J.C. Hsyu is a Taiwanese-American author who has worked in animation, tech, and live action VFX. Her urban fantasy and cyberpunk stories have appeared in Sword & Sorceress XXVI, The Future Fire, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and her picture book, The Dinner That Cooked Itself, is a retelling of a magical Chinese folk tale about doing good work and eating delicious food. Currently writing a trilogy of xianxia novels, she lives in California with her husband and daughter and can usually be found online (@jchsyu) rambling about anime, film adaptations, and stationery supplies.
There was a fresh splash of blood, throat-level, on the concrete column beneath the 5 Freeway overpass where Pug was supposed to have been waiting for her. She wouldn’t have given it a second glance, not in this part of town—where the handicapped parking signs were full of bullet holes—if she hadn’t been late to meet Pugilist in the first place. In their line of work, being late, even by seconds, was grounds for termination. Not just because the clients of PpalliPpalli Couriers paid hefty premiums to guarantee their confidential data was transmitted without interruption; no, it was because they were fucking couriers. Rep was everything, and PpalliPpalli Couriers’s was spotless.
Well, had been.
She hated the way Pug chewed with their mouth open and especially when Pug elbowed her shoulder multiple times during each conversation, but like her, Pug was reliable and had never missed a point-to-point transmission before. And now, Pug was MIA and possibly hurt or dying; there was a dead signal on her—both of their—hands; and it was her fault. Of all the nights she had ever been on call, when she was actually somewhere that was not her apartment in the Valley, at a place that was not a dive bar. Of all the goddamn nights a client specifically asked for Optimist Cleaver to anchor a transmission, she had missed the call from dispatch because she had been signing paperwork at the mortuary. Because she had found Da Ge, after two long years of searching, and could finally pay her respects.
She looked at the column again, a third and final time, because someone had also drawn her call sign beneath the wet arc using the same paint: a squat, square butcher’s knife, dripping possibly-Pug’s blood in a florid pool of light from a nearby streetlamp. She blinked hard at her bloody call sign, stored the image locally before smearing it with her hand. Like the signals she and other couriers like Pug bounced point-to-point across town, at randomly assigned locations like a concrete column beneath the 5 Freeway overpass, it was only meant for one recipient. Never for broadcast.
The shoulder strap of her sling backpack buzzed across the middle of her chest; she gripped the wooden handle extending downward from its custom sheath. The haptics were acting up again. “Easy, easy,” she said and turned around slowly, taking in her surroundings.
Behind her was the vast empty parking lot of a Home Depot, tucked against Amtrak lines bordering the LA River. There were stacked shipping crate storage units across the road, surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire. To her left at the north end of the triangular parking lot there was an IHOP, a McDonald’s, and a taco truck, lights blazing. The road to the right ended in a turnaround, dimly visible just beyond the overpass, dotted with solitary figures hawking their illicit wares in silence. The cement pillars surrounding Optimist were covered in graffiti; the drying blood that had made up her call sign was nearly indistinguishable from one tag to the next. But she could have clocked that call sign anywhere. She just hadn’t seen it in years.
A repurposed meter maid three-wheeler with its doors ripped out, reeking of spray paint, the color—colors?—indistinguishable in the glaring orange light of the streetlamps, came to a stop at the curb in front of her. The driver’s left leg was propped up, with dirty toes splayed against the dash. “Hey,” she said, pulling the blunt out of her mouth, “heard of a garage sale nearby?”
“At four in the morning,” Optimist deadpanned. She kept her grip on the handle.
The woman coughed, spewing smoke. “You never know, right?” she croaked.
Optimist pointed toward the turnaround with her free hand.
“Oh shit, yeah, I guess so.” The woman laughed and sped off as quickly as a rickety filing cabinet on three wheels could.
The freeway above was quiet—they all were now, after the pandemic developed more strains than vaccines—and the automated bird alarm calls from the Home Depot dominated, echoing against the cement around her. The early morning was brisk, just starting to warm, and the moon was fading above Chavez Ravine to the west.
Letting go of the handle, Optimist walked to the edge of the Home Depot parking lot where she’d left her m-cycle. Hopped on and freed her helmet from its dock between the handlebars, thumbed the ignition. Pulled on the matte-black SYM helmet and pushed her face mask into its housing with a click, flush with the shell, as the m-cycle displays flared neon across her visor.
She had to call in the dead pulse. Reputation first.
K-pop blared in her inner ear for two minutes before her channel was accepted with a click. She took a deep breath. “Hey, boss, it’s Optimist.”
“Omigod Tim hi!” Kipeum had made a huge deal out of coming up with the nickname, but everyone on the roster knew it was because she couldn’t pronounce “Optimist” correctly without losing face as the owner and manager of PpalliPpalli Couriers. “What’s up I sent you an anchor gig a few minutes ago did you have a question or need anything.” She combined her sentences in breathless combinations of questions and orders because time was money in their line of work, and also because she only ever drank black coffee. There was always a rapid-fire tempo of mechanical keys in the background; she was also the main dispatcher.
Optimist rode north up the 5, weaving through piles of debris, abandoned cars, and occupied tents in the darkness. The freeway lights had been decommissioned for parts, and to encourage wildlife to return. “I, uh, missed the handoff from Pug. We got a dead pulse.”
“What the fuck Tim are you all right wait no you wouldn’t be calling but I’m still going to kill you okay so how did this happen when you were on call and like supposed to be waiting?”
She worked her mouth silently as she chose her next words. If she could talk Kip into assigning her at least one leg of another P2P, she’d finally have enough to pay the sexton at the mortuary. “I showed up late. Really fucking sorry, Kip, and I’ll do whatever it takes to—”
“Oh god just save it for when you tell me why you were late now let’s take a look what is the fucking job code?”
Optimist shuddered preemptively at the idea of explaining this fuckery in Kipeum’s cluttered office at some point later on. Kipeum was young and brilliant, forging her own path outside of her family’s shipping chaebol, and had a way of turning even the simplest of questions into pointed, soul-withering judgments. “Job code 91.3.01.”
Tapping ensued, faster than ever. Once at a bar Kip had shouted into Optimist’s ear that she typed 120 wpm and Optimist, who had no idea what that meant, had enthusiastically nodded, “Fuck!” Kip had giggled and flashed double peace signs.
“Holy shit good news it’s not a dead pulse it’s still active oh thank god we don’t have to contact the client anyways you’re still not out of trouble so don’t get too fucking comfortable.”
She let go of a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “What are we looking at, Kip?”
“Oh my god Tim we still have time before the end of transmission holy shit you might be able to live I mean we might be able to make it through this Tim!”
“Fuck yeah, Kipeum. Send me the coordinates to the end point. I’ll pick up the signal from Pug and bounce it home.” She blinked at the numbers Kip sent to her. “Wait, are you serious? You’re not fucking with me?” The points in a P2P transmission were randomly generated in locations few and far between across New Angeles County; it was why PpalliPpalli Couriers only employed m-cycle riders who could consistently dodge CHP. Three months ago, Optimist lost two patrol cars in Angeles National Forest to make an eighty-five-mile connection from Lancaster to Torrance in forty-eight minutes and twenty-three point five seconds. Kip bought her coffee for a week afterwards.
