by Nova McBee
Red. He came through—but with Chan Huang Long? Red had his secrets, but hiding his acquaintance with the richest man in Asia? Something’s not right. Chan wants something from me. They all want something. But this time, I want something too.
“Kidnapping won’t work,” Bo Gong jumps in. “Death got you in here, death will get you out.”
The billionaire looks up at Bo Gong. “Can I talk to her alone for a moment?”
Bo Gong nods calmly. “I’ll see to the arrangements.” Then he eases out of the room.
I nearly choke. Chan is rich—because his money is talking very loudly right now. Meeting me must have cost a pretty coin and buying Bo Gong far more. But asking to see me alone can only mean one thing. A deal within a deal. The rich always have their own agenda.
Chan folds his hands on the wooden table and takes another long look in my direction. His eyes make me sad, like I’m staring into a painting of only blues and grays. There’s fear there too, I suppose from the Pratt itself. Wickedness hangs in the air like a tangible mist. Even after years, it still makes my skin crawl.
“How long have you lived in China?” he asks.
“You call this living? Ha!” I say.
He grunts. “American?”
I’m silent, calculating. Men in the Pratt have forgotten which country I’m from. Even I’ve forgotten. Besides, I’m not sure how much I want to say. Apparently, my fluent Mandarin doesn’t mask my laowai face. Red obviously told him about me, but I’ll keep him guessing.
“How old are you?” He tries a new question. “The guard told me you have been here for over a year, which means whatever education you had is outdated.”
“Nice observation,” I say, my face hard. “What did you expect to find in the Pratt?”
“Someone older. You look like a kid.”
I laugh. “What do you want?”
“Red told me about your special talent,” he says bluntly.
My face tingles as I shake my head. “He’d never tell you that.”
“I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t.”
Red knew me better than anyone, knew what I wanted. Playing genie for another power monger isn’t it.
“I’m not looking for a job,” I say.
“Don’t you want to get home?”
The word home pricks at me like it’s a gift wrapped in thorns, or a beautiful glass full of poison. He says the word like it’s bait. But I’m not that thirsty or that stupid. He’ll have to offer me something better than that.
“I won’t do for you what I’m forced to do for King, not even for freedom.”
“This is a real job. I will pay you, well.”
Huh. If Chan was anything like King, this conversation would be over. But he is bargaining, which means calling his bluff will be easier than I thought. I’ve got to play this guy just right if I’m going to come out on top.
“Not interested,” I say, stalling. “I’ve had my fair share of dirty money.”
“Not all men with money are dishonest,” he says, his eyes squinting.
“What about you, Mr. Chan?”
“That’s not fair. I’m my only witness. Unless you count Red, who set this up.” His eyes keep steady on mine. “Business is business, however. I’ll pay the 20 million to get you out, plus five million to fix my company.”
“Pocket change,” I smirk. “I can make that in an hour.”
“How? Red didn’t tell me that part.”
“I bet you’d like to know. Most crooks do. Although they’re not smart enough to understand it even if I tried to explain.” I expect him to stand and leave the room, taking my ticket out of here with him. I’m about to recall my bluff, but he sits there calmly even though I’m sure I’ve offended him.
He watches me. I inwardly groan at my own bad attitude. I’m treating this man like King. Where is the girl I once was? I used to want to help people. I was never so hard-boiled.
Chan takes out his wallet. I assume to offer me more money, but instead he shows me a picture of a woman. “Let her be my witness that I do not cheat on women or in business.”
“Who’s that?”
“My wife.” His eyes flick toward the flower in his lapel.
“I’d like to hear that from her own lips,” I snap, doubtful after what I’ve seen in the Pratt.
“She’s dead.” His voice drops an octave like the frown on his face. I don’t miss the emotion he tries to hide. “But my love for her is not. My business was built from the ground up. I worked hard. Fought hard.”
“Then how did you get here?” I say.
