Ruse

by Cindy Pon

  She glanced at the Vox strapped to her wrist and waited five long minutes. No one peered around the corner or followed her into the street. The only thing that noted her presence was a calico cat curled up on a concrete step. It blinked at her, then began grooming itself. The laundry shifted in the breeze overhead, dappling the ground below in strange shadows. Satisfied she hadn’t been tailed, Lingyi stepped away from the wall. She passed an older woman with graying hair sitting outside her home as she washed vegetables in a red plastic tub. Lingyi pushed her glasses up, looking carefully at every door she passed. She was near the end of the street when she finally spotted what she was searching for—a red paper door god taped to a splintered wooden door painted a deep green. The frame was so old it appeared the door could topple out. Lingyi was taken aback. She knew Jany didn’t come from wealth, but she was a respected doctoral student in the field, the last she’d heard, and Lingyi hadn’t expected to find the young woman living in squalor.

  Suddenly nervous, she lifted her hand and knocked on the door, three times, paused, then twice, paused again, then one last time, as Jany had requested. Leaning in, she could hear nothing but dead silence on the other side. Lingyi swiped a hand across her damp hairline. Was this the right place? She had been foolish enough to get this far and never even have picked up a weapon along the way—a pocketknife at least. Knives reminded her of Zhou, and with a sharp pang, Lingyi shoved the thought aside. They hadn’t talked in months. Fighting her nerves, she was about to turn away when the door creaked open, revealing the dark shadow of a person peering from within. “Lingyi,” a woman whispered, before she opened the door and dragged Lingyi inside.

  Lingyi managed to suppress a scream of surprise. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimly lit room she was in, but she recognized Jany immediately. The young woman appeared haggard, with dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she was dressed in a loose gray tee and black sweatpants.

  “I’m so glad you made it,” Jany said in a low voice, as if she feared there were people eavesdropping. She reached out and gripped Lingyi’s fingers briefly. Without hesitation, Lingyi gave her friend a hug. Jany was stiff at first but then hugged her back, letting out a long sigh.

  “Are you okay?” Lingyi asked. “What’s going on?”

  Jany leaned in closer, and Lingyi saw how pallid her coloring was, as if she hadn’t been out in the sunlight for weeks. “Jin,” she said, so softly this time that Lingyi had to read her lips to be certain. But the fear in Jany’s face left Lingyi with little doubt.

  “Jin,” Lingyi repeated. “Shit.”

  Jany was not like the quick-to-smile girl Lingyi remembered from years ago. She was a ghost of her former self, moving around the dingy area designated as a kitchen with the nervous motions of a timid mouse, as she brewed hot tea for them. Lingyi took in the run-down communal area she sat in that served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. The ceiling was so low that she was certain she could touch it if she stood on her tiptoes—and Lingyi was not tall. One narrow window set high above the kitchen sink let in scant light and appeared to have been boarded up from the outside. A single bulb flickered overhead. Besides the front door, there was one other narrow doorway leading into a darkened room. The bedroom, Lingyi assumed.

  Jany sat down across from her on the only other stool at the splintered wooden table and set a chipped teacup down. Lingyi murmured thanks and lifted the steaming cup, smelling fragrant jasmine tea. The familiar scent steadied her. Jany took a sip, and it seemed to calm her as well.

  “I’m sorry for all the secrecy,” Jany said after a long pause, staring into her teacup. “Thank you for coming. I could think of nowhere else to turn for help.”

  “Of course I came—you’re like a sister to me,” Lingyi said in a gentle voice. “Tell me everything.”

  Jany flashed her a quick smile, her deep dimple appearing, then disappearing again like a magic trick. “You know I’m working on my doctorate in engineering. But I’ve been doing a side project on my own for years. I was just playing around, but I stumbled onto something I realized could be very useful—very lucrative.” She paused, as if ashamed to admit it. “I want to help my family.”

