9
Seth ran his fingers across the sleek carbon composite body of the skimmer. It looked like a large dolphin frozen as it leapt from the water. Ri stood behind him, wary of the western-made machine.
He took her hand and they straddled the skimmer.
Where are we going?
To Shanghai, he replied, resolute. It was China’s second largest administrative center after Beijing, one with a long history of accepting foreigners. He wanted to see the damage first hand. To have a part in the armistice / reconciliation if that were ready tabled.
“Chūntiān méngyá de méi mǎlì,
hé shéngzǐ xiūjiǎn tóufǎ, xià fā.
Yòng zuì hǎo de yín xiàn zhōng,
gěi nǐ tóu shàng bǎihé huāhuán.”
“Mary the rose that buds in Spring,
trim your hair and your hem with string.
With the finest of silver threads,
a wreath of lilies for your head.”
The song she wrote translated sweet from Mandarin Chinese into English. She sang both versions for him, accompanied by a tube guitar. It wasn’t a full guitar. Just strings inside the short sound chamber and dials pre-programmed for the chords of the current song. Ri set it with ease, and her fingers flicked the depressions that retreated into its faux wood, accurately, having uncanny leeway for expression and improvisation.
Seth admired Ri’s artistry. Perhaps the Chinese had adopted iS before the West knew it. He wondered what he would encounter in Shanghai, when they crossed into the blast radius. From his vantage point by the Taihu reservoir, there was nothing to see but a wall of black smoke.
He parked the skimmer within a walled compound, probably a sewage treatment facility. Nobody would think to look there. They proceeded on foot. Ri called out, any survivors? They made it to the waterfront, finding not a single person or dead body. It was as if the city were flambéed by the e-bomb, and everything organic, burnt up, leaving charred walls, gutted apartments and sooty air.
Then they saw ships along the coast. Whose were they? Of a sudden, there was a hypersonic roar and ovoid frames fell out of the sky around them, unfolding into ape-like forms. They’re heavy lifting drones, Ri said, controlled from the frigates we saw.
We haven’t seen any survivors, Seth reported to them. What have you found?
The drones simply replied, come with us.
At a damaged airfield, bodies were being sorted into piles, zipped into black sacks. Most were burnt beyond recognition. The heaps of charred flesh stretched the length of the runway, on both sides, and more were being brought in by the half hour.
It’s not safe here, came a voice from ahead. The drone unit commander. Lady you have to leave the zone. No reporters, and the foreigner, what is his business?
He’s my husband, and he knows how the city was destroyed.
You will be airlifted to the frigate -it’s well equipped for your needs, both of you. We have not found a single survivor, neither here, nor in Hong Kong. Without any anomalies in this attack to analyze, there cannot be a defense formed. It may be that our President will be forced to sign the surrender agreement by end of today.
They were ushered aboard a waiting helicopter.
Seth winced inwardly. The rout was complete. The West had won to no reply from the Chinese. What they didn’t suspect was that he could turn the tide of the war in their favor, who was now a guest in their country, treated well, attached to one of their women.
The commander of the frigate met them on the bridge. China is a large country, he said, The attack from your military will be absorbed. We are not a belligerent nation, desiring that peace and fairness are upheld. This is the way of Asian people -health and prosperity. Do you have anything to tell us. Are you an emissary?
Seth swallowed hard. I can’t hide the truth, I breached your defenses but it happened inadvertently while I was in Kunming with my partner.
A group of bridge officers converged around him, puzzled.
It’s called iS -inexact Science. It’s hard to explain but I notice you have some of it -rudimentary amounts while primarily relying on the Genesis Project’s quantum AI. Artificial Intelligence is a dying science in the West. We have body intelligence instead.
Your body is a weapon?
Essentially. Part of a chain of emoters / thinkers. I ran away but it seemed not to matter, putting physical distance between me and them.
The commander took off his cap and rubbed his shaven head. You are our most valuable asset. The Americans must know you are here and being well treated. He and his wife to be sent to Beijing this evening. Call ahead to inform the President.
In their quarters, Seth taught Ri how he was primed. He showed her the e-matter blade, told her about the bow and the gun, and about the use of multi-discipline technologies such as that which powered the skimmer and had fixed his finger joint -albeit it were sabotaged later. Reverse chance, 4-dimensional trigonometry, the proven finite set of illogicalities.
Do not abuse iS, promise me, he left her with that warning. Out of the porthole, a grim reminder: dark gray clouds of ash and smoke billowing high from the ghost town port city. She nodded tearfully, trying to be tough as he was.
“A wreath of lilies for your head,
with the finest of silver threads,
trim your hair and your hem with string,
Mary the rose that buds in Spring.”
The song can be inverted, she said, stroking her tube guitar. It’s a sign that it is most correct. A nerve in Seth’s cheek twitched. Their culture was inexact by nature.
“Don’t misunderstand us, said Saim’s sister, Asians mean the West no harm. We’re just different.
And the difference is annoying, said Marjorie.
Down right dangerous, quipped Frederick, you kids don’t know the half of it.”
Erasmus Jr.n had this to say about bravery,
Would you walk barefoot over a floor of broken glass to save your newborn baby, assuming your house were burning down? Think carefully as no answer is wrong. You hesitate. What is so wrong with hesitation? Hesitation simply means this is a situation that God has not prepared us for. What then is bravery but the antithesis of forgiveness -for the meek shall inherit the Earth.
