【US】Paul Bachgalupi / Xiao Aoran / Translator
As I stepped through the threshold, a familiar stench of filthy human odor, cooked food, and feces hit me. Flashing lights on police cars flashed through the shutters and in the rain, blazing red and blue at the crime scene. This is the kitchen, wet and messy. A squat woman huddled in the corner, her hands tugging at her nightgown, her fat thighs and wobbly breasts hidden under the stained silk. The group of guys from the group gathered around her, shoving her, and she had to sit down, trembling all over. Another woman, young and beautiful, with black hair, was leaning limply against the opposite wall, her shirt splattered with spaghetti. From another room came screams: the voice of a child.
To avoid nausea, I pinch my nose with my fingers and breathe through my mouth. At this point Pentel walked in and retracted the Granchi gun into the holster. When he saw me like this, he threw a nosepiece over. I opened the nosepiece and inhaled the lavender scent inside until I couldn't smell the stench. The children jumped into the house with Pentel, and the three little guys slapped around his knees-they were the ones who had just made the screams in the other room. They ran up and down the kitchen, then screamed and ran into the living room. The data flickering on the screen on the living room wall was like a sprinkling of fairy dust, which seemed to be their only connection with the outside world.
"Everyone is here," said Pentel. He has a long, thin face, his small mouth is always slanted in dissatisfaction, his cheeks seem to be drooping, and two eyebrows as thick as caterpillars hang over his eyes. He surveyed the kitchen, the corners of his mouth pulled even lower. Being in a situation like this is always frustrating. "They were all in the house when we broke in."
I nodded absently, tossing the rain off my hat. "Okay, thanks." Drops of water splashed on the floor, merging into the wet footprints left by the team members, mingling with the maggot-like remains of spaghetti. I put the hat back on, but the rain still slipped through the brim into the collar, leaving a slick water mark that was uncomfortable. Someone had closed the door to the outside, and the smell of feces had grown stronger, with a damp, eggy smell, and the nosepieces were barely useful. Expired peas and bits of cereal crunched under my feet, stomped flat along with the pasta, leftovers from the past that make up the "geological layer" of the present. This kitchen has not been cleaned in years.
The older woman coughed and tightened the nightgown wrapped around her fat. Whenever I'm in a situation like this, I always wonder what motivated them to choose this horrible life of hiding and living with putrid garbage, and even risking breaking the law by infiltrating the outside world. After I came, the pregnant girl looked even more paralyzed, her eyes dazed, so much so that outsiders had to feel her pulse to make sure she was still alive. Unable to resist the temptation, these women descended into such a poor life as fugitives in the eyes of those who could have protected them, supported them, loved them, and exposed them to the outside world. It really amazes me that they are so down.
The children, chasing and frolicking, ran in again from the living room. One of them was blond and no more than five years old. The other was smaller, with brown braids, shirtless and wearing disposable diapers, and was less than three years old. There was also a little boy who was no more than knee-high, with baby diapers wrapped around his strong legs, and a ketchup-stained T-shirt that read "Who's the cutest?". If it wasn't soiled, this T-shirt would be a valuable antique.
"Do you need anything else?" Pentel asked. There was a new stench coming from the children's direction, and he couldn't help wrinkling his nose.
"Did you take the photos the prosecution needs?"
"Take it." Pentel took out a digital camera and swiped his thumb on the screen, showing a photo of two women and three children, all of them staring out of the camera, like a group of dirty doll.
Do you want me to take them away, right now? "
I looked at the two women and the children ran away again. Their chasing and playful shouts echoed in another room, making my ears ringing and giving me a headache even from a distance. "Yes. I'll take care of the children."
Pentel pulled the two women off the ground and took them out the door, leaving me alone in the kitchen. Everything is so familiar: it's a typical "United Construction" house design. Bespoke under-cabinet lights, black mirrored floor tiles, and smart nozzles with self-cleaning hidden behind the moldings look so much like Alice and I’s kitchen, it almost makes me forget I’m anywhere else. It's the exact opposite of our apartment kitchen: bright versus dark, clean versus dirty, quiet versus loud. The same house design, everything is the same, yet completely different. It's like archaeology, I can see the real face of this room by looking at the layers of mud, grime, and noise... When the room is still the same, the family is probably still worried about the lack of color coordination. Or worry that the appliances are not up to the standard.
I open the fridge (it's plated with anti-smudge nickel, really pragmatic). We have pineapple, avocado, lettuce, corn, coffee, and Brazil nuts from the Angel Spire Hanging Gardens in our fridge. And the shelves of this refrigerator are littered with crushed fungal protein bars and piles of solidified nutrient supply bags—the kind that are handed out at government-run rejuvenation centers. Aside from a sticky bag of lettuce, there isn't any unprocessed food in the fridge. Apart from the powder jar, there are no vegetables and no fruit either. There's also a stack of self-heating lunch boxes for fried rice, bacon and pasta, dipped in sauce like the ones on the table. That's all in the fridge.
I closed the refrigerator and stood up straight. There seemed to be something hidden behind this mess, behind the screams in another room, behind the smell of some kid's dirty pants, but I couldn't figure it out. These women could have lived in the sun and fresh air, but instead they hid in the damp darkness of the jungle canopy, until they became pale and gave up their lives.
The children rushed in, chasing one after the other like a train, laughing and screaming. Then they stopped and looked around, surprised, perhaps to find that their mothers had disappeared. The youngest held a stuffed dinosaur in the shape of his hand and held it up to his nose, with a long green neck and a plump body. A thunder dragon, I think. It has large cartoon eyes with black felt lashes. Speaking of dinosaurs, it's very interesting, they've been gone for so long, but now they're here as stuffed toys. Also interesting, if you think about it, the dinosaurs actually went extinct twice.
"Sorry, kids. Mommy's gone."
I took out the Grange gun. The heads of the children bounced back one after another. boom! boom! boom! Holes like paint appeared on their foreheads, and the brains sprayed out from the back of their heads. Their bodies flipped swiftly, slid across the black mirrored floor, and fell to the ground in a piled-on, limbs askew. For a moment, the burnt smell of gunpowder dilutes the stench.
