Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net BLEEDBACK BY WINSTON MARKS _It was just a harmless, though amazing, kid's toy that sold for less than a dollar. Yet it plunged the entire nation into a nightmare of mystery and chaos...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The thing is over now, but I can't see a Teddy bear or a set of blocks in a department store window without shuddering. I'm thankful I'm a bachelor and have no children around to remind me of the utterly insane nightmare that a child's toy plunged our country into--the millions of people who died in agony--the total disruption and near dissolution of our nation. And yet, as the United States tottered on the verge of complete chaos, it was, ironically, another child's toy that saved us. A simple, ordinary, every-day toy for tots stopped the "fever", halted the carnage that was tearing our flesh and eyes and viscera into shreds. With most the scientists in the world working for an emergency solution, they could come up with no better answer than a toy that'd been around for generations before the "Mystery i-Gun" was even conceived. Being a plain-clothesman, I have seen greed and impatience ruin many individual lives. If I could have guessed at the chain of events that would stem from my first contact with the younger Baxter brother, I would have put a bullet through his head in cold blood and cheerfully faced the gas chamber. Instead I took off my hat and followed him through the substantial old house to a moderately large room in the rear where, I'd been told, we would find a body. Leo Baxter was a little guy about five-foot six, like me but with a better build. His size was important for a couple of reasons, one being that it was startling to say the least, when he pointed to the giant on the floor and said, "My brother." He caught my look and shrugged impatiently. "I know, I know, but this is no time for Mutt and Jeff gags. Calvin has been murdered. Now get with it, Lieutenant!" If Calvin _was_ his brother, Leo's agitation was understandable, but his voice had a flat note of practicality in it that I didn't like. As I looked down at the sprawled length of the big man on the tiled floor, the Mutt and Jeff angle didn't fit at all. David and Goliath was a better bet. This Goliath seemed also to have met his fate from a hole in the forehead. I say, "seemed," because it developed that Calvin Baxter was not yet quite dead. "There's no pulse or breath," his brother said when I mentioned this error in his assumption.