Off The Pages

Jericho Torvalds awoke from a nap as the pilot got on the intercom and told of their arrival. He stretched and unbuckled his safety belt. Lately, the journey across the nation had seen him collect well over a hundred of the best superpowers. At first, he’d only suspected that certain types of abilities would be useful, but as he enhanced his own mind, he began to see outside his usual perspective. Radical changes had been made to his stock portfolio in the past few days to ensure he had plenty of liquidity for immediate offers. While it was true that it only took a few million to set up the kinds of arrangements he offered, as he began to perceive more, he would likely be collecting more abilities. If there was one truth in the world, it was that rich people hated to spend more money than they had to.

“Miss,” he said to the woman greeting him at the bottom of the staircase off the plane, “is my vehicle ready?”

“Right this way, sir,” she cheerily said, leading him over to the parked car. “Although, I must say, I’m a bit surprised. A Ford Taurus, as requested.”

“I’d normally request a higher-end car,” he admitted, “but to where I’m going, I don’t want to look like I’m showing off.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Of course.”

They approached the parked car, and she handed him the keys. As he slid inside the driver’s seat, he looked up at her. “Keep the jet gassed up,” he instructed. “I never know when I might need to take off.”

After starting, he connected his phone to the Bluetooth and set his classical music playlist on random. Then he loaded the next addresses into the GPS and drove off. Saint Louis had a ridiculous amount of road construction, and it took him almost twenty minutes longer than he otherwise would have taken. He’d seen it before, but seeing it again always bewildered him. Outside of the major cities, he saw an endless sea of part time existentialist hell. There did not seem to be a museum in sight, scarcely a local music hall, and maybe only one local little theater. Culture ceased to exist outside of the urban centers. Rural and suburban parts of the country seemed to exist only to serve the cycle of, get born, go to school, work to buy trinkets and food, then die. Real jobs seemed almost non-existent, and those that existed held entire towns up by the weight of a single industry, and when those left, towns rotted from the inside out.

The visible decay of East Saint Louis, Illinois was visible from afar. As he drove into the town, he saw buildings left to literally rot and crumble, and piles of bricks left abandoned where homes used to be. Businesses that once were stood boarded up and with broken windows with signs left faded in the sunlight from the early nineteen fifties. As history showed, he knew, white people had fled these cities shortly after World War II, and when they left, they took industry and job opportunity with them. Racists blamed towns like this on the color of the skin of their majority inhabitants; even Jericho, hated by the far left and pilloried by centrist liberals alike, knew better. There was no gene for tendency to commit crime, it was as simple as ABC. People who had more jobs and more money did fewer crimes. People could criticize his Libertarianism, and he would be glad to have those discussions, but he would not argue the racial issues with racists.

After five minutes of driving and taking in the endless examples of human suffering on display thanks to a devastated local economy and endless inescapable poverty, he arrived at an apartment building. He parked his car in the lot and got out. He knew the expensive suit he wore drew attention, and he knew he had painted a target on himself. It all fit into his plan. The language of the legal system and government was plausible deniability. If they saw where he went, and he always had eyes on him, they couldn’t accuse him of sneaking around.

“Excuse me,” he said, to an elderly black man sitting in a chair at the building’s entrance. Jericho looked around and saw the usual graffiti and broken windows, but it looked better maintained than a lot of the places in a town some folks would call a “ghetto.”

The old man looked up and stroked the white stubble on his chin. “What you want?” The man asked. This fool was liable to get shot, waltzing in with a get up like that. In all his years, he’d seldom seen people who didn’t seem to know better like this kid.

“I was wondering if a Demarcus Edwardson is in,” Jericho inquired. “I have business with him.”

“What kinda business?” the old man asked.

“If you’re worried about violence,” Jericho reassured, “I can tell you that isn’t it.”

“Heh!” The old man’s scoff of a laugh came out ragged. “Scrawny white boy like you ain’t never fired a gun or stuck someone with a knife in his life.” A half-sneer drew itself on his face. “They’re on the second floor, eighth from the stairs.”

