Chapter Text
A snap of the mysterious person's fingers, the planet express crew suddenly appeared out of thin area. A weird movie theater, strangely vague and empty, everyone was there, from the crew, to families to even the robot Mafia and more.
"where the hell are we!? I can't afford to be here, I've got hookers and stuff to get to!" Bender groans trying to get up but luckily, there was a handcuff setting.
"Sorry, but please do sit still, you'll be here a while, we will have breaks and we're in a time bubble, food will be provided and bathroom breaks even in the middle of episodes is happily obliged"
Fry smiles, sitting right next to Bender and grabbing his robot hand firmly in his fleshy meatbag one, "it's okay Bender, it's probably necessary"
-Starting Pilot Episode "Space Pilot 3000"-
"ooh, nice name!" The meatbag, Fry, states.
"Yeah, for your kind" The donbot says quietly and softly.
"Don't listen to him Fry, hell only get on your nerves, okay, mostly everyone here will get on each other's nerves...mainly Bender-"
"WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSE TO MEAN!?"
"-but just don't worry about it" Leela says.
"Space. It seems to go on and on forever. But then you get to the end and the gorilla starts throwing barrels at you."
[A planet opens up and a huge gorilla starts throwing barrels at the spaceship. It dodges a few but one hits it and it explodes. The gorilla thumps its chest and "Game Over" flashes on the screen. The spaceship and gorilla isn't real and Fry is playing an arcade game called "Monkey Fracas Jr". He wears a red jacket and has orange hair with two distinct forks at the front. A boy stands next to him. The game is against the wall of a pizzeria called Panucci's Pizza.]
"Is that where you used to work, Fry?" Hermes asks the oranged hair man. Fry responds with affirmation, giving a firm nod while also explaining it, "yeah, I told you I was a delivery boy before, or did I only tell Bender and Leela...? Eh, doesn't matter" Fry smirks.
"And that's how you play the game!"
"You stink, loser!" A boy next to fry shouts.
"Haha...I'm not so much of a loser now, am I?" Zoidberg smirks but the others just yell at him or ignore him.
[Panucci, a middle-aged balding man wearing a vest, leans over the counter with a pizza box.]
"Hey, Fry. Pizza goin' out! C'mon!!"
[Fry sighs, takes the pizza from him and walks out.]
[Scene: New York City Street. Fry cycles past people outside O'Grady's Pub enjoying their New Millennium Eve. A cab pulls up and he sees his girlfriend inside.]
Fry walks up to the car, "Michelle, baby! Where you going?" He seems oblivious in the moment. Michelle then explains, "It's not working out, Fry." Next to her is a guy with his arm around her. The cab pulls away. [shouting; from cab, "I put your stuff out on the sidewalk!"
"I'm glad you dumped that girl fry, she's awful..." Leela says through gritted teeth.
"Ooh~ someone's jealous~" Bender jokes and teases the mutant, Amy joins in, finding it funny.
[Time Lapse. Fry is still on his bike getting more and more depressed.]
"I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life" Fry says over and over.
[Cut to: Outside Applied Cryogenics. He stops outside a building and locks up his bike. A man sneaks up behind him, cuts the chain and steals his bike.]
A thief, who takes Fry's bike shouts to him, waving, "Happy new year!"
[Scene: Applied Cryogenics Corridor. Fry steps out of the elevator on the 64th floor. He knocks on a door marked "Applied Cryogenics". A sign underneath indicates "No Power Failures Since 199[7]". There is no response at the door and Fry goes in.]
[Cut to: Applied Cryogenics: Freezer Room. The room is empty and there are no lights on. Strange pods about 6ft tall line one of the walls. There are a few other machines around the room and a desk and a chair in the middle of the room. Fry wipes some condensation from a window on one of the pods, revealing the face of an inanimate man inside. He turns around.]
"Hello? Pizza delivery for, uh ..." [He reads the delivery note.] "... Icy Wiener? Aw, crud! I always thought at this point in my life I'd be the one making the crank calls!" [He sits down on the chair, puts his feet on the desk and opens a can of beer.] "Here's to another lousy millennium."
"Still can't believe Nibbler did it" Fry says under his breath for no one to hear.
[He unenthusiastically raises his hand and toasts.]
[Cut to: Times Square. Crowds have gathered for the countdown. "10" appears on a huge screen.]
