THE SUBATOMIC KID
By
George Earl Parker
World Castle Publishing
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
World Castle Publishing
Pensacola, Florida
Copyright © by George Earl Parker 2012
ISBN: 9781938243370First Edition World Castle Publishing May 10, 2012
http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com
License Notes
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover: Karen Fuller
Editor: Maxine Bringenberg
Every time a decision is made in life to follow one path rather than its opposite, mirror universes break off in different directions in which the outcome of each event is followed to its natural conclusion—this is how parallel worlds are born.
… Many-Worlds Theory of Quantum Physicist Hugh Everett lll, 1930-1982
Chapter 1
JUST ANOTHER DUMB DAY
The dream was so real he felt like he could just reach out and touch it; and he could most certainly hear it because there was a refrain being sung by a very loud choir of voices:
I wanna be a superhero, a super, superhero,
I’m tired of going where the wind blows,
and sick of being just a zero. . .
He awoke with a jolt and the dream swept away like a wisp of smoke on the wind. He tried hard to remember it, but the only thing that stuck in his mind was the song. It wasn’t strange though; superheroes were everywhere today, and he knew with certainty that as long as his name was John Smith he didn’t stand a chance of ever becoming one. After all, the name Smith was bad enough—it was as common as mud—but what had possessed his folks to call him John? It was probably the second most common name ever! Not very creative: where was their imagination? Why couldn’t they have called him Dirk or Luke, instead of painting him like a target?
He wasn’t clever either; he swam right down the middle of the stream. Just a normal kid—divorced parents who fought tooth and nail to convince him that it wasn’t his fault, which somehow made him feel that it was. His biggest problem was daydreaming. Well, duh!! It was because he wasn’t cool; that dumb name was like a ball and chain that kept him shackled to hum-drum reality.
As he stared at the ceiling, he heard his mother tap on the door—his signal to get up. But he was young, and he didn’t understand why he’d been taught that love was forever when his parents couldn’t even stand to be in the same room together. Angry and confused, he wouldn’t get out of bed until the very last minute; then he would eat breakfast hurriedly before rushing out of the house to catch the school bus.
He rolled over and buried his face in the pillows; school was another pain—a pain that only taught him to get up and go somewhere in the morning so he’d be ready to jump when they told him to. But he wasn’t very good at pretending; he saw through things too easily.
He knew he would never be an athlete either, and at school that was what you needed to be in order to get by without being persecuted mercilessly. The other thing was kind of embarrassing; his emotions had bushwhacked him and he had begun to feel differently about girls. There was one dark-haired girl in particular that he even kind of liked, although he had been saved by the fact that she wouldn’t even give him the time of day.
The knock on the door sounded for a second time.
“Come on, John, it’s nearly time to leave!” He heard his mother’s soft footsteps pad away and he jumped out of bed, walked into the bathroom, and looked into the mirror to examine his face for zits. Through sleep addled eyes he saw what he thought was a perfectly ordinary face, straight brown hair standing on end, and a nose that seemed bigger every time he saw it. There was one consolation though; at least he didn’t see any zits today!
***
His mother stood at the sink and gazed out of the kitchen window; she was clever enough to know that her son was at a difficult age and probably needed his space more now than at any other time in his life. She smiled as he rushed in, his backpack already slung over his shoulder. He sat down at the table, poured a bowlful of breakfast cereal, drenched it in milk and sugar, and began to spoon it up.
“Good morning,” she said, looking over her shoulder and smiling.
John glanced up from the bowl, his cheeks bulging with food. He smiled as best he could and swallowed the mouthful hurriedly. “Good morning,” he mumbled, as he spooned up another.
“You do remember what’s happening this weekend, don’t you, John?”
He stopped chewing and gazed at her, searching his mind for a clue to the answer as she walked slowly over to the table, wiping her hands on a towel.
“Las Vegas?” she said with a grin, as she pulled out a chair and sat down. “Don’t you remember? It’s a weekend getaway for parents, and we’re trusting all you kids to stay home alone for a couple of days. After all, you are teenagers; you should be able to take care of yourselves!”
John tried extra hard to contain his exhilaration; two whole days to himself—it would be a snap. He nodded, a serious look on his face. “Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that; no problem, I’ll get by.” He jumped up from the chair and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. “Have a good time, and don’t lose too much money,” he said, heading to the door.
She couldn’t help but smile as he pulled it open. “And you stay out of trouble,” she warned. “Okay?”
He scowled—if there was any trouble around it would find him; he didn’t have to go looking for it!
Outside in the cool morning air and late as usual, he slipped his arm through the second strap of his backpack, dropped his skateboard to the ground and walked alongside. Jumping onboard, he eased out of the driveway, powered it with a couple of hard kicks, and he was off into pure exhilaration.
