trans_9 | Sleeping on the job

Knowing the Yeerk survived, and the ship's admittedly flawed justice system survived improved his mood, but only marginally. The conspirators still attacked, they were still willing to maim innocent crew members out of spite, and among them were still people he'd trusted.

He felt no less like pummeling something, but it was easier to suppress knowing they'd done their job.

He was walking--not quite stalking--the corridors when he heard the strange sounds from the Sleeping Halls. Not having anything particularly better to do, he peered into the one that the sound seemed to come from with a curious frown.

Lister is currently sitting on the floor, a sleepy, and yet grumpy look on his face, as tentacles retract back into the walls.

"Smeg, lady, give it a rest!" he mutters, before scooting himself backward towards one of the nose beds. "Let a guy lie in, why don't you?"

Lister's day hasn't even begun yet, and it's going badly.

Cam probably didn't want to know what was going on. 'Lady' was probably a reference to the feminine AI, and he wasn't big on Stacy just then. What with the miniature civil war she allowed to erupt right in the middle of her.

"...Problem?"

He probably didn't want to know, but anything to distract him from recent events was worth investigating.

Lister pauses in his scooting, and looks over to the voice. Since it wasn't Stacey, he was happy to talk to whoever it was.

"If you count getting felt up by tentacles as a problem, yes," Lister replies, still grumpy and glaring at the wall.

"Can't a guy sleep round here?"

Cameron arched an eyebrow, and studiously blocked any disturbing thoughts or images that the statement might have summoned. "...Stacy's not letting you get any sleep? Why?"

Lister doesn't mean to give disturbing images, it's just a gift. Or a curse, depending on what images are being given.

"She's letting me sleep, but has suddenly decided," and Lister puts on a squeaky falsetto, "You have slept for the optimum amount of time. Get up."

"How can there be an optimum amount of sleep? Sleep's sleep, isn't it?"

Cam crossed his arms and frowned. And here he'd thought he'd gotten a bit lax sleeping without any real schedule or clock to speak of. Apparently he'd gotten 'optimum sleep' still.

"Have you tried a different bed? Maybe it's got a timer in it?" It didn't address the man's question, but Cam assumed it was a rhetorical question anyway.

"Well, what else is there to do on this flying stomach other than sleep," Lister grumbles under his breath, as he picks himself up off the floor, and dusts himself down. Not that there is any dust, but he's trying to make a point to Stacey.

At Cam's point though, Lister looks hopeful. He heads for the nearest hole, and slides himself into it. There is a few seconds pause, Lister's face breaks out in a broad grin, before...

Whup!

Out comes a tentacle, round Lister's ankle it goes, and with another thud, he's back on the floor where he started from.

"Guess that didn't work."

"Could try a different hall..." It wasn't likely, but apparently the man had nothing better to do anyway. Cameron leaned against a nearby wall. "Or you could burn some time in the Sensorium until she resets?"

Once more Lister drags himself to his feet, heaving a sigh.

"I'd give it a go, but there's only so many tentacles in a day that I can take. Might go and shoot some pool, but the way that this day is going, I'm sure that someone would come and find me and tell me that I'm being unproductive."

He thinks for a second.

"Knowing my luck, it would be Rimmer."

Cam had no idea who the person was that...Lister, that was his name...mentioned, but he got the general gist. Everyone had someone they would rather not see on a crappy day.

"Maybe Stacy'll lock the door for you?"

"Maybe she would," Lister considers. "Might not stop Rimmer though. If this was Red Dwarf, he could probably walk through the door, since he's a hologram. Dunno if Stacey can project holograms like that though. "

"You have anyone like that? Who bugs the smeg out of you?"

"Hm." Holograms weren't new to him, but holograms with autonomy and personality were, for the most part. It was probably a good thing, really. And unsurprising, given that the man was from some alternate world with very different technology.

"None who can walk through walls, fortunately."

Well, it might be debatable if Rimmer has a personality, but that's only Lister's opinion.

