SWITCHBLADE (Choi Ziyi Book 1) Read online

  Xiao took his glass and sat on one side of the sofa nearest the window. It was the cue for everyone else to take their own seats. Ziyi liked to remain standing but Xiao indicated the seat next to him with the barest flick of his eyes.

  "So..." said Xiao. He sipped his drink and smiled. "You have news for us, First Minister?"

  Deng smiled in return, even though it seemed to pain him to do so. "Just an update really. To assure you we are doing all within our power to find those responsible for the heinous attack on your Highness." The glass stayed in his hand. "It looks like they are from a fraction of the American Free Army. DNA from the dead assassin matches a known member and he, in turn, is linked to at least six other possible suspects that we know are here in Hong Kong."

  "Six?" replied Xiao.

  Ziyi tried to keep her face neutral but inside her emotions were going into overdrive. Six more assassins still on the loose and the only thing for certain is more blood would be spilled before it was all over.

  "Yes, your Highness. We are, as we speak, in the process of tracking the suspects down, but they seem to be in possession of mek capable of fooling the retina scans," continued Deng.

  "I didn't think that was possible," said Rui.

  "Nor did we," replied Deng. "We were not happy to find out we were wrong. We're monitoring for their new identities now. They'll be picked up sooner rather than later."

  Rui barely hid his pleasure at the Minister's discomfort.

  "When do you think you'll have all the suspects in custody?" asked Xiao. "I've duties I must perform. Keeping me locked up in here isn't an option."

  "Very soon, your Highness," said Deng. "However, I was hoping I could persuade you to join me in Beijing until the matter is resolved. You'll be far safer there and I know your father would be pleased to..."

  "I'm not leaving Hong Kong," said Xiao. "Out of the question."

  "Your Highness, it's not safe too..." began Deng.

  "Don't tell me what is safe," said Xiao. "I'm assured this building is impenetrable. And in Ziyi and Rex we have the two best bodyguards in the world with me. Surely I don't need to remind you, Minister, how much time and money went into making them near-invincible?"

  Deng bowed his head in acknowledgement. "I apologise, your Highness. Our only concern is your safety."

  Xiao dismissed the apology with a wave of his hand. "I don't understand why they'd strike at me though. If anything, I'm their greatest advocate for an independent country. Their actions only help the hardline point of view." He paused and glanced directly at Deng. The Minister nodded in agreement. "The Empire is poised on the brink of a period of epic change as we embark on our exploration of the Heavens. We need to look to the future and not get dragged down by the decisions of our ancestors."

  "Apparently there was another suicide bombing in Chicago today," said Rui. "A police station downtown. Five dead."

  Deng sighed. "Unfortunately that is just the one we allowed to be reported. Footage got out before we could prevent it. There are, on average, six bombings a day across the country. Most are unmanned. Some, like Chicago, are suicide attacks."

  "What are you doing about it?" demanded Xiao.

  Deng's face remained impassive. "It's difficult. The general consensus is for a more heavy-handed military approach. Governor Xin believes that more troops on the ground will be enough to handle the situation."

  "More troops? So he intends to shoot everyone? The man's mad."

  "The situation is delicate." Deng sniffed the air, as if the conversation was beneath him.

  "Of course its delicate. But whatever the mistakes the Americans made in the past, it doesn't give us the right to lord over them for the rest of eternity," said Xiao. "We need to give them their freedom. That is the only way to bring peace to the world."

  Deng forced a quick smile. "Your father also believes in a slightly more hard line approach at the present time."

  "My father..." began Xiao but stopped himself before he said anymore. Instead the heir stood up, and the others followed. The conversation was over.

  "Thank you for your time, First Minister," said Xiao.

  Deng bowed. The movement was stiff and uncomfortable. "My pleasure, Sire. Before I go, may I remind you that there is an active terrorist cell here in Hong Kong, and there is no doubt you are its target. Please reconsider returning to Beijing. It's better than staying in..." Deng's eyes swept the room. "...this prison as you describe it."

  "Noted. Give my regards to my father," replied Xiao.

