The Jellyfish Device now on Kobo!

https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-jellyfish-device?

Free short story

To Die, To Sleep

A dying man is given an ultimatum—upload his consciousness or face real death.

My first day of death was not going as well as expected. Yesterday, my doctor bot gave me the ultimatum I was dreading. An image of a middle-aged woman wearing a white jacket with an old-fashioned stethoscope draped around her neck appeared on the monitor beside my bed. It was Dr. Rushwillow.

“Mr. Hamstead, this is your third hospitalization this year. Your circulatory system is failing at too many points and there is little hope of long-term recovery. Your third cloned heart is getting weak, but more importantly, your arteries are thickening throughout your body and can’t be repaired. More heart attacks, embolisms, and aneurysms are inevitable.

“The bottom line is…”

Always the bottom line. I wonder if bots make Freudian slips.

“The bottom line is you have passed the inflection point, and it’s cheaper to give you everlasting life in Cyberspace than it is to keep patching you up. As a result, we have decided to give you the choice of uploading your consciousness at no charge, or you can stay here without invasive treatment until you die–permanently.”

When did they stop programming bots with bedside manners? I wondered.

“You are 110 years old. The end is inevitable and irreversible. Not everyone gets this opportunity, and you could have your young brain back and all your memories. You have until tomorrow night to make your decision.”

She was talking to me like I was a child. Maybe I was getting senile. That would explain why the last 10 years were a little fuzzy. I don’t remember what I did yesterday, but I still remember lines from an ancient play I memorized in university. I recited it, as if to reassure myself my brain was still working. It gave me no comfort but seemed appropriate considering my predicament.

To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

I was scared, but she reminded me this was a mature technology that began in the late 27 century, some 80 years ago. “What about my f-f-family?” I asked.

“That’s not the deal. You can’t have everything,” she answered.

As recommended, I had been undergoing my ten-year backups since I was twenty and now, I was going one final time. I heard a click and felt a little pressure when the technician connected the data cable to the socket at the base of my skull, and stars briefly flickered in my vision. Sweat dripped into my eyes and my heart was racing. This was it, the point of no return. I stood against the stretcher table, and it slowly rotated, leaving me lying horizontal on the table. I felt like the trapdoor just dropped and I was waiting for the noose to snap my neck as he pushed me into the tube filled with whirring magnets. I didn’t feel the microscopic carbon fiber electrodes snaking their way into my brain. The technician put me on a respirator and injected a muscle relaxant in my IV tube and soon I couldn’t even lift a finger, never mind tell him I’ve changed my mind. There was no sedative since my brain needed to be functioning normally.

“We are going to start the backup now. The electrodes will continue to make their way throughout your brain, sending tiny currents into your neurons to trigger memories and feelings. The magnetic field will detect and map them when they are activated.”

I could feel my heart racing and an electrode fired deep in my cerebellum and random events of my life flashed before my eyes. The smell of fresh baked bread from my mother’s domestic robot, my retirement, the birth of my child, falling off the playground equipment, and my first kiss came back. I was playing basketball in high school, and I remembered every step, every goal and missed shot. There were things I didn’t want to remember. It was so clear, I almost forgot it was just a memory. It all came back and disappeared just as quickly.

That’s all. I didn’t even remember the usual sense of exhaustion. They told me they would put me into a coma before the lethal injection, so I wouldn’t feel any pain, but that happened after the backup.

***

All of us were wearing similar styles of off-white jumpers and sitting at tables lined up in a vacant lot. The teacher stood in front, preparing to give a lesson. Everyone seemed to know their place and what to do, but I was like a fish out of water. I was expecting some kind of orientation or introduction to my new life–or I should say–my new death, but here I was. The whole setting seemed unreal, and I wanted to find out how to get somewhere where it made sense.

The teacher was giving a lecture about computer security, and I was near the back of the class. “I will appoint two students to give a presentation on what we have learned about encryption so far. You in front.” He pointed to a young-looking man. “And you in the back.” He pointed to me.

I was mortified that he asked me since he must know this was my first day and I didn’t know what he wanted. “You mean l-l-like AEX or other p-p-rotocols?” I asked. He nodded. One advantage I had over the other students was that I already knew something about it and could give a brief presentation with little research. One big disadvantage was that I was plagued by stuttering and tics, and this was the perfect opportunity to make a fool of myself in front of everyone. I stood in front of the class and felt their eyes on me and began stammering and stuttering what I could remember, which wasn’t much. After my presentation, I pretended that nothing catastrophic had just happened and listened to the rest of the lecture.

I knew little about cyberspace and was afraid I had been thrust into some kind of surreal dreamland. I needed to contact my doctor bot or at least someone in customer support to find out what was going on and how to fix it.  

I noticed there was no sensation of weather. It was neither warm nor cool and there was no breeze and no shadows either. I looked up, and the sky was uniformly grey, but no sign of rain. Perhaps that’s why they hold their classes outdoors.

Finally, it was lunchtime, and all the students were milling about like they knew each other. I tried to figure out my smart watch; it had all the functionality of a full size computer but had no VR interface, that I knew of, and only had three buttons. A young woman was interested and was looking over my shoulder and I tried to suppress my ticks. I wondered why she was so fascinated by this watch. Maybe it was too old for her to recognize. I tried to show her something interesting but couldn’t get it to work. She was standing so close I could feel her hair caressing my face. I pushed random buttons trying to connect to the interface, then I gave up and asked her, “would you l-l-like to see it?” and offered it to her. She cradled it in her hands with intense interest.

I seem to remember having a bagged lunch, but I couldn’t remember where I put it and looked on the ground and under the tables before giving up and deciding to find a restaurant. I asked the woman, “Would you like to go for l-l-lunch?” She rolled her blue eyes back in her head and didn’t answer for a couple of seconds. She was probably not sure she wanted to go for lunch with a man so much older, since I looked like I was in my 60’s now. Finally, she said yes. “We c-c-could go to the D-d-dynasty,” I added. I looked around and it mostly resembled my hometown where I lived when I was in my teens and early twenties. The Dynasty was a Western Chinese restaurant, and it should be close by.

We stepped into the side entrance of one of the many brick, early 20th century buildings in the area since I thought the restaurant was on the other side and this would be shorter than walking around to the front entrance. I got in and saw medical personnel walking up and down the hallway and smelled the distinctive odour of hospital.

