Existence

layers of virspace, but made palpable as stone! A mix of whimsy and solidity that could only have come into being through wondrous blendings of art, science, engineering, and astronomical amounts of cash.

In the foreground, just a hundred meters ahead, loomed those famous, wide-welcoming gates of shimmering Viridium that were topped by giant, holomechanical characters who preened and posed with theatrical exaggeration. She recognized Snow White and Pocahontas and beautiful Princess Chang’e. There was wise old Xuanzang, accompanied on his epic westward journey by the mischievous Zhu Bajie and his brothers, the Three Little Pigs. A flying elephant with flapping ears flew joyous circles in an overhead dance with the wondrous dragon- horse. Below, the fabled boy Ma Liang waved his magic brush and made mere drawings come to life!

And everyone’s favorite, Sun Wukong, the Monkey himself, capered up and down a tower decked with pennants that seemed as colorful as they were impossibly long, playing catch-me-if-you-can with lumbering King Kong.

All of those familiar figures lined the storied battlements. But greatest of all, the central figure topping the main gate, was a friendly-faced icon with immense black-round ears and a winning smile of confident-destiny, flanked on either side by active sculptures of the two real-life visionaries who imagined so much wonder and gave such dreams to the world: Uncle Walt and Scholar Wu. That pair-one of them dressed in an old-fashioned Western suit and the other in Ming dynasty robes-seemed to look right at Mei Ling, beckoning her personally, with grins and open arms.

Xiao En cooed with delight and Mei Ling felt herself drawn… except that the vast plaza of concrete and iridescent tile seemed so dauntingly open and exposed. No place on Earth was under scrutiny by more cameras than this.

Surely they are watching this place.

But there was another tug on her hand.

Yi Ming did not bother to speak, this time. His urgent meaning was clear. If they were going to cross, it had to be quickly. Now.

Mei Ling’s sense of danger mounted as they headed straight for the portal. Suddenly her new clothes and ai- fooling makeup seemed wholly inadequate, especially since there were so few people around!

“Where is everybody?” she wondered, aloud, mostly to hear someone speak words. “I know it is a weekday. But there should be more tourists, children, visitors…”

Indeed, only a few hundred seemed to be crossing the barren plaza, coming to or from the underground train station and parking garage. The sparseness seemed eerie, since it was still early in the afternoon. Though it feels like days since I last slept in our little shorestead. To be honest she missed the solitude. The constant lapping of Huangpu tides against her home’s rotting timbers.

“All indoors,” Yi Ming explained. “More than two-thirds of all the normalpeople. Twelve billion, three hundred and forty two million eyes, feeding impressions to twelve billion, three hundred and forty two million cerebral hemispheres, locked inside half that many skulls”-he ran out of breath and had to inhale-“all watching space rocks that rock space. All curious about living forever. Even cobblies want to know.”

Mei Ling only grasped part of it, but the explanation sufficed. The whole world-or nearly-had gone into immersion-mode, watching whatever was going on in America. The interview with the Artifact aliens. An event meriting worldwide greedy interest was happening-perhaps even something wonderful. Yet Mei Ling wished it had never been found and that Xiang Bin had left his own discovery in the bottom of the muddy estuary.

“So many spacey stones from stoned space,” the boy intoned. He always seemed to be experimenting with possible rhymes or songs. It must be one of those unbearably strong compulsions that drove so many young people with the disorder. Only now he also sounded sorrowful, empathizing with lost mineral messengers, perhaps more than he would with flesh and blood.

“Those buried at sea can’t see! Thousands, trapped underground, try to make a sound! Many more in space can barely spark a trace. Others, locked in vaults and graves, hoping to be saved-so sad. So bored! They chose their fate; now it’s too late.”

He seemed genuinely moved by the tragedy of it all.

“Wait a minute!” She halted, abruptly. “Let me get this straight. You mean there are many of the shining, speaking stones?” Her heart whirled with hope. If it were true, then perhaps no one would be desperate, any longer, to seek her husband.

“Yes. Many-numerous, multitudinous… Shining-luminous numinous… Stones-crystalline serpentine olivine…” He tugged at her and skipped along gaily. “But only a rare-pair speak!”

Hurrying to keep up, Mei Ling wondered. Only two speak? The one in Washington… and Bin’s? Then powerful people will still hunt for him. Or use me to help find him. Or threaten or coerce him.

But… how could the child know?

A screeching of brakes. A backward glance confirmed her worst fears. Several black vans had just pulled up onto the plaza, as close to the pedestrian barriers as they dared, and men piled out. One of them pointed and they started straight toward her at a rapid walk.

No sense in pretending, anymore, to be strolling along-a nanny escorting two children to the park. Now Mei Ling and Yi Ming ran! Though she wondered, What will we do when we get there?

Despite there being few visitors, the line at the ticket window was way too long. Even if she could afford the steep entrance fee, those men would arrive long before she could pay and then reach the gate. That assumed the Disney guards would not simply stop her when the pursuers shouted. After all, they had to be from some state agency. How else could they be acting like this in broad daylight? In China?

Or else they were desperate and willing to bluff, pretending to represent some part of the state.

Yi Ming cleared part of Mei Ling’s perplexity by steering her past the ticket booth and straight toward the broad, viridium portal, right under the shadow of scholar Wu Cheng’en, who wrote the great national classic adventure tale Journey to the West. Though five centuries had passed, it was still easily a match, in culture and excitement, for more recent stories about talking ducks and dogs and mice.

Stopping abruptly, the boy turned and dashed over to a well-dressed couple who were just leaving the park, with a little girl who wore a cute, if retro, silken costume copied from the classic Sailor Moon. Her mouth was stained from sucking at the neck of a candy victim, from the featured ride Vampires of the Adnauseam.

Evidently both tired and spoiled, in an era that much favored girls over boys, she gaped suspiciously, with sugary “blood” oozing down her jaw, as Yi Ming planted himself in front of the family, chattering in a friendly manner. None of his words made sense, at least not to Mei Ling or to the parents. But for a moment their surprise was such that they allowed him to take their hands and pat them while continuing to babble away.

The girl recovered first, swiftly snarling at Yi Ming with red-stained teeth.

What’s he doing? Mei Ling wondered. Does he suddenly find the situation hopeless? Is he abandoning me here and picking someone else to guide around town?

The pursuers had made it halfway across the square. Mei Ling started eyeing alternative escape paths. None of which looked promising while schlepping a baby. Perhaps down the escalator to the train station…

The tourist couple yanked their hands away and, egged on by the girl’s screech, the father pushed at Yi Ming- who simply laughed, spun about three times, then sped over to Mei Ling.

“Mother. Hand.”

As the rich family hurried off, suddenly the boy was scribbling upon the back of Mei Ling’s wrist with the same pen he used on her face, half an hour ago. There was no apparent pattern at first, just a rapid series of dots that pricked and hurt a little, even on her calloused skin. The specks were all constrained within a square area, perhaps three centimeters on a side.

Oh, she thought, could it be? Can a mere person do this?

The men were closer now. Yi Ming let go of her hand and started doing the same thing to the back of his own. The right hand, making Mei Ling realize that he was a lefty. Somewhere she recalled hearing that the trait showed up more often among autistics. The same could be said of the boy’s misaligned teeth, his poor skin, and strange gait. Though she found none of those disconcerting anymore.

I saw worse among the drooling old-timers at the hospice.