FicWad

Low Kryten tapped at the gritty console with difficulty. His fingers were stiff; his joint seals leaked like a 20th century governmental security organization, leaving his body dripping with the grease that should have been preventing him from moving in such a ridiculous fashion. He jerked himself to his feet and waddled stiffly down the corridor towards the living quarters, gibbering with excitement. His excitement waned abruptly at the sounds that drifted out of the door like a whiff of nicotine - the repeated crack of a whip, a congested giggle, and a fleshy, slapping sound that Low Kryten just did not want to think about. He steeled himself, the irony of the name for the action long stale, and walked into the room. Low Rimmer jumped at the noise Low Kryten made as he lumbered in, and paused with the holowhip upraised. Low Lister, bent over with his pants undone, yelled "Heeey!" in an annoyed, high-pitched whine. The member that he had been gamely pumping while being whipped started immediately to wilt. Low Kryten shuddered in disgust.

"Eeeef you gentlemen can stop your little orgy for just one minute. There is a ship just like ours not half a click away. It looks like it was extra..." his shoddy voice module did not like this word, "extrapo... po... po..." Low Rimmer crossed his arms, stuck his long tongue out, and spat an evil snicker. Low Lister pounded on the console in front of him in frustration, his hand still on his now-limp penis. Low Kryten growled and stabbed the word through. "Extrapolated from the other side of The Likenesses."

"And what do we care about a bunch of stuck-up viiiiiirginal do-gooders?" Low Rimmer sneered.

"We care that their ship is going to be as goody-goody as they are, you fetid twat," Low Kryten spat back. "I sent out a distress call to lure them in. Holly and I made a spinal implant module to control..."

"Sounds loooovely, Kryten. Shut up and do it." Low Rimmer turned back to Low Lister and cracked the whip across his back with renewed vigor. Low Lister gave a high-pitched giggle that shot pain currents down the electrodes in Low Kryten's spine. He shuddered and turned to leave. "Maybe they've figured out how to actually fuck," he tossed over his shoulder. Ingrates. Low Lister spat at his retreating back, and pumped with delight at his revitalized erection.



High Lister's sandals made a soft shrussh-sshrussh sound on the grimy metal deck of the low ship. High Rimmer's sandals made no sound at all. He walked with his hands folded in front of his mouth and a distant look in his eyes. High Lister regarded him out of the corner of his eye for several minutes, then stopped and turned towards him.

"My brother, what is amiss?" he asked, his voice gentle. "Thy nostrils do flare in a most distressed fashion."

High Rimmer gave a start, then stood and looked at High Lister with an abashed expression. "Is my manner that transparent, brother, that you can read it with such ease?"

High Lister smiled, and put his hand on High Rimmer's arm, feeling for the gentle prickle of electricity that sat at the lowest limit of sensation on the hologram's border. "Say, rather, that I know thee so well that I may thusly discern thy moods."

High Rimmer smiled back, but his mouth quickly turned down into the ghost of a frown. "I am in great distress over the plight of those from whom we were extrapolated, my brother. Too much sits at war in them. Love and lust, which should rightly be partners, battle each other, and are in turn o'erwhelmed by fear and anger. I fear for the hurt that they do themselves and each other, my brother."

High Lister folded his hands and smiled. "Oh, my beloved, can such feelings long remain suppressed? Even now, seeing the beauty in thine eyes, my heart is overfilled with desire for thee, and as I am but a projection of the other, it must be that he feels this to the same degree."

"Ah, yes, my brother," High Rimmer said, his face relaxing, "I do feel such love for thee when thou dost smile on me, that I think my metal bee would burst. And yet, the fear and anger in my likeness are strong foes to overcome."

"Ah, but my brother, you forget there is power in extrapolation. By speaking thusly, we do nurture the love that our likenesses bear, as a fresh spring rain causes the most wrinkled and agèd seed to burst forth into green life. You know as well as I that these extrapolated forms are but transient, and when they reversed the process that caused our creation, we will be re-integrated into their consciousness. We may thusly influence them, my brother, to put aside the lows of their character and embrace this love that they bear."

"My brother," High Rimmer said, a flush creeping across his features, "I fear that my pure love for thee is tainted by carnal desire. Will that, as well, be nurtured by my extrapolation?"

"Tainted!" cried High Lister. "We are the Highs, my brother, and to be a High is to be what is good and noble. How can this carnal desire be anything less than the culmination of our most precious love for each other?" High Lister reached his hand up and again, carefully laid it at the interface of air and light that represented High Rimmer's cheek. "I hold out hope that your likeness may gain corporeality, and that our realized love may be consummated in the physical as well as the spiritual plane."

High Rimmer smiled. "Beloved, thy sage counsel puts my heart at ease."

"Have I..." High Lister suddenly broke into a broad grin that melted High Rimmer's heart into a steaming puddle, "Have I told thee today how much I love thee, brother? How much my heart glimmers like a newborn star when I gaze upon thine beauteous countenance?"

"Thy love refreshes and cleanses me like a babbling mountain stream, brother," High Rimmer replied, his melted heart re-forming.



As his brook babbled its last, High Rimmer allowed himself to be somewhat annoyed that his extrapolation would not, now, be integrated into the neurotic mess that was his whole likeness.

He would just have to figure it out for himself.