You can’t break a man the way you break a dog or a horse. The harder you beat a man the taller he stands. -- Anon Guest
[AN: Link leads to an audio clip from a video game where the quote is from (I think?) that is all edgy tough growling with a warning at the end]
There's a saying in the Edge Territories: You can only try to break a Human. This is a warning, not an instruction. Many have made the mistake to their detriment. Many a tyrant has attempted to methodically grind down their subjects only to find that they were merely tempering the populace into having spines of steel.
CEO Tane of the Fiscal Empire of Divine Favourites thought he had the perfect method. Make it theoretically possible for someone to climb the ladder to success, whilst putting all sorts of obstacles in their way and then blaming them for it. Once every few years, Tane would random jerk to help along up the ladder by carefully arranged serendipity.
All that mattered was that there was hope. Hope was a better set of reins on the populace than fear, but fear worked too. Used in combination, Tane definitely believed he had it down to a fine art. What he overlooked was the fact that some people had longer memories than others, and actually tracked lie subsequent lives of the feel-good "success" stories after they faded from the notice of the mainstream news. That was where Tane went wrong.
"This is just in our lifetime," said Workhouse Resident Ren. "Thirty guys like us. They each get a win somewhere. The lottery, who's got talent, isolated with strangers, thrown into the wilderness... it doesn't matter. They get a huge money prize and maybe a small company so they make it up to the top."
"Yeah, so?" said fellow resident Tork. "I put myself into every draw every week. Ya gotta be in it to win it."
"Thing is, you never hear from them after like a month. The longest anyone's ever been in the news was half a year, and that was Tawdry Deems."
"That flakker. He was a train wreck."
"Yeah. They always announce some big project and ask for our spare cash to help them out, then it fizzles, and we don't hear any more about them until their project company gets bought out by Tane Incorporated."
"All hail Tane," they chorused together.
"But that's how business goes," said Hamma. "It's all wheeling and dealing and profit for the greater good."
"I found out where they all go after their projects fizzle," said Ren. There were a series of printouts from a library that hadn't been torn down yet. One of the underground ones that the Galactics propped up from the outside, and the mighty Tane (all hail) periodically rooted out as "infestations of corruption".
"Tawdry died in a race car accident with a rental bawdy on his lap," Ren waited for the chuckling to die down. "Before him was Lucky Harrow. Drug overdose, when he was otherwise very careful about what went into his body. Fortuna Sims, alleged suicide..."
"Yeah I saw a whole bunch of conspiracies about him."
"There are things that don't add up about the scene."
Ren ploughed on before the debate could occupy the rest of their precious free time. "Amber Mains, shot and they never found the shooter. Blessed Vixo, found dead. Andy Rilkie, went missing. Pan Vaness, mountain climbing accident. Those are just the deaths I was able to find. Every single one of us who wins? Ends up in Dreamland." This time, they were images on Ren's datareader. Generic tombstone after generic tombstone, name after name. With a date at a maximum of two years after their big win. "I'm telling you, these contests are death sentences. That's why I stopped playing."
Hamma scrolled through the tombstones, eyes growing wide. "What are you doing with the entry fees?"
"Remember those Galactics who keep running the libraries? They also run banks. In two more months, I'm going to be able to afford some investments."
"What's the catch?" said Tork. "Do they charge?"
"I think the Galactics are using us to scam the corporate," another chorus of All hail the corporation. "Something about 'all we have to lose are our chains'. I didn't catch all of it, but it is slower than the contests and, as far as I can tell, more survivable. It's all legal. I checked."
Tane (all hail) and Tane Incorporated (all hail) didn't mind where the money was so long as it was held entirely within the Fiscal Empire. As long as the money kept flowing towards the man in charge, all was well. A tiny little amount like Ren had was below his notice.
At least until it started multiplying at completely legal rates and Ren could actually afford to do a few things that were actually for the greater good. By then, he had a co-operative of like minded savers who had the collective power to hold their own against Tane's enforcement arms.
Sometimes, the slow revolutions are better for everyone.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / focalpoint]
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