Jack James and the Tribe of the Teddy Bear by J. Joseph Wright Page A

realized this one was serious.
    “Is he okay?” I repeated. “Where are we going?”
    “To the hospital,” Mom broke her silence.
    That’s when it hit home with Lily. Her self-satisfied smile disappeared, her jaw dropped, and she began to tear up. I felt the same sense of dread. I had to be strong for the two of them, though, and did my best to hide it by slipping under my seatbelt and hugging Lily tight.
    “It’ll be okay,” I was reassuring myself as much as my little sister. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”
    When we got to Dad’s hospital room, I knew everything wasn’t fine. He was an extra in a bad mummy movie. His hands were bandaged to his elbows, his chest was covered in gauze, and they had his whole head wrapped, leaving only his eyes and mouth visible. Lily couldn’t handle it. All she wanted to do was run out of the room.
    “Wait, wait!” I held her with all my might. What I whispered next convinced her to stay.
    “Dad’s hurt real bad, Lily, and we need to help him get better. We need to be here for him, right now. Understand?”
    She nodded, bouncing her tight blonde curls, and we both turned to see Mom crying by his side. I knew she wanted to hold his hand, to touch his face. The bandages made it impossible. He couldn’t move much. He sure could talk, though.
    “Honey, honey,” he tried to console her. “Honestly, it’s not that bad. Just a little scratch here and there. Nothing serious.”
    He saw us kids. “Hey, you two! What’s with the sourpusses?”
    “Dad?” I swallowed hard, trying to be brave. “Are you hurt bad?”
    “Naw,” he was his usual, lighthearted self. “Doesn’t hurt a bit. Swear.”
    He made an attempt at raising his right arm to solidify the oath. Less than a quarter of the way up, he stopped, wincing and grunting.
    “No, no,” Mom intervened, helping his arm to his side again. “Don’t move, honey. Just stay still and rest.”
    “Dad, what happened? People are saying you blew up the school!” I asked.
    “Geez,” he laughed. “The talk around here, huh? It wasn’t an explosion. Just a small, uncontrolled release of very few strangelets. Not many at all. Only a few million or so. They’re so tiny, just a few femtometers each. What’s the big deal? Nobody was hurt.”
    “Nobody hurt? Mister, have you seen yourself?” Mom was over being scared, apparently, and had shifted right into angry. “This project of yours has gotten a little out of hand, don’t you think?”
    “Well, I don’t…” he tried to get a word in. It was no use.
    “I mean, really. When it was laser beams and holograms, it was safe. But now? Now you’re getting a little too extreme.”
    “Hold on a minute…”
    “I just hope this incident will make you see it’s time to give up before someone gets seriously hurt, or even killed.”
    “Whoa-ho-ho!” even through the bandages, I saw Dad’s scowl. “You can’t expect me to stop now. Not when I’ve gotten so close. When today’s unfortunate event occurred, I was right there, right on the verge. Do you understand what that means?”
    He didn’t allow her to answer. He becomes a giddy child every time he talks about his project, which he named the Omega/Alpha, or O/A, because he claims it represents the last invention of the old age and the first of the new.
    “It means I’ve finally gotten the power source to work, the power source that will let me maximize the O/A’s advanced technology, the dynamo that will make it all possible—the Gravitomiton.”
    “The gravito…what?” Mom batted her lashes.
    “Gravitomiton. It’s quite simple, really. It’s all about gravity. You see, gravity is one of the strongest forces in the universe, yet it feels weak to us. Heck, the Earth is so massive, its gravitational pull should be smashing us all to the ground like pancakes. Gravity’s pull is weak because its power gets diluted as it radiates throughout all dimensions.”
    “Not again with the different dimensions,”