Walter wanted to be even richer!
He came from wealth. He’d had a chip on his shoulder about that as soon as he became aware that other people knew he did. It was apparent in his schools from how the others treated him. He slowly grew resentful of the fact that people thought he had it easy.
Sure, it’s easy. I’m not starving. I have a home. I have material things, but I’m ostracized.
He brought this up to his father, who had once been poor.
“It’s true. You do have it easier. I worked very hard. You’re always going to be taken care of. Luckily, you’re smart, so hopefully, you can turn it into even more. Do something good with it.”
“But they don’t think I struggle.”
His father crooked his head sideways, “But, well. I mean, you struggle in the sense that whatever you endeavor toward, you try hard. You’re not lazy. But you’re a straight white kid that’s rich. Why are you trying to compete with the other kids in the category of struggle?”
“It’s admirable. Their struggle. I don’t think mine is as admirable.”
“It isn’t. You don’t have an equivalent struggle. Nor does trying to equivocate the struggle you do have help you. In fact, it just makes you look petty. It’s not a competition. You’re a lucky kid. Roll of the dice and you’d have been born somewhere else.”
Briefly, he fantasized being a pauper in his own mind.
“But…”
“But nothing, kid. I’m a veteran. My parents didn’t have shit. My mom was single, a waitress. We were on food stamps. I never got all your toys and video games. I went to war. Maybe you will too one day, but I don’t think you’re going to choose it. Nor would I want you to. But I built something. Made my own fortune and I never want you to struggle the same way.”
Walter heard what his dad was saying, but he couldn’t internalize it. He yearned for a struggle that he could validate against the struggles of his peers. He fantasized about a terrible childhood that didn’t exist. But hell, his dad didn’t even have a temper. He had a charmed childhood. His parents loved him. Summers in France. Grandparents who adored him.
So why was he so mad when they discussed the problems of gender and race and all the isms? Did it mean that anything he could or would accomplish is only underlined by his head start?
He asked his friend Ben at school, who went to the same private school as Walter, but with aid from a scholastic scholarship.
Ben listened and responded thoughtfully, “Your dad is right. It doesn’t undermine the work that you do. You’re just always going to have a few people that believe that what you have is just from having it handed to you.”
“Alright, well, it still bothers me; what do I do about it?”
“I don’t know, man. I don’t think you do anything about it. I think you let it go. I think that you just get really grateful for what you do have, take your lumps because that’s the price, and then get on with whatever the hell it is you want to do. Because you can do whatever you want to do, and for some reason, that bothers you. And I just don’t get that. People hold onto their struggle because it’s what they have and it is damned amazing when they make something out of it, despite it. You don’t have to. You have so much more. Think of all the good you could do.”
Even though there was truth in what Ben said, Walter resented it. And as the years went on he filled that void by making even more from what his father gave him. In his struggle, the way out was through, and then they’d see that based on his own merit, he’d accomplish amazing things.
He took his money and purchased a piece of a company and took credit for the brilliant things that people were doing. Certainly, things would not have been possible without the investment, which the scientists, engineers, and doctors agreed to, but he wanted credit beyond what was given. He wanted to be the progenitor of the idea. The genius of the cause.
He made piles of money. Invested in more companies and grew more fortunes and credits. He started having conversations with experts on every topic. And those things he could glom onto, he would talk about in the public eye. Then he would invest his money and take credit.
But not to worry, he would be a champion of the people! After all, what he did, while helpful to him and his reputation, certainly helped the public at large.
This went on until he was embroiled and counted on as an expert in areas he had no business being a part of. But people assumed that he simply must know what he was talking about because of how successful he was. Politics, transportation, defense.
He had his eye on the prize, believing he had the solution. Believing in his own legend. Walter bought it all, somehow circumventing Monopoly rules each time. Public transportation, utilities, and communication are all under the fold of Walter. Purchasing products from Walterco, the largest online marketplace in the world, shipped by Walterco planes, trains, and trucks.
Half the internet was hosted on Walterco storage and accessed via Walterco telecom.
Eventually grocery, media, everything fell under Walterco.
He purchased a small nation in Southeast Asia and set up shop in what was now called Waltervania.
And yet a rumbling still happened. People did not like Walter. They did not like this upstart tycoon that had come from money, who had never struggled, playing god with the rest of them.
The cracks in the glass were starting to show. As the thing grew and enough projects failed, it became clear that Walter did not, in fact, know what he was talking about, a good deal of the time.
And this made Walter angry.
He was the richest man in the world. He had more control than anyone in the world. No one could oppose his will. He was surrounded by a cult of personality. People that came to believe in and trust any decision he made no matter how right or wrong it was.
Eventually on his sovereign territory, he put out messages to his security. Anyone being seen to criticize his origins, decisions, failures, anything would be imprisoned. The roundup began.
About 10% of the population was put into labor camps. If they were on the wrong side, they could at least be useful.
Walter put out messages of reward for anyone who reported words against him. Eventually word got our and nations criticized Walter.
Walter threatened economic sanctions. And with his vast resources, with almost every nation in his economic debt, he assembled a for-hire military force the likes of which the world had never seen. Within a few months, most political control was ceded to Walter. All purchases made in the new economy were now made with Walterbucks. Eventually, all companies folded in under the Walterco umbrella. Criticism of Walter was punishable everywhere. Schools now explained the greatness of Walter. A review panel was created for every new work and every new media. And since everything was housed on Walterco servers, ensuring conformity was relatively easy.
There was always labor for menial things now that anti-Walter criminals were forced to do the things that no one wanted. Walter robots and Walter AI mostly did the rest.
It was decreed that all resources were, in fact, owned by Walter and that transactions within his economy were simple allowances of the movement of his resources between his people.
And it went on as such until everyone and everything answered to Walter.
One day, Walter called upon his old friend Ben, who was now a doctor in New Waltersburg (formerly New York). He came to Walter’s palace and joined him for dinner.
“Look at all I’ve accomplished.”
“Yeah, man, it’s… it’s really something,” Ben said. “But…”
Walter smiled, quite pleased with himself, “What?”
“Like, where does it end?”
“There’s always more.”
“But couldn’t you have like, I don’t know, cured cancer? Seems like you’re just sitting on top of a pile of money for the hell of it at this point. Scrooge McDuck or some shit.”
Walter became enraged.
“Guards. Take him away. Never did I think a friend would be so disrespectful.”
Ben didn’t protest as he was taken. He looked back at Walter and said, “I stopped respecting you a long time ago. You sent for me. Not like I had a choice.”
“They all have to respect me now, Ben.”
He smiled and yelled back before leaving the room, “They don’t have to respect anything. You only managed this because your daddy gave it to you.”
Walter screamed and sat at his desk. He opened a secret compartment housing a single red button.
He pressed it. His palace began shaking.
The palace went higher and higher. Eventually, he broke orbit, and the main boosters kicked in. His estate shot on a path to Mars, where the terraforming began years ago on his dime.
In the rearview, the blue ball from which he came was on fire, ignited by the millions of detonations from every Walterco facility around the globe, all complete with a sublevel nuclear reactor, ready to blow and finish things off, when Walter said so.
The people he’d been farming on Mars had no knowledge of this past world called Earth and would give him all the credit for what he knew. His struggle for validation would be at an end.
