by Jerry
In the maternity ward, Joe Fellowes stared at the door to the teleportransit booth; mentally, he was urging it to open upon his wife. “What’s keeping them?” he asked nervously.
“Heaven only knows,” replied Nurse Wilkins, calmly.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
“Hardly.”
“What makes you think so?” he demanded.
“If anything were wrong, they’d call for help. Or come for it. That booth can’t be used when . . . er . . . how did you get here, young man?” she demanded sharply.
“I’m with Teleportransit,” he said bluntly, showing his identification card. “I used the override on your pre-empt circuit.”
“Well, that’s—” and she fell silent simply because it was done and neither locking the barn nor bawling out the stable boy would correct the act.
“Irma’s family have their babies fast,” he said. “Maybe—?”
Nurse Wilkins shook her head. “Even with delivery underway, they’d bring her back. That’s why we send doctor, interne, and nurse along with everything necessary to handle any contingency. Your teleport things work so fast we can send a whole team out on a call each time.”
“Fine,” said Fellowes. “Then where’s my wife?”
Nurse Wilkins replied sharply, “Mr. Fellowes, please grant that we know our business and how to conduct it.
Granting that our hospital and its medical staff are competent, it’s your teleport machinery that they’re using. Maybe something broke down.”
“Well, we can find out about that,” he snapped back. “Teleport circuits either work or they don’t. It neither swallows people nor does it go off its electromechanical rocker and run off a squadron of duplicates. So if it will run with me, it’ll run with your medicos and my wife. Me? I think there’s trouble at home and so I’m going to look.”
Nurse Wilkins started to tell Joe Fellowes that he couldn’t use the maternity ward teleportransit; but Joe, with a practiced hand, inserted his credit key with one band and plugged in his home address with the other. He waved as he withdrew the key and he disappeared as the computer processed him into the system.
The man’s disappearance brought an uneasy nervousness to Nurse Wilkins. The system must be working or, by Joe Fellowes’ own statement, he couldn’t have entered it. Ergo something must have gone wrong with the team of medical people dispatched to help Mrs. Fellowes. The latter did not seem likely; despite the urgency of the call and the obviously imminent parturition, it was an uncomplicated, routine matter well within the competence of the medical personnel and their equipment.
Further, the door to the booth remained dormant, its indicating lamp signaling a priority for incoming traffic. Nurse Wilkins’ uneasiness increased as the minutes passed. For now was added the complication of a second level of puzzlement; granting trouble with the medical team, Joe Fellowes might well stay home with them and his wife—and baby. On the other hand, they should have warned the hospital of the emergency. And third, granting that someone goofed and returned the hospital team to a wrong address, it took but a second to correct any such error.
Nurse Wilkins stared at the door that had, despite the statement of Joe Fellowes to the contrary, swallowed one doctor, one interne, one nurse, a wagon, and one civilian whose identification card said that he was an engineer with a degree in teleportonics. And unsaid, she wondered uneasily whether the door at the other end hadn’t maybe swallowed one woman in final labor and her a-borning child.
The commuting businessman comprises three general types. There is he who leaves early for any number of reasons, and he who habitually stays overtime either because he is intrigued with his job or bucking for a raise, or both. The in-between is the myriad who report in slightly before opening time and leave promptly at zero five zero-zero. When the latter turns up early, he surprises his family, sometimes in activities that astonish him. When he is late, his family think in terms of dragging the river, canvassing the hospitals, and sticking hatpins into an effigy of the boss, and when he turns up the family is likely to smell his breath and inspect his handkerchief for evidence of dalliance.
Teleportransit, Incorporated, did not change the habits of the commuter. At five o’clock, long queues of people lined up before the teleport booths that stood awaiting them on old subway platforms, in the basement of every large building in central Megapolis, and in special buildings to serve less densely populated areas. To serve the commuter better, Teleportransit provided a commuter key with the two terminals coded in the matrix. It worked only at the commuter’s home and office stations, in one and out the other exclusively. For other destinations, the address had to be spelled out digit by digit.
