The Gift of the Mad Guys
by: mst3k_100 (Click here for more MST3K fics)

Standardized Disclaimer: MST3K and all characters therein belong to Best Brains, Inc. This story is not written for profit.

---

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all the money he had in the world. Most of it was in laundry quarters. Since they had lost their funding from Gizmonics Institute, times were tough. They managed to get by on not very much. Wants were small in Deep 13. Doctor Forrester didn't care about money -- wrapped up as he was in the pursuit world domination. Clayton Forrester lived in an intellectual world all his own.

TV's Frank, on the other hand, spent more than he could afford. He entertained a lot. He was ashamed to tell his friends of his reduced circumstances; even more ashamed to ask for help. It didn't befit mad scientists to ask for handouts. Frank felt it was important to keep up appearances. Things would change. They had to. Someday.

And here it was Christmas Eve. Frank had no present to give Dr. F. Never mind that Christmas was all about sloppy sentimentality, and squeaky-clean do-goodery, and that mad scientists didn't exchange presents. This was Dr. F. Boss and beloved mentor; and the friend who hadn't killed him in nearly five months. Frank had spent all his cash on the holiday dinner party. This was all that was left: one dollar and eighty-seven cents, and him with a towering hamper of smelly lab coats.

Therefore, Frank did what any enterprising sidekick might do. He assessed what he could sell to purchase a suitable present, standing in front of the dim, fly-specked mirror in his tiny, subterranean bedroom, he determined there was only one thing of value he possessed.

Frank went topside. Nervous, squinting like a mole in the unaccustomed sunlight, thin and winter-watery as it was. He walked into the Gizmonics Institute company town. The workers in their bright, candy-colored jumpsuits shuffled off to their wretched jobs in gigantic, Orwellian factories churning out all manner of superficially useful items, like Bowflexes and pasta pots with drainers in their lids. Everyone walked with their heads down, oblivious to the glittering displays of terrifying, loudly tinkling and chortling snowmen and Santa Claus automata in every shop window, surrounded by fake snow and shotgun blasts of blinking lights.

Frank, who had spent way too long underground lately, felt like a dazed vacationer who had just driven in from the desert and been smacked in the face by the Las Vegas strip. Timidly, he ventured into a small shop with a display of wig heads ranked in rows in the window, which would have made an executioner during the French Revolution very proud indeed. Inside, the shop was narrow and dingy; its proprietor likewise narrow and dingy, as if made to fit.

"Will you buy my hair?" Frank asked.

"I buy hair," replied the proprietor. "Let's have a look at you."

Frank sat in the single squeaky folding chair, and pulled off the green cap his mother had knitted for him.

The salon proprietor looked him over. From the proud spit curl coiled on Frank's forehead like the cobra on a pharaoh's headdress... to the nape of his neck, where the nest of silver locks grew the thickest and waviest. King Solomon or Santa Claus himself did not have more beautiful hair. And the proprietor, dazzled, blinded and stunned by the sweeping, sterling manly beauty of Frank's hair, and riding a sugary tide of spiked eggnog, declared in a moment of Christmas madness,

"Five hundred dollars!"

"Done," Frank said.

The vorpal shears went snicker-snack.

Cash in hand, and knit cap pulled tightly down over his bare head, the wind biting his naked pink scalp through the tiny gaps between stitches, Frank rushed to The Sharper Image on the corner, through a crowd of last minute shoppers, piled with parcels and packed onto the slippery sidewalks like cattle bumping dumbly down the chute to the abattoir.

Dr. Forrester slept with the Sharper Image Holiday Catalog under his pillow. One page was creased and dog-eared and much-rumpled. It advertised The Protectron 3500. The most gloriously evil of all pocket protectors. It came equipped with a mobile phone, and a GPS system, and an MP3 player, and slots for ten pens or pencils, all warranteed not to leak or fall out. The pocket protector was hand-crafted from the most exquisitely-tooled Venetian lambskin, double-dyed a deeply villainous shade of black. The unholy of unholies of all Christmas gifts. Frank hurried back to Deep 13 through the gathering dark and a spattering icy rain, visions of Dr. Forrester dancing in his head. Oh, how The Protrectron 3500 would exquisitely grace his boss's lime-green lab coat, making him the envy of all at the next Mad Scientists' Convention. The appearance of success, Frank firmly believed, was the herald of success.

