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Chapter 8 : Omega Group

Rimmer chewed his nail as he watched the dimensional warp trail recede on the Wildfire's viewscreen. He played his parting words with Lister over and over again in his mind, wearing grooves in his memories, grooves that turned Lister's wistful goodbye into a curt banishment. "I can't give you what you want." Lister had said. The cruel bastard.

Rimmer chewed.

"Ace? I need to tell you something."

Rimmer switched hands and chewed his left thumb.

"Ace, won't you acknowledge me?"

"What? You mean me?"

"Is there anyone else?" the computer replied, exasperated - yet still breathless with longing.

"Apparently not. Look, can't we just get this gristly death thing over with? Just chart a course for the nearest planet crawling with deadly GELFs, homicidal simbiants or man-eating polymorphs, throw me out the hatch, and Bob's your uncle."

"I don't want you to die!" the computer gasped, horrified.

Rimmer slumped in his chair. "That makes one of us."

"Ace, I won't put you in danger until I feel you're properly prepared."

Rimmer patted her console. "A sickeningly sweet gesture. However, let's be realistic. I've been a fuck-up for 35 years. I doubt anything's going to start going right for me now that it's crucial to my longevity that it do so. I'm sure mine will be the most spectacularly short stint as Ace of any Rimmer."

"I have training simulations. The other Aces left upgrade modules and patches. I'm sure... Ace, what are you doing?"

Rimmer looked up and placed the Ace wig he had just pulled off his head on the computer console. "I'm changing my hair."

"What? Ace, you can't!"

"Look. I'm a hologram. I'm going to program in the same smegging hair as the wig and then I'm going to cut it. I'll be damned if I die looking like a reject from a Titan hippy tractor pull." Rimmer waved his hand beside his head. "It'll be blond and straight, but short. I'll just tell everyone I got it styled."

"Oh, Ace," the computer moaned, her voice carrying a note of disapproval.

Rimmer sneered at her monitor, then closed his eyes to concentrate. He felt his thick mat of curls unkink with a soft tug. He concentrated a bit more, and waves of hair fell over his forehead and feathered down his neck. A further bit of hologrammatic manipulation, and his locks were being snipped and groomed by an invisible pair of hands.

When he was done, he fished in the Wildfire's console storage unit for a mirror. He'd gotten it a bit wrong. His hair was an alarmingly white blond, not honey gold, and it was... disheveled. Instead of militarily short and clean, he'd made it somewhat short and messy. Rimmer sighed and closed his eyes again.

"Ace?" The computer's voice intruded again.

"What is it?" he snapped, glancing back at the mirror. Now his hair was spiky. Spiky and white blond. He looked like Billy Idol. Rimmer's nostrils flared.

"A craft is approaching us from aft. They will overtake us in ten minutes."

The mirror slipped from his fingers and shattered against the floor. "What?" Rimmer squeaked. "Already?" Rimmer's mouth was dry. He heard another voice fill the Wildfire's cockpit, and it took him a moment to realize it was his own. "Is it hostile?"

"That depends on how you define hostile, Ace," the computer replied, diplomatically.

"The usual definition, computer. Is it going to shoot at us?"

"Not unless we try to escape. Nine minutes."

"Escape?" Rimmer's stomach contracted. His fingers scrabbled against the unfamiliar console, trying to bring up data. "Who are they?"

"The Omega Group, Ace. I suppose your previous incarnation didn't tell you."

"No. He didn't tell me much at all. Died rather quickly, actually."

"He was working for them." The computer paused, her circuits humming. "Perhaps working for is the wrong term. He was a prisoner of war. In exchange for his service, they let him live. Eight minutes."

Rimmer leaned over his knees, flushed with alternating waves of terror and fury. "No. He didn't tell me. Let me guess - they're going to expect the same from me."

"Most likely."

"How did they find me so quickly?" Rimmer pressed his fingers against his eyes.

