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A few minutes after Gedring lost her mind, the live global feed finally cut to the Fiends For Hire. Phon Drazah appeared before them, standing in what appeared to be a giant warehouse, possibly the biggest in the world. “Wow, took you guys long enough,” Phon chided all those watching. “I was starting to get impatient. It’s almost like you all don’t care about what happens to your money.”

“Well, whatever, I get to make the whole world panic, so it makes up for it I suppose. Sorry that I’m the only Fiend here. Drim was supposed to join me for it but bailed at the last minute. Cosmos, what am I going to do with that boy? He’s just too shy. I blame society, meaning all of you. The rest of them said they couldn’t be bothered, and that they had better things to do than hear me monologue. I mean, come on! This is a world shattering moment! But whatever, I don’t need them since I’m not alone.”

“Yes indeedy, we have a special guest joining us today!” Phon smiled, and then spun the camera around. She was using the same orb camera from the Cotagerie heist and was controlling it with her phone. “I know this is an official CP sponsored broadcast or whatever crap they said, but we figured a lot of people wouldn’t believe we really received approval unless we had someone here to corroborate. Say hello to Preiche Yanyee, the Head of the Treasury Department for the Central Peace. Doesn’t she just look delighted to be here?”

Preiche was sitting in dinky fold-out chair provided by Phon who had purposefully made it as uncomfortable as possible. Preiche did her best to smile at the camera, gritting her teeth, clearly furious that this was actually happening. “So, there you have it,” Phon turned the camera back to herself. “Now, sit there and behave Preiche. I’m sure you’ll be delighted with what comes next.” The main reason Phon insisted she come was so that she could watch Preiche’s reactions in person.

“Alrighty then, let’s get to explaining, shall we?” Phon addressed the audience. “You all want to know what’s happening. Well, to put it simply, we’ve robbed every bank and major financial institution in the world. Well, the money’s still there for now, it’s more like we pre-robbed them. We’ve also robbed a few individually wealthy patrons, but for you common folk, nothing will happen to the currency still in your possession.”

“Yes yes, you want proof. You all are so pushy I swear. Okay, first let’s take a look around. This is a warehouse we specifically made for this event. If you look far in the background, you’ll notice that you can’t even see the other side.” Phon then made the orb fly the length of the warehouse to show it off. The orb wasn’t slow by any means, but it still took a good two minutes to make a full lap. “We’re actually inside of a hollowed out mountain right now. It doesn’t look any different from the outside so you’d never be able to find it in time.”

“Now then, my dearest Preiche, you might want to start praying,” Phon smirked at her. “If our resident engineer’s calculations are incorrect, we’re about to be crushed to death.” Phon opened a specific app on her phone, which just had a picture of sing on it and a button beneath. She then held it up close to the camera so that the audience could see. “I honestly have no clue what this will do specifically, so let’s find out together!”

Phon pushed the button, and the sing on her phone began to spin. It built up momentum quickly until it turned into a swirling vortex. A moment later, that same vortex appeared in the open space behind her. It started to grow a bit more every second, and was spewing out energy. Then there was a bright flash, before the vortex disappeared entirely.

Left in its place was money, almost all the money in the world. It was stacked high to the ceiling and filled the entire space behind Phon, leaving only a small area for her and Preiche to reside safely. It was a sea of bills and stacks of coins, different denominations from every country making up an array of sizes and colors.

“There you have it,” Phon refocused the camera on herself. “What you see is roughly 85% of all money in the world by our calculations. I wouldn’t go looking in bank vaults right now. If you do, you might cry. Oh, and that goes for all you snooty casino owners in Shindig as well.”

“Now you’re all thinking, ‘What are they going to do with that money, wouldn’t it become worthless? Even though the CP let them take it this time, surely they’d try to take it back.’ You’re all correct! Good job, give yourselves a pat on the back. We have no way to return the money now, so it being here at all makes it worthless. Even if they were to take it all back and redistribute it to the banks, the damage of its absence would be irreparable.”

“That only leaves us with one option really. It’s worthless paper and coins just taking up space, so we’ll just have to get rid of it. But how to do so? Should we burn it? Throw it in a mulcher? Deplete it slowly over time as toilet paper? Nah, we have a special method, and by special, I mean lazy. Fortunately, our genius inventor implemented a way to get rid of it using the same technology that brought it here.”

