Futurama

An Eye for an Eye, Part 2
By Oliver

The smog was smeared thickly across the sky like an unhealthy serving of butter on stale bread. The air had a chemical tang to its taste, which Leela was finding more nauseating by the second as she stood out on the street, shaded from the sunshine by a bulbous skyscraper, listening the insane babble of civilisation lapping into her.

Odysseya was a greasy sauna of a city, the only city on one of the more backwater planets that had only recently industrialised itself, in an attempt to crash into the intergalactic marketplace. Frantically the city had acquired the cheapest second-hand generators and equipment from dubious sources, without the necessary knowledge or experience among the population to install and operate it all safely. The result was this choking stained inferno of yellow brick and green metal, like Hell but without the enthusiasm, slowly corroding the entire planet. The genomorphic cosmetic industry, performing all sorts of incredible operations that would have been decried as bizarrely stupid ethical violations on almost every other world, had briefly flourished a couple of years ago, but not enough to pull the global economy out of the cesspit it was still wallowing in.

Leela felt the sweat cascading from her forehead, armpits and under her breasts, making her entire body clammy, turning her top transparent, and swelling her annoyance more and more. Her feet were molten in her thick boots and her black pants burned like a rash. She looked down the street, where squatted the office of the company whose farming chemicals they had lugged from Earth, but still saw nothing Fry-shaped emerge from the entrance. Why they couldn’t have told her where to dump the cargo before they got here instead of mucking about once they landed she had no idea; simply the latest in a long line of shrimpy tenth-rate organisations the professor insisting on pimping her to, her and her crew apparently unfit for competent clients.

The hover traffic wheezed past Leela like huge fat insects and the fumes out here in the open were only mildly less asphyxiating then they were in the spaceport behind her. Even in the shade she stood helplessly as the heat sucked the energy out of her. The planet’s gravity was also a little heavier than Earth’s, not enough to slow one’s movements but sufficient to makes one’s brain feel clenched.

Leela turned to Bender, who was busily sampling the bottle of ‘Ooze-O’ robot liquor he’d somehow acquired, steam escaping from his overheating chasse.

“Bender, how much longer did Fry say he was going to be?”

“What am I, his electronic dairy? Quit asking me that, he’s probably just dead or held up or dying or something”

Leela squinted back at the fuzzy chaos around her, all the ill noise of the place resonating painful behind her eye. The planet’s natives were a race of humanoids descended from something akin to mudskippers, and had faithfully retained the social skills of their ancestors. The occasional fishy pedestrian would barge past without apology while dragging their howling spawning young, stinking like a teenager’s underwear.

Leela wondered how much of this more crap would she have to put with. Why can’t her colleges just do their jobs as quickly as they can, saving her from standing about like an idiot being stood up by another idiot?

“Bender, this is stupid, are you sure Fry said he was going to come straight back?”

Bender reached the end of his less-than-inexhaustible patience. “Oh, will you just cram an unexciting garment of underwear in it! If you’re so sick of this then let’s go now and say Fry never really existed beyond our imaginations”

“Bender, we’re not bunking anything. We’ve been here an hour already and I’m sick it but we’re going to stay here until the job is done, I just wish we didn’t have to wait around like chumps”

“Ah, screw this! I don’t have to listen you whining just because the extra gravity is making your butt look droopy”

Leela drew herself close to Bender with a single step and loomed over him. “Listen Metal Mickey, I’m the captain of this crew and I intend to fulfil my responsibilities, which don’t include having to keep a soulless little slop-bucket like you happy while in this festering latrine of a city”

Bender drew his face up even closer. “No, you listen toots, don’t go getting your hormones in a twist; if you don’t like it here then just take your sweaty milk glands outta my face and go have a nice wussy girly bath with those fancy organic soaps that make you smell like a sea otter.”

Leela’s nose touched Bender’s faceplate, a red mist gathering inside her head. “I don’t want to go home you impure cretin, I just want to do my damn job like a normal captain would, unhindered by the malfunctions of some reject bending unit with an antae that would look wimpy and unimposing on a cellphone!”

Bender threw his bottle aside and put up his fists. “Okay sister, you crossed the line, bring it on! I’m gonna make you beg like the bitch you ar…”

A boot heel ramming into his face interrupted Bender and he went gliding over the pavement to crash into a gutter with a hideous scraping sound. Leela stood over him panting with rage, teeth gritting and the air around her shimmering. Looking down at the robot wreckage struggling to put itself back online, she slowly cooled and regained control of herself.

“Oh… Damn it, Bender, buddy, I lost it there. It’s the heat, y’ know. I’m being so unprofessional.”

As Bender hauled himself back on his feet there was a tickling of glass. He turned to see his reflection in a grimy shop window. His right eye was missing.

“Oh great,” he cried, “impaired vision, that’s all I need. I don’t even have any spares on me.”

Leela shuffled awkwardly. “Err, sorry Bender. I mean, the whole point of martial arts is to learn restraint and, err, well, I guess I screwed up there.”

Bender’s fingers probed the empty space in his eye-slot. “Yeah, well, don’t worry about me, it’s nothing an overblown law suit won’t cure. Let’s just get out of here; the sooner we get back the sooner I can document my anguish before repairing myself.”

Bender turned back to his reflection. He took hold of his remaining eye bulb with his hand and moved it sideways so it rested at the centre of the cavity.

“There,” he said, “at least I’m back to being symmetrical”. He looked over at Leela. “Hey, now I look like you. Now there’s something almost slightly ironic possibly.”

