Challenge #01772-D311: The New Landlord
You once wrote an Instant about a Company owning 99.99% of the World. What they wouldn't realise is "If you own it, you have to fix it. Lousy Hospital, Education, Roads, transport. It's Your responsibility. enjoy!" government retires. --
Knitnan
When you've just bought the world, you never expect it to be a fixer-upper. The previous administration neglected to mention things like noisy and annoying tennants. Rising damp. The fact that the heating needed to be fixed. And they had the luxury of being able to shove the metaphorical buck.
Now, there were no excuses.
There was just one person in charge. One person who ruled the world. Because he had just bought it like a pig in a poke. Because he believed that owning everything meant winning. But the prize that Jeri Maximilian had won was -well- the booby prize.
Now the people that he also owned were demanding fixes.
Stop polluting everything. Clean the garbage out of the oceans. Install sustainable power. He had the world in the palm of his hand. There was literally nothing stopping him. He owned the drug cartels and the police. He could end the war on drugs with a signature on a legal document. He could make anything legal and ensure that it was a safe product thereafter.
All his usual lies were laid bare. He could prove that renewable power was cheaper than fossil fuels. And since he owned everything, he could do it without any resistance. There was no need to fund isolationist militia. No reason to start wars for resources. He owned it all.
He wiped out the violent extremists with the world's standing armies in less than a week. And was forced to actually install infrastructure.
Sure, he had all the counters, but they did no good until he spent them. Chasing all kinds of upgrades. Fixing everything that was broken.
In a way, he was glad to allow some competition to slide in. But by then, it was too late. The world was a much better, more profitable place and all the old arguments he had once lived by were extinct in the process.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / peshkova]
If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me.
Send me a prompt [14 remaining prompts!]