The Time Stone, Third Edition (Extended Version)
Chapter 21

“Who were they and how did they escape?” Shouted the mustachioed man to his subordinates in his office, the glass panel on the door read “Michael Bromely, Lieutenant”.

“I don’t know, Sir” speaks a taller dark haired man, with blue stripes on his uniform, who has a calm demeanor. “I had about seventeen men try to open that door together, but they could not even budge it. There is a time when they thought that they had it, but someone or something on the other side shut it again and they couldn’t open it again until finally it opened. We think it is a malfunctioning locking mechanism that eventually gave way due to age: what else could it be?”

“What else indeed?” Bromley speaks with an agitated and condescending tone.

“It’s as if someone or something released its hold on it,” says another man with a short stature and whiney voice and long whiskers, as he stands between the other two men.

“Good point Sergeant Docson.” Bromley uttered.

“Thank you.” Docson replies.

“Well, all I know is that someone or something better be wearing cuffs real soon because no one makes a mockery of my department and gets away with it. I want whoever is responsible caught.” Bromley yells.

“Yes Sir,” replies the monotone man, Sergeant Offson.

“Any words on the two escapees yet?” Bromley asks his subordinates.

“Not yet. We cannot rule out the possibility sir that they are somehow involved in the disappearing act in the stairwell.” Docson replies.

“That is giving those two morons way too much credit, Sergeant. Keep me posted. Search every possible nook and cranny in this place and leave no stone unturned until you replace them. We have to report to higher men soon, dismissed.” Bromley stands there thinking with his back to the door and his hands on his hips, feet at attention as the Sergeants saluted their commanding officer and walks out of the office shutting the door behind them. “Who are they?” Bromley asks himself thinking back to a similar encounter he experienced in his youth as a rookie cop officer on the beat of the mid-1980s Chronix Bay. “It couldn’t be.” He wondered.

It was twenty six-years ago and a different time back then. He is a cocky officer straight out of the police academy walking down the street twirling his night stick and whistling a happy tune, “The Saints go marching in.” He still has a mustache, but less pronounced and no sun glasses during the evening patrol. He stops in his tracks at the sign of a hold up, a robbery, in his area.

“Hey, give me all your money,” says a masks man raising a pocket knife to an elderly woman.

“Ooh no,” says the woman shaking mercifully as she handed over her pocketbook.

“Hold it right there,” yells the young Bromley as he ran to them waiving his nightstick then the masks man turns and ducked as Bromley approached swinging his nightstick at the masks man’s face. The masks man then laughs at Bromley and struck his left arm with his switchblade.

“Ouch” Bromley saw his arm bleeding through his blue uniform and he stepped back as the perpetrator came at him to finish the job when all of a sudden a flash of light blinded him for an instant, a yellowish blue haze, shone above them and a large object fell out of the sky directly above them landing on the masks man knocking him to the ground and rendering him unconscious. Bromley and the elderly woman stands in a grateful relief and awe as they realizes that it is not an object that fell from the sky and saved them, but a man, a man who got up as quickly as he landed and ran into the street as a Mack truck is approaching. Bromley’s training in face identification and suspect tracking helped him recognize the man as a tall above average build Caucasian male with blue eyes and dark hair, a grayish shirt and suit and a logo of some kind of gold etched onto it.The man fiddled with his wrist as he ran and did not say a word, but in a matter of seconds as he is in the middle of the street looking at them he squeezed something and vanished in a brilliant flash of light of yellow and blue.The pair stands their ground in shock at this sight they would never forget.

Bromley’s eyes widened with disbelief at what he just saw and now decades later there are more wrinkles of age on his face while the same awe and wonder of disbelief as to what happened that day remain with him and he ponders that it always will be. At his present age, he is wiser and more seasoned at his job, his physical wound had healed, but the memory of that night was etched in him forever.

Bromley stayed in touch with the old woman who was the first crime victim he helped on the job and she passed on a few years later taking her unanswered questions about the mystery of the vanishing man to her grave. Bromley feared he would be fated to do the same. He thought of it from time to time, but never told anyone because they might think he was crazy. The bust did advance his career exponentially as he was given a heroes medal by the police commissioner, has a spot in the hall of fame in his precinct as well as a quick promotion to detective. He felt honored, but often ashamed taking credit for a collar that wouldn’t have happened has it not been for that unbelievable intervention.His catholic background made him think that it is a sign from God and that the man was an angelic heavenly messenger come to help him, but his scientific studies in college made him think that maybe some more physical down to earth explanation existed, like some fluke science experiment gone awry, a form of science unknown to him, or something beyond his comprehension entirely. He only knows for sure that he would have been dead had he not received that help when he needed it whether it was an accident or not.