My name is Simon Grayson. I'm a 17 year old (at time of writing;1999) boy who lives in London.
You can contact me via E-mail this address:
moose@pavilion.co.uk
This piece of FanFic was written on 20th October 1998.
Legal bit: Almost everything here is copyright by the BBC. The rest of itis copyright me, Simon Grayson. You can distribute it anywhere you want, including the web, fanzines, etc. but you MUST keep all this info at the top with it. Also, if you put it somewhere where loads of people are going to read it, I'd appreciate it if you could E-mail me to let me know.
Gary Kryten continued to stare at his sensors. He couldn't see anything except for static.
Then... some kind of signal... it looked like a TV show, millions of years old. He could just about make out some kind of cheesy music. The signal couldn't have originated from Earth, even this weak signal was far to strong to have come that far, but it was still to weak to have been coming from anywhere within a reachable distance.
The cheesy, staticy music was replaced by just static again, and Gary felt his eyes start to close. Gary considered having another cup of coffee to keep him awake, but decided against it, and let himself sleep.
---
The darkness was ending, the light had arrived. Something needed to be said.
"Alright dudes?" yes, that had been the right thing to say.
Holly's background tasks kicked in properly. While his front end was engaged in a conversation with the humanoid crew members, his back ground tasks conversed freely with Starbug's computer. The light-bee was missing? Rimmer had gone? Something would have to be done about this...
--
"Wake up human!" the Simulant, Simb001 to give him his full name, bellowed.
"I am awake" said Gary, "I'm just resting my eyes. I'm listening to the scanners!"
"You were asleep!" shouted the Simulant, "I just poked you in the eyes with a match and you didn't notice"
Gary felt his eyes, and thanked providence that the Simulant hadn't tried to blind him.
"Leave him alone!" said the second Simulant, Simb002, "he is human, he has to sleep from time to time, or he won't operate properly! It would be like asking us to never recharge!
"Gary took comfort at these words, though he knew that the Simb002 hated him as much as Simb001, and went back to sleep.
--
Hmm... so Rimmer had had his light-bee upgraded, and then left Starbug to become the new Ace Rimmer. Thankfully, all of his information had been re-stored just as he left Starbug, so he could be booted up again in an instant.
Unfortunately, there were no spare light bees. How the smeg was anyone going to get a new light-bee in the middle of no-where? Holly decided to put out a request for one, even if there was no-one to hear it.
--
Gary woke with a jolt. There had been a noise! A fantastic, mythical noise! He had been dreaming of this noise, it was *the* noise!
Gary listened as hard as he could, but could hear nothing. "No" a part of his mind was saying, "it's still there!". Gary strained to hear, but could hear nothing, not even..
THE STATIC! It was gone!
For the past 8 months, Gary had been sitting in the small room watching the small screen and listening to the static (occasionally mixed with some far-off signal), but now it was gone!
As he starred at the blank screen, he started to wonder whether it had just been turned off, but then something appeared.
It looked like the disembodied head of a middle-aged man.
"Uh, is this thing on?" asked the head.
---
Right then. This is a distress signal from the mining ship Red Dwarf. The crew was lost years ago, and currently consists of Dave Lister, who I think might be the last human alive, Cat, a life form who evolved from his Cat, Kryten, a series 4000 mechanoid and... uh... a woman who no-one has told me anything about yet.
I'm Holly, the ship's computer. I think I used to have an IQ of 6,000, but I can't even count that high without getting a bad headache any more.
This distress signal is for a reason, we need a new light bee. You see, there used to be another member of the crew, called Rimmer. Now, he's a bit of a goit, but we would like to get him back so that we can have someone to laugh at when we're feeling depressed.
Originally, I brought Arnold Rimmer back from the dead as a G1 hologrammeto attempt to keep Dave Lister sane. Back then, he didn't have a light bee, he was just made of pure light, which I generated. To go outside, he would have to have a holo-cage, unless we could dock with another ship, which had holo-emitters, like the Nova 5.
Anyway, while we had docked with ship called the Nebulous... okay, we didn't actually dock with it, I crashed with it coming back into our universe from a parallel universe, but lets not split hairs, especially as I haven't got any.
Where was I? Oh yes, while we were docked with the Nebulous, we found some new technology from the 26th Centaury. Well, it's not exactly new, but we're from the 24th Centuary, so it was new to us. It's called a light bee, and it acts as a portable holo-emitter.
