She turns, and he’s there. The young man she fell in love with. That sly smile. Those lips she loved to kiss. Those fierce eyes meet hers. And she’s transported.

Whirling, whirling in the night. Dancing without fatigue at the gala ball. Two handsome men in black tuxedos, golden chrysanthemums at their lapels. Her men. Her scientific collaborators. And more. Her dashing husband, Chen Pang. Her equally dashing lover, Thanom Prat-Nung. 2027. China’s summer of endless possibility. The very peak of the gong kâi huà. China’s true counterculture revolution. China’s glasnost.

Let a billion flowers bloom.

To some it had been a summer of political idealism, when democracy in China had seemed imminent.

To others it had been a summer of scientific revolution, when new ideas shattered old paradigms. When creating minds greater than human seemed both possible and acceptable.

To others it had been China’s summer of love, when love was the law, and consent the only rule etched in stone.

To her it had been all three.

Later that night, in the limousine. One strap of her sequined dress down off her shoulder. Chen’s hand on her breast, her nipple hard. His mouth on hers, their tongues meeting sensuously. Her hand, finding the hardness in his pants. Even as, to her left, Thanom had his hand under the skirt of her dress, making her moan into Chen’s mouth. Her left hand, reaching over to Thanom’s lap, groping until she found his hardness as well.

And Thanom, drunk, talking, spinning his own erotic fantasies.

“We’ll be gods. Uploads. Immortal. Upgradeable. Faster and smarter every year. First mover advantage in the new base layer of civilization. The new substrate. And you, Su-Yong.” He pushed his fingers deeper into her, making her gasp. “You’ll be the first true goddess.”

And Su-Yong, pulling her mouth away from Chen, catching her breath, just enough to tell her lover, “Thanom… Shut up and go down.”

They’d all laughed at that. Even Chen.

Let a billion flowers bloom.

She smiles at the memory, smiles without any pain this time, smiles at this phantom from the past.

“We had our time, husband,” she tells this ghost. “You changed. You lost those ideals.”

She holds out one hand in his direction, palm open and up, and the figment of her imagination which is her husband ages before her, from this young dashing figure to the Chen of nearly fifty: grim faced, arrogant, prickly in his pride, willing to torture his wife for a modicum of extra wealth and status.

“Thank you for all the lessons you taught me,” she tells the figure.

She closes her palm, slowly, into a fist. And Chen Pang fades away, dissolves into the air before her.

“This is my mind, husband. And I rule it once more.”

66
Topology

Thursday 2040.12.20