's perfectly capable of reading this chart." Kryten held up the chart in question, which had red ink valleys below the median line. It looked like a stock market ticker on Black Tuesday. Grim, bloody, and full of bad news. "The good news is that we can keep Mister Rimmer's body alive indefinitely."
Lister closed his eyes and sighed. He never would have admitted it, but his heart was breaking. Not just for Hippolyta, but for himself as well. Rimmer was the closest thing he had to a link to his old life, a life that had a half-assed dream of Fiji and donut stands. A life of owning a sheep, and a cow, and horses, and Kochanski in a white dress, riding a horse on the beach during sunset. Kochanski would have... no, not now.
"The question is, Kryten, should we keep him alive indefinitely? I mean, is he in pain?"
"Doubtful. The pain centers of his brain are almost completely atrophied. He's not suffering, Mister Lister, I promise you."
A lifetime of liberal beliefs came pounding on Lister's conscience's door. They said, "Hello. Right to die. You don't know if he wanted this. You can't keep him hooked up to machinery like this forever."
"Kryten? When was the last time our holograms were updated?"
"Are you sure you want to do this, Mister Lister?"
Kryten and Lister had retreated to the hologrammatic simulation room. It was considerably smaller than the one on the Dwarf, but it didn't need to store 1,169 disks. It only needed to store 5. In their mad escape from the Dwarf, Lister had scrambled down to the Hologram Suite, and grabbed all of their disks. Fortunately, they were all in alphabetical order, so it had been easy. Hadn't taken him more than a minute.
Now, Lister held Rimmer's disk up to catch the light. It was a CD about two inches across, with a larger than normal hole in the center. It rather resembled a small, thin, silver donut.
"Yeah, Kryten, I'm sure. We need to know what Rimmer would have wanted us to do. Only way, man."
"I should warn you, Mister Lister," began Kryten, as Lister popped the disk into the player and hit the "Boot Up" button. "This hologram will have no hard light capabilities. We lost that when we lost the first Rimmer. Remember? When he was killed by the AR sprite?"
"What? No, he..." Lister stopped himself short, remembering that Kryten didn't know that their Rimmer, the first hologram, had gone off to be Ace, not killed. "Right. Right, of course. So we're back to 'no touch 'em, no feel 'em.'"
There was a pause, then a shimmering in the air, as the wire-frame model of a new hologram being loaded took form. The light bee hummed almost silently, floating in the middle of this image. Then, slowly, the graphics kicked in, and downloaded onto the frame. Thirty seconds after the initial start up, there was a fully formed Arnold Rimmer, composed of light, standing in front of the generator.
An Arnold Rimmer dressed in the regulation lavender of Floor 13.
"Who are you? Do I know you?" Rimmer turned a look of absolute confusion on his bunkmate. Then he turned to the mechanoid. " Kryten? What happened? Where are we? This isn't the brig!" A look of hope flitted across his face. "Are we free?"
Lister turned to Kryten, his eyes narrowed. "His hologram disk hasn't been updated since we were in the brig?"
"Apparently not, no sir." Kryten looked very uncomfortable. He'd been meaning to nag everybody into updating their disks, but had let it slide. Laundry duties were far more important in the grand scheme of things.
"Hologram? I'm a hologram?" wailed Rimmer.
"Smegging hell," moaned Lister. This was going to make things complicated.
"So I'm not dead."
"No. But you're not exactly alive, as you can see."
Rimmer, Lister, Kryten and The Cat were clustered back in the medibay, looking down at Rimmer's unconscious body. Rimmer abruptly turned an about face and pointed at Hippolyta. "And she's my girlfriend, but she's currently trapped in your body? And you in hers?" Lister nodded. "But I've never met her! Who is she?"
"She was your parole officer. You two got together, got in a lot of trouble, and stole this 'Bug with the rest of us."
"What? We broke Space Corps directive 34912.5!"
"34912.5? I fail to see how an injunction against playing bocci ball in the showers is relevant to this discussion," Kryten sniffed.
"What's the one about stealing from JMC?"
"34812.5. Any persons caught stealing JMC property will have their privileges revoked and their rank stripped. They are also subject to corporal punishment, up to and including forty lashes at the mast. Rather an archaic rule, but effective."
"Ah. Good thing we're well away from that, then," Rimmer said nervously. "Rather a harsh punishment for such a petty crime, yes?" He peered down at Lister. "She's actually rather..." he stopped, looking at Lister from all angles, then continued with, "...bland looking. Are you certain we were an item?" Kryten, Lister and The Cat all nodded wordlessly. "We were, erm, having relations?"
