Chapter 22 Part Six AD 4000000000

Once outside Patong, we changed vehicles, from Nichon's ambulance to a private car.The driver is also from Minangkabau.He drove us to a truck yard on the Corniche and dropped us off.Me, Ibina, and Ian.The truck yard is a large black sandy field, with five huge iron-roofed warehouses built on it.On either side of the warehouse are conical piles of bulk cement covered with tarps.A heavily corroded oil tank train sits idle on a branch line.The office is a low wooden house, and the Indonesian translation on the signboard is Bayutongyun. Ina said Bayu Express was also another company run by her ex-husband Jara.Jara was in the reception room when we met him.Jara was a big, red-cheeked man in a canary-yellow suit that looked almost like a fat old man with a beer mug, except that he was wearing a tropical suit.He and Yi Na hugged each other, feeling like a divorced couple that ended peacefully.Jara shook my hand, then bent down to shake Ian's.Jara introduced me to the counter clerk as a palm oil importer from Suffolk, Boston.In this way, if she is caught by the guy from Xin Lie Huo Mo Xi for questioning, she will not reveal my identity.Then he took us to his car.It was a seven-year-old BMW that ran on fuel cells.We headed south towards Drupayu Harbor.Jara and Ina sat in the front, and Ian and I sat in the back.

Drew Bayu Port, a large deep-water port in the south of Padang City.Jarrah made his fortune from this port.He said that 30 years ago, Drupayu Port was nothing more than a mud bay in Sumatra, a deserted and poorly equipped small port, and the goods coming and going were nothing more than some coal, natural palm oil and fertilizer.Later, after the restoration of the village system, the economy developed by leaps and bounds, and the era of the Great Arch also brought about a surge in population. Today's Drupayu Port has completely changed and has become a very advanced port.There are world-class docks and berthing equipment, and a huge storage center.There were so many modern machinery and equipment that Jarrah didn't bother to use tonnage to count them, such as tugboats, short-term stackers, cranes and shovel loaders.Ina said: Jala is very proud of Drupa Yugang, none of the senior officials here has been bribed by him, and he can't find half of them.

The highest is no more than the Director of General Affairs.Jara corrected her. you are too polite. Is there anything wrong with making money?Am I doing too well?Is it breaking the law to get something for yourself? Yi Na lowered her head and said: Your question is sophistry. I asked him, is it time to go directly to the port of Drupayu to board the ship? Jara said: Not so fast.I'm going to take you to the port area first.I've prepared a safe place for you.Boarding is not as simple as just stepping on a boat and finding a comfortable seat to sit down. Don't have a boat yet?

Of course there are boats.The Cape Ghost, a great small freighter.She is loading coffee and spices now.Passengers can board the ship only after the cargo hold is full, the money is paid, and the documents are issued.Let's hope no one is disturbed when we get on board. Where's Diane?Is Diane also in drupayu port now? Ina said: "She'll be here soon.Saying that, Ina winked at Jara. He said: Yes, she is coming soon. ☆ Drupayu may have once been a deserted commercial port, but today, like any modern port, it has grown into a city in its own right.However, the city was not created for people, but for goods.The port area is surrounded by fences, but the surrounding businesses are flourishing around the port area, just like red-light households are always parasitic around the military base.These peripheral businesses include downstream freight forwarders and dock supervisors, unlicensed truck groups and underground oil companies.Those truck groups used 18-wheel trucks that had been assembled and modified.Our car whized along these places.Jara hoped to have us settled before dark.

The shape of Bayu Bay is like a riding boot, with oil stains floating on the sea, and the piers and breakwaters protrude out of the sea, as if cement tongues are licking the sea water.Large-scale cargo loading and unloading operations are going on on the shore, noisy and busy, but orderly.In the warehouses and container yards on the first and second lines, cranes are like giant praying mantises, clinging to the container wheels tied with cables and eating the cargo hold.We drove along the iron fence to the guardhouse at the entrance of the port area and stopped.Someone was stationed in the guardhouse.Jarrah stuck his hand out of the car window as if to offer something to the guard.Maybe it's a certificate, maybe it's a red envelope, or both.The guard nodded to Jarrah, indicating that it was time to pass.Jara waved him like a buddy and drove in.Jara drove along a line of CPO and Avega oil tanks at a speed that seemed desperate.He said: I have arranged for you to spend the night here.I have an office in the warehouse at Pier 5, nothing but a big pile of bulk cement and no one to bother you.Tomorrow morning, I will take Diane.Lawton brought it here.

