A Catalogue Found in a Bus Stop in Karok, CA

     The following is a transcript of a document obtained in late 2001. Also obtained at that time were a severed human hand, three human teeth, and a set of keys for a nearby Honda Accord. For a list of items recovered from the vehicle, see addendum BA-2001-OS25. If you believe you received this transcript in error: shut off your device, exit the building, lie face down with your hands behind your head and wait for a recovery team.

Dear ________,
    In response to repeated inquiries, the Committee would like to clarify that recent events will not affect our schedule. The Black Auction of 2001 will be held on floor 107 of 2 WTC. Guests who anticipate difficulty in reaching or perceiving this floor are strongly encouraged to accompany guests who do not.
    Nightlife is not expected to be significantly disrupted, but the safety and comfort of all guests is our highest priority. The Committee has made arrangements with a local restaurants to provide catering for guests who wish to remain in the relative safety of the auction site. As Dorsia is always busiest around the Solstice, they have requested that guests with dietary restrictions contact them at least six weeks in advance.
    As usual, a partial and provisional catalog has been enclosed for your examination. With the death of the Invisible Hand of the Market, certain special-reserve items will be available for the first time in this history; we trust you anticipate the first Auction of the new millennium as much as we anticipate your patronage.

Yours in confidence,
    The Black Auction Committee
    September 15th, 2001




LOT 1. ONE HUNDRED BILLION DEAD

    A VHS cassette containing at least 1,500,000,000 kilometers of magnetic tape at the time of writing. The video consists of a set of repeated actions; an unidentified male narrator places the camera before an open grave, deposits a corpse shrouded with a black trash bag, and begins to bury it while making occasional comments on its life. These comments are usually positive, though he will complain of overwork if the interred was responsible for the loss of human life. After ten minutes and the completion of the burial, the narrator moves the camera several meters to the left and begins again. As the video depicts the burial of every human who has ever died, the tape grows longer faster than normal playing speed.


LOT 3. ANYTHING

    A single request, to be fulfilled by an individual identifying himself as Vernon. He has indicated willingness to fetch objects, recover information, kill specified targets or "anything you want" [sic]. The Committee cannot guarantee he is capable of fulfilling these requests, but can confirm that since his appearance in our offices no attempts to remove him have succeeded, due to equipment failure, sudden weather catastrophe, or previously unknown medical conditions in security personnel. At the request of the item, bidding will begin at $786.00 and does not include his bottle. 


LOT 5. SERIAL KILLER PROFILE

    A document produced in 1975 by John E. Douglas, an FBI profiler. It lists a set of factors which predict an individual will become a serial killer; these include obsession with firestarting, sexual abuse at an early age, and violence towards animals. Certain entries (such as participation in the furry community, enthusiasm for riddles, and a preference for non-digital watches) were erased from the list during the examination of this item. Correspondingly, these factors no longer correlate with serial murder. All entries are written in pencil and can be easily edited, save for "PEES THE BED — HAHA", which is marked in blue ink.


LOT 8. THE OTHER CARCANO

     A 6.5mm rifle of Italian manufacture. This is the firearm used by Rafael Cruz in the assassination of then-President John F. Kennedy in 1961. A similar firearm was used by Lee Harvey Oswald in the murder of Kennedy's body double, but that is now believed to be a coincidence.


LOT 16. FIRST NEW DRAFT

    American author Frank Herbert's first typewritten draft for a sword-and-sandals fantasy epic called The New Testament, heavily influenced by Herbert's Jesuit education and the multiple perspectives of the film Rashomon. The story follows a messiah-figure named Jesus Abu Yahweh who founds a revolutionary society in 1st-century Rome and is eventually betrayed by one of his own lieutenants. Herbert grew to dislike this project and repurposed most of the material for his better-known Dune series; the early draft eventually became the Christian religion. While the bulk of the novel remained unchanged, the original Jesus was much more explicitly supernatural, and his Twelve Apostles featured more prominently and had more developed backstories.


LOT 17. TOO MUCH FOR ONE BRAIN

    A revivification machine containing the nervous system, heart, lungs and mouth of the thirteen-year-old Alexander Engel Huber. At the time of his death in 1942, he was fluent in his native German and seventeen other languages. He had an intuitive mastery of algebra, calculus, molecular biology, cryptography, quantum physics, and several fields not known to current science. When activated, the machinery is capable of interpreting his screams of pain as answers to questions. In the time since his death he has become intimately familiar with the seven Hells of the Celestial Bureaucracy, and can provide answers about his interrogator's place in the universe.


LOT 41. ONE YEAR OF LIFE

    One year of healthy adult human life, sourced from a cruelty-free farm in Cambodia. Six-hundred units will be available. Do not take with alcohol or while operating heavy machinery.


