Waste Tide

by Chen Qiufan

  Li Wen finally saw clearly the image reflected in the eyes of his dead little sister: a deep red flame. Rage instantly petrified his body.

  He could not forgive himself for having passed by that man countless times; he had even helped him, solved his problems, adjusted his body film with the flame design. After Knifeboy had abused Mimi the same way, he had focused on how to exploit the incident as a bargaining chip. But he had never imagined that his desire for vengeance had already been ground down and turned to numbness as a result of the meticulous plotting that occupied him day after day.

  Finally, he saw the black battle armor standing in the wind like a tombstone. At its feet was a creeping figure like a groveling dog.

  Countless times, Li Wen had rehearsed in his imagination how he would kill his enemy. He imagined cutting off the man’s penis and testicles and stuffing them into his mouth, breaking all his limbs, poking out his eyes, piercing his eardrums, cutting off his tongue, destroying all his senses and hooking him up to a life-support system so that he would live out the rest of his life in an interminable abyss of darkness, silence, and pain.

  He had been waiting for this day so long; yet, now that it was here, he was seized with an unprecedented panic. He had never killed a man, at least not with his own hands. Li Wen deliberately slowed down. He looked around. No one was in sight; only the ruins swept by the wind and rain. He wanted to find an appropriate weapon.

  A rusty crowbar. He swung it a few times, leaving a few trails in the mud. The splatter covered him like blood.

  Fuck you! He cursed at himself silently. That is the scum who killed your sister, you fucking coward.

  He swung the crowbar a couple more times through the air, took a deep breath, and advanced on Knifeboy.

  Knifeboy was on the ground on all fours. The chain around his neck was taut, yet his body was extended even farther, as if trying to escape from something. Li Wen poked at his back with the crowbar. There was no reaction. He flipped Knifeboy over, and what he saw made him stumble backward, almost falling over.

  The chain was tightly wound around Knifeboy’s neck, which was now a purplish red. His face was a dark green. His eyes were wide open while his tongue stuck out of his mouth and drooped down to his chest. Between his legs was a mixture of excrement and ejaculate, like a man executed by hanging. Compression of the carotid and vertebral arteries had caused his brain to die from insufficient blood supply, and the liquid in his body had spilled out when the smooth muscles in his lower body lost tension.

  Li Wen tossed away the crowbar. Standing before the corpse, he felt empty. The wind abruptly stopped, as did the rain, leaving an unexpected quiet. He stared up at the sky, at a loss, and an opening appeared in the thick cloud cover like a deep well, through which the infinitely clear light of the stars shone. He drank in the sight of the stars hungrily, as if seeking to understand the mystery of the universe.

  That eye gazed back at him.

  Li Wen shuddered. Some force seemed to have poured into his body through the medium of starlight and filled the entire universe. There was no more hatred, no more anger, only a deep sense of awe. He closed his eyes and felt that power with all his heart. In his mind, his sister’s face was superimposed over the starry sky, twinkling. She finally smiled, as she used to. Li Wen could no longer hold back the scalding tears that rolled down his face, as if the deep freeze in his heart had finally thawed and given him complete release.

  After the eye of the storm, an even fiercer storm awaited him.

  * * *

  “Why are you here, Scott?”

  “To take you away from here.”

  “Now?” Kaizong hesitated. “But Mimi is really weak right now. She might not…”

  “Let me take a look.” Scott approached Mimi with his right hand hanging at the waist. He extended his left hand to feel for Mimi’s carotid artery. Mimi lifted her blurry eyes to give him a glance, and her fawn-like expression made Scott’s heart clench. But he didn’t hesitate as his right hand shot out, held an injector—one of the gifts from Coltsfoot Blossom—against Mimi’s neck, and pressed the trigger.

  “What are you doing?” Kaizong knocked the injector out of Scott’s hands.

  A terrified Mimi stared at Scott and struggled to get up, but in another second, her head drooped and she fell onto the bed like a boneless octopus.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just a tranquilizer. For safety.”

