by Naomi Paul
She’d known that Harrison had his potbellied lapdog working within the police, but now it was plain that he had a mole seeded in the Labor Department—someone senior enough to know about the raid and give ample warning. And if that were the case, how many other arms of the government had Harrison infected? How informed was he?
Informed enough that 06/04’s best play had been doomed almost as soon as it was set in motion.
10:42 AM HKT — Komiko has logged on
Komiko: A bit of a roller coaster since last I checked in.
Lian scrolled back through the conversations that had taken place without her. Crowbar was despondent, all frowny emoticons and not knowing “what 2 do next.” Blossom had made a couple of feeble stabs at encouragement and team spirit before largely falling silent. And Torch was on a furious tear, a raw nerve with a hair-trigger Caps Lock key.
Blossom: Roller coasters are fun. This isnt.
Crowbar: We did everything right, played by the rules, told the authorities . . . & we still lost
Torch: The battle. We lost the battle. NOT THE WAR.
Crowbar: Hard to C right now how 4 people can win a war
Lian typed quickly, hoping to post before Torch banged out an angry rebuttal.
Komiko: It’s not just the four of us.
Komiko: Don’t forget, Zan’s working for HC now, spying for us. Our work is inspiring bravery in others.
Torch: Really? He’s being brave? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like he’s being USELESS.
Torch: For a “spy,” he hasn’t fed us one bit of worthwhile information yet. Where’s the list of chemicals? Where’s his sister’s paperwork?
Torch: Where is ONE SINGLE ADVANTAGE that brave, brave Zan has given us against Harrison?
Komiko: Okay, we’re all angry at what happened with the raid. But let’s remember who the enemy is here.
Torch: Oh, I remember. Believe me. And I’m actually DOING SOMETHING about it.
Lian pushed back from her laptop for a minute. The best way to handle Torch when he was in this mood was not to handle him at all. Just let him post uninterrupted until he started to run out of steam. She only hoped that Crowbar and Blossom figured out to stay clear as well.
Torch: Earlier today I hacked the firewall for the contractors who did the refurbishment on HC’s Central offices.
Torch: I snatched every scrap with Harrison’s name on it. All the blueprints, details of the layout—where the physical files are stored, where the server room is.
Torch: But that was just a warm-up. The main event is to crack that server and dig up the payroll files. They’re required by law to keep them.
Torch: If Jiao worked there at all, there will be SOMETHING in their system. Even if they purged every mention of her, there are data ghosts.
Torch: Unlike in the real world, Jiao can’t be erased completely online. And I will stop at NOTHING until I find her.
Torch: Any official document that places her at that factory will be enough to implicate Harrison.
10:58 AM HKT — Torch has logged off
Blossom: And just like that, Torch is gone. I guess the conversation was over.
10:58 AM HKT — Blossom has logged off
Crowbar: Maybe thats 4 the best, I dont feel like thinking about this right now NEway
10:59 AM HKT — Crowbar has logged off
Lian sat for a moment, pondering how utterly alone she was—in her bedroom, in her chat room, and in her fight against the forces of corporate greed.
At least she’d got in one good night’s sleep before her whole world fell apart.
11:00 AM HKT — Komiko has logged off
TWENTY-ONE
Monday
By the time she got to the computer lab during her free period—after a trip to the restroom and a quick stop by the library to check out an annotated study guide to Anna Karenina—Lian’s preferred workstation in the corner was already occupied. She stood at the room’s threshold, watching Matt working the trackball, his eyes glued so intently to the monitor that he didn’t even look up when she stepped into the room.
She watched him for a moment. The lab was sparsely populated, but somehow the four empty chairs on either side of him seemed to highlight Matt’s isolation here—his otherness. He could have been outside with the other boys, chasing a ball around the grounds as if it actually mattered. But he was in the computer lab and was probably writing e-mails to his friends back home. Friends that he missed.
Lian backed out of the doorway, deciding not to disturb him. She had only taken a couple of steps when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, two staccato bursts to let her know she had a new text message. She reached for her phone, and, in the same instant, Matt picked up his from the tabletop and read its screen.
Little wonder; it was a message from Mingmei, addressed to the two of them.
The Stephen Chow revival at Central Cinema rolls on, and tonight is Kung Fu Hustle with English subtitles. Something for everyone! I’m declaring this a double date, Lian, which means you pick a boy or I’ll pick one for you. And as you know, my taste in men is excellent ;)
Lian stepped out into the hallway and replied:
I’ll pick my own prince; I’m scared you’ll find me a frog.
She had agreed to go to the film with Mingmei when it had been announced a month ago, before Matt was even in the picture. It seemed a little unfair that his arrival made it necessary for her to find a date as well, but she realized that she actually knew someone who might fit the bill very nicely.
She logged onto Facebook on her phone, and quickly messaged Taylor.
Short notice, but Matt, Mingmei and I are going to the movies tonight? Up for it?
A message came back about a minute later.
Sorry, Lian. At airport now and heading home. Would have been nice to get to know you better
Lian suppressed her disappointment, hesitated for a moment, and then texted Zan.
