Not much to say about this one…except that all of this is seen through B.E.N.'s own perspective. Enjoy!
Chapter Ten: Crossed WiresThe orange and yellow light of dusk settled upon the planet in little time.
Jim had explained to B.E.N. that there were two others with Jim and Morph, the floating blob. In just a few minutes, those two others were introduced to the spontaneous robot. B.E.N. got the chance to meet a male canidid with glasses, named Doctor Delbert Doppler. The other one was a female felinid named Captain Amelia, who had been injured during a crash-landing.
As soon as dusk fully settled, B.E.N. humbly welcomed Jim and his friends into the tower. Of course, B.E.N. had just now realized that the entire room in which he had made his home was a pigsty.
"Uh, pardon the mess, people," the robot sheepishly apologized as Jim walked inside, followed by the others. "You'd think in a hundred years I would've dusted a little more often," he laughed, picking up his checkers set. "When you're batchin' it,"—he then picked up a pair of under garments he had discovered nearly a century ago and hid them behind his back—"you tend to, uh, let things go."
As B.E.N. was explaining all of this, he then noticed that Doppler was coming into the room with the injured Captain Amelia in his arms. Of course, B.E.N. immediately mistook them for newly-weds. He had already forgotten why they were here and smiled. "Awww, isn't that sweet!" Eager to please, he reached into his tent to fetch something. "I find old-fashioned romance so touching, don't you?" B.E.N. came out again, grinning widely and holding an aged pan with two metal cups that had been filled with dark, bubbling petroleum, unaware of the fact that he was the only one around here who was able to even touch the stuff. "How 'bout drinks for the happy couple?"
"Oh…uh, no, thank you, we don't drink," Doppler replied while removing his red coat, turning his attention down to Captain Amelia, who had been laid down to be given the chance to rest. "And we're not a couple."
B.E.N. understood. Shrugging, he set the petroleum down on the wooden barrel and decided to leave the two alone together, strolling over to the opening where the warmth of the setting sun poured in. He exhaled contentedly as he took in the sun's light, storing the precious energy into his solar batteries, which were located in the pack that had been attached to his back since birth. He had no idea just how much of his memories he was missing at this moment. It wasn't his fault. But he also had no idea as to whose fault it was that he had lost all the memories that were rightfully his.
Just then, something down at the base of the tower caught B.E.N.'s eye. Jumping up onto the rim of the opening, he took a closer look. There seemed to be a group of aliens down below. Excited, B.E.N. cried out to Jim, pointing, "Hey, look! There're some more of your buddies!" Waving his arms to the group outside, he called out, "Hey, fellas! We're over here, fellas!"
Unfortunately, B.E.N. was drawing the attention of dangerous weapons to himself. Fires of lasers shot towards him. Quick to act, mostly out of panic, B.E.N. was able to dodge the lasers shots, but just barely. He was then grabbed by his middle and pulled down from the rim and out of the weapons' line of fire. Jim had a flintlock of his own, and he utilized it, firing laser shots at the group. Resting still against a nearby wall, B.E.N. was cowering and silently scolding himself for not realizing that these guys with the guns were pirates!
However, a voice commanded the pirates to stop shooting and everything seemed to be calm. B.E.N. watched quietly as Jim reloaded his flintlock, hiding behind the rim of the opening. The voice outside was hollering, "Hu-llooo up there!" A small pause. "Jimbo? If, uh, it's all right with the captain, I'd like a short word with ya. No tricks, just a little palaver."
Amelia didn't seem to enjoy what the voice below was suggesting. "Come to bargain for the map, doubtless," she said. In her anger, she attempted to return to her feet when she was clearly in no shape to do so. She stopped with a grunt and rested back again with the doctor scolding her.
"That means," Jim mused with a knowing smirk, "that he thinks we still have it." Laying his flintlock down to the floor he said, "I'll go down there and have a chat with him. You guys wait here." In a second, Jim was making his way out of the tower.
B.E.N. worried for Jim. "Oh, careful, Jimmy…"
—
It wasn't long before Jim arrived back into the tower. He seemed to be upset about something, but he wouldn't say what. B.E.N. was only glad that Jim was unharmed. The robot was a bit put off by the angry shouting he'd picked up during Jim's absence.
Soon enough, though, night fell upon the planet, bathing the surface in a dark, bluish glow. Gazing out the opening, B.E.N. noticed that the pirates had put together a campfire at the edge of the forest. He was aware of the predicament they had all gotten themselves into. This was no cakewalk, B.E.N. knew. And despite everything that had happened thus far, he kept up his optimism, which was something that everyone currently needed.
"Gentlemen…" Amelia's voice stated, sounding quite weak and faint and bringing all attention to her, "we must…stay together and…and…" The poor captain seemed as though she were slipping away.
"And what? What?" Doppler cried with much concern for Amelia. "We must stay together and what?"
