The Subatomic Kid (26 page)

It was acutely embarrassing. He had suffered all manner of anxieties in the last few days, but nothing even came close to the self-consciousness he felt from that one surprise kiss. His heart raced, his head spun, his face glowed bright red. Trying to maintain what little dignity he had left, he unbuckled his seat belt, and reached for the door.

“Let’s go,” he said, and inexplicably the words seemed to echo round and round in his head. Stepping out of the car, he felt like he was walking on air; it was extremely difficult not to smile, and he couldn’t focus his concentration. It was as if he had lost himself in a place outside of time. He was gone, and he had no idea for how long until Tex slapped him hard on the cheek, and he came back to reality.

“Why did you have to go and kiss him?” a frowning Tex asked Kate as he struggled to hold John upright.

“It just seemed like a nice thing to do,” she replied blithely. “He’s saved our lives a zillion times.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think he’s ever been kissed like that before,” Cal diagnosed, trying to keep a straight face. “It’s gone straight to his head.”

“You make it sound like he’s drunk,” Kate chided.

“Well, in a way he is,” Tex observed. “He’s drunk on the promise of love. He has no idea what it is, where it comes from, where it leads to, or what the heck to do about it. But he’s drunk on it!”

“Yeah, it’s classic first kiss syndrome for sure,” Cal commented semi-seriously, lifting John’s eyelid back and staring at his eyeball. “The symptoms can linger for days, weeks, or even months. And another thing; kisses may come, and kisses may go, but this one he’ll remember for the rest of his life.”

“I really never knew,” Kate offered, amazed at her own power.

“That’s because you’re the kisser, and not the kissee,” Tex ventured. “And besides, you’ve probably kissed tons of dudes already.”

Kate turned away.
Boys are supposed to be tough
, she thought, so how could a tiny kiss derail them so easily? But she never found time to search within herself for the answer. “Guys, I don’t want to worry you, or rush you, or anything,” she interjected urgently, “but here they come again.” She pointed toward a pair of headlights snaking into the parking lot.

***

Hunter was fired up, wound up, pumped up, and spring-loaded. The surge of adrenaline from the traffic incident had sloshed through his bloodstream and exploded in his brain, and now he was ready to burst at the seams, or squeeze somebody else so tight that they were.

He didn’t like to feel he was being humiliated; he took it personally. He was a consummate professional, and he could not allow himself to be outwitted by a group of pimply, pre-pubescent teenagers who hadn’t even worked out who they were yet.

“Find that damn car,” he fumed as they cruised into the parking lot.

Hunter’s anger had descended like a dark storm cloud filled with unexploded thunder and lightning, and Steve could feel the thick oppressive fog rolling throughout the car in supercharged waves of tension.

Steve was, of course, concerned that Hunter’s ire was aimed squarely at him, but on reflection he concluded he had done his absolute best under extremely complex circumstances, and now that his nerves had calmed down, he looked back upon crossing the highway as a pure stroke of genius. “There it is!” Steve shouted triumphantly as he spotted the kid’s limo and pulled sharply into the parking space beside it.

Hunter was out of the car before Steve had even applied the hand brake, and he was running around trying to peer in through the tinted windows when Steve climbed out and joined him.

“They’re gone,” Hunter said, “not that I expected them to be waiting for us.” He studied the colorful bowling alley; a classic 1950s style building in orange, turquoise and black, nothing really square, everything aerodynamically-shaped and stainless steel everywhere. But as he looked at it, he realized that there was something odd about it, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

It was 50s all right, but all of the 50s buildings he had ever seen looked kind of shoddy and run down. This one almost looked new. Looking more closely, he observed strange symbols pressed into the steel panels, symbols he’d never seen before. He imagined it must be a new franchise some corporation was trying out, and the symbols were probably their logo.

Steve had been observing the place too, but he was looking at the parking lot and wondering about the strangely designed cars that filled it. “What is this place?” he asked.

“It’s a new chain of bowling alleys,” Hunter said with authority. “They’re always trying to revive the past, dress it up, and make it look like the future.”

“But what’s with these cars?” Steve asked.

Hunter scanned the parking lot. At first glance he thought he saw a variety of vintage cars from a bygone American era. But on closer examination they all seemed new, and their designs were even wilder and more stylized than the models he could remember from his youth.