"Yeah, when you can't escape from someone, it really gets on your nerves," Lister speaks from experience. "Can you think of anywhere here where something bad is highly unlikely to happen?"

He may have to climb into one of the lockers.

Grif's kind of grumpy. He woke up on a couch on the Obs Deck and figured out the crew had exploded down in the city or something.

"You go to sleep for five minutes on this ship I swear to God..." he mutters to himself, on his way to relocate to his bed in here. When in doubt, sleep it off.

He hears the sound of Lister's struggle with the ship and peers in at him.

"She did that to me last week," he says.

Lister looks up from his disgruntled heap on the floor.

"Least I'm not the only one she's got a thing against. I mean, what's wrong with sleep?"

"I don't know man, but apparently I missed some huge fight or something while I was out."

He pauses, considering whether or not to share this useful piece of information, then decides this guy could probably use it.

"You can sleep out on the Obs Deck without her bothering you. It's not as comfortable and sometimes people are assholes and will wake you up and stuff, but it works. Just don't take my couch."

"There was a fight? Glad I missed that one then," Lister is a believer in the theory of make love, not war.

"You can? Great, thanks mate. And if I do take your couch by accident, feel free to turf me out of it. Better you than tentacles, eh?"

Jamie is rubbing at his temples as he wanders in - it's been a rough few days, even for someone who was pretty much on the fringes of all the excitement. All that's really on his mind is closing his eyes for a few minutes and not actually having to think about...well, everything. However, the sight of Lister sprawled out on the floor brings him up short.

"Whatever are ye doing down there?"

"Being convinced it's time to get up, apparently," Lister responds as he picks himself up and glares at one of the tentacles as it retreats into the wall. "Stacey has a very...disturbing way of telling us what to do. Stupid smegging tentacles."

He dusts off his plantsuit (accompanied by a faint squelch), and manages to offer a smile to Jamie. "Who knew there was an optimum sleep time?"

Jamie eyes the patch of wall that the tentacles have retreated back into with no small amount of trepidation.

"Aye, well, if too little sleep is bad and too much sleep is bad, there'd be something in the middle that's opty...about right. Does she do that often, with the tentacles?"

He's not at all sure he likes the idea of part of the ship stretching out from the wall to do...well, whatever it was the ship was doing to Lister that resulted in being dumped on the floor.

"Only if you're making a serious pest of yourself," and there is a hint to Lister's still disgruntled grin that he could make a serious pest of himself if he wanted to. "Or if you're not doing something that she wants you to do, or doing something that she doesn't want you to do."

He gives that explanation a minute to sink in, before following it up with, "She also gives you Violations. You know about those?"

Jamie's general reaction to something he doesn't understand is to make it seem like he has a clue, so the response to the somewhat confusing first statement is simply, "Oh, aye, of course." He'll sort through what was actually said a little later.

Violations, however, are going to need more explanation, and so he shakes his head in negation. "I've not heard of those. What would they be for?"

Lister appreciates an artist in the fine art of 'pretending to know what the heck the other person is talking about', since it's something that he works on himself.

"See, if I tried to hit you now, not that I'm going to, but using it as an example, then these tentacles would come out of the wall and restrain me. Stacey does that to anyone who steps out of line, except in certain places. I've not tried it, but I've been told. Then you get violations. Fifteen violations lead to Punishment," and he puts on a falsetto for the last part.

"No one has got to the Punishment stage yet, but it can't be good. I mean, what would a spaceship think punishment was?"

Jamie is rather glad Lister doesn't feel like hitting him. He's a bit cranky from the headache but still not in the mood for a fight. "I take it the City is one of those places where she doesn't do that?" Jamie would have remembered tentacles during the big fight he recently experienced. At least, he's fairly sure he would have remembered it. There was an awful lot of trying-not-get-shot he was doing.

As for Punishment, he comments dryly, "Would depend on the spaceship, I think." And given this one likes to shoot tentacles out of the walls and serve slop, it surely can't be good.

