The Wandering Earth: Classic Science Fiction Collection

The Wages of Humanity

“Business is business; nothing more, nothing less.” It was the code that Mr. Smoothbore lived by.

This time, however, things had turned out to be somewhat more complicated.

The problems had started at the onset; even the setup for the contract had been all wrong. The client wanted to meet him in person. In his line of business, that was a very unusual request indeed. It had been three years, but Mr. Smoothbore could still clearly hear his instructor telling them that their relationship with a client should be no different than the relationship of their own forehead and the back of their skull: Never should the two meet. Naturally, this approach to their business was in the interest of both parties.

The location the client had chosen for their meeting had done nothing to alleviate Mr. Smoothbore’s bewilderment; it was the opulent Grand Presidential Hall of the most exclusive five-star hotel in the entire city. Of all venues imaginable, it was probably the least appropriate to conduct their kind of business. Going by what the other side had already told him, Mr. Smoothbore knew that the contract would involve processing three pieces of work. That part of it did not trouble him at all; he never did mind going the extra mile.

The doorman opened the large, gilded doors of the Grand Presidential Hall. Before entering, Mr. Smoothbore inconspicuously reached inside his jacket, gently loosening the safety at the holster under his left armpit. It was hardly necessary; no one would do anything too unexpected in a place like this.

The large hall before him was truly magnificent, a reality of its own that seemed completely removed from the world outside. The sumptuous chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were the suns of this world, shining down on the vast plains of scarlet carpet below. Glancing across the vast hall, Mr. Smoothbore saw them. It should have been one, but he was faced with thirteen. Mr. Smoothbore had not seen it coming and it did not please him. His instructor had told him that the relationship with his clients should be as one has with a lover: Having more than one is fine, but you should only meet with one at a time.

They were standing in a corner of the Grand Hall, gathered in front of two French windows. In the gap between the windows’ heavy curtains he could see the sky above. Mr. Smoothbore knew exactly what they were looking at: Our Elders’ spaceship was again moving to the Southern Hemisphere, coming into clear view as it passed overhead. Three years ago, the Gods had departed Earth, fortifying humanity to the shock of meeting extraterrestrial civilizations with their monumental visit from the depths of space. When the Gods had arrived, the 20,000 ships of their fleet had covered the sky; our Elders had come to Earth in but a single spaceship and that spaceship looked even less alien than the Gods’ bizarre vessels. The ship now in the sky above was, in effect, no more than a giant rod with rounded ends, somewhat like a ridiculously oversized medicine capsule.

Seeing Mr. Smoothbore enter, the 13 left the windows and walked toward the large, round table at the center of the Grand Hall. Mr. Smoothbore recognized some among them and instantly part of the grandeur of the magnificent hall faded. In their presence it looked almost shabby. The most conspicuous of the group was Zhu Hanyang, a software magnate whose Orient 3000 Operating System was replacing the outdated Microsoft Windows system all across the globe. The others were almost his equal, themselves residents of the top 50 of the Fortune 500. These people’s annual income was easily comparable to the GDP of entire nations. Apparently, Mr. Smoothbore had stumbled upon a Fortune Global Forum in miniature.

These people were nothing like the Honored Brother Crosscut. It seemed obvious why; Crosscut had struck it rich overnight, whereas the 13 before him were dynasts. They were the nobility of this age and they had fully internalized their wealth. It was similar in concept to the diamond ring on Mr. Zhu’s hand; thin and exquisite, it almost disappeared between his slender fingers, only occasionally glinting with warm light. Its worth, however, was probably easily the equivalent of dozens of the gleaming, walnut-sized, golden baubles that adorned the fingers of the Honored Brother Crosscut.

It hardly mattered. These 13 nobles by wealth were gathered here to hire a professional hit-man to kill, and kill not one, but three. And according to his contact, this would only be the first batch.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Smoothbore paid the diamond ring no real attention. What he did look at was the three photos in Mr. Zhu’s hands. The snapshots clearly showed the work for processing.

Mr. Zhu leaned across the table and slid the photos toward him. Examining them more closely, Mr. Smoothbore could not help but feel a slight tingling of frustration. His instructor had once told him that he should always be familiar with those who might become work in the arena in which he plied his trade. At least in this city, he had done just that. Nonetheless, he was completely unable to place the three faces on the photos before him. All of them had been taken with a telephoto lens and the faces showing looked positively disheveled; they did not even appear to belong to the same species as the nobility sitting before him. Mr. Smoothbore noticed that one among them was a woman, still very young and relatively tidy, that is, when compared to the other two. At least her hair was meticulously kept, even though it was covered in dust. What really stood out, however, were her eyes. Mr. Smoothbore always carefully studied people’s eyes; it was the habit of everyone in his line of business. Normally, he saw one of two expressions◦— eyes full of anxious desire in some or eyes that had gone dull in others. The pair of eyes in the photo, however, shone with the rare light of tranquility. Mr. Smoothbore’s heart was ever so slightly moved, but the feeling vanished in a blink, disappearing without him ever becoming aware of its rise, like a thin mist blown away by the wind.

“This is the business we, the Committee for the Liquidation of Wealth, entrust to you. All our standing members are gathered here. I serve as the committee’s chair,” Mr. Zhu said to open their conversation.

Committee for the Liquidation of Wealth? What a strange name, Mr. Smoothbore thought. Obviously it was made up of the wealthiest powerbrokers, but beyond that he was completely in the dark. Even so, he didn’t ponder the meaning of their name any further, well aware that it would probably be impossible to figure it out without further information.

“Their locations are noted on the back of the pictures, but be aware that they have no fixed addresses. We can only provide an approximate area, so you will need to find them. That, however, should not prove difficult. The money has already been wired to your account. First, verify its receipt,” Mr. Zhu instructed, dispassionate to the point of sounding mechanical.

Looking up at him, Mr. Smoothbore found the expression in the man’s eyes to be anything but noble; his belonged to the dull and empty ones. Somewhat to Mr. Smoothbore’s surprise, there was not even a trace of desire left in Mr. Zhu’s eyes.

Mr. Smoothbore retrieved his cell phone and checked his account. Counting the long string of zeros after the number, he coldly answered, “First, not so much; just pay according to my bid. Second, pay half in advance and half on completion.”

“Done,” Mr. Zhu stated disapprovingly.

Mr. Smoothbore’s fingers flew over his cell phone. “Sir, you can verify that I have returned the excess funds. We, too, have our professional standards.”

“In fact, we now often engage in this kind of business and we value your work ethic and sense of honor,” Xu Xueping noted with a touching smile. She was the president of the Remote Sourcing Group. Remote Sourcing had been born out of the aftermath of the full liberalization of the city’s electricity market, becoming Asia’s largest power company.

“This is the first batch. Please do it cleanly,” the offshore oil tycoon Xue Tong said from across the table. It was more of a declaration than a request.

“Rapid cooling or delayed cooling?” Mr. Smoothbore asked, and then immediately added, “I can explain, if need be.”

“We understand,” Mr. Zhu replied flatly, “and it does not matter. Do as you will.”

“What form of verification? Video or physical?” Mr. Smoothbore continued down his list of options.

“Neither is necessary. When you are done, we will verify it ourselves.” Mr. Zhu’s tone betrayed no hint of emotion.

“Will that be all?” Mr. Smoothbore finished.

“Yes, you can go now,” Mr. Zhu said by way of dismissing him.

Mr. Smoothbore left the hotel. Looking up at the narrow sky rising above the skyscraper canyon, he watched the slow passage of our Elders’ ship. The spaceship was massive and flew at a tremendous speed. Apparently, it was in the process of reducing its orbital altitude. The ship’s sleek surface was covered with brilliant, endlessly changing patterns that had an almost hypnotic affect on anyone who stared for too long. The spaceship’s surface was actually completely featureless, covered only by the perfectly reflective surface. The patterns those ground-bound observers saw were nothing other than the reflection of the Earth passing below. In Mr. Smoothbore’s mind the ship was as purest silver, a thing of beauty in his eyes. He liked silver very much. It was so unlike gold, which he did not really care for, which he viewed as so calm and cold.

Three years ago before they left, the Gods had told humanity that that they had created a total of six Earths. Now, only four remained, all within 200 light-years of each other. The Gods had urged humanity to spare no effort in its technological development: It was incumbent on us to eliminate our three brothers before they eliminated us, had been the mantra.

But the notice had come too late.

They had come from one of those far away Earths◦— the First Earth. Not long after the Gods had left the solar system, their spaceship had entered Earth’s orbit. The civilization of the alien First Earthers was twice as old as Earth’s own and so humanity had come to call them “Our Elders”.

Mr. Smoothbore retrieved his cell phone and again checked his account. Honored Brother Crosscut, I now have as much as you. Even so, it still feels lacking, he thought. You, on the other hand, I guess you always felt that you already had it all and what was done was nothing, but the desperate attempt to avoid losing it…

He shook his head, trying to cast the shadow from his mind. This was not the time to think of his Honored Brother Crosscut. That was bad luck.

The Honored Brother Crosscut’s name originated from the saw that was never far from his side. This saw was very thin and flexible, but also incredibly sharp. The saw’s handle was made of hard sea-willow and was decorated with beautiful Japanese ukiyo-e carvings. Crosscut used to wear it around his waist, like a strange belt. In his free time he often took the saw off and played a violin bow across its back. By bending its blade and playing across the various widths of the saw’s body, the Honored Brother Crosscut could produce notes, even music. The strange tunes he played would hang in the air, their melancholy and dark timbre always reminding Mr. Smoothbore of a ghost’s sobs. Mr. Smoothbore had of course heard of the sharp saw’s other use, but he had only once seen the Honored Brother Crosscut actually apply it in full.

It had been during a high-stakes game in an old warehouse. One of the senior brothers, a man appropriately called Mr. Half-Brick, had no luck and played worse. Soon, he had lost everything, even his parent’s house. With his eyes bloodshot, he had offered both of his arms in an all or nothing bet. The Honored Brother Crosscut had thrown him the dice and with a cruel smile told him that he could not bet his arms; after all, what fun would he be to have around without his hands?

“Bet your legs,” he had told him.

So, Mr. Half-Brick had bet both his legs◦— and he lost again. Crosscut had stood, unfolded his saw and taken both of Mr. Half-Brick’s legs off at the knees. The strange symphony of sounds of the saw cutting through tendons and parting bone rang clearly in Mr. Smoothbore’s ears since that day. Back then, the Honored Brother Crosscut had stood on Mr. Half-Brick’s neck to trap the shrieks of agony in his throat, leaving only the rhythmic sound of the saw being pulled back and forth across flesh and through bone. It played a lively tune across the innards of the knee, changing its timbre and tone as it opened the depths of bone and cartilage. Snow-white bone-ends were splashed with scarlet blood to the sound of music, conjuring an abstract image of exquisite beauty. Its strange harmony had shaken Mr. Smoothbore right to his very core. Every last inch of his body, inside and out, had joined the song of saw and flesh. Damn, that was life!

It had been his eighteenth birthday, and he had received the perfect present. After it was done, the Honored Brother Crosscut had wiped his beloved saw and wrapped it back around his waist. Pointing to the trails of blood that had been left behind were Mr. Half-Brick and his two legs had been dragged away, he said, “Tell the young Mr. Brick that I will provide for him from now on.”

Even though Mr. Smoothbore had been young he had been a trusted member of the Honored Brother Crosscut’s family as it rose to power and barely a month went by without a bloody job. When Crosscut had finally made his first fortune in the blood-soaked gutter of society, he moved up in the world, rising from a brutal thug to become a respectable criminal, well-shielded behind front-organizations and legitimate investments. In the wake of his rise, the loyal men of his crime family were all given positions as vice-chairman, vice-director general, and titles of the like. Only Mr. Smoothbore was left behind as the Honored Brother Crosscut’s bodyguard. But those in the know understood that the level of trust and confidence this appointment implied was no trifling matter. The Honored Brother Crosscut had always been careful; it was a habit probably brought on by the fate of his godfather who himself had already been a very careful man. In the words of the Honored Brother Crosscut, he would have wrapped himself in iron if could have.

Even after many years of peace, Crosscut’s godfather had boarded that fateful flight with only two of his most trusted bodyguards. He had taken a seat between them, thinking himself as safe as could be. It was a flight attendant who found the three men after they had landed, wondering why they had not left their seats. At first glance they had looked lost in thought. A second look revealed that their blood had already spilled down a dozen rows. The three men had been impaled from behind by very slender, wickedly sharp steel needles. These needles had been pushed through their backrests, piercing the bodyguard’s hearts with three spikes each. As for the godfather, his body had been skewered by no less than 14 sharp metal needles, leaving him pinned to his seat like a butterfly, meticulously and lovingly prepared for display. They were sure that the 14 had been a message, perhaps hinting at 14 million ill-gotten yuan, or it could have been that his killer had waited 14 years for his vengeance…

As he set out on his journey, it was no different for the Honored Brother Crosscut. His entire world became a forest of secret blades and hidden pitfalls. He had truly put his life in Mr. Smoothbore’s hands.

Soon, however, Mr. Smoothbore’s position had been threatened by Mr. K. The Russian Mr. K had been a downright fashion statement◦— a KGB bodyguard. In those days, that had been as good a trophy for the rich as a movie star lover. The people around Crosscut had a good share of trouble pronouncing the unfamiliar sounds of his Russian name and so they just called him Mr. KGB at first. They went to “Mr. K” from there. In truth, Mr. K had never been KGB. Former KGB officers were more often than not glorified desk jockeys and even the ones that had served on the hot frontlines of the Cold War were amateurs in the realm of personal security. Mr. K had been part of the security services of the Central Security Bureau of the Soviet Union and had served on the detail of Andrei Gromkyo, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs who had gained his fame in the West as “Mr. Nyet”. In that roundabout way, Mr. K was the genuine article and true expert when it came to keeping his clients breathing. The Honored Brother Crosscut had hired him on a salary equivalent to a vice-chair of his company. This was no act of vanity on Crosscut’s part, but merely a precaution in consideration of his own security.

The moment Mr. K made his appearance it became clear that he was nothing like the other run-of-the-mill bodyguards around the Honored Brother Crosscut. Those bodyguards, who had learned their trade protecting the wealthy and powerful, would dine with their employers and would feel free to butt in when their client was talking shop. When real danger reared its head, they would either charge it like a street thug or leave their client in the dust of their panicked retreat. Mr. K, on the other hand, whether he attended a dinner or negotiations, always remained silent and in the background, his massive frame a literal wall of body, ever ready to block any incoming peril. Even though Mr. K never had the opportunity to protect a client from danger, his professionalism and abilities made it certain beyond doubt that he would perform his duty to perfection. Mr. Smoothbore was somewhat more professional than the other bodyguards and had not developed their bad habits, but he nonetheless felt a world of difference between him and Mr. K. For example, it took him a long time to understand that Mr. K wore sunglasses at all times not to look cool, but to hide where he was looking.

Mr. K learned Chinese quickly enough, but still he would not cavort with Mr. Smoothbore or anyone else in his client’s circle. He maintained this distance until one day, when he suddenly asked Mr. Smoothbore into his Spartan room. After Mr. K had poured Mr. Smoothbore and himself a glass of vodka, he told him in halting Chinese, “I want to teach you to speak.”

“Speak?” Mr. Smoothbore had asked.

“Speak a foreign language,” Mr. K had replied.

After that, Mr. Smoothbore had started learning a foreign language from Mr. K. A few days later he realized that he was not being taught Russian, but English. Mr. Smoothbore was quick to pick it up and before too long his English had become decently fluent. Seeing his rapid development, Mr. K had told him, “You are not like the others.”

“It feels like that to me,” Mr. Smoothbore had said with a nod.

“In thirty years of professional experience, I have learned to accurately pick out the rare people with your kind of potential. To be honest, it chilled me when I looked into your eyes for the first time. You know, being cold-blooded for a moment is not all that difficult, but having frozen blood that never warms, now that is the real thing. You could be one of the elite; just don’t let yourself get buried amongst the others,” Mr. K had told him.

“What should I do?” Mr. Smoothbore had wanted to know.

“First, go study abroad,” Mr. K had instructed.

The Honored Brother Crosscut had loved the idea the moment he heard of it from Mr. K, going as far as to promise his full backing and funding. In fact, he had wanted to rid himself of Mr. Smoothbore ever since he had hired Mr. K, but had no open positions in the company.

So one winter night, a plane carried the young man who had been orphaned in childhood and who had grown up in the darkest corners of the criminal underworld to strange lands.

Starting his ancient Santana, Mr. Smoothbore made his way to the locations on the back of the photos. His first stop was Blossom Plaza. Finding the person in the photo was hardly an effort; the homeless man on the picture was rummaging through a trashcan just as Mr. Smoothbore arrived. Having completed his forage, the bum made his way to a bench, bulging garbage bags in tow. His pickings had been rich; a large, almost undisturbed takeout box netting him an only once-bitten sausage, a few pieces of mostly intact bread and half a can of Coke. Mr. Smoothbore had expected that the bum would use his hands to wolf down his procurements, but he instead saw the man retrieve a small aluminum spoon from his filthy overcoat. Even though summer had already begun to heat the city, the man was still wearing layers of thick rags. He then proceeded to slowly eat his dinner, returning what little waste he left to the trashcan he had first retrieved it from.

Mr. Smoothbore studied his surroundings, watching the dark slowly fall over the city. He knew this area like the back of his hand, but now it somehow felt strange. He quickly figured out how this bum managed to maintain his plump shape. The plaza was a common haunt for the city’s homeless, but now he could find not a one. Not one bum other than his mark remained. Where had they gone? Had they all been processed?

Mr. Smoothbore headed to the next location. It was a shack, made of corrugated sheets and cardboard boxes, huddled under an overpass at the edge of the city. As Mr. Smoothbore arrived, he noticed pale yellow light shining through its flimsy walls. He carefully approached, prying open a crack in the shack’s “door”. Poking his head in, he was stunned by the bright and colorful world within. The inside of the shack was entirely covered in paintings of all shapes and sizes, forming solid walls of art. Following a wisp of smoke, Mr. Smoothbore found the vagrant artist. The man was lying in a broken easel. Long hair hanging over a paint-covered face and wearing an extra large t-shirt that seemed more like a robe on him, he reminded Mr. Smoothbore of a hibernating bear. The painter was smoking a pack of bargain basement cigarettes while his eyes shifted from one work to the next, to Mr. Smoothbore. His gaze overflowed with both wonder and loss, leaving Mr. Smoothbore with the feeling that he must be the first person to enter this private world. He could easily imagine the vagrant painter spending days on end here alone, captured by the narcissistic wonder of his own creation and creations. This kind of failed and penniless artists had been legion in the ’90s of the last century, but these days they had become a rare sight.

“It’s all right, come in,” the artist said, his eyes still wandering over his paintings. He did not even look at the door as Mr. Smoothbore entered his shack. His tone was as unexpected as everything else about the man; he sounded more like an emperor, opening his palace to an audience. “Do you like my paintings?” he asked as soon as Mr. Smoothbore had come inside.

Mr. Smoothbore looked about, discovering most of the art to be a mere mess of colors; paint splashed on a canvas at random would have looked downright rational in comparison. There were, however, a few realistic paintings in the mix as well. Mr. Smoothbore’s gaze was quickly drawn to one among these: It was a picture of parched and splitting soil. There was also a few withered plants rising from the cracks, but they all looked like they had died centuries ago. It left him with the impression of a world forever devoid of water and rain. Lying on the broken earth was a human skull, bleached white and covered in a lattice of cracks. Unexpected green sprouts rose from one cavernous eye socket, vibrant and full of life, intensely distinct from the dead, dry world surrounding them. One sprout was topped with a gentle and beautiful flower. The other eye socket actually contained a human eye, a clear pupil staring up at heaven. Much like the artist’s own gaze, it was full of wonder and loss.

“I like that one,” Mr. Smoothbore said, pointing at the painting.

“It is called, ‘Barren Land 2’,” the artist said. “Do you want to buy it?”

“How much?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.

“How much you got?” came the response.

Mr. Smoothbore took out his wallet and handed the artist all of his hundred yuan notes. The strange man only took two.

“That’s all it’s worth. Take it, it’s yours,” he said.

Mr. Smoothbore started the car as he picked up the third photo, studying the location it revealed. A mere moment later he stopped the car’s engine. What the photo showed was right next to the overpass: The city’s largest landfill. He picked up his binoculars and began scanning the dump through his windshield, looking for his mark amongst the scavengers clambering on the trash.

Three-hundred-thousand fed on the garbage of the city, forming a class of their own, complete with its own divisions and social order. The highest ranking could enter the exclusive residential areas and scavenge amongst the mansions and villas. From the exquisite, almost sculpture-like trash cans they could pick out a daily spoil of new shirts, socks, bed sheets and other items the residents considered disposable. They often even found only slightly scratched, quality leather shoes and belts, as well as barely smoked Havana cigars and premium bars of chocolate missing only a corner…

But to pick the garbage of these neighborhoods necessitated large bribes to the security contractors that only a few could afford. The select few who could pay had become the scavenger nobility. The middleclass of scavenger society gathered in the many waste-transfer stations around the city. These were the points of first collection for the city’s trash. The waste found there still contained the most valuable pieces of garbage, such as discarded electronics, metals, intact paper products, abandoned medical equipment and medicines past their due date and the like. The scavengers picked all of it completely clean. These sites were not open to just anyone, however. Every waste-transfer station was under the control of some waste disposal gang-master or another and any scavenger who entered without their authorization was harshly punished; a solid beating and swift kick to the curb for lesser infractions and death for more severe offenders. After passing through the transfer station, the garbage went to the large landfills outside the city. The waste reaching these sites was largely stripped of its “nutrients”, yet it was what the majority of scavengers subsisted off of. This majority was the lowest rung of scavenger society. It was this kind of people that Mr. Smoothbore was looking at right now.

The scavengers were picking through the waste, looking for what little was left for them, primarily scraps of plastics and cardboard, mostly worthless and hard to retrieve. They were also looking for rotten food in the trash which they could sell to the local farmers as pig feed at 10 yuan to the kilo.

The bright skyline of the metropolis loomed in the near distance, twinkling like an enormous gem in the night. Its shimmer illuminated this stinking mountain of garbage, coating it in a faint, flickering glow. The scavengers themselves were well aware of the extravagant luxuries of the nearby city; they faced them every day as they picked through its trash. Amongst the rotting food they would find the legs of a roast piglet, a barely touched grouper fish, a whole chicken…

Complete, fully cooked Silkie chickens had recently become particularly common, owing to the popularity of White Jade Chicken. This en vogue dish was prepared by opening the belly of a Silkie chicken, filling it with tofu and letting it stew. Even though the chickens, known for their fluffy plumage and tasty black meat, were considered a delicacy, diners in the know would not touch it, eating only the tofu. Much like the reed leaves around a rice dumpling, actually eating the chicken made the patron the laughingstock of the culinary world.

