by John Scalzi
“That,” said Jake as shouting crewmen came running along the gunwales, “is sanotica. An efficient parasite that feeds on catastrophe. And millions of people work for it without knowing.”
Gennady held up the backpack. “It would have taken this and…made a bomb?”
“Maybe. And how do you know, Mister Malianov, that you don’t work for sanotica yourself? How can I be sure that plutonium won’t be used for some terrible cause? It should go to Cilenia.”
Gennady hesitated. He heard Miranda Veen asking him to do this; and after everything he’d seen, he knew now that in his world power and control could be shifted invisibly and totally moment by moment by entities like Oversatch and Cilenia. Maybe Fraction really had hired Hitchins’ people, and Gennady himself. And maybe they could do it again, and he wouldn’t even know it.
“Drop the backpack in the bilges,” said Jake. “We can send someone from Oversatch to collect it. Mother, you can bring it to Cilenia when you come.”
The rain was lessening, and he could see that her cheeks were wet now with tears. “I’ll come, Jake. When we get let go, I’ll come to you.”
Then, as Jake, she said, “Now, Gennady! They’re almost here!”
Gennady held onto the backpack. “I’ll keep it,” he said.
Gennady took the glasses out of his pocket and dropped them over the railing. In doing so he left the city he had only just discovered, but had lately lived in and begun to love. That city—world-spanning, built of light and ideals—was tricked into existing moment-by-moment by the millions who believed in it and simply acted as though it were there. He wished he could be one of them.
Gennady could hear Jake’s frustration in Miranda’s voice, as she said, “But how can you know that backpack’s not going to end up in sanotica?”
“There are more powers on Earth,” Gennady shouted over the storm, “than just Cilenia and sanotica. What’s in this backpack is one of those powers. But another power is me. Maybe my identity’s not fixed either and maybe I’m just one man, but at the end of the day I’m bound to follow what’s in here, wherever it goes. I can’t go with you to Cilenia, or even stay in Oversatch, much as I’d like to. I will go where this plutonium goes, and try to keep it from harming anyone.
“Because some things,” he said as the crewmen arrived and surrounded them, “are real in every world.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editor (that’s me) would like to acknowledge Steve Feldberg of Audible.com for initially proposing the anthology, guiding it through production on the audiobook side, acting as a spot copy editor for the text, being a huge cheerleader for the anthology and its writers all the way through the process, and also being cool enough to allow the anthology to have a print version as well. To not give him vast amounts of credit for the creation of all of this would be to do him a grave disservice. Thanks, Steve.
Thanks to everyone who helped to bring this anthology into printed form. In no particular order, some of these people would be: Bill Schafer, Tim Holt, Yanni Kuznia, Gail Cross, Edward Miller, Anne KG Murphy, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Liz Gorinsky, Irene Gallo, Peter Lutjen, Heather Saunders, Jessica Tedder, and Rafal Gibek. Your hard work here is really appreciated.
Most of all, I’d like to thank Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, and Karl Schroeder. This project has been one of the most fun of my professional career, and it’s because they were part of it. They are good friends, great writers, and awesome collaborators. Thanks, guys.
—JS