The God of Ruin’s Pocket Change

CHAPTER 4: The Value of Zero

The walk to the bunker was an exercise in absurdity.

We formed a strange parade through the guts of Sector Z. In the lead were the three remaining members of the Iron Skulls—bruised, terrified, and bowing every few steps like I was going to smite them if they stopped smiling.

Behind them walked me, the God of Excess, currently smelling like rain and rat meat.

And trailing in my shadow was Anya, who looked like she was waiting for a bomb to go off. She kept checking the rooftops, her hand hovering over the knife at her belt.

"You're twitchy," I said, glancing down at her.

"I'm alive," she corrected, her eyes darting to a flickering streetlamp. "There's a difference. You just publicly humiliated a Warlord. The power vacuum you created five minutes ago? It’s already sucking in every opportunist in the district."

"Let them come," I yawned. "I need the exercise."

"You need a brain scan," she muttered.

The thugs stopped in front of a collapsed laundromat. The windows were boarded up with sheet metal, and a sign hanging by one nail read WASH & RY.

"We are here, Great Lord!" Twitch announced. I decided to call him Twitch because his left eye wouldn't stop spasmsing. He gestured to a pile of rubble in the corner. The Palace of Rex.

"This is a pile of garbage," I said flatly.

"Underneath, Lord! Underneath!" Twitch scrambled over the rubble and heaved a heavy, rusted manhole cover aside.

A dark, dank hole was revealed. A ladder disappeared into the gloom.

"After you," I told Twitch. "If there are traps, I'd prefer you find them with your face."

"Your wisdom is infinite!" Twitch chirped, diving into the hole without hesitation.

I followed, with Anya close behind.

The air shifted as we descended. The smell of the city, chemical rain and ozone become faded, replaced by the smell of stale air, unwashed bodies, and rusted iron.

We dropped into a concrete corridor lit by a single, buzzing red bulb. At the end of the hall was a heavy steel blast door.

Twitch ran up to a keypad on the wall. He punched in a code, then placed his palm on a scanner.

[ACCESS GRANTED. WELCOME, USER: MEAT-SHIELD 4.]

The door groaned. Hydraulic pistons hissed, spitting out clouds of steam as the heavy metal slab slid open.

"Behold!" Twitch swept his arm wide.

I stepped inside.

I was expecting a dungeon. Or maybe a cave.

What I saw was... sad.

It was a single large room, walls lined with lead plates. In the corner was a mattress on the floor, stained yellow. In the center was a table made of stacked tires with a wooden plank on top.

But the most pathetic part was the Treasury.

Along the back wall, Rex had built a shrine. It was a shelf made of cinder blocks.

On the shelf sat his wealth.

Three copper wires. A pile of aluminum cans. A plastic bottle half-full of clear water. And in the center, resting on a dirty pillow, was a single, tarnished Dime ($0.10).

The thugs looked at the Dime with hungry, reverent eyes.

"He was so rich," one of them whispered. "Ten whole cents."

I walked over to the shelf. I picked up the Dime.

"Hey!" Anya hissed, stepping into the room and closing the heavy door behind her. "Don't touch that! It’s registered to Rex. If the System detects a transfer without a contract, it’ll flag it as theft."

"It's dirty," I said, rubbing the coin with my thumb. "And it’s light. This metal is impure."

I tossed the Dime back onto the pillow. It landed with a dull thunk.

"This is it?" I asked, turning to the room. "This is where the King of the Sector lived? A concrete box with a ten-cent savings account?"

"To us, this is heaven," Twitch said, wringing his hands. "Filtered air. No acid leaks. And... the water bottle is real water. Not recycled."

I looked at the water bottle. I looked at the mattress.

"I hate this planet," I sighed.

I walked over to the mattress, kicked it to check for rats, and sat down. It crunched.

"Alright," I said to the thugs. "Get out. Guard the door. If anyone knocks, tell them the new management is sleeping."

"Yes, Master!" They bowed so low their noses touched the concrete, then scrambled out of the room like startled roaches.

The blast door hissed shut, locking with a heavy clank.

Silence fell over the room.

For the first time since I woke up in the alley, it was quiet. No sirens. No screaming mobs. Just the hum of the ventilation system.

Anya didn't relax. She immediately started prowling the room. She went to the shelf and stuffed the aluminum cans into her backpack.

"Looting?" I asked, leaning back against the cold wall.

"Surviving," she corrected. "These cans are worth $0.00001 each at the recycling plant. That's breakfast for two days."

She turned to face me, her face smudged with dirt, her grey eyes sharp and assessing.

"Okay, Moneybags," she said. "We're safe for now. Rex’s lead shielding is holding. The Scanners won't pick up your... inventory."

"Good." I closed my eyes. "Wake me up in a century."

"No sleeping," she snapped. "We need to talk. You have ten dollars. You have superhuman strength. And you have the common sense of a toddler."

I opened one eye. "I resent that. Toddlers are sticky. I am immaculate."

