The gray fish belly of dawn was just starting to light up the eastern horizon, and all was quiet around the frontier post; the snowcapped peaks were still asleep. No lights had been on in the Indian frontier post opposite them all night, as if it had been abandoned.
They spoke little, nor was there any need to speak. Lieutenant Colonel Wei Jianlin turned and with difficulty straddled the horse his son had ridden out on, and then headed off to camp, where he would take the last bus to the final assembly point. At the end of the long road down the mountain, he turned back and saw his son watching him leave, standing ramrod straight in front of the outpost, motionless in the chill wind, and next to him against the blue-white of the morning, the boundary marker.
The Epoch Clock started ticking as soon as the adults had all gone. This clock could be found all over, on TV screens throughout the world, on practically every webpage, on every urban digital billboard, and standing tall in the central plaza of every city. It didn’t look like a clock at all, but took the form of a green rectangle made up of 61,420 pixels, each of which represented a final assembly point, linked through satellite signal with the status of each assembly point worldwide. When a green dot turned black, it meant that everyone at that assembly point was dead.
When the entire clock turned black, no one over the age of thirteen would be left on Earth, and children would formally take over global administration.
When the green dots would go out was up to the assembly points themselves. Some equipped everyone on-site with a wrist sensor that monitored life signs, and would eventually send out a death signal; this device was known as an “oak leaf.” The third world had a simpler method: The green dot would automatically turn off at the time estimated by doctors. None of the dots ought to have been turned off manually, since everyone at the assembly points would have lost consciousness well before death, but it was later discovered that the green dots at some assembly points had indeed been switched off by human hands. This mystery was never explained.
The design of the assembly points differed across countries and cultures, but in general they were situated in enormous caves dug underground, where people gathered to spend their final moments on Earth. Every assembly point held roughly one hundred thousand people, but some of them had upward of a million.
The vast majority of the last written words left by the people of the Common Era at the final assembly points recorded their experiences and emotions of bidding farewell to the world, but vanishingly few mentioned anything about the assembly points themselves. One thing was certain: All of them passed their final moments in peace, and where there was still strength, they held concerts and parties.
One holiday observed in the Supernova Era was Final Assembly Day. On that day, people gathered at the various underground plazas that were final assembly points to experience the final moments of the people of the Common Era. The Epoch Clock showed again across all media, its green dots turning once again to black. Shadowy crowds lay down throughout the dank, lonely space, lit by just one hazy floodlight high on the cavern’s roof, the silence made only heavier by the sound of innumerable people breathing. Then they would become philosophers, contemplating life and the world anew.
National leaders were the last to depart in each country. In the NIT, two generations of leadership were making their last goodbyes. Every adult took their students aside to give final instructions.
The chief of general staff said to Lü Gang, “Remember, don’t engage in large-scale, far-reaching transcontinental or transoceanic wars. The navy is no match for Western main fleets in battle.”
Lü Gang had heard this from the CGS and other leaders countless times, and as on all those previous times, he nodded and said he would remember.
“Now let me introduce some people to you,” the CGS said, gesturing to five senior colonels he had brought with him. “This is the Special Observer Team that will function only during wartime. They have no authority to interfere with your command, but they have the right to know all confidential information during wartime.”
The five young colonels saluted Lü Gang, who saluted back and then asked the CGS, “What will they do then?”
“Their final duties will be made known to you at the necessary time.”
The president and prime minister were silent for quite a while as they faced Huahua, Specs, and Xiaomeng. History records that such a scene was found in most countries when adult leaders parted from child leaders for the final time. There was too much they wanted to say, so much that they were left speechless; what they had to say was so weighty that they were incapable of forming the words.
At last the president said, “Children, when you were very small, adults taught you that so long as there’s a will there’s a way. Now, I’m here to tell you, that’s completely wrong. The way is only open for those things in line with the laws of science and of social development. The vast majority of what people want to accomplish is impossible, no matter how hard they try. As leaders of this country, your historic mission is to consider a hundred options, eliminate the ninety-nine that are impossible, and find the one that can be accomplished. This will be difficult, but you must do it!”
The premier said, “Remember the MSG and salt.”
Parting itself was calm. The adults, after shaking hands silently with the children, helped each other out of the hall. The president was the last to leave, and before he went through the door he turned and said to the new national leadership, “Children, the world belongs to you now.”
THE SUPERNOVA ERA
For several days after the adults left, the young leaders spent their time in front of the Epoch Clock, which was displayed on the big screen in the hall at the top of the NIT, bathing the place in the green light of its enormous glowing rectangle.
All was normal in the country on the first day. The ministries handled tasks in various sectors relatively successfully, and there were no major incidents on national soil. The children’s country seemed to be running a continuation of the dry run. As had been the case then, there wasn’t much for the leaders at the top of the NIT to do.
That first night there was no change to the Epoch Clock, which remained an unblemished expanse of green. The child leaders stared silently at it until late in the night when they finally fell asleep. But when they woke up, someone shouted, “Come have a look. Isn’t that a little black dot up there?”
Up by the screen they looked carefully, and indeed there was a small black square roughly the size of a coin, as if the shiny surface of the green rectangle had shed a mosaic tile.
“Could it be a bad pixel?” one child asked.
“Must be. That happened with my old computer’s LCD screen,” another child replied. This theory was simple to test, requiring no more than a glance at other screens, but they all went back to sleep without anyone proposing it.
Children are far better at self-delusion than adults.
When they woke the next morning and gathered before the Epoch Clock again, self-delusion was no longer possible. Black dots were scattered throughout the green rectangle.
From up here, the city below them was peaceful, its streets empty of pedestrians and all but the occasional passing vehicle. After a century of tumult the metropolis seemed to have gone to sleep.
After dark, the number of black spots on the Epoch Clock had doubled, some of them joining into patches of black, like clearings in the green forest.
On the morning of the third day, approximately equal areas of black and green composed an intricate monochrome image. The black area was growing dramatically faster now, a black lava of death spreading across the Epoch Clock and ruthlessly consuming the green grass of life. By nightfall, black now covered two-thirds of the rectangle, and late that night the Epoch Clock had become a magic charm that held the children tightly in its grip.