'A River with Currents' - by coldangel_1

[Reply #160 on:]

 

Originally posted by coldangel_1:
tossed the handcuffs away to puzzle archaeologists in millennia to come.

I've always wanted to do something like that.. 

[Reply #161 on:]

Ahhh Jesus, that was nice. Was the woman Mary Magdilin(?), it wouldn't surprise me seeing as you love conspiricys.

Can wait for the update.

[Reply #162 on:]

 

Originally posted by coldangel_1:
   ... “Go in peace.”
   Fry nodded and turned away, leaving the house.

CA, I'm reading this and liking it all, but... this, this, THIS

Genius.

And just for the record, yes, I'm Christian, and NO, I am not offended.
I can't see why anyone would be.
You used a light touch, and treated the Subject with respect.
And it still came out funny.
Bravo.

Keep it coming. 

[Reply #163 on:]

Ah yes, I'm finally caught up!
I would've thought Fry would recognize someone like Jesus if he recognized JFK.  Oh and nice touch with the military part, I thought it seemed familiar, like your novel.

[Reply #164 on:]

I found this section oddly sad. Perhaps even more so than Fry's earlier fit of depression. It had a mournful, reflective air to it...

Brilliant, of course! 

[Reply #165 on:]

Well, I was raised Catholic and still consider myself Christian on some level, and I didn't find that segment offensive in the least.  What's there to be offended over?

Although now I'm horribly curious as to what this "Hell on Earth" scene features.

[Reply #166 on:]

Oh good, I was treading carefully there. I've a lot of respect for Christ as I'm a big fan of His work - His singing in 'Jesus Christ Superstar' was sublime.
I didn't want to have Him perform miracles or anything like that because I recoil from a literal biblical interpretation and a Christian-centric history, but still wanted to have a touch of the divine even though I wrote him as just a human man. So that was a little tricky, but I think I managed. I wrote Him in the same way as I would have written Buddha, as I feel the two figures are very similar.
I put Mary Magdaline in there because she is important historically, and we all know her demonization as a whore was the work of Constantine re-writing history.
It is unknown, however, what Jesus looked like. The Da Vinci painting is demonstrative only and was actually painted more than a thousand years after the fact. Hence Fry could not have recognised the guy.

I was only worried that someone might take issue with Christ being used as a character within a fictional context... that was why I abandoned the first draft where He made obscene wisecracks while smoking a cigar and blasting Roman soldiers with an AK-47.

[Reply #167 on:]

after reading that I have one thing to say;

[ZOIDBERG] More...more...MORE!!! [/ZOIDBERG]

I dont mean to be pushy or anything. 

[Reply #168 on:]

Hmmm. He has been notably absent, hasn't he?

[Reply #169 on:]

 

Originally posted by coldangel_1:
Sorry for the triple-post, I just want to say that I really intended no offence by that last post, and if anyone is offended by it in any way then I do apologise. It just seemed like a nice thing to do, and if it was wrong then you must forgive my heavy-handedness.

You don't need to apologise, that was fantastic! I be Christian and I take no offense, I think it was rather sweet.

 

[Reply #170 on:]

Oh good... but I wonder what Jesus would think...

[Reply #171 on:]

Trust me, God has a sense of humor too.

[Reply #172 on:]

The Emu is evidence of that.

[Reply #173 on:]

Emu farm?!

[Reply #174 on:]

Ha! Emu!

[Reply #175 on:]

July 1916, Ovillers, Northern France. Battle of the Somme.

