Morning of Day Three Five days until the apocalypse.
Ryan stepped out of the shower in his hotel suite, wrapped in a plush bathrobe, hair still dripping.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city was waking up—early morning sunlight painting the skyline gold, traffic beginning to build on the highways, people starting another normal day in a world that had less than a week left.
Ryan pulled back the curtains and looked down at the urban sprawl below.
Last night’s weapons were safely stored in his infinite space, ready to be deployed when needed.
But it wasn’t enough.
Nothing was ever enough.
The fortress construction was burning through money at an insane rate.
The supply stockpiling had already cost him nearly $700 million.
And while $2.2 billion sounded like a fortune, in the context of preparing for literal apocalypse, it was barely adequate.
He needed more.
Much more.
Ryan sat down at the desk and opened his laptop.
Pulled up his banking app.
Account balance: $1,512,000,000 After paying all the supplier invoices yesterday and wiring another $100 million to Marcus for the fortress construction, he’d burned through nearly $700 million in a single day.
But that money was well-spent.
Those were resources that would keep him alive.
Now, Ryan was going to use the remaining $1.5 billion to tap into something even more volatile and potentially lucrative than the nickel futures market.
Cryptocurrency.
He opened an encrypted trading platform—one based in the Cayman Islands with minimal regulatory oversight and maximum transaction privacy.
Then he picked up his phone and dialed David.
“Ryan?
It’s seven in the morning, what—” “David, I need to convert currency.
One point five billion dollars.
I need it moved into USDT—that’s a cryptocurrency stablecoin.
Can you handle that?” Silence on the other end.
Then: “One point five…
Ryan, what the hell are you doing?
That’s almost everything you have left!
And crypto?
Do you have any idea how volatile—” “David, I don’t have time to explain.
I need you to use every connection you have—banks, currency brokers, crypto exchanges—and get me $1.5 billion converted to USDT as fast as possible.
Can you do it or not?” Another pause.
“Yeah.
Yeah, I can do it.
But Ryan, this is insane.
You’re gambling with your entire fortune on—” “Just make it happen.
I’ll explain later.
I need the USDT in my trading account within three hours.
Can you deliver?” David sighed heavily.
“I’ll call in every favor I’ve got.
You’ll have it by ten-thirty AM.
But Ryan, if you’re wrong about whatever you’re planning…” “I’m not wrong,” Ryan said quietly.
“Trust me.” He hung up before David could argue further.
Ryan leaned back in his chair and pulled up the cryptocurrency trading platform on his laptop.
In an inconspicuous corner of the market listings, a coin with the ticker SGC sat quietly, barely registering any volume.
Deep Space Coin.
This was his target.
In Ryan’s previous timeline, about three weeks before the apocalypse hit, a famous tech billionaire had announced his “Mars Colonization Initiative”—an ambitious plan to establish a self-sustaining human settlement on Mars within ten years.
And he’d declared that Deep Space Coin would be the official “ecological currency” of this new Martian economy.
The announcement had sent the crypto markets into absolute hysteria.
Retail investors, institutional funds, celebrities, influencers—everyone piled into SGC like it was the last lifeboat off a sinking ship.
People genuinely believed they were buying tickets to humanity’s future.
The price had gone from less than a penny to over $100 in about 36 hours.
A ten-thousand-fold increase.
Then, at the absolute peak of the mania, the tech billionaire and his insider cronies had quietly sold every coin they held, cashing out tens of billions of dollars.
The market collapsed instantly.
The price cratered back to zero within hours.
Millions of people lost their life savings.
Suicides spiked.
Regulatory agencies opened investigations that would never conclude because the apocalypse intervened.
But the insiders?
They walked away as some of the richest people on Earth.
Ryan checked the time: 7:43 AM.
According to his memory, the billionaire’s announcement would come at 9:30 AM.
Which meant Ryan had less than two hours to position himself before the feeding frenzy began.
9:28 AM.
Ryan’s phone chimed.
He checked the notification: DEPOSIT CONFIRMED: 1,480,000,000 USDT David had come through.
After exchange fees and conversion losses, Ryan had just under $1.5 billion worth of stablecoin sitting in his trading account.
Ryan pulled up the Deep Space Coin trading page.
The ticker was still showing minimal activity.
Price: $0.01 per coin.
A few thousand dollars in daily volume.
Nobody was paying attention to it.
Ryan’s pulse quickened.
9:30 AM.
Somewhere in California, a tech billionaire was about to send out a tweet that would break the internet.
Ryan’s fingers hovered over his keyboard.
This was different from the nickel trade.
Futures markets were regulated, tracked, predictable.
You could analyze supply chains, geopolitical events, industrial demand.
Cryptocurrency was pure chaos.
No regulations, no oversight, no rational price discovery.
Just hype, manipulation, and raw greed.
The volatility could swing ten thousand percent in either direction based on nothing but a tweet.
This wasn’t a market.
This was a casino rigged by the house, and Ryan was about to try to cheat the house.
But he had an advantage no one else had: he knew the future.
9:32 AM.
Ryan’s trading platform refreshed.
A notification banner appeared: BREAKING: Tech Entrepreneur Announces Mars Colony, Endorses SGC as Official Currency Here we go.
Ryan didn’t panic.
Didn’t rush.
If he dumped all $1.48 billion into SGC at once, he’d send the price skyrocketing instantly, making his own cost basis astronomical and potentially spooking other investors.
He needed to be smart.
Strategic.
Ryan started buying in controlled batches.
BUY: $1,000,000 The order executed.
The price barely moved.
Still at $0.01.
BUY: $1,000,000 Another million.
The price ticked up slightly to $0.02.
BUY: $2,000,000 Slow and steady.
Accumulating position without causing panic.
Ryan kept buying—small chunks, gradually increasing size, spreading the purchases across multiple exchanges to avoid detection.
$0.035 $0.08 $0.15 $0.31 He was hoovering up every cheap coin on the market before anyone else realized what was happening.
By the time Ryan had deployed all $1.48 billion, the price had climbed to $0.78 per coin.
His average cost basis: $0.45 per coin.
Which meant his position was already up 73%.
Over $100 million in profit in less than thirty minutes.
In any normal context, that would be life-changing money.
But Ryan’s face remained expressionless.
Because he knew this was just the beginning.
The real tsunami was about to hit.
9:47 AM.
The market detonated.
It was like someone had thrown gasoline on a campfire.
The price of Deep Space Coin—which had been climbing slowly as Ryan accumulated—suddenly went vertical.
$1.00 $3.50 $8.20 $15.00 Social media was exploding.
Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram—everyone was screaming about SGC.
“DEEP SPACE COIN TO THE MOON!” “Just sold my car and bought SGC!
Let’s gooooo!” “This is it!
The future of humanity!
Mars colony baby!” Financial news networks scrambled to cover the story.
CNBC brought on “crypto experts” who’d never heard of SGC until ten minutes ago to explain why it was the investment opportunity of a lifetime.
Influencers shilled it.
Celebrities tweeted about it.
Retail investors mortgaged their houses to buy in.
The feeding frenzy had begun.
$22.00 $31.00 $44.00 Ryan watched the number in his account balance grow at a nauseating pace.
$3 billion.
$5 billion.
$7 billion.
Every few seconds, another hundred million in unrealized gains.
By 1:47 PM—just four hours after the announcement—Deep Space Coin hit $51.00 per coin.
Ryan’s account balance: $11,340,000,000 Eleven point three billion dollars.
He’d turned $1.5 billion into over $11 billion in four hours.
Ryan’s hands were shaking.
His breathing was shallow.
Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the hotel room’s air conditioning.
This was insane.
Unprecedented.
The kind of return that hedge fund managers dreamed about for their entire careers.
But Ryan knew the danger.
In his previous timeline, the price had eventually peaked around $103 per coin before collapsing.
Which meant if he held, he could potentially double his money again.
But…
Ryan stared at the screen, his mind racing.
His entry into the market—nearly $1.5 billion deployed over thirty minutes—had been like dumping rocket fuel into an already overheating engine.
He’d accelerated the pump.
Made it more violent.
More unstable.
Which meant the butterfly effect was in play.
Maybe the peak would be higher.
Maybe lower.
Maybe the crash would come sooner.
Maybe the whole thing would glitch out and freeze trading.
Cryptocurrency markets were fragile.
A single whale selling could trigger a cascade.
A server error could lock everyone out.
The billionaire could tweet something ambiguous and tank confidence.
If Ryan got greedy and held too long, he could lose everything.
$11 billion was enough.
More than enough.
But that nagging voice in his head whispered: What if it goes to $100?
You’d make another ten billion…
Ryan closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe.
Greed had destroyed more traders than bad analysis ever had.
He’d seen it in his previous life—people who’d made fortunes in the early days of the apocalypse, only to lose everything because they couldn’t walk away from the table.
$56.00 His account: $12.4 billion $61.00 $13.5 billion The number kept climbing.
Ryan’s finger hovered over the “SELL ALL” button.
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