Trapped inside Fry's body, besieged by millions of trains of thought belonging to Fry clones she had never met, Leela fought to retain her sanity and individuality. She was barely able to choose a plan of action that might lead to an escape, or even to tell where her thoughts ended and the thoughts of the other Frys began. It's useless, she would have thought if she could put two words together in her mind.

A minute or so passed, and clarity started to creep in. I can think! She slowly raised her hands and put them over her agonized face. I'm pretty sure it was me willing myself to do that. Another minute, and I may not be so sure. I've got that long to come up with a plan to save the universe.

Bits of recognizable trivia flew through her crowded mind. The operations of the Dumb Star are becoming an open book to me. There must be some information I can use to either blow up the station, or cripple it, or disable its defenses, or shut off the anti-intelligence beam…wait, that's it! With the beam off, Raven and the Nimbus will be free to attack!

The beam control, she intuitively knew, was on Deck 581, section 3. The lift to her right would transport her there. She took bounding steps to enter it. Push the green button with the up arrow, then readjust the calibrator settings to compensate for…wait, that's Fry 10369's job! Just push the freaking green button!

The elevator rose quickly, but not quickly enough for her taste. Deck 444, atmospheric controls…Deck 460, food services…Deck 515, manufacturing center for acoustic plates to replace old ones that break down due to vibrational shear forces at a rate of 72.6 picojoules per cubic…here it is, Deck 581!

Moving one foot in front of the other was easy for her at first, but became more difficult as the surrounding Frys persistently questioned why she was wandering so far away from her assigned work station. Must keep going, she urged herself. Must make it to gravimetrics…I mean, beam control! Or is it gravimetrics? I must turn off the anti-intelligence beam so the other Frys won't float away…no, that's the artificial gravity! By disabling the beam I'll give my friends a chance to keep the gravity field operating within its safety threshold…no, beam control! I'm not sure anymore! If I choose wrong I'll spend the rest of eternity as a mindless drone, and the cooling fans will be clogged with hundreds of floating Frys…

Four Fry duplicates were slaving away at their consoles, and she knew they were maintaining the proper order of the anti-intelligence beam. I've got to overpower them, she thought, even if it means the gravity field breaks down, and my friends float away into the…just do it!

Normally her martial arts moves were governed by gut instinct, but on this occasion she had to carefully deliberate every move to make sure she was really knocking Fry clones unconscious instead of calculating gravimetric settings in her head. By the time she finished what she was doing, she wasn't certain if she had succeeded, only that she was urgently needed elsewhere. She dutifully marched away toward Deck 254, all consideration for Raven and the Nimbus forgotten, four unconscious men with red jackets and pointy hair lying in her wake.


At one instant Fry was gazing in wonder through Leela's eye at the gigantic spacecraft that blocked the view screen. At the next instant he was prostrate on the bed in his quarters. He could remember nothing from the intervening time, not even its length. He could tell two things, however—that he was utterly naked, and that he was experiencing the aftermath of having done something intensely pleasurable.

I'm not sure, he thought, but I think I just had girl sex. Is it normal to not remember it?

Recalling vaguely that Raven and the universe were in dire peril, he dragged himself from the mattress and began to gather up Leela's scattered articles of clothing, putting them on hastily, not bothering with the bra. Once he was fully dressed, he saw to his dismay that the floor was bare—there were no other items that might indicate who had done the nasty with him.

The ship bucked and trembled as he ran, bare-footed, to the bridge. Everyone was there except for Leela in his body, and Amy was in the process of zipping up her pink top. "Oh, hey, Fry," said the Asian girl with a smile. "I don't know what just happened to us, but it must've been fun, because we were all naked when we woke up."

"Except for me," added Bender. "I woke up in Amy's clothes."

"Quiet, please," Zapp urged those present. "We're at war."

He deftly handled the ship's controls, and Raven weaved and waggled, dodging energy bolts fired from the Dumb Star's defense grid. At its side soared the much larger Nimbus, which fired volley after volley of quantum torpedoes against the station's outer shell. They exploded spectacularly, but failed to do any damage.

"Oh, monkey trumpets," said Kif, seated on the edge of the captain's chair. "Mr. Spork, prepare the armor-piercing warheads."

