Hunt for Jade Dragon

  Taylor looked at the girl. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  The child just stared at her. She saw a glimpse again of the Elgen soldiers, then suddenly all the screens turned to white and the girl’s thoughts flashed into blinding fear. Anger and fear. Then Taylor left Jade Dragon’s mind, or, more accurately, Jade Dragon let go of her.

  “What’s happening?” Taylor asked.

  The girl was looking over Taylor’s shoulder. Taylor turned back to see what she was looking at, but saw nothing. Then she heard the hiss and click of a pneumatic lock. The cell door swung open and a Caucasian Elgen captain dressed in black and purple walked in flanked by two other guards. All the men wore mindwave helmets. How did she know they were coming? Taylor thought.

  “It’s good to see you again, Ms. Ridley.”

  “I don’t know you,” Taylor said.

  “You don’t remember me from Idaho?”

  “You’re an Elgen. That’s all I need to know.”

  “You make that sound so . . . repulsive.”

  “It is.”

  The captain smiled darkly. “If you want repulsive, you should see feeding time in the bowl. Especially when the meal is human flesh.”

  “I’ve heard about it.”

  “Hearing and seeing are not the same thing. Until you actually see someone fed to the rats, you can’t fathom the horror of thousands of tiny pointed teeth tearing the flesh away from live muscle, muscle away from bone, the little beasts seeking the tender meat inside, burrowing under skin.”

  Taylor turned white.

  “What I find most remarkable about the human feedings is the perseverance of the human body. You’d be surprised at how long people actually stay alive while it happens. Sometimes we make bets on it. Of course, lowering our victims feetfirst into the bowl does make a difference. It adds at least a full twenty seconds to the misery.”

  Taylor felt as if she might throw up.

  “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

  “No.”

  “You should.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brown biscuit. “Have you ever seen one of these?”

  Taylor shook her head.

  “They’re called Rabisk. Along with fresh meat, it’s the primary food we feed our rats. These tasty little biscuits are made from the bodies of the dead rats we collect from the bowl. So follow me here: Our enemies are eaten by the rats; the rats eventually die and are made into Rabisk, which are then again fed to the rats; the rats die and are again made into Rabisk. So, if you think about it, our enemies are fed to the rats over and over and over again. It’s reincarnation. They’ll spend all eternity as rat food. It’s a horrific thought, isn’t it?”

  “You’re sick,” Taylor said. “All of you.”

  The man smiled. “I shouldn’t waste your time telling you about it. You have so little time left before you experience it yourself.”

  “I don’t want to see it,” Taylor said.

  “You won’t just see it,” he said. “You’re going to feel it. Smell it. You’re going to hear the high-pitched shrieks of ten thousand ravenous rats as they swarm over your body like bees on honeycomb, seeking the moist meat under your skin.” Taylor froze. “Yes, dear. We’re going to feed you to them. Both of you.”

  Taylor’s knees gave out and she fell to the concrete floor.

  “Good. I see you’re finally comprehending the predicament you’re in.”

  Jade Dragon walked over and knelt down next to her. When Taylor could speak she said, “Please, no.”

  He threw the biscuit on the floor next to her. It broke into several pieces. “Whether you’re an eternal rat meal or not is completely up to you. There’s only one way you can spare yourself that fate. You do this one thing and I’ll escort you out of here myself, with the child, and put you on a plane home.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We need a scientific formula that’s in this little girl’s head. You get the girl to give you the formula and we let you go.” He put out his hand and one of the guards handed him a pad of paper and a pen. “We don’t care how she gives it to us. Just write it down here.”

  “I’m not a scientist. How would I know what the formula is?”

  “We’ll know,” he said. “And so does she. She just needs to dictate it to you. So if I were you, I’d keep chumming up to this little genius until she spills her secrets. Because you’ve got eighteen hours until feeding time.”

  “My friends will rescue me before then.”

