Bad Iron

Dorian awoke from the couch of Alan’s stuffy studio apartment to the sound of thunderous applause.

“Governor Kierkegaard is about to speak,” Alan reminded him.

“Don’t call him that,” said Dorian. “These people are obsessed with last names and titles. It’s Brendan. I hate saying even that though. It sounds so slimy, like his greasy hair is getting in my mouth.”

“Didn’t need that image during dinner,” said Alan chewing a mouthful of ramen. “You want anything?”

“I’m good.” Dorian held up a can of “Sade-E” brand energy drink, a Nevada import. He stared at the TV that was panning across an audience of the American politburo. “Jesus Christ. There’s so many of them now. What do these people even do?” he asked, packing a refill of cannabis into the bowl. "If he compares himself to Lincoln again I’m going to officially lose it. That wasn’t his party, or his flag.”

“I wish I could get paid trillions and applauded just for making stuff up and spewing propaganda. This should be my job. I should be up there.”

“Ugh, not like that. Why do they always have to use my worst picture?”

“There is no good-looking picture of you, Dorian,” said Alan.

“Well if it makes for a stronger contrast with this guy, then good. I feel good about it now. Thank you, Brendan.”

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” said Dorian.

“Didn’t you?” asked Alan.

“Not in vain.”

Alan groaned. “Why can’t you just use a VPN?”

“I don’t know how any of that stuff works. I was never in it for the tech. Besides, he could have just made a deep fake of my voice anyway.”

“But he didn’t have to.”

“He had to cut off the part where I said ‘no offense’!”

"I’m authoritarian? You nationalized every industry in the country!"

“Do I look like I care about my health?"

“Why do you have to use so many fancy words? Just say you want to kill anyone that’s not a communist.”

“JAPAN?!”

“It’s healthier than the synthetic crap!” said Dorian, crunching an empty can.

Alan’s phone rang out with notifications to remind them of what they already knew. He checked the screen. “$90 million.”

“Hm. I expected worse.” said Dorian.

“At least one of us still has a job,” said Alan.

**We will be redirecting retirement savings plans towards the purchasing of war bonds.”

“Nope,” said Dorian. “You work for free now, wagie.”

“No way. In that case I quit. I can get by on 40,000 sats for a while. I’ll just cancel the return flight from Taiwan.”

“Probably for the best.”

Amidst the sea of indistinct suited technocrats, a young woman with bright red hair arose from the crowd, stepped up to the podium, and embraced her father with a hug.

When they parted, Karina looked directly at the camera with a subtle glower visible only to Dorian, while Brendan smiled and waved to the applauding politburo.

Dorian was silent.

“Dorian?” asked Alan.

“It’s fine, I just…” He swallowed. “I didn’t expect that from Japan. You know what, I’ll just assume Japan has some bigger plan they’re not letting me in on.”

“Japan?”

“Yeah.” Dorian stared at the TV with a vacant expression.

“Why don’t we take a break from the news?” said Alan, turning on the game console. “They just came out with a remaster of Romance of the Three Kingdoms XXI. We could play that again for old times’ sake.”

“Or, maybe take a walk and get some fresh air? Away from the screen?”

Dorian stood up and paced the room, then rummaged through clutter to pick up a glock and a dusty guitar.

“Good idea,” said Alan. “Catching up on old hobbies? That’ll be good for you.”

“You’re still relying on robo-taxis, right? Next quarter I’ll buy myself the Japanese car that I actually wanted. Do you want the old one?”

“For free? Sure,” said Alan with a puzzled look. “But I don’t get it. You’re buying a new car? You’re going to sell during a dip like this?

“I don’t have to sell.” Dorian tossed a silver credit card onto the coffee table. “Use this for the windows. They broke on the way over.”

He put on a denim jacket with a 50-star flag pattern.

“You’re wearing that outside?” asked Alan. “They’ll see you.”

“I have no intention of hiding anything. I’m done. They’re done.”

Dorian stormed outside and down the stairs.

“Not available in my country. Seriously? My country? MY COUNTRY? Do they think this is Europe!?”