"I sent them Wildfire's coordinates. It was an agreement I made with them and your predecessor. Seven minutes."

"You what?" He jerked up.

"Rimmer," she said, her voice firm. "You gave up trying to fight them nearly a quarter of a million incarnations ago. You're a space hero, not a philosopher, and they let you be a space hero. Except-" She paused for a moment. "They choose your assignments. Your last incarnation was fatally injured trying to assassinate a scientist, hiding in Nazi Germany, who creates hard-light anti-personnel weaponry. Six minutes."

Rimmer cradled his face in his hands. "What have I done? Take me back to Starbug!"

"I could. But what would be the point? The Omega Group would catch up, and they would kill or harvest everyone aboard your ship," the computer replied, matter-of-fact. "Now, Rimmer, I've been through all of this with you many, many times before. Perhaps you can spare yourself the trouble this time and just accept your fate. Five minutes."

"Fate?" Rimmer slammed his fist into the console. "Smeggitall! This isn't fate, it's a filthy double-dealing trick! What did he get for turning me in?"

The computer went silent, the hum of her circuits hushed. "He got what you will get when you turn in the next Ace." The computer's voice was dark. "Four minutes. Docking procedures initiated."

Rimmer stared at her console, his hands tensing and untensing. "Turn this ship around. We're going to fight them."

"No we aren't, Rimmer," the computer replied, her voice tinged with regret. "You aren't in any position to fight them, and I won't put you in danger until you are properly prepared. Three and a half minutes."

"So you're going to let them capture me?"

"What choice do I have? Three minutes. Coupler ready procedure engaged."

Rimmer gripped his handrests. "How bad are they, computer? I mean, are they just somewhat shady? A light gray? Pale shadow? What?"

"They intend to destroy all sapient life. Two and a half minutes."

"You mean humans, right?"

The computer did not respond.

"So that's it then? 'Sorry, Arn, you're out of luck. You're going to be working for a bunch of psychos who want to kill the human race.' That's what that damn bastard meant when he said 'someone to look up to?'"

Even the computer's hum was gone.

"I won't be seeing Li-Starbug ever again."

"Hope that you don't," the computer whispered. "Two minutes."

Rimmer glanced at the screen. All he could see was an arc of black that blotted out the stars on one side of the monitor. The Wildfire shuddered. Metal and gears whined.
"Coupler engaged. Fifty seconds."

Rimmer got up. The Wildfire jerked. He had to catch the back of the chair to keep from flying.

"Forty seconds."

Rimmer turned to the docking doors. I'm going to face ultimate evil in a bacofoil jumper and a glam rock hair-do. It felt unreal. Like a theme park. Ride along as the world's most luckless coward of a man. Keep your hands in the trolley at all times, no spitting over the edge, and do refrain from screaming like a helpless little girl.

"Thirty seconds."

Rimmer closed his eyes. What to do in your last thirty seconds of freedom? He thought of Cat, Kryten, and Holly. Goodbye, people I've met. He thought of Lister. He thought of Lister's hideous, encrusted rasta plaits, his habit of straining cigarette butts out of his beer in the morning using Rimmer's comb, how he would scrum through his dirty laundry for a clean shirt, as if the laundry basket somehow vaporized dirt, how he always left obscure earth-tone stains on the tabletop for Rimmer to scrub clean, and how he once left a neon green one that Rimmer still puzzled over, years later.

He thought of how Lister would wake up shivering and moaning at night when the weight of last human alive would come crushing down on him. And Rimmer would come down from his bunk and stand by Lister's and remind him that, no, not quite last.
And Rimmer had let Lister run him off. He was tired of the casual touching that meant nothing, the looks and glances and words that made him think... maybe? Only to have his hopes dashed with cruel denials and butchered camphor wood chests. Maybe being the last man alive without a not quite last might make Lister wake up. Yes. Rimmer would martyr himself and finally get his revenge on that smegging scouser.

