Vagabonds

by Hao Jingfang

  “Based on our personal experiences, of course. I bet you can tell which ones, too.”

  “That part with Anita I figured is based on her note on the ‘copyright of works authored by the dead,’ right?”

  “Ha! You’re right,” said Anita. “At the time I came up with that idea for fun, but just this week I heard that a representative in the U.S. Congress is bringing up a bill that essentially implements my idea! Had I known this, I would have figured out some way to secure the IP in my idea back then … Ah, I’d be so rich now, and the first holder of an ‘extraterrestrial copyright’ on Earth.”

  “See, we should put that in the play,” said Sorin.

  “Forget it,” said Anita. “Aren’t you tired of it yet? You’ve added so many scenes the last couple days.”

  The happy mood of her friends lifted Luoying’s spirits a little. “What about the part after that? Was that based on what happened to Runge?”

  Anita nodded. “That’s also why the play is called Revolution. Runge was part of a real revolution, and we have to commemorate it.”

  “I don’t know if that was a ‘real’ revolution,” said Luoying. “It was just a bunch of hot-blooded young people with nothing better to do getting together. They didn’t accomplish anything.”

  “What do you think a revolution is?” asked Anita, laughing. “That’s the very definition.”

  Luoying laughed, too, finally feeling her tensed body relaxing.

  “Remind me, when is our performance scheduled for?”

  “On the day of the finals for the Creativity Fair. Just over a month from now.”

  “All right. I should be able to attend all the rehearsals from now on.”

  “Don’t stress out over it,” said Sorin, a spirited smile on his face. “Unlike those competing in the fair, we’re here to have fun. Come only if you want to. Don’t turn it into a chore.”

  Luoying nodded. The relaxed, easy atmosphere of the group made her feel a sense of belonging. Here friends were always laughing or smiling, even when they were voicing their suspicions. This comforted her, pressing her anxieties down to the bottom of the lake that was her heart.

  She knew also what her friends were keeping from their faces, and why. By mocking everything around them—by acting as if they were only having fun—they concealed the desperation of their inner inquiries. They called everything around them into question but didn’t resort to petty rage.

  Feeling at ease in their presence, Luoying busied herself among her friends. She crisscrossed the stage made of abandoned racks, wove lies out of towels, smiled at sadness as she sat on the floor. She looked up and saw that the afternoon sun, shining through the roof, cast a transparent rainbow in the darkened air of the warehouse. Dust motes drifted through the light, as crisp as ice.

  As everyone was getting ready to leave, Anka stopped Luoying. Halfway through the rehearsal, he had disappeared without alerting anyone. While Luoying was still puzzling over this, he reappeared and quietly returned to his place in the chorus. He didn’t explain but simply went on as though nothing had happened. Only at the very end did he call to Luoying.

  “Thanks for connecting me with Pierre yesterday,” he said. “I sent him another message later.”

  “Good. How did the discussion go?”

  “All right. I went to his lab just now to check out his membrane technology. I think I can use it.”

  “Use it … where?”

  “To fix my fighter. Didn’t I tell you that it can’t fly right now? I was thinking that if I could coat the wings with his photoelectric membrane, I might give the engines more power. It’s just an idea for now, though. I need to run trials.”

  “Did Pierre agree to help you?”

  “He did, but we have to figure out how to conduct trials without Fitz finding out. I’m sure he won’t approve of this attempt to get off the ground my own way.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Anka looked into her eyes. “Would you … help me join a team for the Creativity Fair? My squadron won’t allow anyone to participate, but a team in the Creativity Fair has the right to apply to use labs and production facilities, which would be a way to hide what I’ll be doing. I just don’t know if there’s enough time.”

  “In theory, teams can be organized up until the first round of the competition. But … that’s tomorrow.”

  “I know. It’s too difficult.”

  “Let me try,” said Luoying determinedly. “Just let me.”

  “All right,” said Anka. “Thank you.”

  Luoying smiled to show that it was nothing. Of course she wanted to help him. There was nothing in the world she wanted to do more than to help him. She liked seeing him act with purpose, and his dedication to his task reassured her.

  “How do you plan on running the trials?”

  “First, I have to assemble the modified wings, and then conduct the test flights.”

  “Don’t run unnecessary risks. I don’t want you to hurt yourself!”

  “Don’t worry.” Anka grinned. “But only risky things are worth doing.”

  Anka’s voice echoed in the empty warehouse. Most had already left, carrying boxes of props and costumes. The two of them were the last two to go. As they exited, Luoying gently pushed closed the heavy warehouse door. The clang of iron striking iron reverberated in their hearts.

  * * *

  The next morning the Russell District qualifying competition for the Creativity Fair was held at the district’s children’s hall.

  This was the favorite haunt of all the neighborhood children. Everyone, regardless of whether they were participating in the competition, was excited. First thing in the morning, youths from all over the neighborhood filled the building like a surging flood. Though individual neighborhoods were small, each contained at least several hundred young residents of the right age for the fair; and as the teams spread apart to take their places, soon the space felt like a bustling market.

