[h2]Somalia[/h2]
[h3]Barghaal[/h3]

The dining room was a sparse dusty place. Decorated only by the large wooden table in its center. A table that for as naked as it was housed the many who lived in the clay-packed bungalow. They sat in rough-carved, unfinished chairs. Simple table cloths had been laid out in front of each, and on top empty ceramic plates. Han Wen sat among them at the table, clasped in the hot hands of nervousness as he sat among the foreigners. There wasn't regard to his inability to speak his language. He could only assume it was them being polite.

He'd been ushered out of their sitting room where he had been left an hour ago. He now held court in a new room. Behind his back an open glass-less window provided a portal to the outside world. The sweet smells of the ocean breeze swam warmly through the open curtains. As did the rumble of engines, the rattle of wagons, and the bleating of goats and sheep. There was an almost surreal serenity here that forgot the war further to the north, along the coast.

Were the confident? Or did they just not know? Whatever the story may be, he didn't know if they talked about it. In their dancing sharp language they dashed foreign words through the air. An entire syntax and vocabulary he was unfamiliar with. Somehow he felt they he would have been better served in Russia, where at least the enemy – and allies - were civilized and familiar.

The chirping of time kept by and he was given more glasses of water. The lightheaded dancing of dehydration was long past. He no longer floated in dusty clouds and he was back to earth. The only discomfort was the familiar need to urinate. Which he did, as soon as he signed with his hosts his need to piss.

As the light of the sun warmed and lowered the bustle in the dining room rose and heightened. On some silent queue the residents came to the table. Talking politely and hushed as they shot wayward looks to their Chinese guest. He smiled nervously, giving his best impression of politeness and bowing. He didn't feel at ease being in someone's home invited like this.

Warm smells floated in the air as the homeowner and his wife walked into the room. Carrying in their arms plates of rice, meat, and large slices of a round flat bread. They smiled and talked among their own kin, and returned anxious nods of acknowledgment with the pilot. Landing the saucers in their arms upon the table another came, gently pushing into the room a feeble old weathered man.

Dressed in a word and ancient uniform, he sat slouched over in his wheel chair. The faded metals of his chest indicated who he fought for in the far past. The German iron cross dangled from the breast of uniform, right under neath the toughened, sun-baked and sand-worn leather pilot's jacket that lay limp as the battle uniform underneath. He still wore is colonial cap that sagged off his brow as he was wheeled in alongside Han Wen. He smelled of must and age, the Chinese pilot noted.

He seemed to great the visitor with a dry raspy breath. Between heavy breaths he muttered away in Somalian as his caretakers sat down. But now it wasn't just Wen they looked up to. But the old man. “[i]Dareewal dayuurad?[/i]” he inquired, sizing the Chinese pilot up behind sagging eyebrows. He mimed something flying in his hands.

Han Wen starred down at him with a lost expression. The old man must have read the empty confusion in his eyes. He sighed and puttered under his breath. At the table the rest reached out with their bare hands, grabbing loaves of the flat bread to scope up rice and meat for their plate.

“[i]E-ein Pilot.[/i]” the old veteran mumbled as a youth helped put small amounts of rice and bread onto his plate, “[i]Luftwaffepilot.[/i]” he repeated. Wen realized he was attempting to speak German. If rusted with age and dried and leathered like his skin and jacket.

“Y-yes.” he nodded dramatically. Even if he could not understand Mandarin, with any luck he knew head nodding.

The old man's face seemed to light up as the response and the gesture. He crooned happily, smiling as he cheered something in his African tongue. Whether it was Somalian or German Han Wen didn't know, nor did he feel he could understand either.

He reached out cautiously across the table, unsure about the practices as he spooned up chunks of grilled meat and rice with the generously sized coins of bread. The loaves reminded him of Naan, and he was comfortable to compare them to such.

The old man continued to speak from his wheel chair alongside Wen. Gently waving and gesturing with his hands. Acting out with gestures as he spoke. Han Wen didn't know what he was saying, or where he was coming from. But through his gesturing he could discern the pattern and the subject, only loosely. He could watch in his hands the same way he could listen from his words, but the image was bury in much the same way a picture was obscured watched through wavy glass. The shapes were there, but none of the details.

There was a ruffle in the corner of Wen's vision. The curtain partition between the rooms moved and stepping through was a tall young woman. A cheap suit hugged her figure, a dark niqab wrapped up her hair. She looked across the room at Wen with a look of silent bewilderment. Then her ears caught what the old man was saying, and she was stunned with silent wonder. She hung by the doorway, listening to the old man talk.

It was there that Han Wen realized that no one in the room was talking either. Instead they sat quietly eating their rice and meat as he told his Somalian stories. His hands gently and shakily flying. Steering and yawing and pitching as if he were in the cockpit seat again. Or firing a gun. Doing the many thing the ancient pilots of the Great War did.

