Halon-Seven Read Free Page B

would not only breach the wall, but the back pressure in the confined space would turn every one of them into human stew.
    That it, time to get the holy hell out of there…
    Pellagrin knelt down before the cabinet containing the glass cube and pulled open a heavy steel drawer. Inside was just what he expected, a pair of very heavily insulated power leads. With no time to waste, he pulled both cables out at the same time. Each cable was as big around as his wrist and had a heavy industrial alligator clip on the end.
    Pulling the wires the short distance to the platform, he dropped to his knees. Very carefully, he removed a metal panel from the back of the platform to reveal a pair of stout metal flanges—one marked with a plus and the other marked with a minus. Taking great care as to not cause a spark, he connected the lead wires; one to each terminal on the platform.
    Jumping upright, Pellagrin returned to the cube. Giving it another fateful glance, he pressed the large green button located under the large red circuit lever beside the cube. As soon as the button was pressed he could hear the surge of power reach the capacitors on the transport platform. Glancing once again at the TNT strapped to the glass wall, he knew it was now or never.
    Stepping to the transport platform’s small control panel still atop the small-wheeled cart, Pellagrin turned the ignition key and flipped up the glass cap protecting the toggle switch. He flicked the heavy switch, then slammed his fist down on the big red button. Without so much as a breath, he spun on his heel and stepped onto the platform.   With great care and precision, he took a position at the very center of the raised circle.
    A five second delay had been built into the system. It was designed to give him enough time to activate the device and move into position before it engaged. But now he was very concerned those five seconds would cost him his life. As he stood waiting for the device to engage, his eyes were glued to the sticks of TNT taped against the outside of the glass   less than ten yards away.
    Finally, just before he thought something had gone wrong with the platform, a small flash of light filled the room. It was follow almost immediately by another flash, this one stronger and brighter. Pellagrin couldn’t figure out where the light was coming from. It seemed to form all around him. Another flash and he felt a pull on his body—a strange force—as if he were suddenly twice his normal weight.
    There was one more final blinding flash and then Pellagrin was gone.
    —————
    The platform stood empty in the brightly lit laboratory. Electricity hummed as it coursed through the transformer in the cabinet at the back of the lab. The components inside the platform buzzed as they began to power down. Aside from that, there was eerie silence. The marble size sphere continued to hover at the center of the vacuum-sealed cube.
    Finally, the fuse ran out on the two bundles of TNT. The dynamite detonated, obliterating the glass wall and sending shards of glass the size of grains of sand blasting through the laboratory. The fiery explosion ignited a gas line in the wall of the lab, engulfing everything in an instant inferno. The detonation’s percussive blast rocketed backward through the breached lab wall and down the concrete corridors pulverizing the six nearby Russian soldiers. They never felt a thing.
    The force of the blast would have been enough to collapse the concrete structure of the hallway and the lab itself if the blast wave and shrapnel from the wall had not already breached the vacuum seal of the Fire Star cube. With a hiss, the strange composition of the vaporous clouds and black orb contained within instantly mixed with the atmosphere. The electrified conflagration caused a cascading breakdown in the strange element. The resulting detonation that made the eruption of the TNT and natural gas look like a hiccup by comparison.
    When the strange black