"Guess so," Lister shrugs. "Maybe she doesn't have enough tentacly goodness to go around? Not that I'm complaining, mind."

Lister managed to sleep through the fight, and is just about picking up on some of the aftermath. "Yeah. Glad that the spaceships I'm used to aren't talking ones. The computers aboard are annoying enough. What about you, man, you know much about spaceships?"

"Did ye not see the rather large fight down there?" Jamie realizes there's a chance that Lister in fact, did not. "Well, ye might have still been asleep. But there were a lot of bullets and not so much in the way of tentacles."

He settled down gingerly on the edge of one of the creepy beds, sneaking a quick look back at the walls to make sure Stacy doesn't decide to knock him back out into the room.

"I've been on a few spaceships since I've left home, but this is the first one that talked to me. The...spaceship I'm usually one doesn't do that." There's a little hesitation before he uses the word 'spaceship' there. The TARDIS is a little bit more than a simple spaceship, after all.

"But I don't think she would do anything like Punishment, either." He smiles over at Lister. "So you're a space traveler, then? Been on Stacy long?"

Lister shakes his head. "Been spending most of me time in here, mate, or in the Media place, just chilling. Sounds like it's a good thing that I missed it, have an allergy to bullets. Especially when they're being aimed in my direction."

Lister stays where he is. He knows that Stacey would try and knock him out of bed again, and he's had quite enough of that, thank you very much. He doesn't pay much attention to the hesitation though, he's just pleased to have found another space traveler, judging by the beam on his face.

"Yeah, the worst that happened aboard Red Dwarf was bloody stupidity, or practical jokes," Lister says. "Wonder if Stacey is sane though. Insane ships could do stuff like this."

How exactly would you test a ship for sanity though?

"Been here a while now, bit hard to tell. Too long anyway. How about you?"

There's a bit of a grin on Jamie's face as he comments dryly, "I think most people have an allergy to bullets. Still, it was a verra interesting battle to watch, once I was able to get past the giant robot and out of the line of fire." He's still not sure /why/ he didn't get flattened by the Decepticon he ran into, but that's a puzzle for another time.

He looks thoughtful, though, at the idea that the ship could very well be insane. "Stacy being insane would explain a lot, but I havena got a clue how ye would figure that out." That's an area he's not willing to fake knowledge in at all. Crazy ship = more trouble than its worth.

"I've not been here long at all, at least, I don't think. Ye are right, though, it's hard to tell time here. Name's Jamie McCrimmon, but ye can just call me Jamie."

"Who was fighting who?" Lister asks curiously, before pausing. "Back up a sec, giant robot?" He tries to remember if he's seen anything like that around the place, but he's fairly sure that giant robots would be noticeable. Or maybe not in his case.

"There's a couple of mind-readers about, we could always ask them to poke around in Stacey, see if they can find a brain or something. Or...what's that test with the ink splashes? Hold some of those up and see what she says."

"Nice to meet you Jamie, I'm Lister. Dave Lister, but mostly people ignore the Dave bit. 'Cept for official things."

Giant is relative - to be honest, Jamie didn't think about about how tall it was, just if it was going to kill him. "Aye, a giant robot. With a German accent." Which was a little strange, now that he's had a moment to think about it. "Most of the robots I've fought didna have an accent," he adds, thoughtfully.

"As for the mind readers, I'm not sure that's a good idea. If someone tries to read Stacy's mind and she /is/ insane, she might hurt them without meaning to."

When Lister introduces himself, Jamie thinks the name sounds familiar, and it takes him a moment to place it. "Lister...oh, ye're on this Team Mike, right? With the Doctor?" He's been poking about the Omnicom to see where he's been assigned. "Someone put me on there, too, but I havena found the Doctor yet." From the tone in his voice, this is something he really wants to do.

Lister looks intrigued. "German accent? can't be Kryten then. And you've fought robots?" Is it just my Earth that gets along with them? Ghanima certainly didn't like them."