Han Wen was certain of that much. He was dimly aware Ethiopia – with Somalia – fought with the Germans in the Great War to check European power in East Africa. But he knew none of the details. But here was one such detail. A surviving veteran was here beside him, though nothing more than a accessory in academic writings on the conflict. But he was there, and Han Wen couldn't understand him.

He chewed quietly on a pinch of rice from his fingers as watching the old man's bony hands relive the war from so long ago. They moved with great energy, despite his great age. And the deafening silence had every clue that it was a great tale. Or this man was a great spinner.

Through his hands Wen watched him dictate stories of his flying, no doubt alongside the Germans as they battled the British in Africa. The vague depiction of maneuvers. And battle hard fought. He gabbed for hours. Droning on through the meal and on. His voice dry, but it was tireless. Each time he paused he sighed, took a drink of water and chewed wistfully on the rice and grilled meat.

Han Wen had the impression this was not the sweet nothings of an old man. Even if he couldn't understand him, he had weight in his words. And it captivated many to stay behind and listen with attentive silence. The children disappeared soon after finishing their meal. But the adults stayed, chewing on the ends of straws or dried leaves. An incense burner was placed on the table and lit, washing away slowly the smell of the meal that had been eaten there.

Slowly the old veteran slowed in his story telling. He fell silent, and sat back into the comfort of his wheel chair. Though not in the worn, bitter demeanor he had rested at before. He looked like he had relieved himself of a weight. He was resigned, but at some peace. No longer bottled.

“[i]Waad ku mahadsan[/i]” he sighed deeply. He looked up at the Chinese pilot, and nodded softly before looking away. “[i]Waad ku mahadsan[/i]” he repeated again. With a heavy wave of his hand he called over one of his sons, who with light hands took the back of his rattled wheel chair and pulled it from the table. As he left the room, he hummed an old song.

And with him gone, the rest stirred.

The woman – who had since taken a seat when the children ran off bored – stood up from her seat and rounded the table. Han Wen looked up at her. Caution and other emotions shook in him. He expected someone to speak with him in Somalian.

“Good evening.” she said in Chinese. Though muddled in accent it was unmistakable. She could speak his language.

Han Wen starred up at her, stricken with a sudden wave of shock that came with her greeting. “I- uh. Same to you.” he stuttered weakly. He smiled warmly, oh so he hoped. He had done nothing but gape like a awkward child all day.

“My name is Mulki,” she introduced herself, “I work in the customs office in Mogadishu. My family called me up here, about you.” she smiled nervously, “I guess you've asked about Mogadishu?”

“I- I guess I uh, have.” Wen coughed, nervously tapping the unfinished wood of the dinner table, “I assumed I could get to Addis from there, and... I don't really know how or what to do about that...” he frowned pulling away his eyes. He looked down at his hands. “I figured it would be the best place for me to go since I crashed.” he admitted feebly.

“It's OK.” Mulki smiled, “I can get you to where you need to be. And I can do you one better.” she invited sweetly, “I think now is a special enough occasion, perhaps my boss won't be so on edge with my disappearance. I'll get you a train to Addis. I'll come along too, to make sure you get to where you need to be.”

“Oh-” a shocked Han Wen remarked, “Oh- that... That. I didin't think of that.” he humbly admitted, with pain to his pride.

“Very well, we'll leave tomorrow. I'm afraid we'll be hard pressed to get a plane at night. I'll talk to my cousin, see if he can set you up with some bed space.”

“Th-thank you.”

[h1]Russia[/h1]
[h2]Perm[/h2]

“So, how many times have you ate with forks and spoons while in Russia?” the agent named Stripped Tiger asked, sitting alongside Jun's bed. It had been several weeks, he had been carefully moved to a proper place. Onto a proper mattress. It smelled like mildew and ash. He could only imagine where they had found it.

“Once.” he said flatly. It had been a small dinner event with Makulov. It was relatively boring. He, Ulanhu, nor the General spoke of anything significant. It was an uncomfortable exchange of pleasantries. The only thing meaningful was a half-ass reminder to why the two agents were there: sway the wraith of a forgotten officer to the Chinese side. But by then the raiding had already begun and Ulanhu was afraid they were running short on time.

“It takes some time to get used too.” the lone agent smiled half-ass as he gently handed over a bowl of mixed grains and meat, “Spoons though, spoons I had the handle of. But it's simply using anything else for solid foods that was strange to handle. The hand just forms so naturally around the use of chopsticks.

Jun had no comment. He accepted the offering wordless. The contents had been steamed, but there was a certain look to them that suggested they were nearing their eat-by date in the first place. The color was muted and gray. And the aroma was listless and sour. He begrudgingly ate it, if to seal the empty rolling in his bowls.

The mattress the youths of the house had recovered was propped atop a rigged-together bed frame. Really made of the same tables as Jun had laid on for the first few days. Moving the crippled agent to the top floor that was his new accommodations was a dramatic event, full of more shouting than he wanted to bother with. Once more, for the one doctor Jun's inability to say where anything hurt simply made the move more cautious.

