"Stand down Krabs! Or prepare to meet your doom!"
"Yeah right , yer'll never get yer hands on me secret formula!"
"My little friend here says otherwise, eheheh!"
Ah yes. 11:30. A perfectly normal start to a perfect normal Bikini Bottom day. Sheldon , owner of the Chum Bucket, was once again declaring war on his crustacean rival, and all inhabitants of his fast food dining establishment. It had come to be regarded as something of a tradition for the town, even enticing local celebrities to come and witness it such as the Bikini Bottom Mayor, local aristocrat Squilliam Fancyson, and according to the royal grammas on the playground – King Neptune himself once.
"Now hand over the formula Krabs and no-one gets hurt!"
Plankton was holding a large ray gun that was aimed directly at the window of the Krusty Krab, through which he could see the young fry cook Spongebob peering nervously through the serving slot, whilst cashier Squidward remained nose deep in his House Fancy magazine, having not bothered to look up at the commotion. Several fish customers were cowering under tables, knowing that whilst his plans USUALLY failed, there was always a small window of possibility that this might be the one time he actually succeeded. A tiny, Plankton sized window perhaps, but no one was quite prepared to take the risk.
"Come and get 'er" sneered, pressing a pincer to the glass (which he'd had reinforced with double thick recycled glass only the weekend prior)
"If you insist" Plankton grinned, firing up his weapon "But know that I've had this baby for almost 20 years now and it's never let me down!" He took aim, and fired. The beam shot through the glass like a knife on butter, causing Krabs to yelp and leap behind his octopus employee.
" I thought you said you reinforced that glass!"
"I did! The contractor said it was the cheapest price I could get for it!"
"Did it occur to you it may have been a scam?!"
"Now who'd go around selling regular glass as double thick, ultra-laser proof, self-cleaning, reinforced glass for THAT price? AAAH!"
Their conversation was interrupted by a yell as another beam shot overhead, singeing the tips of eyebrows.
Plankton swaggered into the restaurant, swinging the gun from side to side and aiming it at the door to the kitchen where Spongebob's large blue eyes could be seen peering through the circular window. With his audience fully captivated, he turned his attention to his goal – office. With a sinister chuckle, he took aim, and fired.
All eyes were on him as he stepped through the molten steel door and grinned up at his target on the wall. The safe, the glorious key to his wildest dreams.
"This is it Planky, the moment you've been waiting for" He chuckled to himself, taking his final aim. "I can already smell the patties! COME TO PAPA" He yelled, pressing the trigger.
Nothing.
He pressed again.
Hm, Maybe something was broken?
He shook the gun, then aimed it back at the safe and hit release. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
"BARNACLES" HE screeched, and squeezed the trigger as hard as he could.
Plankton next woke up in the hospital.
"Whaah?"
He was aware of a small heart monitor next to him, and the overpowering scent of disinfectant. There was a squeaking trolley moving down the hall, and a slight murmuring from either side of his white curtains, including a familiar voice next to him calling out 'My leg!' a couple of times. A large nurse walking down the aisle caused him to shake a little in his copepod sized bed. He looked to the left, and then to the right, confused. He had JUST been in the Krusty Krab, hadn't he? Yes, he was trying to melt the safe, so what on earth was he doing in here, he'd been seconds away from blasting the door off of that thing. Ah yes, his ray gun had jammed. Weird. Hadn't done that before. He tapped the side of his head, trying to see if he recalled anything other than pulling the trigger, but his memory was patchy at best.
"Sheldon? Oh good, you're alive!"
The microorganism looked up to see a very familiar face. Well, screen at the very least.
"Ah, Karen! My computer wife – tell me, uh, what happened?"
"You exploded, that's what happened. Well, your gun did anyway, I thought you'd died!"
"Hm, weird, my trusty old laser shouldn't have gone like that, especially not when I was so CLOSE to getting the secret formula!" He cursed, causing his heart rate monitor to speed up rapidly next to him.
"Yeah well, formula smormula, I'm just glad you're safe Planky-pooh. Here, I brought you something"
"Ooh, is it a gift?" The copepod blinked his one big eye hopefully.
"It's a chum pie, I know how much you hate hospital food"
"Almost as much as my own" Plankton grumbled, but pulled the food towards him anyway, at least grateful to have a warm meal.
