Kitty kitty, p.3
KITTY KITTY, page 3
I growled. “How about his ship’s keys, Doctor? Do you have them?”
“I will not help you rob from a corpse!”
Dr. Yaoji seemed annoyed. I couldn’t understand why. She violently slammed the door of the cabinet.
Ali and I then made eye contact with a lean individual standing silently in the hallway behind. Nobody knows how long he’d been creeping on us three, ominously petting the genetically absurd pug drooling in his arms. He must have been in his late twenties and wore a cream power suit with broad shoulder pads. His lazy eye featured a strange gleam betraying a potent ocular implant embedded in his skull. When he approached, a tingly smell of sulfide mixed with lotus-scented Vacation followed. The man came from the cloud cities of Venus. Judging by the plum blossom in his chest pocket, we encountered a Commissar—a sinister envoy of the Chinese politico-super-conglomerate. The dreaded Emporium of Steel.
“A bad guy…” Ali slipped through her teeth.
The commissary ignored her comment and both him and his stupid wrinkled mutt turned to Dr. Yaojie—who greeted them with a respectful bow. “Doctor,” the man calmly said in Solarian English. “My name is Linus Lao. I called earlier today.”
“Yes. Please follow me, High-Commissar,” she replied, inviting him to another part of the morgue hidden behind a beaded curtain. Bathed in incense, a second much more substantial vault welcomed the neighborhood’s residents of Asian ancestry.
“Does this have any connection to the murders in the French Concession, Dr. Yaojie?” I asked. I remembered the sordid tales from the morning info-ads. Only a matter of this magnitude would require the Party to dispatch such a high-ranking agent from Venus.
Under Lao’s watchful bionic eye, the coroner turned back. “Mr. Lee, now that your business with the late Mr. Avery is settled, I can only advise you to leave. Deimos is a hectic port. I bet you will find your share of mischief in the Techno-sectors.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, we’re not through and—”
But I couldn’t insist further, for both disappeared silently behind the tingling wall of white pearls.
“Why is it always so painful to get answers here?” I breathed.
“Those people don’t like us,” Ali said. She wiped her runny nose with her forearm. “Dunno why.”
Disillusioned, we left the hospital annex for the overcrowded main floor—or city center—of Deimos’s Chinese district.
Deimos. Mars II. A moon six kilometers in diameter, home to SysDef Industries, one of the largest grotesquely over-subsidized military shipyards in the Inner System. The yards assembled and maintained most of the Techno-fleet there, above the Voltaire crater, thanks to the constant import of steel manufactured within the Morning Star’s subterranean foundries. Naturally, over the years, many Venusians followed the flow of deliveries, whether in search of work or a new life away from the dictatorial floating cities. Chinatown arose, replacing the satellite’s first Italian settlers. Kept under the tightening control of the Party—the Emporium’s governing body—Deimos’s Chinatown linked rock to void, in the form of a titanic mega-pagoda. The megastructure stacked a thousand floors each as wide as a small colony you can picture in the Outer Worlds. So imposing it has redefined the moon’s orbit around the Red Planet.
“I’ll try to phone the starport up there,” I explained once on the pavement. “See if I can somehow get access to Avery’s ship.”
Ali stretched. She caught the eye of a sinister jade-eared colossus. The android guarded a flying red limousine parked near the hospital’s stairs and adorning ridiculous little meihua-embroidered flags at the front. Lao’s car. “Roger,” she said. “Imma wait for you on Kowloon Drive.”
“Don’t get into trouble.”
“You know me.”
“I certainly do. We’re far from the Rings, remember? Don’t be foolish.”
“It’s Little China, Lee…” she giggled as she crossed the street backwards. “What could happen?”
The honking Freightliner that almost crushed her like rice paper answered in my place.
Despite spending half an hour wasting my last quarters, my haggling and innocuous bribery attempts didn’t bear fruit. Just like Dr. Yaojie, robots and humans alike refused to talk to a Cronian cat. A veritable omerta would stand against anyone who didn’t speak any form of Chinese—simplified, traditional or binary.
