Chapter 16

As the titans of industry, the really harmful ones, also experienced hot, molten gold poured down their throats, I naturally felt that the lesson was much more absorbed. It was hard for too many people to feel too much empathy for these scoundrels, and to the extent that they did so, for any of the scum that I judged, well ... I rid them of it. Empathy was good, lack of empathy bad, but one shouldn’t let it cloud one’s judgment, of course.

“That leaves oppressive leaders, according to my definition, that is,” I smirked as I watched the crew scrape the flesh of various infamous robber barons off the gold and gather it for reuse.

“That last group was very small, yet I drew more satisfaction from their deaths than any others,” Laura confessed to me now with a kiss and a grin.

“Well, that’s because the robber baron types oppress us all. So do these guys,” I pointed to the warlords, political leaders, etc., “they need to go as well. Guillotines in their case. It seems rather ... revolutionary, don’t you think?”

“We forgot pirates, sir,” Laura reminded me.

“Yes, pirates first, and while you’re doing that, set up the guillotines for the tyrants as well. Tyrants, warlords, etc. Pirates to be hanged, of course. Good, old-fashioned gallows for them,” I directed the Commissar of Police, Peacekeeping, and Security ... who was also one of my wives.

Laura was my enforcer, more than anyone else. She carried out my more ruthless directives and that was good. She was extremely effective and efficient at what she did. She was very pretty and could be very sweet when so inclined, but when she needed to be, she could be absolutely vicious. She was my little vixen, short, lovely ... and dangerous. Laura Van Pham was my not-so-secret weapon now. She was now famous for enforcing my will and imposing it on the world for me.

That was a long way in about a week from organizing a raid on Dad’s house on the orders of the President, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of the FBI. Well, all of those were ... former positions now, former bosses of her, and now she would dispatch them for me. I would decide their doom ... and she would carry it out.

After that, I would remove the worries, pain, sadness, guilty consciences, or anything else from everyone involved from myself to Laura to everyone else who even witnessed this much death and destruction. It was divine justice, righteous judgment, it had been relatively swift and merciful, all things considered, and it didn’t involve an eternity of fire, brimstone, darkness, and worms. I was not a sadist. I didn’t want suffering for its own sake, even if a more savage part of me enjoyed the punishment of the most despicable folks.

I simply wanted a world free from pirates, robber barons, warlords, mullahs, bishops, cardinals, Popes, child molesters, priests (oops did I repeat myself there?), terrorists, and other such scum. This could be my greatest contribution yet. This was the price of utopia, the lives of these vermin in human flesh, but that was a sacrifice that I was willing to make. The polluters, for example, were a sort of human peace offering on the altar of Gaia, after all. May She be appeased by that!

“We’re down to the last luminaries to be judged after that. The celebrities, my King,” Queen Tessa reminded me now.

“Yes, yes, the celebrities. As for these ... regular folks ... and the others who were already judged and found innocent of any serious crimes ... let them watch, but let no harm come to them. Soon enough, we’ll send them right back home, wake the sleepers from their slumber, and begin society afresh, free of the baggage, tomfoolery, and skullduggery of the past. I’ve always wanted to find a context in which to use such old-fashioned words,” I told my Queen with a deep tongue kiss.

“The pirates are dead. The politicians and others of that ilk are losing their heads as we speak. You’re really gonna rid us of any feelings of guilt or anything of that sort, you say?” Mom asked me now.

“Yes, of course. Look, to quote John Milton from Devil’s Advocate, ‘Guilt is like a bag of fucking bricks. All you gotta do is set it down.’ Or in this case, I’ll set it down for you. It’s good to feel compassion and empathy, yes. Stil, one shouldn’t wring one’s hands forever over the fates of the sort of people who would foreclose a house when the stock market got out of hand and they wouldn’t even try to work with the evicted families. Or the people in government who would bail out entire industries, but balk at the slightest help for the working poor, because it was too costly. Where was that concern over fiscal discipline when you bailed out GM, AIG, Lehman Brothers, etc.?

“The sort of people who preyed on students with college loans. The sort of insurance companies who constantly raised their premiums and then blamed the Government for it. The sort of pharmaceutical firms that jacked up insulins and inhalers well above what people could afford. That sort of thing. The Government was guilty, too, in refusing to adopt more sensible student finance policies, at least like those of Australia. There you didn’t have to repay until you made forty grand and even then there was no interest charged.