Disclaimer: They say that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. *Stands* "Hi my pen name is Okmeamithinknow, and I don't own Jimmy Neutron
A.N. I'm glad that you guys liked the last chapter. I kind of went out on a limb and took the chance that you may not like it. I kind of did the same thing in this chapter. I hope you like this one as well. Hopefully you will.
Cindy's POV
There was a sudden bang on the other end of the heating duct where Calamitous and I had hidden momentarily.
"Crap!" I squeaked.
"Oh dear I think they have discovered our absence," he replied.
"Run!" I screamed.
Calamitous pushed me down the metal tube. It was too short for us really run. We began to crawl on our hands and knees.
"Down there and to the left!" he commanded. "I've been studying the schematics to this particular duct for a while. Three more right turns after that it should lead straight out to the outer complex. The guards out there haven't seen you and have no idea what's going on inside. They've been told just to keep others out, not in."
I couldn't believe my ears. Freedom was so close. Maybe I wouldn't need Jimmy to come and save me for once. I really hated being the damsel in distress, but it's not like I had a choice this time.
The pipe began to violently convulse. My teeth chattered. It felt like my brain would shake right out of my head, if it were possible.
"Crumpets! Girl, there's… Some thing… I must…. tell you," he told between breaths as we scrambled further down the heating duct.
"Kinda running for my life right now! What!?" I shouted.
"Eustace mustn't know," he said grabbing my ankle.
The metal bit into my knee as he pulled me back to him. The cotton pants the guards had dressed me in tore violently, scraping open old bruises.
Nose to nose, his face dead serious, he beseeched, "You cannot tell him, under pain of torture and death."
"Yeah cause Eustace and I are bosom buddies at this point. Why would I tell him anything?!"
"The baby isn't his!"
"WHAT!???"
It seemed as though time had stopped, the universe suddenly reversed its flow, the Earth spun backwards on its axis. It was a surreal moment.
"I-i-i-I couldn't do it to you, my dear," he stammered. "You were too much like my Georgia when she was young. Headstrong, feisty, spirited. I couldn't bring myself to do that to you. Eustace assumes it's his own, because the embryo is too small to safely test. His insanity is genetic and I could not… could not…"
"You couldn't let another psychopath loose on society?"
"Right. I could not. One Eustace Strytch is bad enough, another…" he shuddered.
"I don't understand. If it's not Eustace's baby that I'm carrying, whose is it?" I asked.
"Your baby belongs to one James Isaac Neutron, boy genius," his face flushed as he admitted it.
My jaw dropped to the bottom of the shaft.
"How is that even possible? How do you have his DNA?"
"When the failed League of Villains met for the first time King Goobot told us his story of how the Yokians returned to extract their revenge on Jimmy. He said that you told him the secret to getting into Jimmy's lab was his DNA and that everyday Jimmy plucks a hair from his head to gain access to the lab."
"I don't remember that…"
"Goobot also went on to explain that he had obtained a sample of Jimmy's DNA that he had on his ship. I betrayed that floating ball of phlegm, like Eustace did when he put the Trojan on the Junkman's ship. I stole that sample from the Yokians."
"I synthesized his DNA and fused it with your own. The eggs that were implanted in you, my dear girl, are exactly the same as your own offspring would have been."
"Jimmy's…. Jimmy's baby?" I placed my hand tenderly on my abdomen.
Only in my wildest daydreams during my imprisonment had I imagined that I would carry Jimmy's baby. Most got no further than my escape and reunion with my loved ones.
"You see why Eustace mustn't know! I fear he would use that further to his advantage to crucify you and young James."
Abruptly the metal duct fell out from underneath him.
"Keep going!" he implored me.
My feet felt glued to the floor, hindering any prospect of my flight succeeding. I watched as he fell to the ground and his head cracked against the cold concrete. He lay there as if dead, but I knew that the fall would have just knocked him unconscious.
A giant electromagnet pulled the framework from beneath. In a walker similar to Jimmy's Robo-walker sat Blix and Eustace.
"There you are Cynthia darling," he said clapping his hands with mocking glee. "And I see you've made the acquaintance of my geneticist, Professor Calamitous. I was wondering where the two of you had gone."
