Sha Li's Blog

Sha Li as Christmas SmurfLimited edition 2021

Snow showers kept many people home from the Second Saturday and Candles in the Canyon celebration December 11, 2021, in historic downtown Dunsmuir, CA.

Smurf and Lindsay

Those families and folks who ventured out had a blast.  The sidewalks were slippery, but it was warm and bright at Siskiyou Arts Museum, and Lindsay from the Cobra Lily was serving a select group of wines donated by Peter Arth.  Visitors browsed. bought art and chatted with the featured writer/artist Sha Li.

Sha Li not only signed books but also showed the original drawings used in the illustrated novel Human Hybrids: ORIGIN.  The paperback has 50 b/w illustrations, and the E-book has 14 full color digital images.  Available at Amazon.com.

Afterwards the action moved down to the Cobra where Jimmy Limo was shakin’ it with surf boogie.

See lots of new images on Hybrid Humans: ORIGIN site.

Thanks to Danielle Brennan and Michael Howell for photos.

Sha Li booksigning Siskiyou Arts Museum December 11, 2021, 5 - 7Dunsmuir Second Saturday Celebration for the holidays

It's a story about transhumanism promoted by sovereign nations with generous research grants for advancements with military applications.

The Subject is a first of a kind, an augmented human, possessing synthetic telepathy, hosting Nano-scale bio devices and propelling Artificial Intelligence into ethically questionable directions.

And she’s pregnant.

Available at Amazon.com

Scary future of Artificial Intelligence:  Is android superiority over humans inevitable? Human Hybrids: ORIGIN (Illustrated Novel) New Cyberpunk illustrated Sci-Fi novel imagines the first augmented human

287pp 50 black and white illustrations paperback edition $10.80 or 14 color illustrations Kindle edition $2.99.

Dunsmuir, California-- The test Subject struggles to control her body and its developments, a metaphor of humanity’s struggle to exert primacy over the creeping development of androids. Amplification or augmentation of the human is one way to gain competitive edge over the bots.

Sha Li in Beijing

“The dystopian future for humanity is probable without champions who will wage the war for humans now.  This story is what that could look like,” says Sha Li.

Sha Li, artist and writer, mastered story telling with plein air depictions of rural town life before gaining recognition as a journalist and user experience expert. 

She says, “If you can imagine it, they’re already doing it,”

meaning transhumanism and global dominance is the goal of Artificial Intelligence through breakthrough discoveries like artificial blood, CRISPER editing, and space travel.

Prior to writing in cyberpunk genre, she created an espionage series An American in Beijing with three thriller novels set in modern China. Not an easy read, numerous Chinese and American characters in rich settings demand surrender to a fictional reality.

In Human Hybrids: ORIGIN (Illustrated Novel), everyone wants a piece of her action, the babies, and the research potential.  They pursue her aggressively, inserting invasive research protocols and bots with military applications.  The first test subject died. 

The Subject turns tables on the researchers and their computers, infects them with her ideas and transhuman designs. But can she control the outcome?

More information at Human Hybrids: ORIGIN.  Write to ShaLiauthor@gmail.com.  Leave a reviewAvailable now at Amazon.com

What inspired Sha Li to write a science fiction illustrated novel?

She finished the third book of the American in Beijing series when she was in Beijing in October 2015 and was outlining the next days and months of the same characters.  The story kept spooling. 

Crisscrossing the ancient city, she thought about the ultimate showdown between humans and robots, the stimulating research trending toward artificial intelligence and the futuristic applications of technology, leaping from the creation of artificial blood to the first world Nano-technology conference. 

The question is how we will get from here and now, where humans rule all, to the future, when augmented humans struggle to compete with the eternal bots.

The complicated and secret lineage of the main character’s twins, one with a Chinese father and the other an American, sets up unprecedented, international patent and custody claims and cross-claims to develop the nascent technology accidently combined in the Subject’s fetuses.

Is android superiority over humans inevitable? Human Hybrids: ORIGIN (Illustrated Novel)A New Cyberpunk illustrated Sci-Fi novel imagines the first augmented human

287pp 50 illustrations

Dunsmuir, California— The test Subject struggles to control her body and its developments, a metaphor of humanity’s struggle to exert primacy over the creeping development of androids. Amplification or augmentation of the human is one way to gain competitive edge over the bots.

“The dystopian future for humanity is probable without champions who will wage the war for humans now.  This story is what that could look like,” says Sha Li.

