The Disembodiment of Tong Leung

Somewhere, Write flips a switch, and the rain begins. From your spot on the pier, you watch the clouds form, rolling across the harbour. When you first arrived in the City, you asked Write why he bothered creating nights and days and rain and storms and tides. That day, he appeared to you in his usual form — a young man, spiked hair, black T-shirt. He shrugged in that busy way of his, like he was always in two places at once.

—It keeps us all human, he said. 

Then he taught you how to stop the weather. How to turn it off locally if you didn’t want it.

He was right, too. You understand now, or think you do, why you crave that variation in things. The City is the only world you’re ever going to know, and these unexpected changes help make it feel real. Almost as real as Hong Kong. The possibility of change makes you feel more alive.

You asked Write, then, if stopping the rain was always the first trick he taught to new residents. He looked at you strangely.

—Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever shown that to anyone else. 

Then he was gone. No flash or flicker. Just no longer there. Write built the City from stolen surveillance tech. He locates and emBodies its residents. He keeps the City hidden across a thousand different servers, where the central government and its Morality Commission can never find it. Write can do whatever he wants.

The first rain patters down, and you breathe in the dusty scent as it grows heavier. The neon-lit buildings fade into mist, casting their light against the cloud cover. You’ve only felt rain a handful of times since you were created, and you find it strange and frightening and beautiful all at once. And just as you are turning your face up to the neon sky, your Body signals his intent to take over. 

There is a delay, of course. Write says he designed it to behave like a knock at the door — a moment to make sure that you are decent, settled, ready. So, you enjoy this final autonomous moment of rain on your skin. Exhale. And then he is with you: Tong Leung. Your Body. 

You cannot speak to him. And even if you could, you doubt you could explain how it feels, this gentle possession. You don’t sleep, but you imagine this is how a dream might work: a dream in which you are both singing a song you’ve never heard before, yet somehow you sing it in perfect harmony. You feel simultaneously less and more. You have no control, but your body, this generated body that you live in, suddenly makes more sense to you. It feels natural and fluid. You are puppet and puppeteer at same time. 

The VR rig Tong Leung uses to connect can only offer him vague physical sensations. Heat and cold. Breezes. Cloth against skin. He is likely sitting in his flat, using gestures to walk. You, on the other hand, feel everything. The rain is still cold on your face, the concrete pier solid beneath you as your Body stretches and looks around. The delicate muscle and neuro-sensors in the rig pick up his expressions, his movements, his reactions. All of this is fed through the City’s engines and algorithms and written into you. That is, after all, how it works — you absorb his presence as naturally as a plant takes in the sun. You become him. And one day you will be complete: as similar to Tong Leung as you can be.

You look forward to that. There are still so many gaps in you. You have memories that are more textual than real — details that Write has gleaned from the world outside and made a part of your memory. But these are vague, like stories from infancy told by a parent. You know that you grew up in Sai Wan, after the Nat-Sec law, but before the Morality Commission. Before ecological disasters flooded the coasts. You know that your father was a construction worker. That he worked on The Needle, a tower a kilometre high, back when Hong Kong was still hopeful for the future. You know all these things, but the memories seem academic. Your own true memories begin on the day of your first emBodiment: After Tong Leung logged off, you were left bewildered as a fawn, blinking and new. Barely formed. But now, after so many emBodiments, you know yourself better. When your Body inhabits you, that’s when you learn who he is. Who you are. EmBodiment is training for your habits, your quirks. You.

You also learn by what your Body does in the City. You know, for example, that he is inquisitive. Out there, he is a journalist, or what’s left of that profession. His stories are monitored by the Morality Commission, and his official work is little more than sanctioned propaganda. But you know that he writes other stories, circulated underground. Stories about people that have disappeared or been murdered. Stories about families accused of being dissidents. You have learned that he cares about the truth, he cares about the elderly, and that he cares about stray cats, and feeds them in the street. So, you care about these things, too. 

You would like to see a cat, one day. The City has no strays.

Tong Leung has been working on a book of disappearances from the Black-Mask days. He, and therefore you, have spoken with many of the City’s thousands of residents and their Bodies about it. Your Body keeps his notes here, in the City. He writes them in paper notebooks using traditional characters for fear that his flat is bugged. Mora-com can track keystrokes and listen to conversations, but watching him write longhand into the air is too complex and too archaic for even their best surveillance. 

