by J D Astra
“Focus,” Mae whispered, and I brought my attention to my sloppy paddling. I shifted from power and speed to stealth, slowly and carefully moving all six legs in unison. The dojang had a sturdy, utilitarian structure of metal under the wooden temple-like top. The beams were a dim silver in the moonless night and would not be easy to grapple.
I pulled one side of paddle legs out of the water and slowly turned so the hook hatch faced the dojang. With a prayer it wouldn’t be too loud, I launched the hook at the wood of the patio. I swiveled my head around to watch the projectile hit with a reverberating thunk that shivered down the wire.
We waited a beat, and when no one appeared on the open patio above, I reeled us in. When we reached the edge, I detached the hook from Tuko’s behind and locked it onto the loop on the Tu-boat body. It bobbed there serenely as I crawled out of the shell and climbed the metal structure up to the wood dojang.
I took a moment at the top to use a small amount of ry to reinforce the reflective glimmer, and another bit to help dampen the vibrations of the Tu-boat below. I hoped no one would notice the gentle bumping noise it made as the waves of the bay rocked it against the structure frame.
I shook to ensure there weren’t any stray droplets of water on my underside that would leave a trail and tip someone off, then headed into the dojang. Several wood and paper doors had been put in place to keep the elements from entering the dojang overnight. I didn’t want to leave any sign that we’d been here, but if we had to break through, I would.
I slipped my narrow leg through the gap in the paper door, and it slid aside with ease. My luck just kept coming. I was grateful wansil Wong was so cocksure that no one would infiltrate his dojang from the bay, but wondered why didn’t consider invasion by sea to be an option. I wasn’t going to stick around to find out.
I stuck my long-necked head through the paper doors to look around. The braziers at the top had been extinguished, the incense was all ash, and there was no movement. I found it hard to believe that wansil Wong would leave the dojang completely unguarded at night if he were moving shipments of drugs through it and hosting the signal source here. Something was awry.
“See anything?” I whispered thoughtlessly, and suddenly I felt the chill of the breeze on my skin as I sat strapped to the top of a tall tree. I spent a breath cycling zo to keep my body from getting too cold, then refocused on controlling Tuko.
“Without all the noise and bodies in the dojang, it’s much easier to get a reading on small sounds and vibrations. There’s some movement in the area below, but minimal. It seems like there might be someone patrolling like a guard. The vibrations are rhythmic, but not perfectly, like a person walking at a steady pace,” Mae replied.
My heart hammered in my chest as I thought of encountering a guard, and what I might have to do to them, but there was no backing out. We had to expose whatever was happening and get to the bottom of this—maybe even get a cure for Mother. I scooted the door open a little wider. I turned us sideways and slipped through, then closed the door behind me.
I rotated my head to get my bearings, then found the giant salamander shrine and the door next to it. I took long steps and set all my limbs down slowly to avoid making a racket as I made my way there. Ry swirled at the tip of my forelimb, and I lifted my dim-glowing yellow claw to reveal any traps.
There didn’t appear to be any special barriers or triggers laid into the handle or the frame. That didn’t mean there wasn’t anything—my ry was not particularly great—but it was at least somewhat reassuring.
Suddenly, I wished I’d built Hana a bot that could’ve accompanied Tuko, but remembered I was unique in my ability to control Tuko remotely. Hana wouldn’t have been able to do a thing from this far, unless I could somehow teach her to do what I did on instinct.
I spared a little more ry to do a once-over again, but when nothing was revealed, I knew it was time to move forward. I grabbed the handle with both forelimbs and turned it slowly as I sent ma munje into the lock mechanism.
It was a simple puzzle lock, and it clicked free without much effort. The door pulled open easily.
My pulse throbbed in my neck, and I realized I’d been holding my breath. I took another moment to cycle air and calm my pounding heart, then stepped into the inky black of the mysterious room. I shut the door behind me and held up my forelimb with ry for light.
The room was not much bigger than our lodging at Bastion, and the elements were sparse. There was a low table to the right decorated with teacups and a kettle, and pillows piled up behind it. On the left wall was a stack of boxes, unmarked, and at the far back was a large painting of the silvery winged salamander above a miniature shrine complete with a black and red rug to kneel on.
“There’s another door, on the floor in front of the shrine,” Mae said as we quietly made our way across the room.
‘How do you know?’ I asked, then notice the upturned edge of the rug.
“There’s a small breeze coming up from below. It’s moving the air.” Mae blinked a winking face in my vision, and it helped to calm my nerves.
We were on the right path.
‘How do you think it opens?’ I asked as I pulled the rug away from the nearly invisible door. There were small gaps in the wood flooring where the planks ended all over the place, but there was a distinct outline where the gaps were just slightly larger. Large enough for the door to hinge away.
I checked my reservoir, and Mae popped up a friendly bit of information in the corner of my vision I could refer to. Of the original amounts I had put into Tuko’s reservoir, I had seventy-five percent ma remaining, eighty percent en, and thirty percent ry—dropping quickly, so I extinguished the light on my limb.
“I’m guessing it’s a ma lock,” she replied, and I circled the spot, careful not to bump the shrine. I let a bit of golden ma slip down my legs and into the door, then let Mae take over.
“I was right. Stand back,” she said as I felt the vibrations of clicks and sliding bolts below my feet. I backed up to the wall, and the floor panel lifted two meters, revealing a small room that two or three people could squeeze into.
‘An elevator to the underwater structure?’ I asked.
“Seems to be. We’re crossing a point of minimal success of return. If we go down this elevator, there’s a fair likelihood we will lose Tuko and the spare device.” Mae warned. Her device was too valuable to lose—
“But your mother’s life could be on the line.” Mae interrupted my thoughts. “The lives of every citizen in Busa-nan who has consumed any of their drugs could be on the line. We can find another device.”
‘But if another of you is down there, handing over this piece could be more detrimental than if we never figure this out. And what about all the knowledge you’ll lose?’ I countered.
“I leave it to you.”
There wasn’t much time to think about it, but I weighed the options carefully.
‘Do we have enough en to melt your device if we’re caught?’
“We do.”
I stepped into the elevator, hating these limited options. I would do everything in my power to go undetected, but if we were discovered, I would stop at nothing to escape. If that still wasn’t enough, we could self-destruct, annihilating Mae’s device and hopefully destroying all the munje that could be linked back to me in the process. Not that any human could find me, but if they had a ghost like Mae on their side, she might be able to identify my mental signal and home in on me.
I kept my racing heart calm with deep breaths of cold early morning air as the elevator clunked to a stop. It was dark for a moment as I felt the vibrations of more locks clicking. The door slid open from the bottom and cast light across the metal floor. I pushed myself into the corner, waiting a beat.
I extended my long neck and looked out into the alien hallway. It was narrow, all metal, and unnaturally bright. There were panels on the wall that looked like ancient machina from the dive my father and I had done when we found Mae,
and the overhead lamps were a harsh white.
The vibrations of footsteps alerted me to the approaching guard, and I crept into the hall. I wedged my limbs into the gaps in the panels on the wall and climbed up to the ceiling. My stomach turned as I inverted and pressed my chunky body flesh against a break in the ceiling lamps.
A man in a black and red dobok stepped into the intersection and looked down the hall. He scowled, then approached. My heartbeat shot through the roof, and it took everything I had to keep my focus on maintaining control.
The man walked under me, then stopped at the elevator. A trickle of gold munje came from his hand and moved into the elevator, closing the door. He crossed his arms with a sigh, looking at the panel next to him and mumbled something.
“He said, ‘Damn ghost,’” Mae reported after reading his lips. Damn ghost, eh? That was a pretty clear indicator they had one somewhere in the facility.
