I got to work. I convinced the king to give me privacy. I worked best that way. And damn could I deliver. I created an emulator that kicked ass. I called it Heftyspace. It changed my computer’s location after every word I typed. Security through obscurity. If anyone wanted to track us… good luck. I was in a thousand places in a single page of code. Hefty International.

Once my Intel Titan Series computers showed up, I could get some real damage done. The first few days were rough. I had to spend so much Bitcoin on weapons. I thought I’d never make the money back.

But for every Bitcoin I spent buying weapons, I’d spend the same buying a Bitcoin Miner.

After a while, we had to move. The power grid in Jankio Shack just wasn’t doing it. We had to go green, and Afkaz was the perfect place to do that. I spent a million dollars on solar panels. That changed the game.

I had to employ Omar’s help. I gave him a mission: get me every fan in the entire Caliphate. If someone complains, tell ’em it’s for the cause. I didn’t care if they went hot during the day. I needed to get this Bitcoin. If I got to keep a tenth of what I made for the king, then 10B for ISIS meant 1B for Hefty. I was gonna become the youngest billionaire.

The guns poured in. That wasn’t our problem. Russians were fighting ISIS, but they were also selling us tons of weapons. And not just guns. All kinds of fun shit. Grenades. Mines. Tank mines. Rocket launchers. Night vision. Heat-seeking missiles. Surface-to-air EVERYTHING. Tanks. Tacos, tacos, tacos. I must have bought a hundred of those trucks. And mounted machine guns. Those things were so fun to shoot. I got pretty good at shooting a gun. Zeyad taught me everything. I may have still been a jiggly fatso, but my targeting was on point. Speaking of on point; everyone there loved me. Especially Zeyad.

And PlayStation. Every Toyota Taco I bought, I made sure that they put a PlayStation 4 in the back. With 4 controllers. I’m sure all my ISIS brothers were tired after a long day of shooting at bad guys. So what better way to relax than to kill some bitches online.

Speaking of online— guess who finally got those guys decent internet. I got enough cable wire to actually connect our bases together out there. These people hadn’t seen internet this good since… since ever, Inshallah. Hefty delivered fast, reliable cable internet.

It wasn’t easy, but nothing worth having ever is. I found some crazy people on Dark Net. The guy I got all the internet cables from was some Venezuelan Army General. I convinced him to have his army strip their whole town of their internet cables, which they did, for the Bitcoin I sent them. There I was, telling generals what to do… WHAT?!

I tried to be as weird as possible. After I found this marine Tor website, I tried to convince the king to get a submarine. He kept saying la la la, even though they were On. Sale. I guess there was no place for it, ’cause we were in a desert. He did have me buy an Irukandji. It’s a box jellyfish. I guess it’s the deadliest jellyfish ever. One sting, and you have like an hour to live. Whatever you’re into, King, you sick weirdo. As long as I got to do what I love; controlling the world from my beautiful hands.

I was in Flow. Pure and simple. So long as the king kept me fed and stayed out of my way, I got him results. I kept checking the price of Bitcoin on the hour. As long as that thing kept going up, so did his billions.

6.2B

Not bad for how much I bought, but I knew I could do better. For the king, I could do anything.

I doubled my load and stocked up on drugs to help me. I discovered real quick how much I liked Adderall. When I was on Adderall, I didn’t even feel my body. It was just 2 hands, 2 eyes, and one giant, thumping brain. I stayed up one night for 57 straight hours. I hardly ate anything. I started the night with 5.9 Billion in all of our separate crypto wallets. I cracked my knuckles and got to work. Planting everything I could. All kinds of Heftyware all over the planet. I stole from everyone. The US, Russia, the EU, China, India, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Niger, Nigeria, Paraguay, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, And I did it in style. I could hack into any mainframe on the face of the Earth. So I made all these countries look like they were stealing from each other. I bet I could have started WWIII if they actually traced back all the phony Heftyware. I could only imagine all the old-school analysts seeing the funds stolen out of their accounts. They must have been throwing headsets. Cleaning out their offices while I made off with their money.

At one point I swear time stopped. I took a breather to look at the clock on the computer. It felt like it took 7 minutes for the clock to switch from 11:29 to 11:30.

When I finally stepped away from the computer, I walked outside. It was morning in Afkaz. When I checked the date, it was already June. I’d literally spent 3 days at it. I ran back in and checked our wallet.

7.3B.

I ran outside and dropped to my knees. Fists in the air.

I screamed, “I. Am. HEFTYYYYYYY!”

When I finally closed my eyes, I was impressed. I could still see the computer screen on the back of my eyelids. I was King. Fuck that imposter with that Golden Gun. He’d be nothing without me. I finally found my calling. I had a purpose.

I woke up at least a day later to the King jumping on my cushions. He was happy.

