The God of Ruin’s Pocket Change

CHAPTER 6: The Church of the Grease Stain

The black drone hovered above us like a mechanical vulture. Its single red eye swiveled back and forth, emitting a low, menacing thrum that vibrated in my teeth.

"Don't look up," Anya whispered, walking so close to me she was practically inside my hoodie. "If you make eye contact, it triggers a facial recognition scan. If it matches your face to the pixelated image on that billboard, we're going to be vaporized."

"It's rude to stare," I muttered, keeping my gaze level. "And it's even ruder to hover. In the Celestial Realm, hovering without an invitation is grounds for smiting."

"Russ, shut up about the Celestial Realm," she hissed. "We are in Sector Z. The only thing that gets smited here is the poor."

We were walking straight toward the crowd gathered around Old Jenk’s food stall. It was the only way forward. To our left was a wall of condemned buildings; to our right was a river of toxic sludge. The path to the Golden Zone ran right through the middle of the circus I had accidentally created.

The scene was absurd.

The line of worshippers stretched down the block. They weren't just standing; they were shuffling forward on their knees. Some were holding candles. Others were holding scrap metal as offerings.

At the front of the line, Old Jenk had set up a velvet rope around a grease stain on the pavement.

"Behold!" Jenk shouted, wearing a new hat made of shiny foil. " The Spot of the Transaction! The very earth where the Copper Disc landed! Touch the pavement for five micro-cents! Lick the pavement for ten!"

I stopped walking. "He's charging people to lick the floor?"

"He's an entrepreneur," Anya said, grabbing my sleeve. "Keep moving. Pull your hood down. If they recognize you, they won't vaporize us, but they will trample us to death trying to touch your hem."

I pulled the hood of my indestructible black garment lower, shadowing my face. Twitch and his two goons formed a wedge behind me, trying to look menacing, though it was hard to look tough when you were wearing boots without shoelaces.

We merged into the edge of the crowd, trying to slip past the fervor.

The smell was overwhelming. Unwashed bodies, burning incense that smelled like sulfur, and the underlying stench of desperation.

"Please," a woman near me sobbed, holding up a sick child. "Just a blessing! Just a copper!"

"The Walking Bank will provide!" a man shouted back. "He will rain silver from the sky!"

I grit my teeth. I wanted to tell them that I wasn't a bank. I was a guy with ten dollars and a serious craving for a cheeseburger. But Anya’s grip on my arm was a constant reminder: Silence is survival.

[SYSTEM ALERT] [PROXIMITY WARNING.] [HUNTER DRONE LOCKING TARGET.]

The blue text flashed in my vision.

I froze.

The humming sound above us changed pitch. It went from a low thrum to a high-pitched whine.

"It stopped scanning," Anya whispered, her voice going dead. "It's charging."

The crowd went silent. They looked up.

The drone descended. It was sleek, matte black, and bristling with weaponry. A Gatling gun hung from its underbelly.

"The Eye of the Guild!" someone screamed. "Run!"

Panic erupted. The worshippers scrambled, knocking over the velvet ropes. Old Jenk dove behind his cart, clutching his jar of earnings.

"Russ," Anya said, pulling her knife. "We need to run. Now."

"No," I said.

"This isn't the time for your ego!"

"It's not ego," I said calmly. "It's physics. That drone has a kinetic sensor array. If we run, it triggers a predator reflex. It shoots fast-moving targets first."

I stood still.

The drone dropped lower. It hovered ten feet in front of me, its red eye dilating like a camera lens. A laser grid swept over the crowd, then snapped onto me.

A red dot appeared on my chest.

[TARGET IDENTIFIED: UNREGISTERED ASSET.]

[THREAT LEVEL: CALCULATING...]

A robotic voice boomed from the drone’s speakers, loud enough to shake the windows of the nearby buildings.

"CITIZEN. HALT. YOU ARE CARRYING UNDECLARED CURRENCY EXCEEDING SECTOR LIMITS. SURRENDER THE ASSET OR BE LIQUIDATED."

Twitch whimpered and ducked behind me. Anya tensed, ready to shove me into the nearest alley.

I looked at the drone.

I was annoyed. I was hungry. I was tired of eating potatoes. And now, a flying toaster was threatening me.

