“Shh…” I stroked Tānchi’s cheek. “It’s okay. I’ll be right back.”
“I love you like you were my own flesh and blood, Sam.”
My throat burned and I cleared it, blinking back tears as I stepped away from the crib. I spotted my knife, the tip still red with blood, and wiped it on my pant leg before folding the blade in and dropping it in my pocket. Lying on the floor two steps away from it was a shiny black object, like a little electronic corkscrew. Dragan’s security twistkey.
I picked up the key, turning it over in my fingers. Twistkeys were used to alter gate destinations. All the soldiers carried coded keys that let them override the street gates.
“Search him. Find the twistkey.”
“He doesn’t have it. Just the standard issue.”
The soldiers had been looking for one, but not this one. I stuck it in my pocket and crossed to the broken window that looked out over the city. The remaining curtain billowed in the warm wind as I passed into the kitchen and took the last ration from the fridge, then grabbed the surrogate ration kit and slung it over my shoulder.
As I moved down the hall, I saw both bedrooms had been tossed. The door to the safe had been cut off and propped against Dragan’s desk. Inside I could see a gun and some other stuff they’d left behind.
I grabbed my backpack from the floor next to my bed and stuffed the ration into it before heading back to the safe. Inside I found a palm pistol with a scope, a stunner, and a baton. I wrapped them in a towel and stuffed them in the backpack. Underneath the weapons sat an emergency ration sheet and Dragan’s spare security badge. I put the badge in my wallet next to mine and took the sheet, revealing a strip of three pill tabs underneath. They were clear blue, with sparkly speckles inside. I flipped the strip over so I could see the foil backing, and used the 3i to run a search on the text there.
The first few links that popped up were for something called seritoxedrine or “blue shard,” a military-issue battle drug. I stuffed it in my pocket along with the ration sheet. I pulled an intact pint of shine from the wet bar’s wreckage and dropped that in too, then shouldered the pack and went back for Tānchi.
“Come on,” I told him, taking his swaddle out of the crib and cradling carefully him in my arms. “Come on, we have to go.”
I ran with him, and fled into the city. By the time I stopped to think, I was deep in Tùzi-wō under a canopy of flashing signs, pushing through the street market against a tide of shoppers and sellers looking to beat the sweep. I hadn’t stopped long enough to even think about where I should go, or what I should do when I got there. I just pushed my way, shell-shocked, through the haze of human funk while doing my best to shelter Tānchi from it.
Off to my left a vendor yelled something at the neon displays that loomed over the street above his kiosk, shaking his fist at a buglike haan construct that was dancing across the support frame. It stopped and swiveled its head toward him, sending a red laser bar flickering across his face.
“Go ahead and report me!” the man shouted, and threw his shoe. The construct jumped in surprise and gated away, vanishing as the sneaker arced and then flopped into the street.
Ahead, a stand displayed the ghoulish faces of festival masks staring from beneath a canopy of floating cellophane lanterns. Stacked up around them were fireworks and gaudy souvenir snow globes made to look like the haan force field dome with the ship inside, complete with the ring of wired balls, the government’s failsafe graviton lenses that surrounded it. The kid working the register there had a girl in his lap and his fingers stuffed down the back of her low-riding shorts. He opened one eye and broke his lip-lock to watch me go by while her hand worked rhythmically at his crotch. He stared as we passed. Everybody stared. A bloodstained girl hobbling down the middle of the sidewalk, a screaming haan child clutched to her chest.
The foot traffic parted grudgingly in front of me while the kid bawled himself hoarse. On some level it registered, but the cries sounded like they were coming from underwater. Everything did. It wasn’t until his little hands grabbed fistfuls of my shirt that his fear cut through the fog. I touched the side of his face with my fingers, and the smooth skin felt hot.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Keeping stride, I hoisted the kid to one arm so I could adjust the surrogate kit’s strap. For the first time, I noticed the eyes around me weren’t just staring at me, but at the rations I carried. Greedy, desperate eyes followed us, and broke off only when they saw the black Shiliuyuán stamp on the side of the canister.
Dragon’s in trouble. The thought bounced around in my head like a fly inside a jar. I have to help him. I have to do something.
I made myself stop and catch my breath. There were plenty of cops around looking to clear out the square before the sweep made its way here, but they wouldn’t help me. Soldiers had attacked us and everyone knew what the pecking order was. Hangfei had been under martial law since before I was born, and the local cops had zero clout with the military. Telling them would be the same as announcing that I was still alive, and where I was. I tried to tune out the chaos around me and think. I needed help. I needed someone who had some clout, who I could also trust.
Kang.
Jake Kang worked security, but he was an expat like Dragan and they went way back. His lawyer wife had even helped clear the paperwork through when Dragan made my adoption legal. If there was anyone in security I could trust, it would be him.
Ahead, scaffolding had been set up over the sidewalk and covered in sheets of plastic. A row of black-and-red posters sporting Military Governor Hwong’s profile were plastered at sidewalk level, urging citizens to join the United Defense Force. I stopped next to one of them and dug out my phone, then thumbed in Kang’s contact.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered—Kang’s wife, Lijuan. She sounded like she’d been asleep.
“Um, hi,” I said, raising my voice over the street noise. “I’m looking for Jake Kang?”
“Jake isn’t here right now,” she said. “Who’s calling?”
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Who is this?”
I paused for a minute. She sounded mad.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry to call so late…I just…”
“Xiao-Xing?” she asked. She sounded surprised, but she remembered my name. I smiled, tears beginning to brim over.
“Yeah,” I sniffed. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Hey…” Her voice softened immediately. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I think I’m in trouble.”
“Where’s Dragan?”
I looked up and down the street nervously.
“Lijuan, they took him.” An uncomfortable pause stretched out on the other end of the line.
“Who took him?” she asked finally. She sounded more awake now, and I heard her sit up in bed. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know…. I wanted to ask Jake if he knew anything.”
“He’ll help any way he can, but what makes you think he would know something? What’s going on?”
“They were military,” I said. “Soldiers took him.”
I heard more movement in the background as walls of people trudged past me on either side. I stuck near a streetlamp pole, hooking one arm around it while I listened to her shuffle out of bed on the other end of the line.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Jake’s out on assignment.”
“Is he on the security sweep?”
“No… he’s on some special assignment. After that he’s off duty for a while, but he sprang a trip to Duongroi on me, and we leave tomorrow.” She paused, listening. “Xiao-Xing, it sounds like you’re on the street. You need to get inside, right now.”