by Cixin Liu
* * *
National leaders were the last to depart in each country. In the NIT, two generations of leadership were making their last goodbyes. Every adult took their students aside to give final instructions.
The chief of general staff said to Lü Gang, “Remember, don’t engage in large-scale, far-reaching transcontinental or transoceanic wars. The navy is no match for Western main fleets in battle.”
Lü Gang had heard this from the CGS and other leaders countless times, and as on all those previous times, he nodded and said he would remember.
“Now let me introduce some people to you,” the CGS said, gesturing to five senior colonels he had brought with him. “This is the Special Observer Team that will function only during wartime. They have no authority to interfere with your command, but they have the right to know all confidential information during wartime.”
The five young colonels saluted Lü Gang, who saluted back and then asked the CGS, “What will they do then?”
“Their final duties will be made known to you at the necessary time.”
The president and prime minister were silent for quite a while as they faced Huahua, Specs, and Xiaomeng. History records that such a scene was found in most countries when adult leaders parted from child leaders for the final time. There was too much they wanted to say, so much that they were left speechless; what they had to say was so weighty that they were incapable of forming the words.
At last the president said, “Children, when you were very small, adults taught you that so long as there’s a will there’s a way. Now, I’m here to tell you, that’s completely wrong. The way is only open for those things in line with the laws of science and of social development. The vast majority of what people want to accomplish is impossible, no matter how hard they try. As leaders of this country, your historic mission is to consider a hundred options, eliminate the ninety-nine that are impossible, and find the one that can be accomplished. This will be difficult, but you must do it!”
The premier said, “Remember the MSG and salt.”
Parting itself was calm. The adults, after shaking hands silently with the children, helped each other out of the hall. The president was the last to leave, and before he went through the door he turned and said to the new national leadership, “Children, the world belongs to you now.”
THE SUPERNOVA ERA
For several days after the adults left, the young leaders spent their time in front of the Epoch Clock, which was displayed on the big screen in the hall at the top of the NIT, bathing the place in the green light of its enormous glowing rectangle.
All was normal in the country on the first day. The ministries handled tasks in various sectors relatively successfully, and there were no major incidents on national soil. The children’s country seemed to be running a continuation of the dry run. As had been the case then, there wasn’t much for the leaders at the top of the NIT to do.
That first night there was no change to the Epoch Clock, which remained an unblemished expanse of green. The child leaders stared silently at it until late in the night when they finally fell asleep. But when they woke up, someone shouted, “Come have a look. Isn’t that a little black dot up there?”
Up by the screen they looked carefully, and indeed there was a small black square roughly the size of a coin, as if the shiny surface of the green rectangle had shed a mosaic tile.
“Could it be a bad pixel?” one child asked.
“Must be. That happened with my old computer’s LCD screen,” another child replied. This theory was simple to test, requiring no more than a glance at other screens, but they all went back to sleep without anyone proposing it.
Children are far better at self-delusion than adults.
When they woke the next morning and gathered before the Epoch Clock again, self-delusion was no longer possible. Black dots were scattered throughout the green rectangle.
From up here, the city below them was peaceful, its streets empty of pedestrians and all but the occasional passing vehicle. After a century of tumult the metropolis seemed to have gone to sleep.
After dark, the number of black spots on the Epoch Clock had doubled, some of them joining into patches of black, like clearings in the green forest.
On the morning of the third day, approximately equal areas of black and green composed an intricate monochrome image. The black area was growing dramatically faster now, a black lava of death spreading across the Epoch Clock and ruthlessly consuming the green grass of life. By nightfall, black now covered two-thirds of the rectangle, and late that night the Epoch Clock had become a magic charm that held the children tightly in its grip.
Xiaomeng picked up the remote and turned off the screen. She said, “Go to sleep. It’s not right that we’ve been staying so late here every night. Take time to rest. Who knows what sort of work is waiting for us.”
They returned to their own rooms in the NIT to go to sleep. Huahua turned off the light and lay down on his bed, but then took up his palmtop and went online to bring up the Epoch Clock. Easy enough, since it was displayed on practically every website. He stared at the rectangle as if bewitched and didn’t notice Xiaomeng come in. She took his computer. In her hands she held a stack of other palmtops.
“Sleep! When will you all learn some self-control? I’ve got to go room to room to confiscate these computers.”
“When will you stop acting like my older sister?” Huahua called after her when she went out the door.
* * *
A tremendous fear seized the children as they stood before the Epoch Clock, but they were comforted by the fact that the country was still running stably, like a huge, well-oiled machine. Data displayed by Digital Domain convinced them that they had taken the reins of the world, and that everything would continue just as steadily forever. The previous night they had even left the darkening clock to go to bed.
