The time. Where does it all go...


The sun had finally fallen below the horizon and, instinctively, Heinz relaxed. For some reason, he preferred evenings to mornings and afternoons. Well, the reason wasn't much of a mystery. After all, the afternoons were when most of his thwartings happened. Suddenly, he understood his old mentor Professor Destructicon's motive to set fire to the sun a lot better.

Doof spun the bath taps, and hot water poured into the tub. A night time soak was Heinz's guilty pleasure. Guilty because it wasn't like his usual pleasures - there was something legitimate about it, something non-evil, compared to enjoying the suffering of others or planning elaborate, not at all petty revenge schemes. Plus, by this point in the day, he was invariably covered by soot, widgets, and fire, from his daily thwarting.

He wandered onto the balcony as the bath filled, and looked up at the stars. His feelings about them changed often: sometimes, they filled him with serenity; other times, their twinkling seemed to mock his every failure; yet other times, he played with the idea of turning them into an evil scheme. He could block them all from the sky until they handed rulership of the Tri-State Area to him, but he was already being beaten to that by sky pollution.

Which was at an all-time low in Danville, thanks to his brother. Ugh. Sometimes he wished he could just leave the planet and start over.

Then, suddenly, the ground turned green and started shrinking. An odd weightlessness came over him.

Aha! My levitation therapy has finally worked! Doof deduced. Although the green tint is a little random...

Heinz then looked up to see the giant flying saucer that was projecting the beam in which he was captured. Oh. I'm being abducted again. Wow, the novelty sure wears thin pretty quickly.

On board the ship, the alien captain and several of his advisors waited anxiously for the arrival of their first ever abductee.

"This had better not be a waste of time, Slartibue," grumbled the captain. "The paperwork is already starting to pile up."

"I'm sure, sir," the advisor replied, voice nasal (in equivalent human terms) in contrast to the captain's. "I think. I mean, I, well, the theory suggests that an invasion is 65% more likely to, succeed if it's, er, preceded by an abduction of type-"

"Quiet, he's here," the captain interrupted. He cleared his throat and prepared himself while the human materialised on the materialisation pad.

"Pathetic human!" he boomed, as intimidatingly as possible. "I'm sure you're quivering in fear at our superior tech- wait, where did he go?"

"Hey, this wiring isn't bad," Doof said in admiration, a large piece of wire tubing in his hands. "But if you could get your hands on some T-27 thermal couplings, you could totally double your power supply."

"Hey, you're our prisoner, start acting like one!" the captain roared at the misbehaving human.

"Alright, you're the boss," Heinz said, leaving the wiring as it was and inspecting some of the panelling. "Oh, and you guys can spare the whole introduction. My abduction card has been punched way too many times already."

"I... see..." The captain cleared his throat once more. "Have all humans such intricate knowledge of interstellar spaceships as you?"

"Well, I don't know about intricate," Heinz said. "But I'm sure a lot of them have been on a spaceship or two. I mean, I've been on several, and it's only been a single summer! Quite a long one, admittedly, but..."

"Hm, clearly we need to learn more about your species before we invade Earth," the captain mused. "And you seem knowledgeable about your race. Very well, I shall make you a deal: share with us the weaknesses of the human race, and we will give you a position of power over a Tri-State Area-sized piece of land after we secure our dominion of Earth."

"Huh, so I get to choose between staying faithful to the human race, which has never done anything for me, or sell out, to achieve my long time evil goals?" Heinz pondered. "What a tough decision…"


"- and if you erase anybody's favourite TV show recordings, then you'll really make them angry. Oh, and the same goes if you take away their watermelon, for some reason. Yeah, people are kinda weird like that…"

"He's talked non-stop for half a Blixonian hour," the captain complained to Slartibue, as they both observed Doof rambling into the recording device. "Plus, he's so hideous."

"I agree, sir."

"Quiet. I'm not sure if it is a good idea to invade Earth after all, if all humans are as talkative and ugly as this one."

"I've actually been running some calculations, sir, and it may actually be unprofitable to invade Earth," Slartibue said. "That is, unless we modify our attack policy and-"

"Right, right," the captain said dismissively. "Plus the paperwork…" He thought silently for a few more moments, as their prisoner continued talking relentlessly. Then, the captain pushed a button and the recording machine sunk into the ship's floor, causing the puzzled Doof to finally stop talking.

"Well, I assume you guys got enough to work with for now," Doof said, oblivious to the decision the aliens had made. "Soooo, are we going to talk about where I'm going to become the absolute ruler of? I kinda like the Connecticut area, it's quaint."

"There's been a change of plans," the captain said tersely. "We're not invading Earth after all. Stand by for teleportation."

And before Heinz could object, he was standing back on his balcony, as if he never left.

"Ugh. I suppose this was inevitable," he sighed. "Even more so than the lottery thing last Tuesday. Could this get any worse?"

"Oh, and the apartment is flooded, obviously. Real clever, bilaterus, really, great writing-"


And that's a good place to stop, naturally. Well, see you all next time, whenever that is!