She indicated the year 5000 A.D. Alan knew what she meant. She and San would make a hurried trip on to that Time when the city was in ruins, and would search in the ruins for that super-powerful weapon. They would get it and bring it back to us.
Lea added: "Tell them—not yield to Turber. Weapon coming—Lea and San bring it in tower."
We sped forward—a trip of much less than an hour. The Indian forests melted away. The city flowed up around the tower. Central Park was here. We saw the city flow over it. We saw huge streets about us. Then a roof over us, with our tower set in a monstrous metal street.
Lea shook our hands. "Good-by, Alan—until we come with weapon."
The tower lurched to a halt. A surge of noises flooded in through the windows. The noise of the huge city. And there were shouts of human voices. And dazzling lights everywhere. Turber was here in this same city, now, with Nanette. We were to make our last desperate play against Turber here.
San flung the door open. Alan and I leaped from the tower steps. Behind us, the tower flashed into a phantom and was gone.
The city street was a roaring torrent of voices, human and electrical; a confusion of strange sounds and stranger sights. The street was solid metal. Traffic levels rose in tiers one above the other. Vehicles were passing: scurrying cars on wheels; a monorail hanging from a trellis, with dangling cars showing as a string of lights high overhead. And a great translucent spread of roof like glass above it all.
A blare of blue and yellow lights. A moving sidewalk on one of the lower tiers was jammed with human figures. They craned down to see the commotion we were causing.
The empty street space showed a mangled vehicle which had evidently been too close when the tower materialized. Twisted, blackened metal; and there were three human bodies lying dead in the street.