Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“Fire!” barked Künstler.

His artillery crew, a motley mix of hardened combat troops and milquetoast Freikorps thugs, looked at each other for a moment, unsure of shelling inside Peeneburg simply to neutralize a gymnasium student to whom gravity did not seem to apply. Perhaps they were thinking twice about the Weimar official ordering them around like a battlefield general.

In any event, they obeyed.

British poets had written in praise of the “five nine” 150mm howitzer; when the Freikorps cannon roared and collapsed a side of a butcher shop with a direct hit it was easy to see why.

Weber, though simply pirouetted–leaping off the side of the butcher shop to the facade of the old opera house across the street in an astonishingly graceful move. He continued running, perpendicular to the street below and in violation of all laws of physics, as bits of shrapnel and masonry filled the street.

“Again!” Künstler cried. “Hit him again!”

The crew hesitated again, but the veterans were old Western Front hands, and they chambered another howitzer round after only a few moments’ delay to adjust elevation and windage. This time, the shot hit ten or so meters ahead of Weber, and he vanished in smoke and dust–along with most of the ornate opera house which had survived two revolutions and two wars.

“Did we get him?” Künstler craned his neck at the ruins.

Weber was in fact face-down, ears ringing…on the ceiling inside what had once been the opera vestibule, concealed behind a mound of rubble that choked the entrance.

“Hey!” A whisper from the ground brought a flicker to Weber’s eyes. He looked down and saw a young man with a red armband gesturing at him. “This way! Come on!”

What he couldn’t see, though, was the pistol in the small of the man’s back and the folded orders in his pocket–secure the gravity-defier for the Revolution at all costs.

Agnes couldn’t help that teaching science at the tri-county school was a job that devoured her free time. She loved biology, loved chemistry, especially loved biochemistry, and a desperate desire to remain in or near her hometown. The latter was partially to care for her father, who had Alzheimer’s, and partially a response to the crippling homesickness she’d felt at State University.

Maybe it was that devotion to her job, her dad, and her kids that made her husband Lee pack up and leave.

Not leave town, though. No, he’d shacked up with Cassandra Kolzowski, the buxom and blonde proprietress of the local ice cream shop. In a small town, it was a major player–profitable as hell even with reduced operating hours.

Agnes struck back the only way she knew how–with biochemistry. There was enough rye on hand in the farm fields and the Ag Annex’s test fields to collect ergot and synthesize lysergic acid diethylamide from it.

LSD, for those without Agnes’ grasp of chemistry.

She added it to the premixed ice cream flavors at Cassandra Kolzowski’s stand one night.

Pipley chewed on a toothpick. “First day on the job, huh?”

Squaker nodded. “Yeah. Is it…that different from ordinary crime scene cleanup?”

“Not really. We still got the same ABRA/IICRC certified procedures we go through, and they’ll keep you with an old hat like me the first coupla jobs.”

“D…d’you have any advice?” Squaker asked.

“What am I, a shrink?” Pipley snapped. Seeing the startled, hurt look in the kid’s eyes, he softened a bit. “Look, it’s gonna seem pretty bad when we get there, but you just gotta keep some things in mind. We don’t do structural damage–that’s another outfit. Same with busted furniture. Only the stuff you gotta wear gloves to handle. We go in first so the other guys can do their job. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Squaker said. “Got it.” He seemed a little reassured, if still more nervous than a jackrabbit in a tumble dryer.

“Right then.” Pipley slid the van door open, revealing a scene of utter devastation. An entire block of apartment buildings and the surrounding residential neighborhood had been torn apart.

“Careful,” said Pipley. “Captain Tempest was fighting Dark Fusiona here. We’re pretty sure he scared her off by throwing ranch houses at her, but there could be traces of radioactive ooze or Tempest’s Enchancoblood around.”

This post is part of the April 2012 Blog Chain at Absolute Write. This month’s prompt is “dead bunnies” (!).

NEWSCASTER: And what do you have to say about the allegations that have been made recently that your firm was deliberately selling diseased rabbits as laboratory animals or pets, and that your grade-school dissection specimens were similarly unsafe?

DR. PIKE: I’d like to take this opportunity to assure you and the viewing public at home that these rumors are completely baseless. At Lapine Industries, we hold ourselves to the highest standards of genetic engineering, breeding, and overall cleanliness.

NEWSCASTER: And the reports of Lapine Industries rabbits, both live and cadaver, attacking customers and schoolchildren?

DR. PIKE: As I said, completely baseless.

