The Subatomic Kid

by George Earl Parker

  Laughter and thought are the two truly human traits; they are what separates us from all other animals. He had known people who never thought, and he had known people who never laughed, and although he drew a line at calling them animals, he had to admit they were mere shadows of the humans they were capable of being.

  It was set to be an interminable eternity if these were the kinds of things he was going to be thinking about. He wouldn’t even be able to seek refuge in madness because he was just a blob of consciousness floating through space, and he was pretty sure he didn’t have any emotions to plague him. Food wouldn’t be a problem; he didn’t need any. He had all the energy he would ever need locked in every tiny particle of himself. So what was there to do?

  “When you are quite finished with your awfully bleak scenario, I am waiting,” said the Master of The Perfect Word.

  If he had a skin, he would have jumped out of it. “Whoa!” John yelled frantically. “You scared the heck out of me!”

  “If my beginning to speak terrifies you that much, then we are in very serious trouble indeed.”

  “It’s just a figure of speech,” John protested.

  “Figure of speech or not, if the mere utterance of a few words turns you into a sniveling coward, then we may as well give up now because all hope is lost,” he roared.

  John had never heard him so vexed. “Look,” he declared, “I’m a teenager; it’s part of my job to get under people’s skin. I apologize; I didn’t mean what I said literally.”

  “If you don’t mean it, don’t say it,” the Master lectured. “The thought in your head is who you are. This information may save your life one day.”

  “Thank you,” John replied, “thank you for everything.” And he meant it. He owed his life to this entity, whether it was in his head or a gazillion miles out in space.

  “You are in very serious trouble indeed,” the Master continued in a low and even tone.

  John already knew that, so he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. Not wishing to appear flippant or ungrateful, he erred toward caution. “We are,” he agreed, “but so far I’ve managed to deal with everything that’s been thrown at me.”

  “You have,” the Master said, “and so far you’ve done a good job. Nothing has been forced, everything’s developed naturally and changes have begun taking place. The natural order of things is gradually being restored.”

  “Cool,” John said. It was the first thing that came into his head, and he was genuinely pleased someone appreciated what he was doing. Nobody ever had before.

  “However…” the Master began, and John thought, Well, here comes the butt; although no amount of coaching on earth could have prepared him for what came next. “…You have jumped worlds.”

  He had heard the words, and he understood what each one of them meant; they were very simple and there were only four of them. But when they were added together they became completely incomprehensible. “I don’t know what you mean,” he confessed.

  “Do you remember when you were driving the car? You came down the hill, and at the bottom there was a very busy freeway you crossed with apparent ease?”

  “Yes,” John answered.

  “That was no freeway. It was a border between worlds.”

  “That doesn’t make sense; it was a freeway with real trucks, and cars, and everything.”

  “Have you ever heard of a chimera?” the Master asked.

  “No,” John replied. This conversation was beginning to creep him out.

  “Well, it’s a wild or fantastical conception; a creation, outwardly real, but inwardly false.”

  “How’d it get there?” John asked, flabbergasted.

  “Other worlds are created when atomic events take place. On a subatomic level there are always two outcomes to an event. There’s the actual outcome—in this case the exploding of an atomic bomb—and a second outcome is the creation down to the most minute detail of another world in which the bomb does not explode.”

  “Yeah,” John agreed. It was a concept he could appreciate because it had happened to him.

  “Well, at some time in the 1950s that’s exactly what happened, and this world was created. It’s a World of Science. It has developed completely independently of the world that gave birth to it, and it’s a wicked and evil place.”

  “Yeah; they have a very weird bowling alley! Full of very curious people!”

  “All of the people who populate that world are clones of the scientists who run it. They run it on a feudal system. Each country is composed of many city states, and the head of each state is a scientist who creates replicas of him or herself to populate his part of the land.”

  “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “No, it isn’t. The scientists of that world understand a great deal about physics, so much so they have almost become scientific magicians. They understand the concept of Many Worlds. It was they who constructed that mythical freeway around themselves, and it was they who learned how to intersect other worlds. They lure innocent victims across the freeway to utilize them for sport, and their sport of choice is bowling.”

  “That’s an awful lot of trouble to go to just for a new bowling opponent.”

  “This is not just any bowling contest,” the Master declared firmly, “this is bowling for your life.”

  “Do any of the victims ever win?”

  “No,” replied the Master, “and anticipating your next question, I do not know how you got there. There is some skullduggery afoot that I have not, as yet, divined.”

  “How do we get out of this world?”

  “That is a very good question.”

  John instantly knew he was sunk. “There is no way out, is there?”

  “You are reaching too far into the future, John Smith,” warned the Master. “For now you must try to get your friends and your pursuers out of that bowling alley.”

  “Our pursuers!” John exclaimed. “Why would we want to rescue them?”

  “You all entered that world at the same time; your fates are intrinsically entwined. I’m not saying you should rescue them, but it would be better for everyone if they also got out of that bowling alley in one piece.”