Phon pressed the button on her phone again, and at the same spot where the vortex had been, another abnormality spawned. Instead of a vortex, it was more like space itself began to implode around the area. Money was being squished together as reality around the epicenter seemed to warp and distort. A little at a time, the money disappeared, but then the rest vanished rapidly. Phon grabbed the camera, and teleported to the center of the warehouse.

She pointed the orb towards the ground as she picked up a small object. It was roughly the size of a pea, and swirling with color like a marble or pearl. Phon then teleported back over to Preiche to show it off to her and then returned her attention to the camera.. “There it is, almost all the money in the world, shrunk down to a small speck. Before you go asking, no we can’t start implementing that technology for other stuff. Has to do with the resources I think, I’m really not the person to ask. Not sure how useful it would be anyways, besides maybe destroying garbage.”

“Anyways, this pebble is still a problem,” Phon course-corrected. “It would make a lovely memento. It’s one of a kind, and could probably be turned into some fabulous necklace or some other shiny frivolity. The point is a bunch of rich snobs will surely want it, even though it would be worth far less than the amount it contains. We don’t need some noble sending an army of private assassins trying to steal it, so we still need to get rid of it.”

“Hmm, how to go about it though…? Not sure where the nearest volcano is… Oh, I know!” Phon pulled out her phone and called someone. “Hey Mallea, bring me a cracker and cheese. No wait, that’s not insulting enough. Bring me one of those super cheap crackers that make your mouth drier than a desert. Oh, and make the cheese be spray-cheese from a can.”

Phon ended the call, and returned to the audience. “Alright, it should take her a bit to get those things and deliver them here. So, in the meantime, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen moving forward. I’m sure a whole bunch of you are freaking out right now thinking you’ve lost your money. But unfortunately for me, that’s not the case. All your money is safe and sound, as long as it was deposited properly into a bank. Sorry criminals who we also stole from, you’re zjik outta luck.”

“Now you’re like, ‘Oh, how can we pay for things then? We still have our debit and credit cards I guess.’ Woopsie, I forgot to mention your debit cards and credit cards won’t work either very soon. Your debit cards will be fully turned off in one week. Your credit cards will still work but through online transactions only, but I can guarantee you won’t want to use them anymore after you’ve paid them off.”

“So, as for what’s replacing them…” Phon pulled out a solid black card which was the exact same size as current cards. She held her thumb on the front for a second, and then the card lit up as if it were a smartphone. ‘Phon Drazah’ was written at the top, with an ID number beneath. Listed below were several options one would normally find on a banking app or website.

“By the end of the day, one of these new shiny things will be delivered to every single person in the world, provided you have an official mailing address and are registered in some form. Even if you don’t have an existing bank account, you will be receiving one. One will be allocated for each child as well, but parents will have some access over theirs until they reach a specified age based on local jurisdiction. When a baby is born, one will be given to their parents as well.”

“Don’t worry, some scary Fiend isn’t going to show up at your doorstep to hand you yours, though I’m sure some of you would find that exciting. They’re being delivered by your tried-and-true postal workers along with the rest of your mail. We have confirmation from the CP’s PostMaster Major that the deliveries will be completed today, but with the additional load, some of you may be getting them late into the night.”

“If for whatever reason you don’t receive one, head to your local bank to get one completely free of charge. Yes that’s right, the first one’s free. We’re just so nice like that. Alright, let’s start getting into some gritty details, shall we? The first is the currency. That was one of the main reasons we did this. There’s just too damn many! Sure, everyone wants to respect their heritage, and we do too, but there’s plenty of other outlets for that. Feel free to hang up existing cash in memoriam to their fallen brethren.”

“Going forward, there will be only one currency, and every other currency will soon no longer be accepted anywhere in the world. Well, anywhere you’d likely want to spend money anyways. However, you will be able to trade in your cash for the new one. This new currency will be entirely digital. Cash is dead for good. I’m sure many of you old fart stains will whine and complain, but too damn bad. This is the age of technology. Time to learn that electronics won’t touch you in your bad places and try to take over your minds.”

“If you still want to have some form of tangible wealth, then invest in silver or gemstones. You could also hoard some collectible you think will be valuable down the road, but it never will be because it’s junk that nobody wants.”

