evanescent mirage

Michael actually loved sports. On No.81 Planet, on the playground of his high school, under the clear purple sky, running with friends, jumping, chasing, turning about, during that time, to all his friends and him, the world seemed like the game they were playing – something they can control, something they can enjoy. Moreover, he loved the feel of meeting unexpected the challenges of his body in sports, and built the basic and significant primary self-confidence. But, he disliked exercise on machine, because it is kind of boring for him to repeat the same action just in order to work out. Right now, it was necessary for him, so generally he would do something enjoyable during his work-out.

But today, he did not hear any word from the audio-visual helmet, which was playing one of his favorite space-cowboy movies. In stead of the 3-D images of the movie, he pictured Amaris’ smiles in his head and paid no attention to his heavy breath and heard beating, as he usually did.

‘Bee, bee, bee’ the annoying alarm for voice mail waked Michael to reality. He pressed “ENTER” on the keyboard attached around his brace.

‘Hi, Mike. This is Sean. Carol and I are going to marry, and the wedding is two month later. I know it is during your annual vacation. So, don’t dare to say that you are going to travel around planets. Hector city must be your first destination.  Go to Vega or anywhere, even out of the universe, after the wedding, OK? We all miss you, pal. Send me a message when you get this. See you soon.’

‘Oh, Jesus, finally they are getting married. It has been, Oh, ten years since Sean and Carol became boyfriend and girlfriend in high school. I am going to fly directly to No. 81 Planet, where my old friends, my family and parents are.’ Michael said to himself, honestly, felt warm inside.

‘Emergency, everyone!’

A station maintenance assistant at the entrance spoke, trying to gain a breath. Spontaneously, everyone in the gym room stopped what they were doing, run out of the room in order; that resulted from hundreds of times emergency training. Michael wondered whether this is another one running in the line. Suddenly, he realized it was for real.

A space man was floating in the vacuum outside the station maybe three hundred feet away, like a loose line kite; his space suit reflected the projector light, glowing out the darkness of the space. He was waving his arms randomly and desperately, trying to grip something to hold out of the endless vacuum.  An air-compression space motor was sliding to him from the opposite direction to the station.

One maintenance technician is operating the control broad beside the hatch and another two were taking on space suits. Michael strode forward to the latter and helped them seal and checked every item automatically. Oxygen, spare battery, radiation shield, signal radiator and receptor, safety rope and magnetic chuck, rescue lariat…

Some of his fellows went downstairs to prepare the space-shuttle; some set the stretchers at the hatch. A Medic came; the technician released the two rescue space men to the buffer cabin. Michael ran to downstairs for the reception of the air-compression space motor; everyone there was busying, silent and organized without any command. Outside the station, there were two space men out of control of their motivation; the one Michael saw had already been caught by the fellows on the motor; the other were hanging on one end of his safety rope, the air flow from the major station engine almost blew him off the other end. The rescue team was trying to get him by walking on the station’s outer surface.

‘Thomas is alright. We are near Allen. But the air flow near the engine zone was so strong that we are not able to approach right now. Over.’

The instant report from the space motor was echoing in the space-shuttle garage.

‘Return to the garage and drop the wounded. Over.’ Captain Park’s familiar and calm voice resumed Michael’s thinking from the robot-like response and action. It is the first time that he experienced a real urgency, which involved the alive, young human lives. What he can do was to forget all the sensitive ideas, focus on his job and cooperate with his fellows perfectly as he was trained.

Days later, Michael would not remember the details. What he did, when and how slightly injured Thomas and narcose Allen were set on the space-shuttle, all of these he cannot figure out. Until he was asked to escort the two to No. 5 Planet, he did everything according the protocol without thinking.

