Fic: Muppets from Earth

[Slackbot]

No problem. I figured that the confusion may have arisen from my nicknaming him "Brian the Sandwich," since you couldn't see the pic I drew of him. (He's sitting on a chair, talking into a mike attached to his nose, and moving a hand wired up in a glovelike 'waldo' as if working a mouth puppet.) I did name him after Brian Henson, who voiced the character.

I've been writing fic too long to worry about universes clashing. I don't write in anyone else's universe without asking them, and I don't expect others to incorporate mine into their canon--though, on the few occasions when people have asked to, I've never objected. I figure it's all AU, which you could say about any or all of the Muppet productions, really. At the end of the day, if it's an enjoyable story, it's accomplished its goal.

 

[JEANYLASER]

Awesome!

 

[Slackbot]

Thanks, JEANYLASER.

And, Count, Brian is definitely coming back into the storyline:

Earlier that morning, Gonzo, alone at the breakfast table because everyone else was asleep, had found a message in his cereal. For the first time in almost two months he was eating Kap'n Alphabet cereal, and the letters had formed a message: "R U THERE"

He stirred the cereal, then spelled out, "YES," not an easy task when working with letters floating in milk.

"LETS DO LUNCH"

"OK"

Gonzo watched the cereal for a half minute after that. Nothing else appeared, so he finished his breakfast.

Will somebody please buy Gonzo an ouija board?

Also, I was just interviewed on a podcast. It's about a book I wrote and illustrated - A Refugee in Oz - but I do slip in some Muppetness.

 

[The Count]

Hee... Mayhaps Gonzo should go ask my roomie Uncle D for that Ouija board.
And thanks for the sneak peak.

 

[TogetherAgain]

So... I was briefly escaping from all this blasted schoolwork I'm swimming in, and I did a little catch-up reading, and I know I'm WAAAAAAAY behind in reviewing, but I just HAD to say that I utterly ADORED this last chapter... and then I took a look at that picture of Billie and just could not stop cooing. SO! Thank you EVER so much for a desperately-needed reprieve from workshopping morbidly depressing--er, I mean, experimental fiction and reading the history of a certain publisher while stressing about the various papers I need to write and the presentation I need to research and... aw, crap, I went and got stressed again. If you need me, I'll be hiding under my rock and cooing at that pretty picture again.

 

[Slackbot]

TogetherAgain: Glad I could brighten up your day! Hmm, people do seem to like Billie. Maybe I should market a Lovable Companion Plush of her. I could make her out of marabou feather boas and google eyes.

This next chapter is proving to be a beast. When I edit my drafts I mark them up with red pen. Well, the current one looks like I killed a chicken in the course of a voodoo ritual on it. But I didn't. Honest. See, Camilla's right over there. And Bernice, and Ethel... where's Stephanie?

Um. Anyway, here's another teaser snippet which will tell you absolutely nothing about the story except that Robin's in it:

Robin opened the DVD case—with some effort, as, when open, it was wider than his armspan—and took out the disc. Then he stood as tall as he could, flicked out his long tongue, and neatly pressed a button on the DVD player above him. The tray opened. He held the disc up and said, "Put that in there."

"Okay." Brian said, amused by the little frog's antics.

Robin pressed the button again, and the tray slid back in. A few more snaps of his tongue got the movie started. Robin hopped up onto the couch arm and said in a low voice, "Don't tell anyone how I pressed the buttons. They'd think it's gross."

 

[TogetherAgain]

Hey, the fact that Robin's in it is enough to make me squee. See? SQUEEEEEEE! <ahem> Yes. That was adorable. And I am a happy Lisa. WHOOPIE! It's ROBIN! YAAAAAAAAAAAY!

<ahem> Have I mentioned that I'm very easy to please? That... is just adorable. Good luck wrestling with the chapter!

 

[Slackbot]

It's about time we got some answers... but before you have answers, you have to have questions.​

Muppets from Earth
Part 15: Monsters
by Kim McFarland​

*****​

It was a warm and quiet afternoon. Many of the Muppets were just getting up; after their first performance at the Muppet Theater in years they had been too keyed up to sack out at a decent hour. Now they were making up for that, getting the rest they would need before tonight's show.

Camilla and Gonzo had been awake since the morning, as they had turned in much earlier than the others. Their sleep had not been uninterrupted, and would not be for a long time to come; hatchlings took a while to learn the concept of sleeping all night. Thankfully feeding Billie was not turning out to be a problem. Camilla fed her as she would a normal chick, and Billie approved of the arrangement. In a related development, it was very fortunate indeed that some of the diapers they had bought before she had hatched, not knowing what she would be, just happened to fit her.

