Down for the Count, tenth part: Disassemble

by Deb H

Saturday 01 September 3004

I glanced up at the chart again. There was the Shelbourne cluster, right where it was supposed to be. I turned down, and then the fourth star on my right was where I would find Stardust.

The last few months had gone by so fast. Jazenny had been in a fight just about every weekend in that time. She had visited some of the big boxing tournaments, from the Pyrenees to the Pleiades, winning more than eighty percent of her bouts in total and taking five tournaments.

Of course, I had been right there with her every time.

Ever since we got back together, we had been inseparable. We still hadn't moved in together, but we each had some of our stuff at one another's apartments. It was like having two apartments: one near my work in New New York for weeknights, and one near her gym in San Antonio for weekends.

This weekend, though, she said she had something to do. She wouldn't tell me what, only that I should meet her on the planet Stardust for a surprise.

I was actually really excited about it. The last surprise she had given me was the weekend at Binary Gardens, the virtual resort where I had been recast as a twentieth century detective. It had been hard to figure out what the hell was going on, but once I did, it was a lot of fun.

So when Jazenny told me to take the Planet Express ship to Stardust, I hopped to it.

Jazenny had given me a location and a time to meet her. The location was the lobby of an office building, which I thought was a little strange. The time was local noon, which equated to about 16:00 on a Saturday for me.

I landed on the planet a few hours early. It looked like the planet, or this city anyway, was just waking up. No restaurants were open, but the coffee shops were open and were doing brisk business.

As I watched the people begin their day, something began to nag at me. Something seemed off about this place.

I shrugged it off and went looking for something to do. A couple of blocks from the office building, I found a planetary history museum.

Inside, I learned that this place had become known as the Planet of the Sexual Deviants.

The exhibits told of a place that was a refuge for early settlers who'd had unusual forms of elective surgery. The pictures of some of the original arrivals would have made an interesting high school yearbook: the girl with an extra pair of breasts, the person with no sexual characteristics whatsoever, the guy with what can only be described as a wing-dang-double.

Over time, the displays showed, this had become the place to visit if you wanted to turn your body into something else.

Well, that explained why things seemed strange outside. Just about all the people I had seen were out of the ordinary in some way. Thinking back, I realised that the people I had seen included a pregnant guy and a girl with a beard.

And now Jazenny wanted to meet me here.

"Oh, fuck me," I said to myself.

I raced out of the museum and dashed to the office building. The directory next to the elevators confirmed my fears: there were cosmetic surgeons all up and down the building.

So Jazenny had turned herself into something.

But what?

I tried to picture Jazenny changing, but I couldn't.

The only time Jazenny had been something other than herself was at Binary Gardens. She had first been an overweight male police sergeant, the boss of my detective character. But that wasn't the character she was supposed to be. Later, when we went back into the simulation, she was that character, a petite human lounge singer with the most delightfully beautiful voice.

I desperately wished for the second one. There was nothing I could do but wait, though.

I kept trying to find some way to occupy my time. The games I had on the thing I always wore on my wrist didn't seem to help. I kept thinking about what Jazenny could have done to herself, and why.

"Excuse me?" a woman said.

"Hmm?" I said, looking up.

She aksed me, "Are you Turanga Leela?"

"Umm... yeah."

"I have a message from Dr Quordlewicz, on behalf of Jazenny Hannaminna."

"Oh."

I looked at the woman and realised that she was actually a man. She just sounded like a woman.

The male woman told me, "The doctor has just completed work on Miss Hannaminna and would like to invite you to his waiting room."

"Oh," I said. "Where is it?"

"The 61st floor," he replied.

"Oh," I said again. "Thanks."

He bowed slightly and walked back to the reception desk, his high heels clicking on the polished stone floor.

No, wait. Those were a woman's legs. So he was male above the waist.

Well, except for the larynx.

I thought the mutants were weird, I thought.

At least we had no choice in the matter. We were stuck with whatever mutations we were born with. These people chose to be like this.

Well, was it really that weird? These people got to make their own choice. They got to be in a body of their own choosing.

How many people over the years had been born into the wrong body? It went all the way back to Fry's time. Chaz Bono had been born in the wrong gender. Pamela Anderson had been born with the wrong cup size. Barry Bonds had been born with the wrong head size.

And Jazenny had been born with the wrong... what?

The wrong number of arms? No, she loved being a Neptunian. She liked to say that she couldn't believe humans boxed with just the two arms.

