Goddard, Come Home

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 5:

Although Cindy and the others did not know it Goddard was in much the same condition as Jimmy. Usually he would have returned to Jimmy's room after leaving the lab to await Jimmy's eventual return, but his instructions to leave Jimmy alone pre-empted that option. After considering his situation he trotted behind the clubhouse that was the main entrance to Jimmy's underground lab and settled down to sleep. Part of his logic circuits had concluded that it would let him remain close to Jimmy without violating his commands. On a more practical level he simply had nowhere else to go.

Despite it being a calm and rather ordinary Retroville night Goddard slept fitfully. Something told him that things were not altogether as they should be and he woke a number of times, scanning the area for the danger his sensors told him was there. Each time, despite his intensive checks of the area, he was unable to identify anything out of the ordinary and he would slowly return to an uneasy sleep. At length morning came and he resumed his normal operations, but the feeling of peril did not depart with the coming of day. Rather it grew stronger, causing him to whine unhappily.

He wanted to be with Jimmy. His instincts told him that Jimmy would be able to find the danger, whatever it was, and make it go away. Since that was impossible his only choice was to try escaping the unseen menace that lurked nearby. It was not a choice that appealed to him, as even without Jimmy this place was still his home. With a last unhappy look back at the Neutron house he activated his jumpjets and sped off into the sky.

Curiously the feeling of danger did not recede as he rocketed through the sky. It remained with him, stronger than ever, and the faster he flew the closer to him the danger seemed to be. Unable to escape the hidden peril with flight he landed in Retroville Park near Lindbergh Elementary School where at that moment Jimmy was struggling to stay awake in class. The feeling of danger diminished, but did not go away entirely. Since he could not think of anything else to do Goddard crept into the relative shelter of some bushes and lay down, waiting for what he did not know. As he lay there his feeling of disquiet again began to grow, changing in turn from disquiet to uneasiness, uneasiness to apprehension, apprehension to anxiety, anxiety to dread, and dread to terror. Despite this, however, Goddard did not move. He lay where he was without moving, as though fear had transformed him into a statue, making escape from the unknown threat impossible.

In fact, although Goddard did not know it, he could not hope to escape the danger.

Goddard was the danger.

And with each passing second the danger continued to grow.

Oblivious to any of this Jimmy's friends were discussing what to do about Jimmy. Cindy vehemently insisted that they inform the school authorities so that they could call Jimmy's parents, while Sheen and Carl were just as strongly opposed and Libby wavered between the two opposing viewpoints. Fortunately lunch period was nearly over and except for the five of them the cafeteria was empty.

"It's obvious that he needs a doctor," Cindy argued. "There's nothing we can do about whatever is wrong with him."

"But we don't know that a doctor can help him," objected Sheen. "I've never seen anyone get sick like this before."

"Neither have I," Carl agreed. "And I've been sick a lot."

Sheen nodded vigourously. "And how."

"So what can we do?" Cindy demanded. "Even if they don't know what's wrong with him a doctor would know more than we do about trying to cure him."

Libby nodded. "That's true."

"Yeah, but maybe we can figure out what's wrong with him," said Sheen. "And if we get him back to his lab there might be something there that can help him."

Libby nodded again. "That's true."

Cindy considered this. "I suppose that's possible," she admitted grudgingly. "But I still say that we should turn this over to the adults and let them handle it. Suppose we tried to help Jimmy and couldn't, but because of that it was too late for anyone else to? Would you want to try explaining that to his parents?"

"No," Carl conceded. "But I'd hate trying to explain this to them, too."

"Priority check!" Cindy snapped. "Are we supposed to be thinking of ourselves here, or Jimmy?"

That made them all think. At last Libby said, "Okay, Jimmy is the main concern here. And whatever we decide has to be what we think will help him. But that comes back to our first question. What will help him?"

Sheen spoke slowly. "Well, I still say we try to help him ourselves. Whatever it is that he has, I'm almost certain that it was because of something that happened in his lab because it's not like anything any of use have ever seen before. And since Carl and I are both fine -"

Says you, thought Cindy wryly.

"- it must have been something that happened after we both left last night. Ergo, I say we take him back to his lab and check it out first."

"Makes sense to me," offered Libby.

Cindy thought about it. Although she would never admit it out loud, especially in front of witnesses, Sheen's reasoning seemed logical. It was possible they would find something that could explain Jimmy's condition, or at least provide enough clues to save some doctor valuable time in finding a cure. "I guess we could do that. But if we do…" her voice trailed off.

"Go on," prompted Sheen.

"If we do, and can't find a way to help Jimmy, then we tell his parents everything." She looked around at the rest. "Agreed?"

"Agreed," the others answered in chorus.

"Just one thing," added Libby. "Just how long do we look before we decide that we can't help Jimmy?"

Cindy looked down at Jimmy who, except for the pallor of his face, appeared to be sleeping. "One hour. I figure that even if we don't succeed, that won't be long enough to hurt him."

"One hour it is," agreed Sheen amiably as he gathered up Jimmy and headed for the door with others. He might have not felt so optimistic had he known the complete situation. Jimmy didn't have an hour. Neither did Sheen or his other friends.

They, and the rest of Retroville, had just over fifty-eight minutes left.

End of Part 5.