Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Gold Syrup Ketchup

Back when he was cramming literature and history in the library, Zhao Meiyou once read a line: “I come from hell, I’m bound for heaven, and I’m passing through the human world.”

It fit their entry into ruin 000 to a T. They had come from the deepest depths and risen to the highest heights, arriving at the nine hundred and ninetieth floor. People said heaven was full of light. Just before they breached that final level, they did see an eruption of light, white to the point of purity, so blinding that for an instant Zhao Meiyou thought he’d gone blind.

Then the familiar sensation of detachment crept over him—the prelude to entering a ruin.

“So, Qian-ge,” Zhao Meiyou said, taking in the surroundings. “Are you telling me the nine hundred and ninetieth floor is itself a ruin? Then what is the Megalopolis supposed to be?”

Qian Duoduo lifted his head from a massive display case. “We took an escalator into 000. We never actually saw the nine hundred and ninetieth floor.”

Ruin 000 was nothing like they had imagined. No unimaginable creatures. Space-time had not collapsed into two dimensions. Compared to many ruins with grand, overwhelming vistas, this place was too quiet. Maybe there simply wasn’t any life here.

After all, a museum displays only dead things.

Standing beside Qian Duoduo, staring at the impossibly huge sphere before them, Zhao Meiyou felt his conviction harden.

This place was a museum.

They were in a lavish gallery that could have been an opera house glazed in gold. A round dome arched overhead, baroque ornament curling across it. But there were no actors on the stage.

He looked at the giant sphere floating at the center. It was so massive that the sheer size gave away what it was.

A dead world.

What kind of world, it was hard to say. Perhaps a star, but one that no longer possessed a smooth surface. It had frozen in the instant before it burst: chapped, straining, congealed. Mountain ranges stood like bulging veins, or like dead skin on an old man. Volcanic ash, magma, and bright-violet radiation smudged the air. What could still lie in its core? Had there once been a civilization? Before the blade of destruction slit it from navel to throat, did music carry across its plains? Did a pair of eyes ever gaze up at the crowded stars?

“Come on,” Qian Duoduo said. “Whatever it is, let’s try to make a circuit.”

It was impossible to guess how big this “museum” truly was. It teemed with strange dead things: a giant’s severed head, brain matter dispersed into endless goldfish gliding through the air.

We might be inside the giant’s skull, Zhao Meiyou thought.

They passed through a hall lined with bronze columns, smooth and deep, so high they vanished into shadow. Uncanny shapes and scripts girdled the shafts—eyes, algae, some kind of interstellar swarm—heavily painted in lapis blue. The bronze bore the mark of running water, as if some unknown liquid had soaked it; or perhaps those carved eyes had wept.

Huge rooms, long corridors, winding staircases. They wandered like two drifters. Zhao Meiyou kept a grip on Qian Duoduo’s hand so neither of them would suddenly float up and drift away. The exhibits had almost no discernible order. They walked for a long time down a corridor where the ceiling pressed low and hung with a thousand styles of lantern. The cases on either side were sealed glass cylinders, and what steeped inside looked like the remains of the founders of countless civilizations. They paused at one jar: the body looked very much like a human. Almost exactly human—except humans don’t have wings.

“Is that an angel?” Zhao Meiyou whispered.

“I’ve read the biblical description,” Qian Duoduo murmured, reciting: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up... and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.”

“Holy shit,” Zhao Meiyou blurted. “Then that thing is an angel! What’s it doing here, soaking like it’s in a giant bath? This is messed up!”

Qian Duoduo caught him by the collar and towed him on. “Move.”

It wasn’t wise to linger. Neither of them knew if what was in that jar was truly dead or only sleeping.

At the end of the corridor stood a door. Surprisingly, it was the most ordinary sort of door, the kind you’d find in any home, opening to a bathroom or a study or a basement. Qian Duoduo halted, hesitated a beat, then turned the handle.

They both heard it at once. A sound like a sigh. A soft, deep hush, like a cave’s echo.

What lay beyond?

Zhao Meiyou saw.

The corridor of a psychiatric hospital.

He knew it like the back of his hand: the Megalopolis Level 33 Psychiatric Hospital, the Lower District’s only public hospital. The air was heavy with disinfectant and air freshener. He felt a little unmoored. He stared at the glass window opposite; his face blurred in it. Why am I here?

“Director Zhao!” The nurse on duty spotted him and hurried over. “There you are! They’re waiting on the third floor for rounds, let’s go!”

He looked at his reflection—white coat, rimless glasses.

