Part the Fourth: At Wit's End
He had no idea of why he had been recalled to DexLabs, but he wasn't going to question his good fortune. Ben Tennyson was thinking longingly of at least one or two hot meals that hadn't been freeze-dried and them chemically cooked, and a better bed than a blanket on a rock and a pinecone for his pillow, which was pretty much all he had to look forward to besides a long day fighting Rending Machines (which were Fusion matter-induced vending machines with fangs) and breathing in Fusion fumes over at Prickly Pines. In truth he really didn't care why he was being sent back and Mandy hadn't offered any explanation, just a terse 'Your butt back here by 1100 tomorrow. The Professor wants a word.' He could think of no reason why he'd be in trouble for anything he'd done lately, and even if he was in trouble he'd still get some decent food out of the deal. He could only assume it was either Plumber business, a new mission, or Dexter had his knickers in a twist over something and the Professor was at his wit's end to deal with Baby Einstein. It was all good (for Ben, at least).
That he had joined the ranks of official nannies for der wunderkind bothered Ben not at all, especially when it got him away from the front lines now and then. At least with Mr. Green and Sgt. Morton along for the ride he was in good company in being able to survive Dexter for extended periods of time. Strength lay in numbers, and he knew from experience that multiple targets were harder to hit. Besides, he genuinely liked Dexter. Without always meaning to be, the kid was funny up off the scale and visiting his lab was like being in a toy store when he trotted out the latest round of cool, new inventions for Ben to try.
He had left Prickly Pines half an hour ago, which was more than enough time for Jetray to fly the 300-plus miles to DexLabs. He could see the corporate headquarters now and he circled the building a few times to slow his speed before coming to a landing on the helipad. As he powered down the Omnitrix and shed the Aerophibian form, the world went out of sharp focus and the color spectrum changed back to the visible light he was used to seeing as a human. He looked around, and to his pleasure he spotted Professor Utonium and Chip Morton standing beneath the covered walkway leading into the waiting room. He smiled and waved, but the gestures were not returned.
"Benjamin Kirby Tennyson," growled Patrick Utonium the moment he was in range. Gray eyes flashed with suppressed annoyance. "What were you thinking?"
Not for the first time Ben was rather glad he had a middle name even if it was his mother's maiden name (and pretty bad to boot, but it was still better than Dexter's middle name) because it was a fairly reliable gauge of exactly how much trouble he had landed himself in this time. To hear the whole shooting match out of the Professor was a tongue-lashing by itself and insightful as to why Dexter never argued with this man. He was plainly, vividly angry, leaving Ben feeling very exposed and guilty and at a terrible disadvantage. Morton was in stony-faced sentinel mode, so he was no help whatsoever. Ben had zero clue of what he'd done and he'd already lost this fight without getting so much as a single shot in, so he just stared at his friend's father for a long moment as he tried to collect his wits.
"Um . . ." He pursed his lips, sensing doom no matter what he said, and did his best to look cute and helpless. Knowing absolute honesty was the only possible solution in this situation, he slowly admitted, "I probably wasn't."
"No kidding," snapped Utonium, and stomped away.
Was that it? Ben spared a quick glance at the tall security officer, but Chip just gave him a narrow-eyed look and followed the president of DexCorp to the elevators. He wasn't exactly sure of what had just happened or if that was the full extent of why he'd been recalled. It seemed like a lot of trouble for a little wrath. He opted not to move from his spot for a while in order to give Utonium plenty of time to put some distance between them. When he thought it was safe, Ben dared to head for the elevator. It was close enough to lunch time to go harass him some Boy Genius.
"Hey, Dex," he called some fifteen minutes later after tracking his friend down to the indoor Japanese garden not far from the family's living quarters. Dexter was sitting by the koi pond, and he seemed to be throwing food pellets at the fish, not to them (not that the carps seemed to mind). That was pretty atypical behavior, especially since fish were one of the few animals that didn't instill terror in the redhead and he tended to cozy up to things that didn't scare the willies out of him. Not that one could really cozy up to a fish, but Dexter managed a fair imitation.
Several things struck Ben as weird all at once. One, Dexter wasn't sciencing in his usual laboratory habitat. Two, he didn't so much as look at Ben or crack a smile. Three, he was quiet. Unnaturally quiet (for Dexter). Something was wrong. He was obviously cranky, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Cranky was a state of being for the High-Strung One. It was the silence that was unnerving. Ben couldn't remember a time that Dexter's hadn't talked his ear off for the first hour or so of his arrival. Granted it had only been a little over a week since he'd last been here, but this was Dexter and the kid never ran out of things to say, at least to his best friend. Ben counted it as a major achievement if he managed to complete five or six sentences before Dexter plunged into chatterbox mode, and usually he tried to pre-empt his side of the conversation by striking first and fast.
"Any clue why your dad called me in from the front just to ask what I was thinking? Did I tick him off or something? What did I do? Why aren't you down in the lab . . . oratory? Why so quiet? Einstein got your tongue?"
There. He was well ahead of the game. He plopped down on the bench next to Dexter and watched as the Boy Genius whipped the last few pellets of koi kibble at the surface of the water before letting out a little "Hrrmph!" of annoyance and leaning heavily into his hand. That was all.
"Uh . . . Dex?" He leaned forward, trying to see the younger teen's face. "Problems, pal? Bad day?"
Dexter stared at him, silently willing the older boy to get with the program.
