The laws of time part 2.

He decided upon inaction as any kind of movement would simply give away his position. Soon, bullets began to be fired in earnest. Apparently the Russians had lost interest in the prospect of interrogating him and had settled for extermination. He frantically ran his free hand over the weapon to somehow activate it.
Then it happened. ‘it’ is actually a very mild word for what happened because it nearly gave Danny a heart attack. The weapon spoke or maybe something spoke through the weapon. It said “the gun’s a part of you, command it.” Now Danny considered himself quite intelligent but that made no sense whatsoever to him. A part of him? A gun? Dubious, he decided to act upon the advice for the excellent reason that it was the only logical thing he could think of doing.
He made a rough estimation of where the Russians were and pointed his gun towards it. He said “fire!” though without any appreciable result.
Then he reconsidered the advice and thought that generally he never commanded his hand to pick up anything, he just did it. The Russians were very close to him now though they still had no inkling to his exact position. They were covering each other’s back in a very professional manner. However, professional or not, they weren’t prepared to be hit by a blue beam that seemed to just kill them. It didn’t hurt them, it didn’t burn them nor did it shock them. It simply and effectively killed them.
Danny was surprised. He examined the gun at his leisure and concluded that it was much advanced than the regular weapons he was used to. Now, he simple felt like removing his hand and just as easily his hand slid out of the gun. He grinned, his white teeth gleaming in the darkness and thought about the object in his hands. He slowly began to think about the vistas of opportunity that might open up if the weapon be put to correct use. However there still was the inexplicable phenomenon, the man who first used the gun and the way he disappeared. And why? He knew that whatever had happened that night was unprecedented because people simply don’t appear suddenly from thin air and then disappear just as suddenly.Moreover,he did not believe in anything supernatural.
His mind slowly wandered over the various possible explanations, and each of them was wilder and more implausible than the last. However he realized one thing, that such a weapon as his, would make the life of any mercenary a bed of roses in a real sense of the term.


20 YEARS LATER.


Rick was feeling like he was at the top of the world. No, make that the universe. A third year student of mechanical Optics at Yale and already hailed as the best the University has ever seen or likely to see. The recipient of the student of the year award for the last three years, he had flummoxed the professors with questions and answered many that flummoxed the professors. His dream, however, was the dream of every third child, that of creating a time machine. He, however, unlike any child, knew what his dream was and due to some obscure source of confidence, he firmly believed that it could be built and he would be the one to do it.
So for the last three years he had devoted most of his free time as well as busy time to the creation of a time machine. Most people knew it, few believed it and the professors totally rejected it. No one becomes the student of the year three years in a row if they didn’t work like mules or so they thought.
And now Rick was elated. He was feeling like that because according to his calculations, only one hurdle separated him from his ultimate goal-Time Travel. He had succeeded in making what he believed was the world’s first time machine. But the final hurdle was also the biggest hurdle. Theoretically the machine required astronomical amount of power to run, to transport up to a limit of three persons in the future or past. The required power was equivalent to the amount required by entire New York for three days. And with all his ingenious theories he couldn’t think how to achieve that. So he decided to file a patent.
Three days of complete restlessness followed, at the end of which he got a reply. It was somewhat like this.
“Dear Sir,
Though we appreciate your taking the trouble to file a patent we hope you appreciate our complete disbelief regarding your claim. Time Machines are a part of Science fiction and moreover even if they were real, a university third year would certainly not be able to build one.”
Rick read and re-read the letter, anger slowly welling up within him. At last, he meticulously tore the letter into sixteen pieces and sat down. How dare they disbelieve him? He, the greatest student Yale has ever seen? He decided that it was time for some direct action and called the Mr. Maclean secretary.
Now Rick’s academic achievements have made him a rather familiar face among people of high ranks. Mr. Maclean was one such person and he was also Rick’s father. He was one of the richest men in the world and certainly the richest in the Northern Hemisphere. His life was an open book and anyone could turn through the pages but that was from his rise as a business magnet. Before that, his life was as open as the secrets of Kremlin.