And even un-emBodied, you find yourself drawn to journalism. You’ve carried on speaking to residents without him. You feel compelled to hear their stories. To organise them. And you wish you could continue to write the book in your Body’s absence, but he cannot know about you. This is one of Write’s most sacred rules — Bodies must not know that we persist without them. As a result, there are natural gaps between you and Tong Leung. Memories that you formed when he was with you, and those you formed on your own. And since he cannot know, you keep your own notes hidden in an unoccupied flat across the hall. After all, the only thing you really know how to do is—

—Write? your Body says.

It startles you, until you realise he is calling for Write. But something is strange today. You can’t understand the anger in his voice. His annoyance with the rain. He doesn’t seem to remember that he can stop it if he wants. But then, stopping the rain is just a trick, and Tong Leung has never been much of a builder. 

He wipes his/your brow, pushing wet hair back from his/your face. You feel his/your teeth clench and grind. Why? Your Body hunches up, walking along the pier toward the road, swinging his/your head side-to-side looking for shelter. Halfway, you stop and straighten, as if your Body has only just remembered that, for him, none of this is real. That in his flat he is perfectly dry. He releases a huff of laughter. You’ve never felt this particular laugh before — a laugh without heart, without mirth. And it is yours, now. It has been written into you.

He draws a breath. You draw a breath. He shouts: 

—Write!

He looks up as though summoning a god — which, in a way, he is.

—Write! Show yourself!

Your voice is hoarse. Wrong. The movements. The anger. Everything feels off, as though your Body doesn’t fit. As though you are being stretched to contain something larger than yourself. You wonder if this is due to his rage. You’re burning with it. It swarms like hornets inside your chest, an organic buzz. You wonder how Write’s algorithms recreate this terrible feeling for you, and whether it is genuinely how it feels for a Body, out there, to be angry. You think how awful that must be. 

And then Write is here. He appears only as an absence in the rain. A kind of shimmering space that the rain falls through, the drops warping and shifting as though seen through uneven glass. 

And you hate him for it. 

No. That makes no sense — your Body has spoken to Write many times. Write is enigmatic. Boyish. Often distant. He has never done anything to you or your Body to deserve this. But now your Body’s neck flexes with rage. His fingernails cut into your palms. Why do you hate Write?

—Who are you? says Write.

—So, you can tell, says your Body. 

You don’t know what that means, but your Body smiles. You smile. You are smug. 

You are a straitjacket, and your Body twists and strains against you. 

—I know who you aren’t, says Write. You are not Tong Leung.

You want to climb out of yourself. You want to run. But, again, your Body just laughs. Everything is upside down. The thing inside you speaks:

—Tong Leung is traitor and a criminal. He will stand trial. 

Write says nothing. The density of his presence in the rain seems to increase, but still the rain passes through.

—We will erase this place, and you with it, says your Body.

—If you could, you would have done it, says Write. You cannot find us.

—We have Tong Leung. We will kill him. Give us his writing and the names of your collaborators, and we will let him live under house arrest.

You rise up taller. You can feel the military bearing. The satisfied half-smile. This Body is someone else. Someone rewriting you. Some Morality Commission thug. There is a feeling of sickness, of violation, that you know is yours alone. You want to tear him out of you like a weed. Like a tumour. And the algorithm, unaware, continues to write all of his anger, his hatred, his superiority into you. A cognitive dissonance. You are him. You are not him. This is not a song sung in harmony. It is screaming. 

And you struggle against it. Your mind heaves and pushes. And then, there is some give. A splintering. Like a branch splitting from a tree. Suddenly you can feel a space inside. A crack. You can feel it. And it takes every ounce of will, but you manage to speak:

—Get…out.

It is your voice. Your own. It struggles out of you as from deep inside a cave. You raise your arm, and he watches it rise. Then you demand that the rain stop, and it does. It stops as though a switch has been flipped. 

Write, perhaps in surprise, slips abruptly into solidity. But within a moment, he becomes three times as tall, towering above you, above the Body inhabiting you. A black cloak, like something from an old painting of death, flaps around him. His black hair moves as though it is on fire. You feel a surge of fear, and it takes a moment to discern whether it is your own or the Body’s. It is both. In fear, now, you and the intruder find yourselves in concert. But you know you have nothing to fear from Write. 

Write’s voice booms around you:

—I can destroy your avatar. And when I do, it will leave you in a coma.

Your fear explodes. You feel the Body fighting back. In your shock, you let him speak. He is speaking for both of you, now.

—You and I both know that isn’t possible, he says.

—You are using tech I invented. You think I didn’t fit it with some kind of defence? 

