The Brave New World

It had been a very busy day for Li Yang. After he had carried the first load of timon implant kits and hiber beds to his room, he"d returned to get even more from the glowing cube in the parking lot. The shiny, sharp metal cones looked good. The hiber beds were disappointing - sheets made of some unknown material, rolled up very tightly. But they weighed next to nothing, so he put several under his arm before carrying everything back home.

He put everything in his room, and instantly went back to the parking lot to get more. The timon kits would fetch a good price, he was sure. They had a glowing blue light embedded in the middle of the circular base. They looked expensive.

As he splashed his way to the parking lot - the water was ankle-high in some spots - it became obvious that there was a serious power outage in the city. None of the traffic lights worked. The colorful neon signs that usually blinked and winked day and night were all dead, too.

The total absence of any moving vehicles told Li Yang that it was very unlikely power would be restored soon. He decided he"d get a whole bunch of the doc.u.mentation scrolls. If he scattered a few glowing scrolls around his room, they"d provide him with enough light to move around once night had fallen.

But when he returned to the parking lot, he saw cops. Two cops wearing rainproof capes stood by the ruins of the kiosk, looking at the charred cadaver inside. Two others were examining the glowing cube. One of these was walking around the cube, occasionally stopping to glance around the parking lot.

It was hopeless to try and get more items from the cube. As Li Yang backed out of view, he felt a stab of hunger in his belly. He"d drank a lot of water in the meantime, cheating his stomach. But that cheat never worked for long.

He had some food back in his room. It consisted of apples he had stolen the previous day. He stole a full bagful by upsetting a stand outside a grocer"s store. He held the open bag under the edge that tilted down when he hit the stand with his hip. The bag was full in an instant, and he was off and running before anyone had the time to shout.

Li Yang had been eating nothing but apples for the last twenty four hours. They were nice apples, tasty apples, but he was getting sick of them. Anyway, there weren"t that many left. He needed to get some food.

He ducked into a side alley to urinate. He still had the sachet of ivory dust in his pocket: that was why he"d been so wary of the cops in the parking lot. He began thinking who could buy the drug off him. It had to be someone from his immediate neighborhood; he needed to sell it fast, and it was obvious the subway wasn"t running.

He was zipping himself up, still undecided, when he heard gla.s.s smash. There was a triumphant shout, and more gla.s.s breaking.

He started walking in the direction of the sound. He briefly wondered whether the cops in the parking lot had heard it, too. And if they did - would they leave the parking lot? He was sure one pair of cops would stay behind. And anyway, the cube didn"t provide food.

He was sure that the sound of smashing gla.s.s meant that a store was being looted. A disaster was always followed by rioting and looting: he"d learned that much over the sixteen years that he"d lived in the city. He bent his head and started running, water splashing so high some drops landed on his face. He wanted to get his share of the loot before the rioting started.

He didn"t have far to run. There was a small supermarket at the corner of the second block, and it was in the process of being robbed. Young men and older kids alike were running inside. As Ling Yan approached the store, some came running out, loaded with loot.

A kid not more than ten years old came running out holding a TV set in both hands. Its top reached almost up to the kid"s eyes and he couldn"t see where he was going. He tripped and fell and the TV set shot out of his grasp, and crashed down on the pavement scattering shards of plastic and gla.s.s.

The kid got up, kicked the broken TV set, and ran back inside the store. Ling Yan followed him in.

He got a good haul. He managed to get two full loads of stuff back to his room before cops showed up on the scene. He spent quite a while stacking everything neatly in the corner of the room.

There was food for more than a week, and it included half a dozen of frozen steaks; Li Yang couldn"t even remember when he"d last had steak. There was a wide selection of the most expensive frozen dinners he could find. There were dozens of cans of fruit and vegetables from all over the world. There was a handful of smart.w.a.tches and several smartphones.

There also was a portable stereo. He wanted to switch on its radio. Maybe he could catch a broadcast that would explain what had happened, and tell him what was happening. But Li Yang was afraid of switching it on.

When he was leaving the store for the second time, he saw a guy switch on a newly stolen phone. It exploded in his face. It was probably the guy"s screaming that attracted the cops. He"d sounded like someone getting murdered. For the cops, facing the looters would have meant facing a hostile crowd: but stopping a murder fell into a different category. The cops wouldn"t be jeered and fought, they would be applauded. So they came running to investigate instead of keeping away.

Li Yang had no intention of trying out any of the phones he"d stolen. He"d wait until he was sure it was safe. He was also wary of the smart.w.a.tches: they used batteries similar to the ones in the phones. But the stereo used different batteries: there was a chance it would work.

He had almost made up his mind to turn it on when he heard someone enter the apartment. It had been empty throughout the day, which was normal.

There were three people living in the apartment with Li Yang, with everyone having their own room and sharing the kitchen and the bathroom with the others.

