 At which two ages does the Bureau of Vital Statistics scan a person’s brain?
There should be an epitaph for every man, big or little, but a really grand and special one for Loner Charlie. He touched buttons by the edge of the bed and the illumination quieted to a soft glow, wrapping her in a radiant halo. New York lay quietly below him. It was the hour of indecision when day has not quite made up its mind to leave and night has not yet attacked in force. She would have given herself to any man— His thoughts beat a rapid crescendo, activating emotions, stimulating sensations of angry rage. Buildings were taller, men were healthier, most of the problems of humanity seemed licked, or nearly so. Then the lovers who hunted out and haunted the lonely lanes through the countryside began to remark that the locusts were late that year. A month later the meat animals, the birds and the household pets began dropping as rapidly as the flies which had dropped earlier. Congress was called into special session, as were all of the national governments around the world. The U.N. met at emergency sessions to cope with the situation. The panic which had begun with the death of the animals was quieted somewhat by the fact that humans seemed immune to the pandemic. But the lakes full of dead fish caused a great stink and residents along the coasts began to move inland. Within six months, half of the world's population was gone. Less than a month ago no more than a few thousand people remained in New York. Before the plague the Bureau of Vital Statistics had been one of man's crowning achievements. Housed as it was in a huge metallic globe of a building, it contained computers which kept exact account of every human on earth. Compulsory registration and the classification of each individual by means of the discrete patterns of his brain waves had accomplished for man what no ordinary census could have. Once a year the Bureau issued The Index, an exact accounting of Earth's four billion inhabitants. Four billion names and addresses, compressed into microprint, a tremendous achievement even for the "Proud Era." The average person had little necessity to do so since the Bureau information service would answer questions free of charge at any time. All children had to have a brain-wave recording made by the Bureau during the first month of their life. And again at the age of 10 each child returned to the Bureau for a recheck. It was for this latter recording that Charles had come to the Bureau some twenty-two years before and a friendly guard had let him peep briefly into the computer room.
 The first month of life and again at age 10
 The first month of life and again at age 10  At age 10 and again at age 20  At age 10 and again before death  The first month of life and again before death