Now they were eating lunch in their room Camilla was pecking at a bowl of warm oatmeal, offering Billie little bits of the soft food beak-to-beak. Gonzo had brought up two sandwiches, and was eating one.

**

Earlier that morning, Gonzo, alone at the breakfast table because everyone else was asleep, had found a message in his cereal. For the first time in almost two months he was eating Kap'n Alphabet, and the letters had formed a message: "R U THERE"

He stirred the cereal, then spelled out, "YES," not an easy task when working with letters floating in milk.

"LETS DO LUNCH"

"OK"

Gonzo watched the cereal for a half minute after that. Nothing else appeared, so he finished his breakfast.

**

"Is this thing on?"

Camilla startled and looked up. Gonzo answered, "Yeah."

The sandwich that Gonzo was not eating said, "Listen, sorry about what I said before. I shouldn't've poked my nose into your business. If it helps any, I got whomped into a bulkhead for that."

"Never mind. I want to show you something," Gonzo replied.

"Er... I can't see."

"You can't?" Gonzo asked, surprised.

"Sandwiches don't have eyes. If you get something I can use as eyes then I can see."

"You need me to stick eyes on a sandwich so you can see?"

The sandwich pointed out, "You're asking why I need eyes to see through a sandwich, but not how I can talk through one in the first place?"

Gonzo thought about that for a moment. "Um... You got me there. Wait a minute."

Gonzo went down to the kitchen. He looked through the refrigerator for a moment, then grabbed a jar of pimento olives. He went back upstairs and pinned the olives to the back of the sandwich with a pair of toothpicks. "How about that?"

The olives swiveled, looking from side to side. "Yeah, that's perfect."

Gonzo took the plate off the table and said, "I'd like to introduce you to my family. Camilla, my wife."

"You two got married? Congratulations!"

Gonzo continued, "And Billie, our daughter. She hatched last night."

The sandwich was quiet for a moment. Then it said, "Could you bring me closer?"

Gonzo did. Billie stared at the moving, sound-making, edible-smelling thing. Its olives stared back at her. It said slowly, "Obviously it's possible for you two to have a kid, because I'm looking at the proof... but I haven't a clue how it's possible. People from different worlds having children—it's never happened before. Never."

"It's a first for us too," he answered.

Camilla remarked to Gonzo, This isn't the first time someone has accused you of doing the impossible.

"No kidding," he answered. Billie, having evaluated the situation to her satisfaction, began nibbling the bread.

"Hmm... wait, if this was one of the planets we seeded long ago, then we might be related to this world's life," the sandwich said excitedly. "That has to be it!"

"Seeded? What?"

The sandwich explained, "Millions of zotons ago, one of our ships must have found this planet, terraformed it so plants and animals could live here, then dropped off some flora and fauna and left it alone to establish itself. We do that when we find empty planets that look like they have potential. It must have been tens of millions of zotons ago. But the chemical basis would be the same, it'd still use DNA, so there's a chance we'd be compatible. Er, Gonzo, would you mind if I came down there to see her for myself?"

"Yeah, that'd be fine. Are you going to come down to Cape Doom again?"

"No, it'll just be me on a small lander, so I can come straight to your place if that's okay. The mother ship is scooping Jupiter's atmosphere for fuel and elements. I'm in the satellite we put in orbit around Earth. Since it's in geosynchronous orbit, I can be down in a jiffy. Is that all right?"

"You're living in the same place, right?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Okay, see you." The sandwich stopped talking, making it easier for Billie to eat.

**

Gonzo, Camilla, and Billie were downstairs. Gonzo, holding Billie in his arms, was waiting for the sound of a landing spaceship. He hoped it wouldn't cause too much pandemonium. The publicity surrounding his lawsuit had not yet died down, and another alien contact would make it flare up worse than ever. More than half the Muppets had already gone to the theater to get a headstart on setup, so at least the house was relatively quiet.

For the moment, Billie was the center of attention. Robin hopped up onto the couch and regarded Billie wonderingly. "Finally, there's somebody smaller than me!"

Bean Bunny remarked, "And almost as cute as I am! I bet I could teach her to be perfectly adorable in no time."

Camilla clucked to Gonzo, He's not joking, is he?

Gonzo replied, "I don't think so."

