Mar 1, 2057, 0308 Hours (UTC +8)
Ladakh, India
Forward Operating Center — Ladakh, Zoji La War Memorial
“Do you know a lot about fashion, Chen Jiahao?” Commander Li asked.
“No sir,” Jiahao replied, brows furrowed.
“But I imagine once you became a teenager you realized it mattered how you dressed. And you were aware of who wore the right fashion and who did not, no?”
Jiahao nodded slowly, still trying to figure out what his Commander was getting at and how it pertained to Centralized Democracy. At the same time, he was also trying to ignore the dizziness of too much drink. When he closed his eyes he felt the world pulling out from under him.
“Where did you fall? Did you know how to dress?” Commander Li asked.
“I never gave it any thought,” Jiahao replied.
“Aha! So when it comes to fashion you belong to Group 2. That is, people who try to operate within a system and succeed. If you never noticed your own clothes it was because you didn’t have to, your success came effortlessly. But now, did you notice when someone tried to fit in and failed?”
Jiahao nodded again.
“And how about those people who didn’t try to fit in at all? The ones who said ‘fuck the system’ and wore silly things and ignored the social consequences. You saw some of them, rare though they are?”
“Yes sir.”
“They are Groups 3 and 4 respectively. People that try and fail, and people who forgo the system altogether. You might call a homeless man Group 4 and a poor man Group 3. Now, aren’t you wondering who is Group 1?”
Even drunk, Jiahao could connect the dots. “Group 1 is… it’s people who can wear whatever they want because whatever they wear becomes the standard.”
Jiahao’s answer caught Commander Li mid-sip, so the man steepled his fingers in prayer position over the glass before swallowing and setting it down.
“All of your textbook answers had me worried, Chen Jiahao. It seems you do know how to see things in front of your eyes. And now that you know my four groups, how do you think this applies to Centralized Democracy?”
If Jiahao’s answer to the fashion question was a homework assignment then this was the final exam. Upon being subjected to it, all answers ran out of his head. Fashion was one thing, but a political system designed around majoritarian consensus and elections at every level of society seemed as far away from that schema as one could get. If Commander Li wanted him to see a mysterious Group 1 pulling the strings from behind the scenes, he couldn’t.
“I don’t understand, Commander,” Jiahao said, putting his whiskey down without drinking. “If you’re implying high-level party officials are somehow… immune to the system, that they puppeteer the government… that doesn’t make any sense. I could go to my neighborhood council today and draw up a vote and that vote might go all the way to the President if it must. There are no seams for corruption or guangxi. The Cen-Dem Reforms did away with them.
Commander Li squinted at him like a math tutor trying to find where his pupil had erred. Clearly, Jiahao had given a wrong answer.
“Ah! I see. You are still thinking in hierarchical terms. Vertical. Father and son. Elder brother and younger brother. That’s wrong, think horizontally. And imagine, if you will, the unthinkable idea that most humans do not really want democracy, no matter how much they protest.”
Jiahao’s first instinct was to say this had gone on long enough and that Commander Li ought to simply state what he meant. To do so, however, would be to admit he was too dull to comprehend what was being explained to him. He had to make a serious attempt to understand what his superior was trying to teach.
He began at the precipitating event: Defying Xinyue and Sister Yang’s decision to treat the missile as a probing dud. In that moment he defied democracy by going against the majority vote. Then there was Commander Li’s metaphor about how people adhered—or did not adhere—to fashion. In that metaphor, Groups 2 and 3 could be considered a pair along with 1 and 4. The first pair were defined by their adherence to a system, the second pair by their lack thereof. Applying this to democratic votes like the one conducted by him and his teammates, it could be said Group 2 were those that presented the winning majority option and Group 3 the losing minority. Group 4 was therefore people outside the system of elections entirely, those who floated through life without ID cards or backgrounds or institutional attachments. Vagabonds, in other words. And Group 1 was…
“I defied the vote and my outcome was chosen anyway,” Jiahao said.
Commander Li responded with a warm smile. Warm like one’s cheeks on a cold winter evening in the high mountains with whiskey bursting one’s blood vessels. He moved to pour Jiahao another glass before realizing his subordinate hadn’t touched his second and he set the bottle down.
