'I wanted to set the right example for them,' said the father to anyone who would listen. 'Smash the anti-social elements without mercy!' Three children were clustered together, crying. if they exist.' 'A terrible thing, friend,' a woman said to them. Healthy destruction forever! The criminals will be tracked down. 'Stop anti-social acts!' 'Stop anti-social acts!' roared Burnett and, in a whisper: 'Hart, let's get out of here.' As they pushed their way through the milling crowd, a loudspeaker boomed out: 'Return home in peace. Somebody must have sabotaged the setup.' 'Catch the culprits!' he shouted, joining the crowd around him. The crowd was too shocked to feel the triumph it had come for, but Hart could not share their horror.

It discharged immediately and the pile finally collapsed and disintegrated as it was supposed to. A second slagger came rushing into the square. They had repaired their damages, then imposed their patterns on the material at hand. Some high-level servo mechanisms had not been thoroughly disconnected. But Hart knew instantly what had caused it. 'Let's get away!' Nothing like this had ever happened before. Somewhere a child began crying, provoking more hubbub. And then the pile, like a mechanical cancer, ripped the slagger apart and then absorbed it. The slagger teetered, swaying more and more violently from side to side until it collapsed on its side. There was a rumbling from inside the pile and a huge jagged patchwork of metal shot out, smashing both arms. 'Any moment now.' Then the unforeseen occurred. 'That's the automatic setting,' parents explained to their children.

Long polarity arms glided smoothly out of the central mechanism and reached the length for Total Destruction.

Then, as the first collective Ah! arose, a giant slagger lumbered in from the east, the direction prescribed for such commencements. II he Plaza was now thronged and the sacrificial pile towered over a hundred feet in the cleared center area. The Junkmakers - Albert Teichner Please enable JavaScript to view the full PDF

The Junkmakers by Albert R. Teichner