“Even assuming there is a conspiracy to destroy the PSE, why would the haan be involved?” Hwong asked. “What would they stand to gain from it?”
“I’m not sure, but she was promised…”
I felt an anxious spike through the mite cluster and stopped myself from saying any more. Nix was awake, and growing more and more anxious as Hwong’s eyes turned bright, and predatory. I remembered what Kang had told me, back in the bar:
“Deals are made, kid. We see new tech appear, new benefits, better standards of living, but behind closed doors, deals are made.”
“Promised what?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “but I swear it’s all true—”
Hwong nodded at Ligong, who leaned across the table and gave me a hard push away from Nix.
“Move over,” she said.
“Why?”
She grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pulled it until my tit poked out the armhole. She shoved me away, into the corner of the backseat opposite from Nix. “I said move it.”
“Hey,” I spat, pulling my shirt back into place. “Just wait—”
Ligong pulled a small controller from out of her jacket and pushed the button. When she did, an electric crackle sounded that was so loud that I jumped in my seat. Nix’s body went rigid.
“Hey!” I shouted. One of Nix’s legs had kicked out into the table between them, and sparks flashed from the shock pin in his neck. The strobe lit up the car interior as the angry snapping sound grew louder and a horrible burned smell filled the cab. Ligong’s face never changed as she cranked up the juice until I could see muted red light flashing inside Nix’s chest. His heart clenched behind his rib cage, and the shape beneath his skull had begun to twitch rapidly.
“Stop!” I screamed. Ligong balled her free hand into a fist, and, still holding the controller’s button with her other hand, she hammered it down at me as I cringed back into the seat.
The blow caught me in the forehead, and my head snapped back against the window. I began to slide down the seat toward the floor and caught myself, grabbing the door handle for support. Warm blood dribbled down over my lips and chin, and when I shook my head to clear it I spattered the tabletop with red drops.
“Stop shocking him!” I screamed, my voice breaking. I lunged for her arm, but she stopped me with her hand and held me back until she finally released the button.
The snapping sound stopped and the flickering light went out. Nix’s body collapsed back into the seat as a thin curl of black smoke drifted up from the base of his skull. I tried to squirm free from Ligong’s grip.
“Get off!” I grabbed one of her fingers and tried to peel it off as she reared back to hit me again.
“Enough,” Hwong said. Ligong pulled her hand away and leaned back, glaring at me. She put the zapper back inside her coat and straightened it out as I scooted back over to Nix.
“Nix?” I whispered. “Hey, Nix?”
He didn’t move, but his eyes, which had rolled back into his head, slowly reappeared from the bottom as if they had done a complete revolution. The pink glow returned like two rising suns.
“Nix, are you okay?”
I touched his chest, thin smoke drifting out from between my fingers. The spot was still warm, but the heart hadn’t stopped.
“What Sillith was promised,” Hwong said, his voice calm, “was a small portion of what will become the occupied PSE—an autonomous haan state bordered by our new territory.”
I turned to stare at him, and it finally sank in. The deal that was made, it wasn’t just made by a small group of rogue soldiers. It went higher than that, a lot higher.
“This was your idea,” I said under my breath.
“Specialist Shao didn’t just bring back the boy, and a recording,” Hwong said. “He brought back something else. A twistkey.”
I looked from Hwong to Ligong.
“Twistkey?” I asked.
“Don’t play dumb,” Hwong said. “That key is the only way to access the labs in Shiliuyuán Station, and you know it.”
“But—”
“My men scanned you all, and no one seems to have it,” he said. “So where is it?”
We were in trouble. I’d made a huge mistake, and we were all in big, big trouble. Hwong was in on this from the start, and now all three of us knew way too much for him to just let us go. I realized then that the only thing that might be keeping us alive was the fact that he wasn’t sure where the information he wanted was, and he thought one of us might know.
“Look,” I said, “I just want my father back. That’s all. If I give you the key—”
“That’s not how things work,” he said. “Decide which one of you has what I want before we get where we’re going. Otherwise I will find out myself, one way or the other. Do you understand?”
“I got it,” I said. Nix groped with one hand, putting it on mine. He urged me with his eyes not to provoke them any further.
“I understand,” I added.
“Good. Just sit tight. We’ll be there soon.”
A window popped up on the 3i, floating between me and Nix as he messaged me. The letters came slowly, and erratically, crawling across the chat window like the trail of a dying insect.
Don’t do it.
Nix…
Don’t let them into Shiliuyuán Station. If you do, and they see what she’s done, then one individual’s actions will be the end of all of us.
Nix, I don’t know if I can stop them.
You can. Bring the boy there, like you planned. Stop the burn. Sillith will be gone soon. Her cycle is at an end. It will be over. No one has to know what she tried to do. Please.
He closed his eyes, and the little beating-heart icon next to his name went still and gray as he dropped offline. I looked back to Hwong, who was now gazing out the window, calm, and almost bored.
The weight of millions of impending deaths did not register in his eyes at all.
Chapter Eighteen
06:07:02 BC
The ride took us high over Tùzi-wō proper, and I was surprised to see the blue dome of the haan force field growing larger in the windshield.
“Are we going to the ship?” I asked, peering out the window. We were getting so close that I could make out the hexagonal light formations through the blue haze. Behind them, the ship towered above all else, a spired behemoth that loomed over the surrounding skyline. Pinprick lights twinkled from within seams along the hull.
“Not even I can get in there,” Hwong said.
The buildings beneath the aircar began to thin as we approached the dome, and the radio crackled up front as the wall surrounding the skirts appeared up ahead. I watched out the window as the shadow of our car passed over the spherical outer hull of one of the giant lenses, arcing down toward its jutting array of emitters. Turrets sat hunkered along the rim like huge mechanical gargoyles, aimed inward toward the ship and any criminals lurking in the wasteland between who might try and run the gantlet.
“Approaching vehicle,” a voice crackled, “transmit your transponder code.”
“Stand by,” the driver said, reaching forward to fiddle with something on the dash controls. A moment later the voice came back.
“Thank you. You are cleared.”
“We’re coming in,” the driver said over his shoulder.
Nix stirred next to me as the wall passed beneath us and we began to descend down over the skirts. As bad as they looked from a distance, they looked a million times worse up close. Between the wall and the translucent electric blue of the dome force field was a fifty-year-old graveyard, a ring of toxic, unusable trash neither we nor the haan wanted. Stumps of buildings were still recognizable, sections of wall and steel framework poking up out of several stories of dust and ash that covered everything, but any trace of life was long gone. There were no lights, no fires, nothing.