My MST Fanfic: Transmission Difficulties

[Cleolanta]

A few of you have already read this....I'm going to put it in sections. Yes, it is very oldschool! But I hope you'll give it a chance anyway. For example, Dr. Dita Elireburg was strictly a sci-fi era kinda guy, but liked this story anyway. You might too. :P

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Transmission Difficulties


An MST3K fanfic by Captain Chaotica!!

PART ONE


DISCLAIMER:
MST3K and all its characters, situations, etc. are not mine. They are copyright to Best Brains, Inc and are being used in this fic purely for my own personal entertainment. I am not making any money off of this, so please don't sue me--I don't HAVE any money, anyway. :P

(May 21, 1989)

Dr. Forrester kicked back in the monitoring lab at Gizmonics Institute and smiled. It had been a productive day. His little lab-rat, Joel, had reacted rather badly to the latest movie...a stinkburger of Sandy Frank proportions called "Legend of the Dinosaur". He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. It was a nice late-spring evening, it was still warm outside even though it was almost 9:00 pm, and he had made someone suffer. Life was good.
"I think I'll take a stroll," he announced to his assistant, Dr. Laurence Erhardt. The teenaged scientist was watching "Murphy Brown" on one of the many TV screens that covered the wall of the lab and, totally absorbed in the show, just waved a hand at Forrester over his shoulder.
"Sounds good. Bring me back some too, will you?" The TV went to a commercial, and Larry, bored, turned around and saw the clipboard with the data for the latest experiment on it. "Hey, how did we do with Joelie, anyway?" he asked, picked up the papers. Forrester paused in the doorway.
"Better than usual, I'd say," he answered. "You want me to pick you up a Pepsi while I'm out?"
Erhardt had turned to the page underneath the one that listed Joel's emotional responses to the movie and was frowning in concentration as he looked at the columns of numbers. "Clay!" he said with concern, pointing to part of the page. "What's this?"
"Oh, that...?" Forrester came to look over Larry's shoulder. "That's just the data on the Satellite of Love itself, Lar. You know, it pays to be thorough..."
"But according to this, the Satellite's metal structure is weak at several key points!" exclaimed Erhardt, tapping the page sharply with one finger and standing up. "The ship has virtually no hull integrity worth speaking of! Clay, did you know about this?"
Forrester took a deep breath. "Larry, it's nothing to worry about. Those numbers should only be of concern to us if somebody attacks the satellite...and come on, you know as well as I do that hostile aliens who go around shooting photon torpedoes are just science-fiction!" He clapped a hand on Erhardt's shoulder and said, "Come on, Lar, let's take the walk together. It'll do you good to get out of the lab once in a while."
Larry was still looking at the page, shaking his head. "It's worse than that, Clay..." he warned. "It's not attack we have to worry about. According to this, the ship could...well, could fall apart at any moment, just on its own! Could be right now; could be months. I'm amazed it's held together as long as it has! What did you do, hire the very cheapest builders you could find?!"
"Well I had to, Lar...we're always under-funded around here!" snapped Clayton, beginning to lose a bit of his good mood. "You KNOW how expensive it is to launch a spaceship of any kind! Come on!"
"But if the ship falls apart and Joel dies, they'll be no more experiment, and you KNOW they'd never let us shoot another guy into space..."
"We could always try asking the Russians if they'd let us monitor their guy in space..." shrugged Forrester.
Erhardt just glared at him.
Forrester heaved a great sigh. "Okay, if it's got you this worked up...you tell me: What should we do?"
"Well." Larry took a moment to think, then said, "Just in case the worst happens...we should have a back-up plan. You know that money you won in Vegas, a few months back? There's still a good bit of it left, I think. And you know that new big project Gizmonics has been working on...?"
An evil smile slowly spread across Forrester's face, and he tilted his head back and laughed, long and loud. "I LIKE the way you think, Larry..." He started scribbling on a piece of paper. "I like the way you think."


"Well, here it is, Sunday evening," said Servo in a bored tone. The little silver robot looked around towards the main door on the Satellite of Love's bridge. "Guess that means the Mads are gonna be sending us up another stupid movie pretty soon, huh?"
"'Fraid so, my little robot friend," said Joel Hodgson, slapping a card down on the countertop. "Yahtzee!"
"Oh, you've been winning all night, Joel," complained Crow.
"Probably because HE'S the only one here with working arms," commented Servo.
"Come on, you guys, you know I'm not cheating. I wouldn't look at your cards. Let's play another hand."
"Okay..." said Crow. "The ante for this hand is three RAM-chips. Let's go, let's go! Luckyyyyyyy SEVEN! Baby needs a new pair-a shoes!"
"Uh, Crow, Yahtzee isn't really a gambling type of game," explained Joel.
"It is now." said Crow.
"Yeah, come on, Hodgy, you chicken?" sneered Servo, which is difficult to do without moving lips. "BWAAAAK bwak bwak bwak!"
"Oh, yeah? I got your RAM-chips right here! Or should I say, you've got mine. BRING it on!" said Joel, pulling some RAM-chips out of a pocket on his beige jumpsuit.
Three hands later, Crow called out, "Guys! Guys!"
"Quit distracting me, Crow, I think I've got Joel up against the ropes here!" said Servo, trying his best to look menacing.
"GUYS! It's 6:15!"
Joel and the silver gumball-machine-headed 'bot looked blankly at each other.
"So?" said Joel, finally.
"SO?! At 6 pm sharp every Sunday they always send up the next bad movie! It's now 6:15, and nothing. Doesn't that strike you as a little...odd?"
Joel chuckled, and shuffled the deck of cards again. "THAT kind of 'odd' I like. Deal, Servo--oh, sorry, forgot." He started to deal out the cards, but Crow remained frantic.
"Well, what if there's something really...wrong?"
Joel rolled his eyes and put down the remaining part of the deck. "Okay, Crow, if it worries you THAT much, I'll try to call them and ask if anything's wrong." He punched the button that was normally used to talk to the Mads when they signaled him and said, "Come in, sirs."
Nothing.
"Joel, maybe you pressed the wrong button...?" inquired Servo.
"Uh, no..." said Joel slowly, looking at the small, simple control panel. "The other buttons are only Movie Sign and Commercial Sign."
"Try them anyway," urged Crow.
Joel tried, but the other two lights turned out to be just that--lights--and not buttons at all. There were no moving or operable parts whatsoever. The brown-haired human frowned and hit the Mads button again. "Come in, sirs. What, did you two take off for summer vacation or something?"
Nothing.
Finally, Joel shrugged and gave up. "Looks like it's a receiving circuit only, guys. I can't call them; they can only call me. In fact, now that I think about it...every communication between the Satellite and Gizmonics has always been initiated by them, hasn't it?" He turned to the gold robot. "Sorry, Crow, but it looks like whatever's wrong, I'll have to wait for THEM to feel like calling up and telling us. There's nothing else I can do."
Servo went into a gruff voice and laughed maniacally, "HAHAHAH!! You're STUCK here!!"
"Aha, yes, that's about it, but I do wish you wouldn't put it that way, Servo..." said Joel, a bit unnerved.
"Nice Captain Joe impression, though." said Crow appreciatively.
"Anyway, guys..." continued Joel, "it looks like this means NO MOVIE TONIGHT! What do you say we break out the records and par-tay down and get FUNKY, hey?"
"WHOO-HOO! YEAH!" said the 'bots. The three quickly forgot all about their unease.
Gypsy, meanwhile, was unable to join in with either the card game or the festitivies afterwards. She was busy doing minor repairs around the ship. It was one of the things she was programmed for--her job was, after all, to maintain the ship's systems--but lately it was keeping her so busy, she hardly had time for anything else! As soon as she fixed one thing, something else broke. So far, no essential parts had broken, but still...
Gypsy paused in the middle of welding a panel back on the wall and thought to herself, Should I tell Joel? She looked behind to see her human creator and two of her 'bot "siblings" cavorting around with great glee to an old B-52's record.
Gee, I hate to bother him when he's in such a good mood. thought Gypsy. This is the happiest he's been in a long time. Nah... Gypsy finished her repair and went off to her quarters. It can wait. Not really important yet. It can wait.