Later that evening, once Plankton had been thoroughly checked and confirmed ready for discharge by Nurse Daisy Bazooka, the two returned to the Chum Bucket. Plankton noticed some sort of party happening inside his rival's restaurant and inquired about it, only to be told it was a celebration of his unsuccessful attempt to steal the secret formula, which he'd simply responded to with 'figures'. He sighed as he slumped down into a seat in the back room, staring absentmindedly up at the inventions he had displayed on the wall. There was a rather noticeable gap in his collection now that his first ray gun had exploded, so he made a mental note to himself to build a better prototype as his next project. Still, he wondered exactly WHY it had come to such a sudden end. An idea came to him, and he crossed the room to take another invention of his off of the wall – his first teleportation device, which he'd made for a class science project. At the time he'd hoped to win the class prize but had somehow lost to a Beluga whale with an underwater baking soda volcano.
"Hm, let's see here, I used a lot of the same hardware in this device so-" He pulled the back case of his teleporter off, and coughed as a cloud of sea dust drifted upwards into his face. He batted it away with his hands and took a closer peer inside. Plankton immediately saw the problem.
Not only was the inside of the device cogged up with two decades worth of sea dust (he never could be bothered to clean anything up) but his hardware chips and wires that he'd developed himself were almost completely rusted. Turns out sea water wasn't the greatest preserver of mechanical objects, but how was Plankton to know? Still, by his calculations, his old trusty laser gun must simply have outlived its useful warranty. No issue, he could make better, newer and more reliable technology now, he had the knowhow. Satisfied with his finding, the copepod decided to take an early night, knowing that sometimes he dreamt up fantastic new ways of trying to steal the secret formula.
But it was not the secret formula he dreamt of that night. Instead, he was a young copepod of 9 years old, tinkering at his bedroom workstation with a calculator and a mass of wires. He wasn't quite sure what he was making, but he was sure that it was going to be epic. He and Krabs needed some security footage for their new burger joint, but with no money to pay for it, he'd taken matters into his own hands. A little tweak here, a little adjustment there aaand done, just like it had been in real life. His first invention. And she was beautiful. From the moment he first switched her on, Plankton knew there was something extra special about this one machine, security or not, he knew he'd come to achieve something great. And to think, just like his laser gun, it had all started with the same-
"Wires!" Plankton sat up in bed, having been woken up by a terrifying realisation. His pet amoeba, Spot, let out a whine at the foot of his bed. The microorganism brought a hand to his chest, feeling his heart race rapidly within. No, no, no. Surely it couldn't … nah, Karen could never … but she did still have some of the same old hardware he'd stored inside his other inventions. Plankton gulped, turning to his right to see the dark silhouette of the super computer, her screen showing a soft green sleep mode symbol. He had built her up over the years, that was true, but she still retained her original mass at the core so it was possible, maybe. Plankton turned to his left and tried to make out the time. 3:24 am. Great. He knew he wasn't going to get to sleep again now. He slid out of bed as quietly as he could, grabbed his robe and slippers and headed for the kitchen to make himself a late night coffee in his 'definitely not a dolls cup'.
Whilst sipping his coffee, Plankton began to mull over his options in his mind. He didn't want to leave it to chance, but asking his computer wife to allow him to take her apart to check her original mechanisms would be a slightly strange request. Still, that would be a small price to pay for his own peace of mind. Hm, it might prove more difficult than he thought.
He leant on the back of his hand, tapping the top of the table with his other, the vaguest memory of his exploding laser gun coming back to him. Yes, avoiding that outcome at all possibility was crucial. Now how best to go about it?
"Karen, my darling computer wife, mind if I take you apart?"
That sounded malicious.
"Karen, sweetie, love of my life, I'm worried you might explode"
Bit better but still had an air of panic that he didn't want to cause.
"It is with the utmost importance that I-"
Nah, that was way too formal for a criminal mastermind such as himself.
He sipped his coffee, glaring at his own reflected eye on the dark surface. Another figure suddenly appeared behind him, her low battery screen dim against the overhead fluorescent lights.
"Sheldon? What are you doing up at this time?"
"Ahh! Karen! I-I-I was just, erm, having a late night drink, you know how it is-"
Karen's bleary screen gazed back at him, unconvinced. Plankton coughed.
"You've been worrying about my hardware, haven't you?" She finally asked, matter-of-factly.
"Noooo, what makes you say that, sugar-circuits?"
"Your left antenna's been twitching ever since I brought you home from the hospital. It only twitches like that when you're stressed or thinking reallll hard about something"
"It does?" Plankton blinked, looking up at his own antenna, which was twitching rapidly. "Huh, I wonder why I never noticed"
There was a slight pause as the tension in the room crackled between the couple. Plankton opened his mouth to say something again, but Karen interjected.
"You can check, but promise me you'll put me back together when you're done" She pointed an accusatory finger at her husband.
