The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection (83 page)

He rubbed his head, looking off into the distance. “New Life,” he said, trying to place the name. “New Life . . .”

“Out past the zoo,” Baiyue said.

Jieling thought they shouldn’t say so much.

“Ah, in the city. A good place? What do they make?” he asked. He had a way of blinking very quickly that was disconcerting.

“Batteries,” Jieling said. She didn’t say bio-batteries.

“I thought they made computers,” he said.

“Oh yes,” Baiyue said. “Special projects.”

Jieling glared at Baiyue. If this guy gave them trouble at New Life, they’d have a huge problem getting out of the compound.

Baiyue blushed.

Wei laughed. “You are special project girls, then. Well, see, I knew you were not just average factory girls.”

He didn’t press the issue. Jieling kept waiting for him to make some sort of move on them. Offer to buy them beer. But he didn’t, and when they had finished their dumplings, he gave them the leftovers to take back to their dormitories and then stood at the bus stop until they were safely on their bus.

“Are you sure you will be all right?” he asked them when the bus came.

“You can see my window from the bus stop,” Jieling promised. “We will be fine.”

“Shenzhen can be a dangerous city. You be careful!”

Out the window, they could see him in the glow of the streetlight, waving as the bus pulled away.

“He was so nice,” Baiyue sighed. “Poor man.”

“Didn’t you think he was a little strange?” Jieling asked.

“Everybody is strange anymore,” Baiyue said. “After the plague. Not like when we were growing up.”

It was true. Her mother was strange. Lots of people were crazy from so many people dying. Jieling held up the leftover dumplings. “Well, anyway. I am not feeding this to my battery,” she said. They both tried to smile.

“Our whole generation is crazy,” Baiyue said.

“We know everybody dies,” Jieling said. Outside the bus window, the streets were full of young people, out trying to live while they could.

They made all their bus connections as smooth as silk. So quick, they were home in forty-five minutes. Sunday night was movie night, and all of Jieling’s roommates were at the movie so she and Baiyue could sort the money in Jieling’s room. She used her key card and the door clicked open.

Mr Wei was kneeling by the battery boxes in their room. He started and hissed, “Close the door!”

Jieling was so surprised she did.

“Mr Wei!” Baiyue said.

He was dressed like an army man on a secret mission, all in black. He showed them a little black gun. Jieling blinked in surprise. “Mr Wei!” she said. It was hard to take him seriously. Even all in black, he was still weird Mr Wei, blinking rapidly behind his glasses.

“Lock the door,” he said. “And be quiet.”

“The door locks by itself,” Jieling explained. “And my roommates will be back soon.”

“Put a chair in front of the door,” he said and shoved the desk chair towards them. Baiyue pushed it under the door handle. The window was open and Jieling could see where he had climbed on the desk and left a footprint on Taohua’s fashion magazine. Taohua was going to be pissed. And what was Jieling going to say? If anyone found out there was a man in her room, she was going to be in very big trouble.

“How did you get in?” she asked. “What about the cameras?” There were security cameras.

He showed them a little spray can. “Special paint. It just makes things look foggy and dim. Security guards are so lazy anymore no one ever checks things out.” He paused a moment, clearly disgusted with the lax morality of the day. “Miss Jieling,” he said. “Take that screwdriver and finish unscrewing that computer from the wall.”

Computer? She realized he meant the battery boxes.

Baiyue’s eyes got very big. “Mr Wei! You’re a thief!”

Jieling shook her head. “A corporate spy.”

“I am a patriot,” he said. “But you young people wouldn’t understand that. Sit on the bed.” He waved the gun at Baiyue.

The gun was so little it looked like a toy and it was difficult to be afraid, but still Jieling thought it was good that Baiyue sat.

Jieling knelt. It was her box that Mr Wei had been disconnecting. It was all the way to the right, so he had started with it. She had come to feel a little bit attached to it, thinking of it sitting there, occasionally zapping electricity back into the grid, reducing her electricity costs and her debt. She sighed and unscrewed it. Mr Wei watched.

She jimmied it off the wall, careful not to touch the contacts. The cells built up a charge, and when they were ready, a switch tapped a membrane and they discharged. It was all automatic and there was no knowing when it was going to happen. Mr Wei was going to be very upset when he realized that this wasn’t a computer.

