Dragon's Ark

by D Scott Johnson

  Mr. Gao asked, “Everyone strapped in?” Once they’d given him the thumbs up, the helicopter’s rotor changed pitch. It blew debris toward the waving monks and nuns, and with that, they were off.

  He was serious, concentrating on flying the chopper, but he replied to all of Helen’s questions without any annoyance. Tonya figured he must have been a grandfather many times over by now. Or maybe not. With China’s restrictions, his family could be a lot smaller than hers.

  Helen finally ran out of questions, so Tonya took the opening.

  “Two sons and four grandchildren,” he said, “but only one of them is a boy.” It wasn’t said contemptuously, more like a bit of a shrug. “They’re all healthy, which is much more important. My eldest granddaughter is studying to be an aerospace engineer. She could design this thing’s replacement one day!”

  Gao gave a brief aerial tour of Chongqing as he brought them in. Their ride out of the city was hard to miss from the air.

  The boat was named Yangtze Star, the second example of the largest riverboats ever built. Four articulated segments stretched a quarter mile in length, connected with flexible couplings that would allow each hull to navigate independently, easily negotiating difficult river bends. It was as big as an aircraft carrier, but the low height of the hulls was deceptive. Each cabin could be raised or lowered as much as fifteen feet to clear shallow river bottoms or low bridges. The Chinese government created deep channels for giant cargo boats, but an enterprising Taiwanese venture saw a great opportunity for carrying passengers. It wasn’t the first sign of growing trust between the mainland and Taiwan, but it was definitely the largest.

  They had to take a shuttle bus to reach the river port, mostly because it was free, but it also had antiquated security Kim could hack.

  Well, Kim and Ozzie.

  “Stop it, Ozzie,” Kim growled as they stood at the bus stop. If the two of them could actually touch each other they’d be throwing elbows like it was the NBA finals.

  It was no time to screw around, though. Tonya had accessed the newsfeeds on the way over. India was bleeding, and she had a Chinese knife in her back. The evidence might’ve been faked, but China’s diplomats seemed to assume bluster and saber-rattling was all that was needed to get India to back down. They were wrong, and the people on the street knew it. The situation reminded Tonya of old apocalypse movies, except this was real.

  “Guys,” she said, “play nice.”

  Ozzie stuck his chin out at Kim, who did the same thing. They came within an inch of touching each other, but backed off at the last minute.

  “This is China. My turf,” Ozzie said. “I hack the bus.”

  Tonya nudged Mike, and then motioned at Kim. Ever since they’d broken free of the prison realm, Kim would actually listen to him. It was so new that Mike sometimes forgot.

  He nodded. “Oh, right. Kim? Kim.”

  She broke Ozzie’s stare. “What?”

  “Ozzie hacks the bus. We’ve already missed the first boarding call.”

  That was a good move. Kim arrived hours early to anything. Flat-out missing a deadline reined her in nicely.

  “Fine. Fine. If it’s that important to you, Ozzie, hack the damned bus.”

  He did so with a flourish. A tire screeched, and Tonya winced at the way people standing at other stops stared.

  “What?” he asked. “I’ve already neutralized the security cameras. Nobody important will notice.”

  They had to stop twice for military convoys. This was getting way too real, way too fast.

  The ship was more impressive up close, dazzling white with red and gold accents. It had separate boarding areas for each segment. Mike walked up to a row of lockers that sat on the shore and put his thumb against one of the largest. It opened, and there were six big duffel bags stacked inside.

  “Our new identities.” Mike shrugged at Spencer. “I didn’t know about Shan until after I’d made the arrangements.”

  Tonya had said a rosary for Shan the night she’d gotten back, and that was the end of it. Spencer was having a much harder time.

  He stared at the floor and held his hands out for a bag. “Fuck him. Leave the other one in the locker. It’ll be weeks before they find it.”

  The interior of the boat was more impressive than the exterior. Warm wood paneling, tile floors, and brass accents were classy and very Modern China. It wasn’t just for the wealthy, either. Regular Chinese were in desperate need of a vacation, and they were more than able to pay for it.

