Julius Paine and Callisto Venturi stood calmly, looking down at a shimmering profile of lights streaming from a battery Julius claimed could put them into space.

Cal was smiling broadly. I wanted to recruit Julius into his Governance 2020 competition. Gods above and below, imagine the caliber of people who will apply with the creator of the Valuestream headlining! He tried to calm his mind. It was beyond his wildest hope that the man would try to recruit him.

“So you want to partner with me a few others.” His delight seeped into his voice like blackberries staining his fingers. “Who?” Cal asked.

“Yes. The two excellent psychologists who you were kind enough to associate me with; one of them looked alarmingly like the noted scientist Questro Peraster. Also, my nurse companion from the Peacemonger. It’s important to have someone with an outsider’s perspective on really big projects like this will be.”

Cal nodded, before stating. “Five collaborators. I understand the number holds some sort of special meaning for you. It showed up in almost all of your early projects. What’s that about?”

“It’s pretty simple, really.” Julius chuckled, “I can never remember five things at once without a mnemonic. It seems like a good way to push myself a little at a fundamental level.”

“Still seeking self-improvement, Julius?” Cal asked wryly.

“I doubt I’ll stop before I am looking at grass from the dirty side, Callisto.”

Cal almost spat back a snarky response, but caught himself. The man in front of him, for all his genius, was barely out the other end of a psychotic break. “That must be a trial.”

Soberly, Julius thought for a beat before answering. “It was for a time. I stopped caring deeply whether I succeeded and life became much easier. It was almost as though I was at war with life for a time, trying to prove to it that I could handle anything that it could throw at me.”

“Grace did introduce me to the album that you released the month before your departure.” Cal stated. “Quite stunning.” He said truthfully; he didn’t add how deeply it had reminded him of the paranoia and pain of Tupac’s Killuminati album. “Thanks to the way that you released it, it never quite achieved mass distribution. Most everybody who works outside of the Valuestream doesn’t recognize it as your work. I mean, you are already a household name, but if they knew you could sing like that, you’d have the experience of fame that comes with screaming, angry teenagers.”

Julius laughed. “Until you mentioned it, I hadn’t thought of Wanderer’s Songbook in… hell, I don’t even know.” He shook his head as though to clear it, you have a bit of your own fame, Cal. How are you holding up against those troubles?”

Cal nodded easily. “The benefits seem to outweigh the costs, at least for me. Do remind me to tell you about the horrible trick that we played on Jon Daily after my appearance on his show. You should also ignore any news you hear about my engagement” Julius nodded acceptance as Cal continued. “Honestly, between fame, Venturi Industries, and the Valuestream I can do almost anything that I can think of. The world is my plaything. But I give it its fair share of my soul.”

Jules nodded to himself. He was more than familiar with the costs of fame. Both men looked inwards for a few moments. The silence wasn’t strained, and it was Jules who broke it.

“Thank you for the trouble of keeping this place for me. You must have had renters clamoring for the chance to live here. Is it really going to be my place or is it on loan?”

“Listen, you have to think I’m crazy… sorry.” Cal broke off. Besides his father’s drug use, he didn’t have much experience with mental illness. “I know keeping this for you is odd. I couldn’t even tell you exactly why I did it. My dad, rest his soul, told me to always pay my debts. Every debt is an anchor, son. Must have told me a thousand times.” He leaned in towards Paine. “Listen, don’t share this with anyone, but I always felt like a leech living on your work. I sometimes feel like barely more than a middleman between creators like you and the public.” He sighed. “I lived within your rules. I lived in the economic engine you created and I happened to find a niche that needed to be filled to maximize your creation. Why do you think I never sought you out before you bailed on the world? I mean hells, even a year and a half ago, I was doing enough Valuestream business to get your attention. I didn’t want to face my debt.”

By the end of this speech, Cal’s face was red, his voice was strained, and, though Julius didn’t point it out, his eyes were glassy with tears.

Julius didn’t respond right away. He thought of the early days of the ‘Stream, when he gave his entire life to it to teach people how to turn their ideas into reality. He thought of the building on which he stood. It’s creator, the man standing next to him, told him that it wouldn’t exist without him and said that it was a debt. Eventually he couldn’t hold it in anymore and laughed long and loud: an expulsion of mirth.

Eventually it died down. “I didn’t give the Valuestream away.” Jules began. “I sold it to the world and my compensation has been more than fair. And you, sir, you have worked the stream enough to know my philosophy: work is never done. I knew that what I made wasn’t enough.” He chuckled again. “It would take a million other brilliant minds for the Valuestream to reach a fraction of its potential. You speak of debt, and I will take your money and this home to ease your conscience and pay my way into the future, but let it end here.”

Their eyes met, deep brown and vibrant green, and Cal looked away first. Jules simply said, “I always knew it was going to take a lot more than me.”

“Grace, transfer ownership of upper penthouse property to Julius Paine. It’s yours and the debt is paid.” Cal said with a sense of finality.

Julius asked. “Of course. Would you ask the computer to arrange a call to the residence of my friend Lauria?”

“Grace Bergman, if you understand the request posed me by Mr. Paine please act according to his wishes.” Cal stated and speakers hidden somewhere around the room began to sound.

