Chapter 18: Goodbyes
It took twenty minutes for all of the kids to walk back to Retroland. Jimmy naturally led the crowd, and he couldn't help but notice that many different emotions were present among the crowd. Butch and some of his tough friends were excitedly discussing the use of guns. Brittany, Betty, and several of the more traditionally feminine girls were sharing their fears of the upcoming journey. Cindy seemed deeply thoughtful, her eyes glazed over, vacantly staring at the road in front of her. Carl seemed the most terrified, continuously biting his nails, and then the skin underneath them. Libby seemed ready for battle, unaware of Jimmy's plans for her. Sheen was the person Jimmy found the most fascinating at the moment. As he held Libby's hand and helped her walk beside him, Jimmy noticed no fear in his friend's eyes. He only saw pure love. He wished that he could summon the courage to look at Cindy like that. The kid's an idiot, but you have to respect him.
Jimmy's train of thought derailed when Cindy came up beside him. "I'm going with you," she whispered to him. "I'll help disable the force field."
Jimmy smiled. He knew she would do this, and he was smart enough to know that he couldn't talk her out of it. Besides, the odds were in their favor for once. And his inventions almost never failed. "I sort of figured you would."
Cindy smiled as Jimmy pulled one of the EMPs out of his hypercube and handed it to her. "Just follow my commands on how to turn it on when we're in the air." Cindy nodded as she stared at her reflection in the chrome.
"Jimmy, should we both be going? I mean, if we both die, who will lead everyone?" she asked.
"Nick could," Jimmy quickly offered.
"Afraid not," Nick said while joining the two. "I'm going up there with you." He grabbed the cylinder that Jimmy immediately handed to him.
"This is idiotic," Cindy groaned. "If the three of us die, there is no way the other kids can get our parents back."
Jimmy shook his head. "You're missing the big picture. If this doesn't work, nobody can leave. It doesn't matter who dies. If this can't tear down the force field, nothing will. It doesn't matter if the leaders are dead, because we couldn't lead them anywhere."
Cindy and Nick shared a glance, a little put off by Jimmy's constant morbidity. "But, this will work, right?" Nick asked, his voice a little squeaky. He cleared his throat. "I mean, the odds are in our favor?" he asked in his normal tone.
Jimmy nodded. "Most likely, we will survive this. It's just important to note what will happen if we don't.
They all stopped at the gates to Retroland. Jimmy smiled; he had yet to see the finished fleet of ships. Everyone watched as Jimmy pulled ahead of the group to give one last inspection. "Flawless," he said while shaking his head, amazed by everyone's ability. He ran his left hand along the propulsion thruster on a bumper car. "Amazing," he muttered to himself.
Cindy walked up beside him and started to trace her foot along the ground. "Did I do a good job?"
"You did…there are no words. Just, wow," Jimmy told her. They stared at each other awkwardly for a moment, before settling on hugging one another.
"Thanks. For the compliment…and for trusting me," she said while blushing and backing away from him. "And as promised, here you go," she said while handing him the floppy disk.
Jimmy took it and turned it in his fingers. "Can you help the kids attach the EMPs and put the supplies on different ships? I have a few last things to attend to," he said while gently handing her his hypercube.
"Sure," she told him while staring at the device. As Jimmy turned to walk away, she shouted, "Wait!"
"What?" Jimmy asked while spinning around.
Cindy looked down at the hypercube, confused. "Why do you want me to divvy up the supplies? Why not just keep them all in the hypercube?"
Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck while trying to explain his reasoning. "If something happens to me up there, and I hope it doesn't, then my rocket would be lost. If I left everything in the hypercube, all your supplies would be lost. We'll put supplies on all the ships. That way losing one ship doesn't lose all our supplies."
"Oh," Cindy responded. "Better get to work then," she said while slowly walking towards the rockets.
Jimmy walked in the other direction as the kids followed Cindy. "Hold up," Jimmy said as he passed Libby and Sheen. "Sheen, could we have a moment?" he asked.
