With the aid of his hated half brother, Doctor Aaron Leitz, he now thought it possible to actually change the molecular structure of his own body. Every infinitesimal atom would be renewed and he would no longer be crippled. In fact, quite the reverse would be true; he would live forever. His half brother was a brilliant physicist and a hopelessly inept human being, but he was capable of slicing and dicing atoms like a cordon bleu chef chops vegetables.
It was this affinity with atomic structure that Angstrom needed, so he had begun taking drastic measures to control his half brother’s chronic wanderlust. After all, his debilitating physical condition would never have appeared if Leitz had not been born. The laughter he had been choking back suddenly burst forth, and tears of joy began rolling down his cheeks. Leitz had stolen his legs on the day he had been born, and now he was going to return the favor, by stealing the fool’s brain.
***
As a child Kurt Angstrom had everything: he could walk, run, ride a bike, climb trees, do all the things that kids do; the present was endless and the future promised to be a joyful eternity. He was, of course, unaware that he was the product of an explosive love affair between two radical idealists who had collided in the slipstream of life, or who perhaps had been caught in a net of impish energetic intrigue that neither could understand.
His father was a rogue behavioral scientist who traveled the country promoting a novel theory he called ELECTROMANCE, and his mother was a sucker for any new paradigm she thought plausibly laced together by hard scientific fact. His father had written a book in which he claimed to have invented a meter that was capable of measuring the combined ELECTROMANTIC field of a man and a woman, and this instrument, he stated, could also predict how perfectly any couple were matched to one another, while also indicating the mental capacity of their offspring. How daring they’d be, how handsome and how kind they’d be, and it was these simple facts his mother had found most intriguing indeed.
Having read the book, she attended a lecture and signing at a local fringe society function, and hanging back afterwards she grilled the author about his invention. Feeling her interest was both fierce and fervent, he obligingly invited her for a free demonstration of the sensitive equipment. She blushed repeatedly when he included her in his ad hoc experiment, and when he pointed out enthusiastically that their own ELECTROMANTIC field was exceedingly strong she went beet red. But when he whispered to her that the intelligence, physique, and moral strength of their potential offspring would make them unbeatable, she was convinced—and nine months later Kurt Angstrom was born.
When little Kurt was five years old she became entranced with a physicist she’d met at the same bookstore. He had a wild theory about parallel dimensions that drifted through historical time—worlds within worlds—and he invited her back to his motel room so that he could reveal their portals to her. That afternoon it seemed that she disappeared for an exceedingly long time, and when she came back she could have sworn that she’d been to the very center of the universe. A universe that had whispered the deepest mystical secrets of life to her, and strangely enough, nine months later, Aaron Leitz was born.
Angstrom was mortified when this sibling appeared, and he sank into a deep depression. He took to his bed where he sobbed and cried endlessly, until one day he awoke with a raging fever. When the fever finally subsided, however, he found that he could no longer move his legs; he was paralyzed. He blamed the interloper, and he withdrew into his own world where he listened to voices in his head—voices that soothed him and told him what he wanted to hear. They became his best friends, and it wasn’t long before he wouldn’t do a thing without consulting them.
Now, for the very first time in his life, he needed his half brother in order to begin work on his new plan to reverse the effects of his paralysis, but Aaron Leitz was missing. It was nothing new; he had been going off by himself since he was a child, and it was this solitary devotion to losing himself that made him a brilliant physicist. He would get something in his mind—a problem that needed solving, for instance—and once there he would concentrate solely upon it until it was solved. He wouldn’t eat, and he would sleep wherever he was; unfortunately, this tendency sometimes made him very difficult to find.
After many years of wondering what to do about his half brother’s delinquency, Kurt Angstrom had stumbled on a solution deep in the Amazonian rain forest. While studying native cures for all sorts of ailments, he had been captured by a very fierce tribe of cannibals who’d wanted to eat him. But their witchdoctor had suggested that if anyone were to eat him they may inherit his paralysis. Upon hearing this warning, the most ferocious warriors imagined their offspring hunting and tracking through the forest on wheels. It didn’t hold the allure they were used to, so they lost interest and wandered off to find someone healthier.
But the witchdoctor was intrigued with the man on wheels and he took him under his wing, sharing vast amounts of secret knowledge about strange mysteries in return for cigarettes, candy, and syringes—which he used to make colorful tattoos. The witchdoctor knew many secrets, and one magical insect in particular turned out to be the answer to his half brother’s wandering problem.
One day, sitting in the witchdoctor’s hut trying to make sense of the vast array of plants hanging along beams and down the walls, he came across an odd-looking bug in a small pot. As he stared at it he asked what it was used for. Glancing up at him from a pile of bones he was divining, the witchdoctor told him it was a control worm, and it was used to keep troublesome tribesmen in check. The worm was given to a person in egg form—say in a drink—then it would hatch and live quite happily roaming the host’s intestinal tract as long as it had a steady supply of its favorite food. But if it didn’t get the food, which also came from the rain forest, the worm would secrete a vile liquid that would go straight to the brain, causing the victim to go temporarily insane until its favorite meal was forthcoming.
