The Neutron Show
by Gary D. Snyder
Chapter 11:
Believe the lie? Jimmy thought. Is that what Cindy wanted me to know? He shook his head in confusion. First had been "The truth is out there." Then "All lies lead to the truth." And now "Believe the lie." None of it made sense to him, but perhaps it wasn't supposed to. Maybe it was all part of the show and not meant to mean anything, like a ridiculous story about a pizza having a dream about a boy having a dream about a man having a dream about a boy having a dream about him having a dream about a sleepover. In a fantasy world, was anything ever real?
Yes, there was. He hadn't had the chance to hear what Cindy wanted to tell him, but whatever she had wanted to say had been real. He realized that there was no logical proof of it, but in his short life he had learned that logic as a means to the truth couldn't lead to all truth. There were things in life that couldn't be proven logically and required other means of discovery and corroboration. Things, he thought, like the look in Cindy's eyes and the tone of her voice. This message, odd as it might seem, had been her last attempt to help him and scientist or not he would defy any truth system because of his own faith in her.
But having decided that, what did it all mean?
He rose and shambled along, his head down and barely aware of the presence of Goddard or the other people he passed. The messages were clues, he was certain, so what were they attempting tell him? It was as though something was still missing…something he should be able to see but was just beyond his reach.
He stopped short and looked up, aware that he was about to run into someone, and was startled to see his own image looking back at him. While lost in thought he had blundered into the Hall of Mirrors without realizing it and now found himself surrounded by his reflections. He had a disquieting sensation of déjà vu as he recalled the dream he had experienced and for a moment wondered if what he was seeking lay inside among the many distorted and reversed images residing inside.
He straightened with the shock of a true epiphany. Reversed images…
The first message had been on the classroom chalkboard, but the other two had been on the back, or reverse, sides of things. In the order he had discovered them they made no sense. But reversing them gave the message:
BELIEVE THE LIE. ALL LIES LEAD TO THE TRUTH. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
Cindy hadn't been trying to conceal the messages from others, as he had first believed. She had been leaving clues within the clues.
Enervated by this realization Jimmy tried to glean more information from the messages. But try as he might he could not seem to get any further. To get to the truth he apparently had to believe the lie, but it seemed as though dozens of lies surrounded him. What lie could she have been referring to? And why would she have made it so difficult for him to find the truth if it were so important?
Jimmy had known Cindy for so long that even without a phenomenal memory he could easily have pictured her standing before him with her hands on her hips and an impatient look on her face. "Why?" she seemed to be telling him. "Because I believed you could do it."
At first this told him nothing. But then, as the nature of Cindy's message suddenly dawned on him, Jimmy couldn't help marveling at just how subtle her message truly had been. She would not have bothered to send such a puzzle unless she had been certain that he was smart enough to solve it. The puzzle itself was the solution. He had been told that everything he had known was nothing more than the product of someone's imagination, and that everything he had believed about his world and himself was a lie.
Believe the lie.
All right, he told himself, suppose I really am a genius and everything I believed about myself is true. Where am I? And how do I get out of here?
Unfortunately, he decided, either Cindy didn't know or had no way of telling him that. It had been all she could do let him realize what the situation was before she had been hauled away, almost certainly for good. But had even that been real? As often as he and Cindy had been at odds with each other he did not believe that she would willingly participate in something as twisted as this. It was even less like that his other friends or parents would either. That meant that everyone here was either an exceptional actor or some sort of sophisticated simulation.
As he and Goddard threaded their way through the labyrinth of mirrors he quickly decided that only a simulation could possibly explain his circumstances. The sheer magnitude of replicating Retroville and its inhabitants with real materials and people, even the limited segments with which he normally interacted, would be absolutely staggering if even possible. That meant that he had to be in some sort of virtual reality world, probably a computer-enhanced holographic simulation similar to his Game Pyramid. Even so, something of this magnitude would still be enormously expensive and time-consuming to build and operate. Who in the world would go to the trouble and expense of trying to convince him that his whole life had been an illusion? And who did he know that could have a big enough grudge and enough money to try pulling it off? Only one name fit the facts and it came like a hiss from between Jimmy's clenched teeth.
