For_Love_and_BitCoin

“My professor called my paper ‘anarchist dribble’ and that ‘if society followed your logic, homes would burn and children would be slaughtered in the street’. Brilliant, isn’t it?” Reagan Satchford pushed her laptop away. She ran her fingers through her spiked, short hair while laughing. “Children would be slaughtered in the street… wicked. Falalalala, lala, la, la.” She sang the last statement to keep with the holiday season they celebrated. Meager decorations hung upon their studio apartment walls.

“I’m certain ‘slaughtering children’ was an entire chapter in Hayek’s ‘Road to Serfdom’,” Reagan’s boyfriend, Lane Oshie, flatly replied.

Reagan grinned. Lane used his flat tone as an indicator for sarcasm. Her better-half was a genius, but his social capabilities were limited. She helped him in understanding his humanity. He helped her in everything else. “Chapter ten, I believe.” She stretched over the edge of her armchair in order to slide onto their worn-out couch next to Lane. Her eyes darted over his laptop screen. Programming languages she could not comprehend filled the space. Line after line formed with his every key stroke. “Work or pleasure?”

“Yes.” He paused his typing in order to kiss her forehead. “My final exam project. It will be an open-source system for astronomical data. A telescope everyone can use.” He tapped his finger on her constellation tattoo. The connected stars of Aquarius adorned her right wrist. “Everyone deserves access to the stars of their life.”

She laughed heartily. Her neon pink lips widened into a blissful smile and only served to thicken her London accent. “Bangin’.” Her eyes glistened looking up into his face. “I can’t believe that professor saw my stance as slaughtering children in the street when, in reality, children are dying in hospitals because our economy is broken.”

“Our?”

“The world’s. Yes. No one has the solution. We’re all controlled by an elite top percent.” Reagan flipped onto her belly. “And the masses are willing to fall in line like the good little sheep they are, controlled by the shepherd’s rod.”

“Rod?” Lane continued coding but intently listened to his girlfriend’s ranting.

“Money. The banks control the money. The government controls the banks. The lobbyists control the government. The corporations control the lobbyists. Money controls the corporations. It’s a vicious cycle, all enclosed. And there is no free market. Not a real free market. It’s as controlled as socialism or communism. Both political parties push toward their own version of control. Neither push for freedom.”

“Then give them freedom.”

Lane’s response caused Reagan to laugh again. This laugh held no merriment, only derision. “And how do I give them freedom?”

He nodded his head at his laptop. “Open-source.”

“Open-source? What? Open-source economy?”

“Yes.”

“But…” she lifted herself from the couch with her forearms, “but… how does that work? How…” She bit her lip. “Open-source currency.” Excitement caused Reagan to spring off the couch. “What is currency?”

Lane eyed her with a half-grin on his lips. Her outrage enchanted him. Where others saw a working-class girl escaped from east London, he saw a fiery-haired goddess. Their tiny apartment in Boston was her Mount Olympus, and he was whole-heartedly her thrall. She held up an American dollar. The history of the gold standard, John Maynard Keynes, the Great Depression, and the Federal Reserve Act flowed from her lips like a sparkling fountain. It was a rant he had heard often; so often, in fact, he felt as though he had a better historical knowledge of western economics than her Boston College professors.

“And that’s what we’ll do.” She slammed the dollar on their kitchen counter, and it rattled their one-foot Christmas tree that stood on display. “We will develop our own currency. Anything can become currency if value is put on it by the ones in control, right? Beads? Beaver pelts?”

“Deep breath. Pour a drink.” Lane calmed her. “You need your idea book to sort everything flying through your brain. Shall I get it for you?”

“No. Finish your project. I’ll go scribble.” She parted the beads that divided their living room/kitchen hybrid from their bedroom.

He returned to the code that flew from his fingertips. He knew what would happen when he submitted this project to a professor. They would declare it their property. And they would sell it to a tech giant – whoever was the highest bidder in the corporate game. The dream of open-source fluttered at his fingertips. Perhaps, he could include a specific timestamp to his creation in order to prove it was his creation if he ever sought compensation. Glancing at Reagan’s laptop, he noted the open browser of the London Times. He copied the date and headline into his coding.

“I have it!” she shouted.

He stayed put. Reagan would shout the line and others like it a dozen more times before her final plan rolled out. Hours passed with Lane’s silent coding and Reagan’s exclamations. Finally, the beads rattled. “I need you.”

Lane’s eyebrows lifted. His knowledge of Reagan’s social quirks had limitations. “You need me for what?”

