All We Have To Fear

by Gary D. Snyder

Epilog:

The following afternoon Carl, Sheen, and Libby were in a booth at the Candy Bar discussing the events of the previous evening while awaiting their orders.

"So once again, things worked out for the best," said Sheen with satisfaction.

"How do you figure that?" Libby asked.

Sheen began ticking off his fingers. "One, none of monsters is still around. Two, all the damage disappeared once they disappeared."

"Except for the burn marks from those missiles," pointed out Carl.

Sheen rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever. All the damage the monsters did disappeared. General Anaconda –"

"Abercrombie," corrected Libby.

Sheen glared at the others. "Hey, who's telling this, you two or me?" When neither answered him Sheen continued. "General Abercrombie said the military would pay for the missile damage if no one ever told his superiors that it happened during a fight with a giant chicken and that he nearly got Jimmy and Cindy blown up. And three, everyone was so excited about getting to kick their worst fear's butt that we actually raised the money we needed for the field trip next week."

"That was pretty cool," Libby admitted. "Everyone got to be the hero they always wished they could be."

Carl looked unhappy. "I didn't."

"No," Sheen said. "But Sam was so happy about his adventure that he added the Amazing Cider-Sam as a new flavor and it's half-off this week."
"I suppose that's better than nothing," Carl sighed. "But it would have been nice if I could have been Llama Boy like I always wanted to be."

"Maybe next nightmare, Carl," Libby soothed. "As it is there's still a lot of fallout from this last one."

Sheen looked puzzled and counted off on his fingers once again before giving Libby a questioning look. "Haven't you been listening to me? How do you figure?"

Libby nodded towards the soda counter where Cindy was sitting alone, and then towards a table at the other side of the Candy Bar where Jimmy was glumly nursing a milkshake. Neither had said anything to anyone but each was pointedly ignoring the other. Sheen glanced at Jimmy and Cindy and sighed.

"Oh, right," he said, as Sam delivered their orders. "The brain and the pain." He shook his head in frustration. "Why is it always about them? It's like some cruel storyline that keeps pushing them together than then dragging them apart again. What kind of second-rate hack would keep writing those kind of stories?"

Libby waited patiently for Sheen to finish his tirade. "Are you through?"

"Yeah, I'm through," he answered in resignation and headed towards Jimmy. "I'll take the brain."

"And I'll take the pain," Libby said, walking towards Cindy. "I mean, Cindy."

Carl looked from one to the other and then picked up his spoon with a shrug. "And I'll take the ice cream before it all melts."

Sheen slid into a chair across from Jimmy. For a few moments he said nothing, as he considered the best way to open a conversation. Finally, he said simply, "Women."

"Tell me about it," Jimmy said sourly. "What do they want from us anyway?" Before Sheen could answer he continued, "I mean, maybe it wasn't the most PC thing to do, but I didn't have any choice. Can't she understand that?" He slumped miserably down in his seat. "She's not the only one who went through it. I was there too, you know."

"Yes…you were," offered Sheen, who had no better response handy.

"So let her be mad at me. Let her not talk to me ever again. Let her think I'm a jerk." Jimmy swirled the straw in his shake. "Retroville is safe. That's what matters, right?"

"Umm…right." Sheen was silent for a few seconds before adding, "About Cindy being mad at your being a jerk and all –"

Jimmy looked up, startled. "Who told you that?" he demanded. "Cindy? Libby?"

Sheen looked uncomfortable. "Actually, you did, just now."

"Oh." Jimmy looked down. "Right."

"Well, anyhow," Sheen went on, "about you being a jerk and Cindy being mad at you. Was this before or after she risked her life to warn you?"

"Before. I mean after. I mean…"

Sheen waited patiently. "Yes?"

Jimmy considered it, looking troubled. She had told him she never wanted to see him ever again, but had taken a terrible risk to warn him about the missiles anyway. True, the missiles hadn't been an immediate threat after all, but Cindy hadn't known that at the time. "I don't get it," he thought out loud. "If she really was mad at me, why did she try to warn me? And if she wasn't mad, why is she acting so mad now? It doesn't make any sense."

"Hello!" Sheen said. "We're talking girls here. If they did make sense to us they'd be boys and what would be the sense of that?"

"So is she mad or isn't she?"

"Oh, she's mad. But that's what girls do. It's one of their forms of communication. It's strange but sometimes they only way they can relate to things they really care about is emotionally. And by ignoring her like this all you're really telling her is that you don't care that she cares."

Jimmy couldn't believe that what Sheen had been saying actually made sense of sorts to him and that this was coming out of Sheen in the first place. "Where did you learn all that?" he asked.

Sheen looked somewhat embarrassed. "Well, actually, it's from Episode 137 of Ultra Lord," he confessed. "It was about this planet called Nacluv that was totally devoid of all logic and reason – totally female of course – and Ultra Lord had to battle Robofiend's battle-drones who were trying to…"

The rest of Sheen's narration was lost to Jimmy as he pondered on the events of the previous day. Cindy really had come through when it mattered and if nothing else that had to mean something. He motioned Sam over as Sheen reached the climax of his story.

