"Psst! Hey Servo! It's right here!"

Crow removed the cover from the nearly completed invention. It was, essentially, a large television, with various odd extensions and wires. It was intended to be a "Make Your Own Entertainment" device, which hooked into the mind and created whatever kind of show you wanted with whichever stars you wished. But it still seemed to have a few kinks in it; the last time Joel had tested it, all it seemed to do was show Teletubbies. (This, of course, had caused both Crow and Tom to wonder exactly what went on in their creator's head from day to day, although he had reassured them that Teletubbies was as far from his usual thoughts as humanly possible.)

"You really think this'll work, Crow?" asked Tom.

"Hey, I made all the calculations! Just a few little extra doo-dads and we should have this baby up and running just in time for the invention exchange!" Crow replied cheerfully, dragging a large assortment of tools closer to himself.

"Ah, just like the calculations you made for the tunnel throughspace, eh?" Tom commented sardonically.

"You gonna hold that against me forever, Servo?"

"Crow, it's a miracle Joel and I weren't sucked out of the Satellite. And speaking of which, do you really think Joel's gonna
appreciate us tampering with this thing?"

"Hey, when we get this thing to work and beat Dr. Forrester's invention, Joel's gonna rain RAM chips on us."

"Hmm... hey, he would, wouldn't he? All right, let's do it!"

"Knew you'd see it my way! Now hand me that screwdriver."

"Love to, Crow, but, you know..." Tom indicated his useless arms.

"Ah heck. Okay, I'll get it." Crow grabbed the screwdriver and began his "modifications." "Okay, a little fiddle here, a bit of a
diddly-bob here, and..."

A small piece of the machine fell off and smashed upon the ground. Crow and Tom stared at it.

"You don't suppose... that's gonna affect anything, do you?" wondered Tom.

The two bots looked at each other. "Naaaah..."
 

Part 1

Joel stared at the modified invention. "Okay guys, what did you do to it?" he asked.

The bots shuffled uneasily. They supposed it had been a bit much to assume that Joel wouldn't notice the changes to the invention, but they had hoped. "Um, well, we wanted to surprise ya... happy un-birthday?" Crow said weakly.

Joel shook his head. "How many times have I told you guys not to fiddle with the inventions without me?" he reprimanded.

"But Joel, the invention exchange is today! We just wanted to try and fix it before then! I mean, how impressive is a machine that plays Teletubbies at a thought?" argued Crow.

"Mind you, it might've been worth it just to see the Mads' reactions..." Tom mused.

Joel pinched the bridge of his nose. He reminded himself that the bots had done this out of good intentions, and that he shouldn't get mad at them. There were times, however, when even a laid-back guy like him felt tempted to snap back. "I know, guys, but if you were gonna do that couldn't you have at least woken me up?"

"Well, you were sleeping so peacefully..." Crow began.

"If you're so worried, test it!" suggested Tom reasonably.

"Yeah! Use Servo!" added Crow.

"Exac -- hey..."

"Well go on, it WAS your suggestion," said Crow.

Tom glared at Crow for a minute. "Fine. FINE. Geez, it's always me, isn't it?" Fuming slightly, he managed to stay still while Crow slipped the helmet portion of the device over Servo's bubble dome. He then turned on the device, which soon displayed the image of Julia Child preparing some sort of dish with RAM chips.

"See? It works! It actually works!" Crow looked smug.

"Now we take the pork and slice it up into thin slices..." Julia Child mumbled.

Joel, nodding in approval, turned the device off. "Well, better get it ready for the Mads, then. Guess I owe you one, Crow."

"Hey! I was watching that!" Tom pouted.

"Don't worry, Servo! You'll have plenty of time for that after the exchange! And you'll have the ingredients, eh Joel?" Crow winked at him.

"Okay, okay, you'll get your RAM chips in due time, but not until after the experiment, okay? I don't want you guys upchucking them on the theater floor over whatever Dr. Forrester decides to show us."

