The Return of Sherlock James
by Gary D. Snyder
Chapter 1:
"Whatcha doing there, Jimmy?"
Jimmy Neutron gave a non-committal grunt in reply but otherwise kept his attention focused on the small device in one hand and the tiny tool he was manipulating with the other. From time to time he muttered something under his breath which, although not quite audible, clearly showed his dissatisfaction with the results of his efforts. Carl Wheezer waited patiently, certain from long experience that his best friend would eventually surface and acknowledge his presence. He was not mistaken. After another minute or two of frustrating effort Jimmy finally gave up and tossed his head back, flipping the set of high-powered stereoscopic loupes up from his eyes. "Stupid government surplus parts," he spat in disgust. "You'd think that for $1.99 you'd get a set of matched phase discriminators that could confine the probability of the electron tunneling to within 100 angstroms."
"Yeah," Carl agreed. "I think that my mom says the same thing whenever she buys my pants."
Jimmy considered that and decided not to pursue it. "What was it that you were asking me?"
"Oh. I was just wondering what you were doing. I mean, recess is almost over and you spent the whole time working on your whatchamacallit instead of playing."
"It would probably have been better if I had been playing," Jimmy sighed. "I was just trying to improve my hypno-beam."
"You mean so it doesn't make people think it's your birthday every day like it did before?" Carl asked.
Jimmy shook his head. "Not exactly. With my old hypno-beam, someone has to be looking at it to accept the hypnotic suggestion. I figured that by using the circuit from my encephalo-synthesizer I could lock into the brain wave patterns of someone and implant the suggestion even if they weren't looking."
Carl looked worried. "That sounds kind of sneaky."
"I suppose," Jimmy admitted. "In a way it might be. But this way it could work in the dark, or if someone had their eyes closed, or was looking the other way. It would be a huge improvement."
"Yeah, but Jimmy, the last time you messed with people's brain waves you let a bunch of monsters loose from that haunted house exhibit."
"Just minor setback," Jimmy assured his friend. "I'm almost positive that couldn't happen again." He thought about it a few seconds more. "Almost positive I'm almost positive."
"And besides, it sounds unmusical," Carl went on.
"You mean 'unethical'," Jimmy said. "And it does not sound unethical."
"What sounds unethical?" asked Libby, who had walked up with her friend Cindy.
Jimmy snorted. "Nothing. There is nothing unethical with what I'm working on."
Cindy folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "And what exactly would that be? Something to go with your dopey fashion eyewear? I mean, I've heard of beer goggles, but what are those things you're wearing? Bore goggles?"
Jimmy whipped the set of loupes off his head but his biting retort was cut off when Carl spoke up first. "Jimmy's working on something that will hypnotize people even when they aren't looking. He's going to use their brain waves to do it, instead."
Libby snorted in disgust. "Sounds pretty unethical to me. I mean, hypnotizing people when they aren't even aware of it, Jimmy?"
"Hey!" Jimmy protested. "It has some valid and perfectly ethical uses. Disciplining unruly children, rehabilitating hardened criminals, helping people overcome annoying habits -"
"-brainwashing innocent people, promoting mass mind control," Cindy finished. "Honestly, Neutron, I can't believe how short-sighted you can be sometimes. What if some unscrupulous person like Professor Calamitous or Doctor Drakken got hold of that thing?"
"And even if they didn't," Libby put in, "there can't be anyone whose habits are so annoying that you'd have to –"
She was interrupted by the abrupt arrival of Sheen. "Hey, guys!" he panted, out of breath from running. "Guess what I brought for Show and Tell today! No, forget it, you'll never guess," he went on without giving them a chance to reply. He pulled a plastic figure from a sack. "It's my latest Ultra Lord action figure with complete nuclear weapons accessory pack! And I get to tell about each and every one of them!"
"Then again," Libby corrected herself, "maybe that thing of yours could come in handy from time to time." She stretched out a groping hand. "You mind if I give it a try?"
Jimmy kept the device out of Libby's reach and shook his head. "No. It's still not ready yet. And if advancing the cause of science is unethical," he continued defensively as he dropped the small gadget into his pocket, "then I say that there's nothing wrong with being unethical."
Cindy rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Nerd-tron's First Law of Motion: 'A geek in motion remains in motion until his stupid invention backfires on him.'" At that moment the bell announcing the end of recess rang and she headed back to the classroom, followed by the others. "I guess it's good for us that your dumb inventions backfire so soon. If they didn't there's no telling what damage you'd do before you were stopped."
Jimmy growled between his teeth but said nothing. He had been planning to demonstrate his new hypno-caster, as he called it, for Show and Tell and was too pre-occupied with finding a suitable alternate plan to retort. Fortunately for him Miss Fowl chose to call on students in alphabetic order that day, so that he had almost fifteen minutes to prepare for his demonstration. Equally fortunately, his backpack was filled with various odds and ends that, although fairly ordinary to him, were unlike anything the rest of the class had seen. By the time his turn came, he had come up with something that he was certain would impress the rest of the class.
"I'm sure that you all know that there are over a hundred distinct elements," he began, with his hands behind his back, "and that each of them has a unique set of properties, such as density, conductivity, radioactivity, triple point, melting point, boiling point…"
"Get-to-the-point," Cindy deadpanned, eliciting scattered laughter from the other students.
