I WAIT AT THE TOP of the stairs on the wall, looking down over the rounded peaks that line the horizon like jewels in a crown. A familiar view that leaves me with a pit at the base of my stomach, not sure when I’ll see it again.
The soldiers who trudge up the switchbacks and through the gates are too quiet, their eyes jumping from the crackling torches to the empty buildings staring down at them from above. Shouldering my pack and looping the extra one for Mei over my shoulder, I walk through the gate.
“My assistant and I will be over by the Sanatorium inlets,” I call to the soldiers standing guard on either side of the polished metal and stone. “So please don’t do any reckless shooting in that direction.”
“We don’t have the bullets, not even for the unreckless kind of shooting, sir,” one answers. The other keeps her eyes straight forward, the two of them accepting my explanation without thought.
I turn away from them, from the gates, from my home, and walk toward the first switchback, every step on the steep grade jarring. Mei is waiting for me just around the bend. She takes the pack I brought for her and starts down the hill without speaking, somehow able to balance her pack and keep from walk-running down the hill the way I’ve been doing.
When we first sight trees poking up from the roadside, Mei runs ahead a few steps, pulling something out of her pocket, and in a flash I know she’s checking her link. The one I was supposed to steal before I took care of her.
Unease blasts open inside me. Is this a trap?
She only glances at the message written in light on the back of her hand before it’s back in her pocket. But then, instead of continuing down the road, Mei hops the ditch cut into the ground and is out of sight down the mountainside before I can make it to the ditch’s edge.
I pull the gun from my coat and stand at the edge of the crevasse, my heart pounding.
Her head appears over the lip at the edge of the road, brow furrowed in annoyance. “Come on, Tai-ge. Or is it too hard to think and walk at the same time?”
My name. Just by itself. Every time she uses it, it feels different somehow. It was almost a slip the first time, and then a plea. Now it feels as if she’s stripping away all my titles, making me into something infinitely smaller. I do feel smaller Outside.
Following Mei down the mountainside is about as undignified as I’ve ever been. I’m only comforted by the fact that she is also doing a sad half-slide, half-scramble, grabbing scrubby pine branches for balance. When the ground levels out a bit, Mei weaves between rough-barked trunks, looking up and around as if whatever she’s after might be perched up high in the branches of a hundred-year-old tree—but apparently not these, because she continues on, confidence in every step.
Even with my senses all on high alert, I don’t see the man waiting for us until Mei is running toward him, practically hopping the last few steps to throw her arms around his neck. He catches her around the middle, bulky pack and all, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around once with a theatrical groan. “Mei, my little infected bug of a friend, look at you infiltrating the City and spying and still coming out in one piece!”
The gun’s out of my coat again, pointed directly at him even with Mei a barrier between us. The man notices, but dismisses me, taking his time putting Mei down and then throwing an arm over her shoulders before he looks me up and down. His naked face is plastered over with a smile that prickles across me, very similar to my memories of seeing a gore up close for the first time.
“Didn’t I teach you to disarm Reds before you take a stroll with them, Mei?” He glances over to her, short enough that their eyes are even, though he’s twice as wide.
The hints of good humor I saw all over Mei’s face before are all suddenly in full bloom, dimples creasing her cheeks like parentheses around her smile. “This is our guy, Kasim.”
Their guy? I don’t let the gun waver, holding it steady on the City seal embroidered into Kasim’s jerkin, the fabric straining and creasing across his chest and arms the way it wouldn’t if it had been made for him. His collar is absent of stars. “Who is this person?” I demand.
“She just said my name. Did you not hear…?” Kasim looks from me to Mei with an exaggerated swing. “Did he not hear you? Or is he one of those people who doesn’t listen very well when girls are talking?” He snaps his fingers, pointing his attention back to me. “Maybe all those bombs you dropped on your own people compromised your eardrums.”
“Mantis for Sevvy, right, Mei?” I have to force my jaw to relax, the muscles threaded through my neck up to my temple aching. “How does he figure into our deal?”
“This is the only way getting to Jiang Sev works.” Mei’s smile almost hurts now because it seems to be full of sharp teeth. “You want to come, you play by our rules. Starting with giving Kasim your gun.”
“How am I supposed to believe you’re going to take me to her?” I hold the gun steady, wondering if my soldiers above would hear gunshots and come looking for me. Unlikely.
“Because I told you I would.” Mei raises an eyebrow. “What’s she worth to you, Tai-ge?”
What’s Sevvy worth to me? It’s not the girl herself I’m after. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. Sev made it perfectly clear she’d prefer never to see me again. The cure and the end of the war, however, are worth my life and everything else I’ve put on the line to be out here. Taking a long breath doesn’t slow down my heart ticking the way I want it to. But I lower my weapon an inch, then let it fall by my side, a sick feeling blooming deep in my chest.
“You do have him tamed. Very nice work.” Kasim’s exaggerated smirk of approval makes me want to hit him. He lets go of Mei and walks toward me, favoring his right leg. His uniform pulls tight over some kind of brace underneath, but that doesn’t stop him plucking the gun from my hand and zipping it into his pack.
Mei pulls open my jacket, takes the knife Captain Bai gave to me, and tucks it into her coat pocket. All I can think is that Captain Bai meant for it to be stuck in people like her, and shame wouldn’t be enough to describe how he’d feel about a Menghu carrying it.
Kasim gestures up toward the road. “I was tailing the unit that just walked into the City. We should have a clear path down. It’ll take us a bit to get to Dr. Yang’s setup, and I was only supposed to be on a routine three-day patrol. We’ll have to walk fast if we don’t want Menghu to shoot us before we even get close.” He turns back to me and winks. “Should be fun. Shall we?”
