Chapter Twenty-Six: The Philosophy of Failure

"So what's the plan?"

Ben pushed his dusty island pony on the flank, trying to get the beast to go away with little success. "How fast can you fly?"

"I'm guessing not as fast as you," Rex said, zipping up his jacket in anticipation and ignoring Ben's horse as it nibbled at his sleeve.

"Probably not," agreed Tennyson. "Let me rephrase the question. How much speed can you take?"

"Plenty. My nanites will fix any damage to my system, if that's what you mean."

"Good. Take this," said Ben, handing back Dexter's Null-Void pistol. Rex held it up, looking over the small weapon with great interest. It looked like something out of a 1930's sci-fi serial.

"What's this, a DexLabs Noisy Cricket?"

Ben grinned, looking up from the Omnitrix. "It's a custom job. He calls it the Mons Meg after some old cannon he read about. Careful. It packs a wallop."

"Why am I not surprised?" he muttered, shoving it into his jacket pocket. "I'll try not to shoot myself."

"Glad to hear it. Jetray!"

Rex watched as Ben turned from human to Aerophibian in a flash of light and energy. Jetray took to the air, testing the wind before he swooped down and grabbed Rex with ease. They soared up through the fog, high over the bank to the clear night sky above. Navigating by the stars for the moment, Ben turned to the southwest.

"Hang on, Rex, and yell if I go too fast."

"Bring it on!" Salazar shouted back, gripping Jetray's clawed feet and tucking his elbows in close. How cool was it that he got to fly with some weirdo alien? He wouldn't have missed this for the world. Noah was going to be green with envy. Jetray took off like a shot and instantly Rex could feel his nanites compensating for the crushing g-force of the Aerophibian's speed. He clamped his mouth closed, determined not to swallow any bugs or give them cause to slow down.

The air was cold and crisp and in moments he was freezing, but the blinding speed and the crystal clear sky made up for the discomfort. The fog below swirled and billowed for a while, and then it thinned out and they were flying over the icy waters of the north Atlantic. The view seemed to go on forever, and the speed they reached was dizzying. Rex could feel his hair and clothes whip in the wind until condensation built up enough to freeze them in place and frosted over his goggles.

He was rethinking his plan of stoic endurance by the time they spotted Nova Scotia and when they had crossed the Bay of Fundy to New Brunswick (making a sharp left as Ben corrected his direction), he tapped hard on the feet clenching his shoulders, calling for a break. Jetray came in for a landing, circling once or twice before setting him down in a rocky field overlooking the water. A moment later Ben10 was steadying him.

"Too fast?"

It was more a statement than a question. Rex coughed, dragging air into his lungs as he nodded and leaned heavily on his knees. It would be a while before he could speak. The still autumn air seemed positively warm and he could feel water dripping down his face as his hair defrosted. Jetray was far faster than the Boogie Pack could ever hope to be, and though the flight had been fun, he was forced to admit Jetray's speed was too much strain even for his system.

Leaving Rex to recover for a moment, Ben keyed his comm unit. "Computress!"

"You've made good time, Ben," said the super computer.

"Yeah, but I'm going to have to slow it down a bit from here," he said, his hand still resting on Rex's back. The EVO was relieved he offered no reason why. "I wanted to get over land as fast as possible in case the Omnitrix decided to fritz out on me. How's the rest of the team?"

"Agent Six, Sgt. Morton, Capt. Calan, and Bobo Haha have taken the C-57D and are heading to Pennsylvania now. Sgt. Dearborn, Number Four, Professor Utonium, and Dr. Holiday are following in the Martian Maggot."

"They let the Professor go?" breathed Ben in disbelief. "Dex'll draw and quarter them. Everybody knows that!"

"He refused to be left behind, but agreed to stay behind with Number Four in the ship."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

"Ben? Ben? Wake up." There was a pause, then, "Please."

"Mmmph," he muttered, raising his head from off the pillow. He squinted at the shadowy form standing beside the sofa and said something highly intelligent, like, "Yee-ah-za-wha?"