"Of course my little screen-queen, whatever makes you think I wouldn't?" The copepod sounded slightly offended.
Karen rolled her digital eyes, remembering countless plots and failures from the microorganism.
Half an hour and a quick check of her diodes later proved that Plankton's fears were not unfounded. The old parts HAD become slightly rusted along the edges. Plankton pulled a face, and began rearranging his components carefully, tracing a finger along where he had his name etched into her hard drive before he closed the case. He hit the on switch, and waited as the loading screen brought his computer spouse out from her slumber. As soon as the screen reloaded she asked "Well?"
"Ehhh, ehe, not so good news honey" Plankton jumped up onto the pillow next to her head "See, the old parts ARE a little rusty and well, we don't want a ray gun 2 point O with you so uh, yeah"
"Ah, I see" Karen sat up, looking at her own hand "So this what you organisms call a uh, midlife bisis right?"
"Crisis" Plankton corrected her, hopping on to the stool next to the bed. "But no worries! I'll just wander down to old Jim's hardware store tomorrow and pick up some extra parts! For both you and my other machines on the wall, it's no biggie"
"If you say so" there was a slight hint of trepidation in Karen's voice, but she did her best to look hopeful.
"Of course! Old Jim's never let me down! All the parts I stole- uh BROUGHT … brought. With legal tender money … have lived this long haven't they?"
Karen did look a bit better then, so she took it as a sign that things were starting to look up. Plankton on the other hand was practically jubilant, rushing straight back to bed and sinking into the pillows as though they were the finest silks. Ah yes, he'd get it all sorted tomorrow – after all, what could possibly go wrong now?
"CLOSED?"
"Fraid so, couple years back to be exact" The southern accented fish sniffed, wiping his moustache with the back of his hand. "Me old' Pa Jim passed away years ago now ah reckon, tis' just been me since then an' ah was never into dem schmancy machinery do-hickeys. But if yer lookin' fer a good meal we got ta finest hot dawgs fer miles around!"
"What good is a hot dog to me?" Plankton yelled, his left antenna twitching furiously.
"Maybe you can steal the formula they used to make them" Karen said dryly, rotating 180 on her wheels and preparing to depart.
"Oh very funny Karen, but this is serious business! Do you want to explode?!"
"It wasn't on my computer bucket list, no"
Plankton brought his hands to his face.
"Look, those old Jim parts are outdated, if I don't get the replicas, I may not be able to maintain the same internal mechanisms!"
"So you're saying I'm outdated, right?"
"Yes! Wh- NO! Ugh!" The copepod was running across the ground at full speed now, trying to keep up with his wife's four wheels.
"No, no. I've come to terms with my midlife bisis"
"Crisis"
"Bless you. I'm gonna enjoy the remaining youth whilst there's still a lack of air in my vacuum tubes! Now what do you organisms like to do for fun around here?"
"Ooh, Ooh! I know!"
A cheery voice sounded from nearby and Karen stopped abruptly, causing her microscopic husband to crash into the back of her wheels. He rubbed his head to get over his daze and turned with a groan to see a familiar yellow sponge bounding up to them from across the other side of the street. He was holding a large balloon which was in the shape of an inflated glove. An eerie smile leered down at the two of them.
"Hello Karen, Hello Plankton – sorry about your laser the other day. Anyway, I heard you wanted some fun and I have JUST the solution! I like to go tooooo … Gloveworld! Me and Pat go all the time, if you're after fun you know what they say, it's great to glove the day away!"
"That's the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard" Plankton rolled his eyes, trying to pull Karen along with him back to the chum bucket. "Come on, we'll get you back somewhere your circuits won't rust"
But Karen didn't move, she seemed rather interested in the inflated balloon, which was reflected and enlarged across her shiny screen.
"Gloveworld huh… And you find this fun?"
"Oh for sure! Here, you can have my ticket if you like" Spongebob produced a piece of paper from inside one of his pores "It's an all-day pass, see? Only I'm done for today so you can just take it straight there and have the rest of the afternoon off! Go ahead, it'll really put the salt water in your cathodes!"
"No you yellow fool!" Plankton roared, hopping onto the fry cook's shoe "That's what we're trying to avoid!"
"Makes no difference to me" Karen shrugged, taking the ticket from Spongebob's hand. "I'm heading out! Hasta la vista, baby!" And with that, the computer was off, whirring down the street in the direction of the hand warming themed amusement park.
"Oops" Spongebob looked down at his not-quite enemy, who glared back up, tapping his foot.
"If she explodes I'm sending you and Krabs the bill!" He yelled, deciding to take off after his runaway spouse.