  Kim used her bag to gently fend off two different sets of careening children running through the lobby. Ozzie was not as skilled. He flinched and danced as people walked by. Tonya herded him into a corner bordered by a big potted plant.

  “You need to get it together, Ozzie.”

  He shoved himself as far up into the corner as he could, standing on his toes. “There are so many people here!”

  “You’ll be fine. We don’t want to attract more attention than we have to. Remember what Kim taught you. Once we get out of the lobby, it’ll open up.”

  “I’m ordering room service the second I get to my suite.”

  “Fine, whatever it takes. Just stay as close as you can to me, and I’ll get you through check-in.”

  Getting him past check-in was a lot trickier than she anticipated. He was too big to hide behind her the way Kim could. Eventually they made it to the other side of registration into the far less crowded elevator lobby.

  Kim quietly pulled her aside. “Would you mind if I switched rooms with Helen?”

  She was supposed to be Tonya’s roommate tonight, with Mike and Helen in a room together. Kim and Mike spending the night in the same room, finally. Tonya could barely contain herself.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I thought he was dead. It made a lot of things clear to me.”

  The gossipy side got the better of her. “How are you going to work it?”

  “I’ll ask Helen after the lifeboat drill…”

  Tonya raised an eyebrow at her. Kim was so crossed up she had misunderstood the question.

  “Oh, that. I don’t know how that’s going to work. I lost him once. I really did. He died thinking I was mad at him.” She squared her shoulders. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

  Tonya got Ozzie to his room. He nearly slammed the door in her face, and then shouted something about gaming the rest of the night. Fine. Whatever. Spencer volunteered to help Helen learn how to reconnect with her other half. They went out on the balcony of Helen and Tonya’s suite, practicing whatever made that possible.Kim and Mike went to dinner together, alone..

  Which left Tonya on her own. She was at a bit of a loss to find something to do until she saw the door to the casino.

  Walter had talked about this. “When I was a kid,” he said, “gambling was banned. But after the dam broke? China needed two things, one that it had and one that it didn’t. Even after a few million of us got washed into the sea, there were still plenty of Chinese in China. But what there wasn’t plenty of was money. Not on that scale. Then they realized a truth the rest of the world discovered centuries ago: the easiest way to get money from the rich isn’t to take it. It’s to trick them into giving it to you. And so the riverboat casino was born.”

  The memory made him real again, the way she remembered him. There was no betrayal, just an old man helping a young woman find her way in the world. She stepped into the shadows like Kim did, so nobody would see her. Now that she was safe, now that they were all safe, Tonya confronted it. Her father, the one who’d raised her to be what she was today, owned slaves. His son had owned her, however briefly. It wasn’t dry history, and it wasn’t politics. A man she loved had been evil.

  But he wasn’t. Not to her. He was kind, tough, terrifying, and loving. He’d saved her. The whole point of being a Christian was redemption, forgiveness.

  A waiter brushed past her with a full cart. The deck swayed just enough to feel. Real life was intruding.

&nbs
p; It hurt. It hurt worse than when he died. It always would. But she was okay with that. She forgave him in that moment. It would take a long time, but there was a way forward. Tonya wiped her eyes.

  Helen called. When Tonya answered, feedback squealed through the connection.

  Spencer’s voice came over the channel. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

  “If I wanted your opinion I would’ve asked for it.”

  Tonya said, “Your accent is gone when you’re in realmspace.”

  Helen whooped. “Right. You definitely told me it wouldn’t work. Pay up.”

  After Spencer cursed a blue streak he asked, “Tonya, how much do you see?”

  “Nothing, just audio. Can you access any of the feeds around me?”

  Helen asked, “Where are you?”

  Once she told them, Spencer said, “Careful, Helen. If you get the main manifest routine wrong, you’ll nuke the casino’s realmspace. That’ll end our little trip real quick.”

