2223 (A “The Citadel” story by Eduardo Próspero)

The last living member of the Negrón family rested in a chair outside a cottage, on top of a mountain. Once upon a time, Magdalena’s ancestors ruled over everything in front of her. What began as a Bitcoin citadel was now a complex, self-sufficient, garden-like, urban landscape. The home of over a million people.

She feasted on the fruits of civilization all her life; in that green-covered, expansive concrete maze down there, she loved, laughed, and cried until she couldn’t bear it. In the fruitful fields that surrounded the area and kept the population organically fed, Magdalena played and ran as a child, and developed her flower-extract, cosmetic business as an adult.

And then, she retired. From work, from the city, and from life.

The concept of a Bitcoin citadel became obsolete when the whole world started trading in BTC exclusively. Even the concept of hyperbitcoinization was a fading memory. After a long, laborious grind by a decentralized network of independent actors, it suddenly happened. In what felt like a few days, BTC became the norm, and the world never looked back.

The earth-shattering process woke governments up from a century-long slumber. The money printer blinded them; inflation was a drug that took over their lives, their perspective, their morale. It was so convenient. However, as it turns out, having access to a button that pushed all your problems into the future wasn’t beneficial after all. The Bitcoin standard’s arrival liberated politicians and pushed them towards efficiency and value creation.

Most people living in the city nowadays didn’t experience life under a fiat standard. They haven’t felt money evaporating in their pocket or the necessity to invest and gamble it to preserve its value. Magdalena Negrón envied the citizens, but she also felt pity for them. Living through the contrast between the two worlds was the thrill of her life. A process that her great-grandfather Eleazar and his sister Elena fought wars for.

Technological and political wars, but wars nonetheless.

From the outside, her cottage looked like nothing special, but the last Negrón had everything she could ever need in there. A stomach cramp hit her when she wasn’t looking. Magdalena was starting to feel it. She stood up, stretched her legs, and enjoyed a final view of the city Bitcoin built.

Her android and companion washed the dishes in the kitchen. A few hours ago, Magdalena prepared and ate her favorite meal: a chickpea/ broccoli casserole her grandfather used to make. Apparently, the original recipe came from Elena’s son, Augusto, the citadel’s most revered regent. The very person who took the project from niche to mainstream. From citadel to city.

It made sense, Augusto was strong-willed enough to challenge the carnivore diet that bitcoiners lived by.

The recipe’s secret ingredient was a Chinese garlic sauce. In her youth, they had to travel six hours to the capital city to get it. Yesterday, she sent some satoshis to her favorite Chinese store owner, and a drone delivered it a few minutes later.

She served a whiskey on the rocks from her late husband’s glass decanter and sighed. She grabbed a frame with a picture of him and her two breathtaking children and broke down in tears. Life lost all meaning after the accident. The Negrón empire ended that day. For the last ten years, she had been pondering how a simple computer malfunction could wreck so many lives.

On her darker days, she wondered if her family’s enemies got the best of them in the end. Many sociopath-egomaniacs lost power and money with the hyperbitcoinization of the world. Those people had their defects, but they were patient and methodical. A hundred years were nothing to them.

Did those psychopaths get her babies?

Or did destiny play a joke on her? Sometimes an accident was just an accident.

She chugged the whiskey in one shot. The answer wasn’t important anymore.

A videocall cut her ruminations short. Magdalena knew who it was. She had been waiting for this last call. She grabbed the remote, clicked on “ANSWER,” and a sixty-year-old Latina wearing a white robe appeared on her TV. “Good night, Archduchess Negrón. Ready for the big event?”

Since Western medicine advanced to the point that it could precisely predict natural death, society rebranded the event as the most important moment of your life. Which it very well could be. Magdalena Negrón was old enough to see the play for what it was. Social engineering. Another way to pacify the population.

However, in her particular case, society was right. She had been waiting for this faithful day since she found out about her husband and children’s accident. There was nothing left for her to do on this plane. “I’m ready, Dr. Suarez. Time to cross the abyss.”

“I just wanted to check on you, and see how your spirits were. What you’re about to experience is an exceptional event, not many people get to…”

“I’m fine, Dr. Thanks.” Magdalena said before clicking on “END CALL” and turning the TV off.

She had one last thing to do, and time was running out. Magdalena threw the remote control on the sofa, went to the tool shed outside, and got a shovel. Severe pain in her upper stomach almost knocked her to the floor. Magdalena picked herself up and, with affection, called her android, “Rosie, I have a mission for you.”

Rosie immediately stopped what she was doing and came into the living room. “What can I help you with, Madame Negrón?”

“Use this shovel to dig a small metal cylinder from the coordinates I sent you through Direct Message.”

“Of course, Madame.”

As the robot did the dirty work in the garden, Magdalena went up to her room. She got a wooden box from under her bed, unlocked it with an orange key, and got her old plasma rifle out. Magdalena smiled as she remembered going through basic weapon training with all of her classmates at La Escuela Holística. The Citadel’s core community put so much energy into training for armageddon and never got to use any of those skills in real combat.

The war was fought in other spaces.

When Magdalena got to the living room, Rosie waited for her with a stainless steel cylinder with twelve words embroidered on it. It looked like an antique relic. It was the first time Magdalena had seen it; her great-grandfather Eleazar buried it when the family was building the cottage, more than 150 years ago. There wasn’t a speck of dust on the cylinder or the shovel. It still amazed her how clean the android was. “Thank you, dear Rosie.”

Those were Magdalena’s last words to her faithful companion.

The last Negrón went outside, carefully balanced the cylinder on top of a wooden table, and solemnly moved towards the other side of the yard. She sighed. The wildest stomach cramp yet took her out of her melancholic mood. She had to do this. Magdalena aimed the plasma rifle, got the cylinder in the center of her sight, and, for her last words, quoted Satoshi Nakamoto: “Lost coins only make everyone else’s coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.”

She took a deep breath… and shot.

2223