Tales of the End of the Century

Bai Ye was awakened by her own heartbeat.

It wasn't a dream. It was real. The sound of his heartbeat traveled from his chest to his eardrums, one pound after another, like someone pounding on a door. He sat up and noticed that it wasn't fully light outside the window; it was still a hazy gray, and the shadow of the jujube tree clung to the windowpane, its branches like the joints of bones. There was a sound in the yard; Tie Niu was chopping wood. The axe fell, the wood cracking, again and again.

His heartbeat gradually calmed down. Bai Ye touched his forehead; it was covered in sweat. He couldn't remember what he had dreamt about, only that there was a mirror. The face in the mirror blinked at a different frequency than his own. He sat for a while, put on his coat, and opened the door. A cold wind rushed in, chilling his sweat-soaked back.

Tie Niu was indeed chopping wood. He took off his coat, leaving only a faded military shirt, and swung the axe, the wood snapping in two with a crack. A small pile had already formed at his feet. Bai Ye sat down on the threshold. Tie Niu didn't look at him, continuing to chop.

"morning."

Tie Niu nodded. Bai Ye noticed that this was Tie Niu's way of greeting people—a nod, as if to confirm you were still alive, then he'd go about his business. Bai Ye didn't know why he was sitting on the doorstep watching people chop wood so early in the morning. Maybe it was because chopping wood was so normal. Axe, wood, splitting, piled up. It had nothing to do with Project Aurora, nothing to do with the resonator, nothing to do with the shadow standing in the corridor mimicking a wink.

After chopping the last piece of firewood, Tie Niu leaned the axe against the jujube tree and bent down to gather the firewood into a pile. He paused as he straightened up. Bai Ye followed his gaze. A person was standing on the dirt road outside the courtyard gate.

He wasn't from town. The old men in Yushugou all wore blue cotton-padded jackets to sunbathe, but this man wore a dark gray long coat—the kind of attire a city dweller would have. He was a man, around forty years old, with very short hair and slightly graying temples. He stood across the road, hands in his pockets, looking into the courtyard. Not peeking, but openly looking, as if he were looking at a house he intended to rent.

Tie Niu's hand slowly reached for the axe leaning against the jujube tree. The man pulled his right hand out of his pocket; it was empty. Then he did something Bai Ye hadn't expected. He smiled, nodded towards the courtyard, and turned to leave. Not running, but walking, neither fast nor slow, along the dirt road towards the east end of town. He rounded a bend, his path blocked by a row of poplar trees.

"Do you know him?" Bai Ye asked.

Tie Niu shook his head. His gaze was still fixed on the direction where the man had disappeared, his brows furrowed.

Lan Susu woke up too, wearing a coat and coming out of the east wing, her hair disheveled, clutching a notebook in her hand. "What's wrong?" Tie Niu recounted what had just happened. Three sentences. Lan Susu listened, then remained silent for a few seconds.

Did he say anything?

"without."

"Did you do anything?"

He smiled and nodded.

Lan Susu bit her lip and thought for a while. Old Hu also got up, carrying his enamel mug, which contained tea stalks he had found somewhere. After listening, he took a sip of tea.

"I'll come again."

How did you know?

"If he didn't plan to come back, he wouldn't have smiled like that." Old Hu blew away the tea leaves. "He smiled at you to tell you that he'll come back."

Bai Ye agreed with Lao Hu. That man's smile wasn't polite; it was a notification. A notification that they had been found. Tie Niu picked up the axe from beside the jujube tree and tucked it behind his waist.

"Let's finish getting things sorted out today. We'll move to a different location tomorrow."

They spent the whole day organizing the things they brought from Research Institute No. 17. Lan Susu translated Sergei's notes page by page, and Bai Ye helped her copy them. Some pages were soaked in water, and the writing had bled, so they had to guess. Lao Hu was in charge of sorting; he couldn't read Russian, but he could divide the documents into several stacks based on the texture of the paper, the color of the ink, and the newness of the creases. Tie Niu stood under the jujube tree in the yard, sharpening his knife. He sharpened it from morning until afternoon. Bai Ye copied until his hand got tired, so he put down his pen and stretched his fingers.

"Lan Susu, I have a question for you."

"Um."

