Crimson Poison

by Susan Moore

  “Zoinks, Henry!” she said. “Aunt Vera’s not going to like that one bit.”

  Chapter Five

  X-RAY

  The customs officer set the package down on the polished steel bench and switched on the overhead light. He should have taken it next door to where the smaller packages were dealt with but his curiosity had got the better of him.

  He put on his half-moon glasses and turned the jar-shaped parcel around under the light. Whatever was inside had been sewn into a well-worn brown leather pouch. It was like handling a relic from the past, the sort of thing you would find in a museum inside a glass case labelled something like Tangut messenger pouch, circa 1290. His hands began to shake; this was a proper piece of history, just like he’d seen in the virtual museums where he spent his evenings and weekends.

  Whoever had sent it lived in Mongolia, judging by the postage marks. Scrawled in thick black ink below was an address:

  J. Borjigin

  PO Box 1288

  Central Post Office

  Hong Kong

  Flipping it over, he ran his gloved hand across a seal of blue wax. Stamped into the wax was a howling wolf with its head thrown back. A trail of shapes streamed out of its mouth: a star, a half-moon and a triangle.

  Holding it up to his nose he took a long sniff. More than anything, the smell reminded him of the musty old goats that his grandparents had kept on their farm up in Central China.

  He picked up his FastPad and held it over the package.

  “Level-five scan,” he ordered.

  The screen lit up bright blue.

  “Scan complete,” said the FastPad in its digital-readout voice. “Negative dangerous, live or illegal elements found.”

  With that answer he knew he should now stamp the package “Inspected by Customs” and send it on its way. But instead of reaching for a clear customs bag off the shelf he picked up a knife.

  He was about to slice through one of the thick gut threads holding the parcel together when Wokstar started to bark. Blade poised, he looked over his shoulder as the far door opened and a tall woman appeared, striding across the floor in heavy boots.

  “Get a move on!” she shouted, her voice booming across the shed. “Next lot of packages is about to be delivered.”

  He tried to hide the package behind his back but she was too swift.

  “What’s this doing here?” she said, grabbing it from the table.

  “The robot sorter sent it,” he replied.

  She frowned. “You should have sent it over to my team.”

  He shrugged. “I thought I’d inspect it to save time.”

  “Save time?” she snorted. She waved her hand at the mountain of uninspected parcels. “You’ve got thirty minutes to sort this lot out otherwise I’ll put you back on the night shift.”

  She swung round and stomped out, the mysterious, ancient package clasped in her hand.

  Chapter Six

  SCOWLER

  “It’s not Mummy who’s hurt, it’s me!” said Henry, tears pouring down his freckled cheeks. “If you’d brought me here and not Prissy then this would never have happened!”

  Nat put her arm round his shoulders. She bit her lip as a wave of guilt washed over her.

  “Prissy was cross because she had to drop me off and it was making her late to meet Candy so she tipped me off the back of her Slider on to the pavement. She drove off and just as I was getting up the chef came out of the restaurant and banged into me with his vegetable boxes. He didn’t even say sorry. Ouch, it reeeeally hurts!”

  Ken appeared and took hold of Henry’s arm. He turned it one way, then the other, weighing up the damage. “It’s superficial. You will live. Come with me. Nat, get the fashion queen out of the cupboard and start your warm-up.”

  Nat grabbed Wen. They stepped on to the mats and began to stretch. Nat felt herself relax as she drew in deeper and deeper breaths.

  “Hey,” she whispered. “Let’s do that mountain fight scene from Heavenly Fires.”

  Wen’s eyes lit up. “OK. I’m Wanda, in her tangerine jumpsuit. It’s so ding.”

  “Ku!” said Nat, and went to fetch a couple of bo-sticks off the rack at the side of the room. “You ready to wok and woll?”

  They took position. Nat tossed a bo-stick to Wen. “Let’s go from the steep cliff bit.”

  Nat raised her bo-stick and charged at Wen. Her friend blocked her. Nat tried again. Finally, with both hands on the stick, she locked and pushed Wen on to the mat, poised to knock her over the edge of the cliff just as Scowler had done. She raised her stick.

