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“So I created you. I
designed
you. I wrote the script.”

“In a way. I am ancient, and I am newborn.”

“But that’s
bullshit.
” His hand slams down on the tabletop. One of the beer bottles topples over, rolls to the floor, and shatters. “You’re not playing by the rules.”

“Oh?”

“The good guys win.” There are tears in his eyes. “Everyone
knows
the good guys win, they always win. Mariko sends the Dark Queen back to hell. I wrote the goddamn ending! So if I created you—” He cuts off, his voice thick, and swallows. “If it’s all my fault, then why didn’t she win?” His voice drops to a whisper. “Why did Mari die?”

“No one really believes in heroes these days, Aka-sensei.” I smile. “But
everyone
believes in monsters.”

He opens his mouth to reply, pauses as though he doesn’t know what to say. I send my power across the table, fast and deadly. Life pulses between us, and I drink it in greedily. I stand up in time to catch him as he slumps forward and lower him gently to the tabletop.

I leave a stack of bills on the table and walk out the bar. No one notices me go. Outside, the crowds have thinned a little, but the touts are still hard at work. It may be my imagination, but the revelry carries a strained, desperate note. There’s an anxiety in the air, the nervous tension of the herd in the presence of the predator. I walk back up Ichibanchou-dori and under the Kabuki-cho sign, to where the big black car is waiting.

I slide into the back.
She
is in the other seat, her mirror eyes reflecting the flashing neon of Shinjuku Station for a moment before I pull the door closed behind me. She’s dressed in sweatpants and a too-large T-shirt, her river of long, dark hair pulled up and pinned behind her head in a no-nonsense tail.

She speaks in her native tongue, the musical language of a fallen angel, the speech of creation. I understand perfectly. I am, after all, a translator. It’s no surprise Aka-sensei didn’t recognize me. A twisted little goblin creature—once, perhaps. But I have fed, and grown
strong
.

“Did you find him?”

“Yes, my Queen.”

“And is he…”

“Yes, my Queen.”

She nods, mirror eyes gleaming. “Well done.”

The Queen taps the window with her knuckle, and the driver clacks his mandibles in acknowledgment. The black car pulls away from the station, and out into the darkness.

Django Wexler graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with degrees in creative writing and computer science. Eventually he migrated to Microsoft in Seattle, where he now lives with two cats and a teetering mountain of books. When not writing, he wrangles computers, paints tiny soldiers, and plays games of all sorts. He is the author of military fantasies
The Thousand Names
and
The Shadow Throne
and the middle-grade fantasy
The Forbidden Library
. His website is
djangowexler.com
.

Fix your climate model! Join scientists in digging through climate model output from more than thirty international research centers. Your mission: decide whether each file contains interesting information, and identify the key factors contributing to global warming.

Some simulations will be control runs to create a historical baseline. Others will be generated from emissions scenarios with varying burdens of greenhouse gases and aerosols, reflecting alternative socioeconomic pathways.

Complexities in our cloud microphysics scheme are potentially producing unphysical realizations. And who knows what else may turn up? By validating models against actual observations, citizen scientists like yourself will help us better predict, and plan for, climate change where you live!

Esme Huybers-Smith resents taking on the work of some drudge graduate student who should have made better life choices, but her fingers keep flexing to navigate back to the browser tab. The ad, copied to the gamer message board she frequents, is festooned with enough university logos that she thinks maybe they ponied up money for good designers. Could be a slick game. In her apartment, her leg jitters in anticipation; without a full haptic suit, the motion doesn’t register on her avatar. She isn’t sold on saving the world—isn’t sure what that world would look like. The talking heads on the media outlets wax nostalgic about plenty, prosperity, and stretches of peaceful coastline that sound like bullshit to Esme. But a game…well, she’ll try any game once.

Esme closes windows to clear real estate on her display. She has a vague feeling that she’s forgetting to be somewhere but the “Play Now” button beckons, and anyway it’s the weekend. She shakes off the feeling and dives into the tutorial.

Gameplay centers around comparing model output (“simulation”) with satellite observations (“data”).

Step 1: A simulated climate field (temperature, humidity, etc.) will be plotted on the left.

Step 2: Compare the simulation to real-world satellite data automatically loaded on the right.

Step 3: In the comment form, make any specific observations about why the data deserve further scrutiny. Look for areas where the simulation disagrees with the data: Water droplets that are too big or too small, or icy where they should be liquid. Rain that is too heavy or too drizzly. Temperatures that are too cold or too warm. Clouds that form in the wrong place. Links to extensive satellite data archives can be found under the menu bar.

You also have the option to fix the climate model of the nearest modeling center by entering your postal code. Or hit “random.”

Esme types in her postal code and is surprised to find a modeling center in New Jersey. There’s an FAQ on how climate models work too, with an eye-numbing list of equations. Maybe she’ll read it over later.

