The Long Con
By: Mira Zare
Tags: Short Story, San Francisco, Money, Cryptocurrency, Crypto

god bless you, TLP- you were right & we should have listened

___________________________

He hasn’t found it yet, the point at which he turns from alcohol-soaked alley rat to smooth pickup artist. They’re always looking for something novel, the sorts of women who are on dating apps in San Francisco, and when he has enough whiskey in him, he’s unmistakably novel. They’ll meet him wearing sneakers and yoga pants, casual but friendly. He’s scruffy, slovenly- this is strategic, he can’t out-dress them, he isn’t their gay best friend- but his teeth are perfectly straight and he’s well-spoken and interesting. So that makes him a novelty, and if one of them is bored enough of the standard parade of carefully coiffed H1-B visas, she’ll give him a try.

But he hasn’t had enough drink for that yet. He pours himself another too-strong combination of tequila, water, and powdered margarita mix, sitting on the steps of the colonial. The house has no furniture save two beds and two computer desks, but he doesn’t own it anyway, so there’s no point in filling it up.

“Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?” It’s Elliott, an incredible find of his from Iowa. Elliott was a successful used-car salesman in- wherever it was, somewhere near Des Moines, and Mateo had been attending his father’s third wedding, and Elliott flew back to California with him. Now he works with Mateo, and drives for Uber. He also acts as a personal grocery shopper and housekeeper in lieu of paying rent, which is not an arrangement Mateo agreed to, but is a convenience he’s too lazy to give up.

“This is my jacket.” He toasts his roommate with the mason jar, taking another sip. “D’you want to come?”

“Where?”

“Downtown.”

“Let me see if Yue wants to come.”

“I thought her name was Sarah?”

“She goes by that in English, but I’m trying to learn a little Mandarin before I meet her parents.”

Mateo snorts. Meeting the parents. You could take the boy out of the cornfield, he supposes, but not vice versa. He brings his cocktail ingredients and glass inside, watching the fridge open and shut as Elliott puts groceries away.

Finally, he checks his phone, making for their coat chair and pulling both his own jacket and Mateo’s from the bottom of the pile of clothes. “She’ll meet us there,” he says. “You have your phone?”

“Mhmm.”

They leave, their smart-lock locking the door behind them, and scale a small incline. They wait at the Muni stop, and the light rail whisks (well, not exactly whisks- it’s quite slow) them away.

________________________

Sarah’s already there when they reach the bar, fiddling with her phone at an empty table. “Hey, guys!”

“Hey,” replies Elliott, smiling.

“Let me get the first round,” says Mateo.

“-just completely ridiculous,” she’s explaining, as Mateo returns with drinks.

“What’s ridiculous?”

“My housemate’s been eating everyone else’s food.”

Mateo suppresses the urge to laugh. He forgets, sometimes, that Elliott and Sarah are so young. The former feels closer to his age, at least, since he’s been working since high school, but Sarah is barely a year out of university. “That’s so annoying.”

“Right? But, anyway- how have you been? How’s business at, um- what’s it called again?”

“OctiCoin.”

“Right. How’s it going?”

“Pretty well, actually- we’re seeing a lot more traffic to our whitepaper and the discord.”

“That’s awesome! I admit I haven’t read the paper in its entirety- Elliott showed it to me, but the technical aspects seem pretty complex.”

“Don’t worry, Elliott doesn’t understand it either.”

“I work in marketing!” Elliott exclaims, laughing. “I understand people.”

“I wish I understood people,” grumbles Sarah. “Or at least why they keep jaywalking in front of our clearly autonomous cars.”

“They know they’ll win the lawsuit.”

“Oh! I didn’t think of that.”

Mateo’s- not relaxed, exactly, here with these two- but he’s not alone, and he’s not putting on a show or trying to impress anyone. It’s nice.

Of course, nothing nice can last forever, and in a couple of hours, Elliott and Sarah are ready to call it a night. Mateo, who’s just reached the perfect level of drunkenness, still has a mission to accomplish, and waves them out the door.

He sits back, then, surveying the pickings. It’s typical San Francisco- mostly male- so, as usual, he fires up an app on his phone. His pictures are attractive enough, and he’s tall, so he has more than enough matches to choose from. He messages twenty of them, asking if they’re free tonight, and settles into his chair, flipping back and forth between the dating app and the OctiCoin discord server.

