The clocked ticked away past the 2AM mark. Tori Seer was crunching numbers on a spreadsheet. The increasing tendency of media to focus on sensationalist stories had long sense removed any sense of credibility. The schools were more and more focused on prepping children for work in corporations that had fewer and fewer jobs to offer. Anti-intellectualism was rising. More and more power was consolidating in fewer hands. People who were buying there own land was becoming more and more rare, but land prices were paradoxically going up. It had been bugging her for awhile. The problems were well known, but there was something deeper than that. Something had been bugging her about it. It wasn’t business as usual in history.
She looked out the window. It was dark out. It felt like it had been ages since she had begun working on this problem. It felt like the answer was on the tip of her tongue. She blinked, and repeated what she had just though to herself, “It’s dark out. It’s feels like ages since I’ve started working on this.” She blinked, saying the words out loud, she slammed her hands on the desk in front of her, “DARK AGES! THAT’S IT!” She shuffled through her papers, and started clicking away, comparing numbers, “Just before the dark ages, there was a sharp uptick in land purchases by the wealthy… land prices skyrocketed, and those who didn’t own land spiriled into debt. Instead of taking out their frustrations out on the rich who caused their problem, the rich diverted their attention to the intellectuals who were the greatest threat to their power. They blamed people from other countries, calling them barbarians, while they dismantled the Roman Empire. It was only a short time before the Roman Empire collapsed in on itself, causing the dark ages. We’re in a nearly-identical situation! That’s it! THAT’S what has been bugging me about the numbers!”
She let out an ecstatic sigh, and then slowly focused forward, “Wait… we’re near the dawn of a second dark age… That’s… not good… I have to do something…”
She sat back down and started scanning through her numbers, “I need to find what will actually trigger the collapse, and head it off at the pass.”
She called for a delivery of coffee, and doubled-down late into the night.
— — —
Two days later, Tori Seer woke, her cheek in a pool of her own saliva. She rubbed her mouth, and then eyes, and then winces as her saliva got in her eyes. She shook her head, clearing the cobwebs. The last few days were a blur. Spreadsheets were printed out, highlighted, papers connected together by strings, some were pinned to the ceiling. She gazed at them in only half-aware reflection… she knew she had figured out something, something big, but she couldn’t remember… she started following the strings.
The housing crisis… that was caused by what? By changes in legislation. Who caused it? It was funded by corporations… but who made that decision in the corporations? They didn’t record that.
The student loan crisis… what was caused by what? By changes in legislation. Who caused it? It was funded by a different corporation… but who made that decision?
The repression.. caused by what? By changes in legislation. Who caused it? It was funded by yet another corporation… but again… who made that decision?
The violent-wing of the Incel movement… caused by what? By dissatisfaction from unemployment. Yet another corporation, yet another question.
She followed the trails, the strings. There were several dozen like it… disasters, traced to corporations, with an unknown person spearheading it. Each time, affecting things negatively across the nation for everyone, making things harder and harder.
She followed the strings more… each lead to the opposite wall… each listed voting shareholders for their respective corporations, some short, some long. Each one had names scratched out all over… but there was only one name that was on all of them… a name circled in bright red marker…
Lord Orange
This one man was responsible for the collapsing of the nation, but who was he? His details were there too. He was an immigrant from a foreign noble family. Centuries ago, during the French Revolution, a noble family were left. Oddly, their family crest was hard to find. They had hidden it, but on an obscure corner of wikileaks, she had found it… their family motto…
“Contro il popolo, non il popolo, si oppongono al popolo”
or in English
“Against the people, not of the people, oppose the people”
And it clicked, he was trying to tear everything down, destroy anything that let the common people be considered on his level.
She had to warn the world.
Link to Chapter 2 coming soon…
