He slammed the notebook shut, opened the door to his chest cavity, and stashed it inside. "Hey, Bender," Fry asked curiously, "did you just memorize the whole list? I mean, you can do that, right? You're a robot."
"Of course I can," said Bender. "But I don't like to talk about my mental abilities, because losers like you get jealous when I do."
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Mayor Poopenmeyer chimed in.
"Oh, come on, Bender," said Fry. "How much information can you store in that brain of yours? Tell me. I'll bet it can hold billions of gigawatts."
"I'm not exactly sure," said Bender sheepishly. "I had a manual once, but I lost it."
"Gentlemen!" said Poopenmeyer, vainly trying to attract their attention.
"So what're you planning to do with that list?" Fry inquired. "Start a mutant uprising?"
"Nope," replied Bender. "I'm gonna put them to work. They'll be serving their country, as well as making me rich, which is also good for the country."
"Wait a minute," said Fry. "How is making you rich good for the country?"
"One word," said Bender officiously. "Macroeconomics."
Fry stared at him, confused.
"I said, one word," said Bender, folding his extensible arms.
"I can't feel my hands anymore," complained the mayor. "Would you mind untying my wrists?"
After taking their leave of City Hall, Fry and Bender rode a transit tube to the nearest address on the list, which belonged to one Alberto Veracruz. His house proved to be a rundown shack in a poor Puerto Rican neighborhood. The weed-covered porch boards creaked as Bender applied his weight to them. "This guy should be an easy target," said the robot as he knocked gently on the faded wooden door.
Seconds later it opened, and a middle-aged man with a shaggy beard and pot belly welcomed Fry and Bender with a rude glare. The occupant appeared perfectly human in every respect, except for a small detail regarding his mouth. He had none.
"Greetings," said Bender with a confident swagger. "My name is Mr. B. B. Rodriguez, and this is my associate, Mr. P. J. Fry. We'd like to speak to you about a business proposition. You can speak, right?"
The peevish-looking man stuck out his right palm to them. "Yes, I can speak," said the pair of lips in the center of his hand.
Fry was astounded. He had seen people with worse defects in the underground world of the sewer mutants, but never among surface dwellers. "Uh, can I ask you a question?" he blurted out.
"Sure," said the mouth in the man's palm, "as long as it's not about my…"
"What's with the mouth?" Fry interrupted him.
The bearded man sighed. "I'm a mutant, all right? Or couldn't you tell from the stupid wristband they make me wear?"
"Do you eat with that mouth as well?" asked Fry.
"No," replied Mr. Veracruz. "You don't want to know what part of my body I eat with."
"Geez, talk about your hand-to-mouth existence," Fry quipped.
"Talk to the hand," said Veracruz as he made ready to slam the door.
"Wait!" exclaimed Bender, inserting his foot into the doorway. "I have a surefire plan to save you and your fellow mutant freaks from a life in the sewer."
"I already live in a sewer," grumbled the hand-mouth. "Take a look around you."
Fry and Bender did so. Half a block away, a little girl with straggly black hair picked up a dead cat from the middle of the gravel street, slung it over her shoulder, and ran back into her humble house.
"Yeah, it's tragic," Bender remarked. "But if you go to work for me, you'll make enough money to leave all of this behind."
Veracruz's mouth fell open. He opened the door a little wider. "You're…you're offering me a job?" he stammered.
"Is that a problem?" said Bender.
"N-no," said Veracruz apologetically. "I'll gladly work for you. I haven't been able to find a job for over a year. All the interviewers expect me to shake hands with them. Come in, come in." As Fry and Bender walked across the bare slatted floor of his living room, he inquired, "What sort of work would I be doing?"
"I'm opening a munitions factory," Bender told him. "My plan is to hire all the city's mutants and put them to work building quantum torpedoes to be used against the space pirates. The government will become dependent on you for weapons, and won't deport you to the sewers. Do you see how that works?"
"Yes, I do," said Veracruz, nodding his mouthless head.
"No, I don't," said Fry. "Explain it to me again."
"Shut up, Mr. Fry," said Bender.
to be continued