The chip has a handwritten Cantonese label: 独一无二. “The One and Only,” your commlink helpfully translates. The dealer shrugs as you ask him for an opinion. "Combat biker fantasy. Adept bullshit. Supposed to be wuxia." He accompanies this with a brief jack-off motion. "This drek was nova in Hong Kong when they founded the Dragons. Wuxing ad copy, honestly. You want it? I'll throw in if you get this week's One Perfect Night. Palate cleanser."
Free's free. One sweaty trip through someone else's sex life later, you find yourself still feeling unfulfilled. You slot the chip, and, like a shotgun to the chest-
---
You feel the wind slithering up through the countless broken shanties and half-rotted walkways. The buzz of pirate transformers hum, making the air feel heavy. The uneven roofs of Kowloon reach up like claws. The human is taller than you, but not wider - something he can't see through the haze of the tripchip he was running. A half-smoked cigarette dangles from his lips. The slain delivery drone slumps on the roof in a pool of its own noodle packets. He smirks, the effect mostly ruined by the drool - in Kowloon you're lucky if the Kong chips you find have the RAS override properly disabled. He thought flashing a knife would be enough to claim your bounty for himself.
A split second later and the cigarette was in the dirt, along with most of his jaw. The rebar feels heavy in your numb hand. Your gang scuttles out of the shadows as you point with the bloodstained steel, the blood dripping off your hand as the noodles vanish in moments. You leave the fool to find his teeth, filled with grim satisfaction.
--
The tea in your mouth is cold and bitter, as though the teabag had been inside for days. It suited the man pouring it. He makes a show of setting the tarnished kettle down before he himself tucks into a cup noodle, stirring them melodramatically. You know his name - Dai Lo Tsang, a recruiter for the Ten Thousand Lions. They were new, small, hungry - but so are you.
A few more melodramatic slurps later and he finally looks up at you, his eyes wet and dark. "You want out, ah? You gave the wrong man a taste of that metal bar you have. Now the Chrysanthemums want your balls. What do the gwailo call that - a steer?" He chortles, then chokes on his food.
You don't nod. You just pull out the one credstick you and the boys had filled up between yourselves. Your last chance. He taps the balance, then grunts. "You can get five seats on the next run into the Bay. We drop you off in Kwun Tong. You all get jobs." He grunts again. "Keep that metal bar. You'll need it."
---
Things always seem to be going wrong, lately. The Kong warehouse on the the bay had 'lost' a few too many crates of chips lately, and so they were scheduled for a 'courtesy visit'. You, two other Lions, and the particularly weatherbeaten Scorpion you used to get around the docks. Old Wu was the driver, Liang was the gunner, and your job was 48 inches of steel pipe - until it broke, anyway, and you found the next appropriately hefty object.
Wu, however, was face-down over the handlebars after catching a bullet to the neck. Blood and burnt rubber filled the air. Liang had jumped off - and fuck him for that, you'll find him later - but for now you have to get old Wu back to the warehouse before Knight Errant or, worse, more Chrysanthemums show up. Your hands shake as you desperately slap on the trauma patch, awkwardly tumbling him into the sidecar before climbing into his place. Wu was big, for a human, but the moment you grab the handlebars, you can feel it - this bike was made for people like you. For you.
Your pursuers arrive - knockoff guns and shoddy cybersurgery, the scars still livid red. The one with the carbine spits and tries to line up a shot from over his driver's shoulder, spraying wide. You pound the kickstand out of the way and ride.
---
Off-books means no medics and no cameras, but it doesn't mean 'no rules'. You made sure to teach newcomers that, one way or another. The empty freight yard, ringed by lashed-together rainbarrels and old bumpers, was hardly Happy Valley, but you were happy. Old Wu cheered from the sidelines as you surgically double over the incoming linebiker with your mace. Dogtooth, you think his name was? He has a lucky charm. Doesn't work, apparently. Sparks fly as he careens into the barrier, the frame of his old Rapier collapsing like styrofoam. The crowd roars as you heft the massive bat.
After the game, you find Liang waiting for you at the entrance to the freight yard - he scuttles away after handing you your earnings, eyes down (as he should). But you also find Wu talking with another, slightly younger human: short, shaved clean but for a warrior's topknot, and wearing a daopao. He turns as you approach, measuring you with dancing eyes. "Wu is an old friend of mine. He asked me to check on you." He looks you over appraisingly. "And he was correct."
