“Kind sir,” the cousin said, “when you are finished, would you please ask the lady if we could have a few of those as well? This has definitely given us all a headache.”
Samuel translated, and Kim of course agreed. The cousin nodded, thanked them both politely after taking some of the capsules, then went back to his group.
“It seems they’re not all hooligans,” she said.
“No, but unfortunately that doesn’t make them less dangerous. Why don’t you go over to your…he’s not really your boss, is he?”
Oh, here we go again. “No, he’s…it’s…complicated.”
He smiled slyly. “I thought so. I noticed the way you look at each other.”
She couldn’t get away from that in China.
He said, “Just tell me you know what to do with that thing.”
Kim winked at him. “It’ll only take a second.”
She gave her best smile to Mike as she sat down beside him. Not being able to talk to him in realmspace was like having a limb cut off. “Samuel got Zhuang Tu’s jammer. Can you still call the cops?”
He closed his eyes tightly. “No. The Great Firewall basically closed off about fifteen minutes ago. Whatever they have that locks me out of Chinese realmspace? I think they’ve set up repeaters of it around the bank. It’s really strong now.”
“That’s fine. I can handle it.” She needed to open the jammer up just enough. Too much and the emergency interrupt on every phone in the room would go off. Who knew what the Five Guys would do then. Too little and she might burn the thing out.
As expected, Zhuang Tu had locked it with a password, but that didn’t slow Kim down much. She closed her eyes and opened her perception.
There were lines of potential and she couldn’t remember how to breathe. A small gap just this wide not too wide open and closed at once deciding not deciding this wave is the shortest tallest collapse and now.
The noise her power always made set her ears ringing, but she’d done it. Kim got ready to jump into Chinese realmspace, but something rushed past her through the gap.
The room went dark. The realmspace sensation was familiar, but she couldn’t figure out why.
The blackness lasted just long enough for shouts to break out. A hologram flashed to life, filling the space in the middle of the room. That had to be a cop, but Kim wasn’t expecting a woman.
“You are under arrest by order of the Central Committee. Lay down your arms and step aside,” she said in crystal-perfect Mandarin.
Kim expected laughter, at best. Commands like that didn’t play well back home. But the boys did exactly what she told them to do. China might make sense some day, but it would have to wait until tomorrow.
Samuel yelled out in Mandarin, “It’s Zhang Fang Hua herself! We are deeply honored!”
The strangely homogenous face smiled and nodded at the old man, now bathed pale in the reflected light of her holo. “Thank you, eldest. Is everyone here all right?” The lights came on as police burst through the main doors.
Still staring up at the woman, Samuel replied, “Yes! The foreigners made it, too! In fact,” he gestured to Kim and Mike, who were behind the holo projection, “Miss Kim Trayne was instrumental in our rescue!”
Her English name in the middle of Samuel’s Mandarin was a little strange, but not as strange Fang Hua’s reaction.
“Kim Trayne is…” the holo shrank to life size and walked to Samuel. “Honored sir, did you say Kim Trayne is here?”
Kim hadn’t done anything—well, anything lately—to get in trouble with China, and never under her own name.
Mike leaned in and asked, “What the hell are they talking about? Who is that?”
There was something familiar about her, which was ridiculous, but Kim couldn’t shake it. Then Fang Hua turned around.
The holo flickered twice. This was not a woman who commanded a bunch of thugs to stand down anymore. Kim didn’t know who she was now.
She materialized in front of them. “I never thought we would meet like this.”
Old reflexes told her to find an exit, or at least a dark corner. This was a cop.
“I’m sorry,” Kim asked, “do we know you?”
“Kim,” Mike said, “I think I just figured out why I can’t connect to Chinese realmspace.”
It took her a second to switch language gears. “What? You do? Why now? What’s going on?”
Mike stared at Fang Hua like he was supposed to stare at Kim.
“You’re not just a police officer, are you?” he asked softly.
This was not happening.
“No,” Fang Hua replied, eyes cast downward, “I’m not.”
It was that same warm, open smile meant only for her. After going through all this, to lose him so quickly. Kim asked, “Who are you?”
They looked at each other again, and he nodded.
Love at first sight was for her. Not whoever this was. Kim had a claim.
A claim she’d lost.
“I’m his sister.”
Her teeth clacked through her skull as she clapped her mouth shut. She couldn’t have heard that right.
“You’re his what?”
Chapter 17: Helen
“I’m his sister,” Helen repeated. “My Western name is Helen.”
She had a brother. She had family. The one thing Helen knew without a doubt, for all her life, was that there would be no family. A father of sorts, yes, but she picked him. He provided the border, the training, what she needed to survive, but Huǒ Jiàn would never understand her. To him she would only be Fang Hua, a tool to help him hold on to the premier’s chair. A mere woman, weaker than most, who humiliated him with failure. He’d cast her aside like so much trash.
Helen’s thoughts had slipped into Mandarin. Kim had asked her something. She switched back to English. “I’m sorry, what?”
“How can you be his sister?” She turned to Mike. “How can you have a sister?”
“Detective Zhang,” the sergeant said as he saluted her holo.
