In a world where time is frozen for everyone but him, the protagonist encounters shock-inducing “half-people” immune to his weapons. He discovers a tower atop the Empire State Building is causing the disturbance. After destroying it with a field gun, time resumes, the half-people vanish, and normalcy returns amid ensuing chaos.
I kept seeing sparks. But every time one of those half-people saw me, that antenna either hit the street and the person vanished, or the person stared until I got close and then beat it. They were fleet-footed things.
I suppose they spread the word about me. Anyway, when I approached the Empire State building, a sort of phalanx of those people spread out as best they could across the street. Then two big-shots, dressed in fancier tunics and fancier antennas that looked like horned crowns, put down a sort of tripod a couple of paces in front of those half-people.
I could see then that, although they could touch that mass of still life on the sidewalks, they didn’t like to do it—and wouldn’t if they could help it. While they could touch, their touch went right through clothes and all. But such metal as man or woman wore—like a watch or a ring, and money, too—caused a spark that made those half-people squirm. And if their antennas touched anything metal, it all but knocked those half-people down.
I watched curiously as they brought out something that looked like an insulated telescope about four feet long and about three inches thick and put it on that tripod. The mogul with the fanciest antenna crown seemed to be talking a lot—although I could hear nothing. And the other mogul drew a bead on me with that telescope gadget.
I fell heir to a bad case of fright and ducked behind a car while I wondered what was coming. I peeped out.
That instrument got white hot and it glowed, even in the unholy glare from the Empire State tower. And every time a smoky fire showed for an instant at the muzzle, the end pointed at me, I’d get a shock. But it felt like a dry 220 volts—not enough to make a muscle twitch.
It was pretty definite that we weren’t going to be friends, so I took out the automatic and fired. I got down close to the street and shot upward so the bullet would hit the side of a building. I didn’t like the idea of hitting one of my own folks, even if they were wax.
Nothing happened. We walked on the same world, but we were two kinds of life. While I could feel their weapon shock me, they couldn’t feel the bullets from my gun, although I thought I could see the tiny flash of a spark as the bullet went through them. Then I took a good aim and fired at the big-shot’s crown.
ffffft!—and no mogul.
Of course it was just a lucky shot because I’m not that good. But you should have seen those half-people scatter. They even left that shocking gun on the tripod. I went up and touched it. The minute my hand came in contact with it, the thing began to melt.
Those half-people were all racing to the side of the Empire State. They put their thin fingers against it, sprang on their toes and lifted their feet off the sidewalk. Then they scooted up the side of the building and out of my line of vision.
By looking through thick dark glass, I could study the tower. I could make out the framework of a that finny bullet that had shot out of sight on me. I supposed it was back. That framework was all that was visible. It was metal, of course, somewhere within the range of our earthly vibrations.
I supposed those half-people were above or below our vibration range. That was why they were semi-transparent. But now they were seeking to become of earth and conquer this world. Bottling up the current had enabled them to halt us, and to exist on our planet. But they still had a long way to go before they could use anything we had made.
But it was my world and I wanted them out of it. Only, how?
I don’t know when the idea first came to blast that tower with an army or navy gun. But I do know that when I thought of it—I started acting without any more debate. Those half-people probably gave me the idea. They had brought back from wherever they went a bigger, screwy-looking shock-gun. They kept pointing it at me. And it kept knocking me down with the shock. It got me pretty mad. Then I glued rubber on the soles of my shoes and could hardly feel the shock.
You’d be surprised how hard it was to find anything. I couldn’t ask anybody. I had to look through offices, records, files. I had to chop doors down, shoot locks off—then read about guns after I had come across one that I thought would do.
I was out in Brooklyn then, at a big army post. It was too far away, I decided, for my uncertain aim with a field piece. So I pulled that gun—it was on wheels—though that still-life traffic all the way to Fulton Street at Smith, if you know where that is. By that time I had more than enough of threading through stalled traffic. The flow of traffic is wonderful the way it never jams. But standing still it clutters up the streets. So I had to move plenty of things to get that field gun by.
