Finney Vol. 1 - Immutable Journey - Flipbook - Page 68
Making his way along the city’s busy
sidewalks, retracing his steps back to his
ship, Finney felt conflicted. He wanted to
return home but didn’t want to fail at his
mission. Even though Finney intended to
resume his mission after getting his chesta
replaced, the idea of going home at all
made him feel like a failure.
After just a block Finney felt tired and sat
down to rest. He didn’t know if the chesta
Mr Shift had given him was regulating
his processes incorrectly, if he was too
sad to keep moving, or if it had simply
been a long day. Sitting there, against a
building, Finney must’ve looked needy,
because a young woman walked up to
him and gave him twenty dollars.
“What’s this?” asked Finney, looking up
at her with puzzlement in his eyes.
“A sad remnant of the legacy system,”
said the young woman. “You looked like
you could use it.”
“The legacy system?” said Finney. “Oh,
the banking system. It’s a bank note.”
The woman giggled. “It’s called the
legacy system because it’s what we
inherited. Funny money, created out of
debt, designed to be artificially scarce
in populations with low credit scores.”
“What’s a credit score?” asked Finney.
“It’s a value assigned to people by
private companies,” said the woman.
“It’s supposed to measure financial
trustworthiness, but it doesn’t count stuff
like rent and utility payments, so really
all it measures is a person’s subservience
to credit card companies and banks.”
“Weird,” said Finney.
“It’s way weirder than that, when you
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get into the details,” said the woman.
“Thankfully, crypto’s changing that whole
game. Fiat. Credit scores. All of it.”
Finney’s ears perked up. “How is crypto
changing those games?”
“Lots of ways,” said the woman. “Big
picture? Banks and governments no longer
have a monopoly on money creation.
Money can cross borders without being
taxed by gatekeepers. And credit can
be extended by smart contracts, totally
eliminating the possibility of human
discrimination.”
“That all sounds good,” said Finney. “I
wish I’d met you earlier instead of Mr
Shift.”
“Shift?” said the woman. “Yeah, forget
that guy. I mean, he might be watching
us right now, so I probably shouldn’t say
anything. But that guy totally sucks.”
“He stole my gold chesta and gave me
this hunk of junk to replace it,” said
Finney, pointing at the rusty lump of metal
embedded in his chest.
“Yikes!” said the woman, walking away.
“Well, best of luck to you.”
“Thanks,” said Finney.
Mildly energized by the encounter, Finney
stood up and continued on his way. He
still felt like a failure, but took comfort in
knowing that this planet had nice people
as well as mean ones. When he came
to OG’s Pawn Shop, Finney brightened
up, recalling that he’d previously passed
this establishment and thought it looked
interesting. Then he saw a ‘BITCOIN ATM
INSIDE’ sign in the window and knew he
had to investigate. A man stood in the
doorway, smoking a cigarette. “Can I
help you young man?” asked the man.
FINNEY VOLUME ONE - IMMUTABLE JOURNEY