They had Valtair's arms and legs shackled. He had no real head to speak of, only that metal, missile-shaped thing, yet, even at that... ​

     he looked pissed.

     A wound on his left arm gushed gray blood. A bullet hole in his right leg did the same.

     "The Fours showed me where to find him and how to bring him down," Kevin said. "The Fours also showed me how to remove the device that allowed him to go poof. I've got it now. Watch this."

     POOF! Klawmaker disappeared.

     POOF! He appeared again at Anne's elbow. He startled her. She yipped like a poodle.  

​     "Sorry," Klawmaker said. "Didn't mean to frighten you."

     Of course, that's exactly what he'd meant to do.

     Gramps couldn't take his eyes off Valtair. He muttered, "You have no idea what you've done."

     "You're comfortable?" Klawmaker asked Anne. "The view, it's beautiful, isn't it?"  

​     "You know who I am, don't you?" Gramps asked.

     "Yeah. You're the old man I didn't invite to lunch."

​     "I am an Adam," Gramps said. "That means that I am not really human, although I've taken the form of a human for the last fifty years."

​     "The Fours told me all about you. You failed the Adam Mission in your own universe, causing the death of everyone in it."

​     Gramps took a deep breath, then muttered, "I've been around the multiverse long enough to know what a Valtair is, that's what I'm saying."

​     Klawmaker shot him a look that asked, why are you telling me this?

​     "You've just captured the only entity that multi-dimensional wars have been fought over, and you don't care," Gramps said. "Fine. We'll move on. I'm here because I felt my dear friend Anne might need protection."

​     "And she felt all she needed was you to protect her ​here? On ​my turf?"

​     His arms still shackled, Valtair raised both forefingers.

​     Gramps said, "I've been in more battles than you've had days in your life, yet here I stand. Where will you be in fifteen billions years, Mr. Klawmaker, or even fifteen years?"

​     "The Fours will have consumed us all by then." 

     "It doesn't have to be that way."

     "I'll do everything I can to ​make it that way."

​     Gray beams bulleted from the end of each of Valtair's forefingers.

​     One of the gray beams hit a plant.

     The other beam hit a digital clock on the wall.

​     I'm sorry I failed you, was Valtair's last thought before he dissolved into a gray mass of gunk and circuitry along with that damned metal head of his.

     Klawmaker got on his com. "Edward, get a hazmat team in here as quick as you can, like right now. I want something cleaned up, and I'm going to want every speck of it saved. I want a team to..."

     Valtair then further dissolved into a pool of brown, smelly soup.

     "We might want to skip lunch," Anne said.  

​     The plant stepped out of the flower pot, then scampered like a squirrel

​to the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony. It flattened like a piece of paper to slide under the door, then out of sight.

​     The clock dropped from the wall, grew wings, then flew out of the room, into the kitchen, then beyond until it found a window to smash through to then disappear into the sky.

​     Now there's trouble for a later date, Gramps thought.

​                                                      CONTINUE

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