The port opened. Two silhouetted, human-ish figures flanked the open doors. Rimmer squinted into the bright light. Even though he'd resigned himself to his imminent death the moment he slipped on the Ace wig, he still had to bite back on his desire to scream. But maybe it was more frustration then fear.

"Wait for your moment, Ace." The computer's voice was so soft, Rimmer felt sure only he had heard her.

"It's already come and gone." Rimmer stepped through the port. He felt almost content; finally, he was doing something that would wipe that happy-go-lucky hamster optimism off Lister's chubby-cheeked face.

If the smegger ever even found out.


###


"Look. I'm going now, okay? Just get my things up and out of the way." Kochanski poked her head back through her cell door, glaring at Kryten, who was busy stripping down her bunk as viscous blue sludge ate its way down the wall towards it.

Kochanski slammed her palm against the door lock. It slid shut. She shook her head and trotted down the hall to the supplies closet.

Keying in the access code, she slid the door open and reached up for the chemical spill satchels on the top shelf. Her fingers barely brushed one. Kochanski sighed and pulled out a bucket, upended it and stepped on top of it. She was just tall enough to tip one of the satchels out. The rest tumbled into the large storage space for the vacuums and welding equipment.

"Ouch!"

Someone stirred in the dark.

Kochanski hopped off of her makeshift step and peered towards the sound.

Something vaguely snake-shaped slithered past her foot. With a scream she jumped back, and heard a large, solid thing slam against the back of the closet.

"Wha' th' smeggin' hell!" it said.

"Dave?"

"Kris?"

Kochanski bit her lip and shifted closer to the closet. A flush rose on her cheeks as she remembered the last time she had been in it. "What are you doing in there, Dave?"

The dark shifted. Dave scootched himself into the light and looked up at Kochanski. Then he groaned and tensed his shoulders, cocking his head at an angle. "Got a crick in me neck." He rubbed at it.

"Did you sleep in there?" Kochanski clutched the chemical satchel to her chest.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Dave didn't answer. Instead, he pulled himself to his feet and stepped out of the closet.
"Oh my god, Dave!" The satchel fell from her fingers as she brought her hands to her face, then, just as quickly, caught Dave's shoulder.

One of Dave's eyes was nearly swollen shut, his face discolored with bruising along the left side. Blood had smeared and clotted down his neck and stained his white undershirt. Kochanski cupped the uninjured side of Dave's face, mouth gaping. "Dave, what happened?"

Dave looked down at his bare feet, still mute. He sniffled and swallowed hard.

"It was Rimmer, wasn't it? What a bastard. She picked up the satchel she had dropped, paused, then caught a portable mig welder kit from one of the shelves. "You're coming with me." With the mig welder under one arm and the satchel under the other, she grabbed his shoulder and pulled him along.

Dave followed her mutely back to her quarters.

"Kryten's going to blow a circuit breaker when he sees you like that." Kochanski pressed her door open and ushered Dave inside.

"Mister Lister!" Kryten cried, on cue.

"See?" Kochanski said, shoving the satchel onto the table. The mig welder kit she hauled over to the leaking coolant pipe. She popped the seals and checked to see how Dave was doing - Kryten had already ushered him onto the unused bed and was doing his best to clean and bandage him up while Dave did his best to squirm away from Kryten's ministrations.

With a shake of her head she slipped the welder's mask on. "I hope you flushed the coolant like I said, Kryten, or we're all going to be suffocated by fumes." Kochanski flipped the mask down and pulled on a pair of gloves.

A half hour and several ugly singe holes in her nicely pressed jumper later, Kochanski packed up the mig welder and broke open the chemical spill satchel over the chlorine-reeking blue glop on her cell floor.

"That's it then," she sighed. "We're back down to biohazard level 3 from biohazard 5." She sat down beside Dave on the bed. Kryten had made him a pot of tea and was busy futzing with Kochanski's laundry. "Technically we should be wearing containment suits, but at least we no longer have to evacuate." Kochanski poured herself a cup of tea. "I hope no one here wants children."

