The End of the Beginning

Wang Jun sat by his ailing son’s bedside all night, listening to him cough. With every wheeze, Jun cried a little more. There was nothing he could do for his eight year old boy. The very city they lived in was poising him slowly and painfully.

Beijing was a death trap and no one was safe from it anymore. Years of vehicle bans, coal plant closings, and even weather manipulation had done little to stop the ever-present smog. The city was lost in a deadly soup that slowly killed all who dwelled within it. Fine particulate matter, heavy metals, carcinogens, toxic gases. All of these were inside Jun’s sons coughing, aching body.

As the sun started to illuminate the gray haze outside their apartment’s window in the early morning Jun finally slept. It was only for twenty minutes though. He was awakened by the alarming screams of his son. He grasped his chest, saying there was an animal inside of it, that it was scratching his lungs. His son started to cry, which made Jun cry again.

Those damn factories. Those damn companies. Those damned so-called leaders. They were letting their nations people, their nations children, be gassed to death. Decades of this and no change. How could they say they were a government for the people? Jun had served them tirelessly as a pilot in the Peoples Liberation Army Air Force. He flew their surveillance flights over the Americans. He flew their combat missions over Korea. He tested their new aircraft. And what did they give him in return, the agony of watching his son die a premature death. He was only eight for God’s sake.

Jun’s wife came into the bedroom and took their son into the kitchen so that she could give him some useless medicine. Before she did though Jun wiped his son’s mouth. When he looked at the tissue it was covered in blood. Overcome with grief, Jun stepped out onto their apartments balcony seventeen stories up. It was set amongst hundreds of other units in the overcrowded, poorly built high-rise. The view would have been fantastic was it not always obscured by gaseous human garbage.

Jun sat down in a white plastic chair. He began drinking a flat beer. After a few sips he threw the glass bottle with all his anger off the balcony and watched it disappear into the haze.

“Serve the people,” said a firm voice from above.

Jun got out of his chair and looked in the direction of the voice. One balcony up and over was a man dressed in a tight black turtleneck and black cargo pants. Over that he was wearing a black trench coat. On his left leg was a thigh holster. A gun was in it. Jun knew this man was no good. Firearms were strictly regulated in China. If found in the hands of a private citizen the punishment could be severe. But, this man did not look to be a citizen of China.

“Serve the people,” the man said again, casually this time. He spoke fluent Mandarin but his accent was western, as were his looks. He was crouching on his respective balconies hand railing.

“Who are you?” asked Jun.

“That’s your military’s motto isn’t it? Serve. The. People.”

“It is,” said Jun, backing towards his own balconies sliding glass door. A kitchen knife that his wife had left on a dresser was just inside the door.

The man laughed and said, “Yet another lie spit forth by this nation. Just one of many lies spit forth by all nations. Tell me, have they helped you and your son since he developed emphysema? Has he been allowed the best for one of their best? Judging by the sound of him coughing in there I don’t think they have. I would think one of this nations greatest pilots would surely deserve more. The Shenyang FC-31 isn’t it?” “How do you know who I am,” asked Jun. He had almost reached the balcony door.

“Don’t reach for the knife, Major Wang Jun. We have the place surrounded,” the man said, waving his hand. “Besides, I’m not here to hurt you or your family. I’m here for quite the opposite reason actually. I’m here to save you and your family.” Jun stopped moving. His suspicions eased. Somehow, the man, his tone of voice, began to calm Jun. “How?” he asked.

“By allowing you the chance to fly with purpose again,” the man smiled, “so that you may give your son the chance to live in a new world where he can breathe again.”

Jun’s eyes began to tear. “I fly a plane loaded with bullets and bombs, tools that cannot fight what afflicts my son. I cannot fight this haze.”

“No,” chuckled the man, “it’s not the haze we fight, it is the people that let it continually escape from the stacks. The people that take money over water, oil over health, and live knowingly in arrogant deceit of those they serve. No we do not fight the haze, nature can take care of that herself once we’ve taken care of the few.” “The few?”

“This world, this civilization, runs to serve a powerful few, not the many.”

“Such talk is dangerous here. If the government knew I was - ”

“Your government and its political system is dying and you know it. You’re aware of its struggles. Loss of control. Growing social unrest. Riots. Defections. Astounding environmental degradation. You must see it, Major Jun.” Jun wanted to say something but instead he just whipped his head around and looked across the haze. His eyelids quivered. The tears rolling down his eyes were turning into tears of somber truths. Jun did see what the man spoke of; he saw it all to well.

“It’s all coming undone and censorship and suppression can only work for so long. The many win against the few, always. The many just have to be reminded of that. As the people waste away below this blanket of filth your government spends billions on greedy expansion over resources and territory, spreading its environmental destruction everywhere it goes. China is sick. The world is sick. We are going to make it better.” “Who exactly is we?” asked Jun, now slowly stepping back towards the man.

“The many who dare to do what it takes too really save the world… no matter the cost. We are the true saviors of the people because we are the people.”

“You, you want me to join you?”

“Don’t be so narrow minded, Major Jun,” said the man, jumping off the balcony he was on. He landed just in front of Jun. He landed crouched once again, then slowly raised himself to be eye to eye with Jun. “It is you who want to join us.” “How can I trust that you will really help me and my family? You are just man with a gun. I have faced many men with many guns, guns with jet engines strapped to them. I need assurances of what you speak. I don’t even know your name.” “My name is irrelevant but the new treatment for your son’s disease that is now safely stowed away inside your nightstand is not, instructions on how to administer it included. Believe me Major, we wouldn’t have climbed seventeen stories up, in this shit hole of a city, losing a year of our lives every ten minutes we stand here, if we weren’t completely serious about our cause and about you. Now, Major, what is your answer? This,” the man motioned to the city, “or escape.” Jun looked out at the smog just beyond the balconies railing. He listened to the car honks down below, to the airliners above, to the industry all around, to his son’s coughing inside. He listened to his heart. He was a pilot who was without reason to soar. He was a father without reason to hope. Everyone who wasn’t supposed to had failed him. The system had failed him. Jun looked at the man ready to save what was left so that he could rebuild what was lost.

“What do you want from me?” he asked with new resolve.

The man in the turtleneck nodded his head and smirked confidently. “Tonight, a training mission is to be sent into the Gobi Desert by your military at twenty-one hundred hours local time. The mission will depart from Zhangjiakou Ningyuan Airport. It will consist of a Y-20 transport and two FC-31 escorts, one of which will be yours, all fully loaded and armed.” “What do I do from there?”

After a slight chuckle, the man leaned in to Jun’s right ear and whispered, “Disappear from this cursed world and fly into the next.”

From the kitchen Jun’s wife called out to him for help. Jun looked inside and told her he’d be right there. When he looked back, the man was gone.