Chapter [7]: [MARKED TO MARKET]
The price moved while Ethan was asleep.
Not by much. Barely enough to matter to anyone who wasn't paying attention. A few forum posts noticed it, half-joking about a "breakout," half-accusing someone of manipulation. The mood was restless, electric in a low-voltage way.
Ethan noticed it immediately anyway.
Not because the number was higher—but because it had changed.
Markets, even embryonic ones, had a way of teaching you where your mind actually lived. He felt the subtle shift in his body before he saw it on the screen: a lightness in the chest, a faint alertness, as if his system had detected prey.
He closed the wallet tab.
Marked to market, he reminded himself, didn't mean realized.
At work, a new hire shadowed him—a college kid named Trevor, eager, unfocused, already complaining about the monotony. Ethan showed him how to clear jams, how to listen for the sound that meant the rollers were misaligned.
"You've been here a while?" Trevor asked.
"Long enough."
Trevor laughed. "Man, I couldn't do this for years."
Ethan said nothing.
At lunch, he sat outside, sandwich untouched, watching clouds drift between buildings. He thought about the last time he'd felt this particular tension—when an early-stage company he'd invested in years ago had announced a surprise partnership. The paper gains had been intoxicating. The crash, inevitable.
Don't live in the mark, he told himself. Live in the process.
That evening, Noah came home energized, talking fast about his contract work, about an idea the team was kicking around, about the possibility—just the possibility—of something bigger.
"You should see this," Noah said, pulling up a rough demo on his laptop. "It's nothing yet, but—"
Ethan watched, genuinely interested. Not because he wanted in, but because he recognized the posture: hope with a technical foundation. Dangerous, but real.
"It's good," Ethan said. "But guard your equity."
Noah blinked. "Already negotiating?"
"Always."
Noah laughed. "You sound like a dad."
Ethan smiled, then felt the smile fade. He was thinking about equity too—his own, in systems that didn't issue shares.
Later that night, Maya came over for the first time. The apartment felt suddenly smaller, more exposed. She took in the mismatched furniture, the stack of books by the window, the careful austerity.
"You live lightly," she observed.
"I've learned to," Ethan said.
They sat close but not touching, talking about her coursework, about his reading. When she asked what he was researching, he gave her a trimmed version of the truth.
"Alternative monetary systems," he said. "Trust failures."
She studied him. "You're not doing this as a hobby."
"No."
"Are you doing it as an escape?"
The question landed harder than she probably intended.
"Maybe," he admitted. "From repetition."
She nodded, accepting that answer without pressing further.
When she left, Ethan stood in the doorway longer than necessary, listening to her footsteps fade. He felt the tug of attachment—and the counterweight of caution.
That night, the careful forum user messaged again.
"I moved some funds to Mt. Gox," they wrote. "Just testing."
Ethan stared at the screen, jaw tight.
Nothing happens yet, he thought. Not for years.
But markets didn't care about "yet." They only cared about exposure.
He replied with a single line: Document everything.
Then he shut the laptop.
In bed, sleep came slowly. Numbers drifted behind his eyes, not as prices but as relationships—between trust and time, between mark and reality.
He knew this phase well.
The part where things seemed calm.
The part where everyone relaxed.
The part just before consequences started to compound.