POWER
by Hugh Raymond
(Author of "The Last Viking," "Rebirth of Tomorrow," etc.)
Anna Campbell knew the answer to the chaos that was sweeping the nation. The 
problem was: how could it be applied?



THE WINDOW opposite our table in the main dining room of the Hotel Astor misted 
slowly. Outside it was beginning to snow. The street noises came distorted 
through the solid walls.
I held Anna's hands between my own.
"They're getting noisier," she said, paling a little as a burst of rifle fire 
sounded from somewhere near the south end of Times Square.
"Don't worry, darling, please. Nothing can harm us here. At least, until it gets 
in. Are you cold?"
She nodded, responding to my smile with one of her own, a stubby chub of a smile 
that reminded me of low hills and fleecy clouds. I threw my heavy scarf about 
her shoulders, protected only by dainty decolletage. It was difficult, then, to 
imagine her working with test tubes and wires and screw drivers and pliers and 
collecting dirt on her hands and under her fingernails.
When I first met Anna Campbell she had been flat on her back under an old Ford 
truck that had broken down in the hills outside of Bear Mountain. She wielded a 
heavy Stillson wrench as though it were a nail buffer. When I offered to help 
she declined with thanks--and a smile.
Decolletage became her, more than rough slacks and a heavy shirt, though I loved 
her that way. And lipstick judiciously applied was quite as entrancing as a 
smear of grease across her cheek. The double brandy she had consumed only a 
moment before lit her cheeks like the glow of a spring sunset.
Spring? I laughed. Outside there was cold and turmoil and upheaval. Outside, the 
people of New York and everywhere in the United States were showing their 
dissatisfaction with a social system that had brought them to the verge of 
starvation. I had only to lean forward a few inches to see the swarms being 
herded in all directions by desperate mounted police. Things like this were 
going on all over the nation. In Chicago. In San Francisco. In tiny villages in 
the Sierra Nevadas. In Mexico. And in the vast reaches of Canada. Clearly a 
change was in the air. But what? It was the great question of the day, posed by 
newspapers and radio commentators who spoke clipped and precise English, and 
television actors who gave short and uproarious skits at the expense of a weary 
and uninterested government.
The upheaval was reaching into every phase of the country's national life. 
Latent political forces long dormant under the force of repression began to 
appear. Many and varied were the appeals to this or that platform. Long and 
winded were the speeches of this and that demagogue and zealot. Power was in the 
process of dissolution in the hands of those who had hitherto controlled it, and 
more power was needed to direct it into channels propounded by a dozen political 
parties and a thousand ideologies.
I looked at Anna as she nibbled on a cheese cracker. Power! That was the crux of 
the matter. Someone--many men--needed inexorable, unconquerable power to impose 
their will. And in the brain of the woman sitting opposite me at a small table 
was the secret of that power.
"Darling," I said suddenly, "sometimes I wish it hadn't been you who discovered 
the secret of atomic power. It makes you seem utterly precious and above 
men--and so much like a goddess."
"Hush, Karl," she admonished. "You know as well as I that the secret of my 
discovery must remain secret. These walls undoubtedly develop ears in times like 
these. And seriously," she continued, "do you really think those things matter 
to me? I fell in love with Karl Brecker, not a cold mass of machinery. All my 
life I've had a drive to do something--to create. I wanted to work with my hands 
as a little girl. I remember how your father always tells about my escapades 
when our families were neighbors for a while and you were at military school? 
Homemade wagons and electric motors and then college and then more and more of 
that drive to some end--and suddenly that end came--and you came too."
I slipped a cordial slowly.
"But you're always in danger as long as the possibility exists of the discovery 
becoming public knowledge."
"It must become public knowledge," she cried, her eyes wide and frightened, "but 
only when I am sure that it can be entrusted to safe hands." A sudden practical 
look gleamed in her eyes. "But don't worry. For the past quarter-century, at 
least one claim has been made for the discovery of atomic power per year. I 
think I'm safe. The newspaper boys think I'm a crackpot. Remember the article in 
the Times: 'Pulchritudinous Scientist Claims Discovery of Pulverizing Power'?" 
