Esso-teric: soylentOrange's Fanfic Thread

[Reply #600 on:]

the software I have to run for work only runs on linux.  non windows-based operating systems and I don't tend to get along.

[Reply #601 on:]

Good news!  I've got a steaming pile of new material that will be headed your way in short order.  I've written more in the last week than I have in the last six months.

Bring it on, dude.

[Reply #602 on:]

"I think they're gone."

"I think you're right, Fry, but we have to be sure.  See anything Bender?"

"Nope.  Just three ugly humans and the world's best-looking robot."

Leela just ignored him.  "Alright, then let's try and work our way down to street level.  The DOOP will be here any moment now."

The four of them were holed up in a small second story room that overlooked the street.  A few mutants, led by Vyolet, had filed by a few minutes earlier.  Most of the mob had no doubt thought better of chasing enemies armed with death cannons, and had gone back to their hiding place in the Freedom Tower.

Leela motioned for the others to wait as she clambered down from their perch and worked her way into the street.  She was relieved to see that they were alone; the mutants had missed them. 

The cyclops waved to her friends, signaling them that it was safe to come down.  This was a real close call.  She told herself as she waited.  Tura and I just assumed that it would be easy for us to get away once we were in the streets.  If I hadn't thought to fire off that shot...

Her wrist computer beeped, startling her.  She was getting a text message from Kif.  The others, who were just now emerging from a gaping hole that had once been a store front, crowded around her.  The message said simply: "Twenty minutes."

Everyone looked at Leela.  She stared back at them.  "What?"  She said eventually.

"What do you mean, what?"  Bender scoffed.  "What does the message mean, sausage brain?  What happens in twenty minutes?"

"How the hell should I know?  I haven't talked to Kif since before you blew up that space station and got us all into this mess to begin with!"  Leela turned to Amy.  "Amy, do you know what it means?"

Amy shook her head.

Leela sighed.  "Well, let's hope it means that he'll be here in twenty minutes, and not that that's when they set off the nukes, or something."  She started to walk in the direction of the Freedom Tower.  "Come on."  She said, motioning for them to follow her.  "We've given the mutants plenty of time to put some distance between them and us.  Let's go find an open place and wait for Tura and the others to find us."
_____________________________ _____________________________ _________________

They didn't have to search very long before they found an abandoned construction site down a nearby side street.  There were some metal beams and a few gigantic concrete sewer-pipe sections lying around, but not enough cover that they wouldn't be easily spotted from the air. 

It took a little while for Tura and her crew to find their counterparts, even with Leela guiding them over her wrist computer.  By the time the two crews were facing each other across the construction yard, they could already hear the drone of a small shuttle craft.

As the sound got closer, the two crews scrambled for cover.  It wouldn't do for Brannigan to see them chatting with each other like old friends.  When everyone was in position behind sewer pipes and piles of rusty metal, Leela nodded to Tura, who fired a few rounds into the air.

No way Brannigan missed that.  Leela thought as a few bits of concrete rained down on her from the ceiling far overhead.  Concrete.  Everything here is concrete.  She thought.  I want out of this place.

It looked like she was going to get her wish.  The engine noise grew to a dull roar as a stubby, winged DOOP transport soared by overhead and settled slowly into the open space between the two crews.  It settled onto its landing skids and hissed gently with exhaust, as if it were glad for the rest after a wearying flight.

A hatch opened on the rear of the vehicle, and half a dozen DOOP soldiers came tumbling out.  It was hard to tell if they were hurrying to take defensive positions, or if they were trying to escape from the lander.  Considering who the pilot most likely was, it was probably a bit of both.  In either case, they quickly set up a perimeter around the rear hatch.  Kif Kroker then appeared and squeezed his way between two of his men.  Leela couldn't help but notice that he was unarmed.  She wasn't sure that she would have been, in his position.  Before Kif could say anything, the reason for the soldier's hasty retreat from the shuttle strutted out of the hatch and into the light. 

Zapp Brannigan moved to stand by Kif and surveyed his surroundings as if he were some great commander inspecting the beachhead after a heroic landing at Omaha Space Beach.  He quickly caught sight of the two crews hiding in the debris.

"I'm placing you all under arrest!"  Brannigan bellowed.  "Lay down your weapons and surrender!"

"Yeah, and what if we don't?"  Bender shouted back.

Brannigan turned to face the robot.  "Then you would be disobeying a direct order from a DOOP military officer, and I would have no choice but to... place you all under arrest!"

Leela groaned as she stood and leveled her rifle.  Why am I doing this?  I should have just let the mutants kill me.
_____________________________ _____________________________ _________________

"Put down the gun, Leela."  Kif called.  "We want to help." 

Fry watched in amazement as the lieutenant actually took a couple of steps toward Leela.  The delivery boy happened to have the luxury of knowing that Leela wan't planning on shooting him, but Kif sure didn't. 

"Stay back!"  Leela commanded.  "I'll shoot!" 

"She will!  She's evil!"  Tura hollered.  Neither of them were all that convincing.  Leelas, regardless of which reality they were from, just didn't make good actresses.

"Ladies, ladies!"  Zapp said in his best attempt at a seductive voice.  "There's no need to fight over me.  Why don't we all put down the guns and settle this like adults... in my private chamber."

"No one's fighting over you, you arrogant son of a-"  Aimee hastily jabbed Tura in the ribs before she could continue. 

"I'm, uhh, Evila, captain of the Planet Express Ship.  The, uhh, evil Planet Express Ship."   

"Yeah."  Amy said.  "Stay back or we'll, like, use your souls to power its engines... or something."

Kif looked over his shoulder at Zapp.  Brannigan shrugged.

"Oh, for crying out loud, you're a bunch of amateurs."  Bender groaned from his hiding place behind a hunk of concrete.  "I'll show you how to be evil."

Almost casually, Bender walked out into the open between his crewmates and the DOOP soldiers.  He cleared his throat, reached into his chest cabinet, and pulled out something brown and limp.  "Alright, listen up."  He said. "Take one more step, and the kitten gets it."

There were gasps all around.  "I don't think any one of us expected him to say that."  Amy whispered to Fry.

The DOOP soldiers looked at each other in confusion.  "Uhh, but that cat's already dead."  One of them replied.

Bender looked down at the lump of fur that was dangling in his left hand.  "Hmm, so it is."  He seemed to think about that for a moment.  "Weird.  He was alive when I put him in there last month."  The robot shrugged and pulled what had to be one of his last cigars out of his chest cabinet.  "Oh well, I'm out of material."  He said, waving dismissively at the soldiers before sauntering back to his hiding place.

"Ai-ya, enough of this!"  Apparently unable to take any more of this painful charade anymore when her boyfriend and a ticket out of the nightmare she'd found herself in were perched only a few feet away, jumped to her feet and snatched the laser pistol from Tura's hand.  "She's going to shoot!"  The intern screamed.

Aimee squeezed off three shots before Tura wrestled the gun from her.  Each of them hit the dirt about ten feet from where Leela was standing, leading Fry to the comforting, yet completely irrelevant, conclusion that at least one other person working at Planet Express was a worse shot than he was.

Leela returned fire, aiming at the DOOP rather than the other crew.  When the soldiers dove for cover, Leela screamed for Fry, Amy, and Bender to follow.  By the time the DOOP could think about returning fire, they were all long gone.

[Reply #603 on:]

Omaha Space Beach, heh...
Well, so looks like the plan they put into effect is working, so far.  Still have to wonder if anything is going to go wrong though.  (It normally does).  And in this section your characterization of Zapp and Bender continues to be spot on.

If you do finish this before that mutant episode airs, they would be ripe for comparison.

[Reply #604 on:]

It was a good thing that the DOOP didn't appear to be following them, Leela thought, because the sound of Fry's pathetic wheezing was loud enough to hear from a mile in any direction.  Weakling. She half-thought, half-muttered under her breath as she looked back at him over her shoulder.  Instantly, she felt bad.  She was just using him as a conduit for some of the excess hatred that Zapp's presence always filled her with.  Luckily, the universe decided to save her the trouble of chatising her for the lapse, for by looking back over her shoulder she was breaking the number one rule of running with one eye: keep it pointed forward.

