Peter Liu - Bald New World

“I was expecting a lot of things, but not this,” I said to her.

“D-do I know you, sir?” she asked.

“What did they do to you?”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“It’s me — Nick.”

“Nick?”

“Larry’s friend.”

She examined my face. “You-you were killed trying to escape.”

“So I’ve heard,” I answered.

“H-how did you get away?”

“Does it matter? That night before you shipped me off. Who was that dead on the sofa?”

“W-what?”

“Whose body was on the sofa?” I asked again.

“It was Larry. Why?”

“Do I look stupid to you? Larry’s alive. I just saw him.”

“That’s not Larry,” she protested.

“Then who is it?”

“I don’t know. But it’s not Larry.”

“I talked to him. It’s Larry.”

“Can’t you tell the difference between a fake Larry and the real one?” she demanded.

“Why would there be a fake Larry?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you be sure he’s dead?” I asked.

“There were holes in his neck.”

“That might not have been him.”

Shinjee shook her head. “Larry is dead.” And then I saw her well up with tears.

“Spare me,” I said. “You didn’t give a damn about him.”

An indignant scowl brimmed at her eyes. “I loved him.”

“Based on, what, the few days you knew him?”

“Love doesn’t have a timeline.”

“Life does. And he’s alive.”

“Someone’s replaced him,” she said.

“What happened to the body?”

“We weren’t expecting to find him dead so we left him there.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

“I had nothing to do with it,” she said. “Why would I kill him? My job was to recruit him.”

“For what?”

“To make films for the Great Leader.”

“So you are a spy?”

“An ambassador, punished for my failure.” She went back to washing her hands. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“I owed you a visit.”

“For what?”

“You sent me to Hell.”

“I gave you a way out and now you’re back.”

“I had to claw my way out,” I said.

“I didn’t want this for you or anyone else. What choice did I have?”

My mind was on other questions, like why would someone pretend to be Larry? The tattoo on his stomach was the same. Then again, that could have been faked. Think, Nick. Put your brain to use. Your eyes deceived you once. Was it that first time when you saw Larry’s corpse, or the second, when you saw him breathing in front of you at the convention?

“I tried calling him when I first heard he was alive,” she told me as she dried her hands. “He never picked up. He only appears in big public events and he’s always attended by a big entourage. I tried going once, just to see him. He didn’t recognize me. He was with four other women.”

Her voice was earnest as were her expressions. She was still in love with him.

“It’s so sad that the person Larry considered his closest friend can’t even tell the difference between the real him and an impostor,” she said. “You know how much he worried for you?”

“If he’s dead and you loved him, who killed him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why aren’t you out there trying to find his killer?”

“Why aren’t you?” she asked back.

“Because he’s alive.”

“And if he wasn’t?”

“I would have killed his killer,” I said, looking straight at her.

“You’re not a killer,” she said dismissively.

“You say it like that’s a bad thing.”

“In this world, it is. It’s one thing to gain power, it’s another to maintain it. Larry was a victim of a bigger game we weren’t part of.”

“And you?”

“I was naive enough to believe love conquers all. If you kill me, you’d only be doing me a favor. They’ll make a martyr of me back home and give my family honors,” she said.

“I’m not killing you.”

“I know,” she said. “And my family will continue to starve.”

“You could leave.”

“And doom my whole family?”

I had come here for revenge, and found the world had already taken it for me.

“That last film of his he was working on,” she said. “It might be related to everything.”

The one he’d been so cryptic about? “How?”

“I don’t know. But it was the only thing he refused to talk about. And you know what a big mouth he had.”

“Has.”

“Had,” she said. “Anytime you want my life, you know where I am. I won’t fight it.” She limped back to her apartment, daring me to follow.

I did not.

VIII.

Image facilitation could have been involved. Someone might have theoretically gotten enough surgery to look like Larry. But to sound like him, to have a similar height, and to be able to fool all those around him, especially with finger and eye scans at every corner of the Chao Toufa grounds? That was impossible. The more probable explanation was that Shinjee, beaten by her superiors, had lost her senses. It didn’t explain the corpse that night. But it was more likely that when she was confronted by the fact she’d been just another fling for him, she’d rather accept he was dead than she was unimportant. No one else questioned his identity but her. I shouldn’t either. Every logical thought in me urged me to go back to my apartment, pack up my belongings, sell everything I could, and spend a few years on the beaches of Cancun cavorting about. Yeah, drugs were everywhere, but as the cartels officially controlled everything, it was one of the safest places in the world.

And yet, when it came time to input my next destination into the cab, I found myself hesitating to give my Beijing home address. What if Larry really had been killed? Could I just ignore that possibility? Could I ignore my own eyes? I thought about talking to Russ who’d been promoted to president of Chao Toufa. He might have more insight and give me the confirmation I needed to put the whole matter to rest. There was something else gnawing me. I put in the address for the Chao Toufa factory grounds, wondering if Russ would even see me. If he didn’t, I’d pick up some of the equipment I’d left behind, especially my Pinlighter 1887, the pen camera that was so easy to carry. I called Larry to see if I could get hold of him. Even after five calls, he didn’t pick up.

I watched the news on the ride there. It focused on the garbage negotiations going on in Antarctica. Reporters and military specialists speculated on naval skirmishes between Europe and America for dumping rights in what had once been a frozen continent. I flipped the station. A death-football game was on and crowds were booing that only five people had been killed so far even though the half-time show had just concluded (there were conspiracy theorists who speculated that the deaths were arranged beforehand and actors were swapped out in favor of surgery while they healed). There were the usual spattering of commercials for the upcoming GEAs, celebrating the best in cinema. I ordered a caffeine boost as I needed something to keep my mind sharp. An emergency news cast broke through. The actor who played Jesus Christ, James Leyton, had caught the flu and prayer vigils were being held around the world. Several older gentlemen being interviewed were crying as they said, “We pray that he gets better soon.”

When I arrived at the factory, the guard at the security station asked for my identity. I gave him my information.

“It looks like you no longer have permission to enter, sir,” he politely informed me.

“Call the president and tell him I’d like to see him.”

“The president?”

“Russ Lambert. I need to speak with him.”