Cycles of change are the basis for the rhythm of life; the sun, the moon, the stars, and the seasons are the measure of everything. Each season evolves into the next at its zenith, night begins at noon and day begins at midnight because time demands order. Time likes to know where it’s going and it doesn’t like surprises; that is, unless it’s in the Subatomic World.
Three chairs had been positioned in front of the grid-painted wall. As the four kids arrived, Doctor Leitz scooted off to one side, grabbed a bundle of ropes, and threw them onto the floor in front of John.
“Now they can sit down, and you can tie them up, John,” he ordered. “And make sure their bonds are tight, I am watching.” Holding the gun steady on them, he backed over to his control panel and with a flourish stabbed a button with his finger. Almost immediately a low hum rumbled into the room.
Tex, Cal, and Kate took their seats reluctantly. In their minds, John had gone from hero to heel, and their contemptuous looks left him under no illusion about their feelings. He picked a rope up from the floor, walked over to Tex and began to wrap it around him.
“I thought you were the real deal, dude,” Tex whispered. “But you’re just like everyone else, bogus.”
John ignored him. He knew he couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by what others thought; he grabbed another rope and moved on to Cal.
“Why are you helping this crazy maniac?” Cal asked. “Don’t you have two worlds to save?”
He’s right, John thought, as he finished tying him up. But what can I do? The moment hasn’t arrived. He scooped up another rope and moved on to Kate.
She refused to talk to him, and she wouldn’t make eye contact. Her rejection was probably the most devastating of all three encounters because it was emotional and he had no way at all of rationalizing it.
His three friends felt out of control because they had trusted him to take care of them, and at this moment, they all felt he had abandoned them. Deciding it was time to push the envelope of change, John moved out in front of his three friends to be directly in the line of fire of the super ray gun that had blasted him into the Subatomic World.
Doctor Leitz stared at him and frowned as he waved his revolver in the air. “Get away from there, you’ll ruin the experiment.”
“No!” John protested, “I’m not moving…you can just hit me again.”
Leitz was astonished. This kind of insolence never happened in his world—it was irrational behavior! He felt an unnatural surge of anger, and in seconds he was rushing across the lab, brandishing his gun like a wild man.
“Move, or I’ll blow your head off,” he heard himself say as he pushed the gun into John’s face.
“No!” John shouted.
Tex, Cal, and Kate were creeped out by John’s bravado. What was he doing? He was going to get himself killed, and then where would they be?
Doctor Leitz found he couldn’t quite think straight; it was like there was someone else at the controls. He watched himself pull back the hammer of the gun. “Move, moron, or I’ll blast you,” he heard himself say. It was odd, inappropriate behavior, but he couldn’t stop himself.
John stared down the barrel of the gun and hoped that all of his amateur philosophizing was true. Intellectually, he knew he was right. But emotionally, he wanted to turn around and run away as fast as he could.
He watched Leitz pull back the hammer of the gun in super slow motion, and he heard the metallic clicks of the mechanism fall into place. There was a wind rushing through his ears, on which he heard screams and cries.
John looked into Leitz’ eyes and he saw madness lurking there; the ghost in the machine had gone crazy. He gazed at the end of the gun and noticed that the barrel wavered slightly in the air. Leitz still had time to redeem himself if he wished, but he wouldn’t. He was self-possessed and consumed by an irrational ego.
The moment had come…there was no more time to think; the stakes had climbed too high. Doctor Leitz watched his finger flex on the trigger, the muscles tense, the sinews tighten, and the bones push blood away from the skin as he fired.
John saw the bullet leave the barrel of the gun preceded by a flare of heat. He watched it fly through the air in slow motion, and he marveled at the way death could be carried by such a tiny messenger. But he was unafraid; he knew it would never hit him because his body was already gone. It had disappeared into the portal between worlds and was traversing the subatomic stream. Only his consciousness remained, like a shadow of thought cast upon the world, and then like a wisp of smoke on the wind, it too was gone.
Chapter 12
PARTICLE ACCELERATION
John shot into the Subatomic World like a school of electronic fish. Everywhere he looked he was surrounded by himself, but it wasn’t the self everyone else saw. It was his subatomic self, a huge abstract cloud of space and matter. He instantly knew this because it was as if each minute particle had a connection to every other particle. Like birds in flight, if one changed course, all changed course; there was no deviation.
He had never before really had the time or the presence of mind to pay attention to what was happening when he traversed the subatomic stream. He had always been a reluctant passenger, but now he felt like he was at the head of a massive fleet of spaceships traversing a strange universe. He was a huge swarm of energy, mass, and consciousness moving faster than the speed of light through a timeless space to a preordained destination. It was awesome. It was the kind of magic he always imagined existed somewhere, but never in his wildest dreams did he believe he could ever find it.
“That was an extremely dangerous thing to do,” said a voice.
Startled out of his reverie, John was suddenly aware of a figure that metamorphosed through a constant stream of rainbow colors, a figure that seemed to be lit from within. “Yes, but it was the only thing I could think of,” he answered warily.
“Nevertheless, it was extremely dangerous, and you were lucky to get away with it,” the voice chided. The figure was so incandescent, he found it hard to take his eyes away from the constant changes in hue and shape.
“Who are you?” he ventured with trepidation.
“I am the Master of the Energetic Flow,” the figure breathed, his whole body undulating like a fire that was being stoked. “I am the force that animates everything there is, was, or ever shall be. I hold things together, and I tear things apart; I am the one constant; even when there’s nothing I am there!”
“So you’re the one who makes me do what I do?” John proposed.
“You are a unique case,” the Master countered, “Your energy is fluid, but your intelligence is deficient; it cannot handle the mercurial being you have become.”
“I‘m trying to do my best,” John whined.
“Your best is woefully inadequate; you are a child, and your energetic flow is naturally unstable.”
“I didn’t choose this job,” he complained indignantly, “It was chosen for me!”
“It is of no consequence—everything in the universe contains the seed of its own destruction within, and you more than most.”
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.
&n
bsp; 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.
Chapter 13
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.
“Just move!” screamed Tex, at the top of his lungs.
“Get out of the way!” Cal yelled. “He’s gonna shoot you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Kate screamed. “He’s a mad man!”
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.
“My, my, my. You have been a busy boy,” the replica said.
“Who...who...who are you?” Leitz stammered.
“I would have thought that was obvious to a gentleman with your observational powers,” the replica mocked.
“It’s absolutely impossible!” Leitz protested. “It’s scientifically implausible that you are me.”
“Not if you are in the throes of going insane,” the replica replied.
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.”
Doctor Leitz began to shiver uncontrollably, his gun clattered to the floor, and his teeth chattered like Spanish castanets.
“Wh…wh…what are you d…doing to me?” he stuttered.
“Nothing you haven’t already done to yourself,” the replica replied.
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.
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