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

  Each of her triants bowed to her one by one and then, testing their own freedom, and they walked out of Heaven’s Court.

  I’ve done the right thing, Diaochan thought. Their blueprints had been captured, meaning they could’ve been compromised by the Chrysanthemum Striped Tigers. Her eyes shifted to the two huge sentinelbots. Their tall, red angular chassis with the flowing triangular robes, the slitted yellow eyes, and weapons as tall as buildings. Nobody had compromised the sentinelbots.

  Yet.

  All Diaochan thought of was one particular triant. She didn’t care if the rest of them didn’t come back.

  But this one, she did.

  Chapter 8 - Urumqi

  Southeast Urumqi resembled a city raised from desert sand and then mixed haphazardly with slabs of brown titancrete. The buildings in the local business district stood no more than four stories high with rectangular slits for windows. Along the way, an enterprising city planner threw in a scattering of neon holo-displays that dangled like glowing noodles down the shopfronts.

  “I can’t believe we’re back here,” said Wenqi stepping out of the aero-taxi. He pressed himself against the door to avoid a man swishing past on aero-skates.

  “This is nothing like High Beijing.” Twenty years of hard work to get out of this cursed city and now they were back in it. It was the worst feeling of déjà vu.

  Hazou tugged on Wenqi’s sleeves. “It does taste like Urumqi. Sand and heat.”

  An aero-car zoomed so low overhead that its rattling twisted transmission belt could be seen. A robotic hand shot and out flung a canister of XXX Tsingtao, spraying the air with a smell of rotted plastiboard mixed with soy-eggs.

  “Saturday night.” Wenqi eyed the spray of foam across his pant legs and sighed. If he had hands, he could wipe at it.

  “It’s a lively part of town.” Hazou agreed.

  The busy airway clogged itself with aero-busses, constantly beeping aero-mopeds, and hover-bikers weaved their bikes through the airway levels haphazardly, not bothering to adhere to traffic regulations. Aero-buses flew in the lowest level airway, aero-cars flew in the middle level airway, and everything else flew at the higher level airway.

  The two scientists made their way across the wide road. They paused as an e-tram rumbled across thick electromagnetic tram rails recessed in the center of the road.

  The tram screeched to a halt right beside the two scientists, its front and rear doors squashed open to let out the late night passengers.

  Groups of loud women dressed in black, blocky outfits jumped out of the e-tram. Glowing pink hair accompanied a glowing boxing glove the left side of their cheeks. They shouted to one another in drunken happiness as they spied their destination: the many brothels that displayed the bodies of men. Spear Yourself in Delight, Milk Him Dry, and Beat the Balls, said the names in neon holos. One animation showed penises that grew, and grew, and grew, and then burst into in milky confetti. Hybrid, bot, or human, whatever your fantasy, we have the cock for you, boasted another tag line.

  The scientist made their way across the tram tracks, Wenqi guiding Hazou as he gripped on his sleeves. They’d gotten a lot better now and didn’t require much talking, as they navigated what would’ve been a dangerous obstacle for them days ago.

  The sound of poison-rust music filled the air as a group of aero-bikes with loud eardrum-popping exhausts landed in front of ‘Milk Him Dry.’ Several tough looking women sporting battered black armor plates sauntered off their bikes. Dual vibro katanas stuck to their backs forming an X with a small black shield on it. They unstrapped the young men tied to the back of their bikes and shoved them into a line. The men couldn’t have been more than eighteen, thought Wenqi.

  The two groups of women—the Boxing Roos and the Samukuzas—hailed one another with loud shouts and jeers, many joked about how hard they would fuck the men.

  Wenqi said, “I’m pretty sure those are gang members. And those young men look like they’re from low Kazakhstan cities.” Notorious gangs proliferated through the mid and lower cities. None of them strayed near High Beijing. But here, they displayed themselves openly. A sadness welled in Wenqi for those young male victims of sex trafficking.

  They finally made it across the road and stood in front of the old forlorn building. Wenqi couldn’t help the deep wallowing despair that took over him. He wanted to collapse on the ground and just lie there. Maybe it would be better if they killed themselves? They had no jobs, he had no arms, Hazou no eyes, only a handful of cc-chips between them. Why try?

