Author's note: This is a story composed of a series of short stories, telling the tale of a country called 'The Unchained Republic' in a future world.
National Archives: The Unchained Republic
Country name meaning: 'Unchained' refers to breaking free from the shackles of Bitcoin (Blockchain) and escaping the fate of being enslaved by the 'digital asset class.'
Ideology: Physicalism. The core theory states that value can only arise from tangible labor and material production; any form of digital code and virtual consensus is nothing but illusory and exploitative 'spiritual opium.'
Leader: Grand Marshal Kaelen. He is a charismatic agitator, from a family of non-currency holders, who witnessed his family's desperate death during the deflationary crisis in the Bitcoin world. He elevated personal tragedy into a complete revolutionary theory.
Currency: Labor Note. A centrally issued national currency that is not anchored to any tangible entity. Its issuance is entirely determined by the central planning committee, used for domestic wage distribution and goods circulation.
Slogan: 'Labor creates value, code only produces shackles!' 'Break the Bitcoin lock, the people shall be liberated!'
Kael's job was to calibrate the 'Cognitive Scanner.'
Every day, he walked through the cold hall of the central station, the air filled with a mix of ozone and fear. Above him, a massive holographic screen flickered with the solemn face of Grand Marshal Kaelen, against a backdrop of the animated 'Code Leviathan'—a deep-sea monster composed of 0s and 1s, pierced by the light spears of the 'Computing Power Great Wall.' This was the myth the state enacted daily.
The biological node on his wrist was cold and supple, like a second skin. Whenever he passed a scanner, the node would gently vibrate, reporting his heart rate, cortisol levels, and the tame, harmless tranquility in his mind to the central server of the 'Physical Ledger.'
Kael's job was to ensure that every scanner had the sharpest 'sensitivity,' able to accurately pinpoint the brain engaged in 'illegal encrypted brain activity' among millions of mundane thoughts. He was an excellent technician. He made the system more efficient and more ruthless.
Today, he had just exchanged his rationed 'Labor Note' for a synthetic nutrient. His mother was near death. In the public hospital of District Twelve, her vital signs, under the monitoring of the 'Physical Ledger,' resembled a slowly descending curve—smooth, hopeless, and perfectly aligned with the life expectancy predictions of 'Heavenly Calculation' AI for elderly, low-output citizens. The doctor said her organs were failing, and without a regeneration booster from the 'Old World,' there was no hope... but that was a banned substance, something that existed only in black market legends, needing a currency that was also merely legendary to purchase.
He sat by his mother's bedside, the room filled only with the monotonous ticking of the life support equipment. His mother's gray eyes were dull and lifeless, her lips moving as she hummed an out-of-tune nursery rhyme. It was a lullaby his father often sang to him when he was still alive.
His father was taken away during the 'Digital Purification' movement ten years ago. The official word was that he was a stubborn element of the 'digital asset class.' Kael only remembered that before his father was taken away, he hugged him one last time, repeatedly whispering this nursery rhyme in his ear. At that time, he thought it was a farewell.
“The moon... the boat... swaying... in the galaxy... the stars... are... treasures...”
His mother's voice was faint and intermittent. Kael's heart suddenly tightened.
It wasn't 'the stars are treasures,' he suddenly remembered. The words his father sang were...
moon, boat, sway, galaxy, inside, star, is, treasure...
No, not English. It’s pronunciation. Twelve unrelated words.
Kael's blood seemed to freeze instantly. He was a cognitive scanner technician, and he knew better than anyone what that meant. Twelve words. The length of a standard mnemonic phrase.
Fear gripped his throat like a cold hand. This was a thought crime. A thought crime buried deep in his memory for ten years, awakened at this moment by his mother's dying breath. He could feel the biological node on his wrist warming slightly due to his elevated heart rate. He immediately forced himself to think about today's workflow, to think about the Marshal's face, to think about anything dull, safe, and permissible.
He stumbled out of the hospital, and on his way home, every cognitive scanner he passed made his hair stand on end. The green indicator lights of those machines looked to him like the gaze of hell. The twelve words in his mind burned through his nerves like a self-aware branding iron.
Is this the legacy his father left him? Not love, not memories, but a time bomb capable of instantly 'purifying' him and his mother into 'husk'?
That night, Kael couldn't sleep. He lay in his cramped apartment, closing his eyes and seeing his father's face and that string of whispers. Anger, fear, and a hint of mad curiosity he dared not admit clashed within him.
The next day, under the guise of maintenance, he entered an abandoned signal relay station on the third underground level of the station. This was a 'blind spot' of surveillance, a loophole he discovered years ago for convenience and never reported. The air was thick with dust and the smell of rust.
He took out a palm-sized, illegally modified old-world communicator from the compartment of his toolkit. This was a 'toy' he scavenged from the black market, originally intended to study old-world network technology. He connected it to a backup power source, and the screen flickered a few times before lighting up.
No connection to the 'Physical Ledger.' No monitoring from 'Heavenly Calculation.' This was a free, lonely window.
His fingers trembled. He took a deep breath and began to input those twelve words. With every letter he typed, he could almost hear his father whispering in his ear and his mother humming at her bedside.
moon... boat... sway...
When the last word was entered, he pressed the confirm button.
Time seemed to stand still. On the screen, a simple interface appeared. No fancy animations, only a balance display.
0.00021BTC
The amount wasn't large, far from the rumored 'whales.' But in the world of 'Smart Currency,' this amount was enough to buy several regeneration boosters, or even to smuggle into the world beyond the wall.
It lay quietly there, a string of code, a number, yet it was the brightest light in this gray world. It represented his father's struggle, his mother's protection, and his own... a brand new, dangerous possibility.
Kael quickly turned off the device and hid it back in the compartment. He leaned against the cold wall, breathing heavily. He hadn’t figured out what to do next, how to contact the black market, or how to evade the ever-watchful eyes.
But he knew that some things were already different.
From today onwards, his brain was no longer a tamed, safe wilderness. It became a treasury and a prison. The whisper of those twelve words would forever echo in his mind, reminding him that under the shadow of 'Code Leviathan,' the price of freedom was coexisting with the deepest fears.