“Seven Billion. Hefty. Prow Calipha you have today make me!” His English sucked when he was excited. I didn’t care. I told him to let me sleep some more. He did. A grown up was listening to me again. The most evil man on the face of the earth. I really didn’t care. I was a billionaire. That thought made me smile.

I turned over my pillow and woke up. The sun was peeking into our house. I couldn’t see Ghada anywhere. She usually slept in a different bed on the other side of the room. But she wasn’t there. She was somewhere else in the apartment. I wanted to get up, but I was super exhausted. It’s amazing how Adderall will really wreck your body. But then again, I had to pee… So I got up, and instantly I thought about how hard it would be peeing with my dick so hard. I walked into the kitchen, and I saw Maya. She seemed different. I stood there and looked upon her. She turned around, and I saw her face. She was gorgeous this morning.

I hid myself in pants, and walked over to her. I felt like today might be the day. Maybe my first kiss. Maybe… you know.

“Ghada,” I said approaching her. “Ghada, I want something.”

She looked on and I knew she couldn’t understand me. How could I make her understand? My head went crazy. I was about to do something crazy. Maybe it was all the Adderall, but I was about to reach in, and then she showed me something.

In her hands, there was a picture.

“Look,” she said handing me the picture. I took a look and I saw Ghada, with some other dude. She was smiling, but like I’ve never seen her before. She had a scarf about her hair, but I could see her face. Along with the face of a young dude, holding her. They seemed honestly happy. I could hardly recognize that it was Ghada because the clothes were too… free.

“Ibrahim,” she said, “he was husband mine.”

“But—,” I looked back and forth from the picture to her. Things started to simmer down inside my clothes. “Ghada, I thought I was your husband.”

“Hefty, I make lie. Bad to you. I know English, little.”

“I know. Very little, I kn—,”

“Stop. Hefty. I know English. I hear you word. I know , but not tell. I tell now. Listen me.”

I’d never seen this part of her so I just put the picture down at my hips.

“Hefty, I husband before you. Isme Ibrahim. Love he very. Love he very very.”

This didn’t seem to make sense, but I listened. “I have he, and have he happy. He and me, so happy lots. Then men take he. They hurt he. They hurt me. They hurt Afkaz. Do you understand?”

“No,” I said, “what are you talking about? La. No understand.”

“Hefty,” she said, point to this Ibrahim dude, “he husband. Daesh enter Afkaz. Take he. Take to bridge. Take–“ she stopped there and tears started to stream down. Lines of makeup made sad art on her cheeks. Her eyes were red. “Take and die he. Take and die everyone. Take with gun and die he.” Her head dropped and I went to hug my wife, but Ghada lifted up and said, “Ibrahim make me baby. My Ibrahim, make umi, but Daesh strike me here.”

She pointed to her stomach hard. She was crying hard now. “Take from me,” and she pointed again. “Take from me umi. Take from me umi. Take from me,” and each time she said it she hit her stomach harder. She was hitting like she wanted to hurt herself. She kept doing it, and every time it hurt in me so much harder. She just kept and kept and kept and then I reached for her hands.

She pulled away to keep hitting, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like seeing her like this. I grabbed her hands, but she resisted and kept hitting, and I grabbed her hard and made her stop until she yelled out a great moan. All kinds of pain entered my ears. They filled my heart and in that moment, her words hit.

She had a baby, but Daesh, their word for ISIS… they hit her.

They killed her baby.

They killed her husband.

They killed everything she had.

“They killed your baby?”

She dropped into my body and her whole body went limp. My wife was a lump on top of me, hardly able even to cry.

And here I was, trying to have sex with her because I woke up with a boner. I just looked out. My eyes were working, but for what? I wasn’t looking at anything. I was just looking at the house that ISIS gave me. Cheap concrete walled, some crappy kitchen, a TV, a computer, and a wife.

A wife who had everything taken from her.

“Good god,” I whispered, “What am I doing?”

I grabbed Ghada and lifted her. Her eyes were looking deep into me. They were the eyes of desperation. Eyes with nowhere left to go. I started to cry, and hugged her tight. I just wanted to take her pain away. As I did I saw that number.

7.3 B

I saw me screaming my name out into the desert. I was causing this. In that moment, I felt I could grab her and kiss her… but even that thought made me feel sick.

“Ghada—,” I tried to find the thing to say, “Did I do this?”

“Hefty, I do understand.”

“Did I… kill Ibrahim.”

“La Hefty. La la. I kill Ibrahim. I no respect Allah.” This enraged me. Ghada didn’t do shit.

“Ghada, ISIS killed him.”

“Hefty. I sin. I sin big. I bring Daesh.” I grabbed her whole face.

“Ghada… I’m so sorry. I—“ I thought of what to say. For the first time in my life, I thought everything was going to be alright. I thought I was doing everything right. Then I looked into Ghada’s face. It was like I was looking into the face of God. What would I say to God?

“I…”