“Your value is implied.”
“And likely far-reaching given your status. But it would be difficult to extrapolate.”
That didn’t help.
“Death is as necessary to competitive growth as life,” an Ank said.
“That’s fine, as long as it’s not people dying,” I replied.
“Sometimes that is exactly what is required by the market. If a person is overvalued they should either be adjusted or eliminated so that someone more appropriate may take their place.”
I blinked a few times. I didn’t talk to the Ank a lot, but:
“What the crap!”
“You do the same yourself when you remove undesirables to the Royal Wing, as it is called. That is what the Boards do, but they do it with everything on Belvaille.”
“And they are always correct. Every man has his value.”
“Too true,” the other Ank replied.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand everything they spouted, but it seemed clear they weren’t going to adjust their omniscient Board prices.
“We do have concerns over the recent candidates,” an Ank said.
I looked around, waiting for 19-10 to appear out of nothingness.
“I think maybe you guys should stay out of politics,” I replied hastily.
“We had warned you that certain politicians were detrimental to the health of the market. Their activity—”
“As well as your own recent activity.”
“Has caused the Boards to respond in their current manner. Much to your consternation, it seems. The markets dislike doubt.”
“So, you’re saying I should have not allowed Hong, and people like that, to run for office? Physically stopped him? Yet you won’t walk thirty feet outside, take a piece of chalk and change the Boards, even though doing so would have exactly the same results?”
“The Boards merely respond to, anticipate—”
“Aggregate, and display events. They aren’t events themselves.”
“Sure they are! People can’t buy food, that’s a thing. It’s a real life happening!” I yelled.
“As the market demands.”
I blew a lot of calories by throwing up my arms in frustration.
“So what do you want me to do? How do we fix the Boards?”
“The Boards are inherently correct—”
“You said that, already. But let’s pretend they aren’t. How do we get them back to the old correct when people and businesses and the city could actually function?”
“You must reassure the market. Belvaille and its denizens are less valuable today because everyone believes they are less valuable.”
I couldn’t speak Ank apparently.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Make it valuable again.”
I realized I didn’t know how to do that. But I knew people who might be able to help.
CHAPTER 40
“What the crap is this?” I asked.
I was surrounded by humble, obsequious prisoners of the Royal Wing who had just handed me the outline for their new laws. They stood on stacks of building materials, and clung to pipes and their makeshift homes so they could get a better view of me.
I had a hope that if anyone could help me make Belvaille “valuable” again, it would be these guys. They had a true outsider’s perspective and could tell me what was good about the city and what was good about society in general. Then I could propose doing that on Belvaille.
But they had given me one full page. And it was only a full page because they had written it in large type. Presumably so they wouldn’t tax my failing eyesight.
If I could sum up the handful of laws it would be: “don’t be a meanie-face.”
“Those are our laws,” Uulath, the mayor of Royal Wing, stated nervously. “That’s what we came up with.”
“These aren’t laws. You can’t follow this. Don’t you guys know what laws are? How is anyone ever going to know if you broke the law? This is all subjective.”
Uulath got cautiously annoyed.
“We already had laws. You told us to make new ones,” he said.
“Well,” I said, “let me see your old laws. Maybe we could start from there.”
“I didn’t… they weren’t really written down,” Uulath stammered, looking around at his fellow prisoners.
“How did you know what they were, then?”
“I said you were my inspiration. I kind of made them up as necessary,” Uulath replied.
The people around us grumbled loudly, like a whole lot of engines had lost a whole lot of teeth on their gears.
No wonder everyone hated me. I’d been doing what Uulath did for decades.
I crumpled up the paper.
“Well, this won’t do. You need to write some better laws. Way better,” I said.
“We’re not judges, Kommilaire,” one prisoner complained. He was a bald man, thin and dirty. He was a former slaver as I recall.
“If we knew laws we wouldn’t be here,” another added. The one who said it was a young man who had screwed over the wrong gang and when he went to trial, they threw him in here, even though his crimes were insubstantial.
“Give us an example! A hint at least,” Uulath pleaded.
All the prisoners grew deathly quiet and leaned forward. I couldn’t leave them with nothing. Not after I had planted this hope in them.
“Uh… don’t, like, kill other people… unless they, like, tried to kill you first… and even then, like, if you killing them back might hurt other people, not… involved, then, like… don’t do it.”
Man, writing laws was hard.
The prisoners started repeating it religiously. Scribbling it on the ground. On scraps of paper.
“Don’t, like, kill other people!”
“Might, like, hurt other people!”
“Take out the ‘likes’ and pauses and make it sound good,” I warned. “This is your Constitution.”
“What’s a Constitution?” Uulath asked.
“I don’t know, just write similar stuff. But more. And better. That’s just me talking. You guys got time to think this through.”
“Should there be one about taking other people’s buckets?” a man asked me, raising his hand. He had a puckered old face and his mouth seemed to sink almost to his throat as he breathed.
“I don’t know. I mean, stealing probably. If that’s a big thing for you guys,” I said uncertainly.
“What about lying about taking someone’s bucket?” another man asked, scowling at the first man.
“Is it okay to kill someone if they killed a member of your family?”
“What if you’re in a gang war? People used to kill each other all the time. Are gang wars against the Constitution?”
“What if someone is going to steal from you and you can’t stop them unless you kill them? Or if you don’t know that you might hurt someone else, because they’re maybe hiding in a garbage can.”
Alright, I was done.
Valia had been right. These were not the people to make a utopian society. And I was obviously not going to be Hank the Lawbringer.
“You guys need to work this out for yourselves. As a group,” I rambled. “I’ll be back and evaluate your progress.”
I felt like I should at least reward them for trying. I could see they were giving it thought. Just sociopathic, criminal, get-me-out-of-Royal Wing thought.
“Is there anything you all need?” I asked Uulath.
“Well, since I can’t reward anyone with wives anymore. Could you bring some new mattresses? A comfortable bed is as good as being a monarch here.”
“Sure,” I said.
The prisoners were all debating and arguing loudly. They’d probably start killing each other soon.
It was presumably still legal since the law hadn’t been codified yet.
CHAPTER 41