The Subatomic Kid (15 page)

Angstrom had concluded that the most important move in the chess game of life was surprise, and surprise was a package that had to come sooner rather than later. Doctor Aaron Leitz was one of those rare individuals whose greatest asset was his biggest failing. His mind was a hornet’s nest of schemes and intrigue. It was a one-way street to trouble, and Kurt Angstrom did not care to travel that road on this trip.

Miss Moon circled the vehicle and climbed in the front. She had a singular purpose—to get to the school as soon as possible. In the back Kurt Angstrom had two small TV monitors; one of them showed the road ahead, the other showed the driver.

Doctor Angstrom leaned back in the seat; this boy represented the most important development in his life. His future and the boys were indelibly intermingled, and he had to protect that relationship at all costs.

***

The four kids marched shoulder to shoulder with purpose along the corridor; they were out of the dark and into the light. There was a new spring in their step, and they were hopeful the next door they found would be a door to freedom. Together they had conquered insurmountable odds; nothing could stop them now. They had one aim in mind—get out, go home, and forget about this whole crazy episode. A few moments later a door appeared at the end of the corridor; above it hung a sign marked EXIT in bold red letters.

Tex smiled confidently and walked up the short flight of steps that led to the door. He grasped the handle firmly, twisted it, pulled the door open and stuck his head through the crack. John folded his arms and watched, Cal gazed at the floor, and Kate paced back and forth behind them. After a very long pause, Tex pulled his head back, closed the door, and rejoined them.

He stared at the ceiling and ran his hand over his mouth; then he stroked his chin and sighed. “It’s that silver UFO you told us about.”

“What!” Kate cried.

“Oh no!” Cal moaned.

“It can’t be!” John scowled. He ran up the steps, ripped the door open and stepped inside. It was the same; all shiny steel and strangely shaped machinery—the only thing missing was the hideous noise, and the blinding light. Kate joined him at the door; Cal and Tex followed behind her. They couldn’t believe it; every door they opened led them deeper into the heart of a mystery.

They all looked in the direction of the voice and saw Doctor Leitz step out from behind a piece of peculiar machinery, training a pistol on them. As one they turned back to the doorway to escape, and as they moved, Leitz fired a warning shot above their heads.

“Get back here, you sniveling wretches,” he ordered.

The kids stopped dead and turned back to face him, their heads bowed low in shame. They couldn’t believe they had been stupid enough to fall into a trap.

“Thank you so much for coming—I’ve been awaiting your arrival with anticipation,” Leitz said ironically as he crossed the room in his silver suit and grinned like an idiot. He stopped in front of them and glanced from one to another. “Why so sad?” he asked. “Cat got your tongues?” He giggled crazily, which prompted the kids to glance at each other with a frown. He stepped in front of John and stared down at him. “You should thank me for what I’ve done for you, John Smith.”

John looked up at him. “Yeah, thanks,” he said sarcastically.

“Ah, that’s nice,” Leitz warbled in a weird tone of voice. “One hears so many stories about how ungrateful the youth of today are. But you’re different, you’re like the son I never had.”

“Look,” said John, “these guys have no part in this, it’s me you want. So why don’t we just let them go home to their families?”

“So thoughtful!” Leitz said smiling. “I can’t believe you would sacrifice yourself for your friends. My, my, my. I am so proud of you.”

John’s brave attempt to free his friends bolstered their spirits momentarily, but Leitz’ sarcasm deflated their hopes.

“Is it a deal then?” John asked.

Leitz feigned deliberation silently before he spoke. “Of course not. I need to run my experiment again, and I’m going to use them as guinea pigs.” He spat the words out like they were offensive to his tongue.

“You can’t do that!” John protested.

“Who are you to tell me what I can or can’t do?” Leitz asked pointedly. “I am the greatest physicist in the world, and you are just one of my failed experiments. Now get over there.”

He stood back and waved his pistol in the direction of the wall with the grid painted on it. “Move!” he emphasized. He watched like a hawk as the four of them moved as slowly as they could.

John knew his friends couldn’t understand what he was saying. He knew because he was only on the threshold of beginning to understand it himself. In order for change to happen, a situation had to reach its apex; it had to go as far as it could before it was in a position to become something else.

Cycles of change are the basis for the rhythm of life; the sun, the moon, the stars, and the seasons are the measure of everything. Each season evolves into the next at its zenith, night begins at noon and day begins at midnight because time demands order. Time likes to know where it’s going and it doesn’t like surprises; that is, unless it’s in the Subatomic World.

Three chairs had been positioned in front of the grid-painted wall. As the four kids arrived, Doctor Leitz scooted off to one side, grabbed a bundle of ropes, and threw them onto the floor in front of John.

“Now they can sit down, and you can tie them up, John,” he ordered. “And make sure their bonds are tight, I am watching.” Holding the gun steady on them, he backed over to his control panel and with a flourish stabbed a button with his finger. Almost immediately a low hum rumbled into the room.

