By Julian Lighton
The central chamber of the Nexus Tower is always dark, lit only by the pale glow of the continually-changing object that floats in the chamber's heart. The form it takes most often is that of a cube, but its geometry changes incessantly. At one moment, it can be a thing of unbelievable fractal complexity, only to collapse into a smooth Euclidean solid the next.
Around it swirls a storm of spinning coins, their faces glinting in the darkness.
A man stood in the center of the chamber, glaring at the shifting thing above. He was tall and muscular, his hair dark and his skin pale. His name was Rhys Engel.
Another man sat in the lotus position nearby, floating several inches above the floor. He was older than Rhys; his skin was dark, and it bore the cuts and scratches of a recent fight. His breathing was ragged, from ribs that had been broken and not yet properly set. He had no name; he was called Primus. He did not watch the thing above. He did not need to, for it was his creation. If any man could be said to understand it, he was the one.
Normally, each would be attended by Paradox Cubes, smaller versions of the thing above them, but bringing them into its presence was not considered wise.
After perhaps an hour, Rhys broke the silence.
"Well?"
"The auguries still favor us; after all, we are the only ones who are at all prepared for this turn of events. But nothing is certain, and the I Ching is not a reliable oracle, no matter how many millions of times we cast the hexagrams. Still, some likely futures are taking shape."
"Show me."
Raven Li skimmed reports from field operatives, looking for situations that might require her personal attention. She was vaguely aware of the man talking to her, but nothing he had to say was important. He was of the impression that his personal agendas required the immediate attention of the Unspoken Name. He was also of the impression that she was the Name's secretary. Still, he was a member of the Council, so she couldn't throw him out of the offices. Or the window. The Name would see him when time allowed, and would ignore him more politely, but no less thoroughly.
She did not notice the words of the reports changing before her eyes. She felt the weight pushing against her soul, as bad as it ever was in the Netherworld.
"So this is what it's like to lose..." was the first thought that passed through her mind.
There was a crash from the inner office. As she looked up, the droning voice trailed off, as he realized something was wrong. She looked around the rest of the room, and saw only expressions of confusion and shock.
The door to the inner office was flung open, and the Unspoken Name's actual secretary stumbled out, slamming the door behind him. He was pale and shaking. Raven Li watched as the man, a veteran operative and hardened killer, vomited his breakfast onto the carpet. She noted idly that the carpet was far more worn and threadbare than she recalled it being.
The man finally found words. "Oh, God. He's..." A confused roar from the inner office cut him off, and made what he was attempting to say quite clear.
Raven stood. "Everybody, prepare to evacuate. There will be evacuation procedures in the files somewhere. Use them. They will be accurate for this juncture; your memories are not. Take what files you can, destroy the rest. Spread the word. All Lodge members are to evacuate to the 1859 juncture. The Pledged can only be trusted if they have been to the Netherworld, that means senior people only. Until further notice, I am taking command of the Lodge. Somebody get to the Hub now, and let them know they're about to get a lot of refugees."
A voice spluttered behind her. "You can't do this! You're usurping the Council's authority! I...."
She turned on him. "I can, and I will. The Unspoken Name is gone. Unless Draco walks through that door right now, or you're actually Mister X, I am the senior member of Lodge Operations present. That makes this my responsibility. Believe me, I don't want it. I'd much rather he..." She blinked away a tear. "As soon as the Council can convene and elect a new Name, I will gladly step aside. Am I making myself clear?"
He nodded meekly.
She looked around. Everyone was in shock, but most of them were doing what they'd been told. Only one thing remained for her. She turned to the Name's secretary, listlessly sorting through files at his desk.
"Give me your gun."
He looked up, puzzled. "Why?"
"I don't have one, and we can't leave him like this. We can't leave him for them. I... we owe it to him, to what he was."
She took the gun. A .22 pistol. Barely better than nothing.
She rested briefly against the office door and closed her eyes. It would be so much easier to leave all of this behind, to flap her wings and fly away from it all....
