by S. H. Marpel
THE THREE OF US WERE so quiet when Lu Shi finished that the room echoed with her last sentence.
It was Gaia who spoke first. “Lu, your stories remind me of the earlier times I’ve met with them. And it saddens me to find they are trapped in banners for some Emperor’s entertainment.” A tear ran down her cheek, which she moved to brush away.
Lu only nodded, her eyes sad. “I wasn’t present for their capture. I’ve heard they were trapped one by one, as each came to free the others. Surely you’ve heard that they are unconquerable when they fight together in battle.”
I asked, “So it was some sort of magic that lured and entrapped them?”
Lu frowned. “This isn’t my area of expertise. Perhaps the Earth Goddess would know better what might have happened.”
Gaia nodded, with a serious look and now-dried eyes. “What I could sense is a very old power in that room. What the Chinese and other ancient peoples called ‘demons’. It is not that other’s magic doesn’t work here, but more that this power is so pervasive and penetrating that any simple magic spells seem to have limited effects.”
I gave a wry smile. “That would account for the ‘anti-viral’ effects it has.”
Sal interjected. “And yet, Lu Shi ate Hami’s food and experienced the reverse effect.”
I stroked my stubbled chin. “That might be the ‘choice’ factor in that Lazurai virus. Where people are given choice to live how they want, which abilities they want to manifest, that this phenomenon is more basic than any demon’s power.”
Gaia nodded, brighter. “Sure. Choice is native to the formation of this universe and all life in it. All living things have choices. No matter how government and their demons can say they don’t. The more people give up their choices, the more they become slaves. And imprisonment – a last resort of Justice – is simply enforcing non-choice on the individual who has proved they cannot be trusted even with that basic responsibility.”
Sal brightened at this and looked at me.
I got what she sent. “Which means we now have a channel to tackle this scene with.”
Gaia cocked her head at this, catching my drift. “It doesn’t make it any easier or less dangerous, but at least we aren’t now flying blind.”
VIII
THE SUMMONS CAME NOT too much later. The Royal Couple had conferred and announced our presence was requested.
Lu Shi had brought us the news, led us into the audience chamber, then stood aside with bowed head to let us walk toward the dais. (I heard her feet pad behind us, following, no doubt to act as our interpreter as needed.)
The Emperor and Empress were on their respective thrones. An ancient Chinese theme played in the background and diminished when we reached our position as before. They sat, we stood.
And waited.
My eyes went from one to the other of these two Royals, to see if I could determine their attitude. You might have heard the word “inscrutable” applied to ancient Chinese. Very true here. Practiced poker faces on both.
At last, the Emperor spoke. “After due conference, we have decided to grant your boon and request to talk with one of the Immortals. However, this is only a trial. If the Immortal misbehaves, then we will punish them and none others will be released, however temporary the time.”
His voice was loud and commanding. I assume this was to be clear to those imprisoned beings, as undoubtedly they could still hear him wherever they existed.
I nodded. “Agreed, your Majesty.”
“Very well...”
“If I may, your Highness, I had some questions before we started with the first Immortal.”
Behind me, I heard Lu Shi gasp.
The Emperor raised an eyebrow on his already stern face. “And why should you get a second boon on top of the first?”
“Very simple, Emperor - ‘back story’. In order for this story of yours to be properly presented, this lowly scribe wants to set the scene for your readers.”
I held out an open hand in Sal’s direction and a legal pad appeared in it, a ball point in my other hand.
The Emperor seemed to relax, interested in this concept.
I continued. “Sure – readers need to be involved in the story from the beginning. They want to have the details fed to them and become involved in the life of the protagonist – that’s you and your Empress here – so they can live their life through your own actions and understand your decisions that brought you to this high state of accomplishment.”
My gestures became wider – with the pen seeming to write in the space above me and the tablet following below, trying to catch the words onto the page as they fell.
The Emperor nodded, while the Empress turned to see his reactions to my speech.
“And I don’t know where to begin asking about your back story. So I have to ask some questions here, if you two don’t mind?” I looked back and forth between them, but I didn’t see any ‘tells’ as I did.
The Emperor relaxed against his throne, and then did the Empress – who seemed to think this might take awhile, so she might as well get comfortable. She wasn’t as amused as yesterday, but wasn’t frowning.
The Emperor nodded.
I continued. “Very well, then. China has a long history of conquest, division, and re-conquest and reunification. Where does your own rule start, and what steps started your own rise to power?”
I saw the mention of ‘power’ raised an eyebrow of the Empress’ face as she looked at the Emperor’s for his answer.
“There was a time when plagues had just started to sweep the planet with some regularity. And being able to control these pandemics became a necessary part of warfare for our Communist China to use against her enemies abroad and nearby.
