MetaDeath

By J.A. Biggs

This may or may not be the Greatest Novel Ever Written.

Something Evil is taking place at a book fair. Sinister forces prepare to destroy Literature As We Know It. Only a motley group of writers can defeat this impending doom, but first they have to figure out who the protagonist is.

Dealing with the ghost also might help. Cooking up 200 pounds of hash into brownies definitely won't help. Figuring out why there's a body in the men's room would be a plus.

Cut off from human civilization by a freak storm, the writers will have to face their worst fears in the form of a senior submissions editor. Even if they succeed, the only way to survive may be to dance to the end of love...
Also; Bob is real.

MetaDeath is NOT about a conspiracy to release an ancient evil upon an unsuspecting world, where a sisterhood of elite government assassins engage sinister, supernatural forces in an electric courtroom duel that features quirky, small-town secrets and oddball characters led by a beguiling-yet-forbidden young woman and the man-of-her-dreams who, once again the Prime Suspect, fights to clear his name with the help of their brilliant-barrister-friend Oliver Rathbone ...and alien invaders are also discovered.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.A. Biggs
• Release date: Aug 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301869312

J.A. Biggs

J.A. Biggs is a novelist, former Capitol Hill staffer in Washington, former Israeli Defense Forces paratrooper, security contractor, and international relations expert. He dearly loves stories involving knights and dragons, and also giant robots. So far, he has managed to write one with knights and dragons, but the giant robots are still forthcoming. Having lived on four Continents and visited over a dozen countries, he has plenty of fodder for events, places, characters, and situations to draw from. J.A.Biggs grew up in California, but currently resides in Jerusalem, Israel. His greatest literary influences are Hemingway and Stanley Kubrick, and yes, he knows Kubrick was not a writer.

Book preview

MetaDeath

MetaDeath

MetaDeath

MetaDeath

MetaDeath

It’s just a little bit smarter than you

By

J.A. Biggs

MetaDeath

By J.A.Biggs

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 J.A. Biggs

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Smashwords Edition, License N

otes

[Bob Is Real}

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

[Bob Is Real]

To David Rakoff, who knew what art was about.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes[Bob Is Real]

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.Smashwords Edition, License Notes

[Bob Is Real, Bob Is Real, Bob Is Real...]

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

I Words

This is the greatest novel ever written. I know, I know, it sounds a little pretentious but it’s true. You start to get a feeling for this kind of thing after a while. That last book won a lot of awards and everything, and it really attracted a lot of attention, but this one just leaves it behind completely. It’s in another league. It’s the kind of book that changes everything. It’s like you are who you are one day and then after you read it, you are a different yourself. It’s one of those novels that only comes along one time in a century -or once ever.

I have a feel for this kind of thing by now. I mean, that last book won a lot of awards, it got the Jerusalem prize for expressing the freedom of the individual in society. It won a Hugo even though it wasn’t supposed to be science fiction. It won some award in China that I couldn’t go receive because something in the book was supposed to be controversial to the government and my agent thought I’d be arrested if I went to the ceremony. It won an award in Australia I don’t remember because the flight was so damn long and I was in first class for once so I started ordering drinks and then the Aussies all wanted to drink with me and the whole trip went by in a haze and I lost the actual award in the airport lounge on the way back and don’t remember any of it very well. It was a big deal though; I was on Australian TV and everything. They loved me down there too. You know you have a read on this whole writing art when you get put on Australian TV jet lagged and drunk off your ass.

I have had to sit down with Hemingway and talk this over. Not the real man of course. He died when I was a kid. I mean his novels. You have to sit down with Hemingway and Tolstoy and Kafka and really look those guys in the eye and think about what you are saying when you say this is the greatest novel in the world. Who are we kidding though, nobody is perfect, Hemingway wasn’t perfect. This novel actually ups the game. I don’t just think that; it’s the kind of revelation that sort of crept up on me over time. I pushed it aside as I was thinking of the new book, but it kept coming back you know? I finally had to face it, because the thought wouldn’t go away when I really thought it through, really broke it down.

Except it isn’t written yet. I have the plot worked out. I have lots of notes. Yeah, I’m one of those odd duck writers who plots the entire book out before I write it. I have the whole thing worked out in detail in my head before I ever start. I’m spontaneous, don’t get me wrong, I mean, I’ve been surprised by things I’ve written like any other really good writer, but I will put a book together in my head over the course of several months of careful thinking and planning and reading and digesting life. When I have a book up there it’s like being pregnant. You kind of have this kid with you and you have to be careful, not with what you eat, but with the way you consume life, because it will come back out in the novel. So I’ve been running around book-pregnant for the last several months, and I’ve written enough of them to know that this one is due very soon. In fact, I’m thinking as I stand in the foyer of the conference hall that I probably shouldn’t have come to this conference at all. I am nearly done sampling life and I’m about ready to birth this thing. Now is when the mama-fox finds some dark hole to hide in for about four months with a laptop computer, some energy bars and about five cans of instant coffee after which a new book will enter the world. The best novel ever written.