Leela found herself smiling, her anger beginning to dissipate. “Hey, ha, how about that that. That’s actually quite nice, it could almost be sweet if I hadn’t been trying to kill you.”

Bender considered his new appearance. “Yeah” he said playfully, “lucky for me I ain’t an organism or you’d be all over me.”

Leela chuckled, her heart rate easing down. “Ha, yeah, well, my loss I’m sure.”

She looked at the shattered eye on the sidewalk, feeling very embarrassed. She thought of something and her anger returned.

“You know, it’s Fry’s fault we’re… well, frying out here. Where the Hell is he?”

“Hey, I’m back,” called Fry’s voice from down the street with somewhat suspicious timing.

Leela was sweeping the eye fragments into the gutter with the side of her boot, her back to her returning crewmember.

“Fry, for Ah Pook’s sweet sake, where have you been? Did you at least get the signature and the delivery details?”

“Oh yes, it’s some farm on the other side of the planet, and I’ve got something else for you too Leela.”

“Oh goody,” she deadpanned. “Honestly, all I asked was for you to get…”

Leela turned around. Through the dirty swirling air she saw a mirage of Fry as a Cyclops, one big single eye dominating his face. Suddenly giddy, she blinked several times and rubbed her hands against her face. The heat was getting to her, plus all the adrenaline still swishing about her system, making her see things.

She looked at Fry again. The single eye was still there. He didn’t look real, just a painting on the safety curtain that had fallen while reality got its act together. All Leela could do was stare.

Fry smiled at Leela’s bewilderment, feeling a rare satisfaction.

“See, told you,” he cooed. “This is pretty funky actually; everything looks flat. You could all be cartoon characters or something.”

Leela realised what was happening. Her mind was frayed enough with emotion already and could barely accommodate this latest development. She knew with familiar dread that Fry was going to start declaring his intentions again.

“Fry…” she began, “Fry, what… what have you had done to yourself?”

With great care, Fry began the speech he’d been rehearsing, his voice cautiously sincere.

“I wanted to show you something about me Leela. I wanted to give you something special, something no-one else could give, something precious that no-one else would be prepared to…”

Fry saw Bender standing behind Leela, his single eye glinting in the sun.

“Oh God damn it!” Fry yelled, exasperated, his thunder thoroughly stolen. “Bender! What the hell are you doing?”

Bender was about to defend himself but Leela didn’t give him the chance.

“Never mind Bender, Fry, what the hell are YOU doing?”

Fry was taken aback by the anger in her voice. He couldn’t understand why she seemed so upset or why Bender had beaten him to it. This wasn’t part of the plan. Leela was sweating, obviously furious, almost in a daze, loose stands of her hair failing madly in the hot gushes of displaced air from passing cars.

“I… I was just tying to show you… I wanted to be a Cyclops for a day, just so I’d know how you felt.”

“Fry, if you wanted to know what it’s like being a Cyclops than you could have just asked: it sucks but there you go. Happy now?”

Fry held up his hands, his perfect moment utterly destroyed, his speech useless. He suddenly felt very stupid but still couldn’t understand why. He was just trying to be nice, he was just showing her the extent of his love, and somehow he’d blown it already.

“But…” Fry managed “But I just wanted to feel how you felt so that we…”

“You want to know how I feel?”

Leela felt the glare of the two single eyes of her friends on her, two eyes missing because of her, two people reduced to looking like her. Inside Leela, somewhere dark deep down, where unutterable childhood memories were walled up, something gave way and collapsed. She reached out, grabbed Fry by the lapels and screamed into his surreal face.

“YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I FEEL? I look like this all the time Fry, ALL THE TIME, and you think you can empathise with me by getting a 24-hour eye-job on this stupid little planet where no one will see you? You want to know how it feels being a FREAK, trying to do a job like someone normal while being a FREAK and having to put with some moron mutilating himself trying to make you feel so guilty that you’ll screw him, trying to trick you like that Alkazar bastard while pretending to be your friend? You want to know what that feels like Fry?”

“B-but none of that ‘freak’ stuff matters to me,” offered Fry desperately. “It’s not important, it doesn’t matter”

“THEN WHAT DID YOU CHANGE YOUR FACE FOR YOU IDIOT?”

Fry was speechless. No words formed in his head. A smirking native walked past on the street, pretending not to notice them. Fry watched the great single tear form in Leela’s raging eye and then drop to splash on his lips, tasteless and tepid.

Leela shoved him away from her, turning her head.

“I can’t look at you.” Her voice was delicate and wavering. “You look as ridiculous as I must look to everyone else. I’m going back to the ship and I’m taking off in five minutes, so you’d better be on it. We’ll make this damn delivery to wherever, then you’ll make yourself… normal again, then we’ll get the hell out of here”

She strode away quickly into the spaceport with her head down. Fry watched her go, unable to move or speak.

Bender strolled up and stood beside Fry, slinging a heavy arm around him.

“Hey, nice work there Casanova, I’m proud, you’re finally wearing her down.”

Without knowing what else to do, Fry walked into the spaceport, his shoes scuffing loudly on the ground, the enormity of what he had done still trying to fit inside him. He misjudged his distance from the spaceport door and whacked his head against it loudly. The pain didn’t register on his face and he continued inside.

Bender followed, giggling to himself as he slipped Fry’s wallet into his chest compartment.

Three minutes and ten seconds later, the planet express ship roared up from the spaceport and flew out over the city, toward the bleak and scarred looking countryside under a deformed sky.