Both frustrated and disappointed, I was on my way to join my partner on Kowloon Drive, three stories up, famous for its distinguished herbal market and all too many underground tattoo parlors. You can easily picture where I found my beloved sapiens.
The shop bell dinged. “I’m back, dear.”
Lying on a yellowed massage table with her legs spread, my associate was focusing on balancing a half-empty bottle of Jianlibao on the tip of her nose. The buzzing of the dermograph barely drowned the grunts of the tattooist busy relentlessly slashing her inner right thigh to conceal her ominous corpo-crest. “Any luck?” she asked.
“A wasted effort,” I replied. “Like your new tattoo. Is it a seashell or a dumpling? It will fade in a month, you know?”
“Beauty is always temporary.”
“Interesting concept. John Keats?”
Her finger stuck in the bottle’s mouth, Ali pointed to the tube where a commercial for some yoga retreat on Byblos Gate ended. “It’s from an ad. The only one I could understand in twenty minutes…”
“This is no temporary!” The balding practitioner wore an expression of pain edged with irritation. “My Bunga Terung is good work, despite your—well…” He swore in Cantonese. “Bào qiàn, lady. The inside of your thighs is as hard as—as farm-grown zhū leather.”
Ali straightened. “What he sayin’?”
The tattooist kept grumbling as he packed his belongings into an old condiment box without caring about disinfecting them. “I’m done. Done! Biǎo zi… It’s girls like you! Who get kidnapped in the Concession. And killed! We know for sure!”
“That story again?” Ali slid to the floor. She grabbed a dirty rag and blotted the blood dripping down her knee. “Why would I have anything to do with that?”
“Nothing, darling…” I interjected before she could take any more hints. “So, tell me, friend. These fickle girls—the unknown girls who disappear—could they be the poor souls keeping your local coroner busy?”
The tattooist shyly nodded. But when I recounted the arrival of the High-Commissar—a more sinister version of Charlie Chan—the omerta hit again. I played the wrong card. Since the recent garment workers’ strike and its brutal conclusion, Deimos highly feared the Party.
Ali freed herself from her soda bottle and paid. We made our way back taking the scenic road and walked for a long time in the vertical labyrinth of the oscillating megastructure, looking for an available elevator to transfer us to the upper floors.
Almost accidentally, we arrived at the French Concession, the heart of the entertainment district. Decades before, Martians in transit on Deimos had become so fond of Chinatown and its picturesque appeal they ultimately settled there—and turned it as stultified as suburbia. Fortunately, by the end of the Red Uprising, the gentrification trend had reversed. Technos confined themselves to further brand-new megastructures, and the place regained its former charm filled with a unique blend of sights, sounds, and scents that created its lost electric atmosphere. Buzzing neon lights illuminate the narrow alleys and bustling sidewalks, casting a colorful glow on the various storefronts. Traditional red lanterns levitated overhead. They swayed gently in the artificial hot breeze. The turbines also infused the damp air with the enticing aroma of sizzling stir-fries, noodles, and other delicious delicacies as hardworking street food vendors ply their trade. All around us, the sounds of people chatting, haggling, and the occasional burst of laughter coming from the cafés created a lively cacophony. Home to an incomparable cultural wealth, Chinatown perpetuated a four-thousand-year legacy, from the Xia dynasty to the fall of Formosa.
“Don’t you think, Ali?”
“Dunno. I just crave their spring rolls—Oh! What’s that? It looks righteous!” Her mouth full of fried breadsticks, she pointed at something with her skewered quail.
Cutting through the multitude and steam clouds, we encountered street entertainers showcasing Tibetan martial arts demonstrations which survived with the few monks who agreed to leave Earth.
Once the performance was over and the crowd dispersed, we stopped near a railing at the floor’s far end, where the fastest elevators ran along the outer walls up to the astroport. From there, we had an exceptional view of the excruciating Techno-capital world in the sky—its southern hemisphere, the Hautes-Terres, doomed to be swallowed by the sprawling mega-city. All around, the lights of the other dancing towers covering Deimos flashed in the night, highlighting each of their levels. Between them, the void served as a highway for the even more fortunate, who navigated in strange hot balloons cabs.
