You too can be a Millionaire

Name: You too can be a Millionaire
Author: Noel Loomis

"You Too Can Be a Millionaire" by Noel Loomis is a satirical science fiction story set in the year 2021, depicting a dystopian society where all human activity has been reduced to a bizarre point-exchange economy administered by a massive automated machine called Central Audit Bureau. The world Loomis constructs is one in which automation has eliminated all meaningful work. Citizens spend their days collecting points by filing claims against one another for minor injuries, slights, and insults, while simultaneously losing points by signing the claims of others. The system originated from the insurance industry of the twentieth century, which grew so elaborate and all-encompassing that the government eventually absorbed and mechanized it entirely. Now Central Audit Bureau, a vast machine stretching for miles, processes millions of daily transactions while a small hidden corps of human workers maintains it in secret. The general population knows nothing of these workers and assumes the machine runs entirely on its own. The protagonist, Mark Renner, is a young man who has fallen deeply into deficit because he cannot bring himself to care about the point system. He finds the endless cycle of collecting and losing points utterly meaningless, and his apathy has put him thousands of points in the red. He is being tracked by a government agent named Conley, a tall, distinctive man who monitors citizens whose accounts fall dangerously out of balance. While fleeing Conley, Mark stumbles into an encounter with an elderly woman named Penelope, who operates a wheelchair confidence scheme, deliberately placing her foot in the paths of passersby and then loudly claiming injury to extract large point settlements. She spots the rebellious intelligence in Mark and invites him into her world. She explains to him the history of how the point society developed, tracing it from early insurance practices through escalating litigation to the eventual government takeover that replaced money, employment, and commerce with the current arrangement. Food, clothing, and housing are all provided automatically. Nobody works. Nobody creates anything. The only activity available is the manipulation of the point system itself. Penelope becomes Mark's mentor, teaching him the tricks of the trade passed down from a legendary operator called Point-a-Minute Charlie, who had once accumulated a credit balance of ninety-eight thousand points before mysteriously disappearing. She agrees to hold Mark's thirty-five thousand point release slip temporarily while he builds up his balance, taking twenty percent of his earnings as her fee. Mark proves to be a natural. He rapidly develops increasingly sophisticated schemes, from false claims of being snubbed by acquaintances, to staged falls with skinned knees, to an elaborate performance involving a painted fake injury on his back that he uses to extract fifty thousand points from a nervous bystander. He then systematically harvests additional points from witnesses to that incident, tracking them down and filing claims for their reactions. His balance climbs past one hundred thousand points and he announces his ambition to reach one million. This ambition triggers the story's resolution. Conley appears at Penelope's apartment and explains that the Central Audit Bureau's machines cannot process six-figure credit balances without malfunction, creating a built-in enforcement mechanism. Whenever a citizen accumulates over one hundred thousand points, the machine alerts the human corps inside Central, and an agent retrieves that citizen. Penelope attempts to rescue Mark by submitting his old thirty-five thousand point slip against her own account, but this only pushes her balance over one hundred thousand as well, and Conley informs her she must come with him too. The story's twist is that being taken into Central is not a punishment at all. The hidden human workers who maintain Central are recruited precisely from those citizens who demonstrate the energy, ambition, and rebellious creativity to game the point system so aggressively. The apathetic majority would be useless for this work. Inside Central, there is real employment, four hours a day five days a week, with promotions and bonuses for those who show promise. There is also real food, including beefsteak, a luxury entirely unavailable to the outside population subsisting on synthetic rations from automated vendors. Mark and Penelope are overjoyed. Conley also reveals that one clever citizen has apparently deduced the pattern and deliberately manages his balance to stay just under the threshold, periodically giving away enormous sums, including Mark's own fifty thousand point windfall, to avoid recruitment into Central. This detail casts an ironic light on the entire preceding action and closes the story on a note of wry humor. Penelope, ever the businesswoman, immediately calculates her twenty percent commission on Mark's total earnings and asks him to sign her slip one final time before they both report to their new lives inside the machine.

By Noel Loomis · First published 1957 · Genre: Science Fiction, Satirical Fiction, Dystopian Fiction · 7,396 words

First lines

Mark Renner looked anxiously backward as he ran up the street to the place where the faded gold lettering on one window said "Jewelry. " That would be a good place to hide, he thought. Most of the plate-glass windows and doors along the street were broken out as in fact they were everywhere, and had been for twenty years -- but one of the jewelry windows and the door, protected by iron grating, were still whole and would help to conceal him.

With one final glance back at the corner, he climbed the grating, scuttled across it, and dropped down. Then, keeping low, he ducked in among the dusty old counters and stopped abruptly, listening.

What this Textopian page supports

You too can be a Millionaire is listed on Textopian as a short story by Noel Loomis, dated 1957 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Work type: Short story
Author: Noel Loomis
Date: 1957 CE
Language: English
Genres: Science Fiction, Satirical Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Social Commentary, Speculative Fiction
Length: 7,396 words
Structure: 1 section, 159 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Work identity for You too can be a Millionaire by Noel Loomis
Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres

Science Fiction — The story is set in a futuristic dystopian society (2021) with advanced automation, a points-based economy managed by machines, and Central Audit Bureau as a centralized computational system governing society.
Satirical Fiction — The narrative employs heavy satire to critique bureaucratic systems, consumerism, insurance industries, and automation, using dark humor to expose the absurdity of a society where accumulating points becomes the primary goal of human existence.
Dystopian Fiction — The work presents a bleak future where human autonomy is eliminated, work is abolished, entertainment is nonexistent, and society is controlled by an impersonal machine-based government that reduces human experience to point accumulation.
Social Commentary — The narrative provides sharp commentary on economic systems, corporate control, the dehumanizing effects of automation, the evolution of insurance into oppressive bureaucracy, and the loss of meaningful purpose in modern society.