Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

CARL: This is Carl Drake, play-by-play commentator for NBS Broadcasting, coming to you live from the Robo-Sumo Quarterfinals!

TOM: That’s right, Carl. This is Tom Hicks, color commentator for NBS Broadcasting, and I am also coming at you live, from the 2021 Robo-Sumos.

CARL: Good to see so many smiling faces after nothing but a sea of masks for the last eighteen months!

TOM: That’s right, Carl, but given this state’s abysmal vaccination rate of less than 30%–not even half the required rate for her immunity–as well as the continued rise of new and exotic variants, I’m personally putting off and celebrating.

CARL: That explains the double-mask and sneeze shield.

TOM: That’s right, Carl. Not taking any chances, especially given that NBS has cut back on our health insurance, benefits, and basic human rights as part of a broadcast-industry-wide belt tightening. Now, why don’t you remind viewers who are just joining us about Robo-Sumo?

CARL: Unlike the high school robots we covered the other month, these are professionals dedicated to pushing each other out of the ring, as the name sumo would suggest if our viewers were aware of it as anything other than a source for fat jokes.

TOM: That’s right, Carl. Before the break, we saw Roboto-San defeated by Killdozer-117 in a major upset in the nano weight class. Now let’s have a look at the ring to see whether Killdozer-117 has what it takes to defeat our other quarterfinalist, Ch0nk.

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“We have men that can take care of this,” said Exposito.

“More of your gangbangers, going in with pistols defiantly held sideways?” Garcia said. “You’ll excuse me if I’m not impressed.”

“Hardly. These are former GAFE men, trained in special weapons and tactics.”

“Why would they work for you?” Garcia sneered.

“Regardless of what you might think, I pay and treat my best men well,” Exposito replied.

“Well enough to fight human opponents, perhaps,” Garcia said. “But those…things?”

“Have your boys coordinate with them and see.”

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Uthar Trask gasped wetly at the sight of He’jan in all his spectral glory, while the spirit pierced the air with an unearthly wail. His dagger clattered to the ground, leaving Al-Arjun’s neck unscathed as she broke his grip and backed away.

“His heart!” cried Al-Arjun. “It’s giving out!”

The slum lord, white as a sheet, sank to the ground as the life visibly ebbed from him. His men, seeing their leader seemingly killed by the very sight and sound of He’jan, dropped their weapons and headed for the hills.

“Do…do you think that counts as slaying a malefactor?” Al-Arjun gasped.

“You tell me,” He’jan said, smiling, already beginning to dissolve into points of brilliant, upward-floating light.

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“The Collection of M. Amber Tillmann: Last of the Tillmann Collectors,” Jeff read. “Very nice.”

“It’s already on the auction house schedule, but we need to get everything catalogued, photographed, assessed, appraised, and moved out of here before then,” Essie said. “That’s why we hired you and your crew.”

“Uh-huh,” Jeff said. “And we’ll get it done. But I like having all the information before I start a job. Why’d your usual crew quit?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Essie said, indignant.

“Okay, pack it up,” Jeff said. “We’re leaving.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Essie cried stepping in front of the exit. “Look, we usually have Forrestal’s boys handle this, all right? But they all quit on us day before yesterday and we’re desperate.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! This place is old and full of weird old stuff,” Essie said. She flipped up one corner of a sheet covering one of Ms. Tillmann’s artifacts and read the brass plate beneath it. “Maybe reading the names scared them off. But really, what does ‘Electro-Mechanical Messiah’ even mean?”

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“You got the job, kid,” Dennis said. “Kid’s birthday party. Standard clowning, but with the possibility for tips above and beyond the listed pay rate if you do a good job.”

“Oh gods,” said Squids. “Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods. I didn’t actually think I’d get the gig. Oh gods. What am I gonna do?”

“You’re gonna do a little kid’s birthday party,” Dennis said, “and be grateful that his grandfather’s raising him on old Bozo tapes.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Squids said. “I’m part of the Disguise Club. We meet once a week in disguise and just…you know…hang out. It’s all right,” Squids said, though her painted smile did not budge. “I dress like this because it represents what I would like to be: more outgoing, better with kids, less concerned with what people think of me.”

“Great,” Dennis said. “This is your chance. All the details are in the packet. You need a ride, or you driving yourself?”

“But I’m not any of those things!” cried Squids. “I’m a smartass, sarcastic, stick-in-the-mud who smokes.”

“Well, no smoking at the party, for sure,” Dennis said. He took another look at Squids, seated and trembling, and had a momentary swell of empathy. His daughter was only few years younger, after all, and he felt the same swell of fear and self-loathing whenever he had to speak in public.

“Listen,” Dennis added. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Nobody is who they present themself as, especially not people who seem to have everything all put together. Those folks who go out there every night to entertain? They’re just as scared as you and me.”

“But how…?”

“Fake it,” Dennis said. “Pretend. Pull one over on them. You’re already halfway there with that makeup, now go the rest of the way. The idea, Miss, uh, Squids isn’t to stop being afraid. It’s to get so good at resending otherwise that it’s second nature.”

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The spirit wavered. “I cannot pass on from this mortal plane until I slay an evildoer.”

“Should be easy enough,” said Al-Arjun. “I know some evildoers that could use slaying.”

“Oh?” He’jan drew an ethereal blade from is scabbard. “Like this?” He lunged at Al-Arjun in a practiced, savage manner.

“AAHH!” Al-Arjun’s squawk was cut short when the blade pierced her chest. It passed harmlessly through, like a shaft of light.

“Oh,” she added. “I see. Tough to slay an evildoer when you can’t interact with the corporeal world.”

