novelnext Chapter 6 Don't mention him to me
Chapter 6 Don't mention him to me
This historical film, directed by a deceased president himself, has one last scene.
The postwar prosperity, the funeral of labor unions, the euphoria on Wall Street, and the wailing of the financial tsunami all receded like the tide.
The system interface of "RenDun Data Service Company," which consisted of code and algorithms, also disappeared.
The end of the lens marks the end of history.
The final scene, magnified infinitely, focuses on a face filled with despair and exhaustion.
It's Leo Wallace's own face.
That face, now completely drained of color, after receiving the final demand for $13 and the termination letter.
The grand narrative of history ultimately ends in his personal tragedy.
This is the final scene of the entire movie.
Then, the screen went dark.
Leo's consciousness was like being thrown from a great height, crashing back into his own body.
He was panting heavily, as if he had just run a marathon without an end in the torrent of history, and a layer of cold sweat soaked through the back of his T-shirt.
The library's special archives room remained eerily quiet, with the central air conditioning system emitting a monotonous hum.
But the world he sees is completely different now.
He looked at the thick historical works on the bookshelf, those words he once regarded as the Bible.
They are no longer the crystallization of wisdom, nor are they objective records.
They are old medical records that have been carefully compiled but are riddled with errors.
And he himself is the latest failed case added to these medical records.
Roosevelt's voice echoed in his mind once more.
This time, there was no pride, no anger, and no sarcasm in his voice.
All that remains is a weariness after eighty years of trials and tribulations, and an unquestionable resolve.
"The dikes I built were meant to control a flood," Roosevelt said slowly. "I succeeded, in that era."
"But eighty years have passed, Leo, and the climate has changed. What is raging now is no longer floods, but a tsunami driven by the rage of the entire planet. You can't stop a tsunami with a floodgate."
He paused for a moment, allowing Leo to process the analogy.
"My opponents back then were visible giants. They were Morgan, DuPont, and Ford. They were trusts, monopolists. I could call them to the White House and fight them face to face with the law and public opinion as weapons."
"And your opponent is an invisible virus. It has no physical form, and it has already infected every blood vessel and every cell in this system."
"You can't negotiate with a plague."
The weariness in his voice grew heavier, as if he were stating a fact that he himself was extremely unwilling to admit.
"My new policy is like a powerful medicine prescribed for a patient who can still be saved. Although the patient was very ill at the time, his physical condition was still good, and his immune system could still be activated."
"And now, this patient has developed complete resistance to all the old prescriptions from my time. You can't prescribe a box of ordinary cold medicine to a terminally ill cancer patient, Leo, that's not treating the disease."
There was a hint of determination in Roosevelt's voice.
"That was a comforting murder."
The voice in my mind fell silent for a long time.
This silence is more powerful than any impassioned words.
It was like a giant sponge, absorbing all of Leo's shock and fear, forcing him to face alone the brutal truth that had been revealed in blood.
Then, just as he felt he was about to be swallowed by the silence, Roosevelt asked the question.
That ultimate question that will permeate everything.
"You saw everything that happened after I died."
"You saw the feast on Wall Street, and you saw the rust in Pittsburgh."
"You've seen your own end."
"Now, child, answer my first question."
"—Do you still think that the methods I used back then, the system I built, are... effective for the world today?"
The silence in the library's special archives was broken by a heavy breath from Leo Wallace.
He slowly straightened up from the hardwood chair, feeling every bone in his body groaning.
The impact of that mentally taxing film was more physically demanding than any all-night study session he had ever experienced.
He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and began to process the historical ruins that spanned eighty years.
Then, in an almost inaudible voice, he answered the question that had been echoing in the depths of his soul.
"...No, Mr. President."
He paused for a moment, as if saying those words had exhausted all his strength.
"The old prescription... is no longer effective."
This is an academic judgment made by a history doctoral student about his lifelong research idol.
This is also a young person's acknowledgment of the reality they live in, overwhelmed by debt and algorithms.
However, acknowledging that one path is a dead end does not automatically illuminate another path.
Leo's mind, a mind repeatedly shaped by historical documents and post-Cold War textbooks, was immediately filled with new questions.
"But..." His voice was filled with struggle, "But the other path...we've seen how that path ended, haven't we?"
He opened his eyes and stared at the empty space ahead, as if debating with an invisible ghost.
"The Gulag Archipelago, the tanks of Budapest, the Great Purge, and the Berlin Wall that divided a nation, the rigid and lifeless planned economy, and the defeat that collapsed overnight, which can be described as the most humiliating defeat in history."
His breathing became rapid, a collective memory deeply ingrained in his generation.
Why would we jump from one fire pit into another that has already proven to be a fire pit?
The voice in my head carried an undisguised anger.
But this anger wasn't directed at Leo, but at a historical misunderstanding that he couldn't tolerate.
"Don't mention him to me!"
Roosevelt's voice was like a thunderclap from a clear sky, exploding inside Leo's skull and making him dizzy.
"I knew what kind of person he was when I dealt with him in Yalda."
The anger came quickly and went quickly.
"I never intended to copy anyone's model, Leo. I just wanted to complete my own political testament, the one I didn't have time to carry out myself."
Leo's breathing stopped at that moment.
His heart began to pound.
He knew, as a student who studied the history of the New Politics as part of his life, what Roosevelt was going to say.
"Child, you know what I'm talking about."
"That was the last spark I left for this country in my 1944 State of the Union address."
"—The Second Bill of Rights."