JMJ

An Epilogue of Loose Ends

Pr. Utonium

I slammed the door to the lab. I'd been pretty quiet up til that point. Just barely had I been able to hide what I felt in my hellos and hugs to the girls and boys. I just had to think before getting ready for dinner when I would allow the family to take me away from all my troubles.

I swung rather than walked down the steps. I grabbed the nearest counter and slumped my head downwards so that I scuffed the surface with the crown of my skull. With eyes tightly closed, I hissed through my teeth, "Stupid, stupid, stupid…"

"Errr eep!"

I jumped and spun around, hands now gripped behind me on the counter. Before my eyes locked onto him, Jojo leapt onto the counter beside me, and I turned back.

I guess I had not been as observant as I thought I'd been as Jojo had slipped in through the door with me before I had slammed it. He chittered at me in a most inquisitive and excited manner, shaking my arm and toying with my fingers before I finally gave into him, stroking his neck a little.

"Oh, can't I do anything without messing up somewhere" I sighed.

He rolled his head and plopped himself down in front of me expectantly.

"Oh, no, I cured him. I really did, and I know he'll do some good for this city. I know it, but it's not a secret now what happened. She figured it out. Shelby Warden. Is there any scientist who can keep reserve! She confronted me, albeit confidentially."

I stared into the wall and could see her earnestness like she was still standing before me. Her words repeated in my mind.

"You're so brave. You're so amazing. So brilliant…"

"If only she had berated me instead," I grumbled.

Grunting, Jojo seemed to agree.

"She found out that I used Chemical X to cure Alex…" I shook my head, calmer already just reflecting upon it. "I don't think she'll tell anyone. I just don't see that. She wouldn't want it to get into the wrong hands either, I believe that, but what she just didn't get was that her hands were the wrong hands too. Even mine aren't really the right hands. No one's are. We all know that. Even our poor girls found that out the hard way a couple times. Chemical X is not a toy. Can't we as the human race get that?"

Jojo squealed.

"Or simian," I agreed and then shrugged. "She wanted to use it with me together. I can't even believe what she was suggesting. She thought it was amazing that I used it to cure Alex without allowing for 'special affects'. She said my balance was near miraculous. She said it was the future of humanity— life itself. She said we should use it on everyone everywhere. Maybe… maybe, but certainly not now!"

I slammed my fist on the table as though arguing with her at that very moment.

Jojo sniffed the air as though making sure there was no one else, or maybe he was just smelling some food being started upstairs.

"I don't know. To end pain, to end mortality, to end all that makes us human. That's not what Chemical X is. She should know that, and yet I think that's why I was so hard on her. I was almost tempted myself. It's horrible. The temptation of X is obviously something no scientist, especially, is able to resist easily."

Jojo was looking a little sulky now.

Maybe he was hungry. Maybe he understood more than I realized. Either way, I just looked away and sighed forlornly for a moment more.

"I shouldn't've gotten so angry. She means well, but that's just it. I get faced more and more as I get older with the consequences and the temptations of my chosen vocation as a man of science. I was ready, just a few minutes ago to get rid of the rest of Chemical X to rid us all of the temptation, Jojo." I stroked his head absently, but he wasn't a cat or dog and just sort of wriggled out from under my hand.

Note to all: Jojo is not an ordinary chimp. A wild animal should not be kept as a pet. Get a dog or a cat or even a ferret or llama. It was X at its finest with Jojo even now. That strange tampering with nature made him unable to be his species again anymore than a cat or dog, but also unable to be human. A creature of limbo, he was bound to me and was my responsibility.

"Oh, chemical X…" I sighed. "But… I know I can't."

More chittering. A squawk even. Jojo leapt down from the counter. Hungry? Impatient for quality lab time? He had been having less time in the lab with me for the past few days.

"I mean, I can't get rid of Chemical X," I said, "because I know that this isn't over. Those scientists are still out there, and if even people like Shelby Warden and myself can be tempted, those scientist's lust will be worse than ever after this. The police are out on the hunt already, but even if they do catch Dr. Otto Form, his spidery friend, and their ham-like lady companion, we can never be sure we've caught them all. The Powerpuff Girls might be needed one day or else… or else… I'll do it all myself." I looked firmly up towards the heavens above the ceiling and the roof beyond my house in this tiny spec of a vast universe. "I'll face it without putting Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles in harm's way."

I blinked down at the creature so different from Mojo Jojo, the crazed lunatic he had been. So different from the crazed wild animal he had been before his days as Mojo. He was almost a Pokémon, strangely enough.

I reached down to touch him again gently while squatting on one knee.

He liked that, but a second later he was pulling me towards some of my equipment.

I laughed despite everything else on my mind. With my final decision upon the subject of X, I felt much more at ease.

"Alright, alright, Jojo. I won't be late anymore from now on now that Alex is cured. Then we'll have real lab time again after today."

The door upstairs suddenly opened.

"Professor!" it was Buttercup, and she was hurrying down the stairs; her legs had only recently got used to flying on her feet rather than up in the air just as all the children were. "Hey Professor! Blossom wants to know where the salt went. Are you using it down here again?"

Jojo was now complaining at Buttercup about the whole situation. Buttercup just smiled wryly and gave him a glomp like in another household a girl might glomp the family dog.

"C'mon, Jojo!" she growled in a tease and ruffled him a little.

"Actually, I think it is down here," I said, and sure enough I found it on a shelf with edible items I'd occasionally borrow from the kitchen for experiments of a non-food sort. "I forgot, I guess. I hope you're not overdoing it all for yourselves."

"No, oven-ready food's easy! You just take off the wrapper and stuff it in the oven even if it's not as good as what you usually make."

"Well, like I was just telling Jojo, the schedule will go back to normal now."

"Yeah, what were you doing anyway, Professor?"

I smiled down at Jojo, and Jojo almost seemed to wink back. I'm sure he didn't, but it amused me all the same.

"It's complicated," I told her. "Maybe I'll explain it later."

"Okay!" shrugged Buttercup, and she hurried up the stairs with the excited Jojo.

I followed calmly behind, flicked off the switch at the top of the steps, and looked once more into the darkness at the floor tile where Chemical X was waiting if it needed to be used. I hoped that it never would be moved from beneath that floor again, but just in case, it would be there like it always was.

I shut the door.

THE END