Finally Delta spoke up, her words coming slowly. "Did you say pirate or pilot just now?"
Please don't force me to kill you, thought Leela. I already have two robot murders on my record.
"I said pirate," she stated as sweat gathered on her forehead. "You and I are going to join the Pirates of the Cerulean."
After an earnest pause Delta asked, "Why?"
"In my case the reason is obvious," said Leela, the laser gun quivering in her hand. "My own people have turned their backs on me, and sentenced me to life in the sewers."
"And you believe that life among the pirates will be better?"
Leela nodded. "They won't care whether I have one eye or two. Hell, half of them have only one eye left."
"But we're females," Delta pointed out. "The Cerulean Pirates are a male-dominated society."
"Then you'll fit right in," quipped Leela.
The fembot examined the grim determination in Leela's eye and the deadly weapon in her hand, and her positronic brain struggled to compute a decision. "Quantum state probability, 51 up, 49 down," she said mechanically.
"What's that supposed to mean?" said Leela.
"It means that when I made the statement, there was a 51 chance that I would eventually agree to join the pirates, and a 49 chance that I would refuse. I revise my probabilistic estimates every nanosecond, however, and the quantum state probability at this moment is 49 up, 51 down."
Leela smiled. "In other words, you can't make up your mind. You really are a woman."
The Donbot creaked as he rose to his feet. "What have we here?" His gyroscopic pupils scanned the two figures standing before him—the eager-looking robot Bender, and his human companion Fry, who appeared to have died of a heart attack while still standing. "It's our old compadre Blotto, and one of the losers with which he keeps company."
"Hey, guys," said Bender innocently. "It's been a while."
Joey and Clamps remained seated behind the table. "I should clamp you good," he heard Clamps mutter.
"Clamp me?" said Bender. "What'd I do to you?"
"I dunno," said Clamps with a shrug. "It's just that if I don't clamp somebody every four hours, I get to be really, really clampy. Capisce?"
Bender nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I capisce."
"Wh-what's a capisce?" said Fry anxiously. "Is it something illegal?"
The Donbot reached out to shake Bender's hand. "Pay him no attention," he said reassuringly. "You're always welcome here in Little Bitaly. As for your meatbag friend here, we can only guarantee his safety in exchange for a nonrefundable deposit. Fifty big boys."
"Uh, I don't know," said Bender, glancing aside at the worried Fry. "I've got the money, but I was hoping to spend it on a hooker."
"Pay the man, Bender!" Fry whispered hoarsely.
"What brings youse back here?" said Joey, idly tapping the computer mouse around his neck. "Youse thinkin' of doin' another job with us?"
Before Bender had a chance to respond, Fry yanked him by the arm to a quiet spot several feet away. "Listen, Bender," he said indignantly. "It's bad enough that you know these robots. It's even worse that you've worked with them before. But…to borrow money from them? It's insane! Can you imagine what they'll do to you if you can't pay back?"
"With any luck," said Bender flippantly, "they'll try to hurt me by hurting you."
Kif showed so little interest in romance that Amy was beginning to wonder if he was entering another molting cycle. "More coffee, honey?" she inquired of the alien.
"No, thank you," Kif replied. He had remained in the same position on the couch for over two hours, and his skin was starting to turn yellow and smell odd.
"Is there anything I can do?" Amy asked him.
Kif's pupils rolled back into his eyes. "Yes, there is," he stated, much to Amy's elation. "Get on the Internet, and find out what you can about Professor Foss of Mars University."
"Will do, captain," said Amy with a proud salute. As she marched out of the lounge, Kif sighed and turned up his eyeballs again. Deep thought is so much more pleasant than real life, he mused.
Amy found the professor's jar-bound head in the computer room, playing an optically-operated video game on one of the monitors. "Hello, Amy," said Farnsworth, and then he winked. The gesture caused Amy to giggle mindlessly.
The professor winked again. "No, I'm not coming on to you," he explained. "My winks control the game. I wink with my left eye to fire missiles, and I wink with my right eye to drop crates of candy to the war orphans."
"That's cute," Amy remarked. "Say, Professor, did you ever know Professor Foss from Mars University?"
Farnsworth's eyelids narrowed. "Philaster Foss," he recalled. "I saw him at a few conferences—he was a protégé of Wernstrom. Damn that Wernstrom! I don't know much about him other than his research interests, except that he was involved with many of the university's radical groups, like Propeller Heads for Peace, Equal Rights for Robots Now, and even, rumor has it, Professors Against Tenure." He hummed thoughtfully. "Why do you ask, Amy?"
Amy began to type into an Internet terminal as she spoke. "Kif tells me that Professor Foss is working for the pirates now," she related.
Farnsworth's head sputtered. "Why, that's absurd! A professor at MU would never join a band of bloodthirsty mercenaries. Their selection process wouldn't allow it—they only hire the candidates with the most idealistic mission statements."
"Yeah, it's weird," said Amy. Sifting through the search results on the screen, she noticed a bold headline: SEARCH CONTINUES FOR MISSING SCIENCE PROFESSOR. "Says here he disappeared seven years ago," she told the professor.
"Indeed," said Farnsworth. "And no one has seen him since. As far as the law is concerned, he's dead. If he were to resurface now, he'd be legally declared a zombie."
"Look at this," said Amy, her eyes widening with curiosity. "Just three days before they started looking for Professor Foss, there was a prison break on Mars. Guess who escaped?" She paused for dramatic effect. "A space pirate named Garmoshka Balalaika."
"Interesting," said the professor. "Could his escape and Foss' disappearance have been connected somehow?"
"Well, spluh," said Amy. "Why else would we bother to mention them in this story?"
To be continued (what did you expect?)