In the late autumn evening in New York, a huge landfill on the edge of Brooklyn. The air is filled with sourness and despair.
Jack Reynolds, who had just been fired, had only two cold 25-cent coins in his pocket. Starving and cold, he searched the garbage mountain for scraps or food that might be valuable.
Found an old vending machine buried deep under a pile of scrap metal. It was rusty (dark red rust), with a strange style, and the coin slot was the only "entrance". The label was unclear.
In despair and self-mockery, Jack put the last two coins into the vending machine. The machine was silent for a moment, and a slight "click" sound came from inside.
A heavy dark gold coin (holy gold) fell out of the delivery port. It was not a currency known on Earth, with a strange material, cold to the touch with a faint warmth, and the surface was covered with mysterious and complex raised patterns (vines, animal heads, stars), which appeared and disappeared in the sunset.
Jack left the garbage dump with great confusion and a little throbbing, and returned to his dilapidated, small apartment. He put the gold coin on the lame table and observed it repeatedly under the dim light. Fatigue and hunger came again, he picked up the cheap orange plastic lighter on the table, and unconsciously rubbed the roller.
Jack collapsed on the camp bed, his eyes wandering between the mysterious gold coin and the ordinary lighter. Outside the window was the indifferent city neon, and inside the house was the dead silence of poverty.
Under the energy-saving lamp, the surface patterns of the "holy gold" seemed to have life, and pulsated very weakly.