Nine days after that meeting, Professor Surgeon Lin Lin and her people left. They told no one where they were going, and no one had time or inclination to ask; the government was on the brink of collapse, and the city was in uproar.

Screaming mobs rampaged through the streets, determined to destroy the machines that they blamed for all the wrongs in the world. They smashed automobiles and typewriters, omnibuses and telephones. The police were helpless against them. The army, brought in by the collapsing government, destroyed its own gun carriages and joined the mobs. Everyone else, frightened and confused, barricaded their doors, telling each other that the madness must stop soon.