by G R Matthews
“The Sio Sam Ong have been cleared from the city,” he answered.
“What does that actually mean?” I asked. The ambiguity of his answer sent a little flutter of fear flying through my guts. “Did you kill them all? Dump them all down a rubbish chute? Shove them all on a waste barge?”
He frowned. “Of course not. There are rules and traditions. The survivors have been transported back to Yunru’s submarine and the wounded are in hospital at my expense.”
“What?” I really didn’t get these rules. “They set out to kill you and now you’re treating them, making them healthy again. What’s to stop them coming back and trying again?”
I wasn’t suggesting, or at least I hope I wasn’t, that he murder all of the Sio Sam Ong. That thought didn’t sit well with me at all, but he’d gone to the other extreme. Hospital care and health insurance.
“Rules and traditions, Corin,” he answered, his frown becoming a small smile, at my expense I felt. “You were not raised in our corporation. You will not understand. From what I know of yours, the past is all but forgotten as is the world above. Yet you do not look forward and plan for the future. Your corporation has short term goals and your people live only for the day and for themselves.”
“I don’t think that’s entirely true.” The need to defend NOAH and its people was an automatic response. No one likes their way of life being held up and picked apart in front of them. Especially when it was mostly true. “We care for our families and we hope for the future.”
“But what do you do about it? Nothing or very little,” he said, sitting down in the metal chair reserved for visitors and designed to be uncomfortable so they didn’t stay long and get in the way. “We have plans for the next hundred years and beyond.”
“And you keep to them?” I took another sip of water. I wasn’t aware of NOAH having any plans beyond how to increase their year-end profits by two percent.
He laughed, a small sound, out of place in hospital. “We try to. The long term aims remain the same, but we adapt and change the processes of getting to them as the world changes around us. Yunru and I, alongside many others, are members of the Executive Committee. We are flexible in how we achieve those aims, but the aims themselves are set in stone. Which leads us back to the obstacle we must overcome now.”
“Obstacle?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“What did I do?” I handed him back the empty glass.
“You killed the brother of Yunru’s advisor,” he said.
“He was trying to kill me,” I answered. “I think I was pretty justified.”
“You used a gun,” he said.
“I know. I was there. If I hadn’t Qiao and I would be dead,” I said and paused. “Isn’t this where we started this conversation?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yunru and Bojing would like your head.”
“Do they want the rest of my body attached to it?” Though I suspected I knew the answer and when he shook his head my guess was confirmed. “And you’re going to hand me over?”
“It crossed my mind,” he said, “but I still owe you a debt as does Qiao now too.”
“She does?”
“You saved her life,” he answered. “And her debt becomes mine at the moment.”
“Why?”
“Family,” he answered. “My sister and Chunhua’s mother.”
“You didn’t tell me,” I said.
“That is correct,” he said. “Qiao volunteered to assist, as did you. I could not order it as you were both going to use technology.”
“What? I don’t understand you or this.” I looked around the room. There was no one else present. All the doctors and nurses had vanished. I hadn’t noticed. The camera in the top corner, near the ceiling was pointing at the wall. “Are you telling me we shouldn’t have used the suits to get into the city?”
“There will be a rather large bill for repairing that section of wall,” Hai San answered.
“You used explosives to enter the warehouse. You blew the doors off,” I stated. “How is that any different to the suits and gun?”
“There are some… grey areas,” he said. “My ancestors developed gunpowder and explosives a long time before the technology reached the west. We have some leeway to use the powder, but guns were a later invention and fall outside the rules. And the suits are much too modern as is the other technology you used.”
“So we shouldn’t have been there, but we were,” I said, wondering where this was going.
“You were there without my knowledge,” Hai San said. “Which is what we are going to tell Yunru and Bojing when we meet with them.”
If I’d still had the glass of water, I’d have spat it all over him. “We’re going to do what?”
“It is traditional to meet and agree terms at the end of a conflict,” he said, standing from his chair. “We will sign agreements and make promises for the future.”
“And what about Qiao and I?” I was waiting for the real reason for his visit to become clear.
“As you went without my knowledge you are both somewhat outside my protection and that of the rules,” he said.
“Great.”
“But I have a debt to you, and Qiao is family,” he said, turning away and staring at his sister as she lay unconscious in the bed, the machines that surrounded her beeping and blinking. “We will find a way to compromise, though you did kill the Advisor’s brother and that may be a harder act to smooth over.”
“You think?” If someone killed my brother, I might find it hard to forgive.
“Within the rules and traditions, there is always a way,” Hai San said, patting his sister’s hand before turning and leaving without saying another word.
“Great,” I said to the door he’d left through.
Chapter 53
“Gwai lo not be here should.”
Bojing translated Yunru’s words and though she didn’t have to point at me, we all knew who she meant, but I suppose jabbing a wrinkled, sharp nailed finger in my direction made her feel better.
“Does she mean me?” I said in a whisper pitched to carry across the table.
Hai San shot me a look that said, ‘shut up.’ I returned an apologetic smile.
