“Uh, Jack?” mumbled Ben. “Maybe…maybe he’s sleeping. Why don’t we come back later?”
“You don’t believe me either, do you?”
“No, no, no,” Ben placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. “It’s not that at all, really. I want to believe you, I do. If there’s anyone in this world who should believe you, it’s me. But last night your mother said some things that got to me. She made me realize maybe I’ve been doing more harm than good to this family. I’ve been selfishly pursuing my dream and it might be hurting you the most.”
“Dad, I’m fine, honestly. Yeah, I can’t stand you being away, and losing our house sucks. But that doesn’t mean I’m losing it.”
“Now, Jack,” Ben lowered his voice. “Nobody says you’re losing it.”
“Mr. James, if you mean that, then show your son you can give him the benefit of the doubt. Look at this,” Amelia pointed at Takota.
Ben glanced down, giving him a brief onceover. “Well, okay. That’s it, then. It’s a teddy bear. Realistic, but fake for sure.”
“Dad, you didn’t even look at him,” Jack protested.
“Of course I did.”
Amelia insisted with a glare. “Just look at him.”
Ben breathed deep, put on a pair of narrow glasses he acquired from his shirt pocket, and performed a head-to-toe examination. When finished, he focused into infinity. Takota was positive he hadn’t given Ben the eyecatcher, yet it sure seemed he’d been hypnotized by something.
“Dad,” Jack shook his father’s arm. “Dad, what’s wrong?”
“Mr. James, are you all right?” Amelia rushed to his side.
“This is incredible,” Ben muttered. “This is…”
“This is it,” interrupted a young clerk, his wiry red hair fighting to break out from under a green Winmart visor. Behind him were two people, a man and a woman, both in short sleeve shirts and faded blue jeans.
“Tim, what are you doing?” Jack cried. The redhead snatched Takota away from Ben and placed him in the woman’s waiting arms.
“My job, that’s what,” Tim stuck up his nose. He had so many freckles they’d merged into one large splotch. “We finally found the actual owners of this teddy bear,” he asked the woman. “That’s the one, right?”
Takota felt a sense of revulsion as she rotated him over and over, casting a scrutinizing eye on his every feature.
“Sure looks the same,” she said. “Little Charlie’s gonna just freak when he sees we found his precious comfy wumfy. That’s what he calls it, you know, his comfy wumfy.”
“Yes, yes,” her alleged husband hinted toward the exit. “That’s nice, dear. Now let’s go. We don’t want to make Charlie wait any longer, do we?”
“I don’t understand,” Jack moaned. “Where did these people come from? How did they find out about the Tanak—I mean the teddy bear in the first place?”
“This,” Tim handed him a sheet of paper. Takota didn’t know what it was, but he saw it displayed a prominent image of, of him!
“What! Who did this!” Jack demanded.
“I did,” Dillon stepped to the Lost and Found counter. “That thing isn’t yours, Jack. It belongs to someone else.”
Jack scowled. “Dillon! You have no idea what you’ve done!”
“Calm down, son. It’s okay,” Ben tried to hold Jack’s shoulders.
“No, it’s not okay,” the boy writhed free. “Tim, you can’t just let these people take it without at least asking them some questions first!”
“Watch me,” Tim seemed unmoved. “Now, ma’am. Would you like a bag for the bear?”
“That would be great, thank you,” the woman smiled.
“Here you go,” he gave her a large, brown paper sack with the word, Winmart, printed in black on the side.
“Wait,” Jack begged. “This Charlie of yours. How old is he?”
“Five,” blurted the woman.
“Six,” stated the man at the same time.
The two turned to each other, smiling nervously.
“He’s five and a half,” the man clarified with a chuckle. “Almost six.”
“Okay,” Jack sounded unimpressed. “When did Charlie get the teddy bear?”
“Christmas,” the woman said.
“His birthday,” the man once again contradicted his ‘wife.’ She glared at him.
He laughed. “His birthday is so close to Christmas I get them mixed up sometimes.”
“Yeah? Well, what’s his birthday, then?” Amelia asked.
