Existence

Pushing a broom while muttering apparent nonsense syllables, such a person might have been easy to dismiss in the past, as either mad or broken. Today, that same individual might be jacked into a network, communing with others far away. Who was she to judge, if new technologies made this especially applicable for victims of the so- called autism plague? Mei Ling spent time in one hidden chamber where dozens clustered, linked by a mesh of lenses, beams, and shimmering wires. In one corner a cluster of tendriled hookup-arrays had apparently been left vacant, glittering with electric sparks, low to the ground.

“For cobblies,” Yi Ming said, as if that explained everything.

And she wondered, How many others are connected to this group? Others… all over the planet?

“Genes are wise,” the boy told her. “Our kind-crippled throwbacks-we did badly in tribes of homosap bullies. Even worse in villages, towns, kingdoms… cities full of angry cars! Panicked by buzzing lights and snarly machines. Boggled by your mating rituals an’ nuanced courtesies an’ complicated facial expressions… by your practicalities an’ your fancy abstractions. Things that matter to you CroMags. Our kind could never explain why practical and abstract and emotional things aren’t the only ones that matter.

“There’s other stuff! Things we can’t describe in words.”

The boy shook his head, seeming almost normal in his bitter expression. “An’ so we died. Throttled in the crib. Stuck in filthy corners to babble and count flies. We died! The old genes-broken pieces of ’em-faded into hiding.”

“Till your kind-with aspie help-came up with this!”

Yi Ming’s hands fluttered, eyes darting. Only, now there was something triumphant in his tone. He gestured at the men and women, many of them dressed in Disney World maintenance uniforms. Now they stood or sat or lay steeped in virt-immersion goggles or jack-ports, twitching, grunting, some of them giving way to rhythmic spasms. On nearby monitor curtains, Mei Ling glimpsed forest vistas, or scenes of tree-speckled taiga, or undersea realms where blurry shapes moved amid long shadows.

“Why are so many of us coming now, born in such numbers?” Ma Yi Ming asked Mei Ling, in a confident voice that belied his twisted stature and ragged features. “It is not pollution… or mutation… or any kind of ‘plague.’

“The world is finally ready for us. Needy for us. Old-breedy us. Succeedy-us…” Visibly, the boy clamped down, to stop rhyming.

As if sensing her nervous confusion, the baby squirmed. Mei Ling shook her head. “I… don’t understand.”

Yi Ming nodded, with something like patient compassion in his darting eyes. “We know. But soon you will. There is someone for you to meet.”

WITH A BANG?

And so, listeners, viewers, participants, and friends… where do we stand?

Amid riots, crashing markets, and tent-show revivals, with millions joining millenarian cults, burning possessions and seeking mountain vistas to watch the world end-while other millions demand to be instantly downloaded into alien-designed crystal paradise-did we need this, too?

One failed space mission may be happenstance. But two? Within days of each other? First, a Chinese robot probe to the asteroid belt barely gets five klicks off the pad before fizzling into the sea. Then the Pan-American one explodes.

Both were rush-jobs, aiming to quick-grab more artifacts. And hurried space missions are hazardous! But both of them? Exploding in launch phase? It takes us deep into Suspicioustan-stoking whatever paranoid theme happens to be your favorite. Especially the oldest: nation versus jealous nation. Inflamed sabotage rumors fly, recalling the volcanic fury of the Chinese public, right after the Zheng He incident. Tensions rise. Military leaves are canceled.

Adding pressure, no amount of openness will convince everyone the Americans aren’t hiding something. Somehow gaining more from the Havana Artifact than they’ve shared. Maybe even blocking others from getting artifacts of their own?

Meanwhile, intellectuals keep pondering galactic “contact” puzzles, politicians argue on as if cliches of “left- right” matter anymore, powerful connivers scheme for a kind of “stability” that only ensures death…

… and now war in space?

What will it take to wake people up?

56.

EDEN

Peng Xiang Bin let out a low moan and a stream of bubbles. He backed into a corner as the figure in the dormer-opening bent to twist through, while battle-booms and gunfire detonations rocked the sunken, royal ruins.

He’s wearing some kind of military uniform… and one of those helmets with emergency pop-out gills…

Oxygen-absorbing fronds were still unfolding out of headgear recesses while the newcomer sucked greedily at a small tube. Evidently a refugee from the renewed combat raging overhead, he wore goggles that were flooded and clearly not meant for underwater use. Bin watched as the soldier floundered. He better calm down, or he’ll overwhelm those little gills.

Also, Bin realized-I’m darkness adapted and my eye covers work. I can see him. He hasn’t seen me.

And he’s not as big as I first thought.

Those huge-looking shoulders had been inflated by air pockets, caught when the soldier jumped to sea. That false bulk was collapsing now. Bin now realized, the fellow was quite slender.

So… should I try to fight him?

The tide of battle may have turned outside. Still, Bin knew he was no warrior. Anyway, his duty was to tend the worldstone, not to risk his life for Newer Newport. Bin started edging toward the opening, lugging the satchel in short, shuffling steps, careful to avoid both broken timbers and the newcomer’s feet.

Whoever he was, the soldier must have had good training. Bin could tell he was adapting, gathering himself, concentrating on solving problems. As the rollicking explosions diminished a little, the fellow stopped thrashing and his rapid gasps ebbed into more regular breathing. When he started to experiment, exhaling a vertical stream of bubbles to clear and fill his goggles, Bin knew there was little time left to make a clean getaway. He picked up the pace, fumbling to find the opening. Only it took some effort while hauling the heavy…

He stopped, as sharp illumination erupted from an object in the soldier’s hand, engulfing Bin and the dormer window.

Aided by the implant, Bin’s right eye adapted, even as the left was dazzled. Because the implant laid a disc of blackness over the bright torchlight, he could tell it was part of a weapon-a small sidearm the soldier aimed at Bin’s chest.

For several seconds, Bin stood and exchanged a long look with the soldier, who drifted almost within arm’s reach. Slowly, without jerky motions, Bin pointed at the torch… then at the dormer entrance… then jabbed his thumb upward several times.

Whoever is chasing you may see that light, streaming out of the ruins… and drop something unpleasant on us.

The soldier apparently grasped his meaning and slid a control or sent a subvocal command. The light source dimmed considerably and become all-directional, dimly illuminating the whole chamber so they could see each other…

… and Bin realized, he had been mistaken. The interloper was a woman.