“It’s all I can do to stay standing on the ground rather than sinking through it,” said He’jan sadly. “I have tried many things. I even arranged for a criminal to be caught for a crime that led to his execution. Nothing.”

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On September 8, 1889, local law enforcement reported to a disturbance that neighbors had supposedly witnessed, though after the fact the name and information of the informant mysteriously disappeared. Dr. Pike and the members of his commune had not been seen for months–since at least December 8, 1888.

Police found the compound in disarray. They found the body of a young woman in the main laboratory–she had bled to death in a manner that could not be accurately ascertained, although the coroner later compared it in broad strokes to postpartum bleeding. The remaining members of the 23 disciples–of whom there were, at that point, only 6–were found at various places throughout the compound, lifeless, but without any visible wounds. Dr. Pike himself, writing furiously in his journal, was found alive, seated before his “Electro-Mechanical Messiah.” Eyewitnesses describe the mechanism as “ticking weakly” though by the time of the formal inquest it was no longer producing any motion.

Under questioning, Dr. Pike insisted that the female follower, his “Mary,” had imbued the Messiah with a spark of life, but that the voices of the 23 had deserted him and he feared that he had made a terrible mistake. Only, he wrote, by “starving” the mechanism had he been able to prevent a catastrophe. When pressed as to the nature of this catastrophe, Pike would only say that he had been “fooled” and that the motive power that had filled his Messiah was “no kind and loving God of any sort.”

After a perfunctory trial, Dr. Pike was found guilty of murdering the members of his disciples and was executed by hanging. Even on the gallows, Pike maintained that he was a hero for averting catastrophe, though he reportedly did not resist his fate, describing it as “just punishment.”

As for the “Electro-Mechanical Messiah,” it passed into the collection of one J. Albert Tillmann, a Chicago eccentric and amateur Spiritualist whose menagerie of curiosities was well-known at the time. It was believed destroyed after an 1899 fire consumed his house.

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09:05 Hole is 10 ft in diameter. 2 men in hard hats observe it from nearby.

11:50 Hole is 25 ft in diameter and at least 10 ft deep. Traffics cones have appeared, redirecting cars around the site. 6 men in hard hats are observing it.

1:26 Hole is 100 ft in diameter and at least 50 ft deep. The bottom is lightly flooded from broken and breaking water mains. 12 men in hard hats watch the hole as watery mist drifts down upon them.

2:31 Hole is 1500 ft in diameter and at least 100 ft deep. Several major telephone, fiber-optic, and data lines are severed. 19 men in hard hats watch the hole from a nearby ridge.

3:58 Hole is 1 mile in diameter and the bottom can no longer be clearly seen. Evacuations of nearby residences have begun, and the hole now cuts across a major east-west artery. 51 men in hard hats watch the hole.

5:30 Hole is 10 miles in diameter and is beginning to influence weather patterns. Several rivers and lakes have disappeared into it without a trace. A state of national emergency has no effect on the 554 men in hard hats gazing into the hole.

6:49 Hole is 100 miles in diameter and the pressure difference between the surface and its depths has led to hurricane-force winds and storms. While the purpose of the hole is still not clear, experts believe that its current growth rate will be catastrophic. Men in hard hats continue to watch it, though their numbers can only be estimated.

11:59 All is hole. There is no other; no other is left. Even the men in hard hats, watching, are hole in their uncountable millions.

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Surviving newspaper accounts and photographs from Dr. Pike’s tour of his facility represent some of the only documentation of his later thought processes and experimentation. He showed reporters what he called the “First Iteration” of the Electro-Mechanical Messiah, which was photographed and described by one witness as “a collection of bizarre brass and steel, partially built into a heavy drawing-room table.”

“The First Iteration is mostly mechanical and electrical, but we intend that each succeeding iteration will add in more biology until it is in perfect balance and harmony,” Pike is recorded as saying. “Instructions to me, relayed through electrically amplified seances from my 23 mentors, have provided all that I need for my Mary to imbue the machine with a spark of life. Then, inhabited by the messiah of the universal consciousness, it will direct us in the next iteration’s construction–possibly building it on its own!”

When one of the reporters asked who the “Mary” was, and how exactly she would imbue the machine with a spark, Pike merely winked and said that it was as simple as giving birth. He refused to divulge any further details. There were several women among the disciples present that day, and the interviewers speculated that the “electro-mechanical Mary” was one of them.

Needless to say, the episode did not have the effect that Dr. Pike intended it to. The articles made him both a laughingstock and an object of intense religious fear, and most of his significant backers withdrew in embarrassment. Deprived of the funds needed to continue, Pike’s followers largely deserted him and his final experiment was attended by only a handful of his most faithful adherents.

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Clark pulled Gunderson aside. “Your first shipment of one hundred revolvers, the ones you promised would be as good as any Colts the Yankees could make? Well, they exploded.”

“How many of them exploded?” Gunderson said. “We can replace a few-“

“All of them,” Clark said. “They all exploded.”

“Surely not all of them, you can’t have-“

“All of them!” Clark snapped. “We have to test and proof each one before it goes into battle! You made the cylinders and barrels out of brass, and they exploded!”

“They are made out of gunmetal, as specified in the contract,” Gunderson said. “If that metal isn’t suitable for making guns, why, then-“

“The contract is for metal guns, meaning steel! Gunmetal hasn’t been used to make barrels in a hundred years!”

“I mean really, how could you not confuse a metal called gunmetal, which is not used to make guns, with the metal used to make guns, which is gun metal but not gunmetal?” Gunderson said, lamely.

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