Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Suddenly there were armed men all around, machine pistols emerging from nondescript coats and from beneath rain slickers.

A van pulled up and the door slid open. “Get in!” one of the men said, leveling the business end of his heater at May. “Now!”

She glanced at me; my saucer-like eyes and blank expression probably weren’t all that reassuring. A moment later, I was being shoved out of the way as she was bundled into the waiting van.

Seeing her in that situation, I felt my hands close into fists. I’d been talking about making a change, becoming more assertive, taking risks. Hell, I’d been thinking about jumping off a bridge or at least threatening to do it.

Here was my chance to do both at once.

I leapt into the van and took a seat next to her. “Hey, asshole, we don’t want you!” the person in the passenger seat said. “Get out!”

“Make me,” I growled.

Suddenly a jet-black Glock was pressed to my forehead. “I said out!”

I folded my arms.

“If he wants to come, let him come!” the driver shouted. “All the same to me. Just get that door closed!”

The door slammed shut. Acceleration forced everyone back in their seats, and the passenger pulled off his ski mask. It was Austin, the man from the embassy. “No room for sightseers on this trip, buddy. Now that you’re playing, you’re playing for keeps.

I could feel May’s hand tighten around my wrist. Whatever horrible fate was in store for her, at least she wouldn’t have to go alone.

Hollister had a Sphynx for a secretary; she was filing her long claws–red not from blood but from polish–with an emery board. She glanced up at me through heavy rouge and a delicately coiffed perm.

“I need to see Mr. Hollister at once,” I said, withdrawing the Smith & Wesson from my shoulder holster. “Here’s my heater.”

“I talk, but I do not speak my mind,” she said with a nasal twang–a Brooklyn sphynx. “I hear words, but I do not listen to thoughts. When I wake, all see me. When I sleep, all hear me. Many heads are on my shoulders. Many hands are at my feet. The strongest steel cannot break my visage. But the softest whisper can destroy me. What am I?”

I sighed. Sphynxes love their riddling talk–it’s a cultural thing, I suppose–which is why they’re in such demand as bouncers and secretaries. Easy enough for someone who doesn’t want to be disturbed to have their sphynx riddle all comers, even though it’s technically illegal. These days they’ll just turn you away for a wrong answer, mostly. But in the old days, and in some dark alleys now as the scuttlebutt has it, they’d strangle and eat you. Hell, their name comes from the old Greek word for ‘strangler.’ Same root as ‘sphincter,’ too; appropriate, since I’d yet to meet a sphynx who wasn’t an asshole.

“An actor,” I said. “Can I go in now?” Teddy Roosevelt loved that one, and a lot of the dimmer or less imaginative sphynxes used it. But you don’t get to be where–or what–I am without knowing all the old sphynxy standbys.

A red claw descended on the intercom. “Someone to see you, Mr. Hollister.”

Perry tugged nervously at his collar as the ad ran on the screen. “Pifvip: for when you want to get the most out of your life.”

“Wonderful, just wonderful,” the Old Woman said after the cartoon cloud floated away on a bed of octagonal violet pills and the gentle new age music stopped. “First-rate ad copy as always, Bernard.”

Bernard flashed his expensive caps and bridgework, unnaturally white and–scuttlebutt had it–impregnated with trace amounts of uranium for that natural glow. “You’re too kind.”

“Perry! You look like you’ve swallowed a scorpion over there,” the Old Woman said. “Isn’t it about time you told us about the results of the test?”

“W-well, as we reported last month, there were no side effects detected in the initial double-blind study…”

“Excellent! Let’s call the lobbyists and get FDA approval before everything starts getting sanctimonious in an election year.”

“But,” Perry continued, “there were some…irregularities…later on.”

“What sort of irregularities?” the Old Woman asked icily.

“Well, it turns out that Pifvip has a tendency to build up in fatty tissues and…uh…interact with some other medications to form unwanted compounds,” Perry said, feeling his shirt begin to ride up as he became slick with sweat. “Hallucinogenic compounds, actually, when combined with acetaminophen, ibuprofen, aspirin, and a number of other common over-the-counters.”

The Old Woman raised an eyebrow. “How bad?”

“Many extended study participants reported being harassed by an entity they called the Cigar Goblin, which urged them to burn things,” Perry said. “Others reported that elemental creatures in their milkshakes were trying to suck them into a dimension of ‘lactose doom.’ One in particular was troubled by a persistent fear that the overhead lights were uncoiled ‘Elder Snails’ that would invade her brain while she slept and force her to attend night classes.”

“Anime is just too weird for me, man,” Caleb said. “It’s like seeing regular Saturday morning cartoons ground up and regurgitated by someone’s really twisted subconscious.”

“How d’you ever expect to be taken seriously as a geek with that attitude?” Sean replied. “Here, we’ll get you started on something easy and non-threatening.” He began rummaging through the stack of pastel-colored keepcases.