A giant metal arm burst out of the walker and grabbed me under my armpits. The look in his eyes shook me to the core. He had a murderous intent no doubt. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to discover what his intentions were before I too collapsed into unconsciousness.
'Darn him and his drugs' was the last thought to flit through my brain.
Some hours later
When I came to I was again on my back, strapped down to that infernal bed. I shut my eyes, hoping this all a bloody nightmare.
"Ga!" I exclaimed straining against the shackles.
"Finally," I heard Eustace say, "We've been waiting so long. I was beginning to think you would never wake up."
Involuntarily my head turned to stare at him. He was sitting with his feet propped up against my bed. His languid body seemed poised and ready to jump up at a second's notice. He looked at me, raised his eyebrows in mock coyness, and stood. He causally strolled over to the other side of the room.
Sitting next to him in a metal chair was Calamitous. I had never seen the old man look so piteously. He was strapped to the chair. The macabre scene sickened me, turning my stomach.
His head was a giant bruise, and his nose was undoubtedly broken. Crimson blood flowed freely down his face from a gash over his once white eyebrows. Fresh blood added new stains to the older dried ones on his white lab coat. From the amount of gore on his clothes it was obvious he had been bleeding for a while.
Tears filled my eyes. I felt the remnants of the old hatred that I had once bore for him melt away at the sight of him. Yes he had helped Eustace in the beginning stages of his plan and tried to kill me numerous times, but he had risked his own life to try to save me. He was no longer a diabolical villain, but a comrade in arms, a fellow prisoner of war.
"Just let him go!" I cried. "Please Eustace! Have some mercy!"
"Mercy?" he chuckled bitterly as though he had never heard the word before.
"I-i-I t-t-took a chance," Calamitous mumbled through his pain. "I knew it-t-t wouldn't b-be long enough for our es-s-scape. I h-h-oped you would have made it out."
"Shut up, you old fool!" Eustace bellowed, turning and cruelly slapping him across the face.
The blow split open his lower lip causing more blood to spill down his face.
"Stop it! He did what you asked him to! Let him go!" I begged again.
"I kn-n-now my fate," he winced.
I wracked my brain trying to think of some way that I could prevent this, something that I could say that would make Eustace spare his life.
"He only did it to save his daughter! Please! Let him go!" I pleaded.
Never had I sounded so weak, and yet here I was, not even begging for my own life, but for the life of someone who had committed heinous acts against me and the people I held most dear.
"Oh yes," Eustace said turning a malicious eye back on me, "About that. I never intended to let any of them go. I had your deplorable daughter and her ridiculous excuse for a husband killed months ago. Why it was before I even had you Cynthia."
Calamitous' eyes grew wide as the words. Shock and horror contorted his face as Eustace's words registered.
"Yes you heard me right," Eustace smirked. "It was easy enough. I took care of them myself, just like I will you. No one betrays Eustace Strytch and gets away with it."
The loathing contained in Professor Calamitous' eyes would have dropped a charging bull elephant in its tracks.
"Now do you have any last words before you go?" Eustace asked giving him a simpering smile.
"G-g-g-go?" Calamitous voice held a tiny snippet of hope.
"Yes to join your 'precious' daughter."
The professor turned his gaze to meet my eye. His eyes filled with tears. All the work he had tried to complete, for his daughter and myself, worthless. His eyes implored me to keep his final secret.
"Tell James I'm so sor…" he was cut off, not finishing his last sentence, as Eustace snapped his neck.
"Eventually all things come to an end. He outlived his usefulness," Eustace's voice held no warmth.
"You… you monster!" I gasped.
An unholy strength filled my veins. I struggled wildly against my shackles.
"You'll pay!" I shrieked at him. "You'll pay! When Jimmy gets here, he'll… he'll…"
I couldn't see Jimmy harming anyone. It went against his nature…
But it wasn't against mine.
"I'll kill you myself!" I shrieked all the more loudly at him.
"I'm afraid my pet, your James won't be coming," he smiled at me vindictively. "I've been tracking his movements this whole time. It seems that he and your little mob of yours transported themselves into another dimension a week ago, and haven't been heard from since. They were supposed to be back five days ago, but James' parents aren't holding out any hope. Neither should you."
He turned and walked out the door, leaving me in the room to my anguished screams of vengeance and Calamitous' corpse.
