Nita didn’t say anything as they turned the corner between the Hyatt and the next skyscraper over, and almost within a block the neighborhood changed entirely to row after row of three- and four-story apartment buildings with shops on the bottom floor, or locked gates in stucco-faced walls through which tiny courtyards could be glimpsed. She felt the urge to look over her shoulder, back at the skyscrapers towering over them, and then back again at the run-down and tattered buildings in their shadow, to try to make some sense of the disconnect.
Shanghai was a very busy city, the streets full of people, and Nita found herself getting a lot of looks as she followed in Penn’s wake. She worked to smile at the people they passed, but it took some doing; those who noticed her almost without fail stared at her with either the kind of curiosity you might bestow on some exotic animal walking down your street, or expressions of mild suspicion or hostility. This is weird, Nita thought. I don’t mind this sort of thing in the Crossings. But on Earth . . . She took a deep breath and instructed herself to ignore it and concentrate on following Penn. Shortly he took a sharp turn onto a side street lined with more of the small apartment buildings, and then another turn onto an even smaller street, which seemed to be lined entirely by blank walls with gates in them. “There’s not much of this type of architecture left in the city,” Penn said. “Baba’s lucky to have a place like this. Though maybe it’s not luck. He knows a lot of wizards in town, and it wouldn’t surprise me if one of them’s on the planning management board.”
In front of one gate—a wire-mesh and iron-grilled structure set in an energetically flaking blue-plastered wall—Penn stopped, reached out to touch the padlock hanging from the gate’s latch, and murmured a few words in the Speech. The padlock undid itself, and Penn opened the gate and slipped through. Nita followed, and Penn locked the gate behind them.
They were standing in a courtyard about the length and width of Nita’s driveway. Narrow cinderblock balconies surrounded it on three sides, and there was a stairway up to one of them. “Over here,” Penn said, and led the way.
Nita followed up the stairs, looking around her and trying very hard not to judge, but it was difficult. The place seemed exceedingly run-down, and the balcony, though it was uncluttered, was one long passage of peeling paint and raw, stained concrete, the roof above it discolored again and again with rust marks from dripping water. Finally Penn came up to a door down at the far end of the balcony, with a reinforced iron screen door outside. Penn pulled the screen door and the interior one open, shouting something in Chinese. The Speech rendered it for Nita: “Hey, Baba, the genius is here!”
Nita found herself standing in the middle of a small living room with a sofa and easy chairs that when new would not have looked out of place in any suburban home back in New York, but now were pretty beat up and looked like the kind of thing you put out on the curb and hoped someone would steal. There was a new flat-screen TV opposite the curtained front window, and a scatter of remotes and magazines across a central wooden coffee table along with someone’s relatively new laptop.
Penn stood over the coffee table, fumbling around in his pocket, and came out with his token from the Cull. He flipped it onto the table and then pushed past Nita. “I’ve got to get a few things,” he said, “make yourself at home.”
He slipped into the next room. Nita looked around a little helplessly. “I thought your grandfather was going to be here.”
Penn came back into the room wearing an expression that Nita could not read. Annoyance? Disdain? Nervousness? “Oh, he’s here,” he said, “but he doesn’t like me bothering him in the daytime. Claims he’s busy. Here—” He opened another door. “You go talk to him if you like.”
“But I—if he doesn’t want to be—”
“Don’t worry, he knows some English. He likes Americans! Thinks they’re interesting.” Penn’s expression let Nita know what he thought of that concept as he more or less shoved Nita into the room and shut the door behind her.
She stood there feeling profoundly embarrassed. And as she glanced around, she realized that he had shoved her into the kitchen.
Nita took a long breath. I will kill him, she thought, without even bothering to use wizardry. Just a nice blunt rock. She let the breath out, and concentrated on taking in where she was. As kitchens went, it was on the basic and run-down side—cupboards on two sides of the room, a small refrigerator, and a plainly patterned linoleum floor, rather worn and grimy in the middle. Off to one side was a window with a stainless-steel counter running under it, a sink to one side of the window and a double gas burner on the other side, with a wok sitting on one of the burners. In the middle of the floor was a well scrubbed, somewhat scratched and hacked-up wooden dining room table. And sitting in one of the chairs around it was a little old baldheaded man wearing gray tracksuit bottoms and a darker gray hoodie.
Nita stood there for a moment while he looked her over. And now what do I say? she thought. Does he know what Penn’s up to? How am I supposed to explain myself?
“Well, young cousin,” he said in English, “don’t just stand there. Sit down and tell me what you’re doing here.”
He had a voice like a rusty hinge, and for some reason it made her want to smile, even though there wasn’t anything overtly friendly about it. All she said was, “Thank you, sir,” then pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.
They studied each other for a few moments. Penn’s grandfather was on the wiry side but surprisingly unwrinkled, with high cheekbones and a strong jaw. If his age showed anywhere it was in his eyes: the lids drooped. But the gaze with which those eyes favored Nita was sharp, sharp as knives. Beyond that, it was intriguing how someone sitting so straight in his chair could still seem so relaxed. There was a tablet computer off to his side on the table; on top of it, face-down and open, was a paperback book in a dialect of Chinese. Off to the other side was an open bottle of beer, which he had apparently been drinking from the neck. “I’m sorry if I interrupted you,” Nita said.
“You didn’t interrupt me,” the old man said. “Penn interrupted me.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Nita said. “He said he was coming here to show you his passing-through token from the Invitational.”
“Knowing Penn,” his grandfather said, “it’s you he came here to show me. We’re all supposed to be very impressed by his mentors. Forgive me if I don’t give him what he wants. At least, not right away . . .”
Nita had some difficulty keeping herself from laughing. “Impressed with his ‘mentors,’ plural?” She managed to smile without allowing it to look scornful. “But as for not giving him what he wants, I’m with you on that.”
The diminutive figure flashed her a totally unselfconscious smile that was missing some teeth. “You don’t like him much.”
“He’s a challenge,” Nita said. “But I have to believe there’s a reason.”
“Can we use the Speech?” Penn’s grandfather said. “It’s harder to hide what you’re feeling.”
Nita nodded. Bobo, she said silently, stay close here. I may need you to fill me in on vocabulary.
I’ll grab your vocal cords if you’re about to say something stupid, Bobo said.
Nita smiled. “Interesting,” Penn’s grandfather said, picking up his beer bottle. “You have an outrider.”
He used the specialist phrase in the Speech for a wizard whose thought processes were somehow augmented by those of another sentience. Nita swallowed; though it was a blanket term, Bobo’s presence wasn’t something she was used to having other people notice. “That’s right,” she said, also in the Speech. “Not many people pick up on it.”