 Which word best describe Wayne’s worst fear?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962. Wayne, unseen, sneered down from the head of the stairs. They were squareheads one and all, marking moron time in a gray dream. 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. 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. "Thanks, sarge dear," Wayne said and took the elevator up to the Armory. A tired fat corporal with a naked head blinked up at tall Wayne. "Hold your teeth, pop," Wayne said, coolly and slowly lighting a cigarette. It's a big city and you're starting late. You can get a cat, not a mouse, and some babes are clever hellcats in a dark alley." 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. The big stone-walled office, alive with stuffed lion and tiger and gunracks, seemed to grow smaller. It had a head shaped like a grinning bear. If he didn't watch himself he'd begin feeling like a pea among bowling balls. "Wayne Seton," said Captain Jack as if he were discussing something in a bug collection. 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. A blade snicked from the end and stopped an inch from Wayne's nose. "Your beast is primed and waiting at the Four Aces Club on the West Side. A copcar stopped Wayne as he started over the bridge, out of bright respectable neon into the murky westside slum over the river. Wayne waved the pass card, signed by Captain Jack, under the cop's quivering nose. 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.
 Punk
 Gun  Cat  Punk  Red