New York's sewage tunnels reeked of rotting derivatives and wolf blood. Leo Wu crouched beneath a rusted pipe engraved with frozen futures contracts, his claws sparking against the iron. Aboveground, Bear Stearns' bankruptcy ticker scrolled across Times Square like a funeral march. Below, Pale Hand's vampire quants adjusted their augmented reality visors, their mechanical hearts synced to the collapsing LIBOR-OIS spread.
Wolf King's Pupils Alert: Genetic Decay Stabilizer Active (Bitcoin Mining Rig 93% Load)
The rig strapped to Leo's back hummed, its ASIC chips converting sewer methane into gene-locked hashrate. Every 10 minutes, a block reward pulsed through his veins—temporary immunity to the CRISPR-TNote virus eating his DNA.
"Margin call's due, mutt," the lead quant hissed, his chest cavity glowing with silver nanoparticles. "Your rig's hashrate won't cover tonight's genetic interest."
Leo's claws unsheathed. "Let's settle this in physical delivery."
Phase One: Shitcoin Warfare
The ambush began at 8:06 PM—precisely when Bear's stock froze at $2.84. Vampire quants emerged from toxic sludge, their AR visors projecting credit default swaps as barbed wire. Leo ducked beneath a pipeline labeled Lehman Repo 105, the Bitcoin rig on his back spitting green sparks.
Memory Fragment: Father's 1998 Log"Fed injected X-12 CRISPR codes into municipal water… Elaine's deterioration escalated post-FOMC…"
Victor's voice crackled through the rig's cooling fans: "Their nano-silver cores are weak to CME copper futures—use the pipes!"
Leo lunged. His claws tore through a quant's AR projection, severing synthetic CDOs into gene strands. The vampire screamed as LIBOR rates flatlined in his chest monitor.
Phase Two: Futures Forged in Filth
The tunnel's emergency lights bathed everything in jaundiced yellow. Leo's Wolf King's Pupils zoomed in—rust patterns on the pipes formed delivery instructions:
CONTRACT SPECS
Commodity: Genetic Integrity (Wu Clan Strain X-12)
Delivery Point: Iceland Facility Grid 778
Last Trading Day: 2008-03-16 (Today)
"They're collateralizing your mother's corpse," Victor spat.
Leo roared, slamming a claw into the pipe. The metal groaned, reshaping into a makeshift futures contract stamped with Pale Hand's claw insignia.
Action Sequence:
1.Claws vs. Silver Nanoparticles: Sparks ignite methane pockets, burning vampire RNA
2.Bitcoin Rig Overload: Hashrate converts sewage into gene-stabilizing steam
3.Pipe Weaponization: Leo welds futures terms into armor plating
A quant's nanowire garrote wrapped around his throat. Leo retaliated by ramming a copper futures pipe through the man's sternum.
Genetic Impact:
Mitochondrial decay paused (-7.3% CRISPR-TNote load)
LIBOR-TED spread contraction (-2.1 basis points)
Phase Three: Settlement in Silver
The lead quant cornered Leo beneath a waterfall of toxic ABS sludge. "Your rig's dying. Even Satoshi couldn't mine your way out now."
Leo's rig flickered, its ASIC chips overheating. Hashrate: 41%. The vampire's chest cavity split open, revealing a nano-silver reactor core shaped like the Fed's balance sheet.
Memory Detonation: Mother's Last Words
"The vampires… they're using repo markets to…" (signal lost)
With a snarl, Leo ripped off the rig's coolant hose. Liquid nitrogen sprayed, freezing the sludge midair. He swung the Bitcoin miner like a medieval flail, its hashrate projecting a holographic pickaxe.
Leverage Applied: 100:1 (Death Margin Call)
The pickaxe shattered the nano-silver core. LIBOR rates imploded.
Ephemera: The Iceland Vector
In the quant's shattered visor, Leo found a Betamax fragment labeled FOMC Emergency Session 3/14/08. Greenspan's voice hissed through static: "Activate Iceland cloning protocols. The Wu strain must be repo'd before…"
Victor's AI glitched: "They're shorting your DNA across exchanges… Mining rigs detect 18% maternal gene replication in Reykjavik…"
Polished English Version
The tunnel quaked as Bear Stearns' final heartbeat flatlined aboveground. Leo stood ankle-deep in silver nanoparticle sludge, his reflection warped in a vampire's shattered chest plate. The Bitcoin rig sputtered, its last hashrate projecting a countdown:
GENETIC LIQUIDATION: 6H 12M
Wallet Alert: 750,000 BTC Seized (Bear Stearns Gene Repo Accounts)
Victor's hologram flickered. "The mining pool's picking up Icelandic signals—they've rebuilt her cell by cell."
A tremor split the tunnel. The sewage flow reversed, carrying glowing CRISPR codes toward the East River. Somewhere in the toxic current, a woman's laugh echoed—too melodic for the dead, too cruel for memory.
Leo welded a pipe into a crude spear. "Time to collect my physical delivery."
As he vanished into darker tunnels, the rig's dying light revealed fresh claw marks on the walls—not his own, but something older, hungrier. The marks formed a single rune even Victor's AI couldn't parse:
ᛟᚦᛁᚾ
Odin's brand. Or maybe just Wall Street's oldest joke.
His claws tightened around the spear. Somewhere ahead, water dripped in Fibonacci sequences.