The Right Thing

Saturday started like any other day for Fred. Well other than the fact that this was his first Saturday off in god knew how long. Work at the factory in his hometown had ramped up over the last year. In order to make paying bills more bearable, he was picking up as much of the overtime they would offer.

“Good morning Tito,” Fred said as he reached down to pet his cat on his way to the kitchen to get his morning coffee before he went about getting the checklist of things he needed doing today. Tito just meowed back in his usual fashion. Obviously, he was doing fine. He was a cat.

Fred grabbed a scoop of food for Tito as he grabbed his coffee from the counter and sat down with his phone to read today’s news. He used to read the paper in the mornings but this was just easier and it was all at your fingertips. The only downside was the reading glasses.

God I’m getting old he thought to himself. 40 wasn’t really that old but years at the factory had him feeling that way and the glasses didn’t help.

As Fred was scrolling through the morning news, his phone vibrated in his hand, letting him know of the text he just received. That’s weird he thought to himself. He usually didn’t get texts at 6 in the morning. He flipped over his phone and there was a message, from a number he didn’t recognize.

Probably one of those weight loss things, he thought. That’s the last time I search diets on google.

Feeling curious he opened his phone and read:

Are you always tired?

Feeling older than you should?

Could you use some help paying those bills at the end of the month?

If this applies to you, answer with a simple Y.

“Damn Tito,” Fred said aloud. “The ads are starting to get creepily accurate.” And with a chuckle, he typed in the letter Y and hit the send button.

Before he could flip back over to his morning news, he got an automated reply.

9241 Pennington Street

Floor 31

Fred was about ¾ of a cup of coffee from being able to process all of this but he knew that address was right on the edge of the city, which he happened to be going into today.

“What the hell Tito,” Fred said to his cat, still chomping away at his morning meal. “That just so happens to be on my route today. I might as well stop in. Maybe our luck is about to change little buddy.”

“Meow.” Chimed back Tito, licking his mouth.

“Hey don’t be like that bud,” said Fred feigning insult, “You never know. It could happen.”

Fred swore he saw Tito roll his eyes at him. He chuckled again, sipped the rest of his coffee, and headed upstairs to get dressed.

The best thing about this Saturday off was that the weather was quite wonderful. Barely a cloud in the blue sky and a nice 75 degrees. Fred drove into the city with his windows down and a smile on his face.

He decided to save the address from the weird text message from this morning until he was ready to head back home. The last thing he needed was his mood being brought down. Fred went about his afternoon checking the things on his list and three hours later he stood on the sidewalk in front of one of the largest buildings in the city with his phone in his hand. He walked into the doors and to the elevator and pressed 31 on the wall.

Must be a pretty nice outfit to have a whole floor to themselves, he thought to himself.

After what seemed like no time at all, the bell dinged and the doors pulled open, and what Frank saw before him confused him to no end.

As the elevator opened, he was greeted by something he didn’t expect to see. A wide-open area. No offices. No desks. No nothing. Just a single table about 50 feet in front of him. Everything in his body was telling him to just wait for the doors to close and press the lobby button and go home to Tito. But he had made it this far and no one was around so why not? Frank strolled forward towards the desk in the middle of the floor and he didn’t have to look around to see clearly that no one was here. And it seemed it had been that way for quite some time. As he got to the table, there was one lone object on the table. A notebook-sized, black journal.

Fred reached down to pick the journal up. Strangely, this and the table were the only things in the room that didn’t have dust on them. Now Fred wasn’t a man to get startled easily, but on the front page of the journal was just one sentence. Written in the fanciest hand-writing he had ever seen.

Check your bank account

Just when Fred was about to let out a laugh that would have echoed in the empty room, his phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket and there on the screen was a message that made him forget about the laugh and made his knees weak. A wire transfer of 20,000 dollars had just been deposited into his account.

Obviously, this must be some kind of mistake, Fred thought to himself. After getting over his initial shock, he turned over the page in the journal.

Spend the money and record it in the journal.

Do not omit anything.

You have 48 hours starting now.

