You Too Can Be A Millionaire Part 1

You Too Can Be A Millionaire.

by Noel Miller Loomis.

[Sidenote: _Money was worthless, yet no man dared go broke. It was all pretty confusing to Mark until "Point-Plus-Pearlie" told him--YOU TOO CAN BE A MILLIONAIRE _]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Life had become a mad scramble for points._]

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-gla.s.s 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 next day you had to start all over. There wasn't any point to it. So he'd said to h.e.l.l with it, and for five days now he'd ignored the Machine entirely except to line up automatically once a day at the concourse to have his card audited. And for five straight days the balance had been in red.

Then, today, he had seen Conley on the street, coming toward him. All of a sudden Mark had been scared. He didn't know what Central would do to him--n.o.body knew--but he didn't want to find out, either. He ran from Conley.

Now he crouched in the dust behind an empty counter while Conley's footsteps approached. He held his breath when they got close, and when they pa.s.sed the broken window he was very thankful.

It was late afternoon and he thought Conley would go back to Central.

n.o.body knew much about Conley except that he represented the Machine and that he seemed to disappear within it every afternoon.

So, presently, Mark crawled out of the broken window and walked down to Main Street. He looked carefully right and left and then, not seeing Conley's tall form above the traffic, he wandered slowly down the street, trying to figure things out. Why wasn't there anything worth while to do? What was the reason for all the broken windows and empty stores? Had there once been places where people could buy things like food and clothes? Maybe--before Central Audit Bureau had come into existence. Or had Central always been there?

Mark saw the old lady sitting in the wheel-chair. He turned out absently to walk by her. He saw her put her foot in his way but his brain wasn't working. He stumbled over her foot.

Instantly the old lady half arose from her chair as if in pain, shrieking and brandishing her cane, the leg held stiffly out in front of her. "You've injured me," she shrieked in a raucous voice. "You've hurt my lame foot!"

Mark stood there dumbly. He was a young man and so he didn't at once foresee what was about to happen.

A crowd gathered in no time. The old lady was putting on a show. Mark didn't get it. He would have allowed her a thousand points--even fifteen hundred--without argument. But he got the shock of his young life.

"Thirty thousand points!" she screamed at him, and thrust a pad of slips at him. "Sign my slip, please."

Mark took the pad automatically. He took the pencil she held out. He started to sign. He'd never get a credit balance at the Central Bureau now, but he didn't care. Maybe he'd get in so deep they'd give him some work.

The old lady's voice rose unexpectedly. "My feelings are hurt, too. He did it deliberately. Five thousand points for my injured feelings."

Dazedly Mark wrote down "Thirty-five thousand and no more," and signed his name. He handed the pad back to her and started on. The crowd was leaving.

But a voice stopped him. A soft voice. "Wait, son." He looked back. He started to go on, then he saw the old lady's eyes on his. "Stick around," she said. There wasn't any raucousness in her voice now. "Wait till the crowd goes. I want to talk to you."

Presently he was walking beside her while she laboriously operated the two big hand-wheels that propelled the chair. Two blocks away she turned into an empty building marked "Groceries." Mark helped her cross the threshold.

Inside, she amazed him by springing out of the chair and standing quite steadily. She was small and she wasn't as old and wrinkled as he had thought. "You get in the chair," she said. "I'll push you. I need the exercise."

A minute later she was pushing him briskly along the street while Mark sat, still half dazed, in the wicker chair, her old red shawl was across his lap.

"Get cramps in my legs, to say nothing of my bottom," she observed, "sitting there all day." She saw him stiffen. "Oh, you needn't be shocked. After all, I'm old enough to be your grandmother. I was born in 1940, you know."

"Nineteen-forty," Mark repeated, wonderingly. "Gee, that was back in the days when everybody worked. I wish _I_ could work."

"Well, it's a changed world," she observed. "In those days, you _had_ to work."

At that instant Mark heard the ominous slapping footsteps. He looked ahead, and there was Conley, easily noticeable because of the type N hat a head above everybody else, coming toward them. Mark s.n.a.t.c.hed up the red shawl and wrapped it around his face to the nose and pulled his hat low over his eyes. He watched from under the type L brim while Conley approached. He held his breath while Conley fixed his deep eyes on him for a moment, but Conley went by, and once more he was safe.

The old lady trotted briskly along. They pa.s.sed a few people who stared at them, but Mark was thinking. "This is 2021," he observed. "You're eighty-one years old. You must know all about things."

"I'm quite spry," she pointed out, "though I must say I am working up a sweat right now. No, no--" She pushed Mark back into the chair. "It's good for me. Don't get enough exercise any more. Now you just sit there.

You're in a bad way. Anybody who'd fall for such a phony act and release thirty-five thousand points without even an argument--well, of course,"

she said archly, "I do have a well-turned ankle."

But the enormity of Mark's debit with Central when the old lady should turn in his slip, began to worry him. He wondered if he could get it back from her. He wasn't happy with the world, and things were all wrong, and all that, but still--well, he did have to live in it.

Thirty-five thousand points. He began to worry. He wished he knew what the penalty would be. He wondered if the old lady knew. What were these points all about anyway? "You must know," he said, "how the world got into this mess."

She chuckled, "For thirty-five thousand points, I guess you've got a right to the story." She turned into the archway of a standard type B apartment house.

He wondered what she would do with all those points. What did anybody do with them? Everybody had about the same living quarters. Food was furnished by automatic vendors at the Hydroponic Farms. Clothes were provided, ready-made; all you had to do was put your credit card in a machine, punch the b.u.t.tons for your measurements, and a suit would drop down the chute.

Mark got out of the chair and helped her inside with it. He took off his hat and started uncertainly to leave, but she put her hand on his arm, "No, no. Have supper with me. I'll tell you all about everything. Glad to. There aren't many who want to know about things any more."

Her apartment was neat and clean. It was hard for Mark to connect it with an old woman shrieking points at him. "My name's Pearl.

Point-Plus-Pearlie, they call me. But my real name's Penelope. You can call me Penelope."

"Thank you," Mark said gravely, and sat down. Penelope bustled into an ap.r.o.n and began pulling packages from the freezer. "We'll have a feed, you and I--a real feed." She chuckled pleasantly. "After all, you're paying for it."

Mark squirmed uncomfortably.

"I'll tell you how all this started," Penelope said, popping open a can of high-content protein. "Back before you were born there were insurance companies. At first they were started to insure your life, and--"

"Your life!" Mark frowned. "How--"

"Never mind. Also, they insured you against loss by fire. Then it was loss by collision of vehicles--you've never seen an auto, of course--and so on. Finally they got to insuring you against hurting yourself when you slipped on a cake of soap in the bathtub, and then they insured against a suit for damages by someone who might stub his toe and fall down and break a leg on your sidewalk. Follow me?"

"I think so," said Mark doubtfully.

"Well, there were all kinds of lawsuits. Two men would be in an accident. Both hurt. Their insurance companies would sue each other.

Suppose A knocked over a ladder and B fell down on top of him. B's fall broke A's arm and it broke his own leg. A could sue B for breaking his arm. B could sue A for making him fall. Well, suppose A was insured by company X, and B was insured by company Y. A and B filed claims against each other's companies, and everybody went to court."