She laughed heartily at the memory. "I came in for quite a beating there. Lucky 
I didn't make a comeback. They might have believed me."
ACROSS THE crowded room a televisor began to blare.
"It is reported by officials in the State of California that riots have broken 
out in a dozen cities. Power lines are down and San Francisco is in the hands of 
a self-appointed Citizens Committee for Public Safety." The smooth, honeyed 
voice went on to relate the details of endlessly similar occurrences throughout 
the country.
I almost enjoyed it, watching the dancers and diners writhe. Most of them were 
rich wastrels whose whole livelihood depended upon the pacification of just the 
people who were conducting the rioting. Heavily upholstered dowagers sniffed 
uneasily as the voice continued to flow into the great room. Young things in 
slinky evening dress glanced apprehensively toward the windows where the noises 
of the street fighting were rising in a slow but steady crescendo.
The voice ceased. An orchestra from New Orleans began playing to us three 
thousand miles away. Faces brightened. Bravado mounted. Soon the wholesale 
quaffing of champagne continued.
A waiter approached.
"Will you have dinner now, sir?" he asked timidly. He was used to Anna's and my 
own idiosyncrasies, such as omitting the cocktail before dinner and substituting 
for it a sweet cordial.
I gave the waiter my order. He was about to go, when suddenly he turned again to 
us and said apologetically, "l'd almost forgotten, sir. There's a Mr. Bittsworth 
who would like to see you. He's over at the door, sir." And Tiffins pointed 
across the dimly lit room to a tall and portly figure leaning against the door 
leading to the hotel lobby.
"Expecting anybody?" I asked Anna.
She shook her head in the negative.
"Don't know anybody," she said archly, and we both laughed.
I looked up at Tiffins.
"Send him over. But be sure that you call us both to the telephone if he stays 
more than ten minutes."
Presently, the figure began to move in our direction. Although he was wearing a 
dinner jacket, he had obviously been heavily clad and but recently, as thick 
snow still clustered in the nooks and crannies of his heavy shoes.
"I'm Bittsworth," he announced, looming up beside our table. "You're Miss Anna 
Campbell. And you're Karl Brecker. Good evening. May I sit down?"
Slightly startled at this sudden access of information, I reached over to an 
unoccupied table and yanked a chair closer.
He had a business-like face with a small moustache and a ruddy complexion. I 
guessed him to be habitually well-to-do. He wore his clothes like a veteran.
"And now that we've been introduced, Mr. Bittsworth, before we go into 
business--whatever it is--will you join us at supper? We were just about to 
eat." Turning my head, I winked at Tiffins who was watching anxiously from the 
kitchen doorway. That meant that he was to disregard all previous instructions.
Bittsworth declined. He asked if we might permit a cigar.
Anna smiled at him sweetly.
"Oh, do, Mr. Bittsworth, I just love the smell of a good cigar."
Behind my face, I laughed outright. Anna, for all her being a good sport, 
couldn't even stand my pipe.
He folded his hands on the table and drew his face into a serious mien.
"I suppose you know who I am. No? Well, I'd better begin by telling you that I 
am George Bittsworth, the Bittsworth, head of the Conservative Party. Now don't 
get frightened. I'm not here to solicit votes. I'm here for something infinitely 
more important." He paused a bit and shifted his cigar. "I suppose," he 
continued, "that you're both patriotic citizens. I take that for granted. And 
you want to see your country at peace. You want to see the people happy and 
well-fed. You want to see that," he looked significantly to the window," 
stopped. Do you not?"
We both waggled our heads in assent.
Just then, Tiffins came up with dinner. Bittsworth leaned back while we partook 
of the food.
I'M A POLITICIAN Miss Campbell," he began, "I know things. I control a large 
party--the largest in the country. It's a good solid party and it knows what it 
is doing. But things are getting a little out of hand," again he indicated the 
window, "we'd like to stop all that. We'd like to put food into the mouths of 
those hungry people and take murder out of their hearts. But we can't do it now. 
