Mission: Possible

by Gary D. Snyder

Chapter 1:

This is an imaginary story. It could take place in the past, the present, or the future, or possibly not at all. The events that occur may never happen, but then again may. The situations are not real, and occur only in a time and place that have never existed. This is an imaginary story…

…Aren't they all?

"Come on, Jimmy. We haven't got all day."

Boy genius Jimmy Neutron fidgeted nervously. "I don't know, Cindy. I mean, maybe this is too soon for this kind of thing."

Cindy Vortex cocked her head to one side, impatient exasperation showing on her face. "It's got to happen some time."

"Yeah, I know…but still…I just never did anything like this. I mean, I've read the books, and I know what I'm supposed to do, but…"

Deciding that it was up to her to take the initiative, Cindy advanced aggressively on Jimmy and put her arms around him. "Books are fine," she said, drawing him closer to her, "but they can only take you so far. There's no substitute for some practical experience. Ready or not, it's time to get physical."

"But –" Jimmy started to protest. He got no further than his first word. Before he knew it he was upended and flying through the air. A second later he landed flat on his back with a dull thud and lay motionless on the padded mat that covered the floor of his lab. "Ow," was all he could say.

Cindy shook her head in disgust, her hands on her hips. "I thought I told you how to land," was all she said. "You're supposed to slap the mat to absorb the impact."

Jimmy feebly slapped the mat with this right hand. "It doesn't help," he commented weakly.

"Look, Jimmy," Cindy said patiently, "you know and I know that you really need to develop some practical self-defense skills. That's why I offered to help you out with some basic judo moves."

Jimmy climbed slowly to his feet. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this physical sort of stuff."

Cindy moved to stand next to Jimmy, her voice filled with sympathy. "Normally I'd agree with you about that, but this is something anyone can learn. You don't use your own strength. You just turn your opponent's strength against him. Or her, in this case."

"Then what am I doing wrong?"

"Well…" Cindy thought about it. "I think that you just aren't being aggressive enough."

"Aggressive?" Jimmy looked puzzled. "How can you be aggressive when you're supposed to be acting in self-defense?"

"I know, I know. It's one of those paradox things, like having to prepare for war to ensure peace, or following rules to guarantee freedom. Maybe 'aggressive' isn't the right word. I guess that 'self-confidence' is closer to the mark."

"What?" Jimmy seemed somewhat offended. "I'm full of self-confidence."

Cindy nodded. "About some things, you're definitely full of it." Jimmy shot her a dark look but Cindy's face was a picture of innocence. "But not about other things, such as this."

"What other things?" Jimmy demanded.

Cindy looked mischievous. "Like talking to Betty Quinlan."

Jimmy's face reddened. "Now wait a minute –"

Before Jimmy could continue he was again interrupted, but this time it was by an urgent beeping accompanied by a flashing red light. Jimmy's lab was equipped with several dozen alarms, each with their distinct audio and visual indications, to signal potentially disasters ranging from missing the school bus to a reactor core meltdown. For several seconds he stood motionless, unable at first to identify which of the many alarms had been activated. When he finally remembered he grabbed Cindy's arm and began firmly escorting Cindy to the door of the lab.

"Neutron, what are you doing?" Cindy asked in annoyance, digging in her heels. She recognized being strong-armed and resented it.

"Just saying good-bye," Jimmy replied hastily, attempted to shepherd her towards the exit. "Thanks a lot for stopping by and helping out. I really appreciate it. Really."

Cindy shook him off and confronted him, her fists planted firmly on her hips. "Not so fast, Neutron," she said, eyeing Jimmy suspiciously. "What's going on? What's all that racket?"

"Nothing – nothing at all," Jimmy answered desperately. "It's just a…um…routine…uh…maintenance reminder." He smiled weakly and thoroughly unconvincingly. "That's all."

The more Jimmy tried to reassure her the less convinced Cindy was that this was a routine situation. Over the years she had learned to suspect when he was attempting to cover something up and her instincts told her that this situation was clearly not what Jimmy was telling her. She looked around with a scowl, attempting to figure out for herself what was going on while Jimmy kept casting furtive glances at his watch. While both were thus occupied neither noticed a tube descending from the ceiling over them until it was too late. A noise of powerful suction came from the tube and Jimmy was pulled inside with a yelp. A second later Cindy followed him, her cry of "Neu-u-tron!" reverberating behind her.

Some thirty seconds later Jimmy was unceremoniously dumped onto a padded leather chair in a dim room. A second or two after that Cindy was dropped just as unceremoniously onto him, momentarily knocking the wind out of both of them. After they had recovered and were attempting to untangle themselves a stern, authoritarian voice demanded, "What is the meaning of this?"

Jimmy recognized the voice and struggled to his feet, dumping Cindy on the floor with a thud. "My apologies, sir," he faltered. "I'm afraid that your summons caught me off-guard and a visitor to my lab was inadvertently carried along with me."

"You can say that again, Neutron," Cindy retorted bitterly as she also got to her feet. "Just where are we, anyway?" She looked around, but could see little other than that they were at the head of a long table of shadowy figures. Closer to them was the dark silhouette of a large man who had apparently addressed them.

"Just be quiet and play along," Jimmy whispered out of the side of his mouth. "This is not the place to ask too many questions. Trust me on this."

The black shape that had spoken before was pacing back and forth. "This is unacceptable," he was saying. It's bad enough that we had to recall a civilian to B.T.S.O., but to compromise our security with a person without proper clearance is far worse."

"It's not that bad, sir," Jimmy hastened to assure the dim figure. "For a girl she doesn't really say all that much. Usually." Cindy glared at Jimmy but controlled herself. "And if she were made aware of the situation I'm sure we could rely on her discretion."

