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Hello, person receiving this. The year is 2094. The Earth’s second moon has disappeared behind the horizon, leaving behind a purple glow. I’m in one of the last available shelters in what was once known as New York City: a long, brown, regal-looking building identified only as TC. A group of one-hundred-or-so fellow survivors, including myself, are clustered in the basement. We discovered the room some weeks ago, pleasantly surprised by the untouched packages of food in the crumbling kitchen. An even greater discovery, however, awaited us: a stockpile of doubloons from a previous generation.
A couple of us stumbled upon the jars a few days after we first inhabited the place. We had split into groups of three to scope out the area and ensure the safety of the pack. Adam was waving his flashlight around when suddenly something glinted silver. We approached warily, worried it was a rogue android or an undetonated grenade. Imagine our surprise when, instead of an enemy or weapon, we saw five jars of pure, undamaged currency. There were several thousand silver coins, each branded with the words Columbia Dining, words that are completely meaningless to us.
We then brought the coins to our pack, and agreed that a public forum would be opened the next day to decide what the future of the tokens would be. The jars were left out in the middle of the room — trust is essential in the early days of community-development — and everyone went to bed. However, Steven, that greedy, slimy bastard backstabber, stole two jars and ran out of TC, presumably to his former Wall Street associates who were attempting to regain control of the remaining living population. We were fortunate that he wasn’t able to get away with the other three, considering what’s happened…
I’m glad that I listened to Adam’s advice and put a handful of coins in my pocket before we turned the jars over. Now… now, those tokens are the only way to survive in this post-apocalyptic world. They are our broken society’s only source of wealth. The silver coins have spread across our decimated population and are now the only way to make transactions. People kill for them. I’ve killed for them.
One token can get you a car and two whole barrels of oil. Enough to drive yourself into the sea and put an end to your misery. Two can get a house in one of the outer boroughs, away from the radiation but much closer to the erratic, deformed wildlife that attacks anything that moves. That’s a risk that some have taken and many have regretted. Three tokens, with the right connections, can get you a one-way flight out of the States and to Asia, where it’s rumored that civilization still stands. Four could buy the damn plane. Beyond that… I don’t know. I’ve heard that some of Steven’s gang have developed technology to absorb others’ life forces. You can buy someone’s remaining life for ten tokens — that’s at least ten years. The most desperate people are starting to auction off their own years. The worst of them are selling the lives of their kids… It’s a scary world out there. Even scarier than before, if that’s even possible.
Anyway, all of this is to say that you need to start collecting these tokens now. Hopefully this transmission is reaching the right year, the year when they exist. I have twenty, and even then, they’re not enough, not at the rate this world is going. Collect them now, and hide them under that domed building a few streets away from TC. If you survive, you’ll find them and you can use them. If you don’t… well, hopefully I’ll be able to use them.
This could be our only chance. I hope this gets to you.
Transmission ended…
