MST3K: Badfics! – My Immortal, Session One

Hm…how to classify this, exactly? This is technically Mystery Science Theater 3000 fanfiction, that itself mocks fanfiction. It's a fanfic-within-a-fanfic? I dunno.

Please note, I Bowlderize all cursing. Whether this makes it unfunny, I leave for you to decide.

MST3K, its characters, and everything related, belongs to Best Brains, Inc. I am not a Best Brain. This should be obvious. Inspiration for this project from Adam Cadre, writer of the fantastic MST3K-fanfiction-MSTing of Jim Theis's "The Eye of Argon.

[Theme Tune]

[1…2…3…4…5…6]

Prologue

The polished steel floor squeaked under Jessie's shoes as she entered a large, hexagonal room containing nothing but a steel countertop and three brightly-colored buttons on a console. The bridge of this ship, she deduced from her years of watching the Sci-Fi channel.

"Is anybody here?" she called out for the thirtieth time in as many minutes, not expecting an answer. It hadn't taken her long to figure out that she had just been jettisoned into space, and exploring the ship she was trapped on seemed like a better option than giving way to panic.

Something scuffled behind her. She whipped around, but saw nothing except the blast doors she'd come through, embossed with the gear-toothed Gizmonic logo.

"Well," she said, trying to keep her wits up, "the guys at the diner aren't going to believe this."

Another noise. Jessie turned to find nothing there again, but with a frown of suspicion, she slowly leaned over the control table, and then stuck her face over the edge, shouting, "HAH!"

Nothing was waiting to strike out at her. All she saw was a shining chrome logo on the table: "SOL II." She laughed sarcastically. "[Snap] out of luck, eh? How appropriate." With a shrug, she moved to push herself off the table.

Something grabbed at her ankles from behind. Before she knew it, Jessie was standing on the table, screaming at the top of her lungs, while two…objects flattened themselves against the wall and screamed right back at her.

"What is it, Tom? Oh God, what is it?" one of them wailed.

"I don't know! It looks human but so inhuman at the same time!" the other said in between panicked screams.

"AAAAAH NOOO – hey, do you think it's edible?"

"You moron! What if it thinks WE'RE EDIBLE?"

"AAAAH!"

"I KNOW! AAAAH!"

By this time, Jessie had recovered from her initial shock enough to climb down from the table. "What the heck are you?"

"Molybdenum! I taste terrible! I'll give you leg cramps!" The gold one rounded the room, giving her a wide berth. "Eat Tom instead!"

"Hey!"

"I'm not eating either of you," Jessie said.

"Ha," the second one said triumphantly while the gold one just let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh, okay."

"As a matter of fact, we are robots. I'm Tom Servo, and that's Crow T. Robot."

"With one 'O'," Crow said.

She frowned, taking in Crow's bowling-pin beak and lacrosse mask, and Tom's gumball-machine-like head.

"You don't look like any robots I've ever seen."

"That's okay, you don't look like any human we've ever seen, either." Crow's ping-pong ball eyes were fixed on Jessie's chest, over which she defensively crossed her arms.

"SOL II." Tom had found the chrome logo. "So what genius built a second Satellite of Love?"

Oh, that's what it stands for, Jessie thought.

"Maybe the guy in Good Humor truck…hey! I didn't get my Strawberry Shortcake bar! That guy owes me a dollar!"

"Forget the ice cream, Crow! We've been kidnapped and shot into space – again – and – OH GOD! They're probably gonna make us watch crappy B-movies again!"

"NO!" the bots screamed before devolving into inelegant blubbering.

Jessie noticed that one of the colored buttons on the console was flashing yellow. "Um…" Since the robots were too busy crying into each other's shoulders to notice, she hesitantly pressed the button. A large flat screen facing the table lit up.

"Come in, Jessie, are you there?"

Jessie's jaw dropped when she saw the red-haired young man on the screen.

"Calvin!"

The bots stopped their blubbering long enough to look at the screen.