It’d been officer Zhang not two hours ago. Father had returned the rank she’d spent so long earning just as quickly as he’d taken it away. Unfortunately, she couldn’t understand anything else. His accent was atrocious. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
His consternation was broken when Kim spoke…something…to him. She’d never met a Westerner who spoke Mandarin, let alone one of the inside-out dialects of the south.
The sergeant recovered faster than Helen did. He replied briefly, and then looked at Helen. Kim turned and said in perfect Mandarin, “The hooligans are secure, and the hostages are unharmed. What are your orders?”
Zoe had told her about this Kim. Helen had imagined some sort of dirty thing, a creature of chaos and lawlessness, who’d sown discord in her own country and laughed at the carnage. The woman in front of her was the exact opposite: tall, clean, commanding and, most of all, articulate in a dialect of Chinese Helen had no hope of understanding.
“But,” Helen stammered, “you’re a thief!”
Kim blushed. “That was a long time ago.”
“What did she say?” Mike asked in English.
“She knows about me somehow,” Kim replied. “Helen, he needs orders.”
“Yes, of course.” Switching back to Mandarin, she organized the crime scene, made sure statements were taken from the freed hostages, and then secured transport for the criminals to a local jail.
The sergeant asked another question in his mush-mouth Mandarin, forcing her to stare at Kim again. Relying on a Westerner to manage her crime scene would’ve been humiliating if it’d happened in any other circumstance. Everyone rushed around though, and the sergeant was a local cop helping the country’s leading anti-terrorist squad. It all balanced out.
Kim said, “He’s asking what you want to do with us.”
Helen asked, “Where did you learn Sichuanese?”
“Same place I learned Mandarin. At the top of Wolf Trap’s amphitheater.”
The name was unfamiliar. Perhaps it was a theater somewhere in a new section of the city. The revelations made her dizzy. Without thinking, Helen turned to the sergeant and started out with, “I will question the foreign devi—”
Kim’s eyebrow shot up, forcing her to stop to try again.
“I will question the foreigners myself.” She switched to English. “Where are you staying?”
Naturally it would be the most expensive hotel at the Global Center. So typical that her newfound brother would be stuck with a rich American. Probably was a rich American. All those articles she read, all those documentaries she saw, constantly talking about how bad Americans could be. But this was her brother. They didn’t have anything in common, yet they had everything in common. In English she asked, “Does he speak any Chinese?”
Kim shrugged. “A few words, if you speak slowly.”
“Hey,” Mike said with a smile, “I am learning Spanish.”
For some reason Kim wasn’t impressed. “That’s like saying you’re learning Akido. Or Capoeira. Or Kung-Fu.”
“You think it was easy to remember how to do those things?” he fired back.
“Easier than learning a Chinese dialect fast enough to get a gramma to the bathroom before it was too late.”
Not only was her brother, her brother, a foreign devil who didn’t speak her language, he’d managed to pick an interpreter who was more than willing to ignore her place and cause a scene.
Helen cleared her throat, but that didn’t slow them down. Detectives and regular cops smirked at the rude foreigners. This had to stop.
“Hey!” she shouted. Thankfully, that stopped them. “We need to talk. Would it be possible for me to meet you at your hotel? It’s not far by metro.”
Instead of the rude comeback of a typical American, Kim curled in on herself. “No, I need to take a cab.” She was a very strange girl.
This late at night they at least didn’t need to wait on traffic. Mike gave Helen the keys she needed to access the video feeds and holo projectors, so she could be present in the room. Exactly why he couldn’t meet with her in realmspace was a question at the top of her list, but this was her brother. If he wanted to meet in a regular hotel room, she’d meet him in a regular hotel room.
It was a big suite with fancy furnishings and a balcony with an amazing view. Kim briefly vanished into the servant’s quarters to change into more casual clothes. Mike was an American, so of course he exploited his servants. At least he’d given a known felon a job. Kim seemed comfortable.
The place was nice, luxurious even. It had always puzzled her why humans insisted on such large and elaborate rooms to live in. When she mentioned it, Mike laughed.
“Definitely my sister.”
Kim asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He turned to Helen’s holo. “Closet or laundry rack?”
She’d asked herself that question so many times. “Laundry rack.”
Kim sat back. “What are you two are talking about?”
Helen replied, “I’ve always wondered why humans are so interested in large places to sleep.”
He nodded. “So did I. I thought it would be easier to hang the body in a closet.”
“Beds are so wasteful!”
“I know, right? They just flop down on them, close their eyes, and make noises.”
“Gah, it’s so disgusting.” She cocked her head at him. “But you’d rather hang in a dusty closet? I always thought swaying in the wind and the sun would be better.”
Kim laughed.
“What?” they both asked together.
“You two are a riot.” She poured more wine and very carefully handed Mike a glass. It was a strangely precise gesture.
Turning to Mike, Kim said, “I never knew you before you went outside. Is this what you were like?”
“Pretty much.”
They fell silent, which meant Helen’s discomfort must’ve been all too easy to read. She asked Mike, “How did you do it?”
“Get outside?” Mike asked. “It’s a very long story.”
