Cryptofuture

“Good morning Alicia! It’s time to get up and get around for work” my assistant blares through my bedroom while she turns all the lights on and opens the curtains allowing the sun to shine into my room. She then begins to tell me about my routine for the day and what the weather will be while I lay in bed and stare at my now brightly lit ceiling. “Hey Google, you can stop,” I say, instructing her to stop talking. I sit up in my bed and look out my 34th floor window and gaze upon the view that is New York city at seven in the morning. I get out of bed and walk to my calendar and see that today, after 11 days, I finally get a day off from work. There is a note on my calendar telling me to not volunteer for overtime today but I can’t figure out why. Looking around my room I finally remember from the leaflet sitting on my bedside table, there is a showing for the now holographic interface today and it starts at ten!

I change into my appropriate clothes and run out of my apartment telling my assistant to lock the door behind me and call the elevator. The elevator opens as I arrive at it and I step in along with a few other people. As we descend the elevator tells us about the day, “the date is July 16th, 2065 and the weather should be clear with a high of…” I zone out as I daydream about the presentation I am going to. Project X, the biggest name in the holographic and augmented reality business, was going to be revealing a project that they had been working on for years by this point that was supposedly going to change the way humans interacted with almost everything.

We finally arrive at the bottom floor and I step out into my apartment lobby and notice a crowd of people gathered around the main customer service terminal. Many of the people were yelling at the machine while it stated “customer service has been notified, please be patient”. I notice my neighbor from across the hall and ask her what's going on. “Half the buildings' smart systems have been on the fritz all day today and yet the landlord isn’t doing anything about it! My oven started preheating itself today and wouldn’t stop and they don’t even care!” Other people start chiming in about how their apartments were doing all sorts of odd things that shouldn’t be happening and complaining that they couldn’t reach anyone to fix it or have an explanation for them. I tell them that my apartment was fine and that I really had to go as I pushed through the crowd of people.

I finally get past all of the people and make my way outside into the fresh air. All around me the digital billboards on all the buildings are promoting various products and services. I start walking to the subway when I see a billboard that peaks my interest. It appears to have been hacked as the message on the billboard says “Cryptocurrency will kill you all. None of you matter anymore” and had some weird symbol with a circle and three lines coming out of the top of the circle.

“How idiotic is that am I right” a young man in a dark brown suit says to me looking up at the billboard with me. “We have been using cryptocurrency, namely Bitcoin, for the last 30 years as our sole currency and it has caused nothing but good. Some people just can’t be pleased” the man says walking away from me. I reach the subway tunnel and make my way down to catch an early train to the other side of the city. “.00045BTC for ticket” the screen shows. I tap my digiwallet on the screen and it beeps flashing green and allowing me access past the gate. I still have a few minutes before my train arrives so I take the time to go use the restroom. As I approach the door a woman runs out of the door and runs right into me knocking us both down. “Woah are you ok” I ask looking over at her. She picks herself up and looks directly into my eyes. On both of her temples are what appears to be burns and her pupils are so dilated that it appears her eye color is black. She reaches over and grabs my shoulders and leans closer to me and whispers “they are always watching” into my ears as she stands and sprints directly towards the subway tracks. “Watch out” I scream as she runs directly in front of a subway train that continues through her as if she was nothing more than a breath of wind.

I sit there on the floor of the dirty subway staring at the now stationary subway training after having just watched a woman take her own life. “Are you ok” I hear to my right. I glance over and notice it's the man from before with the dark brown suit. “I’ve never seen someone die before” I say to him on the brink of tears. The man looks puzzled and asks me what that has to do with anything. I tell him that I’m sure after being hit by a subway train the woman could not be alive anymore. “What woman?” he says. “The one that just ran into me and ran in front of the train!” I exclaim. “Are you feeling ok? You must have hit your head when you fell because there was no woman here. You slipped going into the bathroom”. I look around and see that everyone is staring at me and not at the scene of the apparent suicide that just took place. I stand myself up and approach the train to see if the woman's remains had made themselves home on the subway car. I find nothing on the car, on the ground or anywhere else. It's as if the woman didn’t exist in the first place.

“I really gotta stop volunteering for so much overtime at the lab because I need to start getting more sleep” I think to myself as I board the subway car and find a seat. I reach into my pocket and grab my glARsses and put them on. I tap the power button waking up my glasses and my assist says “how can I help you Alicia?”. I ask how long the ride is going to be and it shows through the clear lens a map of the route I am going to take saying it's going to take 37 minutes to arrive at my stop due to delays at the next station. I sink lower into my chair and tell my assistant to entertain me. It starts showing me the daily news and shortly after I begin to doze off.

