Super World Page 6

  "I tend to keep to myself, mostly."

  "So why come in now?"

  "I thought the Timberwolves could use some help."

  Coach Adler glanced between the Jack and Cal, his sour expression persisting. But now Cal thought he detected a trace of calculation underlying it.

  "Let's switch," he said. "See how you do on defense."

  Skepticism oozed from his voice and smile. The idea that a six-footer could defend against someone Randy Masterson's length and size was plainly absurd, no matter how athletic he was.

  Randy's grim smile suggested confidence, too. Cal recalled the immortal words of Muhammad Ali to George Foreman in Zaire: "Now it's my turn."

  After checking the ball, Randy dribbled in toward the basket with studied deliberation. Post him up and shoot over him was the obvious plan. Cal considered his hypothetical options. First, hypothetically, he was about three times stronger than an average man, which should be more than enough to stop Masterson in his tracks. Cal hand-checked him experimentally, and Masterson's progress ground to a halt. The ex-collegian spun to his left. Cal guessed it was probably a blazingly fast move, but to him it as if Masterson was a choreographer demonstrating a dance step in slow-motion. He countered by slipping in front of him – thinking he'd take the charge - but found he had sufficient time to sidestep him and get to the ball instead.

  Masterson's startled look was priceless as he practically thrust the ball into his opponent's hands. Masterson hacked at his arms, but Cal was already dribbling beyond his reach.

  "All right," the assistant coach called. "Again."

  Masterson drove to Cal's right full-speed, attempting a behind-the-back dribble when Cal slapped the ball loose. Another try, and Masterson faked left and right and then drove left. Cal slapped the ball off Masterson's shin into his possession. Masterson settled for a jump shot from the top of the key. Cal saw it coming and launched himself with a short run to the apex of his leap, narrowly missing the basketball with his outstretched fingers. Masterson had a head start to the ball as it careened off the rim, but Cal beat him to it by a fraction.

  Cal dribbled back to the top of the key, followed half-heartedly by the former collegiate standout. At this point, Cal thought, he might be considering football again.

  Cal felt a sharp jab of guilt. Maybe his daughter had been right. Maybe this was cheating. But how different was it for him to use his extraordinary reflexes and quickness than it was for any athletically blessed player? Did Michael Jordan feel guilty that he could jump higher or shoot better or had more stamina than his opponents?

  "Okay," said Coach Adler, holding up a hand. "That's enough for now. The next step is a scrimmage. See how you are with a team. Are you free this afternoon?"

  Cal tried not to grin too hard, considering Randy Masterson's glum expression. He turned to his friend, who offered a solemn nod.

  "I think we can make that work," he said.

  Chapter 5

  KEVIN KNEW IT WAS past time to call his former teacher. Past time to call somebody. Too much was happening too fast, but amidst the mind-blowing weirdness of it all he had become convinced that he was experiencing something that might impact the world.

  Part of it was physical: on an impulse he'd started running on his usual morning walk a few days back, and hadn't stopped until completing ten miles – without fatigue, soreness, or even being out of breath. A quick workout with his dad's barbells, which he'd never handled before except grudgingly, revealed that he was much stronger than he'd either expected or could account for. He was like Bruce Willis's character in Unbreakable, struggling to locate his physical limits.

  He would explore that in the coming days, but vastly more significant and strange to him was the way his mind had changed. So many things that had made no sense to him before suddenly seemed glaringly obvious. He wasn't sure it was intelligence – not exactly. He couldn't solve equations in his head faster or immediately glean new insights about things he'd studied exhaustively before; what had changed was that now he was curious about stuff outside his well-worn paths of thought. For the first time, he saw with crystalline clarity how rigid, how obsessive, how narrow his way of thinking about things was. If he ran into a problem, he tended to bang his head against a figurative wall. It had been like being stuck in one dark corner of a vast hall; now he could step back and gain a larger perspective – or turn around and see a whole new universe.

