Avery Trent - Chapter 17 (Benny-36)

Jason slammed against a pair of heavy metal doors, boiling determination granting him the strength to toss at least one open. He quickly charged through the frame, Avery following a hallway behind and gasping for breath. They had tried a few other doors, but this was it, finally — the staff parking bay!

As Jason sprinted down the massive room, scanning the impressive array of shining vehicles, alarms blared throughout the building, alerting both the hospital security and the present authorities who had been investigating the wyrm attack.

Avery only caught up by the time Jason had reached the middle of the garage, somehow still full of energy while Avery was a sweating, winded mess. His cheeks would have grown red with embarrassment at his personal shape if he weren't so tired.

“I'm going for the big one!” Jason called over his shoulder, pointing still further ahead as he ran for the largest ship in sight; a glimmering, cubic, platinum vessel, its edges rounded sleekly.

“Why couldn't you pick a closer one?” Avery sighed, his voice a raspy whisper.

Jason neared the ship with a hop, skidding to a halt and spinning on his heel, crying for Avery to hurry up.

“Good gods, man, do they not have running on Earth?” he shouted impatiently over the sirens.

“We do! But-- not everyone-- does it!” Avery shouted back between gasps.

“Ohh, I get it!” Jason said. “You were on of the lazy ones! It's alright!” He held a thumb up in the air. “Always get stuck with the lazy ones,” he added under his breath.

A few generations of dust mites must have come and gone before Avery approached the halfway mark, Jason thought, tapping his foot on the ground and pulling at his face and hair tirelessly.

“You know,” he spoke up. “I could just fly the ship over to you, if that would help!”

“Shut up!” Avery cried, exasperated and exhausted.

The alarms had slowly grown quieter throughout this, and it was honestly surprising that the security hadn't caught up to them yet. They could be there at any moment, Jason mused.

“Avery that isn't even running!” he said, as the man finally drew close enough to talk to normally, the sirens now a faint buzz in the backdrop of reality.

Avery glared. “You could have started the ship — or at least opened the hatch!”

Jason looked back, dumbfounded. “Touché.”

Slapping a button on the underbelly of the ship, opening an access point and summoning a long sparkly ramp, the two scrambled up into the platinum cube. Making their way through a small door and up a short, twisting set of stairs introduce them to the gleaming flight cabin — complete with at least a sofa, they noticed in the frenzy — and Jason promptly leapt into the pilot's seat.

Cue security, a tad late to the party. The legion of blue-clad guards and officers began barreling down the parking bay floor, shouting 'halt's and 'stop's, but the ship was already lifting off the parking bay floor.

“Hasta la vista, Bobbies!” Jason called, twirling the ship towards the opening bay doors and zipping out into the cosmos. Avery glanced back and saw the security personnel clinging to parked ships, or clawing at the smooth white floor, trying to fight the vacuum of space as it infiltrated the garage. A flock of lighter ships was sucked out after their escaping vessel, along with an unfortunate pair of authority figures. Someone in a control room somewhere soon decided to shut down the area, and brought a massive, steel emergency door slamming across the gaping exit.

Avery frowned as one of the authority aliens drifted by his window. A minuscule white pod shot off from the hospital and retrieved the floating policemen. Avery watched to make sure both aliens were caught by the pod, then nodded and pulled himself away from the window. He slumped into a comfortable white sofa beneath a cyan strip of light that was embedded in the ceiling. Aside from this light source and a series of its clones that stretched the length of the cabin, the interior was almost entirely white.

The viewscreen which Jason was staring out gleefully, a drip of adrenaline still in his veins from their little heist, wrapped around half the cabin, allowing a much wider perspective of the outside than their old silver can ever had. Avery looked down at the cushions he sat on and bounced. Glancing behind, he noticed a snack bar towards the back of the room and what appeared to be a giant television against the right wall. A large rectangular port served as a rear window just above the door they had entered through, which he knew the spirally staircase lay behind. Turning to the front again, he paused thoughtfully.

“I don't think this is an ambulance.”

