Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Major Natasha Lebedeva, section chief of intelligence for the Imperial Central Securitate, collected her notes. A ten-year veteran of the ICS, she specialized in psychological warfare and black ops, with well over 100 successful operations to her name. She was sure that, with his impending retirement, Colonel Richat would soon nominate her as his successor in the position of ICS Undersecretary for Extraordinary Affairs.

“Come in, Major.” Richat was seated at his desk, flanked by his usual personal escort of two ISC military police–since the base attack the previous August he had rarely been without them. “I had to discuss this with you personally, as our most experienced operative. We’ve received intelligence that a Callistan has infiltrated the highest levels of our organization.”

“What sort of intelligence?” Natasha was taken aback by the news. She knew all about Callistans, genetically engineered masters of infiltration and subterfuge who sold their services to the highest bidder. Able to change aspects of their appearance at will–though not to the ridiculous extent of popular rumors–they were also rumored to be masters of impersonation to the extent that the line between impersonator and impersonated was often blurred. Natasha had written her master’s thesis on the case of a Callistan unmasked and executed in the Imperial General Staff decades ago, and was the foremost expert on them within in the ICS.

“We’ve recently installed a photophore scanner with a resolution of 1.2 PPB. The absolute latest in military-grade scanning technology, able to detect Callistans no matter how perfect their disguise or how long their mimicry has gone on,” said Richat. “It uses the normal surveillance inputs throughout the ICS compound.”

“That’s wonderful news, sir,” said Natasha. “We sure could have used one of those at Theg Prime. They never did find General Raven’s body.”

“That they did not, Major. And all they ever found of his troops were a few bone fragments.”

“I know, sir. I worked recovery on that project,” said Natasha with a shudder. Even for one as combat-hardened as she, the memories were distinctly traumatic. “Is that why you’ve brought me in? To consult?”

“After a fashion,” said Richat coolly, as was his aspect and manner in all things. “As I said, we’ve discovered a Callistan infiltrator and would like to solicit your input. Who do you think it is?”

Natasha hesitated, combing her brain for anyone who acted strangely or had a suspiciously sketchy past. “Captain Reid? He was a photographer before the war, after all.”

“No, Major. It’s you.”

“W-what? I-”

“A disguise so perfect, you fooled even yourself.” Colonel Richat gestured at his bodyguards, who relieved the Major of her sidearm and clapped her in irons. “Take her away.”

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The Great Kansas Tornado Swarm of 1864 went largely unnoticed in the popular press at the time, overshadowed by the war and General Price’s raid. But the twister, later estimated to have been an F4 or F5 on the Fujita scale, caused immense devastation in the mostly rural areas it passed through on May 25 and 26 of that year. For those that lived through it–and at least 75 and perhaps as many as 115 did not–the Great Tornado Swarm was particularly unusual in that (much like the Blackwell/Udall tornado swarm nearly 100 years later) there was a great deal of unusual electrical activity, including St. Elmo’s Fire and ball lightning.

Flynn Karam Baum, a failed bookkeeper of distant Syrian and Sephardi ancestry, lived through the tornado when it tore apart his ramshackle (and illegal) homestead. Apparently impressed with the electrical discharges he had seen, and astonished that he had survived while his livestock and neighbors had not, Baum began to believe that he had been witness to a divine experience. In the aftermath of the disaster, he set out to share his revelations with the world.

Disasters and especially cyclones, Baum taught, were in fact conduits to a higher plane of existence–an afterlife of sorts where metaphysical concepts, virtues, and fancies were made manifest. Someone who was sufficiently resourceful could, in this place, rise to power and gain eternal life and supernatural servants at their beck and call. The most skilled and resourceful could even return to earth, as Baum believed he had, to spread the word.

The former homesteader attracted a following of fellow oddballs and iconoclasts largely because his creed, which he claimed was wholly compatible with the prevailing Kansas religious orthodoxy of the day, was highly individualistic. Baum claimed that the land to which storms and death bore the deceased and the disappeared was populated by whatever adherents believed it was. The vibrant folk art his movement inspired depicted all manner of strange dwarves, monkeys, lions, and motile creatures of china or straw.

At its height, the Baumites (as they became known) had perhaps 3000-4000 members scattered across Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Because adherents underwent no conversion and continued to attend their original churches–choosing only to wear the rainbow badge that identified them as Baum’s followers–there were no systematic pogroms or persecutions, though individual Baumites reported harassment. But their numbers were never stable, due largely to their millenarian view that death or disappearance, preferable in a violent storm, were necessary to reach Baum’s promised land. So the influx of new recruits was almost always mitigated by the deaths of older Baumites, many of whom declined medical treatment or even committed suicide.