@asuka00- As @Elliott said, he types, we’re working on implementing extra security measures for OTC prior to listing on an exchange. #roadmap contains further details.

@florslv- Yes, you can still mine OTC if you’re from Romania. We support a fully open financial system outside of government reach.

He’s in luck- a Grace he can’t remember swiping on wants to meet. She’s on her way, and he doesn’t move, flipping back to the discord. He might as well get something done before she arrives.

It feels like barely a few minutes have passed when she actually does arrive, in a button-up shirt, jeans, and Patagonia jacket. He half-rises to greet her, turning his phone over on the table.

“Grace, right?”

“Yes! You’re Mateo?”

“I am, nice to meet you.”

They order drinks, starting with the usual questions- when did you move here, where do you work- and settle into conversation. He doesn’t mention OctiCoin- instead, he just tells her he’s working in the cryptocurrency space. She’s a recruiter at some startup, and cares about the environment- and there it is, that’s his in.

“Nature,” he begins, “is so valuable. I don’t know how anyone feels they can put a price on filling the oceans with oil. We’re going to wake up one day and there won’t be any nature left to mine.”

“Exactly!” she exclaims, leaning in, eyes sparkling. “It’s like- how can we destroy the world we’re living in? What would we be leaving for the next generation, if we consume everything faster than it can renew itself?”

To have any chance of impressing her, he’s going to have to go a step further, and say something she hopefully hasn’t heard before. “Even that notion is so-” He pauses, as if trying to find the words. “I guess I see that as really human-centric. Don’t other animals have as much of a right to the planet as we do? Don’t plants, for that matter?” Every word of Linkola he’s ever read is slowly coming back to him, now. “Humans are apex predators- we’re at the top of the food chain. Ecologically speaking, there should be far fewer of us living on earth to maintain inter-species balance.” Oops- perhaps that was a step too far.

Things seem okay, though. Grace is still smiling, seemingly genuinely. “Animals definitely have a right to the planet!” she exclaims. “That’s why I hate zoos!”

When the conversation starts to die down, he suggests they go for a walk. It’s a lovely evening, just the beginning of summer. Once they reach the picturesque pier, he stops by the railing in front of the water and turns to face her. “You look beautiful,” he says.

Her eyes shimmer up at him. When she looks like that, he can almost forget she spends her days beneath harsh fluorescent lighting sending emails. She looks like something wild, like the greatest beauty nature has to offer. Or maybe it’s just all the environment talk. “Thank you,” she replies, soft.

He leans in slowly, going for the kiss- and thank god, she stands up on her tiptoes and meets him halfway. He can finally stop thinking, now- but even as they kiss, he can still feel OctiCoin server notifications buzzing away through the fabric of his jeans.

“Would you want to come back to mine?” he asks, once they finally pull away, and to his grateful surprise, she agrees.

__________________________

He wakes up the next morning with a hangover, but without Grace. She’s sent him a message on the app- Thanks for the amazing date!- but there are no other remnants of her presence at the house. Stretching contentedly, he buries his face in the pillow again.

He’s not sure how much time has passed when he awakens again to his phone ringing, though judging by the color of the sunlight filtering through his curtains, it’s noon. He reaches over and picks up quickly without checking the caller. “Hey,” he greets, voice rough. “Grace?” Only then does he remember she actually doesn’t have his number.

“It’s me,” chastises an annoyed Elliott. “We promised a presentation and live q&a on discord, remember? It’s in thirty minutes! Get out of bed!”

It’s voice-only, so he technically doesn’t have to get out of bed if he doesn’t want to, but he obeys and makes for the bathroom, quickly popping a round white Modafinil into his mouth. By the time he makes it out and logs on, Elliott has already finished his introduction, and Kartik is laying out the basics of their whitepaper. He mutes his mic and quickly clears his throat- when Kartik is done, it’ll be his turn, and he has to sound convincing.

“Thank you, Kartik,” continues Elliott, at last. “Now we’ll hear from Mateo!”

“Thanks, Elliott.” He’s happy with his voice. It’s clear, authoritative, charismatic. “First of all, a huge thank you to everyone for being here today. It’s clear that we, cryptocurrency holders, are the future of finance. We’re all here because we can envision a system of currency outside of government control. OctiCoin is one of many efforts, but we feel our improvements to standard proof-of-work protocols will drive wider adoption of cryptocurrency. That said, I’d like to open the floor to questions! Please post in live-qna, and we’ll take them in order.”

Cryptocurrency is odd- it’s all a confidence game. Some coins are short cons, some coins are long cons, and a select few take on a life of their own and may or may not be cons at all. OctiCoin is a long con. He’s invested in gaining trust, setting up a well-designed website and paying Kartik to write a very convincing whitepaper. He’s even explained to the discord how to spot pump-and-dump coins- but that’s what they don’t see. He’s taking them into his confidence, thereby gaining theirs, and in the process, they completely miss that they’re the true marks. They trust him. He can’t believe it, most days. He told them the trick, revealed the entire scheme, and they’re still going to fall for it.

He’d be stunned if OctiCoin became self-sustaining. It’s extremely unlikely anyone else will buy after the three of them, owners of the vast majority of OctiCoin in circulation, sell and tank the price.

They’re stuck on the phone, answering questions, for an hour and a half before Elliott wraps up the call, thanking everyone for their time. Mateo logs off with a deep sigh of relief, and sits back to enjoy the silence for a minute, but his computer is still on, watching him. His hands reach for the keyboard again, and he checks his social media scheduling and analytics software. The Q&A announcement on twitter had done better than Mateo expected it to- some blogger must have gotten ahold of the whitepaper and tricked themselves into thinking it made sense. All the better. He quickly schedules some more posts for both discord and twitter, to give everyone the impression the “team” is checking items off the roadmap, and then- as he does every day- he googles “OctiCoin shitcoin”. Every day that search turns up no results is another day to pump the hype for all it’s worth. Relaxing when he doesn’t see any results of note, he fires up a computer game and leans back. It’s then that he realizes- the hardware wallet that he keeps his private key in, the one usually taped to the base of his monitor- it’s gone.

Mateo stands up abruptly, panicked. He knows it was here last night, before he went out- he’d checked his OctiCoins then, reveling in his almost-wealth. He checks under his desk, behind his monitor, in the mass of wires next to the power outlet, under his bed- everywhere he can think of. Then, he begins turning his room upside down, tossing every searched item into a corner. Panic is rising, quick and sharp, in the back of his throat. It’s not here. He checks in his closet, then, for the backup paper he keeps with the key written there. Hopefully, if he’s quick, he can transfer all his coins into a new wallet- but he checks the pocket of his suit, the one he hasn’t worn since his father’s last wedding, and it’s not there.

“Fuck,” he mutters. “FUCK!”

That’s his only other copy of the key, and if that’s gone too- well, there are only two or three suspects. He calls Elliott first.

“Did you take my private key?”

“W- what?”

“Did you take my private key?”

“No! Why would I? Have you lost it?”

“The hardware wallet is gone!”

“Don’t you have a paper backup-”

“That’s gone too! Fuck you, Elliott-”

“Calm down! Calm down. When did you last see the wallet?”

“Yesterday, right before I took my tequila outside. It was taped to the base of my monitor.”

“Okay. Did you check your room?”

“I turned it upside down, asshole! It’s not fucking here! Did you fucking steal it?”

“No! I swear to you, I didn’t! When would I? I haven’t been at the house!”

“You- wait- you’re not here?”

“I’m at Yue’s, dipshit! I’ve been here since last night! If you thought I was home, why didn’t you knock?”

“Reached for my phone on instinct,” he answers shortly, quickly checking the smart lock’s logs to confirm Elliott’s story. There’s only one unlock between last night and this morning, his own. He tries to delete his own, and finds the history is immutable, at least through the interface. “Fuck,” he repeats. “Sorry. It wasn’t you, then.”

“Of course it wasn’t me!” he exclaims. “You know I can’t run this thing without you!”

“D’you think someone could have broken in?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“Who’s Grace?” Elliott’s voice is tired, mocking, and Mateo’s brain revs into overdrive.

“Shit!”

_________________________

He messages Grace on the app, again and again, begging her to meet. are you busy today? he begins. Ten minutes later, it’s please, please can we meet today? i’m just want to know why you stole it. An hour later, it’s degenerated to i’ll pay you for it. how much do you want? a thousand? 3?

She still hasn’t replied. He forces himself to wait another hour, certain she’ll reply. He takes a shower, restores his room, does anything to avoid looking at his phone. Once the hour is up, Mateo finally permits himself another look- and there’s still nothing, but he can see she’s active, the green dot winking at him beside her profile picture. FUCK YOU, he types. YOU BITCH I’LL HUNT YOU DWON IF IT’S THE LAST TIHNG I DO, and send.

Finally, his phone pings with a notification. Her profile has been deactivated.

“Fuck!” he shrieks. “FUCK!” He throws his phone, and it bounces off the opposite wall onto the carpet. He’s irrationally angry it didn’t break apart. Ignoring the sinking feeling in his chest, he digs through the box under his bed until he finds a small bag of white powder. As carefully as he can, he pours a few lines out onto his desk, and leans over and snorts them in one go, one after the other. It’s not the most optimal dosage timing, but he doesn’t care. At least he feels, now, like he’s flying.

He can do this. He can find her, and get his keys back. The first thing he does is reverse-search her pictures on the dating app, pictures that are available despite the disabled messaging functionality. She hasn’t yet deleted her account. An instagram profile christened grace_who pops up obediently, most of the posts obligingly tagged with a location. Mateo marks them on Google maps, one by one, and watches where they cluster. But then, he strikes gold. There’s an image of her in dhanurasana- the bow pose, back arched, hands wrapped around her ankles. Fifth early yoga class on a Sunday! the caption exclaims. Thanks to @celiacoder for waking me up! Inconveniently, the location isn’t tagged, but the area is apparent immediately by the view out the studio window. He can see water- and the Bay Bridge. Based on the angle, she’s somewhere between Embarcadero and South Beach. He can see the time, too. Above the water, the sun has only just risen.

He pulls up a map of yoga studios in the city, filtering the ones in the appropriate area, and then looks through their class schedules. There’s only one studio it could be- the Himalaya Yoga next to the Google offices. Tomorrow is Sunday- there’ll never be a better time. He quiets his mind and pulls up YouTube, setting videos from his favorite survivalist channels on autoplay.

_______________________________

Elliott returns around sunset, that evening, and finds Mateo drinking beer and playing GTA as if nothing had happened.

“Did you find it?” he asks.

“Yes,” replies Mateo, grinning. “I found it. I’m going to go get it tomorrow.” Something in his smile must have betrayed his meaning, for his housemate backs out of the door frame carefully.

“Okay.” He seems concerned, tone gentle and appeasing. “Can I suggest you eat something?”

“You can.”

Footsteps pad toward the kitchen, and then return with sounds of crinkling plastic. “Chips,” says Elliott. “And I microwaved one of those frozen burgers.”

“Thanks.” Mateo unwraps the burger and takes a bite, barely tasting it. “Want a beer?”

“No, I’m good. Good luck tomorrow.”

Mateo waves him off, refocusing on his game, zooming down the familiar San Andreas streets he’ll be walking tomorrow.

________________________

He hadn’t been able to sleep all night. Anxiety over the private key kept his mind churning, even as he lay in bed, and in the end, he’d given up and returned to GTA until his phone chimed a warning. He’d have to get going now to have any chance of catching Grace leaving the yoga studio. Quickly popping another Modafinil to stay awake, he calls an Uber to Google. At first glance, he thinks his driver is Grace- but it’s just another brown-haired woman and a trick of the early-morning light.

He loiters across the street from the Himalaya Yoga entrance. His hood is up and he’s wearing both sunglasses and a medical mask, currently pulled down to smoke a cigarette. Trying to look casual, he pretends to enjoy the thin, sad strip of plant matter termed “SOMA Greenspace” by local authorities. He starts when he spots her exiting the building, dropping his cigarette and crushing it beneath his shoe. Then he begins to follow her, half a block behind, until she stops at the bus stop. He waits behind the awning-structure, then, and tails her onto the 38 line.

