Millennium Babylon

By the dry riverbed in the Thar Desert stands the only bar in the city.

With a square silhouette, there are several decent old-style bunkers standing on the roof, but there is a large shiny disco ball made in Yiwu hanging on the door—it was smuggled back by Jimmy himself under the strong appeal of Jimmy. of.

There is a half-broken neon sign on the door of the bar-"Blue Velvet".

As soon as Jimmy stepped into the "blue velvet", his back feet were taped by several men in leather jackets.Those people all had ferocious Russian faces, bald heads, blue eyes, and the posture of drinking several bottles of vodka, staggering and only focusing on stuffing dollars into Jimmy's pockets and arms.

All brand new hundred dollar bills. Jimmy threw away the folded corners, so that he could sneak into the corner amidst the commotion of the crowd.

"It's gone, I've sold it all to you. After the earthquake, the foreign exchange market will fluctuate. I still have the goods if I want them. Why don't you sell them quickly?"

Only then did the big Russians smile like a group of little girls who bought Heytea without queuing, grinning and dancing.The newly purchased semi-automatic pistols dangled in their leather jackets.

Pushing them away, Jimmy took care of himself, deftly dodging a few well-dressed beauties as he crossed the dance floor, and finally stopped in front of the bar and leaned on a bar stool.

The bartender is an aunt in her fifties, who is very similar to Aunt Aluna in every way—after all, they are identical twins.The only difference is that she wears gold and silver, loves fur the most, and runs the only bar in the city and an arms business where no one can be seen under the counter. Jimmy supplied her, and occasionally brought in some private goods, and made a few wine bucks from the Russians.

The bartender knew the heartthrob was coming when she heard the commotion on the dance floor.She looked up and said:

"When will you stay this time? You always say you want to leave and go back to London. Why have I seen you drinking here for several years?"

Her English is very good, much better than her sister.It is said that back then, the family could only afford the tuition fee for one daughter to go to the capital, so her younger sister, Aruna, stayed in the village to sell masala milk tea.

Jimmy smiled: "It's hard to find a job in the UK. I finally found a job here. Besides, you know, my business... I can't be an air traffic controller in London."

The female bartender was very satisfied, she clapped her hands, dipped in the paint, and pressed a red dot on his forehead to express her blessing.She has seen too many young people living here, some in panic and some in despair, but only this young boy with an Asian face... always smiling and reckless.

He was still wearing the clothes he wore for working at the airport during the day, with his military belt buckled tightly, and an ill-fitting overalls with reflective silver trim over his head, so that he could be identified by the tractor on the runway in the dark.

Jimmy was thrusting his hands into his pockets at this moment, tilting his head to watch with great interest the men and women from all over the world reveling like the end of the world.

Tar is a place where it's easy to forget that there's tomorrow

In a daze, he saw Lahimi, who was on sick leave today, bending over the crowd.In a daze, he saw a Chinese face...not a bad one.

It dawned on Jimmy that he might have seen today's captain—but he wasn't sure if it was him.He still doesn't know what the captain looks like with his sunglasses off.

Jimmy gulped down half a glass. Although the mojito was non-alcoholic, the aroma of mint still made him relax a lot.The young face was reflected under the pink and blue fluorescent light on the bar counter, still looking radiant.

The airport may call him on standby at any time. It is hard to say whether more flights will arrive temporarily after the earthquake.If you don't drink, you can work the night shift.

Jimmy sat obediently on the high stool, stretched his legs, and watched TV for a while with his neck up.It's an exaggerated TV series in country Z, where the heir of the family is kidnapped and so on, it's horrifying and sensational.

Then the pager rang ominously.

But it's not a new flight coming into Hong Kong.

Instead, the captain of K862 complained to Tal Airport within the aviation system.

Ajit, who was on duty, was so angry that he exploded on the spot. If Jimmy hadn't borrowed the phone number of "Blue Velvet" to call him in time, Ajit almost rushed into the canopy and poured cow dung on the undercarriage.

The captain of K862 complained about the slow response of the air traffic control at Thar Airport and the lack of protective measures for the aircraft.

Knocking on your plane is to save your life, kindly treat it like a donkey's liver and lungs!

Jimmy recalled this proverb learned in eighth grade Chinese class.At that time, for the convenience of memory, he wrote in English in the blank space of the textbook: "The Farmer and the Snake".

This time the farmer was sure he saw the snake.

The model captain of K862 sat solemnly in an inconspicuous booth in the distance, next to the female co-pilot who even looked like Zhiling’s sister——Auntie Aruna was on her forehead, full of enthusiasm. Welcome her instead of ordering her a touch of red tikka.

It can be seen that it has been carefully wiped for a long time and has not been wiped off.There is a lack of water in the desert.

Complain to me, right? Jimmy gritted his teeth in his heart. He has received several stacks of thank-you letters since he started his career, but he has never been complained by a pilot.He called the younger brother of the female bartender to him and asked the captain what was ordered at that table.After getting the answer that it was Mojito, he asked his younger brother to add more lemons to them.