She ignored my joke. She walked over and sat on a stack of tires across from me. She pulled down the collar of her jacket.

"Look," she commanded.

I looked.

On the side of her neck, just below her ear, was a black barcode tattooed into the skin. It looked angry, the skin around it red and irritated. Above the bars was a digital number that glowed with a faint, crimson light.

-$5.00

I sat up straighter.

"Negative?" I asked. "I thought you people were worth pennies."

"Debt," Anya said, her voice hollow. "It’s called the Value of Zero. When you're born in Sector Z, the System charges you a 'Birth Tax.' Then a 'Breathing Tax.' Then a 'Shelter Tax.' If you can't pay, your value goes negative."

She traced the number with her finger.

"Negative five dollars," she whispered. "That's five hundred years of labor. I was born with a debt I can't pay off in ten lifetimes."

"What happens if you don't pay?"

"The collection," she said simply. "When you hit negative ten, the System sends the Reapers. They liquidate you. They take your organs, your blood, your bone marrow... anything that has value. They reclaim the debt from your biology."

The room felt colder.

I looked at the girl. She couldn't be more than eighteen. She was fighting, stealing, and scraping through filth just to keep that number from hitting negative ten.

And I had a ten-dollar bill in my pocket.

I could pay her debt twice over and still have enough left to buy this entire bunker.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked quietly.

"Because I want to make a deal," Anya said. Her hands were shaking, but her voice was steady. "You need a guide. You need someone who knows how this wretched world works. Someone who can stop you from getting nuked by the System."

She pointed at her neck.

"I want out. I want to clear the red. That's my price. You help me erase this number, and I will get you to the Golden Zone. I will get you to the Top."

I stared at her.

In the Celestial Realm, mortals prayed to me all the time. They asked for rain, for harvest, for fertility. I usually ignored them. Their voices were just noise.

But this girl wasn't praying. She was negotiating.

She was looking a God in the eye and offering a trade.

"You're bold," I said. "I like bold."

I reached into my pocket.

"Don't!" Anya flinched, covering her eyes. "Don't take the bill out! Even with the lead walls, it's risky!"

"Relax," I said. "I'm just checking something."

I pulled the bill out partially, keeping it cupped in my palm.

The effect was immediate.

The air in the room grew heavy, charged with static. The hairs on my arms stood up. A low thrumming sound vibrated through the floorboards, like a massive engine revving up.

The red light bulb on the ceiling flickered and turned a blinding white.

[WARNING.]

[HIGH-ENERGY SOURCE DETECTED.]

[LOCAL REALITY STABILIZATION FAILING.]

The digital voice of the System echoed inside the room, bypassing the speakers and sounding directly in my skull.

Anya gasped, clutching her chest. "Put it away! It’s crushing me!"

I looked at the bill.

For the first time, I looked at it with my Divine Sight—the remnants of my godhood that allowed me to see the essence of things.

It wasn't paper.

It was a woven tapestry of light. Thousands of tiny, screaming threads bound together in a complex, agonizing knot.

I saw faces.

I saw a man plowing a field. I saw a woman dying in childbirth. I saw a soldier bleeding out in the mud.

Generations. Centuries of human struggle, pain, and time, all compressed, crushed, and printed into this green rectangle.

"It's not money," I whispered, horror dawning on me.

"Put it away!" Anya screamed, falling off the tires. "Russ!"

I shoved the bill back into my pocket.

The pressure vanished instantly. The light bulb dimmed back to red. The humming stopped.

Anya lay on the floor, panting, sweat dripping from her nose. She looked like she had just run a marathon in a gravity chamber.

"What..." she wheezed. "What is that thing? A ten-dollar bill shouldn't feel like that. That felt like... like gravity."

I looked at my hand. It was trembling slightly.

"It's heavy," I said softly. "It's so heavy."

I stood up and walked over to Anya. I reached down and offered her a hand.

She hesitated, then took it. Her grip was weak, her palm calloused.

I pulled her up.

"You have a deal, Anya," I said. My voice was no longer bored. It was cold. "We're going to the Golden Zone."

"To find a way home?" she asked, leaning against the table for support.

"No," I said.

I looked at the lead wall, imagining the city beyond it. The city that turned people into numbers. The city that enslaved a girl for being born.

"I'm going to find the person who designed this System," I said. "And I'm going to punch them in the throat."

Anya stared at me. Then, a small, crooked smile appeared on her face.

"You're an idiot," she said. "But you're an expensive idiot. I guess I'm stuck with you."

"Get some sleep," I told her, walking back to the mattress. "We leave at dawn. And Anya?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't touch my wallet while I sleep. If you touch that bill, it might vaporize you."

"Noted," she muttered, curling up on the pile of tires like a cat.

I lay down on the stained mattress. It smelled of mildew and stale sweat. It was the most uncomfortable bed I had ever slept in.

But I didn't sleep.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of ten thousand years of human suffering burning a hole in my pocket.

The Game had changed.

I wasn't just a tourist anymore.

I was a shareholder. And I wasn't happy with the management.