Lister takes a second or two to realise that Jamie probably doesn't know who he's talking about. "Ghanima is this girl I met, really odd eyes, young, hates robots." And no, Lister didn't flirt with her. That would have been creepy.

"Yep, Team Mike, that's me. Met some of the other guys, good people," Lister looks at Jamie. "Don't take this the wrong way, but this Doctor? Is it just me, or is he a bit weird?"

"Most of the robots I've met have tried to either kill me or convert me, so I canna say I'm overfond of them. Although, technically the ones that wanted to convert me were cyborgs and not robots." He shrugs slightly. "I think it's really only been since I've been here that I've met ones that have been nice, ye know?"

"Ghanima?" He tries out the unfamiliar name, and shakes his head in negation. "I havena met her. I think I'd remember that name - or odd eyes."

He actually chuckles at Lister's statement about the Doctor. "I've not really thought about it, but I suppose he might come across as a bit weird if you're not used to him. He's definitely not like his people, though. I met them recently, and they're verra stuffy individuals. I'd much rather have weird."

"Convert you? You mean, make you into a robot as well? How would that work?" Lister is rather nosy, until tact wakes up and prods him mentally. "Unless you don't wanna talk about it or something." Yeah, tact.

"Yeah, she's distinctive," Lister agrees. "Mind you, you could say the same thing about most of the girls here." Lister foregoes mentioning that all the ladies he's talked to either have, or nearly have, threatened to kick his arse. Maybe it's just him.

"Yeah, compared to stuffy, weird is good. Stuffy people need to remove the stick and have a bit of fun. I mean, doesn't it get boring? Do this, do that, don't do the other..why not just go out and get drunk!"

"It'd be a cyborg, aye?" Jamie says this with the firm conviction of someone who knows the difference between 'robot' and 'cyborg'. Never mind the fact he really just learned this when he came aboard Stacy. He knows now. But he tempers the statement with a faint grin - which vanishes as he continues, more seriously. "Well, in the case of the Cybermen, they replace bits of your body with the various metal and wires and circuits, so ye look like one of them. And then there's something with the brain..."

He breaks off and frowns. "I dinna know what, exactly. The Doctor could explain it better. But at the end, ye become a Cyberman like them."

There's a few moments of silence, then he opts to get back to a marginally safer topic: women.

"I think that has to be because of who Stacy thinks is important. Ye can't just have any lass - ye need to have the smart ones, or the ones that want to fight." There's a brief flicker of disapproval on his face at that last notion - part of him still has some rather old-fashioned views when it comes to women and fighting. Despite a good majority of the female crew being as capable if not outright better than Jamie, it's hard for him to accept. "Although that doesn't explain all the kids."

Not that he's seen them, except at a distance.

"There's nothing wrong with a good spot of hard work, ye know? But it's just as important to be able to relax afterward, and I think stuffy people don't know how to do that." That brings up an interesting question, however. "/Does/ Stacy have a place where ye can go and have a drink?"

"Cyborg," Lister repeats the name, while shuddering at the description of just how Cybermen do their convert. Jamie has drawn him the picture, and Lister is very glad that there's no one around to fully colour it in. "There's limits to my curiosity. Think I'll stick with the idea that Cybermen are to be avoid at all costs, and not bother the Doctor with it."

Women, a safer topic? "Any women would be better. I mean," and Lister turns sheepish. "Where I'm from, I'm the last human alive. Zilch others. Nada ladies. I'm trapped on a spaceship with a robot, a hologram and a human shaped cat who has two thought patterns. From there to here, it's a little overwhelming, know what I mean?"

Jamie, have a dose of TMI.

"And having so many ladies possibly able to kick my arse doesn't help much. And yeah. There's a guy called Sawyer I think, has drink to trade, if you have something he wants. Me, I just head to the sensoriums. It makes things out of your head. I made my old bunk room last time, with a bar in it. Gets you drunk, or makes you think your drunk or something, but then you sober up when you leave."

He pauses. "And, no hangover."

