Chapter 4.
The Swarming of Steel Locusts
When the Chief Executive and Xiaoyu finally left Zhongnanhai in the Dongfang sedan, it was already dusk.
“I've shown you around my life, now it’s your turn to show me yours.” Said the Chief Executive to Xiaoyu.
“I’ve got plenty of lives to show you. Which one do you want to see?”
“Your favorite one. Not the one on the ground. You know what I’m talking about.”
“You mean…”
“Yes! Where do you keep your jetcycle?”
“It’s… near Badaling.” Xiaoyu stared at the Chief Executive as if he had encountered an alien.
The Dongfang sedan drove towards Badaling. It had turned completely dark when they finally arrived. They took out Xiaoyu’s jetcycle from a motel on the side of the road.
The jetcycle was much like a motorcycle from the past, just without the wheels. The fierce-looking body had the shape of a cigar. It was propelled by two turbojet engines fueled by metallic hydrogen. Its power output easily exceeded hundred times that an antique motorcycle. The exhaust of the jet engines was directed downward, propelling the jetcycle as it traveled through the air. An average jetcycle could reach an altitude of 3000 meters, and its top speed could reach the speed of sound.
The engineer who invented the jetcycle at the start of the century would never have thought that his creation would have become a public nuisance. As the night fell, citizens across the country would be greeted with a truly appalling sight: as deep rumbles rolled in from the edge of the sky, turning into scalp-tearing blaring screeches, dozens, even hundreds of jetcycles would fly like lightning bolts between skyscrapers at an altitude of less than a hundred meters. They all had their high beams on, flying like shooting stars, gliding across the city’s nightscape. The terrifying thunderous roar and the glaring light made even the bravest bystander cover their ears and cry out in horror. All this would last for just seconds; the “shooting stars” would quickly disappear, leaving behind only vibrating glass panels, blaring police sirens, and terrified citizens. Drivers of those jetcycles were but teenagers, often times no older than 13 years old.
Several years ago, when a swarm of jetcycles flew over Beijing, one of them collided with the wind turbine right near Xizhimen. The jetcycle and its 8-year old driver met their fiery end from the explosion that ensued; the three hundred-ton turbine blade fell from a height of 200 meters onto an overpass, crushing it, killing another three persons and caused a terrible traffic jam. Another time a jetcycle collided with a helium balloon that suspended a bar 150 meters in the sky. Due to its high speed, it shot straight through the balloon. While police helicopters rescued the people having a beer at the bar before the helium fully escaped from the balloon, the skin of the balloon fell and covered up the office tower of the Construction Bank of China, almost causing a fire. The most serious incident, however, happened during the mid autumn festival of 2180, when a horde of jetcycles flew between the towering skyscrapers of downtown Beijing and one of them flew straight into the new Chinese Commodity Exchange Building. The metallic hydrogen fuel exploded on impact, and all but obliterated the three floors above the site of impact, a rotating restaurant, and a helipad. This had been the most damaging traffic accident of the century. Ever since this incident, the hordes of flying jetcycles was seen as one of the most serious societal problems, on an equal footing with the drug crisis and the AIDS epidemic of the 20th and the 21st century. It was known as the “locust swarms of the 22nd century”.
When this phenomenon first started occurring, people thought that the jetcyclists were just homeless school dropouts, tramping around the city, abandoned by their parents after their divorce, just like the Bosozoku motorcycle gangs in 20th century Japan. The only difference being that the “swarming locusts” had better organization and more advanced motorcycles. By the end of the 2160s, only when the “swarming” had greatly exacerbated did the police and the sociologists take it seriously and start investigating in earnest. The results came out shocking. First, in terms of the participants, almost all of the jetcyclists had a stable, caring family and were attending schools. More shocking was how the “swarms” organized themselves. The following was how a typical interrogation would go between the police and a child jetcyclist:
“Why do you do this, kid?”
“I don’t know.”
“You are going five, six hundred kilometers an hour between skyscrapers, and even flying low pass over cities at supersonic speeds. Do you really not have the slightest regard for your own life, and the property and lives of the other citizens?”