“To create cryptocurrency.”

The frankness in her response made Lane stop his coding completely. “What?”

“You know, the stuff Dai and Szabo talk about, and you read about, and go on and on about the technicalities of. We can make a decentralized cryptocurrency that everyone has access to. Open source currency. It will supersede the currency of every country. People won’t be controlled by the elite anymore.”

“You believe I can conjure cryptocurrency for you?”

“No,” Reagan meticulously picked her words. “I believe you are a genius and can create it. You understand the in’s and out’s of the digital world. You can… do this.” She waved her hands in front of her to accentuate the point. “Look.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from his laptop. “It’s all laid out in my notebook.”

They fell through the beaded curtain and nearly landed on their piled-up mattresses from the momentum. “You’re worked up on this one.”

“Yes! It’s finally our moment to make a stand. To do what’s right. To make our mark against evil.” She grabbed her notebook and thrust it against his chest. “Look.”

He opened the book. Though they referred to it as a notebook, it was actually a sketchbook. The blank white pages with no lines allowed her to record her thoughts in their non-streamline fashion. Arrows and bubbles connected thoughts to each other. Anyone who did not understand her would be in total confusion. But Lane knew to begin in the center of the page and work his way out through the rabbit trails.

“Peer-to-peer transactions. Cutting out middle man,” he read aloud. “I like the foundations of your stance. But there are pitfalls in the operational side of it.”

She handed him her pencil. “That’s where you come in, Left Brain.” With a wink, she flopped onto their unmade bed. “Fill in the missing pieces for me, baby.”

“This will take months.” He scratched his head. “I’m gonna need a nap first. And pizza. And love.”

Reagan threw her head back in laughter.

~*~

Birds sung outside Lane’s window while he frantically worked on his laptop. Reagan slept soundly on their bed, cuddling close her tiger plush. “The tech giant is releasing their world telescope today…” the news quietly murmured in the background.

Lane snorted. He would have cared more about his intellectual property stolen by his MIT professor if this new cryptocurrency goal had not been dangled before him. In the last six months, he had dedicated every free moment he could to Reagan’s idea. Every week she added another layer of concepts to his creations.

The woman was a vault of ideas.

He was her ‘make-it-happen’ man.

She thought outside the box. He built the box.

“They stole your open-source astronomy program,” Reagan sleepily mumbled. “Now they’re going to make a profit off of what you wanted to be free.”

“I knew it would happen.” Lane’s reply was blunt. He clicked the remote swiftly to turn off the television. “I knew it would happen as soon as I handed the flash drive to my professor. Tweaked my code and made it look like it was original. I have a key to show…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Your project is what’s important right now.”

She smiled and petted her tiger. “You hear that Nakamoto? Daddy said my project is important.” Her slight giggle turned to a cough.

“Are you okay?” Lane asked with concern.

More coughs answered him.

“I’ll go get you some water.” He hurried into the kitchen to fill a cup with water. “Maybe we should get you to a doctor.”

“We can’t afford a doctor,” Reagan responded between coughs. “I’ll be fine. It’s a cold. I just need soup and sleep.”

Lane kissed her forehead. “I will go to the store and get you soup. And some medicine.”

“Wait.” She pulled his shirt to force him to sit on the bed with her. “Hold me for a bit before you go.” The man complied with her request. He held her head gently against his chest, stroking her hair with every cough. “Tell me how the project is coming.”

He went into the boring details of his programming. “I am calling it BitCoin, like Szabo’s bit gold. The ledger will be open to everyone, the way you want it.”

“I love it. BitCoin. And we’re going to be anonymous right? I don’t want anyone to know who did it…” she coughed. “It has to just happen. Like magic. No savior. Just freedom.”

“I know.” Lane kissed the top of her head. “It’s taking me longer. I’m having to change my… language? Style?”

Reagan sipped her water. “Like a writer trying to impersonate another author?”

“Something similar to that.” He twisted her hair in his fingers. The strands were longer than when she first created the idea for their currency. Before, he could run his fingers through them easily. Now, they would tangle if he tried. The tangles did not stop him from trying. He loved her hair.

She purred at his touch. “Who are you writing as?”

“A few different people. Finney, Dai, Szabo, anyone who is anyone in this market. It will look like any of them, or a collaboration of all of them.”

“You’re so brilliant.” Her eyes shut. “I love you Lane Oshie.”

“I love you too Reagan Satchford.” She soon fell asleep in his arms. Carefully, he slid her back onto her pillow and lifted the blankets around her before heading out to the nearby pharmacy.

