The keyboard clattered like a countdown to destiny— tak tak tak —each keystroke echoed in the quiet chaos of Alan Turner's dorm room.
He was alone, and had been for the most of the day. His dorm mates were obviously out gallivanting with girls as they usually did.
Jared, Louis, and... Evan.
Alan's fingers paused mid-air. That backstabbing fraud. He didn't want to think about him now and only wanted his focus on what he was presently doing.
The cryptocurrency.
So he shook his head and lowered his fingers to the keyboard once again, tapping away— tak tak tak.
The dorm around him was a battlefield of ambition: textbooks splayed open like fallen soldiers, ramen cups stacked into precarious towers, and a stolen hallway chalkboard now a mosaic of frenetic scribbles— formulas, code snippets, and sprawling network diagrams.
Alan hadn't slept in 36 hours. He had gone to the library last night and when he returned this morning, the room was already empty.
Now, his eyes were burning and his mind a furnace. Sleep could wait. The system couldn't.
He stopped for a while and stared at the computer screen for the result. The terminal glared back, its verdict cold: 'Node Hash: Null.'
Alan's jaw tightened. "No, damn it, work!" he muttered, fingers hovering over the keys.
The ledger chain had collapsed again. There was too much data clogging one block, too little stabilizing another.
The consensus model was a house of cards in a windstorm. He leaned back, the creak of his chair loud in the stillness, and ran a hand through his disheveled hair.
Floating nearby, semi-transparent and serene, was the system interface. No pings, no coddling prompts.
It wasn't here to hold his hand or whisper answers. It was a silent partner, offering not solutions but possibilities— a canvas for those bold enough to paint.
To be honest, Alan found the system to be a bit mean. And judgemental too. That too.
He glared back at this 'silent partner' before returning to the computer to try again.
This time, he decided to ask for help.
He minimized the terminal with a flick of his wrist and opened a new tab, diving into the university's digital archives.
His fingers flew: University Archives > Student Research Submissions > Computer Science Department. Then, a name: 'James, Destiny.'
The search returned a single hit. 'Title: "Trustless Ledgers and Distributed Validation: A Prototype for Autonomous Digital Asset Transfer." Status: 'Rejected— deemed too abstract and impractical.'
Alan's lips twitched. Destiny James was amongst the list of names he had written yesterday.
He had a flash of memory as he remembered her face. She had glasses and brown Harley Quinn-esque pigtails that were more popular at this time.
She'd stood at a tech symposium in 2009, post-Bitcoin fever, claiming she'd pitched a similar concept years earlier.
The room had scoffed, dismissing her as a liar. What? A random girl has thought of the same idea as a pioneer such as Satoshi? No way!
Alan hadn't been there, but he could imagine the scene— her standing tall, voice steady, while smug professors and startup bros tore her apart.
Sighing, he leaned forward.
Her student email was still listed. He opened a new message, his fingers pausing only briefly before typing:
'Hey, Destiny. My name is Alan Walker. We both go to the same university but I'm a Business and Finance student. I found your paper from last year. I'm working on something that builds on your logic. It's real. Want to collaborate?'
He stared at the screen, then added:
'I won't waste your time.'
He hit send, the soft whoosh of the email like a gauntlet thrown into the void.
Then, he picked up his stuff and headed to the library once again to study more on digitizing money.
Though he knew basically everything. His knowledge was limited to the supplies of the timeframe he had been before.
Now in the past when technology was weaker, Alan had to re-create his cryptocurrency using what was available to him.
He left, hoping Destiny would accept the cover.
-------
The next morning, the sky was a slab of slate above the computer science building.
Alan had come here because Destiny had received his email. And she'd agreed.
He spotted her immediately, standing by the entrance, a thermos clutched in one hand, a corduroy jacket draped over her frame.
She had lily bands for her pigtails and her scarf fluttered in the autumn breeze. When he got close to her, she scanned him with the wariness of someone who'd been burned before.
Destiny looked like she'd learned to expect disappointment but hadn't quite given up on proving herself.
"Alan Turner?" she asked with a crisp and direct voice.
He nodded, hands in his pockets. "Thanks for coming."
"I almost didn't," she said, tilting her head. "Thought this might be some kind of prank."
"No prank." He met her gaze, unflinching. "I read your paper."
"You read my paper? Isn't that interesting?" Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Most people don't bother."
"Most people are either foolish or blind." He said to her. "Look. I share your vision too. A digital currency, away from the influence of the government, a market where the more who value it, the higher its worth. This is going to be big in the future."
Destiny gave him a good once-over and crossed her arms, her thermos tucked against her chest like a shield. "Alright, Turner. What do you want from me?"
Alan reached into his backpack and pulled out a worn notebook, its pages dog-eared and smudged with ink. He flipped it open to a double-page spread: a meticulously hand-drawn schematic of a block structure, a chain of data, a distributed validator system.
The lines were clean, the logic ruthless. It was a blueprint for something impossible.
Destiny's breath caught, her eyes darting across the page. She reached for the notebook, then stopped, as if afraid it might vanish. "You… you drew this?"
"I started it," Alan replied. "But it's not done."
"And you want me to help you finish it?"
"No. I can't do this alone. And you're one of the best minds in digital technology that I could get my hands on. I know you searched me in the university website before you came here. Which means you must know that I'm top in my major."
Destiny's eyes flicked back to the diagrams, then to him. She was silent for a long moment, the wind tugging at her scarf. "You're serious about this."
"As a heart attack."
She studied him, searching for a crack in his resolve. Finding none, she asked, "Don't get me all excited for nothing, Alan Turner. What's it called? This… project of yours?"
He shrugged, an unsure look on his face. "Cryptis. For now. Name's a work in progress."
"It's awful," she said flatly.
"Yup. It is."
And then, for the first time, she smiled— a small, guarded thing, but real. It was like a door creaking open, just enough to let the light in.
"Okay, Alan Turner. I'm in." She shrugged once. "Let's partner up and make Cryptids a real thing."
Alan smiled, but then shook his head. "It's Cryptis."
She smirked at him and turned around. "Sounds like the name of a newly discovered insect."
He creased his brows, watching her saunter away. "Cryptis... Cryp... tis." He listened to the word in his mouth. "Yeah. It does sound like an insect's name. Hey! Wait up."
As he hurried towards her, he suddenly got a notification from the system.
[Congratulations on acquiring a partner! Your first reward is ready!]
[Chi-ching! You've been rewarded $1,000,000!]
Alan froze. "What?"