I took advantage of the indecision of the others and pushed through the door after her toward the squat, ugly little building that was my goal.
Meta was almost to the door of the building when I heard Chambers yell.
"Stop her, Secretary Bartlett! She's malfunctioning. We've all been ordered to wait outside for an ID check." I ignored him and he yelled again. "Guard, open fire on the girl. Don't let her get inside that door!"
But he was too late. Meta disappeared through the door into the black building. I stepped inside just as it slammed shut and the first missile smashed against the door from the guard's weapon.
The building was not large. The Master Machine squatted like a huge, thick-bodied black spider in the center of the building. A cobweb of power lines and control cables criss-crossed the floor and fed into the base of the unit.
A myriad of tiny moving parts, levers and cams and elbowed arms and gears pulsed and shifted and moved to give the impression that the Master Machine was breathing, that it was alive. Tiny multicolored lights twinkled on and off. Giant vacuum tubes hummed and glowed. And all the while, it munched on endless tapes.
The black monster was the heart of Earth's civilization, and it was the means of it. As I started toward the machine, a grid at the top turned slowly and ogled me. Almost immediately, a red tube blinked on, and the moving parts on one section of the machine plunged into a frenzied rhythm of action.
I ran forward, breathing heavily under the strain of the unaccustomed gravity. I had only seconds in which to act. At any moment, Senator Chambers and the guards would be coming through the door behind me.
I raised the cane and touched the stud.