Chapter Text
Space: it seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and a gorilla starts throwing barrels at you.
A spacecraft weaves masterfully around projectiles, effortlessly dodging the first two, but is hit and completely destroyed by the third. Large red letters flash across the screen:
GAME OVER
A young man beams. "And that's how you play the game!" he explains to the child standing at the arcade machine with him. The kid had asked how this game, Monkey Francas Jr, is played, and Fry thinks he did a pretty good job of giving him a quick rundown. But the kid only scowls at him.
"You stink, loser."
Before Fry can even open his mouth to respond, a familiar, almost dreaded voice calles his name. "Hey. Fry. Pizza goin' out. Come on!"
Fry shuffles over to the counter where Mr Panucci had dropped the pizza box. Fry grumbles something about it being New Year's Eve, and that he really doesnt want to be delivering pizzas tonight, but Mr Panucci isn't hearing any of it. And so, after a quick rundown of where he's going, Fry trudges out to his bike.
As he secures the pizza on his handlebars, he feels a tug at his pant leg. His heart sinks a little when he looks at the source: his beloved dog, Seymour.
"I won't be gone long, Seymour," he says with a reassuring pat on the dog's head. "Just wait here until I get back."
And he's off.
New York City on New Year's Eve is crowded, and loud, and smells almost worse than usual. God, Fry wishes he could be out celebrating with his family or his girlfriend, but no, Mr. Panucci had insisted on staying open tonight.
Several blocks into his route, he stops at an intersection to let a taxi go by. It stops to wait for traffic. It's only after several seconds that he glances at the backseat, where his girlfriend is sitting with the window open.
"Michelle!" He beams, "Baby! Where're you going?"
He notices another man in the car with her, and he's sitting awfully close to her. She frowns.
"It's not working out, Fry." The taxi begins to pull away, and as it speeds off, Michelle pokes her head out the window. "I put your stuff out on the sidewalk!"
Fry groans, and sets off again.
The wheels on his bike are old, and they squeak loudly with every rotation. The longer he listens to it, the more irritated he becomes. This night has been impossibly horrible to him.
But finally, finally, he pulls up to the building matching the address on the paper. He grabs the pizza, chains up the bike, and heads for the door.
He hears a loud snap behind him, and turns to find someone stealing his bike. Can't have shit in New York.
"Happy New Year!" The thief calls as he rides away. Fry rolls his eyes, and enters the building.
After a too-slow elevator trip to the second floor, he finally comes to the room on the address. He knocks.
Nothing. He shrugs and pushes his way in anyway.
It's awfully cold and dark in here, and no one seems to be around. Why had he just walked in exactly?
But now he's curious. The room is lined with large glass tubes, and toward the back sits a wooden desk. Fry approaches a foggy tube and looks inside. He's startled to see a person standing in the tube.
Now that he knows to look for it, there are people in almost all of the tubes. What is this place? He really needs to start reading signs.
"Hello?" He calls, not fully expecting an answer. He pulls the name Mr. Panucci had written for him out of his pocket. "Pizza delivery for, uh. I. C. Wiener?"
Fry drops the paper with a groan, angry and defeated. Impossibly, the night had gotten worse. "Ah crud. I always thought by this point in my life, I'd be the one making the crank calls!"
He trudges over to the desk and cracks open a lukewarm beer, leaning back almost too far in the seat. His mother always tells him not to do that, but Fry knows by this point how far is too far. After multiple trips to the hospital for almost cracking your skull open, you learn how to do it right.
Oh. This is one of those places people go to to get frozen, or whatever. He might consider doing something like that, if he could find time between being treated like shit at work, being ignored at home, and getting broken up with.
He sighs and glances out the window. How is it was already ten seconds to midnight? He raises his beer to the street below and produces a party horn from his pocket.
"Here's to another lousy millennium."
He drinks until the clock hits zero, and as soon as it does, he figures the best way to punctuate his shitty, shitty night is to blow that damn party horn as loudly and as sarcastically as he can.
Mistake.
As couples in the street below him dance and kiss and celebrate the new year, Fry finds himself tumbling backward in the chair. Damn. His mother was right. He's going to fall on his head all alone with no one there to help him. Will he have to bike himself to the hospital?
No, wait. His bike is gone.
Before he can get too far into the thought, his back hits something. A wall? No - a door is slamming in front of him. It's nicely cushioned in here, and he still has that beer in hand, but Fry is sent into a panic spiral. He's in a freezer tube. He doesnt have any time to do much more than yelp in horror before he hears a mechanical whirring, and then nothing.
