Most evenings now they meet without calling. Two coffees land on their table the way sunset lands on the tiled street—inevitable. Buba turns the white paper with his thumb, not to read but to feel the weight of it. He looks at Alias, then past him, as if seeing a different city. “Where I come from,” he says, “chance is not a casino. It’s a habit. A rhythm.” Alias waits. “In Senegal,” Buba goes on, “my aunties sit in a circle every month. A tontine. Everyone puts money. Each time, one person t...

The Acapulco smells of frying oil and hot stone, the terrace still crowded though the hour is late. A small fan pushes air in circles. Alias and Buba sit in their corner as always, the white paper between them, stained now with coffee rings. Buba flicks the pages, restless. “Your wheel is clever, Mr. Banker. But wheels don’t feed a man. Tell me plain: what does your Pegged put in a hand? A number on a screen? A promise?” Alias shakes his head. “Not a promise. A #PEG is a stablecoin. Anchored ...

The Acapulco is full tonight, smoke curling above the terrace, voices thick with heat and wine. Alias sits already with his notebook open. Buba arrives without hurry, but his eyes show it — he has been reading. He drops into the chair and pushes the white paper across the table. The pages are worn, dog-eared. “I’ve been chewing it, Mr. Banker. Still not sure I can swallow.” Alias doesn’t touch the bundle. “What stops you?” Buba flips to a marked page, jabs a finger. “Here. You say the draw cr...

Alias is already seated when Buba spots him, grins, and takes the chair. “Mr. Banker,” Buba says, tapping his cup. “We’ll soon need our names carved into this table.” Alias nods. “Then let’s make good use of it.” He leans in slightly. “What if money wasn’t pushed from above, or earned only by those already inside? What if it were redistributed—like a lottery—but fair. Same chance for everyone.” Buba leans back, weighing the words. “Lotteries? Around here, that word tastes sour. The bike that ...

The cell is three steps wide. Two if you’re afraid. I’m lying on the slab when the corridor light snaps on. Through the vent above my head comes the first sound: a chair dragging on concrete, slow, like someone thinking about it. Then the voice. Russian accent, unhurried. “Where… is… he?” I’m here for stealing a motorbike, nothing clever about it. I don’t mix with anyone. But the wall feels thin as skin, and the voice arrives whole, like it’s meant for both of us. A muffled answer from next d...

The central milestone remains unchanged: Finish the first draft of PEGGED by September. This month has been a balance of structural refinement and conceptual anchoring. While raw scene drafting slowed, I’ve advanced both the narrative architecture (especially Acts 2 & 3) and the Pegged White Paper, which is now a canonical text of this project. Writing Progress (August) I have collated the scenes into a more or less definitive narrative sequence. The first version of act 1 is expected to be r...

The Acapulco is crowded, fans humming above the bar, chairs scraping on the terrace tiles. Alias has chosen the shade of a corner table. Buba spots him, flashes a grin, and slides into the chair across. “Mr. Banker. Careful—if people see us like this too often, they’ll think you’re investing in my company.” Alias lets out a dry breath. “If I did, you’d already be diversifying faster than half the firms I know.” Buba laughs, shaking his head. “Listen to that—straight out of a brochure.” He ges...

The Acapulco is quieter on weeknights. A few locals linger on the terrace, their voices softened by the warm air. Buba sits at a corner table, a scarf draped across his lap like an afterthought. He looks up as Alias steps out from inside. “May I?” Alias asks. Buba grins, tilting his head. “Of course, Mr. Banker. I thought you only watched from behind glass. Now you sit with the merchandise.” The waiter sets down two coffees without a word. Buba thanks him quickly in Spanish, then raises his c...

Act 1The Acapulco bar is wedged between a pharmacy and a real estate office, two streets back from the sea. Its terrace is crowded in the late afternoon: golfers with pink faces, French families in linen, a handful of locals nursing coffee. Waiters slide between tables with trays of olives, beer bottles slick with condensation. Buba moves easily among them, a folded stack of shirts under his arm, a scarf draped loose in one hand. Lacoste, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton—good counterfeits, discree...

The lab was a converted basement in Seoul, humming with the constant breath of machines. Fluorescent tubes buzzed faintly overhead, a second pulse to the steady churn of cooling fans. Chang sat alone at the terminal, eyes dry, fingers restless. On the screen, a lattice of code folded into itself, unspooling and locking down like a trap that would never release. Finality. That was the word that had held him for years. Every blockchain bragged about it, but he knew better. They patched, forked,...

The hall in Stockholm was all glass and steel, the kind of place where economists liked to pretend they were engineers. Rows of professors, NGO staffers, fintech consultants, and a scattering of crypto bros in slim suits and pastel sneakers. The banner across the stage read: “The Economics of Uncertainty.” Sofia glanced down the table. She was the youngest panelist by two decades. The moderator opened with a broad question about the “wisdom of the crowds.” A senior professor from Zürich leane...

The Hôtel Métropole’s bar in Geneva was made for secrets. Its lights glowed low amber, the tables polished like piano lids, the air heavy with the unspoken fact that everyone here was on someone else’s expense account. Raj adjusted the cuff of his charcoal jacket, the wool tailored to fall just so over his wristwatch. He never wore anything that glittered, nothing that screamed for attention. His presence drew eyes because he carried it lightly, not because he demanded it. She was already the...