  Deng placed his hand against his heart. "For the Emperor. For the Empire."

  Everyone, as one, mirrored the action. "For the Emperor. For the Empire," they chorused. Only Xiao remained silent and unmoving.

  "Agents Choi and Rui," said Deng with a slight nod towards them. He turned before either could reply and marched towards his flyer.

  "He was as fun as ever," said Rui. "What a boring man."

  "Father depends on him too much," replied Xiao. "Far too much."

  "Your Highness, if there is a clear and present danger here in Hong Kong, perhaps it would be best if you returned to the capitol," said Ziyi.

  Xiao smiled. "There is no danger. I have you and I have Rex. No one will touch me with you both nearby."

  "Yes, your Highness," replied Ziyi. If only she shared Xiao's confidence.

  4

  Wing

  Wing's shift had finished an hour earlier, and much to his disgust, he wasn't at home, self-medicated out of his brains. Instead, he was in a shitty dive-bar down level in Wan Chai, waiting for a good-for-nothing drug dealer without the ability to tell the time.

  At least he had a table in the corner. There was some comfort in hiding in the shadows, watching the after-work crowd make fools of themselves. He adjusted his wool hat, pulling it over his ears, and ensuring it covered the socket in the back of his skull. Last thing he needed was a freaked-out Normal to deal with.

  The music, some Western dance monstrosity, hammered away as if the DJ wanted Wing's migraine go into overdrive. A few idiots did the bump and grind against each other on a bit of empty space pretending to be a dance floor. A gweilo whooped while some secretary swirled her skirt at him. The girl's mother would have been so proud if she'd seen her precious daughter making such a show of herself. Not for the first time, Wing wondered what the fuck he was doing there.

  He slugged back a shot of tequila, but it did little to take the edge off his jitters. The disconnect from the system always left him feeling less than what he was. Empty noise filled his head where only a short time before the data had raced. Everything was slower. His thoughts. His reactions. Fucking life itself. And to think Normals spent their every waking hour like that. He shuddered at the thought. He pulled out an Ultra Red from the packet on the table and lit the cigarette, dragging the smoke deep into his lungs, and for a moment, he was happy.

  "Hey!"

  Wing looked up. The barman glared at him. Flickering strobe lights danced over his bald head. "There's no fucking smoking in here. Put it out or fuck off."

  Wing stared back, took a long slow drag of the cigarette before he stubbed it out on the table. He held up the empty shot glass. "Another, please." He filled the please with as much sarcasm as he could muster. The barman grunted and went off to get his drink. Fucking Normals.

  Wing checked the time again. Ten O Five. Exactly five minutes since the last time he looked. Shit. Time dragged more in the bar than it did at work. His eyes flicked around the place. No sign of Jim. Fucking drug dealers. Fucking gweilos. Thirty-five minutes late and only god knew when he'd turn up. Just once he'd like that fucker to turn up on time. Just once. But, of course, if he were the reliable sort, Jim wouldn't be a dealer. And he knew fools like Wing would always wait.

  He stared at the phone on the table and the bastard thing stared back at him, taunting him with its silence. It was a battered piece of shit he'd bought off a bum in the street, so it had no official link to Wing. He only ever used it to ca
ll Jim, and only Jim had the number. He resisted the urge to call again.

  The barman slopped another glass of tequila down on his table so Wing downed that instead. He wasn't going to be that guy begging his dealer to turn up. No way. It wouldn't kill him to wait another five minutes. He realised his foot was tapping away under the table and stopped it. Yeah, he could wait five more minutes.

  He rubbed his face. Tried not to think about the shift he'd just put in. Four days in and no sign of the Americans. They were ghosts. Invisible in a world where everyone was monitored. Their retinas hadn't popped up anywhere and their faces hadn't triggered any recognition alerts despite the amount of drones that'd been put in the air. Another twenty-four hours without any leads and they'd be forced to scan search every building in Hong Kong. Fucking terrorists.

  He drummed on the table to the terrible music with his thumb, not even remotely in the same beat. He wrapped his hands around himself to stop him fidgeting. Fucking dealers.

  "All right, mate."