  “Get the hell away from her!” Kaizong shoved him out of the way. “I can’t believe Luo Jincheng was telling the truth, you greedy bastard.”

  “I’m sorry, Kaizong.” Scott did look regretful. “The world is far more complicated than you understand. I hope that someday I’ll have a chance to explain myself to you.”

  “Explain now! Otherwise you’re not leaving this room with her.”

  Scott lowered his head, apparently giving Kaizong’s suggestion serious consideration. He sighed lightly. Then, like a lightning strike, he crouched and swept one of his legs at Kaizong’s lower body. Kaizong fell and Scott leapt up to straddle him, clamping a powerful hand around his throat. No matter how Kaizong struggled, Scott’s iron grip remained fast like a robotic arm.

  Kaizong’s face turned red, and gurgling croaks came from deep in his throat. Strength seemed to leave his limbs, and his flailing arms gently slapped against Scott like soft tentacles, and then slipped onto the ground.

  Finally, he stopped moving. His eyes looked like a pair of freshwater pearls that had been covered by a layer of condensation.

  Scott let go of Kaizong’s neck. Avoiding Kaizong’s sightless gaze, he again apologized. Picking up the unresisting body of Mimi, he stepped out of the shack and draped her over the seat of the Ducati in front of himself. He started the motorcycle, and the wheels left a deep wound in the mud that extended into the unknown future.

  19

  This is a dream, Mimi told herself. None of this is real.

  But what dream could match the insanity of what she was seeing?

  She saw herself walking toward the sea. The water parted, opening a path down the middle, and she walked into the canyon between the two gargantuan walls made of seawater, each a few hundred meters tall, pinching the sky into a narrow slit. The color of each wall grew darker toward the bottom, turning from baby blue to a dark green that was almost black. The canyon extended into infinity, and shifting luminescent patterns swept by her as though she were in some high-speed tunnel. The farther she walked, the more surprised she became. The central canyon wasn’t the only path; numerous narrow side branches dotted the walls, zigzagging into the darkness, perhaps concealing unknown terrors. Mimi dared not tarry and passed by with only the briefest of glances.

  The canyon seemed to have no end—until she saw the figure of herself leisurely coming from the other direction, as though she were walking into a mirror.

  But she knew it wasn’t a mirror.

  The two Mimis stared at each other, their expressions stiff, as though both were trying to anticipate the other’s next move. Finally, one of them grinned slyly.

  “Must we continue to play this silly imitation game?” she said. “I guess we’ve proven that our mirror neurons haven’t been completely suppressed.”

  Mimi finally could be sure that the girl she faced was Mimi 1, and she herself, of course, was Mimi 0.

  “You could have stopped him!” Mimi accused.

  “I’m sorry, darling. I was very weak at the time. Also … I was distracted by your little boyfriend.”

  “Shut up!”

  “He used a military-grade tranquilizer. It got through the blood-brain barrier too quickly. I only had time to break off a small set of synaptic connections to preserve the core of your consciousness before your frail human body decided to give up.”

  “Can you do anything else? What does this foreigner want with me?”

  “I’ve already sped up the metabolism in your brain, hoping to bring more regions back online. But you know that you’re already low o
n the supply of ATP. We’re playing with your life.” Mimi 1 looked worried. “Luckily, he wants me, so your life should be safe. Your abduction by Scott has already been shared with our brothers and sisters through the augmented-reality glasses, and hopefully there’s still time.”

  “O Mistress, would you like a display of humble gratitude from me, your lucky, surviving parasite?” Sarcasm dripped from Mimi 0’s voice.

  “You’re wrong, precious. You, me, even the entire human race—we’re all parasites.” Mimi 1 was unflustered. “Besides, surviving isn’t necessarily better than a clean death. Do you remember those chimpanzees? If we fell into their hands, our fates would be thousands of times worse.”

  The bloody scenes flashed before Mimi 0’s eyes. The pain made her close her eyes and wrap her arms about her head.

  “What are you?” She squeezed out the question that had been plaguing her all this time.