The wrong skin tone? Maybe. She thought she looked a little too fuchsia.

The wrong nose type? That could be. She was never too excited about the Neptunian snout.

I gave it some more thought as the elevator arrived on the 61st floor. There was one door, marked only ROGER QUORDLEWICZ, DTS, GS. Inside I found an empty waiting room with three chairs. The receptionist's desk was also vacant.

Once I sat down, I started thinking about this planet.

Was it really all that different from the mutants?

For that matter, was it really all that different from any other place in the Universe?

You'll see an endless variety of species on the streets in New New York alone. Rigelians. Cygnoids. Omicronians. Trisolians. Cat people. Neptunians, of course. Even the occasional centaur. And that's not even including all of the different models of robots.

Was I really going to sit here and call Stardust weird?

If anything, it was weird in that the diversity was intraspecies rather than interspecies. Almost everyone I saw was human, but the variations amongst the humans were much greater than in New New York. I couldn't think of any humans I had met on Earth who had modifications like those on Stardust.

And back on Earth, it was all a hypocrisy anyway.

I'm proof of that.

They claim to welcome everyone, no matter how odd their bodies are. But what happens when you show them someone like me? Someone whose body isn't odd at all, except for the number of eyes? Hell, even my other noticeable mutation, my hair colour, isn't a big deal on Earth. The only difference is that I was born that way; everyone else who has purple hair had to dye it or have their follicles modified.

And yet, most people couldn't handle my eye. I knew people were calling me a freak behind my back. Some of them didn't even do me the common courtesy of waiting until my back was turned.

Even Amy, who is supposed to be one of my best friends, goaded me into cosmetic surgery to become normal.

But Fry was the only one who tried to talk me out of it. He's usually such a moron, but he knew that I was the way I was and that there was no use trying to change it.

What about Jazenny? Would she have tried to stop me if we had been going out then?

Well, if we had been going out then, I wouldn't have gone out with Adlai in the first place.

I wished we had been going out then.

And it wasn't the first time. Quite a few times, I'd found myself wishing that I had met Jazenny earlier. She just seemed to do so much for my confidence.

It might sound strange for a spaceship captain who can successfully negotiate any challenge in the skies to have so much trouble dealing with people. Jazenny, though, actually made me feel good about myself. She was the only one who stared at me with lust in her eyes rather than disgust. Not even Fry stared at me like that. When he stared at me, it was more of a wistful, longing stare.

Wait.

Why was I thinking about Fry so much?

I stood up and shook my head.

I was here because of Jazenny.

But why was she here?

There had to be something about her body that she didn't like. She wasn't like me. She wouldn't just make a change that someone else talked her into.

Well, maybe if I had talked her into it. Maybe if I had said something like...

"Oh lord," I murmured, slumping down into the chair.

I sat there, head in my hands, for a few minutes.

"Excuse me?"

I looked up.

"You're Leela, I take it?"

The man was fairly short, with thin black hair. He looked a little like the sergeant from the simulation, except that he was in surgical scrubs.

I nodded, and he held out his hand and said, "Dr Quordlewicz. Nice to meet you."

"You too," I said, standing up and shaking his hand.

"So are you ready to meet them?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," I shrugged.

He went to a door behind the receptionist's desk and looked inside.

When he stepped aside, the person I saw behind him was just about exactly what I was expecting.

"Hey," the person said.

"Hey," I answered, noncommittally.

His jawline was a little sharper, and his snout seemed to curve downward a little more.

Other than that, though, he was almost exactly the same as Jazenny. He had the same height, the same build, the same hairstyle.

He held all of his arms out and gave me a bit of a twirl.

Through the back of the hospital gown, I could see that his ass was mostly the same. Just with more hair.

He aksed me, "So... what do you think?"

I wrapped my arms up in front of me, clinging to my elbows, and stared at him.

"Eel?" he aksed.

"How..." I whispered, "how could you?"

He held two hands up to his mouth and drew in a breath. "You don't like it?"

I said, "I..."

But then my sentence ran out of whale oil.

The doctor said, "I'll give you a moment," and stepped out the back door.

As it hissed shut, the male Jazenny embraced me with all of his arms. I hugged him back.

"What did you do?" I aksed as tears started to fill my eye. "What did you do?"

"I... we thought you'd like it," he answered.

"So are you going to fight as a guy now?" I aksed as I released him. "In... in men's tournaments?"

"No, I'm going to hang up my gloves."

