part0020

Here, in this pocket of serenity, surrounded by the sights and smells of nature, Ming could almost forget the weather wars that raged only a few hundred kilometers away.

The house itself had the feel of a castle, with an imposing stone exterior and a flagstone courtyard with a landing pad. But inside the building, her father had spared no expense in making the place modern. It was inside that she felt closest to him. He was a minimalist: there were rooms with nothing but a simple chair and lamp sitting on the warm bamboo floors—except when it came to his workshop. There, her father’s creativity reminded Ming of Viktor’s hoarder style of working on multiple projects at once.

Jie Qinlao had come to this country house when he needed to be alone. And now it was Ming’s fortress of retreat.

No, not retreat, she told herself. Rebuilding.

In the gymnasium, she could tell the time of day by the light coming through the narrow, horizontal windows high up on the walls. In the early morning, the windows facing east glowed pink, then a bar of golden light crept down the wall. In the afternoon, the process reversed itself in the western-facing windows. If the sun was especially strong that day, she could see a whirlwind of dust motes glowing in the shaft of clean light.

She trained with Ito in the early morning, when the sun was still high on the wall, perfecting his blended martial arts version of hand-to-hand combat. He’d started teaching her this style when she was just eight, the training tuned just for her size, speed, and strength. All her life, Ming’s opponents had almost always been larger than her. Her opponent, the theory went, had more reach and more power than her, so her style must strip away those advantages. She must get close and work inside the enemy’s range of motion. Hit hard, hit fast, hit often, and then get back out.

Balance was the cornerstone of Ito’s style of fighting. Without the ability to control every micro-move such that she could stay on her feet, any opponent worth their chopsticks would kick her ass every time.

For the first week, Ito had her do nothing but balance on one foot. Lean forward, lean back. Raise the free leg and grasp the outstretched big toe. Between the gravity working on her weakened muscles and the damage to her inner ear from the MoSCOW integration, the first few days were both painful and humiliating. Ito caught her hundreds of times in addition to the hundreds of times she crashed to the mats when working on her own.

But she got better. The muscle-building drugs helped, as did the acupuncture to stabilize the nerves of her inner ear.

When Ito was satisfied, they moved on to light sparring. Even with the pads, her weakened body still bruised. More drugs, more ice baths, more massages. She relearned the basics of the style again as if she was eight years old and just forming the muscle memory by repetition.

She lost track of the days. Ming’s complete focus was on herself. Echo was locked away in a room in her mind.

When she was strong enough, Ito sent her on a morning run around the stone-walled perimeter of the estate. The first day was a walk-run combination, mostly walking, but she reveled in the smell of the dewy greenery from the tea leaves. Within a few days, she was running the full perimeter.

Weekly visits from a cosmeticist rejuvenated her hair growth and blended the skin grafts so she recognized her reflection in the mirror.

They shifted to traditional sparring, full contact. Ming took a beating three days in a row but refused to move her training schedule backwards. On the fourth day, she bested her master in two out of three rounds.

Ito licked a trickle of blood from his split lip. “My Little Tiger has returned.”

Ming grinned but said nothing. Ito beat her on the next bout, but she made him work for it. She parried his thrust, spun her way inside his reach, and nailed an elbow into his gut. But before she could make her escape, his strong hand locked on to her free wrist and twisted. Ming felt her feet leave the ground as her body followed the sudden movement. She tried to counter, but Ito had gravity on his side and the mat rushed up to smack into her face.

Suddenly Echo was in her head, twisting her body, sweeping Ito’s legs. She felt him crash to the floor next to her and she leaped on his chest, her arm raised to strike downward in a finishing blow.

Ito’s eyes widened with surprise. “How did you do that?”

Ming lowered her hand. In all her time at the estate, she had pushed Echo aside, focusing on her own independent health. In order to tame the voice in her head, she needed her strength first. She rolled off his chest and to her feet.

“A reaction, that’s all. Instinct.”

Ming experienced a surge of energy in her limbs, the tips of her fingers tingling. It felt as if she’d suddenly leveled up in her skills, allowing Echo to kick in like some kind of ninja afterburner.

Ito got to his feet. He beckoned to her. “Again.”

His movements felt ridiculously slow and telegraphed. Parry, parry, kick-punch, parry, spin. She seized his forearm and slammed him to the floor with more force than was necessary.

He got to his feet more slowly this time, favoring his shoulder. “You’ve changed. What happened?”

Ming shrugged. A flush of embarrassment swept up her neck as she realized how much she enjoyed putting Ito on the mat. He was an old man, she realized. And one who had given up his own freedom to help her heal.

When she’d first set up this scheme to come home, she just told Ito she needed his help. Never asking, never assuming he would even consider refusing her demands. She’d never even told him why.

And now she was making him eat mat like some spiteful child.

“I’m sorry.” The words came out of her mouth with the threat of tears to follow. Ming tried to rein in her emotions, but failed. What was the matter with her?

Ito rolled his shoulder. “I’ll live. You worry me, Little Tiger. You are a knife without a sheath, I fear. A blade that cuts without meaning to.”

Ming thought about his words on her run later that morning. A few months ago, she wondered if she would ever walk again. Now, Ming was throwing her old instructor to the mat with impunity. She was indeed a weapon again, a force to be reckoned with.

