A Time for Heroes 5

Chapter Five: Try, Try Again

A giggling girl who carried an oversized purple weapon that looked like a hair dryer gone to the dark side and wore a gigantic butterfly strapped on her back waved a last, hopeful good-bye as the elevator doors opened to the main atrium. Ben responded vaguely, never more glad to be rid of another person in his life. She must have been allergic to silence and had laughed at nothing when she wasn't chattering pointlessly or trying too hard to flirt with him. Following close behind her was a short, chubby, red devil in a baseball jersey and cap that smelled faintly of brimstone and who had done everything in his power to make them aware of the fact that he was not wearing pants. He had been supremely annoying, but at least he had not giggled endlessly. Well aware of Ben’s disgust, he waved and tittered just like the girl before bouncing off to find someone else to badger. The teen watched them go and said a prayer for the earth.

The elevator doors closed without a sound and Ben Tennyson let out a long sigh of relief in appreciation for the sudden peace and quiet. Finally! Finally he was alone. He had been riding up and down for the past half hour to get this particular elevator to himself. Even late at night DexLabs HQ was hopping and he was out of excuses for not getting off the elevator. Plan B had been to turn into Swampfire and drive everyone out by the Methanosian’s noxious smell.

Pulling out his ID card, he slid it into the small slot below the numbered buttons that he had been staring at the whole time. Would it work? Professor Utonium had said he would talk to DexLabs Security to allow him access to the lower levels where most of Dexter’s laboratories were housed.

“Dexter usually works on levels nine and ten; they’re connected inside the lab. Twelve is mostly storage and eleven houses the generators and reactors. The main entrance is on nine, and he has living quarters there, too, though he rarely uses them. He stays there when the girls and I are in Townsville or when he wants to escape DeeDee.”

“Why so removed from everything?”

“He works best alone.”

Ben held his breath, praying no one came into the elevator right now and forced him to endure another boring spell of ups and downs and giggly fan girls. There was a soft ‘ping’ and suddenly the lights on buttons one through twelve turned from white to blue and the doors were locked against anyone else joining him. Ben found himself grinning in delight. The Professor had come through.

“Don’t tell anyone about being allowed this access, Ben. People will find out eventually, but let that happen on its own.”

“What about Dexter?”

“I leave his enlightenment to your discretion.”

"Well, here goes," he muttered, and hit the button for level nine.

Instantly the elevator dropped downwards so smooth and swift that the motion was almost undetectable. When the doors opened, Ben was taken aback. For the first time in DexLabs headquarters the space was not uniformly white and brightly lit. Instead the elevator lead to a hall cut out of the bedrock below Downtown. Ben let out a little sigh of admiration, reaching out to touch the smooth rock surface. The place was an engineering masterpiece.

Remembering the last time he had gotten lost in this building, Ben looked around for a landmark to allow him to find the elevator again. There was not much to go by. Great. With his luck of late, he would probably wander around until he starved to death. Then again . . . there were not too many places to get lost. To his right the hall terminated a hundred feet down and he could see only one turn off from the left.

"How will I find the lab?"

"Trust me, you can't possibly miss it."

Left it was, then. The hall turned and opened up to a vast room that had nothing in it but a massive blast door covering almost the entire wall to his right. He stepped back to get a good look at it. Dexter certainly took his security seriously. The gleaming metal surface was emblazoned with the DexLabs logo, a stylized ‘d’ with the symbol for infinity in the center. Looking a bit closer, he realized the infinity was actually a mobius strip, a one-sided form. Interesting. Briefly he wondered if Dexter had done that just to see if anyone would notice. Well, he had, and Ben felt a bit better for it.

He stared at the blast doors . . . and stared . . . and slowly it dawned on him that he had no idea how to get past them. He was so keen on getting to the lab that he had completely failed to ask Utonium how to get in.

And darn it, Utonium hadn’t bothered mentioning it, either. Another test? Or just an oversight? Somehow he suspected oversights were few and far between for a man that was president of one of the most successful international companies in the world.

A small groan escaped him. He looked around, but he saw nothing resembling an intercom or a means of opening the doors from out here.

Wrong floor, maybe?

Oh, who was he trying to kid? He had no idea how to get inside and these doors were not made to be warm and welcoming.

"Professor, won't Dexter be mad if I just barge in on him?"

“Probably, but his temper doesn’t last very long.”

“Uh . . . it’s those moments that it does last that worry me.”

Feeling foolish, he reached up and knocked on the door. “Hello?”

The only answer was his own voice echoing back at him. He sighed. It was late. He was tired. And now he was getting annoyed. He was doing Utonium a favor - Dexter, too, even though boy genius had no clue. He should be meeting with better cooperation than this.

