by Judith Huang
Sofia looked up in horror. Darkmould! Black wood ears, they called it in Chinese, because it had resembled the edible fungus she so liked to eat at Chinese New Year.
The first people who had tried to eat darkmould had thought it a gift from the gods, a new variety of the delicacy lavished upon the poor. But even breathing in a place with darkmould was dangerous—it killed you slowly, insidiously. Those who lived in the depths and died there were dissected to reveal that dark matter growing in their lungs, the spores blooming like delicate lace.
Sofia buried her head in her hands. She was hopelessly lost and terribly afraid. She didn’t want to turn back, just in case the man with the knife was still looking for her. She had run blindly this way and that, ducking and diving, and now had no idea if she had gone left or right, east or west.
Finally she found herself at another entrance to a station, having followed the abandoned tracks for some way away. Desperate to be above ground and away from the stifling horror of the darkness and the mould, she headed for the exit.
To her enormous relief, she spied a broken sign hanging from the mouth of the entrance. NOVENA, said the sign in dark black letters. She had stumbled upon the right station after all, even in her panic. She jumped over some scrap metal that had once served as a gantry, and, at last, the grey sky hung over her again.
Chapter 15: Novena
Sofia was frightened. A blimp floated by overhead, the roar deafening her for a couple of minutes. On the bottom of it trailed a holo of her mother’s head, rotating grotesquely like a barber’s pole, “TRAITOR” flashing and dissolving around it in the four official languages. She felt sick. But at least she was here.
As quietly as she could, she opened the heavy door of the old church. It used to be a church—she guessed it still was. A deep smell of incense filled her nostrils—exactly like the incense she had smelled in the burrow in the little red shrine she had glimpsed in the shack of the man who had chased her. On the wall at the far end was a bronze cast statue that seemed to glow orange in the flickering lights of the votive candles set all around the room.
The smell of the incense unsettled her, yet there was a sense of deep quiet in here. A short, fat Chinese woman shuffled past her and squeezed herself into one of the wooden pews. The pews faced forwards, crowding close to one another. The whole interior reminded Sofia of a ship’s galley, where the slaves would sit, pulling on the oars.
As she watched, the woman genuflected, took out a rosary of red beads and started to pray in a low murmur that sounded like a chant. Hokkien, thought Sofia. She had heard her father speaking it with her grandmother once, a long time ago. Until then she had forgotten the memory. It was a language she never heard at school, and certainly not at home. Suddenly it occurred to her that this woman could be her grandmother. She peered at her more closely. No—she was too young. But who really knew how old her grandmother was anyway, if she were even alive?
Sofia wandered down the aisle along the left side of the church. The church was filled with dust. This place must have been grand once, she thought, her fingers lingering on the carved wood of the pews. Along the side of the church, porcelain saints stood behind little grates, votive candles flaming steadily beneath them.
Who were these people? Sofia wished she knew. There were a couple of Chinese faces. Or maybe they were Japanese or Korean? Who were they? As she walked on, she spotted a particularly weird one of a black man—almost a caricature, all thick lips and frighteningly white eyes. Yet he, too, had a spray of dried flowers set before him.
Sofia reached the front of the church. Hanging from the ceiling, suspended by transparent fishing line, was a bronze statue, its face twisted and grotesque, as though it had been melted in a firestorm. Later, she would learn this is precisely what had happened—it had been salvaged from one of those dirty bomb crash sites. The statue’s arms were spread wide, only the figure was held up by them instead of holding them up. His legs were crossed one over the other, as though standing on tiptoe.
The torso was pockmarked, the skin rough, almost diseased-looking. The face was ugly, a frightening mask of agony. The entire thing a dumb, melting Y… Sofia shuddered—what kind of weird sect was this, to make this their god? No wonder her mother had steered her away from her father’s beliefs… What sort of people worshipped such a hideous creature?
