A THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Take 'em an inch and they'll give you a hell.

DATA-RETRIVIAL MODE

The man in the bare steel chair was as naked as the room's white walls. They had shaved his head and his body completely; only his eyelashes remained. Tiny adhesive pads held sensors in position at a dozen places on his scalp, on his temples close to the corners of his eyes, at each side of his mouth, on his throat, over his heart and over his solar plexus and at every major ganglion down his ankles.
From each sensor a lead, fine as gossamer, ran to the sole object -- apart from the steel chair and two other chairs, both softly padded -- that might be said to funish the room. That was a data-analysis console with display screens and signal lights on its slanted top, convenient to one of the padded chairs.
Additionally, on the adjustable rods cantilevered out from the back of the steel chair, there were microphones and a three-vee camera.
The shaven man was not alone. Also present were three other people; a young woman in a slick white coverall engaged in checking the location of the sensors; a gaunt black man wearing a fashinable dark red jerkin suit clipped to the breast of which was a card bearing his picture and the name Paul T. Freeman; and a heavy-set white man of about fifty, dressed in dark blue, whose similar card named him as Ralph C. Hartz.
After long contemplation of the scene, Hartz spoke.
"So that's the dodger who went further and faster for longer than any of the others."
"Halflinger's career," Freeman said mildly, "is somewhat impressive. You've picked on his record?"
"Naturally. That's why I'm here. It may be an atavistic impulse, but I did feel inclined to see with my own eyes the man who posted such an amazing score of new personae. One might almost better ask what he hasn't done that what he has. Utopia designer, lifestyle counselor, Dephi gambler, computer-sabotage consultant, systems rationalizer, and God knows what else besides."
"Priest, too," Freeman said. "We're progressing into that area today. But what's remarkable is not the number of separate occupations he's pursued. It's the constrast between successive versions of himself."
"Surely you'd expect him to muddle his trail as radically as possible?"
"You miss the point. The fact that he eluded us for so long implies that he's learned to live with and to some extent controll his overload reflexes, using the sort of regular commercial tranquilizer you or I would take to cushion the shock of moving to a new house, and in no great quantity, either."
"Hmm..." Hartz pondered. "You're right; that is amazing. Are you ready to start today's run? I don't have much time to spend here at Tarnover, you know."
Not looking up, the firl in white plastic said, "Yes, sir, he's status go."
She headed for the door. Taking a seat at Freeman's gestured invitation, Hartz said doubtfully, "Don't you have to give him a shot or something? He looks pretty thoroughly sedated."
Settling comfortably in his own chair adjacent to the data console, Freeman said, "No, it's not a question of drugs. It's done with induced current in the motor centers. One of our specialties, you know. All I have to do is move this swith and he'll recover consciousness -- though not, of course, the power of ambulation. Just enough to let him answer in adequate detail. By the way, before I turn him on, I should fill in what's happening. Yesterday I broke off when I tapped into what seemed to be an exceptionally heavily loaded image, so I'm going to regress him to the appropriate date and key in the same again, an we'll see what develops."
"What kind of image?"
"A girl of about ten running like hell through the dark."