Synchronicity Trilogy Omnibus

by Michael McCloskey

  He ripped the rags of her shirt apart beneath the army jacket. His free hand found her breasts and roughly massaged them while he kissed her over and over. Xinmei struggled to breathe through her fear. Her whole body trembled and she felt her strength failing her. She cursed the whole world. Shouldn’t her adrenaline be making her stronger? She was so terrified she could hardly move.

  Still holding her by the hair, he guided her head lower down his stomach and toward his groin. Xinmei didn’t strain against him. She took hold of the razor blade in her right hand and let him move her head lower.

  It was time to fight back. The decision cleared her mind and she shook off her paralysis.

  She released his pants fastener. The man shrugged out of his trousers, still guiding her head with an iron grip on her hair. As soon as he lay exposed before her, she lashed out with the razor. Bright blood splattered out from the wound.

  The man made an odd sound above her and hesitated. She realized the blade might be so sharp that it caused little immediate pain. He hadn’t yet understood what was happening. She used the last second before he reacted to slash deeply across the fold in his leg, trying to open the artery there.

  Red Shirt threw her off violently, painfully wrenching her neck with his hold on her hair before launching her across the metal floor.

  “Oh my god, you bitch!” Red Shirt roared, falling forward off the bunk. He started to scream.

  Xinmei gained her feet quickly. Her heart threatened to burst under an assault of fear and adrenaline. Her hands found the tank she had eyed earlier and grabbed it.

  Red Shirt sat screaming on the floor, holding his hands between his legs. A pool of bright arterial blood lay around his knees. Xinmei lifted the tank with all her strength and sent it down on his head. The screams stopped.

  Xinmei staggered to the other side of the tiny cabin and retched. She listened to her ragged gasps and wails in the tiny space as if hearing them coming from someone else far away. Slowly, her breathing and her cries slowed until she regained control of herself.

  There is no obstacle now. Only your own fear and uncertainty, she told herself. She wanted to figure out how to take the submarine back home.

  Feng wouldn’t give up. He never gives up. He just makes it happen.

  She stood and looked over the controls. She refused to look back at the bunk and the body there. Finally she found the surfacing mechanism and activated it. The machine started to rise in the water. Xinmei purposefully halted the rise just as the machine reached the surface. She estimated that only the hatch had come out of the water.

  She went to the hatch and opened it. Some water splashed past the lip. Perfect. She quickly climbed out.

  The water outside was warm. She didn’t really know how far she’d traveled, but she felt thankful for the climate. The submersible bobbed lightly at its anchor. A rocky cliff face rose from the water nearby.

  The next wave brought more water pouring over the edge of the open hatch. The entire submersible came closer to the rocks with every wave. Xinmei didn’t waste any more time. She jumped away hard and started to swim away from the submarine.

  Xinmei became tired very quickly. She wasn’t much of a swimmer, and the waterlogged army jacket dampened her every stroke. Breathing heavily, she turned over onto her back and shed the jacket. She simply floated on her back, kicking slowly, and concentrated on keeping her distance from the wall of rock. Even though the waves weren’t gigantic, she didn’t want to take the chance of getting torn open on the rock.

  When she got into the cove, she was exhausted. She crawled up on to a narrow beach near the entrance, far from the dock. She dropped to her knees there and caught her breath, thankful to be back on land.

  I need to look like I was dropped off on the pier, though, she thought.

  Reluctantly, Xinmei slogged back into the water and swam for the pier. She didn’t see anyone near the pier or the buildings close to the water. She became tired again very quickly, but she managed to float out to the pier. She found a rusty ladder and hauled herself up slowly. Her fatigue became overwhelming. She barely succeeded at climbing to the wooden ramp above, then collapsed onto it.

  She spent the next several minutes resting, until she heard a woman’s voice call out. Xinmei saw it was the same one who Red Shirt had talked with before.

  “Stop right there. Where’s Christos? Christos zai na’er?” demanded the woman in English then Chinese. She leveled her rifle at Xinmei.

