The Adventures of Gordon Killemal, Physics Grad Student, Ep 1

Gordon Killemal slid silently from his office into the darkened hall. A fluorescent light flickered and made shadows dance around discarded equipment.
“Must be a blown ballast,” Gordon said to himself. Like many who work long hours alone in the physics labs of RLM, Gordon often talked to himself. Even with his own reassurances Gordon moved quietly down the hall, alert to any suspicious noises. A roughing pump gurgled in a lab as he passed. Nearing the elevators, he could hear the slow mechanical whine of the freight elevator.
“Odd,” he thought, “who would be taking the freight elevator at this time of night?”
The elevator opened and a masked man stepped off the elevator. The large man held his hand in his jacket and started to move down the hall toward the unguarded offices of the North wing. Gordon, however, had other plans.
“Better put your hands where I can see them,” Gordon said, stepping from the darkened corridor.
The masked man spun only to find himself faced with Gordon’s Colt 1911 .45 automatic staring him square in the face. The unwavering glare of the graduate student made the masked man think twice, and he slowly raised his hands into the air.
Gordon reached for a cable tie from his back pocket when a math graduate student, unaware of the danger (or anything else) walked around the corner and ran, full force, into Gordon.
As Gordon tried to wrestle the mathematician out of the way of his pistol, the masked man drew his weapon. Before she knew it, the math graduate student was pulled to the chest of the masked assailant.
“Put down the gun or the girl gets it,” said the masked man in a rough, evil sounding voice. The hiss from behind the mask reminded Gordon of something; what it was, he could not place. At the moment, however, there were more pressing problems.
“Take it easy now, Hoss.” Gordon said. “Let the girl go, you don’t want that kind of trouble.”
“Put the gun on the ground!” yelled the masked man.
Gordon knew that he could squeeze off a round that would put this dirt bag down before he could consciously shoot the girl, but nothing would keep the death spasms from causing him to accidentally kill the girl before he died. Gordon slowly lowered his gun to the ground, never for a second taking his steely gaze off the intruder.
This man had come into a place of study, a place of peace, and endangered the lives of his fellow graduate students. He brought the stench of evil and the threat of death up the freight elevator and took hostage one of the building’s most benign inhabitants, a mathematician. Gordon Killemal knew what he had to do.
With his gun on the ground Gordon looked icily at the gunman.
“Let the mathematician go.”
“Kick the gun over here,” the masked man said.
Gordon slid the gun towards the masked man. As the elevator doors rang open the mask man grabbed Gordon’s gun from the floor. The masked man retreated into the elevator and with a terrible laugh leveled his pistol at Gordon.
Gordon dove to the left. Shots exploded from the elevator as the doors slid closed. Gordon steadied himself and found that he was unharmed.
The masked man had made two critical miscalculations. First, Gordon was still armed and as he started down the stairs he drew his Smith and Wesson model 686 from his shoulder holster. Second, the gunman failed to notice that the freight elevator moved with such slowness that even a geriatric professor could keep up with its descent by way of the stairs.
Gordon was no geriatric professor and the weight of his revolver in his hand filled him with grim confidence. He lithely jumped down the stairs, taking whole flights in three or four steps. On each floor he listened to be sure the gunman had not stopped the elevator. The elevator rang on the ground floor. The gunman did know that the ground floor of RLM was number four; he was no neophyte to the ways of the physics, math and astronomy building. Gordon dashed around a corner and held his breath, waiting for the masked man and his captive to emerge from the elevator.
The shots, however, had brought other attention. Flashing red and blue lights and screeching tires announced the arrival of the UTPD. Gordon knew this was his last chance to administer justice. He swung around the corner ready to deliver magnum death. The masked man shoved the hapless math student towards Gordon and dove back onto the freight elevator as the doors closed. Gordon caught the girl as she fell towards him and loosed two bullets from his revolver into the closing elevator doors.
The police outside the glass building façade saw Gordon with a gun in hand and his arm around the math graduate student. They would think he was the criminal!
In one lighting fast motion he let the math student fall to the ground and darted into the stairwell. He followed the sound of the elevator to the second floor where he found he was too late. A trail of blood led into the deepest recesses of the building: the atom optics labs. Following an armed man into the maze of curtains and optical tables in these laboratories was suicide. He would have to wait him out.

But with the police on his trail, would he have time? Would the masked man escape justice? Would Gordon Killemal be mistaken for the criminal he so valiantly pursued?

Find out in the next episode of the Adventures of Gordon Killemal, Physics Grad Student!