"Stand back, please!" said the tape. Harry did his best to oblige, but
there wasn't much room. A good two dozen of his upstairs neighbors
jammed the compartment. Harry thought he recognized one or two of the
men, but he couldn't be sure. There were so many people, so many
faces. After a while it got so they all seemed to look alike. Yes, and
breathed alike, and felt alike when you were squeezed up against them,
and you were always being squeezed up against them, wherever you went.
And you could smell them, and hear them wheeze and cough, and you went
falling down with them into a bottomless pit where your head began to
throb and throb and it was hard to move away from all that heat and
pressure. It was hard enough just to keep from screaming--

Then the door opened and Harry was catapulted out into the lobby. The
mob behind him pushed and clawed because they were in a hurry; they
were always in a hurry these days, and if you got in their way they'd
trample you down like that old man had been trampled down; there was
no room for one man in a crowd any more.

Harry blinked and shook his head.

He gripped the edge of the wall and clung there in an effort to avoid
being swept out of the lobby completely. His hands were sticky with
perspiration. They slipped off as he slowly inched his way back
through the crush of the mob.

"Wait for me!" he called. "Wait for me, I'm going down!" But his voice
was lost in the maelstrom of sound just as his body was lost in the
maelstrom of motion. Besides, an automatic elevator cannot hear. It is
merely a mechanism that goes up and down, just like the other
mechanisms that go in and out, or around and around, and you get
caught up in them the way a squirrel gets caught in a squirrel-cage
and you race and race, and the best you can hope for is to keep up
with the machinery.

The elevator door clanged shut before Harry could reach it. He waited
for another car to arrive, and this time he stood aside as the crowd
emerged, then darted in behind them.

The car descended to the first garage level, and Harry stood gulping
gratefully in the comparative isolation. There weren't more than ten
people accompanying him.

He emerged on the ramp, gave his number to the attendant, and waved at
Bill in his office. Bill seemed to recognize him; at least he nodded,
briefly. No sense trying to talk--not in this sullen subterranea,
filled with the booming echo of exhausts, the despairing shriek of
br