“It's no Shanghai accommodation.” Stripped Tiger admitted. “Neither is it any dinner with any of the Beijing elite.” he lamented. Hiding it with a dry laughing sigh. But it was as dead as the food was, that much Jun was certain of as he chewed on a flavorless chunk of carrot.

“While you eat though, can I pray again into why you're here?” Stripped Tiger asked, stroking that round boyish chin of his. A light stubble of beard growth was coming in. The shadows of the growing beard brought out the deep worry lines of his face and his pallor complexion.

“Can I get a name?” Jun asked, challenging his host. “I want to know who's housing me.”

He looked at him. Jun could tell he was cold. But he conceded. “Min Shu.” he moaned, “My partner was Xi Jin, but now he's blood and guts. Does this help?” he was agitated and afraid. He tossed a look to the door, hoping none of his wards heard who he was. Jun understood, that sort of information could lead to trouble.

“Was here to contact a man.” Jun sneered. Now here, sitting in bed he felt a rising contempt for Makulov for getting him into this. He wondered about Ulanhu. How well was he doing?

“We were supposed to break him over to the Chinese fold. Makulov. One of the commanding officers who went rogue during the second Bolshevik uprising fucking ten years ago.

“Resistant. I and my partner stayed. He had me hunt down the trash he couldn't deal with. Partner wanted me to comply, in the name of diplomacy. I became his hit-man.”

“I personally would have turned and left for home. Called the mission a failure.” Shu laughed, “After awhile that is. Could – has, rather – gotten dangerous to do stuff for such people. You don't know how many enemies they got or how much it could complicate them.

“Then again I was never asked to perform underground diplomacy. I was more the gun-runner type and intel liaison on the side while I did that.

“At one point, I flew sixty missions into Vietnam during a month-long time-span. Night and day! French never found me. I flew too low.” he crooned proudly.

Jun nodded as he awkwardly spooned a piece of mystery meat into his mouth and chewed. Fighting to ignore the sour flavor.

“But I suppose you've had worse.” Shu continued rambling, “Busted your leg and kept walking. If there wasn't anyone here to hold you down, you'd probably walk out of here yourself, wouldn't you?” he asked.

“You like to talk.” Jun replied.

“I haven't had anyone from China to talk to!” he scoffed loudly, “It's all been Russians and Russian youths.” he lamented in a deep sigh, “Don't get me wrong, they're all bright here. Kids with promise. But they're not in my field, and I can't trust them with nearly three-quarters the information I'd like to impart on them. I can only make do with a quarter, and that quarter's useless!

“They think I'm some kind of wizard sometimes. I want to show them how. But I'd be overplaying my hand well further than I should. I'd get them into trouble. Especially the youngest ones.”

“They're kids, how much trouble could they get into?”

“As soon as the wrong one learns to make home-made explosives and how to break someone's neck then there will be shit all over me.”

[h2]Tyumen[/h2]

The boughs and crowns of the luscious trees bowed and danced in the wind and the furor of the moment. The sound of a diesel engine at their backs roared over the cracking and popping of gunfire. The rupturing roar of the cannon on board and the muffled roar of mortar shells. The driver's viewport burst with flowers of thick dark loamy soil and round mud-caked stones as they roared across the green fields. Through the trees to the town beyond. Columns of stark olive-green tanks made a roaring fast sweep across fields and berms and shoddy, shallow trenches.

Tsung grimaced at each bump in their off road journey. Each one was the walls of a trench or a fallen log thrown down in a desperate bid to bar their progress. But they'd come too fast for the Republic and these obstacles were by no means insurmountable. Ahead of them he could see the phantom shadows of more forward armor, clawing through thicker pockets of vegetation to ram a path to the city proper, marked through the murky plastic of his portcullis by familiar gray columns of smoke from smoldering blocks of the city proper.

The ringing sound of bullets rained against the hull of the tank. He jumped at the sudden spike in sound. The rushing beat of his heart raced in his ears. His palms sweated. He was back in the war saddle again and it carried with him to war the nagging alertness and vile awareness of every small detail that it could bring forth. It was a siren of ill-fortune and dolling it out as much. It's song though was not beautiful and simple, but gritty, gory, and complex. But he was here to liberate a people. That was good, was it not? Some rats had to be simply purged.

Sun Song's wailing orders had become background noise. He sighted down and gave orders on where to turn the gun for his crew to fire. The wet thumping of the main cannon had become a part of the background. Much like the sound of the diesel engine. Its report had lost all uniqueness, slipping away like the sweat from his brow as they tore along the summer field.

It was bright out, open skies for as far as he could tell. And humid. Li Tsung had never experienced a humid heat. For him it had always been dry, whether cold or hot. Summer days were defined by their dustiness under the central-China sun.

“Straight ahead!” Sun shouted, “Enemy armor. Approximately fifty meters ahead of us!”