We're not in power. Most of us were turned out at the last election." He paused.
"But what has that to do with Karl and me?" Anna asked. "Certainly we are as 
helpless as you. We cannot stop that rioting just as you have no power to stop 
it."
"Bittsworth interrupted her with a gesture.
"You have that power, Miss Campbell. I think you know what I mean. Possibly I'm 
wrong, but I believed you when you claimed to have discovered the control of 
atomic energy. The newspaper ridiculed your claim, but certain information I 
possess leads me to believe that you had something. I know, furthermore, that 
this new power of yours is cheap, portable and infinite...."
Anna put her fork down with a bang. "How do you know?" she interrupted sharply.
"I'm not at liberty to divulge that information. You may depend upon it, 
however, that dishonesty on the part of certain individuals had a part in my 
knowing what I do know."
Both Anna's and my eyes swung into line immediately. "De Saynter, of course!" A 
rascally assistant who had disappeared after having been discovered going 
through some extremely important notes Anna had made on the final aspects of the 
invention.
"You have never," she said, "been in touch with a certain August De Saynter, I 
suppose."
Bittsworth shrugged.
"Whether I have or not is of no importance whatsoever. The point is that I know 
that you, Miss Campbell, hold it within your power to turn this country back to 
the path of peace and plenty."
"What, precisely, do you want?" she said.
He relaxed a little before replying and crushed out his cigar, although it was 
but half smoked.
"The plans and specifications of the entire Campbell process for the release and 
control of atomic power."
I looked at Anna.
"But you can't have them," she answered swiftly, as I knew she would, and then 
reached for her wine glass. "No one is going to get this invention but the 
entire people, and if you imagine for a moment that I don't know the use to 
which you would put it, you're daft."
Bittsworth smiled blandly.
"Of course. But isn't it better that we get this power than, say, Gunther 
Westhoff, for instance?"
"What makes you think anyone is going to get it?" I broke in brusquely.
"Because they need it," he replied quietly. "I repeat. The balance of power 
rests with only two parties, my own and Westhoff's. All other parties are either 
appendages or unimportant. They cannot affect the situation. We can and will. 
But we need immediate and limitless power to do so. A country such as this with 
its complicated social and economic system cannot be controlled except by a 
power greater than itself. That power is atomic power. A dictatorship, yes. I 
grant you that is true. But only for a while until we can turn events into the 
proper democratic path."
I watched Anna's mouth and knew that neither Bittsworth nor any other politician 
would find out anything more from her.
"Well?" he asked, folding his hands before him.
"Sorry!" she snapped. "It's no good. I'm afraid politics loses this time."
Bittsworth got to his feet. "I won't waste any more of your time," he said 
softly. "Good night. I hope you do not regret your decision.
He turned and started across the floor.
Anna looked sternly at me. "Darling, did you ever vote Conservative?" she asked 
tautly. "Or for the Westhoff crowd!"
"Do I look like a banker or a Nazi?" I asked, laughing.
"Let's finish eating and go home," she said.
"How about dessert?"
"I've got some apple strudel in the pantry. That is, if your father hasn't eaten 
it all." We both smiled.
Tiffins brought our coats.
"Come on, darling."
We had reached the middle of the room when suddenly a terrific explosion shook 
the building and the lights went out. Simultaneously, a small figure darted past 
me and grabbed Anna by the forearm and pulled.
I swung with my right fist. It contacted solid flesh. The little figure grunted 
and fell and Anna screamed. Then immediately we were surrounded by many figures 
and the last thing I saw in the glow from the Wrigley sign across Broadway was 
the room crowded with a great screaming mob, fighting to reach the doors.
CONSCIOUSNESS CAME back painfully and suddenly.
Anna's cool hand was on my forehead. She smiled wanly down at me.
"They wouldn't give me any water to bathe your head with, sweetheart."
"Who wouldn't?" I demanded.
She squatted against the wall and held her chin between her hands.
"The people who brought us here."
"Where are we?"
