Honor the spirits, but keep your distance from them.
-Chinese proverb
The squad of Chinese soldiers snapped to attention, although they were facing no leader. Then by unspoken command, they executed an about right face, clicked their heels together, and began marching toward the far end of the otherwise abandoned Beijing warehouse. There they turned like a flock of birds to their left and paused.
Each man leveled his rifle and took careful aim at a picture of the American president, Nelson Burrows, tacked to the bull's eye of a target.
With a loud blast they fired as one. Each bullet struck the exact center of the president's forehead, forming a single hole.
Liang Jiaxi gasped with astonishment.
Then once again like clockwork, the group did an about face, turned toward Liang where he stood on the podium, and began to march. He was looking at a phalanx of military machines, not individuals. He couldn't tell what they were thinking due to the blank expressions on their faces. As the group approached, he took an involuntary step backward and shot a look toward a dark corner of the room. There a small man with the thin white beard sat cross-legged, transmitting messages to the soldiers telepathically.
The footsteps came to an abrupt halt. The soldiers snapped to attention. Each white gloved hand touched the forehead, palm outward.
Liang raised his eyes tentatively and looked over the room. The old scientist Dr. Yu had put him back in charge of the detachment. They were at his command. He straightened his back and returned the salute.
"At ease," he said. His voice echoed around the building.
There was no reaction from the soldiers.
He turned to Dr. Yu. "At ease," he repeated through his teeth.
The scientist hunched his shoulders under his multiple layers of sweaters and complied. A moment later, the soldiers stood at ease.
"Thank you, old man." he said. He surveyed the men before him. "This is incredible. I wonder what would happen if bin Laden got hold of this."
"He probably has."
vLiang raised an eyebrow. "Do you realize what we have at our disposal?" This was beyond forcing a confession. It was even beyond engendering correct thinking. They were doing more than implanting a conscience and suggesting things. "You have turned them into robots. You push a button, and they comply."The old man hefted a handful of bullets over which he had been meditating. "Yes. The puppet master can control every gesture of his puppets. I suppose that I can do the same with men." "And women, too?" Liang said.
Dr. Yu nodded.
Liang looked out the door at the distance. The frosty haze of the outer world seemed to take on a gleaming new sheen. How many women scurrying about in the cold could be his? "Do you know what a harem I could create?"
"I suppose you would find this interesting in that way. My real interest is in the science. If you give me the freedom I need, I can get to the heart of nature, avert natural disasters, solve global warming..."
Liang wasn't thinking about science. His world didn't have room for selfless medieval scholars. He had grown up believing in the power of man to engineer a more perfect world. "I don't have time to tackle global warming. All I need is to inject a few humans with this drug and microchip and put myself in power."
"But you didn't need to use drugs to soften these subjects up. And you don't need your company's pain devices in their brains," Yu said. "I have reached people through meditation." "Unfortunately we don't have time for such antiquated techniques, nor can we accept ambiguous results." Liang had a regime to overturn. Two actually: one in China and the other in America. Which reminded him to share the good news with his cohort in America. "I must reach Professor at once."
Yu bowed his head obediently and began to concentrate.
"I don't need your help, old fool. I have a cell phone." Liang pulled the gadget from his pocket and punched in a preprogrammed number.
While he waited for the international call to filter through his encryption system, Liang studied the old man. What a remarkable mind the scientist had. He could switch effortlessly between the major scientific debates of the age, first solving the origin of the human species and now making huge strides in a different field, the study of parapsychology. "What do you mean we don't need my company's brain implants?" He was slightly offended, but needed to know the details.
"To make a human subject respond to your commands, you need to satisfy several conditions." Yu launched pedantically into his litany of requirements. First there was proximity, where he had to be in the same vicinity as the subject. Then he needed a totem, or symbol, to commune with the subjects, in this case the bullets worked fine. Subjects had to be receptive through either drugs or meditation. And lastly, Yu concluded with the need to activate a psychological stimulus-response mechanism.
"We inflicted pain," Liang said.
The old man equivocated. "There are alternatives. The conditioning could be as simple as inducing pleasure or a knock on the head to associate the pleasure or pain with responding to my commands."
Liang's biotech firm had created a microchip that he had implanted near pain-communicating cells at the base of each soldier's brain. If a soldier disobeyed an order that the scientist issued, there would be some painful electro-chemical reaction. What was wrong with that? But he did see the simplicity of what Yu was saying and filed it away for future reference.
The phone began to ring on the other end. "Make them hop."
Yu regarded the bullets, the totem he used to reach the soldiers. He bowed his head, and the troops began to hop about, each on his right foot.
"Jump."
The men jumped like frogs. They squatted and then sprung into the air.
"Skip."
Within a second, the building was filled with the sound of clunking boots. Like schoolchildren, the men began skipping around each other. The same blank look remained on their faces. The phone picked up.
"Silence!"
Dr. Yu raised his head with a relieved look, and the men snapped to attention.
"You don't need to scream." It was Professor Richter on the phone. His voice sounded muffled as if covered by gauze.
"Sorry." Liang drew in his breath. "I have excellent news."
But before he could go on, Richter interrupted him. "The experiment worked?"
Liang collected himself and then allowed a smile. "Better than I ever imagined," If their plan worked, America would close its borders and its economy would come to a shuddering halt. "Your country needs true political leadership so that it can sink into oblivion."
"No, my country will need me after it sinks into oblivion," Richter corrected. "Hey, you have to take some credit here. I modeled my plan after yours."
