The title is pretty much self-explanatory. This gives you a little insight on B.E.N.'s own perspective on what happens throughout the rest of the story, the part that we all know. Anyway, hope you like it. Enjoy!
Chapter Nine: A New Friend At Last!
Well, it happened.
An entire century passed B.E.N. by, and not once did he complain. However, no one came to rescue him. Although that pang of loneliness continued to revisit him over and over again, he remained optimistic about his circumstances. He was living a simple life. He had everything he needed…except someone to play checkers with. And again the loneliness came. Sure, in material possessions he had everything he needed, but he was the only one here on this isolated, mechanical rock. Little by little his simple life felt emptier and emptier.
The sun peaked up over the horizon as it always did in the mornings. In his little, somewhat cluttered living space in the tower, B.E.N. yawned and stretched as he sat up in his comfortable hamoc, rubbing his sleepy, yellowish eyes. He didn't know it, but a tiny voice seemed to be telling him that today would be the day that he would finally find a friend.
"Good morning," the robot yawned to himself. "It's gonna be a beautiful day! I can feel it in my sensors! But first, a quick breakfast. The most important meal of the day, as they say!" He laughed.
B.E.N. happily sprang out of bed and fixed himself a filling dish, consisting of his usual provisions: exploding astro nuts, snarling bit-back bananas, and a small helping of flying pop rockets. As he did almost every day, he went through the trouble of trying to chase down and catch the pop rockets that escaped his grasp. Somewhat exhausted from the chase, he worked up more of an appetite.
His hunger sated, B.E.N. picked up the hat he would sometimes use and fit it on top of his head. Once again, he was his personal one-man show…if he had an audience. He dramatically pointed to the empty air as if there were someone in front of him.
"All right, B.E.N.! It's time we got to doing…er, something!" Quickly taking the hat off, he jumped to the spot he was pointing to, playing the part of someone else, saluting to empty air. "Yes, sir, Captain B.E.N., sir!" Putting the hat back on, he jumped to his original spot, talking to the empty air again. "First order of business is that we…" He paused, searching his mind. "I got it! We shall…play hide-and-seek with the trees!" He jumped back again, taking the hat off. "Yes, sir! Right away, sir!"
His performance finished, B.E.N. placed the hat on top of the barrel, laughing to himself. Soon after, he was on his way out of the tower, climbing down the vines and moss, and made his way into the fungus-ridden forest.
B.E.N. came up to the side of a helium tree, counted to a designated number, and rushed to a hiding place. His first choice of such was a small patch of trumpet plant foliage. Shrinking down on his wheeled knees and ankles, he hid himself well.
—
It had been about 3½ hours since B.E.N. had hidden in the foliage. Opening the compass on his front, he checked the time. Yep, 3½ hours. "Gee, those trees are pretty slow…and dense," he said to himself in a whisper. "Wait. Maybe it's me. Oh, well," he shrugged. At first, he thought he heard a crash in the distance, but he assumed it was nothing and continued to hide.
A few more minutes passed.
The forest remained still.
All was quiet. For a time.
But not for long.
A shuffle of footsteps startled B.E.N., and he ducked down behind the foliage with a gasp. His heart jumped and began to pound hard and fast behind his chest. In a few seconds, he decided to see just what it was that was walking around out there.
Careful not to be seen, he commanded his right telescopic eye to extend outward between two trumpet plants. Poking through, his eye became black and smooth like the lens of a real telescope. His eye raised its eyebrow. His heart jumped again and beat faster and he gasped at the best sight he could have ever met in all his lonely years.
Is that…? Oh! Yes! I can't believe it! At last! At last!
The form that was wandering around the forest floor was a carbon-based life form! A boy, no older than about 15 years and accompanied by a little, floating blob thing, was searching the forest depths. For what, B.E.N. knew not. He was just too happy to finally see someone for the first time in a hundred years! You could say he was happier than a lunar eel in an Arcturian meteor shower.
A tiny excited whir sounded from inside of him as B.E.N. rolled a good two feet down on his wheels, his eye still extended outward as he moved silently through the thick underbrush. Positioning himself, he kept his longing gaze on the boy. He was as careful as could be not to make any noticeable sounds, but his movements rustled the foliage. The boy stopped in his tracks. B.E.N. quickly retracted his right eye just as the boy turn towards his general direction. He was perfectly hidden, but the boy knew now that he was there. Oh! He's coming this way! B.E.N. sat in quiet anticipation, trying containing his excitement. The boy was approaching the foliage and seemed to be looking cautiously into the bell of a trumpet plant, which sat right next to the robot. B.E.N. wasn't able to hold it in any longer, and he finally let himself be known.
