A gentle rain tapped against the mullioned windows of The Seven Stars. The pub sat at the edge of Marsh Baldon's village green, an expanse of wet grass that disappeared into gathering evening mist. Inside, the low ceiling was crossed with oak beams darkened by centuries of smoke. Brass lamps cast pools of yellow light that didn't quite reach the corners. A fire sputtered in the stone hearth, more for comfort than necessity.
Five people sat at a corner table far from the locals. Their glasses made wet rings on the scarred wood.
"Started small," said Trade War. He wore a navy suit with an American flag pin. "Just aluminum and steel." He drank his beer and set the glass down precisely where it had been. His fingers built invisible walls on the table, separating imaginary territories. "Now container ships sit empty in harbors. Factories close. People lose jobs, then homes." He smiled thinly. "Humans built a global system over what, seventy years? I'm dismantling it in seven months."
The bartender wiped the same spot on the bar over and over, keeping his distance.
Climate Catastrophe nodded. She had deep lines around her eyes, skin weathered by sun. She wiped condensation from her glass with a thumb, leaving a streak like a melting glacier. "Colorado River's a creek now," she said. "Farmers in India finding their wells dry. Simple as that." She fanned herself briefly with a menu, though the pub wasn't warm. "Humanity had, what, ten thousand years of stable climate? A geological eyeblink. Barely enough time to build their civilization before I wash it away."
"Nothing personal," said Population Decline. He was thin, gray at the temples, with careful hands. "Mathematics don't lie. Human birth rates fell below replacement. Then kept falling." He adjusted his glasses, steepled his fingers like a graph trending downward. "Empty schools in Seoul. Abandoned villages in Spain. Just quiet." He rubbed at a spot on the wooden table until it faded, like something being erased. "Humanity's population explosion was an anomaly. Two hundred years out of millions. Now the curve corrects itself."
The rain hit harder against the glass. A drop leaked through somewhere, making a small dark spot on the wooden floor.
"Yeah, yeah, you old guys!" said Tech Advances. He looked young, his face illuminated by the blue glow of his phone. His fingers twitched with microscopic movements, as if typing on invisible keyboards. "Lab-grown pathogens leave no fingerprints. AI systems make decisions no one really understands." He didn't look up when he spoke. Touched his throat, coughed slightly. "Modified H5N1 with increased transmissibility. Um, financial systems that collapse without human intervention, bot to bot. No one to blame." He scrolled endlessly on his phone, eyes reflecting numbers no one else could see. "They thought technology would save them. Made me their god. Never realized I was just another horseman."
"Takes too long," Geopolitical Realignment said. His accent shifted between sentences, impossible to place. He ran his hand through his hair, which seemed to change color slightly with the movement. "I make old friends enemies overnight. Treaties become just paper. Borders become suggestions." He pushed his untouched whiskey to the center of the table, then rearranged the salt and pepper shakers into new territories. "Moscow and Washington agree. Europe becomes irrelevant. The world reorders while everyone sleeps." His eyes darted between the other patrons, assessing alliances. "Humans thought they'd reached the end of history. Believed their political arrangements were permanent. Their empires rarely last a century. Why would this one be different?"
The fire popped. A log collapsed, sending sparks up the chimney.
Climate Catastrophe peeled the label from her bottle, flicking the soggy paper into small curls like dried riverbeds. "And together we are stronger. When crops fail in three breadbaskets simultaneously, Trade War's work becomes so much easier. The species lasted—what—three hundred thousand years? Most of that time, just wandering, eating, reproducing. Then a flash of brilliance—agriculture, writing, spaceflight. And now..."
Trade War nodded once. "And your droughts push people toward borders they can't cross. They had such ambitions. United Nations. Global cooperation. All it took was a little fear to unravel it."
"My emptying countries can't defend themselves," said Population Decline. "Not enough young men to hold rifles. Not enough workers to keep economies functioning. They appeared so suddenly on this planet. Their numbers exploded like no species before. And now they'll dwindle just as fast."
"My algorithms decide who gets resources," Tech Advances said, finally looking up. "Who deserves medicine, who crosses borders. My viruses don't check passports. They just find lungs. Humanity's finest achievement was creating me. Their final achievement as well as finest. Ha!"
Geopolitical Realignment finished his drink. "And I ensure no international body can coordinate a response. No WHO for your pandemics. No United Nations for your refugees. No cordinated EU to respond to the US aligning with Russia. They built palaces of cooperation in Geneva and New York. Monuments to their optimism. Soon they'll be museums of a failed experiment."
Outside, wind bent the rain sideways. It rattled the old windows in their frames.
"We should go," Climate Catastrophe said. "Storm's picking up."
They left cash on the table though no one had taken their order. The door opened, letting in wind and wet. Then closed.
The bartender crossed to their table. Five full glasses sat in a circle around one empty one. The surface of each liquid rippled slightly, though nothing had disturbed them. He rubbed his eyes, tried to remember who’d been sitting here.
He gathered the money and glasses, then stood at the window watching the empty green where nothing moved but rain-bent grass and gathering darkness. The weather forecast hadn't mentioned a storm.