Scientist: An Earth 340K Standalone Novel (Soldier X Book 1)

by D. P. Oberon

  “You cheat...” Old Man Yok said.

  “BUT! They are organic. Once you put them into the soil, they’ll be surrounded by a live environment. Just don’t keep them out for long because they’ll start broadcasting for the licensing server. So dump them into the live soil. Good soil, mind you, and you should be fine.”

  “Thank you so much, aunt,” said Nuan. “We are truly appreciative.” She took the skin-wrap and put it into the satchel that slung over her shoulder.

  Lichi jutted her chin at Old Man Yok. “I’m sure in your hands these seeds will flourish and grow. Just don’t let that old goat touch it.” She shook her head. “He’ll think its sesame seeds and add it to his fried noodles.”

  Nuan laughed as a feeling of lightheartedness suffused her. She laughed even harder at the furious expression Old Man Yok wore. They both turned and went and they were almost gone when Lichi’s voice reached out to them. “Dang might come back here. Be careful Nuan.”

  The two women shared a long glance before Nuan turned and left. The light feeling had gone.

  Part 3 - Reapers Reap

  Chapter 20 - Crushed

  Diaochan climaxed in a hot wave, and when she finished she put her hand against the young man’s face and was about to kiss him but stopped mere inches from his lips.

  Beautiful dark brows embroidered themselves over bright hazel eyes. His skin burnished like gold wherever she lay her hands over it, and his pheromones oozed thick and strong. All of it engineered specifically to cater to Diaochan’s genetic whims, whims she didn’t even know she had. He belonged to the House of High Pleasure, and was one of a thousand pleasurists. All of them male because her father, the Lord of Ten Thousand Suns, liked cocks instead of cunts.

  Diaochan sighed and pushed away the body of the beautiful young man. “You may go.”

  He nodded. “It has been my honor to serv....”

  “Now.”

  He left immediately, taking his perfect young body out of her bedroom. She stared at the sculptured buttocks, the muscular calves that had moments ago wrapped themselves around her. The private door that led to the House of High Pleasure swiveled, he turned before exiting, bowed deeply, and vanished.

  Diaochan felt lonely. She’d been about to kiss him but then she registered the sliver of fear in his eyes.

  She also thought it ridiculous that the ruler of an empire with one hundred billion souls could be lonely. Especially when a movement of her eyebrow would have them scurrying to do her bidding.

  Yet she didn’t want somebody because she bid them, she wanted somebody to come to her of their own free will.

  I want somebody to love me, she thought. And she wondered if she had ever been loved. Had her father, the Lord of Ten Thousand Suns, loved her? Had Zeyar?

  An alert sounded in her ear and she straightened. The floor that led to her throne room irised open and up floated Jingfei.

  “You are free, slave. Yet why do you persist in coming here?” The words left Diaochan’s mouth before she could think.

  “People’s Favor, I came to report on urgent news as we discussed,” said Jingfei. She walked into the room on her three legs and for a moment, her eyes went to the door that Diaochan’s pleasurist exited.

  Diaochan felt a flush of heat go through her face and then a deep sense of shame, guilt, and embarrassment. She frowned at these alien emotions.

  Diaochan wrapped the blanket around her nakedness and strode forward. She frowned at that too. When did she care if her servants saw her naked?

  She sat next to the huge transpasteel bubble glass that looked out over High Beijing. It was the highest point in the Jade Palace. From outside they called it the all-seeing eye.

  “Sit and talk, are you hungry?” asked Diaochan.

  “No thank you.” Jingfei sat on the air seat, her three legs splaying out like flowers.

  “I would see your face when I speak to you Jingfei,” said Diaochan.

  The full-face helmet with its triangular eyes, dome-shaped head, and silverite coloring faded and in its place appeared a young woman’s face.

  For a moment, Diaochan couldn’t speak as she stared at Jingfei’s face. Diaochan was probably the only person who had ever seen the face of a triant. Jingfei had a wide forehead, narrow cheekbones, and small lips. It gave her a serious expression. Jingfei coughed and it pulled Diaochan out of her reverie.

  “What is the news?” Diaochan asked.

