Free After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh

shock. Mr. Wei stiffened and fell, clutching the box and spasming wildly. One … two … three … four … Mr. Wei was still spasming. Jieling and Baiyue looked at each other. Gingerly, Jieling stepped around Mr. Wei. He had dropped the little gun. Jieling picked it up. Mr. Wei was still spasming. Jieling wondered if he was going to die. Or if he was already dead and the electricity was just making him jump. She didn’t want him to die. She looked at the little gun, and it made her feel even sicker, so she threw it out the window.
    Finally, Mr. Wei dropped the box.
    Baiyue said, “Is he dead?”
    Jieling was afraid to touch him. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Then he groaned, and both girls jumped.
    “He’s not dead,” Jieling said.
    “What should we do?” Baiyue asked.
    “Tie him up,” Jieling said. Although she wasn’t sure what they’d do with him then.
    Jieling used the cord to her boom box to tie his wrists. When she grabbed his hands, he gasped and struggled feebly. Then she took her pillowcase and cut along the blind end, a space just wide enough that his head would fit through.
    “Sit him up,” she said to Baiyue.
    “You sit him up,” Baiyue said. Baiyue didn’t want to touch him.
    Jieling pulled Mr. Wei into a sitting position. “Put the pillowcase over his head,” she said. The pillowcase was like a shirt with no armholes, so when Baiyue pulled it over his head and shoulders, it pinned his arms against his sides and worked something like a straitjacket.
    Jieling took his wallet and identification papers out of his pocket. “Why would someone carry their wallet to a break in?” she asked. “He has six ID papers. One says he is Mr. Wei.”
    “Wow,” Baiyue said. “Let me see. Also Mr. Ma. Mr. Zhang. Two Mr. Liu’s and a Mr. Cui.”
    Mr. Wei blinked, his eyes watering.
    “Do you think he has a weak heart?” Baiyue asked.
    “I don’t know,” Jieling said. “Wouldn’t he be dead if he did?”
    Baiyue considered this.
    “Baiyue! Look at all this yuan!” Jieling emptied the wallet, counting. Almost eight thousand yuan!
    “Let me go,” Mr. Wei said weakly.
    Jieling was glad he was talking. She was glad he seemed like he might be all right. She didn’t know what they would do if he died. They would never be able to explain a dead person. They would end up in deep debt. And probably go to jail for something. “Should we call the floor auntie and tell her that he broke in?” Jieling asked.
    “We could,” Baiyue said.
    “Do not!” Mr. Wei said, sounding stronger. “You don’t understand! I’m from Beijing!”
    “So is my stepfather,” Jieling said. “Me, I’m from Baoding. It’s about an hour south of Beijing.”
    Mr. Wei said, “I’m from the government! That money is government money!”
    “I don’t believe you,” Jieling said. “Why did you come in through the window?” Jieling asked.
    “Secret agents always come in through the window?” Baiyue said and started to giggle.
    “Because this place is counterrevolutionary!” Mr. Wei said.
    Baiyue covered her mouth with her hand. Jieling felt embarrassed, too. No one said things like “counterrevolutionary” anymore.
    “This place! It is making things that could make China strong!” he said.
    “Isn’t that good?” Baiyue asked.
    “But they don’t care about China! Only about money. Instead of using it for China, they sell it to America!” he said. Spittle was gathering at the corner of his mouth. He was starting to look deranged. “Look at this place! Officials are all concerned about guanxi !” Connections. Kickbacks. Guanxi ran China, everybody knew that.
    “So, maybe you have an anticorruption investigation?” Jieling said. There were lots of anticorruption investigations. Jieling’s stepfather said that they usually meant someone powerful was mad at their brother-in-law or something, so they accused them of corruption.
    Mr. Wei groaned. “There is no one to investigate them.”
    Baiyue and