Five years later.
New Star Calendar year 275, Galaxy Eight, Planet Beijing Beta.
"Beijing Beta" was a commonplace planet name. Every galaxy had a series of planets called "Planet Beijing", "Planet London", and "Planet Zimbabwe", not unlike the the choice of roadnames like "Nanjing Road" or "Washington Avenue" during the ancient ages of Earth.
Possibly because of its name, Beijing Beta had a rather eastern feel. Many of the residents were of Asian descent. Yet in a shit-hole like Galaxy Eight, even descending from ancient dragons did not guarantee you a comfortable life.
Apparently a tenth of the mainstream media headlines in all the other galaxies would be a sob piece about the extreme misery of residents in Galaxy Eight. They had a nickname for this place, "The Wasteland."
The Union had a total of eight galaxies. Galaxy One, which housed the capital planet Virtuo, was naturally the top of the resource chain. The further you went from Virtuo, the poorer the planets. By the time you reached Galaxy Eight, you were in society's sewer.
Galaxy Eight had become a "wasteland" for a combination of natural and historical reasons. On the one hand, it had a dearth of natural resources and transportation infrastructure. On the other hand, history had left it a complicated legacy.
Two hundred years ago in the age of the Old Stellar Calendar, the Union was battling Interstellar Pirates left and right. The members of the interstellar pirates were actually descendants from ancient Earth too, as opposed to being an alien species. In the beginning, they were neither named so ominously as "Interstellar Pirates," nor a unified power. After the Union government gained control of the majority of galaxies, they conveniently came up with simple name for all the remaining governments refusing to acknowledge them--"Interstellar Pirates".
Galaxy Eight was geographically isolated. Compared to the other relatively close-knit seven, it was a pitiful solitary island. To withstand the onslaught of the powerful Union, the tiny forces of anti-Union powers were forced into a reluctant alliance, holding out in the faraway Galaxy Eight. Since the beginning of the New Stellar Calendar, Galaxy Eight was occupied by Interstellar Pirate organizations until its re-annexation by the Interstellar Union Commodore Lu Xin in NSC 136. Only then did they re-establish transport passages with the other seven galaxies.
During those 136 years, the beacons of humanity and science had made light speed progress in the Union. Galaxy Eight remained a war-torn mess amidst civil war and chaos at the mercy of its various pirates organizations. The societies at the two respective ends of the hyperspace passage gradually became separated by an insurmountable difference, comparable to the difference between modern Union man and ancient Earth gorillas.
After Commodore Lu recovered the lost territory, the Union sent an expedition down. Finding nothing of value and no people worth controlling, they decided to allow Galaxy Eight to "democratically self-govern," a polite way of telling these gorillas to go fuck themselves.
Whenever the Union had important occasions that required the attendance of each galaxy's magistrate or representative, those from each of the other seven galaxies had their name on a placard. Only the representative from Galaxy Eight had no name. The placard read "Galaxy Eight." Now this wasn't geographical bias. It was because these gorillas were so prone to in-fighting that their magistrates and governments were single-use only, and their representatives changed on a daily basis. Nobody knew who was who, thus one could only refer to them by "species."
Anyone with means had immigrated. Those that were left were pathetic wretches deserted by the times.
Beijing Beta was the most populous planet in Galaxy Eight. It was chaotic and depressing, but there were still a handful of industries and some semblance of transportation infrastructure operating on life support, generating barely enough to keep its citizens alive. This made it one of the more habitable planets in the galaxy.
Under Beijing Beta's night sky, a slow moving public shuttle trotted along its route, carrying a bus full of sleepy passengers. The body of the shuttle once read "Galaxy Transportation." But the paint had long peeled, leaving only the letters "G a y sport". The artificial intelligence operating the shuttle was more akin to an artificial idiot at this point. It's fault rate had reached 95%, leaving only a single selection of "Hyper safety mode" useable. Slower than a turtle's crawl, it sounded its horn once every five minutes. The shuttle did not have a single window left intact—all shattered by the grumpy residents on its route woken up by its horn.
