by Alan Tien
“Oh.” I saw her eyes twinkle as she debated whether to tease me about being “mamma’s boy,” but she saw that I wasn’t in the mood. “I’m sorry. Well, I’m here. I will take care of you.”
I backpedalled. “It’s not that. I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I’m fine. Really.”
She looked at me dubiously but let it go. An hour later, when Chang Lin was packing up to leave, she asked, “Why is your mom going to Beijing?”
“Some government meetings. This guy, Minister Li, asked her to go and she couldn’t very well refuse, right?”
“Which ministry?”
“Education.”
“What? Mr. Li from Ministry of Education?” she stuttered.
“Yeah, why?”
She shook her head at me, poor ignorant soul. “Mr. Li is rumored to be a candidate for the Council of 18. He’s on the fast track. If he plays his cards right, he could be one of the most powerful men in the country!”
“Hmm, he did wear a golden robe,” I recalled.
“Your mom must be super important. Or in big trouble.”
She said the last phrase off-handedly. Kind of like when the Chinese point out the big zit on your nose. But it freaked me out. “Do you think she’s in trouble?”
Chang Lin realized that she had scared me, and quickly said, “No, no, I’m just kidding. I’m sure she’s fine. Look, the government has allowed her to move here, to Zhong Guo. That must mean she’s really amazing. They liked her so much, they even allowed you to come!”
Man, her English was getting too good.
--------------
The sophomore year counselor, his official title translating roughly to “Instructor of Right Thought,” called me into his office. I feared it was a check-in to see how well the barbarian was adjusting to civilized life, to see if he still had uncontrollable thoughts of violence.
“Austin, your test scores came back, and they were…interesting.”
The whole class had taken benchmarking tests near the beginning of the year. We would take the tests again at the end of the year, to demonstrate our learning in quantitative terms. There were 2 measures that were important for the school, our final test scores and the delta between the first and last tests. To maximize the delta, our teachers indirectly suggested that we didn’t try too hard on the first round.
Most of the test wasn’t that difficult once I understood the instructions and questions clearly. I thought I did ok in most of it, particularly in the math and science sections. I really thought I had aced the world history part when I finished the test. However, as I later sat through my history classes, I suspected I had bombed it instead, because what I was taught as the Truth in the US was diametrically opposite to my Chinese teacher’s lectures. The “American Pax” in the early 21st century was now called “The Period of American Overreach” (that was my poor translation; it sounded more officious and more subtly sinister in Chinese). Now I finally understood what is meant by Winston Churchill’s quote, “History is written by the victors.”
I sat impatiently, waiting for the counselor to tell me what he meant by “interesting.” But the counselor practiced the annoying Chinese habit of letting the silence become pregnant. When it got to the point where I was sure the silence was about to deliver a baby, I gave in. “Umm, there were some interesting questions in the test.”
The counselor just sat there, staring back at me, patient as a rock. The word “inscrutable” came into my head. I was instantly annoyed with myself, my Asian half calling my white half racist.
“He has incredible self-discipline and patience,” my Chinese portion argued.
My Caucasian part retorted, “Maybe when you blinked, someone replaced him with a dummy.” The white side smirked at the double meaning of “dummy.”
I pulled my two arguing halves back together and ventured, “Maybe I didn’t understand the Chinese very well. There were questions that didn’t seem to be related to the subject matter.”
Finally, the dummy uttered, “Shi,” meaning “Yes, go on.”
My white half grinned, seeing that I had accepted calling the counselor “dummy,” suggesting that it had subconsciously won the internal argument.
“I don’t think I did so well on those questions. I just guessed.”
The counselor’s small eyes became slits. He asked calmly, but I heard it as an accusation, “Did anyone help you?”
I was incensed by the charge, almost standing up in my surprise. “What?” I spluttered in English, switching to my native language in my outrage.
He repeated himself in Chinese, with no change in inflection, but adding a slight raise of an eyebrow.
I sat back down the half inch I had risen. Back to Mandarin, I said, “Uh, no sir, nobody had helped me. Like I said, I just guessed because the questions didn’t make any sense to me. The teachers had told us not to leave any questions blank.”
The counselor looked intently at me a moment longer. Something about my body language convinced him I was telling the truth, and he relaxed ever so slightly. He rewarded me with a tiny smile, letting me know that I was off the hook. He slowly took a piece of paper out of a folder. Actual paper, how archaic. It must’ve meant it was really significant, or confidential, for it to have been printed out on physical parchment. I unconsciously leaned in. He laid the paper in front of me and spun it around so I could read it right side up.
The first thing I noticed was the shockingly red circular stamp at the top of the page. It was some Ministry’s official chop, the red ink seeping like blood into the parchment. There was a bunch of Chinese, blah blah blah. I couldn’t understand most of it, but I saw my Chinese name, with my English name in parentheses and backwards “(Longwhite Austin).” In the middle of the page, the figure “100%” stood out. My first thought was that I must’ve totally failed the test, and the counselor was going to tell me to pack up my school locker and go back home. Back to the US where I belonged.
“Austin, you have scored higher than anyone ever in our school in the Cho-Qing Perception test.” I giggled internally at the test name – in English, it sounded like “choking.” The inappropriateness of my silent snigger was probably a reflexive sigh of relief of not getting kicked out of school, of not letting my mother down.
This time, it was my turn to play poker face. I sat there, willing my body to stillness. I was water.
Be still. Stillness reveals the secrets of eternity.
Lao Tzu was becoming my favorite source of quotes.
This time I won the battle of pauses. Tied 1-1. “Do you know what the Cho-Qing test is?”
“No sir.”
“It’s confidential. You cannot tell anyone about this.” He glanced at my wrist. He was telling me, “We record everything you say or do, so we will know if you reveal this secret.”
“I understand sir.”
“We need you to take some further tests. This will take time away from school. We have already notified your teachers.” I suddenly wondered if my mom’s trip to Beijing was related. “Go with Mr. Zhou,” he said, glancing over my shoulders.
I jumped with a start. Mr. Zhou had appeared out of nowhere. His pure white gown and almost translucent skin helped with the ghost imagery that my run-away imagination was concocting.
“Now?” I asked uncertainly. A little plaintively. “Umm, do I need to get my stuff?”
“Yes, now. No, you do not need anything. Please go with Mr. Zhou.” The counselor was done with me. He picked up his chop, inked it in a practiced manner, and precisely put his own red stamp on the bottom of the paper, signing it off. He put the paper back in the folder: case closed. He looked up and seemed surprised I was still there. “You are dismissed.”
--------------
Mr. Zhou led me down a corridor that I hadn’t known existed in the school. His soft slippers whispered in the hallway, while mine fairly clomped and echoed even though I was trying to walk lightly. Mr. Zhou’s demeanor didn’t brook any conversation, so I just followed meekl
y.
I looked down at my wristband and noticed that its colors were muted, as if it was abandoning me too. I tapped it to see if there were any messages, but it just blinked a “no signal” icon. At first I didn’t even recognize it, so rare is the case.
The last time I saw it was when I entered China at immigration, where they purposely block the signal to prevent people from colluding to circumvent immigration checks. I thought my wristband had broken, though that is highly unlikely. These ID bands have a failure rate of 0.00001% every hundred years, so they say. I don’t actually know how many zeroes to the right of the decimal, just that it’s a lot. They’re also almost indestructible and certainly tamper-proof and irremovable.
I don’t normally think of the fact that the band tracks everything we say or do. I just think of it as a convenience for doing everything from telling time, to keeping me in touch with my mom and friends, to connecting with the net. But the counselor’s not-so-subtle glance at my band reminded me of how little privacy we had, how the government kept us under control.
When I looked up from my reverie, Mr. Zhou had disappeared. A doorway had opened on my left without noise, and I guess Mr. Zhou turned in while I was preoccupied with my ID band. He was no longer in the room. Damn that old man was fast.
For a baffling second, I thought the person in the room was Chang Lin, all dressed in a full white doctor’s outfit, with her back to me. The figure was about the same height, similar slim frame, with short hair poking out of the hair net. I even thought I whiffed her shampoo.
But my spell was broken a second later when the woman turned around. Even with the face mask on, it was clear she was middle-aged. Her eyes were not quite stern but certainly not as lively as Chang Lin’s. I smiled nervously at my mixed identities. How silly. Why would Chang Lin be here, in the bowels of the school?
The doctor was speaking. “Austin Longwhite, please come over here.” Her English was surprisingly good, her saying my name without accent. The rest of the sentence was in Chinese. My Chinese was good enough now, after these few months in China, that it was indistinguishable to me whether someone was speaking Chinese or English to me. When I spoke Chinese, I still stuttered at times when I was trying to say something more sophisticated, but for the most part, I wasn’t translating English into Chinese anymore. The Chinese just flowed out naturally.
“Sit here.”
It looked like a typical doctor’s chair with accoutrements sticking out all over the place. It was vaguely intimidating, combined with the ever-so-slight whining noise of some piece of equipment, accentuated by the abnormal silence. High schools are not known to be silent.
I sat.
“Don’t be nervous.”
Next she’ll ask my heart not to pump blood and my eyes not to blink. “Ok,” I said nervously.
She pulled a helmet device down. “This won’t hurt,” she said, stating my very fear. “Just be calm and do what the instructions tell you.”
The helmet fully encased my head, and when she pulled down the rubber flaps, it blocked out all light and noise. I was starting to feel claustrophobic even though I’m normally fine with tight spaces. You get used to your personal space being encroached upon in China with its population density. What would be seen as a crowded elevator cabin in the US is considered relatively empty in China. People will continue to pile in until the weight limit alarm chimes. You get used to being packed in like French fries. Good thing I’m pretty tall so I can still breathe, admittedly sometimes with the person in front of me’s hair tickling my nose.
Just when I was about to panic, a small light came on. At least I think it was a light. It was the barest of grey in the blackness, but it was something to catch my attention. A gentle voice came on. It was the nurse, speaking in fluent English. I guess they didn’t want language being a barrier to my test results, whatever they were testing.
“Austin, please say whatever you’re seeing, or feeling, or thinking. Anything. It may seem meaningless. Don’t think too hard. Just let it out spontaneously.”
I said random things to the random images and sounds and smells that I sensed. Most of the things I could only sense. Nothing was ever solid. It was like watching a netshow with the power on real low, speed running too fast, all while I was falling asleep. In fact, I couldn’t tell if I had dozed off once or twice. It was really hard not to think. Was I trying too hard to make a connection out of nothing? Was I doing this right?
Every so often I was jolted by a physical feeling. It didn’t quite hurt; it was more of a surprise. I yelped the first time it happened. I said, “Formics,” the name of the alien species in my favorite book Ender’s Game. I have no idea why I said that and what I meant by it. I was thinking what the connection could’ve been to make me think that, and then I worried I was trying too hard to find a relationship and would mess up my spontaneity.
I tried to be Zen and not think. My attention was drawn away to another fuzzy peripheral image, sub-sound, waft, aftertaste, or phantom limb feeling, even though of course I had all my limbs.
It felt like an eternity but when the helmet was finally lifted, my ID band said only an hour had passed. I blinked in the white glare and mumbled, “I’m sorry. I don’t think I did very well.”
The nurse soothed me, “No, no, you did very well.” She almost seemed pleased, though I couldn’t really tell with her face mask on. It just looked like a slight wrinkle in the corner of her eyes. “We will continue these tests for a few more days. Mr. Zhou will take you back to class.”
The ghost man appeared on my right side. It was unnerving how he could just materialize like that. We returned to school through another set of corridors. Just when I thought we were lost, he suddenly turned my shoulders to the right and pushed me out a door that slid open just in time for me to avoid hitting the wall. When I recovered from my stumble and turned around, the door was gone. It was just a wall, without so much as a seam. The bell rang, and the students poured out of the classes into the hall, bursting with laughter and chatter. I was never so happy to be back among my schoolmates.
--------------
“Where were you?” Willy asked. “You missed Mr. Smith’s class,” he said half accusingly, half surprised. He knew I loved the class. More importantly, we were nearing completion of version 1.0 of Willstin.
“I can’t tell you,” I answered, surreptitiously stealing a glance at my ID band. Realizing my answer would pique his curiosity and gather unwanted attention, I adjusted. “I wasn’t feeling well. I went to the nurse. I can’t tell you what it was for.” I gave him a look suggesting that I was embarrassed by it.
“Ohh,” he said knowingly, and wouldn’t you know it, he winked at me. It drove me crazy to let Willy think he had some secret on me, but I was more afraid of slipping out the real reason I was gone, with my ID band monitoring me.
“Anyway,” he continued, no longer interested in my excuses, “You have to make up your lost time today. I uploaded my latest update, the ‘Mimic’ code you found last week, and I want you to test it out.”
“Me?” I squeaked. The embedded instruction set explicitly said this piece of open source code was experimental. Then it said, in red warning signs all around it (I thought the skull icons were overdoing it a bit), “Do not connect directly to a human.” They were currently testing the code with robots connected to chimps, and some of the videos of the failures were disturbing to say the least.
“Of course you. You think I would do it?” He was genuinely nonplussed by even the thought of it. He was the brains of the operation. I was just the engineer, a foreign devil at that. Expendable. “We need to do something unique to get an ‘A.’ We can’t beat the other robots in a fight.” He looked at me, slightly accusingly.
“Hey, we agreed that it wouldn’t be a fighting robot in the beginning, remember?”
He ignored my reminder. Someone had to be the scapegoat if we failed (meaning not getting an “A”). “Willstin has to do something different, something th
at hasn’t been done before. No one has ever successfully used the Mimic function. I spent an entire week hacking through it. I think I have debugged it. It’s pretty sweet actually.”
“Wait, what do you mean you think you debugged it? It’s my head, you know!”
“Come on, don’t be a chicken Austin.” Before I could call him out on his hypocrisy, he turned away for his next class. “Try it out this afternoon!” he called out over his shoulders as he disappeared into the tide of students.
--------------
I entered MakerSpace with both excitement and trepidation. When I had downloaded the Mimic function, I had been pretty excited about it. It was Willy who was a little hesitant, less so because of the skull-warning signs plastered all over it but more because he couldn’t trace the source.
“We don’t even know who wrote this thing. It’s not Chinese, I can tell. But I don’t think it’s American either – they’re so proud of their stuff, they always add their name. It might be Kenyan or Mexican… Can’t be French or Estonian. Too sophisticated for them…” His trace programs, normally like virtual bloodhounds, couldn’t sniff out where this program came from.
“So what?” I asked. “Code is code.”
Willy frowned at me, as if wondering whether I could really be as dumb as I looked. He humored me, “I know I’m pretty good at this stuff, programming, but I’m not infallible. I may have missed something hidden.”
I didn’t have to mention that time when he overlooked a minor virus that had perpetuated itself when we had uploaded the innocuous host program into Willsten. It was in history class, of course the one with the severest teacher, when Willy checked his ID band for messages and clicked on the curious rotating symbol, ostensibly sent from Willsten. Suddenly, his band maxed out the volume and shouted out loud, in Willy’s own voice, “Hey everyone, check this out. I’m watching porn!” The virus was on a loop and wouldn’t shut up until the ID band was reset by the school counselor. The students thought it was hilarious; the teachers were not amused.
