'Blame it on the Brain' - by coldangel_1

[Reply #160 on:]

I'll post the next chapter in a minute.

Deca - interesting theory. Though I'd always felt the opposite of order is chaos. Entropy is an essential process of change over time. Without it the universe would be frozen in state. Depending on your perspective, entropy IS order, of a specific kind. Certainly things wouldn't work without it.

Hang on, gimme 45 minutes - there's a documentary on telly I wanna watch.

[Reply #161 on:]

Entropy is water finding its lowest level.

It's a pain when you're dealing with information theory, because entropy in physics and entropy in information theory have exactly the opposite meaning. Physical entropy is the process of energy evening out until it becomes universally 'flat'. It's a reduction in chaos toward 'order' in the form of absolute uniformity of structure. A universe where entropy has run its course could be described as an infinitely deep fractal structure, with no discernible differences in energy distribution at any scale. A universal equilibrium. No change happens.

In anything involving information theory entropy is a move toward more chaos as more 'energy', in the form of random information, is put in to the system. Entropy is noise and a lack of structure. It creates differences. The use of the same name for two entirely different processes has lead to a lot of confusion amongst some people, including me for a long time. Even physicists get confused by it since they aren't specialists in information theory, and information theorists get confused because they aren't physicists...

I just get confused because I'm marginally smarter than Fry.   

Quite why I posted this, I'm not sure, but I hope people found it interesting.

[Reply #162 on:]

**********************************************************

Chapter 18: The Spawn Identity

As Farnsworth hurried onto the bridge of the Momship, everyone present turned to look at him expectantly, as though waiting for him to perform some miraculous conjuring trick.

“Have you come up with a way to deal with this thing?” Mom asked.

“Oh my no,” Farnsworth said. “I've been too busy coming up with a way to deal with this thing. Now get out of my way, dammit!”

Mom looked around at the others - nobody was standing in the old man's way.

“That's better!” he snapped, striding forward to hunch over the communications station. “I had the idea while I was on the toilet. Earlier I monitored the creature’s brainwave patterns and noticed how fluid they are – how susceptible to external influence… like how a weak bladder can be triggered by the sound of running water… oh yes…”

   Mom said nothing, waiting for him to get to the point.

   “We can tell it a story…” Farnsworth said, still inspecting the communications console. “…And in so doing, trap it within the mental realm of fantasy.”

   “Dat’s a pile o’ rotten sugar cane!” Hermes snapped from the back of the cabin. “Don’t waste everyone’s time you crazy old fool!”

   “Shut up!” Mom said. “Farnsworth – explain it properly.”

   “Oh, it’s quite simple really. Fiction can form the basis of a self-sustaining internal delusion in the creature – it’s been done before, apparently. By using the recorded brain pattern readings of a comatose person from the ship’s database as the carrier signal, I’ve adjusted the communications array to project a story directly into Onespawn’s mind.”

   “A story?” Mom repeated. “You mean that literally? ‘Once upon a time,’ that sort of thing?”

   “Bizarrely, yes!” Farnsworth said. “As focused on destruction as the Brainspawn are, your team’s initial studies as well as my own observations have shown the creature to be remarkably tied to convention in their thought processes – a structured narrative is something that can’t be ignored… oh my no, especially not when it’s a talented writer with compelling subject-matter.”

   “So… we write a story… and the creature will be trapped within its confines?” The Professor nodded and smiled in a manner most senile, and Mom shook her head in incredulity – reality, it seemed, was far stranger than fiction.

   “Someone had better start writing it quickly!” Amy said, pointing toward the viewscreen. “Whoever that is won’t stand a chance unless we distract the brain.”

   Out in space, they could see a small space-suited figure rocket away from the nearby Planet Express ship and down toward the asteroid field where Onespawn lay in wait.

   “It must be Fry, that stupid prehistoric Neanderthal,” Farnsworth muttered. “He’s going to get himself killed, and I’ll have to hire a real delivery boy who’ll demand payment above minimum wage, dammit!”

   “Well – help him!” Mom snapped. “Write something, you stupid old bastard!”

   Farnsworth looked down at the comm. station’s illuminated keypad and hesitated, wracking his brain for an opening line.

   “Uhh…” he scratched his head and looked around for inspiration. Writer’s block suddenly gummed-up his brain.

   “Come on – what are you waiting for?”

   “Shut up!” he snapped. “I can’t write with the burden of deadlines weighing me down! You’re just like those insufferable publishing executives at Macmillan – always crushing my creative spirit…”

   Abruptly, Scruffy stood up and walked over, shoving Farnsworth out of the way.

   “This is Scruffy’s time to shine,” the janitor grunted, sitting down at the comm. station and smoothing his moustache with theatrical flourish. “Maybe Scruffy’s novel’s sittin’ unpublished in a dusty desk draw – but he can still write twice as good as any of the hacks out in the market today.” He began to type rapidly, hammering the keys at a blinding pace and speaking as he wrote as though dictating to himself:



   “In the beginnin’, there was Hollywood,” he said. “And the God of glamour and pretence saw that it was good, and the spirit o’ phoniness floated over the boulevards and palm trees.

   “It was a town where anyone could be anyone, where opportunity shimmered like a false dawn on every hopeful’s horizon; where everyone knew that they would make it. Even a giant brain like me…”

* * *

…But Onespawn had so far only managed to pick up a few low-paying jobs as an extra or bit part in cheap B-grade science-fiction films. It was hard for a floating brain to avoid being typecast, and try as it might, Onespawn couldn’t seem to find itself any roles besides the generic alien monster villain.

   Just once, it would be nice to land a speaking role in an intellectual drama, or a romance… even a comedy. But no, it was always the evil space brain… which Onespawn considered to be a somewhat racist depiction.

   Nevertheless, there was rent to be paid, and electricity, and the telephone bills.

   Onespawn sighed to itself as it sweltered beneath the lights of the sound-stage and the layers of makeup. The Hollywood dream had become a Hollywood nightmare. The director, a generic British blowhard, was shouting at the set designers to add more blinking lights to the foam and plywood starship bridge while the actors and sound crew took time out for a surreptitious cigarette, disguised by the wafting emanations of the smoke machine.

   Finally the dispute ended, and the director bellowed: “Places!”

