by Cixin Liu
Of all that had transpired, Mr. Smoothbore was most shocked by the looks on their faces at this very moment; their expressions of gratitude seemed genuine.
They drove off, leaving the newly-born millionaire in the rearview mirror. Not far down the avenue the truck turned a corner and stopped again. Down the road, Mr. Smoothbore could see a group of three migrant day-laborers looking for work. Each of the men was holding a small, triangular spatula. One also held a small cardboard sign which read “Scrapers”. As soon as the truck stopped, the three ran toward the vehicle wanting to know, “You have work for us, Boss?”
Mr. Zhu shook his head. “No. Has business been good?”
“What business? Nowadays, they all use the new spray-on coating that heats when powered. They have no need for scrapers,” came the reply.
“Where do you come from?” Mr. Zhu asked the three.
“Henan,” one of them answered.
“From a village? Is it an impoverished village? How many households are there?” Zhu rattled off the questions.
“It's in the mountains; fifty families. How could we not be poor? If the rain doesn't fall, believe it or not, Boss, we irrigate by kettle, pouring water on each and every seedling,” one of the migrant workers replied.
“That's hardly farming.” Mr. Zhu shook his head and then asked. “Do you have a bank account?”
All three shook their heads.
“So you are also forced to make do with cash. You are bearing quite the burden,” Mr. Zhu again shook his head. “Take a dozen cases or so from the truck.”
“A dozen?” It was the scrapers' only question as they took the cases from the bed of the vehicle and began stacking them on the side of the road. None of them had paid much heed to anything Mr. Zhu had said and they had certainly not stopped to give it thought.
“Twelve, fifteen, it does not really matter; just take them,” Mr. Zhu instructed.
Very soon, 15 cases had been piled up. Mr. Zhu pointed at the stack and said, “Each of these cases contains one million yuan. So fifteen million, all in all. Go back to your home and distribute it among your village.”
One of the migrant workers smiled at Mr. Zhu, clearly appreciating his sense of humor. Another squatted next to the cases, opening one of them. Together with the other two he checked what was inside. Immediately their expression distorted, mirroring that of the homeless man's face a few minutes ago.
“They are quite heavy,” Ms. Xu noted. “Go hire a car and return to Henan. If one among you can drive, buy one. It will be more convenient.”
The three were struck dumb, staring at the two magnates, unsure whether they were facing angels or demons. Habit and instinct took over and one of the workers all but repeated the question the bum had just asked them: “What do you want us to do?”
The answer was also repeated: “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?”
The three previously poor nodded.
“Thank you”, “Thank you,” the two super-rich again replied in genuine gratitude, bowing before them. Then they got back into the truck, leaving the three flabbergasted migrants and their stack of cases in the rearview mirror.
“You must be wondering if they will keep all the money for themselves,” Mr. Zhu said as he drove. “At first they probably will, but they will quickly spread the surplus of money among the poor, like we just did.”
Mr. Smoothbore remained quiet. Faced with this bizarre bout of madness, he felt that silence was his best option. All his faculties were focused on one realization burning bright in his mind: The world was about to change.
“Stop the car!” Ms. Xu suddenly shouted. As the truck stopped, she called out the window “Kid, come here!”
She was addressing a small, dirty child scrounging for cans and cola bottles next to a trash can. The child came running, but not before he had slung his bag of bottles and cans over his back. He was obviously quite unwilling to let them out of his sight for even a moment.
“Take a case from the back of the truck,” Ms. Xu instructed. The child did as he had been told. “Open it and have a look.” The child did. He was shocked, but far less so than the adults. “What is it?” Ms. Xu asked.
“Money.” The child raised his head, looking straight at her.
“One million yuan. Take it to your parents,” she continued.
“So it's a real thing? What they're always talking about?” He blinked in surprise and turned his head to all the cases remaining on the back of the truck.
“What do you mean?” Ms. Xu asked in turn.
“Handing out money,” the boy answered. “They said people are handing out money everywhere. Throwing it out like trash.”
“Just agree to one condition.” Ms. Xu cut to the chase. “The aliens are about to arrive; if they ask you, you will truthfully tell them how much money you have, right? That is all we ask. Can you promise to do that?”
“Sure!” the child called out.
“Take the money back to your family, child. Soon all poverty will come to an end,” Mr. Zhu told the boy, starting the truck.
“And so will wealth,” Ms. Xu noted, somberly.
“Focus! The situation may be miserable as is, but it is still our duty to prevent it from getting worse,” Mr. Zhu stated flatly as he drove on.
“Are you really trying to tell me that you two actually take this little game of yours seriously?” Mr. Smoothbore could hardly believe he was asking the question.
Mr. Zhu abruptly hit the brakes. His hands left the wheel as he gesticulated with sudden fervor. “Of course! Of course it is serious! Do you really want to live in poverty like them from now on? Do you really want to be homeless and starving?”
“I am not even all that interested in whether I live or die,” Mr. Smoothbore replied with a shrug.
“The call of duty will keep you going. It is what sustains me in these dark days; the duty imposed upon us by our wealth,” Mr. Zhu replied, still agitated. “And as to our wealth: It is not stolen and not plundered. Every last cent we earned in fair competition! It is our wealth that makes social progress possible. Society should thank us!”
“Tell our Elders that.” With that, Mr. Zhu got out of the truck and heaved a great sigh toward the sky above.
“You can see,” Mr. Zhu said as he turned to Mr. Smoothbore who had followed him, “we are no psychopaths, murdering the poor; quite to the contrary. You have witnessed what we do. We are spreading our wealth among the poorest. In this city, in many other cities and in hotspots of poverty all across our nation, all the personnel of our companies are doing the same things we are. They are pooling every resource our conglomerates have at their disposal – billions of checks, credit cards, bankbooks, and trucks upon trucks full of hard cash – all to eliminate poverty.”
At that moment, Mr. Smoothbore noticed the sky above. The long string of silvery stars stretched from horizon to horizon, while the main body of our Elders' ship was nowhere to be seen. It had completely disintegrated. More than a thousand spaceships now formed a halo of silver stars encircling the entire globe.
“The Earth has been surrounded,” Mr. Zhu noted. “Each of those stars is as big as one of our aircraft carriers and each alone has enough firepower to destroy the entire planet.”
“Last night, they destroyed Australia,” Ms. Xu added.
“Destroyed? Destroyed how?” Mr. Smoothbore asked, staring at the sky.
“An energy beam shot from the sky, sweeping the entire continent. It passed right through all structures, even bunkers. Humans and all larger mammals died within the hour, while insects and plants remained unharmed. Everything else remained utterly untouched; not even the porcelain in the shop windows had as much as a crack,” Ms. Xu explained.
Mr. Smoothbore glanced at Ms. Xu out of the corner of one eye and then turned back to the sky. It certainly shocked him, but he was far more capable than
most when dealing with dread and terror.
“It was a display of power. They chose Australia because it was the first to unequivocally reject their reservation plan,” Mr. Zhu further elaborated.
“What plan?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.
“The plan they had all along. The Elders that came to our Solar System are fleeing from some sort of famine. Because they cannot continue living on the First Earth, we will lose our homelands; that is what they told us, even though they did not reveal what really happened to them. They want to occupy our Fourth Earth, claiming it as their colony. And as for Earth's people, we will be relocated to a reservation. Australia was selected as this reservation. All other territories on Earth will belong to our Elders.” Mr. Zhu paused. “All of this will be announced in today's evening news.”
“Australia? A giant island in the middle of the ocean…how fitting. Australia's outback is a giant desert. If they squeeze all five-billion-plus of us in there we will all be starving sooner rather than later,” Mr. Smoothbore noted dryly.
“Things will not be that catastrophic. Humanity's agriculture and industry will cease in the Australian reservation. There will be no need to engage in production to subsist,” Mr. Zhu replied.
