Chapter Fifty-Four – All That Wealth is Good For

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.”

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“That doesn’t sound right,” I said.