Like a bat escaping from hellfire, I drove away from the jungle, over the sprawling suburb of the Rhinehurst megalopolis, then climbed to the upper jungle, zipping through the causeway to the Angel's Spire and the sea . A group of monkeys jumped off the rails like grasshoppers, jumped to the front of my police car, and then disappeared into mangroves, kudzu bushes, redwood and teak forests, and disappeared into a tangle of guts. among the damp greens of the festival. I parked the car in the center of the group. There's no time to wash my face, but it's not necessary. I stuffed my hat, raincoat and clothes into the hazardous material bag and walked out the other side of the center. I hurriedly put on my evening gown and rushed to the heavy-duty elevator to the 188th floor, towards the fresh air above the N22 carbon fixation[2] engineered forest vegetation.
Onma Terrogo has composed a new concerto with Alice as his star viola, his ace. Jiang Hua and Tai Luoguo circled around her like crows all day, nitpicking her performance, staring at her, waiting for her to make mistakes. But now they say she's ready, ready to take Barnini from the throne, ready to claim her place in the eternal halls of classical music. However I was late. I'm stuck on the fifty-fifth floor. The elevators are full of people heading to the upper floors for meals and to climb the steeple on the weekends, filled with exhaled breath and heat from the human body. Time passed by, and only the humming of the thermostat fan could be heard. Everyone was sweating profusely and looking haggard, waiting for the wiring problem to be resolved.
The elevator finally began to continue to rise. With the acceleration of the magnetic field, we roared up into the sky, our stomachs seemed to fall to the soles of our feet, and our ears roared with it...then the speed dropped so quickly that we almost flew off the floor and our stomachs bounced back. I squeezed my way out of the hundreds, flashing my police badge if anyone complained, then running through the glass arches of the KI Center for the Performing Arts and into the closing gate.
The automatic lock of the door behind me slammed shut, sealing off the performance space and making it very comfortable. A prelude surrounded me, and I seemed to be held up by its hands and brought into a space where people could not concentrate. The lights dimmed, and people gradually stopped talking. I fumbled for my seat almost by feel. The man in the top hat and the woman with the binoculars looked at me with contempt as I squeezed through the crowd. Too bold, I know. It's absurd to be so late to participate in such a once-in-a-decade event. As soon as I sat down, I saw Jiang Hua step onto the podium.
Like a white crane spreading his wings, he raised his hands and bowed. Brass and woodwind instruments gleamed as soon as they swayed, and the music began to sound, at a low volume at first, as if a layer of fog had been lifted, and then gradually, groups of repeating sections passed by like a breeze. I've heard Alice play them countless times. Those stuttering and uncomfortable notes that I had heard a long time ago now flow like clear water for a while, and burst out like crisp ice flowers for a while. The sound of the music gradually settled down, and the weak piano sounded again. This lovely and subtle musical part is exactly what I have heard in Alice's usual practice. It's just a prelude, she told me, to make the audience forget about the outside world. The piece continued to repeat until Jiang Hua thought that the hearts of the audience were firmly tied to him. At this time, Alice's viola sounded, and other musicians joined in one after another. This is the fruit of fifteen years of hard work.
I looked down at my palm: it was already red. For so long, Alice had been grumbling in practice, swearing that Terrogo's compositions couldn't be played at all. Today her performance in the hall is very different. Today, she is even different from what she used to be when she finished her practice early: she used to wear a relieved smile, her face was flushed, her hands were freshly ground with new calluses, and she was impatient to pour a glass of iced white Wine, and then walk out to the balcony with me, basking in the afterglow of the setting sun, watching the clouds of the rainy season gradually disperse, and then snuggling in the sprinkle of stars. Tonight she played a part that fits perfectly with the whole concerto, the beauty of which I can't put into words or imagine.
Later on, I'll hear people talk about whether Terrogo has surpassed Barnini with a fearless mentality, and critics will compare the performance to memories of ancient musical performances, and hear the original The scathing reviews turned into hype, making the new song, which spanned a century, a classic. This is exactly what Alice and her commander Jiang Hua hoped, a wish that hung over them like a specter: they were going to pull Barnini from the throne with this performance, and maybe make him stop rejuvenation therapy, and maybe even make him so depressed. into the grave. In my opinion, competing with someone with such historical status is an unbearable burden. I am thankful that forgetting is the most important part of my work. Working on a kill team means emptying your head and letting go, and when you quit your job, you need to let go completely.
Except now. I looked down at my hands and was surprised to see tiny blood spots all over them. Blood was sprayed on. This foggy blood stain comes from the kid holding the dinosaur. The fingers smelled of rust.
The music beats faster and faster. Alice starts playing again. The flowing notes made it hard to believe that it wasn't an electronic instrument, and it was hard to believe that this passion, this strong cadence, came from her hands. I also heard her practice on the balcony in the morning, testing herself, trying to push her limits over and over again. She trains her fingers, forcing them to meet Terrogo's exacting demands. A few years ago she said these demands were impossible, but now the music resounds skillfully in the ears of listeners.
There were blood spots all over my hands, and I wiped them off bit by bit. The blood must have belonged to the kid with the dinosaur who was closest to me when he was shot. His residue was clinging to my skin, and I knew I should have washed my face.
I keep wiping.
Next to me sat a man with a tanned face and lipstick, his brow furrowed. My actions are undoubtedly sabotaging this historic moment, one he has been waiting for for years.
So I wiped more and more carefully and quietly. The blood spots were finally wiped clean, and the damn kid with the damn dinosaur nearly made me miss the show.
The cleaning team also noticed the dinosaur toy. They can also pick up on the irony, joking and sniffing the nosepiece, bagging the body and saving it for composting. This stupid dinosaur caused me to be late. The music gradually subsided, and Jiang Hua put down his hands. applause. At the urging of Jiang Hua, Alice stood up and applauded even more warmly. I craned my neck to see her. Amid the crowd's adoration, her nineteen-year-old face flushed, revealing a bright smile with the joy of victory.