金娲大美女考试期间来看我，所谓他乡遇故知，感觉超好的。没想到在这里见到的第一个旧友居然是她...这就是缘分吧，即使我们那么不同，从前也有做好朋友的缘分，现在可以让我在这完完全全的异乡感觉那么温暖...为了见她，还有为了另外一件事，两个要当堂考试的科目都是提前的，还好结果不错，不然我真是遗恨千年了。不过这里的教授都是很nice的，我和他们说我要提前考，他们就让我考了，真是在国内完全不可能的事。Larry给我提起的提前考试，结果他都是正常考的，而我倒是充分利用了这个优势...蛮好玩的。

这几天做实验，在家里打pool, 在学校和大为打squash, 闲下来的时间，觉得有罪恶感，所以终于开始构思很久以前开始的小说，希望可以借这个假期完成个大概。这个做法也拖了太长时间了...

The story began on an insignificant planet named Planet No 81 on the brim of anti-Galaxy. What's the outlook there? Well, although the "anti" part seems to present a totally different sight of Galaxy, and let's say, here, the truth, as it always is, is under the cover and always surprises you. And of course, the stars and constellations there are not called “anti-Sirius” or “anti-Lyra”. The No 81 is habited by diverse creature and the basic positive electron and electronegative nucleus constitute of everything. The beauty and ugly, the blessing and curse, the excellence and ordinary, the plot and triumph, the vanity and courage, and the suffer and struggle, in the end, are all the same.

OK, I will get what I started finished, although I have no idea when that will happen. Anyway, let's see about that. Dedicated this to Peter, the first person who is interested.

          Part 1

‘Mr. Kim, we need extra receptors, transmitters, and channel in three stations, and the related daily signal and equipment maintenance and surveillance; of course the purpose for this set must be stay in the need-to-know zone. We have already blocked in the cost estimation according to last twelve months’ space-station operation annual,’ Captain Bard spoke, with a nonchalant and a little bite commanding tone, which annoyed Mr. Kim instantly, he could not help but burst out  ‘then what, are you asking me just to hide those stupid and obvious devices from all of the employees? There is no way that can work; you know it cannot work in that way.’ Mr. Kim looked up to Captain Bard, looking forward to a satisfying number or a sign for further negotiation.

The silence in the no-window conference room repressed the air even more, engraved the underlying rivalry between the two parts of this negotiation. Captain Bard leaned to the desk, playing with crystal champagne glass, staring at the man sitting in the chair, wandering what was going on in that greedy and insidious mind.

Mr. Kim was “the boss” of the Sirius TeleTransfer Station Group, early in his forty, stub and going to gain weight; the only tincture that gave away his deceptive character was a pair of wayward small eyes on the fat trite face. His company was not the biggest in the part of the universe, and does not have any branch in anywhere else; however, he knew the military representative came to him for a reason, of course. This subcontract is not simple as the literal words on the paper say, and the agent is not trying even to camouflage that. Extra information channels? Craps. Everyone knows that military gets all the resource they need. This must have something to do with the information flow that is going through his space-stations.

What are they going to do with the huge nonsense information flow? Are they going to deleted parts of the information flow? What if the clients find out their transferred information are cracked? Good, this is another big jetton in this game… ‘Play nice but careful.’

As same as all of the mushrooms from planet No. 81 in Sirius System, he was nobody from a small plantation county and his whole family struggled to where they are right now; there were innumerable gambling and opportunity, bribery, betray and framing to the powerful, and bully and oppression on nobodies. After three decades’ venture, Kim family came up to be the owner of one of the biggest private space-station groups.

‘This is really good. I don’t know there is any authentic champagne around Sirius.’ Captain Bard commented. From deep of Captain Bard’s heart, he disliked this merchant, not really because all of his obvious unpleasant features, but due to the fact that he had no shortcoming, no interest, no care about anything else except money, which he was not imparted so much in this position… He hated himself when he did not have a plan of a splendid strategy   in advance when he had to transact with someone boring and slippery as an eel, even if he knew he can get him at the end.

‘That one is my personal collection from Lyra…’ Mr. Kim spoke suavely, with subtle pride. Captain Bard did not pay attention at all; with champagne’s cozy taste he was kind of lost in the magnificent view under the orange light in front of the ivory Roma Pantheon on Planet No.7. The passionate speech he delivered to those leaders of No. 7 Liberty Youth’ Union was totally a victory; he could tell those smart, young, naïve faces changing from contempt, to doubt and then to worship, and at the end of the meeting, he actually began to believe what he said. An unconscious smile drew in the corner of Captain Bard’s mouth.