The integration with the supercomputer known as MoSCOW had given her abilities, she could feel them, but had it changed her? The ground flashed beneath her feet as she ran faster and faster. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

MoSCOW, as painful as it was, had made her stronger, given her skills she’d never dreamed of … but had it made her better?

Better than what?

She skidded to a halt, a cloud of dust catching up to her now-still feet. Echo was silent in her head, another testament to the completion of her integration with MoSCOW. Ming Qinlao had been reborn into … into what?

Ming told herself that her father’s death was what compelled her, but that wasn’t what had changed her. In the string of events leading to this moment, Ming never would have gone on the mission with MoSCOW were it not for Anthony Taulke’s lies. Her life would be completely different but for that deception.

She never would have left Ruben alone. MoSCOW would still be an experiment locked in Viktor Erkennen’s lab. Elise Kisaan would have died in the explosion of the Neo space station.

And her father would still be dead.

All but for the lies of Anthony Taulke. His deception had set her on this course. She would avenge her father’s death, but then her path led her back to Anthony Taulke’s doorstep.

She felt the sting of sweat in her eyes, the sound of her breath, the smell of fresh tea leaves ripening in the morning sunshine. And she felt clarity of purpose.

The old Ming Qinlao was dead, replaced by a version that was half computer, half woman, and all business.

A Qinlao aircar passed overhead and lowered over the landing pad within the walls of the house. Ming sprinted home.

He bowed to Wenqian and spoke to her. If he had been facing Ming, Echo would have allowed her to read his lips, but his back was to her. Her mother, on the other hand, was facing in her direction.

The old woman was slumped in her chair, her body no more than a slack bag of bones and sinew. But her mother’s lips said to Ito: “I will see her now.”

So her mother hadn’t been fooled by Ming’s faked death and had tracked her here. Ming’s gaze swept the small room where she stayed, alighting on the 3-D picture of Ming and her father and the butterfly.

That was the only possible answer. It was the only item she’d brought with her from Shanghai. In spite of the situation, Ming smiled at the craftiness of her mother. The old woman had deliberately shown the picture to Ming, knowing it would prove irresistible to her daughter.

Ming blew out a breath at the ceiling. For all her newfound strength and clarity, meeting with her mother filled her with a dread she could not explain.

Ito appeared at the door. He saw the picture in her hand and his eyes narrowed for a split second. “Your mother wishes to see you.”

“You told her I’m not here, of course.”

A ghost of a smile. Ito stepped back to let her pass into the hallway.

Her mother’s lips twisted as her daughter walked into the room. The old woman had slumped over in her chair, her shoulder and the side of her face pressed against the cushion. Ming gently centered her and tucked pillows around her frame to keep her upright. Her ribs felt like a sack of loose twigs under Ming’s fingers. Her mother nudged away the amplifier with her chin—the extent of her range of motion. She normally used the amplifier to conduct a conversation with someone more than a foot or two from her face. She could still speak, but it came out as a whisper.

Ming lowered the chair and sat on the arm. She stroked her mother’s thin gray hair.

“It is good to see you,” her mother whispered. “And unexpected, as well. Your funeral was beautiful.”

“I’m sorry,” Ming said automatically. She wasn’t, and it showed.

“You’re not.”

“No, I’m not.”

Wenqian started to slump again and Ming held her up. Her rheumy eyes locked with Ming’s and held on.

“This is about your father,” she said.

Ming nodded. “I’ve changed, Mama. I can’t explain it.”

“I never should have given you that video. I was afraid…” She took a break, wheezing slightly. “I thought I might not see you again.”

Ming chuckled. “If I hadn’t stolen the picture, you might not have seen me again.”

Wenqian’s laugh was a sputtering of breaths. “I know you, Ming-child.”

“You knew me, you mean.”

Her mother’s chin wavered—her version of shaking her head, Ming knew.

“You are my daughter. That will never change, no matter the circumstances…” More wheezing. Ming found the old woman’s oxygen feed and looped the tube under her nose. The old woman breathed with her eyes closed, then opened them again with an effort.

“I see things in you. Your natures are stronger now—and at war. You are half angel and half animal. One will win.”

Ming let a flash of anger show through. “She killed my father, Mama. She deserves what is coming to her.”

“It’s not her I’m worried about, Ming. It’s you. Which side will win?”

Ming scowled. “You started this, Mama. I will finish it.”

“I was wrong. Nothing will bring your father back.” She pressed a slim disk into Ming’s hand. “A life taken cannot be restored.” Her hand nudged at Ming’s thigh, a signal to move.

Ming stood and her mother engaged the chair’s drive.

“Goodbye, Ming.” The old woman’s amplified voice felt cold and impersonal as it echoed throughout the room. The chair disappeared out the door.

Ming stayed where she was until she heard the engines on the aircar hum into life. A shadow traversed the window as the vehicle took to the air.

She held her palm flat, held the disk up to the light. It was carved from green jade, a simple medallion in the combined teardrop shape of the traditional yin-yang symbol.

Half the medal was creamy white-green and carved with an angel’s wing. The other half was a deep green jade, almost black in places, with the face of a snarling wolf.

Half animal, half angel.

The same crackle of energy and purpose she had felt on her run earlier surged back. Ming found a silver chain and attached the medallion. The disk hung heavy, centered over her breastbone.

Half animal, half angel. One will win.

It was time to decide which one.