  Lingyi nodded. She knew Jany had been smart enough to win scholarships for her graduate studies, but being a grad student garnered no salary, and her family was poor, much like Lingyi’s dad’s was. Lingyi suspected that was one reason he had taken her in those two summers—her father had seen something of himself in Jany.

  “It could revolutionize air filtration,” Jany went on. “It replaces the physical filter with a chemical catalyst that captures pollutants and converts them to harmless by-products. They’re cheaper to build and can last for years.” Jany’s words picked up speed in her excitement. “They can be made to adapt to current filters in easily portable cartridges. Just imagine all the spaces that could benefit from this: schools, hospitals, orphanages—the possibilities are endless. I think they could clean outdoor air too, especially if laws were passed to curb Shanghai’s pollution at the same time.”

  Lingyi shook her head in wonder. “That’s tremendous, Jany.”

  The other woman crossed her arms in front of her and snorted. “Yes, so tremendous that Jin somehow caught wind of it.”

  Lingyi’s scalp crawled. Of course Jin had found out.

  Jany proceeded to tell Lingyi what had happened: her visit to meet Jin in Beijing, her refusal to sell him her design, and her near murder the morning after meeting him.

  “He doesn’t know the specifics—that I’ve created a new filtration system, not a new filter. At least he was in the dark about that.” Jany’s pale face flushed in anger. “But I realized then that he’d stop at nothing to steal this from me. And it’s made me more determined than ever to keep it from him. I knew I needed to secure my data, and you were the only one I could think of. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to get in contact with your father—”

  “You’re right. He’s likely still under surveillance, if not by Jin himself, then by the Chinese government.”

  Jany’s dark eyes widened. “Your father has ties to Jin?”

  “Only in that he said no to Jin too. He had refused to take on a contract with Jin Corp, and a few months later, my dad’s past life as a hacker in China was leaked.” Lingyi cleared her throat. “I don’t believe that was coincidence.”

  Jany let out a low whistle.

  “I’m glad you’ve been cautious. Jin is dangerous, with unlimited resources, and you have something he wants.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “First, we destroy your backup.”

  Jany gasped.

  “Then we take your laptop completely offline, and I’ll encrypt it so only you and I have access. We’re going dark with all your data.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It took the entire night and following day for Lingyi to secure Jany’s data. She worked for hours without taking breaks, not knowing what time it was in the dingy, airless apartment. “It’s finally done,” Lingyi said, flexing her fingers, then throwing her arms overhead to stretch her sore shoulders. “I can take your MacFold to a bank and put it in a vault on Monday morning,” she said. “But let me grab some food for us now.” Suddenly, Lingyi’s stomach growled loudly. She was starving. She convinced Jany that it would be safer if she stayed home, because Jin’s informants were everywhere. Shanghai was a city that thrived at all hours, and it was easy for Lingyi to disappear into a crowd, be anonymous.

  Lingyi headed out. It was past eight p.m., when the throngs were still thick in the popular tourist areas around Yuyuan. The classic Ming Dynasty garden was a main attraction for those visiting Shanghai and was surrounded by a busy tourist mart with even more stores and stands fanning out from the classical garden. With a felt hat on and a black mask covering the lower half of her face, Lingyi battled her way through the masses to pick up scallion pancakes and pan-fried dumplings, all scooped piping hot into paper bags.
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  She got lost in the sprawling mart, accidentally wending her way across the famous Jiuqu zigzag bridge as cambots hovered to take photos for tourists posing in front of gilded lanterns and classic Chinese buildings with beautifully tiled curving rooflines. Tour guides and vendors projected their voices through voxbots that zipped amid the shoppers, detailing the best deals on purses or candy or fresh-grilled squid. Near the end of her foray, Lingyi had gotten better at pushing her way through the crowds, literally fighting for space, but the ordeal left her exhausted and anxious by the time she was ready to return to Jany’s derelict apartment.

  And tonight, when there was cause for celebration that she had finished encrypting Jany’s data, Lingyi felt even more on edge. She knew Jin; he wouldn’t give up. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing a blur of faces, then walked faster. Even thinking the man’s name felt like summoning the devil.

