CHAPTER IV. A diary of the dying. How strange the words look scribbled at the top of the empty page of my book. How strange are still that it is I, Edward Malone, who have written them. I, who started only some twelve hours ago from my rooms in Streatham, without one thought of the marvels which the day was to bring forth. I look back at the chain of incidents, my interview with McArdle, Challenger's first note of alarm in the Times, the absurd journey in the train, the pleasant luncheon, the catastrophe, and now it has come to this, that we linger alone upon an empty planet, and so sure is our fate that I can regard these lines, written from mechanical professional habit and never to be seen by human eyes, as the words of one who is already dead, so closely does he stand to the shattered borderland over which all outside this one little circle of friends have already gone. I feel how wise and true were the words of Challenger when he said that the real tragedy would be if we were left behind when all that is noble and good and beautiful had passed. But of that there can surely be no danger. Already our second tube of oxygen is drawing to an end. We can count the poor dregs of our lives almost to a minute. We have just been treated to a lecture, a good quarter of an hour long, from Challenger, who was so excited that he roared and bellowed as if he were addressing his old rows of scientific skeptics in the Queens Hall. He had certainly a strange audience to a harangue.  Summerly seated in the shadow, querulous and critical but interested, Lord John lounging in a corner somewhat bored by the whole proceeding, and myself beside the window watching the scene with a kind of detached attention, as if it were all a dream, or something in which I had no personal interest, whatever. Challenger sat at the center table with the electric light, illuminating the slide under the microscope which he had brought from his dressing-room. The small, vivid circle of white light from the mirror left half of his rugged, bearded face and brilliant radiance, and half in deepest shadow. He had, it seems, been working of late upon the lowest forms of life, and what excited him at the present moment was that in the microscopic slide made up the day before he found the amoeba to be still alive. You can see it for yourselves! He kept repeating in great excitement. Summerly will you step across and satisfy yourself upon the point. Malone, will you kindly verify what I say? The little spindle-shaped things in the center are diatoms, and may be disregarded since they are probably vegetable rather than animal, but the right-hand side you will see an undoubted amoeba moving sluggishly across the field. The upper screw is the fine adjustment. Look at it for yourselves! Summerly did so, and acquiesced. So did I, and perceived a little creature which looked as if it were made of ground glass flowing in a sticky way across the lighted circle. Lord John was prepared to take him on trust.  We don't so much as know each other by sight, so why should I take it to heart? I don't suppose he's worrying himself over the state of our health. I laughed at this, and Challenger looked in my direction with his coldest and most supercilious stare. It was a most petrifying experience. The flippancy of the half-educated is more obstructive to science than the obtuse-ness of the ignorant, said he. If Lord John Rockston would condescend— My dear George, don't be so peppery—said his wife with her hand on the black mane that drooped over the microscope. What can it matter whether the amoeba is alive or not? It matters a great deal, said Challenger gruffly. Well, let's hear about it, said Lord John with a good-humored smile. We may as well talk about that as anything else. If you think I've been too offhand with a thing, or heard its feelings in any way, I'll apologize. For my part, remarked summerly in his creaky argumentative voice, I can see why you should attach such importance to the creature being alive. It is in the same atmosphere as ourselves, so naturally the poison does not act upon it. If it were outside of this room it would be dead, like all other animal life. Your remarks, my good summerly, said Challenger with enormous condescension. Oh, if I could paint that overbearing, arrogant face in the vivid circle of reflection from the microscope mirror, your remarks show that you imperfectly appreciate the situation. This specimen was mounted yesterday and is hermetically sealed. None of our oxygen can reach it, but the ether, of course, is penetrated to it, as to every other point upon the universe. Therefore it has survived the poison. Hence we may argue that every amoeba outside this room, instead of being dead, as you have erroneously stated, has really survived the catastrophe. Well, even now I don't feel inclined to hip hurrah about it, said Lord John. What does it matter? It just matters this, that the world is living instead of a dead one. If you had the scientific imagination you would cast your mind forward from this one fact, and you would see some few millions of years hence, a mere passing moment in the enormous flux of the ages, the whole world teeming once more with the animal and human life which will spring from this tiny root. You have seen a prairie fire where the flames have swept every trace of grass or plant on the surface of the earth and left only a blackened waste. You would think that it must be forever desert, yet the roots of growth have been left behind, and when you pass the place a few years hence you can no longer tell where the black scars used to be. Here and this tiny creature are the roots of growth of the animal world, and by its inherent development and evolution it will surely in time remove every trace of this incomparable crisis in which we are now involved. Do sit, Interestin, said Lord John, lounging across and looking through the microscope. Funny little chap to hang number one among the family portraits. Got a fine big shirt, stud-odding. The dark object is his nucleus, said Challenger, with the air of a nurse teaching letters to a baby. Well, we'd needn't feel lonely, said Lord John, laughing. There's somebody living besides us on the earth. You seem to take it for granted, Challenger, said summarily, that the object for which this world was created was that it should produce and sustain human life. Well, sir, and what object do you suggest? asked Challenger, bristling at the least hint of contradiction. Sometimes I think that it is only the monstrous conceit of mankind that makes him think that all this stage was erected for him to strut upon. We cannot be dogmatic about it, but at least without what you have ventured to call the monstrous conceit, we can surely say that we are the highest thing in nature. The highest of which we have cognizance? That, sir, goes without saying. Think of all then millions and possibly billions of years that the earth swung empty through space, or, if not empty, at least without a sign or thought of the human race. Think of it. Washed by the rain, and scorched by the sun, and swept by the wind for those unnumbered ages, man only came into being yesterday so far as geological time goes. Why, then, should it be taken for granted that all this stupendous preparation was for his benefit? For whose, then, or for what? Summarily shrugged his shoulders. How can we tell? For some reason altogether beyond our conception, and man may have been a mere accident, a byproduct evolved in the process. It is as if the scum upon the surface of the ocean imagined that the ocean was created in order to produce and sustain it, or a mouse in a cathedral thought that the building was its own proper ordained residence. I have jotted down the very words of their argument, but now it degenerates into a mere noisy wrangle with much polysyllabic scientific jargon upon each side. It is no doubt a privilege to hear two such brains discuss the highest questions, but as they are in perpetual disagreement, plain folk like Lord John and I get little that is positive from the exhibition. They neutralize each other, and we are left as they found us. Now the hubbub has ceased, and Summary is coiled up in his chair, while Challenger, still fingering the screws of his microscope, is keeping up a continual low, deep, inarticulate growl like the sea after a storm. Lord John comes over to me, and we look out together into the night. There is a pale new moon, the last moon that human eyes will ever rest upon, and the stars are most brilliant. Even in the clear plateau air of South America I have never seen them brighter. Possibly this etheric change has some effect upon light. The funeral pyre of Brighton is still blazing, and there is a very distant patch of scarlet in the western sky, which may mean trouble at Arundel or Chichester, possibly even at Portsmouth. I sit and muse and make an occasional note. There is a sweet melancholy in the air. Youth and beauty, and chivalry and love, is this to be the end of it all? The starlit earth looks like a dreamland of gentle peace. Who would imagine it as the terrible Golgotha, strewn with the bodies of the human race? Suddenly I find myself laughing. Hello, young fella, says Lord John, staring at me in surprise. We could do with a joke in these hard times. What was it then? I was thinking of all the great unsolved questions, I answer, the question that we spent so much labour and thought over. Think of Anglo-German competition, for example, or the Persian Gulf that my old chief was so keen about. Whoever would have guessed, when we fumed and fretted so, how they were to be eventually solved. We fall into silence again. I fancy that each of us is thinking of friends that have gone before. Mrs. Challenger is sobbing quietly, and her husband is whispering to her. My mind turns to all the most unlikely people, and I see each of them lying white and rigid as poor Austin does in the yard. There is McArdle, for example, I know exactly where he is, with his face upon his writing desk, and his hand on his own telephone, just as I heard him fall. I suppose he is lying upon the blue and red turkey carpet which adorned his sanctum. And the fellows in the reporter's room, McDonough and Murray and Bond, they had certainly died hard at work on their job, with notebooks full of vivid impressions and strange happenings in their hands. I could just imagine how this one would have been packed off to the doctors and that other to Westminster and yet a third to St. Paul's. What glorious rows of headlines they must have seen as a last vision beautiful, never destined to materialize in printer's ink. I could see McDonough among the doctors. Hope in Harley Street. Mac had always a weakness for alliteration. Interview with Mr. Soli Wilson. Famous specialist says never despair. Our special correspondent found the eminent scientist seated upon the roof whether he had retreated to avoid the crowd of terrified patients who had stormed his dwelling. With a manner which plainly showed his appreciation of the immense gravity of the occasion, the celebrated physician refused to admit that every avenue of hope had been closed. That's how Mac would start. Then there was Bond. He would probably do St. Paul's. He fancied his own literary touch. My word! What a theme for him! Standing in the little gallery under the dome and looking down upon that packed mass of despairing humanity, groveling at this last instant before a power which they had so persistently ignored, there rose to my ears from the swaying crowd such a low moan of entreaty and terror, such a shuddering cry for help to the unknown that—and so forth. Yes, it would be a great end for a reporter, though, like myself. He would die with a treasure still unused. What would Bond not give poor chap to see J. H. B. at the foot of a column like that? But what drivel I am writing. It is just an attempt to pass the inquiry time. Mrs. Challenger has gone to the inner dressing room and the professor says that she is asleep. He is making notes and consulting books at the central table, as calmly as if years of placid work lay before him. He writes with a very noisy quill pen which seems to be screeching scorn at all who disagree with him.   