Chapter 674 - 316: Burning
Pittsburgh City Hall, the Mayor’s Office.
The night was deep. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights appeared hazy and fragmented through the curtain of rain.
Leo Wallace stood before the window. On the desk behind him, the latest intelligence briefings were piled high.
Capitol Hill in Washington was in chaos. Lobbyists from the energy and pharmaceutical giants were at each other’s throats.
Media headlines were filled with news of a power outage at a Pfizer lab and the crash of United Health’s data center.
This should have been his proudest moment.
He, a young Mayor from Pittsburgh, had single-handedly made the arrogant elites of Washington and the titans of capital dance on his chessboard.
He had successfully instigated a civil war between the two major factions—energy and pharmaceuticals—and diverted the crisis.
But he didn’t feel the slightest bit of satisfaction.
Instead, a heavy, suffocating sense of oppression was slowly drowning him like a rising tide.
Because beneath all the grand political games, there was another report.
It was surveillance data from the emergency rooms of hospitals all along the East Coast.
Because United Health’s data center had crashed, hundreds of thousands of pre-authorizations for emergency surgeries were stuck in limbo.
Doctors didn’t dare operate. Patients lay groaning on operating tables.
Because Pfizer’s logistics system was in disarray, tens of thousands of cancer patients couldn’t get their life-saving medicine.
These victims and the people he wanted to protect in Pittsburgh were, in fact, the same kind of people.
They were all ordinary working people, all innocent individuals struggling on the margins of life.
Leo closed his eyes.
He had originally started this war so the people of Pittsburgh could afford their medicine.
But in the end, to win the war, he had to first plunge a knife into another group of innocent people.
To protect one group of people, he had hurt another.
"Mr. President."
Leo whispered in the darkness.
"Was I wrong?"
"The people lying on operating tables waiting to die... is their blood on my hands, too?"
Roosevelt’s voice echoed in his mind.
"You’re in pain, Leo."
Roosevelt didn’t directly answer whether it was right or wrong. Instead, he pierced straight to the heart of Leo’s turmoil.
"You are suffering because of your conscience."
"This means you haven’t completely turned into one of those cold-blooded politicians. It means you still see yourself as a human being."
"But for a leader, this kind of pain is superfluous."
"Even harmful."
Leo opened his eyes and watched the rain outside the window.
"Superfluous?"
"Yes," Roosevelt replied.
"The dilemma you now face is the ultimate trial that everyone who tries to change history must encounter."
"The paradox of the ends and the means."
Roosevelt began to guide Leo.
"First, you must understand."
"If you don’t deliver this devastating blow to the insurance giants, this bloodsucking machine will continue to bleed every American family dry for the next fifty years. More people will die because they can’t afford treatment, and more children will become disabled because they can’t afford medicine."
"This is a slow, hidden, but much larger-scale slaughter."
"Your counterattack now has caused temporary chaos and made some people suffer."
"But this is a necessary pain."
Roosevelt’s voice became firm.
"To establish long-lasting order, temporary chaos is necessary."
"You’re tearing down a house, Leo. When you tear down a house, bricks will fall, dust will get in your eyes, and you might even injure a bystander."
"But you have to swing that hammer."
"If you don’t tear this house down, it will eventually collapse and bury everyone inside."
Leo clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms.
’He understood the logic. But when those abstract pains became the names of groaning, suffering individuals, this utilitarian calculation seemed pale and cold-blooded.’
"Mr. President, I’m scared."
Leo said in a low voice.
"I’m not afraid of failure, but of my perspective changing."
"Two years ago, I could name every one of Frank’s men. I knew what kind of candy Old George’s grandson liked. I knew when Margaret’s leg went bad."
"Back then, the people were concrete in my eyes—vivid and warm."
"But now..."
Leo pointed at the data reports on his desk.
"All I see are numbers."
"The mortality rate is up point-five percent. Emergency room wait times have increased by three hours. There are living, breathing people behind these numbers, but in my eyes, they’ve become bargaining chips, parameters for calculating cost-benefit ratios."
"The concrete individuals are disappearing. They’re becoming an abstract symbol—’The People.’"
"I claim to love ’The People,’ but I am sacrificing people."
"It makes me feel like a monster."
Roosevelt was silent for a moment.
"That is the curse of power, Leo."
"When you sit in this position, you’re standing at the top of a high tower. The people on the ground inevitably shrink into ants. If you fixate on the life and death of every single ant, you’ll lose sight of the direction the entire colony is heading."
"It’s a law of physics, and a law of politics."
"No, it’s more like moral arrogance."
Leo interrupted Roosevelt, his voice laced with the pain of self-doubt.
"We always say we’re on the side of the people, but who defines which side that is?"
"Who gave me the right to define what is correct? Who gave me the power to decide that they must sacrifice their present happiness for long-term benefits?"
"Did the people lying on the operating tables agree to this? Did the elderly who can’t buy their medicine authorize this?"