  “It’s in front of us, isn’t it?” Hazou’s voice held a note of hope that almost broke Wenqi.

  “Yeah this is 108 Tinmai Street,” said Wenqi. “Your family home.” He spoke with confidence because somebody graffitied the address across the front door.

  The Water Spinach Inn looked like drunken monkeys had been part of the construction crew. At the topmost section at the corner of the roof lay a satellite that pointed at the street. The inn consisted of a haphazard collection of levels resembling awkwardly stacked plates. Ad hoc balconies without any railings stretched out from those levels. The building space between the levels bent outward as if from some internal pressure. Not a single light illuminated the building besides the neon glare from the brothels across the road.

  Cracked solar-tiles crunched underfoot as Wenqi and Hazou walked under the eaves to the front door. A communal download box with a red glowing heat-sink on its back stuck itself against the wall like discarded junk.

  “Did your family organize anyone to stay here?” asked Wenqi. “There’s an active communal download box.”

  Hazou’s nostrils flared. “I smell fried fish in soy sauce and sesame oil.”

  They made their way under the eaves of the building and to the right where the original eaves had worn through and a temporary corrugated alumi-wood shelter had been set up.

  The couple stood in the darkness, their faces illuminated by a dim crackling bug zapper. The old man stirred a huge wok that made a frying sound. Smoke obscured his face as he stirred noodles with food-printed meat and vegetables. He finished and emptied the noodles onto a battered tray.

  “Number twenty three,” said the old woman. She took the battered tray and held it out.

  A young man who bore a collar that said ‘Property of Spear Yourself in Delight’ took the battered tray and smiled at the old lady. The smile melted away when he caught Wenqi’s gaze and pulled up his hood. He ate his noodles by sitting on the ground. A cluster of other young men sat around him, most of them bore the Kazakhstan features, sitting on the odd titancrete block. They conversed in quiet whispers.

  “It looks like we have tenants who are feeding the sex workers,” said Wenqi.

  The old man and woman turned to stare at the newcomers. Wenqi returned a disapproving glare. Who were they to use the Sai’s family residence for their shoddy business?

  “Smells like fried yummy goodness,” said Hazou. “We could do with some of that.”

  “It’s food-printed soyalite blocks. I’d rather eat dirt. Let’s check the key first,” said Wenqi. Out of the corner of his eye, the woman and man stopped their cooking. Their loud voices wondered at who these new intruders were.

  The ancient red door with the now faded golden patterns stared back at them. Hazou’s fingers brushed across dents and graffiti that marred the door’s surface. His fingers stopped when he encountered sticky webbing that stretched across the octagonal keyhole. Hazou reached into his breast pocket and brought out the key, just as he was about to insert it a voice thundered at him.

  “This house is the property of Bo Sai and Juan Sai. You better go away before I call the People’s Police.” The old man who had been turning the noodles shook his index finger at Hazou.

  The octagonal key clattered to the ground making a tinkling sound as it hit crushed solar-tiles. Hazou turned his head slightly.

  “Bo Sai is my father and Juan Sai my mother,” he said. “I am Hazou Sai.”

 
; “How do we know that? Their children Hazou and Nuan left Urumqi a long time ago. Bo died alone, sad and in depression after his wife, Juan, succumbed to air-tinge. His ungrateful children didn’t want anything to do with this place. They were contemptuous of urban farming and had their dreams to become People’s Servants in High Beijing. They deserted their parents.” The man hawked a loogie and spat into the air. Wenqi felt the spray of spit as it crossed the air.

  Hazou turned to face the man’s voice and said, “I am not ungrateful,” he said, his voice increasing in volume. “And this is the key. It is gene-linked to my family. Who are you?”

  The man’s features turned from outrage to surprise and then to defensiveness by the way he crossed his arms and held himself. He was about to speak but his wife strode from behind him. She held out her finger to both of them, and said, “We are not paying you rent. Juan and Bo told us we could stay here for free.”