  “Let’s stop right there,” said Ken, emerging from his office with a bandaged Henry in tow.

  Nat froze. They set down the bo-sticks, bowed to each other and turned to their kung fu master.

  “I have a feeling you two have been to the movies. Your moves are gun fu.” Ken folded his arms across his black cotton jacket. Nat shrank from his piercing gaze. You never argued with Ken.

  “Yes, Sifu. We were channelling Heavenly Fires.”

  “Ah yes, Scowler Stone and Wanda. Now, as Bruce Lee once said, ‘Do not look for a successful personality and imitate it – be yourself.’” He paused for a moment. “You are both very talented and have skill, but you must use it honestly to express yourself, and not someone else.”

  “Yes, Sifu,” they replied in unison, bowing their heads.

  “Good, then let us work on what you are meant to be studying, Tiger Style. Today we will focus on Tiger Tail Kick. Spin to your right, go down on your left knee, place your hands on the ground for support then drive the bottom of your right foot backward at your opponent. Henry, you will sit, watch and learn.”

  It was a long session. Nat was sure Ken added on the extra twenty minutes as punishment. After more than a hundred Tiger Tail Kicks, her legs felt like lead as she headed for the broom cupboard.

  The moment she stepped inside, Fizz’s eyes flashed amber.

  “Central Post Office package update. Customs inspection clear. Parcel ready for collection. Total charge twenty-five dollars. Payable on—” The message was cut off. “Call from Jamuka,” he announced from his perch on the shelf.

  “Take it.”

  Fizz turned and spread his wings. There, on a three-inch, high-definition, flex-diamond-coated screen, was Jamuka in his kung fu gi, sitting cross-legged on the deck of the Junko. His grey hair was pulled back into a braid. Gobi, his green and white songbird, was sitting chirping away in her bamboo cage that was hanging off the boom of the central mast. The edges of the burnt-red sails that Ah Wong, their housekeeper, hadn’t bothered to properly tuck in flapped in the wind. Behind him towered Hong Kong’s skyline.

  “I see you are still at Ken’s,” he said.

  “He made us do loads extra and now I’m really starving.”

  “Then make haste back here. We are due at Uncle Fergal and Aunt Vera’s in thirty minutes.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth – she’d completely forgotten. Any holiday feeling vanished in an instant.

  “Do we have to?”

  Jamuka leaned in closer to camera, peering over his half-moon glasses.

  “I’ll expect you back here in ten minutes. By the looks of you I imagine you will want to change before we leave.”

  Jamuka’s voice was always soft – an iron fist in a velvet glove. There was no point in trying to change his mind. He cut the call.

  “Wa sai! Supper with the cousins on the last day of term? We’d better fuel you with a Popko juice before you go,” said Wen.

  Chapter Seven

  BREATH

  Nat took a long slurp through the spiral straw sticking out of her takeaway Popko cup. The taste of ice-cold strawberry and coconut was delicious. She pressed her tongue up to the roof of her mouth. The tiny bubbles, which were Popko’s secret ingredient, exploded open, releasing a chocolate and caramel fizz. A smile spread across her face; there was no better taste in the world.

  “Driver approaching,” chirped NutNu
t, his tufted red squirrel ears robotically twitching up and out of Henry’s backpack.

  A navy-blue buggy with a gold teddy bear stamped on to its bonnet pulled up alongside the Popko booth where they were all standing. The driver hopped out wearing a matching suit and a big smile. He looked from the photo of Henry on his FastPad to where Henry was standing in his kung fu suit trying to quickly finish his Popko juice.

  “Mr Walker, please step inside and I’ll get you fastened in,” said the driver, opening the passenger door.

  Henry groaned. “I can’t wait to get a Slider next year. Then I’ll never have to take a babyish buggy ride ever again.”

  Nat took his empty cup, lifted his backpack off the pavement and handed it to the driver.

  “I’ll see you shortly,” she said.

  “Tuck that arm in now, please,” said the driver, ready to close the buggy door. “Looks like you had a nasty accident.”