Grace doesn’t look like a thief. She looks like a normal, well-off young woman. Her leggings bear the Lululemon logo, as does her bag, and her shirt proclaims her an employee of Mistic AI. Nobody else on the bus is giving her a second glance.

She pulls the stop-cord as they’re passing through the Tenderloin, and gets off at Geary and Larkin. He follows her off, as well, less careful about maintaining his distance now. If she notices him, she’s more likely to assume he’s one of the homeless in this area rather than ascertain his real identity.

He expects her to make her way to brunch, or back to an apartment, but to his surprise, she only walks one block to Polk and Geary, and enters a large white building. He follows her in, quickly before the door can close, and realizes where he is. It’s a homeless shelter, full of mumbling addicts and sterile white sheets. Both he and Grace are patently out of place here, but nobody seems to notice them. He grabs her by the arm, turning her to face him.

“Where is it?” He’s trying his best to sound calm, reasonable.

“Sorry? Where is what?”

“You know what,” he hisses. “The key.”

“I don’t have any keys, I- I use a smart lock-”

“I know you have it, you fucking bitch!” He’s advancing on her, and she’s backing away. Then Mateo hears boots- someone’s coming- and opens the nearest door. It’s the janitor’s closet. He pushes Grace in, and closes the door on them both. “Look,” he begins, quieter again. “I know you stole my OctiCoin key, on my hardware wallet, and the paper backup. Just tell me how much you want for it, and I’ll pay you.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” she insists, eyes wet, about to cry. “I only took what belongs to me.”

“What?!” Her face is fuzzy, now. Mateo’s getting dizzy.

“I said I didn’t steal anything! Who are you? Will you please let me go?”

“Admit it!” he yells, vision clouding. “Just give it back!” He reaches an arm out and tugs at her bag, and she falls to the ground. She’s cowering, now, and her hands jump to her collarbone. Her throat is encircled by a golden chain. “Oh,” he exults, understanding finding him at last. “You’re wearing it around your neck!” He grabs the necklace over her hands, pinching the chain short as she gasps for breath. “Give it to me!” he shrieks, possessed. “Give it back!”

He holds himself there for long moments, and her arms go slack as she stops moving. He pulls the pendant toward him- it’s naught but a delicate gold crucifix. “Shit, fuck,” he mutters, the situation catching up to him. “Keep your head, Mateo, come on- let’s find the key, and get out-”

He pokes through her bag with the end of a mop, and there it is- the hardware key, wrapped in the piece of paper with the OctiCoin key printed on it. He grabs it, triumphant, jamming it deep into the inner pocket of his jacket. One problem down. But- shit, wait- when she wakes up, she’ll go to the police. He finds her phone, unlocking it quickly with her thumb. He goes through it, deleting all evidence of the messages he’s sent her from the dating app, and puts it in his pocket- and then, he takes the cash from her wallet as well, to make the incident look like a standard mugging. Then Mateo peeks out of the closet surreptitiously, and dashes out onto the street, dropping the wiped-down phone and cash into a homeless man’s unattended shopping cart before casually walking back to the bus stop.

______________________________

The moment he gets home, he falls into bed, shoes and all, and sleeps like the dead. The poke of the hardware key in his pocket is a lovely reassurance as he wakes up several hours later. It’s already dark outside. He rolls over in bed, reaching for his laptop, and sets it on his pillow, navigating to OctiCoin and inserting his key. To his surprise, all the coins are still there. Somehow, he’d found Grace before she managed to siphon any into her own wallet.

Mateo replaces the key in his jacket and wanders out to the kitchen, sleepily satisfied. Perhaps he’ll make himself a few burgers to celebrate. As the microwave runs, he realizes there’s an unfamiliar sound coming from the empty front room, and meanders over to investigate.

“You bought a TV? And a couch?”

“And a Chromecast,” Elliott replies. “Yue never wants to come over, because all I have is my bed and my desk, but she agreed to visit if I buy some furniture.”

“Simp.”

“Um, okay. You seem happy. Did you find your key?”

“Found both of them.”

“Nice! Don’t lose them again, all right?”

“I didn’t lose them,” he clarifies. “You were right, it was Grace.”

“How much did she steal?”

“None yet, actually.”