Tex, Cal, and Kate took their seats reluctantly. In their minds, John had gone from hero to heel, and their contemptuous looks left him under no illusion about their feelings. He picked a rope up from the floor, walked over to Tex and began to wrap it around him.

“I thought you were the real deal, dude,” Tex whispered. “But you’re just like everyone else, bogus.”

John ignored him. He knew he couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by what others thought; he grabbed another rope and moved on to Cal.

“Why are you helping this crazy maniac?” Cal asked. “Don’t you have two worlds to save?”

He’s right,
John thought, as he finished tying him up
. But what can I do? The moment hasn’t arrived.
He scooped up another rope and moved on to Kate.

She refused to talk to him, and she wouldn’t make eye contact. Her rejection was probably the most devastating of all three encounters because it was emotional and he had no way at all of rationalizing it.

His three friends felt out of control because they had trusted him to take care of them, and at this moment, they all felt he had abandoned them. Deciding it was time to push the envelope of change, John moved out in front of his three friends to be directly in the line of fire of the super ray gun that had blasted him into the Subatomic World.

Doctor Leitz stared at him and frowned as he waved his revolver in the air. “Get away from there, you’ll ruin the experiment.”

“No!” John protested, “I’m not moving…you can just hit me again.”

Leitz was astonished. This kind of insolence never happened in his world—it was irrational behavior! He felt an unnatural surge of anger, and in seconds he was rushing across the lab, brandishing his gun like a wild man.

“Move, or I’ll blow your head off,” he heard himself say as he pushed the gun into John’s face.

“No!” John shouted.

Tex, Cal, and Kate were creeped out by John’s bravado. What was he doing? He was going to get himself killed, and then where would they be?

Doctor Leitz found he couldn’t quite think straight; it was like there was someone else at the controls. He watched himself pull back the hammer of the gun. “Move, moron, or I’ll blast you,” he heard himself say. It was odd, inappropriate behavior, but he couldn’t stop himself.

John stared down the barrel of the gun and hoped that all of his amateur philosophizing was true. Intellectually, he knew he was right. But emotionally, he wanted to turn around and run away as fast as he could.

He watched Leitz pull back the hammer of the gun in super slow motion, and he heard the metallic clicks of the mechanism fall into place. There was a wind rushing through his ears, on which he heard screams and cries.

John looked into Leitz’ eyes and he saw madness lurking there; the ghost in the machine had gone crazy. He gazed at the end of the gun and noticed that the barrel wavered slightly in the air. Leitz still had time to redeem himself if he wished, but he wouldn’t. He was self-possessed and consumed by an irrational ego.

The moment had come…there was no more time to think; the stakes had climbed too high. Doctor Leitz watched his finger flex on the trigger, the muscles tense, the sinews tighten, and the bones push blood away from the skin as he fired.

John saw the bullet leave the barrel of the gun preceded by a flare of heat. He watched it fly through the air in slow motion, and he marveled at the way death could be carried by such a tiny messenger. But he was unafraid; he knew it would never hit him because his body was already gone. It had disappeared into the portal between worlds and was traversing the subatomic stream. Only his consciousness remained, like a shadow of thought cast upon the world, and then like a wisp of smoke on the wind, it too was gone.

PARTICLE ACCELERATION

John shot into the Subatomic World like a school of electronic fish. Everywhere he looked he was surrounded by himself, but it wasn’t the self everyone else saw. It was his subatomic self, a huge abstract cloud of space and matter. He instantly knew this because it was as if each minute particle had a connection to every other particle. Like birds in flight, if one changed course, all changed course; there was no deviation.

He had never before really had the time or the presence of mind to pay attention to what was happening when he traversed the subatomic stream. He had always been a reluctant passenger, but now he felt like he was at the head of a massive fleet of spaceships traversing a strange universe. He was a huge swarm of energy, mass, and consciousness moving faster than the speed of light through a timeless space to a preordained destination. It was awesome. It was the kind of magic he always imagined existed somewhere, but never in his wildest dreams did he believe he could ever find it.

“That was an extremely dangerous thing to do,” said a voice.

Startled out of his reverie, John was suddenly aware of a figure that metamorphosed through a constant stream of rainbow colors, a figure that seemed to be lit from within. “Yes, but it was the only thing I could think of,” he answered warily.

“Nevertheless, it was extremely dangerous, and you were lucky to get away with it,” the voice chided. The figure was so incandescent, he found it hard to take his eyes away from the constant changes in hue and shape.

“Who are you?” he ventured with trepidation.

“I am the Master of the Energetic Flow,” the figure breathed, his whole body undulating like a fire that was being stoked. “I am the force that animates everything there is, was, or ever shall be. I hold things together, and I tear things apart; I am the one constant; even when there’s nothing I am there!”

“So you’re the one who makes me do what I do?” John proposed.

“You are a unique case,” the Master countered, “Your energy is fluid, but your intelligence is deficient; it cannot handle the mercurial being you have become.”