Crowd: [chanting] "Ten!"
[Cut to: Paris. A screen on the Eiffel Tower displays "9".]
Crowd: [chanting] "Neuf!"
[Cut to: Vatican City. The Pope holds up a sign with "VIII" on it.]
Crowd: [chanting] "Otto!"
[Cut to: Egypt. Egyptians crowd around the pyramids.]
Crowd: [chanting] "Saba!"
[Cut to: Athens. People are gathered around the Parthenon.]
Crowd: [chanting] "Eksi!"
[Cut to: Great Wall Of China.]
Crowd: [chanting] "Wu!"
[Cut to: Taj Mahal.]
Crowd: [chanting] "Char!"
[Cut to: African Village.]
Crowd: [chanting] "Thathu!"
[Cut to: Tokyo. A screen displays "2".]
Crowd: [chanting] "Nee!"
[Scene: From space the whole planet sees in the new millennium.]
Crowd: [chanting] "One!"
[Cut to: Applied Cryogenics: Freezer Room. Fry unenthusiastically blows a noise maker and starts losing his balance on the chair. It tips back. Fry waves his arms around trying to regain his balance. As he falls he doesn't see the shadow of a small creature under the desk. The chair tips back and Fry falls off it and rolls backwards into cryogenic freezer number 40. The dial on the machine automatically sets itself for 1000 years.]
"What the--?"
[He looks around and screams. In a flash he is frozen in time.]
"SO, that's how it happened, Meatbag?" Bender lowers an optic for a skeptical look. Fry shrugs and chuckles nervously.
[Time Lapse. Days and nights and eventually years pass à la The Time Machine as he stays locked in the freezer. Civilisation is destroyed by aliens twice until eventually huge buildings spring up around Applied Cryogenics. The timer stops 1000 years later and the door opens. Fry is unfrozen. Initially disorientated, he stumbles around and notices something to his right. He presses his face against a large window and stares in awe.]"My God! It's the future. My parents, my co-workers, my girlfriend; I'll never see any of them again. Yahoo!" He seemed sad for a moment but cheery the next.
"Did you not like your family, Mon?" Hermes asked, while Amy questioned the same thing.
"No, not really"
[Opening Credits. Caption: In Color.]
[Scene: Applied Cryogenics: Freezer Room. Fry continues looking out of the window. The door opens and two shadows walk in.]
[melodramatically] "Welcome to the world of tomorrow!"
[The other shadow turns on the light. They are lab technicians both wearing white lab coats. The dramatic one, Terry, is a blonde Caucasian with large glasses. The other, Lou, is a black-haired Asian.]
"Why do you always have to say it that way?"
"Haven't you ever heard of a little thing called showmanship?" [He turns to Fry.] [dramatically] "Come, your destiny awaits!"
[Scene: Applied Cryogenics Corridor. The technicians leave Fry outside the Fate Assignment Officer's office.]"Have a nice future."
"I really did" Fry smiles and hugs Bender, who unfortunately, can't do anything at the moment as he's handcuffed to the seat and he's vulnerable, man he seemed like a wussy princess now in his eyes. "Let go of me!!"
[The door slides open.]"Cool! Just like in Star Trek!" [The door closes on his head.] "Ow!"
Bender laughed his ass off, of course.
[Cut to: Applied Cryogenics: Fate Assignment Officer's Office. A woman wearing a black uniform stands with her back to Fry looking at a clipboard. She has purple hair held up in a ponytail.]
"Look! It's Leela!" Leela parents awed at their daughter to Leelas own embarrassment.
"Good afternoon, sir." [Fry is impressed with what he sees. Leela turns around. She has one huge eye in the middle of her face. Fry screams.] "Name?"
"Uh, Fry."
"I'm Leela. Now, it's New Year's Eve so I'd like to decide your fate quickly and get out of here."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"As long as it's not about my eye."
"Uh..."
"Is it about my eye?"
"Sort of."
[Leela sighs.] "Just ask the question."
"What's with the eye?"
"Leela, you're eye is beautiful the way it is, don't let anybody tell you different, now, you want some tequila?"
"Ugh, no thanks dad...but thank you anyways..." Leela smiled softly at her father.