The hiss of bullets tearing through the air always evokes an elemental instinctive response, even in those who have never been shot at before. Perhaps it is the result of collective unconscious, the shared anxieties of a billion soldiers in a thousand different wars seeping into the ether and instilling in all people an inherent fear of that deathly sound.
   As soon as Fry materialized he heard the whine of rounds searing past his head. He dropped to the muddy ground without even thinking, it was then that the other sounds registered – the clatter of gunfire and the screams of dying men. As the familiar wooziness and disorientation left him, he cast around with wide desperate eyes. He was in the middle of a vast churned field of mud, dotted by smoking artillery craters.
   Another war, he thought bleakly. Just how many of the damn things have there been?
   He began scrambling desperately on hands and knees in an arbitrary direction, flinching every time shells passed overhead. Suddenly his hands fell on open air, and he toppled headlong into a wide trench, ending up slicked with dark mud. It was cold, and the mud clung to his jacket heavily.
   “Damn it all,” he muttered.
   “You there!” The shout came from his right, strangely muffled, but distinctly British. Fry tensed, ready to run. “Who the devil are you?”
   He looked up to see a soldier wearing a gas mask and pointing a rifle at him. Remembering his last encounter with British military he immediately blurted: “I’m Canadian!”
   The soldier lowered his rifle. “Canadian? You’re a long way from your division,” he said through the muffling gas mask. “And what on earth are you wearing?”
   Fry had no answer, and the soldier cocked his head enquiringly.
   “Well, in any case,” he said. “This section’s pretty secure, but the krauts are driving a wedge into our north flank – you want to make yourself useful, find a rifle that works and come along with me.”
   “Uhh, I’d really rather just…”
   “Don’t bloody well dilly-dally,” the soldier snapped, pointing at the ground. Fry looked down and gave a little gasp of horror: lining the bottom of the trench, half buried in the mud, were scores of bodies. A rifle butt protruded from the tangle of limbs, and Fry gingerly took hold of it and levered it out.
   “And get rid of the stupid bloody red thing unless you want those buggers picking you off from their side.”
   As if to punctuate the point, a series of sharp cracks of rifle fire echoed across the battlefield. Fry shrugged out of his red jacket and let it fall to the mud. Then, aware of the cold and the appearance of his right arm, he hesitantly knelt by one of the fallen soldiers and, fighting back the bile that threatened the back of his throat, set about removing the dead man’s heavy coat.
   The British soldier had turned away and was sighting down his rifle over the lip of the trench when Fry finished putting on the long leather jacket.
   “You ready yet?” the Briton grunted, lifting his gas mask to reveal an aristocratic face with a small moustache.
   “…Yeah,” Fry replied, slipping the time machine into an inner pocket of the trench coat where it could recharge. He smelt like mud and death.
   “Good. Come along then.”
   Fry slipped and stumbled through the damp trench as the British soldier led him past more bodies and craters. Ominous thunder rumbled through the thick clouds overhead, as if the sky sought to mimic the artillery on the ground.
   The two men joined a group of other soldiers who were stationed at an elbow bend in the trench, two of whom were manning a Vickers machine gun. Another soldier was taking a photograph with an antiquated box camera while the gunners fired an occasional burst from the mounted weapon.


   “What’s your name, lad?” asked the soldier who had found Fry as they moved along the line.
   “Fry… er… Corporal Fry.”
   “That’s an odd name. I’m John Tolkien, communications officer. I’m with the Lancashire Fusiliers.”
   “Great,” Fry puffed. “Can you tell me what year it is?”
   John Ronald Reuel Tolkien turned to stare at the strange redhead. “Surely you jest?”
   “I lost track of time for a bit,” Fry said lamely.
   “1916, in the year of our Lord,” J. R. R. Tolkien replied. “Are you alright man? You seem a bit lost.”
   “Yeah, just a bit,” Fry said. “Actually, I’ve kinda been there and back again. Lost would be an improvement.”
   “Well we all feel like that,” Tolkien said. “These are dark times indeed.”
   As he spoke, a high-pitched whine pervaded the air, and Fry looked up in puzzlement.
   “MORTAR!” Tolkien shouted, lunging forward and dragging Fry to the ground. The shell landed nearby and detonated, sending out a wave of dirt and scrapnal.
   “This is dire,” Tolkien said when the ringing in both their ears subsided. “The Germans will make a push now… come on, get up!” He helped Fry to his feet.
   “POSITIONS!” an officer yelled from somewhere up the line. Fry found himself pressed against the wall of the trench, gripping his borrowed rifle.
   “I shouldn’t be here now,” Fry muttered to himself, watching as a line of German troops spilled from the opposing trench and began rushing across the open ground toward them.
   “So say all people who live to see such times,” Tolkien said beside him. “But all we can do is make the most of the time that’s given to us.”
   “…Time,” Fry repeated. He pressed the rifle into his steel shoulder and sighted the advancing line. “If time is all we have, then we have nothing… because time is worth nothing – it just slips through your fingers like water, taking away the people you love…”
   If Tolkien said anything his words were lost as the officer bellowed: “FIRE!!”
   Rifles fired along the line, accompanied by the louder rattle of the Vickers. Fry watched in horror as the German soldiers fell one by one. He couldn’t shoot them – it wasn’t his war – so he aimed low at the ground and pulled the trigger. The rifle clicked dully, its firing pin gummed with mud, and Fry almost laughed.
   He backed away from the edge of the trench as the battle continued, discarding the rifle and pulling out the time machine as gunfire and rumbling thunder filled his ears. The power guage had levelled out, but it only showed a quarter capacity. Fry gritted his teeth and hit the red button.
   As the familiar surge of quantum energy radiated out, it formed a powerful beacon that was too much for the atmospheric charge to resist. Bolts of forked lightening lanced down out of the sky and struck the time macine in Fry’s hand, even as he began to dematerialize. J. R. R. Tolkien spun around at the deafening thunderbolt and gasped in amazement at the sight of an incansescent figure of light channelling the lightning itself. The figure vanished into a votex of crackling energy.
   “A wizard!” Tolkien breathed in wonder.

