"How are they related?" said Abby.
"The Thousand Hands of Fire run Red Heaven," said Wong.
"Okay, so the Thousand Hands run Red Heaven who run Jinmu?" said Dane. "Is this like Russian stacking dolls?"
"Better to hide your traces," said Wong. "Where once they made war publically, now they are in the shadows, unseen, unknown. That is the way of the Thousand Hands."
"But who are they exactly?" asked Abby. "What are they?"
"The Thousand Hands of Fire are a secret society," said Wong. "A very old one. Alastair would call it occult, but we Chinese do things differently. Where once it was powerful men and women coming together, now the Thousand Hands has very small leadership and many agents. Assassins, enforcers, and manipulators. But the enemies of the Thousand Hands haven't changed in a long time. They hate me for what I am, they hate all like me. If you're not with them, you are against them."
"People like you? You mean a fox spirit?" asked Abby.
Wong nodded. "Some of us hiding in Avalon on animal spirits. We had to flee our old home and travel across the world to escape. Our houses and villages burned, they would kill us too if they caught us. The Thousand Hands consolidate their power in purges. I can't go through another. I don't know where we can hide, but we'll run. We'll hide elsewhere."
"We'll solve this, you don't have to run," said Dane.
"We should have known better than to hide someplace they wanted. It kept them out for so long, but something changed. What changed?" Wong shook his head. "We'll go someplace else. Somewhere remote. Maybe Alaska. I hear Alaska is pretty. Meilin might actually like Alaska. Maybe."
"Relax," said Abby, putting her hand on his shoulder. "We'll figure this out."
"I just don't see a solution," said Wong. "If you had seen what I had seen what I had... If you knew what I knew..." Pain flashed across Wong's face. "These are not the type of people you reason with. My death sentence was signed long ago. We'll run. We'll just run. We'll make it out. I hope."
"What can we do?" asked Abby.
"Nothing," said Wong. "There's nothing you can do."
"We'll find something," said Abby. "That's what Dane does."
"With all due respect to our friendship and what you do, I think this is far beyond the skills of Dane Monday," said Wong.
"We can move you," said Dane. "We find a safe house or something. Don't stay here. They'll look for you here." He vaguely gestured at the burned down store outside.
"But where?" said Wong. "One of your apartments? Those are no safer."
"They'll get you out of Chinatown," said Abby.
"And put you all in danger," said Wong. "If this conflict is a foregone conclusion, I'd rather face it at my home. Or just run," he finished with a weak smile.
"You need to let us try to help," said Abby.
Wong grimaced. "I'm sorry. I know you're trying."
Dane snapped his fingers. "I've got it! Who do we know who has a garage that's very secure and has a ton of intrusion countermeasures?"
"You've been asking her a lot of favors lately," said Abby. "You really need to show Jaya you appreciate her before piling more onto her."
"Nonsense, she'd love to help!" said Dane.
Wong and Abby shared a look. Even Wong knew Abby was right.
"I'll call her now," said Dane, taking out his phone. He dialed Jaya and put it to his ear, humming while he waited.
"Are you sure you want to ask -" started Abby.
But Dane put his finger up to silence her. "It's ringing."
Abby shook her head but said nothing. She and Wong stared at Dane as he listened to his phone, but he still heard only ringing.
"Funny," said Dane. "It never takes her this long to pick up. She's got wifi like everywhere."
Neither Abby nor Wong said anything, expecting to be shushed by Dane again. She waited for him to make his own mistake on the phone. But as he listened, he was on ring number ten. It hadn't even tried to go to voice mail.
"Are you guys starting to worry?" said Dane. "I'm starting to worry."
"We were just over there," said Abby. "Maybe she's just taking a bath. I know I'd really love one right now."
"Psh," uttered Dane in disbelief, "she doesn't take baths."
"I think that maybe -" started Abby.
"Still ringing," said Dane.
"You know sometimes you can be -" said Abby.
