Chapter 15

“We’re much closer to the end now, I think. All of the murderers shot. Death by firing squad. Very fitting indeed. Most murders are conducted by firearms, more than anything else, I believe. How many dead from that?” I asked Dad, who looked at the data, though I could have just found out on my own.

Still ... it gave him useful work to do ... and built up the suspense, did it not?

“Surprisingly, twice as many or so as the rapists and pedos. It seems that murder really is a basic crime. Anyone can do it, just as John Travolta said the film ‘Basic.’ We brought the numbers by about thirteen million now. We’re at roughly eight-hundred forty-six millions now.

“That still leaves arsonists, embezzlers, junk bondsmen, extortionists, racketeers, inside traders, cat burglars, armed robbers, blackmailers, home invaders, con artists, etc. What do we do with them? That’s probably a sizable chunk of the remaining population, in fact. Wow, we’re really taking out the trash, aren’t we?” Dad continued down the list of crimes and criminals with remarkable efficiency.

“And tyrants, war criminals, warlords, terrorists,” I noted, wanting rid of all that scum from my future utopian society.

“Fair enough. No one would miss that sort, to put it mildly,” Dad agreed, even as Aunt Tessa and Mom kept swapping laps between him and me.

“Alright, tell the truth here ... I want honesty ... no, I demand it!” I insisted now, “Any arsonists, embezzlers, junk bondsmen, extortionists, racketeers, inside traders, cat burglars, armed robbers, blackmailers, con artists, home invaders, that sort of scum around here? Hands in the air!”

Roughly ten to twenty million people threw up their hands, all of them in mortal terror for their safety after witnessing the fates of the murderers, rapists, etc. They had reason to be, of course. I was a hard-ass when it came to certain crimes in particular and they could see that now. They just didn’t know which crimes those might be and they also had no ability to omit or withhold such information from me, even literally to save their own lives.

“My count ... seventeen million, son,” Mom informed me now.

“So, remove those ... and we’re down to eight-hundred twenty-nine millions. Bring them forward, and take all the molten gold that I called for earlier. If you know your history, you know what to do,” I gave very specific instructions to Laura and those in her security service.

She was the top cop in the world now, after all, and she was chillingly efficient at it. That was particularly true of the executions, of course. Again, one should point out that this was a final judgment for the entire population of Planet Earth and I had to determine who was fit to continue in the new social order that I built for sentient civilization. One bloodbath early on could save millions of lives over time and lots of trouble for humanity later. It would also tell the whole damn world that I meant business. Sure, there would be those who resented me for my role in this, but in my present mood, my attitude was best summarized by the Latin inscription: oderint dim metuant.

“Let them hate, so long as they fear.”

When posterity lived in a glorious new era created and established by yours truly and my many confederates, a world where the general welfare of humanity overrode priggishness, religious superstition, and extreme avarice that motivated active oppression of the downtrodden, who would care, as Jaime Lannister asked Olenna Tyrell, how we organized and instituted said world? I was determined to do the unthinkable: bring even the powerful and hitherto quite unaccountable robber barons and captains of industry to heel. If I had to emulate the cruelty of the Parthians with the notoriously greedy Crassus, so be it.

As the saying goes, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

I watched in fascination as Laura and her team, now serving double-time as police as well as executioners, pinched several noses, forcing mouths wide open now. The condemned inevitably gasped for air and Laura and her comrades poured the hot, molten gold down their throats. Their screams were now as ever muffled, but everyone pitied them nonetheless. It was a truly horrid way to die after all.

And it couldn’t happen to nicer folks ... not at all.