The Dark Forest (49 page)

Apparently hearing Shi Qiang’s words, the counselor said, “Sir, this isn’t an advertisement. It’s a service from the General Banking System.”

“How much do I have on deposit?” Luo Ji asked.

A highly complicated chart appeared next to the counselor. “This is the status of all your interest-bearing accounts since Year 9 of the Crisis Era. It’s fairly complicated, but you can access it in your personal information area from now on.” Another, simpler chart popped up. “This is your current financial situation in all of the various subsystems of the General Banking System.”

Luo Ji had no concept of what those figures meant, and asked blankly, “That’s … how much?”

“My boy, you’re a rich man!” Shi Qiang said, slapping him vigorously. “I may not have as much as you, but I’ve still got money. Heh, two centuries of interest—it’s a real long-term investment. Pauper to tycoon. I only regret not saving a little more.”

“Well … are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” Luo Ji asked, skeptically.

“Hmm?” The big eyes of the counselor looked at Luo Ji quizzically.

“It’s been more than one hundred eighty years. Wasn’t there any inflation? Did the finance system really just continue on smoothly?”

“You’re overthinking it,” Shi Qiang said, taking a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. Luo Ji knew then that tobacco was still around. But when Shi Qiang took one out, he was able to puff out clouds of smoke without lighting it.

The counselor replied, “There were many rounds of inflation during the Great Ravine, and the finance and credit systems came close to collapse. But according to current laws, interest on the deposits of hibernators is calculated according to a special formula that excludes the Great Ravine, and instead transfers the deposit amount over to the financial level of the post-Ravine period and resumes calculating interest from there.”

“Wow, that’s some preferential treatment!” Luo Ji exclaimed.

“My boy, these are good times,” Shi Qiang said, blowing out smoke. Then, raising his still-burning cigarette, he said, “Except the cigarettes are terrible.”

“Mr. Luo Ji, this is just an opportunity for us to get acquainted. When it’s convenient for you, we can discuss your personal financial arrangements and investment plan. If there’s nothing else, then I’ll say good-bye.” The counselor smiled and waved good-bye.

“I’ve got one question,” he said quickly. He didn’t know what to call young women in this era, and didn’t want to risk making a mistake by addressing her improperly. So he simply said, “I’m not too familiar with this era, so please forgive me if my question is offensive to you.”

The counselor smiled, and said, “Not a problem. Our responsibility is to help you get acquainted with this era as quickly as possible.”

“Are you a real person or a robot? Or are you a program?”

The question didn’t faze the counselor. She replied, “Of course I’m a real person. Could a computer handle services as complicated as this?”

After the woman on the billboard disappeared, Luo Ji said to Shi Qiang, “Da Shi, there are some things I find hard to understand. This is an age that has invented perpetual motion and can synthesize grain, but computer technology doesn’t seem to have advanced at all. Artificial intelligence can’t even handle personal finance.”

“What perpetual motion? You mean a perpetual motion machine?” Shi Qiang said.

“Yeah. It signifies unlimited energy.”

Shi Qiang looked around him. “Where?”

Luo Ji pointed up to the stream of traffic. “Those flying cars. Do they consume oil or batteries?”

Shi Qiang shook his head. “Neither. Earth’s oil was pumped dry. Those cars can fly forever without batteries and they’ll never run out of power. They’re pretty awesome. I’m thinking of getting one myself.”

“How can you be so unmoved by a technological miracle? Unlimited power for humanity. This is as big an event as when Pangu created the heavens and the Earth! Don’t you realize what a magnificent age this is?”

Shi Qiang tossed aside the cigarette butt; then, thinking better of it, reached down and retrieved it from the grass and threw it into a nearby garbage can. “I’m unmoved? You’re an intellectual whose imagination has gotten away from him. The technology is something we actually had in our era.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I don’t understand most tech, but I do know a bit about this one thing in particular because, as it happens, I once had occasion to use a police bug that had no batteries but never ran out of power. You know how it worked? It was powered remotely by microwaves. That’s what electricity is today, although the methods are a little different from our day.”