  “A nuclear explosion that has been slowed down a million times; a by-product of billions of years of convergent evolution; your second personality and life insurance; the free will that emerges from quantum decoherence. I’m accidental; I’m inevitable. I’m a new error. I’m the master and the slave. I’m the huntress and the prey.” The other Mimi laughed, a sound colder than ice. “I’m only a beginning.”

  An indescribable shock made it impossible for Mimi 0 to answer. All those abstract, abstruse ideas seemed at this moment like echoes in her soul, things she already knew and understood. All she had needed was a tiny spark, and then, enlightenment.

  “There’s something else I haven’t been able to figure out.” Mimi 0 frowned with puzzlement.

  “Oh?”

  “Why did you go through so much trouble to get to Anarchy.Cloud? Just so you could construct the communication link between the waste people and trigger the cutoff of Silicon Isle from the network? That doesn’t make sense.”

  A glint appeared in Mimi 1’s eyes.

  In an instant, Mimi 0 realized the answer. That model of Hedy Lamarr’s consciousness uploaded to Anarchy.Cloud. Was that really all it was? “A persona backup? Did you hide a copy of yourself inside—‘passage under cover of darkness’?”

  “Very good. You’ve indeed grown clever.” Mimi 1 smiled. “I have a question as well. When Luo Jincheng was swept away by the flood, you experienced pain. Why?”

  “He’s evil. But he’s still a person, a human being like me. When I was little, my mother often told me, a person should—”

  “Humans are always exaggerating the effects of culture,” Mimi 1 interrupted. “Pity, sympathy, shame, fairness … morality. These things have long been engraved in your posterior cingulate cortex, your frontal gyrus and superior temporal sulcus, and the dorsolateral and ventromedial regions of your prefrontal cortex, perhaps even long before the origin of the human species. These neural patterns allowed you to empathize with the pain and fear of other individuals. In the long process of evolution, this physiological foundation helped the human species to overcome or suppress various instincts of primates—selfishness, incestuous sexual desires, brutal competition, and so on—by substituting the bonds of clan identity and cooperation in place of conflict, elevating group harmony above individual sexual desire, instituting morality over force. This was how the human race survived and thrived as a species.

  “But modern technology has damaged this foundation. Technology addicts indulging in overdoses of dopamine have destroyed their synaptic connections and become ill with moral failings. In one experiment, the test subjects had to choose between saving a ship full of passengers by tossing a heavily wounded individual overboard, or doing nothing. All those with damaged moral-emotive brain regions chose to kill in order to save, while the normal subjects chose to do nothing. The diseased think of life as some zero-sum game in which there must be winners and losers, even at the expense of the interests of others, including their lives. This is a planetwide plague.

  “The Silicon Isle natives, the waste people, you, all of you are suffering from this disease. I chose this path to cure you so that the game may continue.”

  Mimi 0 knew that this wasn’t the entire truth, but before she could ask more questions, a low rumbling roar came from the depths of the sea, filling their ears like whale song. Mimi 0 watched the rippling lights in the sea walls with trepidation; they seemed about to collapse at any moment and devour everything.

  “What’s happening?”

  “The good news is that your consciousness is reawakening,” Mimi 1 shouted at her. “The not-so-good news is that we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “How do we leave?” Mimi 0 shouted back at the top of her lungs.

  “Hold on tight!” Mimi 1 grabbed her by the hand and flew up toward the top of the sea wall.

  Filled with terror, Mimi 0 watched as the towering walls of water gradually closed up beneath her. The lofty sea mountains collided, resulting in giant waves hundreds of meters tall. She suddenly realized that the canyon she had been walking through was the gap between the two hemispheres of a brain, and those zigzagging branches were the complicated, dense folds and creases of the cortex. The brain-sea gradually turned from solid to liquid, and the luminous patterns sped up, illuminating the boundless, raging ocean of information.

  The sky was filled with dark lines that expanded outward from the center of the visual field; light scattered from them in iridescence.

  “We’re being transported at a high speed. The conducting particles in your brain cause these visual artifacts as they move through the Earth’s magnetic field.” Mimi 1 paused in her explanation, and then added, “We have to return to the surface of consciousness immediately. I’ve heard the call.”

