The Real Big Brainy

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 10:

Cindy racked her brain, trying frantically to think of some way to contact Jimmy. She had tried calling Jimmy's parents on her cell phone but neither of them had known where Jimmy was, and she had asked Libby, Sheen, and Carl to call every place and every person they could think of who might be with him or know where Jimmy was. The list was very short and the three quickly reported that they had also failed to locate Jimmy. Although Cindy and Jacques had said nothing about the situation to the others they could instinctively sense that something was terribly wrong. Cindy rarely went out of her way to find Jimmy and her trying to do so could only mean major trouble.

Who would know where Jimmy was or how to find him? Cindy wondered. Carl and Sheen are here, we've already checked with the Candy Bar, his lab doesn't have a phone, we can't ask Goddard, his parents – Wait a minute! Cindy's brow furrowed. Jimmy had once called Goddard on Libby's phone. That number might still be in Libby's phone log. If so, perhaps they could get Goddard to find Jimmy and bring him to the auditorium.

"Libby! Give me your cell phone!"

Libby complied, looking puzzled. "Well, OK, but you should really upgrade your plan if you can't stay within your minutes."

Cindy ignored her and began scanning her phone log. She quickly identified numerous calls made to her, several to various other girls at Lindbergh, one to Sheen (she'd have to remember to ask Libby about that later), various calls to stores, and, near the end, one to an unlisted number. With a gulp of hope Cindy hit the recall button and hit the button to dial.

She heard the call going through and without realizing it began counting the number of times the phone rang on the other end. Once, twice, three times…and then she heard the connection being made. "Goddard?" she asked.

From the other end she heard a bark.

"Goddard! Thanks goodness! Is Jimmy there?"

Silence.

Cindy realized her mistake. "Uh, one bark for yes, two for no."

In the receiver she heard one answering bark.

"Great! Goddard, put me on speakerphone. Please. It's important." From Goddard's end she heard a click. "Jimmy? Are you there?" There was no reply. Cindy thought she knew why. "Jimmy, I know what you must think, but this is important. Please answer. We don't have much time."

From the other end she heard Jimmy's voice. "What is it, Vortex?"

"Jimmy, there's a problem here. A big one. I've read Jacques design notebook and there's something you have to know."

Jimmy's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Is it a cookbook?"

"What? No! Jimmy, Jacques' reactor is a breeder reactor. It generates more anti-matter, it's out of control, and we can't shut it down. In about –" She looked a Jacques.

"Ten minutes," Jacques said.

"- ten minutes it's going to lose containment and the breeder reaction will spread everywhere. I can't stop it. Jacques can't stop it. You're our only hope." She paused. "I know what you probably think about me right now, but I swear I never had anything to do with taking you energy cell. I know that I can't prove it. I just hope…that you can still believe me."

There was a very short silence in her receiver. Then she heard Jimmy's voice saying, "I'm on my way."

With full afterburners Goddard's Flycycle Turbo Mode had a top speed somewhere over half the speed of sound. At that speed Jimmy covered the two miles to school in just under 30 seconds, including takeoff, landing, and making his way to the auditorium. When he got there he found Jacques, Cindy, Libby, Sheen, and Carl gathered around the reactor with Cindy just finishing a summary of the situation.

"You're saying that the reactor is going to destroy Retroville?" asked Sheen when Cindy had finished.

"If we're lucky," she replied. "The anti-matter will continue to increase and wipe out Retroville, the planet, the solar system, and everything else it gets to."

"Jimmy? Are we going to…going to…" Carl whimpered.

"No way! Jimmy will save us. Right, Jimmy?" Libby asked hopefully.

Now that he was here Jimmy felt uncertain. "Well, I think so, but…Jacques, can we open the reactor to directly access the reaction?"

Jacques shook his head. "The safety interlocks would attempt to shut down the reactor at once. Containment would be lost immediately."

"Well, maybe we could dig a hole and bury it, like nuclear waste," suggested Sheen.

"This isn't like nuclear waste," Cindy answered. "Anything the anti-matter touches would be annihilated. The only thing that would be safe is more anti-matter."

"That's it!" cried Sheen. "We could build an anti-matter box to put the reactor in!"

"And we would put the anti-matter box…where?" Libby asked.

"Well, we could put that in another anti-matter box and…uh…umm…oh, right," Sheen replied, realizing the situation.

"Couldn't we shrink the reactor with Jimmy's shrink ray and flush it down the toilet or something?" asked Carl, blubbering slightly.

Jimmy shook his head. "No, Carl. If we shrank the reactor its containment field wouldn't be strong enough to contain the reaction. We'd just speed up the collapse of the field."

The situation seemed absolutely hopeless. Cindy fought to keep back the tears she felt welling up. "Jimmy," she said, her voice breaking a little, "if ever there was a time for one of your brain blasts, this is it."

Jimmy looked around at the others, seeing the hope fighting with despair in their faces as they waited for him to save the day. Cindy's face was the last, and her misery was almost too much for him to bear. "Okay," he muttered to himself, shutting his eyes tightly and concentrating. "Maybe you aren't the smartest kid in town anymore, but it's still your town. Come on! Think! Think! Think!"

The only thing that would be safe is more anti-matter…

Maybe we could dig a hole and bury it…

A hole so steep and deep that nothing can get out again…

Now the mass and weight of the object remains the same…

The box doesn't really have an inside or an outside…

"Brain blast!" he cried as the pieces came together. "Carl, Sheen, get my Chest of Mystery and the shrink ray. Libby and Jacques, get a table over here. Cindy, get me the energy cell."

"Okay, Jimmy," said Cindy, as she retrieved the cell from the reactor control circuitry and handed it to him. "But what are you going to do with all this stuff?"

"Make the only thing that can possibly stop this, Cindy," replied Jimmy. "We're going to create a black hole!"

End of Part 10.

Author's Notes:

I just couldn't resist putting in the punchline to the reference "To Serve Man". If this is a spoiler for some of you, I apologize, but I have to get it in. The alien book titled "To Serve Man" was in fact a cookbook.

One person whom I think is vastly overlooked in Jimmy Neutron's world is Cindy. As well as being Jimmy's obvious romantic interest she's supposed to be the smartest kid in Retroville next to Jimmy. I keep trying to think of ways that she can prove it by actually being resourceful as well as cunning. In this chapter thinking of how to find Jimmy with time running out sort of demonstrates that quality.

In actuality this chapter and the last compressed about three chapters' worth of material into two. I try to keep the stories about 12 chapters long, with an epilog to wrap up loose ends, and to do that I had to figure out where to speed things up a little. Since we're coming to the climax I figured this was the best place to speed things up.