THE VENGEANCE OF TOFFEE By Charles F. Myers The world was on the brink of atomic war and nothing, it seemed, could prevent it. But Toffee had a plan--and a little magic to boot! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy February 1951 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The bombs ticked--in remote places--behind locked and guarded doors. The bombs ticked, and the terrible sound was distinct in the farthest corners of the world--wherever a man picked up a newspaper, turned on a radio--or paused to listen to the beating of his own heart. A Bomb ... H Bomb ... X Bomb--the bombs ticked louder and louder with the growing hours--and each man dwelt alone now with the dark spectre of his own trembling fear. "_Yesterday we perfected a new kind of totalitarian death...._" (It was difficult to remember the pleasant, relaxed voice which had once given the announcer his popularity, for now it seemed that his breath passed over taut nerves rather than vocal cords. But no one noticed; it was only what he said that mattered now, not how he said it. Fear fed on fear with an avid, indiscriminate appetite--and flourished from the diet.) "_Today we can only be certain that the foreign powers will have caught up with us within the next few hours._ "_Can you remember the Atomic Age, ladies and gentlemen? How long ago that was! And yet how swiftly we have progressed from that to the Age of Human Terror._ "_The X Bomb--the incomprehensible unit of power and destruction which dwarfs the human soul and reduces it to a negligible fraction of quivering fright--just one small fraction contributing to the monstrous organism of terror which has lately become our modern civilization. How wretched we are to be living in a civilization in which the word 'city' has been rendered obsolete by the word 'target.' The New York Target ... the Chicago Target ... the Salt Lake and San Francisco Targets. How wretched we are._ "_And is it strange that these targets which were once cities are being deserted? Is it strange that men have begun to run from the bombs even before they have begun to fall? That is the nature of terror._ "_For the first time in its history the nation looks upon a nomadic society--largely that group of the working people who have ceased working to wander aimlessly, seeking safety within our own borders--living by thievery and lawlessness. Crime has increased so rapidly of late that a comparative estimate is impossible. That, too, is the nature of terror._ "_Today the government would force these erstwhile workers back to the hearts of the targets--force them by law back to the factories to engage again in the production of death and destruction._