by Cixin Liu
After the others had left, Mr. Smoothbore solemnly addressed his Honored Brother Crosscut. “I grew up by your side. In my heart of hearts you are more than my honorary elder brother; you are my true father. If you now tell me to work in the profession I have learned, I will do it. Just say the word.”
Crosscut affectionately clasped Mr. Smoothbore's shoulders. “If you want to, go and do it. I can see that you enjoy it and I am sure whatever road you may take, you will have a bright future ahead of you. It does not matter if you stay in the underbelly or become a respectable criminal. I am sure you will make something of yourself.”
“Thank you, I understand,” Mr. Smoothbore replied.
As soon as the last word had left his mouth, he drew his gun and pointed it straight at the belly of the Honored Brother Crosscut. The twisting bullet cut into the stomach at just the right angle, ripping a gaping wound. Leaving the body through the exit wound, it spun its way into the floorboard.
The Honored Brother Crosscut stared at Mr. Smoothbore through the mist beginning to cloud his vision. Shock flashed across his dying eyes, but it was soon followed by the fading light of understanding. Then, dull emptiness. The Honored Brother Crosscut smiled at Mr. Smoothbore, nodding his head in weird jerks. “You have made your way, my boy.”
Blood frothed from the mouth of the Honored Brother Crosscut as he spoke his final words. Then he gently slid to the ground.
The contract Mr. Smoothbore had accepted was for an hour-long, delayed cooling, but without a recording. The client trusted him.
Mr. Smoothbore poured himself a drink as he calmly watched the blood pool around the Honored Brother Crosscut. The dying man on the ground was sluggishly gathering his spilling intestines. No sooner had he pushed them back into his body, than his guts gushed forth again. In slow motion The Honored Brother once again began to gather them up…
He repeated this Sisyphus labor 12 times before he drew his last breath. That was exactly one hour after the gunshot.
Mr. Smoothbore had told the Honored Brother Crosscut the truth when he told him that he was like a father to him. When he was five one rainy night, his father had lost yet another bet and had attempted to make his mother hand over to him every last yuan of their savings. When his mother had resisted, he had beaten her to death. And when the not-yet Mr. Smoothbore had tried to throw himself in front of his mother, his father had broken his nose and an arm as well. After that his father had disappeared into the dark and the rain. Later, Mr. Smoothbore had searched far and wide, looking for his father, but without any luck. Had he found him, he would have enjoyed the slow cooling his father had coming for so long.
After the killing, Mr. Smoothbore heard that Mr. K had transferred his entire salary to the Honored Brother Crosscut's family and returned to Russia. Before leaving, he had said that as he sent Mr. Smoothbore abroad that day, he had known that Crosscut might die at his hands. The Honored Brother Crosscut had lived his life on the razor's edge, but he had never really understood what made a true hit-man.
All the scavengers but one had left the landfill. The one remaining was his mark. She was all but buried in trash, digging ever deeper as she scavenged. He had seen that she lacked strength, leaving her unable to win a good spot when the dump trucks came. The only way she could make up for it was with persistence and hard work. Her long hours made Mr. Smoothbore's vigil at the exit wholly unnecessary. Concealing the snub-nose revolver in his jacket, he left the car and made his way straight toward the landfill and his mark. The garbage gave way under his feet, embracing his shoes in its tepid warmth. It felt as if he was climbing the body of some giant creature. As soon as he was within a dozen feet of his target, he retrieved his weapon.
Just then, the blue light again shot out from the East. Our Elder's spaceship had completed a full orbit and arrived in the Southern Hemisphere, still emitting its powerful glow. The sudden rise of the blue sun drew the gaze of the two standing on the mountain of waste. They stared at the strange star for a moment, then their eyes met. As gazes crossed, something occurred that absolutely should never happen to a professional hit-man: Mr. Smoothbore's gun almost slipped from his hand. The shock had all but forced the weapon from his mind and hand; all he could do was keep himself from crying out: Pumpkin…
But Mr. Smoothbore knew that she was not “Pumpkin”. Fourteen years ago, Pumpkin had died in agony before his eyes. Even so, she continued to live in his heart and there she had grown into a young woman. He often saw her in his dreams, already an auntie. The Pumpkin of his dreams looked just like the young woman he saw before him now.
