by Sam Abraham
When the holobeads were sent to a tower downtown, the Secretary too considered them, and recalled how the port manager claimed they were not on the market. He cycled through tracks, watching the image of the strange woman’s head talk to some girl named Aizhu. And he could think of only one person who might know the origin of this strange device. He called an office in Guangzhou and a gruff voice answered, peppering him with questions. Within the hour, the Secretary had shipped the holobeads up the Zhujiang River towards the mainland, glad to be rid of the smell of trouble.
Chapter 5 – Xu (需)
Waiting In Mud
Uncle was asleep when Li got home, much to her relief. She knew she would get it when he realized there was no watermelon, but that was nothing compared to losing the holo of her mother. Li sobbed as she washed the stench of the harbor out of her hair and got ready for bed, mercilessly berating herself for her carelessness until she drifted off to sleep.
The hole in her heart ached through her predawn commute in the car that the principal sent. It was still dark when the groundskeeper showed her how to weed with a trowel, and as the sky warmed the weeding itched like salt in her wounds. Hands aching, her mind wandered back to the light in the water, and she wondered whether it had been a hallucination, whether she was losing her grip on reality. When Li’s classmates arrived for breakfast, laughing as only screeching chipmunks can, they brought her back to the pain of the moment. Poching was more horrible than usual, inventing new rhymes about the poor farmer Li. Li wanted nothing more than to fly away, where highborn bitches wouldn’t mock her and her hands weren’t covered in dirt.
After school she took the subway to her shift at the automart. Domes glistened like soap bubbles, bankers in beads relished illusions, and hydrocycles zoomed under the towering malls, but all the usual colors just looked gray. From her plastic cage, she watched shoppers drift in like fish in ocean currents, everyone with somewhere better to be but her.
An hour into her shift, three suits wandered in. She watched them flip through menus on the makers and debate which flavored boba to buy. But Li smelled instantly that they were night and day different from the usual flotsam that entered her store. It was something about how they stole looks at her and conversed furtively, nodding in agreement. They had nowhere better to be.
“Can I help you?” she said, the words escaping her mouth.
The smallest of the three sauntered up to the counter with a plastic smile. “Excuse me,” he said in gruff Mandarin with a blocky Beijing accent, “did you recently lose a set of holobeads?”
Li blinked, unsure of what to say. She knew Uncle didn’t want her playing up anything that could get her noticed. But how would he find out? “Who are you?” she said instead.
“Only lowly civil servants,” the short man replied, approaching closer. “I am called Shen Lingrui. What is your lofty surname?”
Li was taken aback. She knew she should be polite. “Are you cops?” Did they work for Poching’s father? “You have to tell me if you are,” she said, having no idea if it were true.
The puzzled look from the man seemed genuine. “Cops?” he said, laughing. “Goodness, no. We are from the Tomorrow Leaders committee. Have you heard of it?” Li shook her head. Shen nodded understandingly. “It is a very new program,” he continued. “It rewards those with the potential to benefit the community.”
“What kind of rewards?”
“Scholarships and apprenticeships with various provincial and national leaders,” Shen said as he pulled out a pair of shiny holobeads. He saw Li’s face light up. “Are they yours?”
Li ducked outside the plastic cage, something sure to land her in hot water, and grabbed the beads from Shen. She rubbed their plastic shells between her fingers, amazed to hold them again.
“Ah, so it is you,” Shen said. “You probably think you’re gifted, don’t you? That you’re different from other people.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Well, I think you’re right.”
Li blushed. “Nali, nali,” she said, amazed that this suit knew her heart. “Why do you want me?”
“Those are nice beads,” Shen said. “The mark of a special person. Where did you get them?”
“My mother gave them to me.”
“When you were a baby, of course,” Shen said, his eyebrows inching upward. “She’s been gone for a long time.”
Li froze. “How did you know that?”
Shen laughed. “I know who you are, Li Aizhu,” he said, “When can we meet your uncle? We must talk to him about giving you a scholarship to a program for gifted youth.”
A program for gifted youth. Everyone there because they deserved to be, because they meant something, not because of how many buildings their fathers owned.