"Oh, wow! I can't believe that worked!" Calvin leaned in, his freckled nose almost filling the entire screen. "Guess what! I hacked into the ship's communication feed!"

"How?" Jessie frowned. "Cal, you can't play Minesweeper without blowing the computer up. How the heck did you manage to hack…?"

"I'll explain later." Calvin sat back, looking apologetic. "Man. You really are in space. I didn't think the guys who locked me in there were serious. I'm glad you busted me out of there…but I wish I could have saved you too…"

Jessie waved her hand nonchalantly. "Hey, I need the time off anyway," she tried to joke. "Don't worry about it."

"I hate to interrupt you dopey lovebirds," Tom said, "but who are you people?"

"This is Calvin Hobbes, my coworker and friend."

Cal nodded. "Yo."

"And I'm Jessica Malone. I work for catering at Gizmonics Institute."

"Burger flipper, actually" Cal coughed.

"Hey, it's more than burger flipping. I manage the freaking diner. And it's more exciting than changing toner."

"Yeah, yeah. Hey, are those the bots back there?"

The robots both hid behind Jessie.

"What bots?"

"The original SOL bots." Cal sat back from the screen a bit. "See, I poked around Google a little bit once you blasted off. Long story short, you're on a copycat of a ship that some renegade Gizmonics scientists launched back in 1989. The guy on board built those robots from the nonessential parts."

"Joel! Oh, cripes, he's gonna smack us good when we get back! We were supposed to stay in the yard," Crow wailed.

"If we get back," Tom said glumly.

"Yeah, his name's Joel Robinson, and he escaped sometime in 1993, I think. Well, I thought he might be able to help, so I tracked him down. He's letting me work from his Hot Fish Shop – " Cal waved at the background, where a woman shuffled past carrying a basket of fries. "Anyway, whoever built the ship stole those robots so they could – "

"Hey, Calvin," a sleepy voice said off-screen. "Could you move that satellite dish when you get a chance? It's kind of blocking the door to the kitchen."

"JOEL!" the bots shouted.

Joel Robinson, a middle-aged man with an impossibly calm expression, leaned into the screen, wiping his hands on his apron. "Oh, there you guys are," he said. "I've been worried sick about you."

Crow hid behind Jessie again. "We're in trouble, aren't we?"

"Nah, I'm sure there's an explanation."

"Well…" Tom took it upon himself to explain, since Crow was blubbering again. "We left the yard and chased down an ice cream truck…and it turned out it wasn't an ice cream man. Just some men in black jumpsuits. And we woke up here."

"Yep," Joel said, his expression unchanging. "You're in trouble."

The bots groaned.

"What about Cambot and Gypsy? Have you seen them?"

"They're with us, but they're not up yet," Crow said, before a sobbing noise echoed through the bridge. "Oh, speak of the devil. There's Gypsy now."

Jessie turned and saw a snake-like robot threading in through the blast-doors, with a black body, purple head and one glowing eye. She stopped short when she saw the screen. "Oh, Joel!"

"Hey, sweetheart. What happened?"

"R…r…Richard Basehart!" Gypsy dropped her head on the table and wept noisily. Crow stoically patted her head.

"It's okay!" Cal said. "We're gonna find a way to get you all down."

Jessie held her hands up. "So wait…Gizmonics shot you into space twenty years ago, right, Mr. Robinson?"

He nodded. "It's Joel. And yeah, it wasn't Gizmonics proper, just some guys who – "

"Okay, my question is, why? What did they do to you? And what are they gonna do to me?"

Calvin began to answer, but static filled the view screen and his response was inaudible.

"Oh, crap." Jessie turned to the control table, where the yellow button was flashing again. She smacked it and turned back to the screen. "Say that again, Cal?"

"You're not Calvin Hobbes!"

Jessie froze. She was now facing two green-coated women in a strange-looking laboratory.

"Is that Deep 13?" Tom said. "I thought it was closed down!"

"Where is Calvin Hobbes? And who are you?" the sharp-nosed, bleach-blonde woman demanded. The other woman, thin and mousy, cleared her throat and fidgeted with a clipboard.

