"Good luck," he said simply.
Then he was gone and Jeter and Eyer were dropping swiftly down in the elevator to the street—to find that the streets of Manhattan had gone mad. The ban on electric lights had been lifted, and the faces of fear-ridden men and women were ghastly in the brilliance of thousands of lights. Traffic accidents were happening on every corner, at every intersection, and there were all too few police to manage traffic.
However, a motorcycle squad was ready to lead the way through the press for Eyer and Jeter—two grim-faced men now, who dared not look at each other, because each feared to show his abysmal fear to the other.
Automobiles raced past on either side of them driven by crazy men and hysterical women.
"Queensboro Bridge will be packed tight as a drum," said Eyer quietly.
Jeter didn't seem to hear. Eyer talked on softly, unbothered by Jeter's silence, knowing that Jeter wouldn't hear a word, that his partner had drawn into himself and was even now, perhaps, visualizing what they might encounter in the stratosphere. Eyer talked to give shape to his own thoughts.
A world gone mad, a world that fled from the menace which hung over Manhattan.... Jeter hoped that the calm brains of men like Hadley would at least be able to quiet the populace somewhat, else many of them would be self-destroyed, as men and women destroy one another in rushes for the exits during great theater fire alarms.
Fast as they traveled, some of the foremost airmen of the adjoining country had reached Mineola ahead of them. They understood that many of them had arrived by plane in obedience to word broadcast by Hadley. Hadley was doing his bit with a vengeance.
The partners reached their laboratory.