Project Gutenberg's You Too Can Be A Millionaire, by Noel Miller Loomis

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Title: You Too Can Be A Millionaire

Author: Noel Miller Loomis

Release Date: June 20, 2010 [EBook #32907]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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YOU TOO CAN BE A MILLIONAIRE

By Noel Loomis

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science
Fiction November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[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 _]

[Illustration: _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-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