Greg smiled like a kid with a prank, turning on his webcam and pointing it at the kitchen, where he had everything quietly set out.

  "Good Magical Morning there, turds and taints, it's your uncle Greg about to fling some friggin food up in your face-holes. It's 6AM, everyone is asleep, and yall know the G-man doesn’t sleep, so let's keep sane and busy with another episode of Cooking with Greg. How bout we wake the team with a little breakfast bash. If it turns out delicious then everyone's in a good mood and I'll eat most of it anyway so that makes me happy. If it sucks, then I got to wake up Izzy for nothing and she'll hate it, and that makes me happy. I'm a simple man." he shrugged humbly. "Now you all know I'm kind of the best at a lot of things, cooking isn't one of them, so this is a total gamble, but I'm incredibly bored and this lets me play with dead things and fire, so it's fun. Today's breakfast will be a recipe from my son, the big time culinary wizard extraordinaire. We're gonna change it up because I don’t have the majority of the ingredients available and it's more fun to just wing it. So eggs, obviously. It's not breakfast without eggs. We don’t have eggs in the traditional sense. We have powdered eggs and you just add water. Water is boring so we're gonna substitute straight melted butter." he said warming the butter in a cup in his hand and then pouring it into the bowl and mixing vigorously.

  "Now I like a little hot sauce in my eggs. Frankly, I put this shit on everything. I believe buffalo wing sauce is just hot sauce and butter so this is gonna be "buffalo eggs" apparently. And there we go." he said pouring a generous amount in the bowl. "Either this will set up and be buffalo style eggs or it will stay runny and we just made a zesty hollandaise sauce. Should be good either way. Cooking is all about naming shit something fancier. Undercooked cow, horrible. Steak tar-tar, gourmet. Diseased bird liver? No…foie gras? Mayo is gross, but a good aioli, that's fancy. So while that is resting we start on the other part of any good breakfast…pork. Some people like bacon, some like ham, and some even do pork chops. Naturally I'm doing all of that, but since the pork chops came out of my own budget, I'm only doing 2 of them and I get to eat both. Isn't cooking fun?" he smiled. Greg liberally salted and peppered the big bag of meat and grabbed a skillet.

  "Now your pros will say to get the pan screaming hot, but I hate that term because to me it means as hot as you can get, and last time I melted an iron skillet everyone got super pissy, so let's just oven this bitch at about 400, so you at home have an actual damn number and not some variable bullshit to wildly guess at. That's why you learn your math, kids. This is an educational show. So you will need gloves or something, obviously I'm not using them so just use your brain and if you're too dumb to know a 400 degree skillet is hot, then you are too far stupid to be cooking and just microwave a pita pocket or something. So for the pork, we want a little fat and I find the best breakfast fat of all is just pure duck fat. It's greasy and gamey and rank and it's delicious so getcha a big ol scoop of that and yep, now it's on fire." he said gently blowing on it to cool it off. Duffy staggered into the kitchen.

  "Oh come on, seriously?" she sighed dramatically. "Some of us need food to survive, and sleep is good too. Why do you insist on burning all our food and waking us up with this dumb food blog?"

  "Ladies and douchebags…the infamous Duffy LaCroix. Captain of the SS buzzkill and Queen bee of the kitchen." he yawned.

  "Greg, it’s not that we don’t like you…we.. We don’t. Literally nobody wants you here in the kitchen, you're dangerous, but aside from that we also hate your cooking. So it's really bad and you need to stop." she explained.

  "For your information I'm cooking for myself with my own supplies and I was planning on sharing if anyone wanted a nice hearty breakfast, but you ruined the surprise and now I'm inclined to not share with you." he said with a look of fake sadness.

  "Oh no, what ever will I do without a huge alien serving me undercooked, yet also burnt pork, in what may actually be liquid essence of barn. Alas, I may have to use my own culinary degree, the humanity." she said with sarcasm. Marley approached, rubbing his eyes and yawning a big bunny yawn: the adorable kind with the fat little cheeks.

  "You heating up dead things in pans of liquefied dead things again, bro?"

