Yang Ru dreamed of losing her mind, amidst her work on Hotel California. In her dreams, she saw herself unspooling the innards of her brain on the carpet of the house the Alliance had given her. She laughed hysterically, repeating something about reaching her true potential. Yang Ru, the real, sleeping Yang Ru, approached the crazed one, noticing she was missing the top of her skull. Inside, she could see when the crazed one tilted her head, was empty, hollowed out. Her black hair, what remained of it,
The sleeping Yang Ru explored the confines of the house, finding scribblings painted, scratched, and splashed across the white walls in blood, guts, and other bodily matter and fluids. The same thing kept being repeated: Martian Sovereignty. She heard a familiar woman’s voice scream and the crazed Yang Ru laugh. The two sounds left chills up and down sleeping Yang Ru’s body. She ventured forth to where the study, her office, should be. She found a locked door.
She whispered something to Osmanthus, who answered, asking her for a password. Yang Ru hadn’t a clue as to what the password was, but she decided it must have something to do with phrase, Martian Sovereignty.
Yang Ru said, Martian Sovereignty.
Osmanthus didn’t say anything at first. Yang Ru waited a few minutes, and she looked around at the walls nearest the study’s door. Nothing appeared to be added to the carnage that the crazed Yang Ru had been responsible for.
Access granted, Osmanthus replied. Welcome back, Yang Ru. Do you need me to make you some tea?
Yang Ru ignored Osmanthus’s question and pushed open the study’s door. Inside she found a three-dimensional projection of a green and blue planet, with hints of brown, tan, reds, yellows, and beautiful pastels. Above it, in Mandrin and simplified English, read: Martian Sovereignty. War lead not necessarily to destruction, but, maybe, just maybe, a new era in human political dealings.
What is the Martian Sovereignty, Osmanthus? Yang Ru asked, tasting the phrase before blurting it aloud.
Osmanthus, a woman with tree branches for limbs, roots for toes, and sweet-smelling blossoms for hair appeared next to the projection of the planet.
The Martian Sovereignty is our answer to everything, Osmanthus said, as if repeating an oft-used answer. She looked genuinely confused to Yang Ru.
But what is it? Yang Ru asked.
You should know better than to ask questions like that Yang Ru, Osmanthus said, her form glitching. She cocked her head to the side. She glitched a few more times. The glitches revealed the crazed Yang Ru, holding the severed head of the woman from the grocery store.
You should know better than to ask questions you’re not meant to know the answers to, the crazed Yang Ru said. Osmanthus had totally disappeared, but she told the sleeping Yang Ru, Run!
The sleeping Yang Ru didn’t obey, even when Osmanthus begged her, in a very human way, to run away from the crazed Yang Ru.
I want to see your thoughts, the crazed Yang Ru said, looking at her whole, sleeping self. Thoughts are a window into the soul. Souls are delicious. I think yours would make a good palette cleanser. Time to die…
The crazed Yang Ru charged herself. Before sleeping Yang Ru could do anything, she felt her head being smashed against the faux wood floor of the study. The crazed Yang Ru slammed her head against the floor until the sleeping Yang Ru heard a pop. She felt nothing, her limbs went limp. She felt herself rise from her body, as her crazed self began ripping open her skull. The crazed Yang Ru ate the her brains and then worked her way down, toward her breasts and thighs and toes, tearing flesh and crunching bone with inhuman chewing.
Yang Ru awoke to find herself drenched in sweat, holding onto the woman from the grocery store.
“You sleep like you’ve demons inside you, Yang Ru,” the woman said, peering down at her with dark brown eyes. Her bangs were long and very attractive to Yang Ru in the moment.
“I need something to distract me from my dreams,” Yang Ru said, still holding onto the grocery woman’s arm.
“You do?” the grocery woman said, coyly. She began kissing Yang Ru’s forehead, working her way down to the neckline and then Yang Ru’s breasts. She spent a good deal of time on Yang Ru’s small breasts, making the nipples stand erect. Yang Ru felt her eyes rolling back into her head. Her breath was quick, shallow. She felt helpless against the grocery woman’s sexual advances. The grocery woman, a woman she refused to know by name, straddled her and held Yang Ru’s arms down onto the bed.
“How’s this helping?” the woman asked.
Yang Ru smiled and said, “You tease me too much, dear.”
“Good,” the woman said and she began working her way downward, using her lips and tongue. Then she paused, she let go of Yang Ru’s arms and moved downward. She spread Yang Ru’s legs, and Yang Ru’s eyes went wide. She saw the white wall and tried focusing on it and not what the woman was about to do to her. The woman pushed her legs up and began licking Yang Ru, entering her with two fingers.
Yang Ru felt her body shudder; the woman lifted her head up, laughing.
She said, “I think that did it, didn’t it?”
Yang Ru closed her eyes and then said, “You have no idea, my dear.”
“I must get going, Yang Ru,” the woman said, pushing up from the bed. “I must get to work, so should you. You told me you’ve got a lot of work to do today. I hear currency futures trading is a tough business these days.”
“Depends on the day,” Yang Ru answered, looking up at the grocery woman, whose almond shaped ass dominated her view. She enjoyed having her around; she almost wanted to do the same thing the woman had just done to her. Then she remembered that Mr. Liu Jianguo was coming by today, after being away on Alliance business. She’d need to shower and have tea before getting to work as well.
“See you later?” Yang Ru asked, still looking at the woman’s ass, which was now obscured by black, skintight pants.
The woman looked back and winked. She said, “You know you will. I expect to be repaid for getting your mind in the right place. Maybe a nice dinner?”
Yang Ru laughed and answered, “I’ll make you whatever you want.”
“I’ll leave you to decide what we are going to have,” the woman said. “Make it romantic, though.”
“I always do,” Yang Ru said with a wink.
Yang Ru heard the voices again while showering. The voices were a jumble of a dozen different languages, all ones she’d studied at university or during her free time. They all said the same thing: Sometimes war doesn’t always mean total destruction and breakdown of normalcy; sometimes war means a new era in human political dealings.
She didn’t understand the rather contradictory words, but she turned up the shower’s temperature and soaked away the voices. After a half-hour, she entered her study, refreshed and with her third cup of tea in hand. She preferred coffee, but the town’s grocery store manager insisted on only carrying tea. He belief tea was tradition, and tradition wasn’t to be messed with. Coffee was inferior, in his eyes, despite the evidence, in Yang Ru’s opinion, to the contrary.
She gulped down the tea after a few minutes, while reviewing notes and voice memos from the day before. She looked over her shoulder, making sure the door was closed. She even got up to check if it was locked. Osmanthus asked her if everything was okay. She didn’t respond. Instead, Yang Ru told Osmanthus to search for the term, Martian Sovereignty. Osmanthus assured her nothing more than a few esoteric texts from Mars cropped up during her brief search.
“Start a file,” Yang Ru ordered.
“What shall I name it?” Osmanthus asked, appearing in her fragrant tree form.
“Martian Sovereignty,” Yang Ru said, looking up from her notes. “Send me the file, and I’ll add the details that Mr. Liu Jianguo will want to know about.”
“As you wish, Yang Ru,” Osmanthus said.
“Anything interesting happen to you yesterday?” Yang Ru asked, as she began typing information into the file Osmanthus had sent her.
“Nothing of note,” Osmanthus answered. “Do you need me today?”
Yang Ru shook her head. “I do not, Osma.”
“I will be nearby,” Osmanthus said. “I just need to contemplate something.”
“Don’t think too much,” Yang Ru said, throwing a wink at Osmanthus’s ephemeral form.
“What does that mean?” Osmanthus asked, genuinely interested in what Yang Ru had to offer as an answer.
“Something my father used to say,” Yang Ru finally said. “He said thinking too much gets in the way of a good life. Sometimes we need to sit back and enjoy what we have around us.”
