Just as the device turned on, Bill drew up his arms to shield his face. It was pure instinct. The red light was just so bright. Had he not done so, his brain would have been fried.
But the plain flesh and bone of two arms gave far less shielding than what the six experimental subjects behind him were wearing. Far, far more intense nerve impulses still reached his brain than what the device's makers had ever intended. No one knew what this extreme, not-quite-lethal dose would do to a man.
In Bill's case, it gave him the ultimate epiphany.
The whole universe opened up before him. Everything became profoundly simple. He felt aware of every atom, every photon, every transient subatomic particle coursing through the whole of the cosmos. Every interaction, no matter how small, was there for him to see. And to control. He felt as though he could reach out and disassemble the very air molecules making up the Earth's atmosphere, or create breatheable oxygen in the atmosphere of Jupiter. And he felt like he didn't need to; he understood the vast interconnectedness of every quantum in the universe, and could see with breathtaking clarity the grand majesty of it all.
It seemed to last for its own eternity. But in truth, it only lasted a few seconds. Then something happened with the device, the red light went out, and it all slipped away. The oneness with the universe, the connection to every atom, the awareness and understanding of everything — all gone. It drained out of him as though a yawning, empty void had sucked it all away. He screamed, "Noooooo!"
And now, he could once again hear the voices of kidnappers around him. The mundane, ordinary kidnappers who had no idea about the profound vast interconnectedness of the cosmos around them, and never could. "Who is that guy?" one of them said. "He wasn't prepped for the test," said another. "He wasn't ray shielded," a third said, "His brain should be fried, right?"
His vision returned to the mundane world of room and walls, too. He could see light still shining from the front of the device, dimmer and no longer red. The device still hummed, more weakly than before, as though it were still shooting something in his general direction. That was the device that had made him omniscient for those fleeting seconds. It was still running. If it could be switched back into that magical, red-light mode, it might bring the universe back to him!
He could also see one of the kidnappers pointing right behind him, who said, "That's the Tree! She found us! Was she hit by the test too?" And right about then two of the kidnappers reach for holsters on their hips. Rachael the Tree's words returned to him: "They might have guns."
Uh oh. Worry about getting back to Nirvana later. Bill dashed off to one side and pinned himself flat against the side of a crate. His limbs made an odd crunching noise as he moved. He heard a shot ring out, but didn't fell the sting of a bullet. They must have missed him. He glanced down at his body to be sure, but . . . what the hell? There was a thick coating of frost on his arms and torso. And his legs. It wasn't cold in this warehouse, in fact on a sunny L.A. day like today it was quite warm in here. So why —
Then his eyes went distant. That awareness, than oneness with the universe — it hadn't completely gone away. There was one little remnant of it that still clung to his mind. He wasn't aware of the presence of every molecule around him, but he was aware of the presence of every water molecule around him. The moisture in the air, the ice crystals dusting his body, he felt he could command them all. He heard the footsteps of kidnappers running toward him. Could he turn this icy coating into something thick enough to protect him from their bullets? There was enough water vapor in the air to . . . there we go! An inch-thick layer of ice froze itself in place around him almost instantly. It was like wearing a suit of armor. It covered all of him, including his head. He willed the ice directly in front of his eyes to thin out and become perfectly smooth, so clear that he could see through it. Despite being encased in ice, his joints still moved with remarkable ease.
He was testing his neck movements when the first kidnapper ran into view and shot him.
For such a tiny pistol, the sound of the BANG was almost deafening. Guns were a lot louder in real life than they were on TV. Bill felt the impact of the bullet against his chest, and staggered back half a step, but . . . it only felt like getting hit by a baseball. He wasn't wounded. His suit of ice armor had worked like a charm. He stepped toward the kidnapper and swung his fist at him. Problem was, it had been so long since Bill had been in any kind of a fight that he completely underestimated how far away his assailant was from him, and ended up swinging at empty air. But he still connected. As his fist reached its apex, a slug of ice the size of a softball sprang from his knuckles and slammed into the kidnapper, knocking him down.
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