"What? You're... you're quitting?"

"Yeah."

"What are you going to do instead?"

"College."

"Really?" I aksed. "College?"

"Well, yeah," he replied. "I mean, well, that was why I became a professional in the first place. To earn some money for college."

"You... you never told me that."

He said, "Well... you never really aksed me why I turned pro."

"Whoa, hold it. Hold it," I jumped in. "You turned pro during the time skip, right? Then how do you know that's why you did it?"

"Well, I was already planning to do that. Before the time skip, I mean. And afterwards, everyone confirmed it. My friends all told me that that was why I did it."

"Oh."

"And that's how I met Amy, too."

"It is? How?"

"There was, like, a college fair when I was in high school. I knew I wanted to study physics, or cosmology, or something like that. So when I went to the Mars University table, Amy was there, and she told me how she had gotten this internship with a physics professor there. I was like, 'That's pretty awesome.' And so we kinda kept in touch here and there. And then one day she was like, 'Oh, there's somebody you have to meet. I'm gonna take her to your fight at Cheney's Palace. You'll like her.' So I was like, 'Well, why don't you guys drop by my dressing room before the fight?' And... well... you did."

I reached out for his hands. But as I did so, I looked down at his chest.

I said, "Your breasts are gone."

He answered, "That's... that's a bit of a non sequitur, isn't it?"

"Sorry," I responded. "It's just... I... I hear you talking about how we met and everything. But all I can think about is how different you are."

"Not that different. I mean, they were never really there."

"What? Your breasts? I liked them."

"You did?" he aksed. "Those tiny things? Those weren't breasts. These are breasts." He rested his hands on my breasts.

But then I pulled back.

He looked wounded for a moment, but then he added, "Look. You remember Binary Gardens. The genie scenario? I wished to be bigger?"

I nodded.

We had been given an upgraded scenario to compensate for the other scenario, the one that Bender had fucked up by uploading himself into the body that was supposed to be Jazenny's. In the upgrade, I was a genie. Jazenny's first wish had been to be "bigger". She had gestured toward her breasts, but, feeling a bit mischievous, I had granted her wish with a twist.

I made her breasts bigger, along with the rest of her body. She ended up at twice the size.

Before long, our scenario had turned into hot giantess lesbian sex.

Just thinking about it was making me wet.

But it was making me wet for Jazenny. Jazenny the talented boxer. Jazenny the passionate Neptunian.

Jazenny the girl.

"You remember that, don't you, Eel?" he aksed.

I said, "I'm not your Eel."

"What?"

"I'm not your Eel," I repeated. "And you're not my Jaze."

"What? Of course I am. I'm just more than that."

"Can you please not mention your dick?" I sighed.

"Well, actually, that's not what I was talking about."

I looked him up and down again.

Then I said, "You thought... you thought this was what I wanted?"

He replied, "Well... yeah."

I took a deep breath. "Look, I... I know I'm not always sure of what I want," I told him. "But I... well... this is not it."

"Oh."

"I loved you. The way you were."

"But not like this?" he aksed.

"I'm sorry."

"You won't even give it a chance?"

"Wait," I suddenly said. "What about... you said you're not going to fight any more. What about singing?"

He shook his head, a bit puzzled. "I'm not a singer."

"You were a great singer. Remember how you used to sing for me?"

One day, the week after we got back together, I had returned home from work to find Jazenny lying in my bed, singing along to some music she was listening to on her headphones.

She had been facing away from the door, so she didn't see me approach. She obviously couldn't hear me either. So, stealthily, I had gotten close to her, and then in one swift move, I had leaned over her back and gave her a kiss.

"Omigod! I'm sorry!" she had said after we pulled away. "I didn't hear you come in! I was completely singing out loud, wasn't I?"

"Jaze, it was beautiful," I had said. "You... you sounded like Rosalyn."

"Eel, Rosalyn was me."

"I know," I had responded. "It's just... I didn't know that you could sing like that in real life."

"Rosalyn's character was based on me, though," she had argued.

"I understand that. I just... I never heard you sing. You never sang for me before."

"Well, I sing to myself all the time."

"But not when I'm around."

"Yeah, I... I don't do it when you're around."

"What?" I had aksed her. "Why... why not?"

"Because I know how stupid I sound."

"You don't sound stupid," I had insisted, taking her hands and putting them around my waist. "You sound beautiful. You're a beautiful singer. Could you... could you sing something for me?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. How about that song we were dancing to at that restaurant in San Antonio?"