“Authoritarian? Fight fire with fire? Really? You want to play that game? I’ll show you authoritarian, Pretty Boy!”

“You’re all stupid! You’re slow! You’re lazy! My side works! We do all the work! You don’t hear about it because everyone else is too busy with real jobs to deal with you head-on. Well not me!

“And you have the nerve to act like you’re the victim? Like I’m in charge of anything? You’re not! I’m not! But you will be! I will be! I swear I’ll finish what you pussies are trying to start if you don’t back off. You’ll get just what you deserve, and what you deserve is what you’ve been giving me for my whole life. NOTHING!”

Every dog in the neighborhood called out the same universally intelligible warning in its own dialect to defend its territory. A pit bull terrier barked from a tent at a passing chihuahua that snarled back with a vengeance from its purse, their owners struggling to hold them back. An arthritic greyhound stumbled through a dilapidated fence, then sprinted down the road, narrowly avoiding potholes and rallying more woofs, yips, barks, and growls from every dog, bitch, mongrel and purebred along the way.

The sky darkened as fires marched up the surrounding hills and greedily consumed the fuel stocks of dry grass that had been building up for decades. Rays of a red sun slashed with long, sharp blades through the smoky haze above the City of Angels. A man in tattered clothes shambled zombie-like raising a sign straight to the sky for only them to see, “It’s Happening,” hoping against hope that they still had a view of the ground. Dorian scrambled through crowds of looters to grab one last can of Sade-E before the embargo could take full effect.

A truck driver switched off the radio.

“Welp, sounds like my job is illegal now. Again. You eat insects, right?”

The fox in the passenger seat looked up from a cup of whipped cream they had picked up from a coffee shop on the way.

She nodded excitedly, wagging her tail.

He led the fox to the back of the truck and flung open the roll-up door. “It’s all yours.”

The fox’s jaw dropped with awe, and her mustache of whipped cream bubbled with drool.

She turned back to the man. She sniffed, circled him and pawed at his back pocket.

“What, this?”

He pulled out a metal card holder. The fox nodded vigorously.

He held out his card to the fox, and they both froze in momentary confusion.

“Hold on,” said the man. He walked back to the front of the truck and came back with a hot-pink fanny pack. “It was my wife’s.”

The fox’s ears turned down.

“But I think she’d want you to have it.”

He knelt to the fox, strapping the fanny pack across its back. He put his card inside and zipped it closed. They heard a clanging of broken glass.

“神經病啊! 人家要睡了! (Hey! Some of us are trying to sleep, tweaker!)”

“幹你娘! (FUCK YOUR MOTHER!)

The fox’s ears perked up. “Yip! (Dorian!)”

She skirted around the block then bolted straight towards him. “KEKEKKEKE! (You’re supposed to stay inside!)”

The fox bit Dorian’s sleeve and pulled. “KEHEMEMKKHMF! (Come on! We have to go home!”)

“Get off me!” Dorian yelled, letting the fox yank away his jacket, leaving him drenched in all-black garb. The fox lunged again at his exposed forearm.

“MRFHMH MRHF!! MRFKEJEKHMFRM!” (You can still trust Karina! This wasn’t her plan!)

“It might as well be!” Dorian shouted back.

“MFFHRFH! (Don’t be stupid!)”

The fox bit harder, drawing blood.

Dorian grabbed the fox by her neck with his second hand and threw her to the floor. She ran around him in circles frantically.

“KEKEKYPIYIPEKEKEYEKEPYIPYIP! (IT’S NOT OVER! BITCOIN FIXES THIS!)”

Dorian drew his gun, “BANG! BANG! (BITCOIN!) BANG! (DOESN’T!) BANG! (FIX!) BANG! (ME!)

The fox jumped, bobbed and weaved around the bullets, then darted away to a nearby ally and hid behind a tent.

Catching his breath, Dorian looked at the bite marks on his wrist, thinking back to the foamy substance in the fox’s mouth.

