The green light was pulling him back into the past.
It was a dream, Fry knew – a dream inside a dream, it wasn't real – but he didn't care. Because the girl had told him to go home, and he was home.
He was standing in his childhood bedroom, in fact.
The last time Fry had been here – back in reality – the house had been decaying, ravaged by time and neglect. But it wasn't like that now. His room was perfect, a capsule of memory reconstructed in almost impossible detail. He'd thought he had forgotten what his curtains had looked like, before they rotted away. And what color the walls had been, before they got eaten up by mold. And that Sarah Connor poster he'd once had above his bed . . . he remembered it now, but it didn't exist any more, and he hadn't thought of it for years. All the times he'd climbed down into the ruined city, he hadn't remembered it. But here it was, creased and peeling away from the wall at the corners.
He stared at it.
"Yeah," a voice laughed behind him. "Sarah Connor? I feel like I should've seen that coming. I mean, there was her . . . and the babe in the vest from Alien . . . oh, and the time Demi Moore cut all her hair off for that G.I Jane movie. You had the weirdest taste in women, Phil. Y'know, looking back, I feel like I should've known it was gonna be Leela. Does she even own a shirt that's not a tank top?"
"No," Fry said automatically. Then his mouth caught up with his brain. "Yancy?"
"Hey, little brother."
Yancy grinned at him.
He looked just the way Fry remembered. Same dorky haircut, same 1999-era clothes. And he didn't seem surprised to find himself in Fry's dream now. He was looking at himself in the mirror, stretching out his jawline experimentally.
He tugged the skin under his eyes and whistled.
"Wow. This is freaky. This is how you remember me?"
Fry shrugged. There were pictures out there somewhere, he knew. Leela had explained about Facebook once, but Fry had always avoided the archives. It had disconcerted him to imagine his family having a life he'd never be a part of. Old Yancy wasn't something he ever wanted to see. And his parents . . .
He'd decided it was better to remember them the way they'd always been.
The way Yancy was now, smirking at his own reflection in the mirror.
"I mean, I don't hate it," he elaborated. "It's just weird. Like I showed up for my retirement party and boom, I'm back at Prom. Freaky Friday, you know?"
"You looked like a dork at Prom," Fry said, still on autopilot. He hesitated. "Yancy?"
"Yeah?"
Fry swallowed.
"You're in my dream."
Yancy met his gaze in the mirror and grew sober, a shadow passing across his face.
"Yeah. Hey - Lana says hi."
Fry frowned.
"I don't know who that is."
"Oh." Yancy stopped admiring his own hairline and drew back, smiling faintly. "Right. Wrong you. Forget it."
When Fry only stared at this, Yancy sighed.
"Look," he said. "I don't know why I'm here. It's your dream, doofus. But you've been thinking about me lately. You stole my name, on Mars. And you've been thinking about brothers. And where people go when they die." He shrugged. "Normally I guess you blank me out. Maybe it's easier than remembering. But if you're thinking about me . . . I don't know. Maybe that gives me an in, for once."
He tilted his head to one side, considering.
"Also, your robot friend can't tell the difference between tylenol and morphine. You're so high right now it's not even funny."
"Bender's real?"
Yancy laughed.
"Oh, man. Like I said. So high." Yancy tapped his front teeth, and grinned when they stayed in place. "Bender's real."
"Are you real?"
"What do you think?"
Fry swallowed.
"I think you're dead."
Yancy sighed, and tore himself away from the mirror.
"I am, little brother."
He turned around, and suddenly Fry found himself caught in his brother's gaze. Yancy's smugness had melted away, as if it had been a long time since it really belonged on his face. He put his hand on Fry's shoulder and Fry flinched.
Yancy sighed again. He looked frustrated.
"There was so much I wanted to tell you. So much I waited so long to tell you, after you disappeared. And now I finally get the chance and I . . . I can't do it. I'm stuck the way you remember me." He laughed bitterly. "This jerk is how you remember me."
"But you're dead," Fry pointed out. He felt like this point was getting lost in the shuffle somehow.
"I know."
Yancy stared past him, watching the sun sink outside his window. In the light he looked older somehow, his face lined in familiar ways. The far away expression on his face was familiar too. He looked like . . .
Lars, Fry realized uncomfortably. He looked like Lars.
