Calculated

by Nova McBee

  The crash is closing in on us. People are losing their jobs. No matter how I invest our money, we will not have enough. I won’t panic until after I account for Madame’s generous donation, which hopefully will be today at the Expo.

  After a shower, I dress in a business suit, wrapping a dark red shawl over my shoulders. I swipe my lips with a soft pink gloss and walk down the path that connects to Kai’s house.

  Agent Bai is already at the table in front of his computer, sipping at his tea flask, and compiling all the evidence from King, hotel busts, the kidnapped girls, and confessions. He was able to work out a deal for Guard San and the others. There will be some penalties, but they’ll be able to start again. “Thirty minutes,” Agent Bai informs me, rubbing the purple shiner on his cheek from King.

  I grab a cup of the coffee brewing on Kai’s counter and join him on the couch.

  J.J. Bond figures are strewn across the coffee table. I pick up a projection sheet and start to mumble something about Madame but drift off mid-sentence as I look at Kai.

  He’s dressed in a black V-neck tee-shirt and gray jeans, both of which are fitting enough for me to see how strong he is. I follow his biceps down to his hands then up again to the open tip of the V-neck. His chest alone looks so inviting I could lay my head down and forget about the economic crash and the Expo forever.

  “Phoenix?” he says, pleased with where my eyes have wandered and made fools of themselves. “You were saying?” Kai flexes his right bicep. “Coffee’s not strong enough? The bond needs something stronger?”

  I shake my head as heat burns in my face. “Oh Atlas, please save the world with your muscles.”

  He tackles me in a hug. We laugh.

  “I was saying that if everything goes smoothly today, I’ll have reached my quota for payback. Everything I made for her will finally go to a good cause and she’ll be behind bars. Justice.”

  His arms secure around my waist. We stay wrapped up together and silent like this for three minutes. Chan’s disapproval lurks. He warned me against this relationship. I sigh. We untangle to sift through applications and tally up more numbers.

  “Are you ready?” Kai asks me softly. “To see her again?”

  “I won’t really see her,” I assure him. “My role is one hundred percent virtual, from across the street, in a secured office, guarded by six men. But yes, I’m ready for this to be finished.”

  Kai leans in for a kiss. It’s long, and soft. My hands slide down his shoulders to his arms.

  I pull back, open my eyes. The calculator inside me has stopped. Just like before. The room around me is just walls and chairs and carpet and Kai.

  Kai notices my confusion. “What’s wrong?” He puts a hand on my knee.

  My head snaps down to my knee then up at him. It’s just a small touch but it’s so much more, because I didn’t know he’d touch me until he touched me. More precisely, I didn’t calculate his movements. I’m about to panic when, slowly, one equation marks the width of the door, then the ceiling to floor, then a stream of numbers graphs out my world, back to normal. I shake my head.

  It’s happening more frequently.

  He’s waiting for a response.

  “I’m fine,” I lie. Thirty minutes are up. “Let’s do this.”

  Interpol and Agent Bai’s men have the massive Expo Center surrounded. Not a single door, window, or crack in the wall is unguarded.

  I watch from across the street with Agent Bai’s colleague, Agent Yin, beside me. Six more agents guard the door outside.

  After fourteen minutes of watching the doors swing open 429 times and 931 men and women in suits and high heels enter the Expo Center, Agent Bai sounds in my ear and my computer screen lights up. Hundreds of stalls and booths display goods from companies around the world. It’s like a mini fashion show inside. “I’ve got visual,” I say.

  My screen divides into three parts. Agent Bai’s view with the main team on floor three where Madame is located and two with the undercover buyers.

  The plan is simple. Agent Bai’s men will impersonate the four illegal buyers attending the expo. We should be able to trace the spin code from one of them, but as extra insurance, we’ll trace every other buyer too. After the buyer makes the purchase, and the spin code scrambles, I’ll get the chain entry into all of her accounts. I’ll trace it and transfer the money into an account I created at Chan’s corporation for the super bond. Once that is done, we pass on our proof of buyers and international smuggling. Then Interpol will take over.

