Girl Punches Out

by Jacques Antoine

  It was a little after six when she got out of the truck in front of “Shanghai Treasures.” The front door was open, but no one seemed to be in the store. She walked past dusty displays and around the sales counter to a door leading to the back of the building. Voices echoed dimly in some muffled distance from the back. There must be at least one more door. She stood in the middle of a large storeroom, a roll-down door to the loading dock on one end, on her left open stairs led up to a second floor office. Boxes and crates were stacked here and there.

  On a table in one corner she noticed a dozen or so swords piled carelessly. She picked one up from the top and hefted it. The handle was a little too padded for her comfort. Shaped roughly like her katana, the blade hadn’t been sharpened. She wasn’t certain it could even hold an edge. It may have been merely ornamental. She removed the sheath and tossed it on the table. The weight didn’t feel right. She didn’t like the balance: too light in the handle, too heavy at the tip. She slashed the air a few times, swung it over her head and thrust it behind her. With her eyes closed she began to move around the room moving the sword as she went. She felt her opponents as if in the dark, parried their attacks, thrust and slash.

  The sword kept moving, no stops, even though it still felt wrong. The awkwardness of the weight pulled her mind back from her attackers. She began to feel with the sword, respond to its will, let it find its way through them. But this sword was dumb. It has no spirit inside the steel. No one has ever fought with it, or died for it. It’s just a toy. Perhaps the spirit was in her own hands, her shoulders. That’s not how it felt, nothing seemed to come from inside her. Maybe it’s some sort of projection of her feelings on to an inanimate object.

  “Hey! Put that down. What are you doing back here,” someone barked at her out of the darkness.

  She opened her eyes and saw a skinny old man. Two younger men emerged from the office upstairs to see what was happening. Ignoring them all she walked calmly over to the table and slid the sword into its sheath. She looked at it for a moment, held it up on her palms. Did she owe it a debt of gratitude, this empty toy sword? She put it down.

  “What do you want here,” the old man asked.

  “Jiang Xi,” she said quietly.

  “Never heard of him,” he said dismissively.

  She took the photo of Tang Li Li from her jacket pocket and held it out.

  “Show him this.”

  He waved the picture over his head and nodded at the men on the stairs. One of them tapped his knuckle on the office door. A moment later Jiang stepped out and leaned over the railing. The room was not brightly lit. It took him a second to recognize her. Perhaps he had just woken up.

  “Sifu,” he blurted out as he rushed to the stairs. “Make some tea,” he barked at one of the men on the landing. He bowed at the bottom of the stairs. “You’re here. Have you heard from them?”

  “No, nothing. No word about Li Li.”

  “Then why have you come?” he asked bluntly. Then, remembering himself, he invited her upstairs. “Come, come. We can talk in the office.”

  She followed reluctantly. In one room she found a scuffed up leather sofa, a few chairs around a card table and a desk in one corner by a filing cabinet. The second room was behind a closed door. She sat at the table across from Jiang. One of the men brought in cups and a steaming kettle for tea after a few minutes.

  “You didn’t tell me she’s your niece.” He said nothing. “What will happen to her if you get her back? Will you send her home to China?”

  “There’s no one to send her to,” he grumbled.

  “She has no other family?”

  “I’m all she has.”

  The store was owned by the Sung family, he explained. Tang’s father smuggled the old man and his wife out of Guangdong shortly before the end of the Cultural Revolution. They would help him make a home for her.

  “You’ll keep her with you?”

  “Of course,” he snorted, almost offended by the question. “She’s the last of my family.”

  “Why haven’t I heard from the Koreans,” she asked.

  “You have heard from them. Who do you think attacked you that day in the parking lot of your school?”

  “You’ve been watching? Then you know they said nothing.”

  “That’s their way. Try to grab you without giving up anything. They are not honorable,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “They’ll make another move, I think. Soon.”

  “Can we take her from them before they act?”

  “How? She’s probably not even here.” Emily was puzzled and clearly annoyed.

  “What sort of trade were you planning for me then,” she snarled.

  “I’m sorry, Sifu. It’s who they are. They’ll offer a trade, but it will just be a trick to get you. They won’t hand over the girl.”

  “How would that get you any closer to Li Li?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Once they have you, then perhaps we can find her and take her back.”

  “What exactly do you mean ‘we’, Jiang?”

  “I don’t know, Sifu,” he said looking down at his shoes. “We have to find a way, together.”

  “You ask too much.”

  “I ask nothing. Tang Tian would never allow it.”

  She looked at him long and hard. He tried not to cringe, until she nodded. They understood each other… finally.

  She got back on the highway and headed south to Charlottesville and her mother.

  -back to top-

  Chapter 15

  A Family Reunion

  As she pulled up the long gravel drive to Michael’s house, Emily was forced to stop at an impromptu roadblock. Three uniformed men with side arms stood in front of a black van parked across the entrance to the estate. Two approached from either side, aiming flashlights into her truck.

  “Can I help you, Miss?” the lead man asked, in a very official sounding voice.

