Sofia and the Utopia Machine

by Judith Huang

  “Thank you.” Despite the terror she had just been through, and the loss she felt in being unable to contact anyone or access her bank account, Sofia was incredibly grateful to be off-grid. She kept unconsciously searching for something among her holos only to find that psychic space completely empty.

  Something not unlike grief came to her as she thought of all the little holos she had designed that had accompanied her everywhere she went all this time, and that were now permanently out of her reach. She wished she had sent one last message to Isaac.

  “Here. Keep it if you want, but if I were you, I’d bury it somewhere.” Dr Xin handed her her netbox, now small and lifeless. Sofia held her hands out for it, enclosing it with both palms. She felt as though a part of her had died. The little thing would no longer float alongside her no matter what she did, would no longer read her thoughts and feed her thoughts from the streams. The world suddenly felt very bare.

  “I’ll bury it,” she said.

  “Good. That way we can be sure the camera and microphone can’t be reactivated, or if they are, they won’t be showing or picking up anything useful. To them, I mean,” said Father Lang. He picked up the chips off the metal tray and handed them to Sofia. “We’ll crush and bury these too.”

  Sofia nodded. Although it was a painful decision, it was the right thing to do.

  Walking back out the dank corridor, her netbox and chips clutched in her hands, her head starting to ache dully and still feeling numb from the anaesthetic, Sofia felt even more like a fugitive. But at least now she was a fugitive with a chance of survival.

  Chapter 16: The Sibyl

  “This way,” gestured Father Lang to Sofia as they emerged from the old house.

  “I have to make my rounds,” he said simply. “And there’s someone I want you to meet, like I said.”

  Their destination was a small flat just north of the old church. The corridors of the building were filthy, filled with cardboard and old mattresses. Sofia clambered over them with disgust.

  When they reached a small metal door, Father Lang let himself in with a key he had on his keyring. Darkmould laced the tiny one-room flat that was crammed full of cardboard and stacks of paper. Father Lang headed for the corner where a low bed was, and Sofia followed closely after him.

  The old woman was very still. She was tiny, frail, her skin loose and papery, dotted with brown liver spots. Her breathing was shallow and quiet, her eyes open.

  Sofia bent down over her, looking straight into her face. The eyes were blue-grey, the pigment long faded, like the retreat of the black from her snow-white hair.

  Very slowly, she held out her hand, lifting it just a fraction off the mattress. Father Lang nodded, and Sofia grasped the little brown thing. It felt like a bundle of marbles through a cloth bag. The skin was so dry and papery and cool to the touch, she could hardly believe it was skin.

  Sofia had never seen anyone so old in the Midlevels—and for the first time she wondered if all old people who couldn’t afford the Canopy resthomes were banished into the Voids. The thought rattled her, and she felt stupid for never having considered it before. What had Clara done about her mother? Was she somewhere in the Voids too? Were all grandparents sent to die down here?

  “Ai-chi-ke-lim,” the little woman croaked. “Ai-chi-ke-lim.”

  “What’s she saying?” Sofia whispered to Father Lang.

  “Her mind is almost gone. She has dementia. She used to sell ice cream. You know, to the neighbourhood children. She thinks she’s still on the streets…”

  “She used to sell ice cream?” asked Sofia, incredulous. “But that must have been ages ago. Why does she still think she’s on the streets?”

  “Just a few months ago, actually. It was how she earned her living.”

  But that wasn’t quite it. Sofia thought the old woman was much more lucid than Father Lang gave her credit for.

  “I think she’s trying to tell me something.”

  “Ai-chi-ke-lim,” the ancient woman croaked again, her finger curling towards a shelf in the back.

  Sofia turned and glanced where the bony finger pointed. There was a small, broken ice-cream box sitting on the shelf, bits of its label peeling off.

  She got up, walked over and picked it up. Something rattled inside it, and it felt pathetically light.

