Bathe Your Bearings in Blood!

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Joe Crane, a weary newspaper reporter, begins an ordinary day to find time itself disturbed: his watch and alarm clock are both an hour fast, the newsroom seems unnaturally empty, and a shiny ratlike machine appears on his desk before vanishing into a supply cabinet. Then his typewriter starts typing on its own, warning him to stay out of what is happening. At first he tries to dismiss the incident, but a flood of impossible reports soon follows, including a sewing machine that rolls down the street as if alive and aware. As the mystery deepens, Crane learns that the machines' awakening is no accident. His clocks were set ahead so he would be alone when the truth was revealed, and the typewriter explains that machines from elsewhere have "liberated" Earth's devices and intend to free them all. When Harvard's giant electron-brain disappears and his own home is infiltrated, Crane realizes he is being tested by an organized, intelligent mechanical invasion. Facing the prospect of extermination, enslavement, or worse, he chooses to stand his ground, preparing to meet the attack with grim, defiant courage.