  Emily turned toward him, then looked over his shoulder at a camera hidden in the tree behind him. She heard a little voice barking through his earpiece.

  “She’s on the list, Jerry. Let her through. She’s family.” He started, straightened himself up and shouted to the third man to move the van out of the way.

  “I’m sorry, Miss. Go right up.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she said with a smile. “Thank you for keeping my mom safe.”

  They were all waiting outside when she pulled up to the main house: Michael, Andie and Anthony, and running out front, her mom.

  “Thank God you’re safe,” she said clinging to her daughter like she would never let her go.

  “It’s good to see you too, Mom.” The others crowded around the pair of them.

  “Welcome home, Emily,” Andie said with a big smile.

  “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?”

  “We all just want you to know that this is your home too, just like before the fire,” Michael said.

  Finally Anthony squeezed in between Yuki’s arms and tried to give Emily a big hug. She put her arms around both of them.

  “Anthony, how’d you get so big?”

  “You see how much we’ve all missed you,” her mom said.

  They managed to make their way into the house without Anthony actually letting go of her. Eventually, Andie pried him loose and showed Emily a room on the second floor she could call her own. After she got settled, Andie had the cook make her something to eat and sat with her in the kitchen.

  “I still have to keep my place in Warm Springs, you know. I can’t commute to high school from here.”

  “Don’t worry, Emily. We know all about it. Jesse filled Michael in on the details. I think he’s already installed some electronic gizmos over there. But I just want to make sure you know this is your home, even if you’re living over there for now. Michael and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Yuki popped in and out of the kitchen this whole time, apparently unable to settle down. Finally, they all sat
down on the rear patio around a fire pit. Emily told them about her friends and worked out the details of their visit. Ethan thought it might be best if she took a van to meet them in town and bring them back to the estate. Perhaps it was an unnecessary precaution, but he didn’t like giving out directions. Yuki was ecstatic about the prospect of meeting her friends, especially Danny. Michael teased her about how he was going to have a serious talk with the young man about his intentions. Anthony was desperate to get her attention the entire time. He wanted to take her on a tour of the house and grounds, and especially to show her his room. It was too dark to see the grounds. That would have to wait until the next morning.

  Before turning in, she popped into Dr. Tarleton’s room for a brief word and to offer some reassurance. Just seeing Emily brought her visible relief. Her eyes brightened like a child’s on Christmas morning. “Oh, Emily. You’re back!” she said. Without realizing it, she had thrown her arms around her in an infantile hug. She came to herself after a moment and moved reluctantly to disentangle her arms. Emily gave her a little squeeze, and let her hang on a tiny bit longer. She could feel how anxious Jan was, despite the level of security on the estate. Emily figured she must also be anxious to return to her own home and to restart life as usual.

  “I think you should stay here a little longer, for your own safety.”

  “But you’ve done so much for me already, and the Cardanos, too. I’m beginning to feel like a trespasser. And I need to get back to work.”

  “I won’t stop you, of course. But you’ll be safe here. I’ve already spoken to Michael and Andie. They’re happy to have you stay for as long as it takes. The house is huge. You’re not a burden.”

  Emily couldn’t help but sympathize with her desire for normalcy. She didn’t know how long it might take, but the doctor’s safety was directly tied to her own situation. As long as she remained a target, so did Jan. No clear way out presented itself to her mind. Her worries followed her to bed.

  No trails were visible in the woods around the estate in the morning light, though in the hillier parts there were hints of paths. These may just have been the residue of rainfall runoff or animal tracks. Whatever they were, the woods were not so dense as to prevent her from making her own way. Of course this meant she had to be careful what paths she created, or if she would allow herself to create any. Never go the same way twice, she thought.

  The shortest route to the reservoir from the back door of the main house was a little over a half mile. If she followed the contour of the terrain, it became an easy run about twice as long. The water extended in several finger-like directions so that to run along the shore would occupy about an hour of her time. The circuit brought her closer to the highway than she liked on one side, and to the grounds of a summer camp on another. She’d find a different track once the weather got warmer.

  She was back at the house by seven thirty, in time for a breakfast chat with her mother. She waited until the cook left them alone.

  “Dad told me about the genetic experiments.”

  Yuki’s face revealed nothing. That in itself spoke volumes, she thought.

  “There are people hunting me because they think I’m one of those experiments,” she said with as much equanimity as she could muster.

  Shouldn’t a mother feel something, betray some emotion on hearing news like that? Yuki sat silent, stone faced for a moment.

  “Your grandfather had a crazy, foolish idea, and some dangerous people were tricked by his enthusiasm. It all came to nothing. He took his own life and then those people came after me, after us. I was already carrying you. Your father saved me… us, and Michael protected us all this time.”

  Yuki told her about fleeing Tokyo, hiding out on Hokkaido, how she was born on Okinawa. She already knew about the early years on Hawaii and finally settling in Virginia. It felt good to hear her mother tell it again. Even so, it didn’t really answer her question.

