Professor Norton was exhausted. He stopped running and leant his head against a window to catch his breath. From inside he could hear a voice. He looked through the window and saw Mcnab standing in front of an impressive array of levers and dials. He was pontificating in his arrogant way to a group of dignitaries and pressmen.

The professor had found the right place at last and it looked as if he was in time. He hammered on the window so hard he could feel the glass tremble beneath his fist.

“Stop the experiment,” he yelled. All eyes turned to him – the press interested, the dignitaries outraged and Mcnab with a sneering, triumphant look on his face.

The professor heard footsteps running towards him. With a startled yelp he disappeared from the window as two burly security guards wrestled him to the ground. When they lifted him up again his spectacles were awry and his thin white hair dishevelled. Pressmen were running out of the building, cameras at the ready. Flash, flash, flash. The professor was immortalised looking like a startled tramp.

“Stop that experiment – it could destroy the world.” He yelled as he struggled with the security guards who were trying to drag him away.

“Why good afternoon Professor Norton,” McNab had emerged from the building and was smiling a cold-eyed smile at the professor. “Welcome to our little experiment. Did you lose your invitation? No need to stand outside knocking on the window. Come in. You are just in time.”

He motioned to the guards to stand back then put his arm around the old man’s shoulders. Flash, flash, the cameras clicked. The professor shrank under McNab’s touch but allowed himself to be led into the laboratory with the guards in close attendance.

“Let me introduce you all to Professor Norton,” said McNab, when everyone had reassembled. “I was his assistant many years ago. As you probably know his life’s work on cold fusion has led to nothing, zero, a big non-starter. I’m very sorry professor that your disappointment has led you to attack the development of hot fusion.”

“It’s too dangerous,” said the professor, his voice shaking with anger. “It could create a black hole, which could destroy the earth.” The dignitaries stirred uneasily.

“Nonsense,” said McNab in the conciliatory tones one would use to a child. “Every precaution has been taken, all calculations have been done. I can assure you that there is absolutely no possibility of anything going wrong.” He looked at the piece of paper in his hand, found the right place and continued with the speech the professor had interrupted.

“Finally I would like to thank the European Union for the use of this magnificent new cyclotron. The world can now look forward to unlimited supplies of free and unpolluting energy.” He pulled a switch, cameras flashed and the professor ye

 “No”.

Deep in the heart of the cyclotron hydrogen atoms were hurled together at unimaginable speed. Millions of them fused together releasing energy.

As the echoes of the professor’s cry faded McNab pointed in triumph to a dial that had flickered into life.

“There you see the world’s first nuclear fusion power,” he said. “And I would like to assure Professor Norton that the world still exists.” There was a smattering of laughter and a round of applause.

Inside the cyclotron the newly formed helium atoms, stripped of their electrons by the initial impact, were starting to fuse together. Within seconds a mass was formed with enough gravitational pull to suck back energy released by further impacts.

The dial in the laboratory flickered and went back to zero. McNab frowned.

 “Obviously more work need to be done to maintain the output,” he said. “But today marks a turning point in our development of fusion power, a great triumph, not just for me and my team but for the world.” He turned to the professor. “I am sure you would like to take this opportunity to make a public apology for the unsubstantiated accusations you have made against our work?” Professor Norton mumbled something unintelligible and was led away by the guards.

The mass of atomic nuclei was no longer inside the cyclotron; it was eating its way down through the metal floor of the compression chamber. It made a hole the size of a pin head. When it started eating through the basement of the building it had added enough matter to make a hole the size of a golf ball. As it passed through the soil a startled worm passed over the event horizon, was distorted into a long brown thread and then sucked into what had now become a black hole.

The next day the story was headline news. It was given extra punch by contrasting the triumph of McNab with the humiliation of Professor Norton.