Young lovers sip ice-cream sodas at the downtown drug store.
But a change has occurred in your world, though you do not yet see its effects. The downtown is being gradually sucked dry by the encircling octopus. A passionate young man, he put down his catcher's mit and picked up a rifle. With the price of blood paid in endless gallons, material wealth was the recompense. Already the escalating price of matter is demanding greater payments from spirit.