Oh, the old good days! At the time when he was one of them, believing in a better self, a better world, equal rights and love; at the time he stood up for his idea and paid the price for the rest of his life; at the time life seemed endless circus and walking and talking with friends was major and pure joy…

Mr. Kim began to fidget; Captain Bard’s indifferent attitude forced him to deviate a little bit from his original plan. He stroked the velvet armrest, tried to control the inside anxiety and by his instinct, he knew he could get the whole deal settled on a lovely price, however it may take more than 20% potential profit to bribe this smug prig and those lah-di-dah officers behind him. On the other hand, this money comes from heaven anyway, and it may not be so bad to share it a little bit, more will come, they always do…

‘Well,’ finally, Captain Bard decided finish the torture and go on the bargain, ‘ it is hard, but we all know you have your own way to make it happen and please forgive me if I am wrong.  And to be honest, there are three other potential companies that are dying to get this deal; let alone Mr. Adam Park family’s long special fellowship with the Grand Sirius Military Committee, the other company, Union Sirius has better and more professional network in this area...'

The name bobbed up took Mr. Kim totally by surprise. Yes, yes, the old, good “gentleman” Adam Park, the great Parks’ commercial empire across this corner of Galaxy! ‘Are they going to wet their snow-white noble feet in this dirty water?’ Mr. Kim was not sure. The gambler blood in his vein stepped in again, ‘OK, cut the deal at their price; once he is invited to the boat, he will get more and more…’ Felling a little bit frustrated but released, he balled the jack, ‘nowadays, the salary for those technicians costs me a fortune, and they need extra training… It is hard to tell how much it will take right now…

Refilling himself with champagne, Captain Bard smiled and said, ‘details, details… Mr. Kim, we are both busy and smart men, let’s skip that haggle-and-haggle part and celebrate for our future cooperation. You people and my people can figure those stuffs out tomorrow, that’s what they are paid for, right? As long as we both agree the deal is settled, and it benefits us all, I am satisfied. No offense, Mr. Kim, you should enjoy life more. You are already a rich and powerful man; let your underlings take care of uncritical trifles.’

‘You are right, you are right. Cheers, for our successful cooperation!’ Mr. Kim reached out his glass to tap Captain Bard’s, drank the champagne off, managed to patch over his weenie palter and gain the manors smoothly.

‘Talking about fun, do you have any plan for the coming Sirius Carnivals? Unlike me, you have all your holidays paid anyway.’ Mr. Kim asked the Captain, while they were both walking out of the conference room.

‘Oh, I’ve almost forgotten. This year, my daughter, Emma’s birthday is in the period of Sirius Carnivals, I am planning to send her to Lyra or maybe solar-system, she wants to see both the brand new world full of bizarre aliens and our soul motherland. I have to choose, I guess, there is no way I can afford both. And you know it is her sixteenth birthday, according to earth-sun year; it is kind of important, Lisa –my wife and I were thinking of a decent present for her, but…’

‘My eldest son is eighteen and younger one is fifteen!’ Mr. Kim bolt out. ‘I am going to arrange a journey for them this vacation to Lyra. We can let them do this together. Let your daughter keep an eye on my sons. What do you say?

It will be great for them, new friends.’

‘Really? Emma was eager to travel on her own, without her mother and me, you know kids. This is perfect, excellent!’ Captain Bard sounded exciting.

‘Lieutenant Shepherd, you can give a copy of all of the related files and the script of contract to Mr. Kim’s assistant manager, Mr. Satou, and interpret the details and amend the contract to some extent when you guys both agree, just send me the memo about the modification before tomorrow’s meeting. Is that OK?’

‘Yes, Sir. I will brief you about our discussion when you can spare the time tomorrow and submit a memo about the items Mr. Satou has questions.’

Mr. Kim nodded toward Yui Satou, who was standing straight in the hall, next to Lieutenant Shepherd. He made a bow and stepped forward, ‘Yes, Mr. Kim.’ ‘You’ve heart Captain Bard, the same job for you,’ Yui bowed again, did not say anything. Mr. Kim knew Satou get his meaning, he always did. In his company, he was the boss and brain and he made that pretty clear to his employees.