“What will we live off?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.
“Our Elders will care and provide for us. All that humanity needs to survive will be supplied by our Elders in perpetuity, and what they supply, they will evenly distribute among us. Every person will receive the same. The future of humanity is a society in which every last trace of the gap between the rich and the poor has been erased,” Mr. Zhu explained concisely.
“And how much will all of us receive?” Mr. Smoothbore inquired.
“You have grasped the key issue at hand: According to their reservation plan, our Elders will conduct a comprehensive survey of human societies. The purpose of this investigation is to determine humanity's current minimum standard of living. Our Elders will allocate every person with the resources necessary to maintain that standard.”
Mr. Smoothbore's head sunk as he pondered what he had been told. Suddenly he laughed. “Ah, I sort of get it now. At least some of this great big mess makes sense now.”
“You understand what humanity is faced with,” Mr. Zhu stated.
“In fact, our Elders’ plan is very fair for humanity,” Mr. Smoothbore replied just as dryly.
“What? You actually think this is fair? You are…!” Ms. Xu was almost shouting in her frustration.
“Actually, he is right. It is very fair,” Mr. Zhu calmly agreed. “If there was no gap between rich and poor, no difference between the highest and lowest living standards, the reservation could be a paradise for humanity.”
“But as things are ...” Mr. Smoothbore nodded.
“What we are doing now is very simple: We are rapidly spanning the chasm between rich and poor before our Elders' survey commences!” Mr. Zhu declared before he could finish his thought.
“So that is what you call the liquidation of wealth?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.
“Indeed,” Mr. Zhu immediately replied. “Currently the world's wealth is a solid. This solid has its peaks and valleys; just like the buildings on this road, just like the mountains and valleys. But if we liquefy all of it, it will become an ocean; and this ocean's surface will be uniformly smooth and level.”
“But what you are doing right now can only lead to chaos,” Mr. Smoothbore noted.
“True.” Mr. Zhu was unperturbed. “What we are doing is merely a gesture, a display of goodwill from the wealthy. The true liquidation of wealth will soon commence on a global scale in a joint effort of national governments and the United Nations. A great campaign to eliminate poverty is about to begin. The developed nations will pour their wealth across the developing world; the rich will throw their money amongst the poor. That will be the real effort.”
“But things cannot be as simple as all that,” Mr. Smoothbore said with a grim smile.
“What do you mean? You bastard...” Ms. Xu snarled through clenched teeth as she thrust her finger at Mr. Smoothbore's nose.
Mr. Zhu immediately interceded. “He is smart. He figured it out.”
“Yes. I have figured it out. Some of the poor do not want your money.” Mr. Smoothbore was calm, almost content.
Glancing at Mr. Smoothbore, Ms. Xu silently lowered her head. Mr. Zhu nodded. “Right. Some among them do not want our money. Can you imagine? They scrounge for food in the trash, but refuse a million yuan.” He grimaced. “Just imagine.”
“But those people must certainly be a tiny minority,” Mr. Smoothbore pointed out.
“Certainly, but as long as the poor make up even one out every one-hundred-thousand they will be enough to form a social stratum according to the advanced survey methods that our Elders will employ,” Mr. Zhu replied. “Their standard of living would be identified as humanity's minimum and thereby determine the level which our Elders supply to the reservation.” He paused. “Do you understand? Just one-tenth of a basis point!”
“So, do you know how many you are currently dealing with?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.
“About one out of every thousand, a hundred times too many,” Mr. Zhu answered.
“The damned, petulant, stubborn miscreants!” Ms. Xu cursed toward the skies.
“The marks you contracted me to kill are some of those people.” As things stood, Mr. Smoothbore had no interest in using the terms of his trade.
Mr. Zhu just nodded.
Mr. Smoothbore's face distorted into a bizarre grimace as he suddenly laughed toward heaven. “Ha, ha, ha!” He could barely contain himself. “I am actually helping humanity?!”
“You are helping humanity. You are saving all of human civilization,” Mr. Zhu agreed flatly.