I am awoken by the sound of screeching brakes and being jerked to the side. I fall to the floor as the subway car screeches to a halt. As I get on my feet the lights in the subway car cut out causing the entire car to become pitch black. The emergency lighting kicks on and faintly illuminates the car in a red hue. I look around and realize the car is empty except for me. I bend over to pick up by glARsses and see the symbol on the billboard underneath the seat I was sitting in. I put my glARsses on and ask my assistant what was going on. All that comes through is a faint static mumbling of something. I ask again and get the same response. I walk over to the emergency call button and push it attempting to get help from someone or at least figure out what was going on. I then notice that in the far right corner of the display on my glARsses that instead of displaying the time it shows the symbol there as well. I stare at the symbol and try to remember if I had ever seen it before today. “How can I help you” a voice yells through the intercom breaking me out of my thoughts. “What's going on with the train and why are all the lights off?” I ask. “Hello I said how can I help you?” the voice comes through again this time louder. I repeat myself and push the button a few times to see if it would fix it. “Don’t play with the damn button!” the voice yells at me. I step back away from the intercom and as I do I hear one of the subway car doors slide open to my right. I glanced over to see why the door was opening and noticed there was nothing there. I slowly approach the door and look out of the opening. I see nothing but a dimly lit tunnel extending in both directions.

Then I hear a light tapping from the far end of the car, an almost footstep like sound but quiet enough to not be coming from a human. It sounded like when a dog or cat walks on hardwood with their nails tapping on the floor. I tell my assistant to turn the light on that's on my glARsses and it follows my command and turns the light on. The light illuminates the rest of the car in the direction the sound is coming from but there is nothing there. The sound gets louder, as if it's getting closer, and it continues to get louder. I start to back up until I run into the back wall of the cart. I can now feel the sound as it feels like it's on top of me. The volume continues to rise and the tapping gets louder and louder and I feel myself start to panic. I am almost forced to the ground by some unknown entity and I am now sitting on my butt with my knees in my chest. The tapping still continues to grow louder in my ears. I began to scream as if i'm being forced to. I close my eyes tight and force myself to stop screaming. The tapping suddenly stops and I feel what I can only identify as a cool summer breeze. I slowly, nervously, open my eyes to see I am no longer in the subway car but I am now in the middle of a park somewhere.

I try to move but my body refuses to listen to my commands and stays still. In front of me is a bench, in the middle of a wooded area. It's dark out but there are street lights around the sidewalk making the area bright as day. A man approaches the bench, it's the man in the dark brown suit. He’s holding a silver briefcase with the symbol on it. He takes a seat on the bench and places the briefcase on his lap and opens it. My body begins to walk over, out of the woods, and circles around the bench in front of the man. He looks up at me with a grim look in his face and motions for me to sit next to him. “Satoshi” he says looking into the briefcase “are you sure you want to do this”. “We have to” I say but it's not my voice. The man looks over at me and then back into the briefcase with a groan. “If we do this Satoshi, we are essentially giving up control. Whether that happens tomorrow or in 1000 years we will be giving up control to whatever entity came up with this damn thing” he says and turns the briefcase towards me. Inside the case appears to be some sort of computer with an exposed motherboard and cables running all over it. In the center is a lone red button and on the button is the logo for bitcoin. “We have to do this. If we don’t release this then we have already lost what little control we have”. The man in the suit slams a fist into the bench and yells “Satoshi you don’t understand what I am saying! If we release this thing into the wild we will be allowing them, allowing it, into our society and people will think it's your fault. In 100 years from now do you want people thinking that you, Satoshi Nakamoto, caused the inevitable downfall of humanity by creating this”? I stand and turn towards the man yelling “we don’t have a choice! If we don’t do it someone else will. You are just trying to delay the inevitable”. He slams the briefcase shut and sits it on the bench next to him. He slowly stands and faces me, then with a calm voice he states “I didn’t want it to come to this”. The man reaches behind him and in a quick motion he pulls a handgun out and starts to bring it towards me. I catch the man's arm and slam my hand into his forearm causing him to lose control of the firearm allowing me to take it. I bring the gun up and discharge a single bullet into his left thigh. The man falls to his knees in pain holding his now bleeding leg. He slowly glances up at me with an almost pleading look on his face. “Please don’t do this” he says now crying. I slowly raise the gun to his head and say “I don’t have a choice” squeezing the trigger.

With a flash I am awake and back on the subway. My assistant is telling me that the next stop is mine and to prepare to disembark the car. I lean forward and place my head in my hands. The car slows to a stop and the doors open. I slowly stand and exit the car. As I step out of the car a man brushes past me saying “excuse me” as he passes by. I stop recognizing the man as the one in the vision and I glance over at him. He has the same dark brown suit on and is sitting down in the train car. He looks up at me and smiles. He brings his right arm over and sits it on his knee slowly pulling his suit backwards revealing his forearm. Then as the doors close I notice the symbol tattooed on his arm. “Goodbye Alicia” he says with a grin as the doors shut firmly.