Fred

Vital Statistics

First Appearance: Fooker's Apartment (Non-speaking; December 2, 1998), Fred the Slime Mold (Speaking; January 18, 1999)

Full Name: Fred

Known Aliases: Dr. Fredrick Physarum

Status: Alive

Species: Physaric

Gender: Neuter, but assumes a mostly male personae

Volume: Varies, usually approximately 0.13 ft³ (3.79 L)

Weight: 3 lb (1.36 kg)

Cytoplasm: Generally green, but occasionally varies with strong emotions

Distinguishing Characteristics: Abrasive personality, superiority complex, crassly sarcastic, cilia covering most of his surface area

Marital Status: Single

Character Description

Fred started out as a running joke in a story where Fooker takes Nick to his apartment and finds a bizarre world where the cesspool of his living space has gained life. But Fred returned, was given a name, and has since become one of the fan faves. This wisecracking, oozing, PBS-loving sack of protoplasm has become a staple main character, and constantly reminds us that Fooker's life is always interesting.

Fred supposedly gained sentience floating in the squalor of Fooker's apartment. Since then, he has grown exponentially in intelligence, and continues to do so. Surprisingly, he doesn't let that go to his... er, nucleus; while several fans have expressed interest in watching Fred try to conquer the world, I personally don't think he'd find an interest in that. "Sure, I have the ability," he'd say, "but who wants to rule a world as messed up as this one?" Instead, he somehow seems content squirming in the filth that spawned him, soaking in every drop of information he can squeeze from TV and the Internet.

Fred has quite a few interesting credits to his name in the short span of his sentient life. He briefly posed as Dr. Fredrick Physarum, a literature professor at a major online university, until he lost that position when the school discovered he had falsified his credentials. (How else did you expect him to pay his half of the rent?) He also gave birth to another slime mold named Persephone, after the Greek goddess of the Underworld. Not bad for a green sack of goo....

Following the events of Surreptitious Machinations (during which he spent most of his time locked in a forensics laboratory), Fred and Persephone moved in with Nick when Fooker left GPF Software to pursue his secret agent duties full time. After Fred lost his job with the university, he was saved when Dwayne hired him as GPF's new tech support operator. Sadly, this brought Fred head to head with Trent, whose pranks snowballed into a nasty libel lawsuit. With the help of Nicole, Fred eventually persevered, although it cost him his anonymity. This blossomed—well, more like exploded—into a whirlwind frenzy of celebrity filled with all the glamour and paparazzi associated with it. Fred rode the waves his new-found public fame for a time, making a living from public appearances and from his highly trafficked blog. When his celebrity status began to decline, he turned to desperate measures to remain in the public eye, including a highly controversial appearance on the television series Dancing with the Stars. Having since fallen back into relative obscurity, Fred has returned to GPF, once more working in customer support.

The events of Scylla and Charybdis completely redefined everything we knew about Fred and his origins. After being hounded by the mysterious "Socrates" for years, Fred finally confronted his stalker with the help of Dexter, Patty, and Trish. They tracked "Socrates" to an abandoned junk yard, only to discover that he was a "slime mold" just like Fred. Socrates quickly surprised us with the true tale of Fred's origins: Fred is actually an alien, conceived as a genetic experiment in a bid to rid their species of a "curse" that has plagued them for centuries. While still in a formative state, Fred was transferred from one star system to another with Socrates as one of his guards. As their "ship" passed through Earth's solar system, it was attacked and shot down by an enemy vessel. After bailing out of the crashing ship, Fred and Socrates wound up on opposite sides of North America. With no memories of his existence before Earth, Fred found shelter in Fooker's putrid apartment, assuming he was of terrestrial origin based on nature documentaries he saw on Fooker's TV.

At the end of Scylla and Charybdis, the Syncytium offered to return Fred to his home world and become one with his kin. Frightened by the prospect of potentially losing his self identity in the Syncytium's mass consciousness, Fred declined, stating that Earth was the only home he ever knew and that's where he belonged. Fred was also concerned about handing over the "cure" to the Physarics' "tainted", fearing that doing so would create an imbalance in the tenuous arms race with the Physarics' enemies and lead to further interstellar war. Since Persephone likely bears the same cure in her genes that Fred does, Fred, Persephone, and Socrates all decided to keep her existence a secret from the Syncytium, lest the Physarics seek her out to obtain the cure.

Selected Milestones

Relationships

Persephone, Fred's... er, spawn

Group Affiliations

An unnamed online university: Former literature professor
GPF Software: Former employee, Telephone Tech Support

Miscellaneous Notes

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version 3.12

GL/C/FA/J/M/MD/P/S/SS !d s---:--- !a C U P+ L E- W- N++ o?
K? w-- O- M- V- PS-- PE++ Y-- PGP-- t- 5- X- R? tv+++ b++++
DI+(++) D++ G-- e-->+++++ h-(++) !z
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----

(Ungeek this Geek Code courtesy of the Geek Decoder)