Penelope was filling glasses from the ice-water faucet. She turned her
head and stared at him like a bright-eyed bird. "To tell you the truth,
Mark, as far as I know the men who used to make up the government
disappeared after the last war, about the time all this automatic
machinery was put in. We used to have an election every so often, but I
haven't heard that word for twenty-five years. Do you know what I
think?"
"No," Mark said attentively.
"I don't think there is any more government!" Penelope said
dramatically. "I think all that's left are the Machine and Central Audit
Bureau--which is nothing but a giant posting machine."
"Have you seen it--Central, I mean? I see the concourse where we line up
every day to have our cards posted--but what's behind those twelve
hundred windows?"
* * * * *
She nodded briskly. "I saw it from one of the last planes. Central
covers miles and miles in both directions. They said then it was the
biggest machine on earth--and do you know, Mark"--she paused
dramatically--"I think the Machine is the government! Roll up your
chair, Mark."
Mark did. "But doesn't there have to be somebody to take care of the
Machine?" he asked, holding her chair.
"Not that I know of. They said it was perfect--that barring an
earthquake it would run for a thousand years without a human hand."
The iron-juice cocktail was pretty good, the way Penelope had flavored
it with enzymes. But Mark inevitably got back to the thing that worried
him. "What will happen when that release slip of mine goes through for
thirty-five thousand points?"
Penelope raised her white eyebrows. "I don't know, but undoubtedly
something drastic. I'll tell you what. I'll hold your slip for a while
and you go out and see if you can get some points on your credit side.
Stir up a little trouble. Get the points first and argue after."...
Mark went out and tried to get some points next day, but he couldn't
seem to get his heart in his work. It was all so pointless. Why couldn't
the old lady give him back that slip, anyway? Mark got pretty much in
the dumps, and after he managed to get his foot stepped on and demanded
three hundred points, only to be countered by a claim of four hundred
for hurting the other man's instep, he began to feel very low indeed.
At the end of the week he was walking slowly along the street watching
for Conley, because he was getting further in the red every day, when he
saw a foot stuck out in his way and heard a voice say, "Don't you
stumble over my lame foot," and he looked up and saw the old lady. Her
black eyes were soft. "You don't look happy, Mark."
"No." He held out his card.
"Hm." Her keen old eyes shot back to his. "Thirty-two hundred in the
red. That's more than before. You've lost two hundred points this week,
Mark."
"I know," he said dully.
"Here. Push me, Mark." She pulled the shawl around her and Mark started
pushing the wheel-chair. "You're a nice boy," she said when they reached
a quiet street. "You just can't adjust yourself to this modern world."
"I want a job," Mark said stubbornly. "Something to do besides--well,
some kind of mark to aim at, I guess. This point business is just
putting in time. I'm not creating anything. Even if I could fasten
zippers on feather-beds, I'd be doing something worth while, because
it'd be used. But this way of living is like digging a hole and then
filling it in again. Why, you don't even dare to get into a fight.
Somebody would collect a thousand points every time you hit him. The
standard price of a black eye is three thousand. You have to be pretty
careful about things like that. And there's always Conley."
"Well," Penelope said, "I'm going to make you a proposition. I'll hold
up your slip for sixty days, and in the meantime I'll teach you how to
get ahead of the game. I'll teach you the tricks of the trade, just as
old Point-a-Minute Charlie taught me. They say he averaged a point a
minute all his life."
"Where is he now?" asked Mark, interested.
The old lady pondered. "Come to think of it, I don't know. I remember
the last time I talked to him his credit balance was 98,000." She
frowned at the tremendous, low-lying dome that covered the horizon in
the distance and marked Central Audit Bureau. "I haven't seen him since
then."
"Hm," said Mark.
"Well, now," Penelope said briskly. "I'll make you a regular business
deal. I'll teach you, and for all you get, you give me twenty per cent.
See how many you can get. Try for ten thousand. That'll give you
something to shoot at."
"Maybe I can beat the Machine," Mark said eagerly.
Penelope swallowed. "They say you can't beat the Machine. But I guess it
won't hurt to try."
Mark did well. At first he just walked down the street stopping people
as fast as he could get to them. "You didn't recognize me, sir," he
would say indignantly. "I met you at Central concourse two years ago.
Remember? You stood right in front of me in line for three hours, and we
talked about our new suits. Remember? My feelings are injured because
you ignored me just now. Fifty points. Will you sign my slip, please?"
His credit reached the black the first week. He was netting five hundred
points a day, and it was fun, but Penelope said, "We'll go for bigger
stakes. This is kindergarten stuff. Now here's the way you start...."
* * * * *
So the next morning Mark managed to get himself knocked down four times,
and each time he came up with a skinned knee and collected from five
hundred to eight hundred and fifty points. He was learning, Penelope
assured him when he gleefully showed her his card at the end of the day.
Mark was elated. That day he had gathered fifty-one hundred points.
"But this can get monotonous, too," Penelope said. "Anyway, you can't go
around forever with a sandpapered knee. You're learning fast, and you're
learning right. Old Point-a-Minute Charlie was the best there was, in
his day, and he always said you make more points guessing character than
you do falling down. Know your victim before you have an accident, and
then hit him for all he will pay and hit him quick--the way I did you."
She chuckled. "My commission for today is one thousand and twenty
points. Here, sign my slip, please."
Mark signed. It was a cheap price to pay for the fact that life was no
longer pointless. He decided he'd try to gather a credit of one hundred
thousand points.