“Oh, the heck with this!”

He yanked up the sleeve on his arm and dialed the Omnitrix. With a little smirk of self-satisfaction, Ben Tennyson slapped his hand down onto the control. Instantly green energy swept over him, enveloping and engulfing him, changing him at the very core of his being . . .

“How come so many people say he’s . . . I dunno . . .”

“Abrasive? Difficult? Impossible?”

“That, too.”

“It’s defensive on his part. There haven’t been very many people in his life that look at him and see the boy before they see the genius.”

“I guess that would be frustrating.”

“It is. Very. But don’t worry. You definitely didn’t make that mistake.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

He swept into the air, wings wide. “Big Chill!”

He could have eaten through the door in this form, but Ben suspected such a gesture would not be appreciated. Instead he phased through the metal, leaving an icy trail of frost behind him as he passed through twelve feet of steel and concrete to the heart of DexLabs.

Ben had done some stupid and foolhardy things in his time, and while trying to approach Dexter from behind was not the top the list, it was pretty darned close.

Big Chill materialized into a large, cool, open space . . .

And all hell broke loose.

White lights, blinding bright and burning hot, flared to life from three separate directions. The Necrofriggian let out a shout of pain, hiding his sensitive eyes. Alarms that were loud enough to deafen blared out and a calm feminine voice echoed through the room.

“Warning! Level three breach of main blast doors. Warning! Level three breach of main blast doors. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”

He landed clumsily, blinded by the glaring lights, and instinctively wrapped his huge wings around him for protection. Big Chill squinted and tried to focus as a shadow blocked one of the streams of light.

“Alarms off!” shouted a voice, and the sound stopped so abruptly it was like a physical blow. “Spotlights off! Computress, enough!”

The lights were extinguished. For a long moment the normal lighting seemed like darkness and he leaned over, handing his head as he rubbed at his eyes, trying hard to see. Rapid footsteps approached, rubber soles making soft slapping sounds on the metal floor. A faint whine of something powering up reached his antennae, and when he lifted his head the Necrofriggian was staring straight down the barrel of the nastiest-looking laser gun on the planet. He looked past the length of the multi-barreled gun and saw red hair, pale skin, and furious blue eyes backing up the firepower. A Russian accent rose above the sound of a null-void laser building up to maximum charge.

“What are you doing in my laboratory?” demanded Dexter.

Big Chill drew back, catching only every third word. “Your what?”

“My laboratory!”

His accent made the words almost incomprehensible – the ‘o’s were impossibly long and the ‘r’s were rolled and in all his life Ben had never encountered such pronunciation of the English language. He had no idea of what the heck the kid was yammering on about.

He powered down the Omnitrix. Dexter’s eyes grew wide with fleeting surprise and then hardened again, the gun lowering to compensate for Ben’s shorter form.

“Your what?” he wondered again.

“Professor, why does he have a Russian accent?”

“Uh, we haven’t quite figured that out yet. He doesn’t hear it, though.”

“My laboratory,” Dexter snapped. “What are you doing in here, Mr. Tennyson?”

“Your labor – oh! Your lab! Oh, I gotcha now!”

Dexter stared at him, fed up in record time. “Computress, a transit beam, please. Target approximately three yards in front of me, destination alpha. Commence operation when the landing site is clear.”

He yanked the gun back, pointing it downwards as he stepped away from Ben. The older boy strode forward.

“Hey, Dex, I just wanted -”

There was a flash of yellow light and suddenly Ben was walking through the nearly empty atrium. He staggered to a halt, astonished.

“Hi, Ben!” chirped Billy, running by.

Ben gaped after him. A few more people glanced his way but he ignored them, looking down at himself to make sure he was all here. What the heck had just happened?

“Oh, he did not just do that.”

His ire was on the rise. Ben had been trying to apologize and he had been dismissed? Cranky or not, genius or not, billionaire or not, that was not cool.

"He's got a mind like a steel trap at times. If you're right about something, you can't take 'no' for an answer or he'll steam roll you. Sometimes he needs to be bludgeoned with facts for them to sink in."

"Is he ever wrong?"

"Occasionally, not that he'll admit as much."

He stomped right back to the elevator all the way on the end and got right back inside. Luckily it was empty, because otherwise he fully intended to throw everyone out by force if necessary. His ID worked to turn the lights on the buttons blue again, and he stabbed the button for level nine with unnecessary force.

Five minutes later he was activating the Omnitrix and Big Chill phased through the blast doors once again.

This time he was ready. The moment the alarms sounded (accompanied by what sounded like a curse with a Russian accent) and the lights came on, he swapped forms.

“Jetray!”

