Death Drive

Chapter 18

"Enjoying your ride?"

The smug voice in the speakers woke Lucas from his daze. He carefully lifted his head which he had been covering with his arms to block sight. The windshield was covered in blood, the light that filtered through coloring everything crimson. A tuft of dark hair was stuck to the hood in a reddish-brown blotch. He closed his eyes again and covered his mouth to keep his breakfast down.

"I wouldn't get carsick if I were you. I'd assume all the car washes are closed for today," the familiar voice went on in an exaggeratedly casual tone.

"Routh," he whined. "Why?"

"Why did I purge the bottom of humanity? Isn't it obvious? To save the world, of course."

Lucas tried to tell him he was out of his mind but gagged again.

He went on: "I mean I had never really thought about how much they were weighing me—and everybody else­—down, not before AMI showed me."

"Showed you?" he asked between deep breaths.

"Yes. My Worth Score was astronomical compared to theirs, yet when they formed a herd large enough – say, a nation, for example – I still had to bow to their wishes, no matter how uninformed they were. That is like saying a swarm of flies has the right to tell the eagle what to do. And then AMI showed me how things could be, with rules made by the worthy, for the worthy, and all the resources at their disposal. It really opened my eyes. Imagine: a nation of geniuses, of hard workers, of my chosen, all guided by the providence of Amun-Ra. A heaven on Earth!"

"More like your personal, egoistical fantasy," he murmured, then tried to add some strength to his voice: "It could have been a heaven for everyone, but you just wanted more power than you already had!"

His shaky attempts at indignation were outshined by the blaze of the CEOs furious outburst: "There is no such thing as 'heaven for everyone'. Just look at what the Power to the People -movement has accomplished: when the many finally got their wish without anyone being capable of holding them back, they immediately dug their teeth to their betters' necks and started to suck them dry. Universal basic income! Equality of outcome! Taxation and welfare to eliminate differences in wealth! Anyone striving upwards soon gets dragged down by their hungry, jealous hands, back to their comfortable, warm pigsty where they can loll unchallenged until their last breath. Can't you see? Their heaven is my hell!"

"Hell is what you deserve after what you've done," he retorted.

"I hoped you would understand, I really did," the voice in the speakers continued, now calm. "You studied the system closer than anyone; for the others, it was just another job. For you, it was something larger than life itself. You know what it can accomplish, you understand how it can maximize anyone's worth to the larger whole. So, when it shows that there are people who bring others down by their existence, people who chain others to pull the cart they are unable to pull themselves, benefitting from their slavery, you know that to be the truth, no matter how many speeches of 'to each according to their need' you hear. When it showed me what I could be, what this nation could be, I knew I had to act."

Lucas was caught unawares as the car made a quick turn, and he struck his head to the window of the driver's door. Tears welled in his eyes. "You won't get away with this."

"The upper echelon of this country begs to differ. Once I showed others the simulations, they understood. They were disgusted how they were stopped from becoming the best, the worthiest they could be by people calling themselves the real victims, the oppressed. And when I showed them how things could be, many burst in tears, telling me they had never even dreamed such beauty. Former politicians, business leaders, legal authorities, military officials, they've all taken up my cause, persuaded by the sweet affirmations of utopia by the Intelligence. You're alone."