Then Chen Yang grinned.
"Leave the food to me."
"Boss, I don't think you understand the scale of—"
"I understand it perfectly. And it's my problem, not yours. That's what a boss is for." He tapped her forehead. "Your only task is to get stronger. Nothing else. Take the levels and don't think about the arithmetic."
"...Yes, boss," Leelu said shyly.
"And hear this properly, because I'm going to hold myself to it." He looked at her steadily. "Nobody at this base will ever go without food. Not one person, whatever level they reach. Ever."
She looked back at him with open admiration, and then, without warning, launched herself onto his back.
"Best boss in the wasteland!"
"Get — get off—"
She bit his hand, playfully, and laughed at his face.
"Calm down," Chen Yang said, prying her loose. "And take me to Uncle Wei."
The old scientist met them at the door of a room stacked to the ceiling with salvage.
"Boss! Leelu."
"How's the research going?"
"Ah." Uncle Wei's shoulders came up around his ears and he began to complain at length about the technology, which was ancient, and the documentation, which was worse, and the state of the world in general.
Chen Yang listened, and noticed that the man did not seem to be in any particular hurry.
"So," Uncle Wei finished, "in theory I could transform the programs right now. Today. This hour. The theory is finished." He spread his hands helplessly. "But I have no working computer to test any of it on. I am a chef with no kitchen."
"That's all?" Chen Yang said. "I brought it days ago. Leelu picked it up in the city."
"HERE!" Leelu heaved a large box onto the table with a joyful crash.
"Right now," said Uncle Wei, already tearing at the packing. "I will check everything right now."
He had it assembled and running with startling speed, and then he sat down in front of it and got quiet, and the only sound in the room for several minutes was the click of a mouse.
"Everything is in perfect order," he announced at last, in the tone of a surgeon reporting a clean operation. "No faults, no bottlenecks, no problems whatsoever. Boss — tell me what you want made. Anything."
"An online game," Chen Yang said. "For very old mobile phones."
He took out his phone, opened it, and set it on the desk. "Something along these lines. Learn this."
Uncle Wei agreed at once, then hesitated. "I'll need to study it carefully first. I don't want to guess."
He picked the phone up and vanished into it.
For a long time he did not speak. He played, and stopped, and went back, and played again, and his fingers began to move faster than Chen Yang could follow, and by the end of it he was doing things with the interface that Chen Yang had not known were possible.
"Well," Uncle Wei said, setting it down. "It's primitive."
"Primitive."
"Compared to what we had before the disaster? Boss, this is a child's toy carved out of wood." He rubbed his chin. "But that's useful, actually. There were far better designs in the old libraries — mechanics, structures, whole systems. If I'm allowed to borrow from them, I can move much faster than building from nothing."
"Borrow from anything you like," Chen Yang said, delighted. "Anything at all."
"Then—"
"How long?" Chen Yang leaned on the desk. "Give me a deadline. And there'll be a generous bonus at the end of it, so don't be shy."
Uncle Wei considered.
"Seven days," he said. "Maximum."
Chen Yang did not answer, because he could not.
Seven days. A major title took years. A studio of two hundred people with real budgets took years, and then delayed, and then delayed again. Even the simplest mobile game — the kind with three colours and a leaderboard — took months.
"Boss?" The old man's confidence wobbled. "Seven days. That's plenty for a man from the wasteland, I promise you. I wouldn't say it if—"
The gap, Chen Yang thought numbly. The gap between these two worlds isn't years. It's a canyon.
Uncle Wei watched him not react, and began to sweat.
He is unhappy with the deadline, the old man thought. Of course he is. What kind of specialist takes a whole week?
"Five!" he said suddenly. "Less than five days."
"What?"
"There are others in this settlement who understand smart technologies — not experts, but capable, and young, and they learn fast. With their help I can do it in under five days. I'll do it in four if the nights hold up—"
Chen Yang was shocked all over again, and this time he was quietly appalled. Twelve-hour shifts, he thought. For a workaholic like this, a twelve-hour shift would be a holiday.
"Agreed," he said. "Bring in whoever you need."
"Although." Uncle Wei's face clouded. "New people means new mouths and new questions. It complicates things for you, boss, and I don't want to—"
"It doesn't complicate anything. I was already planning to hire everyone in District D."
The old scientist's mouth fell open. "Everyone. The whole district."
"The boss is building a base for us," Leelu explained, beaming. "Here. So you can hire anybody who's loyal and reliable, because they're all going to be on the payroll anyway."
Uncle Wei's eyes filled up.
Then he got down on his knees on the concrete floor.
"Savior," he said, thickly. "You are this district's savior. I'm an old man and I'm not ashamed to say it—"
"Stop that." Chen Yang hauled him up by the elbows, embarrassed. "It's a job. I'm paying you for work, it isn't worth thanking me for."
