Poems from China

The original can be found at UHA

March was a special month because there was always something happening this time of the year. Maybe spring was the season that could bring out all kinds of surprises. However, funny things did not happen every year. It only happened every four years and almost always happened on the year of power transition. On the record related to this story, the first time it happened was in March 2001 in the mid air, then March 2005 over the white house, and most recently March 2009 on the sea.

The water was deep blue, just like a piece of mirror, no waves, no movement. The sky is a bit of lighter blue, no breeze in the air, only a few smoky type clouds lingering around. Everything was calm and lazy, just like the intelligence office deep down under the sea. Same quietness, only the environment here was more moist. From time to time, a few dolphins showed up, but only the noises of their splashes gave them away.


He came here no for the tranquility, leisure tourism, suntan, because his interest was not on these sort of things. Besides, the ocean had the mood swing worse than a woman, so swift as if it could turn a kind mother into a wicked witch, a nice girl into a nasty bitch in an instant.

Ever since he was recruited into the intelligence station, he was trained and worked in this remote space undersea, a far, far away place from any civilization. It was a good thing that his life was dull and he was crazy about computer programming. His campus life was one line connected with three dots: classroom, cafeteria, and dorm. At the Station, he was like a fish swimming in an aquarium, no more academic pressure, no more nagging from his parents, no more bullying from his peers, and no more mandatory light outs. He would work day and night nonstop, and his job was his favorite: a hacker. To put it more precisely, his work was to open doors to remote computers far far away. The job was very addictive to him. For every door he opened, he would be rewarded with higher ranks and would rake in more and more dough as well. His freedom to choose his victims would be easier and broader, his restrictions would be lifted more and more, and his desires soon went wild.

However, what he did not realize, more precisely, know, that everything he did was carefully administered and monitored. In such an undersea intelligence Station, there were more than a dozen officers like him, all were isolated from the real world and all contacts with outside were all craftily arranged. They were chosen because of their expertise and their geekish personality. Their jobs were all carefully assigned accordingly to their talents and interests of the Station. His job was simply unique: Keysmith, just open certain high security doors so his colleagues could do what they were good at. Sometimes he did linger around after he had done his part. Most of what he found were things foreign to him, something like astrological figures and dull data streams. Occasionally, he did run into some interesting photo albums, however, he could not understand or be interested. Foe example, he could not figure our why some of the barely naked photos possessed such a high price tag while other more exposed and more compromised photos had no value whatsoever.

He was so puzzled that he would ask around. His colleagues not only offered no explanation, but laughed at his ignorance for lack of a sexual life. He felt so ashamed as if he was experiencing the same childhood bullies and humiliations.

It aroused his interests in women, however. He became intentionally social with female colleagues, hoping to find answers to satisfy his curiosity. In about a year, he had plenty of experience and mastered quite a few tricks along the way. At the same time, he was also humiliated numerous times, especially the women he devoted more investment with. To make things worse, the women seemed more technical than emotional. Recently a woman even accused him of sexual harassment after more than a month of a steamy relationship with him. The woman was transferred away soon after because the station seemed to know his character better than that of the woman. During an affair, however, one of her coworkers told him a different story that the woman had used him to escape the Station.

This incidence injured his heart so deeply, and made him harbor so much anger and suspicion towards women. However, childhood experience saved him again. He’d shift more and more of his energy to assignments and used the work to occupy his mind to rid him of all the frustrations.

It was his turn to conduct a globe positioning synchronization (GPS). This was a one man job, with one submergible boat, one computer, one emission device, one corresponder, and life saving equipments among other necessities of daily life.

He turned on the GPS routinely, and it was filled instantly with all sorts of signals. In such a 70 miles radiance, there were millions of millions emitters! He opened his notebook computer, keyed in several commands, and filtered out the majority of the signals, left only several dozens of the signals, marked as blue, red, and green dots. He still felt they were too much, so he eliminated the blue dots because they were military vessels equipped with counter-hacker devices. These military entities did not pose any threat in peacetime, even though they were operating in the sovereign territories of the foreign countries. He then carefully checked out the remaining green dots, and dismissed them as well. For the rest of the six or seven red and a couple of brown dots, he analyzed their traveling patterns for the past few hours, and sent the reports back to Headquarters.