Some years ago the Honored Brother Crosscut had been engaged in an unmentionable trade: He had bought disabled children from the hands of human traffickers, putting them to work as beggars in the city. At the time, the world's compassion had not yet succumbed to fatigue and so the children had reaped a sizable income for Crosscut, greatly aiding in the accumulation of his starting capital.
One time, Mr. Smoothbore had followed the Honored Brother Crosscut as he went to buy a new batch of disabled children from the traffickers. They went to an old warehouse holding five children. Four of them clearly suffered congenital deformities, but one among them seemed like a normal little girl.
That girl was Pumpkin and she was six-years-old. Pumpkin had large, radiant eyes and looked adorable, a stark contrast to the deformed children around her. She was looking at Mr. Smoothbore with those big eyes that he knew would soon be filled with heartbreak; they would be filled with heartbreak right at that moment if she had known the fate that awaited her.
“That's them,” the trafficker said, pointing at the four deformed children.
“Didn't you say there would be five?” Crosscut asked.
“The container was a bit packed; one of them didn't make it,” the trafficker advised.
“What about that one?” Crosscut had pointed at Pumpkin.
“She's not for sale,” the trafficker said, shaking his head.
“I want her. I'll buy her at the price of the others.” The Honored Brother Crosscut was clearly not in a bargaining mood.
“OK.” The trafficker hesitated. “But she is in fine shape; how are you going to make money with her?”
“You stupid punk, we'll do this. No more games.” Crosscut would not be denied.
As he spoke, Crosscut freed the saw from his waist and cut a large, gaping wound into the little girl's tiny leg. As the saw split the leg open, blood spilled forth, along with Pumpkin's screams.
“Bind it up and stop the bleeding, but don't give her any antibiotics. We want it to fester,” the Honored Brother Crosscut told Mr. Smoothbore.
Mr. Smoothbore dressed the girl’s wounds, but the blood oozed through several layers of gauze. As the red liquid flowed, Pumpkin's face drained of color, turning her a deathly shade of pale. With his back to Crosscut, he gave Pumpkin a round of Erythromycin, SMX, and all the other antibiotics he could get his hands on. But it was no use; Pumpkin's wound became inflamed despite his efforts.
Two days later, the Honored Brother Crosscut sent Pumpkin to the streets to beg. Her adorableness coupled with her weakened state made her an instant hit, well beyond anything Crosscut had expected. In one day she made more than 3000 yuan. After a week, Pumpkin had never failed to bring in less than 2000 yuan a day. On one occasion a foreign couple even gave her 400 US dollars.
Despite her vast earnings, Pumpkin was given no more than a single box of spoiled takeout to eat. This was not entirely due to Crosscut miserliness; he also wanted to cultivate a starved pallor on the child. All Mr. Smoothbore could do for Pumpkin was feed her in the middle of the night.
One evening as Mr. Smoothbore was visiting Pumpkin at her begging haunt, the little girl pressed her face to his ear and quietly said, “Brother, my leg doesn't hurt anymore.” She was clearly overjoyed. As Mr. Smoothbore recalled the moment, it was only the second time he cried, the first being when his mother had died. He knew why Pumpkin's legs did not hurt. It did no
t hurt because her nerves had gone necrotic. The entire leg had turned black as Pumpkin ran a high fever that lasted for two days. He simply could no longer heed Crosscut's ban, and he took Pumpkin to the hospital. But it was already too late. The child's blood had been poisoned. The next night she died, consumed by her fever.
From then on, Mr. Smoothbore's blood froze completely and, like Mr. K had said, never warmed again. Killing people became a hobby for him, an addiction as powerful as any drug. He developed a deep liking of smashing the fragile vessel called human and he came to see them all as nothing but brightly adorned containers of red liquid, ready to spill. Watching them cool to the world's temperature – that was their truth to him. The warmth of their red liquid was no more than an illusion.