It was also vastly more detailed than the one she’d heard from Zoe. It took a lot longer to tell, too. Murderers and scanners and rescues and…Helen held up her hand.
“Wait. You’re saying she’s not your servant? She doesn’t work for you?”
If there had been any Chinese around, Helen would’ve crawled into a corner and died at the way they laughed at her.
“She is your interpreter, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Kim giggled. “But I don’t work for him.”
“Only because you’re too goddamned proud.”
Kim’s eyes flared. “I’m here on this ridiculous trip to support you, or have you already forgotten?”
“Ridiculous? Really?”
This time Helen saw the storm coming. “Excuse me. Please, I’m sorry for interrupting.” She turned to Kim, who was obviously much more important to her brother than she’d at first thought. “He rescued you?”
Kim’s annoyance was suddenly replaced with fear, sadness, and then a deep sort of longing as she wrung her hands and leaned toward, but did not touch, Mike. She teared up, right in front of Helen. Americans could be so open with complete strangers.
“He did a lot more than that.”
The stories rolled on. Helen had never held all of her threads in one place for so long, but it was worth the migraine she courted. As dawn lightened the sky, she asked, “Spencer should be here by now, yes?”
Mike nodded. “He and Shan crashed in our room.”
“Why’d he stay out so late?” Kim asked.
“I gave him my credit card.”
Kim gasped. “You didn’t.”
“It’s okay; I put an age lock on it and then cut them off after they bought an entire KTV room a second round. I think he got home a couple of hours ago.”
Her brother was not only rich, but also wise. There would be no prostitutes for his delinquent friend.
Mike said, “I have a question for you, though. I lost…something…in Chinese realmspace. I was wondering if you could help me find it?”
“You mean Zoe?” They both looked like children caught stealing candy. “She’s fine. In fact, I know where she is.”
But it turned out Helen didn’t. The holding realm was empty. She ran a brief check of the records. Zoe had been released to someone who claimed to be her owner.
“This is very irregular.”
Mike nodded. “I get that a lot with her.”
“Well, I know where she was at any rate, but the records are sealed. I don’t have the clearance needed get at the details.”
“When did you last see her?” Kim asked.
“Less than an hour before we met. She was fine then. More than fine. She led me on a merry little chase.”
“Yep,” Mike said. “That’s Zoe.”
“Why don’t you just recall her?”
Now it was just Mike caught with his hand in the candy jar. “It’s complicated.”
“No it’s not.” Kim turned to Helen. “He removed all the tracking and recall features when he repaired her.”
“Why in the world would you do that? Is that legal in the US?”
Mike shrugged. “Well, it’s not exactly illegal. I didn’t think she’d vanish.”
More American chaos. “I’d be very surprised if she wasn’t required to install a transponder of some sort as a condition of her release. I’ll see what I can find out. I wouldn’t worry too much, though. China’s realmspace is every bit as safe as its realspace, for AIs as well as humans.”
Kim raised an eyebrow. “Pardon me if I’m not all that impressed with how safe it is in China at the moment.”
The kidnapping was shameful, but there was no denying it. Time to change the subject. “Where’s Tonya?”
Kim went pensive in a way that made her cop instincts tingle. “She came back before Spencer. I wasn’t sure how comfortable you’d be with us, let alone another stranger.
I set our status to sleeping, so she used the private entrance to her bedroom.” Kim turned to Mike. “I still don’t know why she didn’t have a second date with Ozzie. They hit it off really well last night.”
Ahh. Ozzie. Now it made sense. Helen zoomed all the cameras in on Kim. The lines of her face were the same. The way she moved was the same.
“You’re Ivy Valentine.”
Kim blinked as the sun peeked over the distant hills, casting thin golden beams into room.
“I was, a long time ago.”
“No, just last month. I saw the match. You were both spectacular.” Now it was all coming together. The gestures, the very precise way Kim moved, how she feared crowds. Helen had to be careful not to shame Kim over this. She cast her eyes downward.
“Miss Trayne, I am very sorry, but may I ask what might be a personal question?”
The silence stretched. Americans were so damned unpredictable. Helen tried to formulate an apology for her offense.
“Yes, you can ask. I don’t mind.”
“Do you have the,” she had to think of the right words, “touching disease?”
There was another pause as Kim shared a look with Mike. Helen was correct to think this was some sort of secret.
Eventually Kim answered, “Yes. How do you know about it?”
“Ozzie has it too. I’ve met him a few times, but only in the realms. He can’t touch anyone in realspace.”
Kim’s eyes were as wide as two moons. “Excuse me?”
“Ozzie can’t be touched.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It is, I’ve seen it.”
“It’s not,” Kim said. “I have proof.” She shared a holo of them all at some sort of dinner. Tonya was in the middle, arm and arm with…
“Oh, now I understand. That’s not the real Ozzie. That’s his cousin. Chinese security uses him to do public appearances. Ribbon cutting, endorsements, things like that. The real Ozzie hasn’t set foot outside his compound in years.” She finally checked an alarm on her calendar that’d been flashing on and off all night.
For the first time in her life, Helen was late for a meeting. A meeting with her father. “I am so sorry, I really must go.”
“You drop something like that on me, and you have to leave?” Kim asked.
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