Goddard, Come Home

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 8:

Although Cindy didn't have the background to fully understand how Jimmy's virtual brain pod worked she knew that there had to be conduits to transfer the information to and from their brains. After studying the wiring for a moment she identified what she thought were the appropriate information transmission cables. She carefully disconnected them from the main machine and busied herself with creating a null modem connection, connecting what she termed the transmit line of one table to the receiver line of the other and vice versa. It was only a guess that this would actually work, but Cindy reasoned to herself that the signals coming from and going to the brain would have to be similar in nature and that directly coupling the tables together in this way should work. Unless, she told herself and Libby helped strap her onto her table, she had picked the wrong wires in which case anything – including getting 120 volts shot directly into their brains – could happen. It was not a comfortable thought. She glanced at the table next to her on which Jimmy was already strapped.

"Ready, girl?" Libby asked.

Cindy closed her eyes tightly. "Ready."

"Okay," said Sheen. "Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to –"

"Just throw the switch!"

"Oh, man," said Sheen in a subdued voice as he threw the switch to activate the device. "What a –"

Instantly Cindy's body went limp as energy coursed through her mind and swept her consciousness away with it. It seemed to her in her dreamlike state that she was rushing through a dark and featureless tunnel towards her as yet unknown destination…or was it destiny? As she sped along she became aware of sounds, as of many people talking around her in the darkness. She dimly realized that all the voices sounded familiar but she didn't try to identify them or make out what they were saying. She felt content to let the current carry her weightless body along and think about nothing.

After a timeless interval she finally spotted something in the darkness ahead. At first it was only a tiny dot but it grew rapidly in size and clarity until she recognized it as the form of Jimmy. He was sitting down with his eyes closed and was apparently asleep. She gradually slowed until she was what seemed only a few feet away from him. Jimmy didn't stir. "Hello?" she said.

At the sound of her voice Jimmy's eyes snapped open and he leaped to his feet with a startled cry. "Cindy?" He looked confused. "What are your doing here?"

"Nice to see you, too," she replied dryly. "I'm here because I needed to get some information from you and this was the only way to do it."

Jimmy's confused expression didn't change. "What are you talking about?"

Cindy gave a rapid summary of what had happened to him and how she had rewired his virtual brain pod to provide a mind-to-mind communications link. "And now," she concluded, "we need to find some way to get your DNA back to normal before it's too late – whatever 'too late' means." Despite her explanation and urgent tone Jimmy still appeared oddly disoriented. No, not disoriented, she decided. He seemed distracted by something. "Hello? Am I boring you with all this?"

"What? No…it's just that…can't you hear them?" Jimmy gestured around them.

Curious, Cindy listened carefully and again became aware of a babble of numerous voices around them, as though an unseen crowd surrounded by them in the darkness. This time, in addition to the voices she had heard on her journey here, there were additional voices. "What are they?" she finally asked.

"Thoughts. Memories. Shadows of the past," was all Jimmy said in an odd voice. "There! Hear that?"

Faintly above the clamor of voices she heard a childish voice say, "Good Goddie!"

So what? she thought. A booming "So what?" in her voice reverberated around them, startling her.

"You might as well speak out loud," said Jimmy. "If we're mind-linked the way you say we are it will come out anyway.

"Sorry," Cindy apologized. "What was that we heard?"

Jimmy looked wistful. "That was me when I first built Goddard. I couldn't say 'doggie' very well and it came out 'goddie', kind of how some kids say 'pasghetti' instead of 'spagehetti' or 'Bubba' instead of 'brother'. At first Goddard thought that 'Goddie' was his name. When I got older I modified 'Goddie' to 'Goddard' for ease of compatibility with his speech recognition processes."

"Oh. I see."

"Now, now, Jim-Jam, mustn't let the doggie sleep on the bed with you," some distant voice said.

"Want Goddie with Jim-Jam!" the childish voice wailed.

Cindy tried to suppress a smile and failed. "Jim-Jam?"

Jimmy looked embarrassed. "It's what my father always called me when I was little. I thought my name was Jim-Jam almost until I was old enough to start school. He still calls me that sometimes."

Cindy nodded. "That's all fascinating, but why are you listening to all this stuff?"

"Well, I'm not actually listening to it. It's just what's playing in my head right now. I guess it's because I said some things to Goddard that I shouldn't have…" His voice trailed off in a long sigh. "I miss him. There must be some thoughts going through your mind right now." Suddenly he looked up and to Cindy's horror she heard a voice say, "Someday, Cindy, a man will look into your eyes and find his destiny there." Jimmy looked mildly annoyed. "Just who was that?" he demanded.

"That's none of your business!" she snapped. "Can you please tell me how to fix you so I can leave here and do it?" Around them her voice boomed, "I knew I shouldn't have done this. I have to get out of here before Freak Brain hears any more personal stuff."

"Don't worry about it," Jimmy replied stiffly. "If I hear any more of your personal stuff I think I'll be sick."

"Then get on with it!"

"Fine! Anything to get you out of here!" Jimmy waited a few seconds to cool down and spoke more calmly. "First, get hold of a sample of my original DNA and the mutated DNA."

Cindy considered that. "Sheen should still have the unmutated. hair we used to get into your lab and we should be able to get a mutated sample from another of your hairs."

Jimmy looked baffled. "Why would Sheen still have the hair you used to get into my lab?"

Cindy shrugged. "He's Sheen. Does there have to be a reason?"

"Whatever. Put the samples into the Gene Manipulator 2000 and run a gene sequence comparison. Have the manipulator identify the differences and distill the relevant codons for the original DNA into a recombinant mixture. Then inject the mixture into me and the mutation process should start to reverse."

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know. Since it's my original genetic structure it should be a lot faster than the mutated DNA. Why?"

"Well…" Cindy paused, wondering if what she was going to say would sound frivolous to him. "We're all kind of cutting school to get this done. I think we're going to be in trouble when we finally get back."

"You did that? For me?" Jimmy seemed taken aback by this.

"We all did," she replied, fidgeting in embarassment. "You were in trouble. And we're your…friends."

Jimmy looked down, not sure what to say. "Thanks," he finally managed to mumble and quickly changed the subject. "And when you get back, could you tell Goddard I'm sorry? Just in case it takes me a while to get back on my feet."

"I will if I see him," she promised. "But I don't recall seeing him at all today." She frowned as something else came back to her. "I just remembered. Vox was saying something about a problem with Goddard."

"What problem?" Jimmy asked, concerned.

"Some sort of primary power system failure in 20 minutes or so. Why? Is that important?"

The look on Jimmy's face was a more than adequate answer and not at all to Cindy's liking. She couldn't recall ever seeing him appear so worried, almost scared. "Only if you had definite plans for anythng more than 20 minutes from now," was his answer. "I'm afraid this puts a rush on things. You have to cure me now."

"Now? But why? What's the hurry?"

"Because," he replied in a voice that gave her chills, "unless I fix him in 20 minutes or less, Goddard will explode."

End of Part 8.

Author's Notes:

I apologize for the delay in getting this chapter completed. I hope that it was worth the wait for everyone. The subsequent chapters should definitely go faster.