The man stepped into the elevator. He set his briefcase down on the floor and cleared his throat.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here today”, he said in a businesslike tone. The twenty or so people in the elevator ignored him. Pranksters never die, they thought. Hasn’t that joke been played a million times?

“Excuse me”, he said more loudly. “Are you all listening?”. No one glanced at him. He picked up his briefcase, calmly opened it, and picked up a small handgun. The elevator fell silent.

“Now are you listening?” he asked. No one spoke; they stood quietly, staring at him. “Good. Now, then. To business”. He clicked the gun in place and a few people gasped. He turned around and shot the “Up” button on the elevator. It stopped moving.

“I would estimate we have roughly 2 or 3 hours in here before they manage to fix that. It should be plenty of time. Please listen calmly to what I am going to tell you, and kindly keep in mind that I have more than enough bullets in this briefcase to kill you all several times over, and absolutely no qualms with doing so”.

A woman shakily raised her hand. He nodded towards her.

“You may speak”.

“Sir…wouldn’t you be caught, if you shot us? People will come down here eventually”.

“Of course not. How could the police ever tell who shot whom? There would not be enough evidence to convict, particularly if I planted the fingerprints of one of you onto the gun and briefcase. However, let’s avoid the court case and cooperate, shall we?”. He smiled at her menacingly, with unblinking green eyes that sent a clear message for her to be quiet or suffer a bullet to the neck.

“Now, then. Listen up. My name is none of your concern, but my title is assassin. I have been hired to kill you all. You may let that sink in for a moment.”. He paused. Everyone stood there, concern and fear laced through their faces.

“I’m sure you’re all wondering, who? Why? What have I done? Who is it that wants me dead? Unfortunately, that I cannot tell you. I am informed of precious few things myself, and thus do not know many of the answers. If I were you, I would not waste the few hours you have left with asking”.

“Now, your next questions. Why here, in an elevator? How did I know you would all be grouped here together? And I why am I telling you this at all? Would it not have been easier and less risky to simply shoot you in your sleep? Well, I knew you would all be here because this building and your destination thereof is in direct correlation with why you are all being killed. There are others, of course; you are merely the tip of the iceberg. As I speak, assassins are hunting down hundreds of other people exactly like you.”

“Now, why am I telling you all this? Here, now, is where you will want to pay close attention. I am telling you all of this because some of you may not die”. People immediately snapped to attention, surprised and curious.

“Aha, yes. I thought that might intrigue you. You see, the reason people are being killed is not because of any sort of prejudice or grudge my employer has. In fact, my employer is not who you might think. He – or should I say, they – know none of you personally. The reason you are being hunted down is because of none other than your intellect. Your IQ. Did I say hundreds of people are being hunted down?”

“What I meant was millions”. The curiosity and hope was erased from the people’s faces, and replaced with pure terror. It was obvious that no one in the elevator thought they were intelligent enough to survive. The man dug through his briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers and box of pencils. He handed out one to each person.

“Your first question is this: Why are people being hunted for low intellect?”.

Somebody raised their hand.

“I think-“ he began to answer. The man walked up to him and calmly shot him in the chest. He crumpled to the floor noiselessly, dead.

“Continue”, he said as though nothing of consequence had happened. Several people stared at the bloody corpse, aghast, before quickly proceeding to write down their answer. They handed the paper to him, one by one. He shuffled through them, and selected three sheets. Everyone’s eyes widened in fear. He nonchalantly prepared his gun and shot three people straight through the head. Two of them fell as noiselessly as the first, but one squirmed in pain as he died. The man walked over and shot him a second time. He fell silent.

“You were all incorrect except for two of you”, he informed the crowd. “Now, your next question is this: Who is my employer?”.

It took longer to collect the answers this time. People were busy thinking over what they’d said, how they’d said it, how it might sound to an assassin, and what he could possibly be looking for in the answers. Slowly, people walked up and handed him the paper. Only one person looked confident in their response. Every other face in the elevator was wracked with fear.

The man looked through the papers again, and smiled approvingly.