"l don't know," she replied pensively. "My head was covered with something for 
about fifteen minutes, I should judge, and we were taken here in a car. Along 
with him." She pointed to a body huddled in a corner.
"Who is he?" I asked, struggling to get up.
"Don't, darling. It's Bittsworth."
"My God!" The leader of the Conservative Party slugged, unconscious! A little 
trickle of blood ran down his forehead. Anne tried to stanch it with his 
handkerchief. I got up and shook him.
"Wake up, man!"
He stirred presently and returned to the land of the living.
"Where am I?" he asked, with great originality.
"Don't try to put anything over on us," I said coldly.
"You did all this."
"And had myself slugged, I suppose," he grunted, sarcastically.
Well, that sounded reasonable.
I looked about the room. It was small, miserable, old-fashioned. We listened. No 
sounds came through the one boarded-up window.
"Well, who did it?" I shouted.
"I think I know," he said in low tones, patting his pate with a handkerchief, 
"Gunther Westhoff."
"The Nazi?"
"Yes. Apparently, he got the same information as I did. And went after it. I'm 
afraid we won't get out of here without some trouble. In some ways he's after my 
hide more than he's after yours. Anyway, all he wants from you two is the energy 
secret. I'll probably be killed."
"Let's not think about getting killed--at least not now," I grumbled. "Let's 
find out where we are."
"That's easy," remarked Bittsworth, exploring his clothes for a cigar. "We're 
undoubtedly in Westhoff's headquarters in Yorkville."
Anna pulled me down on the floor and cradled my head in her lap. She ignored 
Bittsworth.
About an hour passed. Then, the door at one end of the room opened. It swung 
back with a crash.
A tall, compact figure in military uniform strode into the room and saluted Nazi 
fashion.
"Don't bother," I said, from the depths of Anna's lap. "We don't stand on 
dignity."
"Stand up!" barked the figure.
Bittsworth and I stood up. Anna also rose.
"Good evening, Westhoff," remarked Bittsworth cheerfully.
The Nazi grunted something. His smooth-shaven face remained impassive.
"I will get to the point immediately," he spat in his Germanic English. "l want 
the plans and all information relative to your atomic power discovery, Miss 
Campbell. If this information is not forthcoming immediately, I shall be forced 
to talk extreme measures--extreme measures."
"Just what do you intend to do with us!" I asked.
"If the girl refuses you will find out," he said quietly.
"I wouldn't be so direct if I were you, Gunther," said a voice from behind 
Westhoff, suddenly.
A small, rotund man walked into the room between the uniformed guards. Anna 
gasped.
Westhoff grunted again.
"Please do not interrupt, De Saynter."
"Good evening to you all," said the little man in pleasant tones. "And 
especially to you, Miss Campbell." He reached into a side pocket and produced a 
pistol with which he played suggestively. "Gunther, we must be all friends here. 
Good friends. Isn't that so, Mr. Bittsworth?"
"I'll not be a friend to a stinking would-be dictator!" stated the other 
bluntly.
"Then you will have to be an enemy. Gunther, please have this man taken away. He 
is useless."
Westhoff gestured to several of his guards, who led the unprotesting Bittsworth 
away.
"And now, if you please, I will take charge. I am so much more the expert about 
such matters. Am I not, Gunther?"
The other nodded grimly, if reluctantly.
"First," continued De Saynter, "we shall continue this interrogation at Miss 
Campbell's laboratory. It is much more comfortable there and everything which 
might refresh her memory is close at hand. "Second, while in transit to the 
laboratory, the both of you will make no disturbance or a break for liberty. I 
may as well speak frankly. Any such act will simply result in death. We are 
playing for high stakes tonight. And anything goes."
They left us alone for a minute. Westhoff, De Saynter and the guards clanked 
out.
I held Anna close.
"Don't worry," I said, comfortingly, "everything will be all right."
"How do you know?" she asked.
"I know. I know."



ON THE WAY out I had to support Anna when she fainted at the sight of 
Bittsworth's dead body lying on the floor of a short corridor leading to the 
lower floors.
