New Girl in a New Town

Chapter 4: A Brush With Death and a Miraculous Rescue!

"So, how exactly are we gonna track the person who stole my necklace? ?" Jessica warily questioned, "We saw her disappear without a trace!"

"Wait a minute, 'her'?!" Libby repeated, confused, hands on her hips.

"How do you know the suspect was female?!" Cindy exclaimed, "We barely got a glimpse of them!"

"Well, she snagged the necklace from ME, so I got a good, yet brief, look at her figure... She looked like she went to the gym to work out a lot! !" the new girl explained to them.

Sheen piped up and added, "And her green eyes were strikingly beautiful... Almost as if I'd seen them before somewhere..."

"And I think I saw part of her black hair sticking out of the head area of her black suit...," Carl interjected helpfully.

"So," Jimmy concluded, "The clues are a striking athletic figure, green eyes, and black hair. There's only ONE person in this town with that description... and that is-"

"UltraLord?!" Sheen interrupted impatiently with an eager look to his eyes.

"NO! ! !" everyone else except Jessica, who sported an expression of confusion on her face, yelled at him at once.

"Alright, DANG! ! You don't have to yell!" he protested, backing away a couple steps.

"Who's UltraLord?!" Jessica wanted to know, baffled.

"Some lame cartoon DOLL Sheen's been obsessing over for, like, ever...!" Cindy remarked, rolling her eyes with her arms crossed and glaring at him.

"ACTION FIGURE! ! ! !" Sheen almost shrieked, extremely annoyed, "And he's not lame! !"

Rubbing his ears a bit since Sheen was standing right next to him, Carl put in, "Ow, my ears! ! Easy on the yelling, Sheen! And he gets really upset when someone calls it that..."

"I can see that...," Jessica noted with a little giggle.

"Gas planet...!" Jimmy just muttered under his breath, slapping his forehead, "As I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted, our culprit is none other than Beautiful Gorgeous!"

"I knew those eyes looked familiar!" Sheen said excitedly.

"Precisely!" his genius friend replied, "Now, all we need to do is track her down so the 45 grand necklace can be returned to its rightful owner, Jessica Griffen!"

"Just one thing, though," Libby pointed out, "None of us actually saw where Beautiful went!"

"No, but we can track her position! She has a tracking device in her head, placed inside her around 5 years ago while she was in prison before she was released from a 2-week sentence due to her exceptionally good behavior," Jimmy told them, "I can track it on my watch! So, let's board my hovercar and let's get going!"

The group of teens boarded his hovercar, he started it up, set his watch to track Beautiful, and they were soon on their way!

On the way to locate her, Cindy asked, curious, "So, where exactly is she, Neutron?"

"My sensors indicate she's somewhere in the Sonoran Desert in the southwestern U.S., just southwest of Phoenix, so that's where we're headed, Cindy," he replied confidently, "And we're presently passing over New Mexico..."

"Well, hurry up! I'm getting bored!" Sheen griped from the front passenger seat, bored out of his mind.

"Short attention span? ?" Jessica whispered to Libby.

"You have NO idea, girl...," she quietly responded with a sigh.

"We'll get there when we get there, Ultra-Dork! !" Cindy snapped. Sheen could really get under her skin like no one else could, and really drove her almost to the breaking point at times! She was a black-belt in karate, and she wasn't afraid to use it!

As for Carl, the boredom caused him to fall asleep, snoring loudly.

Something tells me it's gonna take a while to get used to all their quirks... Jessica thought to herself, a glazed look in her eyes while glaring at Cindy. After all, she was a karate expert, too, and wasn't afraid to show it when needed!

She noticed Jessica glaring at her, so she whipped her head around to her side and hissed, "What?!"

"I'm a black-belt in karate, so you better be on your best behavior, Cindy...," the new girl warned her.

"Well, so am I, missy! So, I suggest you keep your distance in the near future!" Cindy barked back.

"That's quite enough, you two!" Jimmy retorted while keeping his gaze in front of him, "We're nearing our destination in a couple minutes, anyway, so zip it!"

"Yeah, whatever...," the two girls both said in unison.

A few minutes later, the hovercar touched down on the sandy desert floor in southwestern Arizona. Using his watch as he and the others climbed out, he started to inform them, "According to this, Beautiful's directly-" Then he noticed a helicopter-shaped shadow looming over them ominously, and immediately looked upwards, finishing his statement nervously, "-above us?! Look out! ! She's got heavy artillery!"

From her perch in the helicopter looking down at them, Beautiful cocked her laser-annihilator gun she'd had on hand, about the size of a large military gun, and sneered, aiming at the group's leader, "It's time to say 'sionara', Neutron! !" With that, she fired and a bright blue laser beam shot down at the speed of light and hit its target, landing him on his back and electrocuting him severely. He emitted a shriek of pain, then it was all over as he quickly fell unconscious.

Beautiful just smirked and added evilly, putting her gun away and using that annoying laugh of hers, "There's no one to save you kids from this desert heat now! !" She then flew off in the distance, leaving the teens distraught over the condition of their leader.

"Oh, no, JIMMY! !" Carl yelled, hurrying to his friend's side.

"This CAN'T be happening! !" Sheen exclaimed, extremely freaked out while shaking his shoulder and receiving no response.

"Why now?!" Libby cried, getting down on her knees and covering her face with her hands, "And WHY him?!"

"No, no, no, NO, NO! ! ! !" Cindy freaked, a tear or two streaking down her cheeks while she desperately checked him for a pulse, but nothing, "Jessica, if you know CPR, use it! ! !"

