Chapter Seven: Saturn Cocoa Bars
He felt his hair, recently buzzed, by barber not by choice, due to a lice infestation that had just spread through his home. Although never confirmed, Theodore “Jackson” Fickle, would always blame his youngest sister for the infestation (and the humiliation). As he sat in his memory, listening to Mr. Langdon, Jackson recalled that the short, jolly teacher was his second favorite of all time. His first favorite teacher was his third grade teacher, Ms. Polly, and his third favorite teacher was his second grade teacher Mrs. Julba. incidentally, his least favorite teacher had his first favorite name, Mr. Prestidigitalio. He had taught kindergarten, and refused to call Jackson, “Jackson”.
Jackson felt his hand raise, excited to answer a question that had just been asked. Something about tuna fish. No. his brain was confused now. The question was about the ocean, but the answer was not tuna fish, but rather salt water. Mr. Langdon scanned the room then settled on the hand of young Jackson. With a broad smile, he called on him.
“Ah, Theodore Fickle has the answer!”
Jackson felt his smile lessen. He did not like having to correct people. He shuffled in his seat and cleared his throat.
“Um, my real name is Theodore Fickle, but everyone calls me Jackson,” he said in an uneven and high-pitched voice.
The colors of the room began to blend together. Inexplicably, the room itself started to stretch and warp, and then slide out of view, until Jackson saw nothing but black. He couldn’t remember where he had just been. He couldn’t remember what he had just heard.
“Don’t take too much, now Dusty. Remember to put most of it back,” Tarza’s voice cut through.
Suddenly the colors came streaming back into his mind. The lines were still a bit smudged, but it was his classroom once again. Mr. Langdon was there, with a smile that was, for just a moment, larger than any Jackson had ever seen. As the scene settled, everything was right again.
He felt the suction cup leave his forehead with a soft “POP” and he was back in the ship, looking at two robots. Dusty’s tiny metal window closed again.
Jackson was wobbly. So wobbly, in fact, that he realized the foam had lost its grip on him.
“Name confirmed. Not President Racha.”
Dusty and Plod turned towards each other.
“New directive required,” said Plod.
Jackson had had enough. Breaking through the thin layer of foam around his arms, Jackson tried out a second method, for the first time: heroic action.
“Jackson, how did you…”
Without a word, Jackson kicked through the remaining foam and stepped out onto the cold, not-at-all-good-tasting floor. He stood tall, feeling strong and courageous.
Dusty and Plod hastily wheeled to opposite sides of the room and stayed there.
Jackson tried to break Tarza free, but her foam was too thick. He tried to pull it away from her, even lifting his leg against it for leverage, but could not get it to budge. He found himself feeling less strong and courageous by the second.
“How do I get you out?” he asked.
“There!” said Tarza. “The green levers on the control panel.”
Jackson pulled down on the closest of two green levers and a mist covered his former pod and dissolved all the remaining foam. Without hesitation, he pulled the second and Tarza was soon sprayed herself. With nothing left but a few shreds of foam on her clothes, she stepped down onto the floor, licking her lips.
“Mmmm, butterscotch flavored spray. You missed out.”
Tarza stomped around, searching every inch of the room.
“Quick, we’ve got to find the Warp-Ports!”
Jackson brushed himself off and started kicking the last remaining bits of foam.
“Maybe they got frozen in the foam with us!” he said.
“No,” said Tarza, shaking her head. “The foam only freezes living beings and their clothing. It’s very smart. In fact, it was a Byzong inventor who realized that you can isolate not just carbon beings but their… wait a second…”
“What?” asked Jackson, glad that she had been cut short before going even further over his head.
“They must still be there! The foam would’ve let them drop to the floor! Come on!” Tarza grabbed Jackson’s hand and he felt an electric buzz shoot all the way up to his shoulder. Although new, and startling to him, it was not an unpleasant sensation.
They raced through the corridors as fast as their legs would take them. When a Byzong intern passed by, Jackson tucked behind Tarza, making himself as inconspicuous as possible, and the intern passed by without noticing. Before reaching the blue lit room again, Jackson noticed a vending machine that read “Galaxy Sweets” Having not eaten since the few bites of tuna fish sandwich that sent him through a black hole, and having just been frozen in foam for three hours, Jackson was understandable stavrving.
“Wait,” he said, pulling Tarza to a stop. “I need to eat something. Can you get me one of these?”
Tarza whispered hastily. “You’ve got to be kidding me! there’ll be plenty of time for snacks once we’ve been picked up by the Pocket Watches!”
Jackson grabbed at his belly. “You don’t understand! It’s been so long since I’ve eaten. I’m starving! Plus I’m not used to breaking out of things like that. It took it out of me.”
“How did you do that, anyway?” she asked.
“I sweat when I’m nervous,” he answered sheepishly. “Human sweat must dissolve the foam.”
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you,” she replied. She looked at him with sympathy. “Well, it’s a good sign that you’re hungry I suppose. Black holes can sometimes reverse your intestines. Fine. But be quick about it.”
Making a firm and immediate decision to ignore her comment on his intestines, Jackson thanked her. Placing her hand on the side of the machine, the display shifted to ask which of three kinds of bars they would like. The first was a small bucket of rock-shaped candies called Grubble. The second was a long, green cylinder called Ozzback Ooze. And the last was a Saturn Cocoa Bar, the only one that Jackson recognized.
