[SYSTEM STATUS: THE GREAT REVEAL]
[LOCATION: THE "IRON LUNG" FACTORY - DETROIT RUINS]
[VIRAL METER: REPLACED BY "THE LEDGER OF SIN"]
The world wasn't running on democracy or freedom anymore. It was running on the raw, unfiltered engine of Necessity. And Dante Vane had just bought the factory.
He stood on a catwalk overlooking the vast, repurposed assembly lines of what used to be a major American automotive plant. But they weren't building cars. They were building Compliance Drones and synthesizing "Soma-X", a chemical compound derived from the seized research of Big Pharma giants like Pfizer and Purdue.
"The old world called this 'industry'," Dante said, his voice cutting through the mechanical din. "I call it the slaughterhouse of gold. They hid their profits behind commercials with smiling families and soft music. I stripped the paint off. Now, you see the gears grinding against the bone."
Beside him stood Sia, her eyes scanning the tablets of production data. Even she, desensitized by months of chaos, looked pale.
"Dante," she whispered. "The chemical mixtures... these are the same formulas the Sackler family used to hook millions on opioids. You're ramping up production by 400%."
Dante didn't flinch. He watched a vat of neon-blue liquid being poured into ampules.
"The Sacklers were amateurs, Sia. They wanted customers. I want biological dependents. The difference between a drug dealer and a pharmaceutical CEO is just the quality of their suit. I'm wearing the suit, but I'm telling you the truth: Pain is the only currency that never inflates. And I own the patent on relief."
The Military-Industrial Complex: The "War Without End"
Dante walked further down the catwalk to the "Heavy Sector." Here, the remnants of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon engineers—men who had once built missiles to kill children in deserts halfway across the world—were now welding armor onto Dante's private enforcement legion.
"Look at them," Dante sneered, pointing at the engineers. "They used to call themselves 'Defense Contractors'. They claimed they were protecting freedom. But look at their hands. They are stained with the blood of every wedding party drone-striked in Yemen. They didn't care about the flag. They cared about the stock price."
He grabbed a headset and patched into the factory-wide intercom.
"Attention, workers," Dante's voice boomed. "You are not building weapons for a government. You are building the tools of your own subjugation. And do you know why? Because war is the most profitable industry in human history. It burns capital and demands replacement. I am not starting a war to win. I am starting a war to keep the factories running."
He turned to the camera drone, broadcasting to the starving remnants of the American populace.
"You think your wars were about terror? No. They were about keeping the assembly lines in Ohio moving so a senator could get re-elected. I am simply cutting out the middleman. I am the War. I am the Industry. And you are the fuel."
The Human Resource: The "Battery" Concept
Dante led Sia to the deepest level of the factory—the "Bio-Processing" unit. This was the darkest secret of the new world.
Rows of pods lined the walls. Inside weren't soldiers, but debtors. People who had failed to pay their "Vane-Credits" or had rebelled against the new order. They were hooked up to dialysis-like machines.
"What is this?" Sia asked, her voice trembling. "Are you... harvesting them?"
"I am extracting plasma," Dante said, his face devoid of empathy. "The elites of the old world—the Silicon Valley billionaires—used to buy blood from teenagers to try and live forever. They called it 'parabiosis'. They did it in secret clinics in Monterey."
He tapped the glass of a pod containing a former Wall Street hedge fund manager.
"I took their science and industrialized it. This man used to drain the pensions of teachers and firefighters. Now, he is literally draining himself to keep the lights on in Sector 4. It is poetic justice, Sia. The parasites are finally feeding the host."
The Profit of Despair
Dante walked out into the cold Detroit night. The sky was choked with smog, the air tasting of sulfur and ash. He looked at the towering smokestacks of his empire.
"The history of the world is not a history of nations," Dante said, lighting a cigar. "It is a history of Ledgers. The British Empire was a drug cartel pushing opium on China. The United States was an oil company with an army. I am just the first CEO honest enough to admit it."
He turned to Sia.
"Upload the financials to the public network. Show them the profit margins of their own slavery. Let them see that the cost of their freedom was calculated down to the cent, and they were found... insolvent."
[VIRAL METER: THE TRUTH HURTS]
[STATUS: THE WORLD IS A BUSINESS]