“Maybe I want to try to fund a future I would actually want to live in. One based on cooperation more than competition. One that’s not run by guys meeting for drinks in private clubs.”

Thelen nodded. “That’s fair.”

“The only thing I know for sure is I have lost enough people to the fighting,” said Donny. “Haven’t you?”

Thelen didn’t need to answer. You could see it in his eyes.

“What about Joyce?” he asked.

“I lost her too,” said Donny. “I lost her eight years ago, really, but it just took me a while to figure it out.”

“I could have told you that when you came to borrow the money to spring her.”

“I wouldn’t have listened. That was the right thing to do, even if it was too late. But even she agreed to stop fighting, and focus on building.”

“Maybe you’ll meet someone new.”

“I did,” said Donny. “She was trying to arrest me.”

Thelen laughed.

“No kidding. She arrested that guy instead.” Donny pointed at the TV.

“Oh,” said Thelen.

“She offered me a job. Said I was pretty good at hunting down war criminals for a guy who looked like such a loser.”

“Did you take it?”

“No, Terry. I would have had to move. To Switzerland, or India.”

“Sounds pretty good to me.”

“I’ve had so many chances to leave. But this is home. I have a future to build here. And some trees to plant. And I wanted to talk to you about whether you’d be willing to donate that money I just gave you to the cause. Because no one is going to fix the future for us. No government, no NGO, no beneficent tycoon. We each need to pick up the spade, and use it to help put it all back the way it was when our ancestors found it. Or whatever wacked-out new version of that we can manage.”

Thelen looked at him, and then he looked out the window. Donny looked, too, and they could see the river, and the city, and the suburbs going back to green. And then they heard the tap-tap-tap, and saw a big fat bumblebee at the glass, legs loaded with pollen, trying to find its way through the world we made our slave.

Acknowledgments