Tsung looked up through his small driver's porthole. Wheeling around the corner of a wooden farm-house bore a Russian tank. Its hefty turret swinging around the corner as it crept, aiming down for them. Streaming off its metal chassis, Tsung thought he saw streams of hay and straw crawling off its armor.

There was a resounding clunk behind him as Wi Hui loaded a shell. “Sighted!” Tse Lin cried out.

“Fire!” Song roared.

With another deafening, if yet still muffled roar the gun fired on the Russian armor. A cone of white-hot fire erupted from the bore. The hostile tank shook with the impact of the shell. But it still moved, if lethargic as Tsung watched the tracks spin loose from the wheel. Smoke emanated from the wheels as they spun.

Hui loaded another round. The Russian tank fired. As the strangled cry from the Russian tank rang through the armor of his vehicle so did the scream of rending steel as something gouged across the side. There was a shower of sparks and a hot wave that pulsed through the cabin.

“Damage report!” Sun Song demanded.

“Loaded!” Hui reported.

Tsung could feel the sweat roll across his brow in a torrent. It dripped from his brow as he panicked about, searching the cabin. “I-I...” he started to say, his voice warbled violently in his throat.

“We're fine then.” Song yelled aloud, “Take the shot!”

There was another rippling explosion from the main gun. With a crunch metal twisted from outside as the Russian vehicle folded open and exploded. There was a violent sheer of white-hot sparks that showered out. Followed soon after by an eruption of flame. Tsung watched baffled with terror as the jets of golden and bloodied fire sputtered out the hull of the tank and the gun. Following its lead wretched blackened smoke plumed.

Then crawled the men. At least one to have survived threw himself out of the turret cloaked in blistering fire. Loud cracks and pops followed him out the hatch. A new fountain of flame burst out, then slowed to a low death as a stable smoldering enveloped behind him. He screamed. He screamed like the tortured soul he was. His voice was so strong, it cut through the steel and the dampening of the tank itself.

Tsung felt his insides turn cold. From above in the turret Song gave the ordered to keep moving. He obeyed, like a robot. Pressing forward with their own march past the farm house.

With a rippling roar the fire met the ammo magazines. The shells caught all at once. Ripping the hull open. Tsung heard that much, saw the brilliant flash of light in the glass. Then the constant chain of rifle fire with the machine gun's magazine going up in flame.

But it wasn't this he kept hearing. It was the phantom screams of the tanker.

Tsung was no longer a virgin to death. But there was still the act of burning to death he had not witnessed.

“We're getting close.” Song shouted out to the crew, “I can see the city skyline.”

To Tyumen.

[h2]Road to Moscow[/h2]

Trees stood at rank along the side of the road, dusty and graveling the tires popped and bounced over the loose pieces of gravel as it spun down the lonesome logger's trail. The columns of pine that stood at the road's edge were like sentinels of the forest. Vigilant sentries of the mountain. Beneath their boughs the under brush grew thick and lush in the early summer sun.

The desolation and the emptiness of the countryside road washed in through the open windows as Ulanhu rode along in the passenger seat of a twenty-year old Russian car. Built in what looked like a decadent proclamation of Russian industry the vehicle possessed as many irrelevant and mismatched elements as it possibly could. And most of it was lashed together by wire and duct tape from the innumerable splitting seems and loose headliner. The entire car could be aptly summarized by it being a rolling sea of muddy blood-red leather and vinyl.

In the driver's seat sat a scrawny and spidery young private. He smiled as he drove, his eyes held straight ahead down the empty road with nothing but the sound of the gravel and the humid mountain air that washed in through the window. His head was a filthy mat of wild blonde hair that hung about the rims of giant coke-bottle glasses.

He hadn't spoke much since he was introduced with Ulanhu. His name was Vasiliy, Vasiliy Kulkov Popervoch. He had grown up not far from Moscow, and as he claimed to Ulanhu and Makulov still had family there. He greeted Ulanhu with a boundless, youthful smile and sparkle in his faded blue eyes. The Mongolian didn't know what to do once again when he offered to shake his hand. That had been the first cultural hurdle.

But now here both were, a day's ride out of the Urals and on their way to Moscow. Vasiliy had taken to thinking himself witty and spy-like, insisting to take the back roads. Ulanhu didn't object, he wanted to stay off the inevitable and to allow him to think.

Their briefing was simple, on the surface. Upon arriving to Moscovy they'd seek out and rendevouz with a contact of Makulov's. A man named Chekov Borisovy. A former manager of a factory that'd gone bankrupt with the Empire. Now he was stuck in Russia like so many others. He'd fought in the army before, in central Asia alongside Makulov. Which is why the contact persisted. He would have the means to get closer into the Republican government.

Investigating the situation in Yekaterinburg for the agents was out of the question. Makulov's men had the city more-or-less surrounded. Ulanhu felt he was stretched thin. And he was afraid of what'd happen when the Chinese arrive. Would they see Makulov as a Republican warlord and dismiss him passingly as such? Was Makulov even capable of contacting the Chinese?