"Three times a night, sometimes," answered Lister ruefully. The way things were going, Lister's relations were going to be severely curtailed, seeing as Kochanski still wasn't speaking to him. He couldn't exactly blame her, considering his response to her newly discovered power. He didn't like the idea of her being able to read his innermost thoughts one bit. Forget the fact that he hadn't gotten laid since he and Hippolyta had swapped. Maybe that's why he was in such a sour mood. Oh, and the period thing. That wasn't helping either.
"And then, while rabbiting about in the middle of nowhere, I had a run in with a telepathic woman, who, if evidence is to be believed, is three million years old? And it left me a dribbling husk?"
Again, the others nodded, agreeing with the hologram.
"And none of you find this odd?"
"Rimmer!"
"Seriously, you're all far too accepting of this nonsense. This sounds like it was written by some retarded science fiction nerd, locked up in his mum's basement." Rimmer took a seat in the chair, his hologrammatic form imperceptibly floating above the surface. "Although I do like the idea of having a woman in my life, even if she is a bit... mousy." He peered at Lister again. "She's smart, right? And a bit quiet? Very feminine and shy, like all good women are? I bet she looks up to me, right? A strong manly voice, guiding her and helping her in all her decisions?"
Lister, Kryten and The Cat all stared wide eyed at Rimmer. "Well, there's proof positive. Rimmer's much more intelligent when he's brain dead," said The Cat.
Rimmer raised an eyebrow at this. "She's not shy?"
The three friends shook their heads.
"She doesn't look up to me?"
Heads shook again.
"She's not stronger than I am, is she?"
Three heads nodded enthusiastically.
Rimmer made a face. "She sounds wretched. Why the smeg would I end up with her?"
"Because you're a weasely, puffed up little twerp with all the self-esteem of a newt that's been trod on, and she's just as bad?" asked Kryten. "That's just my take on it, anyway."
Lister rolled his eyes impatiently. "Look, Rimmer, we need you to tell us something very important."
The hologram stood up, chest puffed out. "Oh? Couldn't do without old Rimmsy to get you through the crisis? Needed a firm hand at the steering column? Are you totally lost without my advice? I'd be happy to help, Listy. Ask away!"
"Do yer want us to pull the plug?"
"What?" Rimmer looked completely shocked, deflating like a leaking zeppelin. "Pull the plug? Are you mad?"
"You don't have a living will on file, Rimmer. You're brain dead. Do you want to be kept alive artificially? Or do you want us to pull the plug?"
"Absolutely not!" screeched Rimmer. "If you pull that plug, you're no better than a common murderer!"
Lister raised an eyebrow. For all of Rimmer's posturing about how to take care of the elderly and terminally ill, he certainly wasn't applying his ideas to his own life. But what else was new? "What part of 'You're brain dead' did you miss, Rimmer? The lights are off, nobody's home. You'll probably never regain consciousness."
"Better that than completely dead!" The hologram crossed over to his body and threw his arms out, like he was on a barricade in France somewhere. "I'm completely against the idea. I'm not going to let you kill me!"
"What?" came a muzzy voice from across the room. The three living men and the hologram swiveled to the source. Hippolyta was struggling to make herself sit up, the drug dose making her eyes bloodshot.
Lister turned to Kryten. "You said she'd sleep for ten hours, Kryten!"
"I must have miscalculated the dose..." mused Kryten.
"Oh, marvelous. Florence Nightingdroid here can't even fill a hypospray!" sneered Rimmer. "And he's in charge of my care. Wonderful!"
"Rimmer?" Hippolyta staggered from the bed, clutching the blanket around her shoulders. "You're awake? Oh, thank God..." She trailed off, and wobbled for a bit, took two more steps, and fell face first through the hologram. He shimmered and waved, and then stepped away from her, regaining his shape. The woman on the floor turned her head up, and peered at him.
"Hologram?" she breathed. "Oh no. Oh God, oh no God no, Jesus, no..." and she started crying, turning her face to the floor.
"Hollister, calm down. He's still alive!" Lister reached down, and, signaling to Kryten, managed to heave her up between them and hustle her back into her bed.
"Then why'd... you pull up his hologram...?"
"We needed to know if he wanted us to pull the plug, Hollister."
"PULL THE PLUG? DAVID LISTER IF YOU PULL THE PLUG I WILL RIP YOUR TRACHEA OUT AND BEAT YOU WITH IT UNTIL YOU'RE IN A PERSISTENT VEGETATIVE STATE!"
