James Decker - Fallout

I had no memory of being moved away from the riot. I had vague memories of the transport afterward, the lurch as the aircar lifted off, and men—doctors, I thought—at either side of me. I remembered a prick at the crook of my elbow, then more blackness.

Out of that blackness, I found myself back in Xinzhongzi square. The protesters were gone, leaving it completely empty except for the group of people up on the ledge.

“…if you are receiving this message, we have successfully been able to bypass the alien screen and establish a connection through what you call your surrogate cluster.”

A man’s voice crackled in the darkness, a Westerner, speaking Mandarin. His voice had become almost familiar, but I found it hard to focus on his words. Up on the building’s ledge, the people let themselves fall. They sailed silently, like falling flakes of snow, toward their deaths below.

I caused that, I thought. They did what they did because of the video we showed.

I remembered the man, the way he’d addressed us, addressed me, and I felt sure of it. He sacrificed himself to drown us out, and when the others saw him, they followed.

“…you have to do something…” the strange voice said.

“I want to,” I told it. “I want to do something.”

“…have no way to know exactly how this transmission will be perceived by you,” the voice said, “but if you can hear it, listen carefully to my words.”

“No more words,” I said. “No more protests.”

Dao-Ming had been right all along. Words and protests, even unprecedented ones, were empty gestures that would in the end do nothing.

“…and don’t seem to see them, even when facing them directly…”

Those jumpers believed. They believed in what they said so much that they backed it up with their lives.

“…if you fall to them they could become unstoppable. The world is in grave danger… you have to act, now, before it’s too late….”

I turned away from the falling bodies and looked off at the curve of faint blue light, the arc of the haan force field dome with the star of Fangwenzhe shining near its edge. Nix appeared, across the square, and stared back at me with those warm, sunset eyes. It all bled together, blurring through tears of shock and frustration.

“It’s not fair,” I said. Why did I have to be the one who saw what I saw? Who knew what I knew? What could I do about it?

“…you have to act….”

“There’s nothing I can do,” I told the voice. The haan were too powerful. Security was too powerful. The haan had all the power, and we had nothing.

“…you have to bring down the force field….”

“There’s nothing I can do….”

“…take control….”

“But how can I?” I whispered. “They have all the power. All the power…”

My voice drifted off, as I continued to stare at the haan force field. The voice continued to chatter on as I just stared, not listening. Something had almost clicked. Something…

Power.

I followed the dome’s arc across the sky.

“Wait… that’s it,” I said to myself.

We provided the haan with three things… food, water, and power. No one could do anything about the feedlot or water distributions, but if the haan lost their power…

“The force field would go down,” I whispered. In the distance, Nix began to call out to me, but I couldn’t hear what he’d shouted.

Cutting their power would bring down the force field, but that wasn’t all. It would bring down the rest of their tech, too, including whatever they used to change our perceptions of them. Just like under Shiliuyuán, when the power got cut for a few seconds. We’d see things as they really are. Everyone would. We could…

I snapped awake. I lay in a bed in a darkened room lit only by a small, soft light on a nightstand next to me. I could hear breathing, and someone snored over the occasional beep of a monitor.

“You’re awake,” a woman’s voice whispered. I turned and saw a nurse standing over me at the opposite side of the bed. She wore a bright white uniform whose lapel had been spattered with blood, a squiggle surrounded by five frantic drops. A name tag had been pinned just beneath the stain:

QIAN CHO

She put one hand on mine, and I felt a scalefly crawl across my fingers. We were in a hospital wing where rows of beds had been set up, some surrounded by plastic privacy curtains. Most of the people in the other beds looked asleep.

“What happened?” I asked.

“They turned the riot cannon on you,” she said. “You were badly bruised, including three of your ribs. You were also struck in the head and knocked unconscious, but all things considered, you were lucky. You suffered no serious damage.”

I tried to sit up, but my body didn’t want to cooperate. I had to lie back down.

“Don’t try to move,” Qian said. “You took quite a beating.”

“I got off easy,” I said, trying to get my breath back. Qian frowned.

“Many people here now were not so lucky,” she said. “What those officers did tonight is unforgivable.”

I looked around at the other beds. I caught glimpses of bloodied gauze and, in the dim light, I saw that the man two beds away had one wrist that ended in a bloody stump. He moved out of focus, and the room felt like it began to tilt.

“You’re okay,” Qian whispered.

“You…”

“I gave you a painkiller. You’re still woozy.” She stroked my hair, careful not to brush my forehead. “Sleep now.”

She turned to leave, and I struggled to sit up again.

“Wait,” I said. She stopped, and leaned closer to me so she could hear.

“What is it, dear?”

“My friends…?”

“They’re here. They’re all fine.”

“I need Vamp.”

“You should get some rest.”

“Vamp…”

She nodded and stepped out of view behind a curtain for a moment. I heard her heels rap across the floor, then her voice as she spoke softly.

“Mr. Vamp? She’s awake. She’s asking for you.”

I heard her start back, a heavier set of footsteps following. When he stepped out from behind the curtain with Qian I saw his white shirt still had bloodstains on the front and collar. Qian gave a curt head nod, and continued her rounds, giving us some privacy.

“Sam,” Vamp said. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed my eyes, and felt a dull ache even through the pain medicine. “I think so.”

“You don’t look okay.”

“She says I’ll be okay.” I squinted, focusing as he tried to split in two. “What happened?”

“You took a nasty blow to the head,” he said. “I managed to get us through the gate, but you were knocked out cold.”

“What about the others?”

Vamp hesitated a little, and all at once it came back to me how Jin had fallen. How Dao-Ming had rushed to him, his blood spilling from between her fingers.

“Jin didn’t make it,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say. I’d known him, and liked him, but I’d never been close to him like…

“Dao-Ming?” I asked.

“She’s… not taking it well,” he said. He didn’t elaborate, but I could imagine. Dao-Ming lived close to the edge on any given day.

“Does Dragan know about any of this?”

“Dao-Ming wanted to call him but I figured you’d kill me if we told him you got knocked out by security while protesting in Xinzhongzi,” he said. “The doctor said you’d be fine. They just wanted to rule out concussion, and they did.”

“I have to get back,” I said. “Alexei—”

“I called Yun for you. She’s going to stay overnight,” he said. “You can check out as soon as you feel like you’re ready to go, but I’d coast until morning, if I were you. You took a hell of a hit.”