EMPATHY: Part 2

     The elevator didn’t work.
     Gina struggled up the stairs in Bomber’s wake, picking her way through a maze of ancient beer bottles, discarded syringes and chunks of fallen plaster. Frayed electrical cables and cracked pipes created a constant hazard to unwary foreheads. Dirty white paint peeled off the walls in patches as big as a man. Flakes of it floated everywhere, stinging her eyes and prickling the back of her throat.
     Gina was on a first-name basis with poverty, but this was something else.
     She sneezed into the sleeve of her borrowed suit and wiped her nose. Worries still plagued her mind. She tugged on Bomber’s leg and said, “Won’t they come looking for us here?”
     Slowing down for a moment, Bomber let her catch up as he scanned the way ahead. “Yaks don’t come to Shanghai,” he said absently. “Triads shifted them out of here a long ways back. Lot of killing, lot of bad blood still around. They still fight over it sometimes.”
     “And the Russians?”
     “Don’t have any resources anywhere close. It’ll take them a few days to track us down, more than we need.” He glanced over his shoulder down the dark stairwell. Even here, he still had that annoying sense of calm about him, something Gina envied immensely. He remarked, “Y’know, for a Street girl, you’re not very turf-wise.”
     Gina looked away to hide a flush of embarrassment. “I don’t get out much, okay?” she said sharply. Then she sighed and muttered an apology under her breath. “Are we there yet?”
     He didn’t respond, just led the way onto a small landing between stairs, and started to climb outside through an open window. Though on second glance, Gina wouldn’t call it so much ‘open’ as ‘gone’. The glass, the frame, even the hinges were either stolen or rotted away.
     Gina followed him without batting an eyelash. Craziness seemed to be the order of the day; she just thanked God that the residual Spice in her system was finally wearing off. It was a nasty trip to feel other people’s innermost thoughts when you couldn’t even keep your own emotions straight.
     Across a rusted pile of metal that may once been an emergency staircase, she slipped through another open window into the next building, an old pile of red bricks with a flashing neon sign on the side. This was apparently written in the ‘giant pink’ style of Cantonese, its meaning forever lost on Gina, but the blinking lights reminded her of her own coffin at Easy Hotel. ‘Coffin’ was certainly the right word, and she amazed herself with a twinge of homesickness for the place. A book, a pile of warm covers and a familiar roof over her head. If only.
     The flat was dark, dank and as big as a palace to anyone used to living in coffins. Bomber hit the light switch, shrugged out of his blazer and threw it over the sofa, revealing the black leather holster under his armpit. Gina caught a glimpse of a sleek stealth pistol with silencer attached. She’d seen enough hits on people — as a hired eye or just a random witness — to know a bit about weapons, enough to be very aware what they could do to someone, and guns gave her the creeps worse than spiders.
     “Help yourself to whatever’s around,” he said. “We’re safe enough here for the night, but tomorrow we gotta move.”
     She hated him for sounding so unafraid, for telling her what to do, for being the only one with a clue, but she was too hungry to blow up at anyone right now.
     The kitchen could barely be seen underneath the piles of dirty dishes and half-eaten fast food. The faucet kept up a constant drip-drip, drip-drip, and she decided that Bomber’s refrigerator could very well be the oldest piece of functioning technology on the planet. The monotone growl of its cooling unit gave jet engines a run for their money. Inside, it contained a stunning variety of plastic-wrapped microwave meals, dehydrated noodles that could survive doomsday, and a lonely six-pack of Chinese beer.
     She grabbed one of the cans, took a sip, and found a pan to boil some water in.
     “Do you want anything?” she called.
     “No, thanks,” he said. “Just here to pick up some stuff.”
     Thank you for the information, Mr. Talkative, she grumbled in the privacy of her own mind. Glad I’m being kept in the loop around here.
     She sighed, went over to the sink and splashed some water on her face. The endless distress and mental exhaustion were taking their toll on her. Yawning, she washed away her make-up and turned off the stove. A look in the mirror satisfied her that she was ready to pass out with dignity. Damned fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, girl. What are we going to do now?