Fry fell through time, screaming soundlessly. It was different this time – the lightning bolt had supercharged his plunge, and all around the Universe seemed to spasm violently against his passage.
   The emergence was violent; Fry was spat into a void and found the air rushing from his lungs, his ears popping painfully, and moisture streaming and crystalizing from his eyes.
   He was in total vacuum.
   In deep space…

[Reply #176 on:]

Hah! He met Tolkien! 

... oh crap, he can't die now

[Reply #177 on:]

I knew Tolkien was at the Battle of the Somme, but putting him in as a character in this fic was a last-second stroke of genuis.
Sometimes I amaze myself.
...actually most of the time.
I'm gonna go find a mirror to gaze into...

[Reply #178 on:]

 

[Reply #179 on:]

 

J. R. R. Tolkien spun around at the deafening thunderbolt and gasped in amazement at the sight of an incansescent figure of light channelling the lightning itself. The figure vanished into a votex of crackling energy.
“A wizard!” Tolkien breathed in wonder.

Ok: that's the most awesome encounter I've ever witnessed in a Futur... nay, any fanfiction.

[Reply #180 on:]

 

Originally posted by Officer 1BDI ME:
 Ok: that's the most awesome encounter I've ever witnessed in a Futur... nay, any fanfiction.

What? It saves me time writing it out, and she's totally right.   

[Reply #181 on:]

 

Originally posted by Coldangel_1:
Who the devil are you?”
He looked up to see a soldier wearing a gas mask and pointing a rifle at him. Remembering his last encounter with British military he immediately blurted: “I’m Canadian!”

Heh.. Canadian. Am I the only one that thought that was funny? 

[Reply #182 on:]

Haha. People have accused me of being a historical revisionist. But I proved them!

Glad you guys are liking it.

[Reply #183 on:]

Hehe, the wizards are at it again.

[Reply #184 on:]

WOW!Just Wow!So what now?A alien pharaon,a dark wizard or maybe a cold angel?Hmmm...The only way he can be saved is like the guys from The Hitchhicker's Guide To The Galaxy...Still,a dark wizard wouldn't be bad.And yet again I'll say wow.

[Reply #185 on:]

 

Originally posted by coldangel_1:
I knew Tolkien was at the Battle of the Somme, but putting him in as a character in this fic was a last-second stroke of genuis.
Sometimes I amaze myself.
...actually most of the time.
I'm gonna go find a mirror to gaze into...

And Coldy's even humble too...   
Can y'feel the sarcasm?   

I did like the 'there and back again' bit.

[Reply #186 on:]

I like it, that is all I will say for fear of inflating Coldy's ego

[Reply #187 on:]

Loving the fic! I'm on the edge of my seat as to Fry's latest predicament. Which brings me to the question, is he back in the future we all know and love?

[Reply #188 on:]

The End of All Things.

His vision greyed at the edges, and a kaliedascope of whirring stars and brilliant nebulae swam briefly in and out of focus before he could see no more. Fluid boiled through the pores of his skin; his tongue swelled; his lungs burned… and unconsciousness quickly took him.
   Fry’s body spun through the void.