Right. At this hour, he should be doing rounds.

Most of the subjects were stable today; Room Twelve showed promising signs of recovery. The cafeteria was serving venison baked with spiral scurf algae for lunch. He clocked out at eight on the dot, went down to the parking garage, opened the trunk, and pulled out his friend’s collapsed skin-sack. He worked the air pump. The figure swelled, plumped, opened his eyes. “Zhao Meiyou?”

“Morning, Diao Chan. Sleep okay?”

“Not really. Why’d you wake me?” Diao Chan rubbed his brow. “Right, it’s your birthday, yeah?”

“Right.” Zhao Meiyou tossed him the car keys. “Come on. Let’s go check the Habitat.”

The Habitat stood out in the suburbs, a tall greenhouse wrapped in chain-link. Inside the weather was forever fair, birdsong and blossoms. The last hundred thousand baseline humans lived there—well fed, carefree. Zhao Meiyou pulled into the viewing lot and bought two tubs of popcorn and some brine soda. “Haven’t been in a while. Has Mr. Poery gotten married yet?”

Mr. Poery was a baseline human they cloud-sponsored. The Habitat warden sent growth logs and photos to sponsors periodically, and sponsors could visit to observe their human’s development in person. “Haven’t seen him,” Diao Chan said around a mouthful of popcorn. “Didn’t they say he’d fallen for a young man?”

“I see the kid,” Zhao Meiyou said, raising the binoculars. “He’s wearing a ring. So they tied the knot? Hey, look!” He pointed, the way you point at a gorilla at the zoo. “He’s coming this way—the one in black!”

Both of them jumped out, called across the chain-link to the young man. “You’re Zhao Meiyou, right?” the youth said, handing him a gift box. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.” Zhao Meiyou was touched. “Can I open it?”

“Of course.” The boy smiled, eyes bright. “We picked it out together.”

Inside was a hardbound album. The first page held a photo—of him.

“That’s me. Damn, this one’s handsome. How’d you shoot it?” He flipped page after page, engrossed. “Were these sent by the warden? How did they get so many—?”

He turned to the last page and froze. Neat gold card stock read: With thanks to sponsor Mr. Poery for the cloud sponsorship of mutant citizen Zhao Meiyou. The Megalopolis government extends its heartfelt blessings.

The album slipped from his hands and hit the ground; photos broke loose, and a small hurricane kicked up around him, sand and grit and snapshots swirling. In the eye of the storm, a bolt of pain drove through his skull. What is this?

“...Zhao Meiyou! Zhao Meiyou!” Someone was calling him. He turned toward the sound, but the world was black and white. The voice came from impossibly far away. He tried to run, and a powerful gust knocked him flat.

Like a hammer to the chest, the shock snapped his eyes open.

Diao Chan stood by the bed, worry sharpening his face. “Zhao Meiyou, you okay? You collapsed during rounds. Did you pull an all-nighter again?”

White ceiling. The solid feel of a hospital sheet beneath him. He bolted upright.

“Zhao Meiyou, what are you doing? Your body can’t handle sudden moves like that!” Diao Chan’s scolding trailed after him as he shoved the door open.

He saw it.

The corridor of a psychiatric hospital.

He knew it like the back of his hand: the Megalopolis Level 33 Psychiatric Hospital, the Lower District’s only public hospital. The air was heavy with disinfectant and air freshener. He felt a little unmoored. He stared at the glass window opposite; his face blurred in it. Why am I here?

“You sure you’re okay?” Diao Chan came up beside him. “Are you under too much stress? Your mom called—he’s worried sick and on his way. Maybe take a couple days off.”

“My mom?” Zhao Meiyou turned, incredulous.

“Yeah. Madam Liu.” Diao Chan studied him. “Don’t pretend you don’t know him just because he’s getting remarried. Word to the wise—know which way the wind blows. The hospital’s still waiting on your family’s sponsorship.”

A few minutes later, Zhao Meiyou met the so-called Madam Liu: a voluptuous society beauty. Zhao Meiyou goggled at him, then shot Diao Chan a look. “That’s a man.”

“What else would he be?” Diao Chan looked equally baffled. “A woman?”

“How do men have children?”

“How do women have children?” Diao Chan pressed a hand to Zhao Meiyou’s forehead. “You’re kidding me—are you actually losing it?”

“Enough.” Madam Liu flicked his hand, bored. “Cut the act, Zhao Meiyou. You just don’t want to get married and have kids. I push you to go on a date and you carry on like it’s a death sentence. A man who isn’t remarried at thirty is stale leftovers, you hear me? With your high-pressure job, you still think you’ll have a child? Dream on. Too late. You’ll regret it.”