She’s about to pull up her first simulation when a jingle erupts in her earbud. Esme’s gaze flicks to the notification icon. Her father. She ignores it, but the ringtone trills a second time. Esme taps to accept.

“Dad, I’m a little busy right now.”

“Because you’re on the train?”

“What? No.”

He continues as if she hasn’t said anything. “You’re busy because you’re on the train to your brother’s wedding. Your mother is waiting at the station to pick you up.” His voice is dangerously even.

“Ah, about that…I’m not going to make the wedding after all.”

She listens to him breathe on the other end of the connection. They both know that if she hasn’t left by now, she’s already missed the wedding. The high-speed train down the coast is six hours minimum. “Jacob will be so busy he won’t even notice I’m—”

“Attending virtually,” he interrupts.

“But—”

“Nonnegotiable, if you want a second chance with Huybers-Smith. Your family deserves better and so does your new brother-in-law. Wear something nice.”

That’s rich. She opens her mouth to say she’s not particularly inclined to give
him
a second chance, but he’s already logged out of chat. She worked for the family corporation out of college, but her father wanted an assistant, and Esme isn’t assistant material. To say they butted heads is an understatement.

Esme shrinks the game window to a thumbnail. She pulls up the wedding invitation (re-sent by her father so she couldn’t claim she lost it) and taps the door icon in the corner.

Her avatar materializes at her brother’s wedding extravaganza on St. Pete Island. She thinks she looks just fine in black jeans and a ripped tank—otherwise how will her brother recognize her? She makes a concession to the occasion by painting on some lipstick. Her aunts’ inane greetings wash over her. Esme provides the aunts with equally inane responses. It must be so nice in New Jersey, they say.

Esme imagines her apartment. Her body, visored and gloved and sprawled across rumpled bedsheets. The slit of a window, curtains drawn tight to keep out the glare even though it makes her room stuffy as hell. When the apartment was subdivided decades ago, the contractors ran drywall down the middle of the window so each unit got a bit of natural light. They bisected the shower as well, not that she has the water rations to use it. Balanced on the windowsill and nearly buried by curtain is a withered jade plant that Esme’s been meaning to trash for weeks.

“How’s the beach?” she asks instead of answering. As long as the aunts don’t start in on Jacob’s latest triumph at the corporation, maybe she’ll survive the family gathering. He always did play well with others. She loves her brother. It’s the rest of them who lack subtlety.

“We have an amazing view from the dome, and the margaritas are divine. It’s too bad you couldn’t make it here for the ceremony.” They wear sweaters tossed over their shoulders, the dome’s climate control being another, unspoken selling point. Esme licks the salt from her upper lip.

Sure, she could have gone to Florida. But the idea of touristing on the broken back of a hurricane-slammed economy makes her feel like a vampire. In the corner of her display,
Fix Your Climate Model!
beckons.

The guests file into rows of white folding chairs, their avatars auto-tracking their devices for the benefit of Esme and those too infirm to attend in person. NPCs fill out the back rows. Up near a palm tree arbor, Esme’s father scans the crowd. Esme waggles her fingers at him. He frowns when he takes in her appearance.

When the minister clears his throat, Esme toggles the windows, bringing up the game and shrinking the wedding to a thumbnail.

She links her hands over her head to stretch, checking the wedding progress bar. The vows are over; the reception has begun. Sunlight sparkles on the Gulf beyond and below the dome, and the tarps of a distant shanty town flap in the breeze. Esme tries to remember if she’s ever met her brother’s boyfriend—husband—outside of a chat room but draws a blank.

On the game, she hits “Start” and is presented with her first climate simulation. A colorful, meaningless plot fills the window. Satellite data appear on the right with the same height-latitude axes. The two plots look the same, near as she can tell. Esme swipes for the next image and hopes that the difficulty setting ramps up.

It’s soothing, she decides, like listening to music. She scans through ten in rapid succession. Then twenty. She gets points for every simulation she looks at, and double points for submitting comments.

“Esme?”

At the top of the display, her name populates the bottom of the high-score board. The first stirrings of game obsession flutter in her chest.

“Esme?”

Her gaze snaps down to the wedding thumbnail, and she hastily maximizes it. A sea of avatar faces stare back at her from a shining, air-conditioned dome overlooking the sea. Esme squints. They all hold champagne flutes aloft. Her father, still trim and rather dapper—at least according to his avatar—stares at her steadily. Her brother, sitting before a gargantuan cake, tugs at their father’s coat sleeve, already seeing how this will play out and trying to stop it.

“Esme, the toast?”

Shit. Esme chews her lip, considering whether she can make something up on the fly. Her father’s frown deepens, and she shrugs helplessly at her brother.

Days later, boxes of empty Cheez-Its and rehydration packets surround her bed like shrapnel as Esme swipes through simulation after simulation. With her paychecks cleared from the last couple of freelance jobs, she can afford to devote herself to the hunt for the elusive outlier.