“Thank you,” Jericho said, pulling a twenty from his pocket and handing it to the man as he walked past. He’d accomplished one more goal: his arrival being known to at least one person on the premises other than his targets. Up the stairs, where the scent seemed a mixture between marijuana and disease, he saw the cracks in the concrete of the wall and turned, walking down the hall until two of his powers showed him his targets.

He knocked on the door.

“Who’s there?” a harsh female voice cried out.

“My name is Jericho Torvalds,” Jericho replied. “I’m here to offer your son a business transaction.”

“Ha, that’s a good one,” the woman replied. “Some wall street billionaire I see on TV badmouthing the working man is standing opposite my door. Right.”

“I assure you,” Jericho retorted, “that I’m the real deal. I mean, the amount of money I’m prepared to offer your son is something I know you won’t be able to ignore, given your current financial situation.” He paused a moment. “And I also I’m unarmed, whereas you have a gun.”

He heard a pistol cock. “Alright,” she said, “you can come in. You don’t make no false moves! Okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. The door creaked open. She stood well outside his reach and backed up with each step he took. He saw the lines on her face, aged by the years of struggle just to survive and the hopelessness of poverty drawn around her cheeks and eyes.

Aged or not, her eyes wore an expression of fight-or-flight. She held the gun at chest height, pointed at the center of his torso, finger less than an inch from the trigger. She sat down next to her son, a twenty-something black youth, a scar on his neck. “You got three minutes, you hear?” she commanded.

“I won’t need three whole minutes,” he said. “I believe in making it simple. You, Mister Edwardson, have a power. I want to copy it and give you a lot of money. Your power isn’t affected at all. You don’t have to lose it, it’s not weakened, nothing. Literally all that happens is, I shake your hand, you get paid, the end.”

The woman did not take her eyes or the gun off Jericho. Demarcus thought about the offer. “Tell me, rich man,” he said. “Why do this for us? Why do us a favor?”

Jericho gave a grin. “I’m not doing you a favor,” he admitted. “I’m an objectivist, I don’t believe in favors. You have a power I want, I have money, which you want, what’s there to say?”

“How much?”

“The important question,” Jericho replied. He pulled from his suit jacket a manilla envelope with several pages in it. “I will set up a series of investments in your name that will net you roughly one hundred thousand dollars a year for the rest of your life. All you have to do is leave it alone and collect a check. In exchange, I shake your hand, and copy your power.”

“Alright,” Demarcus said. “But how can I trust you?”

Jericho nodded. “A legitimate concern,” he admitted. He placed a business card on the table. “Nothing will be done until you come to this attorney’s office and sign the contract. That way, we both are bound. Your terms are done as soon as I shake your hand, but this way, I am bound, and you can force my position if I back out.”

Demarcus picked up the card. “Okay, makes sense,” he said.

“One more thing,” Jericho said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. From there, he placed two thousand dollars in cash on the desk. “That will take care of your rent for this month, as well as your car repairs. Consider this a down payment.”

They stared in disbelief at the money.

Jericho made his exit. He felt good; at this point, only two had refused after the contract pitch. As soon as he got in touch with his lawyer, who had written up all of these contracts—and told him he was out of his mind—and set up the date, he would have the power.

“Wait!”

Jericho turned around and saw the woman and her son standing in the doorway. “Hmm?” he asked.

“Let’s do this right now,” Demarcus replied. “I can get my work buddies who live upstairs to be witnesses. Verbal agreement. Right now.”

Jericho pretended to mull this over, to leave them hanging. Internally, he was grinning. He would hold up his end of the bargain; that was a no-brainer. It was chump change compared to the wealth of powers he continued to accumulate. The new order of wealth in the world could make him so much more traditional money than even the stock market, he realized. All his cash wealth wouldn’t amount to a stack of beans compared to the real power he now wielded. “I accept,” he said.

Ten minutes later, five more young black men stood in the apartment, eyeing the white boy and his expensive get-up. “I agree,” Demarcus explained, deliberately, and thoroughly, “to shake the hand of Jericho Torvalds.”