Zhao Meiyou: “...”

He did not understand. He was, in fact, thunderstruck.

Madam Liu dug a wedding invite from his bag and thrust it at him. “Here’s the address. Come or don’t. I’m leaving.”

“Madam Liu—careful on the stairs!” Diao Chan hustled to see him out, then shoved Zhao Meiyou back into the room and dropped his voice. “I’ll deal with your mom. You get some real sleep. Don’t overthink it.”

Numb, Zhao Meiyou shut the door and looked around. There was a bottle of sleeping pills under the bed. He stared at it for a while, uncapped a marker, and scrawled on the wall: May your mother have triplets in one go.

He opened the bottle, tipped the rest of the pills into his mouth, and crawled under the blanket.

When he woke again, the words on the wall were gone. He lay hooked to an IV. A nurse pushed a cart in, swapped the bag, and hit the call button when she saw his eyes open. He made to sit up and realized he was cinched tight. He knew the feel of it intimately: the psychiatric hospital’s specialty, a straitjacket.

The nurse had zero interest in conversation. Zhao Meiyou was still trying to put the last thread of memory together when a thunderous crash came from the hallway. The nurse’s expression changed; she dropped the cart, threw the window open, and dove out. She moved so fast he stared, dumbstruck. This was Level 33, right? Since when did nurses start jumping out windows?

The next second, the door was plowed off its hinges. A tractor burst through, a massive iron blade mounted to the front. The ceiling buckled. Through the dust he could glimpse the hallway outside—his most familiar place in the world, the Megalopolis Level 33 Psychiatric Hospital, the Lower District’s only public hospital. Disinfectant and air freshener mingled in the smoke. His reflection flickered in the glass across the way.

Why am I here?

Diao Chan’s head popped out of the cab. “Zhao Meiyou! Get in!”

He didn’t know what was happening, but he wriggled free of the straitjacket in a flash and vaulted into the cab. Diao Chan yanked the wheel. The tractor punched through a wall and roared down the corridor. Over the engine, Zhao Meiyou shouted, “What the hell is going on?”

“Harvesting! What else do you do with a tractor?” They crashed through the hospital gates into streets he barely recognized. A shambling horde thronged the avenue, dragging ragged limbs like broken dolls. “What is this?” Zhao Meiyou yelped. “Has the Great Cataclysm virus flared up again?”

“Are you foggy from sleep? It’s the government’s crops!” Diao Chan stomped the gas. The tractor had a sound system; Queen blasted so loud the drums rattled teeth. The blade lifted high and plowed into the oncoming swarm. Red sprayed everywhere.

“Woo-oo-oo-oo!” Diao Chan whooped, practically drunk on it. “Ketchup’s having a bumper year!”

Half of Zhao Meiyou was painted with gore. He fumbled for the window crank, hair blown to chaos. “Ketchup? What ketchup?!”

“Ketchup,” Diao Chan said, as if it were obvious. “Ketchup is ketchup. It isn’t gold, and it isn’t syrup. Ketchup is ketchup.” He scraped a thick layer of red from the window with his hand, palm open, and held it under Zhao Meiyou’s nose. “Nice color this year. Wanna taste?”

Nausea and vertigo swamped him. “You carsick?” Diao Chan said, eyeing his face. He fished a packet of fries from under the seat. “Here. Dip ’em and you won’t puke.”

Zhao Meiyou shook his head, clapped a hand over his mouth, yanked the door, and jumped. The tomatoes clawed at him as they lunged, then vanished beneath the wheels.

When he opened his eyes again, he was back in the hospital bed. This time no straitjacket—handcuffs.

He knew this place: the Megalopolis Level 33 Psychiatric Hospital, the Lower District’s only public hospital. Disinfectant and air freshener hung in the air.

A small glass pane set into the door showed the shining corridor outside.

A row of steel bars stood not far from the bed. A woman in uniform sat beyond them. When he stirred, she said, “Zhao Meiyou. Regarding your murder and dismemberment of citizen Diao Chan and citizen Liu Qijue—an especially egregious case—what do you have to say for yourself?”

His mind couldn’t get a grip. It was a pot at full boil, foreign memories burbling up and bursting one after another.

Why am I here? He clawed for what had happened before. A spark lit. He blurted, “Ketchup.”

The officer frowned. “What?”

“Not gold, not syrup,” Zhao Meiyou said. “Ketchup is ketchup.”