The Lattice

"Science is the answer, my boy. With modern technology we can do just about anything. We can create synthetic food-like substances laced with mild addictive drugs and sell them to anxious customers as nourishment. We can manufacture potent prescription pain meds and stiffy pills and use the Internet to sell them to recreational users without a prescription. The world is our oyster. Of course, we all know that success is the accomplishment of the necessary. Not one these things make any sense without some higher purpose...something to justify the malnourishment, obesity, addiction, and priapism. After all, we have a conscience too. It's all about...

The Lattice."

"Excuse me?"

"The Lattice is our secret plan which vindicates the evils we have perpetrated over the generations. Have you no guilt for feeding children dog food and calling it a "happy meal?" I sure do. Far be it from me to suspect you think otherwise. Do you loath the disturbing fact that our puppet government has perpetuated a global economic crisis? Provoked wars? We can never be accused of these things from under our thumb. Yet, we must accept responsibility for these things and act accordingly. We owe our fellow man retribution for this exploitation."

"We owe them? Didn't you say that before this whole mess? Didn't we already cause all these problems by trying to make things better?"

"Yes, we have made a few mistakes. We have dug ourselves a hole. And now we must climb. The lattice is our gift..."

"A gift? Like easy credit for people who can never pay it back? Like your whole Christmas Tsunami idea? If anyone knew who you were, you would be very unpopular. Maybe we should take it easy for a while."

"The Lattice is a light-weight structure that uses carbon nanotube technology. We cover the globe with this structure, creating a sort of new "elevated terra" or "floating Earth's crust," if you will. It will exist about a mile over the current surface of the Earth, held aloft by giant anchors in geocentric orbits. It will increase the livable area of the earth significantly, and can be erected over oceans and any terrain."

"We haven't even finished introducing the Amero yet. We are decades from a global ID card. We don't even have our herd fenced yet."

"It will be our new "overworld," where the enlightened population of consequential people, such as ourselves, live with our necessities...a utopia. The anchors will be like little stellar retreats connected by space elevators where we can vacation appropriately. The burden of our high position requires that we live an aesthetic lifestyle commensurate with our importance. It will be only the Epicurian luxuries required for sound thought. After all, these are big decisions. We must have a clear head, and for me, this requires nothing less than 100 year single-malt."

"Sir, you are drunk?"

"Mind your manners, and your pessimism. I'm afraid conditions have changed. There is now a bit more urgency than we ever expected. We are under pressure to turn a lot of lemons into lemonade. Here's the deal...the economic crisis didn't pan out exactly as we expected, but it will be our savior. We intend to hire all of the unemployed workers. They are screaming for jobs, and we are prepared to offer them."

"You are serious."

"Damn serious. On this overworld there will be spectacular golf courses, lagoons, coconut palms. Everyday life will be sort of like a cruise. We want it to revolve in the opposite direction as the planet, but we can discuss those details later. The best part is, everyone wins...the unemployed will have jobs into the foreseeable future. They will live beneath, furnishing the skills and labor needed for our system to work. The ground will be sort of like the engine room of our giant ship. They maintain the Lattice down below, farm our organic produce, prepare our meals, mow our greens, and fix us alcoholic beverages. They all have jobs serving us, we just need to place the orders."

"Yes, but what will we do other than play golf?"

"That is all the privileged class needs to do, my boy. I just told you. We are the reason the folks in the underworld have a reason to live in the first place...to serve us. We only need to sit around, feel important, and imagine ever-more-outrageous tasks for them to accomplish for our benefit. See? It's a brilliant plan!"

"How do we pay for it?"

"So naive. We have evidence against every congressman and senator in Washington. And, for the saintly ones, we plant evidence. Look how easy it was to bring down a guy as incorruptible as Spitzer. These guys have wives and children to support. When we show them the end of their career and public shame, they always join us. Remember, we don't just own law enforcement...we own the media too. All these amateur plutocrats on Capitol Hill make the laws and print the money. They think they pull the strings, dividing plunder between their friends in boardrooms with corporate jets. But, the guy offering a get-out-of-jail-free card is always their best friend, and I'm that guy. Look at the facts: the people have already given us the monetary system by electing pea-brained representatives to defend it. We have been given the power and responsibility to print as much money as we need. This is not a personal desire...this is our dire obligation. We must create order from chaos."

"We created the chaos! I know the people have let the power slip up to us. I know we don't really "owe" them anything. Sir, I object for practical reasons. If they are maintaining the overworld, they have the power to destroy it. I mean, what if the maintenance crew decides it wants to be important and make its own decisions instead of crawling around like monkeys beneath this lattice structure of yours? You can't prevent people from having their own ambitions."

"Of course not. That's why we pay them well."

"Pay them well? You're not paying them anything! You're stealing everything from them and then returning to them the scraps that you don't need. This is called extortion."

"Yes, and they don't even notice. We even blithely call the money we let them keep an "expenditure," ha. It's truly beautiful. If they are handing out their lives, who are we to refuse?"

"What happens when they wise up and try to take their lives back? You can't keep robbing them forever."

"Yes I can. If things start to fall apart we distract our good patriots with a war or something. The media owns their collective brain, and yes, they can be convinced to kill one another. We use the distraction to root out the problem. We trim the herd. Come on now, enough shop talk. Let's at least discuss this over a round of lawn bowling. Our court has been freshly trimmed, and I have a hankering for some more rollage."

"Sir, you said science was the answer, and I agree to some extent, but is this Lattice idea really worthy of such a high proportion of human effort? You are talking about the employment of billions and you say you are doing this for their own good. Do you think it is possible that people have their own agendas? I mean, do you think individual aspirations might bring them more happiness than your Lattice idea?"

"Impossible. These tiny people, if they can even be called such a thing...their dreams are minuscule compared to ours. They are simply too poor and depraved to consider even the most trivial endeavor. Our market analysis proves that they don't know what they want anyway, other than cheap food-like substances and the prescription drugs we sell them. We can turn those rolling profits into something special...something they can be proud of. We have a duty to perform. We tell them what to think, show them what to do, pay them to do it, reap the rewards for ourselves, and everyone's happy. Can you think of a better solution?"

"Well, um, not particularly."

"Do you think you can stop me?"

"No, sir."

"Then I suggest you accept a nice house next to mine on the ninth green."

"Yes, sir."