Kurt Angstrom sat there stunned, and as the tumblers clicked in his mind he realized this was the answer to his half brother’s wandering problem. Back in New York he secretly administered the control worm egg to Aaron Leitz, and he synthesized a batch of the food. Then he waited for the inevitable disappearance, which happened two days ago.
***
As Angstrom mused about his plans for the future, a limousine pulled up at the 59th Street entrance of GLOBAL ELIXIRS INC., and a stunningly beautiful Asian-American woman climbed out. She leaned over to speak to the driver, whose massive shoulders and shaved head seemed to indicate he was more than a chauffeur.
“Wait here, Mister Hunter,” she said. “We’ll be going out again.”
“Sure, Miss Moon,” he replied casually.
Miss Amelia Moon, graduate of Vassar, was a ninth degree black belt in karate, and Kurt Angstrom’s personal assistant. Her round face was framed by short black hair and her bangs softly caressed the thick black lashes surrounding dark brown, inscrutable eyes.
She tugged at the form-fitting jacket she’d designed herself and had hand-tailored in Soho, and admired her reflection in the mirrored glass door as she crossed the sidewalk. The doorman inside knew her routine and her reputation, so he timed the opening of the door just a split second before she needed to step inside. He valued his job, and he knew from the way she breezed past him without a hint of recognition that he would get to keep it for another day.
Taking a key from her purse she entered the elevator, inserted it into the security lock, pressed the button for the penthouse and stood back as it took off at high speed.
“How are we doing, Miss Moon?” Angstrom’s voice crackled over a small speaker.
“Watching television again?” she asked, smiling assuredly up at a tiny video camera.
“I’m always watching,” he replied, “wherever you are!”
It gave her goose bumps when he talked to her that way. He was a powerful man who seized what he wanted without regard for the consequences; it was an aphrodisiac she found hard to resi
st.
The elevator door slid open and Miss Moon stepped out gracefully, her dark eyes sparkling as she moved toward him. “We found him in an asylum near Rochester,” she said matter-of-factly, as she approached his desk.
“Excellent news!” he rejoined excitedly. “Now we can begin; take me to him.”
She took hold of his wheelchair, and leaned over to release the break. He felt her hot breath on his neck, and smelled her heady perfume. She reminded him of his mother; she had the same icy-cold strength and steel-sharp intellect. He made a mental note to send her some flowers, and he looked forward to the day he would be whole again as she pushed him smoothly toward the elevator.
***
Doctor Aaron Leitz never knew what hit him. One moment he was running a complex series of calculations in his mind, and the next moment—BAM—he was running naked down the street screaming at the top of his lungs while being chased by the cops. After that, everything was foggy, and now he was sitting in the corner of a padded cell wrapped up in a straightjacket.
He could see out of his eyes, but he felt like he was looking down a long tunnel. The room was dark; there was one small window high up on the wall through which lightning would flash every so often, followed by the sound of thunder that boomed and shook him to the core. Each time it happened he threw back his head and howled like a wolf, and even though he knew this was not proper behavior, he found he could not stop himself, no matter how hard he tried.
The massive thunderstorm had rolled in off the Atlantic Ocean and struck with a ferocity reserved solely for breaking the stifling summer heat waves that often hold New York and its environs hostage for days at a time. As the limousine plowed through the deluge, Kurt Angstrom imagined that the very elements of nature had gotten wind of his plan and were voicing their extreme displeasure at his arrogance. But no matter; nothing could stop him now. He had control of his half brother’s mind, a mind that would soon unlock the very secrets of the universe and hand them to him for safekeeping.
***
Turning with a splash into a dilapidated, gothic style gateway, the limousine wound its way up the driveway of a dark, ugly house on top of a hill and slid to a halt opposite the front door. Hunter climbed out and raised an umbrella over Miss Moon as she lifted Kurt Angstrom into his wheelchair. He wondered what the urgency was. He’d seen the sign that stated this was an asylum when they turned into the driveway, but surely they could have waited until the storm passed before setting out on this fool’s errand. Still, he covered them with the umbrella as best he could as they negotiated the gravel path to the front door, rang the bell and waited.
***
The unmistakable sound of iron door bolts being drawn came from inside, and the large, ornately carved oak portal opened with a creak. A weathered face peered out through the crack illuminated by a lantern, and bright eyes shone out from beneath bushy brows. “You people are out late, aren’t you? Such an unpleasant night too. Power’s gone, of course; always happens when these storms blow through. Now then, what can I do for you?”
“I’m here to see my brother, Doctor Aaron Leitz,” Kurt Angstrom replied.
The lantern glowed and flickered over Angstrom’s face. “Ooohh! Sorry, no can do! Nobody in or out between the hours of sunset and sunrise. Strange policy when you think about it. But then, that’s the way it is. Short of an emergency, of course, which sometimes happens; not often though.”
“Are you a doctor?” Angstrom asked, pushing his wheelchair closer to the door.
“My goodness no, sir, I’m the night watchman. Nothing much happens at night, and the doctors are all on call.”