‘Major Bard, this way, it is dinner time, my chef cooks really good traditional eastern cuisine…’

           Part 2

‘Hey, Sabarina. How is everything going on there?’

‘Great, thanks. How about you?’

‘Dying to get back, you know. The damned trip confused my clock and it is night all the time out here.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Is the general available right now? I need a moment for brief.’

‘Yes, he has a fifteen-minute window. Let me put you through.’

‘Thank you, Sabarina.’

‘Good morning, Alex.’

‘Good morning, general.’

‘So, it there everything OK?’

‘Yes, Sir, it goes as the Headquarters planed, and I will leave Lieutenant Shepherd after I sign the letter of intent with Kim Sang Yu in tomorrow’s meeting to figure the number, deadline, etc and etc.’

‘Good, make sure Sabarina arrange a short meeting in my schedule with you when you are back.’

‘Yes, Sir, see you later, Sir.’

Lying in the bed, Alexandra Bard closed his eyes and tried to rest his brain. The last seven days were too much, even for him, and he has not got the chance to think through the whole assignment yet. Why they chose him, is this another test? He highly doubted it. Maybe six years ago, and with a more believable and perilous task. Right now, he is actually one of them, who buried their conscience in the middle of nowhere or who do not have that at all, who can be trusted with the top dirty secrets that should never expose under any starlight.

The Grand Sirius Military Committee was going to bring about censorship! It has not been performed star-galaxy-wide for more than one thousand years, and the noun has almost faded out of the public memory in civilized societies. Even the underbred Kim Sang Yu can tell the funny smile under this so call “outsource”. Get the motion proved in name of patriot and organized terseness of inter-galactic information broadcast by Grand Sirius Military Committee, what a genius! Those single-minded greedy old soldiers, once the numbers are put together in a serious context, they would do whatever those “research” said. Alexandra did not know who were behind this and their further plan, this peeved him. Whoever cooked this out was ambitious and superexcellent machinator, Alexandra could not see this out of any elders or senators he had ever met.

Alexandra began to like his role as Captain Bard more and more day by day, unlike Alexandra Bard, Captain Bard leads a normal and great life proper to his social expectation. A loving father and good husband, navy officer with perfect record, capable military representative, covetous but canny businessman that knows every underlying rule, even neat bribery. Birthday present for Emma! Hilarious!

Sometimes, Alex could not remember his original thoughts when he decided to take the oath, join the force and become a special agent seventeen years ago.

He is running; the yelling and screaming is getting near and near. Something unusual is happening there, it is not the controlled, regulatory war cry, and he decided to change his route and strode into the entrance of the antiquated building along the road. Thanks to his beforehand patrol, he knew those buildings as well as his hands. Heading to the stairs, he planed to get to the perfect spot to check out the situation down the Sir Newton Plaza. 

‘Someone is up there!’ He slowed down his pace, slid into elevator room; the black rusty iron frame reaches out all way up through this scruffy mansion. It is hard to climb up the frame, and the chilly, wet weather did not make it easy in any point. Within the narrow space, what he can hear was his own heavy heard-beat and breath, however, he felt more and more unease, as if there is someone chasing him or something lost of importance is waiting him ahead.

When he managed to get out of the elevator at the second highest floor, his sweater was drenching of sweat. ‘Calm down,’ he told to himself. There is no sign of even a soul in the clammy and dark hall; but he has a weird intuition that he is no alone here. Crept along the hall and into the nearest room facing the plaza with open door, suddenly he is blown over by the boisterous cry and shouting down in the streets.

Thousands of people are rushing from and to random directions around Sir Newton Plaza; some of them just fall themselves when they are running, and others step on them when they are in their way. The noise seems dissipate, the whole scene turns into a slow-motion, black-and-white soundless movie. Odd, almost invisible snow flake declining laggedly from the grey, bleak sky; those familiar, colorful and gorgeous early colonial stone theatres, townhouse, cathedrals of Orthodox and Christian, temple for Buddhist and mosque is sleaking to the obscure background, leaving only the sober outlines. Every time someone falls onto the ground, there is a red spot flashes on her or his head; it emerges and evanesces like a bright blood drop that contains the soul of human being.

