Quantum Wars: Novella

By David Kreiling

Do you want a short read of a big story? Enjoy this David Kreiling 'Novella' version of Quantum Wars.

The Quantum Prince of the Light Verse hides from the Beast of the Dark Verse on Earth. Cosmic war rages to determine the fate of a trillion universes in a Battle for the Quantum Multi Verse. Dark Verse creatures punch through black holes searching for the Quantum Prince, who escapes through a supercollider experiment to hide among the citizens of earth, in a land called Switzerland.  Zeal, a young seminary student dropout, battles the evil Moribund with help from Princess Topos, and Spin, a beautiful waitress from Oklahoma and Zeal's older brother, Attak. 

Can the two brothers from Texas save earth amidst surprising romance and funnier than fiction friends, foes and aliens?
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: QUANTOPIA STUDIO
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781948917216

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

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The universe quivers amidst a vast quantum cosmos. People who inhabit a tiny dirt ball called Earth never suspect that a cosmic war rages to determine the fate of a trillion universes. Dark Verse creatures punch a hole in spime to search for ‘He Who Rules the Light Verse’, the Quantum Prince, wounded by the Beast, who burrows through a supercollider experiment to hide among humans in a land called Switzerland.

1

SWITZERLAND

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THE JET LANDS AT the Geneva airport. Zeal catches a black Mercedes taxi to the bus station where he boards a bus for a small village in the Swiss Alps. The bus winds through the mountains in a rainstorm that deposits Zeal at the base of a narrow country road. He trudges up the road on foot for several hours. He munches on a protein bar, finally stumbles on a small empty chapel set on the mountainside that overlooks distant snowcapped ridges. He quickly falls asleep in a pew; head resting on backpack.

Zeal awakens the next morning and rubs sleet from his eyes. He splashes cold water on his face from an outside chapel faucet, brushes his tongue, and settles on the grass before the vast mountain ridges and nibbles on the protein bar.

He returns to the chapel and puts on a tightly cropped cape and kneels to pray in an audible gibberish. Despite his age, he pulls out a stuffed monkey, Zippy, from the backpack. He places Zippy on a pew and murmurs prayers.

As he prepares to depart, near sunset, he notices a small portable cardboard pet box in the pew, hears a noise, and opens the two flaps. It’s empty. He shakes it, and again, hears the noise. Bewildered, Zeal carries the box back down the winding mountain road.

Utter blackness falls in the heavily forested terrain. Zeal cannot see. It is silent with no streetlights or visible stars. Suddenly, he hears leaves rustle distantly from a large, heavy animal bounding down the mountain forest. The rustle grows into crackles and wet breaths. He panics and stumbles over a guardrail only to roll sideways down a steep incline. He sees an animal’s silhouette and hears throaty growls as the animal hurdles the guardrail and crashes toward him, but it merely noses Zeal’s exposed cheek and sniffs his weakness. Zeal, heart swallowed and knees trapped in tremulous shake, extends his hand to the large friendly dark Alaskan husky; not the black bear he imagined. The dog wet licks Zeal's other cheek that just catches the young man’s right nostril and upper lip. Unsure if repulsed, or in love, he gathers his wits and climbs up the steep incline, over the guardrail, and back onto the blacktop road. He continues on down the mountain as the dog congenially follows. First light breaks as Zeal reluctantly leaves the husky behind for a thumbed ride in an old pale volkswagon van. He sets his pet box and backpack into the crammed back end, as sadly, the husky turns on back paws. Zeal frowns yet jams into the backseat behind some young Germans. The dog trots back up the mountain road.

Hours later Zeal waves farewell to the kind German driver who drops him at the Geneva train station. He buys a third-class ticket for Zurich.

Zurich, s’il vous plait, the 6 am, bitte, requests Zeal.

Sure. One for Zurich. Window seat, states the clerk coldly.

Danke.

Bitte.

Zeal sits in the empty train station for hours listening to Beethoven's 7th symphony on earphones over and over. He dozes on the hard bench as loudspeakers blare occasional train arrivals and departures in French and German. Zeal barely distinguishes among the languages, knows a few basic phrases, as he considers fluency wasted time and effort in a future techno spiritual one world belief system. He wonders if computer translation programs will terminate future foreign language studies. He hopes so.

Very early, too early, he calls his brother’s apartment in Zurich collect from a pay phone. It rings and rings. No one answers.

Zeal sets his backpack down for a second as he prepares to board a train for Zurich. Two thugs leap from an arriving train and snatch his backpack. He gives chase, but they nimbly hop onto a departing train across the platform. Zippy falls onto the platform. Zeal’s train to Zurich starts to pull away. Panicked, weary, and frustrated, he picks up Zippy, hugs his monkey and leaps onto his train with only Zippy the empty pet box. Somehow, he reasons, material loss blesses his soul. He forgives the misanthropists.

The train choo-choos across nondescript Swiss flatlands, but on the other side of a long tunnel, an old man appears next to Zeal in the beaten-up class C cabin car. Intense morning sunrays shine and shadow the cabin.

Guten Morgen, says the Old Man.

Hi, responds Zeal.

American? he enquires.

Jawohl, says Zeal with unnecessary weight and saliva.

I speak a little English. Kleine, reveals the Old Man, who pinches his thumb and forefinger to indicate little.

Are you Swiss?

Yes.

Swiss German?

Jawohl. Yes.

Jewish?

Maybe. Why do you ask?

I guess people’s religion. Sort of a hobby. Into spiritual stuff. Figure out the world or somethin’. My brother calls me morose, which is... well, it really means ... I don’t know what it really means. Went to a very religious seminary in Texas. Do you know what ‘seminary’ is?

Yes, there is vun on a hill outside Zurich, but I don’t know the name. I think it is baptist.

That’s interesting, comments Zeal, but adds, I kinda dropped out, and then asks, what do you do?

I used to be a scientist, molecular biology. I am rather semi-retired. I like you ask questions. Vee Swiss keep too many secrets and we rarely ask into the lives of people around us. Old vurld habits.

I read a book about boundaries, but I think it’s wrong. People shouldn’t make boundaries. They should break ‘em down, not build them up. I mean, should we fence off our own garden, but maybe, well maybe, the planet is one big garden? propounds Zeal in philosophical fluff.

Maybe you should write the Anti-Boundary book? chuckles the Old Man.

You know, I have a friend, well, he’s really my brother’s friend, but he works at the supercollider near Zurich. He’s the only scientist I know. I think he discovered a particle that begins with a letter, W or X, I don’t remember, explains Zeal.

"Those are very, very famous experiments. Vuht is his name? Perhaps I