Amelia looked up at Doppler with a dazed expression and smiled in a silly manner. "Doctor…you have…wonderful eyes…"
"She's lost her mind!"
Oh, boy, did B.E.N. know the feeling…or did he? He couldn't remember!
"Well, you gotta help her!" Jim tried to encourage Doppler.
"Dang it, Jim! I'm an astronomer, not a doctor! I mean I am a doctor, but I'm not that kind of doctor. I have a doctorate. It's not the same thing; you can't help people with a doctorate. You just…sit there and you're useless!" The anxiety-stricken doctor held his head and seemed to be on the verge of tears.
Jim approached Doppler and attempted to calm him down. "It's okay, doc. It's all right."
Just as Jim was walking away, B.E.N. approached the doctor as well, hoping to provide some reassurance. "Yeah, doc. Jimmy knows exactly how to get out of this. It's-it's-it's-Jimmy has this knowledge of things. Heh-heh." Then, B.E.N. came up behind Jim and whispered to the boy in a low and hushed tone, "Jim, any thoughts at all?" Giving Jim a little room, he backed away and fell silent as Jim answered solemnly:
"Without the map, we're dead. If we try to leave, we're dead. If we stay here—"
"We're dead!" Morph piped up next to Jim. "We're dead, we're dead, we're dead!" Morph noticed that Jim was not at all happy about this and floated over near B.E.N.
"Well," said B.E.N. in a whisper, "I that, uh, Jimmy could use a little 'quite time.' Heh-heh." He then slowly began to make his way to the rear of the room, adding, "So, I'll just slip out the back door."
"Back door?" Jim repeated.
"Oh, yeah," replied B.E.N., who had just started opening another doorway in the rear of the room. Jim was moving to help the robot open the door. A greenish-blue light beamed up from down inside the opening and a gentle rush of wind billowed in from the space underneath. "I get this delightful breeze through here…which I think is important because ventilation among friends is—"
"Whoa!" Jim exclaimed at the sight of what lay beyond the threshold. "What is all this stuff?"
In B.E.N.'s mind, or lack thereof (no offense, B.E.N.), he knew not what Jim was referring to, and yet he was able to identify it. "You mean the miles and miles of machinery that run through the entire course of the inside of this planet? Not a clue!" he admitted.
Excited, Jim told Doppler while climbing up near the opening, "Hey, Doc! Doc! I think I found a way outta here!"
"No, no, Jim! Wait!" Doppler tried. "The captain ordered us to stay toge—"
"I'll be back!" And Jim, followed by Morph disappeared down the exit.
"Cannonball!" B.E.N. hollered out, eagerly taking the plunge and disappearing along with Jim.
—
A few minutes passed by.
B.E.N., Jim, and Morph had all ended up at the edge of forest, not far from the tower. Down inside the hatch, B.E.N. watched as Jim opened the hatch door and peeked up from underneath it. Snoring could be heard outside. Unfortunately, B.E.N. wasn't aware of that.
"So what's the plan?" the robot asked loudly, bursting up the hatch next to Jim and Morph.
"Shh! B.E.N.! Quite!" Jim hissed. B.E.N.'s mouth was immediately forced shut as Jim was attempting to keep him quite. He seemed to understand when the sleeping pirates snorted but didn't wake. "Okay, here it is," Jim whispered as quietly as possible and B.E.N. listened carefully. "We sneak back to the Legacy…"
"Mm-hm…" B.E.N. responded with a nod, his voice muffled.
"…disable the laser cannons…"
"Mm-hm…"
"…and bring back the map."
His voice still muffled, B.E.N. whispered, "That's a good plan. I like that plan. The only thing is, I'm wonderin'…how do we get there?" he wanted to know.
"On that."
Jim pointed towards a tethered lifeboat. In no time, the three were on their way to the great ship that had been harboring all this time just outside the planet's atmosphere. B.E.N. felt a rush of freedom course through him at the sight of the Legacy. But Jim reminded him to focus on the task at hand, and B.E.N. obeyed as they silently approached the ship.
B.E.N., Jim, and Morph peeked up over the starboard bow to see if anyone was onboard. The deck seemed to be vacant, so the three carefully climbed up over the bow. However, B.E.N. cried out, suffering a terrible stumble onto the deck, his limbs clattering.
"B.E.N.!" Jim hissed at the robot angrily.
"Sorry, sorry…sorry," B.E.N. apologized in a whisper, feeling embarrassed, but he was able to pick himself back up again.
He felt that it was right to follow his new friend, the main reason being because he felt loyal to Jim. After all, Jim was B.E.N.'s ticket off of Treasure Planet, though B.E.N. wasn't completely aware of that. Right now, he was serving as Jim's helper in this little mission, and he felt it was his duty to do anything to be of assistance as he followed the boy towards an open gangway that would lead down into the ship's hull, tiptoeing downstairs behind him.
