Shine by Jetse de Vries (ed)

people, smiling as they marched to the state-sized fields in the morning, or to the city-sized factories where the magic technology kept almost ten billion people clothed and housed and fed and connected. Or the others, standing guard over the deserts of slowly-growing biomimetic power and food. Or the few living in glory on depopulated islands. Tiny shards of rational groups still existed--the OpenMITers, the Progress in Time people--but they were tiny. And frequently working to perfect the technologies of the transnationals. And then there were the Anonymous groups hacking the skeins which kept a tenth of the population in check.
    There was a small noise in the storage compartment behind her. Ani started. "Jun?"
    Her wriststream heard the request and pulled up Jun's feed; he was still kissing his wife goodbye.
    "Who's there?"
    Silence. Smooth, velvet science. Then, almost at the threshold of hearing: a rapid scuff, and an intake of breath.
    "Who's there!" Ani levered up out of the seat to open the storage compartment door.
    It was Nils. Curled into a ball, head down, as if to make himself invisible.
    "Nils!"
    "I... wanna go with you!" he wailed. He jumped out of the compartment and clung to her, hugging tightly.
    She smoothed his messy hair. "You can't."
    "Why not?"
    Because I probably won't come back. Which meant Jared might actually have to learn something about being a parent, rather than just sticking to calculations.
    But she couldn't tell him that. And, looking at his tear-streaked face, she started crying.
    Nils pulled back. "Why are you sad?"
    "Because..." Ani began, but her voice stopped in her throat. Because she just realized how stupid she was. She couldn't go off on a suicide mission to an insane world.
    I have a kid! On the moon!
    Ani took her handscreen and put together a party line with all the Primes, and Jun. "I'm countermanding my own order," she told them. "I now recommend we don't waste the Last Resort on a trip to Earth."
    Combined shock and relief. Jared laughed; in the background were the unfinished living areas and throngs of people. Ani noticed a lot of young people in the crowd, older kids who'd been among the first to be born on the moon. Kids fifteen and sixteen and seventeen years old. Some even younger.
    "They were just voting on the same thing," he said. "We would've had a supermajority to stop the launch in another five minutes."
    Relief flooded through her. "You're not upset?"
    "I know a fool's game when I see one," Jared said. "And these kids are pretty adamant."
    "Can we launch a comms package to Earth instead?"
    Jared nodded. "We can mod an asteroid probe. Launch in a few days."
    "We could even put a bottle of wine in it."
    "What?"
    "To make it symbolic."
    "We could." Jared sounded doubtful.
    "And load it with photos of all the children. Show them our potential."
    "We could do that."
    "Then that's what I want to do."
    There was a murmur behind Jared. Jared looked around. "They're not thrilled about revealing ourselves to Earth."
    "We aren't revealing ourselves. Even our inference software says they know about us."
    "They're not happy."
    "Run the vote."
    Jared turned around. She switched to the stream from the cavern. It was packed, standing room only. She waited while Jared explained her decision to the room. In two minutes, over 95% of the vote came back. 45% didn't want to send the comms package. But 55% did.
    "You won," Nils said.
    Ani hugged him, long and tight.
    "Yes," she said, through tears.
    Roy Parekh lived on a tiny island off the coast of the Phillipines. Like many of its kind, it had no name. He liked it that way. It made him feel invisible. It was the farthest he could be from the modern world and still have the connectivity he needed to run Intelligent Risk.
    But he wasn't invisible. In the last decade, he'd had five visits from Unified Sustainability. Every time, they'd been very civil, very polite. Nari had come once. Thom had come another time. They'd had drinks and