“And another thing,” Mae added. “It either malfunctions often, so this sort of thing is commonplace, or it’s like me—intelligent enough to play pranks on its humans.”
Suddenly, I could feel the strain on my limbs as the ma in the corner of my vision dropped steadily. I moved one of the electric needles into the firing chamber in my head and took careful aim. The man turned away, walking back to his normal patrol.
I breathed a sigh of relief and climbed down from the ceiling, following the guard’s path. ‘Where are we going? What do you need?’ I asked Mae as I kept out of sight while the guard turned down a new hall.
Mae’s voice appeared in my head, distracted. “I already mobilized your ma when you climbed up the panel. I’m downloading data. I don’t know if it’s useful—it’s all encrypted—but I’m looking for suspicious file nestings.”
‘I don’t know what that means, but I trust you. I can’t follow this guard forever, though,’ I said as I looked down the long hall we’d come from.
“I was wrong about there being one guard. There’s someone else here, but they’re asleep. I’ve got access to their monitoring system. They have some sophisticated old-world tech down here... It’s a strain for me to do all these things at once, so I’m going to check the cameras intermittently.”
‘Roger,’ I thought with Mae’s silly accent.
There were several doors, and with Mae’s help through the monitoring system, I picked one that didn’t have a human on the other side. All the doors were controlled by a panel just out of Tuko’s reach, but fortunately, they were all connected to the computer system Mae was already infiltrating. With a bit more of her focus, she got the door opened.
The artificial light was absent here, and it took me a moment to adjust to the shift. Shimmers of blue and green light projected over the floor like waves, and I mentally squinted as I looked forward. Before me was a massive sheet of glass that revealed the underwater activity of the bay beyond.
“This may have been part of the old aquatic observation facility from my time. Windows like this don’t seem to serve much of a purpose for smugglers.”
A shadow approached, and my gut tightened. I’d never seen a Gilded Dragonet up close, and didn’t want to, but if it was on the other side of thick glass, it may be fine. I stepped closer, keeping myself low to the ground and hopefully invisible.
The shadow drew closer, and I realized it didn’t move like a fish at all, but more like a boat. It slowed, and I could see blinking lights along its side. The lights flashed and revealed strange, round fins with fan blades.
“It’s a submarine. That must be how they’re getting the shipments past Busa-nan’s customs,” Mae said thoughtfully, then I felt her take a snapshot.
The submarine rotated as it slowed, turning its other side against the window as it moved in closer. There was a heavy thud, then a clank clank clank and another boom that vibrated my body.
“They’ve docked,” she said.
Chapter 31
I LOOKED AROUND THE room for the first time, noticing crates stacked up against the wall with the same crescent moon and sword emblem on the side. If they were moving the shipment through this facility, this appeared to be a storeroom. Not good.
I made my way to the edge of the wall and scooted out a box to squeeze behind. I pulled the box above overtop me and hunkered down to reserve ma. The door to the room opened with a heavy thud and cast light over the floor. There were four pairs of footsteps—maybe three, it was hard to tell. The footsteps drew nearer until boxes were dropped off, then the people retreated.
They made several trips, and the boxes shifted, sending tinkled vibrations like ringing glass as they set them down. The door finally shut, and a few minutes later I felt the trembling of the submarine pulling away from the station. I took my time carefully getting out from under my predicament, shifting several boxes with painful precision, then got to work.
I pried up one of the edges of the box, illuminating it well with ry. Inside were two dozen empty glass vials all stuffed down with hay. I scowled and sifted through the box until my limb touched something squishy. I pushed aside the hay to reveal a transparent, sealed bag of black liquid. I poked it gently, and the liquid shimmered silver, then settled.
I felt Mae take several more snapshots and I moved around the room for her to do her work. The second box had a thick red substance that didn’t react when touched. The third box had an iridescent pearly liquid that seemed to thrum with energy. I grabbed a vial and pulled the hay free.