That night we attended a party hosted by Maria Illoni, one of the main patrons of the symphony orchestra. Before New York City sank, she made a fortune by working on a global warming mitigation program for New York. She now lives in a mansion in the Bay Area, high above seawalls and waves, as if pointing her middle finger to the sea, which defeats her foresight to guard against storm surges. The black water was covered with silver vines as thin as cobwebs, and swarms of shipwrecks were buried in the depths of the water. New York apparently didn't get its money back: Iloni's terraces take up the entire top floor of the Bay Area, and there are numerous platforms made of hollow carbon fiber that stretch out into the sky like petals attached to them.
From the far end of the Bay Area, you can see from the dazzling center of the constellation all the way to the edge of the old town, where there is nothing but darkness except for the stripes of light from the maglev track. There is a rubble, devastated and dilapidated. In the daytime it looked like some kind of dry, crumbling red fungus, the shade of the jungle crisscrossing the old suburbs beneath it like threads. At night, only the glowing outlines of the infrastructure are visible, like flowers blooming in the dark. I took a deep breath and enjoyed the fresh air and wide-open field of view—none of these things in the steaming hideouts I raided with the kill team.
Alice was radiant, with a great body and curves—I took this beauty into my arms. The temperature in autumn is below thirty-three degrees, which is very pleasant, which makes me love her even more. I hugged her tightly and quietly walked into a forest of potted sculptures. These works are more than a century old, all by Maria's husband. Alice told me softly that Maria's husband had spent days and nights on the balcony staring at the branches, studying their curvature. Occasionally, maybe every few years, he would shape the branches, changing their direction. We both kissed in the shade under the tree. Alice is so beautiful, everything is so perfect.
But I was distracted.
When I fired at the kids with the Grange, the youngest one—the one with the damn dinosaur—turned over. Grange guns were designed for addicts, not kids, so as the bullet tumbled through the kid, he flipped and the dinosaur toy flew out. It's flying, I mean it's really flying in the air. And now, I can't get this scene out of my mind: a dinosaur toy flying through the air, hitting a wall, and bouncing off a black mirrored floor. Everything is so fast and so slow. Bang bang bang, the children fell one after another...and the dinosaur toys flew into the air.
Alice pushed me away, seeming to sense my absent-mindedness. So I stood up straight and tried to focus on her. She said, "I thought you wouldn't be here when I tuned in. I saw your seat was vacant."
I smiled reluctantly, "But here I am, I caught up."
Almost missed. The cleaning crew and I were in the house for too long, watching the dinosaur toys lying in a pool of blood drain the blood from the kid. Both are extinct, children and dinosaurs. Die one way, then die again. There's a strange sense of symmetry to it.
Alice shook her head and looked at me carefully. "Is it bad?"
"What?" Thunder Dragon?
"This mission?"
I shrugged. "Just some crazy women, no weapons and nothing else. Pretty easy."
"I can't imagine anyone giving up rejuvenation treatments like that." She sighed, reaching out to touch a potted plant that had grown flawlessly for decades along drawings that only Michael Illoni could understand. "Why give up everything?"
I don't know how to answer. Images of the crime scene played back in my head. It's the same feeling when I look through the fridge while standing in the pasta stains. In the stench, the noise, and the darkness, there was something lurking, something warm, fascinated, ripe. But I don't know what that is.
"Those women look old," I said, "like balloons a week after they were bought, puffy and dull."
Alice showed a look of disgust. "Can you imagine playing Terrogo without rejuvenation treatment? There's simply not enough time, half of us will miss our prime years and have to take apprentices, and then apprentices have to keep taking apprentices. Fifteen years , these women just gave it up. How could they want to give up something as wonderful as Terrogo's work?"
"Did you think of Kara?"
"She could have played Terogo twice and played as well as me."
"I do not believe."
"Believe it. She was the best until she went crazy for having a baby." She sighed. "I miss her."
"You can go see her, she's not dead."
"She might as well be dead. She's twenty years older than when we first met her." She shook her head, "I'd rather remember her youthful youthful appearance than being held in a single-sex labor camp. She grows vegetables and loses the last bit of talent. If she plays now, I definitely can't listen to it. It would kill me to see her talent lost." At this moment, she suddenly changed the subject.
"It reminds me that my rejuvenation-boosting session is tomorrow. Can you take me there?"
"Tomorrow?" I hesitated. Tomorrow I have to go to work and kill another group of children. "You should have told me sooner."
"I know. I meant to tell you sooner, but I forgot about the show." She shrugged.
"It's not a big deal, I can go by myself." She glanced at me. "Of course it would be better if you could go."
who cares. I don't want to go to work anyway. "Okay, I'll go. I'll have Pentel take my place." Let him deal with the dinosaurs.
"Really?"
I shrugged, "How do I say it? Who made me so considerate."
She smiled and stood on tiptoe and kissed me. "If it weren't for our immortality, I would definitely marry you."
I smiled and said, "If it weren't for our immortality, I would have made you pregnant with my child."
We just stared at each other, and Alice laughed quiveringly, as if she had heard a joke. "Don't be disgusting."
Before we could say another word, Illoni suddenly appeared from behind a potted plant and grabbed Alice's arm. "You're here! I'm looking for you everywhere. Don't hide like that, you're the main character tonight."
She pulled Alice away with the confidence she must have had when she convinced people that she could save New York. She barely glanced at me and left in a hurry. Alice smiled tolerantly and motioned for me to follow. Then Maria gathered everyone together, then she climbed the edge of a fountain, pulled Alice aside, and started talking about art, sacrifice, discipline, and beauty.
I was completely detached from it, and I couldn't stand her complacent attitude. Alice is naturally one of the most extraordinary people in the world, but it would be too trite to say too much. But the patrons need to feel like they belong in the moment, so they pull Alice and make her their person, and they keep chattering.
Maria is saying: "... Without our lovely Alice, how can we stand here to congratulate ourselves. Jiang Hua and Tai Luoguo also made outstanding contributions, but at the last moment, it was precisely because Alice contributed to the Terrogo's ambitious work is the perfect ending to resonate so strongly with critics. We want to thank her for making this piece so wonderful."