The volume rocked everybody back on their heels, considering that just a moment before, she'd sounded wispy and, well, drugged. The hologrammatic Rimmer flinched visibly.
"Lovely girl," he whispered to Kryten. "I can see why we'd be so good together."
"Actually, you're not," the mechanoid whispered back. "Apparently, just before you went into your coma, you, pardon the colloquialism, dropped her like a hot porous circuit."
"And this was right before I conked out? Has nobody questioned her in this whole thing?" Rimmer watched as Lister and The Cat tried to restrain Hippolyta to the bed, who was thrashing about like a beached whale.
"No, she didn't do this to you, that I can assure you. She's sat right by your bed the whole time. Not eating, not sleeping, she's determined that you'll wake up, sir."
"I CAN HEAR EVERY WORD YOU'RE SAYING KRYTEN, YOU METALLIC MATA HARI!" The thrashing on the bed redoubled.
"Hollister! Calm down! Kryten, get a tranq in her, for smeg's sake!" The mechanoid turned to go to the counter, but stopped, because the door to the medibay whooshed open and Kochanski entered the room.
Everybody froze. Nobody was quite sure how to feel around Kochanski yet, and in self defense, they all filled their heads with innocuous thoughts. If she noticed, she didn't say anything. The only person who didn't seem nonplussed was Rimmer. "Miss Kochanski, ma'am!" Rimmer threw a full salute. "I tried to break up the fight, but they wouldn't listen to me. I recommend you put them all on report."
Kochanski shot a perplexed look at the hologram her eyes flicking to his forehead. "Rimmer?"
"Yes ma'am?" he asked, still in full salute mode.
"Shut up." Kochanski turned to Kryten. "Whose bright idea was it to boot up his hologram?"
"Mine, Kris," said Lister, letting go of Hippolyta's arm. "We didn't know if Rimmer wanted to be kept on life support, so I booted him up to ask him." Every syllable pleaded with her to forgive him his stupid words the night that she'd discovered her power. They hadn't seen much of each other at all. He'd beaten a strategic retreat, frightened of who she had become. A drug addict, a telepath, a former criminal... and yet he still loved her, unendingly. She hadn't been out of their quarters once. Lister supposed she'd been moping, much like he had.
"Turn it off. We don't need it."
"Hey!" protested Rimmer. "What am I, some sort of household appliance? You can't just turn me off whenever you feel like it!"
Kochanski heaved a deep, suffering sigh and said, "Fine, keep it on, I don't care. You're not pulling the plug on Rimmer, and that's final, Dave."
"Thank you!" yelled Hollister from the bed. "First sensible thing you've said in months, Kochanski." Then she paled. "Urg, I don't feel so..." And with those words, the drugs took her back into unconsciousness.
"Smegging hell," said Rimmer, "is it always this insane around here?"
"Yes!" snapped Kochanski. "And you're the leading cause as to why!" Then she turned to Lister. "Dave, I have a favor to ask of you."
"Anything," he said quickly.
"Follow me."
He obeyed, and they both walked out of the medibay, leaving Kryten, Rimmer and The Cat staring at each other.
"I'm going to change," whined Cat, breaking the silence. "I haven't been this sweaty since I looked in the mirror last!"
He too left the medibay, with Kryten fast on his heels. "Stay here, Mister Rimmer. I'm going to check on our flight path, make sure we're still on course."
After throwing the V sign at the closing door, Rimmer cautiously walked over to the bed where Hippolyta lay sleeping. Her borrowed face was slack, and her eyes were halfway open, rolled up in their sockets. Cautiously, he went to put a hand on her shoulder, and then started back in surprise when his hand went right through her. Stepping back quickly, he stumbled through the chair, standing right in the middle of it.
Being a hologram could take the piss.
The girl moaned in her sleep, then started snoring. Even though he had just heard a woman's voice issuing from the mouth, Rimmer still had a hard time believing that it wasn't Lister lying on the cot. Stupid smegger, he thought, directing his thoughts at his former bunkmate.
Then she started mumbling in her sleep. "Rimmer... I... love you..."
Rimmer's eyes widened at the implications of what she'd just said. Leaving aside the fact that she was drugged to the gills, she'd just said, aloud, that she loved him. Could it be? Was it possible? Was there actually somebody out there in this universe who actually loved him for who he was? Somebody who wasn't repulsed by him, by his attitude, by his ambition, by his ill luck? Somebody who... he broke up with? He left her? Why? Could it have been the body thing? But, from everything that Lister said, it was about to be reversed!
