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BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Julie shot up in her bunk at the sudden cry of her alarm, hitting her head on the ceiling as she did so. She clutched her head and groaned, disoriented and still half-asleep. Was it already time to get up? She craned her neck to look at the small, electronic alarm clock on her bedside table, which was still blaring like an air raid siren (a melodramatic comparison, but accurate for someone who’s been awake for about ten seconds). Sure enough, it was 8am. Time for another day of work. She whacked the clock a little harder than necessary, and once it stopped beeping, begrudgingly shuffled towards the end of the bed.
She had been aboard Red Dwarf for four months now, and most of those 122 days had been spent counting down the days until she could return home. She hated Red Dwarf. The ship was the size of a small city, but it was just endless grey corridors filled with skutters and miserable technicians who worked for minimum wage. They were all scientists and engineers, obsessed with mathematics and equations and all the most boring things in the universe. Despite the fact that it was a mining ship, Julie took no interest in that stuff whatsoever. She was a sociologist.
She worked for a company called Barton Research and Development, which specialised in sociological research, specifically time studies. She’d been given the opportunity to come aboard the Red Dwarf mining ship for a year to understand the effects of living in a floating, metal city. Four months ago, she’d eagerly accepted – Yes, she’d said, it would be my honour! In hindsight, she should’ve told her manager to fuck off, and when she was inevitably fired, found a completely different job.
Her job aboard Red Dwarf was to study its habitants. Most of the time, she took different members of the crew aside and interviewed them to get an idea of their feelings about being onboard the ship. It sounds like therapy, but it wasn’t as interesting as that. She didn’t get to hear about any childhood traumas, deep personal problems or sordid love affairs – all she knew was how bored, happy and worried they were on a scale from one to ten. However, this was just what she learned from the interviews. Sometimes, she would go to different sections of the ship and observe people at work. This often gave her a much better idea of how the crew were feeling. For example, a technician could tell her that their happiness was a 7, their boredom was a 3 and their worry was a 2. However, when she observed the very same technician at work, they would yawn once every two minutes, pick at the skin around their fingernails and mumble to themselves. If they were being truthful, they would’ve said that their happiness was a 2, their boredom was a 9 and their worry was an 8. In her time aboard the ship, Julie had found that people are often dishonest when asked a list of upfront and dull questions.
After taking a quick shower, doing her hair and getting dressed, Julie opened the door to her sleeping quarters and stepped out into the hallway. One thing she liked about her job was that, unlike the 169 other crew members, she could wear what she wanted. No itchy and uncomfortable uniform, no beige chinos and no ship-issue boots. Like a lot of things in her life, her clothes were heavily influenced by the late 20th century. She wore jeans that were just a little too big for her, a pair of brown Doc Martens (vintage, passed down to her by her great-grandmother) and a brown corduroy blazer. Her style was heavily inspired by a 1990s rockstar called Jarvis Cocker, the lead singer of the band Pulp.
She made her way down the hall and towards the lift, pressing the button for Level 98, where her office was located. It was a small office, with only a desk, a spinny chair and a shelf, but she was lucky to have an office at all. When she arrived, she sat down and pulled her observation schedule out from the bottom drawer of her desk. She ran her finger along the row of dates until she found today’s schedule. She would be observing two technicians for an hour. She searched for their names and ranks. Dave Lister… third technician. Arnold Rimmer… second technician. Area of work… chicken soup dispensers. Julie couldn’t help but chuckle to herself. How happy could they be? She thought to herself. They must be two of the lowest ranked people aboard this ship… and they’ve been saddled with the challenging task of fixing the chicken soup dispensers! Poor souls.
An hour or so later, she found herself traipsing behind these two men through the halls of the 234th floor towards the next chicken soup dispenser. Lister was a man of average height, with long, tangled locks and a thick Liverpudlian accent. Rimmer, on the other hand, was a fair bit taller, with short, frizzy hair and nostrils the size of potholes. In the short time she’d spent observing them, they’d had 10 arguments and nearly gotten into a physical fight.
Rimmer suddenly stopped and turned around to look at Julie with an irritated expression.
“Are you just going to follow us around all day, then?” he snapped, glaring at her. It seemed more like an insult than a question. Julie raised her eyebrows, a little taken aback by his sudden outburst.
“Only for the next half an hour,” she responded, receiving a grimace from Rimmer. “I’m just trying to get an idea of how you’re feeling in your everyday life aboard the ship.”
“Oh, come on, Rimmer,” Lister sighed. “She’s only doing her job. Stop being such a miserable git.”
“Yes, well, what’s her job, anyway?” Rimmer turned to look at her again. “Do you get paid to go round the ship, asking miserable people to tell you how they’re feeling? I can do that for free. No one on this ship is happy. No one wants to be here, not even Captain Hollister, or Todhunter, or those other berks who get to do the important jobs that I should be doing! Ha, I’d like to see Todhunter cleaning the chicken soup dispensers!”
Bewildered, Julie glanced at Lister, who was smiling apologetically at her. Anyone else might have been deeply angered by the verbal attack Rimmer had just launched on her. However, she couldn’t stop thinking about how good this was going to look on her report. She’d just struck a sociological goldmine! Maybe fixing chicken soup dispensers had sent this man into psychosis...
The rest of the day soon passed by, and after writing almost an entire essay inspired by her encounter with Rimmer, Julie was packing up to head back to her sleeping quarters. Suddenly, the telephone on her desk, which had never once rung, began to ring. Hesitantly, she picked it up and held it to her ear.
“…Hello?”
“Hello, am I speaking to Julie Penrose of… Barton Research and Development?”
“Yes, you are.”
“You need to come to Captain Hollister’s office immediately. It’s a matter of great urgency.”
Julie’s heart rate picked up as the possibilities raced through her mind at a thousand miles per hour. Had her mum died? Had she been fired? Had they found out about the vintage collection which she’d managed to sneak on board, despite being told that it wasn’t permitted?