Authors note: I've never attempted a Futurama fan fiction before, but a combination of boredom and it being canceled again lead me to take a swing at it. I welcome any and all feedback, positive and negative alike. Regardless of what you end up thinking, thank you for taking the time to read and I hope you are at least distracted by it. On with the show.
For reference, this story is set at some point in the currently airing episodes. EDIT: Added a section break I missed and changed some dialog based on a review. This thing won't let me use the small dash I wanted so now there's a gigantic line through the text.
It wasn't quite noon yet and already Phillip J. Fry was baffled.
Professor Farnsworth had been angry about something when the bored delivery boy had wandered through the lab 20 minutes earlier. This part was not confusing to Fry as the Professor was frequently indignant about some thing or other. The old man had a tendency to lose his temper due to anything from having the quality of his news questioned to matters involving Fry, time travel and inadequate use of birth control. Whatever his motivations were, the Professor had sent Fry off to a storeroom to dig up his old F-Ray invention. It may have been his senility that caused him to forget how easily distracted his relative was by piles of futuristic items.
Fry stared intently at the mysterious object he was turning over in his hands. He'd dug the thing out of a box 15 minutes into his search and become oddly fascinated with it. It felt as though he should recognize it, but whatever word went to it wasn't coming to him. It was small, black, domed, with a warped ring around the base and an air of familiarity about it that was getting frustrating. He did at least like the ring, even if it was misshapen, but Amy said people didn't wear them anymore.
The thing had been in the Professors storeroom, so Fry concluded that it must be a doomsday device. It would explain the familiarity as his senile nephew had built lots of doomsday devices and other assorted glow-y stuff in the past. Fry felt that it was too bad the black things ring didn't glow. He rummaged through the box he'd found the object in one handed but nothing glowing or with lasers stuck to it seemed to be in there. Fry made to turn to the next un-rummaged box on the shelf when he noticed he was holding something in his other hand.
"Hey, a hat!" Fry said aloud. He wasn't sure why that felt like a revelation to him but he had a sneaking feeling that he should feel proud of himself. For lack of a better idea of what to do with it, he put the hat on his head.
A strange tingling feeling started on his scalp the instant the miniature hat touched his hair. The room tilted around him and the delivery boy swayed on the spot as the tingling was joined by a warm glow like sunlight at noon and a pungent whiff of cubes took a whirlwind tour through his nose. After a few seconds of swaying like a drunken sailor the room started to sober up and Fry rubbed his eyes dazedly.
"Man, what was I doing in here? Oh, right I was supposed to be finding that F-Ray for the Professor. I should be more careful digging through here. Who knows what crazy stuff he's keeping in storage?"
A quick glance around was all it took for Fry to spot the alphabetical labeling on the shelves and pick out the F-Ray. He carried the flashlight like device back out to the Professors laboratory where he and Amy were working and set it down on the workbench.
"Hey, Professor, I found the F-Ray for you!"
"He-whaa...? Oh, thank you, Fry. This ought to make those cybernetic termites reconsider holding out on their rent," The wizened mad scientist picked up the dangerously radioactive device and shuffled off with a malevolent snigger.
"That was fast," Amy commented. "Usually it takes two or three tries before you both remember what you're doing long enough to get anywhere."
"Eh," Fry shrugged. "I just noticed the new labels is all. Made things a lot faster."
"Those have been there for years, Fry."
"What? No way. I'd definitely have noticed them before now. I'm gonna take my lunch break."
Fry opened the company fridge on autopilot a short time later and pulled out a Slurm. The sweet, green liquid was already pouring into his mouth when an image burst to the forefront of his mind, namely that of an immense, flaccid worm gulping down pound after pound of alien berries. His minds eye fixated on the lurid green fluid that squirted from the far end of the creatures reclining body to be funneled down into waiting cans, each one branded with the Slurm logo.
Fry's eyes went wide and he spat the "soda" into the sink.
"Bleagh! How do I drink this stuff, knowing where it comes from?" Fry poured the rest of the beverage down the drain and tossed the can into the trash without a moments hesitation.
After washing the taste out of his mouth with some Buggalo milk, Fry walked out to the briefing room with a heaping bowl of Bachelor Chow in hand. The makes-its-own-gravy kibble was far from the best food he'd had since being frozen for a thousand years but it did have the benefit of being dirt cheap. He was halfway through the bowl by the time Leela dropped into the chair next to him.
