Chương 18: The Anti-Daoist

The walk home took longer than it should have. The islands weren't that big, and the path from the admin building to my place was a straight shot through the hub. But my brain kept looping on the same three seconds. Cassandra's lips. The heat. Her eyes going wide. Then mist. She'd literally evaporated. Not teleported, not blinked out, not done some flashy exit with dramatic flair. She turned into mist.

Her body, her dress, her jewelry, the cage with Slimy Jim, all of it dissolved into vapor and blew away on the Pacific wind. As far as my experience with kissing women went, that was new. I reached my building, climbed the stairs, and opened my door. The first thing that hit me was the noise. The second was the visual. An aggressively moaning mess of red bodies, Astarielle and Ashy, were very busy in my bed. They didn't even notice me walking in. I unsummoned both of them. The room went silent.

The sheets were a disaster of sweat and other succubus bodily fluids. I pulled the top one off, balled it up, tossed it into the corner, and flipped the mattress before I fell on it face-first. The whole room still smelled of succubi. Great. At least it took my mind off Cassandra. Turning into mist screamed vampire, but vampires were cold to the touch, as far as I knew. Not searing hot. Sleep found me soon. Morning came too bright and too fast.

I woke up to sunlight knifing through the blinds, a headache that tasted like salt water, and the realization that I'd slept in my clothes. The jacket was crumpled underneath me. The shoes were still on. Classy. I showered, changed into the navy suit Kareem had delivered, which fit well enough, though the shoulders were a fraction too wide, and checked the time. Early. The dive wasn't for another two hours, but I needed to not be in my room.

I headed out, grabbed a kebab along the way, and slowly walked toward the main hub. The islands looked different in the morning light. Less theatrical, more industrial. Construction crews were already at work on the eastern expansion, the sound of drilling carrying over the water. A few joggers passed me on the main walkway, one of them a climber I vaguely recognized from the Inquisition's section.

I was halfway to the dome, passing through the neutral commercial strip they'd built between the five sections, when someone fell into step beside me.

"Mr. O'Connor." I glanced to my right. A man in his mid-thirties, with a face handsome enough to be a Bollywood actor. Close-cropped black hair, trimmed beard that followed his jawline without a millimeter of excess, wearing a dark suit. No rings, no watch, no cufflinks. He carried a tablet under one arm.

"You're not Kareem," I said.

"Kareem handles the day-to-day logistics. I handle the obligations." He didn't extend a hand.

"I am Tariq Farouk of the Golden Sands." Hmph. The word obligations sat in my stomach like cold coffee.

"What's up?"

"Your compliance with the organization's goals leaves much to be desired, to put it mildly." I kept walking. He kept pace, step springy. He enjoyed this.

"The drone incident yesterday created significant friction between the Sands and you," he said, not looking at me.

"The technology you retrieved from the tower was meant to be delivered to your sponsoring organization. Instead, you handed it to the entire world on live broadcast." Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"I made a strategic decision."

"You made a spectacle." He glanced at me.

"The Golden Sands are not a platform for your personal brand, Mr. O'Connor. When you retrieve items, materials, or intelligence from the tower, they come to us. First and exclusively. That is the arrangement."

"I don't recall signing that arrangement."

"It was implied and it will be enforced, especially given your outstanding debt to the organization." I stopped walking.

"What do you mean?"

"The Golden Sands acquired the entirety of your outstanding debt roughly by the time you boarded the plane." He stopped too, turning to face me with the composure of someone delivering a weather report.

"Three million, two hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars, in particular. Consolidated from seventy-nine separate creditors, including Harvard University's financial aid recovery office, and a surprisingly aggressive landlord in Cambridge, Massachusetts." He paused.

"The interest alone accrues at roughly eighteen percent annually, compounded." My chest tightened. Not dramatically, but my drone stunt had apparently come too late. Shit. I kept my face exactly the same. Relaxed. Slightly amused, even. I'd been wearing this face since I was fourteen.

"That was a rather bold investment."

