Truth enjoyed the shiver running up his spine. It was beyond “transgressive.” It struck at the core of Jeon propriety. The hierarchy was all. You might be trash, but you were trash that knew its place.

“Eat the rich! Eat the rich!” Truth yelled madly, running down the street. He could see the words worming their way in. People looked confused. Angry. Like they couldn’t understand what he was saying, but what they did understand was revolting. Laughing madly, he leapt onto the roof of a convenience store, and from there, made his way to the top of a small office building, and vanished from sight.

He collapsed on the roof of the office building, reduced to a giggling mess. It was crazy. Crazy! Eat the rich? Go after people because they had more money than you, were higher up the hierarchy than you? Madness. Madness! And yet it felt so right. How was a slumrat supposed to climb up if all the ledges were filled with fat rats that got there first?

The thought crackled around in his head, uncomfortable in there. As though it were angry at having been created, and desperately wishing to vanish. Eat the rich, eat the rich! It spun around again and again and again. The way up was to overturn the hierarchy. There was no way to win by playing by the rules, so eat the rich, and be a fat rat yourself.

He could feel a headache coming on. Stress, probably. It was such an alien thought. Theft on an individual level- of course! But to change the whole system of the country? Well, just eating the rich wouldn’t do it. Truth felt the headache settle down some as he thought it through. You weren’t removing the hierarchy, just replacing the rats.

And that would achieve… what? He could be the biggest, fattest rat of all, replacing Starbrite. Imperious. The Prince, as applied to the whole world. Nailing down both fortune and glory. Then, with the accumulated tribute and worship of the masses, he would crown himself King Rat. Long may he reign over the ashes of a dying world.

He had felt for a long time that there was something in the Prince persona, some clue to a greater puzzle. Truth took out the persona and examined it. Cruel. Domineering. All must serve or be crushed. Every relationship was one of exploitation based on differences in power. Capable of charity or generosity, of course. But only if they furthered his power and glory. Never for their own sake. The Prince didn’t get to be a fat rat through silly largess.

The Prince wasn’t quite the highest tier of rat, of course. The Prince still relied on someone else’s power. He couldn’t enforce the hierarchy all on his own. The King, however, could. The king placed the crown on his own head with bloody hands. The King was anointed with blessed oil, establishing that what he did on this world was approved by he who ruled the next world.

The various religions were in on it too. The Praegerites were the most on the nose, though Siphios made a fair bid for first place. Your status was the result of where God wanted you in the hierarchy. If you want to rise, impress God with your devotion. And if you didn’t rise? Then you should be grateful that you are exactly where you need to be. Because to defy the hierarchy was to defy God.

And BAM that headache was back in full force. He could feel it throbbing between his brows. He could feel the vertigo, as though he was going to fall from the roof and drop up into the endless sky. The thoughts were alien. Unnatural. But the logic was right there. Inescapable, after all he had seen, and done, and learned.

King Rat, accepting the worship and tribute of all lesser rats. And with the worship and tribute he would do… what? Enjoy the good life? Starbrite didn’t seem to be doing that. The most powerful man in the world, literally revered, and he was never seen in public. He had no known mansion, or mountain, or cultivation cave. He didn’t have a private orbital retreat, decked in orichalcum and staffed entirely by the finest, most obedient beauties the world could produce.

Truth started laughing through the pounding headache. Starbrite was hiding from the light. Hugging the walls. The company was way out in front. Everyone saw the company, saw the seven pointed star, and thought “Starbrite.” But the corporation wasn’t a real person, was it? It was a legal fiction. A ghost given a prosthetic body and a prosthetic future.

Truth thought of the two senior demons in the hot springs. What was it that the elegant calligrapher had written? That thing that made everyone mad, even if Truth didn’t really get why?

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Truth convulsed. His spine pulled tight, arching his back into a bow. The fuck do I have to do anything for some random fucking stranger. Fuck them. FUCK THEM! What did they ever do for me?! Where were they when I was starving? When I was getting beaten? When curses ate away under my skin like thousands of ants just because I wanted to get a newish tee-shirt out of a dumpster? Where the Hell were they?

He was furious. Furious at the smug sanctimony of the line. At the sheer madness of the worldview. It’s not like some random stranger was the Sibs. He didn’t owe them a damn thing.

That thought jolted him out of the rage spiral he was rapidly diving into. Was that exactly what the old demon was after? Treating everyone like they were your sibs? But that was crazy. They weren’t your sibs. They were strangers. You didn’t know them. It wasn’t even a question of biology. Truth didn’t extend honorary sib-hood to his evil parents. It was a question of duty.

The big bro looked out for his sibs. Was there a hierarchy there? Maybe yes, maybe no. He didn’t really forbid them from doing anything. He pushed them hard to study, to use the convoy system to and from school. Made sure they stayed away from drugs and booze. Made sure they knew the reality of life in the slums. But he didn’t really boss them around, did he? No, he didn’t. He just tried to give them as many good chances as he could, and let them run with it.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

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What?

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Because the “stranger” thing is bullshit!

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What? Well I might go back and find that skinny bitch and-

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Exactly.

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I… huh. Truth remembered the hot springs. The drifting unreality of it all, as he calmed himself after an admittedly very trying few days. Discussing philosophy with two ancient demons of unknown power. They were also the ones who tipped him to Manda too. The Angel of Revelation. And yet, outside of those drifting mists, the calligrapher's theory made him furious.

Truth tried to focus on what about the theory made him so angry. He quickly gravitated towards the idea of a universal duty to care about others. It was so plainly horseshit. Why? Why exactly did he need to care about people who neither knew he existed, or cared? For that matter, even if they did know, so what? It wouldn’t feed him. It wouldn’t put a roof over his head. Wouldn’t stop Starbrite.

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Obviously.

<< Like, for example, if it is in their power to prevent something bad from happening to you, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, they ought, morally, to do it?>>

Um. Well. When you put it that way, yes.

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I kind of want to say “yes,” but I’m still at “no,” really. There is a strong “I just don’t wanna” element. It sounds damn exhausting, and I don’t particularly want to donate all my money to charity.

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Yes? So what? That’s what drives the world forward, isn’t it? All those people making selfish decisions, building companies, making things. People buy new things because they selfishly want comfortable lives, creating jobs. Giving people a reason to make new, better, stuff. That’s literally how progress happens. Even I know that!

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Oh what is it this time?

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Truth rolled his eyes, looking up into the early summer sky. Work through what, exactly? I don’t know exactly where I learned that. You have access to all my memories. You tell me.

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Life sucks and then you die. So while you are alive, try to have a good time, and look out for your people. I dunno. Something like that. Date someone. Find some warmth. Whatever warmth, wherever you can. Try to be productive. Not sure that stacks up to a coherent ideology. I just want to keep climbing because I can’t stand staying where I am. Don’t feel safe. Don’t feel happy. Keep climbing until you hit the ceiling of King Rat, then break through it to whatever comes next.

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Since when did you start giving a damn?

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Truth blinked once, hard. Then a second time. He sat up suddenly. Looked around without really seeing anything.

I got set up.

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They set me up. They knew I would run into this bullshit. They put it right in front of me, so I would have to deal with it. Try and see through it.

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“I am the Prince.” Truth started laughing. Laughing and laughing, clutching his gut, laughing ‘till it hurt. “I am the Prince. Always have been. Always. It was just a case of taking it to the logical extreme. Killing Starbrite is just a means. He’s just a man. The King Rat in my head is the real enemy.”

He leapt to his feet and sprinted to the edge of the building. His foot touched the lip of the building, and he jumped out into the void.