  “He was kung fu fighting and his opponent’s Claw move got him,” said Wen with a wink at Henry.

  “That was just before Henry finished him off with a Tiger Tail Kick,” added Nat.

  “Ku!” said the driver, obviously impressed.

  Henry blushed and smiled.

  “Thanks,” he called out of the window, as the driver pulled out into the traffic.

  “I’d better get a move on too,” said Nat.

  She hugged Wen goodbye, jumped on board her Slider and headed off towards the piers.

  A few minutes later she came to a halt, hovering in a long static line of suited city workers on Sliders. It would take her a good twenty minutes just to get to the water at this rate. It was going to be quicker to walk.

  She jumped off, lowered the handlebars and selected the Carry option on the digital-readout panel. The Slider flipped on its side, a small panel opened up and a long strap unfurled. Nat hooked it over her shoulder and stepped on to the pedestrian walkway. The hover mode kept the board lifted and light on the strap.

  “Hey, watch it!” called a man, ducking her Slider as she turned into Man Yee Lane.

  “Zoinks, sorry!” she said.

  Groups of daytrippers from the mainland were crowded around a double row of stalls selling cheap robots, handbags and scarves, buying last-minute items before they had to leave. Nat had forgotten they’d be still there. She cut behind a row, where there was just enough room to dodge around the stalls’ storage lockers.

  “Zao gao!” she said, slipping and nearly losing her footing on some old vegetable slop.

  By the time she made it out on to the waterfront she felt a familiar tightness wrapping across her chest.

  “Fizz – air!” she said, tugging him out of her T-shirt pocket.

  His eyes started to flash red.

  “No alarm!” she said, beginning to wheeze.

  She put his snout to her mouth. He fired two puffs of asthma medication, which swept down her throat into her lungs. Her airways relaxed, opening up. She let her hand drop and sucked in gulps of warm, salty sea air.

  “What would I do without you?” she asked, lifting him up to her cheek.

  He let out a long, low purr. It had been ages since she’d last had an asthma attack. She raised her head to the sky and wondered what could possibly have triggered it. The city’s pollution levels were low right now, and she hadn’t been going that fast…

  Her eyes were drawn to the top of a sleek glass-and-steel rocket-shaped skyscraper towering above. SPIN, the world-famous computer games company, and her inheritance. Its gold double-helix sign was rotating on the tip of the rocket’s nose.

  A heart-wrenching longing for her parents bubbled to the surface. She tried to dismiss it as a result of the asthma attack, pushing it back down to where she’d buried it, deep inside, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

  She slipped the Slider strap off her shoulder, lowered the board to the ground and sat down on it.

  “Play family photo-reel two, Fizz,” she said, cupping him in her hand.

  She knew she shouldn’t – she was already late – but seeing them there, alive on screen, was the only thing that made her feel whole again.

  Chapter Eight

  THE JUNKO

  Nat pointed Fizz’s snout towards the SPIN pier gate for security identification. The gate unlocked automatically and slid open. She loaded her Slider into the rack behind the gate.

  Turning towards the water she saw a couple of brand-new high-spec Rocketboats moored up in the VIP area. She guessed they had come in for the weekly game-off competition at SPIN. She’d have been going herself if she didn’t have to go out for supper.

  Supper! She was late, very late, but she felt better for watching the photo-reel. She ran past the Rocketboats towards a massive ocean-going wooden junk that sat at the end of the pier, floating on the harbour’s choppy waters. On top of each of the three masts, dragon and wolf-head flags fluttered in the breeze.

  She could see Jamuka on deck, pacing. He was waving a hand around in the air, speaking to someone on his phone. She ducked down, hoping he wouldn’t see her, and crept up to the junk’s bow. Her eyes travelled along the boat’s polished, planked hull. She was in luck: Ah Wong hadn’t closed the porthole to her bedroom.

  Jamuka’s deep voice travelled down to where she was standing. He was talking to his trainer about Dragon Khan’s form for tomorrow’s race at Happy Valley. Good. Whenever he was discussing his racehorse he was one hundred per cent distracted from anything else going on.