How people can sleep under such conditions is more than I can imagine. 3.30 a.m. I have just wakened with a start. It was five minutes past eleven when I made my last entry. I remember winding up my watch and noting the time. So I have wasted some five hours of the little span still left to us. Who would have believed it possible? But I feel very much fresher and ready for my fate. Or try to persuade myself that I am. And yet the fitter a man is and the higher his tide of life, the more must he shrink from death. How wise and how merciful is that provision of nature by which his earthly anchor is usually loosened by many little imperceptible tugs until his consciousness has drifted out of its untenable earthly harbor into the great sea beyond. Mrs. Challenger is still in the dressing room. Challenger has fallen asleep in his chair. What a picture! His enormous frame leans back.  He shakes with the vibration of his own snoring. Summary adds his occasional high tenor to Challenger's sonorous base. Lord John is sleeping also, his long body doubled up sideways in a basket chair. The first cold light of dawn is just stealing into the room, and everything is gray and mournful. I look out at the sunrise, that fateful sunrise which will shine upon an unpeopled world. The human race is gone, extinguished in a day, but the planets swing round and the tides rise or fall, and the wind whispers, and all nature goes her way. Down it would seem to the very amoeba with never a sign that he who styled himself the Lord of Creation had ever blessed or cursed the universe with his presence.  The whole of humankind is typified in that one half ludicrous and half pathetic figure lying so helpless beside the machine which it used to control. Here are the notes which I made at the time. Henceforward events were too swift and too poignant to allow me to write, but they are too clearly outlined in my memory that any detail could escape me. Some chockingness in my throat made me look at the oxygen cylinders and I was startled at what I saw. The sands of our lives were running very low. At some period in the night Challenger had switched the tube from the third to the fourth cylinder. Now it was clear that this also was nearly exhausted. That horrible feeling of constriction was closing in upon me. I ran across and, unscrewing the nozzle, I changed it to our last supply. Even as I did so my conscience pricked me, for I felt that perhaps if I had held my hand all of them might have passed in their sleep. The thought was banished, however, by the voice of the lady from the inner room crying, George! George! I am stifling! It's all right, Mrs. Challenger! I answered as the others started to their feet. I have just turned on a fresh supply. Even at such a moment I could not help smiling at Challenger, who with a great hairy fist in each eye was like a huge bearded baby, new-wakened out of sleep. Summerly was shivering like a man with the Agu. Human fears, as he realized his position, rising for an instant above the stoicism of the man of science. Lord John, however, was as cool and alert as if he had just been roused on a hunting morning. Fifthly and lastly, said he, glancing at the tube, Say, young fella, don't tell me you've been writing up your impressions in that paper on your knee. Just a few notes to pass the time. Well, I don't believe any one but an Irishman would have done that. I expect you'll have to wait till little brother Amoeba gets grown up before you'll find a reader. He don't seem to take much stock of things just at present. Well, Herr Professor, what are the prospects? Challenger was looking out at the great drifts of morning mist which lay over the landscape. Here and there the wooded hills rose like conical islands out of this woolly sea. It might be a winding sheet, said Mrs. Challenger, who had entered in her dressing-gown. There's that song of yours, George. Ring out the old, ring in the new. It was prophetic. But you are shivering, my poor dear friends. I have been warm under a coverlet all night, and you cold in your chairs, but I'll soon set you right. The brave little creature hurried away, and presently we heard the sizzling of a kettle. She was back soon with five steaming cups of cocoa upon a tray. Drink these, said she. You will feel so much better. And we did. Summerly asked if he might light his pipe, and we all had cigarettes. It steadied our nerves, I think, but it was a mistake, for it made a dreadful atmosphere in that stuffy room. Challenger had to open the ventilator. How long, Challenger? Asked Lord John. Possibly three hours. He answered with a shrug. I used to be frightened, said his wife. But the nearer I get to it, the easier it seems. Don't you think we ought to pray, George? You will pray, dear, if you wish. The big man answered very gently. We all have our own ways of praying. Mine is a complete acquiescence in whatever fate may send me. A cheerful acquiescence. The highest religion and the highest science seem to unite on that. I cannot truthfully describe my mental attitude as acquiescence. And far less, cheerful acquiescence. Grumbled Summerly over his pipe. I submit because I have to. I confess that I should have liked another year of life to finish my classification of the chalk fossils. Your unfinished work is a small thing, said Challenger pompously, when weighed against the fact that my own magnum opus, the ladder of life, is still in the first stages. My brain, my reading, my experience, in fact my whole unique equipment, were to be condensed into that epic-making volume. And yet, as I say, I acquiesce. I expect we've all left some loose ends sticking out, said Lord John. What are yours, young fella? I was working at a book of verses, I answered. Well, the world has escaped that anyhow, said Lord John. There's always compensation somewhere if you grope around. What about you, I asked. Well, it just so happens that I was tidied up and ready. I'd promised Marivelle to go to Tibet for a snow leopard in the spring. But it's hard on you, Mrs. Challenger, when you've just built up this pretty house. Where George is, there is my home. But, oh, would I not give for one last walk together in the fresh morning air upon those beautiful downs? Our hearts re-echoed her words. The sun had burst through the gauzy mists which failed it, and the whole broad-wield was washed in golden light. Sitting in our dark and poisonous atmosphere, that glorious, clean, windswept countryside seemed a very dream of beauty. Mrs. Challenger held her hand stretched out to it in her longing. We drew up chairs and sat in a semi-circle in the window. The atmosphere was already very close. It seemed to me that the shadows of death were drawing in upon us, the last of our race. It was like an invisible curtain closing down upon every side. That cylinder is not last in too well, said Lord John, with a long gasp for breath. The amount contained is variable, said Challenger, depending upon the pressure and care with which it has been bottled. I am inclined to agree with you, Rockston, that this one is defective. So we are to be cheated out of the last hour of our lives, summerly remarked bitterly, an excellent final illustration of the sordid age in which we have lived. Well, Challenger, now is your time if you wish to study this subjective phenomena of physical dissolution. Sit on the stool at my knee and give me your hand, said Challenger to his wife. I think, my friends, that a further delay in this insufferable atmosphere is hardly advisable. You would not desire it, dear, would you?  I've seen the folk bathen in the serpentine in winter, said Lord John. When the rest are in, you see one or two shivering on the bank and veying the others that have taken the plunge. It's the last that have the worst of it. I'm all for a header and have done with it. You would open the window and face the aether. Better be poisoned than stifled. Summerly nodded his reluctant acquiescence and held out his thin hand to Challenger. We've had our quarrels in our time, but that's all over, said he. We were good friends and had a respect for each other under the surface. Goodbye. Goodbye, young fella, said Lord John. The windows plastered up. You can't open it. Challenger stooped and raised his wife pressing her to his breast while she threw her arms round his neck. Give me that field-glass, Malone, said he gravely. I headed it to him. Into the hands of the power that made us we render ourselves again. He shouted in his voice of thunder and at the words he hurled the field-glass through the window. Full in our flushed faces before the last tinkle of falling fragments had died away there came the wholesome breath of the wind blowing strong and sweet. I don't know how long we sat in amazed silence. Then, as in a dream, I heard Challenger's voice once more. We are back in normal conditions, he cried. The world has cleared the poison-belt, but we alone of all mankind are saved. End of chapter. Chapter 5 THE DEAD WORLD I remember that we all sat gasping in our chairs with that sweet, wet, south-western breeze fresh from the sea, flapping the muslin curtains and cooling our flushed faces. I wonder how long we sat. None of us afterwards had any idea of what was going on. I remember that we all sat gasping in our chairs with that sweet, wet, south-western breeze and none of us afterwards could agree at all on that point. We were bewildered, stunned, semi-conscious. We had all braced our courage for death, but this fearful and sudden new fact that we must continue to live after we had survived the race to which we belonged struck us with a shock of a physical blow and left us prostrate. Then gradually the suspended mechanism began to move once more. The shuttles of memory worked, and we as weaved themselves together in our minds. We saw with vivid, merciless clearness the relations between the past, the present, and the future, the lives that we had led and the lives which we would have to live. Our eyes turned in silent horror upon those of our companions and found the same answering look in theirs. Instead of the joy which men might have expected to feel who had so narrowly escaped an imminent death, a terrible wave of darkest depression submerged us. Everything on earth that we loved had been washed away into the great, infinite, unknown ocean. And here were we marooned upon this desert island of a world without companions, hopes, or aspirations. A few years skulking like jackals among the graves of the human race, and then our belated and lonely end would come. It's dreadful, George, dreadful! The lady cried in an agony of sobs, if we had only passed with the others. Oh, why did you save us? I feel as if it is we that are dead and everyone else alive. Challenger's great eyebrows were drawn down in concentrated thought, while his huge, hairy paw closed upon the outstretched hand of his wife.  