Amy shouted a warning just a moment too late.  "Leela!  Fire hydr-  Gleesh…  Nevermind..."   

Leela suddenly found herself lying face up on a slab of scummy concrete.  The others crowded around her making concerned noises and asking if she was alright.  Bender seemed genuinely disappointed when she nodded and put up a hand to forestall all of the fussing over her.  Then Fry started to kneel down next to her, as though he was going to try and help her up, and Leela was annoyed to discover that the fall had knocked the wind out of her.  So, rather than gently assuring the delivery boy that the only thing that she'd hurt was her dignity, she had to settle for wheezing in his face.  Apparently the message got through though, because the delivery boy nodded and collapsed into a heap, his own hacking and coughing joining hers.

"Uhh.."  Amy looked around and then gave an uncertain sideways glace toward Bender before nodding at Leela.  "Let's take five."
_____________________________ _____________________________ ____________________

It didn't take five minutes for Leela to catch her breath, but she wanted to wait for Fry.  It was easy to get so wrapped up in her own problems that she forgot about everyone else around her.  She'd had Fry running around all morning.  He hadn't eaten a real meal in atheismo-knew how long or slept in a real bed, and, wait, how long had he been down here in the old city with her?  Less than 24 hours?  Maybe it was the depressing, monotonous gloom of the place that made it seem as though those few hours had stretched into months.  Whatever the case, he was at his limit, and he had yet to utter a single word of complaint.  Part of that was the constant terror; there hadn't been much time for whining.  But still, she was a little proud of him, and since they appeared to be in the unaccustomed position of not having to worry about imminent death, there was no reason not to give him a break. 

Amazingly, Amy didn't seem all that fazed by what was going on.  Leela suspected that the intern was anxious to get home to her own timeline and was only going along with what must have felt to her like a waking nightmare because she knew it was almost over.  I have to give her credit.  Leela thought.  She could have gone back to Mars to live with Aimee's parents, sitting on the sidelines enoying an almost normal life until this whole mess sorted itself out one way or another, but she stuck it out anyway.  She slept on a concrete floor last night- Leela wasn't quite able to keep herself from adding next to Fry- and put herself in danger when I asked her too.  Leela was sitting up with her back against the hydrant that had sent her tumbling a few minutes earlier.  She had her eye almost closed as if she were napping, but through her eyelashes she was watching Amy leaning against the support column for a fractured street light.  The intern was, in turn, watching Bender, who was having no luck rooting through the shattered front windows of a nearby store front.

A slight breeze- part of the sluggish convection currents produced by the temperature gradient between the cool Earth and the warm concrete of the surface overhead- began to swirl around Leela's legs, chilling her through the damp fabric of her black sweatpants.  Damp.  Everything down here is cold and damp.  If I get out of here, I'm taking a long vacation to Arizona.

The cold air was enough to drag Leela to her feet and, seeing her rise, Fry followed suit with a groan.  Technically this was a complaint, but Leela decided not to count it against him.  After her spill she wasn't much more enthusiastic about continuing than he was.

"So, what now?"  Amy asked after she'd waited for her two human companions to stretch and dust themselves off.  "It looks like the DOOP isn't coming after us.  I guess Tura and the others are keeping them distracted."

Leela nodded.  "Yeah, but we still shouldn't hang around.  We have a lot of walking to do."

"What, more walking?!"  Bender protested.  The robot was strolling toward them from across the street, having given up his search.  "That's all we've done since we got here!"

"I know, Bender.  I'm not looking forward to it any more than you are, but it's the only way we're going to get out of here."

"And what, you expect me to trudge through sewage again?"  Bender snorted derisively.  "Yeah, I put up with that mutant crap once.  Not again.  I only did it the first time because I had to.  You don't have enough dirt on me to make me do it again." 

"But what about-"

"Cram it, Amy!  I already told you, those nuns were dead before I ran them over." 

"Aww, come on Bender.  You've gotta come with us. You can't stay here,"  Fry prodded.

Leela waved the delivery boy silent.  "It doesn't matter.  We aren't going back that way."

Fry looked at her quizzically "Huh?  We aren't?"   

"But, Leela, we can't use the ladders to the surface."  Amy protested.  "Those are the only other way out of here.  Somebody will be watching those exits for sure."

"Right, which is why we aren't going to be using the ladders either."

"Then how...?" 

Leela pointed. 
_____________________________ _____________________________ __________________

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"  Fry asked nervously.  "I mean, this place was getting kinda old even back in my day."

In fact, Leela knew that it was okay.  At least, it wasn't showing any signs that it was going to collapse at any moment.  Still, as she looked up at the sulking mass of the lower Empire State Building, she couldn't quite escape the notion that this was one of the stupider ideas that she had ever had.

"I had some of the mutants check it out before we came down here, when we were still looking for a good place for the village to hide out.  The building isn't even one piece anymore.  There's a thick metal bulkhead that separates the lower half from the part that sticks up above street level."

"So why didn't you use it as a hideout?"  Amy asked.  It was clear she was expecting a catch.  Working at Planet Express, one quickly learned to always expect a catch.

"Too obvious."  Leela replied.  "It's the one building that pokes above street level.  If anybody was going to think of a building to search, it would be this one.  Now come on, we've wasted enough time."  Leela motioned for Bender to lead the way, which he did with minimal enthusiasm. 

The interior of the Empire State was unsettling.  The lofting, pillared lobby, bathed in the light cast from Bender's eyes, was like the entrance to some ancient mausoleum.  Or, as Fry couldn't help but think, to the Temple of Doom.  Most of the gaudy splendor of the chamber had faded and tarnished with age, and a large piece of the domed ceiling had crumbled to the ground.  It was creepier than any of them had expected, and each of them was only too happy to put its morbid, decaying splendor behind them.

In the semidarkness of the old building, it was easy for Leela's mind to imagine all of Old New York not as the monument to a bygone era that it was meant to be, but as a grotesque graveyard, with each rotting building a gravestone.  A shiver worked its way up her spine.

"Leela?"

She started.  She couldn't help it.  "Damn it, Fry!  What?"

"Sorry."  His eyes slid away from her in embarrassment.  "I didn't mean to do that.  I just, I dunno.  I just thought maybe some talking would be good.  It's a little spooky in here, kinda like a bad horror movie or something.  You know, like when everyone knows that the slimy, black tentacle-monster is sneaking up on them from somewhere, but they don't know where it is yet."

"Not helping, Fry."  Amy muttered.

Trying to make up for her embarrassing overreaction, Leela tried a feeble joke. "Don't worry.  We've already done that.  Only, the tentacles were pink.  Besides, there's nothing alive in this building besides us, some rats, and about fifty trillion spiders."

"Yeah, and him."  Bender added, pointing over their shoulders.

Leela sighed.  "I don't want to turn around, do I?"
_____________________________ _____________________________ ___________________

 "This isn't happening!"  Leela hollered in frustration.  "I've been through too much crap over the last few months to suddenly be stuck in some cliche fifty dollar horror movie!"

"With your acting skills, you'd be lucky to get that."   Bender retorted.

"Shut up and brace the door."  Leela snarled back.

"With what?"

"With your ass, for all I care!"

They were in a stairwell on the ground floor, if you could really still call it that when half of the building was buried below street level.  The flight of stairs that connected with the level above them was intact and appeared to be in good shape.  In the other direction, the stairs descended three steps before disappearing into a pool of murky water.

Leela and Bender were pressed up against the fire door that separated the stairwell from the first floor.  Fry had gone up a level to look for something to use to barricade the door against the incessant pounding it was receiving from the other side.

Amy, standing on her toes, was peering through a tiny hole in the wall.  "It's a snake."  She said, quite unnecessarily.

Bender rolled his eye (he'd been forced to give the other to Fry as a light source).  "No shitz, ditz." 

