It was almost impossible to tell what a girl really looked like anymore.
She finished her water and cast a wary glance my way. “What’s your name?”
“Seriously?” I laughed.
She lifted her shoulders. “I’d guess you’re one year older than I am. Eighteen. Born in the Year of the Horse.” She nodded at the black clothes strewn on the few pieces of furniture in the room. “Dark Horse, I’ll call you.”
I almost smiled, but instead pulled out my butterfly knife and began the familiar pattern of flipping it between my fingers and spinning it in my hand. It helped me to think. She tensed, clutching her thighs. She was afraid I might take advantage of her. I wouldn’t, of course. Besides, doing it with a you girl was about as appealing as having sex with a giant clam. I imagined peeling the suit off of her body, revealing pale skin never touched by natural sunlight, and was disgusted by the thought.
“Why so Romeo?” Her throaty voice broke my reverie. She didn’t mean Romeo as in romantic; she meant Romeo as tragic.
Why so Ro?
I took in my surroundings through her eyes. I lived in an abandoned laboratory that used to belong to Yang Ming Shan University, an experimental “home” run on sustainable energy. Back when some thought we could still salvage our planet by “going green.” We might have, if enough people had cared. But they hadn’t. The rich were too rich, the poor were too poor, and the middle class — let’s be honest — were only poor people with bigger houses, driving better cars. Now that the majority of us didn’t live past forty, we cared even less. I’d been on my own since thirteen, when my mom died. I’d lost my father when I was three. He had been killed in a construction accident.
My current home consisted of just three rooms: the office, a bathroom, and this main chamber, which included the small kitchen. It held a large, round dining table with a couple of mismatched stools, the ragged turquoise and yellow sofa that was at least four decades old, a metal desk, and the wooden chair she sat in. Large windows flanked the southern wall, revealing a thicket of jungle beyond.
I tossed my knife three times, savoring the snick and snap of the blade and handles, before shrugging. “It’s easier to kidnap in black.”
Bad joke. I think her eyes actually smoldered.
I jumped up and grabbed my ancient MacBook Plus from the desk, opening it. “Put your helmet back on,” I said.
“Why?”
“You’re calling your family.”
She did as I asked, securing her helmet, then took such a deep, full breath that her breasts swelled against her suit. I pretended not to notice.
“You have one minute.” I tapped the necessary commands into my laptop and nodded to her.
Her brown eyes widened, then focused. I could follow the entire conversation from her one-sided replies.
“Ma!” Her voice changed, sounding younger, helpless.
Although her helmet had darkened slightly, I still glimpsed the tears brightening her eyes, seeing her mother’s face in the glass.
“Mei you, mei you. Wo hao.” No, he hasn’t tortured or raped me.
She clasped her hands in front of her face, fingers trembling as if she could keep her mother’s image there.
“Tell her I want three hundred million,” I said.
Her pupils dilated, then shrank, and she saw me again.
“Now!”
“Ta yao san yi,” she whispered.
“Put it in this account.” I gave her the cashcard number for the ghost account I had set up, and she recited it. “You have two hours.”
“You liang ge xiao shi,” she repeated.
Her mom began asking frantic questions.
Who is he? “Wo bu zhi dao.”
Where are you? “Bu zhi dao!”
I typed a command and severed her connection.
She leaned forward, almost falling off of the chair, disoriented. Then tugged off her helmet, throwing it to the ground. It bounced on the bamboo rug and spun twice before I snatched it up.
“Shit! Are you crazy?”
She had pulled her legs into her chest on the chair, burying her face between her knees. Her shoulders heaved. When she lifted her head, her pale face was mottled.
“What if you had broken it?” I carefully placed her helmet on the dining table.
“Are you crazy? Three hundred million?”
“What? You probably have twice that waiting for you in your trust fund.” The yous didn’t lead the lives that they did without having a few billion to spare.
“What do you want with it?” she asked, crossing her arms, assessing me.
“What do you want with it?” I countered.
We stared at each other, both our breaths coming too quickly. Hers because she was unused to our foul air. Mine because I was rattled. Damn this you girl.
“How does my family know to trust you?” she demanded. “That you won’t kill me anyway?”
“You know how it works.” There was an unspoken rule between kidnappers and their targets. The victims always paid in full, and the criminals never killed anyone. Not yet anyway. But then, no one had ever asked for three hundred million before. That wasn’t my problem. And if I were a betting man, the ransom would be in the ghost account within the hour.
“Can I use your bathroom?” she asked.
I nodded toward the door, and she disappeared within, shutting it behind her. I took the moment of privacy to pace the room and analyze my situation. I’d give her family two hours to hustle up the funds. Once cleared, I could deliver the girl back to the night market.