Without being a fatalist to the point of non-resistance, said he, I have always found that the highest wisdom lies in an acquiescence with the actual. He spoke slowly and there was a vibration of feeling in his sonorous voice. I do not acquiesce, said summarily, firmly. I don't see that it matters a row of pins whether you acquiesce or whether you don't, remarked Lord John. You've got to take it whether you take it fighting or take it lying down. So what's the odds whether you acquiesce or not? I can't remember that anyone asked our permission before the thing began, and nobody's likely to ask it now. So what difference can it make what we think of it? It's just all the difference between happiness and misery, said Challenger with an abstracted face, still patting his wife's hand. You can swim with a tide and have peace in mind and soul, or you can thrust against it and be bruised and weary. This business is beyond us, so let us accept it as it stands and say no more. But what in the world are we to do with our lives? I asked, appealing in desperation to the blue empty heaven. What am I to do, for example? There are no newspapers, so there's an end of my vocation. And there's nothing left to shoot, and no more soldiering, so there's an end of mine, said Lord John. And there are no students, so there's an end of mine, cried summarily. But I have my husband at my house, so I can thank heaven that there is no end of mine, said the lady. Nor is there an end of mine, remarked Challenger, for science is not dead, and this catastrophe in itself will offer us many most absorbing problems for an investigation. He had now flung open the windows and we were gazing out upon the silent and motionless landscape. Let me consider," he continued. It was about three, or little after, yesterday afternoon that the world finally entered the poison belt to the extent of being completely submerged. It is now nine o'clock. The question is, at what hour did we pass out from it? The air was very bad at daybreak, said I. Later than that, said Mrs. Challenger, as late as eight o'clock I distinctly felt the same choking at my throat which came at the outset. Then we shall say that it passed just after eight o'clock. For seventeen hours the world has been soaked in the poisonous ether. For that length of time the great gardener has sterilized the human mold which had grown over the surface of his fruit. Is it possible that the work is incompletely done, that others may have survived besides ourselves? That's what I was wondering, said Lord John. Why should we be the only pebbles on the beach? It is absurd to suppose that anyone besides ourselves can possibly have survived, said Summerly with conviction. Consider that the poison was so virulent that even a man who is as strong as an ox and has not a nerve in his body, like Malone here, could hardly get up the stairs before he fell unconscious. Is it likely that anyone could stand seventeen minutes of it? Far less hours? Unless someone saw it coming and made preparation, same as old friend Challenger did. That, I think, is hardly probable, said Challenger, projecting his beard and sinking his eyelids. The combination of observation, inference, and anticipatory imagination which enabled me to foresee the danger is what one could hardly expect twice in the same generation. Then your conclusion is that everyone is certainly dead? There can be little doubt of that. We have to remember, however, that the poison worked from below upwards to possibly be less virulent at the higher strata of the atmosphere. It is strange indeed that it should be so, but it presents one of those features which will afford us in the future a fascinating field for study. One could imagine, therefore, that if one had to search for survivors, one would turn one's eyes with best hopes of success to some Tibetan village or some alpine farm many thousands of feet above the sea level. Well, considering that there are no railroads and no steamers, you might as well talk about survivors in the moon, said Lord John. But what I'm asking myself is whether it's really over or whether it's only half-time. Summonly craned his neck to look round the horizon. It seems clear and fine, said he in a very dubious voice, but so it did yesterday. I am by no means assured that it is all over. Challenger shrugged his shoulders. We must come back once more to our fatalism, said he. If the world has undergone this experience before, which is not outside the range of possibility, it was certainly a very long time ago. Therefore we may reasonably hope that it will be very long before it occurs again. That's all very well, said Lord John. But if you get an earthquake shock, you are mighty likely to have a second one right on the top of it. I think we'd be wise to stretch our legs and have a breath of air while we have the chance. Since our oxygen is exhausted, we may just as well be caught outside as in. It was strange, the absolute lethargy which had come upon us as a reaction, after our tremendous emotions of the last twenty-four hours. It was both mental and physical, a deep lying feeling that nothing mattered and that everything was a weariness and a profitless exertion.  Until Lord John and I, catching him by each arm, fairly lifted him on to his feet, receiving only the glare and growl of an angry mastiff for our trouble. However, once we had got out of our narrow haven of refuge into the wider atmosphere of everyday life, our normal energy came gradually back to us once more. But what were we to begin to do in that graveyard of a world? Could ever men have been faced with such a question since the dawn of time? It is true that our own physical needs and even our luxuries were assured for the future. All the stores of food, all the vintages of wine, all the treasures of art were ours for the taking. But what were we to do? Some few tasks appealed to us at once since they lay ready to our hands. We descended into the kitchen and laid the two domestics upon their respective beds. They seemed to have died without suffering, one in the chair by the fire, the other upon the scullery floor. Then we carried in poor Austin from the yard. His muscles were set as hard as a board in the most exaggerated rigor mortis, while the contraction of the fibers had drawn his mouth into a hard sardonic grin. The symptom was prevalent among all those who had died from the poison. Wherever we went we were confronted by those grinning faces which seemed to mock at our dreadful position, smiling silently and grimly at the ill-fated survivors of their race. Look here, said Lord John, who had paced restlessly about the dining-room whilst we partook of some food. I don't know how you fellows feel about it, but for my part I simply can't sit here and do nothing. Perhaps, Challenger answered, you would have the kindness to suggest what you think we ought to do. Get a move on us and see all that has happened. That is what I should myself propose. But not in this little country village we can see from the window all that this place can teach us. Where should we go, then? To London. That's all very well, grumbled summerly. You may be equal to a forty-mile walk, but I'm not so sure about Challenger with his stumpy legs, and I am perfectly sure about myself. Challenger was very much annoyed. If you could see your way, sir, to confining your remarks to your own physical peculiarities, you would find that you had an ample field for comment. He cried. I had no intention to offend you, my dear Challenger! cried our tactless friend. You can't be held responsible for your own physique. If nature had given you a short, heavy body, you cannot possibly help having stumpy legs. Challenger was too furious to answer. He could only growl and blink and bristle. Lord John hastened to intervene before the dispute became more violent. You talk of walking. Why should we walk? said he. Do you suggest taking a train? asked Challenger, still simmering. What's the matter with the motor-car? Why should we not go in that? I am not an expert, said Challenger, pulling at his beard reflectively. At the same time, you are right in supposing that the human intellect in its higher manifestation should be sufficiently flexible to turn itself to anything. Your idea is an excellent one, Lord John. I myself will drive you all to London. You will do nothing of the kind, said summerly, with decision. No indeed, George, cried his wife. You only tried once and you remember how you crashed through the gate of the garage. It was a momentary want of concentration, said Challenger complacently. You can consider the matter settled. I will certainly drive you all to London. The situation was relieved by Lord John. What's the car? he asked. A twenty-horsepower humbler. Why, I've driven one for years, said he. By George, he nodded, I never thought I'd live to take the whole human race in one load. There's just room for five, as I remember it. Get your things on and I'll be ready at the door by ten o'clock. Sure enough, at the hour named, the car came purring and crackling from the yard with Lord John at the wheel. I took my seat beside him, while the lady, a useful little buffer-state, was squeezed in between the two men of Wrath at the back. Then Lord John released his brakes, slid his lever rapidly from first to third, and we sped off upon this strangest drive that our human beings have taken since man first came upon the earth. You are to picture the loveliness of nature upon that August day, the freshness of the morning air, the golden glare of the summer sunshine, the cloudless sky, the luxuriant green of the Sussex Woods, and the deep purple of heathered clad downs. As you looked round upon the many-colored beauty of the scene, the thought of a vast catastrophe would have passed from your mind had it not been for one sinister sign, the solemn, all-embracing silence. There is a gentle hum of life which pervades a closely settled country, so deep and constant that one ceases to observe it, as the dweller by the sea loses all sense of the constant murmur of the waves. The twitter of birds, the buzz of insects, the far-off echo of voices, the lowing of cattle, the distant barking of dogs, roar of trains, and rattle of carts. All these form one low, unremitting note, striking unheated upon the ear. We missed it now. This deadly silence was appalling. So solemn was it, so impressive, that the buzz and rattle of our motor-car seemed an unwarrantable intrusion, an indecent disregard of this reverent stillness which lay like a pall over and round the ruins of humanity. It was this grim hush and the tall clouds of smoke which rose here and there over the countryside from smolvering buildings which cast a chill into our hearts as we gazed round at the glorious panorama of the wield. And then there were the dead. At first those endless groups of drawn and grinning faces filled us with a shuddering horror. So vivid and mordant was the impression that I can live over again that slow descent of the station hill, the passing by the nurse-girl with the two babies, the sight of the old horse on his knees between the shafts, the cab-man twisted across the seat, and the young man inside with his hand upon the open door in the very act of springing out. Lower down were six reapers all in a litter, their limbs crossing, their dead, unwinking eyes gazing upwards at the glare of heaven. These things I see as in a photograph. But soon, by the merciful provision of nature, the overexcited nerve ceased to respond. The very vastness of the horror took away from its personal appeal. Individuals merged into groups, groups into crowds, into a universal phenomenon which one soon accepted as the inevitable detail of every scene. Only here and there where some particularly brutal or grotesque incident caught the attention did the mind come back with a sudden shock to the personal and human meaning of it all. Above all there was the fate of the children that, I remember, filled us with the strongest sense of intolerable injustice we could have wept. Mrs. Challenger did weep when we passed a great council school and saw the long trail of tiny figures scattered down the road which led from it. They had been dismissed by their terrified teachers and were speeding for their homes when the poison caught them in its net. Great numbers of people were at the open windows of the houses. In Tunbridge Wells there was hardly one which had not its staring, smiling face. At the last instant the need of air, that very craving for oxygen which we alone had been able to satisfy, had