What We Call Science, They Call Treason by Dominica Phetteplace (Asimov’s SF January–February 2023) opens with a billionaire called Rodrigo asking the female narrator of the story to wear a new invention (an “emotional fitness tracker”) to a lunch date with an old college acquaintance.
After a long lunch with Will, and surveillance drones photographing them outside the restaurant, he and the narrator are picked up by Rodrigo the billionaire. Rodrigo reveals that he is from a parallel world, and they drive to a building and go through a portal to Rome 2, where they speak Latin, have to wear the bracelets, and learn that the citizens are panicking because the planet is going to be hit by an asteroid in 19 hours. Rodrigo wants to transfer useful technology before the asteroid hits, but the narrator thinks they can save the planet—so she goes back for her world’s “Space Codex,” while Will gathers hard drives full of Rome 2’s knowledge. Then, after the narrator delivers the Codex and returns to her own world for the second time, the portal dies.
The narrator subsequently becomes a billionaire thanks to the cold fusion technology of Rome 2 (but there are still problems with climate change and the super-rich) and the story eventually ends years later with Rodrigo arriving out of a portal (a “white hole”). He tells her that they managed to save Rome 2 from the asteroid but now have a problem with a black hole in the upper atmosphere. He also adds that Will is sending more files through a white hole to the Burning Man festival, and he’ll meet them there.
This is all narrated in a vaguely satirical tone—but I’m not really sure what the point of this piece is other than to make a number of glib contemporary observations:
I also wanted to solve the prison problem. The police drones took all “unregistered” citizens to nasty offshore islands. It seemed unnecessarily cruel once you looked into the details.
I spent my fortune several times over trying to fund alternatives but never succeeded. It turns out that having money isn’t enough to effect change: you also have to get other people with money to agree with you. Otherwise, their billions act as anti-matter to your own, totally canceling each other out. The other billionaires were fine with me trying to fix the climate, but they thought having a large, incarcerated class of people was essential to their economy. How else would you motivate everyone else to work for you?
It certainly doesn’t work as any sort of believable story.
* (Mediocre). 5,050 words.