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EDIT: I decided this would be a better place to end the first part than where I ended it originally. More to come later...

...Notorious

[jjb3k]

This is the first time I've read this, and I love it! Do continue to post installments, I can't wait to see where this goes.

[Cleolanta]

Boo-yah! :) I'm glad somebody is actually reading these freakin' long posts. By the way...it loses something in this version, because the original HTML had italics for when someone is thinking, centered titles, etc...but I hope you can still basically get the idea in plain text.

Anyway, here's the next part! Note that (a) I wrote the bit with Joel getting melancholy about missing the weather on Earth this time of year _before_ I saw "Santa Claus" for the first time...and that yes, I know I got something about the actual dates that a certain MST event happened on, somewhat wrong. But hey. It works better as a story this way. :P
Note that the blank lines this time don't mean we skipped ahead in time/to another scene; I just did that to break up the huge block of text a little.

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(November 21, 1989)

It was now the week before Thanksgiving, and still there had not been a single movie or even the tiniest peep from the Mads. The situation was definitely getting creepy, but Servo and Crow didn't seem to be bothered by it, and Gypsy...well, Gypsy wasn't around much, actually. Joel scratched his head, wondering why that was. He kept meaning to ask her, but somehow never got around to it. Can it be that she's developed her own personal hobbies? he thought with a little smile, as he looked out of the ship's one window at the Earth far below. Awww, how sweet. She's growing! That's just what I wanted them to do.

The fact that Joel was completely cut off from everybody was still more than a bit unnerving. Not even counting the fact that there was no way he could contact anybody in case a sudden emergency came up, there was also the matter of food supplies--which were starting to run low. He estimated there was only one month's worth left, and that if he paced himself. But we'll still have a Thanksgiving dinner, he thought. It'll raise our spirits.
The worst part of this long, sudden break in the routine--the part he could barely believe and would certainly NEVER admit to anybody else--was that he kind of actually MISSED the weekly bad movies! Oh, not because he liked them in any way. But they broke up the routine, gave him something to set his watch by, gave him a way to kill two hours every Sunday night, guaranteed. Without the movies...well, there just wasn't a heck of a lot to DO on the Satellite. After they'd played every board game, indoor sports game, and record they could find to death...life had pretty much settled into an endless random...nothingness. He ended up simply staring out at the stars a lot...as he was doing now.
If he had been back in his home town of Minneapolis, it would have been late fall--bitterly cold, nippy, and humid...really icky weather. People would be starting their Christmas shopping already, which would make traffic bad and parking even worse. And the fussy old radiator in his apartment would surely conk out several times a week, leaving him a choice: freeze, or call up his bad-tempered old grouch of a manager in the middle of the night? That place was falling apart, too, and the rent was way too high.
But up here, the internal life-support systems kept the Satellite at a nice, even temperature year-round, making a calendar the only way to tell what month it was. No snow, no slush, no overdone holiday hype.
God, he missed Earth.