  “You’re not staying here,” said Wenqi. “Get your filthy mess out of this place.”

  The old man lips twitched. “Bo was my best friend,” he said. “And Juan was my wife’s best friend. We helped look after them in their dying days.”

  “That’s just a bunch of lies,” Wenqi said. He felt angry, annoyed, and just over it all. He’d been insulted since he’d woken up that very morning. By the nurse. By Dang. By even the damn aero-taxi driver. And to be insulted by these street rats was just too much. “You will take your things and leave now!”

  Hazou bent, hit his head against the door, but somehow managed to find the key as Wenqi went on his tirade. He inserted the key into the lock but it didn’t open.

  The old couple shared a stricken look with one another. The old man said, “I can help you open that lock. If I help you, can we stay?”

  “No, you cannot!” shouted Wenqi. He felt as if he was pointing at them—his phantom limbs—shaking his finger at them.

  Hazou held up his hand. “If you help me unlock, then I will think about it. If I decide that you cannot stay, I will give you a month’s notice.”

  The couple whispered to one another: they can’t just kick us out, we have a right to be here. They’re both damaged, they’ll need our help anyway. Wenqi didn’t know why they bothered, he could hear every word. Their whispering made him angrier.

  “Fine,” said the old man. “But you have to insert the key first.” He shuffled past them after Hazou inserted the key into the slot.

  The old man took out a small battery from his pocket and shifted a clasp below the keyhole. He stuffed the battery into the revealed slot. A loud click followed as door’s lock activated, detected the key, and unlocked.

  The door stuttered open.

  “You owe me for the battery,” the old man said. “Pay me tomorrow.”

  “How dare...?” Wenqi stared at him.

  “Thank you wise uncle,” said Hazou. “I’ll remember to pay you back.”

  The door groaned open and Wenqi and Hazou walked in. Behind them, the shouting voice of the old lady echoed behind them. She said, “Bo and Juan never charged us for rent. We can’t just be kicked out!”

  Wenqi made sure he leaned against the door. Hard. Causing the old lady to jump back. He smiled in savage satisfaction. That was the only pleasure he’d gotten all

  Chapter 9 - Spying

  Lab 06 smelled like roasted micro-circuits mixed with shit. The body odor of those two disabled scientists hung in the air like a bad aftertaste in Dang Mao’s mouth.

  He thumped his feet as he circled the lab. Something wasn’t quite right with those two. They hardly collected any of their belongings and they had spent most of the time here.

  When they departed, the blind retard left with his hiking boots and the armless retard only took his e-books.

  The undulating floor looked like a giant-sized mech had punched it from beneath. The area where the tank housed the Chao-chao plant burst out of the ground and twisted the reinforced magmite floor into slivers.

  He frowned and knelt down. This was the exact area that Hazou had knelt down. Dang felt around the area, putting his hand under a particular piece of undulating ground. He pulled out a wet piece of earth that held blackened roots. He held the roots. The root went from black to a dark brown. Could this root still be alive? He dropped it as the thought struck him like the zap of las-gun.

  Dang left the lab in a hurry. He ran up the ramp and through the underground labyrinthine passageway that led north passing numerous other branched passageways that led to more underground labs. A robot resembling a walking table carried an assortment of vials paused and shifted to the side as he ran past. He exited out the passageway and came into a circular intersection. The entire floor consisted of a round, flat elevator bordered by a strip of undercover walkways. The elevator went up a hundred levels to the ground. Four exits branched out from the walkway.

  Dang skirted along the walkway heading toward the east passageway. Eventually it led him to a cluster of offices. The offices carved themselves into the earth with only small transpasteel windows stretched across their tops. One of the offices said ‘Security Operations Center.’ He stomped to the front and waited as it scanned his gene-id. The door swished open.

  The small security room consisted of four huge walls of displays. Two securibots sat in data-stools. Dang twitched his bull neck, and the robots ejected themselves from their data-stools, stood, and walked out of the room. He shivered at the coldness.

