part0023

Ming crouched in the shadow of a stone wall, letting the night sounds flow around her. A rat scampered across the faint cone of light thrown by the lamp hanging over the cobblestone street. The lights were of the made-to-look-old variety, fashioned in the shape of an ancient lantern possibly carried by some historical figure.

The building on the other side of the twelve-foot-high wall was like that. New, but made to look ancient. Except for the square, one-story structure in the center. That one was real. Once upon a time it had been the home of her Qinlao ancestors. Ming’s father’s grandfather had been a farmer, and the brick and stucco building with the red tile roof ornamented with fanciful dragons on the corners was real.

She remembered her father’s amused comments about her Auntie Xi’s passion project. Her aunt had found the old Qinlao homestead and moved it to Shanghai. Every brick and carved dragon head was disassembled, restored, and rebuilt in detail in her compound outside of the city.

But that was not enough for Xi Qinlao. With the three-room structure at the center, she built an entire village around it. Wherever possible, she used native materials, but when those were not available she created authentic replicas. Hence the lamps that lit her authentic alleys so poorly.

She pressed her cheek against the stone, feeling the vibrations on the other side of the wall. The heavy tread of a man’s boot, an aircar passing overhead, the faint sound of music. All the sounds of a household settling in for the night.

Ming stood, pressing her back against the wall. She was wearing the skintight MoSCOW suit, the new one from Viktor. He had made many improvements. The haptic sensors embedded in the suit exterior sang with data about the night around her, so much so that she had to use Echo to manage the flow. The body armor moved with her like silk over skin. And the camouflage system worked now.

She lifted the hood and dropped it over her head so the leading edge came just to her eyebrows. A simple command to Echo and Ming Qinlao became a hole in the darkness.

Ming scaled the wall in two bounds, feeling the suit augment her muscles. She crouched atop the wall for a second, then dropped lightly to the ground.

The deserted alley around her was barely lit by more of the ancient-looking lanterns. She knew enough not to be fooled by the low-tech shell of this faux village. Any guards she encountered would be well-armed and using infrared enhancements, so the light wasn’t really necessary for them to do their jobs. In her MoSCOW suit, Ming would appear like a dim silhouette of a woman-shaped ghost.

But she had no intention of meeting a guard face-to-face. With a quick leap, she landed on the roof of a one-story building. The red clay tiles looked black in the dark. She carefully climbed to the peak of the roof. These tiles were made of heavy ceramic and held in place by gravity. A false step could loosen one and cause the kind of noise that would make even the most inattentive guard look up.

She ran lightly along the roof peak, the soft tread of her suit gripping the narrow capping tiles. Auntie Xi’s compound was laid out in rings like the Forbidden City, all encircling the center humble dwelling where the Qinlao dynasty had begun. At the end of the first building, Ming leaped across the space to the second row of buildings, then a third and a fourth.

Her breath sang in her throat and Ming felt the rise of invincibility in her chest. The jade medallion given to her by her mother was layered between her suit and the bare skin of her body, leaving a dead spot in her senses. Fitting, Ming thought as she launched across another row of buildings.

And then she was at her destination. Ming engaged Echo to help her assess the low-slung building at the center of the compound. Cracked stucco covered baked clay bricks. A lintel of cut stone hung over the open doorway. Golden light spilled onto the courtyard and the twanging sound of a zither floated into the night.

Ming shook her hooded head. Her Auntie Xi was a woman in conflict with herself. By day, she was the picture of modernity, the hard-bitten executive who reveled in the intricacies of finance. By night, she retreated to an ancient replica house to play an even more ancient instrument.

Another careful scan of the area showed no guards, no cameras, no drones, no security of any kind. Ming dropped to the ground. She would have expected her Auntie Xi to have better security.

The mournful sound of the zither wound into the night. A vague memory tugged at Ming. An image of her mother—before she was taken ill—playing the same instrument. It stopped her. What was she doing here?

Ming eyed the doorway, then flattened herself against the wall of the building. The time for second thoughts was past. She stepped into the doorway.

The square front room of the homestead house was lit by another of the faux lanterns. The rough stone floor of the entranceway gave way to thick woven mats, undoubtedly made from authentic wild grasses. The walls were dull yellow plaster, with faint trowel marks frozen in the material. Facing her on the far wall was a framed photograph. Not a modern 3-D live photo, but an old-timey printed photo in fading sepia. It showed a boy and girl, grinning madly for the camera. The boy was missing his front teeth, which would have put him at about seven years old. The girl was older and taller with long dark hair.

Ming peeled back her hood and disengaged the camouflage mode of her suit, making her fully visible to the woman playing the zither.

Ming smiled at her, enjoying the rush of emotion that surged inside her chest. Pride at having fooled the old woman. Satisfaction that her plan had worked. And an icy rage to underpin all of it.

Auntie Xi shifted. Ming watched her every movement. Echo was on full alert. Her aunt surely had a security signal with her staff for emergencies. She’d probably already sent it.