  The little old woman was smiling now, her head lifted up slightly off the mattress. She seemed to indicate that Sofia should open the box, so she did.

  Inside was a jade bangle, two pearl earrings—discoloured now—and a curious little knife on a piece of red string. Sofia held the bangle up to the woman. It was really tiny. She wondered if it had been for a child, or a grandchild…

  “Hor li,” she said, pressing it to her. For you.

  At first, Sofia wanted to refuse. Then she thought better of it. The woman was on her deathbed. She could do what she pleased with her tiny hoard of jewellery.

  She held out the pearl earrings. They glinted in the dim light of the flat.

  “Hor li,” said the woman again, her smile revealing her remaining brown teeth.

  Sofia held up the knife. It was a small, short blade, but very sharp, and could be flicked open swiftly. It was dangling by a red thread that could be used to fasten it to a wrist.

  The woman took it from her, held it to the loose skin on her chest. She closed her eyes, forming a fist over the little knife. She started to hum something.

  “Ni shi deng ta…” whispered Father Lang softly, carrying a tune. You are the lighthouse…shining in the dark sea.

  Her voice was cracked, but the humming was resonant. It sent chills down Sofia’s spine—the last song of a forgotten woman. When she had finished her song, her fingers relaxed, and the knife dropped to the floor with a clatter.

  “Hor li,” said the woman very quietly, and fell asleep for the final time. Father Lang bowed his head, crossing himself. He pressed his thumb against the mouth of a little brown bottle, and then against the forehead of the already-cooling body. He picked up the knife and pressed it into Sofia’s hand.

  “It was her last gift,” he said. “It’s all she had in the world. Keep it well.”

  *

  Sofia decided to trust Father Lang with Uncle Kirk’s plan to meet her at the Changi docks. After all, now she didn’t have her netbox any more, the only way she could find out how to get there was to ask someone for directions, and he had proven himself trustworthy so far.

  It was early evening when they finally reached Changi.

  The pine trees along the coast were a welcome sight to Sofia. She hadn’t seen anything green ever since she had come down into the Voids. Her scar was stinging, her lips parched and dry.

  “You say your friend is meeting you here?” asked Father Lang.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to camp here tonight,” said Father Lang. “What did the note he left you say?”

  “All it said was to meet at Changi docks. I think he wrote it in a hurry.”

  “We’ll have to check the jetty, I guess,” said Father Lang. “He must have meant for you to take a boat somewhere, if he said to meet you here. There’s no other reason to come here.”

  Sofia’s heart was beating very fast. She knew they couldn’t linger long on Changi beach. It was too exposed.

  She felt too exposed in general, even without her netbox tracking her every movement. Even in the Voids, it was only a matter of time before the government figured out where she was. They had spies everywhere, even down here. She had to leave the mainland as soon as possible, hopefully with Uncle Kirk.

  She felt the rough sand beneath her feet, and the sea was a uniform blue-grey. The pine trees stood like sentinels along the shore. The sand was littered with old tyres, bits of flotsam and jetsam, wrappers, oily plastic bags and tin cans—the usual debris from the Voids that had extended down to the shore.

  Just a few kilometres inland was the start of the towers that formed the Changi Midlevels above the
intricate network of canals that fed into the sea. The jetty was a relic from when Pulau Ubin had still been an outpost for recreation. No boats crossed the strait to that island regularly any more.

  “I want to go to the jetty, just to see if my friend is there,” said Sofia, after they had eaten some of their supplies for dinner.

  “Well, it is that way,” motioned Father Lang.

  Just then, something snapped behind the tree line, and he stopped speaking abruptly. “Did you hear that?” he whispered. Sofia nodded, creeping up to the pine trees and picking up a sharp stick from the debris on the beach.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Sophie!”

  “Uncle Kirk?”

  She threw aside the stick and practically ran into his arms in joy. Never had she been so glad to see that shock of blond hair, or that odd nose. She pressed her cheek against his chest, tears springing from her eyes. It had been all so much—too much, really, losing her mother, her country, her life—and suddenly she felt she was clutching onto the last remaining bit of normality in her arms. She didn’t want to let go.