     The flashback hit her like a bolt of lightning, as sudden as it was overpowering. The twisted city loomed all around her. It was a giant strobe light blasting straight through her eyelids, flashing back and forth between the ash streets and Gabriel’s smile, faster and faster until the two merged into one image — an evil grinning face stretched from horizon to horizon, lording over the dead and wasted landscape. She cried out.
     The next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor, and Bomber was holding her. “Gina?” he asked, worried. “What’s wrong?”
     “I . . .” she struggled, mouth dry as bone. Her head spun like a blender, up and down and left and right changing by the microsecond until she hung on to her sanity for dear life. Even blinking her eyes sent stabs of white-hot pain into her frontal lobe. She clutched her head and whined into Bomber’s shoulder, “I don’t know.”

***

     Gina nursed her headache in bed while Bomber made up a place for himself on the sofa. She sipped rehydrated tea and vainly tried to make sense of it all. The entire night was starting to blur together in her mind, a sketchbook of colours all running into a dark mess. The only thing she could remember clearly was the burnt city and its poisoned sky.
     The bedroom had no door, missing along with its hinges, leaving only a dark patch on the once-red carpet. It was long worn to pink by the tread of many feet, and Gina wondered how long Bomber had lived here. He was a quiet boy, she noticed. He walked in on her reverie without knocking or saying a word, examining the label on a small bottle of pills. He glanced up, meeting Gina’s eyes with an unassuming look, and set the bottle down on the rickety plastic nightstand.
     “These might help you sleep,” he said. “Haven’t got much else here. I move around a lot.”
     “If I had a place as big as this, I’d never leave,” Gina replied with a slightly forced smile. She didn’t feel much up to chit-chat, but a small part of her insisted it was required after all he’d done for her. Like drag her into this mess, another part of her noted. She really appreciated that.
     “Yeah, well, a place you’re never at is great for throwin’ people off your trail.” He shrugged and echoed her smile. “How you feelin’, girl?”
     “Never better,” she said sarcastically. “Could kill for a smoke, though.” He laughed like he meant it. Sometimes she had to remind herself that she was here on business instead of living out some kind of bizarre dream. And speaking of business . . . “Am I still getting paid?”
     “Good question. One I ask myself all the time.”
     A sour smile crossed her lips. “I see. So the Lamborghini . . .”
     “It’s mine, just don’t show it to the cops,” he muttered. “Hey, listen, I know you’re pretty humped right now, but I think we need to start askin’ ourselves some serious questions. Like what the hell happened back there?”
     “I’d tell you if I knew.”
     “You gotta know, girl! You’re the telepath, right now you’re the only one with any answers at all. I watched the whole op on camera and it doesn’t make any goddamn sense to me. I just knew somethin’ was up when Gabriel started talkin’ into his collar, right after you left the table.”
     She sighed. “Look, you know how, if you’re smart enough, you can hide your thoughts from a weak third eye? You just make yourself think about other stuff and lead them down these little mental dead-ends, diversions, while you finish whatever you’re doing. Make them lose the signal between the noise.”
     “I’ve heard,” he said. “Never took the stuff myself.”
     “Well, you’re lucky.” She reached for the nightstand and sipped a glass of tepid water. “We all lose it eventually. Just go crazy. Fast or slow, old hands or greenies, it happens to everyone. That’s why they pay us. I’ve been on the Street three years and I’ve never seen the same crowd survive from one week to the next. Anyway.” Gina didn’t much want to ride that train of thought right now. She was depressed enough already. “Yeah, it was a little like that, and a little like trying to read someone on heroin or LSD. Bad acid trip.”
     “Was he on third eye?” Bomber asked, and she noticed his urgent tone. He was a perceptive one all right.
     Gina furrowed her brow, forcing herself to think back. “I–” she hesitated, “I don’t know. Usually you can feel it, y’know? When someone else has got theirs open, it’s like feedback on an old microphone, the same mind-stuff echoing back and forth. You know what I mean?”
     “No.” He added a sympathetic smile as if to say it wasn’t her fault. “So you weren’t getting any feedback from him?”
     “No,” she said. She closed her eyes and screwed up her face as she strained to remember. “It was like . . . like being pushed under water. Drowning inside him. I saw some stuff, some pretty messed-up stuff . . .”
     Drawing the covers up to her chin, she told the story as best she could remember it. The room seemed to grow cold around her. She started to shiver when she recounted the sudden white blankness, and Bomber got her another blanket.
