If Griffin Thorne was asked to sum the entirety of his existence in one word, a word that reflected his entire personality well, then he would willingly pick the descriptor ‘greedy’.

To most others, that would be seen as a personality trait that carried with it negative connotations. An insult, to some.

Not to Griffin, though.

Greed had opened many doors for him, gateways to paths that the common man couldn’t even imagine, let alone dream of walking.

After all, his greed was a consequence of his beliefs rather than its source.

He had believed a technology that most of the world remained unaware of until much later, a conceptualization born out of a powerful idea: a currency that was entirely free of any oversight, one that could not be infiltrated or breached by the efforts of nation-states regardless of how chagrined they found themselves upon the arrival of the storm.

A storm whose nature they couldn’t— wouldn’t be able to comprehend until it was knocking on their doorstep, before uprooting the entire house in its wake.

Forum handle name ‘Definiendum’ was a pretty tongue-in-cheek name for a member of an entirely anonymous online collective that would eventually lead to the creation of the modern-day cryptocurrency named ‘Bitcoin’.

Unlike his peers though, Griffin was no prodigy. It was hard to call him a genius, either. His father had gotten him into coding when he was no older than ten and since then, it was years of obsessive hard work that had gotten him to this point.

His true passion for the art of creating complex computer programs with nothing but a keyboard and a display had bloomed when he had designed an extremely simple website for the very lucrative sum of a hundred dollars- which was worth a fair bit more back then than it was now.

If doing something repeatedly until you could navigate a keyboard with your eyes taped shut was considered a genius by today’s standards, then maybe, just maybe, he could claim the title.

Regardless, his small but not insignificant contribution to the revolution known as cryptocurrency wasn’t important.

No, the knowledge he gained had been worth a million times its weight in gold.

In his defense, when it finally happened, Griffin or Definiendum, whatever you preferred, hadn’t been looking for a vulnerability.

No, he was just tracking his own modest ownership of bitcoin, worth a very modest amount back then.

The revolution hadn’t happened yet.

But Definiendum had seen, first-hand, the sheer, terrifying, potent intellect of the anonymous collective he had gotten to work alongside with.

Some, he even suspected to be retired members of national intelligence agencies, not that he’d ever be able to confirm that point.

So, when Definiendum saw a vulnerability in one of the earliest bitcoin exchanges, the currency likely only used by drug-dealers and criminals at that point in time, he took the opportunity.

The exploit was there, but for it to have landed in the hands of one of the few select chosen in the world that could actually breach the exchange’s defenses….

That was just bad luck.

Nine-point-five million dollars worth of bitcoin.

Even after he sold half to relocate to the other side of the world, complete with a new identity, fresh passport, forged tax records and a touch of plastic surgery, Definiendum’s net worth in the year 2018 amounted to a whopping…

Eight hundred and eighty-seven million dollars.

Sure, the cryptocurrency exchange he had stolen from had gone belly-up just a few years later. And naturally, it had nothing to do with the hack. Spotty security tanking consumer confidence, mis-use of funds, risky investments… it was safe to say that the due-diligence report for that particular exchange was littered with enough red-flags to give any investor a heart attack.

That didn’t change the fact that the CIA, NSA and every other alphabet-soup agency across the world would nail him to the wall, if he only gave them a chance.

----------------------------------------

Mumbai, India.

Year: 2019

A lanky caucasian man made his way through a bustling, nameless street that was very much like thousands of other streets you could find in the sixth most populated metropolitan city in the world.

A loose fitting hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and flip flops made him fit the image of the average western tourist visiting India during the summers, the sweltering heat leaving his skin a hue redder than it normally was despite the sunscreen.

Flanked by the sides of three story houses that were packed together in rows, his black sunglasses kept most of the 3 p.m.’s scorching glare at bay, a mask concealing his nose and mouth. There was only one more unremarkable accessory on the man, a rugged, well-worn sling-on travel bag that he kept close to his chest.

