Snapshot

by Brandon Sanderson

The vast city of New Clipperton enveloped them, so authentic that one would never be able to tell it was a Snapshot—a re-creation of a specific day in the real city.

This Snapshot had been created overnight, and was an exact replica of a day ten days back: the first of May, 2018.

In here, everyone else was fake, but he and Chaz . . . They were somehow something worse. Flaws in a perfect system. Intruders. Viruses leaving chaos in their wakes.

The city government of New Clipperton had bought the Snapshot Project. Paid the Restored American Union through the nose for it. But what did they know about how it worked? Barely anything. One of those . . . things was trapped somewhere, kept unconscious, electricity buzzing through it and doing this. Re-creating days, in their entirety, from provided raw matter.

Davis felt he could take the measure of a man or woman by the way they handled the news that they weren’t real. It was uncomfortable, intimate, and fascinating to watch. Some got angry, some got morose. Others laughed. You saw something about a person in that moment that they wouldn’t ever know—couldn’t ever know—about themselves.

“You just aren’t willing to live, Davis,” Chaz said, stealing a fry. “Try new things, you know?”

“Come on,” Chaz said. “Let’s go. I’ll even let you push the button to turn the Snapshot off.” “I always push the button,” Davis said. “And today I won’t complain.”

Sometimes, Chaz, he thought, tucking the paper away, I love you.

In here, they were the only ones with rights. In here, they were gods.

People became cops for a myriad of reasons. For some it was expected—it was a family thing, or just seen as good work for a blue-collar person. Others, they liked the power. Chaz was one of those. But deep down, there was something in all of them. Something about wanting to fix the world. Whether you joined up because your family pushed you into it, or just because you got recruited at the right time, there was a story you told yourself. That you were doing something good, something right.

We’re in a Snapshot.”

They were facing a meticulous killer who chose victims easy to miss: the homeless, prostitutes.

It was sometimes shocking how the right people could vanish without anyone noticing—at least, not anyone who could make the cops or politicians pay attention.

“Best way to catch someone is to not let them know they’re being chased.”

To the rest of the department they were errand boys, sent to retrieve specific data and nothing else.

But the truth was, nobody seemed to know what to do with the Snapshots.

As Chaz always said, things you did in the Snapshot didn’t really matter. . .

When was the last time he’d just enjoyed life? He’d lost that skill, which seemed so natural to children. They didn’t have to work at having fun.

“In here . . . I just, I can do things. I don’t worry as much. I’d like to be able to take that with me to the outside, you know? Or stay in here, let days pass, instead of switching the place off.”

Everything that changes in here, everything different, happens because we cause it.

If I gave you a chance to bare your soul. Then we could be real partners.”

It’s a Snapshot. Nothing matters in a Snapshot.”