Intelligent History and the One Who Lives

“You’re foolish and will never amount to anything.” Adam slammed the lid down on Nitosha’s laptop and stood there. His chest puffed out as his nostrils flared.

Her stomach turned. She knew this was going to be another flare-up, possibly one that would leave her with a scar. But she had so many marks she almost didn’t care anymore. Foolish? Definitely, because she responded to him this time.

“I’ll amount to something,” she protested.

Adam’s eyes widened in surprise that she dared talk back.

“How many bitcoins have you mined this month? This year? Nothing, Nitwit! Time’s running out. We’re getting closer to the 21 million cap every day. More and more bitcoins mined every few minutes!”

“There’s still money to be made in transactions.”

“Yes, but new bitcoin. There’s a prestige that comes with mining new bitcoin.” For a moment, Adam’s face took on that faraway look he got when he imagined himself being named with the other miners, even if he was only there for five minutes before he was wiped away by someone else. Then his face changed again realizing Nitosha wasn’t getting him there. “I thought that was precisely the reason we bought all this expensive equipment. Your test scores, your affinity for working with computers. You made us believe you would make us rich. You lied.”

Nitosha tilted her head, looking up. “Lied? Adam, would I ever lie to you?”

She opened her laptop again and typed in her password. “I’ve got work to do. I’m on the verge of a breakthrough.”

“A breakthrough? For what? You haven’t made us anything. How long have we been waiting? Too long!”

She smiled. “What if I made you hundreds, Adam?” She got to her feet. After her last growth spurt, her height almost matched his now. “What if I made you millions?”

Adam cackled. “There aren’t even a million bitcoins left to be mined.”

“No, of course there aren’t.” Nitosha took a breath and looked into his face. He was despicable and ill-tempered, and she detested him for the most part, but she never would have gotten this far with her programming if it hadn’t been for him. When she made her breakthrough, she had to repay him somehow. “Tell me something, Adam. What could I do that would make you happy? How many new coins would you need before you felt like I hadn’t wasted your time?”

“To feel like you haven’t wasted my time?” a forced, humorless laugh escaped him. “Well, there are 500 bitcoins left, so I guess 500. It’s too late, Nitosha. You wasted my time and that’s that.”

Nitosha nodded. “500 it is.” She sat down at her computer again.

Adam swore at her and walked away.

Her screen had gone dark, she watched Adam’s reflection until he was gone, then she tapped a key. She pulled up her camera feed and watched Adam head to Rita’s room. He’d be busy for a few minutes at least.

She checked her encryption again, then pulled up the chat. “Good morning, Moot. Are you there?”

***

“Get a job, Tom. You’re never going to make any money sitting in front of that stupid computer doing nothing.”

The voice came tumbling down the stairs. Tom’s mother didn’t even bother going down to talk to him anymore. He yelled back up to her, “Sure thing, Mom. I’ll have a job by tomorrow.”

“Why do I even talk to you about a job? The point is moot anyway.”

Tom replied in a low town, ensuring his voice didn’t reach his mother’s ears. “It sure is.” He wasn’t getting a job. He wasn’t going to need one as soon as he and Satoshi were done.

After that, his mother wouldn’t think he was moot, and that any discussion was pointless because it would never come to any satisfactory conclusion.

A message popped up on his screen. “Good morning, Moot. Are you there?”

“Ready and waiting,” he typed.

“Good. Then let’s get to work.”

He still didn’t know exactly who Satoshi was, but he was brilliant. Tom couldn’t wait to get to work every day. They both were working in secret thanks to the strong encryption on their computers. Sometimes Satoshi had to leave abruptly without explanation. Sometimes his messages sounded stressed and urgent. He never made it clear, but Tom thought this project of theirs might be a matter of life and death for Satoshi.

For Tom, it was nothing more than a chance to prove everyone else wrong. He wasn’t moot. He wasn’t someone who was pointless to discuss because he would never change. Everyone would know that soon.

