The Collective

Jack and Landon exited the bar on Water Street, passing under a sign with a picture of a well-dressed, yet imposing rabbit clad in red shirt and black suspenders. Three red words inscribed on the bottom of the sign in an old English font, “The dead rabbit”. The chill of New York Cities October dusk was biting at their faces.

Jack stepped over to the curb, and raised his arm, as Landon came over and interjected pulling Jack’s arm down to his side. “What are you doing?” Landon said as he gave Jack a disappointed look.

“I’m getting us a cab.” Jack slurred as he started to put his arm back up and turned his gaze back toward oncoming traffic.

“It’s what, a 5 minute walk back to the office? It would take the taxi longer to get there than it would for us to talk. Besides, you left your wallet back at the office anyways, which is why we’re trucking it all the way back to the office in the first place. You think I’m paying for your weak ass to sit in a 20 minute cab ride to avoid a 5 minute walk?”

“Ten minute walk.” Jack inserted.

“Six minutes. Seven tops, with the way you stumble. Come on.” Landon gestured for his inebriated friend to follow.

The two walked on, unaware of the background noises of New York City, desensitized through years of exposure.

Landon veered left as the two hit Williams St. and noticed Jack continuing on his path forward. “Hey Jack, where you goin’ buddy?”

“To the office. You?” Jack pointed his way forward.

“This way’s quicker.” Landon continued on, confident his friend would follow. He pushed forward

“Since when was this way faster?” Jack asked as he came up behind Landon.

“Since forever. How could you not know this? No wonder you thought it was a damn triathlon.” Landon jeered.

Landon broke the silence as they continued forward towards the office. “I can’t wait to get home, Ashley’s supposed to be waiting in the cute little black number I just got her. You got anything going on later at home?”

Jack chuckled, “Yeah, I got plans, I’ll be curled up on the couch with my favorite bitch, Coco.”

Landon barked out a laugh. “Celia still pissed about that?”

“Yeah! How should I know if she wants Gucci or Prada?” Jack threw his arms in the air.

“Well, if you want to get off the couch, you’ll figure it out. I mean, coco is cute and all, but she’s too clingy for me. Plus she sheds.”

“It’s no wonder her maiden name was Winters, ice in her veins that one.” Jack stumbled forward.

The two rounded Williams St. Without warning a flustered man in a black suit carrying a dark brown briefcase came towards them seemingly unaware of their presence as he was looking back over his shoulder. The stranger collided with Landon, causing his briefcase spill open throwing the entirety of its contents to the ground.

“I’m so sorry sir.” The stranger examined Landon before bending over to collect his cases spilled contents.

“No! I’m the one who’s sorry, I should have been looking out.” Landon bent over to help the man. They collected his papers and placed them in the briefcase before the man re-latched it flagged down a Taxi.

Landon looked down, and noticed a small black book was left behind on the sidewalk. He picked it up and rushed over to return it to its owner, but the man was already gone.

“What’s that?” Jack looked at the small leather bound black notebook in Landon’s hands.

Landon flipped quickly through it. “No clue, looks like a bunch of gibberish math to me.” He handed the book to Jack. Here, you’re the math wiz. Maybe if you can figure out what it is, you can figure out who it belongs to.

Jack shrugged. “Maybe it will give me something to do tonight after all.” He gave the pages a quick once over.

Careful now, don’t make Coco wait too long, or she may find another bed to sleep in.

“Oh, I’m sure Charlie wouldn’t mind too much.” Jack shrugged.

“How is that boy anyways?” Landon asked as he continued forward.

“Only 9 years old, and his pitch already has a sting to it.” Jack rubbed at his hand as if to sooth an ache.

The two continued forward, and made it to the front door of their firm.

“I got it from here buddy, you can go ahead and get to your big night.” Jack slid his security badge into the card reader.

“I wouldn’t’ dream of leaving a man behind.” Landon pulled the door open for Jack.

Inside, they grabbed Jacks wallet from his desk, and collected the rest of their belongings before heading out to face the evening chill on the streets of New York City.

Now it was Landon’s turn to step towards the curb and hail a cab. He gave the cabbie the address of Jacks brownstone in the village and helped Jack into the back before grabbing his own cab, and heading home.

Jack made his way in the door. Jack sat his things down, grabbed his bottle of number 7 and poured it over some ice. As he sat down, something jabbed him in his leg. He pulled out the small black book. As he examined the cover, it was embossed with a golden circle surrounding some strange symbols. He started to leaf through the book, and a pattern caught his attention. Jack pulled out his laptop and started to plot some numbers into a spreadsheet. He sipped at his whiskey as he continued to play with the figures, until it finally made sense. He stared forward, his mouth agape as he entered an encoded message into the navigation bar, and it took him to a crypto-coin site. He used the next dataset as a username and password, and it opened the account. The balance in the account was twenty thousand dollars. But that didn’t add up, the figures in the code, indicated significantly more than that. He sat continuing to manipulate the numbers.

