Banana - Part 2
The S. S. Banana is sailing through Lake Michigan, and Nathan is sitting inside his cabin inside of the ship. The waves toss the ship up and down, and even though it’s mostly metal, Nathan can still feel the rocking. Nathan decides to get out of his cabin and head to the captain’s room.
Nathan enters the captain’s room and sees Dr. Banana looking at a map of the Atlantic Ocean. “The island should be about here,” he mutters. He notices Nathan and turns around. “Oh, Nathan! I was just trying to plan our route to the island. It’s supposed to be a paradise!”
“But what will we do when we get there?” asks Nathan.
“My plan is to move the Banana Enterprises business in Lake Geneva to this new island,” Dr. Banana says. “Then we can export all of our goods and make lots of money, without having to pay taxes because we’re not in a country. We’ll get rich and make this island a great place to live for me and all of my workers.”
“I thought we were taking over Banana Enterprises together,” says Nathan.
“We are,” says Dr. Banana. “Now let’s get to that island.”
Jean and Dave Grace are flying through the air in their car, and land in the middle of a field on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean.
“Now what do we do?” asks Jean.
“We should set up camp here, and we can fly back when the heat dies down. Our car is solar powered, so we can power other devices with the electricity, and I brought some tents,” says Dave.
Jean and Dave successfully set up a tent, and since it was only 3:00 at the time, they decided to go gather resources from the island. The pair found some fruit from trees, and had a good dinner that night.
The next morning, Jean and Dave wake up and look around. From where they are on the island, they can see smoke hovering over the trees. “Let’s go see where that smoke is coming from,” says Jean.
As they walk closer to the source of the smoke, they pass through a grassy flat area, and then a big forest with difficult terrain. They walk along the edge of a desolate area with gray ground and a volcano visible, and keep walking when the ground turns red and a river of lava is visible. Eventually, they get past these areas, and walk through another plains area, this one inhabited by the natives of the island.
The natives of the island are humans, of course, but they are taller than most humans you would see. The shortest of them is six feet tall, and the tallest of them nine feet. They aren’t just tall, but generally bigger than most humans.
“Who are you?” asks Dave as he walks up to one. “Hallie?” the native says. “I think this one is named Hallie,” says Dave to Jean. Dave walks up to more of the natives and asks questions, such as “Where is this?” and “Do you speak English?”. The answer to all of these questions is, of course, “Hallie”.
Jean and Dave keep walking along the edge of the island until they see the source of the smoke. In the distance, workers are building an industrial factory. The source of the smoke is an generator currently powering the power tools the workers are using. Nearby, other workers are planting bananas, and one person is commanding all of the others…
“Jean and Dave?” Dr. Banana asks. “How did you get here? I moved Banana Enterprises to this island to get away from you!”
“We flew to this island because everyone in Lake Geneva hates us for killing Dr. Mayor,” says Jean.
“Well, this island, or at least this part, is ours. So you’d better stay out of Banana Enterprises’s way,” says Dr. Banana.
Jean and Grace walk away from Dr. Banana’s new factory, and finish their lap around the island. They walk through the other side of the desolate land with red ground, and then go through a cave full of crystals to the shoreline, where a great bay blocked the path from the cave to a great desert. From here, another island is also visible across the water from where Dr. Banana made his camp. Dave makes a raft and they float across the bay to the desert.
After walking through the desert, they come to a city full of anthropomorphic acorns. A sign planted in the ground reads, “Acorn Village, Population 250”. Jean and Dave walk through the city, and the acorns appear to speak English. “How do you speak English?” Jean asked one of the acorns, who shrugged and said “I don’t know”.
Jean and Dave walked past the village, and walked over a large string of mountains. One of them had a giant chestnut at the top embedded into one of the mountain peaks. After walking through the mountain range, they passed through the other side of the forest and back into the grassy field area.
As they settled down for the night, Dave made a map of the island, and then went to bed.
After a day of hard work by all of Dr. Banana’s workers, the factory is finally finished and bananas are successfully planted in the farm. Dr. Banana and all of his workers sleep inside the factory. When they wake up, the banana trees have already sprung up from the ground.
“How is this possible?” asks Nathan. “These trees should take at least a week to grow this fast?” Dr. Banana digs up some of the ground and goes to his factory.
“Workers! I need you to make me a laboratory so I can analyze this dirt!” Dr. Banana says. “I think that the soil on this island is very fertile and nutritious. We’ll make many more bananas if we can figure out how to make more of this dirt. We’ll be rich!”
The workers immediately start working on a small laboratory next to the factory. After a couple of hours, the lab is complete. Dr. Banana walks into the laboratory and starts analyzing the dirt.
An hour later, Dr. Banana walks out of the laboratory. “This dirt is normal! There’s nothing special about this dirt that would cause plants to grow faster in this dirt,” he announces to the workers. “Maybe it’s the water?” one of the workers asks. Dr. Banana tests that as well, to no avail. Other workers suggest that it could be the bananas used, the depth of the bananas, or the pressure of the ground, but none of these tests find anything different about them compared to back in Lake Geneva. But one worker suggests, “What if the air is different?”
