Death's End

On both sides of the road, possessions were piled everywhere. The new arrivals had nowhere to live and slept in the open. The earlier explosions had awakened them, and now they looked anxiously in the direction of the column of smoke. The dawn light cast a dim blue glow over everything, making the faces around her even paler. Once again, Cheng Xin experienced the eerie feeling of looking down upon an ant colony. As she pressed between the pale faces, her subconscious mind despaired that the sun would never rise again.

A wave of nausea and weakness seized her. She squeezed the brakes, stopped by the side of the road, and retched, bringing tears to her eyes. She dry heaved until her stomach settled. She heard a child crying nearby, and looking up, saw a mother huddled in a bunch of rags hugging her baby. Haggard, hair disheveled, she didn’t move as the child clutched at her, but continued to gaze woodenly toward the east. The dawn lit her eyes, which reflected only loss and numbness.

Cheng Xin thought of another mother, pretty, healthy, and full of life, handing her baby to Cheng Xin in front of the UN building… where were she and her child now?

As she approached the tent housing the city government, Cheng Xin was forced to get off her bike and squeeze through the dense crowd. This place was always crowded, but now, even more people had gathered to find out what had happened. Cheng Xin had to explain who she was to the sentry line blocking the entrance before being allowed through. The officer didn’t know her and had to scan her ID card. When he confirmed her identity, his stare seared itself into Cheng Xin’s memory.

Why did we pick you back then?

The inside of the city government tent brought back memories of the hyper-information age. Numerous holographic windows floated around the vast space, hovering over various officials and clerks. Many of them had apparently been up all night and looked exhausted, but they were still very busy. A large number of departments were packed in and jostled for space, reminding Cheng Xin of the trading floor on Wall Street back in the Common Era. The workers tapped or wrote inside the windows hovering in front of them, and then the windows automatically floated over to the next worker in the process. These glowing windows were like ghosts of an age that had just ended, and here was their final gathering place.

In a tiny office formed from composite partitions, Cheng Xin saw the mayor. He was very young, and his feminized, handsome face looked as exhausted as the others. He also looked a bit dazed and adrift, as though the load he had been given was beyond the ability of his fragile generation to bear. A very large information window appeared on one of the walls, showing an image of some city. Most of the buildings in the window looked old and conventional, with only a few tree-buildings sprinkled among them—evidently this was a midsized city. Cheng Xin noticed that the image wasn’t static: Flying cars crossed the air from time to time, and it seemed to also be early morning there. Cheng Xin realized that the display simulated the view out of an office window, so perhaps this was where the mayor had once lived and worked before the Great Resettlement.

He looked at Cheng Xin, and his eyes also seemed to say Why did we pick you? Still, he remained polite, and asked Cheng Xin how he could help her.

“I need to contact Sophon,” she said.

The mayor shook his head, but her unexpected request had chased away some of his exhaustion. He looked serious. “That’s not possible. First, this department is too low level to directly establish contact with her. Even the provincial government doesn’t have such authority. No one knows where on Earth she is now. Also, communication with the outside world is extremely difficult now. We’ve just been cut off from the provincial government, and we’re about to lose electricity here.”

“Can you send me to Canberra?”

“I can’t provide an aircraft, but I can dispatch a ground vehicle. However, that may end up being even slower than walking. Ms. Cheng, I strongly urge you to stay put. There’s chaos everywhere right now, and it’s very dangerous. The cities are being bombed—believe it or not, it’s relatively peaceful here.”

Since there was no wireless power system, flying cars were not usable in the resettlement zones. Only self-powered aircraft and ground vehicles were available, but the roads had become impassable.

—————

As soon as Cheng Xin left the city government, she heard another explosion. A new column of smoke rose in another direction, and the crowd turned from merely anxious to genuinely agitated. She pushed her way through and found her bike. She would have to ride more than fifty kilometers to reach the provincial government and try to contact Sophon from there. If that didn’t work, she’d try to get to Canberra.

No matter what, she would not give up.