high spots of the low-number levels of Appalachia.

The darkness came about them swiftly. To Duggan it was like a return to the nightmare of sightlessness. Under their feet the racing strip faltered and stalled. They were thrown off their feet and sprawled on the fiber-ribbed squares of the checkerboarded way's surface.

"What is it?" demanded Rusche.

He fought back the panic. This was not true blindness.

"Criminals. They set off a few dozen 'midnight' bombs and try to rob banks or stores. We get these attacks quite often."

"Last long?"

"Emergency ventilation will clear it out in a couple of minutes. And the Squads will have them in half an hour. They never get very far."

They sat close together, to wait. From the walkways and stalled strips shrieks and frightened cries sounded. The sounds seemed to increase from behind them.

"This's my first time above the Twentieth Level," Rusche confided. "Thirty-five years and I never saw the Outside. I don't think I like it up this high."

"It will be over in a little while, Ted. Probably just a group of teen-agers looking for thrills." He laughed drily. "They'll end up with blanked memories and new faces like those who tried before them."

"Listen," muttered Rusche.

In the lightlessness, and above the wailing of the terrified people about them, they could hear the scuff of running feet. They were coming closer at a swift pace. In a moment the runners would collide with them!

Duggan's years of blindness had given him the ability to judge and gauge distance from sound. At the proper instant he pounced, his hands clamping around a body, and a second body crashed into the leader. They went down in a tangle.

He heard Rusche shouting and fists battering and the tinkle of metal or crystal on metal. He was fighting desperately, his super mech's strength overtaxed. The unseen man's hands tore at his neck and shoulder, ripping away the synthetic flesh and baring the complex framework beneath.

Then his hand caught an arm and he exerted the full strength of his mech power, until now carefully subdued. The entire arm tore away from its shoulder. And yet the wounded man continued to attack.

It was only then that he realized this must be a super mech. The criminals must have stolen one or two super mechs and were using them in this robbery.

He was ruthless, then. He wrenched away the other arm. He battered at the unseen torso. The feet of the desperate mech smashed at his knees and thighs, staggering him. Then he bore the armless torso of the mech backward and fell upon it.

The mech went limp, its mentrols blanked by the distant criminal who controlled it.

Duggan came to his feet, listening for the sound of battle between Rusche and his captive. It came from his right, faintly. About ten feet distant, he judged it. And now the emergency vents were clearing the darkness from the travel strips. Twilight faded and vision replaced it.

Rusche was sitting astride a prone body, and even as Duggan reached his side the struggling criminal's arms and legs went limp. Rusche grunted and started to stand.

"A super mech!" he said. He rubbed thoughtfully at his disarranged nose and cheeks, smoothing them again into their normal contours. "What about yours?"

"The same."

"Here's their loot, anyhow," Rusche said, holding up a small gray plastine bag.

"Drop it, Ted. We better fade out of here before the Squads arrive, too. They might think we're—"

"Not on your life, Al. We should get a reward. Pics on the newswires and tapes."

Duggan shrugged and smoothed at his own neck and face. Four red-uniformed men, their heads hidden by ovoid gas helmets, came hissing toward them along the travel strip. They rode single-wheeled cycles and their rapid-fire expoders were trained on them.

"Careful now, Ted. Let me do the talking. They like to use paralysis needles and question later."

"But—"

"I've lived up here."

The