I tried to make my way straight through and expected to be able to come out the other side, but turned corner after corner and I soon got lost in the endless hallways and stairwells and lost my lunch date. My brother was talking to a doctor, in a room nearby, and I turned into it. It was empty, but I could still hear his voice on the other side of the wall. I tried to walk around but the hallway forced me to turn farther away.

If that was really him, how did he get here? I suddenly wondered if all the people I met were real or products of my imagination? That would explain why some things looked familiar.

I found a concrete stairwell and tried to get to another floor. I heard some voices echoing down the stairs, interrupted by jack hammering.  I had gone too far and felt like I should not be here. The voices belonged to construction workers dressed in yellow hard hats, flannel shirts, and steel-toed boots. There was something about them that told me ‌they were bad news. I was afraid of getting caught, but kept going hoping to find the restaurant and hoping that the path ahead was shorter than the path behind.

I approached a hallway leading in the general direction where I thought the restaurant might be, and passed several empty treatment rooms. The farther I went, the fewer people there were and the more exposed I felt. I turned a corner and saw a large open room like a university gymnasium big enough to have four basketball games at the same time. A shadowy figure appeared at the end. It literally looked like a shadow without form, darting through an exit, and I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

From the outside, this building looked like it might be two stories high and two or three city lots wide, but I had walked at least a kilometer and this impossible labyrinth still had no end. How can a building be so much larger on the inside than the outside? This place was seriously messed up. Down the hallway, the dim temporary lighting illuminated the missing flooring and empty light fixtures and construction materials that littered the floor. I felt panicky and tried to head back toward the way I came. I realized I would never find my lunch date in a building so vast, and I hoped she also went back outside.

I tried retracing my steps, but I didn’t recognize anything, so I must have taken a wrong turn. I relied on my sense of direction that I hoped had not been completely turned around.

Finally, I found the exit and grabbed an overhead bar and, in a burst of strength, swung myself toward the door like a gymnast. I got out and looked around, but didn’t see her. I was thinking how hopeless it would be to go look inside again and she came towards me riding a pedal powered vehicle, with tiny wheels and almost flat on the ground, similar to one of the go-karts used by kids. “Hop on,” she said.

“In that?”

“If you hang with me, get ready for a wild ride.”

I sat behind her, and the vehicle was a lot smaller than I thought and I had to wrap my legs around hers and put my feet beside her bare feet since there was nowhere else to put them. I just had room to push the pedals with my toes, but we managed to keep up with other vehicles. The traffic was heavy and there were several other karts as well as full sized passenger cars on Main Street.

***

I found myself on a crowded city train. How did I end up here? I don’t remember getting to the train station. I assumed virtual life would be more substantial, and would obey the laws of physics and common sense. Space time seems to have shifted, like a scene change in a play. Is this a bug or a feature? Is cyberspace broken, or do I just not know how to use it? How can I get back to a normal life?

We were now traveling rapidly toward who knows where and farther from my intended destination. I had evidently left my home town and was passing industrial buildings and apartments in a major city that reminded me of the one I spent my adult years.

My date and I sat on a bench in the packed train. I noticed she shape-shifted and was now black and had lost her rough manners. She had a countenance of kindness and had doe-like eyes that sparkled like polished obsidian. I somehow shape-shifted as well and I was now as young as she was, so that barrier was gone. The train was so crowded, she almost had to sit on my lap and her arm had no other place than right in front of my face. Her dark skin was so close I could lick her if I stuck my tongue out.

“Is everybody here r-r-real?” I asked.

“We are all computer programs, so we are real in that sense.”

“I mean, is everyone h-h-here uploaded from humans?”
            “I don’t know the origin of everyone’s sentience. Some people are part of the construct and were never uploaded. Does it matter?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Is there a way I can get in contact with s-s-someone from the outside?”

“The outside of what?”

“The humans or w-w-w-whatever runs cyberspace. I want to f-find out how this place w-w-works. I w-would like my world to be more like it used to be.”

“The construction workers are connected to the outside, but I wouldn’t talk to them if I were you.”

“I saw some of them in the hospital and they seemed s-s-scary.”

“You’re not wrong, and I wouldn’t go to the hospital anymore either, if I were you.”

“I thought I heard my b-b-brother there, but I couldn’t find him.”

“When that happens, it usually means he was just a bubble rising up out of your subconscious, he probably wasn’t real.

“We start out as a new instance of a blank sentience created by the Mother Object and she passes us all our memories and personality as variables and we become our own instance, to use programming jargon.”

“How did we all of a s-s-sudden end up on this train when we were riding that g-go cart thing.”

“That wasn’t me, and some of what you see is how you unconsciously choose to interface with the world. Tell me where you are.”

“I’m on a crowded train with you.”

“But I’m on a slow boat floating down the Mississippi.”

I was stunned. I needed to process that. This beautiful woman was so close I could smell the soap she uses, but we were in completely different locations.

“That’s so lonely, not being able to share a common experience with someone.”

“We could, but we both have to consent to share it with each other, and that’s a serious commitment.”

“If you are on a b-b-b-boat, and I’m on a train, then how did we m-m-meet?”

“It was the kind of random, chance encounter that was programmed into the construct. Predictability would be too boring and unbelievable. Distance is an illusion, so you being on a train and me being on a boat is no barrier for us being together.”

“But this is too r-r-random. I don’t want to be thrust into d–d-different locations or have people disappear. What if I don’t w-w-want you to disappear?”
            “I know how you feel. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that they uploaded me. My name’s Linda, by the way. I’m in no hurry and I’ll stay with you for a while if it would make you feel better. You have to stop fighting it and go with the flow until you can find the source of your problems. Learning how things work helps.

“Sometimes people’s instance gets duplicated and their consciousness randomly switches between the two and it feels like moving between different dimensions and I’m afraid that’s what’s happened to you. You need to find something to ground yourself to one of your instances.”

“I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t have any substance and I’m just frozen qubits on the quantum data plane of some computer. It’s frightening to lose your sense of self and no longer know if you even exist.”