Coasting down a long, slow hill on the tree-lined street, he could see clearly all the way to the bottom. It was so quiet and empty he gave the board a couple of extra kicks and he was flying. He stretched out his arms to feel the speed, his clothes flapping in the wind. The sunlight dappled through the trees overhead, and the exquisite roar of motion filled his ears. The sensations were as close to heaven as he could possibly get, and he did it five days a week.
He had heard about meditation and figured this was his meditation; it was everything and nothing at once. For these few moments in time he was truly himself, and it didn’t matter what his name was. He didn’t have a name; he was the wind moving through the trees. Problems didn’t matter—there was only him wrapped up in this space, experiencing true oneness with himself like a hawk falling from the sky. It was magical, and mystical, it was—
A rolled-up newspaper flew by his head like an anti-aircraft shell and bounced off a tree. He glanced into the street and, through the window of a pickup truck, saw an arm toss another newspaper onto the lawn of the house behind him. He had briefly wobbled on his board but he hadn’t fallen off, and at this speed, wobbling was dangerous.
Shaken, he turned back; he was still gaining speed and he began to regret those couple of extra kicks. Everything is okay, he told himself as he regained his composure, but when he gazed ahead his heart sank. About ten dogs had
turned the corner he was speeding toward; they were all on leashes attached to the hands of the local dog walker. John panicked; he was moving way too fast to stop. The dogs were barking at him as he sped toward them, and with a look of horror on her face the dog walker was trying to rein them in, but the more she tugged, the more they tugged back.
He glanced to the side; he was now below the level of the road, and a sloping grass bank rose back up to the street. Instinct told him that if he hit it the wrong way he would be thrown from the board, so he leaned cautiously to the left and the board responded, shooting him along on the grass and narrowly missing the pack of dogs and their walker. A sigh of relief flew from his lips as he leaned back to the right, but it was too late; the board would not respond.
He shot straight up the embankment and he was airborne. Time stood still. He sailed five feet above the black asphalt, the board attached to his feet by momentum; he was weightless and he was scared out of his mind. Suddenly, he began to drop and the shock of the board landing jarred him back to reality; now he was speeding across the street with traffic coming both ways.
***
Idling by the curb at the bottom of the hill, the school bus was taking on the last few students. Everyone inside the bus had their faces pressed to the window; they had seen John’s spectacular leap off the curb and now they watched him slalom down through the traffic, bringing cars skidding to a halt and blasting their horns as he snaked perilously between them.
They all admired his self-confident maneuvering, but John was terrified. He shot like a bullet toward the school bus, and he knew if he didn’t get off the board now, he would end up as a blob of goop they’d have to scrape off the pavement. Instinctively he jumped, and as he did he tapped the back of the board accidentally with his toe, so that it shot straight up into his hands. Following that came a couple of stumbling steps that almost looked rehearsed, and then he climbed aboard the bus just as the doors were closing.
Everyone stared at him as he walked down the aisle, breathing heavily but trying to hide it, and found a seat at the back of the bus between two other students. As he turned to sit he noticed that everyone was still checking him out, so he clutched his skateboard close to his chest and surreptitiously glanced right and left to see who he was sitting with: it wasn’t good!
The dark, curly-haired kid on the left stretched out his arm in front of John’s nose and reluctantly gave his friend on the right a five-dollar bill. “You just cost me five bucks, dude!” he said angrily as he stared crazily into John’s eyes. “Why couldn’t you have fallen off? You were totally out of control.”
John looked away; it was Tex Roberts, the quarterback on the football team.
“Don’t worry about him,” said the surfer blonde kid on the right. “He’s just a sore loser.”
John glanced to the right and recognized Cal Burton, one of the hottest bats on the baseball team. He didn’t like being caught between these two; it was dangerous, so he hoped there wouldn’t be any more conversation. After all, these guys had never even recognized his existence before, let alone talked to him.
“How do you suggest I get my money back?” Tex drawled.
“I don’t know,” John whispered, glancing at him and hurriedly turning away again.
“Ah, he’s shy,” said Cal. “The poor kid can’t even look at us.”
Tex gazed around the bus and saw a pretty girl sitting on her own studying a book. He smiled and reached out a beefy arm, clamped it around John’s shoulder, and squeezed as hard as he could. “I’ll bet you, Cal, that this fake can’t get a date with that babe.” He pointed her out to them.
“Well,” said Cal, “I think he can; after all, he’s a star now.”
They both laughed as Tex slipped his hand down to the middle of John’s back and pushed him off the seat. He stumbled to his feet, clutching the skateboard like a life raft. On the one hand he was glad to be away from Tex and Cal, but on the other he was petrified at the mere thought of having to talk to a girl.
With the blood pumping in his ears and each step taking a gigantic effort, he inched toward her; she was reading and remaining aloof from the banter in the back seat. John grasped a pole for support and leaned over. “Hey” he said. It was the first thing that came into his head.