“I noticed,” Jason replied, “but it's still pretty sweet. Not as sweet as Moonlight, though,” he said more quietly.

“Moonlight?” Avery inquired.

“I realized that I'd never really named the old ship,” Jason explained. “Still needs some work.”

“Oh.”

“Not that this is a new ship!” he added hastily. “We aren't replacing her! I'm sorry, baby, that's not what I meant,” his volume dropped again.

“Okay...” Avery said, trailing off uncomfortably.

A clanging from the back of the cabin suddenly tore his head around. Jason didn't seem to have heard it. Had one of the security guards managed to stow aboard?

“Oof, oof!” an electric voice cried, somewhere behind the snack bar.

Avery twisted and slid down the sofa, carefully peeking over its back, watching the bar intently. A bag of chips fell from the counter, followed by a couple of loose fruit-looking things. Avery looked to Jason uncertainly, wanting to inform him of the situation, but not wanting to risk alerting the stowaway that he'd heard them.

He searched, instead, for a weapon of some sort, since even Avery knew that using his gun in such enclosed spaces wasn't the brightest idea. There wasn't anything immediately handy, or anything that he could use at all, even if he had the luxury of waltzing around the cabin. Cursing under his breath, he was forced to simply watch and wait.

“Oof!” the voice said again.

“Avery, you mind knocking that off?” Jason said, gaze kept forward.

Avery glanced between the two, panicked. He slid further down the sofa, not bothering to peek over the top anymore.

“Master, is that you?” the voice said, then, bringing Avery's eyes back over the edge of the sofa.

He squinted quizzically; that didn't sound like anything a stowaway would say. Another fruit rolled off the counter of the snack bar as a chirpy, knee-high robot rolled around the corner.

“Oh.” Avery mumbled, surprised.

It had a narrow, dome-shaped body, shiny chrome wheels, a pair of elastic, three-fingered arms, and a slightly curved, rectangular head, edges curved like the ship. Two antennae stuck out of the top of its head — on its right — one shorter than the other. A set of glowing, blue, digital eyes blinked across its flat silver face.

“Bzzt! You are not Master!” it whirred. “Intruder, intruder!!” The robot's expression didn't spare any time, switching to two red eyes with pixel-y, slanted eyebrows. Clearly it was angry, but Avery found the display sort of comical.

“What the hell is that...?” Jason said, turning in his chair. He quickly rose to his feet at the sight of the robot. “Whoa! This thing even comes with its own robot?!”

Avery joined Jason in standing.

“Its own, very angry robot,” he offered.

“Do not call me that, I am a droid!” the bot buzzed.

“Er, what do we do with it?” Avery asked.

“You do nothing! I shall do the things!”

“A servant bot?” Jason gasped. “It can do our chores for us!”

“I will not do chores for you-u-u!” it whirred angrily, its eyes grower a brighter red as it charged at Jason, slapping his shin uselessly.

“Come on, it's okay, little guy. I'm just kidding,” Jason said, kneeling to pat the robot on its head. “We can be buddies, yeah?”

It paused for a moment in its futile attacking, eyes shifting back to blue as it looked up at Jason, wonderingly. Then the eyes jumped back to red and it smacked him in the face.

“You are not Master! We cannot be friends! Prepare to die!”

The robot — droid, whatever — lunged at Jason's legs, hugging his calves, and managed to topple the comparative giant. Avery watched, bewildered, as the robot rolled over its newly-felled foe and began lightly pummeling his face. Jason wriggled, trying to shield his face with his arms.

“Avery!” he gasped, voice strained. “Help me, man, this thing is heavy!”

“What, they don't have robot fighting on your planet?” Avery asked sarcastically.

“No,” Jason said, looking up at him with a bemused expression between the tiny robot fists. “They have that on Earth?”

“Only on TV,” Avery said, bending and grabbing the angry little robot. “Wow, this thing really is heavy!” he grunted, hefting it off Jason's stomach, its arms still flailing.

“Rude! Rude, I say!” it cried, as Avery set it back on the floor. “Benny has lost weight, Benny is not heavy!”

