rned the form over and glanced at the reproduced photo of Steve on the
back. He looked up, comparing it with Alan.

"Dead ringers, these two. But I'll bet this one doesn't look much like
this any more--not after nine years of Free Status!"

"It only pays off for the lucky few, eh, Max?" MacIntosh asked slyly.

Hawkes grinned. "Some of us make out all right. You have to have the
knack, though. You can get awful hungry otherwise. Come on, kid--let's
go up a little higher, now. Up to the televector files. Thanks for the
help, Hinesy. You're a pal."

"Just doin' my job," MacIntosh said. "See you tonight as usual?"

"I doubt it," Hawkes replied. "I'm going to take the night off. I have
it coming to me."

"That leaves the coast clear for us amateurs, doesn't it? Maybe I'll
come out ahead tonight."

Hawkes smiled coldly. "Maybe you will. Let's go, kid."

They took the lift tube outside and rode it as high as it went. It
opened out into the biggest room Alan had ever seen, bigger even than
the main registry downstairs--a vast affair perhaps a hundred feet high
and four hundred feet on the side.

And every inch of those feet was lined with computer elements.

"This is the nerve-center of the world," Hawkes said as they went in.
"By asking the right questions you can find out where anybody in the
world happens to be at this very moment."

"How can they do that?"

Hawkes nudged a tiny sliver of metal embedded in a ring on his finger.
"Here's my televector transmitter. Everyone who has a work card or Free
Status carries one, either on a ring or in a locket round his neck or
somewhere else. Some people have them surgically embedded in their
bodies. They give off resonance waves, each one absolutely unique;
there's about one chance in a quadrillion of a duplicate pattern. The
instruments here can pick up a given pattern and tell you exactly where
the person you're looking for is."

"So we can find Steve without much trouble!"

"Probably." Hawkes' face darkened. "I've known it to happen that the
televector pattern picks up a man who's been at the bottom of the sea
for five years. But don't let me scare you; Steve's probably in good
shape."

He took out the slip of paper on which he had jotted down Steve's
televector code number and transferred the information to an application
blank.

"This system," Alan said. "It means no one can possibly hide anywhere on
Earth unless he removes his televector transmitter."

"Yo