As Mr. Smoothbore watched the landfill, he saw the last truck of the day arrive. As it tilted its dumper, a group of scavengers had already gathered to welcome the avalanche of waste. Soon they disappeared in the rising dust and mass of the garbage mountain. It seemed that these people had evolved into a completely new form of human life, unaffected by the stench, bacteria and grime of the waste mountain they lived on. Of course, that illusion was only maintained by seeing how they lived, and not how they died. It was much like with the bodies of bugs and rats; ordinary people almost never noticed their remains and so could not have cared less. The truth, however, was that the bodies of scavengers were all too common on this giant landfill. They died quietly on this mountain, soon to be buried in new waste.

In the dim glow cast by distant floodlights at the edge of the dump, the scavengers were no more than blurred, filthy shadows. Even so, it took Mr. Smoothbore only a few short minutes to make out his mark on the mountain. The quick find was less a tribute to Mr. Smoothbore’s keen perception than to another reason entirely: It was the same as with the bums in Blossom Plaza◦— today he could spot far fewer scavengers than usual on the landfill. And again he was left to wonder what might have happened.

As Mr. Smoothbore began studying his mark, he found her to be much the same as the other scavengers around her. She had a thick string tied around her waist and she was carrying a large, rough woven bag and a rake attached to the end of a long pole. On closer inspection, she did look thinner than the others, her slight stature leaving her stuck at the back of the jostle. Rummaging through the garbage at the periphery of the scavenger pack, she had to make do with the waste of the waste.

Mr. Smoothbore lowered his binoculars, pondering what he had seen as he gently rocked his head side to side. The oddest thing in the world had just happened right before his eyes: A city bum, an impoverished, homeless painter, and a woman who lived off garbage; these three people◦— some of the poorest and weakest in the world◦— somehow seemed to pose a threat to the richest and most powerful magnates in the world. Not only that: Apparently they were enough of a problem to make these super-rich hire a hit-man to kill them?

He had placed “Barren Land 2” on his backseat. Now, the one eye of its skull was staring at him in the dark, piercing him like a spike to the back.

A chorus of screams rose from the edge of the trash, refocusing Mr. Smoothbore’s attention. The world outside his car was enveloped in a blue light. The glow emanated from the east where a blue sun rapidly rose over the horizon. It was our Elder’s ship, moving to the Southern Hemisphere. The spaceship normally emitted no light whatsoever, rising as a small moon in the night sky as it reflected the distant sun’s light. Sometimes, however, it suddenly emanated a blue glow, covering the entire world with its light and throwing all of humanity into a state of nameless terror. This time the spaceship’s light was brighter than it had ever been, possibly because it was in a lower orbit than usual. The blue sun rose behind the city’s skyline, the shadows cast by the distant skyscrapers reaching all the way to the landfill, grasping at it like the black hands of titans. Soon these strange arms retreated as the spaceship continued its rapid ascent into the night sky.

The glow of our Elder’s spaceship greatly increased visibility, offering Mr. Smoothbore the opportunity for a better look at the scavenger girl on the dump. He raised his binoculars again to verify his observations and to re-confirm that she was indeed his mark. The girl was squatting, her bag on her knees, an ever so slight note of terror in her upward-turned gaze. Still, her demeanor was dominated by the calm that had already stood out to him on the photo. Again, Mr. Smoothbore’s heart stirred, but as before, the feeling passed in a flash. He was well aware that these ripples of emotion were surfacing from somewhere in the depths of his soul and he could not ignore the regret of feeling them fade.

The spaceship streaked across the sky, soon disappearing beyond the western horizon. All that remained of it was a strange blue afterglow, shining in the west. Then everything again faded to the dim light of dusk that seemed to reignite the splendid glow of the distant city.

Mr. Smoothbore’s mind returned to the puzzle at hand: Thirteen of the world’s most wealthy individuals wanted to kill three of the world’s poorest. It was beyond absurd. In fact, it exceeded the powers of his imagination. But before the train of his thoughts could continue down this track, he violently pulled his mind’s emergency brake. Slapping the steering wheel in self-directed scorn, Mr. Smoothbore reprimanded himself for violating one of his trade’s highest ideals. The headmaster’s words floated back into his mind, reminding him of his profession’s maxim:

“The gun does not care at whom it is aimed.”

Mr. Smoothbore still had no idea where the institute would be, not even in which country he would study. All he knew was that the plane’s first destination was Moscow. Once he landed he was picked up by something that approximated a welcoming committee. The strangers spoke English without any trace of a Russian accent. They had him don a pair of completely blacked-out sunglasses, disguising him as a blind man as they took him on a journey through the dark. He boarded another plane and flew for more than three hours; then he was in a car for a day. Only when that journey was over did he finally arrive at the institute. He had no way of knowing where he was◦— he may well even have left Russia. What he could tell, was that the institute was located deep in the mountains and that it was surrounded by high walls. Under no circumstances were the students to leave the premises before graduating.

Free of the blacked-out glasses, Mr. Smoothbore soon discovered that the institute’s buildings were divided into two groups: One was made up of gray buildings, completely lacking in any distinguishing features, while the other group of structures was remarkable in both color and shape. He soon learned that the latter were in fact like giant building blocks that could be reassembled into all manner of configurations, producing an infinite variety of firing ranges. In essence, the whole of the institute was nothing more than a particularly spacious and well-equipped firing range.

The institute’s opening ceremony was the only time all of its students were gathered in one place. There were just over 400 of them. At the ceremony, the institute’s silver-haired headmaster himself addressed his students. He had the air of a classic scholar about him, instantly commanding universal respect and reverence. With a strong and clear voice he introduced those gathered to the journey ahead.

“Students, in the coming four years you will learn the theoretical knowledge and practical skills of our profession,” he told them. “It is a profession that will never be named and one of humanity’s oldest, yet it can look forward to an even still brighter future. On the small scale, it can resolve problems for a client that can only be removed by us; on the large scale, it can change the very course of history.

“In the past, a variety of political organizations have offered us significant sums to train guerrilla groups. We always refused. We educate independent specialists; no one else. Independent, that is, of everything but money. From this day on, you should think of yourself as a gun. Your duty is to function as a gun. Realize the beauty of the gun and realize that the gun does not care at whom it is aimed. A holds the gun and uses it to shoot B; B takes the very same gun and uses it to shoot A. It makes no difference to the gun and it carries out both duties with the highest level of excellence. That is the very essence of our professional ethics.”

During the ceremony, Mr. Smoothbore learned the most common terms of his new trade: The assignment itself was called “processing”, the target of an assignment was called the “work”, and its death was called “cooling”.

The institute trained students in the “L”, “M” and “S” specialties. These three letters were shorthand for long, medium and short range.

The “L” specialty was the most esoteric and its tuition fee was exorbitant. Only a select few were enrolled in the L courses and they did not associate with the students of other specialties. Mr. Smoothbore’s instructor also advised them to stay clear of the L specialists. “They are our nobility and they hold the greatest power among us to alter the course of history,” he explained.

The knowledge of the L specialists was wide-ranging and profound and the sniper rifles they employed cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Fully assembled, these weapons were more than six feet long. The L specialists usually processed their work at ranges of over half a mile and it was said that they could even go as far as two miles out. Working at a mile’s range was a complex operation. In the preliminary phase, a series of so-called “wind-chimes” would be set up along the range. These “chimes” were finely crafted, miniature anemometers, capable of providing precise measurements and wirelessly transmitting their readings back to the shooter. The data was displayed on a monitor, revealing the exact wind speeds and directions prevalent along the entire range of the shot.

“M” specialists processed their work at a distance of 50 to 1000 feet. M was the most traditional specialty and boasted the most students. At this range, ordinary guns were the tools of the trade. While the M specialty was the most widely employed, it was also considered prosaic and lacking in mystique.

Mr. Smoothbore was an “S” student, learning to work at ranges closer than 50 feet. The requirements for S weapons were the least stringent. At this range pistols were common, but they could also resort to blades and more obscure implements to get the job done. Amongst the three specialties, S was without doubt the most dangerous, but it was also the most romantic. The headmaster was a grand master in this specialty and personally taught S courses. His first lesson, however, came as a complete surprise: It was English literature.

“You must first understand the values of the S specialty,” the headmaster solemnly instructed them, carefully watching his students’ baffled faces. “In the L and M specialties, the processor and the work never meet. To the very last moment, the work remains completely unaware of its situation and of the fact that they are being processed and cooled. This is, of course, very fortunate for them, but less so for the client. A fair amount of clients require that the work, prior to cooling, be made aware of why and by whom they were marked for processing. We are the ones who tell the work these things. As we do so, we must transcend ourselves and become the client. We must aim to communicate the client’s final message to the work in a consummate and dignified manner, allowing the work to feel the greatest possible level of shock and torment before cooling. This is the beauty and romanticism of the S specialty: The absolute terror in the eyes of the work before cooling. It is the greatest sanctification we can possibly derive from our labors. But to achieve this end, we must achieve a considerable command of both the skill of communication and knowledge of literature.”

So Mr. Smoothbore studied literature for a year. He studied Homer’s epics, recited Shakespeare and read many other works of classical and contemporary authors. It was somewhat to Mr. Smoothbore’s surprise when he realized that this year was probably the most productive of his entire time spent studying abroad. He already knew bits and pieces of all the other things he learned later and eventually he would have mastered the details. A deeper understanding of literature, on the other hand, that was a singular opportunity. Through literature he rediscovered humanity and came to admire the delicate and complicated nature of the human condition. Before, killing someone was like breaking a crude pot filled with reddish liquid. Now, he was pleasantly surprised to find that what he broke was actually the finest jade. This greatly enhanced the pleasure of the kill.

His next course was human anatomy. The S specialty had an advantage over the other two in that it could control the speed at which the work was cooled during processing. The technical terms for this were “rapid” and “delayed” cooling. Many clients requested that their work receive delayed cooling and that the process be videotaped as a keepsake for their private pleasure. Naturally, this required a great deal of artistic proficiency and experience. The study of human anatomy was indispensable in working toward this goal.

Then, the real courses toward his specialty began.

The people picking garbage on the landfill slowly dispersed, leaving only a few stragglers, his mark among them. Mr. Smoothbore decided then and there to process this work tonight. The conventions of his professions demanded that he not commence action during the initial observation, but there were exceptions if an opportunity like this presented itself.

Mr. Smoothbore maneuvered his car out from under the overpass and along the bumpy road toward the landfill. Stopping the vehicle at the edge of the waste mountain, he studied the only path by which the scavengers could exit the landfill. The road was shrouded in darkness, revealing little beyond weeds indistinctly swaying in the night wind. Mr. Smoothbore chose this spot to wait for his work; it was a fantastic place for processing.

He drew his gun and placed it on the car’s dashboard. It was a crude, snub-nose revolver, capable of accepting 7.62 x 25 mm caliber bullets. This ammunition, known as “Black Star”, was widely used in the criminal underworld and was easy to obtain. The weapon had no serial or branding, having been privately manufactured. He had bought the fully functional and in every way practical package for 3000 yuan on the black market in Xishuangbanna in the far south of China. Even though it was undeniably ugly, the gun was well-made, each component precision fit. Its most significant drawback was that the hardest part of the manufacturing process had been left undone: The inside of the gun’s barrel was smooth metal, lacking any form of rifling. It wasn’t that Mr. Smoothbore did not have a better, branded weapon. The Honored Brother Crosscut had even provided him with a 32-round Uzi when he first started working as a bodyguard and had later given him a Type 77 pistol for his birthday, but Mr. Smoothbore kept them stuffed away, never once carrying either weapon. He simply enjoyed his snub-nose. Now, it glinted coldly in the distant light of the city, letting his thoughts drift back to his years at the institute.

The day that the specialist training commenced, the headmaster had demanded each student show his or her weapon. Back then he had felt a keen sense of embarrassment as he placed his snub-nose next to all the other exquisite, high quality arms. The headmaster, however, had picked it up and carefully studied the weapon. His voice had been full of sincere admiration as he praised it. “This is a good one.”