"Aaaahhh!" he cried out with sheer joy, putting his face up into the boy's face.
"Aaaahhh!" the boy cried as well, but out of fear, as he had never seen anything like B.E.N. before.
B.E.N., unable to contain himself, immediately leapt from the foliage and jumped the boy, both of them falling to the ground, with B.E.N. on top of him. "Ohhhh! This is fantastic!" the robot exclaimed, examining the boy for a quick second. "A carbon-based life form come to rescue me, at last! I just wanna hug ya 'n squeeze ya 'n hold ya close to me!"
And that's just what he was doing, blissfully hugging the boy, not wanting to let go. The boy seemed to be struggling against him, but B.E.N. didn't notice. He was—I say again—just too happy! He felt like the gaping whole in his life had finally been filled.
"All right, all right," the boy protested, pushing B.E.N. off of him, but the robot latched onto the boy's legs with a squeal. "Will you just let go of me?!"
B.E.N. realized that the boy was not enjoying this and respected his wishes, instantly backing off with his hands raised up in defense. "Oh! Sorry! Sorry, sorry," he quickly apologized. To lighten things up a bit, he put an arm around the boy's shoulders. "It's just…" he began to speak his piece, "I-I-I've been…marooned for so long. I mean—" he chuckled "—solitude's fun, don't get me wrong. For heaven's sake, after a hundred years…ya go a little nuts!!" His face bursting with a crazed animated expression, B.E.N. laughed.
The boy folded his arms after the robot stopped laughing and put a hand on his hip. He could see now that the boy wasn't even cracking a smile. Once again, B.E.N. tentatively backed off, fixing up the boy's shirt and apologizing, "I-I'm sorry. Am I…?"
B.E.N. decided then that an introduction was in order and held out a hand to the boy. "I am…um…" His own name had gone from what little memory he had left. "My name is…uh…" The robot gripped the top of his head, thinking hard. He wasn't seeing this, but the little, floating blob thing transformed into a miniature of B.E.N. with a cuckoo bird making noises from his head. The boy put a hand on the blob's head, forcing him to return to his normal form.
"B.E.N.!" the robot finally remembered. "Of course! I'm B.E.N.!" he introduced. "Bio-Electronic Navigator." Pointing to the compass on his front, he spun the needle, which made his compass open up involuntarily. "Oops." He closed it back up with a fleeting pang of embarrassment. "And you are…?" he inquired of the boy.
"Jim," the boy also introduced, unenthusiastic.
"Oh! What a pleasure to meet ya, Jimmy!" B.E.N. vigorously shook the boy's hand.
Stopping him, the boy corrected, "It's Jim."
"Anyway…"
The boy, Jim, began to walk away from B.E.N., who looked on with a bright smile. "Look, I'm kind of in a hurry," Jim explained. "I've gotta find a place to hide, and there's pirates chasing—"
Scurrying up in front of Jim, B.E.N. exclaimed, "Oh! Pirates! Don't get me started on pirates! I don't like them," he chuckled while the boy continued to walk away. B.E.N. casually came up to a tree with a boulder under it and leaned against the tree trunk. "I remember Captain Flint," he reminisced in a bit of a rant. "This guy had such a temper!"
The boy seemed to grow excited at the mentioning of Captain Flint and returned to the robot. "Wait, wait. You knew Captain Flint?"
B.E.N. took a seat on the boulder under the tree and relaxed on it as if it were a comfortable chair. "I think he suffered from mood swings, personally. I'm not a therapist. And anyway…But I—you lemme know when I'm rambling!"
"But wait. Then that means you gotta know…about the treasure?"
B.E.N. was caught off his guard, feeling as though he were put on the spot. His mind, or lack thereof, went blank. Something about this treasure seemed familiar to him, but I just couldn't put his finger on it. "Treasure?" he queried uneasily.
"Yeah, Flint's trove. You know, uh, 'loot of a thousand worlds'?" the boy described excitedly. The blob thing transformed into a tiny chest full of gold drubloons for visual reference.
B.E.N. got back up from his seat, trying to think, but it proved difficult. "It's…well, it's-it's-it's-it's all a little-little-little…fuzzy…" He seemed to be having some first signs of glitches, especially now when he was trying to recall that…something. He became wide-eyed and began to think.