“Benny, huh?” Jason asked, grasping for breath as he pulled himself off the floor.

“Yes-s-s,” it said as 'Benny-36' rolled across its face in neon blue letters. “Pronounced 'Benny-thirty-six'.”

“Benny-36,” Jason mused. “Huh.”

“Yes-s-s, Benny-36.” the robot agreed. “But this does not make us friends!!”

It charged at Jason's legs again, but Avery restrained it.

“Okay, just calm down,” he said.

“Yeah, calm down, buddy,” Jason said, though he'd stepped away in fright.

“Benny-y. Is-s. Ca-a-alm. Wha-at do you wa-ant?”

“Well,” Jason began. “The ship, for one.”

“No-o-o!!” Benny cried, his voice loud and grating.

Avery and Jason clutched at their ears.

“Okay, okay! Just stop doing that!” Avery said. “We're only using the ship until we find ours, then we'll take it back to your master.”

“But--” Jason interjected.

“No buts, Jason,” Avery said, quickly cutting him off. “We aren't replacing Moonlight, remember?”

Jason muttered something to himself, squinting off into the distance. “Actually, I'm thinking I should call it 'Zippy'.”

Avery, and Benny too, stared at him blankly.

“'Cause it's fast--”

“We got it,” Benny said.

“So that's a no on Zippy? Okay.”

“Anyway,” Avery continued. “Would you be okay with that, Benny?”

“You mean once you find your ship you will take me back to Master and leave forever?”

“Um, yes?”

Benny was quiet, his pixel blue eyes unmoving. Avery looked back uncomfortably. Jason shifted on his feet.

“This is-s not a test from Ma-aster?” the droid asked, finally.

“What? No. I don't think so? Is it, Avery?” Jason blurted.

Avery shot him an annoyed look. “No. Actually, we don't even know who your master is, Benny.”

“Oh-h. So... May Benny come with you, when you leave?”

“Wait, what? We get to keep it?” Jason asked excitedly.

Avery sent another, more pointed look in his direction before turning back to Benny, who looked up at him patiently. “Why would you want to come with us, Benny?” he asked, confused.

“Be-ecause, Master is a mean man and he makes Benny re-cook meals over and over. And also Benny has a hunch that he smells-s bad, although Benny does not have a nose.”

Avery blinked. “Er, well, okay. And you don't think this guy smells bad?” he asked, gesturing to Jason, who looked incredibly offended.

“He-e probably does-s, but I do not think that you do, sir,” Benny replied.

Avery laughed while Jason fumed, too insulted to come up with a retort. “Well, um, maybe, Benny. Maybe you can come with us.”

“Ha, yeah, right. Like that thing's ever setting wheel in Zippy,” Jason muttered, thinking no one could hear him. “I mean, I should probably get back to flying this thing,” he said when he noticed Avery and the droid staring at him again.

“Bzzt. May I ask your name, sir-r?” Benny asked Avery as Jason returned to the pilot's seat.

“Oh, yeah, I'm Avery. That's Jason.”

“Ve-ery nice to me-e-et you-u, Avery, sir. And the Jason, sir, as we-ell, I suppo-ose. Could I also ask where your shi-ip is-s?”

“Sure,” Jason said from the front, taking charge of the conversation. “Stuck in the teeth of a space wyrm. So if you've got a really big toothpick aboard, that'd be great.”

“Oh-h, my-y,” Benny buzzed, and then promptly toppled over.

“Did he just pass out?” Jason asked, glancing back.

“I think so,” Avery said. “And I think I know why.”

He pointed through the viewscreen, out into the murky depths before them where a gigantic, squirming shape appeared to be wrapping itself around a star.

“I take it that's our space wyrm, huh?”

“Oh, yes,” Jason replied weakly, following Benny's example and fainting at the ship controls.

The wyrm was a pretzel around the blazing star, and reared its head to release an ear-piercing shriek. It was also, apparently, a window-piercing shriek, Avery noted, as a large crack appeared in the center of the viewscreen.

“Well isn't this great,” he sighed.