"Ah, it's connecting!" said Dane. He heard the click as the phone picked up.
"This is your fault you know," said Jaya immediately, her voice very tense.
"My fault?" said Dane, but Jaya spoke right over him.
"My garage is being attacked," said Jaya, trying to be calm and disapproving, but her voice was very anxious. "If you can send help, now would be a good time!" Then there was noise like the phone clattering and some weird growls.
Without even taking a moment to pause, without even alerting his friends, Dane raced out of Wong's shop, the lock quickly unlatched and the bell ringing vigorously. Before either of them knew what he was doing, the only evidence of Dane was disappearing footsteps.
Wong and Abby looked at each other with wide eyes. Then Abby darted outside to follow Dane. She called back, "We'll get back to you, Wong!"
Wong just nodded. He expected this sort of thing. It's why he didn't go to Dane with this problem. Dane was always pulled in many directions, his manic energy effective but lacking focus. Even when Dane helped, it was often more chaotic than necessary. Dane's help was a mixed blessing.
But that wasn't even the main reason. Wong didn't think Dane could do anything in this case. Dane wasn't a fighter and the Thousand Hands were a war coming back to haunt him. A war he had left on the other side of the world lifetimes ago.
He was standing in the darkness of the shop when the door opened and the bell rang again. The person stood in the darkness, lingering but not talking.
"We're not open," said Wong, but his voice was weak. He knew this wasn't a customer. There would be no more customers today, not in the dark and the smoke. This had to be someone else. This must be someone who knew who Wong was. He just hoped this visitor wasn't one of them.
"I'm not here to buy, just to warn," said the newcomer.
"I thought the fire was enough of a warning for today," said Wong.
"I'm not with them," said the man, and Wong recognized the voice but couldn't place it. The man was wearing a long coat and a hat. He seemed to carrying something, maybe a walking stick, but it was hard to tell in the low light.
"Who are you?" asked Wong.
The man raised his arm and a point of white light appeared over the hand, hanging in space. The man was indeed carrying a walking stick and also a rucksack over his shoulder. He took off his hat and Wong felt a sense of déjà vu. The same movement and the same man. The hat was different and so was the place. But the same man, despite the time and distance. That had been a very long time ago. Decades, closer to a century.
The man had not changed in any way. He had not aged a year. He never did.
"It's you!" Wong bowed quickly and deep. "I'm sorry, I didn't not know it was you, I -"
"Stop," said the man, waving off Wong's bow. "That was so long ago. I didn't deserve such courtesies then and I definitely do not deserve them now. Let's not live in the past."
"Yet it seems the past has come back to find me," said Wong. "You were right about this place. It hid us for a long time."
"But not forever," said the man.
"Not forever," said Wong glumly.
"Choices," said the man. "You made one back then, but you knew it wasn't a permanent solution. It would only push back the inevitable."
"But it did keep her away for so long..."
"Indeed," said the other man. "But that time is up. She's coming here. Tomorrow."
"No..." said Wong, his voice slowing in disbelief. "No..." he said again, this time not in disbelief, but as if his word could change the reality of the situation, as if his word could ward off th
e coming storm.
"I wouldn't wish this on you if it could be averted. It will be the first time all of us have been in the same place for... how long?"
"Centuries," said Wong.
The man nodded, indicating that sounded about right. "You made a choice, and here come the eventual consequences. You knew what each option meant. I can't say the choice you made before was the same one I would have made. I was disappointed."
"Is that why you're here? Because you disapprove? You're going to take back your gift?" said Wong with sudden panic. It had been many years and Wong had developed his power on his own, so if the gift was taken back, he wouldn't revert completely to his animal state. But he would definitely diminish...
The man shook his head. "No, it was a gift freely given. I am not your keeper nor hers. Your choices are your own, as are your consequences. Though I care deeply for you both, I must allow you to live your own lives and not interfere. That said, she has not seen me for centuries, though I have seen her. It is better that way."