Anna's laboratory, which occupied a whole building, was located just north of 
West 4th Street. From the outside, it was a very ordinary appearing house of the 
type found usually in the Village. Certainly no one would have suspected it of 
containing machinery capable of laying waste the whole continent.
The garage was empty. Seeking to secure as much secrecy as possible, Westhoff 
ordered the cars parked in the shadowed drive. Then, at pistol point, he drove 
us into the house.
It was empty. My father, who assisted Anna in completing her experiments, was 
not home. We snapped on the lights. My garish choice of furniture, Bohemian and 
loud, became embarrassingly obvious. Westhoff and De Saynter sneered.
"Decadence," remarked the former. "Useless luxury. The people must be made to do 
without. We need strong men and strong women, simple men and women. The old 
virtues of self-denial and fortitude must come back. This barbaric comfort must 
go."
"Somehow, that doesn't fit into my conception of an age of atomic power," I 
remarked off-handedly.
"Not too hasty, not too rash, Gunther," breathed De Saynter. "These people are 
friends. They must be treated as friends. Please do not begin by criticising 
their tastes in furniture. Or betraying the program of the party," he said 
suddenly and viciously.
Westhoff winced.
"Let us proceed," continued De Saynter. "Up those stairs and through the door. I 
know about this house. I once worked here, did I not, Miss Campbell?"
Anna, who was staggering wearily up the steps, nodded. Her eyes, hopeless, saw 
nothing.
We passed through the door to the big laboratory.
EVERY TIME I'd been there in the past, I was amazed at the power of the 
machinery Anna put together with her two capable hands. I had seen it many times 
before. But now, the scene took on added significance. Westhoff was affected 
visibly. The array of metal, glass and insulation puzzled him. And the guards 
glanced uneasily about. Out of their party uniforms, they were not so brave or 
assured.
De Saynter made an exclamation of pleasure.
"Ah, I see that you have completed the magnetic reflector, Miss Campbell. I was 
about to suggest that particular method when you discharged me. The wiring is 
very workmanlike."
His eyes wandered caressingly over the apparatus. In them now was something more 
than the greed for power. But it did not last very long. Presently he turned to 
us again.
"Perhaps you have been wondering why I have not built this machine myself. I 
bow, Anna Campbell, to your superior technical knowledge. Even the best of the 
European experts--or the American, for that matter, have not gone a tenth as far 
as have you, here. You have the ability to foresee difficulties and overcome 
them before they arise. I, in my stumbling way, could, perhaps do as well in 
time. But there is no time now."
Westhoff seated himself at a switch-board, uneasily. His hands wandered idly 
over switches and levers.
"Verboten, fuehrer," said De Saynter, gently. Westhoff snatched his hands away, 
abashed.
De Saynter gestured to the two guards who had followed us upstairs. Side arms 
drawn, they stood against the door.
"Well, shall we get on?" grumbled the tall Nazi.
"Patience, fuehrer. Nothing can be accomplished by sheer haste. Do you imagine 
that this girl is going to give us the knowledge we seek without a corresponding 
value being placed in her hands? No, she will not. Anna," he said suddenly, "I 
think we both understand each other. We need information you possess. I am aware 
that only the most extreme torture could force you to reveal what we want to 
know. Such a procedure would be distasteful to me. I am not a barbarian. I am 
prepared, therefore, to offer you a cold business deal. Here," he said, 
indicating, with a sweep of his arm, the atom-smashing apparatus, "we have 
power. Dead power. It has little meaning once it has accomplished its task. In 
human relations, only personal power has any meaning. All other power is merely 
a means to that end."
Anna sneered.
"What are you going to offer me? The queenship of the American Empire? Sorry, De 
Saynter, but it's a bit old-fashioned."
"lt is a bit thick, you know," I said, chuckling. "Why don't you stop being so 
damned old-hat?"
Westhoff snarled, but De Saynter merely smiled.
"Dear me," he said, throwing up his arms in a gesture of defeat. "You are going 
to be difficult. So we are going to take at one jump the sublime to the 
ridiculous?" He regarded Anna with an amused, baffled glint in his eyes.
