Simulated, p.30
Simulated, page 30
She looks up at me, her eyes proud and sad at the same time. “I did everything she taught me. I set them all up. Every one of them will take the fall except for the ones I put in place, which have not yet been exposed. We have more than enough money for years to come.”
I stare at her brown eyes, a sour taste in my mouth and an ache in my heart. She’s nothing but a broken soul looking for a home. I’m not satisfied at all by my task though I know it had to be done. And I can’t take another minute.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Ennéa.” I push the red button and the screen goes black.
I peel off Noble’s neural simulator from behind my ear and look to my right. Noble is there, waiting anxiously. “It was recording. Did it work?”
“It worked.” I look over at the girl, surrounded by Bai’s men, removing my sim glasses from her. Her disorientation is now fading as she’s escorted from the room. My stomach lurches like a ship at sea.
Noble comes over to me, taking my arm to lead from the room. “The radicals are subdued in Tunis.”
“Good.” My head is in a cloud, but Bai rushes into the room.
“It’s Kai,” he says, “Come quick.”
We race behind Bai to the courtyard where a medic SUV is parked outside. Kai is in the back of the car, moaning and talking deliriously. His vitals are dropping fast.
The medic looks up. “We’ve got to get him somewhere with more equipment fast or he’s not going to make it.”
“You told me you could stabilize him!” I shout, gripping Kai’s hand. “I wouldn’t have done the sim if he wasn’t stable!”
“He was stable,” Bai barks, motioning to the medic to get in the car with Kai. “Now, he’s not. Now get in the car.” Bai is trying to stay calm, but his eyes are darting from Kai to the big mess in the Dar. He can’t leave because he’s in charge and has to clean up this operation quickly.
“We have a safe house in Tozeur with a medic and the equipment to save his life.” The medic climbs in the SUV to drive.
Noble checks Kai’s heart rate. “I’m sorry. My calculations say…you won’t get there fast enough. From Douz to Tozeur in a car is over an hour.”
Bai hits the hood of the car, frustrated. “Then what do you suggest?”
My eyes shoot across the darkened sand to a trial I’ve never faced in real life but have dreamed about since I was a child. I know what I have to do to save him.
“I can get him there in time,” I say, pointing. “In that.”
Bai cocks his head. “The helicopter?”
Chapter 64
BAI LOOKS AT me like I’ve lost my mind. “I won’t lose two people tonight!”
“I can fly it, Bai,” I shout. “Now get him in there and give me the coordinates. We don’t have time!”
Bai curses under his breath, then shouts to the medic. “Hurry! Help him carry Kai to the helicopter.”
I race over to the machine. It’s much smaller than it looks from a distance. It turns on easily enough, just like in the sims. Noble’s close behind, standing outside the cockpit.
They bring Kai around on the other side and secure him. The medic digs through the bag bouncing on his hip, putting pressure on wounds and checking vitals. “I need to travel with you.”
Kai is feverish and pale, but he’s fighting. His eyes are spinning but he sees me. “Jo?”
I touch his face. “I’m here, Kai.” I say. “Hold on. I’m going to get you to help.”
The medic’s instruments are already spilling out over Kai. The helicopter fits two, and Kai is sprawled all over the cockpit, and the medic beside him.
“I can come too,” Noble offers. No one knows my history in a helicopter more than Noble. But it’s a two-person helicopter and it’s already cramped with the medic who has to ride with Kai. Besides, Noble told Bai he’d help get the confessions.
“I can do this, Noble.” I give him my backpack with my sim glasses inside. “After you help Bai, take the Jeep and get out of here.”
He takes off my watch and puts it on my wrist. “You’ll need K2.”
Rotor wash from the blades swooshes down against Bai who’s pacing beside the machine, shouting orders and cursing.
Noble reaches up and grasps my hand. “Don’t listen to Agent Bai. Look at me. I wouldn’t let you do this if I didn’t believe you could. Trust your gift. Look for the fractals.” He cups his hand to my face. “I’ll meet you there, Jo.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
Noble and Bai duck and run away from the helicopter, then from a short distance away turn around to watch with anticipation.