     She finished, “. . . And then this voice said, inside my head, ‘You shouldn’t do that.’“
     He nodded without expression. “Never heard of anything like that before.” Before Gina could respond, he glanced at his watch and abruptly stood up. “Better get some sleep while you can. We got to move early in the morning. We’ll sort all this out then. Deal?”
     “Deal,” she said, and curled up under the covers while he switched off the lights.

***

     She awoke with a strange hand clamped over her mouth. The lights were out, turning the whole flat pitch-black. Not a shred of moonlight, no echo of neon nor even a single LED penetrated the thick black shutters over the windows. There was nothing she might use to see the man breathing into her face, smelling of sweat and cheap aftershave. A rush of panic blasted into her system. She wanted to reach for her Mk5 but it was in the nightstand drawer, out of her reach. She let out a muffled cry and started to struggle.
     “Quiet,” came Bomber’s voice, a whisper in the darkness. “There’s three guys at the door and they ain’t friendly. We gotta go. I’m gonna take my hand away now, but you have to be quiet as the grave. D’you understand?”
     Her heart thumped in her throat as she listened, and finally she gave a small nod. Bomber let go of her and she sensed him moving away without sound. When he spoke again it seemed to come from the doorway.
     “They’ll try jimmyin’ the lock first. That’ll take ’em a while. Get dressed and get your stuff, fast, but don’t make a sound.”
     Gina obeyed as best she could, tiptoed across the bare carpet, the fabric strange and unfamiliar beneath her feet. Distant sounds of metal scratching against metal. Lockpicks. She slipped into her borrowed suit, collected her purse and the Mk5, then whispered, “Ready!”
     A hand came out of nowhere and took hers, leading her through the darkness and out the same way they’d come in. She dreaded going back into the mouldy stairwell, but the only alternative was to stay behind and get killed.
     The shutters rustled as they climbed out into the night. The first light to hit her face was the reassuring pink glow of the Cantonese sign, whatever the hell it meant. It took the threatening, alien edge off the situation, pulled all the strange events around her back into the real world — the world she knew.
     To her surprise, instead of going into the stairwell, Bomber led her down a series of rusty metal steps, each one a tiny death-trap, to an even rustier landing on the second floor. “Can’t go out the front,” he explained, “they might have spotters. We’re takin’ the emergency exit.”
     He shone a small flashlight around the landing until he found what he was looking for. Someone had tied a length of dirty steel cable to the landing and let it dangle all the way to the ground. Bomber didn’t hesitate, he simply threw himself over the side and shimmied down the cable as if he were born to it.
     Not to be outdone, Gina went right after him, clambering down to the ground with tomboy ease. Bomber stopped a moment to admire her, then pulled her through the alley at a breakneck pace, dodging potholes and the occasional rat on their way to the back street. At the corner he signalled for her to wait while he checked things out, moving to peek round into the street. This was their only way out of the dead-end alley, so they had to be careful.
     “One on the street, one in the car,” Bomber said as he pulled back into the alley. “Fuck.” He worked his mouth as if to spit. “No way to get past ’em without bein’ noticed.”
     “So what do we do?” she asked.
     “Diversion. How d’you feel about bein’ a streetwalker for the next, say, two minutes?”
     Gina scowled at him. “Finally, a chance to use my degree.”
     “Hey, a girl with your looks could make a fortune.” He grinned. “Walk soft. Don’t give ’em a good look at your face, they’ll have pictures from the club.”
     “Yes sir,” she growled, then walked into the open whilst pretending to straighten her bra. The two Russians at the corner took immediate notice. Gina plucked at her hair, rummaged around in her purse as if putting away some money, seized the opportunity to put on her faded old sunglasses. Now all I need is some bubble gum to chew, she thought venomously.
     Putting on a vapid smile, she exaggerated her hips as she walked down to the corner. The man on the street flicked away his cigarette, slipped his hands into the pockets of his long grey coat. His eyes followed Gina every step of the way. His skin was like rough-hewn granite, lined and pallid grey. Gold teeth sparkled in a nasty grin half-hidden below his thick brown moustache.
