"It's no new model. I'm not even sure it's a gun," Johnny said. "Doesn't feel like a gun."
"What happens when you push the stud here?" Greg asked.
Johnny licked his lips nervously. "Try it," he said.
Greg leveled the thing at the rear wall of the lounge and pressed the stud. There was a sharp buzzing sound, and a blinding flash of blue light against the wall. It looked for all the world like the flash of a live power line shorting out. They squinted at the flash, rubbed their eyes....
And stared at the wall. Or at what was left of the wall, because most of the wall was gone. The metal had bellied out in a six-foot hole into the storage hold beyond....
Johnny Coombs whistled. "This thing did that?" he whispered.
"It must have...."
"But there's no gun ever made that could do that." He walked over to the hole in the wall. "That's half-inch steel plate. There's no way to pack that kind of energy into a hand gun."
They stared at the innocent-looking weapon in Greg's hand. "Whatever it is, Dad must have put it in the gun-case."
"Yes, he must have," Johnny said.