Most of the Muppets reacted enthusiastically to the new baby in their midst. Billie graciously allowed others to hold her, cuddle her, and babble nonsense at her. Sam the Eagle had managed a stiff nod, which for him was a friendly gesture. There had been a tense moment when Animal had approached and stared at her, then said "Green bunny?"

"She's a baby," Gonzo replied uneasily.

Animal thought hard, then reached a conclusion. "Green baby bunny!" He patted Billie on the head with a flattened hand, then shambled off. Gonzo and Camilla sighed with relief. Animal liked bunny rabbits, and it was much safer to have Animal like you than otherwise.

In the kitchen, the Swedish Chef was doing his thing, which currently involved yogurt, fruit, shirataki noodles, and agar-agar, and the Rizzo and his kin were making sure that nothing violated the five-second rule. The Chef heard a knock at the door and looked over his shoulder at the door to the back yard. "Vem är det?"

No answer. The Chef wiped his hands and opened the back door, revealing a short, furred creature wearing a dark suit and sunglasses. The disguise did nothing to conceal a nose like a U-bend. "Åh, Gönscho."

"Er, I'm looking for Gonzo. Am I at the right place?"

"Åh, ja, ja, ist in der rœum der lëëvĭng." He beckoned the alien in.

"The invasion has started," Rizzo said to himself, and followed them.

**

Gonzo was startled when he saw one of his own kind dressed like a Man in Black wander into the living room. "Hi," the alien said with a self-conscious finger-wave, then took off his glasses and stuck them in an inner jacket pocket. "Sorry I'm late. It was tricky, bringing the lander down without being noticed."

Robin exclaimed, "Did you really come from outer space?"

Brian answered, "Low orbit, close enough. Don't worry, I didn't bring a zap gun."

"Wow! I've never met a real alien before."

"I'm an alien," Gonzo reminded Robin.

"Nah, you're Gonzo," Robin told him.

Camilla looked at Brian, then at Gonzo, and said, He looks just like you!

Gonzo didn't think so—Brian was purple, not blue, with a darker nose and a different expression, but then Gonzo still had a hard time telling chickens apart, so he had no room to speak. He said, "Uh, hi."

"I set the lander down in the back yard. Stealthed it when I came in so people only saw a big bird. I thought it'd be better to be quiet this time around," Brian explained.

Rizzo remarked, "So the jacuzzi attracted aliens after all. Who'd'a thought?"

"Huh?" Gonzo said.

"Oh, nuttin'." Rizzo scurried back to the kitchen.

Brian said, "Um, Gonzo—again, sorry for what I said. If I say something stupid, just tell me to shut up and I will, okay?"

"It's okay. I guess I overreacted too," Gonzo admitted.

"Anyhow, thanks for letting me come down. I've been manning that satellite by myself since I screwed up. It hasn't been boring, since I was monitoring broadcasts and such, but I was beginning to forget what other people looked like. Say, do you remember me?"

Gonzo shook his head. "No. Were you on stage at Cape Doom?"

"Me? No. I can't sing," Brian said with a sheepish grin. "I did help come up with the act, though. Hope you liked it."

"Yeah But now people are saying it was a hoax. Aliens wouldn't really land, sing a funk song, then take off again. When I think about it, I don't understand it myself."

Brian stuck his hands in his pockets. "We came down for you, and we didn't plan to stay long. This world hasn't been officially contacted—it's not ready yet—and most people get scared of weird creatures from other planets. A landing always attracts a crowd, and then people get scared. Things could turn bad really quick if just one native panics."

Gonzo thought back to the alien invasion movies he'd seen over the years. The movies were fiction, but their message was clear: aliens are powerful and scary. "Yeah."

"So it's my job to keep that from happening. I learn about other worlds' cultures from their broadcasts, figure out what the people are like and how to talk to them without freaking them out. It was tricky finding you, let me tell you."

"What about the sandwich? And the cereal?" Gonzo asked.

Brian said sheepishly, "That was just me improvising. A voice coming out of nowhere is scary, but talking food is harmless and silly. Anyway, back to the song. We knew we'd attract a crowd no matter where we landed. So, we wanted to keep from looking like monsters from space. Present ourselves in a way that would be familiar to the natives so we wouldn't scare them. You helped with that, by the way. They already know you." He smiled. "So we sang a song from this world about how happy we were to find our lost kin to show them that this wasn't an invasion, it was a family reunion."

"Whoa. I never thought about it that way," Gonzo said, impressed. "That's pretty cool."

