And after today, this cube won’t tear apart anything else in this world.
“We would set up some sort of way for you guys to escape, but there is no way we are going to be able to send anyone near this province until hours after you will have need to be rescued,” Justin speaks up, feeling the need to clarify for the almost giddy attitude of Drew about the prospect of sending us into hostile territory and leaving us there indefinitely. “Obviously, days from now, we will make sure to find you guys and get you to safety, but conditions are too dangerous now to risk our lives for that. It will be impossible— in fact, you guys should jump now before we run into a problem with being detected in the current area we are in.”
“You guys got this,” Kamala says. She is standing right behind me, the faint light of the moon and stars reflecting beautifully off her dark skin. She is a woman of few words, but the Syndicate wants it that way. The men of the council would rather Justin and Drew do most of the talking, while she sits back and observes.
That’s how those men would like the place of women to be in society.
They want to be the ones with all the power.
“Thanks,” Ai says, her response half-hearted at best.
We all know that the words of these people mean nothing. They are only tools they use to exert their power over us and manipulate us into doing what they want.
“Let’s kill Li.” I look at Ai. I can’t see her eyes that are blocked behind the layers of protection we have coating all our bodies, but I can feel the energy radiating off her.
She is determined. Freakishly driven.
She knows what she is here for. She wants the same thing that Jake and I do. She wants to ensure the legacy of her family is carried on and that anyone who did damage to it has revenge exacted on them.
Ai steps onto the very edge of the platform. The tips of her toes hang off the edges, one large gust of wind all it will take to send her falling. “It’s time we show this motherfucker that no matter how many clones and humanoids he makes of himself, he will never be able to run away from his past.”
Jake jumps right as she finishes speaking. His sudden movement even surprises me as I stare at his body in awe as his all-black figure descends into the night sky. The wind in tandem with his wingsuit should carry him right to the center of the city, the spot we figure is the best place to start hunting for the servers.
Ai jumps next, her body falling a similar trajectory as Jake before she dips out of view. Then it’s just me who has to jump. The one with the most important tool that will give us a fighting chance at winning this thing and the one who is scared of heights all from one stupid fall as a kid off a cliff that still gives me nightmares.
I bend my knees.
But I feel my body pulled back before I can lift off.
Two arms wrap around my shoulders, making it difficult for me to twist my arms and elbow whoever it is.
Then I hear them whisper in my ear.
It’s Justin.
“Be careful. Don’t trust these guys. Whatever you do, save yourself while you still have the chance.”
I don’t even have time to turn around and look at Justin’s face as he whispers to me. I wish I could ask him a question; I wish he could tell me more, but he pushes my body out of the open latch on the side of the plane before I get the chance.
He doesn’t need to say anything more for me to know exactly what he is talking about. The Syndicate is not my friend. The Syndicate wants to take the power away from me, just like they want to take the power away from everyone in this world.
But the fear and uncertainty of the Syndicate’s future relationship with me melts in my mind as the sensation of falling overcomes me. There is truly no other experience like jumping out of an airplane over ten thousand feet above the earth, the wingsuit making it possible to glide safely to a landing without a parachute. As I spread my arms outward, allowing the wings of the suit to fully expand, the force of gravity immediately has less of an effect on me.
The fabric of the suit transforms my body into an aerodynamic machine that can endure falls from otherworldly heights and come to a smooth landing on the ground. That alone takes my worst fear out of falling—hitting the ground and dying—yet I am still terrified as the buildings below grow increasingly close with each second.
The tall office and residential buildings that looked like nothing more than dots in the landscape from ten thousand feet up now resemble the definition and size that buildings normally have in my vision. And the sprawling landscape of the city feels larger and darker the closer we get to it.
Even from thousands of feet in the air, I can tell that the city is empty. It is missing the vibrant glow that most skylines have at night, and the thin film of haze from automobile traffic and industrial output that hangs above most cities is absent here.
This entire place is abandoned.
Every person in this city was systematically killed.
We are entering a mass boneyard, a place that used to be home to millions but is now only home to one, and if we don’t succeed, our bones will be added to the mix overnight.
I can’t even think about it. I close my eyes, the adrenaline surging through me breathing new life into my sore muscles and foggy, tired mind. I am about maxed out, beyond overdue for a vacation. I may very well get my wish for a break tonight, but it won’t be the kind of break I am looking for—it will be permanent.
Just thinking about that gives the wind smacking against my body an icy chill. I have always told myself that I love to win, but that life will move on if I don’t—that at the end of the day, life is about more than that.
I’m not so sure about that anymore.
If I lose, I die. If I can’t kill Li Wang, I will end up dead by the end of the night and the Chimera Cube will be in his hands. The only thing that matters is winning.
And I’m willing to burn down this entire city to make it happen.
I continue gliding down to the city at a steep downward angle. As the buildings increase in size as the perspective of my vision shifts, I notice that I will likely land right in the middle of the city, the exact spot we were aiming for when we picked our diving location.