"'A Planet for You and Me'?" Jazenny had said.

"Is that what it's called? I never knew the name. I can never understand the lyrics."

"Well, they're in Polish. The song's actually called, like, 'Planeta dla Ciebie i dla Mnie', or some shit. But... wait. I thought you didn't like that song."

"Why did... what made you think that?" I had aksed her.

"Didn't you say they played it at your prom?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," she had responded. Then she had looked away, in thought.

"What?" I had aksed her.

"I just... I thought that would have... made you not like it. You know? Like, it would give you a bad association, or something. Make you think of... of that. Of... your school."

"It did," I had told her. "For a while. But now... well, now it makes me think of you. And us. And... and dancing together in San Antonio."

"Yeah. Everything about that night was perfect."

"Well, except for the part where we stormed out of my parents' house. And the part where we found out about you. And the part where we had to patch up Fry's nose."

She had added, "And the part where you said no."

"Oh lord," I had said as I hung my head and buried my face in my hands. "Jaze. I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"I told you. That's not what I meant. I've told you that over and over again."

"I know. Babe, I know."

"You... you don't have to keep bringing it up."

"It's a funny story," she had said.

"No it's not," I had insisted. "It just reminds me of how much I fucked it up."

"What? Don't say that, Eel. Don't say that. You didn't fuck anything up."

With one free hand, she had lifted up my chin and leaned forward so that my eye was looking into her eyes.

"It's my fault," she had continued. "I totally blindsided you. It was too soon. I know. It was way too soon. We weren't ready for it yet."

"Are we ready for it now?" I had aksed her.

She had stared into my eye some more. Then she had answered, "There isn't a rush. There's no rush of any kind. We don't have to think about that. Or about your parents... or your high school... or my genetic material... or anything."

I had closed my eye and nodded.

"Tell you what," she had said. "Just think about this song."

She had pulled me to my feet and, arms tight around me, she had begun to sing. We had also swayed back and forth to the music.

Over the next few months, I would get to hear her sing so much. She would sing when we were in the shower, or when we were working out, or when we were travelling somewhere. She would usually encourage me to join her, and I sometimes would, but I felt that I couldn't compare to the resonant tones she could produce. So I would frequently just sing quietly to myself, or even just decline her request and let her perform solo.

She normally sang more of a mezzo-soprano, but she had enough range to do soprano parts on occasion. But the songs I really loved were the ones that fell lower than her normal range, into the contralto area. It was an extraordinary experience when she sang songs by Adele's head. I could feel my whole body quivering.

But the guy standing in front of me now didn't look like he could do anything by Adele.

"Could you... could you sing something for me now?" I aksed.

"Um... sure," he said, uncertainly. "Anything in particular...?"

I shrugged. "You... you know what I like, I guess."

He nodded and began to sing "A Planet for You and Me".

He tried, anyway. His voice sounded like a countertenor, which would have been about at the bottom of Jazenny's range. But he didn't have the powerful resonance that Jazenny had. It sounded like he was trying to sing, chew gravel, and operate a belt sander all at once.

When he finished, there was a long, heavy pause. It was so heavy that it threatened to sag the floor we were standing on.

"So... what do you think?" he finally aksed.

I couldn't look back at him. I just stood there with my arms close to my body.

"Look, I... well, these are new vocal cords," he said to me. "I just need a little time to... you know... rehearse with them. Break them in. Then I'll be good again. You'll see."

He gave me a strange look.

It was different from any of the looks that Jazenny gave me. It was more hopeful. More plaintive.

More puppy doggish.

He said, "Look. I know you've been through something like this before. I know you wanted to change, and then I kept saying you shouldn't. And eventually you changed back because it wasn't you. So I know you think I should change back now. But this is different. This is something we all –"

I interrupted him and aksed, "What are you talking about?"

"What?" he said.

"I wanted to change? Change what? You said I shouldn't what?"

"You remember," he said. "The cosmetic surgery?"

"What?" I aksed. "I've never had cosmetic surgery. Just once. And that was before I met you."

"No it wasn't. We met a couple of years before that. Remember? You gave me my career chip. Or you tried to. And then I –"

I leapt back in shock. I backed all the way to the wall.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "You... you can't be."

"I can't be what?" he aksed.

"You're Fry!" I shouted, with a rising level of horror. "Aren't you? Aren't you?!"

"Well... yeah."