“Okay, so what will this new currency be called? This was actually a huge point of contention between us here at the Fiends for Hire. We debated over it the entire road trip, literally at least once a day. Can you imagine being stuck in a tight space for an entire month with three other people with strong, unyielding opinions on something you’re opposed to? Imagine a trip with your family where you talked about politics and how disappointed you are with each other the entire time. It was basically that.”

“The name went through several iterations. First, since we’re Fiends, we obviously wanted to try adding Fiend to it, but that didn’t turn out great. Fiend Money was a simple one, and it had the lovely bonus of pissing people off. However, things with two words are sure to be abbreviated, and the only way we could see it happening would be ‘Funny’. We do want to be at least somewhat serious with this, so that was immediately ruled out.”

“Fiend Currency was another attempt, but that would become ‘Furrency’ which just sounds way too fetishist. Fiend Dollars would be ‘Fallers’ which just sounds dumb. There were many other attempts: Fiend Bills, Fiend Cash, Fiend Bucks… Eventually we just dropped using Fiend entirely. It just became open suggestions at that point, which didn’t really go anywhere but we hung on it for far too long. I won’t go into all those examples, but I will say that at one point Kada suggested Rathe Rites to go along with the vastly overused unspoken alliteration rule. I then stabbed her with a spork.”

“However, part of her idea had merit. The currency was going to be a universal one so something along those lines was definitely appealing. The most popular contender, and even liked by all of us, was Verses. It’s short for ‘universal’ obviously, and we felt it well encapsulated the idea. It was simple and elegant, easily said with numerical attachment, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.”

“Unfortunately, verses is far too tied into its musical connotation which can also be expressed in numerical values. This could lead to potential overlap and cause confusion. It would be quite rare, but there’s definitely a possibility. Also, ‘versus’ exists which just adds a whole other layer of annoyance to it. Ultimately, to our despair, it had to be dropped.”

“In the end, we never did agree on a better replacement, so we had to go with our backup choice. From now on, this new currency will be called Commons. Like with Verses, it implies an inclusion of everyone, but admittedly it’s rather boring. But, that makes it a safe choice that won’t offend anyone, except for maybe rich people who think it implies they’re related to commoners. While commons does exist as a word, it isn’t something that can easily be held as a quantity. Honestly, I’d be impressed if someone were to mix-up the original word and the new currency.”

“Alright, time for a few more specifics about Commons. We’ll be using the $ currency symbol since it’s the most widely used. It will also be using the same currency rates as the soon-to-be-dead Horage Horsons. We chose them because Horage has the highest population, and many have already adjusted to similar rates after the war. This will likely be the biggest change for those of you who have wildly different pricings, but you’ll get used to it in no time, I’m sure. If you don’t, you just suck at life in general.”

“Okay, now that that’s out of the way, we can get back to these fancy new cards. For now, we’re calling them Common Cards. Feel free to come up with a better name for them. They are similar to the cards you have now, but better in every way. You can take care of all your financial and monetary needs right from the built in interface without having to go to a bank or using a website or app.”

“This includes, but is not limited to: Buying stuff, making payments, transferring money, loaning money, loaning your card, and a variety of other features. I’ll get into the specifics of each of these shortly. Your money is still attached to the bank you chose previously and will adhere to all the benefits, rules, and fines you’re used to. You can move your money to a different bank at any time if you want to and can do it right from the card, assuming you don’t have some form of contract.”

“This will hopefully lead to a lot of competitiveness and incentives from the various banks which should only help the general populace. All banks in the world have also partnered with us. We don’t own them and they don’t own us, but they are required to follow strict new regulations we’ve put forth and will be penalized if they break them. Basically, they’re just a safety net to keep the banks from mawhging you guys over. All these new regulations will be available for everyone to read if you wish.”

“Okay, before I talk about what the card can do, let’s talk about what makes it special from anything you’ve used so far. First, and probably the most important, each card can be used by anyone. When you initially register, it will compile your genetic data and lock it to your account. Afterwards, you can use anyone’s card and be able to access your money. You won’t be able to access any other accounts used by that card and they won’t be able to access yours after. There is an exception with children’s accounts based on parental restrictions.”

