Walker surged forward and ripped the microphone off Fulsom’s shirt.
“Hey!” Fulsom reached for it, but Walker held him off with one outstretched hand.
“We came to Chance Creek to build a better future. To show everyone it could be done. To test out new ideas in technology and food production and the organization of people in communities. We’ve done everything we set out to do and more, and while we did it, we opened up our lives to scrutiny by the entire world.”
“That’s more words than I’ve heard Walker say in twelve months,” Savannah hissed. Riley elbowed her into silence, but Avery understood her shock. Walker wasn’t one to grandstand like this.
“We built a renewable energy system. He tried to sabotage it.” Walker pointed a finger at Fulsom, who began to protest. “We grew enough food to feed ourselves and more through the winter. He stole it. We built ten tiny houses that were beautiful and functional, each of them different because of the finishing touches of the homeowners. He tried to bulldoze them.”
Fulsom kept protesting, but no one was listening to him. Walker had them hooked.
“Here’s the thing about the world. There are builders and there are destroyers, givers and takers. We all know that. But there’s another class of people, too. The users. The ones who foment chaos between everyone else and then make billions off both sides when strife erupts. The ones who offer something for free but then make billions by selling our most personal data to those who want to influence us. The ones with so much money invested in things staying the same, they won’t ever allow conditions to improve for the rest of us. Tonight everyone watching this show needs to ask themselves, am I a builder, am I a destroyer or am I a user?”
Fulsom rubbed his forehead. Waited to see if Walker was done. When Walker didn’t go on, Fulsom leaned in to speak in the little microphone.
“I’m a builder! Everyone knows that!”
“Are you?” Walker challenged him. “Really?”
“I built all this!” He waved a hand to include all of Base Camp.
“Did you?” Walker waited him out, and Fulsom began to sputter.
“Without my money—”
“Without the money you earned in your oil empire, you mean?”
Fulsom flushed. Avery knew he’d spent years trying to change his image from oil man to environmentalist and entrepreneur.
“I’m using my money to fund—”
“You’re using our money, you mean.”
Fulsom gaped at him. “Your money? I’m the one who—”
“What? Pulled the oil out of the ground? Out of our ground? Ruined our air? Polluted our water? Changed our atmosphere?” Walker held out his hand to include everyone present. “And now you think you have the right to spend the money you earned doing that? To control where it goes? To play with our lives?”
Avery held her breath. There it was—the real reason Walker was speaking up. Fulsom had played with their lives—his and hers. All of theirs. Maybe he’d done it for the best of reasons. Maybe he’d done it for the most selfish ones.
It didn’t matter.
Because in the end, none of them had to let a stupid billionaire control anything.
And she’d had enough.
Avery marched up to where they stood and took the microphone from Walker. She faced the crowd.
“Our show has come to an end, but here’s the moral of the story,” she said. “If you want change, you have to bring it. If you want to end pollution, you have to stop polluting. If you want to have a civil society, you have to be civil. If you want to build a community, you have to build it. All of us here at Base Camp can’t change the world for you. Billionaires won’t change it for you. Your government is too hamstrung to change it for you. It’s all up to you. All up to each of us. We can encourage each other, reach out to each other, help each other, but at the end of the day, and especially in the middle of the night, in our darkest, loneliest hour, it comes down to us. We are all of us, every single one of us, alone in this fight—together.”
As her friends converged around her and Walker pulled her into a rough embrace, Avery dropped the little microphone and let it all go. This was what was important: this moment, these people, this man she loved.
But even as they came together, Fulsom called out, “Wait!”
Avery sighed but turned to listen.
“I… may have let myself get carried away.” Without his microphone, Fulsom had lost some of his bluster. “I wanted to be sure everyone watched Base Camp, so I did everything I could to make it popular: high stakes, dramatic problems, love and lust and weddings. So many weddings.”
A couple of people in the gathered crowd chuckled.
“I wanted a grand finale that would keep people talking even after the show was over, and I wanted everyone to know there’s no guarantee we win this thing. We’re in the middle of an extinction event. We’re destroying the world’s forests at an unprecedented rate. We—” He shook his head. “You know this. All of us know all this. And yet it goes on.” He raised his hands in supplication. Paced a few steps. “Here’s the thing. I’m afraid.” He pointed to Walker. “You’re right: I’ve got billions, and even I can’t seem to make a difference, so what does that mean? And you’re right: more than anyone else—anyone here, anyway—I helped cause this problem. So I need to fix it! But you’re right again. That’s where I lost sight of the goal. I’ve…” He paused, as if swallowing a bitter taste in his mouth. “I’ve got to ask for help. I’ve got to stop playing God. So what I’m going to do is… what I’m going to do is