A snake.  A fracking snake.  Forty feet long at least, maybe four feet in diameter.  Leela shook her head in exasperation.  Where the hell had it come from?

"What does it eat down here?"  Amy asked, her train of thought having closely paralleled Leela's own. 

Bender laughed.  "You mean besides us?"

"Probably rats and whatever else is dumb enough to wander by."  Leela guessed as she shifted her weight against the door.  A series of bangs lay testament to the fact that their friend on the other side wasn't giving up just yet.

At that moment Fry tumbled into view from the landing above them. 

Leela gestured him over to her.  "Did you find anything, Fry?"

The delivery boy handed Bender the eye that he'd borrowed and then knelt by her side.  "All I found was this."  Proudly, he handed her the fruits of his search.  It was a dime.

Leela stared in disbelief at the little metallic cylinder cupped in her hand.  "A coin?!"  She sputtered  "What the hell are we supposed to do with this?!"

Fry shrugged.  "Nothing.  I just thought it was cool that I found it down here."

Groaning with what was almost physical pain, Leela got to her feet and tossed the coin across the stairwell.  It plunked forlornly into the pool of water and sank immediately out of sight.  "Amy, start heading up the stairs.  Get as high as you can and then wait for me."  The cyclops then gave Fry, who was also standing again, a hard shove in the abdomen, propelling him in Amy's direction.  "Take this with you."  She ordered.  "I'll be right behind you."

Amy started to protest, but Leela jabbed at the air with her finger, pointing up the stairs.  "Go!"  She thundered, and Amy tore off up the stairs with a reluctant Fry in tow.

When Leela climbed a couple of stairs after them, one of Bender's extensomatic arms shot out and clasped her firmly about one ankle.  'What, and now you're going to leave me here?"  The robot's head clanged against the fire door as it was hit by a particularly savage blow.  "Not in your dreams, meatbag."

"Relax, Bender."  Leela turned to face him.  She'd been carrying her antimatter rifle slung over one shoulder since fleeing from the DOOP.  She couldn't use it in close quarters- at least, not without substantial risk of vaporizing herself along with what she was shooting at.  In the more open space of the stairwell, however, she might be able to hit the fire door with enough energy so as to fuse it to its door frame, without having to stand so close to it that she ended up applied to the walls like a new coat of paint.

Cradling the weapon against her right shoulder, she took careful aim at a spot six inches above Bender's head.

The robot's eyes went wide.  "Now, hold on a minute."  He protested.  "If this is about those unicorns I killed, it was only so I could sell their ivory on the black market.  I swear!"

"I'm not going to shoot you, Bender."  Stupid robot.  "That door should hold long enough for you to get out of the way.  Wait for my signal, and then go find Amy and Fr-"  Leela cut herself off with a sigh as the cowardly bending robot pushed her out of the way and went flying up the stairs, trailing a stream of terrified babbling noises in his wake.

Shaking her head, Leela composed herself, turned the power dial on her rifle down to minimum, and pointed the weapon.  The whole mass of metal was quaking under the snake creature's unrelenting assault.  Leela judged that it wouldn't hold for more than a few seconds.  The doorknob rattled under the onlaught.  Locking the door had been impossible.  At least we're not dealing with something that has thumbs.  Leela thought.

The rifle beeped softly to let her know that it was fully charged.  She wasted no time.  I have had it with this mother-fracking snake in this mother-fracking building!  A narrow lance of violet connected with the door, briefly illuminating the stairwell in an unnatural light.  From the other side of the door came a bloodcurdling screech, and then silence.  Leela fired one more round into the fire door, which was now glowing a dull, angry red, and, satisfied, retreated up the stairwell to rejoin her friends.

*   *   *   *   *

On the other side of the fire door, the "snake" nursed its wounds.  Other members of the faculty at the university had warned him that the humans were violent and backward.  He'd dismissed the warnings as foolish and unenlightened.  Such foolishness certainly hadn't been enough to keep him from seizing on the chance to explore one of the most perfectly preserved pre-space travel archeological sites in the galaxy.  He'd been working down in the ruins for months, carefully cataloguing and documenting a treasure trove of priceless artifacts.  Then, a few days earlier, a gang of hooligans- the professor was sure that's what they had been- wandered through his beautifully preserved site and, in two hours, threatened to make all of his long months of research worthless by stepping on, moving, and destroying everything they got within ten feet of.  He'd stayed hidden during that first intrusion.  There was no sense in getting himself hurt, he'd reasoned.  But later he'd felt ashamed for doing nothing, so, when this second gang of four vandals appeared, he wasn't able to let himself lie coiled in a wall.  Even if he couldn't speak their language, he knew he could make them feel bad for what they were doing to this historical treasure.  After all, he was a professor.  Making people feel bad about themselves was a specialty.  He just hadn't counted on them being armed.  These humans were every bit as dangerous as his colleagues had let on.  When he got home, he decided, he was taking a long sabbatical. 

*   *   *   *   *

[Reply #605 on:]

Ahahaha- wait, is the whole "snake" part a reference to something I don't get?
Despite that, it was a nice twist to the subterranean escape, anyway.

Again, good thing you didn't lose very much with your computer-travails debacle.

A slight breeze- part of the sluggish convection currents produced by the temperature gradient between the cool Earth and the warm concrete of the surface overhead-

Moar science please!

After all, he was a professor.  Making people feel bad about themselves was a specialty.

And you know that from experience, don't you...

"Cram it, Amy!  I already told you, those nuns were dead before I ran them over."

[Reply #606 on:]

the snake thing came out of nowhere.  I wanted to add some action to the scene, but half way through it I realized that having some unexplained giant snake chasing everyone through the Empire State building was dumb, so I tried to make it into a joke.  Considering my sense of humor, maybe I should have just left it alone

[Reply #607 on:]

No nein nyet, I just assumed it was probably from something or influenced by something, especially since you'd said that snip about having movie references...  Guess that would be the Snakes on a Plane, yesh.  Oh, so it is completely original?  That paragraph at the end actually works well, as an original piece then or with the snake as an "original character".


..Also, on a similar theme, KEEP THE ADORABLE LIZARD, do it, do it! 
Are you?

[Reply #608 on:]

After all, he was a professor.  Making people feel bad about themselves was a specialty.

And you know that from experience, don't you...

Yeah, I thought there was something autobiographical there too.  Fiction, the ultimate revenge!

Anyway, I'm off to the field, hope to have a fresh steaming pile of fanfic in my inbox when I get back!

[Reply #609 on:]

Yeah, I thought there was something autobiographical there too.

Making freshmen miserable is the closest thing to a sport that I've ever been really good at.  My advisor is actually really good to me.  I complain about her, but I'm not serious about it.

have fun with your field work.  you lucky bastard

[Reply #610 on:]

Soylent my man, you STILL have content to write about after all this time that doesn't come off as ridiculosly desparate/corny/plagued with way too miny cliched moments? All I can say is: DAYUM. Are you some kind of writing god that knows all or are you more like a brain slug who steals ideas out of people's minds at random?

[Reply #611 on:]

Eh, I may have been writing for a long time, but I've only done four major fics.  The key is adding so much filler that I only have to come up with a new idea once every few months.

[Reply #612 on:]

*   *   *   *   *
_____________________________ _____________________________ _______

Whatever that thing had been, and wherever it had come from, there didn't appear to be any more of them lurking around, not that any of them had felt much like looking around to make sure.  Instead, Leela decided on the direct route, leading her weary band straight up the seemingly endless flight of grubby stairs.  By the time they finally reached the end of their climb, not a one of them could breathe, though truthfully, as a robot, Bender didn't breathe anyway.

At floor sixty two, the vertical shaft of the stairwell abruptly ended in a rivet-studded, matte grey ceiling.  It was like whoever had been building the skyscraper had gotten that far and, suddenly bored, had given up and gone home. 

"Well that's it."  Bender said upon seeing the barrier.  "I'm bored.  Let's give up and go home."

