". . . nessa?"
She could hear the deep, melodic male voice calling out to her. She could feel someone gently grabbing her shoulders. But for the life of her, she couldn't open her eyes. Her mind was cloudy and pounding, and she could taste blood in her mouth.
"Come on, Butterfly, wake up,"
Like fish hooks were attached to her eyelids they snapped open. Jim's face hung above her, scratches on his forehead and leaves in his dark hair. He exhaled and brought his hand up to her cheek, "Oh thank God, I thought you were gone,"
After a moment for her head to clear, he helped her sit up. Vanessa winced as a cold, short wind hit her neck. Jim's eyes had widened, and a large smile broke out on his lips.
"W-What?" she asked.
"Touch your neck, Butterfly,"
"N-No, are you crazy? I'll get shocked -"
Then she noticed she could feel something other than metal on her skin, and she reached up to touch her throat, finding her collar was gone. Freedom overcame her; she wanted to scream to the heavens that she was finally and forever completely free, but to avoid being heard by the now enemy, she settled on a wide smile that showed off all over her teeth, "It's g-g-gone! Where did it g-go?"
"It must have broken off in the crash,"
Vanessa examined her surroundings – they had landed, with the boat on its side and parts of it strewn around them. The captain was on her knees, her hand pressed to her side, and Doc trying to help her to her feet.
"C-Captain, are you alr-right?" Vanessa asked.
"Mmm, yes, I'm fine," she answered as she wobbled. Doc immediately put his hands on her shoulders to steady her, "Oh, don't fuss. Slight bruising, that's all," Captain Amelia gently pushed him away and smoothed her hair back, "Cup of tea and I'll be right as rain. Mr. Hawkins -" but she wasn't looking at Jim as she addressed him. Instead, her eyes were locked on Doc. She squinted, blinked a couple times, and then looked at Jim, "Mr. Hawkins, the map if you please,"
Jim reached inside his pocket and retrieved the globe, admiring the shine of its metal. The four of them breathed a sigh of relief. And then all of a sudden the map let out a whirring sound and hovered into the air. It unfurled itself, the metal turned gooey and pink, and the whirring altered into Morph's cackling.
"Morph?!" Vanessa cried out.
"Morph, where's the map?!" Jim demanded. With a giggle Morph turned himself into a miniature version of the map and the coil of rope he dived into, "Are you serious?! It's back on the ship?!"
As the furious teenager tried to capture Morph, Captain Amelia glanced into the sky with loathing, "Stifle that blob and get low," she demanded, "We've got company,"
Vanessa heard the engines of the longboat before she saw it. They ducked under the splintered frame of their own.
"We need a more defensible position," the captain decided. She let out a groan of pain as she removed her pistol from her side, "Mr. Hawkins, scout ahead. Ms. Kendrick, assist him,"
Jim took hold of the gun, "Aye, Captain," and together they wandered off on Treasure Planet.
Vanessa rubbed her neck every once in a while, excitement buzzing behind her worry and terror. Never again would she have to feel that agonizing electricity course through her, never again could someone use it against her. She glanced at Jim ahead of her – his excitement was seeping out of his pours. He looked this way and that, taking in every detail of the world he was told didn't exist.
"W-What exactly would be a m-more defensible position?" she asked quietly, unsure of who or what was around.
"I dunno . . . a cave, or a tree or something. Some place higher up," he answered.
She nodded and licked her lips. She could still taste his on hers several hours later.
"J-Jim? About that k-k-kiss . . . ?"
He paused, his neck and ears turning beat red, "You hate me, don't you?"
"What? N-No, I don't, I was just . . . s-surprised, that's all. In the s-situation we were in, it w-was the last th-thing I expected,"
Jim turned to face his friend. The state of her clothes had become worse because of the crash landing, and she had bruises on her legs and arms, Slowly, he took her hand into his, finding that a lot of his movements were slow with her. He didn't know how much she trusted him, "Look, Vanessa . . . I know your mom said not to be around people like me, but I -"
A low whirring and clanking of wheels cut off his words, and his head snapped to the side towards a mass of green hollow tubes. He pulled Vanessa behind him and retrieved his gun, shushing Morph when he began to whimper. He powdered the gun and carefully stepped forward, peering into the tubes. Something jumped out at him, something made of bronze metal, making Jim yell and fall back. Vanessa screamed and backed herself into a tree as the thing tackled Jim to the ground, and Morph dove into her side pocket in fright. It was when the dust settled that she was able to see their intruder was a robot.