Stopping at the bottom of the flight of stairs, Jim told B.E.N., "Okay, I'll get the map. You wait here—"
"Roger, Jimmy," B.E.N. replied, saluting, his natural navigator mannerisms showing through as if he were still part of a crew. "I'll neutralize laser cannons, sir!" Not paying attention to Jim's attempt's to stop him, the robot readily dropped to his wheeled knees and ankles and rolled down the dimly lit hallway to the engine room, singing to himself, "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"
Arriving at the engine room, B.E.N. stopped at the threshold, jumped to his feet, and walked inside. He was a little uncertain as to how this plan of Jim's was supposed to work. "Disable a few laser cannons. What is the big deal?" He was approaching the box attached to the wall. "All we gotta do is find that one, little wire—" Opening it, B.E.N. received a good look at what lay inside. The box was a jumble of countless, colored wires, each with a different purpose for controlling the ship. Gasping in shock at the tangled and confused sight, he said with his jaw dropped wide open, "Oh, mama…" This was going to be tougher than he had originally thought.
Well, he was smart enough to know where the engine room was located, but once again, his mind failed to recall which wire was the right one. Nervously, B.E.N. chose a random wire and pulled it from the socket. Instantly, a loud siren blared out of nowhere, sounding throughout the ship. Wincing, B.E.N. realized what he had done. "Bad, B.E.N.! Bad!" he scolded himself. "'Kay, fixing!" As he re-plugged the wire into its original socket, the siren was killed.
He had a good idea already which one was the right one. The problem was that he had to find it and pull it from the socket. For the next couple of minutes, B.E.N. experimented with a few more wires, many of which did nothing. He closely examined a few of the wires he was pulling, knew they did nothing to help and re-plugged each one in the correct socket.
"Wonder if this is it?" B.E.N. said to himself. In his mind, he was a bit hesitant, but he gripped the wire and pulled it out. However, as soon as he did the entire room was instantly shrouded in pitch-black darkness. In other words, he had unplugged the ship's lights. In reaction to this, B.E.N. activated the flashlight feature in his eyes, and a pair of yellow-ish beams of light pierced the darkness. "Whoops!" At the mistake he had made, B.E.N. felt uneasy. "Okay, don't-don't panic. Breathing in…"—he inhaled deeply—"…breathing out…"—and exhaled, getting himself calmed down.
In the next instant, the hull was bathed in a dim shade of red as the emergency lights came on automatically. "Whew," B.E.N. breathed, able to relax. It was still much too dim for him to see properly, so he kept the lights on in his eyes.
He took another thirty seconds to look over the wires in the box, carefully. "Hmmm…" His eyes laid on one of the many he hadn't touched and settled on that one, confident that it was the right one. "Ooh! This has gotta be cannons." At the risk of making another mistake, B.E.N. pulled the plug. Well, it wasn't a siren or the main lighting. The purpose of that wire made itself clear when B.E.N. suddenly began to feel a rush of weightlessness. "Maybe not," he said worriedly, his whole body slowly floating upward towards the ceiling of the engine room, the wire still in his hand, until he hit the ceiling.
This made things a bit more problematic.
It was clear now that he had deactivated the artificial gravity function. Other objects around B.E.N. were beginning to float up off the ground, joining him in midair. His stomach felt very slightly queasy, but he managed to get over it. Even though he hadn't had this zero gravity feeling in nearly 120 years of his life, his purpose as a navigator helped him quickly get over that antigravity sickness.
Now, about this little wire…
B.E.N. tried to push himself toward the control box. Unfortunately, being zero gravity was like trying to swim in deep, heavy water. "This is…" he grunted, "harder…than it looks. Ooh! Come on!" He moved with great difficulty, hardly budging an inch closer. "Let's go. Back we go. Whew!" B.E.N. kept on trying, feeling determined, pumping his limbs as if he actually were swimming in deep, heavy water. He seemed unaware of little snippets of action taking place somewhere. Oh, but that's beside the point.
"Oooohh! Back ya go, you naughty plug!" B.E.N. at last was able to reach the control box. Upon reconnecting the wire, a wave of purple light washed over the floor. "Aaaahhh!" he cried out, plummeting hard to the ground in a sprawled heap. "Ah-howch…artificial gravity…reactivated…"
Then, he noticed something nearby…a group of wirings on the ground, labeled "Laser Cannons." These were thicker than the ones in the control box. Come to think of it, why hadn't he seen them before? Pulling the wires turned out to be a bit of a job. When B.E.N. managed to pull them he ended up getting himself tangled up in them.
"Laser cannons disconnected, Captain Jimmy, sir!" the robot called up to Jim, who was sitting in the crow's nest for some reason. The wires B.E.N. had gotten himself tangled up in were sparking as he stood there in the gangway, putting a hand to his hip. "Gee, that wasn't so tough." He sounded as though he had exhausted a bit of his energy (and he had), but he had managed to pull it off.
