The Manager stood up and faced him. He was much larger and wider than she was, but she met his glare with an impassive expression. She said, "What you were told was that all of your questions would be handled appropriately. This is not appropriate."

"Why not?" he interrupted her. "Tell me!" He put his large ham-shaped hands down on the table between them and leaned way forward. He looked like he was used to bullying his way to results. He was a hulking mountain of flesh, and the way he leaned, he looked like he was threatening her.

It didn't work. The Course Manager was unbending. She could have been looking at a recalcitrant child. "This isn't the time," she said. "You agreed to follow the instructions, didn't you? Your instructions for this morning were to enter the room and take your seat. Have you done that?"

"But nothing's happening-!" His technique wasn't working. He looked frustrated.

She looked at him blankly. "Are you going to keep your agreement and follow the instructions?"

"I want to know what the delay is!" He was getting loud and belligerent. Every trainee in the room was watching.

I had to admire the Manager's composure. She remained unruffled by the man's anger. She said, "All of this was explained yesterday. The session doesn't begin until everybody is in his seat. There are thirteen seats empty. One of them is yours. You are the delay."

The big man looked angrier. I could see his fists clenching. But he didn't know what to say. It was as if he could already see all of the answers he might be given. There was nothing for him to do but return to his seat.

He exhaled loudly, scowled in annoyance, shook his head and shrugged as if to say, "You can't fight these tyrants," then turned and headed back toward his empty chair. He clumped loudly and resentfully all the way. The gesture said it all: "Fuck you too." He sat down with a righteous expression and folded his arms across his chest.

Then, for a while, nothing happened. We sat and waited.

We got bored.

And after we were through being bored, we got angry. We sat and stewed. We glared at the assistants-and each other. We hated the ones who hadn't shown up yet, who were keeping us waiting for them.

I wanted to get up and protest, but I didn't. I was afraid to.

There were other people sitting in the room who were afraid, too. I turned around in my chair and looked. Some of the people wouldn't meet my eyes.

One woman was crying quietly. She was weeping into her hands. Nobody went to her aid.

I started hating the assistants. And then I was bored again.

And then, suddenly, I realized something! I knew what was going on! This was a test! We were supposed to sit here and wait. We were supposed to discover something in the waiting.

I began to pay attention. I started looking around to see what everybody else was doing. I wasn't the only one. There were a couple of other trainees looking around with iriterest. They recognized me and smiled. I-grinned back. We'd figured it out! This was about the way we waited!

Somebody started giggling. Pretty soon, the whole room was laughing. I looked back at the Course Manager. She was sitting stony-faced. Or was she? She covered her mouth with one hand, and coughed, then turned to face the wall.

As the giggling began to die away, one of the doors opened and six of the missing trainees were ushered into the room. Two assistants led them to their seats.

A moment later, Foreman strode into the room. He came straight up the aisle opposite me and stepped onto the dais. Today he was wearing a copper-colored tunic and slacks. "Good morning," he said. He looked at his watch. "It is ten forty-five. We are starting an hour and forty-five minutes late. The instructions were that no session would start until everyone was in their seats. There are six of you still missing. Forty-two of you were late this morning. That's forty-eight people who didn't keep their word, almost one out of ten! That's the integrity of this group! Ten percent of the time you can't be trusted! And you wonder why you don't produce results?"

He was angry. Or was it a performance? I wasn't sure. He stepped off the dais and strode straight back to speak to the Course Manager. They conferred quietly together for a few minutes, then he came back to the dais and looked us over again.

"So, you're probably wondering about your missing six members. It's this simple. They're out of the program. They quit when they didn't show up this morning. They failed the test. They're untrainable. Their commitment to failure is larger than their commitment to success.

"There are no grades here. There's no right way, there's no wrong way to do this course. The only way to fail is to not show up. Show up, and no matter what happens, you automatically succeed. It's like life. The only way to fail it is to be dead.

"So we asked you to make a commitment to be here and in your seat, on time, every day for six weeks. And each of you gave your word. This is how you kept it. One out of ten of you can't be trusted. This is not an impressive start.

"I want to demonstrate something," he said. He looked around the group as if he were looking for someone. "Who were the people who were late this morning'? Would you stand up please?"

About thirty people stood up.

"There were forty-two people who were not in their chairs at nine A.M. If you were not in your chair as you agreed to be, would you stand up please?"

A few more people stood up, then another and another. Finally, forty-two people were standing at their places.

"Good, thank you." Foreman circled the dais, looking them over. "Would you come up here please? And you? And you? Stand in a line please." One of those he picked was the large red-faced man who had made such a scene with the Course Manager, another was one of the gray-haired colonels who never stopped talking.

"The rest of you can sit down please. Thank you. Now, before we do this, I want all of you to know that it could be any of you up here. I'm going to ask them some questions. I want you, in your seats, to look at your own answers to these questions."

Foreman turned to the line of trainees. They looked nervous. "Can you keep your word?" he asked them.

They looked uncertain. Should they answer?

Foreman started at one end of the line. It was the chatterbox gray-haired colonel. He asked her, "Can you keep your word?"

She said, "Yes, I keep my word all the time."

"That's bullshit. You didn't keep your word this morning. You weren't in your seat at nine A.M. No, the evidence is that you don't keep your word. What I want to know is if you're able to keep your word. Are you?"

She hesitated, then nodded.

Foreman looked at her. "That's what you'd like me to believe, isn't it? Well, we'll find out in a minute." He looked to the back of the room, and signaled to the Course Manager. "Would you bring me the integrity tester please?"

The Course Manager came up the aisle carrying a flat wooden box. Foreman opened it and took out a deadly-looking black .45 caliber service revolver. "Can you all see this?" he asked, holding it over his head. He circled the dais, so everybody could get a look at the gun. The overhead screens zoomed in for a close-up. Out of sudden curiosity, I looked for the cameras. They were mounted behind glass slits at the top of the walls.

I turned back to Foreman. He was pointing the gun at the gray-haired colonel.

"If I pulled this trigger, would you die?"

She couldn't take her eyes off the gun. "It's not loaded," she said. "You're just trying to scare me."

"I'm not trying," said Foreman. "Really." He turned away from her and faced the distant wall of the room. He stepped forward and took a stance. He spread his legs slightly and gripped the gun in both hands, raised it high and aimed for the farthest corner. He squinted and pulled the trigger. The gun popped like a cannon! The bullet spanged off the ceiling, thwocked off the wall, spattered a small explosion of plaster and dust, and then clattered to the shiny hardwood floor. The sound of the shot still echoed back and forth across the room.