Author Bio

Sha Li, artist and writer, mastered story telling with plein air depictions of rural town life before gaining recognition as a journalist and user experience expert.  She says, “If you can imagine it, they’re already doing it,” meaning transhumanism and global dominance is the goal of Artificial Intelligence through breakthrough discoveries like artificial blood, CRISPER editing, and space travel.

Prior to writing in cyberpunk genre, she created an espionage series An American in Beijing with three thriller novels set in modern China. Not an easy read, numerous Chinese and American characters in rich settings demand surrender to a fictional reality.

What’s it about?

In Human Hybrids: ORIGIN (Illustrated Novel), everyone wants a piece of her action, the babies, and the research potential.  They pursue her aggressively, inserting invasive research protocols and bots with military applications.  The first test subject died. 

The Subject turns tables on the researchers and their computers, infects them with her ideas and designs. But can she control the outcome?

More information at Human Hybrids: ORIGIN.  ShaLiauthor@gmail.com.Available now at Amazon.com

Finished with his business, curiosity seizes his imagination. Her spots, the ones he can see on her arms and neck, have mutated. Their tessellated edges have knit together into a complex crystalline design, tiny dots side by side in coherent groupings in the cells of her skin.

The equipment attracting the most attention is the space capsule, sitting on a stainless-steel rack balancing its open door.

This is not a graphic novel

Here’s the cover and title page for Hokusai’s renowned collection One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji.

How combining writing and art results in hybrid book about hybrid humansDetailed scenes haunted Sha Li while writingLast summer

Before the fires claimed everyone’s attention, before the dismal smoke crept and clung to the canyon, driving us inside, it occurred to me that I should illustrate the current book series, Origin of the Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time.  Not much of a surprise here.  But that it took me so long to see it!

Illustrations for the first two books are completed and are ready to share with you on my website:  Human Hybrids carousel and Dangerous Visions carousel.

Homage to Hokusai

“With no more than delicate, engraved outlines and flat washes of gray, Hokusai displays his consummate virtuosity as a draftsman, printmaker and compositional innovator.” 

Ron’s office

Ronald Zhao’s office above Beijing and overlooking the Dagoba in Beihai Park.

The sage inspired my approach to the task by limiting myself to black and white and shades of gray.  By the sixth piece, Ronald Zhao’s office, I began experimenting with collage of foil, artisan and printed mulberry papers, all the while imagining them being reproduced in black and white during the book publishing process.  The digital version will be in full color. 

Each novella of the series of three is comprised of four chapters.  Each chapter contains several illustrations.  In total, 39 illustrations will accompany the series. The majority are single pages focusing on one or two characters.  Double wide illustrations constructed of two single panels or pages allow for dynamic groupings of characters. 

These complex compositions presented shifting challenges setting the characters in the right place relative to each other and following rules of perspective. 

Kyoto mayhem

In this double-panel Rick, Ron and Dr. Ludwig lunge at Mai tumbling onto the floor in the midst of a delicate operation, infusing nano-bot laden artificial blood into her system to prevent a failure, in a private hospital room in the basement of their Kyoto resort.

Martyr’s cemetery

In the panel on the left, a woman causing gossip, Mai Martin, walks with Commander Gao, a high ranking general in the People’s Liberation Army involved with a covert team made up of Department of Home Security and PLA personnel. She doesn’t hide the baby bump peeking from behind her white PLA dress uniform jacket, recently altered, and unbuttoned over a plain white shirt.

Standing behind Martin beside an immense stone lion, a woman distributes copies of a Law and Order manifesto, policies of the anti-corruption movement Fan Fu Xing Dong, to sympathetic listeners.  

The generals’ widows and wives discuss Martin’s condition and the likelihood that the deceased General Huang was the father of her unborn child in front of the imposing gate of the cemetery.

In the panel on the right, the reader meets the antagonistic force.  Zhu Chengyou, former Commander of the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force, instigator of a failed coup, retired and disgraced strolls with Lt. Col. Chen, his former field commander. 

Ronald Zhao, partner at TSC Security and Mai Martin’s lover, scans the shifting crowds for faces and spots the two conspirators standing in the shadow of a grotesque rock, a cold limestone flame consumed by gaping holes. He closes the distance between them until he stands on the other side of the monumental specimen.

Confrontation

In the two-panel illustration “Confrontation,” an exercise in opposites/opposition, contrast/harmony and passive/action, the combatants were placed on a grid employing a method used by Raphael to determine their height and location. The checkerboard grid was retained as a feature of the design.

Completion

The three novellas, Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time, will be released soon in a boxed set!