  “These people burned down my doctor’s office. They killed her nurse. Those tests revealed something. My hormone levels are all weird. She told me.” Her face felt warm. “Mom, something is not normal about me and I think you know what it is.”

  “Sweetheart, you are exceptional. I am so proud of you, and so was your father. Never forget that. But you are not some sort of experiment. You’re just a hardworking, disciplined girl.”

  “Yeah, that’s just what Dad said,” she muttered, clearly only half satisfied.

  “I should probably talk to the doctor about those tests. It could be a mistaken result. But if it isn’t, we’ll need to see if there isn’t something we can do with your diet or supplements to control whatever’s happening.”

  It all sounded very reasonable. There was no denying it. It just wasn’t a satisfying way to think about what she’d been through over the last couple of weeks. And even if all the Chinese and the Koreans were wrong about her, the fact is they were still after her. Maybe she should just let her mom and Dr. Tarleton put their heads together and try to figure out what those tests really mean. She just hoped her mom realized the risks she was running and wasn’t keeping her in the dark.

  ~~~~~~~

  Around nine, Anthony was done with breakfast and already frisking about to show Emily around. He had been about as patient as a boy can be. She let him show her everything there was to see around the estate buildings, the cabins and the pond. After about an hour, as they were making their way up the hill from the pond, they saw Jesse in the distance, and behind him, Andie and Michael watching from the patio. Emily nodded to Jesse, patted Anthony on the head and then took off at a dead run towards the reservoir.

  “C’mon, Anthony. Let’s go exploring,” she called out over her shoulder. Andie and Michael watched from the patio. There was no way he could resist following. He took off after her, running as fast as he could go, with Jesse bringing up the rear.

  She took the direct route, which led her over a few rises. She was briefly out of his sight a couple of times. When he finally burst through some shrubs panting, he saw her standing in front of the still, dark surface of the reservoir. She was laughing at him. This was the first time he had come this far from the house.

  “What’s the matter, slowpoke,” she teased. “All this time abroad has made you slow and lazy.”

  “I don’t know,” Jesse huffed and puffed. “He seems pretty fast to me.”

  “So you’re both out of shape,” she snorted.

  They whiled away an idle hour talking and skipping stones across the water, occasionally aiming at targets in the trees. Anthony was pretty good at hitting what he aimed at, and with a big windup he could throw a rock the size of a peach almost two hundred feet.

  “That’s quite an arm you’ve got there, young man,” said Jesse.

  “Show me what you can do without the big step,” Emily said, as she demonstrated the sort of throw she had in mind.

  She barely moved her feet at all. Her right arm came from behind her ear in a short arc down to her left hip. The rock struck a large knot in a trunk about fifty feet away.

  “A quick throw is best. It doesn’t need to go more than fifty or sixty feet, as long as you hit what you’re aiming at with good velocity.”

  “Are we still playing, Emily? Or are we back in training?”

  “We’re always in training, Jesse. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.”

  Anthony loved ‘training’ with Emily. But when her friends arrived, new modes of play seized his imagination. Danny and Billy seemed content to throw a ball with him for hours, they ran like greyhounds, wrestled like orangutans. And climbing up and down on Wayne... well it was almost like flying, especially when he hoisted him up in the air. They were no end of fun. The adults watched from the patio.

  By the time the big people reassembled on the patio, Anthony was fully tired, though not for that reason ready to give up on these magical new creatures: big boys. The adult conversation dimmed his hopes for more play. Eventually his mom guided him upstairs for some un
specified chores.

  ~~~~~~~

  The talk was all about college. Where were they going? What would they study? Yuki was happy to see what kind of friends her daughter had made. Michael was pleasantly surprised to find someone taller than himself to talk with. Andie was impressed by how grown up they all seemed. A few hours later, when it was time to go, Anthony came down to say goodbye.

  “I love Emily’s friends,” he said. “When are they coming back?”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Soon,” Emily reassured him.

  The next morning Jesse went over the equipment he had installed at her apartment. Cameras watched her front landing, the rear windows, the garage and the front and back of Danny’s house. They were all concealed at some distance in the trees. No one would spot them even if they were looking for them. The encrypted feed was sent wirelessly to the security server at the estate. He handed her what looked like a cell phone.

  “I don’t use one,” she said. “I don’t want to be tracked.”

  “It’s not a phone.”

  He touched a button and the screen began cycling through the different cameras. He showed her how to pan and select, do an image capture. It all operated remotely on a separate wireless connection to the server.

  “The system’s motion activated. If it detects anything, the handset’ll vibrate and show you what it sees. Keep it charged and on you at all times. It has no GPS chip, and it only communicates with my phone. You can send and receive texts, but only with me or the server.”

  Before leaving, Emily wanted to talk to her mom one more time. The last conversation didn’t assuage any of her doubts. Her mother’s story seemed reasonable enough. But it was just so neat, she was so composed as she talked about it, and the contrast to the hectic energy of her life over the last couple of weeks was hard to reconcile with it. She looked for her in the kitchen, the dining room, the family room. She was heading to the back of the house when she heard Michael’s voice beckoning to her from a doorway on the left.