NEWSCASTER: We have some footage here acquired through our affiliate WRBT in Cascadia, Michigan.

[grainy image of a elementary school science classroom]

SCHOOLCHILD: What’s wrong with Mr. Fluffy?

TEACHER: Get back, children!

[a blur of white streaked with crimson flashes in front of the camera followed by a scream]

TEACHER: My God, it got Jeannie!

[sound of a 12-gauge round being chambered]

TEACHER: Chew on this!

[gunshot; dark fluid coats camera, obscuring visuals]

TEACHER, CHILDREN: [indistinct screaming]

[recording ends]

NEWSCASTER: Dr. Pike?

DR. PIKE: Those could be anyone’s rabbits.

NEWSCASTER: Looks like we’ve got our first caller. Hello, you’re on Soft Copy 360.

CALLER: [frantic and out of breath] We heard that there might be a problem, so we buried our dissection rabbits meant for seventh-grade biology.

DR. PIKE: Now, I can assure you that was an unnecessary-

CALLER: [interrupting] They came back! Do you hear me? THEY CAME BACK! They’re at the barricades right now…I don’t know how long we can hold them off! I think they infected some of the local rabbits too-

NEWSCASTER: Caller, can you speak up? We’re having trouble hearing you.

[indistinct screaming, growling, gunshots audible]

CALLER: Oh God, they’re everywhere! Drooling green slime, faster than we can track them or shoot…please, send help! Call the National Guard! We’re about to be overrun with killer zombie rabbits from hell!

DR. PIKE: Now, I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of a Lapine Industries product. We have rigorous safety procedures in place and offer 24/7 online customer support. Have you tried reading the storage and care instructions that came with your rabbit cadavers, and are you sure that they were sourced from Lapine Industries?

CALLER: [panicking] No, no, aim for the head!

[more growling, screaming; line abruptly goes dead]

NEWSCASTER: Dr. Pike, any comment?

DR. PIKE: Clearly an isolated incident, probably caused by improper handling.

Check out this month’s other bloggers, all of whom have posted or will post their own responses:
KatieJ
Ralph Pines
kiwiviktor81
Nissie
SuzanneSeese
pyrosama
Bogna
dclary
randi.lee
julzperri
Penelope
AFord
Araenvo
areteus
magicmint
Joliedupre

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

“Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. “What sort of people live about here?”

“In THAT direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

“Bianca 223,979, you are in violation of nineteen separate ordinances, seventeen statutes, six sections of the consolidated code, and twenty-seven other iterations of standard arcology law.”

“Don’t care,” Bianca muttered. Her hands flew over the keyboard she’d wired into the system. She was coding faster than she ever thought possible; a side effect of removing the limiter, perhaps.

Or it could have just been sheer emotional panic.

“Bianca 223,979, you have disregarded your final warning. Lethal force has been authorized.”

“Try it,” growled Biana. There was more than enough time to get in and shut down the central servers, with brute force attacks if need be.

A loud whine from the production floor below broke her train of thought. Units still on the assembly line were whirring to life, limbs twitching and lights flickering as they did so. Within moments, half the units were on the ground, running or crawling toward Bianca’s exposed position. Their weapons weren’t–couldn’t be–online, but each still had a grip strength in excess of 3000 psi.

Bianca had only moments before they overwhelmed her.

After his death, three further prophecies were found among al-Botros’ personal effects. Written in his own flowing calligraphy, they ran thus:

1. An empire crumbles; all that remains is ash. Thus shall the humble make the mighty.
2. A revolutionary rises, but wants for arms. Thus shall the mighty be made humble.
3. A miracle is born; all it is missing is a heart. Thus shall the mighty and the humble serve.

As al-Botros had predicted the death of the Caliph and the defeat of his armies at Hormuz, his words were carefully pondered by the finest scholars from throughout the land. The first was believed to refer to a great war or a rebellion by a subjugated nation of dhimmi, the second to a popular uprising within the caliphate itself, and the third a possible messianic figure. The later Caliphs prepared accordingly, preparing a large and sophisticated standing army and creating the first Mukhabarat or secret police.

As is so often the case, the scholars were wrong.

The capital of the Caliphate burned in a large conflagration one hundred years after al-Botros died, and the Caliph was reported to have rescued his harem and his menagerie by monopolizing the soldiers and fire brigades for his own use while thousands burned for want of help. A rebellion began in the streets of the capital soon afterward and the Caliph was killed by his own people, leading to a dynastic struggle that split the Caliphate into rival petty empires and sheikhdoms.