 

These young men lounge in the shade of the Presidential compound on colorful scooters.

Did she fulfill her quest? 

Did Mai discover who is the real father of both babies?  Partial success, she knows General Huang is the father of the boy but is keeping this secret and refusing further testing.

Has it all been for nothing?  At this moment, she’s with her dream lover and hopefully father of the girl child, Rick is far away in the US or places unknown.  She’s feeling good.  She chased down an attacker, she feels strong.  She’s hopeful.  Looking forward to closure with Huang’s ghost at the memorial and living her happy Beijing life with Ron.

Has Mai’s struggle against the sovereign nations (and others) over control of her body been for nothing?  Since she is far away from Rick and his machinations, she’s got control over herself. 

How’s that worked out?  Looks like a win win for Mai at the end of this story

 The three novellas, Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time, will be released in 2019 in a boxed set!

What is emotional experience at conclusion of first novella?

The reader should be feeling pretty good about Mai’s situation right now. Hopefully it carries over to curiosity about events hinted about in the future: Huang’s memorial and the trip to Beijing. And farther into the future: the birth of the twins. And what about her enemies?

Boys play with puppy under watchful gaze of their father in the chair and the mother.

Excerpt: 

Luyu meets with Auntie Fong at the Golden Panther in downtown Xi’an. Eschewing a private room, Auntie sits in the back near the kitchen at a large table for the staff. At midmorning, the chef in his white coat and checkered pants with hat akimbo, stretches out his legs and smokes, supervising the helpers in the kitchen prepping for the lunch crowd. 

“Auntie, you look good,” greets Luyu, her pouffe and pony-tail floating on hot steamy air from the dumpling kettle.

“Darling girl, how are you these days, please sit,” welcomes the older woman, carefully coiffed and modestly dressed in a black jacket over a blouse. Visitors to the restaurant, looking at her sitting in the back, would surmise she is the restaurant owner but would never guess she’s the head of the Xi’an Tong while her brother, the Dragonhead, fulfills his prison sentence.

Auntie pours tea into a cup and slides it toward the young woman.

Luyu, 33 and a sheng-nu unmarried and over educated, was hired by the Longtou BAO to manage his many legitimate businesses such as the Golden Panther Restaurant. And he thought the girl’s connection to General Huang, her father, might be worthwhile. After the bust, she stayed on working for Bao’s sister everyone calls Auntie.

“They’ve been to my mother’s shop,” starts Luyu without hesitating.

“Who has? Here, take a tissue,” Auntie pulls a tissue packet out of a pocket and offers it to the distraught girl.

“Xiexie, it’s Zhu. He wants his son to marry me,” Luyu looks up at Auntie. The chef can’t help but eavesdrop through the smoke haze.

“You can’t hold a torch for Henry forever, Luyu. You should marry. Xing is a catch.”

“But, he’s our enemy. His father pulled the strings behind my father’s death!”

“Zhu’s brother, Ma, killed your father. We don’t know the details.”

“Auntie! I can’t marry Xing!” protest Luyu.

“He comes from a good revolutionary family.”

“Not as good as mine! Zhu imprisoned my grandmother and grandfather.”

“He was young then and under the influence of the gang of four. And was rehabilitated.”

Luyu slumps back in her seat and waves the smoke away, scowling at the insolent chef.

“Get going,” Auntie says to him, “Here comes the tour.”

At the sight of tourists crowding into the dining room, the chef grinds out his fag and pushes through the swinging kitchen door.

Carried in with the crowd, Mai and Ron climb the steps past gigantic stone lions and enter the Golden Panther. 

 “I’ve been here before,” says Mai, wondering at the immense dining hall.

“Wo shi,” answers Ron.

Glancing toward the kitchen, Mai exclaims, “Look, it’s Auntie and Luyu! Wei! Nihau!” and threads her way through the crowd to the women. 

“Martin Taitai,” cries Luyu waving Mai over. “This is Auntie Fong, Henry’s mother.”

“My condolences, Fong Taitai,” offers Mai, wondering if they had met during the Xi’an operation.

“Martin Taitai, the Meiguonuren, I’m honored to meet a courageous woman,” replies Auntie, touching Mai’s hand. At her eye level is Mai’s baby bump, for everyone to see, in a Hello Kitty tee-shirt.

“What a coincidence that our tour comes here for lunch today,” says Mai.

Auntie rises, seizing the opportunity to escape, “I must go. I hope to see you again at the memorial, dear Luyu. Xijian, Martin Taitai.” She parts the sea of confusion, fuwuyuan and guests, as she passes through the packed dining room and out to the street.