"We're trying to go home, you idiot."  Amy snapped, exhaustion having given her a short fuse.  "Spleesh.  Don't you ever use that positronic brain of yours for anything besides porno storage?"

"Hey, it takes a lot of memory to store 5-dimensional HD images!”

Leela broke in as Amy rolled her eyes.  "Enough, you two.  Save the bickering for somewhere where we don't have to worry about being eaten by giant snakes, okay?  Now come on, Bender.  This barrier is the bulkhead that separates the new city from the old one.  All we need to do is get through it, and we'll be out of here."

"Yeah, well, what do you want me to do about it?"

Everyone just stared at him.

"Hee hee.  Just kidding.  Stand back and we'll see who's great."  With a great show, Bender crouched on one of the uppermost steps and, bracing himself, began to push mightily at the heavily reinforced plasteel.  It reluctantly gave under the pressure, protesting with a metallic screech that made the humans' jaws ache.  If anyone on the other side of the barrier was anywhere nearby, they couldn't help but hear and come running.  Leela knew that there weren't any other viable options, though.  And besides, the top floors of the Empire State had been given over to a museum on ancient 20th century history, and this was the middle of a week day.  There wasn't likely to be anyone around. 

With one last protest, a six square foot section of the bulkhead gave way with a shower of snapping rivets.  Bender let out a cry of self-impressed glee and, true to his name, bent the twelve-inch thick plate that had come loose in two, pulled it through the hole that he'd made, and slid it over the stairs' guard rail.  A distant boom rolled up from below just over six and three quarters seconds later. 

While Fry and Bender were busy telling each other how cool the panel must have looked when it hit the ground, Leela poked her head through the hole in the barrier and cautiously looked around.  It was dark.  Somehow that surprised her, though she knew it shouldn't have.  Why would the museum bother lighting and maintaining a stairwell that didn't lead anywhere anymore? 

Confident that no one was nearby, Leela bent down and held out an arm.  Amy took it and let Leela haul her up.

"Huh.  The air smells better up here." The intern remarked. 

Leela nodded.  She'd noticed it too.  Who knew how many centuries the air they'd been climbing through below the barrier had been sitting stagnant in the dark?

In a moment, Fry and Bender joined their friends and they were climbing again, though this time with much more caution.  They'd already made enough noise to attract the deaf and dead, but the knowledge that they were back in New New York, where a sizeable fraction of the population wanted them either jailed, beaten, or worse, kept their steps light and soft.

After only two flights of stairs, they came upon a low gate that blocked their path.  Leela unclasped the latch that secured it and led her friends onto a landing that was obviously being used as a storeroom.  A single archaic incandescent bulb- likely there in keeping with the museum's 20th century theme- cast a handful of nondescript, imitation-cardboard boxes that were stacked in a corner in a sickly, pale white hue.  Every door that they had come upon thus far since breaking through into the new city had been sealed, but here was a modern automatic door, seeming even more an anachronism in this ancient ruin due to the fact that Leela hadn't seen one in many days.  Presumably, it led into the museum. 

Leela walked over to the door and pressed the softly-glowing green button that was mounted on the wall to the right.  She breathed a sigh of relief when it opened.  If it had been locked and they'd been forced to turn around...  Then I'd have blasted a hole in the wall, and to hell with staying inconspicuous.  There's no way I was going to climb down all those stairs.

A furtive glance into the lit- and, Leela thought, blessedly dry- corridor beyond was enough to convince her that they were alone.  "Alright, everyone follow me." She whispered.  "I can see an exit sign, so the exit is that way." 

Leela began to move, but was stopped by someone's hand that had appeared around her wrist.  Startled, she turned and saw that it was Fry that had grabbed her.  None of the others were making any move to follow her.
"Fry, let go!"  The PE Captain protested.  "We've got to get out of this building before someone finds us."

"But Leela, then what?"  Fry asked.  "We'll be arrested the moment anybody sees us, and we don't have anywhere to go."

Suddenly it occurred to Leela that she and Tura had never actually had the time to explain the whole plan to anyone.  They've been following me around all day with no clue as to where we're going or what we're doing.  Wow, way to drop the ball on that one, Turanga.

Her face turning a little red, Leela leaned back into the stairwell and let the door woosh closed behind her.  She sat down on a nearby box, which gave a little under her weight.

"Sorry guys.  I guess I was so busy trying not to get killed that I forgot to actually tell you the plan."

"No crap."  Bender snorted.

Ignoring that, Leela shifted her weight and began to explain.  "You already know why we arranged it so that Tura and the others got picked up by Zapp." 

"So they could get him to believe that we tricked the mutants into taking part in this imaginary uprising thing, right?"  Amy asked.

"Right."  Leela nodded.  "That way the mutants are off the hook and we-"

"Are royally boned."  Bender finished for her.  At Leela's annoyed look, he then proceeded to add "No, you shut up."

 "Anyway," Leela continued, "that's why we're in such a hurry.  Pretty soon, the cops and the military will be concentrating their efforts to come after the four of us specifically, rather than on catching thousands of mutants scattered over Old New York.  Worse, we can't even hide in the old city anymore, because now the mutants are after us too!"

"But, where are we going to go?"  Fry reiterated.  "Bender looks like any other bending robot, so he can go out in public, and Amy and I might not get recognized right away, but well..."  He looked anywhere but at Leela's eye.  "Well, you know."

"Thanks for being so subtle about it."  Leela said drily.  "We're not going far, just to Central Park.  To the crash site.  We need that second briefcase thing that you brought with you so that we can get back to our own timeline.  It ought to still be in the ship, and the ship might not have been moved yet.  I'm sure Bender will be willing to, uhh, liberate us some disguises from the museum store."

Bender's eyes lit up immediately. 

"And if it's not there?"  Amy asked.

"Then," Leela replied grimly, "everything will be up to Tura."
_____________________________ _____________________________ ____________________

"We are so going to get caught."  Fry whispered.

"We are not."  Leela hissed.  "Now stop looking so suspicious.  Just pretend to look at the exhibits."   

"What else would I do in a museum?"

Leela rolled her eye and tried to look like she was particularly absorbed in... whatever it was that was in front of her.  She was standing not twenty feet from the entrance to the museum gift shop, which Bender had swaggered into a couple of minutes earlier.  Fry was next to her, and Amy was somewhere across the large central room that served as the entrance point to a series of long halls filled with dusty display cases.  A few larger artifacts had been arranged around the central room, and Leela and the others were pretending to be inspecting them.

Next to her, Leela could hear Fry fidgeting nervously.  "Why didn't we just hide in the stairwell until Bender could get the disguises for us?"

"What, and trust him to actually come back?"  Leela replied drily.  "Relax.  There's no one around, and I'm the only one that's likely to get recognized, as you were so quick to point out."

"I know Tur- I mean Leela.  Sorry, it's the hair."

She nodded.  Everyone was looking for a cyclops with a ponytail, so she'd put her hair down like she'd seen Tura do, and was standing with her back toward anyone that might wander by.  If someone did somehow recognize her though, and the cops were called, she was defenseless.  Her rifle- which she couldn't exactly walk around with without attracting attention- was hidden in the barrel of an Abrams main battle tank which was the centerpiece of the exhibit on 21st century warfare.

"Wow, look at these glyphs!" a voice exclaimed not six inches from Leela's right ear.  Luckily, the cyclops recognized it as belonging to Amy a split second before her reflexes were able to get her set up for a roundhouse kick.

"What?"  Leela managed as she dealt with a mix of ebbing adrenaline and rising irritation.

 "Uh, this thing you've been staring at for the last five minutes?"  Amy replied, giving her friend an odd look.

Leela- who'd been watching the souvenir shop door out of the corner of her eye, not the exhibit- truly noticed what Amy had been talking about for the first time.  It was a slab of dull white concrete, roughly rectangular, and ever so slightly concave inward.  It measured three or four feet across.  On it, in faded white and red, was scribbled some sort of intricate script, more pictograph than written message. 

Amy pointed to a plaque that hung on the wall over the artifact.  "It says here that this rock comes from Metroglyph National Monument, the site of the old Washington D.C. subway.  The runes are sometimes drawings of plants and animals, or act as messages for the gods."

