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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

Reactor

 

Illustration by Idiots’Books

By the time the call came, Sammy was ready to explode. He got in a golf cart and headed to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which backed onto the safari park portion of the Animal Kingdom. He snuck himself onto the roof of the ground hotel, which had a commanding view of the artificial savanna. He watched a family of giraffes graze, using the zoom on his phone to resolve the hypnotic patterns of the little calf. It calmed him. But the sound of his phone ringing startled him so much he nearly did a half-gainer off the roof. Heart hammering, he answered it.

“Is this Sammy?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Landon Kettlewell,” the voice on the other side said. Sammy knew the name, of course. But he hadn’t been expecting a call from him.

“Hello, Mr Kettlewell.”

“The boys have asked me to negotiate this deal for them. It makes sense—it’ll be hard to make this happen without my contributions. I hope you agree.”

“It does make sense,” Sammy said noncommittally. This wasn’t the best day of his life. The giraffes were moving off, but a flock of cranes was wheeling overhead in quiet splendor.

“I’ll tell you where we’re at. We’re going to do a deal with you, a fair one. But a condition of the deal is that we are going to destroy Freddy.”

“What?”

“We’re going to leak him bad intel on the deal. Lots of it. Give him a whole story. Wait until he publishes it, and then—”

Sammy sat down on the roof. This was going to be a long conversation.

<<< Back to Part 74

Continue to Part 76>>>

As part of the ongoing project of crafting Tor.com’s electronic edition of Makers, the author would like for readers to chime in with their favorite booksellers and stories about them in the comments sections for each piece of Makers, for consideration as a possible addition to a future edition of the novel.


Doctorow’s Makers is now available in print from Tor Books. You can read all previous installments of Makers on Tor.com on our index page.

About the Author

About Author Mobile

Cory Doctorow

Author

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently THE LOST CAUSE, a solarpunk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency. His most recent nonfiction book is THE INTERNET CON: HOW TO SEIZE THE MEANS OF COMPUTATION, a Big Tech disassembly manual. Other recent books include RED TEAM BLUES, a science fiction crime thriller; CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM, nonfiction about monopoly and creative labor markets; the LITTLE BROTHER series for young adults; IN REAL LIFE, a graphic novel; and the picture book POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
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