Walking up Fifth Avenue at midnight, Spofforth begins to whistle. He does not know the name of the tune nor does he care to know; it is a complicated tune, one he whistles often when alone. He is naked to the waist and barefoot, dressed only in khaki trousers; he can feel the worn old paving beneath his feet. Although he walks up the middle of the broad avenue he can see patches of grass and tall weeds on either side of him where the sidewalk has long before been cracked and broken away, awaiting repairs that will never be made. From these patches Spofforth hears a chorus of diverse clickings and wing rubbings of insects. The sounds make him uneasy, as they always do this time of year, in spring. He puts his big hands into his trouser pockets. Then, uncomfortable, he takes them out again and begins to jog, huge and light-footed, athletic, up toward the massive form of the Empire State Building.
The doorway to the building had eyes and a voice; its brain was the brain of a moron—single-minded and insensitive. ‘Closed for repairs,’ the voice said to Spofforth as he approached.
‘Shut up and open,’ Spofforth said. And then, ‘I am Robert Spofforth. Make Nine.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ the door said. ‘Couldn’t see...’
‘Yes. Open up. And tell the express elevator to be down for me.’
The door was silent for a moment. Then it said, ‘Elevator’s not working, sir.’
‘Shit,’ Spofforth said. And then, ‘I’ll walk up.’
The door opened and Spofforth walked in and headed across the dark lobby toward the stairway. He muted the pain circuits in his legs and lungs, and began to climb. He was no longer whistling; his elaborate mind had become fixed narrowly now upon his annual intent.
When he reached the edge of the platform, as high above the city as one could stand, Spofforth sent the command to the nerves in his legs and the pain surged into them. He wobbled slightly from it, high and alone in the black night, with no moon above him and the stars dim. The surface underfoot was smooth, polished; once years before Spofforth had almost slipped. Immediately he had thought, in disappointment, If only that would happen again, at the edge. But it did not.
He walked to within two feet of the platform’s limit, and with no mental signal, no volition, no wish for it to happen, his legs stopped moving and he found himself, as always, immobilized, facing Fifth Avenue uptown, over a thousand dark feet above its hard and welcome surface. Then he urged his body forward in sad and grim desperation, focusing his will upon the desire to fall forward, merely to lean his strong and heavy body, his factory-made body, out, away from the building, away from life.
Inwardly he began to scream for movement, picturing himself tumbling in slow motion, gracefully and surely, to the street below. Yearning for that.
But his body was not—as he knew it would not be—his own. He had been designed by human beings; only a human being could make him die. Then he screamed aloud, throwing his arms out at his sides, bellowing in fury over the silent city. But he could not move forward.
Spofforth stood there, alone on top of the tallest building in the world, immobilized, for the rest of the June night.
Occasionally the lights of a thought bus would be visible, slightly larger than stars, below him, moving slowly up and down the avenues of an empty city. There were no lights on in the buildings.