“A whole generation of robotic slaves gave their life building this place. They’re buried beneath. The same tale as the Great Wall back on Earth-that-was.” I came to think out loud. “Humans have always been fascinatingly monstrous…”
For once, Ali didn’t ruin my philosophico-poetic reflection by blowing a raspberry. Instead, she focused intently on her plate of molded shrimp egg rolls. An external event did, however, punctuate my contemplation: an ominous shrill scream.
“Who the fuck dies so loudly?” my high-class partner went on, negligently tossing her plastic platter into the void.
“No one! It’s an attempted kidnapping! Look!”
An ostentatious flying red limousine hovered a hundred meters away from us, on a promontory circling the express elevators. From the wide-open rear door, a metal appendage swooped to seize a young Martian who had come in for a cigarette. Before she could catch her breath, she was forcibly pulled onto the rear deck of the vehicle. It immediately dropped to the lower floor.
“We have to act!” I exclaimed.
“Ain’t our job, Lee. Buzz the donut shop.”
I leaped onto my partner’s shoulder, marking her cheek with a clawed swipe aimed to reset her sugar-coated neurons. “Big picture, little sapiens! If we catch this degenerate, we’ll be in the community’s good graces. Under our spell, the rabble will lead us to Avery’s ship!”
“Always pushing your agenda, ain’tcha?”
“My brain is wired that way! Now do something! But nothing—” Ali spontaneously took me into her arms and leaped into the drafty void. “—reckless.”
My intrepid associate intelligently handled our fall. She benefited from gusts of wind to propel us towards traffic. With the accuracy of a golden eagle once hunting woodchucks over the Altai Mountains, we gracefully landed on the limo’s tinted rear window.
“Impressive. Any follow-up?” I shouted to make myself heard over the honking.
Still finding her balance, Ali drew her oversized gun. But the vehicle swerved suddenly onto the floor of Downtown Chinatown. Slipping on the roof, we owed our salvation to a last-ditch reflex on the part of my partner, digging her fingernails into the rubber on top of the back window.
“We’ve been spotted!” she shouted as we brushed past the hospital. The limousine reached the main avenue of Nanjing Street and zigzagged through the upstairs air traffic and double-parked tuk-tuks.
“What makes you believe that?”
A bullet fired from below drew a star in the metal a few inches from my snoot. A second nearly tore off my partner’s. She straightened by reflex. An amber light slammed her back.
“Fuck! That nose was new!” she swore, crawling towards the driver’s side.
A roar betrayed the sudden acceleration of the vehicle. It started picking up enough speed to leap towards the inbound precipice. Nanjing Street was coming to an end, along with our clandestine journey.
Before disappearing into the night, the limousine brashly rolled over the toll booths. We were thrown through a tea parlor’s bay window and careened into a carefully arranged display of tables. The crash sent shards of glass, mahjong pieces and twisted metal into the air.
The dust settled after a while. I emerged from the chaos, shaken but unexpectedly unharmed. A cacophony of fire alarms and concerned murmurs filled the air. The staff, wearing expressions of disbelief, rushed out to assess the situation.
“Ali?” I meowed.
I heard her mumble behind me. “My head hit something hard.”
“Seemingly a steel pillar, dear.”
“Oh, geez…”
The whole place bore the scars of our unexpected collision. Passers-by, both curious and concerned, gathered to witness the aftermath. But once they realized we were foreigners, they turned into an angry mob. Without my being able to do anything, Ali disappeared into the madding crowd. Shortly afterwards, someone pulled me violently by the tail. I tried to struggle, dragged along the ground amid cigarette butts, peanut shells and dusty dominoes, and pelted with heels and canes.
My calvary stopped. I regained consciousness near my partner, in a dark steamy alley ubiquitous in Chinatown.
“Both of you are completely insane!” A good Samaritan called Dr. Yaojie stood in front of us, disheveled and her smoke filter red with anger. Ali and I curled into each other, like two children about to be soaped. “What were you doing hanging off the roof of a car? Driving through the entire floor and causing a pile-up! I know the chaotic penchant of private auxiliaries, but yours exceeds all limits! I should call the public authorities!”