This sort of operation could only be conducted in this remote pelagic area, because information could only be gathered using all available satellites in orbit, which included foreign, military, and domestic types. The operation here would not put the station at risk, because of the obvious tractability and political liability. The Station had operated in secrecy for many years. It had contributed a lot of information on the advancement of science and technology, foreign policy, military and pirate operations, counter espionage, and political maneuvers. Recently, the information it gathered had aroused suspicions that the Station’s identity was at high risk since many nations had focused on the location of the operation. More present danger was the activities originated for a defense treaty reduction agency whose counter espionage tactics were more ingenious than those of the central intelligence agency. Because of this looming threat, the Station became more prudent and reduced the frequency of certain sensitive operations. This time the Station dispatched him again in an effort to coordinate another delicate hacker activity over a distantly located white house. Unbeknownst to him, there was a counter-hacker unit operating in a nearby neighborhood, and its interest was solely on him.

Waiting for the response from Headquarters, he took a routine patrol in his boat. He had to make sure there was no manmade stuff nearby, because there should be no fishing activities. If there were, the fishing boats should not be wired. If wired, they would not be simply a fishing boat. They would be either too bold/ignorant or had some conspiracy just like him.

There was still time before the orders came back to him. He sat back in front of his notebook again, staring aimlessly at the background picture of the woman who had accused him of sexual harassment. An innocent looking face with a pair of attractive eyes, a small berry like mouth always made him linger around. Her body was typical, not outstanding to say the least. Hard to imagine such a young woman possessed so many skillful techniques. However, her heart was evidently not on him. At the beginning, his lack of sexual experience blinded him from realizing she was just acting. It hit him like a hammer on the nail that instantly made him recall vividly how his parents behaved right before they got divorced. He understood right away that she was doing her job, just like his parents were executing conjugal obligations. To him, he still devoted too much of his thoughts to her. He could not help keying in her identity and parameters into a searching program he wrote specifically for her. He could not execute this program at the Station. Other than the obvious protocol violations, he also needed the information from domestic satellites that were not so restrictive. Here on the open sea, he could use foreign and unrestricted satellites, could evade typical monitoring mechanisms, and freely access the WIFI without any limitations and check points. If he were careful, the Station would never have any knowledge of this activity (how naïve he was!).

A few seconds later, he was astonished at what information he extracted: the woman had an automobile accident just two days ago, survived only by her husband and toddler daughter. He did learn about her marital status after he became very suspicious about her knowledge and techniques on sex. She had to admit that she was not a virgin and she had married. It made his suspicions subside, but left him experiencing a tinge of guilt every now and then. The out of wedlock fact, however, made their experience more exuberant. Facing the news, he was somewhat sad, and did actually shed tears.

“Ding~” the notebook cut his sorrow short. A brown dot was marked with a red ring. He mechanically typed in its identity into his program, accidentally ran through his searching program as well. Almost instantly the brown dot changed its lazy zigzag behavior and headed to him directly with full speed. This sudden turn of events took him by surprise. So did the station, Headquarters ordered him to abort whatever he was doing and return home immediately.

“Crapola!” He instantly cursed himself so reckless this time. “Woman! Woman!” He cursed bluntly all the women in the world including his mother! “March eight! March eight!” He waved one of his fits in the air, “I’d rather sleep with my antique 38 mm than with any woman!” He took a glimpse at the monitor and saw the notebook blinked dead right after a firework with a greeting of the “International Women’s Day.” “March eight international woman’s day! Only women would demand such a festival day! Only women could make me so crazy and reckless!” In less than half a minute, he quickly put away all instruments and submerged the boat heading back to the Station under the sea.