“I agree,” Jericho Torvalds said, not breaking eye contact, “to set up a series of investments in the name of one Demarcus Edwardson, total valuation approximately ten million dollars, to net a yearly payment of approximately one hundred thousand dollars, until the death of said recipient.”

They shook, with everyone watching. The billionaire effortlessly added the ability to his collection. It was some variety of memory power. He’d analyze it closer later. Being able to investigate memories had appeared on his radar as something he might want to get. All the physical powers in the world wouldn’t matter if he didn’t have enough mental ones.

“So,” Demarcus said, “is that it?”

“You get all the investment info in a few days,” Jericho explained. “If not, you can call my accountant. I always keep my word.” He nodded. “Good day.”

He left the apartment complex and got into his rental car, firing up the engine and setting his phone GPS to the next major target. The next power his radar had warned him about, had been the redheaded woman who had flown across much of the world performing acts of heroism. To most, this woman must have seemed like a godsend, a hero manifested out of Greek myth. To him, however, she was someone else. His power radar, amplified with several overlapping enhancement powers, located the woman, and identified that she was, in fact, the alter ego of one Manfred Voren.

A good half hour of driving through the endless cultureless wastes of Wal-Mart-land saw him locate the subdivision where his target resided. Pulling into the subdivision, he drove past bends and twists until he came to the house. He parked the car in the driveway and combed his hair. The cellphone on vibrate, he got out and inspected the grounds with several of his sensory powers. No threats came to mind, and he saw a very ordinary living space with no unique aspects. Clearly, this person didn’t have some nefarious dungeon or hidden passageway, or a secret cave of some kind. That put him at ease as he stepped up the short stairs and knocked on the front door.

The man that greeted him had modest curly hair, a Western European complexion and face structure, and a chin that indicated he’d recently lost a great deal of weight. What concerned him, however, was the fact that the expression of surprise immediately preceded a look of expectation. “Hello there,” he introduced, “I’m…”

“Jericho Torvalds,” Manny replied, “CEO of Firestorm Investments.” He nodded. “I’ve seen you on Fox Business, yeah.”

The billionaire cocked his head slightly. “I get the feeling you knew I was coming,” he replied. “Who told you?”

Manny shrugged. “I’ve got a power,” he said, “you have a reputation of going to people that have powers. It’s on the news, you know.”

“Oh well,” Jericho answered. “I guess you know why I’m here then.”

“You’re here to what,” Manny offered, “steal my power so you have all the powers?”

“Nothing so nefarious, ha ha,” Jericho said, amused. “I’m here to offer you a lot of money and copy your ability if you agree. I’m just wanting to add to my collection.”

Manny’s eyebrows went up and down. “Straight to the point,” he said. “I guess that makes sense.” He turned around and waved. “C’mon in.”

They walked into what Jericho saw as an example of a bland working-class living room. The light brown wall paint combined with the yellowish carpet told of a design choice from the late nineteen-seventies that had never been replaced. He sat in a loveseat opposite Manny, with a small oval table between them.

Manny leaned back, cupping his hands behind his head. “Give me your offer, rich man.”

Jericho cleared his throat for effect. “Well,” he explained, “you hit the nail on the head earlier with what you said. You have a superpower. Obviously. We both know this.” He pulled a folder out of his suit jacket. “Based on the information I have about you, which was all publicly available information, just so you know, you are in need of money. I’m willing to set up a long-term investment that will net you roughly a hundred thousand a year for life. All you have to do is shake my hand and let me copy your power. You don’t even have to lose your power or have it negatively impacted in any way.”

Manny blinked. That was true, he couldn’t ignore an amount of money that big. Plus, it would give him plenty of leeway to be Jennifer full time. “I have to admit,” he said, “I can’t ignore such a large amount of money.” He rested his hands on his thighs. “But here’s the problem. What bothers me is the fact that you’re collecting all the powers, because you have all this wealth and power already to throw around, and all you want it for is to have more.” He paused to breathe. “If you wanted to, with what you’re capable of, and what you have at your disposal, you could almost single-handedly save the world. Instead, you’re just thinking about you.”