God, God, this is a dream, wake up! Stop it!

Finally, it stopped, it is all dark outside, there are footfalls in the hall or upstairs, he cannot tell. He is crouching in the deepest corner of the suite, waiting for the nightmare to wane, waiting to be alone…

He has gone out of the mansion; he could not help but walking along to the fountain in the center of the plaza, as if up there is something so dear and so recondite for him. There she is, the first and only girl he ever loves, lying on her face on another corpse, in her favorite emerald belted overcoat, which is now stained all over with mud. Turned Emma over, he tried to erase all of the smear on her face and the hair on her front head. Her face is as icy, peaceful and beautiful as stone sculpture, her lips at where all those smiles hided are bloodless…The snow has stopped, but the humid cold air is penetrating to his bone marrow and freezing him from his guts… 

Something or someone is moving forward here. He recognizes Jackson and Eric lying three feet away when he is standing. All he has in his brain is blank; the survival instinct drives him fleet out of the plaza. He is desperately crying inside, so desperately…

‘Whoop, whoop…’ Captain Bard woke up from his dream, cold sweat wet his hair. He gasped for breath and realized where he was and it was just a nightmare. How foolish and juvenile he was that he had wished he would not remember that one day, even if it had been a long time since he had it the last time.

The meeting with these young students aroused his latent memory; their faces resemble his old friends so vividly and their innocent and puerile quality reminded him his betrayal to those precious souls. Would it be better if he did not manage to escape from his uncle’s basement, instead of holding back and running away like a coward? He would have claimed the bodies at the mortuary, planed the underground funeral, mourned for the redeemable loss, and condemned vehemently the ruthless murders by the false government among his living comrades; perhaps some day, he would died under the laser gun some day as his friends did. He was so young to see the real world, to realize the how fragile they were in front of the hard cold reality, and foresee the bloody suppression of the protest and more important, the departure of young promising lives.

The things happened in the next few days was discrete image; he shove off his beard, got his hair cut, avoid all kinds of information about the “incidence”. How and why he determined to enlist, maybe for a powerful shelter, maybe for a potential revenge, a way to exile his withered life… ‘It matters no anyway.’ Even if he had some resolution back that time, he doubted he would hold that till today. Thanks to his honorable family, he did very well in the navy, although his name was on the Students’ Freedom League. They never found out that instead of just a member, as ninety percent college students on No.7 Planet was, he was in the leadership; the ones knew about this were all dead. Otherwise, they just did not care, he did not care since the day he put on his space suit.

             Part 3

Years later, when Michael looking back into his childhood, the most common image he got is the two little kids sitting under the sky adorned with scattered stars. This is very weird, because at present he can see the stars crystallized every moment if he wants. After the first month of sentry at this space signal-transportation station operated by this private family company, Michael was kind of sick to the entire staff, the shift, the system of transporting signal, and even the stars shining all the time from window in the front of his desk.  

It is raining down No. 81, at least which is what the weather report said, which should never be trusted. Michael was acting that he was watching the screen that scrolling the letters and numbers of non-sense, and as a matter of fact, he was staring into nothing. His job was to ensure they are scrolling in a proper speed in two four-hour shifts everyday. That's all. Between and after the shifts, he was supposed to enjoy himself in some magnificent way, liking watching splendid and fabulous view of the stars in the universe and the No. 81. That's the most common impetus for someone seeking for the position struggling in the endless competition and hard work in sixteen years. 

Thank God he survived, he always thought, but how he did it, he had no idea and did not want to explore at all. He knew this space station is not his final destination; it had nothing to do with whether it was boring or isolated from all the fun of life, or the fact that he hated the way they ran the system in this company, it is just not the way his life should be for good. The application for commercial space ships was a really good choice but he was not so confident that he can get the opportunity with his academic and experiential record. Traveling across the universe, however, it is his dream and he had planned for this for almost fifteen years. Different from his rich friends and classmates, the only way he can ever accomplish that is to study hard, build up his record, get the opportunity for the training and pass the test for space engineering or medical care.