"Yes. Well," Jimmy went on stiffly, "the point is that these properties make some elements very desirable. Elements like copper…silver…" He brought one hand out from behind his back and held it out to reveal a lump of gleaming yellow in his palm. "And, of course, gold."
Libby leaned forward, intrigued. "Is that really gold, Neutron?"
Jimmy smiled and shook his head. "Not really. It's actually something I call quasi-gold. It has all the physical and measurable properties of gold and is all but indistinguishable from it, but it's not. This quasi-gold is created by influencing the spins of the sub-nucleonic particles to mimic the properties of gold. You'd actually need a fairly large particle accelerator to tell that it isn't really gold." He crossed to the front desk on one side of the classroom and handed the nugget of quasi-gold to Shandra, who was sitting there. "Pass this around so everyone can see it, will you?" he asked her and then returned to the front of the room.
"Jimmy?" Carl asked, raising his hand. "Is quasi-gold the only thing you can make?"
"Oh no," Jimmy assured him. "I can make virtually any element – just so long as there's no radioactive decay involved. As soon as the quasi-element emits a particle the subatomic fields destabilize and the quasi-element reverts to the original substance." He frowned. "I'm still working on that. I think I should be able to correct that problem by aligning the crystal lattice properly to provide some structural redundancy."
"What do you use to make the quasi-elements?" asked Cindy, who was inspecting the piece of quasi-gold and intrigued in spite of herself.
"Well, virtually anything, as long as the atomic weight is within 10 or so of the target element and the substance is fairly pure." Jimmy pulled out his other hand from behind his back to display what looked like a remote control with a barbecue fork on it. "This is the transmutor that changes the original substance into a quasi-element. Would you all like to see a demonstration?" This was met with universal and enthusiastic agreement and Jimmy nodded. "I thought so. Gather round and I'll show you how it works."
The other students crowded around, craning their necks to get a better look. Even Miss Fowl looked on with interest as Jimmy set a piece of dull grey metal. "This is a lump of lead," he explained, "and it's very similar to gold in a lot of ways. Both are soft, dense metals. The ancient alchemists even attempted to find the Philosopher's Stone that would change lead to gold. They failed, but with a little scientific know-how…" He depressed a button on the transmutor and a reddish glow emanated from the tines, bathing the metal. After a second the glow faded and the students gasped. In place of the dull grey lead was not a lump of shiny yellow metal. "Voila!"
"That's amazing," said Sheen.
"Yes," agreed Jimmy. "But watch what happens when I give it a light dose of radiation." He aimed his wrist-comp and depressed a button, firing a thin beam at the golden substance. After a few seconds the golden gleam and color faded, leaving the original lump of dull gray metal in place of the quasi-gold. "As you can see, the special frequency of my laser interacted with the quasi-gold, causing it to spontaneously emit a high-energy particle and revert back to plain old lead."
"Just how long would it stay as quasi-gold without artificially irradiating it?" asked Cindy.
Jimmy shrugged. "That's actually a statistical thing, like radioactive decay, but I'd estimate a 90 probability of it lasting about a century before it spontaneously reverted back to its original form. And that," he concluded, "is my Show and Tell for today."
He picked up the piece of lead and transmutor and headed back to his seat as the other students returned to their own desks. "Very nicely done, Jimmy," Miss Fowl complimented. "And with far less collateral damage than usual."
"Why, thank you, Miss Fowl," Jimmy replied. "Oh, before I forget – can I have that specimen I handed out back?" The other students looked at each other expectantly but no one said anything or produced the nugget of quasi-gold. "Well, someone must have it," Jimmy prodded.
Miss Fowl looked over the class. "Come on now, children," she clucked. "Whoever has it should return it. I think everyone has had a chance to see it by now."
There was no response and Jimmy looked annoyed. "Well, who had it last, then?" he demanded. There was no answer, as no one was willing to admit that they were the last to have handled it. "All right, then, he said. "I know that Cindy had it, but I don't recall seeing her pass it on to anyone else."
"I did so!" Cindy protested. "Are you saying that I actually stole something?"
Jimmy shook his head, not wanting to start a fight. "I'm not saying that. Maybe you thought you passed it on but it dropped under someone's desk or something instead."
"Look, Neutron," Cindy said tightly, "I know what I did. I didn't drop it and I didn't forget to pass it on. Wherever it is, someone else has it."
"Children! Children!" Miss Fowl called. "Let's not start a fight here. No one is accusing anyone of anything." She looked thoughtful and then brightened. "I know. Everyone, close your eyes and put your heads down on your desks for one minute and I'll do the same. While we're doing that, whoever has the nugget can bring it up and put it on my desk without anyone seeing them and with no questions asked."
The students looked doubtfully at each other but decided there was no other recourse. With a collective shrug everyone closed their eyes and put their heads down, straining their ears to detect the sound of anyone moving in the room and counting silently to themselves. After a minute or so everyone opened their eyes and raised their heads to see Miss Fowl sitting at her desk with a stunned expression on her face.
"What's wrong?" asked Sheen.
"Sweet Mother McCre-e-e!" Miss Fowl squawked. "While we weren't looking someone stole my gold pen from my desk!"
End of Chapter 1
Author's Note:
Just for the record, I have yet to see that "everyone put your head down and close your eyes" thing actually work.