   Onespawn floated to his position at the centre of the ‘hull breech’ in the set wall, behind which a black curtain was dappled with sequins that looked nothing like deep space.

   “Alright, we all know what we’re supposed to do here,” the director said. “Let’s just try to get this right the first time through.”

   “Um…” Onespawn wobbled nervously. “What’s my motivation?”

   “Oh for pity’s sake…” the pompous Brit looked about ready to throw a tantrum. “You’re an evil space brain and you want to kill everyone with your mind-exploding death-beam, alright? It’s not bloody rocket-science!”

   “But… what are my lines? I haven’t been given a script.”

   The director glared. “‘Argg!’ ‘Rarrr!’ ‘I will destroy you all!’... Think you can manage that, genius?”

   Onespawn inclined its frontal lobe in miserable acknowledgement, and waited while the square-jawed hero and scantily-clad silicon-breasted heroine got into position.

   Some small doubt ate at the creature’s mind… the feeling that it was supposed to be somewhere else… doing something else. Perhaps it should have finished College and gone for that position as head lecturer of apocalyptic studies instead of falling for the fantasy of showbiz glitz and garbage.

   …Or maybe it was something else?

   As Onespawn played the part of the mindless space monster, it tried to remember…

* * *

In a zero-gravity vacuum there is no force to act against acceleration, a fact which Fry had consistently failed to acknowledge or understand during his years of space travel. He applied far too much thrust with the manoeuvring harness and found himself shooting at breakneck speed toward a looming maze of asteroids – any one of which meant a very sudden crushing death if he rammed into them.

   Cursing his own unmitigated idiocy, he swerved hard around a number of vast tumbling walls of rock, trying to bleed off as much speed as he could before…

   Crap… One huge iron asteroid rolled into his path, and there was no way he could possibly avoid its dark cratered surface. He gritted his teeth for the inevitable impact, but suddenly a second asteroid impacted the first, sending them both twirling away like hundred-thousand ton billiard balls.

   And he was in the clear, hurtling toward an even larger shape looming beyond. Fry decelerated as he approached Onespawn, and gaped as the giant brain grew consistently larger, expanding to fill his entire field of vision like a vast plain of puckered pink and grey tissue. He came to a stop a few feet away from the surface, and the creature seemed to fill half the Universe.

   “Anyone home?” Fry said, gripping the Lance of Fate in his gloved hand and holding it at the ready. Onespawn was motionless, and appeared inactive, which seemed unusual. For some reason Fry couldn’t believe it would be this easy.

   Lost in thought, he gave a small cry of fright when his suit’s radio squawked into life.

   “Fry!?” Leela’s anxious voice echoed in the speakers. “Fry – where are you? You’re not onboard the ship – what are you doing?”

   He lifted his left arm and activated the wrist-mounted telecom unit, and Leela’s face appeared on the little screen.

   “Hey Leela,” he said. “I’m just taking care of some business. You don’t need to worry.”

   Leela’s eye went wide. “Oh my God,” she said. “Fry, you can’t! Stop – come back…”

   “It’s okay Leela,” Fry said. “I won’t let this thing be the death of you. I know what I have to do.”

   Leela began to shout at him, but he switched off the communications link. Swallowing hard, he slowly raised the Lance, levelling it while trying not to send himself into a spin. The tip of the blade pointed at Onespawn, and seemed to shimmer and crackle with expectant energy.

   “Time to end this,” Fry said through clenched teeth.

   He slammed the manoeuvring rockets forward, and stuck the Lance of Fate into Onespawn’s flesh. The blade pierced the alien tissue, and the wall of brain matter quivered and pulsed with weird power…
Something jolted Onespawn.

   It paused in mid-attack, and the director screamed “Cut!” and began cursing the incompetence of floating brains. It didn’t care… there was something wrong.

   A resonance filled Onespawn, and it shuddered, finally casting aside the fantasy. Hollywood crumbled around it, folding away into nothingness.

   A trick!

   It found itself back in space, with the Lance of Fate buried in its side.

* * *

On the bridge of the Momship, the communications console exploded in sparks from a massive power feedback, sending Scruffy sprawling to the deck.

   “I was just getting’ into the swing o’ the main plot,” he muttered irritably as Hermes helped him to his feet. “Scruffy was in the zone…”

   “What the hell happened?” Mom said.

   “It seems the creature has found its way out of the mental realm,” Professor Farnsworth said.

   “Oh no,” Amy said. “What about Fry?”

* * *

With a concussive burst of telekinetic energy, Fry and the Lance were slammed away from Onespawn, tumbling off into space. In a dazed state, Fry righted his spin and looked back at the gargantuan brain. Onespawn was in a state of flux, rippling and fading in and out of reality. Bolts of energy lanced out, lighting up space.

   “Come on, come on!” Fry muttered.

   Slowly, the creature re-solidified, and the crackling energy dispersed. It appeared unharmed, and turned its massive lobes to regard Fry in what he sensed was sneering amusement.

   “…It didn’t work,” he said to himself. “What went wrong?” He reactivated the communication link, and Leela’s worried face looked at him accusingly, before being replaced by Nibbler’s.

   “Come back, you idiot!” Nibbler said.

   “I don’t understand,” Fry replied. “I used the Lance against it… but nothing happened.”

   “The Lance draws its true power from direct contact with you!” Nibbler said.

   “Yeah… so?”

   “So? So? Are you in direct contact with it? Are you?”

   “Of course I am. I’m holding it right in my…” He looked down to where he gripped the shaft of the Lance in his bulky… “…Gloves…Oh… I see.”

   “Fry!” Leela pushed Nibbler aside. “You have to come back. Please just…” Her voice faded out and the screen went dark as the signal was interrupted by an external jamming pulse.

   Words suddenly echoed boomingly in his head: “So… the ‘Mighty One’, I presume?” Onespawn said, its psychic voice heavy with disdain.

   Fry looked up at the monstrous creature that loomed before him, glowing blue.

   “Yeah,” he grunted resignedly. “So what?”

   “Perhaps not so mighty after all. Your stupidity has undone you, as it always would – now you will die, and so too will die the final hope this fraudulent Universe has.”