“Will you join us?” asks Mai, gesturing toward Ron, a head taller than the others sitting at their table. 

The fuwuyuan carry trays of tea and cups, stopping at every table. The tired tour guide protests feebly to the seating change, moving a couple to another table to accommodate Luyu to sit with Ron and Mai. Grumbling to himself about the impertinence of the Meiguonuren, he recognizes Luyu. Back at the Lu Fu Hotel, he had surveilled the two women in the hotel dining room. And here she is again. It might be significant, so he calls Col. Chen.

“Wei, nihau, Captain, I am at the Golden Panther. The Meiguonuren is meeting with the young woman from the hotel a few days ago, Huang’s daughter, Luyu.”

The information is valuable, Chen promises the man a bonus. Within moments he’s talking with Zhu.

While Mai introduces everyone around the table, at the villa the old man calls his son.

“Huang Luyu is at the Golden Panther. Go to her, press your case. Do it. Do it now!”

*  *  * 

Xing is hanging out with his motor scooter buddies when he gets his father’s call. When he arrives at the Golden Panther, the hostess takes them to a private room. Xing leaves the sliding doors open, the better to scan the dining room for Luyu.

“There she is,” says a young man.

“Where?” asks Xing.

“She’s with a tour. The tour guide is signaling you, see?”

The guide stands behind Luyu’s chair chatting with Ron and some ladies wearing khaki army hats. He gestures to an empty chair at their table, beaconing Xing from across the room.

“Miss, do you see the gentleman across the way?” interrupts the guide, pointing out Xing to Luyu.

Peering across the smoky room, recognition comes slowly as he approaches. 

Omg, it’s Xing, here! With Auntie’s words fresh in her ear, Luyu gives Xing a fair appraisal. He’s not bad looking. Must get his looks from his mother, Angelina. 

Xing glances around the room and back to Luyu, not knowing what to say or do.

Everyone at the table stops talking to regard him.

“Huang Xiaojie, would you accept my invitation to join me at my table?”  The words come out in a rush, and a red flush betrays his embarrassment.

Now everyone looks at her.

“Is this you talking, or is it your father?”

“Well, uh,” he drops his head and loses his voice.

“Who’s your friend?” asks Mai, bursting with curiosity.

“Duibuqi, this is Zhu Xing, his father is the brother of General Ma.” Luyu waits for the appropriate gravity of the situation to sink in. Mai’s face is a blank wall. “Xing, this is Martin Taitai and Zhao Xiansheng, from Beijing.”

Recovering his tongue, Xing nods to the city people, “Wo hen gao xing wo hen hao.”

“Your friend can join us, Luyu, there’s an extra chair,” says Mai.

Trapped.

Conversation picks up around the table leaving the young people alone in their silence.  At last, Xing ventures, “I knew Henry Fong. He was a righteous dude.  Duibuqi.”

Surprised at the mention of her dead fiance, Luyu replies, “Shi.”

While they sit immobile after that first successful foray into a conversation, Ron catches Mai’s attention.

“Let’s go. Are we finished here?”

“Sure, okay,” Mai gathers her things and addresses Luyu, “Tomorrow at the hostel. Can you come? I need a tailor.”

“Shi, Martin Taitai, I can come after breakfast. See you.”

 A contagion sweeps the room when everyone stands and starts toward the door.  The entire tour scrapes chairs and moves to the exit. Luckily for the Beijingers, they arrive at the taxi queue before the mob.

 

 

Free ebook from KDP Five days only

Ron and Mai swim to an artificial island and float, fingers entwined, staring up at the black sky through steamy condensation clouds.

CWP Publishing moved from CreateSpace to KDP today. To celebrate, get your FREE ebook at KDP. See details on sidebar.

Mai MartinImprobable character or simply aspirational

Mai Martin drives an older Ford Explorer SUV in Sebastopol.  When in Beijing, she takes the subway or taxi.  She owns a BMW Branca parked at Ron’s Sun City Apartments.  In Sebastopol, she dresses casually in tops and maternity leggings she bought while in Kyoto, practices yoga, and eats Mexican food from Dolores’ in Santa Rosa.  She’s stopped drinking alcohol because of the pregnancy and won’t take a paternity test, keeping the identity of the fathers’ a secret. 