The upshot of this special commuter’s key was rapid transit with capital letters. Step into the booth, insert the key, turn, restore, and withdraw it. How fast can a person move? With deft commuters, one teleportransit booth can handle one person every three seconds. Twelve hundred an hour. Times Square Station has three hundred booths; 34th Street has two fifty. Multiply these various values by the couple of hundred stations in Megapolis, then add the smaller numbers in the basement of the prominent buildings, and the capacity of Teleportransit to handle the four million daily commuters becomes clear.
The rush hour swung into gear and the transits-per-minute dial in the Teleportransit Building clicked into an upper register, reading kilotransits.
And at the terminals in Scarsdale, Mountainside, Freehold, and Sea Bright, wives collected in their station wagons to await their breadwinners. They waited. Then they looked at watches. Some turned on radios to check be time. Quite a few worried, and an equal number changed their expression from bored tolerance to knowing accusation of infidelity. Only one thing was glaringly obvious. Either the teleport system had broken down, or all husbands were delinquent at the same time, if not at the same place.
Giving the poor devils the benefit of the doubt the thing to do was to ask someone what went on.
“Tele-por-TRAN-sit,” sang Trudy, waiting for her date. “Hello,” came a female voice, “is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” asked Trudy.
“Yes. My husband hasn’t come home yet.”
“Well, I haven’t—No, I mean, why ask me?”
“This is the Teleportransit Office, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, miss, it isn’t only my husband. None of them have come home.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. Every night there’re about forty of us waiting here, and our men come home one at a time over about fifteen minutes. Now we’re here a half hour and not a one has come out of your station.”
“Wait a moment. I’ll check.” Trudy buzzed Walter Long and told him. “There’s a woman on the videophone who thinks the system has broken down.”
“It couldn’t,” said Walter Long, stoutly. “Put her on, Trudy.”
The harassed voice, having run through the story once for Trudy, had it better prepared for Walter Long. When she finished, he assured her, “Madam, we apologize for this inconvenience, and I personally thank you for bringing it to my attention. It’s the first I knew of any tie-up. Now, let me attend to it at once, and we’ll have your husband home in a jiffy. And thank you for calling.”
“But where is he?” the woman wailed.
“Don’t worry, madam,” he said calmly. “If he hasn’t come out of the exit, he hasn’t gone into the entrance. So there are probably a lot of irate husbands standing angrily in front of an inoperative teleport booth.”
“But they all come from different places,” she wailed.
“We’ll get them home,” repeated Walter Long. He broke the circuit because talking to this anxious woman was not letting him get to the source of the problem. He buzzed Trudy and heard her sing, “Tele-por-Tran-sit,” with some of the zing gone from her lilt. “Oh! Mr. Long. White Plains and Far Hills have both reported some sort of trouble.”
“Trudy, call th
e hospital and find out where Joe Fellowes is, and how fast can he get back here.”
“Yes, sir.” Long waited on the circuit while Trudy got Nurse Wilkins, who explained that neither doctor, interne, nurse, stretcher-wagon, nor Mr. Fellowes had returned, and that they’d been gone for almost half an hour. When that was finished, Walter Long said, “Trudy, call Joe’s home.” Once more he waited on the circuit, but this time it was completely unfinished because the videophone ring-back burred and burrrred without an answer.
“Something’s gone a long way wrong, Trudy,” he said solemnly. On the open circuit, Walter Long could hear the incoming calls beginning to pile up. Trudy’s usual singsong diminished until it became a flat and uninspired, “Teleportransit,” followed by a wait and the terse explanation that a minor breakdown had occurred, that they were working on it; and no, she was merely the receptionist and didn’t know a three-port circulator from a dithrambic foot. Sorry, but the technical staff is all busy correcting the fault and can’t be interrupted.
