“The People’s Liberation Army?”
“That’s the client. Take it or leave it, as you Americans say, although I doubt you’ll find anyone else willing to accede to your terms,” Wu said.
The 'garden' was an underground conference room in a hotel owned by Wu’s brother. Flowered wallpaper decorated the walls, hence the term. She faced Wu from across a small table, outfitted with a holo-emitter that played Brahms in the background.
He was right. No other client would have 25 million at its disposal in so short a timeframe. She was lucky to get this opportunity.
“All right,” she said. There would be no papers to sign, just an understanding that she would be hunted down and shot if she reneged.
Wu tapped the table twice with his middle finger. “I just sent you contact instructions for your liaison. Your first meeting is tonight at 8 o’clock. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t. Thank you, Wu.”
“I have touted your skills as being of the highest caliber. My reputation is on the line. Don’t disappoint me,” he warned.
****
The abandoned warehouse reeked of days-old fish and seawater, just as she expected. She thought skulking around in dark buildings close to the harbor was just for bad noir, but her client seemingly disagreed. Thia wore a levitan shield, designed to repel lason blasts, since she was walking into an unknown situation. She had learned her lesson after getting killed by Nicholle Ryder and being uploaded to a new body. It was not an experience she wanted to repeat. She checked the time in her periphery: seven-thirty. She wanted to get to the place early, to size up the client.
“Hello, Ms. Wayan.”
Apparently the client thought the same thing. Her night vision dialed up, she turned to face a man wearing a black leather jacket and black pants. He reached into his jacket pocket and she palmed her lason, unsure of his intent. His hand came away holding a pack of cigarettes.
“Care for one?”
“No, thanks. I don’t smoke,” Thia said.
“Smart,” he replied. He slid one from the pack and lit the end by tapping it on his gloved hand. The acrid odor wafted in her direction.
“And your name would be…?”
“Just call me Shunyuan.”
He spoke Cantonese with a Mandarin accent, his voice low and even. The moonlight glinted on his jet hair through a paned window. Not bad looking, Thia thought, even in the slivered light.
“All right, Shunyuan.”
“I’ll be your liaison. You will speak only with me, and only at times and places I appoint. If there’s an emergency, you will send eight pings to my node, and we will meet at the Chen ancestral hall, Master of the Nets Garden.”
“All right,” Thia said. “What about the money?”
“It’s in your account.”
“Thank you.”
“I hear you have some skill.”
“A bit.”
“Good. Let’s see how good,” Shunyan said.
He extracted a lason from his side pocket and fired at her, blue plasma cutting the darkness. The shot burned a hole in her jacket, but sparks jettisoned from underneath, the shield holding. She dropped and rolled, pulling her weapon, and fired blindly in Shunyuan’s direction. He careened out of the way, then ran zigzag toward a stack of containers against the wall.
Thia rolled to standing and pulled a flash-bang from her pocket. She threw it in front of Shunyuan, then turned and plugged her ears with her finger. An explosion of noise, light, and smoke filled the warehouse. Shunyuan’s groans rose up through the haze, and Thia, coughing and slightly disoriented, ran toward the crack of light in the distance.
The door.
She shouldered her way out of the warehouse, but a shot of blue barely missed her head and sizzled the doorway. Just outside the door was a stack of tall shelves with bags of sand piled on them. She climbed up the frame to the second shelf and waited for Shunyuan. When he stumbled out of the door, Thia shoved the top three bags over onto him. They landed on their target with a grunt from Shunyuan and he fell, sprawled on the grey evercrete.
Thia slid down the frame and kicked the lason away from his outstretched hand.
“I’ll be keeping that weapon,” Thia said. “Consider it a signing bonus. Nice meeting you.”
She scooped up the lason and ran off into the night.
****
In her hotel room, Thia checked her shield and noted its capacity was down 40 percent. Unfortunately, it was her only one, and she’d only be able to use it once more before it likely died. Still, she was glad it saved her life. Test, indeed. Shunyuan was lucky she didn’t kill him, or at least slice off his hand.
She fingered the lason she’d taken from him, admiring its lines. A GT250. Not top of the line, but not exactly shabby, she thought. It would make a nice addition to her collection.
Her bank account now contained 50 million and some change, enough to persuade Jing to go through with the deal. And the sooner she completed it, the sooner she could leave. She cogged him, expecting his cocky demeanor to burn through the ether between them. Instead, she got voice only, and a manic paranoid one.
