Chapter 13: The Highway Chase
It seemed like they had been driving for hours, but Double d knew that the true duration of their trip had only been around 30 minutes, or so. The nonstop roar of the RV as it sped down the highway almost made Double d forget that he was merely staring at his own reflection on the inner window; although translucent and somewhat faded, the image of himself that he witnessed on the glass seemed to mirror the same worrisome and solemn expression that adorned his face. Leaving his house without the blessing of his parents was uncomfortable, but fully exiting the confines of a town was downright morally unjustifiable to him. What made things even worse was that he was beginning to have second-thoughts - what would his parents think? How serious was this decision? Was this the right thing to do?
Once again, uncontrollable thoughts swirled around uncomfortably within the confines of his head - his mind was at war with itself.
"Hey," came a voice from beyond the borderlines of his psyche, "are you okay?"
Looking over at the orange-haired girl on the opposite end of the table, Double d blinked a couple of times in her direction before responding.
"Huh? W-what?" he stuttered, a bit nervous that she caught him in his thought-ridden state, "yes, i'm quite okay. I suppose there's just…..a lot on my mind."
The concerned look on her face quickly shifted to one of understanding, "yeah, I get it. Leaving home is probably a pretty big deal for you, isn't it?"
Double d said nothing, but nodded his head - he was afraid that trying to put into words what he was feeling would only diminish the severity of it.
"Well, you guys are in a pretty weird position; you know, discovering you have alien super-powers and whatnot."
Although the situation she had described was indeed ridiculous and remarkable, she said it with a tone that indicated a sort of familiarity with such a notion. That made sense though. Double d had gathered enough info to discern how common these types of things had become for the Tennyson family. Ben was basically a teenage superhero, with powers most people could never even comprehend at the press of a button; he had been saving the human race since he was like ten. Max Tennyson had a few secrets too, as Double d was certain he wasn't the average 'middle-aged' grandfather who spent his time playing card games or watching old TV re-runs. As for Gwen, well, she had been placed in the middle of this madness at the same time that Ben was; she had to come to grips with some of the most logic-defying adventures with her grandpa and cousin, all the while not having any fancy superpowers or alien-fighting experience.
Gwen was just a normal girl….which fascinated Double d the most. Either way he looked at it, the things that she dealt with and the dangers she had to face (probably daily) made her one of the bravest individuals the young Ed-boy had ever met. Not that he'd met that many teenage girls who had helped save the world.
Snapping her fingers in front of Double d's face, Gwen worked to gain his attention once more.
"Hey, you still there?" she asked.
"Oh! Yes, sorry. I can't help but drift off sometimes," he quickly responded.
"...'sometimes'?" Gwen repeated with a short giggle.
Being easily flustered, the beanie-wearing teen couldn't help but blush a bit at the pathetic display he felt he was putting on. However, Gwen must've noticed his despair as she apparently tried to cheer him up.
"Don't worry. Sometimes I also catch myself in deep thought. I mean, who wouldn't need a break when you have a cousin like Ben?" she jabbed her thumb in the direction of Ben and Ed as the two giddily huddled around the portable gaming console. Double d nodded in complete understanding; although he never had to deal with Ben in the same way she was implying, Ed and Eddy seemed to be perfect substitutes for the chaos in Double d's own world.
"I believe I might be able to relate," Eddward said, no longer embarrassed at his prior awkwardness.
A small smile appeared on Gwen's face as the two shared a moment of understanding. But as soon as her smile had come, it faded even faster upon hearing the blaring sound of police sirens echoing in the distance. The alarms sounded faint at first, like a ringing in your ear that would come and go, but the intensity increased as a pair of police cars sped down the highway in pursuit of a grey truck. The pulsating glow of red and blue lights brightened as the three vehicles suddenly zoomed past the RV, the volume of the sirens reaching their peak before quickly diminishing.
Double d couldn't help but stare at the display of cat-and-mouse; he knew what 'car chases' were, as he had seen them often in films and TV shows, but he rarely had the chance to witness one in real life. In Peach Creek, the cops were almost never called (at least not for something serious), which meant that the arrival of police was as much an attraction as a circus was.
"Heh, I'm thinkin' Fourarms," Ben suddenly announced, standing up.