“Its barrel isn’t even rifled and it won’t accept a silencer,” a student had commented scornfully.

“The S specialty requires only a minimum of accuracy and range from a weapon; rifling matters little to us. And a silencer?” the headmaster said. “Why not simply use a small pillow? Boy, do not let yourself be trapped by hackneyed convention. In the hands of a master, this pistol can create art that none of those expensive toys can dream of achieving.”

The headmaster was right, of course; because of its lack of rifling, the bullets fired by the snub-nose tumbled and spun as they cut through the air, unleashing an entirely unusual, bone-chilling scream. The bullet continued to spin even after hitting the work, cutting through the body like a buzz-saw.

“From now on, we will call you Mr. Smoothbore!” the headmaster had said, handing the gun back to him. “Master it well, boy; it will be just like learning to throw a knife.”

Mr. Smoothbore had understood immediately: A knife master throws the knife by its blade, giving it the most powerful spin and the best chance to strike the target with its tip. The headmaster obviously wanted Mr. Smoothbore to master firing bullets from his snub-nose in just this way! If he managed, he would be able to ensure that his bullets inflicted the deepest and most intense wounds possible. Two years of diligent practice and roughly 30,000 bullets later, Mr. Smoothbore finally perfected the skill. His success was somewhat of a surprise all around; even the institute’s best shooting instructors had considered it impossible.

During his studies abroad, Mr. Smoothbore became completely inseparable from his snub-nose revolver. In his fourth year, he came to know a fellow S specialty student by the name of Ms. Flame◦— probably because to her fiery red hair. The institute being what it was, he of course never learned her nationality, but he could guess that she was from somewhere in Western Europe. There were only a few women in the course and almost all were natural sharpshooters. Ms. Flame’s aim, however, was awful and her dagger skills not much better. In fact, at first Mr. Smoothbore had no idea what exactly it was that she had done before coming there. In their first garroting class, however, she pulled a barely visible wire from a delicate ring on one of her fingers. She wrapped this wire around the neck of the training goat with practiced ease and with a tug, the razor sharp wire neatly decapitated the animal. According to Ms. Flame, the wire was a nano-thread, a super-strong material that in the future might be used to build a space elevator.

Ms. Flame did not really love Mr. Smoothbore; that would have never been possible there anyway. Beside Mr. Smoothbore, she also hung out with a Nordic man from another course, known Mr. Icewolf. She constantly harped on about it, trying to provoke the two men. Her ultimate goal was to prod them into a duel. There was little depth to her machinations; all she really wanted was to break the monotony of their classes. It did not take her long to succeed, however, and Mr. Smoothbore and Mr. Icewolf had challenged each other to a game of Russian roulette. In deepest night, the entire class gathered at the shooting range and rearranged its components to form a decent replica of the Coliseum. The duel was to take place in the center of this arena. The weapon of choice was the snub-nose and Ms. Flame would act as the referee. With an elegant flourish, she inserted one bullet into the empty drum of the revolver. Then, holding the barrel in her slender hands, she gave the chamber a good dozen spins. Finally, she presented the gun to the two of them. Both modestly forfeited their chance to go first. With a smile Ms. Flame handed the snub-nose to Mr. Smoothbore.

Mr. Smoothbore slowly lifted the gun, raising its ice cold barrel straight to his temple. A wave of emptiness and loneliness, stronger and stranger than anything he had ever felt, washed over him. He felt a formless, icy wind rush through the entire world, chilling everything. Only his heart remained, the last point of heat in a cold cosmos. His heart hardened and he pulled the trigger.

Five times. Five times the gun’s hammer fell. Five times the chamber turned. At no time did the gun fire. Click, click, click, click, click.

The five-fold sound of metal striking metal was Mr. Icewolf’s death knell. Shouts and applause rose from the gathered class. Crying tears of overflowing joy, Ms. Flame told Mr. Smoothbore that she was his.

In the midst of all the laughter and elation, Mr. Icewolf stood. Nodding toward Mr. Smoothbore, he said, “My Asian friend, there’s been no better wager, not since the very first Colt was made.” His voice rang with an intense sincerity. He turned to Ms. Flame. “Never mind love; life is just a gamble anyway.”

With that he picked up the snub-nose and raised it to his head. With a muffled explosion, blood and bone-chip flared like an elegant flower, blooming from his skull.

Not long after that, Mr. Smoothbore graduated. Again, he was made to wear darkened glasses as he left this nameless institute and returned to his home. He never again heard of the institute. It was as if it had never existed at all.

Returning to the outside world, Mr. Smoothbore learned of a major event that had changed the world: The Gods had arrived to accept support and provision from the humans they had once cultivated. But to the disappointment of humanity, they left after little more than a year, their 20,000 ships vanishing into the depths of the universe.

Mr. Smoothbore was barely off his plane home when he received his first processing contract.

The Honored Brother Crosscut warmly welcomed him home, arranging a luxurious dinner in his honor. At the dinner, Mr. Smoothbore requested to speak with Crosscut in private.

After the others had left, Mr. Smoothbore solemnly addressed his Honored Brother Crosscut. “I grew up by your side. In my heart of hearts you are more than my honorary elder brother; you are my true father. If you now tell me to work in the profession I have learned, I will do it. Just say the word.”

Crosscut affectionately clasped Mr. Smoothbore’s shoulders. “If you want to, go and do it. I can see that you enjoy it and I am sure whatever road you may take, you will have a bright future ahead of you. It does not matter if you stay in the underbelly or become a respectable criminal. I am sure you will make something of yourself.”

“Thank you, I understand,” Mr. Smoothbore replied.

As soon as the last word had left his mouth, he drew his gun and pointed it straight at the belly of the Honored Brother Crosscut. The twisting bullet cut into the stomach at just the right angle, ripping a gaping wound. Leaving the body through the exit wound, it spun its way into the floorboard.

The Honored Brother Crosscut stared at Mr. Smoothbore through the mist beginning to cloud his vision. Shock flashed across his dying eyes, but it was soon followed by the fading light of understanding. Then, dull emptiness. The Honored Brother Crosscut smiled at Mr. Smoothbore, nodding his head in weird jerks. “You have made your way, my boy.”

Blood frothed from the mouth of the Honored Brother Crosscut as he spoke his final words. Then he gently slid to the ground.

The contract Mr. Smoothbore had accepted was for an hour-long, delayed cooling, but without a recording. The client trusted him.

Mr. Smoothbore poured himself a drink as he calmly watched the blood pool around the Honored Brother Crosscut. The dying man on the ground was sluggishly gathering his spilling intestines. No sooner had he pushed them back into his body, than his guts gushed forth again. In slow motion The Honored Brother once again began to gather them up…

He repeated this Sisyphus labor 12 times before he drew his last breath. That was exactly one hour after the gunshot.

Mr. Smoothbore had told the Honored Brother Crosscut the truth when he told him that he was like a father to him. When he was five one rainy night, his father had lost yet another bet and had attempted to make his mother hand over to him every last yuan of their savings. When his mother had resisted, he had beaten her to death. And when the not-yet Mr. Smoothbore had tried to throw himself in front of his mother, his father had broken his nose and an arm as well. After that his father had disappeared into the dark and the rain. Later, Mr. Smoothbore had searched far and wide, looking for his father, but without any luck. Had he found him, he would have enjoyed the slow cooling his father had coming for so long.

After the killing, Mr. Smoothbore heard that Mr. K had transferred his entire salary to the Honored Brother Crosscut’s family and returned to Russia. Before leaving, he had said that as he sent Mr. Smoothbore abroad that day, he had known that Crosscut might die at his hands. The Honored Brother Crosscut had lived his life on the razor’s edge, but he had never really understood what made a true hit-man.

All the scavengers but one had left the landfill. The one remaining was his mark. She was all but buried in trash, digging ever deeper as she scavenged. He had seen that she lacked strength, leaving her unable to win a good spot when the dump trucks came. The only way she could make up for it was with persistence and hard work. Her long hours made Mr. Smoothbore’s vigil at the exit wholly unnecessary. Concealing the snub-nose revolver in his jacket, he left the car and made his way straight toward the landfill and his mark. The garbage gave way under his feet, embracing his shoes in its tepid warmth. It felt as if he was climbing the body of some giant creature. As soon as he was within a dozen feet of his target, he retrieved his weapon.

Just then, the blue light again shot out from the East. Our Elder’s spaceship had completed a full orbit and arrived in the Southern Hemisphere, still emitting its powerful glow. The sudden rise of the blue sun drew the gaze of the two standing on the mountain of waste. They stared at the strange star for a moment, then their eyes met. As gazes crossed, something occurred that absolutely should never happen to a professional hit-man: Mr. Smoothbore’s gun almost slipped from his hand. The shock had all but forced the weapon from his mind and hand; all he could do was keep himself from crying out: Pumpkin…

But Mr. Smoothbore knew that she was not “Pumpkin”. Fourteen years ago, Pumpkin had died in agony before his eyes. Even so, she continued to live in his heart and there she had grown into a young woman. He often saw her in his dreams, already an auntie. The Pumpkin of his dreams looked just like the young woman he saw before him now.

Some years ago the Honored Brother Crosscut had been engaged in an unmentionable trade: He had bought disabled children from the hands of human traffickers, putting them to work as beggars in the city. At the time, the world’s compassion had not yet succumbed to fatigue and so the children had reaped a sizable income for Crosscut, greatly aiding in the accumulation of his starting capital.

One time, Mr. Smoothbore had followed the Honored Brother Crosscut as he went to buy a new batch of disabled children from the traffickers. They went to an old warehouse holding five children. Four of them clearly suffered congenital deformities, but one among them seemed like a normal little girl.

That girl was Pumpkin and she was six-years-old. Pumpkin had large, radiant eyes and looked adorable, a stark contrast to the deformed children around her. She was looking at Mr. Smoothbore with those big eyes that he knew would soon be filled with heartbreak; they would be filled with heartbreak right at that moment if she had known the fate that awaited her.

“That’s them,” the trafficker said, pointing at the four deformed children.

“Didn’t you say there would be five?” Crosscut asked.

“The container was a bit packed; one of them didn’t make it,” the trafficker advised.

“What about that one?” Crosscut had pointed at Pumpkin.

“She’s not for sale,” the trafficker said, shaking his head.

“I want her. I’ll buy her at the price of the others.” The Honored Brother Crosscut was clearly not in a bargaining mood.

“OK.” The trafficker hesitated. “But she is in fine shape; how are you going to make money with her?”

“You stupid punk, we’ll do this. No more games.” Crosscut would not be denied.

As he spoke, Crosscut freed the saw from his waist and cut a large, gaping wound into the little girl’s tiny leg. As the saw split the leg open, blood spilled forth, along with Pumpkin’s screams.

“Bind it up and stop the bleeding, but don’t give her any antibiotics. We want it to fester,” the Honored Brother Crosscut told Mr. Smoothbore.

Mr. Smoothbore dressed the girl’s wounds, but the blood oozed through several layers of gauze. As the red liquid flowed, Pumpkin’s face drained of color, turning her a deathly shade of pale. With his back to Crosscut, he gave Pumpkin a round of Erythromycin, SMX, and all the other antibiotics he could get his hands on. But it was no use; Pumpkin’s wound became inflamed despite his efforts.

Two days later, the Honored Brother Crosscut sent Pumpkin to the streets to beg. Her adorableness coupled with her weakened state made her an instant hit, well beyond anything Crosscut had expected. In one day she made more than 3000 yuan. After a week, Pumpkin had never failed to bring in less than 2000 yuan a day. On one occasion a foreign couple even gave her 400 US dollars.