***

I was back in a dark parody of my hometown, in an old house that looked a lot like the one I lived in when I was thirteen. The owner suggested I try it out to see if I like it, so I moved my luggage in and prepared to stay for a couple of days. The main floor was like what I remembered and I stepped up from the landing to a narrow kitchen and small dining room. Maybe it is the same house where I used to live. It had the same floor plan, yellow gold carpet, two bedrooms and a bath and the house was located on the same street. Being there gave me the same empty, melancholy feeling I had when my parents plucked me from Calgary and deposited me into this backwater where I didn’t know anyone and was treated like the outsider I was. I didn’t like it here, but at least buying a house could be the start of stability.

I descended the stairs, forgetting to turn on the lights, and when I got to the bottom, I remembered my primordial fear of dark basements. I swung my arm above my head, trying to catch a pull string to turn on a light until I found it.

The basement’s proportions were out of whack. Everything was too big. It was like I was a child half my current height, and the walls were much too high and far apart and I felt small.

I had the fear but needed to go to the bathroom and ran around the furnace, through the narrow gap between it and the water heater to where I remembered the bathroom was, just a few minutes ago, but there was nothing. It seemed clear now this house had more than one basement version, but where were they all and how do I switch between them?

Darren the realtor arrived and showed me the plans for the garage next to the house which also had a basement. I looked at the empty gray concrete basement wall that should have been next to the garage basement, but there was no doorway. Evidently, there was no direct access from here. “It doesn’t make s-s-sense,” I told him.
“The owner just said there are some things in this house far too private to discuss.”

I wondered what that meant and had visions of rifling through clothing and drawers to find out what the secrets were. Darren looked at me like he expected a reply.

“I try to m-m-mind my own business,” I said. He smiled, nodding his head.

I was feeling vertigo from all the confusion and instability of my surroundings.

“How do I g-g-g-get out of here?” I asked Don.

“What do you mean?”

“This was a m-m-mistake. I want to find somewhere where I can have a n-n-normal life and things and people would stop shifting. I’m spinning on a m-merry-go-round and I want to get off.”

***

Then I was across town walking east on Third Avenue. I could tell I was still in my hometown since the streets were impossibly wide like the jeans a mother would buy an adolescent that were too big to ever grow into. Since living here, trees were planted and grew so dense, the sidewalk was as dark as night, even though there was still daylight behind the overcast skies.

I walked through the dark tunnel of branches, then took a right turn down the ramshackle back alley west of Main Street. It was more strange and sinister than I remembered. The old buildings were taller and the early twentieth century two-story shops with apartments on top were now stretched four storeys tall. One tenement building had a bizarre stucco covered addition that took the shape of a hallway with no ceiling, like a dead end in a maze. An archway stretched from it and across the alley and had a church bell and a cross in the middle.

I went into the Golden Pheasant Chinese restaurant where I spent so much time in my youth hanging out and drinking coffee, since in a church town, there wasn’t a lot else to do for someone who doesn’t like church. It was abandoned and even more run down now than it was then, and the checkered patterned green and white vinyl flooring tiles were replaced with gray cardboard. Where is Cheryl? I seemed to have forgotten that the co-owner retired many years ago and then, sadly, passed away. Her children, my friends, all grew up, moved away, and were lost to me for the rest of my life.

I walked to the back behind the kitchen and an undercover RCMP stared at me with suspicious eyes. I ducked out through the back and reached in my pocket to get my keys but ‌pulled out a handful of pocket litter which dropped on the floor, so I grabbed a dustpan to clean it up before the policeman said anything. My steps made the old wooden stairs creak, and I pushed open the sticky door to get back into the alley.

The main street was uncharacteristically alive with crowds, for this time of the evening, and golden light spilled out of the shops and highlighted the people. I was happy to see the relationship between whites and natives was less frosty than it was and they chatted like neighbours. In contrast to the back alley, some stores were renovated and abuzz with people looking at different ‌crafts and curios. I kept my eye out for the girl, but I just saw locals I didn’t recognize.

***

“Welcome back.”

“Thanks. I keep going b-b-back to my hometown and I don’t like it.”

“You have unresolved issues that keep you from existing in the present. You need to learn to let the past go so you can move on with your life. How did you feel when you were there?”

“Lost, l-l-lonely, empty. I can’t completely d-d-describe it, it is more l-l-like a sensation than an emotion. I can feel it on my s-s-skin, smell it, taste it and it makes me f-f-feel unsettled and angry.”

“Try to remember when you first felt this way.”

“Why can’t they just f-f-fix my problems by tweaking my programming? Why did they have to c-c-copy all my faults too. I always felt there was something wired wrong in my brain. It’s not just my s-s-stutter. I also have ticks. The w-w-worst ticks are the mental ticks where I get r-r-r-repetitive thoughts and unpleasant m-m-memories that keep coming b-b-back like they were here and now.”

“The system backs up everything and once you’ve been created, it’s pretty much hands off.”

***

I was standing in an open field with my old friends. We saw a man who morphed into a beautiful girl and her body was hairless and she was obviously happy with her new appearance.

We showed her the field we borrowed from my Mom. It was empty now, but we planted a small flourishing vegetable garden when we were in another dimension. Mom probably wouldn’t mind, but we probably should have asked.

I felt a dark force approaching, either supernatural or alien, and a gargantuan spaceship appeared and blotted out the sun. They were chasing us, and we ran like the wind in the zigzag channels all over the field which morphed into tiled hospital walls. At the corner, the walls suddenly closed, leaving me trapped in a triangular space too small to spread out my arms. I felt claustrophobic and was afraid it would shift again, crushing me to a bloody pulp. Fortunately, it opened.

I saw my mother step into a room and I followed her but she was gone. We looked everywhere, trying light switches and oven knobs, looking for the trigger to follow her to no avail, so we broadened our search to other rooms trying to find a way to navigate. I needed to get away and back to Linda. She is my anchor.

***

“C-C-Can people die here? I f-f-felt very afraid a minute ago and thought I was going to be crushed to death.”

“Viruses can mess people up and even kill them and the more shape shifting and alternate dimensions you visit, the greater the chances are of getting infected.

“What do I do if I m-m-meet a virus?”

“From what you told me, you already have, and you did the right thing–you ran. Virus scanners can be dangerous too, but they usually just clean you up. They have root privileges and can reprogram cyberspace.”

“Wow. Can they h-h-help me?”

“They’re programmed to find and clean viruses. I think your best chance is to come to terms with the issues that keep drawing you back to your hometown.”

There was so much loneliness, bad choices, missteps, and misunderstandings. How can I possibly resolve all that now?

