by Xu, Lei
The special emissary shook his head. "Don't listen to him. The guy's got a silver tongue."
I gazed at Yuan Xile, praying for her to believe me. If she came closer it meant I still had a chance. For a moment she hesitated. Then, just when she seemed about to walk over, the special emissary stepped in front of her.
"What's the matter?" she asked him. "You got a guilty conscience or something?" She pushed him out of the way, turned to the side and lit a cigarette. She took several deep puffs, then fixed me with a sinister glare. She strode over and whispered, "Speak!"
As the scent of her body flooded my nostrils, I began softly. "First, you need to believe me, otherwise you don't have a chance of getting out of here alive. You don't know it, but only one person is meant to survive your mission—and it isn't you. I know a lot of information about you, information from a source very close to you. I was sent here to help." She tried to move away, but I just kept right on talking. "I know about the moles on your back," I said, quick as I could. "I know you have three and where they're located."
Yuan Xile paused, shivered, then reared back and slapped me across the face. "Bullshit!"
My cheek instantly went numb.
The special emissary looked as surprised as me. "I told you not to listen to him," he said.
Yuan Xile turned to face him. "Go investigate the icehouse and see if this guy's telling the truth. If he's not, we're killing him when you get back."
The special emissary nodded. "All right, but you be careful. There's no way he's the only one here."
Yuan Xile watched him go. Then she untied my hands, lifted me from the floor and slammed me against the table. "How the hell did you know about all of this?"
The pain in my shoulder was so bad I nearly fainted. I gritted my teeth. "Do you believe me or not?"
"Answer my question and I might."
"There's no time. Now that I've said something he's going to act sooner than planned. He's probably right outside this room, waiting for his opportunity. If you want to live you need to trust me."
She shook her head, about to say something, but a figure suddenly appeared in the doorway. Without thinking, I grabbed Yuan Xile and rolled both of us off the iron desk. At the same instant I heard the rapid-fire roar of a machine gun. Sparks flew in all directions as bullets struck iron.
"Turn off the flashlight!" I yelled.
Yuan Xile pulled out her pistol, popped up and shot the flashlight from where it sat atop the table. The light spun across the room. I saw someone rush through the doorway and into the dark chamber. I grabbed Yuan Xile and pulled her back down. A fusillade of bullets sprayed the area where she'd just been standing. The shooting stopped. Silence once more descended upon the room. It was short-lived. Yuan Xile seemed to notice something amid the blackness. Without pausing to think, she fired shot after shot in its direction. From my hiding spot behind the desk, I heard our attacker sprint out of the room.
Cursing, Yuan Xile fired a final bullet and yelled in the direction of the doorway, "You son of a bitch! You really were plotting this all along."
"What could I do?" he called back. "These were my orders. Otherwise you'd be much too pretty to kill."
My left shoulder was hurting so much I could barely move my arm. I grabbed Yuan Xile with my right and pulled her down beside me.
"All right," she whispered, "you told me to trust you. Now what's our next move?"
I pointed at a nearby air vent. "We need to get out of here. Your half-empty pistol's no match for his machine gun."
In the darkness her expression was impossible to make out, but I assumed she agreed. I pulled the pistol from her fingers, pushed a chair beneath the vent, and watched her shimmy inside. I turned back towards the door, let off two quick shots and hit the deck as another burst of machine gun fire rattled the front of the desk. When at last the shooting stopped, I quickly shoved the pistol down the back of my pants and followed Yuan Xile into the vent.
The two of us crawled for a long time. At last we reached the electrical canal. Once we were back on our feet, it was obvious Yuan Xile had no idea where to go. I grabbed her hand and led her in the direction of the warehouse. I recognized our surroundings and before long we arrived at the trap door where the spy had once sealed us in. This time, thankfully it was unlocked, but as I climbed out a terrifyingly familiar sound reached my ears—the air raid siren. It was echoing throughout the dam, so loud I could barely think. Not that I needed to, though.
I knew exactly what this meant. I took a deep breath. Things were getting interesting.
CHAPTER
63
180-Degree Turnaround
Yuan Xile's face turned pale. "What's going on?"
"The dam's discharging excess water," I said, cursing beneath my breath. The recent heavy rains had been too much for the dam to bear. As soon as the floodwater hit the floor of the abyss, a toxic mist would rise and enshroud the dam. We were trapped and I only had one hazmat suit left. But I knew exactly where we had to go. I grabbed Yuan Xile's hand and hurried her onwards.
Immediately she pushed me off. "Where are you trying to take me now?"
"We need to hide and I know the perfect place."
"Hide?" Her expression was incredulous. "What are you talking about? The only thing we need to do now is find that son of a bitch and take him out."
