"Up yours!" Bender declared. "Up all of yours!"
And then he tripped the switch in his head and lit up 12 processors at once, without any liquid coolant.
It was meatbag levels of stupid . . . but by the time he'd figured that out it was too late. He was in sensory overload, tripping like the time he'd been fried in an electrical storm. Amy was wailing and baldy duplicate-Fry was yelling, and Leela was shouting as if she could unmelt his processors with bossiness alone.
And then it stopped.
Bender slid open his visor. Or, he would have. If he'd had a visor to slide open. If he'd a body to do squat with.
He was floating in space. "He" felt like the wrong word to use, because there was a distinct lack of him here – but Bender was a creature of habit, and he wasn't going to let a little thing like his total lack of a body throw him into an existential crisis.
HELLO, BENDER.
Bender started. He knew that voice. It wasn't the kind of voice you could forget, what with the way it boomed into you from inside and outside your head at the same time.
"God? Is that you?"
Multi-colored lights blinked around him.
THAT IS HOW YOU HAVE ALWAYS VIEWED ME, YES. HELLO AGAIN.
Bender considered this.
"Is this 'cause I overclocked myself? Is this how it works? I get beamed up to you and you tell me all the secrets of the universe?"
There was a pause. Then -
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW?
"I wanna know where my meatbag is. Fry. I'm gonna find him and I'm gonna bring him home."
The lights blinked on and off in quick succession.
PHILIP J FRY IS IN A SEWER UNDER NEW NEW YORK, God said.
An image appeared, in front of the optics Bender didn't have to see with. It was Lars, yelling for him. Leela and her mutant parents were holding him back.
"Not him!" Bender snapped. "I was just there!"
OH, VERY WELL. PHILIP J FRY IS IN A HOUSE OF ILL-REPUTE ON THE PLANET EROSH.
Another image. This one Bender didn't know. It was Fry – his meatbag! - in a dank looking basement. He was more beat-up than usual, and he was turning something over in his hands – a little gold pellet on a chain.
"That's him!" Bender cried. And just like that, the co-ordinates were in his head. Like he'd always known them.
WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW?
"Hmm . . . Postage stamp glue. Is it really made of -"
YES. TOAD MUCUS.
"Huh. Guess Fry was right."
ANYTHING ELSE?
"Oh, yeah . . . I promised Amy I'd find out about some code. The paradox code. She wants to know if it's really self-correcting and I need to keep her sweet, so -"
THE TIME PARADOX IS ABSOLUTE.
"So . . ." Bender felt a stab of some strange, unBender-like emotion. "Lars is gonna die?"
YES. A TIME PARADOX DUPLICATE IS ALWAYS DOOMED. I'M SORRY.
"But . . but you could save him, right? I mean, you're God."
I WISH IT WAS THAT SIMPLE. I HAVE ALREADY INTERVENED TO SAVE HIM FROM NEAR-DEATH, MORE THAN ONCE. BUT SOONER OR LATER, THE PARADOX WILL CLAIM HIM. THESE ARE THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE.
"Your laws, dumb-dumb. Just change 'em!"
There was a sigh.
IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY.
"Why the hell not?"
IT JUST DOESN'T.
"The mysteries of the universe suck," Bender snapped.
YES. YES, THEY DO.
"You can send me back now."
NOT YET.
"Huh?"
There was another sigh. The lights twinkled softly, as if God was deep in thought.
THE TRUTH IS, BENDER, I BROUGHT YOU HERE BECAUSE I NEED YOUR HELP.
"I don't do help. Get someone else to do it."
I CAN'T. YOU ARE THE ONLY SENTIENT CREATURE I HAVE CONVERSED WITH IN TWO MILLENNIA.
"I'm your only friend?" Bender snorted.
IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING, YES.
"Buddy, you need to get out more."
YOU MAY BE RIGHT. WILL YOU HELP ME, BENDER?
"With what?"
SEE FOR YOURSELF, God said.
And Bender saw.
The cosmos spun around him. The dead-star cold of the universe sleeted into him, and through him, and if he'd had a head in this place, Bender knew it would have ached with the weight of space and time.
The lights around him winked softly. God said nothing, but Bender knew he was there.
Waiting.
"That was real."
YES.
"That's what happens?"
Bender felt a thousand years old.
YES.
"Even the bit about Fry?"
ESPECIALLY THE BIT ABOUT FRY.
Bender floated, silent.
"What do I do?"
I'LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING. I'M DOWNLOADING IT ALL TO A FOLDER ON YOUR PRIMARY DRIVE. WHEN THE TIME COMES, YOU'LL KNOW WHERE TO BE, AND WHAT TO DO. YOU'LL ALWAYS KNOW.
"It'll be in the folder?"
YES. THINK OF IT AS A GUIDE. A BIBLE, OF SORTS.
"Was that supposed to be a joke?" Bender snapped.
SORRY. I DON'T GET TO PRACTICE MY HUMOR MUCH.
If Bender had had a head, he would've shaken it.
"How do I get where I'm supposed to be?" he asked instead.
I'M GIVING YOU A BINARY TIME-TRAVEL CODE.
"That? I had that before, and it blew! It could only go backwards! I'm not waiting around through months I already lived!"
THE CODE YOU USED BEFORE WAS FLAWED. THINK OF THE ONE I'M GIVING YOU NOW AS THE UPGRADED VERSION.
Bender considered this.
"So I can go anywhere? Any time?"
IF IT'S SOMEWHERE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE.
"Neat."
The lights around him pulsed once, in unison.
THE DOWNLOAD IS COMPLETE, God announced. I CAN SEND YOU BACK NOW.
"Woah, woah, hold the phone!" Bender objected. "If you send me back to where I was, they're gonna know something's up."
DON'T WORRY. YOU HAVEN'T BEEN GONE AS LONG AS YOU THINK.
The lights began to grow brighter, crowding Bender's vision. The last thing he heard was:
I'LL USE A LIGHT TOUCH. NO-ONE WILL SUSPECT A THING.
Bender returned to his shoddy body in an instant.
He cracked his visor open, slowly.
Amy was looking down at him, her face all puffy and streaked with tears. Lars was open-mouthed. Leela had gone white as paper and all the muscles had seized up in her face.
Bender would normally have reveled in the attention, but there was something about the way they were all looking at him that made him uneasy.
"What?" he said.
"What?" Leela echoed, furious.
"You were – that's not possible," Amy gulped. "Bender, you were dead. How are you here? How are you not . . . how?"
Dead?
Dead?
Bender shook his fist at the sky, and shouted loud enough that God damn well better hear.
"A light touch, you said! Does this look like a light touch to you?"