Empathy

by Ryan A. Span

  Part 8

  The night passed by, dark and dreamless, Gina didn’t stir until the first rays of morning sunlight touched her face. It poured through the glass sliding doors like a river of honey and turned the room to gold.

  Blinking against the brightness, Gina turned over and went back to sleep. She didn’t get long before the alarm clock on the nightstand started buzzing.

  After a few random thwacks failed to turn the thing off, she was forced to wake up in order to search for the ‘off’ button. Sleepy fingers fumbled with the infernal contraption -- which had apparently been bolted to the nightstand -- but failed to find the proper button. Finally she found the electrical cord and yanked it out of its socket. The alarm died in a satisfying warble of electronic noise.

  Just when Gina had crawled back under the red silk sheets, a voice said, “Begging your pardon, miss, but there’s a call waiting for you. He requested to speak to you as soon as you were up.”

  “Jesus, fine,” she muttered and sat up in her island of sinfully sweet comfort. “Put him through.”

  “Rise and shine, girls,” Jock said chipperly from the video screen on Gina’s nightstand. “I hope you had a good night’s sleep.”

  “We did, actually. What do you want?”

  Jock’s mocking tone didn’t change, but she knew that he was serious when he continued. “I’m here to give you the good news. It’s on. Today.” He let that sink in to her sleep-muddled brain for a moment, then said, “We’re going in before seven o’clock tonight. Probably closer to six. That means that, as of this call, you got maybe six hours to get ready before you need to start getting to the Fed building. I suggest you get on with it.”

  Rubbing her eyes, Gina tried to think, and felt Rat creep up to listen over her shoulder. She asked, “What? Why before seven?”

  “‘Cause that’s when they’re coming in to move him. I got hold of their schedule and a bunch of other stuff to cover up the real objective, and they’re not too happy with me right now.” He chuckled. “Speaking of which, I’m gonna be moving shop as soon as you’re all out and safe. Off east to Laputa, hide out and make sure they can’t find me or anything that might lead to me.”

  “Just make sure you don’t end up the same way,” Rat interjected. “I ain’t coming for your black ass if you get jacked.”

  Gina leaned forward, said, “Can you get in touch with the Emperor? He’s still got all our stuff.”

  “I can’t reach him right now, he’s temporarily out of contact. All according to plan. But I know he’s dumped your bags in a spot near the Fed building, I know where it is, so everything will go smooth as long as you keep to the schedule.”

  “I guess that’ll do. Anything else?”

  “Nope, just remember, six hours is all the free time you got. Better spend it preparing, whatever the hell you ‘paths do. We’re up against the fucking Feds here. I want as wide a margin of error as we can get.”

  “Right. Bye.” Gina hung up with the touch of a button, biting down hard on her tongue. She didn’t want to take Spice again. She didn’t like what it was doing to her anymore. But that was all she was good for, and Bomber needed her help.

  Rat scratched her head and said, “So this is it, huh? The big day?”

  “Looks like it,” Gina agreed. “Better get dressed.”

  The Federal Law and Police Hong Kong Building, formerly the Hong Kong State Security Building, formerly the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Forces Hong Kong Building, formerly the Prince of Wales Building, loomed over them like a giant upside-down wine bottle hammered into a block of concrete. It was a monstrosity of 1970s architecture, and neither time nor its owners had been kind to it in its hundred-year lifespan.

  From the outside, the building was an unbroken slab of concrete, although you could still make out the shapes of old bricked-up windows on every floor. An electric fence lined with concertina razorwire kept the grounds free of virtually any living thing. At one time there had been greenery on those grounds, even swimming pools, but all of that had been cut down or filled in. Now there was only tarmac and grey concrete barracks.

  Originally it housed the headquarters of the British garrison in Hong Kong, until they handed it over to the Chinese in 1997. The Chinese held it until Hong Kong won its independence in 2049, just a few years before Gina was born. Hong Kong StateSec turned it from an office building into a fortress. It quickly gained a grim reputation, people being brutalised and tortured in underground cells, and worse. After the big coup, however, the Feds did little to improve the building’s image.

  The square where Gina stood was flanked by long posts, topped with suspicious-looking grey-brown orbs that you could hear moving whenever you turned your eyes away. They each contained about half a dozen cameras, capable of every mode of vision known to man.

  The scariest thing about them was knowing there was nobody on the other side. Every bit of security here was wired directly into the Feds’ own AI, housed somewhere in that gravity-defying atrocity sitting darkly at the heart of Hong Kong Central.

  The sky above it was the deep, dark blue of a coming storm.

  “Do you believe in hate at first sight?” asked Rat, “‘Cause I’m convinced.”

  “I believe it,” Gina said emphatically. She searched around in her head for the little essence of Gabriel. It was weaker now, without the Spice reverberating in her blood, but she could just sense its presence. He didn’t like the building either. She got a strong impression that he didn’t want her to go in there.