I am just thinking about this, watching the people gather for the writer’s workshop. I am really glad that I won’t have to chair one of these things until the final day, because right now all I can think of is the growing weight of that novel in my head. I want to grab a pencil and start scribbling on the back of my Starbucks receipt, but I can’t let the steam out yet, not till I’m really ready. Once I do, it will come in a rush of words on the page as fast as I can touch-type. I’m almost there. I just have to endure a couple more days of this writer’s conference. Just a couple more days of listening to people brown nose one another and feign admiration for great works of literature that aren't really great and they don’t really admire, but want to be part of the in group that does. Like those two ladies over there.

You know, he’s short-listed for the Nobel in literature. The lady with two chins and too much makeup leaned in conspiratorially to her companion. I mean, nobody really knows, but you always know these kinds of things, and when someone’s being whispered about like that, well…

The youngish but not too young, not altogether old or dowdy but definitely not particularly hot lady with the square glasses cocked her head to the side and smiled. Oh yes, I know! I am so excited to see him here! I’ve been a fan of his since his early novels. You know, the ones that haven’t even been translated yet?

The lady with the powdered, flatulent face backed up a quarter step. Oh? You read Spanish? I’m so jealous!

The youngish female smiled demurely. I’m just a student, really. It’s just that as a purveyor of literature, I find that you can’t really savor all the subtle nuances of a Work in translation, don’t you think so?

Of course, though there are some translators who are real artists. Ignes, you know-

Oh yes, I know, Ignes-

She really captured the spirit of ‘Gibberish’ I find. I mean, reading her translation, you would almost believe it were written in English.

-Almost.

"Of course, almost. But you know, it is hard to find a particular part of the Work that doesn’t fit the language, don’t you think so?"

The younger woman cocked her head again. She looked like someone playing a game of chess rather well and enjoying a challenging win. I find that to think of a work like ‘Gibberish’ in small parts or detail is problematic. It really can’t be appreciated unless you look at the broad sweep of the whole. There are so many small parts and subtle nuance, but to talk about just one point in a Work like that, you just lose sight of the real picture.

The double chinned woman knew her battleship was sunk and she nodded her head to the other as if in recognition. With that acknowledgement out of the way, she moved in closer to the lady with the square glasses, glancing around at men’s faces in the crowd as she did so. Have you seen him here yet?

The other woman consciously refrained from obviously scanning the faces of men in the crowd. Instead, she fixed her vision on a figure on the far end of the great, red-carpeted conference hall and arched one eyebrow. Oh! I’m sorry, I think I see my agent over there! I’d better catch him before he gets caught up on the phone with Rowling again, boy does that woman love to talk! She then breezed past the over painted heavy woman as if she hadn’t heard her question and disappeared into the flow of the crowd.

The frumpy writer moved away from where he’d been covertly listening to the ladies’ conversation, shaking his head. It might be time to go try the coffee bar again. He really could use the caffeine. It was unfortunate that this conference had hired the rudest staff in the universe; you could stand right in front of them for a quarter hour and they would ignore you completely and turn to someone who looked more important. Such was life for a wallflower, he thought. He was honestly used to being ignored, particularly being a writer.

The women had been talking about That Famous Spanish Writer who everyone in the hall was buzzing about. The only problem was that he couldn’t seem to find the guy’s name on any of the conference literature and he didn’t know who everyone was talking about. ‘Gibberish’ sounded familiar as a title, but he couldn’t place it.

The conference hall was one of those human gopher hole labyrinths designed like a maze to keep people inside. It was fitted out like a hotel more or less, with vast swaths of red carpeting and randomly placed fake potted plants, but the layout was basically two floors, incredibly wide, and with no obvious way out nor way to tell time. If humans were gigantic, mutant rabbits designing a warren with modern technology, this is what they would build. Mercantilistic rabbits of course, since this conference center featured shops around the periphery as one wandered away from the main hall, all of which had goods available elsewhere at a fraction of the cost -in really pretty displays. It had the feeling of a hotel lobby crossed with an airport. Some of the spaces were so enormous and oddly uncarpeted that the echoes created by the cutting edge modernist architecture destroyed all attempts at audible conversation for more than three people at a time. Other areas were vast swaths of endless carpet and oddly low ceilings that seemed to go on forever and where it was possible to develop acute claustrophobia if one were not careful. The place felt timeless, ageless, and lifeless, but without any sharp protruding objects to hurt oneself upon.

The writer was halfway back to the coffee bar with the half hour long line when a rippling buzz swept through the crowd. This was followed rapidly by a call over the PA for security personnel to please report to the C section men’s restroom immediately. People were muttering that someone must have slipped and fallen, or that there had been a theft, or that an old lady had had a heart attack, and as the buzz swept across the room it began to mutate and deform and grow more bizarre. The old lady that had died had been meeting up with someone in the men’s restroom and she wasn’t actually all that old. It had been her jealous husband who had done her in. It wasn’t her that was done in but the jealous husband. Someone had threatened to assassinate the President. There was a clown…

He rolled his eyes at the chatter around him and joined a herd of curious conference-goers headed to the C section men’s restroom to see for themselves. It was certainly a hell of a lot more interesting than endless displays of books, books, and more books all arranged by publisher.