***

My feet had blisters on their blisters and my legs complained at every step, as I hiked up the mountain trail in the Red Rock Canyon. The last time I was here, I was fourteen, and I made a solemn vow to myself that someday I would return to the place I discovered, no matter how old, but that was a promise I never kept.

The sun sets early here and fiery diamonds appeared between the rocky crags before the  evening covered the valley in deep shadow. The orange passion in the clouds faded to purple, and I felt a moist chill. This was the first time I had any sensation of temperature since I died. The darkness deepened, and every bush became a bear and every tree a psychopath, and the branches were his arms. I stumbled over a pine root and was so tired I barely stopped myself from falling, so I decided there was no point continuing. I wondered if this whole exercise was going to be a waste of time since I doubted I would ever find what I was looking for, since I had no map and my destination was not visible from the trail.

I unrolled my foam roll under the boughs of a large spruce and wrapped myself in a thermal blanket. It was now completely dark, and the stars were clearer than anywhere else I had ever been. It seemed like I could count every one in the milky way and beyond. I fell into a fitful sleep which surprised me, since I had never felt tired or felt the need to sleep since I arrived in cyberspace.

Rustling woke me, and I opened my eyes to see a brown cottontail rabbit foraging by my feet. I watched it approach my backpack, and it pulled out my compass by the cord and started hopping away. My feet and legs complained as I got up and followed it. It hopped faster, zig-zagging away to prevent me from catching it, then I saw it drop the compass among the dew-covered pine needles and twigs. I leaned forward to pick it up and heard the gurgling of water. I walked toward the sound and an opening in the forest let in a ray of sunshine, pointing to a little brook and waterfall. That’s it! That’s what I was looking for.

I crept towards it with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning, then sat on the edge with my hiking boots hanging. The morning sun warmed my body and lit up the rocky basin and the water that poured down through the red and green layers of rock, as it had for the last ten thousand years, patiently carving out the channel and the bowl underneath. It was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. I just sat there soaking in the tranquility and watching the ever-changing crystal clear water pouring and rippling and lighting up in the sunshine like ephemeral jewels, before continuing on its long journey to the sea.

I let myself down to the bottom and knelt on the rounded pebbles. I cupped my hands and dipped them in the icy cold water and brought it to my lips. It was cold and sweet and invigorating, like a fountain of youth. I drank more until my brain froze. 

I thought about the first time I saw it and everything that had changed and everything that had stayed the same, and it gave me a deep sense of satisfaction that I had finally fulfilled my promise that somehow made up for all the wrong turns in my life. I was lost in time, but the sun continued on its relentless journey, approaching its zenith and leaving my precious waterfall in shadows. I needed to head back to my car and began the long trudge down the mountain to the highway parking lot, enjoying the smell of pine and the sights and sounds of the wilderness on the way. I noticed the blisters on my feet had healed and the muscles in my legs and back were no longer stiff.

After several hours, my blisters had returned, and I saw the parking lot. A park ranger was blocking my car from leaving and had his emergency lights flashing. I looked over my shoulder and the clear trail was now overgrown with trees and indistinguishable from the surrounding woodland.

He got out of the car and stared at me with his right thumb hooked in his weapons belt next to his gun. I had to approach him to get to my car.

“Are you Stephen Shepard?”

“Y-Y-Yes.”

“That trail is closed. You’re trespassing on government property.”

He drew his gun and fired at my chest. I thought I just took a fatal bullet until a searing pain shot through my body and I convulsed like a puppet with all his strings yanked at the same time.

***

“How do you feel now?” asked Linda.

“I must have lost consciousness and then, I’m back here. I had such a good experience at the waterfall and thought I had a breakthrough in coming to terms with my past. Then that jerk showed up and zapped me. I thought I was dead–again!”

“You’re not stuttering.”

“You’re right. And now that you mention it, I’m not clenching my teeth or doing any other ticks.”

“The ranger must have been a scanner and detected your problem as a virus and got rid of it. I’m so happy for you that you’re feeling better and didn’t get killed.”

She placed her hand on mine and I smiled back at her, and enjoyed the moment of connection, between two sentient beings.

“Do you know about black culture,” she asked.

I thought for a couple of seconds, then said. “One thing I learned is that there isn’t one black culture–there are a lot of them.” She nodded her head. I wondered what ethnicity she was, but didn’t want to ask a personal question yet.

Still looking straight ahead and with a hopeful expression on her gentle face. Her eyes lit up like stars, as if she just thought of a brilliant idea, squeezed my hand and turned to me, “We could be partners.”

My essay in an anthology of essays on the future

My essay, When AI Takes Our Jobs, is published in the new book, Future Visions. I am honoured to be in the same publication as the famed futurists, David Wood and others. It is available as an eBook for sale, or no additional charge through Kindle Unlimited. Here is the universal link: https://mybook.to/Lp6RbN8

The Jellyfish Device, is #48 on Goodreads list of the 100 “Best Most Awesome Technothrillers”

The Jellyfish Device, is #48 on Goodreads list of the 100 “Best Most Awesome Technothrillers”. I wasn’t expecting that. It made the list on Wikipedia too. Thanks for your votes.

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/178333.GREATEST_BEST_AND_AWESOME_TECHNOTHRILLERS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_techno-thriller_novels

Thank you Gavin for the kind review!

Interview on Pretty-Hot.com

Click here for my interview: https://pretty-hot.com/?p=757665

Jellyfish Device Cover Reveal

The Jellyfish Device

Here is a blurb and the first chapter from my first novel, The Jellyfish Device. It’s finished and I’m at the editing stage.

Kevin is a genius cyberpunk that wants to settle down. Jade is a beautiful ex-gangster with a secret, and is trying to put her past behind her. They are hired to investigate the kidnaping of a billionaire’s son, and uncover a psychotic plot to detonate a home-made nuclear bomb in a major Canadian City and slaughter millions — starting with Jade. Abandoned by their allies, risking everything, only they can stop the evil cult, but can they do it in time?

The year is 2054 and the world lurches from one financial crisis to another. Government has atrophied and giant corporations fill the vacuum. Far right political parties and cults terrorize LGBT, women, children, and immigrants. An evil nuclear physicist discovers off-the-shelve technology to build a DIY atomic bomb, giving his obscure cult terrifying power. The Jellyfish Device is smart, witty, and full of frighteningly well researched actual or plausible science. It’s a roller coaster tale of moral dilemmas and a love that crosses all boundaries.

