Part Three: New New York, July 14th, 3002

As Fry navigated the streets of New New York, he couldn't help but admire the fantastic architecture that sprang up around him on all sides. He had always loved the skyscrapers of the old city, especially the majestic peak of the Empire State building, but even that old testament to the industriousness of the 1920s couldn't compare to the towering structures of the new city. In the midst of the smaller rectangular buildings rose pyramids and cylinders of glass and plascrete, some stretching high enough that they pierced the underbellies of the thunderheads that were slowly building to the southwest. The lower levels shone a brilliant yellow as their countless windows reflected the evening sun.

Autopiloted vehicles of every size, shape, and description flitted between and above the skyscrapers at would have been suicidal speeds for their human drivers. It was easy for Fry to get lost in the spectacle, and he often found himself standing in the middle of the sidewalk, gawping at the scenery while the current of pedestrians parted itself and flowed around him. But not today. Today he had somewhere to be.

He was supposed to be meeting Chelsea for dinner and a movie in two hours. That gave him just enough time to get home, shower, and change before he had to head for the park where they were planning to meet. He was tempted to skip the shower and the change of clothes, but his admittedly limited experience told him that, for some reason he'd never quite figured out, women actually care if you smell bad.

Fry almost missed the turn onto his street. He couldn't help but chuckle at that. It had been, what, ten weeks since he'd left Robot Arms, and he still found himself automatically walking home in that direction. Turning the corner, he passed what had been Amy Wong's favorite store. A sign over the doorway proudly proclaimed it to be the "Bra Market" see note at bottom of page . Fry didn't know what was to be found behind its convex, tinted windows, but for some reason he found himself unable to resist peering in the doorway as he passed by.

Two hours and twenty minutes later, Fry was running pell-mell down the street, shirttails billowing in the breeze, belt undone, and hair in disarray. Startled pedestrians stared wide-eyed as the redhead clumsily dodged between them.

"Excuse me! Pardon me!" He yelled as he barreled through a crowd of stocky, crablike Haniir tourists who were waiting for their bus. One of the Haniir raised his trunk and bellowed back something indecipherable; Fry assumed it was an insult. It was unfortunate that Fry didn't speak hanii, for if he had, he would have known that what the blue alien had actually said was "Excuse me sir, but I can see your hindmouth."

By the time Fry finally made it to the little grassy patch that was generously referred to as a park, he was panting and sweaty. He looked around frantically, but Chelsea was nowhere to be seen. He felt a stab of panic. Had she gone home already, thinking that he'd stood her up?

"Damn it! Why did I have to turn on the TV while I was at home changing?!" The new spin-off of All My Circuits, Battlestar Calculon, had drawn him in so thoroughly with the revelation that Monique was actually one of the Final Cylons that he had completely lost track of time.

But then, to Fry's infinite relief, he spotted Chelsea rounding a corner in the distance. She was running flat out, an impressive feat considering she was wearing heels. Fry leaned against a nearby lamppost and caught his breath while Chelsea easily threaded her way through the crowd. The minute or so that Fry had to wait would have been an opportune time to fix his hair, tuck in his shirt, and pull his pants up to their proper height, but he found himself unable to resist watching Chelsea dodge between, under, and around the members of the crowd with a skill that might even have rivaled the PE Captain's. Fry noted that Chelsea was taking pains to avoid the aliens that were mixed in with the crowd. It didn't surprise him, really. She was still adapting to the bizarre newness of the future. She was having a harder time getting used to the 31st century than he had, but she'd come around eventually.

Although she was undoubtedly of Asian descent, Chelsea was an inch or two taller than him and had striking brown, almond shaped eyes that contrasted starkly with her obsidian black hair. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that flopped against her back as she ran. She was wearing a dress of what Fry's vocabulary could only describe as reddish-purplish that flowed gracefully around her lithe figure. Fry thought she looked absolutely stunning, almost as beautiful as Le- He crushed the thought before he could finish it.

Chelsea stopped a couple of feet from Fry and smiled guiltily. "Sorry I'm so late." She said, not even slightly winded. "I made the mistake of turning on the TV while I was getting ready. Did you know that Monique-"

"Is a Cylon? I know, isn't it awesome?!" Fry grinned. "I got sucked into the show too. I only got here a minute ago." Suddenly remembering his appearance, he turned away and stuffed his shirt into his khakis. Fastening his belt, he turned back around. At the questioning look in Chelsea's face Fry smiled weakly. "I uhh, sorta forgot to finish getting ready when I realized I was late." The redhead waited for Chelsea to roll her eye- err- eyes. He was a little startled when she just shrugged.