By the late 1880s, the Baumite communities had dwindled, especially following Flynn Karam Baum’s death in the Lincoln Twister of 1885. By 1888, only a few scattered Baumites remained, mostly in South Dakota and northern Nebraska. It’s not clear when the movement died out entirely, but there are no records of the Baumite rainbow badges being made after 1900 and by 1910 Baumite art and furniture was already mildly collectable for wealthy fans of Americana.

Perhaps the most profound effect the Baumites had, though, was on a young Chicagoan who had moved to South Dakota in 1888 to start a (doomed) mercantile business. With the same surname as Flynn Karam, and amused by the Baumites who frequented his shop to purchase items on credit (which they never paid back), the Chicagoan eventually wrote a satire of the Baumite beliefs-and their ever-present meditative hum of “ozz, ozz”–that attracted worldwide notice and which continues to overshadow and color perceptions of the movement even today.

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She walked along the darkened street, wary of patrols, darting from pool to pool of lamplight. Her handler was camped out in the darkest and dingiest exurb of Berlin by necessity; the information that was being passed through him was sensitive enough to change the course of their mutual struggle, and explosive enough that the police weren’t the only concern.

If she or her handler were caught, they’d never make it to the secret police interrogation cell. The citizens of Berlin would tear them to pieces with their bare hands.

“You’re late.” Her handler was standing in the doorjamb of a hovel, a lit cigarette drooping from his lip.

She scowled. “I’m absolutely on time. Stop trying to throw me off balance for your own amusement. And put out your cigarette; you’ll attract attention.”

“Always so fiery,” the handler chuckled. “I hope your information is just as incendiary.”

She handed over a slip of paper. “Straight from the lion’s mouth. Heinrich’s complete itinerary, including public appearances, maneuvers, and training exercises.”

The handler eagerly took up the paper. “You’re sure there will be no changes to it?”

“It is the final draft.”

“And what of security? Guards?”

The woman held out a second slip. “The complete security schedule as well. Surprisingly slight for a figure of national importance, one so vital to the Germans.”

“You realize that if it becomes known that you have passed this information on to the British-”

“I believe in what we’re doing,” she replied, cutting him off. “And I expect to be well-paid for my espionage.”

“Oh, you certainly, certainly will.” The handler was gleefully rubbing his hands together. “And in the meantime, we’ll arrange an ambush for Heinrich. Sudden and brutal, as befits someone who’s taken down so many of our boys in the field.”

And, sure enough, the attack went forward as planned. The morning after, the major American papers across the ocean trumpeted the events: GERMAN NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM MEMBER TOBIAS HEINRICH ATTACKED, LEG SHATTERED; UK STANDS TO WIN WORLD CUP ON NEWS OF BEST GERMAN PLAYER’S INJURY.

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When reached for comment, the president and CEO of DustEZ dismissed the claims of TAFFY activists.

“Look, I understand where these ‘Treat All Fairies FairlY’ protestors are coming from,” he said. “Even though DustEZ-brand fairy dust grants humans eternal youth and the power of flight, I don’t want to see fairies harmed in the process of harvesting their dust. DustEZ and its parent corporation Dynenord Defense Systems is committed to ethical, sustainable, organic, free-range, fair-trade, low-sodium fairy farming.”

When the substance of the allegations–that DustEZ farms were keeping fairies in half-gallon jugs and fattening them on a diet of pure sugar to produce more dust per fairy–he added: “That’s preposterous. We keep them in gallon jugs and feed them the ground-up remains of fairies who have been dusted out.”

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The opposing team was too well-armed with foam darts and the guns to sling them with, a veritable arsenal of Fern-brand foam death.

It was time to even the score by illicit means.

“Give me the Doggie Derringer.”

A hush fell over the young combatants. The Doggie Derringer was designed to fire tennis balls–full-size ones!–for athletic retriever dogs. Its fearsome spring, unyielding projectiles, and five-ball magazine were never meant to be used in combat, on humans.

But desperate times called for desperate measures.

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Did you know that every 15 seconds a librarian intellectually starves to death and their library is demolished to make way for a parking lot? Hi, I’m Russell Strathy, and I’m here to talk to you about what you can do today, right now, to help a struggling librarian.

