"His key, his key!" She knelt beside Duckpath and pulled the key out of his hand. The High Official stirred, but did not speak. An amazing amount of blood had already accumulated on the floor around him.
A brick grazed Glen's shoulder, sending him spinning toward the stairway. Joan rushed after him, and they pounded the stairs together. "I can get in anywhere with this," she gasped, holding up the key.
Presumably the half-conscious Duckpath had made the oncoming men pause. Ripping sounds could be heard, and a horrible strangled cry. They were relieving the High Official of his personal belongings—and probably of his life.
But the People from the floor below were now surging up the stairs, joined by four men from the crowd that had first seen Joan. "Get the dame! Government meat!" The cry came booming up to Glen and Joan.
They stumbled into the corridor at the next landing, realizing they would never make it up the next flight before the mob reached them. They were both fumbling with their maps. "There's a small Class-3 right around here," Joan waved her map in his face. She raced along the wall for a few yards and then clapped Duckpath's key to it. A panel slid back and she slipped inside. "Thank God!" She glanced around her. "Darling, it's only a single. Too bad."
There was obviously no room for another person, Glen saw with dismay. Joan and the air-freshening apparatus took up all the space.
"Hurry and find another, sweets." She pitched him the Class-2 key, and blew him a kiss as the door slid shut. It would open again only after sundown, when People's Day was officially over.
A mass of screaming People burst from the stairway, and raised a great shout on seeing Glen. He dashed down the corridor, turned left, and then turned right at the next passageway. He was in a long corridor ending in a large window opening on the outside.
Glen squinted at his map through eyes that refused to focus. He suddenly realized they were streaming with tears.