The end coordinates for job code 91.3.01 matched the location where Optimist had been half an hour ago—a few miles southeast, in Boyle Heights, meeting the sexton—instead of meeting Pug beneath the 5 overpass.
“Do I sound like I’m in the mood to fuck with you Tim I am not in the mood when the reputation of PpalliPpalli Couriers is on the line okay—”
“Sorry, sorry.” She swerved hard to avoid the sudden appearance of a shambling figure pushing a wheelbarrow from behind a car. Her pulse was erratic and her palms were sweating in her gloves. “I was just surprised at how close it is to the previous point. Gotta be a new record. Time to end point?”
“Okay yeah this is also really fucking weird it’s at nineteen hundred twelve tonight.”
“Nineteen twelve?” The day’s stats flashed across her visor. “That’s sunset.”
“But I don’t get it Tim why is there half a day’s lag between points this close together I mean I’ve never heard of this shit before have you?” The whole idea behind P2P was to get a message across town, undetected, in the least amount of time. Ninety minutes was the longest Optimist had ever been given between points.
“Never have I ever, Kip.”
“Ah well who cares I guess you have a bunch of time on your hands maybe you should take the opportunity to reflect on your mistakes and settle your affairs I mean no offense you know I love you Tim okay?”
“None taken. Hey, um . . . ” She gripped the handle on her shoulder strap absently; she was fucked anyways, might as well dig a deeper hole with her boss. “You haven’t heard from Pug, have you?”
Suddenly, Kip stopped typing. It was the longest silence in the short and glorious history of PpalliPpalli Couriers. “Why do you ask you’re the one missed the P2P and what is it did you see something is it Pug should I be worried Tim goddamit?”
“No, Kip. I’m sure they’re fine. Everything’s fine. I was just checking.” Of course she couldn’t mention the splash of blood above the cleaver. Not yet.
The machine-gun typing picked up again. “I haven’t heard from them but their signal is still up it’s just southeast of you which is weird I mean doesn’t Pug live in Montebello but you know what I bet you Terri will know.”
Optimist felt a sliver of tension release from her armored shoulders but it was temporary, worth nothing in the bigger picture. “Copy that. I’ll catch up with them and then lay low until sunset.” She checked the readout in the lower corner of her visor for exits. When the highway shield for the 2 due north appeared she upshifted; she could take that to the 134 and head east toward Pasadena, then back south to San Marino, where Terri worked. “I’ll fix this, boss.”
For once Kipeum didn’t answer with a stream of insults and orders before collapsing the channel mid-sentence. “Godspeed, Tim,” she said quietly.
She had to find out if Pug was all right. And then, if Pug was still speaking to her, find out what happened beneath the 5 Freeway overpass. Thing was, Pugilist never picked up calls; like Optimist, they only ever channeled out. But Tarantella—“Terri” being another of Kip’s convenient nicknames, natch—usually knew where Pug could be found. They were more or less exclusive, having met in a troupe that dressed in period costumes and took pictures at historical locations across New Angeles when they weren’t hired out for parties. Tarantella was an African-Italian exchange student studying costume design and Korean cinema, living in Alhambra and working as a docent in the botanical gardens at The Huntington in San Marino. She only smiled for photos at work or with the troupe, and she had sullenly mumble-slurred at the PpalliPpalli Couriers holiday bar crawl months ago that Optimist “seemed cool for an older lady, but not just because, you know, the Asian thing.”
Tarantella was also the only choice because she was most likely to be awake at this time. To beat the afternoon brownouts The Huntington opened at sunrise in spring and summer, and Optimist was able to pull in soon after the gates were unlocked. She hurried along paved footpaths toward the back corner of the property, where the newest garden had been wedged between the considerable Japanese and Australian Gardens: the Royal Bumbershoot Society’s Umbrella Garden.
It was easy to sight the white parasol of the docent, held aloft in a white fishnet glove before a group of sleepy tourists in pastel shades of full PPE. Optimist kept her black helmet on, her mask and visor opaque.
“Good morning, good morning. Watch your step, please, and stay on the gravel path at all times. There is no touching allowed except for designated umbrellas that have signs—those are mature and ready for harvest. The youngest shoots are very impressionable and contact can manifest permanently in their canopies right away. Then we have to quarantine them before they’re fully grown, and the uprooting process can be very traumatizing for shoots of a certain age. Thank you for your cooperation, and welcome to the Royal Bumbershoot Society’s Umbrella Garden, sponsored in part by the Eumenides Foundation. My name is . . . ” the docent paused and then laboriously read her name tag “ . . . Tiffany, and I will be your guide today.”
Optimist snorted. The docent’s Edwardian-era bonnet whipped in her direction; Tarantella marked her helmet, yanked her face net aside, and glowered at Optimist before turning back to the group. “Now, our tour starts, of course, in the Classic Garden. They grow straight and monochrome, just like the first-generation umbrellas some of you may remember from before the rains stopped. They were the first to be planted by the Royal Bumbershoot Society and have bred true from lab to soil; they have never shown signs of coloration. Next are the Pockets, which are very loyal and sweet and come in all shades and patterns. You can pet the adult in the corner, the brown plaid. You’ll find it may lean into your hand . . . ”
The sky was paling further as the sun rose higher and the air grew warmer. Optimist began making her way through the crowd, moving closer to the white parasol with each stop.
Tarantella refused to look in her direction. “And now behind me over there, you may have noticed we moved another set of gardens around. We had to separate the Cocktail Umbrellas from the Bubble Umbrellas. The Cocktails, as you can see, while brightly colored and flamboyant, tend to wobble; we placed the Baldachins between them because the Bubbles were bumping the Cocktails on purpose and knocking them over.”
Optimist reached the front row of the group. Defrosted her visor. Touched her tragus, opened a subsonic channel. Terri. Hey.
Tarantella rolled her eyes, and Optimist could breathe easier. If she was still up to giving attitude that was a good sign. Which meant Pug was alive. “The Bumbershoot Society is of the opinion that although the Bubble Umbrellas have clear canopies and no other distinguishing features, they show some destructive tendencies and may be quite sociopathic in nature. Always show caution around Bubble Umbrellas.” A lace-gloved finger reached up to touch a delicate brown ear beneath the bonnet, accepting the call. And assholes like you,Tarantella hissed back without moving her lips.
Which meant Pug was badly hurt. Optimist’s grin waned quickly.
That’s right. Now fuck off, Cleaver. Tarantella turned away and addressed the group as she continued walking. “Pardon our mess; we recently secured a new round of funding that will allow us to double the size of the Umbrella Garden by next summer. You’ll definitely need to come back, you hear?” She lowered her umbrella and unfastened its strap gently. She didn’t open the canopy so much as it opened itself, the lace billowing upward as if lifted by an invisible breeze. “Now, here we are at the last garden. The best one, and my favorite, obviously!” She twirled the handle with a flick of her fingers as the tourists laughed, voices muffled behind their masks. “The Parasols are the most popular umbrellas here. They are great flirts, and they may look slight and dainty but they will not bend easily. And while they are independent, they can be very territorial.”
“What happened to that one?” a little girl asked, pointing to a small cordoned-off area on the furrows.