"Oh, this is fantastic!" the robot cried happily, picking at Jim's hair and clothes with his rusted joints, "A carbon-based life from come to rescue me at last!" he glanced behind him and saw Vanessa quivering, "Two carbon-based life forms Fantastic, just fantastic!" he pushed himself off of Jim and rather clumsily scampered to her, circling her like a hawk. Vanessa flinched every time she felt a brush of metal heard the robot's voice pounding in her ears.
"Hey, get away from her!" Jim hurried into a standing position and dragging her close, "She doesn't like being touched,"
But the robot was blabbering too much to hear him, "I just wanna hug ya and squeeze ya and hold ya close to me!" he wrapped his arms around Jim and squeezed Jim tight, practically lifting him off the ground. Vanessa giggled, finding him now more comical than frightening.
"Alright, okay," Jim grabbed the robot's shoulders and put some space between them, but he just bounced right back, "Would you just let go of me?"
"Oh, sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" the robot released him and backed away bashfully. Then he took notice of Vanessa again and his demeanor became upbeat once more, "How about you? Can I hug you?"
Jim took a bold step forward as she shrank back, shaking her head violently, "No, I told you she doesn't like being touched,"
"Oh right, right, right!" he said, putting his arms up innocently. Then he slid one nonchalantly around Jim, "It's just I've been marooned for so long. I mean, solitude's fun. Don't get me wrong. But for heaven's sake, after a hundred years, YOU GO A LITTLE NUTS!" the robot's eyes, mouth, and the bolts that acted as his hears bugged out. Vanessa felt empathy for the poor rust bucket – as much as she liked solitude herself, she couldn't be alone for a hundred years.
Realizing he might have come on too strongly, the robot backed up again, "I'm sorry, am I -" he held out his hand for Jim to shake, "I am, um . . . my name is, uh . . ." he held his head in his hands, squinting his eyes in frustration. Vanessa and Jim gave each other curious looks. Between them, Morph turned into the robot with his eyes rolling in different directions and a cuckoo bird popping in and out of his head. Jim slapped his hand on Morph's head to make him stop.
"B.E.N.!" the robot shouted at last, "Of course, I'm B.E.N.! Bioelectronic Navigator!" he tapped the old compass on his chest, which proceeded to tip over, "Oops!" he pressed it back to his chest, "And you are?"
"Jim," Jim answered as he bent to retrieve his gun that he had dropped when he was tackled, "And this is Vanessa," Vanessa gave a timid wave.
B.E.N. took Jim's outstretched hand and gave it a violent shake, "Oh, what a pleasure to meet you, Jimmy! And you too, Nessie!"
"It's Jim and Vanessa," Jim corrected irritably, shoving B.E.N.'s hand away.
"Anyway -"
"Look, we're kind of in a hurry, okay? We've gotta find a place to hide and there's pirates chasing after us," he took Vanessa's hand and lead her away.
"Oh, pirates! Don't get me started on pirates! I don't like them! I remember Captain Flint, this guy had such a temper."
Vanessa and Jim stopped on a dime and turned back to the robot. Vanessa forgot to be shy and scared as she ran up to him, "W-Wait, wait, wait, you knew C-Captain F-Flint?"
"I think he suffered from mood swings, personally. I'm not a therapist in any way, but I – you let me know when I'm rambling!"
"But that m-means – but wait, but then -" Vanessa stuttered, trying to put two and two together.
"You gotta know about the treasure?" Jim interrupted hopefully.
"Treasure?"
"Yeah, Flint's Trove? You know, loot of a thousand worlds?" as if it would help prove his point, Morph changed into a treasure chest filled with gold and jewels.
"Well, i-i-it's all a little – a l-l-little fuzzy," B.E.N. claimed. As he spoke, his body jerked into strange positions, and sparks went off in the back of his head, "Wait . . . I . . . I r-r-remember. I do, I – treasure! Lots of treasure! Burried in the centroid – centroid – centroid of the m-mechanism!" static interrupted the green circuitry of his eyes, and his voice varied in pitch. Little pictures appeared in his eyes, and he flinched, like it hurt him to remember, "And then there was this big door opening and closing, and opening and closing!" the speed of his speech began to vary and the sparks emitting from his wires increased. Jim and Vanessa began to back away slowly, "And Captain Flint wanted to make sure nobody could ever get to his treasure, so I – I helped him, his circuits buzzed wildly, his head jerked from side to side, his speech became garbled, "AHH! DATA INACCESSIBLE!"
"B.E.N.!" Jim shouted.
"B.E.N.?!" Vanessa repeated.
"REBOOT! REBOOT! REBOOT!" B.E.N. screamed, his eyes now black with encoding scrawling across them faster than anyone could read.
"B.E.N.?!" Jim slapped him hard across his metal face. B.E.N. became silent instantly, his eyes returning to normal, and the sparks and clanking of his mainframe dying down. He blinked a few times at Jim.
