I wake up from my whiskey stupor to the scent of burning motherboards, and I know that something is wrong. Out the window in New York’s Financial District, two men in torn bespoke suits roast a body over an oil drum. It looks like Thomas Friedman’s, but I can’t be sure.
“Brother can you spare a bitcoin?” one screams.
In the distance, I see fire.
I haul myself up, wipe the cigarette ash from my hair, and put on a flak jacket made solely from Golden Parachutes. “War. Horror. Hatred. Death.” I say, to no one in particular. “Looks like I’m gonna get a fucking Peabody.”
“Reporting live from the frontlines of #NYSEDown!” I tell my phone cam. Then I run out the door.
Outside, I take in the scene: street preachers denouncing Gnosticism, a lone banker trying to garrote himself with ticket tape, and the Bull – that gold, beautiful bull – running through the streets like Zeus. I chase after it for a quote, but, like the dubious financial transactions powered by super-compressors, it is too quick.
At Freedom Tower, lost German tourists ask “Where is 9/11?”, but the commemorative booklet sellers who cater to them have disappeared. FiDi’s new currency in the wake the stock market shutdown is glossy pics of The Twin Towers exploding, and the commemorative booksellers already made their killing and moved uptown.