SWITCHBLADE (Choi Ziyi Book 1)

by Mike Morris

It wasn't Wing. Someone else. A stranger.

  "Ziyi, talk to me. We're worried about you. We know there's been a misunderstanding. We know you're not a captive of the Americans." His voice was warm, friendly, begging to be trusted. "Talk to me. We need you if we're going to save His Highness. We need you to come home."

  She went to reply but something stopped her.

  "Ziyi, my name is Heng Lu. Please tell me you're okay."

  The monitors were clear of any approaching aircraft but she still checked the skies for herself.

  "I've good news. We've found the terrorists. We've found Xiao."

  Her heart leapt at the news. Her fears vanished. "Is he safe?" she asked.

  "Ziyi - you had us worried for awhile. Are you injured?"

  "Is he safe?"

  "Soon. Soon. Our forces are on their way to retrieve him now." She could hear the smile in the man's voice. "It's so good to hear your voice. You had us worried for a while. Where are you? Come home so you can help with his rescue — he'll want to see you."

  "Where's Xiao? Where is he?" As she asked the question, she closed her eyes, turning on her internal monitors. Once more Xiao's vitals appeared, healthy and strong. His heart rate was higher than normal but that was only to be expected. She could imagine how scared he would be, tied up and a hostage. She switched to the GPS and again a reading appeared. Aberdeen.

  "I can't tell you over open comms. How soon can you return to Central?"

  A small bubble of doubt appeared again. "I'm already in Central."

  "Give me your exact location and we'll send someone to pick you up."

  Still her monitors showed no threat so why was she nervous? Why didn't she trust this man and his smooth voice in her ear? She started to rotate the flyer, checking the skies with more care.

  "Ziyi, give me your address. I can have a car with you in minutes."

  He was lying. If all her internal monitors were back on line then Control knew exactly where she was. They could track her movements as well as Xiao's. Her own GPS transponder was built into her earpiece.

  She powered up the flyer and hit the accelerator, shooting forwards. The engines screamed in protest but then the world disappeared. An explosion tore up the sea exactly where she’d been hovering a second earlier. The shock wave pummelled the rear of the flyer, almost flipping the aircraft. Ziyi managed to wrestle it back under control and kept the throttle on full. She stuck as close to the surface of the sea as she could, skimming above the waves as fast as she dared. Sea spray slammed into her face through the shattered windscreen, expecting any second another missile to turn her into ash.

  "Tell me where you are Ziyi? Speak to me?"

  "You know." She spun the flyer about, searching for the missile's origin. She had no idea if they were staying out of her radar range or somehow they'd managed to jam her flyer's instruments. She could only trust her eyes but still she couldn't see anything except empty skies and the glow of Hong Kong in the distance.

  "I don't Ziyi. That's why I'm asking."

  "The missile says otherwise." Aberdeen was on the other side of the island so she headed east.

  "What missile? Are you okay?"

  "Don't lie to me."

  She saw a flash, knew it was another missile, and tilted the flyer up almost vertically. A wave nearly caught the wing as she executed the manoeuvre, and she thought she'd done Control's job for them for a moment, before the sea beneath her exploded. The blast threw the flyer up, battering her senses in the confines of the cockpit. The world turned over on itself once more but, as sky appeared at the edge of the windscreen, Ziyi hit the accelerator. The G-force threw her back in her seat as the flyer leaped forward.

  It was a race now to Aberdeen. Xiao's and her life were the stakes. She locked his GPS signal on her eye and headed for it. As long as she had that, she'd find him. Of course, Control couldn't lose her either. Not while they were tracking her own signal.

  The Western tip of Hong Kong loomed before her. Shanty homes hung off the edge of broken down buildings over the water, held upright by bamboo poles jutting into the sea. Laundry flew like flags from windows amongst a spider's web of electrical cables, and sampans nipped from one structure to another in the oil-slick waves. She banked right and followed the curve of the land, teeth gritted, tendons taut in her neck and straining against the joystick, fighting the G-force for all she was worth.

