“Hey, I’m talking to you,” the man said.
Trevor turned his shoulders to face the Bruce Lee wannabe.
“I’m sorry, Mister…?”
“Lee,” the man said, hands on his hips, elbows poking out like spear tips.
“Mr. Lee.” Trevor laughed in spite of himself. “As you-”
“Is something funny?”
“Well it’s just that you…” He waved his hand, pointing out the man’s physique. “And with that name…” He slurred his words stronger than before. “As you can see, I’m already seated here.”
An employee wearing a uniform reminiscent of traditional Malaysian dress passed a few meters behind the dealer.
“Waitress!” Trevor called to her. She was not a waitress. He pressed a generous stack of casino chips into her hand. “Could I get a bottle of water, please?”
Mr. Lee muttered a few impolite words and stomped off to a nearby bar table.
Still pretending intoxication, Trevor spoke to Mr. Zhao. “Too bad you can’t have a real drink out here on the gambling floor, eh?”
Mr. Zhao chuckled. “Yes, yes. They don’t allow Malaysian Muslims to enter in the first place, so who are they protecting with that rule?” He laid down a modest bet for the next hand.
Trevor bet ten times as much on his own hand.
“Let me tell you a secret,” Trevor said, his voice a mockery of a whisper. “I purchased an old distillery in Scotland. Nothing big. A family business. The only son wanted to be a singer instead of a distiller. I brought outstanding samples with me. You know, to show potential distributors.”
“Oh?” Mr. Zhao asked, his ears perked. “What brings you to Malaysia? The alcohol market here is rather limited.”
“The official market is,” Trevor whispered. He gave the man a quick wink. “Anyhow,” he said in a louder voice, “I’m mostly here to visit some old friends.”
Mr. Zhao won his hand.
Trevor lost.
“Whiskey is a hobby of mine,” Mr. Zhao said. “Tell me, how would you describe the flavor of your whiskey?”
“The highland water gives it-”
“Excuse me, Mr. Yang.” Mira stood at the table. Her hair was knotted elegantly atop her head, her posture was straight, her smile coy. She was stunning, even in her casino hostess uniform. “Your private room is ready.”
“Are my guests here yet?”
“No, sir. The doorman is alerted to escort them to the room when they arrive.”
Trevor lowered his voice. “My shipment. Any trouble?”
Mira flashed a knowing smile. “No trouble at all, sir.”
“One more hand here,” Trevor said. He bet his entire stack of chips. The tiles were dealt. Trevor arranged his dominoes in an aggressive bid to beat the dealer rather than push for a tie. He won the hand. “There we go!” he said with jubilant delight. He raked in his winnings with both hands.
“That’s an interesting bracelet,” Dr. Zhao said. “What is it made of?” His eyes focused on Trevor’s right wrist.
“This?” Trevor said with a dismissive air. “Just a trinket a friend of mine cooked up. He’s a material’s scientist.” Trevor turned to Dr. Zhao. “Well, my friend, nice meeting you.” He stood to go, then turned to Dr. Zhao. “Say, I have five friends coming. Counting me, we have six. There is another space at our private pai gow table. Would you care to join us?”
“That’s a kind offer.” The man waived off the suggestion.
“Of course, I have my whiskey sample case in the room. Please, I insist.”
Dr. Zhao smiled. “If you insist, it would be my pleasure.”
Mira led the men to the Malaikat Room.
“May I ask what you do professionally?” Trevor asked.
“I work on spacecraft for Shenzhen Astromining.”
“A rocket scientist! It’s bound to be an exciting evening.”
Two men in gray business suits stood from the tea bar and followed the trio from a distance.
Mr. Lee stood, smoothed his jacket, inspected a cuff link, and followed them all.
#
“Dylan to the command deck,” Musa announced over the intercom.
“What is it?” Dylan shouted from the common area aboard the Jupiter Express.
Musa pushed the comm button again. “Incoming transmission from Earth.”
Dylan floated onto the command deck. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
Musa chuckled.
“Will we have line of sight long enough to receive the entire message?”
“Yep,” Musa said. “We’ve already received most of it.” Sara Wells’ brief message played, her image hovering over a control console.
“One hundred twenty thousand kilometers.” Dylan rubbed his scar. “How long does that give us until we’re in Chinese missile range?”
“Five and a half hours.”
