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"I have no interest to hear how loud hate can echo from within an empty head," says Tullus. Tullus and Stacey were already done and standing when Jim looked up from his Logg Extractor. "So I turned off all thought audibility." Jim stands up too and hands his Extractor to Tullus.
"Ah," says Jim. "Well, Suleman's thoughts were pretty, uh, loud. I couldn't hear what you said was the exploit. But you both heard it?" Both Tullus and Stacey nod. "Now how much time have we got?"
"5 minutes!" says Stacey, looking at her cell phone.
"We'll have to ask fast," says Tullus, "let's put it to a vote." Tullus gets out his cell phone. "Majority okay?" Both Stacey and Jim nod. "How many say..." Tullus raises his arm. "We steal all existing FutureCoin..." Stacey shoots up her arm. "...And immediately burn it?" Stacey looks confused. "Okay!" Tullus pushes a button on his phone. "Done!"
"Wait, what!" says Stacey, arm still raised. She drops it and stares at them both. "Wait, did you just say burn?"
"Well, of course," says Tullus, "we can't just steal it and keep it. That would be wrong."
Stacey staggers and sits back down. She mutters to herself over and over, "that would be wrong."
Tullus continues, "We'll have at least 24 hours before new tokens can be minted."
"Which," says Jim, "is exactly what Vilt will do."
"Yes," says Tullus. "So what are our options?"
Stacey is still muttering "that would be wrong."
"Well," says Jim, "it looks like either we convince people not to buy or we convince Vilt not to sell."
"Do we really need to convince people not to buy? Obviously Jerald Vilt is going to be unable to sell anything right now, the tokens have all vanished. Rather, they've been sent to an address with no possible private key. But effectively, they have been shot into the void. They are gone. How could anyone not realize there's a security flaw?" says Tullus.
Jim carefully takes the phone out of Stacey's hand, who is still muttering. His eyes go wide.
"It seems," says Jim, "that Vilt is going to go through with the sale after all. He says although there's a slight delay that is preventing him actually transferring the coin immediately, he is offering IOUs."
"And what reason is he giving for the delay?" asked Tullus.
Jim scrolls and reads: "Regularly scheduled database maintenance."
Tullus laughs, "surely the investors aren't..."
"They're agreeing to it," says Jim.
Tullus sighs. "I would try contacting them, but I'm beginning to think it is easier and faster for crypto investors to open their wallets and give money than it is to open their minds and give caution. As much as I hate to say it, I think we're going to have to talk to Jerald Vilt if we want to stop this."
Jim sits next to Stacey, he leans towards her and says quietly, "Stacey." She doesn't respond. He says a little louder, "Stacey." She still doesn't respond, he puts his hands on her arm.
She looks immediately at him and calmly says, "Are you touching me?"
He immediately pulls his hand away. "No! I mean..."
Stacey sits up, "Wait a second, how long have I been... What's going on? I had this terrible dream where Tullus said he burned all the... That wasn't a dream was it? I'm back to the nightmare of being poor aren't I?"
"Actually, since nightmares are still a kind of..." starts Jim. Stacey glares at Jim and he shuts up. "Tullus says we're going to contact Vilt."
"But don't worry," says Tullus, "We can hide our identity." He sits down next to them and hands them each Extractors. All three of them are looking at Extractors.
Suddenly all three of them are on Jerald Vilt's yacht.
"So," says Tullus, "there are other good uses for Extractors, one of them is impromptu meetings. While we were still trying to find the exploit, I decided to send an Extractor in a secure container to Jerald Vilt, just in case we needed to contact him. I've just sent him a message that if he wants to know what happened to his FutureCoin, to open that container per my instructions and turn on the device inside. If he joins us, I've set it so that we'll look and sound like duplicates of himself, thus protecting our identities."
After a bit of time, Vilt appears before them.
"I don't know how I got here," says Vilt, "but at least I'm surrounded by the most beautiful person I know." He looks around. "We appear to be on my yacht, but we clearly are not. We're on what I call my not-yacht. But I made that with the same FutureCoin that you have just burnt so..."
"Hello, Jerald," says Tullus.
"Hello, Jerald," says Jerald. "Mind telling me why I burnt all my FutureCoin before making myself a lot of money? That isn't very much like me."
"You know," says Stacey, "we finally have an opportunity to ask you some questions. I, for one, want to know what the hash-check was up with that video of you on your yacht. Maybe then we'll answer some of yours. You're admitting you made it then?"
"Hmm," says Jerald, "I assumed since you reproduced the not-yacht, that you already knew everything. That wasn't very clever of me to reveal. I guess I just see that gorgeous face and forget myself."
"You did fake the video!" says Jim. "Did you also post it on social media?"
Jerald leans against a rail and nods. "You know I have this insatiable need to make sure my hair is still in good condition. I feel like I'm looking into a mirror, but I can't actually use this mirror to fix my hair. It's quite troubling."
"And," continues Jim, "did you also delete it and then post it on another platform, and then delete it again, and so on?" Jerald nods again. "And where were you this whole time?"
"I," says Jerald, turning to look over the water, "was here." He turns back to them. "Or rather, on my real yacht."
"But why?" asks Stacey.
Jerald sighs and walks over to his on-deck, Olympics-sized swimming pool. He takes off his shoes, then all his clothes, everything but his boxers. He jumps in and starts swimming.
"Listen!" says Stacey, "if you don't tell us, we're not going to tell you what happened to your FutureCoin."
Jerald sighs again, and gets out. He dries himself off with a towel, puts on his clothes. "You see, for the average individual, going off the grid, so to speak, doesn't really matter much to anyone. But when you're Jerald Vilt, which luckily I get to be all the time, and you have the short-term pleasure right now..." He walks up to Stacey and pretends he's peering into a mirror as he fixes his hair with his hand. "When you're me, and you're posting on social media with greater frequency than 'a modern-day Stepford wife with a Peloton bike,' as I think one of my critics put it... Going completely silence is louder, and could get more interest, than any post I could ever make."
"But why first make a video that makes you look like an idiot?" asks Stacey.
Jerald rolls his eyes. "I could explain it, but I doubt you'd even be able to understand it. You're all playing checkers and I'm playing 4-dimensional chess in a hypercube!"
"Explain it," says Stacey, "or we're just going to keep stealing every FutureCoin you ever make."
"Well," says Jerald, "let me put it this way. Let's say a music rapper, known for his explicit lyrics about criminal activities, tries to get onto an airplane and is caught by the TSA with an unlicensed gun and a pound of marijuana in his luggage. You think, how stupid is this guy?! Of course they are going to check his luggage. The tabloids are then," he uses air quotes "'hounding' him..."
"Hey!" says Stacey, "those are my patented air quotes, you don't get to use my patented air quotes! Continue."
Jerald continues. "It's in the news for weeks. How foolish they think, his record label could drop him. How unwise, as he has this new record coming out. Yes, how very shortsighted for the gangster rapper who goes by the name Lil' Killer Hoodstar, but was originally born Jimmy Sherman in a sprawling estate in Palos Verdes, child to a famous music producer and a high-ranking recording industry executive. How unwise to commit this non-violent crime that his million-dollar lawyers eventually get reduced to a slap on the wrist because the gun and weed happened to actually belong to his PR manager, who also gets away with little penalty. And all the while his record ends up climbing the chart even faster than the extreme amounts of payola can propel it. Yes, what an idiot."
"Hold on," says Stacey, "I get your point, but in this case his brand is to be a thug, so it makes sense to make a", she uses air quotes, "'mistake' that makes him even more of a thug. But you're supposed to be a tech wiz. That's your," air quotes, "'brand.' This makes you look like you can't even perform a Google search."
"Well, here's an even more hypothetical example for you. Let's say there's an individual who is pretty dumb in a lot of ways. Except for one. Manipulation. He's a liar. And I'd say he's a good liar, but that all depends on how you define good lying. Are good lies ones you get away with? Ones no one catches? In that case, he's a terrible liar. His lies are caught daily. His lies even contradict each other. In fact, they reveal even more that, really, he is pretty dumb in many, many ways. But if you define good lying by the number of people he can manipulate with lies, then he's a very good liar. Still, either way, these lies clearly make him look incompetent, ignorant of world affairs. Just like mine make me look ignorant of technology.
"Let's look further at this hypothetical person and myself. Well, we both have the same, two kinds of supporters.
"There is the first kind. The gullible, easily swayed and easily distracted, non-critical-thinking followers who just want to be part of our tribe, who we make feel included in our events, by carefully crafting an emotional experience. Who we convince it is us-against-them. Who find friends, community, in others like them. They feel downtrodden and here's the salvation. They believe the lies.
"Then there's the second kind. The greedy, the money-lusting, the power-hungry, the ones this hypothetical person and myself know we need, and of whom we can say anything we want, as long as this second kind gets paid at the end of the day. They will cover up and defend any idiotic thing we might do, as long as we show we know where our bread is buttered. While we only need to give good feelings to the first kind, this second kind need an actual ROI, but give it, and they'll help you get even more of--and more out of--the first kind. The second kind. They don't need to believe the lies. They don't even care if the lies are true or not.
"My lies leading me to becoming the most prominent name in crypto, despite making me look technologically inept? That's almost as preposterous as that hypothetical man, who constantly shows zero leadership ability and care for the world or anyone in it but him... That's almost as preposterous as that person becoming, say, leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world!"