Лю Цысинь - Supernova Era

Huahua gave her a look of disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘lose’? If an enemy invaded and we surrendered without a fight and lost the country, well then damn us to hell! But we’re making an exchange with another party, and it’s a fair exchange. Whatever they can do, we can do too. If the adults were here, we could stand before them righteous and confident!”

“But it’s not only about the trade. We’re swapping not just our territory, but something else even more important,” Specs said.

“Is our strength really tied to our ancestral land?”

Specs nodded silently.

“Do you think there will be serious consequences?”

Again he nodded.

Xiaomeng asked, “What’s going to happen?”

Specs shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think Vaughn knows either, and he’s thought about the question on a much deeper level. America has many times our reserves of goods and resources, so children will be able to lead rich lives for an incredibly long time without needing to work. It’s a sweet-smelling, rainbow-hued quagmire. Just like in Candytown, we may see history moving in a particular direction but be powerless to stop it.”

The mention of Candytown sobered everyone up for a moment, and they looked in silence out the window at the night lights.

Huahua said, “We have no other choice. The American children are sure to disclose the nature of the games, and when that happens our own kids will want to play. We won’t be able to stop them.”

Xiaomeng said, “It’s a diabolical move.”

Specs nodded. “We really don’t have any choice. I’ve got to admit that Vaughn is an exceptional thinker and strategist.”

The next day, the American children were informed that they could return home and await word of the Chinese children’s decision. This outcome was not unexpected; such a weighty matter could not be decided overnight by a handful of people.

The first thing they did when they got back to America was to reveal the plan for the territorial-exchange game. This raised huge waves as rumors of the trade reached the Chinese children, their initial disbelief turning to elation and banishing from their minds the depression of Candytown and the dejection of the Antarctic Games. The marvelous world of their dreams beckoned. The vast majority of them were enthusiastic supporters of the exchange, and they passionately made their opinion known on Digital Domain. Just as Vaughn had predicted, the process would be difficult to redirect.

One month later, just as the American children were unable to wait any longer, Benes received a call from Huahua.

A pair of dark eyes from across the globe stared out of the screen into a pair of blue eyes for so excruciatingly long the air crystallized. At last, Huahua said, “We’ll do the exchange.”

An American delegation flew to China the following day. The main purpose of its visit was to discuss the details of the territory exchange, and to formally sign an exchange agreement. Talks took place once again in that ancient hall, and many young experts from both sides were in attendance.

The talks were originally intended to hammer out all the important details, but the biggest international effort in history concerned an endless ocean of details, so after three days of feverish debate, the children found that they could only sketch out the outlines of an exchange plan. All the remaining details would have to be addressed once the exchange was under way. After this reorientation, the talks entered a fourth day. The children had their own way of resolving international issues and were able to quickly and easily dispense with certain problems that diplomats and heads of state kept their distance from in the adults’ time, often so quickly that the most seasoned diplomats of that age would have been left speechless. The issues resolved and agreements reached during that week were the equal of a hundred Yalta or Potsdam conferences. At the end of it all, the children of the two countries signed a territorial-exchange agreement known as the “Supernova Agreement”:

SUPERNOVA AGREEMENT

1. China and the United States resolve to exchange all their respective territory.

2. The children of the two countries will leave their own territory, and will relinquish sovereignty over that territory; the children of the two countries will resettle in their counterpart’s territory, and will obtain sovereignty over it.

3. When the children of the two countries leave their own territory, they may only take with them the following:

a. Basic necessities for migration, limited to 10 kilograms per child.

b. All government documents.

4. A China-US Territory Exchange Commission will be formed to exercise leadership over the exchange process.

5. The two sides will conduct the exchange on a state and province basis. When the exchange takes place, all of the current residents of a state or province shall vacate that region at the appointed time. Anyone unable to vacate at the appointed time may temporarily migrate to a neighboring state or province that has not yet undergone the exchange, and then vacate with that region’s residents. All states and provinces shall establish state or provincial handover commissions, and shall conduct a handover ceremony when new residents arrive, after which the new residents’ country shall assume sovereignty over that state or province.

6. Before the exchange, all state and provincial handover commissions shall deliver an asset inventory to their counterpart, and accept a review by a representative of their counterpart’s handover commission.

7. Prior to the exchange, deliberate destruction of agriculture, industry, or national defense equipment within one’s own territory is prohibited. If one party discovers its counterpart has taken such acts, it may unilaterally terminate the game, and all consequences shall be the responsibility of the offending party.

8. Transport for the migration shall be resolved jointly, and other countries are invited to lend assistance.

9. Any problems arising during the exchange shall be handled by the China-US Joint Territory Exchange Commission.

10. The China-US Territory Exchange Commission reserves the right of interpretation of this agreement.

Late at night, the Imperial Palace basked under the blue light of the Rose Nebula. The flock of nocturnal birds that circled Meridian Gate had long since returned to their nests. In the endless stillness, the ancient halls slept soundly and dreamt deep.

Huahua, Specs, and Xiaomeng were the only ones in the palace. The three of them walked slowly down the long exhibition hall. Artifacts that no longer belonged to their country slipped by on either side, ancient bronze and clay made warm and soft by the nebula’s light, and they felt almost as if capillaries were showing on their surface, ancient lives and souls made concrete, and that their soundless breathing surrounded them as they moved. The countless bronze vessels and clay pots seemed laden with a liquid as full of vital energy as blood; the long scroll of Along the River During the Qingming Festival in a glass case was hazy under the blue light, but they could still hear snatches of the hubbub; a terra-cotta warrior up ahead fluoresced blue-white, and it seemed like they were not walking toward it but that it was floating in their direction…. Heading northward from the southernmost premodern section, they crossed the galleries one by one, and time and history flowed back past them under the blue light of the nebula, dynasty by dynasty into the distant past….

The great migration of the two continents had begun.

The children were being swiftly moved off the first two areas to be exchanged, Shaanxi and South Dakota, transferring to various ports on the coast by land and air transport, or temporarily moving to neighboring states or provinces if they missed their chance to go. Each of the two handover commissions had arrived in its counterpart’s region to oversee the migration’s progress. Young migrants assembled at major ports as oceangoing ships arrived in increasing numbers, war vessels and oil tankers, Chinese and American, as well as from other countries, mainly Europe and Japan. The rest of the world’s children buzzed with enthusiasm over this new game between the world’s two biggest countries, and they did everything within their power to aid the biggest human intercontinental migration in history. What prompted them to dispatch ships to the two countries, they couldn’t properly say themselves. Huge ocean fleets were assembled on either side of the Pacific, but no handover ceremony had taken place in Shaanxi or South Dakota, and the migrants had yet to climb aboard their passage across the ocean.