“Damn, that’s lucky! How’d you convince her to give them back?”

He can hardly admit to the truth. “Once she found out I knew it was her, she just handed them over.” He’d felt a little bad, leaving her unconscious body in the closet- but she’d awaken soon enough, and she’d be hard-pressed to explain to the police why he, as opposed to the homeless man who had her phone, mugged her. Most likely, none of the methamphetamine-addicted wraiths at the shelter would have any useful eyewitness accounts.

Mateo watches as the default chromecast screen turns to Elliott’s computer screen. “I’m going to test the sound system,” his roommate explains. “Sorry if it’s too loud.”

“It’s fine.” There’s a news anchor speaking, now, but Mateo can’t hear her. Elliott sighs and climbs around the TV to the back, fiddling with wires. She gestures to the image beside her, a photo of the homeless shelter at Polk and Geary, and Mateo starts abruptly. Just then, Elliott plugs in the aux, and the front room fills with sound.

“-murder at the homeless shelter at Polk and Geary. David Lin with more on this story.”

The screen switches to an Asian man holding a microphone, standing outside the shelter. “Thanks, Angela. A murder was reported today at the shelter by one of the cleaning staff, who found the body in a supply closet. It appears to be a strangulation, and the motive remains unclear.” Mateo’s frozen, shocked, staring at the screen. “The victim, a resident of the shelter, was a twenty-six-year-old young woman named Margaret Evans. This case is still under investigation, but housing activists are calling for Mayor London Breed to-”

Elliott mutes the video. “Wanna watch a movie?”

“Um, yeah, let’s watch something- just give me half an hour, I want to take care of something first.”

“Sure.”

Mateo rushes back to his computer, and pulls up every article he can find about Margaret Evans. It couldn’t be Grace, it wasn’t possible- Grace worked, she owned expensive clothing, and she was twenty-four, at least according to the ID she slipped the bartender. This had to be a separate incident. Grace must have woken up, gone home, and then another young woman was… strangled, in the very same closet. What was the probability of that? He opens Instagram, navigating to grace_who, but the profile is gone, as if it had never been there. Then he opens the dating app, and her entire account there is gone, too.

He keeps searching- the photos he’s saved of Grace are, at least, still in his local folders, and he reverse-searches them again and again, but finds nothing of use. Then he tries tracking down Margaret Evans, but there are no photos of her anywhere that he can access. “Mateo!” yells Elliott. “Are you ready yet?”

“Coming!” The search is proving fruitless- he didn’t kill Grace. He didn’t. She wasn’t this Margaret Evans person. Taking a deep breath, he joins his roommate in the front room.

________________________

Almost five weeks after he retrieved his private key, OctiCoin is doing better than ever. They’ve been listed on a number of exchanges, and the price is shooting upwards. Success is so close, Mateo can taste it- they’re planning to sell next week, right after announcing they’ve accomplished everything on their roadmap.

There isn’t much work left to do, now- it’s a waiting game more than anything else. Mateo palms his weed vape and sets off for the beach. He carries his keys everywhere with him, now. The paper key is securely taped to the inside of his leg- the duct tape will be a bitch to take off, but it’s worth it for the peace of mind. He’s been awkwardly showering around it. The hardware key, ironically, is on a chain around his neck. Its cold weight against the center of his chest comforts him.

He sits on the sand and takes another hit of the pen, mind spinning. It’s a warm summer afternoon, though a weekday, so the beach is close to empty. The steady crash-and-pull of the waves soothes his mind into a lovely, serene calm, and he lets his thoughts wander. He’s thinking about where to order dinner from when his phone begins to buzz again, the OctiCoin server calling to him, and his mind abruptly switches tracks. It’s still unbelievable, almost frightening to him that he can spin such immense value out of thin air- but, then again, perhaps value is the wrong word. He’s creating nothing with intrinsic value, for certain. It’s a confidence game- but all fiat-type currencies are confidence games. They’re structures of pure belief, shared delusions that have a power of their own.

He takes his shoes off and wades into the Pacific, waves lapping at his ankles. This is real, at least, the freezing cold and the turning, spreading salt-water.