The face stared eyelessly, and something encircled his head, sprouting from it like a sea anemone. Suddenly, she felt as though she were underwater. The traffic noise outside seemed so far away, and her legs felt wobbly, like she had spent too long kicking her way through water. She was so tired… She just wanted to sleep…
But she could not stop looking at it. Sofia stood, her face tilted up at this question, this enigma. Why this face? It was almost featureless now. Had it been handsome once? What was it supposed to express?
She felt pity, sorrow, anger, fear—welling up in her throat, in her body, in her eyes. She wiped her tears away angrily. This wouldn’t do, she thought. Gathering herself, she walked away from the altar, towards a far corner where she spotted a little booth. She would sit in there and collect herself, she thought.
With considerable relief, she plopped herself down on the creaky seat. It was a weird cardboard structure, with netting over one side of it.
“Hello, my child,” said a voice.
Sofia jumped. There was a person in the next booth.
“Sorry, sorry… I thought this was just a chair… I didn’t realise…” she stammered, standing up to leave.
“No, it’s all right, child. Tell me, are you all right? Why are you crying?”
“I don’t know,” blubbered Sofia. “I think… I think it’s because I can’t go home any more.”
“Hm. I understand. There are many people who feel that way. I suppose you could say that ultimately, this world is not our home, but that doesn’t help with the homesickness much,” said the priest gently. “Although while we are here, we must do our best to make it better.”
“How can we make it better?” sniffed Sofia, suddenly eager to talk. Perhaps an intellectual conversation was what she needed to snap out of this foolish mood.
“How do you make the world a better place? Personally? For your family, maybe? For your friends?” asked the priest.
“I don’t,” said Sofia flatly. “I thought I could… In fact, that’s what I was trying to do—remake the world, find…help…my parents. I wanted to make something new, to escape, to get out of here…”
“To get out of where?”
“To get out of where I didn’t really belong. But it was no use. The new place I made… I mean found… I messed up… It fell apart and now, I can’t even go back to my old life.”
“It sounds like you’ve had a rough time.”
“N-No… Yeah… Aren’t you supposed to ask me for my confession? I’m sorry, I’m not Catholic or anything.”
“No, I’m just here to listen and talk.” He paused. “Tell me about this world you wanted to make.”
“I just wanted a place…where the people I love could be together again,” said Sofia finally. “You know, one big family. Somewhere where they wouldn’t have to be sad or lonely, where people wouldn’t hurt each other. I just wanted everyone to be happy.” She paused. “I wanted my family to be together again.”
The priest was silent for a while, as Sofia started to blow her nose in an effort to stop herself from crying.
“Your English is very good,” said Sofia suddenly. “I didn’t think there would be people down here who could speak English.”
The priest laughed. The sound was sudden and loud in the solemn church. For some reason, it made Sofia feel a whole lot better.
“Would you like to come along with me while I make my rounds?” asked the priest. “I would like you to meet someone. I think it would do you good.”
“Maybe another time,” said Sofia. “I need to find somewhere to sleep tonight.”
“Why don’t you come back with m
e? There is a spare room at the back of the church. It used to be the rectory. It’s nothing fancy, but you sound like you’ve been through a lot. Maybe what you need is just some time to sleep.”
Sofia hesitated.
“Don’t worry,” said the priest. “I’m a priest! You’re probably safer here than with all those gangs out there. In fact, I insist. It’s not safe for you to go wandering around out there at this hour.”
Sofia shuddered. She had intended to sleep in the pews that night anyhow, since she couldn’t think of anywhere else.
“I’m Father Lang, by the way.”
“You can call me Rui,” said Sofia. It wasn’t so wise to go around bandying her real name, what with Clara’s face being plastered all over the place. She thought of the blimp again.
“Okay, Rui,” said Father Lang.
They emerged from the booth and saw each other for the first time. He was a short and skinny man, probably in his mid-fifties, but spry. A large black pair of spectacles framed his little eyes. He walked with a noticeable limp. His hair was thinning and there was something very gentle about his face.
