“Seriously,” Teo said, “are you okay?”
“We are being followed,” I told him. “Come.”
I started walking with Teo as quickly as I could into the thick of the crowd.
“I thought I was imagining them,” I said. “Just being paranoid or something. But it is true, there are three young people following us tonight.”
“You recognize them?”
“No. They are new to me.”
Teo looked around, eyes tracking every young face in the crowd. “What do these people look like?”
“Young. Not Chinese. Two girls and a boy.”
“Think they’re with Kiran?” Teo asked.
“I have no idea, but we have to lose them.”
Teo and I dodged passersby, darting through the crowd to the edge of the plaza. I noticed an entrance to the subway half a block distant and pointed it out to Teo. “I bet we can lose them in there,” I said.
Teo agreed.
As we picked up our pace, racing across another street choked with cars, I pulled out my cell phone and called Cai. She picked up on the first ring. Before Cai could speak, I blurted out my concerns. “Cai,” I said, “we are being followed.”
“Followed?”
“Yes,” I said. “The young people I noticed before we met with Rodger Dodger. I believed then that I was likely mistaken, just being paranoid, but I saw them again just now. We have to meet up. Teo and I will try to lose them here and then—”
“Then run back this way,” Cai said.
“I do not think I remember where we were exactly,” I said.
“I was quite concerned we would easily get lost.
“We’ll find you,” Cai assured me. “Just move.”
3.1
Teo and I raced down the stairs into the subway station.
We tried as best we could to not bump into anyone, but it was difficult.
“The place was, like all of Beijing, ridiculously crowded. At any other moment, I might have complained about the sensation of being packed into this concrete space like sardines in their cans, but at that moment the crowds were a boon.
We reached the first level of the station, where people bought tickets for the train, but realized we did not want to actually jump on a train. We just wanted to give our pursuers the idea that we had.
“There,” Teo said, pointing to another staircase that led farther down.
The sound of my shoes on the steps clanged like thunder.
I was running so quickly that I was concerned I would trip and tumble down the stairs. But I realized that if this were the case, I would not mind—I would certainly get to the bottom that much sooner!
At the bottom of the stairs, Teo threw open a door and barreled inside. I reached the door and stopped to look. I could not help myself. Behind us, the staircase was empty. Perhaps, I thought, our plan had worked.
We found ourselves in a long corridor.
A few people were walking down it toward us, and I realized this was a passageway that ran under the street, likely connecting this station to another a block or so away. It was the perfect deception. We would be like those burrowing rodents I had seen videos of online. When a predator appeared near their homes, they would dart underground and pop up in another location. How clever!
As we sped down the corridor, Teo asked, “Where else did you see these people? You told Cai you’d seen them before.”
“Before meeting Rodger Dodger,” I said.
“So maybe there’s a connection there,” he replied.
“No. I doubt that very much,” I said. “I know that you are highly suspicious of Rodger, but these people are not associated with her. I do not know how I can confirm that for you, Teo, but I know it is true. Painted Wolf is the most thorough person I know; she would not be fooled by subterfuge.”
Though I tried not to act too obviously concerned, I kept turning to look over my shoulder. There were a few people following behind us, but they were not the young people I had noticed in the square. They were just regular folks heading home from work or crossing town for a bite to eat.
“I think we are good,” I told Teo.
Teo said, “Just keep moving.”
On the other side of the passageway, we found another staircase.
Rather than exiting through the regular entrance to that subway station, we decided to find a side exit. Thankfully, there was a door just to the right of us that was ajar. I pulled Teo by the sleeve and directed him toward the door. He did not hesitate. We found the door opened onto an alleyway that was dark and filled with reeking dumpsters. We both ran into the night as the rains began again, harder now.
I did not see the young people who had been tailing us.
It looked as though we were free and clear.
“So where are we going?” Teo asked me.
“Back the way we came,” I said.
“That might not be the best idea,” Teo replied.
“It is not my idea,” I said. “Wolf suggested it.”
Teo groaned.
“Sorry, omo,” I said, “but the Wolf only comes up with good ideas.”
3.2
Of course, Cai was true to her word.
Teo and I headed in the general direction we assumed we had run, keeping to the back streets, the darker corners, to avoid CCTV cameras that appeared to be mounted on every light and telephone pole. There were undoubtedly cameras on the rooftops as well. Teo had told us that China was the most surveilled country on the globe, and seeing all those cameras—even though I likely only saw a small percentage of the electronic eyes zooming in on us—certainly made that statement seem all the more certain.
When we stopped at an intersection, my cell buzzed in my pocket.
It was Cai. I answered her call and she said, “To your left.”
I looked to my left to see her and Rex standing across the street from us. As soon as the light changed color and the walk sign flashed, Teo and I made our way over to them. I hugged Cai and shook hands with Rex. I could not help it.
Rodger Dodger, however, was not there.
“Where is Rodger?” I asked.
“Lying low,” Cai said. “The fact that we’re being followed means that someone—Kiran, maybe someone else—is onto us. She can’t take any more risks tonight, but she’ll be helping online.”