"Hey, Fry."
"Hey, Leela. How's the maintenance work going?" Truthfully, a single glance at her was enough to make it obvious, even to Fry, that Leela was having a bad day. Her clothes were splattered with spots of engine grease and various liquids left behind by their last shipment as well as damp with sweat and soapy water. A stray scale or two had even managed to get stuck to her ponytail.
"Don't ask," Leela groaned. "I'm still finding scales and blood everywhere. I don't care how much money that delivery was worth, I'm never flying a shipment of giant piranha lizards ever again."
"Tell me about it," Fry agreed. He reached over and flicked the scales off Leela's hair. "This is my third set of hands now, not counting the Robot Devils. Just once I'd like a chance to keep them until the warranty expires."
"You do seem to get things cut off a lot. I don't know how you managed before replacement body parts were invented."
"They hadn't invented most of what's happened to me yet either."
"Huh. That's actually a good point. By the way, would you mind if we didn't go out tonight? The way today is going I'm not going to be up to getting cleaned up enough for Elzar's."
A disappointed look settled onto Fry's face but he couldn't blame her for wanting to shelve their previous plans. The Planet Express ships interior looked worse than his bedroom ever had and, knowing his captain, she wasn't going to be satisfied until the ship was as clean as her apartment.
"That's okay, Leela." He dug his spoon into the remaining chow when an idea struck him. "Hey, Leela, you said you didn't feel like going out, right? But that's just because you'd have to get cleaned up, right? So, what if we just hung out at your place? We could order a pizza and you'd already be home when you got tired."
Leela was taken aback by her boyfriends curiously long attention span. "That's actually what I was going to suggest. How did you know?"
"I'unno. Guess I'm just having a lucky day."
Comfortable silence fell between them for several minutes as Fry scraped out the last few disintegrated bits of Bachelor Chow from the bottom of the bowl, while Leela fiddled with her wrist device between bites of sandwich.
"So, let me ax you something," Leela said at last, "What's with the hat?"
Fry gave her a blank stare. "What hat?"
"The one you're wearing. Where did you find it?"
Fry reached up, mouth open to reiterate his question when he felt that there was indeed a very small hat sitting on his head.
"Huh, I don't remember putting that on-nehurgleblagh!" The moment Fry's clumsy hand had dislodged the hat his body had objected by convulsing violently. His chair tipped backward, dumping him into a twitching heap on the floor.
Leela scrambled out of her chair and knelt down beside Fry in an instant. "Fry!? Fry, what's wrong!?" Say something!"
Fry managed a few further halfhearted gurgles before passing out entirely.
The Planet Express team all stood around the prostrate form of Fry that had been deposited on one of the Professors many work tables. Farnsworth himself was busy waving a humming gizmometer over Fry's head while mumbling indistinctly to himself.
"So, he just keeled over while you were talking?" Amy asked.
"Isn't that how we all feel when Leela starts yakkin'?" Bender said.
"I asked him about the hat he was wearing and when he took it off it was like he had some kind of seizure or something," Leela said anxiously.
"That's what he gets for trying to talk and move at the same time. Think his head would explode if we got him to do three things at once?"
"Gleesh, Bender! Cut it out! We're being worried here!"
"I don't get it. You fleshbags are always springing leaks or getting cancer or falling into dramatic comas. What's the big deal?" The robot punctuated his display of disinterest by emptying the last of his beer into his mouth and belching out a jet of fire.
"It's a simple biological matter," Zoidberg said sagely. "When the male is injured, he secretes a mild neurotoxin that stimulates the anxiety glands in his comrades bodies, thus making him unappetizing long enough to recover without the females chewing up his body to regurgitate for the larvae."
"Good news, everyone!" the Professor announced, to which Leela gasped in horror. "Fry is going to survive."
"Oh," Leela said rather uncertainly. "That is good news. I'm not sure how to react to that."
"Of course it's good news! I always give you good news! Now shut up and listen to my boring exposition!" Farnsworth raised his finglonger and pushed the power button of a nearby projector, conjuring up a three dimensional projection of Fry's brain. "Now, I've examined Fry's brain and made a remarkable discovery. It's defective."
