Weird World War: China, page 23
“This is General Yang Haoyu,” the voice says in barely accented English. “You know why I’m calling.”
Chen is shocked to hear the Chinese general’s voice. “How did you get this number?”
Yang doesn’t answer. “Sixty-six thousand, two hundred and eight people,” the Chinese general says. “That is how many people your allies from another world have murdered in two days.”
“What allies?” Chen asks.
“Don’t play dumb with me. We know you have some of these terrorists in custody, out there in the California desert.”
Don’t engage too far with him, Chen tells himself. “Your intelligence hasn’t been too good lately, General Yang. Neither has your military.”
“We have told you many times that world is uninhabited. Or so we believed. We were wrong.”
It wouldn’t matter if you knew or not, Chen thinks, you still would have taken their resources. And so would we, if we’d developed the technology first.
“Let’s stop lying to each other for a second and try to prevent a goddamn war. These hypothetical visitors—if we were to host them, which I am neither confirming nor denying—are fixated on what your country did to them. China is in trouble, General Yang.”
“America will be too, in time.”
No, because we’re going to ally with them, Chen thinks, because power and politics gives us no choice. What, are we going to partner with China instead? “We can’t offer you any assistance. And we’re not giving you access to any visitors we may or may not have. That’s off the table.”
General Yang sneers. “You’d rather join forces with these creatures than with your own kind?”
“They aren’t creatures,” Chen says, dropping all pretenses. “They’re human beings, just like us. They look a little different, sure, but they have feelings, emotions, needs. And your tunnels have ruined their land, the eastern half of it anyway. It’s far worse than anything America’s done, and we’ve done plenty.”
“So you just believed him?” General Yang laughs. “You really believe that just going into his world caused all that destruction and made it unlivable? Did he even show you any proof?”
Chen thinks back to the diplomat’s line from earlier: The land is totally unfit for habitation. “I have no reason to doubt him and a hundred reasons to doubt you, General Yang. I’m just grateful they don’t want to destroy everyone who lives on this planet.”
Another chuckle. “Not yet. Good luck with your new allies, Captain. You’re going to need it.” The line goes dead.
Chen barely makes it back to his apartment on post that night. At 0700 the next day, a private transport arrives to take him to a sensitive compartmented information facility, and Chen settles in, his head pounding.
Fikowski is already there on the other side of the passenger seat. “General Martinez and I met with Afzat alone last night after you left. I think he likes me. We’ve decided to ally with Afzat’s people. They’re in a crisis right now, and they need help. He’s on his way back to Washington now to present our findings to the President.”
I guess I’m the only one who’s wary of trusting people we just met from beyond the psychic barrier, Chen thinks. It’s then that he notices the transport isn’t heading to post but to some point outside of it. “Where are we going?”
“Afzat asked us to meet him at the place where we brought the others through.”
“Did Martinez say we should listen to Afzat?” Even if he’s now an official ally of the United States, this is a lot of leeway to give the visitor.
“Chen, this decision is way above both our pay grades,” she says. “More listening, less talking. Follow orders.”
Chen shuts his mouth.
They pull up to the deserted field a little while later. Afzat is there, a green parka awkwardly layered over his official diplomat’s uniform.
“My friends, welcome to this historic day,” Afzat says in not-too-bad English, without his device. Chen guesses he’d been practicing.
Chen looks around. It’s the same group as last time, but with more MPs and a few extra scientists. The need for secrecy is almost moot anyway, he guesses. Camera equipment is set up everywhere. Chen wonders if they’ll catch anything this time. He guesses they won’t.
“I hear we have decided to ally with you,” Chen says.
“And a good thing too, my friend. A very good thing.”
Everyone here is so damn sure this is the right path. Well, I’d already decided to ally with them myself last night, Chen thinks. Didn’t I?
“Why are we here, Afzat?”
Suddenly, everyone’s secure lines and electronic alerts all go off at once. Chen fumbles for his own clunky military phone.