Yancy gave a sad little laugh.
"You were such a pain in my ass," he said. "You know that, right? You always were. You were such a screw up, you couldn't do anything right. I had to run around after you my whole life, pulling you out of trouble, and you weren't even grateful for it." He paused. "And you were Mom and Dad's favorite."
Fry frowned.
"No I wasn't," he argued. "They thought I was a loser. I was a loser."
Yancy shrugged.
"Yeah. But you had it, you know? It." He made some nebulous motion with his hand, like a firework exploding. "Big heart. Big ideas. Big, dumb ideas, sure, but . . . I never had that. I couldn't do it. Even when I tried, I was just copying you. You were special."
Fry frowned again, waiting for the mocking note that normally crept into Yancy's voice when he said this. It had always been a favorite joke of his - "yeah, Phil's special alright - special needs!" Fry had always assumed that if there was a ring of truth to it, it was because he was so stupid. Because back in 1999, there had been nothing special about him. Now he had the brain thing, and that made him important somehow, but back then . . .
He had been no-one, and no-one had thought less of him than Yancy.
But just like always, Yancy wasn't listening.
"And then you disappeared," he said. "And I . . ." His voice twisted. "I can't say it. Jerk." He looked frustrated again. "Whatever. Point is, we never knew what happened to you. Never even found a body. But I knew you were still out there somewhere, I could feel it, and I . . . I couldn't let go. It's a Fry thing, I bet. Genetic or whatever. Stubbornness. Mom and Dad have it too. And you. We're a weird, stubborn family."
It was getting darker, but there was white light washing intermittently into the room. It flickered on and off outside the window, like headlights passing on a highway.
But they were too high up for headlights.
Yancy watched the lights, his mouth set in a grim line, as if he knew what they meant.
"Phil," he said. "Listen – I might never get another -"
Fry frowned.
He could hear distant voices.
" . . . rains of diamond predicted for . . ."
". . . rise to the day with Yeast-O . . ."
"Can you hear that?"
Yancy shook his head.
"No. Listen, Phil, listen -"
" - 40% more yeast than leading rivals!"
"It's an ad." Fry stared around him, realization dawning. "In my dream."
" . . . slow change may pull us apart . . . when the light gets into your heart . . ."
"No, wait . . ." That wasn't an ad. It was a song. And if the way Yancy's face had suddenly tightened meant anything, he could hear it too. "It's the radio," Fry realized. "Someone keeps changing the station on the radio."
". . . rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling . . ."
It was getting louder.
And clearer.
". . . down, down, down . . ."
"I know this song . . ."
Yancy swallowed.
"Ronco record vault," he muttered, as if lost in some bittersweet memory.
"Huh?"
"It doesn't matter. Doofus, listen, I'm trying to tell you something. It's important. I never told you when you were alive and I – now I – I want – you should know, no matter what I said, I always -"
". . . as you walk on by . . . . . . will you call my name . . ."
Yancy's eyes grew wide, panicked.
". . . oh, don't you . . ."
"Wait, not yet! Don't wake up! Not yet!"
". . . forget about . . ."
Yancy reached out. His hand felt cool on Fry's shoulder.
In Fry's shoulder. His hand had gone right through, like a ghost.
"Hey," Fry said, numbly surprised. "That tickles."
Behind Yancy, the Terminator in Fry's wall poster lit up a cigar. He puffed on it, and the room flashed blue and green, a lightning storm. It gave Fry the feeling of being underwater. His head swam, as a sudden wave of nausea rolled over him. It felt uncomfortably real.
"Time to wake up," the robot declared. "Say hasta la vista, meatbag."
Yancy tried to grab his arm again.
"No," he said. "No, no, wait -"
" . . . don't, don't, don't you . . ." the song pleaded, and Yancy groaned -
Sarah Connor sighed, and both men turned to stare at her.
"Brothers always fight," she said, in Leela's voice. "He loved you really."
Yancy opened his mouth, and formed a word Fry couldn't hear. And then white light swept over the room again.
But this time it didn't pass. It grew brighter and brighter instead, whiting out Leela-Sarah Connor and the laughing Terminator, and Yancy - still trying to talk, his mouth still moving, hand outstretched -
" - forget about me," he said, and he sounded like the Breakfast Club soundtrack.