“As a matter of fact, all you would really need to do is threaten to kill them. Then they would take the money,” Mr. Smoothbore mused.
“That is not certain enough!” Ms. Xu whispered harshly as she leaned toward him. “They are all depraved sociopaths, twisted by their class envy. Even if we give them money, they will claim to be penniless when our Elders come to survey them. We have no choice but to rid the Earth of these people as soon as possible.”
“I understand.” Mr. Smoothbore nodded.
“So, what are you planning to do? We have done what you asked and explained our reasons. Of course, money will be meaningless soon and you certainly have no interest in helping humanity,” Ms. Xu said. There was only a slight hint of a question in her statement.
“Money has long lost its importance to me. And I have not really thought about the other thing,” Mr. Smoothbore said with a shrug, “but I will carry out my contract. I will do it before midnight, today. Please prepare to confirm its completion.” As he finished, he stepped out of the truck and began to walk away.
“I have one question,” Mr. Zhu called out after him. “It may be rude, so do not answer if you do not want to. But if you were poor, would you take our money?”
“I am not poor.” Mr. Smoothbore did not turn back and continued to walk. But after a few steps he did stop. He slowly turned around and he fixed the two of them with a hawkish glare. “But if I was, no, I would not take it.”
Then, Mr. Smoothbore strode away.
“Why won't you take their money?” Mr. Smoothbore asked his first mark. The homeless man he had last found on Blossom Plaza was now camping out in the grove of a nearby park. The grove was doubly illuminated: From above, the faint blue light of the ring of spaceships shone through the canopy, casting dappled shadows on the soil. From the city beyond, ever-shifting and changing colors slanted through the trees. The metropolis' multicolored lights seemed to tremble, as if in fear of the alien, blue glow.
The bum offered him a cheeky grin. “They begged me. So many rich folks came a' begging to me. A woman even cried! Even if I wanted their money, they could not just beg me to take it. Rich folks begging me… How cool is that?”
“Yes, very cool,” Mr. Smoo
thbore said, pulling the trigger of his snub-nose.
The bum was a hardened thief and it had taken him no more than a glance to notice that the man walking into the park had been clutching something under his coat. Having caught his interest, the homeless man had been watching whatever it was carefully. Now it suddenly flashed beneath the coat, like the eye of some strange creature, winking at him. Then he fell into eternal darkness.
It was an instant cooling processing; the rapidly tumbling bullet severed almost everything above his work's brow. The gunshot had been muffled by Mr. Smoothbore's clothes. No one had noticed.
Back on the landfill. Today, Mr. Smoothbore found only one scavenger scrounging through the trash; the others had obviously all taken the money.
Under the light of the blue ring of stars, Mr. Smoothbore climbed up the warm and squishy trash toward his mark. Before coming to this point he had reminded himself a hundred times that that woman was not his Pumpkin. Now, there was no need to remind himself again. His blood was forever frozen. The flickering flames of youth would not warm it. The scavenger paid his arrival no heed and so Mr. Smoothbore simply pulled the trigger. Here on the landfill there was no need to suppress his weapon. Freed, the snub-nose's shot rang loud and clear as the flash of its muzzle lit the landfill like a blast of lightning. The range gave the bullet the time to sing as it spun through the air. It whimpered and screamed, like a thousand wailing ghosts.
It was another instant cooling. The projectile spun like the blade of a blender, in an instant tearing his mark's heart to tiny pieces. The scavenger was dead before she ever hit the ground. And as she did, her form became one with the garbage, vanishing. Even the spraying blood, a last testament to her existence, was instantly swallowed by trash.
Just then, Mr. Smoothbore became aware of a presence behind him. Abruptly spinning on the spot, he came face to face with the painter. The vagrant's long hair was fluttering in the night breeze, dancing like blue flames under the light of the star ring.
“They had you kill her?” the painter asked.
“I am merely fulfilling a contract. Did you know her?” came Mr. Smoothbore's reply.