Challenge #01834-E010: The Stakes

A wager will often get results when pleading fails. -- Anon Guest

One has to be wealthy to be eccentric. If you're poor, you're just odd. People could tell that Felwar Nassidd was an eccentric from a long line of eccentrics. The first dead-giveaway was the name. The second was their Wagers of Benevolence.

They laid a two hundred billion dollar bet that a town wouldn't be able to completely convert to green energy, and feed the populace proper nutrition at the same time. They made it global. And sat back and watched as the money-hungry mayors suddenly became benevolent dictators with a plan to eradicate all the food deserts in their field of influence.

The city that won had begun with a head start, because they were heavily liberal, but that didn't matter. What mattered was the trillion dollar bet that an electoral county couldn't do the same. Felwar could well afford it. They were the richest person in the world. They had incomprehensible amounts of money and the government kept wanting to give them more.

Billions, trillions, quadrillions, it didn't matter much to Felwar. They were a winning score with all the cheat codes activated. People gave them stuff just for being Felwar. They never had to fret about anything. Especially taxes.

And after showing the assorted industries that green energy hardly hurt anyone, they went ahead and purchased every single fossil-fuel extraction system and gradually shut them down. Those who worked in those industries were taught - at Felwar's expense - to apply their skills in far more benevolent areas.

The world was... well... it was reformed. In all senses of the word.

When education was globally available to everyone, when there was no longer such a thing as living below the poverty line, when the entire world had access to good food, and the bees had come back from the brink. When the entire world had seen what a little benevolence could do. When all the conservative arguments had been demolished, one by one... that was when Felwar tracked down Sally.

Sally Jones. Felwar's old college roommate. Who lived in a modest little suburban home that now had two electric cars. Whose yard had been an edible garden before Felwar's considerable meddling. Who greeted Felwar with a smile and a laugh and got a display down from off her study wall.

It was a two-dollar bill. Surrounded by the words, In Case of Felwar Winning, Break Glass.

Felwar broke it with a hammer made of gold. Just because they could. And presented Sally with the hammer as a gift. Only the two of them understood the joke inherent.

Sally said, "Bet'cha five bucks you won't do proper and truly equal tax reform."

She would always say that the look on Felwar's face was worth more than Felwar could ever have.

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / tana]

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