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 wheelchair. “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 featherbeds, 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 percent. 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