Cai motioned for us to follow her.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
My clothes were soaked. There was water in my shoes.
“There,” she said.
Cai pointed across the street at a trolley bus that had stopped momentarily to pick up several passengers who were huddled together against the rain.
Beijing trolley bus
“Yes,” I said, a bit irritated that I was not getting an actual answer on our destination, “but where does this trolley lead to?”
Cai put a hand on my shoulder. “To Terminal, hopefully.”
We ran across the street and made it on board the trolley bus seconds before it pulled out into the street. Cai had a card to pay for our ride (I did notice that the name on the card was not her own), and then we settled into seats in the back. As I sat down, water pooled in the chair and ran down to the floor of the bus. I felt as though I had just swum across the Pacific Ocean.
“We need to get to my place here in Beijing,” Teo said. “Now that we have the stuff we’ll need to read the data files on a bio-computer, we can—”
“It won’t work, Teo,” Cai said. She motioned for us all to gather in closely. The bus was not crowded and it did not seem that many of the passengers were paying more than cursory attention to us, but she was wary.
“I thought we already discussed this,” Teo said, angry at being interrupted.
“We did, but things have changed. We’re being followed now.”
“Think they’re with Kiran or Terminal?” Rex asked.
“I don’t know,” Cai said. “Neither would be good.”
“Going after Terminal isn’t going to help u
s get Kiran,” Teo said as he leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms.
He appeared very unwilling to discuss this situation further.
Dis man wan raina me!
“That’s exactly wrong,” Cai said. “Terminal will lead us to Kiran. And bringing them down will also clear my father’s name. We all thought we’d have time to perfect our plans, but our time has been erased. We cannot plan further; we have to think on our feet. We find Terminal, then we find Kiran.”
“What makes you so certain?” Teo asked.
Cai held up one of the cell phones she had acquired from Rodger Dodger.
On the screen was a message posted to a Terminal discussion board. The details were a bit cryptic, as it was written in a coded language and Mandarin. But I immediately noticed the words OndScan and Biswas.
“It is a post from someone working with Naya,” Cai said, translating. “Likely someone who is either a Terminal sympathizer or a Terminal member here in China. The message says they have encrypted information that will compromise Kiran—stolen data that’s integral to some secretive OndScan tech. This person claims that if the data can be decrypted, it could take Kiran down.”
Rex whistled hearing that. “Wow.”
“Wow, indeed,” Cai said. “And guess who’s going to offer to help?”
4. CAI
6 DAYS UNTIL SHIVA
I knew we were taking a huge risk.
But with Rodger Dodger on the run (and hopefully not caught) and someone on our tail, we simply didn’t have any options. I knew Teo was angry. It wasn’t an ideal situation to me, either. He wanted to focus on Kiran. But in my mind, this was a way to make everyone happy and, as we say in China, “shoot two birds with a single arrow.”
As the bus bumped past Zhongshan Park, I explained the plan.
“We are going to post in this forum answering this person’s request. We’re also going to ask for an address to meet. I’ll do it mimicking the kind of coded language that the poster used. At the same time, I’m going to tip our hand.”
“How do you mean?” Tunde asked, suddenly very concerned.
“I’m going to give them hints as to who we are. I think Naya will be even more intrigued if she thinks that we’re here after the data she stole. If we offer our assistance, she might see an opportunity.”
“An opportunity to screw us over again,” Rex said.
“Exactly,” I replied.
Tunde looked at me quizzically.
“We want Naya and Terminal to think they can get one over on us. That they have something we desperately need. Something we’re willing to make an agreement over. The truth is, of course, that they’ll need us more than we’ll need them. It’ll give us an in, and once we have the data, we can clear my father’s name and uncover the rest of Kiran’s plans.”
Rex looked to his brother. Teo said nothing but shrugged.
“Tunde?” Rex asked.
“I have always said that I trust Cai and her wisdom in these sorts of matters. While I have agreed with Teo that we cannot take risks that might tip Kiran off or lead to our covers being blown, I think we have already crossed that bridge. The people following us are aware we are here. Let us toss the bait to Terminal.”
It took me two minutes to compose the message. I was very careful in my wording. The key to making the post convincing was using the right language. I wanted to appear in the know but not desperate. I also wanted to make sure that if Naya read the post, she would see the LODGE’s fingerprints right away. Tunde was right to call it bait, and once Naya had taken it, the hook would find its mark.
As we waited for the response, I tried to catch my breath. My homecoming had been a nonstop roller coaster ride, and I was eager to take a few moments to orient myself. Looking out the bus windows, I watched the lights of my city drift past. The raindrops on the glass turned each light into a flower of luminance.
While Tunde and Teo talked about the bio-computer, sharing insights on how to wire the machinery, Rex reached over and took my hand. His grip was so warm. I hadn’t realized how cold my hands were.
Bio-computer
“How are you holding up?” Rex asked.
“I’m okay,” I said.
