Act II

THE BLACK HOLE OF MONEY theatre script

ACT II

§9 SCENE: Cowboy Prologue

By the time the decade was out, barely a year since – as the activists called it – the Flushing of the Memorypools, ‡ the machines continued to drown in rising tides of violence. The miners and faithful Bitlievers joined together to counter-attack. After their idols lost their mortal coils, having destroyed many a machine's soulenoids, ‡ the struggle came together ever tighter. Jihads separated from Jihad-nots, and the Bitlievers retreated to their domed Hyperenclosures.  All the while, the Knights Template grew in numbers and ferocity outside. There’s no place like DOME, ‡ for many reasons alright. But for now, we take a ride on the wild side, to see the apotheosis of energy and ideology. Where thermodynamics influences influencers, and they battle it out song, dance, and incantation to prove their mettle.

§10 SCENE: The Justified Ancients of Moon Moon 2026

PUBLIC:
Consider now a new social network
Like TikTok but somehow it’s even worse
It’s YikYak! And there the creators vie
To best all the other “energy tribes”

For
In this weird future of exit, not voice ‡ 
You move to be served by your source of choice
Some to where nuclear power splits ions
Some to a near-orbit so–o–lar Zion ‡ 
And some to trad charter-states that still frack
So
Into this geopolitical trap
Stage left !
Enter the most loved creators YikYak:
One from reactors of breeder nuclear,
Two from solar panels in earth orbitürs – 
They deplane hype’loop ‡  in non-stop live-stream
Into the land in which we convene:
Where frackers do scoff at energies clean.
Here our YikYaks a rap battle shall stage
In balloon stratospheric so high to engage
A view of their adjoined jurisdictions:
But what follows some might call horror in fiction. 

YIKYAKKER 1:

[very fast, no discernible breaks between words]

Klup breedies! ‡ Pekahyped! We kleppin thee bayLOON now, kluppin’ killuminaked! Sees ye’m this bayLOON? [confused] wo mii? [offstage: OHIO] [confused] OH HI oh? Combuskies ‡  terroire, BOOOO, Frakkie ‡ klussies BOOO anybouk were fullish two minnos on thee sonic boomklep ta slag mii kluss here. 

YIKYAKKER 2:

[same dialect]

Kaaaa misses ye’m soooollies ‡ alrekky! Soooolar Confekeryay! Mii slaggin thee trophayyay home to soooolar klusses, mii cluckin thee frakkie NRGcucks ‡  wo they’m can get klerked

YIKYAKKER 1:
Combuskies gekkin cofreakeded hakin on breedies like whak thee kluck bustie ni bestie

YIKYAKKER 2:
Sooooollies soooolidarikay! 

PUBLIC:
Attendez creators solar, nuclear
You’ve got two tickets to the… stratosphere
The balloon launched, you soar into the sky
While bick’ring ’bout efficiency of mines ‡ 
Which power source Bitcoin doth crave
Which it detests, which doth it enrage
So into the blue, warm up your tongues
Awaiting the sign that rap battle's begun

YIYAKKER 1:
Klassupppppppp miiii klussies see me giank reakor looming in noon fog-klaze!! Skunning! 

YIKYAKKER 2:
Kleepppping bayLOOON sooooLOON skoon mi klussies ye’m reaky t’rekt

PUBLIC:
YikYaks are stunned, YikYaks behold
The sprawl of the earth and its manifold
Rivers and lakes, and forests once green,
Becoming desert inna grótesquest of scenes
They see three fair cities triangulated
Where diff'rent energies are accelerated
Nuclear reactors of breedies, they steam
And rockets of sollies with new panels gleam
Directly below the pumps of Combusties
Frack and pipe gas to old kraftwerks rusty
Then
At 10 gun salute the YikYaks breathe deep
Preparing to drop the basedest of beats 
But from sky above comes an om’nous moan:
The fast approach of a vantablack drone! ‡ 

YIYAKKER 2:
Whak tha KLUSS. Klepp’n’KICKING. Klerk drone NOW.

YIYAKKER 1
Mi kluss me no approve klusscam no klaparazzi very klear in contrak me demand killmerk skop drone!

