The threat from Brianna Barksdale felt colder than the November wind. She hadn't just frozen my funds; she'd put a lock on my exit strategy. Stringer had repeated her demands: Justify the thousand dollars in expenses, or the flow stops. It was the coldest demand I'd ever heard. She needed spreadsheets; I dealt in chaos theory.
I needed to clear my head of numbers, so Mama Sofia took me to a community center event she was helping organize. This was the world of the Pulse—the thinkers and speakers who wanted to fight the decay with words, not cash.
The first man I saw was Amiri Baraka. He was at a small folding table, signing copies of a thin book of poetry. Baraka looked intense, his eyes full of the fire that the tenements couldn't burn.
Mama Sofia saw him too. "Elijah, this man is a revolutionary," she whispered, her voice full of pride. "His words are weapons."
I tugged her hand and walked right up to the table. Baraka looked down at the two-year-old staring up at him, unimpressed.
"Poet man," I said, using my simple Gump voice, "your words got more flow than my rhymes, but history's got slow feet."
Baraka laughed, a short, sharp sound. "And what does the youth know of history, little man?"
I didn't answer with words. I saw a Divine Revelation instead: a clip, grainy and black-and-white, from the documentary Eyes on the Prize(1987). It showed the triumphant marches of the past, immediately followed by the disheartening political compromises and structural setbacks of the future. It was a beautiful movement, but it wasn't a bank.
The message wasn't that Baraka failed; it was that change takes too long. It takes decades, and I only had six months until the violence caught me. The revolution was moving at a pace that Brianna Barksdale's ledger would never tolerate.
Baraka signed my clean copy of Black Magic and shook my hand. I walked away, holding the book like a heavy, impractical investment.
Just outside, in the community garden space, another event was happening. A small crowd had gathered around a man with tired eyes and a profound presence: Cesar Chavez. He was there speaking about farm workers and la causa—the cause.
Mama Sofia's eyes lit up again. "Elijah, this is justicia. This is fighting for the right thing."
I stood by the edge of the small crowd, listening to Chavez talk about perseverance and union strength. The message was clear: unity, struggle, and time.
I looked at the ground, and I saw a Divine Revelation flash—not a movie, but a subtle, complex computer graphic from a future, hyper-detailed financial simulation. The title flashed: 2025 Union Collapse. It showed a map of the United States with union density collapsing due to automation and political lobbying. The message was brutal: Unity loses to technology and capital.
I walked up to Chavez's leg, and he bent down slightly, offering me a gentle smile.
"What do you fight for, little man?" Chavez asked.
I used my clear, strategic voice, filtering the complex future data into a simple truth. "Justicia? Yo, I'm fightin' for my own block, but your way is too slow for the Barksdales, yo."
Chavez blinked, confused by the honesty. He didn't understand that the justice I needed required George M. Hamlin's legal muscle, not a community protest.
I knew then that my path—the path of the Cube Rights Fund—was the only viable revolution. The poet and the union man offered hope, but Brianna Barksdale and Prop Joe offered guarantee. My only power was speed and clean capital.
I tucked Baraka's book under my arm. It was a beautiful piece of literature, but it wasn't a good asset. I needed to focus on the balance sheet.