“Give me liberty, or give me loss of life!” Ben James stated, poking the air along with his fork to emphasise. I smiled again at my husband as he loved the steak I’d grilled within the yard. He was telling me in regards to the second Citadel he wished to create, this one affiliated with us, run like ours, however on Mars. We had sufficient wealth and weapons from his father’s early Bitcoin purchases to create a number of cities if we wished to. And Ben James wished to.
I seemed over at our daughter, Marla, dutifully whipping up sandwiches for her brothers earlier than they got here house; she was lovely, the solar shining behind her lengthy hair as a breeze blew by means of our kitchen home windows and gently rustled her sundress within the scorching summer season air, her apron accentuating her slender waist. We made eye contact, deep understanding and realizing passing between us. My youngest daughter, 6 yr outdated Eloise, sat on the desk doing her studying lesson.
In Ben James’ citadel, each baby was house schooled. A few of us mothers cooperated to lighten the load, educating one other’s kids for a yr or two, then switching it up.
“They are saying Mars is just like the Previous West,” Marla stated. I turned away, realizing earlier than both spoke one other phrase how this dialog would go. “Survival is so tough that ladies should be prepared to behave like males, to do all the things males do, whether or not as a result of there’s a lot to do or as a result of the lads die.”
Ben James set down his fork, eyebrow raised as he assessed her. “Maybe these boys simply haven’t found out the best way to be masculine but,” he stated. “That habits wouldn’t be tolerated in my citadel on Mars any greater than it’s right here. No lady of mine will ever work for an additional man. I gained’t have whores in my household, or in my Citadels.”
Marla acquired a sly look on her face. “So what does that make the lads working for different males?” she quipped slyly. “Didn’t you used to work for—“
Ben James’ chair made a painful screech on the ground as he exploded to his toes. My husband and my teenage daughter stared one another down, and I wished to seize her arm, pull her again, inform her to cease being a rebellious and impulsive baby. In a Citadel, the phrase of the Sovereign was legislation. And he might exile you, or worse, on a whim.
“You’re a younger, chaotic lady,” he stated quietly. “You can’t perceive how the worlds work. You might have all the things you want. As a household, we’re free from the tyrannies of the State. And you might be fortunate sufficient to be the place you belong. Ladies are most blissful within the house, cooking, working with kids. I’ll hear no extra of this foolishness.”
“Sure, sure, Bitcoin provides Freedom,” Marla smiled. “With out freedom, higher loss of life.” In a approach solely a young person might, she grinned deviously at him, mouth pursed, and went again to dramatically ending the sandwiches. “I achieve this love spreading mayonnaise on slices of bread whereas my brothers are out purchasing for rockets to a distant planet.”
“GET OUT!” Ben James shouted.
“Gladly.”
Marla left, smugly dropping the knife on the unfinished sandwiches.
I sighed, him sympathetically. “She’ll be taught,” I stated.
“Jeremy was right here yesterday,” he stated.
“Oh?” I requested, my coronary heart beginning to pace.
“He wish to marry her.”
I brightened my eyes with pleasure. “He would carry her into line.”
Lastly! I had been planning for this for years.
“Certainly. Just a few extra years and his Bitcoin holdings might be sufficient for a small Citadel of his personal. No metropolis, however definitely a small city or massive ranch, housing a dozen different households. He would run it extraordinarily properly.”
My 4 sons all bumped into the house on the identical time; 7 yr outdated Jared, 13 yr outdated Bo, and the 17 yr outdated twins, Jackson and Luke.
Ben James smiled broadly and sat again down at his steak. “End their sandwiches,” he advised me.
I laughed good-naturedly and turned with a smile to the counter, and set to work ending their meals.
Ben James had approval in his voice. “That, boys, is an efficient lady! By no means ask a girl to make you something for dinner; you will need to inform her. If she says no, stroll away. If she complains about the way you ordered her, discover one other lady. A basic take a look at of a girl’s high quality.”
I handed my sons their meals, and requested Luke how the day had gone.
He smiled at me. “A bunch of stuff you wouldn’t perceive,” he advised me lovingly.
I considered my days earlier than the battle broke out, earlier than society had damaged down into anarchy, after I had been at school studying the best way to construct the very rockets he was possible buying. He had no concept how they ran.
However Ben James all the time stated making rockets would by no means fulfill me. It was within the house that my happiness was. I smiled at my 4 boys and Eloise, at my husband. These days, stuffed with curiosity and problem-solving, have been behind me. The riches of my father-in-law made it potential for me to be really blissful right here, on this house, with out the dopamine rushes of mental and engineering issues solved every day.
