Red Moon

AI 9 xue liang Sharp Eyes

“Alert,” said the voice of Little Eyeball.

“One moment,” said the analyst. He made sure he was alone and his room secure. “Okay, Little Eyeball. Tell me.”

“You instructed me to alert you when troop movements around Beijing showed substantial changes in pattern or number, and now they have.”

“Bring them up on a map, please.”

“Done.”

The analyst regarded the map. It looked like the great city’s Seventh Ring Road was being set up as some kind of perimeter. That was a big perimeter, but then again not as big as the entire city, which would mean almost the entire province. Although Jing-Jin-Ji was also going to be defended, it appeared, and that was most of Hebei Province. No, something was coming. Or at least someone thought something was coming. If he could see it by way of Little Eyeball, then other parts of the security apparatus certainly were aware of it. Whatever it was.

“Give me travel numbers, also denials of travel and route cancellations, please. Numbers of arrests nationwide. All recent changes of that sort. Again, show them on a map.”

After a pause of a second: “Done.”

He regarded the map, scrolled around, zoomed in and out. “Waa sai,” he said, gulping. Arrests were up by 183 percent over the previous month. “Someone is preparing to cope with a movement as big as the New Year’s travel. This year that was three times larger than the number of Muslims who made the hajj to Mecca.”

“There are many people in China,” Little Eyeball observed.

“Yes. Good hunt for causes. Now, recall the chaos that always occurs in the interregnum between dynasties. Recall the era of the Warring States, or the White Lotus rebellion, or the long disruption between the end of the Qing and 1949.”

“Recall the Cultural Revolution,” Little Eyeball suggested.

“Yes, good on similarity,” the analyst said, pleased. He had continued to program Little Eyeball intensively, and it seemed that this work was finally getting some traction. Its sentences were unevenly perceptive, but often it seemed like it was doing more than just searching and sorting in the databases; something like deduction, association, analysis….“The Cultural Revolution was not as bloody as those earlier ones,” he instructed, “but it was like them in that we Chinese turned on ourselves. No one knew what was right or wrong, or how that would change the next day. No one knew what to do or not to do.”

“So you have said.”

“China was never the same after that, I think. We lost our socialist bearings, and became just another powerful country. Big but not different. And it was the difference that mattered. Now we are just a big gear in a larger machine.”

“You once said Deng had no choice but to join the world.”

“True. He was making the best of the situation that Mao and the Gang of Four left him.”

“That was long ago.”

“True. But now a time of trouble has come again, it looks like. The tigers are fighting, and the people don’t like it.”

“Perhaps the authorities will stop all trains.”

“Even if they do that, people can walk. The billion are within walking distance of Beijing, if they want to go.”

“The number of people who could do that would be approximately three hundred million, depending on how you define walking distance.”

“Three hundred million will seem like a billion, let me assure you! There would be no stopping a crowd like that.”

“What can the authorities do in the face of such momentum? I wonder what will happen.”

“Me too, my curious little AI. Good for you for thinking to ask a question. I’m not sure what they could do. It’s a big crowd. And if it could be choreographed! That’s what I’m thinking about. You must help me with that. We must try to change this movement from a march to a dance. From revolt to phase change. From bloodshed to singing. This is what we have to try for.”

“People would have to know about this try in order to change. A plan known to participants is what distinguishes dance from riot.”

“Very well put, and a good point too. And very possibly our acquaintance Chan Qi is in a position to spread the plan. I suspect that is her role in all this.”

“You can contact her and tell her.”

The analyst nodded and went to the corner of his office where a stack of Unicaster 3000s stood. He picked up the one paired with Chan Qi’s, brought it to his workbench, turned it on, tapped a call, sent it to her.

“I hope she answers,” he said.

A few minutes passed. It felt longer. The analyst sighed, wished for the millionth time that he was still a smoker. He wondered what Chan Qi was doing, and if she had any idea who he was, or any interest in someone working from inside the Great Firewall. He had been part of the Chinese security apparatus for his entire career; he had helped to build it. Now he was trying to change the system from inside, just as Chan Qi was from her different location. She thought she was trying to change it from the outside, but really as a princessling she was both. They were much the same in that regard. Inside and outside; and the liminal position was sometimes powerful, if always confusing. Sinology leads to sinocism, as the foreign analysts put it. And the situation across the country was growing untenable in certain respects. The global environmental disaster including the sheer lack of water in the ground, the exploitation of the migrants, the crisis of representation, all these had to be solved or the Chinese people would turn against the Party, and the chaos of dynastic succession would erupt again. In the information age, the globalization age, might it be possible for a new dynasty to come to power, not just in China but everywhere around the world, and without bloodshed? This was what they were in the midst of finding out.

Then, just as the analyst was concluding that Chan Qi wasn’t going to reply, characters appeared on the little screen.

What do you want?

He took a deep breath. How to say it?

We see clear signs that the security apparatus and the military are taking actions to preemptively crush your movement. Arrests have increased tenfold and most transport systems are being sharply curtailed.

Why is that happening now?

I don’t know. They must have seen signs.

He forbore to give her advice. He wasn’t sure what to say in that regard, and saying anything would very likely alienate her. She would only listen to advice that helped her organize her previous thoughts, whatever they were. You can’t push the river.

You’re sure about this? she asked.

Quite sure. Arrests are occurring even now. Travel is curtailed.

Okay, thanks. More later.

And with that she signed off.

The analyst sat back in his chair and heaved a sigh. He reread the transcript of their exchange, sighed again. If only a cigarette. No way to know what effect this would have. She had her resources, he had his. He could only do what he could do from his own position. The front was broad, the allies in a cause had to help each other—

Then the power went off, and the analyst was sitting in the dark. He muttered under his breath, turned on his wristpad’s light, looked around his room, which suddenly seemed smaller. A little cave under a mountain. A dark refuge in a dark time.

Noises came from without, the door burst open, powerful beams of light splintered his sight and cut the room into shards of black and white. He was seized by the arms and lifted into the air.

“You’re under arrest,” a voice said.