Dexter, still dressed in oversized scrubs borrowed from Medical, sat on the arm of the sofa, keeping his splinted and bandaged hands on his chest and being careful not to jostle Ben's broken arm. "Sorry to wake you, but I need your help."

He yawned a mighty yawn and managed to articulate at the end, "Yeah, s'no prob, Dex. Whussup?" He rubbed his face with his right hand, trying for alertness but settling for slightly more awake. A glance at his surroundings told him he'd fallen asleep on the couch in the suite's downstairs, a great room that encompassed the living room, kitchen and dining room and that opened onto the patio. He remembered ending up here after consuming massive amounts of Chinese food with the Utonium family and Mr. Green. Dexter had gone to bed soon after dinner and he could only assume he hadn't lasted much longer. He was inordinately pleased at having been allowed to stay not just here, but in Dexter's hospital room earlier today. It was a sign of trust and regard, and he found himself equally pleased that Dexter had come to him for help no matter what he needed. He shifted, getting his bearings. A light in the kitchen was on, casting long shadows, and once again he'd been deluged with pillows and blankets. Mr. Green strikes again.

"It's time for my medication, but I can't get the bottles open or get a glass down for water," said Dexter, looking rather hangdog as he displayed his bound hands.

With another yawn, Ben nodded. "Y'okay. No prob." He threw the covers back and wound past the baby grand piano and the dining room set to the large kitchen, Dexter following silently behind. "Which ones?" he asked, facing the array of medications lined up for Dexter, Utonium, and himself.

"This and this," said Dexter, indicating the bottles."And this."

"I thought your dad said he was going to get up," he said curiously.

"I turned off his alarm so he'd sleep. He's in worse shape than he's saying. He's lost a lot of weight and sleep. A solid week of being seasick plus the stress of this attack have left him worn pretty thin. I thought I could deal with taking my own medications until, well, right now. I should have figured it out when it took ten minutes to get my glasses on."

Ben smiled, knowing perfectly well where Dexter got this degree of concern. He was thinking his friend hadn't made a very wise choice of bottle openers since he was down to one hand himself, but he was in better shape than the redhead and with a bit of twisting and bracing and thinking curses very loudly, he got the caps off the medicine bottles.

"May as well take mine, too," he said, glancing at the clock before wrestling with the bottles labeled for him. Pain killer, anti-inflammatory, anti-biotic - his mom would flip at all these pills. Good thing she didn't know and he knew better than to tell her until well after the fact. He got some glasses from a cupboard, opting for juice rather than water to wash down the tablets, and found a straw for Dexter to use.

"I can't take them, Ben."

"What? why not?" he asked, hastily swallowing a horse pill.

Dexter grumped a bit, staring at the medicine set before him. "I can't pick them up."

He chuckled. "Sorry, Dex. Here, I'll put them in a glass."

It took them working together to get the pills into Dexter, and since the antibiotics were better with food and since they were teenage boys with (relatively) healthy appetites, Ben pulled out half a dozen containers of leftover Chinese food that they proceeded to eat cold at the kitchen counter. He gamely fed Dexter off a large serving spoon.

"Heck of a day, huh?"

Dexter swallowed a mouthful of sesame chicken. "It's hard to believe it's only been a day."

"Yeah. So what'll you do about the ship that blew up?"

He shrugged as he took another mouthful of fried rice. "April was going to be scrapped. It wasn't a good design in that the engine was too powerful for the frame, and I'd rather inconvenience Fuse by trying to blast his little 'me' puppet into orbit than have to recycle all that metal." He sighed. "Does your arm hurt very much?"

"Probably not as much as your hands. I've broken bones before, but I never had frostbite."

"Me either. It feels like I burned my hands and nose. It's not much fun, but it certainly beats the alternative."

He gave Dexter an assessing look, letting his admiration show as he said, "You were pretty cool under fire there in that energon cage-thingy."

Dexter chuckled. "Is energon green?"

"I dunno."

"I was scared out of my mind."

"You fooled me."

