"The point is not to fight for the freedom of someone else, but to stand up for your own freedom, to recognize opportunities, take advantage of them and to hope in vain that the people you love the most will, one fine day, wake up by themselves."
—Christa
“Chris, your behavior during class is so distracting that I don’t want you in my classroom anymore!”
“Well, I’m not doing anything, am I?”
“Yeah, that's my point exactly! Go to the principal's office; yes, now!”
“Well, what am I supposed to tell him?”
“You figure it out, I don't want you in my class anymore! Bye, Christa!”
The school principal never saw her in the office that day. Christa didn't choose for a stale office and a grumpy old guy who would lecture her, she chose adventure instead. The world that seemed so enticing through her inexperienced eyes was not as noncommittal as she thought. She lost Billy (her boyfriend), and she was wanted by the Child Protection Agency, school inspection and the police. After a few months of squatting, stealing and drifting she is picked up and sent back home. She feared the reaction of her parents the most, but they were only very happy that their daughter had been given back to them by the evil outside world.
Saturday morning, Christa has been sitting at the kitchen table staring into the garden for so long that the cheese on her rusk has started to sweat. When she takes a bite, she spits it back on her plate with a dirty look on her face. She's been trying for weeks to think of a reason why she couldn't make it through school. Why couldn't she concentrate, was everything so incredibly boring and above all, why was everything so unbelievably implausible? —Of course, one and one is two, but why do I have to spend all day at school for that?
She turns on her laptop and randomly watches some videos on YouTube. Her eye falls on a video, the title is What Are You Waiting For? She clicks on it...
“Hey, it's me, Randy! Today I see so many people who do nothing with their lives. They go do a job they don't like, come home, eat, drink, watch TV, get some sleep and go back the next day. They buy crap that they don't need to impress people they don't like. They're waiting for their retirement, everything will be better then. They do not realize that on that day they are old, have wrinkles, osteoarthritis, are blind, deaf or completely alienated from the world.
Oh, and by the way, after the convivium virus pandemic, the world will never be the same again. It was the Nine Eleven of the millennials. The jobs they lost will never come back. Everyone's waiting for the government to rescue them. I've got news for them: the government's not coming to rescue you! But, there is a chance to save yourself, follow my bitcoin course, and learn what the future will bring, save yourself! Why wait? Look at me, I do what I like. Then why am I making videos? Because, I love to do it and because I wish you the same happiness. I'll see you at school!”
Christa hates school, but this man is so contagious that she curiously clicks on the website and starts the course. A few weeks later, she's watching TV with her parents. During the news it is reported that more and more criminal organizations are extorting people and demand Monero. Her father wonders out loud what in God's name a Monero is, to which she spontaneously replied: “Monero is an altcoin that operates on a blockchain, but can be used completely anonymously.”
Mother turns her head with a dumbfounded look on her face: “What's an altcoin?”
“Well, anything that's not Bitcoin.”
Her father fires another question: “So, what the hell is a blockchain?”
Christa thinks hard and, with her limited intelligence, she answers as well as she can: “A blockchain is like a pearl necklace of information, when a pearl is missing no consensus is reached; so, it is completely safe.”
Mother sighs: “Well, I'll stick to old-fashioned money, at least I trust that.” Christa's father still has a piercing question in mind for her: “Do you pump all your hard-earned money into this Bitcoin nonsense?”
“Dad, it's the new Internet, and if you're there early there's a lot of money to be made!”
”Okay, so how much money have you made?”
She has to admit that she has not made any money at all, her father stays silent and only looks at her, his arms folded, his nose in the air. Christa explains that she invests her money and that this just takes a long time and requires trust. Her story falls on deaf ears and she sinks back behind her laptop to spend some of her hard-earned money on various hopeful blockchain projects. It’s no use to convince her parents. Christa hardy understands herself what this new stuff all means, despite the course she took, but her gut tells her that she’s on the right path.
Christa has built up an impressive portfolio that has turned out to be anything but profitable, to the delight of her father, who does not want to be surpassed by his own flesh and blood and certainly will never admit that he was wrong about anything. In the evening she watches the news with her mother.
"Good evening, this is the eight o'clock news. Once again, the convivium virus is popping up. The Prime Minister has enacted the Convivium Act and we'll have to abide by its rules. This means that from now on there will be a restriction on freedom of speech with regard to the government. So, watch your mouth... And now, the weather..."
Christa screams out: “What nonsense, it's all one big puppet show!”
Her mother responds: “What are you getting so worked up about?”
“Because the government can't decide what I talk about, or what I don't talk about.”
A day later Christa comes home from her work in the supermarket and sees her mother with her hands in her hair: “What is wrong, Mom?”
Her mother explains that she can no longer withdraw money for two weeks, because the government has temporarily branded their family as a potential danger to society. Her father explodes when he comes home in the evening and hears the news, but Christa has a plan. She can use her altcoins to buy food, completely anonymous. Her father and mother don't want to know anything about this and reluctantly, but desperately ask her to leave the house.
—The message from the government states that when Christa leaves their home, the sanction will be lifted immediately.
“Mom, how could they know that I'm the danger?”
Her mother replies that she downloaded the Convivium-app and that the government listened to all their conversations. After a heavy, violent altercation Christa leaves without saying goodbye. Almost immediately after she has taken the bus the bank account of her parents is restored.
Christa sits in the park and opens her laptop. She's shocked; her portfolio is worth thousands of times more than it was a month ago. She clicks on the coins she owns; almost all her coins have increased in value enormously. Traditional stock exchanges are under pressure. Banks are on the brink of collapsing. Big companies are investing in crypto and any blockchain projects they deem promising; the trust of everyday people is increasing massively, and all are pumping real money into the blockchain sphere. The money is now flowing en masse into the crypto market. From now on, Christa can call herself a multimillionaire. She quickly exchanges a substantial number of coins for stable coins, gets some old-fashioned cash, buys gold, silver, and real estate, and reinvests the rest of her money back into her favorite blockchain projects.
—A few months later.
Christa lives in a gigantic villa in the north of the country. The government has expanded the power it has. The country is becoming more dangerous for dissidents. The state weakens the immune system of dissidents by making targeted use of the radiation from transmitter masts, then a secret department, within the Bureau of the Nations Security, spreads a flu virus, cleans the entire street, so that no one suspects anything. People go along voluntarily, they don't rebel, because they think they're protecting their fellow man from a dangerous, contagious virus. They are then taken to a ‘recovery camp’, the dissident is taken out before they even arrive. The rest will be euthanized and burned, all voluntarily.
Christa is super worried about her parents and calls them, but there is no answer. For days she tries in vain to make contact. She decides to return to persuade them to come with her. A large limousine turns into her old residential area. With big eyes Christa looks through the tinted glass at the empty houses, everything is deserted. She gets out and looks around at her parents’ home.
“Hey, Chris!”
She is startled at first, but it’s her old childhood sweetheart, Billy.
“Bill, what are you doing here?”
Billy replies: “I saw the limo and thought, or rather I hoped it was you.”
“Do you know where my parents are?”
Billy's eyes roll down and Christa's stomach turns: “No, no, Bill, don't tell me!”
“I'm so sorry, Chris.”
The limousine leaves the area with Christa and Billy in it.
A few months later, in the garden of their villa, Billy grills meat on the barbecue and asks if Christa is hungry too, she prefers a salad. Christa is seven months pregnant, paddles her feet in the water of the pool, gently rubs her belly and whispers: “I don't know what's going to happen to the rest of the world, little one, but we are safe. You're safe.”