From the Go Pro, blood smeared onto the exploding window. It was the last image we saw. Then the camera fell at an awful angle. There was a little bit of yelling, and then a lot of yelling and crying. The reception sucked.

The king watched anxiously.

I was losing my shit. My chest got tight.

The B-2 was still coming in. We were still a minute to fly over.

“What the fuck!” I yelled. “We didn’t drop the bombs yet! You. You weren’t gonna spare he—”

“Esaktu!” hssted the King. He was confused and I might as well have been shot through the head too. And then I heard it. That screaming. That coughy, low screaming. Mom’s scream. Yes. Yes, it’d been a long time, but that was Mom’s scream! She was alive!

There were screams, but they started to die down. I could hear English in the microphone.

The king was calling around in Arabic, to his men, into his headset. The Go Pro feed didn’t change. Then I saw a hand reach out and grab the camera.

I saw a shot in the dark and banked my keyboard. While the king was turning his head every which way, I clicked away on the keys. The B-2 was 15 seconds out. The Heftyware was deployed. The flight crew would be pressing the buttons in seconds. I had this chance to deactivate the whole thing, and then…

“Uh-oh”.

I forgot a delete key. Oh… crap. Oh crap, oh crap. How could I have been so stupid?

I forgot the fucking delete key.

I couldn’t shut it down. How did I not even think this far ahead? Idiot, Hefty. IDIOT!

The king saw me fumbling with the keyboard. He looked at his golden tablet. Go Pro had failed. He knew something was up. The King raised his golden gun up to my head.

“Look” was all I said. My eyes must have dilated. On the monitors, we all saw the Stadium feed. Boom. A big Boom.

I did it.

I failed. The Browns were no more.Donezo Ferrari … But that meant…

Bitcoin.

I turned and saw two pools of honey staring at me. The most evil eyes in the world. The golden gun lifted just as his eyes did, as though the two things were connected by invisible strings. I don’t think I’ve ever said any words faster than, “You-shoot-me-and-all-your-Bitcoin-are-gone!” in my life

Then I pulled up my hands.

Nothing. I opened my eyes and saw a paralyzed king. The golden bullet was almost frozen in the chamber. It should be going through me. The king meditated… and then went for his golden tablet.

His eyes scanned the tablet. While the king was distracted, I silently typed a tiny command. One final bit of fuckery. I turned on the camera on the tablet… and put it on Facebook live. Say hello to the world, you crazy bastard.

The king howled. Man, it felt good. He didn’t even know he was on camera. On the www. He slammed the tablet. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the screen:

0 BTC.

Gucci.

If the Bitcoin was sold, then that meant the rest of my algorithm was working. It wouldn’t be too long before missiles would reign down on every inch of this place. The kingdom I helped build… was goin Bye Bye.

“If you have a dream of getting it back, you’ll have to keep me alive,” was all I said.

Sure, I got smacked around. Pretty bad. By like everyone in that room. And handcuffed. And beaten like 6 more times.

But was it worth it?

You bet it was.

Check.