Scientist: An Earth 340K Standalone Novel (Soldier X Book 1) Read online

  A triant.

  Hazou shivered. He hoped never to get on the wrong end of a triant. Charged with the most important work in all the empire: safeguarding the ruler of the China People’s Empire.

  Inside Hazou’s helmet, the countdown blinked red 01:59.

  “Hazou, I’m going to get the bomb,” said Wenqi.

  Hazou broke out from his reverie and tore his eyes away from the viewing area. “Phase one commencing,” he spoke into his voxcom.

  The circular tank that occupied the middle of the lab stood about one meter in diameter and came to Hazou’s upper chest in height. Glowing lines etched around its circumference with the words WARNING STAY BEHIND THE YELLOW LINE. The yellow line sat twenty centimeters around the tank.

  A unique looking plant sat inside within three sedimentary layers and one water layer. The top layer consisted of processed iordite, a rare type of rock found on Earth that when processed could be used to power spaceships—it looked like glowing pieces of black diamonds the size of nails. The middle layer magmite, crumbled and magnetized, appeared like glowing rust-colored sand, and the third layer consisted of green roots with sucker-like mouths that gulped at the green water in the bottom of the tank.

  The main stem grew through the middle of all these layers eventually sprouting out of the top iordite layer. The stem resembled a green vertebral column barnacled with octagonal leaves along its spine. The pink leaves large as a palm and thick as an index finger.

  Hazou wasn’t happy with the plant. They had rushed everything. Pushed it all to the brink. But he dared not voice his doubts now, not when everyone in that viewing room could hear what was said into his suit.

  Wenqi stepped to the side where a cart automatically trundled down the ramp to where they stood around the tank. It hissed open revealing a pack of canisters that looked like oversized eggs. Each marked with a black skull on a yellow background. PG11 bombs.

  Wenqi took out the bombs, and they clanked together making Hazou jump. The bombs tied themselves to one another—a belt of bombs.

  Hazou sweated in his bio-lab suit. His fingers typed on the holopad that appeared in front of the tank, and the transpasteel reinforced cover split apart revealing the yellow crest of the plant.

  Wenqi slowly took the bomb-belt and lowered it. The Chao-chao plant’s crest snapped at him and he dropped the bomb into the tank rather hurriedly.

  The two scientists regarded one another for a split second. They both nodded at the same time.

  Hazou manipulated a hovering servbot to spit out sealant that edged the tank’s cover. The sealant changed from red to transparent as it bonded to the tank’s edges.

  “Phase one complete. The bomb has been placed and the tank completely sealed,” said Hazou.

  “Phase two commencing,” said Wenqi. He controlled two hands inside the aquarium and gently manipulated the bomb-belt so that it draped around the neck of the plant like a garland. The crest shook slightly and stilled.

  “Phase two complete,” said Wenqi. “The bomb has been placed into the tank.”

  The fans above went from their slow speed to super-fast speed very quickly.

  “Phase three commencing,” said Hazou. The timer showed 00:30. He interacted with a holopad that projected an armored sleeve around the tank. Satisfied when the position of the armor sat correct, he pulled on the lever. Thick octagonal blocks of transparent magmite armor grew from the ground until it completely covered the tank.

  “Phase three complete. Armor layer is up,” said Hazou, reading from the holo-display. “Activating final phase.” He said it just as the countdown timer ticked to 00:00.

  Wenqi nodded and remotely controlled the bomb-belt from a display next to him. The bomb-belt’s ends joined together forming a loop.

  “Activating detonation,” said Wenqi.

  Small red lights that edged around the bomb-belt blinked.

  “Activating second field-sphere,” said Wenqi.

  The iridescent field-sphere cascaded around the scientist. Another field-sphere lay around the tank itself.

  The water inside the aquarium churned.

  “Countdown initiated,” said Hazou.

  Ten, nine, eight, seven.

  Wenqi tightened his hand around Hazou’s in a very brief squeeze. They dared not speak out their doubts. But the worry etched in Hazou’s face reflected itself in Wenqi’s.

  Six, five, four.

  “Here goes,” said Hazou.

  Wenqi smiled.

