She bleeds. The sunglasses are smashed into broken mirrors under Rope’s shoes. Rope puts his big white hands around Other Juno’s throat and he begins to twist and turn her head. This Juno, Watching and Observing Juno, touches her neck in reflection, detached, distant, not understanding.
How can this be happening? How can I be here and there at once? Why is she dying? Juno is a star. I can’t die.
And the Other Juno’s face turns florid and then slack as Rope twists and twists, he’s laughing a little as he does it, eyes wild and enraptured as he makes the kill last, teasing it out. The slow, slow cracking pops as vertebrae snap. The meat-sack thud as the body falls from his clawed hands. Juno. There dead. Dead.
Mirror is broken.
Heywood brushes back stray hairs made unkempt by the murder, straightens himself, calms down his arousal. He looks at her with kind, fatherly eyes and beckons Juno Here from behind the door. So she comes, because that’s what she must do. And This Juno sloughs off the shapeless plastic oversuit and gently undresses Other Juno, Dead Juno, Pallid and Forever Not Juno…
She was in the shower beneath a hot spray of water when she finally recovered enough to stop weeping. The needles of liquid massaged her body, pain making the dream fade. The punishing heat reddened her skin, but it forced the thoughts to retreat back into the dark pools and the black places. Juno shut it off and crossed to the full-length mirror, wiping away the patina of condensation, examining herself.
“Just… a dream,” she said aloud, her words taking on a peculiar echo in the cavernous bathroom.
Juno padded out to the suite proper and studied the display on her comm. It was still ringing, the call unanswered. Francis Lam-Temporarily Unavailable.
The girl swallowed the beginning of a sob and dressed, taking the most shapeless, the most basic clothes she could find. The room was tight about her, strangling.
Juno donned an eyeband and concealed her hair beneath a baseball cap. She slid out over the lip of the balcony, and edged over into the neighbouring room, where a fat billionaire from Minsk was sleeping off a binge on the sofa. She picked her way past him, and out.
From the outside, it had appeared to be just one more in a line of nondescript lock-up in a back street full of rusted roller doors and gates cut from corrugated steel. Somewhere a block or two back was the main crossroads of Mongkok, the constant rumble of traffic and the sounds of distant metro trains under everything, ebbing and flowing like waves. Ko found the gateway with the ease of someone who had done it hundreds of times, and Fixx ducked low to follow him inside, past hand-painted signs in unreadable characters and layers of flyposters.
Within it was a different story: an oasis of old history nestled there, a small courtyard and a couple of low buildings in an ancient style. The place was a little shabby around the seams but still impressive in its own way. Fixx mused on the fact that the space taken up by the temple could have easily been enough for a housing tower. Whoever owned this place had influence, money, or both.
There were a few boys and a couple of older teens, spinning out tightly trained katas with lionhead swords or halberds.
“A dojo,” Fixx said aloud. He glanced at Ko. “You train here?”
The thief gave him an uncomfortable look. “Not for a while.”
Ko made him wait outside while he went into one of the buildings, and the op watched the other pupils. They were very good, and their kung fu was something new to him. Fixx picked out elements of a dozen Oriental fighting styles, but all modified beyond their rigid origins. The kids with the halberds flowed like water, the pikes meeting with hollow clacks, never passing close enough for anything but a glancing blow.
He orbited the perimeter of the courtyard and came across a corridor. Along it there were framed photographs, glass cases that were home now only to spiders and nameplates where trophies might once have stood. He found a yellowed newspaper article and there in a dulled image was Ko, younger and happier, between a whipcord fellow in a yellow tracksuit and an older man in police uniform. The boy held up a medal. Further down there were other items that seemed out of place-a stained film script with the title Blood and Steel, and old movie posters, their lurid colours and vivid blocks of text all faded shades.
The op looked up as a figure appeared in the shadows. “Joshua Fixx,” said the man. “Who might you be?”
“Just passin’ through,” said Fixx. “Following an inkling, you might say.” The man walked into a pool of light and he saw the same face from the paper; the muscular cut of his posture was less than it had been back then. He had grey hair and that kind of wispy beard the old guys in this part of the world seemed to like. “The kid?”
“Ko.” The man shook his head. “Such potential. It saddens me to see him squander it on fast cars and street fights. Ah Sing will see he’s patched up.”
“He’ll be cool. He’s tougher than he looks.”
The old man cocked his head. “You can tell that from just meeting him?”
Fixx showed his teeth. “I’m what you might call a good judge of character.”
He held out the tarot card. “Ko asked me to return this to you.” The man examined it. “You a fortune teller, Mr Fixx?”
“I have my moments.” He paused. “I’m not responsible for Ko’s state, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”
The old man shook his head. “I know that. If you were, we wouldn’t be having this pleasant conversation.” There was an edge of challenge in the words that gave Fixx pause. “These are dangerous days for the unwary. The streets of my city are filled with foolish men and easy roads to jeopardy. Ko, and the others… I try to teach them to seek a path of enlightenment, not darkness.” He came closer, and Fixx saw the subtle cues in his posture that showed he was ready to take things to another level, if that was how it played out. “But I am asking myself, why would a man like you rescue a streetpunk like him from out of nowhere?”
“Like you said, the lad’s got potential he don’t even know about yet.” Fixx took the card and returned it to the pack, careful to remain easy and unhurried. “Kid’s got a role to play, neh? Like all o’ us.” He tapped the dusty glass, reading the only English text he could find on the movie posters. “ The Silent Flute. I never seen that flick. That’s you there, right? The leading man?”
“Long time ago,” admitted the old fellow. “Times change.”
“Yeah,” said Fixx, sensing a kindred spirit. “Not always for the better. ”
Ko’s teacher beckoned. “We should talk, Mr Fixx.”
“Call me Joshua. ”
The old man smiled. “I’m Bruce.”
The interior of the church was silent when she slid between the heavy oaken doors. Her footsteps made gentle tapping sounds on the tiled floor as she moved deeper into the building, passing the ranks of oaken pews, empty of worshippers. The chapel seemed strange and out of place in a city of towering glass and steel, a tiny knot of ancient beliefs crowded out by the new temples of the corps.
Juno tried to clarify the impulse that had brought her here and found nothing that could explain it. It was the silence that drew her in, the sense of tranquillity inside the ancient building. In here, the rest of the world seemed far distant. She thought of the old ideals of sanctuary on hallowed ground.
At the altar there were constructs of gold and painted plaster; saviour and cross, seraphs and saints. They appeared stern and unforgiving, and Juno kept her head down, the bill of her cap pointed at the floor.
Someone nearby took a breath. “It’s traditional to take your hat off inside the House of God. ”There was gentle admonishment in the voice.
Juno looked up to see an old priest. He had a pleasant face with concerned eyes that peered from a dark cassock. “Would you mind if I didn’t?”
The priest smiled. “I’m sure we can let it go this once.”