The Weapon - Lex - part 29
By Diana the Valkyrie
Follow the money
Update: 13/11/2003 to valkyrie05



"Cute Chicken," I said. "I've heard of them." She watched me while I thought.
"Right, I remember now. Herbie found that they're the financial backing behind
this case. They guaranteed to pay the legal fees in case the lawsuit failed."
She nodded.

I thought some more. "So did you get him the job with Cute Chicken?" She
nodded again, watching me. Herbie thinks that she might be able to read minds.
That's nonsense, of course. But I did feel like I was being x-rayed.

"You have some connection with Cute Chicken?" I asked her straight out. She
nodded again, still watching me.

I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I remembered what happens to people
who uncover a conspiracy, I remembered the easiest way to silence people. She
laughed, and the cold shiver turned into an icy blast. "Don't be silly, Kate.
I don't do that."

So I thought, there wouldn't be much I could do about it even if she did.
Someone who can extinguish a star, isn't going to have any trouble
extinguishing me. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "So what's your
connection with Cute Chicken?" "I own it," she said.

I felt dizzy, like a puppy running in circles. "Wait. Wait. So you sued
yourself?" She nodded again. "That's insane! Why?" She smiled, and waited.
"OK, OK, let me see if I can guess. You knew the guarantee to the lawyers
wouldn't actually be needed, because you knew that you wouldn't fight the
case." She smiled and nodded. "So the five billion you pay, you pay to
yourself. There is no five billion, never was, it's a book transaction."

She didn't nod. She waited.

"No, wait, that can't be right, there's friction losses. The plaintiffs get a
chunk, so does the law firm, it isn't zero sum. So where does the money come
from?"

She was hovering a couple of feet off the ground in a seated lotus position.
She looked like a goddess, even though she wasn't wearing her wings right now.

"OK, the money comes from somewhere, so it must come from the porn company,
right?" She smiled. "You own them, so they pay you, you pay the law firm, they
pay the plaintiffs and Humanity Holdings, Humanity Holdings puts the money
back in Cute Chicken, so they don't lose much. No, wait, that doesn't make
sense either, you just lost 11% of the five billion while it went in a
circle."

She waited a bit. I couldn't think what all this was accomplishing. "Not quite
a circle," she said. "Not quite? What do you mean?" "Humanity Holdings," she
said. I looked baffled.

"It stops at Humanity Holdings."

"But why," I asked.

"They fund Humanity First." "The people who were demonstrating against you out
side the courtroom?" "Yes." "Wait, let me get this straight. You created this
whole convoluted chain so that you could get four billion dollars to Humanity
First? The people who hate you?"

She nodded.

"Herbie said that you're alien, and you don't think like we do. If any human
had done this, we'd call them insane."

"No," she said, "not when you understand why."

"OK, why?"

She pointed to Frank. Frank is Herbie's dog, when Herbie moved in with me, we
had to get Frank over here too. I mean, you can't just abandon your dog. I
understand that. They love you, they trust you, they need you, they're
dependent on you.

"Frank," she said. At the sound of his name, his head came up. "Come here,
Frank." He obediently trotted over to us. She gave him a biscuit, and said
"Basket." Frank took his biscuit over to his basket, and ate it there.

"That's why," she said.

I looked at the dog. I looked at Wendy. I scratched my head, then shook it.
"You're going to have to lay this out for me, I'm not good at riddles."

"He's totally dependent on us for food, drink, grooming, exercise, everything.
He does everything we tell him to, there's no independence. He couldn't hunt
for his own food even if he had to, he doesn't know how."

"And?"

"Humanity did that to wolves, in fifty thousand years. You changed them into a
totally dependent species. Wolves to pups."

I looked at Frank, happily chewing on his biscuit. "So? He's a lot happier
than most wolves, I bet."

She looked at the dog, too. "Yes, I'm sure he is. Everything is taken care of
for him, there's no danger, no possibility of him starving, no disease. He
chases squirrels, but wouldn't know what to do if he ever caught one. Kate, in
fifty thousand years, I could turn you into pets too."

I forgot the dog, and stared at Wendy. "You wouldn't!"

"Kate, I said 'could', not 'would'. But you don't know how tempting it is for
me. I could, I could ... no, it's better that I don't tell you. But, you want
to colonise Mars? I could carry you there and supply the colony. You want to
eradicate disease? Reform criminals? Stamp out dangerous drugs?"

I nodded, "Yes, that would be good."

"Exactly," she said.

I frowned.

"And humanity becomes a dependent species," she said.

"Not just like that," I argued.

"No. It would take at least fifty thousand years," she replied. "But some
people can become dependent very quickly. It happened to me a little while
ago. Simon died because he became so dependent on me, he didn't bother to take
care of himself. He froze to death in the snow because he believed I'd keep
him warm."

I thought about that. I certainly would be very tempting to just let Wendy
take care of everything.

"And it's very tempting for me to take care of everything," she said, "so
that's why a group like 'Humanity First' is so important."

I thought about this. "And you don't want anyone to know you're funding them."

"Right. It would sort of defeat the whole purpose, don't you think?"

"So you concocted this elaborate shell game ..."

She smiled. "It worked, though. Didn't it."

And that's the fourth layer. The one that no-one is supposed to know about.
The one that protects us not just from external disasters, not just from
ourselves - she even protects us from Wendy herself.

"Changing the subject," she said.

I came out of my reverie, and looked across at her. "Herbie's asleep, and
he'll stay asleep until the morning," she said. "Would you like to go flying?"

"Er ... I don't know."

"Silly of me," she said, "of course you don't know, you've never tried it.
Would you like to try it?"