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Author Topic: Sine Wave's Fanfiction  (Read 9245 times)
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JBERGES

Urban Legend
***
« Reply #80 on: 10-03-2007 02:42 »
« Last Edit on: 10-03-2007 02:42 »

 
Quote
Are you, like, JBERGES' cousin or something?

Bah! He ain't got a tenth of my swagger yet.

*trips over chair*

OK, I Read it!
Here’s some stuff I liked:
   
Quote
“Trihop Seven, the breakfast planet.”
There is no limit to the number of goofy planet names out there.   
Quote
“You almost destroyed their entire wave function!” Leela spat back at him.
“How was I supposed to know it would collapse if I sat on it?”
Yah, gotta admit that 's an awesome science pun   
Quote
“I meant good as in got us really drunk.”
Aw.  I miss college.  Enjoy it while you're there!   
Quote
Hey, I’m a really good excuse for a mate!” Fry retorted.
Spot on Fry line.

This is your first fanfiction, correct?  It’s a great start, and I’m liking the attention you’re giving to comical cadence and science references.  If I had to critique (which I don’t, but I feel obliged because no one else does, so I might as well be the constructive criticism jerk), I’d say the main shortcoming is that you’re so intent on nailing the essence of the Futurama characters that at times they sound almost like caricatures of themselves.  (Look for this in spades in my first fanfic.  I’m trying to fix it a bit now) Over time you’ll trust your writing to convey the character’s personalities and emotions (especially in drama) more subtly, which is extremely important.

Overall, very very promising, and it's nice to see a new >50% humor writer. Keep it up.  I'll start counting the science jokes you've ripped off from me soon.    :p
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #81 on: 10-03-2007 14:26 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by km73:
Also, in reference to that poodle.com section quoted above:

Are you, like, JBERGES' cousin or something?

No no no, not even close.

 
Quote
Originally posted by JBERGES:
  Bah! He ain't got a tenth of my swagger yet.

*trips over chair*

See?

 
Quote
Originally posted by JBERGES:
This is your first fanfiction, correct?  It’s a great start, and I’m liking the attention you’re giving to comical cadence and science references.  If I had to critique (which I don’t, but I feel obliged because no one else does, so I might as well be the constructive criticism jerk), I’d say the main shortcoming is that you’re so intent on nailing the essence of the Futurama characters that at times they sound almost like caricatures of themselves.  (Look for this in spades in my first fanfic.  I’m trying to fix it a bit now) Over time you’ll trust your writing to convey the character’s personalities and emotions (especially in drama) more subtly, which is extremely important.

Overall, very very promising, and it's nice to see a new >50% humor writer. Keep it up.  I'll start counting the science jokes you've ripped off from me soon.     :p

This is actually my second fanfic, although my first was the equivalent of a soap opera actress vomiting on a sheet of loose-leaf paper, and cannot be found on the internet.

You can't just have your characters announce how they feel. That makes me feel angry!
Reading it through several times since I've written it, I've also noticed some points where the characters are too direct and typecast, and I'm thinking of how to revise it before I  send it to TLZ or something.

Stolen jokes? From you? Uh, well, you see, aw crap.
Professor Zoidy

Urban Legend
***
« Reply #82 on: 10-03-2007 20:48 »

What a lovely cliffhanger addition to the story. I was awaiting more info about Bender going off on his own, but alas, it was not to be this time around, but that's ok.  :D
THM

Bending Unit
***
« Reply #83 on: 10-04-2007 16:02 »

Neat new part - gotta love Bender's 'can-do' attitude.  ;)
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #84 on: 10-05-2007 02:02 »

I have a small request?

While perusing the Whoopsie Daisy goof thread, I came across this quote by you:

 
Quote
I never noticed the dual Grover Clevelands. That just made my day, I love history jokes.

( http://www.peelified.com/cgi-bin/Futurama/3-001134-8/#t285 )

Hmm. History jokes...could you maybe work one in somewhere? At some point?

Of course, please feel free to completely disregard this if you don't feel like it. It was just a thought.

Please don't hate me.
1futuramafan1

Delivery Boy
**
« Reply #85 on: 10-11-2007 20:19 »

  Aw...no more story.  Hurry up please!!!  This is like the best fan fiction ever, and if you don't hurry then I'm going to go crazy watching all the Futurama episodes over and over and over again!
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #86 on: 10-11-2007 21:56 »
« Last Edit on: 05-20-2008 00:00 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by km73:
Hmm. History jokes...could you maybe work one in somewhere? At some point?

Of course, please feel free to completely disregard this if you don't feel like it. It was just a thought.

Please don't hate me.

I come up with the jokes as I'm writing without any specific intention for the mostpart, so if a history joke comes to me it'll go in. You should probably like the next part, too.

 
Quote
Originally posted by 1futuramafan1:
  Aw...no more story.  Hurry up please!!!  This is like the best fan fiction ever, and if you don't hurry then I'm going to go crazy watching all the Futurama episodes over and over and over again!

Fear not, there's other fanfiction to read too, ones far better than mine, even. Xanfor, Venus, JBERGES, Coldangel_1, JustNibblin', SoylentOrange, just to name a few.

So yeah, things have been busy, but more writing will be happening sometime, possibly.

 Also, I'm pretty sure I have the lowest actual posted content to number of comments on story ratio ever.
Professor Zoidy

Urban Legend
***
« Reply #87 on: 10-11-2007 22:12 »

If you're reading mine, I quite think you'd feel better about yours than I do of mine fanfic. However, I at least hope the sequel will be....better. I await more from you with joy.
JustNibblin

Bending Unit
***
« Reply #88 on: 10-22-2007 08:42 »

Glad to see this is still going on Sine Wave!  If you write it I will read it.  Good luck with classes and work!
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #89 on: 10-22-2007 09:02 »

Well looky who's back!!

 
Quote
Originally posted by JustNibblin':  If you write it I will read it.

Good luck on Sine Wave ever updating...  :( Ok Sine, now you have to give us some more of this very witty, well-written story soon.
I await with hope.  :D
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #90 on: 10-22-2007 15:10 »

Yeah really, it's like he's not even writing at all. Sheesh.

Stuff is coming, I promise, but I had to work out a few plot headaches. The devil's in the details, I'm tellin' you...
THM

Bending Unit
***
« Reply #91 on: 10-22-2007 15:30 »

 
Quote
Stuff is coming, I promise, but I had to work out a few plot headaches. The devil's in the details, I'm tellin' you...

Ain't that the truth.  :) Good luck!

Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #92 on: 11-05-2007 22:41 »
« Last Edit on: 01-11-2008 00:00 »

...
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #93 on: 11-06-2007 00:49 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by Sine Wave:
"If it's all the same, I'd like him to come to my room first so he can take care of some things." Clarice eyed Leela suspiciously, to which Leela donned a fake smile, letting out a nervous "Heheheh." Apparently it was convincingly innocent, as Clarice simply turned and led them inside.

  :love:

Mmmmm, I'm rolling in the fanficky goodness...Tasty.  :love:  You continue to have that natural lighthearted flowing style that makes your writing so engaging.

Good things:

- In box, out box, jack-in-the-box

- "his lounge-lizard impersonation in full effect"

- "It's like they'd never even heard of Dred Scott"

You should try to enter that contest.

Y'know, your username makes me think of a terrible joke my friend came up with once back in high school. We had been studying tangents and cotangents and such in Advanced Math. And we had this English teacher, Dr. Botts (yes that was really his name), who would often digress from the topic. Anyway, one day in class he went off for like half an hour about his skiing trip, and after class i said:
Me: Well, that was a tangent.
My friend: That was a cotangent!
...Yeah. Really bad pun.

Also: please feel better. It's only TWO EXAMS. You could always take the class again? Or there are a million other things you could do. I don't know what else to say.
JustNibblin

Bending Unit
***
« Reply #94 on: 11-06-2007 00:55 »
« Last Edit on: 11-06-2007 00:55 by JustNibblin´ »

Hey SW,

Glad you found time to write again!  I think you are a great not writer.  I think combining the fact that Leela still has robotic ears  with a cyborg world is creative, and I'm curious how this will tie in with Fry's gift.

Also, what km73 said.  Plus the dog meat line.  You do have an engaging style.

You should most totally go for that contest.  You know the secret to winning?  Write something   ;)
coldangel

DOOP Secretary
*
« Reply #95 on: 11-06-2007 17:26 »

Awesome.

there was a slot marked ‘In box,’ another marked ‘Out box,’ and a crank arm labeled ‘Jack-in-the-box.’

Mwuhahaha
Professor Zoidy

Urban Legend
***
« Reply #96 on: 11-07-2007 22:01 »

 
Quote
“Not now Fry.” Leela sighed. “Besides, you know what they said about human-cyborg relations here. It’s like they’d never even heard of Dred Scott.”


Ain't that the truth. Great to see updates.  :)
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #97 on: 11-23-2007 12:15 »

Well, I wrote a thing for that competition, and I just submitted it. If you guys want to read it, it's in my thread HERE, along with the threads for the other contestants, whom you should check out as well.
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #98 on: 11-23-2007 13:40 »

Awesome. Superlatively awesome.
Is this the first thing you've finished? Maybe you should post it here too.
The whole Scary Door bit was great - Abe Lincoln and Copernicus! Vassal Burger, hee. "One of the side-effects of strong AI"--oh your god, I wrote a paper on that once. You really nailed the mayor and the mayor's aide - using Chaz as a character is pretty original. The swordfight was hilarious. Finally, such subtle shippiness...awwwwww.
*sends winning vibes*

And, I read your latest philosophy quip.   :love: You do have way too much fun. Philosophy is not supposed to be fun. It's supposed to make your brain explode.
JustNibblin

Bending Unit
***
« Reply #99 on: 11-23-2007 15:34 »

This is good too:

"Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some hypocritical activity to engage in and a few promises left to go back on."

This is a great entry--and subtle shippiness is the best.  I love Chaz as a character as well.

Good luck!
Decapodian

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #100 on: 11-29-2007 06:02 »

Nice.
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #101 on: 12-15-2007 12:27 »

Posted here for your viewing pleasure, we are proud to bring you Sine Wave's epic, non-award winning meisterwerk (only completed werk) in its entirety.

Biogenesis

“You’re sitting in a diner across the street and to the left of the grocer’s market that is the human mind,” a narrator speaks over a background of stars, “Suddenly you realize that a bear is sitting in the booth behind you, or that you’re being watched by tiny aliens or something. You ask for a check to leave, but you have already entered… The Scary Door.”

The camera cuts to show a cabin in the middle of the woods. “Sign, seal and deliver one Harold James, a lonely vacationer down on his luck.” A man walks out of the woods carrying a bundle of sticks. He stops in front of the cabin door.

“Darn, forgot the key,” Harold says, putting down the bundle to search his pockets. He picks the sticks back up, then reels back in terror.

“An octopus?” He yells, holding what is now a cephalopod at arm’s length.

“That’s nothing,” the octopus responds, “look down at your feet!” Abraham Lincoln is crouched on all fours, ready to take a bite out of Harold’s leg. Harold screams and jumps off the porch, dropping the octopus.

“Abe Lincoln!” he says, “But then that means I’m-”

“Copernicus?” Lincoln says, simultaneous with Harold’s change of identity. Suddenly, an ant the size of a small building appears behind Copernicus, and eats him whole.


“Ugh, I hate when TV shows write an episode just to try and win an Emmy,” Leela said, sitting on the couch in the Planet Express lounge with Fry and Bender. They went back to watching TV as Zoidberg walked through the door next to them, gasping and coughing heavily.

“Friends, help me, I’m sick!” Zoidberg said, pausing to cough again. “I fear that I could die any second, I could!” Suddenly he froze, and then let out a piercing “Scraw!” before collapsing dramatically. Several seconds passed; Fry, Bender, and Leela continued watching TV. Bender reached out with his arm and grabbed the remote to change the channel. Fry took a sip of his Slurm. Zoidberg was still sprawled out on the floor.

“Good news, everyone!” The Professor said, shuffling his way around Zoidberg as he entered the lounge. “Well, this pertains mostly to Fry, actually,” he said, stopping in front of Fry. “With Zoidberg’s sudden death, you’re now the lowest-paid member of the crew, and, subsequently, the most expendable! Now, if you’ll follow me, there are some experiments I’ve been waiting to test on a human being.”

“Just what type of experiments?” Leela asked suspiciously.

“Why, the transmogrifier I just invented!” The Professor responded emphatically. “You see, it works by manipulating the quantum entanglement of the subject’s constituent subatomic particles, and then exchanges them with-”

“Don’t we have a delivery to make right now or something?” Fry said, not liking the sound of where this was going.

“Hu-wha? Oh, yes, you have a shipment of bacon and sour cream to deliver to Spudulon Four. Now, off you go!”

------------

Three days later, the Planet Express Ship returned to its hangar, its crewmembers trudging down the exit stairway in the early morning light. Fry and Bender headed back to the lounge to have a few post-flight beers, while Leela stayed behind to do a post-flight rundown on the ship.

When they opened the door to the lounge, they were met with darkness. Fry reached in, flicked on the lights, and saw something skitter behind the table that was overturned against the wall.

“Dr. Zoidberg?” Fry asked, seeing the crustacean trying to hide from them. “Why are you hiding?”

“Yeah, it’s not like we’re going to hurt you,” Bender added. “Well, not anymore than usual.”

 As they moved closer, Zoidberg scuttled along the wall and eventually ran away with a warbling wail. Of course, he was just running laps around the room, so away was only a relative term.

Leela wiped her brow as she walked towards the lounge a few minutes later, ready for some well-deserved rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, that’s not what she got. Fry and Bender were piled on top of Zoidberg in the middle of the room, struggling to keep him pinned down and muffling his screams of terror.

“What the hell is going on here?” Leela asked tersely, wanting whatever shenanigans that led up to the situation to end as quickly as possible.

“Leela!” Fry yelled. Zoidberg took advantage of the distraction and kicked Fry in the liver, causing him to fall backwards onto the floor. He wheezed, trying to regain his breath. “Something’s wrong with Zoidberg.”

------------

The Professor sat in front of a large screen showing a notated diagram of Zoidberg’s anatomy. Fry, Leela, and Bender waited expectantly while he pored over the data.

“Oh, it’s just as I feared,” the Professor said sadly.

“What, what is it?” Fry asked.

“Zoidberg has been infected by a mutated computer virus. The erratic behavior you observed was caused by amnesia brought on by the infection. It’s caused his mind to become like a partitioned hard drive, with his memories and personality on one side and his thought processes on the other. In fact, if you look closely, you can see a green lump on the back of his neck that shows he’s been infected.”

“Wait,” Leela said, “computer viruses can be transmitted to animals?” She looked over to Zoidberg. “Well, almost animals.”

“Yes, one of the side-effects of strong AI, I’m afraid,” the Professor said.

“Whoa, don’t think I’m to blame for this. I have regular anonymous testing done at the roboclinic every month,” Bender said as Hermes and Amy walked in the door behind him. They were wearing contamination suits and carrying a glass cylinder with a glowing green substance inside it.

“Professor! We got the samples you wanted,” Hermes said, setting the tube on the table by the Professor.

“Excellent! Now we just need to see if it’s a match for the virus,” the Professor said and put the cylinder into a large machine that was against the wall. After a short time, a ticker-tape feed came out of the machine. The Professor compared it with the data on the screen.

“It’s a match,” he said.

“What’s a match? What is that stuff?” Leela asked.

“The degenerate mass of proto-silicon that was in Fry’s locker, of course,” the Professor responded.

“Fry, how could you?” Bender said. “Disabling some helpless computer and storing its motherboard in your locker? You make me sick!”

“Yeah, Fry, what was in your locker?” Amy asked.

“Hmm, it’s been a few months since I opened it, but I’ll try and remember,” Fry said. “Let’s see, there was the chocolate pudding, that polonium-based beauty product set from the home shopping network, a pair of underpants, oh, and that cell phone you got me when we were dating that I never answered.”

“Well that could very possibly be what this abomination developed from,” the Professor said. “Now, to create a vaccine and then everything will be as good as new.”

“That’s it then? Everything’s great?” Leela asked.

“Oh my, no,” the Professor said. “Who knows where Zoidberg could have spread this before he went into his coma? We have to make sure that the threat is handled properly. If there are going to be any plagues running around, they’ll be ones I created.”

------------

An hour later, Fry, Leela and Bender were sitting outside the mayor’s office. Chaz, the mayor’s aide, was sitting at a desk beside the door.

“Because of my position, I was able to work you into the mayor’s schedule this morning,” Chaz said. “And what position is that? The mayor’s aide.”

“You mean you’re his secretary?” Fry said.

The intercom on Chaz’s desk lit up. “Alright,” Mayor Poopenmeyer said, “send in my next appointment.”

Chaz got up and lead them into the mayor’s office, giving Leela a suggestive smile before leaving. She rolled her eye and sat down next to Fry and Bender across the desk from Mayor Poopenmeyer.

“So, what exactly did you want to talk to me about?” the mayor asked.

“Well, there might have been an outbreak of a computer virus adapted to infect living things,” Leela said. Bender looked at her derisively. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“Hmm,” Poopenmeyer said, holding his chin and staring at his desk intently. After a few seconds, he kicked his feet up on his desk and put his hands behind his head.

“So… what are you going to do?” Leela asked.

“Huh?” The mayor said, looking down at her. “Oh, I’m not going to do anything! Do you think I want mass panic on my hands? If some people get sick they can just go to the hospital.” He stood up, and motioned to the door. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some hypocritical activity to engage in and a few promises left to go back on.”

------------

Leela sighed and grumbled incoherently as they walked back to Planet Express.

“So now what do we do?” Fry asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said, “but since the government won’t help us, as usual, we’ll have to try and fight this thing ourselves. Hold on, I’m getting a call.” She answered the vidphone in that thing she wears on her wrist; it was Amy, who was wearing a full contamination suit.

“Leela, Dr. Zoidberg escaped,” she said, “and he got Hermes. I think he’s infected.”

“Alright,” Leela said, “you stay there and take care of Hermes. We’ll try and find Zoidberg before he can get anyone else.”

Leela ended the call and turned to Fry and Bender. “Okay, let’s split up and search the city. We’ll meet back here at seven o’clock, which will give us eight hours to try and find him before dark. If you see him or where he’s been, call the others so you can get backup. Fry, you can take my cell phone so you can stay in touch. Try and actually answer this one, though.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Fry asked.

------------

Fry strolled lazily down a sidewalk on the Lower East Side, tired from hours of walking around searching back alleys and public places for Zoidberg. He was thinking about stopping to rest when Leela’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the screen.

Message from:
101-800-8135

I thought you’d like to repay me for using my influence as the Mayor’s Aide. I have tickets to the premiere of Turing Machines on Ice, because I’m an Aide. Not just anyone’s Aide, the Mayor’s Aide.

Chaz, the Mayor’s Aide.


Fry frowned and sat down next to an alleyway. He had started typing a witty reply to Chaz when he heard rustling coming from behind a dumpster in the alley. He shrugged it off and continued typing. Suddenly, two meaty claws grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him into the alley. Before he could scream, he was hit over the head, and all went black.

Zoidberg stood over Fry’s now-limp body. He bent over and opened his mouth, emitting a heavy green gas into the air over Fry’s head before scuttling back into the shadows.

------------

Leela checked the time on that thing she wears on her wrist. 7:13, and Fry still wasn’t there. She’d called him twice already, and he didn’t pick up either time. Moron. She pulled up a GPS display that showed her phone was located outside a Vassal Burger in the Lower East Side. Hopefully, Fry was there with it.

------------

“Hey, a cell phone!” Bender said as he and Leela walked in front of the Vassal Burger.

“Bender, that’s mine. Stop stealing it,” Leela said.

“Does that usually stop me?” Bender asked.

Leela grabbed the phone from his hand and opened it. She saw that Fry had apparently left it in the middle of writing a juvenile text message to Chaz. She opened her inbox and looked at the last message received: Chaz, the Mayor’s Aide. 6:47 PM.

“Okay, he was here about half an hour ago, at least. He should still be fairly close,” Leela said. She turned her head and realized Bender was gone.

“Hey big boots, I found him!” Bender said, dragging Fry’s body out from behind the dumpster in the alley. Leela ran over to him and looked over his body for injuries. There was a large bump on his head and some scratches on his shoulders where Zoidberg’s claws had cut through his jacket and t-shirt. She felt the back of his neck and flipped him over. There was a green lump forming under his jacket collar.

“Bender, find Zoidberg,” Leela said, “Hopefully he’s still close by. I’m taking Fry back to Planet Express.”

------------

Bender poked his head in the doorway of an abandoned warehouse, scanning with his infrared vision for any life forms resembling Zoidberg. He was about to go back out when he heard warbled laughter come from above him.

“Zoidberg, I know you’re in there,” Bender said. Just then, Zoidberg jumped down from the catwalk above and landed on him, knocking him over. He sprayed Bender with green gas, just like he did to Fry, but Bender quickly pulled out a roll of duct tape, using it to make a seal over his mouth and the gap around the door in his chest.

------------

“What do you mean I can’t go in there?” Leela said, standing in the Professor’s laboratory.

“It’s too dangerous for any of us to be in the contamination chamber right now,” the Professor said. “We don’t know exactly how the disease develops. They could become contagious!”

“I know,” Leela said, “but I have to. I… I just have to.”

“Fine,” the Professor said, “but wear this.” He handed her a gas mask from World War I.

“Okay,” Leela said, strapping on the mask and walking into the glass chamber that held Fry and Hermes. She rolled some of the monitoring equipment out of the way and sat down next to Fry’s bed.

“Hi, Fry,” she said, her voice muffled by the gas mask. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but…”

------------

Zoidberg jumped from a second-story fire escape into a dumpster and then sprinted down an alley onto the street. Bender followed him several seconds later, stopping to see which way he went. He saw the tail of a lab coat rounding the corner at the end of the block and ran after it.

Several minutes later, Zoidberg was getting tired and stopped to rest for a second in front of a tube station.

“Perfect,” Bender said, peeling the tape off of his mouth. He sprinted at Zoidberg, jumping and knocking him into the tube, yelling “Planet Express!” before they were both sucked away.

When they arrived at the stop closest to Planet Express, Bender was holding Zoidberg by the collar of his doctor’s coat and had put a piece of duct tape over Zoidberg’s mouth.

“Hey meatbags,” Bender said as he dragged Zoidberg inside, “I got Zoidberg. Do you want me to kill him now?”

Just as he said that, Zoidberg kneed him hard in the chest plate and took off into the building.

“Oof! Hey, get back here!” Bender said and ran off after him.

Zoidberg ran down into the lower levels of Planet Express, eventually ending up in the accusing parlor. He backed up against the fireplace, looking back and forth nervously, realizing he was trapped. As Bender walked into the room, Zoidberg had an idea. He ran over and grabbed the broadsword off the wall.

“Aha!” Zoidberg mumbled through the tape over his mouth, pointing the sword at Bender.

“Uh-oh,” Bender said before reaching into his chest and pulling out a rapier. He and Zoidberg attacked and parried back and forth out of the room, up a spiral staircase, and into the smell-o-scope room. As they entered, Bender took the offensive and backed Zoidberg up against the clone-o-mat. Realizing he was trapped again, Zoidberg swung his sword into the elevator mechanism, cutting the chains and causing the platform to fall.

Amy and the Professor had followed them up from the lab, leaving Leela inside the containment chamber. They looked down the hole from the elevator and saw Bender and Zoidberg still fighting below.

“Remember, Bender,” the Professor yelled, “a feint within a feint within a feint!”

“What the hell does that- whoa!” Bender said, cut short by a swing of Zoidberg’s sword that came too close. Several more swings and Bender’s back was against the lava pit. He retreated around its circumference until he could get out onto a piece of the clone-o-mat that was spanning the pit. Zoidberg followed him, swinging at him again. Bender tried to parry it, but his sword flew out of his hand and dissolved in the lava below. Then, just as Zoidberg was getting ready to move in for the kill, the lobster froze. A dart was stuck in the side of his neck, causing a spider-web crack to form in his shell.

“Hey, who did that?” Bender said, “I had him right where I wanted him!”

“Scruffy, the janitor,” Scruffy said, leaning against the wall holding a tranquilizer gun.

------------

The Professor walked into the containment chamber, a vial of brown liquid in his hand. Hermes, Zoidberg, and Fry had been put in hibernative naptosis to slow the rate of the disease’s progression and were lined up in their capsules.

Leela was asleep in the chair she’d been sitting in for the past week, her head leaning against Fry’s capsule. Her eye popped open as she heard the Professor close the chamber door after he entered. “Is it ready?” she asked, “Is that the vaccine?”

The Professor nodded affirmatively and turned off Fry’s hibernation unit. He poured part of the vial’s contents into Fry’s i.v. before going and doing the same with Hermes and Zoidberg.

 “Leela,” Fry said, seeing her blinking back tears as he woke up, “are you okay?”

“Yes, Fry,” she said, “everything’s fine now.”
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #102 on: 12-15-2007 13:13 »

Oh, super. I just saw about an hour ago; I'd hoped you weren't too disappointed. "Only completed werk", heh.
I wrote a longish blurb over at that other forum, pertaining to the ongoing story.

Another great sentence: "Ugh, I hate when TV shows write an episode just to try and win an Emmy". Priceless. And I love how the Professor just automatically assumes Zoidberg's dead.
Otherwise, everything I said before still applies.

Great job!  :D
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #103 on: 12-15-2007 16:25 »

Thanks. I'm not disappointed at all, I never expected to win, I just entered because it was fun. I was also looking for an excuse to write a shorter one-off as sort of a break from my main story too so it worked well.

Speaking of my main story, I've decided to overhaul what I've written so far a little (a lot) and hopefully come close to finishing it over winter break if I have time, but we'll see.
coldangel

DOOP Secretary
*
« Reply #104 on: 12-15-2007 18:15 »

Biogenesis? Lumps on the back of the neck? Are you an X-Files fan?
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #105 on: 12-15-2007 18:58 »

Incredibly so. Fry and Leela are using Rob and Laura Petrie as aliases for a reason.   ;)

(in my other story, of course)
coldangel

DOOP Secretary
*
« Reply #106 on: 12-15-2007 19:20 »

Great story.

Have you heard that a second X-Files movie went into filming a few days ago?
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #107 on: 12-15-2007 19:26 »

  :eek: You're kidding?! Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! First Futurama, now this? I can't believe this is happening.

Not to be a downer to myself, but what the F is Xzibit going to be doing in the movie?
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #108 on: 12-15-2007 19:32 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by Sine Wave:
Incredibly so. Fry and Leela are using Rob and Laura Petrie as aliases for a reason.    ;)

Ohh, I wondered about that.

Listen - as for Biogenesis, the first time I read it, I didn't know about the contest rules, so I wasn't aware of the required elements. Not that those detracted from it at all; I thought you integrated your plot choices in very well. But regarding the length, since you came in at just barely under the limit, I thought it seemed like you would've been dying to make it longer, maybe expand the ending particularly. You don't think you might want to elaborate on the ending at all? (Not that I'm saying it's necessary).

Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #109 on: 12-15-2007 22:28 »

Yeah, there was a lot more I wanted to do with the story as far as depth and elaboration goes (odd I know, coming from me), especially for getting more description of the nuances of the disease. I thought about making a director's cut of sorts to post here, but I figured it would be best to just have the "official" version (also I'm lazy). As for elaboration on the ending:

coldangel

DOOP Secretary
*
« Reply #110 on: 12-16-2007 00:36 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by Sine Wave:
  but what the F is Xzibit going to be doing in the movie?

He's an FBI agent, oddly. So is Amanda Peet.
What's even stranger is thr rumour that Billy Connolly is going to be in it.

But it is real. I've seen the first photos from the set showing David wearing his Mulder clothes with Chris Carter and Amanda Peet.
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #111 on: 12-16-2007 02:34 »
« Last Edit on: 12-16-2007 02:34 »

Hey, there's nothing wrong with the "official" version. I just thought I detected some longing to stretch some parts out a little more.


At any rate, I commend you for whipping off such a good story in such a short amount of time.
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #112 on: 01-01-2008 13:46 »

Hey everybody, long time no writing again, but there is new stuff coming, I promise. For now though, I'm putting up the slightly revised versions of what I've written so far, so if you want to pick up on an extra joke or two and ooh and ah at grammatical corrections, go ahead and read. For those that don't, and can actually remember what was going on in the story since the last time they read it two months ago, the only critical change is described below.


So a big thanks to JBERGES, Archonix, Coldangel, A Spy in Mancunia at the Simpworks forums, and km73 for their intentional and unintentional contributions to the story. And now, for the show:

A Soon to be contradicted View of the Future
Part 1


Tonight was the one night that Fry couldn’t have afforded to go any less than perfectly. So, naturally, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. He lost his robotic hands, his opera was the laughing stock of New New York, and Leela barely even heard any of what he had managed to perform from it. Worst of all, he almost lost her to the Robot Devil forever. By all standards the night was a downright catastrophe. A catastrophe in all ways but one. She stayed. After he was rejected and lambasted by everyone else in the theater, she stayed to hear him finish. No robotic hands, no elaborate compositions, just heart.

Philip J. Fry and Turanga Leela walked out the back entrance of the Metropolitan House of Opera into the night. The streets were empty and silent, save for the clicking of Leela’s heels on the sidewalk, and the only illumination came from apartment windows and the stars above. Fry looked up, and saw the millions of them shining down on him, like they always had. There were just as many things he wished he could say or do right then, but the hand grasped lightly in his told him that his boyish spontaneity could be suppressed for the time being.  Fry gave Leela his jacket to shield her from the brisk November night, and she leaned close to him, accepting his arm around her waist. They continued walking in blissful silence through the streets of New New York back to Leela’s apartment.

“Well, here we are,” Fry said when they got to apartment 1I. Leela opened the door and walked inside.

“Are you coming in?” she asked, turning around after a few steps to see Fry still standing outside the doorway.

“Oh, who, me? Well, yeah,” Fry said nervously, and made his way into the apartment the way an adventurer-archaeologist would enter a forbidden temple.

Leela sat down on the lone chair that furnished the room, and scooted to one side to make room for Fry. He followed her lead and sat beside her.

“Leela, I’m sorry all this had to happen to you,” was all he could think to say.

“Don’t apologize, Fry. You did everything perfectly,” Leela said.

“But, but you’re deaf! And the Robot Devil!” Fry protested, choking on his words.

“That was my fault for not telling you what happened to me,” Leela said, trying to calm him down. “Besides, these robot ones will work until I can get them fixed.”

“I guess you’re right,” Fry said, not wanting to argue with her more than he had to. “I wish you had heard more of the opera, though.”

“Fry, it wasn’t the opera itself that was important,” Leela said, “it’s what it showed me about you,” she took his hands in hers, “and about myself.” They looked into each other’s eyes, and Leela scooted closer to him. For a moment they just sat there, until it seemed as if a switch was thrown, and their heads began to slowly draw towards each other. They closed their eyes, and Fry could feel Leela’s breath before he-

“Leela?” The telescreen on the wall cut on. “Oh good, you’re both there.”

“Hermes?” Leela answered sternly, turning her head away from Fry and towards the viewer. “What are you calling about?”

“We just got a delivery that’s top priority and needs to be sent out first thing tomorrow morning. Which means you have to be in a condition to fly the ship tomorrow, understand?”

“Can’t it wait?” Leela protested.

“No,” Hermes replied efficiently.

“Fine. Any more good news you want to give us?” Leela replied sarcastically.

“No, that should do it. Sleep tight, don’t let the staplers bite.” Leela turned off the screen.

“This Durans Duran.”

“Come on Leela, we don’t have to listen to him,” Fry said, not particularly caring about what they were supposed to do, as usual.

“Fry, it’s already past midnight,” Leela said, “as much as I’d like to stay with you, I need to get to bed, and you need to get home.” Fry lowered his head in dejection, and slowly stood up.

“Well, ok, but, do you think we could maybe make up for the lost time at, uh, dinner Friday night?” The last part of his question barely squeaked out of his larynx. He ground the ball of his foot into her carpet, and looked at her with apprehensive expectation.

Leela paused for a second before responding. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” Fry ran down the stairs from apartment 1I, screaming at the top of his lungs. He had finally done it. His prayers to whatever god he could remember the name of at the time had been answered, and he was cackling with such exuberance that some of Leela’s neighbors thought he had gone insane. He thought he could have too, but he wasn’t going to let the possibility spoil what had just happened. The rickety staircase shook under his steps, causing him to stumble and burst through the front door of the building struggling to remain upright. He surveyed the empty street before him, and then ran down the sidewalk, jumping and spinning in circles as he went. He even tried to swing on a lamppost, but he couldn’t hang on and fell into the bushes beside the sidewalk with a dull crunch. As soon as he hit the ground he started to laugh again, pushing himself to his feet. This was the happiest night of his life.

Leela locked her door behind Fry and walked across her living room, toward the window she’d had put in a few months ago. She heard Fry’s cries of joy echo through the building as she took off her gloves and pulled her hair out of its ponytail. She looked down from her window to see Fry stumble out onto the street and start jumping around, like a puppy imitating Gene Kelly. He was so cute when he was happy. She walked over to her bedroom after Fry danced his way out of sight, and closed the door to get ready for bed. Crawling under her covers, she looked at the picture of Fry on her nightstand, and then turned out the light.

------------

“Good news, everyone!” the Professor beamed to the Planet Express crew, who were begrudgingly gathered around the conference table the next morning. “Today, you’ll be flying me to have Sunday brunch on Trihop Seven, the breakfast planet.”

“You made us come in today for that?” Leela said, more than slightly put off. “You have a spaceship, fly there yourself.”

“Why would I be going anywhere? What do you think I hired a delivery crew for? Now shut up, all of you, so I can tell you about the important delivery you have to make!” He pressed a button on the table’s console, and the large, green tinted holographic image of a planet appeared in the center of the table. “This is Copenhagos h/2pi, where you will be delivering this block of ice-ten.” He pointed to a large clear cube sitting in the corner of the room. “You must be careful not to let it touch water of any sort.”

“Why?” Fry asked. “Will it irreversibly freeze other water?”

“No, it will make it explode!” the Professor said with the appropriate accompanying hand gestures. He then turned on the giant TV screen behind him. A movie began to play, showing a ship that looked very similar to the Planet Express Ship flying through space. “Long ago,” the Professor said over the movie, “the first block of ice-ten developed was delivered to Copenhagos h/2pi.” The ship landed on a lush, green planet, and three people got out: a woman, a man, and a robot. “However, something went terribly wrong.” The woman and the robot rose over the peak of a large hill, consulting a map before descending the other side. The man, carrying the block on his back with a pair of ice tongs, staggered to the top, his legs wobbling under the weight. He stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow, and continued down the other side. However, he failed to look at his path carefully, and tripped over a projecting rock. He and the ice-ten both fell to the ground, the latter catching fire from contact with the plants on the ground. The delivery boy’s companions watched as the man rolled past them down the hill, followed shortly by a skidding fireball. Technically, it was a firecube, but the observers weren’t that concerned with formalities at the time. The woman and robot froze as they realized what was at the bottom of the hill: a river. By the time they could move to chase the block, it was in the water, and the movie screen was filled by a blinding light. “And that’s how Copenhagos h/2pi became a desert planet,” the Professor said with a smile as he turned the screen off. The crew looked nervously at one another.

“Wait,” Leela asked, breaking the uneasy silence, “if it destroyed their planet the first time it was brought there, why would they want more?”

“I don’t know, people don’t tell us why they want things delivered!” the Professor answered, “But, I assume they would want to study it, seeing as they didn’t get a chance the first time. Also, there’ll be a package for you to pick up and bring back here. Now, off you go!”

------------

“Ready for entering the atmosphere of Copenhagos h/2pi, Captain,” Fry announced from his navigator’s seat.

“Thanks Fry,” Leela replied, “but we’ve already entered their atmosphere. We’ll be on the ground in less than five minutes.”

Four minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, the Planet Express Ship flew over Copenhagos h/2’s capital city of Copenhageen, passing signs for the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, a farmer’s market with fresh quark in all six flavors, and Pauli’s Personal Parking Place, before finally reaching their destination of General Parking (Pauli Excluded). The city itself was a sprawling collection of semispherical adobe buildings. They all shared the color of the sandy earth they were built upon, and few had any mark of special significance apart from differences in size.

“Okay, Fry,” Leela said as the crew lowered from the cargo bay, “with the ice-ten secured to the hover dolly we should be able to avoid the disaster from the last time. You just need to take it to the Quantum Entanglement Station, and bring back what the Professor ordered. Bender and I will stay here and do whatever it is we do when you make deliveries on your own. Think you can handle that?”

“Yeah, no problem,” he responded, and pushed the cart towards the city.

------------

“Fry, how could you?” Leela yelled, standing beside him outside the Quantum Entanglement Station.

“It looked like a bench!” Fry said.

“You almost destroyed their entire wave function!” Leela spat back at him.

“How was I supposed to know it would collapse if I sat on it?”

Leela put her hand to her eye and massaged her temples. “It’s alright, we’ll just go in, have them bill us for damages, get the Professor’s order and go home.”

“It’s not like we ever make a profit on these trips anyway,” Bender chimed in.

The trio walked inside the Entanglement Station, ice-ten in tow, and towards the back of the lobby to the reception desk. Sitting behind it was a man dressed in a cloak over a skintight suit with neatly parted gray hair. The nametag on the desk read Leonard Keynes.

“Ah, you must be the delivery from Planet Express,” he said as they approached.

“Yes,” Leela said, “and we’re sorry about the mess we caused outside.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Leonard interjected, “we can just pull another one out of our Hilbert space generator. It’ll be fine. However, the order your Professor Farnsworth placed isn’t quite filled yet, and I’m afraid it won’t be until morning. In the meantime, feel free to show yourselves around, see the sights, and have a good time,” he finished with a friendly smile.

“Wait, shouldn’t there be some sort of repercussion, or-”

“Not now, big boots,” Bender interrupted, “there’s a quantum casino across the street with Bender’s name on it, and I’d like the chance to do something productive on a mission for once.”

------------

Fry and Leela walked around the city, trying to find some less morally questionable activities than their robot companion was engaged in. They visited Enrico Fermi’s tomb, strolled through Hyde Act Park in Little Bombay, and went for a ride on the Copenhageen Eye, the quadrant’s largest supercolliding Ferris wheel. After a while, however, Fry had had all of the desert sun he could take, and they ducked into a small, dingy café. The type where there’s only one row of seats and a plastic countertop over the bins holding possible ingredients for a meal. An elderly woman stood behind it, along with a young man who was presumably her son.

“Velkommen! Hvad kunne jeg blive jer? (Welcome! What can I get you?)” the woman asked them.

“Wha-huh?” Fry said, bewildered.

“Fry, not everyone speaks English everywhere. I think she wants to know what we want to eat,” Leela said.

Fry looked at the selection of foods. Seeing something he thought looked pretty good, he tapped on the glass over it.

“Jer savn den kogt gris kugler? (You want the boiled hog gonads?)” the woman asked. Fry nodded affirmatively.

“Also, we need something to drink.” Fry cupped his hand around his mouth, moving it up and down. “Drink, you know, drink?”

“Han ønsker hen til indrømme nogen en hvad for nu? (He wants to give someone a what now?)” the younger man asked in shock.

“Ikke, jer gnaven, han ønsker et eller andet hen til drik! (No, you idiot, he wants something to drink!)” the woman said exasperatedly, and shooed her son over towards a stack of cups. He set two of them down on the counter before he pulled a sandslug, a pan, and a small cube of ice-ten out of a drawer. He put the slug in the pan before grating the ice-ten over it, thinking of how lucky they were to have gotten a new shipment that day. As the shavings accumulated, the slug slowly fizzled into a pool of slightly green-tinged liquid, which he poured into the glasses.

“Bon Appetit,” he said, setting them down in front of Fry and Leela.

“I’ll never understand what these guys are saying,” Fry said as Leela picked up her glass and took a sip.

“Ugh, this stuff tastes awful!” Leela said, her face contorted in disgust.

“Maybe this is how they normally have water here, and you have to ask for the kind that doesn’t taste horrible by name,” Fry conjectured, “you know, like Europe.” He took a drink of his own and had to struggle to keep from spitting it back out.

“Oh well, it’s better than nothing.” Leela sighed and drank another mouthful.

A short time later, the old woman brought out their dinners, which fortunately were more palatable than their drink. Leela and Fry sat and ate, talking about mostly inconsequential things. Leela seemed to actually be having a good time, but as they finished up eating Fry could tell that something unusual was going on.

“Leela, are you feeling alright?” he asked her. “You actually laughed at my last joke.”

“Me feel… fine,” Leela said slowly.

“Okay, I just wanted to make sure.”

------------

Walking back through the streets of Copenhageen, the sun was beginning to go down. The dark made it increasingly difficult for Fry to find his way back to the ship in the unfamiliar city, on top of keeping Leela under control, who apparently had lost the ability to do so herself.

“Fry! Fry! Lottery tickets!” Leela yelled, running to the window of a 711.

“Leela, how many times do I have to tell you no?” Fry said. “Because I don’t want to make it five.” He pulled her back from the window and kept her walking down the street. “Seriously, I’m beginning to think that you’re-”

Fry suddenly fell to the ground with a whump, out cold. Leela looked around her, noticing Fry’s sudden absence from her line of sight.

“Fry? Fry? Where Fry?” she called out, turning around in circles. Still seeing no sight of him, she yelled his name again, before looking down.

“Oh, there Fry,” she said, and stepped off of his windpipe.

------------

Leela awoke the next morning lying in her bed on the Planet Express Ship, still in her clothes from the previous day. Getting out of bed, she realized she couldn’t remember anything that had happened the night before. She and Fry had stopped somewhere for dinner, and then it was just a blank. Intending to go find Fry in hopes of an explanation, she opened her cabin door, but soon realized she had already found him as he was passed out on the floor outside her room.

“Fry, wake up,” Leela said, kneeling down to prod him. He didn’t stir.

By now, Bender had finished his sleep routine, and walked out of him and Fry’s cabin. “Here, let me help you with that,” he said, and promptly began kicking Fry in the ribs.

“Bender!” Leela said.

“Ah, fine. It’s not like it worked last night, either. By the way, you each owe me fifty bucks for getting you back here.”

“Why? What happened last night? I can’t remember a thing.”

“Well,” Bender said, reeling into a flashback, or a frame tale, whichever is technically correct, “it all started as I was leaving the quantum casino entirely of my own free will…”

------------

“I don’t care how many worlds your interpretation has, you aren’t setting foot in this place again in any of ‘em!” a security officer yelled to Bender after throwing him into an alleyway behind the establishment.

“Stupid cheating detectors,” Bender mumbled, standing up. “Where else am I supposed to get the three robo-food groups of booze, blackjack, and hookers all in one convenient location?”

With residual frustration, Bender walked through the dimly lit streets, looking for places to buy beer and people to pick-pocket to pay for it. He was about to go into the local ABC store, endorsed by The Jackson Five, Andrew Jackson, and the number four, when he saw Fry and Leela down the street. He was going to go in anyway, but he heard Leela yell, “Bender! Bender, help!” Disappointedly, he walked over to them.

“Bender, Fry no move,” Leela said, holding a limp Fry up by the arm.

“Well it’s not my problem.”

“You take Fry,” Leela said, handing Bender Fry’s arm, “me need buy timeshare.”

She was about to walk off when Bender stopped her. “Wait a second, if you’re going to waste your money, why not spend it on me, your lovable pal, Bender?”

Bender puffed away on a recently acquired fine cigar, and led Leela, who was carrying a case of whiskey under one arm and dragging Fry through the gutter with the other, down the street. Bender opened her wallet and looked inside.

“It looks like you spent all your money, chumpette,” he said. “You know, you’re a lot more fun when you’re impressionable.”

“Bender, me need sleep,” Leela said, tiring from her duty as pack mule.

“Oh fine, we’ll go back to the ship. Not like we can do much else around here, anyway.”

------------

“…and that’s about when Burt Lancaster showed up,” Bender said. “I decided to let him clean up the situation and snuck you and sleeping beauty back here to safety.”

“Alright,” Leela said, “you can tell me what actually happened later. Right now we need to figure out what’s wrong with Fry before we-” There was a loud knock on the hull of the ship. “-have to take home the Professor’s order.”

Leela got up and walked down to the cargo bay, riding down on the elevator. Waiting for her were two men in coveralls. They had a dolly with a large lead box, covered in hazmat labels.

“Is this the Planet Express Ship?” one asked.

“Yes,” Leela responded.

“Okay, we just need you to sign here, here and here, and you’ll be all ready to take this back to Mr. Farnsworth.”

Leela walked back into the ship, reviewing the delivery papers as she went. When she got back to the hallway, Fry was gone. She looked around, but didn’t see him.

“What up?” Fry said, stepping out of his cabin.

“Fry,” Leela said turning around, startled, “you woke up.”

“Yeah, I guess I passed out sometime last night. That stuff we had to drink must have been really good.”

“From what little I can remember,” Leela said, “it was the worst tasting thing I’ve ever had.”

“I meant good as in got us really drunk.”
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #113 on: 01-01-2008 20:55 »
« Last Edit on: 01-01-2008 20:55 »

Part Two

The Planet Express Ship lowered into the hangar, touching softly to the ground. Hermes, Amy, Zoidberg and the Professor walked down the stairs to the hangar floor, where they met Fry, Leela, and Bender as they walked out of the ship.

“Hooray, my friends have returned from another fascinating adventure!” Zoidberg warbled with excitement.

“Actually,” Leela said, “everything went surprisingly well.”

“You mean you three actually went somewhere without pissin’ someone off or runnin’ up medical bills? I didn’t think it could happen!” Hermes said.

“Hey Professor, what’s in the box?” Amy asked as Bender brought it out of the ship.

“A cat, among other things,” he responded.

“There’s a cat in there?” Leela said, shocked. “But it’s completely sealed! How do you know if it’s even alive?”

“You don’t! That’s the point of having the cat!” the Professor retorted, putting his hands on his hips.

------------

“I still don’t see what the big deal with the shower was,” Fry said as he, Leela and Bender were getting dressed in the locker room.

“Fry,” Leela said, “just because I agreed to go on a date with you doesn’t mean you automatically get to do everything naked with me.”

“It did for all those other guys,” Bender said. Leela narrowed her eye, but decided to let the comment pass.

“I’m sorry, Leela,” Fry said. “Hey, Bender and I were going to have an All My Circuits drinking game, you want to join in?”

“No thanks,” Leela replied, “I need to get some work done on the ship.”

Heading out of the locker room, Leela went over to the ship and Bender walked up out of the hangar, but Fry paused for a second. He had a strange feeling, but he couldn’t tell what it was exactly, or what he was feeling it about. He stood for a second, trying to get a handle on it. Suddenly, he knew.

“Leela, get away from there!” Fry yelled to her.

“Huh?” Leela said, adjusting one of her robotic ears as she looked up from her toolbox.

“Duck!” He ran across the hangar and jumped, tackling her and sending them both skidding across the floor. Leela waited for several seconds, but nothing happened.

“Fry, this isn’t funny,” Leela said, crawling out from under him. Her skepticism was broken by an explosion from the Professor’s laboratory, sending the Professor clear over the conference room table, and a large piece of machinery shot out and landed right where Leela had been working earlier, crushing her toolbox.

“Oh my god…”

“Whoopsie. Sorry, everyone!” the Professor said loudly.

“Oh my god,” Leela said again. “Fry, how did you know that was going to happen?”

“I dunno,” Fry replied, “I just sort of knew.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s pretty easy to tell when something the Professor’s doing is going to go wrong.”

“No, that’s not it,” Fry corrected her. “It’s like I knew what was going to happen before it did. I knew if I didn’t get you to move you’d have been crushed.”

“You mean like, you saw the future?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

------------

The Planet Express crew found themselves yet again in Dr. Zoidberg’s office, with Fry on the examination table in his underpants. The Professor was waving a rod shaped instrument around Fry, studying him intently.

“Well, this curling iron doesn’t show any abnormalities in Fry’s body, and neither did the hair dryer,” the Professor said, tossing it to the ground. “Do you think it could have been something you ate? A prescient pie or an existential gumbo perhaps?”

“Well, Leela and I had dinner at a seedy restaurant last night where we didn’t know what any of the food was.”

“Hmm, that could be a possibility,” the Professor said. “Now to determine if that’s the cause, we’ll need to cut you open and remove your intestinal tract. Leela’s too, for comparison.”

“Wait, can’t you just take a urine sample?” Leela asked, while Fry clutched his abdomen.

“Oh, sure, if you want to pass up a perfectly good opportunity for disembowelment.”

------------

“Oh boy,” Dr. Zoidberg mumbled sadly under his breath as he walked into the room where Fry, now dressed, as well as Leela, Amy, Hermes and Bender were waiting to hear the test results. He turned to address the group and cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I have bad news. Although all of Fry and Leela’s tests showed that they’re perfectly healthy, in my medical-type opinion they have no more than twenty-four hours to live!”

Bender jumped to his feet from his seat on the counter. “Zoidberg, how many times do I have to tell you? Postmodernism does not belong in medicine!” he yelled, emphasizing the last few words by hitting Zoidberg over the head.

“Ow, your hitting is making me hurt, it is! Curse your causality!”

“Now, now, everyone,” the Professor said, shuffling into the room, “the urine samples actually showed they both recently ingested high concentrations of complex silicates bonded to ice-ten! Of course, I have no idea what that means, but we can poodle it and see what it comes up with.”

“Poodle it?” Fry asked.

“You know, searching the internet from poodle.com,” Leela answered.

“I’m on it,” Hermes said, and pulled up a hologram of a toy poodle from a projector over one of the counters.

“Here boy,” he said to it, “I want you to find ‘silicates’ and ‘ice-ten.’”

The dog ran off, disappearing for a few seconds, before returning with a list of results in its mouth.

“Good boy,” Hermes said. “Now, drop it.” The dog didn’t budge. “Drop it boy, come on.” It still made no response. “Hand it over you green snake!” Hermes said tersely and reached into the hologram to pull the results out of the poodle’s mouth. A struggle ensued, but several minutes later Hermes walked back over to the Professor and handed him the results.

“Hmm,” the Professor said looking over the results, “it says in this Tikipedia article that both of you consumed what is known as the Cocktail of Life, a drink native to Copenhagos h/2 created from melting a sandslug with ice-ten. Oh lord, it’s LSD all over again. You develop something for science and the next thing you know it’s out on the street and people are singing songs about bearded rainbows. Anyway, ingestion can cause drooling, nose-picking, pants wetting, and generally acting like a moron for several hours after ingestion due to delta brainwave suppression, with a person having no recollection of what transpired.”

“Well that sounds like Leela last night,” Bender said, getting a nasty glare from Leela, “but not Fry.”

“That’s odd,” Hermes said, “every semi-sentient creature in the universe has a delta wave, shouldn’t they both have been affected the same way?”

“You think something’s wrong with Fry?” Amy asked.

“Indeed. However, I didn’t find anything else extraordinary in Fry’s excrement, so more tests are in order.” The Professor said gleefully. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a scanner with an oblong looped antenna off of the handle. For some reason Leela thought it looked awfully familiar, although she couldn’t quite say why. The Professor pointed it at Fry’s head, looking at the scanner’s readout.

“Sweet mamma-jamma!” the Professor exclaimed. “Fry, your brain completely lacks the delta brainwave!” The crew gasped.

“What, how? I mean, I don’t feel any stupider,” Fry stuttered.

“Of course you wouldn’t, you’ve never had a delta wave to begin with. It’s not being suppressed, your brain can’t make one!”

“But how’s that even possible, mon?” Hermes said in disbelief. “Without a delta wave, he shouldn’t even be able to brush his teeth! Oh, wait.”

“Well, this would explain a lot,” Leela said.

“But what does this have to do with me seeing the future?” Fry asked.

The Professor looked back at his gizmometer. “It seems that due to your altered brain structure, instead of destructively interfering with your delta brainwave, the ice-ten compounds constructively interfered with your quantum pilot brainwave!”

“My what?”

“Your quantum pilot wave,” the Professor said, “it’s what carries your consciousness through the fourth dimension. Most people have relatively weak wave signals, but some can be blessed with a stronger wave, allowing them to attain leaps of mad scientific wonder or host their own weekly talk show segments. Yours, however, has had its amplitude boosted so greatly you can do more than just predict what people want to hear, you can actually predict possible future timelines!”

“My god,” Fry said.

“So Fry,” Bender said, slinging an arm around his friend’s shoulders, “how about you and me head down to the horse track with your new-found powers of foresight?”

“I don’t know, Bender. I really need to go home and think about all of this.”

“How about I walk you home, okay?” Leela volunteered, taking Fry’s hand as they walked to the door.

“Aw, Fry, come on!” Bender yelled after them.

“Now, now, Bender,” the Professor said, putting a hand on Bender’s shoulder, “let the freaks of nature walk in peace.”

------------

“Fry, I’m surprised,” Leela said as she and Fry walked back to Robot Arms, “you handled yourself very maturely with Bender back there.”

“Hey, it’s not like I do everything he tells me to,” Fry replied, trying to sound a little hurt. “Leela, look!” he said, pointing to a building in the distance. She stopped and watched him as he put his hand in the air so it looked like it was sitting on the building’s roof. He lowered his hand, and the building fell beneath it, imploding in a cloud of dust. Fry chuckled mischievously.

“Fry, you really do have to treat this seriously,” Leela said after the display, “who knows what consequences knowing the future could have?”

“I’m just getting the hang of controlling it, what’s the big deal? Besides, if anything was going to go wrong, I’d already know about it.”

Leela shook her head in exasperation, and they continued walking.

------------

The next day, the crew sat around the conference table, watching Hermes explain a graph of the company’s growth in dairy transport. There’d never been a dairy delivery in the company’s history, so it really wasn’t of much interest. Suddenly, Fry burst into laughter, keeling over in his chair. The rest of the group stopped and looked around to try and find something funny, but couldn’t. Hermes returned to his chart, picking up a pointer to aid his explanation. Unfortunately, when he went to make an indication, he put too much into the backswing, and stabbed himself in the eye.

“Sweet tsetse fly of Paraguay, the pain!” Hermes cried out, dropping the pointer and clasping his hands over his eyeball. Everyone else broke into laughter, except for Fry.

“Eh,” he said jadedly, “it’s just not as funny the second time around.”

Hermes hurried to the kitchen to find an icepack, and was replaced at the head of the table by Professor Farnsworth.

“Good news! You have a delivery to make to the Galaxy of No Return!”

------------

“Who’d have known that the Galaxy of No Return just meant you can never return to that galaxy?” Leela pondered as she flew the ship back to Earth. Fry raised his hand. “Fry, just stop. I mean, don’t you think you’re getting a little- Oh lord.”

“What is it?” Bender asked.

“It’s the Nimbus,” Leela said with disgust.

“Oh, you mean the ship with that guy you slept with?” Bender said.

“Yes,” Leela said angrily, “but hopefully I can swing a few parsecs towards Betelgeuse and stay off of their scanners.”

Fry sat up straight in his seat, his eyes gathering a look of shocked realization. “Leela, I know this is going to sound crazy,” he said, “but we need to get to the Nimbus. Now.”

“Fry, what are talking about?” Leela asked.

“Future vision thing!” Fry said. “If we don’t get there soon, everyone on the ship’s going to die!”

“Our ship or their ship?” Bender asked.

“Their ship,” Fry answered.

“Damn it, I have to spend more time saving other people’s asses?” Bender complained.

“Well we can’t just fly by and let it happen,” Leela said. “Let’s go.”

------------

The Planet Express Ship set down in the Nimbus’s docking bay, where the crew was met by DOOP’s most illustrious captain.

“The lovely lady Leela, what a voluptuous surprise,” Zapp said. “So, your burning desire has led you to come crawling back to the Zapper at last.”

“Not exactly,” Leela said sternly. “We’re here because something terrible is going to happen soon.”

“We?” Zapp looked to Fry, who was standing anxiously next to her. “That would be terrible,” he said sexfully. “Fortunately, I think there’s enough room in the Lovenasium to accommodate all of your erotic fantasies. Kif, ready an extra bottle of champaggen for my chamber.”

“Leela, we don’t have time for this,” Fry interrupted. “Something in the Love-nasal’s about to make this whole place explode!” He grabbed Leela’s arm and took off running.

“Hmm, must not want to lose the mood,” Zapp figured, and ran daintily after them.

------------

Fry burst into the Lovenasium, Leela following him shortly. He looked around the room, trying to pinpoint the danger. His gaze came to rest on the bathroom, and he walked over to it.

“In here, the toilet,” he said, opening the door. Leela walked over and looked into the room. Upon entering she found herself face to face with a toilet bowl stuffed to the brim with velour briefs.

“What are you doing in there?” Zapp inquired, having caught up with them. “I keep all of my sexcapade-related items next to the bed.”

“Zapp,” Leela asked, “why is your toilet filled with underpants?”

Zapp looked around nervously, remaining quiet for a minute. “Kif was on shore leave last week and I, I didn’t know what to do!” he tried to explain pathetically. Leela turned her attention back to the toilet of doom and scanned it with that thing she wears on her wrist.

“Oh no,” she said. “This says that the toilet is hooked directly into the Nimbus’s main engine. An overload like this could have caused a… catastrophic failure.”

“Wait, why would someone have their toilet hooked up to a spaceship’s engine?” Fry asked.

“Ameche, when you’re in a position of power, you have to exercise that power with everything that you do,” Zapp said proudly.

“Come on, Fry,” Leela said. “Let’s get someone to clean this up, and then burn that pile of pictures next to the toilet.”

“Way ahead of you on the pictures Leela,” Fry said. “I’ll handle it personally.”

“No you won’t,” Leela said.

“Damn,” Fry muttered, and walked out of the bathroom as Leela stared him down.

------------

That night, Zapp sat alone in his robe on the bridge of the Nimbus, a cigarette’s red glow illuminating his face, and a bottle of comfort liquor in his hand. The Planet Express Crew had long since left, and the ship was sitting still, its engine shut off for maintenance from the toilet fiasco. The telescreen flicked on in front of him, and once his eyes adjusted to the light, he made out that it showed the inside of the Oval Office.

“Brannigan,” President Nixon barked from the screen, “why haven’t you started the invasion of Arabacus 12?”

“Well, we’ve been having some uh, minor delays due to a mysterious incident with the ship’s engine,” Zapp said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nixon demanded.

“That guy with the bad hair came onto the ship saying he could ‘see the future,’ and that the ship was about to explode or something,” Zapp replied with little interest. “Sure enough it was, and I didn’t even have a chance to get the vixen Leela…”

Zapp kept talking, but Nixon wasn’t listening to him. “Ehrlichman’s ghost, someone who can see the future? Aroo, I’d never have to deal with that Watergate crap again! Brannigan!” he said, pulling Zapp out of his oratorical meandering. “I want you to bring me that man!”
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #114 on: 01-13-2008 20:12 »
« Last Edit on: 01-13-2008 20:12 »

Well, in honor of your apparently being back...

Testing the sig.

edit: whoa, it's huge! "it can touch anything but itself..."  :laff: I thought you'd implied it was a nice modest size??

So how was the camp?


------------------
     
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #115 on: 01-13-2008 20:59 »

I implied that it complied with PEEL signature regulations, which it happens to max out.  :)

Camp was great, I actually did pretty well. I racked up 370 miles over the course of the week, with lots of mountains and sprinting, so I've been sacked out for the past couple of days. By the end of it it hurt my leg muscles just to ride, but in a sort of good way. Some good times were going caving one night, hitting 50 mph coming down a mountain, and getting chased by the biggest German Shepherd ever down a gravel road. But I'm back, and recuperated, and getting ready to go back to school. Hopefully I'll manage to finish up revisions to part three of AStbCVotF (it'll have NEW STUFF that's not been written before at the end of it!) and do a lot of work on part four sometime.
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #116 on: 01-13-2008 21:13 »

Max out to the max...  :D

well, I "shared the joke".