“What is your name?”
“Mine? Ted, sir, just Ted. It was Edward when I was born but over the years it got shorter, and now it’s just Ted,” he smiled.
Angstrom pushed himself even closer and looked up into the man’s face. “You seem to enjoy the sound of your own voice, Ted, am I correct in my assumption?”
“You are, sir. The wife often refers to me as a bit of a raconteur, but I think of myself as a more spontaneous wit.”
“You are attached to your tongue then?” Angstrom inquired.
“I’m sorry, sir?” Ted asked, wondering if he had heard correctly.
“Put it this way; if you were given a choice between losing your tongue,” Angstrom said with an underlying hint of menace, “or earning a thousand dollars, which one would you choose?”
Ted stared at him, taken aback by the obvious danger. “Well, that is a curious question; let me think about it for a moment.”
As he thought, the stocky, well-muscled Mr. Hunter stepped forward menacingly, and removed a knife from his pocket, from which the blade sprang with a dull metallic snap.
Ted gazed at the gleaming point. “Yes, I think I see what you mean. Why don’t you come in out of the rain? Such an inhospitable evening, don’t you think?”
***
Deep in his delusion, Aaron Leitz had found a place of solitude where he could examine exactly what it was that he wanted from life. He was cursed with the burden of creativity; his mind was always seeking, but never really finding satisfaction. He had never completed anything, and the burden of creativity dictates that the measure of a successful life is in leaving something behind that lives long after you have ceased to exist.
As a child he had always known with certainty that he had a destiny preordained by fate. He was destined to change the world; there was no other course for him. So what was he doing here? It seemed that his life was over; he was stark raving mad, and what made it even worse was that he knew it. He had always imagined that when people went out of their minds, it was all over. So what was this tiny sanctuary in his mind where he could be lucid? Then it hit him like a ton of bricks; it was a sign—all great genius comes to a crossroads on the highway of life. It was what happened after this wakeup call that mattered.
The door swung open, and through the tunnel of his vision he saw his half brother wheel himself into the tiny room and stop in front of him.
“Brother, I have come for you,” Angstrom said as he leaned over, unbuckled the straightjacket, and yanked it off like it was nothing.
“Is this real?” Leitz heard himself say as he cowered in the corner, “Or am I hallucinating?”
“You have a problem, and I am going to fix it for you. After all, what is family for?”
Kurt Angstrom took a box from the pocket of his dark overcoat and opened it. From the box he produced a syringe loaded with golden liquid, and taking hold of Aaron’s arm, he gently pushed the needle into a vein. He smiled at his half brother. “This will fix you up as good as new,” he said as he began to push the plunger.
As Leitz watched, it seemed like the liquid in the syringe glowed like a thousand suns, and as it entered his bloodstream, he felt his madness disappearing like shadows running from the light. When the syringe was at last empty, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. He had always known his half brother was talented, but this. . .this was miraculous!
“How do you feel now?”
“Normal…I feel normal; but how did you do that?” he asked, marveling at his transition from madness to sanity.
“My peculiar gift is to ease the suffering of others,” Angstrom replied. “How I wish it were that easy to help myself.”
Aaron Leitz felt something he had never felt before…compassion for his half brother. He had always thought it sad that he was paralyzed, but then as children they had hated one another, and the situation had not improved much as they aged. But now his sibling had saved him from oblivion, a fate worse than death.
“How can I repay you for this miracle?” Aaron asked.
“By doing what you do best—concentrating on a problem until you come up with an answer.”
“But I don’t understand,” Aaron replied. “How can that help you?”
“The particular problem I have in mind will free me from this wheelchair, make you famous, and make us rich beyond our wildest dreams,”
Angstrom answered.
“I’m intrigued, and I am deeply in your debt. If it’s in my power to help you, then I shall.”
Kurt Angstrom moved closer, and in a conspiratorial whisper he spoke one word. “Alchemy,” he said.
“Alchemy?” Leitz repeated quizzically.
“The alchemists of old sought an elusive substance they called the Stone of Knowledge. This substance allowed them to change base metal to gold, but far more important to me, it could extend life by eradicating disease and deformity.”
“You’re kidding,” Leitz marveled.
“No!” said Angstrom. “All of the drug companies are after this one—that’s why we must carry this out in complete secrecy.”
“I know little or nothing about alchemy!” Leitz protested.
“Nonsense, you know about atomic structure; all you have to do is work out how you can manipulate it and presto, lead becomes gold, and I become a whole person again.” Kurt Angstrom smiled.
“If it can be done, I’m the one to do it!” Leitz exclaimed. “But I’ll need a laboratory of my own design, special equipment of my own design, and most importantly, no interference.”
“Everything will be done according to your wishes,” Angstrom said. “But I have one condition; the laboratory will be hidden in a school I have started in your name.”
“A school!” Aaron Leitz was shocked. “I know less about running a school than I currently know about alchemy!”
“It will be run for you; you will be free to carry out your experiments, and nobody will dream that top secret scientific research is being carried out there.”
The Subatomic Kid Page 2