“Five and a half hours. Can we adjust our orbit to stay on the far side of Europa as they pass by?”
“No.” Musa sounded dejected. “An adjustment that significant would take too long. They’d have ample time to counter our move and pass by the same side of the moon.”
“Damn.” Dylan was louder than he meant to be.
“We’re sitting ducks.”
“Yep.”
“Fish in a barrel.”
“Yep.” Dylan crossed his arms over his chest.
“Easy-”
“Stop.” Can’t let him give up. “Look, our situation’s difficult. No doubt. Give Ms. Wells and her team a chance. People I trust tell me she’s pulled off more than a few miracles.”
“All right.” Musa didn’t sound enthusiastic.
“Besides, we have a trick or two up our sleeves, even if she doesn’t come through.”
“We do?”
“Sure we do.” Five and a half hours to come up with a trick or two. Think. Goddammit, think.
#
Mahogany double doors, engraved with the image of an angel, wings spread wide in majestic flight, opened to the Malaikat Room. The room had seen better days. The paint was overdue for a touch up, and the carpet looked like it hadn’t been properly cleaned in years. But it was private and separated by a long hall from the rest of the casino. There was a side board, three bar tables, and a pai gow table that looked factory new. The room boasted a grand view down the mountain all the way to the brilliant lights of Kuala Lumpur thirty kilometers away and two thousand meters below. Tonight, luminescent tendrils of fine mist, lit by a stark white half-moon, hugged the mountainside.
“Gentlemen,” Mira said, “please help yourselves to appetizers.” She gestured to the side board stacked thick with fish crackers, sweet and savory cakes, grilled chicken with spicy sauce, barbecued stingray, and a Western favorite, lobster with cocktail sauce.
Dr. Zhao took a plate and helped himself to a sampling of the buffet then set his food on a bar table. He smiled ear-to-ear, glad to have fallen into a luxurious, private event.
“Please,” Trevor said, approaching the table with an aged bottle of whiskey in one hand and two glasses in the other. “You must try this. It’s one of the older vintages from my distillery. Nineteen eighty-one.” Trevor set the glasses on the table and poured two fingers for each of them.
“Where’s the ice?” Dr. Zhao asked. He kept a straight face for a moment then chuckled. “Just kidding, just kidding.”
Trevor’s look of disgust cracked into laughter.
Mira took a thirty-centimeter-long metal cylinder, ten centimeters in diameter, from under the pai gow table and edged with slow, graceful steps toward the door.
Dr. Zhao’s eyes drifted to her, a lustful smile creeping onto his lips.
“Here’s to new friends!” Trevor said in a boisterous voice. He raised his glass in a grand gesture and tipped it back all the way.
“To new friends!” Dr. Zhao brought his eyes back to meet Trevor’s. He sipped the whiskey, smiled in appreciation of the quality, then copied Trevor, drinking the
rest in one shot.
Trevor set his glass down. It was still full. A transparent membrane prevented the whiskey from escaping.
“Is something wrong?” Dr. Zhao asked, eying the glass.
Trevor smiled.
Fine beads of sweat formed on Dr. Zhao’s temple. He tugged his collar. “What… What is happening?”
“I poisoned you,” Trevor said in a calm, business-like manner. “Don’t worry. If you cooperate, you’ll receive the antidote in time.” Trevor sampled lobster from Dr. Zhao’s plate. “Do you understand?”
Dr. Zhao nodded urgently.
“Good.” Trevor pulled out a holo-phone and pointed at Mira.
She aimed the metal canister at the door and pressed a button. A dark-gray net shot forth from the cylinder, expanding as it flew toward the door. The web struck the door frame with a muted thud and stretched itself taut. Spines the length of toothpicks grew out of the net filaments and bored into the frame and into the door itself. “The barrier’s up,” Mira said.
Trevor dialed the phone. The casino’s security team, which was likely working with Dr. Zhao’s Chinese minders, would detect the transmission in seconds.
The encrypted channel connected. “Dr. Zhao, I am an engineer specialized in spacecraft design,” a voice said. “If you don’t mind, I have some questions for you.”
Dr. Zhao nodded, his reddened features contorted by helpless panic. He answered the questions posed to him, his words quick and his explanations detailed. After each answer, his eyes pleaded with Trevor for the antidote.
Fists banged on the door. Voices cried out, demanding entry.
“Trevor,” Mira said, “we have to hurry.” Her voice was steady, but apprehension shaped her expression.
#
Something solid and heavy crashed against the double doors to the Malaikat Room. The carbon-fiber web absorbed each crash, holding the doors together.
Mira readied another web canister, her last one.
Trevor activated a holographic drawing application on the phone. It created a virtual, three-dimensional canvas on which the NASA engineer at the other end of the line collaborated with an increasingly panicked Dr. Zhao. The NASA man pressed for details about esoteric aspects of Shenzhen Astromining’s spacecraft design.
“Agent,” the engineer said, addressing Trevor. “Can you give me another ten minutes?”
A centimeter-thick metal spike broke through the wall, three meters from the door. Many voices shouted in the hall outside. Mira aimed her canister at the hole and fired a web. It stretched out, reinforcing that section. The spike broke through again.
Trevor eyed the breech. “No. We’re out of time.”
“All right then. I may have enough. Get the hell out of there.” The line went dead.
Trevor snatched his phone and stuck it to his left wrist. Straps extended from the base and wrapped around in a tight grip. He threw his right arm across the bar table, sending the food plate and whiskey glasses clattering to the ground. “Down,” he commanded. The table lowered almost to ground level. He pressed a hidden button on the underside of his bracelet. The material became soft, almost like cookie dough. Trevor twirled his arm, at first in small circles then in larger ones. The bracelet stretched until it was a meter-diameter circle of soft, thin thread. He stood on the table top and commanded, “Up.” The table obliged. He stuck the dough-like loop to the ceiling.
Thud! A new portion of the wall was under attack. Mira was out of web canisters.
Trevor said, “Down.” He jumped off the table as it retracted and rolled for cover. Bang! The loop exploded, raining decorative ceiling tile over him.
Trevor and Mira sprinted to the rubble-covered bar table, now at ground level.
A hand-held battering ram smashed a head-sized hole in the wall.
“The antidote!” Dr. Zhao said. The words barely escaped his throat. His tortured face screamed panic.
Trevor glanced at him. “You’ll be fine. I gave you nicotine, speed, and a designer drug that mimics poison. Your panic attack helped sell it, too.”
The battering ram crashed through again. Shouts from the hall intensified.
“I’m sorry. I truly am,” Trevor said.
Trevor and Mira stepped onto the table. “Full extension,” Trevor commanded. The table responded, propelling them up. He slapped a sticky-backed camera the size of a grain of rice onto the ceiling as they passed through the jagged hole. The expanding table pushed them into a maintenance crawlspace, and they scuttled into the darkness. Somewhere below, the security team broke through the wall. Dr. Zhao’s name was shouted multiple times. The other voices were muffled.
“Faster,” Trevor whispered. His phone traced an escape route, their position tracked using built-in, molecular-scale inertial guidance. They followed a maintenance catwalk that brought them to a point a hundred meters away, over a hallway next to a staircase. “Check below,” Trevor commanded. A hair-thin wire extruded from his wrist-mounted phone, arched up and darted down with blinding speed. It penetrated the ceiling tiles then shed a sharp ceramic cap no larger than a grain of sand, uncovering a diminutive camera at the end of the wire. The video feed displayed on Trevor’s wrist phone. Two men stood watch at the stairwell door. Hotel security, not police. He switched to the rice-sized camera in the Malaikat Room, retaining the feed from the hall below in a smaller window. Most of the security and police had left the room. One of the gray-suited agents and the hotel physician remained. Trevor brought himself to his feet, hunched in the meter-high crawlspace and lunged forward.
The thin tile gave way. Trevor crashed through, slamming down, knees bent, next to the guards. His momentum carried him into a well-balanced crouch. One of the guards bore a shocked expression. The other, a powerfully-built bald man with long scars across his neck, looked ready to fight. Trevor lunged at the larger man, feigned a punch with his right arm then jabbed with his left. He hit his target in the jugular. Trevor yanked back his left fist and thrust out his right, landing it in the man’s solar plexus.
The man buckled.
Trevor grabbed the back of the man’s head and brought his face down to meet a strong, rising knee. He connected with the man’s upper lip, averting the unnecessary damage a blow to the nose would inflict. The man fell limp.
The second man was half-way down the hall, screaming in sheer panic for reinforcements.
“Quick,” Trevor said. “To the roof.”
Mira’s designer shoes fell through the hole in the ceiling followed by Mira, feet and knees together and legs slightly bent. She hit the ground and rolled to the side, on to her leg, and then her rear. She sprung up, snatched her shoes, and followed Trevor up the stairs.
The fleeing man reached the end of the hall. Distant shouts answered his pleas.
Out of breath, Trevor and Mira reached the top of the casino. The door leading out was locked.
Trevor pulled the penultimate trick out of his bag. With a magnetic sensor in his watch, he scanned the door to locate the bolt. He stuck three micro-explosive dots in a vertical arrangement over what he hoped was the most vulnerable spot. Each was a pea-sized shaped charge designed to generate a high-velocity jet of gas to vaporize metal. A steel cap with an adhesive rim helped direct the explosion. Trevor covered Mira with his body and fired the charges. One of the caps landed on his neck, scorching his flesh. “Aaagh,” he cried, brushing at the painful spot.
Trevor yanked the door. Stuck. He shook it violently.
Footsteps pounded several floors below. “They’re headed for the roof!” echoed up the stairwell.
Trevor grabbed the handle with both hands and heaved himself backwards. The bolt snapped, sending him tumbling. “Ouch!” He rubbed his head. It throbbed where it caught a metal handrail. “Let’s go.” The two scurried through the opening into the warm, moon-soaked night. Trevor glanced at his phone. It displayed 62… 61… 60… “Run to the far side,” he said.
Mira complied.
Trevor pulled off his
shoes and ripped out the shoelaces which were made of a strong nano-material. He tied the two laces into a long string with a square knot then tied a half-hitch around a decorative poll framing the door. “That’s it. My last trick,” he mumbled.
A dozen feet pounded the concrete steps one floor below.
Trevor looped the other end of his makeshift string around the door handle and used a trucker’s hitch to pull it tight. He glanced at his watch. 42… 41… 40… Trevor sprinted for Mira at the far end of the roof.
Voices sounded from the stairwell. Initial shouts of confusion were quelled by the voice of a man clearly in charge. Mr. Lee. Angry, ferocious Mr. Lee. There was a labored groan and a thump. Again. Groan, thump. Groan, thump. The door shuddered but withstood the onslaught. Mr. Lee shouted a muffled command. The thumping stopped.
33… 32… 31…
Dual explosions shattered the door’s hinges and threw it from the frame, leaving it dangling from the high-tech shoelaces.
21… 20… 19. A faint buzzing sounded overhead.
Mr. Lee peered through the stairwell, his rigid features bathed in ethereal moonlight. He lifted a weapon, an assault rifle, to his shoulder.
Thud! Thud!
A pair of robotic sentries fell out of the darkness, landing two meters from Trevor and Mira. They stood sixty centimeters tall and, in the dim light, resembled mechanical grasshoppers.
Pop. Pop. Each fired a thirty-centimeter-long round at the man in the stairwell. Milliseconds before impact, the rounds deformed into a rounded cone, flat side facing the target. The kinetic energy of the projectiles tossed Mr. Lee into the stairwell, but the large surface area at the impact site ensured he would escape with cracked ribs.
The buzzing grew loud, like the cacophony of ten thousand angry bees. Trevor stood erect with his hands out at his side. Mira copied his posture. A wind blew down over the pair. Trevor and then Mira were wrapped around the waist and chest by mechanical, rubbery tentacles and hoisted aloft. They moved forward, dangling over the towering casino. As their toes cleared the edge of the roof, they dropped three floors. It was a precise, controlled motion. The insectoid robot sentries sprang at them and latched on, causing the drones that plucked them aloft to sway for a brief moment before they stabilized and carried their human cargo down the valley. The duo disappeared into the pale white fog, scooting over the tree line. A kilometer from the casino, the drones shot skyward. They broke through the mist and climbed thousands of meters. In the distance, a shape seemed to float in the sky. It grew larger. A massive jet hung impossibly still in the starry sky ahead. The aircraft’s engines came into view. They were tilted downward, allowing it to fly forward at a crawl. As they drew close, a cargo ramp at the rear of the aircraft dropped. The pair flew right through the opening, and their SAR drones set them softly on the jet’s cargo deck, extended spindly legs, and shut down. The ramp snapped shut, and the engines roared. The plane was moving again, fast, toward the Malacca Strait.
The Gods We Make Page 25