My life has always been the sum total of my decisions. No more, no less.
One second I was in the bathroom at the tutoring center, zipping up my pants and ready to get back to teaching a bored high schooler who didn’t want to be here how to apply the quadratic formula you just plug the values in for a, b, and c then put it in the calculator and press enter how hard can it be, and next I was standing in the dark, scared, cold, and alone.
I blinked, trying to get my bearings. I felt the ground beneath me and my clothes on my body, but nothing else. Maybe I had fallen asleep and was dreaming? How? I had spent the entire night working on my 143rd, 144th, and 145th job applications this year, and perhaps it had taken a toll on me. There was always some blood in my caffeine system, but maybe I had overdone it this time. Maybe my heart had been beating too fast and I passed out on the tutoring desk. Or had I been drugged? Had one of my coworkers or students dropped a dose of benzodiazapenes into my energy drink? And then forced me into the back of an unmarked van in the middle of the day? How could anyone have gotten away with that? And for what reason? I felt around my neck for a pulse, counting 80 beats per minute. So I probably hadn’t been drugged.
A dim light came on from the ceiling and I looked around. The walls were white and padded, like a room in a psych ward. The wall in front of me had two bulbs, a green one and a red one. A red LED display hung between the bulbs, reading “20”. Aside from the wall adornments, the room was totally empty. 20? In my line of work, I always made sure my students wrote down the units. Numbers mean nothing without context, as irritating math teachers grading their least favorite students loved to point out. 20 what? 20 inches? 20 dogs? I’d ask, pointing to the empty space by the number. Always specify, or you could have points deducted. But this 20 eluded me. Was I being mocked by a vengeful student? Or a colleague? Someone from the past? I had made many enemies in my college years, besting them in math competitions and assessments. Maybe it was a former rival.
It’s got to be a unit of time. It just makes the most sense. Maybe I’d get released in 20 minutes. Or at least get some answers.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” I shouted. I heard a beep. The red light went on for a second and the counter went from 20 to 19. Oh, shit. It wasn’t a timer at all. I wasn’t going to be released in 20 hours, days, or weeks. So 20 must be for questions.
I banged on the walls. “Hey!” No response. “Heyyy!” I continued, smacking on the walls until my palms were blistered. “I know you’re in there and you can hear me! Someone has to hear my questions and operate the lights! Let me out!” Still no response. Maybe another question was in order.
“Is this like 20 Questions? I can only ask yes or no questions?” I asked, putting my ear up to the wall the lights were on. No noise, but the green light flashed twice, and the counter changed to 18, then 17. Should have phrased that better. So I confirmed I was trapped in this chamber, playing a children’s logic game I found, frankly, beneath me.
“Is the object of this…test, to figure out where I am and why I’m here?” The green light flashed. 16. “Once I figure out where I am and why, will I be released?” The green light flashed once, illuminating the room in a comforting hue. 15. Great. It was a test. I spent five days a week preparing others for tests. Of course. I froze in place and held my breath for a second, then broke out into a laugh. This was the same kind of generic, assume-a-spherical-cow scenario I spent all day teaching students how to deal with. The laugh got harder and harder until I was on the floor gasping for breath. Now I’m the one in the hot seat.
What should I ask next? “Am I on Earth?” The green light lit up and I breathed a sigh of relief. 14. “Am I alive?” Green light again. 13. On Earth and alive. Maybe I had just wasted two questions, but I was an avid reader, and knew that “the protagonist is on another planet or in Hell” was a pretty standard, hackneyed twist. And knowing those facts put me at ease. They’ve got to be looking for me. The authorities. I just disappeared in the middle of a session. The whole center’s probably shut down as a crime scene. I just need to hang on and someone will find me.
But how long? I had no food and water with me, and no idea how long I had until I ran out of oxygen. Then a chilling thought occurred to me. Who or whatever put me here, they were able to snatch me from my job and deliver me here in an instant. I wondered about the scale of this entity’s activities. Who or what could do a thing like that? Maybe something that doesn’t have to worry about the authorities at all. “Is the same thing that’s happening to me happening to everyone else in the world?” Red light. 12. I grunted in embarrassment. Of course not everyone else was here. Someone had to run this whole operation. “Is the same thing happening to anyone else?” Green light. 11. It was indeed happening to others. I was terrified, but somewhat relieved. At least I wasn’t alone. Instinctively, I began framing this as a word problem, wondering about percentiles. How many people were in the group, how many had gotten out already? What’s the median time to solve this problem? How many people had failed already?