  Somewhere behind her, over the roar of the engines and the howl of the wind, she heard another missile explode. She'd no idea if it'd been a near miss or not, but she couldn't afford to look back.

  "Don't fight, Ziyi. Your fate is inevitable. You've nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide." The humour and warmth were gone from the man's voice. "We can’t let you live."

  She knew another missile was on its way and cursed the world as she tried to force more speed from the flyer. "Fuck you," she said, more to herself than Heng, hating his voice in her head. She had to stop them tracking her. She drew her pistol and placed the barrel against the side of her head.

  "The truth doesn't m..."

  Ziyi pulled the trigger.

  Pain, white-hot and furious, exploded in her head. She screamed for all she was worth and blackness swamped her. When she opened her eyes again, the flyer was diving towards the ocean. She pulled the joystick hard, felt the underside bounce on the surface once, twice, but then she found the sky once more and the flyer climbed back up. Blood, hot and wet, covered the side of her face and ran down her neck. She reached up, felt only a small stub remaining of her ear and tried not to worry about how much blood she’d lost. Her mek would deal with the bleeding. It just needed time.

  Cold hit her next, shaking her body. Ziyi knew it wasn't the wind coming in through the windscreen but shock. Her body was shutting down — maybe she'd done more damage to herself than she'd intended. A hurricane roar filled her mind, shunting her thoughts away. The blackness called her again but she couldn't listen. She concentrated on keeping the flyer level and breathing at the same time. How it could it be so difficult?

  She gritted her teeth to stop them chattering as the cold grew inside her, aided by the fear that she was dying. Her hand slipped off the joystick and it took all her concentration to resume her grip. The black pecked away the edges of her vision.

  Her neck felt loose, incapable of holding her head up, even though that was impossible. Even her heart had lost its fury and its beat faded inside her. Somewhere part of her laughed at the thought she'd killed herself.

  The catecholamine dump hit her in a rush, released by her mek, chased by an endorphin boost, clearing the black away in an instant. The world was no longer enveloped in a fog and every sense came alive, singing, along with the knowledge she'd done the right thing and the belief that she could save Xiao. Forget dying, forget defeat. Her heart raced, spreading the chemicals throughout her body, bringing life back. She didn't need to check her wound to know the mek had shut off the bleeding.

  She'd destroyed the GPS tracker and she was still alive. All she had to do now was lose her pursuers and reach Xiao. She revolved the flyer in a three sixty degree arc, but still couldn't spot any other flyers in the sky. No more missiles either. Maybe her luck had turned and they'd think the loss of her GPS meant they'd destroyed her with the last missile. She couldn't see any drones either but no doubt they'd be on their way soon enough.

  She hit the thrusters and headed inland, flying over the Western District shanties. She kept the craft low, weaving through the buildings as they changed from illegal structures into dilapidated concrete structures, following the curve of the land to Aberdeen, where grime replaced Central's gloss no matter how high up you went. Low-cost housing filled the lower levels, all blasted with grit and dirt from shuttles leaving the spaceport across the harbour on Lamma Island. The upper levels weren't much better. The inhabitants had more money than the people below them, but most had earned it on the blood and sweat of the less fortunate. Aberdeen didn't do respectability too well. A fitting place for
the Americans to hide.

  Sampans dotted the water, little bobbing spots of light against the black sea, ferrying workers back and forth constantly to Lamma, dodging the tankers slugging their way around the world from port to port.

  To the right, the Floating City filled the old typhoon shelter. It was once home to fishing men and their families, but it now housed every illegal immigrant who had ever tried to get into Hong Kong. Nobody knew how many lived there, how many generations. It was fifty-odd levels of lawlessness that made the Zeros look like a fairground. The government and the elements had done their best to wash it away over the years, but it remained standing and defiant, behind barbed wire, cut off from the rest of the world. Arguments for either crushing it or legalising it held equal sway in the government so it carried on ignored in the mean time, protected by an old Empirical order.

