Empathy

by Ryan A. Span

The world was black. The sky was red. People made of ash walked and talked and laughed as if they were alive. They turned to look at Gina, smiled and welcomed her.

  She gasped for life. It rushed into her all at once, an explosion of light onto her retinas.

  “Fuck,” said Rat, his disembodied head hovering over her. Still covered by a hood and sunglasses. “Fuck me, she’s breathin’!”

  She sucked in breath after breath, lungfuls of polluted and smoky and wonderful air, and soared back into the world of the living.

       “What are you talking about?” she asked, still floating on a cloud of endorphins. Gabriel’s kiss lingered on her lips and staved off the rush of adrenaline crashing into her system. “What happened?”

  Rat collapsed backwards and threw back his hood. It revealed a mess of short black curls over a thin, androgynous face. “You were dead, girl. I saw it. Two minutes, no breathing, nothing. You died.”

  A strange smile came to her lips without thinking. “That, or I got brought back to life.”

  “What? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  Gina giggled to herself and gestured dismissively. “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.” Sitting up, she steadied her spinning head and looked around. “Where are we?”

  The place looked like a dark, abandoned City alley and certainly smelled like one. The stink of stale piss and other human waste assaulted her nostrils. Buildings crowded in on both sides, creaky old things of brick and wood, most of them either abandoned or claimed by squatters. No doubt there was a corpse or two lying further up the alley, adding to the local aroma. Gangs loved these sorts of places.

  “Scratch that last,” she said next. “I know where we are. What are we doing here?”

  “Waiting for--” a mobile phone started jingling in his pocket, “--Jock to call.” He sighed and dug out the tiny cylinder, no bigger than Gina’s pinky finger, and slid out the mouthpiece. “Rat,” he said into the phone. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll set it up.”

  He rummaged around in his pockets and brought out a small mobile computer, slotting the phone into it. After some more rummaging, he threw Gina a tiny piece of flesh-coloured plastic. “Put that in your ear. It’s a radio, like in the movies. Picks up everything you say and everything you hear. Touch to turn it on, touch again to turn it off. Got it?”

  The piece wasn’t hard like she expected, but soft and pliable. It slithered into her ear and wriggled around, discovering the curves of her ear. Once it had established the area in its databanks, it hardened and settled in with the most disgusting sensation Gina had ever experienced, like greasy ants crawling into her ear canal. She barely managed to restrain herself from clawing it out and hurling it away from her.

  “Let’s get to business,” Jock’s voice buzzed in her ear. “I’ll guide you to his general location, watch your back, tell you what to say. Remember, there could be Yakuza out there, or other baddies with Gina’s picture. Watch everything.”

  A wave of fresh excitement pumped in Gina’s bloodstream. She stood up, straightened her skirt, checked the Mk5 in her pocket, and brushed her fingers over her blouse to feel the warm piece of steel against her chest. “Roger,” she said, just like in the movies.

  “Got it,” Rat grunted.

  “I’ve got access to all the local cameras, so I can tell you if anyone suspicious is armed, but I can’t run face checks on the whole crowd quick enough sift anyone out. That means the tricky bit is up to you two. You’ll have to locate him, identify him, and make peaceful contact.”

  Gina frowned, her excitement screeching to a sudden halt. “What do you mean, ‘peaceful contact’?”

  Over the radio, Jock chuckled and said nothing.

  They split up and went out into the street with a purpose. Gina vanished into the throng, like a river of people flowing down a long winding valley of neon and concrete storefronts. The horizon glowed grey with the encroaching dawn, but even at an hour like this the people’s lust for shopping didn’t seem a bit diminished.

  She reached into her purse and tore a section off the plastic strip of pills. Just one, she thought, glancing around her. Not two, not here. Too many people. She nodded to herself, popped a dose of Spice out of the plastic, swallowed it dry.

  Acid churned in her empty stomach as the pill hit her. It would take a while for her third eye to open. She stared blankly into shop windows, felt pickpockets search her for a wallet that wasn’t there. Some of them settled for a quick grope in lieu of payoff. After all, she was a woman -- a gaijin woman, no less -- so what else was she good for?