  “First buyer is going in,” Agent Bai says.

  I follow on the screen as the buyer moves in. M’s Textiles logo comes into view first. Then Celia steps around a corner, accompanied by two men. Shivers shoot down my back.

  “That’s her.”

  “Locked on target.”

  Celia shakes the buyers’ hands, then steps back into the shadows, head scanning the room. She’s searching for something, or someone. Can she sense the number of eyes on her? Is she turning into King, always anticipating the knife aimed at his back? Only, she’s not acting nervous, but almost excited. Whatever it is, her mind is clearly not on the Expo.

  Celia’s assistant, a young man, walks the buyer through the purchasing process. What the buyer sees is on my screen. As he makes his payment transfer, there is no spin code at all. It’s a regular routing number. Huh.

  After a few more legal buyers, another illegal buyer makes his move. This time the spin code scrambles, I memorize and plug it in to test it right away. But the chain entry is denied.

  “Not it,” I confirm.

  “Patience. We’ll get it.” Agent Bai promised he won’t make a move until that magical payment with the routing number is found.

  The next illegal buyer is given the same number. Denied. I begin to worry. What if I’m wrong? It is just a theory.

  Three hours pass. We trace every routing number that buyers use to make their transfer—one by one. Each, a dead end.

  The more I watch Celia, the more memories return. I chose you, Octavia…

  The second-to-last buyer transfers his payment and the computer lights up. The routing scrambles and a spin code appears. I enter it and this time the chain entry is granted.

  This is it!

  Dollars multiply before my eyes as the spin code links me into a massive web of accounts. I dive in. All of her accounts are an open meadow before me. I transfer everything into the bond account at China Generation. It’s working!

  I’m so busy calculating I forget to tell Agent Bai the good news until he’s in my ear first.

  “Phoenix?

  “We’ve got it—”

  “Don’t move. We lost her. Coming to you.” The screen goes black and random dates circle in my head. Mara’s fifth birthday. My parent’s 10th anniversary. Lily’s last piano recital. First day with King. Red’s death.

  I slap the desk as I understand our mistake. We had to wait until the second to last buyer. That burned a lot of time…

  “Agent Yin?” He doesn’t answer. That’s when I notice his head is down on the desk.

  The lights cut out. An icy finger runs over my cheek. Once again, I’m fifteen years old and alone with a nightmare.

  38

  Present: Phoenix

  EXPO CENTER, SHANGHAI, CHINA

  I’m shoved into the adjacent office just thirteen feet away where the six guards are passed out on the floor. Celia stands beside two men with guns trained on me. I calculate my odds of escape. Not looking good.

  “You’ve come back to me, Octavia.” Her eyes crawl into mine, like a demon looking for a host body, but I hold her stare, pushing her out.

  “That’s not my name.”

  She laughs eerily, chilling me to the bone. I pull my jacket tighter. “I’m not the little girl you took at the pier anymore. I won’t let you control me no matter what you do next.”

  “You’re alive,” she says, ignoring me, her shiny, red lips spreading into a smile. “I’m free now. We
both are.”

  I cock my head, confused. Instead of blistering mad that I’m not at the bottom of the Pacific, she sounds happy. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ve haunted me, Octavia, for the last year.” She laughs louder, a victorious, mad laugh. “Until I saw you again, alive.”

  I’m shocked. I took all the proper precautions never to be seen. “When? Where?”

  “In the perfectly prepared papers for the Expo. No one else could have prepared them but you.”

  “But they are just…”

  “Numbers? I’d recognize you, your work anywhere. We’re connected, can’t you see that?” She inches closer to me. “Come away with me, Octavia. You and I will start a new life together.”

  “No.” I shake my head. The very idea is repulsive.

  “Octavia, I can give you everything. Even what you hold most dear.”

  “You’ve taken everything from me, Celia.”