“Thank you, sir, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Li said, hesitating. “Uncle isn't well.” He’s drunk and angry, and if he finds out I’m talking to you, he’ll shit himself.
“Ah, well it is your decision,” Shen said, shrugging. “Of course, if you did attend our program, I could tell you where you come from. Why you barely eat. And, of course, who your parents are.”
“Come by tomorrow night,” Li said against her better judgment. Uncle would never agree to meet. She would have to surprise him. “Chengdu Street mansion, twenty fifth floor. The door with a Yinglong idol. In the evening, at eight.” She hoped it would go well, or Uncle would not spare his belt.
“When good fortune comes, no one can stop it,” Shen said, and bought some sunflower seeds.
Chapter 6 – Song (訟)
Peace In Perseverance
All evening, as Li steamed dinner and watched Uncle drink, she thought only of going to a new school. And the next morning, as she ripped up thorny weeds before dawn, she dreamt of what it might be like, far away from girls who called her a poor slut behind her back, far from Sister Ban and her faith. Far from Daiwu, the only person who had ever called Li a friend, and now avoided her eyes.
That evening, when she returned home from high school hell, she laid an embroidered cloth over their tiny corner table, scrubbed the plates and set out the clay tea cups that were only a little chipped. The kitchen steamed with the smells of peppers and onions, of minced chicken and gelatinous clumps of octopus. She made Uncle’s favorite noodles, drawing the flour and stringing it through an old press. Seasoning the long threads of wheat in the wok with sesame oil and diced green chilies, she rolled in chopped scallions and eggplant and parsnip on top of the meat. It took a long time, making her special noodles, but she couldn’t think of a more important day. She steeped chrysanthemum tea and uncorked a bottle of rice wine. It would be a painful way to spend grocery money if getting him drunk went badly, but wine usually made Uncle sleepy. She showered, even though the water was freezing cold, and braided her hair before calling Uncle down for dinner.
Dinner was quiet. Uncle asked her why she made special noodles, but she just shrugged. He complained about buying wine instead of whiskey, but he sipped it all the same, and as the minutes ticked by his eyes drooped quiescently. She shivered when she heard the knock at the door. Fighting off fear, Li opened it and waited for Uncle to fly into a rage when he saw the man from the store.
“Who are you?” Uncle said as Shen entered.
“Thank you for the warm welcome, Mr. Li,” Shen said, adjusting the lapels of his shiny gray suit, his dark skin glistening with March sweat. “I am here about your niece. She is cited for elite service, and is to report to us in Guangzhou in one week.”
“What?” said Li Aizhu, both baffled and pretending to be.
Uncle sent Shen a ferocious look. “How did you find us?” Then he turned on his niece. “Who have you been talking to?”
“Don’t blame your niece. I’ve never met her before,” Shen lied. “I found you through government records.”
Uncle grunted and scratched his scar. “Well, it’s impossible. My niece must stay here to take care of me. I’m not well. Without her around I could be in trouble.�
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Shen walked closer to Li’s uncle. “I knew a man with a scar like yours. He was famous in circles we worked in until he disappeared. He was suspected of stealing government property.”
“What are you babbling about?” Uncle said, turning and walking out to the balcony for a smoke, sneering at Li as he went. “Aizhu, send away this fool who bursts into old men’s homes uninvited.”
Shen looked at Li intently, examining the corners of her jaw, how her earlobes connected with no gap, how she carried her slender shoulders. “Xiao Li,” Shen said, using the endearing honorific xiao for a young person, “has your uncle ever told you where he found you?”
Li stared back, searching this strange man’s face for a trace of dishonesty, but his square glare had a stone foundation. He was telling the truth. “Found me?” she said.
Shen smiled again, a leering grin. It was clear he enjoyed secrets. “Oh yes. As a baby. Stole you from your family when you were only eight days old.”
Li watched police storm into her home. Uncle barely looked at them as his arms were forced in cuffs. The officers held the old man’s head down and marched him from the flat with the din of stomping boots. Then they were gone, the apartment as empty as a discarded crayfish shell.