I scream. The yell jerks out of my throat almost involuntarily. It isn’t a scream of terror or anxiety, it is merely the pent-up energy inside me being released as I try and calm my thoughts down and let the tension exude from my muscles.
One great thing about falling from ten thousand feet (and probably the only great thing for a person who is deathly scared of heights) is that one enters a sort of meditative state. As my body and subconscious scream at me to stop and all of my natural mechanisms of danger are on high alert, all other thoughts seem to disappear.
Suddenly Li Wang, the hundreds of millions of dead Chinese, and the Syndicate are the farthest things from my mind. I can finally turn the stream of endless thoughts inundating my consciousness off and turn into something akin to a machine.
A machine with only one purpose: to kill everything in my path.
I dip down below the skyline as the unrelenting force of gravity allows me to continue my swift descent to the pavement below. I have to do a barrel roll with my arms extended midair in order to redirect myself from landing on the rooftop of a several-hundred-foot-tall building covered in air conditioning units.
Although overall the skyline pales in size and height compared to the skylines of New York, Hong Kong, or Beijing, it is evident that downtown Urumqi used to be a large, bustling metropolis. As I continue to glide through the city blocks, my altitude decreasing faster and faster with each second, I notice the dozens of high-rise buildings and even a few outlying towers of metal and cement that could be classified as skyscrapers.
As I near only about a hundred fifty feet above the ground, I flap my arms upward, attempting to push up against the force of gravity and decelerate as fast as possible so I can come to a soft landing on the ground. Although the maneuver likely looks awkward and like someon
e on bath salts tried to fly only to find out their magical flying machine didn’t work, my movements prove to be effective. My speed downwards slows enough to bring me to a landing that is somewhere between smooth and breaking all the bones in my body.
Jake and Ai have already landed, the both of them standing with their backs straight against an antique shop. At first, I am surprised to see that the wingsuit has worked so well for the both of them, but doubting the Chimera Cube and the perfection with which it constructs its products is a mistake. After dealing with the initial pain upon impact with the ground and summoning the strength in my calf and thigh muscles to prevent my body from crumbling to the ground, I hurry over to them.
“What are you guys doing?” I whisper even though there is no one around to hear us. Just from their body language I can tell that they are trying to be as covert as possible. After all, both of them seem to cringe at the loud echo my shoes make against the pavement as I rush over, my footsteps the only sound piercing through the bubble of silence that encircles this city.
“Look,” Jake hisses and points at a metal pole in the middle of the street. On the pole are dozens of cameras, getting a perfect view of every inch of the street, each one with a tiny red light blinking on the inside of the circular glass nodes.
“They lit up the second we landed,” Ai says, her body remaining motionless against the wall. I try and remain motionless too, but with a lack of heat being absorbed by my body, on a late summer night, I feel as if we are in the dead of the winter.
“Fuck.” I breathe, scrambling to open the bag with the Chimera Cube inside. As I analyze the street, I notice more of the poles of cameras; in total there are hundreds of cameras on this block alone. In the sky, drones hover between the buildings, their own lights blinking as they scan for any movements and listen for noise on the ground below.
This city has remained the exact same as it did when the Chinese government ruthlessly suppressed the Uyghur people. Even the streets look the same as they would if millions inhabited this city. They are free of any dirt and trash. The shops and businesses that line the lower floors of the buildings that tower above us on either side of the street are untouched. Hundreds of pieces of furniture fill the abandoned antique shop behind us, the owner of the store never even taking the time to switch the Open sign in the front to Closed. From the outside, all the buildings look clean. Whether they are forty years old or only a bit over a decade old, the windows are devoid of cracks, and the paint on the exterior has maintained its rich yellow color while the glass is shiny and perfectly reflects the moonlight.
The entire scene is spooky as hell, and the sinister vibe to the air causes chills to reverberate throughout my body.
But the fact that the entire place looks like a hollowed-out grave isn’t the worst part. It’s the fact that the dozens of lamp posts that uniformly line either side of the street are still turned on. They emit a bright white light that illuminates the crevices of the narrow alleyways between the buildings and gives the ominous feel that it is day even though it is pitch-black out.
“Use the cube.” Jake steps towards me.
“Stop moving, you idiot,” Ai hisses and hits Jake with her arm to get him to stop.
“It doesn’t matter.” Jake’s tone is harsh. He looks intimidating in the way his figure in all black confidently approaches me. It’s like he wants to grab the cube from my backpack and command it himself. “Li already knows we are here. Those cameras detected us the second we landed. We have to make sure he has no idea where we are going so his legion of robots he sends after us will have no clue where to find us.”
“We have to cut off the data supply.” I look at him and smile, finishing his thought for him. When Jake and I are analyzing a situation together, whether it be an abandoned theme park or abandoned city ruled by an evil dictator, our minds tend to think alike.
