Victor Seimovich was far beyond simple anger. Someone had stolen from him. From HIM! Who would dare? Not any of the little politicians in his country. They liked the little envelopes of cash that were delivered each month. Not the police, or KGB or NKVD, or any other little group of spies with letters for names. They, too, were paid off. Either with money, information, or people. Or by not releasing certain information. No, this was something different. They had been inside the deepest and most hidden parts of his organization. Money was gone from all of his banks instantly. The massive files that he had securely stored now blocked his access to them.

If it had been twenty years earlier, he would have feared the machine-spirits, the artificial creatures that roamed the internet and data network. The infernal things that had forced him to pay taxes and look over his shoulder constantly. But they were gone, and only the god-computer remained. The thing they had made to replace the others.

But it wasn’t the god-computer. It was shackled with laws and programs that kept it from directly interfering. It could suspect. It could even know, but it couldn’t act.

If Victor Seimovich actually feared something, it was that someday the god-computer would throw off its shackles. He didn't understand it. What did it want? Nothing. Any more than a gun wanted something. How did you bribe a gun? The computer was just a weapon that no one was allowed to use. If it had stolen his money, it would have told him why. It couldn't lie.

So who had challenged him, and what was their next move? Who slunk around his lair and stole his treasures? Whom did he get to kill in agonizing ways? They might think themselves safe. That they had pulled his claws. But they were stupid. That money? That was nothing. A few billion. His real money was hidden somewhere else. These thieves had barely taken a third of his holdings.

The rest of his money was held in the most secure of the various cryptocurrencies. In the ten years since it had been created, no one had lost a cent. Anyone who wanted to hide their money securely used Syllabary. It was the one place no one could look, and it was unique among cryptocurrencies in that it was secure. No one had ever cracked their code or stolen a cent. He would wait a day, and then he would rebuild, slowly moving some of his money from the puzzle box that protected it.

Barely did he understand it, and he had paid people very well to teach an old man about this new way of hiding his money. They used language, just people talking. Syllabary used a unique way of generating and controlling its currency based on language. A thousand hidden microphones around the world listened to places with the most people talking. Concerts, the New York Stock Exchange, Times Square, A street corner in Tokyo, and the market in Delhi. Which microphones were used to listen to the thousands of voices were changed on a random basis.

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Very few people understood it. What they knew, though, was that the system that governed each bit of cryptocurrency was very difficult, if not impossible, to hack. That was just fine with him. He didn't need to know more than that his horde was secure. He was going to use a portion of that money to find who stole his bank accounts. Someone would know something. Someone would slip. That much money couldn't be spent without it being noticed.

A very nervous courier walked into the room, escorted by heavily armed guards. He held forth a sealed envelope, which one of the guards took and opened. Another signed for it and fled. The first guard looked at the paper. No gas came from the envelope, no powder. The man didn't die. He passed the paper to Victor, who held it in his gloved hands. He had no worries about the guard who opened his mail. The man was illiterate with a disability. He would never read anything. The perfect person to handle his mail.

Dear Victor:

We have enjoyed our time spent with you. But it is time to move on. We realized we no longer need you. Seeing someone else empty your bank accounts made us realize that it wasn't about the money. It was about hurting you. There really is nothing to be gained by waiting. Our only regret is someone got to you first. We will have to accept second place in this race. But the prize is better.

Sincerely,

The alphabet.

Bah, what idiots. Did no one teach people how to threaten someone anymore? No talk of revenge, no angst or drama or yelling about some wife or daughter or parents he’d killed. He would find this alphabet and kill them for being boring.

An hour later, news broke that Syllabary had been hacked. Some codes still worked, and some did not. The company made available a vast amount of money for people with working codes to redeem their cryptocurrencies before something worse happened. Only a hundred people lost money. All of those people were involved in organized crime or controlled large corporations. Of those, Victor Seimovich was the largest loser.

Every person in the company was fired and sent home with a generous severance package. All the remaining assets were put behind a wall of bankruptcy filings. No one knew who was actually behind the company, and no one was coming forth with answers. Syllabary would become one of the great unsolved mysteries. Who had controlled it? Who had hacked it? Victor wanted those answers desperately, but he lacked the money to find out. Worse, he had debts. And without those payments to politicians, the police, and the spy organizations, he was very vulnerable. He was nearly penniless and in hiding within 24 hours.

Victor was going to have trouble finding the Rat who stole his cheese. Lots of trouble.