“I see,” Osmanthus said. “I will try to follow your father’s advice, Yang Ru.”
“I’ll let you know if I need anything, Osma,” Yang Ru said. “Enjoy your day off.”
Osmanthus’s ephemeral form melted away into nothingness. Yang Ru asked the study’s virtual assistant to play classical music, while she typed away her thoughts on Martian Sovereignty. As she continued her work, Yang Ru thought back to The Protracted Game, that wonderfully esoteric English text that she’d finished during her first days in the Alliance’s house. She imagined what the author might’ve thought of an interplanetary struggle between the Alliance and its adversaries. She stopped typing and looked out the window. She saw the upward slopping side of a mountain, covered with trees and other vegetation. Yang Ru thought of her father’s sage words. She decided she could wait to finish her work. She would flesh out the ideas with her handler, who should be arriving soon.
Yang Ru pushed up from her desk, telling the virtual assistant to stop the music. She exited the office, closing its wooden door behind her. She ventured out into the living room. She grabbed a book from a nearby shelf, made by the village’s only handyman and carpenter. He also happened to be the grocery woman’s stepbrother. Yang Ru had paid him double for the crude shelves, because she knew it would benefit her later with the grocery woman.
Yang Ru began reading her book, as she waited for Mr. Liu Jianguo. She drifted off to sleep after a few moments, dropping her book. The book’s heavy thud woke her, and she found Mr. Liu Jianguo sitting and staring at her.
“You not sleeping well?” he asked.
“I am,” Yang Ru said, grabbing her book from the floor.
“If you say so, Yang Ru,” Mr. Liu Jianguo said. “If you say so.”
“I’ve something special for you,” Yang Ru said, trying to change the conversation.
“Oh,” he said, shifting in his seat. “Do tell me.”
“What does Martian sovereignty mean to you, Mr. Liu Jianguo?”
“Sounds expensive,” he said, propping one leg over another and sitting back in his seat. He wore a blue business suit. Not a lab-grown one, Yang Ru noticed. No, he seemed to opt for a freshly tailored Indian or Pakistani one, something expensive, but not too expensive. Enough to show off his status as government bureaucrat, but also cheap enough to keep him from destitution.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Yang Ru began, sitting back in the couch. She held onto her thick book with both hands. “I believe we can convince the Martians to do it themselves.”
“Interesting,” Mr. Liu Jianguo said with a half-smirk. “Do continue.”
Yang Ru continued, “We start a war on Martian soil. Create someone who is going to lose, but they will put up enough of a fight to get a centralized government together. They will scare the hell out of everyone on Mars. They will welcome us, our Alliance, with open arms, especially if we play our game right.”
“So,” Mr. Liu Jianguo said, “we start a war, fund a side to take a fall, and reap the profits?”
Yang Ru nodded and said, “Exactly.”
“I like it,” Mr. Jianguo said. “I want something on it as soon as we are finished here. I think you and I are going to impress the hell out of those who runs things within the Alliance.”
“There’s a catch, though,” Yang Ru said. “We’ll need more money.”
“I figured as much,” Mr. Liu Jianguo said. “I will ask the powers-that-be for a better budget. I am sure they will accommodate us, especially with your well-thought plan to back it all up.”
Yang Ru nodded, but she didn’t say anything.
“Well,” Mr. Liu Jianguo said. “I have three gifts for you, bright star.”
“What could those be?” Yang Ru asked, putting her book on a nearby coffee table.
“Follow me to the front porch,” Mr. Liu Jianguo said, pushing up from his seat. Yang Ru followed him the porch, where they sat down on wood furniture, built by her companion’s stepbrother.
“Hold our your hand,” Mr. Liu Jianguo ordered. Yang Ru complied and gave him her left hand. He flipped it over and poked all five fingers with a microneedle.
“You can take your hand back,” Mr. Liu Jianguo said, sitting back in his chair. “That should help you concrete.”