Before I take off, I close my eyes, and breathe. There’s an invitation in the chaos, all I have to do is listen. I picture the helicopter from my sims and open my eyes. The rotor blades thump as the engine whines and revs. I move my hands over the controls lightly. I grasp them, wrapping my fingers around them, and then we’re up in the sky.
I glance down at Kai, focusing on his face and not the blood seeping through his bandages. “Hold on, Kai.”
His eyes flutter open at the sound of my voice. “Xiao Fenghuang?” Kai uses my Chinese name. “When did you learn to fly a helicopter?”
I laugh. “You don’t want to know.”
The palm groves wave under us now. And it’s dark, so dark. The helicopter pitches and rolls like a car being overcorrected on an icy road.
K2 is spouting coordinates, but I don’t hear them because I’m fiddling with gauges, needing to finesse the controls. It’s not a smooth take off and I’m still pitching forward. The medic tightens his straps, surely wondering if I even know how to fly this thing. Technically, I don’t, but I refuse to tell him that. Because somewhere inside me, I have everything I need.
The dense clouds above me that covered the moon are dispersing now. There’s light in the sky, but my numbers still aren’t surfacing. The helicopter proximity warnings go off in the cockpit. Terrain indicators squawk, too. I need to gain elevation and get up higher over the trees before I smash into something.
Sometimes all we need is to look up...but I can’t focus, until I see an auto-hover button on the flight director panel—my sims never allowed me to use one. It was too easy of a way out. But this is real life. I push it, and the helicopter hovers, stable in one place.
“What are you doing?” the medic yells. “We don’t have time to hover, we need to move!”
But I ignore him because we won’t make it if I can’t find peace.
My eyes dart up in the dark sky, and a starry host grabs my attention. I let my mind fill up thoughts of stony coral and bright lightning splitting into tributaries of light. Don’t think of what you see, but what it took to produce what you see.
Dunes. Oceans. Stars. The sound of the wind. The smell of the rain. The tail of a seahorse. Wonder grows in me like a toddler’s first visit to a playground. The boundaries of the sea. Above me, below me. Fractals everywhere. The never-ending patterns in the chaos around us. Treasure hidden in plain sight.
The key to unburying my gift is so close, within my grasp. All I have to do is see with new eyes.
I think about love and what it makes us do. How it grows in the dark like a seed in the ground, unformed, until water and light trickle down. Then it splits into a pattern growing both up and down, in two directions, beautiful replicas of each other but in different ways. It’s like roots and branches—one outstretched toward the sun, bearing fruit. The other unseen but securing life and holding the earth together. I turn off the hover and fly.
We’re high above the trees now. Safe from crashing, but it’s still a rough flight. While my sims helped to this point, I’m struggling to keep the helicopter in control.
I look down at Kai. He looks up at me, one eye swollen shut. “It’s pretty up here…you’re pretty up here…” His voice is slurred. His eyes roll back into his head. “Jo, I love you…” His bloodstained hand reaches out to touch mine. Then, it drops and he’s unconscious.
I think of what it took to produce what I have with Kai. Trust. Risk. Time. Love.
Numbers flash like lightning through the sky. The cockpit lights up, a familiar filter of angles, equations and numbers, and something new—charts measuring sounds, frequencies. Miles of patterns and scales unfold before me, until I’m flying with a map of my own. Every button on the dashboard is numbered and ordered.
The chop of the blades is a sweet rhythm in my ear. Noble said everything is speaking and now I’m somehow measuring it. Like unmapped territory, there are numbers and tools in my gift I don’t understand. But right now, I don’t care. The speed and distance now pulse in sync with numbers in my head. I can count every control switch and I have organized them within seconds. The dynamic systems around me make sense and flying a helicopter is as simple as playing with a new toy. I take the controls with confidence.
