What Adam Zimmerman contributed to the Universal Cartels Hardinist property grab was the knowledge of
exactly how to bring about the extraordinary circumstances that would cause the computerized trading systems to trash the worlds markets, and exactly how to take advantage of the ensuing chaos.
Contrary to popular belief, the Earth was not won on a single day on 20 March 2025, but it was lost on that day. When the second day of the new spring dawned, the way was clear and the pattern of acquisitions had become inexorable. The world woke up in the secure grip of an association of megacorporations whose chief executives formed the tightly knit conspiracy that soon became known by such journalistic catchphrases as the Secret Masters, the Inner Circle, and the Invisible Hand. The actual agents of the coup were more than content to remain hidden behind such euphemisms, while allowing their humbler instruments to bear the burden of personal notoriety. Adam Zimmerman was not, in any literal sense, the man who stole the world, but he was certainly in the forefront of the great heist. He organized the shock troops which led the rapid-fire asset-stripping raids that bankrupted whole nations and cornered every significant commodity whose futures were dealt. Like any true hero, he did not act for himself but for the captains of Global Capitalism, and hence for the world as a whole but he did take a perfectly reasonable commission on every deal he made.
By 2010 Adam had already made his first billion dollars and had laid the groundwork for the Ahasuerus Foundation. By 2020 he had made his second billion, and the Ahasuerus Foundation was becoming a significant force in longevity research and the commercial development of suspended-animation technology. In the spring of 2025 he made five billion dollars more, and the Ahasuerus Foundation became the leading institution in both its fields of sponsorship.
Although his part in these transactions made him one of the wealthiest men in the world, Adam remained scrupulously unassuming in dress and manner. His legion of aides and assistants thought him rather shy, and they were as grateful for his unfailing politeness as they were for his measured generosity. The only slight resentment that his employees harbored was against his habit of lecturing them on the necessity of self-discipline, the virtues of thrift, the dangers of hedonism, and other related topics. They valued the truths that were invariably to be found in these homilies, but were inclined to think the lectures themselves a trifle pompous.
Despite his nickname and the notoriety it reflected, Adam did not like to expose himself to the public gaze, and he became increasingly reclusive as the twenty-first century wore on. One of his favorite sermons, in fact, was a warning against the seductiveness of fame.
Fame, Adam would sternly advise his closer acquaintances, is essentially a matter of attracting attention, and attention is always fatal to men who make their living by dipping into other peoples pockets. People like ourselves should make every effort to avoid being interesting ; it not only renders one vulnerable to the iniquities of inquisitiveness, but makes one susceptible to flattery. Flattery is a powerful force, and its attractions can be difficult to resist. One must constantly remind oneself that fame is one of the most awful reminders of ones own mortality. The masses are always hungry for misfortune and disaster, and they love to revel in the tragedy and grief which attend the sufferings of their idols. The public invents celebrities mainly in order to revel in their decay and extinction, and fame always breeds sickness and self-abuse. The unluckiest men in the world are those who have a fame thrust upon them from which they cannot escape.
These were wise words. I could have judged them wise even from my own very limited experience of the fame I gained as the author of the definitive History of Death and the pioneer of emortal spiritual autobiography, but Adam Zimmerman provided a far more telling example himself. While he remained hidden from the world he was able to retain the status of a mere shadow on the page of history, an elusive myth but the longer he remained in his chrysalis of ice the more certain it became that he would wake to find himself famous, with disastrous effect.
Five
Adam Zimmermans speeches warning against the hazards of fame and sermons on the benefits of thrift were sometimes taken by those who did not know him well as evidence of cynicism. Here was a man, his critics argued, who was notorious throughout the world as the greatest thief in history, who poured the billions of dollars that he stole into
esoteric scientific and technological research. In contrast to the great philanthropists of Classical Capitalism, who had endowed universities, art galleries, and museums for the betterment of their humbler fellows, Adam Zimmerman seemed to care for nothing but the preservation of his own self, desiring only to become immortal in the crudest imaginable sense of the word.