Deep inside the lab, Dexter whirled, his hand reaching for the laser when the orange-red claws of an Aerophibian clamped down on his wrist before he could touch it.

“Now what?” he demanded as the alarms wore on.

“That was rude!” hissed Jetray.

Dexter twisted free of his clammy hold. His expression was cool. “What were you at the rally, Mr. Tennyson?”

He powered down the Omnitrix, resuming his human form. “Okay, I was out of line! But at least I -”

“Get out of my laboratory. Computress! Destination alpha one.”

This time when he materialized in the atrium, he was about a foot above the floor. Ben gave a yelp as he hit the ground and he stumbled to keep from sprawling.

“Hi, Ben!” cried Billy, running back the way he’d come.

Slow, burning anger was taking hold of Ben.

"He's stubborn, arrogant, egotistical, and impatient."

"You're not painting a very pretty picture."

"I love Dexter dearly, Ben, but I'm not blind to his faults. At the same time he's also kind, affectionate, loyal, and witty. He values his friends very highly, and he's rarely stubborn, arrogant, egotistical, or impatient with them."

"How do I get past the first list?"

"Beat him at his own game."

Stubborn, huh? He would give the little beast stubborn. Ben marched right back to the elevator, tossed out a few KND operatives with an order to go to bed since it was after midnight, and went straight back down to sub level nine. Through twelve feet of steel again, and back into the laboratory he went.

This time he called upon Echo Echo. No way Baby Einstein was going to be able to get rid of dozens of Sonorosians in one shot. The small aliens scattered, splitting and cloning themselves until they were thirty or so strong, darting about the lab amidst the same alarms and lights and warnings. A few of the Echo Echos could see Dexter at his work station. He stiffened at the claxon, and then his shoulders slumped, and then he looked heavenwards with a sigh. Swiveling about in his chair, he barked,

"Alarms off! Lights off! What do you want, Mr. Tennyson?"

The nearest three Echo Echos replied in unison. "I want to finish a sentence."

"Fine," snapped Dexter, glaring down at him. "Talk."

He dared to power down the Omnitrix again. Dexter watched the working of the alien device with great interest, but said nothing, waiting for Ben to have his say before he could throw him out again and try to get some work done.

"Are you always this friendly?" demanded Ben.

Dexter glowered. "No. Do you always harass people that are trying to work?"

"Yeah. What are you working on?"

That was not the response Dexter expected. Behind his tinted glasses, his eyes grew wide, then narrowed sharply. "I'm entering the results of the first trial run of the new transit beam on organic material."

Ben blinked, then blinked again, realization dawning. "Wait a minute! You just used me as a lab rat?"

He was completely unrepentant. "Twice. I knew it would work."

"How do you know?"

"It's what I do, Mr. Tennyson."

"Will you cut it out with the mister? My name is Ben!"

"As you wish."

"You could have killed me!"

His expression was smug. "If that were even a remote possibility, I would not have used the beam. I would have trapped you in a force field and held you until security could come and remove you."

"Good luck with that, pal!"

"Would you like me to try it now? Or would you prefer to be in the atrium again?"

"Will you just cut it out with zapping me? I just wanted to apologize!"

He hesitated for an instant, and his tone was considerably less aloof as he said, "I got your letter."

"Yeah, well, I wanted to make sure my apology was accepted."

"What?"

"His intelligence outstrips his age. Intellectually he's a grown adult with about eight or ten doctorates to his name. Emotionally, he's just turned thirteen. It's hard for him to find balance between the two. He's not always successful. Most people expect him to be as developed emotionally as he is intellectually and that's just not the case."

"That's not fair."

"No, it's not, and that's a large part of the reason he's so introverted."

Ben gave him a stern look. "It's important to me."

Dexter just stared at him.

"I know what it's like to be misjudged," he finished.

Still, Dexter stared. The intensity of his gaze was disconcerting. Ben suddenly knew what the Professor meant when he said that Dexter was an adult in a child's body.

"Can you open the doors this time? I'll let you get back to work."

A pause followed, and then the redhead pressed a button on his work station. Immediately the various levels of the blast doors began to open.

"Thanks." He turned and headed for the exit as Dexter got back to work.

"Apology accepted."

He glanced back at the softly spoken words just as Dexter looked up from his computer. Pale, thin, hollow-eyed, Ben was forcibly reminded that this boy was recovering from a long and wearying infection and this confrontation with Ben had probably cost him a great deal. Instantly Ben knew that this kid needed friends, needed to get out, and needed a break from the crushing pressures of business and war and the business of war. In short, he needed to be a kid for a while.

"Good night," said Dexter firmly, plainly inviting Ben to make himself scarce.

He gave Dexter a quick half-smile, hoping this meant progress.

"'Night, Dex."