chapter two
Dong Son Library, the Fragrant Peony District
August 27, 3045
12:04 AM
Heavy metal was so much more than noise. She didn’t understand those who thought it was a listless racket. It was art. It was the low seductive thrumming of the bass track behind the sheer inclines of the guitar chords. It was deep growls sometimes, other times gravelly vocals, reverberating in her chest. An energy, low but honest, unabashed and unafraid of the truth of its identity, snaking its way through her entire being. Colors grunge and silver glinting like the edges of knives. Each band’s discography being a land of milk and honey unto itself. Composition heavy-handed but poetic. It was-
There was a tap on her shoulder.
Annoyed, Au Co ripped off her headphones. But her ire quickly dissipated looking upon My Nuong’s hopeful face. Her friend had the unfortunate talent of looking adorable without any effort, what with her large brown dove-eyes and perfectly styled orange hair falling across her forehead and down her back. My Nuong’s cheeks were puffed out in consternation, a lollipop sticking out from the corner of her lips.
“Can you explain this to me,” she whispered hurriedly, pointing to their ochem homework which she belatedly had open in front of her. She tapped number 19.
Au Co sighed. She couldn’t say no to her friend. Not with those puppy eyes.
“Fine,” she whispered back, brushing a lock of pink hair away from her forehead, settling her headphones in a comfortable crook in her neck. She reached inside her jacket leather pocket, fishing for her iPod- a rarity, really. Pre-war technology was a thing to behold. She had to bargain more dong than she’d like to admit in that junkyard to that sleazy oni to get her hands on it. It was worth it though.
The screen read Iron Maiden- Fear of the Dark. Tragic. A good song, too good to stop midway through. Scrolling through her queue, she peeked Pearl Jam and Metallica. The classics. She sighed woefully.
My Nuong hissed and jabbed Au Co not so subtly in the ribcage. Another student studying on the other end of the long table they were studying at shot them a dirty look, to which Au Co lifted a hand sheepishly.
“Alright, alright, don’t make a fuss,” she grumbled back, tugging the textbook towards her. She skimmed the paper.
College was somehow what Au Co expected, and yet not. She had expected its… difficulty. As granted, she knew Van Mieu University was relatively high in standing among the colleges peppering Lac Viet City. She knew becoming a doctor would be no easy feat. But the loans. The stress. The competition. Some kids had been groomed since birth to become top-of-the-line surgeons to take over daddy’s place in whatever prestigious, expensive hospital for rich people. How the hell was she supposed to compete with them?
Coming from the highlands in the middle of nowhere, few people ever came back to tell about the lives of those in the big cities, much less university. She knew she was pretty much screwed the minute she stepped out of the hovercar taxi and realized she had no clue how to use public transport. It was pretty funny though, seeing people put two and two together. What with her pink hair, her being taller than a good deal of the people in the city, and her dark, tanned skin, it was fairly apparent she was a Mystic. And a tien, at that.
“You forgot you can’t use catalytic hydrogenation on benzene rings.” She tapped Nuong’s mistake on the page. “Try using Diels-Alder to synthesize that cyclohexane.”
My Nuong groaned. “I’m going to fail this semester.”
That was a sentiment Au Co shared. She grimaced in tandem with My Nuong.
A clock chimed, signaling the closing of the library. Apparently the school thought it bad form to keep study venues open all night, as their students needed to sleep. Which might’ve been more prudent of a decision, had they made their workload reasonable. But just another chip off her shoulder, Au Co groused internally.
Students began to pack up their belongings, slinging their thin computational tablets into their sleeves, stuffing study gadgets and books into their already overstuffed satchels. As if they were one zombified collective, they all shuffled out of the otherwize cozy library, ushered out by equally bleary-eyed librarians.
Au Co greedily inhaled the humid night air, the hairs on her arms prickling feeling its warmth. Her fingers itched for a cigarette. But she promised herself she’d try to stop her rather unfortunate habit, and with that, she settled for digging through her backpack pockets for a candy. She fished out a ginger candy, the character’s face on the cellophane crinkled, and offered one to My Nuong who shook her head. Shrugging, Au Co popped one in her mouth.
They wordlessly began the trek back to their respective apartments, waving to each other bidding goodbye. My Nuong had the fortune of coming from a rather wealthy family native to Lac Viet City. She lived a few blocks away, still in the Fragrant Spring district. Meanwhile Au Co, like many disenfranchised college students, lived in a rather rinky, but cozy she would defend, apartment a district down. She didn’t mind it, except, well… the location meant she had to pass through the Crimson Lotus district everytime commuting from school back home to the Moonlit Lantern prefecture.
She grimaced. No matter how many times she made the trek, it never failed to unnerve her. She began picking her way through the various puddles littering the pothole-filled sidewalk, careful to not sully her boots. They were her favorite pair, and dirtying them would be a true travesty. Not to mention, expensive.
