All We Have To Fear

by Gary D. Snyder

Chapter 10:

Cindy stirred and opened her eyes. The hard surface of the bench on which she had been sleeping had made her stiff and sore, and she shivered from the slight chill in the air. She looked around her, trying to remember how she had gotten here, and noted with some annoyance that the streetlight that she had had been certain was next to the bench was halfway down the block, just as Jimmy had told her.

That memory triggered the release of others and she frowned as she recalled them. She had been dreaming, and in her dream she had met Jacques, Nick, and even Lou, of all people. It seemed so clear to her now that she should have recognized Lou and not trusted anything he had to say, but she had learned that reason played a very small role in dreams. She had even dreamt that Jimmy had been in her mind. It's too bad about Jacques, though, she thought. It's been a while since -

"That wasn't a dream," interrupted Jimmy's voice from inside her head.

Cindy gave a small scream and jumped. "Neutron?" she asked, both angry and incredulous.

"Who did you think it was?"

"What are you doing inside my head?" she demanded.

She heard Jimmy give a small sigh. "I thought we went over that. I'm here because my Phobifier 5000 put me in here."

"I thought it was all a dream," Cindy moaned, covering her face with her hands. "But it's my worst nightmare!"

"Exactly. The phobifier was able to interpret what you were most afraid off and transferred me inside your head. Either you were afraid of my not being around, or you were afraid of me, or both." Jimmy's voice became thoughtful. "Actually, I'm rather impressed at how efficiently it was able to reconcile the two."

"Will you stop being so scientific?" Cindy fumed. "How do we get you out of my head?"

"Like I said, we have to figure how I got into your head," Jimmy explained patiently. "I don't see how the phobifier could have done this. It's only supposed to work on thoughts and feelings."

Cindy stopped before making a sarcastic reply as her conversation with Lou came back to her. "Lou told me something about that."

"Lou?" Jimmy's voice sounded astonished. "What were you doing dreaming about him?"

"Hey, I can't control what I dream about. Can you?"

There was a pause. "No. Not since my mom took away my subliminal projector when I was seven and said that...well, never mind." There was another pause. "What did Lou say?"

"Well, he essentially said that reality wasn't as clear-cut as most people think. Maybe it's on the outside, or maybe it's inside our heads, or maybe it's both. It sounded like a lot of double-talk to me." She shook her head despondently. "I guess I shouldn't have believed anything he said."

"With Lou, that's probably a good idea. But in this case…" Jimmy's voice trailed off. "I'm not so sure it was Lou. Maybe it was just your memories of Lou, because what he said makes a lot of sense."

Cindy scoffed. "Since when did you start believing in metaphysics?"

"No, really!" Jimmy insisted. "Scientists have discovered that perception and reality are very closely intertwined. Do you recall the double-slit experiment?"

Cindy shook her head, but for Jimmy's benefit said, "No. I have a life."

"It had to do with the duality of light. Some scientists thought it was a wave, and some thought that it was made of particles, so they experimented to find out. They shone light through two parallel slits and observed the patterns that created to determine if light was composed of waves or particles. They found out that the results depended on whether or not the behavior of the light could be observed."

"Are you saying that light acted differently when someone was watching?" Cindy found that hard to believe. "Maybe the measurements just messed things up. I mean, Heisenberg said you can't measure a system without affecting it."

"That's what the scientists thought," answered Jimmy. "But they found that it wasn't measuring the system that affected the outcome. It was whether or not the measured information could be accessed. In other words, being able to perceive what happened affected the outcome, not the measurements."

Cindy held her head. "My brain hurts."

"I don't blame you. But it fits in with my theory on the fundamental nature of matter. Think about it this way. Have you ever disagreed with Libby about what color something was?"

That got Cindy going. "Lots of times, actually. Just last week there was this teal scarf -"

"Hold that thought. Let's pretend that you think something is green and Libby thinks that something is blue –"

"Could we reverse that?" Cindy asked. "I kind of like blue better than green."

Cindy could almost visualize Jimmy rolling his eyes. "Fine. Let's pretend that there's something that you think is blue but that Libby thinks is green. You both decide to find out which. You invent something that measures blue and Libby invents something that measures green. That should settle it, right?"

"Uh…" Cindy looked for the trap her highly developed feminine intuition said was there but could found none. "Right."