"I... I thought you were Jazenny!" I shrieked, with a desperation level fast approaching the horror level. "They said she was here! Where is she?"

"I'm right here, Eel."

"I said Jazenny! Where is she? What did you –"

"It's me, Eel. I am your Jaze."

"What?" I aksed.

I tried to back up again.

If this guy said anything else, I would have to get out a laser gun and blast a hole into this wall for me to back through.

I said, "But... but you just said you were Fry!"

"I'm him too."

"What the fuck is happening here?!" I screamed.

My panic and confusion levels were rising quickly and would soon surpass the desperation and horror levels.

Then the doctor came into the room again.

"Um, excuse me," he said. "Is everything –"

"You!" I dashed across the room and shoved him. The collision almost blasted a hole in that wall.

I screamed at the doctor, "What the fuck did you do to her?!"

He replied, calmly, "He's not a her, he's a him."

"I don't want to fucking hear it, you goddamn cock grafting quack! If one of you doesn't start saying something sensical within six seconds, neither of you is going to stay a him! You got that?"

"Leela, let him go!" the male Jazenny said.

Or the Neptunian Fry. Whichever.

Still glaring at the doctor, I shouted to Jazenniguy-Neptufry, "Okay, but you're telling me exactly what is going on! None of this 'Hey, look at me, I'm two people' bullshit, okay?"

"Okay," he said. "Just... just let go of the doctor. All right?"

I let go of the doctor.

"Come here," Jazenniguy-Neptufry said. "Why don't you have a seat?"

I sat in the chair again.

Jazenniguy-Neptufry turned back to the doctor and said, "We're gonna need a few minutes."

"Okay," the doctor replied. As he left, he added, "But if she's trying to have an intervention, I charge extra for that."

Jazenniguy-Neptufry sat next to me and began, "I guess it starts back when we were separated."

"Wait. So... so you're Jazenny now?" I aksed.

"No, I'm, well, I'm both of... well, we'll get to that," he said, holding out all his hands. "But, as Jazenny, I was... we were separated."

"Separated from Fry, you mean?"

"No. I... well, that too. No, I meant separated from you. We were separated, but then we got back together. And you said... you said you weren't attracted to girls."

"Except for Jazenny," I said. "I said I was attracted to Jazenny."

"Right," he replied. "But you said you still liked guys."

"Oh lord," I sighed. "So when you were going around aksing me what guys I liked... you were scouting? Trying to figure out what kind of body you should have for your sex change?"

"No. No, it wasn't like that. I was just... well, I wanted to know. I mean, you were so honest with me about your... your tastes."

"Tastes?" I aksed.

"You know what I mean. I just... I thought it meant a lot. You know. That you could tell me what other people you were attracted to, and I could tell you what other girls I was attracted to. I was... I was just really pleased that you could listen to me talk about other girls and, you know, not get jealous."

I said, "Well, I don't know about that."

"What?" he aksed me.

"Well, I was a little jealous."

"What?" he aksed again. "You were? You... you didn't say anything."

"It's fine," I said. "It was only at first. Then I realised that, you know, you didn't care that I pointed out hot guys. Because, like, it didn't mean that I wanted them instead of you."

"Exactly," Jazenniguy-Neptufry said. "I liked those other girls. But I loved you."

"Yeah, I know. It just... it took me a little while to realise that."

"But you... you didn't say anything?"

"I didn't, no. I mean, I still liked that we could..."

"Be open with each other?" he suggested.

"Yeah. I thought that was really great. It's just... well... it felt weird. At first. Only at first. But then I got used to it, and it was fine. It was great."

He nodded.

"You know what I mean?" I aksed.

"Yeah."

"Good."

"Still wish you woulda told me," he said.

"I didn't want you to stop," I answered.

He looked up at me in surprise.

I added, "If I'd told you, you might have stopped."

He said, "So... you liked it when I told you what girls I was into?"

"Yeah."

"Wh... why?"

"I'unno," I said. "I just... liked to know. Because, you know, I'm not into girls. Other than you. Well, the girl that you used to be. You... you know."

"Yeah," he responded.

"So it's... I thought it was interesting to see what kind of girls you were interested in. And maybe I could... I could figure out why you liked me."

"So you wanted to know why I liked you?" he said.

"Yeah."

"As Jazenny?"

"What?"

He said, "You mean you wanted to know why I, as Jazenny, liked you."

"I... what?"

"Because I'm Fry too. And I liked you as Fry as well."

I stared at him.

