Arguments with Atoms

Not everyone can will. The ability to will is inherent in every human being. Few can find and even less can use it. Every object has its own will, a group of atoms with a single purpose to its collective wills. Usually we do not sense this, some do. Willers go beyond this by communicating with the object. The object is persuaded by its new master to ignore the pull of the planets and whatever other forces are acting on it. Instead it responds to the driving force of the human will.

Through excavations, historians have learned that one of the skills that distinguished the first Homo sapiens from their more barbaric counterparts, running around the desert planes of Africa, was the ability among some of its number to will. For these first willers, the practice was as normal as using their legs to walk.

It is understood that after some time living among their various tribes the willers, started to grow angry. They did all the work, while the others just lay about. They resolved to do something about it. They got together and formed a new tribe. Only willers were allowed. Their tribesmen were distraught, how would they fetch water from the well? How would they build their houses? The tribes tried to bargain, but the willers detested the laziness of their people and could no longer live with them. They journeyed northwards. To their surprise, the weather did not, as most physical objects had done, bend to their determinations. It was commanded by a higher power. Most of the willers never survived the first winter. Those that did are said to have emigrated eastwards towards what was to become Syria. The knowledge of how to will was lost to the world for thousands of years.

On January 6th of 2005, Freddie Cornwell, a U.S. former celebrity magician, received a call from Dr. Wilson Thunstable of the Whitechapel Psychic Investigation Centre. He declared they were on the brink of a massive breakthrough in the psychic arena. He requested the urgent need of Freddie Cornwell's services. Hinting the experiment could prove very useful in the magician's line of work. Cornwell, who was desperate to take anything that would help his flagging career hitting rock bottom, accepted readily and without question. He was on the plane the next day.

Dr.Thunstable, who had studied history before becoming a psychiatrist, had been on the trail of the ancient willers for decades. He had recently returned from a dig at the tomb of the Pharaoh Akhenatoh where the hieroglyphics, seemed to relate not only the story of the willers descendants, as they had in many other tombs; but also the actions needed to bring to the fore of one's own consiousness the power to will. Along with the doctor's previous studies this virtually completed the jigsaw. The last element needed was a man with some knowledge of psychic powers.

Mr. Cornwell took to the experiment well, his previous knowledge of spoon bending along with guidance from the doctor enabled him to pick up the skill in no time.

The critics were astonished Freddie Cornwell could actually do magic. His career blossomed but he couldn't keep his secret to himself. ‘Fly with Freddie' Cornwell's book, explained the way to will in explicit detail. Dr. Thunstable was not impressed, he had grave doubts concerning the wide spread knowledge of such a powerful tool.

After people realised it was not the usual hoax book, sales rocketed and Freddie was lorded as a hero. For some time the strange new world of the willers brought a certain chaos to the world that was as entertaining, as it was novel. Hover boards zoomed through the sky, houses were summoned from piles of waste, and St.Thomas Boy's school 2nd XI won the F.A. cup

. It was now common to glance above your head to witness bizarre dancing floating bodies. Sometimes you would look up to see a chase as it burst into the air, a willing thief trying to make his escape, a Willing Unit Constable hot on his heels. It seemed as if the latest sci fi effect could be yours if you just concentrated hard enough. Everything from people to whole buildings began to clutter the sky, as a new form of transport came into being. Willing had become big business. Things were changing as a new order started to impose itself.

Freddie's company Willpower , had been poaching all the willers with power. Gradually they started to flex their muscles, having controlled all transport of goods through the world for some time, they started to transfer whole banks, acres of rainforest, golf courses and generally whatever took their fancy to their HQ in Dallas, Texas. The worlds super powers stood idly by. Too bribed, too scared to even think of complaining.

Ernest Schneider was a post grad physics student whose obsession with the study of physics was unhealthy. He would spend days not moving, as he organised the world around him into a set of principles and then equations. After some time his body would sound the you are going to die if you don't do something soon alarm. He would grumble, stumble to his feet and wander out in search of nourishment.

Usually Ernest stood well clear of getting angry, there were too many sums to do to waste time like that; today, however, Ernest was fuming. He had come home to find not only his house, but also all of Hamilton Road stolen by willers. If this had not been enough, his university had been displaced and added to a Willpower charity development in Paris, Texas.

Ernest was not going to stand for buffoons to wield power just because they had read some book and could draw a frown in the right way. To this end he undertook some research. He traced the first reappearance of the way to will to an institute in Whitechapel, London. Finally Tracking down Dr. Wilson Thunstable, he realised the inventor was as annoyed as he was. The two scientists resolved to do something about it. Putting the kettle on, they sat down to form a practical solution to what seemed a rather illogical problem

The first documented appearance of the Logicals occurred in St. Paul's Churchyard on December 24th 2005. An absurdly cheeky American willer had turned up in Blackfriars hoping to present a rather improper Xmas to present to his wife. Why buy a miniature St Paul's Cathedral, when you can bring back the real one. Texan willer, Brad O Conner had been boasting for some days of this present and news had reached Ernest. This information had come through contacts at the recently formed LAW (Logic Against Willpower); an underground network of Physic students, professors, pedants and old country bumpkins, who all agreed it was most improper to go around breaking the laws of Nature wily nily.