LOT 42. THE MOST TERRIFYING THING EVER PUT ON PAPER

    A copy of the second printing of Tanio Akisabi's 1986 novel Hellskin. The author committed seppuku in protest of the Japanese government's thorough expurgation of his first printing. Though only ⅓rd the length, the second printing is terrifying enough to permanently destroy the reader's ability to feel fear from any other source. Suitable for personal use or as a training aid for security personnel.


LOT 45. NOVELTY KEYRING

    A keyring in the shape of an 8-ball with four carefully-labeled keys, along with associated documentation. These keys were the property of Charles Prifti, an American student, until his untimely death in 1998. When these keys are used to unlock a door on Earth, it will open onto a random door in an alternate Earth. After obtaining these keys from an unknown predecessor Prifti explored these alternate Earths extensively and left several volumes of notes for his presumed successors.

• VORE WORLD — Diverges from baseline reality at least before 800 A.D.
      After a meteor impact in the eastern Mediterranean vaporizes the Classical World and leaves most of western and central Asia irradiated wasteland, a rising Nahuatl-speaking empire conquers the Americas and eventually makes its way to Africa. Access to previously untapped human resources leads to a population explosion and a strict racial hierarchy, with noble-blooded Mexica at the top, the Yoruba tribe comprising a priestly caste (due to a misunderstanding derived from their dark skin), common Mexica and all other Africans as a lower class (whose communities must provide yearly tributes of human meat), and the irradiated and mutated descendants of undifferentiated Eurasian peoples (as livestock or wild game, freely hunted by all other castes).
  
  
• COWGIRL WORLD — Diverges from baseline reality at least before 4004 B.C.
     After the death of YHWH, and following the absence of the historically-attested worldwide Noahide Flood, humanity develops in a world with less than one-one-thousandth the volume of water as ours. Society is far more wicked and depraved in this timeline, which may be of interest to some patrons. All major communities are built near a water source and are dominated by superhuman Nephilim. They are opposed by a scattered handful of gunslinging vigilantes armed with enchanted revolvers forged from the bones of G_d.
  
  
• FEMDOM WORLD — Diverges from baseline reality at least before 400,000,000 y.b.p
      Despite the earliest documented divergence point of any of the worlds, and a complete inversion of gender roles across all species, history follows an identical path until Gaia Julia Caesar successfully fends off her assassins by transforming into a werewolf. In modern times the earth is dominated by a global fascist superstate of Latin-speaking wolf-women. Prifti discovered several details which indicate development of this world was intelligently directed:
  
  1. Alternate history corresponds to our own on more key points than can be predicted with even the strong Blue Stoplight Effect.
     
  2. The immortal Imperatrix of Roma has invented several novel methods of entering and conquering nearby universes, in contrast to the early-industrial technological level of her world.
     
  3. Worryingly, the Latrodectus genus of spiders (the Black Widowers) bear red markings resembling the English words "HELLO CHARLES".
     
     
• MINDBREAK WORLD — Diverges from baseline reality an unknown length of time ago.
      Those who open a door to this world feel a strong desire to leave behind all physical possessions and enter it. Neither Charles Prifti nor any of his predecessors have been recovered after entering this world. For this reason, the Committee requests all payments for this item be made before delivery of the item.
  

LOT 46. IMPRACTICALITY

    A perfect (all words in major dictionaries, uncapitalized and unpunctuated) 14-square, the first word of which is "impracticality". It is, in addition, palindromic; but the final word resembles the name of a certain entity who objects to its casual use. You are strongly encouraged to neither consider this name for extended periods of time nor write it on any material besides lead ceramic.


LOT 50. CLUB MEMBERSHIP

    A rare opportunity to join the ranks of the historic Old Berkeley Hunting Club. This is simply an opportunity; the application process is the responsibility of the prospective member. The Hunting Club expects applicants to be familiar with all club regulations, to own their own rifle, and to be ready to declare under Melbourne Rules (hunting dangerous game), London Rules (hunting expendable game) or Boston Rules (hunting game who deserve it).


LOT 51. MORCOM MACHINE

    An abstract machine which operates on a sequence of symbols according to the rules of a unique philosophy of mathematics human civilization did not pursue. Vast axiomatic differences make certain impossible problems easy, or vice versa: under this philosophy, P=NP, the Collatz Conjecture can be trivially disproved with basic arithmetic, and major kabbalistic techniques are impossible to operate. Cryptography is also impossible, not only because P=NP but also because numbers actively defend themselves from attempts at obfuscation.


LOT 60. YOU

    You! Yes, we know you lifted our catalogue from the pocket of one of our less-experienced patrons. Yes, we can see you, sitting in the third row from the front on the right-hand side of that Greyhound bus. Yes, the bidding has already begun. You will find a loaded gun and a suit of body armor underneath your seat. The Committee requests, for the entertainment of our patrons, that you try to run.