The Televisions Of Babel - A Fantastic Four Fanfic

Through the ominous realms of space The Fantasti-Car soared. Finally it reached it's destination - the blue area of the moon. Reed leapt out of The Fantasti-car and rushed towards The Watcher's home.

Bursting in through his door, he found The Watcher sitting on his sofa, his head in his hands.

Reed, breathless, exclaimed "Watcher. What's the matter. When you appeared to me on Earth you said it was a matter of the utmost importance, a tragedy the like of which man had never known, a cosmic disturbance which made other cosmic disturbances look merely like disturbances."

The Watcher raised his head from his hands, his face wearing a tortured expression.

"My television. There's interference on the picture," he said, his voice filled with self-pity.

"That's all?" sighed a relieved Reed Richards.

The Watcher couldn't believe what he was hearing. "THAT'S ALL!" he growled. "Men call me The Watcher. All that I can do is watch (except for those rare but numerous occasions when I am forced to interfere in the ways of man). This is more than just a simple television. Its channels show me all of the Universe, all of the time. If my television doesn't work, then neither can I. If you're truly Mister Fantastic then live up to your name and fix it."

"OK, no problem, I'm Reed Richards, a simple television shouldn't be a problem," he said condescendingly. Speaking condescendingly had never been a problem for Reed. "Have you got any other electrical items that could be affecting it?"

The Watcher, calming down slightly, couldn't help but smile. He was about to show Reed Richards his television collection.

"Over here," said The Watcher, beckoning, and opened the small door that led to the dimensional gateway that led to his television room.

Reed followed The Watcher through his door and his dimensional gateway and into his labyrinthine television room. As far as his eye could see there were huge televisions, all with frozen pictures just showing static.

"I guess these are your old televisions?" surmised Reed.

"No," laughed The Watcher.

"But they're broken," reasoned Reed.

"Oh, no, no, no," laughed The Watcher.

"Huh, I don't get it," said Reed for the first time that he could remember.

The Watcher explained, slowly, as if to a child, "These televisions are black and white (after all, they have been around for eons). They are however high definition. Ten thousand by ten thousand pixels to be exact. Now all the televisions are different. In fact they contain all of the 'two to the power 100 million" possible pixel combinations. Together in their entirety these televisions show everything that was, everything that ever will be, everything that might have been, and everything that never was. Cool, huh?"

The Watcher then shrugged. "Mostly however they just show static."

Attempting to reassert his intellectuality, Reed observed, "It's just a televisual equivalent of the books in the Library of Babel short story by Jorge Luis Borges."

"I've been around eons. I think you'll find that I was first," countered The Watcher.

"I'm surprised you don't just use a near-infinite number of monkeys and a near-infinite number of typewriters to come up with all the possible events that may happen in the universe."

The Watcher stayed silent. He couldn't let Reed find out about Project: Fan Fiction.

"I'd be surprised if it was any of these televisions causing the interference, dimensional gateways usually come with interference dampeners as standard. However, I'll just check using what a layman like yourself would call a gizmo," said Reed patronizingly.

Reed's gizmo started emitting a complex scale of beeping.

For hours they followed where the gizmo led. At one point Reed noticed a statue of The Watcher. In front of the statue was a television with a black screen.

"Nice statue of you there, Watcher. I guess that's a screen with all the pixels set," smiled Reed. Anybody else would have just assumed that the television was switched off, but he wasn't going to fall into that trap.

"No, it's switched off. It used to show a picture of Medusa," replied The Watcher.

"The inhuman Medusa?" asked Reed, confused.

"No, the original Medusa. As for the statue - she was my predecessor," replied The Watcher.

They continued following the gizmo for several more hours. Eventually it led them to a television displaying static. Reed examined the television, wrote down some equations, double-checked the gizmo's calibrations, and then, taking out some chalk, drew a cross on the side of the television.

"Hitting it there should do the trick." he said, and sure enough it did. The television was fixed, the gizmo stopped beeping, and the television continued to show static (static static to be precise).

"I think we're lost," said The Watcher.

"You, too?" said Reed.

The Watcher smiled. Richards had fallen into his carefully laid trap. "It's pronounced Uatu." he said, laughing inwardly. This was The Watcher's favorite trick to play on people. Living on the moon for eons on his own had seriously affected his sense of humor. Even now he was planning to ask Reed sometime in the future which group Bono was the lead singer for.

"Seriously, though," said The Watcher, "I've got a map of this place."

"That's a relief," said Reed. "Where is it?"

"It's on one of these screens somewhere," replied The Watcher. This was his second favorite trick.

Days later a bearded Reed and a still hairless Watcher emerged from the dimensional gateway. The Watcher's television was still suffering from interference. After a long examination of the television's inner workings Reed turned to the watcher.

"I can't find anything wrong with it. It must be the antenna. Where is it?"

The Watcher was hesitant. "Well, you must understand that I need to see all of the universe, and the universe is big, really big."

"Yes?" replied Reed, tapping his foot.

"And to see all of the universe I need my antenna to be kind of ... mobile" added The Watcher.

"So where's your antenna?" shouted an exasperated flustered Reed Richards, attempting to pull his stretchy hair out.

Sheepishly, The Watcher revealed, "Galactus wears it as a helmet."

THE END