Aberrant: In the Beginning - Wei Fang

[z-Wei Fang]

Tiantan Park, Beijing, P.R.C.,

7:00 a.m., March 23, 1998

Fang rose slowly from the stretch, dimly aware of the instructor as she moved through the stances. While Mei was technically leading the class, after a year, Fang knew the routine well enough that she didn't need to play attention. Instead, her mind drifted to thoughts of work, though it was more accurate to say her mind cleaved to those thoughts.

Work was her life, above and beyond anything else. It gave her a sense of rightness to think about the world and to make sense of chaos, like the Tai Chi she did every morning before work. At first, she didn't see the patterns in the movements, but after she took the classes and studied, she learned them. Slowly, she came to understand them, and in doing, to understand herself better.

As the class slipped from cat stance to crane stance, a flash of color caught her eye. Fang smiled as the butterfly flew over the class, passing to the east. The butterfly was a good symbol for order, she thought, and yet they were chaotic creatures. It seemed the perfect metaphor for her thoughts - ordered yet fluttering around in her head. Bad Fang, she chided herself, you should be focusing on the class.

It was a wasted effort to try to get herself to focus on the class; she only took it for exercise. And of course, for the meditation afterwards. Mei stopped the class and everyone sat down, crossing their legs and preparing. Fang did as everyone else, but wondered if their thoughts were as fractured as her own.

[Titan]

After a period of relaxation, of breathing and focus, Mei spoke. She almost always had something to leave the class with.

"As you go to your jobs, or to school, or as you go home, or on your errands, remember the flower," she said.

"Your day begins like a flower, a little bud that reveals nothing. If you try to force the bud to open, you will achieve nothing. You will have only a ruined flower. But if you allow the bud to open slowly, one petal at a time, soon your flower will be in full bloom, and beautiful to behold. That is your day. You cannot control your day, so do not try. Allow your day to come to you, slowly. See each event as a petal pulling free from the bud. Every problem, each obstacle that you encounter, is another petal of your flower. Let the day happen, and stay here, in the spiritual and mental place that you exist right now. Respond to the events of your day as the person that you are now would enjoy the blooming flower."

As the class broke up, and people began going separate ways, Fang heard a vibrating sound from her bag. Her pager was going off. She checked the pager, and saw there had been 5 pages during the class, all from a co-worker at the Ministry, Bai Kun Rou.

[z-Wei Fang]

Fang frowned as life intruded on calming thoughts of flowers and butterflies. All of her coworkers knew that she was in her class at this time, and that reaching her was next to impossible.

Something's happened. The thought wasn't just a speculation, but more solid, as if she understood something that she couldn't have. Fang had jumps of logic like this, from time to time, when she connected two piece of unrelated information. It was what she was good at, what she'd always been good at: seeing the order in the chaos.

In this case, the assumption wasn't hard to make; to be paged so urgently could only mean that something important had happened. Fang hurried to a pay phone and called the number. They wouldn't tell her any delicate information, but Bai would be able to tell her if she had time to shower and change. As the other end picked up, she immediately stated, "This is Wei Fang."

[Titan]

"Fang! Thank the heavens you called, this is Kun. So sorry, I know you were at exercise class, but Geng has been calling for you all morning."

Guo Geng Rong, the Minister of Foreign Activities, was not a man to keep waiting. His impatience and temper were legendary, especially towards women.

Bai Kun continued, "Boris Yeltsin has fired Victor Chernomyrdin, Russia is without a Prime Minister! He wants your analysis immediately! Hurry, please!"

Unsurprising, except for the timing. Just last week, a former security chief for Yeltsin, Alexander Lebed, had warned of possible danger from "loose nukes", a leak that Yeltsin could not tolerate. However, Yeltsin's erratic, unpredictable decisions would make analysis difficult, if not impossible.

Sergei Kiriyenko will be most likely interim PM, a market reformer. Economics will be blamed for the firing, but it was most likely the leak by Lebed, combined with Yeltsin's recent illness.

Fang's mind raced.

[z-Wei Fang]

Her breath was pounding in her lungs by the time she raced home and fumbled her way into her house. Her exercise didn't condition her for this kind of running Dropping her workout bag in an untidy heap on the floor, she raced through her quick shower and into work clothing. She went through the extravagence of calling a cab while she dressed, knowing that she'd save time by not trying to park. She wished that she could have gone straight from the park to work, but if she were asked to present, she couldn't do it in sweats.

