The Hydrant: Difference between revisions

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}}'''The Hydrant''', or '''Fred''' to his (few) friends, was an irritable but hyper-competent robot and the steadfast assistant of the dog-like alien ambassador [[Talbot Molossus]]. Though aware of the obvious joke about a dog and a fire hydrant, both considered it highly offensive whenever people brought it up in their presence. [[Jenny Over-There (925th Universe)|Jenny Over-There]] thought the Hydrant sounded somewhat like [[Gilbert Gottfried]].

Talbot was one of the candidates invited to a job interview at the [[Wales]] [[M.F.S. office]] in [[Universe (The Tribulations of Jenny Over-There)|one universe]] by [[The Man in Grey (925th Universe)|the Man in Grey]]. The interview saw some friction regarding the aforementioned fire-hydrant jokes, as well as him insisting on not being separated from Fred even though candidates were supposed to be evaluated individually; in frustration, Talbot ended up tossing the Hydrant out the window, to the surprise of the onlookers, who were not aware of quite how indestructible the Hydrant really was. In the end, Talbot and Fred still ended up on the final roster of people whom the Man in Grey vetted to staff the new M.F.S. office in [[Scotland]], alongside [[0000-8888888]] and [[Doctor Know-It-All (925th Universe)|Doctor Know-It-All]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Open Sourcing (short story)|Open Sourcing]]'') Lacking any powers actually enabling him to answer people's questions, Fred limited himself to a supportive role, helping Talbot, now the team leader, keep his cool despite the others' shenanigans. On one occasion, he was the one who managed to find Doctor Know after he failed to show up to work, retrieving him from the coffee shop down the road. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Good Crieff - The Tribulations of the Scottish Division (short story)|Good Crieff - The Tribulations of the Scottish Division]]'')