“I don’t deal with criminals if that is what you are implying. Red made the arrangement knowing Bo Gong would help, for the right price. I am not breaking any laws, considering this place isn’t even supposed to exist.”
So, he knows what the Pratt is. “What’s your connection to Red?” I ask.
He drops his eyes. “He was a dying man I made a promise to.”
He’s lying. There’s more, but he doesn’t want to tell me.
Chan hardens as I suspect he does in a business meeting. “Look, girl. I came here because I was told you are honest. You obviously need my help and it turns out I need yours.”
I’m about to say something smart when I see it. Chan Huang Long is desperate. There’s something wrong. Regardless of what he’s not telling me, we’re not dealing with small matters on either of our sides. The stakes are high. His billions and my freedom.
“What’s the problem?” I ask.
“I’ll show you everything when you are out.” Chan’s fidgeting again. He glances at his watch. He does not want to be here any longer than he has to be. “I made arrangements. Tomorrow you will be free. Ten percent of everything you make for me will be yours. I’ll provide a house for you.”
In the year Red took me under his wing, not once did he betray me by telling anyone my secrets. Nor did he do anything without a purpose. If Red sent Chan, it’s my safest bet. Right now, all I need is to get out of here and make a lot of money. And Chan’s handing it to me on a platter. It may not be the destiny my mom had in mind, but it’s a start.
I just need a bit more.
“Forty percent,” I say. “After I solve your problem, I’m gone.”
“Never,” he says. “No one in my company will possess nearly half. Twenty. Besides, I am only taking the word of an old man. I haven’t seen what you can do. And I am paying your way out of here.”
“Ask King why I’m here. Or Bo Gong. They know what I can do. And you want—no—you need what I can give you. Forty or no deal.” My arms fold across my chest. He doesn’t have my motivation. I want my life back.
His hands shake, a nervous twitch of his forefinger rubbing over his thumbnail. It’s clear I have the upper hand though I still don’t understand why.
“Look,” he says, his fingers fiddling with the flower, “something terrible will happen if…”
I stop him. “Look around us, Mr. Chan,” I say, leaning over the desk, getting in his face. “Do you think I don’t know about terrible?”
The billionaire looks disturbed and I don’t even tell him the worst part.
“Forty.” I hold his gaze. He could be somewhat honest, but my gut tells me not to budge.
He turns his head and cracks his neck. He’s sweating more than before, but his will is breaking—something, I suspect, that does not happen easily.
“Okay,” he relents, touching the tissue on his nose. “Only until the problem’s solved, then it is over.”
We shake hands.
Chan pulls back and rubs a finger over the swollen, now purple part of his nose. A brief stillness follows as everything sinks in. He has just signed over a large portion of his company’s profits to me, while I’m trying to comprehend freedom and a life outside these walls.
Everything Madame started 700 days ago could come to an end. The thought buzzes across my mind like a wasp ready to sting. I could finally stop her. Fulfill the vow I made to Red. To rig
ht the wrongs. To start over.
“So,” I say, breaking the silence after thirty-three seconds. “How will you get me out?”
4
Past: Josephine
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
When I was five years old, Mom invented a game to play whenever the numbers overwhelmed me. We called it Seagulls. It started one day when I was watching the birds on the beach. I really wanted to fly. Mathematically, I knew why birds could fly and I could not. But as a child, knowing the odds of everything you could and could not do severely dampened normal playtime. The odds were clear. No matter how hard or fast I flapped my arms, or how light I was, or how windy of a day, or how long I practiced, I’d no sooner fly than the bench I sat on.
I buried my face into my mom’s chest and cried. “It’s impossible, Mom.”
She lifted my chin, her eyes blazing into mine. “Forget the odds, Jo. Numbers will never define you or what you can do,” she said. “Close your eyes. Just imagine you can fly. See? We’re seagulls right now.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the numbers as best as I could. I let the salty wind rush over my face, arms, and legs. Soon I felt it, clouds were under me, along with waves and sand. There were no numbers there to stop me. I was in the air, soaring. Free.