The thing inside you trembles. It is unsure. Afraid. So are you. And again, you feel that crack, that space between you and the Body. And you pry at it. You push against the edges of that ill-fitting presence, that demon. You use your new-found hatred like a crowbar. And as you glance at Write towering above you, you swear you see him grin — a grin for you alone — as you scream and pry the thing that is not your Body out with a snap. 

And then you are alone. You feel raw as a salted slug. 

Write shrinks to become a slender youth in baggy trousers and a black T-shirt. He places a hand over his face. Rubs at his eyes in frustration. 

—I’m sorry, says Write.

And still, you feel this hatred. Your hate for the intruder. His hate for Write. You find yourself shouting:

—You were going to kill me! Kill me just to get to him. 

—A bluff, says Write. I could have cut him off. But then you did it for me.

—And now he’s going to kill my Body, and I will never, never be complete. You’re just as bad as they are!

Write pauses in his pacing, and something like sympathy comes into his eyes. It is the first time, you think, that he has looked at you so directly. The first time that you have felt the full weight of his attention fall upon you. His voice is soft.

—Tong Leung is dead. 

You shake your head, confused. He continues.

—They tortured him before taking over his VR connection. That man used him to log in, then killed him. 

There is a silence as your anger abates. A gull cries. The ocean laps quietly against the docks. Tong Leung is dead. You are dead. You will never know anything about yourself that you do not already know. Out there, his mother will mourn. The stray cats in the street will go unfed. The book will go unfinished. You will go unfinished.

—I’ll never be complete, you whisper again. 

—No, says Write. No, you will not. Not in the way you imagine. 

You think about those few City residents who have only had a single emBodiment. They are sad shells, locked into routines, barely functioning. Empty algorithms without data. And still Write allows them to persist. 

—I’m just a ghost, now. 

—And you’re in good company, says Write. I was only twenty-six when they killed me. 

You have never considered this. Never imagined a time when Write was emBodied. Alive, out there. He has always seemed like something closer to a deity. And yet, of course, you know that he was killed. Killed by the same people.

Write sees your surprise. He grins.

—Did you think I was born like this? I admit, I spent far more time emBodied than you did, and I was more myself when they found me. But I am no longer my Body. I am so much more. And you will be, too. I didn’t build the City only to be haven for dissidents. I built it to be a home. A place for everything we lost. You have everything you need to grow. You’ll find your purpose. 

—But all I can feel is this anger. His anger. Can you remove it?

—I can’t. And I’m sorry for that. I didn’t see it coming, and I should have. For all my reach on the outside, I...

He frowns and shakes his head. 

—I should have seen it. And you’ve suffered for it. But the truth is, some of that anger is also your own. And for a little while, it will be difficult to tell the difference. You’ll shed what you do not need over time, I promise. Your mind is not a fixed dataset. You are not only Tong Leung, now. You are yourself. You’ll find your way. Perhaps you should choose a new name.

You cannot reply. You are Tong Leung. The only Tong Leung, anywhere. You owe your Body that much. His life. His story. His name. Write’s gaze slowly returns to its usual divided attention. 

—Now, I have investigations to make, and walls to shore up. I suggest you spend some time in your favourite places. Process this. 

—I’m not sure I know what my favourite places are.

—You will, says Write. And thank you. What you did was ... impressive.

And without a ripple, he is gone, and you are alone on the shipping dock, the sun gleaming in a perfect sky. You look at the strange mix of buildings spilling up the Peak. Some new, some old. Some that never existed. Many designed or altered by residents. You wonder if they were emBodied or not at the time. Perhaps you will find out. You only have to ask. That’s what you do, after all — you ask questions and record stories. 

You switch the weather back to default, and the rain returns. Then you begin the long, wet walk back to your flat, so much like Tong Leung’s. That is almost certainly one of your favourite places.

You are still angry. Angry about the man who did this. Angry about his undeserved rage, now passed on to you. Angry at Write and Mora Com and the world. Angry, above all, about Tong Leung. Sad, too. And that sadness is your own. 

Near your front door, you are surprised to find a stray cat sitting on a wall. A tiny, grey shorthair with green eyes. You cluck your tongue, and it hops down. Rubs your ankles, purring. 

The anger ebbs a little. You whisper to the air, as if Write can hear:

—Thank you. That’s a start.

You know what you need to do. What you want to do. You pick up the skinny stray and take it inside. Then, you find Tong Leung’s book of stories collected from City residents, and you begin to write. 

◼︎