  The touchy types were quickly introduced to the way of the steel-toed boot. Still, they put Gina into a black mood that just got darker as the minutes wore on. The chatter of the crowd hammered in on her like waves beating against the shore. Thoughts and feelings streaming through the cobbled streets with battering-ram force. It was the Spice working on her, and she wondered if taking a pill had been such a good idea.

  A peal of thunder rumbled in the distance. The rain came down all at once, a torrential downpour, and Gina didn’t have the luxury of sitting in a warm shop until it went away. She had to march into a dangerous, unpredictable, pretty fucked-up situation in order to bust someone out of prison. What a life.

  She just wanted to kill someone.

  “Let’s go then, you bastards,” she snarled at the shop window and turned away. Strands of wet red hair dangled down her shoulders. If anyone had looked at her just then they would have flinched back from the mad look in her eyes. She gave in completely to the trance, bit her lip in concentration, and reached out to the crowd with her mind.

  “This is Rat,” mumbled a voice in her ear, “ain’t found anything yet. There’s a building, though, corner next to the strip club, looks abandoned. I wanna check it out.”

  “Go,” said Jock. “Careful, though. Infrared cams say there’s definitely people in there. Gina, give Rat some backup.” A beat ticked away. “Gina? Gina! She’s not responding. Something wrong with the radio?”

  Gina stretched out her arms. The rain, the sky, the earth, she could feel them all. She touched all living things, felt their warm blood coursing, felt the drum of their heartbeats. She looked out, and it was as if she could see Gabriel in the distance, smiling. She smiled back.

  She submerged herself in the voice of the world and the whispers of thoughts all around her. She glided through rivers of people, through porches and doorways, her nerves thrumming to the rhythm of the world. Her feet never seemed to touch the ground as they carried her nearer to the object of her search.

  Suddenly, her trance shattered like crystal as a cold gun pressed against her temple. A jolt of ice shot down her spine at the click of the hammer being cocked.

  “No sound,” a voice hissed in her ear in tones of sharpened steel. Gina couldn’t see him but she felt his thoughts rattling in her head. They were iron plans and steel secrets, full of rage and full of blood.

  Gina swallowed the lump of terror in her throat and husked, “Don’t kill me. Please.”

  Rough hands turned her around and flung her against the wall. Corrugated steel boomed where she landed. Pain flashed up and down her back. She saw blue eyes blazing in the half-light of reflected neon, a hand like a carpenter’s vice gripping her throat, the gun pressed up against her chin. His face slowly swam into focus as he came closer.

  “Gina!” her earpiece buzzed. Jock, frantic and angry. “I heard you! Where the fuck are you?!”

  “I know you,” he said. “The girl. Come to finish the job, have you? Simon’s pulled a good trick on me, but I’m not dead yet. Where is he?”

  “Listen--” she started, shivering like a reed in his grasp, but the cold metal of the gun hit her hard across the cheek. The world spun for a moment. A savage jerk of her neck brought her back to her senses, to the feeling of warm blood rolling down her jaw, to the taste of it on her tongue like copper and iron.

  The Emperor treated her to a cold smile as her eyes focused agai
n. “Where is he?”

  “I know that voice.” Jock sounded ashen. “Fuck. Fuck me. Don’t say a thing.”

  The grip around her throat tightened to make her gasp. Her breath wheezed out of her, unable to get back into her lungs. “Where is he?” the Emperor repeated with the same quiet edge.

  Gina squeaked, “He’s... He’s not here!” She coughed violently, but couldn’t breathe in again. “Hhh... Hhh...”

  Just when she thought her lungs would burst, the door on the other side of the room slammed open. Rat’s thin, high voice called out from the shadowy doorframe, “Emperor! Let her go!”

  Gunshots thundered through the darkness. Gina heard Rat squeal as he jumped away into cover, her eyes aching from the muzzle flash, barely able to see the Emperor in front of her as he scanned the room for his target. Without thinking she dipped her hand into her purse, pulled out her trusty old Mk5, and squeezed.