I wish I could tell Mom that I still played that game from time to time. That I played it now in a stadium of a thousand faces locked onto the stage for one reason. Me. A fifteen-year-old girl prodigy earning her PhD.
After sitting for twenty-eight minutes and five seconds, it was my turn to speak. I brushed my long brown hair over my shoulder and stood.
I picked up my gown and crossed the stage as Dean Storr announced, “Josephine Rivers.”
The purple and gold mortarboard sat upon my head a bit unnaturally. My classmates, beside me, fit the part, but I did not. They’d earned this degree over many years of hard work. Me? Less than a year. But then again, they weren’t writing algorithms at age seven.
Harvard was the first to explain my acute aptitude to estimate hundreds of variables and probabilities among things going on around me. Unlike other math prodigies they’d studied, where solving equations seemed merely to tickle their world, the mathematical lens through which I saw defined my world. Apparently, that made me a hot commodity, which was why my decision to secretly work for Prodigy Stealth Solutions was a big deal.
It wasn’t for them; it was for me and Mom.
My father’s words about being confident reminded me to straighten my back, raise my chin, and ignore the woots in the audience. A line of sweat trailed down my back. I pulled a handwritten paper out of my pocket and spoke into the mic.
After my speech and more applause, I focused on Dean Storr as he distinguished me from my fellow classmates.
“Our youngest graduate in over one hundred years…because of her contributions, our understanding of fields such as differential equations, economics, and computer simulations have increased significantly...”
As Dean Storr spoke, a woman who stood off to the side of the stage caught my attention. I had seen her once before. She was stunning. Impeccably dressed. Her hair was a striking dark red and her lipstick matched it perfectly.
She was at my interview for the Stanley Department. She shouldn’t have been there. She wasn’t a professor or a judge. By mistake, she had slipped in and here she was again.
For a brief second, we locked eyes. Negative calculations link the distance between us.
If people saw the world through my eyes, they’d see that odds were calculated, that numbers slid our days together like puzzle pieces—which meant, if I had seen her twice already, the odds were I’d see her again. The unease knotting in my stomach told me I wasn’t sure I’d like that.
After the ceremony, I was ushered into an elegant room. My eyes darted from the recently polished hardwood floors to the six bookshelves lining the walls, to the glow of the crystal chandelier twenty-two feet above me and finally to the boy every girl in our economics class referred to as ‘Surfer Sam’ because of his perfect tan, wavy blond hair and eyes that knock you down like waves in an ocean.
Samuel Davis stood with the older graduates who were mingling around tables draped with white linen holding cheese and fruit and wine that I was too young to legally drink.
A familiar voice hissed in my ear. “You should be celebrating. Not pining for Surfer Sam.” Britta, another prodigy from PSS came up to hug me. “Anyway, don’t you have a thing with that math-boy from your blog?”
“Britta,” I say, happy to see her. “Thanks for coming. FYI, I shut down that blog a long time ago. Besides, I never even knew that boy’s real name or saw his face. Sam is smart, gorgeous and in front of me.”
“Your brain might be an adult’s but all Sam sees is that we’re still not even old enough to drive. Come on,” Britta said, tugging my arm.
Unfortunately, she was right. I’d calculated Sam’s movements and mannerisms. It was safe to assume that he didn’t daydream about me the way I did about him—a fact I wish I didn’t know. At least once in my life I wanted to sit next to a boy and wonder if he’d grab my hand, without numbers foretelling the possibilities. I wanted to live in the moment and believe I could actually change the possibilities around me.
We walked over to another table designated for non-alcoholic beverages and ladled some pink punch into a glass. It was sweet like strawberries and lemonade. Soon a group of graduates gathered around me.
“So, tell us, what will Jo Rivers do with her life?” they asked.