  Xinmei shrugged and shook her head. She held her hands out.

  “Christos zai na’er? Fa sheng shenme shi le?”

  “He change mind,” she said in broken English.

  “Why? What did he say? Where is he? Zai na’er?”

  “Left. He... hoped get high price. Then changed mind, left me. Give to you,” Xinmei said. Her face felt hot. She realized she might have gotten a mild sunburn on the long swim. Would the woman notice it?

  “Follow me,” the woman said, grabbing Xinmei by the rags on her back.

  They walked down the pier out toward where the submersible had left.

  “That stupid shit had better not have just dumped you and left. Jesus, he’s stupid,” she said. As they approached the berth site, the woman could see the submarine wasn’t there.

  “Jesus, what does he expect us to do? I’ll have to just add you in as another transaction. Stupid ass. I’m going to recommend we don’t work with that stupid ass anymore. He was just trying to get a better price on you, then realized he’s stuck with us or nothing. He’s too stupid to find any other contacts and VG owns all the...”

  Her diatribe slipped away as they walked back down the pier. Xinmei almost staggered off to fall back into the water. She struggled to walk at the pace of her new captor.

  The woman took Xinmei into a stone building at the edge of the trees. She gave Xinmei some plain white pants, underwear, and a shirt. Xinmei happily tossed aside her old rags and started to put the white clothes on. She didn’t feel any embarrassment at this point about being naked in front of the stranger.

  I’m getting used to being a slave, she thought. Except for that part where I just killed my master.

  “I’ll show you up to the kitchen and you can have a small meal,” the woman said. “We’ll feed you more later. It’ll be for the best if you don’t eat too much too fast,” she said.

  The woman with the rifle led Xinmei up a long series of concrete steps to the giant house hidden farther up the hill. The massive structure had been landscaped with an eye towards blending in with the many trees, she decided.

  They walked through a set of windowed double doors and into a large, open kitchen. The woman retrieved a wrapped sandwich for Xinmei and let her eat it with a cup of water. Then the woman took her up a flight of wide stairs to a room three times the size of her dorm room at college.

  “Sleep here. Someone will come in the morning and get you checked out,” the woman said. Then she turned and left.

  Xinmei looked around. The room had a toilet but no shower. There was only a bed, a dresser, and a single chair. The dresser contained more of the loose fitting white clothes. Xinmei thought about peeking out her door, but decided that her situation was as good as could be expected. She crawled into her bed and fell instantly asleep.

  There was a knock on her door. Xinmei rose into a sitting position in the bed.

  A man came in. He was a Westerner, with light hair and blue eyes. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. He flashed her a smile.

  “I’m Frank,” he said in Mandarin. “I’m in charge of processing you here.”

  Xinmei grabbed her shirt were she’d left it by the bed and pulled it on. Frank pulled her only chair a bit closer to the bed and sat down. Xinmei looked at the floor.

  “I hope you feel a bit more at home now, although this place is only a stepping stone. You and I are going to work on getting you a job somewhere. It’ll be much better from now on than you’ve experienced with the gangs, I promise,” he said in a fatherly
tone.

  Xinmei nodded.

  “So we have a busy day today,” he continued. “We have to see what kind of job you’d be suited for. We also have some doctors to look you over and make sure everything’s fine. I’ll make sure all your paperwork is in order, and hopefully we can zero in on where you’ll be headed.”

  Frank led Xinmei to a women’s bathroom and told her to take a shower. He hovered around the door but didn’t follow her into the room. There were four shower stalls. One of the stalls already had someone in the shower.

  Xinmei thoroughly enjoyed her first shower in several days. When she came out, Frank led her into a plain meeting room. He gave her a tablet and a stylus.

  “This device will ask you a series of questions. We’re going to take a lot of tests, with a small break in between each one.”