Sheen looked to Libby for an answer. She patted his hand. "It's ok. I'll see you in a minute," she said while giving him a kiss on the cheek. His eyes instantly brightened, and he practically skipped towards Cindy.
"I think the shooting affected him more than me," Libby told Jimmy, only half-joking. "He refuses to leave me."
Jimmy suddenly realized that this would be harder than he thought. "Um, well, it's interesting you should bring that up," he told her while leading her away from the other kids. "You can't come."
Libby frowned, but didn't react as strongly as Jimmy had expected. Next to Cindy, she was the best at arguing with him. "I kind of thought so," she sighed while looking down at her injured leg.
"I can't send an injured girl," he began to say, but Libby shot him a fierce look. "I mean, an injured kid onto a battlefield. It doesn't make sense. Besides, someone needs to be the head of the control team on Earth. And you've definitely proved to me that you're smart enough to handle that."
Jimmy's words inflated her ego. "I'm the head of the control team?" she asked, her voice giving away her excitement.
Jimmy nodded while handing her the floppy disk Cindy had just returned to him. "Yep. You're the best there is, Libby. You're smart, decisive, and calculating. I would have asked you to stay behind even if you weren't hurt. You're better at this then fighting. Besides," he added, "someone needs to watch over Carl."
"Carl's staying behind?" Libby asked.
They both stared at their llama-obsessed friend, who shuddered with fright as Cindy handed him a pistol to place on a rocket. He tossed it in the back and took a few puffs from his inhaler. "Yeeeaaahhh, I think that might be best," Jimmy told her.
Libby nodded. "I may be smart, but I have no idea how to work anything in your lab," she told him.
Jimmy pointed to the disk in her hand. "That disk has a complete tutorial on it. Goddard will be able to help, and we'll be in communication via radio headsets. There are a few in the storage closet in the lab for the control team to use." Jimmy paused for a moment and saw the uncertainty etched across her face. "You can do this."
Libby nodded slightly, staring behind Jimmy at the rockets. It was then that she truly realized that everyone was about to take off, and that they might not be coming back. "Oh my god, you're leaving."
Jimmy looked behind him and noticed that Cindy and the kids were nearly done packing up. Jimmy turned back to Libby and smiled. "Yeah, guess so."
They both realized that this could be their last moment together. "Give 'em hell, Neutron. Don't forget who you are and the things you've done."
Jimmy nodded and wiped a tear from his stinging eye. He put a hand on Libby's shoulder. He realized that he was finally taller than her, by a good inch. "I know we never were best friends like me and Carl or you and Cindy," he struggled to say, "but I've always valued what we shared." He paused for a moment to stare at her. He chuckled sadly. "I never even knew you liked Shakespeare until a week ago," he told her as a tear ran down his cheek. "I don't know your parents' names. I don't even know your favorite band."
Libby smiled sadly back at him. "I don't know your favorite food, your favorite color, even what you want to be when you grow up," she choked out, struggling not to cry. "We barely know each other."
They both looked away as the tears began to flow down their cheeks. "I know that you were a good friend," Libby whispered.
Jimmy smiled through his tears. "And I know that I love you," he told her while giving her a hug. "Take care, Libby."
"I love you too, Jimmy. Be careful up there," told him. They held each other for a moment before pulling away. "And when, not if, you
get back, we'll have a shake or something and talk. Get to know each other."
Jimmy laughed a little as he nodded and walked towards the rockets. He could see that the kids were done packing, and that Cindy was coming over to say goodbye to her best friend. "Talk to you soon," he shouted over his shoulder.
He took a deep breath and pulled a tissue out of his pocket. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose. He threw the tissue onto the ground and walked up to Carl, who looked fearfully at his rocket. "You don't have to come. Libby needs help here."
Carl stared at him for a moment before enveloping his friend in a bear hug. "Oh thank you," he said while pulling away and clutching his chest. "Those guns nearly gave me a heart attack. I'm allergic to lead bullets, you know."
