coffinââ
âKeep talking like this, it might be you in a coffin. You know that best of all.â
The argument ends there .
Endless time passes. An Liu cries .
âPeace, Little Liu.â His uncle Chen, from above, pain in his voice. âPatience.â
He cries out for Uncle Chen, who once fed him sweets when his mother wasnât looking and told him stories about dragon slayers and princesses when he had trouble falling asleep. He says, âUncle, donât you love me anymore?â
There is a silence, and then a low voice. âThis is love.â
And so An Liu learns: Pain is love. Fear is love. Violence is love .
Life is love, so An Liu learns to hate it .
He learns other things too: how to shoot all manner of guns, how to speak the languages of the modern world and those long dead, how to use a computer to explore and dominate, how to manipulate code and circuitry to make machines do exactly as he wishes, and this is his favorite language to speak, because the machines are the only things that obey him. Inside the computer, he has ultimate control; inside the computer , he is God, and his father doesnât exist .
Xiâan, China, is filled with wonders. It was an imperial capital for 1,000 years, the seat of 13 dynasties, ruled over by 73 emperors. It is surrounded by the worldâs largest city wall and home to remnants of glorious civilizations past: the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the army of terra-cotta warriors, the sacred mountain Huà shÄnâAn Liu sees none of it, knows none of it .
He is not allowed out of the house. He is rarely, and only with supervision, allowed out of the basement .
An Liuâs world is dark and small, peopled only by his father and his uncles .
His time is structured and scheduled. Like everything else in his life, it is not his own .
It belongs to the Shang, his father tells him. His life belongs to the Shang .
âYou will Play and you will win,â his father often shouts, when whipping An for minor failures. It becomes a mantra, drilled into Anâs subconscious, something he knows about himself as surely as he knows his name .
He will Play .
He will win .
He will be the savior of the Shang people, rescue them from extinction when Endgame comes. He knows this; he simply doesnât know why he should have to do such a thing, why the Shang would ask it of him .
He doesnât understand how he can be the only one who dreams of escape from this life. Who are these fools, that they would choose to survive?
For fifteen days, An Liu is unconscious, drowning in the black.
His body lies in a hospital bed, strung with wires and tubes. Monitors beep irregularly as his pulse bounces, his heart soldiers on. One tube delivers fluids; another carries them away. A machine breathes for him. His head is shaved, wrapped in bandages. Skull fragments have been carefully extracted from his brain. Gray matter has been pared away, damaged bits sliced off and dropped into a metal bin. Pieces of An Liu, of who he used to be, now medical waste, put out with the trash. A steel plate replaces the chunk of skull that was lost. The brain swells against its casing, the coma persists, and the doctors have little left to do but wait.
He will wake, or he will not.
He will be the same, or he will not.
Time will tell.
These are hard truths the doctors are prepared to tell his loved onesâbut An Liu is alone in the secure private facility, abandoned to expert care. The doctors receive their payment, and know who to contact when the time comes, when there is an answer, one way or another.
In the meantime, no one sits by Anâs side. No one holds his limp hand. The nurses gossip over his still head, about their bosses and their love lives, and sometimes one will put a soft hand on his forehead and wish him well.
He is just a child, they say to each other. Broken, probably beyond repair. He shouldnât be alone.
His eyes twitch behind his
âKeep talking like this, it might be you in a coffin. You know that best of all.â
The argument ends there .
Endless time passes. An Liu cries .
âPeace, Little Liu.â His uncle Chen, from above, pain in his voice. âPatience.â
He cries out for Uncle Chen, who once fed him sweets when his mother wasnât looking and told him stories about dragon slayers and princesses when he had trouble falling asleep. He says, âUncle, donât you love me anymore?â
There is a silence, and then a low voice. âThis is love.â
And so An Liu learns: Pain is love. Fear is love. Violence is love .
Life is love, so An Liu learns to hate it .
He learns other things too: how to shoot all manner of guns, how to speak the languages of the modern world and those long dead, how to use a computer to explore and dominate, how to manipulate code and circuitry to make machines do exactly as he wishes, and this is his favorite language to speak, because the machines are the only things that obey him. Inside the computer, he has ultimate control; inside the computer , he is God, and his father doesnât exist .
Xiâan, China, is filled with wonders. It was an imperial capital for 1,000 years, the seat of 13 dynasties, ruled over by 73 emperors. It is surrounded by the worldâs largest city wall and home to remnants of glorious civilizations past: the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the army of terra-cotta warriors, the sacred mountain Huà shÄnâAn Liu sees none of it, knows none of it .
He is not allowed out of the house. He is rarely, and only with supervision, allowed out of the basement .
An Liuâs world is dark and small, peopled only by his father and his uncles .
His time is structured and scheduled. Like everything else in his life, it is not his own .
It belongs to the Shang, his father tells him. His life belongs to the Shang .
âYou will Play and you will win,â his father often shouts, when whipping An for minor failures. It becomes a mantra, drilled into Anâs subconscious, something he knows about himself as surely as he knows his name .
He will Play .
He will win .
He will be the savior of the Shang people, rescue them from extinction when Endgame comes. He knows this; he simply doesnât know why he should have to do such a thing, why the Shang would ask it of him .
He doesnât understand how he can be the only one who dreams of escape from this life. Who are these fools, that they would choose to survive?
For fifteen days, An Liu is unconscious, drowning in the black.
His body lies in a hospital bed, strung with wires and tubes. Monitors beep irregularly as his pulse bounces, his heart soldiers on. One tube delivers fluids; another carries them away. A machine breathes for him. His head is shaved, wrapped in bandages. Skull fragments have been carefully extracted from his brain. Gray matter has been pared away, damaged bits sliced off and dropped into a metal bin. Pieces of An Liu, of who he used to be, now medical waste, put out with the trash. A steel plate replaces the chunk of skull that was lost. The brain swells against its casing, the coma persists, and the doctors have little left to do but wait.
He will wake, or he will not.
He will be the same, or he will not.
Time will tell.
These are hard truths the doctors are prepared to tell his loved onesâbut An Liu is alone in the secure private facility, abandoned to expert care. The doctors receive their payment, and know who to contact when the time comes, when there is an answer, one way or another.
In the meantime, no one sits by Anâs side. No one holds his limp hand. The nurses gossip over his still head, about their bosses and their love lives, and sometimes one will put a soft hand on his forehead and wish him well.
He is just a child, they say to each other. Broken, probably beyond repair. He shouldnât be alone.
His eyes twitch behind his
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