Jericho’s eyes lowered briefly, as he’d heard such moralizing statements before. “Honestly, Mister Voren,” he admitted, “people have laid this tired bit of holier-than-thou dialogue on me already. As a follower of Rand, I…” He noticed a quiet chuckle escape the man. “What?”

Manny wiped his face. “Oh, it’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just that I find Ayn Rand’s work to be either hilariously bad or outright nefarious.”

The billionaire leaned forward. “Really?” he asked. “Tell me what you find disagreeable.”

Manny’s eyes widened. “Ooh boy,” he exclaimed. “Where do I begin? Maybe with the fact that all her heroes are either Mary Sue perfect or hilariously Disney Villain in their behavior? What about the fact that anyone we’re supposed to be against is a blatant strawman? Maybe how her books contain hilarious mistakes?”

“Hmm,” Jericho countered, “I didn’t get that from the reading of Atlas Shrugged or Anthem at all.” It was certainly a familiar counter he heard, that was for sure, but what got him was the man seemed to have more than the usual specific examples.

“We’re told that main character Dagny Taggart is descended from railroad tycoon Nat Taggart,” Manny began. “And that he didn’t use government loans or eminent domain because he was just that good at building railroads.”

A long pause ensued. It began to grate on Jericho. “And?” he asked.

“In the real world,” Manny explained, “railroads only happened because of widespread eminent domain and lots of government money. Are you expecting me to believe that Nat Taggart got all these people to sell him their land with private money? Also, where did he get that kind of money back then, if not from the government?”

It struck him as a decent point. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll grant you that. However, that doesn’t strike me as a knock against the idea itself. Is that your only example?” He waited.

“No,” Manny replied. “Let’s take her favorite character: John Galt. This is, without question, the biggest Mary Sue character I’ve ever seen.” The billionaire sat waiting; he took that as his cue to continue. “He straight-up invents a free energy machine. You know, the thing the laws of thermodynamics say is impossible? But no, let’s go on. Again, that might be a nitpick.” He coughed. “His big plan is to whisk all these uber-brilliant heads of business and industry off to a hideaway in the woods and wait for society to collapse.” He shrugged in disbelief. “How does that work? How do these companies work with them if no one can replicate their ideas? It’s absurd!”

“Is it really, though?” Jericho replied. He crossed his legs. “Look at what Henry Ford created. He revolutionized industry forever with his creation of the assembly line.”

Manny opened his mouth to say something, but it just hung there a long moment. Finally, he shot back, “You’re really telling me you believe no one would have been able to come up with that in his absence?”

“Maybe, in time,” Jericho responded, “someone might have been able to come up with that, in time.” He had a thought and decided to change gears. “But ultimately, the core idea of Objectivism is that governments shouldn’t have the power to take from someone who earns, and give to someone who doesn’t, and people should not act in their rational self-interest.”

“So,” Manny said, “everyone helping others should be optional? No one should be required to give back?”

Jericho smiled and nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “See, you’re getting it.”

“Absolutely incredible,” Manny said, shaking his head. “That’s one of the serious problems with this world. People think selfishness is a virtue. Eighty-six people have wealth equivalent to the bottom three billion people combined.”

Jericho’s eyebrows lowered. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Ah ha!” Manny let out a bellowing laugh, his head leaning back.

“What’s so funny?” Jericho asked, sincerely confused.

This only caused the man opposite the billionaire to bellow harder in amusement. “Ah, oh, I needed that,” Manny finally said, wiping his eyes. “You seriously don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

“No,” Jericho argued, “I do mean it. They earned their money.”

“Oh, please,” Manny snapped back. “Do you honestly believe that? Can you actually, really be that naïve?”

“Okay, I’m not dumb enough to believe that every rich man earned every dime of his money,” the billionaire explained, “but somebody had to earn that money. Isn’t it the right of a parent to bequeath wealth to their children?”