Ugh. I dreaded these questions. Was it so hard to believe that a genius didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life? With my eyes, I begged Britta for help, but she shrugged her shoulders, mouthed ‘sorry’, and darted off to greet another friend from our department.
I smiled at the crowd. “I’m weighing possibilities right now,” I answered. Obviously, I didn’t mention Prodigy Stealth Solutions. Only my family was allowed to know. “My dad says I need to take some time off. Travel maybe.” Not exactly a lie.
A boy from the university newspaper approached me. “So how does it feel to be a math prodigy?”
After getting asked this on average 20 times a quarter, I still didn’t know how to answer. How did I explain that numbers were tattooed on my brain, like books on a shelf, forever there at my disposal?
“Don’t know how it feels not to be one.”
We jumped into small talk. Within the span of three minutes this guy said “like” a total of 26 times, made four grammatical mistakes and cursed twice. But who’s counting?
A girl from the Physics department cut in. “Is it true you memorize numbers the first time you see them?”
Yes, and more, I thought. It was hard to explain that with each new theory, dimension, or phone number, my library increases. I might come across as proud, or nerdy—or worse, boring. So I didn’t try. Instead, I just shrugged it off.
“We all have gifts,” I said, generously. I thought of Dad’s knack for good ideas, Lily’s brilliance on the piano, Mara’s knack for sailing. Mom used to say it wasn’t which gift you had, but how you used it.
Above the chatter, a familiar voice squealed, “There she is! Jo!”
“Excuse me,” I said, sneaking out of the circle that had formed around me. “My family’s arrived.”
A bouquet of sandy brown curls bounced toward me. Lily wore a blue satin dress and mom’s pearl necklace. Beside her my father, looking weary, smiled proudly, and held two thumbs up.
Surprisingly, Mara came too. Instead of wearing her usual smug expression, tonight she looked different…she was as pale as a ghost.
“Congrats, Jo.” Lily linked arms with me. “That was so cool back there, watching you on stage. Your speech was beautiful. I want to remember it forever.”
“Thanks, Lily.” I kissed her forehead. “One day I’ll watch you up on stage, too. Just keep practicing that piano, ok?” I took out the folded piece of white lined pape
r with my messy handwriting and handed it to Lily. “Here, my speech,” I said, winking. “Keep it forever.”
She pressed the paper against her chest and beamed. “I will,” she said.
If anyone would take those words to heart, it was her.
My father hugged me. “You make a father very proud, Jo. I wish your mother were here to see you.”
A pang stabbed my chest—once, twice, three times. She should have been here. She believed in me more than anyone. He grunted, like he shouldn’t have mentioned her.
“Thanks, Dad.” I inhaled the woodsy scent of cologne and rested my head on his chest. His silk tie was soft on my cheek.
A voice, dripping with artificial sweetness, pulled me back. “Congratulations, Josephine. Marvelous ceremony. Even though we were sitting for a really long time.” Mara shot me an evil glance that said, if you say it, I’ll kill you.
What she meant was if I translated her “really long time” statement into an exact answer of 43 minutes and 11 seconds. That was the annoying difference between me and normal people. In my world, there was no “really long time”. I knew exactly how long everything lasted. Mara hated when I corrected her time, but how could I not when she and others played the ‘be back in five minutes’ card and didn’t return for twenty?
My father went to get some refreshments. Lily followed him. Mara stayed back, pursing her lips, arms folded across her chest.
“I’m glad you came, Mara,” I said, hoping an effort of kindness would appease her for an hour.
“Sure, you are,” she scoffed. “Well, I heard about your trip. Lucky you. The first one—as always—who gets the dream.”
It didn’t surprise me that even on my graduation day Mara couldn’t shackle her jealousy. I refused to let her sour this evening like she had the past year of my life, but the sting of her words hurt deeper than she knew.
We used to be so close. When we were young, she never cared that I was smarter than her, she only cared that we were sisters. I adored her, the way now Lily adored me. I’d do anything to get our relationship back.