“So now you know,” said Commander Li. “Most of our decisions, at least the important ones, are made by Group 1. The majority picks something safe and stupid and then someone brave steps in and makes their decision for them. Most of humanity isn’t up for this task, you understand. Sisters Chen and Yang are excellent pilots, but they’re not decision-makers. They worry too much about possible downsides and prefer safe and easy. They are group 2. And as for Little Hu, he is too worried about what other people will think. He believes himself the minority group from the get-go and thus is Group 3. But you, Chen Jiahao…”
Commander Li reached across the desk to pat Jiahao on the side of his arm. “You’re Group 1.”
Jiahao did not suddenly become more drunk and dizzy, but the pleasant joy of drink drained from him fast enough to leave only the drunkenness and dizziness. He knew Commander Li was drunk too, and that he was telling lies or spreading cynical nihilism. The billion souls which comprised the Chinese civilization conducted democracy every day in every corner of her enormous expanse. It was said in Unified China that a vote was taken every second. There was no way a perversion of this scale could slip Jiahao’s notice for his entire life.
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“Sir… I find that hard to believe. If people defied democratic consensus all the time it would be major news. Especially at the national level.”
Commander Li chuckled. It was a fatherly chuckle. The chuckle of someone seeing the same mistakes they themselves had made when young.
“Suppose Group 1 were to rise naturally in society by virtue of their natural leadership. Then suppose in every circle and clique and institution there is always someone willing to take the reins of power. Who, then, would run the news agencies?” Commander Li said.
Jiahao’s eyes widened and the drunken dizziness grew even more nauseating and he began to sweat in the cold confines of the metal office.
“Here’s the big truth, Jiahao. The biggest one of them all: Every system runs like this. The hypocrisies your textbooks pointed out in Liberal Democracies? How the public is handed two choices curated by higher powers? That is how it works here too. And in Pan-Democracies? With their adorable, bleeding-heart claims that their power structure is forever free and unfixed? Who among them do you think ends up making the real decisions when all is said and done? They, too, have Group 1 people. Democracy is the same everywhere, son. The most effective systems are simply better at identifying and promoting their leaders.”
Throughout his cynical avalanche of a lecture, Commander Li’s eyes grew more feverish, culminating in their flicking to the bottle of American whiskey on his desk and, ignoring his empty glass with its slowly-melting ice shavings, Li unscrewed the bottle and drank from it directly before slamming it back down and wiping his mouth on the sleeves of his commander’s jacket.
“The only difference is what they tell people to make it legitimate. That’s the fancy words they use to convince Groups 2 and 3 anyone gives a fuck what they think. We talk about consensus and unified action, the liberals talk about civil society and representation, and the pannies talk about provisional institutions and economic democracy. But it’s all the same. It’s all fancy words to get people to shut up and let the leaders lead.”
Jiahao felt a profound emptiness at this formulation. The underlying assumption was that how humans governed themselves didn’t matter, that things would carry on the same way forever and there was no way to reach a more enlightened way of being. However, though he tried to find a counterpoint, Jiahao quickly reached the conclusion that this was a robust theory. He was too familiar with the corruption in Liberal and Pan-Democratic nations as well as the corruption and hypocrisy in centralized democracies like Unified China to pretend otherwise. Though, one thing still nagged at him which seemed to have no explanation.
“But what about within your Group 1? Surely they aren’t a unified group. For every Lin Biao there is a Deng Xiaoping. For every Cixi, a Kang Youwei,” Jiahao asked.
Commander Li gestured at the glass of whiskey forgotten on the desk in front of Jiahao. “Drink.”
Jiahao took a small sip.
“Finish it,” Commander Li ordered.
Jiahao tipped it back and swallowed, whiskey burning his throat as it went down. He tossed the ice out when he was done.