Angelina Natterly, aka Evette Romanov (to the somewhat steamy literary magazines that had given her her first break), aka J.L. Bingam (to the extremely snobby literati magazines that had given her her second break once she’d been published by the first) aka A.B. Natterly (to her millions -or at least thousands- of adoring fans impatiently awaiting the next installment of the ‘Crime Solver Dog’ series) felt a sense of impending doom as the uniformed policeman approached her. The blond haired, middle-ageless girl-woman rapidly ran through a list of possibilities as the policeman spotted her and altered course to cut through the crowd. His expression told her nothing of whether they had found the marijuana in the back of her minivan in the parking level (unlikely), figured out her shenanigans with her tax filings (more likely, but here? -and a uniformed cop?), or -she dared not think it- the worst possible reason a policeman might be approaching her with such an earnest look on his face…

Ms. Natterly? He was a little over six feet, with blond eyebrows that were as invisible as his blond eyelashes, and an almost chinless face.

She forced herself to look surprised, grimacing out what she thought was a polite smile. Yes?

There has been an incident, Ms. Natterly.

Oh God no! Go away, go away, go away! She wanted to scream. Oh! What kind of incident, mr… She glanced at his name tag. …Rogers?

Well, ma’am-

When, exactly had she become ‘Ma’am’?

It seems that someone’s been found dead in the men’s lava… lava… uh… restroom in C section.

Angelina’s life was flashing before her eyes. Oh! Well isn’t that interesting…I mean, unfortunate. She managed a bland smile.

Well, ma’am… say, how did you know my name anyway?

It was on your name tag?

He nodded, satisfied, looking to the expectant onlookers that had inevitably begun to gather like crows around a dead cow in a field. Why you sure are clever. Maybe you can help us out.

Was this really happening? Was her absolute worst nightmare really coming true before her own incredulous eyes? Was this- retard asking her to help the police with an investigation because she was a mystery writer? Were they really that desperate? Was the entire regional police force simply incapable of doing it’s job to anything approaching a competent level? Did they truly demand -oh great, now the entire crowd were all gathering around and staring at her expectantly. Damn that agent who had told her to put a big smiling mug of herself on the back of that last ‘Crime Solver Dog’ cover!

I’m sure you have plenty of detectives who are capable of handling this, Mr. Rogers.

Well now, ma’am-

If he called her ma’am one more time, she was going for his balls. She had been training in MMA at the fitness center.

…that’s just the thing. See, there’s a big snowstorm blowing in. You might even call it a blizzard. I’m sure you’ve seen the TV… anyway, I was stationed here just to keep an eye on things, we got private security guards handling pretty much everything here. I’m what you might call an insurance policy. He stopped to beam in satisfaction at having repeated something clever he’d heard from someone.

Angelina was just staring at him now with lidded eyes, her mouth twitching slightly, the rest of her body completely still.

Now that storm has gone and shut down highway 12 completely. It’ll take a plow team a while to get through. If we lose the interstate too, we won’t be able to get anyone in or out of here any which way. Everybody is either dealing with the storm or too far away to come out here without getting stuck on the interstate.

The bony, chinless and eyebrow less man leaned in close and lowered his voice to a slightly off key, but perfectly audible rumble. See, I’m here cause the Lieutenant says I’m kinda useless. I mean, how much trouble happens at a book fair anyway? So… when I called it in, the sergeant -his name’s Ronaldo by the way. Ronaldo says to me; ‘Rogers’ He now raised his voice in an attempt to imitate Sergeant Ronaldo. ‘Rogers’ …and I say ‘yes, boss?’ -he likes it when I call him boss like that; I say ‘yes boss?’ and he says; ‘Rogers! I’ll tell ya what your goin to do!’ -he talks like that too…

Angelina’s left eye was twitching now. She wanted her stash. There had to be some way to escape these people and get to her minivan.

‘I’ll tell you what you're goin to do; you’re going to lock down and seal the crime scene, you’re going to stop calling me every five minutes, and you are going to look around and find someone who has a brain!’ Ha ha, he’s such a joker… yeah, so… I saw a poster for your novel over there and I thought… Well, it did say ‘Crime Solver’ you know? I just had this idea and… I sort of, I mean, at first I was looking at the dog because I thought ‘what a cute dog!’ but then I noticed that it said ‘Crime Solver Dog’, and I was thinking to myself; ‘yeah, that could be good and so I looked on the schedule to see if you were here and…

She held up a hand. Her head had dropped to her chest over the course of his multifaceted dialogue and now she looked like a suffering Christ ready to be nailed to a plank. Ok, ok, ok, just… stop. Around her, the group had grown to an excited, murmuring crowd of at least fifty people, whispering to one another about how the mystery writer was going to actually solve the crime involving the clown, the donkey, the would-be Presidential assassin, and the jealous husband