The shape stopped pacing and turned to face Jimmy. "Are you sure? The only other option is to colostomize her so she remembers nothing."

"I think you mean lobotomize," Jimmy corrected him as Cindy recoiled in disgust.

"Whichever." The unseen face turned to face Cindy. "Will you swear that anything you have seen or are about to see here will remain a complete secret?"

Cindy didn't really have much choice, as either a colostomy or lobotomy were hardly desirable options to her. "I do," she promised meekly. "But where am I?"

The figure seemed to relax. "You are at the headquarters of B.T.S.O.," he intoned solemnly.

"Which stands for Big Top Secret Organization," Jimmy explained helpfully.

"I am the director of this agency. Some time ago your companion Jimmy assisted us in an important mission to locate and assist Agent X, our top agent," the director continued.

Jimmy couldn't resist the urge to be a name-dropper and impress Cindy. "He means Jet Fusion," he added.

The director pounded his fist on the table, making Jimmy and Cindy jump and silencing the seemingly endless murmuring of the dim shapes seated at the table. "Thunderation! Is there any reason we even have 'Top Secret' as part of our name?" he shouted angrily.

"Well," Cindy observed helpfully, "if you didn't have it your organization would be known as just B.O."

The dark shape seemed to consider that. "Good point. I like your way of thinking."

"Thank you, sir," Cindy answered.

"You were saying?" Jimmy prompted, glad that his gaffe had been set aside.

"What? Oh, yes. Jimmy was instrumental in helping Agent X foil the plans of a mad scientist and his assistant who planned to flood the world. Now, we need Jimmy again."

"Me?" asked Jimmy, both surprised and pleased.

"Him?" Cindy asked, just surprised.

"Yes. Let me explain." The director thumbed a hidden switch on the table and a bright map of the world, speckled with half a dozen glowing dots, appeared on one of the rooms walls. "Over the past two weeks various high security laboratories and research centers have been broken into and robbed. Among the items stolen were several advanced design toroidal cores, coils of superconducting alloy, a portable gigawatt energy generator, advanced RISC processor prototypes chips, and containers of helium-3 isotopes. Does that suggest anything to you?"

To Cindy the list meant nothing but Jimmy was rubbing his chin and looking thoughtful. "Well, if they could obtain enough beryllium alloy for a lightweight central core and neodymium to concentrate the field, the thieves might be constructing an ultra-powerful magnetic generator. What they'd use it for is anyone's guess."

"Our thoughts exactly," the director said triumphantly. He turned to the shadowy figures arranged around the table. "You see?" he gloated. "I told you that they weren't boosting this stuff for a garage sale."

The dim figures murmured over this and were silent.

"Do you have any idea who might be behind this?" Jimmy asked.

"Yes, we do. At the last robbery the security guards caught a glimpse of them. One was man in a lab coat. The other was a young woman with dark hair."

Jimmy nodded grimly. "Dr. Calamitous and Beautiful Gorgeous."

"Exactly. And since you were able to foil them before –"

"- you want me to take them down again." Jimmy nodded. "No problem. If Jet – I mean, Agent X - is ready, we can get to work immediately."

The director shook his head. "Unfortunately Jet is engaged and won't be available."

"Another mission?" Jimmy asked.

"Another movie. Normally I'd call him in anyway, but with recent budget cuts we really need our percentage from his acting revenue." The director sighed and his shoulders slumped. "I'm afraid you're in this on your own."

Jimmy nodded. "I understand."

Cindy could not contain herself any longer. "What do you mean, 'alone'?" she demanded, not wanting to be left out of the adventure. "What about me?"

"You?" Jimmy fumbled for the right words. "What do you know about spying and secret agent work?"

"As much as you," Cindy countered. "I've seen every Jet Fusion move you have and I know a lot more about martial arts than you do."

"That's true, " Jimmy grudgingly admitted. "but it's up to the director as to whether you can go."

Cindy turned to the looming shadow. "Well?" she asked.

The director considered it. "If you were on the mission we wouldn't have to worry so much about your inadvertently leaking any information," he slowly replied. "All things considered it might be the best choice." He came to a decision. "All right, she's in. But officially neither of you even exist. We will deny ever having contacted you regarding this mission."

"Understood," Jimmy acknowledged and Cindy nodded soberly. "Now, do you have any ideas where the thieves might go next?"

The director pressed another switch and the map showed another glowing dot. "There are a number of locations where beryllium and neodymium can be obtained, but only one place where both are available in large quantities. It's the Middleton Institute of Technology's Advanced Materials Lab. We're positive that that's where they'll strike next."

Jimmy smiled grimly. "Then that's where we'll be waiting for them."

End of Chapter 1.

Author's Notes:

The introduction to this story is an homage to the introduction of a Superman story called "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore. In the mid-1980's DC decided to revamp the Superman legend under the guidance of John Byrne and this was the last "Silver Age" Superman story meant to bring closure to that continuity. In the story Moore killed off virtually everyone that was central to the Superman history and did away with Superman himself, in a way. In the DC Universe imaginary stories were a common plot device and dealt with such far-out ideas as "What if Adolf Hitler had found Superbaby's rocket?" and "What if Krypton had never exploded?" It got to be so common that genuine drastic changes to the Superman title had to be prefaced with such disclaimers as "Not a dream! Not an imaginary story!" to get readers to take the changes seriously. Moore introduced the end of the Silver Age Superman legend as an imaginary story, but his ingenious twist on it was the last line, "Aren't they all?"

Some may say that this detracted from the impact of the story and the Superman comics in general. I think he meant that any of the stories, imaginary or not, could be as real as the reader wished them to be. I'll let the reader draw his or her own conclusion for this tale.