“All right, all right,” Tim broke it up. “That’s enough, you guys.”
Dillon jeered. “Give it up, Jack. And what’s your loser dad doin’ here, anyway? Isn’t he, like, banned from town or something? If not he should be. So should you. Just grow up and give it up.”
The last thing Takota saw before being thrust into the paper bag was Jack, Ben and their deflated expressions. Then everything went dark. Every instinct inside him screamed to fight his way out of the sack. He pushed them back. Too many witnesses. Too much risk. He knew he had the ability to escape at any time. Meanwhile, he hoped nobody did anything stupid and tried to pull off some sort of wild rescue attempt. That, he thought, would have been a disaster.
NINETEEN
“DAD! WE CAN’T JUST let them go!” Jack wailed. “Can’t you see that’s a real animal! It doesn’t belong to those people. They’re gonna do something bad to him, I know it!”
“It is…strange,” Ben felt his pulse beginning to surge. “Can it be?”
“There!” Amelia pointed up.
At first glance, Ben didn’t see them, or they didn’t register in his mind. It took a willingness to let go, to embrace his lost, childhood imagination, then he caught a quick glimpse of the small animals. Four of them, moving along the rafters. They were fast, yet he recognized they were similar to the one his son had just shown him.
“Duck Soup!” he let loose on impulse.
“It’s them!” Jack shouted. “His friends! They’re trying to help him, just like before! Dad? Do you believe me now?”
“Jack. I-I,” Ben stammered. “I should’ve known better. Listen, you’re right, Son. I’ve got a bad feeling about those people. We can’t let them take that…”
“Tanakee,” Jack finished for him.
“Tanakee. Right.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Amelia picked up one of the paper Winmart bags, then found an old, shabby stuffed monkey from the Lost and Found. “We’ll pull the ole’ switcheroo. I just need some sort of distraction.”
“Bingo!” Ben reached into his coat pocket and produced the O/A. Jack and Amelia were both wide-eyed. Inside its transparent, violet shell, endless amounts of geometric structures spun and changed shape, color, texture, size. “Perfect time for a field test!”
“Uncanny!” Amelia remained fixed on the device, curved and molded to fit Ben’s hand.
“Uh, Dad? You sure it’s gonna work?”
“No time for debates, son,” he held his palm over the machine and pressed once. A low, resonant thump reverberated from somewhere in the core of the earth, followed by another, then another, each time becoming a little more powerful, a little louder, repeating faster and faster.
Whump! Whump! Whump! Whumpwhumpwhumpwhump!
“Gravitomiton powering up!”
He pressed and held. The thumping noise gave way to a succession of melodic notes arraigned in intricate chords, creating tunes never before heard by humans. The concrete floor became an angry, undulating sea. Strong winds made the walls sway, supported only by a thin, membranous outer shell. The veil of reality itself became the unreal.
Chaos broke out. One woman dropped a packet of eggs and slipped, forcing her cart into another man’s legs, which caused him to drop a plastic milk jug. It exploded on impact, spewing a white river across the dairy aisle. Another woman grabbed her two small children—one in each arm—and dashed, shrieking, to some unknown destination. An old, overweight man on a motorized scooter sped past calling ou
t, “Henrietta! Henrietta!” Three teenagers held each other up while filling their coat pockets with candy and chips packages tossed to the floor in the mayhem. The store employees also struggled for their lives, dodging errant boxes of saltines and packaged doughnuts and other sundry items which had taken to the air.
“Whoa, Nellie!” Ben wrestled to keep the device pointed away from innocent people. Pulses of light and energy streamed from the space-age tool like blasts of molten metal, drowning out everything in the material world, fluctuating faster and faster, flowing into infinity.
Ben studied the mystical maelstrom, not caring about the possible damage to his retinas. He had to witness the next phase of the omnidimensional process. He held his breath when he saw himself staring back. Then he cringed and the other Ben also cringed. At first it had the characteristics of a normal reflection, then, when it rippled past and he saw another copy of himself in another distorted envelope of time and space, he knew what it was.