  "Yep. Made you a vegetarian alternative too." Greg said tapping a small plate.

  "You do grasp what vegetarian means, right? It's not just anything that isn't a steak, it’s nothing from a dead animal; they got these things called vegetables."

  "Really? Like crispy potato hash with mushrooms and caramelized onions?" he asked, dramatically dusting it with salt.

  "Not gonna lie, this looks kinda good. Little overcooked." he said trying it "Oh, wow. This is almost as good as Duffy's. How'd you get it so…hearty?"

  "Lots and lots of butter." he nodded. Marley silently rolled it from his mouth back to the plate.

  "And we're back to cow fat. This is why we have trust issues, Greg."

  "It's not dead cow. You milk live cows. Technically this is printed milk. It's not like you have to murder the cow, then jam a trocar into a cow's milk organ and extract the essence as it decays. It's life giving and full of nutrition. It's good for you." Greg insisted. "Plus there's a little booze in there."

  "It's viscous juice from an alien's tit, just thickened and concentrated through sifting and abuse. What is wrong with you people?" He complained as Lawg walked by and grabbed the fork, snagging a bite of half fresh and half chewed bunny backwash hash, as Marley froze mid-warning, too late, with a look of disgust. He chewed and nodded in approval.

  "Good hash. Little overdone…got a creaminess I don’t know if I like. Na, it's fine." he said confiscating the plate without a clue. Everyone else grimaced silently. He opened the fridge and grabbed his protein daiquiri and headed to the den for some TV.

  "Good grief, Greg." said Izzy, shuffling to the kitchen. "Again with the blog?"

  "You don’t want me getting bored, this is better. Grande Iced Latte with an extra espresso… everything bagel, cream cheese." he said handing her a plate.

  "That's…oddly accurate." she said with skepticism.

  "Your older yourself got this almost every morning. I remember because I care."

  "Not sure if flattered or creeped out." she said. "This better not be glue or arsenic."

  "Before you decide…try this." he said, presenting her with a bite of pork. She chewed, paused and looked sad.

  "Duck fat?" she asked.

  "Awesome, right?" he grinned.

  "Those faulty brain implants really did affect your mind, on a deeply subconscious level. Sometimes I pity you." She said considering spitting it out.

  "Good, then none of you swine will be hogging my pork." he said getting attention by tapping his fork on the pan. "And I have 3 more pounds of pork in the fridge and it's all marinated in duck fat, just so you know." Greg yelled.

  "Damnit!" yelled a very light and faint Lawg voice from the den.

  "This is bad, guys." Marley said in the den-huddle while Greg practiced meat flipping in a skillet.

  "I agree. He almost looks happy." Duffy nodded.

  "Why is happy Greg a bad thing?" asked huddled Izzy.

  "Because he's only happy when things are blowing up or someone is getting decapitated. It's alarmingly unnatural. I think he's either being mind-controlled or he's on the verge of snapping from boredom."

  "Jenny is gone. Maybe he's just settling in." said Lawg. There was a loud ping from the kitchen as Greg angrily shattered a cast iron pan over his knee.

  "Son-of-a-bastard bitch merry-go-round, cheap-ass pans!" he shouted. "Tiny cardboard freaking kitchen in a tinfoil craphouse of a ship, drifting in space at the speed of lukewarm dripping asphalt!" he bellowed.

  "Yea, we need to get him some fresh air." Izzy sighed.

  "He needs to get laid before we all die." Lawg said, slowly looking at Izzy.

  "Really?" she asked.

  "Not a lot of big blue bitches around here, the only ones I can call up, are all priests. Even fewer that are nuclear and immortal." he hinted. "He'd crush Duffy, and we like her food and the fixing the shuttles and stuff." Lawg finished.

  "Lawg, I will drown you in your own hot tub." she said with serenity to her smile.

  "Or not, I'm just brainstorming." he diverted.

  "I'm good, guys!" Greg hollered distantly with a teeth-gnashed smile "Paprika was right here in the other shelf the whole time. No big deal. Whacky fun." he chuckled, stomping off to get a shower. Duffy shook her head with empathy.

  "I can understand why. He's huge, and this ship is designed for humanoids under 6 feet. Everything is super breakable to him and cramped. He's like that superhero that wins every fight with a single punch, always bored because nothing is a challenge and every time a bigger enemy comes along he just hits him one time and explodes them…the hell was that superhero's name?" Duffy pondered.

  "The man who always wins with one punch?" asked Lawg.

  "Yea, what was his name?" she repeated.

  "Superman?' asked Lawg.

  "Yea that's it. Guy was way overpowered, story got boring."

  "He just needs a purpose in life." Izzy sighed, "I'll got talk to him, alone." she said getting up. Lawg stared silently at Marley and Duffy until she was out of earshot.

  "You guys do realize they're banging, right?" he asked. Marley sighed, throwing up his little stubby bunny arms in disappointment.

  "You always assume everyone is banging. You assumed me and Uka were banging and there was nothing weird between us, just paranoia." he insisted. "You assumed the robot we had was nailing Duffy because they both liked to tinker on engines and hung out together. He didn’t even have dangly-doo bobs."

  "Okay but this time I'm right. I can feel it…I can also smell it and it smells like burning iridium, either that or the Omnifuel we got last week was bad again." Lawg squinted.

  "Lawg, you get one vague piece of circumstantial evidence and jump right to sex, every time. Not everyone is like you and just has sex on the brain constantly." Marley said with a look of shame. Greg silently walked past the group, bare-naked and eyes glowing. They all froze as he strolled to the fridge, grabbed a sport's drink. He chugged about half the gallon and then poured the rest on his face as it steamed off and he walked back to the airlock for the other ship.

  "Dude, they're totally banging." Marley whispered excitedly to Duffy.

  "Greg is always naked, maybe he's back there working out and got thirsty." she defended.

  "Hey what happened to the chocolate syrup?" asked Greg.

  "I used it on pancakes, remember?" Duffy reminded.

  "Damn, alright never mind." he said, grabbing a ping-pong paddle, and shutting the door.

  "Okay fine, they're banging." Duffy admitted with a dramatic eye roll. "It's fine, they're adults of the same species and Greg needs to de-stress. How dangerous could Osirian sex actually be?" she shrugged. The lights went out as the ship shuttered to the left and the red emergency fire lights came on. Alarms and sirens went off.

  "Decompression warning." said the computer voice calmly. The Ship screamed like an incoming missile as the rear half's windows bellowed flames and hemorrhaged oxygen. The string of ships violently tumbled towards the gravitational pull of the nearby moon as the crew desperately dove into, and then closed, the lids on their emergency crates.

  “This is how we die!” Hollered Duffy.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "I knew sex would kill me, just assumed I'd be in it." Lawg screamed.

  Greg and Izzy sat on a yellow couch as the therapist, (a 5 foot tall green reptilian) blinked nervously. Izzy grinned cheesily and overly proper, as she crossed her legs and folded her hands like a southern bell.

  "So where are you from?" lizard asked pleasantly. Izzy smiled politely.

  "Different Universe. We call it universe A4. He's originally from A1 or A2, but he moved to A4 after his home burned down."

  "Oh you had a house fire?" asked the reptilian.

  "Oh no, like…the whole planet." Greg corrected. She chuckled and then abruptly went serious realizing he wasn’t joking.

  "Okay then. How does that make you feel?" she asked.

  "It was a while back so I'm over it." Greg yawned.

  "Well, that's good. I don’t think I got the papers for your file. Are you two a married couple?" she asked.

  "Oh no, definitely not." Greg scoffed.

  "I'm single, but kinda married to his son, actually. My clone is. We're not a couple. Just friends…friends who don’t get along, also… kinda screwin." she added with a sad smile of shame.

  "So you left your husband for his father?" she asked. Greg grinned fakely.

  "Funny story actually. She's a clone, technically we're both clones, but she's a younger clone with no memory, so sorta like a new person. So my son is still with his wife Izzy, and I just got my own Izzy through a series of mistakes. I'm also still there with them so they don’t even miss me. Other me is probably still fighting with her other self at a family barbecue or something. We have this goofy friend-enemy relationship, it’s fine. We poison each other now and then, light occasional assault."

  "So you both got accidentally cloned?" asked the therapist.

  "Oh mine was voluntary and intentional." Greg informed. "I was part of an invasion force and a series of waves of Osirians going to take over the universe, and shit just got all screwed up. I signed up for it, kinda had to." He said pondering.

  "So how did she get here by accident?" asked the therapist, rapidly licking her eye to try and get the fly that was bothering her. Izzy giggled.

  "Well…funny story, like he said. I volunteered as well, just not the younger me, so he screwed up and printed this me by mistake. I literally only exist because Greg printed me off for absolutely no reason. And now we are both stuck here. Together…yaaay." she smiled like a woman about to break into tears.

  "And you two were lovers before this happened?"

  "N…no." said Izzy, still smiling and realizing how insane they both looked right now. "I actually never met him before he, um, printed me off. He already knew older me so he has a bit of an advantage in familiarity that he uses to irritate me, like a giant child."

  "So he and your older clone were lovers and after he unintentionally brought the wrong one with him, you resumed that relationship that only one of you had?" asked the therapy lizard.

  "Oh hell no. She was married to one of my sons, remember? That's just weird, can't go cheating around with your own kid's wife. That's gross. I obviously tried to get with that before they got together, I mean look at her, who wouldn’t?" he chuckled. Izzy blushed. "But after she chose Christophe, I took the mature road and stopped making passes. It's only respectful. You gotta respect your family. Everyone else is optional."

  "But you are sleeping with this one." Therapy lizard said slowly.

  "Brand new Izzy, never been married. Totally different person, mostly. Not physically different, genetically identical, but mentally and emotionally brand new. She's more like her daughter than anything.

  "So you are sleeping with your son's wive's cloned daughter?" asked the Lizard.

  "See, you're making it sound gross like she's related or something. It's all just semantics. I knew this was gonna get confusing and now this shrink Gecko think's were Kentucky cousins." he huffed in irritation. "I made a chart!" He muttered. Izzy took the lead.

  "It's not that bad, really. We aren't remotely blood related. My clone just married his clone's son's clone. So I personally have never been intimate with Christophe, and Greg nor his clones, have never been intimate with the other Izzy that is married to Christophe…right? None of the other you's shacked up with that Izzy?" she asked him discreetly

  "Ugh, no. Why would you even ask that? I have boundaries. I respect boundaries. You don’t double dip a chip when your own kid already dipped first. That's just wrong." he said mildly insulted.

  "See, that shit right there?" she said losing half the smile. "He didn’t just say no, he had to compare me to a shareable snack like some kind of object. Like I'm not a person, just some thing. Just a chip to be dipped." she said looking annoyed.

  "Mkay, firstly that's not true and that's on video. You're the dip, and the chips are…never mind what the chips represent. We all know. Secondly, you ARE an object, I printed you off last week; you're 72 percent non-organic, recycled material. We both are. All of our species at this point are just things. We're interchangeable like freaking Swedish furniture at this point. It really is a miracle any of us are sane at all." he chuckled, looking up at the therapist and slouching comfortably.

  "It's just so annoying the way he makes it seem so meaningless. This is why other me chose Christophe over you. This sort of thing right here." she said turning to Greg in agitation.

  "So you basically ended up with me because this universe doesn’t have a Christophe. I'm the backup Greggarious. Now I feel special. Not only am I one of a set of 6 identical copies but I'm second choice. Or 48th choice, actually, because I bet you'd prefer any of the 47 Christophe's over any of me." he scoffed.

  "I don’t even think of him that way, he's married to my sister-mom version of me. He's like an older brother or a cool step dad or something. I chose you because I was never interested in Christophe and I've had a celebrity crush on you, as a concept, long before I met you. And you did kinda strand me here with you. You are literally the only Osirian male in this universe." she huffed.

  "But your older clone chose him, so you may not have preferred him now, but in 2 or 3 hundred years from now you clearly will have DID end up preferring him back when you were older." he said confusing himself further.