He went on, "But I'm getting ahead of myself. The important thing is, I, as Jazenny, knew that you were into guys. So we had talked about this for a while. And, as Fry, I suggested changing into a guy."

"But Fry was a guy," I said.

"No, no. I, as Fry, suggested to me, as Jazenny, that I, as Jazenny, should change into a guy."

I shook my head. "Wh... what?"

"Okay, well, we had been talking. All right?"

"Who had been talking?"

"Me. The two of me."

"The two of you?"

"Yeah."

"What does that mean?"

"Fry and Jazenny," he said, sounding a lot more patient than I did.

"You'd been talking to Fry?" I aksed.

"No, I told you, I'm both of us," he replied. Then he added, "Look, how about if I just say it in third person?"

"Whatever," I said.

"So Fry and Jazenny had been talking. We had been talking for a while, actually."

"A while?"

"Yeah," he said. "After we... after Jazenny broke Fry's nose. I called me to... Jazenny called Fry the next day to apologise. And we just started talking. We would talk to each other every week or so."

"What?" I aksed. "You never told me."

"Who?" he aksed me. "Jazenny, or Fry?"

"Either of you."

"I... well, it's not important right now, okay? Look, what matters is, Fry said Jazenny should be a guy. And Jazenny said, 'Hey, you're right.' And... well, it's a little weird for me, because I have both of our memories. I can, like, remember both sides of the conversation. But anyway, Jazenny started to think about what kind of guy, and she said, 'Well, if I was you, she would be all over me.' And Fry was like, 'Wait, what?' So Jazenny said, 'Yeah, she totally likes you.'"

"Wait, what?!" I aksed.

"There's no point trying to deny it, babe."

I recoiled a little and said, "I was not in love with Fry, all right?"

"Then why did you marry him?"

"I... it was a mistake."

"I know you think that," he responded. "I... well, I know you think I tricked you. But I didn't. And that's why I agreed to it."

"You, meaning Fry?" I aksed.

"Yeah," he said. "As Fry, I knew this was my only chance to be with you. And as Jazenny, I knew this was my only chance to be with you for good."

"What... what does that mean?"

"Leela, look," he said. "As Jazenny, I knew that you were into guys. I knew that was never going away. I knew that you would be thinking about that all the time. Every day, every year we were together, you would be thinking about... you know... guys."

"It's not like that," I said.

"Maybe not," he responded. "But... well... I couldn't take that risk."

"Risk? So you... you did this... thing," I said, pointing to his new body, "and that wasn't risky?"

"Plenty of people have done it before. It's completely safe. And I... well, as Jazenny, I knew how much Fry meant to you. I saw how protective of him you were. And as Fry, I saw how megabitchy you were while you were separated. So this was the obvious step. It solves everything."

"It solves nothing!" I cried. "Can you... can you at least switch back?"

"No," he said. "The doctor said our minds are... they've been combined. Permanently. We can't separate them out. And in any case, you don't have our bodies."

"What... what happened to your bodies?"

He said, "Well, this is Jazenny's old body. It's been transformed. And Fry's body is... well, it's... it's being donated to science."

"To science?"

"To science!"

I stared at Jazenniguy-Neptufry's hand, which had lifted an imaginary glass.

His hand didn't have any marks on it.

Jazenny's hands always had cuts, or bruises, or sometimes even a swollen knuckle or two, on them. It was one of the many things I loved about her: the fact that her slender hands looked tough, but graceful at the same time.

This was a different hand. It was new and clean, as though it had just come from Handcrafters.

But it was of a different character, too. It was short, blocky, brutish.

It was wrong.

"Sorry," he said. "Reflex or something. Anyway, yeah, we decided to donate his body to science. Because, you know, he's a defrostee. His body is... you know... it can tell them what humans were like a thousand years ago."

I replied, "So... you're both dead."

"No, of course not. We're both here. We're both right here, alive and well, and we're both right here for you, Leela."

"No, no, no. You're, like, a new person. You're not Jazenny or Fry."

"I'm Jazenny and Fry," he answered.

"Look, you know what I mean. I... Jazenny was everything to me. She was the girl I'd been looking for, and I didn't even know I was looking for a girl. I know I always said I wasn't gay. But... well..."

There was silence.

"I had... I had put her in a class by herself," I went on. "I couldn't explain it. I'd... I'd slept with Amy a couple of times. It was like, meh. She was the one who was pushing for that, anyway. And I'd never really thought about any other girls. But... but when Jazenny..."