“Oh, that?” Tarantella said with a ghastly smile, stroking the canopy of her umbrella. “That parasol ate its neighbors. The Royal Bumbershoot Society is isolating it for further study.”
“What are you doing here?” Tarantella whispered angrily as she waved good-bye to the dissipating tour group.
She popped her mask out to speak. “How bad is it, Tarantella?”
“Go away, Tim! I have another group waiting.” Tarantella swung her parasol onto her shoulder with the precision of a rifleman as she marched back to the entrance of the Royal Bumbershoot Society’s Umbrella Garden.
Optimist hurried to catch up with her; Tarantella was a good head taller. “Look, I gotta know if Pug is okay. I’m really sorry about what happened—”
“Sorry?” Tarantella spun around so quickly that Optimist skidded to a stop on the gravel. Then skittered backward, to avoid the sharp tip of the parasol now pointed at her chest. Not that it would get past the plates in her jacket, but she could swear the umbrella hissed at her. She was glad she had locked the sling backpack inside the m-cycle’s storage compartment, away from the haptic signals the Royal Bumbershoot Society’s Umbrella Garden was giving off. “Is that it? You’re really sorry you set Pugilist up to get slashed?”
“What?” Seeing her call sign again had been a mild surprise, not completely unexpected—it had never been a matter of if, but when—but the accusation was an ugly shock. “I didn’t, Tarantella. I don’t know who that was, I showed up late and Pug was already gone.”
“Bullshit. Pug said it was someone wearing the same kind of SYM helmet as you, who said something weird and stupid like, ‘You can thank Cleaver for this,’ and pulled a knife. Luckily Pug got to the trauma clinic in time. Your friend missed a major artery by a centimeter. And now there are seventy-five stitches holding Pug’s face together!”
Optimist held up a hand, palm out. The only conciliatory gesture she would make.
“Well? The fuck you have to say for yourself?” Tarantella snapped.
“It wasn’t any friend of mine but it has to do with me. Tell Pug I am really fucking sorry they got caught up in my shit.”
The parasol shook a little, but stayed put. “And?”
There wouldn’t be much left over after she paid the sexton. She winced; the cats needed litter. “And tell Pug I will cover medical.”
Tarantella curled her lip. “On a courier’s pay? I’ll have better luck getting it covered as a student.”
“Is that where they are? One of your school’s hospitals?”
“Wow, Tim, I really don’t think you’re in a position to ask—”
Optimist grabbed the parasol, just below the tip that had been sharpened razor-thin; the umbrella was definitely hissing now. Tarantella gasped, pulling on the handle, but Optimist’s grip was firm. “You should go there, now, and stay with Pug. Don’t leave until I get there later today, do you understand?” She swung the parasol away from her. “And don’t let Kip know. I’m going to fix this.” If she repeated it enough, it was bound to happen.
Tarantella immediately began petting the shaking canopy of her parasol. Her large eyes narrowed behind the intricate net covering her face. “Who the fuck are you?” she asked. “What the hell kind of name is Optimist Cleaver anyway?”
The fascination in her tone was unsettling. Optimist pushed her mask back into place and turned the visor opaque again.
Keeping the clock readout bolded in her visor, she channeled the sexton as she headed back west toward the Valley. Most of PpalliPpalli’s couriers were based in Downtown or the West Side, close to Kipeum’s cluttered office above a ddeokbokki restaurant in K-Town, but Optimist preferred the enormous flat grid of the San Fernando Valley. Where there was always another side street, another strip mall parking lot, another alley to turn into, ride through, keep going. She had grown up in a small mountainside village with shacks and stairs and gangs carrying machetes. Nothing but dead ends.
The rising sun was a flat white disk in a gray sky, toasting the leather on her arms and shoulders; the readout in the upper corner of her visor read 36 C. “Padre Junior? This is O. Cleaver. We met earlier about the slot that just opened up? Yes, hello again.” She maneuvered around piles of brick, rebar, and concrete from highway sound walls shattered during the Glendale Galleria riots. “I wanted to check if the deposit went through. Okay, great. I’ll be able to pay the remaining balance by early evening. Will you still be there? I’d like to proceed with the display and begin Qingming as soon as the final payment goes through. Thanks so much.” A red m-cycle caught up to her on her left as the 134 transitioned into the 101, bordered by abandoned vehicle dealerships with half-dressed mannequins on the roofs. Another courier, from the burgundy-colored sling backpack between their shoulders; Optimist clasped her right forearm in greeting, and they did the same with a small nod. An e-truck rumbled past them both, the windows of its empty cab flashing ads for erectile dysfunction pills. A family van merged from an on-ramp. It was a little after 0800 hours, another normal rush-hour morning, but even four vehicles on the highway felt more crowded than usual. Optimist looked back to the red m-cycle.
Couriers mostly worked at night. She had rarely seen another one on the road in daytime.
There was a blur of movement as the m-cycle swerved close, then a flash, and a sharp pain lanced into her left shoulder. Her good arm. “Fuck!” she muttered. The red m-cycle pulled away, jerking across all four lanes and barely overcorrecting in time to take the nearest off-ramp. Optimist clocked the exit in her readout: Balboa Avenue. Not that it mattered, when you could shake anyone in the Valley, but it burned into her memory as a reminder that she needed to watch her back.
Blood dripped from her jacket cuff. Her shoulder was sliced open; she could feel the line of fire where the skin was separated, threatening to tear further. But, just in case, she passed a few more exits before she got off the 101 and took a meandering, roundabout way home. She didn’t realize she was lightheaded until she got off the bike; when she removed her helmet the ground pitched sideways along with it. “Goddamit,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. It wasn’t that she was hurt. She’d been through worse.
It was the MO. The pathetic slash-and-run tactic she had tried to abolish among the brotherhood. Er Ge had argued for keeping it. Da Ge had sided with her.
So it was a message. Now that Da Ge was gone, Er Ge could come after her in any which way he wanted.
Holding her left arm against her side, she walked slowly to the atrium lobby of the Golden Imperial apartment complex. The grizzled property manager was changing the bulbs in the recessed lights. “Hey, Jules,” she said, moving gingerly around the stepladder. Her voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. In the ancient marbled mirrors across from the mailboxes her face was pale, nearly green.
“Oh, hey!” he wheezed cheerfully through his dip-stained mustache and beard. Optimist nodded and headed to her apartment, the first door on the left along the fern-lined walkway. It took everything within her not to check if she was dripping blood, and she flinched when she heard Jules yell, “Dammit!” a split second before the sound of shattering glass filled the air.
Once inside she docked the helmet, hurried to the bathroom and slid onto the floor, shedding the backpack, her jacket, and shirt. She pulled down a towel for the blood. Her cats spilled into her lap as she tugged a battered tin case from the backpack. “Not now, Da Goh,” she muttered, pushing the chunky gray aside. It rolled into its long-haired sibling, who hissed. “You too, BunDan.” They eventually settled against her thighs as she cleaned, disinfected, and sewed shut the three-inch gash above her triceps. It was a good, clean cut from a short blade, possibly something as mundane as a box cutter. But her breath shook and sweat dripped into her eyes, and she nearly blacked out between stitches.