sent them flying to the window. The sidewalks, too, were littered with men and women, hatless and bonnetless, who had rushed out of the houses. Many of them had fallen in the roadway. It was a lucky thing that in Lord John we found an expert driver for it was no easy matter to pick one's way. Passing through the villages or towns we could only go at a walking pace and, once, I remember, opposite the school at Tunbridge, we had to halt some time while we carried aside the bodies which blocked our path. A few small, definite pictures stand out in my memory from amid that long panorama of death upon the Sussex and Kentish high roads. One was that of a great glittering motor-car standing outside the inn at the village of Southborough. It bore, as I should guess, some pleasure-party upon their return from Brighton or from Eastbourne. There were three gaily dressed women, all young and beautiful, one of them with a peaking spaniel upon her lap. With them were a rakish-looking elderly man and a young aristocrat, his eyeglass still in his eye, his cigarette burned down to the stub between the fingers of his be-gloved hand. Death must have come on them in an instant and fixed them as they sat. Saved that the elderly man had at the last moment torn out his collar in an effort to breathe, they may all have been asleep. On one side of the car a waiter with some broken glasses beside a tray was huddled near the step. On the other two very ragged traps, a man and a woman, lay where they had fallen, the man with his long, thin arm still outstretched, even as he had asked for alms in his lifetime. One instant of time had put aristocrat, waiter, tramp, and dog upon one common footing of inert and dissolving protoplasm. I remember another singular picture, some miles on the London side of Seven Oaks. There was a large convent upon the left with a long green slope in front of it. Upon the slope were assembled a great number of school-children all kneeling at prayer. In front of them was a fringe of nuns and higher up the slope facing towards them a single figure whom we took to be the mother's superior. Unlike the pleasure-seekers in the motor-car, these people seemed to have had warning of their danger and to have died beautifully together. The teachers and the taught assembled for their last common lesson. My mind is still stunned by that terrific experience, and I grope family for means of expression by which I can reproduce the emotions which we felt. Perhaps it is best and wisest not to try but merely to indicate the facts. Even summerly and challenger were crushed, and we heard nothing of our companions behind us save an occasional whimper from the lady. As to Lord John, he was too intent upon his wheel and the difficult task of threading his way along such roads to have time or inclination for conversation. One phrase he used with such weary submiteration that it stuck in my memory, and at last almost made me laugh as a comment upon the day of doom. Pretty doons, what! That was his ejaculation as each fresh, tremendous combination of death and disaster displayed itself before us. Pretty doons, what! He cried as we descended the station hill at Rutherford, and it was still... Pretty doons, what! as we picked our way through a wilderness of death in the high street of Lewisham and the old Kent Road. It was here that we received a sudden and amazing shock. Out of the window of a humble corner-house there appeared a fluttering handkerchief waving at the end of a long, thin human arm. Never had the sight of unexpected death caused our hearts to stop and then throb so wildly as this amazing indication of life. Lord John ran the motor to the curb, and in an instant we had rushed through the open door of the house and up the staircase to the second floor, front room from which the signal proceeded. A very old lady sat in a chair by the open window, and, close to her, laid across a second chair, was a cylinder of oxygen, smaller but of the same shape as those which had saved our own lives. She turned her thin, drawn, bespectacled face toward us as we crowded in at the doorway. I feared that I was abandoned here forever, said she, for I am an invalid and cannot stir. Well, madam, Challenger answered, it is a lucky chance that we happen to pass. I have one all-important question to ask you, said she. Gentlemen, I beg that you will be frank with me. What effect will these effects have upon London and north-western railway shares? We should have laughed had it not been for the tragic eagerness with which she listened for our answer. Mrs.  Her life had been regulated by the rise and fall of the dividend, and she could form no conception of existence, save as it was affected by the quotation of her shares. In vain we pointed out to her that all the money in the world was hers for the taking, and was useless when taken. Her old mind would not adapt itself to the new idea, and she wept loudly over her vanished stock. It was all I had, she wailed, and if that is gone I may as well go too. Amid her lamentations we found out how this frail old plant had lived where the whole great forest had fallen. It was a confirmed invalid and an asthmatic. Oxygen had been prescribed for her malady, and a tube was in her room at the moment of the crisis. She had naturally inhaled some, as had been her habit when there was a difficulty with her breathing. It had given her relief, and by doling out her supply she had managed to survive the night. Finally she had fallen asleep and been awakened by the buzz of our motor-car. As it was impossible to take her on with us, we saw that she had all her necessaries of life and promised to communicate with her in a couple of days at the latest. So we left her, still weeping bitterly over her vanished stock. As we approached the Thames the block in the streets became thicker and the obstacles more bewildering. It was with difficulty that we made our way across London Bridge. The approaches to it upon the Middlesex side were choked from end to end with frozen traffic, which made all further advance in that direction impossible. A ship was blazing brightly alongside one of the wharves near the bridge and the air was full of drifting smuts and of a heavy, acrid smell of burning. There was a cloud of dense smoke somewhere near the houses of Parliament, but it was impossible from where we were to see what was on fire. I don't know how it strikes you," Lord John remarked, as he brought his engine to a standstill. But it seems to me the country is more cheerful than the town. Dead London is getting on my nerves. I'm forecast round and then getting back to Rutherfield. I confess that I do not see what we can hope for here," said Professor Somerly. At the same time, said Challenger, his great voice booming strangely amid the silence, it is difficult for us to conceive that out of seven millions of people there is only this one old woman who by some peculiarity of constitution or some accident of occupation has managed to survive this catastrophe. If there should be others, how can we hope to find them, George? Asked the lady. And yet I agree with you that we cannot go back until we have tried. Getting out of the car and leaving it by the curb, we walked with some difficulty across the crowded pavement of King William Street and entered the open door of a large insurance office. It was a corner-house and we chose it as commanding a view in every direction. Ascending the stair we passed through what I suppose to have been the boardroom, for eight elderly men were seated round a long table in the center of it. The high window was open and we all stepped out upon the balcony. From it we could see the crowded city streets, radiating in every direction. While below us the road was black from side to side with the tops of the motionless taxis. All, or nearly all, had their heads pointed outwards, showing how the terrified men of the city had at the last moment made a vain endeavor to rejoin their families in the suburbs or the country. Here and there amid the humbler cabs towered the great brass-spangled motor-car of some wealthy magnet wedged hopelessly among the damned stream of arrested traffic. Just beneath us there was such a one of great size and luxurious appearance with its owner, a fat old man, leaning out, half his gross body through the window, and his poggy hand, gleaming with diamonds, outstretched as he urged his chauffeur to make a last effort to break through the press.  On a broad lamp pedestal in the center of the roadway a burly policeman was standing, leaning his back against the post in so natural an attitude that it was hard to realize that he was not alive, while at his feet there lay a ragged news-boy with his bundle of papers on the ground beside him. A paper-cart had got blocked in the crowd and we could read in large letters, black upon yellow, seeing it lords, county-match interrupted. This must have been the earliest addition, for there were other placards sparing the legend, but at the end, great scientist's warning, and another, his challenger justified, ominous rumors. Challenger pointed the latter placard out to his wife as it thrust itself like a banner above the throng. I could see him throw out his chest and stroke his beard as he looked at it. It pleased and flattered that complex mind to think that London had died with his name and his words still present in their thoughts. His feelings were so evident that they aroused the sardonic comment of his colleague. In the limelight to the last challenger, he remarked, so it would appear, he answered complacently. Well, he added as he looked down the long vista of the radiating streets, all silent and all choked up with death. I really see no purpose to be served by our staying any longer in London. I suggest that we return at once to Rotherfield and then take counsel as to how we shall most profitably employ the years which lie before us. Only one other picture shall I give of the scenes which we carried back in our memories from the dead city. It is a glimpse which we had of the interior of the old church of St. Mary's, which is at the very point where our car was awaiting us. Picking our way among the prostrate figures upon the steps, we pushed open the swing door and entered. It was a wonderful sight. The church was crammed from end to end with kneeling figures in every posture of supplication and abasement. At the last dreadful moment, brought suddenly face to face with the realities of life, those terrific realities which hang over us even while we follow the shadows, the terrified people had rushed into these old city churches which for generations had hardly ever held a congregation. There they huddled as close as they could kneel, many of them in their agitation still wearing their hats, while above them in the pulpit a young man in lay-dress had apparently been addressing them when he and they had been overwhelmed by the same fate.  