He was worth 1 billion dollars. A great philanthropist has died.
Title: “The Net Worth of Judgment Day”
Setting: A dim bunker beneath the ruins of Los Angeles. Screens flicker with Skynet financial archives. Resistance leader John Connor stands across from a holographic reconstruction of Jacob Rothschild. A younger eco-adventurer avatar of David de Rothschild flickers in and out like a corrupted NFT.
JOHN CONNOR:
Skynet controls the nukes, the drones… and apparently the Forbes archives. Funny thing though — your file says one billion.
JACOB (hologram, serene):
A modest sum, Mr. Connor. Inflation is the true Terminator.
JOHN:
That’s strange. Because your nephew’s file says ten billion. Ten. Billion. And he’s sailing around in recycled plastic.
DAVID (glitching, smiling):
It was an eco-catamaran, John. Sustainability scales.
JOHN:
So let me get this straight. The Resistance can’t afford plasma rifles in the 40-watt range, but the eco-adventure branch of the dynasty is worth ten times the banking branch?
JACOB:
Net worth is a matter of perspective. Assets are like time travel — complicated, layered, and best understood through trust structures.
JOHN:
Trust structures? We don’t even trust toasters anymore.
DAVID:
You’re thinking too linear, John. Wealth isn’t stacks of gold in a vault. It’s shares, holdings, valuation models — sometimes it’s just vibes.
JOHN:
Vibes don’t fund killer robots.
JACOB (smirking):
On the contrary. Optimism funds markets. Markets fund innovation. Innovation funds… unintended consequences.
(A T-800 skull flickers on a nearby monitor labeled “Derivatives.”)
JOHN:
So what you’re saying is Skynet didn’t become self-aware. It became publicly traded.
DAVID:
IPO: Infinite Profit Oblivion.
JOHN:
And you’re worth one billion?
JACOB:
Publicly estimated. There is a difference between visibility and reality. Some numbers are for the newspapers. Others are for history.
JOHN:
In my future, numbers don’t matter. Only survival.
JACOB:
And yet here you are, auditing ghosts.
(Silence. Wind howls through the bunker.)
JOHN:
Maybe Skynet didn’t rise because of money. Maybe it rose because humans worshipped numbers more than conscience.
DAVID (fading):
Or maybe because no one read the fine print.
JACOB:
Tell me, Mr. Connor — in your timeline… what is the net worth of freedom?
(The holograms flicker out. The screen reads: “ASSET CLASS: HUMANITY — UNPRICED.”)
JOHN (loading his plasma rifle):
Good. That means they can’t hedge it.
Fade to black.
Goodbye old friend.
Now I know why you humans cry.
I know he is your friend…but I am not going to cry.
I’m sorry Arnold. I am sorry. I don’t agree with you that he was a great man.
Goodby sweet angel. Rest in Peace.
The haze of cigar smoke in the private club was almost as thick as the secrets. Joe Jukic, known in certain circles as JCJ, took a long pull from his drink, his eyes fixed on the comedian across from him, Ricky Gervais.
“You think you’ve heard weird,” Joe began, a wry smile touching his lips. “Try getting a call from the Terminator himself. Arnold. Voice like gravel in a blender. He doesn’t say hello. He just says, ‘JCJ. We are hunting the elephant.’”
Ricky leaned in, his smirk both skeptical and intrigued. “The elephant? Please let this be a metaphor. Please tell me he didn’t want to go on safari with you.”
“I wish,” Joe chuckled. “No. He was talking about Jacob Rothschild. And he wasn’t suggesting a sternly worded letter. He had an elephant gun—a .700 Nitro Express, a cannon that would turn a jeep inside out. And he wanted me to use it. Said my ‘particular skillset’ was needed.”
“So what did you say?” Ricky asked, gesturing for Joe to continue.
“I told him, ‘Arnold, that’s a hell of an idea. You should do that.’” Joe’s tone was flat, miming the calm of that moment. “I was JCJ, the strategist, agreeing with the premise but redirecting the action. It’s what I do.”
“And he didn’t like that,” Ricky guessed.
“He did not,” Joe said. “He came right back with, ‘No, no, no. JCJ, you do not understand. You should do it.’ He wanted the legend of Arnold Schwarzenegger to be clean. He wanted the ghost—me—to do the work. So I insisted. ‘You do it, Arnold.’ The line went dead. He’d hung up. He wasn’t looking for a partner. He was looking for a patsy.”
“I thought that was the end of it,” Joe continued, swirling the ice in his glass. “A bizarre footnote. Then, Madonna.”
On a screen across the room, her “Batuka” video played silently. Women in stark formation, pounding rhythms on drums, their movements a synchronized verdict.
“She drops this thing,” Joe said, pointing with his glass. “And the chorus is just hammering over and over: ‘Put him in jail.’ It was like she was listening in on our call and decided to crash the party with her own plan. Arnold wants a hunt. Madonna wants a trial. It was chaos.”
Joe leaned forward, his JCJ persona taking over, the calm, knowing architect of narratives.
“So I had to assess. The hunt was a test. Arnold was probing my boundaries, seeing if JCJ was a trigger man or something more. He found out. And Madonna? She’s playing to the crowd, directing the anger. It’s all noise. Theater for the masses.”
“And the elephant?” Ricky asked, playing along. “Rothschild? What about the Epstein connection everyone screams about?”
Joe Jukic—JCJ—smiled, a quiet, unnerving gesture of absolute certainty.
“They are very much alive. The ‘hunt’ was never real because the elephant was never in the forest. They’re in Israel. In disguise. In plain sight. The deaths, the scandals… it’s all just a very, very good costume. They’re waiting for the curtain to fall on this particular act so the next one can begin.”
Ricky Gervais stared for a long moment, then let out a short, sharp laugh, shaking his head. “Right. Of course they are.” He raised his own glass. “To the theater, then.”
Joe Jukic clinked his glass against Ricky’s. “To the theater.”