Hatijah came forward with a paper boat. She had started to wear black trousers, like her daughter. 'Mrs Chung-ma'am,' she said. 'Have you made a wish?'
'Oh, no! I've forgotten,' said Mae, and took Mrs Ozdemir's arm in gratitude.
'Hurry up,' said Kwan. It seemed that the entire crowd bustled Mae forward, to their little stream.
Since the Flood, the gully was steeper. Their little stream was walled, channelled to the edge of the square, where it dropped away as a waterfall. Mae was supported as she knelt down beside it. The fire in her belly moved again.
'I want another boat!' Mae exclaimed. 'One for my baby!' She looked back and there they all were, all the villagers. Shen had joined his wife, and all the Pin babes crowded round.
'Have mine,' said Ling Dawn.
Two boats of paper with birthday candles.
'Light the candles first, or the boats will float away first,' said Dawn.
Kwan pushed a cigarette lighter into her hand. Mae lit the first candle and set the boat adrift. The boat was made in the old way. It seemed not to soak up the water. It was stable, and it spun away, bearing fire. Mae lit the second, beginning to feel self-conscious, with all those people watching – and her second boat of wishes was borne away, separate from the first.
'That's it, show is over,' she said, standing up. She turned and saw both little boats drop suddenly over the edge.
Then it moved.
Her whole stomach rose up, crammed like a hard pillow. It caught in her gizzard, and something tore. There was another wave; she could feel her gullet clench, relax, push like a serpent. The thing caught, and her gut began to thrash.
'It's coming,' she managed to gasp.
On the scaffolding, Mr Kwan's TV was lit with the face of the tiger Talent. It is almost here, everyone,' the Talent boomed. 'In just two minutes' time, there will be the second coming of the Air. Are you all counting?'
Her sharp, high little voice began to count.
'One minute and fifty-seven seconds.'
The screen shifted to the crowds outside the National Assembly in Balshang. The President was counting.
Mae vomited and vomited, but nothing moved. Her chest heaved.
In Singapore a dancing dragon moved through the crowd.
Push!
Old Mrs Tung was fighting with her.
The dragon inside her moved. The lump reared up and stuck and Mae could not breathe.
Her whole body heaved and fought. Kwan shouted something. Mae felt hands, hands on her wrists, everything about her was slimy with sweat; no one could hold her, she was hot and wringing wet.
'One minute, thirty-five seconds.'
In New York, people were holding hands and singing: 'Iheard the news today, oh boy…"'
In Kizuldah, Mr Wing's fireworks erupted, crackling above the ancient fields. Blue and white fire danced in the air, smoky, trailing down like snow made of light. The light also danced on the water. The irrigated fields were full of little boats made of fire, tracing the pattern of the ancient canals.
Mae heaved to suck in air. It came with a thin popping sound, slithering up and over the thing in her throat. She roared again with the sound of vomit, and bent over.
'Forty-nine seconds.'
In Japan, there was a new building made all of wood to celebrate, and balloons were bobbing, ready to be released.
Fire burned the inside of her nostrils. Everything strained, pushing – her new empty hungry belly, the lacerated gullet – it all shifted, and something stuck just behind her mouth, like everything Mae had ever wanted to say:
And like a bubble something burst.
'Ten seconds to go.'
Mae's knees gave way; out it moved, something encased. She felt it move – move of its own accord – and the envelope tore and something sugary and sweet suddenly poured forth.
Kwan was shouting over all the noise, and stroking Mae's throat. 'It's coming. She's giving birth through her mouth.'
And then the Flood came.
A flash and a falling backwards, and then a waterfall of sound/ taste/images sense, rising up out of the earth, catching fire. A flood of Air roaring into her head with a sound like bells, washing away the breakage of the previous Format.
Mae thought, this time it will be right, this time it will be safe.
The people were imprinted again.
Because of Mae it was still the UN Format. It was not the UN Format that had made her ill, but the mailbox program. There was no need for a different Format. She had wrote and told Bugsy that. Bugsy had written a second, powerful article: 'Do We Want a Company to Own Our Souls?'
There were voices in the air like birds, and they shouted in all languages, Hello! hello! hello!
Mae understood them, understood all the languages; she tasted the tang of New York, the restraint and pride of Japan, the waves of salt from her own people.
And Bay Toh Van.
'Come sing a song of joy!'
Air bloomed as gently as knowledge itself; thing after thing was learned, as ignorance was healed like a suppurated wound. Cars, telephones, the Kings of England, the Japanese yen, the euro, the space shuttle, the iron molecules on old computer disks.
And the joyful ghosts. They came running even as Mae choked and clenched for one last time.
'bugsy@nouvelles: Babe! Honey, did you make it?'
'My baby! I've just had my baby!'
Bay Toh Van boomed, Bugsy did a virtual dance in the air, and Mae looked down, under crackling light.
'tunch@kn: Well, Mae, you won. You beat even me. We all won.'
'chungl@arm: Hiya, Mom, show us Kizuldah. We can see with your eyes, Mom!'
And Mae looked down at the thing that hung out of her mouth. Sunni held one hand, Kwan the other, and Kuei's arm was around her back.
The newborn was tiny, the size of a hand. How could it shrink so small? And it was burned black – black by acids. Its tiny fingers seemed melted together, and its tiny genitals were a blur of ruined flesh and its eyes had been seared shut.
And the child beamed – smiling, joyful, dazed.
The babe had been Formatted.
It was full of Beethoven, the history of Karzistan, the hysterical voices of joy live from Beijing, a new wall of Collab music rolling across the landscape from New York, and a sudden, huge warm hand of love reaching into it. Mae spoke to it through Air.
'My little future. You are blind, but you will not need to see, for we can all see for you, and sights and sounds will pass through to you from us. You have no hands, but you will not need hands, for your mind will control the machines, and they will be as hands. Your ears also burned away, but you will hear more in one hour than we heard in all of our lifetimes.
'I am called your mother.'
And then Mae looked up.
'You're alive,' said Kwan.
'We all are,' said Mae, and she caught up the dangling child and its father reached out for it, held it and cradled it. 'He burns!' Kuei chuckled. 'The child burns.' But he cradled him to his breast.
The light flicked and crackled for one last time; the fireworks of Kizuldah fell away to nothing. Kwan gave her a tug. Mae and Kwan, Sunni, Siao, Kuei and his new son, Old Mrs Tung, all of them, turned and walked together into the future.