  * * *

  Kaizong bounced up like a reanimated jumping corpse. After a long, painful scream, air refilled his lungs. He hacked and coughed violently until his stomach turned and thick strings of drool dripped from his mouth onto the ground. He saw that he was lying in the mud outside, and in front of him loomed the hideous face of the exoskeleton. Rain continued to fall from the gray dawn sky.

  “I rushed over as soon as I saw what happened through the view shared by your glasses.” Li Wen appeared from behind the giant robot, his expression looking unsettled. “I got here too late for Mimi, but at least I can help you.”

  Kaizong struggled to stand up on his unsteady legs and almost fell again; Li Wen hurried over and helped support him.

  “We’ve got to catch them. Scott wants to bring Mimi out of the country.” Kaizong gasped for breath. “Do you know how to track them?”

  “The fastest way to cross the border from Silicon Isle is to head for the sea. I can hack into the dispatch center of the Shantou Maritime Bureau. All ships departing the port must transmit their positioning signals through the data hub in the dispatch center to dock with the satellites. I don’t think your boss would try to navigate blindly. In this weather, that would be tantamount to suicide.”

  “How long would it take you to get in there?”

  “If we’re lucky…” Li Wen hesitated. “Maybe twenty minutes.”

  “We don’t have twenty minutes!” Kaizong was almost screaming.

  The two looked helplessly in different directions, like two homeless dogs.

  “Damn! Can’t believe I almost forgot.” Li Wen’s eyes lit up. “Mimi’s body film! I installed an RF transmitter in there.”

  Kaizong was taken aback, and then his gaze grew chilly. “You’re telling me … you’ve been tracking Mimi’s position all along?”

  “Theoretically, yes…” Li Wen avoided Kaizong’s gaze and added guiltily, “I’ve always thought of her as a sister … I wanted to protect her…”

  “Your sister? Is this really how you protect your sister?” Kaizong pressed up against Li Wen, and sparks seemed to shoot out of his eyes. He raised his fists, but stopped himself in time and forced them down. “So, you knew all along what was happening? You watched Luo Jincheng abduct her, watched Knifeboy abuse her, watched her almost die?”
>
  “That night, I followed her to Tide Gazing Beach. But I was too late.” Li Wen kept his eyes on the ground, and his voice was almost inaudibly soft. “I wanted to record … what was happening so I could blackmail the Luo clan. But I couldn’t get a steady signal due to interference. I ran to save her; I really did. But I never could get a lock on her position. I trusted too much in my own plot, never anticipating they could be so cruel. I felt as though I had sent my own sister to her death … I couldn’t bear losing her again. What happened after that was like a dream. I found Mimi and carried her back…”

  “So in the end, you were an accessory to Knifeboy’s crimes.”

  Li Wen shuddered, remembering the video of his sister. His legs turned to rubber and he fell to his knees. He muttered repeatedly, “This is my punishment … my punishment…”

  “Remember your sister. Remember how those people treated her.” Kaizong’s face was stony as he sat on the ground, not caring as the rain soaked him. “Then remember Mimi. Let’s hope we’re not too late this time.”

  The corners of Li Wen’s mouth spasmed a few times. He said noth ing as he put on his augmented-reality glasses and his hands began to dance through the air. He shared the tracking view with Kaizong’s right eye. A map of Silicon Isle and the surrounding sea appeared; a golden dot left the wharf and rapidly headed for the open sea.

  “They really are headed for international waters. We have no ships. How are we going to catch them?” Li Wen looked dejected.

  “What’s that?” Kaizong highlighted a silvery curve across the bay between Shantou and Silicon Isle, a line that the course of the golden dot must cross.

  “That’s the Shantou Bay Bridge!” Li Wen quickly calculated the time to intercept. “You’re right. We still have a chance!”

  “But we don’t have a car. How are we going to get to the bridge in time?” Kaizong looked around at the ruined landscape: pools of water, wreckage, and debris pockmarked the land and made it difficult to traverse the terrain.