Without ever becoming aware of it, Mr. Smoothbore had burned the shape of the wound on that little leg into his memory. When he later opened Crosscut's belly, he matched its form perfectly.
The scavenger stood. She slowly walked away, slinging the sack, which seemed so very large compared to her, over her back. Mr. Smoothbore's arrival quite obviously had nothing to do with her departure. It seemed utterly impossible that the arrival of this suited-stranger could in any way be related to her. She had, of course, never bothered to look at what the man was holding in his hand. So she just left. Our Elder's spaceship sunk in the western sky. Mr. Smoothbore remained motionless, standing on waste, surrounded by it. He watched the silhouette disappear in the rapidly fading blue twilight.
Mr. Smoothbore put his pistol back in its holster. He replaced the emptiness it left in his hand with his cell phone. Then he called Zhu Hanyang. “I want to meet with you; there is something I need to ask.”
“Tomorrow at nine. Same location,” Mr. Zhu's answered tersely, almost as if he had been expecting the request.
Entering the Grand Presidential Hall, Mr. Smoothbore discovered the entirety of the Committee for the Liquidation of Wealth gathered there, gazing at him intently.
“Please, ask what you have come to ask,” Mr. Zhu directed, picking up a cigar.
“Why do you want me to kill these three?” Mr. Smoothbore inquired.
“You are breaking with the tenets of your profession,” Mr. Zhu noted without batting an eyelash as he took the head off the cigar.
“Yes, and I will be sure to bear the consequences. But I must understand why, else I cannot do this job,” Mr. Smoothbore replied.
Mr. Zhu lit the guillotined cigar with a long match, nodding slowly. “I am left with little recourse but to conclude that you only direct your work against the wealthy. It would appear that you are no real hit-man, but a mere thug, driven by class envy; a raging psychopath who has killed forty-one in the past three years, staying just one step ahead of a police force pursuing you with all means and measures. Your reputation will tumble down around you.”
“Just call the police then.” Mr. Smoothbore appeared unperturbed.
“Has your past tangled itself into the job?” Ms. Xu asked.
Mr. Smoothbore could not but admire her keen insight. He did not reply, acknowledging her observation with his silence.
“Is it because of the woman?” she accurately continued.
Mr. Smoothbore's silence only deepened; any answer he could have given would have hardly done the circumstances justice.
“Well then,” Mr. Zhu said, leisurely exhaling thick smoke, “this matter is of supreme importance and we will be unable to find a suitable replacement for you on such short notice. Therefore, we will indulge your request and reveal why we have given you this work. It is a truth that will exceed your wildest fantasies. But first we wish to rectify one of your misapprehensions. We are some of wealthiest individuals on the planet, yet we wish to have society's poorest and most vulnerable killed; in your eyes this makes us loathsome monsters.”
“I am not interested in black and white,” Mr. Smoothbore interjected.
“The facts have failed to bear that out. Well, come with us.” Mr. Zhu discarded the barely smoked cigar, turned and walked away.
Mr. Smoothbore left the hotel in the company of the full Committee for the Liquidation of Wealth.
Outside the sky had changed. Every last head on the street strained toward the heavens. Above, our Elder's spaceship was streaking by, low in orbit. Illuminated by rays of the rising sun it shone brightly in the clear blue sky. As the ship passed, it left a trail of countless silvery stars in its wake. These silvery lights stretched to the horizon in regular intervals. Our Elder's ship itself had also changed. It was visibly shortened and looked like its rear had been snapped off, leaving a ragged break. It was from this end that the silvery stars were being released. A while ago, Mr. Smoothbore had learned on the news that our Elder's spaceship was in fact composed of thousands of smaller ships, all linked to one another to form a seamless whole. Now, this mother ship was obviously breaking into an armada.
“Attention!” Mr. Zhu gestured toward the committee, projecting his powerful voice he announced, “As you can all see, the situation is developing and our time may be running out. We must accelerate our work in response. Each group must immediately attend to its liquidation area and continue yesterday's work.”