After climbing back down the rigging and meeting up with B.E.N., Jim said, "Do you have any idea what I went through?"
"Uhh…" Really, B.E.N. had no idea how to answer that question. "Do I?"
"Never mind." The boy then helped B.E.N. get untangled. "It looks like you went through some trouble yourself."
"Well, I had to do my duty. Oh, hey, you got the map?"
"Yeah, I did. Now, let' go."
"Roger, Jimmy! Right behind ya!"
And with that, B.E.N., Jim, and Morph took the lifeboat back down to Treasure Planet, sneaking their way back through the hidden entrance into the tower.
Jim and Morph came back up through first, followed by an exhausted B.E.N., who had a little bit of difficulty climbing up through the entrance, panting as he gripped the threshold through which the turquoise light came pouring.
"Doc, Doc, wake up," said Jim, although B.E.N. hadn't quite made it through just yet. "I got the map."
B.E.N. watched a dark, hulking figure reach out a menacing, mechanical hand from the shadows. He remained where he was, frozen stiff. The dark figure happened to be a larger-than-life alien cyborg pirate whose mechanical right hand grabbed the sphere from Jim's hand. "Fine work, Jimbo," the cyborg spoke up, sounding subtly impressed. "Fine work, indeed."
"Uh-oh," the frightened B.E.N. whispered, glancing back and forth at a sight that brought back negative feelings, the sight of a group of distinct pirates emerging from the darkness, snarling and surrounding Jim and Morph. B.E.N. also caught a glimpse of a struggling Doppler and Amelia, who had been tied and gagged.
"Thanks for showin' us the way in, boy," a tentacle-armed pirate sneered, he and the others threateningly closing in on Jim.
Jim attempted to make a break for it, but was immediately caught by the tentacle pirate and a big, fat one. B.E.N. gulped hard at all of this and shuddered silently, watching as Morph chomped at the fat pirate's tail only to get smacked. The robot wished he could help, but he could never stand up to a bunch of brutish pirates that could easily out-number him. Besides, B.E.N. hadn't the physical strength. All he could do was watch helplessly.
Before he could think twice, B.E.N. found himself being forcefully grabbed by the neck and then tossed straight up into the air by a smallish, female pirate. This one walked on two limbs and had a head (which pretty much made up her whole body) shaped like a brain. She then caught B.E.N. in a head-lock, commenting in question, "What's this sorry sack 'o metal?"
"Not the face!" B.E.N. pleaded, wincing fearfully from the blade of a dagger that had been placed close to his very thin and delicate neck. He had no choice but to keep as still as possible, strongly hoping that this female pirate wasn't thinking of severing his head.
"You're just like me, Jimbo," said the cyborg to Jim. "Ya hates to lose."
Jim only struggled, but to no avail. Anger was written all over his face at this point.
Chuckling, the cyborg attempted to open the sphere-like map, but the map wouldn't budge. Frustrated, the cyborg fiddled with the thing, but with no luck. "What the devil's the…" he grunted, giving up the fight. He turned his attention to Jim and shoved the map into the boy's hands, ordering him to open it. There was a deadly silence in the room for a moment. Looking impatient, the cyborg pulled out a laser flintlock from his mechanical arm. This frightened B.E.N. "I'd get busy." The cyborg cocked the gun.
Finally, with the push of a few buttons and a few twists and turns, Jim activated the map. Out of it burst thousands of tiny, flying, green lights that joined together in midair, forming a holographic image of a glowing Treasure Planet. Everyone, even B.E.N., looked on in awe. This was just beginning to ring a bell in B.E.N.'s mind. Why did it look so familiar?
"Oh, the powers that be! Would you look!" the cyborg mused in awe, wide-eyed.
Then, the light pixels changed, transforming into a stream of alien language similar to the markings on the map and on the walls of the interior of this tower. The stream curved out the opening of the tower and pulsed with a yellow light, humming with each pulse. The cyborg hurriedly ran to the opening and chuckled.
"Tie 'im up," he ordered the other pirates, "and leave 'im with the others till we—what?"
The pixels suddenly parted and vanished back into the map, which sat in Jim's hand. "You want the map?" said Jim. "You're taking me, too."
B.E.N. couldn't help feeling fascinated by the fact that Jim knew how to work the map. But he remained silent, still feeling the edge of that dagger at his neck.
After a moment of tensed silence, the cyborg chuckled slowly and came to a standing decision. "We'll take 'em all."
To be continued…
—
I have always found it interesting to get inside the mind of a character, especially when he's the comic relief. One of them, at least. I know that you're going to be seeing more of that as the story goes along.
So? Like it so far? Send me a review, please?