“Put it on the desk,” he said.

She did.

“Now sit with your friend.”

Jieling sat down next to Baiyue. Keeping a wary eye on them, he sidled over to the bio-battery. He opened the hatch where they dumped garbage in them, and tried to look in as well as look at them. “Where are the controls?” he asked. He picked it up, his palm flat against the broken back end where the contacts were exposed.

“Tap it against the desk,” Jieling said. “Sometimes the door sticks.” There wasn’t actually a door. But it had just come into her head. She hoped that the cells hadn’t discharged in a while.

Mr Wei frowned and tapped the box smartly against the desktop.

Torpedinidae, the electric ray, can generate a current of 200 volts for approximately a minute. The power output is close to 1 kilowatt over the course of the discharge and while this won’t kill the average person, it is a powerful shock. Mr Wei stiffened and fell, clutching the box and spasming wildly. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . Mr Wei was still spasming. Jieling and Baiyue looked at each other. Gingerly, Jieling stepped around Mr Wei. He had dropped the little gun. Jieling picked it up. Mr Wei was still spasming. Jieling wondered if he was going to die. Or if he was already dead and the electricity was just making him jump. She didn’t want him to die. She looked at the little gun and it made her feel even sicker so she threw it out the window.

Finally Mr Wei dropped the box.

Baiyue said, “Is he dead?”

Jieling was afraid to touch him. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Then he groaned and both girls jumped.

“He’s not dead,” Jieling said.

“What should we do?” Baiyue asked.

“Tie him up,” Jieling said. Although she wasn’t sure what they’d do with him then.

Jieling used the cord to her boombox to tie his wrists. When she grabbed his hands he gasped and struggled feebly. Then she took her pillowcase and cut along the blind end, a space just wide enough that his head would fit through.

“Sit him up,” she said to Baiyue.

“You sit him up,” Baiyue said. Baiyue didn’t want to touch him.

Jieling pulled Mr Wei into a sitting position. “Put the pillowcase over his head,” she said. The pillowcase was like a shirt with no armholes, so when Baiyue pulled it over his head and shoulders, it pinned his arms against his sides and worked something like a straitjacket.

Jieling took his wallet and his identification papers out of his pocket. “Why would someone carry their wallet to a break-in?” she asked. “He has six ID papers. One says he is Mr Wei.”

“Wow,” Baiyue said. “Let me see. Also Mr Ma. Mr Zhang. Two Mr Liu’s and a Mr Cui.”

Mr Wei blinked, his eyes watering.

“Do you think he has a weak heart?” Baiyue asked.

“I don’t know,” Jieling said. “Wouldn’t he be dead if he did?”

Baiyue considered this.

“Baiyue! Look at all this yuan!” Jieling emptied the wallet, counting. Almost eight thousand yuan!

“Let me go,” Mr Wei said weakly.

Jieling was glad he was talking. She was glad he seemed like he might be all right. She didn’t know what they would do if he died. They would never be able to explain a dead person. They would end up in deep debt. And probably go to jail for something. “Should we call the floor auntie and tell him that he broke in?” Jieling asked.

“We could,” Baiyue said.

“Do not!” Mr Wei said, sounding stronger. “You don’t understand! I’m from Beijing!”

“So is my stepfather,” Jieling said. “Me, I’m from Baoding. It’s about an hour south of Beijing.”

Mr Wei said, “I’m from the government! That money is government money!”

“I don’t believe you,” Jieling said. “Why did you come in through the window?” Jieling asked.

“Secret agents always come in through the window?” Baiyue said and started to giggle.

“Because this place is counter-revolutionary!” Mr Wei said.

Baiyue covered her mouth with her hand. Jieling felt embarrassed, too. No one said things like “counter-revolutionary” anymore.

“This place! It is making things that could make China strong!” he said.

“Isn’t that good?” Baiyue asked.

“But they don’t care about China! Only about money. Instead of using it for China, they sell it to America!” he said. Spittle was gathering at the corner of his mouth. He was starting to look deranged. “Look at this place! Officials are all concerned about
guanxi
!” Connections. Kickbacks. Guanxi ran China, everybody knew that.

