There was a smell of smoke and steam and the pungent odor of hot metal. In the middle of the floor was his car, thin blue smoke trailing from below it. Attendants were playing a gasoline extinguisher into the smoke.
"That's my car," he said sharply. "What happened?" Dunno," said a greasy man in jumpers. "It come in, and we was puttin' it on the elevator when it begun to smoke, so we turned on the extinguisher."
There was a clanking rattle. Somebody rolled a crawler into position for use. The greasy man laid himself on it, grabbed up a wire-caged light and pulled underneath the car. His voice was somewhat muffled.
"No fire ... Huh? What's this?"
He pulled himself out and scratched his head. He reached for tools and went under again. He swore suddenly, as if he'd scorched himself. Then the crawler came out and the man raked an irregularly shaped, smoking object from under the car.
"This was it," said the mechanic. "What the hell!"
He pushed the object to a bucket of water and forked it in. There was a hissing sound and a cloud of steam arose. Waldron, his mouth dry, said: "I think I get it." He added unconvincingly, "A practical joke. It misfired. I'll take care of it!"
He passed out money. The object, pulled out of the water, was still hot enough to dry itself immediately. It was a mass of copper wires, stuck together with solder which had melted and run so that the original design could no longer even be guessed at. Waldron put it in his pocket. Feeling it uncomfortably hot against his hip, he went grimly back to the hotel.
The look of things in the Mayfair lobby had changed. There was a small, tense crowd about the hotel desk. There had been a small desk-radio there, turned discreetly low. Now it was turned to full volume, and everybody was crowded close to listen.
... and the entire city seems to be isolated from the world. From the Empire State Building it appears that all electricity in the city has been cut off. There is neither telephone nor telegraphic communication. A tube train has arrived with all its passengers dead—apparently dead when the train left Newark. Police cars from Jersey City are speeding toward the stricken city and will report by radio. The Jersey Turnpike is apparently closed by the disaster, whatever form it may appear to have taken. No cars are coming out of the section nearest downtown Newark from either direction. All traffic on the Skyway has ceased.... Here's a flash from Jersey City. A police car driving in toward Newark reported a mass of wrecked traffic ahead. Immediately afterward it ceased to transmit. It does not answer calls. Efforts are being made to contact members of the Amateur Relay League—short-wave hams—with so far no result.... Here's another flash. The Newark airport does not answer calls.... Another flash still. The telephone company reports that all its lines to Newark went dead at the same instant. Tests do not reveal circuit trouble. It is as if every person in Newark ceased to answer or else dropped dead at the same time....
There was a murmur of horror in the lobby of the hotel. Waldron slipped into a phone booth, his lips set savagely. He dropped dime after dime, dialing, dialing, dialing. He could get no answer. No connection. He was trying to reach some authority to report that he had escaped from Newark and could give information. But everybody in New York with a family in Newark was trying desperately to ask questions.
He went back to Lucy.
"Get a reservation. Get a room here," he commanded. "Explain that you live in Newark and daren't go back because of what's happened. Stay here. I'm going to report in person what I can't get an answered phone to report to. All right?"
Lucy swallowed. She nodded. "This afternoon," she said unsteadily, "I was worried about my father only. Now, with this and Fran ... I'm sort of dazed."
"Naturally," agreed Waldron grimly, "but there's one thing I don't want you dazed about. Fran unquestionably kept us from being involved in whatever's happened in Newark. He did it for your sake. So to some degree I trust him. But he didn't try to stop the whole business, so I distrust him too. If he turns up to talk to you, don't see him except where there are plenty of people around. And don't leave the hotel under any circumstances."
"A-all right," she said.
Waldron wanted to say something encouraging, but he couldn't think of anything. He went out and got a cab. Its radio muttered. In traffic, the driver turned it up.
... Guesses at the nature of the tragedy range to notions of an invasion from space, like the famous War of the Worlds scare of thirty years ago, or mass sabotage by subversives, or the explosion of an atomic weapon by spies, to belief in a sudden and terrible plague.... Newark, however, seems to be a city of the dead. On every side, the suburbs report disasters which add up to the statement that something unknown has wiped out all fife in a roughly circular area, bordered ...
The driver turned a scared face to Waldron. "Dam' funny thing, that! And so close!"
"Yes," said Waldron shortly.
"Wh-what in hell is it? D'you suppose it'll come over here? It—it ain't a plague, is it?"
"No," said Waldron curtly. "It's not a plague. It isn't coming to New York. I was in Newark when it hit."
The driver turned to stare. Shrieking horns reminded him of the danger of driving blindly in heavy traffic. He jerked his head back just in time to avoid a smash-up.
"M-my Gawd!" chattered the driver, "you think you caught it?"
"No!" snapped Waldron. "But I gave you the Gracie Mansion address. There'll be nobody at the City Hall. If I can get to the Mayor, I can tell him what I saw. They'll know what to check on. They can figure out what to do! Make time, will you?"
The driver forthwith became inspired. He jammed down his accelerator and drove like a crazy man with second sight. He worked through a maze of moving vehicles, and behind him there arose a bedlam of indignant hootings and more than once the shrilling of a traffic officer's whistle. Finally, the driver drew in before the Mayor's official residence.
"Wait," commanded Waldron. "They may send me somewhere else with my information."
There was a policeman on duty. Waldron said briefly that he had some information about the mess in Newark. Things had happened so fast that the officer on post outside the Mayor's residence did not know of any mess in Newark. But Waldron sounded sane and the policeman let him pass.
Inside, a politely attentive secretary said soothingly that the Mayor was in conference but would send for Mr.—Mr. what was the name? Yes. The Mayor would send for Mr. Waldron as soon as he possibly could. He would send a car and a motorcycle escort for Mr. Waldron. But just at this moment the Mayor was in conference ...
The secretary hadn't heard the news broadcasts either. He had been disturbed at routine, after-hours business. He was annoyed but extremely polite.
Waldron got out to the street again and fumed. He went to the cab and got in.
"They think I'm crazy," he said coldly.
A man came running down the sidewalk. He babbled to himself. "I've got to see the Mayor! I've got to see the Mayor!"
He stopped before the policeman in front of the gate. His eyes were bright, as he said urgently: "I've got to see the Mayor ... about the trouble in Newark. I made it. I sent some spirits over there to put everybody to sleep, but now the spirits won't wake them up again! I want some policemen to arrest the spirits who've stopped obeying me! I've got to see the Mayor—"
Waldron's taxicab drove away as the policeman resignedly rapped on the sidewalk with his night stick. Waldron's anger became tinged with irony. He had seemed to the Mayor's secretary merely a crank. They appeared constantly, besieging all in authority. Even had the secretary known of the tragedy of Newark, he would have thought Waldron to be the first of the oncoming nuts.