Escapology (30 page)

“Where are we?”

“Nanking,” she shouts back.

Oh. Nanking. Not a place Shock has any desire to be. This grotty back-district is part of Yang’s territory. There are no J-Hacks in Nanking. This is an overflow region, a densely populated adjunct to the main districts, scornful of amenities and probably an hour at least from the nearest district with schools, malls and hospitals. A residential hellhole, claustrophobic with misery. Living in such a place himself, Shock can’t judge, but neither can he rustle up any good reason for Joon to bring him here.

Yeah, good, that’s the pertinent word. Shock’s warning sirens, ever slow to react, begin to sound somewhere deep in his overfull skull.

“Why here?”

“Short cut.”

Why doesn’t he believe her? Shock explores his connection with Puss, trying to get a bead on the limo. Puss is skirting around, hunting for a way back to wherever it is Joon might be going. That’s when he knows she’s done this on purpose. He could call Shark and Puss now, but they’d have to leave the limo to come to him, and then everyone will know where he is. Where they are.

It occurs to Shock that he’s still not awake or aware. How is that? You’d think years of making the wrong decision would have armoured him against it. Not so. Clinging to Joon’s jacket, he tries to work out a way he can get out of this. Whatever
this
is.

The conclusion he reaches does nothing to reassure him. Unless Shark exposes itself by getting out of the limo and coming to Shock’s rescue should he need one, then he’s fucked, and he’s not risking Shark like that. His only hope at this point is that someone else tracking his signal will try to snatch him from Joon. Frying-pan-to-fire kind of hope, the sort that makes your bowels feel frisky, and boy do his feel frisky. He can’t try to fight to get away either. The likelihood of that going well is slim to none. He’s no fighter. He’s a skinny, unfit loser, with a serious dependence on illegal substances.

My name is Shock Pao
, he thinks, half amused, half despairing,
and I am an addict. And an idiot.

De-throttling, the cater-bike growls, a lion in narrow streets warning other predators away. Joon and Shock dismount, helmet-less, Joon out of sheer reckless bravado, Shock because there was none to wear, and leave the bike cooling in the rain. At this point Shock could probably run. Probably. Joon’s a giant by comparison. He runs, those excessive limbs of hers will catch him up in no time.

Puss radiates “keep cool” vibes from wherever she’s waiting with the limo, somewhere outside of Nanking. Reminds him that if he doesn’t know how to fix what’s happened to them, or what this Emblem shit is all about, then who will? Even Twist didn’t bank on this. Hell, he didn’t even bank on the Queens cutting his arse out of the deal. In other words, they can damage him, but that’s all. Shock’s survived plenty of damage, he can survive more.

Full of the subtle, puke-inducing panic of the soul walking into certain danger, Shock follows Joon into a ’scraper clashing in peacock blue and orange so bright his eyes try to turn inside out to escape the glare. Through grubby doors, the lobby is grim, the lifts stuck open, revealing stained grey walls and shiny red floors littered with cans and psy butts. None of these buildings have janitors. Poor folk can’t afford to fork out for such luxury, and the type of corporate interests who own areas like this don’t much care about how their tenants get to and from their accommodations.

They take the stairs, naturally, though these stairs are anything but natural. Eighteen flights of full-on thigh-burning horror, set at a gradient Shock’s convinced can’t be necessary, not even in a building as anorexic as this. At the apparently correct floor Joon sails through the door with zero indication of having raced up the stair equivalent of a mountain. Shock not so much. He slumps on the wall, fighting for air. Joon’s feet clomp back along the corridor. The door slams open. The wall groans. Joon snaps.

“Come on. Pussy.”

Shock glares through his hair and manages to squeeze out, “Sexist bitch.”

Leaning against the door to keep it open, Joon regards him with bland amusement.

“How? I have one, and you used to. If I want to use my own fucking parts in an insult, I will. You want to stop me, quit being so pathetic.”

Straightening up against the pain, Shock staggers past her into the corridor.

“I’m not the pathetic one.”

“Oh?”

“You think I don’t know what this is?”

Joon laughs. “So run.”

“Where? Where can I run? I needed help, Joon, not this shit. But I figure what the fuck, someone at some point is going to catch up with me. Let’s see what they think they can do. I don’t know what Emblem is now or what to do with it. It’s just in here,” he taps his head, “taking up all available space.”

