The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

and sleeping according to the normal rotation cycle of the Earth. I was also able to touch real human beings, without having to worry if they were clone identities or space miners with corrupted memories.

All felt as perfect as the life of some ancient emperor except for one thing: my memory had still not been completely restored. For some unknown reason, Dr. Li said, my consciousness had cracked the blockchain encryption technology, breaking through the memory barrier, but not all the information was indexed. It was, in fact, a mess and it would take time for my brain to re-establish order.

Order. The word made my body shiver.

I had more questions than could be answered, and Dr. Li sensed the terrible urgency that surged inside me.

She smiled to comfort me. ‘The storm will pass. You will meet our leader, the person who ordered you saved. Then you will get your answers.’

There was no television, no internet, no media to share outside information, and no sense of time. Perhaps the answers were all right here, folded into a wall or curled up in a corner. It felt almost as though I just needed to say a magic word or wave my hands and they would jump out in front of me.

But I didn’t belong in this place. I didn’t know anything about Earth these days. The skill tree of a space miner was of no use here.

Even after coming back, I was deprived of the details from my dreams. I could only remember a name or two, a few odd fragments. I couldn’t access my true feelings or memories. I felt like a blind man wrapped in a plastic film, as though I could only touch the world through obstructed senses. The feeling was suffocating.

I tried to please Dr. Li, begged her to show me the outside world, just one peek. Each time, with a pitying look in her eye, she rejected me.

‘It’s not time for that yet. What you need now is to care for and protect yourself.’

But I never understood exactly what she meant.

Finally, I got my chance when a nurse adjusting the wall control panel was suddenly called out. I tried a few buttons. The light, color and temperature in the room adjusted smoothly. It felt as though time were suddenly passing more quickly. I pressed several more buttons until the white opaque wall in front of me suddenly turned transparent, revealing the world outside.

In shock, I stumbled backward. Outside was a vast open gray square carved into irregular shapes by black lines. In the distance were huge geometric buildings with shadows, proportions and angles that provoked a sense of instability. Between wandering beings and vast machinery, there seemed to be moving sculptures. Subtle interactions occurred according to changes in the environment.

This was not any Earth I was familiar with.

In the square, someone seemed to recognize me. He glanced up, light flickering on his forehead as if transmitting a message to me.

The crowd grew. They stood on the square with their glimmering foreheads, staring up at me. I noticed that as each new person joined the crowd, the flicker of light on their foreheads tuned to the same frequency.

Soon there was a dense mass of hundreds staring at me. Each forehead was a flickering pixel in a vast low-resolution screen. That human screen began to scroll unintelligible patterns until I was overcome by dizziness.

I pressed my palm to the transparent wall. The pattern of the crowd-light froze for a moment then transformed into another pattern, this one like an infinite spiraling sea.

Were they communicating with me?

I tested various movements and gestures. They responded but I still had no idea what they might want to express.

Just as I was about to take more drastic action, the transparent wall suddenly turned milky white again. I spun around to see Dr. Li looking at me with a sullen expression. She shook her head.

I raised my hands as if pleading, said, ‘I only wanted to look outside.’

‘It’s already settled. In three days, the leader will meet you. Be ready.’

My heart was in a flurry, but there was none of the joy I had expected.

‘Those people out there… Who are they? Why did they do that?’

Doctor Li’s eyes wandered as she weighed her words. Every time she was about to make an excuse, a funny expression would appear on her face. In the end, she gave up and lowered her long thick eyelashes.

‘They are the debtless, your admirers. You are their God.’

9.

The meeting did not take place in some grand hall like I had imagined. Instead, it was arranged in a plain yet elegant old bookstore called Gewu. The place had a spiral bookshelf staircase that led up into a cafe.

Exoskeletons were forbidden. I climbed the steps like a frail old man, feeling out how each muscle handled what to me was triple gravity. I felt fortunate that many of the names on the shelves were still in my mind, even without cognitive modules, they can be freely accessed.

The leader rose from the coffee table, dressed in black, with a golden chain brooch on her chest. She greeted me with a smile.

‘Mr. Dong Fangjue, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Mei Lingyilu.’

I was stunned by her youth, drawn in by some familiar feature in her eyebrows.

‘We… have met before?’ I couldn’t restrain my curiosity.

She tilted her head and frowned, thought a moment then smiled. ‘Oh, I understand. You see in me my grandmother, Mei Li’ai.’

‘Grandmother…’ I was frightened by the time span that implied. ‘So how many years ago would that be?’

‘If the debt contract was calculated correctly, it would have been seventy-two years.’

‘Seventy-two…’ I took a deep breath, still a bit dizzy. She helped me sit.

‘You’ve recovered well. I mean, you were in that place for so long…’ Her tone was a perfect expression of sympathy.

‘So, what is in fact going on? Who are you? Who controls all this?’

‘You have many questions. Considering your memory hasn’t been completely restored, I’ll start