You Can Call Me Al (2 page)

Johnny was hugged by several of his
teammates; his coach gave him a “thumbs up” sign. The last batter
flew out and it was time to take the field again.

Johnny got through the next two innings
without embarrassing himself, he only had to make one play; he
caught a pop fly that almost popped out of his glove.

It was now the top of the sixth inning and
the score was still 3 to 1, the opposing team went three up and
three down and Johnny was set to lead off in the bottom of the
inning.

As Johnny stepped up to the plate he had to
shake his head, blink, and look again. That man named Al was
standing in the outfield between the right and center fielder.
Johnny tried to ignore him.

The pitcher tried to jam Johnny with an
inside pitch, Johnny swung defensively at it just trying to protect
the plate. As a result, he hit a line drive down the third base
line which was deflected off of the outreaching glove of the
opposing team’s third baseman. The ball was slowly rolling into
foul territory. Since their third baseman had touched it before it
went foul, it was a fair ball.

Johnny rounded first base and kept running.
The outfield was still a little slick from the rain of a couple of
days ago. Consequently, as the leftfielder tried to field the ball,
he slipped and the ball dribbled by him. Johnny sped into second
then made a mad dash to third, he barely beat the throw.

The next batter hit a soft sacrifice fly
that Johnny was able to tag up and score on. Now it was 3 to 2. His
next teammate hit a bloop single. That brought Ken up, their first
baseman and best hitter. Ken drove a long drive to right. The right
fielder backed up against the fence to make the catch, but the ball
seemed to hang in the air. The outfielder then made a frantic jump
for it, only to see it hit the top web of his glove and slip away
over the fence.

A homer! 4 to 3 they were ahead! The score
stood that way as the opposing team came up to bat in the seventh
inning.

That tall lanky kid who had hit a homerun
earlier in the game was leading off. He drilled the second pitch
deep to left. Johnny was sure it was going to go out for another
homer, but the ball hit the top of the fence and dropped back into
play. Their leftfielder retrieved it cleanly as it bounced off the
fence and made a strong throw back to the infield to hold the
hitter to a double.

The next hitter hit a low line drive to
Johnny’s right. Johnny felt like someone shoved him towards the
ball. He fell, and as he did the ball wound up somehow in his
glove. The base runner had already made a move towards third so
Johnny tagged the second base making an unassisted double play. The
next player popped out to the catcher. That was it! They had won!
And Johnny had been a key contributor!

Johnny’s teammates hugged each other while
their coach looked on with pride, they then went over to shake
hands with their opponents for a well-played game. Johnny looked
out into the playing field but did not see Al anywhere.

One week later they went through their
graduation ceremony. Then it was time for summer vacation.

Al entered the portal he had opened, and
then stepped through to the forecourt of an area with pathways to
other territories afar. He then passed through and into an
industrial manufacturing locale; he had steathfully followed a
robot here.

This was a rebel robot that had control of
one of the timepieces, a timepiece that could stop time. Al
referred to them as rebots instead of robots, because of their
rebellious behavior. There was one more somewhere else; Al needed
to take care of this one first.

Al was an android, a synthetic human. The
time pieces could stop time but only for a short duration (ten
minutes) unless it was turned off before the time elapsed. After
that the user would have to wait thirty minutes before employing it
again. It also had a limited range of effect, a 100 yard radius
around the device. Anything outside this radius would be exempt
from its influence. The timepieces could only affect living
organisms, not machines. Robots were machines, but so were
androids. The users of the device were also not affected.

There were three timepieces made by the
higher order, but they did not function as they were originally
expected to. Al had already returned one to Roberterian, a human of
this higher order.

Al was now inside a large manufacturing
facility, a facility that had started manufacturing sophisticated
robots. The rebot came here to steal industrial secrets,
specifications and procedures. Its intent was to gain enough
knowledge so it could build a new race of superbots which could
control the realms. It had a partner, another rebot that killed a
human-like form to gain control of the third timepiece; they both
were in this realm.