China Goes Dark after Wave of Explosions, reads the first headline he sees. The second reads Freak Event Leads to China Devastation. He scans through page after page of results with mounting horror. Countless Dead in China’s Largest Cities. Then he drops his phone. “You did this,” he says. It’s not a question, and he doesn’t need to clarify what he’s talking about.
“A most ingenious solution, is it not? Colonel Fikowski seemed to think so. We worked out the details last night, while you were committing treason.” Afzat’s demeanor can be accurately described as chipper.
“You used your tunnels to kill millions?” Chen can barely stand. “At once?”
“We’d hoped for more, but don’t worry. We’ll eliminate the rest on the next wave, if they don’t immediately capitulate,” the diplomat says with a wide, goofy grin.
“You killed them,” Chen repeats, in shock.
“Absolutely. Kill or be killed. Your country has a long history of it, from what I understand.” He blows air through his lips on the last sentence.
I should have shot you on sight, Chen thinks. Afzat’s people are monsters. Or at least Afzat is. “You destroyed a country with no thought of the cost, not even a hint of remorse.”
“Did the Chinese think of the cost when they attempted to tunnel into our world, when they stole our resources? No, they did not. We’re being fairer with you Americans, partially because we like you, but also because we really need this hemisphere to remain unsullied, and well, you come along with the package. But a fair and equitable package it will be, you won’t even notice our peacekeeping forces. A bargain well struck, don’t you think?”
Chen can’t help himself; he lunges at Afzat. Fikowski intercedes, but he manages to land a blow on the diplomat’s temple first, which the man seems unfazed by. How strong are they? Could he have overpowered them at any time? It hardly seems to matter now, anyway. “You murderers! Why did you even ask for our help if you’re so goddamned powerful?”
Afzat straightens his parka. “I never asked for help, not once. I asked for cooperation, and your general granted it. You’re a military man, Captain. Surely you understand the concept of ensuring the battle never touches your own shores?” He holds up his black box. “The only issue left is Congress. Your general said they might not agree to our permanent occupation. But I think we can be very persuasive. It would be a shame for you if our alliance has to end, and we were forced to write this world off entirely.”
It’s a veiled threat. Fikowski releases her grip on Chen and freezes. Too late now, Fik, thinks Chen. He looks back at Fikowski. Is she chastened? Does she even realize what she’s done? Then again, was there ever any way to stop this?
His oddness was only ever a put-on, Chen thinks. In the end, they’re exactly like us.
Chen straightens up. “Kill me too, then. I don’t want to be part of any world that contains the likes of you. Or any of you, for that matter,” he says, glaring at Fikowski and the others.
Afzat beams. “I think we’ll keep you around, Captain Chen. You two are our oldest friends here, on this side of the tunnel.” He winks, and Chen has to repress the urge to punch him again.
Instead, he forces a laugh. “Joke’s on you, Afzat,” Chen says. “The Chinese drilled into your world in the first place because we’re running out of everything. Our environment is trashed. Both our hemispheres are worthless.”
The diplomat shrugs. “Then we will go elsewhere. This isn’t the first world we’ve invaded. It’s merely the most recent one to annoy us.” He puts his talk-box into the pocket of the parka. Apparently he doesn’t need it anymore, and maybe never did.
“You won’t get away with this,” Chen yells stupidly. Afzat ignores him.
“Now, I think it’s time to meet with your President. How does that saying go, take me to your leader?” Afzat blows more air through his lips and links arms with Fikowski. She seems disgusted, but doesn’t slap the diplomat away. “And since we’ll be meeting your leader, it’s only fair you should make contact with some of ours.”
All at once, there’s a sickening tear in the air. Chen trembles as tunnels open all around him, and a few of the rank and file scream. Then the ground begins to shake as dozens, maybe hundreds, of Afzat’s people stream through them, many of them carrying the same flat black box as the diplomat. They chatter to one another in their otherworldly language, scarcely noticing the officers or other military personnel. One of them jostles Chen to the desert floor by accident, and Chen can’t even bring himself to get up.