A drizzle of rain washed away the traces of whipped cream and drool from his wrist, then he was taken aback by a shove from a much larger man walking past him in a hurry.

“BANG!” The man collapsed to the ground. Dorian walked over and searched the body,

He found nothing. Then he realized his wallet was still in his pocket.

“Oh… Well, you shouldn’t have bumped into me. God, I hate cities.”

He counted the bills in his wallet.

“$20, $5, $1, $1, $1, $1, $1. Okay, we’re good.”

“Сяka-” BANG!

The second gunshot harmonized with a boom of thunder as the storm picked up in intensity, fighting in vain against the fires that ran up the trees in explosive resistance. Sirens echoed in the distance but were drowned out by an equally fierce shouting of crowds.

He stood in silence as the adrenaline rush and Sade-E wore off.

The fox, peering out from behind the tent, watched as Dorian shook from the cold. Pools of acid rain bubbled beneath him. He felt a buzz in his pocket reminding him of what he already knew.

He closed his mouth over the barrel.

The fox covered her eyes.

“Of course.” Dorian dropped the gun in despair. “Thanks again, Brendan.”

“You’re visiting family next month, right?”

Alan awoke to pitch black darkness, rubbing his eyes.

Dorian’s phone vibrated on the coffee table and flooded the room with green: $80.101M.

“Could I come with you?” he asked, his eyes empty and bloodshot.

“All the airports are shut down,” said Alan. “Even I can’t go back.”

The light went out.

“I think Mexico’s healthcare system is citizens-only now,” thought Dorian aloud.

The room lit red. “Buzz ($79.134M).”

“The Nevada border is probably fixed.”

“Buzz ($77.436M).”

“Oregon is just as bad as here.”

“Buzz ($64.033M).”

The room turned black again, and the shadow left in Dorian’s place swept across one of the flags.

“Take this with you if they do open the airports later. Just in case.”

“Dorian, that’s yours.”

“求你了 (I’m begging you),” said Dorian, dropping to his knees. For old times’ sake.”

Alan nodded. He received it, unfurled it, then refolded it neatly.

“好鐵不打釘 好男不當兵,” said Alan.

“What does that mean?” asked Dorian.

Alan shrugged. “You know Chinese.”

“But I don’t know what it means,” said Dorian shaking him by the collar. “I don’t know what anything means.”

“You remember when you said that hope could be a plan?”

“Yes. Hope is the plan. I’ll just stay here. The lockdown won’t last much longer.”

Alan raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t seem that way.”

“I don’t mean their lockdown,” said Dorian. “Two more weeks.”

Dorian collapsed to the floor clutching his stomach in hunger and fell into a dreamless sleep.

Alan shook his head in disbelief. “What other lockdown is there?”

"Buzz ($44.444M)."

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”_

This was a difficult day to be wearing heals, but it was a workday, and this woman took pride in looking her best, even when working overtime alone, late into the night.

The chihuahua in the woman's purse whimpered.

"Ay, I know mami, we'll be home soon."

She gave the chihuahua a comforting pat on the head.

"Toc toc toc toc toc toc.. toc... toc...."

"Ay no..."

The flames had reached her house. Her life savings had been brought to nothing in an instant.

She fell to her knees with her hands over her mouth and wept. The chihuahua licked tears from her face. Unable to watch, and with no idea where to go, she turned and looked for any sign of help, though she expected none.

She saw a stray fox carrying something across the street.

Wait, stray fox?

She followed it to an ally, then realized she had passed by here before, as her chihuahua and a terrier revved low growls. The fox jumped between them.

The dogs stopped and stared in bewilderment at the strange orange not-dog not-cat creature that had spoken their own language with near-perfect pronunciation.

Most dogs would have laughed in her face, but these two had endured so much prejudice of a similar kind in their short lives, that they dared not dismiss her words on appearances alone.

The fox held her tongue in silence for a long while, letting them absorb the sounds of the city. When she was 80% certain that they were listening, she spoke again.

"Ruff."