No. She pushed away from the door, shaking her head violently as she attempted to recover her center. Ignoring the stares from the others, she opened the door and quickly slipped through.
The office was still tastefully decorated, though more spartan than it should have been. The desk and chairs were upended, papers strewn everywhere. Fragments of an expensive suit were scattered all around them.
In the middle of the room, the tiger stood, watching her. He was large, his fur greying, but he was still sleek and well-muscled. For an instant, she thought she saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes before he crouched, ready to pounce.
Two shots were fired, one through each eye and into the brain. The tiger stumbled for a moment, then collapsed.
Raven Li knelt down next to the Unspoken Name, and sat with him as he died.
It was supposed to go down easy. Me through the front door, Chien through the back; a nice, clean bust that finally nailed Slick Eddie Lo down hard.
The Chief will tell you that this is the sort of thing that happens when you don't call for backup. The Chief can kiss my ass. Slick Eddie wouldn't have stuck around long enough for backup to get there. He never did; that's why Chien and I had been after him for so long. Eddie was a two-bit punk, but he was a cautious two-bit punk.
And that's if there's backup to be had. Things can get stretched pretty thin in this part of Kowloon.
So anyway, I kick the door in and see Eddie, the delivery guy, a bag full of drugs, and a bag full of cash. And a bodyguard, of course. Eddie never goes anywhere without a bodyguard or two. What I didn't see was Chien.
I informed them that they were all under arrest, and that it would be a really good idea if they didn't do anything stupid. The bodyguard decided to do something stupid, so I had to put him down. Then I went back to arresting Mister Lo.
I had just pulled the cuffs out when something jumped me from the side. It was big, it was ugly, it was faster and stronger than me, and it had a lot of teeth and spines. I think it had four arms, too, but I never had the time to count.
I lost the cuffs, but I managed to hold onto my gun. One shot in the face slowed it down enough for me to kick it off me, then I fed it the rest of the clip. I think Eddie and friend had already beat it, but I wasn't paying attention.
Being on the receiving end of most of a clip did not make it happy. It wasn't hurt much, but it was definitely pissed. It hit me again before I could even drop the empty clip. It had no trouble pinning my arms to the ground, and then its mouth started to open really wide.
Right then, a hand reached over and slapped a strip of rice paper on its forehead. It reared back and started screaming, then it burst into flames, and it didn't take long until it was just a pile of ash.
It was Chien, of course, standing there with that annoying smirk on his face. I was surprised he used rice paper; usually he just writes the Sutras or whatever on Post-It notes. Says they stick better.
Turns out the back door wouldn't budge, and he'd taken his own sweet time getting his lazy ass round to the front again. Still, he saved my butt. Again.
On the way back to the station, we had a little chat.
"We've got a problem."
"I know. The Chief really hates it when I shoot someone and can't make the bust."
"Not that. Think about it. Eddie's no sorcerer, and he's not going to spend most of the money he takes in just to pay someone to give him a demon bodyguard. Ordinary muscle's so much cheaper."
"So Eddie's got friends. Triads?"
"No. That was a Bone Drinker. Anybody who can summon one of those is more serious than anyone the Triads have."
"That's... pretty damn serious. So real soon now, the Chief's going to be hearing from somebody in the Forbidden City who wants me to lay off Eddie."
"Sounds about right. You going to listen?"
"Hell, no."
"Me either. So we get in trouble again. No big deal."
"What's this 'we'? You know damn well there aren't enough of you magic cops running around. The Chief can't afford to suspend you. Me, on the other hand...."
"You're used to it. What is it, eight times so far?"
"Seven. It's still a pain... How hard is it to learn that stuff you do?"
"Easier than you think. The first step is to stop polluting your body with alcohol and tobacco..."
"Forget it."
Song stood on the narrow path, breathing the thin mountain air. The Temple was just around the next bend. He should not be nervous. He was fully healed, his scars no longer impeded his motion even slightly. Master Hasegawa himself had said that there was no more for him to learn, that he was ready to be tested.
