A World Without Secrets (3 page)

Like most actors and actresses who had part-time and full-time jobs to support themselves while they struggled to land bit parts in their quest for a place among the stars, most authors worked at mundane jobs while they tried to find a publisher for their work. And like actors who finally made it, authors must continue to turn out exceptional work, or they'd find themselves back at those mundane jobs after a brief interval of living their dream. Few authors enjoyed a glorious and exciting lifestyle like that presented in most movies and television shows, such as
Murder, She Wrote
or
Castle
. From time to time, real writers actually had to sit down and write something, a task that consumed all available time for months or even years. A number of famous authors and writers had been credited with quotations similar to, "There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." From my own limited experience, I could certainly relate to the sentiment.

Unemployment compensation, combined with my savings, had allowed me to give it my best shot, but after years of full-time effort I had become so cash-strapped that I was facing the need to find a nine-to-five, even if it meant flipping burgers at a fast food outlet. Knowing that would probably end my dream of becoming a full-time author, I had struggled to stave off that day. Although numerous publishers had rejected each of my first two novels, I still believed in my work and continued to send manuscripts to any publishing house that accepted unsolicited material. I'd quickly exhausted possibilities at the very few large houses and had then begun working my way through 'mom and pop' publishing businesses that probably operated out of a space in their basement, attic, or possibly even Aunt Edna's garage.

After preparing a list of the pages that would need to be reproduced to complete the second manuscript copy, I stashed the box of good pages in a closet. I was left with two piles of paper on the table, one of damaged manuscript pages and one of street trash that had gotten mixed in with my photocopies. Most would go into the trash, but I'd save the decent pages to use for scratch paper. When doing internet and library research for my stories, I was always looking for something on which to jot notes until the information could be keyed into one of the research databases I maintained on my computer. When out of work, even purchasing a package of post-it notes was an indulgence.

With my work area organized, I took out my laptop and plugged it into the phone line so I could log onto my internet service provider account. The local cable service wanted fifty bucks a month for broadband service if not ordering cable TV as well, and the phone company wanted forty bucks for DSL service. I'd readily concede that the response was incredibly faster with a digital subscriber line or a cable broadband connection, but the six-dollars-a-month unlimited dial-up service saved me a bundle. In my reduced circumstances, dial-up won the day. I was willing to wait a few seconds longer for content to download.

Within a minute, I was connected online. I checked my email first, hoping against hope that today would finally be the day I received a note of acceptance from one of the publishers to whom I'd sent a manuscript. Publishing is a funny business. Most publishers warn authors that they won't accept simultaneous submissions. That is to say, they won't consider manuscripts that have also been sent to another publisher. They back up this threat by stating that should an author violate this rule, the publisher will never again consider work from that author. Authors are expected to wait patiently for anywhere from three months to a year or longer to hear back before submitting elsewhere, even though most publishers openly admit that less than one manuscript in a thousand ever makes it past even the first level of screeners, or gatekeepers, as they're affectionately known in the industry. Agents, on the other hand, were permitted to send copies of a manuscript out to as many publishers as they wished, but it was almost impossible for an unknown author to get an agent. So far, I'd played by their rules and waited until a story was rejected before sending it to someone else, but I always wondered how authors were expected to find a publisher during their lifetime if they didn't have an agent. When hearing stories of young writers with drawers full of rejection slips for one manuscript, I figured not everyone was playing by the rules established by the big publishing houses. This was confirmed when an online blog by a new author told of how he'd gotten his big break and sold his first book. He'd sent a copy to every publisher at once and had even gotten them into a bidding war for his book.

As usual, my few legitimate emails didn't contain any offers from publishers, just as my snail mail never contained any checks for advances. I cleared the glut of spam without even opening it and then started answering mail from friends. I also responded to several notes from fans who enjoyed the stories I'd written and posted on various free fiction websites. The constant stream of fan letters had been responsible for making me believe I really had a chance of making it as a professional author, even though I'd never taken more than the two English courses required of Computer Science majors in college. Although my fans kept begging for more, the editors at the publishing houses didn't feel that my stories were commercially viable. But the praise from fans never failed to reinvigorate me and lift me out of the depression most wannabe writers experienced after months and years of unsuccessfully trying to market their work. I'd once sworn that my stories would never wind up buried at the bottom of a desk drawer like the works of so many talented but unappreciated authors, but things didn't look promising. Self-publishing was gaining ground, and I had already decided I would go that route if I hadn't made it in the traditional publishing world by the end of the year. I had no bias against self-publishing, but I also had no interest in spending half my time managing and promoting my books. I wanted to write.

As had been my practice, I thanked each of my fans for their correspondence and promised I'd be posting another free short story soon.

The last email on the list was from a name I didn't recognize, so despite not having an entry in the subject line I assumed it was another fan letter. When I opened it, all it said was, 'Destroy it before it destroys you, Mr. James.'

I sat back in my chair and thought about my sci-fi short stories as I stared at the screen. From long experience, I knew fans often wrote cryptic notes, occasionally in very stunted English. Sometimes it was intentional and sometimes not. Whenever I received something cryptic, I thought of the old phrase,'All your base are belong to us.' It came from a poorly translated version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing, and the absurd wording became an internet phenomenon. But this was far more cryptic than any note I'd ever received before. I hit the reply button, intending to ask the sender to clarify, but the email software refused to set up the reply format because there was no return address.

As I would expect any other computer-literate person to do, I opened the header record of the email to look at the routing information. There was nothing there. "That's impossible," I said aloud. "There has to be routing data in the header. The message couldn't have just appeared inside my computer. It has to be a software malfunction."