Did you know that for just a few dollars a day you can feed a librarian, like Ms. Smythe here, nourishing books? Or how your simple donations can help a librarian like Mr. Whittaker get the periodicals and microfilm he needs to do his job? Or that, for one day’s coffee money, you could aid a librarian like Ms. Carruthers here to support her 70 cats?

Since 1983, the Charitable Librarian’s Fund has helped librarians, both public and private, with books, periodicals, microforms, and desperately needed cat care. Many librarians around the world still need your help and through the Charitable Librarian’s Fund, you can reach out to one of them through a daily gift of less than the cost of a cup of the expensive fair-trade Stubb’s Coffee (which many libraries now sell to make ends meet).

The good that your coffee money can do for a librarian is worth more than you can imagine; call the toll-free number on your screen right now to learn more about the CLF and becoming a sponsor. You can exchange emails with your sponsored librarian, listen to them grouse about patrons and budget cuts and cats, and experience firsthand the progress you helped make possible. You’ll also receive a copy of the CLF newsletter which explains why your help is needed and offers additional benefits, like information about CLF charitable works and a cat-of-the-month centerfold.

Call now: there is truly no obligation and we will send you all the information you need for you to make your decision. Please, call now, and with a little love your spare change can start to change the life of a librarian forever.

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After the fall of the Old Empire–a misnomer if ever there was one, as it was a gradual fragmentation and decline that no one alive at the time would have described thus–many areas experienced little, if any, disruption in the cycles of their daily lives. Others were abruptly reduced to husks of their former selves, bereft of the activities that had formerly filled them with so much life.

The Parking Lot Wastes are a good example of the latter.

In the vast and arid interior, around the porous boundaries between the Outland Empire and the innumerable principalities of the Beral Lands and Ativia, the latter days of the Old Empire had seen a massive growth in population fueled by cheap lands and low cost of living. Communities popped up everywhere, as did the massive shopping, service, and industry infrastructure they supported. Thanks to economies of scale, the Old Empire was able to provide them with the one thing they did not have in abundence: water.

But with the fall of the Old Empire–and once again, the term is used only for familiarity’s sake, the parallels to the fall of the empires of old being tenuous at best–the water dried up. Abruptly, the inhabitants found themselves going thirsty, and they departed in droves. Whole swathes of the arid West were all but abandoned, with only scattered small communities with access to steady supplies of water remaining. And abandoned with them were the massive parking lots which had once served them.

While technology in general had stagnated during the many years between the arguable peak of the Old Empire and its fragmentation, its construction technology had grown ever more sophisticated, resulting in vast lots that retarded the intrusion and growth of plant life far better than any the world had ever seen before. So they remain, even decades later, little-encroached by green.

Bordered as they are by some of the poorest sections of Ativia, the Outland Empire, and the Beral Lands, the Parkling Lot Wastes are tempting targets for would-be treasure hunters or fortune seekers. There are, after all, treasures aplenty that were abandoned in haste and still more for those willing to dig a little. But the long flat distances and the remaining pavement conspire with the stark western sun to produce scorching temperatures, while the few outposts of law and the many outposts of banditry keep a wary eye on travelers.

Many an expedition into the Waste has ended with a high-powered round from a rifle with a telescopic sight, as a skilled sniper with a nest in the tallest part of an abandoned shopping center has an uninterrupted view of the Wastes for miles around.

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The 7.62×39mm round began its life at the Izhevsk Machinebuilding Plant in the Udmurt Republic of the Soviet Union in 1960. Molded and lathed from Kargaly copper and Cherepovets steel with a core of Chelyabinsk lead, it was one of over a million cartridges produced in its batch and intended for transshipment to front-line border troops stationed in East Germany, ready to be fired across the Iron Curtain at NATO forces at a moment’s notice.

However, the powers that be ultimately sent nearly the entire batch to Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East instead, where they were embarked on the Ulyanov, a merchant ship, bound for Haiphong harbor in Vietnam. There, the 7.62×39mm rounds, and the AK-47 rilfes for which they were manufactured, were presented to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a gift from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Transferred on the old French trunk line railroad to marshaling yards near Hanoi, the cartridge was issued to the 622nd Assault Battalion of the Vietnam People’s Army in July of 1967. When the 622nd Assault Battalion was ordered south to support the General Offensive General Uprising in January, the cartridge accompanied the unit’s quartermaster to a rural area near Hue. The quartermaster in turn issued it to a private from Vinh, who loaded it into a spare magazine the day before a scheduled attack.

