The guards' weapons remained trained on the spot where I had been standing. Senator Chambers continued staring at the place where I had been.
None of them moved. They remained there, pointing at nothing. The electrodes at the bases of their necks reflecting the molten glow from the wrecked Master Machine.
I relaxed. I rubbed the tender skin around the dummy electrodes set in my neck. It was finally over.
Then a shadow moved against the wall where there should have been no movement. It lengthened and took on the shapely form of the redheaded Meta.
Only now her eyes were no longer dead and expressionless. They were alive with feeling.
I said, "So you are the other one. I should have guessed when you ran into the building ahead of me. But I was too busy thinking of those guards and of Chambers."
She nodded. Her lips relaxed into a smile.
Two from four leaves two! But we had accomplished our mission. And outside the building, in Washington, London, New York—in every Earth city—figures on the streets, in office buildings, and at home had become motionless, poised like mechanical toys with their springs run down. Housewives, cab drivers, copter pilots, passengers, shoppers, policemen, government workers had ceased to move, had stopped functioning with the destruction of the Master Machine.
The redhead said, "It's really over, isn't it? They're stopped." She looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering in a shiver. "They can't kill any more?"
I said, "It's over."