  “Not everything, darling. I still have secrets. Come with me, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  “The police are everywhere, Celia. You won’t escape this time.” Four minutes since Agent Bai warned me to stay put. Where is he? Does he think I’m safe?

  “Octavia, you know me better than that. I’m always one step ahead.” She leans closer, whispering, like I’m supposed to read between the lines. “Secrets, darling. If they catch me today, I’ll be free tomorrow. Didn’t I know they’d be there, and you’d be here? I came anyway. To see you. And you’re alive. Please, come. I’ve only ever wanted to love and protect you.”

  Love me? I cringe. During the time I lived with her she tried to love me like a mother. She gave me gifts and money, but she never gave me a choice—and without freedom, love can’t prosper. This time, she has no power over me.

  More men shuffle in. “Maxima, time’s up.”

  She stares at me. “Your choice, Octavia.”

  “You’ll have to kill me, Celia. I won’t come with you.” The resolve in my voice shocks her. It shocks me, too. Deep inside I know that even if I die, she hasn’t won. She couldn’t change who I am.

  “I didn’t want to do this.” She frowns and takes the gun from the man. “Turn around and face the wall.”

  My forehead leans on the cold cement. I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the end. Perhaps Red will meet me there, on the other side.

  “Let me hear you count to ten, darling. For old time’s sake.”

  “One…Two…” I count slowly, praying with each number that my death will count—that the file sent, that the numbers check out, that the police will catch her, that her trafficking will end.

  “Eight…Nine…Ten.” When I stop nothing happens. No bullet goes off. Thirteen…Fourteen…

  At fifteen seconds I open my eyes and turn around. Celia’s gone without a trace.

  At fifty-six seconds the police burst into the room. They find me in a corner, mumbling the same words over and over.

  “She let me go.”

  I pace my living room for the third hour waiting for news and reflecting on what just happened. How did she know we were there? Why did she let me go? The longer I wait, Celia’s words eat away at me like a parasite. I’m always one step ahead.

  After the police found me, they escorted me through the radius of six city blocks that were on lockdown. Every authority in Shanghai is out searching.

  There’s a knock on the door. Kai jumps off the couch. Agent Bai and the Sang brothers walk in. The defeat on their faces tells me what I don’t want to hear a second before they do.

  “Madame has escaped.”

  “How could you let her go?” My chest tightens. I’m nauseous now. Angry. Everyone is silent. My fist slams down on the desk.

  “The place was surrounded, Phoenix. Her escape was impossible,” Master Sang says.

  “Obviously not.” I’m pacing again. I’m caged, trapped in a box with no oxygen. It grows smaller and tighter by the second. Didn’t I know they’d be there, and you’d be here? “If we lose her, I lose everything I’ve worked to achieve.”

  “You have access to all of her accounts.”

  “Who cares about the money? She’ll just remake her identity and start again,” I say.

  “We need your gift to find her, Phoenix,” Agent Bai says. “Trace her location. If we pinpoint a source she’s using, we can bring her out in the open and find her.”

  My mind juggles ninety-eight destinations and names. I spout off a list.

  “Hold that thought,” Agent Bai interrupts me. “Detective Hansen is an expert at tracing anything.”

  “What can we do, Phoenix?” Master Sang asks.

  Everyone waits on me to weed out improbable variables and come up with a logical starting point. After all, I’m the one who knows her best. I’m the one with the gift.

  But as I set to calculating a new plan, there’s a break in the numbers. The calculations predicting where she’ll go and what she’ll do fade away until I’m a blank page.

  Dread ripples to the shore of completely new territory. There’s only one plausible reason for my sudden halt in numbers and that cannot be a possibility. Not now. Not ever.

  Kai reads my face and draws away their attention. “The hotels.”

  “Interpol has combed every possible hotel in Shanghai. Nothing,” Agent Bai replies. “PGF came up empty, too. Interpol wants Phoenix to point us in the right direction.”

