"Tuques! Get your tuques here! Made with genuine penguin fluff." The voice was muffled because the speaker was wrapped head to foot in winter gear, even including one of said tuques. It was less impressive than it sounds. The speaker was only four feet tall. A couple in aerodynamic sunglasses, and many layers clearly improvised for the mid May cold snap, came up to the stall. One of them reached into her satchel - emblazoned with a constipated bald eagle, the international symbol for "trigger happy American" - and examined a wilderness guide closely before frowning and putting it back. "Says here that penguins live on the South Pole," she s

The Chief Wizard of the Free City of Babylon was out of options. There were only two things on her desk: an immense scorch mark and a fragment of clay roughly cut with cuneiform. Her hand wavered over the spy's message - maybe the fourth time she listened to it would be different after all. Hoping, and knowing that hope was futile, she triggered playback. They are obsessed with their Master Record. They claim it is superior because the ways of the ancients are superior, and they have echoed it across the Empire. It is obvious to you or I, but these heathens cannot sense the hand of Marduk in its creation. The Wizard cut off the message - the rest of it was just the usual litany of greetings and prayers. Marduk. She thought she had already done the hardest thing she had ever done. They didn't have the resources to fight fairly, so the Wizard had found thirty willing, comely couples and sacrificed them to Ishtar. That should have been it. The devastation of flooding

“You won’t tell once you’re on the inside,” she said. “Bullshit. I’ll let the world know. Everyone has to know. It’s why I’m doing it.” She didn’t look at me but continued folding her clothes. Underwear, jeans, shirts. Then they hired me. She was right. I didn’t tell anyone, and I never saw her again.