“You’re very young,” he said, surprised. “Are you still in secondary school?”
“Yeah,” said Sofia. “Unfortunately.”
Father Lang chuckled. “It is a difficult time, secondary school,” he said. “You see my limp?”
Sofia hadn’t mentioned it in order to be polite, but she had. His left leg seemed to be a little shorter than his right. “I got that when I was a teenager, like you. Bullies, you know. I got beat up a lot during recess. Called me a sissy. Boys can be quite merciless at that age.”
Sofia looked at him curiously. She imagined that things would be different among boys, and although the girls at her school bullied her, at least they hadn’t resorted to physical violence, at least nothing that left permanent damage.
“Yeah,” she said. Sensing that she didn’t want to say more, he left it at that.
“You’re on the run, aren’t you? You’re not from the Voids. That’s an RGS uniform, right? You’re from the Midlevels?”
Sofia kept silent for a while. Then, thinking it was pointless to hide what must be very evident to him, she nodded.
“Running from the government?”
She nodded again.
“Well then, there’s something you need to do first. It’s going to hurt but you must do it.”
“What?” asked Sofia, her eyes widening fearfully.
“We have to get rid of that,” said Father Lang, indicating her netbox. For the first time, she realised that Father Lang didn’t have one. This somehow shocked her. She had never talked to anyone who didn’t have a netbox and the accompanying host of holos floating around them almost all the time.
Sofia’s head swam with the thought of it. As long as she had existed, she had been on the Internet. She couldn’t imagine being offline. But she knew that what Father Lang said made sense—it was utter foolishness to continue being hooked up to the streams while on the run. In fact, it was sheer dumb luck that she had
got away with it so far while being hooked up to her netbox.
“But how? It’s hooked up to my brain! Do I have to get surgery?”
Father Lang looked grim. “There are places to do it. There are always places if you know where to look.”
“Huh? But where?”
“Don’t worry, I know somebody.”
Soon they were walking swiftly through the Voids, amongst some truly ancient shophouses that sagged with the weight of the years bearing down on them. Snuggled tightly between the ramrod straight towers, they looked even more pathetic, clutched like a bunch of refugees against the dusk.
“This way,” he gestured as they neared a dull blue door. It was made of wood and had a flimsy red piece of paper tacked on to it with a single character written on it with black ink. Sofia couldn’t read it, but she knew it bristled with menace.
Sofia ducked after Father Lang into the dingy corridor behind the door. All sorts of odours—of formaldehyde, an antiseptic smell and something that smelled like detergent—jostled for place in her nostrils.
“His name is Dr Xin, and he’ll be performing surgery on you to get rid of your netbox,” whispered Father Lang as they twisted their way down the corridor. They came to a staircase and ascended its leaning steps, Sofia watching her every step, her head swimming with fear.
At the top of the stairs was a tiny, white room. It looked like some kind of laboratory, or some diabolical dentist’s. In the centre of the room was a chair that reclined. It seemed to be made of black synthetic leather, rather worse for wear. Around it ranged all manner of implements, sharp and bristling with otherworldly energy.
In the back of the adjoining room was a hunched little man, his face wizened with age. He was coughing violently as they entered the room.
“Dr Xin!” said Father Lang in a loud voice. The man turned sharply around, still coughing violently.
“Lang Mu Shi!”
It seemed that Dr Xin was one of the many people on Father Lang’s weekly rounds. Sofia could tell at once from his accent and his features that he was a PRC. There were some at her school, but they mostly kept to themselves, and she hadn’t made friends with any of them.
“I got a patient for you, Doctor! Need to get rid of her netbox.”
The man turned around, and peered at Sofia. His gaze was not unkind. His eyes, magnified by thick spectacles, were bloodshot and seemed glazed over with a layer of tears.
