All These Worlds (Bobiverse, #3)

by Dennis E. Taylor

There was a scene in Demolition Man, where the police captain couldn’t conceive the possibility that someone might not follow orders. The Council’s reaction had that flavor.

“And the amount of work you and the other Bobs have put in—well, it looks to the average person like permanent servitude. Who wants to spend their whole afterlife doing chores?”

There was a point where following orders didn’t cut it.

“I don’t understand your species, Jock.” Hazjiar paused, looking at me. “You have all this power, yet you seem reluctant to use it. You are so rich that you don’t even need money, yet you seem to have so little.”

Their lives were now less than a footnote in history. As gone, as utterly forgotten as any random individual from the Middle Ages. No longer even a ripple in time, except to the extent that I could keep their memories alive. I sighed to myself. It seemed sometimes that life was nothing more than the accumulation of emotional baggage—memories, regrets, and lost opportunities.