Chapter 7

Westehvelt was still sitting with Joe Rosenkrantz in the communications room when Colborn’s call came through. He looked over Joe’s shoulder as the operator swiveled to face his telephone viewer.

“How come you remembered the number?” he greeted Colborn. “Did the elevator doors close on you?”

“Very-funny-ha-ha!” retorted Colborn. “Look, Joe--have you got power?”

Westervelt peered closer, thinking that the redhead looked unusually concerned. Rosenkrantz seemed not to have noticed.

“Power?” he said. “Have I got power! I can pull in stations you never heard of, just on willpower! You--you poor slob--you don’t even remember if you’re on your way home or coming to work! What is it now?”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” shouted Colborn. “It’s a power failure! They don’t even have any lights out in the street. I nearly got trampled to death getting back in the lobby to phone you.”

Westervelt and Rosenkrantz looked at each other.

“Come to think of it, Charlie,” said the operator, “the lights did blink a minute ago. I wonder if that was our own power taking over for the whole floor?”

They saw Colborn turn his head, and heard him expostulating with someone who plainly was impatient to get into the phone cubicle.

“I’ll go check the meters,” said Rosenkrantz. “Watch the space set for me, Willie!”

“Whuh-wh-wha?” stuttered Westervelt, groping after him. “Charlie! He went away! What do I do if a call comes in?”

Colborn finished dealing with his own problem downstairs, and returned his attention to Westervelt. He requested a repeat.

“I said that Joe went around the corner to check the power,” babbled the youth. “What do I do if a space call comes in? He said to watch the set.”

“Oh,” said Colborn. “You see the little red, star-shaped light at the left of the board under the screen?”

“Yeah, yeah! It’s out, Charlie!”

“Well, it should be. It’s an automatic call indicator set for our code. If it goes on, it shows you’re getting a call even if you have the screen too dark or the audio too low to notice. So you look for a green one like it on the other side...”

“Yeah. I see it.”

“You push the button beside it, and our code goes out automatically to acknowledge. Then you push the next button underneath, which puts out a repeating signal to stand by. Got that so far?”

“I got it,” said Westervelt. “Then what?”

“Then you go scream for Joe at the top of your lungs. That covers everything. You are now a deep-space operator. Just don’t touch any of those buttons until you get a license!”

“But, Charlie--!”

He was saved by the return of Rosenkrantz, for whom he thankfully vacated space before the phone. Colborn was again engaged in making faces at some other desperate commuter.

“You were right, Charlie,” said Rosenkrantz. “We’re strictly on our own private power. The whole floor, as near as I can tell. I thought they were being fussy when they put it in, but maybe it will pay off at that. How does it look down there?”

“It’s a mess,” said Colborn. “You wouldn’t believe there were so many people working in our building.”

“No, no!” said Rosenkrantz. “I mean, what’s the situation? Is it just this building that’s cut off, or the whole city, or what?”

“You can’t believe anything they’re saying,” Colborn told them, “but they had somebody yapping on the public address system. It seems there’s a whole section of the city, about fifty blocks square, cut off. They’re talking about a main cable overloading.”

“I can imagine what they’re saying,” said Rosenkrantz. “The poor guys stuck with finding and replacing it, I mean.”

Colborn gave a hollow laugh.

“You think they’re the only ones stuck? There ain’t a single subway belt moving to the surburban heliports. All the local surface monorails are stopped. You should see the way they’re packing the ground taxis, and the cops won’t let any more helicabs come down.”

“They’re supposed only to pick up from the roofs,” said Rosenkrantz.

“That isn’t where the people are. The people are all down here with me, and half of them are trying to get in the booth to tell their wives they won’t be home. Well, there’s a lot of us won’t get home tonight, if the boys don’t find that break pretty soon.”

Westervelt and Rosenkrantz exchanged glances. The youth shrugged; he had been planning on staying late anyhow.

“Tell him to come back up, Joe,” he suggested. “We have food in the locker for visitors, and he can clear a table in here to snooze on.”

Colborn had heard him, and was shaking his head.

“I’d like nothing better, Willie,” he said, “but I might as well start walking. It’s better on the level than on the stairs.”

“What do you mean--stairs?”

“I don’t know about the other buildings around here, but they regretfully announced that there will be no elevators running above the seventy-fifth floor in this one. In fact, they only have partial service that high, on the building’s emergency power generator.”

Rosenkrantz looked worried. Broodingly, he fumbled out a box of cigarettes.

“What do you think, Charlie?” he asked. “I mean ... Lydman.”

“That’s why I called,” said Colborn. “I think you better check the stairs and tell Smith. If he starts our boy down them, the ninety-nine floors will give him something to keep his mind busy.”

The pressure from outside finally intimidated him into switching off. The last they saw of him on the fading phone screen, he was striving desperately to ease himself out of the booth in the face of a bellowing rush of harried commuters for the phone. Joe sighed, trying to light his smoke from the wrong end of the box.

“I’m going to check our elevator, Joe,” Westervelt said.

He left the communications room and trotted up the corridor and around the corner. Through the main doors, he caught sight of Pauline peering out of her compartment. A thought struck him.

He hurried over to her and thrust his head close to the opening in her glass partition.

“Were you still on that line, Cutie?” he demanded.

“What line?” demanded Pauline indignantly. “Oh, Willie, does this mean we have to walk down twenty-five floors tonight?”

“You little--Listen! Don’t let out a peep about this until we know more!”

“Why not, Willie?”

“Do you want to get everybody upset? How can they dream up brilliant ideas while they’re worrying about ordering sandwiches sent up? Promise!”

Pauline reluctantly gave her word not to say anything without consulting him. Westervelt returned to the hall, where he pressed the button for the elevator.

He waited about three times as long as it usually took to get a car, then tried again with the same lack of results. Looking up, he discovered that even the red light over the entrance to the stairs was out. That, apparently, had not been part of the ninety-ninth floor system now powered by their own generator.

Westervelt took the few steps to the doorway concealing the stairs. There was a beautifully reproduced notice on the door, informing all persons that this was an emergency exit and that the door would open automatically in case of fire or other emergency. It further offered detailed directions on how to leave, which in simple language meant “go downstairs.”

“The door is shut,” muttered Westervelt, “so that proves there isn’t any emergency.”

He tried the handle. It did not budge, except for a slight clicking.

Feeling slightly uneasy, he leaned over to squint at the crack of the door. He spotted the latch, a sturdy bar, and saw that he was moving it. There was, however, another bar which did not move, and the door refused to slide open.

“Of course,” he breathed. “It’s made to open automatically. How would they do that? By electricity. What haven’t we got plenty of? The damn’ thing’s locked! Somebody designed a beautiful set-up!”