Thus the need for Comrade Shing. Water could defeat fire, but with a large enough fire, water was not the best way — fire itself was.
“Report, please,” Wu said, giving Shing his usual enigmatic smile.
“We progress according to plan,” Shing said. He was bored with this; it shone from his face. He felt superior to Wu, felt a contempt for him and his oldness, had no respect for tradition. Shing was one of the new dragons of the air, all looks, bright red wings fluttering, pretty to gaze upon, but no substance, no connection to the ground. You must have roots to withstand the cyclone’s winds. Men like Shing would be blown around the skies in a moderate breeze. Computers were amazing playthings, smart bombs could not be denied, but their reality was ephemeral. Take those away, and it was the man on the ground who decided the battle.
The pen, in the long run, might indeed be mightier than the sword, but on a street facing a man with a sword, a pen was a poor weapon. There would be no long run for the scribe against the warrior in such a situation. Shing did not know this. He had not yet learned that real power always comes down to the sword. All else flowed from that.
Wu knew. Wu also knew that the sword of power must, at times, be taken from those who did not know how to wield it. From those who did not wish to give it up.
Shing was of some value. Locke was worth more.
Men with swords of power were not to be faced directly, however. They might be less than adept with their blades, but even a casual backhanded swipe could behead somebody foolish enough to stand in front of them making annoying noises. One needed to distract them, misdirect their attention, and while they were busy, slip in and steal their weapons for one’s own use.
This was Shing’s worth. He would be a distraction, though he would have no idea this was the use to which he was being put.
Shing was too full of himself, his own skill and talent, to even consider that a man such as Wu could use him thus.
Pride was both terrible and wonderful — terrible for the man who suffered it; wonderful for one who could use another man’s hubris to his own ends…
So, go on, flying dragon, feel superior. Look down from the skies upon lowly Wu, plodding across the ground like a turtle, ancient and slow. Eventually, the cyclone would come, and Wu, safe in his shell, would be here long after the dragons of the air had been dashed against the mountains, their bodies left there to freeze in the chilly heights…
He smiled at the image. Even a poor general could be a poet, if not a great one. But there were other ways to make up for that.
Jay Gridley, who had survived countless VR battles, a quantum computer-generated stroke, and a brush with Mr. Death Himself in the form of a bullet to the head, stood at the edge of the sidewalk, worried about crossing the street.
The walk sign had just lit, and bright LEDs gleamed at him, offering the same promise the witch in the fairy tale had offered Hansel and Greteclass="underline" inviting, but surely a dark side lay hidden in it somewhere.
He eyed the traffic on both sides of the intersection. All the cars were stopped now, waiting for him to head out into the street. Waiting for the baby.
Come on, Gridley.
He felt a nervous tingle, but stepped forward, pushing the pram. He paused to eye little Mark, who lay quietly, watching the world go by overhead, with seemingly no cares in the world.
If you only knew, son.
Not willing to be distracted from their imminent peril, Jay scanned the street again, looking for signs that the drivers at either side were planning to run him over. Eyes that had been trained to note the slightest change in the hyper-realistic environments of VR scanned every detail. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Part of him laughed at his nervousness, but another more primal part nodded, satisfied.
It was okay.
He made it across the street and pushed the carriage toward the entrance to Edward’s Park, still not sure this was a good idea. Saji was doing a how-to VR-cast on Buddhist meditation, and had suggested he get out of the house for a while, so she could focus.
“Go to the park, Jay,” she’d said. “Have some fun, and show Mark around!”
It had sounded good, but now, alone, without his wife nearby, ready to use her mothering superpowers, he was nervous. Plus, there was the whole danger thing. It was fine to go for a walk by himself — not that he really liked going out in RW that much — but here he was with a little defenseless person, and he was completely in charge. What if something happened to him? What would happen to the baby?
Come on, Jay, you can handle a walk in the park.
Well, maybe.
It was a new feeling for him, this responsibility. Maybe it was because he hadn’t yet had enough time with his son on his own. Saji was always there, ready to help out. God, was this what she went through when he was at work?
It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle the physical part of things. He was brighter than most people he knew — come to think of it, brighter than most people he didn’t know and would never meet. He could handle a bottle, and Saji had supplied some milk for the one in the little incubator bag at the back of the carriage. Plus he had a binky, if all else failed.
The pram looked like those seen in old movies set in the late 1890s, a big black carriage with huge wheels and a pullover top that protected the baby from the sun and errant looks from strangers. He and Saji had looked all over D.C. for one like it. Saji had read somewhere that babies felt more secure if they could look at their parents, so it had to be the pram.
No, it wasn’t the physical part of things that made him nervous. It was the thought that maybe something would happen from which he couldn’t protect his child. It was a heavy weight, and one that explained all kinds of things he’d seen in other people with children. He had been admitted to the secret fatherhood; the fatherhood of knowing just how terrifying the world really was.
Before, when he’d worried about things going to hell, it hadn’t been so bad — the world only had to last long enough to see himself and his friends through it. After that, nothing mattered much anyway. But that time period had now been extended another lifetime, and it added a certain amount of pressure.
His son gurgled a happy sound, and Gridley looked down, feeling a warm pleasure run through him. If there was a dark side to these new minefields of responsibility, there was also a light one. He’d never felt such unconditional love for anyone in his life. Whether he was up at five in the morning feeding the boy, or changing a dirty diaper, that pleasure didn’t diminish in the least. Part of him knew that this was purely biological, but he just didn’t care.
Amazing.
There was a pond at the center of the park, where ducks swam. He’d brought part of an old loaf of bread to feed them, thinking it might amuse his son.
But maybe not. No one had bothered to tell him that babies younger than about six months tended to just sit there, not doing anything. Well, if you didn’t count eating, crying, and filling diapers. All his life he’d seen pictures and vids of babies crawling or running, or sitting up and playing. He just hadn’t been told that there was a time frame around such things.
Oh, well. He could always just sit and hold him.
He glanced down again, and little Mark was looking up at him.
“What are you looking at, little tiger?”
The boy grinned a toothless smile. Daddy was talking to him.
Jay wished he could have this much fun at work. He’d been struggling to figure out his latest puzzle. It seemed so close sometimes, as if there was something that he just wasn’t seeing.