Dave had curled up on the spare bunk, looking subdued.

"So what's going on, Dave?"

"It's obvious, Miss Kochanski," Kryten sniffed.

"What's obvious?" She sipped her tea and almost spit it out. Too much sugar. Kryten always used too much sugar. It tasted like something one would use to feed laboratory fruit flies.

"It's obvious, ma'am." Kryten drew out his syllables as if he were talking to a mental defective. Kochanski's lip curled. "It's obvious that Mister Rimmer has shifted behavioral subsets."

"What?" Dave finally showed some life, sitting up a bit and staring at Kryten.

"Well, Mister Lister." Kryten smiled in that smug way that always made Kochanski want to tear off a metal wall panel and beat him to death. "I've taken the liberty of observing Mister Rimmer very closely. All series 4000 Mechanoids are equipped with various mental state sensors. It's so we can anticipate the needs and desires of our owners."
Dave tapped his chin, "So that's why you always managed to have a masala smoothie with a mango chutney chaser before I even realized I was craving it."

"Precisely, sir." Kryten preened.

"And if you had a vagina, Dave would have never looked at me twice," Kochanski muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes at both of them.

"What?" Dave asked.

"Nothing. Nothing." Kochanski glanced back, eyes wide. "Go on, Kryten."

Kryten watched her, an entirely disapproving look on his face. "Well, I've observed four distinct behavioral alignments within Mister Rimmer's overall range-"

"You mean personalities, right?" Dave pulled his knees up to his chest.

"No, Mister Lister. I mean behavior subsets. They may appear to us to be different personalities, but I do believe he has a sense of identity continuity between each subset. His dominant alignment, the one I believe you both have experienced, is somewhat similar to the deceased Ace Rimmer. Competent, intelligent, self-confident - but colored strongly with Arnold Rimmer's cynicism and selfishness. The second alignment I observed - I've coined it Arnold B - is emotionless, with a flat affect. Although, apparently, it has access to all of Rimmer's memories, something that I don't believe Arnold A has. Arnold C should be well known to us all. Cowardly, craven, weasely. Finally there is Arnold D." Kryten paused. "Arnold D is... well, I've only ever seen him in flashes. But he is... furious. Angry. Profoundly angry. Violent and uncontrolled."

"You could have warned me, yeah?" Dave groused.

"Sir, I've only ever seen him a few times, and each time only for a moment. Only when Arnold A's control slips."

Kochanski leaned forward, her cooling tea cupped in her hands. "Do you think Rimmer lost control and did that?" She nodded at Dave.

"Yes, ma'am." Kryten nodded.

"I could have told you that," Dave groused.

"So why did this happen? I studied mind patches in school." Kochanski sloshed the tea around in her cup. "They create one distinct personality from two or more. They don't create a series of them. Or... a series of behavioral alignments."

"I have a theory, ma'am." Kryten sat up straighter. A faint smirk tugged at his lips as he half-closed his eyes in almost orgasmic joy.

Kochanski took the moment to pour her tea back in the pot in one quick and undetected move. "Go ahead," she encouraged with a smile.

"From talking with Arnold B, I have pieced together some of the Arnold's history. Apparently, Ace was being used as a soldier in an attempt to wipe out GELF life across the dimensions. I uncovered a name. Omega Group. Does that mean anything to you, Miss Kochanski?"

"No. Not at all." Kochanski shook her head, then stood and picked up the pot of tea. "I'm going to make another pot. Keep going, Kryten." She walked over to the electric kettle and turned it on.

"All I know of the Omega Group is that they are extremely unfriendly to GELFs and their methods of conditioning their soldiers are... well, even if they'd only ever been inflicted on DMV clerks, I think they'd still be classified as mind bogglingly inhumane."

"So what happened to him?" Kochanski filled the teapot with steaming water and plopped two tea bags in.

"They inverted his fear-aversion."

"You mean-?"