Jessie lifted her head proudly. "If you must know, my name is Jessica Malone, and I helped Calvin escape."

"Hoo boy, friend to the rescue. Makes me sick," the first woman said with an eyeroll. "Well, I guess you'll do for a replacement."

"Are you the ones controlling this ship?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," the second woman said officiously. "I am Dr. Marla Wingo and this is my assistant, Tricia. We are in control of the Satellite of Love II, and apparently, you will be the subject of some extensive psychological experiments that I will be conducting over the next few months. If I can just…" She flipped through her clipboard's contents. "Er…find your medical insurance information, then…"

"Never mind the insurance, Dr. Wingo," Tricia said. "Anyway, you're our captive now, and until we've broken your mind into little tiny pieces, you'll never escape!" She laughed maniacally for a moment, prodding Dr. Wingo with her elbow. Dr. Wingo joined nervously, her maniacal laugh weak and utterly un-maniacal.

"Heh, nice try, Miss Hathaway," Crow quipped.

The scientists stopped laughing and Tricia glared. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, sorry," Tom said. "Didn't mean to interrupt your Thelma and Louise moment. Go on ahead."

"So you robots can talk." Tricia narrowed her eyes. "Listen up, smart-beaks. I don't care how funny you think you are, when you speak to me or Dr. Wingo, it better be, 'Yes ma'am' and 'No ma'am' all the way."

Crow immediately said, "Even if you say, 'I'm a fat shut-in who memorizes cookie fortunes?'"

"Do I look like a fat shut-in who memorizes cookie fortunes?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Crow and Tom hooted with laughter while Jessie tried her very best to look neutral and disapproving.

Dr. Wingo took it upon herself to speak before Tricia exploded. "Um…directly behind the bridge of the SOL II, you will find a large Reading Room. Your experiments will be conducted there on a weekly basis, at random days and times."

"I knew it!" Tom cried.

"Cheesy movies!" Crow cried.

"Deep Hurting!" Tom cried.

"Richard Basehart!" Gypsy cried.

"Not quite. You all seem to be familiar with the original SOL project conducted by Dr. Clayton Forrester in this laboratory some years ago," Dr. Wingo continued. "Our experiments are similarly structured, but we will be exploring the concept of Deep Hurting through the medium of mediocre fiction, rather than film. You will read the material we send you, and we will monitor your physical and mental reactions."

Crow lifted his head. "Fiction? Hey, doesn't she mean those book things?"

"Yeah…like Fight Club!" Tom said eagerly.

"And Lord of the Rings!" Jessie said, trying to encourage the bots further.

"And Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy!" Crow said.

Tom sat up. "This won't be so bad after all!"

"Specifically…" Tricia rubbed her hands together in sadistic glee. "Bad fanfiction!"

A great silence followed her words.

"…Yeah, we're screwed," Crow said.

"Should…" Dr. Wingo turned hesitantly to Tricia. "Should I start now?"

"Go right ahead, Doctor. Why don't you do the honors and push the button?" Tricia turned to the screen with a horrible smile. "Your first experiment will be divided into three non-consecutive sections, Jessica. It's an infamously bad Harry Potter fanfiction, that we in Deep 13 like to call…My Immortal."

"Like the Evanescence song?" Jessie asked.

The bots groaned. "Oh no, I've heard about this one," Tom said.

"Enjoy!" Tricia sang, and she cackled as the transmission ended.

Jessie turned to the bots. "Listen, I think it'd be a good idea not to tell them about Cal."

"Figure that out all by yourself?" Crow said.

Tom scoffed. "Obviously, our lips are sealed."

"I was just making sure," Jessie mumbled. Just as the words left her mouth, the floor of the bridge began wobbling, and a klaxon nearly deafened her while lights flashed all around the room.

"WE'VE GOT MOV – um, STORY SIGN!" the bots shouted, heading for the blast doors. Jessie followed, her stomach twisting with a sudden onset of nerves. What had she gotten herself into?

[6…5…4…3…2…1…]