YOU TOO CAN BE A MILLIONAIRE
By Noel Loomis
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of ScienceFiction November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Life had become a mad scramble for points.
Mark Renner looked anxiously backward as he ran up the street to theplace where the faded gold lettering on one window said "Jewelry." Thatwould be a good place to hide, he thought. Most of the plate-glasswindows and doors along the street were broken out as in fact they wereeverywhere, and had been for twenty years—but one of the jewelrywindows and the door, protected by iron grating, were still whole andwould help to conceal him.
With one final glance back at the corner, he climbed the grating,scuttled across it, and dropped down. Then, keeping low, he ducked inamong the dusty old counters and stopped abruptly, listening.
He heard Conley's slow, slapping footsteps as the tall man rounded thecorner and came up the street. He forced himself to breathe softly inspite of the pounding of his heart. The dust rose a little around himand got in his nostrils and he wanted to sneeze, but by sheer willpowerhe choked it down.
Conley was from the Machine—Central Audit Bureau—and the Machine knewby now that Mark was three thousand points in the red. Three thousandpoints—when you were supposed to be always within one day's point of abalance. You were allowed twelve hundred points a day, so Mark was nowtwo and a half days in debit.
He'd been walking the streets in a sort of daze, signing slips right andleft while his own pad of slips stayed in his pocket. He hadn't cared,either, until now, because in this brave new world of the onefreedom—freedom from work—he was abominably unhappy.
Everybody struggled all day to get enough points to stay even withCentral, and what good did it do them? You got even one day, but thenext day you had to start all over. There wasn't any point to it. Sohe'd said to hell with it, and for five days now he'd ignored theMachine entirely except to line up automatically once a day at theconcourse to have his card audited. And for five straight days thebalance had been in red.
Then, today, he had seen Conley on the street, coming toward him. All ofa sudden Mark had been scared. He didn't know what Central would do tohim—nobody knew—but he didn't want to find out, either. He ran fromConley.
Now he crouched in the dust behind an empty counter while Conley'sfootsteps approached. He held his breath when they got close, and whenthey passed the broken window he was very thankful.
It was late afternoon and he thought Conley would go back to Central.Nobody knew much about Conley except that he represented the Machine andthat he seemed to disappear within it every afternoon.
So, presently, Mark crawled out of the broken window and walked down toMain Street. He looked carefully right and left and then, not seeingConley's tall form above the traffic, he wandered slowly down thestreet, trying to figure things out. Why wasn't there anything worthwhile to do? What was the reason for all the broken windows and emptystores? Had there once been places where people could buy things likefood