“He gave you everything you ever wanted.” Ming pointed at the photo. “You were poor kids and he gave you wealth beyond your wildest dreams. And yet that wasn’t enough for you.”

Xi struggled to her feet. She was wearing traditional dress, a long heavy robe with a woven belt. She even dressed the part when playacting history, but Echo flagged the jade brooch on her lapel as oddly out of place in this setting. The zither belched out a twanging chorus as her knee bumped it.

“I loved my brother,” she said in a heated voice. “You know that, Ming. Whatever I did, I did for him and for our legacy.”

Ming’s gaze ran over her aunt’s face. Her aging skin was stretched tightly across her cheekbones, her thin lips a red slash in her face, her deep green eyes flashed with anger, and her dark hair was pulled back into a bun.

“Ming.” The woman’s voice faltered and Echo detected a provincial accent breaking through under the stress. “You’re hurting me.”

The brooch. Ming snatched the pin from the woman’s lapel and crushed it between her fingers. The cracked shell revealed a camera.

The woman squealed in pain as Ming twisted her head to look for the transmitter buried in her ear. She tossed the impostor hard against the wall and the counterfeit Xi collapsed to the floor.

Ming spun, whipping the hood over her head and engaging camouflage mode at the same time. She could hear the quiet tread of boots on the cobblestones in the courtyard, the suppressed breathing of soldiers, the smell of their weapons.

The suit, sensing the spike of adrenaline in her body, tightened around her muscles. Her mind raced as Echo searched for options. The narrow window was the obvious escape port. They would have that covered.

She spied the stone lintel over the door. It stuck out a bare four centimeters from the plaster wall. In a flash, she snatched up the lantern and hurled it out the window, then spidered up the wall and stretched her body over the door. She dug her fingers into the plaster and held on.

The lantern through the window had the desired effect of drawing their attention. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the sounds around the building. Eight … nine … ten people were out there.

A whispered instruction, the crunch of boots on stone. Ming knew what was coming next. She clenched her eyes shut, thankful for the protective hood over her ears.

The blast of the concussion grenade nearly dislodged her from the wall. Nearly. Ming struggled to catch her breath but hung on. Crushed plaster sifted between her fingers to the floor.

There were three in the first wave. The first man through the door put a three-round burst into the impostor’s body without a second thought, the second person swept the opposite side of the room, while the third stopped directly below Ming in the doorway.

She dropped her legs onto his shoulders and twisted his head sharply to the right. Using the momentum of his fall, she hit the floor on her back and used her legs to hurl his limp body at the second man. They crashed back into the zither, releasing a cacophony of discord.

The third guard—a woman, Ming realized—had her weapon up, searching for a target. She sprayed the room at waist height to avoid hitting her prone companions.

But Ming, still in camouflage, was on the floor. She reached up to grip the barrel of her rifle, then swept the guard’s feet out from under her. She hit the floor hard, but rolled instantly, avoiding Ming’s heel strike where her face would have been.

Ming’s next punch knocked her back against the wall, silencing her call for help. She pounced on the fallen soldier, but the woman would not give up. Her frantic fingers tried to find Ming’s eyes and tore back her hood instead. With a final frustrated cry, Ming smashed her fist into the woman’s face.

She whipped the hood back in place to find that it was torn. Ming cursed as another soldier came through the door. She took him out with a swift kick across the face, then launched herself through the broken window.

The cobblestones of the courtyard were rough across her back as Ming broke her fall with a somersault. A lone soldier was in charge of guarding this side of the courtyard. He saw the flash of movement from her damaged camouflage suit and fired immediately.

In the slow-motion processing of Echo, Ming saw sparks from two bullets hitting the cobblestones skip away from her before the third impacted her torso and she was thrown backwards into the shadows.

Ming saw the stars in the night sky winking above her. She smelled damp stone and dirt as she drew in a fresh breath. The body armor had saved her, but the camouflage of the suit was failing. Any second now, she’d be completely exposed.

He turned on a light on the barrel of his weapon and the spotlight searched back and forth as he tried to find her in the shadows. Ming’s hand crept to the carbon smartglass knife she kept on her calf. If she drew it too soon, he’d see the movement. Echo made her reflexes fast, but not faster than a bullet.

The spotlight was a meter away now … still too far. Her grip tightened on the hilt of the knife. Any second now, he’d see the spot where her hood was torn.

Ming turned off the camouflage and she sprang into existence right at the soldier’s feet. He recoiled in fright, just as she had hoped. His rifle went off, mere centimeters from her head, but she was already moving.

From between his legs, she stabbed upwards, searching for the femoral artery. She felt a gush of warmth flow over her gloved fingers and she slid behind him. He tried to spin around, to engage her again, but she nailed him in the back with both feet.

Camouflage broken, hurting from the bullet hit to her armor and covered in a man’s blood, Ming shimmied up the nearest pillar and rolled onto the tile roof. Beneath her, the courtyard erupted in confusion as they discovered the dead soldier.