He drempt of Leela.
   She was happy, laughing, smiling… and he was with her. They embraced in the midst of devestation and dispair – the world was in ruins around them; cities crumbled, civilization reduced to dust. But none of it mattered, because they were in each other’s arms.
   Somewhere in the background, a cake talked endlessly, but the sound drifted away as they held each other.
   He gazed into the depth of her perfect eye and saw the death and birth of a thousand worlds, the spinning ballet of fire and ice and life.
   She spoke The Words.
   “I love you.”
   And he awoke.

Fry took a deep, shuddering breath, and exhaled slowly. The air had a strange minty scent to it, and his breath seemed to echo. He opened his eyes a fraction and grunted in surprise.
   He still hung suspended in zero gravity, floating in space amid a backdrop of swirling stars and clouds of stellar matter exploding in silent plumes, light-years long. Accretion disks swirled around immense black holes that themselves seemed to circle a larger, less definable mass somewhere in an impenetrable centre of light toward which all matter seemed to be gradually flowing.
   “Wow…” Fry breathed, gaping at the looming spectacle of cosmic destruction for long minutes before finally turning his attention to his own immediate vicinity. His first impression had been accurate – he was suspended in what appeared to be open space, though even he knew that breathing in a complete vacuum wasn’t possible.
   “What’s going on?” he said loudly, again noting the echo. He had the sense that he was inside some kind of bubble. The time machine floated nearby, and he grabbed hold of it – the little LCD screen was blank and the device’s casing had been blackened by the lightning strike.
   “No…” Fry gaped at the dead machine. “This can’t be… this can’t be happening. It’s impossible!”
   “Denial of possibility is an unusual sentiment,” a warm voice said. “Especially considering recent turns of events, my good chum.”
   Fry looked around in alarm, searcing for the source of the voice. He could see nobody, only the sprawl of dying stars on their black velvet backdrop.
   “Who’s there?” Fry blurted.
   “A difficult question to answer, Phillip,” the voice said, and Fry saw the inexplicable sequential flare of a system of stars that surrounded him, beating in time with the words being spoken. “Perhaps not so much of a ‘who’ as a ‘what’.”
   Fry blinked. “…What?”
   “Exactly.”
The voice was silent for a time, the the stars from which it seemed to emenate resumed their steady light. Fry cleared his throat.

