Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 407

the smoking crater. The ship neared the port and stopped, hovering above the water. A man wearing a metal mask and a black
trench coat stepped out. He seemed to glance in my direction, but it could have been a trick of the light. He pulled out a
megaphone, speaking directly into it.
“People of Shanghai,” he said, “Surrender, or risk destruction. You have one day.”
With that, he returned to his ship and left. The realization dawned upon me: the man was a conqueror from the future.
By changing the past drastically, he was tearing an irreparable hole in reality. I stepped out onto the destroyed dock and tr ied to
look for a rental boat, preparing to leave. Li caught up with me.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
I shook my head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I have a duty to my city too. Besides, I was the one who saved you.” he said.
Warmed by his gesture, I embraced him. No matter what happened today, we would be friends forever.
Together, we set sail, following the locator I had attached to the ship. Using my pocket computer, I hacked into the
system and opened a maintenance hatch. We climbed up, emerging in the engine room. As we made our way through the
corridors, Li voiced his concerns.
“This is too easy,” Li said. “I don’t like this.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Whatever you say,” Li said, looking skeptical. “I just think something’s wrong.”
“You’re right,” a voice echoed in the passage, sounding amused. The masked person was standing before us. He held up
his hand, signalling the gangsters to step forward. We froze and raised our hands.
We were escorted to a dark, ominous room, where Li was strapped into a machine.
“Watch over him closely and make him stand next to me,” the man said to a gangster, gesturing to me. “It will be...
amusing for him to see what happens next.”
I was forced to watch as the gangsters attached electrodes to Li’s head, the masked person chatting with me all the time.
“The machine activates pain sensors in the brain,” he explained casually, like he was chatting at a dinner party. “Some
people have been known to go mad from the pain.”
Li’s breath caught in his throat as he realized what was about to happen to him.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, desperately trying to stop Li from being tortured.