Chapter Four: Past and Present
"How much easier it would be if you'd simply tell me what I want to know."
Dexter raised his eyes, too weary to lift his head.
"Easy for whom?" His teeth were chattering with cold, and he wanted very much to curl into a tight ball and go to sleep and then wake to find this was all some horrible nightmare.
"Both of us."
"Not for me. Besides," he rasped, "if I hate being around someone smarter than me, how much worse it must be for you."
"You're right, of course."
"Of course," he muttered.
"The Omnitrix."
"What of it?"
"Tell me everything you know about it."
Dexter sighed, sick of this, sickened by it. Every inch of him ached with a low, throbbing pain. His resistance was eroding. "Find out for yourself."
"If I could, I would, believe me."
"I do. But I wouldn't tell you even if I did know anything about it."
"I know."
He saw his interrogator's hand hover over the controls. One touch of a button and he would be plunged from a world of pain into a world of agony. Again. He closed his eyes wearily, resting his head on the wall behind him. It was better not to see it coming.
"You did an analysis of the Omnitrix five days ago."
"I did no such thing. Do you think I would run the risk of that technology falling into Fuse's hands?"
"Liar. You're exactly like me. You wouldn't be able to resist. Knowledge has always been more important to you than safety."
"I am nothing like you. I would never torture anyone."
"Except yourself, hmm? Then perhaps I'm just not afraid to act upon the most suitable course of action and you are. Are you afraid, Dexter?"
"Of course I am. That is a very stupid question."
"What are you afraid of?"
"If you know me so well, you already know the answer to that."
"Ignorance, then. I don't fear ignorance. I despise it."
"Especially in yourself."
"You hold the information I seek in your memory. Tell me, Dexter, or I'll search it out myself."
He opened his eyes just to glare at the shadowy, blurred figure on the other side of the glass. Mustering all the contempt he felt for his captor, Dexter spat,
"Happy hunting."
And the world, his world, his mind exploded in fire and torment.
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Dexter! Hey, Dex! Wait up!"
At the first call he paused, and then turned, balancing his tray of food. Ben Tennyson was weaving toward him through the crush of hungry fighters and workers filling the canteen in their headquarters. Dexter smiled in greeting, for it had been a long while since he had seen his friend. Ben spent most of his time on the front lines of this war while Dexter was lucky if he saw anything more than his laboratory, his rooms, and the hall between the two locations on a weekly basis.
"Ben!"
"Long time no see, pal. You eating in here?" asked Ben, gesturing at the dining hall.
"I will now."
"Good. C'mon, I gotta talk to you."
He led the way to an empty table in the corner since with his greater height he could see over the crowd whereas Dexter didn't stand a chance unless he stood on a chair. People hurried out of their way and whispers and long stares followed in their wake. Ben, a little more self-conscious than the boy genius behind him, called out a few greetings to people he recognized. Dexter, who was rarely seen outside of his laboratory, had long ago learned to ignore the comments and sneers of others that took exception to his intelligence and mannerisms, and so did not notice the respect and admiration the Earth's forces afforded him. That he could be so animated astonished them, because the few people that interacted with him only saw him in his home element - the vast laboratory reaching deep into the earth beneath their headquarters - and only saw the cool, arrogant, high-strung genius that they depended upon for weapons and defenses. A smiling, chatting, good-humored Dexter was a novelty.
"So how you been?" asked Ben eagerly, dropping into a chair. They were seated a little away from most of the people in the dining hall, though it was filling up quickly.
Dexter sat opposite him. "Very busy. And you?"
"Very busy, to put it mildly."
"You were at Endsville, yes? In Anytown?"
Tennyson dug into his mashed potatoes with gusto. "Yeah. Whew." He shook his head, talking as he ate. "Heavy fighting. It was pretty close."
"Mandy must have been pleased at least part of her home town was retaken."
"Huh. Don't bet on it. This is Mandy we're talking about, kiddo. But hey!" He changed the topic before Dexter could glower at being called 'kiddo.' Ben was a mere three years older, but far more worldly in his experiences. "Those plasma mines you came up with were awesome. They really did the trick. They reduced those Fusion mechs to goo."
"I should hope," Dexter replied, poking at his salad. "If only Professor Utonium and I could find a way to permanently destabilize that goo."
He spoke the last word as if he'd never uttered it before and was trying it on for size. Ben smiled fondly, as much at his friend's reaction as his accent. The fact that Dexter had a Russian accent but could not speak the language amused Ben Tennyson no end. That accent, which rendered some words so distorted as to be unrecognizable, got thicker when he got angry, as Ben well knew. Midway through their lunch he decided it was time to start working Dexter up a bit. That's what friends were for, after all, and it was healthy for him.
"What brings you back here?" Dexter asked, conversationally. He looked at his plate and made a little sound of disgust, leaning his chin on his hand as he ate. "Certainly not the food."
"Orders. What Mandy wants, Mandy gets, so, here I be. I've got a new mission," he said. He didn't offer any details and Dexter didn't ask for any, well aware his friend was not in a position to elaborate. Ben leaned across the table a bit, frowning. "What is that, Dex? Are you eating rabbit food?"