Then we can go? Be patient.You are not the only ones who want to immigrate overseas, but your identities are the most suspicious.It can be a bit of a hassle. For example? Of course it's Xinraginghuo Moxi's gang.The police sometimes come to sweep the dock area to catch illegal immigrants and smugglers.Usually they catch a few, or many.If you catch more and catch less, you have to see if the police have dealt with it.These days, there is a lot of pressure from Jakarta, so who knows what will happen.Also, I heard that there will be labor demonstrations and protests.The dock workers' union here is very radical.With any luck, our ship may sail away before the conflict breaks out.So, I'm afraid you will be wronged to sleep in a dark warehouse all night.Now I'm taking Ian and Yina to meet up with the people in the village.

no!Ina's tone was strong.I want to be with Taylor. Jala was stunned for a moment, then looked at Ina and said a few Minangkabau words. She said: It's not funny, don't talk nonsense. Otherwise, what is it for?Don't you believe I won't let him get hurt? I believed in you before, what was the result? Jara grinned.His teeth were yellow with smoke.He said: take risks. Ina said: You are absolutely right. ☆ Later, we walked into the northernmost part of the storage center near the docks and came to a boxy room.This room was originally the office of the customs inspector.Ina said that the roof leak was never repaired, so the warehouse was temporarily closed.

There was a window in the wall, and barbed wire was added to the glass.I looked down through the window and there was a sunken storage area underneath, stained pale with cement powder.The whole floor is like a pond of silt, and the steel columns are erected on the floor, which looks like a row of rusty ribs. There were several security lights mounted on the walls, spaced far apart from each other.That was the only light in the warehouse.Flying insects crept in through cracks in the walls and swarmed around the barbed-wire light bulbs, and there was a mountain of dead bugs on the floor beneath them.Ina managed to light a desk lamp.In the corner was a stack of empty cardboard boxes.I picked a few dry cardboard boxes, folded them flat and stacked them on the floor to make two simple beds.There is no quilt to cover, but anyway, it is very hot at night.The rainy season is coming.

Ina asked me: Do you really sleep well? Although not as comfortable as the Hilton Hotel, my ability to make a bed can only do so much. I am not saying this.I'm talking about those noises.The noise outside is so loud, can you really sleep? Drupayu Port does not close at night, and loading and unloading are non-stop for 24 hours.We can't see it in the warehouse, but we can hear it.We could hear heavy motors running, steel scraping and squeezing, and tons of shipping containers moving.I said: I've slept in worse places. Ina said: I don't quite believe it, but thank you for your reassurance.

However, neither of us slept.We sat at the table, in the dim light of the lamps, for hours, talking occasionally.Ina and I talked about Jason. I wrote a lot of notes during the period when the effects of the drug took effect.I showed Ina those notes.She said that she had seen the description of Jason's transformation into the fourth year, and it didn't feel as serious as mine.I said, she was wrong, I just didn't write some details about serving him. What about his memory?Did he not lose his memory?Does he not care? He didn't talk to me about it.I think he cares a lot.In fact, once he woke up with a fever and asked me to help him write down the experiences of his life.He said: Xiaotai, write it down for me, I am afraid I will forget.