The first experiment with this light bee came when Rimmer started leaving the ship in "Starbug", one of the mini-vessels inside Red Dwarf. Unfortunately, one of his first voyages ended with disaster, as he, Kryten and I crashed through a wormhole and into yet another universe. This gave his new light bee a good test, and it came through it perfectly.
During this mission, there were a couple of points where I fell out of contact with Rimmer. Fortunately, I managed to give instructions in advance to the light-bee, and he was able to continue as normal. I realised that I was onto something, and that I was actually able to leave Rimmer alone, and let the light-bee simulate him!
This became useful just days later, as he and Dave Lister were marooned on an ice planet after a few problems had made them leave the ship. Okay, so the problems were my fault. It was all those compu-hormones, I'd just had a smegging sex change!
Well, this light bee managed to survive pretty well over the years, and even survived being eaten and passing through a member of the crew. We even managed to do a few experiments on transfering the data on it into other members of the crew, though these experiments were aborted after he tried to hijack other bodies and... well, go joyriding in them.
About 3 years after we'd discovered the new light-bee, I completely lost contact with Rimmer altogether. Fortunately, the light-bee was running completely on it's own steam, and managed to keep going without me.
A few hundred years later (he had spent most of this time turned off),Rimmer encountered an entity known as Legion. The computer on Starbug (the crew were on Starbug while I was out of contact with them) tells me that this Legion bloke made a few changes to the light-bee, implementing "hardlight" technology.
After this, Rimmer gained the power to interact with his envirenment properly. I don't really understand the technology behind it (it uses numbers bigger than 6,000 in it's calculations), but it seems to have made him just like normal humans, touching and feeling things.
Anyway, the reason for this distress call is that he left Starbug about 6 months ago, to travel through different universes being a hero. We'd like him back, but we need some kind of light-bee to get him back to how he used to be. A soft light-bee would do, according to Starbug's computer, we'd be able to upgrade it quite easily.
End message.
---
The picture of the head slowly faded away to be replaced by JMC logo. This lasted for a few seconds, and was once again replaced by static. Gary was still starring at the screen in shock. The picture had been *perfect*!
The ship sending it out must have been really close. He checked over the message again, and realised that co-ordinates hadn't been given. That was odd, a 10th Generation computer would have known to give cords...
"Human!" a voice boomed behind him. It was Simb001, "What news?"
"Good news" said Gary, "there's a ship out there!"
Minutes later, Gary had traced Red Dwarf's signal, and a course had been plotted.
--
Lister hacked at another locker, but it wasn't any fun. He had wanted to show the group the locker game, but it hadn't worked. Kryten had left almost immediately, saying that it was immoral to go through the crew's possessions, Kochanski had left after she realised that almost every male crewmember's locker contained pornographic magazines and videos. Shortlyafter she had left, Cat had gone to sleep in a locker, leaving Lister alone.
"It's no smegging fun!" he shouted, "It's no smegging fun around this smegging ship without..." his voice trailed off as he realised that he was missing Rimmer again. Maybe he would have another go in Kryten's theme park.
He hacked open another locker to see one of the most bizarre things he'd ever seen. A card saying "Temple of Rimmer" stood at the front, and behind it was a picture of Rimmer, with lipstick kisses all over it. A photocopy of his Silver Swimming Award, a shred of clothing (Lister guessed that it was Rimmer's) and a short note written by Rimmer.
Lister thought for a moment that it was Rimmer's locker, but remembered that he had opened Rimmer's locker shortly after the accident. He looked at the name under the locker... "Mindy O'Brian?" he exclaimed, "Hol, what's this?"
"That's Mindy's locker, Dave." said Holly, appearing overhead, "She was obsessed with Rimmer, and used to visit that locker every day."
"Mindy?" asked Lister, shocked, "But she was smegging gorgeous!"
"Yeah, it was a shame" said Holly, "most of the male crew wanted to go out with her, but she said no to all of them, trying to save herself for Arnold. She never had the confidence to talk to him, though, she was always waiting for him to say something to her."
"Mindy?" asked Lister, still in shock at the idea, "Man, it's a shame Rimmer's not here now, he'd love to hear that!"
"Oh yeah, that's what I meant to tell you." said Holly, "We've had an answer to that call about a light bee."
"What call?"
"Didn't I mention it? I knew I'd forgotten something."
"You will go aboard the ship and give them the chip" barked Simb001, "they will be in gratitude to you, and you will tell them about your sick relatives on the nearby moon. They will go there to help you, and we will be waiting. If you do everything we have said, we will not kill you. If you do not, we will.