Jackson Fickle had long said that Saturn Cocoa Bar was his favorite sweet treat of all. However, in his lifetime until this point, he had consumed 457 Saturn Cocoa Bars. This meant that he had consumed Ruby Razzies at least one hundred times more. It also meant that he had chosen Chunkies Smooth and Creamies 62% of the time, when given an option between the two. By no commonly accepted metric and only by his self declaration, were Saturn Cocoa Bars his favorite. Yet, when he saw this option at the “Galaxy Sweets” vending machine, it was an easy and instant choice.
He touched the picture of the Saturn Cocoa Bar on the screen and smiled to Tarza. “Saturn Cocoa Bars are my favorite.” And as they raced down the hallway, he wasted no time in opening and taking a bite of the delectable candy bar, because while I may have said that Saturn Cocoa Bars fall in stature to Ruby Razzies and Chunkies Smooth and Creamies in Jackson Fickle’s personal life archives, they are still the bar with the most chocolatey, crunchy, and out-of-this-world taste around.
The door to the room was still lit yellow. “That’s lucky,” said Tarza softly. “Looks like no one’s gone in since.”
“Great!” said Jackson. He was ready to be off of the chaotic Byzong warship that had brought him confusion, interrogation, and foam confinement. So it was a letdown, if not a downright disappointment, when he took his first step in the control room and saw a group of three Byzong accountants standing around a high top table mumbling numbers out loud as they worked.
The pair froze, unblinking, as the accountants stopped and turned to meet their eyes. Tarza immediately spotted the two Warp Ports, still lying on the floor up against the far wall.
The accountants stared for a breath before one spoke up.
“What impressive confidence you both have to open a red door! We’re going over the numbers for the month. Are you here to help?” asked the Byzong accountant with the largest, loudest looking shoes.
“You have wonderful taste in rooms,” said Tarza through a forced smile. “We’re not accountants, this is just… our favorite place to work as well…”
“Do you outrank us?” asked the accountant, matter-of-factly.
“Well, no I don’t think so… we just…”
“We need the room,” explained the accountant, turning back towards the work in front of him. “With so much ruckus going on around here it’s a wonder we found a place at all.”
The accountants resumed mumbling and searching through numbers on the computers in front of them, sending the most pertinent to a holographic pillar in the center of the table at a rapid pace. “Twelve thousand, four hundred and ninety three. Four-thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine,” said another. “Eighty-one. Three hundred and two. Four.” muttered another. The third was rattling off numbers at such a speed that neither Tarza nor Jackson could understand.
Tarza leaned over. “What are we going to do? The Warp Ports are right over there.”
Jackson cocked his head in thought. “Did you notice, Tarza, that they didn’t say anything about me being human…?” he whispered.
“You’re right,” whispered Tarza. “Maybe they didn’t notice?”
“Maybe,” he said, regaining full volume. “Maybe they don’t care…”
Jackson began walking forward, but Tarza reached out to stop him.
“Wait!” she yelled. They both looked at the accountants. There was no reaction. Only working.
“Fifty-seven. Fifty-seven point five.” said the head accountant.
Tarza mouthed her next words with barely a sound. “What are you doing?”
Jackson smirked. “You wanted me to be a person of action right? Well, I’m testing a theory.”
Feeling bolder, he walked behind the accountants and held out his arms. “Wabble Wabble Wablle!” he yelled. The accountants continued sending numbers to the pillar with startling speed. “One hundred twenty one thousand and one.”
“The President has a team of accountants, a whole slew of them, and they never seem interested in absolutely anything other than numbers. I saw one eat their lunch once without ever even looking at it!” The meal he was referring to had been a tuna fish sandwich with a side of chips. Mind you, this was not the same tuna fish sandwich that had set Jackson on a course to this very room, of course. The tuna fish sandwich that Jackson had been eating earlier this day had been a traditional composition of white albacore tuna and mayo on white bread. The tuna fish sandwich being referred to indirectly at the current time, had been made with chunk light tuna, and a generous helping of mayonnaise, mustard, and relish on rye bread, five months earlier.
Tarza walked forward hesitantly. “So… they’re not even listening?” she asked.
Jackson nodded. “I think they’re even worse than the human accountants.”
Similarly to the accountants, Tarza had only one thought on her mind. Hesitantly, still not sure if she could trust Jackson’s theory, Tarza made her way over to the Warp Ports and grabbed them from the floor.
“I don’t believe it!” she said to herself. “We got em!”
Tarza spun around to hand Jackson his Warp Port, but having become comfortable in the knowledge that they could do whatever they wanted, he was now finishing the rest of his Saturn Cocoa Bar and reading the back of the wrapper.
“Amazing. Only ninety-five calories in the entire bar.”
“Ninety-five” repeated, the head accountant absent-mindedly. He shook his head at the mistake then turned to face Jackson with a fierce scowl. It sent shivers down his spine.
“What charming, small ears you have…” said the head accountant with a vicious glare. He stepped forward and towered over Jackson with his large metal shoes, tall ears, and intimidating size. “What is a human doing on our ship, interfering with our budget calculation!”
Tarza made a quick calculation and watched on in wonder, as Jackson backed up, stumbled over his feet, and landed his rear end squarely on the green button of the control panel. The room was instantly filled with foam once again, this time trapping one human and four Byzongs.