In record time, she was hurrying up the steps of the Department of Foriegn Activities. Her mind was still reeling with possibilities as she stumbled into her chair and pulled up her computer screen. Sure enough, there were a number of alerts waiting for her.

There were so many things to take in all at once. I'll never do this, Fang thought frantically. There is too much information. Hands shaking, she started with a file, just grabbing one and starting to parse it. A headache spiked through her mind, stealing her breath away. Whimpering a little, Fang pushed onward. The Minister wouldn't wait for her headache to pass; she could only hope it wouldn't affect her analysis.

[Titan]

After a couple of hours, she realized she had steadied. This was her job, after all. She was good at this. Also, the analysis was starting to gel in her head. She had the outlines of a report ready, some fact-checking left to do, about 6 hours of work remained before it was finalized. But basically, she had it.

The phone on her desk rang, and she answered it immediately. Guo Geng's harsh voice demanded:

"Why are you not here, giving your analysis and reccomendations! Dong Shen has been here for ten full minutes with his completed report, and we are waiting on you!"

The click in her ear offered no chance for a reply.

[z-Wei Fang]

Fang muttered several things that would have made her mother cry with shame. It wasn't just that she was looking bad right now, but more that Dong Shen was done with his report because he painted it in the rosiest possible terms. He would spout the party line again, get raves for his analysis again and she'd be grumbled at because, again she told the truth.

Angry at Guo Geng as well as Dong Shen, Fang snatched up her preliminary report and hurried from her desk. She wasn't the only person running; there was a lot of concern about what Yeltsin's move met for China. There was a tension in the air the was almost palpable.

She hurried into the briefing room, its dark tones normally soothing in their somber aura. Today, the people in the room forestalled that pleasure, because they were all scowling at her.

Fang wasn't easily cowed. She'd defied her mother to come to college and have a career, a tale that was infamous in her providence. To hear her brother talk, it was considered an epic tale in her hometown. Her mother had earned the name whispered behind her back: "Tiger-woman."

Today, these men were making her feel like a child again. But it was her job to be an adult and to do her best possible work. With an effort, she cleared her throat, passed out the copies of her report and started to talk.

Twenty minutes later, she ended with, "In conclusion, everything depends on Russia's economy. Should it turn around, the new Prime Minister, likely Kiriyenko - and by extension, Yeltsin - will be the heroes of Russia. We will see the ruble stabilize. In the case that the economy continues to sink, Kiriyenko will go the way of Chernomyrdin, and likely within a few months. Either way, China should be ready to take advantage of trade situations arising from this, and should cease any investment in the ruble."

She fell silent, and waited for their reactions.

[Titan]

She barely caught the door to her office before it slammed shut. Naive. The fat toad had actually called her naive...to her face. They went with Shen, of COURSE they went with Shen. That's the way it works. That's ALWAYS the way it worked.

She fought back tears of frustration. But, finish the report Fang. It will be interesting to see how events play out against your analysis. Neh. They wanted the cursed report because they KNEW she was right. Geng knew. He just wasn't going to pass it up until events made it inevitable. Then, of course, her name would not be associated with it in any way.

But, she knew this. She had known it would be this way before she even applied for the position, hadn't she? Of course she had. Her time would come. Incompetance and cowardice would sink Geng and Shen. She knew that. The People's Republic needed her report, no matter whose name was on it. And, someday...

She sat at her desk. Pulled up the file she had been working on. She took a deep, calming breath. The flower. One petal at a time.

For the next six hours, she worked on finishing the report. She took a break only to cancel a dinner date with a friend. She ate a box of instant noodles from her desk, using water from the tea machine. She finished the report, printed two hard copies. She put one in her desk, and the other in the interoffice mail slot.

Wearily, she gathered her things and left the Ministry. It was dark outside. She walked towards a bus stop.

She was waiting for the bus when the light hit her face. It came from the west, and bathed Peiping with a flash of white light that went on and on. She could see it in the sky, a blue wave that crossed above her. She slumped to her knees, eyes still on the sky. It passed eastward, still illuminating the city. Then it was gone.

She sat in the dark, her tired mind racing.

[z-Wei Fang]

For a moment, she thought she'd slipped into sleep and had a bizarre dream. But on the bench next to her, the older couple were murmuring about the "blue flame," clutching one another and whispering that at least they were together. Something Big had just happened, and Fang was on her feet before her exhausted brain had consciously thought to stand. Without looking at the couple, or the burning sky, or the approaching bus, Fang turned and dashed back to her office.

