by Don Wilcox
Sixteen squares to the square foot—and how many thousands of square feet?
There must be millions of tiny pictures set side by side over this surface—each picture was a person—a face. At once Allan caught the similarity to television. These pictures were in motion. People in action.
What people? Where did this come from? What was its purpose?
Was it some gigantic toy that operated automatically? Or was it an actual image of persons in other lands—images that revealed their actions and expressions of this very moment?
In answer, Allan presently found a picture of someone, turning the page of a daily calendar. What day of the week was it? Allan had almost forgotten there were such things, since his entrance to this timeless world. Time had fallen by the wayside. But with a little thought, he was able to adjust his mind to the date on the calendar. And then he was sure that all this spectacle before his eyes was happening now. It was an instantaneous transfer of images—faces and voices. As if by television, it was all coming into this mountain-sized receiver as it happened!
Who were all these people? Anyone in particular? Or everyone?
In quest of an answer, Allan began to walk along the base of the massive cone.
He was tempted to ascend. The glass surface was smooth to his feet, but the slope was gentle. He took a few steps upward. He was walking on faces—illuminated, tinted photographs. He was gratified to find that his shoes left no tracks. The expressions of the faces were quite unaffected by the contact of his heel plates. He smiled to himself over the absurdity of his thought. The people might be five thousand miles away. They certainly didn’t know anyone was stepping on their noses.
The faces, though reduced in size, were reflected as perfect and sharp as one’s own face in a tinted mirror. As soon as he had adjusted himself to the strange experience of walking over the mountain of mirrors, he turned his attention to the variations in color.
The faces did not appear in natural color. This was strange. For several minutes he saw no rhyme or reason in the curious color arrangements. Then he got a clue. He had come upon a great number of persons who were listening to their radios. He heard the music of the radio program playing softly.
Two facts struck him as significant.
First, all of these listeners were grouped. Second, these faces were all dominated by the same color—a rich blend of mahogany and brown. Allan, on hands and knees, studied the rapt expressions of the listeners. The program changed presently; and, significantly. The color of these several pictures changed with it.
Allan arose slowly to observe the extent of the change. An area of many square yards had rapidly converted into a new reddish hue. Each of the reddish squares contained the face of a listener.
The red-tinted area continued to grow, like an irregular piece in a gigantic jig-saw puzzle, spreading to occupy more space. Which meant that somewhere in the world more and more people were tuning in on this particular radio program. Allan caught the significant fact about this vast composite mirror. It automatically grouped people.
This was only the beginning of his discoveries. Just enough to whet his appetite.
He walked a little distance away. The patch of color representing the radio program could be seen in better perspective from a distance. As he moved back from the cone, the reddish area showed as small in comparison. Hundreds of other patches of red could be seen over the surface, no two of them the same shade. When Allan walked up the side of the cone to examine one or another more closely, each widened out to reveal the hundreds of closely set squares, each square containing a face.
People, people everywhere! What a Show! A personal appearance for everyone! Millions of miniature stages in mirror form, each containing an actor. And with each visible performance, sound effects were faintly audible.
It was a complex thing, and Allan saw at once that it was not a simple presentation of individuals. It wall a multiple pattern that could be studied in close-ups or at a distance. The infinite variety of colors made it possible for one to see the spectacle in terms of groups.
“Birds of a feather!” Allan said to himself. “They may not know they’re flocking together, but this masterminded gadget groups them.”
Individual lights were continually blinking off, and others were simultaneously popping out at other points. Actors were constantly removing themselves from one field of activity and joining another. Allan began to understand the dynamic qualities of this vast mirror of the world. If a person sitting in his home somewhere in the United States of America chanced to turn off his radio and pick up a magazine, the area of radio listeners would diminish by one lighted square; and elsewhere, in the cluster of magazine readers, a new light would appear to present John Doe lost in his magazine.
Allan would stop, take to his hands and knees, crawl along the sloping surface without being aware that he was crawling. Again he would sprint over one patch of color after another -over the immeasurable millions of persons working at trades, toiling in the fields, perspiring over machines. Then something would compel him to stop again.
He caught his breath with sharpened interest. Darkness. These frames were so faintly lighted that he had almost passed over them. Purple and black—and the deed was murder!
Scores of different murders were being pulled off right before his eyes. Some were American, he knew, from the backgrounds of city streets. Cars visible on a distant trafficway. The slight hum of city noises. But others were murders in India, another on some desert island. And again, on the snow field that might have been Siberia. Although the pictures revealed an amazing variety of bloody deeds, they were all murders. And so they showed up as a group, dominated by a single color-tone.
Allan stopped to watch a few cold blooded murderers in action. A pointblank shot with a revolver. A tourniquet around the throat of a choking victim. The flash of a hatchet. The quick plunge of a hypodermic needle, accompanied by an innocent and reassuring smile. Here and now! This was the world in action, and it was brought with all the reality and clarity of a million television screens stacked together.
