Existence

While the child seemed confident, pulling her along through back alleys, she still couldn’t help glancing left and right, scanning reflections in shop windows, looking for bugs, wary of all the eyes that she could spot… and those she couldn’t.

Early in the chase, she thought about simply calling for help. That nice Inspector Wu had been both sympathetic and professional when her police unit came to interview Mei Ling at the little shorestead, asking about Xiang Bin and his mysterious, glowing stone. The same stone that these other men probably wanted as well.

Making that call seemed a good idea… only then Mei Ling realized she had no easy means to do so! The child had thrown away her new pair of overlay spectacles-they were identified and trackable, after all-just before tugging her on this zigzag chase through the back streets, ducking under one store awning after another. But weren’t there other ways to phone authorities? Couldn’t she just stop any passerby, and ask that person to do it for her?

Or… she realized later, when it was too late… shouldn’t it be possible to just stand in front of any city traffic light or utility pole and say, “I have a matter of state security to report?”

But no. Mei Ling didn’t want to come between powerful groups. What if this was all a fight between two factions of the government or aristocracy? Such things happened all the time, and when dragons battle each other, peasants are better off ducking out of the way.

Which was exactly what the child with the shifting eyes seemed to know how to do.

First, he led her to the back door of a tourist restaurant and through the steamy, aromatic kitchen. Most of the cooks ignored them, though one shouted a question as they darted through a pantry that led to a storeroom that led past a bustling loading dock to a set of stairs that continued to a makeshift bridge over an alley into the next block where they then scurried through a fab-factory that was churning out Grow-Your-Own-Goofy kits for sale at the nearby theme park.

One vast loft, filled with busy people, confused Mei Ling. All the workers stood about, plugged into action suits, moving and pantomiming some kind of aggressive activity that was mirrored on nearby holoscreens. From their actions-reaching out, grabbing at midair and clutching nonobjects, or nobjects-she could tell that these people were clearly building something. But what? Only after crossing most of the chamber, hurrying after her guide, did she glance at some big displays and realize, They are constructing molecules! Atom by atom.

Mei Ling had heard of this. Somewhere, perhaps in the glass towers across town, or else in a rich Brazilian kid’s bedroom, or at an African university, some new kind of material or device was being computer-contrived, to be fabricated by a desktop prototyping machine-translating imagination into something entirely new. Only the software couldn’t handle every kind of design problem. There were certain things that ai didn’t cope with as well-or cheaply- as a room full of piece-working humans with good stereo vision and shape-sensing instincts that went back millions of years.

Another rickety bridge and another fab-shop-this one making pixelated hats that flared with rocket ship images, superimposed upon Chinese flags-allowed them to emerge into a third floor hallway lined with offices-a lawyer, a dental implaint specialist, a biosculpt surgeon…

He’s evading all the cameras on the street, she realized. Though of course there were cams indoors, as well. They were just harder for outsiders to access via the Mesh. According to the tenets of the Big Deal, even the state had to ask permission to utilize them-or get a court order. That could take several minutes.

Down another rickety set of stairs they ran, through a curtained niche near the back of a second hand clothing shop that catered to low-level union workers. Moving quickly along the shelves, her young guide soon pulled down a bundle and showed it to Mei Ling. She recognized the garb of a licensed nanny-a member of the Child-Care Guild.

A good choice, she thought. Nobody will think twice about my carrying little Xiao En.

But if I pay for them, even with cash, the purchase register will post my face on the Mesh, and all that dodging about will be for nothing.

An answer to that was forthcoming. While she crouched in a corner, giving her baby a suckle, the boy busied himself with a small device, scanning all over the two-piece uniform before deftly plucking out a few hidden specks- the product ID chips.

“Anybody can find them,” he said, performing some kind of incantation made up of whispers and blurry fingertips, then putting the nearly invisible specks back where they came from. “But it’s another thing to time ’em. Rhyme ’em. Redefine ’em.”

Mei Ling wasn’t sure she understood, but he did make shoplifting-supposedly impossible-look easy.

The boy offered another brief moment of eye contact, accompanied by a fleeting smile that seemed labored, painful, though friendly nonetheless, as if the mere act of connecting with her took heroic concentration.

“Mother ought to trust Ma Yi Ming.”

The name could be interpreted to mean “horse one utter,” where “ma” or horse was traditionally symbolic of great power. Shanghainese, especially, liked names that were brash, assertive, the bearer of which might turn out confident and accomplished. Someone who stands out from the crowd, heroic despite handicaps. It struck Mei Ling as ironic.

“All right… Yi Ming,” she answered. At least that part of the name stood for “the people.” Another irony?

“I do trust you,” she added, realizing, as she said it, that it was true.

Little Xiao En grumbled over being denied the nipple, wanting to keep sucking after Mei Ling judged him to be fed. Still, the infant was well taught and made no fuss while she changed him. Then Mei Ling ducked into a nearby alcove to change into the new garments. Meanwhile Yi Ming busied himself with her shabby old clothing. But why? Surely they would be abandoned.

Certain that something would go wrong during all of this, Mei Ling peered over the curtain nervously as she fumbled with the clasps. Sure enough, as she stepped out wearing the stiffly starched uniform, one of the store clerks glanced over and started toward them. “Here now, I didn’t see you-”

At that moment, while Mei Ling’s heart pounded, there came a crash from the other side of the store. A large, hunch-shouldered man-clearly the janitor-was backing away from a store mannequin, moaning and using his mop to defend himself as the clothes-modeling puppet sputtered and squealed, waving animated plastic arms, tossing sweaters, acti-pants and e-sensitized tunics at him. Every member of the sales staff hurried in that direction… and the little autistic boy murmured.

“Mother has changed clothes. Now face.”

He pulled Mei Ling to the back door, in the blind spot between store and alley, and motioned for her to bend over. Drawing out a pen of some kind, he used his left hand to grip the back of her neck, holding her head still with uncanny strength as he drew across her cheeks and forehead with rapid strokes. When he let go, Mei Ling sagged back with a sigh that was equal parts anger and wounded pride.

“How dare you-” she began. Then she stopped, upon glimpsing herself in the changing area mirror. He had drawn just a dozen or so lines. Their effect was bizarre and clownish-when looked at straight on. But who viewed other people that way, out on the street? When Mei Ling diverted her gaze, even slightly, the effect was astounding. She saw a woman at least twenty years older, with gaunt cheeks and a much lower brow… a pronounced chin, a snub nose and eyes closer together.

“Facial recog won’t recog.” The boy nodded approvingly and held out his hand for her to take. “Next stop now… a safe place for mothers.”

* * *

After another hour spent dodging in and out of buildings, across upper-story bridges, through warehouses and workshops and university classrooms, they found themselves standing in front of a place that Mei Ling had always dreamed of visiting someday, gazing at pure wonder with her own eyes.

“It… it is magnificent,” she sighed, shifting Xiao En’s sling so that he could see. The baby stopped fussing, joining her in staring at the marvelous portal to another world whose only boundary was that of imagination.

The Shanghai Universe of Disney and the Monkey King loomed straight ahead across a broad plaza, its artificial mountain lined with cave-rides and fabulous fortresses, with fabled beasts and impossible forests that were always shrouded in glorious, perfumed mists. Here one might find the sort of fantastic things that you only saw on wild