The TARDIS Book: THE TIME IS NOW (Part 1)
Book Two: TO BE LIBERATED
Chapter 4: Feels
"How do I count the ways I love thee?" Mr. Pig sighed. The single pink rose he picked out was slowly wilting. He didn't have enough money for a whole bouquet, not even a vase for the single rose. A thought-bubble hovered above his head: Mr. Pig gives Tree Trunks the rose, and she throws it in her fireplace, laughing as it turns to ash. Then she screams at him, "Get out you drudging loser!" Mr. Pig's thought-bubble was popped. By a tall alien that appeared out of nowhere.
"You must have strong feels for this... thing" the stranger concluded.
"Hmmm... who could resist those apple pies she bakes... or the way her eyelashes flutter when I say her name. I think I'm in love."
"In love?"
"'In love' is putting it lightly. Have you ever been in love before?"
"I have," the strange alien paused. "...Which reminds me..." he paused again, sounding more like he was thinking aloud rather than talking. "I've come in need of assistance."
"Hey Jakey, you're up earlier than usual. What is for the breaking of fast?" Finn yawned, feeling his stomach growl. He sat down at the table while Jake broke two eggs into the frying pan. As Finn listened to the sizzling of the oil, his tired mind drifted off to a scary place. He had almost gotten used to ignoring the fact that there were two empty chairs that were once filled by their parents. But deep down he still knew what his mind was doing.
Jake stopped whistling for a second to respond,"Today I wanted to take extra time makin' one of my specialties: my eggs in a blanket. Except we ran out of edible blanket, so it's just eggs."
"Ring ring!" BMO rang. Finn named him that. It stands for Bros' Message Optimizer. BMO was a mysterious product of an experiment. He was just another manufactured rotary phone, at the start of the industrial boom. Then one day at the factory, a strange woman came by and stole it. She rebuilt it with unknown alien technology and that is why BMO is alive! Or at least that's what the guy at the yard sale told Finn and Jake.
"Hello? Right away, sir." Jake hung up and yelled as he ran upstairs, "Come on, Finn, there's an emergency at the factory! They need us to come in early! Let's go! Now!" He came back down in his jumper and goggles.
Finn looked up from the pocket watch he was working on, bored. He saw a tall, weird-looking girl talking to a metal welder. Finn turned away. He looked back again, this time lifting off the goggles from his face. She was beautiful. And even more intriguing, built a lot like a human. She looked more human than anyone else in Ooo. Her skin was fair, but not like his. It was actually pink, though she was not blushing in the least bit. He could tell she was out of place, not from this part of town.
"Finn, stop staring and focus! Quit daygleaming, ya Dobler!" Jake teased him.
"Man, shut your trapper!" Finn retorted. He felt his face turn red when he saw the pink girl approach them.
"Excuse me, do you know anything about the whereabouts of Mr. Pig?" she asked.
"H-h-he-" Finn struggled to form words.
Before Finn could reach for a second word, Jake spoke over him. "I saw him here, working on blueprints for some project. But that's all I've seen."
"Thank you for your time," she said as she departed. Finn hadn't noticed until now, but his heart had skipped a beat. He lowered his head and took a deep breath. As he looked down, he saw a peculiar object resembling a small flashlight. The handle was made up of silver wires and metal melded together. The most prominent part of it was the luminous, marble-sized blue bulb. The pink girl must of dropped it. He put it in the pocket of his jumper. If he ever saw her again, he would at least have an excuse to talk to her. But there probably wasn't much of a chance. Finn was just a poor orphan taken in by a working family of dogs. Of course he respected his late parents. But whether or not they were respectable, it didn't change the fact that there was no way a kid from his world would even get a chance to court a lady like her.
"Hey Finn, it's that weird-looking girl from earlier!" Jake put his arm in front of Finn. He would have pushed Jake's arm away had his heart not skipped a beat.
"I'm sorry to bother you again, but I need to find Ms. Tree Trunks to ask her about last night," said the pink girl.
"H-hi... my name is... Finn, ma'am, just a second," his voice cracked on his own name. Realizing that he had not been socially cued by her to reveal his name, he grew embarrassed and perhaps ended up becoming aggressive in order to compensate. Finn pulled an annoyed-looking Jake aside. "Dude, let me take her to Miss Tree Trunks. She's trying to figure out what happened to Mr. Pig. Don't you want to know why he disappeared?"