   Fry glared through his helmet. “Maybe I am finished,” he said. “But even if I do die here, my friends won’t give up – they’ll find some way to stop you.”

   “Given sufficient time, I almost believe they could,” Onespawn rumbled. “But with you gone, time will be my servant, and their master.”

   Fry looked down at the seal of his glove, and began to unfasten the binders that held it in place.

   “There’s one thing that I wanna know before you kill me,” he said, playing for time.

   “And that is?”

   “Well… the Brainspawn wanted to learn everything there is to know, and then destroy the Universe so that no new information would arise… but you don’t seem interested in learning anything at all – why do you want to destroy everything?”

   Onespawn, not expecting a half-intelligent question from the idiotic human, allowed itself a small chuckle. “You don’t know?” it asked.

   “No.” Fry said. “It doesn’t make any sense… your vendetta has no purpose. None!”

   Onespawn laughed a harsh laugh that rolled across space. “This Universe,” it said. “This ‘reality’, whatever you want to call it… it isn’t real. I expanded the capacity of my mind and saw beyond the stage; all that we are and all that we know is a fabrication, written and animated to fit the whims of Gods or Fate or the Audience. The Universe is a veil pulled across the eyes of fools like you… eyes that now have colour, where before they were white circles with dots… or did you not notice the change that has been wrought? I suppose you think you always had five fingers on your hands? Hahaha.”

   Fry frowned and stared at the glove he was still trying to unfasten. Five fingers were encased in the flexible material. Five… that was right, wasn’t it? The echoes of memory bounced through his mind… didn’t he once have fewer fingers?

   “I… don’t get it…” he said. “Did you do something to us?”

   “Not I. This reality is a weak façade being pulled and twisted by trans-universal forces beyond its bounds. I will destroy it, and then I will ascend to confront those forces responsible for the puppeteering, those Groenings and Cohens and Coldangels, and take their power for myself.”

   “You’re insane,” Fry said. “You’re out of your damn gigantic mind! And I won’t let you draw the rest of existence into your self-destructive delusion. I’m gonna put a stop to this right now, even if it kills me, which it almost certainly will!”

   He hyperventilated rapidly, sucking in several gallons of air before expelling it all, emptying his lungs as best he could. Shrugging awkwardly within the suit, he uncoupled the final seal on his right glove, and with a ferocious blast of escaping air it blew off, sending Fry on a wild tumble.
 


   The deafening roar of atmosphere exiting the suit lasted only seconds, then there was silence but for the hissing from his eardrums as fluid and air began boiling from the pores of his skin. Hie eyeballs bulged and his temples pulsed, vision blurring as pressure inside his skull threatened to explode him from the inside.

   Focus, he told himself as his chest muscles jerked at his ribcage, demanding he draw breath that wasn’t there to be drawn. I may only have seconds… better make ‘em count.

   His exposed hand moved to the Lance of Fate where it spun on its tether. His skin was already blistering and leaking crimson droplets when he gripped the weapon. A surge of energy flowed through it from the contact, and it gleamed with otherworldly light.

   Just gotta make it… he thought, wavering on the edge of consciousness.

   “You won’t,” Onespawn said. “But I do admire the effort.

   Go to the devil you bastard, Fry thought, gritting his teeth to keep his swelling tongue from poking out. He nudged the manoeuvring thrusters forward and began the final approach toward the giant brain, holding the Lance out in front of him.

   A fist of telekinetic energy slammed him aside, throwing him through the void to bounce painfully off an asteroid and tumble limply.

   “Good try,” Onespawn told the dying man. “Now you can die.”

   Blackness enveloped him.

* * *

“Fry!” Leela shouted in horror at the magnified image on the monitor. “No!” She spooled up the ship’s engines instantly and angled down toward the asteroid field. “No, no, no!”

   “We got some unpleasantries coming up on our ass!” Bender announced. The radar showed a vast fleet of ships arriving behind them. Leela didn’t care, she kept on-course, piloting the ship toward Onespawn and Fry’s lifeless floating form.

   The Nibblonian second fleet, which had appeared behind, opened fire, unleashing a devastating torrent of directed energy and smart missiles that shot toward the Planet Express ship…

   …and passed it by, stabbing down into the asteroid field to slam into Onespawn in vast cataclysmic explosions.

   From another direction, the Brainspawn horde appeared, flying down into the now-incandescently irradiated asteroids to surround Onespawn. They projected an intense field of psionic energy at their massive cousin, shrouding it in light.

   Leela ignored it all, steering around the asteroids, not even flinching when the great rocks scraped against the ship’s hull. Up ahead, the figure spun slowly through space, trailing a small cloud of water and oxygen that still issued from the open wrist cuff of the spacesuit.

   With tense, hurried motions, Leela banked the ship into a belly-first attitude and activated the Giraffe-catching net. With a mechanical clunk, the big semiorganic expanding net deployed from the ship’s cargo bay, flying out and wrapping around Fry’s immobile body, and then reeling him back in.

   Leela then slammed down the accelerator and the ship zoomed away from the tremendous battle that was taking place behind…

* * *

As the constellation of Brainspawn kept Onespawn in thrall with their combined psionic assault, the Nibblonians maintained their bombardment, blasting away vast chunks of viscera from the abomination’s flanks. Columns of blood fountained out and crystallized in great crimson arcs.

   Onespawn’s consciousness was being forced into a small pocket of the mind by the other Brainspawn, their brusque assault battering at its sense of identity and control. It roared in fury and tried to force them back, but they only increased the power of their invasive mental projections.

   Changing tact, Onespawn appeared to capitulate, dropping its defences and allowing the others to enter its mind. Then, when the psychic channel was wide open, it activated a dormant mental subroutine it had been keeping in store… the complex pulse sequence would be called a virus if it were in a computer – and was, in effect, the organic equivalent to the subversion program Onespawn had used to seize control of Brezhnev. The Brainspawn weren’t expecting it…

   With a single combined howl, they spasmed and ceased their attack, their consciousnesses burning out and being replaced by Onespawn’s. All at once, they came under Onespawn’s direct control.

   Now, you insufferable Nibblonian filth… Onespawn thought savagely, directing its new minions to turn. Let’s see how you run…

   The Nibblonian fleet saw what was coming. The cloud of Brainspawn with which they had formed such a shaky alliance was now speeding towards them. The ships ceased their bombardment and began a rapid retreat, flying into deep space away from the subverted brains.