“Wah, so young! Running from gahmen? Don’t worry, when I’m done they won’t be able to trace you any more… You can disappear down here, very easy…”
“What will you do?” asked Sofia nervously, imagining one of the several saws and scalpels lying on the table cutting through her and immediately chewing on her lip
in apprehension.
“Don’t worry, won’t be painful… All you’ll feel is the injection for the anaesthetic…”
“Yeah, but what will you do?”
“There’s a chip in your forehead and one in your wrist that we’ll need to get out, need to detach…and that’s it. It won’t hurt that much,” he said in Chinese-inflected English.
Sofia bit her lower lip, then started gnawing at her knuckles unconsciously. She was ashamed that one of the first things she thought about was that, without her netbox, she wouldn’t be able to contact Isaac again even if she wanted to. Although she hadn’t been in touch with him since entering her mother’s lab, she still felt connected to him at all times thanks to her netbox.
But if this man were to detach her from the Internet, she would lose that connection forever. She didn’t know how to reach him in real life at all, unless she went up to the garden she had met him in the Canopies, but that meant going back through the Midlevels….
The doctor motioned towards his large reclining chair. Reluctantly, she got into it, feeling the old pleather enclosing her like a glove. Lying down with her eyes on the ceiling, she felt particularly helpless.
The doctor had pulled on a mask that covered his mouth and nose. With a gloved hand, he lifted a needle to her eye level and squirted a minuscule amount of liquid out of it, then carefully inserted it into her forehead. Sofia shuddered as the needle went in with a sharp pain, then another jab of pain came as the liquid emptied itself into her head.
“Sorry ah, we are working with pretty primitive equipment here, but I’ve done it many times before… Don’t worry….” Dr Xin mumbled behind his mask. Sofia wished he would just shut up. She felt as if there were a numb, grey patch in the middle of her field of vision, except it was the sensation in the middle of her forehead.
She watched as his hands reached skilfully for a scalpel, and flinched when he brought it just above her eyes.
“Incision…” he intoned calmly. Sofia felt the knife go in, parting her flesh like butter. It was only a very tiny slit, but her teeth were clenched and grinding, her fists balled up against the armrests of the seat. She wan
ted terribly to gnaw at her right knuckles, but knew she shouldn’t bring her hand near her face while the scalpel was hovering over it.
“There we are… Yes, easy, easy…” the doctor droned on, evidently locating the chip. He fiddled with it, then lifted up something tiny, less than a tenth of a fingernail, but distinctly metallic, and it clattered onto a metal tray.
Next he took a length of thread towards her. The prospect of being sewn up was terrifying, and Sofia clenched her eyes shut as she felt the needle going into her flesh a couple of times, quite painlessly, but still feeling the pressure. Dr Xin then proceeded to do the same to her right wrist.
“There. Now you’re unplugged from the Internet,” said Dr Xin. “Congrats!” He beamed at her with the look of a job well done. “Now you just rest for a while… Take this,” he handed her a little cup and a little white pill.
Sofia reached for the pill and shoved it into the back of her mouth. Her jaw was aching from how hard she had been clenching it, and she found that her throat was parched. She gulped down the water gratefully.
“I can pay…” mumbled Sofia after she had swallowed the pill and the water. Dr Xin waved her protestations away. To her dismay, when she tried to conjure up the payment options on her netbox, it was no longer there. With a start, she realised that she no longer had access to her bank account either. She had taken it so much for granted that this hadn’t even occurred to her when she had consented to the surgery.
Dr Xin waved away her offer. “Lang Mu Shi and I have…an arrangement.”
“Thank you,” said Sofia. She turned to Father Lang and thanked him, too. Her hand instinctively reached for the wound to touch it, but Dr Xin caught her hand and pulled it away.
“Don’t touch it. Wait wait…” He reached for something and handed it to her. It was a mirror.
“The scar will heal in a couple of weeks… Don’t worry about the thread—it will dissolve by itself. No one will be able to see it when it heals. Very discreet one.”