Ken Liu - Broken Stars

Surprisingly, the emperor had a lot of fun—he loved the sight of the corpses of his enemies strewn across the lawn. He did find it rather annoying that he had to wait passively for waves of zombies to approach, instead of actively dispatching a punitive expeditionary garden into the zombie homeland.

“That is correct, Your Imperial Majesty. We don’t need to attack at all. When the enemy realizes that it’s impossible to conquer us, they will stop, and war will end.”

The Mohist was pleased with his progress. It appeared that the emperor was close to being persuaded.

Qin Shihuang nodded at this explanation, but his gaze was glued to the screen as his finger clicked the mouse feverishly. The Cob Cannons and Gatling Peas demonstrated their fierce firepower as zombie after zombie turned to dust.

Five hours later, the emperor’s eyes were bloodshot and his face twitched. Several different servants had to take turns performing mousepad duty.

But the zombies showed no signs of relenting. For just one moment, the emperor’s concentration lapsed, and a small zombie rushed over and ate a few Winter Melons. The defenses of the empire collapsed.

“Fraud! You’re a fraud!” The emperor tossed away the mouse and rubbed his sore wrist. “You told me that a perfect defense will stop the enemy. But I have already gone through six hundred waves of attacks! Why are they still coming?”

“That… that is because you chose infinity mode.”

“I think you Mohists are a bunch of naive fools who know nothing about the bloody reality of the world.”

The emperor summoned his guards to chase the Mohist away—but he did remember to go to the garden and water all the plants.

As the days passed by, school after school came to present their best games to the emperor. The School of the Military brought Call of Duty ; the Agriculturalists brought Harvest Moon ; the School of Names (also known as the Logicians) brought Ace Attorney ; and the School of Yin-yang came up with something called The Legend of Sword and Fairy . But all the games failed after a single test-play by the emperor. Nobody could figure out what the august sovereign would enjoy.

Meanwhile, something else happened that seized everyone’s attention. Because he couldn’t find a game that truly pleased him, the emperor decided to take his carriage and go on a sightseeing tour. When his procession passed through a place called Bolangsha, a giant iron hammer fell out of the sky and crushed a decoy carriage. The emperor, enraged, vowed to find the assassin and punish him severely.

At first, the investigation went nowhere. It was only after the emperor had executed three chief investigators that the fourth official assigned to the task managed to discover some clues. Based on the trajectory of the hammer, the impact crater, and the scatter pattern of the debris from the decoy carriage, he deduced that the assassin had to be a skilled player of Angry Birds .

Not that many people could afford a phone capable of playing this game—remember this was a long time ago—and the narrowed list of suspects soon led the investigation to a young man named Zhang Liang. However, Zhang managed to prove his innocence against the prosecution. As a native of Han State before the unification, he claimed that he was thus by association a person from Hanguk, or Korean. And as all gamers knew, Korean players dominated StarCraft , a feat impossible without lots of dedicated practice. Thus, he couldn’t possibly have spared any time to waste on Angry Birds . The logic was really unassailable, when you thought about it.

Just when the whole empire was stunned by this courtroom turnabout, a Westerner named Xu Fu came to save the day.

Blond-haired and blue-eyed, Xu Fu came to see the emperor in a crisp new suit and well-polished shoes, looking like an iconic member of the global elite.

“What game have you brought me?” asked the emperor. He saw that Xu Fu was carrying a tiny thumb drive.

“Something that you have never, ever, ever, ever seen. It’s absolutely amazing.”

Xu Fu stuck the thumb drive into the emperor’s computer, opened a PowerPoint slide deck, and gave a polished presentation.

“But these are just slides,” said the emperor. “Where’s the game?”

“Your Imperial Majesty, a state focused solely on immediate, tangible benefits will not flourish for long. We must look far beyond the horizon and invest in the future to ensure lasting prosperity.”

“What are you getting at?”

“The game I’m presenting to you is a peerless work of genius. However, it’s still under development on the vapor-shrouded island of Penglai. Now, if Your Imperial Majesty would be willing to invest a small amount of venture capital to kickstart the process, I guarantee that within a year we’ll have a beta version, and in three years we’ll be on the market. As I’ve shown in the PowerPoint, this is an incredible opportunity: low risk and high reward.”

“But…” The emperor hesitated. Xu Fu’s speech was tempting, but it felt wrong to hand over money without getting a game back. Everyone else had shown up with finished products.

“Indecision is not a trait great leaders should cultivate,” intoned Xu Fu. “An opportunity like this may be gone the very next moment.”

Qin Shihuang was finally convinced. He prepared a fleet to sail for Penglai Island, laden with treasures that represented his investment in the game. Xu Fu promised that he would return in one to three years with the best game in the universe for the emperor.

“I await your good news!” the emperor called from the wharf.

Xu Fu showed his gleaming teeth and waved vigorously from his ship. “No problem! You can trust me!”

As the ships disappeared below the horizon, the emperor suddenly realized that Xu Fu had never told him the name of the game. He turned to his trusted advisor Zhao Gao. “Did Mr. Xu ever mention to you the name of this vapor-shrouded game?”

Zhao Gao said, “No. But… I did steal a look at his laptop.”

“So what is the name? Tell me!”

“Let me see… Ah, I have it. It’s called The Real Duke Nukem Forever .”

“What a great name!” said the emperor, sighing as his mind filled with glorious visions. “I can’t wait to play it.”

Gu Shi is a speculative fiction writer and an urban planner. A graduate of Shanghai’s Tongji University, she obtained her master’s degree in urban planning from the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design. Since 2012, she has been working as a researcher at the academy’s Urban Design Institute.

Ms. Gu has been publishing fiction since 2011 in markets like Super Nice , Science Fiction World , Mystery World , and SF King. Notable works include “Chimera,” “Memory of Time,” and “Reflection.” In 2014, she won the Silver Xingyun Award for Best New Writer. In translation, her work may be found at Clarkesworld . Currently, she’s working on her first novel, The Reign of Eternal Delight , an alternate history set in the court of an empress ruling in the dynasty founded by Wu Zetian, the first Chinese empress.

“Reflection” is an experiment in form as well as narrative technique, but its themes may be found in the oldest tales of our species.

Mark was a very special person—when he told me that he was going to take me to see a clairvoyant, I wasn’t too surprised.

“But you are a scientist!” I couldn’t help pointing out.

“That doesn’t mean I worship science.” My expression made him laugh, so he added by way of explanation, “It’s like how a butcher doesn’t worship pork.”