  “Shut up, Spencer, I got this.”

  There was a warping in her enhanced vision, and then the casino sputtered into darkness.

  “See!” Spencer said as shouting broke out around Tonya. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

  “Hang on, just a second.”

  Great. Helen got preoccupied exactly the same way Mike did. Hopefully she wouldn’t set anything on fire.

  The lights and music blared back to life.

  “And that. Is. That.”

  Tonya checked to be sure. No fires. “So what can you see now?”

  “I’ve got access to all the camera feeds. It’s so nice to see out of more than one set of eyes again.”

  It took Tonya two cruises around the room to be sure of the table she wanted. It was the chatter that got her attention.

  “I can’t believe how fast my luck turned around.” There was no mistaking that tone. The man wasn’t a patron, and he wasn’t a tourist. In this crowd, at that table, he was a mark.

  Six strangers sat at the table. Four were definitely Chinese, one might’ve been from Vietnam or Cambodia—Tonya was briefly startled she could now tell the difference—and there was just one Westerner. He was upset, seated with his back to a set of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the river.

  “It’s okay, Jerry,” the Asian guy wearing a ridiculous cowboy hat said. “I’m sure it’ll come back. It always does.”

  “I don’t think I can last at this rate,” Jerry said.

  Tonya leaned over one of the empty seats. “Can anyone play?”

  The Asian guy to her right wore a set of vintage Ray-Ban Wayfarers. He said with only faintly accented English, “Absolutely.”

  She sat down. In her ear, Helen said, “That’s funny. There’s a separate set of cameras pointed directly at your seat, Tonya, and at that other man’s seat, the one who lost the last hand.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Mike had given them all enough spending money to cover meals and conveniences for what would be a long trip. But it wasn’t quite enough for what she had planned. “Spencer, could you lend a sister a bit of cash?”

  “Sure, Tonya, how much do you need?”

  She placed her first bet and checked her hole cards. Sure enough, a pair of kings had come her way. The third king showed up on the flop. Tonya smiled as she stared at the cards. “All of it. Yours, too, Helen. I need to look like I’ve got some game here.”

  Helen spluttered. “Tonya, I can see your cards!”

  Cowboy Hat smiled. “It’s nice to know at least some Americans let their servants have a night off.”

  Servant. Right. “They do work me to the bone, lawdy.”

  Spencer said, “Nice accent, Tonya.”

  Helen broke in. “I think they’re spying on you.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  She focused on the table. “And I have had it with those white devils. This is my chance to shine like a silvery moon.”

  Ozzie wouldn’t answer her calls, and she didn’t dare try to interrupt Mike or Kim, so this was all the cash she had to work with for the night. It would be enough. She registered the combined pot they’d cobbled together and put it all in on the first hand. “That’s how it works, right? That’s what I saw on the tournament ’cast.”

  Cowboy Hat was impressed with the amount she was willing to wager in one go. “Yes it is.”

  It took five hands for them to bend the game their way. Helen had no idea what was going on but was too proud to admit it. “I cannot believe you are letting them spy on you.”

  Spencer replied, “Come on, Helen, she’s already tripled her money. These guys are getting fleeced.”

  Tonya asked, “What are they saying to each other, Helen?” There’d been more than a few jokes in Chinese rolled around the table. Tonya’s grasp of the language wasn’t good enough to understand what they’d said.

  “It’s horrible stuff, Tonya, I don’t want to translate it. They think you have to be a prostitute to have that much money and be alone on the boat.”

  Sunglasses put his hand on her knee. “What say you and I cash out and head upstairs?”

  That was her cue. “Helen, can you cut the cameras for me now?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Spencer said, “Wait. No. Helen, you’re not ready for that. You have to manifest partially and you haven’t managed to pull it off yet. Be careful.”

  “You are worse than an old woman. This will be easy. Watch.”

  Tonya had just enough time to smile at Sunglasses when, with a shower of sparks, every single camera emplacement on her side of the casino popped. Sunglasses beat at his head frantically, putting out a spark that had landed on it.