That was only partially true. I was feeling confident that we could navigate our way through this—we could find Naya, Terminal, and maybe even get my father out—but I had my doubts about Kiran. There were just so many factors in play. While being digital ghosts allowed us to move unseen (at least until a few minutes earlier), it also kept us in the dark in regards to Kiran’s latest moves. Knowing that there were people after us made me even more concerned about my father. If the authorities could connect us with him (still doubtful but possible), then the likelihood of clearing his name grew ever dimmer.
Seeing my father in shackles was heartbreaking. I couldn’t imagine visiting him in an actual prison and seeing him behind bars. It would shatter my mother. And the thought of that almost had me crying. I had to be strong. I couldn’t give up hope or give in to dark thoughts.
We were still in motion; we just had to stick to the plan.
I asked Rex how he was doing. “Must feel good to have Teo back.”
“Yes,” he said, glancing over at his brother. “I’d forgotten how cantankerous he can be, but, yeah, it feels … I don’t know, it feels like we’re even more unstoppable now. That sounds silly, considering our present situation.”
“No, I get it. I like to see that optimism in you. Nice change of pace.”
A block from the trolley bus’s last stop, we got a response to the posted message. I read it over quickly.
“Did it work?” Tunde was understandably impatient to know.
“Yes,” I said. “We have a meeting.”
“Excellent,” Rex said as he and Tunde high-fived.
“And Naya suspects it is us?” Tunde asked.
“I think so,” I said. “But she’s playing her cards close to the vest.”
“So where are we going?” Teo asked.
“To the opera,” I said with a smile.
4.1
Chinese opera isn’t like Western opera.
Sure, there are some similarities. Opera is about song and entertainment. But Western opera focuses largely on the voice, whereas Peking opera expands to include dance, mime, and acrobatics. Not to mention the use of string instruments, face painting, and costumes. There is a circus-like element, but it does not have the same sort of childish connotations that circuses have.
For the Chinese, the opera is a matter of cultural pride.
It took two hours and two different buses before we arrived at the opera house Naya had specified in her response to my message. It was at a theater I had been to several times with my parents. There was no show playing at the moment, and the woman at the front desk seemed a bit perturbed to find us knocking on the front door. Finally, after a bit of grumbling, she got up from behind her desk and opened the door a crack.
“We’re closed,” she said, looking us over.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We were given this address for a meeting.”
“Are you performers?” the woman asked.
I nodded, unsure if we’d be convincing.
The woman screwed up her face and pointed to the right. “You need to go into the employee entrance,” she said. “Around the corner. Someone should have told you that.”
“I agree,” I said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
There was a second entrance, marked EMPLOYEE, on the north side of the building near the delivery ramp. The door was open, and we walked inside to find ourselves backstage and surrounded by amazing costumes. A feathery, gilded dragon, easily twenty feet long with teeth the size of humans, hung above us on a series of ropes and pulleys, and a painted backdrop of a gorgeous sunset loomed overhead. It was like walking into another world.
Opera backstage
“This place is magnificent,” Tunde said, looking around. “Next time we have a meeting, we should defin
itely have it in a place like this.”
“You’ve made it.”
The voice came from behind a curtain. We all turned to see a young man with dyed blue hair step into the half-light. He was Chinese and had his hands clasped behind his back. “My name is Cosmo. Follow me.”
Cosmo turned and ushered us down a hallway behind the stage.
I’d heard of him before. He was part of the microbloggers’ community but didn’t post regularly. Most of his stuff had a political edge to it, but I would never have imagined he’d be a Terminal supporter. As we followed Cosmo up a series of stairs, I wondered if he was the person who had been looking for assistance in decrypting the data Naya had brought back.
Cosmo led us to a room at the end of a hallway lined by doors that read PERFORMERS ONLY. Two men were standing outside the door. They were Chinese and older than Cosmo. Neither looked like the Terminal type; both more closely resembled hired thugs. The kind of men who wouldn’t have a problem kicking you to the floor if someone asked them to.
Cosmo knocked on the door three times.
Then he opened it. The guards stood to the side as we passed through the door into a dressing room lined with mirrors and makeup lights. The door closed behind us. The room was empty outside of a few tables and some hastily arranged chairs positioned in the middle of the room.
“Good to see you, LODGE,” Naya said.
She was seated across from us among a collection of familiar faces. Two of them were people I recognized from the Game but whose names I didn’t know: prodigies, competitors, but likely people who didn’t make it past the first or second round. Sitting right next to Naya was a teenaged girl with long, braided hair. She had dark skin and deep black eyes and wore a kimono. The girl motioned for us to take a seat, and we did. Rex kept his eyes on Naya.
Teo stood at the back of the room near the door.
“My name is Dural Kalali,” the teenaged girl with braids said. She spoke with a singsongy Australian accent, and I assumed she was Aboriginal. “Hello, Tunde. Excellent to see you.”
Tunde leaned forward in his seat, stunned.
“Dural,” he said, flabbergasted. “What are you doing here?”
Genius--The Revolution Page 3