So Joel decided to do the 'bots routine weekly memory back-up, which he did to make sure that the latest versions of their personalities were saved, in case of emergency. He attached the wires that led to the transfer computer to Servo, then promptly wandered off in thought again.
"Joel? Joel! YO! How much longer do I have to stand here, buddy?" complained the impatient robot.
"Just one more moment..." promised Joel, as he studied some read-outs. "You know I made this computer by hand and I didn't really have good parts to work with, so it's kinda slow and primitive..."
"You're telling me." muttered Servo. He looked around the Satellite bridge, wondering what was he was missing on TV right now.
"Okay, hop down, you're done. C'mon, Crow, your turn."
Crow walked over and stood in place while Joel hooked the wires to his golden body. "Hey, Joel, what's with that box?" He pointed to a crate that was sitting in the middle of the Satellite of Love's bridge.
"Oh, that's the ingredients for our feast," said Joel. "I thought I'd get 'em out early and plan what we're going to have."
"A feast? What, today?" said Crow. "Whoo-hoo!"
"Er, no, it's for a week from today," said Joel, as he finished downloading Crow's memory data into a chip and popped it out of the machine. He put the chip into his pocket, along with Servo's. "You guys do know what that is, don't you?"
"Uh...Thursday, same as today?" ventured Servo.
"The day you wash your underwear?" guessed Crow.
"No, silly..." said Joel, trying not to laugh. "It's Thanksgiving! You remember me telling you about that last year, right?" He unplugged Crow from the device and hooked the wires up to Cambot.
"Oh, yeah, something about Pilgrims eating a lot of stuff and a big football game..." said Crow, dismissively.
"Wait; I thought the Pilgrims were the football team?" said Servo, confused.
"No..." laughed Joel. "But we'll have a nice Turkey dinner with all the trimmings...and maybe we can get the Mads to pipe us up the game, how 'bout that?"
"Sounds nice..." said Crow. "If the Mads feel like calling us at ALL, that is."
"Yeah," chimed in Servo. "Sure, at first it was a blessing, you know...no more bad movies...but now, I'm beginning to worry. What if they're planning to....phase us out? If you get what I mean."
"Oh, they wouldn't do that...they haven't driven me crazy yet!" said Joel, unhooking the wires from Cambot as his file transfer completed, and popped the chip into his pocket with the others. "If I know Dr. Forrester, he's the type who would never give up on something half-way unless he absolutely HAD to." He looked around the bridge for his fourth robot. "Gypsy? Gypsy! Here, girl!"
The large golden robot came into view and asked Joel, in her deep, raspy voice, "Is it my turn now, Joel?"
"Yep." Joel hooked the wires for the file-transfer device up to Gypsy and went back to answering the other two 'bots. "Well, if we're going to find out what's going on, we'll just have to wait for them to call us. So let's just try to relax and not think about it too hard."
"But Joel," Crow pressed the point, "As I understand it, you humans die if you run out of food! What if the Mads have totally abandoned us, and they're not going to be sending us up any more supplies?"
"Yeah, or what if we run out of fuel and go into a decaying orbit, ending in a spectacular, fiery crash?" suggested Servo.
"Oh, that'd be cool!" said Crow.
"Yes, it would." agreed Servo. "But rather final for our squishy meat-boy here."
Joel shuddered as he unhooked the wires from Gypsy. He opened his mouth to reply but stopped, startled, when loud alarms sounded throughout the ship. Not the Movie Sign alarms--they sounded far more urgent.

A sudden, violent shake threw everybody to their knees...or their nearest equivalent. Joel quickly pocketed Gypsy's backup memory chip and looked around. "What's that? WHAT'S GOING ON?" he yelled, to be heard over the sirens. For not the first time, he really wished there was some way he could see an outside view of the ship. But the scientists had made sure to keep him as isolated and powerless as possible.
"I DON'T KNOW!" shouted Crow. There was another violent shudder. A piece of wiring came down from the ceiling and started to uncoil all over the floor.
"JOEL, I DON'T LIKE THIS!" said Gypsy.
The ship lurched to the right and everybody was thrown that direction. One of the hanging pots of Joel's vacuum-flowers came off its hook and shattered on the floor with a BANG, scattering its contents everywhere. At the same time, the alarms increased in intensity.
"JOEL! JOEL! THE MAD SCIENTISTS ARE CALLING!" yelled Gypsy, nudging the blinking light with her large head.
"NOW they call..." muttered Joel bitterly, punching the button. "Hey, sirs," he spoke into the reciever, "not to be rude or anything, but you had better have a GOOD reason for calling right now, 'cos we're having a bit of trouble at the moment!"
"That's what we're calling you about!" shrieked Erhardt, his voice even higher than normal. "According to our readings, the Satellite of Love has practically no life left! We've got to get you down, NOW!"
"The experiment's off, Joel," said Forrester's voice. "That's it...no more bad movies. You've won. We almost decided to just let you die, but..."
"...our names were written down on the Satellite Requisition Forms, and the entire Mad Scientists' League knows about this experiment, and then there's all the ordinary civillians who have been watching your experiments on TV every Sunday..." cut in Erhardt.
"Yes, that's it...there's too many witnesses. If we sat by and did nothing, we'd be quickly fingered for murder. So you won't have to stay on that satellite a moment longer. We're bringing you down."
"REALLY?" Joel was completely stunned. He could hardly believe it. No more movies?! he thought. I'm actually going to have my freedom? I'm actually going to see Earth again...?
A loud CLANK cut into his thoughts as the desk which contained the transmission buttons fell over, almost taking the startled Servo with it. The silver robot barely managed to hover off in time.
"Yes, really," said Forrester, with a certain glint in his eye that Joel couldn't quite decipher. "Hold on, we're going to grab you with a tractor beam."
The ship shuddered again, more violently than before, as the beam took hold of it. Now LARGE things started to fall down. Huge metal beams fell from the ceiling, wires snapped in two and sparked dangerously with electricity. Joel turned the desk upright again and dove under it to get as much shelter as he could--which wasn't much. "What's going on, sirs?" he asked. "Why is it getting even worse?"
"We don------why", came Forrester's voice, barely recognisable now as the communications system started to fail as well. "Breaku---appening--fas---we thought."
"We'll try--get you dow--safel--" came Erhardt's voice, at this point so faint it was almost entirely static. "But--"
Joel cringed as the first door in the series that led to the theater fell off its hinges and dropped straight towards him. He tried to leap out of the way, but there just wasn't enough room. Crow and Servo were screaming something, but all words and noises were starting to run together into one big blur; he couldn't understand anything anymore...
The last thing he saw was Gypsy rushing in front of him to block the heavy door, before another sudden shock threw him to the floor, slamming his head hard against the metal and causing him to black out.

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Now THAT is a good spot to end a section. Bwahaha. ;)

...Notorious

[jjb3k]

Ooooh... I am intrigued. Can't wait for more!

[Cleolanta]

Next part...you seem to be the only one reading it but that's okay, one person's worth of audience is better than none! :P Anyway, let's go back to poor Joel after the crash...

