
The massive Circum‑Global Communications tower dominates the Manhattan skyline, its glowing atom‑like emblem a beacon for the planet‑spanning web of artificial satellites that carry every television picture, voice call and data stream. Inside, veteran operations chief James Fitzpatrick MacIlheny runs the upper floors’ gigantic electronic brain and the lower levels’ monitoring rooms, earning respect with a blend of encouragement and stern discipline.
On a quiet Saturday night in March 1978, MacIlheny stays late to oversee a new computer unit, a routine that should have been uneventful. As the clock strikes 1903, the building’s public‑address system crackles to life, announcing a technical glitch that threatens to sever the satellite links binding continents together. The incident sparks a chain reaction, forcing the team to confront a danger far larger than any single error—an emerging menace that could turn the unifying network into a weapon beyond anyone’s control.
Language
en
Duration
~37 minutes (36K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc., 1957.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2023-10-06
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1927–1987
A prolific mid-century science fiction and fantasy writer, he became especially well known for the Lord Darcy stories, where detective fiction meets an alternate world shaped by magic. He also wrote heavily for the pulp magazines of the 1950s and 1960s and collaborated with other major SF writers.
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