  “How did you get here?” asked Kirk, overcome with emotion. “I had almost given you up and tried to make a swim for it! I was just about to do that, under cover of darkness…”

  “Uncle Kirk… Uncle Kirk… Uncle Kirk!” Sofia couldn’t stop repeating his name. It felt so good to see someone who knew what had happened. It was impossible to say just how homesick it made her feel. Some small part of her felt safe again.

  “I know where we can get kayaks,” said Father Lang, by way of introduction. “We were just about to look for you at the jetty…but then it would have been too obvious a place for us to spend the night, so we set up camp here.”

  “Well, my plan was to head to Pulau Ubin from here… I have an idea that there may just be some old friends of mine there who could help us,” said Uncle Kirk.

  “Oh Uncle Kirk! This is Father Lang. He’s been helping me get away. They’re after you, too, aren’t they?”

  “Have you got the cube?”

  Sofia nodded limply, her hand instantly migrating towards the small, golden object.

  “Thank goodness! I thought they might have retrieved it from your house… At least we have it. What happened when you disappeared?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you!”

  “Try me,” said Kirk, grimly.

  “There is this whole other world…” began Sofia, then she glanced at Father Lang, unsure how much to divulge.

  “It’s okay,” said the kindly priest. “Anything you say is absolutely confidential. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Well, the machine seemed to set off a new world when I entered it. There’s a tiger, and a whole other planet, and I’m…I’m kind of a god over there…”

  “It’s the Utopia Machine,” said Kirk. “That’s what it does. Gives you access to a whole new universe. They really didn’t know what it meant when they commissioned the project. But that’s really what it does. Except that it didn’t work…until you came along!”

  “And this…Utopia Machine…is a government project?” interjected Father Lang, his eyebrows lifted.

  “Absolutely top secret stuff,” said Kirk. “I am…I was a Biopolis scientist. I was working on it seven years ago. It never worked, though, till Sofia here activated it. Something to do with her father being the one who programmed the mythology of the thing. I think he was the one who made it so that it only worked for you, Sofia.”

  “My father?” asked Sofia, her voice trembling.

  “That’s right, your father. He gave the universe the machine would set off all kinds of…narrative texture, as it were. A tiger, you said?”

  “His name is Milton.”

  “Ah, that is so him!” Kirk gave a wry smile. “He was a huge Milton and Blake fan.”

  “Why did he go missing?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “So your father was a Biopolis scientist too, Rui?”

  “Well, yeah…and my name is really Sofia. I guess you might as well know that, now that you know everything.”

  “And this machine, it’s with you?” asked Father Lang, puzzled. Sofia didn’t look like she was carrying anything big enough to contain an entire universe.

  Sofia reached into her pocket and lifted up the little golden object that glinted in the moonlight. “This is it.”

  Father Lang examined at it closely. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen—a perfect cube, ornate buttons on its surface, which was interlaced with intricate circuitry, and a prism recessed in it, seemingly made out of solid gold.

  “If that thing really contains a universe, it may be the most important thing on earth right now…and helping you may be the most important thing I have ever done in my life,” he said, in a voice so solemn that Sofia looked in his eyes to see if there were tears.

  “It’s a great responsibility.”

  “Do you want to see it?”

  “See the new universe?”

  “Well, I’m not sure if I can bring you into it, ’cause Uncle Kirk here disappeared when I activated the machine, but you can at least see the Prism…”

  “The Prism?”

  “It’s kind of like the antechamber to the machine. The foyer of the house, if you like.”

  “I would be honoured.”

  Sofia took Father Lang’s hand and, taking a deep breath, pressed the buttons on the surface of the cube. The glittering prism hovered in front of her. Gently swiping it into the hole of the cube, Sofia watched Father Lang’s awe as a doorway, flooded with light, appeared. Holos swirled around them and they stepped into that awesome corridor with the cathedral-like arches that had left her breathless just barely a day ago.