"It's not sour on you," Jimmy thought, "It's not sour on you, I don't have a last name..."

What surname is he going to use this time?I am used to the English name, and the passports are divided into four copies and stored in the four residences. Maybe I will really forget my last name another day.

Afternoon is a good time for clubbing in the desert.Anyway, the outside temperature is 45 degrees Celsius and 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and there is nothing else to do.

Everyone's life seems to be paused by the heat. You only need to blow a fan, dance, and drink enough alcohol, and there is no such thing as waste.The desert makes people have a high psychological fever.

The female bartender turned around and pointed to the tikka on Jimmy's forehead during the busy break:

"If you don't like it, you can wash it." Her wrinkles were also extraordinarily thick under the light.

"Who said I don't like it?"

The bar is her livelihood, Jimmy thought, if there is an accident in the bar, the arms trade will also be temporarily suspended.

He looked at at least two groups of people silently monitoring the captain of K862 like him.It is undisguised that Bo is Russian, and the furtive boys have brown complexion, like people from country Y.

What treasure does the captain have on him that everyone wants?

Jimmy thought of the recent rumors about Tal's smuggling of arms by the Jianxin crew, and gradually got some eyebrows in his head.

Jimmy watched the man from a distance, he was good looking and didn't know it.

The waiter was serving him a long-awaited mojito with a slice of yellow lemon stuck in the rim.

The captain, sipping raw lemon juice with two drops of tequila, had long, strong fingers.

Are these hands holding the joystick and flying over mountains, rivers, lakes and seas?

Flying half the world, so gray hair early?

When those hands pulled up the control lever, didn't they also have a nudge, tense nerves, blue veins, pale skin... piercing through the storm?

Jimmy felt that alcohol might be added to his mojitori after all—he didn't even know the name of the other party, so why did he touch the blood vessels of his fingers?

Jimmy lay prone on the counter and pretended to stretch his waist, but actually took out his spare gun from under the cash register with his backhand and hid it in his pocket, then stood up.

The captain also happened to get up...to play the game console.It turned out to be his favorite interstellar billiards.

Jimmy had already forgotten about Mojito at the moment, and could only watch helplessly as the tall man half bent over, focused on aiming at the target, launched a pinball to Mars, circled half of the solar system, and carefully Fall back to Earth.Going around is just the same ending.

The Chinese captain set a new high score record.

And Jimmy, the old record holder, stared at the side without hesitation. He got closer and closer, and finally he was close enough to see the band-aid on the captain's hand, with crooked foreign characters printed on it. I don't know which business trip it was again. souvenirs.

He wanted to warn him that someone was following him, he wanted him to get out of this bar quickly so as not to cause trouble for innocent people, he wanted to file a complaint against him.They complained that he went to work with injuries and disregarded the safety of the crew.

In the end, he just asked him, "Do you speak Chinese?"

——"Do you speak Chinese?" He was concentrating on playing pinball when he suddenly heard a loud voice beside him asking.

He turned his head and saw that it was the Chinese-speaking air traffic controller at Taal Airport, so he rolled up his sleeves without making a sound.

Had a good night.

He was entrusted by the leader to take his female colleague Ji Yuanyuan, who was in Thar for the first time, to experience the local customs. At four o'clock in the afternoon, this was the only place to do business in the whole city.

When they entered the door, there was a fan blowing, which was a surprise.The waiter took them to the booth next to the wall. He looked out the window casually, and saw a lizard passing by. It was green and phosphorescent, and it was very beautiful.

Then he ordered a mojito, trying to forget the thrill of his first forced landing in country Z at noon, but he just remembered that his hand was smashed by the joystick and he hadn't dealt with it. Fortunately, Ji Yuanyuan carried a band-aid in his pocket.

The other captains of Jianxin Group always complained about her, but in fact she is not without merits.

Miraculously, lots of lemon was added to the mojito.He knew that it was not easy to live in the hinterland of the desert, and the price of lemons must be sky-high, so he was very grateful.

The sour taste always reminds him of his mother—my mother is not from Shanxi, but she can drink vinegar as a drink, put vinegar in noodles, vinegar in wontons, and even vinegar in hot pot dipping sauce.

After drinking the mojito, he felt much more at ease. When he got up, he happened to see Pinball. After playing for a long time, he finally met the navigator.

He really wanted to pretend like he didn't know him.

It wasn't that he disliked the navigator.On the contrary, he didn't even know what his last name was.

I only know that the man has a pair of three-dimensional facial features. I thought he was of mixed race or Asian born and raised in Europe and the United States, but I heard him speak standard Chinese without an accent. The sky-high prices in the book are all Monopoly banknotes.

Anyone with a heart would probably feel confused, but he didn't.

He just hated the group of people represented by the other party—playboys and playboys, who came to the third world to make money by relying on their family's rather poor bottom line.

There are many such people, and he can pick them out from the crowd at a glance.His predecessor was probably one of the best.

