The Subatomic Kid (36 page)

“We ordered pizza,” Cal said, “but we didn’t get any for you.” The ultra aerodynamically-shaped truck looked like a shark with a huge fin as it trundled slowly toward them, with a stupid tune emanating from it.

The pizza man is coming,

the pizza man is here,

pizza is a slice of life,

for each day of the year.

The moronic advertising jingle stopped when the truck came to a halt, and a triangle of flashing colored lights ran around the edge of the faux slice of pie on top. When he had first seen the truck, Hunter had lowered his weapon out of sight, and so had Steve, and now they waited for the pizza delivery man to show himself.

The sleek polished surface of the truck betrayed no sign of a door, and the only visible windows were two dark portholes at the front that looked like the eyes of a strange metal beast.

Staring at the truck, John felt an involuntary shiver pass through his body, a cold dark shiver that emanated from the depths of his soul. “Someone just walked over my grave,” he said, and although Kate, Cal, and Tex had not suffered the same emotional turmoil, it was plain that as pizza deliveries go, this one was not normal.

A depression appeared in the metal surface of the truck, and out of nowhere the outline of a door formed. The door opened from the top, extending itself outward and lowering itself to the ground to form a ramp. “Thank you, Mr. Hunter, for your diligence; you will be amply rewarded.”

Hunter smiled and lifted his gun back up. “Well, what do you know, reinforcements!” he said as Doctor Angstrom wheeled himself out of the dark interior of the truck and gently negotiated the incline of the ramp. A huge dark umbrella attached to the wheelchair shielded his sensitive eyes and skin from the early morning rays of sunlight.

“Who’s this dude?” Tex asked.

“Sure doesn’t look like the pizza man!” Cal replied abjectly.

“He looks real creepy,” Kate added. John stepped out in front of the three of them; whoever this dude was, he wanted him to know he wasn’t intimidated.

Kurt Angstrom brought his wheelchair to a halt at the end of the ramp. “Well, John,” Angstrom hissed. “It’s nice that we could meet in this rather depressing setting.” He extended his hand out beyond the edge of the umbrella. But when John ignored the gesture of friendship he drew it back into the shadow, lest the rays of the sun should disfigure his pigment.

John suddenly remembered the strange presence he had felt inside when he took on the form of Doctor Leitz, and instinct told him this bizarre creature sitting in front of him was responsible for that alien feeling. “What do you want from me?” John asked.

“What do any of us want?” Angstrom mused. “Eternal youth, an endless supply of money, and the ability to know what our friends and enemies are up to.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” John countered.

“I had it all,” Angstrom continued, “all of that and more, until you came along and robbed me. Quite simply, I want back what you have stolen. You can either give it back to me in terms of service to my cause, or I shall take it along with your life. You are already stranded in this pathetic world; your options are few.”

Angstrom cackled. “I’m not the enemy, John; the world is a cruel place, and people will climb all over you if you let them. But I don’t let them.”

“You’re power-crazy, paranoid, and you have delusions of grandeur,” John spit out. “I’ll bet when you were a kid you used to pull the legs off spiders and watch them try to move.”

“Ah, yes,” Angstrom said, “but not all of them. You had to leave at least one on; then you can watch them go around in endless circles until they die.”

John could not believe the rampant egotism this wizened old serpent displayed. “You don’t scare me,” he proclaimed.

“I don’t intend to scare you,” Angstrom said arrogantly. “To me you are merely an investment, and I am here to collect my profit.”

Listening to the exchange, Hunter was impressed by this young whippersnapper’s pluck. He also knew what he was capable of doing, and he wondered if Angstrom did.

“You’re confused, John; you need time to think,” Angstrom warned. “Your brain has short-circuited; the neurons and synapses have shut down. You’re just a crazy mixed-up kid who needs my strength, my support, and my love.”

John was astounded at the arrogance of this imbecile. “You talk about love, but it’s my guess you’ve never had it. And as for support, I’m sure you never give it. And strength…you don’t have it old man; strength requires character and you don’t have that either.”

“My, you’re a tiresome child,” Angstrom sighed. “I give you the opportunity to create an empire such as the world has never seen, and you turn me down with misguided ethics and a warped sense of dignity.”

“An empire created from a lust for money and power, and built on a foundation of fear and distrust, is an empty shell,” John said, wondering where these words were flowing from so effortlessly.

“What about your friends, John? They expect something from you. They expect you to save them, not to abandon them in this ill-forsaken wilderness.”

Angstrom laughed; he hadn’t enjoyed himself this much in years. “Well, I’ve tried, Mr. Hunter, to bring this poor deluded child under my wing—you’ve witnessed that. But if he and his friends prefer the uncertainty of this vapid wilderness over my offer, then who am I to stop them?”