  The other two guards who had stood quietly at attention suddenly laughed. The captain smiled, then said, “Sorry, you’re not in on the joke. The question is, who’s going to rescue them?” He threw the pad and pen to her. “Get the formula, write it down. Or spend eternity as Rabisk.”

  He spun on his heels, and he and his guards left the room, the heavy, metal door slamming shut behind them. Taylor looked down at the pad, then back at Jade Dragon. The formula was still in her head. All she needed to do was write it down. She might save her own life, but she would doom the lives of thousands of others. Taylor’s eyes filled with tears. “We’ll get out of here. I don’t know how, but we will.”

  She turned away and wiped her eyes. When she looked back, Michael was standing where Jade Dragon had been. “Michael . . .” She stood. “How did you get in here? Where’s Jade Dragon?”

  Michael just looked at her.

  “Never mind, I don’t care how you got here.” She threw her arms around him. He stiffened, squirming beneath her embrace. “Michael, what’s wrong?” She stepped back. It wasn’t Michael in her arms, it was Dr. Hatch. She screamed as she fell back. Hatch started laughing.

  The pneumatic door lock again hissed and clicked; then the door opened. Tara walked into the room.

  “Hello again, Sis.”

  “Tara.” She turned back to see Jade Dragon standing against the wall where Hatch had just been. “What are you doing?”

  Tara smiled. “I was just having a little fun. Like my new trick?”

  “You’re psychotic,” Taylor said.

  Tara smiled. “Now, Sis, don’t be so judgmental.” She turned into Taylor’s mom. “I mean, you’re the one having delusions.”

  “Stop it!” Taylor shouted.

  Tara laughed as she changed back to herself. “Have you figured it out yet, Sis?”

  “Figured what out?”

  “That you’re on the losing team. While you were destroying one Starxource plant, we built five more.” She stepped toward Taylor, and Jade Dragon looked curiously back and forth at the girls’ identical faces. “And soon you won’t be special. There will be thousands of people with powers just like yours.”

  “And yours,” Taylor said.

  “Real power comes from position,” she said. “That’s what I have. Someday we’re going to run this place.”

  “Real power comes from someplace else,” Taylor said.

  Tara smiled. “What are you going to say next, that power comes from the heart?”

  “And mind,” Taylor said, rebooting her sister. While Tara was still confused, Taylor lunged at her, pushing her up against the wall. Then they both fell to the floor, wrestling.

  A voice came over the cell audio system. “Occupants of Cell 19, stop your fighting immediately.” The voice was followed by a loud, high-pitched squeal, and Taylor suddenly screamed as she fell back from Tara. Her RESAT was squealing and the lights were flashing in rapid succession.

  “It’s too much!” Taylor shouted. “Stop! Stop!”

  Tara stood, wiping her face. There was blood on her hand.

  “You made me bleed.”

  Taylor was writhing in pain. “Tell them to stop.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to do that,” she said. “I can’t believe we came from the same egg.” She crouched down next to her. “They will feed you to the rats. I’ve seen them do it. So you’d better grow a brain and get them the information they want.” She walked to the door. “I told you, Sis. You can
’t win.”

  She walked out of the cell, leaving Taylor screaming in pain.

  It may have been pain altering my perception, but passing through the four Elgen checkpoints into the Starxource compound seemed to take even longer than the drive from Kaohsiung.

  Ostin had stopped talking long before we reached the first gate. Probably before we had even left Kaohsiung. I was afraid for him. I wasn’t sure how much more he could take. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take either.

  When the van finally reached the inside of the plant, the back doors were unlocked and they swung open. Through my blurred vision I could see three Elgen guards waiting to take us. One of them climbed inside and unlatched my restraints. I fell to the van’s floor, unable to move. The RESAT had drained all of my power.

  Then six of the Lung Li appeared. One of them grabbed me by the leg, his powerful hand digging into my calf as he dragged me to the edge of the van while the others huddled around me, like demons. They wore black-mirrored goggles, but I was close enough to them to see through the lenses to the darkness of their eyes.