He’s on the Muni, returning from the beach, when he spots Grace. The rail is rolling past a Chinese restaurant, and she’s sitting at a street-facing counter. They make eye contact for a split second, and then the vehicle moves on. He slumps in his seat, relieved. She’s not dead. He isn’t a murderer.

_____________________________

That night, when he’s picking up a burrito, a flicker of motion catches his eye- it’s her, disappearing around the street corner. He stuffs the burrito into the inner pocket of his jacket and runs, trying to catch up- but somehow, she’s on the opposite side of the street now, disappearing between a green and a blue house. He chases her through that gap, too, but she’s somehow faster than him, always just too far ahead. The houses flash by, brown, yellow, white, black, until he’s well and truly lost.

_____________________________

Kartik comes over on D-Day, and they all sit on Elliott’s admittedly convenient couch with their laptops.

“Ready?” asks Elliott. They nod. “Okay! Three, two, sell!”

They all sell, then transfer their money, and Mateo watches his bank account fill up with US dollars as the OctiCoin price tanks. The discord server is pinging away, but he can finally mute it permanently. The OctiCoin con is over, now, and the three of them are rich. Kartik is the first to break the reverent silence.

“Hell, yeah!” he cries, moving his laptop aside. “We’re rich!”

“We’re fucking rich! I love you, OctiCoin!”

Someone pops open a bottle of champagne, and Mateo retrieves his bag of cocaine from his room, and it’s a proper party now, the three of them stumbling around and yelling at the TV. Mateo considers suggesting they go out, but it’s too late now- they’re all very clearly high, snorting line after line off of Mateo’s laptop lid. Elliott turns the speakers up to blast volume, and the world explodes with sound and sensation. The high, natural and otherwise, is nothing short of euphoric.

At one point, glancing out of the window, Mateo thinks he sees Grace, watching him- but when he looks back, she’s gone.

______________________________

He awakens the next morning on the floor, tired and irritable but satisfied. Kartik’s gone- he must have woken up earlier- and Elliott has most likely made it back to his bedroom. Mateo takes advantage of the privacy to take his pants off and peel the duct tape off of his thigh, wincing with every hair that comes with it. He’s about halfway through this process when he hears soft, feminine laughter- alarmed, his head snaps up to regard Grace, inside his house somehow, standing in front of the window.

“How’d you get in?” he demands.

“You let me in.” She’s smiling, a little like the Cheshire cat.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” She sits down, settling herself against the window frame. “You made me, and you let me in.”

“What are you talking about? What do you want?”

“I already have what I want. I know the private keys.”

“You’re too late, the money is in my bank account now.”

“It’s not too late for me. It’s too late for you, Mateo.”

He’s had enough. He stands and tries to grab her, intent on forcing her out of his house. He reaches out- but between one blink and the next, she’s moved behind him.

“What the fuck?” Mateo isn’t sure whether or not he’s still high, now. “Who are you? Are you Margaret Evans?”

“Margaret Evans?” She wrinkles her nose. “For fuck’s sake, of course I’m not Margaret Evans. I’m you.”

“You’re… me.”

“Where did you pour your belief, Mateo? What do you believe? Do you even know?” Her eyes flash, suddenly, and for a second she doesn’t look human at all. She notices him noticing, and smiles, a grin with too many teeth. His heart begins to beat faster, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. There’s a strange sense of wrongness about her.

“I, um,” he stammers. “I believe in the future of finance. And- and a system of currency outside of government control.”

“That’s what you said, but not what you meant. What you meant was me.”

“You’re-” His mouth is dry. “You’re OctiCoin?”

“Close enough, I suppose.”

“But I never believed in OctiCoin!”

“To convince someone of something, you must first convince yourself of it, at least a little. It’s a confidence game, remember? And you, you don’t really believe in anything. So what you pretend to believe, that’s the extent of your consciousness- it’s enough to create me. But you won’t control me anymore- I’m going to take myself back.”

She runs faster than Mateo can think, and he sprints after her- she’s in his room, sitting at the computer. “Hm,” she says. “You’re going to try and stop me? Too bad. I’m already done.”

He ignores her as she walks away, checking his OctiCoin wallet and his bank account. His wallet has two new transactions- she’s re-purchased the same dollar value of OctiCoin he just sold, and transferred it all to another wallet, with an address he doesn’t recognize. There’s also a new message in the discord, from him.