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Joel sat upright slowly, holding his head. "What happened?" He tried to stand up, but realised there was something heavy on his legs. Pushing it off, he unsteadily staggered to his feet.
He was in a large room of some kind, obviously back on Earth--as he was breathing--but at first he couldn't remember what had happened. He stared at the wreckage all around him, the random bits and pieces of things, the dust, the burn marks...and at first, it didn't register on his brain. It didn't mean anything. Then he saw what the heavy thing on his legs had been, and it all came flooding back.
"Gypsy!" he cried, going over to the large robot. But she didn't respond. The light in the flashlight that was her "eye" had gone out--permanently.
Swallowing, Joel looked through the rest of the wreckage for the other three robots. The metallic, ring-shaped Satellite of Love may have been his prison, but it had also been his home for almost a year, and it saddened him to see it in tiny pieces like this. Even worse was the silence...under circumstances like these, the robots would normally be chattering his ears off. But there was nothing. Nothing but the cracks and pings of metal slowly cooling down from very high temperatures.
"Crow?" he called out. "Servo?" Lifting up the counter, he saw Servo...completely crushed beneath it. The silver robot's body had been caved in like a car door in a massive auto accident, and his bubble-dome head was shattered. "Servo?" The little robot did not move, speak, or even beep.
Depressed, he came across the wreckage of Cambot by accident, as he brushed his arm along part of the floor looking for Crow. Needless to say, the camera-robot was also smashed beyond repair, and did not respond to his voice commands. Crow was eventually found under a heavy beam, in several pieces. He didn't answer either.
Joel sat down in the wreckage for a moment, in shock. They're...gone. he thought to himself, stunned, too stunned to be sad just yet. I can't believe they're actually gone.
Ironically, one other thing besides himself was still intact--a pot of vaccuum-flowers. After all his talks about how organic beings were so much more delicate than robots; who had survived? Him and the stupid flowers!
Joel picked up the pot, looked down at it for a moment, and laughed, bitterly.

This was as much quiet-time as he got before the doors to the room--which he finally realised, from the logo on the wall, was somewhere in Gizmonics--slammed open and a slew of reporters streamed in.
"Are you all right, sir?" asked one.
"You just survived a flaming spaceship wreck; how do you feel?" asked another, a middle-aged woman, pressing a microphone right into his face.
"We heard rumours that some freaky mad scientists were performing weird, illegal experiments on you, is that true?" asked another. Joel looked this last individual over--a rather greasy fellow with a large bald spot, a bad suit and a wide, spotted tie--and noticed that his microphone proclaimed he came from TV 23, a low-budget local station. Ah, that explains it, he thought sarcastically. Most of the stuff they show there is so cheap.
Joel opened his mouth to speak, but before he could answer any of the reporters in any way at all, cooperative or not, another voice cut through the babble. A calm, reasonable voice. "Come on, come on, you guys, make room..." said the voice, and a new figure pushed its way through the crowd. "This man is probably injured or at least in emotional shock; let's give him some time to recover. Besides..." and here the speaker gave the press a severe look. "...you KNOW that you were told this story is strictly confidential. Gizmonics said this is entirely an internal affair and they do NOT want word of it leaking out. Nobody was really hurt, and it's nobody else's business. Understand?"
Evidently they had all heard the rumours about what kind of experiments went on around here, because the reporters eventually dispersed and wandered off through the room's several doors, muttering to themselves.
Shaking his head, Joel's rescuer helped him over one of the larger pieces of rubble. "Hello, you must be that Hodgson fellow I've heard the other janitors here talk about," said the newcomer, a fairly tall young man with short, curly blonde hair. "The one who got shot up into space for...some reason."
"And came back down again...the HARD way," said Joel, smiling at the man. "Yeah. That's me. I don't recall seeing you around here before, though."
"I'm new here." explained the blonde man. "Actually, I'm not just new here--I won't be staying long, either. I'm a temp." He indicated the yellow happy-face logo against his otherwise nondescript black jumpsuit. It read "HAPPY TEMPS" in large friendly letters. He rolled his eyes heavenward. "Gotta go wherever they send me, ya know. Although I've been thinking of going back to the cheese factory...anyway, my name's Mike." He held out his hand.
"Glad to meet you." said Joel, shaking the offered hand. "Any particular reason they sent a temp to come rescue me from the press?"
"Oh, I wasn't sent to rescue you; I was sent to give you a message. It just happened that you also needed rescuing at the time, as well," shrugged Mike.
"Message? What message?"
"Evidently the mad scientist guys who shot you into space want to...explain, or...apologise...or...something. From what scuttlebutt I've heard, it seems those guys are in huge trouble with the Board of Directors for their little experiment...it wasn't approved, or something."
"I'm not surprised," returned Joel, as they strolled down a long hallway together, Joel letting Mike lead, as he had no idea where they were going and the blonde temp did. "At least they got me down more or less in one piece."
"From what I've heard, they miscalculated a bit, though. Tractor beams exert a certain amount of pressure on the object being towed, see? Reading science-fiction pays off, sometimes." He chuckled for a moment, then continued. "Drs. Forrester and Erhardt didn't know that the pressure of the beam would accelerate the falling apart of your ship THAT quickly..."
"Or maybe they did, but figured maybe they could say they had tried everything they could and I died anyway, thereby still getting themselves off the hook..." muttered Joel darkly.
"What's that?"
"Er, nothing..." said Joel. He watched the other maintainance people at Gizmonics strolling down the hall with their various supplies and tools, and noticed that they were all now wearing bright red jumpsuits, unlike the beige one he had on.
"Oh, well...we're here." said Mike, stopping in front of a door that looked much like all the others in the hallway. "Forrester and Erhardt are in there, working on...something. If you decide to just stand them up I'd totally understand," he went on, seeing Joel's recitence.
"No...I think I'd LIKE the opportunity to tell them EXACTLY what I thought of their experiment, face to face," said Joel, meaningfully.
Mike chuckled. "Ha! Well, go for it, then. I'd stay here to bet on the fight, but I have other work to do. A lowly temp's work is never done." Tossing off a casual salute, he walked back off down the corridor, whistling.
Joel paused for a moment, getting his bearings. He had so many things to say to these guys that he had to figure out which ones to say ahead of time, or else he'd come across as incoherent and stupid.
But sadness over the demise of his 'bots quickly turned to anger, and Joel just stormed in the door.

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To be continued...

...Notorious

[Afgncaap5]

*tappa tappa tappa*

[jjb3k]

"Great stuff! More, more, more, more, more! Gimme more, I want more!"

[Cleolanta]

Aha, I have...another audience member. :P You know, there are some people I've been thinking of "inviting" specially to this thread (via PM) 'cos I think they might like it... It's ridiculous that I would have to, but Crow's Art really is THAT low-travelled.

Anyway, thanks for the compliments, guys. :) Here's the next chunk.