“Honoured Yunru,” Hai San said, taking a sip from his tea cup, “I’ve asked Mr Hayes to be here. Both you and I have followed the forms and traditions as we must.”
“He did not,” she spat, Bojing translating the words and the venom.
“Alas,” Hai San spread his hands, “who can say what the gwai lo will do? Nevertheless it does not change the outcome of our most recent contest and we must come to an agreement. The meeting of the Executive Council is only a few months away and I would think a united front on certain matters will result in profits and power for us both.”
I watched the painted lady struggle to control her anger. If she grimaced much more the paint she’d slathered over her face in a vain attempt to appear much younger was going to crack and avalanche down onto the table. Her fingernails clicked on the table and she drew them into a fist. “What propose is it you make?”
“Nothing more or less than we began with, Honoured Yunru,” Hai San’s face was calm and the only emotion he expressed was conciliatory. “I have no need to ask for more.”
“And guarantees?”
“I think we have passed that stage, have we not?” he said.
“And sword?” she said. It was a strange three way conversation, passing through Bojing in both directions. She could have used a Pad or even, and she was rich enough surely, a better translator.
“Though I wish I had it, I am content to be without,” Hai San replied. “Sometimes legends are best left in the past and revered rather than held in your hand. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve desired something from afar only to realise that, close up, the shine is not lustrous.”
I ran the sentence back and forth in my mind a few times, trying to work out i
f he had just insulted her, or paid her a strange compliment. In the end, and to put an end to my internal bickering, I went with insult. It made me feel better.
“And glad I am your daughter safe is,” Yunru said in a tone that might have wavered toward genuine before the bitterness and bile pulled it back to where she intended it to be.
“I am confident that we can find a mutually beneficial way to work together over this,” Hai San said, a broad smile upon his face. “Now, to the matter of Mr Hayes.”
Bojing, sat next to Yunru, leaned forward. His eyes flashed anger towards me. Yunru shook her head, a slight motion that he must have caught in his peripheral vision for the words he’d been about to utter remained upon his tongue. I hope they choked him.
“Killed the brother of most trusted advisor,” Yunru’s face was impassive as Bojing translated the word, but there was a quiver in his voice. “Handed to the Sio Sam Ong for justice he must be.”
“Ah,” Hai San said and paused. The silence stretched to breaking point as he steepled his fingers in front of his face. I waited and watched his face, casting quick glances at Bojing and Yunru. Someone would break first and I was damned if it was going to be me. For once, I knew when to be quiet. It was Bojing who opened his mouth to speak, but Hai San cut him off. “I have given this much consideration. His interference in the warehouse was unfortunate, but as far as I can ascertain his actions did not sway the outcome of the battle in any great manner.”
“Technology and gun, he used,” Yunru said. “By accords both forbidden.”
“True,” Hai San said, “but he acted alone and of his own free will.”
“Outside your protection, he is,” Yunru cawed. Bojing smiled as he translated and directed a look full of vengeance in my direction. “No protection from accords or traditions. Sio Sam Ong have justice.”
“Which is where I find myself in a dilemma,” Hai San answered, unruffled and calm.
My heart was beating at a rate of knots and it was a struggle not to react. Be calm, he’d told me, wait for the right time.
“Dilemma?” Bojing said and received a rebuke from Yunru, the smallest of frowns but enough to silence him.
“I owe Mr Hayes a debt, two in fact. First, he did return my daughter to me and protect her from the assassin who was sent after her,” Hai San said, not acknowledging that the assassin was Bojing’s brother.
“Safe she was,” Yunru said. “He at risk put her.”
“It is a possibility I considered, but have chosen not to believe,” he answered. Yunru’s eyes narrowed at the implied insult, but Hai San continued. “Also there is the matter of saving my own sister’s life during the battle. That is something I cannot ignore.”
“You protect him are going to?” she asked, her pitch rising. “Contract he broke. Killing he has done.”
“A debt is a debt,” Hai San shrugged. “I can do no less for him than any other I owe. I am sure you understand the difficult position I am in as I understand the difficulty it places you under. We do not wish to sour our agreement that has been won with so much blood.”
I could almost hear Yunru’s teeth as she ground them together. Bojing leaned in and spoke to her in a hushed whisper of musical notes and slurs. In response, she smiled and looked anew at Hai San.
“Accept the case you make, we do,” Bojing said. “Wise is the Hai San. Mr Hayes,” he spat out my name as if he’d eaten a piece of rotten fish, “has passed beyond city limits and Da Long Corporation, your protection no longer will have.”
My heart leaped into my throat and tried its best to strangle me. Not yet, I told myself.
“True, Honoured Yunru,” Hai San said. “There are limits to the protection I can offer. If you choose to pursue the matter back to his Corporation I cannot, I will not, interfere. In matters of honour and family there are limits upon us all.”
She clapped her hands, a girlish gesture of glee. It didn’t suit her. Even Bojing cracked a smile, an evil one that promised pain.
“If I may,” I said, leaning forward and pushing down my fear. “I too have been dishonoured in this matter. Revered Bojing employed me, setting me up for an impossible task. One that I could never complete as the item I was sent to recover was never present.”
