The Uncanny Valley part 2

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Part two of 'The Uncanny Valley' (still PG). This is set early in the show, and it's all about the problem of getting two people to interact when they can't touch.

Part two

Lister attempted, via a gallant campaign of unrelenting ridicule, to take Rimmer's mind off his problems. But it was no use, his companion seemed to sink ever further into despond as the days went by. On the third night, maddened by the sounds of stifled snot-thick sobbing from the lower bunk, Lister gave up any attempt to sleep and thumped clumsily down onto the cabin floor in the dark.

'Lights up Hol - half way up.'

Rimmer was lying face down, with his face flat on the pillow. It was unclear to what extent he was aware of his surroundings. If he hadn't been dead already, Lister would have wondered whether he could breathe in that position. He was reminded of himself as a little boy, on one of those childhood days when everything seemed unbearable, when his grandad would pat him on the back and tell him things weren't so bad.

'Holly' Lister barely vocalised. 'er.. Can you simulate this?'

He vaguely patted with his right hand in the region of Rimmer's back, muttering 'there, there' sheepishly. Grandad, don't fail me now. As usual his hand passed unfeelingly through Rimmer's insubstantial form.

'I could simulate that, Dave, but you'd have severed his spine and ruptured his liver, and I don't think that would help,' Holly whispered, urgently.
'Dammit Hol, I'm doing my best: can't you work something out?'

Holly recalculated the position, speed and force of Lister's action, as if Lister's hand met but did not pass through Rimmer's simulated flesh, and reproduced this as a sensation on the skin of Rimmer's hologramatic back at approximately the location that Lister's hand had intersected it. It was a pathetic effort.

'Mother!' Screamed Rimmer and leaped to his feet as if he'd been electrocuted. His face was distorted unattractively into a rictus of fear and disgust. 'What are you doing to me you blithering idiot?'
'Patting you on the back.'
'It felt like a smegging machine was assaulting me. Haven't you been listening to a word I've been saying? You're doing this on purpose aren't you?'
'I'm just trying to help, man.'
'Well don't.'

Holly's face on the computer screen, and the living man and the hologram were eyeing each other in the half light. Impasse. Holly couldn't imitate human touch. He needed Lister to model the right action to him, but Lister couldn't do it, because when he reached out to Rimmer's body he felt nothing at all. It was like trying to pat a ghost.

Lister rested his hand on his own upper chest, in the opening of his pyjama top. He patted himself self-consciously. The action was just right - firm enough to be manly and 'sensible' (Rimmer would approve), but not painfully over-forceful. Most of all, it felt human. Pity he couldn't pat himself on the back.

'Holly. Copy this.'

Lister tapped himself on the chest again and Rimmer's eyes widened.

'I felt that!'
'What did it feel like?'
'... Normal.'

For the first time in three million years. It felt Normal.

to be cont'd

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It's a slow starter, and I'm asking a lot of patience from everyone posting this as my first fic to a group where nobody knows me, but I hope it works over the three sections.

[metalkatt.livejournal.com]

I like the premise, and you're working it well. I look forward to more!

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I will post part 3 today.

<3

[dauphkantus.livejournal.com]

*is a late-comer to the commune, but is liking this wholly human side to them*

Re: <3

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Thanks - I have a part 4 in progress, and that's the end of it