“So, maybe you have an anti-corruption investigation?” Jieling said. There were lots of anti-corruption investigations. Jieling’s stepfather said that they usually meant someone powerful was mad at their brother-in-law or something, so they accused them of corruption.

Mr Wei groaned. “There is no one to investigate them.”

Baiyue and Jieling looked at each other.

Mr Wei explained, “In my office, the Guangdong office, there used to be twenty people. Special operatives. Now there is only me and Ms Yang.”

Jieling said, “Did they all die of bird flu?”

Mr Wei shook his head. “No, they all went to work on contract for Saudi Arabia. You can make a lot of money in the Middle East. A lot more than in China.”

“Why don’t you and Ms Yang go work in Saudi Arabia?” Baiyue asked.

Jieling thought Mr Wei would give some revolutionary speech. But he just hung his head. “She is the secretary. I am the bookkeeper.” And then in a smaller voice, “She is going to Kuwait to work for Mr Liu.”

They probably did not need bookkeepers in the Middle East. Poor Mr Wei. No wonder he was such a terrible secret agent.

“The spirit of the revolution is gone,” he said, and there were real, honest to goodness tears in his eyes. “Did you know that Tiananmen Square was built by volunteers? People would come after their regular job and lay the paving of the square. Today people look to Hong Kong.”

“Nobody cares about a bunch of old men in Beijing,” Baiyue said.

“Exactly! We used to have a strong military! But now the military is too worried about their own factories and farms! They want us to pull out of Tajikistan because it is ruining their profits!”

This sounded like a good idea to Jieling, but she had to admit, she hated the news so she wasn’t sure why they were fighting in Tajikistan anyway. Something about Muslim terrorists. All she knew about Muslims was that they made great street food.

“Don’t you want to be patriots?” Mr Wei said.

“You broke into my room and tried to steal my – you know that’s not a computer, don’t you?” Jieling said. “It’s a bio-battery. They’re selling them to the Americans. Wal-Mart.”

Mr Wei groaned.

“We don’t work in special projects,” Baiyue said.

“You said you did,” he protested.

“We did not,” Jieling said. “You just thought that. How did you know this was my room?”

“The company lists all its workers in a directory,” he said wearily. “And it’s movie night, everyone is either out or goes to the movies. I’ve had the building under surveillance for weeks. I followed you to the market today. Last week it was a girl named Pingli, who blabbed about everything, but she wasn’t in special projects.

“I put you on the bus, I’ve timed the route three times. I should have had an hour and fifteen minutes to drive over here and get the box and get out.”

“We made all our connections,” Baiyue explained.

Mr Wei was so dispirited he didn’t even respond.

Jieling said, “I thought the government was supposed to help workers. If we get caught, we’ll be fined and we’ll be deeper in debt.” She was just talking. Talking, talking, talking too much. This was too strange. Like when someone was dying. Something extraordinary was happening, like your father dying in the next room, and yet the ordinary things went on, too. You made tea, your mother opened the shop the next day and sewed clothes while she cried. People came in and pretended not to notice. This was like that. Mr Wei had a gun and they were explaining about New Life.

“Debt?” Mr Wei said.

“To the company,” she said. “We are all in debt. The company hires us and says they are going to pay us, but then they charge us for our food and our clothes and our dorm and it always costs more than we earn. That’s why we were doing rap today. To make money to be able to quit.” Mr Wei’s glasses had tape holding the arm on. Why hadn’t she noticed that in the restaurant? Maybe because when you are afraid you notice things. When your father is dying of the plague, you notice the way the covers on your mother’s chairs need to be washed. You wonder if you will have to do it or if you will die before you have to do chores.

“The Pingli girl,” he said, “she said the same thing. That’s illegal.”

“Sure,” Baiyue said. “Like anybody cares.”

“Could you expose corruption?” Jieling asked.

Mr Wei shrugged, at least as much as he could in the pillowcase. “Maybe. But they would just pay bribes to locals and it would all go away.”

All three of them sighed.

“Except,” Mr Wei said, sitting up a little straighter. “The Americans. They are always getting upset about that sort of thing. Last year there was a corporation, the Shanghai Six. The Americans did a documentary on them and then western companies would not do business. If they got information from us about what New Life is doing . . .”

“Who else is going to buy bio-batteries?” Baiyue said. “The company would be in big trouble!”