“Stole it, you did,” Bojing replied in a loud voice that was just the quiet side of shouting.
“It was not there,” I replied, forcing myself to be calm. “If you told me what I was searching for, shown me a picture, beforehand I could have told you it would not be there. I’ve seen the sword you are seeking.” Which caused everyone around the table to lean forward. I hadn’t told Hai San because everyone needed their secrets and ace-in-the-hole sometimes.
Yunru snapped out a single sound which Bojing translated as, “Where?”
“You have?” Hai San said, his voice measured and controlled.
“I have,” I said. “Far away from here and safe. Its owner saved my life and I owe him a debt.”
All these debts of honour, promises and secrets were tangling me up and though they were useful, a gun and two quick shots would be a much easier way to deal with things. I didn’t want to be a murderer, but I also didn’t want to be murdered.
“Ah,” Hai San sighed.
“Tell me,” Yunru ordered through Bojing.
“I’ve caused some offence to Bojing,” I said, ignoring her command, “and he has caused me some also. There is, I believe, a solution to this.”
I took the folded paper from out of my jacket and flipped it across the table to Bojing who stared at it. There were words written upon the front, in black ink. I hadn’t written them. I didn’t understand them. One of Hai San’s staff had dipped the thick brush into the ink and painted them for me.
Yunru leaned over and scooped up the paper. Her eyes scanned the front page and her sharp fingers unfolded the paper. I saw her eyebrows rise and her mouth open as she read the words.
“I think I have all of it right,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. “The challenge is set within the forms and rituals.”
“Single combat?” Bojing said, his own eyes widening in shock.
“Mr Hayes is a visiting master,” Hai San said, “and I have checked the rules of the challenge. It is within the confines of all that I’ve read. Both Hayes and Revered Bojing have cause to be aggrieved with one another.”
“Gwai lo,” Yunru said, uttering the single phrase I actually understood.
“There are provisions in history and the rules,” Hai San shrugged. “The challenge has been made and it is up to Bojing to accept or not.”
“He,” Bojing pointed at me, “not a master is.”
“Interesting,” Hai San said. “I understood that you employed him because of his skills with the Fish-Suit and, as we all know, those are solely a military unit. I think it could be easily argued that, as a soldier, he qualifies as a master. Gongfu allows for any skill that takes time, practice and dedication to develop. Under those terms, Corin Hayes meets the requirements. Do you accept the challenge?”
Yunru was silent, her already thin lips disappearing and the make up doing little to hide the anger she was feeling. Backed into a corner from which she could not escape.
“I have a suitable area for the fight,” Hai San said, driving the point home. “We can see that all sides are treated fairly and that medical treatment, should it be needed, is on hand.”
Bojing looked to Yunru who stared fixedly ahead. There would be no advice coming from that quarter.
My ribs hurt, my face was a mess of bruises and I looked, because a mirror was nothing if not honest, like a walking corpse. A stiff blast of air could knock me over. I gave Bojing the biggest smile I could, feeling the warm trickle of blood from my re-split lip trickle down my chin.
“I accept the challenge,” he said, the words being forced from his throat in a dry whisper.
That wasn’t the plan.
Chapter 54
“It is not my fault,” Hai San said, spreading his a
rms wide in innocence.
“He was supposed to back out of the challenge. You said he wouldn’t go for it,” I answered, wiping the sweat off my palms.
“I think he is very angry with you,” Hai San began, pausing when I raised an eyebrow at him. “Understandable, of course. However, it is more likely that Yunru would have expressed her displeasure in the most extreme way had he refused the chance to kill you. She really does not like you.”
“She’s not alone in that,” I said. There were nights when I didn’t like me either, quite a few days too. “I’m in no condition to fight.”
“My doctors say you should be fine,” Hai San replied.
“What do they know?” I huffed. My ribs hurt. The doctors had, this morning, said the bone was knitting nicely under the ministrations of the patches, ointments, and the other apothecaries they’d smeared over them or made me drink. They’d also advised a few more days of rest to give it a chance to fully heal. With a shrug they’d said they couldn’t do much for my face and I’d had to assure them that that was the way it always looked. I could see they didn’t believe me. Not so smart after all.
“Do not allow yourself to get hit too much and you will be fine, Corin,” Hai San smiled at me.
“That’s your advice?”
“The best you will get,” he nodded.
“You said that Bojing wasn’t a trained fighter.” I stood up, dusting down the loose trousers and shrugging my shoulders in the t-shirt I wore, trying to get comfortable.
“He is not,” Hai San asserted. “As far as we know. However, his brother was quite skilled.”
“I know.”
“So it is possible that Bojing has had some training too. You were in the military, Corin. You were a soldier.”
“Not a good one.” I shook my head and closed my eyes, ending the train of thought and doubt which threated to flatten me. “Let’s go and get this over with. You know where to send my ashes?”
“It is not a fight to the death, Corin,” he said as he opened the door onto the courtyard.
“Tell them that,” I muttered as I followed him out and down the stairs.