Everyone wears a permanent identifying bracelet that interfaces with access points, which act as scanners. Uni uses them to tell "Family members" where they are allowed to go and what they are allowed to do. Around the age of 62, every person is humanely euthanized by Uni with an overdose of the treatment liquids; almost anything in them is poisonous if an excess dose is given. Most people think that old men die of natural causes. Since some die at 61 or 63, no one is too suspicious of the regularity. The few who happen to be resistant to the drugs or purposely change their behavior to avoid strong doses of some of the drugs in the monthly treatment are dealt with by the programmers of UniComp. The long-lived men and women, in their underground hideaway, are the real but invisible world government. They live in absolute luxury and choose their own members through a form of meritocracy. In part, people who choose by evasion and modifying their own behavior to leave the main Family are subtly redirected to "nature preserves" of imperfect life on islands. They, however, have been put in place by the programmers as a place to isolate trouble-making Family members. The top minds in the outcasts are further manipulated into trying to overthrow the "Programmers" and the ones who nearly succeeded are forced to join the programmers to "help them maintain the equilibrium" in the "perfect" world of UniComp and "The Family."