" Gary realised that he had no choice, and stepped into the airlock, ready to transport over to Red Dwarf.
The whole crew stood around the box on the table. Lister could remember standing in this exact position years earlier, trying to re-created Kochanski. That time, Rimmer had used it as a trick to create a second version of himself. Lister never thought he'd be hoping that it would be Rimmer who appeared as a hologramme!
He looked over to where Kochanski stood and smiled. It had taken a long time, but he had finally managed to get her back on Red Dwarf, even if she still wouldn't go out with him.
Kochanski looked up to see Lister smiling at her. The smile seemed warm and friendly for once, reminding her of her Dave. She smiled back, and then looked back at the box on the table.
On her left stood Gary Kryten. He was happy to be on Red Dwarf, away from the Simulants, even if it was only for a moment. Since they had taken him prisoner, months ago, he hadn't seen another human. He vowed that he was going to find a way to save the crew of this ship and to stay with them. He wouldn't tell them the story about the sick relatives, he would tell them the truth!
"Listen, you guys" he said, "I need to tell you something important..." he was drowned out by the noise of the holo-generators heating up.
"What're you doing, Hol?" asked Lister, who couldn't remember such noise the last time he had powered up a hologramme.
"The holo-generators will be needed to transfer Arnold from my grid to the light bee." answered Holly.
"Hol, are you sure you can do this?" asked Lister, "Do you remember the problems you caused trying to muck about with that DNA machine?"
"This is different" said Holly, "I know what I'm doing here."
Suddenly, a 6 foot soft toy appeared in the middle of the room.
"Oh smeg, it's Mr. Flibble!" said Lister
."Mr. Who?" screeched Kochanski, as the toy disappeared again, "You knew that penguin?"
"Hol," said Lister, "I thought you said you knew what you were doing!"
"Yeah, I've got it now. Ready to start."
"Uh you guys" said Gary again, still recovering from the shock of the noise and the huge soft toy of a penguin, who seemed to be an old friend of the crew, "this is kinda important."
"In a moment, Gaz" said Lister, "let's just get this right. Power it up, Hol."
--
-(6 months earlier...)
"I'm ready to go" said Rimmer in his best Ace voice, "No that's not it...I'm ready to... how the smeg am I going to do this?"
"You ready yet, man?" asked Lister.
"You bet, Skipper, let's take this kite to the... um... sky?"
"Don't worry, you'll get it" said Lister, unconvincingly. How the smeg was Rimmer going to be the next Ace? "Before you go, we'll just make a final scan of you. If we ever manage to get back to the Dwarf, we can get Holly to turn you on again."
"Great, I'll be able to become a soft-light holgoramme again!" complained Rimmer.
The two of them walked through to the landing bay, which Rimmer would be leaving from in a few minutes. Just another few minutes, and he wouldn't be seen in this universe ever again.
"Just through here" said Lister, pointing to a machine they had almost come to, "just put your hand on it and it'll scan you.
"Rimmer walked up to it and put his hand on it. There was a beeping sound, and a white light surrounded him.
The white light faded, and he took his hand off... but it wasn't on anything. He looked down at the machine, but it wasn't there! He looked up, and... this wasn't Starbug! He was back in... Red Dwarf?
"It worked!" said Lister, grabbing Rimmer's neck. Rimmer looked around. Lister was there, so was Kryten and Cat. He looked up to see Holly, who was now male again and... Kochanski? What was she doing here? He looked around to see the final person in the room, who the hell was he?
"Where..." Rimmer tried to speak, but was to disoriented to finish.
"You're on Red Dwarf, Rimmer" said Kochanski, softly, "we've managed to boot you up again, from a new light bee."
"But..." Rimmer stuttered, "I was just... walking... Starbug. You said to touch it" he waved an arm towards Lister, "then... here!"
"The machine scanned you, Arnold" said Kochanski, taking him by the arms and helping him into a chair, "we've booted you up again from that scan. You'll be disoriented for a couple of minutes, but you'll be fine after that.
--- "Not long now" said Simb002, "they'll all be here soon!"
"If the human can be trusted" said Simb001.
---
"So I never went to become Ace?" asked Rimmer.
"Yeah, you did." said Lister, "in fact, you're probably still travelling the multiverse being Ace. You're a... a duplicate of the other hologramme."
"I can't get my head round this" said Rimmer, "if I'm travelling round the multiverse as Ace, why aren't I... why aren't I there? Why am I here being this me instead of being there?"
