Day of Reckoning, Part 5

by Richard Fowler

Concluding Richard Fowler's 5-part science fiction story based on the truth.

About Richard Fowler
Born and raised in Virginia but no stranger to South Carolina with roots in the upstate going back to the 18th century, Richard has been homeless practically since he hit the streets of Charleston.  He is now hard at work getting some kind of an act together and hopes to take it on the road in the very near future.

Part V

          “Humanoid nature is as predictable on Earth as on Nebru and we were greatly disheartened to see your people embarked on a path that we, to our shame and regret, knew only too well.  Our leader ---his title translates into English roughly as ‘Appointed First Citizen’--- made a decision to intervene and the ruling council wholeheartedly supported him.  We chose the most powerful of the corporations of your world and made an example the others would not soon forget.  We sent envoys to privately meet with their rulers, whom you call CEOs and made our intentions unmistakably clear. 

          “Given sufficient motivation, even a corporation may change harmful, self-centered policies and become a force for good.  We endeavored to provide such a motivation.  To be clear, we demanded only that the corporate entities of your world withdraw all efforts to subvert the lawful governing bodies of the various lands of your world and to cease all activities that transgress the laws of their own land.  This is all we ask but we will be watching most attentively.  We have provided an opportunity to choose but it is the burden of you Earthers to make that choice.  It is our great hope that the people of your world will take a new path to greater freedom and progress for all, and not just for the privileged few.”

          The transmission ended and screens went dark or returned to regularly scheduled programming.
 
          What of the 42 Golden Sacks executives and, indeed, the entire HQ building?  Government investigators met with representatives of the various corporations to get their side of the meetings with the Nebruans and, eventually, the full story became public, including videos of the GS executives on trial, charged with “treason against humanity."

          The Nebruans apparently saw the Golden Sacks managers as the Merchant Masters of Nebru reborn and put them under a microscope, taking their past actions, going back to 2008, quite personally.  The 42 executives were all found guilty and their sins were collectively summed up by the chief high justice as the “resurrection of jungle law”.  Accordingly, they were sentenced to one year on a small primitive planet where jungle law alone prevails. 

          The entire skyscraper was carefully set in the middle of a swampish but lush valley teeming with life and the means to sustain it.  A spokesman for one corporation said that, according to the Nebruans, there are large carnivorous creatures in that valley quite similar to what roamed the Earth more than 65 million years ago.  It will be interesting to see who survives a whole year and can be returned to Earth.

(To be or not to be continued?  It’s a question.”)