  The Emperor flew away from her. His body landed convulsing on the floor, but within moments he stretched out again with terrible endurance, grasping for his gun. Gina, still fighting for breath, hurled herself on top of him and shoved the Mk5 in his face. It hummed menacingly while it recharged.

  “The next one will kill you,” she rasped, “so no more games. We’re here with Jock.”

  “You lie,” the Emperor mumbled, but his voice was unsure. He continued more forcefully, “Jock is dead. They are all dead. Do not mock me, woman.” He clenched his fingers to work the electric-shock numbness from them.

  The bug in her ear hummed, “Quick, tell him--” it switched to Mandarin in mid-sentence, “--’dawn over Chang Jiang’.”

  The Emperor’s eyes widened as she repeated the phrase. “All right?” she asked the strong, harrowed face underneath her. Recovered as he was, she had no doubts that he could throw her off at any second. Her muscles were weak and starved of oxygen and her brain was on fire with Spice. But she had the Mk5.

  He nodded. “Alright. You are with Jock. But I don’t understand.” From the corner of her eye, Gina could see Rat cautiously creeping back into the room, ready to bolt again if anyone even pointed a gun in his general direction.

  “Neither do I,” she said and moved to roll off of him. Jock said something in her ear, but she couldn’t make it out as the Emperor threw her off the moment she shifted her weight. The gun materialised in his hand in the same way Bomber’s had done in the alley. Surprised and off-balance, it happened too fast for her to react. Three shots rang out like the wrath of God.

  A dark shape toppled to the floor out of the doorway, accompanied by the clunk of metal as something dropped from its hands. The Emperor rushed to the body’s side and ripped open the dark overcoat. He spat a savage curse when he saw the gang colours.

  “Fuck,” breathed Rat. “Holy fuck. Who’s he, Yakuza?”

  “No,” the Emperor said hatefully. “Triads.”

  The earpiece burbled, “Gina, are you listening? I told you, I’ve got about five armed people converging on that building! You need to get the hell out of there!”

  The Emperor sneered as she told him the news, then stood up and jacked the slide of his pistol. “Follow me.”

  He slipped out the doorway into a deep stairwell, and Gina followed him on trembling legs, pulling Rat along behind her. They rattled down the rickety steps as fast as they could. The sound of other people’s footfalls hammered off the walls, and somewhere at the bottom of the stairwell, the noise of a boot meeting an ancient rotting door boomed up the shaft. Wood cracked. Shouts in Chinese echoed everywhere.

  The Emperor turned onto the first floor landing and muttered, “A parting gift,” as he pulled a grenade out from under his longcoat. He sent it tumbling down the gap between the stairs to land hard on the ground below. Meanwhile the door at the bottom let out a final creaking moan as it gave way. Several men piled into the stairwell, shouting and stomping, and a moment later vanished in a ball of fire. Huge clouds of black smoke billowed up the stairway like an avalanche in reverse.

  With a single powerful heave, the Emperor threw open the fire door and leapt into the empty space where the fire escape should have been, undeterred by the drop to ground level. He landed lightly on his feet, all the while aiming his gun down the street in case anyone decided to pop their head round the corner. Behind him, ancient fire alarms roused from their slumber and started to blare out their electronic warnings.

  “This feels familiar,” Gina muttered as she climbed down. Her heavy soles made a loud clump as she hit the pavement. The shock travelled all the way up her legs and into to her Spice-muddled mind, sent it spinning so hard she had to catch herself against the wall, retching all over the brickwork.

  Meanwhile Rat waffled in the doorway, frightened to take the three-metre jump, but the sound of more Triad men thundering into the building persuaded him to take his chances with gravity. He squealed as he plummeted to the ground, but soon found himself on the ground unharmed.

  “Move,” the Emperor hissed, “they won’t be far behind. If we’re fast we can melt before they see us.”

  Gina agreed immediately and followed close on his heels. Rat didn’t get a vote. In Gina’s opinion, it was a capital plan.

  After all, it put as much distance as possible between herself and the chaos of smoke, fire and armed men behind her.