  Three, two, one.

  The bomb-belt detonated and exploded its entire fury. The tank held the powerful force with barely a shudder. The scintillating flash turned the entire tank into a super-hot white, bright light that changed to a bright orange; the bright orange turned slowly into a red. The single stem with its eight octagonal leaves that lined its back broadened as if growing. Each of the eight leaves twisted and opened like a geometric pattern sucking in the explosion.

  Hazou’s mouth went dry as he watched. His heart beat in anticipation. In their tests, this is where it always failed.

  The plant sucked the explosion through its octagonal leaves, leaving the aquarium utterly clear again.

  “It looks good,” said Wenqi, breaking the silence.

  “It does,” said Hazou. Not quite believing what his eyes told him. Sweat stung his brows.

  “Well done,” Dang said.

  Then veins inside the plant turned bright green and stretched out like hairline fractures, pushing against the skin as if about to burst.

  Even stuck behind several layers of protection—the transpasteel tank, the armor enclosing it, the field-sphere around all of that—and even with them both inside a bio-lab suit reinforced with magmite chain-links, Hazou didn’t feel safe. He stepped back.

  The entire plant seeped light through the cracks. Wenqi’s incoherent cry lost as the transpasteel aquarium cracked flinging out chunks of octagonal magmite blocks. The plant gushed out light and turned a bright red. The hairline fractures split apart.

  The explosion rocked the entire lab turning into a furnace. Parts of the Chao-chao plant ricocheted like shrapnel and slammed against the blinds that stretched across the upper viewing area. The blinds ripped away and sent the observers reeling back.

  The light sensors triggered the nozzles around the fans. Six thousand nozzles rained fire-foam around the entire lab.

  Eventually, the bodies of the two scientists revealed themselves. They lay on the ground in pretzel poses, both of them unmoving, only tatters of their bio-lab suits clinging to them, and the scent of burning flesh filled the air.

  Chapter 3 - The Batterer

  Dang Mao fumed in the aero-car as it flew over Mid Beijing. The ground-level city looked drab and miserable with its pockmarked dead earth, smoking refineries, and blocky titancrete city blocks. A tangle of interconnecting airways, roadways, and pathways clumped around the ground city like dead cobwebs.

  Once, long ago, Dang had been a rat in the ground city of Urumqi. How high he’d risen and how high he could fall. This thought flashed through him just as the aero-car beeped at him indicating it had passed its security clearance and entered High Beijing airspace.

  A high city, he thought, now this is why I never stopped working a single day for the past twenty years. High Beijing situated itself ten thousand feet over Mid Beijing and glittered with lights. The brightest light shone from the huge jade stone set in the highest tower of the Jade Palace. It glowed like an all-seeing eye.

  The Chaoyang suburb with its numerous floating villas fell around the palace like a glistening net of jewels. Chaoyang suburb hovered in the air at fifteen thousand feet and was the second highest point of High Beijing. The first highest point being the Jade Palace, it hovered at twenty thousand feet. The rest of High Beijing hovered at ten thousand feet high. The higher the building, the higher the hierarchy. No building could be on the same level as the People’s Favor’s residence.

  The aero-car glided gently and set Dang down at t
he front of his porch. He lived in the Chaoyang district in High Beijing. Only the very rich, powerful, and political elite lived there.

  Today the world dripped with the red of his rage. He didn’t observe the beautiful red-tiled roof that cascaded down like a gentle wave edged with gold eaves. He passed the two lions stationed beside the pathway that led to the front door. Nuan, his silly wife, didn't know he put cameras inside the lions to spy on her when she answered the door or when she went to the garden.

  He walked up the pathway edged with chrysanthemums. His wife’s gentle hand nurtured the garden as evidenced by the two small ponds on either side of the lions, and her bonsais that rested upon large rocks. Today he didn’t like the look of her bonsais. Didn’t she have something productive to spend her time on?

  Dang approached the door and flared his nose. Why hadn’t it opened when the aero-cart touched the porch? She knew to greet him as soon as his feet touched ground.

  He raised his hand about to smash on the door when it irised open. Even with the anger coursing through him, the sight of his wife acted like a salve. But he didn’t give any indication of that.