  It was fitting that Xiao's GPS reading brought her to a building on the edge of the harbour, overlooking the Floating City. The lower levels were a mishmash of laundries, restaurants and retail establishments — all promising value where none was to be found. The higher levels were once destined to be office space but that ambition had long been abandoned judging by the darkness that filled those levels.

  Ziyi pulled back on the flyer's joystick as she aimed for the roof, no more than a speck below. A skylight filled most of the roof's surface leaving her little space to land but Xiao was in there somewhere. There was no turning back.

  Blinding light suddenly filled her cockpit. Two flyers were closing in on her fast from the East. The alarm screamed as one of them locked its weapons on her. Only seconds remained before her flyer would be nothing but dust in the air.

  Landing was no longer an option. Staying alive might not be either.

  She checked the rooftop one more time, and whispered a prayer to her ancestors. She set the autopilot and scrambled out of her seat. She smacked the door lock with the palm of her hand. A sudden gush of wind rocked her as the doors zipped open. Even over the wind, she heard the pop of missiles being launched a heartbeat before the flyer's alarms screamed their death cry, and she jumped.

  16

  Wing

  Wing stepped out onto Song's floor. The lighting was even worse than it had been in the lobby. The few working ceiling light strips sparked and crackled, leaving most of the hallway in darkness, hiding the sweat stained walls for the most part, but there was no escaping the dampness in the air.

  Her apartment was easy enough to find. He swiped the door card, not expecting it to work, but the lock clunked open and the light turned green. He paused, once again imagining the armed troops waiting for him and the array of guns already pointing his direction. Would they give him a chance to give himself up or just shoot first?

  Don't be a fool, he told himself, you're just being paranoid — you’re safe. And somehow that gave him the strength to go inside.

  The small living room had an open kitchen area at the far end, separated from the main area by an island with a sink. There were a few pieces of well-worn furniture that looked like it had been passed down by at least two generations. A couple of photographs hung on the wall, with a small girl — obviously Song — and her parents in each of them. They looked happy. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen his own parents. He didn't even know where they were living — or if they were still alive.

  The rest of the apartment was sparsely decorated, but he had to admit, it was a damn site tidier than his own place. Everything was put away. There were no old clothes to step over, no empty bottles covering the counter tops, no dirty pots filling up the sink. No drugs scattered across the coffee table.

  At the thought of drugs, his hand touched the packet in his pocket. He jerked it away when he realised what he was doing. This wasn't the fucking time. He had that much self-control at least.

  The safe was easy to find in the back of her closet and he got the combination right on the first attempt. He scoffed at the thought of Song doubting he'd remember. There was nothing inside except the homemade jack kit, a curled up tangle of cables and junction boxes, liberated from a myriad of sources. It wouldn't give them the power and access they enjoyed at Control it’d be good enough to hack in all the same.

  He stuffed the kit into a sports bag, grateful that all his worry had been for nothing. Maybe things were turning his way after all. A smile spread across his cheeks, and he left the bedroom with a bounce in his step.

  With the fear gone, Wing realised he needed the toilet. God only knew when he'd get another chance to go, so he dropped the bag by the front door and headed to the bathroom. He had time.

  The room was as simple as the rest of the apartment. Wing wasn't sure why anyone would want an avocado green bathroom but there was no accounting for taste. He placed the gun and the pack of cigarettes beside the sink and sat down, staring at the two items. They summed up how mad his life had become. He reached over and picked the gun up. He didn't even know how to fire the bloody thing, or if it was even loaded. He pointed it at his reflection in the mirror and mimed shooting himself, before blowing imaginary smoke from the barrel. The gun lacked any type of elegance — purely functional. Knowing Jim, he'd got it cheap on the 'Bay.

  He found the safety catch, and flicked it off and back on again a few times with his thumb, as his finger lurked around the trigger. He pretended to draw the gun, turn off the safety and shoot an imaginary target. Easy. He'd show the next person who tried to fuck with him.

