[ wp ] Years ago , you made a deal with the Devil to be granted a single wish . All your memories of the deal were then wiped . Years later , your wish is fulfilled and you are about to find out what price your younger self was willing to pay to make it come true .

It's been 33 years, I found the coin on April 2nd 2005 the Year of our Lord. It was old, very old, and I never let anyone else look at it I guarded it jealously, the only thing in my possession that I would n't share with my fellow man. It read in Latin, I think, something about God. What I was sure of is it had power, I never really thought to doubt that fact. I picked it up and knew I could take possession of all the strength of the world. 
 
 Sheri greeted me brightly as I walked into the door of my building, she always did. `` Good Morning and happy New Year, Mister Frank.'' I smiled at her, it was a pretty good morning. April 2nd is how I still thought of it but really I guess it's 1 Gamense 02 in The New Dominion. The naming conventions got away from me in the end, I was n't worried about it. 
 
 I work in a firm called Brighter Futures Inc. Well I say I work there but I'm the heart, soul, lungs, and bones of the company. I do n't manage, I'm not the CEO, I do n't know what the board room looks like. We make the future better for every person on the planet. Well, we made the future better.... It's better we did it, round about 5 years ago we realized that we did n't have much to do. I returned Sheri's greeting and moved to the elevator. 
 
 Climate change is slowing, it's slowing I guess, Math guys tell me the job is done. 
 Middle east calmed way down, extremest still exist but even they are less hard-line about the issues when it comes to others. Isri-Palestine has been settled for 15 years that one disappointed the Left Behind crowd. I smirked as got on the elevator. 
 
 The cartels and really drugs at all were done with 10 years ago. South America's governments were all mostly stabilized that one took longer than the Middle East but maybe that was just practice, maybe they were accepting of the better world we were offering. The UN was n't the neutered bickering organization it was once it had real power. At this point the UN does a lot of the work we used to do here. 
 
 We had renewable power in all major countries, Fossil Fuels had their place still sure but they were n't anywhere near the main power source for the human race. Populations have been stabilizing for nearly a generation that was basically fixed too. The world in short was better, it took 33 years give or take. I walked my way from the elevator into my cozy hallway office. It was n't big but it had a nice sky view, I was after all the best troubleshooter in the organization. 
 
 The brighter future corporation does a lot of work around the world, my office does a solid job of showing off most of the different ways we go about business. 
 
 In one corner I had sitting area and behind it a few bottles of highball scotch, for good days, and one of rotgut whiskey, for bad. I had 3 different rifles on one wall behind a steel cage, with rounds and rounds of ammo and magazines already loaded and ready. 4 pistols of various calibers and configurations sat below them. 
 
 Further back sat my desk with a computer, one of the new holo-deck types next to it sat several very well thumbed through books, a book of basic writing forms, a dictionary, and a thesaurus. Most men in my position of the organization have 1 of those three things, an armory, writing station, or an area to wheel and deal. I, through an unbroken series of successes, had all three. The coin, it pushed me not to power but to try and succeed even at things I should n't have been able to do. I've not known a day of failure or direct misfortune for 33 beautiful years. 
 
 That was over I realized the second I noticed the man sitting in my chair enjoying the view. `` Frank,'' Lucy said. I knew it was him immediately, the details of our deal slamming into my head with the force of a howitzer firing. 
 
 33 years of winning, fighting, and living had left me near unshakable, or maybe stupid. `` So that's it then? The world is a better place.'' I said my voice sounding chipper. 
 
 `` Not just better Frank,'' Lucy stood up and walked past me as he began pouring a drink. `` If I was going to honor that letting of the deal would n't have been made. Right now you'd have had 3 kids, all alive for this date. Your wife would still love you, after not having to get over the death of her child. Right now you'd be thinking of spending time with the youngest and your wife after retiring next year.'' I shivered so hard he paused, my blood had turned cold. 
 
 `` Your short stories and poems would have brought joy to a huge number of people while you were alive and later they'd help mend some fences, with their message of love and togetherness as humanity. Frank you'd have lived a normal prosperous life full of love, and the world would have been better.'' He sipped like it was the scotch the rotgut his eyes a perfect reflection of it's color. 
 
 `` Today marks the intersection, from our deal and your hard work, this is the first date since the apple that humanity is at it's best. Incidentally it's the day you die.'' I gasped but he kept talking. `` Relax, you're dead, but not gone, how would you honor our deal? Frank you know the deal now,'' Lucifer finished the whiskey with a smile, his toothy face eerie it's features to darkened with shadows for the lighting. `` Your ex-wife's heart stopped beating 4 hours ago, a genetic disorder. With that your line has died and our deal stands. We're going to tear this Utopia down.'' He tossed me something small and black toward my bad side, I caught it off handed and looked at it, a twin to mine, but black like it was burned. 
 
 `` Add that to the other one Frank, my boy. You start right now.''
