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Chapter 1: America Doesn’t Believe in Tears
The glow of the computer screen was the only source of light in Leo Wallace’s cramped apartment.
Outside the window, the sky over Pittsburgh hung heavy with its perpetual steel-gray haze, as if the last wisp of smoke from factories long gone still lingered, refusing to dissipate. But inside, the email on his screen burned brighter than any smog-choked horizon.
Sender: Federal Student Aid Office
Subject: [Final Overdue Notice] Your Federal Student Loan Account is Severely Delinquent
In the body of the email, a string of numbers stood out in bold, scarlet font:
Amount Due: $137,542.89
“One hundred thirty-seven thousand, five hundred forty-two dollars, and eighty-nine cents,” Leo muttered under his breath.
He slumped deeper into the ergonomic chair he’d scavenged from a secondhand market. The chair groaned beneath him, weary and creaking like its owner.
On the bookshelf to his left, volumes upon volumes crowded together. The Glory and the Dream had been worn down until its blue spine faded nearly white. Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox bore dog-eared corners, its pages curled from years of flipping through them. Nearby, titles like The New Deal Era, A History of American Labor Movements, and an English hardcover edition of Das Kapital jostled for space. These books were his intellectual sustenance, the bedrock of his academic world.
To his right, however, reality intruded—a wastebasket overflowing with empty packages of instant pasta, microwave pizza boxes, and crushed cans of energy drinks.
Idealism and survival were divided here by an invisible chasm, all within less than a square meter.
“Four years of study, hundreds of thousands of words poured into papers analyzing how Franklin Delano Roosevelt used political maneuvering and state machinery to pull a great nation out of the Great Depression…” His gaze drifted back to those glaring red digits. “…And yet I can’t even drag myself out of this student loan quagmire.”
With a flick of the mouse, he clicked the “Close” button at the top right corner of the email. Then, he switched to another browser tab—social media platform “X.”
In real life, he was Leo Wallace, a man drowning in debt, labeled by society as a failure. But here, online, he became something else entirely: “NewDealGhost.”
As soon as he adopted that persona, his tired eyes—bloodshot from sleepless nights and poor nutrition—sharpened, taking on a focused intensity, as though swapping one soul for another.
At the top of his feed sat a verified exposé by The Washington Post. Its headline screamed defiance: Omni Corporation’s “Digital Shackles”: Warehouse Workers Monitored by Algorithms.
Omni Corporation—a behemoth rivaling Amazon and Walmart combined—had built its empire on ruthless efficiency, wielding AI surveillance and draconian timing algorithms to push workers to their limits. In the article, a recently fired employee lamented: “Our shifts aren’t measured in hours—they’re counted in seconds. You feel less like you’re working for the company and more like you’re being driven by some invisible machine.”
Leo’s chest tightened with anger. This was the ultimate manifestation of the “scientific management” theories he’d studied—the same principles now cloaked in high-tech garb, reconstructing a digital plantation with fiber optics and code.
His fingers flew across the keyboard, transforming his encyclopedic knowledge of history into sharp-edged ammunition.
@NewDealGhost: Franklin Roosevelt warned us in 1936: “A government that allows one-third of its people to go hungry, cold, and homeless because of its constitution is not a functioning government.”
We stand at the dawn of a new Gilded Age.
And Omni Corporation is its quintessential “economic royalist.”
#OmniExploitation #DigitalShackles #EconomicRoyalists
As he pressed “Post,” it felt as though every ounce of frustration and helplessness flowed out with that single click. He leaned back in his chair, exhaling deeply.
The numbers began climbing almost immediately—likes and retweets ticking upward with dizzying speed. For a fleeting moment, he indulged in the illusion that his voice might pierce through the walls of his cheap apartment and shake the monolith of capital and algorithms outside.
Then his phone buzzed. A message from the café manager reminded him to hurry in for his evening shift.
Just before closing the app, he glanced at his notifications. What had been a dozen unread alerts earlier had ballooned into a glaring “99+.”
---
Dawn broke over Pittsburgh, damp and biting. Leo’s phone vibrated incessantly beside him throughout the night. That single tweet had spiraled far beyond his control.
Retweets surpassed fifteen thousand. Likes surged past fifty thousand—and counting. His follower count skyrocketed from twenty thousand to fifty thousand overnight. His inbox overflowed with interview requests from journalists and messages of support from an Omni insider. Of course, there were insults too.
“Spouting nonsense? Get out of America!” read one particularly venomous reply.
Yet, instead of exhilaration, Leo felt only unease. As a historian, he knew well that when words coalesced into power, they inevitably drew equal and opposite reactions.
Carrying this weight, he entered the University of Pittsburgh’s history department building. Professor Davis, his doctoral advisor, had summoned him.
“Leo, sit,” said Davis, seated behind his massive mahogany desk, dressed impeccably in a gray herringbone tweed suit.
“I’ve read your draft. Your arguments are incisive—you have a brilliant mind for research.” He paused, tone shifting. “Which is why I find it regrettable that you’re wasting such talent buried in old texts about the New Deal.”
Davis slid a glossy brochure across the desk. “Take a look at this. The Peterson Institute for Economic Growth. They’re offering a generous grant project—Private Sector Leadership in Urban Revitalization.”
Leo’s eyes caught the fine print at the bottom of the pamphlet: Primary Donor: Marcus Peterson, Founder of Omni Corporation.
A wave of nausea mixed with absurdity washed over him.
“Professor, isn’t this just Omni’s corporate mouthpiece?” Leo looked up, meeting his mentor’s gaze. “You want me to legitimize worker exploitation?”
Davis’s smile faltered.
“Don’t be so emotional, Leo. Academia doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Learn to collaborate with reality rather than fight against it. This grant could wipe away your student loans completely.” His voice lowered conspiratorially. “Besides, I hear you’ve been quite vocal online lately. Some companies care deeply about their public image.”
“There’s always a cost to what we say online, Leo. It will affect your future employment.”
In that moment, Leo felt an icy chill unlike anything he’d experienced before. Even the ivory tower wasn’t immune; whispers of capital seeped through every brick.
“Thank you for the advice, Professor,” Leo said, standing. He pushed the brochure back toward Davis. “But I think I prefer dusty archives. At least they don’t try to buy me off.”
Without waiting for a response—or seeing the sudden pallor on Davis’s face—he nodded politely and walked out of the office.
As he left the building, Leo wandered campus weighed down by conflicting emotions. There was no sense of triumph, only indignation and exhaustion.
He arrived at his part-time job, a bustling coffee shop called “Daily Grind.” Afternoon rush hour was in full swing, customers streaming in and out nonstop.
Behind the counter, Dave, the middle-aged manager, greeted him with an awkward smile. “Leo, you’re here.”
“Dave, busy day today,” Leo remarked, heading toward the break room.
“It sure is,” Dave replied, wiping his hands before pulling Leo aside during a lull. Lowering his voice, he added hesitantly, “Listen, um… could you stop by my office after your shift?”
Just as Leo noticed the nervousness etched on Dave’s face, he continued, “Headquarters sent me an email.”
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