Slowly, he calmed himself and found his center again. As he approached, the Temple doors silently swung open. As he proceeded to the Chamber of Testing, he saw no one.
As he entered the Chamber, he bowed low to Master Hasegawa and the other examiners. As he began to rise, he paused, shocked. The others were the Master of Arms of the Temple, and the Great Sage himself.
The Great Sage spoke. "Rise, Little Dragon. Your teacher has spoken well of his student. We have come to see for ourselves."
Nervously, Song rose.
Master Hasegawa spoke. "Draw your sword."
Song did as commanded.
"We will now test you on what you have learned and achieved. At any time, you may end the testing by releasing your sword. Once the testing has ended, we will decide if you are to receive the title of Master."
Four doors opened, one in each corner of the Chamber. A man entered through each. They were dressed in black, and wielded staves.
Song turned slowly, watching his opponents as they surrounded him. His right eye scanned them for anything unusual. The computer beneath his right temple processed what he saw, evaluating his opponents' strengths and weaknesses.
Their nervous systems were enhanced, almost certainly with the standard package given to Temple guards. They would be fast, but he was somewhat faster. Furthermore, one of them had a hitch in his step. The artificial nerve grafts had not taken properly in his right leg.
Song charged, forcing that guard to turn to keep up. His leg left him a step too slow, and Song had no trouble getting behind him and twisting the staff out of his hands. So armed, he rapidly defeated the other three.
The tests continued. In addition to testing his combat skills and enhancements, Song was tested on his knowledge of philosophy, cybernetics, and programming. He discussed the choices he had made in designing his own enhancements, and the details of how his threat evaluator operated.
After many hours, there was a pause in the testing. The Great Sage spoke: "Most impressive, but there is still one more test."
The wall to Song's left slid into the ground, and he heard a mechanical whine. He looked, and saw four miniguns, their barrels spinning up to full firing speed. As he moved, the guns smoothly tracked him.
Song's threat evaluator warnings went off the scale. With a thought, he shut off the distraction. He could not escape the killing zone before the guns began firing.
Master Hasegawa covered his eyes. For thirty seconds, the guns filled the air of the Chamber with bullets. Fearing what he would see, he slowly uncovered them again.
Song stood in the center of the floor, seemingly unharmed.
The Great Sage spoke again: "The Walk of a Thousand Steps. An impressive display of skill for one so young. But you could not have been certain it would save you. Would it not have been wiser to set down your sword, and so end the testing?"
Song's face fell, and the Great Sage chuckled. "You have not failed. You are young; you will gain wisdom, in time. You are certainly worthy of joining our ranks."
"Now, if you are willing, we have a task that needs one of your courage and skills. We recently discovered a door, of sorts, that leads to a strange grey place...."
Nitro Jack tried to get back to sleep, but the sunlight shining on his face made it difficult. Yeah, today was a big day, but nothing was going down before the sun did, so why couldn't he sleep until four or so?
Then a thought crept into his head. Sunlight? He had a crappy little room in the middle of one of the Buro's big residence blocks. There wasn't a window within a hundred meters of his bed.
Reluctantly, Jack opened his eyes. The room was completely different from how he remembered it. It was still a cheap, crappy place, but the familiar metal and plastic decor was gone. There was even a carpet, and some of the furniture looked like it might be made of wood.
A panicked search of the room found his tools - explosives under the bed, detonators stuffed into one of his boots, and the sawed-off shotgun sitting in the closet.
Reassured, he got back into bed and tried to figure out what had happened. He thought there'd been something about this in the briefing he'd been given, but it was fuzzy. He tried to replay the instructions in his head, to figure out where he stood, if nothing else.
Enter Buro territory, recruit local help, scout out Food Processing Center C95-A - yeah, he'd done all that. Blow it to kingdom come - that was tonight's job. Food shortages, riots, Buro loses control of the area - he didn't really care about all that. He did his job, he enjoyed it, and he let the Battlechimp worry about the big picture.
Then there'd been a bunch of the weird time-travel stuff. He'd filed it away as 'big picture' at the time, but it seemed kind of important now. As best as he could recall, the world might change suddenly - which it had, and he'd be the only one who'd remember the old one - something about his having been to the Netherworld. If that happened, he was to destroy any targets of opportunity, and report back for a new job.
No sweat. He could do that. Spend the afternoon looking for places with good chi to blow up, then find Knives in some bar, let him know the score, and they'd wing it from there. He wasn't too sure what places with good chi looked like, but he figured he'd know them when he saw them.
Jack hauled himself up and peered out of the window. He was still in a city, even if it was nothing like as densely populated as what he remembered. He was surprised to see a few trees along the sides of the street below. Traffic was moderate, a mix of wheel-cars and hover-cars. No sign of anything flying like the Buro's grav-cars. The area he was in seemed to be mostly apartment buildings and cheap rooming houses. Nothing that looked like a target. A church down the street, with an odd lightning-bolt theme to its decoration, might be a possible target, but it looked pretty run-down.
Oh well. He couldn't really expect a perfect target to be right across the street. Time to do some scouting.
That evening, a list of possible targets in his pocket, he started checking out bars, looking for Knives. This would be easy. People were much less paranoid without the Buro looking over their shoulders all the time. He might not even need the muscle, but better to have him along in case something went bad.
Besides, it'd be a shame to lose track of him. Back before the civil war started, you just couldn't recruit guys like Knives. The Jammers got the loonies, the whackos, the dregs. Guys who could take out two PubOrd troopers with just a knife? Not a chance. The Battlechimp explained it as having to do with the tyranny of chi preventing people from following their true natures. Jack generally stopped listening when Potemkin started going on about that stuff.
By the tenth bar, Jack was getting frustrated. His feet were sore, because the detonators were still sitting in one of his good boots, the shotgun under his coat was banging into his leg every couple of steps, and he was just about ready to give up and get on with the important stuff.
As he stepped into his last bar of the night, a familiar shaved head caught his eye. There were some tattoos he didn't remember from before, but it was Knives all right. He was sitting in the corner, his back to the wall, glaring at his drink, nursing it like he always did, because he was too damn cheap to buy another.
Jack slid into the chair opposite Knives. Quickly, he explained what he had deduced, and what the plan was. Knives' expression changed from suspicion to confusion as Jack talked. As he started to list the possible targets, he noticed Knives' face begin to show anger. It was then that Jack remembered that Knives had never been to the Netherworld, that he would have changed with the rest of the world, and that he might not react well to a total stranger talking about blowing up the local hospital.
Jack's voice tailed off, and he dropped one hand into his lap, reaching for his shotgun. Knives had already dropped one hand below the table, no doubt reaching for one of his namesakes.
"Would you care to explain," Knives snarled, "what you just said?"
Jack stammered. He could explain, but he didn't think Knives would believe it. He wasn't entirely sure he believed it himself anymore.
In a smooth motion, Knives pulled a knife from below the table, and planted it in Jack's throat. Almost simultaneously, Jack emptied his shotgun into Knives' stomach and chest.
By the time the other patrons of the bar realized something had happened, it was all over.
Just two days after I'd returned from my latest involuntary vacation, I was sitting at my desk, waiting to meet my new partner. Bad enough that I had to deal with some wet-behind-the-ears kid after what happened to Chien, but the Chief had called me into his office the day before to let me know exactly how screwed I would be if I messed this up.
You couldn't really blame the Chief for being tense. Word was the new guy had connections, that he was from one of the big German families who've basically been running things for the past sixty years. One of the more popular rumors was that he was one of Boatman's grandsons. Or maybe a son, since the old monster kept fathering kids until he was about ninety, only a year or two before he finally dropped dead.
All we knew for sure was that the guy had made detective at an age when he ought to be walking a beat. Smart money was he'd make captain before the next time I got a raise. He'd probably be running the entire Hong Kong Police Department within five years.
Not surprisingly, the Chief didn't want to piss him off. Or maybe he was hoping I'd get another partner killed.
So, I did the Chief a favor, and showed up sober.
The kid was full of surprises. For starters, he brought me coffee. It was god-awful, but that meant it was no different from the coffee I've been drinking for the last ten years.
He brought me coffee. He shook my hand. He was respectful and deferential. He was acting like a rookie who's just been partnered with a veteran, rather than a spoiled brat with family connections who's decided he wants to arrest people. It was weird. Maybe there was hope for him after all.
Another pleasant surprise: unlike everybody else like him I've met, he wasn't kitted out with the finest in German engineering. I know the stuff's effective, but it creeps me out.
It was later that afternoon when the trouble started. We were taking a break. I was drinking more bad coffee. He'd sworn off the stuff after that morning.
"So, um," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "Did they ever get the guy who killed your partner? Nobody would tell me anything about it..." His voice trailed off when he saw me scowl.
"Relax, kid. It's not really you I'm mad at. We know who did it. We know who ordered it. We've even got witnesses. And we can't do a goddamn thing about it!"
He looked confused, so I explained. "A guy named Shen Wai pulled the trigger. He works for Skinny Huang - he's the number three guy in Huang's organization. Huang's the problem. He's got a business partner. In fact, he's married to the guy's daughter. The guy's name is Karl Herrbruck. You ought to be able to fill in the rest."
He looked sheepish, and rubbed the back of his neck again. "Yeah, I see. You mess with Huang, and all sorts of shit comes down the pipe."
He thought for a little while. "Let me make a couple of phone calls. Then we can go and pick them both up."
It didn't take me long to figure out what he was talking about. "The Chief won't be too happy with you throwing your weight around like that."
"Me? What am I doing? He won't be hearing a word from above, either officially or unofficially. No complaints, no problems, right?"
What could I say? While he made the calls, I got some more guys for backup.
Shen was a piece of cake. We kicked the door to his apartment in, caught him alone. He demanded to make a phone call. Too bad we didn't have to let him, and I didn't want him tipping Skinny off. I was going to let Skinny make a call, just to watch his face when he found out the score.
Skinny looked like he was going to be just as easy. He was so sure he was untouchable that we could just stroll into his office and arrest him.
Unfortunately, some of Skinny's boys decided not to trust in his connections. By the time we'd shoved his fat ass in the car, they'd gotten something together. Before the kid and I could get in, the other car went up in a big fireball. I think they used a rocket launcher.
We hit the dirt behind our car as they tried to pick us off. It was not a good situation. They had us pinned down. Sooner or later, they'd get reinforcements, and we couldn't get into the car to call for help. At least they couldn't just blow us up without taking out Skinny.
"Hey kid, I've always wondered if those rumors about you guys' secret monster death squads were true."
He looked startled. "Why the hell are you asking that now?"
"I was kind of hoping you had one in your back pocket."
He grinned, and rubbed the back of his neck. I thought I heard something tear. "No such luck. Here." He tossed me his gun. "Cover me while I get to the trunk."
I had no idea what he might have stashed in the trunk, but I didn't have a better plan, so I popped up from behind the car and let them have it. Couldn't hit a damn thing, but I kept their heads down. I emptied both guns and hit the dirt again. I looked over to the kid. He'd popped the trunk and had this big cannon-like thing over his right hand, with a cable connecting it to the back of his neck. The thing on his hand was squirming, like it was alive.
Then the place lit up like the Sun had just exploded. He hosed them down with a beam of purple-white energy that went right through whatever they were hiding behind. They didn't even have time to scream. The wonders of German engineering.
As I was blinking the spots out of my eyes, he sat down hard next to me, yanked the cable out of the back of his neck, and puked his guts out onto the street.