PUBLIC:
But drone doesn't stop, drone only continues
Closer and closer to YikYak balloon
With innocent glee, our YikYakkers stare
As tiny black specs rise into the air:
The fiercely trained raptors of Combusties
Soaring to destroy the adversary
A shared triumph for our YikYaks would be
Destruction of despised paparazzi
But drone is not the paps, drone is much worse 
It flies past balloon then hits sharp reverse,
And…
Wings straight into balloon's graceful li’l dome
Exploding to send our creators home
To earth, where sadly the stars most belovèd 
Of YikYak smash into desertified mud
Off-stage left – 
The Clathrate Liberation Force ‡ 
Ululate until their voices are hoarse 

§11 SCENE: Cowboy Prologue 

Picture / animation of the Necrosetta Stone on screen…sacred music plays…

And then, in ‘27, everything turned ‘pon its head. As if the whole world was hacked, ground truth shifted from underneath my boots and spurs as I stand before you now, friends. 

Two decades a slave to labour. Upon the millionth block on Ol’ Coiny-Bee’s timechain, as the logarithmic clock struck 7…a revelation! Lying in plain sight to those with algorithmic eyes, was a key to reveal a secret message hidden in the Genesis Block, encrypted at the moment of the Immaculate Conception. ‡ 

O Holiest of Sacred Coinsecrations, the first transactions on ol’ Coiny-Bee!

But unlike the first Creator’s message, the new one was not about economics, banking and liberty…rather about the subjugation of life to machine. The gears of a clown, taking us to goblin town. 

And so began the quest for a new Holy Grail. The so-called Necrosetta Stone, the transcendental time machine made real. Its promise is to give our planet the necessary pause to regenerate, rewild, and redress planetary balances. But where will the Bitlievers think to search for it? 

§12 CPRU - The Necroprimitivist Manifesto

(possibly sung in a karaoke bar, to the tune of How Soon Is Now by The Smiths)

The means
Justify the ends 
Because there is no end

There is no a priori nature
In the beginning 
there was the proof-of-word
And the proof-of-word made $ME

$I am the 
Only refuge 
From the observer’s gaze

$THOU Shalt Not Covet 
$THY Neighbour’s Clocks
Timechain is a paradox
If nature is unjust 
$WE must destroy it.

The means
Justify the ends 
Because there is no end

Necrosetta Stones 
Are read
Boiling oceans 
Are blue
To halt the 
Technocapital singularity
You’ll need 
More than a CPU

§13 SCENE: The QuBe Goldberg Machine 2040

DESMOND in his home is watching TV, side view. We can only hear the TV and see a multicoloured glow. A SPOKESPERSON begins a V.O.

AD-VOICEOVER / PRE-RECORDED SCENE:

Famine. Fire. War. Collapse. In today’s world, no one is safe. (THUNDER CRASH) Imagine a place as safe as your Bitcoin wallet: QuBe. ‡ A physical space, secured by technology, where only a trusted few could enter. A SmartParadise, where state-of-the-art algorithms cater to your every desire. Enter - The QuBe.

Jaunty Music plays.

The key to your wallet is also your key to the world’s safest gated community. Our twenty-cubic-hectare facility provides everything you need, surrounded by four solid metres of impermeable steel-reinforced concrete!

Each QuBe subscriber receives a secure, luxury flat with a perfect view of endless, sunny skies. Included with each subscription is a complete meal plan, gym membership, and unlimited access to our indoor entertainment and gambling facilities. Rub elbows with your fellow innovators in TIER 1 - or climb the corporate ladder as a TIER 3 member. 

Each QuBe staff member agrees to a consensual laser amygdalectomy ‡  as a part of their training - so they’ll never know fear, anger, or want again. Rebellions, back-talk, or the waiter spitting into your soup? In the QuBe, they’re a thing of the past. 

But we haven’t even gotten to the best part. When you buy into the QuBe, you join our mining pool, where our basement server farm works night and day to generate long-lasting returns for the whole community. Located near a methane vent, our energy costs stay low - and returns are high. For only 100 BTC, you can invest in your future. 

EXT. QuBe Balcony. DESMOND and BRYCE appear sitting on a balcony. The projected sky around them is piping constant tinny birdsong and relaxing music. DESMOND is talking to BRYCE, who is alternating hammer curls while they speak.

