The Subatomic Kid (37 page)

Doctor Leitz’ experiment had given John Smith an accidental super power, a power that enabled him to shift his shape and traverse another universe. But messing around with atoms is a risky business, because atoms reserve the right to create more than one outcome from their manipulation. And as Doctor Leitz, in his eureka moment, reversed the atomic signature on that experiment, he never suspected for a moment that what he would catch would be a doppelgänger.

Outwardly he was John Smith, but inwardly, he was a ticking time bomb. Adrift and driven by the enchanting lure of memory, he had raged and plundered through time and space in search of his past. He had woven in and out of the endless structure of parallel worlds. He had lived many lifetimes that were just the blink of an eye on our world, yet he had never aged. His mind was still that of a child—an angry, resentful, and cruel child—and his quest was simple: to find the one who had stolen his life, and take it back.

Such is the magic of the atom: it can pass through another like a ghost, and the Wild Cruel Child who once was John Smith had learned much about the forces that governed it. He intimately knew the subtleties of their signals and the ambiguity of their nature, and when he felt the puny force of Doctor Leitz’ electromagnetic ray trying to reel him in, he easily grabbed it and pulled the whole laboratory to him.

Angstrom had instantly recognized this Child as a kindred spirit, for he had been broken too by the same slings and arrows of outrageous fate. Never being one to walk away from a situation he could manipulate, he sallied forth with his snakelike charm and oiled the ears of the new arrival. Normally distrustful and offensive, the Wild Child had listened to Angstrom’s oily rhetoric; he liked being told what he wanted to hear, and Angstrom was an expert at the art.

From that moment on, the two were united by virtue of their pain and Angstrom’s cunningly worded speech that hinted at revenge by enslaving a world—the world that had stolen Angstrom’s legs, and the world that John Smith had stolen from the Wild Child.

Aching for revenge, he sorely wanted a world of his own, a world in which he could punish indiscriminately, inflicting the pain he felt upon others. Angstrom knew what it was to have a chip on your shoulder, and he was stunned by the amount of empathy he had for this boy; so much so that he began to think of him as the son he’d never had, heaping him with praise for his deceitful nature and lauding him for his vengeful attitude.

Angstrom’s acceptance of his cruelty as a virtue imbued in the Wild Child an emotion he had not felt for a long time; the emotion he remembered when he’d had a father, a feeling he had missed mightily. So moved was he by this torrent of sentimentality that, in his childlike way, he had confessed to Doctor Angstrom that he had reeled them all into a strange new world. It was a world where bowling was a religion; a world that collected slaves from other worlds it intersected with; a world built purely on the foundation of weird physics: The World of Science.

When Angstrom learned this wanderer through space and time had dragged them all into a new world, he needed clarification. Why had he performed this feat of extraordinary prowess? The answer was poetry to Angstrom’s ears. The Wild Child had simply and easily detected that the atomic signature came from his birthplace, and had deduced that on the other end was the accursed creature who had stolen his life. Angstrom was delighted by this turn of events, for it meant that he could abandon the pursuit of John Smith and his friends and leave them imprisoned in this world from which there would be no escape.

To his consternation, the Wild Child would have nothing to do with this plan; he wanted John Smith dealt with summarily. He wanted a confrontation, the opportunity to tear him limb from limb and to scatter his parts across the infinity of space. It warmed the cockles of Angstrom’s heart to hear this, and he was immediately aware of the wealth of wile and cunning that would be at his disposal if he were the instrument that delivered John Smith to his new partner in crime.

So he regaled him with tidbits from his vast knowledge of the pleasures of revenge, like punishing your victim slowly to prolong the agony. The Wild Child grinned with delight as Doctor Angstrom spun his delicious web of intrigue.

“I will meet John Smith face to face and offer him an ultimatum,” Angstrom had proposed. “I will tell him to give up his quest for truth and justice, and urge him to conspire with me to plunder and pillage the Planet Earth. With his misguided morality, it’s almost certain he’ll refuse the offer. That’s when you, the Wild Child, will step from the shadows and reap the revenge that is your heart’s desire.”