"Wait. I…I re-re-remember. I do. I d—treasure!" As he thought hard about this, static showed in his eyes and tiny electrical sparks flew from the gaping hole in his head. His eyes flashed with an image of a chest full of gold. "Lots of treasure…" more sparks flew and his eyes then showed a simplistic image of some sort of red, central core, and his glitches grew worse "…buried in the centroid-centroid-centroid of the mechanism! And there was this big door…" now his eyes showed a tall, green triangle that opened and closed "…opening and closing and opening and closing…! And Captain Flint wanted to make sure nobody could ever get to his treasure, so I helped him…"
He grunted in a distorted voice, his face scrunching up from the strain while a whole load of sparks flew riotously from his head. Poor B.E.N. had accidentally gone overboard and overloaded what was left of his memory banks! His head literally spun on his thin neck as he spluttered with a high-pitched voice. When his voice returned to normal he cried out loud, "Aaaahhh! Data inaccessible! Reboot! Reboot! Reboot! Reboot!" Just by looking at him, one could tell that this was excruciating to him.
"B.E.N.!" Jim, in attempt to keep B.E.N. from crashing, slapped him across the face, causing his head to spin completely around.
"And you are…?" B.E.N. reverted right back to a previous conversation. Well, at least he was saved from crashing.
"Wait, wait, wait! What about the treasure?"
"I wanna say Larry," the robot guessed.
"The-the centroid of the mechanism or…"
B.E.N. felt somewhat ashamed that he was unable to remember much of anything. It was unfortunate for him that he had no clue as to how he had become this forgetful. And for some odd reason or other, this boy was desperate to get some answers out of him. Too bad, B.E.N. wasn't able to provide those answers. "I'm sorry. M-m-my memory isn't what it used to be," he apologized. "Lost my mind. Ha, ha, I've lost my mind!" he chuckled with a crazy smile and came around to Jim's back and searched around his shirt. "You haven't found it, have you?"
"Uh…"
"My missing piece?" the robot explained and pointed to the gaping hole in the back of head where the wires stuck out haphazardly like a sore thumb. "My primary memory circuit?" He smiled hopefully at Jim.
"Look, B.E.N.," said Jim, beginning to walk away again, "I really need to find a place to hide, okay?" B.E.N.'s eyes changed from hopefulness to dejection. "So, I'm just gonna be…you know, moving on." And Jim walked a way's off.
B.E.N. felt crestfallen and sad. One minute he was just trying to make a friend—the first in more than a whole century, need I remind you—the next…this first sign of a real shot at a better home was vanishing from him again. B.E.N.'s heart was sinking, and he could feel that hole returning to his lonely life. "Oh, uh…so, well, then…I guess, uh…this is good-bye, huh?" He turned his back to Jim and slouched miserably. "I-I'm sorry that I'm so…" he shrank down to his wheeled knees and ankles and retracted his arms "…dysfunctional. So, uh…go ahead and, uh…I do understand…I do." He sniffed. "Bye-bye," he said meekly, sounding like he would start crying at any given moment and began to roll slowly away.
The boy remained silent for a moment and exhaled. "Look, if you're gonna come along," he said finally, "you're gonna have to stop talking."
Those words gave B.E.N. the exact lift he needed and spun to his full height, once again happy and joyful, knowing that he would never have to be alone again. "Huzzah! Ah, ha, ha, ha! Oh, this is fantastic!" he exclaimed excitedly, running up to Jim and jumping into his arms. "Me and my best buddy, out lookin' for a—!" B.E.N. suddenly noticed that Jim was glaring at him. He nervously cleared his throat and made a zip-the-lip gesture across his mouth. "Being quiet," he whispered, hugging Jim's face.
"And you have to stop touching me," Jim told him. B.E.N. flinched.
"Touching 'n talkin.'" B.E.N. jumped from Jim's arms and chuckled. "That's my two big no-no's."
"Okay. Now I think that we should head—"
"Say, listen," said B.E.N., just now realizing that he needed to take care of something important (I'd rather not say what), "before we go out on our big 'search'…um…" slightly embarrassed, he stepped over to a thin grove of trumpet plants, parting them "…would you mind if we made a quick pit stop at my place? Heh-heh. Kind of urgent." He grinned bashfully, revealing the huge clearing where his tower home sat.
Jim smiled. "B.E.N.…I think you just solved my problem."
To be continued…
—
Okay, so it was a little short. So, what? Just send me a review and tell me what you think, and I am open to tips on how I could make this better. Thank you!