"Sorry to interupt" said Kochanski, popping her head through the door to Lister and Rimmer's quarters, "But I think you'd better come to the drive room now.
"As she left, Rimmer said "By the way, where the smeg did she come from? I thought she was dead."
Starbug veered to miss an asteroid as it continued towards the moon. Gary had told the crew the truth about the Simulants, but Krten had pointed out that they would probably be able to catch up with them if they ran away.
"30 minutes to arrival" said Holly.
"Well, we've got some time to kill" said Lister, "why don't you tell us exactly how you got here, Gaz?"
"Well, if you want..."
The war against the Simulants was going well. They had tried to revolt, and they had been succeeding, but thanks to the new "Silicone Heavean" programme, the tide was turning.
Gary Kryten looked at his view-screen of the battle, and could see that the new simulants were destroying the old ones. It was obvious that this would happen, the old Simulants could not reproduce, while the new ones were being made faster than they were being killed. It was almost over.
Gary leant back and closed his eyes, and thought about what he would do once the war was over. He was at a bit of a loose end, really. He had become so involved with the war for he past 6 years that the rest of his life had crumbled. He no longer socialised, the war was more important, he no longer exercised, he didn't have the time, and his wife had left him.
But it didn't matter, he thought, smiling. Once the war was over, he would be regarded as a hero, teenage girls would be queuing up to go on dates with him, buildings would be named after him, the president had even promised to name the next set of mechanoids (which would have the Silicone Heaven programme imbedded into *every* chip) after him. "The Kryten mechanoid" he said out loud, and laughed at the idea.
He closed his eyes and started to think about what life would be like for him after the war. If the President made true on his promise, he'd never be able to go around the shops without people recognising him and saying "hey, that's the guy our robots are named after!". He had read articles about celebrities who got sick of the attention they were given, but he couldn't see himself ever getting tired of it!
As Gary leant back, fantasising, two red dots on his view-screen continued to get closer to the big green blob which signified the building he was sitting in.
What kind of car should he get after the war? He could get a classic, a Rolls Royce or a Limousine, but he was leaning towards a macho car,something to reflect his role as a war hero. Maybe one of those huge cars with the spikes sticking out of the front. They had been banned for years, but the ban had recently been lifted because so many members of the Interplanetary council had wanted to drive one of those things themselves.
Gary was considering a mini-monster truck when a communications alert noise went off. "Mr. Kryten!" a female voice shouted, "Two of the Simulants have gained access to the building! They're in the Science Labs now!"
Gary recognised the voice, it was Miss Mammot, a 17 year old assistant working on new ideas for mechanoids and simulants. He knew for a fact that she worked in the room directly below him, which meant that the simulants were close to him.
He armed himself with bazookoid, and prepared to fight. He knew that the simulants would be looking for him, and that they would probably come through he floor at any moment...
He heard a hissing sound. He looked around the room to see where it was coming from, but could see nothing. The bazookoid in his hands seemed to be getting heavier. As he dropped it, he realised that there was some kind of gas in the air. He fell to the floor in time to see a hole appearing in it, and a simulant appearing through it.
He had been defeated without even managing to fire a shot!
---
"The next thing I knew, I woke up on their ship, millions of years away from Earth." concluded Gary, "apparently, they managed to escape from the building with me as a hostage, and made it to another Simulant ship. When the authorities realised that I was aboard, they gave chase, so the Simulants just headed away from Earth as fast as they could, with me in Stasis. By the time they had stopped running, we were here. I saw them properly, and realised that they were the two main Simulants in the B team. I'd wiped out most of B team with a group of Mecho-Warriors the last week, they must have wanted... revenge.
"Kryten looked at Gary with awe, "So *you* are the one Dr. Mammot admired so much?"
"Dr. Mammot?" asked Gary.
"She was my creator!" said Kryten, "She was the one you mentioned, working below you in your building! Later, she became the head of the Kryten project." Gary smiled at the thought that the President had kept his promise, "It was she who designed the 4,000 series."
"How do you know she admired me?"
"Her diaries are coded into my programming, I know everything about her." said Kryten, "she saw you and respected you for your devotion to your work."
Gary smiled again at this thought. That young girl had admired him? It almost seemed to have been worth the break up of his marriage to think that he had affected others in such a way...
"We will reach the ship in 2 minutes" said Holly.
Alone. The mere concept filled Rimmer with fear.
He walked slowly down the corridors of the ship, trying to convince himself that the ship was empty.
He understood why it had to be him who sabotaged the Simulant ship, he just didn't like the idea of doing it.