“The card can detect it’s you just by touching it anywhere, but we understand how skeptical people are. There are several different high-end security features which you can specifically add to different functions. By default there is a fingerprint scan as the base level of security, but you can turn it off if you trust it or want to use something else. There are also passwords, voice recognition, face and retina ID scans, even stuff I don’t understand like cryptic pattern recognition puzzles.”

“Next is anti-tampering mechanics. If you try to hack into, dismantle, or in any way tamper with a Common Card, it will dissolve into dust immediately. The cops will be called to your location and you will be arrested. A law will be passed soon in CP countries that makes tampering with them illegal. Though, this could also make them useful as a convenient emergency device. Just break it, and someone will come running. I would use it sparingly, though. They aren’t cheap.”

“Which brings me to my next point: what happens if you lose your card. Well, for starters, it should never be a huge issue, since you can use anyone’s and literally everyone will have one. Inevitably, though, some people will need a replacement and I’m sure some would like backups as well. But as I said earlier, only the first one is free. You should be lucky you’re even getting that. These little zjiks aren’t cheap to make. We basically spent a few countries worth out of pocket in order to make sure everyone would have one and called in a ton of favors.”

“Actually, we’re heavily in debt now, though that won’t be an issue for long. The point is, you’ll have to pay if you want more than one. If we sold them at cost, though, many people wouldn’t easily be able to afford it. So, we’re implementing a sliding scale based on income. If you’re poor, you won’t pay much at all, but if you’re rich, you may pay a hundred times what others do. And no, don’t even think about getting poorer people to buy them for you. It’s a crime, you will be caught, and you will go to jail.”

“Okay, so how to actually use the cards for making payments. If you’re using a modern card reader, it’s essentially the same. You stick it in, select credit or debit, and pay. You can also select credit or debit on the card itself before inserting it. We’re also rolling out new readers with this that allow simple touch functionality for transactions as well. We recommend upgrading to the new models as soon as possible. If you’re a business that doesn’t have a card reader yet, you can request a free one through the card. Upgrades past the first one will have to be bought. Also, you can add a business account to a personal card and accept transactions that way.

There is an important caveat you should know about the old readers. When a Common Card is inserted into a reader, it will reformat the reader to make it so that only they will work in it going forward. From today, existing credit and debit cards are getting a one week grace period before they’ll stop working on an affected machine. I was told to emphasize that this will work on anything that can accept cards or cash, no matter how basic, including ‘those damn vending machines’.”

“Online payments will completely change as well, but you’ll find it much easier. When you get to a checkout page, just tap your Common Card to your computer or phone and the card will automatically sync and apply your payment information. This is using a current exploit in cyber security, but there will be an official patch within the next few days to apply the functionality to all online marketplaces.

“Debit will work as before, taking money directly from your bank account. We have no hand in this, so if you want nothing to do with us, this is the option you’ll have to take. However, we are directly in charge of credit going forward. That said, if you need support with it, you’ll go through your bank. There’s only a few of us so we can’t be taking calls all day.”

“We are making a few simple changes into how credit works. I’m pretty sure you all will like them for the most part, except for non-bank affiliated credit card companies. Sorry guys, but you’re about to go out of business. There are two major points to the change: interest rates and late fees. From now on, interest rates will be applied directly when you purchase something. Even if you buy something and pay it off before your next billing cycle, the rate will still be applied”

“I’m sure this sounds unreasonable to you penny pinchers who do your best to never get charged, but you’ll understand once you hear the rate. It’s only 1%. That’s right, the base rate is only a single percent and it is something that will never change, provided you’re financially responsible. As long as you make sure to pay the minimum balance required every month, that rate will never go up. Honestly, we would have loved to make the starting rate 0%, but we have to recoup our out of pocket losses and make enough to stay sustainable. Yes, we’ll probably profit greatly over time, but we did put almost all the work in by ourselves.”

“Anyways, so what happens if you miss a payment? There are no late fees. Instead, your interest rate goes up by 1% each month you miss. So if you miss a month, it’ll go up to 2%, miss it again then it’ll be 3%. However, these rates aren’t permanent and you can lower them again. All you have to do is pay your minimum for the same number of consecutive months as the rate itself then it’ll go down 1%. So if your rate is 2%, if you pay for 2 months it’ll go down to 1%. If your rate is 7%, pay for 7 months and it’ll go down to 6%. Also, if you pay your debt off entirely, it will revert to 1% immediately.”

