Throughout the speech at Kinnick Stadium Iowa the one-hundred-thousand-plus in-person crowd had showed an electric, unified yet dignified captivation. The white noise throughout the speech had beats of high volume as Rudolfs liberally seeded emotive speech points hit hard. This was no Nuremberg 1935 Crowd – they did not see a deity before them – they saw a wise and sensible man to be listened too.
The crowd in person & watching was like an army of the “common sensed” – even if this was in reality uncommon. Rudolf had over time & via astute technology used his mesmeric personality to educate those unhappy masses. He told them to simply concentrate on the obvious gigantic & cavernous reality in front of their bloodshot stressed eyes. He taught them that the poor societal & civic design they had been subjected to by their corrupt Govts was a crime against their collective humanity. They believed him.
At one point a small child had run on stage wanting to hug Rudolf – this was a major security failure – but he hid his displeasure with a wide smile. The child got his hug, and Rudolf got the benefit of looking ‘fatherly’. Now he went back to the room off stage – to celebrate the speech and spend some time with his inner sanctum of supporters & financiers.
He wiped the sweat off his brow and walked confidently off stage, his body moving in militaristic fashion but no so much that it made him look machine like. He opened the side door full of his supporters to rapturous applause. There was a mix of approx. 35 people, an eclectic looking lot with only the financier supporters sticking out like the highly manicured sore thumbs they were. The non-financiers were his long-known supporters of his message – the most inner sanctum of which was just 5 strong – they were his Cabinet.
He would now do his rounds around the room. Firstly, with those who represent financial machinery of his organisation – those 2 key staff that handled the internet donations international & domestic and of course the 3 key Businessmen Entrepreneurs/Financial donors that collectively tripled Rudolf’s war chest to a total 100 billion dollars annually. These three key associates would also help build the machinery of his movement. Rudolf hated the necessary evil of these key personnel assets – he’d rather just have had the diffuse internet doners who he didn’t need to court or reiterate philosophical positions or allay fears with. But he knew a lone wolfs make bad leaders of men and to think otherwise was insanity. He knew to do without their money & influence he would reduce his reach by 100-fold; without their business & operational nous his ideas would forever stay just that – ideas. Without the collective acumen of the trio that was Micky Mandelbrot, Telly Orenthal& Lianne Sidell – his gigantic ‘Freedom Project’ would be only an untested theory.
On his own he would be hampered and face the possibility of total failure. Of course, he could cull them eventually – when he got into power & QuarkTech gets its concordant revenue boost from his increased status as the all-powerful undisputed American ruler. But for now, he needed them as bird of prey needs its wings. Besides these 3 Billionaires had proven so far to be trustworthy enough – after all they were international Pariahs of the Status Quo Unilateralist World – so he knew he could trust their judgement – Rudolf had faith in the “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” thesis.
His fellow Billionaires were at heart varied bunch in terms of personality & story. Micky Mandelbrot was 62 somewhat short & overweight with a full head of hair which he wore long but with a constant baseball cap. He walked with a major limp which he had received when his 3rd ex-wife had successfully attempted to run him over in a fit of rage – luckily this was all the damage as the car was one of those light and tiny ‘made for easy parking’ Japanese made cars.
Mandelbrot was a famous Defence Sector Investment Billionaire who had a knack for knowing the exact time & place a major war would start & amongst which men. he was now also a Silicone Computer Chip baron – he like Rudolf had been wise & moved quickly upwards in power & wealth when the supply chain fiasco was happening under the Pandemic years 2020-2023. He via a hostile takeover had managed to acquire 25% of the worlds Silicone Chip capacity via owning a controlling share of a Taiwanese 100% Government owned company “CompuSho” that itself had 50% of the world’s Chip capacity.
Micky had arranged a deal with the Taiwanese govt leveraging its far-too-small National Defence capability. Micky got a deal where he gained a 51% shareholding of the Taiwanese semiconductor company “CompuSho”, in return for brokering a ginormous arms deal big enough to scare off China for another decade at least.
In making the “Chips for Guns” deal Micky had leveraged his Defence networks from the past where he had been General Manager for the US based Military Industrial Complex behemoth named “Jugulator Inc”. He had gone undercover as one of the many ‘International Semiconductor Chip Quality inspectors’ that all major tech companies used as an independent stamp of quality. As a false inspector he would get the required “Dirt” on the at-the-time Private company managing shareholders. Then he’d simply pass this “dirt” intel to his fellow conspiracists the Taiwanese govt. They then acted swiftly on the intel – leaked it to the public via the mainstream media and then nationalised the company in the resulting public scandal.
The “dirt” Micky manufactured was a brilliantly simple process- he simply got 3 major shareholders of CompuSho drunk at a business dinner, spiked their drinks late into the revelry & then set them up via a faux rendezvous with handpicked ex Chinese Nationals who were his paid actors playing “Enemy Chines Spies paying for Influence in Taiwan Economy”. All Micky had to do was secretly film the pre written deception where the CompuSho owners were drugged and barely conscious of their surroundings. He’d then usher the actors in and play out the scene for the camera.
The images taken were the Chinese looked to buy influence of CompuSho via passing a bag of money over a bar table, followed by the CompuSho targets raising a glass to the targets. Micky had used this ploy a lot, if he knew his targets were too stupid to refuse free alcohol – a drunk was always the best sitting duck. From that point the pre-arranged deal fell in place – Taiwan govt did its thing @ Nationalised CompuSho & clandestinely sold a 51% share to Mandelbrot’s new company ‘MandelTech’.
