Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“They use a 44.1 kHz signal,” the first man on the bench said, idly scatting bread to the waiting ducks. “It’s not encrypted. Interception should be exceedingly easy.”

An envelope of money, hidden in a newspaper, slid down between them. “Make sure there’s a shift change between noon and 1PM, the second man said. “We’ll hijack the datastream and there will be a second payment twice this size for you.”

“Agreed. Your company will catch up on fifteen years of baked-goods research in a single afternoon.”

Below them, dabbling at the bread, the pond ducks quacked softly, ignored.

“They are preparing to steal the bread recipes,” the first mallard said. “The hour has been set.”

“Good,” said his partner. “I will gather the faithful. We will strike without warning or mercy, and the bread shall be ours.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

Nervously, I looked up at her.

“Go on,” she said. “Try it out. You can do it.”

I gave the instrument a whirl. The noise that it produced was hideous, like the scream of a dying porpoise in the talons of an albatross. Redness burned across my cheeks as I felt my chances of impressing her slipping away.

Instead, though, her eyes twinkled. “It’s okay,” she said. “Nobody is perfect with one of these the first time.”

“Was it…that was for you, too?” I said. “When you first had a turn at this instrument?”

“Oh, it was way, way worse,” she laughed. “Like rusty metal on a chalkboard.”

“Well, at least I’ve kept it well-oiled.”

I thought I saw a smile, as well, but it was difficult to know for sure under the black hoods we both wore.

“Now,” she said, turning back to the instrument of torture onto which a hapless spy had been strapped, “give the rack another turn and let’s see if we can get hi to sing a different tune.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The secret family recipe.

It was written in a fine, steady hand on thick old paper, the sort of stuff that might have had a will or a deed on it back in the day. The ingredients were laid out, as were the measurements, just as they had been in great-grandma’s time.

I felt my hands tingle at the prospect of making it myself, of feeling that deep and abiding connection to the family past. Honestly, I couldn’t wait.

“Hey!” A security guard cried. “What are you doing?”

As I ran for the window, alarms blaring from the cracked safe, I smiled. Great-grandmas secret recipe, the cornerstone of three generations of corporate gourmet-food success for my stuck-up cousins, were about to be posted for free on the internet.

Assuming I got away first, of course. And after I’d made a batch myself, to taste.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

A variant of the venerable S-75 surface-to-air missile, the RPDM-59 (“Ракета Анти-Дед Мороз”) was first unveiled in 1959. Consisting of a solid-fuel booster and a liquid-fuel upper stage, it had an operational range of 30 miles, was capable of interception at heights of up to 82,000 ft. at Mach 3.5.

Designed at the insistence of the First Secretary, the RPDM-59 was the first dedicated anti-Santa missile to enter service, beating the US M1970 “Rudolph” and Chinese Type 69 “聖誕老人” missiles by a decade or more. The primary difference was its accuracy and method of detonation: while an S-75 was accurate to 65 yards, the RPDM created a 100-yard diameter shrapnel burst that was effective against wood, plastic, and caribou. Extensive testing showed that even an armored sled loaded with metal toys would suffer an 80-90% kill rate at altitude when linked to a radio control command guidance system.

The idea behind the system was ostensibly to cripple the Western economy by interrupting the flow of Christmas presents, which represented the equivalent of 50 billion USD in hard currency injected into the First World every year. However, given the limited range of the S-75, this was never a realistic option even following the Cuban Revolution. Instead, RPDM-59 batteries were deployed in the Soviet Union (and China from 1960-64) to prevent any capitalist gift incursions. Crucially, Soviet propaganda at the time stressed that Ded Moroz, the “Grandfather Frost” of Slavic tradition, was not the intended target and could not be harmed. This was, in fact, a fabrication: the primitive state of Soviet IFF technology at the time meant that an RPDM-59 fired in anger was quite capable of bringing down Ded Moroz, Babbo Natale, or even Tawonga.

Despite a series of highly successful test firings against flying troikas pulled by mules, it was the IFF issue that ultimately scuttled the program. When the First Secretary was ousted in 1964, his successor continued the program until one of his grandchildren learned of its existence and asked why “Grandfather wanted to murder Ded Moroz.” All active units were dismantled by 1967 and converted back into standard S-75s. An improved model, the RPDM-66, had been under development, with a longer range, larger kill zone, and improved IFF, but the technology was ultimately not used, though the technical data package was later sold to North Korea for its own anti-Santa interdiction efforts. From its fifty years of continuous use there, with a nearly 100% intercept rate, it is clear that the basic weapon had considerable potential.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The small bird hopped on Lee’s shoulder. “Legs!” it croaked. “Legs.”

