Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Coach Curtl brought his own peculiar Czechoslovakian style to the teams under his guidance, chief among them his overwhelming faith in statistics. Every athlete would be given a mimeographed sheet onto which their times (for track & field), yards (for football) batting average (for baseball) and any other relevant statistics could be entered.

Curtl and his assistant coaches would hover nearby, stopwatch or tape measure in hand, during every practice. Afterwards, he would laboriously calculate derived statistics and normalize them–this in an era of slide rules! Student athletes whose Curtlmetrics (as they called them) showed improvement or at least maintained a consistent level of (Curtl-defined) quality were fine.

Those who slipped got their pick of an escalating series of punishments: extra practices, demotion on the roster, or even cutting. All cuts received a detailed sheet from Curtl explaining their crimes in detail.

When Anderson got his, though, he had an inkling that the numbers weren’t quite right.

And so he founded the Séminaire Denty, on the Ile de Denty, where it grew and flourished for a hundred years.

But then came the fires of 1789 and the whirlwind of 18 Brumaire, and the Séminaire Denty found itself closed, looted, and all but forgotten. It was manned as a coastal fort during the wars that followed, only to gradually fall into ruin thereafter. Dark rumors circulated of priests or the illegitimate descendants of priests stalking the wooded ruins, but nothing substantial ever came of them, save the disappearance of a German patrol to the area in 1944 which was blamed on partisans of the Resistance.

So when Dr. Pierre Coutard arrived at the site, he found only two hundred years of decay. Nothing to indicate the site’s former importance.

And nothing to indicate its fate only six weeks hence.

“Gionew 176. What the hell’s that mean?”

“I think it’s an address near Milan, 176 Nuovo Giovedi”

“How d’you get ‘Nuovo Giovedi’ out of ‘Gionew?'”

“There was a lot of swinging going on in Milan in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and a lot of Yankee and Limey expats all over the place. A lot of the clubs and bars and…other places were on Nuovo Giovedi street–New Thursday in English.”

“Why New Thursday?”

“They renamed it after Italy invaded France during the war, on a Thursday. Obviously not something that’s going over terribly well with the peacenik hippies overruning the place way back when, so it got called ‘Gionew’ in an appalling abuse of both English and Italian.”

“And our man has a flat there?”

“We’re about to find out.”

“Who’s next on the list?”

“Nurse Rosa Archetti.” Binghamton shuffled the manuscript pages. “Looks like she’s the only lady on the list.”

“I see,” said Carruthers, stroking his chin. “And what’s she done to earn a place on the list with Luchini and Carducci and the other war criminals?”

“Says here she was in charge of the nursing staff at a POW camp in the north,” said Binghamton. “We have consistent reports from prisoners there that indict her.”

“Aw, what for? Stealing the chocolate our of their Red Cross packages?”

“Uh…no,” Binghamton said. “Seems she forcibly and systematically euthanized sick POW’s to reduce their strain on the medical corps and to leave more supplies for the war effort.”

“Shit,” Carruthers muttered. “Figures the one I poke a little fun of would be up for something like that. Let’s reel her in.”

Opinions and arguments buzzed around the table.

“Why are we even talking about it?” said Sid, age 18. “Let’s send someone back and change things.”

“Who put you in charge of deciding when we’re done talking?” said Sid, age 14. “It’s my life you’re screwing up if it doesn’t work, not just yours.”

“And it’s my life we’re saving,” countered Sid, age 18. “Put a sock in it!”

“Stop fighting,” whined Sid, age 12. “You’re worse than Mom and Dad.

“Oh, if you think that’s bad, just wait until they-”

Sid, age 18 was cut short by Sid, age 16 who cuffed him on the head. “Don’t spoil it for him!”

“Don’t tell me what to do, you wussy dateless nerd,” Sid, age 18 growled.

“Then don’t act like such a jackass, you drunk, doped-up jock!” countered Sid, age 16. “If that’s what I’ve got to look forward to, maybe it’s best we don’t do anything and put you out of your misery!”

In all the commotion, Sid, age 1, began bawling again. “Oh, for crap’s sake,” cried Sid, age 14. “Somebody change him!”

Perfect numbers–that is, positive integers that are the sum of their proper positive divisors–had fascinated mathematicians since the days of the great Greek mathematician Nicomachus. Only four were known in those days, and relatively few have been uncovered since, none of them odd–something certain figures consider an impossibility.

In 1456, Abd al-Nitypt, an astronomer in the court of Mehmed II at Constantinople, discovered and proved the existence of a fifth perfect number, 33,550,336. He further set forth a complex formula for identifying further perfect numbers, a refinement of Euclid’s formula, and identified a list of values for n which he claimed would, when applied to his formula, reveal all odd perfect numbers between 0 and 10^1500.

This list, the Nitypt Numbers, was eventually lost in the quagmire of the Ottoman archives. They, alongside Fermat’s Last Theorem, were long regarded as some of the most tantalizing mysteries in mathematics.