  Xinmei pretended to clumsily acquaint herself with the stylus and the tablet. She purposefully held the stylus backwards and forced Frank to correct her. He showed her the correct way to hold the tablet, coming uncomfortably close. He allowed his face to brush her hair and his hand lay heavily on her shoulder, then slid down over her arm.

  For the next few hours, Xinmei was tested. The first tests were a series of nonverbal IQ tests. Xinmei allowed herself to do well, since they weren’t directly related to education.

  Every time she finished a test, Frank gave her some verbal encouragement and came very near to her to set up the next test. He liked to put his hands on her, although he always spoke softly and didn’t touch her any place blatantly inappropriate.

  She took a long English test, in which she allowed herself to show about half of her actual skill. There was a French test where it was easy not to pretend, since she hadn’t studied any French anyway.

  Frank brought her some lunch on a tray, which Xinmei attacked eagerly. For a while, the pleasure of having enough food put her in a better mood. Then Frank moved in to set up the next test. Xinmei became uncomfortable again. She wished Feng could be there to fend the man off, but of course he was so very far away.

  The last tablet program was a general knowledge test, with a myriad of practical questions about everyday things like how cars worked, or how to solve simple problems with levers, or what kind of approach to take to clean things. None of it even approached her level of understanding in many areas, so Xinmei didn’t feel like she went too far when she let herself answer most of them correctly.

  After Frank entered some notes on her test times, he took her to a doctor’s office. A nurse took her vitals and put her into an examination room. The doctor arrived promptly. It was a thin man who looked vaguely Asian, but perhaps had mixed blood. He had dark hair with a big Western nose but somewhat Asian eyes.

  The doctor examined her without speaking. He used a series of medical devices that were similar to their Eastern counterparts. The man seemed calm and thorough. He acted professionally and didn’t make her feel like a slave. He took some blood samples and then left.

  Xinmei sat in the exam room for another half hour. No one offered her her clothes back, so she sat and snooped around, poking through the medical gear. She didn’t dare try and log into the computer.

  A nurse came in and led Xinmei to another room with a single bare white wall. A camera mounted on the ceiling faced the wall, flanked by a pair of powerful lights.

  A man with dark hair rose from his desk and pointed at the wall. The man looked Middle Eastern to Xinmei, somewhat short with dark pocked skin.

  Xinmei walked over to the wall.

  The man showed her a large glossy picture of a naked woman in two frames. The left half of the picture showed her standing straight with her arms at her sides. The right frame of the picture had the same woman in profile. The man put his hands on Xinmei’s shoulders and positioned her against the wall.

  He stood and pulled his shoulders back in an exaggerated motion. Xinmei squared her shoulders. The man nodded and turned away. As soon as he stepped out of the area, the camera emitted a series of clicks. The man motioned to her from his desk, telling her to turn to one side. Xinmei turned profile to the camera. The man walked over to the corner so she could observe him without turning her head. Once again, he squared his shoulders, this time thrusting his chest forward. Xinmei did the same. The camera emitted its clicks again. The man gave her a thumbs-up signal.

  “Hen piao liang,” he said in broken Mandarin. Very beautiful.

  She turned back straight and waited uncertainly with her arms folded over her breasts. Suddenly she noticed Frank had come into the room.

  “That should do it,” he said, smiling. Xinmei saw his eyes rove briefly over her body. “Let me walk you back to your room,” he said pleasantly.

  Xinmei noticed that Frank made no move to offer her any clothes or covering. They walked through the main floor, thankfully encountering only a few other people. When they got to her quarters, Frank followed her in and closed the door.

  “You’ve done very well,” Frank said. “I think you have a bright future. You’re lucky to have picked up some English. Sit down there on the bed for me, please.”

  Xinmei looked for some clothing but there wasn’t anything out on her dresser or her bed. She sat down on the bed and stared down at Frank’s feet.

  “I want to see what other skills you’ve acquired,” Frank said. He walked over to the bed and stood in front of her.

  “I know the gangs are very hard on a girl. I’m not asking much, though,” he said, loosening his pants.