“I had trained in Western Universities to understand their approach to economics and how they would respond to an unorthodox threat. After that, I was assigned to diplomatic duties – where I could expand and hone my own understanding of other nation’s reactionary responses. I was also to assist our various ‘news’ outlets to hone their messages through various ‘keyword phrases’ so that we would continue to rank highly in their ‘search engines’ and get our messages out to both the wider public and the narrow few governmental types we were targeting.”
“Can you share some of the successes you achieved?”
“Certainly, John. An early one was when we were able to shut down the entire global economy for a few months – by simply ‘accidentally’ releasing a fairly rapid-spreading virus and then staging some shutdowns in our country to make it look like the virus was extremely dangerous. Meanwhile, we got messages out officially that we denied the danger of the virus and were taking our own measured steps to ‘improve the medical efficiency’ of our flu season response.
“Of course, the media in most of the countries leapt to their conspiracy rumors (which we also spread through back channels) to suspect we were hiding something. The researchers we were funding in these Western countries were then fed conflicting data about how harmless or harmful this mysterious virus was. We claimed to have virus samples that we destroyed, and so this was like pouring potent rice wine on an open flame.
“We also influenced a particular Western researcher to ‘discover’ via his ‘algorithms’ that this was an incredibly dangerous virus that could infect and kill hundreds of thousands if not millions in each country. That researcher then distributed his ‘official’ research papers to the rest of the governments, who one by one followed his recommendations and shut down their economies.”
The Emperor was reveling in this deception he’d committed.
“About the time people started wanting to get back to work, we then had some mysterious ‘quarantines’ mandated for various cities, which backed up their fears that there would be second and third waves of this virus.”
He was grinning now, as if this was a huge joke.
“I was even surprised how simple it was to stampede whole nations like a set of dominoes. The follow-up was t
hen for us to ‘ride to the rescue’ as your American Westerns used to have – and buy up companies across these countries, getting them started with our own ‘immune’ workers, and producing food and materials they need from their own factories.”
I had to interrupt this sordid, self-congratulating story – but used my own ‘interested’ poker face to ‘get the facts’ of this back story.
“So, Emperor, I beg to interrupt, but I thought the readers would also like to find out how you two met. Readers love having a little romance with all the intrigue.”
The Empress leaned forward a bit and toward the Emperor to see how he would tell her story.
He nodded to her, and began, “It happened not too long after that, where we met one day. I had returned from my American assignments and through my family contacts – as well as various loans they were able to secure for me – I was able to start a small company that dealt in pharmaceuticals. We simply had the idea to start producing the expensive ‘cures’ as medicines that would solve these ‘virus problems’ that the rest of the world now has.
“My uncle actually owned the lab where these contagious viruses were being ‘studied’. And since China had all sorts of animals with these various flu-type illnesses that could jump to humans, we were a perfect opportunity for financial investment by other countries to do the world’s research. After all, if something bad happened in our labs, then our country would be the world’s firewall – or that was their stated reasoning. Meaning, we got their monies to find and weaponize viruses against them.
“On a tour of my uncle’s facility one day, I was struck by the beauty of the lead scientist when she took off her mask and goggles just as I came by. We were introduced and I was smitten.” He turned to her with his dreamy eyes, and met her own dreaming back at his.
After a short while, I cleared my throat – just to move the story along.
“Oh, yes. I started taking the work of coordinating our research efforts personally. And so I was able to meet with my lovely Empress almost daily. Yes, we had work to do, but finding someone who was intelligent and shared my own goals for global domination through ‘infectious’ viral transmission – that was a match conceived in heaven as far as we were concerned.”
They began mooning their eyes at each other again.
I coughed. “Excuse me Emperor, but how did this wind up with you two on this floating castle in the middle of an expanding desert?”
The Emperor raised an eyebrow and glanced my way. I’d struck a nerve somehow.
“I was getting there. One day, my lovely lotus flower came into the lab and something had changed inside her. There was a look in her eyes that was indomitable. Of course, that intrigued me even more, since our evening activities were already athletic.
“Her first words were, ‘You have to see this.’ And then took my hand.
“I almost stumbled at that. Something passed between us instantly. It completely changed my view of things. I saw the power that was now driving her – and had to get some of this for my own.”
IX
I LOOKED OVER AT THE Empress, and her look had hardened. Her eyes seemed to change to a darker color, and her eyebrows accented their intensity.
“I’ll tell John this part, dear.”
The Emperor nodded, dreamily looking at her as if spelled – which he was.
The Empress sat up straight, her eyes boring into me. “It’s very simple. See if you can keep up.”
I looked intent at her, after I scrolled the next sheet of yellow paper behind the pad, my pen poised to continue. Then I nodded.
“Overnight I had an inspiration.” She held up a hand with a dark ring on it. Feeling it with her thumb, she twisted it around. I could see it had opposing red and blue jewels in it.
