Ch. 60 – Schemes

Derrick asked.

Tony and Li Xian looked at each other, grinned, and turned back to Derrick in disconcerting tandem. Tony said.

Were they the drunken ramblings of two frustrated middle-aged men? Or the beginnings of a serious plan: a way out of the deep hole that Chinatown was collectively in?

Derrick sighed and pulled a chair up to the shop table. He set the plastic bag—holding all of his leads from the day’s investigation—between his legs, so the drunken pair would hopefully not ask about it.

Li Xian said. Before Derrick could ask for more detail, Xian continued.

There was assuredly some deeper meaning behind Xian’s question, but Derrick’s eyes kept darting up to his professionally done fade. Xian did indeed seem to be an expert with hair.

Derrick asked.

Xian said. He raised his right hand up high, like he was trying to show how tall a pile of boxes was. breaking point, with this new bump in the protection fee. They’re ready to act.>

Tony cut in. Tony darted a glance at Xian, who didn’t seem to mind the slight.

Derrick asked.

Derrick’s mouth fell open. It was crazy. It was ridiculous.

Xian said, switching from swaggering to stoic in an instant. move away. At least not when rent in the safer parts of the country is still way higher than the rent here, even counting the protection fees. They’re not building fast enough in this country for every coastal refugee to find a new home.

Xian bragged.

Derrick asked.

Tony asked, clutching his head and squeezing his eyes shut in concentration.

Xian said.

Derrick asked.

Tony said. some money coming in. We’ll all agree on a bottom line to stick with before this all starts, and then everybody will give them the same bottom line. We might not be able to negotiate them down to stopping the protection racket altogether, but it’ll be better than it is now.>

Derrick said, bitterness creeping into his voice.

Xian said. —Xian paused for emphasis—

Derrick blinked, and realized that his left eyebrow had been creeping up the whole time, becoming stiff and sore. He rubbed his face, Xian’s stupid grin spinning around in his mind.

Xian said.

Derrick asked.

Tony said, laughing louder than usual. second chance. I’ll drink to that. Er, I mean—> he said, glancing at Derrick. Tony kept eyeing the mostly-empty liquor bottle, but made no move to grab it.

Derrick asked.

Tony said.

Derrick shook his head.

Tony said, waiving Derrick off.

Xian said, his mouth open in mock surprise. But Tony’s tremendous yawning drowned out the rest of Xian’s protests, and he finally got up, scratching the back of his head.

Tony said. He got up out of his chair too, and walked with Xian to the shop’s entrance, which opened to the dark and chill of the night.

Another five minutes of gibbering and jabbering, and the door shut, leaving the shop quiet again.

“So, what was that all about?” Derrick asked. “When’d you go and become an ideologue?”

“Eh, it’s nothing like that, my boy. Xian’s led protests before, so of course he’s convinced it’ll work. I haven’t led any myself, but I think the mood in Chinatown is about right. We’ve never been squeezed this tight before, and people are ready to do something about it. And seeing as I’m not about to leave Chinatown, I might as well grab the opportunity by the reins, you follow me?”

“But . . . what if it gets violent?”

“It’ll be a peaceful protest,” Tony said. “Xian and I will make sure of it, and make sure everyone else knows the deal too.”

Derrick’s cheeks and ears were heating up. Peaceful? When the Leopards were involved? They were only peaceful if you rolled over and barked for them like a dog. “I’m sure you guys will try to keep it peaceful, but I doubt the Leopards will like your message. When they come looking for you, are you just gonna let the Leopards shoot you dead?”

Tony frowned, and shook his face like a dog, as if trying to shake the drunken stupor off. “Come on, man. What are you trying to say here? Can’t you wait until morning to bug me?”

“Sorry! I just didn’t expect to come home and find you trying to start a revolution!” Derrick said. He tugged at his collar, and his wet shirt tugged at his body in turn. It was soaked through, and the sticky, oppressiveness of it, made him want to tear it off and throw it at the wall. “I thought we were mod-docs who just wanted to live quietly?”

“Look, it’s a good idea, okay?” Tony snapped. “I can explain the darn thing better to you in the morning.”

Derrick’s wet shirt pulled at him with each shallow, forced breath he took. It was true, of course. Even if the whole idea was a disaster waiting to happen, Tony himself would be able to give Xian’s proposal a think over in the morning after he had sobered up, and hopefully see how crazy it was.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’ve just had a long and stressful day,” Derrick said. “I’m going to go take a shower, unless you were planning to.”

“No, no, I’m fine,” Tony said, eyes closed, chin resting on his palm, swaying, as if he was about to topple over.

By the time Derrick had gotten out of the shower, Tony had luckily gotten himself to bed. The shop didn’t smell like vomit, either, so that was another plus. The shop lights barely touched the hall where the door to Tony’s bedroom was. Derrick stood there, waiting, until the telltale noise of Tony’s snores came through the door. He was asleep.

That talk with Xian might have all been a flight of drunken fancy. But in the case Tony was serious . . . maybe it would be smarter to tell him that Raymond was dead. And that Derrick had killed him . . . The gravity of his own boy having killed a White Leopard could snap Tony out of the reckless hope that they’d pull off a protest without anyone getting hurt. Maybe the scare would be convince Tony to run away?

But what would Tony even think of Derrick? Tony was a mod-doc, and Derrick was now a murderer . . . . Ever since Derrick’s parents died, and Tony had taken him in, Tony had been pretty much the uncle they pretended he was. He treated Derrick like family, of a sort. But they weren’t truly flesh and blood, and Derrick being a killer might be the thing to break them apart . . . .

It was going to be a stressful and sleepless night. But there was one more thing to settle before he went to bed: the data card he’d found from the alleyway.

Derrick padded across the hard shop flooring towards a small box on a shelf where they kept the old air-gapped laptop. The wireless modules had been busted for ages, so, unless he physically plugged a cable into it, any malware wouldn’t be able to infect their shop’s network. He pulled the laptop out and brought it into his room. The old computer started whirring like a jet engine the moment he pressed the power button—the internals were probably caked with dust and debris—so loudly that Derrick flinched a few times, thinking that he had heard Tony stirring, only to realize that he had imagined the sound through the tempest of the laptop’s fans.

But despite its age and state of disrepair, the laptop was able to read the data card just fine. Multiple folders popped up on its storage, some of which had nonsensical names, and another that said Cloud Upload. But there was one that stood out as incredibly ominous. Surveillance, it read.

He double-clicked the folder, in which appeared a bunch of image files, whose thumbnails slowly loaded in. The first one was a picture of an alleyway. The picture’s contrast was intense, so the alley itself was completely shrouded in darkness, but the exterior looked familiar . . .

The second one started loading in, and Derrick’s heart dropped. This one was taken inside of an alley, judging by the shadow. And as the laptop sprayed heat out into the air, the bold letters of Hack Alley’s sign loaded into view.

It was a picture of their shop.

Sweat beaded on Derrick’s forehead as the some other pictures loaded into view: one of Tony walking around town, and one of Derrick, about to hop into a dumpster.

And amid the image files, was a text file, labeled Journal. Derrick gulped, and glanced down at the laptop’s taskbar again. The wireless symbol indeed showed that the laptop was not connected to any networks. He double-clicked the text file, and a bunch of vague text popped up. It was full of dates and approximate times, like ‘four o clock.’ But one phrase stood out in particular.

‘Don’t let them leave Chinatown. Track them if they try.’