I believed I had married Ben James out of affection. However he had defined quickly afterward that ladies married hypergamously, to outlive, for the reason that daybreak of time. Ladies weren’t made to like males, solely to respect them. It was his job to like me, to offer and defend, the best way I did the kids. He had taught me lots, and his ardour for self-sovereignty had contaminated me.
My eyes rested on the quote framed in the lounge. “I do not imagine we will ever have a very good cash once more earlier than we take the factor out of the fingers of presidency, that’s, we will not take it violently out of the fingers of presidency, all we are able to do is by some sly roundabout approach introduce one thing that they can not cease.”
Bitcoin. The device that had equalized the facility dynamics between the highly effective and the dominated. The technique of freedom for thousands and thousands of individuals. The good uplifter.
I smiled.
When Ben James sat Marla down the subsequent day and advised her she was to marry Jeremy, I used to be impressed at her stillness. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even look in my course. She stared blankly on the ground for a number of seconds. After a second she acquired a small smile on her face and seemed Ben James instantly within the eyes. “Father.” She blinked. “You’ve all the time taught me a lot.”
He seemed shocked. “And?”
She shrugged. “That’s all. I need you to know that regardless of all the things, I’ve taken it to coronary heart.”
He checked out me, bemused. However then advised her, “You’re to be married in two months, as soon as all the marriage particulars are organized. You and your mom will work it out.”
Marla lastly checked out me. There was a brand new seriousness on her face I had by no means seen earlier than. However I understood; she was prepared.
I’d been getting ready for this marriage ceremony day for years and the items fell simply into place; renting the chapel a mile away from house, buying and packing up clothes for her honeymoon, transferring the cash her father had saved as a dowry to new UTXOs, prepared to affix funds along with her husband. My daughter was affluent, wealthy sufficient to personal her personal land, a substantial amount of it.
My husband noticed the cost to the airline later within the day. “I see you bought her honeymoon tickets. Just a little expensive.”
I grimaced. “I wished them to fly personal.”
“It’s okay, I ought to’ve executed it. I do know ladies don’t actually like funds. It’s not your fault they overcharged you.”
I shrugged, remembering the primary time he had hit me; I’d spent cash on a airplane ticket, planning a visit to go to my mates. He had made it clear that ladies touring alone for enjoyable all the time led to affairs and evil, particularly when going with their feminine mates. Later he had defined that wanting to go to my mom was equally taboo. I knew that after marrying Jeremy, Marla wouldn’t be coming to go to anymore. She would keep house along with her kids even when Jeremy visited Ben James.
Two months later, all the things was prepared. “We’ll meet you on the church,” I advised Ben James. My eyes landed on the framed quote as soon as extra. “Some sly roundabout approach.”
The boys headed to the bachelor occasion whereas Marla, Jared, and Eloise piled into the automotive whereas I put Marla’s honeymoon suitcase within the trunk. We have been to fulfill on the chapel that night for the marriage. Marla and I smiled at one another as Ben James and my older sons drove away.
We acquired into the automotive. Two hours later we reached our vacation spot. I grabbed her suitcase, which held garments for myself, Marla, and the 2 younger kids. In my head and Marla’s as properly have been the identical twelve phrases. We hurried to the personal airplane awaiting us, and the pilot stepped ahead himself to fulfill us and confirm our 4 discounted tickets, earlier than escorting us into the inside. We have been within the air ten minutes later.
__________________________
We’d been residing in Rockson Citadel for six years. It had taken a complete two years for Ben James to search out us. He rapidly realized that we had fled to a small nation that was way more affluent than he was. There was nothing he might do to get us again. I had my very own Bitcoin that he had by no means identified something about, sufficient to flee, to rent safety, and he couldn’t attain us—I not feared for our lives.
Quickly I used to be participating within the prosperity of Rockson, not in a Citadel with the brainpower of solely 50% of it’s inhabitants, solely capable of buy rundown rockets, however in Rockson, a society that constructed new ones and created innovation. I added my insatiable curiosity and pleasure of discovery, my mind energy, to everybody else’s, contributing to society and the rocket business. My many feminine colleagues labored with the lads, and our mixed mind energy had us gentle years forward of tiny backward Citadels like Ben James’. Our weaponry alone might wipe his metropolis off the planet earlier than he’d have time to level that…