When we set our camp the first night, Kasim doesn’t bother with a tent, pulling a hammock from his pack and stringing it high between two trees. He jokes with Mei, the two of them laughing together as he helps set hers just below it. It’s very natural, as if all I’ve seen of Mei is a skeleton’s view of who she is, but now that she has someone to talk to, she’s turned back to flesh and blood. I guess my question about who she imagined talking to last night to make herself feel better has an answer. Maybe just one of many.
Mei has a life. Friends. I only saw her when she was being a spy and sleeping in an enemy’s room. My thoughts scrunch over that, trying to look at it from more angles. She already seemed to know what was going on in the City, if not the particulars. Was happy to leave the moment the opportunity presented itself. Why did she go through the trouble of setting herself up in my room in the first place?
I pull my own hammock out, then look up at theirs swinging merrily above me. Do I set up underneath? In another tree entirely?
I’ve never tied a hammock in a tree before.
Kasim appears beside me, pulling the hammock out of my hands. “Were you going to think it up into the tree, or do you just not like asking for help?”
“I’ll show him how to do it. Tai-ge’s probably scared of heights.” Mei hops up and grabs hold of the slippery fabric, but I pull it back and walk toward the same trees where Kasim set up their two hammocks. She glances over at Kasim before following me, standing at the base of the tree as I start to climb.
“You sure you know how to do that?” she calls up. “Won’t do us much good if a gore comes along and bites you right out of the tree.”
Gnawing on my lip, I gauge the distance from the ground and pull myself up a few more feet, teetering sideways as I try to hold on to the branches and the hammock both at once. Pulling out the webbing meant to tether the hammock to the tree, I loop it around the trunk and start the knot. “So, what’s all this about, Mei? A few hours ago, I was the person you hated most in the universe, and now I’m suddenly ‘your guy’?”
When she doesn’t answer, I look down from the webbing only to find her climbing up the tree opposite where the other side of her hammock is tethered. Once she’s up high enough, she holds out her hands for the webbing that needs to go on that side. “Throw it over, Tai-ge.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m helping you set up a hammock.” She snaps her fingers impatiently. “Throw. Webbing. Now.”
I look down at Kasim, far enough away that I’m not sure he can hear us. “He’s infected too, Mei.”
Mei’s hands drop, her mouth one hard line. “Excuse me? You think Menghu have extra germs when it comes to SS and you’ll die just from sitting within breathing distance?” She snaps off the end of a branch and chucks it in my direction. I have to duck so it doesn’t nick the bottom tubes of my mask. “You were born with that thing on, weren’t you? The metal just grew right out of your face while you were still inside General Hong.”
“I doesn’t matter to me that either of you are infected.” I toss the webbing to her, perhaps a little more gratified than I should be that she has to dart forward to catch it, making her branch shake. “If he’s been patrolling out here by himself, he must have Mantis, right, Mei?”
She turns to set the webbing, then snaps her fingers again, waiting for me to toss the hammock’s anchor line so she can link it to the webbing with a carabiner. Once it’s set, she scurries down the tree, fast enough it almost looks like she’s falling. When I get to the ground, she’s already in Kasim’s pack, extracting a firestarter. Kasim’s nowhere to be seen.
There are bottles inside the open pocket, siblings to the single one I brought for Mei. Kasim has enough medicine for both of them. “You agreed to take me to Sevvy with the understanding that I give you Mantis.” I point to the Mantis bottles. “And you called Kasim here instead. Why didn’t you have him shoot me?” I rub a hand across my hair when she doesn’t look up. It’s too long, spiking up and tangling as I try to pull my fingers through it. “If this is an attempted hostage situation…”
Kasim reappears from the trees, brushing his hands across his pants to dislodge bits of bark and dirt, a smile creasing dimples up his cheeks. “Who would pay ransom for you?”
Mei gives him a halfhearted push before turning back to me. “We’re doing what I said we would. We’re going to get Jiang Sev.”
“Why?” I ask. Unfortunately, there’s more truth to what Kasim says than I’d like to admit. Mother might be distressed at pictures of me with a knife to my throat, but I know exactly what she’d be willing to give up to get me back: nothing. Perhaps not even a tear.
Mei puts her hands up in mock surrender. “If you don’t want to come, then walk yourself back up there.” She points up the hill toward the paddies and the City above them, then turns away from me, kicking at the icy dirt to clear it of decaying bits of leaves and pine needles for a fire.
The two Menghu fall into a pattern that speaks of being long accustomed to each other. Kasim pulls out bowls, extracts water purifiers from my pack without asking, then sets off into the forest toward the Aihu River’s roar. Mei’s fire begins to spark, the flames casting an orange glow across her face as she assembles a cooking tripod.
I lower myself onto a fallen log, keeping an eye on Kasim until he disappears into the trees. Mei watches until he’s out of sight, then looks at me. “I need your link, Tai-ge.”
Sticking a hand into my pocket, I have to wonder if she can read minds, because I was thinking of what I should tell Mother. Maybe it’s just another demonstration of me failing to keep my thoughts from scrolling right across my face. “Am I going to need it to call for help?”
Mei stirs the pot in slow circles, and when she looks up at me, her eyes are hard. “We can’t afford Red attention, so I need you to give it to me. If Kasim knew you had it, he would have just taken it and used it. At least I’m asking nicely. Much as I’d like to drench you in blood and leave you for the gores, you won’t be able to help us if you’re dead. I’ll keep you safe.”
She holds my gaze without blinking, and after a moment I nod. It’s a bloody mouthful of a promise, but I believe her. If there’s a chance, no matter how slim, this could end with the cure in my pocket, I’m willing to go a little farther. So I throw the link down on a rock half submerged in old snow and crush it under my boot. For all that she’s suggesting she won’t use it to send messages to my mother, I’m not taking any chances.