Despite herself, Leela found herself interested.  "Huh.  I wonder what these particular glyphs mean?"  She put a hand on Fry's shoulder's to get his attention.  "Hey Fry, you're from that time.  Maybe you can tell us.  What is MS 13 supposed to mean?"

Fry looked down at the exhibit, then back to Leela.  "Uhh..."

"Hey, if you meatbags are done doing whatever it was that you were doing while I was risking my shiny metal ass shoplifting for you- shoplifting, at a museum!  The lamest crime imaginable! Do you have any idea how long it would have taken me to live that one down if I'd gotten caught?

"But you didn't get caught, right?"  Leela asked.  She couldn't help but notice that the robot wasn't carrying anything.

"Who, me?  Never!  What do you take me for, something less than great?"  Actually offended, the robot reached into his chest cabinet and pulled out a sweater, three pairs of sunglasses, three blernsball caps, and a tiny figurine of Napoleon Bonaparte, which he quickly shoved back inside.

"I get the hats and the shades, but why the sweater?"  Amy asked.

"For the rifle."  Leela explained.  "I was hoping Bender would be able to snatch something a little bigger, like a flag, or a blanket or something- those had been invented by the 20th century, right Fry?- but I guess I'll have to make do rolling the gun up in this."

 A few minutes later, the four of them were making their way up 6th Avenue in the direction of Central Park.  They were all in good spirits, Bender because he'd gotten away with another petty crime, and the others simply because they were outside in the fresh air and sunlight again.  They must have been a sight in their wet, stained, putrid clothing, but- this being New New York- there were much stranger sights all around them.  Leela almost got the sense that she could take off the sunglasses and the ball cap, brandish the rifle she had hidden in the rolled up sweatshirt that was cradled in her arms, and start wildly jumping up and down without soliciting even a second look.  She wasn't quite confident enough to test that, however.

Central Park was... green.  After spending weeks living in the dark, muted grays and browns of the subterranean world under the city, the lush grass was almost painful for Leela to look at, even through her cheap sunglasses.  She stopped for a moment to take in the scene.  A few dozen people were scattered here and there in groups of three or four, picnicking under the trees or sunbathing out in the open.  A toy sailboat, being controlled from shore by a young neptunian girl, drifted slowly on the slight breeze.  As Leela watched, a tiny toy airplane buzzed in over the boat.  Something dropped from the toy's undercarriage, and emitted a loud pop as it struck the little sailboat, which, all at once, listed to one side and sank out of sight.  As the little girl looked on in shock, another neptunian child holding a remote control- probably her brother- jumped up and down in glee.

Ah it's good to be back on the surface.  Leela thought, hurrying to catch up with her friends.

Fry, Amy, and Bender were already at the crash site by the time Leela caught sight of them again.  The three of them were standing by the lip of the shallow crater that had been gouged into the earth, giving each other uneasy looks.  Leela didn't need to ask why they looked worried; she'd noticed it from a long way off.  Rather than a smashed-up green spaceship lying in the bottom of the crater, there were only a few scraps of blackened metal and an idling backhoe.

"Where'd the ship go?"  Amy whispered tensely into Fry's ear. 

"Maybe it shrank!"  The delivery boy whispered back.

"Maybe your brain shrank."  Bender suggested sarcastically.  Leela thought it a plausible hypothesis. 

"The DOOP must have carted away the wreckage, probably under some pretense of national security."  Leela guessed.  "Normally there's a major investigation after a spaceship crash in a public place like this.  I wasn't expecting the wreckage to be moved for days."

"Well, now what're we going to do?"  Amy asked. 

"First, we're going to get the hell out of here before somebody wonders why four people are so interested in an empty hole in the ground."  Leela replied.

"And then what?"

"I don't know.  Let's hope Tura can answer that for us."

[Reply #613 on:]

Aw, this whole section makes me want to be in a museum so bad.  Go to one, that is.  I want to look at some Metroglyphs...
"Messages for the gods", heh.
Also, you've really been writing Bender particularly good lately. Hee, he would so stash a little figure of Napoleon, probably.

Yeah, wouldn't it be logical for the ship to not have been there anymore though?  I guess I would have expected it to be gone; they probably shouldn't have counted on it still just lying around in the park.

Additionally:

1. Did you keep the lizard?

2. How ridiculously awesome was that last episode?

3. There was something else, but I forgot.

[Reply #614 on:]

Yeah, wouldn't it be logical for the ship to not have been there anymore though?

It's only been 24 hours.  Not enough time to check for biological hazards, cut it up, and haul it away.   It took NY three days to haul that plane that crashed into the hudson out and cart it off.

also, that last episode was awesome.  Pure scifi/math geek nirvana. 

I kept the lizard, btw.  All she does is eat and lay around in the sun.  Just like me!  Well, without the physics, anyway.

[Reply #615 on:]

Jawesome.  So cool that you kept it.  Aww, little lizard basking in the sun...  *basks*  I take it you procured enough crickets then?
Give her a cuddle from me!

Also, the ep blew my mind.

(get it, mind)

And ok, I am getting your point about the ship, I suppose I forgot that it was only 24 hours again. I was thinking it was longer. But hey it is gone, so there you go.

[Reply #616 on:]

hi folks.  I've got some good news, and some bad news.  The good news is that I've finished Green Storm Rising.  Thanks to JustMNibblin', who did a swell job of beta-ing, as always. I'll post the rest of it bit by bit over the next couple of weeks (there's a lot left).  That's the good news.  The bad news is that I'm putting myself on permanent hiatus.  GSR totalled over 109,000 words and 235 pages written over two years.  If I start another fic, it'll probably end up being just as long and just as time-consuming, and there's just no realistic way that I'd ever finish it.  I'm going to try my hand at writing a novel instead, and hopefully getting it published.

So anyway, thanks to everyone that has been reading my work over the years.  I'm planning to put everything I've written into one big pdf collection at some point.  I'll post a link to it in this thread when I get around to it so that you don't have to read my fics piece by piece.  

Oh, and since no one probably remembers what the heck is going on in this fic any more, here's a quick summary:

1) Fry, Leela, Amy, and Bender are stuck in an alternate timeline (not an alternate universe.  The distinction wll be very important later)

2) The DOOP is trying to exterminate the mutants over some imagined plot to take over the government.  Phil, Tura, Aimee, and the Other Bender (the Planet Express Crew native to the alternate timeline; i.e. the beta crew) are onboard Nimbus trying to convince Zapp that the mutants are innocent, and that Fry, Leela, Amy, and Bender (the alpha crew) are really responsible.  

3) Leela and Tura are working together to deflect blame away from the mutants.  While the beta crew is on Nimbus, the alpha crew is hunting for the Professor's device that will allow them to go home (they call it the briefcase).  They expect to find it in the Planet Express Ship, which Tura earlier crashed, but all of the wreckage is mysteriously gone.  The last update I posted ended with this revelation.

4) When the alpha crew eventually does leave, Leela expects Fry to go home with them.  Tura, however, has gotten romantically involved with Fry, and expects him to stay.  Fry hasn't decided one way or the other.
_____________________________ _____________________________ _______

Several hundred miles straight overhead, the sleek shape of the DOOP's flagship, Nimbus, cruised through the blackness .  Tura liked the blackness; it matched her mood.

How did I get suckered into this?  She wondered as she watched the Earth's dazzling bulk slide by outside a porthole.  How did I end up here with Zapp while Leela is down there with nothing to worry about except a horrible, gruesome death?  Compared to dealing with Zapp, that's practically a vacation.  The fact that the plan had been at least half her own idea somehow wasn't quite enough to convince Tura that she hadn't somehow been duped.