He worked on bigger stuff. He didn't try just everybody. He picked his
signers with care. He slept until nine every morning and he and Penelope
played two-handed bridge at a tenth of a point a point until midnight.
He felt sorry for the poor suckers who had to get out at sunup and tread
the sidewalks until dark to get enough points to satisfy Central. They
were working like slaves, while he was living the life of Point-a-Minute
Charlie.
It was a lovely existence. He forgot about Penelope's slip for
thirty-five thousand. He could almost pay it off anyway. Then came the
day when he pulled his grand coup.
He spent a week planning it, with Penelope's shrewd advice. He
remembered what she had said about the man on the ladder in the
nineteen-forties. He sandpapered his back and painted an irregular spot
with merthiolate and iodine, and practiced twisting his back until it
looked out of shape. Then he went out and watched for an absent-minded,
nervous, excitable-looking man to try his next effort on.
Penelope's biggest advice was, "Preparation is half the points," so it
was three days before Mark found the right person. After he found him it
was very simple. He signaled Penelope to follow, and then he walked
behind the man until they came to a high curb.
Mark moved out to the left. The man started to step up on the curb. Mark
darted across in front of the man just as the man raised his foot. Mark
managed to stumble exactly in front of the man. His arms went out and
one hand caught the little man's leg. The little man fell squarely on
top of him, assisted by a slight push from Penelope.
Mark groaned heart-breakingly. In a moment there was a crowd. The little
man was getting up, bewildered, and automatically trying to dust off his
type K suit. Mark lay half on the curb, half off, squirming like a
broken-back snake. "My back," he moaned piteously. "Oh, my back."
The little man seemed paralyzed at the enormity of the thing he had
done. He stared at Mark and Mark squirmed harder and moaned louder. Then
Penelope hobbled up and pulled Mark's shirttail out of his trousers. The
iodine spot on his back looked yellow and purple, and there were gasps
from the crowd.
"He did it!" Mark said, glaring accusingly at the little man. "He
tripped me. He tripped me and broke my back!"
Penelope was putting on a good act too, crying and wringing her hands
and moaning. "My poor boy!" she said, over and over. A woman in the
crowd came up and made a very expressive raspberry in the little man's
face. The little man was not only bewildered; he was frightened. Mark
adjudged the time had come.
"Points for my broken back!" he cried. Penelope held out a slip to the
little man. He signed it dazedly, then he slipped out of the crowd,
while three men picked up Mark and laid him tenderly in Penelope's
reclining wheel-chair.
Mark could hardly contain himself. As soon as they were safely out of
sight he said excitedly, "Let me see the slip."
Penelope looked around. She kept pushing him but she handed over the
slip.
"Fifty thousand points!" Mark read under his breath. "Isn't that
wonderful!" He couldn't remember ever having felt so elated in his life.
Penelope was shaking her head wonderingly. "That was a good act," she
said. "I'd never have had the nerve to try that myself."
"Oh, that's nothing." Mark was enthusiastic. "As soon as I get fitted up
with a magnelite brace so it'll look good, I'm going to knock a piece
out of that curbing, and then if I can find out who's the registered
owner of it I'll hit him for twenty-five thousand."
* * * * *
Mark got the twenty-five thousand. The owner of the sidewalk was finally
convinced that Mark's broken back was worth a lot. From then on there
was no holding Mark. Pretending to act for the little man who had
originally knocked him down, he located the woman who had made a
raspberry in the little man's face and collected another two thousand;
the woman didn't recognize Mark, because Mark's features were changed a
little.
Then Mark spotted two others who had made threatening noises and
collected five hundred from each, and from another who expressed doubt
that he was really hurt, Mark got a thousand points. There was nothing
to it, really. Most people had regular beats, and all Mark had to do was
sit at one side in Penelope's wheel-chair and wait for them to come by.
He would have collected more if he could have remembered more faces. He
saw Conley go by once a day but now he wasn't afraid. He thought Conley
looked at him disappointedly.
A couple of weeks later he got his card back from the Machine at Central
and looked at it with great satisfaction. He had a hundred and thirteen
thousand points to his credit. He met Penelope and they went to her
apartment for dinner. Jubilantly Mark got all the fancy food--even some
synthetic meat--that he could get on his card, and they prepared for a
feast.
"The only thing is," Penelope said as she punched the dishes on the
table, "I'm scared. I have a feeling you shouldn't have gone over a
hundred thousand."
"Is that why you never cashed my slip for thirty-five thousand?"
She nodded. "That's mostly the reason. My balance is over eighty
thousand and I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"I don't know. Just afraid."
"Well," said Mark, "I'm not. I don't see what Central can do to a person
for getting points. There's no rule against it."
"It's dangerous," Penelope insisted.
"Nevertheless, I have made a decision. A hundred thousand points--that's
nothing." His head was high. "I'm going after a million points!"
Penelope gasped. "Mark, you mustn't do anything like that. You have no
use for a million points."
"No," Mark said complacently, "but it's a lot of fun getting them. And
it gives me something worth while to do. We'll sit up till three o'clock
every morning and play bridge, and I'll stay in bed till noon, and dream
up new stunts. I'll pull one a week. Life is going to be worth living."
The announcing light showed at the door. Penelope pressed the admittance
button. A tall, thin man came in a moment later. "Mark Renner?" he
asked.
Mark jumped. "Conley!" Mark's stomach had a funny feeling in it.
"They told me I would find you here," Conley said.