Prequel: The Badger's Choice

It was 2009, and the world was screaming. The financial crisis had turned the "Golden Boys" of Madison into scavengers. While Steve, Todd, and Michael were clinging to their entry-level analyst roles with white-knuckled desperation, Jerry was failing. His first iteration of "Get Hip"—then a genuine, wide-eyed attempt at sustainable non-profit consulting—was hemorrhaging what little capital he had.

He had retreated to Mexico, not for a vacation, but because his pride couldn't stomach watching his friends buy rounds at the Union Terrace while he couldn't afford a bratwurst. He was trekking through the Basin of Mexico, haunting the outskirts of excavation sites, looking for "meaning" in the dirt.

That was when he met the Caretaker.

Jerry had wandered off a sanctioned trail near the Tlatelolco ruins, his cheap sandals caked in volcanic dust. He found a man sitting by a small, stagnant pool of water. The man didn't look like a tour guide; he looked like he was carved from the very basalt of the ruins.

"You are looking for a way to stay upright while the world falls," the man said. It wasn't a question.

Jerry, exhausted and bitter, sat down. "I'm looking for a competitive edge. Everyone I know is smarter, faster, or richer. I’m just the 'nice guy' who’s about to go broke."

The man smiled, and it looked like a crack in a dry riverbed. "The Aztecs did not believe in 'nice.' They believed in the Great Exchange. The sun does not rise because it is kind; it rises because it is fed. You want your business to grow? You must learn to feed the roots."

The man led Jerry into a subterranean chamber beneath a nondescript colonial-era church. The air changed instantly—it became heavy, smelling of copper and damp earth. In the center of the room was a small, ancient tzompantli—a miniature version of the great skull towers.

"This is the ledger of the Old Ones," the man whispered. "Every name on these stones represents a debt paid. The empire didn't fall because of the Spanish; it fell because they stopped paying the tax. They lost their 'efficiency.'"

Jerry looked at the skulls. They weren't scary to him. In his desperate, Business-major brain, they looked like data points.

"What's the buy-in?" Jerry asked, his voice cracking.

"Life," the man said. " But not yours. Not yet. You must bring the best of your tribe. The strongest, the smartest, the most virile. Every year, one for the tower. In exchange, the path before you will be cleared. No competitor will best you. No audit will find you. You will be the ghost in the machine, the silent predator of the marketplace."

Jerry thought of Steve’s easy athleticism. He thought of Michael’s cold, perfect logic. He thought of how they looked at him—with a patronizing sort of pity. Poor Jerry. The hippie. The dreamer.

He felt a cold, sharp clarity wash over him. It was the most "business" decision he had ever made.

"I have four friends," Jerry said, his voice now steady, devoid of the "peace and love" persona he usually wore like a costume. "We take a trip every year. We call ourselves the Madison Five."

The Caretaker handed Jerry a small blade of obsidian. "Then the contract is drafted. To activate it, you must spill the first drop here. But remember, the Great Exchange is absolute. If you skip a year, the debt comes for the collector."

Jerry didn't hesitate. He sliced his palm, letting the blood drip onto the porous limestone of a centuries-old skull. The room seemed to exhale. The grinding sound of stone on stone echoed in the cramped space—Chic-chic. Chic-chic.

When Jerry emerged back into the blinding Mexican sunlight, he felt different. The "Get Hip" philosophy was born in that moment. It wasn't about helping people; it was about the cold, calculated removal of waste. And his friends? They were the ultimate "overhead."

He went back to Madison and rebranded. He traded his suits for thrift-store flannels to disarm his marks. He played the part of the "successful hippie" perfectly. He watched as his business soared, seemingly untouched by the recession that crushed everyone else.

He waited for the first annual trip. He waited until they were isolated. And every year since 2009, the "Madison Five" returned from their trips… but the world never noticed that they seemed a little more hollowed out, a little more diminished, until only one year remained. The year of the Great Tower.

Jerry stood on the tarmac at Madison airport, years later, watching the sunset turn the sky the color of a fresh wound. He adjusted his hemp hat and smiled.

"On Wisconsin," he whispered to the wind. "The debt is paid in full."

--- If you enjoyed Jerry's origin story, discover how the debt finally comes due, during the year of the Great Tower, in the main chronicle, The Badger's Debt: The Tzompantli of Tenochtitlan, at the link below.