SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY: CORPORATE WARFARE
"Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive."
-Ayn Rand, Novelist and Philosopher
Prologue
The ambulance screeched down the damp street and made a sharp turn at the corner, almost losing balance and tipping over. The driver, thinking better of the slippery roads, slowed the vehicle, but only slightly. The bright red and blue of his sirens lit up the dark night of downtown Manhattan. The few cars that were on the road quickly pulled to the side, creating an empty column before the driver that seemed to lead to his final destination. Two more blocks and he turned a final corner. Suddenly huge bellows of dark black smoke appeared ascending into the sky from the horizon. As he grew closer, part of a building became visible inside the column of smoke; his mouth fell open in the pure awe of the scene.
At the site of the spectacle people looked on as the fire leapt up into the night, lighting the sides of steel girders and of broken concrete, illuminating the darkness with a fiery orange. The bright blue and red of the law enforcement vehicles added to the array of lights, the mixture making the shadows of the destruction dance in peculiar ways. Smoke, the smell of burning of fuel, of gunfire and of explosives, filled the air with a repulsive odor and climbed into the heavens. The sirens of the police and fire fighter vehicles echoed through the darkness, silencing the yells of the brave men and women who desperately searched for survivors. An assembly of on-lookers had already begun to form a ring around the devastation, pointing and staring in trepidation at the great flames that climbed high into the sky. Soon after the ring of spectators had formed a swarm of news vans appeared from all directions. Cameras were set up everywhere, from every possible angle, recording each second of the horror that had unfolded that night. Overhead helicopters flashed their lights onto the on-lookers below, their pale faces made bright for brief moments. And alone, in an alley, a man stared at the scene in silence.
For the people in the crowds and for those who watched it from the news broadcasts the destruction was over. For them the war that had raged here this night had ended, lasting only a few long moments. But for this man, standing alone in the alley, the battle had lasted much longer. For this man, it was only the beginning.
The man in the alley stood watching the flames a moment longer. Slowly he turned away from it, covering his eyes. The heat and stench had become too unbearable. Everything the man had worked for rose with the ashes into the sky above. The rage within grew more and more. As he walked further into the alley he turned suddenly and kicked a trash can high into the air, the various contents within spilling upon the concrete of the alley. He banged his fists against the wall and slid to his knees, tears streaming down from his eyes. He screamed out in pain of his loss, and begged God none of it had happened. He sat back against the alley wall and let his head fall into his hands.
The man shook his head and stood up slowly. Placing his hand on the wall of the alley he stumbled slowly away from the lights into the darkness of the alley. In his mind the revelations of the past few days and weeks were repeated in full. His mind dove into the past, dove back into everything that had led him to this point, back to the very beginning, hoping to make sense of everything that had happened that night.