  Dang held out his hand and rewound the security footage to the time when Wenqi and Hazou were in the room. All the cameras in the lab had been destroyed in the explosion but he’d been smart—he’d fitted the viewing platform with cameras, and those were the cameras that he now controlled.

  The footage showed Hazou bent over the floor. His hand stretched out underneath a warped piece of floor resembling a corrugated hood. He remembered that he’d been arguing with that triant, Jingfei, and she’d kicked him out of the lab.

  There. Dang shivered. This time not because of the cold. His eyeballs twitched in their sockets as he reviewed the data. He ground his teeth. The replay showed him the truth: Hazou bent down and hid something inside his jacket pocket. Pausing and zooming, Dang caught a glimpse of the Chao-chao plant. A small sliver of it.

  Theft from the Department of Botanical Weapontech was once punishable by death under the law of the Lord of Ten Thousand Suns. But Diaochan had relaxed the laws upon her ascension.

  Dang smiled. He would enforce the old law. The smile vanished from his face when he thought about it more. He had shut down the two scientists’ bank accounts. But they’d caught an aero-taxi here. They had also left on an aero-taxi.

  Dang’s hands danced alongside the holopad on one of the consoles. He made a connection to his home’s localnet, and typed in the hidden addresses for the cameras he’d hidden inside the two lions that lined the walkway into his house. He told the camera to only display video footage when two or more adults were present.

  The blood boiled inside of him. The cameras showed Wenqi and Hazou approaching the front door. Nuan already waited there with Lizhang. She rushed to Hazou and hugged him.

  Dang tried tuning the sound to be louder but the rain and thunder made it barely discernible. Still, he didn’t need to hear anything because he saw it with his own eyes: Nuan gave them cc-chips. The boiling blood almost made him burst blood vessels across his neck. How dare she? How dare!

  She would feel his wrath tonight.

  Chapter 10 - Cockroaches

  Hazou held Wenqi’s sleeves tightly in his hands as his friend took the final set of stairs up the Water Spinach Inn. Still, even with the guidance, Hazou tripped, and the accompanied echoing thud mixed with his cursing. He stumbled to his knees reaching out.

  “Hazou, are you okay?” Wenqi asked him. His friend’s voice came to the left and Hazou couldn’t be bothered straining his neck to face him.

  “No, I’m not okay. I can’t see.” Hazou wasn’t sure if he ever could get used to living life in the d
ark. His hands trembled as he reached for his eyes and stopped when they edged the sockets. He wondered what type of monster would stare back at him from the mirror and then laughed at the irony of such a thought.

  “Sorry,” said Hazou, reaching out and finding the banister. He lifted himself from the ground. The banister felt like rickety railing. Everything in this house felt rickety. “What we need is a plan, Wenqi.”

  Hazou sniffed at the rank air. Once, the air smelled of fresh water spinach. Bo Sai, Hazou’s father, originally used the third level to grow his own vegetables. The Water Spinach Inn had grown nearly everything they served to their guests: the water spinach dish with the fresh garlic and a dash of sesame paste for which travelers from all over Urumqi came to eat.

  From outside, guests could see the highest level, with the huge plasti-glass that went from floor to ceiling displaying their water spinach to the entirety of Southeast Urumqi.

  Something scurried over Hazou’s foot. He shook his foot and stomped down on it.

  “Cockroaches,” said Wenqi. “This place is filled with them.”

  “This was the urban farm level. I think we can re-build this.” Hazou tilted his head so very slightly.

  “Wonderful, you’re on that tangent again. You just love plans,” Wenqi said. “Rebuild it? That’s because you can’t see it.”

  A simmering anger built up in Hazou. What was Wenqi’s problem? Couldn’t he see that they had to do something? His friend’s mood had been in the doldrums ever since they’d arrived in Urumqi.

  “Describe what you see to me, dear friend. What do you see?” Hazou asked in a cheery tone.

  “I see a stupid old building, I see petrified plants, glowing cockroaches scurrying about…, I see Nuan with bruises on her arms because Dang Mao beats her. What a stupid question? What do you think I see?!” A loud thud followed as Hazou imagined Wenqi kicked against the wall.