Finney Vol. 1 - Immutable Journey - Flipbook - Page 88
Sitting next to his ship, Finney felt like
a failure. With nothing better to do, he
got up and examined the damage to
his spacecraft in detail. All of the gold
panels were gone, which meant he’d
have no protection from radiation even
if he could get the ship flying again. The
engines, too, had been stripped of gold.
So had the controls. Even the gold screws
holding the control panels down had
been removed.
It was a total loss. There was far too much
damage for Finney to repair. For a brief
moment, he fantasized about finding Mr
Shift again and confronting him about the
gold theft. But then he remembered how
flippant the business tycoon had been
about stealing his chesta and thought
better of it.
Sitting back down, Finney’s mind
wandered to the things he missed about
his home planet. He missed drinking
mineral oil with Snap while she talked
about the life cycles of stars. He missed
stacking stones in the park and looking
at the volcano. He missed how nice his
people were compared to jerks like Mr
Shift.
One thing Finney didn’t miss about his
home planet was its banking system.
Everything about it was designed to
preserve the wealth of the elite at the
expense of everyone else. There were
unreasonable fees attached to everything,
especially sending money from one place
to another. And the government could
freeze your accounts on the flimsiest of
pretexts.
and clumsy governments. “My mission is
still important,” he said. “It’s just turning
out to be harder than I thought it would.”
A small bird landed on the ship next to
Finney. “What do you think?” he asked
the bird. “Should I just give up or should
I keep trying?”
The bird flew away. Finney looked
around, hoping for another distraction.
His eyes eventually came to rest on the
Cryptowriter device he’d bought at OG’s
Pawn Shop. “I don’t know exactly what
you do,” he said. “But maybe it’s time I
find out.”
Carefully uncoiling the device’s cords,
Finney looked for an instruction manual
but couldn’t find one. There weren’t even
any directions printed on the box or the
helmet that went with it. “Did OG tell
me how it worked and I just forgot?” he
wondered. Finney didn’t think so.
Placing the helmet on his head, Finney
picked up the box and turned it over in
his hands, finding a small power button.
He connected all of the wires in a way
that he hoped was right, but didn’t press
the button right away. Instead, Finney
checked all of the wires again, finding
small symbols next to the connectors that
revealed two of the wires to be in the
wrong place. Correcting the mistake,
he set the box down and took a deep
breath. “I hope this works,” he said. “I
hope it does something.”
Finally, Finney pressed the power button
on the mysterious Cryptowriter device.
These problems were a big part of the
original inspiration for Finney’s mission
to learn about crypto. Even now, sitting
beside his broken down spaceship, he
relished the prospect of a new financial
system, beyond the reach of greedy banks
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FINNEY VOLUME ONE - IMMUTABLE JOURNEY