  "I'm not that same Izzy, we have no idea how different I could be in 200 years. People change a lot in 2 full centuries."

  "I'm basically the same guy as I was 200 years ago. After a few millennia you get set in your ways and you more-or-less stop changing or evolving. You adapt to technology like fancy bronze tools and flying machines and smart-phones and 3d-bio-printers, but you stay the same Greg. Look at this suit…had one 1100 years ago that was almost identical. I had to kill and skin a deer for the leather on the first one and this was just bought on Gravazon.com, but the style just comes back around. I'm always just Greg. We're always just…Gregs. Or all of us are always just the one Greg. It is singular? I think it depends on if you mean the physical organism or the overall theme of what the entity is." he pondered. "But it means she might end up the same Izzy."

  "So…" said the therapy Gecko.”Why do you think you find her attractive?" she asked Greg. They answered at the same time, with slightly different answers.

  “Lack of options” Izzy said

  “The Ass." Nodded Greg.

  "Obvious." chuckled Izzy. "I'm literally the hottest Osirian woman in the universe." she bragged on a humble technicality.

  "Weeeeeel." Greg said with a higher pitch tone.

  "Oh, what the fuck?!" she barked, punching him in the arm. "You seriously Think Jenny is hotter than me? Two options and I lost? You really think I'm the least attractive female of our species, in the entire universe?!" she asked, punching him in the arm again.

  "I didn’t say that definitively, you made an assumption and I had to think about its accuracy. She's always making assumptions about things."

  "You couldn’t just agree with me?" she snipped.

  "I had to think about it. You're both pretty damn hot. I did marry her, obviously I find her attractive." he defended "That was before you were even born, before any Izzy was born or assembled...wait…maybe not, but definitely the reboot yous." He defended

  "She was mind controlling you!" she bellowed.

  "She was mind-controlling me to do her bidding, I willingly pursued her intimately before that. I didn’t say she was a desirable partner now, knowing she is basically Satan, but before you know she's a psychotic demoness with a soul as black as sin, she's pretty damn sexy. You can't deny that." He scoffed.

  "See what I have to deal with? He can't even lie to me and tell me I'm prettier. This is the one Osirian Man in the universe and we get to fight over him. My competition is a criminal psychopath he tried to kill numerous times, and I still lost, because she’s slightly hotter. And I'm only here because of him. He did this. Now I'm sleeping with him." She sighed.

  "You volunteered for the mission." Greg reminded. "As much as me anyway."

  "Other Izzy volunteered." she growled, rapidly punching him.

  "It's not my fault you have identical DNA. Who's brilliant idea was it to make a little clone sister and not give her at least a new name or modified DNA tag. It's the machine's fault really, blame the software, I just pushed the button."

  "I really hate you." she sighed.

  "Yea, sorta got that impression." he nodded. Therapy lizard took a nervously deep breath.

  "So have you considered…well you can't really see other people now can you? Not any others to see, so that's not gonna work. I would suggest taking a break but you live on the same starship about the size of a mobile home." therapy lizard pondered. "I could recommend some medication but with no grasp of your species physiology that would be a shot in the dark. Have you tried maybe…cuddling?" she asked, looking out of ideas.

  "Lame." Greg whispered.

  "Well, what do you have in common, aside from physical biology and the same botched goal of universal domination?" she asked.

  "We both like the same kind of music." Izzy suggested.

  "Of course we do…it's MY music, I wrote it and I'm amazing at it." he smirked proudly. Izzy glared at him.

  "I hate that I agree with you on that." she snarled.

  "I know, that's why I brought it up." he grinned with en eyebrow raise.

  "Well how about bonding using music you both like. Maybe form a fun little band with just you two or even your crew." therapy Gecko suggested.

  "We both play bass, and I'm way better than she is, so that's a problem." Greg sighed. "No band needs two bass players. She…" he chuckled. “She plays with a pick!”

  "That's unfortunate and almost ironically unlikely." Gecko pointed out.

