by Jeannie Lin
We continued on to an area with a pond and an ornate pavilion that appeared to be floating on water.
“The Gardens,” I murmured.
The battle was already underway. The rebels wore red arm-bands and sashes to set themselves apart. They were clustered onto a wooden bridge with rifles aimed at two of the automatons. I could hear gunshots beyond the bridge, deeper into the grounds of the garden as well.
“Stay back,” Ming-fen commanded and then proceeded to do the exact opposite. She ran into the fray.
I stared into the crush of bodies, the clouds of black smoke and rifle fire. The armored machines stomped among them thrashing and crushing. I strained for a glimpse of Chang-wei or anyone I recognized, but it was hopeless. With a prayer to the heavens, I pushed forward into the chaos.
A haze of smoke enveloped me, and the sound of gunfire rang through the air, accompanied by the ping of iron shot deflecting off metal armor. A nightmare slowness took hold of me as I tried to drag myself through the battle. It was like swimming through syrup.
An automaton smashed through a section of the wooden bridge. I found a clear though indirect route through the rocks that surrounded the lake. As I scrambled over the jagged formations, I could see Ming-fen had somehow managed to get past the bridge. An automaton loomed ahead, thrashing its arms and blocking the path. Rebel footmen shot at it in desperation, but each hit caused the machine to re-orient its attack and sweep its metal arm at them. The multiple inputs confused the logical wiring, but that didn’t matter. A confused automaton was still a deadly one.
The machine swung its arm in a crushing sweep. Rather than jumping back, Ming-fen ducked and ran forward. Her sash shot forward like a whip to catch around the ankle joint of the automaton. She grabbed onto the tether with both hands, pulling back with all her might. The automaton toppled, falling headfirst into the water with a crackle of sparks.
I climbed down from the rocks. A jagged edge tore through my sleeve, scraping over my arm, but I ignored it. Finally on solid ground, I ran forward and encountered another automaton on the grassy terrace.
“How many are there?” Ming-fen came up beside me. She’d freed her knives from the sash and brandished one in each hand.
“I don’t know.”
They’d been disassembled in the crates. The containers were massively large.
Metal footsteps clanged toward us. Another automaton was coming to join the one on the grass, but this one looked different.
The riflemen divided into two teams to surround the second automaton. This one wasn’t moving as wildly. It turned and revealed an entirely different design. Rather than the full-plated armor of the others, the front of the machine was a cage.
“There’s someone inside!” a rebel shouted.
They’d finally realized one of the machines had an operator. The rifleman started targeting the cage. The operator was fitted with padded armor inside the cage, but still remained vulnerable to head shots. I gasped as a shot struck the man in the face. The armored suit he was encased in crashed backward onto the grass.
This was how Chang-wei had solved the problem. By putting a human mind at the controls.
Chang-wei had taken the design from the Japanese hitokiri assassins, creating an armored suit that was a hybrid of man and machine. His crew of engineers hadn’t just come to build the machines — they were needed to operate the new design.
The armored operator positioned his killing machine at the entrance of the park to hold back the tide of people who were trying to flee. Not all of the rebels were armed with firearms. Many of them held nothing but long knives which were useless against the machines. Then again, the firearms weren’t effective either. The rebels were running out of ammunition and falling back.
I ran to him. The bullet had shattered the operator’s jaw and he lay still within the steel cage. Up close, I saw it was one of the engineers.
“Soling, watch out!”
I looked up at Ming-fen’s cry. The automaton was still rampaging on the grass. I darted away as it came crashing through. Shots rang out all around me.
Dragging myself to my feet, I ran. I didn’t know where I was going, but I needed to be clear of the fight. I caught sight of Ming-fen ahead of me in her dark tunic. I cut through the pavilion and ran after her.
We’d reached an ornate, palatial looking building. Red banners hung all around it. One of the armored hitokiri suits was fighting its way toward it.
