James Swallow: Jade Dragon

“Bet you a smoke,” said Feng.

“Stop distracting-” Ko’s retort was cut short as something came alive inside the sports car. The vehicle’s lights snapped on all at once, full beam and glaring. From a speaker in the grille a synthetic voice barked at him. “Attention! This vehicle is undergoing a theft! Alert! Alert! Contact authorities immediately!”

Ko swore under his breath; suddenly Feng was nowhere to be seen and sure enough, there were two men in APRC fatigues jogging across the car park toward him.

“Phase two alert!” shouted the Vista GL. “Lethal deterrent charging! This is your legal warning!”

The youth turned and ran as the electro-zappers on the bodywork whined up to full capacity. He’d picked this part of the car park because it was close to the maintenance access wells. Ko forced his way through the gap between two chained gates and sprinted up three flights of concrete stairs. He forced himself to a slow, casual walk as he emerged into the evening, around the blunt concrete architecture of the airport’s vast parking field. Faintly, he heard the deep buzz-crackle of the stunner going off below.

Feng sat cross-legged on a wall. “I warned you.”

“Shut up, dead man.”

The swordsman hopped down and trailed after him. Ko paused to throw the ruined cellphone in a waste drum, and Feng pointed at the vending machine next to it. “You owe me a smoke.”

“Fine.” Ko slammed his debit card into the machine’s slot and the vendor disgorged a packet of Peacefuls cigarettes. Feng licked his lips as the youth removed the plastic wrapper and carefully set the packet on fire with a disposable lighter. The box combusted quickly and Ko let it drop to the ground. Feng stooped to follow it, watching it crumble into a mound of grey ash.

The machine had a mirrorscreen facia, and despite the gang tag scrawls across its surface, Ko could still get a good look at himself. The screen showed him on a tropical beach, cartoon cans in white and blue dancing about him with wild abandon. “Enjoy the Great Taste of Lan Ri!” said the screen. “The Flavour is Now!” Ko used the screen to check himself over; his face was a little flushed with effort, but his spikey black hair-do was still intact and the hachimaki band across his forehead hadn’t slipped. He flicked minuscule dots of dust from his jacket and straightened it a little.

“You preen too much. Like a dandy.” Feng had a cigarette in his hand now and he took a drag on it in the way a starving man would eat a meal.

Ko gave the pile of ashes a desultory kick; an identical and intact packet of Peacefuls went into the drawstring pouch hanging on Feng’s belt. “Those things will kill you.”

The joke was old, but it still raised a smirk from both of them. “The only vice I can have,” said the soldier. “If you can find me another one…”

Ko nodded at the gathering of cars and bikes in the middle of the open concrete plaza. “Come on. Perhaps my luck will change.”

Passport control consisted of a walk through a deep penetration scanner tunnel and an impressively large security automaton modelled on Kuan Ti, the God of War. The machine licked the thick black ident card in his hand with a thread-thin green laser, and took a moment to examine his HIV Negative warrant before intoning a welcome in elaborate Mandarin. Frankie walked through the lounge without stopping; the urge to get free of the identical spaces inside the plane and the airports propelled him into the arrivals area. He slowed, crossing the marble floors, looking up to take in the arching steel framework of the terminal’s roof.

“Hello, Francis.” The voice was soft and melodic.

“Uh. Hello.” A thin Japanese woman extended a hand to him and he took it. She had warm skin, dry and soft. At her shoulders were two very different figures. The first, a younger man, pinched and a little bored-looking. This one took his bags without comment and resumed walking. The other was tall, broad about the chest and he moved in the way that only trained men did. Frankie knew the type instantly; corporate security. All three of them wore suits of a similar cut, the discreet YLHI pennant there on their lapel like his, but Frankie had to wrench his gaze away from the security agent with an almost physical effort. The tall man’s face was concealed beneath a porcelain opera mask of the Monkey King, a swirl of black, yellow and white.

“My name is Alice,” said the woman, “Mr Tze sends his apologies that he could not attend to greet you in person. I’m sure you understand.”

Frankie nodded. She was very pale, he noticed, her skin the colour of milk.

“I would also like to extend to you my personal sympathies on the matter of Alan’s passing.” She gave a little sigh. “I was honoured to work with him.”

A confusion of questions forced their way to the front of Frankie’s mind as he understood in that moment how little he knew about Alan’s life, but they defied any attempt to articulate them. In the end he managed a clumsy “Thank you.”

“Transport has been arranged,” said Alice. “This way.”

Some quirk of legalese meant the car park outside Chek Lap Kok SkyHarbour was still classed as a public area, and so as long as they did nothing too reckless, there was little the greenjackets of the APRC could do with the go-ganger crews and wayward teens but move them on or throw in the occasional rousting when they got too rowdy. Ko privately believed that the soldiers from the mainland liked the corporates as little as he and his street racer friends did, and that they let the gangers hang out here just because it pissed off the suits. As long as they kept the level of fatalities down to an acceptable level, they would be allowed to loiter.

Ko drew closer to the gathering and his heart sank. On his face the emotion showed up as a tight curl at the corner of his mouth. There was the metallic green Kondobishi Kaze he hated, with its ostentatious gold rims and that dumbass hemi blower poking through the bonnet like a little beehive.

“Makes a change for you to see it from the front, eh Chen? Bet you forgot what it looks like, you see the tailgate so much!” A ripple of brusque laughter followed the insult out toward him.

He returned Second Lei a level, icy stare-the same kind that Hazzard Wu gave the Master of Glocks at the climax of Gunfighter Orphanage’s final reel. “I let you win, Second, because you cry like a girl when you lose.” Ko held his hand waist-high. “Like a little girl.”

Lei’s crude sneer froze on his face, the humour fading like vapour. “Watch your mouth, punk. You’re asphalt to me, understand? I wouldn’t even race you for pinks.”

Ko resisted the urge to say what he really thought-that Second was a braggart and a fool, who only kept his green monster on the road because he funded it with cash skimmed from back-alley drug pushing that even the triads wouldn’t touch. Instead he just looked away. Sometimes it was easier to let the fool have his way than start a fresh fight every time they crossed paths. Give the baby the teat.

But Lei had other ideas. “You know who this is?” He put the question to the assembled gangers, who quieted, sensing violence brewing. “This is Chen Watt Ko, spooky Chen, no-hope loser with his imaginary friend!” Second advanced toward him. “Where’s your pal, Ko? Is he here?” Lei cast around, made a show of looking high and low. He pantomimed a shiver. “Whoo-hoo-hoo! Ko sees dead people!”

“Tell him I said he has a face like a baboon’s ass-crack.” Feng was there on the hood of the green car. He stubbed out one Peaceful on the windscreen and lit another.

Second looked right through the swordsman. “No? Not here? What a shame.” He stepped up and prodded Ko in the chest. “You’ve been a freak since we were kids, Chen. I only keep you around for laughs.” Second snapped his fingers and the nondescript dolly with him handed over a pop-pack of clear capsules. He took a couple and tossed them into his open mouth like candy drops. Ko’s antipathy showed; drug-takers disgusted him.