  She’d hated this place ever since the Feds took over. Hong Kong State Security hadn’t exactly been full of nice people -- in fact, most of them were Feds now -- but at least you knew where you stood with the secret police of an oppressive dictatorial regime. You had a general idea what they were up to because every now and again the government would release a grand statement or manifesto, or somebody would have the courage to speak up about torture and the occasional death squad.

  With the Feds, though, nobody talked. Nobody ever talked.

  Six hours had gone by in their full-featured hotel room while Gina did absolutely nothing. She just sat staring out a window, digging up old memories, and then burying them again in a hurry. The sights, sounds and smells of her old home district stirred up some uncomfortable memories. The past touched her more strongly here than anywhere else.

  She was fourteen years old the day the Federation took over Hong Kong. ‘Federation Day’ was apparently the best name anyone could think of, so they took that and ran with it. There were banners on every corner and military cargo jets thundering overhead covering the streets with bright leaflets and artificial rose petals. The world was united -- but not before the east-coast of the old United States had been nuked to glass with stolen Russian weapons, and several world leaders had mysteriously vanished or died in tragic accidents.

  The old Hong Kong government capitulated pretty quickly after the president suffered some unnamed mishap in his bathtub. The rich and well-connected of Hong Kong certainly weren’t happy to see the Federation move in, spelling the end for their little golden age of prominence and decadence.

  Hi, Mom, Dad, she thought to herself as she remembered their horrified faces on F-Day. But the Federation did pretty well by you in the end, didn’t it? Isn’t it Mr. and Mrs. Director now? Administrator? Fuck, I forget.

  “Found the bags,” Rat announced over the radio, pulling two amorphous black shapes out of the bushes behind the old City Hall. Gina heard the subdued noise of a zipper. “Looks like everything’s here. What do you wanna do now?”

  “What I want to do is run and don’t look back.”

  “Yeah.” She tapped her earpiece. “Yo, Jock, got the bags and all set.”

  “Good. Find the back gate of the building grounds. Follow Connaught Road Central to the edge of the fence, turn left and follow the fence, keep it on your right. You’ll know the gate when you see it, it’s a vehicle entrance, there’ll be a couple of unmanned rolle
rs and tanks in the parking lot. There’s someone guarding the gate, but don’t worry. Talk to him.”

  “Got it,” said Gina, shouldering her bag. They started walking.

  She made a quick mental catalogue of all the things inside that bag. It contained pretty much an entire super-spy arsenal, and the interior was lined with an X-ray image -- a sheet of lead-backed film that, when scanned by an X-ray machine, would show nothing but the contents of an ordinary travel bag. Toothpaste and pyjamas. Just the thing a couple of misdirected tourists would carry.

  The fence seemed to go on for miles. Rat was starting to struggle with her heavy bag and trying hard not to let Gina know. Gina worried that Jock might have been wrong about the gate, but then she spotted it and let out a sigh of relief.

  The Fed at the guardhouse didn’t seem to be so pleased to see them. He was a young caucasian with blonde hair and dark, cautious eyes. He fit his uniform like a Greek statue, and his face had the vaguely square look that the Feds seemed to favour in their constables. Gina waved to him with a smile, which seemed to make him uncomfortable.

  “This is a restricted area,” he said sternly, though trying not to sound belligerent. “I’m sorry, miss, but there’s no loitering allowed. You and your friend will have to keep moving.”

  Okay, thought Gina, talk to him. Christ. Talk about what?

  She put on a slight pout and looked wounded as she stepped closer to him. “Aw, c’mon. You look like you know the place, can’t you at least give us some directions? We’ve been walking for ages and I don’t know where we are.”

  Some of the air seemed to go out of him like she’d just dispelled any possible excitement, and he scratched the back of his head as he said, “How do you get lost in Hong Kong Central? Haven’t you got a GPS?”

  “I’d have one if I could afford it,” she said smoothly, pushing out her chest for the full charm effect. The light of the afternoon sun shone perfectly down her top. “We’re travelling on a budget, like on TV, yeah? Across the world on a thousand dollars a day? We’ve been on target since India, just got here yesterday, but now we just want a place to stay for tonight.”

  The Fed swallowed and pulled his eyes from her chest back to her face. He started to sweat when he caught her wicked smile and let her touch his arm without protest. She murmured, “Maybe you’ve got a place, huh? I could make it worth your while.” And on the inside, Come on, Jock...

  “I can’t do that, miss,” he struggled, fighting to keep his discipline. “Not that I don’t want to, but I’m on the job, you see. Besides, I’m just a recruit. I live in the barracks here. What am I gonna do, hide you two in a closet for the night?” He shook his head. “Can’t help you, miss. Sorry. Please move along.”

  “Come on,” she said, getting desperate, resisting as he pushed her away. “Um, just five minutes in the tool shed?”

  He brought up his rifle to keep her at arm’s length and said firmly, “It’s time for you to go, miss. If you don’t move away, I’m authorised to use lethal force.”

  Gina stepped back and dug her hands into her sides. This was not going as well as she’d hoped, and now she was out of ideas. “Jock...” she growled under her breath, and almost as if summoned, things began to happen.