  “The two scientists have managed to regrow the Chao-chao plant.”

  Diaochan’s dual hearts heated up and she found herself leaning forward. For some reason, the shape of Jingfei’s lips kept grabbing her attention. “Are you sure?”

  Jingfei nodded.

  “They somehow managed to do it after getting some nonlicensed seeds.”

  Diaochan sat forward. “I must pay these scientists a visit.”

  “We should act quickly,” said Jingfei. “I’ve confirmed that Dang Mao is a member of the Chrysanthemum Striped Tigers.” Her eyes looked down and her hand crossed themselves across her three legs. How young she looks, Diaochan thought. How old were the triants? How had they come into existence? They were all questions she’d never asked and now she felt guilty.

  “Why do you look so troubled?” Diaochan asked.

  Jingfei’s head turned up, her throat shifted as she swallowed. “I have bad tidings, People’s Favor.”

  “What?” For a strange moment, Diaochan thought that Jingfei would depart and leave her service like all the others. “Don’t leave me.” Her entire chest tightened as she said those words, and then after, it felt like a released burden.

  Jingfei’s lips trembled. Her forehead creased in confusion and then she sat up straighter. “It is the Ten Divine Dragons. Four of them have sold their allegiance to the Chrysanthemum Striped Tigers. Kaloni, Bopha, Itoku, and Chaeyeon. Even now, they plot against you. And your life is in danger. You shouldn’t have set the triants free.”

  “Four?” The word croaked out of Diaochan’s dry mouth. Her head pounded, and the blanket fell pooling against her thighs as she gripped at the seat’s armrests. The anger made the world shimmer before her eyes. She took several deep breaths.

  “They will regret their betrayal,” Diaochan said. Four of the most powerful rulers of the empire who reported directly to her...who had reported directly to her father. How long had they been wearing two faces?

  “I left dealing with the Chrysanthemum Striped Tigers for too long,” Diaochan said.

  “The Chrysanthemum Striped Tigers have an underground base,” said Jingfei.

  “Really? Where is their base?” She couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.

  “Beneath Xinjiang village. I don’t think the villagers even know about it. I followed Dang Mao when he visited Xinjiang after he arrived at Urumqi.”

  Diaochan took a deep breath. She had access to the entire China People’s Empire neuralnet, her own private darknet, and countless eyes and ears strewn throughout the planet and even in space, and yet none of those sources could find this information for her.

  Diaochan said, “I want to recover the Chao-chao first, and that means getting the two scientists. The Chrysanthemum Striped Tigers will be after them too, no doubt. Those two scientists invented the triants, the dragonfly, the mantis, and a thousand other inventions used throughout the empire.” A trillion pathways and permutations flared to life within Diaochan’s synoptic nerves. But one thought was brighter than the others. She reached out and took Jingfei’s hands and pulled her up.

  “I have one triant left and you did all of this?”

  “It is because I am free that I’ve done all this, Diaochan,” said the triant.

  The People’s Favor stilled. It was the first time that Jingfei had ever called her by her name.

  “Do you mind staying?” said Diaochan, gently cupping the triant’s jaws. And gently, softly, she placed a kiss on Jingfei’s lips.

  Jingfei returned the kiss. The scent of her like fresh mech l
ube in Diaochan’s nostrils, the feel of her smooth cheek so unlike a human’s.

  “Just for tonight,” said Diaochan.

  They just held close to one another that night. And then after, when it came time for Diaochan to act, she entrusted the mission to the person she trusted the most: Jingfei.

  As Jingfei left, Diaochan felt as if somebody had taken out her dual hearts and embodied them into a person…and that person stepped out of the royal bedroom and walked out to face the terrors of the night.

  Chapter 21 - Death

  The line wound between the stalls of the night market for almost half a klom. “Organic vegetables for sale,” ran the advertisement on the Southeast Urumqi localnet. It had the picture of a young girl, Lizhang, holding a baby bok choy with glossy leaves. She smiled as she held it up. Above the girl, the semicircular script read, “Organic Vegetables from the Famous Water Spinach Inn” and below the girl read, “Stall No. 108, Urumqi Night Market. First ten customers get two vegetables for free!” Below that, a list of fresh produce that would be for sale.

