DOOMSDAY SUMMONING
Part Three
5
"Is all of this really so hard for you to let go?" Vivian asked. "I don't understand—what do you still have to hold on to? Yongsheng, I looked into your background. A bizarre boss, a dead-end job, a walking-corpse existence. Even your girlfriend abandoned you. What meaning does a life like this have?"
I opened my mouth, but no words came. Just then, the wall clock chimed—once, twice—the midnight hour striking. Lucian Holt spread his arms wide as if embracing everyone present. "The time has come, comrades! At this very moment, we are not fighting alone. In 516 locations across other countries and regions around the world, there are people just like us preparing to summon Icarus-3! Though we are scattered across the globe, at this same moment, let us unite—gather the intention of every soul here, and surely this comet will sense our summons! Icarus-3—such a massive celestial body, its orbit passing so close to Earth—a convergence like this comes once in an age. Let us summon it together!"
Everyone linked arms, closed their eyes, and chanted in loud voices: "Icarus descends! Icarus descends!" They seemed as if possessed, faces ecstatic, bodies trembling, like believers awaiting the arrival of a messiah.
The group's overwhelming energy swept me up. I felt submerged, melted into a vast and surging ocean, reduced to a single particle running, leaping, until I was utterly spent. A wave of dizziness hit me; Vivian caught me, and I slowly sank into her arms as if returning to the womb.
6
"How'd it go? Feeling good today?" the pharmacy owner asked me.
It was past two in the morning, and he still hadn't closed up. I sat wearily in a chair and lit a cigarette. On the TV, an interview program was playing—two scientists arguing on screen. One said Icarus-3 had already deviated from its projected orbit and was getting closer to Earth by the day; humanity should prepare for a comet impact. The other scientist scoffed at this, saying a comet striking Earth was a near-impossible probability, and such worries were sheer paranoia.
"Boss?"
"What?" He turned to look at me.
"Do you think human intention can really summon a comet?"
"Trust science." He nodded firmly. "Do you know quantum mechanics? There's a famous experiment called the 'double-slit experiment.' It demonstrates that when no one carefully observes light, it exhibits the wave-like properties of superposition states; but when carefully observed, the wave function collapses, and light displays particle-like behavior! It fully proves the power—and the terror—of consciousness. It's like two glasses of water—if you constantly praise one and curse the other, do you think those two glasses of water would end up in the same state?"
"Water Knows the Answer?"
"Exactly. They'll generate different crystal structures."
"But I don't understand," I crushed out my cigarette, "why do you want the comet to hit Earth? No matter what, you still have a pharmacy."
"A pharmacy? Heh. You think running this rundown shop earns any real money? Income can't even cover expenses. I also have a good-for-nothing son out there running wild—every time he calls, it's to ask for money. At New Year's, he wanted me to buy him an iPhone. When I refused, he actually slapped me across the face... Damn it, I've lived enough."
"But can't you use intention to influence him?"
The boss smiled bitterly. "His intention is stronger than mine—all directed at iPhones, video games, and women. Come to think of it, even if you can change a comet's trajectory, you can't change a person's mind."
I fell silent, the words stirring up some of my own painful memories.
"What about Vivian?" I asked suddenly. "Do you know her story?"
"Her—" The boss shook his head. "She used to have a boyfriend—they were really close. But then the guy cheated on her and dumped her. Because of that, she fell into depression and slit her wrists several times. Her family eventually sent her to a psychiatric hospital. She was treated for a while, and they thought she was fine, but after she was discharged, she joined our organization."
"Ask not what love is in this world, that makes the living pledge their lives to death." My expression darkened.
When I got home, I collapsed into bed and slept like the dead, until a frantic pounding on the door jolted me awake. I opened it, and the landlady's fleshy, scowling face loomed before me. "Ma! Are you going to pay your rent or not?"
"Yes, yes," I rubbed my bleary eyes, forcing a smile. "Just give me a few more days. Things are really tight right now—"
"No money? Then go out and make some! Wash dishes at a restaurant, move dirt at a construction site—can't do any of that? You've got no money but you've got the nerve to sleep at home?"
That set me off. "What? I can't sleep at home? Is sleeping illegal now?"
