The Prospects (Short Story): Above the Stars

by Daniel Halayko

  “Idiots put it right by the fan,” said Chak. “Wind from the sea sent it all over the city. That’s how I smelled it.”

  Alex said, “You sell it to people?”

  The man nodded. “Sell to people who sell to people. They say give great high.”

  “But you haven’t tried it?” asked Chak.

  “I sell. Told sell for big money.”

  “Who told you?”

  “New man. Not meet him before.”

  Chak sniffed. “I smell something strange. What else did you get?”

  The man gulped.

  Chak slid the knife’s edge against his skin.

  “Tell him,” said Max. “Someone else is after you. We’re the only ones who can keep you alive.”

  Alex went to a table. A knife stuck out half-buried in the steel. He grabbed the handle and pushed. The blade cut through the steel like it was butter.

  Alex pulled the knife out. It was lighter than a feather. The curved blade was the off-white color of an animal’s claw. It felt as light as a fingernail, but it showed no signs of wear from cutting through metal.

  The man said, “Behind tiger.”

  “What could be so valuable you keep it behind a white tiger’s skin?” Max pulled down the tiger pelt.

  His jaw dropped when he saw the scaly sheet that sparkled like a thousand effervescent gems packed tightly together underneath. A gentle tap of his fingertip sent a small wave through it, making everything shine a little brighter as the ripple past through. “It’s so beautiful.”

  Alex also stared in fascination until gunshots and screams of “Stop! Police!” and “Incoming metahuman!” echoed from the entrance.

  “Tranh Long?” The man in the corner’s lips barely moved.

  Max tensed. “Who?”

  “In Chinese,” said Chak, “that’s Qing Long.”

  A hand threw the sliding door back with enough force to tear it off its rollers and send it crashing to the floor. A tall shaven-headed man who seemed too thin to muster that much strength strode into the warehouse. The dark blue shiny suit he wore had the cut and fabric of something from an expensive design collection, and the black shirt underneath had white buttons that sparkled like diamonds.

  But what Alex really noticed were his eyes. Even from far away and with the sunlight at Qing Long’s back, they shone like two stars against a field of black.

  A policeman raised his baton. Without even looking, Qing Long caught his elbow and threw him across the warehouse floor with one arm. He landed on the concrete floor with a loud crack.

  Another officer drew his pistol and fired. Black holes appeared in Qing Long’s suit, but Qing Long didn’t even flinch. The cop quivered as Qing Long’s star-like eyes focused on him.

  “Officers,” yelled Alex, “Fall back. Run!”

  The officers and the Chinese men almost tripped over each other on the way out. The leathery man turned white with terror. The man with a cut hand scrambled to his feet and threw his shoulder against a poster. The plaster wall around it cracked.

  Qing Long took fluid strides towards them.

  Max drew his gun.

  “Put it away,” said Alex. “We can’t fight him.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “Give him whatever he wants.”

  “That’s not exactly heroic.”

  “We need to treat this thing like a force of nature.”

  Max looked at his gun.

  “Give it up, Dirty Harry,” said Alex. “That’d be as stupid as shooting a tornado.”

  Qing Long entered the room. His eyes went past Max to the sparkling pelt on the wall. His perfectly straight teeth clenched. His growl had the depth of distant thunder.

  Max pointed his pistol at Qing Long. “Put your hands …”

  Qing Long grabbed Max’s wrist and shoulder and pulled in opposite directions. The pops of joints separating was louder than Max’s scream.

  Chak drew his knife and leapt onto Qing Long. He wrapped himself around Qing Long’s head and slashed furiously while screeching. Shreds of cloth flew off of Qing Long. No blood showed against his golden skin.

  Qing Long released Max. Chak dropped to the ground and rammed into the back of Qing Long’s knee. Qing Long’s leg didn’t buckle.

  The wounded man slammed against the wall again. This time it gave away. Sunlight flooded the room. He ran out. The leathery man followed but tripped over the bottom of the hole.

  Chak somersaulted away from Qing Long. “Agent, get Max out of here!”

