Vol. 3 Chap. 95 Still Hungry

Vol. 3 Chap. 95 Still Hungry

I haven’t thought of people around me as being real people for a long while now. That seems unhealthy.

Truth watched the sun wink through the leaves of the brilliantly colored tree above him.

It encourages a certain way of thinking. Of approaching problems. And I have to figure, since everything I have done I did because it seemed like a good idea or the best option, I must be picking cards from a stacked deck.

>This chapter made its debut appearance via N0v3lB1n.

Just a few small problems with the idea.

>

Changing how the whole world thinks. Limiting the imagination of a whole world. All of it. Siphios and every other country he ever fought with, all the other companies, all the other Level Eights and were there really never any locally grown Level Nine’s? Because even with this planet being, apparently, a complete backwater, we did still have natural treasures and divinely blessed places and things. Really nobody else made it to the peak of Level Nine?

>

Let’s go back to that library. When did Starbrite reach this planet?

There was a long pause.

>

Because I never learned it?

>

Six months- Oil of Lilly Verdsang (2% concentration or higher, up to 4%,) and check paths for wear and tear. Annual- strip down and clean with pure ethanol, retrace major paths with Number Four diamond tip rasp, fine brush minor paths, re-oil-

>

But this must be public information, right? It’s the most powerful corporation in the world. It’s headed by the most powerful mages too, probably.

>

But it had to start somewhere. He arrived here at some point. Which means that there was a time pre-Starbrite. And records of that time exist. Hell, we know the student attendance records of a mage six hundred years ago. How can we not find out when Starbrite arrived?

They all looked pretty samey and dull, but when you got right down to it, the romance novels, thrillers and spy stories he liked were pretty samey too. The same few stories, over and over, each author bringing a little variation, their own special sauce, to the book. Bringing their own prejudices and assumptions. Writing to meet changing market conditions. Nothing new under the sun.

But all human invention was like that, right? It was the almighty power of jank. You took two things that you knew worked and mashed ‘em together and made something that kind of worked, and then you took that and refined, and refined, and refined until you had an actual usable thing. Nobody ever invented a spell wagon without other people figuring out both wagons and demon binding first.

Some people, young, angry, some middle aged, came bolting out of an alley, waving signs.

“Free Jeon!”

“Affordable housing now!”

“Punish thieves!”

The chants lacked a degree of polish, Truth felt, and lacked punch. They were good enough for Internal Security, apparently, as random passers by suddenly turned and snapped out charms. The charms rapidly expanded into wide curtains, screening the protest from the street and muffling the sound. Some of the cops went behind the curtain. Others stood in front, glaring at anyone who dared look over.

Pretty standard, from what Truth remembered. Maybe a few more Internal Security on the street. That reaction seemed very fast. Like they were waiting. Wonder how many informers were in that little group of civic minded citizens.

Nobody liked being an informer, he imagined. Not a safe feeling. But you had to be realistic. You had to look out for yourself and your family.

Also “free Jeon, affordable housing, and punishing thieves” had to be some of the most inoffensive, generic slogans he could imagine. Why not just storm out with blank signs and let people imagine their own slogans? That would at least be funny. Was that really the best they could come up with?

Truth slowly came to a stop. Yes. It was the best they could come up with. He could imagine better slogans. A practiced propagandist would definitely come up with something better. But the basic things they were asking for was probably as far as they could imagine. They were about as far as he could imagine too. Wasn’t he pushing the same messages when he scattered propaganda?

Free Jeon. Sure. Who were you freeing it from? Be specific, because there was a serious lack of occupying soldiers on the street. Affordable housing? Does that mean building more apartments or what? How else do you keep prices down, and for that matter, how do you make sure they are affordable? Punish thieves... because that wasn’t already being done? It was, though. Of course it was. But it wasn’t burglary they wanted punished.

The rats were trying to find out where the food had gone, and why their nests were rotten, and they couldn’t see a damn thing. They hadn’t climbed. They hadn’t even looked up. They didn’t have the words to explain what they felt, or the concepts to explain why things were the way they were. They couldn’t even explain what was, let alone what should be.

They wanted to live like humans. They were scared they wouldn’t be able to live at all.

Truth started laughing, making a sad, broken noise. These little rats were like him. Stuck in the walls of the “real world” and not able to even imagine an alternative. He wasn’t the only one who felt that pressing unreality. The protestors were rebelling against their blocking, against the masks they had to wear and the scripts they had been handed. But they didn’t have anything else to work with. It was all they knew. That blue cloth and spotlight were the sky, and had to be the sky, because without it they would be lost in a nightmare of uncertainty.

Well. He could help there. He might not see the alternatives, but as a born gangster, a thug, a murderous criminal living by extortion, violence and abuse of social convention, as a complete scumbag slumrat, he did have one relevant piece of insight. The great dream, in fact, of denizens everywhere.

Truth dashed into the mob of secret policemen, the Tongue flicking out and silently taking lives. They were bare Level One’s, supervised by a Level Two. They never even saw what hit them. They were all dead before the first one hit the ground. Truth started throwing the bodies around the street, dropping them in front of cars, groups of people, the queue by the bus stop. Once he was sure everyone was good and agitated, he slammed energy into Incisive and yelled-

“EAT THE RICH. YOU HUNGRY? EAT THE RICH.”