“Trudy!” barked Walter Long.
“Yes?”
“Put the lilt back in your voice, and then record that last explanation and switch your board to automatic response. Just keep the private company incoming lines open.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then come in here.”
“Yes, sir. As soon as I finish.”
When she entered, Walter Long said, “Trudy, among the things that are wrong is the absence of Joe Fellowes. That nurse said he went home, but hasn’t returned. Maybe something’s wrong at the Fellowes end of that circuit—by which I mean his wife and baby. Will you take a minute to run over to Fellowes’ station and check?”
“Surely.”
“And come back immediately. Understand? At once. Don’t wait even if they have something vital that depends on you. Come back here and report. Understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Long. That’s a promise.”
Trudy used the teleport booth in the main front office. She was ultra-careful, inserting her credit key and entering each digit in the Fellowes address with deliberation. She checked the read-out digit by digit before she was satisfied enough to return the key in the lock-register to start the teleport process.
Like the four million commuters who disappeared once each morning and once each night, Trudy ceased to exist in the teleport booth that stood in the main front office of Teleportransit, Incorporated.
Like Nurse Wilkins and four million waiting wives, mistresses, girlfriends, and terminal-station bartenders, Walter Long stared at the closed booth door and prayed for it to open. His staring became a vigil, for minutes stretched out and the girl did not return.
“Blast that girl,” muttered Walter Long, “and she promised.”
It was ten minutes of six when Walter Long called Harry Warren. “Harry, something’s wrong.”
“Wrong? Can it wait until morning. Walter? We’ve company coming tonight, and—”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday, Harry.”
“Yes. I know. So I’ll come in tomorrow and settle it. Leave me a note about it. I’m off to home.”
“Wait, Harry. Don’t go. Don’t, of all things, use the teleport.”
“Now that’s downright silly. How else can I get home?”
“Harry, to the best of my knowledge, people seem to be going into the system, but none are coming out.”
“What?”
“You beard me right.”
“Where’s Fellowes?”
“That’s the trouble. Fellowes was one of the first.”
“But what are we going to do?”
“Has the technical staff—?”
“Yeah. At five o’clock they headed for the teleport on a dead run.”
“Right into this Frankenstein’s Monster we own.”
“Moloch was the god that ate ’em alive,” said Harry Warren absently. “Well, there’s still maintenance and monitor. The night man.”
“And if I guess right, he’s probably the closest guy this side of Pittsburgh, Boston, or Washington who knows anything about the technical side of teleportation. Get him up here.”
“Maybe we’d better go down to him.”
“That’ll leave the office empty if someone calls.”
“Ask Trudy to stay over a bit. After all, this is an emergency.”
“I can’t. I sent Trudy through the teleport to look for Joe Fellowes. She’s gone, too.”
“There are days when everything goes wrong,” said Harry Warren. “Now I find that monitor and maintenance is none other than Johnny Peters.”
“How come? If he has the duty tonight, why was he asking Trudy for a date?”
“It seems that she three-quarters promised him a date for tomorrow night, so Peters swapped nights with Frank Nash.”
“Well, if I can plug up the company lines on the switchboard without electrocuting myself, I’ll set them up on the downstairs set.”
Johnny Peters lounged at the big test and control console, his feet hooked on one edge of the desk-panel. He was reading a magazine, and from time to time he let his eyes stray over the meters. He was bored, and he was frustrated because being the back-up to a completely self-adjusting, self-repairing, automatic machine does not leave much opportunity to perform noteworthy deeds. He was in this attitude when Harry Warren and Walter Long burst in upon him.
“Hell breaking loose all over Megapolis,” yelled Harry Warren, “and you sit there as if nothing were going on.”
“So what’s going on? No one tells me anything,” replied Johnny Peters.
“You don’t know?” asked Walter Long incredulously.
“No, I don’t.”