     “‘Evening, boys,” she called, winking over her glasses at the one in the car. “What’re you doing out this late? Looking for a good time?”
     “No thank you,” the street man said. “We are on business.”
     Gina pursed her lips and pouted, undoing the top button of her jacket. Then she put her arms together in front of her, leaned forward until the too-tight fabric around her chest was ready to burst. “You sure? I can show you around, I know all the best spots.”
     “Sorry. Other time.” He was about to turn away when he stopped himself, squinting at her as he studied her face more intently. “Please to be taking off sunglasses.”
     “Why? Don’t you like ’em?” she asked nonchalantly. Under the surface, her heart jumped into her throat, pounding like a drum. “I’ll take ’em off for you in private if you want, sugar.”
     His arms tensed underneath his coat. If he had a weapon in there, he wasn’t hiding it well. He stepped towards her making himself tall and menacing. “No. Now.”
     She snapped, “Hey, step off, buddy! Don’t make me–“
     Things happened so quickly that she had no time to comprehend it all. The Russian’s arm shot out to grab her wrist, his other hand appearing from his pocket filled with a cheap silver revolver. She cringed as his fingers locked around her bare wrist, cold and clammy. She heard his voice muttering commands at her to be quiet. She felt his blood spatter across her face as his forehead exploded.
     She cried out and staggered backwards, watching him fall. A rush of air whistled past her ears. Sound of glass breaking. By the time she could begin to run away, the Russians were no longer moving. Each man had one bullet in the head and one in the heart.
     “Oh, God,” she moaned. She caught herself against the wall, sick to her stomach, while Bomber appeared out of the shadows by the corner, unscrewing a silencer from the pistol in his hand. His movements were quick and precise, his footsteps calm and assured like a predator. His face could’ve been carved out of stone for all the expression it showed.
     “They’ll come investigate when these two don’t report in,” he said tersely. He offered her no sympathy. Nor did he show any remorse for the two men he executed, just two inert lumps of meat spilling their blood across the cracked asphalt. “There’s a place we can hide a few blocks from here, if we hurry.”
     “Who the hell are you?” she near-screamed, putting all her fear and horror into the words.
     Bomber responded only with a grim smile and pulled her along.

***

     The warehouse where Bomber stopped was closed off with a heavy door of reinforced steel, recessed deep into the concrete. To a casual observer the blank structure would seem abandoned, but Bomber went straight for the dirty fuse box next to the door. There was a small intercom grille inside, and he pushed the little red button underneath.
     A crackle of static. Then a distorted voice buzzed, “State your business.”
     “Hey, Jock, it’s Simon. Open up.” He was met with stony silence. Finally, Bomber sighed and said, “I need a favour.”
     Seconds ticked away without a response. Gina wanted to get out of here, exposed and out of place. Anyone who stood talking to a blank warehouse door for long would attract unwanted attention. Finally, the latch unlocked with a heavy click, and Bomber led Gina into a cramped entry room with another similar door, like an airlock. The outer door closed automatically behind them. It was hot, stuffy, and so tight that Gina felt like she was choking.
     The voice echoed all around them now; it seemed to come from all directions at once, electronic and alien. “You know the rules, Simon. No exceptions. Leave the armoury at the door.”
     Bomber snorted, then took his pistol out and deposited it in an open locker recessed into the wall. The silencer followed it, as did a small pocket knife he kept in his boot. He looked up at the camera and smiled innocently.
     “Who’s the girl?”
     “A guest. Listen, Jock, it’d be a hell of a lot easier to explain all this in person.”
     “Alright, come on down,” the voice said. The inner door unlocked and swung open. Bomber pushed through and glanced over his shoulder to see if Gina was following.
     “Jock can get a little nervous,” he whispered to her by way of explanation. “Doesn’t trust me.”
     The voice barked a laugh, buzzing with distortion. “I don’t trust anyone, Simon, you know that.”
     Gina could believe it. It was all she could do not to gape. The inside of the warehouse was carefully arranged to seem abandoned, with lots of empty cardboard boxes and long-decaying crates, but Gina recognised the silvery nanofilm spread across strategic surfaces, as well as the glint of lenses hidden in every corner. There was a whole network of laser trip-wires, crowded in so tight that a mouse couldn’t sneak through undetected.
