TEOTWAWKI
#86: Weldon: You're fired.
VR Video Call
Shelby: Oh Hello Weldon.
Weldon: Thanks for taking my call. Me and Chuck have something. I wanted to shoot you the basic overall schematic to make sure that if we did the farm this way we’d not be stepping on any feet. Here it is.
Shelby: Barges huh?
Weldon: Well they’re just kinda sitting there ain’t they? Me and the other ‘farmers’ just loaded our houses, barns, shops and stuff onto barges. Some of us needed more barges than others but we got er done. There are no more ‘Islands”. We’re all on self propelled barges now. Seems to work pretty well so far. Why shouldn’t it work for farms?
Shelby: It would seem to me that they should. Sounds good. Do you need anything from me?
Weldon: As a matter of fact I do. Most of those rouge barges are full of ‘stuff” . Some are full of coal. When you let us use those special bottom feeders the other day to move our houses they ate most of the coal in the barges. We’ll need something like that. The coals in the way and it’s too valuable to dump overboard.
Shelby: NO! Don’t even think of dumping it overboard! I’ll figure out something. Oh. One thing.
Weldon: What’s that?
Shelby: You’re fired.
Weldon: WHAT?
Shelby: Yup. You are no longer an employee. You are the farm owner. I imagine you can come up with a name.
Weldon: Gimme a second. I think my blood pressure spiked. Wow! What a shot of Adrenaline. Whew. Don’t scare me like that. Now. What do you mean farm owner?
Shelby: Free Enterprise and like that. All the new Mother-Ship, or what ever we call it, is going to be responsible for is the basic infrastructure, and I do mean basic, and the less of that the better. I’m parring it down as much as I can. I’ve built a BUNCH of redundancy into it. It has a lot of extra everything. I’m thinking that once we get established a typical kin-ship(that’s what we’re calling the living quarters) might have several choices for everything too. By that I mean several competing sewage, water, power and data providers.
If the kin-ship is unhappy with one he can switch to another. There will be NO supported monopolies and no subsidies of any kind. It might be that we just rent ‘Cubic’, Public Defense, Police and the Courts and that’s about it. Everyone lives in a kin-ship, basically a house boat. If anyone get’s seriously unhappy, and can’t come to a mutually agreeable resolution, well don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out. For the hard cases we’ll kick them out ourselves. Living here will be a privilege, not a right.
Weldon: Hmmm. I can see that, sound like civics 101. The Mother-Ship will be a City State. Will we pay rent on the Cubic or buy it?
Shelby: Dunno. I’m still working it out. I suspect there will be a great many town meetings. You’re invited of course, if you want to be.
Weldon: Of course I’ll be there. Hmm. A free market? If someone wants something they can buy it. Otherwise not and they don’t pay for it?
No taxes?
Shelby: Nope. ABSOLUTELY no taxes...of any kind, just user fees. Radical. If you don’t want something don’t buy it. If you do cough up the dough. If you want your farm to stay in business you’d best be good at farming. Good quality at a fair price, nothing more, nothing less. You’ve already got a competitor in meat and dairy.
Weldon: That would be Carl.
Shelby: Yup. don’t discount that kid what ever you do. There’s something strange about him. He has depth that we haven’t seen yet.
Weldon: Works for me. I wouldn’t want it any other way actually. When can I get my SmokeForge?
Shelby: You’ll trust me to come up with some kind of fair arrangement?
Weldon: Well hell yeah. If you’d wanted to screw us you’d have left us to drown. As long as it’s fair it’s ok by me.
Shelby : Hm...good point. Where do you want it?
Weldon : (location)
Shelby: Fluffy is on the way. Best skedaddle or she’ll get there before you do. Best code lock her right away to you and chuck’s DNA to avoid any unpleasantry.
Weldon: Color me gone.
It wasn’t until later that Weldon thought ‘Fluffy?”
Weldon’s body language indicated that he was no longer ‘on the phone’. Chuck floated over to him and asked “How’d it go?”
Weldon replied “Well I got bad news and I got good news”
Chuck grimaced “Like that huh? Gimme the good news first.”
Weldon smiled. “He fired me. I’m now the owner of the soon to be built barge farm. Somehow I wound up with the responsibility, and presumably the assets, of the current farm in the Banana Slug too. It’s up to me to ensure that the old farm keeps going UNTIL I can get the new one up and running and IF I can make a profit doing so. Want a job? You and the crew? I mean you already have the job, I’m not firing YOU or anything, but do you want the new job too”
Weldon looked puzzled “It’s confusing isn’t it?”
Chuck was open mouthed “That’s good news? What’s the bad news?”
Weldon answered “That’s the bad news too. It depends on perspective I guess. You want to give it a shot?”
Chuck shook his head “Some people.... As if I’d pass up a chance like this. Of COURSE I want to. I can’t speak for my crew but I suspect they’ll take the deal too. When do I start?”
Weldon said “You already have. Now let’s get ready. Fluffy should be arriving about.......”
“Who let the dogs out?” a voice shouted.

Weldon said “..........now! What the hell?”
“Say hello to our little friend” Chuck said “How you doing Fluffy. Been a long time.”
“You know this thing?” Melton’s heart was beating pretty fast, again. Fluffy was as big as a horse, and not a small one.
“Yeah. Cody designed this model when he was very young and insecure. It used to be his avatar, he’d ride it, before his mother got sweet on the middle mage. I guess Cody figured that someone would have to be insane to mess with his mom now so he got a smaller Avatar.” Chuck said “How’s my Fluffy. Is he a good boy?”
“It’s a robot, with a SmokeForge in it.” Weldon said. “Isn’t it?”
“Well yeah” Chuck said. “I Caninepomorphasize.”
“I don’t think that’s even a word, Chuck” Weldon said.”But let’s get Fluffy DNA Coded and Gene Locked to him, then put him to work cleaning barges.”
“Fluffy will like that” Chuck said.
The Next Episode Is
#87: Weldon: Cleaning Barges…
The Previous Episode was
#85: Banana Slug - He's heading toward Ernie’s…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
..............
Book One: SoulStone
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Well, Shelby already formally delegated (with a simple meeting - without bureaucracy), the responsibility of the food producing farms to Weldon (great responsibility and now he is owner); where it will have the support of the crew of the Mother-Ship in the technology and basic infrastructure that is required. But Weldon looks a bit worried, maybe because of that term of Free Enterprise... he's trying to understand the scope of that concept ... It seems,Shelby wants to generate a freely competitive market, within a capitalist economy, playing with supply and demand with a minimum of intervention and regulation of the highest authority in the Mother Ship ... I think that Shelby should explain better to Weldon and the other members of the Water Tribe.