Dr. Banana tests the air and finds that it is completely pure of any toxic chemicals - the air is completely pure. Dr. Banana runs outside of the laboratory and looks to the sky - he never noticed it before, but the clouds suddenly get darker as soon as they get farther away from the island. “The whole island is surrounded in a shield!” exclaims Dr. Banana. “That’s why the air isn’t toxic and the bananas grew so fast!”
A couple of days pass on the island, and Jean and Dave decide to head back to Lake Geneva to see if the heat has died down. They leave their settlement and fly back to Lake Geneva.
When they arrive, the streets are almost empty. They land in a parking lot and walk out. Dave talks to one of the few people still walking in the streets and says “Where is everyone?”
“Everyone is in The Riviera listening to a presentation from the new head of Banana Enterprises,” says the person walking down the street. “I don’t want to work for a banana company, so I decided not to watch.”
Jean and Dave walk into the Riviera and sit down to listen to the presentation, as it is about to start. The presentation turns from a countdown to Dr. Banana’s face.
“Hello, citizens of Lake Geneva, and listen closely, for I have a job opportunity that could change your life,” says Dr. Banana. “You don’t need to worry about why a banana is taken over this prestigious company, but what you do need to worry about is all the profit that you could make.
“The Banana Enterprises company has moved from Lake Geneva to an island in the middle of the ocean, which I have named Banana Island. This island has the perfect conditions for farming - bananas we planted there grew ten times faster than bananas planted back in Lake Geneva. This means that we can make ten times the money, and rest assured you will get ten times the paycheck.
“Now, if you want to work at Banana Enterprises, please board the boat that is docked outside.” Everyone looks out the windows of the Riviera, and see a ship pulling up to the dock, labeled the “H. M. S. Banana”.
Almost everyone in the room immediately runs out and boards the ship. Ten minutes later, the boat takes off and leaves for Dr. Banana’s island.
“I don’t trust this,” Jean says. “There’s no way Dr. Banana will make that much money, and there’s even less of a chance he’s going to pay his workers fairly.”
“I agree,” says Dave. “Let’s go back to the island and investigate later.”
Jean and Dave walk out of The Riviera and look at the water. Suddenly, Jean has a flashback to how Dave and her first got superpowers.
It was a normal day in Lake Geneva, and Jean and Dave were sitting in their secret base. They had already started fighting crime by this point, but with no superpowers. Dave was strong, and Jean was scientific. Jean was looking at radiation readings of the area, and noticed an anomaly.
“Dave, there are massive radiation readings from the bottom of Lake Geneva,” says Jean. “We should go check it out and see if we can uncover the source of the radiation.”
“That sounds fine,” says Dave. “Let’s go!”
Jean and Dave drive to The Riviera. “The radiation spikes right around here,” says Jean. “Let’s dive down and see what the source of the radiation is.”
Jean and Dave get out of the car, and Jean dives into the water. Swimming down, Jean sees a glowing giant blue diamond in the water. She swims down and hauls it out of the water.
“I found the source of the power,” Jean says. “This gem is emitting massive amounts of radiation.”
Jean and Dave drive back to their base and start investigating the gem. Eventually they discover a couple of things. First of all, the gem is emitting twice as much radiation as plutonium, but the radiation does not appear to be dangerous. Second of all, the power it emits every second could power a house for a day.
Jean and Dave go to bed that night, and wake up next morning with superpowers. They look at the gem and see an engraving carved on it, which reads:
“September 13th 2017 - Benji - Superhero of the Ages”.
As Jean and Dave fly back to the island, Jean makes a suggestion. “Remember the engraving on the Banana Gem?” “Yeah,” Dave replies. “I think that, since we’ll live on this island, and our future descendant, Benji, is going to be a famous superhero, we should name this island after him.”
“Benji Island? I like that,” says Dave.
The ship containing immigrants from Lake Geneva arrives on Benji Island, where Dr. Banana is ready to address the new arrivals.
“Thank you for coming,” Dr. Banana says. “Welcome to the Banana Enterprises factory and plantation! Each of you will be given a job to do every day. You work from 8 AM to 3 PM, and in exchange all of you will get free food, housing, and extra money for everything else you might need. So who’s ready to work?” Everyone listening raises their hands.
“Everybody divide into four groups,” Dr. Banana says. The crowd divides into four groups. “Alright, everyone,” Dr. Banana says. “If you are in this group, your job is to work at the power plant section of the factory. If you are in this group, your job is to work at the plantation and farm bananas. If you are in this group, your job is to work at the factory and make other things we need, such as equipment and firearms. And in the last group, your job is to work at the city that I am forming around this factory. That’s right, I’m making a city here. If you want to change your group, please talk to me - and I’m also looking for a couple people to work in administration.”
As everyone divides into groups, a couple of people come up to Dr. Banana and apply for administrative roles. The first person to ask for an administrative role was a potato named Minion. One of them is a star named Saber, one of them is a stoplight named Baby Stoplight, one of them is a… cylinder… named Tempter, and one of them is a purple blob named The Photograpper. Minion was given a role as Dr. Banana’s helper and the rest were given roles as Dr. Banana’s assistants and other managers.
The day passes, and the workers all work on their respective tasks, until their shift ends and they go home and eat dinner. As the sun set on Benji Island, all of the workers settled down in their homes in the new settlement of Banana City.
END OF PART 2