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Rimmer, Lister, Cat, and Kryten staggered up to the control room from the cargo decks, thoroughly disgusted. Cat threw the bazookoid he was lugging into a corner. "Man, I got sweat stains all over this suit - for nothin'!" He twirled, his coattails flying out behind him, and headed to the living quarters. "Dibs on the shower. And I ain't coming out for two hours."

Lister sighed and set his bazookoid next to where Cat's had landed. "Nice one, Hol."

Rimmer, incapable of carrying a bazookoid, expressed his distaste verbally. "Yes, well done, microchip-brain. What a right bunch of twats we looked." Kryten picked up the two bazookoids from the floor and started to dust them with a little feather duster he pulled out of his left thigh.

Holly's blond head looked wholly unabashed. "Genetically speaking, it was a non-human lifeform. Better safe than sorry, I always say."

"Better leave Lister's socks well enough alone, I always say." At that, Lister pulled a face at Rimmer and sat at the central console, putting his booted feet on the control panel in-between two keyboards. Rimmer shook his head and walked out of the room. Kryten had just finished polishing the chrome on the bazookoids, and started to squirt Fresh-o-Scent into the crannies on the plastic.


Back in the officers' quarters that he and Lister had appropriated, Rimmer stood in front of a mirror and straightened his green uniform. Holly's head popped up in place of his reflection.

"Sorry 'bout that, Arn. Even a computer with an IQ of 6000 makes mistakes now and then, whot?"

Rimmer sniffed. "A baboon that was hit in the head with a forklift wouldn't make the mistakes you make, Holly." He tried to catch his reflection in the black edge of her display as he gave a stiff-backed Rimmer salute.

"Oy, try pilotin' a spaceship the size of the Duchess of York through space at near-light speed! It takes some major processin' power to keep this ship running in tip-top shape, it does. Do you know how much runtime your hologram uses?"

"Yes, actually, I do," Rimmer sniffed. "I also know how much processing power I would take if you let me use a self-contained lightbee. A number equal to the number of times Lister has brushed his teeth with actual toothpaste. Zero. Zilch. Nada."

"JMC doesn't like self-contained holograms. Too much power to the dead person."

"Yes, well, I don't think JMC would like a computer with its runtime so scattered that it calls all-hands red alerts for a dirty sock in the cargo deck." He squinted in annoyance at the mirror-that-was-now-Holly. How was he supposed to practice his two-handed double Rimmer salute?

"I'll think about it." Rimmer's lips twitched in annoyance as Holly continued. "It's not all bad, you know, havin' me run you."

Rimmer sighed, gave up on salute practice, and strode back to his bunk, lying on it with his right arm behind his head. "Yes, it must be a laugh, having me bother you every time I want a brush or clean uniform. And it's terribly amusing to have to pester you for hours to get a brush or a clean uniform, and then having you get all tetchy and give me Petersen's arm."

"It was an honest mistake."

"Like the time you forgot to give me a uniform, and I had to walk around naked for two days? I felt like a right prat, trying to cover my jollies with my hands for two days straight. Lister kept insisting I salute."

"We hit a meteor storm. I had other things on me mind."

"Indeedy. So let me have a self-contained lightbee!"

Holly sighed, and her face blinked off. Her voice came from a speaker closer to Rimmer's ear. "I think you've been a bit tense, Arn."

"Really? I'm dead, I'm millions of years from Earth, I'm stuck in a giant red garbage bin with the sole survivor of the human species, who is a man who has not taken a bath in over three million years; and meanwhile, the ship's computer scrambles the crew for laundry and won't let me dress myself! What on Io could I have to be tense about?" He flopped all of the way down onto the bunk with an aggravated sigh.

Which turned into a strangled "Eeep!" as a pair of invisible hands touched his shoulders and began to knead.

"Holly!"

"Standard protocol for deceased crewmember tension alleviation."

"Oh..." Rimmer relaxed tentatively and closed his eyes. It actually did feel rather good.

Holly's voice continued, blandly, "Five minutes of standard JMC back massage followed by ten minutes of modified JMC sexual activity, adapted to crewmember personality profile."

Rimmer jerked upright. "What??"

Holly took temporary control and made him lie back down on the bunk. "Standard procedure, Arn." She let go. The disembodied hands continued to rub, and Rimmer let himself relax. Sexual activity, eh? He wondered if Holly would revive an image of one of the dead female crewmembers. Not Kochanski, dear lord. Or, after the virtual reality game, McGruder. Maybe it would be McCauley, she of the short skirts...

Rimmer practically jumped out of his computer-generated skin when what felt like oily, invisible fingers started prodding at a rather intimate part of his body. "Holly!!"

"I've synced this with your personality analysis," her dispassionate voice said near his ear. The slick non-fingers pushed inside, while what felt like the other hand of the nonexistent crewmember curled around his... well... member. "Relax."

Rimmer weighed relaxing of his own free will over having Holly take charge of his body again, and made himself lie back down on the bunk. He kept the expression of horror on his face; he would not admit to anyone, least of all Holly, that this actually felt rather good.

"Stop being such a twonk, Arn."

He sighed and let his face relax. He closed his eyes and gasped as something that felt suspiciously penis-like replaced the fingers inside of him, and started to move. It was doing something that felt better than spit-polishing a pair of regulation JMC technician's boots. The ghostly hands now moved on his own penis, twiddling the head in a rather intriguing way that he filed for future reference, as the disembodied member moved faster inside of him, making him whimper like a cuffed corgi every time it bottomed out. His release came as the precisely mandated ten minutes elapsed.

Rimmer took a deep breath and opened his eyes. "That was JMC regulation?"

"Well, more or less," Holly drawled. "There's some room for interpretation."

"Who was that?" Rimmer regretted the question as soon as it escaped his lips. That was nothing compared to his regret as Holly gave him the answer.

"Lister."


To be fair to Lister, Rimmer had made a habit of interacting like a proper corporeal entity with the tables, chairs, bulkheads, and terminals that he could simply pass through. So when Lister entered the sleeping quarters and saw Rimmer bent over the table in the middle of the room, appearing to grab the edge of it while he hacked as if he had swallowed his tongue and needed to cough it back up, Lister instinctively tried to whack Rimmer on the back to help him breathe. Lister's hand instead went right through, and he stumbled through Rimmer as he lost his balance.

It took them a week to coax Rimmer out from under the bunk.