On Erosh, the basements were below water level. The temperature dipped noticeably as Fry lurched down the steps, and his fingertips skimmed over rising damp as he reached out to grip the wall for support.

His ribs ached. His dislocated finger was turning numb, and the combination of fiery explosion and near-drowning had left his lungs feeling raw.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Mort appeared at the bottom of the steps, hurrying up them to help Vondra down.

"Easy," he said. "Easy, Von."

Vondra brushed off his attempts to help her into a chair, and instead headed straight for her brother. She no longer seemed to be paying attention to Fry, so he felt safe enough following her.

Glottus was lying on a . . . the only word Fry could conjure up for it was table, though it was made of stone, like an altar, and had leather straps affixed to the sides. Whatever normally went on in the basement, leather seemed to be a theme. There were leather catsuits hanging up, and whips on the walls, and the chairs were all high-backed black leather. With straps.

Bender would have loved this place, Fry thought absently. Amy too, probably. Privately, Fry had never really got the whole kinky sex thing. All that stuff with clamps and pineapples – he figured a person had to be having way more sex than he'd ever had if they needed all that to get their rocks off.

Glottus was still out cold, but he had fresh bandages on, and he was breathing. He was definitely breathing. There was a rubber tube trailing out of the crook of his arm, and the other end of it was bloody. Vondra must have ripped it out of her own arm before she went upstairs to throw Captain British Douchebag off the scent. When she went to pick it up, the doctor waved her off.

Not doctor, Fry corrected himself. Mort hadn't said to get a doctor, when they'd crashed. Maybe all the doctors here knew the DOOP. He'd said "get Johnny-Four Eyes", and one of the girls had said "the veterinarian?" and then he'd said . . . something about clearing the guy's debts if he came.

Fry was starting to feel woozy again, the effects of concussion and sleep-deprivation kicking in now the adrenaline rush had faded.

The doctor was Decapodian, or something like it. He was a foot shorter than Zoidberg and bandy-legged, with four eyes instead of Zoidberg's two. He was probably at least part Decapodian though. That happened in the future – humans had kids with aliens, and aliens reproduced with other types of alien, and you wound up meeting people who were a mix of everything. These days, Fry tried not to stare and just rolled with it.

The vet snipped the tube out of Glottus's arm, and pushed a crate under Vondra's knees, forcing her to sit down.

"More blood won't help him," he told her. "He needs time now. And rest. You change his bandages three times a day, and stick him with more of this" - he pressed a yellow vial of antibiotic into her hand - "if his temperature goes up, or if you see red streaks coming up from the wound. And you wait. I've done all I can do. He wakes or he doesn't wake – that's his fight now."

Fry swallowed.

"But . . . you helped him," he said blearily. "You saved him. You have to."

Four-Eyes frowned at him.

"Ach. Another one? Vondra, you want me to fix this one up too?"

Vondra cast Fry a contemptuous look.

"I'm undecided on that one," she said flatly.

Mort sighed.

"Fix him up, Johnny. Von is slow to trust, but any friend of Eric's is a friend of mine." He paused. "Though I think it would be better if you forget that when you leave here."

The veterinarian shrugged.

"You forget my debts, I'll forget anything you ask me to." He pushed Fry into the chair and snipped away the front of his shirt, whistling through his mouth fronds at the mess of bruises underneath. "Ai, ai, ai. Lookit this. How are you still standing, boyo?"

"I don't know," Fry murmured. Fear and desperation had propelled him this far, but his body was creaking under the strain. Not just his body, either. His mind had started to go fuzzy around the edges, like cotton candy. "I knew a guy like you," he said vaguely. "He was called Johnny too. But only the Professor called him that. We just called him Zoidberg."

The vet made a tch sound, snap-activating ice packs to lay over Fry's ribs.

"It's a good Decapodian name."

"He was a doctor too."

"It's a good Decapodian profession."

"He wasn't very good at it."

"Ach, well." The vet smoothed burn salve on the back of Fry's neck, then picked up a tweezers in his mouth fronds. "Hold still while I pull out this glass."