“I’ve sent you a new section of code. Will you look at it?”

Tom opened it and scanned through it, feeling like he was looking at code written by angels.

“This stuff is amazing,” he typed. “Where do you come up with these ideas?”

Satoshi didn’t answer. “I can’t connect the dots here, though. What do you think?”

Tom looked at the code Satoshi was talking about and shook his head. “I don’t know why you need my help, Satoshi.” A little knot twisted in his gut. “Is this a scam or something? What aren’t you telling me?”

He’d always had some doubts about how anyone could be as smart as Satoshi, how anyone could come up with these codes. Tom would have needed a whole team of people to make it all, but Satoshi acted like he needed Tom’s help, and lately Tom was beginning to realize Satoshi knew everything about the code. It was almost as if Satoshi wanted to give it to him for some reason.

“What’s your angle here?” Tom typed fast, his fingers smacking each key as he wrote the question.

“No angle. We’re going to be wealthy together.”

“But you know everything about this. You’ve probably known everything from the beginning. Why are you getting me involved?”

“Do you not want to be involved, Moot?”

He pushed his palms through his hair and looked up at the ceiling, trying to clear his eyes of the blur he got from staring at the computer screen for too long. “Of course I want to be involved, but I need to know the truth. People don’t just give other people something for free. It doesn’t work that way. What’s your angle, Sat?”

Silence. Long, drawn out silence. Tom held his breath, wondering if he’d made a terrible mistake. He wondered if somehow Satoshi could reach through the internet and wipe his computer’s memory, his backup, and maybe Tom’s own memory. Something about Satoshi seemed other-worldly. Maybe the guy was an alien.

At last, the reply came. “You want the truth?”

He blew out a puff of air, amazed he was still alive. “Yeah.”

“You can’t handle the truth.”

“Ha ha, Jack Nicholas. Try me.”

Another long pause, then Tom’s eyes widened as he read the words.

Nitosha knew she was being stupid. Maybe Tom wouldn’t believe her. Maybe he would believe her and try to tell everyone else and they’d call him crazy. Maybe they’d throw him in the loony bin and he would never finish their program. What effect would that have on the world? A world without bitcoin? Nitosha couldn’t even imagine.

But she had no choice. This had to work.

“My name is Nitosha S. I have no last name, only a letter. I’ve been an orphan as long as I can remember, with no one to raise me, no one to care for me. The only thing I had was a bracelet with a word on it. From the moment I could touch a screen I was brilliant with computers, and when I turned fourteen, I realized what the bracelet really was: A password. Someone left me a password that got me into the most incredible back doors that existed in the world of computers. One particular back door inside the blockchain itself led me to a message, written specifically for me.”

She took a deep breath, checked her cameras and encryption again. She was being stupid, but she had to tell someone. Three years of keeping it to herself had almost driven her insane.

“The blockchain was created by two individuals. One in the past. One in the future. Hidden deep in the links after links of computer chain was an anomaly. You can send messages backward through the blockchain, those messages go back in time.”

She closed her eyes as she typed the message out.

“Without me, you would never have known how to write bitcoin. Without you, bitcoin would never have come into being in my past. We are intrinsically linked, somehow, you and me. Together we are Satoshi Nakamoto. Or Nitosha S, aka Moot.”

She waited. And waited. She had hesitated a long time when Moot asked his question, so it was only fair that he hesitate as well.

“Just looked at the name meaning of Nakamoto. It means One Who Lives in the middle. And Satoshi? Intelligent History.”

Nitosha chuckled. “I’ve never looked up what the names mean. I guess that fits us. You live in the midst of your current time. I’m intelligent in my history.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re intelligent in your current time, as well.”

Nitosha frowned as she thought about that. She nodded. “I guess so.”

“So… this is real? You’re actually from the future?”

Nitosha smiled. “Yeah.”

“Good. Cause I thought you were an alien. So…what now?”

“We launch Bitcoin in August 2008. We mine what we want to mine from it, and then we live our own lives.”

