The Big One

Rumbling preceded the explosions; hopeless wailing followed. Chemicals, debris, and smoke filled the air –– a deadly haze of incalculable proportion. My backpacks pounded against my chest, then my back. Chest, back. Chest, back.

This organic Newton’s cradle was all I could salvage. One pack had cash, my birth certificate and passport, a chess game to keep myself sane, and a radio-compass. The other was overflowing with protein bars and a filled up water pouch.

Bliss

“Yo have fun with tutoring dude! Math today right?” asked Jessie

”English actually –– I prepared an article for them to dissect. We’re gonna focus on flow and information presentation. Couple kids wanna be journalists so I hope they appreciate it” I replied

”Ugh sounds so rewarding” she sighed, “I’m still on the retrofitting grind. We’re meeting our metrics here, obvs, but these Russian Hill boomers are a pain in the ass. They can get wrecked for all I care”

”Too bad bud, someone’s gotta save them from themselves” I teased back as I pocked her ribs, “Have fun!”

A familiar buzz tingled my pocket as I hopped on my bike. Strolling down Valencia, the improvements were evident: Tables clustered around fountains, trees canopied the median, speakers replaced traffic lights. Music. Laughter. No longer did we suffer the rumbling engines and incessant honking. Smiling families walked abreast and flurries of bikes streamed down the street next to them. Grass-covered pedestrian walkways replaced the dirty old asphalt.

I docked my bike infront of the center.

“You spared 404 grams of CO2: BIKT transferred to your wallet” read my phone screen.

Few dapps had gripped San Francisco’s attention quite like Bikt. The premise was simple: get rewarded 1 BIKT per carbon gram you saved relative to driving a car. Given this city’s obsession with virtue signaling, their leaderboard feature made usage skyrocket in the past year. Most streets had been similarly converted to pedestrian-biking havens. Only major thoroughfares accommodated cars nowadays.

Large bay windows sandwiched by organic walls. Through the windows you could see the iconic mural –– a joyful sun providing rays to a field of wheat. I opened up Rainbow and scanned the QR code at the door. My wallet read: “gm André, would you like to sign-in to your 1pm session? ‘Cancel’ ‘Sign’”. Tapping the ‘Sign’ button, a new screen appeared, “Welcome! Your rate is 50 EDU per student. Enjoy :D”

Aftermath

An 8.5 Mw earthquake. Near $7 Billion in damages. 40,000 lives lost, more than 400,000 homes destroyed. Despite repeated assurances from Chevron their refinery couldn’t handle such a magnitude. North Bay was in flames; SF’s wharf was leveled. Richmond, Oakland, and Berkeley burned for 2 days. The days of teaching probability and retrofitting seemed so far gone. To think that was only 5 days ago. God, please spare Jessie. When I left for my session I never thought it’d be the last time we’d see each other.

Wildfire

I collected the half-dozen annotated articles and fed them through the scanner. After dinner I’d mint each of these on behalf of the students, along with feedback on their analysis. Huh. Maybe the original reporter would give them feedback as well. With proof of provenance built into these DNAs they’re bound to get a notification of its use.

EducaSun was another wild success –– peer-to-peer tutoring: Tutors would provide schedules and courses then students would signup at their convenience. Instead of getting their schedule mandated to them by out of touch principals, learners would place themselves at their desired level. Kids, now animated by intrinsic desire for knowledge, no longer felt constant peer-pressure to overachieve.

My clock read “2:30”. “Perfect” I muttered as I left the building. Swiping over to that yellow square, I thought about all the progress we’d made. 4 years ago this was a district like any other, polluted and rent burdened. Since Engagemint released however, we’d seen transformative change; My thumb hit the dark yellow, flower shaped “E”. A dashboard popped up. It was titled “Earthquake preparedness –– 4/20/2026” followed by 3 buttons: “Proposal Summary” “Call In” “Write In”

Cryptoeconomic networks had taken the world by storm. Previously relegated to the status of criminal-enabling-money-laundering-scams, a plethora of attractive usecases were developed overtime. Once users realized they could program their own incentives into the currency they used, adoption exploded. It all started 4 years, in 2022, with the release of Engagemint. Engagemint rewarded participants for volunteering in their communities –– first for trash cleanups, then housing development advocacy. Eventually the ecosystem grew to over 50 mutually supportive organization. Bikt and EducaSun were both spinoffs of their own.

Mission District was the first battleground to emerge in the battle for local housing development. Rent-burdened families went up against longtime homeowners who refused to see their net worth decrease. Crossfire was heard during the weekly Board of Supervisor and Housing Committee meetings. Housing advocacy groups seized this opportunity, demanding additional safety measures and proper earthquake preparedness for new construction.

By attending