Since her own family escaped to China, she had made us her family. Her responsibility.
I went to Lingyi and extended an open palm; after a long hesitation, she slipped her hand into mine, and I clasped it. “I want to do this,” I said. Because there was nobody else, and Jin needed to be stopped. “But I need you to have faith in me. I need you to back me.”
Her gaze swept over the others in the suite. Arun’s expression was grim, but he nodded once. Vic was assessing me, more serious than I’d ever seen him. “I think Zhou can pull it off.”
Lingyi stared into her tumbler of rum and Coke, already empty. I knew then how stressed she was—she rarely drank. “All right,” she said. “If you’re sure, Zhou, of course I’ll back you completely.”
“I’ll start a rumor that the guy they’re looking for has gone abroad,” Victor said. “Keep an even lower profile for the next few months, Zhou.”
Lingyi nodded. “It’ll give me time to lay the groundwork for your you identity. And it’ll take that long to receive your custom suit.”
A you identity and my own suit. It represented everything I despised: greed, excess, selfishness, and complacency—a culture embodied and enabled by Jin Corp. I was going to become what I wanted to destroy. “Sounds good,” I said.
Iris slipped off the armrest and came to stand in front of me. Other than Lingyi, she rarely acknowledged anyone in the group so directly. Alarmed, I had no idea what to expect. “Eat,” she said.
I laughed. She didn’t have to tell me twice. Never in my life had I had enough money to buy whatever I wanted to eat, and however much I wanted, whenever I felt like it. “Okay . . . ,” I replied.
She reached over and squeezed my bicep hard enough to make me wince. But I didn’t.
“Pack on some muscle,” she said. “It’ll help.”
I saw Victor chortling behind her back and resisted the urge to flip him off. “Got it,” I said instead.
Iris nodded, satisfied, and stalked noiselessly to the wall-to-wall windows, gazing out at the Taipei skyline lit in hazy neons.
It wasn’t supposed to go like this, but life had never gone the way I had planned. I flicked out my knife and spun it. “Let’s do this, then.”
CHΔPTER FOUR
The Ximending District came alive as I veered away from it. Neon signs flickered on, framing storefronts in golden yellows and bright reds, while advertisements were broadcasted on giant screens across all the tall buildings, like birds trying to attract attention with bright plumage. More aircars and -peds appeared, zipping to their party destinations, some lit as brightly as the buildings surrounding us. Within fifteen minutes, the entire district had amped up for the evening to come. The sweet aroma of egg cakes being cooked by a vendor trailed me as I dodged down a side street, avoiding the large crowd of commuters exiting the metro station.
After staying holed up in my dank studio, I wasn’t used to jostling with the crowds again, elbowing others for personal space. My forays out in these last three months had always been after midnight, slinking through near-empty streets. The humid air smelled of sweat and smoke and held that inexplicable electrified heaviness that only came with typhoon season.
Concrete buildings pressed in, facades filmed in decades’ worth of pollution and dirt, their windows and balconies covered by metal bars. A few more turns and I had left the noise behind, as well as all the lights. The damp, narrow street had no lamps—I could have easily gotten lost if I didn’t know where I was going. But I did. Lingyi had finally called an official meeting at our new headquarters. My custom you suit had been delivered.
The thought of it sent a wave of anxiety and excitement through me.
I stopped at the front of one of the gray buildings with a side entrance on its corner, edged with red tiles. A rusty mailbox was bolted to the left of the open door frame. It was empty. I nearly tripped over the purple bicycle propped against the side wall, with a large white basket strapped to the front of the handlebars—a new addition. I smiled. Arun was already here, then. Flying up the narrow stairway, I reached a dead end on the third-floor landing, which was just as cramped in space, and knocked hard on the dilapidated wooden door with a closed fist. A dim bulb flickered above me.
“Yes?” a muffled feminine voice asked from within.
“It’s me,” I said.
Silence. I knew full well that she could see me with the hidden camera that was trained on this narrow landing. Then came the whirring of multiple dead bolts unlocking, and the door slowly swung open. Lingyi peered from behind it, then seemed to do a double take.
I couldn’t help but smile. “What?”
“You’re late,” she said.
“Yeah. Well.” I slipped past her into our headquarters.
The door closed with a snick behind me, then the dead bolts all mechanically slipped back into place. What had looked like an old wooden door on the outside was actually a steel one, thick enough to be bulletproof. Our entire headquarters was encased in steel and could probably survive a bombing.
“Hey, Zhou.” Arun lifted his chin in greeting and rose from the deep cushion of his armchair, coming over to bump fists and throw an arm around me in a loose hug. “We’ve missed you.”
I hadn’t seen any of them for some time, keeping all communication via Vox.
Victor raised a hand from where he was slouched on a leather beanbag, long legs in dark gray trousers sprawled in front of him. Too cool to get up and greet me. “When I said make yourself scarce, I didn’t think you’d take it quite so literally.”
Lingyi caught me in a hug, squeezing me tight across my back. I had to remember to wrap my arms around her—it’d been so long since I’d been that close to anyone. “Everything’s set.” She pulled back, studying me. “It’s good to see you.”
She wandered back to her MacFold, her thick purple hair, cut in a blunt bob, swaying. She was dressed in a pale green tank top and white shorts, and I caught Victor admiring her as she perched back onto her stool. Poor wretch. What a hopeless crush.
This place had been bare except for the large glass table Lingyi sat at when I had visited once, two months ago, but had since been furnished in my friends’ eclectic tastes. Lingyi had selected the glass table and plush armchairs, the leather beanbag and modern art magnetized against the steel walls were Victor’s, and the Chinese antique tea tables and gold brocade sofa were all Arun. The only hint of Iris were the ropes and bars set into the wall and ceiling in the padded corner of our large headquarters for her to practice jumping, climbing, and acrobatics.