Since Al looked liked a human and not a
machine, he could fake being time restrained during the time
stopping period. He would then try to surprise the rebot and
acquire the time piece. That is one of the reasons he was created
by the higher order and injected into this laboratory controlled
universe. The realm he was currently in was inhabited by
human-looking organisms, so he wouldn’t have any problems blending
in.

Al had taken a pair of work overalls from
the locker room so he wouldn’t appear any different than the rest
of the factory workers who were presently locked in stasis.

The rebot had snuck into this area and
turned on the timepiece. It came during the graveyard shift so that
any sudden work stoppages wouldn’t be noticed by the upper
management. Standing motionless, Al watched the rebot on a
mezzanine as it was taking pictures with its photographic eye,
pictures of the specifications and production data that had been
compiled detailing the methods of robotic manufacturing.

Being an android, Al could move ten times
faster then a normal human. Al noticed an overhead crane just above
him with a cantilever arm. Al moved quickly up the mezzanine and
grabbed the crane’s control box, which was suspended by a cable
from above. Using the controls, he lowered the arm and swung it
around, knocking the rebot off balance. The timepiece was jarred
loose from the rebot and clattered to the floor.

The rebot spotted the movement of the
android and did a quick summersault. The rebot’s dexterity and
coordination was astounding. The rebot charged Al and its left arm
changed into a sharp long rapier as it thrust it towards Al’s
midsection. Al barely avoided the fatal strike as he rolled away.
The rebot turned the rapier into a curved cutlass and thrashed
wickedly at the retreating android causing a gash on Al’s left leg.
Clear body fluid gushed forth from the wound. Al tumbled near a
cylinder of flammable gas with a hose extending from the top and a
cutting torch at its end.

There was a hand valve on top of the
cylinder: Al desperately hoped that it was turned on. Al seized the
cutting torch, pointed it at the rebot and depressed the hand
lever. A narrow flame shot out hitting the rebot in its face plate.
It staggered back, swiveling its head in confusion: Al leaped up
and using his legs and feet, implanted a double kick onto the
rebot’s chest. Al had struck the rebot with so much force that it
was propelled backwards, where it smashed through some safety
handrails and tumbled into a vat of molten steel below.

“
Whew, that was close,”
Al thought,
thankfully.

Al had good recuperative powers. The gash on
his leg quickly stopped emitting fluid, and then turned into a
slight scar before disappearing completely. A more major wound
could have caused him serious problems.

Al returned the second timepiece to
Roberterian, then came back to this realm to pursue the other
rebot. Al was also instructed to make contact with Johnny, and
later bring him to Roberterian so he could communicate with
him.

The second rebot was being more cautious
because it had not heard from its cohort for a while. It took weeks
to track it down. During that time Al also made his initial contact
with Johnny in the Earth realm.

The other rebot had entered a major monetary
center during off hours. It was presently at a computer monitor,
manipulating financial records. The rebot had turned on the
timepiece just in case a janitor or security person happened by. It
had laid the timepiece on a desk beside the monitor: robots were
not uncommon in this realm, but they weren’t permitted to have
access to financial records. Somehow this robot (rebot) had got
into the database; it was illegally transferring funds into a dummy
account which would enable it to withdraw assets anonymously.

Al had picked a door lock after disabling
its alarm; the rebot must have done the same to another doorway. Al
entered through a back entrance and hid in the shadows, carefully
watching the rebot. It would have to move further away from the
timepiece before Al could act, robots could also move very swiftly
despite their bulk.

‘
Come on! Come on! Give me an
opening,’
Al thought, anxiously.

The rebot stayed at the monitor, completely
focused on causing the illegal transfer of funds it was presently
transacting.

Al couldn’t wait any longer; he used his
ventriloquism to create a noise from a short distance away and from
behind the rebot.

The rebot bolted from its seat and whirled
towards the direction of the sound.