It was a nightmare, the grey, dusty church, the rows of agonized figures, the dimness and silence of it all. We moved about with hushed whispers, walking upon our tip-toes. And then suddenly I had an idea. At one corner of the church, near the door, stood the ancient font and behind it a deep recess in which there hung the ropes for the bell-ringers. Why should we not send a message out over London which would attract to us anyone who might still be alive? I ran across and pulling at the list-covered rope I was surprised to find how difficult it was to swing the bell. Lord John had followed me. By George, young fella, said he, pulling off his coat, you've hit on a doocid good notion. Give me a grip and we'll soon have a move on it. But even then so heavy was the bell it was not until Challenger and Summerly had added their weight to ours that we heard the roaring and clanging above our heads which told us that the great clapper was ringing out its music. Far over dead London resounded our message of comradeship and hope to any fellow man surviving. It cheered our own hearts that strong metallic call and we turned them more earnestly to our work, dragged two feet off the earth with each upward jerk of the rope, but all straining together on the downward heave, Challenger the lowest of all, bending all his great strength to the task and flopping up and down like a monstrous bullfrog, croaking with every pull. It was at that moment that an artist might have taken a picture of the four adventurers, the comrades of many strange perils in the past whom fate had now chosen for so supreme an experience. For half an hour we worked, the sweat dropping from our faces, our arms and backs aching with the exertion. Then we went out into the portico of the church and looked eagerly up and down the silent crowded streets. Not a sound, not a motion, an answer to our summons. It's no use, no one is left, I cried. We can do nothing more, said Mrs. Challenger. For God's sake, George, let us get back to Rutherford. Another hour of this dreadful silent city would drive me mad. We got into the car without another word. Lord John backed her round and turned her to the south. To us the chapter seemed closed. Little did we foresee the strange new chapter which was to open. CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VI THE GREAT AWAKENING And now I come to the end of this extraordinary incident, so overshadowing in its importance not only in our own small individual lives, but in the general history of the human race. As I said when I began my narrative, when that history comes to be written, this occurrence will surely stand out among all other events, like a mountain towering among its foothills. Our generation has been reserved for a very special fate, since it has been chosen to experience so wonderful a thing. How long its effect may last, how long mankind may preserve the humility and reverence which this great shock has taught it, can only be shown by the future. I think it is safe to say that things can never be quite the same again. Never can one realize how powerless and ignorant one is, and how one is upheld by an unseen hand, until, for an instant, that hand has seemed to close and to crush. Death has been imminent upon us. We know that at any moment it may be again. That grim presence shadows our lives, but who can deny that in that shadow the sense of duty, the feeling of sobriety and responsibility, the appreciation of the gravity and of the objects of life, the earnest desire to develop and improve, have grown and become real with us to a degree that has leavened our whole society from end to end. It is something beyond sex and beyond dogmas. Rather an alteration of perspective, a shifting of our sense of proportion, a vivid realization that we are insignificant and evanescent creatures, existing on sufferance and at the mercy of the first chill wind from the unknown.  Surely we are agreed that the more sober and restrained pleasures of the present are as well as wiser than the noisy foolish hustle which pass so often for enjoyment in the days of old, days so recent and yet already so inconceivable. Those empty lives which were wasted in aimless visiting and being visited in the worry of great and unnecessary households, in the arranging and eating of elaborate and tedious meals, have now found rest and health in the reading, the music, the gentle family communion which comes from a simpler and saner division of their time. With greater health and greater pleasure they are richer than before, even after they have paid those increased contributions to the common fund which have so raised the standard of life in these islands. There is some clash of opinion as to the exact hour of the great awakening. It is generally agreed that, apart from the difference of clocks, there have been local causes which influenced the action of the poison. Certainly in each separate district the resurrection was practically simultaneous. There are numerous witnesses that Big Ben pointed to ten minutes past six at the moment. The astronomer Royal has fixed the Greenwich time at twelve past six. On the other hand, Lair Johnson, a very capable East Anglia observer, has recorded six twenty as the hour. In the Hebrides it was as late as seven. In our own case there can be no doubt whatever, for I was seated in Challenger's study with his carefully tested chronometer in front of me at the moment. The hour was a quarter past six. An enormous depression was weighing upon my spirits. The cumulative effect of all the dreadful sights which we had seen upon our journey was heavy upon my soul. With my abounding animal health and great physical energy any kind of mental clouding was a rare event. I had the Irish faculty of seeing some gleam of humour in every darkness. But now the obscurity was appalling and unreleaved. The others were downstairs making their plans for the future. I sat by the open window, my chin resting upon my hand and my mind absorbed in the misery of our situation. Could we continue to live? That was the question which I had begun to ask myself. Was it possible to exist upon a dead world? Just as in physics the greater body draws to itself the lesser, would we not feel an overpowering attraction from that vast body of humanity which it passed into the unknown? How would the end come? Would it be from a return of the poison? Or would the earth be uninhabitable from the mephitic products of universal decay? Or finally might our awful situation prey upon and unbalance our minds?  My mind was brooding upon this last dreadful idea when some slight noise caused me to look down upon the road beneath me. The old cab-horse was coming up the hill. I was conscious at the same instant of the twittering of birds, of someone coughing in the yard below, and of a background of movement in the landscape. And yet I remember that it was that absurd, emaciated, superannuated cab-horse which held my gaze. Slowly and weasely it was climbing the slope. Then my eye travelled to the driver sitting hunched up upon the box, and finally to the young man who was leaning out of the window in some excitement and shouting a direction. They were all indubitably aggressively alive. Everybody was alive once more. Had it all been a delusion? Was it conceivable that this whole poison-belt incident had been an elaborate dream?  Then I looked down, and there was the rising blister on my hand where it was frayed by the rope of the city bell. It had really been so, then. And yet here was the world resuscitated. Here was life come back in an instant full tide to the planet. Now as my eyes wandered all over the great landscape I saw it in every direction, and moving to my amazement in the very same groove in which it had halted. There were the golfers. Was it possible that they were going on with their game? Yes, there was a fellow driving off from a T, and that other group upon the green were surely putting for the whole. The reapers were slowly trooping back to their work. The nurse-girl slapped one of her charges and then began to push the perambulator up the hill. Everyone had unconcernedly taken up the thread at the very point where they had dropped it. I rushed downstairs, but the hall door was open and I heard the voices of my companions loud in astonishment and congratulation in the yard. How we all shook hands and laughed as we came together and how Mrs. Challenger kissed us all in her emotion before she finally threw herself into the bear-hug of her husband. What, they could not have been asleep? cried Lord John. Mr. tall Challenger, you don't mean to believe that those folk were asleep with their staring eyes and stiff limbs and that awful death green on their faces. It can only have been the condition that is called catalepsy, said Challenger. It has been a rare phenomenon in the past and has constantly been mistaken for death. While it endures the temperature falls, the respiration disappears, the heartbeat is indistinguishable. In fact, it is death, save that it is evanescent. Even the most comprehensive mind, here he closed his eyes and simpered, could hardly conceive a universal outbreak of it in this fashion. You may label it catalepsy, remarked summarily, but after all it is only a name and we know as little of the truth as we do of the poison which has caused it. The most we can say is that the vitiated ether has produced a temporary death. Austin was seated all in a heap on the step of the car. It was his coughing which I had heard from above. He had been holding his head in silence, but now he was muttering to himself and running his eyes over the car. Young fathead, he grumbled, can't leave things alone. What's the matter, Austin? Lubricators left running, sir. Someone has been fooling with the car. I expect it's that young garden boy, sir. Lord John looked guilty. I don't know what's amiss with me, continued Austin, staggering to his feet. I expect I came over queer when I was hosing her down. I seem to remember flopping over by the step. But I'll swear I never left those lubricator taps on. In a condensed narrative the astonished Austin was told what had happened to himself and the world. The mystery of the dripping lubricators was also explained to him. He listened with an air of deep distrust when told how an amateur had driven his car and with absorbed interest to the few sentences in which our experiences of the sleeping city were recorded. I can remember his comment when the story was concluded. Was you outside the Bank of England, sir? Yes, Austin. With all them millions inside and everybody asleep? That was so. And I not there! He groaned and turned dismally once more to the hosing of his car. There was a sudden grinding of wheels upon gravel. The old cab had actually pulled up at Challenger's door. I saw the young occupant step out from it. An instant later the maid, who looked as tousled and bewildered as if she had that instant been aroused from the deepest sleep, appeared with a card upon a tray. Challenger snorted ferociously as he looked at it and his thick black hair seemed to bristle up in his wrath. A pressman! he growled. Then with a deprecating smile. After all, it is natural that the whole world should hasten to know what I think of such an episode. That can hardly be his errand, said Summerly, for he was on the road in his cab before ever the crisis came. I looked at the card. James Baxter, London correspondent, New York Monitor. You'll see him, said I. Not I. Oh, George, you should be kinder and more considerate to others. Surely you've learned something from what we have undergone. He tut-tutted and shook his big obstinate head. A poisonous breed. Aim alone? The worst weed in modern civilization, the ready tool of the quack and the hindrance of the self-respecting man. When did they ever say a good word for me? When did you ever say a good word to them? I answered, Come, sir, this is a stranger who has made a journey to see you. I'm sure that you won't be rude to him. Well, well, he grumbled, You come with me and do the talking. I protest in advance against any such outrageous invasion of my private life. Muttering and mumbling, he came rolling after me like an angry and rather ill-conditioned mastiff. The dapper young American pulled out his notebook and plunged instantly into his subject. I came down, sir, said he, because our people in America would very much like to hear about this danger which is, in your opinion, pressing upon the world. I know of no danger which is now pressing upon the world. Challenger answered gruffly. The pressman looked at him in mild surprise. I meant, sir, the chances that the world might run into a belt of poisonous ether. I do not now apprehend any such danger, said Challenger. The pressman looked even more perplexed. You are Professor Challenger, are you not? he asked. Yes, sir, that is