“Yeah, I hope so,” John whispered cryptically. He was thinking about what the Master of the Perfect Word had said…it was important that the agents escape from the bowling alley also. But what could he do? He’d tried to help them out as much as he could; he just hoped it had been enough. “Let’s get the car,” he said, and Kate, Cal, and Tex fell in behind him.
John had a queasy feeling in his stomach because he was going to have to tell his friends their hopes of going home were now dashed completely—and probably for good. It wasn’t enough that he’d dragged them away from their families and into captivity, now he’d dragged them clear into another world and there was no way back.
“You know what I’m looking forward to?” Cal asked.
“No! What are you looking forward to?” Tex wondered.
“My bed,” Cal replied. “There’s nothing like your own bed. It’s full of old dreams, and maybe one or two nightmares. But that’s okay; they too were good dreams until they suddenly went bad.”
“That sounds like Little Nemo,” Kate said laughing.
“Who is Little Nemo?” Cal asked.
“He’s this little kid, who goes off into Dreamland every night, and Dreamland is populated by an extremely strange cast of characters. In each adventure he normally has to help someone out, like the King of Dreamland, for instance, and then in the end, when things start going bad as they always do, he wakes up in his bed,” Kate related.
“Where is this kid?” Cal asked.
“He’s not real,” Kate said, “he’s from a comic book.”
“Well, why am I like him?”
“Just from your comment about the bed, and dreams that turn around. Little Nemo used to take his bed with him to Dreamland; he used to fly around in it,” Kate added.
“Well, I don’t fly around in my bed; I sleep in it, and I’m looking forward to sleeping in it real soon,” Cal said with a touch of sarcasm.
“Well, you asked. Don’t get grumpy with me because you’re tired,” Kate complained.
“I’m not tired! Who said I was tired?”
“Well, you are the one who’s talking about going to bed,” Tex pointed out.
“Yeah, if you talk about going to bed it normally means you’re tired,” John added. “That’s just plain psychology.”
“I don’t believe you guys, I only mentioned my bed because I can’t sleep in the garden,” Cal groaned. “Forget I said anything. Forget the whole thing.”
Cal ripped the door open and leaped into the back of the limo.
“He’s touchy,” Tex said.
“We’re all touchy,” John replied.
“We are going home now, aren’t we?” Kate asked. John was considering giving them the bad news when events suddenly took a course of their own as Cal jumped back out of the limo holding a gun in his hand.
“Cal, don’t be foolish. What are you doing with that?” Tex asked.
“Something I always wanted to do,” Cal proclaimed, taking a step toward them.
“Look, put the gun down,” John insisted. “Guns aren’t toys.” The three of them backed away from Cal, who had a dangerous glint in his eye.
“Don’t try to stop me,” he said decisively, “I’ve made up my mind.” They watched him move around the back of the limo.
“Whatever it is we can talk about it,” Kate pleaded.
“The time for talking is over; it’s time for action now.” With those words hanging in the air he turned around, aimed the gun at the rear wheel of Hunter’s limo and fired, blowing out the tire. “That’s better,” he said, turning back to them and smiling.
“You chump—you really had me going! I thought you were going to do something stupid,” Tex said. “But this. . .this is clever! Let me try.” Cal handed him the revolver and Tex took aim at the other wheel. He fired, and the whole rear end of the limo slumped closer to the ground.
While John watched the events taking a completely impromptu turn, Kate jumped up and down, clapping her hands. “I’ve always wanted to do that…may I?”
“Sure,” Tex said, handing her the gun. She took careful aim at the front wheel and squealed as she fired into the tire, blasting it out.
“That was the best,” she said, smiling broadly.
They all turned to John, who was wondering how destroying tires fulfilled his promise to help the two secret agents chasing them to escape. Life is filled with strange changes and adversities, he thought. The agents were just going to have to deal with it. Nobody gets a free ride.
“Go on, try it; it’s good therapy,” Cal urged.
“What the hell!” John exclaimed, taking the gun from Kate’s hand. He took aim at the last inflated tire on the car, and as he squeezed the trigger he made the fatal mistake of turning his head away. The gun exploded, and the bullet missed its mark and began ricocheting around the wheel arch, off the tarmac, and into the underside of the car.
“He missed! He missed!” Cal screamed, and he ran around the parking lot laughing like a maniac.
“Hah, hah, hah,” John shouted after him, “you crackpot!”
“Pay no attention to him,” Tex said. “He’s losing his marbles.”
“Try again,” suggested Kate, “it’s better when you hit it.” John gave her a quick glance with the evil eye.
“What?” she asked innocently.
“Are you sure you don’t want to dance around the parking lot laughing?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s okay,” she answered. “I’m laughing on the inside.” John shook his head, aimed, pulled the trigger and blew the last tire out.
“I know, it’s like being on tour with a bunch of comedians,” Tex laughed, taking the gun from John’s hand. “But look on the bright side—we’re really nice people.” Kate nodded in agreement as Cal rejoined them, still laughing.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Cal said with a titter. “I feel very lightheaded—I must be hungry.”