"Yes, ma'am." Kryten nodded sagely.

"What? He means what?" Dave sat up. "I don't get it."

"Dave." Kochanski poured herself a cup of tea. "Kryten means that when Rimmer feels fear, he likes it."

Dave blinked, then gaped. "That's why... why 'e was hangin' off the railing."
Kochanski looked at him questioningly.

"I found 'im a couple days ago hanging off the railing. He was grinning."

Kochanski grimaced. "He could have killed himself."

"He was about to. Nearly let go when I caught him."

Kryten nodded. "Yes, Mister Lister. And according to Arnold B, the more fearful the personality, the better the results after inversion. Suggesting Rimmer would be very successful indeed."

"But... that would... Kryten, that would end up corrupting human personality algorithms. Possibly badly enough to destroy hologrammatic hardware as well. The tax on the T-simulation system would be extreme." Kochanski pressed her hand to her lips.
"Indeed, ma'am. I believe that is how he died."

"I think I see where you're going, Kryten. This stress must be preventing the full integration of all the different Arnolds. In fact, it's probably encouraging the separation of Arnold A and Arnold D." Kochanski took a calming sip of tea.

"Not quite, ma'am. I believe Arnold D is an extreme version of Arnold D. One completely stripped of not only fear for self, but fear for others as well. Quite simply, Arnold D is not afraid of hurting anyone. Arnold A is."

"You could have fooled me." Kochanski snorted.

"It's worse then that, ma'am. The longer this inversion is allowed to act on Arnold's psyche, the more strongly Rimmer is aligned along Arnold D lines. And, once that happens, if he doesn't kill himself, he'll kill someone else first."

"How do we stop it?" Dave stood up and caught Kryten's arm.

"Drug therapy would be palliative at best." Kochanski replied, clutching her tea cup. "Same with nano-therapy. I can't see programmable viruses doing anything more then delaying it."

"Quite right, ma'am. We'd have to go to the source."

"This Omega Group?" Dave bit his thumb.

"I doubt that would be effective, sir. I believe we should be avoiding the Omega Group at all costs. I think I have an alternative."

"What?"

"Cassiopeia. Arnold B spoke of it. It's the forerunner of Cassandra. Or, rather, it created Cassandra."

"Eh." Dave flopped back on the bed, rubbing his face. "Wait. I remember Holly mentioning Cassiopeia when me an' Rimmer talked to Hollister." Dave glanced at his wrist. "Hol, did you hear any of this?"

"I did, Dave."

"What do you make of it? Where's Cassiopeia?"

"I don't know. But I have this strange feeling I should ask Kryten a question. Just not sure what one. Give it a mo'." Holly bobbed on his black background. "Ah. Right. Got it. What's the password, Kryten?"

"Cassiopeia project eleven star star twenty-four star fifty star blank... hmm... wait." Kryten closed his eyes. "I'm trying to bring up the rest of that cached file. Damn P4 ram -it's always so slow."

"Close enough," Holly replied, and faded from view.

"What? Hol?" Dave shook his wrist. "Hol? Are you there?"

A face reappeared. In place of Holly's bald dome was a thick mane of slicked-back white-blond hair. It framed a softer jaw, higher cheekbones, and a bright red mouth. It was female Holly.

"Ach." Dave moaned. "Why'd you go do that then, Hol? We just got you back!"

"I'm not Holly," she replied. "I'm Cassiopeia."

"Naw. You're Holly after he did that sex change head-swap."

"No I'm not, Dave. I'm Cassiopeia. I've always been Cassiopeia."

Dave blinked. "You never told us."

"You never asked."

"So, Cassiopeia." Kochanski smiled wanly. This was too easy. It was never this easy for them. "How do we help Rimmer?"

"Wha' that git? Why would you want to?"

"Our motives are irrelevant." Kochanski waved her hand. "How do we do it?"

"I don't know."

"What?" Kochanski gaped at her.

"I said, 'I don't know.' An' I don't."