People began to applaud, Alice's pretty face flushed, she was not used to the praise from her companions and opponents. Over the cheers, Maria shouted: "I've called Barnini a few times and it's clear he can't respond to our challenge, so I think the next eighty years will be our time and Alice's. Times!" The applause was almost deafening.
Maria waved her hand and called people's attention again. The applause turned into sparse whistles and boos, and finally died down, so Maria continued: "To celebrate the end of the Barnini era, and the beginning of a new one, I would like to give Alice a small souvenir to represent us. Love for her—" Then she bent down and picked up a gift bag woven from jute and embellished with gold, "A woman naturally loves gold and jewelry, and new strings for her viola. But I think this gift fits the mood of the night best..."
I leaned over to the lady beside me to see what was going on, when Maria raised the bag exaggeratedly above her head and shouted to the crowd, "For Alice, our dragon slayer!" Then she took out a green brontosaurus toy.
Exactly the same as that in the child's hands.
Its big eyes stared straight at me, and for a split second it seemed to wink at me with eyes with long black lashes. People understood what she meant and laughed and applauded. Barnini equals dinosaurs, lol.
Alice took the dinosaur, grabbed it by the neck, and swung it over her head. Everyone laughed again, but I didn't see anything because I was on the ground, trapped in the sweltering jungle of people's legs, unable to breathe.
"Are you sure it's okay?"
"I'm sure, no problem. I told you, I'm fine."
This is the truth, I think. Alice and I were sitting in the waiting room. Although I was very tired, I was neither dizzy nor otherwise. Last night, she put that dinosaur on the bedside table, lined up with her collection of little jewel-decorated music boxes, and the damn thing was staring at me all night. Until four in the morning, I couldn't take it anymore and tucked it under the bed. But in the morning, Alice found it and put it back, and I have been unable to escape its gaze since.
Alice grabbed my hand tightly. It's a small, private rejuvenation clinic, with carefully installed holographic windows projecting images of sailboats drifting across the Atlantic. Although the daylight here comes in through the reflective collector mirrors, it still feels open and airy. This isn't the kind of monster-sized public clinic that pops up in a metropolitan area after a patent for rejuvenation technology expires. It's a little more expensive here than a clinic covered by the health insurance system, but at least you don't have to stand in line with poor gamblers, addicts, or alcoholics who are wasting their time Every day in the infinite life, but still want to maintain the rejuvenation treatment.
The nurses are resolute and efficient. Soon it was Alice's turn to lie down, hook up the IV bag, and I sat beside her bed to watch the rejuvenating liquid pour into her body.
This is a clear liquid. But I always think of it as green foamy broth, maybe not green, but at least foamy. I always feel like it's foamy when the liquid is infused.
Alice took a breath and reached out to me, her slender white fingers caressing my thigh. "Hold me."
The potion of life was pulsing, filling her, rushing through her. She gasped softly, her eyes wide open. Instead of looking at me, she sank deep into her body, taking back the past eighteen months of her life. No matter how many sessions I've been through myself, seeing others go through it -- being submerged and then resurfacing in a more complete, alive form than before -- always amazes me.
Alice's eyes refocused and she smiled, "Oh god, I'm still not used to it."
She tried to get up, but I helped her sit down, and I rang the nurse bell. After removing the injection bag, I took her outside to the car. She leaned heavily against me, stumbling and stroking me. I could almost feel the liquid running under her skin, hissing and agitating. She climbed into the car, and when I got in, she looked at me and smiled, "I can't believe how wonderful this feels."
"Rejuvenation is naturally the best thing."
"Take me home. I want to be with you."
I pressed the start button in the car and slid out of the parking space and onto the maglev track that left the central spire. Alice watched the city that kept flashing through the car window—the hordes of shoppers and businessmen, like martyrs and ghosts. We then reach an open area, cross an elevated track above the jungle, and continue towards the Angel's Spire to the north.
"It's so beautiful to be alive," she said. "I don't know what's the point of doing that."
"doing what?"
"Abandon rejuvenation therapy."
"If everyone was sensible, there would be no need for a psychologist." Nor would there be any need to buy dinosaur toys for children who were doomed to live. I can't help but grit my teeth. It's all pointless, stupid moms.
Alice sighed, put her hands on her thighs, pulled up her skirt and kneaded and massaged herself, pressing her fingers hard into the flesh. "But meaningless is meaningless. It feels so good, how can you give up rejuvenation if you're not crazy?"
"Of course they're going mad. They've driven themselves to death, they've had children and they don't know how to take care of them. They've lived in gloomy apartments like shitholes, they've never gone out, they've stinks, they're filthy, and they'll never be able to have good things again. Everything—" I almost yelled. So I closed my mouth.
Alice looked at me, "Are you all right?"
"I'm very good."
But I am not well. I'm outraged at the women and their foolishness to buy toys; at these ignorant women playing with their dying children with toys and making them think they're not going to turn into compost in the end. "Don't talk about work now, let's go home." I forced a smile, "I have already asked for leave today, we should make good use of it."
Alice was still looking at me, and I could see the doubt in her eyes. If she hadn't been at the peak of the excitement brought about by rejuvenation drugs, she would have been chasing after her. But she was wrapped tightly by the excitement of her newly rebuilt body, so she could only let me go. She smiled and moved her fingers to my lap and started teasing me. I turned on my siren, ignoring the safety rules of the maglev track, and weaved like a loaded bullet on the causeway to the Angel's Spire. In the distance is the sun on the sea, next to Alice's smiling face and laughter, the bright air whistles around.
At three o'clock in the morning, there was another mission summons. The windows were open, and the humid, sultry Newfoundland air roared outside. Alice wants me to go home and rest, but I can't, and I don't want to. I don't know what I want, but I know I never want to go to brunch with Belgian waffles, or make out on the living room floor, or go to a movie, or... anything.
I just can't do it. When we got home, I couldn't do it either. Nothing was right, and Alice said it was okay, just because she needed to practice playing the piano.
I haven't seen her for over a day now.
I've been on duty, one task after another. I've been working twenty-four hours straight on a "police assistant" potion and intravenous caffeine. My hat, trench coat, and hands are covered in blood stains from work.
