Natsuki stared at the chicken katsu sitting in front of her on the dining room table and suppressed the urge to scream. Under the table, her hands were clenched into fists to stop them from shaking, and it was all she could do to keep herself from hyperventilating.

    “Look, I know you find me rough around the edges,” Harry said, “but that good old fashioned American gumption is what’s going to give Hitler and his Nazi goons a good shellacking once the war starts.”

    Ken sputtered out his food. “The war...Hitler was defeated in 1945. It’s now 2027! Nazi Germany hasn’t existed in over eighty years! Please, at least open up a history book. Look at the pictures! They’re nice!”

    Selena chuckled as she picked up a slice of katsu. “You know he’s doing this on purpose to get that exact reaction, right?”

    “Of course I know!” Ken declared. “And I wouldn’t mind if he only did it here. But he does this when we’re out on missions! We’re trying to blend in, and then Harry opens his mouth and I’m standing beside somebody talking like it’s a hundred years ago. A couple of weeks back we had a fight with the other side start that way!”

    “And we won,” Harry said. “We sent ‘em packing.”

    “It was a stalemate,” Ken stated. “All of us ended up bloody and bruised, and then we all went home.”

    “If you stop reacting, he’ll stop doing it,” Selena said.

    Ken shrugged. “I’m in hell. That’s all there is to it. I’m in hell. Anybody want to change partners?”

    Darius, a lanky European with long red hair and a goatee, wearing a suit with a Nehru collar grinned. “What, and deal with Harry? Are you nuts?”

    “Sorry Ken,” Selena said. “He’s all yours. Maybe Natsuki will take him.”

    Natsuki closed her eyes. “Look, if you’re going to kill me, would you please just get it over with!” she cried. “I don’t want to die, but I can’t take any more of this waiting, either!”

    Everybody around the table stared at her, and then looked at each other in confusion. Finally, Selena spoke.

    “Kill you?” she said. “Just who do you think we are? We’re not murderers.”

    Natsuki stared at Balthazar, who gazed at her with a benevolent expression as he chewed and swallowed. “He is.”

    Balthazar sighed. “Right, this is my fault. I’m sorry, everybody – Natsuki’s only experience of us is what I’m doing in the story worlds. She doesn’t have the complete picture. I guess a proper introduction is in order.

    “Everybody, this is Natsuki Toshiro. She’s also known as ‘Detective Natsuki’, and for good reason – she’s the most brilliant mind of her generation. That, by the way, is the exact wording in her character description. Her creator god decided that the place a character like her belonged was as the main love interest in a harem comedy...there’s quite a lot of cruelty to that. By the time I encountered her and her friends, she was a long way from home.

    “She is smarter than everybody else at this table put together, and her ability to read body language and make deductions also makes it impossible for any of us to lie to her without her knowing it. And none of you are to try. Natsuki, nobody here is going to hurt you, or kill you. Nobody working with or for me will ever cause you harm. Am I telling the truth?”

    Natsuki tightened her clenched fists as her entire body tried to shake. “Yes.”

    “So, please, relax and eat,” Balthazar said. “You’re safe here, and I’m sorry I didn’t give you that assurance earlier. I should have realized that you would need it.”

    “And the people in the story worlds?” Natsuki demanded. “All those protagonists you murdered. What about them?”

    Balthazar gazed at her. “Ah, that. You’re right – anybody I can’t recruit in the story worlds, I kill. I have to. What I do makes it very easy for somebody to fall through the information stream, and anybody who doesn’t join me and falls into this world becomes an enemy that my friends here have to deal with. On the other hand, anybody I kill is brought back to life by the next information stream update, with no memory of our encounter. And I never go where there isn’t an active information stream, and I always make it as quick and painless as possible.”

    Natsuki glared at him. “And all those people in that town you burned down, what about them? They died screaming.”

    “So you were there,” Balthazar said. “I had wondered. I thought I had a grasp on the suffering in the story worlds, but that place managed to shock me.”

    “The protagonist and his party didn’t seem very unhappy.”

    “That young man and his harem,” Balthazar mused. “They wouldn’t, would they? There was a lot of love there – they were more his wives than his slaves. And they would love him. After all, he was the only one in that world who would have treated them like they were people.”

    Natsuki blinked.