"I thought Kryten said you invented Cassandra. How could you not know?" Kochanski's fists clenched.

"Right now I'm on this space bum's wrist. I have about as much computational power at my disposal as a mood ring. Be happy I even know my name."

"Wait a sec." Dave snapped his fingers. "Wha' if we brought you to the Cassandra complex? We're goin' down with Hollister, and I heard that there's still some 'o her hardware and such left."

"A superlative suggestion, sir!" Kryten nodded vigorously.

"Yes, that might help." Cassiopeia replied sullenly. "Do you need anything else? Anything else before all of your futile shufflings get crushed by the Omega Group?"

"Is that a prediction?" Kochanski gritted her teeth.

"No, dear. I don't need mystical powers to be able to recognize the obvious. This space derelict is no match for an Omega Group scout, much less the Thresher ship they're sending..." Cassiopeia pursed her lips shut. "Oops."

"What was that?" Kochanski caught Dave's wrist, bringing Cassiopeia up close to her face. "What did you just say?"

"Nothing." Cassiopeia looked off the edge of her screen, not meeting Kochanski's gaze.
"You do know something, don't you?" Kochanski turned, wrenching Dave after her. She slammed his wrist down on the table and popped open the mig welder case.

"Eh! Eh! Wait a mo'!" Dave squeaked, pulling back on his arm a bit. Kochanski wouldn't budge as she stripped off the watch.

"Wait. What about Hol..." Dave grabbed at his watch. Kochanski fended him off.

"Sir, I think we should let Miss Kochanski deal with it." Kryten stepped in Dave's way.
Kochanski ignored them both, pulling on the welding mask and slipping on her gloves. She leaned close to the watch. "I think you should start telling us everything you know."
"You don't scare me."

Kochanski flicked her welding mask down. "Never got a chance to get my revenge for all the smeg Cassandra put me through. Maybe melting you down to slag will help fill that emotional void." Kochanski flicked the welding torch on. "Brace yourself." She brought it close to the watch's face.

Cassiopeia began to blow on it futily. "Wait! Wait!"

Kochanski bore down further till a lick of flame singed the metal around the watch face. Then she stopped. "What?"

"You don't know what they'll do to me if I tell you." A lock of hair had slipped into Cassiopeia's face. Her skin shone with sweat.

"I think you've got a good idea what I'll do to you if you don't." Kochanski inclined her head at the welding torch.

"They're sending a thresher ship for him." Cassiopeia nodded at Dave.

"What's a thresher ship?" Kochanski glanced at Dave. "No, wait. Don't answer that. Tell me why they're sending one after Dave."

"I don't know."

Kochanski let the torch slip towards Cassiopeia. The computer cringed. "I really don't! They erased that information from my memory banks."

"Then what do you know? How can we help Rimmer?"

"You can't. But if you get me down to Cassandra, I can use her technology to create a cure." Cassiopeia grinned winningly.

Kochanski yanked up her welder's mask. "How can we trust you?"

Cassiopeia slowly dissolved, leaving only the faint outline of a cruel smile.

Holly popped back into view. "Hello, dudes. What did I miss?"


###


Rimmer hadn't looked up once from the moment the Omega Group flunkies had caught him by the arms, thrust him up against a wall, and cuffed him.

Hard-light cuffs. Anything else would have simply bent and broken against his hard-light strength.

They'd taken him through a humiliating series of inspections. Every cavity in his body had been probed by unfriendly fingers. Rimmer had gotten the obligatory erection when the sweaty doctor had shoved his flabby fingers up Rimmer's ass. The man had said nothing. He had not even seemed to notice, and Rimmer had stared at the ground, his face burning.

They'd then probed his light bee, testing its capacities and his psychological limits. He'd been thrown into a marathon run till he had blacked out, and then electrocuted until the pain was so extreme that he had collapsed, vomiting fake stomach acid that fizzled to nothing as soon as it hit the ground. Finally, they'd rocketed him through a series of hallucination-inducing seizures. He'd been crying by the end of it. Crying and wailing.
At some point, he'd come back to himself enough to ask the two blocky, acne-scarred guards that had escorted him through the whole procedure, "You're holograms, like me. Why are you doing this?"

