 What idea is introduced during the armory scene that becomes a motif throughout the rest of the story?
THE RECRUIT BY BRYCE WALTON And kids had a right to grow up—some of them! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Wayne, unseen, sneered down from the head of the stairs. The old man with his thick neck, thick cigar, evening highball, potgut and bald head without a brain in it. His slim mother with nervously polite smiles and voice fluttering, assuring the old man by her frailty that he was big in the world. They were squareheads one and all, marking moron time in a gray dream. School over, waiting for the draft and all. Mother clasped her forearms and shook her head once slowly. You got to remember about all these dangerous repressed impulses piling up with nowhere to go, like they say. That's the Youth Board's headache, ain't it? What do we know about adolescent trauma and like that? Blab-blab about the same old bones, and end up chewing them in the same old ways. Then they begin all over again. A freak sideshow all the way to nowhere. Squareheads going around either unconscious or with eyes looking dead from the millennium in the office waiting to retire into limbo. One thing—when he was jockeying a rocket to Mars or maybe firing the pants off Asiatic reds in some steamy gone jungle paradise, he'd forget his punkie origins in teeveeland. Anyway there was no doubt about it when every move he made was a restrained explosion. So he'd waited in his room, and it wasn't easy sweating it out alone waiting for the breakout call from HQ. "Well, dear, if you say so," Mother said, with the old resigned sigh that must make the old man feel like Superman with a beerbelly. "What, son?" his old man said uneasily. He could feel them watching him, waiting; and yet still he didn't answer. "If you wanta walk. He was still laughing as he whoomed the Olds between the pale dead glow of houses and roared up the ramp onto the Freeway. Ahead was the promising glitter of adventure-calling neon, and he looked up at the high skies of night and his eyes sailed the glaring wonders of escape. He strode under a sign reading Public Youth Center No. 947 and walked casually to the reception desk, where a thin man with sergeant's stripes and a pansy haircut looked out of a pile of paperwork.
 The idea of cat and mouse games. From this point on Wayne thinks of his duty in terms of hunting. 
The end of curfew. From this point on Wayne wants to live the rest of his life without curfew.
 The idea that Wayne's end of curfew will mean more trips to the armory. More weapons always.  The idea of cat and mouse games. From this point on Wayne thinks of his duty in terms of hunting. 
The end of curfew. From this point on Wayne wants to live the rest of his life without curfew.  The fear of ending up a counter boy like the corporal. From this point on Wayne does everything he can not to end up like the corporal.  The exciting and scary power of the .38 and the switch blade. From this point on Wayne feels more powerful than ever