“Congratulations. This time, 8 of you were correct, and all of you move on to the next question”. A few people sighed in relief, but most everyone kept the fear etched on their faces.

“Next question. Be warned: This is the question that most people die upon answering”.

“Who personally edited the book, Jeta juaj, gënjeshtrat e tua?”.

Everyone stared at him. What language was that title? What did it mean? What country was it written it? How on earth was anyone in a typical American city supposed to know the author of such a book, let alone the editor? Precious few people in the country could name any book editor.

“Come on, now. Everyone turns in a paper. Write down your answer.”. Slowly, painfully, people began to write. Some people wrote “I don’t know”. Others took random guesses based on what little they knew about book publishers, authors, and editors. Others x’d out the paper, put down a question mark, or simply turned in a blank sheet.

The man looked at the papers, shaking his head.

“How sad. How very, very sad.”. He carefully selected two pieces of paper and placed them beside him. He then began to shoot people. One by one, bodies collapsed to the ground, until only two people remained standing.

“I suppose congratulations are in order to you two. You have passed the test.”. The people remaining tried to smile, but the smell of dead bodies was overwhelming in the small, confined room. The man pressed the emergency button, and the elevator began to rise again. It opened up to the ground floor, where two men stood waiting.

“These two have passed the test?” one asked.

“Indeed they have”. He handed them the stack of papers and a VHS tape. The men stepped aside to let them pass.

“I suppose you deserve an explanation of exactly how and why you won. With the first and second questions, I was looking for two things. The first was merely good form and confidence. Those who began their answers with ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’ were annihilated. Only those who gave a clear, blanket statement moved on. Secondly, I wanted an answer that made sense”.

“The correct answers were that the government had hired me to kill people because the planet is becoming by far overpopulated and overrun with idiots, and so we are taking measures to wipe out those who bring nothing useful to the planet. You two both answered very close to the correct answer. You didn’t have to, of course. I only wanted an answer that made sense. I needed to know that you were generally aware of your surroundings. I needed to know that you understood enough of this world to provide an answer that is not only possible, but probable.”.

“The third question was the killer, because most people did not try. Nearly everybody except for you two turned in a sheet of paper without even a guess on it. One of you wrote down the name of an editor you knew. That was sufficient to save your life. But you, sir, wrote down exactly what I was looking for.” He pointed at one of the two.

“Me? But I just wrote-”

“ ‘An editor’. Yes, I know. Brilliant. You see, the questions were not trivia. Jeta juaj, gënjeshtrat e tua is not even a real book; it is a made-up title in a language almost nobody here speaks. They were tests of common sense. Tests of cleverness. Designed specifically to eliminate the idiots, the ignorant, the closed minded, the weak minded. Anyone can pass these tests, but not everyone will. And those who refuse to pass the test because of their own mental limitations will be the ones to die.”

Suddenly, one of the boys slammed his hand down on the desk beside him.

“That’s horrible! Have you any idea how cruel that is, how sick and inhumane? People can’t help the way they are; do you honestly believe they should die for it?”.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. Overpopulation is rampant, as you know. If some people do not die, everyone will. This is not a game we’re playing; this is not for fun, this is not because we believe some folks are superior to others. It is not a question of who deserves a life, because clearly everybody deserves one. It is a question of this: some people must die. Either we kill them or nature does. Who should those people be? It is cruel, I agree. But that’s the way it is”.

“And what now? What do we do now? Just go home and watch people die? How many are you planning to kill, anyways?”.

“At least fifty million. 10% of the population.”.

“Families will be torn apart. Friends will be separated. Suicides will be commited. Chaos will break out. Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”.

The man stood silent, staring at him. He pulled out a black box and muttered a few words into it.

“I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do. I’m not in charge here. Some way or another, 50 million people are going to die. I can’t stop it. I have, however, cleared your name completely. You and your brother may go now”.

The boy stared at him disgustedly for a moment, then left, biting back tears. His brother followed him out. As they got home, they held each other and wept for what once was America.