Leela groans again and sighs, "I'm an alien, alright? Now let's drop the subject." Fry, happy to be here, says, "cool, an alien! Has your race taken over the Earth?"
"No, I just work here."
"Good thing you don't anymore!" Fry smiles and Bender rolls his eyes.
[Fry looks out the window. A passing blimp displays "Happy New Year 3000". Leela follows his gaze.] "Wait a minute! Is that blimp accurate?"
"Yep. It's December 31st, 2999."
"My God! A million years!"
"This... Fry of course...is he stupid?" Zapp asks Leela with a smirk. "Because I can happily take his plac-"
WHAM!
right kick to the face was delivered and nearly everyone in the room laughed aloud, well, Bender did.
"I'm sure this must be very upsetting for you."
"Y'know, I guess it should be but, actually, I'm glad. I had nothing to live for in my old life. I was broke, I had a humiliating job and I was beginning to suspect my girlfriend might be cheating on me." Fry explains to Leela
Leela shrugs "Well, at least here you'll be treated with dignity. Now strip naked and get on the probulator."
"EWW! I DON'T NEED TO SEE YOU MEATBAGS ANATOMY!" Bender whines, one person in the crowd yells, "Do you ever shut up!?"
[Scene: Applied Cryogenics: Probulator Room. Fry lies on a metal table surrounded by probing equipment. Leela puts a single-lensed goggle on and presses a button. Fry squeaks.]
[Time Lapse. Leela tears off a printout and reads it while Fry starts to get dressed.] "Interesting. Your DNA test shows one living relative. He's your great-great-great-great-great-great-great..."
[Time Lapse. Fry is now fully dressed.]
"Must be a lot of greats then" The Robot Devil says.
"great-great-great-great-great nephew."
"That's great! What's the little guy's name?"
"Leela: Professor Hubert Farnsworth."
[She turns the page over to show Fry the photo. Farnsworth is an old bald man who wears thick glasses.]
"Eurgh!"
"Excuse me!?" Farnsworth frowns and glares at his uncle and Fry shrugs.
[Scene: Applied Cryogenics: Fate Assignment Officer's Office. Leela types something on a computer.]
"Y'know, I'm the luckiest guy in the whole future. I've been given a second chance and this time I'm not going to be a total loser." [A buzzer buzzes.] "What's that?" Fry asks the second he heard it.Y
"Your permanent career assignment."
Bender, Fry, and Leela eye each other. Everyone else seems confused but shrugs it off.
She turns the screen around to show him his career. "Career: Delivery Boy" is displayed on the screen.]
"Delivery boy? No! Not again! Please! Anything else!" [He grabs Leela's hand.] "Take your hands off me! You've been assigned the job you're best at just like everyone else."
"Well now it seems like you two are holding hands all the time?" Hedonismbot says and was soon about to say something really inappropriate before a fembot stopped him instantly.
"What if I refuse?"
"Then you'll be fired--"
"Fine!"
"Out of a cannon into the Sun!"
"I for one, would like to see that" Beelzebot says. "Me too" Bender snickers.
"But I don't like being a delivery boy." Fry whines. Leela responds"Well that's tough! Lots of people don't like their jobs but we do them anyway." [She points at a poster of a man wearing a hardhat with the caption "You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do".] "You gotta do what you gotta do. Now hold out your hand. I'm gonna implant your career chip. It'll permanently label you as a delivery boy."
[She picks up an implant gun. It has two huge spikes on the end.]
Fry cringes at the sight, "Keep that thing away from me!" [He gets up and runs out of the room.]
[Cut to: Applied Cryogenics Corridor. He runs from the office.]
[Cut to: Applied Cryogenics: Freezer Room. Leela runs in after Fry and he dodges the implant gun.]
"Hold still, dammit. I don't have good depth perception!" [She jumps at Fry, misses, and falls into a cryogenic freezer. It sets itself for 1000 years.] "You've got until the count of five to let me out of here. One--" [In a flash she is frozen.]
Bender snickers a bit and Fry smiles at how Benders actually having fun right now, he unfortunately wouldn't be in a few minutes or so however....
"See you in a thousand years!" [He starts to walk out but hesitates. He walks back and changes the freeze time to five minutes.] "You owe me one."
"Thanks for that Fry, without you, I wouldn't have been able to meet my parents and other things" Leela smiles as she blushes. Fry gets a bit smug at this.