Dr. Forrester was home. He'd come in a few moments before, and was unloading wet-speckled grocery bags of Ramen noodles onto the kitchen counter, looking tired but exultant in his damp raincoat. He pulled off his raincoat, and shook it out, hanging it on the hook over the door. His Miskatonic University sweatshirt was likewise a little wet around the cuffs and the collar. "Twelve for a dollar!" he exclaimed.

Then he looked at Frank -- really looked at him -- a curious expression spreading over his features, as Frank shyly pulled off his hat and shrugged himself out of his own coat.

"What have you done?" Dr. F. said. "You look like Tor Johnson."

"I... ah..." Frank blushed. "I sold my hair." He clutched the Sharper Image bag to his chest. "To buy you a Christmas present."

Dr. F. raised one eyebrow, then the other, sardonically. "A. Christmas. Present."

"Clayton..." Frank thrust out the bag, overwhelmed with excitement. "Merry Christmas!"

Dr. F. opened the bag and peered in. His moustache twitched. He frowned. "Why, Frank." He pulled The Protectron 3500 from the bag, and turned it over between his hands, lovingly. "Thank you!" Then he glanced up, ruefully. "I bought you a present, too."

Frank gasped.

From the bag of Ramen noodles, Dr. Forrester pulled out a carved ivory case. Before Frank opened it, he knew what was in it. The fabulous hairbrush made of baby seal bone, the bristles pulled one by one from the fur of seventy-three equally endangered species, slaughtered just to produce this one perfect brush, their carcasses then thrown out the back door to be picked up the following Wednesday with the trash. Inside the box was a Certificate of Authenticity that said so. TV's Frank had coveted this brush from the moment he first beheld it in the window of Countess Bathory's Bath and Beauty Emporium of Evil, in the outdoor shopping court between the Starbucks and the Hallmark Store. He looked up, his eyes sparkling.

"Clayton... how ever did you afford it?"

"Well, I sold my lab coat."

"NO!"

"And the Satellite of Love. To Japanese investors."

"Evil investors, I hope?"

"Oh, definitely. Mr. Okioni mentioned something about building an orbital weapons platform, and firing Totoro and Taro Panda, and the entire Cheese Family straight into the sun. My Japanese is a little rusty. There's a little money left over. We could go to the holiday buffet at Sizzler."

"But..." Frank was overcome by despair and sweeping glee and guilt and nausea.

"And then I'll retire to the Caribbean! HA! Are you kidding me? That hunk of metal is worth billions!"

"But your work!"

"I can start again," Dr. Forrester replied briskly. "I really should, you know. Our current subjects were both contaminated. Completely useless. I was thinking too big. I need to reprioritize." He paced across the underground lab to a bank of equipment. "Work on a smaller scale. With somebody who doesn't know how to build little robot friends to keep their sanity --" He turned to face Frank, caressing The Protectron 3500. "Somebody, for example... like you."

Frank blanched, and replied hurriedly, "But, Clay. I'm already mad."

"True, true." Dr. F rubbed his moustache, then walked to a crash cart full of medical instruments, and began to fill a syringe full of ammonia. Wistfully, he sighed, "Ah, Frank..."

"Yes, Dr. F?"

"You've sold your hair. Oh, the irony."

"It'll grow back!" Frank exclaimed. "My hair grows so fast!"

"Well, that's immaterial -- since now I'm going to have to kill you."

Frank's shoulders slumped. "Yes, doctor." Then he brightened again. "It doesn't really matter," he added. "Since this is the best Christmas ever!"

Dr. F. lifted the syringe and squirted a little ammonia out of the end, making sure there was no air trapped inside. He smirked. "It will be," he replied. "In just a minute or two..."

The End