Liang nodded. It would take more than economic ruin in China to elevate him to power. He looked at Dr. Yu thinking so innocently about his power over nature while barely realizing how he could take advantage of it. He could create a tidal wave that would cripple China's east coast, for example. That would create the conditions for Liang to assume power. "We will both be like the phoenix," Liang said. "Are your subjects drugged and prepared?"
"As soon as I get this bandage off my face."
Liang paused to imagine Richter's new incarnation. Could the former anthropology professor pull off the transformation? "I have a hard time imagining you as a religious zealot."
The deep voice rumbled with laughter. "Just watch and be astonished. Besides, the Reverend Terry Smith is my very own twin, though we were separated at birth."
Liang smiled. He had to give his partner credit. Liang had the inspiration for great things, but Richter had the ingenuity to pull them off.
"Finish up with your doctors," Liang said. "I'll be there in a few days." And he put the phone away.
He turned to watch the soldiers standing at attention. Soon, China's entire army would be saluting him. And together they would lift their nation to greater glory on the world stage. With a military to match China's economic might, nobody would invade or bully her again. In fact, China would forge a new world order.
"Have them march backwards with their fingers up their noses." Yu sighed. "When can I get back to my real research? I don't want to spend my time demeaning these poor men."
"They aren't men. They are soldiers. And you will have time to do research only if you do what I say."
"These men would do anything I say." It was one of those rare, but loaded moments of confrontation with the old man.
"Are you threatening me?" Liang looked at the men out of the corner of his eye. They hadn't moved. "I have written a letter addressed to the Chief of the Northern Command. If any harm befalls me, my associate will mail that letter. Should that occur, you would never have the freedom to conduct your global warming research again. Do I make myself clear?"
Yu swallowed hard. He closed his eyes and began to concentrate. Finally, the soldiers shoved their fingers up their noses and began to back across the room. They reached the rear wall and turned as a group to march along the far side of the room.
"That's right," Liang said. His eyes fell on the vials of LSD that he had injected into the troop just half an hour earlier.
Yu followed his gaze. "You might as well use opium. It's cheaper."
"Ha!" At least the old guy hadn't lost his sense of humor.
Yu gave him a curious look. "Why do you need me? You don't need to rely on the help of an old religious anthropologist."
Liang smiled inwardly as his thoughts returned to Dr. Yu's beautiful and talented daughter, Yu May Hua. Liang had been busy trying to find Yu's daughter when Yu's name popped up in recent anthropological journals. "Your findings peaked my interest. Instead of using verbal commands and electrodes, I can use ESP and negative reinforcement. It makes my job a whole lot easier." "Mind control is not a tool that you turn to your ends. It is a tapping into our natural powers. It is a spiritual ecstasy."
"I'll turn it into ecstasy, alright."
"I know my daughter. She will never become your puppet."
Liang glowered at him. Dr. Yu had brought up a sore subject. Everything in the past year had conspired to wrest May Hua away from him. For the moment, a young American anthropology student, Bradley West, had snatched her away. But that wouldn't continue for long. Before all was over, the beautiful and feisty May would be his again. "I want you to send one of these soldiers after Bradley West, that foreigner who wishes to steal your daughter's heart." He stared at the old man with a commanding air.
"Never. I will not use these powers to kill."
Liang sensed that the old man would only cooperate within certain limits and he couldn't stop Yu from doing something rash. "I'm only doing this for Bradley's sake. You don't have to kill him. Just make sure he stays off our trail. He has a way of sniffing me out and finding me, and it would be dangerous for him, especially now." He pointed for Yu to go ahead and transmit the command to one of the soldiers who was marching backwards.
Yu bowed his head and opened his fist. He held the bullets as if they might explode in his face. Then he proceeded to implant the thought.
Just then the closest soldier, who happened to be the largest and most muscular in the group, stopped in his tracks. As if the message had gotten through loud and clear, a smile appeared on his face. It revealed a row of stained and poorly aligned teeth.
The soldier pulled his collar up and turned to leave. He broke into a purposeful trot and soon disappeared on the icy streets of Beijing.
Liang stepped off the platform and grabbed his overcoat. "Now we must go to my office and pick up our plane tickets."
"Where are you taking me?" Yu said.
Liang patted the cell phone from which he had just made his call. "We must be within close proximity of our subjects."
Yu nodded, yet his eyes darted around for a means of escape.
"Don't try anything, old man. Or I'll hunt you down and put you to death. And your precious global warming will turn these snowy streets into a swamp. And your daughter will come crawling to me."
Yu spat on the ground. "So where are we going?" he repeated.
"To the West," Liang said. "To the Wild West." He derived ironic satisfaction from the term. Visions of gunslingers and shootouts in ghost towns came to mind.
Then he turned with irritation to the squad pacing backwards with their fingers up their noses. "I'm getting tired of these zombies. You can end this demonstration now." Yu concentrated, and the group came to a halt, broke rank, and left the room. The thought of all those men walking around Beijing with memories of that morning's experiment bothered Liang. "Will these goons remember what happened here?" "What does it matter to you?" Yu said. "If my grandfather finds me still alive, he will kill me." In many ways it was an advantage to have China's president as one's grandfather. It gave Liang a respectable name. But the president was powerful. His men had been searching the southern border region for Liang for nearly a year. Within weeks, Liang would assume his grandfather's position for himself, and even the Americans would be his subjects. With all the old scientist's powers at his disposal, nothing, not even May's determined boyfriend, could prevent Liang from conquering both countries.
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