Jake rolled his eyes. "Of all the girls in the Land of Ooo, you crush on some nosy pink weirdo? Let's just go home," Jake yawned. His droopy eyelids looked heavier than usual.
"Jake, go home and I'll be there in a few minutes, I swear. I'll be back before you can say 'dagnabbit fwibbity-fwoppin'," Finn pleaded.
"Fine. You better be home in ten minutes, or I'll have to go look for you, got it?" Jake yelled over his shoulder, walking away.
"Thank you... Finn, was it? What an interesting name," she said.
"Yeah...Um... I don't know where it comes from, I don't really know where I'm from," he blabbered.
"Are you orphaned?" she asked.
"Well, I was until I was taken in by Jake's parents. When I was a few months old, they found me in the middle of a forest. Mayhaps abandoned by my biological family."
"Where are they now?" inquired the pink girl.
"After the Battle of Conquest, my parents developed some unknown disease. We didn't know much else, other than it would sometimes go away for awhile and came back. We took care of them until it was impossible for them to bounce back from it. "
"I'm sorry to hear that," she frowned.
"How about your family?" Finn wondered out loud.
"My people were torn apart in war, not disease."
"I'm sorry to here that, ma'am. Where are you from?"
"A place very different from Ooo."
"What are you, if I may ask?"
"Well I've been a nurse, a doctor, a telephone manufacturer, a blacksmith, a chef, a scientist, a lawyer, a currently a detective- er, but I guess you can call me 'The Princess', just 'The Princess'." The words practically sputtered out of her mouth, though there was a musical rhythm to her cadence. She turned to face him. She held out her hand. "We haven't formally met until now," she smiled.
"I guess I...got nervous back in the factory," he admitted.
"You're very young to be working so hard -but I understand how losing your parents can force someone to grow up." The Princess's brow furrowed as her face grew pensive.
"Forgive me for not showing you earlier, but I found something that may belong to you..." Finn reached into the pocket to pull out the flashlight.
Her face lit up as she excitedly exclaimed,"Oh thank glob, there is it!" She put it in the pocket of her very violet trench coat. The bulb seemed so brilliant in the starlight.
"That is one zorp of a light bulb, Princess," Finn marveled.
"It's actually a jewel-well both. I brought it from home- well, I constructed the product here. I had nanocrobes interweave condensed, universal codes that conform within the structure of the electrosilver receptors, as well as codes I solved on my own, realigning those code strips into less-than-paper-thin, sonic-wavered luminosiray-signals to the sapphire jewel, which project a laser-accurate- well, laser- and penetrates any man or alien-made material it's aimed at- well, most materials-"
"-I'm sorry Princess, but could you say that a huh-billion times slower?"
"Basically this unlocks any combination and decodes any code in the universe, wooden doors, excluded. I call it my 'sonic-sapphire flashlight'," she stated with a slightly smug grin.
"Oh," Finn nodded. "That's mathin'."
They walked the rest of the greenlands in silence, while he daygleamed about those delicious pies. Unfortunately his daygleam was interrupted by a very loud "Ow." "Ow, ow ow ow," said the voice.
They started sprinting towards the sound of the "ows" that have now morphed into screams of agony. Finn and the Princess weaved through trees, jumped over roots. The screaming had stopped but they had come to an opening. They saw Mr. Fox. It looked like he was being shocked over and over again. His wrists were cuffed to rails attached to some dingy-dongy platform shaped like a space rock. Finn turned back to see a strange alien-man with tattered clothing. His eyes were white and empty. The stranger flipped a switch and the machine stopped. Mr. Fox stopped screaming as his body slumped over, and he became, at least Finn hoped, unconscious.
"Magic Man! You must stop this!" the Princess pleaded.
"What happened to Mr. Fox!" Finn barked out of anger.
"He's part of my journey back home to Mars," Magic Man explained.
"I believe you were banished from Mars, so you live here in exile. Therefore they wouldn't let you live under their protection anyway," the Princess argued.
"Not true at all, Princess. They could have left me nothing. They may have taken my magic powers, but they did leave me a Martian Transporter here for a reason. They are testing me. They want me to re-learn 'humanity' and 'compassion'. So if they see me come back with the Martian Transporter-"
"-They'll assume you've learned your lesson because you filled up the gauge with feels of love and kindness," said the Princess.
"Yes, thank you for interrupting me, Ms. Knows-Everything-in-the-Universe. RUDE." Magic Man rolled his empty eyes.