Tex ripped a flier off the car, which had been stuck under a windshield wiper. “Here, eat this,” he said seriously, handing it to Cal.
“Gee, thanks, you’re so generous,” Cal mocked. “What’s for dessert?”
“Us getting out of here,” John declared, and they all clambered back inside the limo.
***
In one short sniff Hunter had inhaled a dizzying amount of a smell he could only describe as an olfactory cocktail of dirty old socks filled with ripe Gorgonzola cheese. It was his own fault—he had been warned—but human nature is such that we rarely believe what we’re told until having tried it ourselves, and Hunter was no stranger to the predilection.
The description of the smell was one thing, but the power of the smell was quite another. Hunter figured they must be surrounded by at least a hundred Nerds, and they were all blasting the same deadly gas at him. It was a tremendous accolade to his constitution, and a testament to his martial arts training, that he didn’t collapse immediately.
Among the various techniques he’d learned while studying with an assortment of Grand Masters was “Diving for Pearls of Wisdom.” It entailed holding one’s breath for inordinately long periods of time while divining the visions born of oxygen deprivation for deep meanings. It was literally like diving without an ocean, and it taught him to hold his breath for many minutes on end.
By swiftly employing this technique, he managed to stem the flow of deadly gas to his brain and recollect his senses. The Nerds were almost on top of them, and if he allowed them to gain the upper hand, both he and Steve would most certainly succumb to the noxious substance they emitted so freely from their armpits.
“What are we gonna do?” Steve shouted, pinching his nose so tightly he sounded like a cartoon character.
“You tried to cheat us, man,” Copernicus said venomously.
“It’s the end of the road for you,” Aristotle taunted. “You’re gonna be breaking rocks in the hot sun for the rest of your lives.”
“Shall I shoot him?” Steve asked.
“No,” Hunter answered, letting out a tiny amount of the precious breath he was holding. He spun around to face them. He was in an extremely bad mood. Because of this nonsense the kids had eluded him once again. His anger whirled around inside him like a tornado, and blind rage emitted from his eyes like death rays. “I’ve had it with you two,” he growled.
He didn’t believe in shooting unarmed men; having a conscience was bad enough, he didn’t need to overburden it with senseless acts of violence that would plague him to the grave. However, teaching someone an invaluable lesson using an iron fist was an important part of his warrior code.
Striking like lightning, he was suddenly beside Copernicus, grasping his hand and pulling it straight down to the floor, destroying the Nerd’s balance. At almost the same time, he swung his leg at the back of Copernicus’ knees, ripping his feet out from under him and dropping him like a fly.
Leaving him to fight with the floor, Hunter delivered a mean backward elbow blow to Aristotle’s throat, swung his knee around and sank it deep into his stomach, and sent him sprawling to the floor with a tap of his gun butt on the back his head.
It was over in seconds, and as the two groveled on the floor in obvious pain, Hunter turned in a circle and went eye to eye with every person in the crowd surrounding them. They had not seen fighting like this before; they allowed no violence in their society for the obvious reason that doing harm to anyone would be like hurting themselves. They saved all their hatred and derision for Off-Worlders, beings they could persecute, beings who could never compete with them, because no matter how hard they tried, Off-Worlders could never look the same as the Nerds.
Through some strange sleight of hand, Hunter had also managed to contort his face into a horrific mask of anger. It was a face that said: “If you mess with me I’ll tear you apart limb by limb.” The crowd of Nerds, who saw Aristotle and Copernicus moaning on the floor, had no doubts it was true. They began to back off, realizing that Hunter and Steve would escape for now, but the cruel and obvious truth was they had nowhere to hide; they were doomed.
“Let’s get out of here,” Hunter wheezed; his fight with Copernicus and Aristotle had consumed precious oxygen. The crowd parted to let them pass, and they ran out of the bowling alley and into the parking lot just in time to see the kid’s limo pulling away.
Chapter 28
DECAY
It was an hour before dawn, the dark time of night that gives birth to the day. The limo crawled along a deserted road, its headlights blasting into the darkness, but there was precious little to see other than the ghostly shape of ruined buildings on either side of the road. The kids were tired and hungry and looking forward to going home, but the deeper they drove into this desolate landscape, the more remote that chance seemed.
“Where’s the mall?” Kate asked mournfully. “Where are the shops? What’s happened to the real world?”
“It’s creepy,” Tex declared. “I don’t remember ever seeing this place before.”
“It looks like a bomb went off here,” Cal pointed out. “Could that have happened while we were in that bowling alley?”
“No,” Kate said, trying to reassure them. “We must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere, ‘cause this ain’t the town we live in.”
“You’re right,” John remarked, “it’s not.”
“What do you mean?” Cal asked worriedly. “Are we in another town?”
“No,” John said evenly, “it’s worse than that. A lot worse.” The three of them racked their brains trying to imagine a predicament worse than the one they were in.