“No, really, let’s just watch something-”

“Here, how about Dimensional Galactic Rogue Outlaw Roku?” said Sean, blindly waving the case. “It’s about a schoolgirl who’s last in a long line of Galaxy Warriors and has to fight off the Tentacleoids while going through Ariabachi High. Also she reverts to a jellylike omnigel when she’s angry or stressed.”

Caleb bit his lip. “Uh…no.”

“Okay, okay, we can try Bio Sword Arc Unlimited. It’s based on the legend of Joan of Arc, except in modern-day Kunioshi Prefecture. Junior high student Jan’nu Daruku is touched by the kami Hachiman and granted the power to shape her limbs into weapons to fight an invasion of mutant deep-sea squid roused by nuclear testing.”

“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Caleb sighed. “No.”

“What pattern? Those are totally different shows!” Sean snorted incredulously. “Fine, we’ll go super-basic: Initial Ghost Priestess Salvation. Yuki Tanaka learns that she’s the reincarnation of Kamakura period empress Fujiwara, and the only one who can save her classmates from the return of the subterranean cephalopodal elder race that cause the collapse of the shogunate.”

“You might not be familiar with cordyceps unilateralis, the ‘zombie ant fungus,'” Dr. Donovan said. “In nature, it affects the behavior of ants, causing them to climb to an optimal spore dispersal point while the fungus devours them from the inside.”

Senator Chandler made a face. “I hope that’s not what you’re showing us large-scale,” she said. “I’m fairly certain there’s a Geneva something against things like that.”

“Oh no. We’ve improved on it quite a bit. We can engineer the spores to produce an incredible range of complex behaviors in their hosts, after which they’re broken down and excreted. Say hello to cordyceps unilateralis candida.”

Donovan opened the shades, revealing a second group of rhesus monkeys–this one playing Texas hold’em poker.

The projector stuttered for a moment as the projectionist changed reels. After a moment of distortion, the newsreel began to flicker on the silver screen.

“Central City News Corporation presents: News on Parade!” the announcer intoned, sounding to all the world like an overeager color commentator at Central Stadium.

“Crime Watch! Be on the lookout for these notorious gangsters, hoodlums, and criminals! Report any sightings to the theater management or the nearest CCPD dispatcher! Remember, these vile persons may be in the theater alongside you!”

“That’ll be the day,” Günter muttered.

A man appeared, sneering into the mugshot camera. “Rex Fuzzgaze, the thought-stealer! This diabolical Liverpudlian sorcerer has perfected the subtle art of mind control, impressing others with his gaze and using them for his nefarious purposes! Do not approach!”

Günter snorted. “Needs to see a barber about those eyebrows.”

An unassuming-looking businessman, well-groomed, holding his card with no clear expression. “Pendleton Carvey, the mad mechanical genius! His nefarious automata held up the Central Reserve just last week! Wanted dead or dying!”

“Probably didn’t have enough to occupy his mind during his day job,” Günter opined.

A woman, very pretty except for deeply sunken eyes and stringy hair. “Macha DeVries, the mutant mistress of ghouls! An accident at a university labs has placed her in a state of living death with command over the recently deceased! Won’t be taken alive!”

“Hmph,” said Günter. “I don’t believe that one for a moment. Too fantastic.”

“You’re right about that,” his seat neighbor croaked, stretching a pale, bony hand into her bucket of popcorn. “The camera adds at least ten pounds.”

“This is boring, Dad. Who cares about girls so much they’d go to war over one?”

I lowered my copy of The Big Book of Greek Mythology, sensing a crack in my plan to give Sean a classical education through the medium of bedtime stories.

“W-well, Helen was really just an excuse for Agamemnon to send an army to Troy,” I said.

“Armies are boring,” Sean sighed with a cynicism unbecoming a 7-year-old. “Uncle Dave’s in the army.”

This wouldn’t do. “Well, the army was just an excuse too,” I said, groping about for something to grab his attention. “They were really just…just androids, to make sure no one suspected.”

Sean perked up a bit. “Suspected what?”

“Suspected that…uh, that Agamemnon, Achilles, and Odysseus had superpowers. Agamemnon had…super-strength. Achilles was invincible. Odysseus could shoot lasers out of his eyes.”

“So they had a bunch of robots around so no one would wonder how they beat up all the bad guys all by themselves,” Sean said. “But how’d the war last 10 years?”

“Uh…the Trojans had robots too,” I said, trying to recall plot bits from Sean’s cartoons. “Lots of ’em. And superpowers. Priam could mind-control. Hector had super-speed. Paris had mutant healing factor.”

“Hmm…” Sean said.

“And Helen was a cyborg,” I said quickly. “The Trojans weren’t just in love with her, they wanted to use her technology to make an invincible army.”

“Wow! What happened next, Dad?”

I turned the page, hoping that what he was about to hear wouldn’t warp his appreciation of the classics too much.

