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ATOMIC SUSPENSION UNIT. He stabbed a button and another read: STANDBY. Leitz relaxed momentarily as Hunter gazed over his shoulder, the whole scene eerily mirrored in their visors.
    ***
    After pushing huge wads of paper into his ears, John took off in search of a way out of this madness. It was like he was lost in a hall of crazy mirrors; every surface reflected his distorted image, and the intensity of the light made him feel like he was dissolving into nothingness.
    With every step becoming more frantic than the last, he wound his way through the stainless steel maze until he turned a corner and saw what he was looking for, a red chair standing in front of a huge graph background. More importantly, behind the chair was a hole in the wall, a chute going somewhere—and anywhere would be preferable to where he was.
    ***
    Leitz was becoming drunk with anticipation, and he was giddy from the flawless way his machinery was performing the functions he had intended. He also knew the burst of energy he was about to unleash was so powerful it could potentially blow the town and a good amount of the surrounding countryside clear off the map.
    He hesitated for a moment and double-checked all of the output dials. He needed a small, localized explosion at the sub molecular level—not an explosion that would destroy, but one that would unglue the atomic structure and suspend it until he reconfigured it into a new shape, weight, and density.
    The thoughts danced in slow motion through his mind as he stabbed at the penultimate button on the control panel, and the electronic readout glowed: MOLECULAR ACCELERATOR.
    A low hum began, so deep it could not be heard, but Hunter felt it. It was so pronounced, he thought he was going to come apart at the seams, and it got deeper and deeper, until every molecule in the room was vibrating at the same rate.
    ***
    John felt the low rumble too; it affected his vision. His eyeballs felt like they were bouncing around in their sockets, and the blood throbbed in the veins throughout his body. He noticed another phenomena; he had the feeling his feet were becoming one with the floor. He knew if he didn’t do something soon, he wouldn’t be able to move; it was his final motivation, and he began running toward the chair.
    ***
    Leitz stared fixedly at another dark readout below the last one until it glowed: MAXIMUM OSCILLATION.
    He opened a small panel, moved his finger over the firing button and watched the countdown begin: FIVE…FOUR…THREE…
    ***
    John felt the gravity in the room double, and he could have sworn that he was running in slow motion, but he knew this was impossible. So he ignored the feeling, and focused all of his attention on the chair.
    ***
    Leitz flexed his finger in anticipation as the countdown fell: TWO…ONE…ZERO.
    He stabbed the button down and a brilliant white light completely obliterated every feature in the room as the huge ray gun above him exploded into life.
    ***
    John leapt onto the chair at exactly the same time that the gun unleashed its deadly subatomic ray, and as he disappeared into the hole in the wall, both he and the chair dissolved into clouds of billions of shining particles that shone super brightly and then were gone.
    ***
    As the room returned to normal, Doctor Leitz hit the SUBATOMIC MANIPULATION SWITCH, and as if by magic, glowing particles appeared from nowhere and lazily coalesced into a bright yellow sunflower thrusting itself jokingly out of a bright red flowerpot.
    Hunter lifted his visor and stared at the video monitor. “Holy moley,” he said incredulously. “Did that used to be the chair?”
    Leitz lifted his visor. “Yes, it used to be the chair.”
    “Well, you were right,” he said, “That is the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
    Doctor Leitz turned from him in disgust, and began re-calibrating his machinery. Regardless of the outcome of the experiment, he had opened a portal into the unknown. The mystery of