“Like I said earlier, there are no late fees, so some asshats are probably thinking that means they could never pay. If you reach a 10% interest rate, which would mean over a year of not paying, we’ll just take matters into our own hands. Maybe we’ll sue you, maybe we won’t, maybe we’ll just have fun with our Fiend powers and destroy your lives. I’m not sure yet, but are you really sure you want to take the risk of not paying us our money?”

“In all seriousness, if you’re having trouble paying, go to your bank or speak to an agent over the phone. They’ll do their best to help you out. One last important note is credit limits. Since the sane ones among you will only have a single card, we’ve raised the limit compared to existing credit cards. It’s still based on your credit scores, but if you need your cap to be raised, it can easily be applied for on the card.”

“Okay, up next is loans: both loaning your card to someone and taking out loans. Loaning to others is easy, all you need is to know their account ID. If you don’t know it, you can also search their name in the full database, or it can be done by touching two activated cards together. Then, you can lend your credit or debit card with limits you apply such as amount, length of time, and even locations where it can be used. After the time is up, any remaining balance will be returned to you.”

“Bank loans will work just as they have before, and is one of the main reasons banks aren’t going out of business today. They’re still entirely up to the bank’s discretion but you will be able to apply for them directly from the card. Knowing how paranoid some people are, though, you may have better luck in person. We will be minorly involved. Banks will be paying us 10% of their profits from loans, a sort of insurance to have our names attached. Remember what I said earlier about not paying us our money.”

“All of your debts, loans, expenses, bills, and everything else will all be consolidated into the card, so you’ll never have an excuse to forget about them. Registration is simple, and it should only take a few minutes. All you’ll need is the Common Card, some form of ID, and some form of payment method. The card will sync up the rest. If you don’t have these things for whatever reason, go to a bank and they’ll help you out.”

“Okay, I think that just about does it for the important changes. The rest are just general banking features and some stuff I’m probably forgetting. I know I just spewed a lot of information at you, but don’t worry, it will all be included in a pamphlet that comes with the card, and will be built into the help tab of the card itself.”

“Oh right, one important thing that won’t affect most of you. As of now, this new system is only tied to myself and Drim. No other Fiends have access to it except the engineer that built it, and no others can claim inheritance from it. If both Drim and I die, full custody of the system, the card printing facility, and all of its profits will be transferred to the CP. Just one more incentive for them to kill us, I suppose.”

“There is an important side note. Once ownership is transferred, none of the regulations will be able to be modified for a hundred years. Just a preventative feature in case someone thinks killing us will allow them to get rich quick through this system. If you wanna get rich by killing us, it better be with your own hands, and be the one who claims the bounty. Welp, it’s about time to wrap up I guess, and- Oh Mallea, there you are, I nearly forgot!”

Mallea crept out from the shadows, and handed the earlier requested items to Phon. She then bowed to the camera and skulked away. Phon pulled out a cracker, and popped the top off of the spray cheese. After spraying on a decent amount, she pulled out the precious pebble and plopped it right on top of the cheese. Phon then stared directly into the camera, and tossed the cracker into her mouth. After chewing it a bit, she mumbled with her mouth full, “You know, I’m going to take the world’s most expensive zjik later.”

After she swallowed, she looked towards Preiche and stated, “Oh, I didn’t save any for you, here let me feed you.” Phon then loaded another cracker with cheese, to the point that it was overflowing, and tried to force feed it to Preiche. While Preiche was doing her best to resist, getting cheese smeared all over her face, Phon then remembered something and told the world as she tried to wrestle the cracker into Preiche’s mouth.

“Oh right, a final disclaimer before we end this. By using the Common Card you are willingly giving us all your financial data, purchase history, spending habits, and all that fun stuff. We promise never to sell it, but don’t promise that we’ll never use it for our own nefarious purposes in the future. That’s all, good luck trying to get by without them if you hate us. You can now go back to your regularly scheduled miserable lives.” The feed then cut, and the Fiend’s plan to fully restructure the economy solely because of one bad vending machine experience was finally complete.

 

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