"It's too late," I said. I explained to her about the mist. "Also," I continued, "you should know that before long a very large contingent of troops will be arriving here—more than one hundred men in total. When they see you and Su Zhenhua are the only survivors, what are they going to think? How are you going to explain yourself? Who are they really going to believe—you, a woman just returned from the Soviet Union, or their own special emissary?"
Yuan Xile stared at me, not saying a word. She obviously wanted to ask how I knew all of this, but she restrained herself.
"Only the warehouse and the three areas connected to it are safe from the poison. The ventilation system here is specially equipped to filter out the bad stuff, but that bastard is too close and we've got nowhere to hide. There is, however, one other place..." The poisoned passageways, I thought. He'd never look for us there. But when I told her the plan, she frowned.
"What about the poison?" she asked.
"I know a place that's safe. You need to trust me. I have no reason to trick you."
She hesitated for a moment. Then, for the very first time, she firmly gripped my hand. My cheeks went hot. I led her upstairs to the second floor of the warehouse, where we found the iron door leading to the atmospheric purification room. It was unlocked. Once inside, I located the correct airshaft. Then we crawled all the way back to the poisoned passageways—that place of love and nightmares.
All the lights were off, but just to be safe I had Yuan Xile wear the hazmat suit while I covered my face with a piece of clothing. We followed the winding corridors through the darkness. At last we arrived at the flooded hallway. I waded through the water and we climbed into the room. It was like reentering an old dream. Turning a slow circle, I scanned my surroundings. Ah yes, I thought, I'm really here. I sat down on the bed and glanced over at Yuan Xile.
After taking in the unfamiliar surroundings, she turned to look at me. "All right," she said, "now that we're here, why don't you tell me who you really are?"
"If you insist," I said. "Though allow me to make another prediction. You are not going to believe what I'm about to tell you." I removed my shirt and looked at the wound. It was crusted over with blood, but the bullet was gone, having entered just above the armpit and exited the other side. Breathing a sigh of relief, I dipped my shirt in the stagnant water and wiped my shoulder clean. I looked back up at her. "If you're really ready to listen, I'll tell you what you have to do. I can get you out of this, out of the life you've been living, but it won't be easy." I told her the whole story, from its very beginning up till right now. Nothing was omitted.
The expression she wore when I reached th
e end matched my expectations exactly. It was more than simple disbelief. It was the look one wears when faced with a mental patient.
"You really think I'll fall in love with you?" She gave a short, humorless laugh. "In your dreams. But you were right about one thing: I don't believe a word of what you've just said."
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the watch she'd given me.
Her eyes went wide. Snatching it from my hand, she compared it to the one on her wrist. "I've never seen a watch like this in stores," I said. "I doubt they're available to just anyone." Keeping her eyes fixed on the watch, she slumped onto the bed. "Ivan gave me this."
I looked at her. "Doubt me all you want, but how else could I know this many secrets about you?"
She thought about it, but still she shook her head. "I don't believe you," she said, burying her face in her hands. "This is impossible."
Squatting down in front of her, I looked into her eyes. My heart ached. To Yuan Xile, everything we'd experienced together was no more than some baseless fantasy. "In the end you don't have to believe me," I said, "but for your own sake you'd better do what I tell you. Once this thing gets started, you'll see everything I said was true."
At first she was silent. Then she sighed and nodded her head. "Okay. What do you want me to do?"
"First I want you to tell me what your objectives were, all of them. Your superiors have already betrayed you. Even if you don't trust me, there's no reason to hide this stuff. I need to get an idea of what the special emissary's next moves will be."
Staring straight at me, she began. "We came here for two reasons. The first was to find that film you mentioned, but the second, the more important one, was to send a message."
A message?
Yuan Xile then told me how she'd been a member of the final Japanese contingent sent to the Northeast as part of the 53 Plan. At the time she'd been no more than a child. Before she could even begin her training, the Japanese were defeated. She was left in a Chinese orphanage, where she lived until the day she joined the PLA's Geological Division. It was the special emissary who'd recruited her for this assignment. This was her first mission for her homeland. I knew she'd had no other choice. Her identity had determined her fate. Now it seemed her first mission would also be her last.
As for the message, she had no idea what information it was meant to contain. The special emissary had handled that part. She had, however, been privy to the maps and blueprints provided by their contacts in Japan. They'd studied these intensely. When their plan was finally set, they joined up with the 723 Project and entered the wilderness. Never once had she expected things would turn out like this.
I recalled how the fake He Ruping had snuck through camp in the middle of the night and descended into the abyss. Had he been trying to send a message? The special emissary's body had never been found. Was the fake He Ruping actually the special emissary? And what the hell was in that message, and to whom was he sending it? My God, I thought, could this mean that people really were living down there? Had Pei Qing been right all along?
"What is it?" asked Yuan Xile, giving me a curious look.
I brought myself back to reality. "Okay, I'm going to tell you the plan. For your sake you'd better not forget a single word."