"We've only got two, sir," said the officer with pointed ears. "I hope they'll be enough to punch through that beast."

Zapp, meanwhile, grew tired of evading enemy fire. "Raven, how much laser power do you have?" he inquired of the ship's computer.

"Enough to make the hull warm, if I can get in close enough," replied the smoky female voice.

"Damn," grumbled Captain Brannigan.

"Would this be a good time to ask which one of you had sex with me?" said Fry.

The comm system crackled, and Kif's voice was heard. "New strategy, captain," he said. "I'm going to charge the station, and I want Raven to follow directly behind."

"Understood, Kif," said Zapp.

The two ships assumed a new configuration, with the Nimbus hurtling at full speed toward the Dumb Star's hull, and Raven clinging to its rear flank. Laser blasts from the station pounded on the DOOP warship's shields, which maintained their strength.

"Fire armor-piercing warheads!" Kif barked.

A pair of elongated golden missiles flew from the Nimbus' ports and streaked across the sky, slamming into the surface of the Dumb Star with awesome force. When the fire and smoke cleared, two gaping, overlapping holes became visible.

"Success!" Mr. Spork exulted. "We've breached the hull!"

"Hard to starboard!" ordered Captain Kroker.

The Nimbus turned sharply, its right nacelle knocking over a laser turret as it swept over the station's surface. Raven continued in its straight course, careening through the holes left by the armor-piercing missiles. Zapp, Fry, Amy, Bender, and Zoidberg enjoyed a terrifying ride as the ship's guns blasted away swath after swath of the Dumb Star's infrastructure, sending metallic debris spinning away on all sides. Dozens of Brainspawn mobbed the ship, but Zapp, with the aid of Raven's automatic targeting system, managed to incinerate them before they could emit their dumbening rays.

By the time they arrived at the central chamber, the floating brains had retreated out of sight. "This part of the station has a breathable atmosphere," Zapp stated.

"Can you pick up Fry's life signs?" Amy asked him.

Closer examination of the chamber elicited gasps from the Raven crew. "The answer to your question is a resounding yes, Amy," said Zapp.

"My God," Zoidberg remarked. "It's full of Frys."

Raven slowed down and hovered in the middle of the endless tower of decks. The hordes of Fry clones were looking at each other in confusion, as if wondering what had damaged the chamber's thought-amplifying acoustics.

"Amazing," remarked the Fry who occupied Leela's body. "Now, which one of you had sex with me?"

"Well, here's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," said Zapp. "Which out of these hundreds of thousands of Frys is the genuine item?"

"It's hopeless," said Bender sarcastically. "Let's go home. I'm tired."

"We could just axe them," suggested Amy.

Seven million Fry duplicates perked up their ears when Raven's external speakers came to life with a pop. "Attention, all clones!" boomed Zapp's voice. "Will the real Philip J. Fry please wave his arms and shout?"

The entire population of the chamber burst into frantic activity. "Over here!" exclaimed virtually every clone. "I'm the real Fry!"

On the bridge, Bender whispered a hint into Zapp's ear.

"Let me rephrase that," said the captain's voice over the speakers. "Will Turanga Leela please wave her arms and shout?"

Far below on Deck 254, a tiny figure was seen hopping up and down.


Within no time, Leela was welcomed back into the fellowship of the Raven crew. "Ya know, this would've been a lot easier if you didn't wear Fry's old red jacket all the time," Bender ribbed her.

"You can't imagine what it was like in there," Leela related. "I lost the ability to think for myself and became a cog in a gigantic machine."

"You think that's weird?" Fry shot back. "I had sex with someone, in your body, and I can't even remember who it was."

"Sex, sex, sex," complained Amy. "Gleesh! You and your one-track mind."

"I can't blame you for something you did under the influence of the Brainspawn," Leela told Fry. "As for who did it with you, maybe that's best left forgotten."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," said Fry.

"It was Brannigan!" Bender blurted out. "It had to be! I'm a robot, Raven's a computer, Amy's a chick, and Zoidberg's gay."

"Don't look at me," said Zapp sheepishly.

Everybody on the bridge looked at him.

"I asked you not to look at me," he said.

They turned their gaze away from the captain and stared in horror at the hundreds of floating brains surrounding the ship.

"Thank you," said Zapp.


To be continued