At least I'm not in the brig this time.  Tura reasoned.  So it's not as bad as it could be.  Although, at least in the brig there'd be a force field between me and Brannigan.  As it was, she'd had to sneak away and hide when Zapp had been distracted by a videophone call from President Nixon.  That's how she'd ended up sitting in the dark in a padded chair on the ship's deserted observation deck.  As she waited for her inevitable discovery, she'd found herself strangely hypnotized by the glowing blue and white jewel that hung suspended above her like God's colossal eye.  The Frys would be blown away by this, she thought, the corner of her mouth twitching into the barest hint of a smile.  Briefly she considered finding Phil and showing him, but that would mean venturing out of her hiding place, and likely running into Brannigan.    
  
When Leela, Fry, Amy and Bender had taken off running, Tura, Phil, Aimee, and the other Bender had found themselves facing a squad of heavily-armed DOOP soldiers that had suddenly developed very twitchy trigger fingers.  And all Tura had to defend her crew with was her little energy pistol, which she couldn't use on the DOOP soldiers anyway.

Zapp had been only too eager to accept their surrender.  Once aboard the shuttle craft, Tura and her friends were handcuffed and forced to sit on the deck at the vessel's stern.  It had been a bit uncomfortable, but nothing unbearable.  It was only once the shuttle had docked with Nimbus, and Brannigan was no longer preoccupied with flying the shuttle, that her frustration began to rise to dangerous levels.

Explaining the situation- or, at least, the lie that Tura was presenting as the true situation- had been remarkably easy.  Zapp had led her and her crew- still in handcuffs- to the bridge and demanded to know what was going on.  As patiently as she could manage, she'd explained how an evil, duplicate Planet Express crew from another timeline had been manipulating the mutants into revolting against the surface-dwellers.  Once the mutants had realized that they were being tricked, however, they'd tried to capture the duplicates so they could be turned over to the DOOP.  Of course, the slippery evil duplicates had sensed what was coming and had escaped, which had led to them being chased through the old city by an angry mob.  Tura had expected to have to repeat the concocted story half a dozen times.  She'd practiced it on the shuttle ride, studying it from every angle to make sure it was air tight.  Brannigan, however, had been perfectly happy to swallow the tripe she was feeding him.  All that had been necessary was to stroke his boundless male ego a little bit by telling him that, by landing his shuttle craft and boldly marching out to meet the imposters, he'd scared them so badly that now they were most likely hunting for a way to escape back to their own evil parallel timeline.  He'd bought it hook line and sinker.

Of course, not long after had come the inevitable invitation to join him in his quarters for, as he termed it, a "private de-briefs-ing", which she'd politely declined by breaking his nose.  (Velour did have its uses, as it turned out.  It was remarkably good at hiding blood stains.)  Then had come a transmission from Nixon, and Tura had managed to slink away while Zapp filled the president in on "what was really going on".  

Behind her, there were some muffled shuffling noises as someone climbed the ladder that led up to her hiding place.  Tura sighed.  Looks like they found me.

It was only Kif.  The scrawny green alien slid into her field of view and waited for her to acknowledge him, which she did only grudgingly.

"Amy told me what's really going on."  Kif said when Tura's eye finally rose to meet his.  "Actually, I guess it's 'Aimee' right now, at least until the others find a way to get home."  He shook his head.  "This is all so confusing."

Tura snorted.  "Tell me about it.  I've been living it for I don't even know how long, and it still doesn't make any sense to me."

Kif nodded, and then pointed at her arm.  "That thing on your arm is buzzing."

Tura looked down at her left arm.  Sure enough, it was vibrating slightly.  Somebody was trying to call her.  Groaning, and trying to remember the last time somebody had called her bearing something other than bad news, she hit the 'receive' button and Leela's face appeared.  She’d been expecting that.

"Leela, what are you doing?!"  Tura hissed.  "We can't be seen talking to each other like this.  It'll ruin everything!"

Leela's eye narrowed.  "Why don't we just pretend that I already knew that, shall we?"  She said coolly.  "I'm calling because I had to.  I need you to find something for me."

"Find something for you?"  Tura blinked.  "What are you talking about?"

"I need you to find that ship that you flew into the ground."

"It's in Central Park.  Have Bender and Fry take you to-"

"I know where it's supposed to be, Tura.  It's gone."  

_____________________________ _____________________________ ____________________

"What do you mean, gone?"

Leela rolled her eye.  "What, do you want me to spell it out for you?  I mean gone.  As in, it's not there anymore.  As in-"

Tura rolled her eye back.  "Yeah, thanks, I think I get it."  

It was childish, and Leela knew it, but she felt an immense sense of satisfaction upon seeing the look of irritation on Tura's face.  Then she remembered that the lives of herself and three of her closest friends were now entirely dependent upon the woman that was now favoring her with a decidedly hostile expression.

Changing tactics, Leela tried her best at what she'd heard was called a 'disarming smile'.  Unfortunately for Leela, Bender had been absolutely right about her acting skills

Tura's eye narrowed in suspicion.  "I know that look.  I use it on Phil when I've just called him a moron and then remember that I need him to go clean out the ship's grease trap."  

"Uhh..."

Tura sighed, and then the view on Leela's wrist computer changed wildy.  Probably Tura had moved to rest her head in her hand or rub her temples, forgetting- or not caring- that the camera that allowed Leela to see her was mounted in her own, identical wrist computer.

"What do you want from me?"  Tura said presently, even though she already knew.

"You need to talk to Brannigan.  With a big crash like that, there should have been a big investigation.  First, guys in hazmat gear should have gone over the wreck with a fine-toothed comb to make sure there was no reactor leak or chemical spill before anyone was even allowed near it.  Then the cops would normally have done an investigation to see what the ship was carrying, who was on board, why it crashed- that sort of thing.  That ship should have been sitting in the bottom of that crater for three days at least, maybe even a week.  It's only been a little over 24 hours; there's no way it should have been moved by now, and especially not every single last piece of wreckage.  There's only one person that has the political clout, machinery, manpower, and reckless disregard for public safety to risk moving the wreck- and potentially blowing up half of Manhattan by disturbing a potentially unstable reactor."

"You mean Brannigan."

Leela opened her mouth to answer, but hesitated.  She cocked her head sideways as she thought. "Actually, I meant Nixon," she said at length.  "But you're right.  Brannigan has the men and the power to pull that off.  I don't know about a motive though.  Nixon would want access to the Planet Express Ship for the engine and weapons technology.  What would Brannigan want with it?"

"I, uhh- I don't know."  Tura looked uncomfortable.  "Maybe he thought there might have been something in the ship that you might need and come back for?"

Leela was doubtful.  "That's an awfully competent thing for him to think."  She said.  Tura's moment of apparent discomfort hasn't escaped her.  Is she really that bent on showing me no sign of weakness that admitting to not knowing something like that actually bothered her? That's a bit much.      

"Yeah, you're probably right.  It was probably Nixon."

Leela nodded.  "It doesn't really matter either way.  Let's just stick with the plan.  Part of the reason you had to be up there on Nimbus was to keep Zapp off our scent long enough for us to track down the Professor's inter-timeline-travel-briefcase-device-gizmo if the ship had been moved before we could get to it.  If Zapp was the one that moved it, then so much the better. You'll be able to tell us exactly where to go to get the briefcase back.  

"Yeah..."

Leela noted the total lack of enthusiasm in Tura's response.  She thought she could guess the reason for it.  "I know coaxing information out of Brannigan won't be pleasant.  If it makes you feel better, I almost got eaten by a snake a few hours ago, so you're no worse off up there on Nimbus then you would have been if we'd decided to swap places."
  
Tura nodded.  That did make her feel a little better.

"I'd better go.  I've been standing alone in the open too long.  Eventually someone is going to recognize me, even with my disguise.  Plus, I can see Fry, Amy, and Bender coming.  Good luck with Brannigan."

Leela cut the connection and looked around.  No one appeared to be paying her any undue attention.  She had been standing a few feet off the sidewalk on a patch of tall, seedy grass that was in desperate need of a good laser trimming.  Amy, Bender, and Fry were headed in her direction across the grass.  Leela had sent them off to go find something to eat.  Really she'd just wanted to give them something to keep them occupied while she consulted with Tura, but when she saw the bags that Fry and Amy were carrying she quickly remembered that she was absolutely starving.

