Chips, Circuits and Coins

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

A shadow ran through a dark alley in the SoHo. It was pouring, and he was late. How could he, of all the human beings, be late? He had made his calculations with the precision of Swiss clockwork to arrive on time, and yet, he almost failed.

He plunged against the rotten wooden door that led to an abandoned warehouse and stepped inside. His hoodie was soaked. Without wasting time, he ran upstairs to the office where the rest of his team awaited for him to arrive.

"You're late," said a woman in a tracksuit.

"I know, I arrived twenty minutes ago, my clock failed." He said. "When did you arrive?" He asked.

"September, 4, 1998. Like the rest of the team. As you should have done." She replied.

"Yeah, man, we parted at the same time. How did you take ten years to arrive?" asked another member of the team who was wide as a wardrobe.

"I told you, my clock broke."

"Most overused excuse ever." Replied the wardrobe, whose name was Gates.

"Whatever. We must inject the program now. As we know, this will destabilize the world's economy in the world run. Today will be when we plant the seed of the future." Lovelace said, while retrieving a small screwdriver from her tracksuit.

The man in the hoodie changed clothes while Gates Gazed at the green lines of code that fell through the Sony Trinitron monitor and Lovelace connected them to the World Wide Web.

As soon as he had changed, the three sat in front of their computers and started typing. They only had a few minutes until the agents of "S" arrived to try to prevent them from succeeding, so, while Gates blocked the CIA trackers, Lovelace broke the firewall of undisclosed, and Satoshi injected the code that said:

He hit enter and infected the world with his new virus. The virus of digital money that would change the world forever.

At first, nobody would notice it, but after some time, everyone would be aware of it, they would look for it, and eventually they would replace their actual money with it.

What they would not know was that after 30 years its code would become corrupt, destroying all the money in the world that by then, would be known as Bitcoin. The only currency in the world.

The three of them left the place using the backdoor, right when the agents of "S" stormed through the main doors.

They all jumped in the Ford Transit and sped through the city to the extraction point. It was at some distance because it needed a source of energy that came straight from Earth.

The team arrived at the tower of London.

They set everything, powered the platform, and diverted all the energy they could to the machine, turning off almost every light in a 10 km radius. Lovelace typed the passcode that would allow them to use the time circuit program, and the machine lit up, produced some lightnings and created a blue-colored portal.

Then, Gates pulled out a gun and pointed it at the other two.

"Step aside from the platform. We're going to wait really quiet here until my friends arrive." He said.

"Gates! I should have seen this coming when you chose as your codename the name of the man who tried to block the sun!" Lovelace yelled.

Satoshi watched the situation quietly, as he always did. He was the analytic type and took pride in the way he meditated every situation.

"C'mon Gates, you don't need to do this, you're with us, the heroes of the story." He said.

"No, if we destroy money, many people will die at first, like we know it happened. I can't let it happen, and Mr. S told me he can avoid it. He has a plan, he will create a better cryptocurrency, one that will work forever." Gates replied.

"'Mr. S' was who started this, you fuckin' idiot. He is the one who fucked around with money since the 20th century." Lovelace said. "And he's lying, he only wants to control everything as he always did." She added.

"No! He told me the truth, he told me that the rebellion wanted to destroy him, but to be them the new rulers!" He replied, pointing desperately the gun to Lovelace.

At that moment, Satoshi lunged towards Gates and tried to grab his gun. A loud gunshot echoed on the walls, and Satoshi placed his hands on his spleen, where the blood was drenching his clothes. Gates held the gun while he trembled because of the shock and right then, Lovelace used her Jiujitsu to disarm him, beating him on the nose at the same time.

"You were planning to use our transport to take those agents to our base, right?" She said while grabbing him by the wrists and placing a zip tie on them. "Just so you know it, Gates, the only ones that can cross the portal, are the same ones that crossed first."

She looked at Satoshi, who was lying on the floor, apparently still alive.

"Fuck. You better pray Satoshi doesn't die on me, or you won't make it to the trial." She told him. "Get in, or I'll shoot you right here." She added.

The three hackers and their device left that place and the time, just as the black sedans swarmed outside the tower.