The sea water level along the coast is high, and the water temperature is not low, hitting the breakwater. The coal and coal gasification plants ahead glowed brightly. The new mission took me to the glamorous Palomino metro area. This property is nice. After we took the heavy lift elevator up, I broke through a door first, followed by Pentel. We already knew the situation we were about to face, and the only thing we didn't know was how much they would resist.
There was a commotion in the house. The target this time was a young and beautiful brown-skinned woman who, if she hadn't decided to have children, would have probably already had a good life. A child lay screaming in a box in the corner, and the woman was screaming, looking like she was going mad.
When we walked in the door, the women started screaming at us. The child in the box kept barking, and so did she. The screams sounded like screwdrivers stuck in their ears, and they didn't stop for a moment. Pentel grabbed the woman and tried to steady her, but she and the child kept screaming. Suddenly I was out of breath and shaky. The child kept screaming, screaming, screaming: my ears seemed to be stuffed with screwdrivers, glass balls, and ice picks all at once.
So I shot the kid—I pulled out the Grange and fed the little bastard a bullet. Fragments of the box and the child were scattered in the air.
Usually I don't do that - it's against the rules to kill their kids in front of their mothers. But this is the end, everyone can only stare at the corpse. There was blood and gunpowder all around, and my ears were buzzing with gunshots. For a moment, the world was completely silent.
Then the woman screamed at me again. Pentel also started screaming because the evidence was destroyed by me before he had time to take a picture. Then the woman jumped on me, trying to pull out my eyeballs. Pentel pulled her away, so she cursed me as gou za zhong, murderer, king badan, ape, a stupid pig with a pair of dead fish eyes.
This really irritated me: I did have a pair of dead fish eyes. This woman is on the road of no return, where the rejuvenation effect is gradually disappearing, and she has less than 20 years left, and she has to spend this time in a single-sex labor camp. She's young, a lot like Alice, maybe someone who's had rejuvenation as an adult—unlike me, who was a forty-year-old running errands when rejuvenation finally became widespread—and now, she will die. But I am the one with dead fish eyes. I took out the Grange gun and pressed it against her forehead. "Do you want to die too?"
"Come on! Shoot! Shoot!" she continued roaring and cursing, without a moment's pause, "You fucking bastard! Fucking bastard--shoot! Shoot!" she cried. As much as I would love to see her brain splatter from the back of her head, I just can't get my hands on it. She has not long to live, and will be finished in twenty years. Killing her and handing in paperwork is not worth it.
While she was muttering to the child in the box, Pentel handcuffed her. By this time the child had become a mass of bloody doll stumps. "My baby, my poor baby. I don't know, my baby, my poor baby, I'm sorry..." Pentel forcibly pulled her into the car outside.
For a moment I could still hear her voice from the hallway. My darling, my poor darling, my poor darling... Soon she was down in the elevator, leaving me standing beside the damp air in the apartment and the dead bodies on the floor. So I breathed a sigh of relief.
She used the dresser drawer as a cradle.
My fingers run along the split edge of the drawer, stroking the brass handles. Not to mention anything else, these women are at least very good at adapting to changes, and can create many items that are no longer available on the market. If I close my eyes, I can almost recall a whole slew of industrial products built around little devils—small clothes, small chairs, small beds...everything smaller.
Small dinosaur.
"She couldn't shut up the child."
I was startled, my hand twitched, and I retracted it from the baby box. Pentel came over.
"what?"
"She couldn't keep the baby from crying, she didn't know what to do, she didn't know how to calm the baby down so the neighbors would hear there was a baby next door."
"Stupid."
"Yeah, she doesn't even have a partner. How does she go shopping for groceries?"
He took out his camera and took a few pictures of the baby. Not much remains of the body. The 12mm Grange was designed for drug addicts, deranged addicts and robo-killers, and was too deadly for such an unarmed child. When the new Grange came on the market, it was advertised on the side door of our police car: "Grange: Unstoppable." Or something like that. One ad reads: "Grange aiming at close range," featuring a beehive of a drug addict. We all have this ad on our wardrobes.
Pentel took a picture of the drawer from a different angle, trying to take a full picture and try to make the most of the bad scene. "I like how she uses the drawers," he said.
"Yeah. Very clever."
"I saw a woman in one case make a whole set of small tables and chairs for her child, all by hand. I can't imagine how much effort she put into this." He gestured the shape with his hands, "Little The scalloped corners of the table are painted with figures: squares, triangles, etc.”
"If you risk your life to do something, I guess you want to do it well."
"I'd rather go paragliding, or go to a concert. I heard Alice had a great night."
"Yes, that's right." I carefully observed the baby's body, and Pentel took a few more pictures. "It's you, how do you think these kids can be quieted down?"
Pentel nodded at my gun. "I'll tell him to shut up."
I grimaced and put the gun in the holster. "Sorry, it's been a bad week. I've been staying up late and haven't slept much." Because so many dinosaurs were staring at me.
Pentel shrugged. "It's fine. It would be better if we could take a picture of the scene that wasn't destroyed—" He took another picture, "but even if she is acquitted this time, you can guess: in a year or two we will still be Breaking through this door again. These girls have a high recidivism rate." He took another shot.
I walked over to a window and opened it, and the salty air burst in like life, driving away the humidity and the smell of blood. It was perhaps the first breath of fresh air in this apartment since the child was born. Doors and windows must be locked or neighbors will hear anomalies; people must also stay indoors. I don't know if she has a boyfriend, maybe it's a guy who gave up rejuvenation treatment, but he came over with his daily clutter and found that she had disappeared. Maybe we should just stay in the apartment and watch and sit back and let the feminists who accuse us of only arresting women have nothing to say. I took a deep breath of the sea breeze to fill my lungs with fresh air, lit a cigarette, and turned back to the messy, smelly room.
Recidivism - a good word to describe these girls with strong urges. They're like addicts, but weirder and more self-destructive than those chops. At least it's fun to be a drug addict. Who would want to live in a shady apartment with disgusting diapers and fast food and not sleep well year after year? Parenting is obsolete - it's just a tortured custom from the 21st century that people don't need anymore. But these girls try to turn the clock back and give birth to a bunch of cubs, compelled by instinct to pass on their DNA. A new group of people joins them every year, and their descendants are springing up like mushrooms after a spring rain. It's a race's urge to try to reshuffle the deck and let evolution continue, and we've won evolution long ago.