"HUANG backs his base Jeep onto the driveway next to Mai’s new BMW. Another confiscation for which there is no paperwork from the porous situation of the Lintong Armaments Department.” Escape from Here

In China she works as a contractor for TSC Security, the same place Ron is a partner.  They collaborate with the PLA and Homeland Security on specific projects.  Mai has a luxury flat attached to Ron’s where she lives when in Beijing, with Ron’s mother, Mama Zhao.  She has a specially tailored PLA uniform ordered for her time working for General Huang.  She also has a hi-tech PLA ID with high security clearance for her to use while in China. 

The three novellas, Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time, will be released in 2019 in a boxed set!

Excerpt: 

The sun sets, and the pale sky lights the plain when the Ron and Mai’s tour bus turns into the circular drive of the Mingyang Mountain Villas and parks under the canopy where the guests sort through the luggage and trundle off to their rooms.  Wind gusts puff behind Ron and Mai trudging up the low incline to the farthest row of condos, on the other side of the hot spring baths and geothermal heated pool.

That night Mai and Ron walk to the pool, an azure jewel glowing from underwater lights. 

They throw the hotel terry robes on an unoccupied chair. 

“You should stay away from me. Bad things happen to people I’m close to,” says Mai. 

The veiled dark descends on the lovers.  She peers into his face and his black, almond eyes. Goose bumps explode under her pale skin at his touch, softly running up her arm. Gently he gathers her up, silently dropping kisses on her lips soft as flower petals falling.

“I beat death at the game of life. I’m not afraid,” he whispers.

She turns and dives into the sparkling water, Ron after her. They swim to an artificial island and float, fingers entwined, staring up at the black sky through steamy condensation clouds.

Pictured on the left is Alan Feng, Master Chen’s student as an inspiration for young Xing and on the right is Master Ji as Col. Chen. Master Jia was interviewed in another post here.

Toward the end of the first novella, Human Hybrids, the readers meet Zhu Chengyou, General Ma’s older brother, retired disgraced Minister of Security, former head of the NAP.  Also meet his son, Xing, driver Tom and housekeeper, and wife Angelina who is in detention but is expected out soon.  Zhu tells Xing he wants him to marry Luyu, General Huang’s daughter.

The three novellas, Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time, will be released in 2019 in a boxed set!

Col. Chen, Zhu’s NAP captain, drives to the Revolutionary Hero Retirement Park in the hills beside the ancient city. The guard waves at him in passing as he winds through the development to Zhu’s villa. The housekeeper, Guanjia, answers the door and leads him into the sitting room. A bottle of baijiu beside young Xing Zhu.

Excerpt: 

The old man, Chengyou Zhu, relaxes in his sitting room in a red rayon tracksuit.  He wears the sleeves pushed up to display an immense watch dangling on his skinny wrist. 

“If your Uncle Junjie were here.”

“Shushu drank himself to death.  It’s a family tradition,” sneers Xing Zhu, the thirty something only son of Angelina. He wears the sleeves of his black, silk blend jacket pushed up, displaying Buddha beads around his wrist.

“Fool!” 

Young Xing tosses a shot into his mouth and wipes it with the back of his hand.

“I want to conquer the last Huang generation by marrying you to his daughter Luyu,” says the family scion.

“That stuck up little bitch?” questions his son.

“Don’t think that way. She expresses her father’s spirit and her mother’s beauty. Their family legacy will accrue to us at last,” cajoles Xing.

“And a niche at the Martyr’s Cemetary.”

“You’re being irreverent of your Great Grandfather Yang.”

“Does mother know about this plan of yours?”

“Not exactly. But she will be out of detention soon and home. She’ll agree with me.”

Zhu’s phone rings, its Col. Chen. 

In the brief interval that his father is absorbed in the call, Xing slurps down another shot.  When Zhu looks up, Xing asks, “Do you need a new license plate? I can get for you.”

“Vice President Lee is as bad as Liang. Imagine my Mercedes is too big to be correct.  Where do you get the plate?” asks his father.

“Chaoxian.”

“Zhende”

Col. Chen, Zhu’s NAP captain, drives to the Revolutionary Hero Retirement Park in the hills beside the ancient city. The guard waves at him in passing as he winds through the development to Zhu’s villa. The housekeeper, Guanjia, answers the door and leads him into the sitting room. A bottle of baijiu beside young Xing Zhu.

“Join us Yibo. Guanjia, a glass for our guest.”

The NAPster opens a laptop and turns it for Zhu to see.

“The subjects destroyed our operation. Removed the cams and mics, entered my room. I have it on tape. Want to see?”

Guanjia returns with a glass and a bowl of steamed, salted soybeans.

This young man drinking tea provided the model for young Xing, the spoiled brat, only child and princling of Zhu and Angelina’s.