Apparently, Fry didn't see her.  She'd moved a little from where the four of them had split up, and he was probably having trouble recognizing her, what with her hair and eye being hidden behind a blernsball cap and sunglasses.  Shoving the rifle- still barely concealed in the folds of the museum sweatshirt- under one arm, she waved.  Grinning, the delivery boy waved back.

There was a nice shade tree just down the sidewalk.  When Fry trotted up, Leela gestured to it and the two of them walked slowly in that direction, giving Amy and Bender a chance to catch up.  

Once under the pleasantly cool shade, Fry let himself drop to the ground with a contented sigh.  Leela was just about to badger him for acting as though this were some afternoon picnic when the whole city was after them, and then realized that she didn't really have the energy for it.  "To hell with it."  She said, and plopped down next to the delivery boy.  "What do we have to eat?"

"Hot dogs."  Amy announced as she lowered herself to the ground.  "We didn't have the cash for anything else." She added apologetically.  

"Hot dogs are fine."  Leela reassured the intern.  Or at least, that's what she'd meant to say.  Her mouth was so crammed with food by that point that all that came out was gibberish, but Amy got the message.

"So, what did Tura say?" Fry asked after demolishing his lunch in under two minutes.  

Surrounded by friends, sitting in the cool grass, eating lunch under a gnarled old oak tree in Central Park, it had been easy to forget for a moment the mess that they were all in.  Leela wasn't particularly grateful to Fry for the quick jolt back to reality.  "She's going to talk to Brannigan, see if she can figure out where the ship is being stored."

"We don't really care about the ship though, right?"  Amy piped in.  "I mean, as long as we have the briefcase, we can always find another ship."

"Ooh, grand theft auto!"  Bender rubbed his hands together in glee.  "This day just keeps getting better and better!"  

"Cool it, Bender."  Leela ordered.  "We won't be stealing any space ships.  All we need is the briefcase."

Amy and Fry looked at each other.  "Uhh, but Leela, how are we going to get away from Earth without a space ship?"  Amy asked.

The question caught Leela off guard.  "Huh?  Why would we need to leave Earth?"

Amy started to reply, but her tendency to not want to look unintelligent in front of Leela finally won out and she fell silent.  Fry, on the other hand, held no illusions about which of them was smarter, and didn't hesitate to speak up.

"But, how are we going to use the make-us-go-home-thingy if we don't leave the planet?"

Leela looked at each one of her friends in turn.  A decidedly bad feeling was starting to wedge itself into her gut.  "Why, what happens if we use the device on the Earth?"  And why do I suspect that I really don't want to know the answer?

Amy cleared her throat.  "Boom."  She said, grimly.

Leela groaned.  "Terrific."
_____________________________ _____________________________ ____________

oh, and I threw together a quick title page / image for the fic in Autodesk Maya, just for the hell of it:

[Reply #617 on:]

Well, I already knew most of that, but yeah I thought you said he was going to take a while to get back to you...??
Like I said though, Props on finishing, unholy crap, it has been over two years...  Glad you are still planning to try for the novel.  Ooh - Any further thoughts about trying to expand The Oak Tree into one, too, still?, or is that what you are talking about..

Heh, the title page picture is pretty jive.  It definitely reminds me of those other renderings you were posting once a while before; and it harkens back to the beginning of the narrative, also.

I like how you explain further in this part about how and why the ship should not have been missing.  And so it's still going to be significant, that they are in an alternate timeline and not an alternate universe?

Lastly, "de-briefs-ing", chortle.

[Reply #618 on:]

Congrats, SO on finishing.  It's quite an accomplishment.

Now if I could just figure why that space station looks like it does--looks like a kid's toy, but I always suspect you put more thought into spaceship designs than most people...

[Reply #619 on:]

it looks that way because I didn't want to spend the time to make it more detailed.  It needs some lighting and texturing, plus a few windows in the hull here in there before it looks decent.  It doesn't look quite so blocky from the side, either, but its so much bigger than the PE ship that I couldn't do a side view that incorporated the whole station without making the PE ship look like a tiny dot.

[Reply #620 on:]

So, I know I said a little while ago that I was going to post the rest of the story bit by bit, but then I had a better idea.  I went back through the story, tweaked a few things here and there, fixed the grammar and the spelling, and turned the whole thing into a monster .pdf document.  Here's the link to it:

Green Storm Rising

Let me know if you find any spelling mistakes or missing words, or anything like that.  (And if you come across some funny looking 'E' at the end of a sentence, it's really supposed to be an ellipsis.  The program I used to make the pdf, LaTeX, misinterpreted all of my ellipses, for some reason.  I might not have caught all of them)

[Reply #621 on:]

Wait, what?  So you're not going to post any more of it here?

..So is the whole thing there?  It's finished?

[Reply #622 on:]

Wait, what?  So you're not going to post any more of it here?

..So is the whole thing there?  It's finished?

Yes, the whole thing is there.  All 370 pages of it.  There's nothing left to post

[Reply #623 on:]

Oh, okay.. Well, I'll read the rest and finish it whenever I can then...
Wow, JN must have moved fast. 
370 pages..  massive masers of green quasars.  So you got it all organized and laid out and everything.  Cool to do that, I just didn't realize you were going to until you had finished postaging it all, as writ.  Makes me feel very much like I'm about to read a novel (well, finish reading a novel) already.
Like how you titled everything. I especially like the chapter title "Circuitous Parallels", mm, that's good. And the ones toward the end are just foreshadowing-ing enough, but not spoiler-ing.  It looks a SNAZZY DOCUMENT thus far.

Also,

Glad you are still planning to try for the novel.  Ooh - Any further thoughts about trying to expand The Oak Tree into one, too, still?, or is that what you are talking about..

Is that project still on the cards at all??  The shimmering beauty of that glimmering tale...
:o

[Reply #624 on:]

that might become the inspiration for a novel, someday.  I have a couple of other ideas I want to try out first.

[Reply #625 on:]

Woo. Finally, the conclusion. Well done, SO.

Show spoiler

And nice little tie-in with ITWGY at the end.

[Reply #626 on:]

thanks!

[Reply #627 on:]

Okay. I finished it.
So good.. so sad.. and the twist with the quantum timeline-problem.. and the part with
Phil..    Pfaww.   You were right to present the remainder of the story in this form, reading it in one huge suspenseful chunk like that made it so much more impactful.  Also I have to averr that the entire denouement was crisply well-done.
Going back to an earlier part - the whole idea of the reality coefficients is so great...  Clever idea about that, to use that concept as the rationale and justification for what was happening to them.   I did go back through enough of the previous chapters to note that you made quite a few tweaks and changes, here and there; though I'm sure I probably didn't catch all of them; were those some things JN suggested, or were they just adjustments you made?

One early part I wanted to highlight.. I thought these quotes were highly amusing:

"What Senator Obama's head doesn't seem to understand is that- wait, what were we talking about again? Where am I? Snnnoooooorrrrreee..."
"John, your head's service to your country is beyond question, but you seem to be forgetting one key fact: namely, that I have been ordained by almighty God to lead the people into the promised land of holy Change. Behold all ye mortals my perfect teeth, and despair!"
"And what neither of you hippie beatniks seem to understand is that neither of you are going to be president, because I've already rigged the voting booths. Arrrooooo..."

"Petertron, how could you eat your own daughter's science experiment?"
"You think that's bad, Loisbot? Remember the time I arm wrestled Arnold Swarzenneger while playing the tuba?"

*(But it should be 'Schwarzenegger' though; you said to tell you if we found anything)

Oh oh oh - and that was a really nice touch to incorporate that half-hulk of a ship parked in the vacant lot across the street that you'd noticed; to use blowing that abandoned vessel up as a plot point.