The blood didn’t bother her, it had always been more of a nuisance to clean up. Neither did the needle, when one lived long enough to receive multiple vaccinations every year. It was each pull at her skin and muscles as she sewed, the thick, deep pain of shredded tissue beneath the shrill echoes of severed nerves, that got to her. Back home, she had done the sewing on everyone else; with Da Ge’s knife training, no one had come close to breaking the surface of her skin. But here, now, this was bad fucking news. She hadn’t seen the motion in her periphery, never clocked the fist coming at her. She had entirely stopped paying attention to these kinds of things in the past two years.
When she finished, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes again until her mind and stomach stopped churning. Then she drank some water from the tap and sat down again, tossing the bloody towels into the sink. She pulled the cats into her lap and channeled out.
“Hey, Kip.”
“Fuck’s sake Tim I’m really busy well I’m always busy and I didn’t think I’d hear from you until later tonight did you find Pug and aren’t you supposed to be laying low?”
“About as low as I can get, Kip. Look, this job is a fake. The P2P transmission was never meant to complete.”
“Why would you even think that it’s not our job to think up shit like that our job is to do our job Tim are you not going to do your job?”
“Kip—”
“Tim you better not be asking me who the client is Tim.”
She just needed to know. “My arm was almost sliced off just now. While I was riding home. Someone on an m-cycle with a blade.”
The typing didn’t stop; couriers got jumped all the time over jobs, territory, and sometimes out of sheer boredom. “Well you called me so you’re fine and I’m still not telling you who the client is because hello we’ll get shut down by the Three Bs so go sleep it off and then finish the job okay Tim?”
She took a deep breath and tried again. Kip was susceptible to guilt trips once in a while, and it was in Optimist’s nature to keep trying to land just one, for posterity. “We can build a case for the Better Business Bureau, easy. These fuckers are setting me up. Not just me. Us. PpalliPpalli Couriers.”
“Are you out of your mind wait of course you are Tim that’s what makes you one of my best but hell no I still can’t divulge that information because laws and if it got out nobody would ever hire us again plus I fucking said no so go rest or whatever and did you find Pug well go find Pug and bounce the signal home and then we can talk okay seriously don’t call me again until it’s done I mean it love you Tim bye bye.”
Optimist pulled another clean towel from the rack, folded it into a makeshift pillow, and lay down on the bathroom floor. BunDan climbed onto her chest, purring loudly and kneading, and Dah Goh settled between her knees. She closed her eyes. The linoleum was cold against her upper arms. Her hips began to ache from turning out, and the back of her head was already going numb. Aside from the jagged throbbing in her shoulder, it was almost like sleeping on the floor at home when she was young. She could almost hear the rain outside, feel the narrow paws of her first cat, Xiao Mao, on her clavicle, smell the charcoal her family made and sold at the temple for extra money during the winters.
It was when things got worse—after the mainland seized Taiwan’s vaccine shipments, after her parents and brothers and sisters were carried to the white tents one by one and never came back, after she ran out of charcoal to sell—that Da Ge found her and took her in. At least, that was the story Da Ge had liked to tell. He said it was much easier than saying he caught a dirty, malnourished orphan stealing his lunch one day, brought her into the Tien Dao Meng brotherhood, and taught her to use a knife. “And don’t you ever mention I allowed you to keep the cat,” he would remind her with an infuriating tap to the back of the head. “It’s all about rep, you know.”
There were many good years after that, and every Qingming he paid his respects with her at her family’s shrine. Then Er Ge put an end to all that in one night, and she never saw Da Ge again.
But she couldn’t stay up any longer to reminisce—she was never able to pull all-nighters even when she was young—and a headache had formed somewhere between her right ear and her left eye. “Too old for this shit,” she said, scratching the round dome of fur between BunDan’s ears. There was a commotion to the side, a vibration she could feel through the cheap vinyl flooring. She reached out, searching until her fingers found her pack. The handle in the shoulder strap buzzed in short little spurts. She wrapped her fingers around it and pulled her pack close. “Shhh,” she whispered, “it’s fine. Everything will be fine,” and fell asleep.
She woke up a few hours later. The cats were gone and her bandage had soaked through. She switched the dressing and put food out for the cats—they were probably laid out on the balcony, the only spot in the apartment that got any sun—then she scoured the place for joss paper and incense. She couldn’t find shit. When was the last time she had stopped in Monterey Park?
When the charge readout on the back of the SYM was full she signaled Tarantella, who quickly replied with the location of her university’s hospital, managing to project resentment in less than 100 characters. Optimist suited up, slung her pack, and returned to the parking lot in the back of the apartment complex. There was no sign of Jules except for a small halo of shattered glass and dead moths on the threadbare, wrinkled brown carpet in the lobby.
She headed out toward the 101. Back east to the 134 and then south on the 5, weaving and dodging across the lanes. The debris changed in size and matter every day; at night the wheelbarrow hobos sold and moved and dumped their wares across the freeways, reshaping and obstructing veins and arteries that were too empty, too clear to bear. The Barrow Night Market had formed from looting abandoned vehicles trapped in the first mass exodus, but after the National Guard cleared the lanes, it had become a lifestyle, a form of political statement, even an art movement. Optimist had thought it clever for about a minute—a flower mural of cheerful workers in coveralls running beneath clouds that showed up one day along the southbound lanes in the Cahuenga Pass turned into a corpse-ridden scene of lightning-struck devastation the next—and then decided it was a permanent nuisance, a luxury, an affront. Insult to the lives that were left behind.
A few exits beyond the freeway overpass where she was supposed to meet Pugilist, near the 110 junction, she parked and approached the front doors of County/USC. Hundreds of people crossed her path, entering and exiting, adjusting their masks and sun hats; it was one of the busiest ER and trauma hospitals in the county. The readout in her visor was a stark tattoo against the cloudless, gray-white sky: 41C and just past 1400 hours. The heat didn’t bother her, no matter the intensity. It was nothing to a kid who grew up near the southernmost tip of the island, where it averaged 35C before monsoon season hit. When Da Ge finally reached out to her, ten years after he left Taiwan, it was the oncoming monsoon season, the plum rains—humidity that dampened the corners of your world, drowned you in blankets of heat and mosquitoes—that cemented her decision to leave Kaohsiung. To find Da Ge, in any way, shape, or form, and perform Qingming for him.
Pug had been moved from the ER to a regular outpatient room. Optimist found the room number she had been sent and entered, pulling the paisley curtain aside with one short yank.
Tarantella started and let out a little shriek from where she sat, cross-stitching, next to the gurney bed. “Doesn’t anyone knock in this fucking country? Oh . . . look who it is. Figures.”
Optimist removed her helmet, pulled a dingy brown chair up to the other side of the bed. “Hey, Pug.”
Half of Pug’s head was covered in bandages. Their one visible eye, large and brown and lined with thick lashes, blinked slowly. “Yo, Tim,” they said cheerfully through their flimsy hospital-issue mask. “They gave me the good drugs.”
“Only the best for you, Pugilist.”
“Oh please,” Tarantella grumbled.
Optimist pointedly continued to ignore her. “Listen, Pug, I’m glad you’re stable. I’m so sorry about what happened.”