  "Not really, Osirians natural mathematic pattern comprehension makes us all musically gifted. And we hear lower frequencies better than humans, so most of us end up bringing the bass. I obviously bring it way bigger and harder than most, because I'm amazing." he added, leaning forward like he had a secret. "And she uses a pick!" he chuckled.

  "So do you feel the need to be competitive all the time, or just with Izzy?" asked Therapy lizard.

  "Just with Izzy." he nodded.

  "With everyone, all the time." Izzy corrected.

  "No I don’t. I let others win too sometimes."

  "Name a single time you weren't a competitive, alpha male, in your entire life… specific event." she challenged.

  "Well when you put me on the spot I feel kinda nervous and it's hard to think of one." he dodged.

  "He's always like this." she sighed.

  "But you still feel the need to be intimate with him." suggested Mrs. Gecko.

  "She get's horny." Greg replied, triggering one of Izzy's full-headed, glowing eye-rolls.

  "And why do you provoke her, given that she is the only female of your species in the universe, and it being likely to drive her away?" asked therapy gecko.

  "Hu…I guess it’s an old habit. Older Izzy went out of her way to make my life miserable; it was her actual job, so I guess I just got really good at retaliating to the fight she started. Now when I look at her, subconsciously I still see older Izzy. It's hard to reprogram your defenses after so many centuries." he said calmly.

  "You're finishing a fight you didn’t start, with someone that isn't even her." nodded therapy lizard. "Or is her, I honestly don’t know anymore. This is way out of my expertise, I'm making a lot of educated guesses here." she added.

  "I feel kinda guilty now." he said.

  "Really?" Izzy asked.

  "I've been retaliating to your mom/clone/sister's bitchiness on you and you didn’t even ask to be here. I haven't even given you a chance to be someone else." he said looking into her eyes. "SHE started it, so I am entirely justified in my retaliation on her, you just look like her so much, just younger and thicker."

  "That's very understanding of you, Greg. I think we've really made progress here." Izzy smiled with an almost visible tear in her eye.

  "Let's not be enemies." he nodded. They hugged.

  Greg and Izzy walked away as the door closed behind them.

  "What a load of crap." she muttered as they walked down the hall to the docking room.

  "Right? A whole 250 an hour and all you get is some obvious statements and vague suggestions. Therapy is a joke." he scoffed with a snicker.

  "You really think jenny is as pretty as me?" she asked defensively.

  "No, of course not. She's slightly smaller. Slightly better ass and legs, and you know I like the unstable chicks." he shrugged.

  "Your music isn't that good. You overplay everything."

  "Says the girl who had 8 of my albums before she was 16." he snipped.

  "Every little girl likes whatever music her big sister won't let her have. It's called a rebellious phase." she said stopping dead in her tracks. "And what the hell is wrong with my ass?" she yelled.

  "Basically just the general size of it. You know older Izzy actually lost some weight. Are you a problem eater? Hording cupcakes or anything? You can tell me, I'm here to listen, and if need be…cuddle." he said faking an emotional sniffle.

  "I bet they're already feeling better." Marley said as they chilled in the waiting room. The room shook as Greg came tumbling down the hall, past the doorway as the carpet began gently burning. Izzy stomped through the doorway with her eyes glowing and passed them, heading towards the ship. The sprinklers went off and part of the light fixture fell, followed by Greg staggering from the other side of the hallway, missing a shirt sleeve.

  "And how do we feel?" asked Duffy.

  "Little stiff, shoulder isn't clicking anymore. I think we are really bonding." he smiled sarcastically with his canines out and one shoe flapping from the sole having disconnected on impact.

  "Alright, well that was good." Marley nodded. "Let's all pile back on the small, confined, and partially flammable ship." he said hopping off the chair and shuffling to the airlock.

  Greg yawned and flexed his usual joking muscles.

  "Hey can we get a group rate if I print off more of me, or do I have to refer myself for later visits? Do I get a discount off my visit if I refer another me and he doesn’t show up, or do I have to reimburse myself?”’ Greg asked frugally

  “Money well spent. None of us wanted that new microwave.” Muttered Duffy.