by Naomi Paul
“No,” he said, arms held up in a gesture that was half placating, half surrender. Distant police sirens were growing louder. Flashing lights flickered, reflected in the glass and chrome of the buildings around the plaza. “I swear, this had nothing to do with me.”
But Lian was done talking and done listening. She sprinted for her parked scooter, fired up the engine, and sped away, her eyes burning.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Wednesday
I know you’re mad at me. But I hope we’ve been friends long enough that I can ask you for one small favor.
Lian hit Send on the text. It was after midnight, and she was hiding in the bushes, hunched over the glow of her phone. The knees of her pants were stained with grass; her blouse was soaked in sweat and torn at the shoulder where she’d nicked it on a branch. Her whole life depended on the next words that showed up on her phone screen. The seconds became a minute, and geared up to do so again.
One, and only one.
She heaved a sigh of relief and quickly texted back.
Okay: Open your front door, right now.
There was no reply on the phone. But moments later, the door opened, and Mingmei stood in a salmon pink silk nightgown, backlit by the lamp in her living room.
“Okay, I did it,” she said to the night. “Can I close it now?”
“All right, two favors,” Lian said, standing up from her crouch and pocketing her phone. “Please, Mingmei. Please let me in.”
Whether it was because of the desperation in her voice or the twigs in her hair, Mingmei fell uncharacteristically silent and waved her into the house.
“What the hell, Lian?” she asked, once the door was closed. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Lian said in a rush. “I didn’t know where else to go. Things are falling apart, and I didn’t think they’d come looking for me here.”
“Back up a second. Who’s ‘they,’ and why are ‘they’ looking for you?” Mingmei was clearly trying to piece things together in her head. “Wait, does this have something to do with the cops at the school this morning?”
“It does, yes. In a manner of speaking. Mingmei, could I use your computer?”
“So they can march in here and throw my laptop in their evidence wagon, too?” Mingmei looked skeptical. “Come on, Lian, what’s going on?”
Lian heard the panic in her own voice. “Mingmei, if I get through tonight, I promise I’ll explain everything. But right now, there’s no time. I just . . . I need you to trust me.”
For a long moment, silence settled over the room. Lian thought she might collapse on the spot.
“Whatever else happens between us,” Mingmei said at last, opening her arms, “I will always, always trust you, Lian.”
“Don’t hug me, I’m gross.”
“I trust that you are,” Mingmei said, and embraced her anyway. “Now come on, my laptop’s in the kitchen.”
12:38 AM HKT — Komiko has logged on
“Who’s Komiko?”
“It’s me. I promise, I’ll tell you all about it later.”
12:39 AM HKT — Blossom has logged on
Blossom: Got your ping, K. Im surprised youre here. Did the raid not happen?
“Who’s Blossom?”
“I don’t know.”
“What raid?”
“Mingmei, later, I promise!”
Komiko: It happened, but it went south fast.
Blossom: Where are the others?
Komiko: I doubt you’ll see Torch on here again. He double-crossed us, and we walked right into it.
“Who’s Torch?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Komiko: Torch got the security codes but didn’t go with us into the building. Crowbar and I got in just fine and even made it to the HC finance offices, but our luck didn’t hold.
“Who’s Crowbar?”
Lian didn’t even bother answering.
Komiko: We found the file on the dead girl . . . but her name’s not Jiao, and she’s not from Yah Tian. Still, we downloaded the document onto a memory stick.
Komiko: We thought we were home free, but the fat man showed up, the one who was at the beach and later the Family Hand.
Komiko: He nabbed Crowbar. I made it out and got to the rendezvous, but Torch was the only one there. He’d turned Zan over to the cops and then sicced them on us.
“Wait,” Mingmei said. “I actually know who Zan is. The cops have him? What did he do?”
“Nothing,” Lian said. He trusted me, she thought to herself. That’s what he did. But it didn’t seem like the most sensible thing to tell Mingmei at the moment.
Blossom: Wow! Thats insane. Where are you right now?
Komiko: Somewhere safe, that’s all that matters.
Blossom: And you have the memory stick with you?
Komiko: Yes. I’ve got to get this file to the authorities. I don’t know who’s clean, but I’ll make copies and send them out anonymously until somebody steps up to help.
Komiko: I just pray I can draw them out before anything bad happens to Crowbar.
She let her head drop, seeing those last images of Eva pressing the rabbit’s foot into her hand, the eyeliner running down her cheeks, the terror on her face.
“Could I have a glass of water?” she asked Mingmei meekly.
“Of course,” Mingmei said. “My house is your house.”
Lian got a glass from the cabinet and filled it with cold, filtered water from the fridge door. It chilled her parched throat like a snowstorm blowing into a desert. She closed her eyes and thought that she had never tasted anything so pure in her life.
“Hey,” Mingmei said, nodding toward the laptop. “I can’t keep track of all the players without a scorecard, but I think you want to see this.”