Behind him, Mort and Vondra were arguing in low tones.

"You need rest," Mort was insisting. "Let Candy take you upstairs, get you something to eat, like Johnny said."

"I won't leave my brother."

"You won't be. You'll be upstairs. I'll stay with Eric. I can call if there's a change."

He eased her up, and this time Vondra didn't fight him.

"What about him?" she murmured, and Fry realized, distantly, that she was referring to him.

"I'll stay with him too," Mort assured her.

"Strap him to the chair. I don't want him getting loose again."

"I don't think that's necessary," Mort said wryly. "But if it makes you feel better, sure. I'll strap him to the chair."

Fry considered complaining about this, but it seemed kind of a moot point. No-one was listening to him, and it wasn't like he had the energy to get out of the chair anyway. He'd just been injected with something milky white and soothing. He could feel it seeping through his veins, smoothing out his nerves. He felt like he was floating on a liquid cloud.

"Yes, yes. That's the sedative," the doctor said, as if he'd said that out loud.

There was a 'pop' sound, of his finger being put back into place, but this time Fry didn't feel it, and that made him laugh, laugh and laugh until he couldn't stop - until another syringe of liquid nothingness pushed into his veins and pulled him under.

When he woke up again, he was tied to the chair. Not tightly, and mostly around the wrists and ankles instead of his aching ribs, but still. Whatever. He was tied up again.

"Welcome back."

Mort was sitting cross-legged on the floor, a deck of cards spread out in front of him.

They weren't the gambling cards Fry was used to seeing Bender with. These were picture-cards, like tarot.

Fry squinted at the images. There was a man, shoulders buckling as he strained to hold up the whole world, and a warrior woman with one hand on the hilt of her sword. Her expression was fierce and proud, but her other hand was resting on the jewel-red heart beating outside her chest, pressing hard as if to force it back in. On another card there was a warm yellow sun, eclipsed by a cold silver moon. A little girl was standing underneath it with her head tilted back, staring up. The next one was a knight in dull gray armor, who looked a little like a robot, standing under a stormy sky.

Mort caught him looking and swept the cards back into the pack.

"I was just passing the time," he said. "How do you feel?"

Fry frowned.

"Better," he admitted. "How long was I out?"

"Two days."

"Two days?" Fry sat bolt upright in a panic.

Mort shrugged.

"You needed it." He picked up a thermos flask and unscrewed the top of it, pouring thick hot stew into the cap. "Think you can eat?"

Fry shook his head violently.

"Two days?" he repeated, horrified.

Mort regarded him.

"There's been no change," he assured him. "Eric's still out. And Vondra hasn't killed you yet, so unless he takes a sudden turn for the worst, I think you're safe. Eat. Rest. Then tell me what the hell happened, because the readings I'm getting for you are . . . something else."

Fry stopped.

"I didn't kill Captain Glottus?"

"No. You saved his life. You and about a gallon of Vondra's blood, but that wouldn't even have been an option if you hadn't gotten him here in time." Mort paused. "Thank you for that, by the way." He freed up the strap around Fry's right hand, and pushed a cup of stew into it. "You should eat."

Fry shook his head again.

"I can't. I can't stay here, I have to go. I have to go back to Earth, I have to warn – I have to tell – I have to find . . ." The smell of the stew hit him and his stomach growled furiously. "I don't know what I have to do," he admitted, light-headed with hunger. "But I have to go home."

He might not have much of a plan, but it started with going home, and yelling about the brains to the smartest people he could find. They'd figure something out. They always did. Nibbler or Leela or the Professor – they'd come up with a plan.

"You're safe here," Mort told him, pushing the food at him again.

"My friends aren't," Fry argued. "They're in danger, because of me. Because of my stupid brain, because of something I can't even remember." He swallowed. "I tried to warn them. I tried, but -"

I got attacked by a Brainspawn and then I shot Captain Glottus. It didn't sound any better in his head.

Mort sighed.

