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34 one last time? Just a quick scan of his vitals. She could still catch the last Bunker Hill train, if she hustled. She liked spending time with the Room 34 patient. At first, she thought it was because his alcohol poisoning and the guard at the door tugged at her motherly instincts. Whatever… she didn’t want to overthink it and she’d have plenty of time to narrow it down on the train tonight.
    The cop was playing some video game on his smart watch. He glanced at her long enough to die on the level he was on then stretched his back and, with the level lost, gave Sylvya a short nod.
    “Quiet shift, I hope?” she said.
    “The best.”
    “I’ll be a couple of minutes.” She sailed past, her shoes playing cymbals against the quiet linoleum. Room 34 was heavy with dusk. The man’s name was Colton, she recalled, and he was sound asleep. Sylvya walked up to his bed and stood over his pillow like the Tooth Fairy looming over a sleeping child. His breathing was firm and his vitals were solid. She cracked a pleased smile, the type that didn’t show her teeth. She had salvaged this ship. The first day they had brought him in was like playing “Wheel of Fortune” with his life, where all spaces, except a couple, read “Certain Death.” A goner. A creep too, if she looked at his charts: a broken body, busted internals and a few STDs for good measure.
    Against these odds, she had nurtured him to life, like a mother. But unlike the kids, whom she shared with David and their grandparents, this Colton was her sole creation. Years after the floods had drowned her desire to give to others more than she gave herself, he had proven to her she was a capable nurse and a good woman, too. And she had birthed him, all on her own: her primal right. Sylvya’s breasts felt tender and she locked the door. Still and quiet. His unshaven face swelled in her eyes and she unbuttoned her coat and rested a hand on her belt. She stretched her other hand over his sleeping face, an inch from the parted lips. His breath caressed her palm with billows of warmth. She stood erect and motionless by his bed but in her imagination she held him with unspeakable passion. The hand on her belt travelled lower. Sylvya closed her eyes.

eighteen days till defiance day (10
    The Maharishi squinted at the near-perfect darkness inside the hut. He sat still until he made out the contours of a single room. Another step forward and he would have stepped in sheep feces on the dirt floor. The furniture consisted of hay bedding in one corner and a coal pit in the center. A part of him didn’t mind reconnecting with places like this. Peasant rooms rekindled his love for mother China better than any historic reenactment or hologram at the Museum of History in Shanghai. He was one of the lucky ones crisscrossing China and helping the country folk earmark the loved ones of those in the West – a most noble calling.
    Nonetheless, three months of dredging from one Chengdu village to another had taken their toll. He missed his wife and son, and he missed the glass condo in Jingqiao. He could go back to them in three weeks, if he were lucky. He closed his eyes and inhaled in a string of small breaths. He was a shadow of the Maharishi, or what the Westerners called the High-Potential, before his trip began. These days, it took him extra-long to summon meditation and replace the worries for his family with inner peace. At least he could be of service to China to the best of his insignificant abilities.
    The hut smelled of fish soup. An old woman squatted by the dead coal-pit on the floor, stirring a pot blackened by many other soups before this one. The Maharishi spoke in Mandarin, the only language the woman understood.
    “Good morning, tai Mother.”
    “Are you hungry for fish soup?”
    He bowed to show respect, given he was about to decline the offer. “I am full, tai Mother. Thank you. The Party sent me to enlist you, if your name is Jie Ying.”
    “I’ve been