I closed my eye and took a deep breath. "There was something about that first time," I finally said. "Something fantastic. Something incredible. Something... beautiful."

When I opened my eye again, I saw Jazenniguy-Neptufry nodding.

"Shit," I said.

"What?" he aksed.

"You have Jazenny's memories."

"Yeah. Of course I do."

"But you also have Fry's memories."

"Right."

"So... so it's like telling Fry about everything we ever did. Every conversation we ever had. About every moment we ever spent together."

"Yeah?"

"I..." I shuddered. "There's just something wrong with that."

"Why?" he replied. "We agreed to it. We talked about it."

"No we didn't! You never said a thing to me! You just told me to meet you here, and then..."

"No, no," he said. "The two of me. Jazenny and Fry. We agreed to it."

I responded, "But... but I didn't."

"But you don't have veto power over my life."

"Whose life? Jazenny's or Fry's?"

"Either of us," he replied.

I said, "You said you did this for me, though."

"Yeah."

"Well... shouldn't I have veto power over that? If you want to do something for me, shouldn't I have the chance to tell you that I don't want it?"

He looked up at me for a moment, with what looked like surprise.

I realised that it was a new face, and that everything I'd learned to read in Jazenny's face was no longer applicable.

If I'd needed to learn to read Fry's face, it would have ceased applying as well. But I didn't have to read his face. He never bothered to hide his feelings; he would always broadcast them on omni.

I looked down at my hands for a moment.

"There's no way to bring you back?" I said.

"You mean me, as Jazenny?"

"Yeah."

"We can't separate our minds again, no."

"But you could change your body back."

"I could change this body back to Jazenny's, yeah. Or I could turn it into Fry's. Or even a copy of yours if that's what you want."

I made a disgusted face.

"Okay, never mind," he said. "But the point is, I'm the best of both of us. I'm everything you loved in Jazenny, and everything you loved in Fry. And I know you think you didn't love me as Fry," he went on, putting a finger on my lips, "but you did. Shh. I know you did. I know it for sure. See... I know. I know how it happened."

"What?" I aksed the instant he moved his finger away. "How what happened?"

"I know what I did to get you to marry me."

"Yeah," I replied. "You proposed."

"No, I mean, I know what I did to make you say yes."

"Make me say yes? I... I wanted to. Of course I did. You didn't need to trick me or –"

I was quiet for a moment.

Then, in a low whisper, I said, "You mean you as Fry."

"Yeah."

"You know?"

"Yeah."

"What... how did you find out?"

"I found out after the time skips."

"When? How long after?"

"Like, right after. It was right when we went to fix them."

"So during."

"What?"

"During," I said. "Not after."

He sighed. "You know what I mean."

"Wait. Why didn't you say anything? If you knew for that long, how come you never said anything?"

"I didn't think you'd believe me."

"Then... why do you think I'll believe you now?"

"Because it's me. Jazenny."

"Wait. Jazenny, or Fry?"

"Both," he replied, leaning in closer to me. "See, I have both of our memories now. I know how I, as Fry, found out. And I know how I thought that it was so insane that you would never believe me without proof. And... well, there's still no physical proof. But I... well, I'm both of us now. So if you don't believe me as Fry, I know you'll believe me as Jazenny, because... well..."

He reached out and held my hands.

"Listen, Leela," he said. "I know you think we shouldn't have done this. But... well... this is... this proves it. This proves that this was the right decision. The right decision for us."

"For you and... for Fry and Jazenny?" I aksed.

"For Fry, Jazenny, and you," he answered. "I mean... don't you see? Now you can marry both of us. And it's perfectly legal!"

I looked down at his hands, and then up at him. I was still feeling confused.

"Do you want to know what it is?" he aksed me.

I nodded.

"Are you sure?"

I nodded.

I turned over in bed.

You would think it would be easy for someone who can't see to get to sleep. But no. It doesn't work that way.

Fry was next to me. I could hear him breathing. He must have been sleeping on his side. Otherwise, I would have heard the snores.

I was thinking about a lot of things.

Why did Jazenny want to become a guy? Why would she want to combine herself with Fry? Why wouldn't she aks Leela ahead of time?

Of course, there was a more basic question that needed to be resolved. Why was I having these dreams in the first place?

I mean, it was obvious why I was having dreams about Leela. That's not at issue. No, I wanted to know why I was dreaming about being Leela. Why I was dreaming about her going out with a girl.