  Qing Long grabbed Chak. Chak slashed Qing Long face. He didn’t leave a scratch.

  Chak wriggled in Qing Long’s arms. “Don’t worry about me! Go!”

  Alex looked at the table. He saw the curved knives. He grabbed one and hurled it at Qing Long’s back.

  Never having thrown a knife before, Alex had no idea how to compensate for its practically non-existent weight. By pure luck, the spinning blade hit Qing Long’s shoulder. The blade sliced through the few remnants of cloth and into his golden skin.

  Qing Long froze. Black blood flowed from the wound.

  Alex grabbed the second knife.

  Qing Long threw Chak through a window and faced Alex.

  Only Alex’s experiences with fighting supervillains allowed him to keep enough presence of mind to point the knife at Qing Long without his hands shaking. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I won’t let you hurt anyone.”

  Qing Long pulled the knife from his shoulder. He looked at it, looked at the sparkling pelt, and looked at Alex with narrowed star-like eyes.

  “Tell me what you want.” Alex grabbed the MacGuffin. “Is it this? Take it.” He threw the box at Qing Long’s feet. He pointed to the pelt. “Take that. Take anything.”

  The leathery man limped to his feet.

  In a blur of motion Qing Long dashed through the hole in the wall, grabbed the leathery man, and bolted away.

  Instead of giving chase, Alex ran to Max’s side. “Told you to put the gun away. How’s your arm?”

  “Hurts like hell.”

  Alex tapped Max’s elbow. “I’ll bet every joint is dislocated.” He yelled to the policemen. “Get an ambulance.”

  Max’s face contorted in agony as he adjusted his arm. “That thing … Chak couldn’t hurt it.”

  Alex looked at the broken window. “Chak? Where are you?”

  From outside came his gravelly voice. “Over here.”

  Chak, his clothes shredded and bloodied but the scratches underneath visibly closing, came back in through the hole in the wall. He had the man with a wounded hand slung over his shoulder and threw him on the ground.

  “Không làm tổn thương tôi,” the man said.

  Chak drew a knife.

  “Không làm tổn thương tôi!” the man screamed.

  “He doesn’t speak English,” said Chak. “Max, a little help.”

  “That’s Vietnamese,” said Max. “We can call the precinct for a translator.”

  “No time. Agent, your phone.” Chak handed him a scrap of napkin with a phone number on it.

  Alex dialed the number. After two rings Lam’s voice said, “I don’t recognize your number. You have two seconds to convince me not to hang up.”

  Chak snatched the phone. “Lam, baby, big favor to ask of you. You at home? Great. Is your grandma around? Well, this is a bit more important than her soap operas. We need a translator, fast.”

  Alex took off his tie. He pointed to the man’s wounded hand and mimed bandaging his own hand.

  The man timidly extended his hand. Alex gently wrapped it.

  “Our translator’s ready. How do I put this on speakerphone?”

  Alex pressed a button.

  “First question,” said Alex. “Who is this guy?”

  The old woman’s voice on the phone said something in Vietnamese. The man replied. The woman said, “He name Phuc. Say he importer, exporter.”

  Alex said, “Ask what he knows about the new drug.”


  The woman sounded scared. “Drug?”

  In the background Lam said, “It’s okay, ba. He’s a government agent. I saw his badge.”

  The woman said something, the man said something, and the woman said, “Not know much. Chinese man sell. Say sell for high price.”

  “What did he look like?” asked Alex.

  After a quick exchange, Lam’s grandmother said, “Thin face, bald top but long hair in back.”

  Chak asked, “Does he know how to get in touch with ‘em?”

  The exchange of many words ended with Cam’s grandmother saying, “He say man visit him. He come in morning. Take money.”

  Alex said, “Can he think of anything else …”

  Lam interrupted. “The commercials are over. Grandma can be a real force of nature when anything gets between her and her soap operas.”

  Chak said, “Lam, you saved our bacon. And while you’re on the line, Agent O’Farrell has something he wants to say.” He thrust the phone at Alex.

  “What are you doing?” asked Alex.

  Chak whispered, “She came through after you were mean to her. Man up.”