  Wing looked up. Jim. Thank the heavens for that. "Took your time."

  Jim shrugged. "I'm here now, aren't I?" He flopped down in the chair opposite Wing. "It doesn't get any easier getting around this city. The inter-level highway was blocked up around One Fifty. Took forever to clear. And all those fucking drones out and about. You seen them everywhere?"

  Wing nodded. "Yeah. I've seen the odd one about."

  Jim had that bug-eyed look that said he hadn't slept in days and wasn't planning on getting any rest for a while yet. The man was too bloody wired on his own shit. His stupidly ironic t-shirt was way too young for a man of his age and looked fit for burning. Even with a table between them, Wing could smell the stale stink of sweat wafting off him. His hair was cut short, almost to the scalp, emphasising the roundness of his head. He could have done with losing a few pounds as well, but he didn't look the sort for exercise.

  "Can I have a beer over here sharpish?" Jim shouted to the bar man, then mopped his face with a napkin. "How're you, then?"

  Wing hated small talk with Jim. They weren't friends. He gave the man money for drugs, but every time they met they had to go through the same song and dance like they were best mates. Chit chat, share a drink or two before Jim would get on with things. All Wing cared about was the little bag Jim had on him somewhere.

  "I'm good. All good. Work's... well... work." He caught himself drumming the table again and stopped. "You busy?"

  "Fuck yeah. Life's shit out there. Most people struggle to keep their head above it. Bad for them. Good for me 'cause everyone needs their stress relief. Especially with those bombs going off." With a smug grin, Jim waited for a moment while the bar man placed a frosted bottle of Tsingtao on the table. "Lovely. I need this."

  Wing watched him drink half of it in one go. If he were the violent type, he'd punch Jim right in the face right there and then and feel very happy about it. But he wasn't. The last fight Wing had was back in school when he got his arse kicked so he'd learnt his lesson. He forced a smile across his face instead. "Er... look. Not that I don't want to chat but you're late so I'm now late. Can we... er..." Wing indicated the pack of cigarettes on the table with his head.

  Jim looked at him for a moment like he had no idea what Wing was on about, then whatever mess he had left for a brain kicked into gear. The gweilo smiled. "Yeah sure. If you're in a hurry."

  "I am," replied Wing. He'd been in a hurry forty minutes ago. Now he was frantic. "No offence." He watched Jim pick up the cigarettes.

  "These things'll kill you," he said, waving the packet. "Mind if I have one?"

  "Help yourself."

  "Cheers matey. I'll just go outside. No smoking in here."

  "I know."

  Jim smiled that moronic smile of his again and jumped off his seat. The gweilo pushed his way through the crowd toward the exit. Not for the first time, a touch of panic told Wing he'd not be back. After all, he had thirty thousand yuan of Wing's hard-earned money in that cigarette pack.

  Wing was back to drumming the table when Jim reappeared. He fell onto the chair and snatched his beer. He drained the rest in another mouthful and threw Wing's cigarette packet back onto the table. "Well, good seeing you matey but I gotta bounce. Next time let's sink a few beers together, yeah?"

  Wing picked up the packet and slipped it into his jeans. "Sure - next time." He took Jim's proffered hand and shook it. "Next time definitely." Over Wing's dead body next time.

  "Later," said the dealer and left once more. Wing waited, only conscious of the packet in his pocket and what it contained. He went over, paid the bar man and got the fuck out of the hellhole.

  Outside, the heat took his breath away despite the time of night, and he coughed a lung up at the change in temperature. He spat phlegm into the road, and looked for a taxi. He told himself that it was the heat making him not want to take public transport, but really it was the drugs in his pocket and the urge to get high. Plus, an expensive ride in a taxi meant there was zero chance of walking past a policeman with a sniffer dog. Wouldn't do his career any good to get busted with ten grams of slice in his pocket. Even he wouldn't be able to talk his way out of that.