"His majesty has an eye for talent and for profit. He made the acquisition as a contingency." He resumed walking, and I had no choice but to follow.

"Your employment as a climber pays one million dollars annually. A generous salary by any standard." A million a year. Nice, but this wasn't the type of job one worked for twenty years.

"I'll balance it out," I said.

"There'll be enough value coming from the tower to cover whatever the Sands need."

"The Sands need items, materials, and intelligence delivered to them directly, not to a global committee arranged on live television." He stopped at the intersection where the path split toward the dome.

"Your talent is not in question, Mr. O'Connor. Your loyalty is."

"I am not aware of having ever promised that."

"It was implied." He tucked the tablet tighter under his arm.

"Which is precisely why my position exists. I believe you should understand it now." He turned and walked away without a goodbye. I stood at the intersection. The dome loomed ahead, its massive arc catching the morning sun. The tower rose behind it, that infinite black column punching through the sky. Well, fuck. I'd been out-maneuvered, which wasn't a feeling I enjoyed. The debt thing was supposed to stop being a problem the moment I got to the tower. Casino debt collectors couldn't exactly chase me here.

Turned out buying debt was easier than I thought. I continued walking toward the dome. This was going to be a problem. But then again, what were they going to do? My only value was in climbing the tower, my organs wouldn't cover even a fraction of the debt, and whatever they could take from me had less value than the accumulated interest. There was an amount of debt where it stopped being the debtor's problem, and started being the creditor's issue.

They couldn't really do anything about it, only pretend they would. So, I could safely ignore it. So far, ignoring any and all debts I had worked perfectly, as it hadn't caused me any actual problems. No reason to cause myself problems by changing the strategy. The waiting room was a repurposed conference space adjacent to the dome, outfitted with chairs that were slightly too nice for a room that smelled like industrial cleanser. A water cooler stood in one corner.

A screen on the wall cycled through climb statistics nobody read. Liu Wei was already there. He sat in the center of the room, cross-legged on the floor, because chairs were apparently beneath his dignity. In front of him, arranged with geometric precision, sat a ceramic tea set. A pot, cups, a small tray, and a bamboo scoop. Steam curled from the pot's spout. He looked up as I entered.

"You're early, my fellow anti-daoist." I sat down across from him on the floor.

"Anti-daoist?"

"Your path to power is the most perfect antithesis to Daoism I have ever seen." He poured a cup without being asked and slid it across to me. The tea was pale gold, almost translucent. It smelled like flowers and something mineral, like wet stone.

"Instead of seeking alignment with the natural order through discipline and cultivation of self, you use others and progress through obtaining stronger others to do your bidding. The perfect opposite." Well, that wasn't inaccurate. I took a sip. It was unreasonably good.

"That's pretty good. Bought it from home?"

"Indeed. The Tribunal ships supplies twice weekly. I have placed a standing order." He poured his own cup, holding it with both hands.

"Tea is the foundation of clear thought. Clear thought is the foundation of cultivation. Therefore, tea is cultivation."

"As if I know what that means."

"By your very nature, you cannot." He took a sip, eyes closing briefly.

"You seem troubled this morning. Your qi is unsettled."

"My qi is fine."

"It is turbulent. There is a knot in your spiritual center that was not there yesterday." I drank the tea instead of answering. He wasn't wrong, but admitting that to anyone, even Liu, wasn't happening. The door opened. Henrik walked in, and the room's energy shifted with his presence. He wore a dark coat over what I was starting to suspect was his only outfit, wire-rimmed glasses catching the overhead light. Under one arm, he carried something flat and rectangular. He spotted the tea set.

His expression cycled through annoyance, resignation, and what might have been grudging interest.

"That does not look like coffee."

"It is dancong." Liu poured a third cup.

"From the Phoenix Mountains." Henrik sat down next to us, accepted a cup, and placed his rectangular object on the low table. It unfolded into a tablet, thin and matte-black, with a screen that flickered to life at his touch.

"We need to talk before the others arrive."