[Scene: New New York City Street. Fry runs out of the building and looks in awe at the sights around him.] "Whoa!"
[Spaceships take off, there are traffic jams in the sky and billboards advertising Bachelor Chow. A couple walk past him nearly naked except for some strategically-placed black bars. He looks up and sees people flying through a green tube overhead. He walks around a corner and finds an entrance to the tube. A pedestrian steps in.]
[original airing] "JFK Jr. Airport."
[subsequent airings]"Radio City Mutant Hall.
[The man is sucked up into the tube.] Fry gets excited "Cool!" [He steps into the tube.] "Um. Cross Town Express?" [The tube sucks him up and he screams as he flies through it. People look up from the street and stare at him. He is taken across the city, past the Statue of Liberty, underwater and finally out the other end smack into a building. A man looks up from his newspaper.]
"Pft! Tourist!"
Fry shrugs at this. He didn't know what else to say honestly.
[Time Lapse. A hover-car flies over a line of traffic on the road and a police car chases it. Fry walks around a corner and sees a line of people outside a small grey booth.] Fry smiles instantly, "Hey! A phone booth! I can call my nephew."
Bender suddenly gets that deja vu feeling inside him and his inner workings start to speed up. Fry notices Bender clenching and unclenching his mechanical hands into fists and back. "Bender?"
The robot in question was trembling, staring down into space. It was unusual to see Bender, Bender himself, so scared... vulnerable.
It clicks in Fry's empty minded brain, "oh...OH-" Fry cringes slightly as the lines on Benders mouthplate move in some kind of rhythmic synth wave. He runs his hand down Benders extendo arms and metal back to calm him, "I'm right here" Fry says as Bender lays his head on the meatbag.
[An impatient robot joins the queue behind him. It is more or less human-shaped, grey, with an antenna on top of its head.] "Wow! A real live robot! Or is that some kind of cheesy New Year's costume?"
Bender rolls his eyes, "Bite my shiny metal ass." Fry looks around at the robot's ass.]
"Fry...what the fuck?"
Fry shrugs, "It doesn't look so shiny to me."
"Shinier than yours, meatbag!"
[Fry steps into the booth, overlooking the sign on the side that says "Suicide Booth".]
[Cut to: Suicide Booth. Fry presses a button and nothing happens. The robot steps in behind him.]
"Bender..why are you going to a suicide booth?" Bender tenses up at the question, trembling.
Bender: Listen, buddy, I'm in a hurry here. Let's try for a two-fer!
[He puts a coin on a string in the slot then pulls it out again and chuckles. A pleasant woman's voice speaks.]
Booth Voice speaks, "Please select mode of death: "Quick and Painless" or "Slow and Horrible"."
Fry: Yeah, I'd like to place a collect call.
Booth Voice: "You have selected: "Slow and Horrible"."
"But that wasn't....nevermind" a person in the crowd says, it's unfamiliar who though.
Bender: "Great choice!" [Knives, tasers and Jacob's Ladders come out from behind a hatch.] "Bring it on, baby!"
[Fry screams.]
Everyone, almost, in the crowd laughed at this.
[Time Lapse. The robot is getting impatient.]
Bender: "C'mon, c'mon! Kill me already! By the way, my name's Bender!"
"Why the hell are you so calm?" Leela asks confused, frustrated and a bit mad. Bender doesn't say anything. Leela expression softened.
[He holds out his hand.]
Fry: "Help! What's happening?"
[The sharp objects move forward. Fry pushes Bender to the side of the booth. The sharp things stab and twist at the air and finally return to behind the hatch.]
Booth Voice: "You are now dead. Thank you for using Stop-N-Drop, America's favourite suicide booth since 2008.]
[Cut to: New New York City Street. Fry runs out, gasping.]
Bender: "Lousy, stinking rip-off! [He kicks the booth.] Well, I didn't have anything else planned for today. Let's go get drunk!"
"Bender...why were ye trying to kill yourself, mon?" A person brings up, it was Hermes but he seemed more...worried than usual.
Bender tenses up, he doesn't speak once again, and instead is released from the cuffs and he sits in Fry's lap, hugging him as he's being held.
Everyone and/or everybody in the room was surprised to see such a thing. This was Bender.
"...you'll see....I... suppose..."