"Then why did you come?" said Wong. "You didn't come just to warn me or say I told you so. You wouldn't waste a whole trip for that. These days there's phone and email."
The man shrugged. "I go where the way leads me. The way is here. To you and soon her. I knew that you were here, within Her shadow as I told you. But the Thousand Hands didn't."
"It kept them away for so long. But it doesn't anymore..." He frowned. "Why?"
"New factors," said the man, his square pupils flaring for just a second. "But they know now. And so does she. She'll be here tomorrow. Are you ready?"
"For what? To fight her? To talk? To get out of town? To tell her I saw you?"
"Those are all possible choices," said the man with a slight smile. "But you know what I'm really talking about. To stop running from the past. To make a choice that doesn't push it all back again, letting it fester like an old wound. Perhaps to choose the option you left behind in China so long ago."
"Can't I just run again?" said Wong.
"Can you?" said the man.
Wong didn't know what to say, but he didn't have to. Without waiting for a response, the man put his hat back on. The floating light disappeared. In this new darkness the man left.
"No," said Wong with a frown, staring at the door. Then he looked back toward the stairs to his living quarters, where Meilin was. "No."
Attack on Garage
After Dane and Abby had left, Jaya started identifying the Sphere. Despite saying she had other things to work on and acting reluctant to do it, she knew if Dane was asking for help, it was probably necessary. This was one of the cases he was mysteriously given, and those were always important. Often those ended up affecting the whole city. It was when he got an idea in his head about something ultimately irrelevant - such as the Ghost Greaser - that his requests went from endearingly oblivious to presumptuously annoying.
Jaya realized that the Sphere was basically a "black box", and that's if it was even a piece of technology. The assumption was that it did something, but they didn't know what, how, nor why. Dane had given her no real leads into how it worked or what to do with it. Once she got beyond the basics - measuring its dimensions and weight before photographing it, she was stuck with what to do next. If the Sphere wasn't likely important and or necessary to whatever case Dane was running, she would follow her own desires and brute force dismantle it. Jaya thought most people would be amazed by what you could take apart with a few basic tools and the strong desire to find out what's inside. By dismantling it in that way, she'd get a much better idea of what it was, but the problem was she could permanently damage it. If Dane still needed it to function later, she had to resist her instinct to tear it apart, no matter how much the mini mad scientist inside her wanted to explore it piece by piece.
She was checking the inherent voltage on the Sphere's surface when she heard the rumble. She felt it as much as heard it. The vibration was high enough magnitude that the metal of the garage's security door shook. Jaya couldn't tell where the rumble was coming from. For some reason, she at that moment remembered Dane's story about the gigantic serpent that travelled through the underground tunnels. There was a twinge of fear for just a moment before she realized it was a silly thought. Even if that serpent was still moving through the tunnels, she was far from that part of the city. Not only that, she was above ground. That monster wasn't just going to tunnel up through the sewers and then burst through floor of the garage and swallow her. That was preposterous. Though admittedly she could kind of imagine it happening in her head, despite the unlikelihood, and it made her uneasy. But then she shook her head and dismissed it.
Thankfully, the rumbling soon stopped, the vibration slowing and disappearing. Jaya shrugged and continued with her work. Going on the theory that the Sphere was some unknown piece of tech rather than an indecipherable artifact of magic, she began a new battery of tests. These actually turned up some useful information. Using an RF detector that was intended more for spying and private detective snooping, she discovered that the Sphere was emitting a signal. She cranked up a few more machines to see if she could figure out what type of signal and if it only emitted signals or if it would also receive them. If it had something on the wifi band, she could possibly locate its ID with her computer and trying brute force hacking it.
Unfortunately, she had no such luck. The Sphere didn't react to external signals and seemed to only emit one. The outgoing signal wasn't anything discernible, just the same pattern of modulating frequency over and over. She had no clue what it was trying to communicate or what purpose it served. For all she knew, it was just repeating SOS endlessly.