At that moment, written on the top of the page, a timer started. Fred could have sworn it was digital the way it was counting down, but as he looked closer, the timer was actually written into the page and somehow was changing numbers before his very eyes. As crazy as this all seemed to him, Fred was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he had come here to make his life better. Fred pulled out his phone and dialed work. He was going to need another couple of days off.

“Fred has taken the bait ma’am,” number 243 announced. “He’s on the phone with his employer now, taking the next two days off and discussing the fact that it may be more permanent.”

“Thank you 243,” said Miss Cuthright.

Patricia Cuthright had always been better with numbers than she had been with names. She had assigned numbers to all of those below her because that was just easier than trying to learn all their names. In all her years of doing this, not one single person had done the right thing. She was earnestly hoping for a different outcome.

She spun around to the other side of the room. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought you were on Wall Street. But then again, here, the bet on lives.

“Let the betting begin!” she roared over the mass of people below.

Here at The Association, they tested people. The age-old question of what would you do if you fell into a large amount of money. They picked people at random, placed bets on what they would spend it on, and then held a trial for that person to decide whether they did the right thing or not. Not once had anyone done the right thing. At least not while she had been here. At the end of the trial when the subject was inevitably found guilty, the person who had won the most bets, got to pick what kind of punishment the subject received. Death. It was always death. So, for 48 hours the subject could lift some weight off their shoulders and then met their end. That’s the way it went.

00:00:03

00:00:02

00:00:01

00:00:00……

Fred watched as the timer counted down in the journal. He still didn’t understand how that one worked. But, regardless, he had paid of some bills, traded in his truck and got a nicer one, put a little money in the stock market and was still able to put back $5,000 into his bank account as a rainy-day fund. A lot of weight had been lifted off his shoulders these past 48 hours.

While Fred was pondering all of this in his head the sound of his doorbell brought his back into focus.

“Wonder who that could be so late at night Tito,” he said to his cat who was resting in his brand-new luxury cat house digesting the new and improved diet that Frank was able to afford now.

Fred walked to the front door and unbolted the lock and opened it up. There he was met with a black hood and suddenly his body felt like jelly and his vision faded to black as he passed out.

Fred awoke to the sound of hushed voices all around him and suddenly light as the hood was ripped off his head. When his vision cleared, there were hundreds of people around him and in front was something you only see in those futuristic movies. An oversized wall with 12 men and women seated at the top of it, their faces hidden in the shadows.

“Frederick Mitchum Lancaster, you have been brought before this council for judgment over your actions of the last 48 hours,” came a booming woman's voice from the middle of the judge’s bench. “For the last 178 years, we have been testing subjects such as yourself to see if they would do the right thing when presented with an opportunity such as the one given to you, or if they would be selfish and act only in their own self-interest. Unfortunately, like almost all that have come before, your actions represent the latter. Every dollar you spent on yourself and you even stowed away what was left over and not once thought to better someone else’s life. We have no choice but to find you guilty. Number 1287, please come forward.”

From the crowd of people around him, Fred saw a man step down from the masses and into the center in front of the judges.

“1287, with the most bets won, you have won the opportunity to decide the fate of Mr. Lancaster,’ the same booming voice said. “What is your decision?

Epilogue

Patricia stepped into the elevator and pressed 31 on the row of numbers in front of her. No matter what city or town, no matter what building, she always went to floor 31. Someone in the higher ups must be attached to that number.

As the doors opened up, she sighed. She had real hope for Fred. He was one of the most promising candidates they had had for some time. Alas, he was another disappointment in the end. She strolled forward within the empty office space in front of her and to the empty desk and placed the black journal she was carrying on top of it. It had been a few weeks since they had tested Fred so another candidate had been sent down to them from above. The journal was the final piece before they could begin. In all her years, she hadn’t figured out how it worked. It had zero tech in it. Just a plain black journal. Maybe she didn’t want to know.

As she stepped back into the elevator, she silently hoped the next candidate would be better. It had been 35 years since someone had done what The Association deemed the “right thing” with the journal. She should know best after all.

“Happy 35th workaversary to me.” she said as the elevator doors closed.