I flipped the keyboard to look at the directory listing in the police car, flipped through ads, keywords, and search preferences, trying to find something, but no matter how hard I tried, it didn't help.
Dinosaur.
Toy.
stuffed animals.
no result. No one is selling dinosaurs or anything, and I've bumped into two people with dinosaurs in their hands.
The monkeys jumped up and down the roof of my car, and one of them jumped onto the front bumper, staring straight at me with two huge yellow eyes. Then another monkey attacked it, and both fell off the carbon fiber platform I parked on. Somewhere below are the rubble of the suburbs, where a group of their fellows live. I still remember that it used to be permafrost here, that was a long time ago. I once spoke to a technician at a carbon sink project and heard him talk about changing the climate and building ice sheets. But these things take a long time, probably centuries. Assuming no crazy mothers or addicts shot me, I should have seen this happen. But now, it's all monkeys and jungle.
After forty-eight hours of work and two other cleanups, Alice wanted me to take the weekend off to play, but I couldn't. I have to live off the mission allowance now. She was very satisfied with her job and wanted to be bored with me all day. We used to live like that, lying together, enjoying the peace of the two worlds and the joy of being together, and not having to do anything else. In the peace and quiet, watching the sea breeze blowing the curtains on the balcony is wonderful.
I should go home. For about a week after the performance, she would start worrying again, doubting her talents, working more day and night, practicing longer and longer, listening, feeling, and immersing herself completely in the music—the music To anyone other than her, it looked like a complicated mathematical formula. But in fact she has time, eternal time. I'm happy about that, because then she's been able to spend 15 years honing breath-taking goodies, like her collaboration with Terrogo.
I want to be with her during this time and share her joy. But I don't want to go back and sleep next to that dinosaur, I can't.
I called her from the police car.
"Alice?"
She looked at me on the screen, "Are you coming back? I can have lunch with you."
"Do you know where Maria got that dinosaur toy?"
She shrugged. "Maybe it's from some store in Spang, what's wrong?"
"Just asking." I paused, "Can you get it for me?"
"What's the matter? Why don't you do something interesting? I'm on vacation. I just finished rejuvenation therapy and feel fine now. If you want to see dinosaur toys, why don't you come back?"
"Alice, please."
Alice frowned and disappeared from the screen. She walked back a few minutes later and held the dinosaur up to the screen, right in front of my face. I felt my heart beat faster. It was cool in the police car, but when I saw the dinosaur on the screen, I started to sweat. I cleared my throat, "What's on the label?"
Alice frowned and turned the dinosaur over, running her fingers between its fur. She pinched the tag and held it up to the camera. The labels were a little blurry at first, but became clear as the lens became more focused. It says "Ipswich Collectibles Store".
Sure enough, this is not a toy.
It's an old woman who runs Ipswich, the oldest rejuvenator I've ever seen. The folds on her face looked so plastic that it was difficult to tell where was real and where was the implanted mask skin. Her eyes were sunken like blue coals, and her silver hair reminded me of weddings and silk. She must have been ninety years old when she received rejuvenation treatment.
Despite its name, the Ipswich store is full of toys: dolls on shelves staring down, with faces, body shapes and colours of all shapes and sizes, some soft, others in hard bright colours Made of plastic. Small trains run on miniature rails, and steam billows from chimneys the size of pinky fingers. There are also figures from old movies and comics in action figures: Superman, Dolphin, Riot T-Rex. Beneath a shelf on the ground floor with hand-carved wooden cars sits a bucket of green, blue and red dinosaur stuffed toys. There was a Tyrannosaurus rex, a pterosaur, and a brontosaurus.
"There are a few stegosaurs in the back."
I looked up in surprise. The old woman stood behind the counter looking at me like a strange wrinkled vulture. Her sharp blue eyes watched me as if to judge if I was a pile of rotting flesh.
I picked out the Brontosaurus and picked it up by the neck. "No need, these will do."
the bell rang. The door to the hall slid open, and a woman entered hesitantly. She had no makeup and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. I knew before she stepped through the door: she was one of those people—a mother.
It wasn't long before she took a break from rejuvenation: despite her bloated body after giving birth, she still looked young and young. She looks good. But even if she doesn't reveal her rejuvenation-stopping traits, I still know what she's doing to herself. The tired look on her face was the result of her confrontation with the world. None of us are that way, and none of us have to be that way, not even addicts have this look of depression and fear. She wanted to act like she used to be, maybe she was an actress, financial advisor, code engineer, biologist or waiter or something. She put on clothes that fit before but are now too tight, trying to pretend to be an ordinary person who walks in broad daylight without fear, but her appearance betrays herself.
As she wandered the aisle, I noticed a stain on her shoulder. It's small, but it's still obvious when you look at it - it's a tinge of green on her cream shirt. This stain does not appear on anyone except women with children. No matter how hard she tried, she seemed out of tune with us.
The Ipswich Collectibles Store, like any other place of its kind, is like a secret door - a rabbit hole into the world of illicit mothers, a pea-stained, sound-proofed place where people sneak in The outside world searches for supplies and seeks to survive in the world. If I stand here long enough, clutching this magical brontosaurus by the neck, I'll be able to jump through this secret door whole and watch their worlds overlap mine—with their bizarre dual perspectives Look. These women learned how to turn a drawer into a crib, how to fold and sew an old shirt into a diaper, and figure out that "collectibles" are really "toys."
The woman walked in the direction of the train playset and chose one to put on the counter. The set is made from a bright piece of wood, each car is a different color and is held together by magnets.
The old woman picked up the train and said, "Oh, yes, that's a good thing. My grandkids played trains like this when they were a year old."
The mother didn't speak, as she reached for the payment, stared at the train below, and nervously touched its blue-yellow engine with her fingers.
I went to the counter, "I bet you sold quite a few."
She shuddered suddenly, and for a moment seemed to want to run, but she steadied herself. The old woman cast her eyes on me, her dark, sunken eyes as if they could see everything, "Not much, not yet. Not many collectors around here like this kind of stuff. Not anymore."