There was a sigh of relief as the caucasian man cleared the bulk of the crowd, entering a wider road that was enough to facilitate the road traffic at this time of the day.

‘No jam,’ The caucasian man thought to himself, inwardly sighing in relief—- not even realizing that he had slipped into the local slang. .

Now came the hard part.

“Auto!” He hollered, this time intentionally employing the local slang to refer to a three-wheeler motorized version of the classical pulled rickshaw.

In response to his call, a mass-produced construct of metal, leather and polyutherane foam stopped a little before him, near the edge of the road. Lacking doors or any kind of shielding from the aerodynamic drag, the three-wheeler had been designed to minimize costs at every possible angle, leaving behind no consideration for safety or comfort.

The driver, an entrepreneur in his own right, awaited his directions. Then, they would negotiate a price— though Griffin Thorne had no intention to negotiate— and finally, they would be off.

At least, that’s how the interaction should’ve gone.

It was distant, but he heard not one, but the sound of multiple sirens blazing to life across the city.

The former residence he had purchased was likely up in flames by now, something Griffin had done intentionally to wipe all his drives beyond repair. Even the NSA would have trouble piecing together sludge, for better or worse.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Nobody else but him lived in that walled manor and Griffin had used a burner to dial in the ambulance a minute or two after clearing the area.

But those were way too many sirens to explicitly belong to a fire-truck or even two.

His body reacted before Griffin could come to terms with the situation.

WHAM!

His fist lanced forward in an unsurprising lack of form, striking the unwitting driver square in the jaw.

There was no time for explanations.

No time to bargain.

No room for pity as the driver slid across his seat and then landed roughly onto the floor. The keys were still in the ignition.

Griffin moved like lightning, seating himself on the auto-rickshaw even as his right hand dug into his travel bag and vociferously grabbed two wads of two thousand rupee notes.

“Sorry about this!” He called out as the engine blazed to life, tossing two thick wads of roughly 10,000$ each out of the auto-rickshaw’s nonexistent window, unwittingly slapping the man in the face a second time as one of the wads roughly landed on his right cheek.

Then, the engine roared—- or more, sputtered to life as he pressed the accelerator.

An enraged expletive was screamed out as he accelerated to a speed of 40 kilometers an hour, taking an uncomfortable long fifteen or so seconds at that.

And then the scream cut off, as the man likely realized that the thief had slapped him with ten times the value of the stolen budget automobile.

That didn’t make Griffin feel like any less of an asshole, but he really did not want to end up in some government’s off-shore facility.

The problem with being off-the-grid for so long was that nobody would know— or care if you disappeared, either.

“This is seriously messed up,” Griffin protested under his breath as he hit the maximum speed the auto-rickshaw’s weak engine could provide him.

Sixty kilometers an hour.

He had made a mistake, yes. He had accidentally transferred funds to the wrong bank account, a slip-up in physical files that had led to the digital mistake.

A bank account that could be linked to the stolen crypto-currency money.

A bank account in his original name, that he had no way to close after abandoning the identity.

A meager 2000$ transferred to that account, an account linked to the deceased-yet-known entity that Definiendum was.

Precisely because one of the members of the collective was a member of US intelligence, an active member at that.

Money transferred to the bank account of a dead man from Mumbai, India.

If it was anyone else, there was a thousand other reasons they could have attributed it to, never making the connection.

But no, this was the best of the best.

If there was a connection, they’d see it.

And indeed, they had.

In less than thirty minutes, at that.

Griffin’s gaze swept through his surroundings, the best 180 he could do while actively trying not to crash the auto-rickshaw.

Around ten automobiles in front of him, ten behind him. Pretty sparsely populated for a mumbai road, but 3 p.m. was also near the peak of the sweltering sun, with temperatures reaching as high as 42*C.

Wasn’t enough. This wasn’t enough.

Finding a tall, lanky caucasian man that was pretty much a recluse for all intents and purposes, wasn’t going to be hard for whatever local authorities they were collaborating with.

