Anthology of Interest 3
Chapter 4: Fry
OK, sorry I haven't updated in forever. I have three fairly reasonable excuses. I also have a ton of unreasonable excuses, but we all can ignore them. First of all, I have major writers block. Then we have my five after school activities that I am a part of.
The Planet Express Crew quickly stopped caring about where Zoidberg was, and turned back to the What-If machine. They were thinking about what to ask it next when a loud explosion was heard, coming from inside the Planet Express building.
Soon, a figure stepped out of the building. He was covered in soot and dirt. He coughed and brushed himself. Then the Planet Express crew realized it was Scruffy, the janitor. This gave Fry an idea.
"I know," he said, "What if Scruffy was a delivery person with me, Leela, and Bender?"
And before the Professor could tell Fry that his idea was stupid, the What-If machine started running the scenario.
Fry, Leela, and Bender sat in the lounge, watching the ending credits of an episode of "Everyone Loves Hypnotoad." As they were sitting there, Professor Farnsworth walked in.
"Bad news everyone," he said.
"What's it this time?" Fry asked, "Did the government find that body in the basement yet?"
"No, not yet," Professor Farnsworth said.
"Well, what is it?" Leela asked.
"Due to a new law in safety regulations, I have to place another member of Planet Express on the ship whenever you deliver a package," Professor Farnsworth said. "Hermes needs to stay here, Amy is home at Mars, visiting family, and Zoidberg still hasn't recovered from when he was beaten by Bender with that shovel."
Bender laughed for a moment and saw Zoidberg walking by, a bandage on his head and using crutches. This just made Bender laugh harder.
"So anyway," Professor Farnsworth said, "I've chosen that Scruffy shall be joining you on your travels."
Scruffy walked into the lounge and sat down on the couch. He then turned on the T.V. and fell asleep. "See?" Professor Farnsworth asked, "He'll fit right in with you."
Leela looked at the figure on the couch. He was lazy, dirty, and not exactly bright.
"You're right," she said, "He kind of reminds me of Fry."
"Now you'll be going on another mission," Professor Farnsworth said. He picked up a small crate, and since it was a heavy three pounds, it took a considerable amount of effort for him to give it to Leela. "This crate," he continued on, "Holds the prototype for a new black hole defense mechanism I made. It's to be sent to a lab in the Galaxy of Terror for analysis."
Leela wasn't worried when the Professor mentioned the Galaxy of Terror, he had sent them on so many death trips, the only words that scared her that came from his mouth were "perfectly safe."
"Now, you'll need to be careful during this flight," the Professor continued on, "To get to the lab, you'll need to get past an incredibly large amount of black holes along the way."
"Couldn't we just use the mechanism?" Fry said.
"Oh my, no," the Professor said, "It needs to be in perfect condition and unused when it reaches the lab or they charge a five dollar fee for repair. It would be much easier to simply replace you if you were killed."
"We could easily pay the five dollars," Leela said.
"Much easier to replace you," the Professor said.
Leela sighed, knowing that when the Professor sent them on a particularly dangerous mission, there was no use arguing. At least he didn't tell her it was "perfectly safe."
"Don't worry," the Professor said as Fry, Scruffy, Leela, and Bender walked to the ship, "I'm sure you'll be perfectly safe."
Leela stepped onto the ship, the rest of the crew following her. They all entered the control room and Leela sat down. She turned on the ship and took off. When she left the solar system, she put the ship on autopilot and faced the rest of the crew.
"Okay," she said, "Now I know the Professor told us not to use that black hole thing, but I think it might be a good idea to be ready incase we do need it."
"But the Professor said not to," Fry said.
"If we don't, we might be crushed inside a black hole," Leela said.
Fry just stared at her.
"And be killed," Leela said.
Fry continued to stare.
"That's a bad thing," she said.
"Ohhh," Fry said.
"Okay," Leela said, "Scruffy, why don't you take this thing. It looks like you attach it to the ship's engine. You wait there, and if we run into trouble, you can activate it." Scruffy grunted and took the package. As he was walking out of the control room, Leela faced Fry and Bender. "You two, go do, uh, what do you do when we go on a delivery."
"I dunno," Fry said, "We usually just drink beer and hang out in our quarters."
"Go do that, then."
Things were pretty quiet on the way to the Galaxy of Terror. That was, of course, ignoring the series of explosions coming Fry and Bender's room. Leela didn't really want to know why.
Fry walked into the control room, his hair singed and jacket smoldering. "Leela," he asked, "Did you value the things in your room?" He had a slight guilty look on his face.
"Yes," Leela said, turning away from the controls.
"Great," Bender said, walking into the room. "Then you'll love to know that you can carry it all around in your pocket." Bender then opened his chest plate and a small metal cube fell out. Leela looked out the door to see where her room once was; there was now a giant hole. Those two idiots had somehow figured out how to crush her room into a cube.
Leela was so busy fuming about what had just happened, that she didn't notice the black hole until the alarms started blaring, saying they were going to be sucked in. Leela ran up to the intercom and shouted for Scruffy to turn on the Professor's invention. Nothing happened.
In the engine room, Scruffy was sitting on a chair. He had the box in his lap, but he had fallen asleep.
The ship was sucked into the black hole, the crew never seen again.
"Wow," Fry said. He was impressed, the scenario was great.
He turned to look at everyone else. They had all fallen asleep.
Finally, another chapter done. I planned this one to have an ending like one in the show, someone dies. I hope to be able to update soon, but I'm not sure when I will.
Update on March 17, 2006: Happy Saint Patrick's Day. Anyways, if you're reading this, then I'm currently in the middle of writing "Lost." Just saying that once I'm done with that, which will be soon, I'll get back to work on this.