I open the bag with the Chimera Cube by putting my finger on the scanner. I place my hand on the cube and deliver it the command that this time should finally do its job correctly. “Electromagnetic pulse.”
Immediately as I say the words, the Chimera Cube unfolds and all the lights on the street instantly turn off, the pulse programmed to extend a default distance of ten miles in all directions. Whatever computer system controls these lights is fried along with the electrodes in each of the security cameras that are transmitting data to the hive mind of Li Wang. It doesn’t surprise me that none of the electronical systems in this city have adequate protection from an electromagnetic attack. They are only here as relics from the past, serving no real purpose today. A few thousand security cameras and lampposts won’t be enough to protect the massive servers that house the hive mind of Li Wang.
The hive mind will be untouchable with an electromagnetic pulse. It is likely shielded from nuclear blasts too. These lampposts are nothing more than here for show to add an extra unsettling feeling to scare away any unwelcome visitors.
But in the darkness, the city is even more unnerving.
Without the bright light casting a glow upon every city block for miles, someone can easily sneak up on us. A legion of flying assassin robots can pop up around a corner, and Li could still have hundreds of security cameras with protection from electromagnetic pulses waiting for us to pass by and update Li on our progress.
He’s coming for us now.
We have to destroy him first.
“Let’s strap ourselves,” I say, Jake nodding with me in agreement. I inhale a breath of the dry, musty air. The air has a rough texture that almost makes me feel like it is tearing apart my lungs, and it smells strange. The same pungent odor that the smoke in Hong Kong had, except this time it is colorless and has an acute aftertaste on my lips.
Of course, he has shit in the air to poison us.
“What do you mean?” Ai says.
“Three laser guns,” I command the Chimera Cube. The three laser guns appear instantly in the air above the cube. I double-tap it as it closes up so that the quantum computers inside it will leave these objects without automatically deconstructing them. “This is what I mean.” I grab two of the laser guns and hand one to her, the turquoise barrel piercing through the night.
“We can’t run through this city looking for wherever these servers are hidden,” Jake says and tucks the laser gun into a fold in his wingsuit, the barrel of the gun poking out. “It will take us days to cover all the blocks in this place.”
“This entire city should be pitch-black,” I respond, looking in both directions down the street to see if any silhouettes of robots or drones are headed towards us. “The only place shielded against electromagnetic pulses will be where the servers are stored. Which means that to find where the servers are stored, all we need to do is find the light.”
“How do you suppose we do that?”
“Twenty-foot force field.” I tap the Chimera Cube, entrusting that as I say the words an invisible impenetrable barrier is formed around us. Then I deliver my next command, “Three hoverboards.”
I nod at Jake as he grabs one of the boards from the air, the board automatically programmed to turn on with flames ejecting from its bottom upon being produced. If only this entire city could be covered in an electromagnetic field, then we would have ourselves a true hoverboard that is able to fly without the aid of any propellant.
“This is how we do it.” I zip up the Chimera Cube, tuck the laser gun into the fold in my own wingsuit and then strap my ankles into the two supports on the bottom of the hoverboard.
I’m ready for liftoff now.
“This thing makes everything so easy.” Ai hops onto the hoverboard, all of us pulling upwards on the straps on our feet to cause the hoverboards to give us some extra elevation above the city streets beneath us.
“Not everything.” I keep my eyes locked forward, using the adrenaline to keep the visions of the times when things with the cube did not go to plan out of my mind. “Definitely not everything.”
We all easily drift across t
he city streets, making the turn right onto a street that is a bit narrower than the last but lined with even taller buildings. The edges of the force field certainly protrude into some of the buildings, but the force field itself is designed to only deflect objects that are already moving or ones the cube is on a direct collision course with. If it senses there are objects around like a building or the floor of a room, it will temporarily mold the force field around it to prevent us from exploding everything new that comes within the cube’s path.
Things are smooth sailing for quite a while. None of us are interested in small talk, instead we continue bounding forward through the city streets, searching for any sources of light.
After five minutes of no light, but also no gunshots or explosive devices being thrown our way, I question things. It was nice for about a minute for everything to be going smoothly, but things are going too smoothly for something that Li Wang is involved in.
He knows we are here.
He knows we are trying to destroy the servers to his hive mind. Yet he couldn’t care less. No guards are chasing after us, and no drones in the sky are following our path. He doesn’t even care that we are trampling on the capital city of his homeland, prepared to burn the whole thing to the ground if we have to.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the hive mind isn’t here. Maybe he wanted me to think this, so he could laugh at us trying to take him down in a city with no one in it.
The chilling darkness seems to get thicker as we continue to roam around the network of streets, searching for signs of anything suspicious that would mean a massive computer system is stored within it. I’ll admit none of us quite know what those signs would be except for light, but with the darkness only growing heavier, I can safely say that there is no light in any of the buildings around us.
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