Whatever that dream had been, it was a weird one. Fry groans and steps out of bed to find his way to the bathroom. He's never been this groggy after waking up before. He stretches, scratches his ass, and starts moving.
Wait, when was the last time he's slept standing up?
His brain finally catches up to him, and he realizes he's still in the cryogenics lab. Oh god. How much time passed?
Fry catches a glimpse at the window that, moments before, certainly wasn't displaying an array of colorful skyscrapers and flying vehicles in a disparity of shapes. His stomach drops into his shoes as he approaches, placing his hands on the glass.
"My god," he breathes. "It's the future. My parents... my coworkers... my girlfriend... I'll never see any of them again."
He considers this briefly. Then, elated, he throws his arms up and cheers.
This was just what he had been hoping for: a fresh start. A change. Maybe here, in the year.... whatever it is, he can fit in a little better than he had back in 1999. Maybe here, he'll be respected and loved.
As he stands here, positively gawking at the incredible sight before him, there comes a sliding sound from behind. Startled, Fry whirls around.
"Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" A silhouetted figure sings from a doorway. A second figure flicks on a light switch and looks annoyed at the first.
"Why do you always have to say it that way?"
"Haven't you ever heard of a little thing called showmanship?" He turns back to Fry and raises his lab coat as if to imitate some kind of Dracula. "Come, your destiny awaits!"
Fry follows the workers down a hallway to a room labeled Fate Assignment Officer.
"Have a nice Future," the second man says, almost bored. The door slides up and open on its own as the two shuffle away.
"Cool! Just like in Star Trek!" Fry observes. He moves into the doorway and looks up at it. He isnt sure what he expected to happen, but he figures he got what was coming when the door closes again, smacking him in the face at a surprising speed.
He pries himself out of the doorway and into the new room, where he supposes he'll be assigned... something. His fate, probably. This room is largely empty, save for a desk, a window, and an adjacent room containing something high-tech and scary-looking.
There's a woman staring out the window with her back to him when he walks in. She's taller than Fry and wears all black, but her most striking feature is her long, purple ponytail. Fry is instantly drawn.
"Good afternoon, sir."
But then she turns to face him, and Fry can't hold the startled noise that comes out of him. The woman only has one eye, huge, and right in the center of her face like some kind of cyclops. Fry tries to shake it off as quickly as he can. He supposes she gets nonsense like this all the time.
"Name?" She asks, staring at her clipboard.
"Uh, Fry."
"I'm Leela. Now, it's New Year's Eve, so I'd like to decide your fate quickly and get out of here."
Fry so desperately wants to make her life easier here, but he's definitely still acclimating to the whole she-has-one-eye situation at hand.
"Can I ask you a question?" He blurts without thinking.
"As long as it's not about my eye," she says with an agitated squint.
"Uh..."
"Is it about my eye?"
Fry hesitates. "...Sort of?"
Leela sighs. "Just ask the question."
"What's with the eye?"
Leela turns away from him and gets back to writing. "I'm an alien, alright?" She snaps. "Let's drop the subject."
Is she kidding? Does she even know how amazing that is? "Cool! An alien! Has your race taken over the Earth?"
"No, I just work here."
Fry's attention is brought back out the window as a blimp drifts lazily past, displaying a celebration of the new year. He almost can't believe what he's seeing.
"Wait a minute. Is that blimp accurate?" Fry asks, voice raising an octave. He'd been asleep far longer than he thought.
"Yep. It's December 31st, 2999," Leela says. Some patience is returning to her tone, although it remains cold and clinical.
"My god! A million years!" He realizes in horror.
"I'm sure this is very upsetting for you."
"Y'know, I guess it should be, but actually I'm glad. I had nothing to live for in my old life. I was broke, I had a humiliating job, and I was beginning to suspect my girlfriend might be cheating on me."
Fry doesnt fully know why he's unloading all this on someone he just met, but it's nice to say aloud nonetheless. And Leela, through her professional demeanor, starts to look sympathetic.
"Well, at least here you'll be treated with dignity," she says. Her gaze turns serious again. "Now strip naked, and get on the Probulator."
She points at the scary machine Fry saw when he walked in. It seems to consist mainly of claws and needles and rods and other probe-like equipment. He's reluctant, but he does as she says.
After a thorough and painful probing, Fry is allowed to sit up. He begins to get dressed again as Leela reads off a paper that comes out of the machine.