She was shaking by the time she dropped into the chair at her station. As her machine powered up again, Fang hustled into the break room to heat up some water. Armed with a cup of hot liquid, she came back to her chair and pulled out a bag of black tea. This was the good stuff, the highly caffienated leaves that she saved for those long days at the office. This would qualify.

By the time that she had brewed the bitter tea - the taste was a shock to her tongue that aided the actual stimulant - her screen was filled with the first few alerts. Scanning them, Fang began to arrange them, to sort the order from the chaos. The flower of truth took shape: a satellite, the Galatea, had exploded and blanketed the Earth with some strange energy. All over the world, reports were starting to stream into the intelligence agencies, all of them urgent, all needing to be parsed, anaylized and sorted.

Fang worked late into the night, or rather the morning. By the time that the clock threatened five in the morning, she'd been awake for twenty-three hours. She'd had seven cups of the bitter tea - and two of the green tea when she just couldn't take the other anymore. And her skull was splitting with a pain that the pain relievers couldn't touch.

[Titan]

Fang pulled file after file. She read them with intensity, then tossed them aside. A white hot spike of pain seemed permanently driven into her head. She hardly noticed, she felt she was getting it. Reports from Hong Kong had ended at midnight. Later, fishermen had reported to the PRC Shore Patrol that the lights on the island had suddenly gone out, all at once. She had been confused, then, she remembered.

Around midnight, the first reports of the quake in California came in. It was immediately followed by a call from the UN delegation in New York City. Explosions all over the city, seemingly a terrorist attack.

Her head was throbbing, her back suddenly afire with pain, from sitting so long, she supposed. She stood, and paced her office.

She had never felt so clear-minded. It was like the answers were on the tip of her tongue. She composed the next section to her report aloud.

"The world-wide disasters, inclusive of the Galatea explosion, are merely the birth pangs of a new era. An era of...of..."

The answer was there. She could see the edges of it. She felt that the pain was helping her to focus. She almost had it.

bwa-dink

New report. She dashed to the terminal. Scanned the medium-long document.

School bus...fireman...into his body...unharmed...

She stood slowly. A beatific smile shone on her face. The spike had driven down into her shoulders, but she was ecstatic.

"An era of new people. They will change the face of economics, of societies, of governments themselves. They will show us new realms of discovery, that we have only dreamt of. A new chapter in human evolution. Perhaps, the final chapter."

Pain almost doubled her over, every bone in her body seemed wreathed in fire. She lurched to her desk.

"The glorious People's Republic of China, in order to take advantage of the new world, should...hmmmm"

She worked on.

[z-Wei Fang]

"Hmmm..." she mused, pausing to rub her sore wrists. She began to type again, her fingers moving faster and faster. The 'should' was erased.

The glorious People's Republic of China, in order to take advantage of the new world, will find these new people where they exist among the People. They will take these people and harness them-

... is this an analysis or a prediction?!

-as machines for the Republic, to be used by the People, for the People. But the New People, the Neo-People, will not get a chance to be anything other than a tool, for they will become the State's Weapons-

... how?! How can I be writing this?!

-to rule China with an iron fist. Like a flower whose petals are gripped in the gardener's hand, they will wilt away, into nothingness. And so China's Neo-People will be stunted. But they will be useful-

... something is wrong... my head... aneurism?

-to the Republic, even stunted. Should the percentage of Neo-People across population remain equal, China will have the greatest number of them in the world. Tonight, one of them is born, even now

Are you ready to be a tool?

Her fingers stopped, trembling. "No," she whispered. The cursor blinked at her, waiting. She erased the last fragment of the sentence, and stared at what she had. It was short, very short. But it was good, better than anything she'd done before.

"Fang?" Kun was looking at her, clearly concerned. "Are those the clothes you were in yesterday?"

"Yes," she said weakly, "I worked through the night."

Kun's face became stern. "Turn in your report and go home. You are in no condition to work today!"

I will never see you again, Fang thought sadly. The idea came to her with an impossible clarity. At least, not as a friend. "Ok," she agreed, closing her report and sending it. She didn't mark it with a priority flag; that would buy her time. Already, she knew what she had to do; sending the file anyway was one last duty for China.