A million? A billion was more like it. No—two billion. Was it possible that there was room here for everyone?
What was the meaning of such a colossal mirror, hidden below these lost mountains of Africa?
The questions in Allan’s mind came like a blizzard. But this he knew. He liked this great instrument. He was, captivated by his discoveries. One discovery after another . . . People behaving unseen.
Radio listeners, murderers, factory workers, farmers in the field, lovers locked in each other’s arms,—he paused. A tremor of excitement passed through him when he came upon this area. He felt more than ever like an eavesdropper, to be looking in upon the quiet, secret moments that were the essence of life to the couples before his eyes. Lovers, lovers, everywhere. He started to walk away. He looked to see what had happened to Sue and Jimmy. They had followed him at a little distance and had stopped when they became absorbed in many yards of frames displaying the rehearsals for theatrical productions.
He felt a trifle embarrassed over his discovery, and wondered if he shouldn’t prevent their seeing this part of the mirror . . . Lovers from every land. Primitive tribes, lost in the forests. Couples on board ship. Softly lighted bedrooms. The seclusion of dimly lighted parks.
“Who but the songwriters have ever stopped to realize that the whole world is in love?” he said to himself. Then he moved on.
Again he scouted along the base of the pyramid and looked back, to regain his perspective. Much wider areas than any he had seen were waiting to be examined.
The widest band of all was the deep blue field of sleep. It appeared to cover a fourth of the entire cone.
The thought gave him a curious shudder. Was it possible that at any given moment at least a fourth of all the people in the world were asleep? Dead to the rest of the world?
He could see for himself that it was true. What a dreadful waste! One person out of every thr
ee or four asleep!
He walked up the slope to view some of them more closely. Thousands of sleepy heads were visible to him. Each was at least trying to attain that deep luxury of being lost to the world. Lost as if in death.
An hour or so later Allan came back to the staggering thought that the entire population of the world was spread before him.
It took a little mathematics. If there were roughly two billion people in the world, and each person was presented here in a three inch square, how much space would be required? Was the pyramid large enough to accommodate all people?
Not until he had walked part way around the base, estimating the whole distance, was he satisfied that this must be the case.
Converting steps into feet and feet into miles, he guessed that the cone was at least six miles in circumference and about a mile and a half high.
He sat down to figure the matter out. By this time he had become accustomed to walking over the little three-inch mirrors, stepping over the faces of people who didn’t seem to mind it at all. Consequently he gave no thought to the fact that he now sat upon an area of foresters who were cutting down tall timber with power saws, just below the seat of his pants.
Jimmy and Sue came along, then, and got in on the jumble of figures.
“If there are sixteen persons to the square foot,” Allan said, “and there are more than twenty-seven million square feet to a square mile, how many square miles would this place have to contain in order to provide a little mirror for every face in the world?”
“Come again?” said Sue.
“He’s off,” said Jimmy. “I’ve seen him go into these brainstorms on board ship. Once he doped out how many drops of water there were in the Pacific ocean.”
“How many were there?” Sue asked innocently.
“Now wait a minute,” Allan said. “You and Jimmy can work on the Pacific ocean if you want to, but I believe in figuring out what’s before my eyes.”
“Oh, you’re going to count your eyelashes, I’ll bet. Can I help?” Sue teased.
“Cease firing,” Allan said. “You’ve got your sights on the wrong target. You don’t waste your tin fish on a rowboat if there’s a battleship on your tail. Look, friends, a cone six miles around and a mile and a half high ought to contain roughly at least a hundred and twenty-five million square feet. Do you follow me, Jimmy?”
“I’m try in’,” Jimmy said hazily.
“All right, we have sixteen faces to the square foot. We have an eighth of a billion square feet, plus. Square feet times sixteen equals two billion persons, plus.”
“Is that good or bad? Sue asked.
“It means we’re all present. The whole darned human family. This super-colossal gadget brings everyone in the world together in one big moving picture.”
Jimmy’s eyes wobbled. “No wonder I’m dizzy. I never could stand crowds. I used to stand on the street corner in the center of town an’ try to see how many people went by with faces as funny as mine.”
“How did you come out?” Sue asked.
“I couldn’t count that fast,” Jimmy said. “No kiddin’, I got plumb bleary-eyed, just lookin’ at faces. There’s somethin’ about the ordinary face—not your face, Sue. Yours ain’t ordinary. But you start feedin’ your eyes on the street corner crowds an’ it does some thin’ to you.”
“What kind of something?” Allan asked, as his eyes continued to rove over the hundreds of bright little mirrors.
“Well, in a few minutes it gits downright depressin’. It makes you think what a sorry lot the whole big human family is. You ever had that feelin’, Sue?”
“I’ve seen lots of crowds,” Sue said. “But the footlights generally keep me from seeing them too well.”
“All I say is that I couldn’t take much of this,” Jimmy said, gesturing toward the wide expanse of mirrors.
Allan scowled. “They’re just people like yourself. What’s depressing about that?”