“Dui, dui, show me.”

“What about?” Chen gestures at Xing, helping himself to another shot.

“Fine, he can see.”

The NAPster speeds through the views of Ronald Zhao and Commander Gao removing their equipment. Next the shot from the hall cam with the men going down to Chen’s room and entering.

“What about the queen bitch. I want to see pictures of her?” asks Zhu.

“One moment, sir, while I prepare that for you.” The NAPster bends over his laptop.

“These people, Xing, do you know why this matters to you?”

“Wo jidao, father, they are our enemies,” the son answers. He pours a shot for his father and another for himself.

“The woman, you will see her momentarily, is a dangerous American. She shot your Uncle Ma. For this they put guards on her.”

The NAPster returns with the laptop. He’s loaded a Favorites file of Mai, clips of her dressing, in bed with Ronald Zhao, in the hotel restaurant with Luyu.

“Look at her, Xing. She’s more beautiful than her mother. Don’t you agree?”

“Why is she having lunch with the American?” asks Xing.

“They appear to be friends.” Zhu turns to Chen. “Do you have the clip with Angelina?”

While the NAPster searches his directory, Zhu explains, “This American woman, she is a witch. She took over the mind and heart of Huang. He took her everywhere to take video.”

Chen starts the bust video, copied from CCTV broadcast, of the perps, Fan Changmi, already a fugitive, Angelina and Luyu, lined up against a blue building in a farm field. PLA soldiers throwing more guns on top of a huge pile of guns.

“What’s Luyu doing there?”

“Now that you mention it. That’s a good question.”

Real LifeTrip to Grangzhou to interview Penjing masters

I draw on my travels in China to provide me with abundant detail for the characters and settings. In the scene at the villa, I used a visit to the opulent sitting room of Director Xie Keying, Chinese Penjing craftsman, Chinese Penjing Artists Association Vice President and Guangdong Province Penjing Association Routine Vice Chairman and Secretary General at his private residence.

The elaborate etagere at the back of the room was reproduced in the illustration for the story.

Pictured here is my contact on the left Master Chen and Master Jia Ji on the right. I interviewed Master Chen as well and that story was published in the global bonsai magazine Bonsai Focus.

Secretary General Keying’s darling princeling son with his Mercedes fire engine

Using colors to represent shades of gray and black in the print version book.  What this means is that these illustrations will be incorporated into the manuscript format and printed along with the text in black and white.  E books version displays full color, the subtle play of ink, brush, decoupage and numerous more mixed media.

The three novellas, Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time, will be released in 2019 in a boxed set!

This double panel constructs around receding vanishing points off to the left and right.  The marquee with the massage clinic sign pops forward as the fruit boxes push in from the side.   The man and his daughter on a tricycle balance the man and woman walking toward him from the other panel.

Excerpt: 

Waiting for the elevator in the lobby after spending lunch with Luyu in the hotel dining room, Mai’s memories torment her. Memories of sitting in the back of a dark car, feeling the General’s fat fingers stroke her hair. Remembering his voice. His audacious self-confidence.

A man with an air of authority gets in the elevator with Mai, buzz cut hair and bland, tan Han features, dressed in black tee-shirt and pants. He and Mai gaze evenly, maybe curiously, at each other as the car climbs.

Mai asks, "Can you speak English." He shakes his head ‘no.’ She asks, “Ni shi da ling dao ma? Are you a high official?” His modest reply, “Wo zhu zai zhege bin guan. I’m merely a resident of the hotel,” as they exit the elevator together. She watches him walk down the hall to the other end where he takes out his key card to swipe the lock and enter his room.

The mysterious man banishes the tormented thoughts, leaving her alone with a nameless anxiety.

A talent show runs on the television while Ron shaves in the bathroom as she enters. She kicks off her shoes and flops onto the bed. Propped with pillows, she sighs, and watches fascinated.

He roughs his face with a towel before applying the hotel hairdryer. Next, electric clippers shave his neck and sharpen the upper edge on his cheek and around his mouth. Not that there’s much to worry about, being Asian and less endowed with facial hair follicles, shaving every three days.

“I met a mysterious man coming up on the elevator,” she starts.

He changes settings and combs through the sparse jawline and around his lips and chin, polishing his face with a soft brush when he’s done.

 “Mysterious, how?” Ron asks, lying down next to her and bringing his arm, the one with the scar, around her shoulders.

“He has that look, the black tee-shirt and pants. The way the NAPsters dress.”

“You talked to him?”

