Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Pursuant to these changes, and the results of the accident, N&N Properties has made the following decisions:

1. Effective immediately, the name of the apartment complex will be changed from ‘Trillium Fields” to ‘Tritium Fields.’

2. We will now be positioning the complex as a ‘safe and protected environment for irradiated persons’ rather than our previous focus on single adults.

3. Pets are immediately banned. Irradiated persons who have exchanged gene sequences with pets are exempt.

4. Rather than air fresheners, we will now offer dosimeter badges as a free monthly gift.

5. Trash will no longer be collected, but will instead be buried onsite as soon as Knock Bros. Lead can line a suitable site.

6. Lights-out has been changed from 11pm to 2am due to unanticipated glow.

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With the disappearance of the land bridge, bunyips lost access to their most favored prey, and with the arrival of aboriginal Australians and their dogs, bunyips were no longer free to roam as apex predators any longer.

As any biologist will tell you,a bunyip is completely unable to withstand being seen, and the mere gaze of another being is enough to kill it instantly. It evolved to combat this by lurking in muddy rivers and coastal waters, but humans and dogs had no intrinsic fear of the bunyip and often would gawk at it, turning what might have been a survivable peek into a fatal gaze.

Official Australian government estimates are that less than 10 wild bunyips survive, and despite some promising advances made using blind or blindfolded captors, none have ever lived in captivity for more than a few days. Add to that the bunyip’s peculiar reproduction, which somehow requires both a newly-dead host to incubate eggs and a live birth on dry sand, and there are few reasons to be optimistic about the species’ chances for survival.

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“You’ve heard of what the Albigens do,” he said. “They destroy all that they cannot take.”

“I have,” said the Abbot gravely. “But we are a pacifist sect. Strictly sworn to nonviolence. What can we do?”

“You are the only organized force in the area now that the guard has fled,” replied Haxersham. “Your monestary is the closest thing we have to a castle, with stone walls and battlements.”

“Yes, but those walls are meant to keep us in, not the world out,” the Abbot said. “Against attackers with even the most rudimentary battering ram, our walls are useless.”

Haxersham sighed. “I wish the Albigens knew that,” he said. “They will assault your monastary as if it were the personal treasury of our useless king.”

The abbot raised his eyebrows. “It’s true, they know nothing of this area,” he said. “Tell me, didn’t you mention that they had attacked Daxim, Golyya, and Firax?”

“Only Golyya and Firax,” the mayor said. “Daxim was spared.”

“Why was it spared?”

“Because it was strongly held, by a garrison that were not cowards,” said Haxersham. “Their fortress is not well-known but it is old, and it is formidible. The Albigens are raiders, not fools. They won’t let themselves be bogged down in a siege if they can’t quickly storm something.”

The Abbot nodded, staring off into the distance. “I have an idea,” he said. “We will help you, but we must do it as pacifists. No one can be hurt.”

“You’ll help us?” Haxersham cried. “But how, if we can’t attack anyone?”

“We will use the time that we have to make our monastary look like a menacing citadel,” said the Abbot. “They will not want to attack us.”

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The Ghosts of Gavepoli make up, bizarrely, the city’s uppermost strata. It sages have studied long and hard on what allows a ghost to remain after death, and they have produced a list, the 666 Ghostly Steps, with which all of the Gavepolian families are quite familiar. The first child of each house is put through an endless series of tortures and traumas to go along with their education and indulgence, with the notion that upon their death they will rise from the grave as the perfect head of a household–immortal, unkillable, detached.

No ghost has ever been known to linger more than 200 years or so, the point at which their lingering spiritual energy fades and they become imperceptible to humans. So even those families currently headed by a ghost have a child undergoing their 66. It is also not unusual for a family to spend 25-30 years ghostless, as the process fails far more often than it succeeds.

The ghosts themselves are clad in noble vestments and treated as if they are living. Ornate masks are particularly essential, lest the ghastly visage drive others to madness and make the business of governance impossible. Notably, and most strangely of all, no living beings may enter the Gavepoli Guildhall, where the city council meets.

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Merchants pouring into the square amid a swirl of browning leaves, the red and orange ones still on the capital’s many trees a presage of the fireworks to come later that night. Some came astride beasts of burden, as their ancestors had, while others had embraced the brass-clad automobiles that turned water and kerosene into motive power.

