It is late at night in New New York and the city that never sleeps has, for the most part, gone to sleep. Under the cover of darkness a small shadow creeps through a little known ally behind the Planet Express Delivery Company building. It navigates its way round a series of unfinished experiments and badly damaged doomsday devices and stops dead.

Ahead it can see a figure rising from a dumpster. Knowing that it had been seen the shadow draws its Instasnooze 5000 pistol and moves out into the dull glow of the moon light.

"Ah my good friend Nibbler. Perhaps you care to join me in this dumpster maybe? We could tell ghost stories why not?" it said putting a torch to his face making it even more hideous, if that were at all possible.

Nibbler put his pistol away. He had been hoping to get to his ship and leave earth without anyone noticing. Usually he did this for no other reason but to create an air of mystery. He had learnt a long time ago that it helped maintain his cuteness influence over the stupid humans. That, and Leela would always feed him a 'where did you go, I missed you' ham when he inevitably returned.

This time, however, it was different. He had been summoned by the Nibblonian council and was to inform no one of his departure. The message had been sent by hyperpigeon which was worrying as his people possessed the ability to communicate over long distances through telepathy. Nibbler had tried to send his reply in this manner but had received no acknowledgement and he had eaten the hyperpigeon shortly after reading the message.

He looked at the lobster creature in front of him. Although Zoidberg's mind was as fickle as his head was brittle he was extremely difficult to hypnotize, and there seemed no other choice.

"Doctor Zoidberg what are you doing here? I thought the professor let you back in at night," he said hoping he could lead the odd crustacean into a pattern of thought that would allow him to access his mind.

Nibbler pretended to listen to his reply as he probed the alien lobsters mind looking for a weakness. Zoidberg's mental discipline wasn't so much like a 'solid wall' as it was a 'thick goo'. Every time Nibbler thought he found a weak point the 'goo' would reshape itself and lock him out.

"...so I removed the dorsal fin and all was well again," Zoidberg finished. He looked at Nibbler expectantly.

"Erm, yes sounds very unreasonable," Nibbler managed to say, pulling away from his mind. He thought of taking Zoidberg with him but quickly dismissed this idea as depressing, besides he wouldn't fit in his ship. He felt he had no other choice. He grabbed his pistol and set it from 'light nap' to 'permanent coma' and was about to deactivate the safety when it suddenly occurred to him.

"Tell me, did they feed you before they threw you out?"

The moment Zoidberg thought of food his mind opened up like a walnut under a hammer and all his thoughts were free for Nibbler to alter or simply remove at will.

He put Zoidberg into a deep sleep and erased any memory he had of him that night. He then implanted a fake memory involving a half eaten bag of potato chips and an unopened bottle of beer. There was really no need for him to do this of course, he just felt sorry for him. Besides, what harm could it do?

With Zoidberg now fast asleep in his dumpster he continued down the alley until he came to another dumpster. In the past it had been easy to hide his little ship, all he had had to do was put a couple of newspaper sheets over it. Now that his identity was not so secret he had found it necessary to increase security, especially with Bender around.

Nibbler entered a code onto an invisible control panel and took a few steps back. The five inch thick titanium dumpster unfolded itself in an unnecessary elaborate fashion revealing a small blue interstellar space ship with several bits of paper stuck to it.

Somewhat confused he removed the bits of paper and inspected them. They were parking tickets. Nibbler rolled all three of his eyes, threw the tickets to the ground and got into his ship.

"I think I'll go back to using the newspaper," he mumbled to himself as he activated the launch controls and blasted through a cloud of insects and into space.

Once in orbit Nibbler directed his telepathic energy towards the earth. He could sense the millions of beings that inhabit her and quickly scanned through them hoping to find something unusual. Everything seeming normal he moved them to one side and scanned deeper into the fabric of the earth. As he did so he noticed something, a faint consciousness.

He concentrated but, no matter what he tried he couldn't bring the consciousness into focus. Then, without warning and for the briefest of moments, Nibbler was flooded by the darkest emotions he had ever sensed. Anger, bitterness, frustration, hate. None of these words, alone or combined, seemed strong enough to describe what he had felt.

By the time he was able to think of anything else he was already well out of the Sol system. Wondering how he got there he realised he must have subconsciously hit the thrust control, that would explain why he was heading in the wrong direction at any rate.

He entered a new course into his ships navigation computer, ensuring it wouldn't take him too near the earth, and activated the autopilot. As the ship increased speed Nibbler turned his thoughts to his home world. He tried once again to send a message telepathically and once again he received no reply. Nibbler was now certain of one thing; he would feel a lot better once he was back home.