"Wow, great idea genius," Gwen spat sarcastically, "use the big, red, slow guy to catch the speeding car chase. Very nice!"
"Oh, what, you got a better idea?" Ben shot back.
"How about XLR8?" she posed.
Ben clicked his tongue, "You know he's hard to control sometimes, right?"
Double d looked back and forth between the two of them, completely and utterly confused. Judging by the looks Ed and Eddy gave, they were just as left out of the loop.
The orange-haired girl just shrugged and glanced back at her laptop, "Oh well. I guess the bad guys are going to get away."
"Hah! I don't think so," Ben confidently bellowed as he carefully adjusted the dial on his watch, "They'll have a lot more to deal with than the cops when they meet…."
Slamming the palm of his hand down on the center of his watch, Ben excitedly laughed as a green light engulfed him and spread throughout the cabin of the RV.
"Stinkfly!" came a shrill voice as the light slowly dimmed.
Double d was forced to shield his eyes until the glow had weakened enough for him to readjust his vision; his confusion didn't subside once he was finally able to glance back at Ben. There, where the brown-haired boy once stood, was a giant insect-like monster; it took Double d a few moments of undisturbed bewilderment before he finally remembered the power that the omnitrix held and realized that the creature standing before him was actually Ben.
"Really?...'Stinkfly'?" Gwen said, unconvinced by the choice of alien, "you're supposed to catch bad guys not assault their sense of smell."
Double d knew what she meant; almost immediately, a sudden putrid smell wafted into his nostril cavity, making him reel back a bit in disgust.
"Jesus, dude," Eddy protested from the bottom bunk bed near the back of the RV, also covering his own nose, "has this alien ever heard of deodorant?"
"Screw you! It's not like I can just shut off the stink," the insect growled impatiently.
"Hey, I'd love to have this whole chat later," Gwen interjected, "but I think the bad guys are getting away."
"Oh, not on my watch," Stinkfly declared, letting out a chuckle immediately after, "hehehe….get it?"
"Yes, I got it," the girl said with a dead-panned face, "now GO!"
Not wasting any more time, Ben waddled over to the side door and opened it; glancing down at the moving road and then up at the dimming police lights as they disappeared further down the highway, Stinkfly wasted no time jumping out into the open air. The buzzing of his wings commenced as his body lifted up into the sky before then traveling forward in pursuit of the car chase. Eddy and Ed had now gotten up from their respective seats and practically ran over to the driver's window to get a better look. They watched as the giant insect quickly flew further off into the distance. The movements of the airborne creature were as insect-like as one could get, darting often in seemingly random directions and intervals while still maintaining the general speed.
Even from this distance, Ed and Eddy saw a strange liquid secretion that was ejected somewhere from Stinkfly's head and effortlessly stuck to the windshield of the escaping truck.
The vehicle spun off the road, sliding to a halt on the reddish dirt that laid on either side of the highway; as it came to a stop, the spinning tires kicked up plumes of translucent dust. The police were quick to take advantage of the truck's sudden break, first parking in front of the vehicle so as not to let in escape again before exiting the cop cars and pulling out their guns.
"Freeze!" they yelled, training their pistols on two men who begrudgingly exited the car, "Get down on the ground, and don't reach for any weapons!" Putting their hands up, the men gave each other hopeless looks before then getting on their knees, almost in wait for the arrest.
Although the cops kept their guns aimed at the criminals, they glanced up into the sky, searching for the strange object that they briefly saw. However, unfortunately for them, that unidentified object - Stinkfly - had already left the scene and returned back to the Rustbucket.
Almost as soon as he re-entered the RV, a loud beeping emanated from the watch before the same green light engulfed the teen once again. After subsiding, Ben walked further into the cabin of the vehicle.
"Oh yeah, who's the hero? That'd be me," he gloated.
"YAAAY! GO BEN, GO BEN, GO BEN!" Ed shouted in earnest.
"Big deal," Eddy interjected from beside his congratulating friend, "All you did was spit some snot at the windshield. It's gross, but not impressive."
"I'd like to see you try it then," Ben growled, giving the short Ed-boy a stern look.
"Oh please. I could probably run circles around your ass," Eddy continued.
