Chapter One
"And in the event of a catastrophic failure of the back-up control systems, the Freeze-Up bot will go into the core and perform a manual shutdown," said Professor Frink, pointing to video slides of photographs taken of the bot performing its duties during tests. He cleared his throat and made some Frink sounds before glancing nervously up at Burns to gauge his level of approval.
Burns leaned back in his office chair, interlocked his fingers, and stretched his arms out in front of him. This meeting was nothing new. Countless employees and contractors had submitted slick proposals for advanced safety systems and even basic precautions and been summarily rejected. This time would be no different. "You have tenure at Springfield University. Why are you wasting my time with this safety nonsense?"
"Surely you can't put a price on –" Frink realized he had lost Burns, but he finished his sentence nonetheless. "–on your employees' lives."
"Get out."
Frink turned his head down and sighed as he trudged toward the exit. "I guess all I have left to do is go back in time with my time machine to tell myself not to bother coming here."
Burns' ear perked. "Time machine, you say?"
"Oh, yes, just a little side project of mine."
"And it really works?"
"Yes, it does."
"Smithers, get me some coffee."
Smithers' brow furrowed. "But sir, I just gave you –"
"No back-sassing me!" Burns slammed the coffee mug in his hand down on the desk, sloshing hot coffee out of the top and spilling onto the desktop and Smithers' hand.
"Yes, sir." Smithers skittered for the hall.
Once the door shut, Mr. Burns stood, tented his fingers, and said, "Professor Frink? I have a job for you."