"Bad week?"
He nodded.
"Laryngitis?"
Dexter snorted and shook his head. Ben kept up the interrogation, amazed he was carrying the conversation.
"Did something blow up on you?"
A groan this time, and Dexter leaned his head on his hands, hunched over on the stone bench. Ben did his best to follow the clues to a logical conclusion.
"So the Professor is mad as me because you blew something up?"
He drew a deep breath and finally spoke, even if it was only a mumble. "Sort of."
Ben Tennyson stared, not sure he'd hear that right. "Say what?"
Dexter sat up and looked at him with a wry expression on his face. "Sort of."
Ben gaped. He just out-and-out gaped at the boy seated next to him. Finally he managed to speak, unable to believe his ears. "Uh, Dex? What happened to your . . ." He was going to say accent, but Dexter didn't think he had one since he couldn't detect that crazy pronunciation he bandied about. Lamely he finished, "Voice?"
"Finally!" crowed Dexter, seizing Ben by the forearms. "You can hear this? I'm talking funny? Tell me I'm talking funny!"
Funny was a relative term, but Ben knew not to go there. Instead he enthusiastically agreed, "Yeah! So what's wrong with your voice?"
"With my voice? Nothing," snapped the redhead. He let go of Ben and gestured at himself angrily. "My inflection, however . . . well . . . I have an accent."
Ben blinked in slow motion, letting himself be amazed and confused. He'd never heard Dexter speak so clearly. It was at least as strange as his normal quasi-Russian accent. No, it was worse since he was so used to weird vowels and rolling r's. Dexter without that accent just wasn't Dexter. Without the random 'h' and 'w' inserted into where they just shouldn't be and extra syllables added to the simplest words, Dexter sounded as if he came from the Mid West. It was positively boring, and Ben almost couldn't follow him.
"Where did it go? I mean come from?"
Sighing dramatically, Dexter stood. "Come. I'll show you."
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
It was a losing battle. As Dexter described his thought process and steps taken to maximize popcorn output while minimizing time and energy, Ben struggled harder and harder to keep from laughing. When the ultimate result of DeeDee's tampering was revealed, he fell off his lab stool, clutching his aching ribs and all but howling. Dexter glared, clearly annoyed but for the wrong reason. He thought Ben was laughing at his accent and glowered accordingly, but that was not the case at all. Ben was laughing at this new obsession with popcorn and the mental image of Dexter being overwhelmed in a tsunami of itty bitty snacks.
His breathless apology went far toward mollifying the Boy Genius, and after a bit of begging on Ben's part, Dexter produced the remote popcorn popper. Ben spent a good twenty minutes ecstatically blowing up pieces of corn (complete with laser sound effects) before Dexter could wrestle the device away from him and continue the saga. When he got to the part with acquiring the accent (or losing it, depending on the point of view) Ben sobered up a bit. He lost all self control again as Dexter described being detained by his own computer in his own laboratory.
"Ben! Stop that! This is important! I can't access Computress or any of my research because of this accent!"
When Ben finally stopped crying and could look at his friend again without bursting into laughter, he dragged himself up right and slumped back on the lab stool, completely spent.
"Are you done?" was the sarcastic question.
"No promises, Dex."
"I need to get rid of this accent."
Ben mastered the desire to smile. "What do you think you should do?"
The redhead shook his head in frustration. "I don't know. Dr. Cardon and Dad think this will correct itself, but I'm not so sure. Dad's very unconcerned."
"Seriously? He called me in from going up against those Rending Machines over at Prickly Pines to yell at me."
"Rending Machines? Really, Benjamin, who names these things?"
"People who drink too much coffee and have too much time on their hands."
"I suppose," muttered the younger teen. He'd never seen a Fusion Monster, just Fusion doubles, so he couldn't really appreciate what it was liked to be attacked by things like a row of lockers come to life.
"I think the Professor blames me for this happening."
Dexter shook his head. "Perhaps in part. Don't fret. He's just upset because he has to go to Townsville tonight. He forgot it's time for parent/teacher conferences for the girls. He'd rather go on a date than go talk to teachers. He said something about getting hives. Seriously, though, his apparent lack of concern tells me he's a lot more worried than he wants to let on even though he's glad it's forcing me to take a break from the lab."
"So that's like reverse reverse psychology?"
"That would just be psychology, then. Rather like a double negative."
"Whatever. So what made you lose – I mean get this accent?"
"Dr. Cardon thinks the concussion seems to have caused some sort of disconnect in my language center."
"Ya think?"
"I don't know. I have little interest in medicine."
"Maybe another popcorn big bang would reconnect your circuits."
"Possibly. If I could access Computress, I should be able to answer that."
Ben knew from experience that accessing Computress' higher functions required fingerprint, retina, and voice matches before the super computer would give a user the time of day. He looked at Dexter, thinking hard. Palm and retina scans they had right here, it was just the accent that they needed.
"Um. Well." He ran a hand through his brown hair, not sure if his idea was a stroke of genius or so dumb as to be Billy-worthy. "How about I teach you say your password without this accent? You could check with Computress then."
"Incorrect pronunciation is what doomed me previously," Dexter mused, not entirely convinced but eager to hear more. Any suggestion - no matter how hare-brained - was welcome at this point. "Do you think you could manage it?"
"C'mon, Dex!" he exclaimed, warming up to his own brilliance. "I saved the whole universe! What's the worst that could happen?"