“Stay away from the headquarters.” I shouted as loud as I could, but the sounds of the fight drowned out my voice.
I tripped over something and fell. My hand hit against something hard. When I looked, it was into the glassy eyes of a rebel who not long ago had been alive. Shoving myself away, I squeezed my eyes shut but the image wouldn’t go away.
Sick, scared, overwhelmed, I crawled through the grass. Ahead of me, I could hear the creak and groan of the metal suit. The grand hall beyond had to be the rebel headquarter. The building that was rigged to explode. I had to warn Chang-wei, but the urge to hide away, to stay down and safe from danger paralyzed me.
“Ren!” I heard Ming-fen shouting through the darkness.
I opened my eyes again to the sight of a lone figure in the courtyard. It was a man, his hair loose and ragged, falling to his shoulders. He had a red sash wrapped around one arm and two sharp knives, both aimed at the center of the hitokiri cage.
That had to be Ren, Ming-fen’s brother. They had the same long and lean look about them.
Ming-fen went to him, sheathing her own knives to take hold of his arm. Ren regarded her woodenly as they spoke. I couldn’t hear her words, but I held my breath as his arm went around her shoulders in a rough embrace. Brother and sister.
Then he shoved her aside to run at the hulking armored frame at the steps of the hall. The thing lifted its meal arm to strike at him, but Ren dodged easily, snaking around to jump onto the back of the contraption. As the operator brought the machine around, I could finally see who the operator was. It was Chang-wei inside the cage with his hands gripped around a set of levers.
My heart pounded like thunder. I ran as close as I could. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ming-fen doing the same, weapons in hand as she searched for some opening to intervene.
“Chang-wei!” I shouted. “Get away, the building is going to explode!”
Inside the cage, he turned to look at me. At that moment, Ren climbed up higher and stabbed his knives into the gap in the metal armor beneath the helmet — where the back of a man’s neck would be. The knife tore into the wires and a spark of electrical energy traveled up his arm. A loud snap emitted from the suit and the entire frame stumbled backward, carrying Ren on top of it.
Chang-wei was locked below within the steel frame. His eyes fixed onto mine before the entire headquarters burst into flame behind him.
Chapter 24
I fell to the ground and threw my arms over my head. A wave of heat tore over me. I was certain I was dead because there was suddenly silence. True silence amidst all the violence.
It was almost like peace. The only peace possible.
But I opened my eyes back to fire and destruction. Flames danced over the walls and columns of the hall before me as a high-pitched humming noise filled my ears. I could hear the cracking of the wood and the spit of the fire through the drone.
Chang-wei was no longer in front of me. Neither was Ming-fen or her brother, Ren. Pushing myself up with my arms, I searched the area frantically. There was an armored frame lying face up in the courtyard.
My knees wobbled when I stood, but I staggered over to the machine and found Chang-wei inside. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving. I shouted his name and it sounded as if my voice had been removed from my body. I was shouting from the bottom of a deep well.
Chang-wei didn’t respond. He was covered with ash. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
With shaking fingers, I reached through the cage. I tried to feel for the pulse in
his neck, but his armor was in the way. My hand brushed against his jaw and a lump formed in my throat. I bit back a sob and tried once again to reach for his pulse.
Suddenly his eyes fluttered open. His lips formed around my name.
“Soling.”
When I asked him if he was in pain, he nodded weakly. His eyes started to close again. Frantically, I searched the cage for some kind of latch, but couldn’t see anything. The structure was dented and the cage appeared to be jammed. I tugged at it, pulling with all my strength, but it wouldn’t open.
I could see someone approaching at the edge of my vision. Standing up, I braced my foot against an armored plate and pulled so hard the metal bars dug into my palms.
Firm hands took hold of me by my shoulders to nudge me aside. Then a large, hulking figure grabbed onto the front of the cage and jerked it open with a loud creak.
