Captain Pi: Novella

By David Kreiling

Epic fantasy and science fiction meet in River City. This young adult christian allegory strikes at the heart of a world dependent on the operations of math. Good and evil fit within parameters set by universal forces of gravity, quantum information and thermodynamics. Is this 'NOVELLA' version of Captain Pi for you?

Teenager Tilmon Pi works construction sites for his uncle in River City, USA. He battles Entropy with math  prodigy skills. Though distracted by adorable high school classmate Mars, and befuddled by homeless mentor Bub's poetic nonsense, Pi nevertheless uncovers universal symbols to battle the sun empowered Entropy in Math World. Math, bloody suffering and first love fuse as Captain Tilmon Pi confronts a creature who uses the moon as a stepping stone to earth in search for power over the frightful chaos of a world aging into madness.

Enjoy other KREILING NOVELLAS by artist-author David Kreiling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: QUANTOPIA STUDIO
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781948917209

David Kreiling

David Kreiling usually writes from Texas. He studies art, theology, philosophy, law, economics, psychology, math and theoretical physics. He works as a studio artist drawing, painting, designing books and sculpting while researching quantum gravity.

Book preview

Prologue

Darkness crept from trees as the red sun slowly dropped in the sky over a farm located three miles outside River City. Crickets chirped and mosquitoes buzzed. A sticky white web spun around the firewood stack, through a scotch pine, up and over to the cabin gutter. Grunts and groans eclipsed cricket chirps. A perfect 18" hole formed in the white web. Baby Pi squirted through the hole from Starluck’s virgin womb and plopped onto the grass.

Fifteen years pass.

1

ROOFING

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TILMON PI SLAMS THE alarm with his left palm as his torso twists under the sheet and blanket. Eyes slowly focus on elaborate math equations that drape the elongated workroom. He scrambles into old work clothes, hustles to the kitchen, downs toast and milk, and grabs a lunch bucket before Uncle blocks his hasty exit.

"Ain't no half-way house for the homeless. Do me proud! You're goin' up top, boy. They watchin' you but scared a me.

Who cares? whispers Pi.

Make you some money. Pay some room and board 'round here.

It’s illegal to work minors on construction sites.

Smart ass. Keep yur mouth shut. Don't you shame me in front a those men, commands Uncle.

Impossible, mutters the young man quietly.

Keep yur hands busy and mouth a yurs shut.

Tilmon jams a piece of toast in his mouth.

Have a good time, chides Uncle.

Don’t ever tell me what to do, thinks the kid, as the screen door slams in his wake. He scrambles up the terraced backyard rock garden and scurries astride the freshly blacktopped two-lane road. A crew truck slows for the kid. He hops on the back.

Hey, calls the kid to the greazy crew.

I guess you’re Mr. Tilmon Pi. Jeez, you ain't ole 'nuf ta shave, mumbles a grisly old character.

Pre-pubee bastard. Shoot ma dog 'fore let him live with Uncle, responds the sidekick.

Better workin' with us than livin’ with him.

Don’t know ‘bout that, smirks the sidekick.

Tilmon rides the tailgate and stares over the yellow dotted lane divider that disappears into infinity. He wonders about connections and divisions and combinations of things seen amidst the great mysterious unseen.

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A ROOFER LEANS A 40’ extension ladder against the old grammar school building. The kid hesitatingly climbs, gains confidence and steps up the pace, but the roofers shake the ladder and cajole him to look down. He cocks his head up the ladder but each step tightens his belly. At last he reaches the top step, but at the crucial moment of crossover, from ladder to roof, time slows and space stretches beyond imagination. In compressed lockjaw terror, he pushes off the ladder and fixes his balance onto solid roof.

The foreman throws a mop at the kid. Unsure, he looks to his feet. The high pitched nasal voice drolls, Git over by the edge, kid. Gotta git ‘undred feet ‘fore that sun kills us dead.

Tilmon awkwardly slogs buckets of hot tar hoisted up to the roof on ropes from a boiling kettle. Sizzling droplets splash his bare right forearm. A motley black worker administers first aid.

Gerta wear long sleeves.

Yeah, responds Tilmon Pi, good thought.

Here, gunna peel this off. Gunna hurt like a mo pucker. warns the roofer.

He motions skyward to distract the kid, who nevertheless cries out in pain.

Tell me 'bout the moon kid. Warcha think? Them guys scoopin' moon dust inta big buckets a dirt an' flyin' it back ta earth? Kinda crazy. Hydrogen energy from moon dirt. Real weirdo world. Ya know me, personl, ah like hot tar, gas cars, and whiskey, mahself.

Don’t care for the moon, or energy, or whatever, he exhales, but one examines cubic resource optimization models, cost-benefit ratio, econometric projections and go from there. Phenomena are created equal as progressive integrated narratives; pins.

Right kid. Yur good ta go. Graab that bucket, will ya? The man's watchin’. Ya otta be in school.

Otta be’ a world without Uncle.

Ya sound jess likea teachah, or a teachah who teaches teachahs.

A washed out moon rises in the sunlit sky.

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CATERPILLAR TRACTORS SCOOP H3 moon dust into massive plastic dumpsters that fit into cargo rockets on the moon’s dark side.

A moon worker sticks a test tube into a sample and asks, Sum gig. Huh?

I dunno. They kinda drop of us off, and pick us up, like it’s a bus stop. Personally, it's purdy impersonal. An' I got abandonment issues. Never'll git this whole moon dust thing. Usin' dirt to clean earth's jus' too weird. But man, these scientists... The tech climbs down from the plastic bin.

Smart sons a bitches.

Yep.

Sun's crazy hot.

Or we freeze.

No winun.

Screw the bloody sun.

A silhouette appears inside the sun's circumference and a long shadow falls near the two men on the moon's surface.

Expresso?

Yubet.

They push a button on the rocket, a small rectangular box magically extends from the titanium skin, and they ask the rocket for iced expresso. A coffee tray extends from the titanium. They sip the coffee through strangely twisted straws from soup bowl glasses.

Real weirdo world.

No sheet.

Ya think we're alone in the universe?

You mean other life form shit. Man, I don't know. We're alone up here 'xcept for those yak yaks. He points to other workers.

Yu know what I mean. Like what if there's some...

Scary monster who wants to burn us alive? Shheet.

Yeah. You know, like an evil sungod thing, Egyptian like, or, whatever.

I’m ordering one moon shrink for you. Come on, now finish that. We gottalotta moondustin' to do.

The shadow moves slightly.

They finish their coffee.

"Ya think guys on earth think 'bot us, cuz I dohn ever think about them much, 'cept for my