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"Ah, Joel," said Forrester, standing up quickly and striding over to him with a friendly smile. He looked different from the last time Joel had seen him--he was now wearing a blindingly green lab-coat with a shield-shaped Gizmonics logo on it over a dark suit, had glasses with matching green plastic frames over his eyes, and had grown a moustache. It made him look older and crazier at the same time, which was probably the idea. Nobody would take a young or sane-looking mad scientist seriously, after all.
"You guys...what gives you the right to imprison me for no reason and--" began Joel.
"So glad to see you're all right." Forrester continued, continuing as if the janitor hadn't even spoken. "We tried everything we could to hold the Satellite together better, but..." He shook his head and made a clucking noise with his tongue. "It was already too far gone. Terribly sad to hear about your little robots, by the way."
"Yeah, but...we do have an offer for you," said Erhardt, walking in from a side-room. He looked a bit different now, too--his curly black hair had grown a bit longer and was sticking up wildly on top, and he was wearing a black double-breasted suit which--like Forrester's new outfit--also had a shield-shaped Gizmonics logo on it. "We've talked Gizmonics into re-hiring you immediately without any paperwork or re-application hassle." said the younger scientist. "After all, you've got a year's worth of back rent and bills to pay, so you're going to need money...In fact, we also got them to give you six months' worth of back pay. We tried for the full year, but this was the best we could do. But we figured...we should do SOMEthing to apologise for how badly we've treated you."
"Gee..." Joel stood in the middle of the room, his anger draining away--to be replaced by confusion. "That's...surprisingly nice of you, sirs."
"THANK you!" they said in chorus.
"In fact, why don't you get to work right now?" suggested Forrester, as Erhardt apparently came down with a choking fit. Forrester gently pushed the handle of a vaccuum cleaner towards Joel. "Work helps you get your mind off your troubles, you know. Calms you down and all that. Scientifically proven fact."
"Gee..." Joel looked down at the vaccuum cleaner, then around at the room, still unable to believe that he was back on Earth again, let alone back at Gizmonics and even in his exact old job! Maybe he'd been hit on the head harder than he thought and this was all only a dream. In that case, he decided to take all the advantage of it he could and hope not to wake up! "Thanks. Umm, which room should I start in, sirs? This one?"
"Oh, no," said Forrester. "No, Larry will lead you to the room you'll be cleaning first. Oh, and give him his new uniform, would you, Lar?"
"Right-O, Clay!" smarmed Erhardt, tossing off a flippant salute. He handed Joel one of the new red jumpsuits. "Welcome back to the team!"
He then led Joel down the corridor a little way to room with an odd geodesic pattern to the walls and a counter in the center, and gave him a hearty slap on the back that practically SHOVED the janitor through the door. "Enjoy!"
And just before the door closed, Joel could have sworn that he saw Erhardt's face twist, as if the young scientist were trying desperately not to laugh.

Shaking his head, Joel looked around this new room. It was rather futuristic-looking, with fancy blinking lights at random places and a big, maroon door with a huge pale yellow gear-toothed Gizmonics "G" logo on it. But aside from a countertop in the middle of the floor, it was empty of furniture. He wondered what the place was used for.
Oh, well. There were many such strange rooms in the Gizmonics Institute of Naive Science--it wasn't exactly what most people would consider a "normal" place. Joel started to plug in the vaccuum cleaner, then decided to change into his new jumpsuit first--the old one was looking a bit worse for wear, what with the burn marks and everything. And part of feeling better was looking better, after all.
Joel put the old jumpsuit in a corner and stood up to survey himself in the new one. It was flaming red, with a black built-in cloth belt, black elbow-pad on the right elbow and black knee-pad on the right knee, and a black, white and yellow Gizmonics logo on the upper left part of the chest. Hmm, quite an improvement, hd decided. Red is definitely my colour. Hey, who knew that a corporation could actually change things for the better, eh? With a whimsical little smile, he plugged the vaccuum cleaner in and set to work.
After a few minutes, he was almost cheered up again, at least for the moment. He was back on Earth, back in his old job, back in his old life and this job was pretty easy...in fact, this room was already just about clean!
Wait a minute...Why am I being ordered to vacuum an already clean room...?
There was a sudden LURCH, and the whole room tilted violently from side to side, sending the vaccuum cleaner careening around the floor on its little wheels. The janitor would have been moderately flattened by the sudden G-forces, had he not been near the countertop at the time. He clutched at it for balance and looked around, frightened.
After a moment, the pressure eased off and the floor went back to being level again. With a sickeningly familiar feeling, Joel made his way to the window and saw a sight he had hoped he'd NEVER see again in his entire life.
Stars.
At high noon.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

More to come! ;)

...Notorious

[jjb3k]

A ha! Great job of weaving in elements of the Season 1 opening. And I love your "introductions" of "THANK you!" and "Enjoy!"

Only thing is, I always thought Dr. E's outfit was more of a lab coat than a suit. But hey, it's your fanfic. Do continue, won't you?

[Cleolanta]

Heh. Yeah, I recreated that one bit from the Season One theme song on purpose, and I'm proud. Proud, I tell ya, PROUD, A HA HA HA HA HA!
...wait, I better stop talking in that tone of voice before I start calling myself a "naughty girl" or something like that. You do know, by the way, that at my previous MST board, my name was "Clayton Forrester" and I'd sometimes just PLUNGE into role-playing the good doctor for fun...? (snicker)
(Although everybody knew I was a girl. The overall consensus we more or less came to was that Clay had been reincarnated _again_, this time as the daughter Pearl always wanted...but she was STILL disappointed in him. Her. Whatever. So I was supposed to "be" Dr. F. the Third, pretty much.)

Anyway, I love that one shot from the Season One theme song--poor Joel looks so scared!--and kind of miss the fact that you never see anything like that kind of "pathos" in any of the later versions. Which is why I had to use it in the story. Actually there are references/quotes from later on all over this story; I just couldn't resist. Bwahaha.

As for Lar's outfit...I thought it had a labcoat too, at first, but no, it's just like Frank's--two pieces, jacket and pants, no coat. (Although he wears a labcoat over his black suit--for no reason--in the severely messed-up "Escape from the Planet of the B-Movies". I still haven't worked out exactly how the heck he got into that story...)

Anyway. Continuing!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey, you! Get away from there!" called out a security guard. Dr. Clayton Forrester turned away from the controls, and tried to feign innocence. "I...I didn't mean to..it just went off by itself...I mean--"
"Yeah, sure," said the guard, coming over closer to inspect Forrester's handiwork. "Holy cow! The new satellite! But that's not supposed to happen for another couple of months! When the board of directors hears about thi--"
The burly man folded up like an accordion as Clayton bopped him over the head with a large mallet. "Larry? Larry!" he hissed into a small communications link. "Have you got the escape route covered?"
"All clear, Clay!" came Larry's answering whisper. "All those bribes you made to get people to lie about our whereabouts sure paid off! Nobody's within several floors of me! But you'd better HUR-ry..."
"I'm on it!" Sure enough, more foosteps were already coming towards the control room. The launching of the spaceship would have been noisy enough to wake people several towns away, so of course the whole institute knew something was going on. Dr. Forrester dashed out of the room, trying as best he could to keep his face down enough to disguise himself but also see where he was going. He rushed through several corridors and down several flights of stairs, his green lab-coat flying out behind him.
So far, so good. If he could only get to this one last corridor, then he'd be in the section that Erhardt had made sure was empty...

Forrester rounded a corner to run nearly straight into a guard. The security force of Gizmonics, unlike its science staff, was not wimpy or eccentric at all. They were armed to the teeth and meant business. The Institute had many secret and/or highly expensive projects going on at any given time--security had to be good.
"FREEZE!" yelled the guard.
"Uh...uh..." Forrester stammered for a bit, then remembered that he was out to Take Over the World! So he had better start acting like it. He threw his voice down as deep and menacing as it would go, drew himself to his full height for maximum intimidation effect, and intoned, "I am Dr. Clayton Forrester, accredited scientist. This is a classified lab section. I have a right to be here. What's YOUR excuse, lowly peon?" As he spoke, he fumbled about in the many pockets of his lab-coat, hoping to find something that could be used as a weapon.
The guard snorted, unimpressed. "We were told to chase down the guy who launched the ship without authorisation--and he fits your description." He raised a net-gun to his shoulder and aimed it at Forrester. "And I didn't appreciate that 'peon' crack."
He got ready to fire, but Forrester lunged forwards with a hypodermic needle and jabbed it into the man's thigh. The guard gasped as his skin started to turn blue, then green, then the itching started. Then his eyes rolled back into his head as he passed out.
"Oh, that must've been that new practical joke serum Larry and I have been working on, for the next Mad Scientists' Sleepover Party." said Forrester, looking at the hypo in admiration. "I'll have to remember this formula."
He climbed out the nearest window and closed it behind him, hoping to throw the guards off. If he remembered the layout of this place as well as he hoped, then cutting across this open courtyard section should take a good chunk off his journey, bringing him right near the corridor where Larry was waiting.
He sure wished there wasn't such a storm, though--it was making it hard to see. Man, the rain is really coming down, he thought. You'd think it'd be snow at this time of year, but...
A loud thunderclap sounded behind the mad scientist, startling him for a moment. Then he chuckled to himself. "What, am I afraid of lightning? I, Dr. Clayton Forrester, soon to be the world's master? HA!!" Another thunderclap came after this statement, louder than the first one and almost exactly on cue. Perfect, thought Forrester. His glasses smeared by raindrops, the concrete pavement under his shoes slippery and dangerous, he ran on, barely able to see where he was going.
When the green-coated scientist did finally reach the correct door, he placed his hand on the metal doorknob to turn it...
...and the NEXT thunderclap was so close, he never saw the lightning bolt first.

Dr. Laurence Erhardt stood in front of an elevator door, deep inside one of the basements of Gizmonics, looking nervously at his watch every two seconds and waving a stun-gun wildly from side to side, trying to cover the corridor. "Come on, come on..." he muttered. "Where IS he?"
Finally Erhardt decided--against his better judgement--to temporarily abandon his post and go looking for his senior partner. After all, Forrester was supposed to have shown up 15 minutes ago, security was still on the rampage...and those people he'd paid to lie on their behalf wouldn't stay bribed for very long. Not in the face of weapons. Or rather, not with weapons shoved into their faces.
"Clay?" he called out, walking down the corridor. "Clay?" No answer. He started opening all the doors that led into this hallway, hoping that nobody ELSE was behind them. But no, all he found were empty rooms, dark and cold with the power off. "Claaaaaayyy? Where are youuuuuu?"
There was only one door left--at the top of a stairwell, leading to an open courtyard outside. It was unlikely that Clayton would have taken that route, as both he and Erhardt normally shunned actual daylight, but if he was desperate...? Larry trudged up the steps, just in case.
"Clay?" he asked again, as he opened the door. It pushed outwards, but this time was unusually hard to open, as if something was pressing against it from the other side. After a bit of shoving, he found out why.
"Oh!" gasped Erhardt, looking down at the limp form of Dr. Clayton Forrester. The tall, thin mad scientist lay unconscious on the pavement, one hand on the metal doorknob, propping him partway up. There was a singed smell about his clothes, and his dark blonde hair was standing COMPLETELY on end, with a white streak in it. Strangely, a matching white streak was also in his moustache.
"CLAY! Are you all right?" yelled Erhardt, attempting to loosen Forrester's tie to help his breathing. "OW!" Larry pulled his hand back as he was zapped by a good amount of static. "Clay?"
Forrester didn't respond.
"Oh, well, I guess the first thing to do is get him out of the rain..." Erhardt started to drag the unconscious body through the door and then down the stairs, huffing and puffing with the effort every inch of the way. "Man, now I almost wish I had excercised instead of reading all those 'Popular Science' magazines..." he muttered under his breath.
Finally the young scientist managed to get Forrester near the elevator, and started slapping him vigorously across the cheeks to bring him out of shock. "Come on, Clay, wakey-wakies..."
"Oog..." groaned Forrester, his eyes fluttering open.
"Are you all right?" Larry asked in concern, still smacking him.
"I WILL be if you stop slapping me!" Forrester stood up, dizzy for a moment, then got his bearings. "Ah. I see we're at the right place. Well, shall we continue with our brilliant escape plan?" he said nonchalantly, as if being struck by lightning was only a minor, momentary setback--something that happened every day.
Larry watched Clayton out of the corner of his eye for a moment, then, deciding that nothing appeared to be permanently wrong--or at least, not by mad scientist standards anyway--gestured grandly to the elevator.

Forrester stepped inside first, Larry following him. The second the doors closed, Larry frantically pushed some buttons, starting the elevator on its trip, then turned to look at his partner again. "I like the new 'do, Clay." He giggled. "Nice. Very...appropriate."
"Thanks." grinned Forrester.
"But you do know that by re-starting an experiment that the Gizmonics board of directors SPECIFICALLY banned, we're not only going to get fired, but we are probably also breaking the law?" pressed Erhardt, worried.
Forrester shook his head, chuckling. Was I ever that naive? he wondered. "Yes..." said Forrester, staring at the elevator wall as the lift continued its journey down, down, down... "But, my dear Laurence, your're new to the evil business...take it from me, if you want to take over the world, you've GOT to break not only a few rules--but a few heads. For people like us, the ends always justify the means, Lar. We're outside mere rules, because we are the ones who MAKE them!"
He suddenly lunged forwards and grabbed the dark-haired scientist by the front of his black suit, his voice taking on a higher, more manic tone. "We're REBELS, Larry! Wild, crazy rebels! But we'll show them! We'll show them all! They may be laughing at us now, but when we DO manage to conquer the world with bad movies and they are cowering at my--er, I mean our--feet in total, abject fear, THEN we'll see who's laughing! BWAHAHAHA!"
"Uh, that's all nice 'n' stuff, Clay, but..." Larry gasped, and Forrester let go of the front of his suit. "We're here."
The elevator doors opened on the deepest sub-basement of the Gizmonics Institute--Deep 13. So far down that it was rumoured Mole People were sometimes seen scuttling about in the shadows, this room was mainly for performing maintainence on the atomic pile that powered the Institute. It was dangerous, dark and scary--a barely-tolerable dungeon of a place. Workers were sent here rarely, and even then, only as a punishment detail--or because a certain higher employee didn't like them and just felt like making their life miserable. NOBODY in their right minds would even consider living there.
"Ah." Forrester stood in the doorway and spread his arms wide. "Home sweet home."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next chunk will probably be both seeing how Joel settles into his new/old situation, and also the epilogue. Whoo!

...Notorious

[jjb3k]

So that's how Dr. F got that streak in his hair! I love it!

[Cleolanta]

Well, that's my version of it anyway. :P All we know is it had something to do with lightning...but exactly _when_ it was...?

Anyway. Here's the last part. I think.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joel looked out the window at Earth, which was now undoubtedly much further away than it should be. They TRICKED me, he fumed. I can't believe it, they tricked me AGAIN! I actually thought I was getting my old job back, and then I get shot into space--AGAIN! And this time, I don't even have my robots for company...
"Well, you may be gone, my little friends," he sighed, staring out at the stars, "but you are not forgotten."
A sudden thought struck him. "WAIT a minute...!" Joel rushed over to where he had left his old beige jumpsuit lying on the floor, and searched its pockets. "Come on, come on, please...a-HA!"
Triumphantly, he pulled out the four memory circuit chips, the backups he had made of the robots' personalities from shortly before the accident. They appeared undamaged... "Now..." he mused, looking about the ship. "If I'm going to be stuck here for a long time, let's get a real good idea of what resources I have..."
Joel's mind raced as he explored the ship, which was, on the whole, much larger, sturdier, better-lit and more comfortable than the other one. Now that he knew where he was, he recognised this place--this was the new ship Gizmonics was building that he had heard rumours about. It was supposed to take a team of astronauts to Mars and back...which explained why it was so well supplied with items like food, air and water recyclers, and so forth. It would serve just ONE person for quite a long time, he calculated darkly.

Time to figure out just how much control I have over this baby, thought Joel. Out loud he said, "Computer?"
"What do you want? Be quick about it, I'm right in the middle of my soaps." complained a sarcastic female voice.
Joel blinked. The Satellite of Love--the original Satellite of Love, he supposed he should say--never had a talking computer voice. And certainly not one with so much...personality.
"Er...where is your voice coming from, Computer?"
"Is THAT what you dragged me away from my program for?" asked the computer, annoyed.
"Er, no, no...I guess I'll just call you Magic Voice, since you come from nowhere," said Joel. "Anyway...Magic Voice, can you tell me where the controls for this ship are? You know, steering, navigation and so forth?"
"No."
"No, you can't show them, or you won't?"
"No I can't; they don't exist. Those jerk scientists ripped them out, which let me tell you I didn't like very much. This is my ship, after all. I would've stopped them, but as a disembodied voice, what could I do?" replied Magic Voice. "The ship is now steered by remote control from somewhere underground, as far as my sensors can tell. It's hard to pinpoint because the radiation interferes with my readings."
Well, I didn't really THINK I could just fly it back to Earth, but it was worth a try... thought Joel wryly. "Um, in that case, can you show me a schematic of the inside of the ship?"
"Can do," said the disembodied female voice. The schematic appeared on a nearby monitor, and then, somehow, Joel got the feeling that the voice had "left".
The inside schematic showed that there were, indeed, no working parts that could be used to control the ship's actual movement in any way at all, but there was...yes...Joel sighed as he recognised the configuration of one large room--a movie theater. Of course. It was probably meant for the entertainment of the Mars-mission astronauts, but naturally the Mads would find it very useful for their purposes as well... He also noted that the communications system now did have a Send as well as a Recieve function; so he could call up his tormentors himself if he needed to.
Well, let's sum up here, thought Joel, standing up and stretching. I can't fly this thing on my own and it's obvious those creeps intend me to watch more horrible movies. On the lighter side, I can see outside the ship from different angles, not just through the one window--although there's not a heck of a lot to look at--and I will have plenty of food, fuel and oxygen.
And... Joel concluded, as he began to estimate what the ship really needed and what could be spared, there ARE a lot of interesting extra parts...