And they would tear through this traffic without breaking a sweat.

Griffin’s gaze paused for an instant before he snapped back to veer slightly to the left.

‘The pedestrians.’

Even in the brutal phenomenon that was mumbai heat, the resilient pedestrians still went on about their duty —- mostly because they had to, but that was besides the point.

They were a factor that he could use.

“Aaaaah, fuck!” Griffin swore, as an impish grin pulled at the corner of his lips.

What was this supposed to be, a bollywood movie?

Then, he reached into his travel-bag, searching for the pocket knife he knew to be there.

Another minute passed as he undid the plastic bindings holding the wads of cash in place.

“Carpe diem, motherfuckers!” He screamed at the top of his lungs as he grabbed a fistful of notes— not rupees but dollars this time— and then let them fly.

Thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands of dollars. Then over a hundred thousand dollars.

It didn’t matter if it was a foreign country.

Everyone knew that a dollar was worth a lot of money. And he had personally seen enough exchanges populating the modern city.

It only took one to pause and scream the word ‘sau’ in incredulous excitement. A hundred dollars.

Hundreds of notes worth hundreds of dollars each.

There was a cascade of traffic as cars came to a grounding halt and the pedestrians flooded the streets, reaching for the notes callously littering the streets.

And only then, did he notice the heavy truck that was clearly in the middle of an illegal u-turn over a collapse in the stone divider.

He was just a touch too late, his own attention consumed by the excitement of his gambit working and the truck driver’s by the thousands of bank notes susurrating in the distance.

He heard the crash before he felt it.

Crumpling metal.

Shattering glass.

The world turning upside-down as a movable force met a relatively immovable object.

Pain. Pain unlike anything he had ever felt before.

A squelching in his gut that felt disturbingly visceral.

Then, in some miracle of fate, his sight returned.

He was screaming but the adrenaline didn’t let him feel like he was screaming.

He instinctively crawled forward.

Crawled away from the wreckage.

Then his vision faded.

Griffin Thorne’s greatest act of greediness might have been his confidence in believing that he could get away with it. He had taken it all and wanted to be left alone with it all. As if the world was supposed to sit at the sidelines and be okay with that, simply yielding to his will.

A panicked cry roused him back to consciousness even as he knew it would not be for long.

A young man came into focus as whatever force dictated fate allowed him a few more moments of clear site.

“Are you okay!” He screamed a question that he had ought to have known the answer to.

‘Of course not, moron,’ He wanted to respond, but he knew he didn’t have the strength to.

“Don’t worry, just hang in there. I’ll get you to the hospital.”

A sputter of blood was spat out as Griffin realized that he laughed.

Not at the genuine kindness of a bystander that had come to his aid, while the truck that he had crashed into had long since sped away.

No, it was because of a realization that there was still something that he wanted from his world, even as a man that had owned it all.

A final touch of greediness that was just too amusing not to entertain.

It hurt, agonizingly so as he reached for his shorts’ pocket, which were surprisingly still intact after the impact he had eaten.

Pulling out his wallet with a single hand, he reached for the paper and wrapped his index finger and thumb into a pinch even as his strength faded and the wallet slipped onto the floor.

Holding out the piece of paper, he offered it to the man.

He was young. Well dressed. Nineteen, maybe twenty. And considering how prevalent ‘it’ had gotten, maybe there was a chance.

The young man hurriedly unfolded the bloodstained piece of paper, perhaps believing it to be medical details like blood group information.

Only to be confronted by a series of numbers and letters, trailing off until….

Well, even if he didn’t understand what the other numbers were….

Current Estimated Value: $887,000,000

Written in bold text ought to have sent the message.

With his final breath of strength, Griffin gave his blessings,

“Run!”

And then the light in his eyes dimmed.

It had been a good run.

[Apostle of Greed chosen….]

[Commencing Summoning Ritual…. Error: Ritual Target is gravely injured….Compensating…..]

[Compensation Extracted….]

[Summoning Ritual is Complete….]