“Well, John, I’m bored with your petulant behavior,” Angstrom crowed. “But I had an inkling you would be difficult. That’s why I brought your brother along, so that he could take care of you.”

“What are you talking about?” John laughed. “I don’t have a brother!” But the laughter turned to shock and horror as a figure stepped from the darkness of the truck and walked toward Angstrom.

The three kids gasped in amazement; Hunter couldn’t believe his eyes, Steve completely lost his place in the reverse alphabet, and Angstrom beamed with satisfaction. “John Smith,” he said, referring to John, “let me introduce you to John Smith.”

John stared at the new arrival. It was himself down to the most minute detail, except for one thing—the new John Smith looked extremely angry, like a professional wrestler eager to rip somebody’s throat out. Understandably, John was shaken, so much so that he reached back into his mind, found the emergency cord, and tugged as hard as he could.

SUBATOMIC INTERLUDE

It was one of the most nerve-racking, nail-biting, mind-numbing visions John had ever seen in his whole life, and a barrage of emotional bombs screamed out of the sky of his mind and carpeted his nervous system. He was completely devastated. It was one thing to look in a mirror and see your reflection, but it was quite another to stand and look at a living, breathing replica of yourself.

This sordid experience bathed him in repugnance, and he suddenly realized what Doctor Leitz had gone through when he had pulled the same trick on him. Something told him this was no trick though, because before he had seen his other self exit the truck, he had been feeling the presence of a dark energy—a hostile force that reached right into his gut and twisted it up like spaghetti rolling onto a fork.

The evil Doctor Angstrom had baited him, hooked him, and damn near reeled him into his net of skullduggery. It was a close shave, and he realized if it weren’t for his ability to take refuge in the Subatomic World, he would have been a trophy on Angstrom’s wall by now.

He stretched himself out to infinity and purified his shattered being in the metaphorical waters of the subatomic stream. He calmed the monkey chattering in his mind and he let the undulating forces of the stream take him where they wanted him to go. He no longer had a say in his destiny; change had robbed him so many times of his well-thought-out conclusions that he wanted no part of the future.

From now on he would exist within the confines of each passing moment and expect the unexpected.

“You have reached the first level of knowing,” the Master of the Perfect Word declared. “By choosing to leave the future to its own devices, you have freed yourself from the illusion of control.”

“It’s a burden I can no longer carry,” John replied. “I just came face-to-face with myself, and I didn’t like what I saw.”

“I believe you mean you didn’t like the feeling it gave you,” said the Master. “Your eyes merely identified another version of yourself.”

“It’s understandable; up until the event that transformed you, it was you. But when you split apart, it took on all the anger and resentment you didn’t feel, and since that time it has festered and grown.”

“You speak of it as if it weren’t human,” John pointed out.

“Well, truly it’s not. It’s the worst case of arrested development there could possibly be. It represents all of your childhood frustrations and fears, and until you dispense with it you won’t be able to grow.”

“Dispense with myself!” John said with astonishment.

“You can’t think of it as you,” the Master said reasonably. “It is the danger at the heart of the Subatomic World, and it is the reason you are suspended in an alien world. The only way to resume your life is to overcome it.”

“I am the problem, and I am the solution.” John said, in a blinding moment of realization.

“Yes,” agreed the Master.

John saw it all in glorious Technicolor. As a child his future had been planned down to the smallest detail. Rarely did anything unforeseen happen, because it was one long party to which chance and change had not been invited. As a result, he really hadn’t had to pay too much attention to anything. His mom and dad had done all of the thinking, and he had been free to indulge himself in the pleasurable aspects of life.

That had been the best deal in the world, and one that understandably he didn’t want to end, but becoming the unwilling participant in a scientific experiment that changed his molecular structure created a new John Smith—one who had to think on his feet and act decisively, one who was no longer a child. But physics dictates that the outcome of an atomic experiment has two possibilities: the one that’s expected, and its complete opposite.

Therefore, a willful, angry, and resentful John Smith had been born, one who refused to let go of the hedonistic pleasures of childhood, one who raged like a maniac across worlds, one who caused havoc and chaos with time, space, matter, and energy—one who had to be stopped.

STANDING ON THE EDGE OF TIME

Our universe is just an atom in a far larger structure, unknown and uncharted. Beyond this universe and out to infinity is endless space, a space that is filled with countless atoms, and each atom is another universe, where time spins an endless web of intrigue around the galaxies that energy creates.

Time between universes is irrelevant, and time within a universe is completely independent of that governing another. Thus, a day spent in one can equal a lifetime spent in the one next door. This phenomenon has been charted by early travelers—the shamans and mystics whose reports are known today as fairy tales and myths. One of the stories common to each culture is that of the spirit double. From the Vardøger of the Norse, to the Ka of the Egyptians, to the doppelgänger of the Germans, strange replicas of living people have been known to appear from unknown realms representing evil or misfortune.