“I do.”
“Why do you do this then? You are a good student in school, and you have the intentions to commit a crime? Don’t cry, answer the question!”
“I really don’t know! I can’t… I can’t control myself! I am addicted to this! I can’t not fly with my people…”
“When? Good! Start here: when and where do you assemble? And who is your leader?”
“That’s not how all of this works! We don’t plan for it, and we don’t have any leader! When we end up going somewhere, we see other kids there as well, I don’t even know them…”
“That’s bullshit!”
“I’m not speaking bullshit! You know nothing about us kids! I don't… I don’t know what’s going on! I just feel upset! I want to fly!”
At first, the police thought the kids were lying. One of them might have wanted to fly, but did all the other kids do as well? Even if they all did want to fly, how did one explain the close to perfect coordination each time they were on the move? No radar, no fly chart, no ground navigation, not even the constellations if the sky was cloudy. All they had for communication was a night vision helmet and a walkie talkie that had an effective radius of 3 km, and yet their assembly was extremely accurate and rapid, so much so that a captain from the air force, with a squadron of fighter pilots, followed the swarm several nights in a row to learn “how to accurately and rapidly assemble into attack formation during the night under inclement weather and a lack of navigation aids” in their own words. How could a group of hundreds of children, all less than 13 years old, without any serious organization, perform such excellent semi-military operations? After the police had thousands of conversations with the children and performed painstaking investigation, they finally recognized a shocking fact: the “swarming locusts” was the action by a group without any advance planning or even any preconceived intentions. Most of the kids didn't know one another. They had one thing in common, though,
“I feel upset! I needed to fly!!”
So people came up with explanations of all sorts. Some mystic made an outrageous claim that this generation of children had evolved to have psychokinetic sensing abilities going beyond space and time; psychiatrists on the other hand proposed a pathological condition, “high speed flying mania”. It was only when some of the original generation participants of the “locust swarms” had grown into adulthood did they provide a factual account of what was happening. “It was no psychokinetic sensing; it was social sensing. There was no such thing as “high speed flying mania”, the kids flying above the cities were perfectly healthy, and exactly because they were healthy and developing according to the society’s expectations, they were feeling depressed and wanted to fly.” Thus sharply pointed out one young sociologist who once was a part of the “locust swarms”.
The police took every measure conceivable trying to eliminate the “locust swarms”. Yet, somehow they still couldn’t prevent the swarms from enlarging several folds since the 2160s. By now, more than a third elementary and middle school students had participated in at least one “locust swarm”, and the percentage of girls participating increased rapidly. Voices from the public repeatedly called for the government to take the most extreme measures possible, but obviously it was out of the question to have the police take potshots at groups of children. It was also impossible to outright ban the production of flying jetcycles. Outside the “locust swarms” there were more than 300 million law-abiding jetcyclists flying. At the moment, this was seen as the only solution to the travelling needs of the 2 billion citizens. However, it was also a nigh impossible task to stop the hovering steel birds mid air when they were travelling at the speed of a rocket-propelled projectile. Most troublesome was that everyone of them, even a quiet girl on the ground would turn into a fanatic when they ascend into the sky, and they would not have any regard for anything other than flying, sometimes not even their own lives. One of the most tragic events of the “locust extermination” operations was caused by the lack of understanding for this condition. The police department at Shanghai took matters into their own hands and mimicked actions taken by Londoner during the Battle of Britain during WWII, where they put up anti air steel cables suspended by balloons. As a result, 18 jetcycles in total crashed into the cables or the balloons and exploded, but the rest of the swarm flew along the path cleared by the 18 children with their flesh and blood all the same! This event sent a huge shock to the society. A grandma, when she was interviewed, addressed the children across the nation in tears:
“Kids! What’s going on with you all?”
