
In a bleak, smog‑choked metropolis where towering furnaces blaze night after night, the hum of relentless production is suddenly cut by an eerie, whispering hiss. The silence unsettles the workers, and a lone night‑shift captain, once a scientist, is summoned to investigate a mysterious breach in the heart of the factory. As he and his grizzled partner stalk the shadows, they confront a desperate saboteur who claims a hidden bomb will turn the whole complex to ash.
The story unfolds amid the clang of steel and the glow of molten metal, painting a world where humanity’s war machines loom like metallic leviathans. With tension building from each footstep and every whispered warning, listeners are drawn into a tense cat‑and‑mouse chase that pits duty against terror. The opening sets the stage for a high‑stakes struggle that could decide the fate of the city—and perhaps all of mankind.
Language
en
Duration
~55 minutes (53K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2007-08-03
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects

1904–1971
A prolific pulp-era storyteller, he wrote science fiction, westerns, mysteries, and books for younger readers, building a career that stretched from magazine adventures to novels. His work appeared under both R. R. Winterbotham and Russ Winterbotham, and it reflects the fast-moving imagination of mid-20th-century popular fiction.
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