Chapter 35: The Millionaire's Tic
Mid-September 2015
Michael was in his new professional studio. It was night. The room was perfect, the equipment was top-notch. The Neumann microphone rested on its stand like a totem of quality. The MacBook Pro hummed silently.
He had just released 'White Iverson' a few days earlier. The song, just as he expected, was starting to make noise, much more noise than 'crybaby' or 'Sodium'. The numbers were rising fast.
He was free from the stress of work. He no longer had to smell like fryer grease. He no longer had to come home exhausted at midnight. He had all the time in the world.
And that was the problem.
His mind, now unoccupied by the daily struggle for survival, had found a new and terrible obsession: his Ethereum investments.
Before, his anxiety was diluted between algebra classes, burger orders, and the pain in his fingers from the guitar. Now, there was nothing standing between him and the abyss of his bet.
He was sitting in his empty living room, trying to watch a movie on his laptop. He couldn't focus.
He took out his phone. He opened his cryptocurrency wallet app.
ETH: $0.81
He closed the app. He took a deep breath. A minute later, he opened it again.
ETH: $0.80
His heart skipped a beat. 'Is it falling? Why is it falling?'
Ten minutes later, he opened it again.
ETH: $0.82
He felt a ridiculous relief, followed by a wave of self-loathing. He was going crazy.
He developed a tic for checking the price of his investment. It became a compulsion. He looked at it all day, at all hours.
The first thing he did when waking up. The last thing he did before sleeping. He woke up at 3 in the morning, heart racing, just to make sure the price hadn't plummeted to zero.
He realized he had bet his only capital, his parents' house money, on this single play. It was all or nothing.
If he was right, he would be free forever. If he was wrong... he would go back to the Burger Barn. Or to something worse.
This new anxiety was a thousand times worse than physical exhaustion. It was mental poison.
Michael tried to distract himself. He tried to do what normal kids did. He sat in his empty living room, connected Sam's PS4 (which had stayed there permanently) to his old tube TV.
He opened Call of Duty. But he couldn't focus.
Every time he got killed in the game, his thumb moved automatically to the home button. He quit the game. He opened the wallet app.
ETH: $0.80
'It's stable. That's good, right?'
He went back to the game. He played five minutes. His thoughts started to wander.
'But, what if this stability is bad? What if it means no one is using it? What if it's a dead coin?'
He quit the game again. Refreshed.
ETH: $0.81
A small relief. Immediately followed by anxiety.
His mind, which he had used to build worlds in Ableton and plan his future, had become a weapon against himself.
He started imagining hundreds of "what if?" scenarios.
He got up from the sofa and started walking through the empty house, his footsteps echoing on the wooden floor.
'What if something isn't the same in this timeline?'
The thought was poison. He stopped in the kitchen. What if the Ethereum launch was slightly different? If the development team made a different decision?
'What if I changed something?'
That was the worst thought.
'I released 'Sodium'. It went viral. A music blog wrote about me. What if one of the Ethereum developers read that article? What if he got distracted? What if, because of that distraction, he made a mistake in the code that will ruin everything in the future?'
He knew it was crazy. It was god-level paranoia. But he couldn't help it.
'What if the 2018 bubble doesn't happen?'
That was the thought that woke him up at 3 in the morning. What if, in this universe, Ethereum only goes up to $10 and stays there forever? His whole plan. His Nvidia empire. His ranch. His foundation. Everything... erased.
He would go back to being the Burger Barn kid. But worse. He would be a kid who knew he should have been a billionaire.
'What if Harris realizes I didn't buy bonds?'
What would happen if the lawyer decided to check the brokerage account on his own? He would see "437,500 ETH". He would call the judge. They would freeze his account. Everything would be over.
He realized he was trapped in a prison of his own making. He had to wait three years. Three years of this mental hell.
The anxiety was a thousand times worse than physical exhaustion. It was acid burning his stomach, day and night.
He needed something to do. Something to focus that manic energy on. Something that wasn't looking at a chart on his phone.
Late September 2015
Michael was in his studio, unable to sleep. It was two in the morning. The Ethereum anxiety had him by the throat.
He realized he couldn't just sit and wait three years. He would go crazy. He needed to work. He needed an escape valve.
He opened Ableton. Music was the only thing, other than the price of cryptocurrencies, that could occupy his mind completely.
He summoned the System interface. He had been putting this off, but now it felt right. He felt... cynical.
He ignored 'Ghost Girl' and 'Drugs You Should Try It'.
His gaze settled on 'Life Is Beautiful'.
He remembered the guide. The simple guitar melody, almost like a lullaby. And the lyrics... the lyrics were brutal. It was a catalog of all the horrible ways life could go wrong, all wrapped in a pretty package.
It was the perfect reflection of his current mental state.
To the outside world, thanks to 'White Iverson', his life was starting to look beautiful. He was gaining fame, he had a new studio. But inside, he was terrified, living on the edge of a secret financial precipice.
'How fucking ironic,' he thought. 'My life is beautiful... and it's a fucking mess.'
He started producing and recording 'Life Is Beautiful'.
The creative process was different this time. It wasn't the emotional catharsis of 'Ghost Boy'. It wasn't the technical fun of 'White Iverson'.
It was methodical and somber work.
First, the guitar. He picked up his Squier. He plugged in the interface. He didn't use crazy effects, just a clean tone with a little reverb. He recorded the main melody, that simple and repetitive chord progression.
Then, the drums. He wanted them to be almost military, a hard contrast to the soft melody. A thumping kick. A crisp snare.
Finally, the vocals. He got into the booth (his closet, now professionally lined). He looked at the lyrics.
He didn't have to act. The Ethereum anxiety, the feeling that his entire future was based on chance, the cynicism he felt toward his own fame... everything was there.
He sang the first verse with a cold, almost clinical calm:
'I know that you want me, you know that I want you...'
'The way that she teasing me, telling me, "Wait in the room"...'
It was the voice of someone observing the world from a great distance, without really participating.
Then, the lyrics darkened.
'Takin' them drugs, she bleedin' on my shoes...'
'Had a feeling that I'm fuckin' cursed...'
He sang the word "cursed" with a conviction that froze his blood. He felt like that. Trapped in this world, with this knowledge. It was a curse.
'I try to help her, but I only make it worse...'
The song wasn't a distraction from his anxiety. It was becoming a manifestation of it.
He spent the night working, layer by layer, channeling all his paranoia, his cynicism, and his fear into the track.
It wasn't fun. It was necessary. It was the only way to get the poison out of his system.
Michael sat in his studio, the guitar loop of 'Life Is Beautiful' playing over and over again. The work was centering him, but the Ethereum anxiety was still there, a constant hum in the back of his head.
He needed a different distraction. Something that wasn't the market, something that wasn't production. He needed... the game.
He summoned the System interface. Cyan light filled his vision, a familiar comfort. His Impact Points balance was decent. The release of 'White Iverson' had been a viral success, attracting thousands of new listeners, which in turn had made more people discover 'crybaby' and 'Ghost Boy'. His total balance was 25,945 IP.
He felt good. He decided he deserved a reward for the stress. A small dopamine hit. He focused on the Roulette icon.
He wanted the thrill of a spin, of seeing what new tool he could get.
But the Roulette icon was gray, dull. It was unresponsive.
A cyan text box appeared, blocking his view.
[ROULETTE ACCESS BLOCKED]
Michael frowned. 'Blocked? Why?'
Reason: "Founder's Pack" limit reached.
Next Unlock: Publication of 10 original songs.
He felt a pang of panic. 'Limit reached?' Was that it? Were the "free" songs over?
He exited the warning and navigated to "The Archive". The System's cosmic store. The galaxy of genres floated in front of him. He mentally flew toward the Kanye Solar System, just to check.
He saw 'Runaway', which he already had, and then looked at the price of 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'. One hundred and twenty million IP.
It was a joke.
He realized he was too poor in Impact Points to buy new songs.
He went to the Roulette section. Now that the Founder's Pack was gone, the real prices were unlocked.
A single spin cost 100,000 IP.
A 10-song roulette cost 1 million IP.
Michael stared at the numbers. He had little over 25,000. He was a small fish in an ocean of giants. He felt like when he looked at his bank account before selling the house. He was screwed.
He went back to the main screen, frustrated. How was he supposed to get more songs? Save 100 IP at a time from fan connections until reaching a million? At that rate, it would take years.
But then, he saw a new gently blinking icon, one that hadn't been there before. It was a small trophy icon, labeled "Milestones". He focused on it.
A new text window opened.
[CREATOR MILESTONE RULE UNLOCKED]
The System rewards sustained production.
When Michael has concluded and published 10 songs (your "Founder's Pack"), the System will recognize your first "body of work".
As a reward for reaching this milestone, a special 10-song Milestone Roulette will be unlocked.
[FIRST MILESTONE COST: 25,000 IP]
Michael reread the message. And again.
25,000 IP.
He looked at his current balance: 25,945 IP.
'I already have enough,' he thought, a wave of relief so strong he almost laughed.
The System didn't want him to save a million. It wanted him to work. It was a barter. The price wasn't just IP; the price was the effort to finish the songs he already had.
The Ethereum anxiety was still there, a monster in the corner. But now, he had an antidote. He had a clear, tangible goal.
He counted the songs he had published.
'Ghost Boy' 'Star Shopping' 'Sodium' 'crybaby' 'White Iverson'
That was five.
He looked at his inventory of remaining guides. 'Life Is Beautiful' (which he was working on), 'Ghost Girl', 'Paris', 'let's pretend we're numb', 'Drugs You Should Try It'... and the untouchable, 'Runaway'.
He was missing five more songs. Five songs to reach his first milestone. Five songs for his next big reward.
The double anxiety of his life merged into a single path. He had to survive the Ethereum wait. And the only way to do it was to work.
He looked at his desk. He opened the life_is_beautiful_v1 project.
'Let's get to work.'