The shower had been running for some time, and I went to the bathroom door, which didn’t lock. “The window’s too small to crawl through, and the drop to the other side will break your legs, if not your neck,” I shouted.
The water turned off after another minute. She came out, looking exactly the same and still smelling of strawberries.
“Do you need a towel?” I asked, hiding a smirk behind the last apple I had found in the refrigerator drawer.
“No, thank you,” she said coolly, then proceeded to drink the vitapak I handed her with dainty sips. “Don’t you have any solid foods to eat?”
“Does this look like a five-star you establishment to you?” I asked. “I’ve only got liquids.” Because I couldn’t afford anything more. “Although . . .” Suddenly remembering, I opened a kitchen cabinet. “I do have two rou song bao from the bakery.”
I gave her one. “Don’t blame me if you get a stomachache,” I said, taking a big bite out of mine.
She stared at it for a long time, finally trying a nibble and chewing slowly before swallowing. Then she sat very still, as if waiting to die. I finished mine and brushed off my hands. “Well?” I was still hungry.
She took a full bite the next time, challenging me with a slant of her head. “It’s good,” she said. She glanced out the expansive windows. “Are we on Yang Ming Shan?” she asked.
“No,” I lied. “Is that the only mountain you know in Taiwan?”
“I haven’t traveled much out of Taipei.” Her face took on an expression that looked like yearning as she gazed into the trees. “Can we go outside?”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. “No.”
“I’ve never been in the mountains before. I won’t run away.”
“You’d get lost. And die.”
She walked to the giant window and pressed herself against it. I wondered what it was like, never having been in the mountains or seen the jungle so close — never to have gone outdoors without a glass bowl over my head.
“All right. Your helmet stays inside. If you’re willing to breathe the air, we can step out for a while.” It was a risk, but so was my entire plan. I was no kidnapper or thief — even if kidnapping and stealing were exactly what I was doing. I hadn’t gotten this far worrying over risks.
She turned, silhouetted by the afternoon light, and actually smiled. I was beginning to like her despite myself.
“Come on. Stay cl
ose.” I unlocked the heavy door, and it clicked open with my voice command. “I’ve got cucumbers and tomatoes to harvest anyway.”
“What?”
I grabbed her hand, feeling the softness of her skin in my own rough palm. She jerked back her arm, startled, but my grip didn’t loosen. “Do you want to see or not?” I asked.
She nodded, jaw tense, two bright spots on her cheekbones.
I led her along the edge of the house, sweeping aside giant fronds and leaves, past a dozen massive cisterns that collected rainwater. The smell of wet earth filled my senses. We picked our way through the shaded dirt path and veered into a small clearing, where the view of the sky was unobstructed. The sun burned above us, a blistering orb tinged in orange.
The sky used to be blue. This was what my research on the undernet told me. Some even displayed actual photographs from another time — a pale blue skyline punctuated by skyscrapers or in a deeper hue over a calm sea, so two shades of blue melded like some old painting by a landscape artist. My mind kept returning to this image, the crisp purity of it. Unapologetic and true.
But what could you believe from reading the undernet? Images were more easily manipulated than a you girl’s face. I didn’t know anyone who had ever seen a blue sky. It wasn’t until I had read a novel — published more than a century ago — where the author described something in sky blue that I let myself believe it, feeling wonder and joy and grief all at once.
I never did finish that book.
I suddenly felt the pressure of the you girl’s hand clutching mine. Her flushed face was tilted up, eyes squinted against the dull sunlight. She coughed into her sleeve, and when she finally stopped, her breaths came quick and shallow. It was late afternoon, the summer day’s humid heat oppressive.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She turned to me, eyes gleaming, and said, “I’ve never seen the sky like this before.”
“You mean without your helmet?”
“And so wide. It’s always a dirty brown over Taipei,” she said.
I led her into my small garden. Cucumbers dangled from a bamboo trellis I had made, nestled within their giant dark-green leaves. We stepped between the tomato plants, their fruits small and marred. I stooped down, and she crouched with me as I selected a tomato, dusting it off then taking a bite. More tangy than sweet. She stared as if I had plucked a rat off the ground and eaten that instead.
“The sky used to be blue,” I said after I finished the tomato.
“That’s what my grandfather says.”
Grandfather. I’d never met my grandparents, didn’t even know their names. They were long dead before I was born.
“He’s seen it, then?” I tried to keep my voice from rising. “With his own eyes?”
“He thinks so. But he was very young.” She ran her fingertips over the ridges and bumps of an orange tomato. “He says it feels like a dream when he remembers it.”
Sweat beaded at her temples, and there was a sheen of perspiration above her upper lip. I swiped my arm across my forehead. “I can’t believe how hot it gets,” she said, licking her mouth.
