Chapter 33

Keep looking in, you will get chapter 34 later today.

33

Petar looked at Dave with wonder. This was surely the man he had seen in a time frame from the far, far future? He received a look of equal summation, with a nod and a wink. Dave had an idea…..

“What’s that, over there?!” He pointed frantically.

“What’s what? OOF!” The colonel was distracted just long enough for Petar to run in a full body ram into the stomach.

Dave had whirled and stunned the two slow guards behind him, their guns clattering on the floor. As he whirled back, Petar had been repulsed and sprawled on the floor, the colonel’s gun raised … Dave flung himself at the man as the gun fired … Petar scrambled away in slow motion as the deflected bullet hit the rock in the machine …

A shudder arose around them, a beam of red flashed from the machine taking the colonel in a cocoon of angry swirling red. He slowly dissolved into fine ash with a diminishing scream of pain. But the shudders remained. The guards fled in terror.

Petar had just the wits left to grab HIS rock from the floor and touched it gently to the one shaking in the machine. Both melted together, the shaking stopping, but the shudders around the machine remained. The machine started to melt and a light grew, slowly.

Petar pocketed the rock safely, not needing Dave’s encouraging “RUN!” to follow him as fast as he could move out of the disintegrating lab.