"She's safe," he said gently. "Leela. She's safe."

Fry jerked.

"I never said about Leela," he said hotly. "How do you know about Leela? I never said that!"

Mort sighed again.

"Yes," he said. "You did. You've been out of it for two days. You talked."

"What did I say?"

"A lot. And I won't pretend it made much sense to me. But Leela was a recurring theme." Mort raised one smooth, hairless brow. "You have some confused feelings there, incidentally."

Fry ignored this.

"You said she was safe," he said stubbornly. "But you don't know that. You can't know that. I don't believe you."

"I can know." Mort tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the arm of the chair. They made a soft click-click-click sound, entirely unlike the padding of human fingertips. "I read her cards."

Fry's disbelief must have been etched all over his face, because the other man smiled wryly.

"You noticed I'm not human," he said. "Or not completely human, anyway."

"Then what are you?"

Mort shrugged, thin shoulders twitching beneath his coat.

"No-one knows. I never knew my father, and my mother . . . if she ever knew, she didn't care. She was past caring about anything much, by the time she left me behind. She was a prostitute," he explained, at Fry's confused look. "There were a lot of men, passing through. Mostly soldiers. Not always human. I was left with Eric and Von's mom when I was five years old – unofficially adopted, if you like. The three of us tried, over the years, but we never could figure out what the hell I am." He smiled again. "It's an abiding mystery. All we know is, humans have five senses, and I have six."

Fry stared at him blankly. "Humans have five senses?"

"Yes. And the sixth sense . . . you'd call it psychic," Mort explained. "I used to say there was a space in my head – something in me that reaches out for what's ahead. I'd see a cup fall in the moment before it happened, meet an evil man and feel his crime before he'd committed it. By the time I was nine it was getting out of control. Vondra thought I was going mad." He smiled fondly. "I love that woman, but she does not like things she can't explain. Eric either. They're ruthless pragmatists, the pair of them." He cast a glance at Glottus, still unconscious. "Still. They helped me find a way to channel it." He tapped the deck of cards. "Von drew these. Eric painted them in. I had to tell them what to do, but the images were there already. Hundreds of them, all in my head. All the pictures I needed to put a shape to the future." He shuffled the cards. "I try not to read for family, anymore. You find out things you'd rather you'd didn't know. But I can read for anyone else. As long as I have a name, and a sense of the person, I can get a fix on them. It takes the edge off the precognition, keeps me sane."

"You used your psychic powers on Leela?"

Fry didn't know if he should be impressed or mad about this.

Mort held up his hands.

"I didn't go deep," he promised. "I read her cards, that's all. Without the input of someone who knows her, that's a very surface thing." He shifted uncomfortably. "It's been a long two days," he admitted. "It was read hers – read yours – or read Eric's. So yes. I read your lover's cards."

Fry reddened.

"She's not my lover. She's not my – anything."

Mort arched an eyebrow again.

"Isn't she?"

He fanned the deck and held it out.

"Think of her," he said. "And pick a card."

Irritably, Fry obeyed, tugging a card out of the middle of the pack just to shut him up.

It was a naked man and woman, passionately intertwined.

He choked.

"That doesn't mean anything!"

"Again, then."

This time the card was a woman with deep black eyes, and purple-black hair billowing over her shoulder as if caught in a storm. She was staring into a bowl of dark water, and reflected in it was the world, and all the stars.

"I'm not even in that one," Fry pointed out.

"That one," Mort said carefully, "tells me you left her. It tells me she looked for you. Is still looking for you." He tapped the world in the bowl. "That's open to interpretation. It could mean she searched the world for you, or she walks through the world looking for you." He touched the image of the world reflected in her eyes, thoughtful. "Or it could mean, more metaphorically . . ."

"What?"

"You are the world, to her. Her world." Mort smoothed the edge of the card. "It normally means a soulmate, that interpretation. Sound about right?"

Fry swallowed. Hard.

"No. Maybe."

He yanked another card out of the pack.

It was a single, unblinking eye.