  A dark shadow appeared in the space behind the Fed. Before anyone could react, a long arm reached around him and locked an iron grip on his rifle. Fed-trained reflexes tried to twist out of the lock, and almost managed it, but the arms were too strong. An elbow curled around his throat and, with a sharp jerk backwards, snapped his neck.

  The Emperor stepped out of the shadows, slowly lowered the Fed’s body to the ground, and started going through the dead man’s pockets.

  Rat was the first to speak, gawking wide-eyed at the body. “That was awesome,” she whispered.

  “Thank you,” the Emperor grunted. He checked the rifle’s chamber to make sure it was empty, then pulled a holomask over the Fed’s face and started stripping him out of his uniform. “I am not sure this one is entirely my size, but it will do.”

  Coming out of her shock, Gina stammered, “What the fuck did you just do? There’s cameras all over the place! There’s patrols every ten minutes!”

  “Jock disabled the camera circuit and looped it to a recording. Patrols have been temporarily suspended. There is nothing to worry about.”

  “You killed a fucking Fed! Of course there’s something to worry about!” She was nearing hysterics now. “God, you were gonna kill him anyway. Why? You made me talk to him like that, when you knew you were gonna kill him...”

  The Emperor didn’t concern himself with answering her. He buttoned up his new uniform jacket, pulled the holomask off the body, checked the inside for stains, then put it on. Finally he buckled something black and tight around his throat below the uniform collar. Gina couldn’t see him with his back turned, but when he finished and got up again, she saw the dead Fed standing there in his place. And also lying on the ground in his skivvies. The two were identical to the naked eye.

  “Are you ready?” the Emperor asked with the voice of the dead man.

  “Yeah.” She swallowed. “Um, yeah.”

  “Oh, sweet! I’ve heard about those,” jabbered Rat, unfazed by the still-warm corpse lying on the ground next to her. “Voice synthesizer, samples someone else’s voice, then straps to your larynx and makes you talk exactly like ‘em. Undetectable by the human ear, you need a full voice analyser.” She was grinning ear to ear. “Fuckin’ beautiful. Do I get one?”

  “A bit short to be a Fed, are you not?” the Emperor chuckled. “Just do your part. We’re going inside.”

  Knowing the truth behind the holomask didn’t lessen its psychological impact on Gina. She kept her distance from the Emperor, disguised as he was. The whole thing was too weird to believe, and right now she was afraid to think of what might happen to her sanity if she started believing in it.

  There was no guard at the door. Any remaining life seemed to have left the area with the death of the Fed, and nothing could seem to fill the void that Gina felt around her. A terrible absence of something. The grey landscape fell away behind them, steel-banded concrete giving way to white linoleum and plasterboard. The whole place was antiseptically clean, even the empty reception desk.

  A door marked ‘Staff Washrooms’ opened on their right. A woman Fed in a junior constable’s uniform walked out of it, glowered as she caught sight of them. She obviously resented anyone who dared to show up during her toilet break, making it look like she’d abandoned her post.

  “What do you want, pleb?” she demanded of the Emperor.

  “Look afraid,” he snarled under his breath at Rat and Gina. Louder, he continued, “I caught these two sneaking around outside the gate. They looked suspicious. I checked them, didn’t find anything, but I figured I should bring them in just to be safe.”

  The constable frowned, then sighed, “Yeah, alright. I’ll buzz you in.” The console bleeped when her fingers touched it, and the large armoured door behind her swung open. “Interrogation block’s clear, on you go.”

  “Be careful,” Jock’s voiced echoed in their ears as they marched into the belly of the beast. “Every door here is wired with holodisruptors, metal detectors, everything. Each time I disable security on one they’ll be more likely to notice something’s up. As soon as that AI starts tracking me, we’re on a time limit. Countdown reaches zero before you’re out, I’ll have to disconnect and you’ll be on your own.”

  The Emperor accepted the information without even blinking. “Understood. I will call the door numbers out to you.”

  “Okay. I’ve got some old building plans from the public record, way out of date, but they may be--”

  “That won’t be necessary,” the Emperor decreed. “I’ve been here before.”

  Jock said nothing after that. Gina suppressed a cold shudder and glanced along the featureless white walls, broken only by the occasional bump, gap or shadow. The Emperor stared hard at these whenever
one came into view, and didn’t relax until it was safely behind them. Disturbed, Gina reached out to touch the walls, just for the feel something solid -- and drew her hand back with a half-swallowed shriek. The wall felt superbly wrong to the touch. It was smooth where it should be rough, it was warm where it should be cold, and slick. It left some kind of residue on her fingertips when she drew away.

  The next thing she knew, the Emperor’s hand was locked around her throat and the eyes that were not his glared balefully into her. He growled, “Be silent or I’ll cut your throat myself. I will not allow you to gamble with my life. Now, I want you to nod that you understand. Don’t speak. Nod.” Gina nodded, and the powerful grip vanished. The Emperor turned away from her and continued to their first obstacle.