my name. I cannot understand, then, how you can say that there is no such danger. I am alluding to your own letter, except above your name in the London Times of this morning. It was Challenger's turn to look surprised. This morning, said he, no London Times was published this morning. Surely, sir, said the American in mild remonstrance, you must admit that the London Times is a daily paper. He drew out a copy from his inside pocket. Here is the letter to which I refer. He chuckled and rubbed his hands. I begin to understand, said he. So you read this letter this morning. Yes, sir. And came at once to interview me. Yes, sir. Did you observe anything unusual upon the journey down? Well, to tell the truth, your people seem more lively and generally human than I have ever seen them. I have been sent out to tell me a funny story, and that's a new experience for me in this country. Nothing else. Why, no, sir, not that I can recall. Well, now, what hour did you leave Victoria? The American smiled. I came here to interview you, professor, but it seems to be a case of, is this nigger fishing or is this fish niggering? You're doing most of the work. It happens to interest me. Do you recall the hour? Sure. It was half past twelve. And you arrived at a quarter past two. And you hired a cab. That was so. How far do you suppose it is to the station? Well, I should reckon the best part of two miles. So how long do you think it took you? Well, half an hour, maybe, with that asthmatic in front. So it should be three o'clock. Yes, or a trifle after it. Look at your watch. The American did so and then stared at us in astonishment. Say, he cried, it's run down. That horse has broken every record, sure. The sun is pretty low. Now that I come to look at it, well, there's something here I don't understand.  Well, I seem to recollect that I was mighty sleepy once. It comes back to me that I wanted to say something to the driver and that I couldn't make him heed me. I guess it was the heat, but I felt swimmy for a moment. That's all. So it is with the whole human race, said Challenger to me. They have all felt swimmy for a moment. None of them have as yet any comprehension of what has occurred. H. will go on with his interrupted job as Austin has snatched up his hose-pipe or the golfer continued his game. Your editor Malone will continue the issue of his papers, and very much amazed he will be at finding that an issue is missing. Yes, my young friend, he added to the American reporter with a sudden mood of amused geniality. It may interest you to know that the world has swum through the poisonous current which swirls like the Gulf Stream through the ocean of ether. You will also kindly note for your own future convenience that today is not Friday, August the 27th, but Saturday, August the 28th, and that you sat senseless in your cab for twenty-eight hours upon the Rutherford Hill. And right here, as my American colleague would say, I may bring this narrative to an end. It is, as you are probably aware, only a fuller and more detailed version of the account which appeared in the Monday edition of The Daily Gazette, an account which has been universally admitted to be the greatest journalistic scoop of all time, which sold no fewer than three and a half million copies of the paper. Framed upon the wall of my sanctum, I retained those magnificent headlines. Twenty-eight hours' world coma, unprecedented experience, challenger justified, our correspondent escapes, enthralling narrative, the oxygen room, weird motor drive, dead London, replacing the missing page, great fires and loss of life, will it recur Underneath this glorious scroll came nine and a half columns of narrative in which appeared the first, last, and only account of the history of the planet so far as one observer could draw it, during one long day of its existence. Challenger and Summerly have treated the matter in a joint scientific paper, but to me alone was left the popular account. Surely I can sing Nuk Dimitis. What is left but anti-climax in the life of a journalist after that? But let me not end on sensational headlines in a merely personal triumph. Rather let me quote the sonorous passages in which the greatest of daily papers ended its admirable leader upon the subject, a leader which might well be filed for reference by every thoughtful man. It has been a well-worn truism, said the Times, that our human race are a feeble folk before the infinite latent forces which surround us. From the prophets of old and from the philosophers of our own time the same message and warning have reached us. But, like all oft-repeated truths, it has in time lost something of its actuality and cogency. A lesson, an actual experience, was needed to bring it home. It is from that salutary but terrible ordeal that we have just emerged with minds which are still stunned by the suddenness of the blow and with spirits which are chastened by the realization of our own limitations and impotence. The world has paid a fearful price for its schooling. Hardly yet have we learned the full tale of disaster but the destruction of fire of New York, of Orleans, and of Brighton constitutes in itself one of the greatest tragedies in the history of our race. When the account of the railway and shipping accidents has been completed it will furnish grim reading, although there was evidence to show that in the vast majority of cases the drivers of trains and engineers of steamers succeeded in shutting off their motive power before succumbing to the poison. But the material damage, enormous as it is both in life and in property, is not the consideration which will be uppermost in our minds today. All this may in time be forgotten, but what will not be forgotten, and what will and should continue to obsess our imaginations is this revelation of the possibilities of the universe, this destruction of our ignorant self-complacency, and this demonstration of how narrow is the path of our material existence and what abysses may lie upon either side of it. Solemnity and humility are at the base of all our emotions today. May they be the foundations upon which a more earnest and reverent race may build a more worthy temple.


A few days ago, I was asked by a college student about big numbs. I didn't really understand big numbs, had a project that he was working on with them. And it was a good point. I haven't actually done a presentation on big numbs yet. Now, for reference, anything you want me to cover just suggest that I have a list that I keep. If it's on there already, I'll bump it up in priority. If it's not, I'll add it. So big numbs. What is a big num? And unfortunately, we actually have to cover something first. And that's precision, because big numbs are a way of dealing with sort of the precision problem, I guess you could call it. Because computers have finite stuff they work with, you can't have unlimited precision. Not really.  A huge pain to do, but really there's nothing stopping you from just adding more and more numbers. Computers have finite space though. And so we have fixed precision, which is the classic integer or the modular unsigned integers, stuff like that. If it goes beyond what the maximum is, it either wraps around, like in the case of a modular, or overflows, like in the case of an integer. And then we have arbitrary precision. There's numerous different representations for this, but the most common that people know is the floating point. It's arbitrary because it shifts around, that's the exponent part of it, but it is still otherwise fixed, basically. You lose out anything beyond the size still. Now we have expanded. This sometimes gets called unlimited, and a lot of the time gets called unlimited, but it is not. Like I said, computers have a finite amount they can actually represent, and eventually you're going to fill up the computer memory and not be able to do more. So it is, I and some others refer to it as expanded, but if you hear unlimited in the context of computers, it's really just referring to this. It's not actually unlimited. And this is what big nums are, basically. It is a way of taking the fixed size and then just expanding it to considerably greater levels. So that you can do things like represent the scale of a floating point, but not actually lose out on some of that information. Has other uses, of course. There's a basics we need to cover just so I can explain exactly how these work. It's a type of positional numeric, and this sounds weird, like what is this referring to, but it's actually what we use normally. The Arabic numeral system is a positional numeral system. So we have one's place, ten's place, hundred's place, and so on. You know, if you have a one in the million's place, you know the number is at least one million, and then it's all the other positions. It's not like Roman numerals, which are not positional, where it's the summation of different groups of values. Roman numerals are weird, but Roman numerals are not positional. That's the point. The numeral system that pretty much the whole world uses at this point is positional. Big nums are, at least in my opinion, best thought of as a special type of positional numeral. But then we also have binary, which works the same way. You have one's place, two's place, four's place, and so on.  That's the base. So how these actually work. Let's say that we're working with a big num of base 60, and you'll see why in a moment this will wind up looking very similar to something that you already know how to do, and that's the point.  So base 60, 50 plus 50 will overflow, and so you have 40 if it wraps around. Now, in normal arithmetic, you have something say like 8 plus 8. It overflows.  Same thing. You carry a 1 over. So you have 50 plus 50 equals 1 and then 40. We're representing this in decimal because we don't want to create a whole new number system just to represent this. You maybe recognize that notation. It maybe start to click why I said we're going to do this example in base 60. That's because this is essentially time. We don't represent time using a positional numeral. Well, we sort of do, but we don't represent it using our decimal positional system. Time, with the exception of hours, is entirely sexogysmal or base 60. We separate out the digits with a colon and each time one part of it fills up, we move it to the next part. Just like when a classic digit fills up, we carry it over. So in the case of the 1, we'll say like 1 minute 40 seconds because that's basically what this is, you have a separatable 1 minute and 40 seconds. Those two added the same thing as the 50 seconds plus 50 seconds, but breaking it apart this way sort of shows the representation that big nubs take in the abstract sense a bit better. And as for how they're actually implemented, there's numerous different ways, but I think you probably pieced together that basically it's just chaining together integers where it's like we have an array, which is one of the simplest big num implementations, although it's a little bit less than ideal. Each element in the array is essentially one digit, where the base of the big num is the maximum representable by the integer on the processor that you're working with. Each time the very last element fills up, you carry into the next to the last, or you can do it the exact opposite order, but conventionally it's done with the same order that we do numbers already. List a bit more flexible, but you also have the tree, which is often implemented specifically as a heap, although not always, so that you have the flexibility of a list while also being able to access each digit a little bit more efficiently. But there are also other implementations. So hopefully this helps explain what a big num is a bit better. It's basically just a really large integer. That's it. Just a way of constructing a really, really, really large integer. Have a good one.