I decided then that it was about time to act. They hadn't bound me and the 
guards paid no attention to my occasional sallies about the room. So I 
maneuvered myself to a spot well-known to me and leaned heavily and nonchalantly 
on a metal shelf for support. Behind me, a signal switch closed softly, without 
a sound.
"I SUPPOSE THERE is no possibility of your reconsidering your decision?" asked 
De Saynter, lighting a cigarette. He blew the smoke ceilingward, where it 
collected about the brilliant light globes in swirling ropes.
Anna's face was grimly uncompromising.
"I see no reason for putting this secret into the hands of a stupid fool."
De Saynter's eyes narrowed. He pulled his revolver from his coat pocket and 
brandished it.
"Enough! I see now that direct action is the only course to take. To think I 
could have been so wrong about feminine psychology!"
They jumped me as soon as De Saynter stopped talking because I was getting all 
ready to spring on the little man. Tying me to a chair with some copper wire, 
they stepped back and grabbed Anna roughly.
Westhoff licked his lips. He stood up abruptly and fondled his revolver holster.
De Saynter directed the guards to tie Anna to another chair. Then they stepped 
back out of the way. The former assistant stepped to a small, projector-like 
contrivance bolted to the floor, looking very much like a car-headlight before 
they began putting them into the fenders, and swung the business end of it 
around. I recognized it immediately. It threw a powerful stream of electrons 
past its magnetic regulator into the secondary stages of the amplifers, and was 
extremely dangerous. With full power, it could have burned to a cinder anything 
that got in its path. Ordinarily, a heavy metal safety shield surrounded it, but 
the shield and its heavy bolts lay on the floor beside the machine. Evidently my 
father had been repairing it, I thought.
Anna's eyes widened with horror as she saw De Saynter walk to the control panel 
and throw several small levers. Instantly, the lights dimmed as the powerful 
transformers began eating up tremendous amounts of house-current. The stolid 
guards blinked uncomfortably as the lights flickered.
De Saynter crushed out his cigarette carelessly against the base of the 
projector.
"The stream of electrons passing through this tube, with sufficient power, is 
capable of eating through steel almost instantaneously," he remarked absently, 
to no one in particular.
Westhoff shivered.
"In three minutes, the accumulated energy building up in the primary stage will 
leap through this projector and destroy anything in its path. Observe, Anna 
Campbell, how I bring this tube directly in line with your head. Observe how I 
disconnect the safety switch and adjust the timers. It is a beautiful piece of 
machinery and it is a pity that it should be used to such purpose. I want your 
answer as to the location of the plans for this entire apparatus within three 
minutes. I do not propose to tear the house down to find them."
One minute passed. I gulped.
Anna's nervous reserve was giving out. Her eyes, already wide and staring into 
the mouth of the electron projector, grew luminous with sheer horror.
"Anna!" I cried, suddenly. "Tell him! Anna, please! Please! It doesn't matter 
now whether he knows or not. Anna!"
Her lips trembled. De Saynter smiled queerly. He patted his stomach.
And then Westhoff bellowed.
"LOOK OUT!" he cried to the guards as the door behind them was thrust open and a 
searing blast of energy shot across the room, catching De Saynter below the neck 
and blowing most of his head into nothingness. Westhoff pulled desperately at 
his pistol, raised it, fired point-blank at the doorway and succeeded in killing 
one of his own men. The other toppled over as another searing blast caught him 
in the middle.
"Good boys!" I yelled and threw myself, chair and all, at Anna. She went over 
with a crash and a few seconds later the faintly luminous power surge poured 
through the empty air and crashed into the back wall where it volatilized the 
lead lining of the wall before a final blast from the doorway cut off the power 
supply as it hit the main cable.
Anna had fainted.
We revived her several minutes later. She blinked uncomprehendingly as she saw 
me standing over her, surrounded by two dozen men attired in ordinary grey 
business suits, each holding tightly to what appeared to be a small pistol-grip 
flashlight with wires leading from the butt to a large flat package in one 
pocket of their jackets.