  Helen said, “Okay, maybe I didn’t need to use that much power.”

  Spencer replied, “Ya think? You melted the wires.”

  “I did not. They have circuit breakers to stop that. It’s not my fault they didn’t fit inline surge protectors on the cameras. Serves the crooks right.”

  “That’s it. I’m not letting you burn the boat down. We’ll see you, Tonya.”

  “But wait, she needs someone to translate. There may be more cheaters. Spencer don’t you dare—”

  The channel cut with a snap.

  After the smoke cleared, the players at the table saw she still had all her money and half of theirs.

  “Goodness, does this mean they’ll close the casino?”

  She figured the security guard stomping toward the cashier’s booth was going to do exactly that. Cowboy Hat jumped up and had a fierce discussion with him. A few quick gestures at her and an artful palm grease later, the guard walked away. The Casino gradually got back into gear while cleaning staff scurried around picking up the mess.

  Cowboy Hat sat back down and said, “When you get tired of the game, looks like they’ll have a cleaning job for you here, eh?” Everyone laughed. So did she, but for a different reason.

  Now it was her turn. Walter had taught her how to play poker in yet another one of his endless lessons on discipline and observation. They’d lived with each other for about a year at that point, but he still kept saying she didn’t know anything, that old men could think rings around her just playing cards. Right before that first poker game, Tonya bet as many sets of inverted push-ups Walter could name that he was wrong.

  She couldn’t lift her arms high enough to feed herself the next day. It took three months for her to break even, and four more before she got to feed him soup. The old geezers who showed up for poker that last night didn’t know what hit them.

  And neither would these.

  She quickly cleaned out three of them and made sure their mark, Jerry, walked away with a survivable loss. Cowboy Hat and Sunglasses, though, were much tougher nuts to crack. It turned out they were the real deal, and most definitely not used to losing; especially not to a black ghost, let alone a woman.

  They were both sweating when she went all-in. The river made her hand a straight flush. No bluffin
g this time.

  Sunglasses swore and threw in the towel. Cowboy Hat squinted, then pushed his pile in beside hers. “There is no way.”

  She smiled and turned over a six and seven of clubs. “Not too shabby for a maid. Or a prostitute. Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure.”

  Sunglasses stared at the center of the table like his kitten had just died, but Cowboy Hat had a different idea.

  There was a quiet snick and a gun appeared, carefully palmed in his hand so only she could see the barrel pointed straight at her. “I hate cheaters most of all.”

  “I’ll bet that makes shaving in a mirror a real chore for you, then.”

  Tonya moved to place the table between her and the gun but, before she’d leaned over more than an inch, the entire room went sideways.

  Chapter 40: Mike

  He would be impressed with whatever outfit Kim decided to wear for dinner, but he’d never seen her light up the way she did when they walked down the row of clothing stores that made up the main promenade of the riverboat. Mike made sure to stay out in the passageway whenever she wanted to talk to a salesperson. The deliveries arrived a few hours later.

  She didn’t disappoint. Her dress was red satin with a low hem and a high neckline, cinched tight at the waist. Her long black gloves set it off nicely.

  He’d meant his outfit to be a surprise too. By the way she smiled, it worked.

  “A tuxedo?”

  “The main dining room has a dress code, you know.”

  “I didn’t realize it would be so,” she paused as her eyes did another head to toe scan, “formal.”

  “You look spectacular.”

  She stared at the floor. “Thank you.” After a quick inhale, she gripped her purse. “Do you know what they’re serving?”

  Helen had moved over to Tonya’s cabin, and Kim’s bag was on the bed next to his. That meant this was their room now. She’d given him no explanation, and he knew better than to ask. Part of him wanted to dance. Another part wanted to run.

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  The AI in charge of the dining area sat them with English speakers, but occasionally they’d slip into Mandarin. Kim translated over their private line. It meant their dinner company was impressed, and puzzled, by his language skills.