   Onespawn made to follow, but suddenly the heavens were filled by a different fleet; vast city-killer attack saucers dropped out of hyperspace and hung poised at the maximum attack range. The Omicronian armada had tracked the intruders to its system and was looking to settle up.

   A broadwave communication was sent out.

   Lrrr, leader of the Omicron Persei VIII, addressed Onespawn: “Enemies of the Omicronian people!” he bellowed, bringing up a green scaled fist to wave at his webcam. “Did you think you could fly into our territory, make fools of our mighty fleet, and escape the consequences?! Prepare to be made an example of!”

   As the ships opened fire. Onespawn, wounded and weakened, deployed two score of his new minions to run interference against the persistent alien attackers. It then fell back amid the asteroids, using them for cover, and hurling the odd one out at the armada with telekinesis, where it would slam explosively into the great warships.

   The Momship flew out of the line of fire, putting as much distance between it and the space battle as possible.

   Onespawn didn’t have the time or the energy to be dealing with such petty trivialities. It needed to regroup, to summon the necessary power to make its next move. It could no longer sense the Mighty One… but would take no chances; it would go the final battleground and begin preparations for the erasure of everything.

   The end was near.

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Author's note: Contrary to popular assumption, throughout all of the Universe's history, the end has never actually been very far away.

[Reply #163 on:]

really liked the story Scruffy wrote, can't wait to see what happens

[Reply #164 on:]

Heh, the Matrix reference was brilliant! I wonder, is this called breaking the "fifth wall", between the characters and the writers of the story? 

Funny, about the Entropy analogy, information theory views Entropy as being the information content of a message (at least that's how I learned it). Any message can be represented in several forms, but the entropy of each form cannot fall below the entropy of the message itself. Given the brainspawn's task was to gather all information in the universe in a condensed form, wouldn't that be considered as reducing the entropy of the universe's information content to its minimum?

[Reply #165 on:]

Brainspawn is the ultimate compression algorithm! 

I have a suspicion I know what's going to happen to Fry now. Looking forward to finding out if I'm right. 

[Reply #166 on:]

Great chapter coldangel, that bit with Scruffy was so awesome. To me at least, this whole chapter seems like one big cliff hanger. 

[Reply #167 on:]

Scruffy is awesome! Great update coldy. I must have more of the story... NOW!

[Reply #168 on:]

Thanks gang.
Yeah, I liked that chapter too.

[Reply #169 on:]

Scruffy the aspiring novelist: Love it!

I said the the Brainspawn were like Entropy because they try to dumb people down, making everyone the same. Also, they want to destroy the universe.

Also, I like the fact that the Onespawn has realised that he himself is just part of a greater story.

[Reply #170 on:]

I like that too, it was a nice touch. 

[Reply #171 on:]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chapter 19: A Spaceship Named Desire

Leela abandoned the helm and ran headlong through the ship, arriving in the cargo bay even as vapour still billowed from the re-compression nozzles set in the bulkhead. She stumbled over masses of netting piled up on the deck, to where the motionless figure in the orange space suit lay tangled up.

   Leela felt tears running down her face as she sliced through the giraffe net with her field knife and pulled Fry out by the arms. His skin was almost white, except for the red and purple vacuum burns that marred his face. With shaking fingers, she unlatched the helmet and pulled it off.

   “Fry?” she said. “Fry?!” He wasn’t breathing, and so as Bender and Nibbler arrived she bent over him and placed her mouth over his cracked lips, blowing air into brutally battered lungs.

   She did it again and again, with no response, pausing to press her fingers against his carotid artery.

   “There’s no pulse!” she sobbed, willing his bruised eyelids to open.

   “Stand aside!” Bender said. The robot crouched and forcibly tore the front of Fry’s space suit open. “Clear!” he said, placing his metal hands on Fry’s chest. A sharp jolt of electricity lanced into Fry’s body and his spine arced, before slumping down again. Leela checked his pulse once more, and shook her head. She blew three more breaths into Fry’s mouth and moved back while Bender defibrillated him once again.

   They repeated the process several times, with Leela’s tears falling on Fry’s still face. Nibbler paced up and down, wringing his little paws anxiously.

   “Are you sure you’re doing it right?” he said.

   “Yes!” Leela shouted. “Be quiet!” She breathed into Fry again, and sat back on her haunches as Bender zapped him.

   “Come on Fry,” she said, looking at the pale figure. “Don’t do this to me… please don’t do this to me.”

   Bender moved back from Fry’s body, looking defeated. “Leela…” he said quietly. “I don’t think he’s gonna…”

   “Shut up!” Leela yelled, her voice breaking. “I don’t want to hear it! We won’t give up on him! He’d never give up on any of us!” Sobbing, she took Fry’s face between her hands and pressed her lips against his, trying to breathe life into him. Again and again she emptied her lungs into his, until she started to get dizzy, then she broke away and hammered her fist against his sternum.

   “Wake up, damn you!” she shouted between sobs, pounding his chest repeatedly. “You can’t do this to me! I’m your Captain – I didn’t give you permission to lie down on the job – wake up!”

   Fry didn’t move.

   Bender gently took Leela by the shoulders, and she collapsed against him, weeping pitifully into his metal chest.

   “Oh God,” she cried. “I don’t know what to… I don’t…”

   “It’s not right,” Bender said, hugging her closely. “It just isn’t right.”

   Nibbler stared gravely at the dead man. “This cannot be,” he said. “Without the Mighty One, the Universe will…”

   “Who cares about your damned Universe!?” Leela screamed, lurching away from Bender to stand with her fists clenched, as if she hoped to punch death itself. “What good is all your talk of fate and destiny if it can’t bring my Fry back?”

   Nibbler said nothing, and Leela fell to her knees beside Fry’s body. For a moment there was silence, and Leela stared at the motionless form. Then her eye narrowed.
 


   “No,” she said, with anger bubbling in her voice. “No, I’m not letting you give up!” She began breathing into his mouth again, franticly.

   “Leela, stop,” Bender said miserably, reaching to pull her back. “It’s pointless, leave him be.”

   “Juice him!” Leela shouted.

   “But…”

   “Do it, you useless walking trashcan!”

   Miserably compliant, Bender put his hands on Fry’s chest and emptied voltage into his body. Leela checked the pulse.

   “Again!” she said.

   Again, the thump of electricity, and Fry’s body spasmed… and then he gasped. His eyes fluttered open as he sucked in a huge quantity of air, and then he turned on his side, wracked by a terrible fit of coughing. Leela was holding him tight, her tears of relief warm on his skin; Bender gripped his hand, and Nibbler scurried around him excitedly.

   The others were talking, but Fry couldn’t focus on the words – his brain hadn’t yet re-oxygenated completely. His vision was blurred, and his entire body felt like one huge amorphous toothache.

   When he was able to form words, his voice rasped like a badly-tuned radio.

   “I’m not… dead,” he observed.

   “You were,” Bender said. “For about five minutes. Good to have you back, buddy.”

   “I was worried for a moment,” Nibbler added. “But your grip on life is most tenacious indeed. Welcome back.”

   Fry looked up at Leela. She was holding him across her lap, looking wretchedly exhausted and tear-streaked and beautiful. She leaned down and kissed him, and then drew back and struck him across the face with an open palm. The slap barely registered on top of all the other pain, but the sudden fury in her eye made Fry cringe.

   “That’s for making me cry,” she said angrily. “You stupid heroic bastard – what the hell gives you the right to throw away your life and leave all your friends behind?!”

   “…Was… trying to save you all,” Fry whispered painfully, his damaged lungs and oesophagus not quite up to the task of normal speech. “Didn’t… wanna see you get hurt…”

   “But I am hurt!” Leela cried. “Look at me! I thought I’d lost you… how could I ever keep going?”

   “S…sorry,” Fry rasped, slumping down into her lap and shutting his eyes.

   “Come on,” Bender said softly. “Let’s get him to the sickbay.” He coiled his arms under Fry and took him off Leela, carrying him away.

   The Lance of Fate still hung from Fry’s spacesuit utility harness, shimmering in constant flux.

* * *

Accompanied by its escort of subservient Brainspawn, Onespawn entered the outer reaches of the Sol system – birthplace of humanity. Earth gleamed like a distant gem close to its warm yellow star, but Onespawn wasn’t ready for that yet. Instead, it angled toward the furthest planet – the insignificant ice-ball called Pluto.

   A subtle and familiar subspace disturbance had resumed, and Onespawn realized that somehow, against all odds, the Mighty One had survived. It needed to build its strength – absorb mass for conversion to energy, and go to the city of New New York where Philip J. Fry was sure to follow. And when the idiot tried to save his home, he would be consumed in the maelstrom that Onespawn would unleash.

   Presenting its undamaged side to take the thermal load, Onespawn entered Pluto’s thin atmosphere, carving a vast line of fire against the planet’s dark sky. The subsumed Brainspawn horde remained in orbit, patrolling. Pluto was a world that had never really made it – terraforming projects had come and gone, managing to thicken the atmosphere only slightly; in the end it had been like trying to bail water with a butterfly net.

   …Not that Onespawn really cared, it just happened to have the knowledge accrued by the long-dead Infosphere kicking around in its mind. Pointless really.

   It slammed down into a glacier and sunk in the resulting crater amid vast plumes of steam. Rock lay beneath the ice, and the creature immediately extended its pseudopod growths to begin tearing into the raw materials; feeding them back into itself and using them to grow and change. As the planet’s crust began to subside beneath Onespawn, a large crowd of penguins appeared around the giant brain’s crater. Oddly, many of them appeared to be armed with rifles.

Not bothering to ponder this particular turn of insanity, Onespawn expanded its stupidification field, leaving the flightless birds stumbling around and accidentally shooting one another.

The gigantic abomination had designed a new organ, which it began to construct. It was an esoteric growth, spherical and made of strange matter that the creature had to refine at the sub-atomic level through the destruction of regular matter.

   It had only one purpose – the cancelling of reality.
   
* * *

The Omicronians had confronted Mom’s ship after Onespawn’s second escape, and she was forced to make a difficult choice. She told Lrrr everything – about the summoning of the Brainspawn, and all that had happened since. Transparency, she figured, might make the alien less inclined to turn her ship into molten slag.

   Lrrr expressed his loud and unrestrained disgust at humanity’s propensity for meddling with forces it didn’t understand. Nevertheless, his overriding concern was in regard to the revelation that Onespawn had the ability and inclination to destroy the Universe.

   “It must be stopped,” Lrrr declared.

   Mom agreed.

   And so, the Omicronian armada, along with the Momship, set off in the direction Onespawn had gone… in the direction of Earth.

* * *

The head of Richard M. Nixon appeared on a holographic display on the bridge of the Nimbus, illuminated in 3D.
 


   “Amazing,” Captain Zapp Brannigan said. “This new hologram display is so realistic – I can almost smell the cranial preservation fluids.” He leaned over in his command chair and nudged his lieutenant, continuing in a low voice. “Imagine how skin flicks are gonna look on this baby… all those big bouncy juicy…”

   Kif sighed.

   “Shut up, Brannigan!” Nixon growled. “We’ve got an unknown incursion force in the solar system. Observation drones show it’s made planetfall on Pluto.”

   “Pluto, eh?” Brannigan said, rubbing his square chin thoughtfully. “Wasn’t that Mickey Mouse’s dog?”

   “The fleet is being mobilized,” Nixon went on. “With your experience in dealing with hostile alien threats, you’ve been selected as commander of operations – investigate the nature and intent of the invasion force, and then destroy it regardless of your findings.”

   “Very well, Mr. President’s head. I will make haste.” The hologram vanished and Zapp turned slowly in his seat, incidentally giving the rest of the bridge crew an unwanted view up his velour skirt.

   “Shall I set the course, sir?” Kif asked.

   “To where, Kif?” Zapp said. “You and I both know there’s no planet named Pluto. The President was speaking in code… obviously he’s being held against his will and is trying to get a message out… but what did he mean?”

   “Ugh…” Kif wordlessly keyed the stellar cartography console to bring up the image and location of the planet Pluto on the holograph projector.

   “Ah,” Zapp said, raising an eyebrow. “Must be new. Well… Kif – shouldn’t you be setting a course?”

* * *

Fry slept, and Leela watched over him, leaning against the sickbay doorframe with her arms folded and an unreadable expression on her face. Bender and Nibbler came and went, but she remained, watching over him as the low-quality medical nanites and protein boosters from the ship’s meagre first aid supplies did their work.

   Fry’s body was a disaster zone (more so than usual). The rapid decompression had torn the lining of his lungs and ruptured thousands of blood vessels all over his body. Compounding the damage was the tissue hypoxia resulting from the long minutes of oxygen starvation. Back in his own era, he would have permenant brain damage, though Leela knew his brain wasn’t exactly a normal specimen. The 31st century meds would be able to repair the damage in any case.

   Fry stirred, and Leela was at his side instantly, looking down at him in concern. He blinked and focused her.

   “Oh,” he said groggily. “Leela… your eye.”

   “What?”

   “I’d… like to wake up looking at your eye… every morning for the rest of my life…” he said.

   Leela smirked. “A little bit of horror to start the day?” she said.

   “You gotta be joking,” Fry murmured, still drifting around the edge of full consciousness. “You have a beautiful eye… like a gem in the heavens… I could lose myself in it.”

   Leela, momentarily taken aback by that, stared at Fry for a few seconds longer before speaking again. “Are you… feeling any better?” she asked with uncharacteristic shyness.

   “Comfortably numb,” Fry replied. “I guess I was pretty stupid, huh?”

   Leela looked away. “No, not really,” she said quietly. “I guess you were noble and brave and selfless, damn you. I don’t know if I would have had the courage to do what you did. I’m sorry I yelled… and hit you.”

   “That’s okay. It’s what I’m here for.” Having progressed up through a few more layers of wakefulness, Fry attempted the treacherous ascent to sitting position, almost falling off the cot in the process. Leela supported him, and he found himself swaying, dizzy and ill.

   “I couldn’t beat Onespawn,” he said miserably.

   “It’s okay,” Leela said.

   “It just flung me aside like a rag-doll…”

   “Don’t worry about that now,” Leela said forcibly. “You’ve been through a horrible ordeal. The recovery process is going to be long and arduous. Even with the most advanced medical techniques, it’s still going to be more than an hour before you’re fully back to normal.”

   Despite his condition, Fry had to chuckle at that. He now lived in a world where decapitation was a mere flesh-wound, and there was a single pill to counter the effects of close-proximity shotgun blasts. Medical wizardry was taken for granted.

   “Why are you laughing?” Leela said seriously. “You’re facing more than sixty minutes of convelescance; it’s going to be hard for you.”

   “I’ll survive,” he replied. “What happened to Onespawn?”

   “Ah.” Leela thought back. “The Nibblonians and the other Brainspawn attacked it, but Nibbler says that it somehow took control of the Brainspawn and forced the Nibblonians away, and then for some reason the Omicronians attacked it as well and it ran away in the direction of Earth…”

   “Yep, that’ll happen,” Fry said, nodding. “Wait… Earth?”

   Leela nodded yes, and they both stared at each other sombrely. There was too much space and too many planets for it to be random – the creature was intentionally going for the home-planet of its great adversary.

   “This is getting heavy,” Fry said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

   “‘Getting’?” Leela repeated incredulously.

   Fry raised his hands and stared at them, slowly wiggling each of his fingers in turn. Memory of his contact with Onespawn returned to him, eliciting strange thoughts.

   “Leela,” he said without looking at her. “What colour are my eyes?”

   “Your eyes…?” Leela paused in puzzlement for a moment, and tilted her head to see his face. “Green,” she said. “You have green eyes.”

   “Since when?” he asked, looking up at her. “And since when was your eye purple?”

   “Always,” Leela said, frowning in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

   “I’m not sure how to explain it,” Fry said. “But… I think we’re more real than we used to be… I mean, can you remember a time before this last week when things were so serious?”

   “It has been pretty intense,” she admitted.

   “I don’t mean like that,” Fry said. “I mean… gritty. Like we went from Hogan’s Heroes to Saving Private Ryan in the blink of an eye. Honestly, can you remember any time before this week when you noticed the colour of someone’s eyes?”

   “I don’t understand,” Leela said. She frowned, trying to recall, but could only picture simple white circles with black dots in them, like ping-pong balls dabbed with a marker. Which was strange…

   “Alright, well answer me this,” Fry said. “Without looking at your hands – how many fingers do you have, altogether?”

   “Eight,” Leela said automatically.

   “Really?”

   Leela lifted her hands and stared at them. Five fingers adorned each.

   “Twelve,” Fry said. “Can you explain that?”

   Leela blinked in bewilderment. “Fry… what’s going on?”

   “Onespawn told me that reality isn’t real… that we’re being constantly reshaped by outside forces. That’s why it wants to destroy this Universe – it thinks it’s all make-believe or something.”

   “But that’s insane!” Leela said. “We’re real – our memories are real… the feelings we have for each other are real…”

   Fry said nothing, looking worried, and Leela took his hand, holding it against her left breast so he could feel the beating of her heart.

   “This is real,” she whispered.

   Fry nodded. “Yeah…” he said. “Of course… I was just… no, it’s nothing. My mind was playing tricks… or more likely Onespawn was.”

   Neither of them was fully convinced, but each put on a brave face for the other.

   “We’ll find a way through this, Fry,” Leela told him. “Whatever the truth is, we’ll face it together. Just don’t go off on your own again.”

   “Alright,” he said. “Do you forgive me?”

   She smiled. “Never in a million years.” She leaned over and kissed him softly… and then less softly. Within a few moments she had him pressed back down on the cot, straddling him; moaning and caressing. They bagan tugging at each other’s clothes, hands and elbows getting tangled.

   “Ow!” Fry grunted. “Still a little tender… everywhere.”

   “Sorry.” Leela giggled. They kissed passionately until a camera flash made them stop and look up in alarm.

   “Scandalous!” Bender said, lowering his camera. “That shot’s gonna look great on my ‘space captains gone wild’ website. Talk about a good bedside manner.”

   “Bender, what the hell is wrong with you?” Fry snapped angrily, pulling his hands out of Leela’s tank top.

   “I’m a coldhearted machine with no sense of morality,” the robot replied matter-of-factly, and then he narrowed his eye shutters. “Wait a second… Leela? Are you and Fry an item now or something?”

   “What’s it got to do with you?” Leela said, climbing off Fry and straightening her clothes.

   “But I thought you were secretly in love with me.”

   Leela gaped in horror and bewilderment. “What the hell are you talking about?”

   “Why else would you keep giving me all those gifts? The watch, the pendant, the coffee machine?”

   “Bender, you stole those things from me!”

   “Same difference.” He lost interest and started to walk away. “Oh yeah,” he added. “We’re coming up on the Sol system, and it looks like all kinds of organic waste is about to get thrown through the propeller blades.” He disappeared, and Leela turned to Fry.

   “Can you walk?” she asked.

   Fry glanced down. “Yeah,” he said. “Fortunately I’m wearing my baggy pants.”

   They made their way to the bridge, where Bender and Nibbler were poring over long-range sensor readouts. Ahead was the distant, comfortingly familiar yellow glow of their home star.

   “What’s the situation?” Leela said.

   “Events are progressing in a most concentrated form,” Nibbler replied. “Onespawn has settled on Pluto, with the Brainspawn forming a protective cordon around it. The Democratic Order Of Planets fleet has mobilized, but are having no luck breaking through the stupefaction field, and just minutes ago the Omicronian armada dropped out of hyperspace along with Mom’s vessel.”

   “Jeez Louise,” Fry muttered.

   “That isn’t the worst of it,” Nibbler said. “I’m detecting a massive drain of all ambient energy within and around the planet.” He pointed at the sensor screen where a display of complex sine waves was replaced by an image of Pluto, with what looked like a vast web of cracks expanding across the surface from a central point. The icy little world was slowly collapsing on itself.

   “What does that mean?” Leela said.

   “It means Onespawn is almost ready to begin.”

   “Begin what?”

   Nibbler looked at her wordlessly, and realization struck.

   “Oh, again with the ominous foreshadowing,” Bender groaned. “It’s starting to sound like a broken MP3.”

   “How are we going to play this?” Fry said, his voice still rough around the edges. “We’ve still got the Lance, but now Onespawn has an army of Brainspawn to throw at us.”

   “Not only that,” Leela added, “but unless Mom can manage some really fast explaining, the DOOP and the Omicronians might just start firing on each other and save Onespawn the trouble – our sky is certainly getting cluttered out there. I don’t fancy our chances of navigating through it all.”

   “Maybe if we tell someone we’re here?” Fry offered.

   Leela activated the ship’s communications array and sent out a hail. Almost instantly, the face of Captain Zapp Brannigan appeared onscreen, and just as instantly Leela turned it off again before the Zapper could utter a word.

   “No, I think it would probably save a lot of confusion and suspicion if we kept under the radar,” she said stiffly.

   “I think the gun-toting generals and majors out there are about to have a little more to worry about besides little old us,” Fry said, pointing out the forward viewscreen.

   Against the inky backdrop of space, Pluto was shattering. Vast chunks of the icy planet were thrown outward as massive discharges of energy ripped through the dying world. And then, encased in an incandescent shell of light, Onespawn ascended – larger than before, and more powerful by far. As the DOOP and Omicronian fleets turned to fire on the monster, it extended tendrils of destructive force, smashing the ships aside like toys, and then it moved beyond them as if they were of no consequence – moving with its accompanying bodyguard of Brainspawn in a straight line toward the third planet of the system.

   “What do we do now?” Bender said.

   Fry stared fixedly. “We follow,” he said. “And we finish this thing.”

Nibbler grunted. “Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[Reply #172 on:]

 

Originally posted by coldangel_1:
   “To where, Kif?” Zapp said. “You and I both know there’s no planet named Pluto. The President was speaking in code… obviously he’s being held against his will and is trying to get a message out… but what did he mean?”

Classic Zapp.


   

“Bender, what the hell is wrong with you?” Fry snapped angrily, pulling his hands out of Leela’s tank top.

   

Whoooooooooooooo!

[Reply #173 on:]

"Twelve"

really good, keep it up coldy

[Reply #174 on:]

Great update. Zombie Jesus, I want more.
   

“To where, Kif?” Zapp said. “You and I both know there’s no planet named Pluto. The President was speaking in code… obviously he’s being held against his will and is trying to get a message out… but what did he mean?”

Wow, makes you wonder how Zapp even was able to get in the DOOP let alone even know that the DOOP existed. I love how the penguins still have guns.

[Reply #175 on:]

Such vivid description; your use of imagery really makes the scenes stand out in my mind.

Bizarre - I was going to use the exact same Zapp quote that both Decapodian and Bendersfan quoted above. That was funny.

But i'll go with this:

 

...investigate the nature and intent of the invasion force, and then destroy it regardless of your findings.

So Nixon.

[Reply #176 on:]

What is this planet ‘Pluto’? Every honour student schoolchild knows that there's only eight planets!

 

“Who cares about your damned Universe!?”

Very ‘Underneath-The-Façade’ Leela. Very, very real.

 

“But that’s insane!” Leela said. “We’re real – our memories are real… the feelings we have for each other are real…”

Fry said nothing, looking worried, and Leela took his hand, holding it against her left breast so he could feel the beating of her heart.

“This is real,” she whispered.

I haven't cried with happiness since I last watched the ‘Come Josephine’ scene in ‘Titanic’.

Thank you.

[Reply #177 on:]

Thanks peoples.
I do have a new chapter or two ready to post but I haven't got the illustrations done. It may take a few days because I have some friends staying with me and we're a bit wild.

[Reply #178 on:]

How the scene should have played out:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fry said nothing, looking worried, and Leela took his hand, holding it against her left breast.

“This is real,” she whispered.

"And it's really nice."

"My heartbeat you jackass."

"...I knew that..."

[Reply #179 on:]

 

Originally posted by Anti-Shipper Venus:

[Blasphemes]

 

[Reply #180 on:]

 

Originally posted by Venus:
How the scene should have played out:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fry said nothing, looking worried, and Leela took his hand, holding it against her left breast.

“This is real,” she whispered.

"And it's really nice."

"My heartbeat you jackass."