She squinted against the fluorescent darkness, watching the stately street lamps slowly morph into gaudy neon signs, watching respectable mom-and-pop boutiques and tailor shops melt into seedy brothels and gambling houses.
She gripped her satchel’s straps tighter. Though not out of conscious fear, but out of instinct. Though it had been years since she moved into Lac Viet City, migrating down from the infamous highlands of Vietnam, some parts of the city life still unnerved her. It was jading, in a way, to constantly be on your guard and distrustful of people. Walking through the streets, seeing people clutch their purses tighter sometimes, watching them avoid each other’s gaze, eyes devoid of joy.
But then there were the good parts of living in the city, she mused. The diversity. The infectious joy of numerous cultures coalescing. The art, the music, the history. The prospect of young people like her, wary of still yet her own self, to discover their place in this world. To prove herself. To give herself a fighting chance despite all that she was. A lackluster lineage, yet to hopefully one day be recognized for her latent talent. She wanted to be a doctor more than anything. She wanted to be something, more than anything.
Maybe she was cut out to be a city girl.
There seemed to be an inordinate amount of people out, she noted with some suspicion. But the people wandering the streets didn’t seem to be your average Ghost addict or gambling fetishist. There were young women, dressed in glittering skimpy garments smelling of expensive perfume and hair products, velvety laughter rising in the air like a soft cloud. Some winked in Au Co’s way, and she smirked back. They did seem pretty rich, though. She eyed their expensive acrylic nails and shoes.
Following that particular gaggle of ladies was a retinue of equally as well-dressed young men, boisterous and drunk. They were all tall, attractive, well muscled, and probably had daddies who ran the city and paid off all their drunk driving tickets. That kind of soured her mood.
Some of them whistled her way and she scowled, flipping them a rather rude gesture she had belatedly learned within her first few days in the city.
Au Co had learned a few cardinal rules in the city. The rich were rich, and the poor were poor. Rarely was someone ever able to actually become something in this city. That wasn’t to say it was impossible to prosper modestly, but unless you had skin and blood in the game it was nearly impossible to become anyone of import. Fucking nepotism, she groused. The second was that there were certain things you did not fuck with. Au Co was fortunate to not have learned the hard way, but she’d seen it. She couldn’t have forgotten it even if she tried.
Organized crime was unfortunately, one of the hallmarks of Lac Viet City. No one would ever say it outright, but it probably ran the city as much as legitimate politicians, if that paradoxical notion was even possible. If you saw something happening, you minded your own business unless you wanted some nasty fellows in black suits showing up at your door the next day, demanding reparations.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened to the Ghost addicts who owed the mafia money they couldn’t feasibly pay, and it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together when a mangled body ended up dumped in the streets and why the police quietly cleaned it up without much fuss.
She had a neighbor, a year or two back before she moved into her new apartment. When she lived alone, closer to the outskirts of the Moonlit Lantern, only a block or two removed from the Crimson Lotus. He was definitely a Ghost addict. Looked like one, smelled like one, raved to himself like one. She kept her distance from him, which was probably a good decision in the long run considering one day he just disappeared, mysteriously, after two well-dressed men ended up showing at his door.
She made sure to double check her door locks every night after that.
A tepid breeze blew out from the opening door of one of the gambling houses. Laughter blossomed from the din, a gaggle of drunk middle-aged men in suits stumbling out in arms. She deftly danced around them, careful to keep a hand on her bag. Thankfully, they didn’t so much as spare a glance at her.
She never really felt unsafe in the city herself, though. Violent crime was rare, so she’d heard. But she was also more than just able to hold her ground. She was a tien, a Vietnamese fairy. Her kind had inhabited this land longer than most humans could even bother to remember. Her lifeblood was its magic, in its flowers and the rain and the spring. Especially the spring. What with her pink hair and gold eyes, the colors of hoa dao and hoa mai. She was a child of the spring. Pretty, but flowers weren’t necessarily particularly threatening. Though every rose did have its thorn, she smirked to herself. She had supernatural strength and super senses. Not unlike a comic book hero. She’d take it.
Speaking of which… something was wrong in the air, she noted, as she passed one of the last open clubs of the night. The street was quieting down, its streetlamps quietly casting a cascade of phosphorescent colors over her shoes and the asphalt of the road. There weren’t as many people milling about, with the majority of the buildings of this block being deserted.
There was something cold. Something empty. Like breathing in snowy air. Like death. There was an energy she was all too well-acquainted with, something commonplace in the highlands where nature ruled both in equal measure.
Then she saw the man’s body sprawled out on the floor, half in darkness and half in the dimly pulsating streetlights. Dark blood gurgled along the black asphalt, the lights casting a jewel-like sheen on the blood, striking a contrast that was almost poetic. His hand lay over his stomach, blood seeping through his elegant piano fingers. His closed eyes fluttered, shuttered under unbelievably long lashes, and opened. Onyx-black eyes pleaded for her help. His skin, already fair, was downright pallid. “Help,” he croaked.