The younger boy sighed, failing to cotton on to the fact that the teasing had commenced. "It's the closest thing to vegetables besides French fries, pickles, and catsup that the Kids Next Door will serve."
"The Kids don't like vegetables."
"Well, I do."
Ben knew full well the only reason Dexter liked vegetables was the fallout of one of his endless experiments. It was hard to say if the experiment was a success or not, seeing as how the very thing he wanted most to eat was the last thing on earth the cooks here at headquarters would ever imagine serving, namely broccoli. To date no one had been able to convey to this self-acclaimed super genius that experimenting on yourself was not always the wisest course of action. Dexter was too curious, too impatient, and too brash for his own good, and flashes of genius did not automatically preclude one from flashes of stupidity.
"Well, you're a freak."
"So you keep informing me," the boy scientist said without taking offense. Ben was one of the very few people here that was not intimidated by Dexter's brilliant mind and one of just a tiny handful of people that simply regarded him as a peer. For Dexter, it was as refreshing as rain in the desert to be treated like a normal child and to be given a chance to act his age. Tennyson did not expect a constant flow of glowing wit and intelligence out of him like most people did - he just expected Dexter to be himself. The younger boy welcomed the inevitable teasing and did his best to return it, and Ben didn't care if he understood what Dexter was going on about, so long as Dexter was dishing something out at him. Actually, the more technical it was, the less sense it made to Ben and the more it amused him. Unlike the mean-spirited abuse Dexter had endured in his grade school, Ben taunted him only to get him to loosen up, relax, and have some fun. For these reasons and more, Ben Tennyson was the top name on Dexter's very short list of friends.
"So we agree. You're a freak." He saluted with his soda.
"No, we don't agree. You are more of a freak than I could ever hope to be. I am at least genetically stable. You mutate into aliens."
"At least when I mutate myself it's on purpose. What's your excuse? Science gone bad?"
"No," Dexter replied, almost laughing, "DeeDee."
"I'm telling her that."
He rolled his eyes. "Go ahead. She'll forget it in a minute."
Ben laughed, trying to use the momentum he'd built. "So when's the last time you were outside?"
"I have no idea and don't start," Dexter snapped, pointing his fork at his companion. "You were there. You know better."
"You stay indoors much more, shortie, you're going to get rickets."
"Hardly. Every time I do manage to step foot out the door the Fusion Power Puff Girls attack."
Ben grinned even though the situation was deadly serious. Dexter was right - he could not move about freely since Fuse had targeted him as the primary threat to the alien invasion. At least one of the Fusion dopplegangers was always in the area in case the opportunity for assassination arose. One of Mandy's first moves upon taking over command of Earth's Forces was a standing arrest order for Dexter if he tried wandering around outside of their headquarters building. The resulting explosion had been of epic proportions. Ben would never forget the sight of Dexter, surrounded by a ring of heavily armed KND security guards preventing him from stepping out of the front entrance, letting out a furious scream of, "You can't do this!" and Mandy's mono-tone reply of, "I just did." It had been the start of beautiful working relationship.
Ben tried for a new angle to rile his friend. "Maybe the Fusion Girls just think you science geeks are irresistible. Ever think of that?"
Dexter, well aware of what he perceived as his own physical shortcomings, actually blushed and he snorted at the notion. "They're welcome to Mandark, then."
"Naa. My sources tell me that shorts-and-suspenders combo is a big chick turn-off."
Another snort, and Dexter almost choked on his juice. Ben chuckled as the younger boy struggled for enough breath to laugh.
The room was becoming more crowded and the tables close by were filling up with soldiers, workers, medics, support staff, and all the peoples that had united to fight the invasion by Planet Fusion. Ben looked through the strange mass of people, animals, the occasional demon, and a few other sundry beings that were at least as weird as the alien zoo he carried in the Omnitrix. They were all from such divergent backgrounds, and yet in the face of their enemy, united.
Or so he would have liked to believe. Mandy had recalled him from the field for a reason and it certainly wasn't because she missed him. Ben knew full well she must be convinced of the ugly truth if she yanked him out of the fight and dumped him in headquarters with no other assignment than to keep an eye on the red-headed, four-eyed, undersized rocket scientist stabbing at an innocent salad across the table from him. That same rocket scientist was, not surprisingly, the one to have figured it out.
There was a spy for Fusion here in their headquarters.
They should not have lost Townsville three weeks ago. Plain and simple, they should not have lost. For once they had the upper hand on Fuse - better weapons, more troops, better information, and yet they had been sent packing with heavy losses, their confidence shaken, and one rampaging and two devastated Power Puff Girls as Townsville was reduced to an Infected Zone. The Fusions had known their plans, their tactics, their weapons, and had countered them at every turn. From what Ben had been told by Mandy when he arrived early that morning, Dexter had been enraged by the defeat. Earth's Forces hadn't even gotten the chance to deploy the new weapons system he'd designed and Dexter had taken the loss personally.