“Holy crap!” Manny exclaimed. “You can’t be serious! They didn’t earn that money! They stole it by exploiting the workers who they underpaid and overworked!”

“The workers agreed to be exploited,” Jericho countered. “Nobody put a gun to their head.”

“Unbelievable.” Manny blinked hard several times. “The average CEO makes three hundred times what his average worker makes. Do you honestly think he works three hundred times as hard?”

“A successful rich person should have the right to create a dynasty of wealth,” Jericho countered.

“Not if it results in generation after generation who doesn’t have to do anything except grow a giant pot of money that never benefits anyone else,” Manny snapped back.

“Well, if it makes you feel better,” the billionaire replied, “I can absolutely understand why you feel the way you do. And to answer your earlier question, the CEO doesn’t work three hundred times as hard as the average worker, but his job is three hundred times as important.”

Manny let out a chuckle. “Even if that were true,” he answered, “which I doubt, why does that mean it’s okay for him to pay them less than they’re worth? Why does he get to fail to share the profits with them? After all, he’s not doing them a favor; he needs workers to get his job done. Doesn’t that give them the right to share in his wealth?”

Jericho’s eyebrows went up in surprise. He hadn’t expected such an erudite statement from this common-seeming man. He dismissed the point at once, of course, but it impressed him, nonetheless. “They agreed to it,” he simply stated.

“That’s particularly shitty,” Manny argued.

“That’s the way it is,” Jericho proclaimed. “People are too dependent on government assistance.” He reached into his pocket and produced a card. “It was interesting having this discussion with you. To finalize our offer, go here.” He stood up and turned to go.

“Hold on,” Manny said, “aren’t I allowed to counteroffer?”

Jericho turned, awestruck and dumbfounded. “Okay,” he uttered, scarcely able to comprehend. This had never occurred. No one had dared attempt a counteroffer. “What’s your terms?”

“Do you have a power in that collection of yours,” Manny asked, “that lets you experience someone else’s point of view?”

“Yes,” Jericho revealed. “Why?” Despite his curiosity, he believed he had a good idea anyway.

“You can cut the money in half,” Manny revealed, “if you use that power to see my point of view.”

A half-grin appeared on the billionaire’s face. “I must admit, Mister Voren,” he admitted, “that is not a wise financial decision. I have a huge incentive to take you up on that offer, and not much disincentive. Meanwhile, you stand to lose quite a bit of money.” A playful mood came about him, one that he hadn’t felt in a long time of gambling in the stock market. It was the first financial gamble in a long time that set his nerves firing. This could be interesting. “Say, I’ll give you an offer: tell me about a strong disincentive that I haven’t considered, and I’ll take you up on it, no discount needed.”

Manny didn’t hesitate, smiling. “You might end up changing your mind,” he stated.

“Not likely,” Jericho argued. “Although, I’m certain my arguments will be strengthened.”

“That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.”

“You know what,” Jericho said, “tell me who actually said that, and I’ll take you up on it.” The popular myth was that astronomer Carl Sagan had been the origin of the saying. It was not true.

Manny paused just a moment. “P.C. Hodgell in ‘Seeker’s Mask.’ Everyone thinks it’s Carl Sagan, but there’s no evidence he said it,” he explained.

The billionaire gave a surprised expression then stuck out his hand. Manny shook it. The rich man’s eyes seemed to go dull for a moment. An instant later, confusion and alarm washed over his face. At once he worked to compose himself. “Thank…thank you,” he stammered. “You’ll hear from my accountant soon.”

“Nice doing business with you,” Manny said, modestly concerned. “Is everything okay?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Jericho lied, waving it off. “Thank you very much.”

Jericho sat in his rental car, the only sound being the mild whine of the engine and the gentle hiss of the air conditioner. He hadn’t known what to expect, but what he got was Manny’s entire life story up to that moment.

These memories were reconstructed not by frail human psyches that changed them every time they recalled them, but by a superpower that acted flawlessly.