The Wild Child had drooled over the plan; it was cunning, and wicked, and lovingly deceitful. So they had cooked up the pizza scheme together, figuring the kids were bound to get hungry sooner or later. Then they had left a flier on the car, hijacked a pizza van, and waited for their call; and now the moment of truth had arrived.

***

For the first time in his short life, John realized he was alone in a life or death battle to save himself and his friends from destruction. Doctor Angstrom by himself was nothing, but combined with the super powers of his angry evil twin, he was a force to be reckoned with. There was nothing else to do but fight, to the death if necessary, to stop these two maniacs from getting together.

Angstrom chuckled; this deadly game was just the kind of thing he adored. “I believe the advantage is ours,” he goaded. “You are finished, John Smith, as are your friends.”

Kate, Cal, and Tex all had the same sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs. They knew John had been good at juggling bowling balls and making weird faces, but his double looked evil to the core, and they weren’t at all sure John stood a chance against him.

Kate noted the sly devilish grin; so much the same as John’s that seemed to contain all the anguish in the world. Cal sensed the turmoil behind the empty eyes; they were John’s eyes, but they betrayed a heart bent on cruelty. Tex felt the strength of madness emanating from every pore of this John Smith look-alike, and madness added the strength of ten men in any dimension.

Hunter had no feelings one way or another. Doctor Angstrom was paying him to do a job, and as long as the money kept coming, he kept doing. Besides, he had learned long ago that taking sides in someone else’s fight was a bad idea because it severely limited your options.

“You’re living in a fantasy land, Angstrom,” John said. “I’m taking my friends home, and I’m stopping you two for good.”

It was too much for the Wild Child beside Doctor Angstrom. His turbulent anger had been churning with the force of a thousand tornadoes since the first moment he had laid eyes on this thief who had stolen his life. Even though Angstrom had explained to him that he would get much more pleasure and relief from torturing his adversary, he found that he was no longer capable of containing his anger. He wanted to break this arrogant fool in two, and what better way to break him than on an anvil.

In a pure expression of his animosity and hatred, and with the devastating speed of the most legendary martial artist, the Wild Child swept at John while metamorphosing into the hard solid-iron block. Luckily, John saw it coming and managed to move away from the major force of the blow. But it still caught him on the shoulder, and sent him sprawling to the ground in a dazed and confused heap. In the very next moment the Wild Child swept back to Angstrom’s side, changing back to his own body, and Angstrom laughed.

“That’s not fair,” Kate howled, crouching down to help John, lying almost unconscious on the floor.

“Life is never fair,” Angstrom chortled. “You must be ruthless to win. A lesson you’ve all learned too late.”

The look of anger on the Wild Child’s face had deepened to a smoldering cauldron of contempt. “Can I take care of him now, Doctor Angstrom?” he seethed.

“No, my son,” Angstrom replied in a malicious tone. “Let me teach you how to play with your victim first. It’s much more enjoyable that way.”

Steve was flabbergasted. He wasn’t sure he had seen what he’d seen, even though he’d seen it. He was awash with conflict, and drowning in confusion. It had been a bad day, and it just seemed to keep on getting worse.

“You’re a low-life creep,” Cal screamed at Angstrom, hoping to buy some time for John.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten you little children,” Angstrom warned. “Your turn is coming next.”

Since the anvil caught John, Hunter had been watching Kate as she cradled John’s head in her arms. She was totally distraught, with tears running down her cheeks, then suddenly she seemed to remember something; he could see it in her gaze. Then in the very next moment she brought her face to John’s and kissed him for all she was worth.

It must have been a hundred-thousand-watt smacker
, Hunter thought, because after a second John’s fingers began to twitch, and after two seconds his eyes opened wide in disbelief. After three seconds he completely disappeared. A moment of chaos ensued as everybody looked around, trying to ascertain where he had gone.

All of a sudden, a meteoric hunk of rock appeared out of thin air and smacked the Wild Child in the head, sending him reeling to the ground at Angstrom’s feet. Kate leapt up from her knees and into the air with a shout, and Cal and Tex jumped up and down beside her triumphantly as John swooped back to their side and materialized beside them.

