Small Shen

by Kylie Chan

  Gold tapped nervously on the double wooden doors. He heard footsteps and steeled himself, then the door opened a crack.

  ‘Who is it?’ the man on the other side of the door said.

  ‘The Golden Boy, on an errand from the Dark Emperor of the Northern Heavens to request help from Honoured Lord Thunderbolt. I have authority from the Jade Emperor to be here.’

  The door opened wider. The man behind it was a young Chinese, appearing thirty years old and only five and a half feet tall, with large metal-rimmed glasses. He wore a black T-shirt and a pair of scruffy jeans. ‘Oh yeah, they told me you were coming. Come on in.’

  Gold followed the man through a tastefully decorated living room with comfortable Western-style furniture to a workshop. The large room had workbenches along three of the walls, with the fourth wall of double doors opening out to the house’s interior courtyard. The courtyard was a simple square area paved on one side, with a ceramic outdoor table and chairs next to a small tidy lawn.

  The man who’d let Gold in went to one of the benches. The table was strewn with a variety of circuit boards, a well-worn soldering iron, and a couple of voltage testers. A wooden board sat in the middle with a stone about the size of someone’s fist attached to it by four large nails, and wires from the stone connecting to a number of circuits on the board.

  ‘You might be able to help me with this,’ the man said. ‘This stone isn’t sentient, but it has been on the Celestial for a very long time. It should have some sort of attunement to Celestial Harmony, but I’m getting nothing.’

  Gold approached the bench and studied the stone. ‘May I touch it?’

  ‘Go right ahead.’

  Gold looked from the stone to the man who’d let him in. ‘Are you Lord Thunderbolt?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course, sorry for not introducing myself.’ Thunderbolt quickly saluted Gold. ‘Thunderbolt.’

  ‘I was expecting someone…’ Gold’s voice trailed off.

  ‘I stay in human form most of the time, my True Form tends to scare people,’ Thunderbolt said. He gestured towards the stone. ‘You’re a stone, aren’t you? Have a look at this, tell me how much Celestial attunement this thing has? It’s supposed to have much more than I’m reading here.’

  Gold touched the stone and studied it. ‘How long has this stone been on the Celestial?’

  ‘Four hundred years. One of the Tiger’s sons sold it to me, cost me a fortune.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. If a stone had been on the Celestial that long, I’d expect something from it. This is just an ordinary rock.’

  ‘Thought so.’ Thunderbolt took the stone out of the board and threw it into the courtyard. ‘I’ll have to find myself another.’

  ‘What are you trying to do?’ Gold said, studying the circuit board.

  ‘From what I’ve heard, I’m trying to do the same thing you are. Sentient stone Shen aren’t all that eager to act as communication devices, it’s too boring. But stones that have been on the Celestial for a long time become attuned to Celestial Harmony, and we may be able to use that attunement to transmit data.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Gold said. He took True Form, made himself the size of the stone that had been on the board, and slotted himself into position. ‘Put the wires on, let me see.’ He sent his awareness through the wires as Thunderbolt attached them. ‘These circuits are extremely elegant! Did you do this?’

  ‘Yup.’ Thunderbolt carefully attached the last wire. ‘There. Do you see anything?’

  ‘I see what you’re trying to do,’ Gold said. ‘But I can’t connect with the stone on the other side of the room.’

  Thunderbolt looked back. ‘Yes, I have one set up in a similar rig on the other side. At least you can tell it’s there, that’s a start.’

  ‘I saw it when I walked past, nothing to do with the rig,’ Gold said. He pushed more energy through the circuits, seeing them snap shut. ‘Something just isn’t happening here.’

  Thunderbolt grinned ruefully. ‘You don’t need to tell me that.’ His face cleared. ‘You wouldn’t possibly have some spare time you could help me with this, would you? You can tap into the stone network and get them to help as well, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Let me see what I can come up with. I’ve had some experience fiddling with Celestial Harmony myself, I’ll go back to the Earthly and do some research. Mind if I take the plans for this with me?’

  ‘Go right ahead,’ Thunderbolt said.

  Gold disconnected himself from the apparatus and drifted off, taking human form again.

  ‘I thought you weren’t allowed to take True Form,’ Thunderbolt said.

  ‘I’m permitted to take True Form at my own discretion when I feel that it’s necessary,’ Gold said. ‘They keep an eye on me, believe me. If I do it too much, the Celestial enforcement people are in touch very quickly.’

  ‘Let me find another Celestial stone, and we can get together and see if we can get this working,’ Thunderbolt said.

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ Gold said.

  Gold returned to the Dark Lord’s apartments in the centre of the Jade Emperor’s Celestial Palace to screams from Simone and shouts from Michelle. He hesitated outside the door, then steeled himself and went in.

  Michelle was clutching the screaming Simone, with what appeared to be vomit down the back of her shirt. She was yelling at Xuan Wu, who did not seem to be making too much of an attempt to defend himself.

  ‘What sort of monster are you to terrify your own child!’ Michelle yelled at Xuan Wu. She saw Gold. ‘Gold! Find a servant. Simone has soiled herself and me.’

  Xuan Wu spread his hands. ‘I honestly didn’t think she would be so upset, love.’

  ‘Upset!’ Michelle screeched. ‘You changed into a monster, and took her into a hall full of monsters! Why did you not tell me they would all be in True Form!’

  Gold quickly contacted the palace staff, searching for a tame demon servant to help out. Michelle was right; in her terror, Simone had clearly soiled herself and was crying with fear.

  ‘Michelle, she has to get used to it some day,’ Xuan Wu said, keeping his tone reasonable. ‘She will need to conquer her fear and learn to live with everybody here.’

  ‘Not if I have anything to say about it!’ Michelle said. ‘Gold! Where are those servants?’

  ‘I have some tame demons coming to help us, ma’am,’ Gold said, wishing that he could take True Form and shrink to a tiny pebble.

  ‘You’re overreacting, love,’ Xuan Wu said, his tone still reasonable. ‘She’s resilient. She’ll get over it. Stop making a fuss.’

  ‘I’ll show you a fuss!’ Michelle said, casting around. She lowered Simone gently to the floor and led her into the bedroom. She returned alone with a small revolver, closed the door behind her, and without hesitation shot Xuan Wu right between the eyes. He fell without flinching and his body disappeared before it hit the floor.

  Michelle dropped the gun and returned to the bedroom, collecting Simone in her arms. ‘Nobody will scare you any more, Simone. I will keep those horrible things away from you.’

  ‘Daddy was scary, make him stay away,’ Simone said into her mother’s shoulder, still tearful.

  ‘Daddy will be gone for a couple of days, ma petite, and when he returns he will not be scary, or I will send him away again.’ Michelle glanced up at Gold. ‘This means that we are stuck here until he returns, doesn’t it?’

  Gold wanted to shrink even smaller. ‘I’m afraid so, ma’am. You’ll be much safer here than down on the Earthly without his protection.’

  ‘Well, then I hope I taught him a lesson. What’s that expression you people use? “Meditate on his faults.”’

  ‘I’m sure you did, ma’am.’ There was a tap on the door. ‘Here are the servants to help you.’

  Michelle opened the door. Two tame demons, appearing as elderly women in black and white servants’ uniforms, stood smiling in the doorway.

  ‘Thank you, Gold. I suppose I must mana
ge as best I can now that I am prisoner here by his stupidity. Find me a full-time nanny for Simone, I must practise. And Gold?’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Pop back down to the Peak and bring me my Playstation?’

  Gold bowed. ‘Ma’am.’

  Six weeks later, Gold and Thunderbolt had found another stone that a Celestial was willing to part with — this time it had cost them a great deal of jade and they were assured it would work. Gold sat in True Form on the workbench next to the board as Thunderbolt connected the wires.

  Thunderbolt connected the final wire, and attempted to send a signal across the room to the other stone. Nothing happened.

  ‘I hate to think you’ve spent all this time working on this only to have it not work,’ Gold said, watching the circuits as the energy of the Celestial Harmony flowed through them perfectly but with no result.

  ‘I just don’t know what’s going on,’ Thunderbolt said. ‘Everybody says this should work. The stones are intensely attuned to Celestial Harmony. They should be able to connect.’

  ‘I can’t see anything wrong with it,’ Gold said. ‘This is so frustrating!’

  ‘Have you found another stone Shen who’d be willing to help us out by sitting in the other board?’ Thunderbolt said, pressing the wires harder into the stone.

  ‘I have a couple of people,’ Gold said.

  ‘We might have to do that then. I just feel bad about making people act as stones.’

  ‘It’s what we are,’ Gold said. ‘The only thing they’re not sure about is being parts in a glorified radio. We stones are very particular about the way we’re used by Celestials, and really prefer, if anything, to be put in jewellery and kept as something very precious.’

  ‘Precious is the word,’ Thunderbolt growled under his breath. ‘Okay, one last try. Stay put, I’m going to take True Form and see if I can’t shock this thing into life. Be ready, though, the True Form is quite intense.’

  ‘Go right ahead. I work for the Xuan Wu, and nothing is as ugly as that, and that’s his own words.’

  Thunderbolt concentrated and took off his glasses, placing them carefully on the bench next to Gold. He grew and spread, and sprouted feathers all over his body. The clothes disappeared, and his face changed to something very much like a bird’s, with a large, fearsomely sharp eagle-like beak. He hunched over, then stretched back and huge bird wings shot out of his shoulders, sending a couple of feathers flying. He stood nearly eight feet tall, with greyish brown feathers and a bird-like face, and hands that now appeared to be more like eagle claws.

  ‘Impressive,’ Gold said. ‘But I don’t think you’re that scary.’

  ‘Humph,’ Thunderbolt said, and clacked his beak. He rested one clawed hand on the stone set into the board. ‘Move back a bit, I’m going to send a shock through it.’

  Gold shifted away. Thunderbolt concentrated and the air filled with the smell of ozone. There was a loud crack, and a spark shot from the stone on the bench to the stone on the other side of the room. Both circuit boards blinked into life, the circuits shut, and the connection was established.

  ‘Needed kickstarting,’ Thunderbolt said with amusement.

  ‘We still have a long way to go,’ Gold said.

  Thunderbolt shrank back to his human form. ‘I need to replicate this design, and package it into something that’s both a little more durable and way more pleasing to the eye. We need to find one attuned stone for each node on the network. We’ll also need something that’s analogous to bridges and routers on a standard LAN to route the traffic from stone to stone.’

  ‘And most of all, we need to test how it works from Earthly to Celestial,’ Gold said.

  ‘Well, let’s do that now,’ Thunderbolt said. ‘Take this board — carefully — down to the Earthly, with the circuit still working, and let’s see if the connection survives.’

  Gold lifted the circuit board and drifted towards the Earthly plane. He took his time, making sure that the circuits were not rattled. It took him nearly an hour to reach the nearest interface between the Celestial and the Earthly. ‘Okay, I’m here.’

  ‘Don’t hesitate, take it through,’ Thunderbolt said. ‘Not too slow, not too fast.’

  Gold couldn’t take a deep breath but he wished he could. He steeled himself and drifted carefully at a constant speed through the curtain between Earth and Heaven.

  When he reached the other side, he floated holding the board. ‘Is it still…?’

  Thunderbolt’s whoop of triumph in his head answered his question. ‘It works!’

  Gold nearly dropped the board in excitement.

  ‘Okay, bring it back, carefully, now,’ Thunderbolt said. ‘Damn, this is exciting! Thanks for your help.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ Gold said. ‘I just hope the Dark Lord doesn’t call for me in the next hour, because I’m taking my time coming back again.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll mind when he discovers that he’ll finally have data that’s up to date.’

  Later that evening, Gold went to the Peak apartment to share his excitement with Leo. With the research and building he’d been doing with Thunderbolt, combined with the constant treks carrying data backwards and forwards between Earth and the Mountain, he hadn’t spent an evening alone with Leo in a good seven or eight weeks. This was nothing on a geological scale, but he knew that by human terms it was close to neglect, and he felt guilty about it. He hoped that Leo would forgive him.

  When he arrived at the Peak apartment, Monica grimaced. ‘Master Leo has gone out again, Gold.’

  ‘He’s gone out? Where?’

  Michelle was sitting on the couch in the living room talking on the phone, she put her hand over the mouthpiece to speak to Gold. ‘I became sick of him moping around the house waiting for you,’ she said with disdain. ‘He’s out having fun at that new bar in Lan Kwai Fong — the “Last Hurrah”. Do him a favour, and leave him there.’

  Gold ducked his head with shame, and Michelle returned to the telephone.

  There you are, Gold, come into my office.

  ‘So you are finally getting somewhere,’ Xuan Wu said when Gold had explained the breakthrough. ‘And we might have you back where you belong, working as my legal advisor, and helping to guard my wife and daughter.’

  ‘Believe me, my Lord, there is nothing more I would rather do. We have made a connection between stones on the Earthly and the Celestial. The prototype is working. Now we need more stones that are attuned to Celestial Harmony, and to make more chassis units to hold them. After that, the rest is a simple matter of installation.’

  Michelle burst into the office without knocking. ‘Lo Wu! It is incredible!’

  ‘What is, love?’

  Michelle’s smile was huge. ‘The Academy for Performing Arts has finally decided to put on a full-length opera, and I am to star! I am to play Tosca!’

  Xuan Wu rose, went around the desk, and held her hands. ‘I am very much looking forward to seeing you.’

  ‘Gold, this is wonderful news. It will be the first full-length that I have performed in, since… I don’t remember how long! It will be a triumph.’ She returned her attention to Xuan Wu. ‘I will be helping to produce it, and it will be staged in only six months! We will have to work so hard!’ She jiggled with excitement. ‘And! My father has completed his chemotherapy, and the tumours in his ear have become smaller. Now they will do a six-month course of radiotherapy, and at the end of that, he may be free of the cancer.’ She released Xuan Wu and jumped in a circle, clapping her hands. ‘It is so wonderful! All of it!’

  Xuan Wu glanced at Gold. ‘Make this connection work, Stone, because very soon all of us are going to be spending a lot of our time minding Simone and guarding Michelle.’

  ‘As soon as I find some more stones, it will be done, my Lord.’

  Three weeks later, Gold arrived at the Peak apartment at 1 p.m. to interchange the data between the Mountain and Peak databases. The database system was relatively new, only a year old
, and the staff of the Mountain had quickly come to appreciate its benefits and had asked for a variety of supplementary information to be stored in its matrix. The database kept growing, and the interchanges took an increasing amount of time to complete. It would soon reach the stage where he wouldn’t be able to keep up. He just needed to find those damn stones.

  He entered the living room; Monica was in the kitchen, and Leo and Michelle were out — he winced, he hadn’t seen Leo since Michelle had told him about the Hurrah. Xuan Wu was with little Simone in the martial arts training room.

  Curious, Gold went to the door of the training room and watched the father and daughter together. Xuan Wu was teaching Simone, who was only about a year and a half old, a Chen tai chi set; her hazel eyes were wide and her mouth fixed in concentration as she performed a graceful ‘Part the Horse’s Mane’.

  ‘Very good, now step back, like Daddy…’ Xuan Wu performed the move for her, and Simone mimicked him. ‘Perfect. Do you think that’s enough for the day?’

  ‘Can we go through it one more time, Daddy?’ Simone said, her little face still fierce with concentration.

  ‘You sure you’re not too tired?’

  Simone shook her head. ‘I’m having fun.’ She grinned up at Xuan Wu. ‘’Cause I’m with you.’

  Xuan Wu crouched to speak to Simone. ‘And I’m having fun ‘cause I’m with you. Now, one more time, and then you should go do something else.’

  ‘Okay, Daddy,’ Simone said, and moved into the start position.

  Gold turned to go into the office but stopped when the front door opened and Leo and Michelle came in. Michelle poked her head through the kitchen door. ‘Where is he, Monica?’

  ‘Training room, ma’am,’ Monica said from inside the kitchen.