  Keeping close, she tiptoed along to where the brass-rimmed porthole stood open above her head. She plucked Fizz off her shoulder.

  “I’m sending you in first,” she whispered.

  With a well-practised aim she tossed him up and through the window. A second later he let out two “all clear” squeaks. She was good to go.

  Bending her knees she sprang upwards, making a grab for the porthole frame. She grasped on to it and pulled herself up and through. It was a tight squeeze but she managed to wriggle her way in. If she grew any more she’d have to find another secret way to sneak in.

  She landed on her bunk next to Fizz and rolled on to the floor. Kicking off her boots she curled her toes into the soft sheepskin rug that covered the pale-grey floorboards. On the opposite side of her cabin the silver mural of a horse stretched the length of the wall. It glowed softly in the evening sun filtering through the porthole. Sunset was approaching fast. She must hurry.

  Flinging open the door to her wardrobe, she scanned the shelves of neatly stacked Smart T-shirts, Slider shorts and sweatshirts. Her eyes moved over to the rail where a lone light-brown skirt hung on a solitary hanger. She frowned, took a deep breath and reached in for it. Next she pulled a pale-blue jumper off the top shelf.

  Fizz let out a purr.

  “No, Fizz, I do not look ku. I look like a dork, but I’m not going to let Aunt Vera have a moan about how I should stop dressing like a boy,” she said, checking the finished outfit in the mirror.

  The skirt was now way above the knee, and the sleeves of the jumper didn’t quite reach her wrists. It would have to do. She grabbed her orange kung fu slippers from the drawer under her bed and lifted Fizz up on to her shoulder.

  “Zoula!” she said, heading for the door.

  Out in the narrow passageway she could hear Jamuka up on deck, still on the phone to his trainer. She paused to check her hair in the small round mirror that hung in the middle of her mother’s rogues’ gallery. The paintings of weird and wonderful creatures always shocked anyone who hadn’t seen them before. To Nat they were as familiar as old family portraits. Each one a headshot design, which her mother had painted in oil for SPIN’s first virtual-world game. The Badgerbat was the most famous, with its furry blue-and-white-striped face framed by huge silver bat ears.

  “Take this and hurry up. He’s been waiting for you,” said Ah Wong, appearing from the galley. She was wearing her flat white chef’s hat and a big frown. Nat took the steaming bamboo basket from her.

  “What�
�s in it?”

  “Steamed pork and onion dumplings. I made them an hour ago, per his orders, but they’ve been sitting waiting for your return.”

  “Sorry, I got delayed.”

  Ah Wong tut-tutted and returned to the galley, slamming the door behind her. Nat sighed. It was a good job she was old enough now not to have Ah Wong chaperoning her around town. Back then she had nicknamed her the Dark Shadow, as despite her attempts to escape her in the crowds Ah Wong always found her again. Now Ah Wong was relegated to the kitchen she was getting even grumpier.

  Nat climbed up the ladder, out on to the deck. Gobi spied her from the cage and started to chirp loudly; Fizz let out a deafening squawk in reply. Jamuka turned from where he was standing on the hull’s upper deck.

  “I must go. I will see you on the track at eight,” he said, finishing his call.

  Instead of walking down the steps, he sprang like a cat on to the lower deck. He was so silent and quick that even after all the years of being her guardian he could still surprise her. She tried hard to second-guess him, but somehow he was always one step ahead of her.

  “You are going to have to reprogram how Fizz responds to Gobi. That screeching will drive us all mad, Bao Bao.”

  “Will do. It’s just that the upgrade I did needs finetuning. Is Dragon Khan ready to race?” she asked.

  “Yes, the vet’s given the all-clear, so we’ll move round to Causeway Bay this evening. Ah Wong can sail round while we are at supper.”

  Nat made a mental note to tell Wen.

  “Central Post Office now closed. Pick-up of urgent parcel incomplete. Alert tomorrow?” announced Fizz.

  Jamuka raised an eyebrow. “Urgent parcel not picked up?”