"Wrong, for a couple of reasons. Because you and Libby think the same thing has different properties logic states that it must have both. All your experiment will do is verify that it has a blue property, and all Libby's experiment will prove is that it has a green property, just like you thought. And each of you thought what you thought because of your personal perceptions of what blue and green were. All the experiments would prove to each of you is that each of you was right."

Cindy wasn't ready to surrender without a fight. "Okay, so I'll make something that measures green and Libby will make something that measures blue."

"There's still the same problem. Each of you has ideas of what green and blue are when you build your machines to measure them. Your measurements will just prove to you that the other person is wrong, because your measuring devices aren't purely objective."

"'Heads I win, tails you lose'?" Cindy asked.

"Exactly," Jimmy confirmed. "Part of the problem with measuring reality is that everything we use was designed to measure something that we think may be there."

Cindy thought about that. "So, if someone believes the Universe is made of heat, and goes around measuring everything with a thermometer, he'll find out that he's right. But if another person believes the Universe is made of electricity and goes around measuring everything with a voltmeter, he'll find out that he's right as well."

"That's pretty much it," Jimmy agreed.

"But," Cindy objected, "that would mean that these monsters are real only because everyone believes that they're real."

"I know. If we could convince people they aren't real the monsters would go away. Probably."

"So how do we do that? Write a catchy jingle to convince people not to look at the monsters and they'll go away?"

Jimmy sighed. "We can't. Hey, is that a pony?"

Cindy looked around and then realized that Jimmy was referring to something in her head. "That's just Snowflake. Leave her alone."

"Could you concentrate on the problem at hand?" Jimmy asked impatiently.

"Excuse me, Nerd-tron. My mind tends to wander whenever you go on one of these long and boring dissertations." She banished the thoughts of the pony she never got and returned to what Jimmy had been saying. "Why can't we convince people that the monsters are a figment of their imaginations?"

"Because the operation of the phobifier is based on fear. You can't reason fear away any more easily than you can reason away faith or hope or…love," Jimmy concluded reluctantly.

Despite their circumstances Cindy was curious about the last part of Jimmy'statement. "Love?"
"The only place love and logic go together is in Volume 8 of my encyclopedia," Jimmy said firmly. "Emotion and reason are two totally different things."

"You're hopeless," Cindy criticized. "So what do we do? Shut down the machine?"

"That would keep more monsters from showing up," Jimmy replied. "But that wouldn't get rid of the monsters that are already here. And getting up to the phobifier without creating more would be nearly impossible." Jimmy sighed. "If only I knew why the phobifier doesn't affect Carl so I could use it to get closer to the phobifier."

It was Cindy's turn to feel smug. "You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?"

Cindy shook her head in disbelief. "Carl is afraid of everything."

"I know that," Jimmy said impatiently. "So logically the phobifier should be churning out monsters by the truckload."

"And you call yourself a genius," Cindy said scornfully. "Carl is afraid of everything. That means fear is normal to him. Your machine can't lock on to anything because all his thoughts look the same!"
Jimmy was stunned for a full five seconds. "You're right!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't I realize that before? But," he went on, "that means that we can't use that to our advantage. There's no way that one person can be afraid of everything. Other than Carl, I mean."

Cindy's voice suddenly sounded strange. "No," she agreed, "but there is one thing that everyone can be afraid of."

"And what's that?" Jimmy asked.

Cindy pointed down the street in the direction of the school where a dark and ominous shape had materialized. Even several blocks away its vast size and shape were unmistakable and Cindy couldn't help shivering as she saw its three vast eyestalks casting restlessly about, searching for a victim. A familiar shriek of raw fury issued from its monstrous throat. Even at this distance the sound was deafening to Cindy, and she clapped her hands over her ears as she instinctively averted her eyes from the sight.

"Poultra," she whispered.

End of Chapter 10

Author's Notes:

Although I didn't want to make this chapter a lesson in science or metaphysics I felt that some explanation of how the phobifier was affecting things was in order. Some of the explanations in this chapter stretch the concepts of quantum mechanics a bit, and should be taken with a grain of salt, but I figure that everything about Jimmy's science tends to push the envelope. Like another boy genius from another cartoon universe obvserved in another story of mine, "It's like this kid makes his own rules."

Fans of The Simpsons will probably catch my allusion to an episode called "Attack of the 50-Foot Eyesores", a favorite of mine.

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