   “What are you?” he asked meekly. “Some kind of hallucination?”
   “Possible,” the space entity replied, and again the stars flared accordingly in multiple colours. “You have had an unfortunate brush with mortality after all.”
   “I was supposed to be on Earth,” Fry said, looking at the time machine. “This thing must be broken…”
   “That seems probable,” the voice said. “However, even if it were not, you wouldn’t be able to find the Earth in this present time.”
   Fry looked into the nearest star, narrowing his eyes against the glare. “Why not?” he asked, feeling a knot grow in his stomach.
   “The Earth was destroyed about ninety billion years ago.”
   Fry reeled. If he had been in a gravitational field, he would have fallen to his knees. “Ninety billion…”
   “You seem upset,” the galactic voice remarked calmly.
   Fry didn’t respond. He buried his head in his hands and floated there for the longest time, bent double.
   At last he looked up, bleary-eyed and drained.
   “Why am I alive,” he asked forlornly.
   “Because I caught you,” the space entity replied. “All life in the Universe died out eons ago. I have grown lonely in these, my twilight years. Your company is not unwelcome.”
   Fry gazed out into the collapsing cosmos through the invisible force field that surrounded him. “Are you God?” he asked quietly.
   “That seems likely,” the space voice replied. “I am powerful and benevolent. And, like you, apparently timeless.”
   “Like me?” Fry looked at the broken time machine in his hand. “So you know?”
   “You’ve trodden your muddy footprints across history,” God said. “Your very incarnation is a result of such a jaunt.”
   Fry squirmed uncomfortably.
   “And now you’ve come at last to the end of time, where I had expected you to emerge,” God went on. “This Universe has a few short minutes of existence left in it, give or take a few millenia. All mass, space, and time, will soon converge…”
   Fry looked out into the swirling celestial maelstrom and watched as galaxies silently tore themselves apart. “What will happen after that?” he asked.
   “Oh,” God said with a chuckle, “that would be telling.”
   Fry hung suspended for a while, watching the crashing, twirling bodies of stars. Time passed, as time has a tendency to do.
   “Hey God?” Fry said at last. “You’re a God, right?”
   “Apparently.”
   “And you know everything, right?”
   “Knowledge is an arbitrary concept,” God replied. “The socialist cockroaches in your apartment knew every square inch of the floorspace they inhabited. To their point of view, that was all there was to know.”
   “But there was more than that,” Fry said. “There was a whole world of stuff the little commie bastards didn’t know… I don’t understand.”
   “Philip, there is always more,” God said. “Higher truths, greater levels of understanding to be attained.”
   “Even for you?”
   “Even for me.”
   “But… didn’t you create everything?”
   “I don’t remember.”
   Fry raised an eyebrow. “You’re joking?”
   “That is probable,” God replied.
   Fry stared at the sentient constellation for a long moment. “I… was wondering if you could help me,” he said at last.
   “The Universe is about to end, my friend,” the deity responded with knowing humour. “Any help I can offer would be moot in the face of complete and total annihilation. You and I will soon be dead.”
   Fry frowned. “But I travelled here through time,” he said.
   “Yes, I saw,” God replied. “You were doing well until that suspiciously well-placed lightning bolt sent you here.”
   “That… that was you… wasn’t it?” Fry stared at the constellation, aghast.
   “A trifle cliché perhaps,” God admitted, “but necessary. Philip, do you know what the most precious and rare commodity in the Universe is?”
   Fry shrugged. “Iunno… working public telephones?”
   “Time,” God said. “Time is the only thing so scarse that all living things must share it at once, and yet it is also the most important facet of reality. Without the boundaries set by yesterday and tomorrow, the accomplishments of today cannot be defined. When boundaries are trampled, all things begin to bleed into one another – what has been done and what is yet to be done are no longer important if the page of history can rewritten over and over. What point would there be to the march of life, if all the marchers are going in different directions?”
   Fry inclined his head. “I think I understand,” he said. “But… I don’t care about all that.”
   “No?”
   “No, because…I love her.”
   “Yes you do,” God said. “You still love her, even though she turned to dust billions of years ago. You love her now like you loved her then, so what has been lost?”
   “She’s dead!” Fry said, tears welling in his eyes.
   “All things that live will inevitably die,” God said. “Just as all things that begin must inevitably end. You, me, Leela, and here now – the very Universe itself.”
   A star drifted by, with a vast trail of incandescent plasma being stripped from its corona by the tremendous forces of the Big Crush.
   “You’re saying you won’t help me?” Fry whispered.
   “That isn’t what I’m saying at all, my good chum,” God said, and Fry looked up with hopeful eyes. “In fact, I had hoped to ask for YOUR help in a small matter.”
   “You need MY help?” Fry repeated, bewildered.
   “I don’t encourage wilful abuses of time,” the space entity said. “Such incidences of cheating are problematic, as I mentioned, though occasionally… very occasionally… they can prove to be exactly the kind of underhanded tricks that a divine hustler can use to win a game of celestial snooker. The key is knowing when to allow rules to be bent – your own creation is an example of that.”
   “And Leela?”
   “She is important.”
   “But you let her die.”
   “Did I now?” God chuckled. “May I see that machine?”
   Fry held the time machine aloft, and it floated out of his grip in an invisible field of energy. It quivered a few metres away and suddenly flew apart into a thousand individual esoteric components that hovered in a perfect pattern, turning this way and that, as though on display.
   “Hmm,” God said. “Interesting.”
   “Can you fix it?” Fry asked anxiously.
   “I can now,” God replied. And with that, the device reassembled itself, fully repaired, recharged, and ready to use.
   “Great!” Fry exclaimed joyously. “Now I can go back and save Leela!” he said.
   “You may do what you feel you must – though this must be the last time you toy with time. I’ll drop you on the way,” God said. “Consider it repayment for use of your machine.”
   “You’ll… what?”
   “I waited for you, for this very reason,” God explained. “The method of travelling through time was unknown to me, though there is a task I need to complete before my own time is done, one that requires the brilliance of this piece of technology to fulfil.”
   “Do you mean…?” Fry gaped, astounded. “Professor Farnsworth is actually smarter than God?”
   “That appears likely,” God said. “Though I had counted on the Universe prodiving me with the solution to my problem.”
   “What problem is that?”
   “I need to go back to the beginning of time,” God said. “…So that I can create the Universe.”
   “…But…” His eyes boggled and his brain hurt. “That doesn’t make any…”
   “Well, so long,” God said quickly. “Remember what we talked about. What’s done is done, and you should cherish the memories you have – tell that to yourself when you get there, and good luck.”
   Before Fry could respond, an invisible finger pushed the red button on the time machine, and a brilliant nova-like burst of light flared out, enveloping the entire constellation of stars, along with Fry as well. The massive distortion faded, leaving a section of empty space surrounded by the cataclysmic final throes of a dying reality.

