and there was a loud hissing sound. When he released it, it stayed out.
"Must've been something wrong, Doc," Mike announced. "That was easy!" He grasped both ends of the device and pulled. there was a POP, and the two sections slid apart. "Guess you can work on it now, huh, Doc?"
Cooper, Jeanie, and Larry stared in stunned disbelief. Cooper and Larry came over, pulled the device apart, and examined the inner works.
"Completely fused!" Cooper announced. "The chips are all disintegrated. All the wiring's melted, and flowed down into the bottom unit! It must have been the first
thing to go. It's a wonder Mike ever dispersed! The basic flaw had to have been in this unit. Once IT went, it started a chain reaction through the whole system. But what's causing it? Where is the extra energy coming from that's blowing out the units?"
Mike was standing on the platform by the wreck of the transmission unit. "It's the force field, Doc," he said. "It just won't work. When you turn on the force field it acts like a magnet drawing every bit of loose energy out of the atmosphere. It feeds it DIRECTLY into your circuitry, bypassing the circuit breakers! You've got to get rid of the force field and use some kind of non-conductive substance...maybe GLASS! Then you'll lick it!"
Mike turned around and looked at Cooper and his assistants. They were all standing, transfixed.
"Something wrong, Doc?" he asked, coming back toward them.
"How did you KNOW that, Mike?"
"Know what?" Mike asked, 'Did I say something?"
"About the force field burning out the circuit."
"I don't know, Doc! I just knew it. When I was standing there I could just see it all happening."
"My God!" cried Cooper, "That could be it! It really COULD be it! The transmission of the receiving unit might still be good, but the design of the whole rest of the system is gone. It was all built around the force fields." His eyes almost seemed to twinkle as he headed towards his drafting board. "Everybody OUT of here!" he said. "Go find something to do! Find McCree! Have him station a guard outside that door, and don't let ANYBODY disturb me for ANYTHING! Out! Out! All of you OUT!"
The three younger people hurried from the lab as Cooper began to work furiously at his drafting board like a man possessed. He stopped for a moment and called after the others.
"Hey!" he said, "Don't tell ANYBODY what Mike did! None of it! It never happened,
do you understand?"
"O.k., sure Doc!" Larry replied.