~*~

The heart monitor let out a loud beep. Lane glanced up from his laptop to the screen, ensuring all the numbers appeared in good order. Reagan slept soundly in the nearby hospital bed. A variety of tubes and cords connected her to the monitor and intravenous stand. A soft beanie sat on her bald head. The long strands of hair that grew earlier in the year had fallen away with treatment after treatment of chemotherapy. He ran his hand over the back of his neck in worry.

In May, the cold Reagan experienced continued into June. The week before Independence Day, Lane finally convinced her to go to the doctor. After the first examination, several labs were suggested. Reagan protested due to the cost, but Lane insisted. By the middle of July, they received the diagnosis: breast cancer. The lump was deep in her chest. It would have been hard to find with untrained self-examination, if Reagan even examined herself. He did not know.

After the first conversation with her oncologist, she turned to Lane while alone and pleaded with him to let her die. It would be better to die than go into debt on treatments that might not work. But Lane would not listen to her. Reagan was his everything. He wrote a couple of simple programs and apps and sold them to help with initial doctor’s bills. Now, in late October, the treatments were becoming more expensive. He did not care. He did not have time for the programs and phone apps that could help him pay.

He had to finish her cryptocurrency. Her vision.

“Lane?” her raspy voice pierced him.

“Here.” Laptop aside. He rushed to hold her frail hand. “Love.” He used the word as often as possible. No matter what their future brought, he wanted her to know he loved her. “I brought Nakamoto.” He pointed to her tiger plush laid against her legs.

Reagan glanced down and smiled at her tiger.

“I brought your DVDs so you and he can watch his namesake too. Thought it would make you feel better.” He sat up a portable player for her to watch her favorite anime. “I can order some food for you…”

“I’m not hungry Lane.”

“You have to eat Reagan.”

She sighed and turned her face away. “You will be indebted for life because of me. You’ll be a slave to this hospital. To the pharmaceutical companies.”

“I can make money. That is not the concern Reagan. You are my concern. I can’t…” He bit his lip and caressed her cheek. “You are all that matters to me.”

“BitCoin?” she asked.

“You. Not BitCoin.”

Reagan took a deep breath through the oxygen tube on her nose. “BitCoin… it’s our child, Lane.”

The thought struck him hard. “You’re right.”

“I…” she winced in pain. The spasms became more frequent. It kept her from speaking with him for long periods of time. Often, it led to more sleeping. They made it hard for her to eat. She ate less with every passing day.

“Let’s try some pudding today, okay?” Before she could shake her head at him, he held a finger up. “Don’t say no. Just try it for me.”

She nodded. “Okay.” A nurse entered the room to draw more blood from the pick on her arm while Lane grabbed a vanilla pudding. “I don’t have much more blood to give,” she joked to her nurse. Lane noted the tired smile on her lips. He missed those bright pink lips laughing at his expense and her eyes twinkling up at him with admiration. Seeing her joke with the nurse, even with strained effort, gave him hope. Maybe the treatments were working. “I can feed myself,” she told Lane when he attempted to spoon feed her the pudding.

“Yes, you can. But then what would I do?” He smiled at her and kissed her forehead. “And this way, you have to eat it all, my love.”

After she finished her pudding, she fell back asleep, and Lane fell back into programming.

~*~

Lane kissed the plush tiger sitting on top of Reagan’s sketchbook. When his eyes were closed, he could smell Reagan in the fibers of the toy. Nakamoto and the book were all he had left of Reagan. Them, and BitCoin. He stared at his completed work. It was their child. It was everything she wanted. Everything he wanted for her.

His pseudonym on message boards had been a conglomerate of their surnames, Satoshi, and the name of her favorite possession, Nakamoto. He hovered a finger over his keyboard. The genesis block. Fifty bitcoins. The start of everything he had worked for over the past year. Between every school project, between every doctor’s appointment, between every treatment, and between memorial arrangements, there had been bitcoin, their child.

The Times sat open on his laptop. He had become an ardent reader of the publication. Every day in the hospital he would read the articles to Reagan. Now, he read the articles to her spirit. This particular article would have made her moan. He heard her rant in his head. “The banks control the money. The government controls the banks. The lobbyists control the government. The corporations control the lobbyists. Money controls the corporations.”

His pinky and index fingers hit Ctrl + V: ‘The_Times_Jan/03/2009_Chancellor_on_brink_of_second_bailout_for_banks.’

It was done.