After this event, people finally started to recognize the complexity of the “locust swarms”. Sociologists started looking for the underlying cultural principles of the “locust swarms”, and coined the term “jetcycle culture”. They proposed two defining characteristics for children of this era:
I. With the development of educational sciences, and especially the advancement of the brain-computer interface that allowed for books’ worth of knowledge to be directly written into a human brain, even elementary school students now had the knowledge base of a college student from the late 20th, early 21st century. They could learn English within two months, and they were well acquainted with history at a young age, which allowed them to understand the world today more insightfully.
II. The families of this era could be classified into two main groups, one group contained the traditional families established in the two centuries prior. They were generally stable. The other group contained contemporary families founded in this century. They were extremely volatile. Recent statistics reported that the average duration of a family founded in this century was 423 days. This resulted in greater than 90 percent of the kids growing up surrounded by elderly grand parents and great-grand parents.
Sociology and psychology predicted that the “locust swarms” were decisively influenced by the two characteristics of its participants above. A poet exclaimed:
“This is the hurricane of our century. We may not stop it in its path!”
The Chief Executive looked up at the starry night and asked Xiaoyu: “Would there be a swarm tonight?”
“You want to fly?” retorted Xiaoyu.
She nodded.
“So there will be! If you want to fly, there will also be others who do. It’s magical!”
“But auntie isn’t a child any more. Do my feelings still count?”
“Sure they do!”
The Chief Executive happily gave Xiaoyu a quick hug and pecked on his cheek. “Really?” She asked again.
“Really! When I saw you on the TV for the first time, I thought that you had much more in common to us than any other grown up. My friends also say so.”
She kissed Xiaoyu again. “I know. But if we don’t see a locust swarm tonight, I’ll hit you on the fanny.”
The Chief Executive pulled open the nose cone of the jetcycle. She placed the puppy in first, took a reading of the metallic hydrogen fuel gauge, and said to Xiaoyu, “Go sit in the back seat.”
“You can’t fly!”
“Auntie doesn’t need you to tell her what she can or can’t do.”
“I’ll fly. This is my jetcycle!”
“I’m using my executive power to take over in the name of our country!”
“You’ll crash and die!”
“Rest assured. When I was flying on these things you weren’t even born yet.”
“You must be messing with me.”
“No, how do grown-ups mess around?”
Xiaoyu didn’t care what happens if the news outlets learned of the Chief Executive’s participation in the “locust swarm”. He was more concerned with her safety. The jetcycles from the swarms usually had extra engines installed, like the one Xiaoyu rode. It had twice the usual number of engines – it had four! This greatly affected the aerodynamics of the jetcycle, and with the increased power that came with the extra engines, it was as untamed as a wild horse. Modern jetcycles were equipped with computerized controllers that helped with obstacle avoidance, and this has resulted in significantly decreased number of “locusts”-buiding collisions. The computers didn’t make this endeavor any safer, however. When a jetcycle flying at high speeds required a course correction by a computer due to an operator error, there was usually very little time left to make the correction necessary, and the maneuver would cause greater than 10 g of acceleration. Under such sudden g-force, even if one wore a pressure suit it would still cause serious harm; best case scenario is that one lost their consciousness; in the worst case, the brain and other vital organs could get compressed into mulch!
The four hydrogen engines hummed as the jetcycle ascended, creating a plume of dust on the ground. Below, the mountains of Badaling retreated in the nightscape. The jetcycle flew further up and went above the city’s shroud of smog, and the stars and the Milky Way became especially bright. Shortly after takeoff, Xiaoyu saw a host of dark spots the in the distance. This particular evening there were about a hundred jetcycles participating in the “flying dance party” (as called by the kids), making it a medium-sized gathering. The Chief Executive pulled the control column towards her. Her jetcycle flew upwards towards the “locust swarm”. Not too far ahead, two other jetcycles merged into the swarm alongside them. She and Xiaoyu saw that they were surrounded by these flying “iron sparrows” all around. No one had their headlight on, and they flew peacefully underneath the gleaming stars. All of a sudden, the Chief Executive felt that her heart became inseparable with those of the children flying near her. Underneath the stars, she learned and understood all that the children were experiencing. They were anticipating for the same moment. This fervent anticipation boiled in her chest. An enormous energy swirled in her mind, yearning to break through the confinement of the nose cone and erupt freely into the open space!