Despite her vast earnings, Pumpkin was given no more than a single box of spoiled takeout to eat. This was not entirely due to Crosscut miserliness; he also wanted to cultivate a starved pallor on the child. All Mr. Smoothbore could do for Pumpkin was feed her in the middle of the night.

One evening as Mr. Smoothbore was visiting Pumpkin at her begging haunt, the little girl pressed her face to his ear and quietly said, “Brother, my leg doesn’t hurt anymore.” She was clearly overjoyed. As Mr. Smoothbore recalled the moment, it was only the second time he cried, the first being when his mother had died. He knew why Pumpkin’s legs did not hurt. It did not hurt because her nerves had gone necrotic. The entire leg had turned black as Pumpkin ran a high fever that lasted for two days. He simply could no longer heed Crosscut’s ban, and he took Pumpkin to the hospital. But it was already too late. The child’s blood had been poisoned. The next night she died, consumed by her fever.

From then on, Mr. Smoothbore’s blood froze completely and, like Mr. K had said, never warmed again. Killing people became a hobby for him, an addiction as powerful as any drug. He developed a deep liking of smashing the fragile vessel called human and he came to see them all as nothing but brightly adorned containers of red liquid, ready to spill. Watching them cool to the world’s temperature◦— that was their truth to him. The warmth of their red liquid was no more than an illusion.

Without ever becoming aware of it, Mr. Smoothbore had burned the shape of the wound on that little leg into his memory. When he later opened Crosscut’s belly, he matched its form perfectly.

The scavenger stood. She slowly walked away, slinging the sack, which seemed so very large compared to her, over her back. Mr. Smoothbore’s arrival quite obviously had nothing to do with her departure. It seemed utterly impossible that the arrival of this suited-stranger could in any way be related to her. She had, of course, never bothered to look at what the man was holding in his hand. So she just left. Our Elder’s spaceship sunk in the western sky. Mr. Smoothbore remained motionless, standing on waste, surrounded by it. He watched the silhouette disappear in the rapidly fading blue twilight.

Mr. Smoothbore put his pistol back in its holster. He replaced the emptiness it left in his hand with his cell phone. Then he called Zhu Hanyang. “I want to meet with you; there is something I need to ask.”

“Tomorrow at nine. Same location,” Mr. Zhu’s answered tersely, almost as if he had been expecting the request.

Entering the Grand Presidential Hall, Mr. Smoothbore discovered the entirety of the Committee for the Liquidation of Wealth gathered there, gazing at him intently.

“Please, ask what you have come to ask,” Mr. Zhu directed, picking up a cigar.

“Why do you want me to kill these three?” Mr. Smoothbore inquired.

“You are breaking with the tenets of your profession,” Mr. Zhu noted without batting an eyelash as he took the head off the cigar.

“Yes, and I will be sure to bear the consequences. But I must understand why, else I cannot do this job,” Mr. Smoothbore replied.

Mr. Zhu lit the guillotined cigar with a long match, nodding slowly. “I am left with little recourse but to conclude that you only direct your work against the wealthy. It would appear that you are no real hit-man, but a mere thug, driven by class envy; a raging psychopath who has killed forty-one in the past three years, staying just one step ahead of a police force pursuing you with all means and measures. Your reputation will tumble down around you.”

“Just call the police then.” Mr. Smoothbore appeared unperturbed.

“Has your past tangled itself into the job?” Ms. Xu asked.

Mr. Smoothbore could not but admire her keen insight. He did not reply, acknowledging her observation with his silence.

“Is it because of the woman?” she accurately continued.

Mr. Smoothbore’s silence only deepened; any answer he could have given would have hardly done the circumstances justice.

“Well then,” Mr. Zhu said, leisurely exhaling thick smoke, “this matter is of supreme importance and we will be unable to find a suitable replacement for you on such short notice. Therefore, we will indulge your request and reveal why we have given you this work. It is a truth that will exceed your wildest fantasies. But first we wish to rectify one of your misapprehensions. We are some of wealthiest individuals on the planet, yet we wish to have society’s poorest and most vulnerable killed; in your eyes this makes us loathsome monsters.”

“I am not interested in black and white,” Mr. Smoothbore interjected.

“The facts have failed to bear that out. Well, come with us.” Mr. Zhu discarded the barely smoked cigar, turned and walked away.

Mr. Smoothbore left the hotel in the company of the full Committee for the Liquidation of Wealth.

Outside the sky had changed. Every last head on the street strained toward the heavens. Above, our Elder’s spaceship was streaking by, low in orbit. Illuminated by rays of the rising sun it shone brightly in the clear blue sky. As the ship passed, it left a trail of countless silvery stars in its wake. These silvery lights stretched to the horizon in regular intervals. Our Elder’s ship itself had also changed. It was visibly shortened and looked like its rear had been snapped off, leaving a ragged break. It was from this end that the silvery stars were being released. A while ago, Mr. Smoothbore had learned on the news that our Elder’s spaceship was in fact composed of thousands of smaller ships, all linked to one another to form a seamless whole. Now, this mother ship was obviously breaking into an armada.

“Attention!” Mr. Zhu gestured toward the committee, projecting his powerful voice he announced, “As you can all see, the situation is developing and our time may be running out. We must accelerate our work in response. Each group must immediately attend to its liquidation area and continue yesterday’s work.”

As he finished, Mr. Zhu and Ms. Xu got in a truck, motioning for Mr. Smoothbore to join them. Only then did Mr. Smoothbore notice the vehicles waiting outside the hotel. They were not the luxury cars of the super-rich, but a long row of Isuzu utility vehicles.

“So we can haul more,” Ms. Xu explained, seeing the confusion in Mr. Smoothbore’s expression. It was only the next surprise in a day full of the unexpected when Mr. Smoothbore saw that the truck’s bed was completely covered in rows upon rows of neatly stacked black cases.

Another surprise was that there was no driver in the trucks. Instead, Mr. Zhu himself took the wheel and drove the vehicle onto the main road. Soon, the truck turned onto an avenue, slowing considerably. It only took Mr. Smoothbore a few moments to realize that Mr. Zhu was following a pedestrian, keeping the truck at pace. The man on the sidewalk was clearly homeless. These days, it was not always possible to identify the homeless by the state of their clothes, but one could still make them out with the merest glance. This one could easily be distinguished by the plastic bag hanging from his waist. Whatever it contained clanged loudly with every step.

Mr. Smoothbore knew that he was about to learn why he had seen so few homeless and scavengers yesterday, but he could not believe that Mr. Zhu and Ms. Xu would dare to kill the man here. They would probably first lure their target into the truck and then take him somewhere they could get rid of him discreetly. Given their status, there was no need for them to dirty their hands with this work; perhaps they were just setting an example for Mr. Smoothbore. In any case, he had no intention of intervening, but he certainly would not help them either; he only cared about the work he had been contracted to process.

The bum seemed to remain oblivious to the fact that the truck had slowed for him, right up until Ms. Xu called out to him.

“Hello!” Ms. Xu waved out of the truck’s window. The bum stopped and turned his head to look at her. His face was coated with the thick layer of apathy common to his people. “Do you have a place to stay?” Ms. Xu asked with a smile.

“In summer I can live anywhere,” the bum answered.

“And in winter?” she queried.

“Hot air ducts. Some toilets are heated,” the bum answered impassively.

“How long have you lived like this?” Ms. Xu continued.

“I don’t really remember. Once my land requisition compensation ran out I came to the city. I have been like this ever since,” the bum answered without real interest or emotion.

“Do you want a three-bedroom apartment in the city? A home?” Ms. Xu asked without further ado.

The homeless man stared blankly at the wealthy woman before him. There was no trace of comprehension in his eyes.

“Are you literate?” Ms. Xu asked. After the bum nodded, she pointed ahead. “Look over there…”

‘There’ was a huge billboard displaying a luscious and verdant green landscape dotted with cream-colored high-rises. It looked like a magical garden.

“That is a real estate advertisement,” Ms. Xu explained the obvious. The bum turned his head toward the billboard, then back to Ms. Xu. He obviously had no idea what she was getting at. “Good. Now take a case from the bed of my truck,” she instructed.

The bum did as he was told, taking one of the small cases from the back of the truck.

Pointing at the black case, she said, “Inside you will find one million yuan. Use five-hundred-thousand to buy yourself an apartment like the one on the billboard and keep the rest for your daily expenditures. If you don’t spend it all, you can do what we do and spread some of it among the poor.”

The bum’s gaze remained empty as he disinterestedly held the box. He would not be taken for a fool.

“Open it and see for yourself,” Ms. Xu instructed.

With grime-blackened hands, the homeless man awkwardly fumbled with the case’s clasps. As it snapped open, the apathy frozen onto his face shattered, and was replaced by raw shock. His eyes and mouth refroze, gaping in wide disbelief.

“Do you have any form of ID?” Mr. Zhu asked, unmoved.

The bum nodded reflexively as he held the case as far away from his body as his arms would allow. It looked as if he was holding a bomb.

“Deposit it in a bank; it will be more convenient that way,” Mr. Zhu explained.

“What do,” the bum stammered, “w-what do you want me to do?”

“Just agree to one condition: The aliens are about to arrive; if they ask you, tell them how much money you have. That is our sole condition. Can you promise to do this?” Ms. Xu asked.

The bum nodded.

Ms. Xu got out of the truck and bowed deeply to the homeless man. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Mr. Zhu concurred from inside the truck.

Of all that had transpired, Mr. Smoothbore was most shocked by the looks on their faces at this very moment; their expressions of gratitude seemed genuine.

They drove off, leaving the newly-born millionaire in the rearview mirror. Not far down the avenue the truck turned a corner and stopped again. Down the road, Mr. Smoothbore could see a group of three migrant day-laborers looking for work. Each of the men was holding a small, triangular spatula. One also held a small cardboard sign which read “Scrapers”. As soon as the truck stopped, the three ran toward the vehicle wanting to know, “You have work for us, Boss?”

Mr. Zhu shook his head. “No. Has business been good?”

“What business? Nowadays, they all use the new spray-on coating that heats when powered. They have no need for scrapers,” came the reply.

“Where do you come from?” Mr. Zhu asked the three.

“Henan,” one of them answered.

“From a village? Is it an impoverished village? How many households are there?” Zhu rattled off the questions.

“It’s in the mountains; fifty families. How could we not be poor? If the rain doesn’t fall, believe it or not, Boss, we irrigate by kettle, pouring water on each and every seedling,” one of the migrant workers replied.

“That’s hardly farming.” Mr. Zhu shook his head and then asked. “Do you have a bank account?”

All three shook their heads.

“So you are also forced to make do with cash. You are bearing quite the burden,” Mr. Zhu again shook his head. “Take a dozen cases or so from the truck.”

“A dozen?” It was the scrapers’ only question as they took the cases from the bed of the vehicle and began stacking them on the side of the road. None of them had paid much heed to anything Mr. Zhu had said and they had certainly not stopped to give it thought.

“Twelve, fifteen, it does not really matter; just take them,” Mr. Zhu instructed.

Very soon, 15 cases had been piled up. Mr. Zhu pointed at the stack and said, “Each of these cases contains one million yuan. So fifteen million, all in all. Go back to your home and distribute it among your village.”

One of the migrant workers smiled at Mr. Zhu, clearly appreciating his sense of humor. Another squatted next to the cases, opening one of them. Together with the other two he checked what was inside. Immediately their expression distorted, mirroring that of the homeless man’s face a few minutes ago.

“They are quite heavy,” Ms. Xu noted. “Go hire a car and return to Henan. If one among you can drive, buy one. It will be more convenient.”

The three were struck dumb, staring at the two magnates, unsure whether they were facing angels or demons. Habit and instinct took over and one of the workers all but repeated the question the bum had just asked them: “What do you want us to do?”

