Alone ( #39)

2000 plus adventures in the world of tomorrow dramatic stories of the years beyond 2000 AD Today a story of the world of 2000 plus 60 a story called alone I listened to my footsteps as I walked down the long corridor Just my footsteps for the first time in so many months

No nurses no doctors no burly attendants in my side I was walking alone. I was well. I knew who I was, where I was, and what I was going to do. I walked past the photoelectric cell that operates the huge bronze doors, out into the brilliant sunshine.

And down the road leading toward my laboratory in the heart of the nucleus city. I passed up the hospital limousine service. I wanted to walk to breathe in the air of freedom to drink in the sunshine, the peace of the quiet countryside. I walked slowly because I realized that all too soon I would be engulfed by the noise and the tumult of the earth's tough research

center. And finally I reached the city proper. I started up the broad avenue lined with laboratories And then suddenly something was wrong, terribly wrong. I stopped a moment and listened, and then I realized what was wrong.

Not a sound. On this avenue, normally bursting with activity with a wine and groan of machinery in the roar and rumble of nuclear bombardment, there was nothing. sound. Not a voice, not a soul, not a single solitary human being.

A moment away of panic swept over me. How would you feel in my place? They had taught me well at the hospital. I thought it off in my mind, but my feet hadn't been cycloanalyzed.