"Interesting," she says. "Your DNA test shows one living relative. He's your great-great-great-great-"
Fry pulls his socks on.
"-great-great-great-great-great-great-"
He pulls his pants up and zips them closed.
"-great-great-great-great-"
He pulls his shirt over his head.
"-great-great-great-great-great-great-"
He pulls his jacket on.
"-great-great-great-great-great nephew."
"That's great!" Fry says. "What's the little guy's name?"
Leela turns the page so Fry can see the picture. "Professor Hubert Farnsworth."
Fry groans. The man pictured has to be at least 100. He has enormous glasses and a bald head and so, so many wrinkles. But still, family is family.
"You know," Fry muses, slumping over Leela's desk as she types at a holographic computer, "I'm the luckiest guy in the whole future. I've been given a second chance! And this time, I'm not gonna be a total loser!"
A buzzer goes off just then. Fry sits bolt upright. "What's that?"
"Your permanent career assignment," Leela says, flipping the screen around with a squeak. Fry's face pales.
"Delivery Boy? No! Not again!" He lunges for Leela, grasping at the sleeves of her jacket. "Please! Anything else!"
She smacks his hands away. "Get your hands off me. You've been assigned the job you're best at, just like everyone else."
"What if I refuse?" Fry crosses his arms over his chest.
"Then you'll be fired."
"Fine."
"-out of a cannon, into the sun."
Fry's arms drop to his sides. "But I don't like being a delivery boy!" He whines.
"Well that's tough. Lots of people dont like their jobs, but we do them anyway." She gestures at a corporate-looking poster depicting a sad-looking man, and reads the caption aloud. "You gotta do what you gotta do. Now hold out your hand."
Fry hesitantly holds up his palm.
She starts rummaging in a drawer. "I'm going to insert your career chip. It'll permanently label you as a delivery boy."
Leela produces a sort of clamp-like device. It doesnt look so scary until she opens it to reveal a rather intimidating spike. That's supposed to go in his hand? He reflexively draws back and protects his hand.
"Keep that thing away from me!"
Fry panics. He sprints out of the room, tailed closely by Leela and the scary clamp-thing. She chases him all the way back into the freezer room.
"Hold still, dammit!" She says. "I don't have good depth perception!"
Leela lunges for him, but misses, and winds up in the same tube that Fey just woke up in. It slams shut and sets itself for a thousand years. She bangs on the glass with her fist.
"You've got 'til the count of five to let me out of here! One-"
She's frozen instantly. Fry's starting to piece together how this happened to him in the first place.
Crisis averted. He chuckles to himself and saunters off.
"See you in a thousand years," he says. But after about two more steps, he feels too guilty. He sighs, and returns to the tube.
Fry can't let her out now or he'll get his hand pierced, or whatever. He resets the timer to five minutes. "You owe me one." And then he sprints out of the building.
New York in 2999 is amazing. It's still New York for sure: you can barely see the sky through all the buildings, the streets smell awful, no one seems to give a shit about Fry. Yep, this is home, alright.
But it's also so different than anything he could have imagined. The skyscrapers are all different colors of the rainbow. Some are yellow or blue or green or pink, or just your standard brown-and-gray affair. And there's still traffic, but while some is low to the ground, and some is in the sky, all of the vehicles are flying. Parked ones, Fry notes, sit flat on the ground.
Fry wanders and wanders, unsure entirely of where he is or where he needs to be. He comes across what appears to be a transportation tube of some kind? It's made of glass, and resembles the tubing he'd put in his hamster's cage when he was little. He observes a pedestrian walk through the opening, say a location, and be whisked away through the tubes.
Fry wanders into the opening himself. "Uh..." Does anywhere he knows still exist? "Cross Town Express?"
A vacuum sound activates, and he's sucked up into the tubes.
This is exhilarating! It's by far the coolest thing that's ever happened to Fry. He screams in delight the whole way, as he's taken across the city. The view is incredible. The tube dips underwater, and he gets a good look at some of the cool fish. It winds around the Statue of Liberty. And finally, it spits him out, face first, directly into the side of a building. Fry falls painfully to the ground.
"Tch. Tourist," comes the irritated voice of a local. Fry brushes himself off, and wanders down this new street.
After several minutes of aimless walking, he finds something of note. It's a little, blue, rectangular booth with some writing on the side. He doesn't need to read it to know what it is.
"Hey, a phone booth!" Fry comments aloud. "I can call my nephew!"