***
I spelled it out for her, everything we were going to have to do, while at the same time piecing the details together in my head. I realized now that things were not quite as predetermined as I had imagined. The clues I had left for myself could merely point me in the right direction. They could not force my hand. Had I not returned here to convince Yuan Xile of the special emissary's deceit, she'd already be dead. My actions had changed her fate. I could not simply allow things to happen on their own. I could no longer tiptoe around the action, dispensing veiled pieces of advice while trying not to get over-involved. I needed to take heart and act.
I then thought back on everything that had happened since I first entered the cave. At each critical juncture in my journey, someone had pushed me onto the right path. First there was the sinkhole, which we'd entered for no reason other than for a strange note I'd found in my pocket. Who'd planted it there, I wondered, and when? Then, after we were trapped in the caisson, who'd started it up and dropped us into the icehouse? And what about our escape from the projection room? Who'd loosened the screws on the vents that led us to safety? Who'd made the marks on the walls of the poisoned passageways that guided Yuan Xile and me to the exit? Every single time our fate was about to be sealed, someone had prepared us a way out.
That someone was me. It had to be; it could be no one else.
As I told Yuan Xile about the road ahead, I realized we'd have our work cut out for us. If I wanted my future self to survive, there were a great many things I'd need to take care of. None, however, were particularly difficult. All I needed to do was follow the instructions already written into my memories.
When I was finished speaking, I realized Yuan Xile had not understood everything I'd said. This was only natural. It was impossible for someone to digest all that information at once. She didn't need to know the whole plan. So long as she was clear on certain key situations, that would be enough. First, when she encountered the second team in the upper reaches of the cave, she needed to feign madness. Then, after the rest of us left Ma Zaihai, Chen Luohu, and her behind, she needed to lead them back down to the dam to escape the floodwaters. Once they arrived, she'd have to get them to the caisson as fast as possible to avoid the rising mist. Next, after I lowered the caisson into the icehouse, she would need to think of a way to slip out of the iron chamber while the lights were off. I still didn't know how she'd managed to silently escape, but I was sure she would come up with something. Once she was out, she'd need to head to the poisoned passageways and enter the safe room. There she would wait. When at last she heard Wang Sichuan, Ma Zaihai, and I arrive at the great tunnel, she'd return to the room where we found her and begin making noise to draw our attention.
Yuan Xile nodded as I told her what to do, but still she appeared doubtful. "Useless," she said, "what if none of what you said happens? What am I supposed to do then?"
"Trust me. From my perspective, all this stuff has already occurred. It won't change, nor would I want it to."
She stared at me in silence. Suddenly she blurted out, "How do you know this isn't all just a dream?"
I thought for a moment before responding. "Even if it is a dream, for you, at least, it won't be a nightmare." Then, seeing as we were already there, I figured I might as well get to work etching Wang Sichuan's "What will be will be" onto the wall.
Just as I began to walk away, Yuan Xile called out, "Will we really fall in love?"
I glanced back at her, my heart in turmoil. I had once been positive that the answer was a resounding yes. Now I wasn't so sure. Not in my wildest dreams could I have guessed our story would begin like this. "If I am to defeat a man who can reverse a bomber in midair," I said, "my only hope is to reverse the course of Fate. I can't predict your feelings, but I am absolutely certain that I, at least, will fall in love with you."
She studied me in silence, as if mulling over something. I waited, but she said nothing. So I took the dagger from her waistband and waded through the water to the bed against the wall. Splashing through the darkness, I thought of the future that awaited me. Much of it was in my control, but Yuan Xile's feelings were not. Still, I was confident that as each of my prophecies came true, her trust in me would deepen. At the very least she'd follow my instructions well enough to get out of here safely.
I moved the bed out of the way and shined my flashlight along the concrete wall, trying to determine where the words had been before. Suddenly I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. Someone had already carved a line of words onto the wall. I looked closer. "What will be will be."
I nearly fainted. Not only were the shapes of the characters identical, the sentence had even been carved in the exact same place. I looked down at the dagg
er in my hand. For a moment, I even imagined that I had etched these words myself. What in the hell was going on? Was I really not the one who wrote this sentence?
I ran my fingers over the words, cold sweat trickling down my back. This was wrong. This was wrong. Oh, heaven, it was wrong!
CHAPTER
64
Me, Myself, and I
I should have been the one to write these words as a reminder to my future self, but the words I was supposed to write were already there. And they appeared to have been written some time ago. I had no idea what this could mean, couldn't even begin to fathom it. I just stood there, staring at the roughhewn characters and feeling as if my head was about to split open.
The situation had always been complex, but I thought I'd gotten a handle on its ins and outs. Now that I'd discovered these five words, I realized everything I'd been thinking was wrong. From the moment we'd traveled 10 months into the past—something I still believed to be true—everything had fit as it should have. Why was this irregularity appearing now?