He turned to his unconscious counterpart and shook his head. "You smegging idiot."
Amazingly enough, his voice seemed to be enough to call the girl back from her drugged state. For the second time in as many minutes, Hippolyta came to, and stared cross-eyed at the hologram.
"Rimmer?"
"Yes?"
"Could you get me a drink? I'm thirsty."
"I'm sorry, no, I can't. Hippolyta, isn't it? I can't touch anything. I'm..."
"A hologram. Right." The woman sighed. "Lister's a moron." She took in his uniform and said, "You know, I never liked that color on you."
"Me neither," he answered. "I much prefer bold primary colors, you know. Much more macho, more manly."
She smiled weakly. "I'm not going to remember this conversation tomorrow, but I've gotta say it." Rimmer grinned smugly, waiting with ill-concealed glee for her words of undying devotion. He was rather looking forward to it. She paused, then raised an eyebrow. "You're such a smeghead."
Rimmer again deflated. "Do you outrank me?"
"Yes, by quite a bit," she smirked.
Rimmer's nostrils flared, and swallowed against the bile rising in his throat. "They said your surname was Hollister. No relation to the captain, right?" He sounded like he was pleading with her.
"He was my uncle."
Rimmer sneered, "And I'm sure he promoted you ahead of others more worthy, because you were his nephe... niece."
Hippolyta noticed the wrong gender use, so she couldn't help twisting the knife. "Yup." This was, almost to the letter, the conversation she and Rimmer had back when they first met. She had wished she could go back to their first meeting and change their oddly antagonistic behavior toward each other. But she was giving him, yet again, the same answers that had enraged him so the first time. This caused her to muzzily consider everything that went on between them, past and present. Even under the influence of tranquilizers, she could clearly see everything that was wrong with their relationship. This subtle and not-so-subtle teasing and tormenting had been the leitmotif throughout. The only time they didn't snipe and snark at each other was when they were having sex. Not to run down the sex, the sex was great.
Why did she love him? What was it about him that got under her skin like a jungle parasite?
She knew that she wasn't the... calmest person in the universe. But this knowledge didn't encourage her to change her behavior in the least. On the contrary, it made her want to lash out more, just to prove to the universe that she was right. Stubbornness aside, she had it pounded into her skull, over and over again, that her judgment was the only thing she could trust, as everybody else had the brains of a kumquat. Including Rimmer. In fact, he didn't even have the brains of a kumquat. He had the brains of a rotten kumquat. So why was she with him? What did it say about her that she loved a man who was so obviously beneath her?
The blinding flash of insight, brought on by the drugs, wasn't what she was expecting. She was expecting a laundry list of reasons, ranging from pity to lust to just plain old "well, it was a good idea at the time..." What she got was: "You love him because you see all that's good in him. You push him around when he doesn't live up to that expectation in your head."
Rimmer had been glaring at her the entire time this was floating through her head, and was apparently waiting for her to offer up an apology of some sort. Her eyelids drooped, and she peered at him from under them.
"Rimmer?"
"What?"
"You were absolutely right to dump me. Or, he was. You were. Whatever. Our whole relationship has been a lie. I lied to you about how I felt about you. You lied to me about how you wanted me to act. We're even."
"What?" The hologram looked completely lost. "What do you mean, it was a lie? Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I probably won't get a chance to say it to him," she answered, gesturing weakly at the unconscious form across the room. "Sorry for the inconvenience..." And she was asleep again.
Rimmer was saved from further confusion by the reappearance of Lister and Kochanski, who were carrying big bundles of equipment, wires trailing off behind them like bridal trains. Lister had a huge grin on his face, and Kochanski looked positively giddy. They started scattering the equipment about. Rimmer saw a visor, some gloves, a couple of groinal attachments...
"Artificial reality gear?" he asked. "What's that for? I don't quite think it's the time to fire up Legend of Zelda and battle legions of octorocks."
"We're going to get you out of this coma you're in, you smeghead," said Lister, slipping a visor down over the unconscious man, being careful to not disturb the electrodes of the EEG. Then he turned and did the same to Hippolyta's head. "You think they need the gloves, Kriss?"
Kochanski nodded. "They'll need to be able to get out when we're done. You ready, Dave?"
He had just finished hooking up the AR equipment to the EEG and stood back, nodding in satisfaction. Kochanski hadn't been moping in their quarters. She'd been thinking. And a hell of a solution it was, too. "You think this'll work?"