There were simply too many things he did not know. In less than three minutes after he submerged, a military intelligent ship manned by civilians had rushed to the area less than a mile away from where he had just disappeared. If not for the interference of five vessels, three of them were from law enforcement agencies, he would have been apprehended or even killed. However, his ignorance about all this, his rigorous trainings, and the swift emergency management at Headquarters have saved him.

He did not know that in the same March eight years ago, one of his colleagues was spotted at a similar position. The air force came to the rescue and put on a gallant aerial play that resulted in a crash of a fighter jet and a seizure of a group of intelligence officers. And in the same March four years ago, the Station conducted a daring hack attempt on the white house that intrigued so much chaos that both heads of the white house had to be evacuated into secure bunkers.


Eight years ago, it was purely a mental competition in retrospect. The Captain of the reconnaissance aircraft made a clear statement to the fighter jet pilot: “We know what you are doing! Even though you are at your home, we know! We just want you know that we know. We also have the same policy that ‘we will not offend you if you do not offend us. If you offend us, we’ll definitely fight back!’ We have manpower, finance, and expertise! Do you?”

The Pilot was as ignorant about the truth as that Keysmith. He knew this spy craft was a frequent visitor in this region for quiet some time and was ignored until this engagement. His order was to attract its attention, only for three minutes. Three minutes seemed short to ordinary people. To the fighter jet pilot, it could mean an eternity.

First he attempted to fly parallel with the bulky reconnaissance aircraft, but he was ignored completely. Air force ordered him to get closer, making every attempt possible to force the spy aircraft to change its flight pattern, even change in the altitude would suffice. Clearly, he had never attempted anything like this before but had to comply.

The Captain was a decorated veteran with a lot of combat experience. He ignored the fighter jet completely at first because he knew the fighter pilot dared not to shoot down his spy aircraft. His task was to circle on the same spot, lingering long enough so that the counter intelligence crew could identify the target identity and the location.

Looking at the fighter pilot, he had to alert the mission Commander on board, a civilian law enforcement officer: the jet flew too close, a mid air collision was possible.

The Commander did not believe the Pilot had the balls, more importantly he could not afford losing precious time: “using some tactics to scare him off, get us some time!”

The fact the Commander lack of combat experience had forced the Captain to reassess the situation. A consistent flight pattern was essential for hunting the target. That was the very reason the Pilot would not allow him to fly steady. Seeing that the two aircraft got so close that the wings were almost overlapping, the Captain came up with a brilliant idea.

Suddenly he tilted the wing slightly, sort of like a nod at the Pilot. Such a maneuver would have scared off a lot of the pilots, even some experienced ones. The fighter jet was too small compared to his bulky spy plane and a collision would have definitely caused the Pilot to loose his jet.

The Pilot broke off immediately without any turbulence. Such a maneuver demonstrated undoubtedly the Pilot was indeed well trained and had a tremendous concentration, an overall a seasoned flyboy. However, the nod did not scare away the Pilot and he flew right back! Two wings almost overlapped again.

The Captain was so impressed with the Pilot, his guts, skills, and determination. If this went on, he surely would have to change the fight pattern. In addition, the turbulence the jet made would have interfered with the tracking device on board.

The Commander was clearly irritated and impatiently ordered the Captain to get rid off the fighter jet. The Captain tried another scare maneuver but he did it mildly this time for he wanted it to be a respectful warning.

This time the Pilot did not waiver. It might have been that the Pilot thought it was another joke again. So, the fighter jet did not dodge at all. The Captain had always insisted that was what happened till the day he died years later!

“Bull!” The Commander was furious and ordered the Captain to stop toying with the Pilot.

“He knows!” The Captain argued. “If this goes any further, we’ll collide!”

“Bull! He dares not!”

“What if~?”

“This is a direct order! Do it or I’ll have the Co-Captain do it~” He changed his tone almost instantly, “All right, just one more time! One more! That is all I’m asking for~”

The spy aircraft dipped its wing again. What followed was completely out of everyone’s wildest dreams: the Pilot seemed to know precisely what the Captain was thinking. At the exact moment when the Captain tiled the wing, the Pilot parachuted out of the fighter jet, and the unmanned jet sliced right into the spy aircraft.