And with that, he goes to stand in the line to the booth. After only a few moments, though, impatient tapping behind him catches his attention, and he turns to look at whoever is tapping.
"Whoa! A real live robot!" He exclaims with absolutely no consideration to the person - robot - he's now gawking at. He leans in for a closer look, suddenly suspicious. "Or is that some cheesy New Year's costume?"
"Bite my shiny metal ass," the robot says, slowly and very articulately. He's gray and cylindrical and has an antenna coming out of his head, but for the most part, looks fairly humanlike in structure. Aside from looking a bit like a walking trashcan. Fry's taken aback.
"Doesn't look so shiny to me," he mumbles after a quick look at the robot's ass.
"Shinier than yours, meat bag," the robot snaps. Fry frowns and turns back to face the line, which is moving fast. He just can't stop making people mad at him today, can he?
Sooner than he expects, it's his turn, and he steps inside the phone booth. There's a little red button and a slot of some kind, but there doesn't seem to be any numbers. Maybe he has to press the button for assistance?
The first press does nothing. Neither does the second. Fry opts to press the button over and over until something happens.
"Listen, buddy," the robot says from behind him after about six unproductive button presses, stepping into the booth with him. "I'm in a hurry here. Let's try for a two-fer."
The robot produces a coin on a string, chuckling a little as he tricks the machine with it.
"Please select mode of death: Quick and Painless, or Slow and Horrible," comes a calm, mechanical voice. Fry pays no mind.
"Yeah, I'd like to place a collect call?"
"You have selected: Slow and Horrible."
"Good choice," the robot in the booth with him notes, sounding almost genuinely impressed.
A hatch in front of them opens, revealing an array of small weapons attached to mechanical arms. When they begin to stretch out toward the two of them, Fry screams; the robot throws his arms in the air enthusiastically.
"Bring it on, baby!" He cheeres. When the machine doesn't move immediately, he seems to grow impatient. "Come on, come on! Kill me already!" And then, like it just occurred to him, he extends a hand to Fry. "By the way, my name's Bender." Fry grabs him by the shoulders.
"Help! What's happening?"
The arms pull back slightly, and, thinking quickly, Fry flattens himself and Bender against the wall just as the arms lunge forward, unwittingly shielding this complete stranger with his body. The arms attack the center of the booth for a few long seconds. Finally, the arms draw back, and Fry cringes as a knife is thrust into the area they had just been standing in, twists twice, and folds back into the hatch as it slides closed.
"You are now dead. Thank you for using Stop 'n Drop: America's favorite Suicide Booth since 2008."
Fry throws himself back out of the booth, all but hyperventilating. He could have died. If he had moved even a little slower-
"Lousy stinkin' rip off," Bender says behind him. He hears a dull metallic thud, and wonders vaguely if that means Bender kicked it, or if the door had just closed loudly. "Whelp, I didnt have anything else planned for today. Let's go get drunk!"
They find themselves at a bar moments later. Fry's too shaken to catch the name of it as they enter. He's surprised, though, when Bender orders a beer and begins to pour it between the panels of his teeth.
"Why would a robot need to drink?"
"I dont 'need to drink.' I can quit anytime I want," Bender grumbles. Fry has a sneaking feeling that isn't the whole story. Bender burps, and a small fire comes out of his mouth. Fry's startled, but Bender seems unbothered. "So they made you a delivery boy, huh? Man, that's as bad as my job."
"What do you do, Bender?"
"I'm a Bender. I bend girders - that's all I'm programmed to do."
"You any good at it?"
"Are you kidding?" Bender slams his bottle to the counter and sits upright. He seems enthusiastic about the topic. "I was a star. I could bend girders at any angle: 30 degrees, 32 degrees, you name it! ...31... But I couldn't go on living when I figured out what the girders were for," Bender mumbles. If he's trying to mask his despair, he isn't doing a very good job.
"What were they for?"
"Suicide Booths." Bender tosses his now empty beer bottle into his mouth, and Fry hears it clang around in there. He isn't sure if it's a perverted thought in this context, but Fry can't help but wonder what Bender's anatomy looks like. He had assumed he's stuffed full of wires and gears and such, but after that hollow clanging, he isn't so sure. "Well, it was nice meeting you Fry. I'm gonna go kill myself."
Bender stands and begins to walk away. Fry's heart stops. Bender can't leave him! Not here, totally alone, to figure out how literally anything works in this world. Hell, he'd almost died just trying to make a phone call! He has to say something.