  “Shifu,” Nuan Mao said, bowing her head low. Her hair parted in the middle and tied back in a braid. Simple pearl earrings adorned her tiny ears. He didn’t like showy jewelry that made women look like cheap whores.

  A traditional blue silk Chinese cheongsam decorated with golden patterns of leaves and lotuses hugged her lithe body. Her long, slender arms flowed to the front where she clasped them. His favorite dress. His loins stirred at the sight of her. Her looks had been the reason he married her.

  He strode into the house brushing past her. She’d recently gone to an arts school and sculptured a seahorse. The seahorse statue positioned itself just near the antechamber to greet the visitors. As he brushed past her, he accidentally knocked the statue over. It made a nice tinkling sound as it crashed to the ground.

  Nuan’s face drained and her eyes flickered over the thousands of small claynium pieces surrounding the seahorse’s head.

  She didn’t say anything. Good. At least she learned. Though he did catch the indrawn breath and the clasping of her small fists. He smiled inwardly.

  “Your brother and his friend fucked up today in front of the People’s Favor.” He wagged his index finger at her and grinned savagely. “And they have paid for it.”

  Nuan’s face paled further. She opened her mouth, but he quickly clamped his index finger and thumb against the softness of her cheeks, pressing painfully. “Why weren’t you at the door?”

  “I’m sorry, Shifu, I was in the garden...,” His slap cut her off. A gentle slap. That’s how he liked to start. She looked down. “Dinner is ready, Shifu.”

  “That’s better,” he said, letting the house’s servbots take off his shoes and hang his jacket. He even permitted the servbot to vacuum the claynium shards instead of making her do it. She apologized after all.

  Dang could tell Nuan died to ask him about her brother. He would tell her at the end of the night. Let her squirm for now, he thought.

  The white kitchen with its synthplast marble was Dang’s favorite place in the house.

  His stomach rumbled as the smell of pan-fried dumplings. Nuan busied herself in the kitchen as he took his seat on the round dinner table. His favorite chopsticks: the Japanese hand carved and lacquered tapered chopsticks lay neatly against the chopstick stands, and the small bowl of soy sauce filled with fresh cut chilies and crushed garlic sat next to it. He cuffed at the saliva that dripped from this mouth.

  “Dinner is served, Shifu,” Nuan said, bowing her head and gently placing the huge bowl in front of him. “Hot shrimp dumplings and sweet and sour soup with hearty egg noodles.” She looked at him tentatively.

  He licked his lips as he inhaled the steam from the noodles savoring the sesame oil she’d sprinkled over the soup.

  He grunted and raised an eyebrow at her. Her eyes widened in panic, she held up a finger, quickly went back to the kitchen, and brought back a tiny bowl filled with strips of sliced ginger and dark vinegar.

  Dang smiled inwardly. More obedient than a dog, he realized.

  He deftly stabbed at a shrimp dumpling, dipped it into the soy sauce, and gulped it. He chewed on it noisily. The crunchiness of the dumplings outer layer broke apart, a burst of salty shrimp coated his mouth followed by mixed mushrooms and chives. She made the dumplings by hand. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Nuan stood by the table as he ate, ready at a moment’s notice to bring whatever he asked for.

  Beethoven’s Symphony “Nine” played in the background. She had a refined taste in music, he thought. He lost himself in the food, slurping on the noodles noisily—that’s how he extracted the taste. He quickly speared all the shrimp dumplings against his chopsticks and doused them in the fiery hot fresh chili soy sauce. He gulped bits of noodles; sauce and soup splashed everywhere. Eventually he finished, leaned back, and belched. His forehead filled with sweat at the amount of chili he ate. He always ate too much chili. He curled his fingers across his stomach contentedly.

  “Sit.”

  Nuan sat opposite him and folded her hands across the plastiwood table. She had nice breasts for a woman so slender. His breathing increased.

  “Shifu, if I may ask, what happened to my brother?” She looked up at him, her lips trembling.

  The world turned red as he recollected the catastrophic fuck-up in front of his boss.