“Ah, the dial tone. Why hello Lauria. Yes, everything is alright. I was just calling to let you know that I can no longer accept your offer of a place to stay. Oh no, it is in fact quite good news. I believe that a gentleman offering you a flight aboard a helicopter is going to knock on your door in around 15 minutes. He will be flying you to my new home. I do hope that you will accept the invitation.”

Cal heard only a buzzing as the automatic settings on the suite’s phone settings blocked the recipients’ response without permission.

“You will. Excellent. See you shortly darling. End Call. Cal, will the computer understand the implied request that I just made of her?”

“Grace, if a trustworthy pilot is en route to the address that you just called no response is necessary.” Cal said curiously.

The lack of response spoke for itself.

“Spectacular. I had never quite understood the coding that you did for implied requests, as such it is a functionality that I never used much. Thank you for the tutorial.” Cal continued.

“Speaking of tutorials, how successful were the Valuestream use tutorials I had posted on the ‘stream in my absence?” Julius asked.

“Hit more miss.” Cal answered. “Something like 90 percent of users who viewed them voluntarily gave you one percent. I especially enjoyed the project ‘Fair World Governance’ that you began. My executive copy had ‘Fair Corporate Governance’ on it by the time the ‘stream’s computers released that one, but you should have seen the furor it caused in Washington.”

“I would have liked to see it. That all sounds like good news. What about the bad?”

“When people started treating their politicians as salesmen selling value to their constituency the number of impeachments was somewhat alarming-- at first. Pretty soon whole countries blocked access. There are, I forget the exact number, but a few dozen countries where you would be arrested on sight as a disturber of the peace and foreign agitator.”

Cal watched for a reaction, but really Paine’s face barely flickered before he responded. “Not surprising, Cal. I was honestly surprised this country let me operate for as long as I did. My stated goal was always to help people create all the value they needed to live. It couldn’t be long until people would ask whether their government was actually helping. I was rather hoping for people to ask that actually.”

Cal chuckled. “They definitely did. The anti-‘Stream campaign in the states… Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it.” He shook his head. “The politicians and businessmen were so united brought in academics, athletes, musicians, and hell, they even pulled in all but one of the remaining ex-presidents. Quite a few men called you an ‘enemy of the state.’”

Jules looked a bit spooked at that, but not a bit surprised. “I suppose that’s to be expected.”

“Why’s that, Julius?” Cal asked.

“The only commonality between every form of government is the lengths the powerful will go to to stay that way.”

Cal didn’t have much to say to that.

As the pause stretched, Cal remembered what else had to be said.

“As bad as it was in the US, China was a thousand times worse. Their censors blocked a thousand words related to your work. It’s hard to know, for sure, but it seems likely that they put at least a thousand people into re-education camps, too.”

Julius’ face paled. “Yes, that is hard to know.” He said.

“That’s not the worst of it, though.” Cal said. “And this part I know for sure. They broke enough of the security on what they confiscated that they could break your only rule.”

Deliberately, Cal continued. He glanced up at Paine from time to time, seeing anger, dismay, and guilt streaming across his face.

“A Chinese defector stole plans that the Communist Party had made for a suborbital craft with mounted laser guided ordinance. When he delivered them to a VI vessel delivering polar freshwater to the Japanese the analysts who looked at the weapon found it in the code. The original tags from your encryption were still in place on the plans. They hacked one of they hacked a local Valuestream and rebuilt it enough to make weapons with it.”

Julius began pacing. It was his only rule for the ‘Stream: don’t use it to build weapons. He had maintained control over the project, refusing to sell to people who had made his life miserable as a consequence. His legal team had prosecuted and connived to enforce the rule in every country that it operated in. And this all happened while I was away. If I had been here I would have done something. Cal interrupted his thoughts. “Are you all right?”

“No, yes. Someone was bound to do it eventually. It just sickens me to think that someone is using my brain to hurt anyone, let alone keep a billion people in subjugation. I am going to have to do something about it.” Jules kept pacing.

“They have nuclear weapons, a million man army, and full censorship over their internet. What can we do?” Cal said.

Some heat entered Julius’ voice as he answered, “For my entire life people have been asking me that question. After I sold my first patent and the buyer made it disappear, they asked me, ‘what else could you do’ like there weren’t a hundred better things I could have done. ‘What can we do about climate change?’ ‘What can we do about exploitation of workers?’ What can we do about corrupt government” He practically spit out the final question. “We can do better. That’s what. We can tackle the issue and not pretend like it doesn’t exist.”

Cal had the grace to look embarrassed, but he kept pushing, “You are talking about the single most powerful organisation in the history of the planet, the intellectual descendents of a thousand generations of bureaucracy. Are you honestly thinking of trying to defeat the Communist Party in China?”

“My work is under common license with exactly one restriction: no weapons. There were enough before I got involved.” Cal watched Julius closely. He inscribed it into his memory. Paine was looking out the window, not towards the city, but our across the ocean. His jaw was clenched, barely visible above of the scraggly line of his beard. This was a moment Cal would never forget. “Let me answer your question properly.” Julius intoned, and his face relaxed. “I am not thinking of defeating the Communist Party in China, I am committed to it.”