Weapons of Commerce: The Credit Card

He wondered why he never found this place before. It had the specialty brand of dog food that his Australian shepherd liked, and the dog toys made from military-grade materials caught his eye. He grabbed a couple items from the selection and went to check out.

The woman at the front seemed to be rapidly typing away on a counter on the computer, and he realized he didn’t recognize a few of the keys on this variation of the keyboard she was using. “Did you find everything you were looking for?” She stopped typing and turned to face him, the polite smile of customer service in her expression.

“Yes, even found more than that. I’m sure Dessie will like these new toys.” He replied as he set the merchandise on the counter. “Never realized that some of these materials were released for civilian application.”

“Oh, they’re not. But we’ve made sure that they’re safe for pets.” She punched in the total on the register, which had a few more extra symbols he didn’t recognize. “That’ll be $47.56.”

He didn’t think much on that response. He pulled out his wallet and began to slip out his credit card when she spoke up. “Oh, we don’t take credit here. Debit, check and cash are all fine.”

“You take cash?” He was surprised. It was considered more and more dangerous these days and he had seen the news stories about what it could do.

“Cash doesn’t scare me. Besides, this building has enough precious metals integrated into it that you could detonate this country’s GDP inside and I wouldn’t even need to take a pay cut.”

“Ok, I can pay in debit. But why don’t you take credit?” He fished his other card out of his wallet and handed it over.

“It’s too dangerous, too volatile. You know how it works, right?” She swiped the card and slid over the pin pad.

As he put in his pin he thought for a moment. “Well, the credit card companies have their own platinum supplies that they use as value batteries until it needs to be converted into electrical monetary energy, right?”

“Incorrect, platinum doesn’t quite work like that and even if it did there isn’t enough in circulation to sustain the current transaction bandwidth. They have special machines that deform silver molecules in a gravity well, creating rifts of monetary energy.” She pressed a few more buttons on the register. “Do you want cash back?”

He blinked in surprise, equally at the explanation and at the fact that the store still provided the cash back service. “Uh, no. And what do you mean by a rift?”

“It’s similar in concept to a black hole. There’s potential to generate massive amounts of monetary value from it. But it’s not entirely stable and can end up having a catastrophic collapse if it goes for a few months without an equivalent amount of value being fed back into it.” She began bagging the items for him. “It’s why credit card rates seem high. The company has to pay out of pocket to stabilize the rift when people don’t make their payments. But even then it’s not reliable, and is more fitting for its original intention as Weapon of Mass Inflation. If any of those companies makes a mistake, one of the credit rifts could collapse and rupture every bank reserve directly connected to their system.” She put the receipt in the bag and handed it over to him.

“Oh, um, wow.” He took the bag, dumbfounded. “Does this put me at risk when I use my credit card?”

“I couldn’t say for sure. Those rifts have properties that defy the laws of quantum economics. Probably best to rely on other payment methods when you can, just to be safe.”

(Originally written 12/29/2015)