"And you are?" he asked, like the last five or so minutes hadn't happened.
"Wait, wait, wait! What about the treasure?!" Jim questioned desperately.
"I want to say Larry,"
"The- The centroid of the mechanism, or . . ."
B.E.N. looked over his shoulder at Vanessa and pointed to her, "You, I think you look like a Mary Kate, or a Mary Alice. Something with Mary in it,"
"W-What about the b-big d-door, and C-Captain Flint?" Vanessa asked.
"I'm sorry, my-my memory isn't what it used to be. I've lost my mind, ha ha! I've lost my mind!"
Jim's expression fell, utter hopelessness taking over. So close, and yet so far.
Ain't that a kick in the pants, he thought bitterly.
"You haven't found it, have you?" B.E.N. pushed Jim forward onto a rock wall and frisked him, "My missing piece? My primary memory circuit?" he pointed to the back of his head to show he had a series of frayed wires running loose, "What about you, Nessie, have you found it?" he started towards Vanessa.
"Hey, what did I say about touching her?" Jim let out a defeated sigh, "Look, B.E.N, we need to find a place to hide, okay? So we're just gonna be, uh, you know, moving on,"
B.E.N. looked down trodden as he slumped over, "Oh, uh, so, well then I guess, uh, this is goodbye huh?" he hung his head and rubbed his thin metal arm, "I-I-I'm sorry that I'm so dysfunctional," he fell to his knees with a clunk, "So, uh, go ahead and, uh, I do understand, I do. Bye bye,
Jim started to walk away, but Vanessa grabbed his upper arm. She stared at the lonely robot, feeling tears prick in her eyes.
Oh, the poor thing, she thought, Being alone all these years. It's not his fault he's dysfunctional.
"J-Jim, we can't leave him," she whispered, "C-Come on, he's been here for a hundred years. He knows the p-place, he c-c-could help us,"
"He may have been here for a long time, but that doesn't mean that he knows his way around,"
With the combined puppy dog looks of Vanessa and Morph, who was pushing him to do the same, Jim sighed, "Look, if you're gonna come along, you're gonna have to stop talking," he said as if that was the biggest problem.
B.E.N. jumped to his feet with joy, "Huzzah! Ah ha ha ha! Oh, this is fantastic!" he ran to Jim and jumped into his arms, "Me and my best buddies lookin' for a – uh . . . ahem," he lowered his tone significantly at the look Jim gave him, "Being quiet,"
"And you have to stop touching me, and you are forbidden from touching Vanessa," he added. Vanessa felt a tug at her heart of how protective he was.
"Touching and talking. That's my two big no-nos," B.E.N. replied as he jumped out of Jim's arms.
"Okay, now I think we should head -"
"Say, listen, before we go out on out big search, would you mind If we make a quick pit stop at my place?" he pulled apart the tall green reads to reveal an egg shaped structure covered with moss in the middle of a great big field, "Kind of urgent," he claimed as he did a sort of pee-pee dance.
Jim looked upon the structure with wide eyes, a hint of victory and determination hidden in them, "B.E.N., I think you just solved our problem,"
As the sky grew darker, they were able to retrieve Captain Amelia and Doc and bring them to B.E.N.'s place. The captain was in bad shape – the wound on her side had crippled her and she was barely able to walk. Doc had to carry her the entire way.
"Uh, pardon the mess, people," B.E.N. apologized as he ran around and tided up, "You'd think a hundred years I would've dusted a little more often but, you know, when you're bachin' it you tend to, uh, let things go,"
Doc climbed into the structure with Captain Amelia in his arms, her arm in a sling and her blue coat hanging off her shoulders. Doc glanced at her with a loving and worried expression Vanessa had never seen on him before.
"Aw, isn't that sweet?" B.E.N. voiced, "I find old-fashioned romance so touching, don't you? How about drinks for the happy couple?" he offered a tray, which held two cups full of motor oil.
Doc looked over his shoulder at him as he set the captain gently on the floor against a rounded part of a wall, "Oh, uh, oh no thank you, we don't drink," he said as he removed his red coat, "And, uh, we're not a couple,"
Vanessa had just pushed herself over the threshold and gave a quick suspicious look over her shoulder before allowing herself to relax a little and examine her surroundings. The entire place was covered in moss, and junk was scattered around the edges. Also, covering the walls were these strange mythical markings she thought were slightly familiar.
Doc noticed them about the same time she did, "Look at these markings. They're identical to the ones on the map,"
So that's why they seem familiar, she thought.
"I suspect these are the hieroglyphic remnants of an ancient culture," he explained further.
