A Far Better Thing
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Madness and Folly scampering ahead of her, Gobbet jogged down the corridor to Duncan's cabin. The ship never was quiet but it seemed eerily silent to her. With everyone but Gunshow gone, she was getting jumpy. She had just thought about going out and getting something to eat and for once it was more about the crowd than the food. But then Auntie had called, and told them to come around. Banging on Duncan's door, Gobbet patted herself down for a soy bar that had to be there.
"Gunshow? Get out here, Auntie wants to see us." Tearing open the wrapper of the soy bar, Gobbet broke off two pieces for the rats before biting it in half.
"Why?" Duncan sounded suspicious. Even more than usual. But she could hear him move around, hopefully getting dressed.
"She didn't say. Come on, she'll tell us when we get there." Gobbet swallowed down the last of the soy bar, grimacing at the taste. No matter what they did with these things, they were gross. Not even deep frying helped.
The door opened behind her and Duncan ducked through. He loomed over her, scowling at the world in general and Gobbet in particular.
Gobbet caught a glance of his cabin when he pulled the door shut. He had cleaned it up. No more food wrappers and clothes strewn all over the place. It seemed almost barren now. and what things there were all had their place. It suited him, and Gobbet thought it a good sign, even if it had not improved his mood. But she doubted that anything could, except getting his SIN and his life back and solving whatever bullshit his dad had gotten himself into.
Leading the way, Duncan stomped down the corridor, through the kitchen and up on deck. It gave Gobbet the chance to look him over. He appeared a little more settled, now that the shock of suddenly living in the Shadows had had some time to wear off. For a while, she hadn't been sure he would manage to wrap his head around it. He had been so dazed and confused, refusing to accept the reality of things.
Just like his cabin, order had returned to Duncan's appearance. He had never been something so crass as sloppy, not even on his worst days. But the creases in his pants were sharp enough to cut, his head was freshly shaved and not one strand of his short mohawk dared to fall out of place. He clearly had spent time taking care of himself. Another good sign.
"We need to make a quick detour." Squeezing past him, Gobbet had her rats hop up on her shoulders and clattered down the rickety gangway to the pier. A few steps more and they were in between the scattered huts and market stands, people trying to sell everything to everyone.
"Oh yeah? Where to?" Duncan kept up with her. Maybe this was how it felt to have a bodyguard around at all times. People looked at scrawny little Gobbet, and then their eyes travelled further up to Duncan. There was nothing scrawny about him. Except for the terminally inattentive, a quick glance at Mount Duncan was enough for people to get out of the way before he erupted with violence.
Duncan could threaten people by standing in a corner and breathing. It was a talent. So far it was his only talent, as Gobbet was concerned. But Echo trusted him, and Gobbet trusted Echo.
"Here." Grabbing two egg waffles from the small cart she had stopped at, Gobbet paid for them and then turned towards the mahjong parlour. "Now we can go. I got you one too, you're welcome."
The waffles were fresh and warm, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Not even Duncan glaring at her could stop Gobbet from enjoying them. But he did take the waffle she offered him.
"Thank you." He bit into it and made a pleased noise around his first mouthful. "Alright, that was worth the detour."
At the mahjong parlour, they had to wait while Auntie finished her business with some other people. Murmured conversations and the soft click of the game pieces as they were placed, slowly or in rapid succession, filled the air. Between tall vases with flowering branches, low couches and tables were placed around the room. Gobbet watched the men who sat and played, wondering whether Auntie might come to regret discussing things this out in the open. But on the other hand, people knew better than to talk, and not just anyone could walk in here and demand a seat at the tables. Everyone here had earned Auntie's trust, one way or the other.
"So good of you to come." Auntie had dismissed the previous group and waved Gobbet and Duncan closer with a smile entirely devoid of warmth. Smoke from her cigarette coiled above her like so many tangled snakes. "I hope you enjoyed the egg waffles."
Gobbet said nothing. She could only lose that battle. Next to her, Duncan tensed up but also kept silent.
Auntie's smile broadened as if they had just performed a good trick. She poured herself a drink of baijiu and swallowed the clear liquid down all in one gulp as if it were water, gently setting the shot glass back down. Behind her, Strangler Bao stood with his hands behind his back, his face expressionless. Like Duncan, Bao threatened violence with his mere presence.
"I want you to look into Mellow. He acts very respectfully, and he pays his dues, but I am sure he is earning on the side. See to it that you don't spook him, I don't want him to go into hiding. And I would much prefer it if you kept him alive. Find out what he's doing, and how." There was no trace of the smile left on Auntie's face. Around them, mahjong tiles clicked and people murmured, giving no sign they had heard any of what was going on.
"Yes, Auntie," Gobbet and Duncan chorused before being dismissed with a wave. Their commlinks buzzed, alerting them to a message containing the barest of information about their target: where to find him, his full name and how he looked.
Outside, Duncan looked around as if he were searching for hidden assassins, and maybe he was. Considering the welcome he had in Hong Kong. Gobbet shivered a little, shoving all thoughts of that bloody night as deep as they would go in her mind.
"I can't live on a damn egg waffle. Let's get something real to eat and talk about that job." Duncan led the way between the stalls cluttering the quays and piers. For a moment, Gobbet was stung that he hadn't even bothered to ask her opinion, but she couldn't fault him for it. They were, after all, getting dinner.
Fishballs and kidney skewers did a lot to mollify Gobbet's annoyance, and they seemed to soothe even Duncan's ever present anger. They found themselves a stack of crates at the waterfront and sat down to eat, watching the crowd.
"You ever heard of Mellow? Kindly sure didn't give us much to go on." Duncan frowned at his commlink as if it was responsible for the lack of information.
"He's just some small-time crook. Sells stuff that fell off the back of a truck, that's his style. I guess we can try and find out where he keeps his wares, see if anything's too good for him." Gobbet flicked a fishball to Madness and Folly and watched them eat with their tails curled neatly around their feet. At least until Folly claimed the fishball as hers. A fight ensued with much squeaking. Another fishball broke it up.
"Hm." Duncan agreed, his mouth too full to speak. Once he had swallowed, he tapped on his commlink to call up a map, a red dot marking Mellow's place of business. It was on the edge of the Forbidden City. Close enough that no cops show themselves, and far enough that the miasma of the City didn't reach it. "Let's go check out his place, do some observation for a day or two. If he really makes so much money on the side, we've got a good chance of picking up on what he does. But yeah, looking at the warehouse is better for a start - if we already find stuff there, we won't waste time watching him."
"It's a shame Is0bel isn't here, she's track down the warehouse for us in no time." Gobbet leaned over to look at the map and get her bearings. There were no reliable maps here. At most they pointed you in the vague direction of places, and then you had to try your best to figure out in which tiny street or on which floor or sub-sub-basement the place was.
"Give me an hour or two. You want to come back to the ship?" Slipping off the crates, Duncan gave Gobbet barely time to shake her head before he headed towards the Bolthole. She watched him forge his way through the crowd, towering even over most of the other orks, and she wished she had gone with the others on the run.
But wishing had never gotten Gobbet anything, so she jumped off the crates and visited a few of the shadier merchants around to ask about Mellow. Or rather, to ask after the kind of wares she knew Mellow usually sold and the merchants did not. She was fishing, throwing out bait to see if anyone would bite and mention something.
In the drizzle and fading light, Gobbet huddled under tarps and umbrellas and crowded around heating units with her marks. She looked through wares she had no intention of buying, chatted and gossiped, buying a small thing here and there to smooth things over.
"Mellow? Where can I find him?" Asking it as if she didn't know and hadn't been told a couple of times already, Gobbet picked up a wind-up mouse and petted its soft ears. Folly and Madness chittered in jealousy. "I'll take this one."
"You know the troll who sells the steamed buns? Tsai, with the cybereyes? Mellow's place is in the building behind her cart. If you can't find it, ask for Tsai's steamed buns, everyone knows those. Make sure you buy some." Soo smiled at Gobbet, always happy to chat. "Two Nuyen for the mouse."
The transaction complete, she frowned a little and leaned forward. Gobbet imitated her so they could talk over the noise of the street without raising their voices.
"You work for Kindly, right? I hear she's not happy with Mellow these days, so maybe find someone else to buy from." When Gobbet made a surprised noise at the news, Soo nodded earnestly. "You didn't hear it from me, but I've heard he's trying to get into the market for software? Maybe he's tired of the hassle with the people he buys from. I wouldn't risk it, if I were him. He's got a good thing. But people never know that until it's gone, don't they?"
"Yeah." Gobbet pocketed the mouse. "I guess I'll look around for someone else. I don't want to get stuck in the middle there. Thanks for letting me know."
Software - that could mean a whole array of things. And it might make tracking down his new business much more complicated. If they needed to, they could probably hire another decker or wait until Is0bel was back, but that might take too long.
Gobbet walked back to the ship and shook off the raindrops clinging to her once she was under deck, the familiar sounds of the Bolthole surrounding her. Duncan was nowhere to be seen, so she walked back to her cabin for a shower and a change of clothes. She didn't mind the damp but the smell of whatever chemicals the factories upwind vented into the air was sharp and acrid, clinging to her skin.
All clean and smelling slightly of the minty soap stolen from Echo, Gobbet ventured out into the kitchen. Duncan was already there, wiping down the counter. The whole room reeked of whatever cleaning product he had found under the sink, but Gobbet had to admit that the counter looks much less sticky now.
"I found the warehouse. And he lives down the street from his shop." Grabbing his commlink, Duncan sent the information over. Gobbet looked through it while Duncan set some water to boil. He had turned up the address, and even some details on the lease. It didn't really deserve the name warehouse—glorified storage unit might have been better. But it was plenty of space in a city as crowded as Hong Kong, and Mellow probably made sure he sold things quickly to avoid cluttering it.
"How did you manage to dig that up?" She was impressed.
"It's bureaucracy. Same over here as it was back in Seattle. If you're patient and just follow the trail from one name to the other, you can find a lot of stuff. Just hidden in plain sight, buried under boring numbers and dates." Duncan didn't show it much, but he was clearly pleased with himself. It was the same little half-smile he had when landing a good shot, or taking someone down with one punch.
"Nicely done." Gobbet nodded at Duncan, and watched the smile grow a tiny bit before fading into his usual impassive mask. She almost missed it. "Let's go break into the warehouse? See what we find there and decide what to do next."
"Yeah, let's."
Grabbing their gear and jackets against the rain, they headed into the city. The crowd swallowed them up and hid them from prying eyes.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
The subway spit out a stream of people. It parted around Duncan who was glad to be out of the cramped space. He followed the mass of people out on the street, Gobbet in tow, and they turned into a narrow alley running between two buildings. Cluttered with trashcans and crates, it was barely wide enough for Duncan. They walked past open doors, the sounds of frantic cooking or blaring music washing over them, until they reached the alley's other end.
It brought them to a small space between houses, the sky a tiny square overhead where the clouds glowed orange, drizzling rain onto them. Turning in a circle, Duncan tried to line up the map he had memorised with reality.
"Over here." Another, even narrower alley lead them away from the square and into the gloom. Duncan stopped in front of a padlocked door. It was rusted and covered in graffiti, looking like nobody had opened it up in decades. The padlock was a simple affair, no fancy electronics, and Duncan dug in his pocket for lockpicks. An arcane skill, but useful even these days.
Gobbet had trailed after him and now watched him fiddle with the lock. Her rats ran across her shoulders and down her arms, sniffling in Duncan's direction. He ignored all three of them, focusing on the lock. It clicked open and he unhooked it from the door, pocketing it so they could lock the door after they were done. No need to advertise that they had been here.
The door opened with the screech of rusty hinges to let him and Gobbet squeeze through. In another place, Duncan might have worried about cameras. But this place didn't even have electricity, at least none that wasn't stolen from one of the neighboring houses. It was simply a corridor running the length of the building, with storage units on either side. The stale air smelled of mildew and damp.
"Number fifteen." Duncan pointed with the beam of his flashlight. Another padlock stopped them for all of two minutes, and then they had Mellow's wares in front of them. Cheap electronics, a rack of equally cheap suits wrapped in plastic, a palette of lava lamps, a big crate of electric toothbrushes and two of trode nets.
"He's not getting rich off that shit for sure." Duncan put down the trode net he had been examining. They were decent enough and worth a good chunk of money, but nothing that would make Kindly take note. "I guess we'll have to go watch his shop."
"Yeah. Tomorrow, though. We can get up early, get breakfast and find a good place to hang out while we do." Gobbet had inspected one of the lava lamps and made no move to put the box down.
"Are you going to take that?" When Gobbet shrugged, cradling the box in her arms, Duncan took a step towards her. Not only was he wasting time with this shit that he could have used to find out what happened to Raymond. He also had to babysit Gobbet, who was supposed to know her way around the Shadows. He was tempted to simply let her get away with it. But if he had to do this job, he was going to do it properly. "I'll fucking buy you one, put it back. We don't need that kind of trouble on a run."
"Come on, it's barely a run. He's not gonna miss one lava lamp." Gobbet stood her ground, her head tipped back so she could look at him. "Don't pretend you're suddenly the expert runner."
"I'm not, but I am a cop, and I know how people get caught. Put it back." Before I make you. Duncan let his posture say the words for him.
"Right. Fine." With bad grace, Gobbet put the lava lamp back into the crate and casts a last glance around the room before walking out of the door.
Duncan also took another look to make sure everything was how they found it. He closed the crate with the lamps, and once all items lined up with how he remembered them, he locked the door and followed Gobbet. Back in the alley, he let the padlock snap shut on the rusty door and on the first part of the investigation.
If he thought about it like this, it almost felt normal. Yes, he was very far from home and he badly wanted Carter at his side, not Gobbet. He shoved the thought of Carter aside. She was dead. Cleaning up his cabin yesterday, Duncan had found the shirt he had been wearing the day they arrived, encrusted with Carter's blood. The sight had almost been enough to shatter what composure he had found, and he had hastily bagged it and thrown it out. He couldn't afford to dwell on that, or on how she had only come here to support him, no questions asked. She had deserved better, and he hadn't deserved her.
Forcing himself away from that train of thought, Duncan focused on the task at hand. He knew how to do this. He could pretend, with some effort, that he was doing his job. At least for a time.
After getting back to the ship, Gobbet vanished into her cabin. It suited Duncan just fine. She made it clear with every distrustful look she gave him that she didn't want him there. Not on that job, not on this ship. Duncan couldn't have agreed more, but things were what they were. They both had to deal with it. And truth be told, it beat sitting around in his cabin with too much time to think. At least this kept him busy.
He made dinner of instant noodles and some soy, ignoring Gobbet's pot of eternally bubbling soup. Who knew what she had thrown in there. Falling into bed, Duncan set his alarm and hoped for no dreams.
Rolling out of bed five minutes before his alarm, Duncan couldn't remember if he had dreamed anything, but his mind was fuzzy and his body slow to react. A mug of soycaf helped, and so did half an hour of quiet he found on deck. Kowloon never really slept, but this early in the morning, it did at least doze. It was enough for some meditation and tai chi.
When the drizzling rain got too unpleasant, Duncan headed under deck and immediately ran into Gobbet who was eating something he hoped were smoked mussels from a tin. She waved to him, chewing and swallowing hastily.
"You want to head out already?"
"Gives us time to look around while everyone's still waking up. We can get breakfast on the way and then find somewhere to hide out." Duncan's appetite for breakfast was at an all time low and not just because of the mussels. But he knew he had to eat something, and everything he had here were soybars.
The rain had stopped by the time they made it out to Mellow's shop. What little sunshine reached them down between the maze of high rise buildings, balconies, criss -rossing cables and washing lines did manage to make the area look a little more cheerful. It gleamed on the wet asphalt, and for once the colours were not just flickering neon.
They found the troll who sold the steamed buns and bought a couple. Mellow's shop was right behind her stall, but not yet open. Duncan wandered up to it, pretending to read the AR sign and pressed a small chip to the glass of the door. It would pick up vibrations and send them right to his commlink. The quality wasn't the best, but it would be good enough to hear what got spoken inside.
The street was not nearly busy or broad enough for them to find a place to loiter around at ground level, not without attracting attention. They walked away, pretending to look at the different shops and stalls. A rickety ladder brought them up to the roof of a shack leaning against a taller building like a drunk holding onto a lamppost, and from there Duncan gave Gobbet a boost onto a balcony. He jumped, pulling himself up, the metal of the railing cold and gritty under his hands.
Before the owner of the balcony had time to notice them, they took another jump onto a skinny house squeezed between two apartment towers. There was a neon sign advertising massages flanged to its side, buzzing quietly and hiding them from anyone looking up. Overhead, the buildings barely had any windows looking out in their direction, so Duncan hoped no one would notice, or care if they did.
Mellow made an appearance not much later, ambling along the street with a carton of noodles in hand. He was one of the few dwarves Duncan had seen so far in Hong Kong, except Is0bel, and was clearly well liked - people called out greetings to him and he stopped here and there for a chat.
"Right. He's gonna open up in a bit, let's see if the mic works." Hunkering down behind the sign, Duncan fiddled with his commlink, adjusting the audio until the street sounds were as quiet as possible.
He heard Mellow unlock the door and go inside. The microphone picked up Mellow's footsteps and even quiet chewing noises as he had breakfast. And when the first customer entered the shop, Duncan could easily understand every word they said. That part of the whole operation had worked beautifully. Now came the boring part.
For a while, Gobbet seemed content with the silence, and with watching the people below. The neon sign flickered into pale life, competing with the daylight and losing. Opening his package of buns, Duncan discovered that they were still warm. The dough was chewy and the spicy filling burned his tongue most satisfyingly.
"So. Why did you become a cop?" Gobbet sat crosslegged next to him, her rats wrestling in her lap.
"What kind of question is that." One that Duncan didn't much feel like answering, that was for sure.
"A nosy one. We're stuck here together, so come on, tell me."
"Alright, fine." Duncan had already learned that Gobbet wouldn't give up. She'd just keep pestering him, and she was very patient. "It wasn't exactly my dream job, but turns out I like—order. Rules. It suited me. I had to sit on my ass and learn. I hated every minute of that but I also was good at it."
He had Gobbet's full attention. For a moment, Duncan hesitated about telling her more, but she let the silence stretch on. He had done that often enough himself to recognise the strategy. And it worked.
"At the time, I liked the thought of getting to fuck people up, and nobody would give a damn. Raymond had done a lot to get me on the straight and narrow, but violence comes easy to me. It's as much as drug as any pill I've ever taken, and it's always there. Carter—she saw something in me. Requested me as her partner, and she kicked my ass every time I stepped out of line. Got me to get a grip on myself. Nobody else cared, but she did. Don't know how she lasted as long as she did at the precinct. No idea how long I would have lasted."
He shrugged. There was no sense in thinking about that. That life was over. He wouldn't get it back, even if by some miracle he and Echo managed to get a SIN again.
"The Shadows have plenty of rules, and order." Gobbet craned her neck to watch someone walk up to Mellow's store, and they paused their conversation until it became clear they were just buying a simrig. "It's not all bad. And like you said, honest cops stand about as much of a chance as a snowflake in a furnace. At least around here."
"The Shadows have the rules of whoever is strongest, and if you step out of that territory, it's anyone's guess what rules apply. That's not the same. It's a damn jungle." Duncan knew that Gobbet was trying to find some common ground, but he bristled at the suggestion that he should give up on getting out of the Shadows and just be content with what had happened.
"Oh yeah? Outside of the Shadows, it's corpo law and you know it. That's exactly the same, it only has better publicity. You were just as expendable as you're now, maybe even more." His tone had clearly raised Gobbet's hackles.
Fucking well done, turning a normal conversation into a fight in under five minutes. Duncan closed his eyes and breathed, letting go of his anger as best as he could. Gobbet and Is0bel could have abandoned Echo and him down in the sewers. If he had been in their place, Duncan wasn't sure he would have helped two random people, and with all the cops of Hong Kong on their trail as well. He owed them both. The least he could do was not blow up at her for saying what he knew to be the truth, no matter how little he wanted to hear it.
"Yeah. I know. I'm not stupid. I didn't think I'd change the world. But I clawed my fucking way off the street, and now I got tossed back. Just like that. And you know that people like us don't get lucky. Definitely not twice in a row." Duncan was tired of this talk. He had had it with himself, over and over again, and it went nowhere.
To his relief, Gobbet didn't seem to have an interest in continuing the conversation either. They sat in silence, Gobbet petting her rats and watching the street. She had one arm up on the raised edge of the roof and rested her chin on it, her eyes half-closed unless someone approached the shop.
Duncan listened to the noises and talk the microphone picked up, almost forgetting he was sitting up on the roof. He built a mental image of the shop, just from what he could hear, amusing himself with making it as detailed as possible. Cheap squeaky linoleum floor, an oldschool clock ticking somewhere, the gentle bubble of an fishtank, a coffee machine that spluttered and groaned. The rustle of plastic and the clickclick of clothes hangers being moved on their rods. The bright chime of bells every time the door opened or closed, and a splash of noise from the street coming in. The scribble of a pencil on paper, even more oldschool than the clock.
Halfway through listening to a commlink conversation about buying a bulk load of new suits, Duncan sat up straight when Mellow veered off script.
"Alright, I will send you the money and pick up the suits at the usual place. Don't forget about tonight. And pick a damn better suit than the stuff we sell. We need to look sharp for this."
He couldn't hear what the person in the call said, but he knew that they had to figure out where Mellow would be this evening. And they had to get their hands on good clothes, too.
"He's got a meeting tonight, something big by the sound of it. You don't happen to have any more decker friends you can call, to snoop in his commlink for the time and place? It sounds like something fancy, though. We can't show up there like this." Duncan hoped it wouldn't be some private party, they were fucked then. But a restaurant, or a club, that was doable.
"I do, actually. It's gonna come with a price, probably a favour. We'll both owe that." Gobbet bristled at the question, and Duncan couldn't tell why. He bit back a sharp answer, annoyed that whatever he said, Gobbet seemed to be determined to take it the worst way possible.
The silence between them stretched. Gobbet was tapping on her commlink, and Duncan tried to shove his anger down. At least one of them should be a professional. He just wished that it didn't always have to be him.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
Gobbet tugged down the shirt of her suit and frowned. When it had become clear that they would need formal clothing, Duncan had found them a place to rent. So at least she wasn't paying beyond what Auntie would find reasonable as expenses for it. Duncan and the sales assistant had talked her into a deep purple suit with pants that might as well have been a skirt with how wide they were. She felt ridiculous. Clutching a purse and with her dreadlocks in a tidy braid, she looked prim.
Duncan's argument that Madness and Folly would fit in the legs of the pants had convinced her. They didn't love bags or purses, and the last things they needed was a rat poking a snout out and scampering across the table.
Next to her, Duncan was fiddling with his cufflinks while they waited to be led to their table. She had to admit, he cleaned up nicely in a grey suit and black shirt. He had refused the tie just as vehemently as Gobbet had a dress, and with the first buttons of the shirt undone, he looked impressive and at ease, not like hired muscle.
Their table afforded them a good view of the room, something Duncan had requested along with a generous tip. One look at the menu and at the food being served to the people around them told Gobbet that they would spend most of what remained of their expenses here. It did all look and smell delicious, especially the roast goose that was carried past the moment she glanced up from the menu. Gobbet was the first to admit that she wasn't very discerning about her food as long as it came in big portions, but the golden crispy skin of the goose and the rich scent made her mouth water in a way no you won't notice the difference to real meat we promise-soy ever could.
Duncan ordered for them in halting Cantonese, choosing char siu for himself. He got better at speaking the language almost daily, and had started out much more fluently than Echo. There was no way anyone would mistake him for a native, but Gobbet appreciated that she didn't have to translate for him. And he only slipped back to English when he absolutely had to, even though Gobbet spoke it well.
Mellow arrived at the same time as their food, and Gobbet hoped he wouldn't hurry. He was led to a table not far from them, joining two other men who had been sipping their drinks and talking.
"Excuse me for a moment." Gobbet got up with a smile, playacting even though Duncan knew perfectly well what she was doing. You never knew who else was listening.
She took a path through the room that brought her close to Mellow's table and to a lush potted plant. Stopping to admire the glossy leaves, Gobbet waited for Madness to drop out of her pants and continued on her way. She merely washed her hands and then walked back. Madness was hiding in the plant, no longer with the tiny mic Duncan had brought. Gobbet hoped she hadn't just dropped it somewhere, and would wait to be picked up. They were good rats, but still only rats.
"It works." Duncan seemed pleased. It was hard to tell with him. When he was not pleased, the world knew immediately, everything else was anyone's guess. It made her nervous. Not right now, but being around Duncan always made Gobbet feel like she had to walk on eggshells, and she hated that.
Shoving that thought aside, Gobbet focused on the much more pleasureable fact of her roast duck. Duncan would keep an ear on what was being said at Mellow's table, leaving Gobbet free to enjoy her meal. It was every bit as delicious as she had hoped for, crispy skin over juicy meat. She smuggled some under the table for Folly.
"Oh fuck." Duncan shot upright. Gobbet had only just time to see Madness scampering right across the floor in full view of everyone before Duncan had reached her with a few steps and scooping her up. It all happened so fast that nobody else seemed to have noticed. People tended to react strongly and audibly to rats in their favourite restaurant, but the only sounds were cutlery and conversations. No screams, no cursing.
Duncan continued on his way, making it look like he had simply dropped something on his way to the restroom. It had been almost like a magic trick, and Gobbet wasn't sure where he had stashed Madness. At least Mellow was still talking, leaning forward across the table and gesturing with both hands.
"That was close." Dropping back into his seat, Duncan cast a quick glace over at their target while handing Madness back to Gobbet under the table. "They're wrapping up over there I think. Don't order dessert."
"Anything interesting?" Gobbet asked around her last mouthful of duck, with a longing glance at the cake the neighboring table was having.
"Oh yes. They're making BTLs. And he said where. More or less." Duncan scooped up the some noodles, looking very pleased with himself. "I think we should go take a look."
"More or less? You think we can find it?" BTLs would explain where all that money came from, especially if they were the illegal kind. And Gobbet was willing to bet they were. The thought of what they might find made her skin crawl.
"I think we should try. Do you want to go back to Auntie just with hearsay because I sure as fuck don't." Calling up the AR menu, Duncan gestured at it to pay. "Let's do it now, they're moving on to some bar for drinks."
A while later, they were back in their own clothes and winding their way through narrow backstreets towards where Duncan thought the studio was. It was uncomfortably close to the Walled City, and Gobbet shuddered at the cold waves washing over her whenever she took a peek at the astral. The mana was being poisoned, fear and misery leeching into it. Even Duncan seemed to notice it, his posture growing ever more tense.
He stopped and turned in a circle, squinting at the grimy walls and narrow doorways. Then he took a step towards a set of stairs leading down into a basement. Gobbet followed, her boots squashing the mulch of trash that had accumulated in the corners. But there was a suspiciously clean-ish path down the middle.
"Here, I think." Squatting down, Duncan pulled out his lockpicks. It was another one of his magic tricks, his fingers daintily holding the picks and moving them in the lock for just a moment before it clicked open. Gobbet was willing to bet they hadn't had to teach him that one at cop school.
The door led them into a gloomy passageway, old bricks and a musty smell. There were footsteps in the drift of trash and dirt, molded together with moisture. Too many to tell anything from them, except that people did come here frequently. Duncan took up almost the whole tunnel, his head pulled between his shoulders so he didn’t knock himself unconscious on the ceiling. If anything attacked them from the front, Gobbet wouldn’t even be able to see it, and she wasn’t entirely sure Duncan could turn around.
At least they didn’t have any problems following the trail. Even when the tunnel split into several directions, only one of them looked used. Mana humming at the back of her mind, Gobbet was ready to fight or flee even though it was quiet in the tunnel, nobody around but them. Duncan had his gun drawn, stepping carefully, shoulders tense.
“Do you hear that?” He stopped abruptly and Gobbet barely avoided running into him, her nose brushing his back.
She listened hard. Faint noises of traffic from above, a trickle of water, the rustle when one of the rats moved in her pocket. And just when she was about to ask what she was supposed to hear: a chittering noise, a dry rustling. Only at the cusp of her hearing first, it grew louder and louder, echoing in the narrow tunnel. Impossible to tell the direction,
“Fuck.” Duncan pressed his back to the wall, pulling Gobbet in place next to him. He wasn’t gentle about it, his arm slamming into her chest like a metal bar, but Gobbet barely noticed. Something was coming. Rushing towards them. Leaving them nowhere to go.
The beam of Duncan’s flashlight swept the tunnel in a steady arc, back and forth like a lighthouse. He was aiming his gun below it, finger on the trigger. Gobbet’s own light, much shakier and without a gun to back it up, was the first to pick up the blueish gleam, low to the ground. It barreled towards them on many clicking legs, faceted eyes the size of Gobbet’s fists staring them down. The beetles covered the ground from wall to wall, crawling over each other in their haste to reach the food that had just walked into their lair.
“Shoot them!” Gobbet drew on the mana but it was like trying to build a sandcastle out of toxic sludge. The beetles slammed into the barrier she had created, raising themselves on their hindlegs, antennae waving wildly, and Gobbet could feel the spell crumbling already under their weight.
She lost the ground under her feet. Kicking wildly, she struggled until her midriff hit Duncan’s shoulder. He carried her like she weighed nothing, running in long loping strides. Giving up on the barrier, Gobbet put all her strength into another spell. It settled over Duncan, sparking off his skin, and he sped up, the tunnel walls going by in a blur. The beetles raced after them.
With a crash, Duncan's shoulder hit a door. It swung inwards and he jumped through, Gobbet's head narrowly missing the wall. Dropping her, Duncan slammed the door shut and leaned on it.
"Lock it! Now!" Duncan's words were punctuated by the thuds of beetles throwing themselves against the metal of the door.
Gobbet didn't bother to stand. She wasn't sure she could. With shaking hands, she slid the bolt on the door home. The knob was a lost cause, even if she had had a key. The bolt was at least sturdy enough to allow Duncan to stop using himself as a barricade. If it had been in place, they would be beetle snacks by now.
The room was a jumble of crates and shelves and clothes racks, leaving only a narrow path between everything. Duncan made it wider by shoving a bunch of the crates in front of the door, muffling the scrabbling noise of the beetles' legs on the metal. But it was still loud enough to make Gobbet's skin crawl.
"You okay?" Duncan didn't even sound out of breath, and he pulled Gobbet to her feet in an easy movement, steadying her until she had found her balance.
"Yeah." She would be bruised tomorrow but nothing else. Duncan, on the other hand— "You're bleeding. Let me look at that real quick?"
"It's nothing." But he did sit down and let her check. The legs of his pants were shredded, the beetles had nipped at his heels like terriers. Some of them had bitten him, leaving long gashes in Duncan's calves. Gobbet cleaned them up, dabbing away the blood and filth before casting a spell. The poisoned mana left her nauseous but the wound closed anyway, leaving only a few reddened lines.
"You should go see someone when we're out of here. The spell won't do nothing for any infections."
"First we gotta get out of here. Let's look around and hope there's a back door." Duncan pushed himself up and then stopped. "Thank you."
The beetles were still scratching and clicking behind the door, but no longer in a frenzy. Gobbet hoped that this was because they were giving up and not because they were looking for another way in, or already marching through a ventilation shaft. Her gaze went up at that thought.
Nothing but solid concrete, and some pipes that were too small. She breathed a sigh of relief. Following the path, they found another door at the back that lead them to another set of stairs and even further down into a much larger room. Duncan produced two flashlights from his many pockets and handed her one, but even their beams petered out in the dark, showing nothing but an empty brick floor.
"What kind of BTLs are they making?" He muttered to himself, the circle of his flashlight wandering across the wall and showing them a big lever. "No wait—"
But Gobbet had flipped it already. With a loud hum, fluorescent tubes came alive, bathing the middle of the room in painfully bright light while leaving the edges in the dark
"What the fuck is that." Duncan walked forward, switching his flashlight for his gun in another one of those smooth magic tricks almost too fast to see. Like a mongoose that has seen a snake, he snuck up on a huge grate in the floor. It looked like it could be lifted with a pulley system, sturdy chains dangling from the ceiling.
Gobbet followed him, fighting the nausea churning in her stomach. Something was so very wrong here, the astral space clinging to her mind in a black slime that dampened her magic and slowed her thoughts. And there was a smell, old blood and death. Something moved in the pit. Something big.
A snarl rose from a sound so low it vibrated through her body to a scream loud enough to echo through the room.
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
The scream rang in Duncan's ears and froze him in place, all his instincts telling him to run. Gun in hand, he approached the grate, craning his neck to be able to see without having to step too close or leaning over it. Something moved, crouched in the shadows at the edge of the pit.
Pale skin and long limbs ending in claws. Milky eyes and a mouth full of sharp fangs. Shiny implants and scars crisscrossing the skin in deep groves.
"Oh fucking hells!" Duncan raised his gun, well aware that even if he emptied the clip into the ghoul, it wouldn't stop it. But it merely shrank back into the shadows.
"Is that—" Gobbet did lean over the pit to see better, and Duncan pulled her back. The grate looked solid, but he had seen ghouls tear apart cars to get at their prey. No sense in risking it.
"Yeah. They gave it a recording rig. No wonder they're making bank with those chips." He should have known this would turn into a nightmare. Everything did, sooner or later, ever since he had come here. "Let's get the fuck out of here. We know everything we need to know."
The ghoul had crawled out of the shadows and was crouched in the middle of the pit. It was massive, much bigger than Gaichu, but it moved sluggishly and looked half starved, all its ribs showing. The stench rising from the pit was a mix of decay and blood, and Duncan swallowed against the bile rising in his throat. He had seen what ghouls would do to a human, a whole family torn apart and eaten, their blood painting the walls. He had no wish to ever see it again.
Gobbet look pale and shaken. She staggered and Duncan grabbed her arm, her skin clammy under his hand. The ghoul shifted, raising its blind face to them, one arm outstretched. When it opened its mouth, the sound it made wasn't the feral scream Duncan expected but a barely there whisper.
"Please. Help."
"We can't just leave." Even as she struggled to stand on her own, Gobbet sounded determined.
"What, you want to take it home with you? Maybe it can bunk with Gaichu, is that your plan?" Duncan couldn't believe they were even having this discussion. Go back, report to Auntie, let her deal with this, forget all about this miserable business. That was the smart thing, and everyone should have seen that.
"No! Stop being so pigheaded for one moment!" It was easy to forget with how flippant Gobbet was most of the time, but there was a core of steel underneath and it came out when she called on it. "We need to do something. Do you want Auntie to sell them off to someone, because you know she's going to do that. And who knows what will happen then. It's not some dumb animal we're talking about. "
"Yeah! I know!" For a moment, Duncan was tempted to simply knock Gobbet out and leave. Tell her she had passed out. She looked like she would any second now. But he couldn't bring himself to. Not with the weight of the ghoul's attention on him, not knowing it had kept enough sanity and intelligence to know they were a chance out of the cage. A chance to get away from whatever Mellow and his partners had been doing to it, or forcing it to do. And maybe even more important, he wouldn't be able to look Gobbet in the eye if he did that. She trusted him to be better and he couldn't bring himself to break that trust.
He growled in frustration, wishing for some problem he could solve by simply punching it. Use your head, Duncan. Carter's voice in his mind was in equal parts stern and amused. That tone she had when she could tell he was already figuring things out and simply didn't like how complicated it was.
"Oh fuck me. Okay." Squinting at the chain and pulley system, Duncan thought about their options. That he didn't want to leave the ghoul in the pit did not mean he would let it out just like that.
"This is what we're going to do." Duncan inched forward to the edge of the pit, looking down at the ghoul. It answered his gaze, standing up slowly with its head cocked to the side. "We're going to look for a way out of here. Once we have that, we're going to lower that chain down to you. You can open the grate yourself and climb out. But not before we're out of this room, and if you follow us, I will fuck you up."
That was an empty threat, but he would do his best. And the ghoul didn't need to know he had only a measly pistol.
"Yes. Won't harm you." The ghoul wasn't as well spoken as Gaichu but Duncan realised that this was because the mutation had left it with teeth too big for its jaw. Not because it didn't know better.
"Alright." Stepping back from the pit, Duncan looked around. He walked into the gloom, following the arc of his flashlight with his gun. Couldn't be too careful. The only thing jumping out at him out of the dark was a big door to a freight elevator.
Gobbet had followed him and squinted at the door as if it was about to open up and spill more beetles. When he turned to her, she gave him a wan smile, her rats sitting quietly on her shoulders. Duncan answered the smile with a raised eyebrow: "You okay?"
"I'll be okay once we're out of here. So. Elevator to who knows where, or door number one with beetles behind it?" She took a deep breath, shaking herself like a dog out of water. "Thank you for listening. It's a good plan."
"Don't say that before we're back at the Bolthole." But her praise surprised Duncan into a smile of his own. "I'd rather risk the beetles. Mellow's harmless enough but if we end up in some gang's hideout—I can carry you, and you can slow the beetles down. Can you do another spell?"
"Yeah. I think so. It might not be my best work but I can. Let's go look at those crates, though, maybe there's something to keep those beetles off while we run like hell." Gobbet straightened herself, Madness and Folly sitting up on their hind legs to sniff the air.
Duncan walked after her, back through the door and up the stairs into the cluttered storeroom. Even knowing that they were about to run into danger, the tension in his muscles was almost pleasant now that they had a plan. He knew how to do this.
They listened at the door they had barricaded but if the beetles were still there, they were waiting in silence. The crates yielded masses of cheap clothing. Duncan almost was ready to resign himself to the thought of improvising armour from several layers of pants when Gobbet turned to him with a triumphant grin, two bottles of baijiu in hand. Spilled on the floor, the clear liquid immediately went up in flames when Duncan lit it.
The armful of Molotov cocktails he carried in an improvised sling made Duncan feel marginally better about the ghoul as well. It had remained crouched in the middle of the pit, turning its face up towards them. It made an effort to appear harmless, as much as anything with that much muscle, claws and teeth even could.
The chains for raising the grate were secured with padlocks but those didn't present much of a challenge for Duncan. He pulled and lifted the grate enough to kick the end of the chain under it so it dangled into the pit.
"Can you reach that?" Duncan watched the ghoul unfold to its full height. It stretched, flicking one finger against the lowest link of the chain. With a jump, it wouldn't have any problems putting its full weight on the chain and opening the grate.
"Thank you. Promise, I won't hurt you." Stepping away from the chain, the ghoul crouched down again, signalling that it would wait before making its escape.
"Good luck." Duncan gave it a nod and stepped back, hoping that he would never see it again. His skin crawled at the sound of the chain jingling, all his instincts screaming at him to run, but the ghoul kept its promise and didn't move. Nonetheless, Duncan took the time to shove a few crates in front of the door. Not enough to trap it but enough to slow it down on its way out.
Gobbet was sitting on a crate in front of the door leading to the tunnel, pale and shaking. He waved away her help at clearing the door and then picked her up, holding her as safely as he could slung over his shoulder.
"I'm ready. Don't you dare stop if I pass out or something. You can stop once we're topside." Her heat beat fast against his back. The rats clambered into his shirt, their tiny claws scratching at his skin.
With a deep breath, Duncan pulled open the door and ran.
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
"BTLs?" Auntie sounded grudgingly impressed. "I wouldn't have thought him that enterprising. He should have come to me."
Duncan stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the bottle in front of Auntie. He had put on his best poker face and tried not to notice Gobbet's fidgets in the hope that Auntie didn't either. Although Gobbet always fidgeted when they were talking to Auntie, so it hopefully would go unnoticed.
"Have you seen any of the recordings, or found the chips?" Leaning forward, Auntie poured herself another glass of baijiu, her eyes flicking up at Gobbet and Duncan.
"No. We only found the place where he records them, and we think it's some kind of illegal fights. But we didn't want to spook Mellow, so we didn't investigate further." It helped that he didn't like Auntie. Duncan had always been a good liar to people he didn't like.
"Very well. Bao will take care of the matter." Auntie waved her hand at the burly man standing behind her, hands behind his back and a scowl on his face. He was Auntie's remover of inconvenient obstacles, and Mellow had proven himself very inconvenient. "You did well. I have no further use of you for now, but once the rest of your team is back, there is work waiting for you all. So don't go far."
As if they had anywhere to go.
They walked in silence back to the ship, a steady rain drenching them to the bone. It itched on Duncan's skin, the same as the polluted rain back home, but it smelled differently, less acrid. A strange thing to be homesick about
"Do you think they'll find the ghoul?" Gobbet's voice stopped Duncan on the way to the shower. She already looked much better than she had when they had made it out of the tunnel, the crackle and stench of burning beetle husks in their nostrils and ears. Towelling her hair with one hand, she was digging in the cupboard for a noodle package.
"If it's smart, it's far away by now. Although maybe we all get lucky and it eats Strangler Bao." The man was a ruthless killer, ready to do Auntie's dirty work. Duncan clung to the hope that he wouldn't turn into that, not after crawling out of that hole back home on Seattle. And strangely enough, freeing the ghoul made him feel better about himself.
"We can hope." Gobbet waved a bright red package at him, spicy shrimp noodles. "You want some?"
"Nah. I want a shower, and then I want to sleep. See you in the morning." He closed the door on the noise of the kettle and Gobbet admonishing her rats to be patient, there would be enough for everyone.
For once, the sun was gracing Kowloon with its presence, glittering on the choppy waters of the harbour and muting the neon signs down to barely there flickers. Duncan took a moment to watch the bay. Small boats, ferries and big ships passed back and forth, leaving white water in their wake. The wind carried only the scent of salt. The city rising across the bay looked beautiful, tall buildings and green hills behind them. He still wanted nothing more than to be able to go home, but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a nice day.
Walking up the gangway of the Bolthole, he spotted Gobbet on deck. She was sprawled in a cheap limegreen plastic chair, her feet propped up on the railing and a big cup of bubble tea in her hand.
"Mind if I join you?" He kept his distance until Gobbet gave a lazy wave, pointing to a stack of more chairs. Unfolding one of them, Duncan put it down next to hers and lowered himself carefully until he was sure it would carry his weight.
"Did you hear? Mellow's vanished." Duncan wasn't exactly the person to hear the newest gossip around here but this one he did hear, and he was a little gratified at Gobbet's surprise. "Seems like Bao hasn't found him, and seems like his shop was a huge mess. No blood, but clearly there was a fight."
"Do you think the ghoul got him?" Gobbet sat up, but even the thought of someone getting eaten didn't stop her from chasing around the last of the tapioca pearls in her tea. And this once, it didn't bother Duncan too much either.
"Yeah. I would have, in his stead." He watched the harbour for a bit, a red-sailed junk making its way across most of the bay before he spoke again. "I'm sorry for giving you shit. You and Is0bel risked a lot, helping us, and I appreciate it. I don't want to be here, nothings gonna change that. But it's not your fault, and I've been an ass about it to you."
"To everyone." Gobbet softened her words with a crooked smile. "You had a rough start here. We all did. It is what it is, can't be changed. You might be an ass, but you listen when it's important. You try. I think we worked together pretty well - if I ever have to run from oversized beetles again, you'd be my partner of choice. Although if we repeat anything from that run, it would be the restaurant, that food was delicious."
"Funny you should say that." Duncan picked up the package he had stashed next to his chair and handed it to Gobbet. "I brought you something."
The delighted grin on Gobbet's face at the sight of the chocolate cake made Duncan smile right back at her. She might still annoy him, and probably always would, but he would trust her to watch his back, and he was glad to have her around.
"Thank you!" Gobbet's words were muffled by a mouthful of cake. She offered him a piece, and Duncan took it. It was worth the price, dense and moist, made with real cocoa and glazed with real chocolate. He savoured every bite, and even Gobbet took her time with it.
"The others won't be back for another two days. Echo called, things are a bit more complicated than they sounded. Of course." Duncan sank lower in his chair, stretching out his legs. The sun was warm enough to make him drowsy, and the cake didn't help. Or maybe it was simply exhaustion. He had been so wired all the time since he had come here. He couldn't keep that up.
"What do you say, we take it easy while they're gone." Gobbet paused in her demolition of the cake to look at him, one eyebrow raised. "Let's go out tonight. I'll show you the nice parts of Hong Kong. Or at least the parts where you can get great food. We can sit somewhere with a view of the streets, eat and watch people. I promise not to ask too many nosy questions."
Duncan's first instinct was to decline. It felt frivolous, to have a nice time while his father was—who knew where and Duncan's own life was in shambles. But he couldn't do anything about either of these things, not tonight. And what else was he going to do, lock himself in his cabin and work out? He had tried that and it had only made him spiral harder.
"Yeah. Let's. I'd like that." He watched the city across the bay, the Walled City rising up behind him. For now, its shadow couldn't reach Duncan.
