Futurama

Time and Punishment, Part 3
By Nostradamus

T&P III: The Other Tomorrow

Concieved and written by Nostradamus (as if you didn't know)

"Ah, splendid! Welcome back, Subject 4," said a familiar voice. "Or, perhaps, I should say, captain Turanga Leela."

Leela opened her eye. She was laying - or at least guessed so - on a flat, horizontal surface, and was looking upwards, on a perfectly white ceiling glowing with difused white light. The surgery room at Hyperion. Why was she in the surgery? Oh, yes. The Hyperion was attacked. A warhead imploded their right flank and a part of hull superstructure collapsed. Sirens howled; red lights flashed. She was running up a passage as fast as her legs could take her. The passage ended with a massive security airlock. Fry was there. ''Run!" he shouted, "Run, you stupid b-" The last word remained with him on the other side. Hard, cruel door swung together before her nose. Interlocks slid in. She flung herself forward. She was beating the impenetrable metal with her bare hands, screaming for help. Then the walls bent and darkness took her. Leela shuddered.

She held her breath. She didn't feel the shudder. Speaking of which, she didn't feel her arms or her legs. She wasn't breathing either. Cold climbed it's way up from her stomach, through her chest (did she sigh?) and gripped her throat.

"Max," said she, in a surprisingly calm voice, "you didn't patch me right. I can't feel anything."

A familiar face came into her sight (why couldn't she move her head?).

"No, captain," the cyborg said. "I am Number 21, science department. But I understand your error in judgement."

He smiled briefly and withdrew from her sight. Leela grimly smiled for herself. Event after three years at Hyperion she didn't get used to the fact that all seven hundred and sixty nine units of the cybernetic core looked and talked exactly as Max. She could never tell them apart, save to roughly divide them by ranks.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, Number 21," said Leela, trying to move her eye, "but I still can't feel anything. It is kind of spooky, if you understand."

"Now now. That is quite normal; and you'll get used to it quite soon," the voice answered somewhere from behind.

Leela muttered something under her breath and tried to relax and think of nothing. Suddenly, a movement drew her attention. A ghastly, transparent HUD appeared before her eye, displaying numbers and words on the borders of her peripheral sight. "Damn it," she thought. Her eye was probably damaged in the calamity, and is now being checked. She hoped it was nothing serious.

All of sudden, she felt strong itching in every part of her body, as if millions of nanowires pierced her flesh. Leela decided that, though it be a standard procedure, a little screaming is in order.

"We are bridging you," said Number 21 before she even thought of reacting. "Done."

Itching sensation faded, and Leela felt her limbs where they should be. Enjoying, she stretched herself. Muscles reacted strangely. Leela tried to strain, but without success. Something was very, very wrong. Don't panic! Don't panic.

"How long was I unconscious?" she asked.

"Eight years," replied the cyborg.

"What!?" The cold returned.

"I am sorry," he said, "but your body was heavily damaged, and war is still going on, you know. We froze your brain and installed it in a new housing as soon as we had the means."

"Oh."

Suddenly, the tentacle of fear became a freezing spear of panic that pierced her heart. They froze her brain... and now she was installed. She reached towards her face. Her arm obediently stopped on half of the way, shining in the bright light.

Leela opened her eye. She had dreamed that scene again. Every six months, when the maintenance routine forced her into REM sleep, she would dream that one scene.

Leela rose her right arm and turned it slowly in the dim light of her maintenance pod. Smooth, clean, shiny metal partially covered with black plates of interior composite plating. Hydraulics promptly moved her fingers. There was something morbid about that arm, Leela thought. How perfectly it emulated its organic counterpart, how precise and effortless were its movements, how obediently it responded to her. A titanium claw that could crumble concrete and draw a microcircuit with the same unfeeling strength and exactness. A hand of a demon ... and on the other side, completely human.

Leela patted the control panel, and the machine withdrew from within her. Breastplate slid back in place. Heavy black armor closed about her shiny body. Leela took over somatic control and rose from the platform. Her pauldrons and her long, black cloak were waiting for her where she left them two hours ago. Formalities...

