The Real Big Brainy

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 12:

Cindy bit her lower lip, trying to keep it from trembling. I'm dreaming, she told herself. I'm in my bed waiting for the alarm to wake me up for school.The alarm would go off soon, she knew, and she would go to school and play another prank to put Neutron in his place and she and Libby would laugh and Neutron would…Neutron would…

Jimmy wouldn't be there. He wouldn't be there tomorrow, or the next day, or the next, or any other day after those.

Not even Neutron could escape a black hole, she thought bleakly. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind she realized that she had just defined the impossible not in terms of what Jacques couldn't do, but what Jimmy couldn't. It didn't seem to matter now. Nothing did. She seemed to be surrounded by a black mist, sensing rather than seeing the others gather around the table with her and Jacques. She became aware that the footsteps she had heard running down the hall had stopped at the auditorium door and were now approaching them. It must be Miss Fowl, she decided dully, feeling faint surprise that she could think of anyone but Jimmy at this moment. She's here to see how the Science Fair preparations are going for tonight, as if that really meant anything now.What would they tell her? What could they tell Jimmy's parents? That their son had sacrificed himself in a black hole to save the world?

From somewhere in the darkness around her she heard Sheen's questioning voice. "Jimmy?"

Cindy shook her head and somehow summoned the will to to try to answer. "He's gone, Sheen. And he's not…he's not…"

"No," she heard Libby say. "Jimmy!" The way she said it made Cindy look up in surprise at her friend, and then behind her where Libby was pointing. Cindy squinted, trying to see through the mist in her eyes. It looked like…but it couldn't be…

But it was!

Jimmy!

Faced with so many shocks in one day Cindy's mind refused to keep working and she stood there as though Jimmy were Medusa herself and had turned her to stone. The rest of the kids were also unable to move or speak, sure that they were hallucinating. But Goddard leaped forward, knocking Jimmy down and licking his face. Jimmy laughed and petted the mechanical canine.

"Yeah, I missed you too, boy," he said as he got back up. "Oh, here's your hand back." Goddard reattached the severed device to his mechanical arm and retracted the assembly back into his utility compartment. "So, how did things work out here?" asked Jimmy, as though nothing had happened. "Did you miss me?"

Jimmy's nonchalant air was enough to snap Cindy out of her daze. "Miss you?" she repeated, a note of anger creeping into her voice. "Miss you? If you think for one minute your being sucked into a black hole actually mattered –"

"- you were right," Libby interrupted, understanding all too well that Cindy's anger was solely from her immense relief. "We thought you were gone for good."

"That's right," added Carl.

"Yeah, it was the greatest trick ever!" cried Sheen. "How did you do it?"

"Yes, what happened?" asked Jacques, looking puzzled. "I can see that you succeeded in creating a black hole, but where is it now?"

"Well," explained Jimmy, "once I was pulled into the Chest of Mystery I was close enough for the power left in my shrink ray to cause the final collapse of the reaction into a singularity. Once that happened it sucked in the reactor, and more importantly, my Moebius cube."

Every still looked puzzled.

"Don't you see?" asked Jimmy. "The singularity swallowed the cube. But the cube contained the singularity. Therefore -"

"Therefore," said Cindy in growing apprehension, "the singularity had to swallow itself."

"And since that is impossible…" continued Jacques, also catching on.

"…it created an existential paradox and ceased to exist," concluded Jimmy. "No more singularity, no more black hole."

"Brilliant," murmured Jacques. "Monsieur Jimmy, I salute you!" And with that he seized Jimmy by the shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.

"Yes, well…" stammered Jimmy, blushing in embarrassment.

"But you were inside the cube when it got sucked in," said Sheen. "How did you get out?"

"I told you before, Sheen. There is no inside or outside. I was never really in the box."

"But why didn't the black hole get you? Even if you weren't 'inside' the box you were close enough for the gravity to pull you in," Cindy pointed out.

"Oh, that," said Jimmy. "I didn't really expect that, but when the singularity was created it interacted with the cube to form a chronospatial Einstein-Rosen bridge. That threw me back to where I was about twenty minutes ago, which was just enough of a delay to prevent me from meeting myself and creating another paradox when I ran back here to see what had happened."

Jacques nodded at this explanation. As for the others Cindy looked thoughtful, Libby appeared skeptical, Sheen seemed perplexed, and Carl was evidently totally confused.

Jimmy sighed. "It's magic," he said in resignation. "Let's go to the Candy Bar and get some hot chocolate. I'm freezing."

End of Part 12.

Author's Notes:

Sometimes even a boy genius needs a little luck (like a fortuitous Einstein-Rosen bridge) to escape certain doom, especially when I don't own the character. More to the point of the story I think that Jimmy proved his true character by letting himself be pulled into the Moebius cube when he didn't know he'd be getting out again. He may or may not be smarter than Jacques, but when the chips are down he's the boy genius I'd want by my side.