Mike was running down the darkened hallway, trying to make sense of what was going on, trying his best to stay in command of the situation. What started off as a normal day at the internship turned into what looks like one of the most eventful days of his life.
The funny thing is, he wasgetting close to quitting. As a college junior, he hated spending Thursday afternoons at an unpaid internship in some physics lab downtown, when he knew full well he’d be having a lot more fun back on his suburban campus. Why couldn’t he just quit the part-time, no-fun internship and have all the fun of college? He didn’t even like physics anyway.
Today, everything was different. When he went around the lab today to say hello to everyone, he found one of the research scientists, Dr. Marks, visibly shaken and yet still eager to show off his latest invention. Dr. Marks was considered the mad scientist of the group, and maybe he was. The other researchers resented that he took up so much space for his “inventions in progress,” really just junk that took up several different rooms.
For example, here Dr. Marks took out a gun. “This is my big secret,” he said. “You’re the only one here who listens to me, so I’ll show you how it works.” Mike thought about how he still thought Dr. Marks was crazy regardless of whether he said hello in the mornings, but he kept his mouth shut as he watched Dr. Marks fire the gun at the fern in his office. To Mike’s shock, the fern immediately doubled in size, and the two-foot plant in the corner now reached shoulder height. Dr. Marks then flipped a switch on the gun and fired it at his file cabinet, which immediately shrank down to no more than three inches tall. This was incredible.
"It gets better," said Dr. Marks. "You can fire it at a person and make them follow your every instruction. You can even transform anything - even yourself - into another person or an inanimate object. There's even more, all you have to do is-" he stopped talking suddenly as he heard footsteps walk past the room. The two of them both stood nervously, waiting for the footsteps to pass. The moment was broken. "You know what," said Dr. Marks. "Let's not do this during work hours. I'll show you how this thing works later."
Mike thought maybe he meant tomorrow when everyone else was off for Friday afternoon, or sometime after work when everyone had gone for the day. He didn't imagine that Dr. Marks meant to try the gun on himself. Only a few minutes away from quitting time, he saw something small moving around the floor out of the corner of his eye. At first he thought that was a bug, a rarity in the ultra-clean office, but right as Mike realized that it was a half-inch tall Dr. Marks, Suzi, the gorgeous blonde secretary, came walking by. Without even noticing, she dropped her high heels right on top of him, snuffing him out of existence completely. "Ew, bugs are gross," she said, seeing the bloody goop on her shoe. “Someone needs to keep this place clean.” She then just kept on walking as if nothing had happened.
Mike was horrified, of course. For half a second he wondered how Dr. Marks could have been so stupid to shrink himself and wander around as if it were a game, but mostly he was just shocked and upset that he's dead and never coming back. Mike was a college kid and only had distant relatives pass away, and certainly no one ever in front of him. But it's only a few seconds before he had a shocking realization: no one else knows about the gun. If he got to the office and took it without anyone else noticing, all the powers of the gun could be his. He knew Dr. Marks hated everyone else in the office and wouldn’t want them to get the glory, and he certainly wouldn't want the gun getting into the wrong hands.
Mike happened to know that the security cameras at the lab only functioned during business hours, and the cameras turned off once building security made sure no one was left inside at the end of the day. So it may not have been glamorous, but there he was a few hours later, crouching on top of a toilet in the bathroom stall. The guard came in, glanced under the stall, and kept going, just as Mike expected. He waited a few minutes, and then he made a break for Dr. Marks' office. Once he stole the gun and left, he’d have powers he never dreamed of. Which feature of the gun should he try out first?