  One young man was demonstrating holographic fireworks in the square in front of a popular xiaolongbao restaurant. “We Chinese invented fireworks,” he said, flourishing his hands. “And now, many centuries later, we’re reinventing them.” He swung his arm in a dramatic arc, and silver and gold holographic fireworks exploded above the crowd, raining downward like dazzling raindrops. All the people gathered around him gasped in unison, their eyes lifted heavenward.

  Lingyi stood at the edge of the gathering, feeling like a lurker on the fringe. But she’d always been drawn to the vibrancy of colors. She loved coding, it was in her blood; she dreamed in code. But that world was a life without hues. It was why she always dressed in bright colors, dyed and adorned her hair in neons, because the world of her work was so often a stark contrast of black and white.

  Unable to resist, she lifted her hand and brushed her fingertips against the fireworks. A spray of turquoise showered down on them, trailed by deep red starbursts that formed into hearts. It suddenly made her miss Iris. They had been incommunicado for days. She knew Iris trusted her but would worry anyway. She tried to capture the glimmering heart shapes, but it was like swiping at phantoms.

  “Impressive,” a man near her said in a brusque voice. “But what good are fireworks when they don’t make noise?”

  His lanky friend laughed. “Yeah, what’s the point if your ears aren’t ringing? How’re you supposed to scare the evil spirits away?”

  The first man gave his friend a playful shove. “You sound like my grandma!”

  Lingyi let the strange sensory moment wash over her: the jostling of bodies and the cacophony of voices, the colors blooming overhead, and the overwhelming feeling of being alone surrounded by this frenetic chaos. How did you ward off evil spirits in this day and age? And what if the devils that plagued you so often took on human shape? She had focused so hard on helping Jany, she didn’t have time to feel afraid. But fear settled in her chest now, cold and hollow.

  Lingyi swallowed a knot in her throat as a woman pulling a toddler by one hand bumped past her, headed for the ice cream stand serving giant scoops in dragon-shaped egg cakes. She knew she had this. She’d secured Jany’s data, and they would find a way to keep her safe, perhaps alter Jany’s identity and smuggle her out of China to Taiwan.

  Lingyi would always look back on this moment with bitter regret, knowing in retrospect how wrong she’d been.

  Lingyi and Jany shared their dumplings and scallion pancakes, speaking in hushed tones, before falling into a companionable silence. Then Jany said, “I miss Taipei’s night market food so much—I dream about it.”

  Lingyi grinned. “I would have brought stinky tofu for you if I thought I’d make it through customs.”

  Jany laughed that familiar boisterous laugh Lingyi remembered, making her laugh in turn. “I don’t think the oyster omelets would have fared much better!” Jany replied, her cheek dimpling. “Remember when we lied about your age and snuck you into that nightclub, Vampire’s Kiss?”

  Lingyi truly laughed now. She had been fifteen and left their house with fake leather knee-high boots, a short skirt, and a flower tank top in a bag. They had picked up a deep purple lipstick—what Jany and she assumed goth girls would wear to a club with that name—and lined each other’s eyes poorly in black. But when they actually made it inside the club, they were stunned and a little horrified to find a group of meis and yous dressed as actual vampires, with sharp fangs, dribbling blood and speaking in strange accents.

  They had hustled out of there pretty fast, especially after a couple approached, asking if they would participate in some neck biting.

  After the reminiscing and laughter died down, Jany refilled their teapot with hot water, then poured more tea for them. They nursed their chipped cups, and Lingyi tried again, bringing up a topic of conversation that Jany had brushed aside earlier in the day.

  “Won’t you even consider it?” she asked. “It’s too dangerous for you to stay here, Jany.” Steam clouded Lingyi’s glasses, so she took them off and set them on the wooden table. Jany’s face was a soft blur before her. “You can stay with me for as long as you like. You know National Taiwan University has a really prestigious engineering program too—you’ve studied there and loved it—”

  “No,” Jany replied, stopping Lingyi short. “I’ve had enough of hiding like a fugitive these past few days, and I refuse to run like a criminal.” Her dark brown eyes swept over the dingy apartment. “After my MacFold is safely put away in the vault, I’m finishing my studies here and getting my doctorate.”