---
It's very hard to solve riddles while someone is trying to throw you off a crane arm. "Gentle, yet unyielding," intones Master Jingwei a fraction of a second before his elbow sails past your nose. You grunt in surprise as you stagger backwards, half-kneeling to hook your arm around the rain-slick scaffolding. The scent of the harbor washes up to you, the freezing stench staining your mouth as you gasp for air - countless gallons of waste mixed with the occasional human body, a funeral wreath laid over a dead ocean. You thought you'd gotten used to it by now, but it's strangely more noticeable when it's twenty meters down.
"Again. You grasp at taiji like a drowning man grasps at passing trash. You must learn to swim." He stamps sharply on your training staff, bouncing it in the air before slapping it back to you. You catch it automatically, one-handed. Some Yellow Lotus adepts practiced their tai chi in gardens or gymnasiums. Master had a different approach.
"The Tao is in everything. It flows in me, and in you, and in that motorcycle, and in this crane and in that Knight Errant drone stalking us since we went outside. Everything is Tao." You shake off the sludge of the crane as you carefully bring yourself back to your stance. Everything is Tao.
---
Everything is Tao, you repeat doggedly in your mind. Your monowheel screeches as it careens through the streets. The wheel slams into a pothole, sending jolts of pain up your spine. Behind you, the black van's turret spins wildly, the Smartgun a cyclopean eye sweeping the night. "You think you are a hero? Then die like one!" crackles the van speaker. They hit your safehouse at dusk, the smoke now rising up and merging with the Kwun Tong murk. You scream through the alleys, the wind hurting your teeth and wicking the blood staining your shoulder into the air like mist. The pain is nothing compared to your anger. You would have done it all again. That container, reeking of piss and fear. The momentary look of surprise on the jailer's face before you turn it inside out. The children looking up at you dully, beyond hope, as you bash the locks open.
You look in and down and out. Your dantian churns hot in your gut, your breath quickening. With a scream of metal, you ramp your bike up a dumpster and crash both feet down, propelling you and the entire bike backwards in midair. The turret has only a fraction of a second to stare up at you, bug-like, before your mace crushes it. Your gecko tips latch onto the top of the van like a hawk's talons as you lift both hands up to cave in the roof.
---
The Barco's cargo hold smells mostly of ammonia. Your shoulder hurts. Your arms hurt. Your name hurts.
Out the concealed porthole, you endure the rising sun as it illuminates a new city. Another escape. Old Wu didn't make it. He lived a long life - you'll remember him, when you return. Your forged SIN drifts above you, crackling in the Noise. You lurch down the gangplank, your bike carefully concealed underneath the reeking fish. You'll get the smell out once you arrive. The customs inspector doesn't even glance at you as you roll the pallet down to your first step in Seattle.
---
"Who are you?" The electric fans buzz, struggling to propel the humid summer air out of the plascrete shrine. At this time of night, the legitimate visitors to the monastery had left, leaving only the abbot and those who have business with her.
"No one," You move slowly, mechanically. Your rusty voice, audible to your own ears at last, sounds unsteady. The arc lighter wobbles you light the paraffin incense stick perched on the altar. Recycled plastic hoodie and jeans. Sneakers without socks.
"Why are you here?" The abbot watches you as you clap his hands twice and close your eyes. You can feel her gaze with your eyes closed. She thumbs through her mala once, twice, waiting for a response, the beads clacking. The pair of Lotus men who dropped you off had already vanished back into their sedan.
"I simply am." Your voice is expressionless, eyes still closed. You breathe in and out.
"And what do you know?"
"The breath. The essence. The spirit." The air around you grows cold, and your hands tremble.
"And what are you going to do?" The candle guttered briefly as the rotating fan blows over it, but stays lit.
The pause grows longer before you open your eyes. "I will go where the people are sick, and where they are hungry. Where they are alone, and where they are afraid."
The abbot bites her lip, and the recording grows strange, senses wobbling and jolting. Eventually, she sighs, rubbing her scalp, and the interference stops. "Amitabha, Taoist. Then your home shall be the whole, wide world. For sleep, however, I have allocated you a chamber in the west wing. The Grid password is 'nanchang'."