I took a step forward.

"Don't!" Anya hissed.

I ignored her. I walked until I was directly under the drone. The red laser dot moved from my chest to my forehead.

"You're blocking the sun," I told the drone. "And there isn't much sun to begin with."

The drone paused. The AI seemed confused by the lack of fleeing.

"NON-COMPLIANCE DETECTED," the drone boomed. "INITIATING SCAN."

A beam of blue light shot out of the red eye, washing over me. It felt warm, like standing in a microwave.

It scanned my boots. My jeans. My hoodie.

Then, it scanned my pocket.

The drone jerked. It actually shuddered in the air.

[SCANNING...] [CURRENCY DETECTED: PAPER BILL.] [DENOMINATION: $10.00] [VALUE CONVERSION: ERROR.] [ERROR. ERROR.]

The drone’s eye flickered rapidly between red and yellow.

"What's it doing?" Anya whispered, peeking out from behind my back.

"It's trying to do math," I said. "And it's failing."

The System that ran this world was built on micro-transactions. It understood pennies. It understood debts. But an ancient Ten Dollar Bill? That was a dividing-by-zero error. It was too much value concentrated in too small a space.

The drone whirred aggressively. The Gatling gun spun up.

Whirrrrrrrr-CLICK.

"THREAT LEVEL: CATASTROPHIC," the drone announced. "PREPARING TO FIRE."

"Russ!" Anya screamed.

I didn't move. I didn't flinch. I just reached into my pocket and touched the bill. I didn't pull it out—I just channeled my intent into it.

I am the God of Excess, I thought. And you are cheap hardware.

"Kneel," I whispered.

I didn't say it to the people. I said it to the machine.

I released a pulse of "Fiscal Pressure." It wasn't magic; it was the sheer weight of the 1,000 years of life force trapped in the bill.

The air around me distorted.

The drone was hit by a wave of pure economic gravity.

Its thrusters screamed as they tried to compensate for the sudden increase in "weight." The sensors were overloaded by the blinding golden light that only the machine could see—the radiation of extreme wealth.

[SYSTEM OVERLOAD.]

[TARGET NET WORTH: INFINITE?]

[PROTOCOL OVERRIDE: DO NOT DAMAGE HIGH-VALUE ASSET.]

The Gatling gun stopped spinning. The red eye turned a soothing, submissive blue.

The drone dropped out of the sky.

It didn't crash. It lowered itself gently, landing on the pavement in front of me with a metallic clank. It folded its wings and retracted its guns, bowing its sensor head toward the ground.

"GREETINGS, YOUR EXCELLENCY," the drone chirped. Its voice was no longer a booming threat, but a polite, subservient butler-voice. "APOLOGIES FOR THE ERROR. I DID NOT RECOGNIZE A VIP OF YOUR STATURE IN THIS SECTOR."

Silence.

The crowd of worshippers, who had been cowering in the mud, slowly lifted their heads.

They saw the Killer Drone—the symbol of the System’s oppression—kneeling before me like a trained puppy.

Anya stared at the machine, her eyes wide. "You... you broke its logic core."

"It knows its place," I said, stepping over the drone. "Come on. Before it reboots and realizes I'm not actually the CEO of Earth."

I walked past the machine.

As I passed, the drone emitted a soft ping.

"WOULD YOU LIKE A RECEIPT FOR YOUR MERCY?" it asked.

"Keep it," I said.

We walked away, leaving the drone kneeling in the mud.

Behind us, the chanting started. Softly at first, then louder.

"He tamed the Iron Bird!" "He holds the power of the Override!" "The Walking Bank! The Walking Bank!"

"Great," Anya groaned, falling into step beside me. "Now you're not just a religion. You're a revolution. Do you have any idea how many Bounty Hunters are going to want your head now?"

"I'm worth ten dollars," I said, adjusting my hood. "Everyone wants my head. I just want lunch."

We hurried through the twisting streets of Sector Z, moving away from the chaos. The buildings grew taller here, less ruined. The sludge in the gutters turned from glowing green to a dull grey.

Ahead of us, looming like a mountain of glass and steel, was a massive wall. It stretched up into the smog, disappearing into the clouds.

