Fluid Prejudice (short story)

Fluid Prejudice was the seventeenth story in the Bernice Summerfield anthology Life During Wartime. It was written by Paul Ebbs.

Summary
Leif Larsson has arrived on the Collection with his team to investigate the Collection's historical records. Anson assigns Benny to be his liaison to Larsson.

Benny finds Larsson attractive. Over the next few weeks, Benny starts to have memory troubles: not only does she it seem her past is changing, she can't remember what's been happening to her lately. She then finds herself trying to repair Joseph in her sleep, but only when he's fixed does she learn how he was damaged. She remembers that she had seen historical text changing in front of her eyes. Not only that, but Larsson tried to rape her. He shot Joseph to prevent Joseph informing Benny of this.

Larsson was caught by Anson's men, but he persuaded them to let him out. Benny confronts him, and learns that he has brought an entity to the Collection that is capable of changing history. He uses it to change the history of the Axis' conquered worlds. It is responsible for changing the texts on the Collection as well as Benny's past.

As Larsson prepares to have the entity rewrite the Axis' losses into victories, the entity realises that Benny is Peter's mother. It met Peter earlier and told him stories. It doesn't like sad stories, so it writes Larsson out of existence.

The entity promises to rewrite everything to the way it was, which includes the Axis occupation of the Collection. Brax and Benny had hoped the occupation was not a part of the true timeline. Benny's memories start to return.

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Joseph
 * Irving Braxiatel
 * Mushtaq Anson
 * Leif Larsson

Continuity

 * Anson mentions the Axis' military leader, a man named Isik. (PROSE: Lockdown Conversations: 4, AUDIO: Death and the Daleks)