“You! You’re trying to kill me, too, aren’t you? I can see…wait…you’re…a spy? What!”
Thia froze, unable to think. His powers must have strengthened since they last spoke. Now he was able to read her mind over a cog.
“What are you talking about, Jing? I’m not a…”
“Don’t you lie to me! Everyone’s been lying.”
At this point, his voice grew high-pitched and whiny.
“First it was Weisheng, then Bohai, then everyone started turning on me. First they were stealing, then they wanted to kill me. Just like you!”
“Jing, calm down. I’m not trying to kill you. I have your 50 million dollars,” Thia said, trying to talk him down from hysteria.
“No! Keep it. There’ll be no one left to rule after I’m done. You, over there, come here!”
The sounds of gunfire and women’s screams came through the cog. Thia’s mind raced. She had to stop Jing, but her car was all the way in the lower levels of the garage. It would take too long. She’d have to hoof it.
Thia strapped on her two lasons and bolted out the door. On the street, she turned left and ran between cars going the opposite direction. They blew their horns, but she ignored them. Even at this hour, traffic congested the streets. She ran past taxis, robot rickshaws, and motor scooters. Sidestepped an old lady.
Two more blocks.
Even from that distance, she heard the lason blasts and screams. Shit! She pushed herself and rounded the corner. Jing was standing in front of his house, firing indiscriminately, lasing blue plasma up and down the street.
“Die! Everyone die!” he shouted.
Thia crouched behind a planter and pulled her weapon. She aimed it at his head and pulled the trigger. The top half slid away at an angle, revealing the cauterized underlayer. It fell to the ground, along with the rest of Jing’s body. Thia stepped out from behind the planter and ran toward the house, leaping effortlessly over his body. She had to get the artifact, or everyone else who came into contact with it would go insane.
Thia stepped inside the house and the stench of blood and cauterized bowels met her in a sickening haze. She gagged, and focused to tamp down her desire to regurgitate. Men lay hodgepodge on the floor amid reams of yuan, lasons, and pakz. Thia went upstairs to Jing’s bedroom, navigating over a layer of bodies on the steps. She searched for the master bedroom.
The artifact lay gleaming on Jing’s dresser, as if it were a harmless antique. She slid it inside her pants pocket as far as it would go, then heard voices downstairs. Could be the local cops, she thought. She pried open the window and climbed out. Grabbing the window’s ledge, she lowered herself down, then jumped to the ground and rolled away toward the fence. Climbed over and headed back to the hotel. Sirens sounded in the distance, and she jogged the way back, eager to disappear into the gathering crowds.
****
Rest and relaxation she had told Dran. Even though the deal had gone south, and she’d taken 25 million from the Chinese Army in a deal she couldn’t back out of, Thia needed to take a break. And get rid of the artifact. She had booked a cabin on an ocean-going cruise to Fiji. Dran had been furious the deal had not happened, and that she told him she had lost the artifact. That would be something she would have to pay for when she returned to work. Probably a stint in the hills of Afghanistan at a communications station.
As near as she could figure, Jing could, indeed, read people’s minds, but the artifact gave him such power, he was starting to read past higher level thinking and consciousness to people’s primitive brains and the Id, where the base instincts resided, where people thought horrendous things, but never acted on them. The impetus for his paranoia.
On deck, she slid the artifact from her bag, admired it one last time, and slipped it into the ocean. If it gave any passing hermit crabs or sharks the ability to read other creatures’ minds, she figured they would soon forget. She envied them. The memory of Jing’s men would take a while to leave her thoughts.
A cog pushed through her thoughts. Shunyuan. She chuckled to herself, envisioning the sand bags falling on his head.
“How’s the head?” she said. He wore a white shirt, standing in front of a plain grey background.
“Much better, thanks for asking. So…you passed the test.”
“Was there any doubt?”
He smiled. “We have a job for you. When you get back from your trip, cog me.”
“Will do,” Thia said.
She closed the cog and drank in the ocean air and sunshine. She would have to walk a fine line over the next six months, but she figured since her Homeland job was to find more information on the Chinese Army, she was in a perfect position to deliver. Thia smiled to herself and went in search of a good shuffleboard game.
The End
© 2014 Dreaded Enterprises Unlimted, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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