Luo Ji stopped and stared at Shi Qiang for a long while, then up at the flying cars in the air. He thought about the heating glass, and finally understood: It was just a wireless power supply. The power source emitted electricity in the form of microwaves or other EM radiation to form an electric field over a certain space, allowing any equipment within it to draw power through an antenna or resonant coil. Like Shi Qiang had said, even two centuries ago, this technology was entirely ordinary. The only reason it hadn’t been commonplace was because the power loss was too great. Only a small portion of the power emitted into a space could be used, but the majority was lost. In this era, however, mature controlled fusion technology meant that energy sources had been greatly enriched, to the point that losses from wireless power supplies were acceptable.

“And the synthetic grain? Can’t they synthesize grain?” Luo Ji asked.

“I’m not really sure about that. Grain is still grown from seed, it’s just that it’s grown in factories in those cultivation tank things. Crops are all genetically modified, and I’ve heard that wheat grows just an ear, with no stalk. And it grows pretty quickly because of the strong artificial sunlight, and other things like intense, growth-inducing radiation. A season of wheat and rice can be harvested in a week, so from the outside it looks just like it’s produced on a production line.”

“Oh—” Luo Ji punctuated his thought with an extended sigh as the gorgeous bubbles before his eyes burst to reveal the true face of the world, and he knew that in this great new era, sophons still floated everywhere and human science was still deadlocked. Existing technology could never cross the line set down by the sophons.

“And the spacecraft that can reach fifteen percent of light speed?”

“Well, that’s true. When those warships mobilize, it’s like a tiny sun in the sky. And their space weapons—the day before yesterday I saw a news report on TV about an Asian Fleet exercise. A laser cannon swept a target ship as big as a carrier. Half of that iron guy evaporated like a chunk of ice, and the other half exploded like fireworks in a shower of sparkling molten steel. And there are railguns that can fire a hundred iron spheres a second, each the size of a football, at tens of kilometers per second. In a few minutes they can flatten a mountain on Mars.… So even though there isn’t any of your perpetual motion, with these technologies, humanity is more than capable of putting down the Trisolaran Fleet.”

Shi Qiang handed Luo Ji a cigarette and taught him how to twist the filter tip to light it. They smoked and watched the snow-white swirls drift upward. “Anyway, my boy, these are good times.”

“Yes. Good times.”

Luo Ji had hardly finished speaking when Shi Qiang pounced on him and the two of them tumbled onto the grass a few meters away, hearing a loud noise at their heels as a flying car smashed into the spot where they had just been standing. Luo Ji felt the impact of the blast, and metal debris whizzed overhead, taking out half the billboard and sending the transparent glass tubes of the display crashing to the ground. While he was still on the ground with a dizzy head and a black eye, Shi Qiang leapt up and ran over to the flying car. Its disc-shaped body was entirely broken and deformed, but due to the lack of onboard fuel, it hadn’t caught fire. There was only the sound of sparks crackling in the twisted metal.

“There’s no one in the car,” Shi Qiang said to Luo Ji, who was limping over.

“Da Shi, you saved my life again,” Luo Ji said, leaning on his shoulder and massaging his injured leg.

“I don’t know how many times I’ll have to. You really ought to grow some sense, and a few more eyes.” He pointed to the totaled flying car. “Remind you of anything?”

Luo Ji thought about that occasion two centuries before and shivered involuntarily.

Lots of pedestrians crowded round, the scenes of terror on their clothing flashing as one. Two police cars landed, sirens blaring, and several officers got out to form a line around the broken car. Their uniforms flashed like the police light, drowning out the crowd’s clothing with their brightness. The one officer who came over to Shi Qiang and Luo Ji had clothing so bright they had to shut their eyes.

“You were right here when the car fell. You aren’t hurt, are you?” he said with concern. He evidently could see that the two of them were hibernators, because he made an effort to speak “ancient Chinese.”

Before Luo Ji could answer, Shi Qiang pulled the officer who had asked the question across the tape and out of the crowd. Once they had gotten away, the officer’s uniform stopped flashing.

“You need to check up on this. It might be an assassination attempt,” he said.

The officer laughed. “Really? It’s just a traffic accident.”

“We want to report it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. We’re reporting it.”

