Peter Liu - Bald New World

The knife came down along my neck. I didn’t feel anything at first, just warmth along my neck. The pain followed a few seconds later as my sensors cried havoc and let loose the Chihuahuas of war. Blood slithered down the side of my neck.

“What do you want to know?” I asked. “I’ll tell you anything. Larry is dead. The Larry out there is an impostor. I don’t know who set off those explosives, but I wasn’t involved. I just came back after I was nearly taken a slave by—”

The doctor laughed. “We don’t care about your secrets,” he said. “All we care about is carving away your face and making you one of us.”

The knife landed in front of my ear and slowly slid its way towards my nose. Again, the same delayed pain response.

This guy was serious and there was nothing I could do. Or was there? Did I have to give up on my face?

Next time I saw Beauvoir, would she even recognize me? Or would she be horrified by me, thinking I was a thug there to take her away? The pain was intensifying. He wasn’t cutting deep. Just the surface. But my skin ruptured along its surface and all my cells were panicking that their ozone was being penetrated by a foreign object. Cell broadcasters projected potential Armageddon and many unbelievers became proselytes in these dismal times. No matter how old I got, my mind felt young, but my body was there to remind me that I was getting older by the second. I couldn’t believe this doctor had endured the same thing I had at some point. The cycle repeated. So many cycles I’d been part of, jet streams of violence I rode, trying to escape, finally reaching a current I couldn’t get out of, stuck in a whirlpool that meant I would drown. Fighting for oxygen, seeing the shore just at a distance, blood tattoos for my face ripped in strident lines. I wanted to close my eyes, but the doctor used his fingers to pry them apart. His hands had bulbous veins. He flashed the knife next to my eyes, wanting me to see the blood dripping at the edge. I could have sworn he was smiling, though his lip corners couldn’t stretch that far.

I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was breaking me. With his next cut, I screamed out loud and laughed.

He said, “You think this is humorous?”

“Not at all. You don’t need to convince me pleasure is pain. I already know it. It’s what everyone’s been trying to tell me my whole life.”

“That was just the warm up,” he said. “Prepare yourself for the Colonel.”

A visual projection of the Colonel appeared. Her arms were behind her back as she approached me. “I gave you a chance, didn’t I?”

“I had no idea they would attack you. I was just chasing down Larry. I—”

“Don’t play the fool! You think I don’t know about your power play?”

Power play? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But as long as you don’t have faceless guy here cut up my face, I’ll do anything you want.”

“It’s too late for negotiation. You’ve destroyed several key factories. What did you think that would achieve?”

She was blaming me? “Name your compensation,” I said.

“Your eternal servitude,” she replied. “Your undying gratitude.”

The projection ended. Negotiations had failed. If I couldn’t talk my way out of this, there had to be another way. My light bombs had been removed. Even with my armor on, there wasn’t anything I could do about a blade to my face. As Dr. Faceless waved his knife around, I tried to shake my way off the bed. The restraints were too secure and I prayed for a miracle.

It came with a dropping sound and one of the faceless falling over. The doctor turned around and I saw a man with white hair rushing at another guard. He moved gracefully as though he were performing a swan dance. When he lunged his hands, the ferocity of his plunge was feral, his mouth crunching into his nose, his nostrils flaring with savagery. He used a metallic chopstick to perforate their necks. One violent thrust in the pipe works of their esophagus resulted in a spray of blood splattering out. It was all in slow motion, the faceless men unable to scream as their throats were choked with blood. Flashes of white became a wavelength of death. I could see the blood cut off, the guards crumbling to their knees, their pants becoming a wrinkled mess. Even in agony, they could make no expression. Only their eyes betrayed them, the slit of their pupils grasping. They were victims of this reaper who sowed with his chopsticks and divested with his fingers.

When he’d finished killing the guards, he came to the doctor. The doctor had his knives but the killer was too quick. From behind, I saw a chopstick cut through where the doctor’s right eye should have been. Then another through the left side. The doctor crumbled to the floor.

My savior approached me. There was blood on his white hair. He was the man who’d given me an umbrella outside the convention center. I realized he was also the man that had killed Larry Chao using those sharp and pointed chopsticks.

“I’m Voltaire,” he said as he unloosed my straps. “We have a lot to discuss.”

V.

A woman named Austen who must have been a sister to Beauvoir and Plath stitched up my face. There were a few others who appeared to be brothers to Voltaire and carried guns. They all had white hair.

“You’re related to Tolstoy?” I asked Voltaire.

“He is my brother. He spoke highly of you.”

“What’d he say?”

“That you have guts.”

“He saved my life. And now you’ve saved my life. Thank you.”

He shrugged.

“You’ve dealt with a lot of them?” I asked, referring to the faceless.

“Even if they move and breathe, they’re not really living.”

While I was grateful to him for saving my life, I was positive he was Larry’s murderer. I wasn’t sure what my proper reaction should be. “How did you find me?”

“My sister, Beauvoir, insisted. Fortunately, I have sources among the faceless. Brothers who have sacrificed themselves for the cause,” he said.

I didn’t want to imagine what he meant by those words. “Why did you come?”

“We are more alike than you can imagine,” he said. “We both could not protect the ones we loved.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Larry told me about you,” he answered. Before I could ask more, he asked Austen, “How long before you’re finished?”

“Another ten minutes,” she answered as she patched me up.

“We need to hurry or we’ll be late.”

One of the others brought me my armor and weapons.

“Is this all of it?” Voltaire asked me.

“I think so.”

“Put it on.”

If he was worried about me turning on him, he didn’t show it. I was tempted to paralyze him and set off a light bomb. As though he knew what I was thinking, he asked, “Do you want to know what Larry died for?”

“Of course,” I answered.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll show you.”

VI.

His group was small — seven white-haired men and five women. They walked like a clergy in a ceremonial procession, dressed in white robes. There was an ephemeral quality to all of them, asexual in appearance. It was a result of their unblemished skin and their perfect hair.

They escorted me out of the grounds that turned out to be an abandoned hospital. A convoy of four black cars awaited us.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Airport.”

“Are we going to Bangkok?”

“No. America,” he answered as we both got into the car.

“Why?”

“Do you know why the Colonel is after you?”

“She thinks I have the formula for the secret hair.”

“Do you?” He laughed.