“Yeah, it was pretty . . . ” Pug smacked their lips the way heavily medicated people did, slowly and loudly. “ . . . Yeah, that sucked,” Pug finished with a low chuckle. “Man, who did you piss off?”
“I think I know who it is, but I need to be sure so I can fuck them up for you, Pug.”
Pug waved an IV-needle-studded hand in the air. “Shit, I’m cool, Tim. Doc says I’ll look good as new. And aren’t you paying for this anyway? Maybe I’ll ask them for bigger lips.”
Optimist held back a laugh. She had forgotten how much fun Pug could be when they were under the influence. “Whatever you want, Pug. Now listen, I have a question for you. Can you remember what kind of knife it was?”
“What kind of . . . knife?” They scratched at where the bandages lay across their thick cap of black hair. “Oh man, I don’t know.”
“Think, Pug. Please.”
“Give me a sec.” Pug closed their eye, and began to snore.
Optimist finally looked at Tarantella, whose lips were pressed into a thin line. She raised her eyebrows and Tarantella buried her face in her lace gloves. “I’m not laughing,” she said, her voice muffled.
An hour later, Pug woke back up with a start. “Eh.” They blinked twice at Optimist, seemingly more alert. “Yo, Tim.” They smacked their lips. “When’d you get here? You been waiting?”
“Hey, Pug.” Optimist smiled. She put down her untasted cup of shitty hospital coffee. Holding the wilting paper cup had given her something to do while Tarantella cross-stitched furiously in silence. “I got here just now. How you feeling?”
“Better. They gave me the good drugs, yo.” Pug weakly elbowed her arm, and Optimist felt worse than ever. She handed a plastic jug filled with ice water to Pug, who slurped noisily at the straw.
“What happened to you is all my fault. I’m really fucking sorry.”
“Oh yeah,” Pug said, their voice climbing high with realization. “Yeah, where the fuck were you? You’re Kip’s number one, the fucking teacher’s pet. Optimist Cleaver never misses a P2P.”
“First time for everything.” Optimist grimaced. “I was meeting someone about something real important, and I didn’t get the dispatch in time. Simple as that. But I’m going to fix it.”
“Fix it?” Pug smiled. “What are you, some kind of vigilante?”
Optimist allowed herself to grin. “I’ve been called worse.”
“Hoo, does Kipeum know she got Batwoman working for PpalliPpalli? Or Batgirl or some shit?” Pug laughed, then grunted, stiffening. They lifted a hand to their bandaged face.
“Cleaver,” Tarantella interjected in her docent voice, “can you please move along? Pug needs to rest before their surgery.”
“All right all right, Tiffany, keep your fucking bonnet on.” As Tarantella sputtered angrily Optimist stood, thumped her helmet against her leg. Added, quietly, “Pugilist, the signal’s still live.”
“No fucking way.” Pug’s eye went wide. “It’s a dead pulse, yo, you weren’t there to bounce the signal on—”
“Turns out I was meant to anchor, and transmission doesn’t end until sunset tonight.”
“What the . . . Shit’s weird. I’ve never heard of a job like that, not from anyone on Kip’s roster. And you missed a P2P. The fuck’s going on?”
Optimist held out her right arm. “I’m trying to find out. You can bounce the signal to me now, Pug.”
Pug stuck their lips out and shook their head stubbornly, another thing that drove Optimist up the wall. “What’d Kip say?”
“C’mon, you know Kip. Show must go on.” Optimist bobbed her hand.
“For real? I don’t know, Tim, none of this sounds right.”
“I told you that,” Tarantella grumbled. “Repeatedly.”
“I know, mi amor, but—”
“Pug, I’m pretty sure this lookalike fucker who slashed your face will be waiting for me at the end point. I’ll give ’em the same greeting they gave you.”
“Yeah, but can you handle this? I mean, you’re—”
“Old enough to know what I’m doing. Yes, Pug.”
“Well, let the records show who said it first.” Pug grinned, raising their right hand. They clasped each other’s forearms in an easy, practiced grip. On contact, there was loud buzz of haptics and a high-pitched beep as the data bounced from one subdermal transmitter to the other. Each courier service had a different bounce; it had to be a simple gesture, easy and fast. M-cycle Metricians bumped fists, Bros on Bikes slapped shoulders, and Vicious Cycles even bumped helmets—a bounce that looked as dumb as it was impractical. Some of the best couriers picked their employers by the style of bounce. Optimist had picked PpalliPpalli because Kipeum had hired her on the spot, no questions asked, after she’d completed a test run. All the other services had asked how old she was; most couriers burned out by their late twenties.
“Watch your back, all right?”
“I will, Pug. Oh, and just one more thing,” she said, holding up an index finger. “Do you remember what kind of knife it was?”
“Aw, Tim, shit happened so fast.” Pug picked up the PCA pump controller. “I think . . . It wasn’t a big knife, but it was black. And it was . . . there was something over the fingers. Like a knuckle-duster.” They pressed the clicker twice, sighed happily as the painkillers surged down the tubing into their IV, and began snoring again.
Optimist touched their shoulder. “I’ll catch you later, Pug.” She headed to the door, then stopped and looked back. “Yes, Tarantella. Was there something you wanted to say to the back of my head?”
“Does the knife matter?” Tarantella asked, her cross-stitch needle poised in midair. There was a tiny, bright yellow plastic bow fused to the eye of the needle.
“Look, you did good, bringing Pug here. It’s crowded. Safe.”
Her cheeks flushed in confused pleasure behind her doily-covered face shield. “What are you . . . Of course we’re safe here, it’s—”
“Don’t leave this room. Order in. Remember it’s all on my tab, I gave the nurses my account info. Ask them to stop by every hour.”
“Optimist Cleaver, this isn’t witness protection in some fucking movie—”
Pug shifted and moaned in their sleep.
Tarantella snapped her mouth shut and threw the hoop at Optimist instead. “Tell me why the knife matters!” she hiss-whispered.
Optimist caught it with her free hand, looked at the pattern: “Vaffanculo” was stitched in hot-pink cursive, and flowers and songbirds were being added around the border. She shook her head, grinning, and tossed it back. “It’s a Mark I trench knife. Antique. Only people of a certain age carry them these days.” She put her helmet on and clicked in her mask, saluted, and left the room.
The shadows were long as Optimist pulled out of the LAC+USC parking lot and rode east along the 10, toward Monterey Park. She had just enough time to pick up Qingming supplies from the T S Emporium on Garvey Avenue before closing time and return to the end point by sunset. Some spry little grandmas were rifling through the remaining inventory when she arrived; despite their withering glares she managed to gather a small hand broom, a packet of joss paper bills, sticks of incense, a small censer, a bottle of plum wine, and a bag of shriveled mandarin oranges.
She hit traffic after merging back onto the 10, west toward Downtown. About ten vehicles had slowed to a stop as demonstrators blocked the westbound lanes with burning trash barrels. Optimist tapped the handlebars nervously as she watched the time readout in her visor against the fiery red New Angeles sunset. When the demonstrators began piling broken furniture into barricades, she sighed, “Fuck this,” and took off toward the median, where there was a small opening between a rotting wooden pallet and the concrete divider.
She didn’t expect the bat.