"Why now? Why choose now of all times to leave Ooo?" asked the Princess.
"HE is still alive!" he hissed. "He says he's going to kill me when he breaks free. I need my brothers to protect me."
"Who?" she inquired.
"The Lich King... He said he knows where you are, and he's going to kill you too... Bonnibel..." Magic Man blinked, then whimpered. She froze, eyes wide but not focused on anything.
"I saw Mr. Fox here gawking at some goose. It was clear that he was in love with her. The bonus is that his body is bigger than the pig's," Magic Man continued.
"Okay, ENOUGH," the Princess huffed. "You can stop right now, let go of what remains of Mr. Fox and I'll leave you alone in your pathetic existence. If you refuse, I'll find a way to make that remaining existence a living hell."
"I control my own fate!" Magic Man shouted as he flipped the switch back on.
"Finn, run home!" she commanded as the screaming started again.
"But, I can't-"
"RUN! NOW!" He ran, as a feeling of disgust grew in the pit of his stomach. What was he doing? This was his chance to impress the princess and to be a hero. He ran back only to find the screaming had stopped. There was a pile of dust on the Mars Transporter.
"What did you do to Mr. Fox!"
"His body was not Martian, so it could not withstand the power of the transporter. Another reason why Ooos are inferior to Martians. But still what a shame, his body wasn't enough to fill the rest of the feels tank, according to the feels meter."
Finn couldn't take it anymore. "NOOOOO! Magic Man, I don't know who you are or where you come from, but you can not keep taking innocent lives like this!" he screamed.
Magic Man rolled his eyes. "One, I already said I was from Mars. Remember that, from a few minutes ago? It was, like, the conversation right before this one. Two, Ooos are inferior to Martians, so I don't care. Three, it's the last number I can count up to. And for what ever number comes after that, I was going to mention that after you scurried away, I was able to capture the princess," he smirked, pointing up. The princess was unconscious, hanging upside down from a tree branch, with her ankles held by double-knotted rope.
"Magic Man, you better untie her or I will POUND YOU!" All Finn could see was red as the air rushed towards his face. Before he knew it, he had been charging at Magic Man, only to be kicked in the jank, a very precious area, especially for thirteen-year-old boys. Finn fell to the ground, rolling and writhing in speech-impairing pain.
"You know, one thing I've learned from the city of thieves is how to fight dirty. You're lucky I got kicked out of Dirty Fight Club before they taught me about purp nurps," Magic Man sneered. He stepped on Finn's gut.
"Ooh, such passion for the Princess! Perhaps you're enough feels to fill the tank," he looked down on him, with his foot resting heavily on Finn's diaphragm. "Would you say that you love this broad?" Finn was still in too much pain to form any sound other than groaning. "I'll take that as a 'yes'. What do ya say, kid? In exchange for your feels, I'll free your precious princess, and I'll leave Ooo alone once and for all. I promise." Finn slowly nodded. Magic Man lifted him to the Martian Transporter, cuffing his arms to the rails. Magic Man flipped the switch and the torture commenced.
Jake was startled. In the near distance, he heard a continuous whine. A distinctive ring that could only be the sound of a dog whistle. He was the only dog left in Ooo.
He jumped out of his drawer-bed, only to look down at to see Finn wasn't home. Jake took the dog whistle as a cry for help. "Ooh, that dagnabbit, fwippity-fwoppin' PRINCESS is in for a piece of my mind!" Jake spat out the word "princess".
The princess gained consciousness, feeling the flow of blood rush to her head. Her wrists and ankles were tied up. She was disoriented and dazed, squinting around. Her ears hurt; someone was screaming. Who's screaming? "Why am I upside up? Ugh, why does my foot itch, of all times?" She looked down. No, not Finn. Not him. "NO NO NO! MAGIC MAN, LET HIM GO! HE'S JUST A BOY!"
Before Magic Man could reply, an enlarged fist and a dog on a mission had charged at Magic Man's pea green face. Jake had knocked him out.
"FINN! WHAT'S GOING ON, PRINCESS? WHAT DID YOU DO TO FINN?" Jake screamed.
"Let me down and I'll free him!" shouted the Princess.
"So WHAT, you can ruin his LIFE even more!"
"I understand why you are upset, but please get me down from this tree branch so I can free Finn! There's a chance-"
"NO! Just tell me how to free him myself! HOLD ON BUDDY!" Jake scanned around the Martian Transporter, searching in panic for anything that looked like an off button.