  The competition site hadn’t been completely made over for the occasion. No stages were erected, nor was any of the regular equipment removed. But all the desks and chairs had been painted with images from classical myths, colorful flags hung everywhere, and posters publicizing the various teams’ projects scrolled across the walls.

  The children’s hall was the neighborhood’s integrated learning center, furnished with all kinds of educational equipment: musical instruments, painting supplies, electrical and optical apparatuses, and so on. The tables and chairs made natural display pedestals for the products of the competing teams, and all that had to be done was to remove the pens and papers that normally littered their surfaces. Some of the teams had been working since dawn, and all kinds of machines, sculptures, art installations, and so on rested on the tables like soldiers standing at attention for a parade.

  Among the crowd of spectators was Luoying, who experienced a nostalgic sense of familiarity. She had left Mars when she was too young to have attended many elective classes or worked in an atelier; therefore, most of her memories were from the children’s hall. As she looked around, fragments of those memories seemed to be floating in the air. Next to the wall were snatches of the cowherd’s ditty she had sung; on the shelves were traces of her fingers’ explorations; on the desks were blotches of paint she had carelessly spilled; in the air were faded tinges of her colorful dresses. She saw herself, a much more innocent version of herself. She had spent most of her waking days between the ages of five and thirteen here. As her gaze passed over the walls and desks and other objects, the memories awakened, like dehydrated vegetables uncurling and growing vibrant again when immersed in water.

  Several teachers walked about the hall—the judges for the qualifying round. A group of kids followed them around like the layers of fabric dragged behind noble ladies of yore. The opinions of the judges made up a large part of the final score, and so every competing team was prepared to give their teachers a most compelling introduction of their projects within the sho
rtest amount of time.

  “Lomar Néas, the great fashion designer of the twenty-first century, borrowed from modern dance and tried to define clothing as the relationship between the human body and space. Our design is intended to extend this concept …”

  Gielle was speaking animatedly, her hands gesturing for emphasis. She had worked on this speech for a whole week, and stayed up late last night to practice the delivery.

  “… Most people think of clothing as a means of staying warm or mere decoration, feeling alienated and estranged from nature and space. But we all know that the spiritual goal of every person is to break through the bonds of conventional thinking, to constantly innovate. We made this armor for this very purpose. By turning sunlight into electricity, not only is it a suitable material for space suits and mining suits, but it brings about a novel conceptual framework: our body doesn’t have to hide from nature; it can embrace nature, appropriate nature …”

  Gielle beamed sweetly at the teachers. She spoke with confidence and natural grace, the effort of a whole night’s practice paying off. From time to time she glanced at Luoying in the crowd, who nodded back at her encouragingly. Next to her, Daniel was in a pale blue suit of armor, styled more for comic effect than practicality. As Gielle talked, he puffed out his chest and lifted his head, shifting into various poses copied from classical Greek statues.

  Watching Gielle, Luoying was reminded of the old house on Earth in which she had lived for more than a year and that she shared with a group of heretics. After so much time in the company of Gielle, she discovered the other girl had a habit of using “innovation” to describe everything. It was as though her life was replete with new ideas, new concepts, new passions, just like Luoying’s old housemates’.

  They had also prized innovation. They pursued novel additions to a hedonistic life; members of the avant-garde, they wore strange clothes and experimented with new drugs, disdaining the tired old metropolises in their search for a completely different way of life. Luoying had partied with them and joined them in occupying the estates of the wealthy. They wove flowers and herbs into their clothes, disassembled the escalators of skyscrapers to be repurposed as slides for their old house. Gielle spoke of innovations, as did her old housemates on Earth, but neither group could have imagined the life of the other.

  Among her old housemates was an Australian man whom everyone called Kangaroo. He was a kind, bald, middle-aged man and also the friend she had known the longest on Earth. He didn’t dress in the unusual fashions of the other housemates or party with them in the streets. Instead, he had a job at a museum where he pretended to be a statue. Supposedly he had been hired by an artist interested in challenging the traditional conception of sculpture. Sometimes he snuck out the old hunting trophies from the museum and arranged them in the plaza to scare urbanites who had never seen wild animals. One time he even poured fresh concrete in front of an office building and left in it impressions of shoes and animal tracks. Luoying had no idea how Kangaroo managed to never be caught for these pranks, as he enjoyed a seemingly carefree existence.

  While reminiscing, Luoying kept up with the roving crowd of spectators. Gielle, finished with her presentation, caught up to her excitedly. One hand on her thumping heart, sweat beading on her forehead, she gazed at Luoying inquiringly. Luoying smiled at her and squeezed her plump hand reassuringly.

  Colorful exhibits greeted the teachers one after another, full of novel and interesting creations. Applause and gasps of admiration rose and fell, and more and more youths joined the group following the teachers.

  Luoying saw that Brenda and two other girls had created a double-sided painting reminiscent of the old double-sided embroidery of Chinese tradition. The canvas was translucent, with a girl in deep thought on the obverse side and a strolling boy on the reverse side. From each side, only one figure could be seen, but the same stars and the moons glowed from both sides. She couldn’t tell how it was made.

  The procession finally wound its way through all the exhibits and returned to the center of the long hall, where the scores were tallied.