“Maybe it’s cause I always start running people through a sieve. In my mind, I mean. I say to myself, there’s gotta be some perfect specimens in all this crowd. Not too fat or too slim. Not too silly lookin’ or too worn-out lookin’ or too ornery—”
“You’re looking for men patterned after gods,” Allan said. “Well, the human family doesn’t grow too many of that kind. And when they do come along, you can’t always be too sure from their looks that they live like gods.”
Allan illustrated his point a moment later. He motioned to them to come and listen in on a conversation.
“Get in on this board of directors,” he said, “as long as we’re passing this way.”
Sue and Jimmy got down on their hands and knees beside him. The picture before them cut through ten or twelve frames, and the faces would cross from one frame to another. The directors of some business concern were huddled together.
“The picture gets bigger as you look at it,” Jimmy observed.
“And the sounds get louder,” Sue added.
Allan had thought at first that this phenomenon was just an illusion. But now he saw that it was an undeniable fact. One’s own close focus upon a face or group of faces brought the frames out larger and brighter, as if through some magical effect within one’s own eyes. And the low sounds somehow amplified within one’s ears. Each new discovery added to the usefulness of the gigantic gadget.
But it was the content of this particular conversation that Allan had meant to call to the attention of his companions.
At the end of the table sat a fine looking man with clear honest eyes and beautiful silvery hair. He was whispering to his neighbor.
“Give me your vote straight through,” he said, “and I’ll squeeze those suckers for their last dollar. They trust me all the way. All you’ll have to do is sit back and fleece them.”
Jimmy gave a slight shudder. There, Allan thought, was one of his men like gods, as far as appearance went. They listened to three or four more off-the-record remarks from the silvery-haired man. What a fine, honest face to be combined with such a cold and ruthless nature. To Allan, this was as revealing as the murders. All within the law, of course, but deadly enough that it would cripple certain “friends” for life.
Friends across the table!
Allan caught the look of disillusionment in Jimmy’s eyes.
“I’ll jog along,” Jimmy said.
“There oughta be some street corner crowds where I can see a lot of funny faces. Lookin’ at funny faces like my own, I can make believe that they’re kinda good, harmless people who don’t believe in gougin’ their neighbors.”
Occasionally Allan would start to walk around the side of the cone, looking for Doc Pakkerman. But before he would get far, some revealing patches of light would catch his interest. He was like a boy moving through the most interesting library in the world, unable to pass through the first room because every book attracted him. Allan wanted to stop and read every face. He wanted to share every human drama revealed here before him.
And yet, the pattern of deceit which he had seen at the board of directors’ meeting was repeated before his eyes, over and over during the hour that followed.
At first he tried to laugh it off. He had gotten himself into an area where deceit abounded. He moved across the way and began to review some of the domestic scenes he found there. Husbands and wives making plans or debating over the family budget.
At first it all looked pleasant enough. But soon Allan saw that again he had walked into a region of bad feelings. He began to read between the lines. He saw the sinister twists and turns that were involved in many a congenial breakfast table conversation. Here and there, hearts were being crushed deliberately. Slyly, politely it was happening, in one family after another. And all too often the cruelty was masked by a superficial sort of love.
This was depressing. Allan turned away.
He walked along for several yards with his eyes half closed.
He wasn’t ready to look at anything more just yet. The mood o
f melancholy had struck deep. He needed to walk it off.
To his delight, Sue called him to come and see hundreds of cartoonists at work.
What a relief! What a wonderful thing for mankind, Allan thought. Who better than the cartoonist could make man laugh at himself and his own absurdities?
“Those boys are getting a kick out of their work,” Sue said. “Imagine spending hours working up your best smiles for the public.”
Some of the fellows were sweating blood, Allan could tell. Some were almost too fatigued to grind out their daily stint under high pressure. But there was a spark of something creative here. A spark of something wholesome that kept them from flagging.
Allan walked back to take a look at the area of laughter from a little distance.
Beyond the cartoonists was a long band, bright with yellow coloring, composed of millions of amused faces—faces of persons who were pouring over the recent output of cartoon and comic strips and funny stories. The world was certainly brighter and gayer, and more endurable for a passing moment of laughter.
Allan tried to convince himself that it was more than a passing salve for the deeper evils he had seen. The blues couldn’t dominate a world if there was enough of this bright dancing yellow.
CHAPTER XXXIV
This was the place the Scravvzek had spoken of. Doc Pakkerman had been complimented for spending his time here. Sully had been criticized for staying away. The study of these mirrors had been advised by the Scravvzek—why?
Allan was beginning to understand.
It was disillusioning to look upon mankind unmasked—to see the evil of man’s inhumanity to man revealed.
Allan was absorbing disillusionment on every hand. Neglect and carelessness. Ignorance. The utter hopelessness of many peoples. Poverty. Starvation. Slavery. Crime.
Cells, cells, cells! Men with heavy hearts. Men filled with treachery and hatred. Nothing to feed upon in their idle hours but thoughts of vengeance.