"Whatever. No big deal." She looked at her watch. "Hey, we need to get walking. We're supposed to be at the movie theatre in, uhh, now. Crap, we'll never make it there before the previews are over."

Fry hesitated for a second. They were a mile from the theater. She was right; they wouldn't make it in time. Unless… He spoke up, somewhat carefully. "You know, there is another way." He glanced at a nearby tube station to demonstrate his point.

Chelsea blanched. "Oh no. You're not suggesting we… Oh God. You know I hate those things."

Fry took her arm. "Yeah, I know you do, but it's the only way we'll get there in time. Besides, you'll never conquer your fear unless you face it head on."

Chelsea regarded him skeptically. "Who told you that? It was that Leela person you're always talking about, wasn't it?"

A little embarrassed, Fry admitted it. "Yeah, I guess it was. She said that when she was trying to get me to get over my fear of brain slugs."

"Brain slugs?" Chelsea asked, her tone making it obvious that she knew that she didn't want to know the answer.

"Uhh, little green blobby things that- umm, never mind."

Chelsea reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled toward the transport tube. She looked at the tube's clear flanks with a mix of distaste and suspicion. The day she'd been unfrozen she had been wandering through the city, just walking and marveling at the sights, when she'd innocently walked into a tube entrance, curious. She'd seen the clear tubes snaking all over the city, but since it had been midday and tube traffic was light, there was no one flying overhead to demonstrate what the things were used for. When she'd entered the base of the tube, she'd immediately had the sensation that she'd been closed in. She turned to leave and came up hard against an invisible barrier of some kind that blocked the entrance. More annoyed than scared, she'd pounded at the whatever-it-was that had trapped her, hurtling obscenities at it in vain. Unfortunately, the nanocomputer mounted in the tube wall somehow misinterpreted her words as a destination command, and before she'd had time to react she was careening through the air. She'd felt like a bullet being accelerated endlessly down the barrel of a gun.

Fry gave the reluctant woman's arm a soft tug. "Come on, Chelsea. It's just like riding in an elevator, only faster… and higher… and without the elevator car or anything to hold you up-"

"Stop!" Chelsea blurted, clamping a hand over the clueless redhead's overactive mouth. "Let's just get this over with, alright?" With that, she stepped into the empty tube and turned around. She crossed her arms. "You owe me for this." She said, dead serious. Then, wincing, she said aloud to the computer that was listening in, "Googleplex theatres." A moment later there was a puff of air and Chelsea disappeared into the sky with a whump of suction.


"Man that movie was terrible."

Fry nodded his agreement. He and Chelsea were walking side by side, letting themselves be pushed toward the lobby by the crowd of moviegoers. Theatres hadn't changed much in a thousand years. They were still dark, dirty, and smelled of old popcorn and floor cleaner. The only significant difference was the addition of spilled motor oil to the conglomeration of popcorn, soda, candy, and who knows what else that covered the floor. The addition was not an improvement, as it somehow bonded with the other detritus into a substance analogous to superglue. When the movie was over, Fry tried to get up from the tattered stadium seat, only to discover that his feet were glued solidly to the floor. Chelsea had had to kick him free.

"Yeah, that sucked. I forgot that most records of the past got destroyed."

"I thought a documentary of the 20th and 21st centuries would be good for us. It'd be like going back in time for a few hours. Plus, I really wanted to know what happened after I got frozen. But everything was wrong!"

Fry caught the disappointment in Chelsea's voice and frowned. He wanted her to be happy, and although she'd picked the movie, he felt a little responsible for not realizing what was going to happen. "It's ok." He said lamely and then fumbled for something comforting to add.

"I mean, a robot with a plasma cannon screwing up the 2000 presidential election? What the hell? And since when were the Backstreet Boys the leading philosophers of the 21st century?"

Fry giggled, despite himself. "Yeah. And as if Hillary Clinton raised an army of cyborgs and took over the planet in 2012."