  “The People’s Favor and her goons came in to watch the experiment today. My boss, Anastasiya, the People’s Scientist, and Chaeyeon, the People’s General, and even a damned triant was there. Everybody watched.” He slapped at the table making the bowl filled with soy sauce jump and splash. “Your brother and that idiot friend of his fucked up the experiment. It blew up. The only good thing to come out of this is that they are both grievously injured. Serves the incompetent idiots right.”

  “What’s happened to them? Are they in hospital?” Nuan’s hands gripped at the table.

  “Next time, less quad sodium glutamate.” Dang licked his lips as he watched his wife’s trembling fingers grip at the table. She had beautiful fingers.

  He took away his napkin covered with soup splotches and threw it disgustedly against the table where half of it flopped over Nuan’s hands. The anger and lust coalesced inside of him. He burped loudly and filled the air with the aftertaste of quad sodium glutamate. It was the magic ingredient that always made food taste better. He took one of the golden toothpicks from the ivory toothpick holder and nursed the shrimp meat between the gaps of his teeth. When he finished, he flicked the toothpick into the bowl.

  She’s stewed enough now, he thought, reveling at the torturous expression on her face. She knew not to push him. Oh, there were consequences for that.

  He said, “Wenqi and Hazou failed at the experiment. Catastrophically. The worse thing, it looked like it was going to work.” The anger overcame the lust now. “The Chao-chao plants were meant to be installed into our seed-ship, the Shenzhou. The plant was designed to hold highly dense water. One slice of it about the width of a fingertip can hold a ton of water! But the plant is meant to be immune against explosions. It’s meant to transform explosive energy into water. One of those many projects borne out of Diaochan’s paranoia.”

  He slapped his fat palms on the plastiwood table overturning the bowl of chili soy sauce. “The tank blew up because that damn plant regurgitated the explosion.” He paused and snarled. “Your brother, Hazou, is blind, the explosion took his eyes. And that stupid friend of his, Wenqi, lost both his hands.”

  He relished the pained expression that crossed her face. He only disliked it because it marred her beauty.

  He continued, “They failed when I brought in the People’s Favor in front of them. I was on the rise; my next promotion would’ve been a senior director!” He shouted the last words at her as if it were her fault. He stood up.

  “Are they in hospital?” she asked, eyes now
wet with tears.

  “So I guess you want to know what happens to them now.” Dang spat at her. He poked exactly where it caused the most pain. He’d mastered that. “I scrapped their employee passes and their state sponsored health ID. Hazou and Wenqi failed me and they will not get reprieve. For that, they have been exiled. They are in a hospital far away. Oh, they will get healed of their current minor injuries. I just hope your brother likes being blind for the rest of his life and his friend is happy to live without the use of his hands.”

  “Shifu, can I go and visit them please?” Nuan stood too. Her eyes pleaded, her hands clasped together as if in prayer.

  “No, and if they come here, you are not to show yourself to them otherwise there will be repercussions.” He strode around the table toward her and ran his hand down the silkiness of the cheongsam. “You have such a beautiful body.” The stress of the day could only be worked out of his system in one way. He gripped at her cheongsam and lifted it up past her thighs. His fingers smudged soy sauce against her inner thigh. He bent down and licked at the sauce.

  Nuan shook her head. “Dang, no, Lizhang will be back from school soon.”

  Her head lolled to the side as he slapped her. He cupped her jaw in his thick fingers. “Interrupt me again and I’ll bring out the whip.” She shivered. She didn’t like the whip. “If our daughter does see anything it’ll be an educational experience.”

  Dang caressed the silk of her fabric, stilled abruptly. “Stop crying. It makes your face ugly. When I fuck you, you are to be joyous.”

  She nodded and swallowed. She whispered, “Shifu, may I please go and visit Hazou?”

  “You don’t think do you?” he said. That’s when she should’ve kept her mouth shut. But sometimes she didn’t learn. It was like Dang said to her, she didn’t think.

  Dang’s fingers turned into a fist and he grabbed at the cheongsam, wrapped it around his nostrils and blew out a yellowish mucus. It stuck against the side of her skirt like an angry yellow mutated eye.