Happy Saturday to the loveliest readers in the world. There have been some amazing developments that I am finally able to share with you. It’s been hard holding it in, but now that it’s official I’m happy to announce that I will be writing a column called The Future is Now that will explore the intersection of science fiction and present technology. The first TFIN, in which I explore the current state of laser weaponry is now live!

You’ll be pleased to know that debate over my flagrant reference to lasers and phasers being "the same thing" has already incited a heated debate among the Trekkies of Geek & Sundry, and so, in traditional fashion, I have managed to outraged the very people I was trying to entertain.

Speaking of outrage(!) - The future vintage International Transport shirts have arrived. These beautiful organic cotton shirts commemorate and celebrate International Transport’s 2393 R&D Offsite during which The Punch Escrow was first successfully tested in the teleportation of a live human "volunteer".

This means that the logistics of shipping all of the good stuff many of you have earned or won will likely happen in the next week. I have gotten a lot of requests to buy the shirts, but unfortunately I’m just not set up to sell them. Likely Geek & Sundry will probably take over merchandising for The Punch Escrow as we get closer to the publication date. Maybe they will resurrect this design. As things firm up I will let you know where to go/who to ask to make these kind of requests.

Lastly, the amazing anthology of which I am a part, Too Many Controllers, continues to go from strength to strength in the Nerdist "video game" contest. We’ve already reached "Quill" publishing status, meaning that regardless of whether we win the contest or not, our anthology is getting published, but we’re in it to win it, my friends. I was hoping to share the synopsis of my story with you, but alas, we have a strict information release cadence. I’m told that perhaps my story’s synopsis will be unveiled once our reader count reaches 300. Please help us get there! Here is a "hint":

This campaign started 90 hours ago. In that time 91 readers have joined the party and pre-ordered 123 books. I don’t want these updates to become spammy, so I’m going to shut up until we get to 250. Let me just answer a few more of the most common questions I’ve received in the last few days:

Q. Are you really giving away those awesome t-shirts?

A. Yes. Here’s the deal with the shirts: If we get to 250 pre-orders in the first 250 hours of this campaign then every single reader who pre-ordered before we hit 250 will get a vintage, limited edition International Transport shirt. This is a fairly tangible possibility considering we’re already at 123 pre-orders in 90 hours. However, if we do not get to 250 pre-orders in the first 250 hours, do not fret. First, everyone who pre-ordered at the "Feeling Spendy?" level will definitely get a shirt regardless of where we are at 250 hours because they bought 3 or more books!!! - and I’ll definitely do some kind of other giveaway for the other levels. I’ll figure something out, people. But seriously, let’s get to 250 in 250 and then everyone gets shirts and the book gets made. Get your friends and family in the Punch Escrow chair people!

Q. What’s your plan for the microfiche?

A. Okay, nobody but me calls them microfiche, but when it comes to the mysterious world building diagrams I’ve been posting, I’ll likely keep doing one every day until the end of the campaign. They’ll be getting posted on The Punch Escrow Facebook Page.

Q. Will you be posting more chapters?

A. Yes, I will post chapters 1, 2 and 3 when we hit 250 pre-orders. Right now we’ve got chapters 4, 6, and 8 in their entirety as well as the all-important Gallimaufry.

Q. I have a question you didn’t answer?

A. That’s not a question. But if you do have any additional questions PLEASE get in touch. Oh, and since this is the last update for a while, here’s a video my five year old daughter interviewing me about the book.

The first human teleportation experiments were only referred to by their codename, Project Bragaglia, after the Italian futurist Anton Giulio Bragaglia. 

98 Books pre-ordered by 72 readers in 48 hours!

My goal is 250 readers in 250 hours. If we get there, I’ll give away a few of these vintage International Transport shirts I managed to steal at their last volunteer recruitment event:

In the mean time... Look, I know the rumors have been rife, but please don’t propagate the Project Honeycomb rumors. The good folks at International Transport assure me it’s a non issue. They’ve asked me to include the following statement in my update:

"Tal M. Klein’s ’The Punch Escrow’ is a work of fiction. As of the date of this report, International Transport has not received a national security order and no FISA ordered searches or seizures of any kind have ever been performed on International Transport assets."