New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Science fiction; Time travel -- Fiction
Of what use to mention my own and Alan's futile parts? There was a
time, near the evening of this second day, when for hours I stood only
a few hundred feet south of our tower-space--stood at one of the top
levels, where I had been told to guard an isolated transverse corridor.
Occasional Turberites, lost from their fellows, wandered through.
My part to stand in ambush and dispatch them with a rapier, as they
appeared. Gruesome business! Like a sharp-shooter of our Civil War
posted in the bushes.
Or again, for a time I fed round steel bullets to an air-cannon where
a battery of ours was intrenched on a bridge. A horde of savages with
flying arrows and tomahawks assaulted us there, from the network of
overhead tracks along which they had climbed.
There were times when Alan was sent off on other duties, and I watched
at our tower-space and prayed for the tower to come. One time Alan was
so long gone that I feared he might not return; and then he joined me,
bleeding, torn from combat.
* * * * *
I have hardly mentioned the panics that swept the civilian population
which was caught in the city. The panics were worst the first day.
Millions everywhere trying to get away into the north rural sections.
The panics killed far more, that day, than did the fighting. For a
time the authorities tried to cope with them. The traffic squads were
on duty. The moving sidewalks, elevators--escalators--the trams and
monorails--were moving. But it was soon all paralyzed. Most of the main
vehicular arteries were soon in a tangle. Abandoned cars. Accidents
everywhere.
A wandering, milling jam of people, mad with panic, their screams rang
throughout all the rooms and every smallest corridor of the monstrous
beehive--a pandemonium of horror. Soon there were dead everywhere.
Millions died--but millions got away. Millions wandering on in a frenzy
until they got northward to the open air.
A million must have walked through the tubes. They were always flooded
with people; the East and West Side bridges were black with fighting
mobs. A million climbed on foot up the Hoboken terrace area and
wandered in the city sections there. And other millions fought their
way to the north roof and embarked on the departing air-liners.
The business of the city had ceased within an hour that first morning
when the battle began. Inconceivable industrial details all were
abruptly at a standstill. Food gave out. The Turberites captured many
of the city's food depots. The incoming freight liners found no one to
receive them. No further orders were issued. They soon stopped coming.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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