"You don't understand." Uncle Wei gripped his arms. "Without you, every soul in this district would have been in danger this season. Because of the tax collection."
Chen Yang went still.
"What tax collection?"
Leelu let out a long, tired sigh behind him. That was the only answer he got.
"You didn't tell me," Chen Yang said, turning. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It isn't that big a deal," she said, not meeting his eyes. "It happens every time. It's just how it is—"
"You and I are going to talk about this properly," he said. "After I've spoken to everyone else."
And that was all. He did not raise his voice, and he did not look worried, and he simply said, calmly, that he would deal with it.
Uncle Wei collected the phone off the desk to keep for reference. "Five days," he said, and saluted with tremendous enthusiasm. "You have my word."
"Five days," Chen Yang agreed, and left.
The two of them watched him go from the doorway.
"Leelu," Uncle Wei said thoughtfully, when the sound of his footsteps had gone. "Who is our boss? Really?"
"I don't know."
"You must have some—"
"I don't know, and I don't want to get involved," she said. "He doesn't talk about it. If he wanted us to know he'd have told us."
"That's not good enough." The old man rubbed his jaw. "Think about what he carries in here. Antiques in perfect condition — not restored, not scavenged, perfect, as though they came off a production line this morning. How do we know a man like that doesn't wish us harm?"
Leelu turned on him, and her voice was anxious rather than angry.
"Harm? What harm? What is there to take from us, Uncle Wei? We have nothing. We've had nothing our whole lives. What could he possibly have found in this district that's worth cheating us for?"
The old man was quiet.
"You're right," he admitted. "The food he's brought in already would feed an army of fighters. Whatever he's after, he could buy it outright and never miss the price."
"And he's calm," Leelu said, more quietly. "Have you noticed? Nothing frightens him. He walks around out there like the wasteland is a market street." Her hands twisted together. "That's what worries me. Someone's going to see that and want to take a piece out of him for it."
Uncle Wei glanced sideways at her. "Ah. So that's why you didn't tell him about the tax."
She did not deny it.
"He's our only chance," Leelu said flatly. "The only one this district has ever had. So we don't just work for him. We protect him."
The old scientist looked at her, and then sat down at the computer and cracked his knuckles, and began to work as though the world were on fire.
On a street two hundred years earlier, a man stopped walking because his skin had begun to glow.
Chen Yang had a SIM card between his fingers — he had been thinking that a phone which had survived being carried into a nuclear wasteland twice was probably due for retirement — when a flash of blue energy burst out of his chest and lit the pavement.
An elderly man walking the other way turned around, bewildered, looking for the source of the noise and the light.
Chen Yang stood there with his hand on his sternum, feeling it.
Absorbed. The tier one serum had finally, completely absorbed.
He grinned and took the second vial out of his jacket, turning it over in the light. Level two. Three days, exactly as she had said, and he was ready for it, and he was not going to hesitate for a second.
In the phone store, the consultant was midway through her pitch. "—and this is the newest flagship, so if you'd like to compare it against the—"
"I'll take it," Chen Yang said, smiling. "Just that one. No comparison necessary."
He set the new phone up on the walk home, and when it finished syncing it showed him three missed calls from Liu Churan.
He took his own head in both hands.
He had forgotten her. He had completely forgotten a woman whose family factory was currently running at a loss while she waited for his call.
The phone rang out twice before she answered, in a very cool voice, from a very large house.
"Where have you been?"
"My phone broke," Chen Yang said. "Completely broke, I've only just replaced it, I'm sorry—"
"Stay exactly where you are," Liu Churan said. "I'm picking you up."
She came down the stairs of the family house two at a time. "Dad! Dad, where are the car keys?"
Her father tossed them from the landing. "What do you need the car for?"
"Collecting my classmate."
"Hm." He leaned on the rail. "Be careful, then. Alone in a car with a young man—"
"He is coming to inspect our plant," Liu Churan said furiously, and slammed the door on her way out.
Her father stayed where he was, listening to the engine start.
Careful was not really the word for what he felt. If the boy came and looked at everything, honestly and thoroughly, and then walked away — and that was the likeliest outcome, because that was what everyone else had done — then they would have to sell. There was no second plan behind this one.
Half an hour later the car swung into the yard of the Liu family food factory and stopped.
"We're here," Liu Churan announced calmly.
Chen Yang did not let go of the handhold above the door. His knuckles were white on it, and his eyes were fixed straight ahead.
"Oh, honestly." She glared at him. "Am I really that bad a driver?"
"No," he said. "No. Not at all."
Her father was waiting at the entrance and came forward with his hand out. "Thank you for coming all this way. Really — I know it's a long way out."
"Uncle, please, there's no need to—"
"Mr Chen," the older man corrected firmly. "We're partners talking business today. Let's do it properly." He gestured them in through the doors. "Now. Did Churan explain to you what the situation here is?"