The Golden Zone Barrier.

At the base of the wall was a checkpoint gate. Armed guards in white armor stood at attention. A long line of people waited to get in, clutching their ID cards and praying they had enough credits.

"That's it," Twitch whispered, pointing a trembling finger. "The Promised Land. The Golden Zone."

"It looks sterile," I critiqued. "And white. Very tacky."

"It's safe," Anya said. "But getting in isn't free. And we can't exactly flick a penny at the border guards. They scan for radiation."

"So what's the plan?" I asked.

Anya pulled me behind a dumpster. She reached into her bag and pulled out the aluminum cans she had stolen from the bunker, along with a handful of copper wire.

"We bluff," she said. "We act like scavengers turning in a big haul. We pay the toll with scrap. It's low profile."

"And the bill?" I asked, patting my pocket.

"Wrap it in this," she handed me a sheet of lead foil she had ripped from the bunker wall. "It will dampen the signal. Barely."

I wrapped the bill carefully. It felt warm to the touch, pulsating like a heartbeat.

"Russ," Anya said, looking me in the eye. Her expression was serious. "Once we cross that gate, the rules change. In Sector Z, you're a big fish in a small pond. In the Golden Zone? There are sharks. Real sharks. People with actual money. People who can buy and sell you without blinking."

"Let them try," I said, feeling the arrogance of my old self rising up. "I'm not for sale."

"Everyone is for sale," she muttered. "Let's go."

We stepped out toward the gate.

The guards were scanning people.

BEEP. "Pass." BEEP. "Pass." BEEP. "Insufficient Funds. Denied."

A woman screamed as she was dragged away by the guards for being short a micro-cent.

We stepped up to the line.

I looked at the guard. He was wearing a full-face helmet. I couldn't see his eyes, but I could feel his boredom.

"ID?" the guard grunted.

"Don't have one," I said.

The guard stiffened. His hand went to his stun baton. "No ID? Then get back to the—"

"I have scrap," Anya interjected quickly, shoving the bag of cans onto the counter. "High-grade aluminum. Pre-Collapse vintage."

The guard paused. He looked at the cans. He pulled out a scanner.

"Value confirmed: $0.00005," the machine droned.

The guard’s attitude changed instantly. That was a lot of money for a toll.

"Entry f*e is $0.00001 per person," the guard said, his voice greedy. "This covers all of you. But I'm keeping the change as a processing f*e."

"Deal," Anya said quickly.

The guard pressed a button. The heavy laser grid blocking the gate flickered and vanished.

"Move along," the guard waved us through. "Welcome to the Golden Zone. Try not to die."

We walked through the archway.

The air changed instantly.

The smog vanished. The smell of rot was replaced by the smell of... jasmine? And vanilla. The air was filtered. The sky above us—or at least, the holographic projection on the underside of the dome—was a perfect, piercing blue.

The buildings were white marble and glass. People walked around in clean suits, holding coffees that smelled like real beans.

Twitch fell to his knees, weeping. "It smells like lemon pledge!"

I took a deep breath. It was better than the slums, but it felt artificial. It felt like a hospital waiting room disguised as paradise.

"We made it," Anya exhaled, her shoulders slumping.

"Excuse me," a voice called out.

I turned.

A man in a purple silk suit was standing there. He had a monocle over one eye—a digital scanner. He was looking at me.

Specifically, he was looking at my pocket.

"You," the man said, smiling a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You're the one from the rumors. The one with the... peculiar radiation signature."

Anya went rigid.

"We're just scavengers," she said, stepping in front of me.

The man laughed. He snapped his fingers.

Two towering bodyguards in gold-plated armor stepped out from behind a pillar, blocking our path.

"Scavengers don't hum like nuclear reactors," the man said, adjusting his monocle. "My name is Vex. I'm a Talent Scout for the Arena. And I think you, my tall friend, are exactly the kind of 'Asset' I've been looking for."

He extended a hand.

"Come with me quietly," Vex smiled. "Or I'll have to buy you. And I assure you... I have change."

He held up a shiny, polished Quarter ($0.25).

The light from the coin was blinding.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Finally," I said, cracking my knuckles. "Someone with real money."