Li sat down as if the wind had been knocked from her. The years flashed before her eyes. Endless days spent slaving in the kitchen, taking his belt, chained to his little penitentiary for spoiled brats. Seventeen years of feeling like an outcast. She had tried to love this man, this stranger who had lied to her for her entire life. After all, he’d been her only family. She had often wondered why he wasn’t nicer to her, feeling jealous when she saw vids of fathers singing to their daughters, of mothers tying ribbons in their hair. She used to wonder why Uncle didn’t do those things. Why it seemed like he could barely stand to look at her. Now she knew.
Li saw Shen staring at her. “Why would he take me from my family?” she said.
“Ah,” Shen said. “For that answer, you’re going to have to come with us.”
Chapter 7 – Shi (師)
In The Middle Of The Earth
The sonic train shot to Guangzhou. Li sat in a cramped car with Shen and his secretaries, as the domes of the Special Economic Zone around Hong Kong faded into the rust-colored sky.
Li could not stop thinking about Uncle being led away in binders, about calling Daiwu and hearing him say he was glad she was leaving. Li realized that the only person who seemed to care if she lived or died was a small bureaucrat with expensive taste in suits, and she felt bitterly alone. She looked at Shen as they sped into the mainland, and wondered what kind of man he was.
Li drank in the sight of the land as the train sped north, for it was the farthest she had ever been from home. Sparse patches of green were choked by refuse lining the railway, housing projects decomposing in piles of rebar and brick. Oil seeped from the streets, and acid rain fell from dense clouds blotting out the sun. The cities of the Pearl River Delta had long since been woven into a bloated megalopolis, terraced stacks of tin can flats rising around the railway. After all, even though people were crushed together, they were safer than they would be in the abandoned wasteland to the west.
Soon neon red characters sparkled as they passed into Old Guangzhou, the towering downtown center of the supercity. Occuhives multiplied around the train station, with boutiques for bankers’ wives and app arcades drawing in the metrophiles. The concrete giants made Hong Kong seem small, their sprawling facades crumbling at the edges even as cranes pulled steel skeletons higher.
A black driverless car collected them from the train station and drove them into a maze of misty streets. The car was aggressive, its steering wheel spinning without hands as it went weaving around brake lights, veering between lanes as hydrocycles flew past them. Factories across the river pouring steam into the air faded from view as the towers of central Liwan swallowed them.
They arrived at a giant cube near the People’s Government Building. Li followed Shen in, watching bureaucrats bustling in the lobby and uniformed cadets pointing to air where their holobeads showed them shared mirages. At a control desk surrounded by soldiers, Shen placed his finger into a nook and waited as microblots sequenced DNA from his epithelials. Plastic gates slid open, and the soldiers nodded to him as he escorted Li to the elevators.
Steel doors parted on the top floor, where two officers behind another desk recognized Shen and opened a second plastic gate. Li followed him into a ward with hundreds of cubicles, each with a transparent soundproof cone, giving the hall the semblance of a coop filled with giant eggs. In each cone was a primly dressed cadet, holos on their work stations displaying counterparts from far corners of the country and foreign lands, relaying intel into vertabyte databases. Offices lined the walls, with wide windows overlooking the city.
“What is this place?” Li asked as they walked to the end, under framed photos of satellite images and generals shaking hands.
“Are you hungry?” Shen said, sliding the door to his office shut behind her. He watched Li look out at the Pearl River Tower rising above the occuhives. “I expected you wouldn’t want food on the train, but even you need to eat sometimes.” He pinged an assistant to bring them something from the dim sum bar down the street. “I hate traveling when it’s wet,” he said, running a hand through his thick hair and shaking sulfuric droplets from his fingertips.
“You said you were bringing me to a school,” Li said, feeling about to explode.
Shen lit a cigarette and smiled. “This is a school,” he said, inhaling deeply. “One of the best. It’s known as the Complex, and cadets trained here go on to do great things. We want you to join us.”
