Tales of the Republic (The Complete Novel) Page 3

  “He hasn’t blackmailed you.”

  “Not yet,” Ming said. He bit his lip for a moment while he considered what to say next. The silence and the fresh smell of the farm calmed him and gave him courage. “What if we planted the rice seeds on your farm? Or found somewhere else we could plant them while the committee review is under way? We won’t tell anyone. It will just give us a head start, so that when the committee approves the next phase of the project—and they will, if I have anything to say about it—we’ve already bought ourselves a few weeks.”

  “You’re asking me to break the law. I won’t put my family in danger, Kai.”

  Ming pursed his lips. “I know. But what other choice do we have?”

  “Do you remember when we used to stay up late playing poker in university?”

  “Remember?” Ming laughed. “You took all my money. How could I forget?”

  “I mean the conversations we had more than the games themselves. We talked a lot of shit, it’s true. But I remember one night when you got all righteous about how you were going to ‘join the electorate’ and ‘change the system from the inside.’” He put the phrases in air quotes.

  “I remember I drank a lot that night.”

  “Maybe. But I think there was some truth in what you said. You know, we were naive about a lot of things back then, but that wasn’t one of them.”

  “What’s your point?” said Ming.

  “Change comes from within. Don’t you see? You’re a magistrate now.”

  “I’m a glorified bookkeeper.” Who buries people.

  “No, you’re finally in a position to be the change you always talked about. Don’t let Senator Khan—or anyone—take that from you.”

  “From us.”

  Ben nodded.

  Ming looked down. “I just wish there was another option.”

  They covered the rest of the distance in silence and came to a stop in front of Ben’s laboratory, a foggy white dome built over the top of a small section of rice paddy.

  Ben opened the door and beckoned Ming into the humid air of the enclosure. “This way.”

  Inside, a concrete walkway encircled a shallow pool of water a hundred feet wide. Out of the water, wide, elegant green rice leaves proudly rose.

  “No doubt this looks like a normal rice paddy to you, except for the dome,” Ben said.

  Ming understood his friend’s work in general terms, but he had never taken the time to see it firsthand . It wasn’t his skill set. Still, he nodded.

  “The rice seeds I’ve engineered are capable of growing in any condition—drought, flood, desert, anything. They need very little water and minimal sunlight. And the seeds grow into large, robust grains.” Ben stepped into the rice paddy and retrieved a few. A half dozen grains filled his palm. “They’re just as nutritious and, unlike most modified rice seeds, they have normal levels of arsenic, the same you would find in your average grain of jasmine rice. No adverse health effects that I’ve been able to discover. The committee should be pleased with the results.”

  “Incredible,” said Ming.

  Ben stepped out of the paddy and retrieved a small plastic cooler from a shelf by the door. He held it out and Ming took the cooler in his arms. It was cold to the touch, and heavier than it looked.

  “Here are the seeds the committee needs,” said Ben. “This is a refrigerated biological containment unit. It’s pretty delicate, so try not to shake it up.”

  Ming turned to carry the cooler back to the car. He held it in both hands under the cool, curved corners, taking care not to let it slip through his sweaty palms. Orange light poured through a slight haze in the blue sky to illuminate the orderly rows of rice plants. Up close, Ming could see what he couldn’t from a distance—wilted stalks and barren patches of dark water among the otherwise healthy green rice plants. If the valley was a living being, these patches would be the symptoms of some kind of trauma, like a patient suffering hair loss due to a sudden brush with death.

  And Ming carried a chance, if not to prevent the inevitable, at least to stave off death a little longer. For a few people. A wave of nausea trembled through his abdomen and gave him the chills.

  Ben walked beside him, lost in his own thoughts. Ming opened his mouth to speak several times, but in the end he simply couldn’t ask his friend to endanger his family. Ben had done his part.