Ulanhu had met Hue Wen's intelligence staff chief once upon a time. He made him uncomfortable, made him feel cold. Mann Wu came off as the type to sentence to death first, ask questions later. Not as outright an executioner as Jun when it came down to it. But he and Wu were operatives cut from the same yard of silk, they were tigers through and through.

Ulanhu starred down the short, stubby nose of the car as they drove. The hood was decorated in some gaudy attempt at being futuristic. Though it still retained a hard-cornered, boxy appearance that had typified Russian design for him since he came into the country. There was a single exception that tried to break the rule, a protruding hood vent that stuck up from the hood like a fat nose on a flat face.

“So, uh- Moscow.” Ulanhu brockered, feebly trying to strike up conversation, “What's the city like?”

“Moscow?” Vasiliy smiled. Even his smile was thin like the rest of him. Crooked yellow teeth hung like inverted tombstones in his mouth. Under his green fatiques a stripped white-blue jacket pattered at his wasting neck, “Oh, is home comrade!”

He was bare in his Chinese. Or anything to say the least. But he made an effort to try. “Is where born and raised. Is good.

“Not good as Sankt Petersburg, dja. Richer city was than Moscow!”

“As I understand.” Ulanhu said dismissively.

“Excuse me?” Vasiliy asked, genuinely lost.

“I heard. Uh-” Ulanhu peddled back, “Or, so I've heard. About Sankt Petersburg.”

“Oh, yeah. You heard right you did!” he smiled dumbly.

“Well, what else about Moscow?” Ulanhu continued.

“Oh, is on river.” Vasiliy continued, “Moskva river. Used to swim in it when boy. Some said to not. But I did.” he added with an affirmative nod. “Say factories dump lead and mercury into water. But was all downriver from where I was raised.

“But by river sits Kremlin. Fortress. And seat of government.” the young Russian nodded affirmatively, “Is where we will find president most likely.”

“How do you think we'll need to enter it?” the Chinese agent asked.

“I don't know.” the Russian shrugged, “Climb walls, you like ninja, yes?”

“I'm afraid not.” Ulanhu dismissed. He swallowed the sour taste at the back of his throat.

“Oh well. I suppose too we could walk in through front door. We'll need cover though. Or maybe we can access through subway tunnel!”

“Subway?” Ulanhu asked.

“Dja, subway. Hear Tzar installed private tunnel in fifties for private use.”

“No, what's a subway?” Ulanhu asked.

“Oh! Subways is like train. Underground train, go through tunnel. Is faster than trolly car above ground, but less scenic and more noisy.

“We could find that.” Vasiliy grinned, he was feeling genuinely confident in that course of action, “I heard before I accepted mission that it indeed existed. When built.

“President and guard no doubt know it exist though.”

“We'll need to hope that they're not counting on it.” Ulanhu sighed, looking back out the window.

“Oh sure, they may. But we see when time comes and we make contact.”

“So if we enter the Kremlin, where do we go from there?”

“President may be in Terem Palace. Private residence on grounds. I saw it once as visitor before nation went to shit. But never inside, no one ever goes inside.”

“That's where we'll start.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Vasiliy commented, “Better than nothing!”

They continued to pop and roll down the gravel road. It felt endless in length. But the long tracts of forest was beginning to give way to open clear-cut field. And eventually meadows. “So, is this your first real mission?” Ulanhu asked his Russian partner.

“Not at all. Did lot of work in Yekaterinburg. Actually inside Republican congress!” he boasted confidently, “Doubt any contacts I had there will not help. But I brought my ID card with me. It should help.”

“I hope it will. What was your cover by the way?”

“Mikhail Nikitich, lived across from the Church of All Saints. Married young, wife was murdered. Never re-married. No children either, rest of family lives in Communist-occupied Russia or fled the nation all together, lost contact with all.”

“Sounds complete enough.” nodded Ulanhu.

“It was good identity. You have one?”

“I'm afraid I've always been Ulanhu.” he admitted guiltily.

“Bullshit!” Vasiliy laughed, “What does Ulanhu mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Vasiliy asked stricken, What do you mean?”

“I mean it's not worth knowing.” he said, looking back at him, “Would it really matter.”

“I guess not.” Vasiliy admitted.

[h1]China[/h1]
[h2]Hong Kong[/h2]
[h3]Kowloon Walled City[/h3]

It had taken him awhile to brave the thought to do it. Even as the school terms ended. At least for a while, merely the month. And then it was his last tour. It felt strange really. But it was washed aside as he stood in the shadow of the pillaring necropolish before him. It was a blackened and gray mass of unwashed and unkempt structures. Even the flair of inner Hong Kong was devoid around it, much of it caught in the sickly aura of Kowloon's darkened heart.

Guilded by soot the apartment walls of Kowloon rose above the ground below. An orbiting ring of dirt and grass that tried to give as much a barrier between Hong Kong and the Walled City stood underneath Pui Tui's feet. He hadn't bothered to drive, he knew that was too much of a danger.