"It's my job," Brian said, pleased. "It has its moments. Um, could I see Billie?"

"Sure." Gonzo handed the baby to Brian.

Brian held her carefully, supporting her head with one hand. He saw unmistakable characteristics of his race, and traits from her mother, mixed pretty evenly. Her arms looked like wings, but under the feathers were three-fingered hands. She was fluffier than those of his own kind, and much smaller, but perfectly formed and healthy-looking. She was newly hatched? She looked much older—but, looking at her mother, perhaps their chicks are more developed at hatching than ours, he thought. "She's amazing," he said softly.

Gonzo said, "Yeah. It's still sinking in that she's real. The diapers, though—those are definitely real." And, since Camilla didn't have hands, the honor of changing them went to Gonzo.

"My sympathies," Brian said. He gave Billie back to Gonzo, then said, "Um, could I take some tissue samples? Those can tell us how long ago our species diverged, give us an idea how long ago this planet was seeded."

Camilla clucked worriedly. Gonzo asked, "What kind of samples?"

"Just feather clippings," Brian assured them. "I'm no doctor. I wouldn't dare to take anything else."

"Okay," Gonzo said.

"Thanks." Brian took a device that looked like pencil case with a screen out of a jacket pocket. From one end he removed a small pair of scissors with a curved blade. Gonzo watched apprehensively as Brian lifted one of Billie's arms, then clipped a small amount of fluff from beneath it, where the loss would not be noticeable. Billie did not show any sign that she considered the procedure objectionable. The feathers fell into a small, drawerlike compartment of his device. He closed it and tapped the screen for a few moments, entering information, then said, "Camilla, may I?"

The hen clucked—Gonzo said, "Wait a minute."—then preened herself. After a moment she held a feather, which had come loose, in her beak.

Brian accepted it, said "Thank you," and put it in the device. Then he told Gonzo, "I'll need a few feathers from you too."

"What feathers?"

"All over you, what do you think?"

Puzzled, Gonzo said, "I don't have feathers, I have fur."

Brian paused, then said, "You're serious? Gonzo, what we have looks like fur, but it's feathers. One stem, many filaments. If you looked at one of our feathers under a magnifying glass it'd look like a little brush."

"Oh. Does that mean I'm a bird?" Gonzo asked hopefully as Brian clipped a small sample from his wrist and put it in the device.

"No, but I think we're related to them," Brian answered.

"Cool," Gonzo said quietly.

Camilla clucked, You're almost a chicken after all.

Gonzo smiled at her. "You say the sweetest things."

Brian asked, "Has there been much study on this world's past? Fossils especially?"

"Sure," Gonzo said.

"How far back?"

Gonzo shrugged. "I don't know. Millions of years."

Robin hopped off the couch. Brian tapped on the device for a few minutes, then stared. He tapped on it some more, and came up with the same result. Gonzo asked, "What is it?"

"Just converting years to zotons. It's hard to think in units you're not used to." He put the device back in his pocket. "Where could I find about the fossil record?"

Gonzo answered, "There's always the internet. It's not the most reliable source, but it's a good place to start."

"All right. Is there somewhere I can access it here?"

"Yeah. Come with me." Camilla clucked to Gonzo and stood, and Gonzo put Billie—who had fallen asleep again—under her. She settled down to keep her baby warm.

Gonzo led Brian down into the basement, where Muppet Labs was set up. There, behind a blast shield, was a laptop, already on. Gonzo said, "It's okay to use this one. Bunsen put it by the door so people can use it without going through the lab itself. I think he wants to attract visitors. He likes to show them his inventions so he can get their reactions. Usually it's 'Yikes'." He called up a browser and searched for "fossil record", then selected a likely-looking entry. "Will that help?"

"Yeah, lots," Brian said. Gonzo got up, and Brian sat down and began reading. It took him a while to go through the whole article, as it used unfamiliar technology and touched on all kinds of fossils, from microbes to plants to aquatic and terrestrial life, and the different varieties of fossils. When he finished he said in a puzzled tone, "We've only been in space for 60 or 70 million zotons, and this says the fossil record goes back billions of years. Either this is way off or I misplaced a decimal point. Um, is there anything about animal fossils?"

"Sure. Click on that word there." He pointed at the word "dinosaurs," which appeared in the article's summary.

Brian did, and read article through. Then he read it again. Quietly he asked Gonzo, "How accurate is this?"

"I don't know," Gonzo replied. "I'm not an expert."

