A ghostly darkness lay upon the New Tower of Babel. The light had gone completely out, gone out as though it had been killed—at the moment when the gigantic wheel of the Heart-machine of Metropolis came free from its structure with a roar as from the throats of a thousand wounded beasts, and, still whirling around, was hurled straight up at the ceiling, to strike it with a shattering crash, to bound back, booming the while like a gong as large as the heavens and to crash down upon the splintered ruins of the erstwhile masterpiece of steel, to remain lying there. Joh Fredersen stood long on the same spot, not daring to move. It seemed to him that an eternity had passed since he sent Slim out for news of his son. And Slim wouldn’t and wouldn’t come back. Joh Fredersen felt that his whole body was frozen to an icy coldness. His hands, hanging helplessly downwards, were clasped around the pocket-torch. He waited ... waited.... Joh Fredersen threw a glance at the clock. But the hands of the giantness stood at an impossible time. The New Tower of Babel had indeed lost itself. Whereas, every day, the throbbing of the streets which tunnelled their course below it, the roar of the traffic of fifty million, the magic madness of speed, had raged its way up to him, there now crouched a calm of penetrating terror. Stumbling steps were hastening towards the door of the outer room. Joh Fredersen turned the beam of his pocket-torch, upon this door. It flew wide open. Slim stood upon the threshold. He staggered. He closed his eyes dazzled. In the excessively glaring light of the powerful torch his face, right down to his neck, shone a greenish white. Joh Fredersen wanted to ask a question. But not the least sound passed his lips. A terrible dryness burnt his throat. The lamp in his hand began to tremble and to dance. Up to the ceiling, down to the floor, along the walls, reeled the beam of light.... Slim ran up to Joh Fredersen. Slim’s wide, staring eyes bore an inextinguishable horror. “Your son,” he stammered, almost babbling, “your son, Mr. Fredersen—” Joh Fredersen remained silent. He made no movement, but that he stooped a little—just a very little, forward. “I have not found your son ...” said Slim. He did not wait for Joh Fredersen to answer him. His tall body, with the impression it gave of asceticism and cruelty, the movements of which had, in Joh Fredersen’s service, gradually gained the disinterested accuracy of a machine, seemed quite out of joint, shaken out of control. His voice inquired shrilly, in the grip of a deep innermost frenzy: “Do you know, Mr. Fredersen, what is going on around you, in Metropolis—?” “What I will,” answered Joh Fredersen. The words sounded mechanical, and as though they had been read before they were spoken: “What does that mean: You have not found my son—?”