The Brightest Light

In brief, the city dwellers all had their eyes on the construction of the new tower. It would be an example of the ingenuity and promise of the dreamers. Instead, those dreams would be made into rigid reality. The era of money being flooded from the top to the other classes had finally arrived.

Wenton Font had poured a fortune into this building in Wilmington, Delaware. His build, though slight, commanded respect wherever he went.

“All of the classes have been united since 2035. All the political parties have made sense of their agendas,” Paula Klimt pointed out to Font. He sat at his desk with his fingertips touching.

“It will be another fifty years when the races will mix so much that there will be no distinction between color whatsoever.”

The building shifted and the floors alternated based on the hour of the day. The eighth floor became the twentieth and so forth.

“My vision for this city, state, and country, hell the world is simple. Think about the thinkers. These are the ones who move the world. The intellectuals….”

“I have to disagree with you, sir,” Paula interjected.

Font raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“We have come a far way from the infighting and disgusting policies. All narcotics and disapproved drugs have been legalized, no regulations or controls plague the citizenry. People have stopped demonizing the wealthy for their productiveness. All that came from brawn. We forced these things into existence.”

“Oh, but we didn’t. We couldn’t have achieved these great things without the mind. There’s no way,” font retorted.

A video message appeared in the middle of the room. It was the president of the United States of America, Agnes Causewell.

“Madam president, great to see you.”

“It’s always a pleasure, Wenton.”

“What can I help you with today?”

“I wanted to hold a ceremony for all the capitalists who fought and won and made it to the top of the heap based on brawn.”

“I’m sorry madam, did you say ‘brawn’?”

Paula smiled softly and bit her lip as she looked down.

“Of course. What do you consider finding this amount of money-making to come purely from brainpower?”

“Why, yes….” Font replied with clean innocence and strength in his voice.

“Impossible. We had to muscle our way through the House and Senate almost literally coming to blows. It’s fine if you want to say thought precipitated where we live today, but it was more than that. We almost had to physically fight.”

Font rocketed to his feet. “Madam President, it must be said—”

“Call me Lacey for the hundredth time, Wenton.”

“I will not, now, I have my assistant here and you both are on the same page. I am opposed to both of you. This is toxic rhetoric, I say this with all due respect.”

“Of course. But we’re right.”

“I know you’re not on my page, Madam, because we rose from our savage ways and have discovered that America and the world are better off with people who use ideas more than they use bombs and missiles. In fact, you don’t get such weapons without first thinking about them. It’s a paradox, I know, but it is the nature of things.”

The president scoffed. She held onto Font’s words, though. She could feel the iciness at the back of her neck. There seemed to be currency in Font’s words but she couldn’t ignore it.

“Okay, okay. We go with your model. We say that only thinkers, the men and women of the mind could only have shaped this world. I was voted in by brawn. They had to use coercion just to get things done.”

“You admit that?” Font asked.

“I stand on it,” the president said.

Font rolled back around to his desk. “So what can I do right now? Nevermind our little tiff here?”

“First, I need you to fire all the intellectuals you hired. Their services are unnecessary now.”

“I, respectfully, will not do that.”

“You must. I'm the commander in chief. You’re like a warrior now.”

“I will not do that. There are millions of other businessmen around the world who might stoop so low as to perform such a heinous task, but I refuse. The country we rebuilt came about by brains. It will be sustained by brains.”

President Causewell grinned. It was a slick grin.

“You know that there are no relations between government and private enterprise except to protect such interests. What if that protection were to evaporate?”

Font sensing this form of extortion.

“Again, I can’t….”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I refuse.”

The screen disappeared in the middle of the floor.

Paula’s mouth hung slightly agape. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I disagree with you, but you held your ground.”

“What else is there to do?”

Paula breathed. “You know she’s going to go to other entrepreneurs and they’re going to cave.”

“I wasn’t born with a steel rod in my back for nothing.” It was actually stem cells that corrected his back, but he always thought of the surgeries as a metal appendage being placed on his spine. This emergence of science had been championed by those who thought. He knew this. He dialed the president but she didn’t answer. He gathered his jacket and found his jetpack.

“Where are you going?”

“Washington. I’ll be back in time to see the spire put on the Fifty Building.”

He opened a window to the skyscraper. The hydrogen-powered pack gave off nothing but water vapor. With the amount of power that lifted him, he felt the force and continued to accelerate higher and higher into the atmosphere. He arrived in D.C. in a half hour. His wifi clearance allowed him to go past the no fly-zone of the White House. He landed at the doors which were opened by synthetic United States Marines. They saluted him.

He marched straight to the Oval Office.

“I’d expect you to come here….” President Causewell remarked looking out the window, her back to Font.

“I had to see you—”

“You wanted a face-to-face meeting in order to be shut down, I see.”

“Madam President…Lacey.” She turned around, her arched eyebrows raised.

“I see you’ve changed your mind?”

“Only on calling you by your given name.”

“You already know I made a video that sprang up in the other business leaders’ offices.”

“Yes, and while that can’t be undone, I am ready to say to your face that I will never terminate the men and women who rebuilt this country. I mean stem cells, brain chips, supersonic jets, again, the widespread proliferation of jetpacks, flying cars, all of that came from the mind of an individual. I will never let that be swept aside.”

“I like you, Wenton. Those stem cells and your back really helped you.”

“They’re nothing compared to the natural chip in my brain called integrity.” Font affixed his jetpack to his back and set off back to Delaware. He hovered in the air as the spire became part of the building.