> That scenario brings to mind a short story I read once. A scientist had invented a device that accelerated time within a certain radius of the machine. When he activated it, it killed him, because of course he was inside the area that the machine affected when he turned it on, and it acclerated his aging process. He died of old age in a matter of seconds. His assistant lost an arm trying to rescue him when she reached into the field to try to pull him out. There was also something about a hole burned through the wall of the lab due to a flashlight that entered the effect of the time-accelerating field. The entire energy output of the flashlight was drained from it in a microsecond, causing a burst of light that incinerated the spot it was pointing at.
>
> I know there was more to the story than that, but I can't remember the details. The police were investigating it, and it was one of the detectives who finally peiced together what happened in the end.
>
> Gri"Gri"Grishny"shny"shny

Hey! I don't think I've read that particular story, but it sounds awfully like a scenario mentioned in Larry Niven's "Long ARM of Gil Hamilton" universe. (In this series, The ARM are part of a future U.N. police force dedicated to controlling and suppressing dangerous technologies like time machines, which could conceivably destroy little things like, oh, the entire space-time continuum.) And the main character, the Gil Hamilton detective, lives on an earth so vastly overpopulated by its 18 billion humans that pick-pocketing is legal... but running a red light in traffic automatically incurs the death penalty -- assuming the offender successfully made it through the traffic light alive, and didn't take out fifteen other people with him. Does any of that ring a bell? :-)

I enjoy short stories like Niven's which mesh science, technology, morality and mystery. SF/Mystery (and SF/Police procedural?) is probably one of the hardest subgenres to write, which is one reason why Dave Parker's own stories are duly impressive, seeing that they strike somewhat into that difficult area -- "Stuck" and "The Master's Hand" come to mind. Heh.

Wolf "Gestald lives?!" spirit