When they stepped into the hall on the morning of the fourth day, however, the children felt the heavy dread of stepping into a tomb. Dawn had not yet come to the dark hall, and the green light of the past three days had all but disappeared. Within this darkness they saw just one patch of green lights remaining on the Epoch Clock, like remote stars on a cold winter’s night, and it was only after turning on the room lights that they could breathe easier. No one took a step away from the clock the entire day. They counted the dots again and again as they dwindled in number, fear and sadness gradually tightening around their hearts.
“So they’re just going to abandon us,” a child said.
“Yeah. How can they do that to us?” someone else said.
Xiaomeng said, “When my mom died I was there with her, and I thought the same thing: How could she abandon me? I even started to hate her. But later on I felt like she was still alive somewhere…”
A child shouted, “Look, another one’s gone out!”
Huahua pointed at one of the dots. “I bet that’ll be the next one to go out.”
“What do you bet?”
“If I’m wrong, then I won’t sleep tonight.”
“It’s quite possible no one’s going to sleep,” Specs said.
“Why?”
“At this rate, the Epoch Clock’s going to run out sometime tonight.”
One by one, green dots vanished, quicker than ever now, and to the children watching it, the nearly dark clock was like a bottomless pit they were suspended over.
“The rails really are going to be left hanging,” Specs said to himself.
Close to midnight just one green star was left, a single point shining its lonesome light from the upper left of the Epoch Clock’s dark desert. The hall was deathly quiet, the children still as statues as they stared, waiting for the final tick. An hour passed, then two, but the green star shone stubbornly on. The children started to exchange glances, and then began to whisper among themselves.
The sun rose in the east and passed over the silent city before setting in the west, and throughout the day that green star rema
ined lit.
By noon, a rumor had begun circulating in the NIT saying that an effective cure for supernova radiation had actually been developed some time ago, but it required so much time to produce that only a fraction of the demand could be met; the news was not made public so as to avoid chaos. The countries of the world had gathered their most talented individuals together and had treated them with the drug; the remaining green dot represented their final assembly point. Considered carefully, this scenario was not entirely impossible. They pulled up the final address from the UN secretary general and watched it again, noticing one line in particular:
“… Only when the Epoch Clock turns completely black will the children truly take over world administration, in a constitutional and legal sense. Prior to this, leadership power will remain with adults…”
It was an odd statement. It was perfectly possible for the adults to hand over power before departing for their final assembly points, so why wait until the Epoch Clock ran out? There was only one possibility: There was still hope for some people at some assembly point to survive!
By the afternoon, the children had become convinced of this theory. They eagerly watched the green star, as if looking toward a distant lighthouse on a treacherous night sea. They began searching for the location of that final assembly point, and thinking up ways to establish contact, but their search was fruitless. No clues concerning the assembly points had been left behind. They seemed to be located in another world. So the children had to wait, as night came in, unnoticed.
Late that night, on chairs and sofas under the soothing light of that undying green star, after a sleepless night and day, the children fell asleep, dreaming of a return to their parents’ embrace.
It began to rain, drumming lightly on the transparent floor-to-ceiling shell of the hall, enveloping the city and its scattered hazy lights down below, and running in rivulets down the outside walls.
Time moved forward, crossing the universe like a transparent fog, without making a sound.
The rain picked up, followed by wind, and eventually lightning flashed in the sky and thunder rolled, startling the children awake. Their shouts of alarm echoed in the hall.
The green star was dark. The last oak leaf of the Epoch Clock had gone out, leaving it an unbroken swath of black.
Not a single adult was left on Earth.
The rain stopped. A fierce wind swept the lingering storm clouds from the night sky to reveal the giant Rose Nebula, which shone with a severe, eerie blue light. When it struck the ground it turned silvery like moonlight, illuminating every detail of the wet landscape and washing out the city lights.
The children stood on the highest floor of the A-shaped tower and stared out into the cosmos at the blue glowing nebula, the solemn grave of an ancient star and the glorious womb nurturing the embryo of a new one, their diminutive bodies plated in otherworldly silver.
The Supernova Era had begun.
5
THE ERA BEGINS
HOUR ONE
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 1
The children stood at the transparent walls looking out at the magnificent Rose Nebula and the capital under its glow, considering in bewilderment the world that adults had left to them.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 2
“Oh…” said Huahua.
“Oh…” said Specs.
“Oh…” said Xiaomeng.
“Oh…” said the children.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 3
“So it’s just us left now?” Huahua asked.
“Just us?” Xiaomeng asked.
“Is it really just us?” the children asked.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 4
The children fell into a deep silence.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 5
“I’m scared,” one girl said.
“Turn on all the lights,” another girl said.
And so all the lights in the hall went on. But the children’s shadows cast on the floor by the Rose Nebula were sharp as ever.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 6
“Close the walls. I can’t stand it in the open,” the girl said.
