Chapter Fifty-Four - All That Wealth is Good For

“The Wealth of Nations was an important book that laid out the foundations for the capitalist system. Its economic principles, though simple and still somewhat theoretical, nevertheless enlightened many early economists and thinkers, leading them to the creation of a system we are all well-familiar with. It suggested that the labour of the people was the true wealth of a nation.

The Wealth of Corporations is a similar novel, written by a hyper-networked economic AI in 2032, it lays out the foundations for a post-capitalist society where the labour of the masses is no longer necessary thanks to automation, but their continued survival is still necessary to ensure human prosperity. It suggests that the value of a corporation isn’t its ability to create, nor its capital worth, but rather its intellectual properties and the size of its databases.”

--Thesis on the Wealth of Corporations, 2034

***

Stanley, Meredith and Will stared at me for a while, and it was pretty clear that all three of them were working through some shit, mentally-speaking, as they got to terms with the situation.

“Did you hear that last bit, or should I repeat myself?” I asked.

Meredith shook her head. “I heard,” she said. “You’re... Stray Cat?”

“I am!” I said. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being at least a little happy to be recognized. It was going to save me a lot of time spent explaining things to these three fine specimens. “You know what me being here means, right?” I asked.

“Did you take me out of my room?” Will asked.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” I said. I didn’t want to have to explain to him how he got here.

“My back hurts, what did you do?” he asked.

I glared at him. “What did I literally just say?”

Fortunately, Meredith and Stanley had their heads on straight. Stanley jabbed Will with an elbow. “Shut up, Will, listen to the samurai when she’s threatening you. Uh... this is a threat, right?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to be so overt about it,” I said. “I was more planning to like, imply that there was a threat. Like, hey, look, I can sneak past all of your guards and grab you while you’re sleeping no matter where you are or how safe you’re feeling. That kind of thing. I figured I didn’t need to come out and tell you that this is a threat.”

“We get it,” Meredith said. She squirmed on her sofa, sitting up straighter and tugging her nightgown on straight. “Is there anything in particular that, ah, started all of this?”

“Well, a few things, I think. Mostly people not taking warnings seriously. Then being slow to move when Gomorrah started sending her own brand of message. But I can forgive that, I guess. I wouldn’t listen to an advisory about anything and in your fancy shoes I might also be a bit slow to act. What I can’t forgive is fucking with the wages of the militia when you damned well know that doing that will lead to people quitting, which will lead to others dying.”

“You’re protecting the city, aren’t you?” Will asked. “Do you really need the militia that we’re paying for to protect it too?”

“Yes,” I said simply. “We have two experienced samurai here. Barely-experienced at that. And three noobs. Manic is probably going to be a hard-hitting bitch real soon but the other two will take a long while to ramp up, and that means that there’s just not enough of us to keep everyone safe. And keeping people safe isn’t just about keeping the aliens out. It’s also about keeping this place orderly. We need people to stay calm, we need food and provisions to be distributed fairly, and we need people to keep working to help.”

“You don’t need that last one,” Stanley said.

“Huh?” I asked.

The man sat up and rubbed at his face. “Sorry, nevermind.”

“No, no, do go on,” I insisted.

Stanley looked at Meredith, and I was getting the impression that the two of them were the brains of the operation here. Maybe that meant that Will was the handsome, hairy-legged face?

“You don’t need people to work to keep things... functional. Not in a proper modern city. Half the work people do nowadays is damned near useless,” Stanley said. “We’ve automated almost everything worth doing. It’s just cheaper to throw people at some problems than it is to automate them.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” I said.

He shrugged. Clearly he didn’t give a shit about my opinion on the matter. “Okay, you’ve made your point. Honestly though, Miss Stray Cat, this could have been an email.”

I frowned. Really? “You three don’t seem all that scared about all of this.”

Stanley shrugged again. I was starting to get annoyed by his shrugging so much. “You don’t seem the sort to actually kill us. Also, while this is intimidating, we’re still in our suite.”

“I’m a bit cold,” Will said.

“What time is it, anyway?” Meredith asked.

“Seven thirty, look, there’s a clock on the corner of the TV,” Stanley said.

“Oh, good, I was about to wake up anyway. So I haven’t lost that much sleep.”

I stabbed Void Terminus into Meredith’s coffee table and the tip of the sword rammed right through the wood to lodge there. All three of them jumped. “Could you at least have the common decency to be a little bit scared?” I asked.

“I’m a little scared,” Will said, not sounding scared at all.

“Fuck you, Will,” I said. My sword, hearing its activation phrase, snapped to life, a black slice of space appearing along its edge, the negative pressure sucking at the air in the room. It wasn’t a massively powerful suction, but it was enough to stir the air and it created that wonderfully distinct hissing noise, like a million really pissed off snakes going off all at once.

I pointed the end towards Will and he scrambled back as far as he could go while staying on the couch. “Okay, okay, I’m scared,” he said.

“Damn right,” I said. “Now, all three of you... stop fucking with the running of this city. If you’re not going to make things better the least you can do is stop making things worse. We’re trying to keep everyone alive here, for fuck’s sake.”

I deactivated the sword, then brought it around and slid it into its sheath. Then I ordered up another ‘wake up’ grenade and placed it atop the slim hole I’d punched through the coffee table so it wouldn’t wobble away.

“Use this on those two guards out there. It’ll wake them up. And remember, I’ve warned you once already. I don’t give out two warnings. Next time I’m just taking all of your money and assets and whatever and the lot of you can learn what it’s like being poor. It’s the one experience you can’t pay for.”

My sword finished travelling to the end of its sheath with a satisfying click and I stood tall, nodded to the three, then made a graceful exit before any of them could say anything, or before I could shove my own foot in my mouth and ruin the whole look.

That was well done. I was half expecting you to just kill them.

“Really?” I asked once I was out of the suite. “That’s a bit violent. Not that I’m not violent or anything. I’m cool with murder, obviously, but it feels... I don’t know. They weren’t fighting back. Just kind of slumped there, and it doesn’t feel like they’re a threat. They’re just idiots that happen to be rich.”

That’s an interesting way of looking at it. You could reappropriate their wealth and use it yourself.

“What in the fuck would I do with that?” I asked. “Like sure, being rich sounds awesome, but I’ve never had more than four-figures worth of credits in my entire life. I don’t know how to handle that kind of cash. I could give it to someone who does, but then what if they fuck up? No, I don’t want that kind of responsibility. Just having enough to keep me and mine happy’s good enough for me. Unless you want the credits yourself?”

I don’t. And I’m glad you don’t feel the need to chase wealth either. You’re surprisingly mature at times, Catherine.

I rolled my eyes and pretended not to feel any sort of flushing. Of course, the bitch living in my head could probably like, measure my dopamine levels or whatever. “We’ve got more problems to deal with, right?”

There’s that protest that’s gearing up. The social media feeds of a few of the leaders and instigators suggest that rumours of food shortages have begun to spread. The antithesis haven’t stopped testing the defences yet either.

“Ah, fan-fucking-tastic,” I said. At least I didn’t have to worry too much about the militia falling apart just yet.

***