For the first time, Mort looked mildly confused.

"That one keeps coming up. It's supposed to mean observation," he noted. "Or wisdom. I couldn't make sense of it."

Fry growled and thrust the card back at him, crumpling it.

"She has one eye," he snapped. "A big eye. I like it, okay?"

Mort nodded slowly.

"Well, that'd do it. Are you starting to believe me?"

Wordlessly, Fry drew another card.

A man in black, and a woman in a white dress. They were facing each other, and their hands were clasped. There was a thread of golden light looped around their wrists, tying them together.

Fry dropped the card as though burned, and Mort fumbled to catch it.

"Yes," he said, straightening up. "Normally, I'd say that meant you were married to her. But from your reaction . . . She was married. You weren't."

Fry said nothing, but the wave of hot shame that passed through him must have showed on his face.

"I love her," he said hoarsely.

"I wasn't judging you," Mort said quietly.

"That's why I left. I love her, and I can't be with her. I couldn't stay." Fry wasn't sure who he was trying to convince, whose forgiveness he was trying to achieve. "If she's miserable, it's not my fault. I am too. I don't know how to make it better. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

He pulled out another card.

It was a curvy woman with flowing hair. She was standing in a wheat field, and there were flowers growing up around her, twining up her legs and in her hair, blooming brightly over her stomach.

Fry hadn't been expecting the card to answer his question, but this was just bewildering.

"Uh. Is she on a farm?"

Mort blinked.

"No," he said slowly. "That . . . didn't come up before."

He tucked the card back into the deck, shuffled, and then held it out again.

Fry drew.

"Flower lady again." He held it up. "What does she mean?"

"It's the fertility card. And it didn't come up until you drew it."

"So . . . growing stuff?" Fry couldn't help feeling like he was missing something here.

Apparently Mort thought so too, because he was watching him intently.

"This card means nothing to you? You can't connect it to anything in your relationship?"

"No? It's not like I gave her flowers or we went on, I dunno, hay rides or anything." Fry grimaced. "It wasn't that kind of . . . It just wasn't, okay?" He colored at the memory.

Mort was staring at the card again.

"You left when, exactly?"

Fry hesitated.

"I don't know. I was on the road a lot. And I was drunk a lot, at the start. I kinda lost track of time. Five months," he guessed. "Maybe six."

"And you haven't talked to her since."

"No. I was mad, and then I was on the run, and then it wasn't safe, and then she wasn't there, and then I was here."

Something flickered in Mort's expression.

Fry frowned.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that? What does flower lady mean?"

Mort schooled his expression again, and suddenly tucked the card into his own pocket, out of the pack.

"Nothing. It means . . . plans. She's making plans."

"Oh." Fry breathed out in a wave of relief. "You said she was safe," he mused. "How'd you know?"

Mort plucked two cards from the pack and handed them over. (It was a little creepy, Fry thought, that he didn't look first.)

There was a castle, ringed by water and walls and a thicket of thorns. And there was the knight in gray armor again, visor pulled down over his face so he looked like a shadow with a sword.

"The knight is a guardian," Mort explained. "A human defense. If I read these cards for Eric, right now, the knight would be us. You, me, Vondra."

"So . . . that means friends?"

Mort nodded.

"Most likely. The cards, they're not always specific. The knight could mean friends, family, a bodyguard. It could be a literal army. A person or people defending her, that's the best I can do without knowing more." He hesitated, a faint frown line wrinkling his forehead. "It could also mean she's the defender. Like I say, the cards can be vague. But the castle is a fortress, and that means the defense is holding strong. The two cards together . . . whether she's defended or the defender, the defense holds."

Fry frowned down at the tiny archers, letting their arrows fly from the top of the castle walls.

"If I'm not there to get her in trouble, how come she needs defending?"

"I don't know. But I drew the justice card a lot for her." Mort held it out – a blindfolded woman holding a scales. "A political cause, maybe, or legal trouble."