  John was perplexed. They had been running away from these guys so hard they had run clear into another world; but now, in a wicked twist of fate, they all needed to run away from the other world. It was mind-boggling!

  Cal had been correct; they needed to suspend the laws of physics, and if he had to become a bowling ball, then by hook or by crook he was determined to be the best bowling ball there ever was. He felt his consciousness stirring; it was like wind blowing over the surface of a still lake. Beyond, in the distance, he sensed mountains shrouded in mist. Never before had he thought of himself as a rock, but he knew that from now on he was going to have to be that solid if he wished to survive. It was all very mystical, because he also knew that the deep dark depths of the lake represented his subconscious, and he was going to have to call upon the innate knowledge that lurked there more now than at any other time in his life.

  Chapter 25

  BALLS! BALLS! BALLS!

  Copernicus knew with certainty they were going to win—they never lost to Off-Worlders, and these two in particular seemed to be the sorriest pair of wanderers he had ever seen in his life. The big one with the short hair—the one who called himself Hunter—looked too clean. He had no idea which world he was from, but he imagined it must have an abundance of water, because the pompous idiot looked like he used way too much of it.

  Since their world had begun running out of water long ago, water was now rationed by the state, but even if he had lots of it, he wouldn’t use it to wash with. Water was for drinking and cooking, and washing was something best done once a week…or once every two weeks if you could get away with it.

  The other one was clean too, but Copernicus knew he was stupid. He didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on. He had a vacant look in his eyes as if his head had long a
go been emptied of all its contents and he was just left with enough sense to put one foot in front of the other.

  But no matter, the pair would be good sport for the bowling match. When they lost they would become the property of the state, as all their predecessors had. Copernicus amused himself thinking about the Off-Worlders being forced to work as laborers. Laborers ensured that his society always had plenty of leisure time, so that he and his clones could lie around and think about the art of thinking, and how it could be improved.

  ***

  A crowd had begun to gather around the lane as Steve sauntered over to the ball carousel. He had the gnawing feeling in his gut that he was today’s entertainment, entering the arena to face the emperor’s elite gladiators, even though the gladiators were pimply-faced geeks.

  He ran his fingers through the stream of air that blew out of a vent at the center of the carousel. His palms were sweating, and his mind was racing. The challenge was clear—they had to make every ball count; their liberty depended on it. The only problem was he hadn’t bowled in years.

  He watched Hunter join Copernicus at the scoring desk, and he wondered how on earth they had ended up in this ridiculous situation. He scanned the faces of the growing crowd. It was unmistakably eerie—apart from minor variations in skin tone, hair, and eye color, all of them looked exactly the same. It made him want to vomit it was so gross, and it pushed the whole idea of equality into the realm of the sublimely absurd.

  At that moment a bowling ball tumbled out of the return chute and dropped onto the carousel. He had never seen anything quite like it before. It was deep blue and gold with streaks of silver running through it, and the odd thing was that the silver streaks seemed to spell out his name.

  He understood that he may have been hallucinating; after all, he was under a tremendous amount of stress. But even if the ball didn’t have his name on it, he still thought it was stunning, and if he had to choose a weapon with which to do battle, then this was it.

  The ball rolled over and stopped directly in front of him. He felt like a young King Arthur being presented with Excalibur and asked to draw it from the stone. He reached out his hand and inserted his thumb and two fingers into the holes to test the grip, and what followed was uncanny. He would never swear to it, but he had the oddest sensation the ball adjusted itself to accommodate the unique span of his hand.

  This truly is an enchanted ball, he thought, and if ever there had been a glimmer of hope shimmering from the dark despair of a lost cause, this must surely be it. He lifted the ball off the carousel and gauged the weight; it was perfect, neither too heavy nor too light. Having never before ventured into the realm of superstition, he found himself a stranger to its charms and comforts, but nevertheless a welcome stranger whose heart had found strength and resolve in the power of belief.

  Stepping up to the lane, he took his opening position, feet together and ball held out in front of him. He gazed intently over the top of it, and an exquisite roar of silence filled his ears as he, the ball, and the pins became one. The transition between concept and conviction is much like safe cracking. Listening to the tumblers fall into place, Steve became convinced that all his senses were aligned and the delivery of the ball was the final twist that would unlock the door to victory.

  He stepped forward, employing the twinned forces of momentum and gravity, as he pushed the ball away from his chest and it dropped, falling gracefully and following a proscribed arc measured by the length of his arm from his shoulder to his fingertips. Swinging his arm up to its zenith behind him, he gently added muscular power, and the duo became a trio playing poetry in motion as the ball traced the same arc in reverse, gathering speed and power.

  His nimble footwork had brought him to the edge of the lane. Planting his toe immaculately a hair’s breadth from the foul line, he locked the musculature of his body solidly into place, giving extra oomph to the ball as it swung forward on the fulcrum of his shoulder joint.