"No, wait! You're the only friend I have!"
Bender freezes and slowly turns partially back around. Something about his eyes are... almost sad? "...You really want a robot for a friend?"
"Sure, ever since I was six," Fry shrugs. Bender's face returns to neutral at that and he turns the rest of the way to face Fry. Bender is shockingly expressive, given that the most he can manage in the way of facial expression is slightly change the shape of his eyes.
"Well... okay. But I don't want anyone thinkin' we're robosexuals. So if anyone asks, you're my debugger."
Robosexual? What, is it normal to date robots here? Fry hadn't even considered it. He really has been asleep for a long time.
Fry doesn't get long to contemplate that before he notices Leela outside the window, talking to some passerby. He groans.
"Oh no, it's the cyclops." He crouches behind Bender, as he turns to look. "Don't look! Don't look!"
"I'm not lookin,'" Bender assures him. Fry hears a mechanical noise, and looks up to see Bender's eyes zooming in very conspicuously toward the window. He wants to grab Bender and run. He wants to flee the city. He can't be a delivery boy again. He just can't.
Leela shows the passerby a photo, he points inside the pub, and Leela spots Fry.
"Run!"
Fry pulls Bender by the hand out the back door to the pub, and they run at full speed down the street. After about a block, Bender points at a building atop an impressive set of stairs.
"We can hide in here!" He says. "It's free on Tuesdays!"
Bender physically drags Fry up the stairs. He's sure he's absolutely covered in bruises from bouncing all over the concrete steps, but at least Leela isn't likely to look for him here. He hopes.
They push the doors open, and are greeted by hundreds of disembodied heads in jars.
"Welcome to the Head Museum," the centermost one says. "I'm Leonard Nimoy."
"Spock?" Fry's amazed. He runs up to Leonard and does the Vulcan salute. "Hey, do the thing!"
Leonard chuckles. "I don't do that anymore."
Fry looks all around the room, positively stunned. "This is unbelievable! What do you heads do all day?"
"We share our wisdom with those who seek it. It's a life of quiet dignity."
"Feeding time!" A woman in a colorful uniform approaches with a box, and shakes some flakes into Leonard's jar.
The door behind them flies open, and Fry turns to see Leela and two police officers, one human and one robot. He and Bender run again.
They find some random shelf and duck down. Maybe she'll believe they're just some heads?
But no, she spots the two of them almost immediately. "I'm sorry, Fry," she says, "but I have to install your career chip."
"Yeah, well, if you're sorry why're you doing it?" Fry asks. He already knows the answer.
"It's my job. You gotta do what you gotta do." She approaches him, and he backs away. Fry miscalculates how far away the shelf is. He bumps into it, and a jar containing Richard Nixon's head topples and smashes. An alarm blares.
"That's it," Nixon growls. "You just made my list."
He attaches to Fry's arm, where he snarls and bites furiously. Fry shakes his arm and pulls at Nixon's head in an attempt to remove him.
"Ow! Stop it! Down boy! Bad president!"
Bender starts to pull at Nixon too, but then the cops show up.
"Alright, buddy, step away from the head," the human one says. Fry and Bender throw their hands up in surrender. Nixon doesn't relent, and continues to bite and bite Fry's arm.
"I'm gonna get 24th century on his ass," the robot one says. The two of them pull out lightsaber-like beaters, and together they beat Fry to the ground.
"Officers, please!" Leela says. "There's no need to use force!"
"Let us handle this, weirdy," the robot one says. They continue to whack and kick Fry.
"Oh, come on, he's just a poor kid from the Stupid Ages," she pleads. Fry wants to be grateful, but it's also sort of her fault he's being beaten in the first place. At least he has someone defending him, though.
"Keep your big nose out of this, Eyeball," the human one says.
"No one makes fun of my nose."
Leela kicks the officers off of Fry, and he takes the opportunity to run as soon as he can. Fry and Bender escape into whichever room happens to be the closest, praying it's an exit. The door they find is labeled HALL OF CRIMINALS, and it certainly is not the exit. It's a tiny room lined with pickled criminals, and one barred window at the end. Bender locks the door behind them and they step inside.
"We're trapped!" Bender says. Fry runs farther and tries to tug at the bars. If only he were strong enough to bend-
Oh.
"Wait a second!" He says. "You're a bender, right? We can get outta here if you just bend the bars!"
