ack motorcycle slowed; shot over toward the curb. The
officer reached for his microphone.

Kinnison sped on. At Cicero Avenue, although he had a green light,
traffic was so heavy that he had to slow down; at Pulaski two policemen
waved him through a red. Beyond Sacramento nothing moved on wheels.

Seventy ... seventy five ... he took the bridge at eighty, both wheels
in air for forty feet. Eighty five ... ninety ... that was about all he
could do and keep the heap on so rough a road. Also, he did not have
Diversey all to himself any more; blue-and-purple-flashing bikes were
coming in from every side-street. He slowed to a conservative fifty and
went into close formation with the other riders.

The H-blast--the city-wide warning for the planned and supposedly
orderly evacuation of all Chicago--sounded, but Kinnison did not hear
it.

Across the Park, edging over to the left so that the boys going south
would have room to make the turn--even such riders as those need _some_
room to make a turn at fifty miles per hour!

Under the viaduct--biting brakes and squealing tires at that sharp,
narrow, right-angle left turn--north on the wide, smooth Drive!

That highway was made for speed. So were those machines. Each rider, as
he got into the flat, lay down along his tank, tucked his chin behind
the cross-bar, and twisted both throttles out against their stops. They
were in a hurry. They had a long way to go; and if they did not get
there in time to stop those trans-polar atomic missiles, all hell would
be out for noon.

Why was all this necessary? This organization, this haste, this
split-second timing, this city-wide exhibition of insane hippodrome
riding? Why were not all these motorcycle-racers stationed permanently
at their posts, so as to be ready for any emergency? Because America,
being a democracy, could not strike first, but had to wait--wait in
instant readiness--until she was actually attacked. Because every good
Techno in America had his assigned place in some American Defense Plan;
of which Operation Bullfinch was only one. Because, without the presence
of those Technos at their every-day jobs, all ordinary technological
work in America would perforce have stopped.

A branch road curved away to the right. Scarcely slowing down, Kinnison
bulleted into the turn and through an open, heavily-guarded gate. Here
his mount and his lights were passwords enough: the real test would come
later. He approached a toweri