  It wasn't all joyous revelation. His new way of thinking disoriented him. His boldness sometimes transported him to alien and disturbing places. His old familiar intellectual haunts cried out to him – beckoned like a non-liberation. There was great comfort in obsessive repetition, in digging into something without respite. But his doors of perception had been cleansed, it seemed, and there was no going back.

  "What are you thinking?" his mom asked, sitting across from him at dinner.

  "Just wondering what things are going to be like."

  "What things?"

  "Everything, I guess." Kevin shrugged.

  "You've changed lately." Her smile was mostly pleased, but was tinged with question. "Something's happened. Something you haven't told me about."

  His mom, the Ph.D. research psychologist. A hard person to hide things from. Even when he refused to talk to her, she usually could divine his moods. Now his secret was weighing on him, and he actually wanted to talk to her. That was one of the most frightening aspects of the New Kevin: he wanted to share things – connect with – other people. But he had made a promise, and the need to keep his word was one thing about him that hadn't changed.

  "Yes," he said, surprising himself. "I haven't told you about something. But I will when I can."

  "What's stopping you now?"

  "A promise."

  "A promise to whom?"

  Kevin shook his head. Karen Clarkson made earnest eye-contact with him. He saw surprise flicker in those eyes when he met her stare without his usual looking away into space.

  "I need for you to tell me what's going on, Kevin."

  "I need for you to be patient."

  "What's got into you?"

  Kevin relapsed into his former habit of erecting an invisible stone wall between himself and his mom as he ate. Fortunately, that ability hadn't forsaken him.

  His cell buzzed. Terry. Another person he couldn't tell the whole truth. He left the table and answered on the way to his room.

  "I have news," said his friend.

  Funny coincidence, Kevin thought. A premonition was ringing in his head. "What news?"

  "I can walk."

  Kevin stopped walking. His premonition had gone nuclear. His mother appeared in the hallway behind him. He entered his bedroom and closed the door.

  "Are you there?" Terry asked.

  "Yeah. Just getting some privacy. When did this happen?"

  "It's been happening over the last few days. Since you were last here." Accusation hung in his words.

  "That's great news, Terry."

  "Does it make you happy?"

  Kevin fingered his cell phone, half- frowning. He had a sense of what was behind that question, and it seemed to confirm a hypothesis about whatever he'd caught from the device. He plumbed his own emotions, an unthinkable act only a few days before.

  "Yeah," Kevin murmured. "It does. Strangely enough."

  "You understand that is strange."

  "Yes."

  "Because you didn't have any personal feelings about me. We had things in common and had fun, but that was it."

  "I wouldn't put it that way."

  "But it's true, right?" Terry's voice held no acrimony. "It would've been true of me, I know that. I liked hanging out with you, but it was never personal."

  "Right." Kevin dismissed a twinge of hurt that his best friend never gave a shit about him – even if the reverse was true. He gave a small, scornful shake of his head. "We're different now, aren't we?"

  "Sure looks that way. The question is why. And I think you know the answer
."

  Kevin didn't reply.

  "Are you going to tell me?"

  Kevin stroked the back of his neck. "Are you mobile?"

  "I can walk."

  "Can I pick you up?"

  "I don't see why not. I didn't know you drove."

  "I do now."

  JAMIE LISTENED to her dad gushing about his experience at the Target Center and wondered why the news of his triumphant tryout filled her with dread. The executives would be meeting with Coach Herbert Milner, Assistant Coach Adler, and Levon Martin next week. There wouldn't be a check in time to stop the sheriff's vacate order, but Cal was confident that a significant chunk of money was in the works, and that it might offer them some negotiating possibilities.

  "The impossible happened, J," he said. They were sitting in the front yard on lounge chairs, waiting for the barbecue to heat up. "I hardly made a wrong move. In the scrimmage, my only problem was a tendency to pass the ball too hard. It was surprisingly easy, because there was so much time. Everyone looked like they were moving with exaggerated slowness. I had to slow down a bit myself to avoid running them over. There's no way they won't offer me a contract!"

  "Congratulations," Jamie said in a flat voice.

  "It's gonna be okay, baby girl. We're going to find a way to keep the house."

  "Sorry, but I don't see that as a possibility."

  "Maybe not." He nudged her arm. "But you do remember you're cancer-free, right? That you got the rest of your life ahead of you."

  "I know. But somehow I don't feel quite like celebrating yet. I keep having this feeling that it's all going to be taken away from me – from us. Or we're going to find out there's some terrible price to be paid."

  "I get it. I have that feeling myself."

  "The other thing is that if I got too exuberant something might happen. Something scary."

  "Not sure I follow you there. But I have noticed you moving around as if you're walking on eggs, like you're holding yourself back. What's up with that? Are you feeling pain?"

  "No. The opposite. I feel too good, if that makes any sense. Like it's first thing in the morning after nine hours of sleep and I just finished two cups of coffee."

  Her father smiled. "I didn't know you had it that bad. But seriously, I know that feeling. Whatever that object's done to us, it seems to have cleaned out the toxins in our system, along with repairing old injuries and generally making our bodies stronger."

  "I think it's more than that for me, Dad."

  Cal sat up in his lounge chair, giving her the once-over. "What happened?"

  "In the shower this morning, I'd forgotten the conditioner." Jamie hugged herself. "I thought about it being where it should be, and the bottle comes sailing in through the shower curtain."

  "It wasn't me."

  "I know." She gave him a thin smile. "Because then it sort of hopped into my hand as I thought of bending over for it. So I tried to move some other stuff – shampoo, back-scrubber, a brush – and they all rose into the air."

  "Telekinesis," said Cal.

  Jamie nodded. "My brush is still embedded in the ceiling. I decided to stop my thought-experiments there." She issued a hollow laugh. "You always did say I tend to over-think things."

  Cal stared at her, blinking behind his dark sunglasses. He extended a hand toward the nearby cooler, furrows of concentration appearing between his eyes. After a few moments he lowered his hand.

  "I don't seem to have it. How about a demonstration?"

  "That could be dangerous."

  "How about something small?"

  Cal tapped the empty beer can on the patio table between them. It was already moving before Jamie even focused on it.

  "Holy shit," he said. "I've had dreams of doing that."

  They both watched the beer can hovering a few feet over their heads.

  "How far can you control it?"

  The can drifted away, gradually picking up speed, until it clanged against the workshop's tin roof.

  "Can you bring it back?" Cal asked.

  Jamie held out her hand, and the can flew back in a blur, crunching as it met her flesh.

  "Try squeezing it."

  "With my mind or hand?"

  "Either one. Both."

  Jamie tried her right hand first. The can flattened obligingly, much easier than she'd expected. She kept squeezing, readjusting her grip, until the can compressed to golf ball size. Her dad leaned closer, raptly observing her progress.

  "This is interesting," he murmured. "Keep going."

  To Jamie's surprise, the can kept shrinking. As it shrank it grew hot. When it had become a small, glowing marble she tossed it on the grass. A mini-column of smoke rose.

  "Whoa!" Cal whispered. "And I thought dunking from the free throw line was awesome. Do you know what just happened there?"

  Jamie stared at the tiny sphere as its light dimmed. "I'm trying to remember what happens when you compress matter. I know in theory you could create a singularity, but I didn't get close to that." She was surprised by how calm she sounded. "A lot of heat is generated by increasing something's density."

  "How dense do you think you made it?"

  "I'm not sure."

  Cal finished his second beer and mashed the can with both hands, mimicking his daughter's crushing technique. He reduced it to a bit smaller than a golf ball before his progress stopped.

  "You compressed it a lot more than I did," he said. "And you might've compressed it more if you hadn't stopped. You're at least several times stronger than me – maybe much more than that."

  "I don't know about that."

  "What would happen if you tried crushing it with your mind, I wonder?"

