Mia didn’t like the name Paradox, or even Para. Not at first. She sat there looking at Grandad with her face scrunched up. “Really, Grandfather? Para?”
Grandad smiled. “Sweetie, Paradox is a compound word. It comes from two Greek words, Para and Dox. In English it means Beyond Belief. I think it fits well.”
Mia shrugged. “I guess that’s not so bad.”
Over the community fence and a couple of blocks down from us are the twins. There’s a nice climbing tree with a limb that hangs over that community fence. So, the twins are a quick climb, swing, drop, and stroll away. They live in a mobile home park. It’s a decent park. Their dad manages the place. Here’s the thing, Rock and Roll are identical twins, can’t tell them apart. Well, not just by looking at them anyway. They are 16 years old, almost 17. Oh no! They are, seriously, almost 17. I better at least make them a card or something.
We have been going to the same schools since the twins moved into the neighborhood, when we were little kids. They are big guys. They work out a lot. Lean, but not mean. They’re martial arts nuts like Mia and me. We’ve all been taking classes at the same dojo for years and years. That’s actually where we met them. Still, they are scholarly in the sense they like math and science and technology. They are both super-smart. The twins are well behaved for ... boys. In fact, we all get along great.
Their operative names are Rock and Roll. Truth told; those nicknames go back to the early days, shortly after we met them. But until recently they were secret nicknames known only to the four of us. Well, Grandad probably knew. Grandad and his musical preferences likely had something to do with their nicknaming. Rock and Roll. Otherwise it’s bland old Tom and Bill. So, we’re sticking with Rock and Roll, especially for operative names.
Rock is the older brother. I guess he’s a minute or two older. They like to build things. But I’m not talking tree houses. Their latest project is an almost functional spacecraft. They have a 3-seat capsule and a rocket engine. The rocket engine isn’t fully functional yet, but they’ll get there. Claim they’re going to the stars someday. Come to think about it, they probably will. And they won’t even need their spaceship. How is that, you might ask?
That is because Rock and Roll can manipulate particles at the quantum level. Subatomic particles. I understand, if you’re a science guy particle isn’t exactly correct. You can make up a new word if you want. And we’re not going to get into wave/particle duality just yet. Quantum stuff is weird. I’m told there are a lot of subatomic particles that share a kind of link called entanglement. In fact, all particles might share that interrelatedness. That would mean all subatomic particles are entangled. I think that’s how it works.
The twins can control nonlocality, or at least guide it. I know, another odd word. Nonlocality is the influence subatomic particles have, one to another, if entangled. That means there is an immediate influence between particles over any distance.
The speed of light barrier is sidestepped. Well now, that might cause some heads to shake. Whatever. I’m not going to get any closer to the science of it here; still getting the hang of the concepts myself.
Let’s cut to the chase and say it this way. The twins can teleport things. They can even teleport people. At least in theory they can teleport anywhere, in an instant. From here to the Moon ... snap ... like that. Or, like I said, from here to anywhere. The twins have the same gift. They can teleport. Each is capable, but together they get a power boost of sorts that enables them to move more massive objects.
Then there’s Muncle. I suppose he’s the most implausible of us all. Muncle is Mia’s spider monkey. Wrong way to say it. He doesn’t belong to Mia. Muncle is his own monkey, though he seems to favor Mia. You’ll understand that as we go along. Muncle was living in that new science laboratory I started to write about. That was before everything changed. Boy, did things ever change. Especially for Muncle.
Spider monkeys are the third most intelligent of the primates. Or, so I’m told. They are even more intelligent on average than gorillas and gorillas are smart. You may have read about Koko. I was just reading about her the other day. She was a female gorilla who learned over 1,000 words in sign-language and seemed able to use them to express complex ideas. She understood more than 2,000 spoken words.
But Muncle is much smarter than your average primate. He’s probably smarter than your uncle Fred. Or whoever your uncle is. He’s small, a couple of feet tall, not including his tail. He weighs about 15 pounds. Muncle has several gifts. Like I said, he is super intelligent (he is a very smart monkey). He has enhanced eyesight and can run very fast. As an odd side-talent he can disburse and manipulate a cloud of nanites and make pretty, shiny lights. Not sure how that could be helpful. I suppose we’ll find out.
As I’m writing this, Muncle even sounds implausible to me. But he’s real. Grandad said there is a whole lot of processing power involved, with someone or something pulling the levers behind the curtain. Wizard of Oz trickery, he says. In other words, anything that could fit inside of his little skull can’t reasonably explain his intelligence factor. Yeah, Muncle’s connected to something all right. That part is a little complicated.