The chill that flooded Lian’s body when she looked at the screen had nothing to do with the water.
12:50 AM HKT — Crowbar has logged on
Crowbar: You will want to pay very close attention now.
Lian blanched. Seeing Crowbar’s name, followed by “You” and “to” instead of U and 2, was absolutely horrifying.
Crowbar: We know you have data that doesn’t belong to you on a memory stick.
Crowbar: You will hand this memory stick over to us, or Eva and Zan will die tonight.
Mingmei took a step back. “This . . . this isn’t some weird online role playing game, is it? Are they serious about killing people?”
Crowbar: You will not copy the data. Any copies you have already made, you will destroy.
Crowbar: If you choose to disobey, there will be consequences.
12:52 AM HKT — Crowbar has uploaded four JPGs
Lian gasped. On the laptop screen were photographs. Her family’s apartment building. The door number of their home. Her father’s office in the city. Qiao’s dorm at the University of Neuchâtel.
“Lian?” Mingmei said, her voice a little shaky.
Crowbar: You will call the following number within the next five minutes and arrange to deliver the memory stick. Alone.
A phone number popped up on the screen.
12:53 AM HKT — Crowbar has logged off
Komiko: . . .
Komiko: That was him. It had to be.
Blossom: Who? The fat man?
Komiko: Mr. Yeung is his name. Torch sounded scared of what Yeung could do.
Blossom: With good reason, it seems.
Blossom: Are you going to take the memory stick to him?
Lian pondered the question for a moment, until an antsy Mingmei prompted her to reply.
Komiko: I don’t see any other choice. We have every reason to think Crowbar and Zan are in real danger. Protecting the brand is apparently worth killing for.
Komiko: I couldn’t live with myself if their blood were on my hands.
Blossom: Or if they washed up on Big Wave beach.
“Wait a second,” Mingmei said. “The girl from the beach? She’s wrapped up in this, too?”
“It’s a really, really long story.”
Komiko: I’m going to call Yeung and make the trade. You said you didn’t want to be outed, and I respect that.
Komiko: But if I, or Crowbar, don’t get out of this . . . you’re the only hope we have. You’re the 06/04 insurance policy now.
Komiko: So promise me you’ll find out everything you can about the girl. Her file says she was named Kong Nüying, from Lau Fau Shan. See this thing through to the end.
Blossom: Count on it.
Komiko: And if Torch logs on here again . . . don’t trust a word he says.
Blossom: I absolutely wont.
12:56 AM HKT — Komiko has logged off
Lian dialed the number; the voice that answered was the same one that had directed the guards earlier. Yeung.
“There is a disused school building, the Golden Hill Academy, off Tai Po Road, north of the city,” he said, with no pleasantries. “Do you know it?”
“I can find it,” Lian answered, bringing up a browser window on Mingmei’s laptop and searching for the school.
“Come alone, and bring the memory stick. Alert no one, especially not the police.”
Sure, Lian thought. On the slim chance that I find one who isn’t in Harrison’s pocket already.
“If anyone but you arrives . . . or if you try anything stupid once you get here . . . I will be certain you’re looking into your friends’ eyes as I pull the trigger.”
“I’ll do what you want. There’s no reason to hurt them,” Lian said, trying to keep her voice calm.
“Oh, I’m not sure about that. Your boyfriend Zan is practically begging for it.”
There was a rustling sound, and then Lian heard Zan’s voice, fast and panicky.
“Lian,” he said. “Oh, man, I’m so sorry. I messed things up so bad. I should have stayed with Matt. I just wanted a milkshake, and then these guys grabbed me, oh, man. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, as much to him as to herself. “Everything’s going to be okay. You don’t have to apologize.”
“Just . . . please . . . get here fast. These guys aren’t screwing around, they’ve got this power drill, and I don’t know what they’re planning with it, but I—”
The rustling again, and Mr. Yeung’s voice returned.
“Yes,” he said evenly. “Get here fast. Because who knows what we’re planning?”
There was a high-pitched whirring sound in the background. Something like the noise of a power drill.
And then the line went dead.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“I can’t believe you’re not letting me go with you.”
Lian fastened the straps on her panda-painted helmet and then shook her head. “He said I had to come alone. If they see another headlight on the road with me, Eva and Zan could be dead before we ever got there.”
Mingmei looked more worried than Lian had ever seen her. “You’re going to the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, absolutely alone, and the only thing you know for sure is that the guy you’re dealing with has a gun and a drill. How are you not totally freaking out right now?”
Lian considered the question. “I don’t know.” She could have added, that she’d pushed well through the part where she was feeling anything at all, other than wanting this to be finished. What little sentiment she had in reserve, she’d poured into a hastily written but sincere document on Mingmei’s computer. She’d made Mingmei leave the room while she wrote it, and then had saved it with the password “littlepanda” to lock it away, unless and until it was needed.
“Tell my parents,” Lian said, “that the key is their pet name for me. All one word.”
“I won’t need to tell them about it at all,” Mingmei said. “Because you’re going to be fine, and you’re going to save your friends, and everything’s going to turn out okay. Right?”
Lian looked at the ground and said nothing.
“Dammit, Lian,” Mingmei said, throwing her arms around Lian with such force that the girls and the scooter nearly toppled over. “You tell me I’m right!”
“You’re always right,” Lian said, hugging her best friend. “You told me so yourself.”
She fired up the Twist N’ Go and patted her pocket, making sure for the hundredth time that the rabbit’s foot was still there.
“When you’re done,” Mingmei said over the purring motor, “I don’t care what time it is, you text me. Or call. No, just come back by here. I just want to see you on the other side of this.”
Lian nodded.
“And if I don’t hear from you by sunrise,” Mingmei said, “I’ll come looking for you. I’ll get Matt, and we’ll find you, no matter what.”
Lian swallowed. “Don’t bring Matt. Don’t tell him anything at all.”
“What? Why not?”
“You can’t trust him, Mingmei. He’s not who he seems to be.”
Mingmei looked a little stunned, but she didn’t argue. She just watched silently as Lian motored out of the driveway and disappeared into the Hong Kong night.
Central was still bustling at two in the morning, the sidewalks packed with late-night drinkers and the streets filled with taxis, produce trucks, cyclists, and pedestrians crossing as they pleased. Lian discarded every traffic regulation she knew and just concentrated on moving forward: weaving between cars, taking corners without pause, even heading against traffic for a block on a one-way street after a bus had blocked her road.
She chose the Western Harbor Crossing so she could skirt the western edge of the city, up the Kowloon Highway and through the port at Lai Chi Kok. The map had suggested that it would take her half an hour to reach her destination, but Lian was shaving seconds off anywhere she could. She leaned into the curves of Ching Cheung Road and barely slowed for the hairpin turn onto Tai Po.
Under any other circumstances, this might have been a pleasant night drive among tree-dotted hills, the wind in her face crisp but not cold, the leaves still green and vibrant in the last few weeks before they began to turn red and brown and gold. Lian had never been out this way before, and she very nearly missed the turnoff onto Caldecott.
The buildings here seemed new enough, and nice enough. Past an apartment block, there was even a construction site, with two cranes resting for the night outside a boxy, skeletal frame. She hadn’t seen another vehicle for a while, though, and there were only a couple of lights on in the apartment. After the throngs in Central and the glow from Kowloon, this felt like a strangely sparse and unpopulated corner of the world.
Her final turn was onto an unlit and poorly paved road. Here, she eased off on the throttle to navigate the gaping potholes. The weather-beaten sign for the Golden Hills Academy had already broken free from one of its posts and was making a solid attempt at abandoning the other. The school building lay at the end of the road like a toppled gray tombstone.
Outside of the glow of her headlight and the purr of the motor, there was nothing but darkness and silence. A scream would go unheard; a plea for help would go unanswered. If Yeung planned to do away with her and her friends, he’d chosen the perfect setting.
Still, Lian thought as she killed the motor and removed her helmet. There’s still Blossom. If all else fails, there’s still one seed of 06/04 left, and from that seed a forest could grow in time.
Blossom had been cautious all along, staying in the shadows, finding strength in anonymity. Lian let herself wonder, just for a moment, whether things would have gone differently if she and the others had kept to that credo. If they’d never met in person, would she be here now, climbing the front steps into a pitch-black abandoned school?
It didn’t matter. Because they’d met, she now knew Matt was a traitor. That 06/04 had been rotten at its core. Better to root him out than to continue living the lie.
“Hello?” she called into the blackness as the door shut behind her. There was no response. She took a couple of cautious, groping steps forward but heard nothing more tha
n the crunch of her own sneakers on a debris-strewn concrete floor.
She was just reaching for her phone to illuminate her path, when suddenly she heard a sinister metallic click, and a blinding light shone directly into her eyes. She slammed them shut and shielded her face with her hand, but not before she caught a glimpse of a gun barrel held up next to the light. However she blinked, the afterimage danced before her, a blood-red cylinder seared onto her retinas.
“Whatever you were reaching for,” Mr. Yeung’s voice said, “take your hand away.”
“My phone,” Lian told him, continuing to blink as she adjusted to the flashlight in the dark. “Just my phone.”
“There is no one you need to call. Everyone left in your world is in this room already.”
His voice was a cold, bloodless thing that slithered out of him like a reptile. Lian felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Perhaps she should have been terrified, but that emotion, too, had been used up completely over the course of the night.
“Now,” Yeung said. “Slowly take out the memory stick and place it on the ground at your feet.”
“First show me Eva and Zan,” Lian demanded. She couldn’t help the little waver in her voice. “I need to know they’re all right before I give you anything.”