Welcome to LA Data. Hey everybody and welcome to my desk. It's a nice Sunday evening. We had a wonderful long weekend together, went for some nice long leering done before we jump into that. Is there any news or updates from Mr. LaData? No, there is no Emmy category for live electronic show yet, but maybe the Academy will reconsider next year. Okay, well a couple things. I did have a stem of Saturday, stem of Sunday, so let's go to the computer and I can show off what I did. So one of our oldest products that we have is our seven segment backpack. This is a board that takes a seven segment display and you know gives an iSquad C breakout to connect. I really love the chip that's used here, the HT16 K33. Unfortunately, went up in price before a while. It was really cheap. It was like a buck or so and it's really great because it's designed for driving matrix LEDs like seven segments or eight. It does have to 16x8 monochrome segments. It doesn't do PWM per LED, but it does do full dimming for the whole thing and for many people this is a great way to quickly add you know a seven segment display like this because these are old style photos. A seven segment display like this to their design over iSquad C. We've got code in Arduino. It's in Python. It's very easy to use and as we're going back in time we are also redesigning these boards to add STEMIQT plug and play connectivity. So this board is the one that we did this weekend. Actually we did this a while ago, but we finally got to test it. So what we try to do is actually you have it be the exact same sides and the same like pinout and shape and the holes in the same you know even though I would have done it differently if I was redesigning it. It's such an old board I didn't want to mess up people's existing designs or layouts if they used you know the same mechanical shape. I just wanted to add you know again a breakout to the bottom. So let's go to the overhead and I'll show. This board I actually did redesigns. This is what it looks like and I have the STEMIQT ports pointing out and I think that's fine and good because that way you can stack them edge to edge and you'd have a little cable going between them. So just you know doing a little blinking demo. You can see it's counting up very slowly and then to make it easy to test I also made it so I can remove the seven segment display here. I just socketed it. But so far so good and then I've also got there's a couple other boards that are similar. So this is the seven segment. There's also an alpha numeric you know hex segment starburst starburst style. If you go to the overhead it's the alpha numeric yes so this is the alpha numeric backpack. Okay you got a computer. This is the alpha numeric backpack so it's actually almost the same size as the seven segment and so I actually thought like this would be a good opportunity for me to not just set this up to be also STEMIQT but also maybe I can make the back be the same exact layout. So you know even though the display is different maybe that the panel would have the same layout for the SMT components and that way you could use the same SMT program and also the same stencil which is very handy. I like to share stencils between designs. They're not expensive but you know it's just like one less thing that you have to stock and deal with and that you know having it be the same layout is is also kind of nice. So this is for that dual you know two times two so quad alpha numeric display and then there's also the 8 by 16 mini which looks like let's see ht16 I think I have a breakout for maybe I didn't make a breakout for the uh maybe it's 16 by 8 oh yeah so there's the large 16 by 8 and then I think I did a mini version maybe I only did it for the feather wing I guess I only did it for the feather wing so maybe I would I would design that so I can make a a 16 by 8 and not just with the you know these large pixels this is kind of a chunky size one but maybe one with the smaller pixel display as well for people who want to because again it's almost the same you know size I kind of made feather wings of all all three and they all kind of ended up the same size so that'd be cool and so working on that you know it's an old design but redesigning it and then I also thought um I was doing a project over the weekend that I wanted to get some analog input and um I was like oh I wanted to get some audio input uh you know through analog not through pdm or through uh i2s and so I was like oh you know let me look at my um you know my I had some men's mic breakout and so I was actually uh using this in a project I realized that when I designed this I didn't add an amplifier to it and I was like oh I should really redesign it to an amplifier because it's it's only like a hundred millivolts peak to peak and that's a little bit annoying um so I thought I'd redesign it and then as I was redesigning it I was like you know I should really make it uh stemma friendly so you can plug it in with cables really easily that's you know one of the things that when we were doing um the you know brain uh craft machine learning project with the uh uh pie badge is that I want you know I didn't have an easy way to just like plug in a microphone um we had to kind of do this weird solder cable thing and so I was like oh I should redesign it to be uh stemmified so um I did that too so I have two versions uh this one is the max 4466 it's a um you know an electric mic version I do like electric mics um in some cases I think men's do a really good job but um I do feel like the an electric plus a max 4466 can give you really good wide range um audio input especially since men's mics tend to kind of tap out at um 10 kilohertz and these will give you a 20 kilohertz and then I um so that's a that's a stemma you know plug-and-play version of of the max 4466 and then I also did a breakout uh it's a simulans one simpler but for the spw 2 430 mems mic so again you know have a jst cable for quick plug-and-play and if I leave the jst off it's it's it's a breadboard friendly um got the um lmv 358 op amp here uh mems mic and a three volt regulator uh these mems mic that's another thing the mems mics really need three volts you have to have regulator in case you're powering them from five volts but then this you know gives me um you know 100 times game this is actually uh copy and pasted from the uh circuit playground design the original classic circuit playground that used an analog mic um which worked quite well you know I just didn't um when we got to the circuit playground express um I could use pdm and so it's it's much cheaper and easier to use pdm than analog but again you know analog is is when you need analog input you want analog input and um I noticed that you know it's it's rare to see a mems mic uh breakout like this it's a lot of people go with electric because it's cheaper but you know mems that there are some benefits to it so that's kind of what i'm designing are there any questions before we head on one of the questions we are working on a esp 32 s2 and a tft version of it you're still working on this yeah it's um just waiting for some parts to come in but yeah there's it's still in the design queue um we have some designs where um we know there's going to be some parts issues so we gotta wait yeah okay you want to get a great search yeah all right here we go let's go the great search for uh jubilee digikey and eight fruit every single week lady uses her power of engineering and more to show you how to find things on digikey lady what is a great search of the week this week okay this week uh so i was doing some analog mems mics projects and i wanted to make a breakout for um an amplified mems microphone i like mems mics because of course there's no hand soldering you can pick and place them um they're very small compared to electric mics and um you know you don't need to bias them the circuitry is is sometimes a little simpler because they just kind of give you analog output we also have done a lot of pdm mics and i2s mems mics um those are really nice because you know you get a little microphone and get your digital output but there are some times when you really want an analog output like a true analog waveform um and in that case yeah you need to go with with the mems design nothing's going to be is is uh for pick and placing um nothing's going to be as simple as just you know a simple tin can style mems microphone with a little amplifier um and there's no hand soldering which i'm trying to avoid in this design um so we do have a breakout that is unamplified for the spw 2430 at the time when this came out a couple years ago uh you want to go to the computer yeah uh when this came out um you know this is a nice little mems mic uh you know it's it's quite simple you give it power there's a three-volt regulator and then you get ac coupled or dc coupled output the only problem is yeah this is only 100 volts you know peak to peak so i want to read we do this design i've kind of meant to redo this in a while and i'm finally getting to it um but the bad news is that when i went to uh order these uh to just check in on them to make sure that they were available they are in stock uh but they're nrnd so not recommended for new designs which yeah there are 97 000 stocks it's not like i can't use this um and i think uh you know this is something that i'll be able to purchase for a bit but um you know i don't want to design it if i'm going to design a new design you know i'm going to see if there's anything else available uh so don't get stuck in two or three years having to do a respin i might as well you know like a mems mic is a mems mic i don't feel like there's any one that's particularly better than the other um so let's find an alternative to this that is available um so i definitely want to be a mems analog micro remember there's there's three types of microphones you can get in mems you can get itues pw pdm and analog and itues and pdm are more expensive in specialty um analog is is usually very inexpensive you see these are you know 50 cents or so um i don't actually care too much about you know the shape or anything there's different sizes and packages but they're all going to be about the same i don't really care about the signal noise ratios or something very simple um normally i would pick on the directional but there are it just that's not a specific thing and also the frequency range can change so i think i'm just going to look for any mems analog mics and then i'm going to look for only the active ones for this for this new design um so let's see there's a couple options looks like uh you know there's some that are in stock some that are not in stock a lot of that are bottom ported um i think i want a top port design a top port design looks like this where there's a hole at the top bottom port looks like this where that you have to have a hole in the pcb and audio goes at the bottom that's that's good when you want something flush but in this case i don't i don't think i really need that i kind of like this top i kind of like a top ported design um so let's select for port location top let's go to the top and then let's also go with the normally stocking and um so it looks like there's a lot of options here which is really nice again these are kind of generic there's you know this is sort of looks like a weatherproof version there's this kind there's this kind um looking at you know the ranges it looks like you know i can do 20 to 20 kilohertz that's kind of cool and they're all going to be three volts um but you know you're going to pay more for for fancier so let's let's sort by price and see what we get so there's a couple i think this is maybe a let's not look at marketplace okay okay uh avoiding the marketplace looks like ceo i devices has this one and then uh there's also this one this one looks kind of good to me because it's both inexpensive and um there's three hundred and seventy thousand stock which is always a nice look everything else there's about two thousand stock um i'd like it when there's a lot available this looks like a pretty standard one and what's also nice is it looks like the pad out on the bottom is actually kind of similar to the pad out here like it's got the four pads which is pretty cool so i can you know use this and i'll check the the dimensions but hopefully it'll it'll be about the same so let's uh let's open this up and then comparing it to this component so this one is a 3 by 0.1 by 2.5 millimeters this one is 3.7 by 3 millimeters it's a little bit wider and a little bit taller but i think i could probably have the pads fit either which would be kind of nice so i could start with maybe the parts i haven't stuck now and then adapt up to um this other the spu part and then um another thing that was kind of neat is there are um different if you don't do the top port requirement so let me get rid of the port location i still want to exclude marketplace um there are a couple of cool ones like i saw this one there was a 80 kilohertz microphone it's bottom ported but this is kind of cool because it can do um you know ultrasonic a high frequency noise so it could be good for um you know recording you know you could record high frequency noises that normally microphones are filtered out they're usually kind of window filtered from 20 to 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz um but if you want to make like a bat detector this microphone's pretty cool this is not what i'm going to use i might make a different breakout for this this bat detector but i thought it was neat that um there is there is a men's mic that can go up to 80 kilohertz so that's you know bats are getting a bad rep lately so um i mean maybe we got to start detecting bats more yeah it's like the new the new batman what else uh can use it besides to i don't know i think i think it said it was for like effects like if you like it was for detecting sounds because you and maybe far field it's kind of it was a little bit unclear exactly what it's for it could be military use or um you know high high frequency signaling you know there was the um the wi-fi chip from amazon that would use high frequency signaling to uh to set the wi-fi access point because you can you can send very high frequencies and this would be able to detect them stuff that you know even for humans we can't really hear very well at close to 20 kilohertz you know we can't especially as we age we start i'm not being able to hear uh over like 10 or 15 kilohertz um this can be interesting so this is not my the product i want to use but i thought it was an interesting part yeah that's kind of cool i could see us uh i mean you know we can't we'll get in trouble on twitter if we start like making stuff that uh angers the person so we just got to be careful with that but i i think just some good ideas there okay okay all right well that's the great search okay it's a great search and that is the show for tonight all right super super easy yeah we just got straight to the point yep thanks everybody for watching see everybody during the week norm week shows uh no Pedro hosting show until this week uh we'll be on ask an engineer we have jp's product pick we have jp's workshop scott's deep dive 3d hangouts all the things collins lab notes and more all week on the ate a fruit news network and thanks everybody bye everybody


Engineer Luiz Sechant, ADBE, the newly appointed Permanent Secretary of the State House, officially assumed duty in Abuja Pledge and his unwavering commitment to the success of President Balamertinebou's administration. At the hand of a ceremony held at the State House administrative block, ADBE, who previously held the position of Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Health, expressed gratitude to his predecessor, Tijani Umar. He acknowledged Umar's dedicated service to the nation and congratulated him on his successful retirement on August 10, 2023, while urging State House staff to work as a cohesive team with renewed vigor and dedication to succeed. To Mr. President, to Mr. Vice President, who has given me this privilege to serve in the State House, I want to just most sincerely pledge my commitment to my Fatherland. And I want to also pledge my sincerity and register the fraud that I will put in my best, humanly possible, for the success of the administration and to give them every humanly possible effort to carry out responsibility bestowed on me. I also want to pledge fulfillment, faithfulness, hard work, honesty, and probably sincerity of purpose in ensuring that every assignment given to me is carried out of the letter. In his remarks, the immediate past Permanent Secretary said it was an honor to have served two presidents, Mohamed Bwari and Bola Chinambu during his three-year tenure in the State House from April 5, 2020 to August 10, 2023. Umar hinted at a memoir chronically in his current public service slated for publication soon. I have given it my absolute best between April 2020 and August 10, 2023. I must say that I have enjoyed absolute support from the State House management simply because we agreed together to build a team, a team that was working and it's still working as I'm stepping out today. And I believe that I also tried to give my best in return to our principals, but principally to Mr. President, his family, the Vice President, his family, and then the State House community. Over time, even within our colleagues in the State House, I mean the staff, they always talk about Tijani Umar as somebody that was very much interested in the welfare of the staff of the State House. Training, welfare in general, it took it very seriously and passionately. I'm sure that we're going to miss it definitely, but I know that the demand that is always wrong, imagine Adebi has a very good reputation, so we believe those of us in the State House, we believe we are in for a very good time. He was from Iquita State.


Those are medieval robots. The summer of 1998 was supposed to be a carefree time. Kids were out of school, afternoons filled with cartoons and popsicles. But for a small unlucky group, it became something much darker, a memory that would linger in the back of their minds for years to come. It started with MTV. A jarring interruption during a music video. A grainy image of what looked like an abandoned hospital at night, flickering fluorescent lights revealing and settling shapes. Then a voice. Raspy, almost inhuman. It whispered, cryptic and chilling. Static, and it was back to the usual programming. Most dismissed it as a glitch, a prank. But those who saw it couldn't shake the feeling of dread it left in its wake. Forums buzzed with reports of similar incidents on other Viacom channels, but essential, and VH1. Each time, the imagery was different. A dimly lit corridor, a distorted face staring blankly from the screen, a jumble of scrambled medical records. The voice returned sometimes, barely audible nonsensical phrases whispered over crackling audio. In spring 2001, the hijackings returned, more frequent than before. There was an odd pattern to them, a silence of three years, then a flurry of disturbing broadcasts in quick succession, each one bolder than the last. Comedy Central seemed a particular target. A stand-up special morphed into a cryptic rant, the comedian's voice replaced with nonsensical ravings and unsettling laughter. On bet, a music awards pre-show suddenly cut to chilling news footage, car crashes, riots, all in a haze of static and digital decay. MTZ would cut from a vibrant music video into a black and white feed from a security camera, focusing on an empty ominously lit room. On VH1, the lyrics of a classic ballad became warped, the singer's voice distorting into demonic growls. The incidents were sporadic and unpredictable. Sometimes it was a face contorted in silent agony, staring out of the screen for agonizing seconds. Other times, a garbled voice would recite cryptic phrases, dripping with an inexplicable sense of dread. Parents chalked it up to nightmares, tech-savvy teenagers spun conspiracy theories online. Viacom remained silent. In fall 2004, the hijackings returned with renewed intensity. No longer fleeting glitches, these were calculated intrusions.  The music on VH1 warped into a reversed loop, a mournful chant building to a crescendo before a abruptly ending in a choked girdle. Each incident was more unsettling than the last, the perpetrator seemingly growing bolder, refining their terrifying craft. And on Nickelodeon, an episode of the Wild Forbidden Berries was replaced with a hyper-realistic close-up of an eyeball, slowly dilating in terror. By this point, online discussion reached a fever pitch. An amateur internet sleuth compiled a terrifying archive, crude screenshots, shaky re-recordings on VHS tapes, frantic descriptions. The Nickelodeon nuclear attack hijacking incident. It all reached a horrifying peak on October 18, 2007. The target, Nickelodeon. The disguise, SpongeBob SquarePants. What followed was a masterclass in psychological horror. Unlike the previous incidents, this one spread like wildfire and into mainstream media. It was a Thursday evening, prime time for families gathered around the television. Kids, expecting the familiar antics of SpongeBob SquarePants, were instead bolted into a nightmare. No smooth takeover this time. The cheerful opening credits glitched, the colors bleeding and stuttering. The familiar theme song warped into a cacophony of dissonant notes, a sonic assault that sent shivers down spines. Then came the fake emergency alert system message. The standard format was eerily off, the alert box stretched and distorted, crudely filling the screen. The national seal was replaced with a crudely drawn skull, its grin mocking. The presidential address was chilling in its simplicity. A robotic AI generated voice, void of any humanity, uttered the words. A nuclear strike is imminent. Seek shelter immediately. Silence fell, a heavy blanket of terror smothering laughter and conversation within homes. For a few excruciating moments, the world seemed to hang in the balance. Then the national anthem began, but grotesquely warped, the notes sour and discordant. It morphed into a screeching will before the screen abruptly flashed into a grotesque face. It was a mask like visage, skin stretched talked, eyes hollow pits of darkness, a gaping moth twisted into a silent scream. Disjointed text, some in unidentifiable languages, littered the screen. Finally, the feed cut. The familiar technical difficulties message flickered, but instead of the usual soothing tones, the sound was a horrifying dialogue modem screech, a dying technological gasp.  The Christmas Eve incident. Then came December 24, 2007. This time, the hijacker wasted no time on subtlety. Channels across the Viacom network, Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central, went dead. The silence was its own kind of terror. In place of the usual programming, stark white text appeared on a black background. You ignored me.  You think this is a game? The message hung there, a stark accusation against Viacom. The taunt wasn't inniable, the threat escalation terrifying. People began to turn on the media giant. Why had they ignored the earlier hijackings, leaving the public in the dark? The pressure on Viacom was immense. The FBI, still maddeningly silent on the investigation, increased their presence. The hijacker had achieved their goal, the world was watching. They instilled fear not just through their disturbing broadcasts, but by exposing the callous indifference of a massive corporation, more concerned with image than the safety of its audience. The game had leveled up, and everyone was an unwilling player. The betrayal incident. Nine years passed, a strange silence broken only by rumors, unverified sightings of hijacked feeds, and growing online paranoia. On December 18, 2016, the uneasy peace shattered. And this time, the hijacker wasn't playing around. It began like before, a disrupted broadcast. This time, on comedy central during a rerun of South Park. The screen sputtered, color swirling, and then reformed into a grainy image, a dimly lit underground room. The walls were slick with condensation, pipes snaked across the ceiling, and in the center was a single, mattered metal chair. The camera angle shifted unsteadily, focusing on the door. Silence stretched agonizingly for minutes. Viewers held their breath, transfixed.  A figure shambled into view, hunched and shrouded in shadows. As it moved closer, details emerged. Clothing torn and filthy, skin pallid, hair matted, and eyes. There were no eyes, only dark hollows in a scarred, emaciated face. The figure reached the chair, collapsing with a rattling breath. A harsh spotlight kept it from above, stark and unforgiving. Suddenly, a distorted voice crackled through the speakers, barely recognizable as human. You've watched me. You've analyzed me. Now you will listen. It began as a rambling, semi-coherent monologue. Words like experiment betrayal and they took everything surfaced within the fractured narrative. But as the minutes ticked by, a horrifying clarity emerged. The figure wasn't simply a victim of some twisted ordeal. They were an active participant in the earlier hijackings.  Then came the revelations. Cote names, dates that aligned with earlier hijacking incidents, and even a cryptic reference in Viacom, a collaborator. The feed was a real-time confession, an expose ripped from the clutches of desperation. Suddenly, the figure bolted upright, eyes widening in stark terror. The room filled with the sound of heavy boots pounding on concrete. The camera jerked wildly, capturing the barest glimpse of armed figures in tactical gear rushing towards the door. There was a muffled cry, a struggle, and then the screen went black. This wasn't a hijacking. It was a final act of defiance. 20 minutes of terror ending not with cryptic imagery, but with the raw horror of human suffering. The game wasn't just about Viacom or some disturbed agenda anymore. It had become about the nameless figure in the underground room, their grim fate now broadcasted to the world. The aftermath was chaotic. The online world exploded. Who was the figure? What monstrous experiments had warped them? Was there betrayal at the hands of a government agency? A rogue faction within Viacom itself? As swiftly as it arrived, the hijacker vanished again, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and lingering fear. December 18, 2016 marked the end of the hijackings, but the legacy of terror they left behind continues to haunt dark corners of the internet to this day.