I kept calling myself a fool. But I kept wondering what would happen if I blasted that tower with an exploding shell. If those half-people had our current—the negative or the positive ions—captured and bottled up in something up in that tower, and I broke something there with an exploding shell, what would happen?
It was time to find out, and I pointed that gun down that wide canyon of a street and over its rim and fired. The gun went one way, I went the other, and a lot of windows fell out of buildings. That little rascal was noisy dynamite.
I hadn’t thought about nailing it down. So I blocked it against a small but loaded truck, drew another bead on the tower and tried again. It was too bad about the windows.
There was an awful mob of people on the sidewalks, and a lot of cars on the street. In fact I had to move a couple of cars to get the bead I wanted. But I couldn’t hit that tower. I ran out of shells, and I kept running out of shells until there were eight empty wheelbarrows—and a ninth one with a full load by that gun.
I was plenty tired and dirty by then, so I called a halt to my private war. I looked around for a Panther’s Kiss, a bath and a change of clothes.
I didn’t let that panther kiss me but twice that time. So it wasn’t long before I was back at the gun, bathed, shaved, in brand-new clothes and with my pockets all but lousy with dough. I liked to keep my pockets full of bills so I could pay for everything I picked up. But I realized, of course, that if our world ever got started again, somebody was going to have some tall bookkeeping to do to balance books at those places where I happened to drop in for a visit.
I missed that tower a few more times. When I fired the next to the last shell I wasn’t looking for it when it happened.
The tower seemed to swell to enormous size. The blinding light got brighter. And joining with the echoing roar of that field gun came the cracking noise that I heard when I got shocked. Then the tower, exploding as it was, showered all the sky that I could see with flaming sheets of fire.
I felt the shock, hot but not too hot. I jerked and twisted, falling back on the sidewalk, banging against a pretty hefty dame who fell back against other people.
Ever see a still shot in a movie change to slow-motion? That’s the way it looked. A foot beginning slowly to move. An arm starting a swing. A woman’s mouth, open, as usual, beginning to form words again.
I watched it, sprawled as I was on the sidewalk. Before I could get on my feet, life was back as if nothing had happened. Then, no more than a second later, a complete case of pandemonium broke out.
Those people which the shock had knocked me against bumped into one another. They began to fall like pins at a bowling alley. Cars I had moved out of place began colliding with other cars. More cars plowed into that field gun and those empty wheelbarrows.
People began screaming because that gun and those empty wheelbarrows and empty shells were not there when they had stopped moving. And then they were there without the passing of any time. To them, I mean.
Don’t ever think that when people mean business they can’t open their mouths, scream, and make a noise. But it was music to me. I suppose that if a man can beam at anybody, then I was beaming at them. I was glad.
I wanted to celebrate. The best way to celebrate that I know of is to down a Panther’s Kiss. So I ducked and searched for a bar. And within the short walk of a block I found normal people who were merely slightly curious about all the noise up the street where that field gun was.
I had to tell the barkeep how to mix a Panther’s Kiss. He stared at me with his eyes bulging when I bent the elbow. I saw myself in the bar mirror, and from the way I needed a haircut I didn’t blame him. So I went to a barber shop and got one.
The radio was putting on special broadcasts before I left there, reporting evidences of things hard to explain. The Empire State tower and part of the very top floors had entirely disappeared. The Pennsy Railroad wanted to know how a Seaboard switch engine from Jacksonville could get into their New York station. And it wasn’t three hours before the public knew of the clear track that reached from the Pennsy Station down through Jacksonville and to the sawmill where I had found that balloon-stacked puffing-billy.
The area around the Empire State building was blocked off. Learned scientists were struggling to define the charred framework of the ship those half-people used. They were trying to find out what those antennas were. The country was getting excited.
I was all wrapped up in watching the clocks ticking, in watching the sun behave and go down and make way for night, and in watching the world being alive. It was good to live.
Originally Published: Ace Publishing, BEYOND #6, September 1951
Read by ElevenLabs (Daniel Voice)
