Chapter Ten: Goodbye
After running down the enormous flight of steps, Sandy and Bandit (who knew their way around better) led Sparky and Stitch into a room. It was small and cramped, with only a desk, a chair, and a lamp inside it. The desk was covered in small machines that the four experiments could only guess what their purposes were.
Bandit picked up a small black box and began to speak into it. Her loud, magnified voice came over the intercom: "Attention! Attention, fellow experiments! It's me, Bandit, Experiment 1-4-9. Jumba's been captured by the Inter-Galactic Police and has asked me, Sandy, Sparky, and Experiment 6-2-6—"
Stitch growled and grabbed the intercom out of her hands. "Hi. Meega Stitch!"
Bandit snatched it back. "Yeeeeeeah, that was 6-2-6. Anyway, Jumba asked us to take charge. So everyone run to the main hall, pronto." She put it down and added to Sparky and Stitch, "Jumba always said that if he got captured, one of us should dehydrate all the other experiments, travel to the prison, and give him a container full of the pods. That way, maybe we'd have a chance to survive."
"So who's gonna stay un-dehydrated?" asked Sparky.
"Meega!" cried Stitch.
Bandit shook her head. "Nah, Stitch, you're too young. You still need to learn a lot about the world."
Stitch hung his head. "Aw."
"I'm not goin'," said Sandy quickly
Sparky shook his head. "Not me."
Everyone looked at Bandit. "Okay," she said slowly, "I'll go. But I want one of you to come with me. It'll be—dangerous breaking Jumba out of prison and—and I'm scared!"
Sparky smiled at her. "Since you admit you're scared, Bandit, I'll come with you."
--
Bandit and Sparky walked down the main hallway together, watching the experiments dehydrating each other, one by one, until only Sandy was left.
"Good luck," he said with a sigh, climbing into the dehydration machine.
Bandit smiled at him. "Thanks." She pushed the button, and a little blue ball with the number "625" on it rolled out. She put it inside the big experiment computer.
"Six hundred twenty-four experiments contained," the computer beeped.
Sparky picked it up and flew into the air. "That's everyone." He held his other hand out for Bandit to take. "C'mon."
"Wait… just in case we get outta there alive, I'm bringing some… um… important stuff." Sparky followed her into the bedchamber, where she scooped up a handful of photos from her beside table.
He stared. Every one of them was of Thief. Thief smiling, Thief frowning—there was even one with Thief circled in red pen with the words "da booshibu" above his head!
"Don't ask," growled Bandit.
Sparky nodded. "Let's go."
She took his hand, and off they flew.
--
Bandit telling Sparky which ways to fly, they arrived at the Inter-Galactic Police Station on Kweltikwan. "Look, there's Jumba!" she cried, and indeed there he was.
A guard was circling him. "Don't try to fool us, Jookiba," he snapped. "We know what you've been doing."
"I… I have been… experimenting," Jumba admitted, "but am not making things that are… alive."
The guard laughed. "Of course you weren't making living things… you just made one, right? Oh, Jumba"—he paused to grin maliciously—"you always were so clever."
"What are you going to do to me?" Jumba asked nervously.
"Oh, don't worry," said the guard. "We won't hurt you… much."
Jumba flinched.
"The Grand Council Woman of the United Galactic Federation has ordered us to take you to planet Turo," the guard explained. "Then there will be a trial to see if your little experiment—your little mistake—can be forgiven."
Sparky gasped. "Malary called us mistakes too."
Bandit nodded. "Yeah…"
"What happened to Malary, anyway?" asked Sparky.
"Jumba divorced her after an incident with Experiment 3-5-5," Bandit explained. "3-5-5 made then swap bodies for a whole month and they learned a lot—too much—about each other."
They turned back to the guard. He laughed at Jumba and pulled out a gun. "Now follow me."
"What—what will happen to 6-2-6?" asked Jumba.
"He'll be destroyed," whispered the guard, grinning. "Good thing you didn't make more than one. Then you'd have to be parted with two beloved mistakes." He laughed, and pushed Jumba into the building.
"Chumba," said Bandit sarcastically, which meant, "Great."
"At least he only knows about Stitch," said Sparky, "and not all 625 of us."
"But Jumba's gonna be taken to planet Turo!" Bandit wailed. "How're we gonna follow him now?"