I mirrored her without thinking, tasting the salt on my tongue. “This is what summers are like in Taiwan when you’re not wearing an air-conditioned suit,” I replied, and grabbed the woven basket near my feet.
“I’ll help you,” she said.
We spent the next twenty minutes in silence, filling the basket with imperfect tomatoes and cucumbers. The mountain breeze rustled the leaves around us, and the birds sang deep within the jungle’s thicket. When we were done, the you girl’s lips were leeched of color, and wisps of black hair that had escaped from her ponytail clung to her damp neck.
Her breaths still came too fast, like a frightened hare’s. “I think we should go back inside,” I said, lifting the basket.
She rose with me. “I want to try one.”
I tilted the basket, and her hand grazed over the tomatoes and cucumbers, touching them as if they were gems instead of meager crops. She finally selected an oblong tomato, redder than the others, and brushed a thumb over its skin before taking a bite. She immediately made a face and shuddered.
I laughed. “No good?”
“It’s more sour than I’ve ever tasted.”
No doubt she’d only ever had perfectly grown specimens. We walked back toward the house, and she appeared thoughtful as she finished the fruit. “I like that it tastes . . . earthy,” she finally said. I saw her eyes sweep our surroundings as we approached the front of the lab.
The door unlocked with my voice, and we stepped back inside the relative coolness of the building. I set the basket on the dining table and nodded at her helmet beside it. “You should put it back on.”
“Later,” she murmured, and walked back toward the windows, gazing outward.
I sat on a stool and tapped a few quick commands into my laptop. The funds had transferred in full. I let out a breath, releasing the tension I had held ever since stealing this you girl. Three hundred million had been a gamble, but a gamble worth taking. It was enough for me to suit up as a you boy and pretend to be one of them, to infiltrate their closed and elite society. It would be a start.
I wanted blue skies again.
“What are you going to do with the money?” She turned, her hands clasped in front of her.
I jumped at the sound of her voice and shut the MacBook. “I don’t know. Redecorate.” She gave me a leveled look, and I broke away first, taking in the chamber I had called home for the past year. I’d have to leave immediately. I would miss this place.
“I’d suggest a new wardrobe first, Dark Horse.”
I laughed despite myself. “What’s your name then?”
“Seriously?” She raised her eyebrows and smiled.
I shrugged. “What does it matter now?” I did like her. I wanted to know.
“Dai Yu,” she replied.
“From the novel?”
Her smile widened in surprise, and it made her truly beautiful. “You’ve read it?”
I read voraciously, most often from the undernet, but had found an actual copy of Dream of the Red Chamber stuffed and forgotten in the desk drawer of a junk shop. The owner had given it to me for free, waving me off without a glance. Books weren’t worth the paper they were printed on.
“You don’t look the tragic heroine to me,” I replied.
“Don’t I?” She had been leaning against the glass and straightened now, squaring her shoulders. But not before I caught a glimpse of wistfulness in her eyes. Of longing. What more could a you girl possibly want when she already had everything?
“We better go,” I said. “I need to return you to your family, and it’ll be dark soon.”
Dai Yu lifted her helmet and adjusted her collar before fitting it over her head. And in an instant she was something other to me, something less human. It was hard to believe there was an almost-normal girl beneath the glass. A smart one with a sense of humor.
“I’ll have to give you the sleep spell again,” I said apologetically.
“No. Blindfold me if you have to.”
“I can’t risk it. I’ve added something so you’ll forget.” I could see her eyes widen in panic, even with her helmet on. “Not everything. Just this . . . these past few days.”
She shook her head. “Please don’t.”
But I took her hand, was already pulling her to the door. “It’s safer for us both if you didn’t remember anything. Trust me.” I felt stupid the moment I uttered the last words.
We were out in the muggy humidity of the late afternoon again. It would take a few hours at least to walk to the mountain’s base, and by then night would have fallen. Even if I was abandoning the lab, I still couldn’t risk her remembering this place, remembering me.
The sunlight glinted off her helmet, and I was glad I couldn’t see her features clearly as I tugged her to me. She resisted, but I was stronger. So she stepped forward instead, bunching the fabric of my shirt in on
e hand.
“But I want to remember,” she said.
I grabbed her wrist, stuck the syringe into her open palm. Its hiss seemed too loud to my ears. “We all do,” I whispered and caught her as she fell.
We all do.
What Arms to Hold Us
by Rajan Khanna
If gollies had ears, Ravi might have heard the other driver coming straight at him. Instead, the other golly’s metal claw slammed into his golly’s body, the impact registering through his mental link. In panic, he lashed out with his own golly’s arm, throwing the other machine clear and deeper into the mine.
Diverse Energies Page 20