     The place was wrapped up tighter than a nuclear missile silo.
     A Chinese man in jeans and a red button-up shirt stood at the door leading below. Black hair tumbled down to his waist, and a large shotgun rested securely in his arms. Bomber smiled and slapped him on the back as if the two were old friends.
     “How ya doin’, Stoney?” Bomber asked, half-joking. “Still watchin’ the door, huh? Did you miss me?”
     “Always, Mr. Simon,” the man replied without moving a single muscle in his face. “I will call ahead and tell the Emperor you are coming.”
     Bomber nodded, patted the man’s shoulder, and led Gina down the stairs into the bowels of the warehouse. Stoney shut the door behind them and followed, muttering Cantonese into his collar.
     The Emperor. The words still echoed in Gina’s ears. Everyone in the City knew about the Emperor, the most powerful Triad lord north of Hong Kong, supposedly a descendant of ancient royalty. The Street was a largely Yakuza-owned territory, so Gina had heard all about the Emperor. He was seven feet tall and breathed fire, he was a humpbacked cripple in a wheelchair, he wore the eyeballs of his enemies as a trophy around his neck, he wore women’s clothing, he was toothless and had his men chew his meals for him, and he had a taste for sinking his razor fangs into babies right off the spit. It was a favourite topic in Japanese-friendly bars. The only clear fact was that the Yakuza were afraid of him.
     “Leave the talkin’ to me, okay?” whispered Bomber. “Don’t say a word unless someone asks you a direct question. Best way to keep breathin’. I’m here on credit, and these folks don’t play nice. So we gotta play their game.”
     A final door at the bottom, just as heavy and armoured as the others, swung open. They passed through it into a dark room gleaming with metallic reflections.
     Now Gina did gape. The dimly-lit room throbbed and pulsed with activity like a military headquarters, more Chinamen whispering into their headsets and throwing elaborate hand signals at each other in between hammering on their keyboards. A giant holographic cube flickered in the middle of the room, showing something Gina didn’t recognise or comprehend. Several men stood watching it, but it was the one at the controls that drew her attention — a bald Chinese man with a long, stereotypical Fu Manchu moustache, dressed entirely in black. Gina read people pretty well even without her third eye, and this man emitted an unmistakable aura of command.
     He stroked his moustache as he read the hologram. Paid no mind to her or Bomber until they were standing at his elbow. Then she noticed one of the men at the Emperor’s side, certainly the odd one out of this crowd — the lone black man in a room full of Chinese people. He was thin and had skin like milk chocolate, blue eyes framed by thick glasses and a slicked-back blonde mop on his head, literally drowned in hair gel. Putting voice and appearance together, Gina decided this had to be Jock.
     It was the Chinaman who spoke. “Simon,” he said simply, as if tasting the name. “How interesting to see you.”
     “Emperor,” Bomber replied with a slight bow of his head.
     The Emperor nodded and turned his attention back to the holo-display. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about these Russians who are currently blowing holes in my city, would you, Simon?” He smiled thinly without deigning to look at Bomber. “I somehow suspect you would. And I think you’d care to explain.”
     Gina followed the Emperor’s gaze into the cube. She saw blood on a distinctly Russian face, tongue lolling out of his mouth in death, a metal garroting wire wrapped around his neck. Her stomach heaved before the camera swung away, showing other bodies, some Chinese. Faint sound of gunshots.
     “They were after us,” said Bomber. “Me and the girl. We were not the aggressors. How did you get involved?”
     “I know everything that goes on in my city. When men enter my territory in force, I send some of mine to ask their purpose. These responded with violence.”
     “I’m sorry.” Silence stretched out further and further. Gina could see the Emperor starting to get angry, cheek muscles working beneath the olive skin. Then Bomber added, “They’re with the Yakuza.”
     The Emperor whipped around, fire in his eyes, and his arm snapped out like a striking snake seizing Bomber by the throat. His other hand whipped a pistol out of some hidden holster, drove the barrel hard into Bomber’s nose. The trigger was halfway down before the Emperor got himself back under control. With some effort, his face resumed its passive expression and returned to studying the hologram, muttering threats and curses in Cantonese. The gun never wavered from Bomber’s face. “Speak very quickly, Simon. You have run afoul of these . . . men? You led them here?”