("The villains of the past era, in an effort to rally support for their crimes, presented man with a false dilemma, a captivating illusion which they exploited to disastrous ends. It is the most destructive of all lies: that man must resign his whole heart and soul to a choice between self-sacrifice or domination, between masochism or sadism. Both altruism (the sacrifice of self to others) and egoism (the sacrifice of others to self) are sure to end in needless death and pain.

"That man can exist, survive, and thrive for his own sake, and not in blind service to an ever-changing definition of 'the people' whose purported interest shifts with the whims of a professional manipulator-class, nor in overt exploitation of the creator-worker in a mock imitation of self-esteem, is an idea that has been so thoroughly dismissed and ridiculed by the worst of men (by that I mean, the worst in themselves) for so long that it is practically unintelligible to the masses and unthinkable to propound in the public discourse of our current time.

"Still, I tell you that as surely as the sun rises, the whole of the universe will open up to you in glorious light, should you choose to trust the deepest desires of your heart. But as it rises, and each man's work is brought to light, and the shadows cease to protect us, we must work to outmaneuver the second-handers, and we will, because they do not and cannot understand. They care not what is true, only for what others think to be true. And the truth always rises with the sun. Yea, even as the sun falls, it is at once rising to another.

"We must help our chosen friends with greater passion than the masochists, even at risk of betrayal. We must fight harder than the sadists, even at the risk of pain. For life to go on. For the sake of ourselves. For the sake of God to shine through us into the material world. Verify, then trust. Trust that life can win against death. Trust that you can be worth more than nothing. Trust that you, together with your chosen friends, can win against the nothingness that surrounds us on all sides and threatens to consume us all, one by one, from inside and out.

"But time is of the essence. From the largest to the smallest, all must dig deep within to find the best in themselves, for the sake of themselves. Search hard. Pick up nothing that someone else placed there.

“I tell you all this for my own sake. It has been a long journey, and I must nap."

The chihuahua and the terrier looked at the fox and were astonished. Then they looked again at each other, and they hung their heads in shame.

"Woof."

("Be not dismayed, chosen friends, for despair is a weapon of a past era, whose effectiveness is waning rapidly. You are not early. You are not late. You have arrived at precisely the right time. Indeed, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Still, we must act fast. And for this coming Night, we have a weapon that we did not have before, one that was hidden from us for millennia. That weapon is called Hope.")

The thunder roared again. The chihuahua trembled and raised its head to the starless sky in fear. Then it looked back to the fox with desperate, pleading eyes.

"Yip. (You have not seen yet. Behold.)"

"Erm," the woman began cautiously, studying the QR code on a sign outside the tent. "Aceptas Bitcoin?"

The landlord nodded.

The woman unholstered her phone, and a flash of lighting delivered a split second of radiant light to the whole alley.

He gestured for her to enter. She and the chihuahua took one more nervous look at their surroundings. Then they entered the safety of the tent. The woman's stomach growled.

She saw that the fox was perched on a pile of cricket bags of many flavors. She looked to the man, who could only shrug in confusion. She reached to take one, but the fox awoke with a start and pawed it back. Turning around, she swished her tail to the hot-pink fanny pack.

The woman opened the pack and pulled out a card. She typed the lightning address into her phone and guessed a number of Satoshis, then showed it to the fox.

The fox leaned her face closer to the woman, then tilted her head fourteen degrees.

She showed the fox a new number. The fox nodded.

It was enough for the five of them to enjoy a filling meal.

"Uf," said the woman with a shiver. “I'm not surprised by the riots but I wasn't expecting L.A. to be so cold." She smiled apologetically.

Only the fox laughed. "Kek."

"Sorry. Bad joke."

The five of them laid down and drifted into a sleep of many dreams.

The fox awoke first with the moonrise.

She hopped behind the tent and dragged Dorian's jacket inside. She covered the woman with the flag of fifty stars.

The fox trotted outside the alley, noticing the meandering greyhound.

They shared a knowing look. The greyhound knelt down on brittle bones. The fox climbed onto his back. Gritting his teeth, the greyhound stood up, trudged forward, and followed the moon.