  Four of the Lung Li lifted me and carried me to a stainless-steel gurney and strapped me down. I had seen these gurneys before. I had been strapped to one at the Peruvian plant just before Hatch had tried to feed me to the rats.

  With the Lung Li surrounding me, they began to roll me away. I tried to lift my head to see what they were doing to Ostin but couldn’t. Then I passed out.

  * * *

  I don’t know how long I was unconscious. I thought it was ten or fifteen minutes, but it could just as easily have been hours. Or days, for that matter. My mind was spinning and I had no grasp of time. I didn’t know where I was other than that I was in a strange place—a small, dark room with symbols on the wall; some looked like Chinese characters and others looked like ancient runes or the markings of alchemists. The room was lit by flickering candles that glowed red and smelled of incense. There was no sound except the repetitious, peaceful dripping of water. Oddly, the place had a calming effect.

  I was still strapped down but not to the metal gurney. I was on some type of hard leather pad. The RESAT was gone. When I lifted my head I saw that I had no shirt or shoes and I was wearing peculiar tight black pants made of a thin, cottonlike material—almost like long johns—except they only came down to my knees.

  I was held fast by thick leather straps at my wrists, waist, chest, arms, thighs, and ankles. I tried to pull against them, but it was like lifting an elephant. I’m certain each of the straps could have supported more than a ton. My body ached. My insides felt bruised or burned, damaged from the RESAT.

  Then I realized there was a man sitting quietly next to me. He wore the Lung Li uniform with the dragon head patch. He had no helmet or goggles and his eyes were locked on to mine with an intense stare. His expression was emotionless, neither sympathetic nor cruel.

  “You are back, Michael,” he said with a thick Asian accent. “I am pleased you are back. Now we can get to work.” He reached over and pulled a metal cart next to me. I could hear the squeaking of the cart’s wheels, but I could not see what was on it.

  “We don’t know where acupuncture began. But it is ancient. Very ancient. Much older than Western medicine—even older than your gods. There are records of it being used for more than three thousand years. Some attribute it to Shennong, the emperor of the five grains. But that sounds like superstition. Unlike many of my order, I am not a superstitious man. I am a man of science.

  “A more reasonable explanation is that the Chinese doctors of the Han dynasty observed that soldiers wounded by arrows were sometimes cured of illnesses.

  “I do not know why acupuncture was never accepted in Western culture. Maybe they were afraid of the unfamiliar.” He lifted something from the cart and held it above me so I could see it. It was a simple steel needle about six inches long. I closed my eyes.

  “Yes, you prove my point,” he said. “You Westerners are squeamish about needles. You act as if this fascinating art were barbaric. It’s not. Acupuncture isn’t about pain. In truth, if done properly, most patients report feeling a pleasurable sensation.” He moved his face closer to mine and looked into my eyes. “Most. But that would not be true for you. You see, acupuncture is about directing the electricity in your body. But where there is an abnormal amount of electricity, it tends to cause pain. Sometimes great pain.

  “We have observed that you have more electricity than the others, so your pain might be especially exquisite.” He held the needle a few inches above my chest. “There are three hundred and sixty acupuncture points. This one is called the Wuyi.” With a slight twisting motion he inserted the needle about an inch into my skin. Immediately, electricity shot through my body toward the needle. I yelled out.

  “Yes, you see, I was right.” He lifted another needle from the tray. “Now, if we place a needle here, it will create a circuit between the two points.” He poked another needle into the skin between my neck and clavicle. It felt as if a live high-voltage electric wire had been inserted through my body. I screamed. “Stop!”

  The man seemed intrigued by my reaction. “The challenge is to keep the pain as high as possible while still keeping you conscious.”

  “Please, stop,” I cried.

  “We are only beginning,” he said clinically. He inserted another needle near my groin. The electricity created a triangular current that contracted my stomach muscles. Involuntarily my body heaved forward as if I were trying to do a sit-up, but the leather restraints held me down. I felt as if I was going to vomit. Sweat streamed down the sides of my face, and already my hair and skin were completely drenched. My eyes felt locked shut.

