Read Man Who Used the Universe for Free Online

computer if you couldn't gain access to it.
    Loo-Macklin turned down another aisle. No one challenged him. There was only one way into the basement and that was through the multiscreened, security-guarded entrance to the east. If you were in the basement then you had a right to be there, by definition.
    He found the cubicle he wanted, number sixty-three, and inserted the code card. He'd spent months working on that card, just in case someday he might have to use it. He waited patiently for the internal sensors to pattern and process the code. Though he exhibited no outward signs of nervousness, inwardly he was worried.
    The card would probably fool the identification monitor, but not the far more sophisticated security sensors. What they hopefully would not detect was the unique alarm suppressant instructions built into the code. The machine would read the forgery and sound the alarm, but the security circuitry would feed back according to the card's Möbius pattern, cycling over and over on itself. The alarm would go off, all right. It just wouldn't travel any farther than the boundary of the dome.
    Only one person would be alerted by the security system to the fact than an intruder was inside: himself.
    As he entered, the red warning light on the console came to life. His means of concealing this alert from any wandering guards involved far less than the months he'd spent supervising the design of the Möbius circuit for the admittance card. He put a handkerchief over the light.
    Then he took the right-hand chair, activated the console, and fiddled with programming for a while in case some hidden monitor he hadn't detected during his earlier excursions chanced to be focused on him. He learned nothing, since he knew none of the proper call-up codes, but to any casual observer he would have appeared appropriate.
    It didn't matter that the information that was locked in the computer was sealed away from his gaze. He wasn't interested in stealing information, just as he wasn't interested in stealing the codes. Everyone thought that to gain access to computer storage you had to know the right call-up codes. But you didn't have to know the existing codes. They were hard to steal.
    When he was certain he wasn't under surveillance he slid the backpack off his shoulders. It yielded tiny cartridges and long, thin cylinders that looked like black pencils. He touched a few contact switches. Tiny doors and panels obediently sprang open above the console.
    He studied the exposed circuitry intently, then began removing components and replacing them with selected items from his pack. It took him over an hour, not because he was unsure of location or method but because he wanted to ensure no hidden alarms were built into the fabric of the storage bank itself.
    In the event that he missed such an alarm and guards came running down the corridor with guns to see who had illegally entered dome sixty-three, he would use the last device in his pack. It was a small, rectangular blue gadget about the size of a peach pit. Flipped into one of the open panels, it would make an awful mess of the storage bank, not to mention the entire interior of the little dome.
    It would also make an awful mess of himself, but that was a necessary risk.
    However, no one bothered him, no anxious faces showed themselves at either end of the aisle. Five minutes after the hour he'd entered the dome he gathered up his clutch of substituted components and modules, slipped them into the backpack, and left. Once outside the dome he closed the door and removed the forged admit card. There was no alarm, of course, since the dome was now properly sealed and protected. With the removal of the card and its integrated Möbius circuit the alarm system was free to sound once again: only now there was no reason to. No intruder trespassed within range of the alarm.
    Loo-Macklin retraced his steps. Two citizens appeared as he was unlatching the cover to the air conditioning duct.