As she passed through the gap, a dark sliver of metal arced out and slammed into her stomach. She crumpled over and then toppled, crashing the m-cycle to the ground with her leg underneath it. Pinned against the median, she tried to catch her breath; ripped off her helmet and took in huge gulps of air. The demonstrators were gone. Optimist realized they hadn’t once chanted their cause or held up any signs.
The bat came into view, tapping the asphalt. Optimist looked up. “Fool me twice, shame on me,” she said. “Ever find that garage sale?”
The woman wasn’t dirty anymore, or barefoot, or smoking a blunt. Her wavy black hair was swept back into a neat ponytail. She was compact, muscled, and wearing a dark red moto jacket. She held a bright yellow plastic box cutter in her other hand. “More like third time’s the charm. How’s your shoulder?”
“It fucking hurts,” Optimist said. “Ah. Should have remembered that the newest recruits do all the grunt work.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. “Er Ge booked the P2P and waited for me to show up. Only I didn’t. So he slashed Pug and sent you to do recon. By the way, nice prop with the meter maid truck, but your line delivery needs work, Garage Sale.”
“Oh, fuck you—”
“Did he order you to slice up my good arm, too, or did you beg him for the chance?”
Garage Sale pushed the bat into her left arm, right at the wound site. “Quit yapping.”
Optimist winced. “I mean, B plus for effort, kid, but you do know you’re far from the boss level fight—”
The bat shoved; Optimist grunted as stitches tore. “You won’t make it that far.”
The handle on her sling backpack jittered and shook. “Not yet,” she murmured.
“What was that?” Garage Sale snapped, leaning forward. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five. Young, strong, and mean. Exactly what Optimist used to be.
It was just the part about being young that had changed. “Oh, are you having hearing problems, too?” She yanked on the bat with her left hand and whipped her right elbow up at the same time. As she had predicted, Garage Sale hung on to the bat like a stubborn child; her nose broke with a crack, a dry, precise sound like the snap of a wishbone.
Optimist pushed free of her m-cycle with one foot and used the bat to stand up as Garage Sale shrieked and fell to her knees, holding her hands to her face. “You should probably get your ears checked. I mean, you don’t want to end up like me, right?” She kicked the box cutter away.
“Fucking hell!” Blood poured out of Garage Sale’s nose. She exploded, lunging forward—she was so fast—and slammed Optimist against the concrete barrier.
“I don’t think you’re listening,” Optimist gasped, and kneed Garage Sale in the groin. It wasn’t hard enough to incapacitate but it was enough to surprise Garage Sale and make her stagger back a couple of steps. Enough for Optimist to wind up the bat and slam it against Garage Sale’s right shoulder, the arm she had wielded the box cutter with, and knock her over; the ponytail bounced as her head also knocked against the ground from the momentum. Stunned, she rolled on her back and looked up at Optimist, working her mouth silently. “Did that help shake out any ear wax? No? Too fucking bad.” Optimist leaned down, and suddenly she was very tired, very sore, and very angry. All she had wanted to do was finish her shift and spend some quiet time performing Qingming for Da Ge, after two years searching the world for him. His voice, once loud and lively, had been soft and hoarse on the channel. He had refused to tell her where he was, even after a decade of wandering; all he said was that he was dying.
Now, all she had to do was complete this last fucking transmission. “Listen to your auntie, if you can. There’s still time for you. You’re not bladed yet. You don’t have to work for these men. They are bad men, old men, following old, bad ways. And really—” she waved her hand at the young woman’s bloody face “—does this seem like it’s going that well for you?”
“You don’t know shit about me,” Garage Sale spat bloody froth at her.
Optimist hefted the bat in an upswing. The young woman flinched, and Optimist chucked the bat over the median. The metal clanged as it bounced across the lanes. “Back home, that—” Optimist pointed “—that would have been a machete. We wouldn’t have had all this time to chatty chat chat. There are no epic volleys in knife fights. Knife fights are ugly, messy, and they are usually over before you even realize they’ve begun. Do you even know what you’re being asked to do?” She turned and fetched her helmet, righted her m-cycle.
Garage Sale was on her knees, her hands to her face. “Second Brother is going to kill you,” she shouted through her fingers. The blood looked black in the dying light. “And I’m going to—”
“What’s that?” Optimist cupped an ear to her helmet. “Sorry, Auntie can’t fucking hear you,” she called over her shoulder as she rode away.
Without any further interruptions it was a short ride to Boyle Heights. Optimist exited Soto Street and headed south. Turned left at the King Taco #9 onto East Cesar Chavez, right at the Pizza Loca onto Evergreen Avenue. Finally, a turn into a humble wrought-iron driveway gate flanked by carved pedestrian entrances, into the oldest standing cemetery in New Angeles. There was a steady stream of funeral processions in both directions as she rode along the central palm tree-lined roadway, beneath a sky deepening from pink to purple; past the little stone chapel and funeral home; past the Black, Japanese, Mexican, Armenian, and Jewish sections; all the way to the far end of the cemetery, along Lorena Street, next to the crematorium. To the Chinese Cemetery Shrine, known more colloquially as the Potter’s Field, the largest mausoleum in Evergreen Cemetery and for tonight the last transmission point of PpalliPpalli Couriers Job 91.3.01.
Padre Junior was holding a time and visitation spot with her deposit; he would confirm as soon as he received the rest of the balance. She risked channeling her boss once more as she parked in front of a small wrought-iron gate painted a bright orange red, the only remnant from the spartan little shrine erected in 1888 for the mass grave of Chinese laborers. She removed her helmet and jacket, ran her hands through her thick, shaggy hair. Her arm bandage was soaked but holding. The night air felt warmer than usual; she smelled cooling asphalt, freshly clipped grass, grilled meat and onions. She pulled a protein brick from her sling, gnawed on the corner as she waited for Kip to pick up. Beyond the tiny gate the mausoleum walls loomed several stories high, filled top to bottom with a moving frieze of glowing headstones. Sextons like Padre Junior were constantly shifting and repositioning—programming—the phosphorescent concrete markers across the mausoleum walls for paid visits, moving them about the surface of the mausoleum walls like the tiles of a handheld sliding puzzle.
Like all of the other burial grounds across the country—cemeteries, mortuaries, graveyards, memorial parks—Evergreen had run out of plots almost overnight when the vaccines stopped working. When burials were outlawed, every gravesite began mass exhumations, unearthed their headstones, and laid foundations for mausoleums. Crematoriums ran around the clock. The mausoleums grew tier by tier until they loomed over the churches and funeral homes. Still there just wasn’t enough room for the dead, not when forty-five percent of the population was gone. Not everyone’s ashes could be stored, not everyone’s name could be displayed at the same time. The role of the sexton was hastily reinstated to catalog the dead and manage the rotation of names for display on the mausoleum OLED screens.
Kip answered mid-stream. “—you too take care Mr. Grigorian good-bye oh god you again Tim what the fuck is it now you’re on my what do you call it my last nerve endings.”
“I met up with Pug and they bounced the signal to me, Kip. I’m here waiting at the end point. Check my coordinates.”
The tapping sped up. “Okay good job doing your job so bounce that signal home to the recipient and then report in to HQ I mean what else do you want maybe I have a cookie here somewhere—”
“I know, Kipeum. But I need the client’s name. The fucker slashed Pugilist to get at me. It’s personal.”