As you know I always love your science; and the fact that you amply returned to that (and science-rich themes) in the last sections of the story served to bookend it - the physics-y early and later parts with the middle about the mutants.  Did enjoy the twist that the Professor provided, his epiphanic revelation that is, as I said.  And as for the actual finale - well - one thing, excellent idea about Zoidberg near the end there, for him to stay and take the brunt of making sure the beta timeline didn't collapse into quantum nothingness - (one wonders why they wouldn't have just thought of that in the first place, though??) - and the conclusion itself was your typical understated subtle-closure, though perhaps not as ambiguous.

(as some of your previous).

Super-cosmic-mega-congrats again on finishing then! and you well know I will read anything you might want to show me.  
Astrostellar.

p.s. is your knee better also?   : (

And, of course, most grandish PEELiversary again, this time on the actual day.

[Reply #628 on:]

were those some things JN suggested, or were they just adjustments you made?

  JN made a couple of suggestions.  The little scene where Zapp interrogates Leela was one, and he also wanted me to add a scene near the end where Leela reflects on the similiarities between herself and Tura and shows that she's actually learned a lesson from everything.  I really wanted to add that scene, but I couldn't make it work, somehow. 

The other changes were my ideas.  The only real big change I made was to write Vyolet out of the story somewhat.  Originally, the story was going to be much darker, and the mutants were basically going to get wiped out.  The mutant story was going to end with the DOOP destroying the mutant village and Vyolet setting off the nuke they keep in the church. 

Oh oh oh - and that was a really nice touch to incorporate that half-hulk of a ship parked in the vacant lot across the street that you'd noticed; to use blowing that abandoned vessel up as a plot point.

  Well, the way I originally wrote that scene, it was the Cygnoid's pizza place that got torched so, yeah, noticing that ship really worked out nicely

(one wonders why they wouldn't have just thought of that in the first place, though??)

  That's why Tura and Leela foreshadow the ending by saying "We always seem to forget about Zoidberg" a couple of times. 

Super-cosmic-mega-congrats again on finishing then

  Thank you! 

[Reply #629 on:]

AND YOUR KNEE??


It was exorbitantly interesting how you came up with that whole quantum-states conundrum to justify someone having to remain as the 'observer'.  Needless to say I was savoring
that.  And of course to make it so that Fry did stay, at first.  Now, that whole part was more or less a scientific explanation, right?, that is, it is actually based on hypothetical theory.

(p.s. did you see the article on black strings I linked in the science thread??)

The only real big change I made was to write Vyolet out of the story somewhat.  Originally, the story was going to be much darker, and the mutants were basically going to get wiped out.  The mutant story was going to end with the DOOP destroying the mutant village and Vyolet setting off the nuke they keep in the church.

Oh my, that would have been quite something.  Dark indeed.  And yeahh, I had always thought you'd probably meant to have Vyolet involved in a more sinister way!  There seemed to be a good deal of foreshadowing towards that, too.  NOTED AND OBSERVED.  Still, just killing off somebody was darkish enough, I s'pose; (had you always planned to have the storyline follow that course?)

That's why Tura and Leela foreshadow the ending by saying "We always seem to forget about Zoidberg" a couple of times.

I did notice that!  Very much in fact.  Yash I had a strong feeling he was going to get used again; in some way.  Convenient solution.  To have Zoidberg play the role of the observer underscored your usual use of the whole cast, which I think you generally do fairly well.  I don't know about the way you treat him towards the conclusion really - would they truly have been that dismissive of him?? - but yeah your treatment really brought out their.. contempt.

I did feel sorry for Tura, she really basically got screwed.  I thought there was sort of that bit near the end there where Leela sort of does reflect?  To some extent, anyway.  But I guess you had something larger in mind?

And as always I liked how you managed to sprinkle in bits of humor.

In summation and conclusion, this fic is characterized by a definite novel-like feel without compromising vital elements of the show; you of course take plenty of creative license but it manages to stay authentic; and again you balanced that whole stretch at the end by bringing in copious quantum mechanicness once more.  Plus I, like, learn stuff; so I guess running a dark matter furnace without any dark matter in it would blow it up...?

Tah

[Reply #630 on:]

AND YOUR KNEE??

<Destructor> My leg feels better!</Destructor>  I did get yelled at by the doctor though for not coming to see him immediately.  Apparently I should have had a couple of stitches.  Ah well...

p.s. did you see the article on black strings I linked in the science thread??

  No.  no I did not. 

[Reply #631 on:]

Ohh myy good. ... Man serius you sould totally make some one do a comic book of your first "story line" daang just read it all. And i enjoyed evey page. Thats good writing.   Keep the fantactic work going!!

[Reply #632 on:]

The other changes were my ideas.  The only real big change I made was to write Vyolet out of the story somewhat.  Originally, the story was going to be much darker, and the mutants were basically going to get wiped out.  The mutant story was going to end with the DOOP destroying the mutant village and Vyolet setting off the nuke they keep in the church.  

I'm glad you didn't do that.  I think your final plot worked just fine.  

Show spoiler

Action-packed, but with a hint of melancholy.  I told SO in an email that then ending reminded me of 'The Late Philip J Fry', in that we get the feeling that some 'alternate' version of Leela ends up lonely at the end, which screws up the mind and the emotions a bit...

[Reply #633 on:]

Ohh myy good. ... Man serius you sould totally make some one do a comic book of your first "story line" daang just read it all. And i enjoyed evey page. Thats good writing.   Keep the fantactic work going!!

Heh, thanks!  Like I said earlier though, I just finished my last fic.

I'm glad you didn't do that.

  Yeah, me too.  It sounded like a good idea until I tried to write it. 

I've been going back and doing a little bit of a rewrite on my old fics.  I'm turning everything into book-format pdf files so that I can print everything off and keep a hard copy somewhere (where it will gather dust and add to the clutter in my closet).    I've finished Talora and all of my shorter stories, and I'm currently working on The Leelazarus Effect.  I've posted links to everything at the beginning of this thread, and I'll do it here too:

Talora

Short Stories

Green Storm Rising

Going back and reading Talora made me wince.  It's awful.

[Reply #634 on:]

Yeah, no, I really didn't think so at all, as you know, but whatever.    I found it refreshingly unpretentious and a bright amusing first story.
I must relay that I am tremendously melancholic at the prospect of never really posting in this thread anymore.  Eh.  And since this is pretty much the only thread JN ever posts in, well, I guess he won't be posting at all any more..   <_<

So like what changes or revisions did you make to Talora?

[Reply #635 on:]

Yeah, I know you liked that one, km.  You know how it is though, everybody is their own worst critic.   

With Talora I just fixed some grammar and edited a couple of the more melodramatic lines.  I left it pretty much alone, though.  The Leelazarus Effect is the one that's getting a major overhaul.

[Reply #636 on:]

:o  ..Zany, you know, I was going to say, "Next you're going to claim Leelazarus Effect sucks..." 
That one is?  You're going to do some cosmic revisional stuff to it, really?  The one that is already just about.. perfect?  

Also, that is GOOD NEWS about your leg.

And having looked over some parts of GSR again, (primarily the end), yeah, as I was saying above, I did indeed notice even more how you do have that whole passage at the conclusion there where Leela does reflect, quite a bit.  Figure it is good that you did not extend that further; despiting whatever you may have had in mind.

Heh, despiting

In any cakes, the original LE will certainly always stand as a several-layers-of-awesome work.


cakes, layers, ohhh man

[Reply #637 on:]

So i tried to open the doc.  But i dosent work man :s do you have any other way to i can get the green storm rising? ?

May all have a nice weekend

[Reply #638 on:]

So i tried to open the doc.  But i dosent work man :s do you have any other way to i can get the green storm rising? ?

strange, I just clicked the link and it works for me.  See if this works instead: Green Storm Rising

If that link doesn't work, then there might be something wrong with whatever program you use to view pdf files.

You're going to do some cosmic revisional stuff to it, really?  The one that is already just about.. perfect?

 Alot of the beginning feels rushed, and I'm thinking about updating the shippy stuff to reflect that Fry and Leela are sort of together now.  Nothing crazy

[Reply #639 on:]

got it this time stupid iphone -.-''.