She got to work.
Her mind raced through her EMT training frantically as she dropped to her knees beside him and rummaged through her backpack for her first aid kid. On call as an EMT she had treated a few gunshot wounds, some minor cuts from knives here and there, but it was always promptly on the scene. Not stumbling across a bleeding man who’d been laying there for who knew how long.
She yanked a roll of cotton bandages out of her first aid kit, pressing it down firmly on his abdomen with cotton gauze. Lower left quadrant, near his hip. Shouldn’t have pierced anything vital. Maybe his intestines, but it would be a while till that becomes a problem with peritonitis.
She checked his vitals. Pale, cool, sweaty skin, undoubtedly low blood pressure, and his pulse was weak. How long had he been here?
She pulled out her spare jacket and throwing it over him. She was about to prop his feet onto her backpack, but thought better of it. Her EMT instructor’s voice chimed in her head, warning against the traditional shock position if there was potential spinal damage, which was something you couldn’t rule out running across someone bleeding out prostrate on the floor.
“Blood less equals heat loss,” she murmured to herself as her hands worked.
“What?” he rasped, feebly trying to raise his head to look at her while she crouched over his prone body.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing….” The words were empty while she fumbled for her holocom she stuffed haphazardly into her backpack, cursing herself for not having more foresight of leaving it on her wrist.
“Wait.” He wheezed, grabbing her wrist. “You can’t call anyone.”
“Are you crazy?” she spat, yanking her wrist out of his grip. “I can’t do shit by myself! You’ve been bloody stabbed and you’re just bleeding out here! What else am I-”
Her eyes snagged on his wrist. A sliver of skin showed through as his dark, long-sleeve shirt rode up his forearm. Intricate black lines spiraled down his forearm, ending at his wrist. Red lines wound around the black ink, pulsating eerily, light tracing something in the shape of… a dragon?
“Oh, fuck. Super fuck. You’re a goddamn dragon?!”
He grit his teeth. “And you’re a tien. Don’t you have powers too?”
She was screwed. Super screwed. Double screwed. Up the ass with a chainsaw kind of screwed. If this man died, she probably would be held responsible for the death of one the most important people in Lac Viet City. She wouldn’t make it out of this city alive if she let him die. Her life, as it were, was as much on the line as his.
“No!” she snapped, tugging her holocom out of her backpack. “And that’s why I’m calling for help!”
Her fingers swiped across the screen, before frantically plugging into the info of the police department.
“Hello, this is Lac Viet PD-”
“Someone’s been stabbed! He’s- he’s part of the Hung family, I think, you’ve got to come now.”
There was a pause. “Okay, ma’am. We’ve received your data and location from the net. We’ll be there shortly. Hang tight.”
There was a click as the operator hung up.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he hissed, raising his head feebly to glare at her.
“Well I just saved your life, so suck it,” she snapped, in no mood to humor this pretty boy’s incredibly unreasonable requests. What, did he just expect to not call for proper medical care if he ran into someone of great import stabbed, lying prone on the ground and bleeding out?
He rolled his eyes. She glared back. But as he rolled his eyes, his eyes rolled back into his head and his head thudded to the ground.
“Hey!” She poked his shoulder. “Hey!” She pinched his nail beds. No response. He was out cold.
“Shit,” she swore, probably for the millionth time that night. His chest began to rise and fall shallowly, as if every breath he took might be his last. “Shitshitshitshitshit.”
She would not let him die on her. Her life would be over if he did. He had to make it at least until the paramedics got there.
Panic gripped her throat like a vice.
She could not let him die.
She gripped his wrist with one hand.
She would not let him die.
A breeze stirred sullenly in the humid night air, winding its way like a cat through her hair. It thickened, strengthening with every caress against her cheek. It carried a faint aroma, of something green and alive. Something like home, in the highlands, surrounded by the fragrance of rhododendrons and roses.
Something awoke within her. Something nascent, something forgotten, but still something carried with every gene in her body. Something as implicit to her being as was her heritage and her blood, something… ancient. Something magical.
Which had to be crazy. Bullshit. Stuff only in the history textbooks.
But in front of her eyes, his breathing stabilized. The color returned to his face, pink tinting his cheeks. The blood ceased gurgling from the wound in his side, but the wound remained open. She didn’t heal him, per se, but he had just seemed to… stop dying.
The holocom she had in a panic tossed aside beeped, a pleasant blue light effusing its crystal face. “Paramedics, ETA 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Paramedics, ETA 2 minutes and 30 seconds,” it chimed cheerfully.
“About time,” she hissed, leaning back on her haunches. She wiped a few locks of sweat-stained pink hair away from her sticky forehead, leaving a trail of coppery crimson across her brown skin. Ugh.
She looked up at the sky, finally letting out a deep breath that was long overdue. To the symphony of wailing sirens in the background she sent a prayer to whatever deity there was up there that her life would not be permanently fucked up from that moment forward.