Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear (15 page)

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 out, “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 his 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?”

“He doesn’t care!” someone yelled.

“The man should be locked up!” called out someone else.

“Yeah, and throw away the key!” yet a third proclaimed.

“But, but you don’t understand,” Ben tried to reason. “This technology isn’t dangerous at all. It’s perfectly safe, just not completely stable yet.”

“Not stable? Is that what you call it?” Al pointed at a fracture in the concrete floor. It serpentined across the entryway and stopped at the wall. “It looks like you planted a bomb at the end of aisle eight.”

“A bomb!” several people screamed at the same time. “Call the police!”

“Already on their way,” Al placed his hands on his hips. “This man is a danger to society! He
must
be locked up for his own good, for everybody’s good!”

“Mr. Petersen, you don’t understand,” Jack intervened. “My dad was just helping me. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. He was just creating a distraction for me.”

“No, Jack!” Amelia pinched his upper arm. “Don’t!”

“Son,” Ben frowned. “Don’t say anything.”

“No, I’ve got to tell them the truth.”

“Jack, what are you talking about?” Liz gritted her teeth.

“I’m talking about that animal. I couldn’t just stand by and let those people take it, so I tried to get it back, and Dad helped me. Mom, it’s not a teddy bear. It’s real!”

Gasps, murmurs.

“What kind of crazy gene is running through that family? He thinks a stuffed doll is a real, live animal,” Dillon incited pockets of anxious laughter.

“Hold on, son,” Roberta turned to Liz. “Are you saying all of this was because of that ratty old teddy bear I told you to put in the Lost and Found?”

“Yeah. Some people came in to claim it and Jack stole it from them,” interrupted Dillon.

“You have an explanation for this, Liz?” Roberta squinted quizzically.

“Ben, how could you?” Liz fumed. “You promised me you wouldn’t do this.”

With a heavy sigh and a lump in his throat, Ben nodded at his son. Then he approached his wife.

“Liz, listen,” he held her elbows. “I know it sounds incredible, but Jack might be right.”

“No,” she pulled away. “I won’t listen to this.”

“What’s he saying, Liz?” Roberta held her son close, a protective mother hen.

“They’re batty, Mom,” Dillon glared at Jack. “Jack, his weirdo friend, and his nutbar dad. They all think that teddy bear’s real.”

“It
is
real, and you know it. Don’t you Dillon?” Jack stepped toward the boy. “It scares the crap out of you, doesn’t it? That’s why you put up that Lost and Found poster. You just wanted to get rid of it, didn’t you?”

“It’s called denial!” a short, portly man wearing filthy and frayed chest waders peered at the group, settling on Dillon. “That’s what people do when they’re confronted with the unknown. They ridicule. They dismiss. They deny it exists and then try to make anyone who believes into a kook, an outcast, a dreg of society!”

Dillon backed up and sneered. “Captain Kimbo? Get away, you smell! Besides, nobody cares about you and Queenie, that stupid river dragon myth!”

The captain pointed a chapped, weathered finger at the boy and wiggled his thick mustache. “See what I mean? That’s what happens when people don’t open their minds to the unknown. Queenie exists! What else can explain the hundreds of shipwrecks out there in the Graveyard of the Pacific?”

“Uh, gee, I don’t know,” Dillon acted dumb. “How about bad weather? Or rough geography? Or human error? Now go away!”

Kimbo’s cheeks reddened under a week’s worth of graying stubble. “You’re gonna eat your words one day soon, young man. You all will. Trust me. I tell you, Queenie the River Dragon is real,” he pointed to Jack. “And if that young man says his teddy bear is real, then you should believe him.”

“Shut up, you delusional old fool!” a woman threw a squished tomato at him, missing by inches. Others groaned angrily. He leaned toward Jack.

“I believe you, boy. Even if nobody else does, I believe you.”

“That’s enough!” the manager pushed in front of Kimbo. Grumbling, the captain hobbled away. Al wagged his finger. “Now, young man, unless you want to be in trouble like your dad, then you’d better hand over that teddy bear this instant.”

“We don’t have it,” explained Jack.

“Jack, don’t make it worse,” Liz begged. “Give them back the teddy bear.”

“He’s telling the truth, Mrs. James,” Amelia held up the empty bag. “See? We don’t have it.”

“Give me that,” Dillon ripped the sack from her hands. He tossed it over and shook it. Nothing fell out. Not satisfied, he dropped and stomped on it in a quick display of brutality.

“Dillon!” Roberta dragged him off. He continued kicking.