Holo-Man

3,000,000 Years

"You summoned for me?" Rimmer asked in a failed attempt to be funny. It was funny, but in an odd, yet usual smeg-headed Rimmer way.

"What?" Lister chortled. He whipped his head around to look at him. He noticed his eyes were red and swollen. "You alright?"

His upper lip twitched as he grew anxious, then donned a blank expression and denied it all. "What do you mean?"

"Your eyes are bloodshot..." Rimmer opened his mouth, about to give a false explanation but Lister cut him off. "And now that you're talking, you actually sound stuffed up."

Rimmer's eyes widened; he hoped that Lister would be his usual daft self and not come to any conclusions.

"Have you got some sort of holo-cold?" Lister asked.

Rimmer let out a giant sigh of relief. Lister's obliviousness and stupidity came through once again. Either that or he was joking. Then he remembered he had to answer his question. "I have... allergies."

Lister wasn't buying it. Incredulously, he asked, "Allergies? From what?"

He scrunched up his face, deep in thought. "Aria!" he exclaimed as he snapped his fingers, pointing at Lister.

"You're allergic to Aria? How?"

He started pacing around. "Oh, what are you asking me for?" he hastened to ask. "All I know is that I was fine before, now she's here and I'm not fine." he squeaked.

"Wait, you were fine before?" he jested.

Rimmer glared at him as he usually did. "Ha-ha. Hi-smegging-larious. Now, what did you want me for?"

"I've been thinking—"

Rimmer interrupted, "Oh no."

Lister stared at him, blinking a couple of times.

"What? I can't make jokes about your intelligence? Or lack thereof?"

He shook his head. "As I was sayin': Why are we still mucking around, looking for food? Aria has that..." He snapped his fingers, trying to remember what it was called. "vortex thing. Why not use that to go to some time period where food was plentiful, grab some grub and come back here with it?"

"Hang on. Did you just use the word 'plentiful'? Correctly?"

"Rimmer, I'm being serious."

"So am I!" he exclaimed. He playfully punched Lister in his bicep. "Someone's been using their word-a-day calendar, haven't they?"

Lister just stared blankly at him. "C'mon, man..."

Rimmer went back to being serious. "I know you're worried, we all are. But I'm sure there's a better way to go about it."

"Like?" he asked.

Rimmer pursed his lips as he thought of one. He knew Lister was tired of mooching off of others. Then he got an idea. "You could actually... work."

"Work?" Lister disdainfully asked.

"Yes, work. W-O-R-K." He was being needlessly sarcastic. "Listy, we've been though this. It's in the dictionary. Look it up."