The answer was also repeated: “Just agree to one condition: The aliens are about to arrive. If they ask you, tell them how much money you have. That is our sole condition. Can you promise to do this?”

The three previously poor nodded.

“Thank you”, “Thank you,” the two super-rich again replied in genuine gratitude, bowing before them. Then they got back into the truck, leaving the three flabbergasted migrants and their stack of cases in the rearview mirror.

“You must be wondering if they will keep all the money for themselves,” Mr. Zhu said as he drove. “At first they probably will, but they will quickly spread the surplus of money among the poor, like we just did.”

Mr. Smoothbore remained quiet. Faced with this bizarre bout of madness, he felt that silence was his best option. All his faculties were focused on one realization burning bright in his mind: The world was about to change.

“Stop the car!” Ms. Xu suddenly shouted. As the truck stopped, she called out the window “Kid, come here!”

She was addressing a small, dirty child scrounging for cans and cola bottles next to a trash can. The child came running, but not before he had slung his bag of bottles and cans over his back. He was obviously quite unwilling to let them out of his sight for even a moment.

“Take a case from the back of the truck,” Ms. Xu instructed. The child did as he had been told. “Open it and have a look.” The child did. He was shocked, but far less so than the adults. “What is it?” Ms. Xu asked.

“Money.” The child raised his head, looking straight at her.

“One million yuan. Take it to your parents,” she continued.

“So it’s a real thing? What they’re always talking about?” He blinked in surprise and turned his head to all the cases remaining on the back of the truck.

“What do you mean?” Ms. Xu asked in turn.

“Handing out money,” the boy answered. “They said people are handing out money everywhere. Throwing it out like trash.”

“Just agree to one condition.” Ms. Xu cut to the chase. “The aliens are about to arrive; if they ask you, you will truthfully tell them how much money you have, right? That is all we ask. Can you promise to do that?”

“Sure!” the child called out.

“Take the money back to your family, child. Soon all poverty will come to an end,” Mr. Zhu told the boy, starting the truck.

“And so will wealth,” Ms. Xu noted, somberly.

“Focus! The situation may be miserable as is, but it is still our duty to prevent it from getting worse,” Mr. Zhu stated flatly as he drove on.

“Are you really trying to tell me that you two actually take this little game of yours seriously?” Mr. Smoothbore could hardly believe he was asking the question.

Mr. Zhu abruptly hit the brakes. His hands left the wheel as he gesticulated with sudden fervor. “Of course! Of course it is serious! Do you really want to live in poverty like them from now on? Do you really want to be homeless and starving?”

“I am not even all that interested in whether I live or die,” Mr. Smoothbore replied with a shrug.

“The call of duty will keep you going. It is what sustains me in these dark days; the duty imposed upon us by our wealth,” Mr. Zhu replied, still agitated. “And as to our wealth: It is not stolen and not plundered. Every last cent we earned in fair competition! It is our wealth that makes social progress possible. Society should thank us!”

“Tell our Elders that.” With that, Mr. Zhu got out of the truck and heaved a great sigh toward the sky above.

“You can see,” Mr. Zhu said as he turned to Mr. Smoothbore who had followed him, “we are no psychopaths, murdering the poor; quite to the contrary. You have witnessed what we do. We are spreading our wealth among the poorest. In this city, in many other cities and in hotspots of poverty all across our nation, all the personnel of our companies are doing the same things we are. They are pooling every resource our conglomerates have at their disposal◦— billions of checks, credit cards, bankbooks, and trucks upon trucks full of hard cash◦— all to eliminate poverty.”

At that moment, Mr. Smoothbore noticed the sky above. The long string of silvery stars stretched from horizon to horizon, while the main body of our Elders’ ship was nowhere to be seen. It had completely disintegrated. More than a thousand spaceships now formed a halo of silver stars encircling the entire globe.

“The Earth has been surrounded,” Mr. Zhu noted. “Each of those stars is as big as one of our aircraft carriers and each alone has enough firepower to destroy the entire planet.”

“Last night, they destroyed Australia,” Ms. Xu added.

“Destroyed? Destroyed how?” Mr. Smoothbore asked, staring at the sky.

“An energy beam shot from the sky, sweeping the entire continent. It passed right through all structures, even bunkers. Humans and all larger mammals died within the hour, while insects and plants remained unharmed. Everything else remained utterly untouched; not even the porcelain in the shop windows had as much as a crack,” Ms. Xu explained.

Mr. Smoothbore glanced at Ms. Xu out of the corner of one eye and then turned back to the sky. It certainly shocked him, but he was far more capable than most when dealing with dread and terror.

“It was a display of power. They chose Australia because it was the first to unequivocally reject their reservation plan,” Mr. Zhu further elaborated.

“What plan?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.

“The plan they had all along. The Elders that came to our Solar System are fleeing from some sort of famine. Because they cannot continue living on the First Earth, we will lose our homelands; that is what they told us, even though they did not reveal what really happened to them. They want to occupy our Fourth Earth, claiming it as their colony. And as for Earth’s people, we will be relocated to a reservation. Australia was selected as this reservation. All other territories on Earth will belong to our Elders.” Mr. Zhu paused. “All of this will be announced in today’s evening news.”

“Australia? A giant island in the middle of the ocean… how fitting. Australia’s outback is a giant desert. If they squeeze all five-billion-plus of us in there we will all be starving sooner rather than later,” Mr. Smoothbore noted dryly.

“Things will not be that catastrophic. Humanity’s agriculture and industry will cease in the Australian reservation. There will be no need to engage in production to subsist,” Mr. Zhu replied.

“What will we live off?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.

“Our Elders will care and provide for us. All that humanity needs to survive will be supplied by our Elders in perpetuity, and what they supply, they will evenly distribute among us. Every person will receive the same. The future of humanity is a society in which every last trace of the gap between the rich and the poor has been erased,” Mr. Zhu explained concisely.

“And how much will all of us receive?” Mr. Smoothbore inquired.

“You have grasped the key issue at hand: According to their reservation plan, our Elders will conduct a comprehensive survey of human societies. The purpose of this investigation is to determine humanity’s current minimum standard of living. Our Elders will allocate every person with the resources necessary to maintain that standard.”

Mr. Smoothbore’s head sunk as he pondered what he had been told. Suddenly he laughed. “Ah, I sort of get it now. At least some of this great big mess makes sense now.”

“You understand what humanity is faced with,” Mr. Zhu stated.

“In fact, our Elders’ plan is very fair for humanity,” Mr. Smoothbore replied just as dryly.

“What? You actually think this is fair? You are…!” Ms. Xu was almost shouting in her frustration.

“Actually, he is right. It is very fair,” Mr. Zhu calmly agreed. “If there was no gap between rich and poor, no difference between the highest and lowest living standards, the reservation could be a paradise for humanity.”

“But as things are…” Mr. Smoothbore nodded.

“What we are doing now is very simple: We are rapidly spanning the chasm between rich and poor before our Elders’ survey commences!” Mr. Zhu declared before he could finish his thought.

“So that is what you call the liquidation of wealth?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.

“Indeed,” Mr. Zhu immediately replied. “Currently the world’s wealth is a solid. This solid has its peaks and valleys; just like the buildings on this road, just like the mountains and valleys. But if we liquefy all of it, it will become an ocean; and this ocean’s surface will be uniformly smooth and level.”

“But what you are doing right now can only lead to chaos,” Mr. Smoothbore noted.

“True.” Mr. Zhu was unperturbed. “What we are doing is merely a gesture, a display of goodwill from the wealthy. The true liquidation of wealth will soon commence on a global scale in a joint effort of national governments and the United Nations. A great campaign to eliminate poverty is about to begin. The developed nations will pour their wealth across the developing world; the rich will throw their money amongst the poor. That will be the real effort.”

“But things cannot be as simple as all that,” Mr. Smoothbore said with a grim smile.

“What do you mean? You bastard…” Ms. Xu snarled through clenched teeth as she thrust her finger at Mr. Smoothbore’s nose.

Mr. Zhu immediately interceded. “He is smart. He figured it out.”

“Yes. I have figured it out. Some of the poor do not want your money.” Mr. Smoothbore was calm, almost content.

Glancing at Mr. Smoothbore, Ms. Xu silently lowered her head. Mr. Zhu nodded. “Right. Some among them do not want our money. Can you imagine? They scrounge for food in the trash, but refuse a million yuan.” He grimaced. “Just imagine.”

“But those people must certainly be a tiny minority,” Mr. Smoothbore pointed out.

“Certainly, but as long as the poor make up even one out every one-hundred-thousand they will be enough to form a social stratum according to the advanced survey methods that our Elders will employ,” Mr. Zhu replied. “Their standard of living would be identified as humanity’s minimum and thereby determine the level which our Elders supply to the reservation.” He paused. “Do you understand? Just one-tenth of a basis point!”

“So, do you know how many you are currently dealing with?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.

“About one out of every thousand, a hundred times too many,” Mr. Zhu answered.

“The damned, petulant, stubborn miscreants!” Ms. Xu cursed toward the skies.

“The marks you contracted me to kill are some of those people.” As things stood, Mr. Smoothbore had no interest in using the terms of his trade.

Mr. Zhu just nodded.

Mr. Smoothbore’s face distorted into a bizarre grimace as he suddenly laughed toward heaven. “Ha, ha, ha!” He could barely contain himself. “I am actually helping humanity?!”

“You are helping humanity. You are saving all of human civilization,” Mr. Zhu agreed flatly.

“As a matter of fact, all you would really need to do is threaten to kill them. Then they would take the money,” Mr. Smoothbore mused.

“That is not certain enough!” Ms. Xu whispered harshly as she leaned toward him. “They are all depraved sociopaths, twisted by their class envy. Even if we give them money, they will claim to be penniless when our Elders come to survey them. We have no choice but to rid the Earth of these people as soon as possible.”

“I understand.” Mr. Smoothbore nodded.

“So, what are you planning to do? We have done what you asked and explained our reasons. Of course, money will be meaningless soon and you certainly have no interest in helping humanity,” Ms. Xu said. There was only a slight hint of a question in her statement.

“Money has long lost its importance to me. And I have not really thought about the other thing,” Mr. Smoothbore said with a shrug, “but I will carry out my contract. I will do it before midnight, today. Please prepare to confirm its completion.” As he finished, he stepped out of the truck and began to walk away.

“I have one question,” Mr. Zhu called out after him. “It may be rude, so do not answer if you do not want to. But if you were poor, would you take our money?”

“I am not poor.” Mr. Smoothbore did not turn back and continued to walk. But after a few steps he did stop. He slowly turned around and he fixed the two of them with a hawkish glare. “But if I was, no, I would not take it.”

Then, Mr. Smoothbore strode away.

“Why won’t you take their money?” Mr. Smoothbore asked his first mark. The homeless man he had last found on Blossom Plaza was now camping out in the grove of a nearby park. The grove was doubly illuminated: From above, the faint blue light of the ring of spaceships shone through the canopy, casting dappled shadows on the soil. From the city beyond, ever-shifting and changing colors slanted through the trees. The metropolis’ multicolored lights seemed to tremble, as if in fear of the alien, blue glow.

The bum offered him a cheeky grin. “They begged me. So many rich folks came a’ begging to me. A woman even cried! Even if I wanted their money, they could not just beg me to take it. Rich folks begging me… How cool is that?”

“Yes, very cool,” Mr. Smoothbore said, pulling the trigger of his snub-nose.

The bum was a hardened thief and it had taken him no more than a glance to notice that the man walking into the park had been clutching something under his coat. Having caught his interest, the homeless man had been watching whatever it was carefully. Now it suddenly flashed beneath the coat, like the eye of some strange creature, winking at him. Then he fell into eternal darkness.

