Disillusionment

By Soylent Orange

Part One: 200 feet above the Hudson River, April 26th, 3002

Fry stared out the bridge's forward window as the sparkling lights of New New York glided by below him. Over and over again he replayed the past few days in his head, trying to figure out what he could have done differently. There had to be something that he'd missed; something that would have kept Michelle from leaving. Maybe if he'd built her a better shelter out in the desert, or if he'd been less visibly shaken by the weird mixture of civilization and post-apocalyptic wasteland that was Los Angeles… There had to be something. But there wasn't.

Fry's self-pity abruptly turned to frustration. "That's it. I've had it with women." He declared aloud. "From now on, I'm concentrating on my career." Fry turned to face Professor Farnsworth, who was sitting next to Bender on the bridge couch. "Can I have my old job back?" He pleaded.

Farnsworth scratched his chin. "Why, I've forgotten why I even fired you." He said at last

That's when Bender cut in. "'Cause he destroyed your business, your home and all your possessions." He said, matter of factly.

"Oh, that's right." The professor said pensively. He paused for a moment. Suddenly anger flashed in the old scientist's eyes. He reached for a lever next to the couch. "Get lost!" he growled.

The professor pulled back on the lever and the deck under Fry's feet dropped out from under him. Suddenly he was engulfed in roaring darkness, lit only by the glaring blue fire of the PE ship's hastily retreating darkmatter engines and the soft yellow glow of the distant buildings. The wind from the Planet Express Ship's passing tossed him around like a rag doll and he began to tumble. For a few short seconds there was nothing but the sensation of falling and the whoosh of air. The ground rushed up to meet him.

"Oh god, my head."

Fry moaned and sat up. A wave of nausea washed through him and he quickly lay down again.

"W- where am I?" He mumbled, rolling onto his side. Wherever he was, it was dark. All he could make out were a few lumpy, anonymous shapes nearby. In the distance there were a few skyscrapers, which Fry recognized by their tiny lights. As he watched, the lights moved slowly by from left to right.

Fry forced himself to sit up again. His head swam and he almost passed out, but by gritting his teeth he was able to hold on until his head cleared.

For a few minutes Fry just sat still, letting the throbbing at his temples dissipate. When he was relatively sure that he wasn't going to fall over, he cautiously forced himself to stand. Again he looked around. In the few minutes that he had been conscious his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and from his new vantage point he could see enough to bring his surroundings into focus. He was standing on some kind of elastic fabric, almost like rubber. The fabric was covering a pile of some anonymous material with the consistency of foam, which Fry had landed on top of. Beyond the pile was a short drop-off with water at the bottom. The water glowed faintly silver where starlight and the dim illumination from the distant buildings reflected off its surface, and seemed to be flowing.

Curious, Fry clambered down the small elastic-covered mountain that he had landed on. It was hard work, as his feet kept sinking into whatever it was that he was climbing on. He soon reached the base of the pile and found himself on a metal floor.

"No, not a floor." He realized. "A deck." Now he remembered that The Planet Express Ship had been flying over the Hudson River when it had dropped him. Somehow he'd been lucky enough to land on a barge that was making its way downriver.

Fry walked the couple of paces to the handrail that girdled the huge watercraft and looked down into the water. Farnsworth had ejected him from high enough up in the air that hitting the water would probably have stunned him, or even knocked him out completely. He could easily have drowned.

"What the heck was the Professor thinking?" Fry asked himself as the anger built inside him. "I could have died! Even though I pretty much blew up the Planet Express building, he had no reason to drop me out of the ship!"

And then there was Bender.

"That traitor." Fry growled, knowing that Farnsworth would have given him his job back if the robot hadn't spoken up. "With a best friend like that, who needs enemies? And anyway, it's not like I blew up Planet Express all by myself."

Actually, now that he thought about it, he had taken a lot more of the punishment than was really fair. The whole thing had been Bender's idea. The robot had been the one to suggest they steal the ship's keys, and he'd also been the one to actually do the physical stealing of the ship. Fry had just gone along for the ride, and had gotten caught up in things. "Bender should have been the one that the Professor dumped overboard, not me." Fry muttered. "I'll bet that jerk even gets his job back at Planet Express." The thought made him furious.

For a full five minutes Fry just stood and glowered at the silent cityscape as it slowly slid by. The whole life that he had been constructing for himself in the future had unraveled in less than a week. He had lost his job, his girlfriend had deserted him, and his best friend had sold him out. Abruptly he came to a decision.