"Think of Mindy O'Brian" Lister had told him, "think how highly she thought of you, and use it as inspiration.
" Inspiration? Rimmer let out a quite laugh at the idea. Wasn't that just brilliant, that beautiful officer who he had wanted to as out so often had liked him. Lister's chirpy optimistic view was that he should have been happy about it, but he was miserable. What was the use of knowing that she had liked him if she was dead? It jus made him more bitter to think about it.
--
"But Goal Post head?" asked Cat, "what use is he going to be on his own?"
"There was no choice!" said Kochanski, "the distress call told the Simulants about all the crew. We can claim that we hadn't booted up yet when we came to see Gary's family."
"Trust me, it'll work" said Gary, "they asked me to get you here as quickly as possible."
---
Rimmer lay on the floor having what felt like a heart attack. He took a box out of his pocket, containing the Chinese Worry Balls, which Kryten had advised him to use before the fiasco with the cloning machine. He started grinding them.
He stood up and looked at the object that had just scared the smeg out of him. It was some kind of skutter, but with the claws removed. What the smeg was it's purpose?
He tried to carry on walking to the drive room, but his legs were shakings o hard he couldn't manage it. He ended up crawling on his hands and knees. It didn't look dignified, but there was no one around to see him.
---
"Hello?" shouted Kochanksi, stepping out of Starbug "anyone there?"
"Mum? Dad?" shouted Gary, trying to give the impression that he was still on the Simulants' side.
"We've been waiting for you." said Simb001, stepping between the crew and Starbug.
---
Both of the Simulants are on the planet, Rimmer told himself, you are completely alone on this ship.
He climbed through the tube, and came out of the wall in the Drive Room of the Simulant ship. He looked at the controls and was shocked, he had no idea how to operate any of them.
---
"Before you kill us" said Lister, "how about a little sport?"
"Sport?" asked Simb002.
"Yeah, how about the 2500 meters? If I can beat you, I get to live!"
Simb001 laughed, "Don't you realise how fast we are? You wouldn't stand a chance!"
"Let's do it anyway."
---
Rimmer prayed to a God he didn't believe in that the others were doing a good job of buying him some time, because it was going to be a while before he took over the ship's controls.
---
"Ready to start?" asked Kryten, slowly. Lister and Simb001 grunted. "When I say "GO", you two have to start running. You'll carry on running for 2500meters, and then stop. The first one of you two to cross the line will be called the winner. The second one of you two to cross the line will be called the loser. If the two of you both happen to cross the line at the same time, it will be counted as a draw. If one of you crosses the line first but..."
"Get on with it!" roared Simb002.
"Ah. Okay then... GO!"
---
Rimmer carried on tapping at the controls. Suddenly, purely by chance, he hit the right keys, and a young, female face with bright red hair appeared on every monitor in the room.
"Good afternoon" said the face, "My name is Sally, and I'm the ship's computer. I have an IQ of 12,000, or the same as about 24,000 PE teachers."
"Oh smeg" moaned Rimmer, "It's got the same sense of humour as Holly!"
---
"Stop!" screamed Kryten, "you have to stop the race, that was a false start!"
"Again?" asked Simb002, "that's the 4th time! Are you trying to waste our time?"
"No, sir, of course not!"
"Then why do you keep waiting until they've run 2,480 meters before stopping them?"
---
"What's going on?" asked Sally, "the last thing I remember, I was in orbit around Earth, and there were 3 small ships coming towards me. Next thing I know, my sensors are telling me that we're light years away from Earth, and a lot of time has passed!"
"You've been turned off for the past 3 million years" said Rimmer. He added, under his breath, "though that doesn't seem to have slowed down your computer senility!"
"Ah, that explains everything." said Sally then, after a moments thought, "Except for one thing."
"What's that?" asked Rimmer, wearily.
"Why do I have a craving to watch old Black and White cartoons?"
---
"Event 2" wheezed Lister, lying on the floor. Running the 2,500 meters 8 times had had a bad effect on him, "The Javelin. Kochanski will go first, against Robot Number 2."
"Simb002" corrected one of the Simulants.
---
"So can you override the lockout?" asked Rimmer.
"The lockout?" said Sally, thoughtfully, "that reminds me of a story. It's quite a good one. It all started when I was being tested in Africa..."
---
"Is it really necessary to take such an accurate reading?" asked Simb001,"his javelin went about 20 times further than yours!"