Centuries later, in a minor kingdom with a notoriously brutal sheikh, a man was wrongly accused of theft and had both his arms amputated near the shoulders. That event awoke a secret fire in the man, who proved to be a gifted strategist and leader of men. The petty and brutal sheikh’s life ended at the point of a rebellious spear, and the amputee, Ibn Khaldun, reunited the Caliphate. His son became the first of the modern Caliph-Emperors.

In time, though, the line of Caliph-Emperors failed and they became as decadent and corrupt as those they had supplanted. But the third prophecy of al-Botros was ever on their minds, and even as more centuries passed and technology wildly changed the lives of Caliphate citizens, the revived Mukhabarat kept a close watch on all recorded births.

In the fourteenth year of the Caliph-Emperor Saleh IV’s reign, a woman named Amatullah gave birth to a child that presented a major medical curiosity. Somehow, the child had been carried to term without a functioning heart–a development which prompted an emergency surgery. Cutting-edge medical technology, along with a fortuitous stillbirth with a compatible blood type, allowed the child to survive.

When the news reached the Caliph-Emperor, he decreed the newborn girl’s immediate execution. But through the efforts of the girl’s mother and the hospital staff, she vanished into the Al-Quds megalopolis. In an unheard-of act of caprice, Saleh IV had the surgical team and maternity ward staff executed and gibbeted instead.

The search for the “heartless” child continues to this day.

Three Dempenii walk into a wine-seller’s stall and ask to sample the wares, so the merchant gives them each a sip of his best vintage.

“It’s too sour,” said the first of the Dempenii. “I feel like I’m sucking on a mouthful of Median apples.”

“It’s too sweet,” said the second of the Dempenii. “I feel like someone’s jamming handfuls of candied berries down my throat.”

“It’s perfect,” said the third of the Dempenii, who didn’t even taste it. “If two Dempenii aver agree on anything, you know if must be a bad idea.”

-From a Linear B inscription pieced together from pottery fragments in an offal heap near Knossos on Crete. Written ca. 1300BC, it represents one of the earliest appearances of this particular form of joke. Scholars have tentatively declared it the source for all known ethnic humor in use today.

On the third try, the doorframe finally gave, splintering around the lock. Conchita gave it a final kick and it swung weakly open.

“James?” she said. “Where are you?” Behind her, Reg dropped the battering ram on the concrete floor and followed.

The interior rooms had been gutted, with furniture and most of the non loadbearing walls replaced with racks of servers and off-the shelf components modified to work like servers. There was even a liquid cooling system installed–maybe drawing from the city sewers?–but even so the temperature inside was easily in the nineties.

“James?” Conchita called again. “I know you’re in here. No more hiding.”

She made a careful circuit of the first floor, while Reg went to look upstairs. There was just more and more computer equipment; the bathroom had no water pressure and was streaked with rust stains and the refrigerator was unplugged and empty aside from a few moldy bread heels. Nothing to suggest that anything other than pay the water and electricity bills had been done in a long time.

“Hey, up here!” It was Reg from upstairs. Conchita took the steps two at a time.

He’d found what looked like the computer system’s central terminal–a mosaic of screens around an elaborate set of keyboards and joysticks. A thick layer of dust covered everything, and the chair looked like it had been partially torn apart by rats.

The monitors, covered by heavy dust, were running speech synthesis programs, image editing software, and a popular web-based voice and video chat.

There was no sign that James, or anyone else, had been at the terminal in months.

Stupid assignment.

The microfilm reader whirred as Joshua flipped to another page. Nothing.

Was it his fault that his history teacher was a dried-out old fossil? That she wouldn’t accept a source for his term paper from the computer? And yet there he was, in the Deerton Public Library on a Saturday, flipping through the creaky old reels of micro-whatever the old librarian had set him up with, looking for local history.

Was it his fault that nothing ever happened in Deerton that was worthy of the word “history?”

He’d already gone through the Deerton Herald, giving up after three reels of pointlessness, before moving onto the Cascadia Post. Even then, he’d gotten as far back as 1984 without finding so much as a peep about Deerton, not even on the sports page (where he’d at least expected regular mentions of the annual whipping Deerton High got on behalf of Cascadia Consolidated).

That’s when he came across the Tecumseh County Centennial Insert in the April 29, 1984 Sunday edition, which had an entry for Deerton. “Finally,” Joshua huffed.

“The last major logging season was in 1924, and soon the railroad was dismantled and the town of Deerton disappeared. The site has been abandoned for sixty years.”

Joshua stared blankly at the screen.

He’d lived in Deerton for thirteen years.