She walked to the elevators, catching sight of herself in plane of glass. She looked awful, sweaty and sickly. Though she knew it wasn't contagious, because if it were, there would not be random appearances, there would be hot zones, she pulled out the paper face mask and pulled it over her nose. Now, she was another people, sick and sad, going home. Surely that would hide her too-bright eyes, burning with intelligence and pain.

As she waited for her bus, she considered her situation. She needed to make a clean, orderly escape from this country. As she ran through the possibilities, her mind spun ahead, evaluating all her avenues of escape. It was navigating through a garden of opening flowers, trying to determine which one would be the perfect flower before it was fully opened.

[Titan]

The bus arrived, and Fang stepped on. As she rode, she listened to the other riders talk excitedly about the blue light in the sky, the Galatea. Another American failure, seemed to be the consensus. And the whole world would suffer for it.

Her usual stop approached. She considered whether to stop at home, or to continue on.

[z-Wei Fang]

Keep going. The thought went against her urge to run to her place of safety and get some comfortable things, like pain-relievers. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she need to be somewhere else when they came looking for her. She wasn't sure how long she had before the call went out.

Fang sank deeper into her seat. First, the bank. It would open soon, and she could get some cash. Then, the train station. She could buy a ticket to her hometown on card, but she wanted cash for the rest of the journey.

She was abandoning her life. The suddenness of it made her want to cry, but her intellect told her it was the only way to forestall what she had seen. Even with her brain pounding, she was still sure this was right. She pressed her lips together and hardened herself to her task.

[Titan]

Her trip to the bank was without incident, perhaps a few raised eyebrows when she mostly cleaned out her account, but little else. No armed escort waiting at the train station, either. She was ahead of pursuit, if there was any.

When the train pulled out of the station, she allowed herself to breathe. She thought about her next move. Endless possibilities stretched before her, a never-ending field of bloom.

[z-Wei Fang]

She's chosen a blossom by the time the train took her to the next station. Here, the train would turn west, carrying her to her mother's village, if that was where she was going. But it wasn't. Instead, she got off at the station and walked to the outskits of town. There, she looked for a certain kind of individual, someone who had free time on his hands. Someone who needed money.

A man was sitting on his porch, looking bored. Fang casually studied him, her mind weighing the danger to herself of involving a stranger versus the likelyhood that he could do what she wanted - what she so desperatly needed. Drawing a deep breath, she approached him. "Hello," she said, smiling and bowing politely. He nodded and bowed back politely, and Fang was pleased to see that he didn't look her up and down or leer. "I have a favor to ask, but I will reimburse you for it..."

Sadly, he informed her politely, he had to stay home and watch his family; he didn't feel safe to leave them. He did recommend a few other people, and before too long, she had found an older widower who was concerned about his son and his family. He didn't have a lot of money himself, but would happily drive her to Shanghai if she would pay for the travel.

If he wondered where she was going without bags, he didn't ask. He was wise enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Within an hour, they were on their way.

[Titan]

As she relaxed in the seat, the first part of her plan complete, she thought that they would be looking for her by now. Her submitted report was no less than the truth. Once aware of the power displayed by these new people, China would certainly sieze upon these potential assets. They may not have made the connection that she was one of them, but the report itself guaranteed that they would want to find her.

Didn't see that one coming, did you Dong Shen?

The thoughts in her head, that was going to take some getting used to. Each one parsed and filed, studied and analysed. She could, at will, pull up anything she'd ever read, anything she'd ever seen. But she was conscious of all her thoughts, and it was a bit overwhelming. An under current of:

beat...and beat...and beat...and beat...and beat...and beat

in......and out.....and in......and out.....and in.......and out

fleck in my eye, slight increase in tear duct production......clear

foreign body detected in the liver...dispatch antibodies....got it....

...tended to distract one. Like right now...

Ahead, a tank with a star on the side was parked on the side of the road. On the side, a gunner took a bead on the car as it approached. A makeshift roadblock had been set up, and a dozen PRC Army soldiers were checking cars. A young man, uniform perfectly pressed, rifle slung over his shoulder by a strap and held at the ready, waved them into line. There were 2 cars ahead of them in line.

[z-Wei Fang]

Fang tensed, her mind spiraling through her options. The headache, which had started to subside, came back full force. Heart racing, Fang felt her hand drift to the door handle.