On the surface it didn't seem like too important a detail since he wasn't alone in his anger, but the commanders of Earth's forces had already learned that a furious Dexter was also a ruthlessly determined Dexter and despite their efforts to rein him in, he had run himself into the ground the past few weeks trying to figure out how they had been betrayed and by whom. He had told Mandy his suspicions and, Mandy being smart enough to listen, had acted immediately. The next thing Ben knew, he was out of the line of fire and getting greasy fingers from eating fried chicken across from his friend the mad scientist.
"So how's the Megabot coming along?" he asked as the next table filled up with a pack of creatures that made the aliens in his Omnitrix look positively tame. There was a cross between a palm tree and a bird, a gigantic purple hairy thing with horns, and a tall, scarred red thing that looked as if it was made from pipe cleaners. They were led by a short, bossy blue blob that gaped at Ben and Dexter before claiming the chair with the best view in order to gape some more at the nearest thing this war had to celebrities.
Tennyson been told they were refugee Imaginary Friends from some sort of foster home. They seemed a decent lot, but to Ben they were just plain bizarre. Like the few survivors of the Camp Kidney Massacre, the Imaginary Friends were traumatized by the loss of their home and friends. They had only been here a few weeks and Ben made a mental note to find out a lot more about them after he saw Dexter to the safety of his lab. There was no point in asking Dexter about them. Ben doubted his friend had even seen them before this moment. He was as far removed from the normal goings-on at headquarters as it was physically possible to be, and seeing as how he related to mathematics better than people, he was practically useless when it came to being social.
"The X-P 4000 Bravo?" Dexter dropped his voice, trying to hide the annoyance he automatically experienced at the thought of what had happened to his latest masterpiece and at the sheer rudeness of the staring blue blob. "Billy put me a few weeks behind schedule when he wrecked the neo-neurotomic proto core, but the prototype is done. Would you like to see?"
He asked almost warily, as if he expected to meet with refusal. Few people were comfortable in his laboratory and those that were, were far too comfortable, namely DeeDee and Billy.
"Yes! Are you kidding? I want to try it! Are the weapons systems up? After you finish your rabbit chow, pal," he added when Dexter started to rise. Ben was certain Dexter wasn't eating properly and since he was here and had been appointed baby sitter, he was determined to do what he could to change that. He was no expert, but it wasn't unreasonable that a kid Dexter's age should be eating a bit more than salad for lunch. No wonder he was s'darn short.
The younger boy dropped back into his chair and began impaling leafy greens again. "So what did you want to talk to me about?"
"Oh. This." He shoved up his sleeve, turning his arm to display the Omnitrix. "It's glitchy."
Ever eager to get his hands on the Omnitrix to find out what made the alien technology function, Dexter dropped his fork and seized Ben's wrist in an iron grip. He all but yanked the older boy across the table to get a better look at the device. "Glitchy. This is a technical term?"
"Yeah. Like goo," said Ben, trying not to land in his mashed potatoes and doing his best imitation of a Russian accent.
"I will have to run a full analysis on it."
"Yeah, okay. Whatever you need to do. Maybe you can tell me better how it works. It keeps changing as I get older."
He knew full well that unobstructed access to the Omnitrix was the Holy Grail of the mechanical whiz-kid circuit. Mandark would be suicidal to know his arch rival actually had his paws on it at the moment. At the sight of Dexter's greedy excitement, Tennyson laughed.
"Christmas just came early, huh?"
Dexter grinned. "Much better than Christmas."
"Santa never got you that train set?"
"No, I did get a train set. I never got the acetylene torch I asked for."
Ben chuckled, shaking his head. "Only you."
The boy across the table shrugged. "I don't know what my parents were worried about. I could weld before I could ride a bike. We're done," announced Dexter, abruptly releasing his wrist. "Down to my laboratory. Now!"
He took his plate of pie with him and started eating as they walked. "Your what?"
"My laboratory."
"Your what?"
"My labor - oh, shut up, Tennyson!" he ordered, giving his friend a shove.
But they were both laughing as they left.
A scream rang out, hoarse and gutteral, amplified by the close walls of the chamber, and at that moment Dexter forcibly asserted his own will again, regaining control of his mind and memories and the torture session. Gasping, crying, he clawed at the probes burning his flesh, yanking free.
The only other person in the room was not displeased with the results. He was getting closer as Dexter was getting weaker. Another day or so and he would have everything he wanted. With a faint smirk at his pending success, he pressed a button, restoring atmophere levels in the pressurized glass chamber housing his victim. Dexter gasped in pain, instinctively trying to stem the resulting nosebleed as he collapsed against the wall.
"Take him back," ordered the interrogator to the waiting Mechs. "And drop the temperature in their cell another two degrees."
OoOoOoOoOoOoO
"Dexter? Dexter? Can you hear me? Please answer. Please wake up. Don't leave me here. Dexter! Pleeeeease. Please wake up. That's it! Stay with me. Dexter, are our friends still safe?"
"I . . . don't know."