“How should I know?” he asked irritably. He was used to accurately sizing up a situation in seconds. “I don’t know anything about cars, but I do know a little about buildings, and I would say those kids have gone and cornered themselves for us. So let’s go and pick ‘em up.”

As Hunter walked briskly toward the bowling alley, Steve took one last glance around the parking lot, shrugged his shoulders at the mystery, and took off after him.

***

Once inside, John, Kate, Cal, and Tex found themselves standing behind a team of

bowlers crowded around the front desk. On the back of each bowler’s shirt was a strange word. Tex stared at it, trying vainly to decipher the meaning. “Hey, what’s fuma?” he finally asked.

“He’s one of the big scientists from the past,” Cal continued, savoring his tutorial role. “He watched an apple fall from a tree and discovered gravity.”

“So, why would bowlers use a scientific equation?” John asked.

“Because it predicts what happens when moving things hit other things, like bowling balls and pins,” Cal said with authority. “They’re a team, it’s just their logo.”

‘This is a weird place,” Tex declared, miffed that he hadn’t caught on. “Who would put that on the back of a shirt? It’s so friggin’ obscure.”

The four of them wandered unseen past the crowded desk, and like tourists in a foreign country, they couldn’t help but take note of everything. “Look at this floor,” Kate remarked, “It’s like we’re out in space.”

“Yeah! And it’s moving,” Tex marveled. The floor was totally flat, but captured within it was a whole universe of planets and galaxies in the most realistic 3D any of them had ever seen. It was eerie; everything moved almost imperceptibly against everything else. If they stared at it for too long, it made them feel like they were falling over.

“This is definitely very odd,” John remarked. “Look at the pictures!” Prominently displayed on the walls were wildly colorful portraits of scientists.

“Hugh Everett,” Kate read from a plaque beneath the picture, “Originator of the Many-Worlds Theory.” Tex and John looked confusedly at one another and shrugged.

Cal took off a few steps ahead of them, and when he reached a corner, he stopped dead until they caught up with him and peered over his shoulder. “It’s like the bar scene from Star Wars,” he whispered, “only with Nerds.”

A sign on the wall advertised the Dark Matter Soda Fountain. If the kids hadn’t known better, they would have claimed it was a fancy dress party where all of the participants were competing to be the nerdiest.

“What the heck is this music?” Kate asked. It sounded strangely like beat poetry scatted over wildly improvised jazz riffs, or more accurately like a bunch of cats sitting on a garden wall and howling in the middle of the night to the beat of falling trash cans.

A few patrons of the bar turned and glanced in their direction, but John had seen enough. He gently eased his friends back from the corner. “Look, we can’t hang out here,” he said, “we stick out like—”

“Elephants at a petting zoo,” Tex volunteered.

“Yeah,” John agreed. “We’re in the wrong place. We have to get out before those goons arrive, or we’ll be trapped.” His anxiety was infectious, and they all turned as one and headed back toward the door. It was too late; at that very same moment the door opened and Hunter stepped inside.

“Gee, thanks for the compliment,” Tex grinned and steered them toward the back of the bowling alley. Moments later they were lost, adrift in a sea of Nerds.

***

Hunter saw the kids as soon as he opened the door, and like an attack dog he rushed inside, but the desk clerk yanked his leash and reined him in.

“Can I help you, sir?” he demanded with authority.

Hunter turned and stared at him; with his thick black-rimmed glasses and slicked-back hair, he looked like Buddy Holly, the 50s rock and roll star. “No,” Hunter answered, turning to walk away.

“I don’t believe you heard me,” the desk clerk continued, leaning over and stretching his arm out, barring Hunter’s way. “I said, can I help you?”

Hunter watched the kids disappear into the crowd, and he turned back to the annoying man. “And I said no, bird brain.”

If there ever was a chance of slipping past the desk clerk into the bowling alley, it was now lost in his unfortunate turn of phrase. The clerk grabbed a sign from the other side of the counter, stood it in front of Hunter, tapped it lightly with his finger, and smiled wickedly.

As Hunter and the desk clerk stared each other down like gunfighters, Steve stepped up and read the sign, “League night, everybody must be in a team, every team must have a lane. By order, BLACK CRYSTAL BOWL management.”

“I’m sorry,” Hunter apologized, “it must have slipped my mind. Please give us a lane.” He didn’t want any problems with this guy or his establishment; he just wanted to get inside, and if bowling was the price, then so be it.

THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE