"2040": Chapter 6. Architecture Of Deception
Welcome to the world of my prognostic novel "2040" – a future that could come to pass… but absolutely should not.
You can read the previous chapter of “2040” by following the link.
CHAPTER 6: ARCHITECTURE OF DECEPTION
Let’s leave Jamie with his memories of his father and Max with the steel balls in his pocket for a second. Rewind. Let’s climb up to 10,000 feet and look at Europe in 2040 through an observer’s eyes. How did it become like this? And more importantly, why did four hundred and fifty million people let them do it?
Spoiler: there was no revolution. No tanks in the streets. There was comfort. Convenience. A silent majority. And a very, very slow boiling of water with frogs swimming in it.
Here we go.
Welcome to 2040.
Let me walk you through Europe, where financial freedom has reached such heights that citizens no longer waste time on stupid questions like “Is this my money?” or “Can I buy what I want?”. The system decides for them. Convenient, right?
You think this happened in one day? That Europeans woke up one morning and someone announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, from today we see every eurocent you have, every transaction, every connection. Welcome to the future”?
No, my dears. This was art. Slow, methodical, beautiful art of persuasion and habituation. Layer by layer. Directive after directive. Smile after smile.
Let’s start from the very beginning. From the moment when Europeans were sold the digital euro disguised as “innovation for your convenience”.
Here we go.
I. DIGITAL EURO: TROJAN HORSE IN GUCCI
Year 2029. Brussels. ECB press conference.
Sarah Miller (well, or whoever took Christine Lagarde’s chair by 2029, details don’t matter, faces change, predatory smiles remain) stands at the podium. Behind her, a giant screen: happy family buying croissants with one smartphone tap.
Slogan: “Digital Euro. Your future. Your choice.”
Miller (or her clone):
“Dear citizens of Europe! Today we launch the digital euro. It will not replace cash. This is simply an additional option. For those who want instant payments, security, control over their finances.”
Applause. Journalists nod. Everything looks noble.
Stop. Rewind for a second. “Control over your finances”? Whose control, one might ask? Yours? Or the ECB, which now sees every single transaction you make?
But it doesn’t matter. Because in 2029 people hear “instant payments” and think: “Oh, how convenient!”. Nobody reads the fine print. And there, my friends, it says:
“The digital euro is a personal account of the citizen in the European Central Bank. All transactions are registered in a distributed ledger to ensure transparency and security.”
Let me translate to human: you no longer hold money in a bank. You hold it in the ECB. And the bank is just a pretty app that displays numbers.
But who cares? It works! Fast! Convenient!
By 2032, 78% of transactions in Europe are digital. Cash? Well, it still exists. Somewhere. In your grandma’s stocking under the bed. Or in the bar under the church, where stalkers drink away their findings from the Zones.
Technical detail (for geeks):
The digital euro is not blockchain (though marketers love that word). It’s a centralized database with distributed nodes. Every transaction goes through the ECB. Even if you’re buying gum for €0.50.
Why? Officially, “to protect against fraud”. Really, to build a graph of connections. Who pays whom. When. For what.
By 2035, the ECB has a complete picture of the financial lives of 450 million Europeans. Every cup of coffee. Every movie ticket. Every transfer to a friend for their birthday.
Beautiful, right?
But you’ll say: “Wait, I can refuse! Use cash!”
Theoretically, yes. Practically?
Try finding an ATM in downtown Munich in 2040. They closed 90% of ATMs by 2035. “Unprofitable”, banks said. Actually, inconvenient for the system.
Try paying cash at a hipster coffee shop for a €4.50 latte. The barista will look at you like you’re a dinosaur: “Sorry, cards only. We don’t have a cash register.”
And if you find a place that takes cash? Withdrawal fee of €10. Limit of €200 per day. Mandatory identification through biometrics.
By 2040, cash is legal. Like wearing medieval armor on the street is legal. You can, but why the hell would you?
II. STAIRCASE OF DIRECTIVES: FROM PSD2 TO PSD5, OR HOW TO BOIL A FROG
Now the most interesting part. How did they build this system?
The answer is simple: slowly. Very, very slowly.
You know how to boil a frog? You can’t throw it in boiling water, it’ll jump out. You have to put it in cold water and heat it gradually. The frog won’t notice until it’s cooked.
They boiled Europe for 20 years. From 2018 to 2037. Five directives. Five “improvements for your protection”. Five steps to hell.
Let’s go in order.
PSD2 (2018-2027): “Open Banking”, or how to teach banks to share
Officially: “Payment Services Directive number 2. Goal: create competition, give consumers freedom of choice.”
Really: Banks opened their APIs (interfaces for programmers). Now fintech companies (Revolut, N26, various startups in sneakers and hoodies) could connect to bank accounts through apps.
Convenient? Fucking incredibly. One app, all your accounts. Transfers in a second. Beautiful.
The catch? Every time you connect an app to your bank, you give permission to read your financial history. Who you paid. When. How much.
Fintech collects data. Banks collect data. Everyone’s happy. Except you, of course, but who asked you?
Mini-story: Thomas and his “convenient” app
Thomas, 34, marketer from Amsterdam. 2024. Tired of juggling three banking apps.
Downloads a new fintech service. They promise: “All your accounts in one place! Automatic transfers! Budget control!”
Connects it. One button: “Allow access to account data”. Doesn’t read the terms (47 pages). Clicks “Agree”.
Beautiful. Now he sees all accounts. ING, ABN AMRO, even the old Rabobank account he forgot about.
What he doesn’t see: the app reads his history every day. Where he goes. What he buys. Analyzes patterns and uses them to build advertising segments.
By 2030, this app has 28 million users. They have a very detailed picture of Europe’s financial life.
Thomas still thinks it’s “for his convenience”.
Technical remark:
PSD2 is not a revolution. It’s scotch tape on a crack.
When fintech companies launched Open Banking, they connected to APIs of major banks. But these APIs led to systems written in the 1990s. COBOL. Mainframes. Code that’s 40 years old.
Banks didn’t rewrite the infrastructure. They simply slapped a new layer on top of the old one. Like putting parquet on rotten boards. Pretty, but unreliable.
By 2025, the European financial system is a Frankenstein of five programming eras. And that’s why in 2040 it blinks like a drunk god.
PSD3 (2027-2030): “Fighting fraud”, or how to legalize surveillance
Officially: “Fraudsters are stealing billions! We need behavioral data to protect you.”
Really: Now every payment comes with metadata:
Geolocation (where you are)
Time (when)
Device (which phone/computer)
Behavioral pattern (how fast you type passwords, how you move the mouse)
The system builds a graph. You are a node. Your payments are connections. If the pattern deviates (payment from an unfamiliar place, unusual time), the system blocks the transaction.
Mini-story: Martina goes on vacation
Martina from Berlin. 2028. Going on vacation to Portugal.
Buys plane ticket, all good. Arrives in Lisbon. Hungry. Walks into a restaurant. Orders bacalhau for €23.
Taps phone to terminal.
“Transaction blocked.”
What the fuck?
Calls the bank. Automated response: “Your payment has been blocked to protect against fraud. Please verify your identity.”
Biometrics. Selfie. Three questions about recent purchases:
“Did you buy coffee on October 14 in Berlin?”
“Yes.”
“Did you transfer €50 to a friend on October 16?”
“Yes.”
“Did you book a hotel in Lisbon?”
“YES, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, I’M IN LISBON RIGHT NOW!”
15 minutes. Unblocked.
Martina thinks: “Well, at least they protected me from fraudsters.”
Really: the system learned to control where you can spend money.
See the trick? They don’t say “we want to control you”. They say “we protect you from threats”.
Fraudsters. Terrorists. Money launderers. There’s always an enemy.
And citizens agree. Because who’s against protection?
The problem is that protection equals control. To protect you from fraudsters, the system must see everything. Absolutely everything.
And here’s the question: who will protect you from the system?
PSD5 (2037-2040): Retrospective adjustments, “Payment Integrity Graph”, or the complete picture of the world
Officially: “After the Liberty Blackout crisis of 2037, we must ensure the stability of the financial system. Payment Integrity Graph is a unified infrastructure of trust.”Retrospective adjustments appeared as a “protective measure” after the crisis: the system decided that the price of a transaction is not a fact, but a calculation that can be refined.
At the moment of purchase, they show you an amount, but in the fine print of the contract it says this is a “preliminary cost”, dependent on currency fluctuations, inflation, and “regional risk”.
Months or a year later, the algorithm recalculates past operations using new coefficients and makes an “additional charge”, as if you owed it all along.
Officially this is called “preserving purchasing power” and “fair adjustment”, so that, supposedly, inflation doesn’t “eat” the system.
In practice, this means one thing: the past becomes editable, and your bank account turns into a draft.
You can’t argue, because there’s no one to argue with: the decision is made by a model, the operator reads a script, and the court sees your “agree”.
The payment remains yours, the product remains purchased, but the price stops being fixed.
And the scariest part: after several such charges, people get used to it. Saw a minus in the morning, means “there was an adjustment”. The system “knows better”.