The rumbling returned again, louder than before. For a moment, thoughts of a giant serpent attack crossed her mind, but then she put down the Sphere and walked closer to her rattling garage door. This rumble was coming from outside. As she stepped closer, she could tell it was just a loud motorcycle. Then the rumbling stopped entirely, she guessed by the owner turning off the bike. She knew she could give the rider a few tips so that his chopper wasn't so obnoxious sounding, but she knew he probably wouldn't listen. Many riders wanted their bikes loud. She shrugged and returned to her workbench.
There were no input ports that she could find on the Sphere. Nothing she could plug into. She tried her thumbs on every surface, seeing if there was a button or a panel that might shift to reveal an opening, but she found nothing. Once again she wondered about opening it by brute force. She could throw it at the wall and claim it had rolled off the counter. Dishonest, yes, but she'd undoubtedly have results. And it wasn't like Dane himself was careful with the things he carried and borrowed... he broke nearly every object she had ever given him.
The rumbling returned, much louder than before. The sound was layered as well, letting her know there were multiple motorcycles. This time they didn't shut off nor recede into the distance. Now she had to put up with the continual rumble of idling choppers.
Jaya rubbed her head in frustration. "Knock it off, will you!" she shouted at the door, but knew none could hear her. She tossed down the Sphere and went over to her computer. With a few clicks, she brought up the footage for the cameras outside the garage. Then she took an involuntary step backward.
She had expected the bikers to be parked across the street, perhaps visiting someone. Or maybe they were idling in the street as one member tried to find directions to the bar they wanted, the rider's smart phone getting too poor reception to make the search quick. But she immediately saw that this was not the case. There were at least a dozen bikers parked right in front of her garage, some even in her driveway. All bikes were facing her garage, at least one biker pointing at the doors.
Despite stereotypes, Jaya knew that those who rode motorcycles came in all shapes and sizes. Not everyone joined a club, and even those that were club members varied. Unfortunately, these bikers arrayed in front of her home were doing nothing to challenge people's stereotypes. They were a bunch of rough and tumbl
e characters, the type some might be quick to call "thugs". They were decked out in leather and tattoos, their meaty arms ranging from flabby to heavily muscled. Though there were a few women, they were far outnumbered by the men. Due to muscle shirts and other creative fashion, the visible back hair was outnumbered only by beard hair, but not by much. Jaya had seen great danger in her day, but that still didn't mean she wasn't wary of the large group of bikers who had shown up at her doorstep uninvited and so far unannounced.
Then she heard the buzzer for the intercom - the one for the pedestrian door, not the garage door. A few clicks of her mouse brought up the camera at that door. Of course it was another biker. His fuzzy red-brown beard hid his jowls well, but did nothing to hide his yellowed teeth. He could have looked almost loveable or folksy, but there was something in his expression that said anything but friendly, even if the man was attempting to smile for the camera. Whether he knew she was using it or not, the man was giving his best "say cheese" smile.
Jaya didn't press the button for her own end of the intercom to respond, but instead stared at the man on the camera, trying to decide how she wanted to handle this situation. She knew she should be well protected in the garage, as it was built for security, but that didn't make the situation any more comfortable. The biker kept staring into the camera, as if he could look straight through the lens and somehow check out the interior of the garage.
When she did not answer, the biker pressed the intercom button again. "Knock knock," he said with a giggle.
Jaya sighed and pressed the button near her mic. "Who are you and what do you want?" she said icily. She didn't activate the video on her side, so the biker still couldn't see her.
"I'm Geddy and we're here for... we're here for our delivery service," said the biker, barely getting the words out due to laughter.
"And what are you delivering?" said Jaya.
"We ain't deliverin' this time, as much as the ladies just love my package deliveries! We're actually here to pick up a package," said Geddy with a giggle. Jaya heard the howl of laughter from the other bikers behind.
Burning Monday: (Dane Monday 2) Page 6