And so the walls and ceiling of the hall were set to opaque, shutting the newborn Supernova Era outside.
“And that big black thing. It’s really scary!”
And so the Epoch Clock disappeared from the screen.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 7
An enormous map of the country replaced the Epoch Clock on the screen, so detailed that even though it was four meters high and ten meters wide, the smallest symbols and text were no larger than you would find on an ordinary printed map. Even standing right beneath it you could only make out the bottom bit, but any portion could be circled and magnified for a closer look. An intricate mesh of glowing lines and colored areas covered that wall of the hall, turning it into a spectacle of vibrant images.
The children waited quietly, not moving a muscle as the small star representing Beijing flashed red.
SUPERNOVA ERA, MINUTE 8
A short buzzing sound was followed by a line of text appearing at the bottom of the map:
PORT 79633 CALLING. PORTS CURRENTLY AT CALL STATE: 1
On the map, a long red line linking Beijing and Shanghai appeared, with a label at its midpoint displaying the channel number: 79633. At the same time, a boy’s voice said, “Hello? Beijing! Beijing! Beijing? Is anyone there?”
Huahua answered, “We’re here. This is Beijing!”
“You’re a kid. Are there any adults?”
“There aren’t any adults here. Or anywhere. Didn’t you see the Epoch Clock run out?”
“There aren’t any anywhere?”
“That’s right. Where are you?”
“I’m in Shanghai. I’m alone in the building.”
“How are things over there?”
“How are things? Do you mean outside? I don’t know. I can’t see anyone on the street out the window, and there’s no noise. It’s all cloudy here, and it’s raining. There’s blue light coming through the clouds. It’s scary!”
“Hey, it’s just us left now.”
“What should I do?”
“How should I know?”
“Why don’t you know?”
“Why should I?”
“Because you’re Beijing!”
Another buzz. The screen displayed:
PORT 5391 CALLING. PORTS CURRENTLY AT CALL STATE: 2
Another red line extended from Beijing and terminated at a city beside the Yellow River: Jinan. Huahua pressed the R key a second time and another boy’s voice sounded from a thousand kilometers away: “Beijing! Beijing! I need Beijing!”
Xiaomeng said, “This is Beijing.”
“Oh, it’s connected,” the boy said, apparently to the children who were with him. Huahua and Xiaomeng heard a rustling, no doubt from the other children crowding round the telephone.
“Beijing, what should we do now?”
“What’s the matter?”
“We … the adults gathered us all here before they left, but now there’s no one to look after us.”
“Where are you? How many of you are there?”
“At school. I’m calling from the office. There are more than five hundred kids out there. What should we do?”
“I don’t know.…”
“You don’t know?!” Then the kid said, apparently to someone nearby, “Beijing says they don’t know. They don’t know what we should do!”
Other, softer voices chimed in:
“Beijing’s clueless too?”
“How should they know? They’re just like us, only kids left.”
“Are we really on our own?”
“Yeah. Who else is there?”
“Didn’t the adults tell you what to do?” said another voice, different from the others, as if another kid had grabbed the phone.
“What happened to your local leaders?”
“Who knows? They’re unreachable!”
More buzzing. Three new lines appeared on t
he map, connecting Beijing to Xi’an, Taiyuan, and Shenyang. There were five now, each labeled at the midpoint with a corresponding port number. The screen showed PORTS CURRENTLY AT CALL STATE: 5. Huahua clicked on the line to Shenyang, and they heard a girl’s sobbing voice. She sounded around four or five years old.
“Hello? Hello?” she said through sobs.
“This is Beijing. What’s wrong?”
“I’m hungry. Hungry!”
“Where are you?”
“At home … home…” She trailed off into sobbing.
“Did your mom and dad leave you anything to eat?”
“No.”
Like an auntie, Xiaomeng said to the invisible little girl, “Don’t cry. Take a look around, okay? That’s a good kid.”
“I … I can’t find anything.”
“Nonsense! There can’t be nothing to eat in the house,” Huahua exclaimed.
“God, you’re going to scare her,” Xiaomeng said, glaring at him. Then she said to the girl, “Look in the kitchen, sweetie. You’ll find something to eat there.”
The line went silent. Huahua was anxious to patch in another communications port, but Xiaomeng insisted on waiting. Before long, the sobbing girl returned to the phone. “It’s locked. The door’s locked.”
“Well … think back. In the mornings before you go to preschool, where does your mom give you food?”
“I eat onion pancakes for breakfast at preschool.”
“What about Sundays?”
“Mom gets food from the kitchen.” She broke down again.
“Oh for … is it always the kitchen?”
“Sometimes I have instant noodles.”
“Good. Do you know where the instant noodles are?”
