 What idea is introduced during the armory scene that becomes a motif throughout the rest of the story?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962. They were squareheads one and all, marking moron time in a gray dream. You got to remember about all these dangerous repressed impulses piling up with nowhere to go, like they say. What do we know about adolescent trauma and like that? Squareheads going around either unconscious or with eyes looking dead from the millennium in the office waiting to retire into limbo. 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. "If you wanta walk. 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. Draft call." "Go to the Armory and check out whatever your lusting little heart desires. "Thanks, sarge dear," Wayne said and took the elevator up to the Armory. Finally he said, "So make up your mind, bud. It's a big city and you're starting late. "A corporal with no hair and still a counterboy. And throw in a Skelly switchblade for kicks—the six-inch disguised job with the double springs." He checked them on a receipt ledger, while Wayne examined the weapons, broke open the revolver, twirled the cylinder and pushed cartridges into the waiting chamber. He slung the holster under his left armpit and tested the spring clip release several times, feeling the way the serrated butt dropped into his wet palm. Captain Jack moved massively. The big stone-walled office, alive with stuffed lion and tiger and gunracks, seemed to grow smaller. His legs seemed sheathed in lead as he bit inwardly at shrinking fear the way a dog snaps at a wound. They kept a guy on the fire until desire leaped in him, ran and billowed and roared until his brain was filled with it. "Your beast is primed and waiting at the Four Aces Club on the West Side. He turned off into a rat's warren of the inferiors. Wayne's fearful exhilaration increased as he cruised with bated breath through the dark mazes of streets and rickety tenements crawling with the shadows of mysterious promise.
 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