Glad you had a good time.
JustNibblin

Bending Unit
***
« Reply #117 on: 01-14-2008 02:23 »
« Last Edit on: 01-14-2008 02:23 by JustNibblin´ »

Hi SW,first of all congrats on submitting your story to the writing competition.  I'm glad you reposted it here.  I know you didn't win, but it seemed like the judges were leaning toward "drama", so I can see how you wouldn't get there.

Reviewing your story, I'm reminded how it's actually funny.  I still smiled at
 
Quote
Originally posted by *author*:
“Maybe this is how they normally have water here, and you have to ask for the kind that doesn’t taste horrible by name,” Fry conjectured, “you know, like Europe.”

“How was I supposed to know it would collapse if I sat on it?”


“Eh,” he said jadedly, “it’s just not as funny the second time around.”

_______________________

Best quantum humor ever, and look forward to your continuing.  Maybe the biggest compliment is that I'm probably going to steal some of your jokes for my writing at some point  ;)

Where do I find this sig km73 talks about?
Sine Wave

Liquid Emperor
**
« Reply #118 on: 01-14-2008 10:17 »
« Last Edit on: 03-11-2008 00:00 »

About three posts up.     ;)

And now, for the show... (new stuff!!)

------------------------

Part Three

Fry looked in the mirror, straightening the collar on his turtle neck before donning his dressy-casual brown jacket. It was Friday evening, and he was almost ready to leave for Apartment 1I. It had been a busy week, three deliveries instead of the usual one, the last one being to Helicon, and wasn’t that much to talk about, just a big library or something. Besides, he had other matters on his mind, mostly concerning tonight. Despite his deepest curiosity, he managed to keep himself from looking into the future about it. Leela didn’t seem to like him doing it that much anyway, and if he used it to make sure their date went well, wouldn’t that be just as bad as having the worms?

A few minutes of walking later, Fry rapped on the door to Leela’s apartment. She opened it, stepping into the hallway in an uncharacteristically reserved manner. Crossing the threshold, one of her robotic ears caught on the doorjamb, knocking it out of place.

“Rats,” she mumbled as she adjusted it back into place, “I can’t believe I haven’t had a chance to get my ears fixed yet.”

“We can, you know, do that now if you really want to, or-”

“No, Fry, it’s alright. The Ear-O-Mat’s closed by now anyway. Let’s just go to dinner.”

------------

“…and then he actually tried to tell me that sleeping with another woman was a compliment on his planet. He was from Earth!” Leela ranted, holding a forkful of her Radioactive Radish Con Carne, one of Elzar’s specialties. “But you probably don’t want to hear about that.”

“No, I do. It sounds a lot like that time when I found my girlfriend in bed naked with that professional wrestler, but they were just giving each other massages,” Fry said.

Leela smirked. “You know, I thought that since we spend all our time together at work, we’d never have anything to talk about. I’m sort of glad I was wrong.”

“Me too.” Fry smiled back, their gazes locking for a moment before they both shyly returned to their meals. Almost as soon as they did, there was a commotion at the front of the restaurant. Elzar could be heard complaining loudly, and many of the patrons turned to see what the problem was. Leela did so as well, only to find what was possibly the last thing she wanted to see that night: Zapp Brannigan striding through the restaurant towards their table.

Leela groaned as he drew nearer, Kif following close behind him. “What do you want?”

“As much as I would like to join you for dinner and ‘other things’,” Zapp told her, “I’m here for that pitiful excuse of a mate you keep around with you.”

“Hey, I’m a really good excuse for a mate!” Fry retorted.

“We’ll see about that,” Zapp said, “but for now you’re coming with me.”

“What do you want with Fry?” Leela asked, retaining her no-nonsense attitude toward dealing with Zapp.

“I informed the President of his powers of primo-nation mere hours after you left the Nimbus in a blast of hot, steamy seduction. He charged me then with Fry’s apprehension, and that’s just what I’m going to do.” Zapp took Fry by the forearm, who motioned his hand slicing across his neck.

“Wait, that was two days ago,” Leela said, conspicuous in her ulterior motives, but her target was not a master of subtlety. “Why wait until now?”

“We stopped at the Galactic Laundromat, and there were some… delays,” Kif said.

“Who knew that clothes had washing instructions on them?” Zapp said. “Each underpant had to be washed individually, and fortunately Kif was just the wiggly green thing to do it.”

Leela used their explanation as a useful distraction, darting to Fry and prying him from Zapp’s grasp. The DOOP Captain looked around, finding that the now-fugitive man and his buxom accomplice had disappeared.

“Kif,” Zapp said authoritatively, “it seems we’ve been bamboozled.”

------------

Fry and Leela sprinted through the streets, trying to put as much distance between themselves and Zapp as possible. Fry couldn’t see the details, but he could tell that horrible things would come of being apprehended by Nixon. Neither he nor Leela really needed to see the future to deduce that, but it reaffirmed their worst fears. Given that they were now on the run, they had no choice but to continue; there was no turning back. They rounded a corner, and Fry burrowed headlong into a hard, grey chest plate.

“Bender!” Fry exclaimed, shrugging off the impact and pushing himself to his feet.

“Hey meatbags, what’s with all the running?” Bender inquired.

“We’re trying to escape from Zapp. We need to keep moving,” Leela said before grabbing Fry and taking off running again.

“Ooh, criminal activity, eh? Why didn’t you say so?” Bender said, and ran to keep pace with them. Not knowing any better place to go, they made for the Planet Express Building.

-----------

“We can’t stay here. We can’t stay on Earth. We need to leave,” Fry said as they walked into the building.

“But where would we go?” Leela asked. “We can’t just abandon everything like that.”

“But Leela, if we don’t-”

“Fry, it’s not that simple. What about our jobs? Or Nibbler, or my parents? Some of us have things we can’t just leave behind at the drop of a hat.”

“We have to, Leela,” Fry said, taking her hand, “believe me.”

“Alright,” she said sadly, “just give me some time to get things settled. We’ll meet back here in an hour.”

“You might want to leave sooner than that,” Bender said, motioning towards the window. They could see Zapp crossing the street towards the building, a troop of soldiers behind him.

The trio ducked under the conference table to watch from a more hidden position, and saw that they had begun using a battering ram on the unlocked front door. Leela grabbed the ship’s keys from the table as they sprinted to the hanger and hit a button on the key ring. The ship’s stairs descended with a pair of beeps and flash of the headlights, and a few seconds later they were leaving the atmosphere.

“That way!” Fry pointed, vaguely in the direction of Saturn, visibly losing himself to his premonitions. Leela turned the ship and gunned the accelerator.

“I think we should have lost them,” Leela said as they left the solar system. “It’ll take them days to track us down, maybe a week if they didn’t pick up our trajectory when we left Earth.”

“So that means we’re scot-free, right?” Bender asked, lighting a cigar.

“I doubt it,” Leela answered. She glanced at Fry, who was absently looking around the bridge, his eyes glazed. He sat there for several minutes, longer than Leela had ever seen him do nothing for before. She was just about to get up to see if he was alright when he seemed to wake from his state.

“Guys,” Fry said, “I know what we have to do.”

------------

Hermes tucked the folded pages of the New New York Times business, crime, and general naughtiness section under his arm and strolled out of the restroom. There had been a somewhat entertaining article on purging yourself of any sense of moral decency, but it was just the same stuff they’d been teaching the upper-middleclass in universities since the Stupid Ages. On a much higher note, the S&P 5,000,000 had hit 486,000, and the Nasdaquiri was up 53 points. His investments had been wise, as always, and he was off to celebrate. However, as he hummed a down-home voodoo tune walking through the conference room, he felt that something wasn’t quite right. They didn’t have any more deliveries this week, yet he saw that the ship was gone. He groaned to himself; it looked like the crew had decided to commandeer company property for personal use again. Upon further examination, he noticed that the front door was ajar, and someone had scrawled “Kilroy was here” on the wall. He spied a red crustacean lurking in the corner of the room, and his face hardened into a scowl.

“What happened here?” Hermes demanded.

Zoidberg whimpered at the bureaucrat’s menacing tone before uttering a response. “We were attacked by the Scots! There were many men in skirts, why not, and friends Fry, Leela, and Bender took the ship to escape. They must have wanted to apprehend Fry for his treason against their country!”

“What?” the Professor yelled, walking into the room, Amy following behind him, pulling pieces of green gunk off her sweat suit. “They can’t just take the ship without permission! They have to sit around, talk about what they’re going to do in front of the rest of us who don’t even care, and then take the ship without permission.”

“Is it that big of a difference, then?” Amy asked.

“No, not really,” the professor responded calmly, “but it’s more polite for them to act like we could get involved if we wanted to.” He then turned on the giant telescreen and patched through to the Planet Express Ship. Leela was seated with her back to the pilot’s console talking to Fry, who was sitting in the navigator’s seat. Bender was in the back corner not paying much attention.

“…but first we should turn off all of our communications equipment so they can‘t get a lock on our posi-” Leela cut herself off on noticing that the communication screen had descended behind her. “Great.” She said, and turned to face the screen.

“What the hell are you doing with my ship?” the Professor fumed.

“Fry’s ability to see the future got out,” Leela answered.

“It was awesome!” Fry said. “They were all like ‘We’re gonna get you!’ and we were like ‘Nuh-uh.’ and then we ran and Leela flew the ship and it was all ‘Fscheeewww fooooooo foom!’ and I was seeing what we should do next in the future and-”

“Fry! You’ve been trying to see the future?” the Professor said, shocked.

“Well, yeah,” Fry said. “That’s what you do when you can see the future, right?”

“You fool! If you probe too much into the future, your quantum pilot wave could become entangled with matter in a different temporal state than your own. The causal paradox could rip a hole in the space-time continuum, dooming the universe to terrors we can‘t even imagine!” The crew gasped.

“I told you this was dangerous!” Leela said, turning off the communicator.

“You know, if you were looking into the future,” Bender postulated, “couldn’t you have seen that that conversation was going to happen?”

“I dunno,” Fry said, “I just knew he was going to tell us something important, I didn’t know what he was gonna say. Besides, we’ve got what I already saw. Bender, you’re still going to try and stop Nixon, and Leela and I are still going to go into hiding.”

“So why do I get the hard job again?” Bender asked.

“Because Fry needs someone to protect him, not someone who’ll put up flyers trying to sell his legs.”