  He placed the gun back and picked up the smokes. He paused as he went to take a cigarette out. The lump of slice had hooked his eye. He shook it out into the palm of his hand. It was the size of a golf ball and pure rock by the looks of it. It certainly didn't look like Jim had messed with it either, diluting it with whatever shit he used to spread it out further. Wing licked a corner, shuddered as he always did at the bitter taste, and his smile grew. It was really good shit. Really good. Things were definitely turning his way.

  He stood up and flushed but his mind was on the slice. His tongue tingled with a beautiful numbness. Don't be a dumb idiot, he told himself, you've got self-control. Plus he didn't have his kit with him to smoke any of the slice, and he doubted Song would have anything he could use, so he put the gear back into the cigarette packet.

  He went to leave the bathroom but stopped, looking at the smooth counter top. Of course there was nothing stopping him chopping up a cheeky line and snorting it. It wouldn't even have that much effect on him. Song wouldn't even notice. In fact, it'd help them, give him an edge, enable him to see the bigger picture. Relax.

  He checked the time. Plenty.

  He used Song's key card to shave flecks off the rock onto the counter top. His mouth twitched as he watched the mound grow. He stopped when he had just enough, thought better of it, and added another couple of shavings. He marshalled it all into a straight line and stepped back, admiring his handiwork. Perfect.

  He put the rest of the slice back into the packet and returned it to his pocket, realising only then he had nothing to use to snort the line. The smile fell from his face. Fuck. There had to be something in Song's place that he could use.

  Wing wandered out from the bathroom into the main living room. He pulled open the odd drawer, equally disgusted and impressed at the tidiness of each one's contents. Song was a real neat freak. She'd die if she ever visited Wing's home.

  He was in the kitchen when he heard the door lock click open. He dropped down behind the kitchen island. All his confidence evaporated with the clunk of the lock and the fear came crashing back. How could he have been so stupid not to have hauled his arse out of there while he had the chance? He reached for the gun but his hand found nothing. He pictured it lying next to the line of slice in the bathroom.

  The door opened. Two sets of feet entered the room, slowly, carefully. Looking for something. Wing listened to his heart roar inside his chest and wondered how no one else could hear it. He held his breath as he pressed himself against a cabinet door and tucked his fee
t in. What were they doing?

  "You sure it was the male operator they saw?" asked a man's voice. Didn't sound young and with an edge to it that came from only a heavy smoker.

  "They were looking for the girl so they didn't get a good look. Just the back of his head but, yeah, they think so." The other was a woman. Younger, full of confidence. Police. Or worse.

  "Check the bedroom," said the man.

  Wing listened to the woman walk over before risking a peek around the edge of the cabinet. She wasn't in a police uniform but her posture said military. She led with her pistol, arms extended, covering every angle of the room. Clad in black, her hair was tied back. Wing couldn't see the man. He wasn't following her. Obviously didn't think Wing was much of a threat if he wasn't backing her up. He’s right too, thought Wing as he cowered in the kitchen. He was a bloody idiot who deserved to die. Leaving his weapon behind, forgetting the danger they were all in, just to do a line of slice. Only drug addicts were that stupid.

  "Zheng," called the girl. "Come here. Someone's definitely been here."

  Zheng stomped over. "What've you found?"

  "Someone's been in the wall safe."

  Wing peered around the edge of the island again. Saw the back of a bald head and a leather jacket disappear into the bedroom. He slowly climbed to his feet. The front door wasn't that far away. The jack kit was still next to it. Now was his chance to get the fuck out of there, probably the only chance he'd get.

  His legs didn't want to cooperate at first but he forced himself up and over to the door, expecting at any moment to be caught. He picked up the bag and opened the door as slowly as he could. He took one last look back at the bedroom, smiling at his luck holding out after all. They'd never even know how close they'd come to catching him. He stepped out into the hallway only to catch the kit bag against the door frame.

  "What's that?" the officer called from the bedroom.

  Without looking back, Wing sprinted for the elevator.