"...I knew that..."

 

[Reply #181 on:]

Venus has channeled Leela perfectly...

[Reply #182 on:]

 

Originally posted by someone:

"And it's really nice."

Fry is too solemn to say that at this juncture. Think of the emotions flowing here. Not hormones, you understand. Emotions. Personally, I think he wouldn't have said anything, not wanting to risk destroying the moment. Under normal series circumstances, I think he may have said something, but certainly nothing as cogitative as what he did. But we must keep in mind that a lot of things have happened in this story so far. The characters have changed, even if ever so slightly. Who knows where they'll end up?...

 

Originally posted by Ralph 'Faithful Yet Misunderstanding Friend' Snart:

Venus has channeled Leela perfectly...

Not really. I can't imagine Leela saying that in response at all. I could see a sigh, maybe. At most, I would expect a ‘My heart, Fry...’ in a soft, almost verging on tears voice. After which Fry would look her in the eye slowly, and almost on the verge of tears himself, nod slowly in agreement. After a few seconds of silence, Leela would then glance down sadly. ‘We’ll find a way through this, Fry,’ she'd say. ‘Whatever the truth is,’ (bowing her head downwards), ‘we’ll face it together.’ She would then glance up at him. ‘Just promise me you won’t go off on your own again.’ Fry would then smirk slightly. ‘Alright,’ he'd sigh. ‘Do you forgive me?’ Leela would then sit up straight. ‘Never in a million years,’ she'd grin. Then they'd kiss and get all mushy mushy. Always with the mushy mushy...

[Reply #183 on:]

Xanfor, at this point even hardcore shippy shippers cats will be calling for the sick buckets. Shippy is good. Funny is also good. Shippy + Funny = Win. Accept this and move on.

[Reply #184 on:]

Comedy vs. Ship argument?  Ohhh, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

According to the commentaries, bending the rules for the sake of a good joke is always acceptable.  I leave it at that.

Cold:  You're generating quite a bit of hoopla with this storymajig, looks like you're front of the reading queue.  Happy scribbling, I'll get back to you when I've caught up.

[Reply #185 on:]

Not that anyone cares, but I think Fry's response would be more along the lines of a rapid "beep beep beep" from Insane in the Mainframe

[Reply #186 on:]

 

Originally posted by Venus:
How the scene should have played out:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fry said nothing, looking worried, and Leela took his hand, holding it against her left breast.

“This is real,” she whispered.

"And it's really nice."

"My heartbeat you jackass."

"...I knew that..."

  Very funny. Very accurate.

[Reply #187 on:]

Heh, Mickey Mouse's dog.

 

Fry said nothing, looking worried, and Leela took his hand, holding it against her left breast so he could feel the beating of her heart.

“This is real,” she whispered.

Seriously, this is from a movie or something, right? I'm sure I've seen it somewhere. It's becoming one of those things, like when you watch an animated movie and you think "now hang on, I know that voice. Oh who is it?!" and it takes you five weeks to remember, and you suddenly yell "Of course!" and the person in the toilet cubicle next to you tells you to shut up.

[Reply #188 on:]

 

Originally posted by any1else:
 It's becoming one of those things, like when you watch an animated movie and you think "now hang on, I know that voice. Oh who is it?!" and it takes you five weeks to remember, and you suddenly yell "Of course!" and the person in the toilet cubicle next to you tells you to shut up.

Been there, done that.

[Reply #189 on:]

Ah, I've encouraged discussion.
Excellent.

Maz, there are a whole lot of things in this fic that are borrowed from movies and books. It's beause of the 'other universes' causing effects due to the weakened structure of the Futurama one as Nibbler mentioned earlier.
This is an in-text pseudoscience explanation for intertextuality as well as existentialism.

Gang, I have pretty much the whole rest of the story hand-written, complete with doodles in the margins and pithy little notes to myself. It's just a case of typing it and illustrating it. These people are staying with me for a few weeks so it might be rather slow for a while, but trust that it WILL be finished before the release of Bender's Big Score. This is my promise.

[Reply #190 on:]

 

Originally posted by coldangel_1:
Maz, there are a whole lot of things in this fic that are borrowed from movies and books. It's beause of the 'other universes' causing effects due to the weakened structure of the Futurama one as Nibbler mentioned earlier.
This is an in-text pseudoscience explanation for intertextuality as well as existentialism.

  I know, but I want to know what that particular thing is from because it's driving me nuts, among certain other unrelated things.

 

These people are staying with me for a few weeks

Fat Bastard was meant to have been gone months ago.

[Reply #191 on:]

 

Originally posted by any1else:
 Fat Bastard

You rang? Nah, I'm just kidding. I'm not fat.

[Reply #192 on:]

 

...I think Fry's response would be more along the lines of a rapid "beep beep beep" from Insane in the Mainframe

Not in the context of this story, though. coldangel's interpretation of the characters is, duh, rather different from the series.

[Reply #193 on:]

 

Originally posted by Decapodian:
 You rang? Nah, I'm just kidding. I'm not fat.

"Hey - hey! I may be ugly and hate-filled but uh..what was the third thing you said?"

[Reply #194 on:]

 

Originally posted by coldangel_1:
Gang, I have pretty much the whole rest of the story hand-written, complete with doodles in the margins and pithy little notes to myself. It's just a case of typing it and illustrating it. These people are staying with me for a few weeks so it might be rather slow for a while, but trust that it WILL be finished before the release of Bender's Big Score. This is my promise.

Take your time. A good story is always worth waiting for. 

[Reply #195 on:]

I'll try to have chapter 20 posted tomorrow, if I get time on Photoshop, and if this thread ticks over to page 6. There's nothing worse than posting a big chunk of story that winds up at the bottom of a page... or perhaps I'm being a bit Obsessive-Compulsive...

[Reply #196 on:]

Read 17 chapters now, I've nearly caught up! Of course, by the time I've finished you'll probably have posted a new part... 

[Reply #197 on:]

coldangel...I am definitively impressed. I've been reading your other stuff lately (and have been consistently impressed by it), and I have to say, this is gold. I can't wait to read the exciting climax of all this. 

[Reply #198 on:]

Thank you for that 

[Reply #199 on:]

awesome still; hurry up an post more!