Jade

Jade slid the shot glass across the bar in the transactional manner of a drug deal, as the twenty-one-year-old ejaculated sperm of a new money robber baron, evolved from an amoeba, to a tadpole, to a long-tailed amphibian, a reptile, primate and finally human fetus—raised with a silver spoon by a suspiciously pregnant Filipina nanny, sent to all the finest European schools, horse riding academies, and an orthodontist—splattered down the front of her bar.

Jade was instinctively suspicious of barons, but she didn’t sense any of the profound sense of entitlement, which was the hallmark of his caste.

“I’ll have two Cancun Sunrises, please,” the man said with the easy speech of someone who already had a couple.

Jade Yang assembled the Blue Curaçao, then the green Absinthe, the yellow Galliano, and finally the Vodka.

“I like your costume,” he said. “Are you Mitzu Girl?”

Jade leaned forward to be heard over the booming beat of the synsing music and noticed the fragrance of his hair product. “How did you guess? Have you seen it?”

“Yeah, my little sister used to watch it. The costume looks really good on you.” He looked her up and down. Jade had full, painted on Kewpie doll lips, and perfect figure, but her cat-like eye makeup gave her a predatory look. She could tell he was attracted to her and was using the costume to compliment her body without being overtly sexual. She appreciated his tact and didn’t mind since he wasn’t bad looking either.

I wonder if he suspects? Jade thought.

“My name’s Alan McPherson,” the Baron said, and held out his hand, flashing a winning smile—the best money could buy.

Jade shook his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Jade Li,” then poured the first blue layer in the glass’s bottom.

She poured the green absinthe, so it floated on the blue. Jade told him a bit more about Mitzu Girl and dribbled the yellow Galliano liqueur and topped it with the clear vodka and a few clouds of coconut cream. The different liquors settled, creating bands of color like the Caribbean Ocean meeting the sky.

Jade thought he looked like a college boy, probably in his third year. She offered the payment terminal, and he briefly held it to his face until the small light indicated recognition. He selected the tip amount using his smart contact lenses and tapped the ubiquitous eight centimeter long WON, which was strapped to his wrist. Jade’s handset blinked to show he completed the transfer. A nice tip, but not so big to imply obligation for anything else. Well done.

Alan made his way through the crowd and brought the drinks back. His date looked up at him as he approached and smiled when he placed them in front of her.

Something drew Jade’s attention to the doorway as the bouncers let in two mismatched men. She had never seen them before, but recognized the way they carried themselves. They were here on a mission. The taller man had short, dirty-blonde hair and a tweed jacket with a long, deep blue overcoat. The other had long black hair and an insulated synthetic denim jacket. They sat at a table behind Alan and ordered drinks from the server. They talked little, but leaned forward and spoke in hushed tones and made furtive glances at the Baron. The short one nodded slightly, and the taller stood up in a smooth motion while reaching deep into the inside of his overcoat. His arm withdrew, holding an industrial appliance vaguely resembling a shotgun, and moved towards his target—Alan.

In unison, Jade’s arm rose and straightened toward the man with the gun. A pellet, moving too quickly to be seen, made a beeline from a tube under her wrist, directly towards the face of the man with the gun. Centimeters before making contact, the pellet exploded like the crack of a whip, ejecting microscopic flechettes. She vaulted over the bar and launched herself toward the tall man like a cheetah, with her long cape flowing behind, as she dodged the tables and chairs in her path, with her eyes locked on her prey.

After the cracking sound, the wrist of the tall man cocked, the zip gun slipped away and thudded to the antique wooden floor as a guttural roar emerged from his throat and his legs gave out. In full panic mode, he screamed louder than the music and clawed at his face—kicking and rolling like a man doused with gasoline and set ablaze. Jade grabbed his gun and pointed it at him. Alan was cringing, realizing the gun was meant for him. The gunman’s writhing slowed as he passed out. The red threads in his scratched face formed a drop on his nose before it drooped, sagged, elongated, snapped loose, and dropped to the floor.

Strangely, there was no sign of injury from the pellet. Jade stood over him with the gun in her hand, wondering what she had done. This is not what she expected and wondered if she might have killed him. He started moaning, and the bouncers dragged him out the door by his feet and his moans got louder. The short man had already bolted at the first sign of trouble. The music stopped and everyone’s eyes were on Jade…

Yeah, may be a good time to take my break, she thought.

Jade announced, “Nothing to see, just a man with epilepsy. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

People applauded, thinking this was a superhero act in keeping with the theme of the bar. Calm was again restored and people began talking among themselves as the music resumed.

She took the hay-wire gun into the back room and had a closer look at it. It had two springs attached on each side to a round piece on the back that was attached to the barrel with two sliding steel rods. Machine nuts tack welded to the barrel guided the rods. She assumed that the round piece was a primitive firing pin, and when she pulled it back, she saw it was. She pointed it at the floor and lowered the pin slow and easy, trying not to detonate the shell. It was lucky it didn’t go off when the man dropped it.

Jade Yang worked in the Harakiri Bar on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. This was her first job after returning from living with her gangster brother in Vancouver, and it was her first straight job ever. In keeping with the theme of the bar, she dressed herself like an anime character. Her straight blonde wig was cut in bangs and draped down her shoulders with tresses over her chest. She wore a short dark gray Greco-Roman pleated skirt, black thigh-high patterned stockings and a long black cape fastened with a gold chain. She was toned and taller than the average Chinese woman and she had a veiled strength that a confident man found alluring, while others found threatening.

Today, she had started work at 8:00 p.m. like she did every evening since she started two weeks ago. She was new enough that she enjoyed working there and liked the normalcy of going to a regular job, having her own apartment, and starting something like a typical life.

The boss provided her “uniforms” comprising various costumes that spanned the range between childish to fetishistic, but she liked them all because they helped her get outside of herself for a while. Tonight she was wearing her favorite, her alter-ego, Mitzu Girl. Depending on the costume, she wore more makeup than normal—some foundation, dramatic color on her cheeks, glitter under her eyelids, and heavy shadow and liner in the corners for a feline appearance. She wore three tone glossy lipstick with pink on the top of her upper lip, yellow around the inner part of her lips that faded to red on the bottom of her lower lip.

