Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

“I’d say a flightless rail, probably endemic. Very interesting plumage! I wonder how it might have evolved to better suit the Southern Rata forests here on the island.” Rahman was examining the footage with evident pleasure.

“With no predators able to scale the bluffs, I’m not surprised,” Gupta said. “Maybe you can name it after your wife since the ICUN rejected the last one.”

“Hey,” Brooks said. “Ramirez and his team. Has anyone seen them since they left?”

Negatives all around. Rahman looked at his watch. “That was almost six hours ago. Surely they’ve found what they’re looking for by now.”

“I didn’t hear any gunshots,” Gupta said quietly. “If they’d run into any trouble-”

“It’s not our job to worry about that,” Rahman said. “We’re the cover story, nothing more. Let them worry about that signal.”

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“Yeah, I remember that,” said Brooks. “I had to wait for hours to get another phone after mine was fried.”

“Well, you don’t,” said Ramirez. “It wasn’t sunspots. It was a high-energy signal, one of staggering power, that was deliberately aimed at Earth from an extrasolar location.”

“Wait, wait,” said Gupta, her hands raised. “Deliberately? Extrasolar?”

“The signal was aimed at Eden Island in the South Pacific,” Ramirez said. “Thousands of miles of ocean in every direction. To hit it by accident–to hit Earth by accident–is so unlikely we had trouble calculating the odds.”

“And you’re just telling us this now?” said Rahman. “Surely you could have just sent a helicopter from an assault carrier and been done with it.”

“I would think that you of all people would appreciate the value of deliberate discretion and not contaminating a possible study area,” Ramirez said softly. “It also means that we can much more easily control the flow of information.”

“I beg your-” said Rahman, looking alarmed and put-upon.

“Needless to say, you will all be subjected to a thorough debriefing. We have also confiscated all your cameras and cellular telephones. You’d find them quite useless here anyway. You will be able to complete the original field study once we have learned what we want to know, and you’ll be fully funded for it.”

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Eaten my pocket linings
Eaten my shoes
Throat hoarse from screaming
Fingers are looking tasty
Why was I
So clumsy
Over that
Bottomless
Pit

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Each slice of pizza comes in one of the five different free tetromino shapes allowed by mathematics (seven if you regard mirrored chiral pizzas as distinct figures!). Line them up in the box for an infinite variety of combinations, with each piece individually topped!

But don’t arrange the tetrominoes to form a straight line, of they’ll blink out of existence! Tetrominos Pizza LLC GmbH is not responsible for any eliminated pizza slices and does not offer refunds.

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Even between the closest parallel worlds, a number of subtle differences exist in atmospheric pressure, chirality, the shape of pollen, and countless other minute factors. Your body can adjust, but it takes time and there’s often a period of relative weakness for 24-48 hours after slipping. But that’s not the real danger; it’s slipping into another parallel world before becoming fully acclimated to the one in which you find yourself.

If you attempt another slip while still acclimating, you risk what are called the parallel bends or multiversal narcosis. Travelers can become drowsy, disoriented, weakened, and impaired, with delirium and mania often occurring. This can lead to another slip, or a series of slips in short order, making the problem worse. If untreated, death invariably occurs due to cerebral hemorrhage, embolism, or even suicide. This is why it is essential to acclimate to each parallel world upon arrival, and to spend no less than 48 but ideally more than 72 hours in each new parallel world after a slip.

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“Of course it had to be a family. Actors would soon be exposed for lack of familial resemblance, and there had to be someone to marry off. But they were always at the beck and call of someone with a much longer view, and deviations…were not tolerated.”

“So that explains it, then. A perfect, immortal ruler from the shadows.”

“Yes. And every few decades, someone stumbles onto that secret. Sometimes, they can be useful. Other times, they are not. In both cases, they are a threat to me. You will see there, on the table, a contract. And a knife. If you wish to serve me, you will sign in your own blood and the knife…well, if you wish to live, let us say that my secret must not be spoken.”

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Tropical Kiwi Crunch – New Zealand banned export of endangered bird meat.

Orange Pulp Fiction – Licensing issues and negative side effects of adrenaline as a food additive.

A Separate Peach – Demand fell off.

Che Guava – Labor difficulties in the Bolivian plant.

Uncandy Valley – Customers objected to “creepy” gynoid on packagin.

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