“This is how Group 1 works: Hierarchy. Naked power. At this level you are competing against people who will do whatever they please to see their vision of the world come to pass, rules and law be damned. Do not try to tell me it is otherwise, Chen Jiahao, that is precisely what you did. If I thought you were an adversary I would use my power to court martial you and drag you and your family through the mud until the best your younger brother could hope for is to work in a noodle stall for the rest of his days. Fortunately, you are in my clique now, and if you lend me your power and help me rise in the ranks, I will take you along with me. Do you understand?”
The last glass of whiskey passed through Jiahao faster than the other drinks and now he was dizzier than he’d ever been in his life. Like a Ch’an monk, he concentrated intensely upon the sensation of his soles pressed to the floor and his palms on his knees to keep from vomiting. Force of will alone kept his being in one package.
Pre-vomit sweat poured down his temples as he said, “I understand, sir.”
“Good. I know it hurts to have your world turned upside-down, especially after a lifetime of propaganda, but you were Group 1 material long before I pointed this out. This isn’t the first time you’ve disobeyed a democratic consensus to make your own snap-decision, you know,” Commander Li said.
Jiahao swallowed back bile and dared to look up from the ground at his Commander, the man he’d seen as his father for almost a decade now.
“W-What do you mean?”
“This is your fourth time doing something like this. Your Group 1 mentality has been emerging since the start of this war, but I had to see if it was a fluke or not. There is no doubt in my mind now that it is not a fluke. You’re Group 1, Chen Jiahao.”
Jiahao moaned. “Trash can…”
Commander Li laughed and reached under his desk for a waste paper bin full of shredded documents. Jiahao snatched it out of his hand and hugged it like his mother before spewing the evening’s fun into its mouth. Several heaves later, he felt no better than before he’d thrown up, though he felt somehow emptier. His thoughts towards his fellow pilots felt bitter, and he tried to put them out of his mind so as not to let the evil thoughts take root.
Before Commander Li could ply him with more drink, Chen Jiahao excused himself, saying he needed time to think. What he really needed was a walk out in the cold to fortify himself and sharpen his mind. He was sure his commanding officer was wrong, he was simply too drunk and nauseous and tired to figure out how. Ignoring the congratulatory milieu, he made for the door.
“Chen Jiahao!”
His mouth tightened, but he forced a smile onto it before turning to greet Chen Xinyue. The small girl seemed even more childish than usual, her jet black hair tied up in a ponytail and her mousy face flushed red like a child at play.
“Surely you’re not going out there dressed like that! Where is your coat!?” she cried.
“I was only going to walk for a moment to catch my breath, Elder Sister,” he replied.
“Stay right there, let me get you your coat so you don’t die like a stray dog,” she said, scurrying off to the barracks.
He was tempted to just leave, but he felt like that would be allowing Commander Li’s theory too much sway over him. He was the same Chen Jiahao as before. He had not changed. There was no reason to become cynical and individualistic. It was precisely now, confronted by such cynicism, he must find faith in his fellow pilot’s unity.
Xinyue soon returned with his winter coat dragging on the floor despite her best efforts to hold it aloft and he shrugged it on. When she asked to accompany him to make sure he didn’t wander off and die he requested to go alone and she relented.
The snow outside came down in a flurry and Jiahao drew his hood up and turned his head against it to see where he was going. As to the matter of where, he didn’t know himself until he arrived at the giant camouflaged hangars carved into the mountainside. In the darkness, faintly illuminated by low-visibility red floodlights, the TOCU’s human-like features made them appear like Buddhas and bodhisattvas carved into the Earth. Wanting to be nowhere else but inside one, he introduced himself to the MPs standing guard before rolling a scaffold to the mid-back entry port.
Technically this wasn’t permitted, but it was Commander Li’s job to enforce off-duty usage of TOCUs, and Jiahao suspected he wouldn’t mind.
Climbing inside, the familiar cockpit immediately eased his nerves. The control panels and screens and restraint harness glowed warm red under the secondary lights, and a gentle thrum resonated through the compartment from the low-power internal warmers keeping it ready to launch in the sub-zero temperatures outside. He let himself rest for a moment against the restraint harness and the spinning sensation from the alcohol diminished. And as he lay back against it, something caught his eye. Carved into the leather upholstery with a knife were words:
Avoid the pilot’s cocktail.