"No prob!" Cheerfully, Crow began to wheel the device out of the room and towards the bridge.

The bots certainly seemed happy about the whole thing, although not necessarily for the right reasons. (Tom was even humming "We're In the Money," which led Joel to suspect there was more the bots wanted than a little recognition.) Yet as he followed the bots, he couldn't help but feel an odd sense of... what? Foreboding? It wasn't that he didn't trust the bots, but something seemed a bit too pat, too perfect. He felt like something was going to happen.

He shook his head. 'Too many movies,' he thought. 'Probably just my imagination.'

"Well, my little lab rat, it's been what -- nine years?"

"Ten, sir," Joel sighed.

"Ah yes. Ten glorious years of trying to drive you nuts. And I assure you, Joel, I WILL drive you nuts eventually." Dr. Forrester sneered.

"If you say so, sir." Joel shrugged.

"I DO! And in honor of our ten-year anniversary, I'm treating myself by going first. Frank, if you will?"

Dr. Forrester's plump, black-clad assistant carried in a fishing pole which, although it looked seemingly innocuous, was probably more than it let on to be.

"Now, there are a lot of fishers out there, and if you ask them they'll tell you that the most annoying thing to happen is to have
their line get gnarled. This gave me an idea. So, what we have here is the "Gnarly Fishing Line," if you'll pardon the bad surfer lingo. It's just like ordinary fishing line until... Frank, if you will?"

"Sure thing Steve." Frank lowered the line into a nearby tank of water, where it immediately became more tangled that the plot of the X-Files.

"As you can see, it gnarls in contact with water." Dr. Forrester looked at the invention approvingly. "Now, how about you, Joel Boxer?"

The bots were jittery with excitement. Joel, calm as always, indicated their invention. "Well, have you ever had a show you've
always wanted to see, but the television executives would never create? Goodness knows how many people have watched television without any real hope of something decent coming on. So we created the 'Make-Your-Own-Entertainment' device, which allows you to create your dream show just by thinking about it."

"It even works for cooking shows!" added Tom enthusiastically.

"Indeed it does, little buddy. You just take this helmet, put it on, turn on the device and..."

Joel realized something was wrong moments before the shock hit his brain. Letting out a cry of pain, he tried to pull the helmet off, but to no avail. Finally, blissfully, he fell unconscious.

The bots stared at Joel in horror. Dr. Forrester just watched in bemusement.

"Joel? JOEL?"

"Yo! Joel! Snap out of it! Hey bud!"

A voice he didn't recognize. Was he dreaming?

"Come on, Joel! Wake up!"

Now that voice he DID recognize. "...Tom?"

"Oh sure, respond to Servo, but ignore me. Well that's just typical, isn't it Joel?"

Joel dared to open an eye. Both Tom and Crow were standing over him, looking concerned.

"Huh... what..."

"You just fell down all of a sudden! Man, you scared us big time, Joel!" exclaimed Crow, sounding unusual.

"Um, Crow, you sound... different..."

Crow sighed testily. "Yes yes, you kept telling me this about three years ago. Would you gimme a break already?"

'Three years ago? Wha...'

Joel finally opened both eyes and looked around. The whole satellite looked as though it had undergone some major remodeling. In general it seemed darker, and the familiar Gizmonics G which had been on the theater door for as long as he could remember had been replaced by a gigantic dog bone.

"How long have I been out? It looks like you guys did some major redecorating while I was snoozing," he asked, looking around in amazement.

"Geez, Joel, how hard did you hit your head when you fell? It's been like this ever since we came back from the edge of the universe!" replied Tom.

Joel stared at the little red bot in utter confusion.

"You know... Dr. Forrester, lost his funds, cut the Umbilicus, we drifted to the edge of the universe... beings of pure light? Isn't
ANYTHING ringing a bell with you?" Tom asked, exasperated.