“Hey, hey, dude, what the hell are you thinking of? Chicks? I have been here for two minutes. Are you ever going to shift off, or I will just come back to my sweet bed and go on my sweet dream, if you know what I mean…” 

Michael turned away from the screen; a weird smile on a kind of handsome face drew him out of the wandering mind. ‘Oh, sorry man, last shift’s movie really griped me off, I was, you know …’ Michael was trying to make something out to make an ordinary conversation to skip the awkward moment. ‘Oh, the movie, OK, I have more books, if you are interested…’ Bob inverted.  

‘Awesome, check it out with you later. Thanks, man. See you later.’ This is the only way to cut off the potential boring and long talk. Michael clapped Bob’s shoulder, walked out of the cube, as usual, felt a little bit sorry for Bob, and again felt ridiculous about himself. Bob was in his early thirty and he was the first generation of space-station workers, who were supposed to be extremely excellent in every way and Michael bet he was. Trapped in this isolated humdrum in the middle of the vacuum and still controlled by the stupid worldly rules and instinct of human being to remind that he was a member of human society as well, Bob is text-book of the space-station veteran workers’ behavior. It is really black humor that all these people here trying to act normal employees as in a regular office on any human planet. ‘There is no way I will be like that in the next ten years,’ Michael decided. The Universal Commercial Unit is the only gate for him to lead a life as an entire adventure, as he wished he could.  

According to the historical record, human beings had developed the space technology twenty thousand years ago, while have not been able to make any real break through in the first more than nineteen thousand years. One colony after another colony, from nuclear power to photons, from radio, electronic communication to telepath, names go on and on. After all those years’ endeavor, mankind has explore its territory near solar system in the corner of galaxy, built up hundreds of colony planets, some of which served for pure technique or military purpose, and some of which are even more suitable to live on than its home – the earth, before the ultraviolet radiance from the sun was too high to tolerate. 

Whether or not there are aliens in the deep of the universe, well, they are not deep in the universe for sure, and aliens, aren’t we living among aliens in the same planet, same country same city all the time? However, the first come-across with the “alien” was kind of hilarious and seemed unreal. There were so many version of that story, but basically it was that a fleet of military spaceships bumped into a cluster of aliens’ moving castles, spaceships, colonies, and alien-made-planets, whatever you call them. Again, it proved that no matter how impossible it seemed statistically, the small ratio coincidence always, always happened.

The roam said those stuffs had been there for at least ten years and the locus at where they met was just one fixed star away from a space transfer station and the government knew they were there long time ago. Blah, blah, blah…This story was probably the most popular one for conspiracy-lovers all over the human society through the whole universe; and among thousands of well-known novels about this incidence, Michael actually loved the one named “A space Odyssey”. The novel was just cliché full of the exciting experience during the growth of an incredible grand hero; the discovery of the aliens was just a significant stop in his journey. But he loved it, the hero and his life was what Michael really wanted to be and have, at least it was what he thought he really wanted.  

Michael walked through the passage on the starboard to the refectory; he enjoyed the glorious view of the space-station out of the hollow nihility. Then there came something even more admirable which he had never expected -- a slim and graceful girl coming out of the classic oil painting was standing in front of the windows. He approached her unintendedly; Amaris Shepherd sensed affecting gaze when she was trying to comb the items that she had discussed with Mr. Satou. She looked back to that direction, and saw a young guy walking to her.

‘Oh, hi, do you mind if I join you here?’

‘Of course not,’ Amaris could not help but smiling back to his sunny face.

‘By the way, I am Michael Reed. I don’t think I’ve met you before.’

‘Amaris Shepherd. Nice to meet you, Mr. Reed. I am new here, just arrived a few hours ago.’

‘Mr. Reed, please, call me Michael or Mike. Amaris, nice to meet you. Business visit? Where do you come from?’

‘Yes, I fried from Planet No.7.’

‘Oh, the center of the Sirius. A long trip. Oh, do you want something to drink or eat?’