“He said he was a resident.”

“The most powerful and connected people live here Mai.”

They lie quietly, her head resting on his shoulder, listening to the Chinese television.

“Let’s get a massage,” says Ron.

“Tai haole, Ron, zouba!” agrees Mai, sitting up refreshed by the relaxing prospect.  Looking out the window at the overcast sky, she grabs her umbrella.

When Ron and Mai step into the hall, Ron asks, “Show me the room the man went into.” “It’s the last one on the right.”

Downstairs in the lobby, “You look worried,” says Ron, taking Mai’s hand and leading her through the revolving doors onto the street. 

“Aren’t you?”

“Shi, our rooms are bugged.  This entire hotel is a listening device.  That guy in the elevator, he could be NAP.  Absolutely.”

“What about the men last night? Were they NAPsters?” she asked, glistening.

They pass a beautiful young woman selling socks on a blanket laid on the sidewalk. Mai gives her ten yuan for a bundle.

“I want to check out,” says Ron.

“We have one more night before checking out tomorrow,” she says. “It’s the banquet. Then we’re off for a day trip to the warriors’ monument. What could go wrong?”

Farther down the street another vendor sells oranges. The lovers slowly walk away from the squat concrete hotel bristling with SIGINT towers. At a storefront with a gold and red lacquer sign, Ron leads her into the anmo clinic. 

“Duibuqi, Tangzi, I’m leaving you here.” Ron turns to the shifu, “Total meridian massage with oil, qing.” He lays 300 yuan on the counter and turns back to Mai. “I’ll come back when I’m finished.” 

He pushes past the glass door and merges with the passersby. The shifu leads Mai to a private room with large flat-screen TV running a kung fu movie. She returns with a small teapot and plate of sliced oranges. Anmoishi in green pajamas address her feet, legs, arms back and neck.  Deft fingers probe her chi blockage and effect release through ecstatic pain. In the dim room Mai surrenders to their accomplished hands, now rubbing her with tingling oils. 

These guys will stop at nothing to annihilate the Huang legacy. Who can protect me and the babies? 

Mai pictures Ron’s face, the face of her protector, when he shot the sniper on the pier in Wenzhou, the caper that started everything. A long ago it seems. When Rick was lying to her about his involvement in the Department of Homeland Security. 

No one can take care of us as well as Ron. 

Mai rests her head against the cushion while the anmoishi unties her top and applies oil to her shoulders and neck, stroking upwards, gouging gently will her thumbs and ending with a pressure point above her jaw.

Tension melts into a memory of the hot morning of Huang’s arrest, running down Highway G70 in her BMW past an industrial area. Red and white striped smokestacks stood in the distance amid electrical stanchions and rows of cooling towers. A man rode his motorbike in the nearly dry river channel where Ron parked her Beemer in the privacy of ruined and abandoned factories and they rested.

He’s more effective with an actual objective than with a threat.

Mai drifts in a half-conscious state fragrant with oil. Her spots simmer in faint iridescence. If the anmoishi notices, she says nothing. The face of her assailant swims into focus, mutely screaming, and his bloody hand, the salty blood running down her throat. 

What was that about? I was angry! I could have killed him… why didn’t I? Gao let him go… My first kill… What are you saying? You didn’t kill him… But I caught him… 

Using General Huang’s gun, the one he gave to Mai for protection the day he was arrested, to kill General Ma is ironic since Ma was the agency responsible for Huang’s gruesome death.  Yet Huang, the major figure that he is, dead and without dialogue or action, controls the actions of others in the chain of revenge between the two families, Zhu and Huang.

Mai Martin’s unexpected return to Xi’an and detection by the hotel staff yields a bonus to Chengyou Zhu, disgraced and retired member of the Politburo and an enemy to the Huang family, Mai and the Americans.

The three novellas, Human Hybrids, Dangerous Visions and Wasted Time, will be released in 2019 in a boxed set!

In this double panel Mai meets up with her crew, Ron and General Gao, the Commander.  They reassure her of her safety.  At the same time, they discuss the threat posed by the NAP, attacking them while they walk around in the evening.  Mai goes berserk, bites and chases her attacker like a wolf.  Black spots cover her face, and she gets a taste of blood.

Excerpt: 

The threesome navigates a street packed with food vendors bar-b-queing various things, adding their meat smoke to the exhaust of the cars creeping past in both directions with barely inches to spare. Mobs of people thread around and in between. A European face speaks to her, says he’s from Kazakhstan. An Algerian woman, a scientist from the conference, in hijab and trousers, bargains with a woman selling cheap beads and fake pearls.  

