Popucurrency (News Story)

It’s the obscure new form of money, “Popucurrency,” as it’s called by those who swear by its value, is a new kind of money that’s sweeping the global economy. Kit Thompson here, with the investigation.

A golden fox slides in from the right side of the screen. “Thanks, Karen!” he begins.

“That’s right, Pop-you-currency, a new craze that’s being found all across the globe in the hands of entrepreneurs, banks, and even black market websites has been all the rage on the internet lately.”

The camera pans out as the fox holding the microphone walks with intent toward a large capsule, the size of a phone booth, but cylindrical. Kit rests his forearm on it as he continues speaking.

“This is a popu-press,” he continues. “A machine designed to turn people, like my daughter Catherine, here,” he gestures at a nude young vixen of identical coloring as himself, barely out of her teens, as she steps into the machine, “literally into cash money. Of course, the activation switch is on the outside, to prevent any accidental self pressing, when nobody is around to claim the money.” He presses the button on the outside, and the machine quietly whirrs to life.

“Now,” he continues, speaking over the screaming coming from inside the metal deathtrap, “here we have on screen a few diagrams showing what’s going on inside. First--”

The screaming grows louder as the mechanical whirring lowers in pitch, and several pings and pongs echo throughout the machine. The camera pans away from the machine a bit, and Kit steps away

Kit pulls from his pocket a little golden coin and flicks it up into the air before catching it and showing it to the camera, which zooms in closely to show the face side of the coin, and then the rear. “Now if you’ll take a look at this, you’ll see that the inside chamber is lined with several vertical rollers, which crush and elongate the person inside, crumpling their bones and loosening their internal tissues to make the next steps easier, and reduce the likelihood of failed presses.

The screaming abruptly stops as a loud CRACK echoes through the chamber, and the whirring stops.

“Ah, the skull is usually the last bone to break. Now,” he gestures at the side of the screen, where another graphic appears. “Once malleable, a large press comes down and literally crushes what’s left of the person into a flat disc. You can see its progress right here.”

Kit approaches the machine again and demonstrates a little moving indicator sliding down behind a clear pane of plastic, and then points at a second indicator raising up from the ground at the same time. “And here you can see the platform raising up to meet the press at the top. It’s at this point that the remains go through a drying process.” He smiles. “Did you know that the body is over ninety-five percent water?”

“I did not know that,” Karen replies, the camera cutting back to the news room for a moment. “Did you, James?”

The camera pans over to a gray tabby sitting opposite Karen at the table. “Yes, actually,” he begins. “The 70-percent only accounts for fluids like blood and urine. The other twenty-eight percent is actually also mostly water.”

“Fascinating stuff,” Karen says with a smile. “Kit? How are you and your daughter doing over there?”

“Just great, Karen.” Kit indicates a yellow light on the display. “She’s still being dried out, but if you’ll look up…” He indicates upwards and the camera pans in that direction, showing a plume of steam rocketing out of the top of the device. “It shouldn’t be much longer before it’s ready to finish pressing her into a popucoin.”

As if on queue, the light turns green, and the machine starts whirring again, sick crunching crumpling sounds coming from within. The machinery squeals and pops and clicks as the two indicators come closer and closer together, until they nearly touch.

“There we go, and the last step is to wait for the plating to begin. Now, this machine here does nickel plating, but for a premium, you can have your popucoin electrocoated with nearly any other metal you wish, since it doesn’t change the printed value of the coin, which is assigned randomly to every new coin.” He smiles. “It’s like gambling, except you always get something back. Let’s see what we ended up with!”

The machine whirrs open with a burst of steam. “Wow,” Kit muses. “Smells like ozone.” He reaches in and plucks up the tiny shiny disc inside and shows it to the camera. “Now you can see here,” he says, pointing at a tiny number 5 emblazoned behind what appears to be a miniature broken face, a tiny fox muzzle bent to the right, a skull cracked down the middle and something dribbling from an empty eye socket, all coated in shiny colorless nickel. “This is worth five popucoin. That’s around two hundred dollars back home, so we came out lucky this time!” He smiles, flipping the coin around to show the smashed backside of the coin, little silvery bumps showing where bones protruded from the vixen’s backside during the second crushing. “I’ve heard that some people walk away with as little as one one-thousandth of a popucoin before. Of course, time will tell if this new currency has the staying power to be worth it in the long run. Karen?”
“Thanks again, Kit.”

Kit smiles and pockets the coin as his feed slides off the screen.

Karen turns back to the camera. “Coming up after the break, is Cuddles for Cubs secretly a pedophile ring? Stay tuned for the story.”