For one week, everything was to be on the street as it was in the trees above: vibrant, colorful, unpredictable, ephemeral. There were parades in fall-color costumes, and the wealthier neighborhoods tried to outdo each other with their Autumn Bands, brass and steel and wood held up before fiery uniforms made fresh each year.

This was the Falleaf Festival, and it had happened for 1000 years.

It was the last one ever held.

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The old bridge was in ruins, its spans long since collapsed by artillery fire, yet the citizens had found a use for the great pylons that had once supported it. They now held massive high-caliber artillery pieces, from which the river could be commanded for a mile either way. No one but the city’s own ships, few though they were anymore, could pass safely beneath the maw of the last great guns produced by the Enfer Works.

Eventually, the guns fell–and with them, the city’s final lifeline–when the enemy admiral attacked with fast, small boats under the cover of darkness. Too small to be sunk by the cannons themselves, and too numerous to be repelled by the small garrisons, each pylon fell silent one after the other. Those desperate battles would be the last, for the generals saw fit to leave the city to rot and tear itself apart so they could walk between its bones unopposed.

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“She’s been here,” said Fitz.

“You sure about that?” said Ulyanova, her voice tinny in Fitz’s earpiece. “We’ve gotten close before.

Fritz crouched down over the mattress. It was neatly made, squared away military-style. Dried food packs and first-aid supplies were stacked nearly in what was left of bombed-out cupboards. A hand-drawn map of the area was taped to a wall, complete with several killzones marked out.

But the most telling sign was the SVD-99 resting in a corner, complete with a reusable, cleanable suppressor adapted from a VSS-2001. You could only find those in skeins where the Soviet Union hadn’t collapsed, and it hadn’t gotten embroiled in the Kashmir War–and those were tough to find.

“She’s been here very recently,” Fitz added.

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The city is endless.

To some this would be a maddening fact, and for many it is. Some have lost their minds trying to map it, and others have spent their entire lives traveling in search of an edge that does not exist.

The city is endless.

And yet, there is food enough–and water–for most if not all. Regular rains find catchments. Rooftop gardens and fallow lots burst with seeds. And there are the mysterious food parcels, and packets of “powdered water,” that seem to appear from no-one-knows-where when the only alternative would seem to be starvation or dehydration.

The city is endless.

Yet people have made lives–many lives–within it. Many are happy, even as many are maddened.

The city is endless.

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Dmitri’s father, Yuri, had fought in Afghanistan and during his long slow slide into vodka-fueled oblivion had regained his son with tales of that desert hell of scorpions and Stinger missiles.

He found Syria to be its match, bug for bug, bullet for bullet. The only difference was that instead of a hundred thousand comrades-in-arms, he had half a battallion of naval infantry at Latakia, a close-support air group, and a section of Vega Group special forces. That and the Syrians themselves, who Dmitri held in utter contempt. Too many of his men were there because of threats, and he’d seen them break and run under sustained enemy fire.

The really good troops, the Republican Guard? Dmitri had a respect for them. But Assad, that crafty jackal, wouldn’t even let the Russians, his only friends in the world, tell his personal troops with skulls on their shoulders what to do.

So Dmitri sat and waited, coordinating his men as best he could with those Syrians the kleptocrats saw fit to give him command over, coordinating and leading assaults to fight fires as they arose.

“We’ve got a signal,” one of his local techs said, in English. God, how Dmitri hated the soft sound of that mongrel tongue, but it was the only way to make himself understood.

“What is it?” he barked.

“Message is as follows: Site 38 overrun. Foreign fighters reported present. Foriegn nationals present. Request full ground, air support.”

“Is it a proper communication?”

“The code checks out.”

Dmitri massaged his temples. “Send word to the SU-25s at 06-07,” he said. “I want them fueled and loaded for a strike on my mark.”

“Yes sir.”

“What about the Crocodile helicopters at 04-05?” Dmitri said. “Do we have a status update after their last mission?”

“04-05 reports Crocodiles are being repaired and rearmed.”

“Keep me posted on their status, I want them available for close-in support if necessary.” Dmitri rose and tugged at his uniform shirt. “Radio that bastard Abdul and tell him to get his sorry excuse for a recon unit in gear. I’ll meet them in a hour.”

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