“Hey.” She’s unmollified, but the tone is somewhat gentler. “Look, I gotta make a living. I feel for you. Honestly. But I have pre-existing ties with Yang, and I got a good offer. I’m sure you’ll be treated well enough. You’re the fucking holy grail walking right now.”

“I’m comforted. Really.” Full sarcasm mode. Yang hates him.

She shrugs. “Be comforted or don’t. Your choice.”

Third corridor, walking the line. Feels like Death Row. Green Mile. Shock would drag his feet, but delaying the inevitable won’t make it go away. Joon’s fully aware her reassurance is cold comfort. Yang has no qualms about hurting anyone. Hurt isn’t dead after all, and there’s a lot he can do with Shock before he can’t use him any more.

Besides, there’s that whole hating him thing. The Twist debacle, as Shock likes to call it. Twist hires him for a big job. Major flim. Yang comes along at the eleventh hour and bribes Twist’s shit away from Shock for even bigger flim—and honestly Shock does not make it that hard, being in full idiot mode.

Twist finds out quick smart what’s gone down, sets Amiga on Shock and retaliates against Yang, hard. Beyond all logic Yang blames Shock for this, putting his own price out on Shock’s head. Double trouble. Shock’s busy counting his fingers, enjoying his toes. He’s pretty sure he’s going to leave here without some.

Striding ahead, Joon knocks a random-seeming tattoo of knuckles on one of the doors. It opens to reveal Yang’s personal guard. The hulks. Goons with no necks and biceps like balloons. They step aside to allow him through, but when he’s between them they lunge in and grab his arms, yanking them up and back.

His muscles explode with pain. Shock grunts, gritting his teeth and rising up on his toes to try to relieve the pressure. Somewhere miles away, he senses Puss’s upset and Shark thrashing about, desperate to come rescue him.

Easy, easy,
he sends down their connection.
I’m okay.

Then there’s a blade at his throat, and he’s not actually sure he is.

“Shock. Here’s a surprise. Yet again I find you carrying something for Twist Calhoun that I myself am in dire need of.”

Yang.

Sat in the corner. His bulk resided in a grey leather chair that creaks with every movement. Yang was once rikishi. A Yokozuna. Part of the legendary Ineo stable, he was champion for seven years in a row before retiring to become the Chinese District’s most feared and revered crime lord.

Yang is his rikishi name, one he chose for himself when he entered training at thirteen. No one knows his real name any more, perhaps not even Yang, and no one outside of China District knows much about him at all beyond public history, and that’s exactly how he likes it.

“Is it really necessary to have the hulks restrain me?” Shock’s on the wrong side of scared, but the one thing you never do is show your fear. Showing fear to these crime lords is like bleeding in front of a shark.

Yang’s brows rise.

“You find this excessive?”

“A little. I’m no threat.”

“Your shark is.”

Shock chuckles. “I think Joon’s seen to that problem.”

“She’s always had a good grasp of my requirements. It’s why I continue to retain her services despite her inability to conduct herself in a manner becoming to her gender.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Shock sees Joon’s face blush vermilion. No pity. She shopped him, so she can take this BS right on her pert little nose for all he cares. Yang leans back into the plush leather of his chair and grins at Joon’s discomfort. He likes to bait. He’s akin to Li in that, but she’s crueller. No words for her when actions will do more damage. In a way, Shock’s glad it was Yang. He’s neither as complex nor as devious as Twist or the Harmonys. He’s a thug, straight up. No ice.

“How do you propose to get this out of my head then, Yang?” Shock asks the ten-million-flim question, shifting against the pain in his arms.

Lifting his hands in a supremely careless shrug, Yang replies, “I propose that you’ll do it for me, Haunt.”

As answers go, Shock could’ve used that one to prove psychic abilities. He sighs, because he also knows that his response is unlikely to be believed.

“Sorry, man, genuinely. I can’t. Dunno know how it’s stuck in there, or how to work it, and definitely not how to get it out.” He flexes each leg, the calves beginning to ache from standing on tiptoe; strives for time, for something to delay the moment Yang orders him tortured. “I know the Queens wanted me to have it though, they want it bad, and I suspect their drones are looking for it right now. How’s your VA?”

Shock’s actually not sure what the Queens can do. They’re still in Hive and he’s walking around with the lock in his head. Until they get hold of it they’re stuck inside Slip with no way out, and not his main concern despite their drones and their obvious influence IRL.