Now Joel's head was REALLY beginning to hurt. "Look guys, I'm feeling a bit tired. Do you mind if I just kinda go and take a nap?" he asked wearily.

"What, that one wasn't enough? Sheesh, go ahead. Maybe all those memories that seem to have gotten knocked out of your head will come back," answered Crow. "Geez, human memories are so easily erased..."

"Hey, at least other people can't tap into my memory and reprogram it," Joel shot back, standing up.

"Ooooh no Joel, I wouldn't let you anywhere NEAR my memory. Not after seeing your attempts at building a robot."

"What do you mean? I built YOU guys!" Sweet Mother in Heaven, he was finally losing it. Dr. Forrester had finally made him snap.

Crow was about to retort, but Tom stopped him. "Come on, Crow.Let's leave him alone for a while. The last thing we need is for Pearl to see him like this. Hoo boy, THAT'D be bad..." The two bots, shaking their heads, left him to his bewilderment.
He needed to figure this out. Half in a daze, he headed back to where he hoped his room was. Thankfully that particular aspect of his life still seemed to be in order, although the decor was considerably different. There was not a single tool nor half-completed invention to be seen around the place. Instead, various odd schlock items and books he wouldn't ordinarily have read were found lying on the shelves. (Joel, having been a die-hard lover of sci-fi since childhood, had
never once considered picking up anything else; however, here to be found was a considerably more eclectic collection, with sci-fi only comprising a small part of it.)

There was something else, too -- a diary, lying on a small cheap desk to one side of the room. Joel picked it up absent-mindedly, noting with half an eye that his jumpsuit was green rather than its usual red. He considered reading it, then chuckled half-heartedly.

'Imagine, having to read your diary to try and figure out your  own life,' he thought. 'It'd be like something out of a Philip K. Dick  story, or some alternate dimension nov--'

Something suddenly clicked in his mind. The invention exchange! Something had gone wrong with it, and all of a sudden his life had been turned upside down...

He searched frantically for a diary key, the pieces of the puzzle beginning to fit together in his mind. Forcing himself to relax a bit, he tried to think of the one place he'd put something like that, considering the bots and all.

There. Sitting on the shelf was a sci-fi book called Nephilim*, completely at odds with the otherwise excellent library that seemed to be maintained there. 'Of course -- NOBODY in their right minds would touch that book,' he thought, opening it. Sure enough, there was a deep well within the pages, hiding a small key. He snatched it in triumph, then turned to the small grey diary. He had a momentary flash of conscience -- 'This isn't your book, you shouldn't be reading it' -- then shrugged it aside. If his theory was correct . . .

The writings told an amazing story, stranger even than his own -- a temp worker, knocked unconscious by the men who were employing him to help prepare for an audit, used as a replacement in an experiment after the original victim had managed to escape, suddenly cut off from the world by the scientist behind the experiment and drifting to parts unknown. Becoming beings of pure light, but becoming substantial again after five hundred years; held by the scientist's mother and a race of apes until accidentally assisting in the destruction of Earth, being chased across the galaxy, and finally returning to his own time after
the destruction of two more planets, a bizarre mind-tripping wormhole, and a quick jaunt back to Roman times.

And, much as Joel had expected, the entire tale was written by his own hand. Either he had been living a lie for the past five years, or the invention exchange had somehow taken him into another reality.

Author's Notes:

* This book sucks. Seriously. Five chapters in and you've already hit about fifty sci-fi conspiracy cliches. Maybe there's something more substantial further in, but... I doubt it. I should write a parody, actually...

I wasn't intending to separate it into parts, but I feel some of the dramatic devices wouldn't work so well if I didn't. *sigh*

This fic has been modified for easier reading.  Also, I just wanna say...

Mystery Science Theater 3000 and all related characters and situations are trademarks of and (c) by Best Brains Inc. All rights reserved.

Forgot the first time around.