Jamie nods fervently. "Aye, avoiding Cybermen at all costs is a good choice." And who knows if the Doctor would even be willing to discuss them?

He listens to Lister's description with a slightly furrowed brow. "You're the verra last human in your world? It sounds...lonely." Even before traveling with the Doctor, Jamie's always been surrounded by friends and his clan. It's hard to contemplate that there's somewhere where people just don't exist anymore, and it makes him a little sad.

He does make a mental note of the possibility of Sawyer having things - it's not necessarily that he really wants a real drink, but it's useful knowledge.

"I know the Sensoriums can make things out of your head, but I didn't realize that it could make ye think you were drunk. But isn't it a bit of a shock when ye leave? I mean, is it you're drunk one moment and perfectly sober the next?"

"Very last," Lister confirms. "Least I'm guessing that I am. Been three million and some years, and we figure that humans are either all evolved and smeg, or dead. And well, it kinda gets lonely sometimes, but that's why Holly, that's our ship's computer, ran Rimmer as a hologram. Figured that it would keep me sane. Does the opposite, Rimmer drives me smegging crazy. Cat's good for a laugh though. You have many friends?"

There's a note of homesickness in Lister's voice, although the normally bubbly Liverpudlian is trying to suppress it.

"And yeah, it can be. But it's good at the same time. You're drunk to the point where dancing on the bar is looking good, or you want to get a tattoo or you can't remember when you last had a pee. You walk out, and poof, all gone. Trouble is, you remember everything. Normally, I forget embarrassing things."

Hence "I Love Peterson" tattoo.

"Oh, aye," Jamie comments, starting off cheerfully enough. "There's the Doctor, of course, and Ben and Polly when they traveled with us, and Vic.."

His voice catches for a moment, but he forces his way through it - although the cheerful note seems to have disappeared. Instead he sounds a little wistful. "Victoria. And Zoe, of course. It's strange - sometimes it seems like I was just with Zoe and the Doctor, and other times it seems like I've been by myself for a long time."

Jamie blames Stacy and the lack of being able to tell how long he's been here for that. He falls quiet for a few moments, lost in his own contemplation. It takes a minute or so for him to realize Lister answered the other question, and when he replies, it's still a little distracted sounding.

"Aye, well, that is a bit of a drawback."

Lister can be blissfully unaware of things most of the time, but even he realises that he might have put his foot in it. Pushing back his own homesickness, he speaks.

"Smeg mate, didn't mean to drag things up for you or anything. I'm just nosy 'bout everyone, that's all. Best way to get to know people is to ask questions. Just tell me to shut up, okay?"

"Och, dinna worry about that. Victoria...it's complicated, aye? But I haven't traveled with her for quite some time now - she decided on her own to leave."

And while he's accepted it, on some level he will always miss her.

Notice, though, he's not telling Lister to shut up.

"Complicated? Bad complicated, or good complicated?" Lister asks, before shaking his head.

"Tell you what, why don't we get together in the Sensoriums sometime and get drunk together. We can talk about complicated women, and other stuff."

And probably fall over at some point.

"It's a little bit of both, but..." Jamie decides that Lister's suggestion of faux drinks at some other time might be a better idea for discussing that. Speaking of Victoria has reminded him that there's something he still needs to do.

"Aye, that sounds like it's a good idea. But do ye mind if we do that a bit later? I wanted to see if I could try and track down the Doctor."

"No problem," and Lister looks fairly delighted. "If you want, if you find him, we could invite the Doctor along. Have a sort of team bonding session kinda thing. Or not."

Just the fact that he will shortly have a drinking buddy is making Lister happy.

"Um." Jamie looks somewhat skeptical about inviting the Doctor along - mostly because he's not sure what the Doctor would think of the idea. "I'm not sure he'd approve, but I'll let ye know if I do ask. I'll see you later, Lister. It was nice to meet ye."

He hops off the bed, giving a small wave just before he ducks out of the room. He seems fairly happy, as well.

Sleeping on the job

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