My numbers flow from inside me, a peaceful current like the sea, unhurried and deep. Then I see it—calculations in the midst of chaos. The world is spread out like a mosaic. Beautiful broken pieces so intricately put together that it forms the most stunning piece of art I’ve ever seen.
I fly over the earth, its chaotic perfection curving around every bend, the rough and complex meeting in the middle. The equations become like stories, defining everything I see. The very earth beats around me like a human heart declaring life, proclaiming the layers that make us able to love deeper even when trouble comes.
This time my gift is tangible in a way I’ve never felt before—like new growth on a plant in spring. I don’t fully understand what it means, but it’s more alive than ever, like the infinity around and inside us. A hope that nothing and everything lasts forever.
I fly into the sky, my mind zipping with numbers. I’m measuring—not sure how—twenty-eight sounds around me, but it feels silent, peaceful.
My gift is back.
It’s not going to leave me.
But the boy slouched next to me in the cockpit still might.
Chapter 65
TOZEUR SAFE HOUSE, TUNISIA
THE SAFE HOUSE in Tozeur is easy to locate with the emergence of my new gift. It’s exactly two miles out of the city, tucked behind a grove of palm trees. I bring the helicopter down smoothly on a sixteen-by-ten patch of gravel. It’s not a landing pad, but it will do.
Thirty feet away sits an inconspicuous old Dar, smaller than the one in Douz. Three men stand outside waiting for us. It’s been twenty-three minutes since we left Douz, and fifteen minutes since Kai passed out. The medic is yelling orders concerning Kai.
Even though an internal clock is ticking, it feels like slow motion as agents rush out of the safe house and over with a gurney, and lift Kai. I follow close behind. As we enter the house another man, clad in a bulletproof Kevlar vest, leads me into a nice room with a brown corduroy couch and a small table.
Within seconds, my gift has already calculated the number of rows the fabric has, the dimensions of the windows, and what percentage of the walls have paint flaking off.
Then I wait, with my eyes closed because the numbers swirling inside me make the future all too real. They’ve calculated the odds for Kai. It’s not helping. I stare out the small window and do the one thing I can, study the stars and look for a thumbprint.
After an hour and seven minutes Noble arrives at the door in a fresh change of clothes. I stand, but don’t rush. My numbers outline his physical features, and highlight small movements in his face, each equation telling me the numerical story of a boy.
“Hi.” His voice sends waves of frequencies undulating in the room. Coupled with my equations, they’re so strong I almost need to sit back down. “You made it.”
I nod, shakily.
“You were right about Kai. He didn’t fail. The holothumb was merged with the master-file. SMOKE is currently exposing networks all over North Africa and the Middle East.”
I sigh with relief and eight questions are ready on my tongue, chiefly, why he’s still here and not fleeing Tunisia. But Jace, the medic who rode in the helicopter, comes into the room, and pulls my attention.
“Kai’s stable and awake. He wants to see you.” He holds the door open. “You have ten minutes before Director Kane arrives. Agent Bai said you both need to leave before he shows up.”
Noble juts his chin toward the door. “Go ahead,” he says. “I’ll wait.”
Chapter 66
THE BOY LYING on the bed is beautiful, bloody, and bruised but not defeated in the least. The minute he sees me his face lights up, bright and victorious. He pushes himself up, all his energy directed toward me. “Hi, Trouble.”
He doesn’t even care about his banged-up body. Director Kane’s words about his aptitude for pain and recovery being off the charts return to mind. Was Kai born for this? Suddenly I don’t know what to think. My numbers are coursing over his beautiful face, and every time he saved me replays over and over in my head…I just want to know what Kai really wants.
I walk over to him, gently nuzzling my face into his.
“You smell different. What is that?” he asks, his eyes squinting playfully.
I sniff my sweatshirt. “Fire smoke and cardamom.” I sit on the edge of the bed. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
“Me too.” He shakes his head and lets out a sigh.