He shrugged and let Ben serve him some broccoli. "The only useful thing I learned in six years at Huber Elementary School was to hide my emotions. It's proven to be a very beneficial skill in the business world. I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me panic."

"Well, Plutonium was enough to freak me out. Those Fusions are slimy!"

"Tell me about it. He was quite horrific . . . as was my double," he added softly. "Add Fusions to my list of phobias."

Something about his tone made Ben dig deeper. "Long list?" he asked, holding out a spare rib for Dexter to gnaw. They both laughed at his messy efforts.

"Endless," said Dexter, chewing hard on the stringy meat.

He figured that catalog of hang-ups could wait for another night chatting over cold leftovers."Okay, so tell me something that doesn't scare you."

"Heights," he said. "Speed. Flying."

"I'll take you someday," he instantly promised.

Dexter smiled and finished his list. "Failure."

Ben sat back, a forkful of stir-fried beef poised before him as he absorbed this information. "You're not afraid to fail?"

Head canted to the side, the younger teen looked at him with great interest, intrigued by Ben's surprise."Of course not. What sort of scientist would I be if I was afraid of trying?" His accent thickened as his amusement grew.

"Not a very good one?" Ben suggested, a little awed.

"An awful one, Mr. Tennyson. Failure doesn't really exist for me. It's more a question of what works, and what doesn't work. The only way to narrow the field down to what works is to try. So what you call failure is to me simply another step closer to success."

"That's probably a healthier way of looking at it than what I've got," he admitted. "But what about the energon cage? What if we hadn't made it out?"

"More broccoli, please. Trying is better than talking about trying, and I'd rather try and die than not try and die anyway."

A little huff of a laugh escaped him at so casual an approach to a life-and-death situation. Ben sat back in his chair to gape in admiration. "Did I say cool before? I think you must have antifreeze in your veins, kiddo."

"Failure is an event, not a person." He laughed softly. "So what are you afraid of?"

He could not match the Boy Genius' bravado any more than he could lie to him. Quietly Ben admitted, "Failure."

"Why?" asked Dexter, and his wonder at the notion was genuine.

Lowering the fork, Ben lowered his voice as well. "Because when I'm being a hero, if I'm not good enough or clever enough or fast enough, people could die."

There was something akin to sympathy in Dexter's eyes as he looked at Ben, a small frown on his face as he tried to rationalize any given situation Ben10 might face. "But . . . you're a hero because you act when others don't whether or not your plan works. By trying, you make all the difference. You give hope, Ben, and you never quit. How is that not success?"

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Ben stared at the Omnitrix as he considered Computress' news. He was familiar enough with the characters involved to know that Utonium had pulled the rank card and the sergeants had pulled the death-by-Dexter card to reach a compromise. Well, that was fine. It was always good to have a medical doctor along for the ride and Ben knew perfectly well the Professor was what his friend was going to need once they got Dexter away from Van Kleiss and the Pack and the Ur-Dexter and this whole, rotten situation. That didn't stop the image of Dearborn holding the much taller scientist in a full Nelson while Chip and Six dashed up the ramp of the C-57D from playing through his mind like a cartoon.

"Gotcha. What's our location?" He looked at Rex as he asked, more than a little concerned that the Latino hadn't spoken yet. As if on cue, Rex started coughing.

"Ten miles south of St. Andrews, New Brunswick, almost in Maine."

"Okay. Thanks. We'll be on our way in a minute or two."

"Let me know when you need my help navigating."

"Will do." He leaned over to look at Rex, letting his worry show. "You okay? You want to rest a bit and catch up with me?"

Rex shook his head. "I'm okay. Just not so fast."

"Okay. I really did want to get us over land," he confessed. "Sometimes the Omnitrix has a mind of its own and it's a heckuva lot better to crash land on dirt than water."

"This the voice of experience?" asked Rex with a tired smile.

"You have no idea." Ben considered, looking at Rex by the light of the moon. "I'll turn to Big Chill this time. He's not as fast as Jetray, but he can make some pretty respectable speed. I'm not going to stop, though. If you need a rest, you'll have to catch up."

"I won't," said Rex. "I promise."