Call or text me when you get this; I was thinking I’d treat you to a movie tonight before your shift — Lian
“So how do you know this guy, again?” Mingmei asked hours later, as they stood in the concession line.
“He’s a friend of my brother’s,” Lian fibbed. She’d decided that it was easier to go with this cover story than to pick and choose the bits of her life she could safely share with Mingmei (and Matt now, she supposed).
“Oh, of course. I think I remember him from Qiao’s going-away party. How’s your brother doing, anyway?”
Zan certainly hadn’t been there, but if Mingmei wanted to fill in his backstory, Lian wasn’t about to stop her. “It’s ‘Karl’ now, not Qiao,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And if his postcards are to be believed, right now he’s into Swedish techno-pop and girls who favor berets. Between two girlfriends and a dozen ski slopes, I think he may have forgotten the ‘study’ part of ‘study abroad.’”
She bought a large savory popcorn, and Mingmei bought the sweet kind, so they could pass both buckets down the row as needed. They rejoined the boys outside the theater doors.
“Lian makes a semester in Switzerland sound pretty appealing,” Mingmei told Matt, in English. “Have you had a chance to go visit Qiao over there, Zan? Is the whole country one great big sexy chalet?”
Zan hesitated for a second, and then said, “Oh, yeah, I was there for a weekend in July. It’s, uh . . . the weather was perfect, but those mountains were freezing.” Lian breathed a sigh of relief—Zan was smart enough to hide behind his second language when under pressure. “And like Qiao’s girlfriend said, ‘once the cocoa runs out, there’s only one way to stay warm’.”
“Ha. Which girlfriend was that?” Mingmei asked, smiling as she tossed a kernel into her mouth.
Zan shot a quick look at Lian; he hadn’t been prepped with enough detail.
“The, um. . . . It’s hard to remember. He went through them like tissues.” He nudged Matt with his elbow, grinning: “The best part of being young, male, and
good looking, am I right?”
Matt just stared at him. “Are you?”
Mingmei took Matt’s hand, and the two of them walked into the theater. Lian lingered uncomfortably with Zan for a moment, picking at her popcorn.
“What’s his deal?” Zan asked. “I was just making a joke.”
“Don’t worry about it. Matt’s kind of a hard guy to read.”
They entered the theater as well. Mingmei waved to them animatedly, but she needn’t have bothered; Lian knew she’d always find her friend on an aisle seat in the very back row, her preference since the first movie they’d seen together not long after Lian’s family had arrived from the mainland.
Lian made her way down the row and took the seat next to Matt, offering him her bucket of popcorn.
“Wait . . . has it got frog ovaries in it?” he asked.
“Tell him it does,” Zan said as he sat. “More popcorn for us.”
“Just garlic salt,” Lian told Matt, who thanked her as he took a handful. He chewed one piece at a time as he held a steady sidelong stare on Zan. After a moment, Lian was wary of leaning too far forward in her seat, in case one of the daggers being thrown by the two boys caught her in the head.
“So, Zan,” Matt said, his voice low and almost robotic. “Are you a student on par with Lian’s brother?”
Zan laughed. “No way, man. I’m out there in the working world now, getting my hands dirty.” He held up both his hands, and then plunged them into the popcorn on Lian’s lap. “High school was just about all the reading I want to do for a lifetime.”
“Sure,” Matt nodded. “No need for it once you’ve gotten that diploma, obviously.” Undaunted, he reached into the popcorn and pulled out a puff from directly between Zan’s wrists. Lian wriggled in her seat; she hadn’t realized her lap was going to be some sort of weird battleground for this machismo-off.
“Here,” she said, lifting up the bucket and moving it over to Zan’s seat.
“So what do you do for a living to get your hands so dirty?” Mingmei asked, pointedly not passing her caramel popcorn down.
Lian pressed her heel onto Zan’s toes: a reminder to answer with anything but the truth. She tried to be subtle, but she couldn’t be certain that Matt hadn’t noticed the kick.
“Demolition,” Zan answered. “I go in and set the charges, throw the switch, bring the whole thing tumbling down around me. Dangerous work, you know? Real men only need apply.”
There was a light in his eyes as he spun his tale. Clearly, Lian thought, this imaginary profession was one that held a real interest for him, and he knew the topic well. Matt and Mingmei listened politely as Zan fabricated a story about his most recent project, naming the types of explosive used, describing the undermining process, stressing the importance of collapsing a building onto its own footprint.
“So if I screw up even by the tiniest bit,” he concluded, “if I don’t study every angle of the job . . . a whole lot of people could get hurt or killed.”
“Well,” Matt said, his tone still flat, “good thing you place so much value on education, then.”
As the house lights went down, Lian saw Zan scowling. It was the first time she didn’t feel annoyed to be force-fed commercials before a movie. They were a pleasant distraction from the mounting tension between the two boys, even the ones advertising the upcoming Harrison Denim line. Zan excused himself to use the restroom before the feature started.