That shouldn't have been a big deal. Leela had the right to go out with anyone she wanted. If she wanted to go out with a Neptunian, great. Or a mutant, or a normal human, or a robot, or anyone at all. When I was going out with Kif, nobody really cared. Interspecies relationships are not a big deal.

But intragender relationships are. Sexuality and gender identity are still a big thing with a lot of people today. I don't really know why or how.

What if, instead of Kif, I had gone out with Triton Glab? She's an Amphibiosian too. What would be the difference?

The objection to homosexuality used to be biological. They would say it wasn't natural. They would spout some bullshit about how the point of marriage was to have children.

Well, even if that was true, these days just about any two people can have a child, using artificial insemination, surrogates, in vitro fertilisation, or any number of other techniques. You don't even need another person, in fact. You could just clone yourself. And there's still the old fashioned technique of adoption.

But the fact remained. If Leela had started to go out with Jazenny, I would have said something about it – just like I did in the dream. But if she had started to go out with a male Neptunian, I would have just shrugged and moved on.

Granted, this is probably not the stupidest thing about life in the thirty first century. It's probably not even in the top twenty.

But it's still pretty fucking stupid.

I mean, how would you classify Leela as she existed in my dreams? She was going out with a girl, so that would make her a lesbian. But she was still attracted to guys, so that would make her bisexual. But she wasn't going out with anyone other than Jazenny, so that would make her a lesbian again.

And what about Jazenniguy-Neptufry? Does that count as a transgendered person if one of them was already male?

Gender identity is such a pervasive part of our culture. In fact, I'm not even sure it makes sense to call it part of our culture. It is our culture. We refer to animals as "him" or "her", even when we have no idea which gender that specific animal is. We always complain about "that guy" in the next lane who cut us off on the space highway, even though we didn't get a good enough look to tell who was driving. We can't even build a robot without assigning it a gender.

Even BW's declaration of independence from traditional gender roles didn't last.

Of course, there are plenty of people who identify as a gender different from the configuration of their body. But for hundreds of years, changing genders has been fairly easy. On Stardust, in fact, they had the whole process down. Fly into the planet in the morning, fly back home in the afternoon. And in between, your body – or any portion you cared to select – would be a different gender, or both genders, or even no gender.

In a way, that was good. It was such a transformative opportunity for people who, say, had been born female but didn't identify as either gender.

But it also meant that people could change their bodies for any reason, or for no reason.

I had never really thought about it before. If you'd aksed me, I probably would have said that was a good thing. Sometimes it's hard for people to sympathise with others, to find common ground with people who are different from them. If more people changed into something different, even temporarily, then maybe that would help guys understand girls, or Amphibiosians understand energy beings, or humans understand robots.

But is our society really better off when everyone can change themselves on a whim? Or does it simply erode our concept of self and identity until we're nothing more than a homogeneous blob of flesh divided into eight quadrillion equal portions that we call people?

I still think it's the first one. But it seemed that BW had begun to feel regret about its decision to abandon its previous identity as Bethany.

Of course, without the opportunity to become an it in the first place, it would never have been able to find that out.

I'll tell you a secret. Just don't tell Fry, all right?

I do like girls.

It's the delicate feel of a girl's face. Her long, lustrous hair. The smooth skin. The artistic curves of her hips. The wonderful combination of textures in her legs and ass: firm muscle, soft baby fat.

But it's not like I'm completely gay. Guys are pretty good too.

Well, one guy.

But I wasn't the one he wanted.

It wasn't like I could change my body into a duplicate of Leela's.

Well, I could, I guess. But that wouldn't do it. He would know that it was really me.

But if I could do it for only a short time, maybe he would like it.

Was there someplace where I could rent a body? I didn't know of anything like that, but it was a big Universe. Maybe something like that existed somewhere. And if it didn't, I guess I could start one up. It seemed like there was a way to do it using a robot and a VR suit.

I could make him a robot version of her, I suppose. But that didn't sound like the sort of thing he'd like either.

What about a virtual resort?

Maybe I could make Fry a scenario, the way Jazenny did at Binary Gardens. Maybe I could have them create an NPC version of Leela that he could spend time with.

I thought about it some, but then I began to realise that it was an idiotic idea.

And the simple reason was that he was making progress. He was starting to accept that Leela was dead. He didn't need me to blunder in and give him a fake Leela to talk to. He didn't need any help.

Maybe Remi was right.

Maybe I did need help.