The bruising of his right eye jogs a memory from China. “Well, you’re on brand by sacrificing yourself for others.”
He smiles. “For you.” The blood caked on his face earlier is now washed clean revealing swelling everywhere. Under it, all I see is the boy who saved me over and over again. A boy who risks his life so I can sleep.
For the last year, he’s been a spark of light in the midst of darkness, a sign life goes on. But what about now?
He tries to sit up.
“Lie down,” I say, gently pushing him back. “It’s finished. You solved the case. You’re the hero.”
“I had a plan to make it out, too, you know.” He stares at me as if I’m his medicine, his drug. The only thing keeping me together is the numbers zipping up and down his face like the first time I saw him in the pool house in Shanghai, shirtless, fixing stuff and watering orchids. The boy no one gets to see but me.
“I know you did.” His skin is still hot and feverish. Then he gives me a funny grin. “What?”
“The way you’re looking at me,” he says, piecing something together. “Is your gift back?”
“Yeah,” I say, amazed at how well he can read me. “It happened in the helicopter, with you. It’s been on for one hour and twenty-seven minutes and well, you get the idea...” I smile. “There’s something new about it though. I don’t quite understand it yet. Basically, I’m weirder than before.”
“Jo. Tai bang le! I’m so happy for you.” He squeezes my hand. “And who was that guy talking to you by the helicopter?”
My thoughts pause for a millisecond. Noble is outside waiting for me. I breathe in deep. “The hacker. Turns out he’s an old prodigy friend. He helped me remember where my gift came from.”
Kai grimaces. “He’s lucky I could barely move. I didn’t like the way he looked at you. Don’t tell me you were with him all week? I thought you were with some bodyguard?”
“The bodyguard is his uncle.” I purse my lips with the thought. “And the guy you did Tou Qi on.”
He groans. “Please tell me he’s ok.”
“He’s fine,” I say. “But Bai was pretty upset you left Montego. It was a dangerous move.”
“Montego was a pawn,” he says. “I had to think quick when he told me about the Loyalists. I knew I had to stop the Successor, and it worked out. The world’s safe. You’re safe. All the remaining parts of her empire are gone now. If Bai was there, it means the good guys won, right?” He smiles.
“Yeah.” I smile back. He stopped the deal, took down an entire syndicate, and prevented the PSS Blacklist from ruining the world. “How did you know it was her?”
“Because of you. You taught me never to underestimate anyone.” Kai reaches out for me. He said as much, even to the Sheikh in the live stream. My eyes were on Kai, but Kai’s eyes were on the girl. He knew even then. “When did you give her the holothumb?”
“In the desert at Ksar Douz, after the fight. I had to touch her in a creepy way to do it though.” His face bunches up. The scene comes unbidden to my mind, the way his hands glided over her body. I laugh thinking of it now.
“Did she confess anything?” he asks.
“Yeah. Everything.” I clear my throat, “And Noble, um, the hacker, I think is helping Bai with the Sheikh and Müller’s confessions.”
“Noble?” Kai’s confused, and slightly bothered. “A lot happened this week, I see.” Kai’s hands find mine. They’re scarred and rough, but gentle.
“More than you know.” Over the last five days I flew to Tunis to save a boy. PSS infiltrated two networks. Stopped a coup. Stole a holothumb. Kept up with Noble. Met Mandel face-to-face. Flew a real helicopter and my gift came back…and I learned Kai might leave me…
Kai threads his fingers with mine. “I’m sorry you got involved. When I went after them, I didn’t know you’d come.”
“Never apologize for doing the right thing, Kai,” I say, the words trembling on my lips. “I just want to know what you want next. What’s important to you?”
“You’re important to me.” He lays back and peers up at me. “When I heal up, I’ll come to you and we’ll take long walks on the beach. We’ll make our plan.”
“Long walks on the beach, huh?” I ask, my insides squirming. “What about your next job? What about the promotion?”
Kai’s eyes dart to the wall. “We don’t need to talk about that now. Doesn’t matter.”
