Chapter 7: The Control Room
Jimmy slid to a stop next to a thick steel door and grabbed the handle with his left palm. He placed his other hand on a green electronic box next to the wall. It hummed for a moment before shutting off. The door unlocked and Jimmy quickly pulled it open. As he walked inside, Jimmy noticed that Cindy was staring at the green box with curiosity gleaming in her eyes.
"It scans your fingerprints," Jimmy quickly explained while jumping into a chair. He stared at the dozens of computer monitors, all spewing out infinite streams of numbers.
Cindy nodded her head in comprehension as she took a seat next to Jimmy. "How come I haven't seen one for the other rooms in your lab?"
Jimmy's lips curled up as another chance to explain the wonders of his lab came by. "This room is much more important than the others. This is the control center of the lab. It contains every bit of information on every experiment. Every visitor that comes in, every keystroke on my computers, every opening of the refrigerator is recorded and kept in these computers. It also records videos that I receive from the several cameras that I have placed around the city."
Jimmy noticed that Cindy was giving him a dirty look. "I talked to the mayor and got permission for it. It's only on street corners and stuff, not in anyone's houses. At first I only had one on Baltic Street, but I added more after the first Yolkian abduction. I thought they might come in handy if they ever came back."
Cindy peered over his shoulder to see him typing in seemingly random series of numbers. "Accessing your security videos for the period while we were gone?" she asked. Jimmy nodded. "Try searching at three o'clock. That's around the time Nick says that he was hit by that knockout gas," she explained.
Jimmy nodded and hit several more keys. "This will take around five minutes. I've instructed the computer to look for severe anomalies compared to the other recordings."
Cindy got up and started walking around the room. "How the hell do you afford all this stuff, anyway?"
Jimmy shrugged, still staring at the computer screens. "I make a lot of it myself."
"Well, I kind of figured that," Cindy went on, "but how do you buy all the scrap metal, tool, you know, that stuff?"
Jimmy spun his chair around to face her. He leaned back in his chair and smiled. "I sell a few of my inventions on the side. I'm surprised you didn't know that. I'm pretty much set for the next few years, cash-wise. Why, does my money make even more, irresistible?" he asked while smiling and raising his eyebrows.
Cindy chuckled and spun his chair around. "Stick to your computers, Big Brain."
"If that's what turns you on," Jimmy said in the most debonair voice he could muster. His smile quickly faded as he saw what was on the screen. "Cindy, here's our feature presentation."
She knelt down beside him, her arm touching his on the armrest. "What have we got?"
Jimmy's eyebrows furrowed as he stared at the screen. "Strange," he muttered.
Cindy groaned. "Of course it is," she angrily muttered. "What is it?"
Jimmy continued staring at the screen before typing in several commands. He finally laid his head back and sighed. "Well, I should have half a dozen viewpoints from my different cameras. The videos are categorized in fifteen minute intervals. For instance, a video from Main Street from 6 to 6:15 p.m. would be separate from the 6:15 to 6:30 recording. So I should have dozens, if not hundreds, of separate videos of today's events."
"Ok, so what's the problem?" Cindy asked again.
Jimmy pointed to the monitor. "I have exactly one fifteen minute video."
Cindy stared at the monitor. The link for a single recording was flashing on the screen. "That's weird. Even if the other five cameras were destroyed or deactivated during the raid, why was this one operational for only fifteen minutes?"
Jimmy nodded while rubbing his chin. "Exactly. Maybe it has something to do with the knocked out communications?"
Cindy shrugged. "At any rate, we'll have to check out the cameras later."
Jimmy groaned. His workload was quickly piling up. Saving our parents I can handle. But now I have to examine knocked out communications and video feeds. School's looking better all the time. "Well, shall we see what happened?"
Cindy nodded. "Push the button, Nerdtron." Jimmy clicked his mouse, and both he and Cindy stared intently at the monitor.
The video was in black and white, and the quality wasn't too great. It had come from the camera on Baltic Street, the first camera Jimmy had installed. Therefore this camera was older and less advanced than his others. On the screen, nothing happened for the first few minutes.
"You sure this is the right tape?" Cindy asked.
Her question was answered by a loud whirring sound coming from the computer. Several massive ships flew overhead. One of the ships hovered above a house for a moment before launching a large beam into the house. Several adults flew up the beam into the ship. The ship then sped away past the small sliver of moon and stars in the sky. The video then abruptly ended.
Jimmy looked at his computer. "That was only seven minutes. Also, the time says eight p.m. Didn't Nick say that it happened around four?"
Cindy nodded. "Well, he was pretty out of it after he woke up. He nearly killed you, after all. I think we need to take what he says with a grain of salt."
Jimmy rubbed his temple and nodded his head. "Guess you're right." He looked up at his clock once again. It was quarter of one. He was ridiculously tired. "Let's talk to the kids and figure out what to do in the morning. Well, later in the morning." He put a blank DVD into a disc drive and tapped a few more buttons on his keyboard. "I'll burn the video onto this so the other kids can see it."
"Sounds good," Cindy muttered while yawning. She grabbed Jimmy's hand and pulled him out of the chair once he took the DVD out of the disc drive. "Well, let's go tell everyone what's going on," she said while leading him out of the room.
Jimmy slowly nodded as he closed the door behind him. "And then it's off to bed."