"That's hard to believe, considering you can't even control your powers," Ben shot back.
"I've got enough control to burn off that dumb-ass face of yours," Eddy retorted once more.
"Try it, short-stack," Ben warned.
"Boys, come on. Give it a rest, will you? Our trip is far too long for you two to be arguing," Max interrupted.
Eddy decided to turn to the old man, "Hey, when are you gonna teach us to use our powers, like you said you would?"
"Eddy, manners," Double d whispered from the table.
"No, no - it's alright," Max said, offering a gentle wave, "That's a completely fair question."
Without taking his eyes off the road, Max spoke directly to Eddy this time, "There's a place I know of that's not too far from here; it's actually somewhere on our route. It's a couple of hours from here, but I was planning on stopping there anyway for the night. It's a fairly wide-open space with not alot of people, so it'd be the perfect place for you to start your training."
Surprisingly satisfied with the answer, Eddy slowly nodded his head, content with the arrangement so far, "Oh, ok. That sounds….cool, I guess."
"Great," Max responded, "Well, don't worry; we'll be there before you know it. Can you and Ben just do me a favor - try your best not to argue until we get there."
Eddy and Ben locked eyes in a sort-of battle, each one giving as combative a look as the other.
"Promise me?" Max continued.
"Uh! Ok, grandpa. You win," Ben finally said in an irritated tone.
"Fine. Whatever," Eddy agreed.
The two boys gave each other short glares for one last time before then splitting off into various parts of the RV; Eddy retreated back onto the bunk beds, angrily pulling the covers over him, while Ben sat back down with Ed and the two of them continued to play Sumo Slammer.
"Geez. Is your friend always this mad?" Gwen asked, although Double d couldn't tell if it was a serious question considering she hadn't looked up to meet his gaze.
"Ummm….well, he can sometimes be brash, combative, and overall a bit hard to deal with."
Gwen glanced up from her laptop monitor, finally making eye contact with the beanie-wearing teen; Double d was worried that her question was merely rhetorical and that he had once again made himself seem awkward.
"If he's all of those things, then why do you hang out with him?" she asked.
Double d was a bit taken aback by the straightforwardness of her question; it seemed rather strange to him for someone to directly challenge the legitimacy of the relationships he often kept. Truthfully, it was usually quite difficult to defend Eddy's character, as he was often the source of animosity from nearly all the kids in the cul-de-sac. Aside from the constant dishonesty, greediness, and general moral shortcomings, Double d never really thought of Eddy as a particularly 'bad' person. Sure, some of the methods he would use to get what he wanted would sometimes harm people in the process, but it was never the goal of Eddy's schemes. In fact, given the household that Eddy grew up in, it was a wonder that he wasn't several times worse than he turned out to be.
"Well, I suppose," Double d began, "that despite all of his bad qualities, I still believe he has the potential to be a good person."
Gwen's eyebrows slightly raised, not necessarily at the statement itself, but rather at the honesty of it; in truth, she expected something along the lines of 'well, he's fun to hang around' or 'he's really not THAT bad' - all of which struck Gwen as an unwillingness to see things as they really were. But this guy, Double d, had actually put quite a bit of thought into his answer - something Gwen could respect, and even admire to a certain extent.
"Hmmm, fair enough," Gwen said.
Realizing that the majority of the conversations he often held with Gwen mainly revolved around himself, Double d felt it only fair to ask a question of her. But, what would be a good question to ask? He was terrible with starting new conversations, let alone keeping one going. What should he say? What should he say?
"Uhhhh...so, what….perhaps….are you doing on your laptop?"
As the orange-haired girl glanced up at him once more, the nervous Ed-boy couldn't help but inwardly curse himself. Oh, wonderful job Edward! 'What are you doing on your laptop?' - how unoriginal and generic can you get? Perhaps you should ask what her favorite color is while you're at it!
To Double d's surprise, Gwen smiled at him; it was a small smile (and probably done so to be polite), but it was a smile nonetheless.
"Well, I'm mainly keeping an eye out for any major crime reports in this area; usually, when there's a 'crime in progress', I'll let Ben and Grandpa know so we can act quickly."
"Wow. You're quite devoted," Double d commented.
