Time and Again by Jack Finney, Paul Hecht Page A

connecting and interconnecting, converging and angling off into the distance.
    This great lacy web of narrow metal walkways hung from the roof — which was the underside of the office space we'd just left — by finger-thin metal rods. As we stood there, Rube giving me time to accept the necessity of walking out onto the web, I couldn't yet see anything below us except the tops of thick walls which rose up from the floor of the gutted warehouse five stories below to within a foot of the underside of the walkways we stood on. These walls, I could see, divided the great block-square space below us into large irregular-shaped areas. I looked up and saw a mass of air ducts and subduedly humming machinery suspended from the roof; then I glanced back at Rube. He was smiling at the look of my face. He said, "I know, it's a shock. Just take your time, get used to it. When you're ready, walk on out, anywhere you like."
    I made myself walk then, maybe ten feet straight ahead, barely able to resist hanging onto the railings, and still unable to look down. For a few feet the walk led straight out from the door we'd come in through. Then it angled to the right, and I was aware that we passed over the top of a wall that rose from the floor far below almost to the underside of our walk. As we crossed over this wall, I felt a steady updraft of warmth and heard the hum of exhaust fans overhead. Just below the level of the catwalks rows of metal piping hung over the wall tops in places; clamped to them were hundreds of hooded theatrical lights. They seemed to be of every color and shade and of every size; all of them were aimed in groups to converge on specific areas below. I stopped, turned to the side, gripped the railing with both hands, and forced myself to look down.
    Five stories below and on the far side of the area over which we were standing, I saw a small frame house. From this angle I could see onto the roofed front porch. A man in shirt-sleeves sat on the edge of the porch, his feet on the steps. He was smoking a pipe, staring absently out at the brick-paved street before the house.
    On each side of this house stood portions of two other houses. The side walls facing the middle house were complete, including curtains and window shades. So were half of each gable roof and the entire front walls, including porches with worn stair treads. A wicker baby-carriage stood on the porch of one of them. But except for the complete house in the middle these others were only the two walls and part of a roof; from here I could see the pine scaffolding that supported them from behind. In front of all three structures were lawns and shade trees. Beyond these were a brick sidewalk and a brick street, iron hitching posts at the curbs. Across the street stood the fronts of half a dozen more houses. On the porch of one lay a battered bicycle. A fringed hammock hung on the porch of another. But these apparent houses were only false fronts no more than a foot thick; they were built along the area wall behind them, concealing the wall.
    Leaning on the rail beside me, Rube said, "From where the man on the porch is sitting and from any window of his house or any place on his lawn, he seems to be in a complete street of small houses. You can't see it from here, but at the end of the short stretch of actual brick street he is facing now, there is painted and modeled on the area wall, in meticulous dioramic perspective, more of the same street and neighborhood far into the distance."
    While he was talking a boy on a bike appeared on the street below us; I didn't see where he'd come from. He wore a white sailor cap, its turned-up brim nearly covered with what looked like colored advertising-and campaign-buttons; short brown pants that buckled just below the knees; long black stockings; and dirty canvas shoes that came up over the ankles. Hanging from his shoulder by a wide strap was a torn canvas sack filled with folded newspapers. The boy pedaled from one