"Sergei said that thing can mimic humans. It's becoming more and more like one." Bai Ye looked at the page he had copied. "What's its purpose in mimicking humans?"

Lan Susu put down her pen. "Have you looked in the mirror?"

"It's been taken."

"You smile at yourself in the mirror, and the person in the mirror smiles back at you. You raise your hand, and it raises its hand too." Lan Susu pushed a translated page in front of Bai Ye. "But is the you in the mirror really smiling, or is it just imitating your movements?"

Bai Ye did not answer.

"Sergei believes that thing is like a mirror," Lan Susu said, "but it's not made of glass. It's alive. It's learning how to become us. Not becoming a particular person, but becoming the species 'human'."

"And then what?"

Lan Susu pulled a piece of paper from the bottom of the pile of documents. It was the only one in Sergei's notebook written in red ink, the handwriting more hasty than the others, as if in a hurry, or perhaps excited. "This is from the last few pages of his work. I just translated it this morning," Bai Ye said, taking it from her. The translation was very short.

"November 19th. I'm no longer recording the distance. Because it's no longer outside. It's inside. Not in this room, it's here." An arrow is drawn after it, pointing to a hand-drawn outline of a human head. The arrow pierces the temple and embeds itself in the center of the skull. "I don't know when it came in. Maybe yesterday, maybe a week ago. I recall my actions over the past few days, some fragments like someone else's memories. This morning I made a cup of coffee, and only halfway through drinking it did I realize I never drink coffee."

Bai Ye put the paper down.

He meant—

"Yes. That thing is probably already learning how to become Sergei. Not by imitating his appearance, but by going inward. First he learns the behavior, then he learns the memory, and finally—" Lan Susu paused, "finally he will think he is Sergei. And then Sergei will no longer be needed."

Bai Ye looked down at the notes he had only copied halfway through. The handwriting was neat, and every line was aligned. He suddenly had a thought—how many glasses of water had he drunk while copying these things yesterday? He couldn't remember. He remembered that he had been copying the notes the whole time, but whether he had gotten up to get water or spoken to anyone was a blur.

"I made myself a cup of coffee this morning, and only halfway through drinking it did I realize that I never drink coffee."

Bai Ye suddenly stood up. The chair tipped backward and hit the ground with a dull thud. Lan Susu and Lao Hu both looked at him. Tie Niu came in from the yard, his hand on the handle of an axe.

"What's wrong?"

Bai Ye opened his mouth. "Yesterday—" He stopped. Yesterday afternoon he did pour himself a glass of water. An enamel mug, on the upper left corner of the table. He remembered that mug, Old Hu's, with a faded peony printed on it. He remembered reaching for it, taking a sip, and putting it back. Then he continued copying. Was the water cold or hot? He didn't remember. Did he pour the water himself? He didn't remember.

Lan Susu looked at his face and slowly stood up.

"Bai Ye, look at me."

He looked at her.

"What time did you start copying yesterday afternoon?"

"A little after two o'clock."

"Did you get up at all in the middle?"

"I got up." He thought for a moment. "I got up once. I went to the yard."

"What are you going to do in the yard?"

Bai Ye opened his mouth. He wanted to say he was going for some fresh air, but he realized he couldn't remember why he was going to the yard. He only remembered standing under the jujube tree, looking up at the sky. The sky was gray. Then he came back. He continued copying.

"I don't remember," he said.

A few seconds of silence filled the room. Old Hu placed the enamel mug on the table and pushed it towards Bai Ye. The mug contained half a cup of cold water, with a tea stalk floating on the surface. "The water you drank from this mug yesterday," Bai Ye nodded. "Where was this mug yesterday?" "The upper left corner of the table."

Old Hu picked up the jar and turned it over. A faded peony flower was imprinted on the bottom. He looked at Bai Ye.

"This jar was in the kitchen all day yesterday. It wasn't taken out."

Bai Ye felt something creeping up his spine. He remembered the jar. He remembered it being on the upper left corner of the table. He remembered reaching for it, taking a sip, and putting it back. But Lao Hu said he never took it out. Whose memory was true?

Tie Niu walked over and placed the axe on the table. He took Bai Ye's left hand and opened it. There was a scabbed wound on his palm, from a shard of glass when he climbed over the wall. He pointed to the scabbed wound.