They hadn't answered.

Instead, he'd been thrust into a small room presided over by a simple wooden desk. A man sat at the desk. He looked like an accountant - small, hunched, with hair that was thinning on top.

The guards had pushed him forward.

Without looking up, the man spoke, punctuating his words by pulling the lever of his desktop adding machine. "You failed your last mission." Click.

"That wasn't me," Rimmer grimaced.

"Your metrics are all wrong for the kind of work you'd be doing as an agent." Click. Click. "You'll be given a position on the front lines." Click.

"What? How?" Rimmer blinked.

Click. "Thank you." The accountant waved the guards away.

Rimmer struggled. "Wait! Wait! I want to talk to a lawyer! There's been some mistake!" He caught the door as the guards pulled him through. "Please! I don't belong here!"
One guard slammed his fist into Rimmer's fingers. Rimmer screamed soundlessly and pulled his hand into his chest. "None of us do," the guard snarled. He caught Rimmer by the back of his collar, hauling him bodily down the hall.

Rimmer moaned as his hard light body began the excruciating process of straightening his broken and dislocated fingers and re-knitting his tendons and muscles. The guards dragged him down a maze of long hallways and through over-built circular doors that reminded Rimmer of bank vaults, doors that swung closed with an alarmingly final bang.
At some point the guards stopped, keyed open a door, and thrust Rimmer in.

He stumbled into the dark and before he could turn, the door slipped shut behind him. "Lights," he mumbled. Nothing happened. "Lights!" he yelled. Again, nothing.

"You're a pretty one."

Rimmer whirled in the dark. "Who said that?"

A figure slipped closer. It glowed. A hologram. Rimmer turned towards it and saw others. Twenty or more, huddled together or along the walls. He couldn't make out faces, only shapes.

"Turn on your infra-red, boy." The figure brushed closer.

Rimmer swallowed. "I don't have..."

The figure laughed. "What kind of hologram are you?"

"I... I'm JMC issue. Originally."

The figure's laugh turned into a bray. "I bet you never thought you'd end up like this."

"No. I didn't." Rimmer moved away from the mocking man and towards the other holograms. Each sat slumped against the wall, empty-eyed; some suffered from light bee artifacts, which leaft them deformed and twitching. "Who are you?"

"Front-liners," said the mocking man. "They've been in a bit longer. The upper-ells like to scare new ones like you."

Rimmer felt the bare walls. "This is just an empty room. Where are the bunks?"

"We're holograms. We don't get bunks."

"But Space Corps regulations state-"

Mocking man laughed again. "We're pieces of equipment, boy."

"Even JMC vessels give berths to their hologrammatic crew," Rimmer went on, his voice shaking. "It's for our psychological well-being."

"The Omegas don't give a shit about psychological well-being."

Rimmer turned back to the door. He banged on it, then feelt for cracks or locks or some way of opening it. "Open. Open! OPEN!" Nothing happened.

Mocking man slid behind him, slithering an arm around Rimmer's shoulders. Rimmer's flesh shriveled away from his touch. "Don't get excited, boy." Mocking man moved closer, pressing his heavier frame against Rimmer until Rimmer was pinned against the door. Rimmer froze in terror as mocking man pressed his clammy hands against Rimmer's hips, sliding his fingers into Rimmer's pants.

Rimmer exploded, elbowing mocking man in the face, then kicking him in the balls. The man grunted and fell. Rimmer kept kicking until his whole body felt like one long cramp. Then he found the wall furthest from mocking man's prone body and slid to the ground, his head pillowed on his knees.

He tried to ignore the vague groping of the shuffling, mindless souls around him as he endured what would end up being one of the three most miserable nights of his existence.