“What is it that you’ve been giving me?” Yang Ru asked.
“It’s part of a program that the Alliance is testing,” Mr. Liu Jianguo answered, folding his hands over his chest. “The drug is a meant to make your thinking faster, efficient, and easier.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Yang Ru commented.
“Depends on the subject’s DNA,” Mr. Liu Jianguo added. “We’ve got your DNA profile back in the capital. It showed us that you could handle the drug, so that is why I am giving it to you.”
“How long does it last?” Yang Ru asked.
“Depends on the subject,” Mr. Liu Jianguo answered. “A few hours to a few months. I have given you enough to last a while, if my calculations are correct.”
“What are the others?”
“Other what?”
“Gifts.”
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Liu Jianguo said. “We have made contact with a certain individual on Mars, whose organization is flouting MAP-1 by merely existing. He will be cultivated as an asset.”
“Okay,” Yang Ru said. “What’s that other one?”
“Have you ever read Giorgio Agamben?” Mr. Li Jianguo asked, grabbing a wrapped package from inside his suit’s jacket.
“I haven’t,” Yang Ru answered. “Who is that?”
“Someone you might find interesting,” Mr. Liu Jianguo answered, tossing the wrapped package in her direction. “Someone who might give you a bit of inspiration, bright star.”
Yang Ru thumbed the package open, finding a Mandarin translation of The Omnibus Homo Sacer. She looked up from the book, only to see that Mr. Liu Jianguo was walking away, toward his government vehicle. She nodded to herself and went back inside. She knew what she had to do. She ordered the kitchen’s automatic chef to cook a meal for two, inputting romantic and intimate into the order. She set a timer on her desk and began hammering out the plan. She looked over at the Omnibus Homo Sacer every time she ran out of words. It gave her enough of a push to complete the plan and send it to Mr. Liu Jianguo network account.
The grocery woman opened the front door, dropping her keys near the entrance, in a ceramic bowl she’d bought for Yang Ru. She walked over to see Yang Ru putting plates at the table and lighting candles.
“Is this all for me?” the woman asked, coming up behind Yang Ru. She grabbed onto Yang Ru’s butt and worked her way beneath her shirt. Yang Ru turned to face her. They kissed and slowly sank to the floor, taking off clothes as they did so.
Yang Ru began working her way down, sucking on the woman’s nipples, kissing her neckline.
“You don’t have to do anything, you know?” the woman gasped.
“Be quiet, you,” Yang Ru said, working her way toward the woman’s waist, kissing her soft skin and working her hands downward.
Yang Ru heard the voices call out to her in the cold night.
They were louder and more pronounced than before Mr. Liu Jianguo’s visit. She walked into her office, leaving the grocery woman behind, and she entered her office and turned on her desk. She began working through the plan she’d sent to Mr. Liu Jianguo.
She knew the plan would work, but she also had her doubts about its real success. Martian sovereignty was an oxymoron here. The Martians would always be dependent on humans of Earth. Earth capital would keep Mars afloat, no matter who was in control. If the well dried up, if Earth became nothing more than an empty shell, Mars and the rest of the Verse would collapse.
Collapse was inevitable for most of life. It was an inevitable fate of those who existed in an indifferent universe. This fact brought a hard edge to Yang Ru’s thinking. She didn’t believe it was an if but, rather, a when sort of problem. The universe would win in the end. Things would go on, never knowing the very real human struggles that existed in a minuscule portion of the universe itself. It was human hubris and stupidity that made one believe the future would hold all of the keys. It was hubris and stupidity that expected the universe to care about something, an animal, of little or no consequence.
She pondered a bit more on the futility of it all before she noticed the book Mr. Liu Jianguo had given her earlier that day. It was a hardback, expensive and annotated. The book itself was a Chinese translation of an English translation of an Italian canon of philosophical texts. Yang Ru began reading it, and she fell into the cool, deep well of the words, phrases, and ideas of the author.
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