Harry Warren looked at the control console full of meters, dials, and multicolored pilot and warning lamps. “Is that thing functioning properly?”
Peters cast a rapid eye over the board. “Perfectly,” he said, reaching out and giving one small knob an imperceptible turn.
“How can you be so sure so fast?”
“There isn’t a red lamp showing,” he said with a sweeping wave of his hand. “Blue-green indicates operating circuits that are functioning properly; yellow-orange indicates feed-back information—a continuous incoming flow of variables—that keep the operating circuits so properly adjusted that they maintain a continuous show of blue-green. Hasn’t been a red lamp shown since I’ve been with Teleportransit, but I’m told that whistles blow, bells ring, cannon are fired and—”
“Well, something’s gone to hell in a handbasket.”
“For instance, what?”
“Our teleport system isn’t working.”
“Nonsense!” Peters pointed to a large dial. “Load’s low tonight, but we’re still making a couple of—”
“Stop them!” yelled Walter Long. “Peters, since somewhere about a quarter to five this evening, people have been a-pouring into the entrances, and not coming out of the exits.”
“But that can’t happen.”
“You explain that to four million commuters—if we ever get ’em back.”
“And if we don’t, you try to explain it to their heirs and assigns,” said Harry Warren.
“Is this condition local or widespread?” asked Peters.
“It’s the entire system.”
“No,” said Peters, “I mean, has Pittsburgh or Greater Chicago reported the same mess-up?”
“That we don’t know.”
“Then let’s find out,” said Peters. On the console, he snapped a switch. A videoplate came to life, there was a brief ringback burr, and then a man’s face appeared.
“Peters here, Megapolis. Teleportransit, Inc.”
“Hi. James Gale. Pittsburgh Rapid. What’s on your mind?”
“Have you any trouble reports?”
“No. What kind of trouble?”
“No tie-ups?”
“No. Now what can happen to a teleport circuit to tie it up?”
“I don’t know, but everybody who goes into our machine just simply stays t
here.”
“But that’s not possible.”
“All right. So that makes it a manifestation of the supernatural and it’s swallowed more’n four million commuters, and it’s continuing to swallow them at the rate of about fifteen hundred per minute.”
“Turn it off,” advised Jim Gale.
“I don’t dare,” said Johnny Peters. “I have the uneasy feeling that continued operation is the only contact that lies between here and the limbo they’re lost in. I’ve no sound, scientific logic for that queasy feeling; it’s just a conviction that I must follow.” He turned to look at Walter Long and Harry Warren. Both of them looked blank until Johnny Peters said, “Unless I’m ordered to,” at which they both shook their heads violently.
“Well, this I’ve got to see,” said Gale. “I’m coming over.”
“Whoa!” cried Peters. “I’d advise some other mode of transportation.”
“Urn . . . guess you’re right. So is there anything I can do to help?”
“Yes,” said Walter Long quickly. “Get in touch with your top-level technical staff and tell them what we’re up against. You can also call Boston and Washington and ask them what to do. See if the best technical brains of all three cities can get trains or cars to come here as fast as possible. In the meantime, we’ll have to muddle through with a junior technician, a business administrator, and one puzzled personnel relations counsel.”
Throughout Megapolis, the news was spreading fast. In an earlier day, the radio in the automobile or in the depot bar would have spread the news like wildfire. But the habit of the commuter was to get where he was going first, and then relax to get the news. The news was thus delayed in its dissemination by the recipient’s habits, not by any machination of press, government, big business, or unfavorable foreign powers.
The transits-per-minute meter began to taper off in an increasing drop as the news was spread. But it did not drop to zero because there were those that had not heard, those who did not believe, a number whose curiosity exceeded their good sense, a few misguided self-sacrificers, and a low but continuous counting rate pegged up by sheer habit. For just as people during a power failure will enter a room and flip the light switch in a reflex action, people preoccupied with other things turned into the teleport booth out of habit and whisked themselves into limbo.