“You like the beads, huh?” Lu examined some boxes of chopsticks. They were crudely made, no doubt deliberately to appeal to the pockets of Pig Town’s inhabitants.
“I do,” Hope murmured. “The reds and gold remind me of my mother. Hair the colour of corn oil, lips red as poppy heads.”
Lu thought about his own mother. Strong as an ox. Spine soldier straight so that she faced the world head on.
“I want something bigger,” he told Hope. “The farm we’re going to visit is extremely large. Mister Gun Mao Rong is a powerful man.”
“A Prospector?” Hope’s upper lip curled.
“Yes, a Prospector.” Lu picked up a cigarette case made of monkey wood. A silhouette of the Scarlet Star was carved into the lid.
Hope spat onto the ground. Lu ignored her and looked for the stall’s owner. He found him round the back, crouched on a low stool between bundles of low grade reflector cloth. The man was old as the soot hills judging by his appearance. Face set in a thousand wrinkles. Eyes turned milky by cataracts. He sat on his stool, smacking his lips as he whittled a new set of chopsticks.
“Hello, Father Time.”
The man grunted at the colloquial greeting.
“Hello, Buckrabbit.”
“I need to buy a present for an important man. What can you recommend?”
The man picked up a walking cane that was resting against the fabric bales. He poked the end of it at a wooden box towards the back of the stall.
“Every man likes a music box. Rich are no different to the poor. I spent six months carving the thing. It’s made of blackwood. Open it.” He redirected his cane to Hope. “Go on now. Open it.”
The girl did as instructed. With the lid raised, music started to play. Tinny yet pretty, it was a classic melody Lu had heard many times from the plucked strings of a qin.
“Bring it here, Hope.” The man bared his gums.
She carried the box over, its tune mingling with the sounds of street children playing nearby and the wail of a baby coming from one of the tin shacks.
“You know my name?” Her brow knitted.
“Pig Town’s not so big.”
Hope handed the box to Lu. He could see that it was well-made with elegant wooden hinges and an interior lined with preserved moss. Weighty too.
“Price?”
“500 newyen.”
Hope took a sharp intake of breath. The cost was astronomical compared to the sums she was used to in Pig Town.
Her eyes widened further when Lu said, “For this? 900 is closer to the value.”
“That is too much,” said the man quietly. “Too much.”
“Yes, 900.” Lu produced a money clip from a side pocket. It was bigger than the one he had given the officers in Man Fu. He peeled off the notes and pressed them into the man’s hands.
“It’s not worth that much,” Hope tried to argue. Lu raised his hand sharply and she fell silent.
The man fed the notes into the top of his tunic. Lu turned to leave when the man said, “No news for me, Buckrabbit?”
Lu put his hands on his hips and sighed. “Man Fu is as ugly as ever. The crop failures around Pig Town haven’t garnered much sympathy from the law makers. For now, there is not enough fuel to be loaded around here for an Independent to make a living.”
“So you will be heading for pastures new for the time being.” The man nodded a little sadly. Lu kept his chin high.
As he strode away with Hope in tow, the old man called after them, “Take the girl to see the safflowers growing out at the cemetery. May be the last chance you have.”
T
HE CEMETERY WAS
carpeted with safflowers, token survivors of one of the first oil crops artificially seeded across Twelve. Having originally thrived in the arid conditions, the crop had become infected by a rogue fungal disease brought in with a shipment of rapeseed. As the sight of the spiky yellow flower heads became rarer, so the workers came to see them as a symbol of their personal fight for survival. The wilted heads were steeped in water and distilled into a lemony pigment – the dye favoured by the rebels. Safflowers had also been his mother’s favourite.
The girl was at the far end of the field, praying at her family’s graves. Lu surveyed the rows of tombstones – small markers carved with individuals’ signature codes. He turned his back on the grand sweep of the dead.
In front of him was an area fenced off from the rest with barbed wire. The safflowers were the only obvious inhabitants of the area. In accordance with Absolute Law, there were no carved markers, no shrines, and no gifts left for the spirits.
Lu knelt down besides the barbed wire. He plucked one of the flower heads and crushed it inside his palm. He prayed for worlds, for Hope, and for his ancestors.
“You have a relative among the Unmarked?”
Lu got to his feet, brushing the remains of the flower off his hands. The girl stood a respectful distance behind him. She’d been crying; he recognised the tell-tale gloss in her eyes.
“My mother,” he told her, a break in his voice.
She bowed her head. “I’m sorry. The way PAP treat the people sentenced to work in the Heat Zone is awful. Everyone has a right to a headstone.”
“Even convicts?”
She hugged the music box she carried and sucked her bottom lip. “Depends on the crime.”
“Indeed.” They’d both loved and lost, thought Lu. The true crime on Twelve was that of a nation trapped in servitude. “You and me are the fortunate ones,” he told his apprentice. “We have the means to fly away.”
T
HEY ATE DIM
sum at a chop bar then retired to the Eighteen Wheeler for the night. Lu slept on the bunk to the rear of the cabin. Hope reclined the co-driver seat and curled in on herself. The next morning, Lu used a small gas stove to brew tea and cook up a sharing bowl of wheat noodles layered with pig fat. The addition of spices came from his Jamaican ancestry.
By 11.00am, they had flown the 2000 kilometres to the area known as the Money Fields. Below were great expanses of rapeseed, field penny-cress, flax, and soybean, as well as sprawling orchards of apple and citrus fruit trees. The grand estate belonged to Mister Gun Mao Rong, a man with enough power to have Titan SLS prototypes already at work in his fields.
“Look at those things!” Hope had her face pressed to the windscreen. Her breath misted the glass. “What if they go wrong and don’t see the difference between harvesting plants and humans?” she asked in a child-like way which made Lu smile.
Hope wasn’t smiling, though. “What if the jaws never stop eating and before we know it, the planet is deserted except for two of those machines charging head on at each other?”
“Then technological advancement will eat itself and we, its creators, will be dust on the wind.” Lu winked at his apprentice. “Now buckle up. I’m taking us down.”
T
HEY LEFT THE
Eighteen Wheeler parked in an immaculately maintained hangar alongside a number of work vehicles – one man crop sprayers known as ‘dragonflies’ and churners with their giant revolving cylinders that processed plant fibre on the move. High end transportation craft lined the right-hand side of the hangar. One had recently docked and Lu and the girl watched the side door curve aside and a silver walkway unfold. Staff emerged, the women dressed in figure-hugging, red silk cheongsams, the men in black tunic suits. A woman emerged, terribly and deliberately thin. Her clothing was tailored, her glossy black hair scraped back. Lu noticed Hope’s expression: a mix of anger and awe.
“There’ll come a day when one of the Titans mistakes her for a blade of grass.” He pressed his hands together and mimicked the snapping motion of the robot’s jaw until Hope showed her crooked teeth.
L
U HAD WORKED
many long years to establish himself as one of the fastest, most reliable fuel transporters to work the circuit. Consequently, he didn’t deal with foremen. He took his business dealings direct to the Fuel Prospectors. Despite his wealth, Gun Mao Rong was no exception.
Hope appeared resistant to following him into the glittering mausoleum where the Prospector lived with his achingly thin wife and unseen children.
“If you are going to get to grips with this trade, you have to learn to ignore all
this
.” By which he meant the opulent entrance hall with its silver grid-work underfoot and corridors and grand staircase leading off to numerable rooms.
The girl absorbed the idea, tough little hands folding over themselves. “I follow where you go.”
They removed their shoes and Lu led her down one of the corridors on the ground floor. The temperature-controlled air was as welcome as it was disquieting. Staff materialised, almost as if from the walls. At his side, the girl took three steps to his every one. Lu could have sworn he heard her heartbeat.
At the end of the corridor they came out into a beautiful circular room. As Lu had discovered when he first visited the Prospector twenty years before, a man like Gun did not sit behind closed doors. He perched on a low bamboo stool, legs folded up under him. His hands were busy scrolling through projected data screens. He wore a v-neck white t-shirt and a sarong skirt, and possessed the casual good looks associated with considerable wealth.
Lu bowed. Hope followed his example. From his perch, Gun returned the courtesy.
“Lu De Lun. It is a pleasure to see you.”
“The pleasure is mine, Gun.” Lu knew the girl would be surprised by his use of the Prospector’s first name; if she was to succeed in the fuel game, she would have to achieve the same level of connection.