“Take one virus that was particularly lethal, and cross it with another that was particularly infectious. Then first find the cure without letting anyone know – even our own government minders – to make ourselves proof against the effects before releasing it.”
I heard both Gaia and Sal react to this concept, but kept my “interested scribe” face on.
“I took tiny amounts of the virus and fed it to rabbits, then prepared those as meat dishes for our evening meals. Gradually, I increased the dosages and we became the only two people on the planet who were immune.
“Then from our blood, I created a vaccine using sheep genetic material to produce a food-grade version that we could feed to various loyal helpers as a test. And that loyalty was tested by whether they refused. If not, they had an ‘unfortunate’ lab accident.”
I had to force myself to write at this point. I didn’t like writing horror, but that’s just a form of mystery – as I had to remind myself to continue.
“Eventually, we expanded the tests to our household staff and then to the wait-staff who were hired for an upcoming huge event where the key government officials, including the People’s Party Chairman, were to be briefed on our discovery. Since the event was top secret, we had all the military heads present and the food was specially catered. The wait-staff were isolated from everyone else as part of ‘security’.
“Of course, we had already tested our dishes on their cooks and food preps people, and put the live full-strength virus into the hand sanitizer they used.”
I kept my head down to concentrate on the details. This was going to be a rough case to solve. These people were hard-core murderers. And I suspected that their most horrific crimes would be detailed next.
“THE BANQUET WENT OFF without a hitch. And the many speeches we endured as their hosts were probably the worst we had to endure that night.
“At last the food came. And all the toasts. Of course, it was all prepared just as tasty as ever, so these officials stuffed themselves on exotic meats – the ones we had infected in our own lab.
“About half way through a very technical presentation, some of the brighter ones realized what we had done. But about the same time, people were simply passing out, never to recover. The wait-staff would quietly take the few away, in waiting wheel chairs – until there were too many passing out to deal with.
“Finally, everyone was dead in the room except myself, my darling lover, and the wait-staff. A perfect execution of a perfect plan. We two were now head of the government and the military.
“When the bodies were taken to the morgue, the attendants there caught the virus and took it home with them. Within a few days, it was in all the major cities, spread by either the friends and families of the immune wait-staff or the people who drove the ambulances, the attending doctors, or the reporters who got too close.
“By the time anyone had figured out that it was a virus, planes had already traveled across the globe, infecting all their passengers with the recirculated air they were breathing.”
She paused for me to catch up – but I already was. Besides, Sal has a perfect memory, which is handy for all these series I write. She wouldn’t let me get away with any errors – except where I told her it was ‘artistic license’.
Really, I just needed to take a few breaths and get my heart to quit racing.
Somehow, this virus hadn’t affected Sal or I or Gaia. I assumed it wasn’t engineered to be time-delayed. And none of us had touched the Royal couple, but we had touched Lu Shi – and I’d picked up that skewer of meat she’d brought...
Finally, my heart and mind quit racing. I had a job to do. I cleared my throat and started in.
“So, Empress, thanks for all that great backstory. Intriguing, really. This doesn’t explain a few things – like this growing desert and the floating rock we are on.”
She gave me a wry, condescending grin. “You are a brave one. But since you’re already dead, since the moment you arrived, I can tell you the rest of the details...”
“THERE WAS A BYPRODUCT of the virus that it killed almost all reptiles, mammals and birds of any species. Reverse transmission from humans to animals. Fortunately, the species that lived on carrion were s
omehow unaffected. Or became that way. More like zombified. They no longer reproduced, but no longer had to – since they would keep feeding on corpses and digesting them indefinitely.
“This created expansions in the deserts, since grasses and trees and shrubs all need to interact with live animals.”
“And since the virus was now out there, we only had to wait until enough naturally-immune people survived that could be gathered and ruled.”
The Emperor now took over the history lesson.
“So I researched governments and found that the longest and most successful Chinese civilizations were those run by Emperors. And with my darling at my side – and did I mention that the virus basically made us immortal? We then could rule until the end of time – waiting for enough people to become immune so we could rule them.”
I interrupted. “And this floating castle?”
The empress grinned. “This happened as another weird side-effect. Bones of the deceased tend to be lighter than air and attract each other. So corpses started literally floating around in big clumps. The mortuary assistants started taking them deep underground for storage until they could be cremated. But the staff in the crematories died off as well as the assistants who brought the bodies to them.
“As the lands died, the winds blew, sand came in, and the land on top of the caverns started floating in air. Our masons and caretakers built this castle over years on top of those caverns, which were under our original laboratories. As they rose as a mass, they attracted even more bones and so we are here.”
I was done writing. I folded the sheets back on the yellow pad and put my pen away. These people were monsters.
They’d killed a planet. The rest only still alive because the virus needed the winds to carry it on their jet streams. The rest of our world and the parallel worlds connected here had perhaps centuries, if not merely decades.