Li leaned on the desk and stared at Shen. “Thank you,” she said, “but I’m not sure I can. At least, maybe I will, but I’d just like to know what kind of school it is and who I am! I mean, you told me last night that Uncle wasn’t my uncle, but you said you couldn’t say anything else unless I came with you, and now I’m here but I still don’t know anything!”
Shen smiled and blew smoke up towards the ventilator. “Your father is a brilliant man from a good family. People in high places have been looking for you.”
“And my mother?” Li said, an unbearable hope taking root in her chest. “Is she still alive?”
Shen took another drag. “Your mother is alive, yes.”
“What happened to her?”
Shen shrugged. “She became depressed, and ran off without a word. We found her disgraced, addicted to neurostims. She is under care now, for her own protection.”
Li was enrapt. “What is her name?”
Shen took another drag of his cigarette and shook his head. “I’ve told you too much already. All this information is top secret. You can get clearance, of course, if you study here. Work with us, and soon you’ll be able to find out anything you want about her.”
Li looked out of the window at the drizzling charcoal city. Guangzhou was not like Hong Kong. Her pretend uncle used to tell her that the mainland was drunk on mirrors. One needed a secure shell just to download the latest tracks. But Old Guangzhou had arcades too, she knew, and ten times the secrets of Kowloon. And the school was nothing next to the idea that her parents were alive. To realize what she had dreamt of since she was a little girl, to see her mother not as a floating hologram but as a human being, to hold her hand and smell her perfume, made Li tingle with possibility.
“Well?” Shen said.
“Ku laoban,” Li said sarcastically, for she would never let this man be the boss of her. But he did have one thing she did not - access to her past. “When do we start?”
Chapter 8 - Bi (比)
A Full Earthen Bowl
The next four months were a blur. Most days Li slept in her small room, ate the same boiled noodles, and drank the same tepid tea. There were no holos or markets. She studied in the Complex for long hours, and when she returned to her room after grueling days, sleep snatched her easily. Other cadets ate, s
lept and studied together in a dormitory south of the main operating hub, where the brightest among them prepared for military careers. But Li’s quarters were in the hub itself so she could be close to Shen, who tutored her personally. She rarely went out, for she received no allowance and there was nowhere to go except rallies where brass bands belted out old army songs. Between her workload and the distance from other students, Li had little time for friends, and soon realized that government clowns were a lot better at keeping her chained to a desk than Sister Ban.
Yet Li felt free, mesmerized by her new knowledge. Unlike St. Christopher’s, where she had been told to take so much tired history on faith, in the Complex she was asked only to master the facts. For ten hours a day, Shen or his attaches lectured her, grilling her on everything from military codes and famous wars to currency swaps and orbital satellites and the ballistics of projectile weaponry.
Just as the weeks began to blur, Shen came to Li’s door in the middle of the night. “Get dressed, Xuesheng,” he said, calling her by the word for ‘student’ in the traditional fashion. “I want to show you something.”
“What time is it?” she asked, groggy, dreams draining from her waking eyes.
“Time to hatch a Xinren,” Shen said. “Meet me outside in five.”
Shen escorted Li to a special elevator she had never seen, which took them to a subbasement she had not known existed. When her teacher stopped, Li found herself on a platform overlooking a vast hall. Protruding from the metal hall in rows were canisters, each a meter high and encircled with red ideograms. There must have been hundreds of the pods, she thought. Maybe thousands.
The hall was cold. Li shivered, rubbing her arms and watching her teacher, who stood at a railing, waiting eagerly and checking his watch. “Welcome to the hatchery,” Shen said, and Li thought she heard a note of awe in his voice.
Soon one of the canisters opened, its top lifting with a hiss, steam escaping into the chill. Li strained her eyes in the low glow of LEDs. A jointed green limb appeared from the open canister, groping the floor for purchase. Another arachnoid feeler followed, and then another, and soon two rows of bulbous eyes appeared on an elongated head that curled back from wicked mandibles. The thorax and abdomen were soon free as well, trailing viscous strands that clung to the neon interior of the canister. Li watched, entranced as the creature shuddered, chirping and keening as it split its carapace and released diaphanous wings.