“You’re making a big deal out of it. You may have been startled, but it really was a traffic accident. However, according to the law, if you insist on reporting it…”

“We insist.”

The officer pressed a display area on his sleeve. It popped up an information window, which he looked over, and then said, “It’s been reported. For the next forty-eight hours, the police will track you, but this requires your agreement.”

“We agree. We might still be in danger.”

The officer laughed again. “It’s really a common occurrence.”

“A common occurrence? Let me ask you: On average, how many traffic accidents of this kind take place in this city every month?”

“There were six or seven all of last year!”

“I’ll have you know, officer: In our time, this city had more than that every day.”

“Cars all ran on the ground in your day. I can’t even imagine how dangerous that was. Well, you’re now in the police surveillance system. You’ll be notified of any progress on your case, but, please believe me, this is an ordinary traffic accident. Whether or not you filed a report, you would still receive compensation.”

After they left the police and the scene of the accident behind, Shi Qiang said to Luo Ji, “We’d better get back to my place. I don’t feel at ease when I’m outside. It’s not far. We probably should walk back. Taxis are unmanned, so it’s not safe.”

“But hasn’t the ETO been destroyed?” Luo Ji asked, looking about him. Off in the distance, the fallen car had been lifted up by a larger flying car. The crowd had dispersed, and the police car had left. A municipal works vehicle had landed, and several workmen had gotten out to gather scattered debris and begin repairs to the ground, which had been damaged by the crash. Following the small commotion, the city had returned to its normal, pleasing calm.

“Perhaps it has. But you’ve got to trust my intuition, my boy.”

“I’m no longer a Wallfacer.”

“That car didn’t seem to think so.… While we’re walking, pay attention to the cars above you.”

They kept to the “shade” of the treelike buildings as much as possible, and crossed any open spaces they reached at a run. Soon they arrived at a broad plaza, and Shi Qiang said, “My place is just opposite. It’s too far to go around, so we’ll have to make a run for it.”

“Isn’t that being a little paranoid? Maybe it was just a traffic accident.”

“That’s a ‘maybe,’ though. There’s nothing wrong with being careful.… See that sculpture in the center of the plaza? If anything happens, we can hide there.”

There was a square sandy area in the center of the plaza, like a miniature desert. The sculpture that Shi Qiang mentioned, located right in the center of the sand, was a group of black pillar-like objects, each two or three meters tall. From a distance, it looked like a grove of withered black trees.

Luo Ji ran across the plaza behind Shi Qiang. When they neared the sandy area, he heard Shi Qiang call, “Hurry. Get in there!” and he was dragged skidding across the sand and then headlong into the withered grove. Lying on the grove’s warm sand, he looked up between the black pillars at the sky and saw a flying car zoom down and buzz the grove before pulling up and accelerating away. The gust of wind it left in its wake blew a burst of sand into the air, which hit the pillars with a whoosh.

“Maybe it wasn’t headed for us.”

“Hmm. Maybe,” Shi Qiang said, as he sat up and dumped the sand out of his shoes.

“Will they laugh at us for this?”

“Don’t be afraid of that crap. Who’s going to recognize you? Besides, we’re from two centuries ago, so even if we’re entirely normal, people are still gonna laugh. My boy, nothing’s lost by being careful. What if the thing really was headed for you?”

Only then did Luo Ji turn his attention to the sculpture they were inside. He noticed that the pillars weren’t withered trees, but arms extending out of the desert. The skinny arms were just skin and bones, so at first glance they looked like dead tree trunks. The hands atop them made a variety of distorted gestures to the sky and seemed to express a kind of endless pain.

“What kind of sculpture is this?” Within this group of struggling arms, Luo Ji felt a chill, even though he was still sweating from the run. At the sculpture’s edge, he saw a solemn obelisk, on which was carved a line of large golden characters:
MAKE TIME FOR CIVILIZATION, FOR CIVILIZATION WON’T MAKE TIME.

“The Great Ravine Memorial,” Shi Qiang said. He did not seem interested in explaining further, but led Luo Ji out of the sculpture and across the other half of the plaza at a fast clip. “Okay, my boy. This tree’s where I live,” Shi Qiang said, pointing to the massive architectural tree in front of them.