  The last moment was upon him; he crouched to bring the bottom of the ball level with the floor as he released it like a guided missile set to seek and destroy. That was the theory anyway, but it didn’t happen because he couldn’t let go of the ball. Instead, the fabulous amount of momentum he had gathered carried the ball around in a full circle, attached to the end of his arm like a windmill in a gale-force wind.

  The crowd gasped in equal amounts of amazement and horror as Steve was tugged off his feet high into the air, then he soared half the length of the lane before landing with an almighty thump. The bowling ball, still held firmly in his hand, an arm’s length in front of him, dragged him along the remainder of the lane and hit the pins with a resounding crash. The pins leapt up in the air as Steve shot beneath them, but having no further to go, he could only lie there as the pins rained down upon him, pummeling him all over.

  The crowd stood openmouthed, stunned into silence as the lonely ping of the electronic scoring device rang out and proudly displayed a glowing X on the wall above the dazed and confused chump. It was a strike! And quite possibly the first strike any of them had ever seen with so much body behind the ball.

  Steve was a tough cookie, and miraculously his head had been stuffed into the trough behind the pins, and thus had been spared the indignity of a brain-crushing blow. As he stirred, the errant bowling ball released his fingers and rolled away into the return shoot. He dexterously managed to remove himself from the area as the pin-retrieving device descended to search for survivors.

  Shakily, he rose to his feet, thankful for every workout to which he had subjected his body and had endured since he was a teenager. It had been his musculature that had saved him from any major bodily injury, and as he traversed the lane in what he considered to be a walk of shame, he was surprised to hear the crowd burst into spontaneous applause, although he surmised it was no accolade for his prowess.

  ***

  When John had disappeared, protesting an inability to deliver a brainy bowling ball, the kids had been worried. Cal had immediately thought John was annoyed because he was telling him what to do, but that really wasn’t the case. He was just making a suggestion based upon his observations. Perhaps he did have a tendency to appear a whit too bombastic on occasions, but he was a guy, and that’s just the way guys are. He didn’t tiptoe around the edge of a problem and hint at a solution—he grabbed it by the throat and shook the life out of it.

  Well, that was what Kate had told him he did, and that turncoat friend of his, Tex, had agreed with her. This, of course, had enraged him no end, and he’d wondered openly what had happened to the “one for all, and all for one” attitude they had discussed back at the school. That innocent comment hit home and really put the cat among the pigeons, because feathers flew, and tempers flared, and the two of them virtually accused him of destroying it.

  He had never heard anything quite so ludicrous in his life; he wasn’t destroying the camaraderie, they were. Tired of fighting on two fronts at once, he gave up the battlefield and retired to the remote seclusion of his observation point behind the lane. While his onetime friends conspired in whispers a frosty distance away, he licked his wounded pride and ignored them.

  When Steve started bowling, and his arm started spinning like an airplane propeller, he knew something was up and he called Tex and Kate over. They arrived to see Steve sail through the air, crash land on the lane, and skid into the pins. It was a moment of triumph, and they all began jumping up and down elatedly, giving the high-five to one another, and shouting “Strike One.” It was a victorious event that buoyed all their spirits, but Cal’s happiest moment came right after that, when they all fell into a big group hug. He was back in the gang again, and he finally felt vindicated.

  ***

  Copernicus smiled long and hard; this was going to be way easier than he thought. “I dig your friend, man,” he said sarcastically to Hunter. “When he bowls, he rolls, with body and soul.”

  Hunter wasn’t laughing; this whole thing stank of a setup
. What Steve had just done was an absolutely brilliant piece of choreography. It wasn’t bowling in the traditional sense, it was some kind of freeform improvisation with bowling as a theme, and he knew with certainty that Steve could never have come up with that move on his own, not in a million years—he just didn’t have the requisite brainpower. He suspected foul play, and he suspected these pimply Nerds from galaxy geek were behind it. “If you guys are gonna cheat,” he said, “I’m scoring that as a strike.”

  “Cool your jets, man, you’re weighing me down,” Copernicus said. “We dig the rules and we dig ‘em deep. This ain’t no gyp joint, and we ain’t into no bamboozlement.”

  “Well, you sure could’ve fooled me,” Hunter replied. “I think you guys are into winning any way you can! This whole thing’s a sham concocted to assuage your guilt.”

  Copernicus stood up, crossed to the carousel, and cooled his fingers in the air stream. “You ain’t angry at me, man, you’re angry at yourself for falling into our web. You all whine and moan ‘cause you can’t bowl; you should’ve learned when you had the chance.” He selected his ball, a cute black and pink number, turned the finger holes to the top and held his hand poised above it, ready to pick it up.

  “In a fair match I could out bowl you any day, pimple brain,” Hunter said.

  “Well, this is the only shot you got,” Copernicus mocked, and as he spoke the blue and gold ball rolled into the carousel, nudged the ball beneath his fingers out of the way, and changed its color to pink and black. “Dig the roll man; I strike each time, and when I’m through, your ass is mine.” He laughed as he slipped his fingers into the ball and hoisted it up.