DO DRAGONS TEXT?
Brenda W. Clough
Old Grandfather Cho had a phone. Everybody did—it was mandated by the Central Committee in Beijing. But in this season, scarce gasoline for the generator was better used to run the pump that lifted the water from the canal into the rice paddies at the foot of the mountain.
No one in Huanggangxin was interested in how the war with the United States was going. In addition to farming, Grandfather Cho was the village feng shui master. Analyzing the unseen movements of Lung, the earth dragon, kept Grandfather fully occupied whenever he wasn’t plowing, sowing, or transplanting young rice stalks.
But Grandfather was one of the most important men in the village, because the passage of the dragon under the earth generated feng shui, the unseen currents of chi that ran along and under the land. Only this past year, Lung had turned over in his sleep, deep under the mountain. This had made a bit of bank on the Fenghe River crumble, forcing the villagers to dig the mouth of the canal out again. Would it be necessary to cut a new access channel to the river’s water? Not only did every villager’s livelihood depended upon the rice crop fed by that water, but also the Central Committee was demanding more and more of the harvest for the troops.
It was a crucial decision, fully occupying Grandfather’s mind. So his phone was kept in his kitchen cupboard, behind the two chipped porcelain rice bowls and the single tin cooking pot. He never thought about it. The battery had flatlined last season.
Even when the tremendous noise woke the entire village one night, Grandfather merely ran out into the dirt lane with everyone else. It was pitch dark, but the glow from the mountain lit Huanggangxin bright as day. The pattering sound all around them was debris, dust falling from the night sky. “Gods, look at it,” Madam Liang yelled. “Half the mountain is gone!”
The top of the mountain glowed like iron in the forge. And it was visibly shorter, planed off flat. It couldn’t have been a bomb. Something had sliced off the tip of the entire peak. “Oh gods,” Madam Liang groaned. “What if it had hit us?”
“It’s the Americans,” Fengfeng said. Everything bad was the fault of the Americans. “Grandfather! Do you think Lung is hurt?”
“I’m certain he’s fine,” Grandfather Cho said, even though he wasn’t certain of anything. “Earth dragons are magical, remember. Mortal weapons don’t bother them.” But it was worrying. In the end the villagers agreed that the prudent thing to do would be to go up onto the mountain tomorrow, and make a small offering. A rice cake and an incense stick, just to show Lung that the village had nothing to do with it.
“And of course, Grandfather, you’ll be the one to make the prayer,” Fengfeng said.
“Knowing how the feng shui currents run doesn’t mean dragons listen to me,” Grandfather protested. But there was no one else. Grandfather Cho was the oldest man in Huanggangxin. And he knew how to sense the currents in the earth, close enough.
In the morning, the villagers set out. It had never been a big mountain, not like the big karst cliffs on the Li River. But now it was sadly diminished. The road wound back and forth up the wooded slope, and abruptly ended. Beyond, where the peak used to be, was flat as noodle dough. There were no trees, no birds or bugs. The very stone had been blasted and smoothed. Cautiously, Madam Liang patted the surface with her callused bare foot. “Ow! It’s hot! Like a baking stone, you could fry a scallion cake on it.”
“Melted away!”
“The Americans have a new and terrible weapon,” Fengfeng said. “A torch, or a bomb, or something. This is very serious.”
“We must inform the Central Committee,” Grandfather Cho said.
“Right away!”
No one wanted to loiter on this fearsomely deformed mountain. Grandfather wasn’t easy about it either, but he felt that Lung must be equally upset, having his roof pounded like that. Perhaps a rice cake and a stick of incense would be a comfort. He took the basket from Madam Liang and said, “Hurry back and phone Beijing. I’ll make the offering.”
“Don’t delay,” Madam warned.
When they were gone, Grandfather Cho retreated into the fringe of forest. There was a sharp demarcation between the blasted bare rock and the trees. Branches had been severed, even trunks split where the line of destruction had passed. The very precision was frightening.