They pass a peddler selling bags of oranges. Ron exchanges a few yuan for a net bag of the fruit.

“Mama will be happy when I tell her about the oranges,” says Ron.

“I talked to Luyu today,” says Mai.

“About the memorial?” he asks.

“Yes, and she’s coming tomorrow for lunch.”

“Have I met her?” Ron queries.

“She’s Huang’s daughter by his first wife, the one who lives here in Xi’an.  It was Luyu’s fiancé, Henry Fong, who was murdered in the middle of the big bust. Rick shot the attacker.”

“This was while I was missing?”

“Yes. She’s a sweet kid and well connected if her father is being interred in the Martyr’s Cemetery.”

“Which means what?”

“His ancestor died in the war of liberation, in 1949, when New China was founded.”

“War hero.”

“And his father was sent up during the Cultural Revolution. He was CO of the Yunming Military Region. And his mother.”

“And Zhu is his family enemy, going back to that?”

“It’s tied together,” explains Mai. 

The street turns away from the traffic and bright lights. Here it is wide and flat, easy for walking, and many people are out enjoying the pleasant evening.  

 General Gao adds, “Zhu hasn’t been arrested for what happened to Huang and Cuo.  They’re pinning the blame on General Ma.”

“Why are we here? This is crazy!” exclaims Mai. The street turns up a hill. A school with a large playground accompanies them from behind a staunch retaining wall and iron spike fence lining one side of the street. In the dark, Mai studies the old houses lining the opposite side.

“And Zhu knows that it was you who put the video on CCTV of Huang’s bogus arrest by the National Armed Police, Martin Taitai,” adds Gao.  “…and the grisly video of their bodies… on top of it you shot Ma, his little brother.”

A sliver of a new moon rises from behind the summit, many meters ahead.

“Zhu could be around the next corner with his NAPster goons,” cries Mai. The danger, instead of frightening, stimulates her augmented senses. In the dark, under her jacket, Mai’s spots tingle with a fresh imperative.

“Wo shi.  Gao shi,” says Ron, reaching in the dark, pulling her close to him as they walk a few more metres up the street in silence, the increasing steepness no impediment to Mai’s strides. She easily keeps up with the military men despite her pregnancy. 

They’ve left buildings behind. The street diminishes into a walkway which passes under an arch and into a park.  There flourishing twisted pines crouch as if black beasts hiding in the shadows.

“Mai, where are you going?” asks Ron. “It’s pitch black up there.” His flashlight illuminates the three faces in a circle. Mai’s spots catch a sheen of iridescence. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”

Re-tracing their route, they walk in silence. 

“The General wasn’t as bad as he seemed at first,” she admits.

“He didn’t deserve to die that way, but I’m glad he’s dead. The man couldn’t keep his hands off you. You’re free of him now.”

“And we’re going to his memorial. It’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead.”

Confirming Mai’s superstitious sentiment, shadows materialize from between houses and rush at the Beijingers. The moment she feels hands laid on her, Mai morphs into a primal terror, protecting the babies from an unknown assailant. She bends over the hand and bites at the boney flesh. Bloody, hot and salty tang spurts into her mouth. The man screams and recoils. Mai leaps at him, blue sparks flashing from demonic canine eyes. He turns and runs down the deserted street, dodging between parked cars, with Mai on his heels. She leaps, grasps a foot, twists it and takes him down. 

The Commander and Ron react as swiftly to shadowy assailants, chasing them back into the dark. Turning down the hill toward Mai, they race to find her standing with the heel of her boot on the neck of a man, shivering and clutching his hand dripping with blood.

“I caught one,” she announces triumphantly.

In the light of a streetlamp, Mai’s spots are unmistakable, spilling up from the neck of her shirt, crowding her face with pulsing black spots surrounding white hot flaming eyes.  Streaks of blood smear across her jacket.

Jabbering in Mandarin, the man curses Mai, “The bitch bit me, look at this!  Look!”

“Let go,” says Gao.

The men frisk him and find his NAP ID.

“You have a bad wound. You should see a doctor,” says the Commander. “Get out of here.” The man spins and dashes down the street.

“Stay here, I’ll walk down to the boulevard and flag a cab,” says Ron. In the time it takes for him to return, the Commander watches Mai crouching on the retaining wall and withdrawing into herself. The spots cool into a mottled iridescence. She barely notices, when they turn the corner in front of the hotel, the cheerful lights in every color and the huge conference banner across the entrance.