"How did this come about?"

"Climb over the wall. Broken glass."

Which wall?

"Behind Lan Susu's office. The alley near the boiler room."

Tie Niu nodded. "That was three days ago. You remember." He then pointed to Bai Ye's right index finger, where there was a very thin, fresh scratch on the tip, not yet scabbed over, as if it had been cut by paper.

"How did this come about?"

Bai Ye stared at the scratch. He didn't remember.

Lan Susu flipped to the last page of his notebook. There were some drawings on the blank page. Not words, but pictures. Very light pencil lines, like a casual sketch. A rough human figure outlined, with three question marks next to it, circled in red. The figure's head was drawn with a swirling symbol, spiraling inwards. Exactly the same as the one Sergei had drawn in his notebook.

Bai Ye doesn't remember drawing this.

In the courtyard, the shadow of the jujube tree slowly shifted across the ground. Tie Niu put away his axe, Lao Hu took the enamel mug back to the kitchen, and Lan Susu placed the paper with the swirling human figure drawn on it into an empty file folder. Bai Ye sat on the threshold, looking at his right hand. The scratch on his index finger was very fine, almost invisible, but it was definitely there. Who drew it? When did they draw it? He didn't remember. But he remembered the mug, remembered it being on the upper left corner of the table. That memory was so clear, so clear it didn't seem fake.

The sun was setting, and the shadow of the courtyard wall covered most of the yard. Bai Ye was still sitting on the threshold. Lan Susu came out of the house and sat down next to him.

"There's another sentence in Sergei's notes that I just translated this afternoon, but I didn't have time to show it to you." She took a folded piece of paper from her pocket and unfolded it. There was only one line on it.

"If you find yourself doing something you can't remember starting, stop. That's practice."

Bai Ye folded the paper and returned it to her.

"What if we can't stop?"

Lan Susu did not answer.

Footsteps echoed on the dirt road. Not from the town. An old man in a blue cotton-padded jacket walked, his shoes scraping the ground with each step. The footsteps were steady, leather shoes, neither fast nor slow. Bai Ye looked up. A person stood across the road. The same one from this morning. A long, dark gray coat, around forty years old, short hair, with slightly graying temples. He stood in the shade of a poplar tree, hands in his pockets, looking into the yard. This time he didn't smile. He spoke.

"You took what you shouldn't have." The voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear across the dirt road. "That cassette tape. Sergei's notes. You don't know what that is."

Tie Niu came out of the house, an axe in his hand. The man saw Tie Niu but did not back down.

"I know who you are," he said to Tie Niu. "Research Institute No. 17, Security Team. You're the only one who came out. You thought you escaped." He paused. "You didn't escape. It was deliberately let you go."

Tie Niu's fingers gripped the axe handle tightly.

"It needs someone to take it out," the man said. "You've been doing it for six years. You didn't even realize it."

Quiet returned to the dirt road. The shadows of the poplar trees stretched slowly on the ground. The man pulled his right hand out of his pocket, raised a finger, and pointed to his temple.

"It's in here," he said. "It's been here from the beginning."

He turned and walked along the dirt road towards the east end of town. His leather shoes trod the dirt road, one step at a time, neither fast nor slow. He turned past the row of poplar trees and disappeared. Tie Niu stood there, his axe hanging at his side. Bai Ye saw his hands trembling for the first time.

At night, Bai Ye lay on the kang (a heated brick bed), staring at the ceiling. Old Hu's snoring came from the main room. Tie Niu was awake, sitting under the jujube tree, an axe across his knees. Lan Susu's window was still lit. Bai Ye closed his eyes. He saw the mirror. The person in the mirror had his face, but blinked at a different frequency. It was looking at him, its mouth opening and closing. This time he read the lip movements. Not "Run!"

It means "Let me in".

He opened his eyes. There was a crack in the ceiling, stretching from the corner to the light fixture, like a dried-up river. He heard his own heartbeat, steady and firm. Then he heard another heartbeat. Very light, very slow, overlapping with his own. Like two people breathing in the same room. He slowly turned his head.

There was nothing in the corner. The shadow of the jujube tree clung to the window. But he knew that something was no longer outside the door.