Sparky sighed. He grabbed her hand and flew up to the door that Jumba and the guard had entered. "Hmm… locked." He studied it carefully, and then took another look at Bandit.
She was crying. "Oh, Sparky, what will we do?"
He hugged her. "Hold on tight, Bandit."
"Why—" Her reply was cut short by her own scream, as Sparky charged headfirst into the solid wall. But when Bandit opened her eyes, they weren't in the hospital—they were inside the police station, completely unharmed!
Sparky brushed some dirt off his tail. "If we hurry, we can probably follow Jumba all the way to Turo!"
"How… how did you do that?" asked Bandit.
Sparky shrugged. "I turned us into electricity. Nothing amazing."
"Yeah, it is!" cried Bandit, in awe. "It's awesome."
Sparky smiled modestly. "Thanks."
Sparky and Bandit ran down the hallway to a large room housing several blue police cruisers. They spotted the guard pushing Jumba into one of them.
"There's Jumba!" whispered Bandit. "But how're we gonna sneak inside the ship…?"
Sparky grabbed her arm and flew into the trunk of the cruiser without opening the lid. "I can turn into electricity, remember?"
Bandit smiled. "Good Sparky!"
And they rode in the trunk all the way to planet Turo.
--
As the guard dragged Jumba out of the cruiser, Sparky turned him and Bandit into electricity once again, and they followed their creator unnoticed. The guard led him into a small room and stuffed his arms into a pair of handcuffs.
"Where are we being?" asked Jumba.
"Now you just stay here," the guard warned him, ignoring Jumba's question. "Your trial is in a few hours, and the rules won't let me put you in a prison cell before your trial… so you can just stay here, that sound good?"
Not waiting for an answer, he slammed the door shut, leaving Jumba in pitch blackness.
Sparky turned him and Bandit back to normal, and he lit up their surroundings with his gentle glow. "Hi, Jumba."
Jumba gasped. "2-2-1!"
Sparky nodded and held out the experiment computer. "Here you go."
"You came all the way to Turo to give Jumba this?" asked Jumba.
He blushed. "Bandit helped."
Bandit shook her head. "Nah, you did everything, Sparks."
Jumba fumbled with the experiment container. "Oh, where is 6-2-6?"
"His name," Bandit told him, "is Stitch."
"Stitch?" asked Jumba.
"Lemme guess—you think it's a dumb name too?" asked Bandit hopefully. "Sparky made it up."
"No, is genius name." Jumba pushed a button and Stitch's pod rolled out. "Stitch… my favorite experiment."
Sparky stared at him. Stitch was Jumba's favorite?
"Oh, Sparky, you are my second favorite experiment," Jumba added hastily. "Bandit…"
Bandit held up her hand. "I don't care." She shrugged.
Sparky looked at the ground. He felt really hurt… second-best. To his creator he was only next-to-best, after all of his adventures. Stitch, the newest experiment, had experienced close to nothing… and he was first-best! Sparky growled. He could never forgive Stitch for this, the little traitor. But he still couldn't believe that after everything he'd done, after everything he'd gone through, he had still only come in second.
Bandit put her hand on his shoulder and he looked up. "I… I can break you out of here," Sparky told Jumba.
Jumba shook his head. "No. Get in the container. Jumba needs to face the Grand Council Woman… or else all of you will be in danger."
Sparky, not exactly eager to stay with someone who thought he was second-best, shrugged.
But Bandit was crying again. "Will you be okay, Jumba?"
"Yes, Bandit," Jumba replied. He smiled. "What is worst that could happen?"
Bandit turned to Sparky and threw herself on top of him. "Oh, Sparky!"
Jumba chuckled. "Is Sparky being your booshibu?"
Bandit let go of Sparky and took a good look at him. "No," she said slowly, "he's not. My booshibu is Thief, and Sparky's is Electra. I know it seems like we're booshibus, but there's a kind of friend that's… closer that a booshibu, just not romantic. That's what's up with Sparky and me."
Sparky smiled at her. "Bye-bye, Bandit."
She gave him another squeeze. "Does being dehydrated hurt?"
He laughed. "Naga! Of course not!"
"Will you go first anyway?" asked Bandit cautiously, staring at Stitch's pod.
Sparky nodded and climbed into the dehydrating machine. He waved to them. "Good-bye."
The last thing Sparky saw was Bandit's smiling face. Then he was gone.
