Dirty Little Secrets

The pub was like any other pub, warm, noisy with conversation, a bit smoky, the clunk of mugs on the bar, laughter in the corner. He weaved his way through the crowd, a beer in each hand carefully balanced, never spilling a drop, to the back of the pub towards a large corner booth, seating for ten… or more… depending on how friendly.

There she sat, her eyes glowing from the screen of the laptop in front of her, typing away at her manuscript. She was writing a book, you see, the third in a series of five, so she was just -at- the good part when he came up to the table.

Typing away at the keyboard, she looked up from the screen just as he placed the mug of beer beside her laptop on the table. Their eyes met. He knew that look… he smiled and moved away from the table slowly, not looking away until the last minute when he turned and joined a group of dart players at the other corner of the bar. She paused in her typing, looking after him, smiled, then picked up the mug and drank deeply.

She put the mug down, her eyes glanced up from it only to find a stranger sitting in the booth with her on the opposite side of the table. A man, dressed in a dark suit, wearing an overcoat… nobody she’d ever seen before.

“Don’t look for help,” he hissed at her, though with the noise in the bar it was doubtful anyone would have paid any mind, “just act like everything is normal, we’ll do our business, and I’ll be on my way, Ms. Merriweather.” He glanced down at her laptop computer. “Still writing, I see,” he said matter-of-factly, “well, I’m here to change that.” He reached into the inside left front pocket of his suit and pulled out a checkbook, took out a pen, and stared at her.

She stared back, not comprehending, not believing that any of this was real. He pushed the mug of beer towards her and she took another drink.

“Name your price, I’ll write the check,” he said in a low voice.

“What are you on about?” she said, “And who the hell are you?”

He smirked, shook his head, then said, “You don’t get it, do you?” He paused, sighed, then noted the baffled look on her face. “I’ve been sent here to convince you to stop writing these books, and the people I work for want these books stopped… whatever it takes… understand now?”

No, she didn’t, but she certainly picked up on the menace behind those words.

“We are on a wild ride to an interesting destination, Ms. Merriweather, a local rate of computational change so fast and powerful that it must have a profound and as-yet-unclarified Universal effect. As a side effect of this hypergrowth, biological human beings will not be able to meaningfully understand the computer-driven world of the near future unless they make some kind of transition to “transhumanity.” Your books are an obstacle to that transition. Thus, they must be stopped. Now,” he said, “how much?”

She still sat dumbfounded, then seemed to slowly come out of it and looked over towards the dart players. The man reached into his right front coat pocket and “click.” Suddenly everyone in the bar vanished, leaving the two of them sitting there alone in silence. The man in the dark suit pulled a stopwatch out of the pocket and smiled.