“You know I don’t think we’re going to accept any P2P past three hours anymore I mean there’s no way I can talk to you this much between points again wait who slashed Pug WHAT.”
“Oh shit fuck.” Optimist slapped her hand to her face. “I was going to tell you. All of it. But right now, Kip, just don’t worry. Pug is fine. They’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
“How the fuck did this happen wait did this happen before or after you were late to the P2P Tim wait oh my god did this happen because of you Tim tell me the fucking truth.”
And now she felt genuinely sad, because she had looked forward to telling Kip and Pug and the others about Da Ge someday inside the dark, messy, smelly HQ of PpalliPpalli Couriers. She hadn’t told anyone her story since she took over the Kaohsiung chapter of the Tien Dao Meng twelve years ago. “Yes. I’m really sorry, Kipeum.”
There was a drawn-out sigh. “You know what I’m sorry too and it’s not just because you made me a lot of money but like come on I can’t have any of my couriers showing up late or you know getting any of my other couriers slashed like what the fuck Tim rep is everything in our business okay let’s just get this over with so after you finish this transmission I’ll channel your fee and pay out your remaining vacation and then that’s . . . that’s it I guess.”
Optimist nodded and forced herself to smile, to agree. To bottle it up and move on, even if she wanted to stay at PpalliPpalli Couriers, more than anywhere else. She could do this; it was how she had gotten her name. “I understand, Kip. Thanks for everything.”
“Oh shit I lied actually there’s like one more thing I mean he was supposed to hang out and bounce you the info after the job was done but who the fuck cares you’re already fired right so that’s really it and you better remember this favor forever because you know I’ll make sure my children and their children never forget okay thanks Tim I’ll always love you now bye for real.” In the distance, the comically familiar jackhammer sputtering of a small, loud motor grew.
Despite everything, Optimist couldn’t resist a long, slow laugh as Kip’s assistant rode up. He was a recent transplant from Seoul who spoke little to no English. Nobody knew his name or how old he was or exactly what he did at HQ while they were out on P2Ps. He was heavily tattooed, always in the same outfit—an immaculate white T-shirt over loose black linen culottes, white Reeboks—and had a glorious mane of shiny, waist-length hair. His ride of choice was a battered, rusting WWII-era moped that all of K-Town could hear when he fired it up. The first time Optimist and Pugilist had seen him, pulling up to the trash-littered sidewalk outside of PpalliPpalli Couriers HQ with his thick tresses gleaming in the sunlight, Pugilist had elbowed Optimist and shouted above the moped’s blaring exhaust, “Did this summer just get more magical or what?”
Kip must have sent him off at least an hour ago, in order for him to reach Evergreen in time on that ridiculous ancient thing. “Forever and ever, Kip,” she said, but her boss—former, now—had already hung up. She held up her right arm and Summer Magic bounced the information to her with a touch and a wink, and then he was away, his hair streaming like an ebony banner behind him.
She checked the clock. It was just past 1900, right before sunset, almost time to end the transmission. The name from Kip, the name now floating in her eyeline, was the name of the man she had wronged on the endless stairs and dead ends above Kaohsiung twelve years ago. She had never been proud of what she had done but she had thought—hoped, stupidly—that leaving would be enough. But enough had never been, for Er Ge.
“And here we are,” Optimist said, unloading the Qingming supplies. At the base of the mausoleum walls there were dozens of rectangles marked and numbered in white paint, just wide enough for four people to stand side by side and bow. Optimist made her way to A1005, arranged the joss paper items, and lined up the food and wine. As she swept dead brown pine needles from the faded white border her forearm haptics vibrated once, twice, three times. A series of beeps sounded. The signal was home.
It almost didn’t matter that it was her last transmission for PpalliPpalli Couriers, or that this whole shitshow had been her fault.
What mattered was that it was another job finished. From the day she started running blades in the alleys for the Tian Dao Meng, each knife handle rolled tightly into the sash around her waist, nothing came close to the satisfaction of a completed task, a job well done. Bonus points that her friend was still alive and their perfect track records intact. Rep was everything.
She heard a faint notification chime as she received her last paycheck from Kip; in turn, she channeled the balance for Evergreen Cemetery to Padre Junior and exhaled as footsteps sounded behind her.
“It’s Da Ge now, right?” she said without turning, watching the headstones slide back and forth. The ground rumbled constantly from the workings of the machinery driving the mausoleum displays. Almost absently, she had switched into the language of their home. It felt good. She put her hand on the strap across her chest, the handle buzzing in short, angry bursts.
“No, no. I’m still Er Ge. Still . . . second.” The voice was deep, expansive; he had always liked talking as if he had a large audience. “Though I’ve done well since you left. Expanded our territory north, even, all the way to Tainan.”
She shook her head and pressed her lips together in bitter amusement. Tainan had been her idea. “Well. Congrat—”
“The problem is,” he barreled on, talking over her as he did everyone, “despite the fact I keep things running, that the map is mine to shape and the brothers answer to me, they just . . . Won’t. Call me Big Brother yet. Because of you, Big Sister.”
Optimist dropped her head. “I don’t answer to that anymore. Not since I left—”
“What kind of a name is Optimist Cleaver anyway?” He switched easily from Hokkien to English; he had always been good at school despite his temperament, which she had always thought a shame to waste. “I get the cleaver part, anyway. But Optimist? It’s not even a real American name.”
The word, in Hokkien, had been Da Ge’s private nickname for her. “I was starting over. It felt right.”
“Ah. Starting over as a courier.” Er Ge laughed. “Quite a stretch from your job back home, running the Tien Dao Meng.”
She stood up. Turned around and planted her feet. “Easiest way to look for someone.”
Er Ge had always prided himself on his looks. He and Da Ge had been classmates, about fifteen years ahead of her, but for a man in his mid-fifties he was remarkably well preserved. His hair was still glossy black, his light brown skin smooth and free of sun spots. He wore a tailored dark suit with a crisp light shirt and polished boots. His posture was straight as ever, and he looked trim and fit.
He looked her over, head to toe, and chuckled. “Is that even more gray hair I see?”
“Nice try. You know it started when I was a teenager. When I joined—”
“So this is the shithole where he ended up, eh?” Like all bullies, he pushed elsewhere when his cheap shots didn’t land. “Far from home, in a mass grave. Without the sea before him and the mountains at his back. Pathetic.” He coughed and spat to the side.
“He had always wanted to travel,” she said levelly.
“What did him in?” Er Ge leered.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m guessing it was viral, but I couldn’t find any hospital records. He only used his real name for his . . . final arrangements here.”
Er Ge’s face went slack. “You weren’t . . . with him?”
“No,” she said softly. “He instructed the mortuary to only release his real name after he was cremated. That’s how I finally found him.” She looked up at the sky. “Sorry I’m late.”
Er Ge looked crestfallen for a minute before his face twisted and set. “No. It is still not over between you and me,” he said doggedly.
Her patience finally ran out, all at once. Here they were again, arguing as if no time had passed since Da Ge brought her into the brotherhood. Er Ge had made up yet another narrative for himself where he was forgotten, left out, disrespected. Again.