Fry fell through time and space as before, only now there was another presence alongside him, guiding his passage. He felt the presence gently open a rend in the subspace plane and guide him toward a specific time and place.
   “You love her now like you loved her then, so what has been lost?” the voice of God asked, as the vortex of creation twirled by.
   “Nothing,” Fry said.
   “Cherish the memories you have,” God said, and propelled Fry out into the timestream, before continuing backward through eons past, toward the origin of all things, in order to set that origin in motion…


------------------
"I saw the colossal landscape, of which I never was a part..."

[Reply #189 on:]

Oooooooo, now that was interesting! I loved it!

[Reply #190 on:]

 

“Do you mean…?” Fry gaped, astounded. “Professor Farnsworth is actually smarter than God?”

Oh my Lord, you have no idea how hard that made me laugh.

You... you're really good at writing for God (or at least the Futuramiverse equivallent of Him). O_o  And given what he's told Fry, I don't really like where you're apparantly going next.  I guess the sheer awesomeness of this story is worth it, though.

[Reply #191 on:]

Wait a minute, something just clicked after that comment, God telling Fry to cherish the memerories...oh no...Coldy, please don't do what I think you're going to do...it'd kill me!

[Reply #192 on:]

You think Leela's still going to end up dead?
Maybe she will...
But God explained why one should not take it so devastatingly. 

[Reply #193 on:]

“And Leela?”
“She is important.”
“But you let her die.”
“Did I now?” God chuckled.

[Reply #194 on:]

Wow, awesome chapter mate!

[Reply #195 on:]

Second to last chapter:

One does not simply walk into a Tolkien reference.  You dashed into it brilliantly, mate.  Although I deny that anyone, even a word fetishist like Tolkien, would talk like that during a battle.

Last chapter:

Ah, Futurama God.  Never ceases to amuse and amaze me.  I'm tired and cold, so I can't give this a proper review, but good dialogue.  Fry seems much quicker on the uptake than Bender was.

[Reply #196 on:]

It was a lull between fighting. It is the curse of the soldier to wait.
Tolkien's presence was a last-minute thought when I remembered that he was at that battle. I'm rather proud of the way it played out.

God was fun to do.
What do you all think of my time-travelling God theory of the origin of the Universe? It would mean that God created Him or Herself as well as the rest of creation.

[Reply #197 on:]

Not necessarilly (God could have simply come "from the future", i.e. not really anywhere but he exists in an infinite loop), but your idea makes it possible.  It does make sense from a semantic standpoint; what could have created God but God?  Tasty idea.

[Reply #198 on:]

13.7 billion years after the Big Bang… give or take.
March 12th, 3006.
Apartment 1-i

Leela was already awake when the bedside alarm chimed at 7 am. She leaned across the slumbering body beside her and switched it off, then lay down and stared at the ceiling. She had been anticipating today with both happiness and a little sliver of guilt. It had been her actions (one large mistake in particular) that had driven Zapp Brannigan to obsession and apparent madness, even though he’d already been on the borderline. Now he was facing court martial, and while that outcome was joyous to her, she hadn’t really wanted it to be BECAUSE of her.
   Beside her Fry grunted and stirred, waking slowly and looking up at her with a sleepy smile.
   “Morning,” he said.
   “Yes, it is,” she replied.
   Fry yawned and stared for a few moments before gradually realizing what day it was. “Oh,” he groaned. “Are you up for this thing?”
   “Yes,” Leela replied, sitting up with a determined look on her face. The sheets slipped down, exposing her nakedness, but for once Fry didn’t leer.
   “You sure?” he asked, reaching up to push a loose lock of hair from her face. “We don’t have to be there, you know.” In truth, Fry had no desire to involve himself any further with Brannigan.

