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CHAPTER 1

Bingwen

The librarian watched the vid on Bingwen's wen? You pulled me away from my work to showfor the exa to use this computer" She pointed to the line of children by the door, all of the my time and theirs"

"It's not a spook vid," said Bingwen "It's real"

The librarian scoffed "There are dozens of stories about aliens on the nets, Bingwen When it isn't sex, it's aliens"

Bingwen nodded He should have expected this Of course the librarian wouldn't believe hi as serious as an alien threat would need to coovernht-year-old son of a rice farmer

"Now you have three seconds to get back to your studies, or I' your time to someone else"

Bingwen didn't argue What good would it do? When adults became defiant in public, no ae their minds He climbed back up into his chair and made two clicks on the keyboard The vid of the alien disappeared, and a coeoave hi look, then crossed the room back to her desk

Bingwen pretended to busy himself with the proof until the librarian was occupied and her mind was elsewhere Then he tapped the keypad and reopened the vid The face of the alien stared back at hiwen had paused the vid Had the librarian seen soed the vid as a fake? It was true that there were hundreds of such vids on the nets Space duels, alien encounters, laringly obvious Co a pencil sketch of fruit to the real thing

No, this was real No digital artist could create so this vivid and fluid and alive The insectlike face had hair and musculature and blood vessels and eyes with depth Eyes that seenal the end to everything Bingwen felt hirotesque, unnatural look of the thing, but from the realness of it The clarity of it The undeniable truth of it

"What is that?"

Bingwen turned around in his seat and saw Hopper standing behind hi to one side because of his twisted foot Bingwen smiled A friend And not just any friend, but Hopper Soht and tell hiht there, there's a glitch youyourself into a frenzy for no reason

"Cowen

Hopper limped forward "Is that a spook vid?"

"What do you think?"

"Looks real Where'd you get it?"

"Yanyu sent it to me I just checked my mail"

Yanyu was one secret that he and Hopper shared She was a research assistant to an astrophysicist on Luna Bingwen had rad students looking to iwen had tried other foru no pretense But as soon as he divulged his age, forum administrators always kicked him out and blocked his access

Then he had found the foruwen had pretended to be a second-year grad student in Guangzhou studying agriculture, the only subject Bingwen thought he could speak to with any believable degree of competency He and Yanyu had beco each other in English several tiuilt whenever they co a lie What's worse, now that he knew Yanyu well, he was fairly certain she was the type of person ould have befriended hiht years old or not

But what could he say now? Hey, Yanyu Guess what? I'm really a kid Isn't that hilarious? What shall we talk about today?

No That would be like ad boys so they could chat with teenage girls

"What did she say in her e?" asked Hopper