It’s everyone else he’s worried about at the moment. He anticipates maybe another twenty minutes, probably less, before someone else has a fix on this exact building, this very room, and comes after him. He’s beginning to feel like a chew toy in a room full of terriers.

“Adequate.” Is Yang’s response. Terse. Tinged with cold humour. That’s when Shock knows Yang is not going to wait. Yang nods at Joon. “Your recompense is in the usual account.”

Joon sidles out, sparing Shock an apologetic glance he scorns. She doesn’t care. No one does. Not that Shock would in her shoes. It’s just business, and as usual Shock’s working for the wrong people. He makes no sound as they drag him through that dark hollow into the next room. Shit. It’s exactly what he knew it would be. One chair, a ton of plastic, and a woman known only as Pill. And nobody likes taking her medicine. She studies him as he’s dragged in, stripped of his jacket and shirt, and secured to the chair.

“Skinny,” she states, to no one in particular.

Yang appears in the doorway.

“Make him talk. We need to know about Emblem, how it works.”

“Are we in a hurry?”

“No,” Yang says, and offers Shock another of those brief, cold smiles, faintly smug. “We’re well protected. You can take as long as you like.”

Those words might be a blatant lie, and Shock might be fully aware of that, but that doesn’t stop his heart from stuttering, slipping, and sinking into his boots.

Wearing Deuce’s homemade hyper-goggles—multi-functioning J-Net connected smartware—Amiga blades at double-time speed to Sakkura on Shock’s heels, fuming at her stupid self. And at Shock, the idiot, who’s in serious need of help right now. Lucky for him, he has a cavalry. Unlucky for him, she’s running late. But she has a solid plan. Sneak in signal dark, snatch Shock from wherever he is, whether he’s willing or not, and whisk him away to Jong Phu.

Deuce is tracking Shock by his signal. He’s got her blocked from it, much to her annoyance, convinced she can’t do this and handle that. Oh he of little faith. Once they have Shock secure, Deuce says he can hide the signal noise temporarily with some hands-on help from his buds. Then they’ll figure out what the hell do to with Shock now he’s achieved the impossible.

Amiga fumes a little harder at the thought. Trust that fucking idiot to actually pull this off. Why couldn’t he pull his usual stunt and run for it? Jeez you can’t even rely on people to be unreliable.

Amiga.

Wobbling like a drunken bird, Amiga manages to stay on the line, stay alive, but her heart damn near gives out, pumping hard enough to pop.

’Sup boss?

I have a runaway I need lassoing.

She was wondering when the shit-tsunami might hit. Stellar.

Wouldn’t be anything to do with the images on every vid feed in the Slip, would it?

It would.

Amiga rolls her eyeballs hard enough to braid her optic nerves. Typical. Now she has to try to wriggle out of obligation.

Shock Pao again, Twist? No freaking way. He’s a nightmare. He’s fucking smoke.

He’s got something of mine.

Twist is furious. Serves him right. Doubtless he’s tried to double-cross the Queens, a level of stupid she thought only losers like Shock Pao could hit. If only they could crush Twist flat. Oh what she wouldn’t give for such an easy way out of her current employment issues.

Again, he’s smoke. I’m not a freaking magician.

He’s not smoke at the moment,
says Twist, grim satisfaction underlying the heavy lashings of aggro in his tone.
He’s in Sakkura. I’ll link you. Heads up, his signal’s a bit strange.

She’s about to reply when the link-up hits, making her feet stutter again, lose their rhythm. Fuck, no wonder Deuce blocked her from this shit. Shock’s signal is like a dropped mic, all high screeching feedback and white noise. Feels like sickness: that shudder in the bones, the nausea in the pit of the belly. Where’s anti-bac for the drive when you need it?

Twist’s voice slices into her thoughts,
Move it, Amiga, and when you have him, bring him straight to me. I don’t like to be kept waiting.

At your home?

Where else?
He says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world to escort a wanted man to Sendai when the Gung’s most vicious bastards are all after him.

Jim Dandy
, she snaps as he cuts her off.

Such confidence she’ll obey, that it’ll even be possible. Ordinarily she’d have to try nonetheless, but there’s that tiny matter of this being Emblem and therefore not the sort of delivery she’d
ever
drop into Twist’s hands. All she has left are her principles, withered and ill used, but enough to prevent her from sinking quite that low. Before this moment, refusing Twist was a dangerous enough task. Now? Lethal to her health. To the health of everyone she cares about.