   “I know,” Leela said, smiling down at him, grateful for the concern. “But it’s something I feel I should bear witness to. For me, and for the responsibility I carry in this matter.”
   Fry shrugged, not really understanding. “Well whatever,” he said. “As long as you’re okay with it, I’ll go along too.”
   “Thanks Fry,” she said.

After showering and dressing, Fry and Leela made their way to Planet Express. They entered the building and found Zoidberg with the upper portion of his body immersed in a trash can; wet sucking scrabbling sounds could be heard from within. They moved past and into the board room, where Amy was already waiting.
   “Hey you lovebirds,” the engineering intern said brightly. “Ready to go watch Fatty McSpleeshbag get strung up by his gao-wan?”
   “If they can make a noose small enough,” Leela muttered.
   “Where’s Bender?” Fry said. “He was supposed to be here by now.”
   Zoidberg poked his head in the door, still festooned with pieces of garbage.
   “The robut is missing?” he said happily. “Well Zoidberg can take his place, he can!” He scuttled into the room and began dancing around excitedly.
   “I’m sure Bender will be here soon,” Amy said uncomfortably, trying to avoid eye-contact with the Decpaodian.
   “Cram it, ‘meat bag’!” Zoidberg said angrily, pointing his claw at Amy. “I’m Bender now, so you ‘chumps’ better get used to it, why not? Hooray – I’m replacing an absent friend!”
   “Zoidberg, stop…” Leela sighed in exasperation.
   “Come on, ‘big boots’,” the lobster went on. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
   “You’re making an idiot of yourself… as usual.”
   “Bite my shiny metal abdomen!” Zoidberg snapped, but then gave a start when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around to find the real Bender glaring at him. The robot slowly and deliberately struck a match on Zoidberg’s head, causing the crustacean to run away whooping pitifully.
   Bender lit a cigar and tossed the match away. He blew a cloud of smoke at Fry, Leela, and Amy. “So, we gonna see this execution, or what?” he said.
   “Nobody’s getting executed,” Leela said.
   “What?! This is an outrage! What a rip-off!”
   “What do you mean?” Amy said. “We didn’t have to pay money to get in.”
   “It’s the principle of the thing,” Bender growled. “All public trials should end with an execution, regardless of guilt. What’s the point of even having a justice system if we’re not entertained by it?”
   “Just… come on,” Leela said, heading for the ship. “I want to get this over with.”
   They boarded the PE ship and Leela took off, blasting away toward Weehawken, New Jersey. Zoidberg sat in the gutter and watched the ship disappear behind the sprawl of New New York skyscrapers.
   “Those co-workers, always with the looking down on Zoidberg,” he muttered miserably. “What are they, from Nob Hill? Ohh, their precious trial is too good for Zoidberg, is it?”
   A sudden crackle and flare of intense light emanated from a nearby alley, and Zoidberg looked up in surprise.
   “What could that be?” he said. “Some kind of tasty high-voltage treat perhaps?”
   As he watched, a red-haired figure in a dirty brown coat came stumbling out of the alley, trailing thin tendrils of white smoke.
   “Doctor Zoidberg!” Fry exclaimed, running over to the lobster and grabbing him by the shoulders. “What day is it? What time is it?”
   Zoidberg blinked at the scarred and dishevelled stranger, and then noticed the metal hand that gripped him.
   “Bender!” Zoidberg said at last. “Did you know that you have a human growing out of your arm?”
   “I’m not Bender!” Fry snapped. “It’s me, Fry!”
   “Fry?” Zoidberg narrowed his eyes. “I’m no doctor, but even I can tell that you just left with the others… so how could you be here?”
   “They just left?” Fry said, his eyes boggling. “Stupid Space God!” He pushed Zoidberg aside and bolted off toward the North River as fast as he could run.
   Zoidberg watched the figure disappear around a corner and shook his head.
   “Always with the hurry-hurry,” he muttered.

[Reply #199 on:]

Amazing your writing is simply amazing.