No! Drop that hand! Fang slid it down to rest on the arm rest. She pushed her shoulder blades into her seat and tried to not press herself through the back of the chair. The odds that they were looking for her, this soon, were low. They were probably just checking papers and verifying identities. Travel within the country was always monitored anyway, and in this time of crisis, it would be worse. She'd known this, and taken the gamble.

It might pay off. They might let them go. It might fail, and they'd be turned back. Her older companion looked nervous as they glanced at one another. At least, Fang considered with a knot in her gut, he didn't have to worry about them looking for him directly.

[Titan]

Their car pulled forward, and the soldier at the road block glanced into the car. He stopped. Fang felt his eyes on her face. Her companion looked from her to the soldier, then back.

She turned, and started to speak, when the soldier straightened. He motioned to someone to come to the car. Fang was ready for anything. She was the butterfly, moving from flower to flower, chaos and order personified. To an outside observer, she sat perfectly still, a hint of curiousity on her face.

Someone else approached the car. Although she betrayed nothing, she was shocked to see Bai Kun Rou. Literally, the last person she had expected to see. Her mind started calculating possibilities.

"Hello, Fang," Kun said. She opened the passenger door, and gestured for Fang to get out of the car. With little alternative, she did. They walked together, away from everyone.

"Kun, a surprise to see you," Fang replied. Her sense of danger was starting to fade. She wasn't here to arrest her. That much was exceedingly obvious. Why was she here? Fang needed more evidence.

"I suppose it is. I used your cell phone signal to triangulate your location."

Fang had considered that possibility, of course, but discarded it. She had made no calls, and the technology to triangulate an inert cell phone belonged only to-

"You are CIA?"

Kun showed her surprise. Just like that, Fang had deduced her secret. How? But, that was why she was here.

"Not anymore. I've been recruited, re-assigned, loaned, whatever you want to call it. I'm working temporarily with a more international agency."

Still calculating, Fang took the next leap.

"You gave them my report."

Kun nodded, beyond understanding.

"And..." Fang needed information. There was no chanced that Kun had told all she knew, that she would tell all she knew. But she was telling Fang far more than she intended.

"The Ministry has something planned," Kun admitted, "I don't know what... The Minister was in meetings all morning, it is chaos there... but I do know they are not sending a representative to a meeting in England. A meeting about the people you talk about in your report."

"In England," Fang was thinking.

Kun nodded again. She seemed to weigh what to say next.

"The- agency I am on loan to... they called the meeting, and have invited representatives from several countries, several organizations. And many of the, the 'New People', will also be there. The Minister has announced that China will not attend."

Fang made a connection, something half-overheard years ago, things read over the years, the quickness of response. Someone knew. Someone knew this was going to happen.

"This agency..." she said expectantly.

"They are using the WHO as a front, but it is called the Æon Society. They want to meet you. I think they want to know how you knew the things you knew so quickly"

Bai Kun watched Fang closely for any clue of what she thought.

[z-Wei Fang]

Fang considered this for what seemed a very long time. Intellecually, she knew it had not been as long as it seemed. That scared her and thrilled her; all her life, she had known who and what she was, and to have it change suddenly was jarring. The wind was blowing, scattering the butterflies and ripping away petals, yet she could sense where some of them would fall. That mastery was a quiet horror - how much should mortal be able to see - and a solemn pride. She'd always prized intellect, in herself and others.

Moreover, this was exactly what she had been seeking. It was a trip out of China, and if these others meant her harm, she would think her way out of the situation. She'd be in England, a country known for its freedoms. Soon, the New People from China would be able to claim asylum, Fang knew. England, like America, was known to welcome special people. And these New People... they would be very special indeed.

"I will go to meet them," she said. It would be hard. She didn't know English. It would take time, but she felt confident that she would adapt. "Can you see that the gentleman makes it to Singapore? He is quite worried about his children."

[Titan]

Four hours later, Fang was on an airplane bound for London. She savored the irony of her thought, almost sixteen hours ago, that she would never see Bai Kun again. Yet, here she sat on the plane with Wei Fang. They travelled as tourists, the papers Bai Kun had produced indistinguishable from the real thing. Sooner than she liked to think about, she would be faced with another of the 'New People'...another like herself. She wasn't sure if she felt anticipation...or fear.

She shook herself out of her reverie, and looked back down at the 'English in 6 Months!' book she had picked up at the airport.

This story will continue in the 'Prelude: Æon- Breath on the Waters' Thread...