He let his lungs relax and laughed. The dazzled clerks and customers gawked in a stupor. Even the man and woman trying to get away with Takota stopped and glazed over.
“Amelia, you ready?” Jack seemed to break her from the O/A’s spell.
“Yeah. Of course,” she breathed hard.
“They’re not paying attention, let’s go!”
As the people stealing Takota were transfixed on the supernatural show, the kids slithered close to them. The man shuddered, coming to his senses in time to spot Jack. He tightened his grip on the bag, clasping it to his chest. Then he took his supposed wife’s hand and led her to the door.
Ben felt the O/A buckle. He also got another strange sense. It seemed he could hear and see better than ever, zooming in like a camera and a directional microphone on the kids as they sprinted to save their little friend. His machine was giving him the power of second sight. There seemed no other explanation for it.
Amelia squeezed Jack’s hand. “What are we gonna do?”
She then seemed to notice movement beside her, a pair of deep blue eyes watching from behind the wheel of a shopping cart. Sneaking under a rack of hot dog buns, the silver and black striped Tanakee smiled at her curiously. Amelia returned the gesture.
Ben saw the wonder in Amelia’s face. Not only that, and quite remarkably, he sensed her thoughts. She was struggling inside, and might not have believed what she was seeing. But Jack had already explained about the other creatures, and deep down she had a feeling, a persistent voice telling her what he said was true. It ran deeper than just an idea, though. Ben knew somehow she felt a connection. She felt she was meant to be with Jack and Ben at that moment, partnering with those amazing little beings and helping to save the one Jack called Takota. When she made eye contact with the striped Tanakee, their link became solid.
“Gimme that,” Jack took the paper bag from her.
“No, wait,” she snatched it back. “We’ve got a plan.”
“Who’s got a plan?”
“Watch and learn,” she told him.
A tremendous tremor nearly knocked the kids off their feet. Ben kept upright, leaning into the wind, holding his machine while listening in on Jack and Amelia’s conversation with his newly heightened senses.
“Okay, but hurry. They’re getting away, and my dad’s machine’s melting down!”
The Tanakee sprang from its hiding place, closely followed by another. Then, from the other side of the doorway, came two more, closing in on the people running away with Takota. The creatures moved not only with lightning speed, but also with some sort of ability to vanish fleetingly and then reappear somewhere else. Part of it was awe inspiring, the sheer effortlessness, the agility, the quickness. On the other hand, they seemed a little comical. Magical whack-a-moles, popping in and out of sight. And Ben got the feeling they weren’t in complete command of it, either.
Finally the animals caught up to the man and woman as they triggered the automatic doors. Two of the creatures slid under their legs while the other two leapt, flipped and spun in tandem, delivering a pair of blows which sent both people tumbling to the floor.
Amelia became the good-natured bystander, just lending a hand.
“Oh, my. Is everything okay?” she helped the woman to her feet.
“Yes, yes. We’re fine,” the man sat up and dusted off his shoulders. “We just—hey! My bag! Where’s my bag!”
“Relax, sir, relax,” Amelia held up a paper Winmart sack. “It’s right here.”
Promptly the man seized his prize and the floor shook again, accompanied by a thunderous rumble.
“That guy should be put in an institution,” he pointed at Ben. Then the man tucked the bag under his arm and he and his fake wife ran out the door.
Ben laughed at that. He thought he had a handle on things. The O/A, in its new handheld design, operated beyond expectations so far. He’d set the machine on the lowest possible level, not wanting to create a wormhole to an alternate universe or travel in time. Those types of mundane ideas represented the previous paradigm, the old way of understanding everything that exists everywhere always.
Honestly, he had no way to explain the exact genesis of his technology. It just came to him in dreams and visions. With each new subconscious message came a new piece of the puzzle. Over time, he’d learned to create what he called, Quantum Foam, a special substrate which allowed the technology to incubate into a high-level biological system. He recognized nature had a secret, allowing it to fashion structures much more complex than humans could ever conceive of, so he nurtured the technology along as if cultivating the world’s most exotic flower.
