Philip Wylie - Tomorrow!

He clapped a fat hand to his forehead. “It’s all over! The rumors, anyway! Air-raid alert!

The radio and TV aren’t saying, but people keep calling. The most terrific rumors. Enemy planes everywhere! Many cities hit! Condition Yellow here, though, still …! Thank God.”

“Beau, listen. I don’t know what you mean.”

“ Russian bombers,” his voice answered, with a thin, squealing overtone, “are said to be attacking our cities. The CD people have given the bank its special alert! Hours ago!”

“Are you mad?” Minerva peered at the man. “I just had lunch at the Ritz. There was absolutely no sign of such a thing!”

“ I know. That’s what I’m trying to tell you! The radio is going on, and the TV, as per usual. Only, no announcer sounds right or looks quite right, any more. Evidently they’ve heard more than they’re permitted to tell! But Condition Yellow is official.”

“What in the world is this yellow condition?”

“The first air-raid alert. That’s why”—he looked over his shoulder, along the polished marble floor, toward the closed tellers’ windows—“that’s why everybody’s rushing around!

Condition Yellow means we have to get all important papers—bonds, stock, cash, records—

down in the deep vault.”

“See here, Beau,” Minerva said solidly, “I don’t know what’s panicked you. But I do know nothing of the sort is happening.”

“You do?” He seemed on the verge of inexpressible relief.

“I know it morally. I would have been notified! It may be that those incalculable damned fools have started some sort of a crazy air-alert practice again. They did it before, you’ll remember. It could even be a real foul-up-an alert the military started, because they made some error. That has happened. But—”

Beau’s hope was perishing before her eyes. “If you’d step into Mr. Pavley’s office, where there’s a TV set… ”

“I will,” Minerva said. “I will. Because, believe me, this hysteria has got to stop!”

Her first, creepy inkling came when she saw the live show in progress at the local station.

The actors were saying their rather stupid lines, but merely saying them. Their gestures were somewhat alien to their words. And their eyes kept straying from the business in hand, as if they were watching something or somebody in the studio, rather than playing to each other. It was not, as Beau had said, normal.

Minerva picked up a phone. She dialed a number. It was busy, so she tried another. She gave that up because she got the busy signal with the first digit: the automatic switching station was busy as a whole. “ Something’s happening,” she admitted.

She went out on the Boor of the bank. Her eyes roved over the place slowly, from the vaulted windows to the huge light fixtures that hung down on chains from the remote ceiling; she looked at the balcony that ran around three sides and at the figures moving there hurriedly. She gazed at the spread of gleaming marble, big as a skating rink, usually peopled by hurrying depositors, people making withdrawals, people doing business—with her. From nowhere, unwonted, a line came into her mind: This, too, shall pass away.

It annoyed her greatly. But it alarmed her slightly, too.

Another thought entered her busy brain. Suppose, right now, the sirens let go? Whether in earnest or in some crazed drill, they would catch her here. Right here. In the middle of town, in the bank. At best, she’d he delayed for hours, getting home. At worst! But the worst was preposterous.

She turned to Beau, who had accompanied her, agitated, wringing his hands frequently.

“I don’t know what this is all about, but I think I’ll go and find out. I’ll phone you.” She left the bank, quite quickly.

After she had departed, Beau went back to his office. He put on his mufHer, his rubbers, his coat and his hat. He went out on the mezzanine and down the stairs. Nobody saw him, nobody who had importance enough to question his going. He pushed through the crowds to the Kyle Parking Garage and waited an endless forty minutes for his car to come down the ramp. He drove east, to the Wickley Heights section and so, circuitously, toward his home.

Traffic was bad and constantly getting worse and it was nervous traffic. He saw fenders banged twice, but the drivers didn’t even get out to argue. They just went on.

He thought three things, mostly:

He wasn’t required in the bank on any Saturday.

Under the Sloan skyscraper were the best air-raid shelters in the center of town, the vaults. If anything did happen, the employees he had left there would be the best off of anyone in the area.

A man’s place, in a crisis, was at home.

His car radio played dance and Christmas music. The regular programs were no longer on the air. Just records, as if somebody in authority had ordered the change.

Things had been happening to Nora, inexplicable things. In the middle of the fun at Toyland, when she’d been waiting in line with a million other kids to try the slide that ran for two whole stories beside the escalators, some colored girl in a yellow uniform and a thin coat had come up to Alice Groves. They had talked a minute. Alice had then yanked Nora out of line and said,

“That was one of my probationers. They heard me say I’d be here in Toyland. She came for me. I’ve got to go back.”

“Why?”

“There’s been an emergency.”

“Can’t I just take my slide? It’ll be my turn, soon.”

Alice said, “No.”

So they were outside again, on the street in the mobs and hurrying. The nurses with them followed, as reluctantly as Nora. “You’ll have to tag along with us,” Alice had said, “and we’ll telephone your people from the Infirmary. I haven’t time to wait to get you on a bus.” And she added, “I should never have come over to Green Prairie on a day like this!”

“ Why ?”

“Because now there’s an emergency, and heaven alone knows how long it’ll take us to get the Ferndale bus. If I could find a taxi….”

They were still looking for an empty taxi when they passed the Sloan Bank on the way to the bus terminal. Minerva Sloan was just coming out and Alice spoke to her.

At first, Minerva barely bowed her recognition and swept on toward her car, but Alice made her stop. Nora didn’t hear what Alice said because there was one of those tic-ups on Central Avenue just then, which set all the car horns blowing. But Mrs. Sloan, whom Nora recognized, nodded, though she looked mad. Nora, the three nurses and Alice Groves all got into the limousine.

Two nurses sat outdoors with the chauffeur. The car went to Central Avenue Bridge and over it and turned cast and finally reached the Mildred Tatum Infirmary.

“I’ll take the child to my home,” Minerva said.

Nora thanked the colored girls deeply and sank back on the cushions. “This is very kind of you, Mrs. Sloan,” she said in a pious tone.

She was surprised to see that Mrs. Sloan didn’t even hear her, hardly knew she was there at all. Mrs. Sloan’s mind, Nora thought, was probably failing.

Coley Borden was walking in the Christmas crowd, too. He looked ten years older than he’d looked on the night when he had written the full-page editorial that had ended his newspaper career and was still reverberating in the Sister Cities. But there was the same sardonic humor about him, and a hint somewhere of his subtle human understanding, his love of his fellows.

Persons in the throng who bumped him, if they troubled to look at him, also troubled to say,