Chapter 3: The Awakening of the Blockchain Womb

Morning dew condensed on the bronze doorknob of Manhattan's civil courthouse, and Ethan's reflection twisted into barcode shapes in the doorway. As he stepped into Mediation Room 215, the cold air from the central air conditioning lifted the corner of his cheap suit, revealing unhealed burns below his collarbone.

"Ethan K. White?" The redhead looked up from behind The Economist, emerald studs flashing like stock exchange indicators in the morning light. The business card she pushed in was gilded in dark gold around the edges: [Erin Volkow, Chief Legal Counsel, Margaret Technology Group], with the hash of the Bitcoin Genesis block laser-engraved on the back.

The scent of Luna's perfume suddenly pierced her nostrils. Ethan turned around to see her leaning against the doorframe, her pearl gray suit wrapped in edges sharper than a flaming night: "Even divorces have to be booked for tech nouveau riche viewings now?"

The sound of Erin opening the titanium safe was like a bullet being loaded." On December 31, 1999, Ms. Margaret White amended her will seventy-two hours before giving birth." She pushed the yellowed pregnancy test across the desktop, a smiley face Ethan had never seen before emblazoned in the lower right corner of the ultrasound image, "Embryonic DNA sequences encrypted by IBM's Deep Blue computer corresponding to a hexadecimal code that unlocks Swiss bank vaults."

Luna's spiked heels suddenly stepped on the edge of the report, "How romantic, making a living code out of a posthumous child." Her necklace slips out of her collar as she bends over, and the pendant turns out to be the sapphire that was lost on the night of the fire - now refracting in the morning light in geometric patches of light like a blockchain network.

The moment the VR glasses were activated, the NASDAQ trading floor of 1999 exploded on the retina. Twenty-five-year-old Margaret rings the bell with her pregnant belly, the curve of the fetal heartbeat monitor resonating wildly with the Dow Jones under her champagne-colored professional outfit." Darling, when you see this image..." Her fingertips traced burning codes in the virtual air, "... Remember the real currency of Wall Street was never money."

Ethan's spreadsheet suddenly chirped shrilly as the Bitcoin price curve jumped across his irises. When Margaret turned around, the blockchain distributed ledger emerged from the surface of her pregnant belly, and the walls of her uterus were actually translucent integrated circuit boards - his birth was recorded in the 1,780th block, timestamped milliseconds from the Fed's resolution to raise interest rates.

"Interesting little trick." Luna yanked the VR device off his head, her fingernails leaving star-shaped cracks in the lens, "So your mom has a mining machine in her womb and you're her most successful ICO project?"

Erin's pen suddenly pierced the copy of the will, "May I remind you, Mrs. Vanderlinde, that your husband now holds $47 billion worth of private keys." She pulled up a real-time shareholding structure chart on her tablet, the logo of Margaret Technology Group was swallowing up the ticker symbol of the Vanderlinde family business, "Or should I call you... Luna Rothschild?"

The bulletproof glass of the mediation room suddenly reflected a myriad of bouncing K-line charts. Luna's handbag crashed to the floor, rolling out of the mace engraved with "Lulu" - a perfect match for the one Ethan had picked up the night of the fire. As Ethan bent over, her icy snort came from the back of his neck, "How do you think a stray dog on Wall Street pinpointed the Vanderlinders' Golden Fleece three years ago?"

The alarm hissed without warning. Ethan turned his head to see the blood bloom at Erin's temple, the will in her hand was being ignited by a bullet. The infrared spot from the sniper rifle darted between him and Luna like a shattered neon sign on the Nasdaq lobby.

"Jump!" Luna snapped, crashing through the fireproof window as they plummeted to the fluffy pile of cardboard boxes from the garbage truck. Ethan's palm clung to the bandage on her back, and the charred odor of last night's fire mingled with blood as it came flooding in. As the truck lurched toward the Brooklyn Bridge, he felt over the bumps for the flash drive she'd hidden in the edge of her stocking-the interface was shaped exactly like the barcode under his collarbone.

In the shadows of the bridge, Luna chewed open the flash drive's casing, the chip etched with Margaret Technologies' deleted annual financial report." Your mother didn't die in a yacht accident." Her lips turned purple in the diesel exhaust, "She had a cute name for that thing when she invented the AI that could destroy the traditional financial system..."

Helicopters roared by overhead and Ethan read her lips in the propeller storm. The real name of the ghost that for thirty years had been known as "Blockchain 3.0" was seared into his genes with fetal movement - the domain name that Margaret had registered from her hospital bed when she was in labor: EthanWhite.eth.