‘Yes, do you mind to show me the dinner room?’

‘More than glad to. I am on my way for dinner. May I have dinner with you, Miss Shepherd?’ Michael step backward, bowed slightly.

‘You may.’

Amaris always thought falling into love at the first sight was ridiculous and it would never happen to her; she was not sure right now. Sitting in a close typical space-station room, eating the insipid food, the only thing that seemed interesting is the guy across the table. Amaris guessed she definitely had a crush on him and she had got a straight feeling that she knew this guy long time ago.

‘Where did you go to college?’ Amaris was hoping to find some clue.

‘Planet Raphaelite, Florence Cosmo. Galileo University. Have you heard of it?’

‘Are you kidding? Galileo University is the very first and best university in Sirius. That is my dream college’

‘It is a great university, but not the best anymore. I guess when you said dream you meant the Muse School, that is the best in fine art.’

‘You are right. I love fine art; it brings all of the gentle and elegant character of the world.’

‘You’ve already possessed all of those in every way.’ Michael said to himself. He shook the idea off, went back onto the trail.

‘The city still conserves the diverse and classic architectures combination from different culture and time; the interlaced river way system adds the unique relish to the city. It is incredible… Oh, I am talking too much.’

‘No, I bet you spent a really great time there. I had been there when I was a kid. All I can remember is the brilliant sunshine from the blue sky. I wish I would pay another visit there someday, even study there for a while. Fulfill my childish dream -- living in a fairy tale theme park, learning art.’

‘How long are you going to be here?’

‘A month, I guess.’ Amaris hesitated how much she should say, and then she realized she could use her under cover as an ordinary technician of a private tele-communication company.

‘Then, lucky me, I am going to have a lovely friend for thirty days, which means ninety off-duty four-hour.’

‘Oh, right. I have to get your schedule and persuade my boss to arrange mine the same to yours.’ Amaris was not used to the work schedule protocol within private space-stations; she had learnt about during the warming up for her cover.

‘By the way, is the food always like this or just this time?’

‘You must be kidding, you don’t like it? You know the cuisine in our kitchen is immoral; one day, even this space-station is too old and out of service, starts its career in some fascinating space theme park, the cuisine would be served.’

 After the meal, Michael came to the gym as usual during the second off-duty in a day. Osteoporosis and over-calcified has been still a problem for human beings since the first man walking out of the atmosphere of the earth. Different rotation circle, planet mass and the conflict of bone development and aging, the gene therapy can do only a little about it, especially for space workers travelling between planets and space. They have to take “space vitamin” every meal and do a lot of exercises to keep high metabolic level and prevent loss of body strength. It is so much better and improved now; the average qualified life-time of space workers is higher than that of people on earth-like planets. Sometimes Michael wondered whether

从实验室里gorgerous, heart-taking的Islamic美女Dowser说起。九月一号起，Ramadan就开始了，她整整一个月sunrise和sunset之间都不能喝水吃东西。对于non-religion，这多少有些unreasonable, 于是实验室里开始了各种关于宗教的讨论和询问，一个关于美国的好处就是，在这里你可以问任何人任何问题。但是我今天要说的不是Islam, 是believe，是principle。

毒牛奶，好像已经是旧闻了，而我的沉默只是一种深深的悲伤而已。用鲁迅先生的话讲，已经出离愤怒。今天，大为终于耐不住好奇心，询问起这件事。老实讲，我没有很了解具体的情况，我也没有去留意。忙是一方面，更重要的是，了解更多只会让我更不知所措，feeling remorse and even pathetic. 但这样的故事总是相似的，只是悲剧发生在不同的地方不同的时间而已。不知道几年前阜阳的大头婴儿事件是否已经淡出了人们的记忆，中华民族得以生存到今天，经历如此多的苦难与艰险，还是可以平静的发展大概就是因为习惯于遗忘那些不愉快吧。I ignore the horrible, crucial tragedies, erase the bad memory all the time, how should I blame anyone for that. 和Peter前天聊起这件事，他发过来一个评论，完全是嘲讽的方式来表达true emotion。大概我还是很多时候把很多问题看得太serious，我只能用无趣的方式来说明我的看法了。