  Mrs. Li and the younger girl weren’t outside when they returned to the house. They found Ari and Po by the car on the side of the house. Ari had the hood thrown open, and he was pointing to something on the engine while he talked to Po. When the two heard Ming and Ben approach, Ari turned and pulled the hood down.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  Po smiled shyly. “He was just showing me the battery and the electric engine. It’s pretty neat.”

  “Ari knows his stuff.”

  “I just know the basics. There’s really not much to maintain these days. Not like the old gas guzzlers my dad used to fix up.”

  Po smiled at Ari. “Dad gave me a gas-powered dirtbike last year for Christmas. I’ll have to show you some time.”

  “Time to wash up for dinner, sweetheart,” Ben said. Po nodded, and went into a side entrance nearby. She gave a shy wave to Ari out of her father’s line of sight before she closed the door.

  Ari opened the back door for Ming, and he set the cooler gently in the middle of the back seat where he could keep an eye on it.

  “All set,” Ming said.

  “Very good, sir.” Ari stood by the driver’s-side door and waited for Ming to say goodbye.

  “You’re both welcome to stay for dinner,” Ben said.

  “Thanks, but I want to get back before dark.” He managed to keep a straight face when Ari’s cheek twitched over Ben’s shoulder. It reminded him that no matter what difficult choice he was forced to make—even if it was not really his choice at all—there was at least one ally he could count on to support him.

  “I’ll keep you posted,” Ming said to Ben. “We should get together again soon. A game of poker might help get my mind off things.”

  Ben grinned, the first true smile Ming had seen on his face all day. “I’d be happy to take your money again.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  CHAPTER 4

  BOTTLENECKED

  Ming put the cooler on his lap and thought hard about what Dr. Li had said while Ari drove them back through the valley. He felt harried and stuck at the same time, like a thief being chased toward a precipice high above Enshi River.

  If he gave the committee the rice, Ming couldn’t be sure it would make it into the hands of the poor. There just wasn’t enough time. The freezing cold would return with a vengeance, and thousands would die. The thought of giving the order to dig another mass grave site next to last year’s made him shiver and gag with revulsion.

  His other option was to put the rice seeds into production himself. Ming could throw a stick and hit a farmer in the valley desperate enough to plant the seeds and tell no one—if the price was right. But if he failed to deliver the seeds to the committee, the whole project would be cancelled immediately. Senator Khan would insist they cut their losses, and yank funding. Ming would lose his job, or be transferred to a remote consulate in some icy northern territory.

  And if they punished Ben for Ming’s actions, he would never be able to forgive himself.

  He hated to admit it, but his old friend was right. If Ming really did want to make a difference, his only real choice was to work the system from within, no matter how aggravating, resistant, or corrupt Senator Khan and his lackeys may be.

  Some choice that was.

  Ming looked up again as their vehicle passed through the gate at the bridge. There were fewer police officers here, and now they had their rifles out and their helmets secured with chin straps. A cop that Ming didn’t recognize, a young woman with a serious expression behind a plastic visor, approached the car. Ming rolled down his window.

  �
��I’ve been ordered to escort you across the bridge, sir.”

  “What’s the matter, Lieutenant? Where’s Captain Wallace?”

  “He was called into Fields a moment ago. The protestors are gathering again. We think they’re going to march on the valley. Extra units were called in from all the nearest precincts, so he took as many as we could spare.”

  Ming took a deep breath. “Right. And I guess the protestors camped out at the other end of the bridge aren’t happy either.”

  She shook her head once, sharply.

  “Lead the way, then.”

  She nodded, then climbed into a police car parked nearby. Another officer took a second car, and together the three vehicles crossed the bridge, the two cop cars coasting slowly ahead.

  Ari whistled through his teeth as they reached the far end of the bridge. The ranks of protestors had swelled. Sirens from the cop cars whooped and flashed as the lieutenant and her partner pressed into the ranks of the angry mob, slowly but forcefully carving a path for Ming and Ari to leave.

  Despite their escort, heavy objects flew in their direction, the projectiles once again bouncing off the reinforced windows and hood with dull thunks. The protestors hoisted signs and the young men and women—some barely old enough to be called teenagers—shouted at the window.