"The metal bars are sensitive to heat, serving as a conductor that uses electromagno matter to transfer the adrenaline from mammals to charge the transporter's batter, filling the fuel gauge, as you can tell by the feels meter to your right hand. But you can't just flip the switch because it's only programmed to interact with Magic Man's specific genetic coding. I have a sonic-sapphire flashlight that'll unlock the Martian cuffs!" shouted the Princess, at a huh-billion gliks a minute.
"Speak normal, lady!" Jake exclaimed.
"RELEASE ME SO I CAN SAVE FINN!"
Jake grunted and untied the knots around her wrists and ankles. As the Princess fell, Jake stretched his gut into the shape of a trampoline to catch her. When she got up on her feet, she reached for the sonic-sapphire flashlight from inside her bra. Aimed at the tortured boy and the cuffs locked onto his wrists, the Princess pressed the clicker. The electrical current stopped. The screaming stopped. The Martian Transporter stopped.
Jake raised his eyebrow.
"If I had kept the flashlight in my pocket, it would have fallen out one way or another. So while you two were debating on whether to take to me to Miss Tree Trunk's, I just- you know what, I don't need to explain myself to you."
Jake extended his arms and wrapped them around Finn. He lifted Finn into a kangeroo-like pouch that he had formed out of himself. "Oh really, Princess? There's absolutely nothing you have to explain to me? Like how Finn was in life-threatening DANGER? HOW HE ALMOST GOT KILLED BECAUSE HE WAS HELPING YOU! A TOTAL STRANGER THAT I SHOULDN'T HAVE LEFT HIM ALONE WITH IN THE FIRST PLACE!" his voiced evolved from barely contained anger to high-volume screeching.
The Princess didn't look fazed. "I apologize for that, in no way did I mean to put him in harm's way. I couldn't stop him from coming back for me, it's just that he's very loyal and courageous and... Just... please, let me make sure he's okay when he wakes up..." pleaded the Princess.
Jake narrowed his eyes, turned on his heels and walked away.
Finn woke up in bed, feeling an emptiness that he couldn't fathom. But that was psychological. Physically, Finn felt like he had had fifty heart-attacks in a row. If he could bring himself to care, he would have a panic attack from feeling his own heartbeat. He lifted his arms to see if he could. He struggled, but he succeeded. Time to move the legs. He struggled again, but he could sit up and swing his legs over the bed.
"Oh thank glob you're not completely paralyzed!" Jake exclaimed as he walked into the room.
"What makes you say that?" Finn could hear how monotone he sounded, having trouble just lifting his inflection to ask a question.
"Buddy, you've been completely out of it for about a fortnight. I've been trying to take as many shifts at the factory as possible," Jake interrupted himself with a yawn. "Can you stand up?"
"I think so." Finn slowly lowered his feet on the floor. Jake kept his arms open in case he had to catch him. Finn lifted himself off of the bed with his arms and then dropped them at his side. He was standing.
Backing up with his arms still open, Jake said, "That's it, now try taking a few steps."
Finn wobbled as he lifted his foot, but he managed to put it in front of him. He lifted the other and landed it parallel to the previous foot.
"You good, buddy?" asked Jake.
"Think so."
"I'm so glad, you know. I just... for a little bit I thought I'd lost you..." Jake wrapped his arms around him and embraced him. Finn felt uncomfortable. Jake was warm, but he himself felt a lack of warmth inside.
"Get back in bed, for I'll breaketh us the fasting." Finn watched Jake leave the room. He slowly shuffled to the bed. First he bent his knees, making sure his bum was hovering above the bed. He sat down, swung his legs and lowered his back onto the bed. He closed his eyes.
Finn opened his eyes. His body felt stiff. The room was stark, so it must have been the middle of the night. He sat up, almost not being able to.
"Hello." a whisper bounced out of the starkness. His heart sped up. There was a warm body next to the bed.
"Who are you?" he asked, edging towards panic.
The voice whispered again, "Lower your voice, I don't want the dog to wake."
Slowly, the figure drew back the curtain slightly, allowing a sliver of moonlight to slit the starkness.
"Look down." He did as the figure said. Finn didn't have to squint to look at how stark it was, but how bright it was. His heart raced beyond control and started hyperventilating. Contrasting the bleak starkness was a bright blue jewel.