"Sleeping's not illegal, but owing me rent sure as hell is! I've hounded you about this so many times. You're a grown man—have you no shame?"
Oh, fuck that. Who's shameless? Feel that mound of flesh on your own face—you really have the gall to call someone else out?
"You—you—"
"What about me? All you ever care about is money, money, money. Haven't you seen the news? A comet is about to smash into Earth, and you're still here hounding me for rent—you might not be alive to spend it!"
"You're insane!" The landlady looked genuinely frightened. "Stop spouting nonsense! Two more days—if you haven't paid, I'm calling the police!"
"Go ahead!" I slammed the door, then pointed at my own head and screamed at the ceiling at the top of my lungs: "Icarus-3! Come! Come right at me!"
I became the comet party's most devoted member. Every evening I summoned with them, my longing like a mother calling for a wayward son who'd never come home. I could almost feel that the comet had established some kind of psychic link with us—that it was howling toward Earth at full speed.
That night, after the party ended, Vivian didn't take me home. Instead, she asked, "Dare to come somewhere with me?"
I had nothing left to live for anyway. "Even if it's over mountains of blades and seas of fire."
She rode the Yamaha with me clinging on, tearing through the streets, all the way up Signal Mountain on the city's outskirts. This was the highest point in the entire city—from the summit, you could look down on ten thousand twinkling lights below. We raised our heads and saw Icarus-3's trailing tail swaying across the night sky like a frozen firework.
"This is the closest place to Icarus. Let's summon it here—it will definitely sense us." Vivian's voice drifted with the mountain wind, sounding almost ethereal.
I held her hand and sat on the hilltop. My fingers brushed against the scars on her wrist. She raised her head and began to chant: "Icarus descends..." I saw two trails of tears stream from the corners of her eyes.
"Icarus descends!" I shouted into the mountain wind with all my might.
The firmament seemed to sway and crumble.
7
When I walked into the office, the editor-in-chief was pacing like an ant on a hot skillet. He immediately called an emergency meeting of the entire department. He said he'd received inside information: Icarus-3's trajectory had completely deviated from its projected orbit, and there was an 80% chance of impact with Earth. He wanted us to write stories immediately and milk this hotspot for all it was worth.
I sneered. "The comet's about to hit Earth and humanity's going to go extinct like the dinosaurs, and you still want us to write articles?"
"Matt, you—" The editor-in-chief slammed the desk, pointing at my nose. "Are you trying to start a mutiny?"
"Mutiny this!" I launched a kick straight into his face, sending him tumbling across the floor yelping. Then, under the stunned gazes of every colleague in the room, I shoved open the conference room door and strode out.
I felt light as air. Reborn.
The streets were clearly beginning to spiral out of control. Word had leaked somehow, and everyone was in a panic. Several supermarkets had already been looted as people fought over daily supplies. Crashed vehicles littered the roads, and the wail of ambulances and fire engines rose and fell in an endless chorus—the whole city had dissolved into chaos.
Loudspeakers blared air-raid sirens, urging citizens to stay home and not venture outside unnecessarily. The LED screen on the municipal building scrolled the news: experts had come forward to debunk the claims, saying the probability of a comet impact was minuscule, and that this was a group of people with ulterior motives spreading rumors to incite social unrest. The public shouldn't believe it.
"Hmph." I sneered.
I knew that these debunking experts would soon be proved spectacularly wrong—though by then, no one would care anymore. When facing doomsday judgment, who would bother worrying about others? I figured that a hundred million years ago, at the final hour of every dinosaur's extinction, the only thing on each one's mind was its own suffering.
I couldn't even wait until evening. I headed to the party warehouse in broad daylight—but something went wrong. Before I even arrived, I saw flashing police lights. My heart sank. The taxi driver asked, "Is this your stop?"
"No. Drive past."
As the taxi passed the warehouse, I saw several police cars parked nearby. The scene was cordoned off, yellow tape stretched around the building. My heart gave a sickening lurch—then the taxi's radio broadcast a breaking news alert: "Renowned physicist, celestial mechanic, and expert in human consciousness studies, Lucian Holt, has been arrested on charges of 'endangering public safety'..."