The attack was a fiasco. The 622nd Assault Battalion was able to rout the ARVN troops occupying a barracks, but their lines were, in turn, infiltrated and destroyed piecemeal by a counterattacking force of ARVN Rangers backed up by American helicopters from Phu Bai Air Base. The private from Vinh was killed defending his commander, who had refused to call for reinforcements in hopes of advancing his career through a great victory. When the fallen soldier’s AK-47 was picked up by an ARVN Ranger as a trophy of war, the cartridge was one of three remaining in its magazine.

The Ranger returned to Hue and later was reassigned to Danang, where he grew disillusioned with the corruption and incompetence he witnessed daily in the ARVN. As a result, he quietly sold his equipment on the black market–the US equipment found its way to North Vietnamese purchasers, while the trophies of war he had accumulated were offered for sale to rear-echelon US personnel hungry for cheap souvenirs to take home. The AK-47, its magazine, and three 7.62×39mm rounds were sold to a cook from Memphis, Tennessee.

When the US troops in Danang were withdrawn beginning in 1973, the cook was able to get his trophies shipped home by paying a small bribe. For the rest of his life, he told stories about how he had “captured” the weapon and ammunition from a VC raiding party, never keeping the details quite consistent enough to feel his friends or family members. Around the time of the federal assault weapons ban in 1994, the ex-cook quietly had the rifle de-militarized and converted into a display piece. The remaining three bullets had their primers and charged removed and were converted into keychains, one for each of the man’s three now-grown sons.

The eldest boy received the 7.62×39mm round that had traveled all the way from Izhevsk. While he never believed his father’s stories of killing its original wielder with a steak knife, he nevertheless regarded it as a lucky charm and half-jokingly credited it with the success of his plumbing supply company in the Memphis exurbs. That luck came to an end in March of 2002, when a Northwest Airlines security checkpoint confiscated the keychain. Despite the owner’s protests, in the post-9/11 airport security hysteria the keychain was never returned.

Instead, it found its way into a storage unit onsite where seized items were kept. As was their wont, the airport baggage handlers often dipped into this stash for items of interest, and the Izhevsk cartridge keychain was picked up by a baggage crew chief in charge of loading and unloading Northwest 757s on the Atlanta route. He was one of the lucky ones who kept his job after Northwest was acquired by Delta in 2010 and the new owners gutted the former Memphis hub.

The round remains there today, dangling from the man’s clipped keychain, with no indication of its long and strange journey.

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Steve grunted. “I think that this calls for a bubblegum frag.”

“You mean like sticking a fragmentation grenade to something with gum?” said Cal. “Like an old-fashioned sticky bomb?”

“No.” Steve plunged into his pack, retrieved a pineapple-shaped weapon painted a garish shade of pink, and pulled its pin. He lobbed it over the trench wall, popping the spoon; seven seconds later it burst and coated the area with sticky, viscous goo. The enemies were left blinded, stuck, and gagging. “I mean like a bubblegum frag.”

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The American Scholars’ Association (ASA) maintains a diverse and involved Emerging Leaders program. The program encourages our Emerging Leaders to take the lead in solving discipline-spanning problems, tackle today’s most controversial social issues, network within the top ranks of the ASA, and put themselves at the service of scholarship in all its forms.

The 2014 ASA Emerging Leaders program will begin at the ASA Annual Conference in sunny, seedy Reno, Nevada–“The Biggest Little City in the World.” During the conference keynote, our ASA Emerging Leaders will be brought onstage in their protective chrysalises–having spent the time since the 2013 Annual Conference safely cocooned away from the cares of the world. And as our Emerging Leaders emerge from their split chrysalises, still moist in the desert sun, we will all feel the first stirrings of their telepathic and psionic powers, which give them the ability and the destiny to control scholars as a gestalt hive mind.

We will then lift our voices up in song as the 2015 Emerging Leaders are chosen and begin the process of secreting their own chrysalises, to supplant our 2014 Emerging Leaders once their brief lifespans–during which they are unable to feed themselves–are over. If you are interested in becoming an ASA Emerging Leader, application forms are available on the ASA website and digitally on ASA Connect. The ASA is a 501(c) nonprofit organization, and all income generated by the Emerging Leaders’ immense mental powers and physical strength is rolled back into ASA operations.

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