"Couldn't hurt," mused Kochanski. She slid her own visor down over her face and flipped the side switch. When she spoke next, her voice sounded ever so slightly tinny, like she was talking through a voice distorting microphone. "Boot 'em up, Dave."
Lister flipped first the switch on Hippolyta's head, then Rimmer's. Then, with one final wave at the perplexed hologram, Lister put on his own visor and gloves and switched on.
Artificial Reality as a therapy device had its origins in the late twenty-first century. When primitive personal gaming devices achieved the ability to project entire worlds into a consumer's head, it quickly became obvious what a powerful tool it was. The mental health community descended upon it like flies to shit. Multiple personalities were ferreted out in a completely safe environment, delusions shattered under the watchful eye of a skilled therapist and a computer. The distinction between reality and fantasy became quite marked when it became simply a matter of plugging into a machine. But there was a flip side to this type of therapy. A user would often substitute their own delusions for the one created by the computer. Reality is what you make it. And they made their own realities within a machine.
There was even a standard program for this type of therapy. It was called "P.S.Y.C.H.O." It stood for "Psychological Situations You Can't Handle alOne." (Bit of a stretch by the developers there, but hey.) It was initially seen as a large blank white space, and its flexibility allowed it to pull up any number of settings and situations from the wishes of its users. This same program was later modified for Cyber Schools. An entire generation grew up with the needles of AR in their cerebral cortexes.
This is why Better Than Life was such a powerful addiction. It took the P.S.Y.C.H.O. engine, spliced in the telepathic adware scannings, and went from there. When Kochanski's friends got their hands on the source code for both, it was the logical extension and terminus of that particular technology.
This is why openware is a bad idea.
Lister and Kochanski found themselves standing on nothing in a large white room, which seemed to stretch out infinitely in all directions. The white was so pure that Kochanski was reluctant to move in the slightest, for fear she'd leave scuff marks and footprints on it. Lister, on the other hand, was blithely spinning around, trying to take in the size of the room. One moment it would seem like he could put out a hand and touch a wall. The next, the same wall seemed so far away, it would take a long hike to get there. Then, Lister made another discovery. He was back in his old body. No longer was he stuck in Hippolyta's.
Lister let slip a low whistle. "What is this, Kriss?"
"Therapy program."
"And we just happened to have a copy in our AR suite?"
"Comes standard with every AR system in the JMC. Regulations. Didn't it ever occur to you that we had to have some way of dealing with the space crazy?"
"I just thought they got slapped in stasis or something."
"Well, yes, that too," conceded Kochanski. "But that's last resort stuff. Stasis uses the same amount of power AR does, which is minimal, but any loss of personnel is no good." Kochanski stood up straighter and said, "Clipboard!" in a brusque voice. And, just as requested, a clipboard of clear plastic appeared in her hands.
"Whoa," said Lister.
Kochanski smiled. Then she frowned. "Why aren't they here yet? Their forms should have loaded right next to ours, even if they are unconscious..." Kochanski muttered.
"Rimmer and Hollister?"
"No, Laurel and Hardy! Of course Rimmer and Hollister." Kochanski circled around once, and then sighed. "Database query additional forms gamma delta load execute." Nothing happened. "Damn. I'm not up on my syntax. Let's try that again. Additional run program null retrieval forms gamma delta coordinates unknown replace coordinates zero zero zero mark one ampersand zero zero zero mark two execute." This seemed to do the trick. The bodies of Rimmer and Hollister, in her own form, appeared suddenly, sprawled out on the floor of the white room. Kochanski smiled primly to herself. Even years later her programming language, while a tad rusty, was second nature. She berated herself slightly for letting it go for so long.
Lister looked impressed. "How'd you do that? What'd you do?"
"I told the program to reload their avatars here. Simple enough."
"Simple isn't the word I'd use," said Lister. "Where'd you learn to do that, Krissy?"
"Cyber School," she answered. "But that was the easy part. Now it's going to get a touch tricky."
"What are you planning, Kris?"
Kochanski bit at her lower lip, and flipped through the pages on the clipboard. "I'm planning on using this software as a focus for my telepathy, sending feedback through the EEG, so we can wake Rimmer up."
Lister boggled. "You what?" Kochanski ignored him. "Is that even possible?"