The painful lessons of those two years are unforgettable in his mind: no matter how fierce the fire is like a song outside, how much we hate each other when we return home.People who are not from the same world, warming each other because of loneliness outside, thinking they are the same kind, big misunderstanding.

Maybe it's because he's old, and it's been a few years since he was thirty, and he no longer flies like moths to a flame like a young man.

Now he just uses a lampshade to cover himself tightly, and he doesn't want to have anything to do with such a person, even if there is a slight similarity in wealth background and behavior style.He stopped playing pinball and walked away.

Something flashed in the eyes of the outstanding playboy: "Your girlfriend ran away with someone else."

"My colleague." He corrected.

The other party had a good time: "Aren't you running? What kind of place is this?"

"Sir, if you have any dissatisfaction with our crew, you can directly say it."

"Call me Jimmy. Don't get me wrong, it's not about your crew."

The young man came up and put his hands on his waist: "It's for you personally."

He roughly reached into his trouser pocket, felt it almost against his thigh, but found nothing.

The man named Jimmy still didn't give up, he stroked his neck again, stroked it around in his black sweater, rubbed his Adam's apple and let go.And he was still standing there.

The young man was obviously a little surprised, and immediately smiled all over his face:

"I'm sorry, I'm afraid something is stuffed into your body. Although our place is small, there are quite a lot of bad people."

He looked at the young villain in front of him and didn't know what to say for a moment.

He turned around and wanted to ask Ji Yuanyuan to go out together, but found that she had long since disappeared.

He didn't believe it when the other captains told the story last time, how about it, one day it will be his turn.

He rushed out the door, thinking, anyway, he would fly away tomorrow.Not a single extra seat on the plane

Jimmy woke up earlier than chickens the next day.

He made an exception and didn't stay in bed, jumped straight to the ground, went into the bathroom and took a cold shower.Local electricity is limited, and electric water heaters are unheard of. All the hot water is naturally heated by solar energy from the large water storage tank on the roof. Generally, you have to wait until the afternoon to take a hot shower.

Instead, he condescended to burn water for the sheep with firewood to cool them down, pour them into a basin, and then plucked fresh grass from the backyard and put them on the newspaper.

After arranging all this, he looked at the stars in the sky, and simply fell back on the bed, panting under the quilt.

Then... he dreamed of the captain.

He dreamed that the captain was with him...in this bed.

It was stormy outside the house, but they were charming several times.

The captain treated him very well, and he was not at all repulsed by others when he was awake.

When he opened his eyes again, he was woken up by the pager. Ajit finished his duty and reported that three flights from country Z landed at the airport last night. The passengers who came out seemed to be reporters. They came to take pictures of the earthquake in country K.

Country K's only runway has been destroyed, and the nearest alternate airport is Taal.Both K862 and Z183 will fly away as planned today.

Lively, or back to quiet.

Jimmy took off the bed sheet and quilt cover and left it for the aunt to wash, and he went to work before he even had time to cook instant noodles.

As soon as he went out, he found that the motorcycle was out of gas, and the nearest gas station was a mile away, and he couldn't find the water bottle that filled it.

A few days ago, his jeep had just been borrowed by a Chinese doctor from a local international aid organization, and now his eyes were darkened, so he had to reach out and stop a local minibus.

The interior of CMB was already full of people, and the smell was not good.Like the locals, he climbed up the ladder to the roof of the car and sat on the luggage rack.

After sitting firmly, Yu Yun looked at today's clouds, dense low clouds, low visibility, and you must pay attention to the ground speed when flying. He unfolded the "Night Flying Westward" that he had just dug out from the bottom of the suitcase before going out, and absent-mindedly Look it up.

Why did he suddenly think of reading this book?

It definitely wasn't about the captain anyway, Jimmy told himself.

"Even for such a brief night and day alone in an airplane, inevitably alone, with nothing to see but instruments and hands in the dim light; Those beliefs and faces and hopes in your head, and nothing else to think about—the experience is as amazing as finding a stranger walking beside you at night. You are the stranger."

The pilot crossed the vast expanses of Africa, the rivers licking the roots of humanity hovered before her eyes, and she wrote this.

Even when the minibus stopped in front of the guest house, Jimmy didn't look up.He only heard bursts of hustle and bustle, English, Spanish, French, Italian intertwined... This is a country with direct air routes.

According to this enthusiasm, Chinese, Korean, Japanese will be heard within today... The guest house will be full by then.

He was very relieved that Tull's business was good because he was doing well.

He hasn't watched the news yet, so he doesn't know what kind of tragedy the country K has been shaken by, but at least Tal has a blessing in disguise, and the people in his life will chatter in an orderly manner.

It's not that he doesn't have sympathy, it's just that he has limited sympathy objects. He just wants to take care of Tal under his nose first.

The minibus hadn't opened for a long time. Passengers were getting on and off and couldn't fit into the car, and some people had to climb onto the luggage rack.One hand reached up to the roof, and Jimmy immediately helped pull it up.

Then he came face to face with the captain.