by Sam Abraham
Watching the holoview, Li wondered about why they never learned in school about the Ghost Lands — the broad swaths of countryside that could no longer produce food and had been all but abandoned by anyone who could escape. Some blamed the existence of the Ghost Lands on pollution and climate shift, causing the desertification of the north and flooding in the south. Others blamed them on the River Syndicate, the state-owned enterprise that ran the affiliated territories, and was infamous for gutting local services to cut costs.
Uncle, always paranoid, told her often that the Ghost Lands were intentionally left to rot so that Centrists could expel intellectuals and troublemakers as a warning to more than a billion hearts and minds. If so, Li supposed it made sense for censors to let images of the Ghost Lands onto the news, to remind city dwellers that at least they still slept in the bosom of civilization.
She sighed and forced herself to feel lucky again. The only reason she had this job was because some big shot claimed that clerks in automarts were a theft deterrent. With makers printing all the food and sensors ringing up the customers, she had lots of time. So she sat there, wondering about what made people lose their grip, and waited for her shift to be over so she could walk to the harbor and stare at the skyscrapers on Hong Kong Island.
A boy approached, ignoring the makers, coming right up to the plastic box Li sat in. “Why do you look so bored?” Daiwu asked, even as he texted furiously on his holo.
“Hey,” Li said, tearing her gaze from the newsreels. As she watched him through her plastic cage, she saw her smooth skin reflected, her slender neck and angled chin, the bangs over her dark eyes.
Daiwu grinned and set off his dimples. “When can I see you again?” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Li had to admit, she couldn’t stop thinking about him either. She found his flawless face smoldering. It had hurt the first time she’d let him inside her, but now being with him felt the way whiskey did for Uncle. “When can we tell people about us?” Li asked when they were alone with the camera in the ceiling.
“I told you,” he said, pouting. “I’m crazy for you, but my dad would freak if he knew I was seeing an automart clerk.”
“Is money really that important to you?” she said, feeling the cage around her.
“Not to me,” he scoffed. “Who my parents are isn’t my fault.” When she said nothing, Daiwu grunted. “How about we meet at the march? Anyway, do you have somewhere better to be?”
Li looked at this boy, her first, and felt rotten emptiness from his need to hide her. But he was right. She had nowhere better to be. “Meet you at the spot,” Li said. “Seven on Sunday.”
Daiwu patted the plastic booth and bounced out of the automart. Soon Li’s replacement came, a fifty-something woman who smelled of overcooked maker broccoli. Li handed her the keys and went out into the steel afternoon.
She wandered home on Chongqing Street, letting the sights of Tsim Sha Tsui rush over her mind. Mainlanders could rename the streets, she thought, but Kowloon would always be these same crumbling manor houses and towering malls, holobeads sold from suitcases, silks drying in the humid spring air, red and yellow street signs crammed with Chinese and English. It was two weeks after the Spring Festival, the Chinese celebration of the Lunar New Year. Celebratory red silk still hung from lampposts, and the air still smelled of firecrackers.
Li neared the Qingdao Street night market, and turned down an alley to the tenement where she and Uncle had lived for as long as she could remember. Uncle was sitting by the window when she entered the flat, smoking a rolled cigarette and yelling at a holo of someone only he could see. He saw her come in but said nothing, the lines of his frown peeking through strands of long white hair.
Li went to her loft above the single bedroom, where a thin window looked out upon the chalky sky. She lay her bag down by her narrow pallet and plucked her holobeads from where they sat, below a poster of flowers arranged around a tea cup. Uncle liked to say that the beads were unique, custom built for her and infused with artificial intelligence more advanced than anything on the market. But that meant nothing to Li next to Uncle’s claim that they had been gifted to him from someone special.
Delicately placing the beads in her ears, nanodrones detached and hovered in her field of vision, calling up light. Li watched the same holo every day. It was a holo of her mother, and it never lasted long enough.