The crew exchanged looks. "Ya don't say..." Hermes said.
"Fry appears to possess a unique genetic abnormality that has fundamentally altered the structure of his brain such that he produces no delta brainwave." The Professor adjusted the display to add a brainwave readout highlighting a particular waveform. "This brainwave is produced by every known intelligence in the universe, including robots. Without it you'd all be a bunch of drooling imbeciles. Somehow, Fry is able to function without it. In fact, he copes with its absence better than any of us would, not that that's saying much. However, this anomaly undoubtedly accounts for all his brain problems."
"So the reason he's an idiot is because of a freaky mutation?" Bender asked. "Hey, looks like you two are a match, one-eye!"
"For your information, Bender, shut up," Leela snapped. "So, what's wrong with him?"
"I just told you that you purple haired moron!"
"She means why's he out cold'a than when he was frozen, mon."
"He-whuaa...? Oh, yes, that's because of this hat I made. It's the same model as the one I designed for Gunther all those years ago, only it was never intended for a brain like Fry's. The shock of taking it off overloaded his neurons, causing convulsions, seizure, excruciating agony and finally a light coma state. However, with a few adjustments, I can use the same hat to bring him out of it."
"But, Professor, if taking it off makes him go into a coma, won't he have to wear to forever?" Amy asked.
"Oh my, no. Once I've finished the modifications it will put less stress on his brain. He'll have to wear it for a few days or so to give his brain time to recover but then he'd be able to go back to his usual, dimwitted self."
Leela heaved a sigh of relief while Amy patted her on the back and the Professor busied himself probing around in the hats circuitry with a screwdriver. "There you go, Leela," she said reassuringly, "he'll only be smart enough to notice how cheap and unflattering those pants are for a few days."
"Hey, Fry's been smart before, remember?" Leela protested.
"I rememba bein' hacked ta pieces by a madwoman inside'a Fry's bowels if that's what ya mean."
"Oh don't be such a baby. It was only your robot avatars."
"But the Professor built in pain simulators!" Amy said. "It took days for me to stop having nightmares about it! And why do you even own an ax?"
"Zoidberg's done worse to all of you and you know it."
"Hooray! I'm an excuse!"
"Here we are!" the Professor declared. "Just one last thing and it's ready to try. Amy, fetch out the involuntary adherence module."
"What's that?" Leela asked.
"Oh just a little device I invented a while back. When activated it acts like a thousand rare earth magnets soaked in hyperglue. Once I fit the hat with it Fry will have an easier time removing his own head than he will getting the hat off."
"Here you go, Professor," Amy said, handing over an oddly squishy looking blue-green orb. The Professor jammed the orb into the hat and pressed it to the top of Fry's head.
"Activate the module!" he commanded in the most dramatic voice he could muster. Amy hoisted a massive rifle-shaped device and, with noticeable difficulty, trained it on the tiny hat. She gave a large sliding bolt handle a pull, triggering the rifle to disgorge a spent casing the size of a beer can. Sweat began to bead on the interns brow as she slowly adjusted a dial with her thumb, watching the fold out targeting display through narrowed eyes. Slowly the reticules aligned and the screen blinked green. Amy let out a long, slow breath and squeezed the trigger.
The device hummed and rattled. The massive barrel aperture began to glow a vibrant, electric blue that easily drowned out all the other lights in the room. The Planet Express workers backed slowly away then dove for cover when the rifle began to emit a high-pitched whine and the Professor began to emit diabolical laughter.
Then the noises stopped and a single static bolt jumped from the barrel to the hat.
"There we go!" Amy said cheerfully. She set the rifle down on the counter behind her and glanced around. "Spleesh, what's with you guys?"
Leela, Bender, Hermes and Zoidburg peered out from behind the various pieces of furniture they'd taken refuge behind.
"What happened to the disintegrating?" Zoidburg asked.
"Are you sure that thing wasn't supposed to be a doomsday device?" Leela added cautiously.
"Not really, no." the Professor said.
"Scruffy didn't hide," Amy pointed out.
The mustachioed janitor said nothing, choosing only to level his usual uncomfortable stare at the others while he slowly swirled the water in his bucket with a mop. Fortunately, Fry's unsteady groaning broke the uneasy tension building around the mop water.
"Uhhhrrgghh... why is the world made out of pain?"