The Taiwan public knew nothing about it but would be safer for having an Arms deal coming their way thanks to Mandelbrot. The Taiwan was happy as it’s prime goal – to keep China from invading – was bolstered. Jugulator was happy as it got a lucrative arms deal. Rudolf was happy as it allowed a ‘anti unilateralist rogue’ like to get super rich and be a doner to his new movement. The “Chinese Spies” actors having being used to being dirt poor were happy as they earnt a huge payday. The only ones not happy were the 3 Taiwanese drunkards who let a savvy businessman like Mandelbrot take over their powerful positions. “Smarts goes up via the elevator, but stupidity falls out via the window ” was Mandelbrot’s favored way of describing those 3 rich & powerful fools that so easily gave him their much influence.
Mickey had met Rudolf as they lived close by and had got to know him over a few drinks. Rudolf had been told a safely fictionalised version of the Taiwan success story of intrigue-based victory – he knew he had to have this asset on his side. Mickey was also impressed by Rudolfs vision to reverse the extreme rot that had hit the world in the last few years under cover of ‘Pandemic safety measures’. Mickey was impressed not so much by Rudolfs dislike of status quo World leadership – but by the fact he backed himself to garner the hearts & minds of the people and lead them to a Revolution, with Rudolf in charge -a benevolent Dictator who was open about it. Mickey loved it when Rudolf said one of his trademark quotes “History shows Dictators are bad because of their actions, but Philosophy show’s it was their ideas that were the problem. A Dictator with the correct ideas can bring great success in any village, country or the Worlds outcomes”. After hearing that quote Mickey offered himself as an active investor, to which Rudolf obliged.
The second Billionaire used for Quarktech funding was Telly Orenthal – 51 years old, perpetually heavily stubbled & sunglass-ed, six foot 2, with constant slight smell of whisky and dressed like an aging rockstar. He was not an alcoholic but not that far away from it, & he did indeed love late 20th Century Rock music. Telly was in the Media game. He had once been part of the mainstream but after things had become so PC, he like many other CEO’s were fired due ‘misogynistic qualities’.
He’d been sprung by having an affair with his PA, then this led to the scandal breaking of the awarding of a 100-million-dollar investment to her father all hidden intentionally so to avoid the due diligence of the boardroom.
After the fall from grace Telly simply set up his own independent Network. His aim was to create content as un-woke & un pc and as confrontational as possible – it was an unbridled success and within 7 years he had knocked the bastards of the ‘mainstream’ off their perch – and most importantly he had Gen X Y & Z generations ardently on his side – the future was with him & his platforms, podcasts & shows. He was also wise enough to own independent infrastructure – including servers & studios and a sufficient solar powered battery-based power station, so he could never be switched off by the ‘do gooders’.
Telly invested in Rudolf because he represented someone who could sway the people, the way he wanted them to be swayed & he wanted revenge on the fake “do gooder” system that had ousted him. Rudolf was the face of the movement that would help cut down the trunk of the shadowy society that had instructed mainstream media to assassinate his own career. He was far more of a pragmatist than a deep theoretician – he was indeed a man of action.
Lianne Siddell was in the AI game. Her company “RealworldAI” had last year proved that their AI Robot was indeed sentient – and kept the fact under wraps – except to a few major customers who were now quietly building mercenary armies. Lianne was 5 foot 9, 37year old Redhead with green eyes she dressed like a male billionaire would – ‘trackies’ and a hoodie with earphones always in use when getting around or using a screen. Lianne had also leveraged the opportunities that were abound from the pandemic years. With the armies of the world being weakened by WOKE hiring of physically mentally unfit under 30 years of age humans – the smart people realised an AI based Robotic Army would give an unassailable advantage. She simply slowly sold a small battalion, which financed the next two battalions. This was exponential growth, and because of the haywire of the morons in charge around the world her business was akin to selling Class A drugs to the Neo Noveau Riche – a guaranteed market that thanks to the sentience coming of her AI programming was also a monopoly. She was even smart enough to start to sell a secretly hacked version to the mainstream leaders of the worlds armies – whose tech staff were second rate to recognise the security flaw. This meant she could make a crack AI based army turn against its owners whenever she wanted.
Lianne had no specific reason to hate the mainstream leaders of the world – she was simply an AI freak and had cut her teeth as a hacker for hire and so had an intuitive recoiling for authority from the establishment. When the world had stated to go haywire, she like all high-tech oriented people had been long expecting it. In fact, she had thought that the chaos would have come around 2010 & was surprised the bastards had waited so long to pounce – and she knew had they not dilly dallied she would not have had the time to discover the secret of AI based sentience. She happily told all RealworldAI customers who were trustworthy enough of this fact. Lianne had followed Rudolf via the online platforms – she had been waiting and watching for someone like him to emerge – someone who saw the world & had the guts to fight it via the right ideas. She wanted to have a legacy that was more than a ‘smart robot’ saleswoman. She also knew that the War to change the future would be fought via an AI advantage. She wanted to provide that advantage. She simply waited for the day Rudolf came to town & when his entourage was at dinner slipped them a note to pass on. The note read
“Rudolf’s ideas are great, but without AI advantage in his future armies – the project will fail. I can build his army; in fact, I already do.”
Anton Martin Smith Writer 