"Well, screw them." Fry said aloud, his voice full of emotion. "When I came to the future I got a chance to start over. I promised myself that this time I wouldn't be a total loser. Well now's the time for me to prove it."

With one fluid motion Fry propelled himself over the railing and dropped into the cool waters of the Hudson. When his head emerged he turned himself to face the dark bulk of the barge. For a few seconds he treaded water, watching the silent hulk fade into the distance. When it had disappeared into the blackness Fry rolled onto his stomach and began to swim, moving his arms and legs in the rhythm that Leela had taught him after he'd nearly drowned at the Wormulon Slurm Factory.

The shore was a lot farther away than Fry had thought. By the time his feet touched the bottom he was exhausted. His lungs heaving, he climbed a low barrier wall and hobbled to a nearby bench. He sat there silently for a full ten minutes before his wet clothes began to make him cold. Finally, having regained his wind and his resolve, Fry stood and began to walk confidently in the direction of his apartment.

By the time Fry made it back to the Robot Arms apartment complex his clothes had mostly dried except for his shoes, which made soft, squishing noises as his feet moved inside them.

Bender wasn't home, as Fry had expected. He had no way to know how long he'd lain unconscious on the barge, but if Fry'd been asked to guess he would have said less than an hour. He thought that he'd been dropped out of the Planet Express Ship around nine o'clock, and it had taken him just under an hour to swim to shore, hike to the nearest transport tube, and tube home. That made the time just slightly before eleven. By now Fry's robotic roommate would have had plenty of time to leave Planet Express, come home to pick up some beer and some cash, and head out again for a night on the town.

"Hopefully he only took his money this time." Fry muttered darkly. No matter how well he hid it, the bending robot managed to find any cash that Fry kept in the apartment. Normally it didn't matter all that much to him. Ever since his brush with wealth a few months after he'd been unfrozen, Fry hadn't been too concerned with money. He'd witnessed firsthand what wealth could do to a person; what it had done to him. Since then the meager salary he made at Planet Express, and more recently at Applied Cryogenics, had been more than enough for him to be content. But if Fry was going to pull off the plan that was slowly unfolding in his mind he was going to need every spare penny that he could salvage.

Fry stepped through the small space that was Bender's half of the apartment into the giant walk-in closet that served as his home. Turning on the light he gave it a long, silent look, remembering the good times that he had had there. Then, starting at the corner into which his bed had been shoved and working his way clockwise around the room, the ex-delivery boy began to sort through the piles of trash and half-eaten food for things that he wanted to take with him, placing everything to be kept on top of his unkempt bed. When he was finished he had built up a small pile: a few pairs of rarely-worn extra clothes, the holophoner he'd recently purchased on a whim (and as yet been unable to learn to play even remotely well), a few miscellaneous items for hygiene, cooking, cleaning, and such, and a single framed picture of himself posing with Leela and Bender in front of the Planet Express Building. Fry picked up the picture and gazed at it. He felt a sharp pang of regret. As angry and frustrated as he was at the moment with Bender, Farnsworth, and the whole future in general, he was going to miss the life he was leaving behind.

"Besides", he thought, "if I do this, I'll be leaving behind all the people who didn't turn their backs on me too. Like Leela."

If there was one person who had really been treated unfairly recently, it had been Leela. Farnsworth had held her just as responsible for the destruction of the Planet Express building as her two shipmates, since she'd unthinkingly left the keys in the starship's ignition. Even after the stupid comments that he and Bender had made to her when Hermes had made it clear that she was also being dismissed, Leela had been more than gracious. She'd helped Fry get a job, and even managed to stay civil after the career chips had gotten mixed up and she'd had to settle for a menial pizza delivery job while Fry had gotten her old job at Applied Cryogenics. She'd even organized a search when Fry and his girlfriend Michelle had gone missing.

Fry carefully put the picture down. Leaving Leela was going to be hard. She'd been there for him when no one else was, and he'd come to cherish her company. Fry walked over to his closet and dragged out his small suitcase. In a few moments everything that he owned was stashed inside the bag. Taking one last look around the apartment, Fry turned off the light, walked through his roommate's tiny living space, and set off down the hallway. As he was about to press the elevator call button he hesitated, thinking that maybe he should have left his roommate a note.

"Nah." He told himself at length. "Bender'll get the message."