by G R Matthews
Were there other Sio Sam Ong in Nanxun or headed that way? Was I taking Lijuan and Chunhua into the middle of a war? The clips I’d been watching were set in the land above the sea which this corporation had evolved from. All right, an ancient mystical version of it, but it was clear that honour, face, duty or at least shame was intrinsic part of the old culture. These things had inertia, they carried on through families and cultures, changing slowly but rarely disappearing.
I’d shamed Yunru, Bojing and the Sio Sam Ong by escaping. Further compounding it by stealing, rescuing from my perspective, the two girls from under their noses. If the group on the clips were just a shadow of that society, if the people they met on their travels, bound up by duty and obedience to those in charge, was merely a blurry reflection of the culture then the Sio Sam Ong would have to do something. Or at least be seen to do something.
And following that thought chain through to its next logical assumption, Lijuan’s father knew we were coming and the trouble we were bringing with us. He’d be happy, I hoped, to see Lijuan, but the rest?
This was not going to be pretty.
Chapter 34
I didn’t taste lunch. An empty plate evidenced my consumption of the meal, but I couldn’t remember what I’d ordered.
A few hours more and I’d be dragging two girls into the middle of a war. They’d have been safer in the prison.
Throughout the morning Chrissy had been trying to make small talk, to pass the time, but I’d hardly said a word back and she’d given up. Chunhua and Lijuan spent the morning watching clips and playing games with each other. They’d got up and gone for a walk up and down the aisle a few times. I’d watched them like a hawk.
The man from Sio Sam Ong had caught my eye each time. Chunhua had stepped quickly past him, dragging Lijuan with her. Mostly they played up at our end of the cabin, sat cross-legged on the floor, a Pad between them and laughing at the simple games. Perennial favourites like Tic Tac Toe, which Chunhua was careful to lose more often than she won because a stropping five year old in the contained environment of a submarine was never pleasant, and a few noisy card games.
I spent my time on the Panel, accessing the library systems, and reading about the secret societies, the culture in Da Long Inc and about the city of Nanxun. I was looking for reassurance, some evidence that these societies were not the powerful groups that the Sio Sam Ong and Yunru had seemed in their city. Corporations needed the rule of law to preserve their authority, to ensure cities and industry worked to their advantage, to keep wealth flowing into the bank accounts of the owners and executives.
Corruption went hand in hand with wealth in my home corporation, NOAH. It was known, expected and there were frequent trials of some minor manager who’d got his or her hand caught in the coffers. All for show and to convince the workers that the law worked for everyone. Except we knew that those at the top got away with larger crimes, larger excesses of law-breaking, but when you pay the wages of the judges, jurors and security staff none of them wanted to be the one who put you in prison. They’d be out of a job, a home, or air soon after.
Here though, reading between the lines, catching up on news reports and checking a few things with Chunhua, crime was a given. The societies operated like they had for millennia. Part of the wider culture, they oiled the wheels, kept the money flowing and fulfilled, it seemed, a much needed part of Da Long’s structure. Not that they were official, paid for, given a salary, but they skimmed enough off to operate and their operations had a veneer of legality about them.
I didn’t find much to help. There was little information I could use or which would give me an edge or even a better bargaining position. It felt good to know something. I’d also spent a little time looking into Nanxun city itself. If I hadn’t been in this situation it would have been a great city to visit. Unlike anything I’d seen before.
With all my new knowledge there remained the realisation that there was nothing I could do. The submarine had become a prison. All right, it moved through the sea at a fair clip. The food was good and there was a wide selection of alcohol available. Right now I didn’t feel like a drink and that was a first for me. Next to my plate sat a full glass of wine.
“What are we going to do?” Chunhua asked me when they’d both sat down in their seats.
“When?” Silly question.
“When we dock,” she said.
“We’re going to walk off the sub and find Lijuan’s father,” I said, making it all sound a lot simpler than it was. “Once we’ve found him, he’ll take you somewhere safe and I get to go home.”
“What about the Sio Sam Ong?”
“What about them? From everything I’ve read and what you’ve told me, Nanxun isn’t their city. They don’t have a big presence there. It’s not like the city we escaped from.” I smiled at her, trying to project a confidence I didn’t feel.
“And the man?”
“He can’t do anything, Chunhua. There will be security everywhere. Everything will be fine.” I picked up my glass, forcing my hand not to tremble and took a drink. The sharp sweetness of the white wine, the crew had recommended it to go with my meal, was cold as it slid down my throat and chilled my belly.
Visions of a pitched battle in the docks flashed through my mind. Innocent bystanders torn apart by gunfire and explosions. Children wailing and parents, wild eyed and stunned, stumbling round in search of their lost ones, turning over twisted bodies to gaze into the dead eyes and shredded skin of someone’s shattered dream. Smoke rising in tumultuous clouds and a clatter of casings, raindrops of death, skittering to the ground. Security officers returning fire, not knowing or caring who they shot. More passengers dying to friendly fire than from the societies’ soldiers. There would be announcements shouted through the unbroken Panels and speakers. Ordering a calm, orderly evacuation from the docks and advising everyone not to panic.
I’d seen a battle or two, not many as the war was coming to a close. It hadn’t been pretty or glorious. No one had walked away sound of mind or body. It was the scars you couldn’t see that caused the most damage.
Maybe it wouldn’t go down that way. Maybe these societies did things differently. This wasn’t a foreign power, another corporation, attacking a city. They weren’t out to destroy the place, to invade it, or take it from the current owners. That would be a step too far, too out of line for even the most corrupt executive to overlook. There would be reprisals and actions. Likely the societies would take heavy losses in terms of wealth and personnel even if they weren’t themselves wiped out.
A knife in the back on a crowded street. The sudden depressurisation of a Box section. A freak electrocution, a door sliding shut too quickly, an airlock flooding. The mysterious disappearance of a submarine. They worked their way through my imagination and still more came.
Life is a fragile thing. You hold it in your hand for but a moment. Each heartbeat is a victory over death’s questing fingers and an escape from his skeletal grip. I’d felt him a time or two run a frozen finger down my back or across my cheek, a seductive caresses promising surcease from the pain of life. I’d welcomed him with open arms on occasion over the past few years, but he always teased me, toyed with me, moving on with the promise to return another day. Other times I’d fought him off, clinging onto the last vestiges of life with ripped fingernails.
And now I was taking the girls into an unknown. Lijuan’s father would be there and that was my only hope. It was more than I’d had in the prison. I was one point ahead in this game against my skeletal opponent. The scythe was still waiting. He’d come armed to this game, to every game he ever played, and all I had was a smart mouth, a teenager, a five-year old girl and the unknown of her father. I’d rather have had the scythe, but I doubt he lends it out.
I was broken out of my thoughts by the announcement that we would be docking in thirty minutes and would I please ensure I had all my belongings ready to disembark, but for now, please take this opportunity to purchase any l
ast minute items required or desired from the on-board shop.
Chunhua looked at me and I smiled back. I could see she was trying to form the same expression but couldn’t. Her face settled into one of cold detachment, similar to the one she’d affected in prison. Whatever got her through. As I broke her gaze, I saw her left hand creep across the chair, seeking Lijuan’s and squeezing it hard.
“Tell her we’re going to see her father,” I said. “But when we get off, I want her between you and me. We stick together. No one runs off, shouts or screams. We are going to walk without a care in the world. We will look like we belong together.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to give anyone an excuse to try anything,” I answered. “This is a family reunion, nothing else. It’ll be fine, but I want you to do as I say, when I say it. Please, for a little while, put away the teenager need to challenge, rebel and ask questions. Everything will be fine.”
I wished I believed my own words.
Chapter 35
There was a clunk, followed by a thump and a hiss. We’d docked.
A sub this big would be attached to a port on the edge of the city, connected by a rigid walkway and an airlock that would lead into the city proper. I took a deep breath in, stretched my fingers, tensed my muscles and blew the stress and worry away with the carbon dioxide in my lungs.
People began to stand and gather their belongings from the lockers above their heads. Small bags and other carry-ons that they’d thought they’d needed on the journey but hadn’t delved into since the first glass of wine had been served. Lijuan stood too and dug her fingers under Chunhua’s legs in an attempt to get her moving too. Eager to be in her city, to see her father once more. The teenager didn’t move and neither did I. We had nothing to gather.
After a few moments people began to shuffle down the aisle towards the bulkhead and the exit airlock.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing from my seat and forcing my way out into the flow of people with a few excuse-mes and a nod or two. I formed a barrier and let Chunhua lead Lijuan out of their seats. Following them down the aisle, I kept my eyes open for our friend from Sio Sam Ong. His seat was empty and he couldn’t be behind us. He’d left the submarine already.
The rich people in first class walked through the bulkhead and onto the umbilical walkway that joined the sub to the city. No portholes, no viewing windows, we were still too deep for those, gave us a sight of the city, but advertising Panels promised us such treats and entertainments that any sensible traveller would never ever wish to leave. I saw enticements to visit the opera, never again, the ornamental tea-house, which sounded better but looked to be out of my price range, a theatre production of ‘Those We Lost’, an old play about life before the floods that was too depressing for words, and numerous eateries that didn’t have my preferred all-you-can-eat option on the menu. All in all, nothing for me.
I scanned the crowd, looking for any who were taking too keen an interest in us. No one I could detect at first glance, but that didn’t stop me trying. Above the adverts, where wall met ceiling, were the cameras. Security in ports was usually quite tight and those camera’s would be running our faces against known criminal lists, security notifications, passports, corporation records, any and everything to try and identify threats before the threat took action.
Terrorism in NOAH wasn’t unheard of. Normally explained away as some nutcase with a religious motivation, or a Sunner from one of the cults who wanted to force us all back to surface to live as we were always meant to live… for precisely the five seconds it would take for most of us to die. It didn’t take a lot to damage a city and even less to kill a lot of people.
My travel documents had been provided alongside my identification, a helpful pack that Daoist security had ensured I took with me. It was almost as if they wanted to make sure that some technicality wouldn’t have me sent back to them.
The umbilical ended in another bulkhead, you just can’t avoid those things, and an open airlock. Here everything slowed. The fast paced walk that seasoned travellers use to get to the front ended the same way for us all, stuck in the queue for customs and passport control. They had a lot of staff on duty, scanning and checking people for illegal substances and weapons. Ensuring identification documents were genuine and then, only then, after giving a random selection of people an interrogation that the ancient Spanish Catholics were famous for, were you let into the city proper.
I spotted our friend a few lines over. He was stood behind a short, dumpy old lady who seemed to be berating a similar shaped man next to her. The old man endured it all with the stoic expression that only comes from long, hard years of marriage.
Scanning the gathering crowd of passengers I sought out Chrissy. She’d been one of the first up from her seat and down the aisle. I’d never met a real celebrity before, not to talk to, and I’d made my usual poor impression, but I’d expected a goodbye. She hadn’t acknowledged Chunhua or Lijuan at all. In re-joining the real world she’d reverted to her real personality, or maybe it was the mask she had to wear.
Being famous can be lonely. It was for me when Tyler died and after I’d killed them all. No one wanted to know me then and few did now. For Chrissy maybe it was the other way round, everyone wanted to know her and she had to shield herself from the attention.
“Identification,” the severe faced lady with jet black hair and eyes sharp as a shark’s tooth snapped at us as we finally reached the front of the queue.
I handed over my card and those of the two girls. She snatched them out of my hands, her own covered by thin blue surgical gloves as if she feared a communicable disease which, I suppose, was possible when you spent all day dealing with people from all over the oceans. The way she wiped the cards and swiped them over the scanner made me think she might have been happier with a facemask too.
“Ah… Achooo!” I sneezed, arching my spine a little and snapping my head forward, raising a hand, just a little too slow, to my face.
She recoiled. Her eyes wide, mouth open and a sharp, truncated indrawn breath. In her little cubicle she couldn’t retreat any further and she fluttered her hands in front of her face, warding off the army of germs and bacteria I’d just sprayed at her. Biological warfare was not just the domain of chemists and biologists.
“So sorry,” I stammered out. My own hands raised in an apology. “Not used to the air.”
She hissed something back at me, but I didn’t quite catch her words.
“Have you got a tissue?”
She threw a wipe at me and shoved the cards back across the smooth silvered metal of her counter. A little shooing motion of her hands told me to take the girls and go. That suited me just fine.
“So sorry,” I said again, picking up the cards and wiping my nose. I offered her the used wipe and received a glare in return.
“Go,” she ordered and we went, into Nanxun. Lijuan’s city. Chunhua’s city. Another city I didn’t know my way around. I was the alien, the outsider, the gwai lo. I’d found that word during my research into Da Long’s history.
Out past the constriction of the customs station, the port widened out into a larger atrium. Gigantic flashing signs up near the ceiling continued the advertising I’d seen in the umbilical alongside signs that pointed towards the exit and baggage claim.
I needed the latter, for my Fish-Suit, but finding Lijuan’s father was the priority. We’d need to head out, past the shopkeepers demanding we buy the latest gadget, food, or alcohol, tempting, before the city’s taxes were laid heavily upon the price.
We strayed to the edge of the atrium, Chunhua and Lijuan to the wall side and me towards the middle. On every step I expected someone to bump into us, sliding a knife between my ribs, or the bark of gunfire to ring out.
I knew my hands were sweating because all of me was. I held Lijuan’s tiny hand tight, unwilling to let go for a second. On the other side, Chunhua did the same. My last instruction to her had been to focus on spotting L
ijuan’s father while I scanned the crowd for danger.
We walked. Step by step. Inching, it felt like, our way towards the exit, another bulkhead. Wide and open, a promise of safety. A chance at life now that we’d escaped prison, the Daoist city, survived the sub journey and got through customs. Not far now. I’d almost relaxed when I saw him.
“Run,” I whispered to Chunhua and between us we carried Lijuan the last few steps to the exit, spying another large room beyond.
Footsteps rang loud behind us.
Chapter 36
The other passengers created a path for us.
It could have been the clatter of our feet, Lijuan’s protestations or my shouts to get out of the way. Whatever it was, it worked and our way was clear.
We erupted through the wide bulkhead doors, past the two security guards who were stationed there, neither of whom moved to assist or prevent us from reaching our goal, and out into the large check-in area.
There were crowds of people, flashing Panels and large signs hung above each of the check-in desks, one for each company. More Panels signalled the submarines arriving and departing the docks. This was a big city with a lot of trade and passenger travel.
“Ko-Lin,” Lijuan shouted and tore her hand free of Chunhua’s, jabbing it over to the right. She followed my mangled name with a string of words in her own language. I followed the arc of her finger and spotted a well-dressed man hurrying towards us. He was followed by three or four others, all dressed in the same dark suit and white shirt.
Chunhua gasped and started towards them, snatching Lijuan’s hand and tearing her from my grip. I moved to follow when a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me backwards.
Off balance I had no option but to go with motion, raising an elbow and driving it back, over my shoulder and hopefully at any face or piece of vulnerable anatomy that might be there. I hit nothing but air, spun around, my feet twisting below me, and scattered to the ground. The sight of shoes flashed past my eyes and my assailant was gone, chasing the girls.