Failed? What would happen if I ran out of questions and failed? Maybe the lights would just go off entirely and I’d be stuck here to starve or suffocate. Or maybe my captors had something worse in store. The thought crossed my mind that maybe asking 20 questions and getting the counter to 0 was the solution itself, as some kind of twisted test of bravery, but I quickly decided I wouldn’t risk it. After 19 questions, I’d just sit still, be quiet, and try to use as little energy as possible. Wait to be rescued.
I thought carefully. I need to keep track. So I don’t waste my questions. I searched my pockets for a pen, but nothing. Luckily, my nose had always been extremely sensitive to air humidity, and it was a cold time of the year. I should be prone to nosebleeds. Not the most elegant solution, but it would have to do. I dug into the walls of my nose with my fingernails and felt the blood rushing from my nose down my face. I dipped my finger into the pool of blood forming on the floor, and with my makeshift pen, I made a table on the white floor.
“19, Anyone there = N.
18,17, like 20 questions = Y.
16, figure out why = Y.
15, Released when solve = Y.
14, on Earth = Y.
13, alive = Y.
12, happening to everyone = N.
“11, happening to anyone = Y.”
Now, I wanted to know the stakes. “If I used all 20 questions and didn’t figure out where I was, would I be in danger?” I shouted. Green light. “11, danger = Y”. Should have guessed. What defines danger, though? Physical harm? Would taking me back to a memory of my middle school PE teacher berating me for holding a wiffleball bat wrong constitute harm? “Physical harm?” Nothing went on and I sighed. Evidently the designers of this chamber were sticklers for grammar. “If I used all 20 questions and didn’t figure out where I was, would I be physically harmed?” Green light. “10, physical harm = Y.” So that was that.
“Was I put here by humans?” I asked. Green light. “9, humans = y.” Shit. Stupid question. I’m on Earth, alive. More than halfway. 20 questions go by fast. What’s the main reason people do things? Anything? “Was I put here for someone’s monetary gain?” Red light. “8, money = n”. Of course it wasn’t. I could hardly make rent without eating canned pasta sauce 3 days a week. I hadn’t talked to what little family or friends I had in months. For a ransom, I knew I was worth nothing. “I was put here for some ideological reason?” Green light. “7, ideology = y.” Every action’s in service of some ideology, dumbass. Maybe it was some psycho playing judge, jury, and executioner. But what had I done? Justifiably lose my temper at the occasional thick-headed student? “Was I put in here for a morally philosophical reason?” Red light. 6.
“Was I chosen to be here?” Green light. “5, chosen = y.” So I was selected to be here for a reason. I beamed as I wrote this into my table in my own blood. But what? And then it clicked. I’m a math tutor. I scored in the top 5% of my ACT scores. I am a card-carrying member of Mensa. This is a trial. I always knew that talking about sines and cosines couldn’t have been my permanent fate.
I had heard stories of clandestine groups recruiting people with complex, multi-layered puzzles over the internet, like a twisted job interview. This must be one of them! Finally, I was being recognized. After months of job rejections and ghostings, I was getting what I deserved. A government job? No. Something even more all-knowing. A global hacker group. I found myself dancing with joy. “Ha ha! I had cracked their code. “Am I being recruited into a group?” Red light. 4. What? A horrible thought crept into my mind. I used to read books on the history of psychology for fun, and this was reminding me more and more of an experiment that our modern ethical standards would frown on. Skinner boxes, Milgram’s fake electric shocks. Maybe that was what was going on. I had a few final questions, and if I, a living being, had been one of a group of people chosen by humans on earth not for monetary gain or morality, it must be for the advancement of science.
“Am I here as an experiment?” A pause as if thinking, then a green light. 4. My heart sank. But why was I chosen? I thought about the sum total of my life’s actions. If it wasn’t for my intellect, the only other things people had to say about me were never pleasant. I thought to my report cards, performance reviews.
What parameters could they be looking for, what variables to measure? “Am I here to see the average amount of questions it takes to escape the chamber?” Red light. 3. “Am I here to see how long people linger in the chamber before using all their questions?” Red light. 2. I wasn’t even a data point. Just an observation.
”Am I here just to see what would happen, what questions would be asked if someone was placed in this situation?” I asked sadly. Green light. 1. I wasn’t a special candidate. I was a defective lab rat, who the world would either pass into obscurity or dispose of soon in one way or another. I had resolved to save my last question, but red light or green light, the answer wouldn’t matter one bit.
”was I chosen because no one would miss me?”
Green light, 0. Then darkness. I heard the click of a door opening in one corner of the chamber, but I found I didn’t want to leave.