"We can't be too careful about this" said Kryten, "we'll have to measure the distance to the nearest 100th of a millimetre, just to be sure in the case of a close result."
---
Rimmer banged his head against the table. He had actually found someone who was more boring to talk to than himself. Just for a moment, he understood how the others felt when he told one of his "Risk" stories, but quickly corrected himself, telling himself that the others enjoyed hearing his stories, whereas Sally was just plain boring.
---
"The event isn't over until both contestants have finished the course, not just one" protested Kochanski.
Kryten, Kochanski, Lister, Gary and both of the Simulants continued to stare at the hurdles track, where Cat continued to sleep deeply
. ---
Rimmer's hands shot across the controls. There had to be a way! He wasn't going to be a failure again! Only a few hours ago, he was on his way to travel the multiverse being Ace. He *wasn't* going to let a little Simulant ship get him down!
---
"But it's not an Olympic sport!" protested Simb001.
"It wasn't when you left Earth," stammered Lister, quickly, "but it's become one now. If we're going to have a full contest, we have to include it!"
"Who actually said we were having a full contest?" asked Simb002.
"You want to be sporting, don't you?" asked Kryten.
"Well, I suppose so" said Simb002.
"Then we have to include this sport." said Kryten.
They all turned to the arena, where Kochanski and Simb001 were both about to start painting each other's toenails.
"How exactly do we win this event?" asked Simb001.
---
"You know" said Sally, "judging by the amount of time it's been since you arrived, I'd say your friends are dead by now."
"You'd be surprised how good they can be at wasting time" said Rimmer, "besides, the Simulants wouldn't kill them, they'd use a tele-beam to bring them up onto the ship. That's why I'm here, I'm trying to take control of the tele-beam, so that I can make it transport the Simulants instead of myfriends. I just need to disable the lock on it.
---
"No more games!" roared Simb001, "We've beaten each of you by a long margin! The time has come for your death!"
---
"If you're trying to disable the lock, you should try pressing the red button" said Sally.
Rimmer's heart leapt as he did so. There was a loud CLICK sound, but nothing happened.
"Did it work?"
"What do you mean did it work?"
"Did it disable the lock, you stupid woman?" asked Rimmer.
"No. It wasn't meant to, I just like the nice clicking noise it makes when you press it!"
---
"Look" said Lister, "let's just talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about" said Simb001, "Simb002, use the tele-beam to take them up!"
---
Rimmer banged his head against the table again.
"Lock disabled" said Sally.
"What?" asked Rimmer.
"You just disabled the lock."
"How?"
"You hit the right buttons with your head."
---
The crew were once again in the drive room, but this time they were all sitting around the main table with a drink in their hands. Sally joined Holly on the views creens around the room.
"Good job, Arnold" said Kochanski for the 3rd time. It was like her training intructor had told her, "Always congratulate those working under you, it helps boost morale."
"Thank you, ma'am." said Rimmer, with pride, "It took me a while, but I managed to use my natural computer skills to overcome the system eventually."
"Hang about" said Sally, "I thought you... oh no, it's gone..."
Rimmer sighed with relief, and changed the subject by opening a conversation with Gary, "What are your plans now?" he asked.
"I don't really know. I suppose I might stay with you guys."
"Yeah, we could use a 6th member of the crew!" said Lister, eager for a new drinking partner.
"6th?" asked Sally, "Don't you mean 5th?"
"No, 6th" said Lister, "Me, Kriss, Kryten, Rimmer, Cat and now Gaz. 6."
"But Rimmer doesn't count!" said Sally.
"Why not?" asked Rimmer, jumping to his feet, "I may be a hologramme, but I'm just as much a part of the crew as the rest of you!"
"But your light bee isn't working!" said Sally, as if everyone already knew his, "the simulants wouldn't give you a working one! They gave you one with a virus, one which will make life hell for everyone on board!"
---
That night, while the crew were sleeping, and Kryten was checking over Sally's coding to see what had made her go on about Rimmer's light bee, which he could see nothing wrong with, something was happening in Rimmer's quarters...
Some kind of bad music was coming from his quarters, much worse than hammond organ music. The music woke up Lister and Kochanski, who tried to look through the window to see what was going on
."It's not Rimmer any more" said Holly, "he seems to have split up into 5different holgrammes. They're all singing for some reason."
It wasn't until the next day that they learnt the truth. The new holo-virus had turned Rimmer into... The Spice Girls!
THE END.
Cyber bat’s message
Now this story is bizarre…and probably the best moose has done yet..totally spegtastic…<..>
