chapter from Queen of the Quantum Realm

[Rhondazvous]

Note on the text: The two photons are sent into the Posiplus particle collider by a renegade positron who wants to create a world of positrons where everything that is antimatter in t his universe will be normal. He will get rid of the nasty electrons and have a family of positrons over whom he will be Lord.

Chapter 21
The two photons entered the Posiplus. It was cavernous inside and empty save for a single focal point—a sheet of gold. Upon closer inspection the photons saw that they could fit into the atoms of the gold. As explorers, they settled on the nucleus of one atom and found it comfortable.
“What now?”
“Don’t know. But something is supposed to happen to us.”
“If you’re going to talk to me, at least tell me your name.”
“Name? Is that something we’re supposed to have?”
“I guess so. I kind of remember being in a place where everything had a name—even dead matter.”
“Then what’s your name?”
“I can’t remember. No. I remember that I always called myself by the name of whatever I was a part of.”
“We’re part of this golden atom right now. Just a part of it, so what would you call yourself? How about Chip?”
“Yeah. I’ve often been part of a chip of something. And you could be Bit.”
“Okay. Why not?”
“Well, nothing’s happening right now and I’m sleepy.”
“Me too. Guess whatever’s supposed to happen will have to wait.”
Deep in the heart of the golden atom, the photons nestled down to sleep. They dreamed of the lives they’d once lived among humans, sometimes flowing along in a ray of some evolving sun, sometimes part of the beam of light emitted from one of man’s many gadgets. And then there were those times when they solidified into matter. How had it happened? There was so much to remember—eons and eons of existence in one form or the other.
Suddenly, they were jolted awake.
“Wake up! Get going! You’re not here to slumber.”
The photons rubbed their groggy eyes and looked around them for the source of this disturbance. They found themselves surrounded by thousands of angry electric charges.
“Look! I’m glowing!” Bit exclaimed.
Chip gazed at him, then at himself. They were emitting a beam of intense light that bounced around the nucleus and shot off into space. And wherever the beam of light went, they were forced to go.
They were moving so fast, but it was a familiar speed. Still Bit frowned.
“Is this normal?”
“I think so. I seem to recall . . .”
“But we weren’t glowing when we were sleeping in the atom.”
“No, I guess this is the change Lord Gelic was telling us about.”
“This can’t be all there is. I mean, this is fun, soaring around like this, but I was expecting something more transformational.”
Then more photons began to pour in. They were thrown out of the golden atom so fast that they hardly had time to get comfortable.
With little sympathy, the electric charges herded the photons into a circle and forced them to dance.
They spun and orbited the center of the circle.
Never quite touching, but still moving in synch.
From somewhere the photons couldn’t tell, bursts of energy hit them, making them dance faster and faster.
“What is that?” cried Chip.
“Where did it come from?”
All the photons looked around them, but the energy seemed to be coming from everywhere.
“Here catch!” Bit yelled.
Chip caught the thing Bit threw and found it to be a virtual electron. Then seeing that she had one too, she threw it at Bit. When he caught it, he and Chip began to transform. A sadness they couldn’t describe gripped them as their incorporeal essences began to have weight and take up space. They slowed down as a heaviness that they hadn’t experienced in a very long time dragged them.
“You look like me, but different.” Said Chip.
“And you look like me but I have a negative charge, and you’re a positron just like the one outside.”
“I’m a positron like Lord Gelic. He has made me one of his own.”
“What about me?”
Chip eyed him pensively.
“I don’t know, Bit. I really don’t know.”