     “I have.” And Bomber laid the whole story out for him, beginning to end, while Gina remained silent and afraid.

***

     The Emperor was no longer angry by the time Bomber had finished, only sat at the table with a thoughtful expression. These must be his personal quarters, Gina concluded. The artificial creek filled with expensive fish and water plants was a dead giveaway. The table looked like a solid block of polished silver, and the silverware seemed genuinely ancient. No expense was wasted to try and impress the Emperor’s guests.
     “Quite an amusing tale, Simon,” he said. “You are either a master storyteller or an accomplished liar. And I already know you’re an accomplished liar.” This last was accompanied by a frosty smile.
     “Every word of it is true, my lord.” Bomber returned the Emperor’s implacable stare. “I have no proof other than the girl, and the people who are now after me.”
     The Emperor threw him a hard look. “And you came to me for . . . what?”
     “I need a favour,” Bomber ground out, as if the words themselves were a weight around his neck.
     “So you would owe me, yes?” The Emperor tapped his chin, the question entirely rhetorical. “How very interesting. What is it you had in mind?”
     “Food. Shelter. Transportation. Assistance in finding my employer and learning more about Gabriel. And a loan.”
     Hard fingernails drummed on the tabletop. Cold, calculating eyes swung back and forth between Bomber and Gina. To Gina he asked, “What he says is true?”
     “Yes, sir,” she squeaked. She silently berated herself for sounding like a frightened little girl. That was exactly how she felt at the moment, but even so. Alone, far from home, hunted, surrounded without a chance in hell of escape if things went south, she really ought to be braver.
     “Then so be it.” The Emperor snapped his fingers and muttered a few words to his personal aide. The servant retreated quickly, and Gina glanced at Bomber, whipcord tension in his shoulders. He was ready for anything.
     The Emperor continued, “You will be my guests here. An expense account is being arranged for you as we speak. I’ve assigned Jock to assist you in whatever you plan to do, but no one else, and you will under no circumstances attract the attention of the Federals. Make no mistake, guests though you are, I do not wish to see either of you in the command room or anywhere else. Everything except your own room and Jock’s quarters is off-limits. You will not leave your room without an escort, nor will you be allowed off the premises without my permission. Is that clear?”
     “Perfectly, my lord,” said Bomber, and he relaxed his guard for the first time tonight.
     Gina understood little of the quick conversation in Mandarin that followed. At the end of it Bomber prompted Gina through their farewells, then followed their newly-assigned escort out of the room.
     They were given seats in a small cafeteria, waiting for Jock to prepare his part of the agreement. The place was appointed like a Chinese tea house, filled with deep reds and greens and golds, with a holographic blue sky covering the ceiling and bird song tweeting from speakers hidden in the walls. A pretty expensive affectation in all. The only nod to practicality over atmosphere that Gina could see was the red vinyl flooring, stained by many a spilled cup.
     “That went well,” Bomber said after a long silence. They never ordered tea, but a waiter delivered two cups to their table regardless. Bomber thanked him and breathed the bitter steam with relish.
     “Looks that way,” she affirmed.
     “It’s not much, but it’s a safe place. You’ll be able to get some sleep at least.”
     Gina doubted the possibility of shutting her eyes at all after everything that had happened to her, but didn’t say it out loud. She appreciated the effort he was making to put her more at ease. She said, “Can I leave if I want to?”
     “Sure. You might not be able to get back in again, but the Emperor won’t stop you.” He looked into her eyes and could see that that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. “I’d rather you didn’t, though. I prefer you alive, and I think I’m gonna need your help.”
     Gina worked up a smile at that. What a mess, she thought meanwhile. Who the hell do I trust? Why am I even still here? Wouldn’t it be better to walk back out there and just get it over with?
     When she tried to say anything out loud, however, the words caught in her throat. She realised she did have a choice. Both options carried danger, but how what would it be like to face Gabriel and that horrible city again, compared to running with this cold-blooded killer and his freaky menagerie of friends?
     The nightmare flashing back onto her closed eyelids, but she threw it off with a violent jerk of her head. When she looked at Bomber again, he was still waiting patiently for her response.
     “Alright, I’ll stay,” she said. Bomber smiled and drank his tea.