He passed through the steel portals of headquarters and stood for a moment on the steps gazing at the rain-swept streets ... at the amusement center across the square, block after block blazing under a single mutual transparent dome ... at the open shops lining the upper footways, all bustle and brilliance as the city’s night shopping began ... the towering office buildings in the background, great two-hundred storey cubes ... the lace tracery of skyways linking them together ... the twinkling running lights of Jumpers bobbing up and down like a plague of crimson-eyed grasshoppers in a field ...