  "Do you think that would be a good idea?"

  "You might have a point. How about you just try to jump as high as you can?"

  As Jamie considered that, a blue van rumbled down the driveway toward them. It stopped short of the basketball court, and Kevin and Terry Mayes stepped out.

  Terry Mayes...stepped?

  "Wait a minute," said Cal quietly. "Isn't that Terry Mayes? Doesn't he have an irreversible bone disease which I can't pronounce?"

  "Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive," said Jamie. "FOP. An extremely rare connective tissue disease. He's Kevin Clarkson's best friend."

  The two young men approached – Terry with a small hobble but otherwise appearing stable on his feet as his friend hovered close by. Most of his physical deformations were absent. He looked like a normal young man with a slight limp.

  "Hi," said Jamie.

  "Greetings," said Kevin.

  "It's good to see you again, Terry. And you're up and walking! Are you in remission?" As far as Jamie knew, that never happened with this disease. The obvious connection was hard to escape: Terry had been affected – infected? – by the object, through contact with Kevin. That implied that Kevin had been affected as well.

  "Hello, Mrs. Shepherd," said Terry. "Actually, Kevin thought you might know the answer to that."

  "Kevin hasn't told you anything more than that?" Cal asked, glancing at his daughter.

  "No, sir. All I know is that he knows more than he's telling me, and that it has something to do with you."

  "What about you, Kevin?" Jamie asked. "Have you noticed anything changing with you?"

  Kevin hesitated. It was difficult to put into words.

  "I see things differently," he said. "I'm less rigid and obsessive. I used to worry one line of thought to the bone. Now I'm able to look at it in a new way, or just stop. And I understand more about emotions – something that always mystified me. I guess I've become more what people call 'normal' now."

  "That's...incredible," said Jamie. "Not what I would've expected at all. Not that I knew what to expect."

  Cal frowned into the distance, seeing his unique new berth in professional basketball slipping away like the treasure chest of gold he sometimes imagined was his in an early morning dream. He disliked himself for being so selfish, for wanting to cling t
o his newfound athletic superiority – when the object was clearly capable of bringing good into the world, curing his daughter and apparently Terry Mayes and Kevin Clarkson. Perhaps the world would become a better place, and how could you argue that wasn't a good thing? Still, he wanted to believe he would remain unique. But he could see the writing on the wall. Even if they never shared the object with the public, it appeared now that it would spread like a virus through the world. How fast was the only question.

  The two young men stood waiting, Kevin's eyes exerting a silent pressure on Jamie and Cal in turn. Jamie faced her father.

  "Maybe we should show him," she said.

  Cal's shoulders slumped. "Okay."

  They walked around the house out to the workshop. Terry approached the device in halting steps and lowered himself before it as though it were a shrine or holy relic, Jamie thought. Kevin stood back with Jamie and Cal as Terry cautiously reached out and touched the cylinder with his fingertips. He withdrew them with a gasp.

  "It seems to have an electrostatic charge," he said.

  "That was my first thought," said Kevin. "But I doubt it’s a static charge. I think it's active – drawing energy from an internal or ambient source."

  "This is the source of what's happened to me?"

  "And me." Kevin turned to Jamie and Cal. "And Mrs. Shepherd. I'm not sure about Mr. Winters."

  "Let's put it this way," Jamie said with a dry smile, "he just tried out for the NBA."

  Kevin grinned – something Jamie had never seen him do before.

  "You've improved physically?" he asked.

  "About three times better in every area that I can semi-measure." Cal's smile held more resignation than triumph. "Enough to beat out a talented NBA-level guard who has five inches on me. Probably enough to be a star in the league..." His smile wilted. "Until whatever this thing did to me and the us here spreads out to the rest of the world."

  "Whatever it's doing is communicable," said Terry. He turned to Kevin. "When you sneezed on my chess pieces."

  Kevin gave him a rueful smile. "And when Mrs. Shepherd sneezed on mine."

  "A virus?"