Brian stared at the images. Then he shook his head and said, "This is out of my field. I'll have to report back on this."

**

When they came back up from the basement Robin was once again perched on the couch arm. He held out a DVD case and said, "If you're interested in dinosaurs, watch this."

Brian took the case and looked at it. Its cover showed the upper part of a dinosaur skeleton. "What is this?"

"It's a really neat movie about dinosaurs. It's kinda scary, but I'm not afraid," the little frog said.

Gonzo told Brian, "It's not research, just a movie. Science fiction."

Brian's task was to learn about alien cultures, and although this would be fiction, it would tell him a lot about how these long-ago creatures were perceived by the people of this world. And, he was naturally curious. In his position that was not a flaw; it was a job requirement. "I'd like to see it."

Camilla clucked to Gonzo. The movie was too loud and would frighten Billie; she was going to go to their room. He said, "Sure, let me carry her."

While they were taking Billie upstairs Robin opened the DVD case—with some effort, as, when open, it was wider than his armspan—and took out the disc. Then he stood as tall as he could, flicked out his long tongue, and neatly pressed a button on the DVD player above himself. The tray opened. He held the disc up and said, "Put that in there."

"Okay." Brian said, amused by the little frog's antics.

Robin pressed the button again, and the tray slid back in. A few more snaps of his tongue got the movie started. Robin hopped up onto the couch arm and said in a low voice, "Don't tell anyone how I pressed the buttons. They'd think it's gross."

"I promise," Brian said with a grin.

**

When Gonzo came back downstairs his hands were damp. Billie had needed another diaper change, and when you are still on the learning curve and your hands are furry—or feathery—you wash them well.

The three watched the movie. Robin didn't find it as scary as most would expect. If you hung around with Animal and Sweetums, fictional dinosaurs didn't seem very frightening.

Brian, on the other hand, went pale when the predatory dinosaurs appeared onscreen. By the end of the film he was as taut as a violin string. Gonzo noticed and said, "Hey, you all right?"

Brian closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then said in a tight voice. "When was that movie made?"

"About fifteen years ago. Why?"

"Is it based on fact? The way the reptiles were portrayed, not the way they were created."

"The dinosaurs? I guess. I don't know. Why? What's the matter?"

Brian opened his eyes again. "It's... look, I don't know enough to talk about it. I'm not a scientist, I'm a guy who chats with aliens. I need to bring the experts in on this."

"Okay. But we're all going to have to go to the theater in a bit. We have another show tonight."

"That's fine. Um, could I use that computer again? I think I understand how the search works."

"Are you all right? You look like you saw a ghost." Robin asked, concerned.

Brian forced a smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. That was kind of scary, but it may have helped me a whole lot. Thanks for showing it to me."

"You're welcome."

Brian stood. He told Gonzo, "Sorry to be cryptic, but I've sworn off opening my mouth before I'm sure what I'm talking about. I'll tell you when I find out if I'm right or wrong. Either way, it's ancient history."

"All right."

**

Brian went back down to the lab. The browser window was still open. He searched for the movie title, and found numerous entries describing and critiquing it. He took out his device and began entering notes. Then he looked up the various species of dinosaurs that appeared in the film, and took notes on them too. He spent the next few hours following various information paths.

When he looked up a few hours later he realized that he was exhausted. He got up and returned to landing vehicle. It was dark outside, with stars glittering overhead. Looking at them calmed him somewhat.

The lander was small, with just enough space inside for a seat and a control panel. He took out the device containing the feather samples and slid it into a slot so the lander's computer could try to make sense of what he had gathered, then leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

His heart was pounding from adrenaline overload. The movie had reached back into his brain, past his conscious mind and into nightmares millions of zotons old. In the safety of the lander he would eventually be able to relax, but he doubted he would sleep well until he learned whether his suspicions were on the mark or not.

When he felt he could organize his thoughts well enough, he began on a report for the satellite to relay to his mother ship.

*****

All characters except Brian and Billie are copyright © The Muppets Studio, LLC. and are used without permission but with much respect and affection. Billie and Brian are copyright © Kim McFarland. This story is copyright © Kim McFarland (negaduck9@aol.com). Permission is given by the author to copy it for personal use only.

 

[Lil0Vampy]

*dances* Yaaaay! Awesome chappy, my friend! X3

 

[Slackbot]

Lil0Vampy: thanks, glad you liked it.

I'm wondering if anyone has any questions they'd like to ask Brian. Not that I have a specific reason for that...