Chelsea hesitated for a moment. "Well actually," she said slowly, "that is somewhat true. There really was an army of cyborgs that tried to conquer the planet in 2012. They almost succeeded too, but their momentum started to falter after they took over the western hemisphere. Clinton was on the human side, though."

"Hey, that's right!" Fry exclaimed. "You were there in the 21st century. Well, for the first 12 years anyway. You should write to the movie's producers and tell them what really happened." When Chelsea shrugged noncommittally, he added, "So, what was the war about, anyway?"

Chelsea stopped walking abruptly. When he didn't immediately stop as well, she lightly grabbed his arm. Surprised, the redhead turned to face her.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, afraid that he'd made some terrible blunder. But there was no anger on Chelsea's face. It was studiously blank, as if in the blink of the eye she had put on a mask. The only hint of emotion that Fry could find was buried in the backs of her eyes, something buried just a little too deep for him to read.

When Chelsea spoke her words came out very carefully. "Fry, the war was a tragic part of my life that I would really like to forget. I was frozen a few months after it started, but during those few months my entire life unraveled. I saw friends and colleagues brutally slaughtered. So please understand, the war is a painful subject for me, ok?" Then, to Fry's bewilderment, the mask was gone and there was a smile on Chelsea's face again. "Now, let's go get something to eat."

Before Fry could react, Chelsea, who still had a light grip on his left arm, began gently pulling him along behind her as she forced a path for them through the gaggle of moviegoers.


The night air was hot and entirely still. Fry hated the end of July in New New York as much as he'd hated it in Old New York. After a full day of baking in the summer sun, the pavement released its heat into an atmosphere so saturated with water that a person seemed liable to drown. By the time he and Chelsea had worked their way through the brightly lit streets to the restaurant, Fry could feel the sweat trickling down his face in little rivulets

As they approached Elzar's, Fry suddenly remembered his sense of chivalry. He jogged up ahead a couple of steps and pulled open the door. When he looked back at his date, she smiled at him, and Fry burst into a big grin.

Fry and Chelsea crossed the threshold and entered the restaurant, and a little bell tinkled as the door closed behind them. As if on cue, a purple, four-armed alien came bursting into the room.

"Hi kids. Welcome to Elzar's" The owner and head chef greeted them in his distinct Neptunian accent. "Table for two?"

"Yes, please." Fry responded, nodding

"Alright then. Follow me." The Neptunian led them through the densely packed restaurant to a table near the rear of the establishment. Chelsea sat down facing the door, and Fry sat down across from her. Elzar handed them each a menu. Before leaving to attend to another group that had just arrived, he recommended that they order the special of the day. "What I do is mash together all of the food that didn't get eaten yesterday." He said before turning to leave.

Chelsea regarded Fry uneasily. "Is he serious?" She asked.

Fry chuckled. "Who, Elzar?" He waved dismissively. "Nah, don't pay attention to him; he always makes jokes like that. This one time he even said he forgot to cook the chicken I ordered. Actually, come to think of it, that was only a few hours before I got that really awful flu I was telling you about."

"Uh-huh." Chelsea replied, not particularly convinced.

Elzar returned a few minutes later to take their orders and then vanished into the kitchen with a flourish. He returned an hour later with their meals. Fry and Chelsea chatted while they ate, first about their jobs and then about the future in general. The computer at Applied Cryogenics had come to the decision that "security guard" was the career to which Chelsea was most suited. Momcorp had been at the top of the list of suggested employers. Chelsea had applied electronically and been hired before she even left Fry's office.

Chelsea was eager to share her experiences since she had been unfrozen, but her whole demeanor changed abruptly when Fry innocently asked about her childhood. She didn't object to the question, but gave him a hasty, disjointed answer, as if it was uncomfortable even to think about it. Sensing his mistake, Fry tried to change the subject, but the energy that Chelsea had exhibited five minutes earlier was gone.

A few awkward minutes passed in silence before Fry found the courage to speak. "You ok?" Fry asked.

"Hmm, what?" Chelsea asked, startled.

Fry frowned slightly. "Are you alright? You haven't said anything in like twenty minutes. You've been just nibblin' at that salad and staring into space."

Noticing the worried look on Fry's face, she reached out and squeezed his hand. "Don't worry." She reassured him. "I'm alright. You haven't done anything wrong. This has been a great night for me. I'm just thinking about… something."