“Yeah, ol’ Legs has been with me a few years,” Lee said. “His wing don’t work, so he can’t fly off like the other mockingbirds. I got him out of the claws of a cat few years back, and he’d been with me ever since. Smart bugger too. Can talk, as y’all can plainly see.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, Legs,” I said.

“Pleased!” the bird pipped back.

“You sure it’s not just repeating what you say all this time?” I asked.

“Well, on account of it’s a mockingbird, I reckon it is some of the time,” Lee said. “Ask him something and see how he does.”

“How’re you feeling, Legs?” I asked.

“Great!” Legs croaked.

“What’s your master called?”

“Lee!”

I smiled. “And what would you call me?”

The bird hesitated, cocking its head. “Dummy!”

Lee burst out chuckling at that. “As you can see, he done earned his name many times over.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“Why feel for the man with no coat
when the beast in no forest
has no clothes either?”
“Because we have spent
the last 300,000 years
evolving to need them.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“The Great Conjunction!” The old crone stabbed a finger toward the dusk sky. “When single shine the planets’ kings, we’ll see the ending of all things!”

“Oh, nice,” I said. “That’ll be a nice change.”

“It’s the end of the world, boy!” A concerned look flitted across the crone’s face. “Doesn’t that worry you?”

“Lady,” I said, “I’ve lived through 5 years of 2020. We’ve had plagues, fires, hurricanes, climate catastrophes, Nazis on the streets, coups at home and abroad. I got nothing left to give.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

We want something like this to have meaning.

I look up at the night sky from my porch, where two of the brightest lights in the sky are now one on the shortest day of the year. Hundreds of years have passed since something like this was visible, and hundreds more will pass before it is visible again.

It’s in our nature to look for meaning in things.

Surely such a heavenly ballet arriving perfectly-timed after a year of both calamity and hope must bring with it greater meaning and purpose. We want to make it a sign, but a sign of what? Deepening apocalypse as we slide, greased, toward the abyss of the Great Filter. Dawn and new light breaking, as we haul ourselves up, bruised but not broken by the trauma.

Perhaps the most devastating thought of all is that it may mean nothing.

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

The cadaverous, blackavised pirate gestured with his hook, with his blue forget-me-not eyes shining. “Just so. The boy, Pan, claimed that he had come into your home to look for his shadow, yes?”

“What of it?” Wendy countered.

“The fact is that neither he, nor any other of the boys, have shadows,” Hook raged. “Because they are all the foulest sort of wicked undead!”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!

“Do you ever find that you’re just…running short of ideas?” said Captain Atom. “On some days, I just cannot for the life of me think of a single good deed that I can do.”

“At least not one that doesn’t involve red tape or overthrowing governments, eh?” Doktor Verhängnis laughed. “But, ja, I do have such days myself as well. Where the evil ideas for world domination, they do not flow so well.”

“What do you do in those cases?” Atom said. He crossed his legs, sipping delicately at the Dom Perignon ‘96 in his host’s stemware.

Verhängnis nodded at a bowl on his desk. “I have many methods for brainstorming, but my first recourse is usually little Rosig here.”

Captain Atom leaned over, looking into the bowl. Other than a high-tech filter of Doktor Verhängnis’s own design, there didn’t seem to be anything in it other than an ordinary-looking goldfish. “I don’t follow.”

Rosig surfaced. “Place a line of thermonuclear warheads in the Pacific during El Niño! Unless the UN pays one hundred billion in diamonds, I will disrupt global weather patterns!” The fish spoke in a squeaky gasp that was quite intelligible.

“Diabolical,” said Captain Atom.

“Ja, little Rosig is full of such gems,” said Doktor Verhängnis, with an indulgent smile.

“How do you keep him from…well, you know, outshining you?”

“Ah. That.” Verhängnis shrugged. “I was able to give Rosig super-intelligence fairly easily, but there was one area where sacrifices had to be made.”

A moment later, after slipping back into the bowl for a gill-moistening swim, Rosig re-emerged. “What were we talking about?” the fish said. “Was it about shooting an asteroid into the Ross Ice Shelf to create a mega-iceberg?”

“Yes, little Rosig tends to forget what he was talking about every 15 seconds or so,” said Doktor Verhängnis. “It keeps him out of trouble.”

“I thought that was a myth,” said Atom.

“Well, it was either super-intelligence with no memory, or super-memory with not intelligence,” said Verhängnis, “and I didn’t want a goldfish that kept long grudges over dumb things.”

• Like what you see? Purchase a print or ebook version!