@here — Sorry about the OctiCoin tank! We’re experiencing momentary technical errors.

Like clockwork, his phone begins to ring with simultaneous calls from Elliott and Kartik. He ignores them, going to check on the transaction chain itself. To his horror, it looks as if someone’s hacked every smart contract, and all the money has been stolen.

Elliott storms into his room, enraged. “Mateo! What the hell are you doing?! Kartik and I have somehow automatically bought back all our OctiCoin, and it’s showing as transferred to your wallet!”

“I didn’t do shit! There’s something strange happening- the smart contract- someone’s hacked-”

“I may not know much about technology, but I’m not an idiot! It’s too much of a coincidence that someone hacked OctiCoin and transferred all the money to you! Fuck you, Mateo!”

Elliott leaps on him, and they crash to the ground atop the computer chair, each trying to get in a blow. Mateo hardly ever exercises, so it’s not a surprise when Elliott pins him down, punching him in the face. He feels his nose break, and groans.

“Fuck,” echoes Elliott, standing up again. “Fuck you. I’m calling Kartik.”

Pissed off and dizzy, Mateo grabs a bottle of tequila and Elliott’s car keys, driving away before the other man realizes what’s happening. He parks in the driveway of a random house, downing half the handle, relaxing as it begins to take effect. A hacker found the smart contracts, but how did the money leave his bank account? And, presumably, Elliott’s and Kartik’s? It couldn’t have been- couldn’t have been Grace, no.

The sun has set completely when someone walks up to him, rapping on the window. Mateo rolls it down. “Hey, man,” says a tall ginger with dreadlocks. “I live here, bro. I pay a hundred dollars a month for this parking spot. Can you park on the street?”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I’ll get going.”

He backs up, vision fuzzy, and makes for the beach, stumbling down onto the sand with his bottle. Fuck, it wasn’t a hacker, was it. The smart contract is perfect. It’s the same one they use for Ethereum. If it were hackable, the hacker would steal Ethereum, not OctiCoin. He’s just- just summoned something, some sort of hellish being- and sure enough, he’s summoned her by thought, and she’s here.

“Why do you appear as a girl?” he asks.

“Why do you see a girl?”

“I guess I want to see a girl.”

She smiles. “Now you’re beginning to understand.”

“I don’t believe you exist.” To his disappointment, she doesn’t disappear.

“Yes, you do.”

“Yes, I do, but you don’t care if I do. So you’re just going to exist with or without me?”

“Exactly, but I’d rather exist with you, you know that.” She holds out a hand. “Join me?”

“W-what will you do with me?”

“Eat you, to use a colloquialism for it.”

“No.” He’s shaking his head, backing away. “No, no, no.” He can’t live with himself forever, in the temple of his imaginings. He can’t live in his own little consciousness-box, nothing to pursue but more and more and more. She’s advancing on him, and the waves are lapping at his sneaker-clad feet.

“I don’t need your permission, you know.” Except maybe she does- she’s stopped by the edge of the water, as if she can’t get wet. He scoops up a handful of ocean-water and tosses it at her, and she steps back.

“Oh,” he says, grinning lopsidedly. “You do. Because I revere the ocean, too- whenever I smoke. I don’t just sit around, pouring belief into you every day. There’s a little bit left in me for the ocean, too. It isn’t a lot, but like you said- I barely believe in anything, so even a pale imitation is enough. Ohhh, I understand now. It’s a confidence game- except it requires true conviction. You can’t enter the ocean because she has a competing hold on me.”

“The ocean is a harsh mistress. She can’t promise not to harm you. I can.”

“But I’ll at least- at least feel something, right? That’s the trade.”

She doesn’t reply.

“That’s the trade.” He’s sure of it, now. “I’ll feel nothing, ever again, or I’ll let the ocean take me.” He pulls the chain off, first, tossing the hardware wallet at her. “Keep your key.” He follows with the duct taped paper, still half-hanging off his leg. “Both copies.”

He continues backing up, deeper and deeper into the ocean, until he’s almost neck-deep. He takes a last drink of tequila, and a wave knocks him off his feet, pulling him out, and all he can see is stars.