For a woman weakened by a terrific shock she showed astonishing comprehension.
"Hand-rays?" she murmured, and I nodded.
She took a cigarette and some brandy downstairs, later.
"What the devil is it all about, darling?" she asked. Sitting opposite her, in 
the library, in my favorite overstuffed, I sprang it on her whimsically, feeling 
a little melodramatic.
"You are looking, my dear, at the head of the New York Section of the new 
Scientific Government of the United States!"
"Whatever that is, I don't believe you," she said, crossing one knee over the 
other.
"You'd better. I haven't told you anything up to now because I didn't want you 
going off half-cocked. You've been in a hell of a nervous state the past few 
months from your work on that junk upstairs, and--"
"Don't talk nonsense. I still don't believe you," she interrupted.
I laughed out loud.
"All right. Who's the second best chemical engineer and general electrical 
genius in this country next to yourself?"
"Why--why--why you are. So what?"
I gazed at her in amazement.
"So the woman I love and spend most of my time with goes and invents atomic 
power and I'm supposed to do nothing but play the tired technician who's too 
rusty to help around stuff like this any more, and take you out to dinner and 
golf and boat-rides and hikes?"
"You've been doing all right," she said seductively.
"Our little organization has been in existence for quite a while. Oh, I beg your 
pardon; Anna, meet the boys. Boys meet Anna." The "boys" inclined their heads, 
"We haven't been blind to the economic and social breakdown in this country. 
Your invention was a godsend. I don't know what we'd have done without it. I 
filched the plans you hid in the old safe behind the furnace--they're back, now, 
though--and gave them to a bunch of our boys down at headquarters--most of 'em 
are good mechanics, with some geniuses and a few research men thrown in. They 
turned out hand guns patterned after the principle of that projector.... By the 
way, remind me to have that wall fixed, like a good little girl.... And tiny 
automobiles that run for years and years on a thimbleful of fuel, and airplanes 
that don't need winds or propellers, and a lot of other useful gadgets. Add 
everything up and you've got all the necessary props for a scientific state. No 
nonsense, no baloney. Just science."
"Where were they hiding?" she asked, indicating my bravos.
"They weren't hiding. They were downtown at General Headquarters. You don't know 
it yet, but the city is full of them, all set to go. I managed to get through an 
alarm signal I rigged up. You don't know anything about that, either. I seldom 
forget a possibility."
"I know," she remarked somewhat sarcastically, then smiled. "But where are they 
going now?"
"We're taking over," I stated definitely and looked to the squad leader for 
confirmation. He nodded vigorously. "You just be content to be the human being 
responsible for all this and collect the glory."
She stretched luxuriously and took another slug of brandy.
"What'll that be? Some gold statues in public parks?"
I grinned.
"Say," she said suddenly, struck by a thought, "where's your father?"
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small machine resembling a wrist 
watch. Only it was flat and rectangular and had no crystal in it.
"This is a small receiver-transmitter. One of the gadgets the boys thought up. 
You can talk to pop by simply pressing that little white stud. He's down at GHQ 
now."
"Wait a minute, darling. One hour ago we got a free ride downtown. New York was 
a howling mess. And so was the rest of the country. What are you going to do 
about that?"
I stood up and accepted a proffered hand-ray-gun.
"That's what we're going to take care of now. Everything has been arranged for a 
direct assault on the population with the most beautiful information machine you 
ever saw. Sound trucks, picture slides, television movies and free ice-cream. By 
midnight tomorrow, the country--the whole continent--will be out of the danger 
zone. Politics is through once and for all. It'll be democracy, all right. 
Democracy with a nice clean shirt on and lipstick and bobbed hair and nylon 
stockings. Only this time the nylon won't ever wear out."
I stopped and kissed her.
Presently one of the men lifted his wrist receiver to his ear.
"All set, sir," he said.
"O.K., let's get going."
Anne was still unconvinced. She called after me from the couch.
"I still think it's a deuce of a big job. What's the magic trick that'll put it 
over? What wand are you planning to use?"
"Power," I said, and walked out.