  Ming directed his attention elsewhere and gripped his seatbelt with his hands. They were steady enough this time. It was always easier to face resistance when he was sure of his mission.

  When the way was cleared, he twirled his fingers at Ari in the rearview mirror. Hurry.

  They left the bridge behind and re-entered the city, winding their way through the poor quarters, past clumps of makeshift shacks walled and roofed with corrugated tin and plywood, beside run-down, water-stained rows of tenement buildings, until a mass of people clogging the street ahead forced them to a sudden stop.

  People stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a solid wall across the street. Their ranks went so deep that he couldn’t see the end of it. Ming cracked the window and heard their voices thunder into the air and reverberate through his chest.

  A line of police in full riot gear stood with their backs to the car, electrified plastic tower shields forming a wall of their own to block the mob of angry protestors from advancing through the city and, eventually, right up to the gate to King Valley.

  Ari swore under his breath, and with a gesture brought a transparent, 3D map up into the front windshield, which doubled as a transparent display. He looked at it for a second, zoomed in, then flicked the map off and said, “Hold tight, sir. I think I can get around them, but we’ve got to move fast before we get bottlenecked.”

  Ming grabbed the cooler with both hands to keep it from falling to the floor as Ari accelerated in reverse. The line of police shrunk in his view. Then Ari turned right, into a small alley parallel to the main road, and jammed his foot down on the gas pedal. Ming braced himself. The alley was narrow, just wide enough for the car to fit. They hit a slick patch and Ari fought to keep the car straight, to avoid the walls. He overcorrected and the passenger side mirror smacked against a door frame, broke off, and swung from frayed wires as they sped along.

  A clothesline hanging across the alley came down as Ari drove through it, and a wet blouse clung to the windshield, obscuring his view. He rolled down the window, reached out, and began to pull the sopping fabric to the side.

  The alley ended at the same time as Ari was trying to disentangle himself. He slammed on the brakes and their car fishtailed into the next crossroad, tires screeching.

  Ming craned his neck, trying to see if they’d made it around the mass of protestors when he heard a heavy thunk and the sound of plastic popping back into shape as something bounced off the hood of their car.

  The car came to a stop. Without thinking, Ming threw open the door and jumped out.

  A frail, skinny boy lay in the street, his neck cocked at a weird angle. Ming just stared, helpless, his very thoughts shocked out of his head.

  A woman wailed and bent over the boy, her voice cracking with a broken pain as she buried her tear-streaked face in the boy’s stomach. Ming bent down to in a frail attempt to comfort her, but he was shoved back by onlookers who snarled as they reacted with the raw, sudden emotion of witnessing the boy’s death.

  “No, I just want to help,”

  “You’ve done more than enough, you animal!”

  “Please, let me—”

  His words cut off as someone shoved him back again.

  Ari stepped out of the car, his arms reaching out to grab Ming, but the attackers turned on him next. They brutalized the big bodyguard with a rain of fists and feet. A man in a dirty tank top, who was so huge that he even made the big bodyguard look small, savaged Ari over the head with a wooden plank.

  Ari fell to the ground, stunned. The big man reached down and grabbed at Ari’s shoulder holster. Ari managed to push his hands away, but the snap came undone, and when he stood again, the firearm clattered to the pavement. Ming was given a brief reprieve from the hands holding him back while his assailants all jumped for the gun. The big man with the wooden plank was the first to reach it. He threw off everyone else, cleared a space in the crowd with the pistol, and dropped the plank. His eyes shone.

  Battered and bruised, gasping in pain, Ming watched in agony as the man leveled the pistol at Ari’s head.

  Ari’s eyes widened slightly, and his mouth fell open.

  “No!” Ming screamed as he rushed to his friend.

  A shot rang out. The man slowly backed away from them, the gun in his hand at his side.

  Ming flung himself onto his knees beside Ari and cradled the bloody pulp that used to be his dependable friend’s head. He choked on the bile that bubbled up into his mouth as he cried.