While she moved through the unlit corridors, her built-in scheduler reminded her that two D.O.O.P. officers should come over to report in thirty-two seconds. She will be in her quarters in sixteen, will log in in two, leaving her more than ten (exactly fourteen, rounded up) seconds to prepare. Seconds for Leela meant much less and much more now than they used to; now she had infinity of them, and usually one was enough.

Everyday reports irritated her horribly... Since, except during combat, strict radio-silence was kept, every standard day at 10 GMT two officers came aboard her flagship to give oral report. As an admiral of the Core Fleet, her damned duty was to listen the same things for over fifteen years. Leela sat in her chair and logged in.

Approximately fourteen seconds later, the door slid aside and a man and a women stepped in.

The man was pale and badly shaven, with empty, blurred eyes of an old soldier who has seen too much war. His chest was loaded with decorations, his face was traversed by a long, thing scar that began under his left cheek and disappeared upwards, under his gray hair. His left arm was missing. This artillery sergeant annoyed Leela ever since her sight first fell on him. Prosthetic (as well as original, she recalled with shudder) replacement parts were more than enough, but he was obviously as proud with his invalidity as he was with his medals. No, it wasn't true. She was disturbed by the fact that this old man reminder her of someone very close, very special to her, someone who died long ago. Artillery sergeant Philip J. Fry slowly saluted, gazing absently through her left ear.

The woman stepped forth. She was a young Asian, who couldn't be much over twenty, but she had several important-looking medals and bore the markings of a captain. Amy's daughter, Lora Wong. Leela never found out how old exactly the girl is. Amy died after giving birth, long before she was... activated. Everyone died. The Professor and Hermes (and Nibbler) on Earth. Bender and Dr. Zoidberg disappeared when an anomaly pulled their transporter out of hyperspace. There were over one hundred people aboard that ship. Probes the Fleet sent back found no traces of them, not even ashes. Part of everyone died the first day, when... the Earth burned. Max died that day, too. The grim, bitter majesty that sat up there in Zeus and strained to lengthen the agony, to delay the final defeat - that shadow, that empty shell had nothing in common with Max who used to send her and Fry tickets for rocket skating, and who organized that surprise party for her twenty-ninth birthday. Fry died the same way...

Cyborgs can't cry.

The girl blinked. That means six seconds have passed.

"Well?" said Leela coldly.

She was alone. The sands of time flowed past her. The second generation of people currently occupied the hulls of great transport ships. Amy was her best friend. For captain Wong, Leela was Number 2, the first class admiral of the cybernetic core fleet. One-eyed she-cyborg to whom she reported at ten GMT. Time took things away, but also brought new ones. The refugees of the dead worlds celebrated Max and other cyborgs as heroes. Now their children and grandchildren grumbled how cyborgs were arrogant, how they treat them like cattle. Leela was unable to understand this. Mere physical existence, theirs and that of their children depended on Core Fleet. Remnants of D.O.O.P. used captured and salvaged vessels to form the last line of defense, and many young men and women gave their lives selflessly, fighting off fighter squadrons and torpedoes fired at their loved ones. But their sacrifices would be in vain. The cyborgs were - she was - both the sword and the shield. Most people would remember that. Some people would even remember her name. And when she would ram her cruiser into enemy lines and, in the rain of death, turn her black hull to block fire that meant certain doom for those behind, she would sense the noise of thousands of minds that cheered, that prayed for her. If just for an instant, she was their champion. Her life had a purpose.

But some hated her even more for that, as one would hate hypocrisy and ruthless yet transparent propaganda. Captain Wong was one of them.

"Reporting, Admiral." She exclaimed 'A' poisonously. "We have detected a dense energy signature closing from behind rapidly. We hope your precious Lord," she made a grimace, "knows what he's doing."

She tried to read a reaction from Leela's face, but it was expressionless. No one can beat a cyborg in being expressionless.

"We were tracking the anomaly for six hundred fifty one minutes now," replied Leela coldly. Suddenly, an information was fed into her mind and she was aware. "Hold on something!" she shouted, raising from her seat. "We are under attack!"

But before she could finish, the ship shook violently. A torpedo, she thought, probably into the engines. Oblivious to two still, prostrate forms on the floor, she jumped over her console and, grabbing her helmet and her sword, she ran towards the bridge.

As she rushed in, her officer core saluted, but she paid no attention. "Report," she shouted, running towards the forward bridge. The cyborgs rotated their heads towards her, continuing to type frenetically on their consoles.

"Engine damaged. Overall inefficiency 37.86%."

"Hull integrity 94.31% and falling."

"Shields are now up. Integrity 100% plus minus 10%."

"All hands on battlestations."

The comm. officer motioned her as she passed by. "Priority broadcast at general frequency. Audio only."

"Play," she said, not turning.

"...the final stand. Our retreat is cut and..."

Leela's heart sunk as she listened to the voice of her old friend and master. It was no longer the sly, a bit boisterous voice of someone enjoying life and intelligent jokes, or the bitter but firm voice of someone who sees little hope but still follows it. It was the broken voice of someone who can only see darkness, crushed and defeated at last.

"...assume their positions. Hyperion crew, evacuate to Zeus and Hephest. Make ready. Over and out."

Leela abandoned her husk. It trembled for a second, freed of control and purpose, and then fell, empty, dead. Transfer was almost instantaneous. New body responded readily to her. She took somatic controls and flew through the hall.

She found Max near the singularity reactor. He was standing by a master control panel, staring thoughtfully into the vortex of anti-light that surged up from the dark chasm of reactor's core and disappeared into ion dispersion ladder, a hundred meters up.

Leela saluted. "Reporting, my lord."

"Stop that charade," he replied, without turning. "It is over."

Leela came closer and laid her hand over his. Max closed his eyes.

"How did it come to this, Turanga?" he said. "What happened?"

"I can't remember, Max," she said, after a long pause.

"There is no hope for the D.O.O.P. people either," he answered the question before she said it. "We gave them all the time we could, but it wasn't enough. He sent almost half of His ships after them, as soon as He could spare them."

"No. No chance at all," he continued. "No hope. No future. Never again."

Leela considered this. The outcome was obvious. But she never liked logic too much. It often gave unacceptable outcomes. She gripped Max by his shoulders and turned him towards her. The commlink was established. The information was exchanged in an instant. He turned back towards the panel, broke the seal and moved all sliders to the right. Leela bent over the fence, looking at black lightnings that arced in the depths.

"That's not hope, Turanga," Max said, looking at her. "The odds are-"

"That IS hope, Max. That is everything we have now," she said. "And besides, what were YOU doing here, then?"

"Yes, yes. The greater good," grumbled Max, and smiled at her. "Some people never break."

Leela smiled back. And jumped.

Max looked away. "You fool, Turanga," he whispered. "And good luck."

A siren sounded from somewhere below.

Leela took off the paper bag and tossed it down the stairway. Apartment number fifty-one. She walked carefully down the hall, guessing numbers in the dark. Turning lights on was out of the question, in case she runs into someone. Finally, after several tiresome minutes, her fingers came upon the number she was after. Leela sighed and reached for the bell.

Grip cold and merciless as death held back her arm. Something bent round her neck with terrible strength. She twisted and fought. Fast and inexorably she was drawn into shadows. The grip on her right arm loosed, but some metal thing was pressed over her mouth, so that she was barely able to breathe. Her heart was beating madly. Cold sweat flowed down her face and back. She tried to get free but it was like wrestling with a bronze statue. Leela kept trying desperately, but it was useless. She squealed and surrendered.

Minutes, days, months seemed to pass by slowly in the darkness and silence, in fearful anticipation. She could only hear her own breathing, short and quick, and throbbing of blood in her ears. Suddenly, the pressure over her mouth became painful. The light on the stairs was turned on, and a man came up carrying a basket with milk bottles. Leela gave out a muffled scream and started beating the floor with her foot. The milkman turned around and looked at her and her attacker. Dropping down his basket, he threw himself against the closest door, beating at them and ringing the bell hysterically. The door flung open, a hand appeared and the milkman was drawn in, accompanied by a stream of curses.

Leela felt the grip round her neck loosened. She jumped away and turned to fight. She stood like that for some time, with clenched fists, staring. Then her hands dropped on her side, and she leaned against the wall.

Before her stood she. There could be no mistake about that face and that hair. But this Leela was cadavorously pale, dressed in a massive black armor, and, Leela noted with a trace of jealousy, was two meters tall.

Leela carefully stretched her arm and touched her mysterious twin.

"Pretty stupid move," said she in her own voice, but Leela noticed a distinctive metallic note in it. "If I had deflectors on, you would now lack several fingers."

Leela quickly drew back her hand. "Who are you?" she asked slowly.

"I am you."

"I mean, except for the bleedingly obvious."

"I am you from the future. Or, more exactly, you are me from the past."

As she spoke, Leela scanned her younger version. She looked ... soft. Fleshy. Her muscles were obviously tired... Human body really required lots of effort to keep running. The other Leela was speaking. She rewound the conversation.

"So... what's the future like?" was the question. Leela cut in with adequate timing.

"Grim," she answered. "Everyone died and the Emperor Crane rules the galaxy."

Leela fell on her knees. "I have failed," she sobbed. "I have failed everyone." Suddenly, her eyes narrowed. She turned towards her future self. "You stopped me." She jumped up and drew her gun. In the next moment, the gun wasn't in her hand anymore. She looked up towards the tall, black her. The pale girl smiled, and handed the weapon back to her. Then she motioned towards the open door. Even in the bad lighting of the hallway, Leela could easily see number 51 carved above, on the wooden frame.

"What do you mean... the milkman is going to kill him?"

"Kind of. The important thing is, that your, or in this particular case ours - I don't believe that would create a large disturbance - presence was required, but it was an imperative that Crane doesn't see you."

"Oh," Leela made a sour face. "So my only task was to scare the shift out of a milkman."

"Exactly, as it appears. Now, we only need to wait."

Max stood by the fence and looked down, where only a slight shimmer on the focusing coils remained, a result of additional mass fed into reactor. He sighed and turned away. Large door that connected the power station with the rest of the ship slid aside with a hiss, and Crane pompously stepped in. With an ominous clang of his steps he advanced, until he stopped, dark and threatening, before the defeated.

"Well well well. What a pleasure," said he. "My most persistent adversary. At last we meet."

"Yes... I am sorry, professor, but I can't offer you any tea, or biscuits," said Max sadly. "At the moment I only have several gallons of antiplasma."

"That will do, Number One. I'll use your head to sample it." muttered Crane, looking around. "Where is your celebrated admiral, the mutant? I was hoping to find her too."

"Turanga? Oh, you just missed her. She jumped into the reactor core not a minute ago."

Crane rubbed his gauntlets together. "Well, you can't have everything. But at least I will soon have a total victory, and dominion over all lifeforms that were smart enough to surrender. Unfortunately, you won't be there to watch."

Max made a motion as if rubbing a tear. "Oh, Your Majesty. It hurts me so to tell you of a tiny little flaw in all your plans..."

Crane considered this. He was not threatened in any way - hell, he could take this ship all by himself. His existence was not dependant on survival of his robotic body. Even God would have trouble dealing with his innumerable warships. All unlikely possibilities removed, only one remains.

"Bluffing is even below me, Number One," he said after some time. "The probability of opening a temporal rift is one against a million, and hoping that the rift will be controllable is stupid beyond any measure. You don't have the guts to overload a singularity reactor."

Max patted the master control panel. It was not a standard powercore controller.

"Oh dear," he grinned. "Do I have a surprise for you."

Down there, in the depths of reactor's core, a tiny ripple in reality formed and disappeared. Then another one. And another.

Leela listened carefully the long stream of juicy and very creative curses that ended with a distant thud, barely detectable even by her sensors. She turned towards her younger self.

"Well, he went down exactly as I imagined he would."

"What happens now?" asked the young Leela.

"The past will fit in as it should. All samples were hunted down, no one saw you except for the granny in the elevator. I haven't worked it all out - not enough data - but all anomalies caused by this one should annualize, the realities outside and inside of the PE building should became complementary and negate the effects of Farnsworth's incompetence and your time travel. In other words, the history will continue from the moment the news emission flipped."

"But - but - that will erase us as well!"

"Not quite. I will - and therefore you will - how should I say ...rewind ourselves towards that moment. It will be as if none of the later happened."

"But-"

"No buts. This is the only way, the last chance to prevent Crane from total galactic domination. I have made great sacrifices in vain, and I will not - neither should you - put yourself before the survival of humanity, and all other peoples. Not now."

"You're right," she answered, pulling her chin up, stern and grim.

Leela gently laid her heavy hands on her younger self's shoulders.

"Look at it this way. I am you. Every memory you have, I have also. But I am older, much older than you. If I tell you that it is better to lose one day of unpleasantness than to live a lifetime of loss and suffering, and face a total defeat in the end of all toils, you better believe me. In five minutes you greatest problem will probably be Bender's cooking."

The girl sighed.

"So... it will be is if none of this happened?"

"Yes."

"Good. My legs are killing me."

Leela smiled. She was waiting in the dark. She ran through the corridors of Hyperion. A space battle raged. Another one. Another one. She was giving Fry a covering fire. She piloted the delivery ship. Stars. Sky. Desk. Cup. Dark. Light. Dark. Light. Light dark light-light-light-light LIGHT!

"Hey, Big Boots, you okay?" said a familiar voice.

She muttered something, trying to gather herself. She must have fallen asleep, and that was probably Bender... oh no...

"Ay! Bender! That hurts!" said Leela angrily, sitting up and rubbing her arm.

Bender laid back. "Pinching!? You've got what you deserved, baby. No dozing when Bender's around." He chuckled and pulled a six-pack of beer cans from his chest cavity.

"I wasn't dozing! I just... felt strange." There was something different, but she couldn't remember what.

"You're mad." replied Bender, trying to open a can. "Stupid... speaking of which, Fry's back."

He threw the can through the window and turned towards Fry. After a solemn, thorough observation, "Correct me if I'm wrong," he said, "but you went out to buy something to eat?"

"Well yea, but I left all my money in my pants," Fry said, looking down. "And I can't find my pants. Oh, and I'm also broke."

Bender got up and waved his hands towards heavens. "Why are you doing this to meeeeeeee!!!!? Now I'll have to cook something for my friends here!" He walked out, grumbling and cursing.

Fry picked up a beer pack from the floor and sat on the couch. "I know he pretends to hate cooking for us, but his excuses are getting worse and worse."

"As is his cuisine," added Leela thoughtfully, taking the can Fry offered her.

They sat in silence. Leela sipped her beer slowly, casting sideways glances in Fry's direction. Suddenly she pulled him closer and gave him a long passionate kiss.

"Wow!" said he, as soon as he could breathe. "Are we dating now?"

"No... I think it was just a wild impulse," she said, laying her head on his shoulder. "Do you mind?"

"Be my guest, Leela."

Leela coiled on the couch, nestling herself comfortably by Fry's side. He laid his left arm round her. As his hand gently stroked her hair, she felt less empty, less alien. It was not sexual attraction - not mainly, at any rate, she thought - that drove her to kiss him like that, but she couldn't say for certain what it was. It was just... she felt as if she owed someone something, as if the whole world was given a new chance in some way. Or like something that she long missed, and found at last. Or perhaps it simply was a wild impulse. It made no sense. Except... the moment he laid his arm round her, the strange feeling of uneasiness disappeared... Fry was a good friend, her best friend, really, but perhaps, perhaps she should give him a chance to become something more. And not on impulse. She felt him stir.

"Hey, Leela?"

"Hm?"

"Well, I was thinking... since Bender is making us a meal... remember that dangerous, humiliating and controversial two weeks mission?"

Leela shook off her dreams and got up. Later, Fry.

"Go get your toothbrush," she whispered, peering out through the door and listening. "He's grinding something.... get it fast! Meet me down by the ramp."

"Got it."

Leela looked after him, until he disappeared behind a corner. She waited a bit. Nothing was moving. No sound was heard except Bender's muffled voice singing "burnin' lootin', bombin' shootin' down in the kitchen, and what seemed to be Hermes arguing with Amy somewhere. Leela sighed. If anything was ever wrong with life, she suddenly felt that now it was as it should be. She glanced again to where Fry stood a moment ago. Was that the strange feeling she had, and her sudden affection for Fry? Just feeling lonely again? Or was her inner self trying to tell her something? Leela didn't bother answering those question, not now at any rate.

"First things first," she said, taking off her boots and, quickly but carefully, she sneaked down the hallway.