"Oh, that's probably Bender." Fry picked up the knight card and turned it over in his hands. It still looked like a robot to him, whatever Mort said. "He's probably in jail again or something. If there's legal trouble, it's gotta be Bender."

It made sense. Either that, or Leela was protesting some new super-highway or fox hunt or something. Protests were the only thing guaranteed to bring Leela and Bender together in mutual disrespect for the law.

Well, at least they were together. And safe, from the sound of it.

Kicking ass, probably.

For the first time, Fry relaxed enough to take a gulp of his stew. If Leela was protesting and Bender was committing felonies, that was just another day at Planet Express.

That had to be it, he decided. If the Brainspawn had come to Earth, there was no way the people here wouldn't have heard of it. Other planets could go dark and not be noticed, but Earth? No way.

Mort was looking at him funny again.

"You think your friend is on the wrong side of the law," he said curiously. "And you're relieved by that?"

"You don't know Bender," Fry began."He -"

He stopped as the key scraped in the lock.

Mort didn't seem alarmed.

"Hello, Tempest," he called coolly.

It was the Amphibiosan girl again, the one Fry had nearly crashed into in the street. She came down the steps wearing a snakeskin minidress and a scowl.

"Don't do that," she snapped.

"Do what?"

"Fucking . . . precognition." Mort stood up, and the girl flung herself into his vacated chair. "I hate it. You could at least wait until I open the door." She cast Fry a dirty look. "Oh, great, the escape artist's awake. And you untied him?"

"It was one hand," Mort said mildly, gathering up his cards. "So he could eat."

"Whatever. If he gets free again, I'm not chasing him."

"He's not going anywhere." Mort was checking Glottus's IV now. "He's a good person, Tempest. As much as anyone ever is. Which is to say, he means well."

Tempest snorted.

"Did he mean well when he shot Eric?"

Mort blinked.

"Yes."

Fry swallowed a mouthful of gristly fish. He'd been trying to eat as much as possible before Tempest tied him up again, but . . .

"No." He pushed the bowl away, suddenly feeling sick. "I didn't mean anything when I shot Captain Glottus. I didn't think anything," he said in a rush. "Don't you get it? I just did it. He was trying to kill me and I had the gun and - I shot him."

The memory still made him uncomfortable. That battle high of terror and adrenaline was the closest he'd ever come to feeling truly crazy. It had felt like something else taking over him, the way the Brains had taken over Glottus - but nothing had been controlling Fry. Everything he had done had been him . . . and in its own way, that was more terrifying than the Brains.

Too late, Fry remembered that he wasn't supposed to be talking about this. If he talked about it, the Brainspawn would find out and realize he was onto them. They were giant brains, after all. Finding things out was what they did. They could read people's minds.

And then they'd come after Fry, and use everyone around him to try and kill him, because for some reason he was the only one who could fight them.

Tempest. Mort. Vondra. The Decapodian vet and the blonde girl called Candy, the British DOOP captain who hated them all . . . every one of the strangers drinking in the bar above them . . . all his friends back on Earth . . .

The Brainspawn could take over any of them. Turn them into murderers. Get them shot, or hurt . . . just to get to him.

Fry stared at the bruises purpling along his hand.

He was supposed to be the one who could save them all, but he didn't feel like a savior.

He was starting to feel like a contagious disease.

"You should let me go," he said.

"You just admitted you shot someone," Tempest pointed out. "And you still won't explain why. But we're supposed to say, sure, see ya, so long?" She snorted. "You seriously see that happening?"

Fry tugged impatiently at his restraints.

"I don't see anything," he fired back. "I'm not the one with the freaky future-predicting powers. But if you don't let me go, you're all in danger."

"You don't even have a gun," Tempest began, but Mort cut across her. He was watching Fry intently.

"Why?"

"I can't tell you." Fry shook his head. "If I told you, it'd make it worse."

There was silence as the room digested this, and then -

Mort's head snapped up.

There was a cough, and Captain Glottus drew a labored breath.

"Believe it or not," he rasped, "you should listen to the kid."