Winston K. Marks

“ I'm thankful I'm a bachelor and have no children around to remind me of the utterly insane nightmare that a child's toy plunged our country into—the millions of people who died in agony—the total disruption and near dissolution of our nation. ”

“ Durstine began.
An hour later Baxter was dead as predicted. And so was all hope of removing the lethal debris with his other invention. The "extractor" didn't work, he had told us. Yes, he'd been trying to reverse the field to retrieve the metallic objects from the other dimension, but the experiment was a failure!
Durstine took my arm. "Come on, Gene. We've done all we can. I know one safe place—a place where no kids ever played."
"Yeah, I know," I said with a tongue two sizes too big. "The nearest bar. The damned kids! They've murdered us! Leo Baxter and the damned kids!" ”

“ He looked into my eyes and read the question I was too weak to speak aloud.
"No," he said, "we didn't figure out Baxter's extractor. But we do have a successful detector, and all we have to do now is use it—then hang a tin can or an old ketchup bottle on each speck of metal for a marker. Yeah, the country's going to be cluttered up like a hanging garbage dump for a long time, but if you can see 'em you can dodge 'em."
A detector? Why, they'd have to equip every person in the country with one! ”

“ Holes in windshields that always went straight back, through seats and sometimes passengers—right out through the rear end.
The city panicked. Then the county, state and nation. In two days, yes, the whole nation!
At first everyone thought we were being attacked by some secret weapon. By some miracle of statesmanship, the President of the United States prevented a "massive retaliation" attack by the army upon our most likely enemy—long enough for Intelligence to affirm that no enemy on Earth was that mad at us. ”

“ The next question was, how to extract the deadly particles from the other dimension, or how to keep them from bleeding back slowly into ours.
I moved cautiously through the old house fanning every inch of air ahead of me with a phone book. When I got to Calvin Baxter's workshop I was especially careful, but I needn't have been. The only metal particles stuck into the thin air seemed to be over his work-bench where he had been experimenting with his device. All but one.
It was right where I expected to find it—better than six feet in the air, just forehead high for a man tall as Calvin Baxter. ”

“ On my insistence, Calvin Baxter had been set up in a private room at the jail with Doc Thorsen in attendance. The city hospitals were so jammed with accident victims and frantic relatives that it was no place to work with a man who was our only salvation. ”

“ Only it's caused by particles so small that you can't even feel when they penetrate the skin. They're large enough to poke holes in your intestines, though. Large enough to make microscopic passages for bacteria. So, you see, for every bleeding patient, there will be hundreds, thousands, coming down with peritonitis—infection of the body cavity from within. Without drugs the inflammation spreads in hours, and the temperature goes up and up. It's fatal."
I could almost feel the pain in my belly and the fire in my veins as he spoke. Doc Thorsen took another drink and handed me the bottle. ”

“ Get rich," I said and slammed the front door behind me as I stomped out. I had been so certain that the missing gadgets would give me a motive for the attack on Leo's brother, or at least the method of inflicting the fantastic wound, that I was about ready to turn in my badge in frustration. All I could pin on Leo was a desire to cash in on his brother's gimmick—which, presumably, he could have done whether Calvin lived or died. ”

“ A man the size of Calvin wasn't likely to be the skittish type. And by the time the ambulance arrived I was ready to admit that if the injury were an accident, Calvin Baxter had contrived to conceal its source.
It took several of us to load the unconscious man onto the stretcher. I told his cocky little brother to stay on ice, while I rode downtown in the ambulance.
Dr. Thorsen called me into the emergency ward. "How did this happen?" he wanted to know. Thorsen is a lean, learned old chap who normally gives more answers than he asks. ”

“ Thorsen shrugged. "Then I don't know. I expected you to report some kind of a blast or explosion."
"No sign of one."
"All right, then what else but a flying particle could drill a hole in a man's forehead the diameter of a piece of 16-gauge wire?" ”

“ A kid's toy! Good Lord, man, that device might be dangerous!"
"I appreciate your professional ethics, Lieutenant. I've applied for a patent, so you can tell all your friends now. And stop worrying. The "Mystery i-Gun" is quite harmless. I experimented a week before going into production."
"A week?" I could scarcely believe my ears. "What happens when some kid jams his gun against a light-pole or an automobile ... or the night lock on the First National Bank?"
"Nothing. It punches no holes. A large metallic object simply dissipates the field. ”

“ But they don't stay there. They ooze back. Slowly. Real slow, so the first edge or corner that sticks back into our dimension is only a few millionths of an inch thick. Then a few ten-thousandths, then a few thousandths—and that's about the time they start making holes in people and objects that run into them."
"Run into them?"
"Certainly. There are no holes in buildings or other stationary objects. The holes are all horizontal. Now look, Baxter, our only chance is to work on that other device and your brother's notes, and maybe we can develop an extractor of some kind." ”

“ Before that week was up, the Wall Street Journal estimated there were already more i-Guns in the hands of the juvenile public than all the yo-yos ever produced. They retailed at eighty-five cents, made of plastic with a hole in the back where you could change the pen-light battery. They sold, all right. They sold in drugstores and toy stores and dime stores and department stores. Toddler's, tykes and teen-agers went for them. And adults. Maybe 30 million of them were in the hands of the public before I saw Leo Baxter next. ”

“ Jerry was his only son, and one of the first kids in town to own an i-Gun. Durstine had said he bought it for himself. The chief went on, "What's more, the fever's epidemic. Before we left the hospital they were dragging victims in by the hundreds. Not just kids, either. On top of this other thing, we got the worst epidemic in history. No one knows what it is."
I looked at Thorsen. "You said you'd been at the hospital. What is it?" ”

“ Tell them to stay put, and when they did move, to walk slowly, fanning the air ahead of them with something solid—an umbrella, a coat, newspaper, garbage can lid—anything to warn them of the tiny, suspended daggers. ”

“ I still don't understand it, and I've been losing sleep over these formulae."
"Then why not take it to the university and let the professors—"
"Because," he interrupted, "whether I understand it or not, Calvin's gadget, happens to work. Watch this."
He picked an ordinary paper clip from the debris of pencils, stamps and rubber bands from the top desk drawers, touched it to the "muzzle" end of the gadget where it stuck as if magnetized. "Now keep your eyes on the paper clip," he ordered. ”

“ Durstine explained, "When that speck gets large enough to support it, that can will be hung on it. Meanwhile, other people are forewarned that the air over the can is out-of-bounds, so they won't waste detectors on it." ”

“ The largest object it will handle is about a half-inch steel screw—"
"Baxter, your brother's accident is connected to that device—and you turn it loose as a novelty!"
"Nonsense. It's safe as a knot-hole. It simply makes things disappear. ”