I stared up into Kai’s face. Half of it was covered with bruises. There was a gash down one side and his eye barely opened. He looked back at me for a moment that lasted forever. Then, without a word, he turned to go.
Then Chang-wei groaned with pain and Kai was forgotten. I knelt to help him out of the cage.
“My arm.” He winced when I took hold of it. I quickly let go.
Moving slowly, he climbed out of the cage like a crab emerging soft and vulnerable from its shell. He cradled his arm against his side and said something that I couldn’t hear. There was still a humming sound in my ears.
“It’s not safe here,” Chang-wei repeated as loud as he could, his breath wheezing with each word.
That was when I remembered Ming-fen. I searched the courtyard but didn’t see any sign of her. There was a blackened figure laying on the ground not far away from us. A long knife rested just beyond his outstretched hand. Ming-fen’s brother.
The courtyard was crawling with rebels with their red armbands. We needed to get out of there before they regrouped.
I draped Chang-wei’s good arm over my shoulders so he could lean against me as we walked. Our progress was slow. I heard shots being fired, but I couldn’t discern where the fighting was coming from. We were surrounded by it.
We left the gardens and trudged back into the streets. I couldn’t remember the way to the East Gate, but at the moment all I cared about was getting away from the rebel stronghold.
“You…shouldn’t have come…” Chang-wei gasped.
“Save your breath.”
Alarm bells rang constantly now. There were people rushing through the streets amidst shouts of, “Invaders!” Among those cries, there were others that warned of foreign devils. No one knew who was attacking who.
“The imperial troops…should be…coming…from the North Gate,” Chang-wei said.
I looked all around, searching for some place where we could take shelter. With Chang-wei’s injuries, I couldn’t risk moving too far. His ribs were likely broken and I feared he might puncture a lung — though for now it was promising that he could speak without coughing blood.
“Stop talking,” I pleaded, trying to hold him steady.
That was when we saw them. A band of five armed soldiers without the red cloth that marked the Small Swords. The locals scattered in their wake, disappearing quickly into the nooks and corners that only they knew.
The men advanced on us.
“You!” the leader called.
Chang-wei held up his hand and tried to identify himself as aligned with the imperial army, but it didn’t matter. The leader advanced with his rifle lifted to crack the butt of it across Chang-wei’s jaw. I screamed and fired my needle gun. The opium dart lodged into the soldier’s neck and took effect almost immediately. He lurched forward before sinking to the ground.
Chang-wei was on hands and knees before me, still stunned by the blow. I tried to help him up, but the others were advancing. With a shaking hand, I reloaded and shot two more darts blindly into the closest ones, not knowing whether they hit or not. Rough hands grabbed at me and shoved me onto the ground. Through the blur of bodies, I could see Chang-wei lunge to try to pull them off of me.
I fought the tangle of arms around me. I couldn’t see anything but dark shapes and cursed in despair that my ears were still ringing. Then I heard a gasp above me and the grip on my wrist fell away. There was another grunt, then a scream. I looked up to see the soldier reaching for his face. A silver dragon throwing knife protruded from one eye.
Blinking, I stared upward. Ming-fen stood over me like a statue.
The rest of the attackers had backed away. I pushed up from the ground. A soldier hovered over Chang-wei to the right of us, aiming a kick to his mid-section. Ming-fen was there in two strides, her hand lashing out. There was a flash of steel and then the soldier was clutching at his throat, blood seeping between his fingers.
I ran to Chang-wei and pulled him to his feet. The soldiers who remained were either unconscious from the darts or injured enough to leave off. Some had run away and I feared reinforcements.
Chang-wei leaned against me, his breathing ragged. I looked incredulously at Ming-fen whose face was covered in a smear of ash and blood.
“Mei-mei.” Her eyes were black like stone. “We need to find a place to hide.”
We found a trapdoor in an abandoned dwelling that led down to a cellar. I gathered refuse over the door before stealing below.
There was little visibility inside. A small cut-out provided the only ventilation and looked out right below the ground floor of the building. Through it I could see the flurry of movement outside.