The handle buzzed wildly against her chest; she took hold of it and did not let go. She would not let the conversation be controlled any more by the interruptions or opinions of a bad man, an old man now, still following old, bad ways. “You got what you wanted!” she snapped, switching back to Hokkien. “I left the Tien Dao Meng to you. Da Ge is dead, and I’m never going back home. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“Because I’m still the second brother,” he said hoarsely.
Optimist rolled her eyes. “Oh god, not that again.”
“No, no, no, don’t you do that. I fucking hate it when you do that.” He raised his hand to point at her and it was like they were back home, exchanging words on a hot, humid day in the dusty street. Except for his right hand, his fighting hand, holding the Mark I trench knife with the stubs of his fingers. The middle joints grown over smooth where she had severed them, twelve years ago. “Oh yeah, the brothers do what I say, but they won’t call me Da Ge. They only pay respects to Da Jie. To the big sister that beat me.”
“You came all the way here, attacked my friend, and got me fired from the best job I’ve ever had . . . over a title.”
“It’s more than that and you know it.” His voice finally rose to a shout. “You fucked me over when you took the brotherhood from me. Then I had to learn how to fight all over again—” he shook the knife at her “—and keep my mouth shut all those fucking years you were in charge, the brothers only listened to you out of respect for Da Ge—”
“It couldn’t possibly have been because our brothers kept me in charge for allowing sick days, brokering a truce with the KMT gangs, and doubling our income, could it? Inconceivable.”
“—and then you fucked me over again when you left. Ran away in the night two years ago, like a fucking rat, without giving me the chance to call a challenge—”
“That was the night Da Ge contacted me to tell me he was dying. He just wanted to say good-bye.”
Er Ge looked away, working his jaw, unable to respond right away. Finally, he gritted his teeth. “None of that matters anymore. I’m challenging you for leadership of the brotherhood, Da Jie. Fight me, here, now—”
“No,” she said loudly. “I won’t. I’ll give you my blade. Take it home so you can order your new business cards.” The handle nearly jumped out of her fingers. “Shhhh,” she murmured.
Er Ge spat in disgust. Lofted the Mark I into the air, grabbed it upside down by the hilt, and flung the blade into the dirt. “Still won’t fight unless you have to protect someone, eh?”
“That’s what Da Ge taught us. That’s why I fought you. Da Ge had yielded the fight and the brotherhood, but you were going to kill him anyway. I couldn’t let you do that.”
“Well!” He swung his foot and flicked the Mark I back up, snatched it back into his hand with a reverse grip. “It’s a good thing you’re so predictable then, Da Jie.” He looked over his shoulder. “Bring her out!” he growled.
Garage Sale appeared from around the corner of the mausoleum, her nose covered in clumsily applied bloody tape, dragging Tarantella by the arm.
“Goddamit,” Optimist and Tarantella shouted at the same time.
“I told you to stay in the hospital room,” Optimist groaned, waving her arms in exasperation. “What is wrong with you?”
“Fuck you, I had to pee!” Tarantella jabbed her parasol at Optimist with her free hand.
Garage Sale stopped and looked to Er Ge uncertainly, the box cutter in her other hand wavering.
“And you.” Optimist glared at her. “Get out of here so I can forget your face instead of breaking it again.”
“Stay right where you are,” Er Ge said loudly. He pulled his forearm up, wielding the blade sideways, pointed at Optimist again. “It’s time, Da Jie.”
Optimist finally nodded and smiled; yes, it was time to move on. She pulled the handle of her cleaver from the shoulder strap; it shivered happily in her palm, eager to be of use again. The blade was a perfect square, the same length as the handle, weighted just right. Da Ge had commissioned it for her—“You need something just as blunt and strong as you are”—but she had conditioned the haptics over time, logged hours practicing with the cleaver until it not only followed her movements, it anticipated them. She gave it a few swings and took a step backward. The cleaver was best used in defense. “Everything’s going to be fine, Tarantella.”
“It better be,” she muttered, holding her parasol to her chest.
Er Ge let out a deep, full-throated yell before charging—an affectation from back home that also irritated Optimist to no end—and closed the distance between them quickly. At the last second, he lowered the Mark I across his body and then slashed upward, driving Optimist back nearly to the fence. She leaned away from the strike and then swung the cleaver out to the side in a wide arc, to force him out of her space. He moved a quarter of a turn, enough for her to sidestep clear of the mausoleum walls. Then he darted in once, twice, swiping at her limbs. She blocked his blade easily both times, her grip loose. The cleaver moved on its own.
“Not bad, not bad,” he huffed, swinging the trench knife in a circle. He sliced sideways and then changed direction again, managing to get past her guard and nicking her thigh.
It was a shallow cut, breaking the skin but not drawing blood. It stung just enough to make Optimist grit her teeth.
“I’ve been waiting years for this,” Er Ge said happily. He raised the Mark I above his head and slashed downward in an exaggerated swing. Optimist dodged it easily to the side but then he whipped around, faster than she expected, and lashed out as he turned. She raised her arms, too late, and the trench knife ripped through her sleeve and into her right forearm. Tarantella let out a little yelp as her blood began dripping into the dirt. There was no grass left at Evergreen; all sprinkler systems had been removed by law after the Colorado River dried up.
“Da Jie, I’m surprised at you,” he panted. “It’s only been two years. You’ve completely lost your edge.”
She shrugged. “It was pretty easy and quite enjoyable, actually.”
He twirled the knife in a circle. “You were always such a pain in the ass, but I never would have thought you’d be so pathetic—”
“You talked through our last fight,” Optimist interrupted gently. “Didn’t help you in the end, did it?”
“That’s why I’ve been practicing,” he snarled and charged her again, his arm bent across his face, the business end of the Mark I coming at her.
“Then you’ve wasted your time,” Optimist said sadly. She ducked his swing and sliced into his thigh as she stepped away.
Er Ge went down howling. He dropped his knife as he grabbed his leg, trying to stop the blood pulsing from the femoral artery. Optimist wiped the blood from her cleaver; it shivered and then went still. Dormant. She patted the blade and sheathed it in the strap of her sling backpack. Everything else also seemed to come to a stop around her, save for the eternal rumbling of the headstones shifting and sliding across the mausoleums.
Garage Sale dropped the box cutter. “Fuck this,” she said, backing away.
“Don’t quit your day job,” Optimist called after her. “I sure hope it wasn’t in theater.”
Tarantella held a lace-gloved hand to her mouth as Er Ge fell silent. “You did that for me,” she said, her voice trembling.
Optimist stared at her. “Oh fuck no.” She choked out a laugh as she lit the tops of the long, pungent sticks of incense. She blew out the flames, touched the ends of the sticks to her forehead and planted them in the censer. “I didn’t want to have to tell Pug you were dead, is all. I mean, I was pretty sure it was all going to work out.”
Tarantella had the grace to laugh. Then her knees gave way and she sat down where she stood. “Your name. Optimist Cleaver. I think I get it now.”
The headstones were shifting en masse across the wall before them; slowly they separated to the sides in pairs, making way for one marker that slid over from the corner. It settled in front of her, and she saw Da Ge’s name, and knew she was home. She couldn’t wait to get back to her cats and catch some sleep. She’d look for work in the morning.
“Call me Tim,” she said.