  The man with the gun turned on Ming, but, seeing his distress, perhaps he thought better of it. Later, Ming wished the man had pulled the trigger. Instead, he lowered the pistol and stuffed it into his jeans.

  Their revenge sated, the crowd turned to more practical matters. Ming watched helplessly as their car was stripped of supplies, the first aid kit and flares and electric tire pump taken from the trunk by desperate, sunken-eyed people. They tore and scratched at each other as they fought over the objects. The things.

  And what did things matter when his friend had just been killed?

  Then a woman with a tear-stained face—the mother of the dead boy on the ground, Ming realized—was in the back seat of the car. He remembered the cooler and jumped to his feet. The grieving woman pulled the cooler out of the back seat and hurled it against the ground before Ming could reach her. The top broke open and several glass vials fell out. Ming bent down, tried to scoop up the unbroken vials, but the woman stomped on his hands with her heavy boots, and Ming felt and heard the popping, snapping sounds as his fingers broke. She stomped the glass and seeds and his own blood and skin into the cracked pavement.

  Ming pulled his shattered fingers out from under her boots, a pain reflex more than a conscious effort. He scrabbled backward until he was beside Ari’s body again. He put his broken hands on his friend’s chest. His vision blurred as he sobbed.

  The riot police arrived then, whistles blowing, plastic shields extended, zapping those they touched with the electrified shields. The mob broke, turned, and ran. Captain Wallace barked an order and a dozen cops surrounded Ming.

  He cradled his friend’s bloody head in his mangled hands for the last time. Then he was pulled roughly to his feet and packed back into the car, forced to leave Ari behind.

  Forced to leave everything behind.

  After the riots abated, and the gate to King Valley fell, Ming went back for his friend. But he never found Ari’s body.

  Episode 2

  LOST MEMORIES

  CHAPTER 5

  MEDITECH

  A loud crash shook Ari awake.

  Dust and debris rained down. Vague shapes and shadows leered through a screen of harsh light. The air smelled
like antiseptic and mold. His breath came in shallow gasps.

  He closed his eyes, which blocked out the light and made the room stop spinning, but did nothing to untangle the knot of anxiety contorting his stomach.

  Where am I?

  “He’s waking up,” said a gruff male voice.

  “At last,” said a second man, his voice heavily accented. “Can he talk?”

  The voices boomed and reverberated in his skull like they were being blasted through a megaphone. His head rang, a light flickered, the ground bucked beneath him. Ari braced himself in a narrow bed.

  “We’ll see,” the first man grumbled. “Hardly…meditech…downright irresponsible.”

  Ari’s English was good but he had no ear for accents and couldn’t place the voices. Were they Indian? Japanese?

  He squinted while his vision adjusted to the glaring fluorescents, and the world slowly stabilized. In the cramped room he counted four white walls, which gathered the light and threw it back in pulsing waves. They undulated in rhythm with the pounding in his skull.

  He focused on regulating his breathing. He pictured, like he often did after a stressful day at basic training, his father’s workshop. Ari saw the squat auto bays, heard the purr and growl of engines, inhaled the pungent scent of motor oil. Outside the shop, a thin layer of dry snow coated the provincial road that led from Highway 50 through Brestov.

  A sense of incompleteness cut through the memory and gave him pause. It seemed like he had set out to do something important, and then forgotten what it was along the way.

  “Will he remember?” said the second man, the one with the heavy accent.

  “Too early to tell,” said the first man. “Field meditech was never meant to be used on deep wounds. The risks are too great.”

  “I didn’t exactly have the luxury of time.”

  A moment of silence passed between them.

  “You got to him quick enough, in any case.”

  Ari flinched when the walls of the room rumbled again, dashing what little calm he had managed to attain. He tried to turn his head, and a bolt of pain lanced through the left side of his neck into his shoulder. He cried out and brought his hands to his head, where his fingers came into contact with a cold, bumpy—