The woman’s image grew until her head floated level with Li’s. The likeness was uncanny, with her same slender neck and small ears and heart-shaped face. It was as if Li was looking into a mirror, save for the dark circles around her mother’s sleepless eyes, her wrinkled cheeks, and a sad smile that filled Li with more warmth than any real person ever had. Each time she saw the hologram, Li wished her mother was there in the flesh, to comfort her and teach her and watch her grow into a woman. But as Uncle often told her, her mother had died long ago, leaving only illusions.
“Hello, Zhu Zhu!” her mother’s image said, using her daughter’s pet name. “Today I want to teach you about astronomy. There are four inner planets, four gas giants, and many dwarf planets in our solar –“
Li sighed and the holo’s intelligent cloudware caught the malaise in her face. In response, the holo of her mother smiled. “Zhu Zhu, I promise we’ll be together on your birthday next year, my heart. And when we are reunited, we’ll laugh about how lucky we are and I’ll tell you all your favorite childhood tales again, like the one about Chang’e, the Lady in the Moon. Have you been good for Uncle Qi this year? I am sure he will make your favorite long noodles — “
Li looked away, homesick for a family she had never known. Once again, the holo’s artificial intelligence patterned the tiny furrow of Li’s brow, the subtle meaning of her distraction. “I can see you have had a hard day,” the hologram of her mother’s head said with another compassionate smile. “I wish I could be there for you, to help you understand what you’re becoming. I promise that one day, we’ll be together again. You can always talk to Uncle and tell him what is bothering you. My brother is a good guy, Zhu Zhu, I’m sure he’ll help you out of whatever jam you’re in. Did I ever tell you the story of when I was a girl and — ”
“When are you going to start dinner!” Uncle’s voice careened into the loft. “I’m hungry!”
“Right now, Uncle,” she shouted. Disappointed, she paused the holo, placed the ear beads neatly beside her mat, and went downstairs.
In minutes she had chopped the vegetables, and stretched the rice flour skins out on the wooden board in floury circles. As the electric kettle boiled water, she pounded tiny cubes of ground meat between her palms, rolling them with scallions and mushroom tips and vinegar. Steam filled the tiny kitchen, as Li wrapped the dumplings and dipped them into the pot. It was more work than printing food in a maker, but they could not afford one. And besides, she was sure that her cooking was better than that fake instant food from the automart.
Soon fragrant aromas of chili and minced pork filled the air. Li daintily pulled the greens from the steamer, set down bowls and chopsticks, placed the porcelain dumpling crock on the table, and waited as the rice cooked. They would eat when Uncle was ready.
Fifteen minutes later he emerged, cracked tan hands stinking of nicotine. Hungrily he scooped dumplings onto his plate, took a dollop of rice, and tucked in. “Ya! The gaau are cold,” he said while chewing, spraying bits of food that she would have to wipe up later.
“Sorry Kaufu,” she said, calling him by the endearing honorific for her uncle. “I made it just like you asked.”
“Did you get paid yet this month?” he grunted. “I need money for rent.” One dexterous hand shot out above the rice, waiting. Reluctantly, she pulled a wad of Yuan from her purse and handed it over. He nodded, and said, “We’re out of tangdonggua.”
“I’ll get some from the night market on Sunday,” she said, seeing an opening. Normally, she was not allowed out at night, but if he was craving sweet waterme
lon, Uncle’s appetite always got priority.
Uncle grunted in acquiescence. “You should eat something,” he said. “I keep telling you it’s not normal for girls your age to barely touch their food. People will wonder about you.”
Li made a face. She wasn’t hungry. Though she couldn’t pinpoint why, she knew down to her bones that her light appetite was only the surface of what separated her from everyone she had ever met. “Uncle, can I ask you something?” He was crotchety, but could be wise sometimes too, and he was all the family she had. As he stuffed gaau into his mouth, she said, “Why do some people chase what they can’t have? Like, why can’t people see what’s in front of their faces?”
He focused his piercing gaze upon her and scratched the scar above his eye, as he did whenever he smelled trouble. “What do you want?”
“It’s not me,” she said, surprised. “It’s this girl at school. She likes a boy, but even though he feels the same way, he won’t tell people he’s with her because he’s rich and she’s poor.”
Uncle grunted. “That’s called being human,” he said, and went back to eating.
Chapter 4 – Meng (蒙)
Childlike Folly
That Sunday, the night market was bustling. Li barely noticed the drones floating overhead, spying from above the laundry lines. Far beneath the canopy of air control domes, Li pushed through narrow stalls bursting with consumers. Touts crammed into alleys alongside hybrids with four arms smoking cigarettes, working with spindly robots to haul bushels of fish and textiles and medicinal herbs. Here people still called the streets by their old names, as they did before the Great Nationalization.
Li bought a pack of tangdonggua for Uncle and stuffed it in her satchel beside her holobeads, which she always brought with her on special occasions. In the neon streets, faces appeared from automatons advertising dim sum joints and massage parlors. Li found Daiwu nearby, at a frozen mango kiosk with bubbly pink characters, wearing pinslacks and a tie. “You’re late!” he scoffed.
“But I’m here,” Li said.
He grabbed her and kissed her slowly, slipping his tongue between her lips. When he was done, he pulled back and said, “Is that what you’re wearing? Why are you bringing your bag?” Without waiting for an answer, he took her hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
They grabbed the subway west to Tai Kok Tsui, emerging where resident hives towered over a park. A crowd had gathered, hundreds of people from all over the city. A chorus wearing white sang harmonies of Jesus Knows My Soul. When the hymn ended, a man in a suit took center stage and thanked the singers for the beautiful music.
Indeed, the Church had kept a strong hold on Hong Kong since the age of imperialism. Despite attempts to yoke religion on the mainland, Christianity had bloomed as people craved salvation. Faith, after all, was harder to erase than street names.
“Every year,” the preacher intoned, “violence in the Ghost Lands grows, even as land beneath our feet is swallowed by rising seas. But we are not afraid, for though we walk in the valley of the shadow of death, God is with us.”
Li looked suspiciously at the docile masses swaying in time, holding candles in the evening. “Want to find someplace a little quieter?” she said.
But Daiwu only took a candle from a man in white robes, his eyes closed in meditation. “We can afterwards,” he said. “Don’t you want to be a part of the largest march in the city?”
Li shot him a look. “I didn’t know you were so religious,” she said.
Daiwu shrugged. “My father is. He says it’s important to give yourself to the water. It’s hard to explain. But there are over three hundred people here, so Father must be right.”
Soon the gathered masses began a slow procession to a pier that extended past the seawall, where industrial cranes dangled over giant container ships. As the crowd walked, they sang hymns about salvation and everlasting life. Li simmered with desire and disappointment as she walked, unable to keep her eyes from Daiwu’s face. He ignored her, squandering their time as he mouthed prayers, blind to her heart.
When they reached the water’s edge the preacher spoke again. “Heavenly Father, in Your love You have called us, saved us from sin, shielded us from the rising tide. We come to You, some for the first time, some to reaffirm their love for You and Your only Son.”
Two men stood on either side of the preacher, and a line hastily formed before them. One by one, they took the pious and the lost, the repentant and the hopeful, and lowered them into the murky water until they were fully submerged. When the helpers pulled each worshiper from the water, some cried as they felt birthed back into the world, others knelt on the pier, thankful for breath.
“As the Gospel says,” the preacher continued, “‘I will baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire!’”
As Li witnessed the spectacle, her certainty grew that she should break up with Daiwu, and that Uncle knew where she was and would beat her when she came home. But the crowd surrounded her, pushed her forward, their eyes closed as they sang. Li tried to escape, but there were too many bodies waiting to be lifted from the edge of the pier, impatient for their turn at salvation.
Before Li knew it, people took her arms and pulled her backpack from her and lifted her off the platform, dunking her up to her scalp into the tepid port waters. She accidentally swallowed some of the polluted bay, feeling its oily slime in her throat.
She choked, trying not to drown, as a shock bit her arms and she felt the helpers let go. Adrift in the current, she panicked as silver arcs blossomed in the water, surrounding her with a crackling cloud of streaking luminescence.
The light faded as Li’s hands groped the wooden pylons and she climbed up the rough dock, hauling herself up onto the pier. She hacked, heaving with coughs until she could breathe. Wiping her eyes and wringing out her soaking shirt, she cursed and knew that Uncle would be sure to get angry now. Then she realized the crowd of penitents was looking at her.
“Get thee from our sight, child,” the preacher said coldly. “Let the righteous wash away their transgressions in peace.” People gave her dirty looks as they backed away. The helpers who had lowered her into the water lay on the ground, barely breathing.
“What happened?” Li said softly.
“I saw the water reject you,” the preacher hissed. “Take your sin away from us, now.”
Disoriented, Li wondered what had caused the strange glow she had seen while submerged. Then she remembered what she had lost, and panic gripped her. “Please,” she begged, still reeling from the light. “I just need my bag.”
Li tried to search the pier, but the preacher blocked her way. “Let me through!” she yelled, but the preacher would not budge. A sudden urge to scream and claw him from her path took her. But these were not the Ghost Lands. In Hong Kong people had manners and police. So she buried her desperation deep and sulked to the side, shivering for an hour until the entire mass baptism was complete and the congregation began their solemn march back to the park.
She scoured the pier as it emptied of people, but she saw only the same dirty boats and warped wooden planks and the container ships and the distant hives in Tai Kok Tsui. Her backpack was gone.
Finally admitting defeat, she trudged back in the dark to the subway. In tears, a hole as wide as the Pacific engulfed her in loneliness, and she was too depressed to care whether Uncle was drunk, or whether Daiwu’s heart would be broken, or what had caused the light in the water. The only thought in her ocean of isolation was seething anger at the religious faith that had separated her from her holobeads, and all she had ever known of her mother.
***
Many hours later, as the dawn crept west, a dock worker saw a scrap of green canvas in a dinghy, and found it to be a threadbare bag. Without hesitating, he opened it and rooted past an old thermowrap and bits of congealed watermelon. The only item of interest, in fac
t, was a rather shiny set of holobeads. The worker tossed the bag into the water, lest the owner come searching for it. The holobeads he tucked into his pocket, for he could not afford such devices on his meager salary.
At the end of the worker’s shift, the pier supervisor came to him and said that a drone, circling the port far overhead, had caught him taking something shiny from one of the boats. Grudgingly, the worker handed over the holobeads, watched his boss depart, and spit to curse his low position.
But the pier supervisor too had his curiosity. So when he returned to his cramped office, he put the beads in his ears and swiped the air to play the latest track. The image of a woman’s head floated before him, her eyes sad. The track continued from where it had been paused. “—I was in Shanghai, with a friend who I bought plums from--” the holo rambled, recounting how bad days were like rotten fruit, but that there would always be another plum.
When the track ended the supervisor looked up at a small black globe protruding from his ceiling. He too was being watched. Regretfully, he called his superior, the port manager, and told him how he had come to possess the image of a strange woman’s head.
A courier delivered the beads to the port manager in the Harbour Building. The manager considered them as he looked out from the wide windows of his office tower, over the yachts moored along the Kowloon waterfront. Now, the port manager knew the bead models on the market, for he was the type of man who had to have the latest gadgets, and he knew that what he held was something else entirely. The beads seduced him, and for a moment he wondered how bad it would be if he merely pocketed them, instead of informing the Centrist Secretary responsible for Nationalization in Hong Kong. But then he considered the bribes he fed his family with, and how the grease would dry if the Centrists ever learned he hid a single kuai from their view. Reluctantly, he called the Secretary, who quite predictably demanded the beads immediately. The port manager complied, a little sorry to lose such shiny toys.
