Radar alarm! All out!"

And men were moving fast, too. Some came down from the Platform on
hoists, dropping with reckless speed to the floor level. Some didn't
wait for a turn at that. They slid down one upright, swung around the
crosspiece on the level below, and slid down another vertical pipe. For
a minute or more it looked as if the scaffolds oozed black droplets
which slid down its pipes. But the drops were men. The floor became
speckled and spotted with dots running for its exits.

The siren ceased its wailing and its noise went down and down in pitch
until it was a baritone moan that dropped to bass and ceased. Then there
was no sound but the men moving to get out of the Shed. There were
trucks, too. Those that had been loading with dismantled scaffolding
roared for the doors to get out and away. Some men jumped on board as
they passed. The exit doors swung up to let them go.

But it was very quiet in the Shed, at that. There was no noise but a few
fleeing trucks, and the murmur which was the voices of the Security men
hurrying the work crew out. There was less to hear than went on
ordinarily. And it was a long distance across the floor of the Shed.

Joe stood with his fists clenched absurdly. This could only be an air
attack. An air attack could only mean an atom-bomb attack. And if there
was an atom bomb dropped on the Shed, there'd be no use getting outside.
It wouldn't be merely a fission bomb. It would be a hell bomb--a bomb
which used the kind of bomb that shattered Hiroshima only as a primer
for the real explosive. Nobody could hope to get beyond the radius of
its destruction before it hit!

Joe heard himself raging. He'd thought of Sally. She'd be in the range
of annihilation, too. And Joe knew such fury and hatred--because of
Sally--that he forgot everything else.

He didn't run. He couldn't escape. He couldn't fight back. But because
he hated, he had to do something to defy.

He found himself moving toward the Platform, his jaws clenched. It was
pure, blind, instinctive defiance.

He was not the only one to have that reaction. Men running toward the
sidewall exits began to get out of breath from their running. They
slowed. Presently they stopped. They scowled and raged, like Joe. Some
of them looked with burning eyes up at the roof of the Shed, though
their thoughts went on beyond it. The security guards repeated, "Radar
alarm! All out! Radar alarm! All out!"

Someone snarled, "Nuts to that!"