“Any last words?” said Rope, his breath hot and pungent.
“Yeah,” Fixx coughed. “Look behind you.”
“Bastard!” screamed Frankie, and sank Fixx’s sword into the Josephite’s back. The blade punctured Rope’s heart and burst from his chest.
Fixx kicked him away and fell back, forcing himself to his feet. Frankie was gasping, tears streaking his face. Black blood covered his hands and he stared down at them, shaking.
Incredibly, Rope was not dead. The ghost knife was forgotten as he fingered the blade, trying in vain to get a grip on the sword and pull it out.
Fixx hobbled to him and yanked on the hilt. “Mine, I think.” The sword came free and oily fluids spurted from the entry and exit wounds.
“Nuh…” Rope twittered, eyes misting. “No.”
“Yeah,” said the operative, and with effort Fixx gathered up the Josephite and hurled him through the broken window.
Rope fell a hundred storeys, plunging into darkness and fire.
“Tze.” The executive turned at the sound of his name to see the ragged thief crossing the statue park. He paused before the idling spidercopter. There was something different about the boy, a glint in his eye that had been absent there in the car park when he blundered in with guns blazing. A certainty, he decided. A surety of purpose.
“I’ll say this for you, lad. You’re a survivor.” Tze eyed the bloodied katana. “My servant?”
“Dead,” said Ko. “And you’ll join him soon enough.”
Tze drew his own blade. Juno’s blood still discoloured the edge. “Be wise. Take that sword and end your own life with it, while the choice is still yours. The world you know has ended tonight. The Jade Dragon is King now, and I am his keeper.” He idly ran a finger over one of the terracotta soldiers that stood nearby like a mute honour guard.
The action seemed to infuriate the teenager. “Maggot and shit-eater. You are blind and stupid. You sacrifice children to this foul creature and plot to set it lose on the world? Death a hundred times over is not reward enough.” He shivered and his voice altered for a second. “I’m gonna fuck you up, asshole. You and me got unfinished business.”
Tze frowned. The thief’s odd behaviour was vexing; but no matter. He would die as easily as the clone had, and then Tze would take his leave to the castle and await the final manifestation of the Dragon Lord.
The katana swung at him, missed. Tze made a riposte that hummed through empty air. “You’re quick,” he remarked.
“Two thousand years of practice.” snapped his opponent.
The swords crossed, polycarbonates and tempered steel biting. Tze snarled as he scored first blood, cutting a slash in the go-ganger’s jacket; but his victory was short lived as the boy wounded him on the arm.
Tze spat and attacked again, all pretence at play forgotten. This commoner had dared to spill his blood? There would be no quarter now. He released a flurry of blows, beating the thief back into the circle of terracotta effigies. Fear spread across his opponent’s face. “No cocky words now, eh?” he shouted.
“Go bugger yourself, you worthless old cashwhore.”
He slashed and caught the boy’s temple with a small nick, ripping away the dirty hachimaki headband in his hair. The youth stumbled against the sculpture of a swordsman.
“You are poor sport,” said Tze, drawing back for a killing blow. “No match for me, little boy.”
“My name,” growled the thief, “is Lau Feng, soldier of his Imperial Majesty the Emperor, ghost and undead, guardian of this life…” His voice shifted again. “I am Chen Wah Ko, brother of Nikita… And you owe me blood, motherfucker.”
“I don’t care who you are,” said Tze, and swung at his opponent’s neck.
Frankie was trembling, babbling. “Oh, god. Oh, god. Juno… She’s dead!”
Fixx gave a slow nod. “I’m sorry.” He had known it, somewhere deep inside. Fixx had understood that the girl’s fate was never to be a fair one. Juno’s life was a mayfly existence; bright, shining, fleeting.
“Tze killed her. He murdered her…”
“That’s right,” said Fixx, and he nodded at the damaged video consoles. “But it won’t mean nothin’ if nobody knows it.”
“I don’t understand. ”
“Show them, Frankie. Show the people the truth.”
After a moment, Frankie nodded and ran his hands over the panels. “The replay is in memory. The live feed is still intact. I… I can wide-band it to every screen in Hong Kong.”
“Do it,” said Fixx. “Let the city hear Juno.”
Broadcast Resumed.
The override from Tze’s command console had worms in every public communications protocol software across Hong Kong; advertisement screens, radio and vid, digital cinema, road signs and flickercladding. The Cabal’s reach extended everywhere, and Frankie used it to take revenge.
The loop of Juno Qwan’s defiance and her murder spun out over the city, played and replayed endlessly into the eyes and ears of a populace who loved her.
In the thrall of the Z3N, the gestalt needed focus, and Juno was the lynchpin; but the minds of the people at the concert and throughout the metropolis were stunned into silence as they watched Tze slit her throat again and again, in hundred-metre high, tint-corrected, high-definition ultra-colour.
“The Jade Dragon will destroy you all.” Her words thundered through the canyons of the city. “Don’t let it in. If you ever loved me, don’t-”
By the millions they watched Juno die, and with one voice they cried out for the idol they had fallen in love with. The potent blue surging through their minds came alight with grief, the flashing telepathic rush washing over the bay, a shockwave of misery that was anathema to the DesireGod.
In an instant, the Jade Dragon’s psychic bridge for rapture and elation shattered, ripping the demon-serpent apart. Screaming, clawing at the world, the thing tore towers down as the sky dragged it back into the darkness.
It left only destruction and mourning in its wake, as the citizens wept.
In the tower, Frankie spoke. “Listen,” he said, catching the sounds on the wind. “Hong Kong cries for her.”
Tze’s blade bit deep, but Ko was not there. He moved like lightning, and the killer’s sword cleaved through the terracotta warrior. The statue shattered like glass, spilling broken red rock across the pathway.
Among the ancient fragments there were bones, human skeletal remains sealed inside. Fragments of flesh, metal and leather centuries old puffed into dust on contact with the air. The ashen remains were caught by wind and gusted upward. Tze coughed as the choking dust stung his face and eyes. “Aiii! I cannot see!”
Ko felt Feng there beside him, the swordsman’s skill bleeding into his mind. The weak points in the corporate s armour were suddenly obvious to him, and he turned the katana into a stabbing strike, pushing the sword into a mortal wound.
Tze flailed backward and swung at dead air with his blade.
“Finish him!” Feng’s voice came from somewhere distant and faraway. Ko understood that the dead man was giving him the right to take Tze’s life, to assuage the failure of before. Ko smashed Tze’s sword from his grip and stabbed him again, drawing a scream.
Tze stumbled, eyes focussing on the main screen atop the distant stage. On the vast display, the killing of the singer played with a chorus of anguish as accompaniment.
Ko saw the panic in Tze’s dark eyes, the sudden understanding that his life’s work was going to be undone within a heartbeat of succeeding.
The katana flashed in the air and Ko sliced through spine and throat. For the brief span of seconds the severed head remained aware, Tze’s last experience was the hooting screech of the Jade Dragon cursing him into the darkness.
Wave-Net: with broadcast to be giving worldly factoids!
From the Tokyo Sim-Centre Virtual News Environment, this is FarEastEye with your v-anchors Dorothea Matrix, Raymondo Trace and Webber Caste.
“Good Clockset. Our main stories tonight, a massive terrorist incident rocks the Hong Kong Free Economic Enterprise Quadrant, claiming hundreds of lives and leaving disaster in its path.”