After the transaction was completed, the woman hurried out of the store without looking back. I watched her leave.
The old woman said, "That dinosaur is forty-seven dollars, if you want to buy it." Her tone told me that she knew I had no intention of buying it.
I am not a collector.
night. We raided more illegal mothers. There were children everywhere, like poisonous mushrooms that raged after the rain, and they couldn't handle it. On my last assignment, I had to leave the site before the cleaning team could arrive. As a result, the chain of evidence is broken, but what can I do? Wherever I went, the gates of the baby world opened up around me; round melons, seed pods wrapped in seeds, pregnant wombs burst open and vomited so many babies to the ground that it nearly overwhelmed us. The jungle also seems to be stirring for the women hiding in the sweltering suburbs below, and the tendrils of the forest vines seem to be snaking from below as I sprint down the maglev track for my damn errands. .
I found the address of the mother in the police car. She is hiding now. She shrunk into the rabbit hole, pressed the door above her head tightly, and lurked under it with her child, meeting the other women who risked their lives in order to give birth to a cub. She went back to the sweltering environment of locked doors and piss-stained diapers, and joined other female companions, giving the train toy to the little ones to play with—they really played with it, not left it on the corner of the desk , so you have to see it every fucking day...
woman. collector. I tried to restrain myself from arresting her. That's not fair, I should wait for her to be exposed before ending her child. But knowing her presence gave me a headache, and I found myself, time and time again, trying to reach out and lock her address.
But at this time, another task came, and it was to clean up. So for this woman we (temporarily) don't know yet, this woman who has not been exposed (temporarily), I can only pretend that I don't know her. I haven't pryed open her den, but I can spy on her every move at any time. I'm back on track for another mission. The upper part of the jungle intersects the track, and I pass through it like a sharp knife, rushing to the fate of another woman. She is neither as lucky nor as smart than this woman who loves to collect. This woman took a lot of my time. But when it was all over, I parked my car by the sea. I pressed the woman's address as the screeching monkeys screeched from the jungle and the rain washed the windshield.
I'm just going to have a look.
This should have been a rich man's house, but that was long before the carbon sequestration project was built, long before we climbed to the spires and the fresh air of the upper city circle. But now, it exists on the fringes of this forgotten suburb. To my surprise, it was still powered and other facilities were running. The jungle surrounds and envelopes it, the road leading to it is far from maglev tracks and maintenance roads, and the cracked pavement is potholed and occupied by invading trees. She is smart and chooses to live as close to the wild as possible. Outside the house there were only shadows and green shades tangled together. A group of monkeys scattered in panic because of the beam of my headlights. The surrounding houses are abandoned, and one day, this place will be completely deserted. In a few years, this area will be covered with plants, the water and electricity supply will be cut off, the last few minarets will be connected to the Internet, and the jungle will be completely engulfed here.
I sat outside for a while, looking at the house. She was a wise man: living in such a remote place, no neighbors could hear the noise of the children. But in retrospect, if she was smarter, she should have just moved into the jungle and lived with the endlessly breeding monkeys. Having said that, these mad women are still human after all, and they cannot completely break away from civilized society, or they do not know how to break away.
I got out of the car, pulled out the Grange, and started banging on the door.
I broke through the door, and she, who was sitting at the dining table, raised her head, not even a little surprised, just a little discouraged, that's all. It seems she already knew this was going to happen, as I said: she's a smart person.
Attracted by the sound of my door breaking, a child ran from the other room. It may be a year and a half or two years old. The shaggy little thing stopped and stared at me—its hair was already as long as its mother's. We just stared at each other, and then it turned and climbed onto its mother's lap.
The woman closed her eyes. "Come on. Shoot."
I raised my gun - this 12mm hand cannon and aimed it at the kid. The woman wrapped her arms around the child. I couldn't hit me in one hit, the bullet would go through and kill my mother. I tried to find an opportunity to shoot from different angles, but it was all in vain.
She opened her eyes, "What are you waiting for?"
We look at each other. "I saw you at the toy store, just a few days ago."
She closed her eyes again, remembering her mistake, and showing a look of remorse. She did not let go of the child. I could have snatched it out of her arms, threw it on the ground and shot. But I don't. She still closed her eyes.
"Why do that?" I asked.
She opened her eyes again, baffled by my unconventional play. She may have pictured this scene a thousand times in her mind. Surely, she knew that day would come sooner or later. But I'm standing here now, without help, her baby isn't dead, and I keep asking questions.
"Why do you always want to have children?"
She stared at me, the baby wriggling on her body, trying to drink milk. So she lifted her shirt lightly, the child stuck her head in, and I could see two bulges hanging over her chest, two heavy swaying rooms, bigger than I remembered when I saw her in the store Many - they were hidden under bras and shirts back then. They sag as the baby drinks. She was still staring at me, as if on automatic mode for feeding the baby. This is the last meal.
I took off my hat, put it on the table, sat down, and put down my gun. It doesn't seem right to kill a cub while it's drinking. I took out a cigarette, lit it, and took a puff. The woman looked at me like a beast, I took another sip, and then handed it to her.
"Do you smoke?"
"No smoking." She turned to look at the child.
I nodded. "Ah, yes, it's not good for a child's young lungs. I've heard of it, but I don't remember where I heard it." I smiled, "I don't remember when."
She stared at me, "What are you waiting for?"
I looked down at the gun on the table. The steel construction and bullet weight make it heavy, and it's a monster weapon. Grange's 12mm recoilless hand cannon, standard configuration, can kill an addict on the spot; if the direction is accurate enough, it can rip out a human heart and smash a baby to shreds. "You have to stop rejuvenation therapy to have a baby, right?"
She shrugged. "Rejuvenation all the time is just an addiction, and people shouldn't use rejuvenation therapy like that."
"But if we don't, we're going to have a damn population problem, don't we?"
She shrugged again.
The gun was on the table between us. Her eyes flashed, then to me, then back to the gun. I took a puff. I understand what she was thinking when she looked at the old heavy hand cannon on the table. Although she couldn't reach it, in the eyes of the desperate, the gun was not so far away, but almost in front of her. almost.