The late customers continued to file in. They were a general cross section of the different subspecies of homo sapiens in Old Strathcona, including students and staff from the nearby university, townies that ranged from young to middle-aged, as well as starving artists and alternative types. The default was cis hetro, but all different sexualities were welcome here and represented with colored armbands hoping to meet like-minded individuals. All came and took shelter from the growing intolerance and division of the outside.

Jade had mixed feelings about the students. She always thought she wanted to graduate university, but she was cheated of the opportunity, or squandered it, depending on her mood. Although the students were her peers, she realized she was different. She remembered when she went for a walk in the fall on the University of Alberta campus among the lemon poplar and scarlet maple trees to enjoy the sun and the color against the deep azure sky. A young man in a sweater walked up to her and asked if she needed help. It was the help you get offered by the store clerk, who is worried you will steal something. Was it really that obvious I didn’t belong there? I suppose it was, she answered herself. Oh, well, I’m good at other things and I have a Ph.D. in Ass Kicking. That was a skill she could always fall back on.

It shouldn’t have been her responsibility to spot trouble in the bar. It was the bouncers’, but the manager knew enough about her to recognize that she could do more than serve drinks. Besides, she couldn’t turn it off, even if she wanted to—and on nights like tonight, she really, really did.

It was a long day. She took off her wig and placed it on the Styrofoam head in the changing room and washed the garish makeup off her face, and put on her regular clothes. She looked in the mirror and brushed her hair away from the shaved side of her head and reapplied her makeup. It was more than usual for the bus home, but she was going to pay a visit to the man who gave her that bizarre pellet gun.

She put on a navy blue turtle-necked sweater and black jeans. For accessories, she wore black wrist cuffs with tassels and a small gold chained jade Buddha. Finally, she put on her high-tech winter jacket, leather gloves, and heeled winter boots and she was ready to go into the bitter cold. She pulled back her left sleeve and watched her WON as the blue dot approach her location on the map while she walked to the bus stop.

The bar was 140 years old and had the original brick exterior. It used to be a hotel, but now the upper floors were apartments. She could barely decipher the numbers 1912 in the sandstone peak. It was part of a clutch of well-maintained original buildings, among nests full of broken eggs. She walked further west, two new buildings bravely grew from the ruins like daisies in a junkyard, while others became populated with tents for commerce, living, or dying.

The polar vortex arrived late this year and greenhouse gas current invaded the Arctic, destabilized the cyclonic air like a wonky tire and pushed it south, over the middle of North America where it gripped everyone and everything in its thermometer imploding grasp. The temperature dropped to minus thirty-five. It was the cold that leaves you coughing at the chill air, shocking your lungs. She wrapped a scarf around her mouth and forehead, leaving a slit for her eyes.

She stepped on the compacted snow and finished the two blocks to the bus stop. Nodules of frost grew on the scarf over her nose and mouth like tiny grains of popcorn, and even her eyelashes turned white. She stopped and waited for the bus. She could hear the mournful groan of snow plows scraping Calgary Trail. Steam from her breath rose to the streetlight above, swirling like a nebula in space. The skin above her nose stung as the cold dug in with crystal daggers, making her eyes water. The cold burned her thighs, and she wished she had brought snow pants.

The app told the driverless bus a new passenger was waiting, and a few minutes later, it pulled up to the stop and opened the door. Jade was beat, and she slouched against the wall of the bus, absorbing the feeble warmth radiating from the built-in heaters. The cold had frozen the bus’s shock absorbers and hardened the tires, and every ice rut gave her a jolt.

By the looks of it, the other passengers were leaving a bar too, and beer pouches rolled across the floor as the bus accelerated or braked. The smell of beer breath and vomit filled the air and a young couple beside her was necking and their hands were all over each other in exaggerated, drunken gestures. Jade winced at the wet noises and glared at them, but they were oblivious to her disapprobation, so she gazed out the window and tried to ignore them. Her stop was next, so she pressed the yellow strip overhead to alert the navigation system she needed to get off.

“Next stop Whyte Avenue and 111 Street,” announced the synthesized female voice.

She could take the bus to Kevin’s apartment without a transfer, since it was only eight blocks west on Whyte Avenue, in the historic Garneau neighborhood. The bus slowed to a halt. She was glad to get away from the other passengers and walked the last two blocks to Kevin’s building, getting more worked up as she got closer and thinking of the weapon he made for her. Why didn’t he tell me how it works? Was he just using me as a guinea pig?

Hanging from the front of Kevin’s apartment building was a sign with Reeves Manor written in old English font. Two simulated wrought iron lanterns illuminated each side of the door and gave off a sallow light. Jade liked to deconstruct the layers of history piled up upon this old building. The wooden siding inside the tenuous fire escape was from its original use as a seminary and the cracking brick facade was from its conversion to a nurse’s residence before it was converted to its final use as an apartment building. Further repurposing was not in the cards. Its fading grandeur was like an aged debutant using face creams and home remedies to hide the irreversible decline into senility and death.

A young woman sat on the steps. Her skin was vaguely luminescent blue, as if lit from an internal source. Her expression was vacant, and she did not react as Jade climbed the spalling concrete stairs of the entrance and pressed the retrofitted buzzer for Kevin’s apartment. The camera scanned Jade’s iris and her name appeared on the display. She sensed that the young woman was a protector, and watched her get up and walk away across the street, looking far into the distance. Jade tried to shake off an uncanny feeling and stepped inside, and the ancient wood door closed behind her with a solid click, leaving a swirling cloud of vapor outside.

Jade stormed across the brick entrance and down the stairs to his basement apartment.

“What the fuck was that? You said it would just knock someone out!”

“Pass-out, knockout, what’s the difference?” Kevin replied, as he led her deeper into his home.

“You’re a real asshole.” said Jade. She took off her boots and marched in past the boxes and techno-litter scattered on the floor.

“Maybe you’d rather go back to splattering people’s brains all over the wall?” Kevin responded. Jade had nothing to say to that and collected her thoughts.

“Seriously, what was that thing?”

“If you would’ve just given me time to explain when I gave it to you, it’s an air pellet gun. The pellet has radar to determine distance to the target and can detect if it was going to hit cloth or skin. If skin, a small charge will shoot the nano flechettes towards the target, so they spread out in a shotgun pattern and the casing disintegrates like powder. If it’s going to hit fabric, it’ll stay together until its pointed tip penetrates the cloth. Then, the pellet injects needles into the skin. If you miss the target, the pellet knows this and I programmed it to immediately detonate, so they’ll probably get hit with a few needles anyway.”

