No one said anything, and after a long while, Huixiong began to smile. “Interesting,” he said. “Then we’ll act according to the previous plan.”
“I need to gather the opinions of my troops,” Angus said.
“I will give you three days to prepare,” Moran said. “Archbishop Igor, please take them back to Phoenix City now.”
Huixiong nodded, and under Igor’s lead, he and Angus left the Hall of Faith. Moran was silent for a long time before he said, “Everyone, I wish to hear of a plan for the general offensive on the City of Steel.”
A-Ka nodded. He knew that Moran likely had his own concerns, so A-Ka bade them farewell and left the table with Percy. At one point, as they walked outside, A-Ka paused. He had some questions he wanted to ask, like what exactly Percy’s dreams looked like, or if he had hidden anything from them—things that he hadn’t mentioned yet.
“Percy,” A-Ka said. “Your shoelaces have come undone.”
“Huh?” Percy turned around. Only the two of them were in the flower garden. He sat down on a bench, and A-Ka knelt to retie Percy’s shoelaces.
“You’ve never mentioned your dreams to me before,” A-Ka said.
“Uncle Moran told me not to. Ever since I was small, the villagers treated me like a demon. They were terrified of me witnessing their deaths.”
“Did you?” A-Ka finished retying Percy’s shoelaces and sat down next to him. Sunlight streamed down from the clear sky, turning the garden into a sea of golden splendor, and the flower waves swayed back and forth under the faint breeze. “How did you and Uncle Moran meet?”
“When Daddy went to join the war,” Percy said, “he left me in the care of the human habitat in the army camp. I had a dream, and I dreamed that they lost the battle. There was a very large ship that slammed into a pointy tower. Daddy’s ship crashed onto a barren plain and turned into a ball of fire. He helped a group of humans escape, and they all ran into a valley, but they were mowed down by an airship’s machine guns.”
A-Ka’s breathing seemed to almost stop, and he felt that the blood in his veins was as cold as ice. “Then what?”
“Later, he appeared in a laboratory in the City of Steel,” Percy said. “His body was opened up, and a chip was retrieved from his brain. He died. But after the chip was removed, I dreamed again that he turned into a ball of fire.”
A-Ka remembered the first time he had seen Feiluo. He and Heishi had been resting on the mountain when they happened to run into him leading a bunch of humans. He comforted Percy. “Well, your dream wasn’t accurate, right? Feiluo didn’t die.”
“Mhm,” Percy said, smiling. “Uncle Moran told me that too. He said that the future is undetermined, and the past is undetermined as well. The only thing that is determined is the present. That was a proverb of the ancient philosophers.”
There was something not quite right with Percy’s dream. Was it because he wasn’t in it, or because Heishi wasn’t? If A-Ka and Heishi hadn’t met Feiluo that fateful day, it was possible that the outcome awaiting him would indeed have been him getting captured and taken back to the City of Steel.
“What else?” A-Ka asked.
Percy thought for a moment before replying, “When I was by your side, I also often dreamed of a young man who was fiddling with some strange mechanical devices… I don’t know what that was about. One day, while we were crossing the great ocean on the ship, I also dreamed of the scene today—both of us, sitting in the hall, eating lunch with Uncle Moran.”
“Were there any involving Heishi?” A-Ka’s mind was on the mission that they were going to carry out, which was filled with changing variables.
“No,” Percy said. “He never appeared in my dreams. But once, when I was awake, I thought I heard two voices. I thought that those were probably you and him…”
“What were we saying?”
“It seemed to be something about a large airship,” Percy said. “A mother ship and Father and a person called Liber.”
“General Liber?! Are you sure it was us?”
“I don’t know. One voice seemed to sound like you, but it also wasn’t that much like you. It was a little hoarse, and there was the sound of static.”
Confused, A-Ka tried to absorb that.
Percy continued, “Most of the dreams I have are extremely fragmented, and there are many things that I can no longer recall about them. Actually, I’m most worried about Daddy.”
“Hey, it’ll be all right. He’s already escaped that death, and he won’t be in any more danger. Did you dream of him again after that?”
Percy thought for a bit before responding, “Not anymore.”
A-Ka let out a sigh of relief. “Then that’s good! How about me? Did you dream of me?”
“I constantly have this one dream,” Percy said. “The dream is of a sea of glowing blue, and a person walks into that blue ocean.”
“And after that?” A-Ka asked anxiously.
Percy leaned on A-Ka’s shoulder. “Do you know what that blue light is?”
A-Ka held his breath. He knew that no one could be clearer on the answer than him. “That’s Father’s consciousness,” he finally said. “Was there anything afterward? After that person went in, what happened to the blue light?”
Percy answered in a small voice, “After that, that person never came out again. There was a very tall, pointy tower that collapsed, and all of the clones collapsed, completely paralyzed. A great fire burned the city. It rained, and the rain extinguished the flames. Grass and trees grew from the ruins. And there were many humans. They came from underground, returning to the surface of the earth.”
“That person… What did they look like?”
Percy lifted his head. His cloth-covered eyes turned toward A-Ka.
“Was it a man with black hair and black eyes, very tall…with a really good build…?” A-Ka asked.
“No,” Percy answered. “I didn’t know who he was because his silhouette was very blurry. The person you mean, is it Heishi?”
A-Ka’s voice was shaking a little now. “Heishi wants to confront Father so he can end all of this. I’m afraid that he’ll sacrifice himself… I don’t know why, but I keep feeling that he’s made his preparations to never come back.”
“No, that person wasn’t him.” Percy smiled faintly. “A-Ka, don’t worry. Though I haven’t seen what Heishi looks like myself, I feel like that person isn’t him. Because Heishi has never appeared in my dreams, you know? Even that night when the clones and the humans were battling, I had a dream, a dream of when Uncle Moran would come to save us…”
A-Ka smiled too. “So, it was that dream sequence that reminded you?”
“Yeah. After I woke up, I sent a message to Uncle Moran. I also dreamed that we all got on the airship, but of the people who climbed onto the ship, there was still no Heishi.”
A-Ka was silent for a while until he suddenly realized that something wasn’t right.
“The person who walked into the blue light, was it a stranger?” A-Ka asked. Percy didn’t say anything, and A-Ka suddenly understood. “That person was me, right?”