“
Now is my chance,”
Al thought.

Using the desk and the back of the monitor
as cover, Al moved speedily and quietly towards the timepiece.

He was not fast enough; the rebot had
spotted him from its rear vision.

Al used his telekinesis to lift and bring
the timepiece into his grasp. He then dove onto the floor barely
avoiding the telescoping extending arms of the rebot, arms that
ended in deadly pincers.

Al raced out of the building with the rebot
close behind. Al needed to get out of this realm and into one where
the rebot would stand out like a sore thumb. Al discovered during
his flight that the pathway to Roberterian was blocked for some
reason. He managed to return to the earth realm scarcely in time
before the rebot closed on him. Nonetheless the rebot followed him
there, staying out of sight but always moving in closer.

The Earth realm was still in the Stone Age
as far as robotic development was concerned,

so all Al had to do was to stay in open
populated areas to avoid capture.

The rebot was handicapped by the fact that
it couldn’t move openly in this realm without attracting too much
attention, but Al was still having trouble eluding this determined
machine.

The rebot was persistent and highly
creative. It would just miss apprehending Al in an isolated place,
just by a minute, then just by a second. It was only a matter of
time; Al had to get rid of the timepiece.

Al had superior strength compared to an
average human, but he would be no match for a robot in a close
quarters contest.

The rebot finally cornered Al in a dark
unpopulated corner, Al ran down a corridor that terminated in a
dead end: he was trapped.

“Soooooo Android, I assume that is what you
are, you will now meet your end at last.”

The rebot’s voice was like a deep scraping
reverberation, similar to a piece of metal being grated against a
super hard perforated surface.

Al looked around and spotted a large metal
refuse bin. Using his telekinesis power again he lifted it and
slammed it into the rebot. The rebot was knocked down, and was
befuddled for a moment.

Al took this time to navigate around the
rebot and back into a somewhat populated thoroughfare. The rebot
had been stunned but not seriously damaged. It wasn’t long before
it resumed its concealed pursuit of Al.

Al had to thwart this relentless chase.

“
I can give the timepiece to Johnny,”
he thought.
“This rebot would not expect me to do that, it
wouldn’t think I would give it to an adolescent human. Then I could
lead it astray, if it caught me at least it wouldn’t get the
timepiece back.”

Al made up his mind; he knew what he had to
do.

“But Mom, I don’t want to go to summer camp
this year. I’m too old for that, that camp is for little kids.”

“There will be some kids there which are
your own age; besides I can’t have you hanging around the apartment
all by yourself while I am away.”

“Well, why can’t you take me with you?”

“Johnny, adults need time by themselves
every once in a while. Alice and I have been saving up for this
cruise all year.”

“So you would rather take your lady friend
instead of me. Well, I’m almost an adult.”

“Johnny, you are being selfish. The camp
only lasts two weeks. Then we will both be back home and I promise
I will then take you to someplace special of your own choosing; or
instead of camp, you can stay with your Aunt Martha.”

“Aunt Martha!” Johnny yelled. “I would
rather eat out of a garbage can then eat her cooking.”

“Okay, so now go and get packed for
camp.”

Johnny grudgingly started packing his
clothes and other assorted things that he would need for his two
week camp excursion.

“
At least they feed you well at
camp,”
Johnny thought.
“They’ll have barbecued chicken and
ribs, and even steaks. Last year we also roasted hot dogs and
marshmallows in the camp fire and one night cooked some nice thick
juicy burgers on the grills at the campsite.”

Every year the YMCA chartered a bus for this
trip. He would be leaving tomorrow morning.

The next day his Mom dropped him off at the
YMCA and Johnny boarded the bus to Camp Yellowclover. It would be
about a 60 minute ride. Johnny sat in the very back of the bus by
himself; some of the kids he knew motioned to him to come over and
sit by them, but Johnny just waved them off. He was in a cloudy
mood.