"Dream on, skin tube. I'm only programmed to bend for constructive purposes. What do I look like, a de-bender?"
"Who cares what you're programmed for! If someone programmed you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?"
"I'll have to check my program." A beat. "Yup."
There's a banging at the door, Leela's voice comes through. "Open up!"
Fry's starting to get desperate. "Come on, Bender. It's up to you to make your own decisions in life! That's what separates people- and robots, from animals! ...And animal-robots!"
"You're full of crap, Fry!" Bender turns to storm away, but his antenna smashes the hanging light. If he were a human, Fry supposes, the ensuing shock might have killed him. And for a moment, Fry is nervous it might. He and the criminals watch, unsure what exactly to do. If he makes any move to touch Bender, he's gonna get shocked too. But then Bender snaps back to face him again. "You make a persuasive argument, Fry!"
Bender marches dutifully over to the window, where he grabs the bars and begins to pull. It seems to be causing him some trouble. He's straining hard and groaning, and nothing is happening. Behind them, Leela bangs on the door some more. Fry tries to mask some of his terror, moving to encourage his new companion.
"Come on, Bender. You can do it!"
Bender pulls a little harder. "I can't... I can't do it..."
But as he's complaining, the bars creak, and they start to bend. It takes only a few more seconds before Bender's pulled them off entirely. Fry jumps up and down cheering, and Bender turns, laughing joyously and holding the broken bars in his fists.
"You were right, Fry! From now on I'm gonna bend what I want, when I want, who I want! I'm unstoppable!"
He raises his arms above his head in triumph, and Fry gets this inexplicable urge to hug him.
Huh. He hasn't had a hug in a thousand years.
But, as quickly as he has time to have the thought and process it, Bender's arms come loose and clatter to the ground.
"Ah."
Fry watches, awestruck and dumbfounded, as Bender plugs his arms back into their sockets without any help. "I don't know how you did that."
The door slams open behind them, and there's Leela. Time to go. He and Bender dive out the window, and Fry barely stays long enough to watch Bender bend the remaining bars so Leela can't follow them.
"Wait!" She cries. Something about her tone sounds less aggressive, but Fry doesnt trust her enough to analyze it. He keeps running.
"No thanks!" Bender calls behind them.
They come across a grate in the ground. Who would think to look down there? Fry hears Bender crack his knuckles beside him.
That can't be a good sound coming from a robot.
"I guess one of us'll have to bend this grate?" Bender says, like he's trying to show off. But Fry can see hinges on the grate. He kneels and easily pulls it open, and Bender's face falls. "Ah."
They climb down the ladder, and after several minutes of descending, Fry's feet touch solid ground. It's dark, but he can vaguely make out what's here. All around, he sees decrepit, ruined buildings and streets. Everything is covered in rubble and dust and mold, and he can't imagine what this is or why it's here.
"Good lord," he breathes. "What is this?"
"It's the decaying ruins of Old New York," Bender says behind him. He feels Bender clap his back. "Welcome home, pal."
Fry spends some time walking through the uneven streets, with Bender at his side. He notes buildings he used to walk past every day. He recalls the routes he would bike to deliver pizzas. He sees the alley he first found Seymour in.
Eventually, they come across the most familiar street of all.
"It's my old neighborhood," he tells Bender. "Man, this brings back a lot of memories."
"Keep 'em to yourself, pops."
Fry ignores that. He needs this more than Bender needs to be rude, so he takes his new friend on a brief tour of the neighborhood.
They wander farther through the city.
"This is where I brought my girlfriend on our very first date."
It's a beautiful pond that, in his day, was beautifully maintained.
He recalls that date in so much detail it could have happened just last month. He had been worrying about it for days - would Michelle even like him? Sure, she'd agreed to go out with him, but he didn't usually get second dates. He'd had to meticulously plan to make this one perfect.
And then the day came. He'd taken the time to shower and groom himself. He'd gone out and bought a bouquet of flowers. And he'd met Michelle here, at the Rockefeller Center, to ice skate and get to know each other.
His heart sinks as he watches the scene in front of him. Some slimy, green, one-eyed tentacle creature emerges from the disgusting pond. It screeches, and plunges back in.
"My god. She's gone. Everyone I ever knew or cared about is gone."
"Wait, there's someone you know," Bender says matter-of-factly, pointing somewhere off to the right. Fry follows his gaze to a small pile of rubble, upon which Leela is standing with the scary career-chip-inserter thing. Fry groans.
"Can't you leave me alone? I'm miserable enough already."
"Look," Leela says, approaching Fry as he sits on the curb, "I know it's not much consolation, but I understand how you feel."
"No you don't! I've got no home, no family-"
"No friends," Bender cuts in. Fry ignores him. That much can change with time. But as for losing everyone and everything he'd ever known...
"My whole world is gone! You can't possibly understand how it feels to be so alone."
"I understand," Leela says, direct but with enough sympathy to make Fry look up at her. "I'm the only one-eyed alien on this whole planet. My parents abandoned me here as a baby, and I don't even know what galaxy they were from. I know how it feels to be alone."
Fry stares at Leela, her words washing over him. Maybe they aren't so different. Maybe they can be lonely together.
Fry sighs, defeated, and holds out his hand, slumping impossibly farther down.
"Look, Leela, I don't understand this world, but obviously you do. So I give up. If you really think I should be a delivery boy, I'll do it."
Fry watches the horrible spiked pincer grows closer, trying not to tremble too much in nervous anticipation. He swallows thickly, bracing himself for the pain.
But, on a dime, Leela flips the machine around and uses the blunt side on her own hand, grunting a little as she wrestles her own career chip out of her palm.
"Your chip! What are you doing?" Fry asks, startled. Leela flicks the little black chip into the ruined street.
"Quitting."
"Well, why'd you do that?"
"Because I've always wanted to. I just never realized it until I met you," she said softly. Their eyes met.
She really is very pretty, once you get over the initial shock of the eye. Sure, it's still a little jarring, but Fry is sure he'll stop noticing it altogether if they stick around each other.
Right here, even, as he gazes into her eye, Fry is certain they're about to kiss. He decides easily that he wouldn't mind that one bit. He reaches out to meet her hand that was already reaching for him, intending to pull her the rest of the way in-
And then a cold, metallic hand joins the pile, totally killing the mood. Fry scowls at Bender.
"What is the matter with you?"
"I just wanted to be part of the moment." Bender withdraws his hand, tucking them both behind his back. Leela withdraws as well.
"Hey!" She says, after glancing at her fingers. "He stole my ring!"
"Sorry." Bender drops the ring in her palm and dusts his own against each other. "That solves the mystery of the missing ring. This calls for a drink!"
Bender pulls three bottles of beer out of his compartment and begins to chug them all at once. Fry isn't sure what he had expected from him. He frowns.
"I don't wanna spoil the party," Leela says, "but we're all job deserters now. We're unemployed and we have nowhere to go!"
Fry grins and pulls from his jacket the information on his nephew Leela had given him mere hours before. "Correction: we're unemployed, but we have a doddering old relative to mooch off of!"
Leela leads the way, after carefully plugging the address into her wrist thingy and following the directions it gives.
The three of them barely talk as they carefully navigate back through the city. It proves to be fairly easy to blend in; it's dark out, and folks are beginning to crowd the streets. Fry remembers suddenly that it's New Year's Eve.
After probably twenty minutes of walking, and witnessing Bender pickpocket at least one pedestrian per block, they arrive at a big, bright red building on 57th street. This must be it. Fry steps up and rings the doorbell, and the door opens only a few moments later.
"Who're you?" The man asks. That's him, alright. He's old and bald, and wears coke bottle lenses that have to be at least two or three inches thick. His voice is shaky and small, in that way that clearly gives away his age.
"I'm your dear, old Uncle Fry," Fry says truthfully. The professor adjusts his glasses.
"I don't have an Uncle Fry?"
"Ya' do now," Bender says, impatiently pushing past the professor.
Dazed, the professor mumbles something about needing to run a test, and leads the three of them into a little room full of all kinds of gizmos. He sits Fry down at a table, where he's told to stick his finger into a small hole in the nearby device.
Fry glances to Leela for help. She shrugs. He shrugs. He sticks his finger in the hole. And after a moment, the device dings, and the professor beams.
"By god, I am your nephew! This is absolutely incredible!" He exclaims.
"Can we have some money?" Bender asks.
"Oh my, no," the professor says, already walking out of the room. Fry assumes it's time to follow the professor again. "Let me show you around."
They're led into the next room over. The professor gestures at various things.
"This is my lab table. And this is my work stool. And over there's my intergalactic space ship." He smiles a private, nostalgic smile, and opens a drawer. "And this is where I keep assorted lengths of wire!"
That definitely isn't what Fry's interested in.
"Whoa, a real live space ship!"