  Xinmei stared at him as he opened his fly and released his little brother. He stood mere inches from her.

  “Go ahead, you know what to do,” he said softly.

  Xinmei froze. She could hardly attack Frank here and expect to get to VG. Yet she didn’t want to touch the repulsive man, didn’t want to do anything for him. If she showed that she hadn’t really been broken, then maybe he wouldn’t allow her to move forward to her assignment at a big company.

  There was a knock on the door. Frank recovered himself frantically, turning away from the opening door. It was the nurse.

  “I’ve brought a treatment for venereal disease,” the nurse said, indicating a medical sprayer in her hand.

  “Oh, er, thank you nurse,” Frank said, then walked hurriedly out of the room.

  The nurse stepped up and delivered the sprayer contents into Xinmei’s arm.

  The nurse leaned closer and whispered in Mandarin. “Don’t worry. I just told him that to keep him away from you.”

  Xinmei’s eyes shot up and locked with the nurse.

  “Xie xie,” Xinmei thanked her.

  The nurse patted her on the shoulder and smiled.

  “There are more clothes in that dresser,” she said. Then the nurse walked out.

  Once alone in her room, Xinmei dressed herself hurriedly, then crawled into the bed and hid under the covers. She made the mistake of starting to think about Feng and her college days. A wave of self-pity rose in her as she considered everything that had happened in the last few days.

  I was so arrogant. All the college boys were gentlemen and I toyed with them. Each one of them was better than these men I’ve met since. I had so much before that I didn’t appreciate.

  Xinmei wept herself to sleep, thinking of how she’d gone so horribly wrong that day she’d broken into her professor’s files. She felt lost to her home, and lost to Feng, wherever he was. Sleep provided her sweet relief from her misery.

  ***

  A day later, Xinmei was summoned to Frank’s office by a housemaid. When she arrived, Frank was waiting for her behind a small desk. The office was small and clean. Xinmei wondered why the West still seemed attached to their offices when the adoption of the intracranial link made them mostly obsolete.

  But the Chinese sometimes hold onto some of their traditions a bit too strongly as well, she thought.

  “Good news. Vineaux Genomix has taken over your contract,” he said with a pleasant smile.

  Xinmei said nothing. What he really
meant was, Vineaux Genomix owned her now.

  “Can you understand me?” he asked.

  Xinmei nodded.

  “Good. There’s a few monitors in the wall of the common room. You’ll be able to continue your English and French studies there. Uh, well, says here you would be continuing English and starting French. That’s okay.”

  The man’s eyes looked down at the table as he referred to something in his PV.

  “I think you’ll like it,” he said. “VG is very kind to its workers. Plenty of food, luxurious housing, and regular healthcare. Your workload varies quite a bit depending on your guest at the time, but for all that, it’s worth a bit of work, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Xinmei nodded to appease him.

  “Okay. You study hard. In a couple days, you’ll be scheduled for a shuttle flight to a VG space station, where you’ll serve out your contract. In ten years, you’ll be released to one of several countries back here on Earth, your choice, with a considerable support boost to 1.5 subsistence, as defined locally.”

  Xinmei stared at him in shock.

  “Leave Earth?” she said.

  “Yes. It’s a very exciting post. You’ll be on one of the most luxurious space habitats ever made. Trust me, you’ll love it.”

  Three

  The Ascending Dragon departed Heavenly Fortress with her complement of brand new dog machines. The crew was told that the next destination was a week away, the Grand China station, where more wargames would be held. It seemed to Feng that the entire maiden voyage of the new ship would be nothing but a different training exercise at every station in the system. He didn’t mind, though, as long as each step moved the ship that much closer to active duty instead of the shakedown cruise they seemed to be on.

  Feng contented himself to his studies, although he was unhappy to receive his first official out-of-contact message when he tried to leave a dispatch for Sun Xinmei.

  I’ll have to be satisfied with seeing her only in my VR time, he thought.