An examination of the previous emails showed that each contained a proper routing history detailing which mail servers the message had passed through on its way to my home computer. While I was still engaged in examining the old email, a new fan email appeared in the queue. It correctly contained the proper routing information.

I shrugged, then sent the strange message to the email software's trash bin before turning my attention to the newest email. After I'd sent off my reply, I opened my word processing program, intent on working late into the night on a free short story I could post on the net. For now, I would have to settle for fan adulation instead of monetary compensation for my hard work. Too bad the utility company and landlord wouldn't accept fan adulation in lieu of cash. I would have been only too happy to gush and fawn over their generosity for as long as necessary to avoid having to send them money.

* * *

A walk to the post office completed my only required task the next morning. The one pristine copy I'd been able to assemble was safely nestled in the green, cloth carry-bag I usually used for grocery shopping. The chosen recipient was a publisher that had earlier rejected my other manuscript, but since choices were so limited and the publisher was one of the larger small presses, I knew I had to try once again.

As I patiently waited in line for the three postal workers to deal with the people ahead of me, I scanned the reward posters on the wall. An old flyer for Osama bin Laden, with a posted reward amount of twenty-five million dollars, still took up space on the bulletin board. Someone with a red marking pen had drawn a large 'X' over his face and crudely drawn flames behind him. Since the flyer was behind a locked glass door, the 'flames' artist had to be from the Post Office, but someone else had scrawled a small comment on a piece of note paper and taped it on the glass. It said simply, 'Formerly an honored and protected guest of the terrorist-friendly Pakistan government. Now residing uncomfortably in Jahannam as a favored guest of Maalik.' I doubted that anyone from New York City would complain, and most would probably cheer if they ever learned what the references meant.

I sighed and daydreamed about what I could have done with that reward money. First, I could have set up a small publishing operation of my own and hired people to do the marketing without having to rely on the judgment of publishing house screeners and acquisition editors. I didn't have an Aunt Edna or a garage, but with twenty-five million dollars I knew I could rent something. Most importantly, I would be able to write whatever I wished and not have to worry constantly about money. That was the dream of every author who hadn't yet made the big time— and probably a few that had at one time. I would even be able to place full-page ads in newspapers and advertise on television.

When I'd returned to my apartment and resumed work at my computer, I pulled up my 'Story Ideas' file and examined each of the entries there. Whenever a kernel of an idea for a potential story struck me, I wrote a quick paragraph describing the basic plot idea and filed it there, so this was naturally the first place I went when I needed to begin a new story. But none of the potential ideas clicked. I also looked over the list of stories I had begun, then dropped when the inspiration evaporated. Finally, I wound up staring at the blank screen for several hours as I brainstormed ideas and then dismissed them after deciding they wouldn't work within the originally defined plot.

Before closing the lid on my laptop, I checked my email file one last time and saw that I didn't have any messages on the server. But there was one unopened message already in my mail-handling queue. I clicked on the message and discovered it was similar to the one I'd received the day before. It said simply, 'Destroy it before it destroys you. Destroy it now!' Again, there was no header record. The only logical conclusion was that my computer had become contaminated with a virus. Despite having the best anti-virus, anti-spam, and anti-spyware software packages on the market protecting my system, something had gotten through. The only solution was to initiate a diagnostic process that would scan my entire system while I went to prepare my lunch.

Three hours later, the diagnostic process had completed its work. It indicated that the machine was completely clean. In other words, there were no viruses found in the computer. I scratched my head and then shrugged my shoulders. It just didn't make any sense. I created a special folder to hold the strange emails and set up routing code so new messages would automatically be forwarded there. Before shutting off the computer, I checked the software's trash folder. The previous email was still there.

* * *

I spent the next several afternoons watching the activity across the street from the front steps of my apartment building while I concocted and then discarded idea after idea for possible story plots. The fire over there was completely out, and empty dump trucks arrived in a continuous stream and then trundled away after being filled. People in firefighting gear were still combing through the wreckage, ostensibly trying to determine the flash point of the explosion, according to the news reporters.

On the fourth day, an idea for a spectacular story began germinating in my head. I envisioned a spacecraft from a distant planet approaching Earth, only to lose control just as it encountered the planet's gravity well. Instead of making the intended soft landing in the remote Arizona desert— the landing location of choice for intergalactic travelers for over five thousand years— the craft would crash-land in one of our largest cities. As the out-of-control ship collided with an empty apartment building, the artificial gravity system used aboard the ship would cause an implosion rather than an explosion. The military, aware that the object was a spacecraft and not a meteor, would borrow fire department uniforms to search through the rubble without raising suspicion from the local residents. In a remote area, they would have simply evacuated the residents for miles around the crash site with a dire warning of life-threatening viral agents, but they couldn't very well evacuate the millions of people in a city such as New York.

I shook my head vigorously a couple of times and smiled. The trouble with being a fiction author was that I must allow my imagination to run wild and free at times to keep developing new ideas for stories. It was fun, but I had to remember to keep things in proper perspective and keep myself rooted in reality lest I wind up in the psych ward at Bellevue. Still, the idea was an interesting one and might work if I could populate the tale with an interesting cast of characters. The sci-fi part was usually easy to write once I'd addressed the technological issues, but developing the characters and their interactions was real work. I decided I should start while I was feeling inspired, so I stood up to return to my apartment just as a large piece of debris found near the center of the demolished apartment building across the street was being loaded onto a flat-bed trailer. I was already upstairs by the time it was covered with a heavy canvas tarp for its trip to wherever it was headed.