She immediately got on her knees beside the fading teen, placed her hands in the correct CPR positions, and pushed on his chest several times, shrieking, "C'mon, C'MON, wake up, Jimmy! ! Please don't die on me! ! !" But, in spite of her efforts, there was no heartbeat or pulse indicative of life in him. Help had come too late for the teen genius.

One by one, all five teens burst into tears, knowing there was no hope left now...

Then, after a few moments of sobbing, Cindy remembered something Jessica had said only 45 minutes earlier. "J-Jessica, get yourself t-together and listen to m-me!" she urged despite her heaving chest because of her crying, "D-Didn't you s-say y-you were a b-believer in G-God?! Perhaps your God c-could h-help us! !"

Bringing her sobbing down to a sniffle, Jessica replied in a shaky voice, "I-It's w-worth a sh-shot..." She then got down on her knees again and prayed, "God, p-please send your S-Spirit upon m-me... A dear f-friend a-and acquaintance has just p-passed a-away, and it's f-f-far too SOON for h-him to l-leave us! ! So p-please, f-fill me with Y-Your Spirit so th-that I-I-I may lay my h-hands on him and through Y-You re-restore h-h-his life! !" Jessica burst into tears again as she laid her shaking hands on Jimmy's abdomen, using every ounce of faith she had that God would bring him back.

A few angsty moments passed, then, in a miraculous turn of events, Jimmy began to breathe again, coughing a few times before opening his eyes. He looked around at the still-weeping group and asked, sitting upright while rubbing his head, "Hey, why's everyone crying like that?"

At that instant, all five teens immediately jumped on him and spawned a five-second-long group hug until he started gasping for breath while saying, "Uh, guys-! I can't- breathe-! !"

They all let go of him right away while muttering words of apology, backing away a few steps and giving him some room.

"Sorry 'bout that, Neutron," Libby admitted, blushing.

"It's okay, it's okay! !" Jimmy reassured them, then a thought came to him and he added questioningly, "Why is everyone acting so relieved to see me, as if I'd been gone for a decade?!"

"Don't you remember Beautiful Gorgeous about five minutes ago?!" Carl exclaimed, "She had a gun! !"

He thought this over for a couple moments, then his mind clicked. "Of course! ! She was standing in the helicopter hovering above me, then a few moments later, she shot a laser beam at me! It threw me onto my back, giving me a nasty shock, then everything went black. I remember seeing an ephemeral light at the end of a dark tunnel, so I moved towards it for a few moments before it disappeared. Then I thought I saw some angelic being standing before me, and he was saying something, but I couldn't make out what was being said. Before I could say anything to him, he laid his hands on me, and before I knew it, I opened my eyes to see you guys crying like crazy!"

"Whoa, talk about an en-light-ening experience! !" Sheen teased, distracted as usual.

Libby just smacked his face and snapped, "This isn't a joke, Sheen! Sheesh! !"

"Ow!" he yelped, rubbing his face, "Okay, Libby! Jeez! !"

Jimmy couldn't help but laugh slightly at Sheen's antics, then he additionally asked as he stood up, "After I blacked out, what exactly happened before I woke up again? ?"

Getting up with the rest of the teens, Jessica explained, "Well, Sheen tried shaking your shoulder, and when that didn't work, Cindy checked for a pulse, then she had me use CPR on you. I tried that several times before giving up, since you weren't waking up from it. That was when you breathed your last, and we all burst into tears! Then Cindy reminded me what I'd said about my necklace back at the Candy Bar, that I was a believer, so, still crying my eyes out, I laid my hands on you and asked my God to revive you. Within a few moments, you coughed a few times and opened your eyes."

Jimmy heard it all with a shocked expression on his face, especially when she described him coming back to life! He shook his head after a few moments, regaining his composure, then gasped in awe, "You healed me! I am completely indebted to you for eternity! ! Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Jessica!"

"Oh, no, Jimmy. Don't thank me! Thank the Lord Jesus! He's the One Who restored your life!" she corrected him gently, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait, so there actually is a God?!" Cindy questioned, extremely confused.

"There apparently IS, cuz a few moments after Jessica prayed to Him, I was alive again!" Jimmy noted excitedly, then paused a moment and added, "Though, this goes against every known law of science...! How is that possible?"

"That's where this little thing called 'faith' comes in!" Jessica told him, "It is said in the Holy Bible that faith alone can move mountains. Of course, it's meant metaphorically, but there's no doubt that, with faith, it's possible even in the physical sense!"

"Wow, really?!" Carl gasped, hardly believing his ears.

"You bet! With God, anything is possible!" she reassured them, her hand on her heart and a few joyful tears streaking down her cheeks.

"I guess this 'faith' thing is actually worth gettin' into," Libby mused aloud, thoughtfully stroking her chin.

"If she's THAT passionate about it, then I say count me in!" Sheen decided, "It actually sounds kinda fun!"

"You have NO idea, Sheen...!" Jessica informed him, "Faith in God is like a journey that lasts your entire life! It may have its ups and downs, but it never disappoints in the long run!"

"That's great and all, Jessica, but we came out into this desert for a reason, right? Your priceless $45,000 necklace?" Cindy verified, pointing in the direction the helicopter had went.

"D'oh! ! I completely forgot! !" Jimmy exclaimed, slapping his forehead, "Beautiful could be miles away by now! Let's get going! !"

The six teens, plus Goddard, scrambled back into the hovercar, he started it up, and they were very soon on their way to locating Beautiful again.