"Ehe, sorry Plankton" Spongebob hung back, wondering what in Bikini Bottom was going on.
At the theme park, Plankton was stopped by the ticket guard, who glared down at him unamused, demanding proof of entry. The copepod grumbled to himself but went and fetched himself a ticket before returning back to the nonplussed guard and squeezing his way through the crowd of eager children and their tired out parents. Now he just had to find his computer wife, which could take a while in such a large park.
"If I were a computer, where would I go ,,," He pondered aloud, his eye swivelling in all directions. The candy stall? The hook-a-worm? The little fishes room? None of those made any sense but the third was the least ridiculous so he started to make his way over to the games stand. As he was looking around at the customers, he heard a familiar whoop from high above him and looked up to see the computer he'd been searching through, flying through the overhead water at top speeds.
"KAREN!" He called out in vain, but the computer had already sped past on the rollercoaster.
The copepod began to chase the track of the coaster as far as he could, but it was too fast for him. Exhausted, he gave up and leant against the leg of a picnic table, trying to catch his breath. He was still panting by the time his wife rolled up to him, an exhilarated glint on her screen.
"Oh there you are Sheldon! You gotta try this, it'll really put the water in your antenna!"
"Karen, hah, I'm not sure, hah, this is a good, hah, idea!" Plankton coughed, trying to speak through his burning lungs "We're trying to keep you on optimal efficiency here!"
"Yeah well, my warranty aint gonna reach optimal enjoyment with you just standing around all day and complaining, a gals gotta have fun sometime you know, that Spongebob was right about this place being a kick. After all, YOPO"
"What?"
"You only process once" She explained, picking up her microscopic husband in one hand "Now come on, I wanna get a seat at the FRONT this time"
Plankton had no choice but to obey. His wife had been right, after all, the Glove World Rollercoaster certainly had put the sea water in his antennas, and quite a lot of it in his eye, which he could only see circles out of a couple of minutes after getting off of the ride. If he wasn't already such a colour, Karen might have said that he looked a little green. By the time he'd stumbled queasily off the side of the coaster exit, Karen was already whirring towards her next goal; the shooting gallery. Plankton had always thought he had good aim, yet he found himself somewhat terrified at the sheer enthusiasm Karen was demonstrating at the targets, showing no mercy to them or the poor fish employee that was cowering behind a stuffed seahorse plush and she obliterated the entirety of the course.
When they eventually got back to the Chum Bucket, Plankton was windswept, covered in candy, and dragging a large oversized sea bear toy. In short, he looked like a short, green Santa Claus without the jolly holly spirit. Ok, no. this had to stop. He shook off the candyfloss from his face and dropped the sea bear, jumping on to the counter so he was at screen-height with Karen.
"Alright, that's it, party's over, computer wife! You're gonna stay here till I find those hardware parts!"
"Or what?" She retaliated, looking slightly silly with an oversized lollipop stuck to the top of her screen.
"Or what? Or you'll go kaboom, that's what! Listen to yourself, I think the rust's affecting your personality circuits already"
"Then I LIKE it" Karen swayed slightly on her wheels "That glove world was FUN, let's go back tomorrow"
"Let's not" Plankton scoffed, jumping off of the table and running over towards his phone book, where he started writing down the names of all of the hardware stores in and around bikini bottom.
"Ehh you're just a stick in the sand" The computer waved a hand dismissively and moved back through the doors towards the bedroom. Plankton simply rolled his eye and got back to writing down numbers.
For the next week, the couple went about their daily life separately. Karen spent the week enjoying as many 'fun' activities as she could suggested to her by local residents, which included everything from surfing with Larry the lobster, snowboarding with her close friend Sandy Cheeks, playing the clarinet with Squidward Tentacles, and staring at a rock for 4 hours with Patrick Star (the latter two of which she found less fun but interesting to study the behaviour of at least). She'd been lower, higher and further all over the place in Bikini Bottom than she ever thought possible. If her circuits were to suddenly give out this week, she felt it would no longer be in vain.
In the meantime, her microscopic husband Plankton had been bargaining and haggling and searching all over the place for his specific parts. Every hardware store and general diy corner had 'regretfully' informed him of their lack of stock, but encouraged him to try upgrading to newer, better models to suit the modern aged sea life creature. In short, it was beginning to look just a tiny bit hopeless. Deep down, he wondered if he really should take Karen's optimistic look on her midlife crisis to heart and spend whatever time he had left with her.