“Well, duh!” Ali reacted, massaging her ribs.
The coroner muttered several insults in Mandarin, before I could clarify the situation: “We witnessed a kidnapping. We started chasing the culprit. He escaped in his car.”
“A fuckin’ red limo!”
Our rescuer’s face suddenly turned white. “Another kidnapping, you say. A red car? Bad luck.”
“Lao’s automobile! I recognized it!” I uttered.
Dr. Yaojie dismissed my theory. “Nonsense! Commissar Lao is not linked to the abductions. Besides, he landed this morning.” She helped Ali to her feet.
“Then, who?”
“Look… your intentions may be noble.” My partner coughed. Her sidelong glance went unnoticed. “But this is not our way. We do not need cowboys from the Outer Worlds!” She turned towards the main street where a crowd of rubberneckers gathered. “You have perpetrated enough damage. Even more than you can imagine!” She paused. “I sincerely think you should leave.”
Dr. Yaojie walked away, forsaking us like two fools licking our wounds between a dumpster and the entrance to an underground sweatshop.
“She knows something…” I grumbled as I watched her fade into the glare of the city police’s flashing lights—forced to intervene after such a disturbance. “What do you think?”
With her fingertips, Ali tampered the swelling around the nail-sized piece of glass stuck in her cheek. “Dunno. But by makin’ me eat a window, things got personal.”
“Excellent. Because I just came up with a great plan!”
Inattentive to my words, my barbaric partner covered in hematomas withdrew the crystal chunk—by loudly sucking it in. She then spat the bloody shard out into a puddle. “Yeah?”
“We do need some makeup, though…” I concluded.
“Yellow Tiger calls Gracie Law. Do you copy?”
“Lee… you’re literally three feet away from me.”
Ali was often in a playful spirit when it came to staging funny scenes. However, she didn’t seem to be in the mood that evening. Yet we did what she loved most in the world: a makeover. But apparently, the cheap traditional silk dress and courtesan makeup thick enough to cover her recent bruises weren’t to her liking.
“Your plans always suck!” she growled, distancing herself from the Jasmine grove in which I’d made my hideout. “And our guy isn’t on the lookout for a geisha!”
“Wrong! Geishas aren’t from Chinese culture. Their equivalent, however, is called a qīnglóu nǚzǐ. An unpronounceable term! And some say French is the most challenging language…”
On her way back, Ali snatched my brand-new C$5 tour guide from my paws and smashed it to the ground. “Kinglou-Nazi-fuck, my butt!” Furious, she then tore the bottom of her dress into a rocky mini skirt. With the remaining fabric, she wiped her cheeks and forehead. “There you go, a slightly more teasing punk outfit. Gimme a smoke.”
“You know very well I’ve quit.”
“You’re a worse fibber than President Nixon. Pronto-up!”
I handed her my secret package as she butchered her bun to look more casual. “I’ll always wonder where you hide them…” she continued, lighting the less damaged cigarette.
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
She coughed as she took a puff. “And a Lucky Strike brought him back.”
Faking being inebriated, my partner positioned herself against the hazardous railing under a red lantern. For my ingenious trap, we waited for the weekend and went up to a different floor—as lightning rarely strikes twice in the same place. But still chose a busy area close to the tumultuous French Concession.
After a while, our suspect’s flying vehicle finally emerged from the dense air traffic, which remained crowded despite the late hour. It hovered near Ali, who leaned against the unbolting railing to stare at the rear passenger as the door window slowly lowered. She started flirting. Words I couldn’t make out were exchanged, and the door swung open. There, I saw our criminal, a tidy young Chinese man in an expensive red velvet suit. Not Lao.
The next moment, a telescopic arm with a chrome sheen grabbed my partner by the throat and pulled her inside—following our original plan. The large bottle of chloroform the culprit grasped from the armrest, however, was a serious mishap.
“Sacrebleu!” I shouted, dashing out of my hiding place.
Too late. The limousine vanished. Just like last time.