  I push my thumbs into my throbbing temples. Think, Phoenix. They are counting on you. What do you know about her? But I’m still blank! Blank! Blank!

  Brother Sang makes a phone call. Doors open and close. Cars start and drive away. I hear it all but without numerical definition it means nothing.

  I’m letting everyone down, letting Celia escape.

  How could this happen now? Why is this happening? I didn’t believe this could happen. But it is. I feel it.

  My gift. I’m losing it.

  I don’t say a word about my gift. I simply promise to call when I think of something. Thankfully, they are in a hurry, so they agree.

  Kai tells his cousin he’ll catch up with him. The minute the door closes, I forget about everything—the girls, the bond, King’s trial. Not even Celia letting me go or her escape is on my mind. I’m frozen, consumed by one thing that threatens my whole being, my entire identity.

  My gift.

  What if it never comes back? The thought sickens me with grief. The clock says more than an hour has passed, the longest lapse yet, and I can’t make the numbers come back any more than I can fly like a seagull. What caused this? Stress? Trauma? Tears roll down my face.

  Kai’s hands find my face. “What is it?”

  “Kai, it’s bad.” I sound more desperate than he has ever heard me. It startles him.

  “You can tell me.”

  “My gift. The numbers. They’re gone.”

  He shakes his head. “You’re sure?”

  I nod.

  My hands shake. He reaches out his hands as if in very slow motion. Now I must guess. Will he hold my chin again? Grab my hands? Neither. He pulls me close to his chest. My numbers don’t predict his movements. I used to think I’d like this, like in my dreams. But now I’m not sure if I can function without calculating. It’s been part of me for so long, I don’t know who I am without it.

  “I can’t lose my gift now.” I whisper. The stacks of applications on the coffee table need my unique skill, not to mention Madame on the loose. “How can we find Madame without my gift? Or multiply our funds for the bond?”

  “You said it yourself, everything is in place for the J.J. Bond,” he says, trying to comfort me. “All we need is to feed the funds into it.”

  “Kai. Madame’s money isn’t enough. I could have multiplied it. But now…”

  “It’ll be okay,” Kai says. “I don’t know how, but I promise. We’ll find a way.”

  Red’s voice echoes behind Kai’s. Destiny is not what you’re meant to do, it’s who you’re meant to be—all else pours ou
t from there. How can I be me without my gift?

  “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Detective Hansen is waiting for me.” Before Kai leaves, he kisses my cheek. “I’ll text you as soon as we know something.”

  39

  Present: Phoenix

  FRENCH CONCESSION, SHANGHAI, CHINA

  I stay home all day, sifting through J.J. Bond applications. This I can do. Thank God I wrote out the requirements for bonds beforehand. It’s dark when I pick up my phone and check in with the team.

  Agent Bai: No Madame yet. Found another trail.

  Master Sang: Another hotel was closed. 30 girls rescued.

  Yu Tai: The tunnels are cleared, archeology team arrives on Sunday.

  I should be happy. The places of my nightmares are all disappearing, but I can’t rejoice. I’m terrified as I ponder a life without numbers to guide me. What will I do? Who will I be?

  Sleep is the last thing on my mind, so I keep working. I change into sweat shorts and a tee-shirt. In the kitchen I pour a hot cup of jasmine tea. Heading to the couch, I grab my computer and settle in for a night of checking applications when there’s a knock at the door.

  There are only a few people who would knock on my door and they’re all busy now. Even fewer who would come this late at night. Flipping the hall light on, I go to the front door. It’s probably Kai or one of the girls from the factory on High Street. Through the peephole I see someone else.

  Unbolting the door, I swing it open. A man stares back at me. In his hands there’s a chess pawn.

  “Mr. Chan, what a surprise.”

  He’s dressed in casual slacks and a polo shirt but has house slippers on. He must have come over here from the main house on a whim. I invite him in for tea because it’s the polite thing to do even if I’m tired and it’s late. He refuses, as custom, until I urge him several times to accept.