On the Saturday, Plankton committed himself to spending 24 hours partaking in her new favourite activities that she'd acquired during the week. This included all the surfing and snowboarding, even allowing himself to be dragged back to the Glove World roller coaster ride. He found it arguably less scary this time around, just happy to hear that Karen was, at least just that; happy, no matter the impending outcome.
By Sunday evening, the two had taken a slightly more quiet approach, and were sitting down to enjoy a nice home movie instead.
"Killers Of The Mutant Crab – my favourite!" Plankton grinned, sliding the VHS into his old family TV screen and rubbing his hands together as the old film started off with a blood curdling scream.
He ran back to the sofa and climbed onto the cushions beside the large bowl of popcorn he'd prepared for himself (he would have offered some to Karen but the computer couldn't technically taste nor eat). As they sat watching the film, a more comfortable silence fell between them for a while, better than it had been for a while.
"You know, Karen, this kind of reminds me of our first date"
"Oh yeah, the one where you hid behind my screen for the last 45 minutes"
"O-oh well, uh, it was a rather scary movie at the time-"
"Ah yes, who could ever forget the scary parts of 'my little seahorse, the movie"
Plankton glared at her, but it was half hearted.
Another couple of moments passed.
"Plankton?"
"Yes, sweetie?"
"If I shut down … would you still look for the parts?"
The copepod blinked, slightly taken aback by the question. He picked the remote that was sitting nearby and turned down the volume of the film.
"O-of course I would! I've already been doing that, haven't I?"
"But would it still work if I did expl- expire?"
"I'd keep working on it if it ever did"
"Do you mean that? You wouldn't just … build a Karen 2.0?"
"No no, I learnt my lesson about that a long time ago"
"Huh?"
"Nothing!" Plankton coughed, glad that his wife's computer memory had erased that part of his scheming. "No, no baby I'd … I'd go the ends of the ocean for you!" He smiled, attempting to look genuine. It was rare for him, usually reserved only for when he thought he might genuinely get his hands on the secret formula, but it happened, sometimes.
"Hm, well I'll believe it" The machine whirred softly, leaning her screen down to kiss her spouse. Plankton returned it, glad he wasn't in public or it would have been embarrassing.
"Too bad you can't just ask that old Jim fellow" Karen sighed "I'd ask my computer friends too but a lot of them are newer models so I'm not even sure about that"
"Ack, who needs them? Plankton threw a large piece of popcorn into his mouth and promptly began to choke, so he spat it back out "Erugh, I mean uh, I'm the smart guy around here, I'll fix it all, you'll see"
"I'm sure I will" Karen's digital face lit up into two triangles that resembled eyes "Now turn the volume back up Sheldon, this is my favourite part-"
"Anything for you dear" He chuckled, reaching for the remote again "Anything for you"
The next morning, when she came out of low power mode, Karen had been a little confused to see that the Chum Bucket was empty. She searched in all the places she could normally find Plankton, and even digitally scanned the area but couldn't find him. Spot was asleep in his bed so Plankton hadn't taken him for a walk, and the Krusty Krab didn't seem to have an unwanted visitor either. So where on earth could-
"Karen?"
The computer turned to see her husband in the doorway. He was holding a small white bag.
"What's in the bag?"
The microorganism looked smug.
"Oh nothing much – justtttt the parts I needed to fix you up~"
Karen's screen lit up.
"Really? Where did you find those? And so fast?"
"Well" Plankton said hesitantly, getting his parts out of the bag and lying them ever so carefully on the side table "I thought about what you said last night – about asking Jim for his parts and-"
"Jim? The old fish at the store said he's been dead for years"
"Well, yeah-"
"Since when did you start talking to ghosts?"
"Er, ever since I became one actually" Plankton rubbed the back of his head, sheepishly recalling the time he'd attempted to steal the secret formula by transforming himself into a ghost and spending the night with The Flying Dutchman. "I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner to be honest… anyway he showed me his old warehouse, I can have all my inventions back to their old selves this afternoon!"
"Starting with me?"
"Of course, you're my most important" He looked up at her, gently placing one tiny hand atop of hers.
With Karen and the inventions restored back to their old selves, the two decided it was time to find a way to celebrate.
"We could go to Gloveworld!" The Copepod suggested "I know how much you love the rollercoaster there!"
"Hm yes, let's not wear out my new parts too quickly tho – I know, I have a better idea, let's do YOUR favourite thing"
"What's that?"
"I think you know"
The two of them turned to look out of the window and across the street, to where the sign for the Krusty Krab had just turned from 'closed' to 'open'.
"Shall we?"
Sheldon grinned a most delighted grin.
"I'll get my new-old laser guns, shall I?"