The Final Battle

by Anna Wu

  Chapter 8: I'm Going Home!

  Cindy and Jimmy slowly entered the main room of his lab. Nick was standing on top of a table and talking to all of the kids. Carl was listening intently, and Sheen was sitting beside an unconscious Libby. "So, um, yeah. The Yolkians took our parents. That about sums it up," he finished.

  "Oh my god, they kidnapped our parents!" one kid yelled.

  "You bastards!" another shouted while staring up at the sky and shaking his fist.

  Jimmy and Cindy stared quizzically at each other for a moment before walking up to Nick. "May we?" Cindy asked.

  "Please," Nick said with a sigh of relief. Cindy stepped onto the table as Nick stepped off. Jimmy was about to follow her, but Nick grabbed his arm. "Um, dude, sorry I nearly killed you before. I was, you know, kind of out of it."

  Jimmy patted his shoulder and delivered a strange smile. "Forget about it. Something tells me that we'll be even by the end of this little adventure." Nick stared at him strangely before quickly walking away.

  "Alright, I'm sure that Nick has given you the basic story. You were all hit by knockout gas and our parents were abducted by the Yolkians," Cindy explained.

  Jimmy nodded his head as he stepped onto the table. "That's right. But we think that this can explain today's events a lot better than we can," he told the kids while putting the disc into a nearby computer. He uploaded the image to the large central monitor at the end of the room. "This was taken around eight o'clock tonight. Enjoy."

  Jimmy grabbed Cindy's hand and helped her jump off the table. They stood aside so the other kids could see. The two of them stared at the video, enthralled by it just as much as the first time they had seen it. When it was done, the crowd erupted into chaos.

  Cindy promptly stuck two fingers into her mouth and gave a shrill whistle. "Cool it!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Now, it is one o'clock in the morning. We are in the midst of a crisis, but it's nothing that we can't handle. We've beaten the Yolkians before, and we can do it again. We will get to work in the morning. For now, let's just all go to bed."

  "Um, wait!" Sheen shouted while standing up from his seat next to Libby. He looked at the one of the last frames of the video that Jimmy had frozen on the screen and then at another monitor that showed the outside of the lab. "I have a question!"

  Several people laughed at the thought of Sheen asking a serious question. Even Jimmy chuckled a little. "Alright, Sheen, what is your question? Did you not get the plot of the movie? I know how tough it was for you to understand The Matrix," Jimmy stated. Several more people began laughing.

  "First off, that movie made no sense! If they had a training program that could give them guns to bring into the Matrix, then why didn't they arm themselves every time before they jacked in? I mean, I know the agents are tough, but if you had a ton of guns and a rocket launcher..." He immediately shook his head. "That's not the point!"

  "Fine, what's your question?" an exasperated Cindy asked.

  "You know what, forget it," Sheen angrily said while sitting back down.

  "Sheen, we're sorry," Jimmy earnestly apologized.

  "Screw you guys, I'm going home!" he shouted while walking towards the lab's exit.

  "Sheen," Cindy began.

  "Screw you guys, I'm going home!" he screamed louder while exiting the lab. The door audibly slammed shut behind him.

  The crowd stared at him for a moment. "Alright, let's just go to sleep," Jimmy offered. The crowd unanimously yawned in agreement. Several trudged towards the lab's exit, but the vast majority simply fell onto the floor and closed their eyes. Several made their way to the few couches and chairs strewn about the lab. "Um, I didn't mean sleep right here," Jimmy nervously started to explain.

  Cindy led Jimmy away from the crowd. "It's hours past their normal bedtimes, their parents were abducted by aliens, again, and they've been knocked out for hours. You're really going to wake them up to kick them out of your house so that they can sleep alone in their houses?"

  Jimmy stared at the silent pack of children before groaning. "Alright, fine. But you just said all that because it's not your lab," he angrily muttered.

  "You're probably right," she said while smiling at him. "Night," she said while turning around.

  "You're not staying here?" Jimmy asked, not ready to say goodnight to her. He immediately cursed his faux pas.

  Cindy turned around once again and stared at him. "Why, you want me to?"

  Jimmy laughed nervously. "No, no, nothing like that. I just thought that since Sheen left, you would be the obvious choice to watch after Libby. You are her best friend, after all."

  "Oh," Cindy said, thinking that over.

  "But actually, maybe there is something more important that we should be doing. There are plenty of kids here to watch over her. We're going to have a huge workload in the morning. Maybe we should check out those cameras now, and whatever is blocking those communications?"

  Cindy though about it for a moment. "Well, I guess it would be nice to have some more answers for all the kids by the time they wake up. But that will leave us no time to sleep. I'm pretty wiped."

  "Cindy, the importance sleep is paled by the severity of our situation!" Jimmy nearly shouted. Good one, he happily thought. "Every second counts here!"

  Cindy yawned once again before answering. "Alright, fine. Can we at least have some hot chocolate to wake us up first?"

  "Now that," Jimmy said while putting an arm around her shoulder and leading her to the lab's tiny kitchen, "seems like a fair compromise."