As he finished, Mr. Zhu and Ms. Xu got in a truck, motioning for Mr. Smoothbore to join them. Only then did Mr. Smoothbore notice the vehicles waiting outside the hotel. They were not the luxury cars of the super-rich, but a long row of Isuzu utility vehicles.
“So we can haul more,” Ms. Xu explained, seeing the confusion in Mr. Smoothbore's expression. It was only the next surprise in a day full of the unexpected when Mr. Smoothbore saw that the truck's bed was completely covered in rows upon rows of neatly stacked black cases.
Another surprise was that there was no driver in the trucks. Instead, Mr. Zhu himself took the wheel and drove the vehicle onto the main road. Soon, the truck turned onto an avenue, slowing considerably. It only took Mr. Smoothbore a few moments to realize that Mr. Zhu was following a pedestrian, keeping the truck at pace. The man on the sidewalk was clearly homeless. These days, it was not always possible to identify the homeless by the state of their clothes, but one could still make them out with the merest glance. This one could easily be distinguished by the plastic bag hanging from his waist. Whatever it contained clanged loudly with every step.
Mr. Smoothbore knew that he was about to learn why he had seen so few homeless and scavengers yesterday, but he could not believe that Mr. Zhu and Ms. Xu would dare to kill the man here. They would probably first lure their target into the truck and then take him somewhere they could get rid of him discreetly. Given their status, there was no need for them to dirty their hands with this work; perhaps they were just setting an example for Mr. Smoothbore. In any case, he had no intention of intervening, but he certainly would not help them either; he only cared about the work he had been contracted to process.
The bum seemed to remain oblivious to the fact that the truck had slowed for him, right up until Ms. Xu called out to him.
“Hello!” Ms. Xu waved out of the truck's window. The bum stopped and turned his head to look at her. His face was coated with the thick layer of apathy common to his people. “Do you have a place to stay?” Ms. Xu asked with a smile.
“In summer I can live anywhere,” the bum answered.
“And in winter?” she queried.
“Hot air ducts. Some toilets are heated,” the bum answered impassively.
“How long have you lived like this?” Ms. Xu continued.
“I don't really remember. Once my land requisition compensation ran out I came to the city. I have been like this ever since,” the bum answered without real interest or emotion.
“Do you want a three-bedroom apartment in the city? A home?” Ms. Xu asked without further ado.
The homeless man stared blankly at the wealthy woman before him. There was no trace of comprehension in his eyes.
“Are you literate?” Ms. Xu asked. After the bum nodded, she pointed ahead. “Look over there ...”
'There' was a huge billboard displaying a luscious and verdant green landscape dotted with cream-colored high-rises. It looked like a magical garden.
“That is a real estate advertisement,” Ms. Xu explained the obvious. The bum turned his head toward the billboard, then back to Ms. Xu. He obviously had no idea what she was getting at. “Good. Now take a case from the bed of my truck,” she instructed.
The bum did as he was told, taking one of the small cases from the back of the truck.
Pointing at the black case, she said, “Inside you will find one million yuan. Use five-hundred-thousand to buy yourself an apartment like the one on the billboard and keep the rest for your daily expenditures. If you don't spend it all, you can do what we do and spread some of it among the poor.”
The bum's gaze remained empty as he disinterestedly held the box. He would not be taken for a fool.
“Open it and see for yourself,” Ms. Xu instructed.
With grime-blackened hands, the homeless man awkwardly fumbled with the case's clasps. As it snapped open, the apathy frozen onto his face shattered, and was replaced by raw shock. His eyes and mouth refroze, gaping in wide disbelief.
“Do you have any form of ID?” Mr. Zhu asked, unmoved.
The bum nodded reflexively as he held the case as far away from his body as his arms would allow. It looked as if he was holding a bomb.
“Deposit it in a bank; it will be more convenient that way,” Mr. Zhu explained.
“What do,” the bum stammered, “w-what do you want me to do?”
“Just agree to one condition: The aliens are about to arrive; if they ask you, tell them how much money you have. That is our sole condition. Can you promise to do this?” Ms. Xu asked.
The bum nodded.
Ms. Xu got out of the truck and bowed deeply to the homeless man. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Zhu concurred from inside the truck.