There was no one to fix it either. Galaxy Transportation Company had shut down two hundred years ago. Its only legacy was this persistent urban transportation system, stumbling along on autopilot.
It was winter. Beijing Beta's orbital patterns gave it long winters that lasted three years of the New Star Calendar, but the urban heating system had shut down due to lack of funds. Harsh winter gales invaded the human settlements and whipped through the shuttle's windows. The bus full of poor passengers held on to their shabby jackets, looking like swallows with their heads buried under their wings.
The passengers of such free public transport were mostly the poorest of the poor. Many of them were homeless, their age and genders obscured by filth. Fortunately the bus was far from air-tight, or the odor emanating from the passengers could have formed a biological weapon.
On the last row of "G a y sport" sat a drunken girl, whose age was rendered inscrutable by the blurred makeup on her face. She seemed not to fear cold and wore her jacket unzipped, revealing a strange-looking bra. She even had a skull tattooed on her hip—judging by appearances, this was a gangster you wouldn't want to mess with.
Below the girl's feet lay a meter-high duffel bag. She had headphones on and rested her head on the shabby bus seat, an irritable expression on her face. She was hungover, and there was a crying little rascal on the bus. She could hear the piercing wails over the loud music blasting in her headphones.
She grudgingly endured it for a few minutes, then threw down her headphones and went to look for trouble.
But the strange thing was, the minute she took off her headphones, the crying disappeared.
Flustered, she looked around but only saw ragged adults each curled into a ball under the onslaught of the cruel winds, not a single child. She made a disoriented burp, confusedly shook her head, concluded that she had hallucinated, and put her headphones back on. But just as she was falling asleep again, the sharp cry of a child pierced her eardrums, "Mama!"
Just as the girl's eyes flew open, G a y sport had reached its destination, sighed, and stopped.
She paused the music, and this time she heard it clearly. A child's plaintive cries were coming from nearby.
But... how could there be children in this damned place?
The bus sign had long been stolen, the street lights were all dead, the surroundings were all pitch black, and close by was a large patch of seedy alleys, full of only shady businesses. The artificial idiot driving had broken down again, triggered the "final destination notification" too early, and went to sleep before the passengers could protest. The disgruntled passengers had no choice but to grumpily disembark.
The girl picked up her luggage and lined up behind a few tired travelers. Right in front of her was a short middle-aged man in a thick cotton coat, dragging a skinny old man by the hand. The old man stumbled and bumped into the girl.
The little gangster was just about to show them a thing or two when her vision flashed. She rubbed her mascara-laden smokey eyes and saw the old man suddenly turn into a young boy!
"Am I poisoned from fake alcohol?" she silently muttered and blinked again hard.
As the image before her went from blurry to clear, she saw that the person in front of her was undoubtedly a young child, two or three years old and barely able to walk. He was covered in a piece of dirty cloth, but the clothing sticking out from underneath was well kept and his tear smeared face did not obscure his delicate features.
The child's feet barely touched the ground as the homeless man grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him along by the neck. He continued to struggle and cry, but nobody around took notice. Probably like her, they only saw a crazy old homeless man.
An illusion!
The girls eyes narrowed. Suspecting that the "homeless man" was actually a human trafficker with black market technology, she silently tailed them.
The homeless man dragging the child didn't pay attention to a young girl. After leaving the bus he directly went into a narrow alleyway. The alley contained a few shabby houses. In the darkest nook there was a shady bar. Neon lights from the bar's back door danced on the snow-covered ground, barely lighting the way. The child's piercing cries echoed through the alleyway but did not disturb a soul.
This couldn't be a hallucinogen—whether it was on the bus just now or in the current alley, the roaring night winds were sufficient to blow away all biochemicals.
The girl slung her duffel bag on one shoulder, pushed up her hood, and stopped the homeless man.