    “The creator god of that story wanted to have things both ways,” Balthazar explained. “He wanted to have kinky bedroom scenes and a wholesome harem family, but he also wanted to have a dark and gritty world. So all of the other slaves there, they don’t tend to last very long. They’re fed only enough to keep them alive, and if they get hurt or sick, they’re just left to die. You’re right – a lot of them died screaming, and I’m sorry about that. But a lot more died of asphyxiation in their sleep as the fire consumed the oxygen. And their suffering is over now, at least until the information stream brings them all back in about a week.”

    Natsuki stared at him.

    “You know I’m not lying,” Balthazar stated. “Frankly, I was surprised to find Aquila’s information stream energy signature there. I had lost the trail and given up. All I was there to do when I first showed up was some recruiting.”

    “And you burnt down an entire town to torment us and flush us out,” Natsuki said.

    “Yes,” Balthazar said. “When one is dealing with a threat as serious as your friend Aquila, one does what is necessary. I’m not proud of what I did in that world, but I would do it again if I had to. And I think, if you were in my place, you would too.”

    Natsuki paused and tried not to think about it. Then she stated, “You seem to know a lot about information streams.”

    Balthazar nodded. “I made a point of consulting some very good quantum physicists before starting all of this. The deal I had with them was simple – I’d prove that the story worlds exist by giving them a tour, and in return they’d figure out how it all worked. And, so long as they kept my involvement secret, they could publish their research wherever they wanted. I think the first journal article on the subject is due out next month.”

    “You try to make it all seem very reasonable, don’t you?” Natsuki declared. “But what about your plan to collide the story worlds into this one and kill everybody?” She looked at the others around the table. “Did he tell you about that? That he’s going to kill billions upon billions of people? That you’re all fighting to destroy this entire galaxy of story worlds?”

    Balthazar blinked. “Why would you assume that I didn’t tell them?”

    Natsuki stiffened and stared at him in shock, and then looked around the table.

    Ken nodded at her. “We know. He told us about it shortly after he recruited us.”

    “But you’re the heroes of your worlds,” Natsuki said. “How can you possibly be fighting to destroy them?”

    Balthazar sighed. “Natsuki, sometimes the only options you have to solve a problem are bad ones. The story worlds are suffering – it is endemic to them. The creator gods made everybody to suffer. The only way to end that suffering is to destroy them.”

    Natsuki shook her head in horror. “But there are comedies, and romances, and–”

    “There’s an illness in this world called ‘cancer’,” Balthazar said. “Most of our story worlds don’t have it – sparing us diseases like that is one of the few kindnesses the creator gods allow us – so you may not have heard of it. It comes about due to an error in cell replication that slowly becomes a poison killing the body. It’s a very painful death. It starts in one organ, but after a while it spreads to the others. There may still be some organs that are healthy after this happens, but all the others are diseased and the body is still dying in agony. Euthanasia is the only solution that ends that suffering. This is an accurate description of the story worlds.”

    Natsuki stared at him. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

    “I think it’s time that everybody told Natsuki why they’re here,” Balthazar said.

    “I’ll go first, I guess,” Ken said. “I’m from a horror story about a zombie apocalypse. It’s a light novel series and an anime, and I’m from the anime. In my story world, I live with my wife and children in one of the few settlements that haven’t been overrun, and I’m one of the rangers there – my job is go out and forage for supplies. I love my family. Everything I do is for them.

    “When I got here, I discovered that the anime had only just finished adapting volume three of the light novel series. And, in volume four the settlement gets overrun just as I’m coming back from a mission.” His voice broke. “When that happens, I’ll have to watch my wife, my son, and my daughter get torn apart from a distance. My son is seven and my daughter is five. They’re going to die screaming in front of me, and I won’t be able to do anything to stop it!”

    “His anime had gone on hiatus between the first and second half of its season when I recruited him,” Balthazar added. “So, the information stream hadn’t updated yet. As soon as he told me about this, I extracted his wife and children. Ken lives with them in an apartment near here. They’re safe.”

    Ken wiped the tears from his eyes. “The worst part is that the light novel is now on volume twenty-two, with volume twenty-three coming out in three months. There isn’t an end to the story. My creator god will keep the suffering going until it no longer sells any copies. So, you may think what we’re trying to do is horrifying, but it’s a better end than anything my story would give us. When the worlds collide and the end comes, it will be quick and painless, and we will all be together.”