She turned her head and glanced up at him. “Hey,” she replied. “Do you want to sit down?” She patted the seat with her hand.
John nearly collapsed; it was the girl he had a crush on, but he didn’t want her to know that. He gripped the pole extra hard as he eased himself into the seat and stared at her. Her short, brown hair was bouncy and flowed with the movement of her head. Deep blue eyes stared at him with a mixture of kindness and skepticism.
“I saw you on that thing earlier,” she pointed at the skateboard in his hands. “It was really dangerous and stupid; you know that, don’t you?”
John nodded his head, it took a tremendous effort to get over his embarrassment and speak, but he gave it a shot. “It wasn’t planned,” he said. “Things just got out of control.”
“You could have been injured or killed,” she said, “and that would be a tremendous waste of life just for showing off, wouldn’t it?”
“I wasn’t showing off,” John said softly. “I really was out of control. Swerving to avoid a pack of dogs forced me into the road going too fast to stop, and everything else you saw was just a blur to me.”
“Huh!” she uttered skeptically. “So why did you choose to come over here?”
“Because the seat was empty,” he lied.
“Sure,” she said sarcastically, and went back to reading her book.
He gazed around the bus; nobody was paying attention to him anymore, but he could feel Cal and Tex watching him from behind. It felt like tiny daggers hitting the back of his neck. “I don’t even know your name,” John lied again.
“It’s Kate,” she replied offhandedly, without even looking up from her book.
As far as he could tell, this was the way girls were. First they made you feel great, and then they made you feel lousy at the same time. All his friends told him to stay away from them, but he found that he had this strange desire to be close to a girl, and this girl in particular.
Today is a strange day, he thought—he’d already had an amazing adventure, and here he was sitting next to the girl of his dreams.
“What’s that book you’re reading?” he asked.
“It’s about Haiku,” she replied, not even looking up. “It’s a form of Japanese poetry.”
“I know Haiku,” he said. “A sudden downpour! Thunderclouds are cracking! And round the farmhouse all the ducks run, quacking.”
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “You do know Haiku!
“Yeah, Samurai warriors studied it,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, looking up from her book.
“Why? To stop themselves from becoming crazed killing machines, they needed to stay in contact with the basic simplicity of life. One of the ways they did that was to practice Haiku in just the same way they practiced with their swords. I’ve got books on the subject at home.”
“You do?” she questioned with pleased surprise.
“Sure.”
“Well, maybe I could come over to your house and take a look at your books. We’re going to have a test on this soon, and I need to know everything I can find out.”
John was amazed at her response; he was pretty sure this qualified as a date. Tex wouldn’t be pleased because he’d bet against him twice now and lost both times, but Cal would be happy. Besides, just the thought of having Kate come over to his house while his mom was away made him delirious with joy.
“Absolutely,” John said. “How about Saturday morning?” He was so eager he wanted it to happen as soon as possible. He knew very little about playing hard to get.
“It’s a date,” said Kate. “Give me your address.”
As he scribbled his address on her book cover, John considered how strange the morning had been.
It was, after all, what he wanted, but under the most ridiculous circumstances. What other changes awaited him down the road, he wondered? He couldn’t even have imagined.
Chapter 2
SUBTERFUGE
TWO YEARS EARLIER
Doctor Kurt Angstrom loved darkness; he could float upon it, something he couldn’t do in the light. In the light he was uncomfortable because he was continually reminded of his physical limitations. People pitied him and he hated to be pitied, or they ignored him and he couldn’t stand to be ignored.
He had been blessed with a brilliant mind, but it was trapped in a useless body, a body that was wasting away with age. His lack of exposure to natural sunlight had a deleterious effect upon him; it turned his hair as gray as ashes, and made his skin almost translucent, like the soft underbelly of a snake.
Rather ironically though, he had amassed a fortune from making other people healthy. While searching high and low across the globe to find a cure for his own particular malady, he had discovered cures for countless others. His intuitive scientific skills mystically revealed healing properties deep within the cellular structure of plants—properties that had beneficial effects on the organs that govern muscles, nerves, and tissue. He had an innate understanding and knowledge of how to treat and maintain vigorous and virile human structures, but he had drawn a blank on reanimating his own.
Trapped as he was in a wheelchair, he tapped his fingernails on the armrests nervously, and listened to the clicking sound as it reverberated around the marble and glass facade of his Manhattan penthouse. He was a prisoner of circumstance, a billionaire perched atop a skyscraper that housed his corporate headquarters, GLOBAL ELIXIRS INC.
He so wanted to soar, he so wanted to swoop, he so wanted to exact retribution—and that retribution would be to live free of his impediment while punishing those he deemed responsible for its unspeakable indignity. He chuckled to himself; just like the Roman emperor Caligula, he relished the emotional rush of revenge.
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