Really: Game over, gentlemen.
Payment Integrity Graph is a graph of all transactions in Europe. Every citizen is a node. Every payment is a connection. The system sees:
Who pays whom
How often
For what
With what deviations from the pattern
Artificial intelligence analyzes in real time. If you behave “suspiciously” (bought a ticket to an unfamiliar country, transferred €500 to a friend, paid cash at a bar), the system flags you.
A flag is not an arrest. It’s just a mark. You’re on the list of “interesting people”. If you accumulate three flags in a quarter, your account is frozen “for verification”. For 7-14 days.
How to unfreeze? Prove you’re not a camel. Provide documents. Explain why you bought the ticket. Why you transferred money. Why you exist at all.
Welcome to 2040. Freedom is not banned. You just need permission from those who canceled it to exercise it.
PSD5 is the crown of the war on cash. No need to ban it anymore. Just make digital the only rational option.
And here’s what’s beautiful: most citizens didn’t even notice. For them it’s just a “security system update”. Beautiful app. Instant payments. No cards, everything through the phone.
They don’t see the graph. They don’t see the flags. They live in a comfortable cage and think it’s freedom.
III. LIBERTON’S SCAM: LIBERTY BLACKOUT AND ECB CORRUPTION
Now let’s talk about how all this was pushed through. Because you understand: citizens won’t just agree to total control. You need a reason.
And there was a reason. Liberty Blackout. 14 hours without payments. November 23, 2037.
November 23, 2037. 08:47 CET. Europe wakes up.
Millions of people try to buy coffee. Pay for metro. Transfer money.
Nothing works.
Apps freeze. Cards don’t go through. ATMs give errors.
Panic.
By 10:00, news: “Largest payment system failure in EU history. Cause unknown.”
By 12:00, speculation: “Hackers? Cyberattack? Russia? China?”
By 14:00, David Liberton (then just Minister of Finance, not yet head of the Ministry of Financial Freedom) gives an emergency press conference:
Liberton:
“Dear citizens. We have faced an unprecedented attack on our financial infrastructure. Enemies of Europe are trying to destroy our trust. But we will not allow them.”
Heroic speech. Strong jaw. Patriot’s gaze.
By 17:00, system restored.
14 hours. Nobody died. Just 14 hours of inconvenience.
But it was enough.
Now the question: was there a hacker?Spoiler: no.
The failure was technical. One of the nodes of the payment system went down due to a software update. Cascade effect. Classic.
But Liberton used it as a Trojan horse.
Three weeks later, the European Commission introduces the PSD5 project. “So this never happens again”. “For your protection”.
Citizens, frightened by 14 hours without coffee, vote “yes”.
Deputies who received generous “consulting contracts” from Chronosavings bank vote “yes”.
PSD5 passes. Temporarily. For 2 years.
Guess what happened after 2 years?
Nothing. It became permanent. As always.
Behind the scenes: ECB corruption
Now the juiciest part. How did they push PSD4/PSD5 through ECB bureaucracy?
Answer: money. Blackmail. Careerism.
We have names. Thanks to the drive of Anna Kravchenko (a journalist who collected this data for three years and was killed for it in 2027).
Franz Steiner, director of the ECB’s payment systems department (2031-2036).
Sin: Offshore account in Panama in his wife’s name. €4.2 million. Source: “consulting services” from a company linked to Chronosavings.How he got caught: email correspondence (2033), where a Chronosavings lawyer writes to Steiner:
“Franz, pay attention to your personal transactions from 2029-2031. The PSD4 system may reveal... discrepancies. We wouldn’t want this to become public. But if you support our timestamp technology at the council meeting, we’ll ensure your data remains private.”
Classic blackmail. The system they were building was blackmailing them.
Klaus Werner, Steiner’s deputy.
Sin: “Consulting contract” for €850,000/year from another company linked to Chronosavings. For what? For “expert advice”. Really, for lobbying PSD4.Irony: Werner publicly said: “We must protect citizens from corporations”. While receiving a salary from a corporation.
Isabella Moreno, adviser to EDPC (European Commission on Data and Payments).
Sin: Insider trading. A week before the PSD4 announcement (2032), she bought Deutsche Bank shares for €340,000. After the announcement, shares rose 23%. Profit: €78,000.How she avoided prison: Transaction through her brother’s account in Cyprus. Formally, not her buying.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Officials, bankers, consultants. Everyone got their piece.
And you know who owns Chronosavings bank? Liberton and his family! Obviously through proxies and affiliated entities. Bingo! And all of this is in Kravchenko’s archives too, the woman they got rid of back in 2027. She was killed precisely because she got too close to the Libertons.