She likes outliers. She identifies with outliers.

Unfortunately, the game developers, or climate modelers, don’t.

She’s been monitoring outlier frequency. The game is converging. If she’s right, soon all the models will be tuned to produce the same cookie-cutter output, and extreme weather events won’t even be projected. Which means the game can’t be won the way Esme plays it.

It also means the other players are being duped. Perhaps they wouldn’t care. With each simulation taking less than a minute to complete, the game is obviously designed to appeal to do-gooders in their spare moments. But the unfairness of it burns in Esme.

The data formats have become more familiar to her than family. Eight times daily instantaneous, monthly mean, lat-lon, lat-height, 500 millibar pressure level. For most players the game probably begins and ends at pattern recognition, but Esme makes a point of paying attention to the plot axes. In a separate window, the satellite data archives are open and ready, in case she wants to double-check the simulation against yet more data.

Her gaze zeros in on a wash of magenta, and she checks the values on the color bar. She barely glances at the data and already she can tell the ice droplet concentration is too high, and the cloud too deep. Esme flags the simulation, typing a quick note in the comment box. As she hits submit, her gaze is trained on the scoreboard. She scowls when her username doesn’t budge. Second place. Always the bridesmaid.

She broods at the name above hers: dc2100.

Esme knows she’s good. A folder on her desktop is filled with screen captures of her best finds. If someone is scoring higher than she is, they must be following a different MO, flagging minutiae on simulations that Esme skips and racking up double points that way.

She’s already mentally composing the message she’ll leave on the gamer boards—blowing the whistle on the rigged game. But if the project is canned, what then? No more climate forecasting and it’s all on her? No thank you.

Esme pulls up the About page, this time reading more carefully. She considers the contact form but isn’t in the mood to wait out a reply. The project scientist is listed as Dr. Derya Çok. A moment later, Esme has accessed her webpage at the nearby lab, complete with contact information.

She’ll just call her up and straighten this out.

Esme considers her skin inventory. Her hand hovers over her white male avatar, her go-to when it doesn’t suit her to be underestimated. On the other hand, Derya Çok is a woman, and not senior staff. Authenticity could go a long way. With a sigh, Esme pulls off her VR headset and haptic gloves. She leverages herself out of bed and rummages around in her closet for a nice shirt. While her outdated laptop boots, she kicks food wrappers out of the camera field-of-view and initiates the connection as herself.

As she waits for Dr. Çok to accept or reject the call, Esme hopes she won’t have to track her down in person. The streets are clogged with refugees, and they make her feel helpless. Meanwhile, ads tout romantic gondola rides around the flooded streets of Atlantic City, or cruises out to the storm-surge barriers. She avoids leaving her apartment.

To Esme’s surprise, someone picks up.

“This is Derya Çok.” She pronounces it like “choke.” Her expression is serious and composed.

Esme straightens. “Hello, Dr. Çok. I’m contacting you about
Fix Your Climate Model!
”

Dr. Çok raises her brows in silent inquiry.

Esme forges on. “I’ve identified a bug. Initially, whenever I flagged a good outlier, my score would go up, and the game would get harder. But lately, I’m barely seeing any game adjustment at all. It’s like the outliers are being tuned away.”

Dr. Çok smiles reassuringly. “We have a graduate student who’s addressing each report submitted by the public.”

“But my score doesn’t go up.”

“We appreciate your participation. To be clear, you’re upset that you haven’t won?”

Yes. “No. I’m upset because the game is rigged to reward conservative thinking.”

“The game is
designed
to reduce uncertainty in climate change projections. This is what the funding agencies want and the policymakers demand. A single number, or as close as we can give them. Not a wide range that governments can use to argue for inaction. Given the opportunity, they would happily bank on the slim chance that the low estimate is the right one, and leave later generations in the lurch.”

“Precise doesn’t mean accurate.”

Patience has fled Dr. Çok’s voice. “I am well aware of the distinction,” she says. “
Fix Your Climate Model!
isn’t just a game, and winning is not just about one individual. I’m sorry if that offends your aesthetics. For decades, we’ve struggled to get a handle on cloud variability, and we’re actually making progress now.”

“But you’re preconditioning to predict the answer you want,” Esme says.

“It’s not about what I want.” Dr. Çok makes an arrested motion, as if to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I have a meeting to attend. Good day.”

Esme lounges in her chair and steeples her fingers. The image of Dr. Derya Çok lingers on her screen until she keystrokes out of the program.

Should have gone with the avatar, she thinks as she spins in a circle.

Esme needs a hacker.

She doesn’t have the computer skills to do what needs doing, and she doesn’t have the people skills to convince a random person (or project scientist) to help. Which leaves family. Her father’s out of the question. She logs into her private chat room and pings Jacob.