"Yo, a minute."
The homeless man paused in his step, tightly clenched his fist on the child's neck, but wore a cowardly simper. He hunched his back and shrugged his shoulders in an air of not wanting to cause trouble.
"Y-ya c-ca-call-in' me?" He stuttered.
The girl squinted cautiously, and raised her chin, nodding at the child in his hands, "Is this your child?"
The homeless man's color changed instantly. His expression flickered for a bit, and he forced a smile: "Wha—a-at? Y-y-ou must b-be wr-o-ong? Wh-a-at child? This-this old m-m-man, lookin' like a-a-a monk-k-key, he just sh-sh-ort, not a child, y-y-ou see."
As he spoke, he pushed the person in his hand in front of the girl. In that moment, the girl felt as if her vision had become a broken monitor. The crying boy grew and shrank right before her eyes, flickering into a blur between the image of an old homeless man and a crying child.
She furrowed her brow in confusion, and walked up a few steps. She cocked her head, "Weird".
The homeless man, seeing that she had been duped, revealed a mouthful of yellow teeth in a large smile, "You see, what I-I-I s-said...?"
He didn't even finish his sentence before the girl suddenly pulled out a wine bottle from her bag and smashed it on his head.
"Son of a bitch, how dare you lie to your momma?!"
The alcohol dripped down the homeless man's face. His smile faded, and his eyes turned bloodthirsty. He threw the child aside, and his bones crackled as he inflated in height and volume and instantly became a 2-meter tall muscular man!
The tough girl went from looking straight to looking up. Flabbergasted, she unconsciously took a step back, "You..."
The homeless man sneered, "I see, a vacucerebral retard".
The second the word "retard" was uttered, the girl's expression transformed from fear to violent rage. She aimed a fierce kick at the man's groin and caught her opponent's hair while he bent down. She pulled him down by the hair and stabbed the remaining half of her wine bottle in his face. Her chain of actions were steady, precise, and fluid, clearly those of an experienced gangster, well-versed in the art of street fighting.
But when the sharp edges of the broken bottle made contact with the man's face, it slipped and didn't even break his skin. His skin was rock hard and pale, and it felt like some kind of metal.
Unaffected, the homeless man shook out his neck and lightly grabbed the girl by the hand still pulling at his hair, as if grabbing a kitten by the nape of its neck.
The wine bottle fell to the ground. The girl struggled to break free, staring at the man's glistening face in mid-air: "You.... you are not human."
The homeless man let out another bizarre smile. His giant hands pinched her head, and the veins stood out in tension--
A ray of bright light suddenly shot through. Close behind, three or four high speed motorcycles dived down from mid-air, conspicuously violating the ban on "high-speed motor vehicles traveling within 100 meters of ground level." The light came first, shortly followed by the thunderous engine, and finally the motorcycles themselves, raising a mini tornado that swept forward.
The homeless man seemed to realize something. He dropped the girl immediately and prepared to run.
The wind raised by the high speed vehicles swept the girl off her feet. She was knocked to the ground next to her luggage in an uncomfortable mess, and clung to the nearby wall with both hands and feet.
The young boy who had been thrown aside earlier let loose a scream and was directly blown into the sky.
The monstrous homeless man jumped up onto the wall like a beast, and then in the flash of a laser beam, he disappeared into the night.
The young boy, flailing, flew straight towards the nearby bar.
The bar's back door suddenly opened. A man walked out, raised his hand and caught the boy by the nape of his neck.
The high speed motorcycles landed and silenced in unison. The girl holding onto the wall looked up through the strands of her hair being blown into strips by the wind. The bar man was tall, but his features were obscured by the poor lighting. He bent down and put the child on the ground. His other hand flicked a cigarette.
"Don't bother chasing. There's a spatial field. He's long gone." The man calmly said. "You might as well stage an even more impressive entrance next time, some people a light year away might not have noticed."