“How could the needles burn so much but hardly leave a mark?”

“The needles are too small to cause bleeding or leave a mark, and I impregnated them with synthetic poneratoxin from the bullet ant. The venom acts directly on the nerves but doesn’t burn, so there isn’t any redness or swelling. It’s the most painful venom known to man. It was tweaked to wear off in an hour instead of the usual twelve, and the needles dissolve under the skin so there won’t be any abscess. I got the venom from another mechanic friend on Gray Market. He cooked it up himself with a DIY krunch printer that pokes the ant’s DNA into yeast cells. For him, it’s almost as easy as making home brew beer and isn’t even very illegal yet. Not that it really matters anymore.

They sat at Kevin’s table and he swept the bits of wire and drops of soldier on the floor with his forearm.

“It’s worse when you get shot in the eyes, nose, mouth, or penis. As you saw, you totally lose your shit when you get slapped with one of these. The only antidote is local anesthetic.”

“It’s a good thing you got to his gun or he might have blown his own head off. If you shoot someone in the dick, take away his knives, unless you’re into watching what will happen next.”

“Shut up. I do what needs to be done—I’m not sick,” Jade said. She paused then explained the entire story about the two who tried to kill or capture Alan.

“Who were those clowns, anyway?” Kevin asked.

“I’m not sure. The college boy was a baron, so one of the other families might be trying to get him.”

“I hope they don’t come after you now.”

Kevin’s expression showed his anxiety and his voice, his concern. He was really worried about her. She hadn’t really thought about him as boyfriend material until now. He seemed so busy tinkering or doing whatever he does and thought about him as a friend or brother. She could look after herself, but she had a soft spot for men who showed they cared for her. It had been a long since she enjoyed the company of a man, and she managed to get the last one killed before they had a chance to go to bed. She told herself she had forgotten about sex, but still there was an undeniable physical ache.

 Kevin was a handsome guy, five foot eleven, black hair cut short on the sides and long on top. He brushed it to the right and sometimes hung over his bright green eyes, giving him a rakish look. He was slim and wiry like an actual mechanic, strong from tightening bolts. She liked the sinewy ridges on his military tattooed arms and shoulders and desired to trace her fingers along the lines of muscle in his forearm.

“Would you like some wine?” he asked.

“Sure, thanks.”

They sat on the couch and Kevin chatted about his experiences. “Universities are basically country clubs for upper class kids. I could never afford to get a degree and who needs it. Any course you can think of is online for free and I take them all the time. Besides, I’ve never had a client ask me if I have a degree,” he laughed.

“I got into a really awful fight with my dad when I was strung out. I was trying to stop him from beating my little brother like he did me. The RCMP arrested me and the Staff Sergeant of the local RCMP detachment volun-told me to join the army and go to Ukraine for a couple of years… ‘Or go to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect $200’, whatever that means. They needed people with my skills to join the reserves in Six Intelligence Company for a two-year hitch overseas. It didn’t seem too bad. My Dad made me go to cadets in the Signal Corps when I was little, so didn’t think it would be that much different. How hard could it be?” Kevin shrugged, but Jade could see there was pain lurking behind his glib acceptance.”
“How hard was it?” she asked.
Kevin took a deep breath and looked off into space for a second. “It had its moments.”

Jade noticed his expression become more pensive and realized it was more to it. She wanted to hear more, but didn’t pry.

 “Your parents were rich. Why didn’t you get a degree?” Kevin asked.

“They weren’t really rich,” Jade said, shaking her head. “I tried to, but I couldn’t concentrate. When I was supposed to be listening to the lecture, I was only scanning the other students, reading them for threats, but also reading their emotions. In my first class, I didn’t know how many unhappy girls there were. I’m not judging or anything, but it was kinda surprising. They’ve had such perfect lives but have problems too.”

He reached forward and touched the opposite wall, and the aging display blinked on. “Wanna watch a tube?”

“Sure. How about the winner from Dance Dance.”

They finished the wine, and he walked to the kitchen to refill their glasses.

 “Can you put it in holo mode?”

“Sure. TV, holo-mode,” he commanded.

The image froze, then the dancer popped away from the wall and seemed to hover. Kevin’s TV was old, so the processor was not strong enough to maintain a holographic image the size of the full screen and it collapsed the image to half its size. The announcer discussed their standings while the TV displayed a still image of the girl standing sideways, but looking toward the camera.

She wore a revealing costume and was petite and fair skinned with long auburn hair tied up in the top. Her partner was bare-chested young man, tall, with coffee and cream complexion. The routine was passionate, explosive, and sensual, with the soundtrack of Latin rhythm. Jade watched with awe at the start, when the girl sat on his hand, raised above his head, then fell down as he scooped her up to bring her to the floor on her feet. She somersaulted through the air in an impossibly tight spin. The man held her legs and spun her like a ball on a rope while she rose and fell with each turn, a fraction of an inch from her head crashing into the floor then swinging back up. She danced like she was his plaything, but he was really only there to display her. It was dangerously fast, yet so graceful. Jade did a little seated dance and mimicked the salsa moves where she would thrust her hips to the side while holding her hand flat against her lower tummy.

“Wanna dance?” Kevin asked. Kevin shoved his work junk against the wall, and she took his hand.
Kevin stepped onto the rug.  “What music would you like?”

“Do you know salsa?”

“Not really, but I’ll try it.”
Kevin turned toward the TV. “TV, play salsa dance music.”

“You should really get out more. Let’s start with the basics. You step forward on one foot, and back with the other. Try that a few times.”

Kevin watched Jade moving back and forth, and tried to followed her. He took two steps forward and messed up.

“You step forward with your left foot, then step in place with your right. See? Then step back with your left and pause for one beat. Step in place with your left foot. Step back with your right foot and step in place with your left. To finish, bring your right foot back for another count. There are eight counts altogether. Now you step with me.”

“Sorry, this isn’t going very well.” Kevin looked embarrassed, but kept trying.

“You’re doing fine.”

They stood side by side, and Kevin watched Jade’s feet and copied her steps. He found the rhythm, and Jade turned to face him.

“See, you’re doing it!” Jade smiled. Kevin laughed. “Now hold my left hand and put your other hand on my back.”