"Dunnow, the specs for this program don't mention anything about how the neural interface works," she said, tapping at the clipboard with the top of her fingernail. "Proprietary software never does. But I'm thinking that the electrical impulses of the brain can be used to create feedback into the machine. If so, then I can use my... powers..." she hesitated there, still not having come to grips with this new facet of her life, "...to nudge Rimmer's brain back into functioning consciousness. You with me?"
"I was with you right up until you said, 'specs,'" answered Lister. "But I think I've got the gist of it. You're going to reboot Rimmer's brain with an EMI, right?"
"Take out the 'M' and you've got it," agreed Kochanski. "In fact, replace the M with a 'T.'"
"T?"
"ElectroTelepathic Impulse."
Lister shook his head. "So why'd you bring in me? And Hollister?"
"Rimmer needs something familiar that he can focus on. They say that if you talk to a coma patient, he can hear you. Same basic concept here. In fact, we need a background of some sort. If he were to come to in this... whiteness, it might shock him enough to slip him back into the coma." Kochanski pondered. "What would you say is the best place for him to be? Someplace familiar."
"Their quarters," answered Lister immediately. Kochanski nodded.
"Access query audio visual program Starbug XX officer's quarters deck two port side execute." The whiteness was immediately replaced by the double bunk and living room of Rimmer's and Hollister's shared quarters. Kochanski turned and put a hand on Hippolyta's shoulder. The woman's eyes fluttered, and opened. She sat up.
"Kochanski? What's going on?" She stood up and looked around her. "When did we get back to my quarters?" Then she caught sight of Lister and her eyes widened. She looked down at herself, then let out a whoop of laughter, followed by an enthusiastic jig. "Hot DAMN! I'm me again!"
"Slow down, Hollister," said Kochanski. "We're in AR."
"Fuck," whined Hippolyta after a beat, throwing up her hands in disgust. "Why?"
"We're going to try to get Rimmer back."
Hippolyta's eyes widened again, and she raised an eyebrow at Kochanski. "Using AR? P.S.Y.C.H.O?"
"Does everybody know about this program except for me?" asked Lister to no one in particular.
"I was a security officer, Lister. You wouldn't believe how many times I had to sit in on these sort of sessions." Hippolyta turned to Kochanski. "Good idea, but for one tiny detail. P.S.Y.C.H.O. doesn't work if the patient is comatose."
"That's where I come in," answered Kochanski, and once again outlined her plan. Hippolyta looked supremely uncomfortable when the other woman finished.
"I don't like the idea of you rifling through his head, Kochanski. Or anybody's head, for that matter."
"Look at it this way, Hollister. What choice do we have?" asked Kochanski, with her arms folded across her chest.
Hippolyta sighed and then reluctantly nodded. "Ok. Go to."
"Brace yourselves, this might get a bit disquieting..." Kochanski got a determined look, and closed her eyes.
The noise started out almost inaudible, at first. Like a television turned all the way down, or the rumblings of the ocean heard from several miles away. Then, slowly, it built, rumbling across the floor, making the soles of their shoes vibrate. A cross between static and a subway train one moment, then an avalanche and a crowd of thousands screaming at a home run the next. It grew, gathering momentum, bypassing eardrums and making its way directly into the brain. Hippolyta and Lister both slapped their hands over their ears, but this was completely ineffective. Partly because the noise was completely in their heads, and partly because they were in AR. But, they're humans. It's an instinctual thing to slap hands over ears when confronted with loud noises.
Kochanski, meanwhile, was in the center of a red-purple vortex of energy, which swirled and crackled all around her.
Lister turned to Hollister and yelled, hands still over ears, "Could this get any more smegging bizarre!"
"What?"
Just as slowly as it had built, the noise rumbled into silence, and the energy surrounding Kochanski stopped, like a bad video game effect. Which was apropos, considering that they were in a video game. There was a moment of ringing silence.
With a supersonic bang, the energy flew from around Kochanski onto the still unconscious form of Rimmer. Hollister started forward, jerked into movement at the way his body spasmed when it hit him.
"Don't touch him!" commanded Kochanski, her eyes clenched shut. "I've... almost got him..." Then she gasped.
Kochanski fell through blackness, tumbling head over heels, no rushing air or slightest friction slowing her fall. Her first deliberate foray into the mind of another wasn't exactly what she'd expected. She'd wished that it was as simple as reading a book. What she got was a physical sensation. Like sticking your hand into a bowl of warm jello: Squishy, slightly unsettling, and almost kind of fun to play with. As she fell, images and sounds buffeted at her, like bugs splattering against the visor of a motorcycle rider. She could almost make them out, but were too brief and fast to register consciously. Then, she realized that she wasn't the only one falling through the blackness. She could hear Hollister screaming, and slowly turned her head to the left.