“Xiaoyu, auntie wants to say something really boring to you. Do you wanna hear?” She asked Xiaoyu through the walkie-talkie in her helmet.
“No! Just focus on flying.”
“I’ll say it even if you don’t want to listen!”
“Are you about to tell me not to fly a jetcycle in the future?”
“Silly boy, if we are talking about this, it’s you who should be scolding me. If you let the press know what went on this evening, I’ll probably have to step down!”
“Hmph! That’s what I’ll do!”
“What? Please don’t! We are friends, and you should act like it! Just now if I were to tune my walkie-talkie to a police frequency, all the aerial police around Beijing will be dispatched and you and your little friends won’t be going anywhere! But I knew that my friend enjoys the dance party in the air, and I didn’t do this. You know that your friend enjoys being the Chief Executive, would you have the heart to make her step down?”
“You must promise that you only fly this once!”
“Just this once! I won’t dare do this any more. But please, please don’t tell this to those darn journalists! And don’t tell the chattering kids, nobody. Sweetie, please! Here, pinky swears.”
“That’s fine. Mind the stick!”
“No! We must do a pinky swear!”
The jetcycle shook a couple times in the air. They each took the oath after much difficulty.
Ahead appeared the Beijing skyline. A hundred-odd high beam headlamps from the jetcycles lit up at the same moment with blinding rays, and the hundred engines revved up, giving out a blaring whine. It seemed as though all the stars and the planets in the universe were vibrating from the sounds of these engines. The puppy whimpered at the frightening scene. All the jetcycles dove towards the sea of lights ahead of them, wheezing and roaring. Long orange tails of flame came out of the engines of the jetcycles in front of Xiaoyu and the Chief Executive, slowing turning the inside of the nose cone swelteringly hot.
The “dance party” started.
“What will you talk about then?”
“I’ll tell you about the dilemmas I face as the Chief Executive. I have no one to talk to about this. Look at the land beneath us, there are more than 1.2 billion centenarians.” She seemed to be talking to Xiaoyu, or she could have been talking to herself. Her heart was pounding, her blood boiled, but she sounded calm. “In this century, supercomputers have rendered experience in life much less valuable for decision making. The young people, with their creativity and how they rapidly adapted to the changing world, have replaced the middle aged and the elderly through competition. Two hundred million young adults have taken over all corners of the society, both in the economy at large and in governance. Our society is decidedly run by young people, but strangely enough, lives in our society still felt lethargic.”
The jetcycles rushed into a forest of skyscrapers.
“1.2 billion people over 100, 1.2 billion! And how many fine folks are among them! They teach us to be courteous, stick to the rules, tell us to read history and be good kids, and yet they don’t bother taking a look at the rapidly changing world around them, take a good look at this world where money flows at the order of milliseconds. In one second global trade can turn a small country bankrupt, and turns another rich beyond measure.”
Two shining skyscrapers approached them right in their faces. The jetcycle flew between them like lightening, and more skyscrapers flew past them. It almost seemed like that it wasn’t her who was flying, but the world spinning at breakneck speed underneath her!
“Psychology and sociology have both proven, that when humans reach the age of 150, their cognitive abilities will be fundamentally changed. Past experience and traditions were to them sacrosanct like religion, and any new ideas are evil thoughts. Everything within their brains become fixed and immutable, like how a piece of iron never dissolves in water. These old people are the basis of society. They have a disproportionately large influence on our society. Although they don’t play a role in leadership any more, they pass on their lethargic energy to the rest of the society through means of traditional culture like family values. This is a desert of inertia. The vibrancy of youth in a society like this is like a stream flowing in the desert. It doesn’t go far.”
Red light, blue light, purple light, green light… It was as if the jetcycle flew into an exploding firework.
“What can we do? We can’t increase the ratio of young people in our society. We already have two billion people! A double-edged sword hangs above my head, one is an expanding population, the other is an aging population. If I dull one, the other gets sharper! What can I do about this! I can only make baby steps, and even this gets extremely hard. I am like a little bug finding my way on a cobweb thousands of years in the making. Every step I take I get more tightly stuck to it.”
