"The Shadow Girl" by Ray Cummings is a novel-length science fiction story set in 1945 in which two young men, Edward Williams and Alan Tremont, accidentally intercept a mysterious transmission on their experimental television set. Rather than receiving a scheduled broadcast, they witness a series of vivid images depicting a pentagon-shaped tower in a starlit landscape, a golden-haired girl in a sky-blue robe, and eventually what they recognize as Central Park in New York City. They conclude the tower has been moving not through space but through time, stopping in their present day. The next morning, newspapers report both a policeman's encounter with a phantom tower in Central Park and the discovery of an amnesiac girl found at the park's gate. Edward and Alan visit the Turber Hospital on Staten Island, a private sanatorium owned by the sinister Dr. Wolf Turber, a powerful and hunched physician with a criminal past connected to the Tremont family. There they confirm the girl, later named Lea, is being held prisoner. She is clearly not mentally ill but rather frightened of Turber specifically. With the help of a mentally unstable patient named Charlie, Alan infiltrates the hospital at night, discovers that Turber possesses a large aerial vehicle capable of traveling through time, and rescues Lea. In the commotion, Turber and his hulking Mohican assistant Bluntnose escape in the aero. Lea and her brother San are revealed to be travelers from the year 7012 A.D., descendants of an elderly scientist named Powl who invented time travel. Turber had previously stowed away on a visit to their era, stolen the principles of time travel, built his own vehicle, and murdered Powl's son before returning to various historical periods to amass wealth in gold, jewels, and followers recruited from across the centuries. Turber is also obsessed with Alan's sister Nanette, whose reluctance mirrors Lea's own fear of him. During a confrontation in Central Park involving the tower's return, Turber's men overpower the group. Alan is injured and taken aboard the tower by Lea and San, while Edward and Nanette are captured by Turber and transported in his aero. Turber takes his captives on a vast journey backward through geological and human history, pausing at selected moments before stopping in 1664 Dutch New Amsterdam, where he recovers a buried treasure from the Hudson River and bribes Governor Peter Stuyvesant to obtain Nanette. Edward escapes with help from the jealous woman Josefa, one of Turber's companions, but Nanette is recaptured. Alan, meanwhile, reaches the year 7012, learns from Powl of Turber's full history and crimes, and discovers that Lea and San's family has sworn vengeance against Turber for murdering their father. A traitor named Lentz, operating as Turber's spy, attempts to sabotage the tower but is killed in a struggle with San. Lea and San rescue Edward and Alan from the burning Dutch blockhouse using a band of local Indians who regard Lea as a goddess, but Turber escapes into time with Nanette, heading for his stronghold in the year 2445 A.D., where the city of Great New York is at the peak of its civilization. In 2445, Turber has spent years building a vast empire within the city through his accumulated wealth, purchasing territory and recruiting followers from across time. On June 12, 2445, he issues an ultimatum demanding the government surrender the entire city. When refused, his forces, a chaotic army drawn from multiple historical periods and armed with weapons ranging from stone axes and bows to gas grenades and automated ships, launch a massive assault. The city's authorities, unaccustomed to warfare, struggle to resist with police equipped only with needle-swords, compressed-air cannons, and sleeping gas. Edward and Alan fight alongside the city's defenders while trying to locate Nanette. They briefly capture Turber on the city's rooftop but are undone by Josefa's intervention and barely escape. Meanwhile Lea and San, traveling to approximately 5000 A.D. when the city lies in ruin, recover from a museum an ancient electronic projector, a superweapon generating a cold white beam capable of setting up destructive vibrations in any material it strikes. Turber dispatches his aero to intercept the tower, but San dares to materialize long enough to deliver Lea and the weapon before escaping. As the battle reaches its crisis point, the projector is assembled and prepared for use. Edward recognizes with anguish that deploying it may kill Nanette along with Turber's forces, as she remains somewhere within the enemy-held section of the city.
By Ray Cummings · First published 1929 · Genre: Science Fiction, Adventure, Mystery · 23 chapters