And Harvery was staring at a copy in al-Nitypt’s own flowing calligraphy.

Of course, Schliemann had his own personal scale of box office success, which he wrote out longhand and taped up whenever he thought people needed perspective (usually shortly before they were fired and/or promoted):

“Blockbuster” – The rarest of the rare, a flick that made way more than was invested in it. Due to the ballooning budget requirements to make 3D action extravaganzas and brush out Australian actresses’ blemishes, the margins on even the biggest pictures tended to be too narrow to qualify as a blockbuster by Schliemann’s standards.

“Hit” – A movie that made back its cost plus a healthy profit. It was usually the first step toward promotion or more work for the people responsible. Crucially, Schliemann’s formula allowed for “Hollywood accounting” which put even the most successful feature as a loss to swindle authors and rightsholders out of their cut.

“Sleeper” – Movies that the studio didn’t have a lot of confidence in but also didn’t have a lot of cash tied up in, which slowly made money over a long theater run or broke even in theaters before making a profit on video.

“Watertreader” – A flick that made back its budget. A few people might get chewed out, but no one was losing their job. Often the overseas grosses would be the deciding factor, which Schliemann called “The Reverse Marshall Plan,” whatever that meant.

“Flop” – Movies that did decent business but didn’t make any money. Usually they came and went fairly quietly, often with freshman directors, writers, or stars. They’d have a hard time getting more work, but most were freelancers anyway. A major name could withstand half a dozen flops before Schliemann started calling them a “has been.”

“Bomb” – Movies that didn’t even come close to making their budget back despite a big marketing push were slapped with this label, not just by Schliemann but the press.

“Disaster” – It wasn’t enough for a disaster to lose money, even a lot of money. It also had to be critically reviled, with toxic publicity and media ridicule. Heaven’s Gate. Gigli. It was almost an honor to earn entry to this select club.

“Gabriel Flanagan. Know him?”

Iris shook her head. “Should I?”

“You should if you expect to be in the same panel with him. Don’t you actually read anything besides what you draw?”

“I told you, I’m an artist, not a comic book geek.”

“Gabe Flanagan’s one of the most respected artists to come out of the underground comix–with an ‘x’–movement since Robert Crumb. He wrote, illustrated, and colored three hundred issues of The Monsters of Merryville Street by himself and won a bushel of Eisners for it–not bad for a series that deals frankly with cannibalism, incest, necrophilia, self-mutilation, and includes unlicensed references to the classic Universal Monsters lineup.”

“Ah, I see,” said Iris. “You expected that the author and illustrator of a gentle watercolor comic with no violence and G-rated sensibilities would be familiar with something like that?”

“No, I just would have been impressed if you had. Most people here only know Gabe Flanagan from the 10-episode animated show he produced on MTV in the mid-90’s. Sods. Don’t mention that to him if you do meet; he lost creative control back then and is liable to start punching.”

“What’s the ‘Broughdarg Two-Step?'”

“Well, you see, during the war with the Tudors Broughdarg changed hands many times. Legend has it some wag kept a running tally of hash marks inside the gate for the English and Irish besiegers.”

“So?”

“So, every time the fortress was taken, the captives and their sympathizers would go to the gibbets on the battlements, at least until their fellows recaptured the city and cut them down. Winds are fierce around Broughdarg most of the year, so the gusts would shake the poor fellows such that they looked to be dancing. By the time the city fell for good, they say, over a thousand had danced the Broughdarg Two-Step.”

Among the many bits of flora and fauna he cataloged was ivichea irregulari. One of many specimens named after Captain Vichea of the Intrepid, it was an unremarkable deciduous shrub in every way save one: the leaves never seemed to grow in the same shape twice. And unlike the minor variations in oak and maple, the ivichea irregulari varied hugely in both size and shape. It also had an uncharacteristic tendency to grow leaves featuring straight lines and right angles, extremely rare in botany. Garrison preserved pressings of leaves resembling crosses, zigzags, open books, hearts, and a myriad of other shapes.

When his narrative of the voyage and reproductions of his pressings were printed after the Intrepid returned, it created a minor sensation. Some academics accused garrison of altering the leaves with compass and straightedge, while others insisted that he must have confused several closely related plants to obtain the varied samples. The controversy overshadowed much of the expedition’s work, and within two years another vessel had set out to confirm the story.

Sure enough, ivichea irregulari was found, and dozens of specimens were brought back to Europe where they were in huge demand as ornamental plants and curiosities. The price of specimens was so great, in fact, that Charlotte Island was soon denuded of the plants, which became extinct in the wild. They became a fixture of trendy topiary gardens for a number of years, and thanks to the bush’s short germination time and quick growth, breeders were able to create strains with more of the desired, and exotic leaf types.

That was, of course, until a pestilence (which latter-day research revealed to be a variety of Dutch elm disease) swept through the continent. With low genetic diversity, every viable specimen of ivichea irregulari was dead within six years.