  Alex took the phone. “Lam, I’m sorry about earlier. I was rude.”

  “Ah, sounds like you’re going through a tough time. I shouldn’t have needled you. Now go catch the bad guys.” She hung up.

  Chak buried his face into the sparkling pelt on the wall and sniffed deeply. “Think I got a scent of the boat and the men who held this. It ain’t much, but it’s a direction.”

  Max winced as he tenderly touched his limp right arm. “You’ll have to go without me.”

  Alex put his phone in one jacket pocket and the curved knife in another. “We’ll track them down and give you a call. Get someone to put all legally recognized superheroes on notice. Don’t bother looking for Qing Long. At this point we can’t stop him, but we can save his targets if we find them first.”

  “Detective, get Phuc here somewhere airtight,” said Chak. “Agent, it’s you and me. Let’s wrap this case up.”

  Alex followed Chak through the docks to the marina. Every time the wind shifted Chak sniffed. “No good. All I’m getting is diesel fumes.”

  “They could be in the city.”

  “If they were, that pelt would smell like rain and fresh coffee, the way everything in Seattle smells. But it smelled like salt and old fish with a hint of brackish marsh. It never left these docks.”

  Alex checked his phone’s screen. “Got a text from the cops. The superheroes are getting suited. Let’s get their help for the search.”

  “They don’t know what to look for.”

  “Neither do we.”

  “I gotta find ‘em before Qing Long does. He’ll tear them apart.”

  “He’ll probably find them first. Who knows how something with eyes like that sees?”

  “No. Qing Long must be going by scent too. Those idiot smugglers left the MacGuffin near a window and the wind shifted to blow into the city. That’s how I found ‘em, and he showed up minutes later. If I can’t smell ‘em, he can’t either, and I doubt the smuggler he grabbed knew any more than Phuc.”

  “What if we run into Qing Long?”

  “Hope he’s only man-sized. He can make himself as small as a silkworm or as large as the universe.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what Lam said after you left. Asian dragons aren’t fire-breathing lizards who steal princesses. They bring fortune and prosperity if treated right, but destroy everything in their path when angry.”

  “You can’t be serious. It’s a story you heard from a …” Alex considered what to say without starting another fight, “… woman you just met.”

  “Myths are more real than you know. I used to be one.”

  “You’re a metahuman. So is Qing Long. There are hundreds of them in North America, thousands throughout the world.”

  “Buddy, nothin’ about that thing is human. He smells like a used spacesuit, that gas and barbecue smell of burned stellar gasses. Could be he’s made of stars.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think he’s a galaxy.”

  Chak pointed to the ocean. “Ever think about the fish down there? They think they have it all sorted out. They stay in their schools, having babies and moving away from whatever eats ‘em. They look up and all they see is what’s reflected on waves. Some find out that the only thing above is cold endlessness where they can’t breathe. Do you think they understand there are things that live in that?”

  “They’re fish. They don’t understand anything.”

  “Which doesn’t keep us from eating ‘em. How can we know there aren’t things above us, beyond the cold endless sparkling lights where we can’t breathe? Will not understanding ‘em keep ‘em from tearing us apart?”

  “Are you talking about aliens, like the Skreaks?”

  “Forget the Skreaks. They want this world without us in it. They got technology, we got diseases. It’s like if the First Nations had smallpox instead of the white man. We can understand that. I’m talking about …” Chak sniffed.

  “Got a scent?”

  “Something distinct. The brackish stink everything that goes through Hong Kong’s harbor gets mixed with the star scent.” He ran down the docks.

  Alex ran after him. His imitation leather dress shoes squeaked with each step.

  Chak dropped to all fours and sniffed. “Thought it was here.” He took a few steps. “Got it again. Why is it moving?”

  Panting, Alex pointed between the two trawlers in front of them at an orange-hulled fishing boat. Over the deck’s railing was the top-half of a Chinese man whose long hair blew in the wind as his bald head shone in the diffused sunlight.

  “No,” said Chak, “they’re getting away!”

