A-Ka nodded, and he left clutching Percy’s hand in his. They traveled along a river flowing with polluted water, and perhaps it was because a farewell was imminent that A-Ka’s spirits sank low. He fell silent.
Percy suddenly asked, “Gege, what’s around here?”
A-Ka had a look around, only to see that the ground was covered with wastewater and garbage from the industrial processes around them. He thought for a bit before saying to Percy, “Mm, this is a very good city. As for the specifics…”
A-Ka portrayed their new home as a beautiful place, but in his heart, he sighed.
He brought Percy with him as they entered the inner ring of the city to find the orphanage. It wasn’t until the sky grew dark that they arrived outside a waste processing factory. On the door hung a tarnished plaque that read “Human Orphanage.” The entire place was fenced off with a layer of wire netting.
After the guard listened to A-Ka’s story, they opened the door in the wire fence. “Why don’t you come in?”
At the same time, a truck loaded with a large amount of coal drove into the refinery next to the shelter. This orphanage gave off the impression of a prison to A-Ka, but he didn’t say that to Percy. He simply told him, “We’ll stay here for the night.”
Percy nodded, and the two of them were given numbers. They weren’t subjected to any more questioning before they settled down. In the hall, the children were getting dinner.
“You’re over sixteen. You can’t live here,” a woman said to A-Ka.
“I know,” A-Ka said. “I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning.”
The woman brought A-Ka and Percy to a room. “After nine o’clock, we lock the doors.”
A-Ka inspected his surroundings. The room was devoid of people, with only a single light overhead and two sets of bunk beds. The other set seemed to have occupants who were not there at the moment.
Percy sat down quietly on the lower bunk. The kids who slept in the other bunks came back; they were both a bit older than ten, and one of them was even a little taller than A-Ka despite his young age. They gave the two of them a glance.
“Where’d you come from?” the older boy asked.
“We’re from the City of Steel,” A-Ka said with a smile. “This is my little brother.” Percy also said hello.
The larger youth understood and nodded. “Refugees from the east.” After saying this, he passed no more judgments, climbing onto his bed and lying down.
It was obvious that the smaller kid was afraid of this larger one. The two of them didn’t chat, and the other kid didn’t dare to strike up conversation with A-Ka. A-Ka’s emotions grew heavy again. He went out to get food for Percy, and as he swept his gaze over the fare, he saw that the orphanage-provided dinner was a kind of gray mixed-grain gruel. He sniffed it and could tell that there were oats, wheat, and several other kinds of coarse grains in it, so he didn’t get any for Percy, instead letting him eat the snacks that they had bought.
At exactly nine, all of the lights throughout the orphanage were extinguished. Outside the window, a soft rain began to fall, and bright white lights shone down on the street below. Once in a while a large truck would rumble by. The other two kids lay quietly in their beds.
A-Ka stared out of the window for a while as a sense of confused unease began to rise from the depths of his heart. The winter night was very, very cold, but compared to the icy chill, the loneliness inside A-Ka was harder to bear. He slid under the thin blankets, hugging Percy, hoping that he would be a little warmer. Until now, he had yet to completely accept that this was the human society that he had longed for—after all, it was so different from the new life that he had imagined.
Percy pulled out a small mechanical device and started tapping nonstop against the keys. A-Ka knew this was a transmitter, so he asked quietly, “Who are you contacting?”
“Daddy,” Percy answered. “I’m telling him that we’ve settled in. The transmitter uses a code to send our words to every transfer center in the rebellion troops’ headquarters in every city, and they send it along to him.”
A-Ka was a little surprised; Percy being able to remember that complicated a sequence meant that he was very smart. In another moment, the green light flashed, and a series of messages came back. Percy began to smile.
“I’ve gotten in contact,” Percy said.
“Could you ask if Heishi is still there?” A-Ka didn’t hold out much hope, but to him, Heishi was his only friend, or perhaps even the person he cared about the most.
Percy sent out the message, and when the reply came, he said, “He’s still there. Heishi’s with my daddy.”
This was an unexpected piece of good news. “What did Heishi say?”
“He told us to take care of ourselves. He heard that Phoenix City isn’t as hospitable as he expected, but at least we are still free.”
As the transmitter clicked along, Heishi’s sentence seemed to flip some switch in A-Ka’s mind, pulling his thoughts far away from this rainy night as he came to a decision.
Percy closed the transmitter, whispering to A-Ka, “They’re going to save the rebel hostages. I hope there won’t be danger.”
A-Ka nodded, trying to comfort him. “Sleep. If there’s anything else, you can talk about it tomorrow.”
Far away on the other mainland, Feiluo shut the transmitter and sat silently with Heishi in the armory. Heishi turned a grenade casing over and over in his hands like a toy puzzle as he disassembled and reassembled it.
“You shouldn’t have told them,” Heishi said darkly.
“I’m used to telling Percy everything,” Feiluo said. “Since he was small, he’s had a kind of…special power, you know?” Feiluo lifted his eyes to look at Heishi, smiling warmly. “Though he’s lost the sight in his eyes, he can see something different from those who still have it.”
Heishi furrowed his brow. “What can he see?”
“He can predict danger,” Feiluo explained. “I don’t know if all you humans have this strange ability. Once, a robotic patroller was approaching us when we were all sound asleep, and he happened to be there. We were in a rush to leave the Central District and head toward the rainforest in the south, and in the middle of the night he woke me up, saying, ‘Daddy, I dreamed that those big cold fellows are coming.’
“Thankfully, our troop discovered them early, and only three people were lost. We managed to retreat successfully from the swamp,” Feiluo said. “That’s why, whenever I make an important decision, I always ask for his opinion through the transmitter.”
Heishi smiled a little, but his expression seemed skeptical.
Feiluo didn’t explain any further. “I know you don’t believe me. Forget it.”
“If Percy’s dreams really do have the power of prediction, then you could let him try perceiving who stole the important information stored in the Primeval Heart.”
Feiluo smiled ruefully. “I don’t think that’s possible. The only things that appear in his dreams are things that involve him and me. Things that are personally relevant.”
Heishi had taken apart and reassembled that grenade casing three times, yet they were still in the warehouse waiting for night to fall. Once it did, Heishi would join Feiluo’s troops and set out to save a few hostages that had been detained by the Iron and Steel Corps. One among this group of hostages was the soldier who had been standing guard over the Primeval Heart three months before Heishi arrived.
Heishi looked up at Feiluo. “If your guess is right, and General Macksie has been plotting with the Iron and Steel Corps, what will happen then?”
“It’s difficult to say.” Feiluo shook his head slightly. “Brigadier General Macksie’s position is very important. He’s one of the three founders of the revolution. If this comes to light, it’ll definitely cause some shifts in the highest levels of the army.”
Heishi was gradually starting to understand the structure of the clone army. The three decision-makers within the clones’ forces were Liber, who had lost his life leading the failed revolution; Commander Angus, who to this day still remained in Phoenix City; and Macksie. All were the same rank. For one of the top-level executives to have actually been a spy sent by Father, who managed to sneak his way into the rebel forces… If this came to light, then the results would be unimaginably catastrophic.