"Eustace Strych!"
With the realization came renewed determination for Jimmy to put an end to this charade. If for no other reason he would get out of here and somehow settle the score with Eustace. The only problem was that he had no idea where exactly he really was, nor how to get out of it. With the Game Pyramid Jimmy had programmed the simulation to end once the game was over. With this simulation the conditions to end it could be nearly anything. As Jimmy recalled the options the "creator" had given him he realized that the only one able to end the simulation might be the person running it. If so, Eustace could and almost certainly would demand anything he desired to release Jimmy.
"All right, Eustance!" he shouted. "I've figured it out! You might as well end this now and let me out of here!"
For long seconds there was nothing but silence. Then a familiarly insufferable snigger echoed around him. "Or what?"
"There are laws against kidnaping. My parents will be looking for me, and when they find me –"
"Actually, Neutron, no one is looking for you. Quite fortuitously your parents won a two-week all-expenses paid vacation for two and are out of town. Of course, they were concerned for your welfare during their absence, and since my father and yours had become such good Flurp buddies during your last visit it was quite natural for them to accept my invitation for you to stay with me during their romantic getaway."
"My friends –" Jimmy began.
"- are under the impression that you're with your parents on their trip." There came the sound of a sigh and Eustace's voice was filled with mock sorrow. "I'm afraid that you're really all alone for two weeks. Unless, of course, you wish to come to an agreement."
Jimmy suspected he knew what Eustace wanted but asked anyway. "What kind of agreement?"
"Oh, nothing much." The voice took on a sly tone. "Just that dog of yours."
Even though Jimmy now knew that the Goddard next to him was only a simulation he threw his arms protectively around the robotic dog. "Never!" he cried.
"Well, have it your way. Two weeks is a long time to be alone. And it's entirely possible that your parents' vacation might be somehow…prolonged. Several times, if need be."
Jimmy was almost stuttering with rage. "I'll find some way out of this cage!" he snarled, shaking his fist at the sky.
"Really? I recently heard about a similar situation where a test subject did just that, but then again he wasn't in your situation. He was in a real cage and you're in an encephalically-stabilized holographic simulation, if you can understand what that is. It will be interesting to see if you can make as much of a monkey of yourself." Eustace's voice laughed as though at some private joke, and then there was a pause. "I really would reconsider if I were you."
Jimmy gave his head a vigorous shake. "No way, Useless."
"That's Eustace!" the voice snapped back before regaining control "Very well, have it your way. I'll contact you again in…oh…say a week."
"Make it a week, a month, or a century – I'll never give up Goddard!" Jimmy shouted back. "Do you hear me?"
There was no reply to this and Jimmy sat down on a bench to think. At least Eustace had confirmed that he was in a holographic simulation, albeit an extremely sophisticated one. Whereas virtual simulations like those in his Game Pyramid were generated and maintained entirely by computer this one apparently drew from his own and others' thoughts and memories to help generate and refine whatever he experienced. He was in a world that could be as real and vast as the one from which he had been taken. Eustace seemed certain he could not get out on his own, but Jimmy was sure that there was a way out of any cage if only he could find it. He wished that Cindy, or the simulation of her, were with him. She had given him the clues to what was happening, but had been taken before she could tell him anything more.
Or had she? She hadn't said much to him since he had been here, but maybe…
"Come on, Jimmy," he muttered to himself. "Think. Think! Think!"
All lies lead to the truth…
Aren't you worried about a crash?…
You always find a way to take it to another level…
"Brain blast!" he cried. If Eustace was so determined to keep him in a virtual world he would go him one better. Instead of trying to escape the lie, he would go even further in.
End of Chapter 11.
Author's Notes:
A question arose as to how old the kids are. At the beginning of the series Jimmy were 10, going on 11, as in "Hypno Birthday To You" he was supposedly 18 years old having after 8 pseudo-birthdays. In my first fiction, "It's an Alternate Life" I put him at 11 and slowly have been moving him towards 12. The other kids, except for Sheen, are about the same age. Sheen who is apparently a couple years older than the other kids in Miss Fowl's class, as in "Jimmy Neutron: Rescue Jet Fusion" it was revealed that he had been held back twice.