  “You know what he’s capable of.” Lingyi put her glasses back on in time to see Jany jut her jaw out in determination.

  “I do.” Jany touched her forearm. “My knife wound has barely scabbed over.” She winced, whether from pain or from the memory of the attack, Lingyi didn’t know. “But promise me something.” She paused. “It’s an unfair thing to ask.”

  “Anything,” Lingyi said.

  “If something were to happen to me, don’t let Jin get my invention,” Jany whispered in a hoarse voice. “I made this to help others, but also to help my own family. Don’t ever let him profit from it.”

  “You speak like this, and you refuse to go to Taiwan with me?”

  Jany gave a resolute shake of her head. “My home is here; my studies and my family.”

  Lingyi reached across the rough table and squeezed Jany’s hand briefly. “Only you and I have access to your MacFold. It’s safe.”

  “Thank you,” Jany said. “For everything. I’m so grateful for your help.” She stood and began clearing the table. “You go sleep on the bed tonight. You’ve been working nonstop and look like a ghost risen from the grave.” She grinned, flashing her dimple. “Get a good night’s rest.”

  Lingyi didn’t have the energy to argue. Instead, she brushed her teeth in the small closet that served as their bathroom. A cloth separated the squat toilet and sink from the main room; there was no tub or shower. The single yellow bulb cast a sick pallor over her face. Lingyi hadn’t washed herself for days; she didn’t want to think about what she must smell like. She’d take a long bath the minute she returned to Taipei. She crawled into Jany’s narrow bed in the windowless bedroom without changing, falling immediately into a deep sleep.

  A loud, crashing thud made Lingyi shoot straight up in bed. She fumbled, instinctively searching for her glasses, then pushed them up her nose. She had been so exhausted she’d forgotten to remove them when she went to sleep. The bedroom door was ajar, and faint light slanted in from the main room. There were footsteps, then—

  “No!” Jany screamed. “What do you want?”

  Lingyi broke out in a cold sweat from hearing the terror in Jany’s shout.

  Whoever had barged into the room didn’t speak. Instead, there was the sound of furniture scraping against the stone floor, then toppling over. Scuffling noises followed, and Lingyi knew Jany was trying to fight off her attackers. Lingyi sat frozen in place, her body rigid with fear. Her heart beat wildly, and she saw in her mind again Jin Corp’s shuddering floors before the building collapse
d inside, heard the loud booms from the wall screen as she followed the cam Iris had worn clipped to her shoulder. Lingyi had not been there that night Jin Corp went down, had not been there when they lost Victor, but she had relived the noise and chaos many times in her mind since.

  She fisted her palms, nails digging into her flesh, willing her legs to move. She had to run into the other room and help Jany. Her breath hitched when she heard Jany’s muffled scream, then the sound of a body falling to the floor.

  “We have it,” a gruff male voice said after a short silence. “Search the place. Make sure there aren’t witnesses.”

  The stranger’s voice catapulted Lingyi from her paralysis. She slid out of bed, her limbs shaking so hard she was sure the men in the other room could hear her. There was nowhere to hide in the cramped room, except for under the bed. She eased herself beneath the dusty space, trying to control her body’s trembling. It was only after she was underneath that she realized her glasses had fallen from her face. Panicked, she swept her arm out, hoping her fingers would find them.

  She couldn’t see anything except for the blurred smudge of light from the other room. Footsteps stomped over just as her fingertips connected with her glasses, and she grabbed them, tucking them against her chest right when the bedroom light buzzed on.

  “Anything?” a man asked from the other room.

  Lingyi watched the man walk in, stopping beside the bed. He was so close that if she reached over, she could untie the laces of his thick-soled black boots. “Nothing in here,” the man replied. “What a shithole.”