"…and then Ultra Lord used his photon power glove, available in fine toy stores everywhere, to create feedback in the Master Control Drone's synchronization signal that caused all the other battle-drones to spontaneously self-destruct, leaving the adoring inhabitants of Nacluv to form an Ultra Lord Fan Club." Sheen sighed happily at the memory. "It was cool!"

Libby, in the meantime, had taken a seat next to Cindy at the bar. "Hey there, girlfriend."

Cindy didn't even look up. "Hey, Libby."

"What's up?"

Cindy shook her head. "I already told you last night. Do we have to go over that again?"
"No, probably not." She paused and then said, "But I've been thinking about it and maybe you should cut Jimmy a little slack on this one."

"What?" Cindy's voice sounded both surprised and irritated.

"Well, you said that Jimmy made you think about that whole scene on the bridge to keep your mind off anything that machine of his might use, right?" Cindy nodded and Libby continued. "But I was wondering. What kept Jimmy's mind occupied?"

Cindy shrugged. "I don't know. Finding some way to fool me, I guess."

"Think harder," Libby said dryly. When Cindy remained silent she said, "My guess is that the only way it could all seem so real to you is because it was what he was thinking too."

"Oh, please," Cindy objected.

"Really. This sounded an awful lot like the first time your minds got mixed together in that brain pod thing. Both of you argued about who was thinking it, but I think that it was a shared experience. I don't think he was stealing private thoughts as much as reliving them."

Cindy's words were almost a grunt. "What's your point?"

"The point," Libby explained patiently, "is that Jimmy wasn't playing you. It was just as real to him as it was to you. More importantly, I think that it meant just as much to him as it did to you. The situation wasn't real, but you can't tell me that the feelings weren't. Sure, the timing was rotten. But you've got to remember that the whole town was in danger -"

"- and Jimmy always has to save the day," Cindy concluded bitterly, refusing to drop her shell, "no matter what the cost."

Libby was momentarily silent. "Yes," she agreed. "Like when he told Goddard to save you instead of him."

The shell cracked. Cindy had not forgotten about Goddard saving her, but she had become so accustomed to Jimmy taking responsibility for everyone else that his putting her safety ahead of his own had seemed only natural. Libby's words put things in a new light. As much as circumstances may have demanded it her experiences on the road and bridge had seemed to her just a cruel deception at her expense. Jimmy had been acting in the best interests of everyone else, but it suddenly struck her that she was one of those people for whom he had acted. Neutralizing the phobifier had been for her as much as had his act of selflessness at the end.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Sam, who placed a large sundae in front of her. She stared at it and then at Sam before shaking her head. "I didn't order anything."

"No," Sam agreed. "But I was asked to bring it at the request of one who wished to remain anonymous."

"Looks like Canadian Mousse – one of your favorites," Libby observed. "That reminds me. My own ice cream is -" She broke off and ran towards her table, yelling, "Hey! Carl! What do you think you're doing? Don't you even be thinking what I think you are!"

Still puzzled by the gift, Cindy picked up her spoon, dislodging a small piece of folded paper from the saucer as she did so. She set the spoon down and unfolded the note to read the single word written upon it before laying the message aside on the counter. Some other time, Neutron, she thought with a smile as she swallowed a mouthful of the gooey confection before her. Right now my ice cream is melting.

Sam noticed the paper and shook his head in confusion at the message. "'Guacamole'?" he muttered, wiping down the bar. "I will never understand these kids' lingo nowadays."

THE END

Author's Notes:

There has been much confusion as to what "Guacamole" on Jimmy's note meant. There were actually a couple references to the term in the story, albeit somewhat subtle. The first is where Sheen noted that Cindy would get mad at Jimmy andthreaten to pound him into guacaomole, and that they wouldthengo back tohating each other. The second is where Cindy, angered by what Jimmy had done, threatened to pound him to a "pulp", whereupon Jimmy corrected her by saying "Don't you mean 'guacamole'?"Whenworking out how Jimmy and Cindy would reconcile I figured that the burdenof doing sowas clearly on Jimmy's end. Ididn't think that itwouldbe in hisnature to write a mushy note when the sundae was obviously a peace offering, or even to write a very explicit appology that just anyone could recognize. The closest I could see him doing would besendingCindy someprivate messagethatshe wouldrecognize as both an acknowledgement of her anger at himand a request thatshe do what she had to to putit all behind them (including pounding him into guacamole for what he'd done) and move on. Cindy caught it, as indicated by her somewhat amused "Some other time, Neutron", but as Jimmy intended it went completely over the head of Sam and whoever else might read it. Unfortunately it went over a lot of reader's heads as well.

Page 4 of 4