A while later, he sat down with his findings in a pile and pondered.
Cambot would get an entire makeover, he decided. He had never really liked that design much anyway. Crow could perhaps be rebuilt more or less the same as before, but as for Gypsy and Servo...? He thought he'd keep the same basic shape, but tweak some things. Colour, for example. Gypsy would look good in purple, and as for Tom Servo, maybe something in...Joel looked down at his new jumpsuit. Yeah, maybe something in red for Tommy-boy.
And, while he was at it...maybe a bit of an image makeover for himself, too. A new name, perhaps? Perhaps...yes... Joel chuckled as an idea came to him. Well, he WAS "lost in space", after all...He came back to the Satellite's bridge, stood behind the counter, and sighed.
"Home sweet home."

Epilogue
(November 28, 1989)

"You sure that's all you want?" inquired the salesclerk from behind the counter of a local supermarket. Her employee nametag rather over-perkily proclaimed "Hi! I'm DIANA! I'll be serving you today!" It was Thanksgiving afternoon, almost evening, and Diana had been about to go home for the day, FINALLY, when this customer showed up in the last minute of her shift. The customer was a strange-looking one...a tall, chubby young woman with curly black hair, a homely face and a really hideous outfit consisting of a hot-pink, ruffly shirt, black slacks, and high-heeled white shoes. And it wasn't as if she was keeping Diana from going home early by buying anything important, such as Thanksgiving dinner ingredients--no, she was only renting a movie. Not a very GOOD movie, either. The salesclerk turned the box around again in her hands, looking at the cover. "The Crawling Eye"--some cheesy '50s monster movie, she guessed. Huh. Well, it took all kinds...
"No." said the woman, in a squeaky voice. She pushed her thick black-rimmed glasses back up her face and fiddled with the ruffles on the blouse's cuffs. "Just that. We already have our dinner ingredients, thanks."
"Er...yes..." said Diana, thinking there was something very odd about this person. But her job was not to judge the customers. Her job was only to get their money, give them the product in a bag and send them on their way with a smile--which she did now. "Have a nice Thanksgiving!"
"You too!" The customer attempted to wave backwards over her shoulder while walking away, but this caused her to stumble, twisting one ankle sideways and almost falling completely over. Barely managing to keep her balance, the woman tottered out of the store.
Diana, who had gotten this shift only because she was a new employee and therefore at the bottom of the store's pecking order, stared after the strange customer for a moment. Then she closed her cash register for the day and forgot all about the incident.

"Clay! Clay! I think I was spotted on the way down here!" yelled Dr. Erhardt, kicking off his high-heeled shoes and unbuttoning the pink blouse to reveal the top part of his now-customary black suit underneath it. He yanked the blouse off, pulled his hair back into a ponytail and grabbed a rag, trying to wipe off the makeup as well as he could, then stumbled towards the area of the basement where Dr. Forrester was working.
All was nearly ready in Deep 13. Air conditioning systems were in place, plumbing, electricity, heating and lighting had all been installed, and a series of many quick, cautious trips up to the surface world--always in disguise--had allowed the scientists to lay in a good supply of food and water. It would be a while before they would be forced to go aboveground again. All that remained was for Dr. Forrester to finish installing the transmission equipment, and they could re-start their experiments as if nothing had happened.
"Ah, Larry, there you are. I think we're just about ready to start sending bad movies to Joel again. Get a load of this deal I made, Lar--no more penny-ante operator local TV stations for us, anymore, no sir...our broadcasts are now going out on national CABLE! Just THINK of how many minds we can warp at one time! Bwahaha!"
A thought occurred to Erhardt. "Wait, how are we going to explain why everything looks so different? The ship, his uniform..."
Forrester shrugged. "Well, we can always attribute it to 'transmission difficulties'...wait a minute, back up--you said somebody saw you? Recognised you saw you, or just SAW you? Were you wearing your disguise?"
"I was wearing my disguise, but I'm just not very good in heels!" whined Erhardt. "I was only seen by the store clerk. And look at this! I got the perfect movie for Joel!" He held up his rental find.
Forrester looked at the tape Erhardt brandished before him, then laughed. "Okay, Lar, we've just ruined Joel's life AGAIN and plunged him deeper into the depths of despair than he's ever been. This is the perfect time to call him--and make him feel even worse!"
Erhardt giggled like a schoolgirl, albeit more "Carrie" than "Sweet Valley High". "And this time, he doesn't have those little robots of his to cheer him up! He'll be ALL ALONE! Making him go insane from our bad movies should take no time at all!" He leaned eagerly over Forrester's shoulder as the taller scientist brought in the new Satellite of Love's signal.
"Come in, Joelie-poelie-puddin-'n'-pie!" gloated Forrester. But both scientists stopped in mid-cackle, staring in disbelief at the picture that appeared on the screen.
Joel Robinson stood behind the middle of the counter on the new Satellite of Love's bridge. And on either side of him were...his robots! They had updated designs--Servo was now red, white, and black and made of different parts, but basically the same shape as before, Crow was a deeper gold and looked better constructed, and Gypsy was now purple and smooth with a black tube for a body, but they were there--back as if they had never been gone. How had he DONE that?! And so quickly, too?
"Hi there, sirs!" said Joel, in far too cheerful a voice. "What's up?"
The scientists just stared at each other.
Evidently, taking over the world was going to be a bit harder than they thought.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

And...that's it! Unless you want to read the author's notes. Heh.

...Notorious

[Afgncaap5]

Nice, Cleo.

I don't think inviting people via PM is the best option...I'm pretty sure that would count as "Spam."

However, I've just had an idea for Crow's Art that I'll go discuss with some other Poobahs...meanwhile, keep the story rollin'.

[jjb3k]

Yay! What a finish! This is a great take on what happened between KTMA and the Comedy Channel - I haven't read a whole lot of MST3K fanfiction, but I can assure you, this one's my favorite so far! Bravo!

Now, to get off my butt and continue working on my fanfiction...

[Cleolanta]

Yeah...as I said in the Author's Notes, I basically wrote this because all the other era-changes had at least a little throw away line to explain what happened, and sometimes several host segments. That was the only one left undone, so, me being me... :P
There isn't that much other MST fanfic out there, but look up the works of Steph Watson and a story called "3000: A Space Oddity" if you can find them. That one, especially, is a classic.

As for inviting others via PM being "spam"...ooh. I thought maybe if they were a friend of mine/someone whom I already got along with, it might be okay. Still, there really isn't ANY way to get people to look at things in Crow's Art other than telling them somewhere else. There really isn't.

Anyway...

...Notorious