BRYCE:
I wish they would turn the damn birds down, bro. I mean, it’s not like anyone here is jonesing for nature. 

DESMOND:
I dunno, I kinda like it. Reminds me of my childhood or something. What are you missing? 

BRYCE:
Me? Honestly? Vegas. The casino here is ai’ight, but nothing left on Earth can compare to that solid mile of blacked out bachelorette parties.

DESMOND: 
Can’t you still go to Vegas? What about the HyperLoop? 

BRYCE:
You must be new here, bro, there’s a waiting list on that thing as long as my arm! Not as thick though. It’d cost most of my yearly subscription fee just to cut six places. There’s only a couple of recreational travel spots a day, and you need way more coin than I got if you wanna use ’em. Put your name down now, if you want to go anyplace bro. I signed up the day I got here. 

DESMOND: 
A hundred bitcoin and I gotta wait a year to go anywhere? Are you kidding me? I was supposed to go to Singapore on business next month. 

BRYCE:
Woah, you mean you still got a day job? Cringe, dude. What do you do? 

DESMOND: 
Head of crypto portfolios for HXBC. ‡ 

BRYCE:
Wait that’s sick! Then you must be stacked, bro! Can you get me up the list? 

DESMOND:
Not if I need to blow a year’s subscription fee just to do my job every month. And could you stop with the hammer curls? Can’t you just go to the gym? Don’t tell me that’s not included either? 

BRYCE:
Oh I go every day, but that alone is not gonna cut it here, bro. Not a lot of high-value females in the QuBe. They all chose the gated communities with like, cute gardens and NFT galleries and shit. ‡  It’s war out there, dog! Gotta look your best! 

DESMOND:
I gotta get out of here. 

§14 SCENE: Cowboy Prologue

So began the Great Enclosure: the Bitlievers exiting the outside world. First slowly then all at once. Now it’s time to tell you about the TradeWyfe. And quite frankly, I don’t wanna. Sticky business alright, hee-haw. Oh yeah, she was real alright, not just an icon to paint on your mining rig. She was a mathemagician, and could solve mining hashes in her mind… one thing led to another and her bathwater became a holy relic. Every dome city in the Northern Hemisphere made her their Patreon Saint. ‡ She settled down in the richest, most powerful dome in the land and took her pick of the devs as concubines: two dozen of ‘em, if the rumours are true. They got up to all sorts of off-chain swapping ‡ … things that would make even the most degenerate coin flipper red in the face. The manifestosterone destiny is strong with these ones, grand theft autism will do that to ya, hee-haw. Asperger was an Austrian you know, just like Mises and Rothbard. I think you know what I’m getting at. 

From those murky jacuzzi waters, the Son of Bitcoin was conceived. An Immaculate Miss-Coinception if ever there was one. The faithful coiners, they went off the deep end. She went from being glorified, to beatified, and then deified. Today, she's a phantasmic fantasy, 'twixt Madonna and martyr. So the dark Knights began to set in. The Knights Template they styled themselves, just like the forlorn defenders of Christendumb way back when. And their numbers were growing as quickly as the fervour of their faith, and their anger at The Coin. Worm and Vashti really started something when they rose up and drowned the first machines. But what was different from the early days, is that they didn’t care about the planet any more, no sir. The church and the network, zeal and time, death and money, all sides of the same coin.

§15 SCENE: Rapture of the TradeWyfe 2050

DEVMONIOUS and MANCIUS sit on a patch of synthetic grass, playing with some holo-cryptographic decoder toy and blabbering in crossolalia ‡  to each other. They wear extremely thick google glasses. 

DEVMONIOUS:
The petrafied cryptonite ‡ illegible!  The hashmatic cipher unworkable! 

MANCIUS:
The necrosetta stone untranslateable! The laborious secret unproveable! 

DEVMONIOUS:
That’s what I just said! 

They laugh disturbingly while staring into each others’ eyes. 

MANCIUS: (sounding hungry)
What orthopteran disturbance? ‡ What hexapedal interloper? 

DEVMONIOUS:
An insectal morsel, self-delivering sustenance? 

MANCIUS:
There but for the grace of Pod ‡ go I! (both laugh disturbingly again) 

DEVMONIOUS:
But go there we shall, for if Pod giveth, then I snacketh away! 

