Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Mueller himself, who had some training as a smith, had forged the blade from the scythe with which he once worked the land. Set in a crude handle and crossguard, it nevertheless was an effective weapon and served him well in the earliest battles of the uprising. Legend has it that when the rebel peasants crushed the detachment from the Landgraviate of Kessler-Freiburg, Mueller used the scythe-sword to behead the commander rather than ransoming him.

Like the peasant-turned-military leader himself, the sword came to a bad end. Ambushed by troops under a flag of truce, Mueller was slain by Landsknecht sent by the Emperor along with nearly 10,000 of his followers and the sword taken as a trophy.

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The next scavenger to arrive is the mullywuggins shark, which is definitely not made up. Once the tuna and the dolphins have had their go at the spinning baitball, the mullywuggins sharks, which are definitely not made up, close in for the kill. Demonstrating the traits which gave them their name, the brutally efficient mullywuggins sharks, who are definitely not made up, will decimate the remaining sardines in the baitball before it sinks to safety.

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…oh god…

…the sight of her swollen body, the babes at her…at her…

It’s clear now what we’ve been seeing. Eusociality…the raw, bleeding (breeding?) edge of it. The monkeys needed a solution, and they found one in that…that hive.

I close out my report tomorrow and I’m going to recommend that the Navy use this place as target practice. It’s the only way to be-

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The monkeys have begun building structures.

This sounds a bit more alarming than it really is. We’ve seen them getting moisture from chewing the pulpy trees and brushes on the island, as well as licking their dew. Now it seems that they’re using the pulp almost like paper-mache to extend the shallow rock crevices they’ve been using for shelters. It’s really quite innovative, and if we can study one without disturbing the animals, I think it would be a tremendous research paper.

One thing that we noticed early on was the complete absence of females with any young. Contrary to our latest findings during the previous observations, when we noticed a large number of male infants, we once again observed no male monkeys. We intend to go into the new structures and collect some specimens for tagging to try and get an idea of why this may be.

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Hurricane season keeps chasing us off the island much earlier than we would like, but at first we thought it had decimated the population of monkeys as well. We know that they have been surviving without natural water supplies by licking dew and stealing seabird eggs, but after our population survey we were shocked to find absolutely no male monkeys among the survey population.

We also noticed that only a select handful of the females were breeding. On a whim, we examined five of the ten offspring that we observed, and to our surprise they were all males–the only male monkeys on the island.

Clearly, more research is needed.

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We had intended to stay at the naval station longer before the hurricane, but events conspired to force an evacuation not long after the monkeys were seeded. Returning after such a long period of time, most of us–and, if I’m being honest, even myself–thought that we’d find nothing.

Instead, the rhesus monkeys are doing exceptionally well. We’ve already counted 67, meaning that the population must have increased. We’ve also noticed increased socialization among them, with nearly every female taking a turn with multiple other young. Rather than the complex hierarchies of male and female that we normally see, the monkeys are behaving in a much simpler hierarchy with a dominant female leader we’ve begun calling “Queenie.” The males seem to be almost totally cut out of the normal social fabric other than being used as enforcers and mating, and those young we’ve been able to sex are also, interestingly, overwhelmingly female.

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We released the animals today. Zemí is an ideal site for this sort of research; it is large and isolated but quite desolate. Our hope is that, given the rather short generations of the rhesus monkeys, we will be able to rather quickly see how they adapt to an environment with no natural water yet no natural predators.

Naturally, the assumption has been that all 66 animals will die within a few days, but based on my research into the Barbary macaques in the Atlas Mountain, I believe that this will not be the case. In fact, I think that social and behavioral adaptations could be observable very soon, and that these will allow the animals to survive, if not thrive.

In either case, the research team is well-supplied for now and our base in the old lighthouse and naval station is quite comfortable.

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“They…they said you were called firefly because you positively glowed!” he said, scrabbling backward on his hands and knees.

She approached, the flames wreathing her and melting the ground below into slaggy glass. “They were wrong,” she said.

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After Al-Balawi and his mount had disappeared into the sinkhole, his companions were still able to hear his cries. Eventually, they found a tiny spring through living rock, and a fist-sized opening through which the scholar’s voice could be heard.

Though the hole was far too small to allow a rescue or even to allow food and water to be passed to Al-Balawi, he was able to speak clearly and demanded that his companions take up parchment to record his experiences. Using the supplies which had fallen with him, as well as his dead camel, Al-Balawi undertook an investigation of the cave system in which he found himself. Every few hours he would return to describe what he had seen.

Al-Balawi told of a massive network of caverns, many shining with innumerable crystals by the light of his makeshift torch. He mentioned strange, eyeless creatures, almost like deer, that ran from his presence. Most stunningly, Al-Balawi described a series of ruins built into the subterranae that were covered with hieroglyphs that he laboriously described to his companions.

Over time, though, Al-Balawi’s food and water ran out, and the spring that was his lifeline ran salty and useless. After about a week, Al-Balawi announced that he was too weak to continue, bade his comrades abandon him, and wandered into the caverns to die. His followers dutifully brought the record of his death back to Baghdad and the Caliph, who ordered a search to retrieve his friend’s body.

Though no less than three expeditions were dispatched, Al-Balawi’s cave was never rediscovered and his body never found. A copy of his manuscript survives, though curiously the hieroglyphs he describes match no known Mesopotamian, Arabian, or even Egyptian script.

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It lovingly polished the latest scraps against a makeshift buffer, shaping then on the rougher wheel before bringing out a bright mirror shine. It was a moving piece, so there was even more work to be done: connections to be wired, servos to test, and firmware code to write from internal libraries.

Once the process was complete, it ran a diagnostic and then reached for a mirror shard it had found in the yellow zone. The new part looked excellent, a very good approximation of a left cheekbone and far better than the one that they had removed.

“I think it is time for another capture,” it said. Its partner agreed, their own cosmetic alterations still warm and wreathed in fresh solder-smoke.

The camera was a simple aperture, easily fixed with simple tools. But the film was an exceedingly complex emulsion that took months of painstaking manufacture. The camera could, in theory, hold a magazine of eight such films, but it had never taken more than a single exposure at a time. In fact, the logistics of such an endeavor were dizzying in the rare moments when it allowed itself to contemplate the possibility.

Laid out on a simple tripod, with the lighting artfully arranged, the camera was ready to be remotely triggered by air-bulb.

Sliding into the frame, the two subjects placed themselves in the positions they’d assumed hundreds of times before: leaned over a table, synthetic hair swept back, clustered together with their hands up in a pair of v-for-victory symbols.

With a click and a whirr, the film was exposed. The first figure slid forward to retrieve it, and looked at the result. “It is a good capture,” it said. “Much better than the last one.

The second nodded, servos whistling. “But there are still improvements to be made. The shape is right. It is more right than it has ever been. But the texture and color are still wrong.”

“Yes, and the eyes still prove to be the most difficult. But with time, it will prove a success.”

The development complete, the previous snapshot was snatched from its resting place, tucked in the mirror frame, and replaced with the new and improved model. It occupied a place of honor right next to the original.

On the one side, a picture of two young women in their best evening wear, smiling and flashing their victory for an unknown cameraman. On the other, the two patchwork automatons that had made it their personal mission to duplicate that photograph through continual self-modification.

They were right, though. The eyes were still wrong, simple circular lenses instead of the bright brown orbs. It would be difficult to replicate, even more difficult than the hair had been or the skin would be.

But they had all the time in the world to get it right.

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