It was also a heavy irony that for the disease that the Walled City gave off in its mere visage was counteracted by the density of dentists and doctors who had their offices built on the extreme outside of the mighty enclave of madness amid Hong Kong's relative sanity. The Walled City was a tumor that unlike the rest of China did not fly any of the orange banners of the Chinese state. But opted instead to fly the dusty multi-colored rags of laundry from every possible balcony. The city was not only a rotten temple of bone and cement with blackened tips and grizzled, swelling growths that built steadily up. It was also the advertisement for the most destitute of fashion. The fraying and dusty jumpsuits of the factory laborer, the cotton jerkins of the rough and violent under belly. And even amid these the stray blood-red flag of the old triads and the assertive disdainful detachment from reality in the red banners of the long defunct Red Guard Gang.

Though it was perhaps not all dead. But somehow the worse came to Walled City. Pulled in by its dangerous magnetism. It being the only source of state resistance.

On normal occasions Pui Tui wouldn't dare to stand short of the gates to the former fortress. Neither would his friends. But he had for himself many thousands of ren he needed to use. And somewhere inside was someone who knew how to use it. Tui took a deep breath and looked up at that pleasant, open, July sky and stepped across the dusty mall towards the city.

He walked briskly towards the city. Stepping over centuries old stones and engravings that lay in the dirt like gravy markers. None of them were whole, but looking at them the ancient writing carved in the heavy marble slabs were still visible to read. It was a strange sort of feeling to walk over history unpreserved, where the state had sought to do that much. To hold on to the past, repurpose it for the future. Make everything a lesson for the revolution. Yan Cong had commented on such things in significant depth; he read a lot. Tui wondered what he would say about all this. But he knew he'd be too terrified to come so close.

He came onto the gate, a narrow opened guarded by an ancient arch. The centuries old brickwork of an ancient Yamen defined this way in. Windows shuttered with wood seemed to watch the young man approach, silently like the dead. His skin went clammy as he made his approach. In the darkness inside and beyond the gate he could listen to the echoes of many thousands. Uncountable numbers of people, not only by the danger within but how many were packed together. Tui didn't need Cong to tell him that with as many souls were cramped in the Walled City it would be nearly impossible for the city of Beijing to count them all and tax them.

He paused outside that gaping maw. The gate was old, faded. The blue paint of the yamen house was peeling pack and parting from the centuries old wooden frame. What shone through was a graying disaster. The frame was buckled and bent, distorted by the weight of infrastructure that refused to stop growing. And looking up the Walled City's edge Pui Tui felt a sickly vertigo take hold of him as its vertical expanse swam into the clear sky. He couldn't tell where the crowns of the projects ended, of if that was just simply a weighty and dangerous buckling of the structures as they grew.

There was a bronze cannon in the grass. Its green turret hidden by weeds and bushes thick as the hair atop his head. He only noticed it when he looked back down and saw the empty bore of the gun staring up at him from the weeds. Its dark chamber like the Walled City in miniature. It felt damning in its presence there. Also challenging. “Go ahead.” it invited, “I leave this kingdom unprotected.” it taunted.

Tui looked back. Perhaps the last sanest thing he could do in this situation. He'd told his father he was out on the town as usual. He'd be back by dinner to do the evening chores. Was this foolish?

He took a breath, and forced himself to swallow his fear and walked into the entrance's embrace. Cringing back as he felt the heady smell of human squalor wash him as he walked into the concrete caverns.

The light behind him was an intense silver glow in the claustrophobic shadows of the city within. His shadow trailed long ahead of him across the filthy cement ground as he walked alongside the exposed plumbing and electrical conduit that serviced the entire city. Hanging just inches above his head puttered and flickered weak incandescent lights. His eyes strained to understand the darkness while his ears and nose took in so much.

The passage from one world into another had been sudden, jaunting. His nose was assaulted by the smells of a million different things. It made his stomach belch and twist inside him. The sharp bitter smell of rot and sewage permiated the air and clung to the humidity like a swampy cloth that brushed his cheek and pooled in the back of his sinuses. Blood, sweat, and even semen was heavy in the air, like the tar and grime that covered the walls and pipes. He could smell it all. Every rotten smell. From the refuse to the people. From the people to the rats. It was almost inhuman. Insane almost.

And there was the sounds. The great echoing and clashing of tools. They echoed near and far, disorienting the young man as he meekly worked through the maze of tunnels and dense alley ways of the city. There was no one ever far away from. There was always someone close at hand, around ever corner and in every niche and alcove. And he could hear them. Shouting, yelling, arguing, and bickering. From somewhere there was the moaning of whores. Elsewhere prostitutes and butchers shouted out the price of their goods and services. Likewise he heard a preacher proclaim something unfamiliar and distant: alms. Alms to the Christian God. Proclamations and taunting jeering in praise to Guan Yu against the Christian missionaries that found the unsettling home here in the darkness.