Both hunt hungrily on the ground for the chirping cricket, staring at the ground and hopping creepily. After some time the cricket noise grows suddenly deafening.

MANCIUS:
Such trials and stridulation! 

DEVMONIOUS:
The chirp is coming from outside the house! 

MANCIUS:
What sonic bombardment! 

DEVMONIOUS:
Oh, my quaking circuits! 

Both hold their heads and finally collapse to the earth. A USER appears, modestly dressed in workpersons’s clothes, looking humble.

USER:
Your Dev-elishnesses? Your Brolinesses? What seems to be the matter? 

DEVMONIOUS:
The infernal cacophony! The hurtful Hertz! ‡ 

USER:
The chirping, you mean? Your broliness, are you suffering from… Neo-Havana syndrome? ‡ 

DEVMONIOUS:
I ache, I burn! 

MANCIUS:
Hodl me! Hodl me! ‡ 

The massively pregnant TRADEWYFE appears, wearing full regalia, floating gracefully in. The chirping stops.

TW: My dearest developers, I got your pain signal! My son-husbands, what seems to be the matter? 

DEVMONIOUS:
Head-go-hurty-mommy-owwie!! 

TW rounds on USER

TW:
You! Commoner! What have you done to them? 

USER:
Sweet Mother of Coiny-Bee, believe me, I didn’t do anything! I came upon them in distress! I think it’s… Neo-Havana! 

TW:
Hush, hush you fool! Do you want to start a panic? Speaking of such things in my presence. If you hurt the unborn Son of Bitcoin with your idiocy, I’ll - (she starts to slap him, but thinks better of it) no, no, mustn’t fly into a rage, wouldn’t want to cause a contraction! I know. We’ll have a trial, on the spot. GUARDS!!!!!

Guards appear from nowhere and hold the USER tight. Three more DEVS join to witness the judgement.

TW:
For the crimes of spreading dissension, psy-opping, ‡ and attempted infanticide, I find you - GUILTY. And sentence you to DEATH BY SOLVATION. ‡ Brrrrring out the acid!

USER:
But ma’am, I - 

USER’s response is drowned by a deafening roar of crickets. The DEVS and TW roar in agony and convulse on the ground. ENTER a KNIGHT holding a mysterious weapon.

KNIGHT:
Well, look what we have here! Five of the dirtiest developers, crawling at the outskirts of their little hidey-hole? And they brought their lady friend with them! Tell me - do you all just sleep in one big bed at night, or does she kick you out to keep the gamer smell off? 

TW:
Don’t listen to him, my son-husbands! ‡  This no-coiner thinks he can speak to us that way? Where are the guards? Where-

KNIGHT:
Son-husbands? Hah. Y’all are filthy, you know that? As for your guards, they won’t be getting your little distress call. The neo-havana attack counteracts your frequencies. Know why? It’s reverse-amplified-crossolalia. 

He blares the speakers again, causing all the DEVS and TW to writhe afresh. 

TW STARTS SPROUTING APOCALYPTIC POETRY (prerecorded audio)

White Boy Zero-Summer ‡ 
Parade / Trade, Womb / Tomb, Life / Wyfe 
Manifesto Destiny ‡ 
Fork around and find out ‡ 
Sacred cow, hammer and plough, we must summon the apocalypse DAO ‡ 
Tallowed Be Thy Name ‡ 
Iron ore d'oeuvre
Our Satoshi, Who Art Frozen A Head of His Time
“we are the clock operators, we are the hashers of strings”
$MY code, made flesh ‡ 
The Turing Shroud ‡ 
Corpus Algorithmi ‡ 
Proof-of-Burnt-Offerings For An Indifferent God
An I/O for an I/O, a proof for a proof. ‡ 
Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour’s Clocks ‡ 
If nature is unjust, destroy nature. ‡ 
For I Have Tasted The Insane Root of the Merkle Tree!!!!

KNIGHT:
Enough of your babble! I’m here to end this. Your “son of Bitcoin” will never be born. 

He raises his weapon at the TradeWyfe, who is sobbing and babbling cryptic poetry. A burst of light drowns out the stage and the scene ends.

TW:
T’wasn’t ferment to be…. (shrieks, dies)