  The mirrored doors reflected her and Father Lang, their hands still joined. Confidently, Sofia strode to the doors and walked through them. Beyond, the waxed table and chandelier hovered.

  “Here we are… in the Prism,” said Sofia. “If I unlock it, this is where I can enter the new universe.”

  Father Lang looked around him in astonishment. The high ceilings seemed to him to enclose a sacred space. This was trickery that he had never encountered before.

  Sofia experienced a strange feeling of deep satisfaction at showing her new friend something he had never seen before—their roles reversed for once since they had first met.

  After he had stood there in wonderment for a few long minutes, she led them out of that place. Just as suddenly as it had appeared, the chamber disappeared as they exited, and they were back on the grey shore, beneath the pine trees once more.

  “The thing you have been chosen to do…it’s an important thing,” said Father Lang gravely. “And you won’t be able to do it alone. That is perhaps why God led you to me. I will help you in every way I can to preserve this.”

  “You’ve already helped me beyond what I imagined,” said Sofia, her hand pressing his gratefully. “I would never have survived this long without your help.”

  “It’s only what I would have done for any fugitive,” said Father Lang. “But you, Sofia, are some kind of queen.”

  Sofia tried to stifle her laugh. She felt about as far from a queen as could possibly be, in her now-grimy school uniform, her face sunburned and her feet full of blisters from all the walking and running.

  “I’m not a queen, Father. I’m in over my head. I’ve actually got no idea what I’m doing. “

  “Well, I know what we have to do tonight if we are to get to Pulau Ubin tomorrow—rest,” said Father Lang. “Tomorrow, we’ll visit a friend of mine who will lend us some boats.”

  Chapter 17: The Pirate’s Wife

  They woke the next day, rubbing the drowsiness out of their eyes and feeling slightly damp from sleeping on top of the blue tarp on the sand that Father Lang had spread out. Sofia was pretty sure dew had actually condensed on top of them, and felt a little cold from being so exposed.

  The pine trees caught the filtered beams of t
he rising sun upon the water, and the light was a warm light blue. Sofia’s muscles ached when she got up to stand.

  “Well, we’d better get going. But first, here’s something for breakfast,” said Father Lang, handing her a chocolate bar. It was a Kit Kat, slightly misshapen from having melted and re-formed again. Sofia tore off the wrapper and took a bite. It crunched satisfyingly. As saliva flooded into her mouth, Sofia felt a bit better about not being able to brush her teeth, as her mouth felt less like something had died inside it the night before.

  Uncle Kirk came up beside her. His hair was messier than usual. Sofia wondered if he ever combed it, even back when he was living in the Canopies. She supposed he must have, because he looked more dishevelled than ever. It was funny how fast they were shedding signs of civilisation. She bet she looked as dirty as he did. Strangely enough, the priest was looking pretty well-rested and not at all different from when she had met him. His wiry frame made him seem pretty tough and gnarled behind his black-framed glasses.

  Father Lang led the way, with Sofia and Uncle Kirk following behind. Father Lang picked his way through the maze of debris and shacks like he had done it all his life. Sofia felt a deep gratitude towards him welling in her heart. If not for him, she would still have that infernal chip in her, and she would have been arrested by now. Father Lang stopped outside a shack that, to Sofia, looked exactly like all of the others. He rapped on the door several times.

  An oily-looking old man answered. He had the appearance of a hardened gangster—his head was shaved, his scalp tattooed with fearsome beasts, and his powerfully built arms seemed to bulge with muscles, though slightly gone to seed. But his face broke out in a huge grin, baring three rotten teeth and a good many gold ones.

  “Lang Mu Shi!” he said, grasping his hand warmly. “Thank you so much for the rice, the last time, and the medicine! Mei is doing much better,” he said rapidly in a dialect Sofia only half understood.