Maybe the device was alive, he wasn’t sure. The first time he powered it on, he’d gotten a taste of its vitality, and was shown a glimpse of the hidden superstructure of all that is. That’s when he’d discovered omnidimensional power absorption, and knew his invention would alter the course of humankind forever.
All he wanted to do now, though, was give the people in Winmart a glimpse of its capabilities. Maybe then they would understand that, with the Omega/Alpha, they were all on the frontier of something truly revolutionary.
To his delight and admitted amazement, it worked, albeit for a few moments. Everyone in the store was captivated by what they saw. The O/A whistled, chirped and sparkled. The walls liquefied, rolling and rippling with a mirrored sheen. It spread and replaced the floor and ceiling, reproducing the contents of the building in countless, life-sized replicas, an interdimensional concert of sight and sound. Yet the glorious display came at a price. Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Ben’s mind became a tempest, seething and storming with a flood of endless concepts, raw emotions, decisions made and unmade, possibilities explored and unexplored. It was proof of what he called the hyperconsciousness, a higher plane where all thought existed. But it came at him in such overpowering numbers, he found it impossible even to contemplate, let alone control. Spasms in his gut made him bend and dry heave. It all hit him so fast. Too fast.
“Dimensional overload!” he shouted. “Everybody get back!”
No use.
The machine seemed stuck in a feedback loop. No time to try and figure out the cause or do anything about it. All he knew was he needed to shield everyone from whatever might emerge from the O/A. He placed it on the floor and dropped on top of it, expecting an explosion to rip him apart at any second.
Instead of being blown to bits, he experienced the oddest feeling. Each of his dimensional duplicates passed through him on their way back to their own realms, infusing him with pure, raw power.
The energy he received was overwhelming. Good thing he was already on his chest, otherwise the outpouring would have knocked him flat. In a flash, though, the sensation subsided, leaving his legs and arms rubbery. The wind died to nothing and the store stopped shaking. He thought about what he’d just done. Thrilled, he needed to tell someone about his biggest breakthrough yet.
“Jack! Jack! Did you see that?” he struggled to h
is feet and dodged a muddle of upended carts and strewn canned goods on the way to his son, ignoring the ashen faces. “The omnidimensional field! I felt it!”
Jack didn’t answer. He seemed too concerned about the success of their mission to think of anything else.
“Did you get Takota?” he asked Amelia.
“I-I don’t know,” she stuttered, weighing the bag in her hand. It didn’t seem right to Ben.
“Open it, let’s see.”
She unfolded the paper to reveal the contents of the grocery sack.
Empty.
Ben suddenly deflated.
“WHAT IN THE BLAZES is going on around here!” Al sprang from his upstairs manager’s office. “Who did this to my store!”
“HE did!” Dillon unearthed himself from a small mountain of cheese puffs packages. “Ben James, the whacked-out scientist!”
“I should have known,” Al hurried down the stairs. “Ben James, we’ve all heard about what you did to the high school. Now you’re trying to blow up my store, too?”
Nervous giggles filtered among the customers and employees. Al, though, wasn’t laughing.
“Look at this place!” he steamed. “Who’s gonna pay for this!”
“Just relax,” Ben’s words only seemed to fuel Al’s rage.
“Don’t tell me to relax!”
“Uhhh, dude!” Tim stumbled through some errant shopping carts. “What happened?”
“Ben James happened,” Dillon answered. “He almost got us all killed with his crazy gadget.”
“Oh, Dillon! My boy! Are you okay? Is anything broken?” Roberta sprinted to her son, crouching to inspect every bone in his body.
Liz rushed behind Roberta, fuming at Ben, unrelenting resolve in her sultry glare. His wife’s fury made her even more attractive to him, if that was possible.
“You two wanna tell me just what the heck is going on?”
He flashed a cheesy grin. “Liz! Great news! Did you see?”
“Yeah, I saw,” she growled. “I saw you almost destroy this place. Do you even realize how much danger you just put everyone in?”
Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear Page 14