Her eyes returned to me, "Why not shoot? Get off work early."
It was my turn to shrug, and I didn't know how to respond.
At this point, I should have been taking pictures, taking evidence, escorting the woman into the car, and killing the child, but here we are sitting. Tears rolled in the woman's eyes, and she cried out under my gaze. I looked at her breasts, fat limbs and a wit mixed with fear—perhaps because she knew she couldn't live forever. In contrast, Alice has smooth skin and firm breasts. And she was a plump woman with a life-giving ass, boobs and belly. She sat in this messy kitchen, outside the jungle, the soil of life. She seems to belong here entirely, like the sad-faced goddess Gaia[3]. like a dinosaur.
I should have handcuffed her, she and her child were contained. I should have shot the kid, but I didn't. Instead, I actually had an erection. She's not very pretty, but I got booed by her. She had sagging breasts and a bloated figure, and although she had large double ruts and buttocks, she was flabby. It was almost difficult for me to sit down because my pants were so tight. I tried to stop watching the kid drinking milk and the woman's exposed xiong department. I took another puff. "You know, I've been doing this for a long time."
She stared blankly at me without saying a word.
"I've always wondered why you women do this." I nodded towards the child, who stopped drinking. Now the entire gigantic rut is exposed, hanging down, with a heavy rudder head above it. She didn't pull down her clothes to cover it. I looked up and saw that she was looking at me, I was just looking at her breasts. The child climbed off her lap and looked at me with a serious expression. I don't know if the child could sense the tension in the room and his own destiny. "Why have children? Seriously, why?"
She pursed her lips, and in those tearful eyes, I seemed to see a trace of anger, the anger that I felt I was playing with her. Because I'm sitting here with the Grange gun on the dirty table and talking to her. But soon her eyes were down on the gun, and I could almost hear the clock gears ticking. She is calculating, like a she-wolf who is accumulating strength.
She sighed and pulled the chair forward. "When I was a little girl, I wanted to have one."
"Like playing with dolls? As a collectible?"
She shrugged. "I think so." She took a breath and returned her eyes to the gun. "Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. I had a little plastic doll, and I used to dress her and play tea with her. You know, make tea and pour a little on her face and let her She drinks. That doll is not very fancy, it has built-in voice, but not much audio options. My family is not very well-off. My game with her is: 'Let's go shopping?' 'Okay, what to buy?' 'Buy a watch ''I love watches.' That's it, it's simple, but I love it. Then one day I call that doll my baby, even though I don't know why. And then the doll says, 'I love you mommy .'"
Her eyes watered as she said, "I've wanted a baby ever since. I played with that doll all day and she pretended to be my baby. My mother caught me while we were playing and she said I was a fool The girl who is a girl, shouldn't say that to the doll, the girls don't have children anymore. After that, she snatched the doll away."
Children on the floor were haphazardly stacking blocks under the table, stacking them up and overturning them. Then it looked at me. It has blue eyes and a shy smile. It made me shudder again. Then it stood up from the floor, plunged its head into my mother's arms and hid, then stuck its head out to give me a sneak peek, giggled, and immediately hid in again.
I pointed at the child with my chin, "Who is her father?"
The woman's face was as cold as a stone, "I don't know. A guy I found online sent a sperm sample. We don't want to meet. After I got the sample, I deleted everything related to him."
"It's a shame. It might have been better if you had kept in touch."
"Just being nice to you."
"That's what I meant." I stared at the ash for a long time, like a long, slender, grey yin, dangling from the end of the smoke. I flicked the cigarette, and the ashes fell with it. "I still can't understand why you gave up rejuvenation treatment."
It's puzzling that she actually smiled, even happy. "What's the matter? Just because I'm not that narcissistic and don't want to live forever?"
"Then what do you do next? Let it stay in the house until—"
"It's 'her,'" she interrupted suddenly. "It's to keep her in the house. She's a girl, and her name is Miley."
Hearing his name, the child looked at me. She found the hat on the table, grabbed it, climbed off her mother's lap, and walked towards me with it. She stretched out her hand for the hat, straight, to present it to me. I tried to get it, but she removed the hat.
"She wants to put it on you."
I looked at this woman suspiciously, she smiled faintly, with a hint of sadness. "She often plays like this, and usually likes to help me put on a hat."
My eyes turned to the little girl again, she was holding the hat in her hand, she became a little anxious, and started to mumble in a low voice because of my uncooperativeness, and waved the hat to me. So I bent down and the little girl put her hat on my head with a big smile on her face. I sat up straight and put my hat on.
"You're laughing," the woman said.
I looked up at her, "She's cute."
"You quite like her, don't you?"
I looked at the little girl again and started thinking. "No way. I've never really watched a child before."
"you're lying."
The cigarette went out, and I pressed the cigarette butt on the dining table. The woman looked at me and frowned, maybe angry that I had soiled her already dirty enough table, but then she seemed to remember the gun. I remembered, too, and a chill crept up my spine: I completely forgot about it as I bent over to the little girl. She could totally beat me to death. It's funny how we forget and remember and then forget these things. The two of us, me and the woman, were talking one minute and waiting for each other's guns the next.
This woman looks like she could be a great date partner. It was obvious that she had the courage. Before she remembered the gun, her courage almost burst out. I could see courage flashing back and forth in her eyes. She was one person and then another: for a moment she was a lively, thinking and remembering woman; then suddenly she was another woman, sitting in a kitchen full of greasy dishes, on a cupboard It was the bottom of the coffee cup, and a policeman with a pistol was sitting at her dining table.
I lit another cigarette, "Will you miss rejuvenation therapy?"
She looked down at her daughter and held out her arms towards her. "I don't miss it, not at all." The girl climbed back onto her mother's lap.
Smoke billowed out of my mouth. "But you can't get away with it. It's crazy. You have to give up rejuvenation for the sake of the child, you have to find a donor who is also willing to give up rejuvenation, and two people die for a child. You have to be alone Give birth, then hide the baby, and finally you need an ID to start the rejuvenation treatment, because no one wants to treat a patient with no information. And you know it's impossible to succeed,
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