The Subatomic Kid (16 page)

John couldn’t believe that he was being trashed so vehemently. “Is there anything that I should feel good about?” he said sarcastically.

“Your concern for others is admirable; to rule is to serve, and your spirit is strong. Your thinking, however, quite literally stinks!”

“I agree,” John concurred. “That’s a pretty accurate assessment.”

The Master’s writhing energetic passion flared as colors flashed and chimed all over him, and sparks flew off in a shower of prismatic patterns. “You must learn to move with the rhythm of life; let your spirit determine your next move, not the egotism of thought.”

The sparks that flew away from him coalesced into percussive patterns that began playing a hypnotic beat, instruments started forming in mid-air, and luminous snakes of every hue and color began writhing in time with a tune that seemed to be reaching down into the very depth of his soul.

When you move with the rhythm of life

everything seems to work,

when you move with the rhythm of life

you’re not gonna be a jerk,

time takes you faster than your mind can control,

turn each disaster into your goal.

The tongues of incandescent energy emanating from the Master wrapped around him and lifted him up. He could feel the powerful energy penetrating his body and coursing through his nervous system like heat.

When you move with the rhythm of life

you’re going to find yourself,

when you move with the rhythm of life

you’re gonna see everyone else,

for what they are after from you and the world,

and when they reveal it remember there are no rules.

He was lifted up on waves of throbbing energy, then his body split into two, four, then eight perfect replicas of himself, and he felt he was looking through the eyes of each one simultaneously.

Rhythm of life is easy,

rhythm of life is slow,

move too fast on the road of life and you’re sure,

to lose your soul

The Subatomic World obeys none of the laws of the physical world,
he heard himself think, as bursts of colors and stars emanated wildly from each of his eight bodies and formed a ninth version of himself that spun, and twisted, and stretched high into the air like the funnel of a tornado.

When you move with the rhythm of life

you’re the sun the moon and the stars,

when you move with the rhythm of life

you are the universe,

nothing can stop you there ain’t no force,

that can uproot or rock you or sway you from your course.

Inside his mind he saw a vision of his friends tied to their chairs in the lab; he also saw Doctor Leitz holding the gun, and he saw himself in between them. Leitz had the gun pointed right between his eyes, and he remembered how crazed he was as he stared down the barrel that was weaving slightly from side to side.
It’s just like I’m there
, he thought,
sending in reinforcements for myself.
It struck him as a very strange concept, very strange indeed, and then quite suddenly, everything went black.

FLUMMERY & GIBBERISH

Doctor Leitz could not believe his plan was working with such apparent ease. Capturing the four kids had been a breeze, and now he had the Smith boy tying up his three friends. He had the gun of course, and he realized that weapons speak a language of coercion no human tongue can match. But nevertheless, he was one step away from creating three more specimens of his unparalleled genius.

He stabbed the main control button that activated his beloved machinery, and the low humming rumble instantly filled the room. He had to admit, he felt like dancing. He had never danced in his life, nor had he ever wanted to. But at this very moment in time, with everything working so perfectly, he felt like Fred Astaire tap dancing among the stars.

He glanced over at the four kids, and the stupid Smith boy was standing directly in the path of the MOLECULAR ACCELERATOR ray. “Get away from there,” he shouted, waving the gun for extra emphasis. “You’ll ruin the experiment.”

Instead of moving, the idiotic fool folded his arms and issued an ultimatum. “No! I’m not moving,” the Smith boy said. “You can just hit me again.”

He was astonished; he had never confronted such unabashed insolence. It was irrational; the boy couldn’t have thought it through. If he had, he would have realized that continuing down this path could only result in disaster. If there was one thing in life he couldn’t stand, it was sloppy thinking. It tried his patience immeasurably. A tidal wave of anger rushed through his body driven by an emotional monsoon; he leapt up out of the chair and began waving his gun around in an erratic fashion. It was very uncharacteristic behavior but he was unable to curb it. In fact, the whole thing was even accompanied by an urgent desire to inflict violence. In order to fulfill that urge, he found himself running across the room to confront the Smith boy.

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

“No!” came the reply. It was illogical; he was holding all of the cards and he’d just bet all of his chips, and now this impudent fool was trying to raise him! Couldn’t he see that he’d lost?

Tex, Cal, and Kate were struggling in vain to loosen their bonds until they heard John’s ultimatum, then they began to shout and scream in protest.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Leitz heard the faint voice of reason screaming to be heard. But its pleas were drowned out by the madness of the moment. He hooked his thumb over the hammer of the gun and pulled it back with a flourish.

“Move, moron, or I’ll blast you!” They were the words of a cheap crime novel, not his vernacular at all, but it was too late to take them back. He had set sail on a course through uncharted waters, and the sirens were beginning to sing.

Gasps of surprise issued from the throats of his three prisoners, and he thought he saw a glint of anguish in the Smith boy’s eyes as his finger began squeezing the trigger of the gun. He glanced to his left, and he was suddenly overcome by a strange mixture of shock and horror. There, standing right beside him, was himself. The loud blast of the gun going off was nothing compared to the utter revulsion he experienced as the impact of the vision coursed through every nerve in his body. He turned back to the Smith boy, but he was gone. Everything was moving in super slow motion now, and the thoughts in his mind were bumping into one another trying to abandon ship.

