The Bombmaker & the Hook

 “If it isn’t Lil Dash. What brings you to my laboratory, my friend?” Professor Oppenheimer asked.

“I have enemies. They’re massive and growing. If I don’t stop them we’re all going to die,” Dash explained.

“Ohh, and what business do you want with me? I’m just a professor.” Oppenheimer replied.

“You’re a professor who makes bombs. Teach me.”

At that moment the room grew silent. The hook that played over and over again in Professor Oppenheimer’s mind was, “Teach me.” Here stood in Oppenheimer’s classroom, a boy yet to become a man, looking to do some serious damage. Oppenheimer was not a bad man but this moment in time shook him. This kid, Dash, didn’t even ask him how he was doing, nor did he ask about his family. Dash wanted to destroy his enemies. Unsettled by what had become of his passion, professor Oppenheimer dropped his pen that was being held in his right hand. He looked Dash in his eyes, “Today, if you make a deal with the devil do you think you can live with the outcome of a complicated mathematical equation? Because once it becomes you and you replicate it over and over again one million people just like you will be created until there’s nothing left. I am the father of the bomb, son this is the hook. Once you receive this bate a million gates will be opened. A million gates that you won’t be able to close. A million black holes will be created and a million things and people will get sucked in and spit out while their souls float back to the source.”

Dash showed him a picture of his young college friends studying in foreign countries. 

“They are no longer my friends, they took your teachings and killed my family. I have to make them pay before they kill more people. If you can’t teach me, how do I stop this?” Dash asked.

Professor Oppenheimer slowly gets up after picking up his pen in the middle of their conversation.

“Here’s a riddle. A child finds a book under his bed. He believes the book will save the world while also knowing that everything and everyone eventually dies. What does the child really want?”

“Just teach me, please, before it’s too late.”

Watching Dash take the bate, Professor Oppenheimer reels him in and gives him several nuclear physics equations.

“Chemistry is the doorway into everything. What you didn’t know was better for you, but what you’re about to find out will blow you away.”

The Bombmaker & the Hook