And there were other scenes, indescribable. Rooms of small factories. I saw one of them, where for this whole day a group of young girls had been trapped. The swinging viaduct leading from their doorway had fallen with the press of a fleeing mob; a girder had fallen, pinning their door so that they could not open it. They were trapped; and though the official safety emergency station in that area was still in our hands, it was too flooded with similar calls, and too disorganized, to heed this one.
A room of young girls. And by some chance, when the Turberites advanced, a leering giant had peered through a narrow ventilator orifice and seen them. With his huge stone ax he hacked away at the ventilator. Others took his place when he was winded. They came through at last into the room—
A news-mirror beside us—one of the few circuits still in operation—flashed a message:
"Turber attacking the local ventilating power-house. To shut off our power—paralyze our ventilating system."
So, with that done, he could use his gas fumes! I had not heard of an attack at the ventilating power-house. The one mentioned was in Lower Manhattan—local to that area. It was far underground.
The subterranean city was a vast catacomb with a depth everywhere of several hundred feet. We still held our sections of it.
"Alan! What will Central Headquarters do about that? Has it been moved yet? Central Headquarters moved?"
No one near us seemed to know. Every city function was disorganized. The government archives were at this moment being transported with difficulty from the financial area into new quarters beyond the Spuyten Duyvil flood gates. From the subterranean treasury vaults the tremendous gold reserve was being moved northward. All our instrument-room headquarters were being shifted to the northern outskirts. It was almost a flight—a rout. But our massed fighters in all the important corridors were still holding firm.