The system wasn’t created for controlling citizens. It was created for money. Control is a pleasant bonus.
IV. EMI: THE LAST FINANCIAL PARTISANS
Now let’s talk about the heroes of our time. Well, or anti-heroes. Depends on which side you look from.
Electronic Money Institutions (EMI)In 2040, these are the last pockets of resistance. The last memories of better times in Europe. And they’re too small to be crushed immediately.
What is EMI? (Real life example)
2025. London. PayFlow startup.
Three guys in hoodies. Coworking office. Laptops, pizza, ambitions.
Idea: “Let’s make a payment app faster than banks!”
They get an EMI license in Lithuania (easier than banking). Now they can:
Accept payments across the EU
Route through cheap countries (Estonia, Malta)
Launch products in weeks (banks need months)
By 2028, they have 400,000 users. Convenient. Fast. Cheap.
By 2032, Deutsche Bank bought them. Integrated into Payment Integrity Graph. Now they’re part of the system.
But some EMIs didn’t sell out.
340 operators in 2040. Living on the edge of legality. Serving ~8 million clients. Those who don’t want to be visible.
Think of EMIs like underground taxis. Legal? Formally yes. Convenient? Fucking incredibly. Do authorities love them? No.
Because EMI is a loophole.
While major banks are integrated into Payment Integrity Graph, small EMIs balance on the edge:
Formally comply with PSD5
Really know every hole in the protocols, because they built integrations to them
They’re like hackers who were given legal licenses. Until someone changes their mind.
V. CASH: MUSEUM EXHIBIT LABELED “CRIMINAL”
Now let’s talk about money. Real money. The kind you can hold in your hand.
Remember it? Bills. Coins. Paper with numbers.
In 2040, it’s an artifact.
War on cash (2020-2035): how to kill cash without banning it
They didn’t ban cash. That would be too obvious. Dictatorship. Fascism. Uprising.
No, they did it smarter. Made cash economically irrational.
ATMs disappeared “due to optimization”, stores introduced “cash handling fees” and limits “for security”, and any large amount automatically fell into suspicion mode: delays, questions, marks in your profile. As a result, by 2040 cash became not illegal, just toxic and inconvenient: every time you pay with it, the system acts like you’re either poor or dangerous.
Actually, Liberton didn’t kill cash. He gave it to the mafia.
2037 agreement: ‘Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia) gets a monopoly on cash. Printing, distribution, control.
In return, Liberton controls digital.
Logic: both sides win. The mafia makes money on cash. The state on digital. Nobody competes.But in 2039, someone screwed over Calabria. Payments went through, but didn’t reach the real bosses. Fake companies. Stolen money.
‘Ndrangheta thinks it’s Liberton. Really, it’s Timur Weiss.
More on that later.
And at this moment, four people decided that it’s time to break the architecture.
Not because they believed in victory. Not because they were heroes.
But because silence became unbearable. Each has their own motive.
They’ll meet in Munich in a bar under the Asam Church. In one of the few blind spots of the system.
They have a drive with materials on how Liberton built his empire, they’ll need to find evidence of ECB corruption. And soon they’ll have a plan to steal €2 million from the minister.
Chances are almost none. Financial Police are hunting them. Liberton is preparing a law that will close all loopholes. Time is running out.
But they’ll try.
Because if not them, then who?
Welcome to 2040, ladies & gentlemen.
A world where freedom costs €10 withdrawal fee.
Where the past is edited, the present is controlled, the future is programmed.
Where an omnipotent god (Payment Integrity Graph) sees everything. But sometimes blinks. And in those seconds, truth is visible.
A world that Europeans built themselves. Directive after directive. Agreement after agreement. “For your convenience”. “For your protection”. “For your own safety”.
Nobody forced them.
The water just heated up slowly. And when the frogs realized they were boiling, it was too late to jump out.
I had this exact thought last night: we are all feeding our data into AI and will wake up one day panicking because our lives are packed into a slim glass that talks back to us like us. Never mind the scare that comes with not being able to just walk into a Starbucks for coffee, many people will have an AHA moment. I saw myself across the table in Lisbon from the woman, lol. This was an absolute masterpiece, Mila!
Absolutely gripping read, Mila - like Orwell meets fintech with a side of espresso-fuelled paranoia! You’ve captured the very real tension between convenience and control, and honestly, the digital euro as a Gucci-clad Trojan horse is chillingly on point.
What inspired you to write 2040 as fiction rather than a manifesto - was it to get past people’s intellectual defences and speak directly to the gut?