The next morning, Landon went to work, but no sign of Jack. The day went on, and he figured maybe Jack made up with Celia. Landon walked over to the supervisor’s desk. “Hey Rob, and word from Jack?”

Rob looked up from his daily issue of “The Street”. “No, last I saw him, he walked out of here with you. Whenever the SVU detectives get here, I’m point them in your direction.”

“You’re a regular Jon Rogan, you know that?” Landon went over to the break room, and called Jacks phone. “Damn voicemail.” Landon called Celia’s phone.

“What do you want?” Celia answered.

“Just making sure Jack got home okay” Landon replied with a concerned tone in his voice.

“Well he must have, because when I got up, there was a new empty glass of whiskey on the table. But no sign of Jack anywhere. Isn’t he at work with you?” The tone of her voice was suddenly concerned.

“Look, I have to go” Landon let out an audible sigh, “but I’ll call you if I hear anything.”

“Okay, I’ll do the same.” Celia said in a softer tone.

The week carried on, with no sign of Jack. Friday morning, Landon walked the blue spoon coffee to get his favorite brew. From behind him, he heard Jacks voice. “Don’t turn around. Meet me at the bench. You know the one.

When Landon walked into the trading floor, everyone was going crazy. Stocks across the board were shooting to the moon, and nobody knew why. Little nobody and nothing stocks that never moved, were suddenly skyrocketing yielding massive returns. He spent the morning calling clients, telling them about opportunities, couldn’t get Jacks voice out of his head. That afternoon, he headed over to the bench after grabbing a bite at Uncle Gussy’s.

Landon sat on the bench, when a figure out of a bad cloak and dagger movie sat down next to him. “Don’t look at me.” Jacks voice came out low and harsh, as he if hadn’t slept in days.

“Jack!? Is that you!?” Landon scoffed.

Jacks teeth went together hard. “SSSHHHH!” you’ll put us both in danger. As it is, I’m being followed.

“By who for what?” Landon inquired.

“Remember that little black book?” Jack kept looking straight forward.

“What about it?” Landon took a bite of his wrap.

“It was a code, and I cracked it.” Jack whispered.

“What did it say? Don’t forget your Ovaltine?” Landon mocked over a mouth full of food.

“It had an address to a bitcoin wallet with a username and password.” Jack calmly looked left and right to make sure nobody was around.

“Ok, how much was in it?” Landon set his mutton Euro wrap down into his lap.

“Twenty Thousand Dollars.” Jack said through gritted teeth in a hushed tone.

“Wha-?” Landon nearly choked.

“But that’s not all. That’s only seed money.” Jack continued.

“Seed money for what?” Landon took another bite of his lunch.

“A cash cycle.” Jack replied.

“A cash cycle for what?” Landon said as he chewed.

“I opened 3 new brokerage accounts. One at unity, one at integrity, and another at L.J. Howard. I use one of them to buy a stock for pennies. Then I use the other two just to trade shares back and forth at fractions of a difference driving the volume through the roof. The massive volume spikes the price of the stock, then I sell out from the seed account turning thousands into hundreds of millions.”

“You’re the reason the stocks are all going crazy? But you can’t do that all on your own.” Landon turned and looked at Jack. And where are you putting the money?

“The code, had a link to a custom app that processed the transactions automatically. I opened a new savings account with First American.” Jack continued to peer around suspiciously. Suddenly his eyes went wide.

Landon looked around and saw men in black coats and fedoras positioning themselves around the perimeter of the bench where they were sitting. They were all twenty or thirty yards off, but Landon could just make out a lapel pin on their Jackets that looked like the symbol on the black notebook.

“Jack, meet me over at the gapstow bridge in Central park. I have a guy who can handle this for you. Be there in 30 minutes.” Landon got up and walked left.

“Ok I’ll see you there.” Jack stood up and walked right.

Thirty minutes later, Landon looked on from the end of the bridge as Jack stood overlooking the pond. Landon stood there with a dismal look on his face, as he stood there in his black cote, and fedora, gold oroboros pin on the lapel of his black wool coat. Two pairs of similarly dressed men approached Jacks position from each direct of the bridge. Landon gave the slighted nod of his head. With that the first walked by, as one man inserted a blade into Jacks back. The second pair simply lifted him, and threw him into the pond.

Later that night, a figure sat down at a computer and logged on to an online account at first American bank. The figure entered Jacks e-mail address, and clicked “forgot password.” To be presented with three questions.

What is your favorite pet’s name? The figure typed “Coco”

Spouse’s maiden name? Fingers typed away. “Winters”

Favorite hobby? The keys clicked as the figure typed. “Baseball”

Another few clicks, and the figure at the keyboard typed in an account number and routing number before entering in the amount of five hundred million dollars and pressing “Transfer”.

From behind the figure, Landon’s voice came out low, and sullen. “It’s for the best you know.”

Celia’s voice came out weak as she stood up and turned around. “I know. It’s for the collective.”