Mark Renner looked anxiously backward as he ran up the street to the place where the faded gold lettering on one window said “Jewelry.” That would be a good place to hide, he thought. Most of the plate-glass windows and doors along the street were broken out as in fact they were everywhere, and had been for twenty years⁠—but one of the jewelry windows and the door, protected by iron grating, were still whole and would 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 in among the dusty old counters and stopped abruptly, listening.

He heard Conley’s slow, slapping footsteps as the tall man rounded the corner and came up the street. He forced himself to breathe softly in spite of the pounding of his heart. The dust rose a little around him and got in his nostrils and he wanted to sneeze, but by sheer willpower he choked it down.

Conley was from the Machine⁠—Central Audit Bureau⁠—and the Machine knew by now that Mark was three thousand points in the red. Three thousand points⁠—when you were supposed to be always within one day’s point of a balance. You were allowed twelve hundred points a day, so Mark was now two and a half days in debit.

He’d been walking the streets in a sort of daze, signing slips right and left 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 one freedom⁠—freedom from work⁠—he was abominably unhappy.

Everybody struggled all day to get enough points to stay even with Central, and what good did it do them? You got even one day, but the