“I give up,” Tex sighed. “How could things possibly degenerate any further?”
“We’re in a different world,” John said in a resigned tone, “a completely different world from the one we started out in.”
Kate, Cal, and Tex thought about it for a moment, and then they began to laugh; it was the most preposterous thing they had ever heard.
“You should leave the jokes to professionals, son,” Cal mocked. “They’re too tough for you to handle.”
“It was a good try though,” Tex added. “But you picked something way too ridiculous to believe.”
“Even still, you made us laugh,” Kate pointed out sensibly, “so it wasn’t a complete failure.”
“It’s not a joke,” John answered dramatically, “it’s true!”
“Okay,” Tex placated, “I’ll play along. How did we get here then?”
“When we crossed the freeway to the bowling alley,” John replied. “It wasn’t a real freeway; it was a border between worlds.”
Kate suddenly remembered the feeling she’d had when they crossed the freeway. It had all been too easy, as if some unseen hand were at work. “Ohmigod, he’s not joking!” she said hysterically. “He’s not joking!”
Cal and Tex were confused; the only memory they had of crossing the freeway was a sense of relief. “Now they’re both in on it,” Cal joked. “They’re trying to top our Manly Suspenders routine.”
“Yeah, but when you think about it, it does answer a lot of questions,” Tex pointed out. “It was weird in that bowling alley, and those people were—”
“Stinky, very stinky,” Cal added, turning up his nose.
“Well, that too,” Tex continued, “but they were otherworldly, and so was the place.”
“I knew when we crossed that freeway something was up,” Kate offered, “It was just too easy.”
“You mean this really isn’t a joke?” Cal questioned.
“No,” John reiterated, “it is most definitely not a joke.”
“Then all we have to do is find the freeway and go back across it, right?” Tex said plaintively.
“It probably wouldn’t be there,” John said. “And even if it was, we’d have no idea what world it would lead us to.”
“Well, just how many worlds are there?” Kate asked sensibly.
“An infinite amount, I imagine,” John answered seriously.
“But we can get back, can’t we?” asked Tex anxiously. The silence that followed told them more than words ever could. They were totally and completely lost, in an alien world, with no home to go to.
“Please say we can,” Cal said, hopefully.
“The truth is, I don’t know!” John whispered.
“Well, can I inquire just when you may know?” Kate asked, trying to keep the edge out of her voice. “Because this is kind of super-duper important.” She was really angry, but she wasn’t quite sure where to direct her rage.
“Now, come on, he admitted he doesn’t know,” Tex reassured. “There is some hope in that.”
“Gee, you really can grasp at straws,” Cal said ironically. “We’re in a whole other world, with those spindly putrid Nerds! And this devastation!” He motioned at the crumbling architecture surrounding them.
The sun was on its way up, and a faint streak of red splashed over the horizon, which served to make everything gloomier and full of doom.
“It’s going to be impossible to survive,” Kate sobbed, “and I won’t have any girlfriends, and you idiots will drive me insane.”
“Well, we could dress up,” Cal said seriously, trying to hide his wit, “and pretend to be girls.”
“You see what I mean?” she said, exasperated. “You’re making me nuts already; and besides, we don’t have any clothes, and even if we did there’s no frigging mall here, and even if there was we don’t have any money!” She had spiraled up to a hysterical high that was going to be hard to bring her down from.
“Listen, I’ll find a way out of here,” John said with determination. “I haven’t let you down yet, and I don’t intend to start now.”
Kate suddenly felt very guilty; she had done the worst thing she could do. She had acted like a spoiled child, giving in to her own emotional needs and desires, and ignoring everyone else’s.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes, “I lost it! I realize we can only get through this together. It was the sho
ck of it all, I suppose.” Tex and Cal smiled at her, and then both of them jumped up, leaned over the seat and tried to hug her.
“Get off me, you buffoons,” she protested through laughter and sniffles. “I’m not dying, I’m just cracking up a little.”
“We were just feeling your pain,” Cal said, flopping back into his seat.
“Yeah, well just sit there and feel your own; mine’s a little too sensitive right now,” she declared.
“What I don’t understand,” Tex said, sitting back down beside Cal, “is how those two goons followed us into this crackpot world!”
“Well, they chased us across the freeway,” Cal pointed out.
“Yeah, but why should they be able to cross?” Tex asked.
“I can only think that it’s me,” John interjected. “Since my accident I’m sure my atomic signature is flashing out like a beacon across time and space, and it’s attracting the attention of every parallel world in existence. Those guys were just following us, and now they’re trapped too.”
“Why do you assume it’s you?” Kate asked reasonably. “Just look at how many people mysteriously disappear all over the world, never to be seen again!”
“It’s too complicated,” Cal said. “You’d have to be a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Einstein to work this problem out.”
“Well, just how are we going to work it out?” Tex asked.
“I don’t know,” John replied, “but it’s pointless to keep driving, ‘cause there’s nowhere to go, and this looks like as good a place as any to think about it.”
The Subatomic Kid Page 25