For a brief moment, there was a break in the continuous forest of skyscrapers. It was the Tiananmen Square.
“Last National Day, I was viewing the parade on top of the Tiananmen. Good heavens! It was a sea of silver hair down there. That scene broke my heart. I said to myself, this cannot go on any further, no more. But what can auntie do? You can escape from life and go fly a jetcycle for a while. Now I get to experience that. How exciting!”
The jetcycle whined above this ancient city, like the desperate cry of a giant temporarily having the mountain he carried taken off his back. On this summer night, the molten lava of life, long repressed by immense pressure, erupted wailing from a miniscule crevice.
Soon, the “locust swarm” passed through where the city was most brightly lit. Above them another column of light dots appeared. Those were the air police’s helicopters. The jetcycles dispersed, escaping the city they just disturbed in all directions. The “flying dance party” came to an end.
The jetcycle landed at the bank of a small river in a distant suburb of Beijing. It was quiet there. The moon rose from behind the dark mountains, the river shimmered with light under the moonlight.
“That was such fun today! If only auntie wasn’t the Chief Executive, we can have fun like this every day… Oh, take care of the puppy. He likes kielbasa.”
“Are you heading home?”
“A man belongs to his home. He returns whether or not he wants to.”
“I’m sure you didn't say this.”
“My great grandfather said it.”
“Good boy, would you come home with auntie?”
“Didn’t you just lose your family?”
“Yes, but I still got somewhere to live at least.”
And so Xiaoyu came to the residence of the Chief Executive in Shijingshan district, where she used to call home. Both Xingxing and her father had already left.
The apartment was breathtakingly pretty. It had an advanced holographic AV system installed. As soon as they entered, the tidy, well-appointed room only appeared for a couple seconds before the scene of an infatuating blue ocean supplanted it. Waves gently rocked and they could even smell the slightly salty seaside air. Xiaoyu and the Chief Executive ate their dinner underneath a coconut tree. Sunlight flickered on the sea surface, and a flock of seagulls flew around them. After they ate their fried chicken on the island, they ate a dessert of ice cream on a raft flowing down the river. The jungle slowly regressed on the river bank. There were a couple indigenous kids waving at them from the depths of the jungle. They had beer on the barren surface of Mars. They even visited a planet made entirely out of crystal. A sun shone from the other side of the planet underneath their feet, casting dreamy light and shadows through the globe. Finally they fell asleep in a quiet forest. The setting sun cast golden rays through the old trees. Spring water flowed jingling past them. The sky slowly grew darker. When they saw the first stars through the tree cover, Xiaoyu had already fallen asleep in the embrace of the Chief Executive. In a confused state of mind before he fell asleep, Xiaoyu asked her a question which he found surprising and confusing all at the same time: why didn’t the Chief Executive have any hundred year-olds in her household? But the auntie had already fallen asleep. Countless night before this, in a room choke full of old people, Xiaoyu had only nightmares in his sleep. In his nightmares, a black, wrinkly duffle bag encircled him as he squirmed in horror. But this night, in a beautiful room without any elderly person, in the warm and loving embrace of auntie Chief Executive, the child dreamed that he was flying in the azure night sky. Stars glowed silver around him. He grabbed onto a star and it rang cheerful chimes. On the following day when he woke up, Xiaoyu found that the forest was gone, and the morning sun shone through the panorama windows and the draperies. He was still in the embrace of the Chief Executive. She was asleep, her calm breath blowing gently on Xiaoyu’s hair.
Xiaoyu would never have thought that such things happened last night: the chimes he heard in his dream were actually the sound of doorbells. The Chief Executive quickly woke up and gently placed him down. She got out of bed and got dressed quickly. The lieutenant walked in. The Chief Executive made a hush sigh to stop her from making a noise. They quietly walked out. Moments later, several insomniac people nearby heard faintly the sound of a helicopter taking off.