Didn't he show symptoms of writer's fever? No.Symptoms of writer's block appear when the brain begins to rewire language functions.However, that is only a possible symptom and does not necessarily appear.Those strange noises that he was making might be the symptoms that appeared in him. These should be taught to you by Wan Nuowen. Yes, or else I read it in the medical file he gave me.I later studied those medical files. Yi Na is still very curious about Wan Noven.During his speech at the United Nations, he raised some warnings, referring to overpopulation and resource depletion.Has Van Novin discussed these issues with you?i mean, after he died I know.Yes, he did talk to me a little bit. What did he say? Once, I was chatting with Wan Noven, and I asked him, what is the ultimate purpose of the hypothetical intelligent creature?At that time, Wan Nuowen drew a picture for me to see.I redraw the drawing for Ina on the dusty parquet floor.It is a coordinate diagram formed by a horizontal line and a vertical line.The vertical line represents population, the horizontal line represents time, and a jagged trend line runs across the coordinates.The angle of the trendline is closer to horizontal. Ina said: This is the growth and decline of the population in terms of time.This is probably what I understand, but what does this line represent? Represents the number of any animal species in a stable ecosystem.Probably foxes in Alaska, howler monkeys in Belize.Biomass changes are affected by external factors, such as cold winters or increased predators.However, at least for a short period of time, the number is stable. However, Wan Nuowen once said, if we observe those intelligent creatures who know how to use tools from a relatively long period of time, what will happen?I drew another coordinate, but this time the direction of the trend line was steadily approaching vertical. I said: We can say that this is the coordinate map of human beings.Humans began to learn to accumulate their technology.Not only do they know how to knock flint to make fire, but they also teach others to do it, and they know how to distribute work efficiently.Teamwork creates more food.The population starts to grow.More and more people cooperating more efficiently created more new technologies: farming, animal husbandry, reading, writing.When humans learn to read and write, they can more efficiently share technical knowledge with more people, and even pass this technical knowledge on to future generations. Ina said: So the curve goes up.In the end, the Earth will be overcrowded. Oh no.There are other factors that will flatten the curve.The economy is getting more prosperous, the technology is getting better, and it's all really working.Once human beings live in abundance and stability, they will wish to limit the reproduction of the population.Their method is technology and birth control.Eventually, the curve will flatten again, Vanovan said. Ibina seemed a little confused.In this way, don't human beings have no problems?No famine and no overpopulation? Unfortunately, the Earth's population curve is far from flat, and we're now almost at the bottleneck. At the bottleneck? I drew another coordinate diagram.This time the curve looks like a slanted English letter S, the top is horizontal.However, there are two parallel horizontal lines on this picture: one is above the curve, code-named A; the other crosses the upper half of the curve, code-named B. Ina asks: What do these two lines mean? The feeding capacity of the planet.How much arable land is available for agriculture, how much fuel and natural raw materials are available to sustain technological industries, how much clean air and water is available.This graph presents a difference, the difference between successful intelligent beings and unsuccessful intelligent beings.If the population curve of intelligent beings can reach a level before hitting a bottleneck, then they have a chance of surviving forever.Successful intelligent creatures will be able to continue to develop and reach the realm dreamed of by futurists, that is, to expand to other planets in the solar system, and even expand to the entire galaxy, manipulating time and space. Ina said: That's great. Don't be too happy.Another situation is very tragic.If the population of intelligent beings does not stabilize before the planet's feeding capacity is saturated, then their fate is dire.There is general famine, and the technology industry is paralyzed.The first wave of civilization advanced by leaps and bounds, exhausting the resources of the entire planet, only to be unable to rebuild it. She shivered.I understand.So, which one are we?Creature A or Creature B?Did Van Novin tell you? He just said that both Earth and Mars are about to hit a bottleneck.Before we hit a bottleneck, however, hypothetical intelligent beings step in. But why should they interfere?What do they want from us? Wan Nuowen and the others could not find an answer to this question.We don't have an answer either. However, it is wrong to say this.Jason.Lawton seems to have found some kind of answer. However, I don't want to talk to Ina about it just yet. ☆ Ina yawned.I dusted the floor and wiped off the pattern I just drew.She turned off the desk lamp, and there were only a few safety lights left in the whole warehouse, the light was weak and dim.There were bursts of banging outside the warehouse, as if someone was knocking on a huge bell. The sound sounded hoarse, and it would strike every five seconds or so. Tick ​​tock.Ina said.She tossed and turned on the moldy cardboard.I can still remember the ticking of the clock.Tyler, do you remember?That old fashioned clock. My mom used to have one in her kitchen. There are really many kinds of time.We count the time of life, like months and years.There is also a longer time, as long as the mountains are formed on the surface of the earth, and the stars are born.Another kind of time is the moment when our heart beats, but the outside world is already full of vicissitudes.It is very hard for a person to live many kinds of times at the same time.It's easy to forget that you're living so much time at once. There were still knocks coming from outside. I said: You talk like a fourth year guy. In the dim light, her smile looked a little tired. She said: I just need to live this life. ☆ The next morning, I woke up to the sound of someone pulling the retractable railing door all the way.The sun broke in suddenly, and I heard Jarrah calling us. I hurried downstairs.Jarrah had reached the middle of the warehouse.Diane followed him, walking slowly. I walked towards her, calling her name as I walked. She tried to smile at me, but her teeth were chattering, and she looked unnaturally pale.At this time, I saw that she was pressing a rolled-up dress on her waist, and that dress and the cotton jacket she was wearing were all stained bright red by the oozing blood.