The bar struck the paper, remained pressed against it for what seemed seconds, then slowly began to drop back. The carriage started a sluggish movement to make way for the next letter which was already being pressed, and still the girl’s eyes had not fully raised to the two figures who were watching her.
“Let’s move and see if she can follow us,” said Swift.
He grabbed the girl’s arm, darted to one side.
The typist’s eyes were raised now, but they stared in wide-eyed, frozen alarm at the place where they had been and not at the place where they were.
Chapter 4
Outlawed from Mankind
They darted to the outer door, tugged it open, slipped into the outer corridor.
“I didn’t get your name,” said Swift.
“Louise Folsom.”
“You’re the Washington agent?”
“Er... yes, the Washington agent.”
She jabbed a forefinger to the button of the elevator.
They waited for a short time in silence; then, suddenly, Swift burst out laughing.
“Foolish. You can’t get an elevator.”
“Why can’t I?”
He pointed to the glass door through which could be seen the cables controlling the cages. The strands were crawling at such a slow rate it seemed the cable was hardly moving.
“We’re speeded up too fast. You’ll have to wait for what’ll seem a very long time, or else take the stairs.”
“Nine flights?”
“Nine flights.”
“How long will it seem to me if I go down on the elevator?”
“Nearly ten minutes.”
She paused, uncertain.
“I rather think I’ll wait. Nine flights is a long way.”
This gave Swift the opportunity he was looking for.
“All right. But be careful when you get in the cage. Move so slowly that you seem to be fairly crawling. Try to take eight or ten seconds to get into the elevator. Don’t try talking with anybody until the effect of the extract wears off. You’ve got your box?”
She nodded.
Swift turned and left her, walking down the corridor.
He noticed a red light flash on over the elevator door, saw the bottom of one of the cages come creeping into view and slowly crawl to position before the door. This was the break for which he had been waiting, and, as the girl concentrated her attention on the elevator, Swift darted for the stairs.
He went down the nine flights with such speed that his coat streamed straight out behind him. He beat the elevator to the ground floor and was waiting when the door opened and the girl came out.
She had forgotten his admonition, and was rushing at a rate of speed a full hundred times faster than that of the average pedestrian in a hurry. Open-mouthed spectators stood frozen in motionless surprise as she whizzed by them. Then, as she gained the street, they seemed not to see her at all, so rapidly did she move.
Swift followed her, and emerged from the office building into a strange world.
Automobiles barely crept along the street. Even the noise and confusion of the city had been toned down until it sounded as a hollow boom of slow noise, low-pitched, almost inaudible. Hurrying pedestrians seemed standing upon one leg, their feet almost motionless. Their swinging arms were held at grotesque postures. A newsboy crying his wares stood for seeming minutes with his mouth open, a queer, rattling sound slowly emerging from the throat. A paper being waved in front of a passing pedestrian seemed utterly motionless; one corner, fluttering in the wind which whipped down the street, was barely moving.
Swift followed the girl, keeping well behind her, swinging his way between other pedestrians as though they had been inanimate figures, bunching on the sidewalks for purposes of ornamentation.
No use to take a car or cab. Walking at a rate of speed that seemed painfully slow, the atmosphere whipped his garments until it seemed they would be torn to ribbons. The girl’s short skirt streamed and fluttered, flapped and blew, whipped and skirled. Her hair came out from under her hat and streamed back of her head. She was exerting her every ounce of strength to fight against the wind caused by her rapid progress through the air.
Swift figured they were walking at a rate of speed that would ordinarily have taken them two miles an hour. Now, multiplied a hundredfold, that speed of two hundred miles an hour caused the terrific rush of air to threaten to tear their clothes off their backs.
He felt his coat whip and slat into a ripping tear. He slowed his speed still further, noticed that the girl’s skirt was coming off, saw her stop to adjust it. Yet it seemed several long minutes before it ceased its fluttering.
During all of this time the street traffic seemed barely crawling along; the wheels of the automobiles hardly moved in their slow revolutions.
The girl resumed her pace. She was walking more slowly now. A man standing at the window of a store, apparently engrossed in the display within, seemed vaguely familiar to Swift. As he glanced for a second look, he saw the girl was approaching him. She put her hand on his arm.
The man started what was evidently intended to be a swift whirl. To Art Swift it seemed to be but a slow motion picture of a slow motion picture. After an interval of what seemed seconds he had his eyes telling more than his ears, for the two were gazing at each other, and the man was Nick Searle of the Star.
The girl was talking. Swift could see her chin move, see the lips opening and closing. Searle was trying to talk, but the slow, drawling sounds which issued from his leisurely lips were nothing the girl could wait for. Her eagerness to impart her information made her pour out a torrent of sound at top speed.
Swift wondered how much longer the drug would act, and, even as he wondered, saw the phenomenon happen before his eyes. The girl suddenly became a sluggish replica of her former self. She had started a gesture with her right hand. That gesture slowed in its motion until the hand barely crawled toward the lapel of Searle’s coat.
Swift knew then that the drug had worn off. He remembered also that he had taken his drug just a second after the girl had taken hers. That would give him the advantage.
He moved forward, walking as swiftly as he dared, the wind whipping at his garments.
So rapidly did he move that the eyes of the two never faltered from each other. Not by so much as a glance did they see this man who was circling them at a rate of speed which made him almost invisible.
There was a pillar of concrete supporting an alcove, almost directly behind Searle, and Art Swift made for this place of concealment. He wanted to hear what the girl was saying, and he wanted to warp Searle that the girl was in reality one of the gang of crooks that bid fair to terrorize the country.
He leaned forward. The girl was speaking. Her slow words drawled with such exasperating languor that it seemed to take fully half a minute to drag out a word.
The traffic continued to crawl. Noises were as a low-pitched clack of sound, overlapping at times, but hardly audible. And then, right in the middle of a sentence, Swift’s ears snapped back to normal. There was a brief period of dizziness as his functions returned to normalcy.
Of a sudden the traffic resumed its customary rumbling roar and shot past the store. The girl’s voice was shrill with hysteria. The words ceased to drawl, but beat upon Swift’s ears as the patter of a torrential rain on a tin roof.
“I have some of the drug. He never questioned my identity at all.”
Searle’s voice was also rapid, fierce in its intensity.