Intersection Thirteen

A journey to collect books becomes a race against time to escape an inwardly collapsing artificial universe.

In the far future, possessing literature or philosophy of any kind is strictly forbidden. Mira Rous works for the Reconstructionists, whose goal is to rebuild Earth's library of classics by harvesting similar works from parallel universes.

The job is slow and dangerous, but it is proceeding well enough until a scan of a parallel world reveals something altogether new: a country whose space is not on a parallel Earth, but is instead carved out of probability itself.

There Mira discovers literary riches beyond her wildest dreams. But when a freak occurrence destabilizes the artificial universes, retrieving their books turns into a life-threatening endeavor, both on account of the rapidly deteriorating physical spaces and government secrets that some would prefer stay buried.