"Thanks," Gwen replied, "but there wasn't much happening in this area, so I was just going to focus on some homework that I was assigned for the summer," she explained.
"Oh. What class?"
"Biology," she said, faking a pained face.
"I could perhaps assist you," Double d offered, "I mean, I don't mean to brag, but I'm ranked highest in my school, grade-wise."
"Oh, really? Me too," Gwen said.
"Huh? You too? You mean, you're at the top of your highschool as well?"
"Yep!" Gwen responded proudly, "I've had the best grades of my schools since 4th grade."
"Amazing…" Double d mumbled.
Gwen looked back down at her laptop, presumably to hide the slight blush that crept up her cheeks.
"Well, if you're so good, do you mind if I quiz you?" she said, recovering from the reddening.
"Um. Sure, I suppose."
"Okay! Here's a question," she began, reading off some unseen words on her screen:
1) Which of the following nucleic acids is not found in RNA?
a) Cytosine
b) Thymine
c) Adenine
d) Guanine
"Thymine," Double d answered immediately, "In RNA, thymine is replaced with uracil."
"Wow. That was...fast," Gwen observed.
"...t-thanks…" Double d said.
Glancing back down at the next question, Gwen continued, "how about this one: "
2) Which enzyme catalyzes the synthesis of new DNA by adding nucleotides to a preexisting chain?
a) DNA ligase
b) DNA polymerase
c) Helicase
d) Topoisomerase
"The correct answer should be B - DNA polymerase," Double d answered, just as fast as last time.
"Uh, y-yeah. That's correct," Gwen acknowledged in disbelief.
Double d chuckled gratefully.
"Would you like me to test YOU next?" he posited.
"Yeah, sure," the girl said, turning the laptop around and sliding it over to the awaiting beanie-wearer.
Grabbing both sides of the laptop's frame, Double d scanned the questions that were displayed on the luminous screen. He couldn't tell how many there were, but judging by the scroll indicator, there had to be at least 100 questions. Quickly pushing that to the side, however, he looked at the next question and read it aloud.
3) What property of DNA allows it to replicate and repair?
a) Specific base pairing
b) Double stranded structure
c) Antiparallel elongation
d) All of the above
Gwen looked up at the ceiling in thought; it didn't take her long to come to an answer, however, because she answered within a matter of seconds.
"It's D - 'All of the above'," she said, leaning back a little in her seat, "Specific base pairing, the double stranded structure and DNA's antiparallel elongation are all important properties that contribute to DNA's ability to replicate and repair."
As she spoke, in the process of explaining her rationale for the answer, Double d couldn't help but gaze admirably at her. It had been far too long since he had felt so 'relatable' to another person; at Peach Creek, no one really took their studies seriously, unless of course their parents threatened to remove their TV or Video Game console. Double d was often quite alone when it came to such simple things like studying. He had so desperately wanted someone to share his love for knowledge and acquiring it, that he even once turned to Ed and Eddy - big mistake. Double d had long ago stopped searching for someone who shared his view on academics (or knowledge in general), and yet, here - in the form of a pretty girl - came someone who's treatment of such things might even match his own. He supposed this is what many people would call a 'kindred spirit' - someone whose attributes and qualities were so in-tuned with your own that it felt almost like destiny. But Double d knew better than to believe in destiny; he knew better than to idolize people. So, for the time being, he would just enjoy Gwen's presence.
"Hey, hey, you're doing it again," the girl said from across the table.
"Oh, forgive me," Double d responded, "...would you like to hear the next question?"
The girl eagerly nodded, prompting Double d to read the next line of text from the laptop.
For the next few hours, the two of them continued non-stop, each of them swapping between the roles of 'asking the questions' and 'answering them'; almost as though in a constant state of enjoyment, neither one of them wanted to stop.
End of Chapter 13
Author's Note: Howdy, my dudes? How's it hangin'? It seems it still had some creative juices left in the vat that I was able to squeeze out for this chapter. Now, i'm not saying that you should thank me for providing you with such a riveting and awe-inspiring storyline….but you could at least comment…..please? Thanks! A wise man once said: "Thoust who commentith, deservith a high-five-ith…..or something like that." Bye!