Calm down, Hollister.
Hollister stopped screaming, too shocked to draw breath. She tried to speak, but the words bypassed her mouth, and she suddenly realized that she was holding this conversation completely telepathically.
What the smeg is going on here, Kochanski?
We're looking for Rimmer. Why I grabbed you to come along, I don't know. But, just a bit further... Kochanski pointed suddenly at a brilliant speck just below them. There. Follow me.
Don't have much of a choice, do I? Hollister tried to maneuver herself toward the speck, and found her fall, somehow, slowing. A moment later, but impossibly at the same time, she and Kochanski were crouched next to the glowing spot.
This whole telepathic thing could take the smeg. The human mind was just too complex to be poking about in it like this. Or maybe it was too simple. One wrong move and the whole thing could come crashing down like a poorly balanced wooden block tower. Which is why they were going through all this in the first place. If I ever get my hands on Bai... thought Hollister aloud.
We will. Concentrate on the here and now, Hollister.
What am I concentrating on, exactly?
Rimmer.
Where is he?
You're looking at him.
He was terrified. He was huddled so far in on himself that he could only barely recognize the fact that both she and Kochanski were inside his mind. In fact, Hollister could tell that he thought that she was Bai. Not knowing what else to do, Hollister reached forward and scooped up the glowing spot in her hands. Ignoring Kochanski, forgetting all the anger and sadness that she held against him, Hollister cradled Rimmer to her chest.
Rimmer?
Hippolyta?
Their separation was over. This was the closest two people could truly get. They clung to each other, whimpering slightly. They were so intent upon their embrace that they completely missed Kochanski nudging them upwards. The small glow grew, became stronger, became Rimmer-shaped.
The flash of white shocked them back into reality, and Rimmer and Hollister reluctantly released each other. They were back in the expansive white room, Rimmer's sprite tangled up in Hippolyta's. Lister jumped forward, helping Kochanski sit up. The four of them stared at each other, all pretty well stunned into silence.
"You ok, Kochanski?" asked Hollister eventually, her hand on Rimmer's.
"Yes," answered the other woman, sounding surprised. "I'm fine. I wonder..."
"Wonder what?" asked Lister, staring at Rimmer still. He couldn't believe that it had worked. He didn't know whether to be relieved, or scared witless.
"How on Io did you do that?" asked Rimmer, his eyes wide with wonder.
Hollister patted his hand. "You've missed some important plot stuff, love. I'll tell you later."
"What do you wonder, Kris?" insisted Lister.
Instead of answering, she reached forward and grabbed Lister's hand, then Hollister's. Before either of them could react, there was another vortex of energy, and then... blackness.
The scene was now reversed. Rimmer sat at the medi-console, his eyes never leaving the screen. Hollister was laid out on the bed, and Lister was just across from her.
"That shouldn't have happened," intoned Kochanski for the tenth time, looking sweaty and pale.
The hologrammatic version of Rimmer hovered nearby. He'd not been turned off, much to the consternation of the real Rimmer. Too much had gone on in too short a time to deal with that tiny detail. Rimmer wondered if it would be considered self-abuse to shut it off. He turned bloodshot eyes on Kochanski.
"Why did you do that?"
"I thought I could switch them again. Seemed simple enough after bringing you back." Kochanski was leaning against the doorway, the AR helmet still dangling from a limp hand.
"I don't understand any of this," whined the hologram. Before anybody could tell him to shut up, Kryten appeared in the door.
"You were correct, Miss Kochanski, ma'am. There was an enormous power surge just before you all came out of AR." The mechanoid held a printout toward Kochanski, who took it and scanned it quickly. The mechanoid turned to Rimmer. "I would like to say that it's a pleasure to have you back, sir."
Rimmer looked surprised. "You would?"
"Yes. I would like to say that. But I can't."
Both the hologram and the living Rimmer turned a look of purest rage on Kryten.
"Not now, Kryten," sighed Kochanski. "How long were we out?"
"Twenty four hours, Miss Kochanski," he answered. "I was about to wake you when you all came out of AR on your own. But..." He trailed off, and gestured at Lister and Hollister. "What happened to them?"
"I tried to switch them back myself. That power surge was me tapping into the AR machine again, like I did for Rimmer. But two minds at once... the software couldn't handle it." She looked chagrined. "I couldn't handle it."