Jimmy stared at him for a moment before realizing that he was making a joke. They both laughed. "See you soon, man," Jimmy said while clasping Carl's hand and giving him a pat on the back.
"Good luck," Carl wished him while heading to the circle where the other kids who had elected to stay behind stood.
Jimmy hopped into his Strato XL, which Cindy had driven to the amusement park the other day. He straddled the wheel for a moment, thinking of the dozens of adventures he and his friends had experienced in the vehicle.
Cindy hopped into the rocket near him. It was a pink bumper car with two thrusters attached to the back. "Libby is taking everyone back to the lab in the hover car so they can monitor our liftoff. She said that she and Goddard should be ready to monitor us in around ten minutes."
"Good," Jimmy said while nodding. He closed his eyes in an attempt to rid himself of his growing nausea. He looked behind him and tried to see who would be helping him tear down the force field. Nick was a few rockets behind him, nervously tapping his fingers against his dashboard. Betty and Cindy's friend Brittany were in one of the roller coaster's carts. Ike, Butch, and several other guys from his class were also there. He then turned to his left and saw Sheen hop into a rocket.
"You say good-bye to Libby?" he asked.
Sheen nodded as he pulled his Ultralord mask down over his face. "There wasn't much to say that we haven't already told each other a million times," he told Jimmy.
Jimmy couldn't look Sheen in the eye. He hated splitting the two of them up, especially since they might never see each other again after this. "I thought you would be mad at me," he told Sheen, barely speaking above a whisper.
Sheen stared at Jimmy. "I'm not an idiot, Jimmy. I knew from day one that she wouldn't be able to come. I wouldn't have wanted her to. With her injury, it would be suicide."
Jimmy nodded, although he found it hard to take his friend seriously with that mask on his face. "Do you really need the headgear?"
Sheen glared at him. "It's my good luck charm."
Jimmy was about to argue, but he realized that he needed all the luck he could get. He looked into the back of his rocket and saw several guns as well as a bag of food, clothes, and other supplies. He picked up his hypercube, which was sitting on top of everything else. He began to pull all forty-five radio headsets out of it. Cindy must have left them in here for me to distribute. He had been able to make only enough for the team that would be taking down the force field and a few for the other pilots. He passed them around to everyone before putting his on.
It had been fifteen minutes since Libby had left. Taking a deep breath, he turned his headset on and moved the microphone closer to his mouth. "Control Team, do you read me? This is Neutron, Jimmy Neutron, asking for assurance that you are monitoring us."
Jimmy listened to the static coming from the other end before Libby's voice rang loud and clear. "This is Libby Folfax, answering your request for assurance with a yes. I repeat, we are monitoring you."
"Did Goddard give you the basics?" Jimmy asked, abandoning the technical talk.
Back in the lab, Libby nodded. "He's taught me some basic stuff and is walking me through everything. I plugged him into the computer so he could run some stuff directly. I'll take a look at that floppy tonight," she told him.
"Floppy?" Cindy asked. All the headsets were on the same frequency, anyone wearing one could hear the conversation. She looked at Jimmy, who seemed to be afraid of her at the moment. "Hope it serves you as well as it did me," she said with a smile.
Jimmy let out a sigh of relief that she wasn't upset about him 'regifting'. He covered the microphone with his hand. "Starting the countdown, everyone!" he shouted. "When I say liftoff, those with the EMPs will follow. Listen to my commands, and adjust your EMP as I say so. Understand?" he asked at the top of his voice. Everyone nodded. "And the rest of you, do not lift off until I give you the word!" Once again, everyone nodded and told him that they understood.
"Then here we go," he told everyone. "FIVE!" he shouted.
"Four," Nick whispered to himself, relishing what could be his last moment on Earth.
"Three," Cindy mumbled, focusing her mind and releasing all her fears with one heavy sigh.
"Two," Sheen said under his breath; squinting his eyes and gripping the steering wheel.
"One," Libby flatly whispered into her headset.
Here we go. "LIFTOFF!" Jimmy shouted as his rocket zoomed into the sky at an impossible speed.