  “We’ll call the Pacific Patrol. They’ll …”

  “This is personal.” Chak ran down the pier. He leapt onto a moored tugboat and ran down the deck. He reached the stern as the fishing boat passed it.

  Alex barely reached the boat before Chak jumped with a knife in his teeth. He caught the top deck’s railing and threw himself over the side.

  “You little psycho.” Alex almost slipped when he ran across the tugboat. He heard screams, gunshots, and Chak’s high-pitched battle cry from the fishing boat’s deck. His instantly pictured Chak cutting everyone around him to pieces.

  He couldn’t let that happen. He had to save lives, even criminal lives.

  Alex leapt with his arms flailing. His fingertips barely caught a closed porthole’s lip. His feet dangled in the chilly waves, which were strong enough to tear his shoes off. He grit his teeth but couldn’t get enough of a grip to pull himself up.

  He reached into his jacket pocket. The curved knife slashed through the fabric as he drew it. He stabbed the hull. The smell of rust and rotten eggs gusted from the gash it cut through the steel.

  Alex dug his fingers into the hole. The jagged metal cut his fingers. He got his toes into the porthole, cut another handhold, and pulled himself up to the deck’s railing.

  On the other side of the deck, Chak simultaneously fought several Chinese men armed with crowbars, wrenches, and whatever other weapons they could improvise. They all bled from deep cuts in their ragged clothes. Chak dropped into a combat stance with a knife in each hand. “Get some!”

  Alex drew his pistol and fired into the air. “Freeze. MAB. Nobody move. Put your …”

  Something heavy thudded into the back of Alex’s head. His ears rang so much he couldn’t put up much any resistance when someone yanked his pistol out of his fingers and jammed it against the side of his head.

  Alex’s vision slowly returned as he was yanked to his feet. The balding long-haired Chinese man on the other side kept the pistol pointed in his face. “Hands up, gwielo.”

  Alex raised his hands.

  The long-haired man said to Chak. “Stop or he die.”

  Chak dropped his knives. He tilted his head so his hat covered his eyes.

  “Agent, yes?�
�� said the long-haired man. He took the handcuffs from Alex’s belt, took the curved knife from Alex’s hand, and cuffed his wrists with the chain around the rail. “Any heroes come near, you die.”

  “Don’t worry about the heroes. Qing Long is coming for you.”

  The long-haired man tucked the curved knife into his belt and spoke in Cantonese to the crew. They laughed.

  “Qing Long just legend,” said the long-haired man. “What come for us, too slow. Qing Long can see all. This man not find us in Hong Kong. Not find us in Vancouver. Not find us ever.”

  “Don’t think it’s that easy,” said Chak.

  The long-haired man looked Chak over. “I learn English from comic book. You superhero. De Novo team member. You heal fast, yes or no?”

  “At least you didn’t call me short.”

  “Can you heal from no air? Can you heal from drown?”

  Chak shrugged. “Never tried it.”

  “We try.” He shouted something in Cantonese. The other sailors grabbed every rope, cable, and chain on the deck and wrapped them around Chak. The long-haired man took Chak’s hat and put it on his own head.

  Alex wanted to buy time before they threw Chak over the side. He yelled to the long-haired man, “How do you say ‘really stupid’ in Chinese? Because that describes you.”

  The long-haired man glared at Alex.

  “You sell a drug that kills its users. When word gets out, no one will buy it again.”

  “Rich junkies want best new thing. First time, give great high. Mind becomes big as universe. Second time, good as first, but take too soon, die. Third time, forth time … no one live past fifth time. We have money. We gone. Dealers stay, they take blame. Not stupid.”

  “Killing Chak is stupid. He’s teamed up with almost every hero at some point. They’ll come after you.”

  “They not know. We make last sale, be richest men in China.” The long-haired man scanned the horizon. “No one come. No one follow. We kill you so you not talk.”

  He yelled in Cantonese. The sailors nodded. Four of them picked up the bound Chak and lifted him.

  “Don’t do this,” said Alex.

  “You, no tell me what do,” said the long-haired man.

  The boat came to a jarring stop. The shock made everyone lurch. The four men holding Chak dropped him.