But he could not blame these parties, he found uncomfortably. For they were trying to bring light to a dark place. And every so often Tui would pass through a fresh column of sunlight in the entombing shadows of the Kowloon underworld. It was a brief relief. But it was all too rare.

Tui passed by many people in the holds of the city. Brushing shoulders against man and woman and preacher and child alike. Some tried to stop him. A preacher tried to pass onto him a bottle of milk for his well wishes. But in the choking darkness of it all when he looked into any of their faces he could see only their deformed sunken features in the ill lighting.

It withdrew him. His heart flashed and screamed in his chest. He put his head down, keeping his eyes down as he pressed along. Following channels of trickling water and snaking lines of conduit and other pipes. He looked up only to check the signs, looking for the corners and stairwells he had to be at. His shoes sloshed through puddles of blood. He looked up to find the very road itself had cut through the middle of a butcher's shop. The meat cutters within glanced up from the chopping of their meat. Pig's heads and hearts lay out in the open watching him as silent as the butchers with their bloodied and rusting cleavers. Cigarettes hung loosely in their lips as they stood over their cuts of meat and strips of bacon.

Tui refrained his breathing, and kept moving.

Elbowing through the choked throngs of everyone he kept moving. Looking up at the lamps along the side of each sign marking each road and inter-section. Tui couldn't help but snicker sickly at the names of many of these informal roads and pathways. Pleasantry Boulevard, Paradise Avenue, 5th Avenue, Lucky Way. They were a perverted sort of humor of the city. Then he came to where he needed to be.

The crossing of 5th and 8th avenue. Both not much wider than a man and a half. Both with shallow trenches cut in the middle where all the liquid of Kowloon flowed freely into a drain in the middle. Rats freely gleaned through the water, looking up at him through black beady eyes.

“R-right, top floor now...” Tui muttered to himself as he looked at the dented and rusting road posting. He looked around for a stairwell. Or elevator. Anything to get him up. He didn't need to look far.

The stairwell he found was a narrow climbing alcove built between the closed-in walls of what looked to have been an old wooden house and that of a brick building alongside it. Both reinforced by the concrete, the constant urban reconstruction evident in the Walled City's underbelly was swallowing the old whole in its continued quest to grow or to reinforce. Chalky pieces of cement littered still the iron steps between lakes and rivers of rust created from leaking pipes above. In the dim light Tui could look up into its winding climb to see the ragged silhouettes of simple people, withdrawn into the darkness. Or into a drugged sleep.

He hit the stairs with a determined charge. Not just to try to escape the pressing depression of the under belly, but to break through what remained in the rest of his voyage. The stairs rang under his feet, groaned and shook in loose anchors to the wall. There were no lights were he went. Simply the glow from interior apartments where the noisy sounds of fighting, crying, laughing, and singing exploded. The smells of cooking rice and noodles mingled with the sickly sweet smell of burning opium. Switching back he scaled the cavern of squalor. Squeezing past languid individuals.

He kept climbing, hoping for the relief of the pure sunlight. His shoulder met against the side of an elderly man who crept down the stairs rattling off in tongues to himself. Someone shouted from above and below. His hand brushed across a slimy metal railing that overlooked an open pit, the bottom of which was a mess of discarded pieces of life and garbage. He looked down into the pond of detritus to see rats the size of large dogs feeding among the filth.

He kept climbing.

Scaling further up a halo of sunlight burned through a thin curtain. He could hear the faint breeze in the cavern and he knew he was making it. His heart breathed a sigh of relief as he kept moving. And with a gasp he broke to the rooftops, the top floor.

Standing once again in the sunlight he took a pause to look about. He had not left the Walled City's demesne, but he was simply in a easier hell. Standing atop the writhing realm before he walked forward into the light. He felt warm again in the sun and he realized just how good it was after being trapped for so long away from it. He gave a sigh of relief.

Though even on the rooftops the growing reach of the Walled City didn't stop. Standing in random patterns across the broken and irregular flat roofs there were free-standing structures of brick. A few precious sky-lights dotting the area let in precious light no doubt to down below. And even more precious breaks between the buildings were marked by cables and twisting strands of barbed wire.

Some of the Walled City's citizens had stepped out into the light like he. Elderly men reclining on beds made of orange crates. Women and their children trying to hold onto the few remaining green plants in the whole city. And off in the distance among the sounds of Kowloon proper's traffic the noise of power tools and hammers sounded as more was built atop the already creaking structure below.

“What sort of fresh fish did the monster swallow today?” a voice called out callously. 

Pui Tui jumped. The voice was sudden and direct. He knew it couldn't be for anyone but him. “E-excuse me?” he stuttered nervously, turning every which way and that as he looked.

“Over here fuck-face.” the man demanded. Tui found the voice's source.

He was a small man, short by Cantonese standards even. His face rat-like and bulging. It had its own share of moles and blisters on it to go around. And the man's dome was almost completely bald. A pair of sunglasses shone in the afternoon sunlight as he leaned over railing strung together by rusting conduit in front of a simple shack. It had green tile work, which struck Tui off as odd.