“It was his arms, thank you very much. Legs probably would‘ve been a better idea, though, he’s had them cut up fewer times.”

Leela sighed. “How much longer ‘til we get to Kusanagi Three?”

------------

“Now gentlemen,” President Nixon’s head said, sitting on his desk in the Oval Office, “as we all know, elections are coming up, and I need to know the straight facts about what I should do.”

“Well,” one of the half-dozen advisors he was addressing responded, “you seem to have lost the robot vote since that fiasco in the Galapagos, but you did pick up some of the extreme environmentalists. So basically, your chances of reelection are nonexistent.”

“I wasn’t asking you, damn it,” Nixon gruffed. “I was going to tell you that I’ve found a way to make sure I stay in office, a way to make sure of everything.” A tiny mechanical arm reached out from the side of Nixon’s jar and pressed a button on the desk. A holograph appeared in the middle of the table of Philip J. Fry. “This man can predict the future.” His small audience stared in awe at the ordinary-looking young man, several denying it was true.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Nixon said, “but I have it on the word of Captain Zapp Brannigan that he’s the real deal, and it’s been verified with his ship’s records. With him under my control, I could rule the whole damned universe, and I’d never have to worry about losing my power.” Nixon paused to let what he’d said sink in, until the silence was broken by the ring of a telephone. He switched the hologram to show the bridge of the Nimbus, Zapp’s bloated form filling the screen.

“So, you’ve acquired the objective?” Nixon asked him.

“Not exactly,” Zapp responded.

“Is there a problem?” Nixon asked, becoming suspicious.

“Well, they sort of got away,” Zapp said, putting the last two words in finger-quotes.

“What do you mean they got away?” Nixon yelled as Zapp began squirming uncomfortably. He began to speak, but was cut off by the President. “I don’t care what excuses you have! Get more ships, more men, whatever you need, just make sure you find him, damn it!”

“So,” one of the advisors said after Nixon turned off the hologram, “do you want us to put the plumbers on speed dial just in case?”

“Aroo,” the President replied sadly.

------------

Kusanagi Three drifted slowly out of sight behind the Planet Express Ship, Bender now alone at the helm. He was still perturbed about having to take the hard end of the job, and now he didn’t even have Fry to push around anymore when he got bored. And, contrary to what Leela would have people believe, flying a spaceship is very boring most of the time. What could he do to entertain himself? With sudden inspiration, Bender turned around and started huffing and puffing, twisting his arms around rapidly. He turned back and set his creation on the command console: a balloon animal. He looked over it, smiling emptily, until his brow shifted to and his smile became one of sadness as the balloon animal began to deflate.

“Aw,” Bender mumbled disappointedly, his shoulders slumping along with the balloons, and his torso falling forward against the steering wheel. “No booze to drink, no meat bags to exploit, what the hell am I supposed to do?” He changed to a mocking tone. “‘Go back to Earth, Bender.’ ‘Maybe you can get in their way, Bender.’ Yeah, great idea.” He sat back, and began reprocessing data to try and find something to stave off the boredom.

“Wait a minute,” he said to himself after several minutes, “if Fry can see the future, and he told me to do something because of it, it would be to trigger my response to it. That means my actions are already determined. So basically, I can do whatever the hell I want and it’ll still be the right thing to do! Bender, you’re a genius!” The robot promptly disabled the autopilot and began searching for nearby systems with notoriously laissez-faire law enforcement.

------------

Fry and Leela watched the Planet Express Ship fly out of sight before leaving the landing pad. They merged into the bustling crowd of the spaceport, struggling to stay together in the crowded mass of humanity. Looking around for some sign as to where they should go, Leela noticed that large robotic sentinels were positioned at strategic locations across the entire area. Even more strangely, they were the only robots; only humans were doing any labor around the ships. Shrugging it off, she pulled Fry away from a dog meat vendor and led him around until they got to the department of immigration.

After several hours of waiting, they finally were able to see an immigration officer. The only remarkable thing about him was that both of his arms and his right eye were cybernetic. Leela sat in the single chair across the desk from him, and Fry stood beside her.

“So, what is the nature of your immigration to Kusanagi Three?” he asked, speaking with the accent of someone accustomed to privilege.

“We’re just looking for work,” Leela replied.

“Yes, now is this a permanent move, or just a temporary arrangement?”

“We don’t know how long we’ll be staying exactly, but we hope to be leaving in a few months if everything works out.”

“Very well then. You will need to file these immigration forms, as well as the career and housing assignment papers. The human will have to have a job assigned by Multivac, naturally, but we could arrange he stay with you to continue serving you outside of working hours if you desire.”

“Now wait a minute,” Leela replied hotly, “Fry isn’t my-”

“Ma’am, you may not be aware, but cyborg - human interaction is heavily regulated by Multivac,” The officer interjected, his tone growing colder. “Because you are traveling together, I should hope that he is your servant.” Leela unconsciously reached up and touched one of her robotic ears, realizing what was going on. She wasn’t sure whether she should praise or curse them in their current situation.

“Well then yes, I’d like Fry to stay with me,” Leela said. The officer handed them a set of forms to fill out, and took them back when they had finished. He turned around to the wall behind him, where there was a slot marked ‘In box,’ another marked ‘Out box,’ and a crank arm labeled ‘Jack-in-the-box.’ He fed the forms into the ‘in’ slot, and then began turning the crank. It played a clunky rendition of Pop Goes the Weasel until two slips of paper came out of the ‘out’ slot, which he took and handed to Leela

Leela grunted as she looked over the papers. She had been assigned as a cargo supervisor in the spaceport, and Fry had a factory job. It also gave the address of their new residence, somewhere near the edge of the city.

------------

When they arrived, they found a moderately sized town home that resembled something designed by Mansart, if he had been fond of metallic whites and blues with large solid-pane windows. Leela thought it looked sterile. She and Fry walked up to the front door, and rang the doorbell.

“Oh, you must be the new tenant,” the woman who answered the door said. She was a cyborg as well, with replacements for her legs, right arm, and left eye. “Hi, I’m Clarice.”

“I’m Laura Petrie,” Leela said, “and this is my servant, Rob.”

“Charmed,” Clarice said. “Now, I guess Rob can go down to the servant’s quarters while I show you to your apartment.”

“If it’s all the same, I’d like him to come to my room first so he can take care of some things.” Clarice eyed Leela suspiciously, to which Leela donned a fake smile, letting out a nervous “Heheheh.” Apparently it was convincingly innocent, as Clarice simply turned and led them inside.

------------

After taking them upstairs to the third floor, Clarice gave Leela the room key and left them at the door to the apartment. They walked inside, and Leela closed the door, locking it behind her. She waited until she was sure Clarice was far enough away before she spoke. “Really Fry, Rob and Laura Petrie? I don’t even know why I let you pick our names in the first place.”

“They’re great undercover names,” Fry said.

“Well I guess we’re just lucky that servants take the names of their masters here.”

“Speaking of servants, what kinds of services will I be providing for you?” Fry asked, his lounge-lizard impersonation in full effect.

“Not now Fry,” Leela sighed. “Besides, you know what they said about human-cyborg relations here. It’s like they’d never even heard of Dred Scott.”

“Not even just a date?” Fry begged.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t risk doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. Now you should probably get down to the servants’ quarters before anyone suspects something. I’ll see you at dinner.”

------------

Fry opened the kitchen door slowly, and peered inside. The servant’s quarters only had accommodations for one, so, unless he was sharing a bed, he wasn’t expecting any new faces to greet him. However, this also meant that he was now in charge of cooking Leela and Clarices’s dinner all by himself. He looked around the room and inspected some of the meticulously polished cookware. As someone who had never used any cooking apparatus more or less complicated than a microwave, Fry was at a loss for what to do. He pressed a button on the wall, and screamed as a jet of steam shot from the countertop and knocked him backwards. Fry pulled himself to his feet and looked back at the countertop.

“Ha! It’ll take more than a shower to take down Phillip J. Fr-aigh!” he said, slipping on the now-condensed steam.

-----------

Leela brushed her dress behind her and sat down quietly across the dining room table from Clarice. She usually wasn’t very comfortable around people she didn’t know very well and the fact that Clarice’s eye felt as if it were recording her every movement didn’t help.

“So,” Clarice said, trying to break the uneasy silence, “what brought you to Kusanagi Three?”

“I’m really not sure,” Leela said, not quite untruthfully, “it just seemed like the right place to be.”

“Oh believe me, it is,” Clarice said with a flap of her wrist. “Multivac’s got everything planned out perfectly. I’m surprised more planets aren’t building their own.”

“It doesn’t seem like people have the most perfect lives here,” Leela muttered, almost to herself.

“They’re human, what do you expect?” Clarice said. “Simple pleasures, a menial job to make them feel useful, it’s enough to keep them happy. A good life for us and a good life for them are completely different.”

Leela did her best to keep from scowling, and fortunately a distraction arrived in the form of Fry bringing in their dinner. His clothes were stained and he looked like he’d stuck his head in a blast furnace, but the food didn’t look all that bad. He set several plates of food down in front of Clarice, and then Leela, who gave him an appreciative smile. He smiled back, and ducked out of the room.

“Well,” Leela said, striking the conversation back up once Fry had left, “I guess it’s just hard for me to see how we’re really that different from humans sometimes.”

“It’s all about perspective!” Clarice said. “Humans are perfectly content with who they are, the way things are, to keep themselves unaltered. You and I, however, we know the value of self-improvement. That attitude carries over to our thinking as well. Humans would just hold things back if they were doing anything where they had to think, they just don’t go about it the right way.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s it,” Leela said, though she obviously didn’t agree. Fortunately Clarice was too caught up in her fervor to notice.
km73

Space Pope
****
« Reply #119 on: 01-14-2008 10:41 »

 
Quote
(new stuff!!)

New to some people...
But hmm, intriguing. So you've obliterated the Irish family. I definitely can't wait to see what direction you're going to take this in now. Bad (and probably hilarious) things have to be on the horizon now, with Nixon and cyborgs involved...
As JN says, you're just a master of funny. But you already know that... Keep it up and don't worry about taking too much time.

By the way, you forgot to italicize "then" in the line "then take the ship without permission".  :p
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