"I designed it myself," the professor says. He smiles that same nostalgic smile and opens the same drawer again. "Let me show you some of the different lengths of wire I used!"
But before he can give Fry a tedious tour of wires, there's a booming knocking at the door. "Attention, job deserters: we have you partially surrounded!"
Fry's stomach lurches. "No!"
It's quiet for a moment while everyone gets their bearings. Fry's completely lost. He's cornered. He's going to be a delivery boy again. There's not a way out this time-
"Can't we get away in the ship?" Leela says. Oh.
The professor looks pensive. "I suppose it is technically possible. Although, I am already in my pajamas."
That doesn't matter now. Fry leads the mad dash toward the bright green ship, pulling ahead of Bender when he stops to pick up the slow-moving professor.
Fry sprints up the steps and into the ship. He doesn't have time to be positively floored by what he's seeing. But holy shit is this cool.
He slides into what he assumes is the driver's seat, in front of a little control panel. Mashing random buttons, and pulling random levers, he promises the rest of the crew, "I'll get us out of here!"
Remarkably, something does come of his entirely random button mashing, though it isn't exactly helpful. Fry stares blankly as a hatch opens, and hot coffee begins to funnel into a disposable cup.
"Can anybody drive stick?" The professor asks. He's still tucked neatly under Bender's arm.
"I can," Leela offers, "As long as I don't have to parallel park."
She throws her black uniform jacket to the floor, and jumps in the real pilot's seat. She pulls a big lever, expression hard and determined. The ground moves, an alarm blares, and the ship is slowly pointed toward the sky.
Fry can feel how hard his heart is beating. This is the coolest and most terrifying thing that's ever happened to him. Sure, he lives in the year 3000 and met a robot and an alien and possibly the oldest living human being, but space?
The ceiling above them slides open.
"Prepare for liftoff!"
It's New Year's Eve in New York City. In Fry's day, it was tradition for locals and tourists alike to gather in Times Square and, as one, welcome the year to come. Apparently, that tradition never changed over a thousand years. And, as it so happens, the professor's home is located only several blocks from Times Square.
As a timer on the ship's dash begins to count down from ten, so do the hundreds of people outside.
...3
...2
...1
"Blastoff!" Fry cries. The ship lurches up and through the fireworks. Leela skillfully avoids those, and some lasers that seem to keep narrowly missing the ship, and then-
Space.
Fry can't believe it. He throws up his arms and cheers, as Leela and Bender do the same. They laugh and celebrate and- wait a minute.
Stars and planets drift lazily by outside the ship's window. Fry can't even imagine how fast they must be going. But seeing this, he wants to be excited. And sure, it's exhilarating and amazing, but he can't help but feel like...
He turns to the professor, heart sinking. "I guess without jobs we'll be fugitives forever?"
"Not necessarily. Are the three of you interested in becoming my new space crew?"
Fry beams, but Bender narrows his eyes at the professor. "New crew? What happened to the old crew?"
"Oh, those poor sons of- but that's not important. What is important is I need a new crew! Anyone interested?"
That's all Fry needs to hear. "Yes! Yes! That's exactly the job I've always wanted!"
He doesn't have to be on the run for the rest of his days. He doesnt have to hide. He doesn't have to deliver. It'll be just him, and the ship, and Bender and Leela, and space.
"Thanks for the offer, Professor," Leela cuts off Fry's internal celebration, "but we don't have the proper career chips."
"That won't be a problem. As luck would have it, I saved the chips from my previous crew." The professor pulls a big manilla envelope from his lab coat labeled Contents of Space Wasp's Stomach and dumps three tiny career chips onto the seat beside him. Fry doesn't let himself be disturbed by that.
"This is awesome!" Fry says. "Are we gonna fly through space, fighting monsters and teaching alien women to love?"
The professor smiles and shakes his head.
"If by that you mean transporting cargo, then yes. It's a little home business I started to fund my research."
"Cool. What's my job gonna be?" Fry asks eagerly.
"You'll be responsible for ensuring that the cargo reaches its destination," the professor says. Fry's smile falls as he puts the pieces together.
"...So I'm gonna be a delivery boy?"
"Exactly."
Then, elated, he throws his arms up and cheers. "Alright! I'm a delivery boy!"
It doesn't matter how hard Leela's glaring at him. It doesn't matter that he's a delivery boy. He still gets this. He still gets space. He still gets friendship, and a fresh start, and for God's sake, anything has to be better than the life he was living before.