“Now you’ve gone and done it!” his alter ego said. He recognized the dulcet tones of his own voice; it was one thing to imagine seeing yourself, but it was quite another to hear that vision address you with a reprimand.

Even though he had seen the face and heard the voice, he still thought it was a figment of his imagination, until he caught the look on the faces of the three kids tied to the chairs. They were aghast, sitting bolt upright and staring wide-eyed at the horrific tableau unfolding before them.

He plucked up the courage to take another peek. The second Doctor Leitz was smiling at him. He had his arms folded, and he too carried a revolver, which rested in the crook of his arm.

He decided he hated this pompous idiot who had an answer for everything. Of course he wasn’t going insane; insanity was for crazy people, not for physicists who are about to change the world. “I am not going insane,” he protested. “I am a genius.”

“Ah, yes,” the replica answered. “Sadly that is the conviction of every madman.”

Leitz had to admit his actions were totally out of character. He had, after all, just shot the Smith boy, and now he was standing around having a casual conversation with himself. He tried to remember when he’d last taken his medicine, but he couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to shoot you,” Doctor Leitz told his replica.

The replica laughed in a humiliating tone. “Your gun is there in your hand,” he said, “but it may as well be a million miles away. You cannot use it.”

Leitz tried to lift his arm but he couldn’t; it felt like lead. He began to sweat; there was something wrong, none of this was normal. He had a peculiar feeling he was watching himself from a long way off.

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked. “I’m getting cold.”

“You are contravening the laws of the universe,” the replica said. “Using physics and mathematics, you play at being a god. You are messing around with the substance of life. You must stop.”

Leitz fell down on his behind like a sack of potatoes. He wrapped his arms around his body, trying to contain his warmth. “I know who you are, and I know what you’re doing. You can’t get away with this, I created you.”

“No! Fate created an accident capable of righting your wrong,” the replica pointed out, “because you seek power and fame from the manipulation of matter. At best, your invention will eventually destroy the world; at worst, it would consume the universe. You would deprive all the children yet to be born of their lives. Well, the kids won’t let you do that; they’re taking their future back.”

Tex, Cal, and Kate watched in amazement; none of them had the faintest idea what was going on. It seemed like they had been dropped into a surrealistic nightmare, and they could do nothing but watch it unfold.

Doctor Leitz felt like he was trapped in an earthquake of ice. Every fiber of his being was shaking involuntarily and he believed that if it didn’t stop soon, he would come apart at the seams.

“Wh…what is hap…happening to me?” he stuttered.

“You have transgressed the laws of nature, and you are afraid,” the replica replied. “Your mind seeks refuge in fear, but fear is a harsh master. So you stare into the abyss of madness.”

“Madness is a game for fools!” Leitz retorted, and his whole demeanor began to change. He moved from ice to fire. He began to laugh, and the laughter consumed his whole being until he was reduced to a giggling idiot.

His replica leaned over and whispered in his ear, “From this moment on you will be thrown into confusion and chaos. You must destroy what you have done if you wish to be redeemed.”

“Go away,” Leitz said through sniggers, titters, and giggles. “I can’t see you anymore.” He covered his eyes with his hands and erupted into spasms of out of control laughter.

The replica stood back up and glanced over at Tex, Cal, and Kate. They looked like they had been turned to stone; they were completely motionless. They had just watched a real life drama evolve before their eyes and it had left them unblinking and mute.

The only sound in the room came from the constant low hum of the scientific equipment, and the chuckles and snorts emanating from the demented Doctor Leitz. He had been engaged in the age-old battle between the good side of oneself and the bad, and the good had won out.

Then, like a flare on the lens of reality, the replica was swallowed by time. He had come and gone like a ripple on a pond, leaving no record of his existence, other than the sniveling wreck of a human being who sat giggling crazily on the floor in front of the kids.

“Yeah, well how about getting out of here before he starts waving that gun around again,” Cal suggested strongly. “Does anyone have any bright ideas?”

“I wonder where John disappeared to?” Kate queried, struggling at her ropes.

“We could probably spend all day on that one, and still never know,” Tex said with a sigh.

It was true; from the moment they had been captured they had entered a bizarre hall of mirrors where every reflection was distorted. They had, after all, seen John shot, but none of them were worried about him because he had disappeared at the same time, and they took for granted that he was safe. It was an odd new world, from which they would never view their lives in quite the same way again.

“Hey! I didn’t miss anything did I?” John’s voice rang out behind them, and they all spun around to see if he still had a head.

“Only the trailer,” Tex said. “But I think the feature’s just about to begin.”

“Yeah, but it looked a bit thin on the plot. I’d save your money and rent the DVD, it’s bound to have extra scenes,” Kate said flippantly, as John deftly unbound her.

“What happened to the scientist?” John asked innocently as he began to untie Tex.

“He had a fight with himself, and he lost,” Cal said, as Tex shrugged off his ropes, stood up and began freeing him.