  The customers in the long line talked about the bargain-priced vegetables; some argued that they had to be fake, others thought a rich donor in disguise donated the vegetables. The advertisement said the most expensive vegetable would only cost fifty cc-chips. Most vegetables from the uber-markets started at five hundred cc-chips and they weren’t even organic. Buyers needed a license that would activate the vegetables so they would become edible. Otherwise, they remained in a carbonized state. The costly licensing enforced by the Ministry of Science and Technology were not for the poor who lived in Southeast Urumqi. The poor folk of Southeast Urumqi subsisted on soyalite blocks shoved into food-printers and processed with cheap coloring and even faker tasting that did more to alter smell than actual taste.

  “Throw your soyalite blocks into the recyclers! Throw your food-printers too!” Wenqi shouted at the customers, his phantom limbs waving at the long line of buyers that queued outside their stall called, “Nuan’s Remarkable Gift” because without her they wouldn’t have been able to afford it. Wenqi resolved to show her his full appreciation.

  Hazou stood next to him and bellowed, “Fresh organic vegetables. The real deal. Don’t support Chino-Santo gunk. Buy here, feel rejuvenated. Fresh bok choy, crispy choy sum. Just add some sesame oil and soy sauce. Yummy! Yummy!”

  Lady Lee stood at the portable iCash counter and smiled as she deposited a bunch of cc-chips into the machine.

  “Lady Lee,” said Hazou, his fingers gently feeling the boxes that lay in front of them and below the stall’s table. “We’ve got a hundred vegetables left. Wenqi, you said we had a long line. How many people?”

  Wenqi looked around and tried to count. “I don’t know, well over a hundred, maybe two hundred. I can’t see as it keeps winding around the other stalls.”

  “Lady Lee, how many vegetables per buyer?” Hazou asked.

  “I’ve only been giving out a maximum of two per buyer,” she said. “Some of them were cheeky and they used their family members.”

  Wenqi smiled and clasped his hands—or his phantom limbs felt like they did—and he gently nudged Hazou. “We’ve done so well, this is unbelievable. If we keep this up we could raise our prices.”

  Hazou put his hands around Lady Lee and Wenqi. “I’m proud of both of you. We did it. But we’ll have to call the final sale. We should probably tell those customers who won’t make it to come back another time.”

  “That’s great customer service,” said Lady Lee. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been in a line and they’ve run out of whatever I was queuing up for!”

  “No, I’ll go. You and Hazou serve the last few customers and I’ll tell those customers lining up.” Wenqi eased himself out of the stall and shouted, “Last sale is only for the remaining fifty people.” He kept following the line of people and couldn’t believe how long it was. Most of the buyers took the news good heartedly; a few cursed him and told him they would go to his competition. He wanted to laugh at that because as far as they knew, they didn’t have competition.

  By the time Wenqi made his way back to the stall, all the customers had left. It was getting late. The dark night didn’t even show the crescent of a moon. All the stalls surrounding them closed, except for one where a woman wrestled with a hose that spat industrial-grade soap-sand at her stall. Several mopbots moved around her stall’s walls like scuttling jellyfish.

  Lady Lee stood at the iCash machine and typed on the holopad. The projection burst to golden lights in front of them showing a mountain of cc-chips. It was about three thousand.

  “Oh my, these cc-chips have piled up like beautiful, golden buns in our container,” said Wenqi. “Hazou, feel it all.”

  Hazou put his hand through the hologram that showed a small mountain made of golden coins. It sent force feedback into his palms making it feel as if his hands were going through a mound of money.

  Wenqi turned around suddenly as the skin on his back crawled.

  The dark pockets of the night market proliferated like pimples. The figure melted out of the air between the pockets of dark as if it had always been there. It trod out into night air and shook its shaggy mane. The blue mothbot screen sparked when the huge creature trod underneath it. It roared suddenly causing Hazou and Lady Lee to stop mid-sentence.

  “What is that?” Hazou stammered.

  “Looks like something from a nightmare,” shouted Wenqi. “Let’s go now.”

  “Why?” asked Hazou.

