Cheer Up Sleepy John

He groaned and tried to paw at the drool he could feel making its way over his lip and dribbling down his chin, “mmmff”, but for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, his arms refused to move more than a couple of centimetres.
Head bobbing dumbly, he took in the room’s pale surfaces and wondered what the smeg was going on. He knew the information was there, somewhere… on the edge of thinking... but it was just out of reach.

Jess?

Irritated at the soreness in his abdominal muscles and the thickness of his mind, he replaced his head on the pillow; more sleep felt like a very nice idea.
His head lolled to the left allowing his drooping eyes to slide and rest on an almost ridiculously good-looking man lying asleep on a neighbouring bed, surrounded by a shedload of bizarre but familiar equipment.

A throb of yearning in his chest hauled a few not-so-welcome facts into focus.
Chrysler. Nanophage.
Three million years adrift.

Aw shit.

There was something else. His brain leafed slowly through a box of untidy mental files till it found what it was after.
Ah yes, that was it: He’d heartlessly abandoned the nearest thing he had to a friend on a monster infested planet.
He frowned with ponderous effort.
But… he’d been going back for him, so why…

A series of spasming coughs wracked his body, hurting his sore stomach, and inspiring a third thing to press at him.
“... Fags” he muttered.

“You what?” A disembodied head – Holly, if Alex could trust his foggy brain - appeared on a nearby screen.
Alex gave a little nod. “Fags” he reiterated.
The head rolled its eyes. “Gordon Bennett, every time you come around, it’s ‘fags Holly, fags’, never ‘Good afternoon and how are you today?’”
Alex stared. “Smoke.”
The computer’s expression was less than impressed. “Oh and how d’you think you’re gonna manage that, then?”

Alex looked dumbly down at one of his restrained wrists and then back at Holly.
“Y'cd let me out?”
“Doctor Jade said ‘not till he’s sane’.”
Alex’s mind was beginning to de-mist. “I am sane.”
“Maybe you should take a look at this...”
Holly’s image was replaced by footage of Alex thrashing wildly, a feral madman - face seething, veins popping - struggling to escape his bonds, all the time bellowing angrily and sending enraged globules of spittle shooting across, what he now clearly remembered as, the replacement medi bay. Alex swallowed; it wasn't the most flattering home video he'd seen.
“What was I saying?”
“’Ang on, I’ll crank it up.”

A distorted, deranged version of Alex’s voice blasted from the speakers, only serving to enhance his psychotic appearance.
“GIVE ME BACK MY SMEGGIN’ SIMULANT, YOU UGLY BLUE MOTHERF*CKERS! I’ll mess you up. I swear, I’ll MESS YOU THE SMEG UPPPP!!!!”
Then a skutter had appeared and jabbed him with something, apparently enraging him further, before he'd almost instantly slumped into unconscia, eyes rolling stupidly back into his head on the way.

Holly’s image reappeared. “Told you” he said, with a side of smug. “More bonkers than a Club 25-50 package holiday to New Ibiza, you know, back in the day.”
“I was dreaming I was on the planet.” Alex mumbled. “I’m better now.”
Holly looked doubtful. “Well, at least you’re not murmuring about how ‘good the stuff you’re on’ is, any more.”
Alex peered at his empty IV bags. “Looks like I ran out.”
He turned his gaze back to the normally reassuring computer. “Why’m’I in here?”
“Jaxx found you hallucinating in a cupboard...” Alex raised his eyebrows at this information “… your staples ‘ad gone all manky.”
Solvay closed his eyes, allowing this to penetrate his mind-haze.
“Well,” he said after a while of contemplation “I’m okay now.”

“Prove it.”
“Eh? How?”
"Alex John Solvay" Holly's voice had levelled to a serious tone “Here begins your psych evaluation. Question one, what is the capital of Peru?”
Alex blinked. “I don’t… know.”
“Nor do I actually, hang on, let’s try another one.”
Alex’s face twisted in confusion. “What’s Peru got to do with anything?”
Holly ignored the query and consulted something off screen.
“Right, what is the fear of horses known as?”
Alex goggled at the AI. “How do these questions prove I’m sane?”
Again, Holly didn’t react, just continued his odd line of questioning. “Give up? The answer was ‘hippophobia’ Maybe this’ll be more up your street. In electricity, voltage is measured in volts, current is measured in amps and resistance is measured in..?”
Alex glared.
“Resistance…” Holly prompted “… is measured in..?”
“Ohms” mumbled an increasingly grumpy and still 70% bewildered Alex.
Holly – who was now wearing glasses, and whose tongue was poking from the side of his mouth in concentration - raised a large and ancient looking tome to apparently check the answer. “Correct! One out of three. I knew you could get at least one.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That book you’re checking the answers in.”
Holly allowed Alex a bashful smile. “It’s the Bumper Book of Pub Quizzes.”
Alex glowered. “What kind of test is that?”
“Well it’s a lot more fun than the ones Doc Black wanted me to do.”
“You’re doubting my sanity?" Alex scowled. "Where is Doctor Black?”
Again, Holly ignored his question and went off on a tangent of his own. "There’s also the fact that I’ve been trying to get you to play somethin' with me for months” he admitted “I saw this as an opportunity.”
“You’re a fruitloop. Let me go.”
Holly heaved an enormous, virtual sigh. “I dunno, you try an’ ‘ave a bit of a giggle...” he said glumly.
Alex gave him the look he reserved for especially stubborn computers.
“You do seem a bit more like yourself” Holly relented. "It's the grump that gives it away. There you go, then."

The bonds around Alex’s wrists and ankles released and Alex gratefully flexed his fingers, turning his wrists this way and that before, at last, wiping the drool from his lip.

<tbc>

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<Up to date on my allocated podcasts. Yay :)
Btw apparently neither of my email addresses are working properly, so if I seem like I’m not replying I don’t mean to be rude. (I’ve sent Onion, Baron and Locke a few emails which they tell me they’ve not received.)>

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