“I know it was short notice,” Matt whispered as a trailer for upcoming revival screenings started. “But I can’t believe that guy was the best you could do, Lian.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, he’s just . . . he isn’t what I would picture as your ‘type.’”
She straightened in her seat. “What would you know about my ‘type,’ anyway?” she whispered.
“Forget it,” he said, staring straight ahead at the screen, which was playing the trailer for this year’s All’s Well, Ends Well syrup-fest, which seemed was promoted on the presence of a martial arts movie actor trying to prove he could do romantic comedy.
“No,” she insisted. “If you’re going to sit here and pass judgment on me for bringing him, you’re at least going to tell me why.”
“I want to see this movie,” Mingmei whispered, tugging on Matt’s sleeve and pointing at the screen.
“All I mean,” Matt said to Lian, “is that you’re a smart girl. And you’re not unattractive.”
Lian felt her eyes widen. It wasn’t that she cared whether Matt Harrison thought she was pretty or not, but the caginess of that double negative was somehow worse than if he hadn’t mentioned it at all.
“I’d just like to think,” he continued, “that you value yourself more than to wind up with someone like him. Someone who thinks reading sucks, and that blowing things up is fun. Who asks for a high five from a stranger when he makes a crass comment about womanizing.”
Lian was seething. Every ounce of pity she’d felt for Matt when she’d seen him in the computer lab had evaporated. If this was how he interacted with people, he probably had no more friends back home than he’d made here.
“I just hate to see an intelligent girl saddle herself to someone who isn’t going to challenge her,” Matt finished. A new preview started up, for some kind of war epic.
“I’m getting awfully sick of you appraising my intelligence,” Lian countered. “I don’t like you using it to insult my date, I don’t appreciate you faking admiration for it when you’re clearly better versed in economic theory than I’ll ever be, and, most of all, I don’t care for you bringing home reports on it to your daddy. So do me a favor and just keep your thoughts about how smart I am to yourself.”
“What are you talking about, reports to my dad?”
“He told me, on the yacht,” she hissed. “He told me you hadn’t stopped talking about me. Which I thought was a little weird at the time, and now I’ve decided is plain creepy. So cut it out.”
Matt shook his head, waiting until he had finished chewing his popcorn before he spoke again. “You’re out of your mind, Lian. I haven’t said one word about you at home. Maybe he had you confused with someone else.”
“He knows exactly who I am.”
“Well, then, maybe you’re full of crap. Just because you’ve got some obsession with Googling photos of me and hunting me down like a stalker, don’t think for one minute that the feeling is mutual.”
Lian stood up, furious. “I’m done with this conversation,” she said, not bothering to whisper any more. “Enjoy the popcorn.”
She dumped the bucket onto his lap and stalked out of the theater before he or Mingmei could say another word.
Zan was coming through the door as she was pushing it to exit. She caught him by the sleeve. “Forget it,” she said. “We’re leaving.”
“Everything okay?”
“It was getting a little bit cold in there, sitting next to Matt. A little cold and a little arrogant.”
Zan jogged to draw up alongside her. “Don’t you want to get a refund for our tickets?”
She sighed and kept walking. “I know this will come across like I don’t care about wasting money, but right now I just want to get as far from this place as possible.”
“Okay, okay,” he said as she pushed through the glass double doors to the sidewalk. “But come on, what did he say to get you so riled up?”
She leaned against the building and pressed her fingers to her temples. Yeah, she thought when she became conscious of her action. I’m my father’s daughter, all right.
“I don’t want to get into it,” she replied after a minute. “Just . . . when I tell you that his last name is Harrison, maybe you’ll understand.”
“Now I’m riled up.”
“I kept wanting to give him chances because Mingmei’s into him, and every once in a while there’s a flash of someone decent beneath all the cockiness.” She tilted her head to one side, trying to work out the tension
in her neck. “But in the end, I just can’t trust him. I can’t trust that he isn’t spying for his dad, taking everything I say and do back to headquarters so that Harrison is always one step ahead of us.”
“There’s a lot of middle ground between a decent guy and a corporate spy,” Zan said gently. “You said it yourself earlier, he’s hard to read. Maybe he’s just an ordinary teenager.”
“Maybe,” Lian said, massaging her aching head. “But if so, someone really ought to weed that garden.”
Zan offered to walk to the drugstore at the end of the block to buy her some ibuprofen and a drink. Lian thanked him and pulled out her phone. She had turned it off for the movie; when she powered it back up to call for a cab, she noticed that she’d received a new e-mail. She opened the message and read it silently.
Dear Ms. Hung,
As regards your enquiry to Dr. Lan, it is my unfortunate duty as her attorney to inform you that she will be henceforth unable to reply. In the event of her passing it falls to me to respond to her unanswered correspondence. Sadly, I am unable to provide assistance with the topics you named. If you have any further enquiries with which I may be of some assistance, please contact me via this address or the telephone number below.
Regards, Shan Silman Caffey, Carlson & Partners LLP
Lian reeled. She quickly brought up her Web browser and searched for recent news on MedVestigators. The first story that popped up told her the worst in its lead:
