Part I. Audit of the Void
(Prelude)
The Chief
Auditor’s office had no windows. Why have windows if there is nothing outside
but static grey noise?
On the desk
before the Auditor lay not a folder of documents, but a simple neuro-drive.
Opposite him sat the Client—a man convinced he had brought a treasure.
“It is a
murder,” the Client whispered, leaning forward. “A real one, with aggravating
circumstances. I betrayed my best friend for the sake of my career. He drank
himself to death and perished. This qualifies for first-class liquidity.”
The Auditor
wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose and inserted the drive into the slot.
Stock charts raced across the screen. A green line twitched and immediately
plummeted.
“Garbage,”
the Auditor stated, returning the drive. “‘Junk bonds.’ A junk bond.”
“Are you
out of your mind?!” The Client jumped up. “This is baseness of the highest
grade! This is suffering!”
“Sit down,”
the Auditor’s voice was as dry as the rustle of old banknotes. “You seem to be
stuck in the last century. Allow me to explain the political economy of the
current moment.”
The Auditor
deployed a hologram of a vintage American dollar spinning in the air.
“I was once
explained why people keep money in different currencies. It is a matter of
trust and faith. Look here.” He pointed to the inscription In God We Trust.
“The deification of the dollar, the symbol of capitalism. Belief in currency is
the same abstraction as belief in God. Belief in the non-existent.”
The Client
blinked, not understanding where the Auditor was leading.
“We stepped
past that stage long ago,” the Auditor continued. “We survived the belief in
cryptocurrencies, when people prayed to algorithms. We survived the NFT era,
when a picture of a monkey—an unreal, intangible, abstract something—was
equated to the value of a real mansion in Miami. We bought simulacra. But
now... now we have become simulacra ourselves.”
The Auditor
picked up the Client’s drive and tossed it in the air.
“Your ‘real
resources’ today are bits of information. Just like those NFTs. Your sin is
just bits. It has no collateral.”
“But I
suffered!” the Client exclaimed.
“You thought
you suffered. The value of your money, like the value of your sin, was only in
quantity. Whoever has more unsecured funds is richer. But it is a bubble.
Company capitalization is a bubble. The stock exchange is a bubble.”
“Your
betrayal of a friend...” The Auditor grimaced in disgust. “That is also a
bubble. You did it not out of passion, not out of great malice, but for the
sake of ‘optimizing your life path.’ It is a transaction, not a tragedy.”
“So what do
I do?”
“Nothing.
Inflation, my friend. Too many sinners, too little meaning. The guarantee of
the dollar was the power of the USA, but that was absurd: the power was built
on money that was just paper, printed at a rapid pace. We printed emotions just
as fast. And they depreciated.”
The Auditor
pressed the button to call security.
“Your
‘currency’ is not accepted. The bank is full of counterfeits. Next.”
Part II.
Margin Call for Lucifer (Development of the theme)
Setting: Hell. Not fiery caverns, but an
endless, sterile open-space office resembling a Wall Street trading floor, only
instead of windows, there is pitch blackness, and the monitors display the
cardiograms of dying souls.
Characters:
- Lucifer — CEO. Impeccable suit, deadly
fatigue in his eyes. The best cynic in the Universe.
- The Billionaire — Newly deceased. A typical
modern technocrat.
Lucifer sat
with his feet up on a black obsidian desk. He smoked, flicking ash directly
into the void. The Billionaire stood before him, looking around for cauldrons
and devils with pitchforks.
“Where is
the torture?” the Billionaire asked. “I deserve a personal circle. I created an
algorithm that drove half of humanity into depression! I demand exclusive
service!”
Lucifer
blew a smoke ring and laughed. The laugh was dry and short, like the crack of a
breaking bone.
“You demand
nothing,” Satan said. “You are bankrupt.”
“Me?
Bankrupt? My soul is worth trillions!”
“Your soul
is illiquid asset,” Lucifer lazily poked a finger at the monitor. “Look at the
quotes. The market has crashed.”
Lucifer
stood up and walked right up to the Billionaire. He smelled not of sulfur, but
of the ozone of overheated servers and expensive cologne.
“Do you
understand the problem?” Lucifer began insinuatingly. “Satan is the best cynic,
that is true. I am a broker of souls, an executor. But even I cannot trade thin
air forever.”
He snapped
his fingers, and a projection of an ancient gold coin hung in the air.
“Before,
there was the Gold Standard. Cain and Abel. Brutus and Caesar. It was backed by
the gold of passion, blood, horror. It had weight. But now?” Lucifer waved his
hand contemptuously at the Billionaire. “You were not a creator of evil. You
were an architect of algorithms. Your sins are an unsecured emission.”
“But the
consequences were terrible!”
“Consequences
are statistics. But sin requires a soul. Today’s real resources are bits
of information. Your life was a set of bits. You accumulated a huge capital of
sins, but they are not backed by anything. Their value is only in quantity, but
the quality... is zero.”
Lucifer
returned to his chair and rubbed his temples wearily.
“It is all
His fault,” Lucifer pointed a finger at the ceiling. “The Regulator. He
introduced the Commandments as market regulation to create a deficit. The
forbidden fruit is sweet because it is expensive. But you people, with your
‘new ethics,’ diluted everything. If everything is allowed, nothing has a
price. You cancelled the very concept of Sin, replacing it with ‘social
construct’.”
“And what
does that mean for me?” the Billionaire’s voice trembled.
“It means
that Hell is declaring a technical default,” Lucifer spread his hands. “I see
no difference between crypto and ‘real’ money, and in exactly the same way, I
see no difference between your soul and a spam bot. We are closing up shop.”
“But where
do I go? To Paradise?”
“Paradise
only accepts those who hold the currency of faith. And you have none. You
believed in success, in capitalization, in yourself. You believed in the
non-existent.”
Lucifer
pressed a button on the intercom: “Behemoth, annul the guest’s pass. Escort him
to Limbo.”
“Limbo?”
the Billionaire asked. “What is there?”
“Nothing,”
Lucifer smiled the most cynical of his smiles. “Absolute, sterile nothingness.
An eternal grey zone. You will be there alone, with your portfolio of
‘securities’ that aren't worth the paper they are printed on. This is your
mansion in Miami, bought for a picture of a monkey. Own eternity, you dummy.”
The light
in the office flickered and went out. And on the door of Hell, Lucifer changed
the sign. Instead of the familiar “Abandon hope...”, he hung up: “Technical
Default. Acceptance of payments in fiat souls suspended.”