“The imperial forces are here,” Ming-fen said grimly beside me. “Everyone who they decide is a rebel is a rebel. They won’t care who they kill.”
Chang-wei had collapsed onto a low bench in the corner. There were several bamboo mats laid out on the floor. A set of pipes had been left in the corner.
I recognized immediately what the hidden space must have been used for. It was an opium den.
For a long, long time we listened to the sounds of disorder outside. The sounds of a city falling to chaos.
Ming-fen sat back with her legs folded to her chest as she stared at the door at the top of the stairs. She had her arms wrapped around her knees. A knife remained in each hand.
When I finally dared to move again, I turned to Chang-wei. His arm was still cradled against his side.
“It’s broken,” he said through gritted teeth as I reached toward him.
Not only his arm was broken, but his hand as well. And a few ribs. I asked him to take a deep breath and he couldn’t without pain.
“I can bind it.”
I glanced over at Ming-fen and saw she hadn’t moved. As much as I was grateful she’d come to our rescue, I couldn’t forget that her brother and Chang-wei had been locked in battle before the explosion. She ignored Chang-wei now, as if he didn’t exist. Which meant she remembered as well.
I turned to Chang-wei and undid his belt, helping him out of the padded armor that he wore. He winced as we freed his arm.
Coincidentally, I’d studied the skeletal structure of the hand and wrist quite a bit when I was younger. My father had lost his arm during an accident experimenting with gunpowder formulas. He’d had it replaced with a mechanical arm. The workings and comparisons of man and machine had become a fascination of mine.
I didn’t know how much that knowledge would help here, but it was better than none. I cut and rolled up sections of the bamboo mat to form the splints. I also dismantled my bladed fan. The smaller metal pieces could be used to stabilize his fingers. The bindings I had to tear from our clothing.
“Here.”
I took the strap of the belt and held it up for him.
Chang-wei bit down hard on it to keep from crying out. I would need to set the bones before splinting them and I’d used up all my opium darts to fend off the imperial soldiers.
“I’m not as knowledgeable about bone-setting as Kai.”
Suddenly my chest hitched and my eyes flooded with tears. Chang-
wei reached out with his good hand to touch his fingertips gently against my cheek. I couldn’t bear to look up at him. Instead, I wiped impatiently at my eyes and set to work on his arm, trying to piece it back together like a broken puzzle.
I started to tell him not to move as he lifted his other arm to remove the leather.
“I did this,” Chang-wei said gravely.
I stared downward, still unable to lift my head. My throat, my entire soul was clenched tight, struggling hard to hold too much inside. He flinched as I pulled a length of cloth around his wrist.
“I thought I could keep everything under control, Soling.”
What was he speaking of? His own creations? The loyalist army? The Emperor?
“None of it was ever under your control, Chang-wei.”
For once, I couldn’t hide my anger. No one person was to blame for what was happening, but that didn’t make Chang-wei blameless. I wasn’t ready to absolve him — or myself.
“We shouldn’t have come,” I choked out.
“Someone else would have done the same. Or worse—”
“Worse?” I snapped. The Qing army, our side, was destroying the city they had claimed they were saving from the insurgents. “You can’t keep on enslaving yourself to the will of the imperial court. You’ll never be able to prove yourself.”
I was met with nothing but silence. From the other side of the room, I heard a soft shuffling. Wei Ming-fen was looking away from us. I didn’t know if she could hear our conversation, but it didn’t matter if she could. These words had to be spoken. Finally.
Chang-wei gritted his teeth as he regarded me. His breath came in shallow gasps and he looked to the point of breaking. I was already broken. There was no knowing what form the pieces that were left would become.
“If we turn away from the Emperor, we’ll be condemned. They’ll come for us,” he said gravely.
“No, they won’t,” I snapped. “Do you really think anyone cares about us? Do you think anyone will remember who we are?”