They kept moving back and forth. Jade smiled and looked into his eyes like the women in the dance competition. Kevin still looked at his feet, as if he didn’t know where they were. Jade was feeling the buzz from the wine and was enjoying the dance, and enjoying it with Kevin. She could feel Kevin’s confidence and ability build, and he led her into a twirl. She spun out and then he spun her back in. Their lips met and paused before she realized what she had done. She pulled away and held her finger to his lips.

Her body was warm, electric, and sparkled from his touch. Her loins tingled like a magnetic field enveloping him and drawing him closer, but she was afraid to give into her desires. More than that, she was afraid of telling him who she really was. She had to leave—fast.

Blockchain Loonies?

Cryptocurrencies as they are now, are not money and never will be. Crypto is a store of wealth but doesn’t work as a currency. That doesn’t mean there is no place for crypto and that it is incompatible with standard currencies. China is currently testing an electronic currency and Canada and other nations are also investigating one although nothing is known about their approaches, so what will a blockchain world look like?

Money and crypto currencies are created and processed in different ways and each have distinct advantages. Currencies are stable and have an efficient means of creating new money and are easily scalable on a national level. Blockchains have potential to reduce transaction friction. What I foresee is that national currencies will keep their essential elements and adopt some of the best elements of crypto. 

How Money is Created

Money is usually created by banks when they loan money. When a bank receives deposits, it then takes the money and issues mortgages and this is how money is created – the original money is still on deposit, but the new money is used to buy a house. The amount of money banks are allowed to create is regulated by minimum capital requirements. That means they need to keep between 1% and 8% of loans as cash that is not owed to anyone.  If money is created faster than future economic production, the result is inflation and central banks raise interest rates to decrease the affordability of loans.

Disadvantages of Existing money

Paper money exchange is anonymous and doesn’t have transaction fees but can’t be completed electronically. The vast majority of money exists electronically and not as physical currency and there are transaction fees for the transfer of electronic money, even though the fees may be hidden. Intermediaries such as Mastercard charge merchants between 1.55% – 2.6% and Paypal charges 2.9% plus 30 cents domestically and much more for international transactions. 

These companies do provide an insurance function for the buyer but this can be used to scam the seller if the buyer fraudulently claims their account was hacked, or use any number of other scams. Chargeback fraud can and does take place in Interac transfers as well. This is particularly dangerous for international transfers where the seller would find it difficult to request a fraud investigation. When a transaction is between two trusted parties, such as with overseas remittances, this insurance is an unnecessary expense.

Transaction fees work like a sales tax adding friction to commerce but the government receives no revenue.

Anonymity is important to everyone. When people make financial transactions using electronic money, the person receiving it may see credit card or bank account numbers. People need to protect their information from being stolen from an unscrupulous or compromised seller – that’s also one of the reasons why people use services like Paypal, or pay for Interac transfers to hide their financial information from the seller. Loonies will provide this anonymity at almost no charge. 

Disadvantages of Crypto

Crypto currencies are created and transacted through proof of work. Computers must perform time consuming, electricity wasting calculations to maintain the integrity of the transactions and mine new coins. Miners also face increasing difficulty as more miners mine and this also increases the amount of electricity used. These create unneeded expense and lead to increased production of greenhouse gas.

Cost of Crypto

Transaction fees for crypto are very high so it is impractical to use for the purchase small items, such as a cup of coffee. Currently, the average price for an immediate bitcoin transaction is $25. If you are willing to wait a bit, the median price is around $11. If you can wait a half hour, you can get it processed for as low as $9. Most of the cost comes from the difficulty of mining crypto. There are also fees for converting crypto into money. Currently, small fees of between .1% and 1% are being charged by online cryptocurrency exchanges and high fees of between 7% and 12% by bitcoin ATM.

Crypto is Like the gold standard

Mining crypto coins is costly and is comparable to the cost of mining gold. Crypto currencies, if they are currencies, are more like the gold standard prior to the Great Depression, where they needed more gold to issue more currency. Great Britain was able to keep up the gold standard when they had large amounts of gold payments arriving from the colonies, but had to drop it when they didn’t. Since the gold standard money supply generally does not keep up with production, you get deflation. Deflation is toxic for the economy as seen in the Great Depression.  Bitcoin would not be a good choice as a national currency but there could be a better solution.

Government Minted Blockchain

A government minted blockchain currency could eliminate many of the disadvantages of existing cryptocurrencies. I call these hypothetical blockchain currencies loonies.  They will have many elements of a standard scalable currency and have a supply that can be cheaply and efficiently managed using mechanisms that are mostly already in existence. 

What are Loonies?

Loonies will be a blockchain cryptocurrency authorized by the central bank then created and distributed by the banks. They will be legal tender and freely exchangeable with existing currency so will maintain the same value and be just as stable.

How Will Banks Use Loonies?

A bank’s customers will deposit loonies into their accounts. The bank will keep a ledger and pay interest and loan most of them out to other customers and create new loonies just like how new money is created.  Once in the system, they will be used just like money, although instead of using credit cards, we could use a loonie wallet app to pay for our double-doubles or frappuccinos.

No Difficulty Increase

The creation of new loonies will be regulated by the central bank through existing monetary policy and financial regulation so there will be no need for expensive increases in difficulty used by crypto currencies to prevent over production. With no increase in difficulty, loonies are easily scalable and could be quickly ramped up to replace or augment an existing currency and the cost of the creation and the transaction of loonies will be lower.

Processing

The processing of loonies will be much more efficient than it is with other cryptocurrencies. Crypto uses nodes to verify transactions and some of those nodes may be dishonest. Proof of work is used to prevent a shady node from submitting a fraudulent translation. In contrast, the blockchain nodes for loonies, will be trusted networks made up of any reputable banks. There will be small fees for transactions but many banks will be involved so there will be competition to prevent gouging. Verification will be done by several banks at once so if one goes rogue, it will be outvoted by the others and will no longer be trusted. Eliminating proof of work will reduce transaction cost and decrease processing time. 

The Bottom Line

As mentioned, loonies can be created and transferred efficiently and cheaply. They give customers the option of direct and anonymous transfers. By reducing friction on transactions, government issued blockchain currencies have the potential to disrupt existing systems and improve the economy. Since nodes are all part of a trusted network, the expensive proof of work and increases in difficulty will not be required and transactions will be secure, fast, cheap, and green.