It was an instant cooling processing; the rapidly tumbling bullet severed almost everything above his work’s brow. The gunshot had been muffled by Mr. Smoothbore’s clothes. No one had noticed.

Back on the landfill. Today, Mr. Smoothbore found only one scavenger scrounging through the trash; the others had obviously all taken the money.

Under the light of the blue ring of stars, Mr. Smoothbore climbed up the warm and squishy trash toward his mark. Before coming to this point he had reminded himself a hundred times that that woman was not his Pumpkin. Now, there was no need to remind himself again. His blood was forever frozen. The flickering flames of youth would not warm it. The scavenger paid his arrival no heed and so Mr. Smoothbore simply pulled the trigger. Here on the landfill there was no need to suppress his weapon. Freed, the snub-nose’s shot rang loud and clear as the flash of its muzzle lit the landfill like a blast of lightning. The range gave the bullet the time to sing as it spun through the air. It whimpered and screamed, like a thousand wailing ghosts.

It was another instant cooling. The projectile spun like the blade of a blender, in an instant tearing his mark’s heart to tiny pieces. The scavenger was dead before she ever hit the ground. And as she did, her form became one with the garbage, vanishing. Even the spraying blood, a last testament to her existence, was instantly swallowed by trash.

Just then, Mr. Smoothbore became aware of a presence behind him. Abruptly spinning on the spot, he came face to face with the painter. The vagrant’s long hair was fluttering in the night breeze, dancing like blue flames under the light of the star ring.

“They had you kill her?” the painter asked.

“I am merely fulfilling a contract. Did you know her?” came Mr. Smoothbore’s reply.

“Yes. She used to come by and look at my paintings. She was barely literate, but she sure could read my art. She liked it, just like you,” the artist answered glumly.

“You are also part of my contract,” Mr. Smoothbore noted flatly.

The vagrant artist calmly nodded. There was no trace of fear about him. “I thought so,” he said.

“Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you take the money?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.

“All my paintings show poverty and death. If I were to become a millionaire overnight, my art would die,” the painter explained.

Mr. Smoothbore nodded. “Your art will live on. I am very fond of your paintings.” His voice glowed with sincere praise as he raised his revolver.

“Just wait a moment. You just said you were doing contract work. Would you take on a contract from me?” the artist asked hastily, but without fear.

Mr. Smoothbore nodded again. “Of course.”

“My death is meaningless, but I want to avenge her.” The painter pointed to where the scavenger had collapsed.

“Let me express your intention in the language of my trade: You want to contract me to process a work batch, the work being those who contracted me to process you two works,” Mr. Smoothbore explained, waiting for confirmation.

It was the artist’s turn to nod. “That would be it.”

“No problem,” Mr. Smoothbore agreed. There was no trace of insincerity in his reply.

“But I have no money,” the artist pointed out.

Mr. Smoothbore could only smile. “You sold me your painting for a very low price. It is enough to cover the cost of the business.”

“Then, thank you,” the artist uttered his last words.

“You’re most welcome. I am merely fulfilling a contract,” Mr. Smoothbore replied, the deadly flame again bursting from his gun. The bullet tumbled, its strange wail ripping through the air, its body ripping through the artist’s heart. Blood burst from his chest and back. Three seconds later he fell, his spurting blood showering the ground in a tepid red rain.

“That was not necessary.”

The voice came from behind him. Again, Mr. Smoothbore abruptly spun on his heel to see a man standing amongst the trash. The leather jacket the man wore closely resembled Mr. Smoothbore’s own. The man himself appeared to be somewhat his junior, but otherwise he looked very ordinary, even as the blue light of the star ring gleamed in his eyes.

Mr. Smoothbore let the gun sag. But even as he dropped his aim, he slowly began to squeeze his revolver’s trigger, unhurriedly re-cocking the snub-nose’s hammer. Without aiming it, he held the gun at a hair’s trigger.

“You the police?” he casually asked.

The stranger shook his head.

“Then go; report it to the police.” Mr. Smoothbore was ready to turn away.

The man did not move.

“I won’t shoot you in the back. I just process contract work,” Mr. Smoothbore explained.

“We currently do not interfere in humanity’s affairs,” the newcomer calmly replied in turn.

His words struck Mr. Smoothbore like a thunderbolt. Involuntarily his hand relaxed, the gun’s hammer falling back in place. He studied the stranger as carefully as he could, but in the light of the star ring, he looked no different than anyone else.

“You,” Mr. Smoothbore paused for a second, “have already come?” he finally asked, his words bristling with a rare intensity.

“We came a long time ago,” the alien replied.

A long silence fell between the two from two different worlds standing on that landfill of the Fourth Earth. To Mr. Smoothbore, the air felt thick enough to suffocate him. He needed to say something; that something became a question, bubbling from his subconscious, echoing the events of those past days. “Are there rich and poor people where you come from?”

The First Earther smiled. “Naturally. I am a poor.” He pointed to the star ring in the sky. “As are they.”

“How many people are up there?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.

“If you are referring to the ones currently above us, about half a million. But they are just the vanguard. In a few years another ten-thousand spaceships will arrive, carrying a billion,” the alien answered.

“A billion…” Mr. Smoothbore digested the information. “They can’t all be poor, can they?”

“They are all poor,” the stranger replied.

“How many people does the First Earth have?” Mr. Smoothbore continued his questions.

“Two billion,” the alien answered.

“How can so many on one world be poor?” Mr. Smoothbore asked.

“How can so many on one world not be poor?” the stranger asked in return.

“I would think,” Mr. Smoothbore replied, “that too many poor people would destabilize a world. And that would make things tough for the rich and the middle class as well.”

“Given the current level of development on the Fourth Earth, that would certainly be right,” the alien agreed.

“But there will come a time when I would be wrong?” Mr. Smoothbore asked the obvious.

The alien hung his head, then finally replied, “Well, let me tell you the story of rich and poor on the First Earth.”

“I would very much like to hear it.” Mr. Smoothbore returned the snub-nose to his underarm holster.

“Our two human civilizations developed along very similar lines. The roads you have traveled, we took as well, and we, too, passed through an era very much like your current age. Even though society’s wealth was not evenly divided, it still maintained a certain balance. There were not too many rich or poor and most believed that with progress the gap between rich and poor would gradually close. They looked forward to an age in which wealth would be distributed fairly. But we soon discovered that things were more complicated than that; the balance that had existed was soon to be broken,” the alien explained.

“Broken by what?” Mr. Smoothbore wondered.

“Education. You well-know that in your world’s current era education is the only means by which people can move up the social ladder. If you imagine society and its strata as an ocean with various layers of water separated by temperature and salinity, then education is like an open tube passing from surface to bottom. It is the only thing keeping the layers from becoming completely isolated from one another,” the alien continued.

“So you are saying that fewer and fewer could afford university,” Mr. Smoothbore assumed.

“Yes. The costs of higher education continued to rise, gradually turning it into a privilege reserved solely for the children of the elite. But the costs of traditional means of education faced certain limitations, if only because of the forces of the market. The tube therefore will continue to exist, even if it becomes thin and tight as a straw. However, technology will one day suddenly and fundamentally change all education,” the stranger said, slowly unraveling the mystery.

“Are you talking about injecting information directly into the brain?” Mr. Smoothbore hazarded the guess.

“Exactly,” the alien acknowledged. “But the injection of knowledge is only a part of it. Super-computers with capacities that far exceed the human brain can be implanted straight into the cerebrum. Anyone with such an implant can instantly recall all of the immense quantities of information stored in these computers◦— but even that is just a part of the picture. These computers also function as intelligence amplifiers, capable of raising human thought to a new, higher level. Knowledge, intellect, depth of thought, even psychological and dispositional perfection and aesthetic ability◦— they all become just another form of commodity◦— a form of commodity that can be bought.”

“They must be very expensive.” It was hardly a question.

“Oh, yes, very expensive.” The alien nodded. “Expressed in your current monetary terms, the costs of such a superior ‘education’ would be comparable to the price of two or three suites of fifteen-hundred-square-foot condos in prime locations of Beijing or Shanghai.”

“But at that price, there will still be those who can afford it,” Mr. Smoothbore said.

“Yes,” the alien again agreed, “but it is a very small segment of society. The tube connecting the bottom of society with the top had been severed. The intelligence of a person who received this super-education was an entire level beyond what a normal person can ever hope to achieve. A chasm now gaped between the two, as wide as the canyon between a dog and an ordinary person; and this difference, of course, made itself known in almost all spheres of society, even in such areas as the appreciation of art. And so, this super-intelligentsia formed a new civilization all of its own. It was a civilization completely incomprehensible to the rest of humanity, in much the same way as a symphony is incomprehensible to a dog. For example, the super-intelligentsia mastered hundreds of languages and so, in certain situations and when speaking with certain people, it became a matter of etiquette to use the correct language. In situations like these, ordinary people seemed◦— at least to the super-intelligentsia◦— as simple and crude as dogs, barking at humans.” The alien paused. “And so, quite naturally, something fundamental changed. You are smart. I bet that you can imagine what I mean.”

“Rich and poor are no longer the same…” Mr. Smoothbore let the thought churn through his mind. “The same…” He fell silent.

“Rich and poor were no longer the same species,” the alien agreed. “Just like humans and dogs are not the same, the poor are no longer human.”

“Oh,” Mr. Smoothbore softly exhaled, “that really changes almost everything.”

“It changed many things,” the alien grimly agreed. “First and foremost, the very factors you mentioned as maintaining the balance of wealth and limiting the number of poor ceased to exist. Even if there are far more dogs than humans, they still lack the power to destabilize society. All they can do is cause enough trouble to become a problem worth solving. Frivolously killing dogs is a punishable offense, but it is hardly the same as killing a person, especially when rabid dogs threaten the safety of humans. In fact, that makes killing all the dogs a viable alternative. This in essence was the situation of the poor.” The stranger shook his head. “Without a common basis between two species, real sympathy cannot exist. It was humanity’s second evolution. The first was our split from the apes, relying on natural selection; this was the split of the rich from the poor, relying on a principle just as sacred: The inviolable right to private property.”

“That principle is currently sacred to our world as well,” Mr. Smoothbore noted.

“On the First Earth, this rule was maintained by the so-called ‘Machine’. That system was a powerful means of enforcing society’s rules and its Enforcers could be found in every corner of our world. Some Enforcers were no bigger than bugs, but one and all, they were powerful enough to kill hundreds in the blink of an eye. The rules they obeyed were not the Three Laws of Robotics proposed by your Asimov, but instead the foundational law of the First Earth’s constitution: Private property shall be inviolable. They were in no way agents of autocracy. Far from it; they enforced the law with absolute impartiality, irrespective of social status. If the pitiful property of a poor person was threatened, they would protect it like anyone else’s, in strict accordance with our constitution.

Under the powerful protections of the Machine, the First Earth’s wealth was concentrated among an ever smaller minority. Technological developments lead to another change: The independently wealthy no longer needed anyone else. In your world, the affluent still need the poor; factories still need workers. But on the First Earth, machines no longer required operators and highly efficient robots could fill any and every function. The lower classes had nothing left to offer or sell and so were plunged into abject poverty without recourse, devoid of all hope of betterment. As this situation developed, it completely transformed the essence of the First Earth’s economy, accelerating the concentration of wealth at an incredible speed.

“I would not be able to explain the highly complex process of wealth concentration to you,” the alien said, “but in essence it was no different than the operations of capital markets in your world. In the time of my great-grandfather, sixty percent of the wealth of the First Earth was under the control of ten million; in the world of my grandfather, eighty percent of our world’s wealth was in the hands of a mere ten thousand. And, when my father was young, ninety percent of the wealth was held by no more than forty-two individuals.