  “Hen you yisz,” he said. “Very interesting.”

  I forced my eyes open as he lifted another needle. His eyes scanned my body like it was a map and he was searching for a destination.

  “What do you want from me?” I cried.

  His eyes settled on mine in a curious gaze. “Nothing. What would I want from you?”

  “Then why are you doing this?”

  “I told you, I am a man of science. For thousands of years we have believed there were three hundred and sixty acupuncture points. I believe the number is closer to five hundred. With your hypersensitivity to the needles, I believe, together, we can find them all.”

  The thought of hundreds of more needles stuck into me paralyzed me with fear. “That will kill me,” I said.

  The man was quiet for a moment, then said, “That is a possibility.” He breathed out slowly. “But there is a cost for all knowledge.”

  He looked back at my body. “Now, we continue. If I place a needle here . . .”

  I shut my eyes as I felt the cold tip of the needle against my neck. He began to slide it into my skin when someone shouted, “Stop!”

  “Sir . . .”

  “Take those out, now! Or I’ll have you fed to the rats.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He immediately pulled the needles out. The pain stopped.

  “Now get out of here. Ma shang, ba!”

  “Bau chyan,” the man said. “Bau chyan.”

  I could hear him running from the room, his soft footfalls echoing down the corridor. There was a moment of silence; then whoever had entered the room sat down next to me. “Barbarian,” he grumbled. I was still too weak to open my eyes. I could feel a dry cloth being dabbed on my head and face. “I’m sorry, Michael. I had no idea they were doing this to you. Trust me, they will pay for this atrocity.”

  The voice sounded oddly familiar. I forced my eyes open. Though my vision was blurry I could make out the visage of a man, not too old, maybe a few years younger than my mother. His hair was light brown, almost the same color as mine, and he had thick eyebrows.

  When I could speak I said, “Who are you?”

  He didn’t answer but continued to wipe the sweat from my neck and face. Then he said, “Are you sure you don’t know who I am?”

  “No.”

/>   “I know your vision must still be blurry, but look more carefully.”

  As my vision cleared I could make out the details of his face. He looked so familiar. Then I remembered. I knew who he was.

  “No,” I said. “I’m hallucinating.”

  “It must seem . . . odd,” he said. He ticked, his face contracting in a grimace. “Or maybe impossible. But I am who you think I am.”

  My eyes welled up with tears, but this time not from pain. “Dad?”

  “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” my father said as he unlatched the straps that held me down. I slowly rubbed my wrists, then tried to sit up.

  “Not too fast,” he said. “I’m sure you’re still dizzy. Is the ice helping?” My father had set ice packs where the needles had been used.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “You must be thirsty. Let me get you some water.” He reached down and brought up a plastic bottle. I drained the whole thing.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” One of his eyes twitched and he gulped like I sometimes did. “How are you feeling?”

  “I don’t know. Confused.”

  “I’m not surprised, after what they’ve done to you. You’ll feel better in a few hours.”

  “I mean about you,” I said.

  He hesitated a moment, then said, “I understand.”

  “How are you . . .” I couldn’t think of the right word.

  “Alive?” he said. “It’s simple. I never died.”

  “But I went to your funeral. I remember it.”

  “How was that?” he said, sounding slightly amused. “I would have liked to have been there. I even considered going in disguise, but it was too risky.”

  I didn’t find what he was telling me amusing. “Was Mom in on this?”

  He was quiet a moment; then his voice softened. “No. She believes I’m dead.”

  “But you had a death certificate. I saw it.”

  “That’s not hard to get when you work at a hospital.”

  Suddenly anger welled up inside of me. “I cried every day for a year. How could you do this to us?”

  “Not to,” he said calmly. “For. It’s a big difference. And I had my reasons. After we discovered that the MEI had malfunctioned, we had reason to fear for our lives. Not just mine and James Hatch’s, but yours and your mother’s as well.