The biggest room was occupied by Rose Fogerty, owner of the apartment. Rose Fogerty was around forty years old. She had short red hair and a freckled pale face. She was tall and fat. She worked days as a cook at a greasy-spoon restaurant, and as a barmaid most evenings. She ate six meals a day, and drank a gallon of beer on top of that.

No one with a brain would ever try to f.u.c.k with Rose Fogerty, in both senses of the word. She was ugly and strong and she had never been married. But she had a kind heart, and when Li Yang"s mother died and he was left alone, it was her that helped him out. Li Yang had begun to avoid her when he started stealing: he knew that she wouldn"t approve.

The other two tenants were a black siblings - a brother and sister - who had recently arrived from Atlanta. They were both older than Li Yang. The brother was about thirty, middle height and weight, with a shaved head and sharp eyes, but a little paunchy. He wore a shirt and a tie and well-used, baggy suits, and shoes that did a lot of walking.

He was an insurance salesman by profession. He sold insurance in all its forms and manifestations: professional, public, and private indemnity, insurance from fire and theft, health insurance, vehicle insurance, property insurance... His name was Harper Lee, and if someone had asked him, he would have probably put together a package containing insurance against global electromagnetic storms followed by a world-wide power outage and torrential rain and flooding.

When it became obvious Li Yang"s mother was about to die, he"d tried to sell her life insurance. It was great goodwill on his part: it meant a big payout after paying just a few premiums. It was against company policy. It was a steal. But Li Yang"s mother couldn"t even afford the two or three hundred-dollar monthly payments that would pay out one hundred thousand dollars to her only son and heir.

Harper Lee"s sister was called Charlene. She was just three or four years older than Li Yang, but appeared to be at least ten years wiser. She was an aerobics instructor, personal trainer, ma.s.sage therapist, and psychic consultant. Pursuing all four of those careers throughout most of her waking time provided her with just enough income to sc.r.a.pe by.

Li Yang had heard her and her brother fighting over money more than once. Usually it was her trying to get a loan from him, but sometimes it was the other way around.

But the person who had just entered the apartment wasn"t any of Li Yang"s three cohabitants. Li Yang was sure he had locked the front door; the mysterious guest must have had a key. He was wondering who it could be and beginning to feel afraid when a gruff male voice called out:

"Hey! Police. N-Y-P-D. Anybody in? Hey!"

He had a choice: stay silent and pretend to be out, or walk out to confront the cops in the hallway. They only needed to look into his room to arrest him for looting the store.

The door to his room was locked, he had made sure of that too. But what if they also had the key to his own lock? His mother had to give a copy to Rose Fogerty upon moving in.

He heard the cops step inside the hallway and instantly made the decision. He walked up to his door, opened it, and stopped right in front of the doorway, blocking the view.

They were cops, all right. But they didn"t look fierce at all. They looked sad and shaken. The cop in front, a Hispanic-looking guy, said:

"You live here?"

"Yes," said Li Yang. "What happened? Who gave you the keys?"

The two cops looked at each other. Then the cop in the back, an older black guy, said:

"We found them on the body of the deceased. Rose Fogerty. This was the address on her ID. You know her? She lived here?"

"Yes," said Li Yang.

He had had plenty of training on the street, and he knew how to handle cops. Answer all questions, and always answer them with a straight yes or no or I don"t know. Don"t volunteer information, don"t tell them anything they don"t ask about. They"ll a.s.sume you"re lying, because everyone lies to them all the time.

"I"m sorry, kid," said the black cop. "But I guess she wasn"t your mother."

"No."

"You know anything about her, people she hung out with? Someone stabbed her."

Li Yang shrugged, then shook his head. It helped to conceal the shock he felt when he heard the news. He said:

"No. I don"t know her well." He used the present tense on purpose. The cops would know he wasn"t fully buying their story.

The cops looked at each other again. Then the one in front said:

"Okay, kid. Someone will be along in the next couple of days. Hang in there and stay safe."

He nodded, and they both left. Li Yang stood in the hallway, listening to them go down the stairs. They did not lock the front door.

He went up to it and locked it and returned to his room. It was dark in there, but not as dark as he expected. There seemed to be a faint light coming in through the window opposite the door. He went up to it and looked and opened his mouth in amazement.

The sky was full of twinkling, glowing stars. It was the first time ever that he had seen them. At most, there would be two or three strongest stars barely visible through the haze over the city, the haze lit up by millions of lights. This was completely different. He could see hundreds, thousands, some so close it seemed they could be touched.

The city crouched under the starlight: dark lifeless, silent shapes. Li Yang shuddered and realized he would have to eat a cold dinner: the stove and the microwave in the kitchen would both be out of order.

Then he smiled, because he remembered that he had also stolen a whole smoked ham, a loaf of good wholegrain bread, and a jar of his favorite pickled peppers.

He was going to feast like a king.

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