  Holding up a notebook, Jean, one of the teachers, called out, “Are there any projects that haven’t been shown to the judges yet?”

  The crowd waited expectantly.

  “A total of one hundred and twelve teams have shown their projects so far,” said Jean. “Unless there are any more competitors, this is the end of the qualifying round.”

  Behind her, the other teachers were beginning to pack up their notes.

  Luoying decided that this was her only chance. Forcing herself to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, she spoke up.

  “Yes, there is one more!”

  Luoying heard how her own voice reverberated around the silent hall. She took a step forward and, without looking at any of the other astounded competitors and spectators, walked slowly to one of the largest desks in the center of the hall. There, she carefully nudged the projects on it aside until she had cleared out a small space, revealing the dark blue tablecloth. Then she retrieved the small rock she had taken from Reini a few days earlier and placed it in the middle of the space. The yellow rock, roughly spherical and with an unfinished surface, appeared dull and insignificant next to the other projects.

  She locked eyes with Jean.

  “What is this?” asked the confused teacher.

  Luoying smiled. “This is my project, titled Alone.”

  The teachers looked at one another, as did the other youths in the hall. Among the colorful, complicated structures, robots, and art pieces, the rock was so primitive and clumsy that it seemed an insult. It did not fit. The other projects seemed to inch away from it the way a crowd cleared out the space around a criminal suspect. Luoying faced all of them without any expression. The astounded silence was exactly what she had expected.

  After almost a full minute, Jean said, slowly, “The … idea is good.”

  She turned to face the rest of the crowd and, straining to keep her voice natural, said, “Luoying’s project is a reminder to us all not to be limited to only high technology in our creativity. We should all broaden our minds.”

  Luoying sighed with relief. Gratefully she smiled at Jean.

  The first round of the competition was finally over. Everyone began to clean up, and the hall was once again full of noise and laughter. The colorful flags were pulled off the walls with as much ease and joy as when they had been hung. The busy crowd filled the space, and the lonely rock was forgotten, as though it had never existed.

  Gielle pulled Luoying into a side hug as they were leaving and whispered, “How did you come up with it? You never said a word!”

  “Oh, the rock? I didn’t think too hard.”

  “It’s so creative!”

  “Do you think so?”

  Luoying smiled, thinking only: It does not fit. Palming the rock, she was thinking of Reini, of herself and her friends in the Mercury Group, and her mood darkened.

  She had at one point contemplated bringing nothing at all and simply pointing at the empty air to declare that her creation was titled Dream. But in the end she thought that would be too pessimistic. After knowing Kangaroo, she didn’t think of herself as creative at all. She was sensitive and felt things deeply, but that wasn’t the same as being creative.

  Through the whole morning, she had seen only one project that she thought was truly creative. It was a large, thin-shelled, hollow glass globe in which was suspended a slightly smaller glass globe, and another one inside that … until it was impossible to see the smallest, innermost globes. The inner surface of each shell was carved with different features: land, houses, slides, factories … and in the outermost layer, if one looked closely, it was possible to see tiny humans in the middle of all kinds of activities, their feet firmly planted against the glass, their heads pointing to the center of the concentric globes.

  The whole sphere had been hung high up so that the layers of different worlds shone through the almost-invisible glass, a mu
ltilayer projection that was eye-catching. Luoying had no idea how it had been made. She spent a long time gazing up at the crystalline spheres, gazing through the infinite recursion of concentric shells, gazing at the different-scaled but self-similar worlds, gazing at the outermost layer as though seeing the upturned dome of heaven from outside, until she felt she had also been turned upside down, inside out, tossed into the depths of the infinite cosmos.

  WINGS

  Starting in the middle of the twenty-first century, personal aircraft became the main means of transportation on Earth. As cities grew bigger and buildings taller, surface transportation networks were overburdened, and humans had to take to the skies with winged cars.

  On Earth, flying was a complicated endeavor. For children, it represented excitement and dreams; for youths, it represented the means by which to pursue dates; for adults, it was a status symbol; and for the elderly, it was a tool that they complained about incessantly but had to put up with in order to get around. For sociologists, personal aircraft led to the birth of new forms of social organization; for politicians, they represented disputes over airspace; for eco-activists, they were responsible for damage to the atmosphere; for merchants, they were just the medicine needed to prevent economic downturns. For everyone, they represented the coming of a new age.

  High school students wanted to get to school; college students wanted adventure; stars wanted vacations. Everyone had different tastes, and the personal aircraft industry had to cater to them all, resulting in complicated vehicles. For high speed, they needed new solid fuels; for stability, the wings needed balancers at low airspeeds; for altitude control, they needed high-precision combustion ratio governors; for adapting to different air currents, they needed smart flow sensors; for avoiding accidents due to operator fatigue, they needed reliable autopilots; for long-distance communication and teleconferences, they needed powerful radios and high-res displays; for defense against attackers, they needed self-guided missiles; for the survival of the manufacturers, they needed advertising; for saving the life of the occupant when all was lost, they needed ejection seats and parachutes; for love, they needed lie-flat, comfortable seats. Personal aircraft evolved into a thousand forms, employing every imaginable material.