by Cixin Liu
“Didn’t the adults tell you what to do?” said another voice, different from the others, as if another kid had grabbed the phone.
“What happened to your local leaders?”
“Who knows? They’re unreachable!”
More buzzing. Three new lines appeared on the map, connecting Beijing to Xi’an, Taiyuan, and Shenyang. There were five now, each labeled at the midpoint with a corresponding port number. The screen showed PORTS CURRENTLY AT CALL STATE: 5. Huahua clicked on the line to Shenyang, and they heard a girl’s sobbing voice. She sounded around four or five years old.
“Hello? Hello?” she said through sobs.
“This is Beijing. What’s wrong?”
“I’m hungry. Hungry!”
“Where are you?”
“At home . . . home . . .” She trailed off into sobbing.
“Did your mom and dad leave you anything to eat?”
“No.”
Like an auntie, Xiaomeng said to the invisible little girl, “Don’t cry. Take a look around, okay? That’s a good kid.”
“I . . . I can’t find anything.”
“Nonsense! There can’t be nothing to eat in the house,” Huahua exclaimed.
“God, you’re going to scare her,” Xiaomeng said, glaring at him. Then she said to the girl, “Look in the kitchen, sweetie. You’ll find something to eat there.”
The line went silent. Huahua was anxious to patch in another communications port, but Xiaomeng insisted on waiting. Before long, the sobbing girl returned to the phone. “It’s locked. The door’s locked.”
“Well . . . think back. In the mornings before you go to preschool, where does your mom give you food?”
“I eat onion pancakes for breakfast at preschool.”
“What about Sundays?”
“Mom gets food from the kitchen.” She broke down again.
“Oh for . . . is it always the kitchen?”
“Sometimes I have instant noodles.”
“Good. Do you know where the instant noodles are?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Go get them.”
The line went silent again, but very soon they heard a rustling. “I found them. I’m hungry,” the girl sobbed.
“Then eat!” Huahua said in exasperation.
“The bag . . . I can’t open the bag.”
“Sheesh. Idiot. Just bite a corner, and then use your hands to tear an opening.”
“For heaven’s sake. You think she can bite it? She probably doesn’t have any teeth!” But just as Xiaomeng was about to tell her how to open the bag, they heard a tearing sound followed closely by the crunch of dried noodles.
“No, don’t eat it like that. Look around for a thermos.”
The girl ignored Xiaomeng completely and continued to munch noisily. Huahua went to switch to another location, but when he looked up at the map, he stopped in surprise. A dozen new lines had appeared, and more were being added, most of them from major cities. Some cities had two lines, and all of them pointed toward Beijing. The screen showed that more than fifty ports were calling (not all of them displayed on the map), and the number was ticking upward. The children stared in shock, and by the time they recovered enough to patch in another city, the map had more lines than it was possible to count. More than thirteen hundred ports calling, according to the display. And this was just one of the NIT’s ten web addresses, so what they had received was only the tip of the iceberg.
All of the country’s children were calling Beijing.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 15
“Hello, Beijing? Why haven’t Mom and Dad come back yet?”
“What? You mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know where they went. They told me not to run off, to wait at home.”
“They surely didn’t tell you they’d be back?”
“Oh. No.”
“Then listen: They’re not coming back!”
“What?”
“Go out and look around. Find some other kids. Go!”
“Mommmeee! I want my mommy!”
“Don’t cry. How old are you?”
“Mommy told me . . . three. Three years old.” Sobs.
“Listen, don’t look for your mom. She won’t be back for a long, long time. Go next door and find some older kids.”
“Hey, Beijing! When should I turn in my homework?”
“What?!”
“When we gathered here, the teachers left us lots and lots of homework. They told us to go to sleep if we got tired, and do homework when we woke up. And not to go outside, or go anywhere. Then they left.”
“Do you have food and water?”
“Yes. But I was asking about the homework.”
“Oh, do whatever the hell you want.”
“Hello, Beijing? Is it true there aren’t adults anymore?”
“That’s right. They’re gone. . . .”
“Beijing, who’s looking after us?”
“Go and ask your direct superiors.”
“Hey! Hello! Hello?”
*
In the space of fifteen minutes, the children in the NIT answered a huge number of similar calls but had not even tackled 1 percent of the total number: the display showed more than eighteen thousand ports calling Beijing, and the map was densely covered in red lines. The children began to be selective about the calls, listening for a few words and switching to another line if the situation wasn’t important.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 30
“Hey, Beijing! We have a problem here. The oil depot is on fire, and the big drums are exploding! A river of burning oil is heading our way! It’ll reach our town at any moment!”
“Where’s the fire brigade?”
“I don’t know! I’ve never heard of any fire brigade.”
“Listen: Tell all of the kids to get out of town!”
“So . . . we’re just abandoning it?”
“Abandon it! And hurry!”
“But . . . this is our home.”
“This is an order! An order from the central government!”
“. . . Yes, sir!”
“Beijing? This is _____. We’ve got fire. All over the place. The biggest is at the department store!”
“Where’s the fire brigade?”
“Right here!”
“Have them put out the fire!”
“We’re at the fire. But the hydrants don’t have any water!”
“Call the government to fix it. Then take some cars and go fetch water from a nearby source. . . . Oh, clear all of the kids out of the area first.”
*
The number of calls coming into the hall had skyrocketed above a hundred thousand. The map only displayed what the system determined to be high-level information, but even so the map was practically covered in red lines, new ones replacing the old. Practically every region in the country had a red line reaching out to Beijing.
“Hey! Beijing! I’ve finally gotten through! Is everyone dead? Why have you left us all alone?”
“Are you dead? You think we can take care of everything?”
“Listen to this!”
There was a noise on the line.
“What’s that?”
“Babies crying.”
“How many of them?”
“Too many to count. Almost a thousand. Are you just abandoning them here?”
“Holy crap! You mean there are nearly a thousand little babies gathered there?”
“The youngest aren’t even a year old!”
“How many of you are looking after them?”
“Just over fifty of us.”
“When the adults left, didn’t they leave nurses to watch them?”
“There were a few hundred of us, but just now some cars came and took them all away. They said they had a more urgent situation. It’s just the few of us here now.”
“God! Listen, first, half of you go out to find other kids, anyone you meet, doesn’t matter who, and bring them in to
help take care of the babies. Hurry. Your best bet is to broadcast it over the radio.”
“Right.”
“What are the babies crying about?”
“Maybe they’re hungry? Or thirsty? We have no idea. We found some peanuts, but they won’t eat them.”
“You moron! You want to give babies peanuts? They need milk!”
“Where do we get milk?”
“Are there any shops nearby?”
“Yes!”
“Go and look there. They’ll have milk powder.”
“So . . . we just break down the door, is that it?”
“That’s right. Don’t bother about the counter. And if there’s not enough, then go to the warehouse. Hurry!”
“Hey, Beijing! We’ve got a flood here!”
“It’s springtime! Where’s the water coming from?”
“They say it’s because they forgot to raise the sluice at the reservoir upstream, and the water rose too high and collapsed the dam! One half of the city’s underwater, and the kids are all coming over to this side. But the water’s coming too fast, and we can’t outrun it!”
“Have the kids go up onto the roof.”
“But people say buildings will collapse when they get waterlogged.”
“They won’t. Spread the word. Use the loudspeaker.”
“Beijing! Hey! Listen to all the babies crying!”
“You don’t have anyone looking after them either?”
“There aren’t any doctors!”
“Doctors? What for?”
“They’re all ill!”
“How can all of them be ill? Couldn’t they be crying from hunger?”
“No. We’re ill too! All the kids in the city are ill. The water is poisonous. If you drink it, you feel dizzy and get diarrhea.”
“Go to the hospital. See a doctor.”
“There’s no one at the hospital!”
“Find the mayor!”
“I am the mayor!”
“You’ve got to find the doctors! And get to the water company and find the source of the contamination. And collect clean water, bottled water, as soon as you can, or else the consequences will be even worse!”
*
“Beijing! This is _____. The government is surrounded by ten thousand kids or more. They all look ill. They’re crying and asking us for their parents!”
“Hello! Hey! Beijing!” A cough. “The chemical plant outside the city exploded and released toxic gas.” Another cough. “The wind blew it into the city, and now we can’t breathe!” Another cough.
“Beijing! A train carrying over a thousand kids derailed. I don’t know the number of casualties. What should we do?”
“Beijing! That big black rectangle is scaring us. We’re so afraid!”
Crying and frightened shouts from a huge crowd of children.
“Hi. This is Beijing. Where are you? What’s wrong?”
Crying, shouting.
“Hey! Hey!”
Crying, shouting.
SUPERNOVA ERA, HOUR 1
Onscreen the number of calls received by Beijing rocketed with frightening speed past three million. In their panic, someone accidentally clicked the Broadcast All button, and all channels played simultaneously, filling the hall with a wave of noise that pounded over them again and again. The children covered their ears to the sound of millions of voices all repeating the same word: “Beijing! Beijing! Beijing!”
Just during the time the children were standing in shock, the number of calls ballooned by a million to a total of more than four million. The wave of voices from throughout the country seemed ready to swallow up the entire hall. They heard uncontrollable wailing, and after what seemed like an eon of fiddling with the controls, Huahua finally shut off the sound, right as the children were on the brink of madness. Silence descended immediately, and then they went back to taking the millions of calls one by one.
All of the country’s children were calling Beijing, as if crying out to the sun still below the horizon. Beijing was hope, Beijing was power, Beijing was the sole source of sustenance in this strange new loneliness. The megadisaster had come so quickly that the adults could not possibly have had time to arrange everything, but the multitude of voices were crying out to a group of thirteen-year-olds, who like their peers had no source of support, and like them were facing this newborn world of children under the weight of profound terror and infinite bewilderment.
The child leaders answered the endless series of phone calls knowing that they were little better off than the faraway children calling in. Still they answered every one. They understood that every word transmitted from the capital was like a ray of light for the terrified and lonely children struggling against the darkness, giving them a huge boost of comfort and strength. They kept at this urgent work until they were dazed and dizzy from fatigue, until they grew hoarse, unable to talk, and had to take turns handling the incoming calls. They were disgusted at their own weakness, frustrated that they couldn’t speak through ten thousand mouths. Answering the millions of voices was like draining the sea with a teacup.
Xiaomeng sighed, “Who knows how bad it’s gotten in the outside world.”
Huahua said, “We can take a look for ourselves,” and tapped the remote to turn the walls transparent. What they saw froze them to the spot. Fires sent columns of smoke into the air, like black feathers stuck into the city, tinged red by the flickering firelight, or stained green by shorts in electrical equipment. A few children dashing down the empty streets looked like tiny black dots. All of a sudden, those black dots, streets, and the city itself plunged into darkness, leaving clusters of buildings lit only in flashes by the flickering fires. The city had lost power.
A chilly voice rang out in the hall: “External electricity interrupted. Switching to NIT emergency power.”
Then Big Quantum displayed the latest national status report onscreen:
The Supernova Era has been in progress for 1 hour 11 minutes.
NATIONAL STATUS REPORT #1139:
Abnormal operations at government and administrative institutions at all levels. 62% of national government agencies have ceased functioning; the majority of the remainder are not functioning normally.
Power systems abnormal. 63% of thermal power plants and 56% of hydropower stations nonfunctioning. The national power grid is highly unstable, and 8% of major cities and 14% of small and midsized cities have lost all power.
Urban water supply systems abnormal. Water supply has been cut off entirely in 81% of large cities and 88% of small and midsized cities, and the majority of the remainder are barely managing interrupted supply.
91% of urban supply chains, services, and life-support systems completely paralyzed.
85% of rail and road systems interrupted. Accident rates have increased dramatically. Civil aviation totally paralyzed.
Social order is in chaos. Fear-induced mass panic has risen dramatically in cities.
31,136,537 fires have been detected throughout the country, 55% caused by electrical failures, the remainder fuel and chemical blazes.
Floods are relatively less common at present, but threatening conditions have increased dramatically. 89% of dams on major rivers are unattended, and 94% of water-control projects are at immediate risk of serious accidents such as dam bursts.
At present, just 3.31% of territory is under dangerous climate conditions; no occurrences of earthquakes, volcanoes, or other large-scale natural disasters. However, capacity for emergency recovery has plummeted, and should a disaster occur it will cause serious losses.
At present, 8.379% of the child population is affected by disease, 23.158% lack sufficient food, 72.090% lack sufficient drinking water, and 11.6% lack adequate clothing. These percentages are continuing to increase dramatically.
Warning! High-level warning! The country is in danger!
Then a map appeared again, this time covered in red patches indicating regions with high levels of danger. Other maps appeared in succes
sion showing differently distributed patches of red that indicated areas of electrical, water, transport, and fire danger, before settling on a composite image in which the country was covered in urgently flashing red, like a sea of fire.
The children began to buckle under the immense psychological pressure. The first to break was the girl in charge of national health care. She threw down the receiver and her fragile frame crumpled to the floor, and she began bawling and crying out for her mother: “Mama! Mama!”
Zhang Weidong, in charge of light industry, also threw down his receiver and shouted, “This isn’t work for children. I can’t do it. I quit!” And then he headed toward the door.
Lü Gang blocked him at the door and pushed him back.
But it was too late. Things had already gotten out of control. Many were in tears, and some, overagitated, dropped their receivers and surged toward the door.
“I can’t do it either. I’m leaving.”
“I knew I couldn’t handle it, but they made me. I want to leave too.”
“Yeah. We’re just kids. We can’t take on this kind of responsibility.”
Lü Gang pulled out a pistol and fired two shots straight up. The bullets pierced the ceiling, and two snowflake cracks appeared in the nanomaterial. “I’m warning you,” he barked. “You can’t chicken out.”
But the shots only stopped the group for a few seconds. Zhang Weidong said, “You think we’re afraid to die? No. The stuff we’re doing now is worse than death.”
The kids behind him pushed toward the door again. Someone said, “Go ahead and shoot us.”
Someone else added, “You’d be doing us a favor.”
Lü Gang sighed and put the gun down. Zhang Weidong passed by him and pulled open the door, and the children followed him outside.
“Wait. I’ve got something to say,” Huahua shouted after them to no effect. But what he said next stopped them in their tracks, as if by magic. “The adults are coming!”
They turned around to look at him, and those that had left the hall came back inside. Huahua went on, “They’ve come back into the NIT . . . wait . . . they’re in the elevators. They’re about to get here.”
“Are you dreaming?” someone asked.