Finally Grandfather found a flat rock, not too far from the edge but not nerve-rackingly close. He set the rice cake on it and stuck the incense stick upright into the dirt beside it. With a cheap cigarette lighter he lit the stick. The sweet smoke twirled away on the breeze and was lofted upward by the heat from the blasted stone.
Grandfather Cho had never addressed the earth dragon before, but it was always wise to be deferential. “Lord Dragon,” he prayed aloud. “Mighty under the earth. Remember that we, your subjects, have always respected you. Accept these humble offerings—”
He was staring down, at the rock and the rice cake. And suddenly the rock became real. It snapped into a powerful focus that Grandfather recognized, even though he had never seen it before. The rock became far more real than the rice cake, so that the rice cake looked like a smear of flour, the vapor from a sneeze.
Grandfather Cho reeled back a step. Oh gods, the path was doing the same thing. The ground under his bare feet was more than solid, assuming more dimensions, more reality, than a mortal could tolerate. His own feet looked thin and shadowy. He didn’t deliberately fall flat on his face. He had no choice, any more than the incense smoke did. Powerful currents were pushing at him.
YOU
The words reverberated through his body. Grandfather Cho clapped his hands over his ears but the voice reverberated through him anyway.
YOU, MORTAL
“Great lord,” Grandfather Cho choked.
HOW DARE YOU DESTROY MY MOUNTAIN
“It wasn’t us, your humble subjects. It was the Americans!”
Grandfather Cho dared to peer between his fingers. The earth dragon was there. It was so real that Grandfather Cho could not see it properly. He dimly discerned a long body, miles of it, undulating in and out of the solid rock as if it were smoke. But it really was smoke. The earth dragon was so much more real. Solid matter was no more than vapor to it. Its head was the size of a cliff. And the eyes—there were six, eight, twenty of them, the hot color of the sun at noon, all of them glaring at him. The ground under his belly was losing its substance. The dragon was so terrifyingly real that Grandfather Cho could feel himself melting.
THEN THEY MUST STOP
“Mighty Lung, they are using space weapons that we cannot—”
SEE TO IT
“It shall be as you command, great lord.” There was really no other reply to make. Grandfather lay trembling and sweating, silently praying he would survive this. Men were not meant to look at gods. Lung might have heard him, because the ground beneath him firmed up a little, like a jelly cooling and setting. The dragon must be moving away, deeper down into the ground. Removed from the presence of divine reality, the world gradually subsided into solidity again. Trembling, Grandfather Cho staggered to his feet and ran.
When he tottered back to Huanggangxin, however, the villagers were skeptical. “What does Lung think the Chinese Space Force is doing?” Fengfeng demanded. “They’re trying as hard as they can to defeat the Americans.”
“Did you phone the Central Committee?”
“I got a recording. Left a message.”
“We have to do something,” Grandfather insisted. “Or Lung will be even more angry.”
“It must have hurt, to lose the top of the mountain,” Madam Liang said. “But we’re farmers. What can we do?”
Nobody knew. But under the lash of desperation Grandfather Cho had an idea. “Let me charge up my phone,” he said. “I’ll call Ah Mei.”
“Good, good! Your smart granddaughter.”
“They know everything in Shanghai,” Madam Liang said.
Grandfather was confident. “She’ll know what to do.”
He took the phone out from behind the rice bowls. Then he had to search for the cable before he could plug it in. The battery had run all the way down, so it took all night to charge up. Ah Mei had put her number into the Saved Contacts, so that was no problem. But then there was the difficulty of actually reaching her. Ah Mei had a job with a game-design business in Shanghai. “Online multiplayer,” she’d said, words that meant nothing to Grandfather Cho, though it involved working even longer hours than farming.
But after several attempts he got through. “Hello, BaBa!” she cried, small and distant in his ear. Madam Liang helped him put the phone into speaker mode. Everyone nodded approvingly at her dutiful words. “Is your health good? How is the rice crop?”
“Fine, fine. But I have a different problem, Ah Mei. A big one. Maybe you can help me, huh?”