“You understand, the translation will have to be approximate,” Smiths said. “A lot of heiroglyphs is context and inferential.”

“Just read it.” The revolver was argument enough.

“The Aten had no form, no voice, only will. Arising from the darkness of all which exists outside the Maat, the divine order of the cosmos, it first manifested as a weak and guttering spark. Only by associating itself with the bright disc of the sun was the Aten able to attract the notice of mortals, who came to view it as an aspect of their sun god, Ra. In this way, the Aten was first able to whisper into the ears of the chief priest, the Pharaoh. Over a generation, the whispers grew strong enough for the Pharaoh, and by extension his people, to allot the Aten a place in their great pantheon of deities. And when an aged and infirm ruler gave way to a young and impressionable one, the whispers grew ever louder.”

“Keep going.”

“In those days, the Aten was possessed of a great love for those whose belief had allowed it to escape from the darkness of the Duat, the underworld, but also a terrible jealousy. Through the Pharaoh, it insisted that the old gods were to be swept away–the whispers so insistent that the young ruler soon came to be preoccupied with his new religion alone, to the ruin of the nation. The Divinity, which existed in the guise of the many local gods at that time, reacted by withdrawing itself from the land. The Aten was unable to cope with the subsequent widespread famine, plagues, political upheaval, and general chaos, great though its powers had become. With the death of the Pharaoh from illness, the Aten was cast down from its lofty perch, and the light which represented it faded once more as successive rulers ought to erase it from their history.”

Smiths paused. “S-shall I keep going?”

The gun again, flashing in the torchlight. “Please do.”

“Cast once again into darkness, the Aten grew bitter at its fate, and came to resent the mortals on whom it had depended and whom it had once tried to love. It gathered its strength once more, slowly, and resolved to complete what the long-ago Pharaoh had once begun – the sweeping away of the old world for a new. Rather than co-opting, it would create anew. But although its strength returned, the Aten could not set its plan in motion.”

“For it yet needed mankind: its beliefs and its aid.” The words came from the darkness before Smiths could translate them.

Sovenal was rushing toward the ministerial platform when he brushed roughly up against a burly man hurrying in the opposite direction. They might have muttered something–maybe a curse, maybe an apology–but the martial music outside was too loud to make anything out for sure. Abruptly, Sovenal’s pace slowed as he neared his destination, and he couldn’t suppress a ragged cough.

Among the crowd below, Gelnika strained to see what was happening on and around the balcony of the People’s Palace. He could see Tavis, the smug bastard, standing beside the Minister, but there was no sign of Sovenal or any of his men. When the minister stepped froward to speak, there was no mention of Secretary Tavis’ treachery or the last-minute appeal from Ambassador Ijke. Instead, he heaped a fiery call to arms on the populace and troops below, calling for a swift attack by bayonet and shock on enemies of the state. Not only that, but the troops assembled for the National Day celebration were to march directly to the front.

“What the hell happened?” Gelnika hissed into his radio. “Sovenal!”

No reply but static.

Once the square had cleared out, with the troops off to their slaughter and the populace off to their celebration, Gelnika slid through a gap in the Palace fence and began scouring the grounds for any trace of Sovenal. He found the Undersecretary lying on the floor a few dozen yards from the ministerial balcony.

Sovenal had bled out through a carefully aimed small-caliber shot to his femoral artery.

He continued reading:

“Day 144. I placed an old newspaper over the railing in the stairwell to my office because I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s not being cleaned, which dates back to the mummified cockroach I found up there a few months ago. It may have been roach royalty, placed there to maintain the use of his body in the afterlife, but it was still incredibly disgusting, and I had to clean it.

Since I’m practically the only person who takes the stairs rather than the elevator, I’ll time the janitorial crew to see how long it takes them to discover and remove the paper. If my suspicions are correct, it will be here longer than I am.”

The next block of pages had been torn out, and the writing continued on Day 288.

“The newspaper is still there, having yellowed imperceptibly over the course of my experiment. I find it astounding that the stairwell hasn’t been cleaned in so long–the janitor’s assertions to the contrary notwithstanding. Perhaps it’s emblematic of my time here, which has often seemed like a hamster wheel. Didn’t I process these same reports some time ago? I feel like the neverending torrent of paper passing through my life has begun to twist in on itself like an Ouroboros. That’s not a good thing to feel, that one is as disposable as that newspaper and just waiting for a clean-up to realize it.”

As he turned the page, a loose sheet fell out. It’d been rudely shoved in and bore a date too far beyond the last one in the book (which cut off just short of 900).

“Day 2018. The paper is still there. THE PAPER IS STILL THERE. It should be ribbons by now. I know a thing or two about paper and it should be disintegrated but it’s not. It isn’t! I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t lightening, reverting to its new state, and if I won’t soon be compelled to remove it while descending the stairs backwards. I…I need to get out…”