“I warned you, Angstrom,” John declared. “Perhaps now you’ll listen.”

Angstrom was crestfallen; he hadn’t calculated any opposition at all. He stared at the champion lying at his feet. “You are a fool, boy,” he wheezed; he was now following Cal’s lead and buying time, “a coward and a fool. I suspect when it comes to finishing the job, you won’t have the guts to do it.”

Hunter was amazed; these kids actually believed in something like the Bushido Code of the samurai. Samurai had strength and invincibility in battle because they had studied the intricacies of the fight, but they would only fight for a cause, never for a personal vendetta. It made him feel kind of seedy to be holding a gun on them, so he holstered it, and signaled Steve to do the same.

Doctor Angstrom laughed. Who were these petulant little brats who thought they could dictate to him what was or was not to be? He was a billionaire with private jets and limousines. He was a well-respected businessman whose empire stretched around the globe. There was no opposition capable of stopping him; he was part of the elite, and he was only taking what he assumed was already his. “I’m tired of your childish rhetoric,” Angstrom proclaimed, noting that his downed champion was stirring. “I think the time has come to send you all to hell.”

Normal kids are said to be capable of creating bizarre phenomena without even knowing it. When they are pent-up with anger and frustration and boiling inside like a volcano, they produce waves of ill will capable of slamming doors, moving furniture, and inexplicably toppling expensive vases from supposedly secure shelves.

But the Wild Child lying at Angstrom’s feet was no normal kid. He was an out-of-control force of nature intent on madness, mayhem, and destruction, and as he returned to consciousness, his anger knew no bounds. He stretched out the passionately wrathful fingers of his mind deep into the molecular fabric of the planet, stirred it up like a muddy pond, and the earth began to rumble and shake.

John focused his attention on his nemesis as he began to climb up from the ground, and he knew instinctively that he was the source of the earthquake. His vision flipped onto a channel he never knew he could receive before; it was as if he could see into the very heart of matter. He could see the individuality and the interconnectedness of everything, and he could see the tide of fury emanating from the mind of his evil twin.

As is often the case in a battle, there is no insignificant maneuver that can be ignored and left unanswered. But John didn’t have an answer, he just willed with all his might for the sky to go dark, and inexplicably it did. Dark clouds exploded from the horizon and roiled across the sun like violent curtains. It was like the end of days as the earth shook furiously, and the sky blackened into darkest night.

Angstrom cowered beneath his umbrella; the darkness didn’t bother him, but earthquakes have an inexplicable way of wringing the neck of mortality and hanging it on a hook in your soul. Steve had already thrown himself down onto the quaking ground in abject horror. But Hunter, who had suffered through his fair share of earth-shaking experiences, closely regarded the quiet resolve of Kate, Cal, and Tex as they stood watching the two John Smiths prepare for battle by the light of the enormous pizza slice.

Standing in the stillness at the center of the storm, John knew that his saving grace would be calm detachment. The blind rage exhibited by the Wild Child opposing him was a dangerous force. But if John could just maintain his awareness and stay focused, he could turn that force as a weapon against his foe. The irony of the situation washed over him like a wave; in order to step into the future, he had to vanquish the past—a past in which perhaps he had unwittingly made errors of judgment that he’d come to accept as truth. He was a pupa shedding his outmoded thinking like a cocoon, in order to become a butterfly.

The past never goes quietly though; it clings frantically to shadows and darkness like a vampire afraid of the light. In order to survive it needs nothing more than it has; it’s a fool in love with its own idiocy, to which change is an anathema. John saw the move coming before it happened: a tiny hesitation in the Wild Child’s demeanor, and then an explosion of particles as he disappeared. Out of the center of the dissipating particles a fiery missile exploded, a missile intended to rip him limb from limb.

He had no intention of standing in its path and defying it though, and he already had in his mind an object with which he could defeat the missile. With a move that had now become second nature to him, he changed into a huge metal shield, setting the angle so the projectile would glance off his surface and go careening across the drive-in. Kate, Cal, Tex, and Hunter all dove to the ground as the fireball whistled over their heads, and the shield took off after it.