There was another minute of silence, but this time it lacked the awkwardness. Fry finished off the last of his meal as he waited for Chelsea to work through whatever was bothering her. When she finally spoke, it was with a single word. "Religion." She said.

Fry looked up at her. "Huh?"

"Religion and betrayal. That's what the war was about."

The redhead put down his fork. "Are you sure you want to talk about this?" He asked.

Chelsea shook her head. "Nope. But its probably good for me to talk about it with somebody, and well, if I'm going to talk to somebody about it, I kinda feel like it should be you." For the first time ever, Fry saw some vulnerability tug at the corners of Chelsea's face.

A littler perplexed, and very touched, the redhead waited for her to continue. "It all started in a town called Los Alamos." She began. "There was a group of people who believed that human life, even though it was the only form of life to contain a soul, was illogical, and therefore flawed. Machine life, on the other hand, was innately logical, but had no soul. The group believed that the perfect form of life was a combination of human and machine- a cyborg that could take advantage of the strengths of both groups, but was limited by the disadvantages of neither. Their leader, a brilliant robotics expert working for the United States government, developed the technology to turn people into cyborgs, even against their will. The scientist's wife discovered what he was planning and reported him to the feds. He was assassinated by some shadowy government agency, but one of his children secretly continued his research. One day, just a few months before I was frozen, the cyborg cult, as they were called, came out of hiding. They enslaved or assimilated town after town, adding armies of drones to their ranks. It was only a few months before the military had been pushed all the way back to the East Coast. When the cyborgs finally invaded New York, the fighting was savage. Everyone fought. Men, women, children who were old enough to pick up a rifle. So many deaths…" Chelsea trailed off as tears came to her eyes, but she managed to gain control over her emotions. "Eventually they took over the entire western hemisphere; only patches of the American northwest and Nova Scotia were free. Millions of people died fighting the cyborgs, and millions more died when they were converted to mindless drones and forced to fight their former comrades."

Fry listened to all of this in silence. The words that Chelsea was speaking didn't scare him nearly as much as the sorrow and latent terror that laced each word. He tried to picture what Chelsea must have seen during those few months. He shuddered. "W- what happened next?" He asked, hesitantly.

"The cyborgs began to stall." Chelsea said. "While they had been busy conquering the Americas, Europe had been preparing for them. EMP weapons were mass-produced. There was no way for the cyborgs to cross the ocean without being crushed by the combined fleets of the exiled American government, the European Union, Russia, and China. Then an organized resistance group broke out in the conquered territories, and that bogged the cyborgs down even more. The UN counterattacked and liberated the East Coast of the United States after a long, bloody trench war, but I wasn't there for that. I froze myself right before the invasion of New York. Everyone thought the war would be over by then, one way or the other."

"But what if, you know, the good guys didn't win?" Fry asked. "If the freezer tube hadn't malfunctioned, you would've woken up to…" The prospects made his blood run cold.

Chelsea seemed to have to think about it for a second. "I told myself that, whatever happened, it would be better than having to live through all those years of war. My family was dead by then- almost everyone I knew was dead. I couldn't watch people killing each other anymore."

That seemed to make sense. "Did you ever find out what else happened after you were frozen?" Fry asked.

"Yeah. I did some research after I thawed out. Like you said, most of the records from back then are gone, but it looks like the UN managed to beat the cyborgs with their electromagnetic pulse technology."

"What did they do with those cyborg cult people?"

Chelsea frowned. "Most of them died in the war. The others that didn't go into hiding were executed, I think."

Just as Fry was about to say something comforting, he heard a familiar voice calling to him from somewhere over his shoulder. "Fry, mon! Is dat you?!"

Fry's face turned white. He began fervently trying to make himself as small as possible.

"By Jah, I'd know that hair anywhere!" The voice said a moment later, this time much closer. A thick Jamaican hand landed on Fry's left shoulder.

The redhead winced. "Hi Hermes."


NOTE: This was supposed to be an obscure play on bra-ket (Dirac) notation of Hilbert vector spaces in quantum mechanics. seems to be unable to accept the special characters I needed to form the vectors, but the joke composed of a bra vector and a ket vector with an operator sandwhiched in between. The operator was a capital M with subscript ar, making it read bra-mar-ket. Pretty weak, huh?