  A drone skimmed along the road just above eye-level scanning as many pedestrians as it could. Wing didn't flinch when it locked on him, just acted as cool as he could as it read his eye. No law against drinking in shitty neighbourhoods he told himself. The machine didn't know what he had in his pocket. Only refusing a scan would bring the cops down on him. By the time it had finished and moved on, a battered red cab stopped, and Wing slipped into the back. "Elgin Street, Level One One Three."

  The driver looked over his shoulder at Wing through the plexi-glass that separated the front and back of the taxi. "Traffic's bad. Quicker getting the escalator."

  "Your air-con working?"

  "Of course." The driver did his best impression of being indignant at the question.

  "Then drive." Wing looked out the window, ending the conversation.

  "Your money," grumbled the driver but slipped the car into gear. The cab crawled back into traffic.

  Too right it was Wing's money. He sank into the seat and relaxed a little. The radio was on — some news channel droning on about one bit of bad news after another. The Americans causing shit. The Arabs causing even more shit. Dead girls in the Zeros. Unemployment up. The future lies in space. Blah blah blah. Wing couldn't take anymore. He rapped on the glass.

  "What?" shouted the driver.

  "Can you turn that noise off?"

  "What?"

  "Turn the radio off. Give me some peace and quiet."

  The driver complained some more as he turned the volume down.

  Wing knocked on the glass again. "I said 'Off' not 'Down'."

  "Who died and made you Emperor?" said the driver, giving Wing an eye full in the mirror but he turned the noise off all the same. Wing settled back into the seat and relaxed.

  A little voice at the back of his mind told Wing to have a taste of the slice right there in the back of the cab, just a nibble to see how good it was, but common sense prevailed. No one knew better than he did that there were cameras everywhere.

  The traffic was bumper to bumper all the way twenty levels up and through Central to Elgin Street, resulting in another half hour burnt, but Wing was just happy to see his building.

  "Stop on the right," he said.

  "Sixty yuan. Cash or charge?" replied the driver.

  "Charge." The retina scanner dropped down and Wing placed his right eye over the lens. Everything was paid a whirl and a click later. As Wing got out the cab, he started thinking about the terrorists' new ability to fool the scans. Forget the security issue, the fraud possibilities were endless. If they were cloning the scans off real people, then the victims' bank accounts were wide open for the picking. Wing shook his head — he was in the wrong line of work. The real money was on the other side of the fence. Do a few deals, break a few laws, make some cash. He bet even that shit Jim
made more money than him.

  Fuck it, he had some slice. He'd worry about the world tomorrow.

  Wing's building had seen better days but it was cheap for where it was. He nodded at the bored security guard despite the fact the man was watching some reality show on TV and not paying Wing any attention whatsoever.

  The elevator rumbled its way up to Wing's floor. One one eight. His apartment lurked at the end of the corridor behind an iron gate. Hardly the big time, but at least it was his. All eight hundred square feet of it.

  It was dark inside but Wing didn't bother turning on a light. He triple-bolted the door, kicked his shoes off into the corner to join the pile of discarded footwear already there and made for the sofa, only stopping to grab a beer from the fridge. He should clean up sometime. Not today though. He had better things to do.

  Excitement bubbled away inside him but he stayed calm as he turned on his apartment's counter-surveillance measures. Just in case anyone thought of checking up on him. He may be a junkie but he wasn't stupid. He counted to five, allowing ample time for the tape of himself spending a boring night watching TV to start playing on his CCTV feed. He gave the room the finger and flopped onto his sofa.

  The battered thing embraced him like an old familiar lover. He popped open the beer on the corner of the coffee table and pulled out the pack of Ultras. His fingers shook with anticipation as he found the little packet inside. He battled with the cellophane, but eventually he had the wrap open.

  An old knife lay on the coffee table next to a heat gun, the blade covered in white flecks. Wing picked it up and cut off a small chunk of slice. Just enough to give him a good time tonight, and still give him a chance to get his head back into gear for work tomorrow. He'd save the rest for later.

  He dabbed his finger on a small crumb that had fallen off the chunk and stuck it in his mouth, shuddering at the bitter taste, but there was no way he was going to waste anything. Wing washed his mouth with a chug of beer, aware of a delicious tingle somewhere deep inside himself.