He gestured to the box Hope carried. “Please do me the very great honour of accepting this gift.”
Hope tiptoed forward. Lu was relieved when she presented Gun with the music box using both hands. Despite her rustic upbringing, she knew rudimentary etiquette.
Gun considered the box, nodding appreciatively. “It is exquisite, Lu. But I cannot accept.”
“My apprentice selected it. Her first task and one in which she took great pride.”
“I can see that.” Gun smiled at Hope. “But such a beautiful gift is too much.”
“It was carved with you in mind. There can be no other explanation for such splendour.”
“I really must refuse.”
“No, you really must accept.”
There the game ended. Gun had refused three times and Lu had persisted. The Prospector put the box on his lap and opened the lid.
“Wonderful!” he cried as the tinkling melody filled the room. “Oh indeed, a gift I shall cherish.” Taking in the girl’s appearance – her coarse clothing and staring eyes – he cocked his head and said gently, “The kitchen is at the opposite end of the house. My man, Francis, will show you the way. You will find him directly outside this room. Ask the cook to give you a glass of soda.” He switched focus to Lu. “I have a shipment of bioethanol that needs to be in K01-461-15 inside the month. Shall we talk terms?”
Lu had hoped the girl might be allowed to stay. She needed to experience the art of fuel negotiation. But he was not about to offend Gun by disagreeing.
“Go along now, Hope,” he said.
“Hope?” Gun stuck out a hand. Again the girl proved aware of social niceties and used both hands to clasp Gun’s. “A good name,” he told her. “I look forward to conducting business with you, Hope.”
“And I you,” Hope replied, voice strong, back very straight.
Lu watched her leave the room, her soft tread at odds with the steel he had just witnessed.
T
HE WHEEL VIBRATED
under his hands. Lu worked his way through the gears with the stick shift then pulled back on the thruster. The g-force hit him hard. With his spine moulded into the driver seat, Lu had to fight to keep his chin up as the Eighteen Wheeler left the ground and soared. A minute later, he levelled the craft out and the pressure eased.
Beside him, the girl released her grip on the co-driver seat harness. She wasn’t used to take off yet, he saw that. But she would be soon.
“He was nice,” said Hope, interrupting his thoughts.
“Who?”
“Mister Gun Mao Rong.”
“Did you expect a monster?”
“I guess.” The girl’s forehead wrinkled. “It’s just that there he is in that big house with all that money while the rest of us struggle even to breathe. And then he’s just so
nice
.”
Lu gave a tight smile. “A dilemma, isn’t it?” Through the windscreen he saw Titans at work in the fields of blue, green and yellow. From this height, the robots looked like dung beetles.
“That’s why the box was so beautifully carved. It was a genuine gift. But my father still hid an HPM unit in the base of the box and I still brought it from him.” He sensed confusion washing over Hope and wondered if he should have trusted her with the facts sooner.
“My father and I cannot communicate openly. I have had to distance myself from the great unclean of Pig Town in order to be taken seriously as a Fuel Transporter. But I still try to help when I can.” He glanced across at Hope. “You were right. 900 newyen was too much. But I wasn’t really paying for the box. I was providing my father with money to live off.”
“What are you telling me, Mister Lu?” She bit her bottom lip while Lu really hoped he hadn’t made a mistake in his choice of apprentice. He needed someone who’d become as jaded with the system as he was. He needed a fellow soldier.
“What’s an HPM unit?” she asked suddenly.
Lu liked that question. His lies were less important to her than the details of that deception.
“High-powered microwave weapon. The unit inside the music box emits bursts of electromagnetic energy. Harmless to humans but capable of burning out the circuitry of all crop giants within a 200 kilometre radius. To avoid detection, the transmission stops working after 24 hours. Enough time to do a farmstead damage but not long enough to arouse suspicion.”
Hope stared out the windscreen. They were still flying over Gun’s vast estate. It was difficult to tell from this altitude, but the Titans would already be grinding to a halt, their insides seizing. The build up of biogas in the algae-fed boilers would do the real damage. A design flaw would be cited as the cause of the problems, putting a dent in the seemingly impenetrable armour of the Titan SLS crop giant model.