Rimmer blinked, and shook his head. "So get back in there and fix it!"
Kochanski just shrugged. "I can't," she answered. "I'm tired. Give me a day to rest up..."
"Time is not a luxury we have any more, Miss Kochanski," interjected Kryten. "Bai's ship is less than a kilogook away. We'll be there in forty-five minutes."
"Oh, shit." The AR helmet fell out of her hands with a dull thud. She bent over to retrieve it. "I guess I don't have a choice, do I? Ok, Kryten, I need you to..."
She was preparing to boot back into AR when she froze, her gloves halfway on. "Shit," she murmured again. "Too late."
A figure was materializing in the middle of their medi-bay. Too gray to be a hologram, too solid to be a hallucination. Bai had returned.
"I warned you once already," intoned the figure, looking Kochanski right in the eyes. "I do not like repeating myself. But, since you are all so congenitally stupid, I suppose I must. LEAVE! NOW!" Her voice buzzed and echoed around the room, causing Kryten and Kochanski to flinch.
"No," answered Kochanski, shaking slightly. "We need to switch them back. You stole the watch from us. Give it back and we'll leave you alone."
"I? Stole it from you?" Bai sounded murderous. "You stole it first! And, besides, the watch has..." She cut herself off. "You thought the watch did this?" She gestured at Lister and Hollister. Then she started laughing. "Great ancestors in heaven, you really ARE stupid!" she hooted. "You want the truth?"
Kochanski nodded once, not trusting herself to speak.
"I did it," hissed Bai. "I did it to punish him for taking what was mine."
"But we took other things off your ship..." began Kryten.
"Kryten! Shut up!" wailed Kochanski.
"You're welcome to them, mechanoid," snotted Bai. "But the watch has... sentimental value." Bai turned to Rimmer. "Nice to see you again, Strong as an Eagle. Feeling better? Learned your lesson about claiming talent that isn't yours?"
Rimmer clenched his fists, but did not answer. The hologram, however, did. "Who the smeg are you?"
Bai swung to face the hologram. "What's this? A computer generated mind? Fascinating. I think I'll take it." She slammed her fist into the hologram's ribs, grabbing at the light bee. The hologram shrieked once, then vanished. Bai sighed happily. "I might not be able to have you, Strong as an Eagle, but at least I can have your mind to keep me company on the long nights."
Both Rimmer and Kochanski looked vaguely sick. "You're joking..." stated Rimmer faintly, not quite believing what she had just revealed about herself.
"Is it so difficult to believe that I could love you, Arnold?" She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes at him. Then, she answered her own question. "Yes, actually, it is. I'd much rather torture you than make love to you. So much more amusing."
"Over my dead body..." came a growl from the bed.
Hippolyta had awakened. She swung herself off the bed and advanced toward Bai. She didn't notice the stares that she was receiving from everyone around her.
"I'm not going to let you keep his hologram, you bitch."
"Hippolyta..."
"Not now, Rimmer! You give it back right now, or I will personally come on board your ship, rip your head off and spit down your neck!"
"Hollister!"
"What! What is it, Kochanski?"
"You're... back..."
"Yes, I'm back, shut up, I'm threatening this whore at the moment." Hollister turned back to Bai. "Give. It. BACK!"
"You boastful fool," sneered Bai. "With one touch of my mind, I could destroy you instantly. But, see, see how generous I am. Look in a mirror. Then leave! Leave now! This is your last warning!" And, with those words, Bai vanished again.
Startled, Hollister glanced at the first reflective surface she could find, which happened to be the brushed steel of the bed frame.
Her own face stared back at her, looking much the worse for the wear. New scars had appeared, and her hair was shorn, and it was dirty and without make up. But she was back in her own body!
She slowly turned and looked at Rimmer. Rimmer's jaw was hanging open, as if he couldn't quite believe the evidence of his own eyes. She stepped toward him. And then they fell into each other's arms.
"There it is."
"I know."
"Now what?"
"I don't know, Dave."
"She's still got Rimmer's hologram."
"And she's still got a pummeling coming to her."
"She could kill us all."
"Scared?"
"Terrified."
"...Of me, or of her?"
"...Both?"
"Fair enough."
"I still love you, though."
"I know."
"I know you know."
Lister leaned in and kissed Kochanski, using his own lips, for the first time in three weeks. "Let's get the bitch."
Author's note: Only one more chapter left, guys! Tender and not-so-tender reunions ahead. Get your hankies ready.