是的，无处不在的奸商，官商勾结，监管不力，惩罚不重，没有民间的supervising系统…这个list可以go on and on and on, 可是这一切丑陋而实际的现实问题下面有着更深的reason. Too many people, too little natural resource and unbalanced economics. Young people are leaving the remote villages for big cities for better lives, leaving the old behind to raise the babies, educate the children. Sometimes, there seems a lot of choice, but actually, there is none at all. 如果我们有更多的资源，更方便的无处不在的可以接受的生活方式，怎么会有人愿意违背良心做事？为了更好的生活，只好不择手段的赚钱，以便离开不发达的isolated的 middle of nowhere. 还有很多很多潜在的原因和潜在的race character。我写下这些，不是为了做错事的人开脱，只是，我知道，这样的问题不是简单的改变食品监管系统，惩罚一群人就可以解决的，潜在的问题依然存在，为了钱，还是会有前赴后继的人做各种各样埋没conscience的事。我不想拿马克思的资本论说事，说利润30%怎样，300%怎样。我只是悲伤，悲伤我知道这样的事还会发生再发生，悲伤我什么也做不了，什么也改变不了… 这时，我忽然觉得，religion是很美好的东西，如果可以只是每年白天不吃不喝一个月就可以换来没有这样的悲剧再发生，我想很多人都会选择去做的。就如Dowser所说，no fasting for nothing, it is for something you believe, for a better world. Religion is about conscience, about good-will and principle, not praying seven times a day, not big donation to build a temple, not precious icons.  I hope, one day the common conscience of ordinary people will come back to our culture, to our country, to our race, as it usually did.

Maybe because of the rain, maybe the sad discussion, I felt sad the first time since I’ve got DC. Most of the time, I am happy, really in a good mode, even I was caught making a huge, humiliating and stupid mistake in the experiment, I would smile and laugh at myself ; but when it comes to the internal misery of human, it was like that I was thrown to the bottom of the ravine – drown by the languish. 无意间提起了高中同学WX, amazingly talented as a mathematician. Life has never had something to do with the genius or fabulous aspect in your brain or heard, it is just about what you have in your hands, and it has noting to do with fairness. Perhaps, bad memories never passed by, they just hide, ambush for a proper time to evoke all the critical and cynic view upon the world. Walking along the K street to subway station, suddenly I realized I was, am and will always be an outsider in everywhere, which is not bad at all here – there are so many subculture groups and everyone here considers him or herself as an independent individual. However, to see this world in this way, sometimes makes me wonder whether I am kind of alien or something. Many friends thought I chose the wrong major – biochemistry. But I know, I know clearly why I love it, because it proffers me a perfect chance to look through the non-sense, illogical, erratic mystery of human being, and maybe give me a lead someday to release or at least decrease some suffering of human being. Still, I am one of the species, so how could I be one hundred percent objective and rational to all the stuff? 

Today, Dr. Ramesh dropped by to check out how our experiment going and we were discussing one of her cases in the hospital. (She is a cardiologist in GWU hospital and cooperating with our lab to integrate her research about cell regeneration in heart-implant) Her patient is an alcohol-addict. When she was saved by the emergency room in the morning the other day; she was still unconscious due to the alcohol. She could not even remember when to take her medicine everyday. She is OD and has a boy friend who is an alcoholist, too. Totally mess, the exactly kind that you cannot even imagine until you meet one.  Dr. Ramesh is really nice and I knew what she was talking about. 也许是因为菜菜的原因，我了解那种医生看到非同寻常的病人的感觉。Kate said, sometimes, you need intentionally keep a distance from your patients to be totally objective and calm, that’s why they are ought to make cracks about the patients. To see them in an indifferent way and never get the emotion involved.

I believe in evolution, believe everyone can be a better person if he or she wishes. But sometimes the reality is just not going in that way. Probably, there is not always choice and no perfect life for anyone. My way to solve this problem, is going back home, watching Gossip Girls. All the good-looking people there make me ultimately happy with this world. , at least, I have a way to escape.