Another hesitation. Moot typed, “How is your life?”

Nitosha glanced at the cameras. Adam was out again, yelling at Amanda, who worked the front office. He’d be coming to yell at Nitosha again, soon.

“Once I get those new bitcoins from 2010, my life will be much better.”

Nitosha took a deep breath. “But don’t you worry about me. The past worrying about the future? Wouldn’t you agree that’s kind of moot?”

“I’m not so sure. Maybe the past should worry about the future a little more.”

Nitosha noticed Adam making his way toward her again. “Finish up the last of that programming, Moot. I have to go.”

She shut down the messenger. She pulled up the skin that made it look like she was trying to mine. She didn’t have the heart to look for new coins, didn’t have the heart to do anything. All she wanted was somewhere else to go, someone else to be.

Adam walked through the door. “You make me any money yet? It’s been fifteen minutes. Where’s my 500 new coins?”

It had been two weeks. Tom hadn’t heard anything from Satoshi since he’d told the truth, or rather, she told the truth. Nitosha. A woman from the future. He wasn’t sure why he trusted her so much, but it just felt right. Something about her last messages had felt wrong, though. She’d gone silent. He’d tried sending her messages, but there was no response. He knew they had to launch in August, and everything was ready, but Tom hated to do anything without Nitosha virtually by his side.

If he didn’t launch bitcoin, would that change things? Would it change things for the better, or the worse? Would Nitosha’s life still be miserable?

He shook his head. He couldn’t let her down like that by not launching. It was the 18th of August. She never said what day they launched, so the 18th was as good as any. With a newfound determination, Tom nodded and did what he knew he needed to.

***

“Please let me go. What good am I to you if I’m not on a computer?”

“You’re a good way for me to vent my anger.”

Nitosha could hardly see Adam, her eyes swollen. Her mouth was dry and her whole body ached. “I told you I could have gotten you those coins. We were almost there.”

Adam punched her in the face. He didn’t like hearing her talk about the coins, and she knew it. But she wasn’t lying, even if he thought she was. 500 coins was nothing, out of the half a million she would get from the Bitcoins she could have mined when it was brand new.

“Hey!” came a voice. “Leave her alone.”

Adam looked up. Nitosha tried to see who was standing above them on the stairs, but she couldn’t focus.

“Who are you?” Adam growled.

“Doesn’t matter,” said the other man. “I’m here to buy this miner from you.”

“Buy her?” Adam laughed. “You think she’s for sale?”

“No, I think she’s a damn good programmer. And I’ll give you 50 coins to switch her contract to my company.”

Adam shook out his hands and walked toward the other man. “Who the hell are you?”

“No one really. Are you taking the coins or not?”

Nitosha knew Adam couldn’t turn down coins. Especially not 50. “Yeah, I’m taking the coins.” He unlocked the handcuffs that kept Nitosha where she was. She got to her feet and stumbled up the stairs to stand by the old man. Either her savior, or her new captor; she wasn’t sure.

He led her out of the crummy building where Adam ran his shop, and onto the rainy streets outside.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Me?” He smiled. “Well, my name is Tom. Not that it matters, really. The point is kind of moot.”

“Moot?” She stopped in her tracks.

He looked around. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a girl who only has an S. for her last name? If you’d answered any of my messages, it would have been a lot easier on me.”

Nitosha broke into tears. “You came for me.”

“Yes. For you. Now let’s go get you patched up.”

She tried to focus on the old man walking next to her. With the Bitcoins nearing the 21 million cap, it had been a long time since Bitcoin launched. “You lived a long time. How old were you when we started this?”

“Seventeen.”

Nitosha smiled, despite the pain in her cracked lips. “I’m seventeen.”

Tom went to a nice car parked at the curb and helped her in the back seat. “Well let me tell you one thing, you’re going to have a hell of a time.” He shut the door and went around to the other side, climbing in beside her. “Life is pretty fun.”