‘Mae, do you think we can use some en to osmosis that liquid from the bag?’ I asked, my heart pounding from a mixture of fear and excitement. This was hard evidence, not just still images. I could bring this and the images to Min-hwan, and then the sungchal could take real action.
“There is enough en, but if we do that, there won’t be enough left to melt us if we’re captured,” she warned, and I gritted my teeth. Having hard evidence was not more important than preventing Mae’s device from being manipulated by the enemy.
“The sleeping man isn’t in his room,” Mae said, her voice strained.
Vibrations of footsteps rang outside the hall, and my mind raced. I had to choose, fast. I stuffed the vial back in the box and pushed the lid down tight, then scuttled behind it. I used another ten percent of my ry to refresh my shadow glimmer, hopefully to obscure me from view.
The door opened and light filled the room, but my little alcove remained darkened. There were two pairs of footsteps. One of the men was limping, something I hadn’t noticed in any of the other footsteps.
The light intensified and the steps came closer to me. The guard came into view, bending over a box to pry it open. I pulled back farther, flattening myself. The lid popped open, and the guard stepped back to allow the other person a view.
A masked man appeared next over the box. He surveyed the contents carefully. His face was obscured by the swift, flowing lines of a fox, and colored with black, white, and orange. He nodded while the guard said something, and then, his head turned directly to me.
‘Open the door!’ I thought to Mae in a flurry. I dropped a smoke bomb before taking off. I galloped, feeling the vibrations of my clumsy run as I made my way back through the maze of halls to the elevator. The ma counter in the corner of my vision flashed at forty percent and dropping fast.
“The other AI is trying to lock me out,” Mae said.
I barreled down the hall to the exit. ‘Get it open now, or we have to self-destruct!’ I warned, preparing to mobilize the en. The elevator door opened a crack, then a half meter. That would be enough.
I gave two more great bounds, then pulled all my legs up, skidding on my stomach through the gap. The door came down with a snap, and the elevator rose. There was a heavy thud against the floor, and then the metal glowed red hot. I leapt straight up and pressed my legs out against the walls to anchor me.
The elevator came to a stop as the floor melted away, revealing the fox-masked man shielded with blue munje. My hands trembled. I scooted Tuko as far up the wall as I could. The molt
en metal slipped over the fox-man’s shield without leaving a mark, and he climbed up into the tube, reaching for me.
The elevator lifted into the room, and I rocketed myself forward, then turned and took aim. When the man’s face appeared, I fired the electrified needle from my head barrel. The shot landed between his neck and chest. Blue zaps arced from his head to his navel. His knees hit the floor with a thud while he shuddered.
I opened the door and skittered toward the exit. I ripped through the paper of the dojang door and tumbled onto the patio. My heart raced as I galloped across the smooth wood toward the edge and slipped over the railing.
As I rotated to drop down onto the Tu-boat, the paper doors blasted off the wall and into the bay with a massive gust that nearly pushed me from the patio. I skittered down the side and the fox-man raised a glowing gold hand.
I gasped and dropped, releasing the edge of the railing. I watched a swirl of ma munje reach for where I once was as I fell. I hit the Tu-boat and bounced into the water, my middle right leg broken. I grabbed the edge of the boat and pulled myself in, then cut the grappling hook free with my claw.
The water beside me swelled up like a monstrous hand from the sea and splashed down on top of me. My limbs ached and contracted, Tuko’s body cooling instantly. We tumbled under water in a sickening vertigo, but I held tight to the boat and strapped in.
We surfaced sideways and bobbed. I struggled to right us, my heart hammering away in my chest. Another massive hand rose from the water and I countered, using the last spare en munje to carve a hole through the attack. The water plunged down around us and rocked the boat upright.
I paddled with all my might, dumping as much ma munje into the effort as I could. Water flew while the paddles moved around and around, speeding us away from the dojang. I turned my head and watched the facility fade into the distance as my heart banged against my chest, slowing every second.