“When I was born, capitalism on the First Earth had reached the peak of peaks, producing an almost unbelievable marvel of wealth: Ninety-nine percent of the wealth of our world was now in the hands of single person! That person was known as the ‘Last Entrepreneur’.

“Even though there was still a gap between rich and poor among the other two billion, they were vying for nothing more than the remaining one percent of the world’s wealth. And so the First Earth became a world with one rich man and two billion poor. The constitution remained and with it the inviolability of private property. And the Machine continued to faithfully carry out its duty, protecting the private property of that sole individual.

“Do you want to know what the Last Entrepreneur owned?” the alien asked, but gave Mr. Smoothbore no chance to answer. “He owned the entire First Earth! Every last continent and ocean of our planet became his private halls and gardens. Even the very air and atmosphere became his private property. The remaining two billion poor lived in completely sealed homes, separated from the world outside. Inside, these homes were equipped with entirely autonomous miniature eco-cycle systems that used their own pitiful supplies of water, air, and soil to provide for the tiny world sealed within them. The only thing they could take from the outside world was the last resource not the property of the Last Entrepreneur: Sunlight.

“My family’s home was next to a river and surrounded by green grass. The grass stretched to the banks of that river and beyond, to the azure feet of the mountains in the distance. We could hear the song of the birds in the air and the splashing of the fish in the water. We saw herds of deer leisurely drink at the river’s bank; and, most intoxicating to me, we could see the wind rippling through the great grasslands just outside. But none of it belonged to us. Our family was completely cut-off from the outside world. All we could do was watch it through our hermetically sealed portholes that were never to be opened. To leave our home, we had to go through an airlock, much as one might leave a spaceship for a spacewalk. In fact, there was little separating my family’s life from life on a spaceship. The only real difference was that the hostile environment was inside◦— not out!

“We only breathed the foul air provided to us by our life-support system, only drank water that had been re-filtered a million times over, and only ate barely edible food recycled from our own excrements. And all along, there was nothing more than a single wall separating us from the bountiful, vast world outside. Yet, when we left the house, we had to wear suits like astronauts. We had to bring our own food and water, even our own oxygen. After all, the air did not belong to us. It was the private property of the Last Entrepreneur.

“Of course, we had our luxuries,” the alien continued. “On holidays or weddings, for example, we would leave our sealed homes and venture into the great outdoors of the First Earth. The first breath of fresh air was what always got to us the most. The air was ever so slightly sweet◦— sweet enough to make you cry. But of course it cost us money. Before leaving our home, we had to swallow a pill-sized air-vendor. This device could monitor and measure how much air we breathed and with every breath, money was deducted from our bank account. For the poor it was a true luxury, something they could only do once or twice a year. When we were outside, we never dared to exert ourselves. In fact, we mostly just sat around to limit the amount we would breathe. Before returning home we needed to carefully scrape and clean our shoes; after all, the soil outside did not belong to us.

“Let me tell you how my mother died. To save money, she had not left the house for three years. She did not even go outside on holidays. On the night that it happened, she◦— entirely by accident◦— sleepwalked into the airlock and right out! She must have been dreaming about nature. When the Enforcer found her, she was already a good ways from our home. It saw that she was without an air-vendor, so it dragged her back home. As it hauled her along, the Enforcer clasped her neck with its mechanical pincher. It had no intention of killing her; it was just protecting a citizen’s inviolable private property◦— the air. When it arrived at our home, my mother was already dead, strangled. The enforcer dropped her corpse in front of us with the following words: ‘She is guilty of larceny. A penalty has been imposed, but your funds are insufficient to cover it. For this reason we will confiscate your mother’s remains to collect the debt.’ I should also tell you that a corpse was very valuable to poor families. After all◦— it is made up of seventy percent water and many other useful resources. Even so, the value of her body in the end was not enough to pay the fine, so the Machine also confiscated a good chunk of our family’s air.

“The air supply of our family’s life-support system was already critically low at the time and we lacked the funds to refill it. After the Enforcer took its share, we were left with so little that our very lives hung in the balance. To replenish used air, the life-support system was now forced to separate oxygen from water via electrolysis. However, doing so rapidly degraded the system in its entirety. Soon the master control issued a warning: If we did not add fifteen liters of water to the system, it would completely collapse within thirty hours. The glow of the red warning lights flooded every room. For a while we planned to steal some water from the river outside, but we soon discarded the idea; the omnipresent Enforcers would kill us before we ever made it home with the water. My father silently mulled over the situation for many long moments, telling me not to worry and go to sleep. I was very afraid, but I still went to bed◦— more for the lack of oxygen than anything else. I do not know how long I slept before a robot woke me. It had come from a resource conversion vehicle that had docked onto our house. It pointed to a bucket of crystal clear water and told me, ‘This is your father.’ The resource conversion vehicles were mobile installations that converted human bodies into resources for life-support systems. My father had let it extract all the water from his body, even while a beautiful river gurgled in the moonlight a mere three hundred meters from our home. The resource conversion vehicle had also extracted some other parts of his body for our life-support system: A small box of organic fats, a bottle of calcium, even a bit of iron, about as large as a coin.

“My father’s water saved the home’s life-support system and so I lived on. In the following five years I grew and matured. Then, one autumn day, I gazed out my window, watching dusk fall, when I suddenly saw someone run along the river’s edge. I could not believe my eyes. How could anyone afford such a luxury? Who could afford to breathe so much outside? I looked more closely, and by all the Gods, it was the Last Entrepreneur! I saw him slow his run and seat himself on a stone at the river’s bank. He even let his bare feet dangle into the clear waters of the river. He looked like a healthy, well-muscled and proportionate, middle-aged man, but I knew that he was actually over two-hundred-years-old. His age was kept in check by genetic engineering to the point of immortality. But when I saw him then, he looked to be nothing more than an ordinary man.

“Another two years passed before the state of my home’s life-support system deteriorated again. It was a small-scale system with a limited life-span and finally it collapsed completely. The oxygen content of my air began to drop relentlessly. In the end, I was left with no option but to swallow an air-vendor and go outside before I collapsed from asphyxiation inside my home. I went outside and, like everyone else whose life-support system had given up the ghost, I calmly awaited my fate: I would breathe until the pitiful funds in my account had run dry, and then I would be suffocated by the strangling pincers of an Enforcer.

“As I left my home, I noticed a large group of people outside. Apparently, the large-scale collapse of life-support systems had begun. A gigantic Enforcer came to hover in the air over all of us. It broadcast a final warning: ‘Citizens, you have broken into someone’s home. You are trespassing into a private residence. Please, leave immediately! Otherwise…’ We shouted back, ‘Leave? Where to? We can’t breathe in our homes.’

“Together with the others, I began to run through the emerald green grass at the river’s bank, freed of all worries. In our crazed celebration of life, we let the fresh, sweet spring wind blow past our pale faces.

“I don’t know how long we ran,” the alien said, “but at some point we realized that our accounts had long since been fully breathed-up. But for some reason, the Enforcers did not come to take us. As we stood in amazement, we heard the voice of the Last Entrepreneur echo from the gigantic Enforcer floating in the sky:

“‘Greetings, I welcome all of you to my humble abode! I am very pleased to entertain so many guests and I hope you enjoyed your stay in my yard, but unfortunately, I must ask you all to consider my situation; there are just too many of you. As of this moment, nearly a billion people have left their homes and come into mine as their life-support systems collapsed. Moreover, more than a billion additional visitors will soon come and they, too, as all of you have, will break into my home, violating my right to property rights and privacy. It would be an entirely reasonable remedy to the situation for the Machine to end your lives, and if I had not advised it to desist, you would all have long been vaporized by its lasers. But I was privileged to extensive super-education and therefore I will extend my courtesy to all guests in my home, even those who break into it. That notwithstanding, I ask you to put yourselves in my stead. You must surely see that two billion guests in one’s home is a bit much, especially as I am a person who enjoys his peace and quiet. Therefore, I must ask you to please leave my humble abode. I am, of course, aware that you have nowhere to go on this Earth, but I have taken it upon myself to prepare twenty-thousand large-scale spacecrafts for you. They offer enough capacity for all two billion of you. Each one of these vessels is the size of a city and each can travel at one percent of light-speed. Although they are not equipped with full life-support systems, these ships are sufficiently equipped to keep you in cryo-stasis for up to fifty-thousand years. Our Solar System has but one Earth, so your only recourse will be to find a new home planet in interstellar space, but I am certain that you will find such a place. Considering how vast the universe is, why ever would you wish to squeeze into the tight bounds of my tiny shack? There is no cause for you to bear me ill will; I obtained my home by entirely legitimate means. I had my beginnings as the manager of a small company for feminine hygiene products and the entire path of my career, right to the level you witness today, was predicated on nothing but business acumen. Never did I rely on illegal means or methods and so the Machine protected me and will continue to protect me. As I am a law-abiding citizen, it will also protect my private property, but it will not tolerate your illegal actions. In conclusion, I must ask you all to embark at your first convenience. For the sake of our common evolutionary origin I will certainly remember you and I hope that you will remember me. Farewell and please, take care.’

“That is how we came to the Fourth Earth,” the alien said. “Our voyage here was a thirty-thousand-year-long, wandering journey through the depths of space. On the way we lost nearly half of our ships. Some disappeared in the interstellar dust; others were swallowed by black holes.” He paused as pain crossed his face, but soon he finished. “But, finally, ten-thousand ships and their one billion passengers arrived at this world. Well, that was the story of the First Earth. The story of two billion poor and one rich man.”

“If you had not come to interfere, would our world have repeated this story?” Mr. Smoothbore asked both himself and the no-longer stranger as the tale finished.

“I do not know,” the still-alien replied. “Perhaps; perhaps not. The progress of civilization is like the life of an individual, subject to the vagaries of fate…” He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I should go. I am no more than an ordinary social surveyor and I have work to do if I am to make a living.”

“So do I,” Mr. Smoothbore replied.

“Take care, dear Child,” the alien said with a wave.

“Take care, dear Elder,” Mr. Smoothbore echoed as he took his leave.

In the light of the star ring, the two men from two worlds parted ways.

As Mr. Smoothbore entered the Grand Presidential Hall, the 13 standing members of the Committee for the Liquidation of Wealth turned to face him.

Mr. Zhu addressed him first. “We have verified the completion of your contract. You did very well. The other half of your payment has been transferred to your account, even if money will soon be meaningless.” Genuine remorse crossed the magnate’s face. “There is something more you certainly already know: Our Elders’ surveyors have already arrived on Earth. Our, and your, efforts have become meaningless. We have no further work to give you.”

“But I still have a job that needs doing,” Mr. Smoothbore replied, drawing his revolver. As he readied his gun, he thrust his left fist forward.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang◦— Seven glinting bullets fell to the table. Together with the six shots in his snub-nose there were 13 in all.

Thirteen faces, shaped by the weight of their immense wealth, twisted in unison as shock and horror flashed across their refined features. Then a calm settled. Maybe they felt relief.

Outside, a cluster of titanic comets streaked across the sky, their brilliant light bursting through the thick windows, overwhelming the light of the crystal chandeliers. The ground below shook violently as the ships of the First Earth entered the atmosphere.

“Have you eaten?” Ms. Xu asked Mr. Smoothbore, pointing to a bowl of instant noodles on the table. “Let us eat first.”

They placed a silver basin formerly used for wine and ice on three crystal ashtrays. They poured water into the basin, then lit a fire underneath it. They fed the flames with hundred yuan notes, each in turn offering notes to the fire. Spellbound, they watched the yellow and green flames leap like some cheerful, vivacious creature.

The 1.35 million brought the water to a boil.