"Mr. Hawkins," Captain Amelia addressed, trying to sit up properly, "Stop anyone who tries to approach," she let out a cry of pain.
"Yes, yes, now listen to me," Doc rolled up his coat into a make-shift pillow and placed it behind her head as she sank back down, "Stop giving orders for a few milliseconds and lie still,"
"Very forceful, Doctor. Go on, say something else,"
"Hey, look! There's some more of your buddies!" B.E.N. announced, standing on the entrance and pointing out to the field.
Oh please no! Vanessa thought fearfully.
"Hey, fellas! We're over here, fellas!"
Lasers were suddenly fired into their safety area. Vanessa dove to the ground and covered her head. Jim grabbed the screaming robot and pulled him down, then poked his head up and fired some shots of his own.
"Damn it, I thought we'd lost them!" Jim growled.
"So those aren't your buddies?" B.E.N. asked.
"N-No, they're the p-pirates chasing after us," Vanessa informed him.
"Oh, uh . . . oops,"
The rally of friendly fire ceased long enough for Jim to charge his gun. Then, from far below, he heard a voice that made his blood boil and shattered his heart.
"Hello up there! Jimbo!"
Jim held the guns in a ready position as he peered over the side. There he was, waving a poorly made white flag of all things.
Yeah, like I'm going to believe he surrenders, he thought.
"If, uh, it's alright with the captain, I'd like a short word with ya. No tricks, just a little palaver,"
"Come to bargain for the map, doubtless," Captain Amelia accused, "Pestilential -"
"Captain," Doc warmed.
Jim pondered this for a moment, and a look of understanding came to his face. If they've come to bargain for the map , " . . . that means that he thinks we still have it,"
"Y-You're not going to g-go out there, are you?" Vanessa asked as she made to get up.
"Uh, yeah?"
"J-Jim, are you crazy?!"
"What, he said no tricks,"
"You c-c-can never trust a pirate. Please d-don't go out there, you c-could get hurt,"
"Trust me, I'll be fine," Jim assured her, smiling a little. He was always so worried about her, it was nice to know the feeling was reciprocal. He jumped over the ledge of the entrance and carefully treaded down the steep rock with Morph following him. The minute he saw Silver limping up to meet him, his smile disappeared and he put on a wary, disappointed expression.
Morph flew up to Silver with a loving squeak and cuddled against his cheek, "Ah, Morphy! I wondered where you lit off to," Silver let out a huff of air as he sank onto the ground. His mechanical arm was in the form of a walking stick, and as he lifted his pant leg, he revealed a patch of tape wrapped around the wound in his leg. He looked up as Jim approached and his lips split into a wide grin, "Oh, this poor old leg's downright snarky since that game of tag we had in the galley, eh?"
Jim kept his demeanor, unphased by the man's attempt to lighten the mood. How dare he try and act like none of this is happening, he thought.
Silver's shoulders slumped as he noticed Jim's expression, "Whatever you heard back there, at least the part concerning you, I didn't mean a word of it. If that blood-thirsty lot had thought I'd gone soft, they'd have gutted us both,"
Jim felt instantly like crying. Silver had been a father figure to him, he'd taught him so much. It was just his luck that he'd turn on him, think him worthless just like everyone else did.
Silver got to his feet and motioned Jim to come closer. When Jim failed to move, he put his robotic arm around his shoulders and pulled him in, "Now listen to me, if we play our cards right, we can both walk away from this rich as kings!"
Jim played along, crossing his arms, rubbing his chin, acting like he was interested in being crossed again, "Yeah?"
Silver chuckled, "You get me that map, and, uh, an even portion of the treasure is yours,"
He held his hand out for Jim to shake.
Jim let out his own unamused chuckle, "Boy, you are really something. All that talk of greatness? Light coming off my sails? What a joke,"
"Now just see here, Jimbo -"
"I mean, at least you taught me one thing. Stick to it, right?" Jim interrupted, his look fierce enough to shut the old cyborg up, "Well, that's just what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna make sure that you never see one drabloon of my treasure!"
"That treasure is owed me, by thunder!" Silver screamed.
"Well try to find it without my map, by thunder!" Jim challenged.
"Oh, you still don't know how to pick your fights, do you boy?" Silver growled, "Now, mark me. Either I get that map by dawn tomorrow, or so help me, I'll use the ship's cannons to blast ya all to kingdom come!"
He turned to go back to his crew, "Morph, hop to it,"
Morph stayed on Jim's shoulder, unsure of what to do or who to follow.
"NOW!"
The blob shrieked, bursting into tens of bubbles, which then morphed back into one as he hid behind Jim. Silver jeered at the pair of them before roughly turning and stalking away.
Good riddance, Jim thought.