The more things change, the more they stay the same. Yeah, this is Fred Fortune, not Farnworth M. Mudd, the big-time Benedict Arnold who's secretly been this little writer rat all along. What do I mean? Take a look at the animated gif. file to your left, the one I found in the hard drive of a new-generation laptop computer I saw hidden under Farnsworth's cot when I was snooping this afternoon for pork rinds and Power Bars that he hadn't opened up yet.
Y'know, I can't stand finishing other people's half-eaten stuff anymore. I'd rather eat those stinky Martian mushrooms and that green canal goo they call "algae" here in netherworld Mars and suck on those bitter red rocks for ancient salt anyday than taste slobbered-on, fingered-up, second-hand junk food.
When I asked Liz about these ebooks in the underground cafeteria up here, she roared and gave me a backhand. When I woke up an hour later I was staring at the right big toe of one of Liz's Reptilian grunts who guard this little Martian Sing Sing and I asked him if Farnsworth was really an ebook author.
"He is now," he grunted. "He and the warden are splitting the ebook royalties from your buddy's ebook sales on Neptune. They're rolling in like flies take to shit."
"He's not my buddy," I grunted back as I pulled myself up and into a cafeteria chair. "Are they any good?" I asked, doubtful if this big green-and-brown oaf had ever read a book in his life, in any language.
"Hell, no," he replied, roaring so loud he sounded like Godzilla mauling the hell out of Tokyo. "He can't write worth a damn. Or spell, either. That's why he'll be a millionaire before the Martian year's out."
And that's all I can remember because I think I fainted. The human mind can only stand so much unreality before it shuts down. One thing I do know for sure: the next time I see Farnsworth, he'd better leg it away from me as fast as he can because I can no longer be held responsible for my actions. Anyway, that's what I plan to tell the jury at my murder trial.
