"Come along...?" I echoed again, now completely at a loss.

"Yes." He moved closer to the glass. "I know you're confused--but try to keep up some kind of a conversation, will you? Otherwise the guard--"

Kuperman suddenly stopped talking when we began to hear an extraordinary noise: a deep, insistent hum that seemed to come from all directions at once, even from inside my own head. It grew in volume and intensity at a quick but steady rate, until the metal chairs and tables in the room began to vibrate noticeably.

Looking up at the ceiling, Kuperman checked his watch again. "Well," he said, strangely unconcerned. "That was quick. They must have been closer than I thought..."

As the hum proceeded to grow louder, I dashed to the only window in the visiting room and looked out into the darkness. There was precious little to be seen save the lights atop the prison walls; and then something appeared to blot even those beacons out. Moving above and across the walls was a dark mass, perhaps as long as a pair of train cars and twice as high.

"What the hell...?" was all I could whisper; and then I noted Kuperman's shouting voice coming over the intercom and just cutting through the ever intensifying hum:

"Dr. Wolfe! Dr. Wolfe, move away from the window, please!"

I did as he said, and just in time too, for the bars outside the window, loosened by the mounting vibration, suddenly broke free of their anchors and flew away, while the wired glass panes did not so much break as explode. I ran back to the partition and saw that Kuperman's guard, clutching his ears, was screaming in terror.

"What is it?" I shouted through the intercom. "Kuperman, what's happening?"

Kuperman smiled; but before he could give any explanation, the wall behind him suddenly began to vibrate violently. In just a few seconds it collapsed, the stone falling away and revealing a 10-ft.-square passage into the night air. Once the dust had cleared, I could see, outside this gaping hole, what appeared to be a metallic wall about 3 ft. from the violated stone edifice of the visitors' building; and over the insistent humming I began to make out the sound of gunshots coming from the prison yard below.

"It's all right, Dr. Wolfe!" I became conscious of Kuperman saying through the amplified intercom. "Don't worry! But try to get under one of those tables, will you?"

Once again my prompt observance of Kuperman's order saved me from being severely injured, this time by flying fragments of the transparent partition that had divided us. When I emerged from under the table and returned to Kuperman, I found him waving an arm and urging me to climb over the remains of the partition and join him. Too stunned to refuse, I did so--only to find myself faced with Kuperman's guard as well as a second officer. Both had their guns drawn, prompting Kuperman to turn to his man and cry out earnestly:

"Mr. Sweeney! Please! You don't really think that's going to do any good, do you? If you and Mr. Farkas leave now, I promise no harm will--"

Before Kuperman could finish, we were presented with yet another extraordinary sight: the sudden delineation, by a series of small green lights, of a doorway in the metal surface outside the hole in the building's wall. Then, with a decompressing hiss, the door opened rapidly; in fact it seemed, to my eyes, to almost disappear. Beyond the vanished portal was a dimly lit corridor in which stood several figures: two male, one quite distinctly female. The men wore coveralls; the woman was sheathed in a gray bodysuit that clung to her with what I might, under other circumstances, have called enticing tenacity. MORE>>

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