Brad put down his beer and burped. He concentrated loosely on the building and started to will the church to rise in the air. Ernest willed but not, as would be suicidal, directly against the American. He had no hope of overpowering such an experienced willer. Instead he concentrated his will on the all the bricks and explained in depth to them Newton's law of gravity. Presented with the two arguments, the bricks could not but opt for the more logical. St. Paul's was back were it should be. It was not as Sir Christopher Wren originally intended, but her majesty's division of willers would see to that in the morning.

Flabbergasted, Brad stepped back onto his hover board and started to fly off into the night sky. He did not get very far before the board started to respond to the more logical arguments of Dr. Thunstable and hurtled downwards, hitting the ground at speed. Crawling away he heard the doctor calling after him, ‘This is only the start,what goes up must come down.'

Shit, thought Brad, this looks like war, as he managed to limp away down Chancery Lane.

Over the next couple of weeks the Logicals were involved in scuffles with willers all round Britain. In Nottingham, Dr. Thunstable managed to thwart Donnie Smithers a,willer eager to steal Sherwood Forest. He focused his agruments on the symbiotic relationship the trees had with the soil, and asked them where they were going to get their sustanance from if they broke for the willer. The roots held fast. Whilst in Surrey, Ernest Schneider managed to keep the M25 in one piece, in what proved to be a fierce struggle with a whole gang of willers. The only long term damge, that two or three of the motorway's exits would have to be renumbered

The country readied itself for war. LAW squadrons tried to arm the general populace with some basic physics.Students were promoted to teachers and anyplace that could was turned into a classroom. Daily newspapers printed lessons, diagrams and charts.The Discoverey Channel took over BBC1 and emergency Periodic tables were handed out to all insundry.

On the morning of Febuary 11th 2006 all of the willing transportation disappereared from the sky, some optimistics claimed the willers were gone. The Logicals knew it was just a lull before the storm.That afternoon Dr Thunstable called a press conference. Here he urged all those who could wield calculas to arms.Anyone who knew even basic science was called to meet at the top of the hill by Farnborough farm in Dover, at dawn of the next morning.This was not just a summoning of an army, but a challenge that he knew the willers would hear and respond to.

The moon shone on the willers as they flew across the Atalantic. They were eager for battle, as they were sure they would win.

Pack lunches were hurriedly prepared. Train timetables were consulted .Buses and coaches were laid on. Nerds, students, teachers, proffesors, under graduates, post graduates and anyone who could handle a textbook made their way south.People who couldnt add hid. . . At dawn on Febuary 13th 2006 the sun rose brightly over the white cliffs of Dover to reveal a crisp, clear, cold morning . Then slowly a black swarm filled the sky as the willers descended across the channel to dive againest the massed ranks of the Scientific army.

The Logicals lead the charge to meet them. They were not afraid. They had physics on their side. For them it felt as if they were marching out in the strongest army of all time, every scientist and natural philosopher from Plato to Einstein standing by their side.

The willers started their bombardment. The landscape moved and shifted.First form students hit the floor a calculation too slow to stop a rock falling on their heads.Weak willed willers screamed as floods of equations pounded their brains .Sparks flew and the air erupted in light and fire. Molecules unable to deal with the pressure put on them from both sides, exploded, taking with them victims from both sides.

The Glowing sky above the Kent hilltop buzzed and crackled as reality twisted and snapped back and forth between what should and should not be. In the centre of the fray the strongest willers clashed with the hardcore Logicals. Here the atmosphere burned a deep red, the arguments so fierce they singed the particles as they passed.

Freddie Cornwell engaged Dr. Thunstable in argument that fluctuated the reality around them contorting the air and ground so they appeared as if but a blur.Finally the dust settled and Freddie stood there smiling.At his feet lay the bloody corpse of Dr.Wilson Thunstable, one theory too slow to stop his own demise .

Vengence sparked Ernest Schneider's mind and it moved faster than it ever had before. His world was no longer shapes and colours but a serious of equations and laws.Everything was related and he could see how. His body became a human to matter conduit for this information, beaming forth a natural order; stabilising reality like an alkaloid in acid. Freddie was no match for this onslaught of reason and sunk to the floor, his body drained of the will to move, of the will to live.

Seeing their leader cave in sent a wave of realisation that started to destroy the willers. .They collapsed everywhere. Finally, the constant barrage of logic defeated them.

By Dan Hekate

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