Almost in an instant, the tail crewmen alerted the Captain that a squadron of fighter jets was on their tail already. With a warning shot exploded right in front of the spy aircraft, the fighter jets made their demand very clear: Surrender or else.

The Commander caved in and ordered the Captain to obey the fighter jets, albeit the Captain protested because he would rather die in a crash than surrender. Besides, their Carrier was not that far from here and he would have about 60% chance of making it. However, the Commander did not want to risk his life.

The reconnaissance plane had to surrender, and the crew was detained on a small island. Later, the crew was sent home, and the plane was taken apart and shipped back in pieces.

For a long time, the law enforcement and the military had their differences. The military did not want to sacrifice their pride and the law enforcement did not want the military to interfere with their political agendas. Soon, the law enforcement started contracting out military equipments without the military’s muscles. The military did not care and was glad not to get involved in many missions that surely would have tainted their gallant reputations.

This time, the pursuing boat was just another civilian contracted military reconnaissance ship. Fatefully, it was another encounter with the target so close yet slipped away because of interference again. The difference was the fact that eight years ago, it was in the air, and this time the drama was played out on the sea. In either case, it was better off than that encounter four years ago over the white house.

As soon as the reconnaissance ship got close to the target, two trawlers blocked the way dropping logs in front of the ship, forcing her to stop. An intelligence collection (NIC) ship, a fisheries patrol vessel, and an oceanographic administration patrol (OAP) soon joined in.

Reluctantly the reconnaissance ship slowed down, not wanting to let the target get away.

The NIC and the OAP attempted to emit electronic waves in attempts to interfere with the chase.

The reconnaissance ship fought passing through, trying to lock on the target. The electronic interference was a headache, but the crewmen did manage to shield it off, but they were losing precious time.

The NIC and the OAP tried to get closer hoping for more luck, and they got within 25 feet of the ship.

The commander on the reconnaissance ship came up with an idea, he ordered his crew to open the fire hoses on the vessels close to the ship, hoping to force them to back off and ridding off the interference. At the same time, he signaled that they were to follow the orders and ready to leave the area in an effort to gain some precious time.

The NIC and the OAP could not get any closer, interference and intelligence gathering would not be successful, and they did not like to lose this opportunity if the reconnaissance ship left too quickly. So furious was the Leader on the NIC. Under the high pressure of the water, he tore down his wet uniforms, madly threw them on the deck in protest. His tanned muscles resisted the high pressure like an animal in frustration.

The fire hoses got weaker because the spy crewmen were amused. They were stunned at what they were evidencing.

Seeing got attention of the renaissance ship, the Leader took off his wet pants as well, left only with his boxers~

Knowing the mission had to be aborted, the reconnaissance ship had to leave. However, the ship could not leave freely, beside the semi-naked scene on the deck had clearly captured all attention of the spy crew.

“Ignorant fools!” The Commander cursed his crewmen for lack of experience and being too easily amused. One of the crewmen even shot a clip with the high tech spying equipment, a clear give away about what they were.

It was too late though. The Commander realized the mission was a failure again.

Well, there was another distinct difference between civilians and the military. The military would have treated each mission seriously and would not give away their secrets. Civilians, on the other hand, did not have such high discipline. Not only did they lack discipline or principle, they did not know pride either. The sold the clip to the media at the highest bidder. The sad thing about all this was that the reputable news media did not even want this piece of child play. Only one agency with little concept of shame bought it and showed it on the screen, all for laughter and ratings.


Later, in a media conference, the head of the white house had a not-so-nice exchange with a reporter from that agency who bought that clip. The reporter asked why the head delayed the response to that incidence and why the response was a down play of what had happened. The reporter tried to portray the head as a coward and as one who could not lead. The head harshly responded. First he liked to get all the facts together because he’d like show the people he knew what he was talking about. Second, he did not like to provoke people because tension was never a good solution.

“It only demonstrates that you and your party are lacking of principle, Sir!”

“That is our principle!”