“I-I'm looking for someone.” he said nervously, defensively even.

“Sure, you better fucking be doing so. You're young kid.” he spat, pointing a crooked finger at him, “And I know young men like you don't simply wander into the Walled City without a reason. Or you're an absolute fucking retard, you know?”

“Oh- I- uh-” he started. He felt shameful, exposed.

“Don't fucking stand their jabbering or some meaner cunt is going to slit your throat for a pair of your jeans.” he hissed. The man was loud. He pointed down at the pair of pants he was wearing. “So get your words in order before I do the honors. Best to die in the sunlight than in the shadows and eaten by rats. At least up here you can be fed to the gulls.

“Certain people would call that an honor.”

“I-I'm looking for someone. Song Yun-Fee.” Tui cracked. He fought up some of his courage to speak, “A, uh- a Ghost sent me.” he bit his lip.

The man's back straightened and he rose from the conduit railing of his soap-box front porch. “I see.” he said hushed, “Come inside, we'll talk. Get you out of someone's eyes.” he turned to the blanket-covered door of his shack, waving him in as he went.

Tui was apprehensive, afraid at first. But knowingly he had to follow him, and he did. Taking wide steps he bound over the gravely roof tops and the chords of cable and vent pipe for the porch. Stepping up and following him in.

“So that motherfucker is still alive.” Yun-Fee said as Tui trailed in. His hut was small, merely a room and a half large. A half-hidden bathroom stood in the corner, being only simply a toilet and a sink. The rest of Yun-Fee's live possessions sat clinging to the wall. A simple table sat out in the middle of the linoleum tiled floor. But despite its small size, the man moved swiftly about it like it was a palace.

“I think so...” Tui  nervously smiled

“You [i]think[/i]?” Yun-Fee shot, giving him a sour cynical look.

“Oh, uh. Yea. He's alive.” Tui stammered. His stomach felt cold realizing his slip.

“That's what I wanted to know.” the gambler huffed, stepping over to a small gas stove shoved in the corner. “Sit down.” he ordered.

Tui nodded, shuffling carefully through the prison cell of a makeshift apartment to the table. “You want tea?” Yun-Fee asked as the teenage sat down.

“I- I guess. Yeah...” Tui nodded. His voice trailed off nervously. His fingers tapped numbly against the wood of the table.

“Good tea is a good thing to have. Especially on a warm and clear afternoon.” his host pointed out, “I hope you like it black, it's all I got.”

“Fine. Fine. That'll be... Fine.” Tui stammered coldly.

“So, this ghost...” Yun-Fee started as he went to work brewing the tea. Filling a beaten tarnished pot with water from a sink that spat and sputtered out water like vomet, “why'd he send you to me?”

“I have money problems.” Tui admitted

“Money problems?” Song Yun-Fee asked, “Like what? Not enough? Need a loan? This ghost wouldn't give it to you?”

“Well, no.” Tui shrugged, “I do races. And I, uh... I won some money from over time from racing. But I'm told it'd be dangerous to spend it.”

“How much?” Yun-Fee asked

“Some several hundred thousand, I think.”

“Ahh-” Yun Fee crooned, “Some serious Ren. I take it the more you race the more this grows?”

“It does.”

“Then I suppose I can fix that.” Yun-Fee boasted confidently, “It's not fucking hard. It's like taking a shit. Though it may sometime be a slow process but the relief comes inevitably.”

Tui didn't feel comfortable with the analogy, but rolled along with it. Leaning back to listen as the man put the water onto bowl and prepared the tea itself. “I do however charge for this financial fixing.” he continued, “Not mostly all for me though, I have some palms to grease to get it through. But it'll get through, trust me.

“I wouldn't be in fucking business if I didn't get it through and you won't find my head on the fucking street because I tricked some cunt triad boss!” he laughed, turning away from the stove as he wagged on crooked finger at him. “I'll need fifteen percent.”

“Fifteen?” Tui repeated.

“Fifteen.” Yun-Fee scowled, “Can't you fucking count? One over fourteen and one under sixteen! Fucking four higher than five!”

“Y-y-yes, I know.” Tui admitted, reeling back from the ferocity of his tongue, “I just-”

“I don't care what you just thought.” Yun-Fee said in a low voice, “I care about business.

“I'll take fifteen percent of your race winnings, use however much I can to move it into city finances as I can. Without a week or so it'll process through probably and come to you as back pay on taxes paid.

“Simply put, you'll get a heft return of some several thousand percent written off by fellow conspiring entrepreneurs in city hall.”

The tea pot began to steam and Sun-Yee went silent as he worked to finish up the tea. He moved with practice gracelessness in dipping the tea and mixing the briny herb in the water before turning back to the table. “So, let's talk details.” he continued, coming back from his silence, “So let's start: who the fuck are you?”