“You truly believe that?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Even if it means bloodshed, on both sides?”
I straightened the lapels of his suit, smoothing them down with my palm before putting my hand over the pulsing mass of his heart. I could feel it beat, strong and steady against my palm.
“You know, in fifty years you’ve gotten most of the country to love you guys. Those protesters outside Xinzhongzi? They’re still a pretty small minority, and even they wouldn’t be out there if Gohan hadn’t tried to do an end run around LeiFang. Thanks to you guys, we’re the one shining star left in a world that’s gone to shit and on some level everybody knows that, even the ones who complain. But the thing is, Nix, is that they only see the positive side. It’s all they’re allowed to see. Things like the ability to wipe out an entire continent, or convert people into a totally different species, those things get hidden. If someone does manage to see through it, people like Governor Hwong or Sillith make sure they disappear. Those people out there love you guys, but you can’t love someone if you don’t know what they really are.”
I thought about that for a second, then let out a small laugh.
“What?” Nix asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just realized that’s the same reason I’m blowing it with Vamp. I always thought that Vamp wanted me, but that he wouldn’t if he knew the truth about me. Here I am, willing to tip the whole city on end, but I can’t just tell him the truth, and let him decide.”
“It may not be too late.”
I shrugged.
“I don’t know.” I patted his arm, and stood up. “There’re more rations in the bag, and I’ll leave the twistkey for you in case you need it. Stay as long as you need, then find me again?”
“I will. Where are you going?”
I headed toward the factory exit, lining up the quickest route to Chong’s meeting point on the 3i. I checked the endpoint, and his note, and raised my eyebrows.
“You don’t want to know,” I said.
Chapter Eighteen
The sun beat down as I approached Chong’s marker on the 3i map. His directions had taken me down to the south side of Jangbong, where the crowds of people seemed to grow dirtier and skinnier with each block. The destination seemed to be an aircar electrical charge station at the street corner up ahead, and as I walked along a rusted chain-link fence, I spotted Chong across a lot of cracked asphalt.
I assumed it had to be him, anyway. He dressed like Vamp, and looked totally out of place, leaning against the back wall of the station’s run-down minimart while puffing a cigarette to life. He flicked his lighter closed, and blew smoke. When he saw me approach, he met my eye and waved.
“You must be Sam,” he said. He held out his hand, and I shook it.
“And you must be Chong.”
“That’s me.”
He waved a fly away, and it buzzed back to join the cloud that hung around the mart’s trash bin. Off in the distance, I heard the “pop” of a gun going off. A second later, two more sounded.
“Lots of security,” Chong said. “Something’s got people stirred up.”
“Something.”
“You hear the news?” he asked. “What they’re saying about the blackouts?”
“No.”
“They’re blaming it on an American cyberattack,” he said, grinning. “Pretty rich, huh?”
“Better them than us.”
He looked me up and down.
“Vamp said you were cute,” he said. “He wasn’t kidding.”
“Vamp said that?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “He mentioned it.” He took a last drag off his smoke, then tossed it, only half-finished.
“So, you ready to go?” he asked.
“Go where, Chong?”
He used the station’s restroom key, attached to a big metal plate, to unlock a grimy metal door and then pulled it open. As soon as he did, a wave of stink hit me, a hot cloud of urine, shit, and cigarette smoke that made me want to gag.
“Ugh,” I said. “What the hell, Chong?”
“You want to get into the Xinzhongzi station?”
“Yeah, but how—”
“And you’ve got a gate remote?”
“Yeah…”
He handed me the key, and gestured for me to go inside.
“This better be for real,” I said, taking the key and stashing it in my pocket. I stepped inside, where the smell somehow got even worse. I waved a fly from my face and wrinkled my nose. “This place is terrible.”
The walls had been covered in overlapping scribbled hanzi announcing everything from gang names to sexual conquests. A sink mounted on the right-hand wall looked like it hadn’t been used or cleaned in years, and the filthy plastic mirror over it was missing the bottom left corner. Against the far wall, two paces from the door leading in, sat a squat-style toilet surrounded by urine stains. An ashtray next to it overflowed with so many butts it looked like some kind of carcinogenic flower.
“We can access the sewer from here,” Chong said, pointing toward the stall. “From there, we can reach the station.”
“You’re sure it will take us there?” I asked him.
“One of the tunnels goes right under it.”
I stood in front of a grimy toilet, boxed in on all sides by bathroom graffiti. The cramped stall left almost no room to move around so I perched on the toilet lid, facing the door where Chong stood, and slipped my Escher tablet out of my pocket. I traced the pass code with my finger and the metallic screen dissolved to reveal a pocket of impossible space inside. Among the stacks of weapons and supplies, I spotted the little remote in the corner where I’d left it.
When I moved my palm over it, the field jumped forward, expanding so that I could reach inside. I pulled the remote device out of my pack, then leaned forward on the toilet and aimed the lens at the tip of the controller down toward the grimy, tiled floor.
“How do you know how to use that thing?” Chong asked.
“I read the directions.”
I pushed the button. A thin, almost invisible laser made a dot in the middle of the floor, and a holodisplay adapted for the human visible spectrum appeared in front of me above the surface of the remote. It displayed a sort of X-ray of the floor, and I could see wiring, support beams, and pipes down there. I eased the right wheel down with one finger, and the image dove deeper while numbers ticked past to indicate the depth in meters. A red warning icon hovered over all of it, letting me know it hadn’t found a space big enough to gate into yet.
I moved the wheel a little more, and the icon turned yellow, then finally green. On the holoscreen, I could see a drop below me, then a fuzzy tunnel floor at the bottom.
“You see it?” he asked.
“Yeah, I got it.”
I eased the depth down just a little more, then released the button, and clicked it once.
A point of white light appeared on the floor, like a bright little LED that lit up the inside of the bathroom. I dialed the wheel on the remote’s left side, and the point of light opened to form the thin hexagonal outline. Through it, I could see the sewer tunnel below. I dialed it open a little more, then a little more, just enough for us to slip through. When I had it ready, I pushed the button a second time to store the location for our return trip.
“Where does it lead?” I asked him. He sent the sewer map over the 3i, with the destination marked off. It would be a bit of a haul, but he was right, the tunnels did pass right underneath Xinzhongzi.
“You ready?”
“I don’t really need an escort, Chong.”
“What are you going to do if you run into trouble?”
“And what are you going to do if I do?”
“You need me to show you where to set the endpoint,” he said.
I really didn’t want him along, because once I got into the station I didn’t think he would like what came next. It would be better, I thought, if he just didn’t know.