  “It’s running right at us.” Wenqi stepped away, trying to get to the gap between the stalls so he could ease himself out.

  Lady Lee grabbed Hazou and pulled him after Wenqi. The three of them shuffled through the narrow gap as the ground shook underneath their feet.

  A massive crash followed and their entire stall collapsed outward. The roof flipped into the air careening into the mothbot screen and slamming it into the ground where it burst and caught fire against another stall.

  The huge creature stood before them now. Nothing separated them from the huge claws that made a hissing noise as they emerged from the creature’s paws.

  It stood at least ten feet high. Its body furred with orange and dark stripes. Its nostrils wedge-shaped and jutted out. But it was the eyes that scared Wenqi. Human eyes stared at him from the face of a beast.

  “What are you?” asked Wenqi.

  “Death,” said the creature, and then it pounced.

  She appeared in between the gaps of marked time. A blur of movement almost like a miniature air-tinge whirlwind that cut through the debris that once had been their stall and caught the creature mid-air. She held the creature, and Wenqi could feel its breath hot and fetid as she flung the creature into the air. The creature flew across the rooftops of the stalls and then careened into the middle of the market where all the iCash machines sat filling the air with tinkling sounds.

  “Go home now,” said the woman.

  Wenqi blinked his eyes. For a moment, he couldn’t understand what he witnessed. Is it really her? Is it? No, it can’t be.

  She put out her hand and grasped his. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  The woman blinked and then she was gone. She now crouched behind one of the stalls. He thought he caught her smile at him in the dark and then she blinked.

  “Is that...” Lady Lee trailed.

  “The People’s Favor herself,” said Wenqi, and then a deep, worrying feeling surged through his bones. Nuan, little Lizhang, and Old Man Yok were at home.

  “Hurry we have to get home. We’ll take the aero-taxi there,” said Wenqi.

  Lady Lee pulled Hazou along. The other scientist kept spluttering, “What’s going on?” And all Wenqi could do was shiver at the foreboding that coursed through him over and over again.

  Nuan was in danger.

  Chapter 22 - Monster

  The sky over Urumqi roiled with an air-tinge storm. Birds fell to the ground, thei
r bodies covered in burns. The rust-colored clouds twisted apart like torn ligaments revealing darker shades within. Dark orange lightning slashed through the clouds and soon the droplets drummed onto the ground below. The weather brought a tempest that spewed air-tinge around the streets, through the gaps in the windows, and down the grilles that covered the sewage system. Air-tinge sirens flared to life around Urumqi and citizens rushed to take cover.

  The Water Spinach Inn's roof slumped like a wide-brimmed hat over an old person. Its gutters gushed out murky water that splattered against the roof tiles of the lower levels.

  The building’s levels actually went smaller as it went higher. On the roof, a large antenna grew out the corner of like a mushroom growth. Next to it, an oblong honeycomb filtration system caked in dirt pointed itself in the air like a balloon.

  Dang Mao stood on the roof of the Water Spinach Inn and watched the falling rain and roiling air-tinge without a flicker of concern. Before the xu-tiger serum and subsequent transformation, he would’ve been a weak human. Now the acid rain that hissed and burned against terraconium roof tiles didn’t even register against his fur. Somehow, the fur repelled the bio-infested acidic water.

  His throat rumbled a low growl and his footsteps thumped against the roof. His thick, clawed hands crushed the oblong filtration system. It burst apart showering its honeycomb ribs against the tiles and revealing the ancient enviro-net that hadn’t been cleaned or replaced. He growled. Eventually the people inside the inn wouldn’t be able to breathe clean air.

  A large dome about a meter wide and half-a-meter high sat in the middle of the roof. A latticework of ironridge stretched within the transpasteel glass like veins. Bolts the size of Dang’s palm bit into the perimeter of the dome where thick elastoplast made an airtight suction against the roof.

  Dang eye’s greedily drank in the urban farm that stared back at him. A verdant array of dwarf plants ensconced themselves in five-by-five blades that fanned out from a central pole. The blades rotated slowly to allow sunlight to reach all the plants. The one plant that he sought: it sat away from the others, distinctive because of its octagonal leaves. A growing sapling of the Chao-chao plant!