intergalactic repo

The Fires Began in 3037

First Pyros, then Lumina, then Drovak—poof! Up in flames like someone had lit the global Monopoly board on fire after a particularly bad game. The official story? “Climate crisis!” they screamed. Global warming, yada yada. But as someone who spent her life buried in books and connecting the dots, I knew the truth.

“I told you! It’s not the weather; it’s the debtors!” I’d yell to anyone who’d listen, which, to my fluster, was mostly my journal.

Not that I’m some kind of genius.

Solstice Reach—the city I call home—is filled with sun and zero chill, and when you have endless sunshine, you’ve got plenty of time to overthink. The flames hadn’t started here yet, which gave me time to do what I do best: panic-read, overanalyze, and pen my theories in glorious detail.

I should’ve kept quiet.

It started years ago, with Galacoin. Remember Galacoin? That shiny electric nerd token everyone said was the future? By the mid-3020s, it became clear Galacoin wasn’t just a currency. It was a Trojan horse. I’d read too many alien invasion books to miss the signs. The spikes in value? The sudden crashes? The suspicious mining operations in the Valdran Crater? Come on, it was all there!

But we humans, bless our greedy little hearts, saw Galacoin as a savior.

“Rebuild our economies with it,” they said.

“Digital platinum!” they cheered.

Meanwhile, my mind—a temple of pattern recognition—was screaming, This is too perfect. TOO PERFECT.

Turns out, I was right.

January 3037

Farmers in the Ashrun Plains reported glowing skies and weird humming noises. By February, Pyros was ash. It was a spectacle—news drones buzzed over the burning city, live-streaming it to billions. The flames moved with an eerie precision, sparing no building, no street, no life.

And then came the leaked footage: ships the size of football stadiums, chilling in the upper atmosphere like they had VIP access to the apocalypse. They weren’t subtle. They didn’t have to be.

It wasn’t global warming. It wasn’t a conspiracy.

It was intergalactic repo.

We’d defaulted on an alien loan we didn’t even know we’d taken.

“Galacoin wasn’t ours,” Alex—my equally nerdy-but-now-dead conspiracy buddy—had said. “It’s alien tech. The dockchain is just their ledger.” Of course, I’d laughed at him. I mean, aliens sending us money? Please. But hindsight’s a cruel mistress, and Alex was spot on.

The collectors didn’t come to negotiate. Oh no. They came to collect.

March 3037

Cities tied to Galacoin’s infrastructure burned first. Financial hubs, mining farms, server centers—it was like watching a reverse Monopoly game, where the utilities and railroads were the first to go. And you know what? I should’ve known.

The signs were there.

Hidden messages in the dockchain.

Warnings encoded in alien languages we didn’t bother to decrypt.

Why would we?

We were too busy buying tovras and digi-art. The collapse was written in the stars—or rather, in the servers.

And here I was, sitting in my cramped Solstice Reach apartment, thinking, This is it.

We’re the idiots who bought the cursed monkey paw on eStac and clicked “No Returns.”

When the skies over Solstice Reach began to glow, I knew it was time to move. The city had two speeds: party and panic. Now, it was all panic. People ran through the streets, clutching their Tovra keys like they were going to drive out of an alien foreclosure.

I, however, packed my journal, my inhaler, and a sandwich. Priorities.

“Where are you going, Veronica?” my neighbor yelled as I darted out the door.

“To the library! Obviously!” I screamed back.

If there was one thing I’d learned from books, it was that knowledge was power, and the library had Wi-Fi.

April 3037

The fires reached the outskirts of Solstice Reach, and the resistance began to form. Not that we called ourselves that, of course. We were just a ragtag group of nerds, scientists, and the occasional doomsday prepper. We didn’t have a plan. All we had were questions.

Why hadn’t we seen this coming?

Why didn’t anyone decrypt the messages in the dockchain?

And most importantly: How the hell do you fight debt collectors from another galaxy?

The aliens didn’t respond to our desperate messages. Why would they? Debt collectors don’t negotiate. They repossess.

We set up shop in an abandoned server center, cobbling together what little technology remained. The scientists worked on deciphering the alien code, while the rest of us scavenged for supplies and tried not to lose hope.

One night, while I was scribbling furiously in my journal, a young programmer named Maya approached me.

“I found something,” she whispered, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and excitement.

She handed me a printout of alien symbols, accompanied by a rough translation:

“Payment overdue. Penalty: planetary liquidation.”

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to confirm what we already suspected. The collectors weren’t here to destroy us. They were here to collect what they were owed.

May 3037

The fires consumed more cities—Drovak, Lumina, Ethereal. Each time, the resistance grew smaller. The ships moved with the patience of a predator, methodically dismantling our civilization piece by piece.

One night, as I watched the skyline of Solstice Reach smolder in the distance, I couldn’t help but feel a twisted sense of vindication.

“I told you so!” doesn’t feel as great when you’re wearing a gas mask, but still. I told them!

By June, the resistance was down to a handful of us. Maya had managed to decode more of the alien messages, but the information only deepened our despair. The debt wasn’t just financial—it was existential. Galacoin hadn’t been a loan. It had been a test.

The aliens had given us a taste of advanced technology, and we’d failed spectacularly. Our greed, our shortsightedness, our inability to think beyond immediate profit—it had all sealed our fate.

“We’re not fighting a war,” Maya said one night, her voice hollow. “We’re being repossessed.”

As I sit here, watching the flames creep closer to our last refuge, I can’t help but wonder: was there ever a way to avoid this? Could we have passed the test?

Maybe.

But it doesn’t matter now.

Humanity’s greed was its downfall.

And me? I’ll keep writing, even as the ash falls. The collectors can take our cities, our resources, and our Galacoin, but they’ll never take my journal.

I should’ve known better. But at least now, everyone else knows too.