The Cobra Commander Dialogues: III.I.10

Originally posted on Atlas Shrugged: The Hippocratic Oath.

Cobra Commander: Pretty swank party you’re running here.
Midas Mulligan: Hey! Who invited you?
John Galt: He didn’t so much get invited as…
Midas Mulligan: What the hell happened to the front half of my house!?
Cobra Commander: Funny story that, I’m really having a kick lately knocking down walls. Anywho, you’re throwing this thing to welcome Dagny huh?
Midas Mulligan: Yes I was just getting around to finishing up the introductions…
Cobra Commander: Really can’t bring myself to care.
Dagny Taggart: But this is a paradise you’re ruining. Why this dinner is the equivalent of a trip to heaven!
Cobra Commander: Okay this whole… you fawning over every single thing you’ve seen here thing is getting incredibly old.
Dagny Taggart: But it’s all just so amazing!
Cobra Commander: Aren’t you supposed to be a competent independent businesswoman? Why are you just all gobsmacked all the time now?
John Galt: Well who wouldn’t be with such esteemed company as this? We’ve the world’s finest lawyers, doctors, businessman…
Cobra Commander: Can they really be called the world’s finest if they’re not, you know, a part of the world?
John Galt: But of course! We produced the finest art, write the finest laws, build the most amazing inventions…
Cobra Commander: Which I’ll be happy to all steal later, but seriously you’re… just like sitting in this hidden little valley how can you know you have the best anything? I mean if you produce a piece of art but don’t open it up to criticism from the masses, how can you be sure if it’s good or not? Isn’t that something the market decides?
John Galt: Nonsense! Brilliant rugged individualist capitalists by us can just KNOW what the best art is!
Cobra Commander: It’s not just the arts! History has shown that sometimes the most amazing inventions and most profitable things are developed by accident, or even undervalued by their creators! You can’t just… ‘know’ if something is valuable unless you let someone appraise it’s worth to society. Also how the heck do you even write legal treatises if you’re not involved in the law anymore? Like I’m pretty sure the law is kind of a fluid reaction to societal developments, it would seem something if you were cut off from society you just… literally couldn’t do.
Judge Narragansett: I mostly write laws like ‘Everyone else is terrible and thus all of us here are the best, and thus ipso facto we are to be given all the money in the world.’
Dr. Hendricks: And we’ve all agreed that’s one of his better laws. But you can’t argue my invention is without merit, I’ve cured strokes.
Cobra Commander: What wait, really? How have I not heard of that?
Dr. Hendricks: Oh it’s a procedure I’m never really going to implement. I just… you know, wanted to prove I could do it.
Cobra Commander: Hey look, I feel you man. Why give something away for free right? So you’re going to sell the idea back and make a huge fortune off of it…
Dr. Hendricks: No I’m never going to show anyone how to do it. Ever. I might do it once or twice if it just so happened a friend of mine got a stroke, and they could pay me a lot of money.
John Galt: Like you’d ever be friends with someone who couldn’t afford it!
Dr. Hendricks: Ha! You’re right, I might jus t charge them a nickle as a lark! But no on the point the technique and method will die when I do, if I haven’t figured out a way to make myself immortal by then.
Cobra Commander: You… you are a monster.
Dr. Hendricks: Oh this from the man who is going around smashing up buildings and stealing things?
Cobra Commander: Hey, I’m a villain, I own up to that. But what you’re doing is just… just pointlessly cruel. It’s inhuman. I mean if I had that technology I might use it to hold the earth ransom but… to have the power to save hundreds of thousands of lives every year… just… to just keep it to yourself out of spite?
Dr. Hendricks: Oh no it’s not really out of spite. It’s not like I want them to die. I just literally couldn’t be bothered to care. The lives of people who aren’t at this table with me right now are basically a trivial concern.
Cobra Commander: I work with arms dealers, con men, mad scientists, and even a man who was literally constructed out of the DNA of all of the worst people in the history of the world. And I have met so many atrocious ‘heroes’ in my visit through this pathetic ensemble you have assembled and you, sir, are the absolute most horrid human being I have ever met in my entire life. You’re not even a person anymore. You are a monster.
Dr. Hendricks: And yet I sit here calmly enjoying a nice wine.
Cobra Commander: You know, I was just going to get a general revenge on this whole place once I was bored with it. Steal all your tech, ransom it to the outside world. But yours. No yours I’m giving away for free.
Dr. Hendricks: You wouldn’t dare!
Cobra Commander: In fact, I think I’m going to take the proceeds from my thefts (after shaving off a nice percentage for myself), and I’m going to pay for free medical treatments to all the stroke victims who could be saved by your treatment.
Dr. Hendricks: You fiend! How dare you improve the quality of peoples lives without gaining anything for yourself!
Cobra Commander: Oh I will gain something. Not something as simple as money no. And I can’t pretend I’ll really care that much about the people I’m curing as well. But every single patient I know is getting a clean bill of health thanks to you, and I can imagine the screams of your hatred and rage and they will be the most beautiful music to me in the world.
Richard Halley: Excuse me, I actually make the most beautiful music in the world.
Cobra Commander: Fine. I’ll steal your music and make a muzak loop of it that plays in my charity stroke hospitals waiting rooms.
Richard Halley/Dr. Hendricks: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO