Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

O fear not in a world like this

And thou shalt know erelong

Know how sublime a thing it is

To suffer and be strong.  

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Light of Stars

Wang Meng does not like being underground.

Underground is a bad place, one that smells like must and wet and cold, and there’s a lot of rocks, and rocks aren’t nearly as interesting to scent as basically anything else in the universe, but unfortunately, underground is mostly rocks. Sometimes dirt, and while Wang Meng loves the smell of wet dirt, he loves the smell of dirt that’s wet from the rain, not dirt that’s wet because it’s underground.

The only person who likes being underground even less than Wang Meng is probably Li Cu, which makes underground even worse, because Li Cu doesn’t usually come, and Wang Meng loves Li Cu. He didn’t come this time either; instead, Wang Meng is sitting next to Liu Sang and trying not to breathe through his nose so he doesn’t have to smell the rocks. Liu Sang has his eyes closed, head tipped back to lean against the stone. To anyone else, it might look as though he were sleeping, but Wang Meng can tell that Liu Sang’s working, partially because he smells like focus and grass, and partially because he’s seen Liu Sang work before.

He’s listening for Wu Xie to give them the go-ahead to plant Xiao Bai’s neuron dismantling device, so that she can hack the lines of atomic code that make up the rocks and destroy the system that the Unhvng government has threaded through their planet in order to destroy resources and force the people living there into a co-dependent relationship that allows their current president to remain in power. All of it is very confusing, and Wang Meng hadn’t really been listening when Wu Xie had been explaining it, so the best he can figure is that somehow, they put computers in the rocks that destroy plants, and the president is evil, and Pangzi can’t blow the rocks up because that would destroy the bedrock of the planet and cause a devastating planetary collapse, so they’re hacking instead. The rocks. Hacking the rocks. It’s a good thing that Xiao Bai is a genius, because Wang Meng has no idea how they’d be doing this otherwise.

“Stop twitching,” Liu Sang mutters. “You’re distracting me.”

“I’m not twitching,” Wang Meng says, even though one of his antennae keeps flicking with nerves every couple of seconds. “You’re just listening for the signal.”

“Do you know how hard it is to listen through several layers of rock, six meters of soil, and a building foundation?” Liu Sang asks without opening his eyes. “I’m concentrating.”

Wang Meng sighs, and does his best to stop fidgeting, though it’s hard. He does not like being underground.

Unhvng is built on top of a completely hollow planet, the underground being a series of long, twisting tunnels and huge caverns, which would be very impressive if it weren’t so delicate. Even destroying one of the tunnels would cause a chain reaction that would cause the entire crust to crumple in on itself, which is why they had to sneak in with the help of the rebel group on Unhvng, and why only Wang Meng and Liu Sang were allowed to come; Wang Meng, to sniff out the parts of the rock that weren’t quite rock, and Liu Sang, to listen for the signal and connect Xiao Bai’s complicated tech equipment.

The engineer is back on the Wushanju with Pangzi, Xiao-ge, and Li Cu, while Wu Xie and Kan Jian are in the main palace, confronting the president. They’re trying to do this without force, as much as possible, which is why Pangzi and Xiao-ge and Li Cu weren’t allowed to come, because knowing the three of them, they’d just barrel their way through the ranks of corrupt government officials and take down the military leaders that way.

Wang Meng isn’t sure how this became their job; dismantling tyrannical systems and accepting payment mostly in the form of supplies, but he suspects that it has something to do with Liu Sang, whose entire past was built on a tyrannical system. Several of them, actually, so Wu Xie has apparently decided that his personal mission is to end every single group that even remotely resembles Yincangui, or Mao Xincheng, or any of the power syndicates that have hurt his crew in the past.

It’s been almost five months, give or take, since they found the lost planet, shot Liu Sang’s captor next to the city gates, and left Yincangui without ever opening the seal to reveal what was inside, though Wang Meng thinks that maybe that was the best decision; from the things that Liu Sang’s told them about his home planet, it doesn’t sound as though they were very welcoming to outsiders, or their own people for that matter. Since then, they’ve been slowly making their way across the universe, answering nearly every distress call that they’ve come across on Wu Xie’s personal crusade to become a space vigilante.

It’s not the worst idea that Wu Xie’s ever had, because it doesn’t involve destroying Wang Meng’s kitchen, so he’s fine with their current course of action, though he has the sneaking suspicion that something is going to have to change soon. Wu Xie has started smelling nervous more often, which sours the pink scent that he sports most of the time. The pink scent has been entirely due to the fact that he and Xiao-ge have begun inaugurating all inches of the ship with their bodies. They haven’t told anyone about it, per say, but Pangzi has started bunking in his own room sometimes, and Wang Meng can sense the traces on the desk in the library, and Liu Sang comes to the breakfast table looking as though he would like to commit murder on occasions, probably because he can hear whatever they get up to in the privacy of their own room. No one says anything about it, though, because it was much worse when Wu Xie was just pining in silence, and Xiao-ge was in full self-deprecation mode. Besides, the Kylin has essentially died twice now, so Wang Meng thinks that he deserves a little bit of leeway, no matter how much it makes him shudder when he enters the greenhouse and gets vivid afterimages in maroon and navy blue.

They both deserve it, and Wang Meng is happy for them.

Liu Sang sits upright, suddenly, and then climbs to his feet, straining his neck so that his ear points towards the ceiling. “I think that was it,” he says, and then crouches down just as quickly, digging through the backpack he has with him and pulling out the neuron dismantler, untangling the wires and connecting the sensors to the spots in the rock that Wang Meng had pointed out as smelling more metallic than wet.

Wang Meng just watches him work. His part of the job is over, and now he just has to wait for Liu Sang to finish his before they can escape back to the surface and meet Wu Xie and Kan Jian at the rendezvous point. Wang Meng is looking forward to that. His head is starting to hurt a little bit, the stale air and rock scent mashing together in his lungs.

“Got it,” Liu Sang mutters, and flips the switch on the device, which lights up red and begins emitting a high-pitched whine as the signal travels through all the layers of the underground and up into the atmosphere, hurtling up to Xiao Bai in their ship. Liu Sang winces, but stays put as the lights on the box switch from red to green, which means that the code is functioning, and Xiao Bai has gotten to work.

Wang Meng exhales. That’s two steps of their plan complete, and now they just need to wait for the third before they can take the dismantler and leave.

Liu Sang seems more relaxed now that he isn’t trying to make out the tapping language through one million layers of rock, his scent flattening into its usual green and moss and tea leaves. He folds his arms, still squatting next to the device, and watches the lights flicker. There’s nothing else to see, really, but he still stares at the tiny box as though it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.

“Do you think it’ll work?” he asks.

Wang Meng considers it. The Unhvng dictatorship has only been in power for a decade, maybe slightly less, so their hold on the planet’s people hasn’t had time to build up yet. If they destroy it now, the civilians are more likely to accept a regime change, as they can still remember the time Before. Even if they don’t bring down the corruption entirely, it’s likely that even the spark of a revolt will trigger something in the society, and that’s all that they need to do.

Wu Xie has a principle about this; they get involved just long enough to stir things up, to set off a chain reaction, but they don’t stick around for long after that. Wu Xie doesn’t want to overly-influence the course of a society, even though Wang Meng knows for a fact that several civilizations have deemed him worthy of sainthood.

“Yes,” he says, “Wu Xie thinks so.”

Liu Sang shakes his head, laughing a little. “Well, if Wu Xie thinks so.”

“Yes,” Wang Meng says again, because if Wu Xie thinks so, it’s almost certain. At least to Wang Meng, it is; there have been times that Wu Xie has been wrong, but they are few and far between, at least with things like this. It’s the small, personal details that Wu Xie gets wrong the most often, and those are usually about himself, so Wang Meng doesn’t count them.

The box gives a little beep then, the lights shutting off, and Liu Sang disconnects the lines running from it to the rock wall, scooping up the device and sticking it into his bag. “Let’s go.”

Wang Meng is all too eager to comply, and follows Liu Sang out the way that they came; there’s about a mile of tunnels for them to cross before they reach the surface again. It was the only entrance spot that was far enough from the city that they wouldn’t get caught, so the trek is necessary, if annoying.

They’ve only gone a few meters in when suddenly, Liu Sang stops abruptly, his chin tilting up toward the ceiling of the tunnel so fast that Wang Meng almost gets hit in the face by his hair flying back.

“What?” he asks once he’s over the flurry of surprise in Liu Sang’s pheromones.

“Gunshots,” Liu Sang says, almost whispering, and then he’s turning around, grabbing Wang Meng’s wrist to lead him in the other direction, breaking into a run.

Wang Meng yelps, surprised at the unexpected speed. “Gunshots?”

“Or something,” Liu Sang says, not bothering to slow down.

“We’re going the wrong way.”

Liu Sang shakes his head. “There’s another exit about a quarter of a mile up.”

Wang Meng frowns. “Then why didn’t we go in there in the first place?”

“Because it’s in the middle of a temple,” Liu Sang says. “If we’d gone in there, we would have gotten caught.”

“Doesn’t that mean we’ll get caught now?” Wang Meng demands.

“Oh, definitely,” Liu Sang says determinedly. “But it’s either that, or run a mile to the safe exit, then run another mile back into the city, and from the sound of it, they don’t have that kind of time.”

Wang Meng tries to listen for whatever sounds Liu Sang is hearing, but the rock is just too thick, and their footfalls are too heavy. Once again, he marvels at the Yincanguian’s ability to sense frequencies, and thinks about just how useful that particular skill is for them.

Liu Sang is right; after only a few minutes, they see natural light at the end of the tunnel, and Liu Sang turns off the portable torch attached to his backpack, Wang Meng doing the same. He can’t quite see in the dark, but Liu Sang can do some sort of echolocation trick, and his hand is still wrapped around Wang Meng’s wrist, so he’s not worried about them getting lost.

They creep to the entrance hesitantly, peering out into a building that certainly looks like a temple; there are offerings and incense sticks scattered strategically around the hole into the tunnel, which must act as some sort of symbolic passageway or something. There aren’t any Unhvng people present, the reason for which is quickly apparent once Wang Meng makes out the sound of gunfire and shouts from the streets.

“Looks like they went with the fight option,” Liu Sang mutters, wetting his lips and letting a low whistle escape from them, a thin hum escaping his throat. Warming up. Wang Meng, in turn, starts his acid receptors firing, getting ready to fight their way to their shouling and Kan Jian.

They look at each other, exchange a nod, and then burst out onto the street.

For a revolution, it’s fairly tame; most of the president’s men should have been at the palace for whatever fake treaty the rebels had drawn up to distract them, so the fight is mostly small groups of dissenters taking out whatever soldiers they can, clearing out the streets so that the palace won’t have backup on the way. Unhvng’s buildings are all low and flat, the areas spread out to keep from putting too much pressure on the ground’s surface, and they’re easy to dodge between, but don’t provide a lot of cover, so Wang Meng and Liu Sang have to duck around multiple stray gunshots in order to remain alive. Liu Sang deflects a couple of them from coming too close with some sort of frequency pulse, while Wang Meng distributes acid burns to any of the government fighters that cross their path.

He doesn’t know his way around the city, but Liu Sang seems to, or at least can hear where the majority of the fighting is coming from, so Wang Meng just follows him, until they appear outside the tallest building on the planet’s surface, painted in bright metallic colors, and spot their crewmates.

Wu Xie and Kan Jian are tucked behind a retaining wall with several other rebel fighters, exchanging shots with soldiers on the palace steps—well, Kan Jian is exchanging shots. Wu Xie’s blaster is in a smoking pile of scrap by his feet, so someone must have gotten a lucky shot in. Neither of them look injured, though Wu Xie has his hands stacked against a rebel’s shoulder, which is bleeding bright green onto his hands.

Liu Sang and Wang Meng press against the side of the nearest building, trying to figure out how they’re going to make their way across the wide, open space without getting shot themselves. Liu Sang’s face is screwed up as he considers this problem.

“Can we sneak around the back, catch them off-guard?” he wonders aloud.

Wang Meng looks back towards Wu Xie, and his antennae spring forward. “Too late.” He points to where a group of soldiers are attempting to creep up on Wu Xie and the others, who have their backs turned.

Liu Sang curses. “Fine. Plan F.”

“F?”

“Stands for fuck,” Liu Sang says, and then his mouth opens, a short bark, and Wang Meng can’t hear the sound that he makes, but he knows that he does, because an invisible force hits the roof of the building over the soldiers’ heads, and sends it collapsing in on itself, crushing some of them and distracting the others long enough that Wang Meng is able to run between the hiding places and slap one of the creeping soldiers across the face, his hand sparkling with acid, right as the man tries to stab a knife into Kan Jian’s shoulder.

The first officer looks up in shock when the man screams, his face brightening into a smile when he realizes that it’s Wang Meng. “Hi!”

“Hi,” Wang Meng replies, flicking a spray of acid into the mouth of a different enemy, who gags, and then makes a sort of strangled-cat noise. “What happened?”

“The neuron dismantler worked too well,” Wu Xie says, taking the blaster from the injured Unhvng rebel he was helping and firing off a couple of shots at the enemy. “It ended up dismantling the president’s cybernetics, as well as the organic growth controls.”

This is surprising news to Wang Meng, who had no idea that the president even had cybernetics, but he decides not to comment on it.

“Where’s Liu Sang?” Kan Jian asks, looking around as though the Yincanguian is going to appear out of thin air, which Wang Meng honestly wouldn’t put past him.

A patch of dirt explodes next to Kan Jian’s feet, and he yelps. They all look over to see Liu Sang rolling his eyes at them, and then peppering the ground with what looks like blaster shots by rolling his tongue in the direction of the palace. The soldiers there scatter, ducking back inside to take cover, and Liu Sang takes the opportunity to join them.

“Come on,” he says, “We should leave now before they figure out that there isn’t actually backup nearby.”

Wu Xie nods, gathering up the few rebels they have with them, and they inch out of hiding. When no one immediately gets shot, it’s a mad sprint for the city, where the fighting is dying down, but still present in smaller pockets.

One of the rebels says something in a language that Wang Meng doesn’t know, but sounds panicked. Wu Xie just nods; Wang Meng doesn’t think he can speak whatever language they do on Unhvng, but he must be able to speak something similar, because he barks out a few sharp sounds, and the rebel nods.

“He says that the palace is… not finished,” Wu Xie translates to his crewmembers. “I’m not sure what that means, but he seems insistent that we get back to their defenses.”

None of them want to argue with that, so they follow the rebels through their city, staying close to the walls of buildings. Kan Jian takes out whatever enemies he can from the distance, but they’re fairly focused on their escape, which is why they’re taken off guard by the weapon.

It’s Liu Sang who notices something is amiss first, because he’s always the first to be able to tell. He stops in his tracks, just for a second, and then bursts forward, knocking into both Kan Jian and Wang Meng and sending them sprawling, just as a gap opens up where their feet had been.

Wu Xie has enough mindset to jump out of the way, and most of their rebel friends do too, but one of them falls into the crack that’s opened in the earth, their screams following them down.

Wu Xie looks horrified. “They’re collapsing the tunnels?”  One of the rebels shakes his head emphatically, saying something in his language, and Wu Xie corrects himself. “Never mind. They’re only collapsing some of the tunnels.”

“How is that any better?” Liu Sang demands.

Wu Xie doesn’t get a chance to answer, because at that moment, one of the building next to them folds in on itself, imploding into a cloud of dust that blows into their faces, sending them coughing. Wang Meng snorts, the dust getting into his nostrils and making everything spin dizzily for a moment, but Liu Sang keeps him on his feet.

“I thought the planet would collapse if you destroyed the tunnels!” Kan Jian shouts, having to raise his voice in order to be heard over the sounds of chaos that are filling the streets. “Why are they doing this?”

Wu Xie shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s an instance of ‘if we can’t have it, no one can?’”

“That’s a terrible reason to do anything,” Liu Sang grumbles, then says, “Duck.” They all do, just as he steps in front of them and sends out a frequency, blocking a piece of building that’s flying toward them.

Wu Xie is jabbing at his communicator buttons, but it looks as though the dust and dirt are blocking any signals from getting through, because he scowls at the device and lets it thunk back against his hip despairingly. “Can’t even radio for backup.”

Liu Sang rolls his eyes and takes the communicator. “Give me that.” He grimaces at the device, twisting the dial back and forth as they run.

They round a corner and run directly into a group of soldiers. Kan Jian takes two of them out with very precise shots to the sternum, and Wang Meng manages to slice streaks of flesh off of three others, though that’s mostly because he gets startled and has to windmill his arms in order to stay upright, and ends up touching more people than he means to.

Wu Xie has his long knife out, a gift from Xiao-ge, slicing through tendons and jugulars, if he can get close enough. Kan Jian has resorted to busting people over the heads with the butt of his rifle, as they’re too near for him to fire on anyone. Liu Sang is still fiddling with the communicator, pressing one ear to his shoulder to try and block out the extraneous noise as he endeavors to find the right frequency to hail their ship. A final soldier comes at him and he just makes a clicking noise out of the side of his mouth, the man falling to the ground.

Another building collapses, just to the right of the first one, and Wu Xie frowns.

“That’s not right,” he says, “That was too orderly.”

Liu Sang glares at him. “You’re complaining about collapsing buildings being orderly?”

“Yes,” Wu Xie says, unperturbed by Liu Sang’s snark. “The timing is too spread out. They’re not collapsing the tunnels, they’re just collapsing the buildings.” He raises his voice to a shout, trying to communicate the discovery to the others nearby, but Wang Meng doesn’t think anyone hears him.

Liu Sang rolls his eyes and shoves the communicator at Kan Jian. “Keep trying them.” To Wu Xie, he says, “What do you need me to say?”

Wu Xie repeats the foreign phrase, and Liu Sang copies it back. They go back and forth a few times until Wu Xie nods in satisfaction.

“That’s it,” he says.

“Got it,” Liu Sang confirms, and then he’s shooting the words into the cloud of smoke and dirt, probably doing something to carry it along the airwaves, or whatever he can do. Liu Sang can do a lot of things, and Wang Meng only understands about half of them.

“I think they’ve got it,” Liu Sang says after a moment. “They’re reconverging on the palace, circling around the back.”

Wu Xie gives him a thumbs up, just as Kan Jian says, “I got them!” Their shouling claps his hands together, and Kan Jian tosses the communicator into them, just in time to draw his rifle again and send three quick shots blasting through the dirt in the air. Wang Meng has no idea how he could see their enemies through the grit, but he’s grateful that he did.

“Shall we provide a distraction?” Wu Xie asks, his grin bright against the hazy air.

Liu Sang grunts. “It’s as good a time as any.” He listens for a moment, trying to distinguish the positions of their pursuers with the limited visibility, and points out several spots in the dirt. “They’re trying to surround us. The rebels have already made it through, but they’ll be converging on our position in a few seconds.”

As if to prove his words, a series of blaster shots split through the air towards them, and they all have to hit the ground to avoid getting their heads blown off.

“Right,” Wu Xie says as he gets to his feet. “Split up?”

“Why not?” Liu Sang grumbles.

Kan Jian fires twice, winks, and then he’s running at one of the buildings, leaping into the air and catching onto the low roof with one hand, his unbelievable arm strength swinging him up and onto the top of it, where he crouches, firing over their heads and into the dust. Wang Meng is starting to see figures appearing, but some of them fall as Kan Jian’s shots hit home.

“It’s much clearer up here!” he calls cheerily.

Wu Xie gives him a thumbs up, pulling the scarf he has around his neck over his nose and mouth, which is probably a good thing, as the sediment in the air was going to send him coughing sooner or later. “Liu Sang?”

Liu Sang raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t even need instructions; it’s only a second, and then his combat boots are pounding through the streets as he runs in the opposite direction of them, sending out echoing sounds in the other direction, confusing their enemies, who begin firing blindly at each other, thinking they’re surrounded.

“Wang Meng!” Wu Xie says. “Let’s go.”

Wang Meng follows his shouling in a straight away down the main road, their enemies falling in behind them. A few more buildings crumble as they run past, but they don’t even stop to take in the damage, because the air is getting clearer the further they go. Wang Meng looks up and sees Kan Jian running in easy strides on the rooftops, leaping between the buildings and pausing every so often to lay down cover fire. He can’t see Liu Sang, because the younger is very good at keeping himself hidden, but every so often someone will shout and run into a wall, or turn and stab one of their own soldiers, so he knows that there are frequencies at work here.

He’s getting tired of running, though, and he wasn’t able to use as much acid as he had prepared, so now it’s pooling into his shoes. It doesn’t hurt Wang Meng, but it’s eating through his socks, and will start chewing at the leather of his boots if he’s not careful.

As if hearing his unspoken request, there’s a loud boom in the direction of the sky, and Wang Meng looks up to see the familiar, shining shape of the Wushanju entering the atmosphere, coming to bring them home.

Wu Xie whoops at the sight of his ship, waving a hand excitedly, and perhaps slightly futilely; it’s not like they’ll be able to see him from that far away, but Wu Xie probably knows this. He’s just happy to do it anyway.

The Unhvng soldiers make unhappy sounding noises at the sight of the ship. Some of them turn to begin firing at it, but their blasters do no damage, too weak to even dent the thick hull of the ship.

“Almost there,” Wu Xie pants.

Wang Meng looks ahead and finds that he’s right; they’ve almost reached the edge of the main street; the buildings abruptly stop, giving way to a thin, cracked layer of land that Wang Meng knows is too delicate to even set foot on, so if they’re going to get out of this, they’d better do it fast.

Liu Sang appears on his right, making Wang Meng jump slightly. “Ride’s here.”

“Get ready to jump,” Wu Xie says, just as the Wushanju flies over their heads and slows considerably, hovering just over the ground in front of them, still moving forward. Wang Meng can almost hear Pangzi cursing at the difficultly of bringing a ship as large as the Wushanju into a skim, but he’s a very good pilot, and the ship stays just ahead of them as it waits for them to catch up.

The back ramp of the craft slides open, and Wang Meng sees two familiar figures standing in the hold, cords wrapped around their waists so they don’t accidentally go flying out as the ship speeds over the ground.

“Meng-ge!” Li Cu calls through the dust that the Wushanju’s engines are kicking up, his eyes bright and his scent excited. “Hi!”

“Li Cu!” Wang Meng shouts back, his antennae pointing toward the young sheiling as he finds his familiar shade of orange through the dust.

“Get on board!” Wu Xie orders, and Wang Meng manages to speed up, just slightly, until, with a few final strides, he’s able to make the leap up into the ship, Li Cu’s hand wrapping around his forearm even before he lands, so that he’s safe.

“Thanks,” Wang Meng says, tapping him gently on the forehead with one of his antennae, and Li Cu grins at him.

Liu Sang comes flying onto the ship next, a little more quickly than he had expected if the squeak he lets out when he lands is anything to go by, but Xiao-ge steadies him quickly, and Liu Sang coughs out a small, “Thank you, Ouxiang.”

Wang Meng looks back to see Wu Xie still sprinting below the ship, and Xiao-ge reaches a hand out for him. Wu Xie’s eyes shine, and he smells like bright yellow corn, and then he’s jumping up, fingers wrapping into Xiao-ge’s, and the Kylin is pulling him aboard with barely a breath of effort.

Wu Xie doesn’t waste any more time than that, banging on the metal wall of the ship, and then the Wushanju abruptly balks and spins and flies right up next to the final building in the city, just as Kan Jian reaches the edge and throws himself into the air without hesitation. He’s snatched out of the sky by the Wushanju as it opens toward him, and he tucks into a roll so that the impact is minimized, nearly stumbling into Liu Sang as he comes up.

“That was wicked,” Li Cu says appreciatively, and Kan Jian beams at him.

Pangzi’s bringing the ship back into the sky, heading off-planet, and Wang Meng looks down at Unhvng one final time as the doors shut. It’s sort of hard to see through all the rubble that’s shifting the air on the planet’s surface, but he thinks that he can see the rebel flag overtaking the president’s, and knows that they’ve won.

“Success,” Wu Xie says with satisfaction. “They’ll be able to rebuild from here.”

Li Cu lets out a cheer, nudging Liu Sang with his elbow. Liu Sang folds his eyebrows in confusion, but manages a weak fist-pump when Kan Jian joins in on the celebration, as if he’s too afraid not to copy them.

Xiao-ge is unwrapping the cord from around his waist, just in time for Wu Xie’s arms to replace it.

“Missed you,” Wu Xie says.

Xiao-ge just nods at him, and gives him a quick peck on the lips, which makes Wu Xie’s eyes go into half-moons, his Special Smile making an appearance, and Wang Meng feels very fond of Xiao-ge then. No one else notices this exchange, mainly because Li Cu and Kan Jian are dragging Liu Sang around the hold in a half-march, half-dance parade of victory, while the Yincanguian stumbles over his feet and tries to break free from their jubilee.

“Meng-ge!” Li Cu calls, and Wang Meng has no choice but to join them in the party, because Li Cu is right; they have a lot worth celebrating.

The good mood carries over through the afternoon and into their evening cycle; Pangzi comes bursting into the cargo bay with a roar once they’ve left the planet’s orbit, scooping Wu Xie, who’s laughing, into a hug, and then Wang Meng, who tolerates it, and then Kan Jian, who hugs him back, and finally Liu Sang, who starts making sounds like he’s dying until Pangzi lets him go. Xiao Bai follows, and is excessively praised for her work, which makes her blush and yell at all of them to shut up, and then they’re all plowing through the ship to the kitchen to debrief. Pangzi makes a quick stop in the cockpit, and Xiao-ge and Wu Xie disappear for a minute to do who-knows-what, but eventually all eight of them are gathering in their common area, and Wang Meng is searching through the cupboards to see what they have for dinner as Wu Xie explains what had happened.

“Xiao Bai’s dismantler worked too well,” he begins, and Xiao Bai frowns while Li Cu whoops. “We didn’t know that the president had cybernetics sewn into his own biological code, so when you disabled all of the organic codes that were keeping the crops captive, you ended up killing his too. And him, because they were connected to his brain.”

“His head blew up,” Kan Jian says. “It was very gross.”

Li Cu smells of curiosity, as though he would have liked to see this. “Really?”

“Really,” Wu Xie confirms. “I don’t recommend it.”

“I thought Wang Meng and Sang Bei’er were supposed to be down in the tunnels,” Pangzi says. “How’d they end up with you?”

“I heard the shots and we went up to help,” Liu Sang says shortly. The lines around his eyes that he sometimes gets when he’s been working his powers too hard are starting to show on his face, so Wang Meng finds an ice pack and drapes it over the back of his neck. Liu Sang looks up at him gratefully. “Good thing too, or you guys never would have escaped.”

“We would have figured it out,” Wu Xie says flippantly. “Anyway, things all turned to shit and we had to fall back out of the palace, and apparently the palace soldiers had placed detonators in some of the buildings to try and trick us into thinking that the tunnels were collapsing. Probably so that they could demonstrate their might by stopping them later and ‘saving’ the planet, but we didn’t give them a chance. The rebels took back the palace, and you came and picked us up.”

“So, a successful mission overall,” Pangzi says, “Excellent. I love those.” He leans forward, his elbows on the table with his hands folded together. “Now. Compensation?” Wu Xie shakes his head, and Pangzi groans. “Tianzhen!”

“We don’t need the money yet!” Wu Xie exclaims. “I’d feel bad about taking resources from people who need them more than we do. We’ve still got plenty of credits from the—the. You know.”

Pangzi sneaks a glance at Liu Sang, who has his forehead resting on the table. “Yeah.”

Wang Meng clatters a couple of pans together particularly loudly in order to draw attention away from that line of conversation. They try to avoid talking about finances around Liu Sang, considering that their lives are currently being funded by Mao Xincheng’s blood money, which he hadn’t managed to steal back from them. They didn’t take it dishonestly, but Wang Meng knows that Liu Sang feels weird about using anything that Mao Xincheng was attached to, so they try not to mention it. One million credits isn’t a small amount, however, and they’re using it for good—well, and spending it on random shit at space markets—so Wang Meng thinks that it might be marginally more acceptable.

Pangzi seems to have gotten over the disappointment of not receiving any compensation from this latest mission, because he starts poking Xiao Bai in the side. “What do you think, Si Mei? Are we going to start selling your devices?”

Xiao Bai snorts. “Anyone with half a brain could throw that together. It’s not special.”

“Yes, it is,” Wu Xie says. “You did a marvelous job, Xiao Bai.”

Xiao Bai blushes, her sea salt scent mixing with a sort of warm cinnamon-type of tinge. “Shut up.”

“Can you make me laser beam vision?” Li Cu asks, only half-teasing. “Ooh, or like, the ability to manifest exploding walnuts or something?”

“Why would you want that?” Xiao Bai says.

“Cause people would think they’re ordinary nuts, but then they’d explode.”

“Right,” Xiao Bai says. “Well, even if I could, I have to finish Sang-ge’s amplifiers first, so get in line, Ya Li.”

Liu Sang lifts his head up at that, interested. Xiao Bai’s been attempting to make him a device that will amplify and throw his frequencies at larger volumes and further distances than he’s able to do on his own, which could end up being devastating for anyone who decides to go against Liu Sang. So far, they’re still in the testing stage, and progress is halted until they land on a planet for a while, as the last time they tried to test the amplifiers in the cargo bay and ended up destroying half of their spare bedding. It had admittedly been very funny to see Liu Sang and Xiao Bai spitting up mouthfuls of feathers, but now they’re short on comforters, and Li Cu hoards those at an alarming rate.

“Where are we going, next?” Xiao-ge asks in his soft, cottony voice, and Wu Xie smiles at him.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” he asks. “Anyone have any ideas?” He doesn’t even wait for answers, turning to Wang Meng instead as his mind runs ahead of his mouth. “How are we on supplies?”

Wang Meng goes through his mental inventory. “We’ve got enough food to last another month without rationing, two if we limit it.”

“Xiao Bai?”

Xiao Bai shakes her head. “Everything’s in good shape, and as long as we don’t run into any catastrophic trouble, we shouldn’t need to do any maintenance repairs for a while longer, though we could always fix the autopilot—”

“We can’t fix the autopilot!” Pangzi says, looking highly offended at the very suggestion. “It gives the girl her charm.”

“Her charm is that she can’t fly in a straight line without someone present?” Xiao Bai says doubtfully.

“Yes,” Pangzi confirms.

“If there’s no pressing need to make a stop, then I think it’s Ya Li’s turn to choose a destination?” Wu Xie asks, and Li Cu immediately brightens, the cloves in his scent standing out among the crew. They’ve been playing this game for a while, too, letting each member of the Wushanju choose a specific location to visit, like a series of mini-vacations. Pangzi had chosen a planet with rivers of liquid gold. Xiao Bai had taken them all to visit her home, and Xiao-ge, the giant sap that he was, had picked the largest library in the galaxy, just because he knew Wu Xie would like it (in his defense, Wu Xie had).

Li Cu had been making and editing lists of potential destinations for weeks, going over them out loud to Wang Meng, not really expecting him to contribute, but talking through all of his options as he tried to make a decision. He had narrowed it down to five potential places last time they had spoken, and Wang Meng had already memorized all of them so that whichever one Li Cu didn’t end up choosing, Wang Meng would choose for him. He didn’t really have any place that he wanted to see desperately, so anywhere that made Li Cu happy would be good enough for him.

“Yes!” Li Cu exclaims “My turn!” He taps his fingers against the table, trying to remember his list. “Um, okay, so—”

His announcement is interrupted by a chime from Wu Xie’s watch, and their shouling frowns down at it.
“It’s Ershu,” he says dully, and the rest of the table groans. Anytime Wu Erbai calls does not mean great things for the Wushanju, but he is Wu Xie’s family, so he has to answer.

Wu Xie accepts the call, and a tiny holographic image of Wu Erbai’s head appears above his wrist, the man in question blinking the call into focus.

“Xiao Xie,” he says. “Where are you?”

“Hello, Ershu,” Wu Xie says pointedly. “I’m in the kitchen.”

Wu Erbai sighs, and Wang Meng thinks that Wu Xie has just set a new record for Making Ershu Frustrated in the Shortest Amount of Time Possible, because the call has barely started. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I’m not exactly sure,” Wu Xie says. “We just left Unhvng today, so probably somewhere in Quadrant 7809. Give or take.”

“Well, you need to return to Jiaren.”

“Now?” Wu Xie asks. “Ershu—”

“Non-negotiable,” Wu Erbai says shortly. “The Nine Bloodlines are convening, and you must represent the Wu family for your generation.”

Wu Xie scoffs. “Why? You don’t need me there, I’m not going to contribute anything. Besides, isn’t Sanshu coming?”
“Sanxing is still in the process of being vetted for his identity by the Jiumen officers,” Wu Erbai mutters. “He cannot be a full representative.”

“Neither can I,” Wu Xie says. “I haven’t been with the Jiumen in years. Don’t they need me to like, reapply, or something stupid?”

Wu Erbai ignores the ‘stupid’ comment. “Normally, maybe, yes, but after the Zhang Rishan’s sudden disappearance—”

“Wait,” Liu Sang says suddenly, “What?”

Wu Erbai looks displeased at having been interrupted. “Who is that?”

“Navigations officer,” Wu Xie says, and Liu Sang throws him a look, because that’s a title that Wu Xie made up on the spot. If anyone is navigating the ship, it’s Wu Xie himself. “What do you mean by ‘Zhang Rishan’s sudden disappearance?’”

“What it sounds like,” Wu Erbai says crossly. “Zhang Rishan vanished, not long after you delivered Wu Sanxing to Jiaren. No one has any ideas of his whereabouts.” His holographic form suddenly narrows its eyes. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Not a clue,” Wu Xie says, tapping out he’s fine on the table to reassure Liu Sang and Xiao-ge, who have both sat up straight in their seats, mirror images of concern. “I’ve never met him in person.”

That’s another lie. Wang Meng is honestly impressed by how much of Wu Xie’s life is fabricated for his family’s placation.

“Regardless,” Wu Erbai continues, “This is no time for us to take the needs of our family lightly, Xiao Xie. If you’re not here in three days, I will send the D.O.G.S. after you.”

Wang Meng winces, along with Pangzi and Xiao-ge, who also know that the D.O.G.S. are a specific type of surveillance drone that were invented by Wu Xie’s great-grandfather. The acronym stands of Drones Of Great Size, which isn’t the most creative name that has ever existed, though admittedly it’s a fitting one. The Wu D.O.G.S. are built large enough to be self-sustaining for up to five years at a time, which makes them perfect for tracking people across galaxies, including, apparently, Wu Erbai’s wayward nephew.
“Ershu—” Wu Xie attempts.

“Three days,” Wu Erbai repeats. “Don’t be late.” And then, having satisfied himself with the last word, he hangs up.

Wu Xie groans and thunks his head onto the back of the kitchen booth. Well, he tries; Xiao-ge sticks his hand under the back of Wu Xie’s skull before he can brain himself on the wood. “Sorry, Ya Li,” he says, “It looks as though your trip will have to wait.”

Li Cu doesn’t seem all that disappointed, because he’s very grown-up now. “That’s okay. I needed more time to decide anyway.”

“Zhang Rishan?” Liu Sang asks quietly, voice tinged in concern.

“He’s fine,” Wu Xie reassures him. “I’m positive of it. He probably just got out of there before Sanshu could come back and they figured out he’s been faking being human for over a decade. He’ll contact us once he’s settled down somewhere, I’m sure.”

Liu Sang doesn’t look entirely convinced, but Wu Xie’s reasoning is sound, so he accepts it. Zhang Rishan has been in contact with them a few times since he and Liu Sang were reunited, and though it’s been a few weeks, Wu Xie is probably right. Zhang Rishan is fairly unkillable, all things considered.

“Do we have to?” Pangzi complains. “I hate Jiaren.”

“Join the club,” Wu Xie says morosely. He sighs. “You all don’t have to come. I can just go by myself. It’ll be quick, I promise.”

Pangzi scoffs at the very idea. “And leave you alone with all of your batshit relatives? I don’t think so.” He pats Wu Xie on the shoulder with a large hand. “Don’t worry, Tianzhen. You’ll at least get to see your Sanshu, won’t you?”

Wu Xie perks up slightly at that. It has been awhile since Sanshu made an appearance in their lives, and while Wang Meng would prefer that it remain that way, he won’t say that out loud.

Liu Sang also looks interested in seeing Sanshu again. The man’s memories had still been hazy after Liu Sang had retrieved them, but he had remembered who Liu Sang was, at least, and that seemed to be enough.

“And dogs!” Li Cu exclaimed, excited at the very thought.

“Not that kind of dog,” Pangzi told him, shuddering.

“Oh,” Li Cu said.

Wu Xie laughs, scrubbing at his hair. “I’ll find you a good dog to play with, Ya Li, just leave it to me.”

Well. If there’s one thing to be said about Wu Xie, it’s that he keeps his promises.

Wang Meng watches, slightly horrified, as Li Cu gets drenched in the saliva of a beast that certainly looks like a dog, despite the fact that it’s covered in lumpy skin, and is colored red-and-green, and smells like potatoes just slightly past their expiration date, and is fifteen feet tall. The creature wags its tail and makes a noise like a foghorn, then flops onto its side to allow Pangzi to scratch its belly.

Liu Sang, who is next to Wang Meng, winces. “Why’s it so loud?”

“I’m not sure,” Wang Meng says wondrously, marveling over the universe’s ability to keep surprising him. At least Li Cu seems to like it.

They’re on their way to Jiaren, though Wu Xie seems inclined to take his time about it; he’d been given three days, and he intends to use them all to the fullest, apparently. They’re only about half a day’s flight if they were to continue traveling, but Wu Xie decided that their time would be better spent finding large dogs for Li Cu to play with, and while Wang Meng doesn’t necessarily disagree with him, Wu Erbai makes him nervous, and he’d rather not risk the ire of the Wu family getting on their asses.

Wu Xie isn’t nearly as concerned as Wang Meng is, however, so they made their stop. To be fair, everyone was excited to get off the ship for reasons other than helping organize coups, glad for the fresh air and warmth that the planet they had chosen provides. Wu Xie and Xiao-ge have disappeared somewhere, probably to catalogue the native flora or whatever Wu Xie wants to do on a new world. Xiao Bai and Kan Jian are with Li Cu and Pangzi, the four of them attempting to play fetch with their new dog friend, but Pangzi’s the only one who can lift the veritable log that they dragged out in order to throw it, so it’s become a game of chase instead.

Liu Sang has opted to stay by Wang Meng, by the ship. Wang Meng is there because of the rotten potato smell,  and Liu Sang’s probably with him because of the creature’s barks, which can’t sound nice to his sensitive hearing.

“What are they like?” Liu Sang asks suddenly. When Wang Meng makes a questioning noise, he clarifies, “Wu Xie’s family. What are they like?”

Wang Meng frowns, antennae twitching as he tries to decide how best to put what he wants to say. He doesn’t like Wu Xie’s family, but he doesn’t dislike them either. In truth, they mostly ignore everyone on the Wushanju who isn’t Wu Xie, which annoys Wu Xie more than it does any of the rest of the crew.

“They care a lot about their family,” Wang Meng says carefully. “And their image. They’re fairly famous, both for their work in drone science, and for being one of the Nine Bloodlines.” A different thought strikes him. “They’re rich.”

Liu Sang looks surprised by this. “But Wu Xie isn’t—”

“He doesn’t tend to use their money,” Wang Meng explains. “We make enough on our own jobs that we don’t need it.”

Liu Sang nods slowly, folding his arms around himself as he watches the others play. Wang Meng watches him, trying to catalogue his scent, which he’s been making an attempt at since Liu Sang officially joined their crew. He knows the specific auras that each crewmember has, which is very helpful, because he can tell when certain people are faking emotions or hiding illness, and then Pangzi doesn’t end up murdering them when they collapse because, in his words, their “tiny human bodies are too fragile for the type of galaxy-trawling they do.”

Liu Sang, however, he hasn’t quite managed to secure in his mind yet. It’s partially because he’s never met anyone else from Liu Sang’s species, and though he’s been to his home planet, Yincangui’s scent has long since left Liu Sang. The other part, Wang Meng things, is because Liu Sang’s person is made up of sound rather than scent, and Wang Meng can’t distinguish sound nearly as well, so Liu Sang just ends up smelling mostly like chalk and cool air. He wonders if Liu Sang can do something similar—tell people apart just by how they sound to him. He wonders what he sounds like.

Wu Xie and Xiao-ge appear over the hill then, Wu Xie waving at Li Cu and the dog, who run over to him, Pangzi following them in a flurry of footfall, all warmth and peppermint. Xiao Bai and Kan Jian remain at the crest of the hill, a tableau pair of bookends, and their arms stretch to the sky, greeting, gesturing, and the others wave back, all of them flagging the others for no other reason than the fact that they’re all happy, they’re all here.

Wang Meng wants to etch it on the back of his eyelids. He settles for calling to them, voice floating into the sky, and he hears them shout back as they converge, Li Cu and the dog tripping over each other in their haste, Pangzi with his arms around Xiao-ge and Wu Xie, Kan Jian and Xiao Bai finding Liu Sang together.

His world, his life. Seven people and a ship.

The universe has never been smaller.

Li Cu is disappointed when he has to leave his new friend behind, but the dog really wouldn’t have fit on the ship, and as friendly as it was, Wang Meng was not looking forward to mopping dog saliva off of the floor. So the red-and-green dog stays on the planet, the crew of the Wushanju return to their ship, and they take off, leaving the bounds of gravity far below them.

Wang Meng stands in the cockpit with Pangzi, who is teaching Li Cu about the flight controls. He’s explaining everything in half-tech jargon, half-strange names that he’s come up with for each of the buttons and levers.

“So you push the squash back, and then lift up on the forward hyperplasmic thrust, and you’re good to go,” Pangzi concludes, sitting back in the pilot’s seat contentedly. “Got it?”

Li Cu stares blankly at the controls. “Uh…”

Pangzi shakes his head. “Aish, Ya Li, you’ve got to be more confident than that if I’m ever going to let you fly her.”

“Okay,” Li Cu says tentatively, and points to a thick, squiggly knob near his right hand. “So I… pull this?”

Pangzi gasps. “No! That’s exactly what you don’t do!”

Li Cu groans, flopping limply in his chair, limbs going all over the place. “I can’t keep any of this straight, Pang-ye.”

Pangzi rolls his eyes. “It’s not that difficult. Wang Meng can do it.”

Wang Meng steps back, because he doesn’t really want to get involved in this. His flight skills, when he has to use them, are basically non-existent, and if Pangzi ever saw him flubbing his way around the control panel, he would never be allowed in the cockpit again. “I’m not that good at it.”

“No, but you can at least tell a plinker from a hydraulic release valve.”

“Sure,” Wang Meng agrees.

Li Cu’s lips twitch, so he must have figured out that Wang Meng actually has no idea what he’s doing. “Can you show me?”

“Dinnertime,” Wang Meng decides, even though it’s thirty minutes too early for him to start preparing anything, and he leaves the cockpit.

The rest of the crew are scattered about the ship, and Wang Meng does a quick map in his head. Wu Xie and Xiao-ge are in the library, where they’re… doing something, and Kan Jian and Liu Sang are hanging out in the cargo bay, and Xiao Bai is in the greenhouse. He thinks. He can’t be entirely sure, because her saltwater scent is being blocked out by the smell of plants and growth, so she might be in there, or she could have just been passing by.

He goes into the kitchen so that if Pangzi wanders out of the cockpit, he won’t see that Wang Meng has lied to him. The space is fairly tidy, because he had cleaned it this morning, and he doesn’t know what to make for dinner yet. Maybe he’ll let Kan Jian decide; the Sarupdonin sometimes comes in and helps with the preparations, if he isn’t too busy, so Wang Meng decides to wait.

He busies himself with rearranging the mugs, because Xiao-ge had gotten in there again this afternoon and messed them up. The Kylin likes warm drinks, a lot, probably because they activate his regenerative blood, so he’s typically the one with his hands wrapped around a steaming mug, cradling it gently between his palms as he watches Wu Xie work. He never waits for Wang Meng to tell him how the mugs are organized, though, just takes whichever one strikes his fancy, which is usually Wu Xie’s second favorite, and that one is kept at the back of the cabinet because it’s lumpier than the others, so Xiao-ge has to go digging in order to get it.

He’s just finished putting the last of the mugs straight again when suddenly, all of the lights in the kitchen flicker and go out.

Wang Meng blinks, startled. He feels his antennae go taunt at the top of his head, seeking out any potential dangers, but everything is quiet for a moment. He’s not sure if the rest of the ship is having the same power difficulties that the kitchen is, until he hears a whistle travelling through the ship’s corridors. Liu Sang.

He steps out into the hallway, feet shuffling along so that he doesn’t trip in the dark, and then the emergency lights go on. There’s a strange buzzing, like he can hear the electricity, and the Wushanju groans, hull creaking like a great creature trapped in honey.

Pangzi and Li Cu appear at the far end of the hallway, next to the library. Li Cu has his fingers wrapped into the back of Pangzi’s shirt, his eyes wide in the darkness, and Wang Meng can see the glimmer of his scales in the red emergency lights. His defensives are out, the dark making him nervous, and Wang Meng tries to send comforting vibes down the hall, though he doesn’t know how well he does. He’s worried, too.

“Did we do that?” Pangzi asks, raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t think we messed up enough to cause engine failure.”

“The engine’s failed?” Wu Xie’s voice asks, the man himself appearing in the library door, Zhang Qiling a shadow behind him.

“Well, not really,” Pangzi admits. “It just sort of… froze? I don’t know, Tianzhen, I’ve never seen anything like it. Where’s Xiao Bai?”

“Right here,” Xiao Bai calls, coming down the ladder from the crew quarters. So she hadn’t been in the greenhouse after all, but there’s some dirt on her coveralls, which means she had been at one point. “And it doesn’t sound like an engine failure. There would have been more…”

“Boom?” Pangzi supplies helpfully.

“Boom,” Xiao Bai confirms.

The final members of their crew come up from the cargo bay then, Liu Sang behind Kan Jian, throwing suspicious glances over his shoulder.

“Do you hear anything?” Wu Xie asks, and Liu Sang shakes his head.

“That’s the problem,” he says. “It’s all just… gone.” He frowns. “Or, not gone. But… stopped, somehow.”

Xiao Bai sighs. “That’s going to be a bitch to fix.”

Wu Xie frowns, and is just about to say something else, when, without warning, there’s a grinding sound from the direction of the cargo bay, as if something is trying to claw it’s way in.

The eight of them stop in their tracks, slowly turning toward the sound. The metal creaks, loud and grating in the silence and dark, and then there’s a crunch, a squeal, and nothing.

“That… didn’t sound good,” Wu Xie whispers. He glances over at Xiao-ge, who is already stepping forward, drawing his sword in a fluid, silent motion, going down the hallway and disappearing around the corner, as quiet as the darkness itself.

“Should we let him go alone?” Pangzi asks.

“He’ll be fine,” Wu Xie says, but he’s already moving forward, past Liu Sang and Kan Jian, following in the direction that Xiao-ge had just vanished in.

Pangzi sighs, but it sounds more worried than annoyed, and his hand goes to the blaster secured against his thigh, as if checking that it’s still there. “Alright, kids, you stay here. Pang-ye and Tianzhen will check it out.” He glances at Wang Meng. “You’re in charge.”

Wang Meng purses his lips, because while he is the oldest after the Iron Triangle, he doesn’t really want to be in charge. Li Cu comes over and presses himself into Wang Meng’s side anyway, so he finds that he doesn’t mind.

Pangzi goes down the corridor, turning to climb down the ladder. The remaining five of them wait for a second, and then, as one, move to follow him. They’re a crew; they won’t let any of them face anything alone.

Liu Sang has his eyes closed, holding onto Kan Jian’s arm as he tries to focus. “Why the hell is it so quiet?” he mutters.

As if he’s jinxed it—Pangzi’s nicknames are always becoming ever more appropriate—a loud crash comes from the direction of the cargo bay, the sound of blasters firing. Pangzi shouts, and they all rush forward, tumbling down the ladder in a flurry of limbs and panic. Wang Meng feels his pores begin to fill. Li Cu’s breath ends in a hiss.

They come to the bottom of the ladder, just in time to see Pangzi fall, the shield of his body melting away to reveal three black-suited figures, masks pulled up over their faces so that only their eyes are visible. Humanoid, though one seems to have a second pair of eyes near the tops of their cheekbones. They’re all carrying blasters, aiming them with precision.

“Pangzi!” Li Cu shouts, and the figures turn toward the sound of his voice. Li Cu’s tongue flicks, his stance dropping slightly as he prepares for a fight.

“Go!” Pangzi shouts, even though he’s immobilized on the floor. “They aren’t shooting to kill!”

“Not yet,” one of the figures says in a low, smooth voice, and then he’s firing, the blast rocketing down the hallway, barely missing Xiao Bai as she dives to the side.

The rest of them scatter. Liu Sang drags Li Cu back, shoving him up the ladder, and Wang Meng follows them as quickly as he can. Kan Jian and Xiao Bai attempt to do the same, but a steady stream of shots separate them, and they’re forced to duck into the med bay, pressing up against the walls to avoid being hit.

Li Cu scrambles up the ladder into the second deck, Liu Sang close after, and Wang Meng is almost there when something hot shoots past his face. Liu Sang dodges to the side as a shot explodes near his head, but keeps going. Wang Meng attempts to do the same, but suddenly, something that feels like a burst of air slams into his foot, and his entire leg goes numb. He slips, falling off of the ladder rung, and nearly crashes back down to the lower deck, but Liu Sang’s hands catch his, and then he and Li Cu are pulling Wang Meng up through the hole and slinging his arms over their shoulders.

“What was that?” Li Cu cries as they stagger away, as quickly as they can.

“They’re shooting to stun,” Wang Meng says, trying to keep himself upright and moving, but it’s difficult when it feels like his entire right leg has suddenly been cut off below the knee. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Liu Sang glances over his shoulder. “They’re following us.”

“The kitchen,” Wang Meng says, “There’re weapons in there.”

“Why?” Liu Sang asks.

“Because you use knives to cut meat,” Wang Meng says. “And also because I keep Xiao Bai’s taser in there.”

The three of them burst into the dining area. Wang Meng hobbles over to the cutlery drawers, and Liu Sang and Li Cu push the door shut. With all of the power diverted from unnecessary functions, the doors are all automatically opened, so they have to manually slide it shut again. It won’t keep their pursuers out for long, but it might buy them some time.

Wang Meng digs through the drawers, coming up with two large meat knives. He sets them on the counter and eyes the top cabinet, where he’s stashed the taser. Normally he’d climb on the countertop to reach it, but that’s out of the question now.

“The taser is up there,” he says to Li Cu, who nods and scrambles up with more agility than he should have when climbing on Wang Meng’s counters, finding the taser where it’s hidden above the plates, and tossing it to Liu Sang, jumping down nimbly.

Wang Meng trades Liu Sang the taser for one of the knives, and stumbles over to the door, sliding down the wall at the side as his leg finally decides that it’s had enough. “Hide,” he says. “I’ll try and take them out first, if they come in.”

“They’re getting around the others,” Liu Sang says, frowning worriedly, and Wang Meng wonders how well he can hear them. If everyone is still alive.

Li Cu clutches the other knife. “Are they okay?” he asks, voice lisping slightly because of his fangs, which have decided to make an appearance because of the stress.

Liu Sang nods. “All our heartbeats are there.”

Li Cu exhales in relief, wrapping his fingers around the knife hilt, and goes to stand on the other side of the doorway. Liu Sang takes up a position crouched near the edge of the table, mostly hidden in the shadows.

The door creaks, shifts, and is pried open. As soon as he sees a black-clad leg come in, Wang Meng is already moving, pressing the taser to the back of the figure’s knee and activating the taser. The intruder goes down in a shock of electricity, falling in a heap at the front of the door, but there are more of them behind them, and then immediately begin shooting into the room.

Wang Meng scrambles back. Now that the element of surprise is no longer on his side, he should probably get out of the way, but his leg is a dead weight on the end of his body, and he can’t move fast enough. He attempts to fling a stream of acid at their attackers, but before he can, another shot is directed at him, punching him in the chest, and he falls back, completely paralyzed.

“Meng-ge!” Li Cu shouts, and then throws himself at one of the figures, both the knife and his fangs extended. He stabs at the intruder, managing to catch him off-guard, and knocks the gun out of his hands. The man dodges his strike, quickly turning and tossing a kick Li Cu’s way.

Liu Sang has his own problems, fighting two others, and though they’ve stopped shooting, afraid of hitting their comrades in such close quarters, it’s clear that the intruders are trained, and trained well. Liu Sang, as aggressive and determined as he is, doesn’t stand a chance on his own, and even as he throws out frequencies, his opponents are too quick, and they don’t land like he needs them to.

Li Cu cries out, and Wang Meng flicks his eyes back over to the young Sheiling. Three more black-dressed fighters have appeared in the doorway, and Li Cu is distracted enough to have his legs swept out from under him. Immediately, the people are on him, pinning him to the ground as he thrashes, and Wang Meng shouts, “Don’t touch him!”

Liu Sang tries to break away from his fight, but an elbow catches him in the side of the head, and he crashes to the ground, knife skittering away across the floor as he falls. One of the intruders steps firmly on his arm to keep him pinned.

“Is it him?” the person asks, and one of the ones holding Li Cu nods.

“It’s him,” they confirm, and Li Cu hisses at them. They ignore him, and Wang Meng can only watch in horror as one of them takes a circular disk out of a pocket, turning Li Cu’s head to the side forcefully and slapping it against his throat.

Li Cu yowls, and Wang Meng shouts, but whatever they’ve just done to Li Cu is apparently very effective, because his struggles diminish quickly, his head lolling to the side and every part of him going loose and lax. Wang Meng screams again, helpless in his stunned body.

Two of the intruders lift Li Cu by the arms, holding him in between them.

“Let’s get out of here,” says the one who had knocked Li Cu out, and they’re just about to turn, when Liu Sang’s voice stops them.

“Let him g—” Liu Sang never gets to finish the Compulsion, because the person pinning him to the floor draws his weapon and fires, sending a stunning strike directly to Liu Sang’s windpipe, cutting off his voice and causing him to choke, breath disappearing into a terrible gasping noise.

Wang Meng wants to move, begs his body to listen to him, because they’re hurting his crew, but he can’t. He can’t even raise his head to watch them leave with Li Cu, tears blurring his vision as he begs them not to take him. He doesn’t know if he’s saying the words out loud, or just in his head, because the roar of desperation in his ears is drowning out everything else.

Before they can exit, though, there’s a blur of shadow in the doorway, and Xiao-ge is there, his sword falling before he’s even into the room, slicing into the arm of one of the people holding Li Cu and causing them to drop his limp body, half of it slumping toward the floor, and Wang Meng feels a thrill of hope, of safety, because Xiao-ge is cold stone, biting and unceasing, and he’s going to—

A stunning blast hits him in the chest, then another, a third. Xiao-ge goes down to one knee, but his teeth grit, and his blood is pumping black through him, trying to keep him awake, alive. He falls forward, dragging himself toward Li Cu and his captors, but he doesn’t quite make it. Another shot strikes him in the face, and that’s all the Kylin can take. He crumples, soft and silent.

Liu Sang makes a noise of pain from where he’s lying on the floor, and Wang Meng can’t say anything, though he desperately wishes to.

“Didn’t you shoot this one seven times already?” one of the figures asks, nudging Xiao-ge with a toe.

“Yeah,” another says. “He’s strong.” He considers Xiao-ge’s limp form for a moment, then shrugs. “Take him, too. He might be useful.”

“We were only supposed to get the Sheiling back,” the person holding Li Cu says, and Wang Meng’s blood runs cold, because they know what Li Cu is, and they want him back, which means—

“We might get something if we bring back a second prize,” the one who suggested taking Xiao-ge says. “Patch him, and bring him with us.”

They move efficiently, not even bothering to spare a glance for Wang Meng and Liu Sang, sprawled on the kitchen floor amidst scraps of metal and flecks of blood. Another pair of circles appear, attaching themselves to Xiao-ge’s neck, even though the Kylin is already unconscious from the sheer number of stuns he’s taken. The intruders pick their fallen comrades up, one bleeding, one electrocuted into unconsciousness, and then they leave, abandoning Liu Sang and Wang Meng in the dark like they’d never been there in the first place.

Wang Meng can’t help it, then. He cries, and because his arms are paralyzed, he can’t even wipe the tears away. They simply limp down his face, soaking into his hairline, making him feel wet and sticky and cold.

They’ve taken Li Cu. They’ve taken Li Cu.

And he can’t do a single thing about it.

Chapter Text

The universe, Liu Sang knows, is simultaneously full of sound and devoid of it.

Life exists as frequencies; if there is movement, there is the potential to be heard, and Liu Sang can hear all of it. It differs, depending on where he is—he has to re-recognize his crew’s heartbeats for each new atmosphere they enter, because the chemical composition of the air makes the sounds travel differently—but he can always orient himself around the sounds that he knows, the ones that have carved their homes into his mind.

Space, on the other hand, has no sound, because there’s no air. Nothing for the vibrations to pass through, no tethers to bring them to his ears. If he’s very clever, which he is, sometimes he can guess the amount of space between asteroids that would be necessary for a full sound to travel, or, if they’re flying through a gas cloud, he can finagle whisps of frequencies out of the particles that drift through the vacuum, but for the most part, he spends space flights half-blind and on-edge, never quite satisfied until they enter an atmosphere again, and he has to brave the onslaught of the million frequencies that can make up a world.

His skills have grown exponentially since his memories came back; not only does he have the years of experience and trial-and-error that he spent with Mao Xincheng, but he has all of Su Baiyin’s teachings and the skills that he learned on his home planet, as well as things that he hadn’t quite tried, but understood in theory. Now that he’s older, now that his voice has stopped changing and settled into the cadence that it will keep for the rest of his life, he finds that he can manipulate frequencies all the better, and that he hardly even needs Compulsion to do what he wants.

It’s a point of contention. He knows this. The crew of the Wushanju would never say it, would never ask him to revisit it, but he sees it in their faces when they have to make a plan that could be solved in an instant if he would just use his voice and order people into doing what they wanted. He knows that Wu Xie is fascinated by the power, would like nothing more than to run trials with it, to figure out exactly how it ticks. He knows that Pangzi thinks it could be used to keep them all safe and healthy and happy, forever, without having to feel the loss and pain and hardship that they have in the past. He knows that Kan Jian, as kind as he is, feels that Liu Sang is leading them into unnecessary violence, and Kan Jian hates violence, and Liu Sang doesn’t know how to explain to him that Compulsion is violent in its own way.

There’s a lot of mixed feelings there. He could be used as a weapon, but he could also be used as a peacemaker. The problem is that he never was, and he’s not sure he can be, now. There’s so much of him that still isn’t his own.

It’s one thing to exist on a planet where everyone has the same power that you do, and another to be alone in a universe that you could overtake in an instant.

So he works on developing his skills beyond Compulsion. He’s figured out how to throw frequencies in large rings, to be used as shields or sound bursts, to explode rubble and projectiles and whatever else he can. He’s started practicing holding his breath again, thinks that maybe he could lift an entire globe of water and carry it across the ship before he would run out of air. The killing frequency that Su Baiyin taught him is tucked in the back of his mind; he hasn’t told anyone about that, yet.

Maybe he’s just a coward, when it comes down to it. Maybe the only reason that he can’t seem to bring himself to use all of his potential is because he’s afraid of turning around and finding himself alone again. Or worse, finding himself in front of a group of people that are only there because he ordered them to be.

It doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t Compel his crew for anything, and now he won’t ever have a chance; they’re not going to keep him around once they find out that he lost Li Cu and Zhang Qiling, because they’ve been around longer, and are loved more deeply, and Liu Sang just let them be taken.

He’s lying on his back in the kitchen, one arm aching from the pressure that the intruder had placed on it, taking short, stuttering breaths through his nose. He can’t speak—the stun weapon had done a number on his larynx, and he hopes that his voice will come back once the effect wears off, but he honestly has no clue—and apparently his windpipe was stunned too, because it’s harder to breathe than it normally is, though that could also be due to the fact that he’s panicking, just a little bit.

Wang Meng, however, can make noise just fine, though Liu Sang isn’t sure that he’s aware he’s doing it. If he rolls his eyes down as far as he can, he can just make out Wang Meng’s curled form nearby, lying on his side, a heartbreaking series of clicks coming from him. Liu Sang knows him well enough now to recognize Wang Meng’s native language, and that’s somehow sadder; he’s calling out to Li Cu in words he can’t understand or hear.

Liu Sang’s breath falters when he thinks about Li Cu, so he turns his attention to finding the rest of the crew. He knows generally where they are, which is helpful because he has to try and listen for them over Wang Meng, who is much closer and much louder.

Unsurprisingly, it sounds like they’ve all been stunned, because Liu Sang can hear steady heartbeats but no other movement, though it appears that Pangzi is starting to come back around. There’s a lot of swearing coming from the half-Titan’s direction as he clumsily gets up, fighting off the lasting effects of the weapons and going to find the rest of them, calling out in worried tones. Liu Sang realizes that he’s lucky; even though he can only see one of his crewmates, he knows that the rest are still alive, and doesn’t have to suffer through the what ifs until he can find them again.

Kan Jian and Bai Haotian are the closest to Pangzi, so he goes to them first. Based on the volume, Bai Haotian is on one side of the ship, closer to Liu Sang, and Kan Jian is across the hall.

“You alright?” Pangzi asks.

“Yeah,” Kan Jian responds, “Just stunned.” There’s some movement from him before he continues speaking. “My arms are waking up!”

“Good,” Pangzi says.

“Did they—?” Kan Jian doesn’t finish the question, perhaps because it’s too big. There’s too many unknowns.

“I don’t know,” Pangzi says gruffly. “They walked past me on their way out, but I fell with my back to them, so I’m not sure if they took anything or not.”

Liu Sang’s heart clenches. If Pangzi doesn’t know yet… shit. Shit. None of this is good. He tries again to move, but it’s still a futile endeavor.

“Si Mei,” Pangzi says next, moving to her. “What did they do to you?”

Liu Sang strains to listen, worry plucking at his temples.

“They got me in a jump,” Bai Haotian says grumpily. “How I ended up upside-down, I don’t know.” Liu Sang relaxes. She’s not hurt, just in a weird position.

Pangzi clucks at her, and Liu Sang hears him moving things around. “Let me go find Tianzhen and Xiao-ge, and I’ll come back for you.”

“No rush,” Bai Haotian says. “It’s going to take me a while to fight this off.”

Pangzi sighs. “Bastards.”

“It’s better than the alternative,” Kan Jian says quietly. “If they had been shooting to kill.”

That’s right; they could all very well be dead now. Liu Sang is confused as to what type of mercenary organization—if that is what they are—would leave survivors behind. Everything he’s been taught says that the one thing you don’t want to do is give people a chance to find you again.

“Still,” Pangzi says, “They couldn’t have just left us alone? What do we even have that they would want? We’re not carrying any treasure or anything this time.”

“Maybe they just came to fuck us over,” Bai Haotian suggests.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Pangzi mutters, and then is distracted by movement further along down the corridor. “Tianzhen!”

Liu Sang feels a sparkplug of hope go through him; if Wu Xie is here, is up, then he must have some sort of plan, already deciding on their next course of action.

“Pangzi,” Wu Xie says, though it takes Liu Sang a minute to recognize it; Wu Xie’s voice is colder than he’s ever heard it. “They—” There’s a clanging sound, Pangzi’s footsteps, and the soft whump of bodies colliding.

“You’re not fully out of it yet,” Pangzi scolds gently. “Stop trying to move around. Just wait until the stun wears off.”

“We don’t have time,” Wu Xie bites out. “They took Xiao-ge. They took Li Cu.”

Silence.

“What?” Pangzi whispers.

“They… no,” Kan Jian says from further down the hallway, a grunt in his voice as he tries to move.

“They walked right past me,” Wu Xie says, a note akin to despair in his tone. “They took them, right past me.” He knocks into the wall, though whether from frustration or residual clumsiness, Liu Sang isn’t sure. “They took them.”

“That’s… Xiao-ge wouldn’t let them take him,” Pangzi says, disbelief colored through his voice. “He’s Xiao-ge. How could he—” 

“I don’t know, Pangzi,” Wu Xie growls. “But they’re gone.”

Liu Sang is starting to be able to feel his legs again, which is a good thing. He manages to thunk his heel on the ground, banging out their word for kitchen a couple times before he has to stop to catch his breath, which makes him feel stupid, but the sound of Pangzi’s footsteps are already coming up the ladder.

The pilot bursts into the kitchen a second later, eyes widening at the disaster zone the room has turned into, as well as the two people lying on the floor. “Jinx!” he exclaims. “Wang Meng! What happened in here?”

Wang Meng lets out a sob, and Pangzi goes over to him, scooping his tangle of limbs off of the floor and arranging him so that he’s leaning against one of the kitchen cabinets, head unbalanced on his neck. As much as Pangzi tries, he can’t get it to stay upright, so eventually he gently tips Wang Meng’s head back so that his antennae are brushing the edge of the counter, then comes over to Liu Sang.

He hisses a wince through his teeth. “They got you, did they, Jinx?”

Liu Sang has no idea what he’s talking about until Pangzi brushes his fingers across Liu Sang’s temple and there’s a starburst of pain there; he tries to flinch, but his body won’t move, so he just stutters and his eyes go wide. Pangzi’s fingers are slightly bloodstained, and, right, he had gotten hit in the head. That’s why he hadn’t managed to try and Compel them until it was already too late.

That’s what he tells himself is the truth, anyway.

Pangzi sticks his hands under Liu Sang’s arms, and Liu Sang tries to move his legs and at least be somewhat helpful, but he doesn’t do too well, and Pangzi ends up carrying most of his weight over to the table, sliding him into the booth as gently as possible. Liu Sang’s head is even worse off than Wang Meng’s apparently, because his neck, as paralyzed as it is, won’t even keep his head upright, so Pangzi bends him over the table so that his face is pillowed on the top of it, turning his head and moving his hair so that he can see Wang Meng, which is an uncomfortably intimate gesture, but an appreciated one nonetheless.

“Comfortable?” Pangzi asks.

Yes, Liu Sang stamps onto the floor, because it is, somehow, better than lying down. He can breathe easier, for one thing, and he doesn’t have to roll his eyes down in their sockets to see Wang Meng.

Pangzi steps back, putting his hands on his hips and looking around. His face falls. “They really took them, huh?”

Sorry, Liu Sang taps. Tried to—

Pangzi interrupts before he can finish. “I know, Jinx. Just…” He sighs, running a hand through his hair, which is sticking out even more than it usually is. “I’ll bring the others up.”

Liu Sang follows him with his eyes as he leaves, listens to him thump off down the hall—his movements are a little stiff, so he still must be feeling the effects of the stun weapons—and down the ladder, collected Kan Jian and Bai Haotian from the lower deck first. There’s only one set of footsteps at first, but once Pangzi has climbed the ladder, Liu Sang frowns, because it’s turned into two, and the second one sounds much lighter than any of his crew’s tread.

The reason becomes apparent when Pangzi appears carrying Bai Haotian, and behind him is Kan Jian, walking on his hands, which is so surprising that Wang Meng actually falls silent as he watches the first officer pad across the floor and flips right-side-up to sit next to him.

“My arms broke free pretty quick, but the rest of me is still shot,” he explains, his smile a fraction of its usual brightness. “Lucky thing I can balance on my hands.”

“Means your abs must not be in bad shape either,” Pangzi mutters, settling Bai Haotian at the table across from Liu Sang. “Do you know how much core strength that takes?”

“Huh?” Kan Jian asks.

Pangzi shakes his head and mumbles something about “damn freaks of nature,” as though he himself can’t bench press an ox. “I’ll go get Tianzhen, and then we’ll be back.”

Liu Sang wants to wince, again, but he still can’t move more than his legs, one of which begins bouncing slightly. He wants to explain it away as filtering out the residual stunning effects, but knows that it’s more likely the anxiety of having to face Wu Xie.

The shouling and Pangzi return just a few moments later, Wu Xie limping badly, half of his body falling sideways, Pangzi hovering behind him to catch him if he trips. He doesn’t, making it to their seating before collapsing onto the bench, leaning against the back cushion heavily. He doesn’t say anything at first, just looks at each of them in turn, eyes skipping over the empty spaces between them, as though trying not to notice the absences that aren’t supposed to be there.

“So,” he says, “Are all of you okay?”

Everyone makes affirmative noises, except Liu Sang, who bangs out a yes on the floor.

Wu Xie turns to him with a frown. “You can’t talk?”

“They stunned his throat,” Wang Meng whispers, voice shaky as he finds his way back to speaking in Galactic. “It might be a while before it wears off.”

Wu Xie nods. “Okay.” He sighs, purses his lips together. “Then…” He trails off, helplessly, as though he’s not sure what to do.

“We’re getting them back, right?” Bai Haotian asks fiercely, as if daring someone to say otherwise.

The answer is of course, and Wu Xie nods in response. “Is the ship back yet?”

It’s sort of a useless question, as all of the emergency lights are still on, but Pangzi still shakes his head in answer. “They stunned her, too. Not sure how, but we’ll have to wait until she’s online again to start searching.”

“Probably some sort of electric pulsars,” Bai Haotian says. “They must have directly went for the ship’s systems to leave us stranded, so that they could board and escape without any trouble.”

Wu Xie says, “Okay.” He lifts one arm with some difficultly, lying it onto the tabletop. “Did… has anyone seen those people before? Or did they say anything that might tell us where they’ve gone?” His eyes flicker to Liu Sang, which is only mildly offensive, because he is the most likely person to have run into this group of mercenaries before.

He thinks about it, but no black-masked kidnappers come to mind when he thinks about all of the groups that Mao Xincheng’s crew dealt with over the years. There are a couple of organizations he can think of that would be interested in taking a Sheiling and a Kylin, but he’d have to do more research to give a definitive answer, if there is one.

Wang Meng, however, speaks up. “They said that they had come to take him back.”

“What?” Wu Xie asks, his forehead furrowing.

“They wanted him back,” Wang Meng says again, his voice hoarse and hollow. “Xiao-ge was collateral.”

“Shit,” Pangzi says, running a hand over his face. “Tianzhen, does that mean—”

“Probably,” Wu Xie whispers, his visible hand clenching. “Fuck. He’s probably—” He cuts himself off, not wanting to voice the words.

Liu Sang knows that Li Cu spent the better part of his life in the hands of some experimental organization that essentially tortured him for information on his species, but that’s all. Li Cu hasn’t ever spoken about it with him, and Liu Sang only knows that much because Wang Meng explained a couple of things to him after he became part of the crew officially.

You have to understand, he had said, That Li Cu is… he’s been through a lot. And he has to be protected. So if I’m not there, you have to do it for me.

Why me? Liu Sang had asked; not because he wanted to get out of the responsibility, but because he felt that it was too good for him. There’s plenty of other people he has looking out for him.

He likes you, Wang Meng told him. He’ll trust you. And you’re the strongest out of everyone. If anyone can keep him safe, it’s you.

Yeah, well. A lot of good Liu Sang was. He tries to swallow, finds that it’s slightly easier than it was a few minutes ago. He doesn’t look at Wang Meng.

“Do we know who he was captured by?” Pangzi asks. “Who had him before?”

Wu Xie shakes his head. “I don’t think he knew. They probably didn’t tell him, and even if there were signs when he escaped, he wouldn’t have been able to read them.” He sighs. “He never told me a name, anyway.”

“Me neither,” Wang Meng says, since he’s the closest to Li Cu after Wu Xie. If Li Cu hadn’t told either of them, then there’s no chance that anyone else knows.

Wu Xie exhales heavily, the muscle at the back of his jaw twitching. “What I want to know is how they found us in the first place. Xiao Bai’s cloaking tech outclasses every tracking system out there. Unless someone’s been following us, or has our specific ship number, there’s no way for anyone to find us through regular means of location.”

“Have they been following us for that long?” Pangzi asks. “How come they only chose to attack us now?”

Wu Xie closes his eyes, looking as though he’s warding away a headache, and Pangzi’s voice immediately softens. “Don’t worry, Tianzhen. We’ll figure it out. Once the ship is back online, we’ll be after them faster than they can blink. We’ll get them back.”

Wu Xie doesn’t say anything, just tips his head forward in order to bury his face in his hands.

The rest of the kitchen is silent; there isn’t much they can say. It’s rare to see any member of the Iron Triangle look defeated, and rarer still to see it from Wu Xie. Liu Sang has seen a lot in twenty-seven years, but a lost Wu Xie ranks up there with the worst of them.

Suddenly, though, something pings at the back of his head and he frowns; it’s his sonar equipment, attached to the outside of the ship. Even though Liu Sang isn’t really a sonar technician like he pretended at first, he’d left the sonar devices up. They give him an extra sense of security, knowing that he’ll be able to tell if anything strange happens outside the ship. The devices run on the same power system that the rest of the Wushanju does, so they had gone offline when the ship was disabled, but they take up so little power that it makes sense that they’d be the first to come back as power slowly returns to the ship.

What doesn’t make sense, though, is why they’re going off; the sonar can’t pick up anything unless it’s close enough for the frequencies to bounce off of, which means that whatever they’re reverberating against has to be fairly close indeed.

He tests his voice again and finds that enough of it has returned for him to hiss some syllables through his teeth, which makes him happier than it maybe should.

“S-something behind us,” he stammers, and Wu Xie looks up immediately. “Big.”

“Did they come back?” Pangzi demands, getting to his feet. “If they try to take anyone else, I’ll—”

Liu Sang attempts to shake his head, but his neck still isn’t fully recovered so he mostly just wobbles his cheek against the table, which is embarrassing. “No. Too… smooth.” He doesn’t know exactly what that means, yet, but the trajectory of the object, while moving, is coming at them in a completely straight line, which is strange for any vessel that theoretically would be operated by a conscious being.

Pangzi’s eyes narrow, his stance shifting as though he’s preparing for a fight. “We’re flying blind, too. There’s no way to tell who’s even back there.”

“Can you describe it at all, Liu Sang?” Wu Xie asks.

Liu Sang closes his eyes, listens to his sonar ping a few more times. “Big. Round.” He frowns. “Has… arms?”

That’s what it sounds like, anyway, though that doesn’t make sense in his head, but there are definitely two mechanical limbs sticking out from either side of the pursuer, as though it’s reaching out to grab them… which, as it gets closer, appears to be what it’s trying to do.

Pangzi and Wu Xie exchange a wide-eyed look.

“Shit,” Pangzi says, just as something clamps onto the ship and the whole thing shakes. He scrambles off to the cockpit as the hailing signal goes off, which means whatever this thing is has a message for them.

Wu Xie levels his glare, though it isn’t at anyone in the room. “I’m going to burn down the warehouse.”

This would be an alarming statement from anyone who wasn’t Wu Xie, as he tends to do that rather often, and always for good reason, so Liu Sang trusts him to make appropriate decisions on which warehouses to burn down. He turns his attention to Pangzi in the cockpit, who has connected their ship to the round object and is swearing over the recorded message that’s now being broadcast to them.

Xiao Xie, it says, You are to be escorted home immediately. Do not delay.

“It’s for you,” Liu Sang tells Wu Xie.

Wu Xie just nods, like he already knew that. “It’s Ershu.”

“Ershu?” Kan Jian asks. “Uh, I mean, Wu Erbai? What does he want?”

“It hasn’t even been three days!” Wu Xie exclaims, his voice distorting into a low growl that Liu Sang has never heard from him before. “He gave us three days. That’s…” His eyes narrow, jaw setting in a way that makes Liu Sang nervous for no reason. “If they tracked the D.O.G.S…” Liu Sang can hear his molars grinding in the back of his mouth. “That must be how they found us. They knew Li Cu was with me, somehow, and tracked the D.O.G.S., which were tracking us. Damnit!” The sudden shout is enough to make the rest of them jump, or it would be if they had full control over their bodies.

Pangzi reappears in the doorway. “Your uncle,” he says, looking grim.

“I know,” Wu Xie says, voice like a storm cloud. “He’s going to regret it.”

Liu Sang isn’t sure what he expected of Wu Xie’s family home, but it isn’t what he gets.

The Wu estate on Jiaren is a large, sprawling mass of buildings that very well could be an entire city in and of itself. There are stark, gray, metallic buildings that Kan Jian says are the developmental compounds; smaller wooden buildings with pillars and red roofs, which are used as housing; and an ornate, leafy garden that weaves throughout the entire thing.

Liu Sang is sure that anyone else would get lost in a place like this, but Wu Xie leads them through it with barely a moment’s hesitation at any of the crossroads. His expression is serious and stoic, as it has been since they started travelling to Jiaren again.

Liu Sang had wondered why they didn’t just shake off Wu Xie’s uncle’s drone and take off after the people that had stolen their crew members, but Bai Hation explained that the D.O.G.S. were designed to latch onto other ships, and required Wu Tech personnel to detach them, and since the drone was so massive, it would significantly slow their chances of catching up to Li Cu and Zhang Qiling’s captors, so Jiaren was a necessary detour.

It took them six hours to arrive on-planet, hours that they all spent  in various states of suspension, paralysis that was only hindered by the anxiety that has swept through the entire ship. The Wushanju had come back online twenty minutes after their conversation in the kitchen, and Pangzi had immediately began pushing the throttle as hard as it could go, though it was dampened by the giant droid hanging off of their ass. Luckily, by now most of the residual effects of being stunned has worn off, though Liu Sang’s neck is still stiff, and Bai Haotian’s ankles keep twisting and giving out as she walks, so Kan Jian stays by her side and helps her along.

People keep greeting Wu Xie as he passes, sending inquiring looks at the ragtag assembly of space raiders that trail after him like an oil spill, but Wu Xie ignores them all. His determination is clear as they march through the Wu estate, too quickly for Liu Sang to really get a good idea of what’s going on around him.

He keeps an ear out for anything suspicious, though; with Zhang Qiling gone, it’s going to be even more important than usual for them to have their guard up, since their protector isn’t here, which means that Liu Sang is the first line of defense now. It’s a responsibility that he is not going to take lightly.

Wu Xie pushes through a set of double doors into a quiet, unassuming building. Liu Sang expects him to slow down now that they’re inside, but he does no such thing, instead taking them briskly down a few hallways, and finally bursting through a door at the end without so much as knocking.

The rest of them crowd in behind them, Pangzi swearing as his head nearly hits the doorframe, and Liu Sang is able to look around as they cluster to a halt behind their shouling.

The office—because that’s clearly what it is, given the desk—is spacious, or it would be, if it weren’t filled to the brim with technological equipment, books, and diagrams covering nearly every square inch of space. There are half-finished gadgets lying on tables, stacks of files piled next to the chairs. That’s as messy as it gets, however; everything else appears to be part of some complex organization system that probably only makes sense to whoever set it up.

The person in question must be the man sitting behind the large desk at the end of the room opposite the door, and unlike other species, who don’t resemble each other at all, Liu Sang can see the familial resemblance between the man and Wu Xie. They have the same eyes, spaced slightly too far apart, and the same high cheekbones, though the man’s are a little less pronounced due to a life of comfortable office work and a steady diet, neither of which Wu Xie possesses.

The man looks up as they enter, but doesn’t seem surprised to see them. “Xiao Xie. You’re finally here.”

“Finally?” Wu Xie walks forward as if he is going to push through the desk and splinter the wall behind it. “You gave us three days, Ershu. Three days, you said.”

Wu Erbai looks at his nephew over his glasses. “Yes. And three days it has been.”

“You had sent the D.O.G.S. out after us before the time limit!” Wu Xie exclaims. “They tracked us down.”

Wu Erbai doesn’t appear phased by Wu Xie’s anger. “That’s their job, yes.”

“You led them straight to us,” Wu Xie hisses. “And they took Xiao-ge and Li Cu.”

Wu Erbai’s forehead wrinkles. “Who?” He peers around Wu Xie, taking stock of the crew behind him, eyes flickering over each of them as he finds who is missing. “Your friend with the sword, I take it.”

“And my—” Wu Xie cuts himself off, swallowing thickly. “Whatever. Just give me the release code so I can get your monster off of my ass, and go get my crew back.”

Wu Erbai shakes his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. The Wushanju is—”

“What do you mean, ‘it’s not possible?’” Wu Xie asks.  

Wu Erbai folds his hands together, then glances at the crew of the Wushanju again. “This… may be a conversation that we should be having in private.”

Wu Xie snorts, turning away from his uncle to cross his arms together. “Whatever you have to say to me you can say to them as well.”

Wu Erbai presses his lips together, simply looking tired of the whole situation. “Unfortunately, Xiao Xie, this time I will have to refuse. Normally, I would welcome all of your crewmates with open arms—” Pangzi snorts at this, and Wu Erbai sends him a side-eyed glance that says fuck you very eloquently, “—but this is a matter of the Jiumen, and it is something that I am not at liberty to disclose to people… outside the organization.”

“Fine then,” Wu Xie says tightly. “You can tell me later.” He turns back to the group of them. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Xiao Xie!” Wu Erbai exclaims, standing up from his seat and slamming his hands on the table, which makes Liu Sang jump. “I am quickly running out of patience with which to deal with you.”

“I’m an adult,” Wu Xie spits, glaring at his uncle. “You don’t hold anything over me—”

“Lao Yang,” Wu Erbai interrupts, and Wu Xie freezes in place. Liu Sang hears his heart stutter over a couple beats.

Wu Xie slowly turns to his uncle. “Excuse me?”

Wu Erbai, for his credit, does look regretful for bringing something up that has clearly upset his nephew. “I’m sorry, Xiao Xie, but now that Sanxing has been found and the Jiumen are convening, I have no other choice.”

Wu Xie shakes his head, his eyes narrowing. “Not a good enough excuse.” He laughs through his nose, though there’s no humor in it. “Fine. I’ll hear you out. Make it quick.”

Pangzi frowns. “Tianzhen—”

He doesn’t get to finish, as Liu Sang is already pushing him towards the door, the rest of the crew falling in behind them, looking at Wu Xie in hesitant confusion.

“Jinx!” Pangzi exclaims once they’re out of the office, the door shutting behind them. “Why’d you—”

“Shh!” Liu Sang hisses at him, already pressing his ear to the wall. They’re too thick for anyone normal to eavesdrop through, but luckily, Liu Sang isn’t normal. He lets his brain fine-tune itself into the frequencies of Wu Xie and Wu Erbai’s voices.

“Has it really been that long since we’ve seen each other, or did you just turn into a heartless bastard overnight?” Wu Xie is saying, clearly unhappy with his uncle.

Wu Erbai simply sighs, as though Wu Xie is overreacting, childish. “I wouldn’t have to resort to extremes if you would simply come home once in a while.”

“You know why I don’t come back,” Wu Xie says, “I’ve explained it to you. And the whole thing with the…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. “Anyway. What is it?”

“The Nine Bloodlines are retreating,” Wu Erbai says, and Liu Sang frowns, because that’s a very specific word choice that he doesn’t think should apply in this instance.

“You’re kidding,” Wu Xie says. “They’re retreating? All of them?”

“All members of the Jiumen families will have relocated to Jiaren within a week,” Wu Erbai says. “Once they arrive, the planet will go on lockdown until further notice.”

Wu Xie is silent for a moment. “How long?”

“That remains to be seen,” Wu Erbai says, “At least until the current threat has been resolved.”

“A threat?” Wu Xie asks, scoffing a little. “What have the Jiumen decided is a threat now?”

“This isn’t a joke, Xiao Xie,” Wu Erbai scolds. “The foundation of our organization depends on all of us being safe and together.”

“We’re going to start falling prey to inbreeding if that keeps up,” Wu Xie mutters, and Liu Sang nearly laughs.

“What?” Pangzi hisses at him, and Liu Sang bats his voice away.

“Two weeks ago, the Si clan contacted us,” Wu Erbai is explaining. “Their settlement was under attack, and we have not heard from them since.”

“Shit,” Wu Xie says, and Wu Erbai sucks a sharp breath in through his teeth at the language. “Are they…” He doesn’t finish the sentence.

“We aren’t sure,” Wu Erbai says. “But it doesn’t look good.”

“What about the others?”

“Most of those affiliated with the Jiumen have reported in, and will be coming on-planet,” Wu Erbai says. “We have already implemented a rationing system, and are prepared to wait out the worst of the conflict.”

“So is someone targeting the Jiumen specifically, or just humans in general?” Wu Xie asks, getting a lot more from what his uncle isn’t saying than Liu Sang can. “There’s a difference, you know.”

Wu Erbai is silent for a moment. “That is… also unclear.”

“But you are offering asylum for all of them, right?” When there is no answer, Wu Xie’s voice grows frosty. “You can’t.”

“We don’t have enough resources to support—”

“Bullshit!” Wu Xie spits. “You have enough resources to support a full planet of refugees for at least a year, if you wanted to. And the soil is good here, you could grow more. There’s no reason that you—”

“It was not solely my decision,” Wu Erbai says. “The heads of each of the clans voted. For now, we’re restricting access to only those with blood credentials.”

Wu Xie sighs. “Those are easy enough to fake.”

“We also have a more secure database matching system in operation,” Wu Erbai says, sounding slightly irritated that Wu Xie seems to be insistent on refuting everything he’s trying to do.

“Well, you’ll have one less mouth to feed,” Wu Xie mutters. “I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not,” Wu Erbai says, sounding firmer than he has since they arrive. “You will stay here, with your family, in safety.”

“You can’t—”

“Your ship is grounded,” Wu Erbai says, without room for argument. “It will be removed from your captaincy and returned to its former owner.”

Wu Xie goes silent, and Liu Sang hears his breath hitch, which matches his own. Wu Erbai can’t take the Wushanju. He—

“You can’t do that,” Wu Xie says, his voice low and soft, as if he knows Liu Sang is listening in, and doesn’t want him to hear this part of the conversation. “That’s… what about my crew?”

“They will be allowed to leave Jiaren,” Wu Erbai says. “After that, they are free to do what they wish.”

“And Xiao-ge?” Wu Xie demands. “Li Cu? You expect me to leave them with… with whoever has taken them?” His voice catches, just the slightest amount. “Please, Ershu. They… they’re all I have.”

Liu Sang can’t help the way his stomach twists at those words, but Wu Erbai doesn’t seem to share his sentiment.

“You have an entire clan, Xiao Xie,” he says. “They are not your family.”

“They’re all that matters, then!” Wu Xie exclaims. “Don’t make me leave them. Don’t—”

“We’ve kept your secret,” Wu Erbai says coolly. “It’s time you repay your debt to this family, and you will do that by remaining here and keeping our bloodline safe. We cannot afford your death, Xiao Xie.”

Liu Sang frowns, distracted enough by the wording of the conversation that his brain wanders away from the discussion. Wu Xie has a secret? Lao Yang? He had listened to Pangzi‘s reaction when Wu Erbai had said that, and Pangzi hadn’t seemed to know what it meant either, which was strange. Pangzi and Wu Xie share everything.

“If you keep me here, you’re ensuring it,” Wu Xie says softly. He’s tapping his fingers against something, so he must be leaning against Wu Erbai’s desk, or maybe sitting in one of the chairs in front of it.

Wu Erbai does not sound impressed with this. “You will remain under house arrest until arrangements for your crew have been made. You’ll be allowed to see them off.”

“Fine,” Wu Xie mutters, his compliance startling Liu Sang until he recognizes the pattern in the rhythm Wu Xie is drumming out. He must know that Liu Sang is listening.

Back to the ship, he’s saying, Go. Go.

Liu Sang obeys, peeling himself away from the wall and turning to the rest of his crewmates with wide eyes. “We need to get back to the Wushanju.”

“What?” Pangzi says, staring at the closed door of Wu Erbai’s office. “We’re leaving him?”

“He told us to go,” Liu Sang says, already breaking into a run. He thinks he remembers the way back to where they left the ship, and even if he doesn’t, he could pick the Wushanju’s engines out from any haze of machinery. “They’ll take the ship otherwise.”

“What?” Pangzi exclaims, footsteps pounding heavily behind Liu Sang’s own, the rest of them falling in behind. “They can’t take my ship!”

“Then move it,” Liu Sang says unsympathetically, even though he’s feeling the same way.

They probably look especially suspicious, a group of people who are clearly not humans sprinting through a distinctly human compound, but they come to the familiar shape of the Wushanju without being stopped. Liu Sang holds his breath as Pangzi opens the door, but it lets them in without hesitation, so whatever transfer of power Wu Erbai has planned must not have happened yet.

They all pile into the ship, panting, standing in a loose huddle as they attempt to get their bearings back. It’s the second time that their home has been under threat that day, and even Liu Sang, who has not put much gravity behind that word in over a decade, feels empty and useless.

“I’m going to go see if I can put up some shields,” Bai Haotian says, “Maybe that’ll stop them from messing around with us.” She jogs off to the engine room, where all of her tech is stored.

Pangzi is muttering something about blasting Wu Erbai’s office to smithereens, and Wang Meng is, uncharacteristically, enthusiastically agreeing with him, but Liu Sang grabs Pangzi’s arm to stop him from his tirade, because he hears something from above them, something that should not be there.

“There’s someone in the library,” he whispers.

Pangzi’s eyes immediately harden, because that’s Wu Xie’s space, and no one goes in there without their shouling. He’s taking the ladder three rungs at a time, Liu Sang scrambling up after him, even as Kan Jian calls for them to be careful.

Pangzi doesn’t seem as though he’s going to be one for caution at this point, however, which Liu Sang can understand. He’s trying to gather information about the intruder as they go down the hall, but his brain is too numb to even slot the sounds that he hears into a picture to tell him exactly what’s going on, which is why he’s just as surprised as Pangzi when they slide the door open and catch the invader in the act.

It’s a man, sitting behind Wu Xie’s desk, flipping through the Yincangui notebook, the one that Su Baiyin wrote, and Liu Sang wants to rip it out of his hands, to tell him not to touch it, until his mind catches up to his hands and he freezes in his tracks.

The man looks up, a familiar, unsettlingly crooked grin spreading across his face.

“Hi there, Liu Sang,” Wu Sanxing says, eyes tracing him up and down, smile never faltering in a way that makes Liu Sang profoundly nervous. “Miss me?”

“How do we get him off the ship?” Pangzi mutters, not for the first time.

“I don’t know,” Liu Sang says, “Why are you asking me, anyway?”

“Because you know him the best,” Pangzi says. “I’ve only heard stories about the guy, I’ve never met him.”

Liu Sang sighs through his nose, folding his arms over his chest and sending yet another surreptitious look Wu Sanxing’s way, though he’s not entirely sure how subtle he’s being anymore. He’s not really sure how to feel about the fact that Wu Sanxing is on their ship; by all rights, he can be there, as it’s technically his vessel, but none of him has remained in the corners and the walls of Wushanju. Any of his essence seeped out long ago, and was replaced with theirs.

He’s not sure how to feel about Wu Sanxing—his mind can’t wrap around the idea of calling him Sanshu again—in general. He’s spent the past few months getting reacquainted with his own memories, and even though Wu Sanxing isn’t there for the majority of them, the small part that he is present in is definitely at the forefront of his concentration. He wonders if Wu Sanxing feels the same way; after all, they had both had their minds stolen from them, and returned without warning.

It’s taken a lot of getting used to, and Liu Sang wonders if he’s even the same person anymore. Now, alongside the kid who was raised to be a weapon is a kid who was taught he didn’t have to be, and the adult that he’s become doesn’t quite know how to reconcile with either without feeling like he’s betraying all three. Wu Sanxing has lived more years of life than Liu Sang has, and all of those were wiped away too; does that make it easier or harder for him to go back to being the person he once was?

There’s also the fact that Wu Sanxing is one of maybe a handful of people who knows exactly who Liu Sang is, what he’s capable of, and that doesn’t reassure him at all. Even the crew of the Wushanju don’t know all of the things that he’s done and the things that he can do.

“You can stop staring,” Wu Sanxing says, not looking up from the notes that he’s snooping through, though they’re technically his, so Liu Sang doesn’t know if that counts as snooping.

“Why are you here?” Pangzi asks bluntly. “Wu Xie’s back with your brother, if you wanted to see him.”

“I’ll see Xiao Xie later,” Wu Sanxing says mildly. “I’m here for my ship.”

“Your ship?” Pangzi snorts. “Yeah, okay. Your ship.”

“It is my ship,” Wu Sanxing says, not looking perturbed by Pangzi’s incredulity. “Er-ge gave it back to me as a… display of faith, let’s say.”

“What are you talking about?” Pangzi demands.

Wu Sanxing runs his finger along the edge of the desk as though he’s searching for dust, which Liu Sang knows he won’t find. As chaotic and destructive as Wu Xie is, his space isn’t dirty. “My brother wants me to stay on Jiaren, but he wants me to do so of my own free will. He has no problem with locking up our wayward nephew, but I have a tendency to cause problems.” He sounds prouder of that than Liu Sang thinks he should be. “He gave me the ship back to prove that he’s not trying to lock me up again. Which was a mistake on his part.”

Pangzi looks as though he’s swallowed something bitter. “So you’re what? Leaving Wu Xie in this mess on his own and fucking off?”

“If you’d like to put it that way, yes,” Wu Sanxing says. He’s avoiding looking at Liu Sang. “Of course, I’ll let you all come with me and drop you off at the next populated outpost, if you help me get the relaunching codes from the systems. I heard one of you is a particularly good hacker?”

Pangzi’s jaw twitches and he takes a step forward, the sheer bulk of his body turning Wu Sanxing into a shadow. “You’re going to leave your nephew here as a distraction and take his ship and his crew? And you want us to help you do that? What kind of—” He shakes his head. “Never mind. I knew you were some type of scumbag, but I didn’t think that you would stoop so low.”

If he’s insulted by Pangzi’s words, Wu Sanxing doesn’t show it. “Xiao Xie will be fine. He’s the family’s treasure, after all.”

“I don’t even want to know what you mean by that,” Pangzi says, his fists clenching and unclenching. “I’m trying very hard not to strangle you right now, and that’s only because Tianzhen would be upset if I did.”

“Tianzhen?” Wu Sanxing asks, looking amused. “You gave him a nickname? That’s very cute.” His smile is no longer sincere, but instead a baring of fangs.

Liu Sang shivers, just a little. It looks as though fifteen years of amnesia did not do Wu Sanxing’s personality any favors.

He swallows, straightens up so that he’s no longer leaning against the wall. Decides to play his ace. “Sanshu.” The name feels bitter in his mouth. “He waited for you. The least you could do—”

“Mm,” Wu Sanxing interrupts, so Liu Sang’s gamble for sympathy did not work, apparently. His eyes are on Liu Sang’s face, but not directly at him. He’s looking at Liu Sang’s mouth. “I could use some crew members, though, if any of you want to stay on.”

“I’m not working for you!” Pangzi shouts.

“Haizi?” Wu Sanxing says, and Liu Sang recoils. No one’s called him that since Mao Xincheng, and the nickname, once a warm coal in the center of his chest, now feels like heartburn, sour and crawling. “What do you say?”

“Don’t call me that,” Liu Sang snaps, then regrets revealing that particular weakness. He pushes his glasses up on his nose to avoid making eye contact. “Um. I don’t work for anybody, anymore.”

“Right,” Wu Sanxing says. “Pity.” He sighs, throws Pangzi a glance. “Mind if I speak to him in private?”

“Yes,” Pangzi says. “I don’t trust you within three feet of any of them, you slimy son of a—”

“Pangzi,” Liu Sang interrupts him, “It’s fine.” It’s not, really, but he’d rather have this conversation in the safe familiarity of the Wushanju than anywhere else, so it’s now or never.

Pangzi doesn’t look happy about it, but he must trust Liu Sang, because he goes to the door. “I’ll go tell Xiao Bai to start trying to access the release codes,” he mutters. “Shout if he tries anything.”

Liu Sang nods, trying to look reassuring. He must do a passable job of it, because Pangzi leaves, and then it’s just Liu Sang and Sanshu, separated by a desk and fifteen years.

“I’m glad you survived,” Wu Sanxing says. “How did you, by the way?”

“Same as you,” Liu Sang says shortly, “I forgot everything.”

He might be imagining it, but it looks like there’s something close to sympathy that crosses Wu Sanxing’s face. “That’s why you didn’t come find me?” It’s not really a question, so Wu Sanxing continues. “How’d you manage to find Xiao Xie then?”

“Coincidence,” Liu Sang says. “Sort of. Mao Xincheng hunted him down eventually. Wanted to get to your notes.”

“And then Xiao Xie ended up with you,” Wu Sanxing says with a laugh. “Fair trade, probably.” His voice drops. “Do they know?”

“What I can do?” Liu Sang asks. “Yes.”

“Did you Compel any of them?”

Liu Sang feels as though he’s been shot in the throat again. “No.”

Wu Sanxing holds up his hands. “Just wanted to make sure. I needed to know that you haven’t gotten into their heads. That could have been troublesome for me, later.” His face smooths over, impassive, unreadable. “No offense, of course. I didn’t really expect you to do it, but, you know. Fifteen years.”

Liu Sang wants to throw up. Just the thought of Compelling anyone makes his skin crawl, and he forcibly shoves memories out of his head. He can’t afford to lose it right now. “I still can,” he says, hoping his voice doesn’t shake. “I will.”

Wu Sanxing raises an eyebrow at him. “Is that your way of telling me to go back for Xiao Xie, or you’ll make me?” He laughs, breathy and quiet. “Sorry to break it to you, Liu Sang. I’ve been living someone else’s life for more than a decade now, and now that you’ve dragged me away from that, there’s going to be people knocking on my door pretty soon, and I need to get out of here before that happens. Even you can’t override the universe.” He shakes his head. “I will say that for forced amnesia. Makes a good disguise.”

Liu Sang sighs. He’s dealt with mercenaries for enough years to know where this is going. “What do you want?”

“That’s the spirit,” Wu Sanxing says. “I knew that you’d grow into yourself one day. Su Baiyin—”

“Don’t,” Liu Sang says, abrupt, “Whatever you’re going to say, don’t.” He can’t deal with that on top of everything else, not right now.

Wu Sanxing backs off, luckily, so maybe he’s not entirely devoid of compassion. “For now, I want an out. Get me off this planet, and that’s it.”

“We can leave after we get Wu Xie,” Liu Sang says, unrelenting. Pangzi would kill him if he agreed to leave Wu Xie behind. 

“… Ah,” Wu Sanxing says, slightly nervously. “That’s another thing, I suppose. I don’t want to see Xiao Xie.”

Which. Unexpected.

“What?” Liu Sang asks. “He’s your nephew. You barely talked last time.”

“For good reason,” Wu Sanxing mutters. “You try having a good conversation with the person you abandoned for fifteen years.” He looks at Liu Sang sharply. “It’s nothing personal. I just think it might be best if we avoided contact.”

“You’re scared,” Liu Sang says, the speed of Wu Sanxing’s heart and his strange request painting the picture in his mind. “You’re scared he isn’t going to be the same.”

Wu Sanxing gazes at him for a moment, expression unreadable. “Can you read minds, too?”

“No,” Liu Sang says. “I’m just not stupid.”

Wu Sanxing laughs. “Right. Got it.”

Liu Sang isn’t nearly as amused. “We need Wu Xie, and we need to rescue the others, and we need the Wushanju to do it,” he says.

“And I currently have the Wushanju,” Wu Sanxing says, and then shrugs. “We could make a deal, you and me.”

Liu Sang doesn’t exactly like the sound of that. “What kind of deal?” he asks warily.

“Nothing out of your capabilities,” Wu Sanxing says. “You said that you still can—and will—Compel, and, as a matter of fact, that would solve a lot of my problems. So. I let you borrow the ship, take Xiao Xie, and you come with me to sort out my problem.”

Liu Sang does not like this plan. “No.”

“I can even sweeten the deal,” Wu Sanxing offers. “I’ll stay here as a distraction, which, by the way, will be a very big sacrifice for me, and allow you all to escape Jiaren without Erbai getting on your case. At least not immediately.”

“Why would you do that?” Liu Sang says. “Then you’ll be stuck here.”

“I’ll get out eventually,” Wu Sanxing says confidently. He peers at Liu Sang. “I think you underestimate just how valuable you are.”

“I don’t remember you being this much of a bastard when we first met,” Liu Sang says.

“As hard as it may be to believe, I don’t con children,” Wu Sanxing says. “Despite your nickname, you’re far from a child now, Liu Sang.”

He’s right about that, but that also means that Liu Sang is not so easily manipulated. He looks away. “I’m not doing it.”

“Okay,” Wu Sanxing says. “Good luck getting your crew back together.” He stands up from the desk, heading to the door, about to take their best hope with him.

“Wait!” Liu Sang blurts out. His head is racing, and he feels like he’s eleven again. He has no idea what Sanshu really wants, what he’s really up to, if his family is in danger or not. His throat is tight, and he swallows a couple of times, trying to loosen it up. “Do you… we have to rescue Li Cu and Ouxiang first.”

Wu Sanxing looks at him levelly, as though he’s appraising the situation. “I can give you a week, at most. My issue is… not exactly time friendly.”

“Did you kill someone?” Liu Sang asks bluntly.

Wu Sanxing, surprisingly, seems almost amused by this. “No, and if you help me, I won’t have to.”

Liu Sang winces, because whether Sanshu knows it or not, that’s one of the better ways to get him to use his skills. “Fine. A week.” We’ll rescue them within a week, he thinks, We have to.

Wu Sanxing looks pleased, and Liu Sang wants to hide from him. He regrets this already.

“Perfect,” Wu Sanxing says. “I look forward to working with you again, Haizi.”

Liu Sang is so miserable that the nickname doesn’t even phase him.

“I’ll get Xiao Xie back to you within half an hour,” Wu Sanxing informs him. “You’d better have your cards in a row by then, because I won’t be able to guarantee you any more time than that. Your hacker should be able to get past our security, because I doubt Er-ge has updated it in decades. If you do run into problems, though, the password is most likely Xiao Xie’s birthday.” He shakes his head. “That’s going to get them into trouble one day.”

“Do we… meet you somewhere, afterwards?” Liu Sang asks.

Wu Sanxing shakes his head. “I’ll track you down. Just be ready for me, alright?”

Liu Sang is already thinking about ways to avoid that, which makes him feel scummy, but he knows that Wu Sanxing would have no hesitation about doing the same thing to him. “Fine.” He flattens his lips together, trying to communicate without words that he’s done negotiating.

Wu Sanxing stares at him unreadably, and Liu Sang feels like squirming underneath his gaze. “Fine,” he says, and goes to the library door with a wave. “I’ll see you soon.”

And then he’s gone, out of sight, and Liu Sang feels every part of him turn to jelly, even as Pangzi appears in the doorway, staring after Wu Sanxing, confused.

“Where’s he going?” he asks.

“To get Wu Xie,” Liu Sang answers, gripping the edge of Wu Xie’s desk for some sort of purchase, allowing himself exactly six seconds to get his bearings before he pushes away from it, going past Pangzi and heading down the hall, ears already picking out Bai Haotian among the rest of the sounds of the ship. “We’ve got to be ready to leave.”

“I thought we couldn’t,” Pangzi calls after him. “Hey! Jinx!”

Liu Sang doesn’t stop walking, not until Pangzi’s footsteps run to catch him, and there’s a hand on his shoulder, turning him around. His head stays in the same position. He doesn’t look at Pangzi.

“What did you say to him?” Pangzi asks slowly, sounding as though he’s trying to puzzle something out. “He left Wu Xie before. Why’s he going back for him now?”

Liu Sang swallows. “Yeah, well, he feels bad about that, I think. He said he could give us a week.”

“A week?” Pangzi frowns. “If he means he’ll keep Wu Erbai from following us for a week, who cares? We’ve outrun him before. I’m sure Xiao Bai has already upped our anti-tracking devices so even the D.O.G.S. won’t be able to find us.”

“I don’t know, Pangzi!” Liu Sang snaps, because he really doesn’t, and he doesn’t want to attempt to figure it out right now. Wu Sanxing is up to something, he knows that already, but being paranoid about it will not help them. As far as Liu Sang’s list of enemies goes, Wu Sanxing is probably at the bottom. “We just need to go.”

Pangzi lets go of his shoulder, which give Liu Sang a brief, embarrassing moment of wanting to shove himself back into Pangzi’s grip, to have someone on his side, but he shakes that off, tearing away down the hallway to find Bai Haotian.

She’s in the engine room, a massive tangle of wires around her feet, sweat beading on the ends of her hair as she types commands into a keyboard, too fast for Liu Sang to follow. Kan Jian is there as well, looking apprehensive, and holding a wrench in one hand, which he occasionally bangs against the power core if it stutters.

“Can you get the release codes?” Liu Sang asks without further preamble.

“I’m nearly there,” Bai Haotian says. If she’s annoyed by Liu Sang’s demand, she doesn’t show it, which means that she also knows the gravity of their situation, and Liu Sang is grateful for that. “I’ve already given Kan Jian the blueprint layout of the Wu estate, and he’s pinpointed where Wu Xie’s most likely being held. Once I get these, we’ll go get him and then get out of here.”

Liu Sang shakes his head. “He’ll be here by the time we’re ready. If we can be ready in half an hour.”

Bai Haotian’s fingers stop moving. Kan Jian’s wrench hangs heavy in the air.

“What do you mean?” Kan Jian asks.

“Wu Sanxing’s getting him out,” Liu Sang answers, coming around to peer over Bai Haotian’s shoulder, as if any of the code will make sense to him.

“What?” Bai Haotian asks. “He’s… doing that? Voluntarily?”

“Wu Xie’s his nephew,” Liu Sang says. “Why wouldn’t he go back for him?”

Bai Haotian and Kan Jian exchange a glance.

“I… didn’t think that’s how they worked,” Kan Jian says. “After all, he just left him for Yincangui—”

“Different circumstances,” Liu Sang snaps. He really does not want to relive that story right now. “Sanshu’s gone back for Wu Xie, and he’ll be here.”

“Sanshu?” Bai Haotian asks timidly, and Liu Sang thinks, fuck.

“Get the codes,” he says, and then leaves the engine room.

He goes to stand by the doorway, pacing back and forth in the tiny space, waiting for the door to open and Wu Xie to be there. He’s been counting down the minutes. He’ll give Sanshu half an hour to have the benefit of his doubt, and if he fails to come through, then Liu Sang is not going to be happy.

Well. He’s already unhappy. He’s not very good at negotiating, and even worse at intimidating people into giving him what he wants. It hasn’t really been a problem in the past, because all he used to do to get what he wanted was tell people to give it to him, but that’s…

Here’s the thing.

He said he can, and would, use Compulsion again, but it’s a bluff. Liu Sang is good at bluffing, and Wu Sanxing is already somewhat afraid of him, even if he won’t show it, so Liu Sang has to keep that fear prominent, just in case Wu Sanxing tries anything. But ever since he brought Sanshu’s memories back, he hasn’t Compelled anyone. And yes, it’s because he doesn’t want to, partially, but also because he can’t.

Maybe it’s all in his head. He doesn’t know, but it feels the way that talking about his abilities did, back when Su Baiyin had Compelled him to keep them a secret. It feels like he’s going to choke on his tongue, like his breath is going to seize up and turn to marble in his lungs. It makes him nauseous and lightheaded and makes him want to lie on the ground, to dig his fingers into the dirt so he’s not spun off and flung into space.

It’s only been some sort of divine providence that he hasn’t had to Compel, except for when they’d been attacked, and he was stunned before he could even get the words out. He hates himself for feeling grateful for that, not when Li Cu and Zhang Qiling are somewhere out in the universe, hurt and lonely and—

The door slides open, and Wu Xie comes in, his head down, and almost runs into Liu Sang, who had been so caught up in not thinking about things that he had forgotten to listen for Wu Xie’s arrival. He’s here now, though, so they can go.

“Oh, good,” he says, then turns to call to the others. “Wu Xie’s—”

Wu Xie catches his arm before he can finish. “What happened?”

Liu Sang tries very hard not to flinch. “What do you mean?”

“Sanshu… did something, I don’t know, but Ershu left, and Sanshu told me to get back to the ship.” Wu Xie looks over his shoulder, as though he’s expecting his uncle to be behind him. “Did you…?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Liu Sang says. “I told him what was happening, and he agreed to help us. Do you want to waste that? We have to leave.” Wu Xie still doesn’t look entirely convinced, but Liu Sang doesn’t have any more time to insist, because if they delay any longer, Sanshu might figure out how to get himself back on the ship, and Liu Sang doesn’t want to deal with that. “Wu Xie, we have to—”

“Did you Compel him?” Wu Xie asks bluntly, and Liu Sang feels the hallway start to shrink.

He manages to steal a glance at Wu Xie’s face, but his shouling isn’t looking at him, instead staring at the metal panel of the wall and pressing his palm flat against it, as though he’s trying to hear the Wushanju’s heartbeat.

“I’m not going to pretend that my uncle is a selfless person,” Wu Xie says quietly. “He doesn’t do things if there’s not something in it for him. It’s how he works. It’s how I work.” Liu Sang wants to tell him that that’s a lie, because Wu Xie is very, very different from Wu Sanxing, but Wu Xie continues speaking before he can. “So there has to be something that he wants, or something he couldn’t resist. Which is it?”

“I didn’t make him do it,” Liu Sang snaps, because as horrifying as the crew finding out that his Compulsions aren’t working is, what’s worse is them thinking that he’s going to use it against them. “I didn’t.”

Wu Xie comes forward then, staring deeply into Liu Sang’s face, and it’s all he can do not to break away, to shout. Wu Xie’s breath is warm and smells like spice. His heartbeat trips over the seconds that pass by.  

“No headaches?” he asks, and Liu Sang is confused by the question until he remembers that that’s the only physical sign that the crew of the Wushanju are able to detect, and he’s even good about hiding those.

“No,” he says firmly. “I didn’t Compel him.”

Wu Xie sighs, stepping back and massaging the front of his forehead with the pads of his fingers. “If we had more time I might press it, but—”

“You think that I’m lying?” Liu Sang doesn’t know whether to be offended or not. Mostly, he feels sad, scared.

“I don’t know!” Wu Xie says. “I don’t know.” His eyes are dark. “I don’t think I know anything anymore.”

Liu Sang’s fingers are clenched tight around his whistle. He’s not sure when they got there. He can’t defend himself, really. He doesn’t want to. Maybe the next moment will be Wu Xie locking him up. Maybe it will be a strike on the face. He’s not sure, and the waiting is the worst part. He braces himself, braces for whatever’s coming next—

It’s Bai Haotian’s voice, in the corridor. “I have the relaunching codes,” she says. “We should go.”

It doesn’t seem like something to celebrate, not when Wu Xie just sighs and jerks his head upward. “Take them to Pangzi. Tell him to get us off-planet as quietly as possible. We need to put distance between ourselves and my family.”

Bai Haotian nods, then scampers up the deck ladder to go find their pilot. Liu Sang follows the trace of her frequency up, across the second floor. She passes by Wang Meng, reaches Pangzi in the next minute. The hollows in the ship’s biometrics are strange. Liu Sang misses their two missing heartbeats.

“Believe me or not,” he says quietly, “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we need to find Li Cu, and Ouxiang.”

“Right,” Wu Xie says. He still hasn’t looked at Liu Sang. “We’ll… I’ll deal with you later.”

Liu Sang feels like he’s been kicked in the chest. He thinks maybe he should sit down, because he’s growing too big for the corridors, and soon he might burst through them. Wu Xie is already pushing past him, disappearing up the ladder, so Liu Sang is free to duck down into one of the shiny white corners next to the door and keep the ceiling in its regular position.

He used to feel this way a lot, when he was younger. He remembers that now, but it had all gone away with Mao Xincheng. A disadvantage to getting his memories back is that they came back with all the shit he had originally been carrying, and now he has to pile that on, too, and that means that all of the things that he hadn’t worked through before are piling up against the dam that he constructs in his chest, to keep things from spilling over.

He puts his whistle between his teeth, and even though he can’t Compel right now, it’s reassuring to know that he won’t accidentally use his power by speaking. If his voice isn’t charged, he can’t do anything. He’s safe, then. He’s safe.

“Are you…?” Kan Jian’s voice makes him whip his head up, and he realizes that he’s been inhaling through the whistle, causing it to give sharp chirps every time he breathes, which must have summoned the first officer from the engine room where he had been helping Bai Haotian. He looks nervous, scared. For Liu Sang? Of him?

Kan Jian stays where he is, his expression fairly unreadable. Liu Sang can’t quite tell what he’s thinking. He can’t quite tell what he wants him to think.

He manages to unglue his lips. “M’fine.” The words are stilted and brittle, clamped in between his teeth, but at least they’re intelligible.

“Okay,” Kan Jian says, “Only, you don’t really look it.”

Liu Sang pushes himself upward, stands away from the wall so that Kan Jian can’t see how much he wants the support. “We’re leaving now, aren’t we?”

“I think so,” Kan Jian says. He takes a small step forward. “Do you—”

“I said I’m fine,” Liu Sang mutters, pushing past Kan Jian before his friend can say anything else and going up the ladder, tiptoeing across the hallway to the second staircase that leads to the crew quarters. Pangzi, Wu Xie, and Bai Haotian are talking in the cockpit as Pangzi gets them ready to fly. For all of the dramatics that the Wu family has performed over the past few hours, it seems as though their departure is going to be a quiet affair.

He avoids Wang Meng’s high-pitched buzz in the kitchen and quickly goes up to the third deck, finding his own tiny room near the end of the corridor, the one Kan Jian had given him when he had first come onboard. It looks about the same as it did then; there are clothes hanging in his closet now, and a few things scattered on the desk, including some of Bai Haotian’s prototype amplifiers, small disks that fit into his ears and connect remotely to a pair of wrist braces that conceal tiny, but powerful, speakers.

There’s also a blanket that is folded up at the end of the bed, one of Li Cu’s, which the Sheiling had given Liu Sang after a particularly difficult trip to an ice planet. It’s patterned in dark blues and greens, and has just enough fuzz to be interesting, and Liu Sang will never admit it, but it’s the best thing he owns.

He avoids looking at the blanket and sits down on the floor in the center of the room, very careful not to touch anything, very careful to keep all of the walls and the ceiling in his line of vision so they won’t start creeping in on him again. A prison of his choosing is better than someone else’s, so he’ll just stay here until they need him again.

It won’t be very long, his mind supplies. Apparently, you’re very useful. The voice in his head sounds an awful lot like Wu Sanxing’s.

He crosses his legs underneath him, folds his hands so that they’re placed in between his knees, like a spoon in a cracked and leaking bowl.

He’s good at waiting. Liu Sang is patient, and calm, the pin-bright star of a match, waiting to be lit. He’ll wait until he knows what he’s waiting for, because somewhere, Li Cu and Ouxiang are waiting for them, too.  

Chapter Text

Li Cu wakes up alone and pissed.

He comes to swinging, which is a strange transition, because he had just been in the kitchen with Meng-ge and Liu Sang, and now he’s… not. He’s somehow in a gray, windowless room, and when he struggles against the captors he had been sure of just a moment ago, his body ends up spasming and flopping him around on the floor like a dying fish. This feels stupid, so he goes still again as his brain tries to catch up with the fact that he’s apparently no longer on the Wushanju, having been transported to fuck knows where.

He catches his breath, stares up at the ceiling, and tries to figure out where he is and what’s going on, but he has no idea where he is anymore, or even how long he’s apparently been out of it. He doesn’t feel any residual effects from whatever they’d done to knock him out, which is something, at least.

He sits up carefully, making sure that his head isn’t going to start fucking him over, because that would be just his fucking luck. Nothing seems amiss, so Li Cu gets to his feet and begins pacing around the room. It’s not very big; he can only take about ten steps in either direction before he’s forced to turn back and begin again. There’s nothing else in there with him, not even a bed, which just serves to confuse him more. His kidnappers obviously want him alive, so why have they trapped him inside this tiny box of a cell?

Oh. Right. He’s fucking trapped, and that’s a shit thing. Li Cu hates that. He hadn’t quite realized how small the room was until right this second, and he hates that he’s noticed it. He decides to sit back down and close his eyes, because maybe if he can’t see anything he’ll be able to pretend that he’s back home, but all that does it make it dark, which freaks him out more, so he opens his eyes again and then lies face down on the floor so that all he can see is gray, breathing long, exaggerated inhales that he has to count out in his head so he doesn’t start hyperventilating. That would not be helpful at all, actually.

He bangs his forehead against the floor, gently, just enough to give him something else to focus on, and that feels surprisingly nice, so he does it again. It’s not hard enough to hurt, but it makes a little clanging sound that tries to fill up the space but can’t quite do it. Then he wonders if people are watching him, and sits up again.

Li Cu takes his time, peering at all the edges and corners of the room until he finds a small, black circle embedded in one of the walls, blinking innocently back at him. It’s probably a camera, and he hisses at it to make himself feel better, then attempts to jump up and smack his hand against it, but the ceilings are too high and it’s too far up the wall for him to reach, so he settles for sitting down directly underneath the camera, which means that hopefully he’s mostly in its blind spot.

Wu Xie had taught him about cameras and blind spots and things like that. Pangzi had also given him a lesson, but Pangzi’s lesson was just “smash the camera and then run,” neither of which are possible now, so he follows Wu Xie’s advice.

He wonders if Wu Xie knows where he is. Meng-ge and Liu Sang would have told him that he was taken by now, probably, if he didn’t already know, which means that there has to be a rescue operation on the way. That should probably be reassuring, but mostly it just pisses Li Cu off even more, because he doesn’t want to need to be rescued. He’s had enough of that for one lifetime.

Maybe he’ll be able to get out of here by himself. Maybe he can be very smart and figure it out, and then meet Wu Xie halfway after blowing up the whatever-this-place-is and saving all the other people trapped in here and making a daring getaway.

That’s another thing. He doesn’t even know if there are any other people here. He could be the only one, though that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense. Why would someone kidnap—and actually he hates the word kidnap. It makes him sound useless. He should come up with a better term, like steal—him just to shove him into a room by himself and leave him there?

He groans, wrenching his hands into his hair, and then stops when something beeps at him, close to his ear. He puts his arms down, trying to find what just made noise at him, and his eye catches on something dark on his left wrist.

He raises his forearm, palm up, and sees what looks like a thin screen embedded in his wrist. It’s small, about the size of a barcode, and there are numbers crawling across it like a news ticker, lit up in green. 1-2-6-7-8-9-2-2-5-5-2-1.

And. Oh. That’s the shittiest thing, actually, because he recognizes that number. That number was his name for the vast majority of his life. He has that number memorized more thoroughly than even his instincts are ingrained into him. It’s one of the only things that he can read. 1-2-6-7-8-9-2-2-5-5-2-1. 1-2-6-7-8-9-2-2-5-5-2-1. 1-2-6-7-8-9-2-2-5-5-2-1. Fuck. Fuck.

Oh, yep, now he’s panicking. Fan-fucking-tastic. God. He wants Meng-ge. He wants Wu Xie. He wants literally anyone, and then, vaguely, he recognizes that he’s throwing himself against one of the walls, maybe the one that looks most like a door, he doesn’t know anymore. His throat hurts, which is because he’s screaming, he thinks, shouting at the top of his lungs because there’s that number scrawling across his wrist, and fuck, he’s trapped and there’s the number and shit. Shit. He thinks he might be dying. Is this what dying feels like?

He doesn’t get a chance to find out, because he passes out again, darkness swallowing him whole.

The second time he wakes, it’s a lot slower. He becomes aware of something cool against his cheek first, then the scratchiness of his throat, and then finally that his fingers hurt, a cross between numbness and sharp, stinging pain.

He looks down at them, blearily, and realizes that the nails on his hands are blunt and broken, some of them speckling his clothes with blood. He’s in a gray jumpsuit, the style a lot like the ones from the Wushanju that they use to go on-planet, but now there are little flecks of red soaking into the fabric. He must have been clawing at the walls. He sticks the worst of them in his mouth, letting his saliva numb the pain somewhat.

He’s calmer now, not because he isn’t still freaking out a little bit, but mostly because he’s tired. The residual blanket of unconsciousness is fogging up his brain; unlike the first time he woke up, he wasn’t just paused, but forcibly shut down.

That’s not helpful, though, and Li Cu needs to be helpful if he’s going to get out of here, if he’s going to escape again. He doesn’t know exactly where in the universe his is—the scientists moved around so much when they had him before, so he’s fairly certain they wouldn’t have taken him to the place he had escaped from last time, and if they had, they certain won’t give him the same opportunity again.

His first escape was luck, mainly. Li Cu had been hurt, then, bad enough that they had put him in a recovery cell rather than the normal sort of prison, the cramped rooms he’d spent most of his life in. Recovery cells weren’t locked, as the prisoners in there were often physically incapable of escaping, and in case the doctors needed to come in quickly to prevent any test subjects from copping it too early. There was only one guard at the door, as they couldn’t spare the manpower. So Li Cu had gathered up the sensors attached to him so they wouldn’t go off, and gone to the door and opened it, quietly, quietly, and he’d bitten the guard with enough venom to kill him almost instantaneously, while Li Cu watched.

Then he’d torn himself free of the alarms stuck into his skin and ran as they’d gone off, summoning the scientists to his cell, but he was already gone by the time they arrived, huddled into the heating system, in the vents. He’d stayed there for three days, listening to running footsteps and arguments and plans on how to capture him again. He was scared then too, too scared to panic, scared that if he did they would find him and take him back.

After a while, the voices diminished somewhat, and he’d taken another day to crawl, painful, slowly, through the vents, slithering forward on his stomach while his back, torn and bleeding, had protested violently. He’d made it out, eventually, twisted up in a back alley, and prepared to die. He didn’t want to—he had so much life he wanted to live—but he had no one and no where and weeping, wounded shoulders.

But then Meng-ge had come, and then Wu Xie, and things, for the first time in Li Cu’s life, were bright and warm.

Meng-ge’s not here now. Wu Xie is probably furious, probably shooting through the galaxies like a laser blast. And he’s got Pangzi, and Xiao-ge, and the rest of them are brilliant too. They’ll find him. Li Cu just has to be patient and helpful. He has people, this time.

He wants to know where he is, though, who exactly has him. They’re clearly watching him, given the camera on the wall, so he stands up slowly, leveraging himself against the wall, and goes to the middle of the room, glares into the tiny circle.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey!” He crosses his arms, both as a gesture of defiance and a shield. “The fuck do you want?”

There’s no answer, not that Li Cu expected one right away. He stares at the wall a little longer, then very purposefully opens his mouth, lets his fangs show. He raises his arm up, not breaking eye contact with the camera, letting the venom drip from his lips so that they know he’s not bluffing. He places his wrist in between his jaws, slowly sets the tips of his fangs at the juncture of vein and bone. His own venom won’t kill him, but it will poison him if enough gets into his bloodstream; he’s venomous, but not immune to the reciprocal, and they know this. They’re the ones who tested it, after all.

Sure enough, as soon as his fangs puncture his skin, just enough for beads of blood to well up, something crackles on the wall and a voice comes from the same direction as the camera.

“SUBJECT 126789225521,” the voice says. “YOU WILL BE TAKEN FOR TESTING. AWAIT YOUR ESCORT.”

Yeah. Those are familiar words. Li Cu puts his arm down and spits the excess venom that’s seeped into his mouth onto the floor, where it bubbles a little, fizzing into stillness. Gross, but it’s not like he can swallow all of it. Also, he doesn’t feel like being polite to these people.

There’s a whir of gears, and the wall to his left disappears, revealing two guards dressed in black, the lower halves of their faces masked. The people who’d attacked the Wushanju.  

Li Cu considers striking, running; he’s stronger now, better at fighting. He might be able to do it.

The guards seem to catch a glimpse of his intentions, because one of them says, “Don’t even think about it. We’ll knock you out before you even try.” They point to the screen in Li Cu’s wrist. “It’s hooked into your nervous system. We’ll drop you quicker than you can move.”

Li Cu believes them.

They take him down a hallway, turn a corner, and go down another. Unlike before, they don’t cuff him, which makes him both nervous and relieved, because while he doesn’t like being restrained, this means that they’re putting a lot of faith into the screen thing in his wrist, which either means that it works very well, or they just haven’t found anyone who can overcome it yet. Li Cu doesn’t expect himself to be the first.

There are a few more hallways, and then one of the guards is putting a code into a panel on the wall. Li Cu can’t make it out, but then the wall slides open, much like the one in his cell, revealing a room that appears to be empty, save for the large, padded chair in the center of it.

“Oh, fantastic,” Li Cu snarks. “You’ve got the psycho chair again? How evil science can you get?”

The guards ignore him, pushing him into the chair and stepping back. Li Cu tries to adjust—he knows that any attempts to get up with be fruitless—and has to stop himself from shouting when cuffs appear from the chair arms, encircling his wrists. So they don’t trust his wrist device entirely, then. Good.

The guards go and stand to the side of the room. Li Cu passes the time by glaring at them and imagining how ugly their faces are underneath their masks.  

A few minutes go by, and then the door slides open again, revealing three other people, all dressed in lab coats. The one in front is humanoid, has glasses, and is balding slightly. The scientist to his left is long and blue, with a nose more like a trunk than anything else, and the one to his right is also humanoid, with pretty features and a neat haircut. He doesn’t look like an evil scientist, though in Li Cu’s experience, evil scientists typically don’t look the part. That’s why they’re scary.

“Hello, 126789225521.” The man in front rattles off Li Cu’s subject number with the ease of someone who has read it many times. “It’s good to see you again.”

Li Cu squints at him, but he doesn’t recognize the man. He doesn’t know if he’d recognize half the people who had tortured him if he saw them again; they were masked half the time, and he was in too much pain the other half to really form any coherent memories.

“I’m Dr. Xian,” the man says, which still doesn’t ring any bells, so Li Cu just stares at him, unimpressed. Dr. Xian waits for a moment, his lips quirked up slightly, like he’s trying to appear pleasant. When Li Cu doesn’t show any recognition, Dr. Xian says, “Your back has healed nicely.”

Li Cu recoils then, because there are suddenly images flashing through his head, shuttering frames of this man leaning over him, a scalpel raised; of heat cutting through his flesh, wet and clinging; of his scales being raised, lifted, fingers slipping under the folds of skin there; of cold, cold, cold.

He flinches so hard that his knocks his head against the back of the chair, which is probably why it’s padded.

Dr. Xian chuckles. “You do know me, then.” His smile broadens, as though this were a meeting between old friends. “Good. I don’t need to re-explain the rules to you, in that case.”

The rules were simple, and not even really rules when it came down to it. It was more like cause and effect. Do what we tell you and it won’t hurt as bad.

Too bad for them. Li Cu didn’t know back then, but he knows now, that not as bad doesn’t mean not at all. They’re going to hurt him anyway, and probably just the same as if he did cooperate. So fuck that. Li Cu isn’t going to make this easy for them.

“Maybe you should,” he said. “Pretty sure you gave me brain damage once or twice.”

Dr. Xian doesn’t respond to the bait. “This test is simple. We’re going to ask you some questions. You will answer them truthfully. If not, the device that we have attached to your nerves will deliver an electric pulse to your system. This will happen if you lie or refuse to answer a question.” He smiles. “Do you understand?”

Li Cu doesn’t say anything. He just glares at the researchers. There’s a few seconds of silence, and then the thing in his wrist sparks, and a jolt shoots up his arm. He yelps, more in surprise than in pain; he’s been electrocuted before, after all, and with a much higher voltage.

“That question did count,” Dr. Xian says, unconcerned. “We’ll move on for now, but I expect you to answer the next one.”

“Go to hell,” Li Cu says.

Dr. Xian doesn’t respond to that either. He turns around instead, nodding to the pretty researcher, who steps forward, swiping over to new screen, clearing his throat as he does.

“Good afternoon,” he says, which Li Cu thinks is very funny, because that seems like a very polite way to begin the Torture Questions. “I am Researcher Xie. You are Subject 126789225521. Today, we will be conducting a survey regarding your species heritage and abilities. Please answer all questions truthfully and to the best of your abilities.”

Li Cu rolls his eyes, not bothering to hide the contempt on his face. He won’t get shocked for that.

Researcher Xie glances up at him from underneath his eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. “Question one: what planet are you from?”

“I don’t know,” Li Cu says, which happens to be the truth, but the thing in his wrist shocks him anyway. He hisses, his veins feeling as though they’re buzzing. It’s still not enough electricity to hurt, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.

“Question two,” Researcher Xie says. “What species are you?”

“Probably a good one,” Li Cu snarls, and is shocked for his troubles.

They’re apparently not bothering to repeat the questions that he doesn’t answer, probably because they already know what the correct responses are. It’s not a test to find out information; it’s a test to determine his obedience.

“Question three,” says Researcher Xie, “What abilities and traits are specific to your species?”

“Fuck you,” Li Cu says happily, and barely flinches when fuzz races up his limbs.

They take him back to his cell an hour later. They have to drag him, just a little, because by the end the electric shocks had begun to numb his limbs. The arm that the screen is in is just static now, and his legs are clumsy and weak.

The guards toss him through the door, and he goes sprawling onto the floor, barely able to keep from knocking his chin against the cement as he goes down. It’s cold there, and it takes him a few minutes to get himself up, what with his arms refusing to cooperate.

Eventually he does, though, and pulls himself across the floor again to sit underneath the camera, where he was before. He tries to pull his legs up to his chest, but they still don’t really want to do that, so he gives up, letting his legs splay straight out and flopping his arms between them, his head falling back to rest against the wall as he closes his eyes.

Okay. Okay. Today wasn’t so bad. At least they weren’t peeling back his skin and—it was relatively tame today, is the thing. He could bare the shocks. They weren’t doing it to hurt him, really.

It was a warning. He lived in their facilities for years, since he could remember. He knows how they work, and he knows that the next punishments, if he refuses to do what they want, will be worse.

He doesn’t even know what they want. Last time, they wanted to see how he worked, what all he could do, but they figured that out, before. There aren’t many other tests they can run; they already know about his scales and his blood and his venom and his strength and his speed. So what do they want him for?

Li Cu hisses in frustration, pounding a fist against the floor, then letting it fall open. He doesn’t know. He’s not smart enough to figure it out himself.

He does know one thing, though. He knows that Wu Xie is coming for him, and until he does, Li Cu won’t give them the satisfaction, no matter what they do to him.

As if to test his resolve, a panel in the wall slides away, revealing a square, dark opening, only about a foot wide, with a thermos-like container in it. Li Cu rolls his eyes over towards it, and when it doesn’t explode, crawls over to take it from the spot in the wall. He twists open the lid, finding a thick, grainy sort of soup inside. It smells familiar, so they probably haven’t changed their recipe in the last few years.

He screws the lid back on and slams the thermos back into the hole in the wall. If they want him to eat, they’d better get used to disappointment.

He moves back, going into one of the corners this time, pressing his back to the space between the two walls, draws his legs up, and wraps his arms around them. They’re still shaking a little, but he can deal with that.

He puts his head into his arms and exhales deeply, trying not to shiver in the coldness of the empty cell.

He’ll get out of here soon.

He will.

Li Cu tries to stay awake all night so that he doesn’t have to deal with nightmares or the dark or getting crept up on, but apparently they’re not going to stand for that. They can’t physically make him eat, but they can put him to sleep, and they do. One moment, Li Cu is pacing his cell to keep himself conscious, and the next he’s waking up on the floor as the automated voice wishes him a good morning.

It’s not a good morning.

Breakfast is the porridge-like substance again, and again, Li Cu does not eat it. He thinks about dumping it onto the floor, just to be a problem, but they probably wouldn’t come and clean it, so he’d be stuck with a pile of mush on the floor, and decides against it.

Half an hour (or as near as he can figure it) later, two masked guards show up and lead him out of his room and down the hall, sticking him in a different room, which is about same size as his cell, but has a shower head on one wall and some sort of toilet thing on the other.

“Get washed up,” one of the guards says gruffly, shoving him inside. “You have fifteen minutes.”

Li Cu sticks his tongue out at them and the door shuts in his face. Seconds later, the showerhead starts spurting water without even waiting for Li Cu to be under it. He contemplates completely soaking himself just to be annoying, but decides against it, because they probably won’t care and then he’ll be wet and cold later.

He relieves himself, then goes and cups his hands underneath the water, sniffing it before he sticks his tongue in the palmful, and when that doesn’t immediately kill him, he takes another handful and drinks it, then a third. He knows that the porridge is supposed to act as food and water in one, which is why it’s so soupy, but he doesn’t want to eat it, so he’ll have to drink now.

He splashes some water on his face, scrubs at his face, and drags the moisture through his hair. There’s still dried blood around his nails, so he takes some time to clean his hands, and then drinks a little more water.

At that point, it appears as though his fifteen minutes are up, because the shower shuts off and the door opens again, revealing the same two guards.

“That’s kind of a waste of water, you know,” he says as they motion for him to walk out of the bathroom. “Leaving it on for the entire time.”

“It’s recycled,” one of the guards says, and Li Cu feels his mouth sour.

They walk down the hallways again, but instead of going to the room from the day before, they go to an elevator, standing in it silently as it brings them down to a different level. Li Cu tries to count the floors, but there’s no real way to determine when they pass a floor or not. It makes him anxious, though, because that means wherever they are is big, big enough to have multiple floors. It adds a point to his idea that they’re on a planet, because it would be hard to maintain an entire space station dedicated to doing illegal experiments.

The elevator opens up into a white corridor, and the guards nudge him out, pushing him down the hall to yet another door, which slides open to reveal a large, gray room. There’s a variety of what appears to be exercise equipment scattered around the space, and a familiar white-coated figure standing near an in-ground treadmill, scrolling through his datapad.

Researcher Xie looks up when they enter. “Subject 126789225521. Good morning.”

“Is it morning?” Li Cu asks. “I wouldn’t know.”

Researcher Xie ignores him, and gestures to the rubber conveyor belt. “Step on, please.”

Li Cu hesitates, and one of the guards shoves him, hard enough that he stumbles onto the treadmill. Researcher Xie jerks his head at the guards and one of them loops something around Li Cu’s neck from behind, and even though he jerks his head away and tries to get away from them, it doesn’t work. The leather collar is padded, but it’s not loose, and he starts to reach up to take it off when his wrist shocks him, and he drops his hands.

The guard attaches a cord to the collar, and then connects that to a metal ring on the wall. Li Cu feels his stomach twist. He doesn’t want to be leashed, and he says as much out loud.

“You’re not being leashed,” Researcher Xie says calmly. “It’s… incentive.”

“What kind of fucking incentive involves me being tied to a wall?” Li Cu demands, but then the floor starts moving underneath his feet, and he figures it out pretty quickly.

They want him to run on the treadmill, and if he doesn’t, the collar tightens. If he wants to keep breathing, he has to move, despite his desire not to.

He glares at Researcher Xie, at the guards. “I’ll choke myself out. You can’t make me do this.”

“You won’t,” Researcher Xie says, tapping a command into his tablet. “This is a test of both your endurance and speed. The track will speed up in increments. Your task is to keep up with it.”

“You already tested how fast I was,” Li Cu spits at him. “Why are you doing it again?”

“We tested the speed of a juvenile Sheiling,” Researcher Xie tells him. His eyes are dark and piercing. “You’ve matured now, as near as we can calculate it. Your abilities will be different, and there are some tests we will need to run again.”

“I don’t want to,” Li Cu says, but Researcher Xie doesn’t seem to care what he wants, because the track speeds up, and Li Cu is forced to begin jogging so that his air supply won’t get cut off. He’s not above refusing to answer questions in exchange for fuzzy limbs, but purposefully strangling himself on a treadmill is a little bit too much. He needs to be able to help Wu Xie when he gets here, and while he can do that a little battered up and underfed, he can’t do it if he’s dead.

It’s not a hard task, at first. He’s able to keep up with the treadmill pretty well, running in the middle of the track while Researcher Xie makes notes about fuck knows what. Li Cu doesn’t think that there’s that much to take account of, but then again, he doesn’t experiment on people for a living, so what does he know?

After a while, though, he can feel his lungs start to burn and his muscles ache as the speed continues to increase. Sheiling are not built for endurance. They fight; they don’t run away. Li Cu has been forced to adapt in different ways, living with Wu Xie, but that doesn’t mean he can run for ages like Xiao-ge, and he can’t cover great distances in a single step like Pangzi. He has to work harder to keep up with the moving floor, and every so often, he stumbles a little, and the collar around his throat tightens, so he sucks it up and keeps moving.

Eventually, though, it’s too much. He can’t breathe anymore, because his lungs are pumping too fast, and his heart is beating so hard it feels like it’s going to explode out of his chest. There are black spots flickering in his vision, and his feet are screaming.

“Hey,” he pants. “I… I can’t—”

Li Cu trips, his knees turning into jelly as he is unable to take the speed, and he goes down, scraping the skin off of his legs as conveyor belt continues to run, the friction burning the upper layers away, and the thing around his neck tightens, holding him upright by his throat, cutting off what little air he was getting. He chokes, fingers scrambling at the restraints, wanting to scream—

The conveyor belt stops suddenly, and he falls forward off of it, the rope getting enough slack that he’s able to breathe again, and does, coughing raggedly as he tries to catch his breath, struggling not to throw up.

Researcher Xie does not seem concerned about him at all, just continues making notes on his datapad. He glances at Li Cu, as if to check and make sure he isn’t dead, but that’s as far as his concern goes. Li Cu wants to flip him off, but his hands are currently occupied with keeping him from collapsing onto his stomach and strangling himself again.

“Okay,” Researcher Xie says. “We’ll move onto the balance and coordination tests next.” His eyes flit over to Li Cu, who is still panting heavily, and then he turns to the guards. “Can you bring the lines over from the second site? I forgot it.”

The guards glance at each other.

“We can’t leave you alone with a subject,” one says.

Researcher Xie rolls his eyes. “What’s he going to do?” he asks, gesturing at Li Cu, who tries to glare fiercely at him, but mostly fails.

“Poison you,” Li Cu says, but they all ignore him. Again.

The guards don’t seem to be taking his threat seriously, because they nod and leave the room. As soon as the door shuts behind them, Researcher Xie goes to the other side of the room and opens a cupboard. He takes out a bottle and brings it back to Li Cu.

“Here,” he says, “Drink. I’m not supposed to give you water between tests.”

“Why should I trust you?” Li Cu says, as angrily as he can manage.

“Then don’t,” Researcher Xie says, thrusting the bottle at him insistently. “But you only have until they get back to drink, or not. Your choice.”

Li Cu glares at him, but takes the bottle, twisting the lid and sniffing the contents. It doesn’t smell like anything, so he takes a tentative sip. It is just water, as far as he can tell, so he quickly drinks, stopping himself in between gulps so that he doesn’t overdo it and make himself sick.

Researcher Xie stands over him, watching him closely, and then suddenly snatches the bottle back, tucking it into the pocket of his lab coat as the door opens and the guards reenter, each of them holding a bundle of wide bands, which they begin setting up on the other side of the room, stringing them in between two square metal poles so that there’s a tightrope-sort of thing stretched above the ground.

Researcher Xie, for his part, undoes the clasp on the collar and Li Cu exhales in relief as it comes free. He rubs at the imprint that the thick band left on his neck, trying to sooth the abrased skin there.

“Follow me,” Research Xie says, directing him over to the line across the floor. “Get on it.”

Li Cu stares at the wide band. It’s basically a thick length of cord, maybe four inches across, stitched on either side with dark thread to layer it on itself and give it enough support to hold someone’s weight. He stares across to the other pole, which is maybe forty feet away.

“Is it like a tightrope?” he asks.

“Like that,” Researcher Xie says mildly. “Get on.”

Li Cu studies the line for a moment longer, then begins to slide one foot out of his shoe, looking at Researcher Xie to see if that’s acceptable. It apparently is, so he takes off his shoes, flexing his toes against the cold floor, and then tentatively climbs onto the line, holding onto the pole for support.

The line gives a little bit under his weight, more of a bounce than anything else, which would be kind of fun under any other circumstances.

“Okay,” he says, looking back at Researcher Xie. “Now what?”

Researcher Xie steps away, taps something onto his datapad, and Li Cu grips the pole tighter as the floor suddenly disappears underneath him. He yelps, staring down into a black pit, at least two stories deep.

He tries to get off the line, but the floor on either side of him as also disappeared. The only way he can get back on solid ground is to cross the line to the other side.

“I’m not doing it,” he says, feet planted sideways to keep himself from losing his balance as the line sways underneath him.

Researcher Xie sighs, and keys in another code. There’s a clunk above him, and Li Cu looks up to see a ring of spikes at the top of the pole, which then disappear and poke out a few inches lower.

“If you don’t,” Researcher Xie says, “Those will eventually pierce your hand. I suggest you get moving.”

Li Cu wants to scream at him. It’s either getting his hand skewered, or falling to his death? Neither of those are very good options.

“Or you can cross,” Researcher Xie says, as if reading his dilemma.

Li Cu stares across to the other pole, to where the guards are waiting. The ring of spikes clanks downward again.

“Fine,” he mutters. He aligns his feet, one in front of the other, the line in the middle of them, toes pointing forward. He waits until he has some semblance of balance, and then he carefully lets go of the pole, sticking his arms out to the sides to keep his balance, thighs stiffening as the thing sways underneath him.

Li Cu isn’t afraid of heights, but he doesn’t exactly want to look down as he crosses. He doesn’t get a choice, though, because in order to cross he has to look down, to make sure he doesn’t miss a step and go tumbling off of the line. He tries to ignore the black pit beneath him, tries to imagine that he’s back on the Wushanju, back with his family, that Meng-ge is waiting on the other side with his hand outstretched, that Kan Jian is behind him, encouraging him forward—

His ankle shakes, bends.

He falls with the image of his crew in his mind, and all he has time to think is, fuck, even as he’s tipping, plummeting, falling, and at least they won’t be able to get anything from him anymore—

And then he’s landing on something solid, the air being knocked from his lungs. He blinks, and there’s still a gaping cavern below him, but he’s not dropping to his death. Instead, he appears to be lying on a clear floor, one that was hidden from view until he fell onto it.

He looks up. Researcher Xie is standing over him, a small ledge rising above the pit, the line stretched besides it. Researcher Xie types notes into his pad, nods at Li Cu.

“Good,” he says, “You lasted longer than we expected.”

Li Cu winces, rubbing his hip as he gets to his feet. “You couldn’t have warned me?”

For some reason, Researcher Xie looks amused by that. “Would you have crossed if I did?”

He makes a fair point, so Li Cu doesn’t say anything else.

“Right,” Researcher Xie says, “Next.”

The next few days pass by in much the same way. Li Cu is dragged from sleep, voluntary or otherwise, and taken to the bathroom, and then given tests, things that range from how quickly he can sort rice into different baskets (he completes that one because it’s fun) to how long he can tread water when they throw him into a pool (it’s twelve minutes, before he becomes too numb from the cold and begins to sink and drown).

He gives up on his hunger strike on day three, sipping the lukewarm sludge from the thermos while glaring at the camera, because he had gotten dizzy doing yet another fitness test and fallen off of the wall he had been climbing (the incentive being that the holds would electrocute him if he didn’t move fast enough, and seriously, what was it with these people and electricity?).

Researcher Xie isn’t there for any of the tests after the first day, but neither is Dr. Xian, which Li Cu is maybe a little too grateful for. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to perform in front of that man; either attack him or shut down, neither of which would end well for him.

They’re reperforming a lot of the tasks that he remembers from his childhood, as well as others that he doesn’t. He doesn’t think that a lot of their data has changed, but then again, he was tiny and scared before, and now he’s much more annoyed and also bigger.

He prides himself on being difficult, which isn’t a terribly hard thing to accomplish, because he is not at all inclined to be helpful, but pain is a valid motivator, so he ends up doing things anyway. Maybe not as well as if he had chosen to do them on his own, but the scientists get their results regardless.

It also means Li Cu gets… not hurt, exactly, not terribly, not like last time, but he’s also not comfortable. If they want to keep him around, they can’t exactly kill him, which is part of the reason Li Cu is so confident about being a bitch. He knows that they can’t get rid of him when he inevitably irritates them to the point of anger, because where are they going to find another Sheiling that’s just ripe for the plucking, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t make his life miserable, and he needs to be able to escape when the opportunity arises. His goal is mostly to drag the physical testing out, because once they’re done figuring out his skill sets, then they’ll probably move on to the more… invasive ones, and Li Cu really wants to be out of here before they get to that.

It’s day four, and he’s exhausted. Today’s test was a sort of obstacle course, but done in the dark, which Li Cu really hadn’t been a fan of. At one point, he was squeezed in between two walls, inching through to get to the warmth he could see radiating from the other side, and he had twisted wrong and gotten stuck. He would have given up then and there, but they wouldn’t turn the lights back on until he had made it through.

So he’s anxious and tired and can’t really be blamed for what happens when they’re walking back to his cell.

He hasn’t seen many other test subjects, which he didn’t find particularly unusual. When he was younger, they had kept him fairly isolated from the others, only putting him together with other subjects and species when they wanted them to fight (which was an entirely different torture). He’s seen a few in passing this time, all with guards surrounding them, and though he tries to make eye contact, to see if there’s any sort of friendly face in this place, but no one ever looks back at him.

So they’re walking back, and he feels sort of twitchy and jumpy, in between his two guards. They round the corner, coming face-to-face with another group. Li Cu looks up, and it takes him a moment, because the other subject is wearing the same gray jumpsuit that he is, and looking rather the worse for wear. There’s blood all over his clothing, his hair has been shaved on the sides, and there are cuts and bruises on the parts of his skin that Li Cu can see.

His eyes, however, are unmistakably familiar.

Xiao-ge looks back at him, and Li Cu gasps. He wants to shout, but he doesn’t know if this is part of Wu Xie’s escape attempt, if Xiao-ge is in here as a distraction. But if he is, then why would he be completely beaten up, cuffed, and surrounded by four guards?

“Li Cu?” Xiao-ge says, looking just as surprised to see him, and that can’t be an act. Xiao-ge isn’t good at acting.

“Xiao-ge,” Li Cu says, voice disbelievingly. “Xiao-ge!” Before his guards can stop him, he throws himself forward, wrapping his fingers into the lapels of Xiao-ge’s jumpsuit, holding on as tightly as he can. “Oh my god. You’re here.”

“Are you okay?” Xiao-ge says. His eyes flicker to the side, and he suddenly drops to his knees, taking Li Cu down with them, so that they duck under the arms of the guards who are reaching out to tear them apart.

“Xiao-ge,” Li Cu says, and he doesn’t want to start crying, but he thinks that he’s going to, given the way his eyes burn and his voice gets muddled by the lisp that he hates, the one that gets thicker every time he’s startled or upset. “What are you—”

“We have to—” Xiao-ge says at the same time, but whatever he’s going to say is lost as he’s grabbed by the back of the shirt and yanked away from Li Cu, who tries to hold on, but his guards are taking his arms and prying him away, dragging him backwards as he struggles.

“No!” he shouts, kicking at the floor as though he can get a better sort of purchase, or strike someone. “Let go!”

Xiao-ge is fighting as well, and he’s much better at it than Li Cu is, slamming one of the guards in the face with his elbow, and rolling out of the way of the other one.

Li Cu feels his skin ripple, his scales trying to come out, and he sinks his teeth into the arm of one of his captors, who screams and drops him. He scrambles forward, on all fours, latching onto Xiao-ge again, encircling his arms around Xiao-ge’s chest and linking his hands together, as tightly as he can. He’s not letting go. He’s not letting go.

Xiao-ge wraps one arm around him, sweeps his other leg out to trip one of the guards, and then uses his free limbs to shove them back towards the wall, as their other captors recover, bearing down on them. There’s nowhere for them to go, they’re surrounded, and they both know it. Li Cu isn’t stupid. He’s desperate, but not stupid.

He pulls himself close to Xiao-ge’s ear and hisses, “Don’t let them know that you can’t die.” Xiao-ge stiffens, and Li Cu says, “They’ll try and figure out how much it takes to kill you. Don’t let them.”

He feels Xiao-ge nod, and then feels hands on his shoulders, his arms, wrenching him away. He tries to cling to the Kylin, but then the stupid fucking thing in his wrist pulses, and all of his nerves cramp up, and his fingers stop working.

He cries out and lets go, and Xiao-ge’s eyes immediately narrow. He tries to throw himself forward, to get to Li Cu, but one of the masked figures behind him wraps a thick length of cord around his neck and tightens it. Xiao-ge chokes, thrashes, but he can’t move without destroying his windpipe, and they’re squeezing hard enough that his face is turning red.

“I won’t,” he gasps, “Leave without you.”

Li Cu sobs, reaching towards Xiao-ge, towards the one familiar thing in this place, besides pain, but he’s being dragged away. Even though he’s fighting as hard as he can, it’s not enough. He’s pulled away, back around the corner, and Xiao-ge disappears from his sight.

Li Cu struggles, screams. He’s half-blind, and all he wants is to be with Xiao-ge, because Xiao-ge will protect him. He knows that with every fiber of his body. As long as he’s with Xiao-ge, things will be okay.

He flips into his heat vision, trying to catch a glimpse of Xiao-ge’s deep purple warmth, but there’s too much metal between them, and Xiao-ge is gone.

Li Cu goes limp, letting the three guards on him—when did they get a third?—curse as they struggle to keep his dead weight moving. He hears people shouting from around the corridor, hears Xiao-ge’s snarl as he tries to fight back, as a voice says, “Sedate him!”

They shouldn’t do that to Xiao-ge. They shouldn’t do that to him, and Li Cu shouts at them, as loudly as he can. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, really, just knows that the noise that he’s making is all he can do.

They get him back to his room—no, it’s not his room, it’s smaller, more cramped, and they went in the other direction. They toss him in and he hits the floor hard, attempts to scramble up again, to charge at the guards, but they shut the door on him before he can, and all he’s left with is pounding on the metal, screaming, hissing. His vision is blending together, heat and sight tripling the darkness that he’s left in. There’s only one light bulb in here, in the ceiling, and it’s not nearly enough warmth or brightness to satisfy him.

He throws his body against the door, even though part of him knows that it’s futile, but he wants out. They can’t keep him in here, they can’t. They can’t.

They can, though.

He doesn’t know how long he fights against his prison for, but it’s long enough that his voice goes hoarse and his knuckles hurt from beating them relentlessly against hard metal. He folds against the wall, breath catching in tears, and slides down to the floor, giving the door a few extra slaps, weak as they are.

He presses the side of his head to the cold surface, feels tears drip down his face. He doesn’t want to cry. He wishes he wasn’t, but… god. The hope that he had had, for just a split second, at seeing Xiao-ge. It felt so good, and now it’s gone, leaving an empty, shallow pit in his lungs.

His arms fall limp onto his knees, wrist turning upward to display the stupid fucking number, and he snarls at it, hooks his fingers into claws, scratches at the skin. He tries to get a fingernail underneath the screen, tries to pry it up, but it’s too embedded into his flesh, a smooth seam between the two. He doesn’t know where one ends and the other begins, but he still scratches at the display, attempting to peel it out of his veins. The skin turns red and raw and bloody underneath his blunted fingernails, but the screen doesn’t budge, and 1-2-6-7-8-9-2-2-5-5-2-1 continues to tattoo itself onto his arm.

Eventually, he wears himself out, and, dried and crackling, crumbles into darkness.

He wakes to something falling on his head, like bugs in his hair.

He blinks, his eyes feeling raw and swollen. He’s still in the same room he had been in when he passed out, but there’s more light now, shining into his eyes from the bulb in the ceiling. There’s something dumping onto the floor behind him, and he feels grit slipping underneath his legs, bunching around his ass and thighs. He squirms, still half-asleep, and puts his hand down to try and figure out what’s happening. He can make out some type of particle, gathers a fistful, and lets it run through his fingers.

He sits up straight, then, turning to look at the wall behind him. Part of it has slid away to reveal a series of slits, from which sand is pouring, a small but significant mound already building to one side of the room, nearly halfway up the wall, and he realizes then why this room is smaller than his regular one. It’s not just a punishment, it’s a test.

Li Cu scrambles backwards until his back hits the opposite wall, staring in horror at the quickly growing collection of sand in front of him. He looks up at the slits in the wall, which show no sign of slowing down. He has no idea how long they’ve been going, but at the rate the stuff is dumping out, he’s going to be buried within the hour.

He stares up at the ceiling, trying to locate the camera or the intercom or whatever there is to connect him to the outside, because they have to be watching him somehow, and sure enough, there’s a tiny red light blinking at him from the ceiling.

“What is this?” he shouts at it. “What am I supposed to do?” All of the other tests have had very clear directions to go along with them, but this is just a room, and sand. There’s nothing intuitive about this, except for get out, and he’s already tried that.

The sand is creeping over to his feet now, having spread far enough to reach him, and he stands up, going over to the pile that’s already there and trying to climb it, but the grains of sand are too fine to support his weight, so he just ends up sinking through, up to his calves, which means the test is not to see if he can stay on top of the silt. Is it to burrow? Are they trying to see if he can tunnel through sand like some types of snakes? He’s not even fully a snake; how can they expect him to burrow into fucking sand?

“I can’t breathe sand,” he says incredulously. “And I can’t stand on top of it.” As if to prove his point, the sand begins bunching around his ankles, covering his feet entirely and getting into the cuffs of his pant legs. “What do you want?”

There’s no answer. Li Cu isn’t even sure if they can hear him, much less care. He’s sick of this. He’s sick of obeying and jumping through hoops to appease people who don’t consider him a living being, just something that serves to further their own goals, their own agenda. They wouldn’t even let him have a minute with Xiao-ge. Not even that.

Well. He won’t let them have this.

He gives the camera his best stink eye, flips them off, and sits down in the center of the room, the sand displacing to make room for his weight. He crosses his legs, wraps his hands around his ankles, trying to ignore how the tiny bits of rock sting the open wounds on his wrist, and closes his eyes. Waits.

They can’t kill him. They won’t kill him. They need him alive to be of any use, and he knows that.

“I want to see Xiao-ge,” he says out loud, not bothering to open his eyes, because there’s nothing to see.

No one answers. The only sound is the sifting of sand through the slits in the walls.

Sitting, the sand rises much faster, and it seems like only a few minutes later before it’s up to his shoulders. His chest is a little tight, being packed in on all sides, but it’s a comforting pressure, one that doesn’t scare him as much as enclosed walls and darkness. There’s still light in this room, a bright beam that warms his face as he tips it upwards, baring his throat to the sand as it crawls over his shoulders and up to his face, threading through his hair.

He breathes through his nose as the grains rise above his chin. They can’t kill him. They won’t kill him. They have more tests—

His eyes fly open.

What if there are no more tests?

What if this is the last one?

He looks desperately at the camera, but the little red light just blinks cheerily at him, and then the sand tips up into his eyes and nose and throat.

Li Cu goes blind, shutting his eyes against the grit that wants to get into them, to glue up his sense with silt. It’s getting into his nose, down his throat, and he’s holding his breath but Sheiling aren’t a species that’s particularly good at that, so it’s only a matter of time before he—

He inhales, choking on the sludge that’s created by his spit mixing in with the dirt, coagulating in his lungs. If his eyes weren’t already closed, he thinks there would be black spots dancing in front of them, but right now it’s just bright specks of light, pricking against his pupils—

And then the universe spins and takes him with it, tumbling him down a slope and out of the room—he’s not sure how he senses that but he does, maybe there’s something to do with the air—and then Li Cu is sprawling onto his stomach, the rest of the sand rushing past him and distributing somewhere else as he gags and spits, throwing up sludge onto the floor, his abused lungs shuddering as they take in fresh air. There’s sand under his collar, all inside his jumpsuit, and he heaves again as he feels mud clinging to the walls of his throat.

There’s arms turning him over, and he blinks fuzzily past the sand in his eyes to see the blurry form of Researcher Xie crouching over him.

“What were you thinking?” he says. “Do you want to die? Is that what you want?”

Li Cu is coughing too hard to answer him, but he manages to frown, at least with his eyes. Why does Researcher Xie care? Li Cu’s a subject, to him.

Researcher Xie sits him up, pounds him on the back to dislodge a dark clump of something wet and gross from his esophagus. He runs a hand through Li Cu’s hair, shaking grains of sand free, raining dirt onto the ground. Li Cu hangs onto his arm, leaning against him as he gets his breath back.

“Why’d… you try to… kill me then?”

“That wasn’t the test,” Researcher Xie hisses at him. “You were supposed to find your way out. The door could be opened from the inside.”

“I didn’t want to get out,” Li Cu whispers back. “Fuck you.”

Researcher Xie huffs, as though he’s going to say something else, but before he can, footsteps appear from down the hall.

“Quite the spectacle, 126789225521,” Dr. Xian says. His smile is mild and unconcerned, but his tone is icy. “Tell me, what exactly were you expecting to happen?”

“What exactly were you?” Li Cu rasps.

Dr. Xian’s face stiffens. “I thought I taught you better than this.”

Li Cu grins at him, though it’s more like he’s baring his teeth, mud running in between them. “Didn’t stick.”

Dr. Xian’s smile fades away. “Well, it’s never too late to start,” he says. “Perhaps you would learn better from someone like yourself.” He turns to Researcher Xie, who has since let Li Cu go and is standing, hands clasped in front of him and head bowed. “Who has been in our facility the longest?”

Researcher Xie looks up, slightly startled. His eyes dart towards Li Cu, then away again. “044.”

“The Darkness,” Dr. Xian says thoughtfully, and Li Cu feels a shiver go through him. “I believe you’re right.” He bobs his head in Li Cu’s direction. “Take him there. Maybe then he’ll learn how to behave.”

They know Li Cu doesn’t like the dark. They have to know that.

“No,” Li Cu says. “No, I just want to see Xiao-ge. Let me see Xiao-ge!” The guards grab his arms, drag him to his feet, and begin pulling him down the hall. “Let me see him!”

“Troublemakers don’t get rewarded,” Dr. Xian says. “If you do well on the other tests today, maybe you’ll get the chance.”

Li Cu yells at him, wordlessly, but Dr. Xian doesn’t appear to care. He simply smiles, and when Li Cu looks over to Researcher Xie, standing behind him, the scientist doesn’t meet his eyes.

He puts up a fight, through all of the corridors that they take him through, but he’s weak from the sand and from fighting for so long, and even though he kicks and flails and snaps at them, they just send electricity shooting through his nerves, and he’s stunned enough that they kick his legs out and drag him the rest of the way.

The guards take him to the very bottom of the facility, down at least ten floors, further than Li Cu has ever been before. It’s colder down here, darker, and Li Cu can feel panic growing inside him. His back aches. His fangs are trying to poke out, to defend him from whatever his mind has deemed frightening enough to warrant this much fear.

He’s taken in front of a large, steel door; unlike the other cells, this door is clearly visible, a huge, steel crank on the front. Two of the guards hold Li Cu, and the other steps forward and turns the circular wheel, mechanisms grinding beneath it. He pulls the door open, revealing a sliding door with a keypad, into which the guard types some sort of passcode, and the door slides open.

Li Cu braces himself as he’s shoved through the door, but instead of the all-encompassing void that he’s expecting, he falls into a room so bright that he actually has to shut his eyes, and even then, he can feel the light beating a brilliant white against his eyelids. He shields his face with his arms, trying to keep it from blinding him, but suddenly, the light disappears, so quickly that Li Cu is afraid for a moment that he actually has gone blind.

He takes his arm away from his eyes, opens them, and blinks. The room that he’s in now is circular, and much larger than his cell had been. It’s lit up, though much dimmer than before, and Li Cu doesn’t know what they meant by the Darkness until he catches sight of the writhing, twisting mass of black smoke across from him.

He gasps, scrambling backwards until his back hits the wall, eyes widening at the thing that’s screeching, a terrible, grating noise that rips across the room, tendrils of black pulsing and writhing like snakes made out of… he has no idea what it is, exactly. It’s too solid to be smoke, but it’s in midair, so it can’t be a liquid. Some different sort of gas? What is it?

As quickly as Li Cu can blink, the thing condenses, collapsing in on itself. There’s pop, and then the back stuff has disappeared, and in its place is a person, staggering as they find their feet underneath them.

“Fuck,” the person says, rolling his neck from side to side so that it cracks, and shaking out the rest of his body. “Hate it when they do that.” His eyes land on Li Cu. “Cellmate? That’s a new one. They’ve never thrown something in here they didn’t want me to eat.” He points a finger in Li Cu’s general direction, though it’s not exactly at him. “That’s a joke, by the way. I’m not going to eat you.”

“Who are you?” Li Cu asks. The man in front of him looks humanoid now, clad in the same gray jumpsuit as the rest of the test subjects here, but he had been darkness just a moment before, and there’s… something about his eyes. They’re gray, frosted over like panes of glass, and they don’t quite focus on Li Cu, even though the man is turned to the sound of his voice.

“Subject 044,” the man says. “But you can call me Hei-ye.”

“Hei-ye,” Li Cu says tentatively, because he has no idea who this person is, but so far he hasn’t attacked him, which is more than can be said for most of the people in this place. “They… they said they were going to put me in the darkness.”

“Or did they say, ‘with the Darkness?’” Hei-ye asks. “Because that would be me.” He gives Li Cu a nod that’s somehow simultaneously smug and sympathetic. “Hello.”

“Hello,” Li Cu says slowly.

“You’re in here too, huh?” Hei-ye says. He’s not coming any closer, which Li Cu appreciates. “What are you?” The way he asks isn’t harsh or insulting, like he knows Li Cu is different and wants to know exactly what he’ll need to do in order to kill him first. It’s just curious, like he wants to learn how to relate to him. “Test subject, right?”

“Yeah,” Li Cu says. “126789225521. I’m a Sheiling.”

“Sheiling?” Hei-ye asks, and then snaps his fingers. “You’re the one who broke out!”

“What?” Li Cu blinks at him, startled.

“Like four years ago,” Hei-ye says. “You got out, escaped. Sent the whole facility into a frenzy. They had to move us like, immediately. Oh man, Xian was pissed.” He looks impressed. “Good for you, kid.”

“Thanks?” Li Cu thinks it’s a compliment, but he’s honestly not sure.

“Why’re you back in here?” Hei-ye asks.

Li Cu frowns, drawing his knees closer to his body, tracing a pattern on the wall. “They attacked our ship,” he says. “Took me back. Took Xiao-ge, too.”

“Xiao-ge?”

“My… friend,” Li Cu says. “He’s… special.”

Hei-ye nods. “Makes sense. They like that sort of thing.”

“What about you?” Li Cu asks. “You were all…” He mimes a wavy motion with his hands, makes something like an explosion with his mouth.

“Oh, that,” Hei-ye says. He sits down with his back against the other wall, still facing Li Cu. “That’s what I should look like. Well, not really. Normally, you shouldn’t even see me, but whenever they have to come in here, they get out those floodlights, and then I have to look like that. Keeps me from getting out and eating them.”

“So this isn’t your real form?” Li Cu asks, because he’s never met someone like this.

“The human suit?” Hei-ye says. “Nah. Just a party trick I cooked up with a friend. Keeps me from getting burned out by all the light in here.” He pulls a face. “These bastards like making us uncomfortable, don’t they?”

Li Cu nods slowly.

“Ah,” Hei-ye says, sounding slightly uncomfortable. “If you’re nodding, I can’t see it. Of course, if you’re treating it as a rhetorical question, you’re probably right about that. I already know the answer.”

“I was nodding,” Li Cu says. “You can’t see?”

“Not like this,” Hei-ye says cheerfully. “My eyes aren’t real. Nothing about me is real in this form, really. It’s just a layer.”

“Can you touch shit?” Li Cu asks, his curiosity getting the better of him for a moment.

“Wanna see?” Hei-ye offers, holding out his hand.

Li Cu contemplates the offer, probably for longer than he should, but Hei-ye doesn’t seem impatient or perturbed by his delayed response, and finally, Li Cu creeps over, tentatively reaching out and placing his hand on top of Hei-ye’s firm one, half-expecting to go right through his palm, and letting out a little gasp when he doesn’t.

“See?” Hei-ye says. “Solid as a rock.”

Li Cu nods, lifting his hand away.

“My turn for a question,” Hei-ye says. “Why’d they shove you in here with me? Not that I’m complaining, I love the company, but normally they only put us together in testing.”

“I’m supposed to get beaten up by you, I think,” Li Cu says. “You’re supposed to teach me a lesson.”

Hei-ye snorts. “Well, that’s not going to happen. They should know that by now, given the amount of time I’ve been in here.”

“How long have you been in here?” Li Cu asks before he can think better of it.

Hei-ye smiles, somewhat ruefully. “Dunno,” he says softly. “It’s been a long time.”

“You never escaped?” Li Cu asks, his heart sinking a little. If someone who has been here as long as Hei-ye apparently has hasn’t ever managed to get out, the chances of Li Cu being able to do it twice are very slim.

“I could have, a long time ago,” Hei-ye says, “But I chose not to.”

Li Cu thinks that’s insane; who wouldn’t want to get out of the facility?

Hei-ye seems to sense this, and says, “I’m waiting for someone else. Can’t just go by myself, you know?”

Li Cu nods, thinking about Xiao-ge, who is in a cell somewhere above him, probably stressed and tired and worried about Li Cu. Xiao-ge said he wouldn’t leave without Li Cu; well, Li Cu won’t leave without him either. Wu Xie would be upset if he did. Li Cu would be upset if he did.

“I want to leave,” Li Cu whispers quietly, mostly to himself, but apparently not being able to see makes Hei-ye’s other senses stronger, because he nods.

“Then you will,” he says. “Don’t worry, kid. You did it once, you can do it again.”

“It was luck,” Li Cu says miserably. “How am I supposed to go it again when it was all luck the last time?”

Hei-ye thinks for a moment, then says, “If there’s anything I know about luck, it’s that you can do just as much without it as with it.” He reaches out and pats Li Cu’s arm, which he doesn’t flinch at. “Look at it this way; if you escaped with luck last time, it means that’s what they’ll be looking for this time, and they won’t be paying attention to what you can do. So kick their asses.”

This is surprisingly helpful advice. “Okay,” Li Cu says. “Will you come with me?”

Hei-ye looks at him in surprise. “Maybe,” he says, a little vaguely. “I have to finish things here, first.”

Li Cu knows something about unfinished business, so he just nods. “Okay.”

Hei-ye watches him through his sightless eyes, then suddenly shakes himself and stands. “They’re coming back,” he tells Li Cu. “Be prepared for the lights again. You should go wait by the door; they don’t appreciate it when they have to come all the way in here.”

Li Cu nods and obeys. Hei-ye goes and stands in the corner again, where he had been when Li Cu first saw him.

He grins, gives Li Cu a two-fingered salute. “See you around, kid.”

Li Cu doesn’t know if that’s true, but there’s a grinding noise from behind the wall then, and the floodlights click on with a thunk, and Hei-ye’s form bursts into twisting, screaming darkness.

Li Cu has to squint against the lights, so he doesn’t see when the guards come to grab him again, and it startles him badly enough that he opens his eyes, and is temporarily blinded, which distracts him for the entire trek through the hallways.

When he finally blinks his vision back into focus, he’s being shoved into a wide, circular room, with a dirt-packed floor and a door directly opposite him. There’s a large rectangular window about twenty feet above the ground, and he can see figures in white moving around inside. Dr. Xian and his researchers. This is a test.

Li Cu turns, but the door he came through is shut, so he plants his feet in the dirt, takes up a fighting stance. If he does well in this test, he gets to see Xiao-ge, and that motivator is enough for him to do anything.

He’s never called Xiao-ge by his real name. Zhang Qiling. It doesn’t fit him. Zhang Qiling is someone to be respected and feared, but Xiao-ge is Wu Xie’s, and that’s what Wu Xie calls him. So Li Cu does the same. Xiao-ge.

He stares up at the viewing box, tries to make eye contact with Dr. Xian, but they’re too high up for him to make him out specifically amongst all of the other people there. So far, he’s only had one or two scientists with him in testing. He doesn’t know why there’s suddenly a whole roomful of them.

“Subject 126789225521,” Dr. Xian’s voice says, coming from a speaker on the wall. “Are you ready?”

Li Cu just glares at them, curls his lip into a snarl.

“Very well,” Dr. Xian says, apparently not needing an answer. “Send the other one in.”  

Li Cu straightens. Xiao-ge? He hasn’t even passed the test yet.

The door opposite him slides open, and another person wearing a gray jumpsuit is pushed through, dropping into a crouch as soon as they’re through the door. It’s very clearly not Xiao-ge; the other alien has antennae, for one thing, and is a rippling sort of green color. They hiss, and their jaw dislocates, opening twice the size that it should. Li Cu’s own mouth falls open in horror.

“Whoever is incapacitated first fails,” Dr. Xian says. “Begin.”

“Nothing personal,” the other subject says, though it’s hard to understand them through their shivering teeth, “But I need to pass too.”

Li Cu barely has time to think before he’s being rushed at by the other prisoner, who is on all fours, their mouth gaping and all of the teeth rattling inside. They’re fast, but Li Cu is faster, and dodges to the side. He skids in the dirt, sweeping a track onto the ground with the sole of his foot as he spins himself around, facing his opponent again.

The alien isn’t quite as nimble, and nearly runs into the opposite wall, their jaw blocking the majority of their vision, and Li Cu considers. Their attack is wide and strong enough that not many other creatures could dodge it, but if he can, then the other subject will never see his counter coming.

The alien screeches at him, turns, and charges again. Li Cu is not surprised this time, and he runs at the other just as quickly. They don’t see him approaching, which means that their strike is delayed, and Li Cu coils his strength, uses his momentum to spring upwards, leaping over the open mouth of the other subject and lands his heel against the back of their skull, twisting his body to avoid theirs, and tumbling to the ground in a roll, coming up into a low stance, on guard, though he doesn’t need to be. His strike was aimed well, and the other prisoner goes crashing into the dirt, unconscious.

Li Cu waits a moment to make sure they aren’t faking it, then stands up slowly, glaring at the scientists.

“There,” he says, “I passed.”

There’s only silence from the intercom, a long, drawn-out space, and Li Cu wants to repeat himself, but he knows they heard him the first time, so he just waits.

“Send in another,” Dr. Xian finally says, stiffly, and Li Cu runs at the wall.

“I passed!” he said. “You told me—”

The door opens, there’s a rush of wind, and then Li Cu is being knocked to the side, sent flying. He hits the ground hard, rolling into the dirt, over and over, until he crashes into the wall and finally stops, settling in the dirt with a groan. He’s bitten through his lip, spits a mouthful of blood onto the packed floor, and looks up.

All he can see is… nothing. The body of the first alien he fought is still lying there where they landed. There’s no one else in the arena, but something hit Li Cu.

He struggles to his feet, trying to get his bearings, but something hits him again, from the back this time, and he sprawls forward, skidding on his chin across the dirt. He yells, abrasions opening up on his cheeks from the friction, but flips himself over and up, desperately looking around to try and see what it is that keeps hitting him.

Again, there’s nothing. Just empty space, and Li Cu’s skin ripples as his scales flip out, giving his skin some extra protection, against the ground at the very least. He likes his scales; they’re hard and a deep, dark gray, though they refract color quite well, which gives his skin a rainbow shimmer. The scales go up his arms and neck, encasing him like a suit of armor. His torn skin stings as it changes, but he feels safer already. He goes still and quiet, almost as though he’s preparing to strike, but really he’s listening.

Something pounds against the ground at his four, and he dives out of the way, just in time to feel a whoosh of air gust over his head as the whatever-it-is sweeps at him again. He somersaults, comes up running, skids with his back to the wall so at least he can’t be crept up on from behind. There’s still no other opponent in front of him, no one to fight.

No one visible, anyway.

Li Cu gasps, and switches his vision over, just in time to see a blur of heat bearing down on him.

He ducks, and the imprint of a fist crashes into the wall above him. He slips out from under their arm and dashes around the circumference of the arena, hearing footsteps pounding behind him. It’s strange to run with his heat vision on, because everything’s a blur of the same color, but when he looks behind him, there’s a mass of green and red barreling at his heels.

This alien is much bigger than Li Cu is, plus it’s invisible. Li Cu spares a second to glance up at the scientists and curse at them, because why did they decided that this was the best opponent for him? It’s as though the test is designed for him to fail, which honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised about.

His lungs heave, and he’s getting tired of running, the abuse his body has already taken today making itself know. He needs to figure this out. What would Xiao-ge do? What would Wu Xie do?

Unbidden, Pangzi’s voice enters his head, something he said during a sparring lesson. If your opponent is bigger than you, you just gotta be faster than them.

Xiao-ge and Wu Xie would listen to Pangzi.

Li Cu abruptly changes direction, stumbling slightly as he veers away from the path he was taking. There’s a roar from behind him; apparently the other alien can make noise. That’s helpful, because now Li Cu doesn’t have to look behind him to know approximately where his opponent is.

He switches his vision, and barely keeps himself from running into a wall, which he couldn’t even see with the barely-distinct temperature differences between it and the floor. He yelps, tripping to the side, and wasting a few precious seconds of speed getting back on his feet.

He wonders how the creature is tracking him, if it’s by smell, hearing, or—

He stops suddenly, freezes, and flicks his eyes in order to see the alien. The thing is still going in the direction that Li Cu had been in a moment before, but now he’s out of its line of sight, apparently, and it stops too, confused. It twists, and what Li Cu thinks is its face is pointed directly at him, but it’s not registering where he is.

Motion sensing, Li Cu thinks. It detects motion.

The creature roars angrily, turns around as though Li Cu will suddenly appear behind it, and Li Cu runs, dashing as far away as he can until his back is once again against the wall, and he begins waving his arms, jumping as high as he can, trying to get the alien to notice him again.

It does, though it’s on the opposite side of the arena, and begins to pick up speed, charging towards him. Li Cu continues waving his arms, but bends at the knees, his thighs tensing as he prepares to make his move.

The alien is gaining more and more momentum, its distance from Li Cu allowing it to charge at him at an unbeatable pace, and Li Cu knows that if he gets hit, it’s going to hurt.

Luckily, he doesn’t plan on it.

When the thing is just a few feet away, he dives, throwing himself down and under its legs, wincing as his already-scraped face makes contact with the dirt again. He scrambles away on his stomach as soon as he hits the dirt, looking over his shoulder to see the giant aliens heat signature crash into the wall with enough force to send it staggering, wheeling, before it loses its balance and crashes into the dirt, unmoving.

Li Cu doesn’t wait for so long this time. He gets back to his feet, wincing as his body aches, and turns to the observation deck.

“I passed,” he says again, coldly. “Give me my reward. Let me see him.”

There is only silence from the intercom, for so long that Li Cu thinks they’re going to put yet another opponent in front of him, and is about to do something stupid, like knock himself out on the wall, but then the other doors slide open, and a familiar figure stumbles through.

“Xiao-ge!” Li Cu exclaims, an overwhelming happiness overriding the way his legs ache, and he runs forward, trying to get to Xiao-ge as quickly as possible, but there’s a pinch in his wrist, and his legs suddenly give out, sending him onto the ground with a squawk.

“Li Cu!” Xiao-ge exclaims, and he’s suddenly right in front of Li Cu, pulling him up to a sitting position. His forehead furrows, nearly imperceptibly, and he turns to look at the window. “What are you—”

“Subjects 126789225521 and 259900452587,” Dr. Xian’s voice says, crackling through the intercom, “Whoever is incapacitated first fails. Begin.”

“What?” Xiao-ge says.

“No!” Li Cu exclaims. “We’re—I’m not fighting him!”

“They want us to fight?” Xiao-ge asks softly, abruptly letting go of Li Cu as though his touch will burn him.

“I’m not!” Li Cu shouts. “I’d rather—” His words are cut off in a scream, and he curls into the dirt, fire racing up and down all of his limbs, tickling spikes penetrating his brain.

“Li Cu!” Xiao-ge tries to touch him, but that feels as though he’s being branded, like the places where Xiao-ge is placing his fingertips are molten hot, melting through his flesh, and he sobs.

“Stop!” he begs, “Stop, please. Please.”

The hands move away, and the pain disappears, leaving Li Cu gasping for breath, his face pressed into the dirt.

“We’ve already seen your skills, 126789225521,” the intercom says. “259900452587, it’s your turn.”

“I’m not attacking him,” Xiao-ge says firmly. Through his haze of tears, Li Cu can see him standing, slowly, his shoulders tense and his neck forward, like he’ll attack the glass before he fights Li Cu.”

“Alright,” Dr. Xian says, and then the pain is back. Li Cu arches, all of his muscles spasming. His throat burns, a miniscule ache among the sheer onslaught of pain that’s sweeping through him.

“Stop!” Xiao-ge shouts, and, miraculously, the burning does. Li Cu heaves, all of the air having been stolen from his lungs by the way his body twisted, trying to escape.

“It’s your choice,” Dr. Xian says impassively. “Either you hurt him, or we do.”

Xiao-ge turns over his shoulder, looking down at Li Cu lying in the dirt.

“Xiao-ge,” Li Cu says, “It’s—” His nerves alight again, worse than before. He’s being strangled, slaughtered. His skin is peeling off, sluicing away over rough, rough… his eyes feel as though they’re being torn from his skull. His toenails are breaking. His scales are falling off, raining in shiny piles onto the floor of the arena.

Xiao-ge’s form is barely visible, a smeared blur against everything else, but Li Cu latches onto the sight, begs.

“Xiao-ge,” he says. It comes out as a whimper. “Please. Make it stop.”

His vision returns, just for a second, just long enough to see Xiao-ge’s lips move, more anguish on his face than Li Cu thinks he has ever seen before. Even when he was dying, Xiao-ge hadn’t been upset.

“Please,” Li Cu whispers. “Xiao-ge. Please.”

“I’m sorry,” Xiao-ge’s lips say, and then he raises his hand. Li Cu’s lips part, a scream tearing itself out from between them.

The dark, when it comes, is bliss.

Chapter Text

Tianzhen knows Pangzi would die for him. Pangzi tells him all the time.

Tianzhen, I would die for you; Tianzhen, pass me that, and I would literally give my life for you; Tianzhen, I love you, but if you keep doing stupid shit, I will probably have a heart attack and die.

Pangzi isn’t sure if Tianzhen knows, though. Pangzi thinks it’s obvious by how he loves him, but the thing about Tianzhen is that he never believes that people love him as much as he loves them. He always thinks they’re lying, or exaggerating, or whatever nonsense goes on in his head. So Pangzi isn’t sure if Tianzhen knows.

After this, though, he will.

“Pangzi,” Jinx begs on a gasp. “Pangzi, stay awake.”

Pangzi wants to tell Jinx to stop giving him orders, because Pangzi outranks him by a lot, but he can’t get out the words. That’s not his fault, though. There are a lot of adverse circumstances right now.

“Please,” Jinx says, sounding as heavy as Pangzi’s head feels. He needs a nap. They both do. “Please don’t make me tell him I lost you, too.”

Pangzi wants to tell him that he’s not going anywhere, don’t worry, but Jinx’s voice is fading and falling away, so he thinks he might be leaving after all.

Three days earlier

Pangzi’s never been the biggest fan of the Wu family.

He doesn’t hate them, mainly because he doesn’t have enough to hate them for, but they’re stuffy and annoying and they upset his best friend more often than not. Pangzi has a vested interest in Tianzhen’s happiness, which means that he also has a vested DISinterest in whatever the Wu family wants, because it mostly serves to make Tianzhen fall into crisis and disappear on them for months at a time.

He had been willing to give Wu Sanxing a little bit of leniency, considering that he had had his memories forcibly removed, but then he had apparently been willing to leave Wu Xie—again—and fuck off across the galaxy. Plus, whatever he had said to Liu Sang in the library had left the Yincanguian so shaken that he had disappeared somewhere on the ship, and Pangzi hadn’t seen him since. Never mind the fact that he wanted to take their ship from them, and Pangzi’s crew are the ones who have kept it up and running for the past fifteen years. The Wushanju is only Wu Sanxing’s in name at this point; definitely not in spirit.

Pangzi may be half-human, but that doesn’t mean he likes the species; Tianzhen, of course, being the exception. All the human part of him served to do was keep him too small to fit in with Titans, but not small enough to go unnoticed amongst humans. He doesn’t particularly mind this either; he likes where he’s ended up in the universe, likes who he’s with. A family that’s only based in name and blood isn’t much of one, in Pangzi’s opinion, but it didn’t do human beings any favors with him.

They’re safely back in space now—which is ironic, because Pangzi would never usually describe space as safe—and Pangzi’s just waiting for Tianzhen to come back out of the library and tell him where to go, but Tianzhen hasn’t done that yet. Pangzi’s torn between going and pulling him out of whatever mental quagmire he’s soaking himself in, or letting him boil for a while, until he’s in enough of a rage to get up and crash himself through the universe until he meets his goals. Tianzhen’s productive like that.

He’s been angry for hours, though, and nothing has come of it so far. And if Pangzi knows Tianzhen—which he does—that means that he’s gone past boiling and is now stewing, flagellating himself for everything that’s gone wrong in the past twelve hours.

It’s hard to believe it’s only been twelve hours. Only twelve hours, but Pangzi already misses Xiao-ge so much it’s like a splinter, nibbling away at his heart. He feels somewhat sick with worry; he trusts Xiao-ge, but they don’t know what they’re up against, and he doesn’t know what these people will do to him before they can get there, especially since they also have Li Cu.

God. Li Cu. Pangzi’s crew is hard-cased in trauma, but their youngest member has more of it than he has any right to, and it looks as though the fuckers are going to double back down on all of it. Li Cu doesn’t deserve that. Pangzi knows that Xiao-ge will protect Li Cu with his life, though, and that’s what scares him the most: the thought that Xiao-ge will go through his death process again, this time without any Liu Sang to hold him down.

Speaking of which, where is the Jinx? Pangzi hasn’t seen him since he came out of his Wu Sanxing meeting and Tianzhen came back from his impromptu Ershu imprisonment. It makes him nervous. Pangzi would prefer to have all of his crewmembers in his sight from now on, just to make sure nothing happens to them too.

Well. Priorities. He at least knows where Tianzhen is, so he’ll start with him first. If he begins with Liu Sang, the Jinx might hear him coming and hide even better, and Pangzi’s too big to examine most of the good hiding spots on the ship.

He goes to the library door, purposefully knocking on it gently so that he doesn’t punch through the wood. Again. “Tianzhen? You in there?” He knows that the answer is yes, but he’d much rather have Wu Xie answer on his own terms so that Pangzi knows that he’s willing to talk, rather than forcing him into a conversation.

“Yes,” Wu Xie says after a moment, which Pangzi takes as permission to enter and pushes his way inside the library.

Tianzhen is sitting in the armchair against one of the walls, slotted between two bookcases, his elbow on the armrest and his fingers to his temple. He looks tired, which Pangzi supposes is to be expected, but he still doesn’t like it.

“Tianzhen,” he says, and then, “Shouling,” as if that will remind Wu Xie who he is, what he’s made of. “Where are we going next?”

“I don’t know, Pangzi,” Tianzhen says, refusing to look at him. Pangzi doesn’t know if that’s because he doesn’t want to or because he can’t. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes, you do,” Pangzi says, because Tianzhen has this in him, he knows he does. He spent years trying to find Xiao-ge’s memories, for fuck’s sake, and that wasn’t even all of Xiao-ge. There’s plenty of motive for Tianzhen to act on, if only he’ll act.

“What do you want me to say?” Wu Xie asks. “We’ve got a ship, but only until my family tracks me down again. We’ve got each other, but only until something else rips us apart.” He does look at Pangzi then. “What am I supposed to do, Pangzi? You tell me, because right now, I’ve got nothing.”

Pangzi supposes that it’s a mark of Tianzhen’s faith in him, that he is letting Pangzi see this. It’s why he’s in his library, after all; he was hoping that no one would come to bear witness to his moment of weakness, but tough tits. Pangzi’s always there.

“We track them down,” he says coldly, coming over to Tianzhen’s chair and bending down, bracing himself on the armrests so that he can look Wu Xie in the eyes. “You’ve got the biggest brain in the universe, Tianzhen, so think. Who would have taken them? Who would want to?”

Tianzhen stares at him, his gaze flat and unyielding, but Pangzi just meets his eyes and stares him right back. He’s a master of staring contests. He knows that he’ll win.

And eventually, he does. Wu Xie’s eyes go a little distant as something clicks into motion in his head.

“I don’t have the biggest brain in the universe,” he mumbles. “Hunrubins do.”

“Second biggest, then,” Pangzi says.

Tianzhen makes a move to stand up, so Pangzi steps back, letting him pace so that his shouling can keep up with his head. “We know they’re an undiscovered organization, because they haven’t been stopped yet. They have to be funded by some sort of major group, or have a working network, because they were well-funded enough to have advanced weaponry that would only stun, not kill, yet powerful enough to take down a Kylin. They had Li Cu before, on Gutongjing—Gutongjing!” He whirls around to Pangzi, his face alight with the discovery. “Pangzi, they were on Gutongjing! Four years ago. We know where they were four years ago.”

There it is. Pangzi grins at him. He loves Wu Xie’s mind, loves the way that it works. “And no one can be completely invisible.”

“No,” Tianzhen agrees. “No one can.” The side of his mouth begins to turn up, just the barest hint of his normal grin, and Pangzi can see his canines. “Which means that we can find them.”

“Gutongjing?” Pangzi asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“Gutongjing,” Tianzhen confirms, and Pangzi whoops, cutting off Wu Xie’s pacing to scoop him up into a hug, lifting him off of the floor just because he can. Even though Wu Xie squirms and tries to get out of it, Pangzi knows he doesn’t mind.

He puts Tianzhen down, finally, and the man staggers, trying his best to look chagrined by Pangzi’s manhandling, but failing to hide his smile for the most part.

“Gutonjing, then,” Pangzi says. “I’ll set a course.”

Tianzhen is already moving to his desk to try and dig out his electronic tablet from underneath the mass of papers. For someone who lives in a supremely technologically advanced universe, Wu Xie certainly loves physical media. “Okay,” he says, a little distracted. “I’ll go talk to Xiao Bai, see what she would need to hack government databases.”

“Probably not much,” Pangzi says, because Xiao Bai is a smart little thing, and honestly scares Pangzi sometimes.

Tianzhen hums in agreement, but he’s already left Pangzi in the library, his brain kicking into high gear.

Pangzi leaves him to it, returning to his cockpit and sinking down into his pilot’s chair, taking a moment to press circles into the front of his eyelids with his fingers, massaging away the stress headache that’s been steadily growing for the past few hours. He’s solved the Tianzhen problem, and at least they have a lead now, which is better than the nothing they had before.

He types in the coordinates for Gutongjing after looking them up on his own tablet, which is basically a brick with a screen. Xiao Bai has repaired it more times than Pangzi can count, and it still doesn’t like to function for him on most days, so it takes a few minutes of swearing at the device and punching the keypad to get it to find anything, but they get there eventually, and Pangzi steers the ship onto their course.

He gazes out the front windscreen for a bit, watching the stars blaze past, the light speed travel smearing them across the black backdrop that the universe paints for them.

Pangzi loves space. Of course he does; it’s where he lives, where he works. Some people, even if they spend a lot of their time in space, hate being off-planet, but Pangzi isn’t one of them. If he never had to set foot on a planet again, he would be happy. Every part of him is so heavy under the weight of gravity, and even thought the Wushanju has artificial gravity sensors, like every other decent ship in the universe, there’s something different about man-forced physics. It’s not nearly as weighty or insistent. Instead of dragging Pangzi down, it just keeps him attached, so that he doesn’t float away. All of him feels so light in space, movement effortless. He steers a ship hundreds of times bigger than he is, dipping in between asteroids and avoiding other crafts, and he’s good at it. Pangzi’s not good at a lot of things—at least, not at things that matter—but he’s good at flying, and he’s good enough at flying that he was able to market that until he got his own ship, his own job, his Tianzhen, and then the rest of them after that.  

Space is lonely, though, and that’s the only thing that Pangzi would go on-planet for. He has his crew up here with him, for now, but none of them like space the way he does. Xiao-ge likes warmth and Wu Xie likes being in a place with roots, with history. Si Mei is from the water, and that’s where she’ll return, one day. Kan Jian came from the sky, but Pangzi knows that he misses fighting against gravity, real gravity, feeling the pull of it against him as he passes between the trees, and being more powerful than the forces of physics. Wang Meng likes community, likes being part of a pack, and those are usually found on the ground. Li Cu needs to be warm, like Xiao-ge, and space is big and black and scary to him. And Liu Sang doesn’t like that frequencies don’t travel in the vacuum; he’s be happier somewhere with an atmosphere, too.

One day, they’ll all settle down; maybe together, hopefully together, but maybe not. One day they’ll land the Wushanju and she won’t ever take off again, and it’s not a sad thing, just an inevitable one. One day, his crew will all leave space, and Pangzi will go with them, because they are the one thing the stars can’t give him.

They’ll let Tianzhen pick the planet. Of course they will.

Pangzi’s interrupted from morose thoughts of retirement by a knock on the wall at the side of the cockpit; there’s a door there, but Pangzi never uses it unless there’s a reason to. He wants people to be able to come and go as they please, even if he fusses and fumes about his crewmates touching his control panels.

He turns his chair around. Kan Jian is standing in the doorway, looking into the cockpit with a slight trepidation, one hand knuckled against the metal frame where he had knocked and left it to rest.

“Kan Jian,” Pangzi greets him. “What is it?”

“Just came to see if we have a destination,” Kan Jian says. “I noticed that we went to light speed.”

Pangzi nods. “Tianzhen proposed Gutongjing as a place to start. Too bad Li Cu and Xiao-ge aren’t here. They love deserts.”

It’s meant to be a joke, a lighthearted thing, but to Pangzi’s horror, Kan Jian begins tearing up when he says that, and while Kan Jian cries easier than anyone else Pangzi’s ever met, it still feels like shit to make him cry.

“Don’t do that,” Pangzi protests weakly. “Kid, come on.”

Kan Jian wipes at his eyes, sniffling. “I’m not crying,” he says, which is a blatant fucking lie, and they both know it.

Pangzi sighs. “Then what are you doing?”

Kan Jian just stares at him blankly for a moment, and then wails, and Pangzi suddenly has an armful of Kan Jian, which is not the first time that has happened. He’s never been one to shy away from hugs, so he simply squeezes Kan Jian back, using his strength to put as much pressure as he can around the Sarupdonin’s body, which will hopefully work to calm him down, as it has  before. Kan Jian crying is not necessarily a sign of distress, considering he cries whenever dinner tastes particularly good, but with the way their lives are currently going, this instance is probably stress-related.

It takes a while, but eventually Kan Jian’s sobs turn into little hiccups, and then taper off entirely. Pangzi releases him a little bit, ready to hug again should it be required, but Kan Jian’s a big boy, and he pushes away, scrubbing at his face with his knuckles, leaving his cheeks red and blotchy.

“What’s up?” Pangzi asks.

Kan Jian doesn’t apologize for his outburst, not that Pangzi would ever ask him to. “I can’t do anything.”

“What?”

“I can’t do anything!” Kan Jian repeats miserably. “You fly the ship, Shouling strategizes, Xiao Bai hacks stuff. Liu Sang knows about mercenaries and can convince people to give him information, and Wang Meng knows about Li Cu. But I can’t do anything to help.”

Pangzi sighs. He knows his crew is full-up with people that enjoy taking the weight of galaxies in their hands, but it gets a little old when they all try to do it at the same time. Pangzi would never begrudge them their ways of dealing with crises, but right now they need to keep their heads up and keep going. They don’t have time for everyone to have a nervous breakdown, so Pangzi has graciously offered to sacrifice his own, once again, in favor of the others. He’ll reschedule when Xiao-ge and Li Cu are back on board.

“Now,” he tells Kan Jian.

Kan Jian frowns. “What?”

“You can’t do anything right now,” Pangzi corrects. “Not that you have to do something to be valuable to us, but you just can’t do anything now. Once we find Xiao-ge and Ya Li, we’ll need you to get them back. So you’ve got to get ready for that, because when it’s time, it’s time. We won’t be able to hesitate.” He pauses. “Think that’s something you can prepare for?”

Kan Jian stares at him for a moment, then nods. If he notices that Pangzi is patronizing him a little bit, distracting him from the real problem with a task, he doesn’t say anything, and Pangzi doesn’t have the time to get into a therapy session right now, so this will have to do.

“I can do that,” Kan Jian says, his voice a little wobbly. He sucks in a breath, stands up straighter. “I’ll do that.”

“Good boy,” Pangzi says softly. He claps Kan Jian’s shoulder, squeezing it firmly. “First, though, could you go find Jinx for me? I haven’t seen him since fucking Sanshu was on board. Want to make sure he hasn’t launched himself out of the airlock or gone insane.”

Kan Jian’s eyes widen at the thought and he nods quickly, giving Pangzi a watery grin before dashing out of the cockpit to begin his hunt for Liu Sang.

Pangzi exhales heavily through his nose and sits down again. At least someone around here is happy. Well. Happier. He doesn’t think that anyone will be truly happy until their missing members are back aboard the Wushanju, where they belong.

They won’t land on Gutongjing until late the next day, so Pangzi gives the controls over to Wang Meng when it hits bedtime. Wang Meng looks a little overly stimulated, and Pangzi wonders what concoction he’s cooked up in the greenhouse this time to keep him awake, because he’s exhausted, actually, and while he would take Wang Meng’s miracle Wake-Up Juice if he needed to stay up, right now he doesn’t. Even though the thought of sleeping peacefully in his own bed sends a wave of guilt through him, he knows that he needs to be at his best for whatever comes at them next, and that means fully rested. Pangzi, contrary to popular belief, is a master of self-care, and will not hesitate to beat his values into all of his self-neglecting crewmates.

This mostly means Tianzhen, who has a hard-on for martyrdom, apparently, and Pangzi knows that Xiao-ge will be upset if Wu Xie is half-dead when they bring him back, so he goes to the library to drag Tianzhen off to bed with that threat in hand, just in case his best friend decides to be difficult.

Surprisingly, however, Tianzhen isn’t in his library. The sighs of him are—papers spread across the desk, tablet lying on top in sleep mode—but the human isn’t anywhere to be found, which Pangzi frowns at. He hadn’t noticed Tianzhen leave, but supposes that he can be sneaky when he wants to be.

He checks the kitchen, but it’s also empty, considering Wang Meng is in the cockpit, singing high-pitched folk songs from his homeworld to pass the time. He goes to check the infirmary, in case Tianzhen went briefly mad and decide to hang out there for whatever reason, but he’s not in the infirmary either, nor in any other rooms on the lower deck.

Pangzi even sticks his head into Xiao Bai’s engine room to check, which he mostly avoids at all costs, considering it’s cramped in there. There are also a lot of very breakable things that would cause some very bad problems if they were to be destroyed by a rather large pilot without much delicacy.

Xiao Bai is huddled in front of her computer rig, which she has somehow hooked up to the engine for maximum power, using a tangle of cables and power cords. She’s wearing a blanket over her shoulders like a cape, the top pulled up over her head, her arms sticking out to tap on the computer keys as she codes.

“You seen your shouling?” he asks, and Xiao Bai looks up.

“No,” she says. “He hasn’t been down here.” She frowns. “Is he missing?”

“Only temporarily,” Pangzi says. “It’s not like he can really go anywhere. We’d know if he stole a ship.”

Xiao Bai nods, then turns her screen towards Pangzi to display what she’s working on. “I’m trying to pick up signals from passing information satellites, to see if there’s been any notices put out about a Sheiling or a Kylin. Maybe it’ll give us a clue as to who has them.”

“Good idea,” Pangzi says.

Xiao Bai sighs, running her hands through her hair so that it sticks up in short, little spikes. “I hate this.”

Pangzi sighs. “Me too.” He leans against the door frame, feeling the weight of the artificial gravity for the first time. “Me too.”

Xiao Bai looks at him, and Pangzi wants to shrink back a little bit, because her eyes are very big and very luminous and very unnerving. “What?”

“Are you okay?” Xiao Bai asks.

“Me?” Pangzi snorts. “Pang-ye’s always okay, Si Mei, don’t worry.”

“He’s your best friend too,” Xiao Bai says softly. “You can be upset.”

Pangzi blinks at her. He has no idea when Xiao Bai got so good at reading him, but he suddenly feels very small and very seen.

“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, well, I’ll be sad once he’s back. Safe.”

Xiao Bai frowns. “You don’t have to pretend to be okay for everyone else,” she says. “Wu Xie doesn’t need you to be—”

“He does, though,” Pangzi says, simultaneously a little sharper and a little rawer than he meant it to be. “He does. If I’m not okay, what’s Tianzhen going to do?” He suddenly remembers that Xiao Bai is decades younger than he is, and doesn’t need to have all his grief dumped on top of her. She must be reeling in her own way. “How are you doing?”

Xiao Bai grimaces. “I’m angry. I’m angry that my shields couldn’t keep them out, and I’m angry that they took them.” She shifts underneath her blanket, hunching her shoulders like she’s going to crunch up between the power cores and disappear. “We’re going to make them pay. We have to.”

“Yeah,” Pangzi says, though he doesn’t really feel angry anymore. He knows it’ll come back, but right now he’s just tired. “Yeah, we will.”

Xiao Bai gives him a half-smile, and then flaps her hands at him. “Go find Shouling. I’ve got moving systems to hack.”

Pangzi leaves her to her work and climbs back up the ladder to the second deck. He double-checks all of the rooms again, but besides Kan Jian splayed out on his beam in the cargo bay, and Wang Meng in the cockpit, the deck is empty.

Pangzi scowls, tugging on the ends of his hair. He might have more patience for Tianzhen normally, but not tonight. If Wu Xie doesn’t want to be found, then he won’t be. Pangzi won’t make him be seen before he’s ready.

Having decided that, he mumbles a good-night to Wang Meng and climbs up the ladder to the third deck, ignoring the empty cabin that Li Cu is supposed to be in.

He wavers over whether or not he should take his Escapee Bunk, the one that he uses whenever Tianzhen and Xiao-ge are doing… recreational activities in their room, but he wants his own fucking bed, with their tapestry and Xiao-ge’s armchair and the room to spread out. Besides, if he’s in there, Wu Xie will be able to find him if he comes looking.

He opens the door to their bunk, the hinges creaking because he keeps forgetting to oil them, or to have Xiao Bai do it, and steps inside. The lights are off, which isn’t unusual; no one has been in there, as far as Pangzi’s knowledge goes. There’s be no reason for them to be on, because there doesn’t appear to be anyone else present, so when Pangzi does turn on the lights, he’s startled by the fact that there’s a person already in the room.

“Jesus Christ, Tianzhen!” Pangzi exclaims, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling as he jumps in fright. “What the fuck are you doing?” He pauses, takes in Tianzhen’s body, the curve of it, how it’s wrapped around itself. “Tianzhen?”

“Pangzi,” Tianzhen says, and that’s all. Pangzi doesn’t know if he can’t say anything more, if he even has anything else to say, but then Wu Xie turns his face into the bedspread, burying his grief as it wells up inside of him, burning and strong. His shoulders shake with it; he tries to turn away from Pangzi, and fuck that. Tianzhen has never had to hide from Pangzi, and he won’t start now.

He climbs onto the bed, all of his bulk surprisingly gentle on the mattress, and, on his knees, presses his hand to Tianzhen’s cheeks, lifts his head upward so that he can cradle his face in his palms. Tianzhen’s eyes are shut, but the tears are still escaping, running tracks lines down to his jaw.

“Tianzhen,” Pangzi whispers, “I’m here. Don’t be scared.” Because that’s what he is, isn’t he? Scared, and angry, and unbearably, unbelievably sad.

“Pangzi,” Wu Xie chokes out again, and sits up, wrapping his arms under Pangzi’s and fisting his hands in the back of his shirt, pressing his forehead into Pangzi’s chest. “I… Xiao-ge.”

“I know,” Pangzi murmurs, falling onto his hip so that he can bring Tianzhen in, hold him closely, remind him that he isn’t alone. They’re still standing on two legs. “I want him back, too.”

“We’d just… I’d just found him again,” Wu Xie whispers. “I can’t let him go yet.”

“You’re not,” Pangzi says. “Hey. Tianzhen, look at me?” Wu Xie doesn’t, but that’s never stopped Pangzi before. “We’re not letting him go. We’re going after him, both of them. We’re going to get them back. We can’t give up on them now.”

“There’s only eight of us,” Tianzhen says, and even now, he’s still counting Li Cu and Xiao-ge among them. “How are we supposed to—”

“I don’t know,” Pangzi says fiercely, “But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re going to do it. We’ve got some of the best people in the universe here, and two of the bravest there. There’s no timeline that you don’t end up together, Tianzhen. You and Xiao-ge.” What he doesn’t say is I’ll make sure of it.

“And you,” Wu Xie says.

“What?” Pangzi asks.

“And you,” he repeats. “You’re there too.” He looks up at Pangzi suddenly, as if reading his mind. “Pangzi, you have to promise me. You’ll be there too.”

Pangzi just stares at him for a moment. His Tianzhen, open and fraying, and still caring the most about the people around him, opening his ribcage to put them inside and keep them safe.

“Yeah,” his voice says. “Yeah, Tianzhen. I’ll be there too.”

This seems to be enough for Wu Xie, even though he’s usually better at telling when Pangzi isn’t being entirely honest. “We should rest,” he mutters, clearly not wanting to.

“Smartest thing you’ve said all day,” Pangzi says, which huffs the start of a laugh out of Wu Xie. “Lie down, huh? We can’t sleep sitting up.”

Tianzhen obeys, not doing anything stupid like asking if Pangzi’s going to stay the night with him, because that’s a given. He just moves over to the side of the bed—his side, the one closest to the wall—and lies down, waiting patiently for Pangzi to get up and change out of his day clothes, coming back and drawing their large quilt over the both of them.

He moves until he’s pressed up against Tianzhen, can slip his arms around him and stick his nose against his neck, wanting to make sure that this isn’t just a dream. He squeezes, just a little bit, enough to be certain that there’s a real, solid Wu Xie there with him, that he’s not dust and puppet smoke.

“He must be scared,” Wu Xie whispers after a minute.

“Xiao-ge?” Pangzi replies. “Nah. He’s probably just waiting for them to let their guard down so that he can kick their fucking asses.”

“Not Xiao-ge,” Wu Xie murmurs. “Li Cu.” He sighs, a little sleepily, in the way that thoughts escape when the barrier between his mind and his mouth is the thinnest. “He’s probably afraid.”

Pangzi blinks, nearly seeing Wu Xie’s outline through the dark. “Yeah,” he says, because there’s no point in lying, no point in trying to be reassuring about this. “He’s probably scared.”

“He’s brave, though,” Wu Xie says, his voice just a breath. “Ya Li.”

“He learned from the bravest,” Pangzi replies, and then his voice catches and chokes itself off, and he hopes that Wu Xie doesn’t hear how it strips away in his throat.

They fall asleep like that, though it takes a while, and they both pretend their eyes are dry when they wake.

Gutongjing is a poor fucking excuse for a planet, and Pangzi can say that because it’s the subject of a lot of nightmares for a good percentage of the Wushanju. Obviously for Li Cu, but Wang Meng and Tianzhen have their share of bad memories with the place, and Pangzi hates it solely for that reason. Plus, it’s a desert all over, and he fucking hates the desert. He’s not a Kylin or a Sheiling; he doesn’t thrive in the heat. It’s the opposite, actually. He sort of feels like he’s dying.

“I hate it here,” he mutters, pushing the tip of his blaster against the sand to lean against it like he normally does, but the dirt shifts under him and he ends up stumbling forward. “Damn fucking desert.”

Surprisingly, Liu Sang, who he’s been partnered with for this particular landing party, agrees with him. “All I can hear is heat,” he complains. “Why is it so loud?”

Pangzi can hear it too, to be honest, and he’s not even a super-hearing alien. It’s a shimmery sort of sound, a buzz in the air, and if he can make it out, then it must be deafening to Liu Sang. “You going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Liu Sang grumbles. “It’s just annoying.” He does just sound irritated, rather than in pain, so Pangzi decides to trust him.

They’re standing outside of this strange real-estate company on Gutongjing, waiting for Wu Xie and Xiao Bai to get done gathering intelligence on where a secret illegal organization could have been hiding four years ago. Pangzi thought that Liu Sang should go in, just in case they needed someone particularly convincing, but Liu Sang had seemed rather hesitant about that idea, and Wu Xie wanted to save him in case they really needed his skills later on.

They left the ship, with Kan Jian and Wang Meng on it, a few miles away. Close enough that should backup be needed, they can get there quickly, but not so close that it will be suspicious.

It’s a little strange between them. Pangzi’s been waiting to talk to Jinx since yesterday, but now that they’re actually doing something, he doesn’t really want to distract from the action by bringing up Sanshu. Not that he ever wants to bring up Sanshu, because he’s not a pleasant topic for anyone, but Pangzi’s still not entirely sure how to deal with Jinx’s whole past-evil-mercenary-forced-employment thing that Wu Sanxing had definitely been somewhat responsible for. If he were Liu Sang, he wouldn’t want to talk about it, but Pangzi’s always been very good about getting people to talk about the things that they don’t want to, and they’re not getting any younger out here.

“So,” he says. “What did you promise Sanshu?”

Liu Sang looks suddenly fearful. “What?”

“He’s a bastard,” Pangzi explains, though he’s sure that Jinx knows that the best out of all of them. “He wouldn’t give us something out of the goodness of his heart, because he doesn’t have one.”

Jinx peeks at him out of the corner of his eye, clearly not comfortable with making eye contact with Pangzi on this topic. “Why don’t you like him?”

“Why would I?” Pangzi asks with a snort. “I respect his complete lack of moral compass, because that would definitely make stealing easier, but he abandoned Tianzhen, and even if he didn’t mean to do it for fifteen years, it was still his choice to leave him in the first place. Family’s not supposed to do that to you.”

Jinx looks as though he doubts that highly. “But he’s Wu Xie’s uncle.”

“So?” Pangzi says. “Does it look like I like anyone that’s related to Tianzhen by blood?” He shakes his head. “I care about what happens to them because Tianzhen does, fuck knows why, but I could care less what happens to their stupid organization and planet. And I’m not going to pretend to like them just for Wu Xie’s sake. That’s way too much effort, and Tianzhen already owes me.”

“Oh,” Liu Sang says simply. He probably doesn’t have any other response.

“Oh,” Pangzi echoes. “So what sort of deal did you strike with him?”

“You don’t think I Compelled him?” Liu Sang asks, a little hesitantly.

“Did you?” Pangzi asks.

“No,” Liu Sang says, too quickly. “I told you I wouldn’t do that.”

“You said you wouldn’t do that to us,” Pangzi corrects. “I’m perfectly fine with you doing it to Wu Sanxing. Or any of them, for that matter.”

“It’s not a joke!” Liu Sang snaps, suddenly defensive for no reason that Pangzi can see. “I could—you don’t know—”

“Okay,” Pangzi says, stepping back from Jinx, who, for some reason, flinches, as though he’s had sand kicked into his eyes. “Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” Jinx says fiercely, and then blanches so dramatically that Pangzi nearly looks behind him to see what’s snuck up on them, because he has no idea what else could cause someone to go that pale that quickly. “I… I mean, I don’t want to calm down.”

“Fine,” Pangzi says, thoroughly confused with the direction this conversation has gone. “Then don’t.” He studies Jinx a little closer. “Are you doing alright?”

“Fuck off,” Jinx mutters, which doesn’t do much to have Pangzi feel charitably towards him, at least until he closes his eyes and says, “I mean. I’m fine. Thank you.”

Liu Sang is a weird one on most days, but this is strange behavior, even for him, and Pangzi has no idea what he’s trying to do. For all of his little uncertainties, Jinx has never been one to pull his words back, so to see him doing it now is offputting, to say the least.

It’s a little annoying, in all honesty. Pangzi has enough on his plate, trying to keep the Wushanju together with the tack-glue and steel-string that he has, not to mention his attempts to mend the rapidly disintegrating emotionally stability of their collective consciousness. Pangzi shouldn’t be annoyed with Liu Sang for acting oddly—fuck knows that he’s had enough dumped on him over the past couple of days—but that’s just one more thing for Pangzi to have to worry about, and he doesn’t exactly appreciate the added stress. He’s not a mechanic, like Xiao Bai, or a thinker, like Tianzhen. He’s just Pangzi, and he’s not exactly the best at fixing things. He tries, sure, but his solutions are usually brash and crude, though effective.

It doesn’t seem as though Jinx is going to go along with Pangzi’s usual method of “annoy them until they crack,” though, so he’s stuck somewhere between guilt and anxiety, feeling responsible for his inability to solve Jinx’s inner conundrum, and at the same time irritated with him for having one in the first place, as though he can help it. Pangzi knows that it’s not a logical emotion, but what emotions are?  

Liu Sang pushes the sleeves of his long cardigan-looking-thing up even further, grimacing at the heat, and Pangzi understands that. He hopes that Tianzhen and Xiao Bai are nearly done with their investigations, because he does not want to be out in the sun anymore.

As if summoned, Tianzhen and Xiao Bai appear from the building, striding across the sand towards Pangzi and Liu Sang. Well, Tianzhen is striding. Si Mei is pretty much jogging to keep up with him, but Wu Xie doesn’t seem to notice the problem of her shorter stride, because he just keeps coming. His face is all straight lines, eyes squinted against the sun, or perhaps in concentration. He gets to Pangzi and Liu Sang, and Xiao Bai arrives a moment later, panting.

“They don’t have any records of a large science facility on the planet, but they did find an underground mine a couple of years back with the entrance caved in,” Wu Xie reports. “It’s the only structure that’s unaccounted for, and it’s underground, which is the only thing that Li Cu ever really knew about where he was held.”

Pangzi frowns. “Didn’t you also go underground the last time you were here? How did you miss an entire mine, or science facility? If that’s what it is.”

Wu Xie gives him a flat look. “We were on the other side of the planet. And we weren’t exactly looking for it.”

“Is there even going to be anything worth finding down there?” Pangzi asks skeptically. It’s not that he’s trying to avoid going underground, but he doesn’t want to waste what little time they have. Xiao-ge and Li Cu have already been missing going on three days, so they’re not exactly working within flexible time limits at the moment.

“As long as there’s some sort of old computer terminal that I can get rebooted, then I’ll be able to find something,” Xiao Bai says confidently. “They might have wiped their main records, but nothing’s gone forever if you know where to look.”

Pangzi glances at Liu Sang to see if he agrees, but Liu Sang is very carefully not looking at anyone else, so Pangzi figures that he’ll have to make the decision for them.

Before he can, though, Wu Xie interrupts his thought process. “It’s just across the planet. We’ll get the ship over there, and Liu Sang can figure out whether or not there’s anything useful underneath.”

Which is a fair plan. They won’t be walking into a complete unknown, at least, if Liu Sang can give them a heads up as to what they’ll be dealing with. The person in question just nods mutely, so Pangzi figures that their mission is a go. So does Wu Xie, obviously, because he leaves the outpost without any hesitation, making the rest of them to scramble to keep up.

Wang Meng and Kan Jian have the ship rumbling when they get back, and Pangzi doesn’t even get a chance to return to the cockpit and fly the Wushanju across the desert. He waits in the landing bay with the others, since the ride is short, and they’ll need to get off as soon as possible in order to avoid drawing any more attention than they already have. Kan Jian must be doing the flying, because it’s a lot smoother than if they had had Wang Meng at the controls.

The ship hovers over the sand as Wu Xie gives instructions to Kan Jian over the ship’s intercom system, and then they’re all jumping out of the loading bay. Pangzi first, then Xiao Bai and her mound of tech equipment, which Pangzi catches. Liu Sang follows her, stumbling on the landing in the uneven sand, and Wu Xie is last, his boots meeting the dirt with enough force to spray some of the debris out.

The Wushanju’s engines are starting to make the sand fly into their faces, so they pull on the goggles and masks that they had taken from the equipment bay, and Pangzi waves the ship off. Kan Jian lifts her up, and they disappear over the horizon, going to find a good resting place nearby where the engines won’t get full of dirt. That’s the worst part of the desert in Pangzi’s opinion, even more annoying than the heat or the lack of any sort of interesting scenery; the fact that sand is a bitch to get out of turbines.

They wait for the ship to disappear, and then Liu Sang kneels down in the sand, pressing his hands into the dirt until he’s buried up to his wrists. He frowns.

“Can you jump up and down?” he asks Pangzi, who does,  jumping up into the air as best he can with sand sucking at his ankles. Some of it gets into his boots, and he grimaces.

Xiao Bai, meanwhile, looks delighted by the sand. She’s already collecting surreptitious samples out of Wu Xie’s sight to run tests on later, probably to see how plants might benefit from a more arid soil. Wu Xie doesn’t notice, too busy watching Liu Sang try to hear something, miles below their feet.

Finally, Liu Sang shakes his head. “I can’t get anything,” he says, standing up and brushing the dirt off of his pants. “There’s too much sand in between me and the mine, if it’s even down there.”

“Could we be in the wrong spot?” Pangzi asks.

“No,” Wu Xie says. “They were very clear that it’s around her somewhere. We passed the marker they put out already, so we should be right on top of it.” Pangzi hadn’t even seen the marker, so this is news to him.

“If I had something that could make a bigger sound, it might work,” Liu Sang admits. “As we are now, though…”

He trails off, not needing to finish the sentence, but Pangzi is already two steps ahead of the Jinx, for once. “Like blasting charges?”

“What?” Liu Sang asks. “Where did you get those?”

“A good spacer always comes prepared,” Pangzi says proudly, pulling out multiple options of the small blasting disks he has stored in his jacket. Most of them are Xiao Bai’s handiwork, but a few are Pangzi originals, with just enough uraninutronate in them to do some serious damage, if he wants to.

Wu Xie raises an eyebrow at him, but he doesn’t have any better plans, so he just nods. “Will that work?”

“Uh, yeah,” Liu Sang says, still looking shocked by the fact that Pangzi just happens to carry explosives around with him, and really, he should know him better than that by now. “Detonating those should give me enough vibration to see what’s down there, as long as it’s not too deep.”

“Set them up, Pangzi,” Wu Xie orders, already scouting around for a safe place for them to take cover when the charges go off. “Liu Sang, how close do you need to be?”

Liu Sang winces a little. “Close?” he says hesitantly. “If I’m too far away, the sounds won’t be able to travel to me quite as easily, and I might misidentify something.”

Wu Xie turns to Pangzi for a more specific answer. “How far away do we have to be to avoid permanent injury?”

“Any injury, we should be at least to that sand dune,” Pangzi says, side-eying their shouling a little suspiciously, because ‘avoid permanent injury’ does not translate to ‘avoid all injury.’ “We should be able to get within thirty feet of the charges, but I wouldn’t—”

“That enough?” Wu Xie asks Liu Sang, and Pangzi glares at him.

Liu Sang nods mutely, and turns, placing one foot in front of the other to count out thirty steps away from them.

Pangzi just stares at Wu Xie, who has not moved, until he looks at him and says, “What?”

“You’re getting one hundred feet out,” Pangzi tells him. “You and Si Mei.”

“Pangzi,” Wu Xie says, looking exasperated. “We don’t have time—”

“What we don’t have time for is your delicate human organs getting blasted,” Pangzi says bluntly. It might be a little rude, to remind Wu Xie that he’s delicate, because he hates that, but Pangzi is surprisingly irritated with him right now, for reasons that he can’t exactly pinpoint. “I’m not setting them up until you’re clear.” He makes a shooing motion with his hand, the one not holding deadly explosives. “Go.”

Wu Xie gives him an expression that Pangzi does not want to interpret, because it’s mostly a blank stare, but he finally turns and walks off, Xiao Bai following him and shoving sand samples into the pockets of her cargo vest. Liu Sang is already his distance away, digging a shallow trench in the sand and disappearing into it as Wu Xie and Xiao Bai walk past.

Pangzi shakes his head, and kneels in the sand, cupping the dirt in his palms and scooping it out of the way so that there’s a little nest in the middle of the desert for him to lovingly place his charges in, as though he’s going to come back for them and they’re not going to blow him and his companions up.

He sets the timer for thirty seconds, calls a “Ready?” to Jinx over his shoulder, and gets a thumbs-up from out of the sand in return. Pangzi hits the timer and sprints away from the bomb, counting down the seconds in his head as he races past the ditch that holds Liu Sang, throwing himself forward and covering his head as the detonator hits zero.

The explosion is fairly contained by the dunes, but it does send a geyser of sand into the air, a towering plumage that rains back to the surface of the planet, burying them in a sheet of grit. Pangzi waits to move for a few moments, until he’s absolutely sure that he’s not going to get another mouthful of sand if he sits up, and then gets to his feet, looking around for his crew members as the dust settles.

Wu Xie and Xiao Bai pop their heads out from behind a sand dune, a little dirty, but none the worse for wear. When Pangzi looks back toward the detonation site, though, Jinx’s trench is nowhere to be seen.

“Jinx!” he calls, walking towards the edge of the crater that is slowly starting to fill in with sand again as the misplaced dirt comes back to rest in the bottom. “Jinx, where’d you go?”

There’s no answer, just shifting piles of sand, and Pangzi very quickly realizes that they’ve probably buried their Yincanguian alive.

“Shit,” he says. “Tianzhen, get over here!”

Wu Xie sprints up to him. “What’s the matter?”

“We’ve got to dig Jinx out,” Pangzi says, annoyed with himself for not realizing the potential disadvantages of this plan sooner. “Do you remember where he was?”

Wu Xie frowns, looking around at the desert, which is all the same color and same shape to Pangzi. He has a vague idea of where Jinx could be, but it’s not close enough.

Before Wu Xie can answer, though, the sand at the edge of the crater shifts, and a hand, gloved except for the fingers, pokes out into the air.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Pangzi mutters, and runs to the appendage, which is waving like a flag. He grabs Liu Sang’s hand, barely waiting until Liu Sang’s fingers have closed around his own before he’s pulling him up with all his strength, the sand reluctantly letting go of its captive as Liu Sang comes up, completely coated in dirt and coughing, but alive.

“Are you okay?” Xiao Bai says as Pangzi shakes Jinx by his arm, and sand rains off of him.

“Ow,” Liu Sang says. “You’re pulling my arm out of its socket.”

“Sorry,” Pangzi says, too busy trying to brush Jinx down. “Didn’t mean to bury you like that.”

“It’s okay,” Liu Sang replies, wriggling out of Pangzi’s grip and shaking his hair out over his feet, grimacing at the stuff that falls out of it. “I knew it was going to happen.”

“And you still agreed?” Xiao Bai asks, looking slightly horrified.

Liu Sang’s eyebrows, which are dyed a rusty color from all the sand coating his face, move together, just a bit. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

Xiao Bai’s mouth drops so that she looks like a fish, but Wu Xie doesn’t let them have a conversation about self-preservation instincts. “What did you find out?”

“There’s something complex down there,” Jinx says. “I wasn’t able to map it out fully, but it definitely doesn’t seem like a mine. There’s too many complicated structures.”

Wu Xie’s eyes are alight, but not in the happy, excited way that they normally are when he’s learned something new. Instead, they hold a cold sort of fire, one that threatens to burn down everything in his path. “Good,” he says. “That’s probably what we’re looking for. Do you know where we can get in?”

Liu Sang nods. “If we blast again, in the same spot, we should be able to break through the roof of one of the main hallways. It’s not structural, so we’ll be able to detonate charges without worry.” He sucks air through his teeth in a wince. “The only problem is that if the sand keeps replacing itself into whatever cavity is available, we’ll have a very limited amount of time before our entrance is buried again.”

“How much time do you need, Xiao Bai?” Wu Xie asks.

“Maybe half an hour, tops,” Xiao Bai says. “But we have to find the main computer systems first.”

Wu Xie nods. “We can do that.” He puts his hands on his hips, watching the sand crater in front of them slowly fill again. “Pangzi, give us as much of a hole as you can.”

Pangzi nods, slipping the rest of his detonation disks out of his pocket and picking out the biggest one. “You’d all better get back.”

The other three obey him, and Pangzi sets up the large charge, with two others nearby to punch holes into the structure to get them in once the biggest one has blown all the sand away. This’ll also impose a time limit; if anyone sees plumes of dust rising into the sky, they’ll know that someone is out here doing something they’re not supposed to do, and it’ll only be a matter of time before they come after them. That’s partially why Kan Jian and Wang Meng are on the ship; they’ll hold off any attackers long enough for Pangzi and the others to get out.

He sets the detonator for one minute, needing the extra time to get clear of it, punches the button, and runs. His steps are long and clear the distance fairly quickly, and he dives in next to Wu Xie just as the blast goes off.

This one is much louder than the other, the sand cloud shooting much higher, and Pangzi sees Jinx covering his ears and grimacing as the explosion fades into the air. Xiao Bai has all of her tech equipment stuffed into her jacket and is practically lying on top of it, like a hen on a clutch of eggs, so that it can’t get sand dumped on it.

Wu Xie just watches the explosion, gaze focused and calculating. “Let’s go,” he says as soon as the sand begins to fall, not even waiting for all of it to hit the ground, and begins to run towards the split they’ve made in the sand of the desert.

Pangzi wants to tell him to slow down, to wait until they know that it’s safe, but Tianzhen, reckless as he is, is already half out of earshot. “Dumbass,” Pangzi mutters, and begins to go after him. He hears Jinx help Xiao Bai up and follow.

This is the problem with Wu Xie when he’s focused; he’s focuses on the most dangerous things, the things that will get him killed if he isn’t careful, and Wu Xie is never as careful as Pangzi would like him to be. He’s almost to the pit when Pangzi finally catches up to him, and he has to grab him by the arm to keep him from just jumping into the hole that they’ve made in the planet’s surface.

“Are you fucking insane, Tianzhen?” he asks sharply.

Wu Xie doesn’t even bother with a response, just lets Pangzi hold onto his arm as he stares down into the dark cavern that they’ve uncovered. Liu Sang and Xiao Bai reach them, Liu Sang already listening for danger.

“I don’t hear anything suspicious,” he says. “We can go down.”

Pangzi shoves Wu Xie back a little before his stupid best friend can throw himself over the edge, and jumps in first, falling about twelve feet down to the floor. With his height, the drop isn’t nearly as bad as it would be for the other three, and he lands fairly solidly, only slipping a little in the sand that’s coating the hallway directly under the blast zone. He takes a quick look around to make sure that no giant monsters or anything are going to leap out at them and tear their heads off, but the hallway is dark and quiet in either direction, so he looks up and gestures for the others to join him.

Xiao Bai comes down next, bulky with tech, and Pangzi catches her when she falls. Liu Sang is after that, and Pangzi catches him too, which Jinx does not seem to appreciate, as he pulls himself free from Pangzi’s arms almost immediately and takes a few steps down the corridor, listening to the path ahead of them. Wu Xie is last, and though he allows Pangzi to steady him after he lands, the impact is all on him, and Pangzi feels a sudden stab of worry. He doesn’t like it when Tianzhen leans away from him; it never leads to anything good.

“Hear anything?” Wu Xie asks Liu Sang, all business, and the Yincanguian shakes his head.

“Empty,” he confirms. “Except for us.”

Wu Xie nods solidly. “Which way do you think the center hub is?”

Liu Sang considers for a moment, then sends a sharp clicking noise bouncing down the corridor. He listens for a moment, then takes out his naming whistle and blows a sharp blast into it, fingers spaced on the holes to make it as high-pitched as possible. He considers, then turns and does the same thing in the other direction, pointing that way.

“It sounds like there’s more rooms that way,” he says. “If I had to guess, I’d say your best bet for a control hub is down there.”

Wu Xie is already moving. “Xiao Bai.”

Xiao Bai begins to scamper after him, but Pangzi stops them both. “Are you saying to split up?”

“It makes sense,” Wu Xie says, not looking at Pangzi, which, smart idea, Tianzhen, as Pangzi is not happy about his suggestion, and Wu Xie knows that. “We’ll be able to find more out that way.”

“I thought we just needed to find the main tech console,” Pangzi argues. “If that’s all, we should stick together. Safety in numbers.”

“If that doesn’t work, though, we need a backup plan,” Wu Xie says. “So you and Liu Sang go that way. See what you can find. We’ll meet back up here in half an hour.”

“And if you find a big, nasty, government-mutated monster?”

“Then I’m sure Liu Sang will hear our death knells and let you know,” Wu Xie says, in the way that he does when he’s not actually trying to be funny. His voice is too snappish and cold.

Well, what the fuck. “Did the explosion damage all of your brain cells?” Pangzi demands. “Do I need to send you back to the ship?”

“Pangzi,” Wu Xie says, all of his patience gone. “Go that way. That’s an order, by the way.”

“Fuck you,” Pangzi says. “Come on, Jinx.” He begins to pound down the corridor, throwing a half-hearted, “Don’t get eaten,” over his shoulder.

Liu Sang scrambles after him after a minute, jogging, to keep up with Pangzi’s long steps. “Uh, what the fuck was that?”

“That was your darling shouling being the same type of bastard as his uncle,” Pangzi grumbles. He doesn’t really  think that Wu Xie is going to be in danger down here, but the man is a walking disaster. While Pangzi would normally prefer to be next to him in order to prevent anything from happening, right now he thinks that if he has to spend one single second longer around Wu Xie he might murder him himself. “Keep an ear on him, will you?”

Liu Sang nods hesitantly, and Pangzi can almost see him redirecting his attention so that he’s got a link to Wu Xie and Xiao Bai. “Does he… usually do that?”

Liu Sang is so new that he hasn’t had the pleasure of experiencing Wu Xie’s many delightful moods. Pangzi sighs. “Not often, but it happens. He’s… got a lot going on up there, Tianzhen does. Don’t hold it against him.”

Liu Sang glances over his shoulder, but doesn’t say anything.

They’ve reached a point in the corridor where the light from above the ground is no longer able to be seen, so Pangzi pulls out his flashlight, and Liu Sang begins to make little chirping noises every so often, which Pangzi will never tell him are cute, but are. It’s like he’s seeking out something in the dark, the sounds small and curious, and Pangzi wonders how the world looks to him when seen through his ears.

Pangzi was expecting a half-destroyed facility, hastily abandoned, but everything is neat and orderly, if a bit dusty. It’s as though everyone just packed up and left for vacation, and will be back any minute, which makes Pangzi nervous. He’s used to dismay and destruction, not simple abandonment. Liu Sang seems slightly creeped out as well, his face uncertain in the light of Pangzi’s flashlight. He’s got his whistle in between his fingers, playing with it, something to keep his hands busy.

Without warning, there’s a whir from within the walls, and Pangzi nearly shoves Liu Sang to the ground and jumps on top of him, in case something explodes. That turns out to be unnecessary; all that happens is that the lights flicker on, displaying white hallways that were once bright and sterile.

“Xiao Bai must have found something,” Pangzi says, and Liu Sang nods.

Travel is much quicker now that they have actual light, and with no obstructions in their way, they weave through the facility rather efficiently. The walls are lined with multiple doors, but each has a keypad outside of it, though Pangzi has no idea what the codes are. Liu Sang tries a couple, seeing if he can hear the locks working, but it’s useless. Each of them have a twelve-digit number above the keypads, as if labeling which room is which.

“Hey,” Liu Sang says after a while. “What’s that?”

Pangzi looks up, catching whatever Jinx is pointing at. They’ve come to a dead end in the corridor; well, not a dead end, but some sort of room. The door is halfway open, as if stuck, the only sign of damage that they’ve seen so far. There’s some sort of decal painted on it, but since it’s half-slid into the wall, it’s impossible to make out. There’s a number written above the key panel at the side of the door: 000000000044.

“Any idea what that means?” Pangzi asks Jinx, who shakes his head.

“Maybe it’s the code?” he guess, stepping forward to input it into the keypad, but nothing happens.

“Who would write the code above the keypad?” Panggzi asks. “And what code has that many zeroes in it?”

“It was worth a shot,” Liu Sang says, slightly peevishly. He peers into the room, and Pangzi looks over the top of his head.

It’s like a box, with a low ceiling and white walls. There’s something painted on the floor in a light brown color, and Pangzi can make out what looks like feathers. He looks back at the decal on the door, and sure enough, the same sort of patterning is displayed there.

“What is it?” Liu Sang asks, already having noticed the same thing. He steps inside, going over to look at the symbol, and Pangzi has to squeeze through to follow him, ducking his head so that he doesn’t hit it on the ceiling.

The picture on the floor is line art of some sort of bird, one Pangzi doesn’t recognize. It’s head is curled towards its chest, turning it into a medallion of sorts, though one wing is out and extended. It’s got sharp talons, extended despite the defensive pose, and Pangzi thinks that it’s a very weird image to have representing your evil experimentation facility.

“Is it a phoenixyn?” Liu Sang mutters.

“What?” Pangzi asks.

“A phoenixyn,” Liu Sang repeats. “They were an alien species that were supposed to have died out eons ago, but apparently they were hyper-intelligent, and couldn’t die. Hundreds of explorers attempted to find their planet in order to figure out how they could regenerate their bodies at will.”

Pangzi frowns, because that sounds a lot like what Xiao-ge does, and he’s definitely not a bird. “How do you know all this?”

Liu Sang’s lips disappear as he flattens his mouth. “Mao Xinche—um, we tried finding one once. Didn’t work.” He shrugged. “They were probably just a legend, anyway.”

Pangzi frowns, because he doesn’t know about that. If he’s learned anything from tossing himself around the universe, it’s that nothing is just a legend. There’s truth in every story.

Before he can say anything, however, Liu Sang, whips his head towards the door. “Fuck!”

Pangzi doesn’t even have time to ask what’s wrong, because the door is already slamming shut on them, the unmistakable sound of an airtight seal activating hissing from the closed door. Liu Sang still runs to it, pounding on it with his fist.

“Hey!” he cries, as if anyone is around to hear them. “Let us out!”

“Jinx,” Pangzi says, “There’s no one out there.” He sighs. “Xiao Bai probably just hit some button and locked everything down. She’ll fix it in a minute.”

Liu Sang doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t have the same fear of being trapped as Ya Li does, so he doesn’t panic just glares at the door, obviously listening carefully to see if there’s anything else happening.

Pangzi lets him do that, bending down to trace the lines of the bird with his finger. It looks strangely familiar; not the image itself, but the way it’s styled, and though he rummages through his head, he can’t figure out where he’s seen something like this before. It’s like something is scratching at the edge of his brain, but he can’t quite determine where it is.

More examination is not going to do him any good, though, so he straightens up, a little too quickly if the way his head goes all light and floaty is any indication. “What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know,” Liu Sang says. He’s got his hands pressed to the wall, knocking every so often in order to hear whatever is going on in the inner mechanisms. “I didn’t hear any warnings, and we didn’t trigger anything. I don’t think so, anyway.” He steps away, looking frustrated. “Which means it’s either automated, or someone else set it off.”

“I thought no one else was here,” Pangzi says.

“I couldn’t hear anyone,” Liu Sang retorts. “That doesn’t mean we’re alone.”

Shockingly, that is not reassuring, and Pangzi feels as though his brain is spinning a little, or maybe that’s the room. He swallows, trying to get his head on straight. “Can you hear anything else?”

Liu Sang concentrates, closing his eyes, and Pangzi tries his best not to move so that he doesn’t disturb him. After a few moments, Liu Sang blinks back to them, but he looks confused. He shivers, just a little. “There’s like… some sort of hissing noise? Something’s happening, but I can’t tell what it is.” He shudders again, wrapping his arms around himself.

“Are you okay?” Pangzi asks, his mouth feeling dry. He needs to know if Liu Sang is alright, because if he’s not, that’s going to be rather a large issue for them. He already feels like he wants to sit down.

“Is it getting colder in here, or is that just me?” Liu Sang asks, and his breath puffs a little in the air, which it wasn’t doing before.  

Pangzi fumbles for the environmental detection system on his belt, having to squint at the screen because the numbers are all blurry. “It’s… yeah, getting colder. About a degree per second.” He looks up, alarmed, and then staggers, because all the blood rushes to his feet. Or somewhere. Either way, he’s dizzy.

Liu Sang rushes over, propping Pangzi up as best he can. “Let me see,” he says, and Pangzi wordlessly holds the screen out to him. His chest feels tight. “Shit. The oxygen levels are fluctuating too.” He looks around frantically, trying to see if there’s something that will make this stop, but Pangzi doesn’t think he’ll find anything.

“Jinx,” he says, “We should get out of here.”

“Yeah,” Liu Sang says, “I’m working on it.” He grunts as Pangzi leans more of his weight onto him, but he can’t help it. “What’s wrong?”

“Hard… to breathe…” Pangzi manages, feeling as though all of the air he can take in is pooling at the bottom of his lungs, too shallow to fill them up. “Can’t…”

Liu Sang moves them over to the wall, and then Pangzi’s sitting on the floor, unsure of how he got there, while Liu Sang talks to him in hushed tones.

“You’re bigger than I am, so you need more oxygen,” he’s explaining, though not really to Pangzi, who knows this. He tries to tell Liu Sang so, but the Jinx interrupts him before he can. “Don’t take. It’ll waste oxygen. Just… breathe as slowly as you can.”

He stands back up, and Pangzi watches through his blurry vision, which is slowly starting to blacken, as he goes over to the wall, draws his leg back, and kicks it, one sharp bang, and then a series of shorter, lighter ones. Help. Trouble. Danger. He repeats the message a few more times, and just as he’s about to start it again, he gasps, legs buckling and dropping him to his knees, where he coughs.

“Jinx,” Pangzi mutters, his teeth clacking together. Shit, the cold’s starting to get to him too. What kind of fucking room is this. “C’mere.”

For once, Liu Sang listens to him, and crawls across the floor until he reaches Pangzi’s side. He sits up against the wall next to him, unconsciously burrowing into Pangzi’s hip to try and stay warm. “Don’t talk, remember?”

“Then don’t you talk either,” Pangzi murmurs, and then goes back to trying to breathe as steadily as he can, slow, drawn inhales, so that he doesn’t start gasping and wasting oxygen.

This is… well, this is bad. Frankly, this is really bad. The others don’t know where they are, they’re in a death trap that’s slowly sucking the life out of the room, and they have no way of escaping, and not enough oxygen or heat to try and figure out another way. They can’t waste energy trying to break out, not when there’s so little left.

Pangzi’s not afraid of dying, not really. He’s afraid of what will happen to the others if he’s gone. He digs his fingers into the metaphorical ground, grits his teeth, dangles over the edge of the cliff. He can’t let go, not yet. If he does, he'll be leaving everyone floundering. They haven't found Li Cu or Xiao-ge yet. They can't lose Pangzi too. 

Liu Sang still has the environmental monitor in his hand, and shakes his head as he looks down at it. The temperature and oxygen must still be dropping, their chances for survival dwindling rapidly. Liu Sang’s called Tianzhen though, so Tianzhen will come for them soon.

Tianzhen always comes.

So there they are. Sitting on the floor. Slowly freezing. Suffocating. Pangzi can’t think in full sentences anymore. Too much work. Liu Sang’s huddled against him, and he’s a little bit warmer than the air. Not by much, but at least he’s got blood in him.

Pangzi’s tired. Really tired. Not so much in a sleepy way, but in a way that makes him want to let go. He’s been holding on a long time, he thinks. Waiting for something. Someone.

Tianzhen.

“Tianzhen?” he mumbles out loud.

Liu Sang shushes him. “N’talkin.”

Liu Sang is usually good with words, so this is strange. Pangzi can’t work up the effort to look at him, though. Can’t really work up the effort to do much looking at anything. Maybe he’ll close his eyes. He can focus better that way, focus on… what was he supposed to be focusing on?

“No,” Liu Sang says suddenly, with more force and volume than Pangzi’s heard in a while. “Don’t fall asleep.”

Pangzi’s not falling asleep. He’s just resting a little. Needs to be able to get up when Tianzhen gets here. So he’ll rest now.

“No,” Liu Sang repeats. “Pangzi. Pangzi, stay awake.”

Pangzi’s head feels like a solar flare. He thinks that’s bad, maybe, but soon Tianzhen and Xiao-ge will be here. They’ll be able to save Liu Sang, at least. Hopefully Pangzi too, because he doesn’t particularly want to die, but Liu Sang deserves to live. To see the universe. Pangzi’s universe, Pangzi’s space.

Space is beautiful, Pangzi thinks. If he closes his eyes, he can see the pinpricked outlines of stars against his eyelids. Somewhere in the back of his brain, galaxies swirl and stars collide and the whole thing tumbles together, a roaring cascade. Wonder.

He wants Liu Sang to be able to see that. Wants him to live. Likes the Jinx, even if he is annoying.

Maybe he should tell him, but something’s got a vice grip on his chest.

“Please,” Liu Sang whispers. “Please don’t make me tell him I lost you, too.”

Hmm. Yeah. He shouldn’t make Liu Sang do that. He shouldn’t make Tianzhen have to deal with that. Xiao-ge would be sad, if Pangzi died. Tianzhen too, but he’s really worried about Xiao-ge. Why’s he worried about Xiao-ge?

“I…” Liu Sang mutters at his side, fingers frozen and fumbling. He’s trying to hold Pangzi’s hand, but neither of them are very coordinated right now. “Don’t…”

Sorry, Pangzi thinks. I’d take you to the stars if I could. He’s not sure who he’s apologizing to, anymore.

Something bursts inside of him, a gossamer bubble of energy and life, and no matter how hard he thinks, he can’t manage to open his eyes again. Jinx’s hand in his is what he can feel. The universe is silent. So silent.

When Pangzi dies, it’s with regrets.

Chapter Text

Bai Haotian is a genius, actually.

Where else is Shouling going to find a brilliant engineer, one who can take a single look at a power core and know exactly which cables to connect in order to reboot the electricity in an abandoned compound? Luckily, he doesn’t need to, because Bai Haotian is already there.

In the power cores’ defense, it hadn’t been disabled or anything like that. The facility doesn’t seem to be destroyed, just abandoned, which is good for them, because it makes intelligence gathering a lot easier. On the other hand, it means the former occupants and the time, wherewithal, and finances to pick themselves up and move to an entirely new location, which means they weren’t caught off-guard; their departure was strategized, and that means they could still have their eyes on the compound.

Bai Haotian makes note of everything they pass, just in case it’s helpful to them later. Most of the corridor is filled with windows that look into large, empty rooms. There must have been equipment or furniture or something in them at one point, but it’s gone now, leaving them with no idea of what they’re missing.

Shouling doesn’t seem to be interested in empty rooms, though. As they walk through the building, he only gives the space cursory glances, immediately moving on when they don’t find a computer or other records system.

Finally, in a tiny room at the end of the hallway, they find a space, hardly bigger than a supply closet, filled with computer monitors, screens lining the walls, and a keyboard and control panel in the center. The computers are already whirring to life, new electricity waking them from a years-long sleep.

“Do you think this is it?” Shouling asks. “The records’ hub?”

“Only one way to find out,” Bai Haotian says, and begins prying open the system.

It’s a metaphorical invasion, of course, considering that she doesn’t actually take anything apart, but she does hook up her coding cables to the main hardware, which allows her to bypass all of base’s security by pretending to be part of its infrastructure. That’s her best trick; pretending to belong somewhere she doesn’t.

It only takes her a few minutes to convince the system to let her in, and then they’re looking at a floating graphic that looks like a bird, with some sort of writing underneath it.

“Wanxiang Astronomic Nucleanalytic Garrison,” Shouling reads out loud, hovering over Bai Haotian’s shoulder.

“Does that mean anything to you?” Bai Haotian asks him, but Shouling shakes his head.

“I’ve never heard of a group going by that title,” he says, just as the screens flip, bringing up a database search box.

“Okay,” Bai Haotian says, cracking her knuckles in front of her. “What do you want me to look for?”

Shouling considers, apparently not entirely sure. “Look and see if they have any records of a Sheiling,” he says. “If they don’t, then we’ll know that this isn’t the place that had Li Cu, and we can look elsewhere.”

That’s a good point, so Bai Haotian obeys, typing in sheiling, with Shouling’s help on the spelling. The database whirs for a moment, thinking, and then a file pops up, a picture in the corner, and Bai Haotian gasps. It’s Li Cu, unmistakably, though far younger than Bai Haotian has ever seen him. His eyes are wide in a too-thin face, he can’t be much older than ten, and even though Sheiling age slower than some other species, this is a terribly young Li Cu, and her heart aches for the boy in the photograph.

Shouling’s face is steel as he reads through the file, muttering things under his breath as he commits the contents to memory. He finishes on a growl, his fingers nearly wearing dents in the metal desktop with how hard he’s gripping it.

“They are the ones we’re looking for, then,” Bai Haotian says softly. She looks back at the photo of Li Cu, a number written in bold font underneath it. She wants to get him out of there.

“Yes,” Shouling says. His eyes move back and forth across the screen. “What’s the latest addition to the records?”

Bai Haotian clicks back to the search box, searching by recency. The file that pops up is short, just a few sentences long, but those sentences are very telling.

Compound 3702 has been compromised. All operatives, prepare for relocation. Field agents, await further instruction. Orders will be given once relocation is completed.

“Field agents?” Bai Haotian asks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They must have people outside of the facilities,” Shouling muses. “People who capture subjects, or who scout out other places and keep the organization a secret.” He crooks a finger at the screen. “See if they have a list of their field agents on record.”

Bai Haotian makes as search using that criteria, but there’s only a list of numbers that come up, a name attached to each.

“This can’t be right,” she says, frowning. “They can’t all have the same name.”

“They don’t,” Shouling mutters. “Their identifiers are the numbers, and these must be codenames.” He’s chewing on the inside of his cheek absently, and Bai Haotian can tell his mind is racing. “W.A.N.G. Cen. W.A.N.G. Qiong. W.A.N.G. Cheng.” He shakes his head, obviously frustrated.  “There’s no way we can find anyone like this.”

“What if the numbers mean something?” Bai Haotian asks. “Maybe they’re a code, or coordinates, or something?”

“Coordinates…” Shouling murmurs, eyes narrowing as he thinks about it, envisioning possibilities in midair. “Can you pull that list from the server.”

That’s an easy one, and Bai Haotian does it with just a few keystrokes, sending the data into her own servers. “What next?” she asks.

“Look up—” Shouling pauses suddenly, going silent so abruptly that Bai Haotian looks around to see if there’s someone else there.

“What—” she begins, but Shouling interrupts her.

“Shh!” he says. “Listen.”

Bai Haotian does. At first, she can only make out silence, unsure of what she’s supposed to be finding, but then, from far off, she can hear something clanging, a familiar pattern that translates itself into words in her head.

Help. Trouble. Danger.

Liu Sang and Pangzi.

Shouling’s eyes are wide. “Xiao Bai!” he yells, already tearing himself from the room.

Bai Haotian scrambles to gather her equipment, yanking the cables out of the ports rather ungracefully and bundling them into her arms, not even bothering to reorganize them as she takes off after Shouling.

The halls are easy to navigate now that they’re lit up, and even though Shouling is much faster than she is, and taking the corners in wild turns, she’s able to keep him in sight.

Liu Sang’s knocking has stopped, but the reverberations of Danger are still echoing in Bai Haotian’s skull. She doesn’t know exactly what would be enough for Liu Sang and Pangzi to be forced to call them, but it must be fairly bad. They’re both more than capable of watching out for themselves, and she doesn’t want to imagine what kind of danger could take them down.

Luckily, Shouling seems to know where they’re going, because Bai Haotian is merely guessing which corners Pangzi and Liu Sang might have turned down, but Shouling chooses his direction like he can see the trail they left. She doesn’t know if that’s because he’d pinpointed them from Liu Sang’s knocking, or if he’s just so in tune with Pangzi that he can guess.

The halls lead to a dead end, with no Pangzi or Liu Sang in sight. There’s a decal on the door, the same bird that had popped up when Bai Haotian had hacked into the search engine, which must mean that it’s a symbol of the organization, or something like that.

“Where are they?” she asks, out of breath.

Shouling points to the keypad next to the picture, which means that it’s a door. “Can you get it open?”

Bai Haotian doesn’t know if she can, but that’s where Pangzi and Liu Sang are, most likely, so she’s going to have to.

As soon as she touches the keypad, the door shimmers, the image of the bird flipping and disappearing as the door becomes transparent, and they can see inside the room.

It’s still lit, though much less brightly than the hallways, and against the wall are two figures, slumped together. Bai Haotian recognizes both of them; Pangzi and Liu Sang, who aren’t moving, and don’t seem to realize that Bai Haotian and Shouling are even there.

“Pangzi!” Shouling shouts, banging on the door with his fist, even though that won’t really help much. “Get it open!” he demands of Bai Haotian, who is already unscrewing the front panel of the keypad to access the guts.

She swears once it’s opened. The wiring inside isn’t all that complicated, but it’s completely encased in steel netting, which means that she won’t be able to get her equipment threaded into the framework of the lock. She can’t hack it from here, and she’s afraid that any attempt to smash the thing will shut them out forever.

“I have to go,” she tells Shouling, who has his face nearly pressed up against the glass, mouth moving as he begs. She’s not sure who he’s talking to, who he’s begging, and she doesn’t have the time to find out.

She turns and sprints back down the hall, only her all-purpose tool in hand; if this works like she expects it to, that’s all she’ll need.

Her legs are short, and typically it would take her a longer amount of time to get anywhere, but there’s so much adrenaline running through her veins, and her mind is focused solely on her destination, so it’s only a few minutes before she’s skidding to a stop in front of the power core she rebooted earlier, taking out her pocket knife and sliding the blade free. Without hesitation, because she doesn’t have time to be cautious, she slashes apart the cables she had just reconnected minutes ago, sending a shower of sparks out that make her cover her face to avoid getting burnt.

The power in the facility disappears immediately. The overhead lights shut off with a groan, and from somewhere else, she can hear doors unlocking and opening. She doesn’t know if they’re the right doors, but she certainly hopes so.

She doesn’t stick around, not able to waste any time, and runs back to Shouling and the room, hoping that he’s been able to get their crewmembers out. Her lungs are burning, sweat pouring down her neck and sticking her shirt to her back, and her legs burn, but what hurts more is that thought that they’re too late.

She skids around the corner just as the last residual bits of light fade away, and turns her headlamp back on,. Shouling has his on too, and is frantically prying at the door, which apparently hasn’t opened on its own.

“Help me,” he gasps when he sees Bai Haotian. “It unlocked, but it won’t come open.”

Bai Haotian joins him at the door, sticking her fingers into the crack between the door seal and the wall, and pulling back as hard as she can. Shouling’s hands strain from above her, and with their combined effort, they’re able to unstick the door, ragging it open inch by agonizing inch.

As soon as the gap is wide enough for him to get through, Shouling is pouring into the room, running as quickly as he can to their fallen crewmates, dropping onto his knees next to Pangzi so fast that he slides a little.

“Pangzi,” he says, voice breathy. “Pangzi!”

Bai Haotian follows him in and immediately shivers. The room is freezing, colder than she had been expecting. And not just a little bit colder; it’s dramatically more frigid than the rest of the facility is. She can hear her environmental system start beeping, which means that the temperature has dropped to a dangerous level, and why had Pangzi and Liu Sang gone in here?

Shouling is tapping Pangzi’s face with three fingers, trying to wake him up, but Pangzi’s head just lolls. There are ice crystals frosting in his hair, and no matter how hard Bai Haotian looks, she can’t see him breathing.

Pangzi isn’t breathing.

She runs over to join Shouling, examining Liu Sang, who Shouling has been too distracted to notice. The air in the room is stale, which Bai Haotian wonders about, but she can still see little puffs of air coming from Liu Sang’s nose, misting up in the cold air. He’s still alive, then, but his lips are ice pale, and there appears to be a coating of frost on his cheeks and down his hands.

Bai Haotian immediately wraps her hands around his, nearly shrieking at how frozen they are, but squeezes them tight, running her palms back and forth over Liu Sang’s skin in order to get them warm again.

She looks over to Shouling, who is trying to listen to Pangzi’s heartbeat.

“Please,” he says, “Please, fuck. Pangzi. Pangzi, you bastard, wake up.”

It’s not looking good, and Bai Haotian feels tears already welling up in her eyes, her throat closing up. She doesn’t want to cry, but Pangzi looks dead. If Pangzi’s dead, what are they going to do?

Shouling pounds on Pangzi’s chest, then again, then a third time. “Come on,” he mutters underneath his breath. “Come on, you son of a bitch. You don’t die here. You don’t die here.”

“Shouling—” Bai Haotian murmurs, her heart breaking. “Pangzi… he’s—”

“No,” Shouling says, shaking his head. “He’s not. He’s not.” He slaps Pangzi across the face, harshly. “Wake up!” He raises his hand to do it again, but Bai Haotian grabs his wrist, keeping him from making contact.

“Shouling,” she whispers. “Don’t.”

Wu Xie crumples, then, folding over Pangzi’s still form with a gasp that sounds as though all of the air is being wrung out of his lungs through a juicer.

“I’m sorry,” he says, strangled. ‘I’m so sorry, Pangzi.” Bai Haotian lets his wrist go, which turns out to be the only thing holding Shouling up, because he falls onto Pangzi’s chest, fisting his hands in his frozen jacket. For her part, Bai Haotian wraps herself around Liu Sang’s gangly limbs, hardly able to cover all of him, but trying nonetheless. The rise and fall of his chest is comforting as she blinks back tears, slightly worried that if they fall, they’ll freeze solid upon hitting the air. It’s warmed up considerably since they entered the room, and she can feel tremors starting up in Liu Sang’s limbs, and she sits up again to see if there’s anything that she can find to get him warm again, but when she does, she sees his eyes are open, gazing at her through tired slits.

She gasps. “Liu Sang!” she exclaims, putting her hands on both of his cheeks, for no conscious reason other than she wants him to look at her. “You’re awake! What happened?”

Liu Sang’s irises flick over to Pangzi’s still form, Shouling bent over him. There’s a keening sound coming from him, one that Bai Haotian has been doing her best to ignore, because she doesn’t know how she’ll be able to stand it if she truly thinks about what that means.

“P’zi,” Liu Sang murmurs, the sounds barely able to pass through his frozen lips. He twitches a little, as though he’s going to try and move. Bai Haotian looks down to see that their hands are still clasped together.

“Shh,” she tells Liu Sang. “He’s…” She doesn’t want to tell him, though she’s sure that Liu Sang already knows. He had been there for it, after all.

“Nn,” Liu Sang grunts. Painstakingly, his fingers twitch, and Bai Haotian looks down at them to see that they’re not just spasming, but that Liu Sang is talking. Alive.

She stares at him in shock. “He’s alive?”

Liu Sang swallows, and his whole body shakes. Air, his fingers say.

“Shouling!” Bai Haotian says, turning away from Liu Sang for a moment to grab her captain by the shoulder. “He’s alive. Pangzi’s not dead!”

Shouling raises his head, his eyes red rimmed, frost clinging in his lashes. He stares at her blankly, as if he can’t really see her.

Heartbeat there, Liu Sang’s fingers tap. Cold. Needs air.

“He needs air,” Bai Haotian translates, but Shouling’s brain has already trained itself onto Liu Sang’s tapping, and he immediately jumps into action, throwing himself forward so that he’s straddling Pangzi’s waist, pinching his nostrils shut and pushing air into his mouth from his own lungs, Pangzi’s chest rising and falling with the forced breath. He does it again, and then a third time.

“Please,” he mutters between the third and fourth resuscitation. “Please come back.” He inhales again, and leans forward, but before he can give Pangzi the breath, Pangzi’s chest rises on its own, and he wheezes, air finally struggling into his lungs as he begins breathing again, coughing as his body struggles to catch up.

Bai Haotian sobs then, unable to help herself. She wraps her fingers around Liu Sang’s squeezing them tightly.

Shouling practically falls off of Pangzi, kneeling on his other side and shaking his shoulder gently. “Come on, Pangzi. Wake up.”

Bai Haotian doesn’t know if it’s a natural reaction, or if their Shouling’s voice literally brings Pangzi back, but in the next second, his forehead is creasing and he’s blinking unsteadily, his eyes catching on Shouling straight away.

“Tianzhen?” he mutters, voice rough and scratchy from the abuse his airway just took, and he coughs again. “Finally.”

Shouling laughs, though it’s wet and insincere. “Fuck you,” he says. “Fuck you, Pangzi, you bastard. I thought you were—” He doesn’t finish the thought, but Pangzi seems to know what he means anyway.

“Course not,” he mutters. “I always come back, Tianzhen.” He shivers then, reminding Shouling where they are. “Cold.”

“Yeah,” Shouling says, “I know.” He glances over at Liu Sang, as if just now seeing him. “How is he?”

Bai Haotian glances down. Liu Sang is still much paler than he should be,  but he’s shivering harder now, which is a good sign, at least as far as she knows. His body is trying to warm itself up, but with how cold he and Pangzi got, they’re going to need help.

“We should get them back to the ship,” Bai Haotian says.

Shouling shakes his head. “It’s too hot out there. If we drag them out now, we’ll just shock their bodies.” He thinks. “Can you get Kan Jian to bring the ship here? We need supplies.”

“No,” Pangzi protests, though the effect is somewhat diminished by how weak he sounds. “I’m not getting sand in my engines, Tianzhen, no way.”

“The engines will be fine,” Shouling argues. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

“I’m fine,” Pangzi says. “I’m not even that cold.” It appears to be the truth; though he is shaking, he’s not nearly as frostbitten as Liu Sang.

Shouling snorts. “Your fat saved you once again, did it?”

“Course,” Pangzi says proudly. He tries to sit up, but stops halfway and sinks back against the wall. “Hngh.”

“Alright?” Shouling asks anxiously, getting his hands all over Pangzi again.

“Just dizzy,” Pangzi says, closing his eyes, which makes Bai Haotian wince. She doesn’t want to see Pangzi asleep anytime soon, actually.

Shouling must have the same thought, because he shakes Pangzi’s arm, a little roughly. “Don’t pass out.”

“I’m not,” Pangzi mutters, annoyed. “Just resting.”

Shouling exhales heavily, and the room is still cold enough that it puffs white into the air. “We have to get them warmer before we get them out.”

Bai Haotian nods. They’re underground, so the desert heat hasn’t quite penetrated the tunnels, but they also chopped a big hole in it, and there’s no electricity to cool the air off. If they don’t do something soon, then the facility is going to rapidly get as hot as the desert outside.

“’m fine,” Liu Sang says unconvincingly. “We can get back to the ship.”

“You’re not,” Bai Haotian tells him crossly. “You’re half-frozen, still.”

Pangzi says something that sounds like, “Why do we always end up with hypothermics?” and Liu Sang glares at him, though it holds even less heat than his body has right now.

Bai Haotian makes an executive decision, then because it looks as though no one else is going to. “I’ll go flag down the Wushanju,” she says, standing up and trying not to wince as Liu Sang twitches towards her fleeing warmth. She wishes she had a jacket or something to give him, but she’s just in her standard coveralls, which are great for her and not nearly as useful for anyone else.

Shouling nods and moves to sit in between Pangzi and Liu Sang, taking one of Liu Sang’s hands and blowing on it gently, trying to use the warmth of his breath to stop the cold from getting its claws deeper than they already are. It’s slightly ironic, Bai Haotian thinks as she leaves, that the very air in their Shouling’s lungs has been used to save their crew members twice today.

Once she’s out of the room, she breaks into a run again, her boots clanging thickly on the metal floor. The hallways are starting to become familiar, which she doesn’t care for. That means they’ve spent too long here already, and she would really prefer to never see this place again.

She reaches the hole they blasted into the ceiling and climbs up the pile of sand that’s still steadily rising. She’s light enough that she doesn’t sink through, and is able to clamber out of the crater, only scratching her arms a little on the sharp, jagged metal as she pulls herself up into the desert.

Once above the facility, she pulls out the flare gun she has stashed in her belt and fires it into the air, watching as the red, holographic ball of light shoots into the sky and hangs above her, spinning slowly to reflect her position. It’s a gadget she invented herself, using a combination of nanoprojectiles and the bioluminescent properties of a special kind of algae from her homeworld. The flare will dissolve in the oxygenated atmosphere in half an hour, leaving no trace of itself behind, which is why it’s a good gadget for signaling people; no one else can find the traces.

Bai Haotian knows that Kan Jian and Wang Meng will be on the lookout for her flare, and sure enough, it’s only a few moments before she hears the familiar rumble of her engines over the sand dunes.

Bai Haotian stores her flare gun away, putting her hands on her hips and panting a little in the heat. She’s not a heat-adverse species by any means, but her mouth is starting to feel a little dry, and she knows that she’ll want a long bath after they’re off this planet.

Abruptly, the Wushanju appears, swinging around over her head, the whip of its thrusters blowing Bai Haotian’s bangs back. It stays hovering in midair, probably because Pangzi had threatened their two remaining crews members with death if they clogged the engines with sand, but soon Kan Jian drops from the door, his crossbow in hand. When he sees that it’s just Bai Haotian, he comes running towards her, though cautiously, looking around in case it’s a trap, which is very smart of him.

“What’s wrong?” he asks when he reaches her. “Do we need to land?”

Bai Haotian thinks about it. She would really prefer they didn’t, but there’s a certain level of agility needed to board the ship while it’s in the air, and she doubts that Pangzi or Liu Sang will have it.

“Yeah,” she says with a sigh. “It’s… not great.”

Kan Jian looks immediately alarmed, but turns and waves at the cockpit, and a second later, the ship touches down with a thwump that shakes the planet’s surface. Bai Haotian winces. Wang Meng really isn’t the most adept pilot; Pangzi’s probably already swearing at him, if he managed to feel it from under the ground.

“What do we need?” Kan Jian asks, his face grave, and Bai Haotian is reminded that he’s actually a very capable first officer. For all the emotions he has stored inside, he doesn’t let himself panic in a crisis.

“Warmth,” Bai Haotian says, already jogging towards the doors herself, cataloguing the things that they’ll need in her head.

“What?” Kan Jian asks, but Bai Haotian doesn’t respond to that very loaded question. She doesn’t know if she can handle explaining what happened without breaking down herself.

When they get back to the Stupid Fucking Death Room (as Bai Haotian has started calling it in her head), laden with blankets and intravenous needles and warming liquid, Shouling has rearranged the three of them so that Liu Sang’s in the middle, and Shouling and Pangzi are blanketing him. Shouling is pressing his hands against any spare patches of skin he can find, trying to warm them up, but it doesn’t look as if it’s going well.

He looks up when Bai Haotian, Wang Meng, and Kan Jian appear in the doorway. “Thank fuck,” he says, clearly relieved to see them.

Pangzi stirs at the sound of his voice, cracking one eye open and humming contentedly when he sees them. “Mm. Where’s Xiao-ge?”

“He’s fine,” Shouling says with the tone of someone who has already had this conversation, and has been brokenhearted every time. “Don’t worry.”

Pangzi trusts Wu Xie with everything, so he takes him at his word and simply closes his eyes again.

“What happened?” Kan Jian asks, his voice wavering just the slightest bit. He’s draping a survival blanket over Pangzi while Wang Meng gets out the needles, expertly sliding one into the back of Liu Sang’s hand. Liu Sang doesn’t even flinch.

“They were trapped in here,” Shouling says, moving so that Kan Jian can tuck another blanket around Liu Sang’s shoulders. “Oxygen and heat were both severely depleted when we arrived.” He says it in the same way that Bai Haotian gives engine diagnostics; business-like and emotionless.

“Vacuum simulation?” Bai Haotian asks, looking around. “Why would they have something like that?”

Shouling shrugs, his eyes dark. “Probably to see how long different species could survive in the vacuum of space.”

Wang Meng shudders as he connects Liu Sang’s IV to a bag of orange liquid, a solution that will warm him up from the inside out, and then gestures for Kan Jian to come and hold it up so that the gel will drain. “They would?”

Shouling doesn’t look at him, and Bai Haotian knows they’re all thinking about Li Cu.

Wang Meng takes the silence as an affirmative, and his shoulders hunch up a little as he goes to perform the same treatment on Pangzi.

Bai Haotian frowned, mostly to herself. She didn’t know what sort of organization would stick people in a vacuum chamber, because all that would do would be to kill them, wouldn’t it? She didn’t know much about evil science, but she figured that dead subjects were mostly useless for tests and experiments.

Pangzi coughs to her side and she remembers the oxygen mask she had grabbed from their spacesuit collection before they had left, almost as an afterthought, and quickly unloops it from her belt, wincing slightly at its crudeness as she hands it to Shouling.

“Here,” she says. “I thought that it would be useful.”

Shouling looks impressed by her innovativeness for a moment, and then he’s hooking the mask around Pangzi’s ears, settling it over his nose and mouth as he starts the oxygen, despite how grumpy Pangzi looks at the development.

That’s about all Bai Haotian can do for them, so she goes over to Kan Jian, who is acting as their makeshift IV stand, and holds out her hand.

“You’re warmer than I am,” she says, because it’s true. Kan Jian is a little like a space heater. “Go sit with him.”

Kan Jian nods, his face serious, and hands Bai Haotian the bag of warming liquid, going to Liu Sang and sliding under the blanket with him. Liu Sang stirs at the disturbance, which means he’s getting better, which Bai Haotian is glad for.

They’re all quiet for a bit, waiting for the heating agents to do their job, partially because there’s nothing much to say. Eventually, Wang Meng breaks the silence, obviously too nervous to wait any longer.

“What did you find out?” he asks. “Anything?”

Shouling sighs. He’s sitting next to Pangzi, who has tipped over and is resting his head on Shouling’s shoulder, his breath puffing white fog into the oxygen mask.

“Not much,” he says. “We found out that Li Cu was held here, once. So we’re in the right place. They’re called the Wanxiang Astronomic Nucleanalytic Garrison, apparently.”

Kan Jian whistles. “That’s a mouthful.”

“They go by W.A.N.G., it looks like,” Shouling says. “At least, that was the similarity between all of the code names for the field agents.”

“You found field agents?” Wang Meng asks sharply.

“We found records of field agents,” Shouling corrects him. “I don’t know how many of them are still employed, or even still alive. They all had code names and identification numbers, so there wasn’t even anything that could really give us information about where to find them, even if they are still around.”

“So basically nothing,” Wang Meng mutters, sounding displeased.

“We can look again,” Shouling says, and Bai Haotian winces.

“We can’t,” she says, and everyone turns to look at her. “I had to destroy the power core to get Pangzi and Liu Sang out. So… to get it up and running again I’d need way more supplies than I have. I’m sorry.”

Wang Meng looks devastated, but Shouling just sighs. “It’s alright,” he says resignedly. “You saved them. That’s the important thing.”

“What about the lead?” Wang Meng wails. “We can’t—”

“We got more than we had before,” Kan Jian interrupts him gently. “Now we at least know what to aim for and what we’re dealing with. It’s more than nothing.”

Shouling nods in agreement, his lips thinning out into a white line. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”

“The network,” Liu Sang suddenly mumbles, and Kan Jian glances down at the other man, who is blinking slowly, still shaking in his arms. Bai Haotian lifts the IV bag a little higher, squeezing it just a tad to get more of the goo out.

“What network?” Shouling asks, peering around Pangzi.

Liu Sang grimaces, then shifts so that he’s sitting more upright, though he’s still leaning against Kan Jian like he’s a hot water bottle.

“The barcode network,” he explains, his voice still slurring a little, but sounding much better than it had. “It’s a satellite network used to… um…” He frowns, not looking at any of them. “Trafficking, mainly.”

There’s silence in the chamber for a moment, as if the vacuum has turned back on and sucked all the sound out again. 

“Trafficking?” Kan Jian whispers, looking horrified.

Liu Sang pulls away from him, just slightly, and Kan Jian lets him go. “If people catch a rare species or a runaway, they’ll put out a location on the network, and any bounty hunters or collectors can come pick them up.” He sighs. “They also have notices for runaways, which is why it’s called the barcode network. Owners will give their… they’ll barcode them, and then hunters can scan the codes and apply for the rewards if they manage to track one down.”

Kan Jian looks sick, but Shouling just nods. “I’ve heard of it,” he says. “We’ve never used it, for obvious reasons. Did Mao Xincheng—”

“Sort of,” Liu Sang mutters, his hand unconsciously going up to the left side of his chest, near his shoulder. “He… I’m on there.”

“You what?!” Wang Meng shrieks, and Pangzi flinches.

“Keep’t down,” he mutters, not moving from his position against Shouling.

“That’s what the burn scars are,” Liu Sang says, and Bai Haotian doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but Wang Meng must, because he pales and his antennae quiver with rage. “After I tried to run away once, Mao Xincheng made sure that I’d never be able to get far, if I was caught. That’s how those bastards that caught us were able to notify him. They scanned the code and looked to see if there were any hits out for me, which there were.”

“That’s awful,” Kan Jian says, sounding a little bit like he’s going to cry, which makes Liu Sang side-eye him nervously.

“I don’t have to worry about it anymore,” he says, trying to be reassuring, but Kan Jian doesn’t appear very reassured.

“Do you think they put out a notice for Li Cu?” Shouling says thoughtfully, and Liu Sang nods, starting to look more coherent now that they’re figuring things out.

“They knew he was a Sheiling, because he bit one of them,” Wang Meng says, looking inordinately proud of Li Cu’s biting skills. “They probably advertised his whereabouts too.”

“And any field agents who were looking for a Sheiling would have contacted them to get him back,” Shouling continues. “And they would have left some trace or identifier so that the captors could find them.”

“So all we have to do is find that, and we’ll be able to find a field agent,” Kan Jian says, cluing in to the plan. He grins. “That can’t be that hard.”

Liu Sang shrugs. “Depends on if they’ve erased the notice or not,” he says. “If they’ve already taken it down, it might be hard to find them again.”

“Don’t worry,” Bai Haotian says. “I can take care of it.” Her fingers itch, excited to hack something else, considering their last task ended so abruptly. “If we can find one of those satellites, I should be able to get into it, no problem.”

“We’ll find one, then,” Shouling says. His eyes look more settled than they have in days, and Bai Haotian is very glad of this discovery that they’ve made.

“Oh good,” Pangzi mumbles at his side, “Not a wasted trip after all.”

Shouling takes his hand out from under the blanket, checking the temperature of Pangzi’s skin. “Think we can get back to the ship now?”

“Yes,” Liu Sang says, already attempting to stand, despite Kan Jian clinging onto him to get him to stay.

“You don’t get a vote,” Shouling says. “You almost froze to death.” He looks at Wang Meng, who is the closest thing they have to any sort of diagnostic equipment at the moment.

Wang Meng leans in and breathes deeply next to Liu Sang’s chest. Liu Sang just lets him do it, knowing that it would be futile to try and stop him.

“He should be fine,” Wang Meng says. “I just need to feed him soup.”

“Soup?” Liu Sang asks. He does not sound convinced that this is a real treatment method, even though Bai Haotian knows that Wang Meng’s soup is most certainly a valid prescription.

“Soup!” Wang Meng says gleefully, and Bai Haotian knows that their kitchen is going to be overrun for the next few hours.

“Alright then,” Shouling says. He unhooks the oxygen mask from Pangzi and hands it off to Bai Haotian, whose job appears to just be standing and holding things until they all get situated.

Kan Jian is helping Liu Sang up, making sure the blanket stays wrapped around him, and disconnects the IV line from the needle, though he leaves that in Liu Sang’s hand, much to the other’s chagrin.

“What?” he asks, holding up his hand with the back of his palm directed towards Kan Jian. “Are you going to IV me soup?”

“If I have to,” Wang Meng says, and Liu Sang sputters.

“You can’t IV people soup!”

Kan Jian thinks that this is the funniest thing that he’s ever heard, or maybe he’s just releasing the absolutely absurd amounts of stress they’ve been under the past few days.

Shouling is helping Pangzi stand up. Pangzi seems okay, just a little wobbly on his feet, and needs to hold onto the wall for a moment while he gets his bearings.

“Kan Jian?” Shouling calls, and Kan Jian passes Liu Sang off to Wang Meng. Liu Sang hardly notices, considering he’s still arguing with Wang Meng about soup.

Bai Haotian begins gathering all of the supplies they had brought and sticking them back into the backpack they had used to transport them in. She slings it on, even though it’s a little big for her, but Shouling and Kan Jian will be occupied keeping Pangzi upright, and Liu Sang will rely on Wang Meng if walking gets too difficult, so this is Bai Haotian’s job.

She leads the way out of the facility. They take it slow, because Pangzi keeps stopping and resting, his jaw clenched and face pale, though he never complains. Maybe he can sense the worried looks that Shouling keeps throwing at him, because he leans most of his weight on Kan Jian. Shouling isn’t fooled by this in the slightest, but he doesn’t say anything about it either, even though he looks pained.

The hardest part is climbing out of the hole, because even though the sand pile has risen more, Pangzi sinks through most of it, but at that point he seems to have gained enough awareness that with a lot of help, he’s able to make it out, which is good, even though he lies flat on his back in the sand once he’s out.

Shouling bends over him, tapping him on the forehead gently, just enough to be annoying. “Pangzi?”

“Leave me here, Tianzhen,” Pangzi moans. “I’ll die warm, at least.”

Shouling straightens up so abruptly that something in his spine cracks. “Not funny.”

Pangzi seems to realize that as soon as he says it, because he sits up and offers Shouling an apologetic look. “Sorry.”

Normally, that would placate Wu Xie enough to make up for the comment, but it appears that he’s been stockpiling his anger for a while now, because he just growls at Pangzi, “Can you think for once before you say shit?”

“Maybe,” Pangzi says uncaringly, “But I think I have brain damage right now, so you might have to wait for bit.”

Shouling looks furious, and Bai Haotian wants to get between the two of them, but she knows that this is how they solve problems, how they get over  being scared. Pangzi makes inappropriate jokes and pretends like things aren’t bothering him, and Wu Xie gets angry and snappish, pushing people away rather than allowing them to help. And they were both scared, this time.

“Maybe we should get back to the ship first before we talk about that,” Kan Jian suggests nervously, but no one listens to him.

“This is your problem,” Shouling snaps. “You don’t think before you do anything. Why’d you even go in there in the first place?”

“It was just a room,” Pangzi says, pushing himself upright and swaying on his feet. “How was I supposed to know that—”

“Stop going into random rooms, then,” Shouling orders, and Pangzi just laughs at him.

“Sorry, Shouling, I’ll just wait for your orders before I do anything then, shall I?”

“My orders are to keep you safe,” Wu Xie says, “And if you can’t follow them—”

“Keep us safe?” Pangzi cries incredulously. “If you were so deadest on keeping us safe, then why—” He suddenly breaks off, whatever thought he was about to voice so horrifying that he can’t say it.

Shouling’s eyes narrow. “What were you going to say?”

“Nothing,” Pangzi mutters. “Forget it. Side effect of oxygen deprivation. I’m not thinking straight.” He sighs, all the fight going out of him. “Can we just go home, Tianzhen, please?”

“Yeah,” Shouling mumbles, reinserting himself under Pangzi’s arm. “Yeah, let’s go home.”

They make it the rest of the way to the Wushanju without much trouble, though the sudden temperature change does not do much to improve anyone’s mood, but they get there eventually, and all pile into the med bay. Without two of their members, it still seems empty. Kan Jian reattaches Liu Sang to more warming liquid to make sure that his internal organs aren’t going  to explode or something, and Shouling goes over to the med database, looking up the symptoms of oxygen deprivation and hypothermia so that they know what to keep an eye out for.

He reads for a few minutes, and then suddenly snorts. “Hey, Pangzi.”

“What?” Pangzi asks tiredly. He’s flat on his back on one of the beds, the biggest one they have.

“Guess what one of the treatments for hypoxia is.”

“I don’t know,” Pangzi gripes. “I don’t even know what that word means.”

“It’s a brain injury that occurs when oxygen is at an inadequate level to maintain normal functions,” Shouling says, clearly reading from the database. He comes over and sits on the edge of Pangzi’s bed, leaning over him. “Guess.”

Pangzi cracks open one eye to give Shouling a glare that doesn’t do much. “I don’t know, Tianzhen.”

Shouling flashes the biggest grin Bai Haotian has seen him give since their ship was invaded. “Therapeutic hypothermia.”

Pangzi stares at him for a moment, and then, from across the room, Liu Sang starts laughing so hard that he falls off of the bed.

Bai Haotian waits until everyone else has gone to sleep before she begins her work.

She does her best when she’s not being supervised, which was a problem back home. Her people earned a living by essentially acting like a storehouse for bigger planets and companies who needed a place to store things, which would be fully protected and only accessible by her species. Since their lives were lived half-underwater, they were able to store things underneath World 11’s surface, chaining them to rocks and leaving them in strange floating containers; the salt content of World 11’s oceans is so great that essentially anything will float there, but that means that only her people are able to access the goods; anyone else would drown or get lost before they could figure out the planet’s complicated organizational system. It’s not something that’s written down either, instead passed down orally through the generations, so only people from the planet know how to gain access.

Bai Haotian had been born into one of the longest lines of Keepers, and she had been training to one day take charge of the planet’s business, but then Shouling had crashed his pod right in the middle of one of their algae fields, and Bai Haotian had rescued him from getting skewered by the planet’s guards, which she was only able to do because she had grown up with the head guard, and was probably the only one who could convince Jia Kezi not to skewer people.

Shouling had earned his keep, though, and helped them save their crops for that year, which had been a large problem that they were dealing with at the time. Bai Haotian still wasn’t sure entirely how he’d done it, but then and there, she had fallen in love with Shouling’s wit, and his fast way of talking, and a little bit in love with the man himself.

She was long over that now, but there had still been enough of it for Shouling to convince her to follow him to the stars when the Wushanju had come to pick him up.

I could use someone smart like you, he had said. You know how to fix a power core?

Bai Haotian had crossed her arms, glaring him down, because she most certainly did. I know how to fix everything.

Shouling’s eyes twinkled. Good. Our doors are squeaky.

And so, before, she had known it, she had been the Wushanju’s engineer for years, and she hadn’t ever returned to her planet, but she didn’t really want to. She had always felt suffocated there, as though there were chains hooked around her wrist, keeping her tied down, just like all of the cargo and treasures her planet held.

She never feels like that on their ship. Here, even though she’s in a confined space, and couldn’t really leave even if she wanted to, she feels freer than she could have ever guessed was possible.

Still, there’s some times where, despite how much she loves her crew, she just needs to be alone, to let her brain buzz off into the wide, open expanse of problems that she has to solve, without having to keep track of the people around her, and come up with appropriate responses when they ask her questions. So she waits to do her work until bedtime, until Shouling is flying the ship, and Kan Jian is in the library, trying to find more information on Liu Sang’s “barcode network,” and Wang Meng is in the infirmary, watching over their injured crewmembers.

Liu Sang seems to be doing better, down to two layers of blankets instead of five. It’s Pangzi that’s the worry; while he’s coherent and mostly okay now, he did, in all technicality, die, and the lingering effects are a little scary, to say the least. From his research, Shouling says that the dizziness and mild memory loss and slightly confusion are normal, but it’s still heartbreaking to watch Pangzi look for Xiao-ge every so often and then remember that he’s not there.

Bai Haotian sighs, flipping open her thick, clunky laptop and typing in the start-up code, hunching herself up as she waits for it to boot up. She uses one of the oldest systems that they could find, because it’s able to hack basically anything. Some of the newer models are only able to break into things that run on their same software, but Bai Haotian’s handmade brick of a laptop is able to get through practically anything. It’s also been blown up like twice, and survived. She loves the thing.

It’s going on four days since Li Cu and Zhang Qiling were kidnapped, and Bai Haotian knows that time hasn’t made it easier for any of them. Especially not Shouling, who has probably reacted the worst out of all of them, understandably so. He’s… well, he’s scared, and that makes him a little mean, and even though Bai Haotian would never be upset with him for being afraid, his reactions to things are starting to grate on their crew a little bit.

She may be awkward, and a little inept when it comes to judging other people’s emotions, but there’s been a strange sort of energy between Shouling and the rest of them lately. While their crew has been gathering closer together, in an attempt to keep anyone else from being caught unawares and alone, Shouling seems to be trying to push them away. Usually, their ship runs more like a family unit, but the past few days have seen it as a real ship, with a captain and those who follow his orders. And they are a ship, but Bai Haotian has always thought that they work the best under mutual trust and communication.

She sighs, using muscle memory to type in the complex password to her laptop. If mood swings and orders are what it takes to get Li Cu and Zhang Qiling back, then Bai Haotian supposes that it’s probably worth it. Shoulking knows what he’s doing; he’s never led them astray before, an she doubts that he’ll start now.

Not when something so precious is on the line.

That reminds Bai Haotian that she has a job to do, so she makes sure that her laptop is up and running smoothly, and begins scanning the nearby satellites that they’re passing for any keywords that have to do with trafficking or slavery, though she shudders to use that word. That’s essentially what they’re dealing with here, though, and while that makes her skin crawl, it’s at least a starting point for her search.

Most of the data points they’re passing right now are speeding by too fast for her to get a lock on any one of them, even though her reach is about a lightyear in every direction. Even so, she’s hoping that the barcode network will be extensive enough that once she gets a read on any one part of it, she’ll be able to find the connection points, and can stay in contact with it as they travel.

Until then, though, there’s nothing to do but wait for her tech to link onto a codeword, so she sits back with a sigh, looking around at the little nook she has hollowed out for herself in the engine room.

She likes being by the engine of the Wushanju, likes being able to hear it the moment that anything goes wrong with her ship. It’s also warmer in here, and a place where she can have some time to herself. She’s not like Shouling, who feeds off of sensory input, his brain cranking into overdrive the minute he’s faced with any sort of problem, working better the more that’s happening around him.

He and Zhang Qiling are good for each other that way; Zhang Qiling provides hardly any sensory input at all, a silent, stock-still watchdog, whereas Wu Xie is bright and loud and popping spots of color. She loves both of them for that, and appreciates how well they work together.  Besides, even if they didn’t work well together, the both of them have so much talent and capability that anyone would hire them to be on their ship, no matter what. Bai Haotian is jealous sometimes, because even though she’s a good hacker and a great engineer, that’s about all she is, sometimes. She can’t fight like Zhang Qiling, can’t unweave the mysteries of the universe like Shouling. She works with what’s physical, what’s right in front of her, and if she can’t do that, she’s lost.

She hates admitting it, especially to herself, but she’s the weakest member of their crew, and not just because she’s the only female, though that’s probably part of it. She’s not great at fighting, or at running away. Even Li Cu, who’s their youngest, is equipped up to his ears with natural defense mechanisms, and Wang Meng, the softest out of them all, has fucking acid-producing glands everywhere. Liu Sang might not be a fighter, but he doesn’t really have to be, because his abilities are so far beyond anything anyone’s ever seen before that he’s practically impenetrable.

The only place that Bai Haotian might be able to outfight any of them would be in the water, her home element, and there’s very little of that in space.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. That’s not her job right now. Her job right now is to find Li Cu and Zhang Qiling, and if she can’t do that, then it’s to find their next lead. That’s something that she can do. That’s something she will do.

Right on clue, her laptop chimes, the sound that means that her code has latched onto something and held on tight, and Bai Haotian nearly burns herself on some exposed wiring as she fumbles with the screen, bringing it close to her tired eyes to see exactly what her laptop has picked up.

It appears to be an entrance prompt, one that reads, To access the UBN, please input code here. Bai Haotian brings up the scan of Liu Sang’s brand tattoo that she had taken earlier and sets it against the code wall, holding her breath as it’s analyzed.

It works, apparently, because there’s a beep, and then the network unfolds in front of her, a bunch of flags and prompts and sifting field of code that makes her fingers itch. The first thing that pops up is a picture of Liu Sang, looking relatively the same as he does now, except for the dark shadows around his eyes.

Haizi, his profile says. Species: Unknown. Owner: Mao Xincheng. If found, contact registrar immediately. Dangerous. Reward if captured.

It makes Bai Haotian sick. She hates that there are people out there who might recognize Liu Sang from this and would try and give him back to someone who does not have his best interests at heart. She pushes down the sour feeling that grows in her stomach, promising to come back and fix it later, and goes to the bottom of the section, where alerts are kept.

There’s one dated just a few months ago, when they had been on their search for Yincangui. It’s mostly about Liu Sang, Bai Haotian sees as her laptop reads out the words to her, but there’s a footnote mentioning a Sheiling and another unknown species, which would have had to be Wang Meng.

She selects that alert, copies the section of code that holds it, and traces it through the network, trying to find any responses.

There are two: one from a designation that she recognizes as Mao Xincheng, now Jiang Zisuan’s, ship—she’d made sure to memorize their ship’s call sign just in case they needed to go after them again—and one from an unknown designation. She feels a thrill rush through her as the message is read out to her; the messenger seems to be interested in the Sheiling, rather than Liu Sang.

She plucks out both of the call signs where the messages originated, one from the kidnappers and the other from the anonymous messenger, and quickly types them into the tablet that she has constantly connected to the universal recording network. It had taken her weeks to hack into that, so now she just has a datapad permanently devoted to picking at its firewalls, constantly logged in so that when she needs it, she’ll be able to jump right back in without having to find a control hub, like she did last time.

The anonymous messenger doesn’t appear as having made contact with any planets or docking stations for nearly a year, so it’s probably a burner, but the kidnappers code brings up a location from two days ago, a trading planet not far from where they are now: Naasthafar. Bai Haotian could almost call that coincidence, or luck, but she knows better than to believe in those things anymore.

Satisfied, she writes down the coordinates of their new targets, and then goes in and erases every single trace of Liu Sang from the barcode network. If anyone wants to get to her friends, they’re going to need a lot more than just a tattoo scan.

Naasthafar is a trading hub, a place where mercenaries sell themselves and their crews out, where less-than-legal transactions happen under the tables, where merchants smuggle fraudulent goods onto cargo ships. It’s the type of place where the Wushanju crew thrives; for all the do-gooding they’ve been wrapped up in over the past few months, they’re raiders, first and foremost. That’s what Bai Haotian signed up for, despite her heritage. Her planet might be good at keeping things locked down, but that means that she’s excellent at cracking other things open.

She’s wandering through the market with Shouling, only half-examining the goods that the vendors are selling. Naasthafar is an enclosed market, a large force field active over the top of it to create an artificial atmosphere, storefronts open, market stalls set up for the less wealthy traders, and things from every corner of the universe on display, waiting to be picked up by their new owners.

The other half of her focus is on Liu Sang, who is milling around about thirty feet away from her, picking things up and setting them down again without really looking at them, just inconspicuous enough that he shouldn’t be noticed by just anyone.

Bai Haotian sighs, wondering if this was really the best plan they could have come up with. Using Liu Sang as bait was not really what she had thought would happen when she brought up finding the people who had kidnapped their crewmates back on Lihan, but Liu Sang had been insistent that it was the best way to catch them off guard.

“If they think they’re going to get a reward again for capturing me a second time, they won’t expect an ambush,” he had insisted.

“Won’t that just make them more suspicious?” Kan Jian asked skeptically. “I mean, why would they come across you twice?”

Liu Sang shook his head. “It won’t matter. I pissed them off well enough last time that they’ll go for me solely for revenge.”

“What about me?” Wang Meng demanded. “I also caused them trouble.”

“You’re not valuable,” Pangzi said bluntly, his eyes closed as he fought off the headache he’d been battling for the past few hours. “They won’t come after you nearly as eagerly.”

Wang Meng looked disappointed, and Kan Jian patted his arm sympathetically.

Liu Sang had had a point, though, which was why they were trailing him as they tried to find the traders, luring them out in the open with live bait.

“Are you sure that they were here last?” Shouling whispers to Bai Haotian.

“Yes,” she says, “This is their last known location. If they’ve left already, they didn’t register it. I checked. Twice.” She’s slightly annoyed that Shouling is doubting her thoroughness, but there’s a lot riding on this, so she lets it slide.

“To his left,” Wang Meng’s voice says through their earpieces, and a little less discreetly than they should, Bai Haotian and Shouling turn to look at Liu Sang again. It’s hard to see what Wang Meng is referring to at first, but then they spot it; a figure, two stalls behind Liu Sang, stopping at every place he is and very obviously following his every move.

“Do you recognize him?” Shouling asks Wang Meng through their call channel.

“No,” Wang Meng says. “If he’s with that group, he’s not the leader.”

“Keep an eye on them,” Shouling orders, then gestures for Bai Haotian to follow along behind him as they begin to hunt the hunter.

If Liu Sang has noticed that he’s being followed, he’s doing a good job of acting like he isn’t, maybe because he’s been being followed for a while by his own crew, and is now used to making it seem as though everything is going according to plan, which is probably a good thing to be able to do, though it doesn’t reassure Bai Haotian of his self-preservation skills. She wishes, not for the first time, that they had more backup.

They left Pangzi and Kan Jian on the ship, because Pangzi’s still not in great shape, so Shouling essentially grounded him, which Bai Haotian had thought was kind of funny. Kan Jian was there to field off any questions from officials who might come looking, which was unlikely, considering this was a black market planet, and to look after Pangzi, who didn’t “need a damn babysitter, Tianzhen, I’m not your fucking kid.”

So it’s just the four of them, but Bai Haotian is feeling Zhang Qiling’s absence very keenly right now. She hardly ever goes on field missions, preferring to do her work on the ship or holed up in some computer storage bay somewhere, but they don’t have nearly enough manpower to pull this off without her, and they need her to be able to hack into the mercenaries’ ship logs to find any clues, if they refuse to talk. So here she is, sticking close to Shouling’s side, wishing that she was a little bit better at fighting so that she could be of more help, or at least be able to reassure herself that she wouldn’t fuck something up.

“Where’d he go?” Shouling says suddenly, and Bai Haotian abruptly realizes that she has not been watching Liu Sang, and when she scans the scene in front of her to try and locate him again, he’s nowhere to be found.

“They grabbed him!” Wang Meng says, and Bai Haotian can hear the sound of pounding footsteps through the earpiece. “They’re going into one of the back alleys. With the—shit!”

“What is it?” Shouling hisses, breaking into a job with one hand pressed to his ear to hear Wang Meng better, the tail end of his coat flapping out behind him. “What happened?”

“They went into a building,” Wang Meng says grimly. “Back door entrance. I’m circling around the front to try and figure out where we are… right across from a bar, I think? There’s a sign with a drink on it.”

Bai Haotian wonders if maybe they should make it a point to have all of their crew learn to read, because at this point, it’s getting slightly bothersome to not know exactly what anyone’s looking at.

“Where are you?” Shouling asks, obviously slightly frustrated with this as well.

“Just past the vendor stall with all of the fruit that has hair growing on it,” Wang Meng tells them, and Shouling immediately corrects their direction. Bai Haotian has to stumble to keep up with him.

Sure enough, they pass by a stall that is filled with round objects with long, blue hair draped over the side of the display, and then Bai Haotian sees Wang Meng, leaning up against the side of the building with the bar sign, trying to appear casual, but staring very intently at the building across the street

“They’re in there?” Shouling asks when they reach him.

Wang Meng nods. “They didn’t hurt him, but two guys popped out of nowhere and grabbed him before I could get close.”

“Well, we’d better get in there before he does get hurt,” Shouling says grimly, hand going to the blaster that’s concealed on the back of his thigh. Wang Meng nods, his skin taking on the sheen that it does when he starts secreting acid.

“Do you want me to see what they’re up to?” Bai Haotian asks, holding up one of the bugs that she brought with her, trying to add something to the team.

“Nah,” Shouling says, his eyes alight. “We already have a pretty good idea.”

And with that, he runs at the door, planting a foot just below the doorknob and kicking it open, drawing his blaster and aiming it into the doorway. Wang Meng is right behind him, his hands out, fingers spread.

Bai Haotian comes last, but still in enough time to see all of the occupants of the room turn to look at them, shock rippling across their faces. There are only four, standing in a semi-circle around Liu Sang, who is sitting with one of the mercenary’s feet up on the chair, in between his legs, leaning over him, his hand sparking threateningly.

That man looks alarmed at their intrusion. “What the fuck?” He spots Wang Meng. “You!”

“Hi,” Wang Meng says, and then tosses a glob of acid at him. The man yelps and leaps away, so the substance just splats onto the floor and begins eating the concrete.

Shouling has his blaster pointed at one of the others, who has raised his hands in the air, so Bai Haotian focuses on the last two, who don’t seem all that threatening, mostly just confused.

Liu Sang uses the distraction to stand up, pushing the head mercenary backwards, more quickly than Bai Haotian had expected, and pins him to the wall. “Astor.”

Astor glares at him. “What do you want?” He seems to come to a realization then, because he says, “Were you baiting us?”

“Glad to see they have some sense,” Shouling says. He keeps his weapon trained on the mercenary, but comes over to Liu Sang and Astor, smiling in a way that sends a shiver down Bai Haotian’s spine, as though Shouling is going to tear the man’s heart out of his chest with his bare hands. “So you’re the one who messed with my crew?”

“I—” Before Astor has a chance to answer, Shouling’s fist has pulled back and decked him straight between his eyes. The man howls and grabs at his face, and Liu Sang lets him go so that he slides down the wall, sprawling on his ass on the floor.

Shouling glares at the other mercenaries, who Wang Meng is now menacing with his hands glistening, and drops into a crouch so that he can look Astor in the face.

“You sent out a notice that you had a Sheiling on the barcode network when you captured them,” he says quietly. “You got a response. Who was it?”

“I don’t know!” Astor cries, and gets the tip of Shouling’s blaster against his throat for his troubles. “I-I really don’t know.”

“Hmm,” Shouling says. “Liu Sang?”

Liu Sang looks surprised, at war with himself for slightly longer than a moment, but before Shouling can prompt him again, he sighs, resigned. He starts to say something, but Astor cuts him off before he can.

“Don’t do that!” he shouts, hands out in front of him. “Don’t do that… that freaky shit. Don’t.” He shudders, dropping his arms down to his sides. Blood is leaking from his nose.

Liu Sang looks almost hurt by his words. “Talk then,” he says shortly, crossing his arms in front of himself.

“I already told you, I don’t know!” Astor says, then shrinks back on himself when Shouling cocks his weapon. “It was an anonymous client! They just told us where to meet them, said to bring the Sheiling. They were going to pay us double what we normally got.”

“But you never went?” Shouling asked.

Astor snorts. “We’re not stupid. We wouldn’t show up without the goods and expect to walk out of there.”

Wang Meng snarls at the word “goods.”

“Where was the meet-up location?” Shouling asks.

Astor’s jaw twitches, his eyes flitting back and forth between all of them as though he’ll find his chance to escape there. “Some docking station like five galaxies from here. In the middle of nowhere, really.”

“Outside of Marked space?” Shouling asks.

“Obviously,” Astor mutters. “You think we traffic inside?”

“I should just kill you right now,” Shouling murmurs, the tip of his blaster tip-toeing down Astor’s chest until it rests over his heart, and the mercenary shifts uncomfortably. “What kind of person trades other people?”

“The kind that likes making a profit,” Astor mutters. “It’s a lucrative business.” He jerks his head up at Liu Sang. “That one’s a good one, too. Hefty reward on his listing. You can have him if you—”

Shouling’s face has gone cold by the time the mercenary mentions Liu Sang, and stone still when he offers the trade, and then, before Bai Haotian can blink, he’s pulling his blaster back and shooting the man twice in the thigh without even making a face.

Astor screams, arching off of the wall and falling over onto his side, clutching at his leg and grinding his teeth together. The other mercenaries are stunned into silence, and Wang Meng and Bai Haotian stare, dumbfounded, as Shouling stands up and carefully wipes flecks of blood off of his face.

“He’s my crew,” he says calmly, glancing down at the mercenary, who is twitching in a puddle of his own blood. “Fuck off.”

He turns, the edge of his coat flipping around his ankles in a clean sweep, and leaves the building, turning onto the street as though he’s just going for a stroll on a sunny day, leaving a group of mercenaries and his crew members staring after him in shock.

Bai Haotian, Wang Meng, and Liu Sang all exchange a look, and then scramble after their shouling, not even bothering to make sure the mercenaries aren’t going to follow them.

They catch up to Wu Xie on the street, though the human is walking fast, strides eating up the dusty paths with ease, something about his walk clearing people out of his way. Maybe it’s his stare, the hunch of his shoulders, but when Bai Haotian is finally able to see his face, she wants to draw back, and it takes most of her willpower not to.

Liu Sang, however, seems to have no such qualms. “What was that?” he demands, placing himself in front of Shouling so that he’ll have to stop walking. “We didn’t plan on that.”

“We don’t plan on a lot of things,” Shouling says, not making eye contact with Liu Sang. “Would you rather have gotten sold to the highest bidder?”

“Shut up,” Liu Sang says fiercely, and Bai Haotian is honestly taken aback, because she doesn’t think that anyone’s ever spoken to Shouling that way before, not even Pangzi, whose rage is always dampened a little by the love everyone knows he has under all of his actions. “You can’t go around shooting people just for saying things, that’s not—and don’t pretend like you were doing it for me, okay? Because I know that that’s an act.”

Shouling does look at the Yincanguian then, his eyebrow raised as if Liu Sang has just said something particularly interesting. “Really?”

Liu Sang frowns, and he tilts his head down, just slightly, the light reflecting off of the lenses of his glasses so that Bai Haotian can’t see his eyes. “Don’t pretend,” he mutters again. “Not with me.”

Shouling’s eyes are dark, and even though he’s looking at Liu Sang, Bai Haotian doesn’t think that he’s really seeing him. “What would you have done then?”

Liu Sang shifts. “I wouldn’t have shot him.”

“Because you don’t have to,” Shouling says quietly, which is honestly more unnerving than if he had been shouting. “When you’re as helpless as the rest of us, Liu Sang, then you can talk to me about what I do to survive.”

Something about his words wipes the anger off of Liu Sang’s face, and he just stands there, his eyes wavering ever so slightly, bright spots of color high on his cheeks.

“Fine,” he says finally, and steps aside. “Fine. You’re the captain.”

Bai Haotian nearly winces, because she knows that Shouling doesn’t like that title, but Liu Sang doesn’t appear to have gotten that message. Or maybe he has, and is using what he knows will pinch.

“Back to the ship,” is all Shouling says in response to that.

“But we didn’t even figure out where to go,” Bai Haotian blurts out, against her better judgement. “He didn’t give us any coordinates.”

“We don’t need coordinates,” Shouling says.

“Um,” Wang Meng chimes in hesitantly, “What do you mean? We kind of do, don’t we?”

Shouling shakes his head. “Not specific ones. Five galaxies from here, in Unmarked space? We know what we’re looking for now. All we have to do is find it.”

He sounds determined, confident, but Bai Haotian privately thinks that maybe coordinates would have been helpful in this particular instance.

She does not say this out loud.

Space, as it is now, is divided into two types: Marked and Unmarked. Marked space refers to the parts of the universe that are under some form of governmental jurisdiction, whether that’s the Universal Galactic System or a planetary government or some sort of half-assed treaty signed by a collection of groups that live in a certain solar system.

Unmarked space lacks governmental regulation, and while that could be a good thing, that also means that there is no governmental support for… well, anything. If your ship was registered in Marked space, but was hit and destroyed in Unmarked space, shit’s fucked.

Bai Haotian knows Unmarked space very well, because her planet is Unmarked. Inhabited planets rarely are, but all of the work that Bai Haotian’s people do has to be so far off the grid that they have never registered with the Universal Galactic System for a government, and it’s only because they have the secrets of thousands of worlds that they haven’t been invaded and conquered by someone looking to expand their Mark. So Unmarked space, while perfect for under-the-radar activities, actually amounts to very little of the universe, which is probably why Shouling is so sure that they’ll be able to find who they’re looking for. Bai Haotian has to admit that he’s probably right, but it’s still grating on Pangzi, having to carefully circle five galaxies in every direction. They don’t have time for this.

“Why didn’t he just pick up fucking coordinates?” the pilot grumbles, looping the Wushanju in a slow circle around a red giant, which is in the process of eating a planet, so Bai Haotian doubts that this is their target. “This would be so much easier if we had something specific to go on.” He groans, squinting at the windshield, and then turns to Bai Haotian. “Anything?”

Bai Haotian is sitting in the cockpit with her most powerful scanner, trying to pick up any satellite or radio signals, but the area is silent. If anyone’s there, they’ve gone completely dark.

“No,” she says, frustrated. She’s tried pinging the anonymous message’s code, trying to get a match, but so far nothing has turned up.

“What about you, Jinx?” Pangzi asks, looking over his shoulder to where Liu Sang is slumped in a different seat, looking half-asleep.

“Huh?” he asks, squinting at them, as his glasses have migrated so far down his nose that it’s a miracle that he still has them on at all. He’s supposed to be listening for anomalies in their path, in case there’s an invisible planet or something, but doesn’t seem to be doing a very thorough job. “What?”

“Never mind,” Pangzi mutters. “You would have said something if there was anything out there.” He sighs, taking his hands off of the controls for a moment and letting them drift a bit, the thrusters powering down so that they’re floating through space. “Again, what was so hard about not shooting a guy and walking out with information?”

“I don’t think he really knew anything,” Bai Haotian mutters, cranking the dial on her radio and listening to it crackle. “They didn’t even meet up.”

“So we’re running on empty again,” Pangzi says. “No leads. Perfect.”

Liu Sang sits up in his chair a little more, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Well, it wasn’t a very good lead to begin with.”

“We’ve still got the compound name,” Bai Haotian points out. “We can ask around, see if anyone knows it.” She shivers, pulling her knees up and crunching herself into the co-pilot’s chair. “We can try, anyway.”

“We could bait them, too,” Liu Sang suggests, and Pangzi and Bai Haotian both turn to glare at him. “Like, you could put me out there.”

“No,” the other two say at the same time.

“They didn’t want you last time,” Bai Haotian points out. “Besides, I already wiped you from the network.”

Liu Sang seems surprised by that. “You did?”

“Obviously,” Bai Haotian tells him. “Now shut up. We’re not using you as bait.”

Liu Sang shrugs. “Okay.” He settles back down in his chair, apparently unperturbed by this rejection of his plans.

“What should we do next?” Pangzi asks out loud, which is strange, because the only people in here and Bai Haotian and Liu Sang, and neither of them have the authority to tell Pangzi what to do. Even though they’re all a crew, Pangzi’s definitely not someone to give orders to, unless you’re Shouling, and even that’s iffy sometimes.

Bai Haotian sighs, restarting her search mechanism to see if she can pick something—anything—up from the space around them. She watches the little circle on her screen spin around and around and around and—

“Wait,” she says out loud. “What if they aren’t on a planet?”

Pangzi gives her a confused glance. “What, Si Mei?”

“What if Unmarked space was just the meeting place?” Bai Haotian says excitedly. “And their signal wasn’t coming from a set point at all? What if they’re traveling, just like we are?” She cancels her current search, pulling up her command box to edit her search criteria. “We’ve been looking for somewhere that’s set, but if they’re in a ship or a traveling station, then there’s no way they’re still in the same spot.”

“Wouldn’t they be long gone, then?” Liu Sang asks. “It’s been months since Astor and his crew would have sent out the notice, so they’d have left the nearby systems by now, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Bai Haotian says, her fingers flying in excitement. “If they wanted Li Cu that badly, that desperately, then—” She finishes inputting the code and sets it off, turning the screen around to face the other two.

They all watch the laptop closely, the little loading circle spinning as Bai Haotian’s satellite links comb through as much universe as they can, pinpointing, seeking, seeking, seeking—

And then a hit pops up on the screen, a little box with just a series of numbers in it: Quadrant 9940, 11.78B, 254L. 13°66’22”N, 98°32’47”W.

“Oh,” Pangzi says, his eyes widening. “Oh, Si Mei. You genius.”

Bai Haotian grins.

The coordinates aren’t exact for long, because they’re moving, but they still hurl themselves in the same direction as the other ship, pushing the Wushanju to the limit in order to catch up to their target. Bai Haotian reroutes the power from the kitchen and med bay to the engines, temporarily, as well as all of the heating, which means that everyone is bundled up in sweaters and the thick suits that they wear on ice planets, which are made of thermal lining and thick, unbreathable material.

Everyone except Liu Sang, that is, who seems determined to be difficult, though the reason for that is apparent as soon as Wang Meng gets close to him and shrieks.

“You’re boiling!”

“Am I?” Liu Sang asks, looking down at his arms. “No. I’m fine.”

Wang Meng slaps a hand to his forehead, and Liu Sang goes cross-eyed trying to look up at the palm against his forehead. “You are. You’re feverish.” He clicks his tongue, something that sounds a little bit like a swear. “I knew we shouldn’t have let you off the ship so soon after almost freezing to death. You overdid it.”

“I didn’t almost freeze to death,” Liu Sang says, which is blatantly untrue.

“You can stay with Pangzi,” Shouling says, walking past the cockpit with a blanket draped over his shoulders like a cloak. “Both of you get to keep the ship safe.”

Pangzi shouts from his pilot’s chair. “I was going to come on this one, Tianzhen!”

“No!” Shouling shouts back. “You’re both grounded. The rest of us will take care of it.”

Pangzi mutters something that doesn’t sound very complimentary towards ship captains, and Wu Xie throws his pen at him.

In the end, though, Liu Sang ends up coming, despite being slightly out of it, though he claims he’s fine. Shouling clearly doesn’t want him to come, but he’s their best weapon for extracting information, though the mention of that makes Liu Sang more insistent to stay on the ship, rather than less.

“If we had any other choice, I’d leave you,” Shouling says, “But we can’t risk it.”

“I… what if I can’t do it?” Liu Sang asks.

“Because you’re sick?” Shouling says. “Does that affect it?”

“I don’t know,” Liu Sang mutters uncomfortably. “Maybe.”

Shouling sighs, tipping his head back just a bit, as though gazing at the ceiling will give him strength. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, then. Xiao Bai, you’re coming too.”

“Me?” Bai Haotian blurts.

“You found them,” Shoulin says. “Plus, if we have to break in, I have a feeling that your skills will be more useful than brute strength, which is why everyone else is staying on the ship.”

Pangzi rolls his eyes, but doesn’t argue. Kan Jian doesn’t seem nearly as insulted about this as Wang Meng does, and his abilities have nothing to do with how strong he is.

They have a plan, then, but of course, that’s when things begin to get strange.

First of all, the craft that they find isn’t so much a ship as it is an untethered building, floating through space. There has to be something moving it, because the thing had been forcing them to chase it down, but from the outside, there doesn’t appear to be any thrusters or engines or anything. It’s as though someone stuffed a box into space, and left it there. It nearly blends in, the entire thing painted black, which reflects the light of the stars off of the sides, creating an optical illusion of camouflage. It would be easy to miss if Bai Haotian’s sensors didn’t say that the ship was right there.

The second strange thing is that when they pull up next to it, the ship hails them, and while that lets them know that there are definitely people present, it also means they know that the Wushanju is there and that they no longer have the element of surprise, if they ever did.

“Do I answer them?” Pangzi asks.

Shouling stares directly at the screen, focused on it in a way that looks singularly intimidating, and a little too much for a hailing signal. “Yes,” he says. “Answer them.”

Pangzi hits the controls to do so, and a smaller window opens up in front of their eyeline, the six of them curiously peering into the other ship.

Unlike their screen, which is filled with every single person they have on board, there’s only one person on the opposite; a humanoid, with long hair pulled up into a high ponytail. She’s wearing a standard black crew jumpsuit, and her eyes are sharp and fierce.

Bai Haotian is almost immediately smitten. Well. Smitten might be too strong of a word, but she is delightfully intimidated, and also thinks that maybe she would like to talk to this woman and get punched in the face. She’s never been one for fighting, but this woman could punch her.

“This is Shouling Su Nan of Outpost 88472681,” the woman—Su Nan—says. “Report your ship designation and purpose.”

“Shouling Wu Xie of the Wushanju,” Shouling says, just as smoothly. “We’re actually here for you.”

Su Nan’s dark eyes pin themselves to the camera. She said she was a shouling, but she appears to be the only one on her ship.

“Fine,” she says after a moment. “You have permission to board. I’ll meet you in the docking bay.” The transmission cuts out, and the picture disappears.

“Well,” Kan Jian says, after a brief moment of silence, “That was easy.”

“I don’t like it,” Pangzi says, face curved in a grimace.

“You’re still not coming,” Shouling says. “Come on, Xiao Bai. Liu Sang”

Bai Haotian throws an apologetic glance to the others, and then jogs out of the cockpit to the entrance bay, hoping that her excitement to meet this new Shouling isn’t visible, and that she won’t make a fool of herself once they actually meet. Liu Sang is right behind her, though his steps are much less enthusiastic.

Pangzi, even if he is frustrated that Shouling is not letting him come with them, pulls the Wushanju up to the other ship smoothly, connecting their docking systems together with ease. Bai Haotian and Shouling wait in the entrance bay, staring at the door, trying not to let their nerves get the better of them as they watch for the door to open. Well, at least that’s what Bai Haotian is doing. Shouling doesn’t seem nervous at all, just full of a calculated, cool determination, and Liu Sang is staring down at his feet.

Finally, the doors slide open, the oxygen filter connecting, and they can see inside to the other ship. It’s just as non-descript inside as it is outside, metal hallways and thin light strips casting shadows into the corners.

Su Nan stands in the center of the hallway, her feet braced, and she’s holding a large, rifle-style blaster, which is pointing directly at them.

“Come aboard, and don’t try anything,” she says calmly, “Or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Shouling steps forward first, his hands raised placatingly, an unconcerned look on his face. Bai Haotian doesn’t know how he’s doing that, considering that she is incredibly cowed by the unwavering point of the weapon.

“There’s no need for that,” he says. “We’re not here to raid you or take over your ship. We just need you.”

Su Nan doesn’t seem convinced. Once Liu Sang and Bai Haotian are also aboard, she hits a button on the wall’s side panel, and the door shuts behind them, sealing off their escape. “There’s nothing here for you to steal.”

“I said we aren’t here to raid you,” Shouling repeats, lowering his hands just slightly, which only makes the rifle point more firmly in his direction. “We just need some information.”

If anything, this makes Su Nan look even more suspicious. “I don’t deal in information.”

“I think that’s exactly what you deal in,” Shouling says, dropping his hands fully and stepping forward, right into the tip of the gun. Bai Haotian wants to pull him back, make sure that he’s not being an idiot, but some part of her recognizes that he’s trying to intimidate Su Nan just as much as she’s trying to intimidate him. “After all, you are from the W.A.N.G.s, aren’t you?”

Whatever reaction Bai Haotian was expecting from Su Nan, it wasn’t her gaze snapping into focus, leaping forward and sweeping Shouling’s legs out from under him, knocking him onto his back, stepping on his chest and pointing her gun directly at his face, as if Bai Haotian and Liu Sang aren’t even a concern.

“Who are you?” she hisses.

“I told you,” Shouling says, still with a deadly neutral expression on his face. “Shouling Wu Xie. Your organization took someone from me, and I want them back.”

“Sorry,” Su Nan says, “We’re not in the habit of returning our subjects.”

That makes Shouling’s face shutter, turn cold. “Subjects? Those are living, breathing beings. How can you—”

“They will be the catalysts of the universe,” Su Nan spits. “Sorry you won’t be around to see it.” She cocks the rifle, and Bai Haotian opens her mouth to scream, to throw herself forward, to do anything—

And then, from down the hall, Liu Sang stumbles forward, his face panicked. “Wait!”

Bai Haotian blinks because… Liu Sang is still right beside her, his hands raised so he doesn’t get shot.

“What the fuck,” he says.

“What the fuck,” Other Liu Sang repeats.

Su Nan looks over her shoulder at Other Liu Sang, her weapon still trained on Shouling, but she doesn’t seem as surprised by the newcomer’s presence as Bai Haotian is.

“What are—you—!” Shouling exclaims.

Other Liu Sang just looks at him, and there’s something strange about his posture, the set of his mouth. He stares down at Shouling as though he’s trying to puzzle him out. Her Liu Sang steps forward, as if he’s going to fight this other version of himself, and Bai Haotian wants to yell at him, because the last thing they need is Liu Sang getting himself shot too. Also, it’s incredibly weird seeing the two of them in the same room.

“You shouldn’t kill them,” Other Liu Sang says, and maybe he’s trying Compulsion, but it doesn’t feel like it.

“Why not?” Su Nan asks, as though she’s actually listening to Liu Sang. Other Liu Sang. This is confusing.

“Because their ship is the Wushanju,” Liu Sang says, and Bai Haotian frowns.

“Don’ you mean our ship?” she asks without meaning to, and Other Liu Sang turns toward her. His eyes are unreadable, and Bai Haotian nearly takes a step back at the sight of them, because Liu Sang’s eyes are usually the most expressive part of him.

Other Liu Sang’s lips curve up into a smile. “No.”

Su Nan sighs. “Wang Can.”

The person who looks like Liu Sang laughs, and then his form ripples, the image of Liu Sang wavering for a split second before it settles back together again. “I like this one. It’s comfortable.”

“What the fuck,” Liu Sang says again. “Did I… am I hallucinating?”

“Come here,” Su Nan says, and Wang Can does. It’s very strange to see Liu Sang walking… not like he does. Wang Can’s movements are much stiffer, as though he’s trying to figure out the placement of his limbs for the first time, but Bai Haotian has the feeling that if it came down to it, Wang Can would be able to knock her off her feet in an instant.

Wang Can whispers into Su Nan’s ear, grinning, looking almost gleeful, and Su Nan listens, her eyes flicking down to Wu Xie for just a moment before she sighs and lifts the blaster away from Shouling’s face, flipping it up to rest on her shoulder. Her foot is still on Shouling’s chest, but at least she isn’t actively threatening him with death. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Wang Can says, sending a glance Bai Haotian’s way, and then he laughs in her voice, and, right before her eyes, Liu Sang twists and shrinks and becomes a mirror image of Bai Haotian, who yelps at the sight and backs up. She doesn’t like that, looking at her own short hair and bright eyes on another person.

Luckily, Wang Can doesn’t stay that way for long, and his form slithers into a twin of Su Nan, copying her posture, hip cocked and hands planted on her—his—waist.

“What… what are you?” Shouling asks, and even though he’s still pinned against the floor, his voice is awed, sounding as though he’s reading a new book, or landing on a new world and finding something he hadn’t known existed, which Bai Haotian supposes he sort of is.

“Shapeshifter,” Wang Can informs him, and, as if to prove it, turns back into Liu Sang again. “I like him,” he tells Su Nan again, who rolls her eyes.

“Then stay him,” she says. “Stop wasting energy re-transforming into different people every five seconds. You’re showing off.”

Wang Can doesn’t react to the insult, if it is one, just gazes down at Shouling again. “Are we going to keep him?”

Shouling bristles, just slightly, and pushes his way out from under Su Nan’s foot. She lets him, watching him carefully as he gets to his feet.

“If you’re right, then we shouldn’t pass up this chance, should we?” she says, and Bai Haotian has no idea what they’re talking about, but it doesn’t sound good.

“Do you… know my ship?” Shouling demands, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice, which Bai Haotian thinks should have been there long ago.

Su Nan nods. “We’ve met your uncle. A long time ago.”

“Sanshu?” Wu Xie blurts, and Bai Haotian kind of wants to groan, because Wu Sanxing can lead Wu Xie into almost anything.

“Alright,” Su Nan says, ignoring the question and passing her blaster off to Wang Can, who begins twirling it around in a way that seems very unsafe. “What do you want?”

Shouling takes a step back towards Bai Haotian and Liu Sang, who’s brain is catching up to her stomach and feels very off-kilter by everything that has just happened. “We want information.”

“Yes, you said that,” Su Nan tells him. “What kind of information?”

“We need to know where the W.A.N.G. base is,” Shouling tells her, and Su Nan snorts.

“You think I’m going to tell you that?” she asks incredulously. “You think they wouldn’t kill me for revealing that kind of information?” She shakes her head. “If that’s what you’re looking for, you’d better find some other way to get it, because I’m definitely not going to give it to you.”

Shouling doesn’t look surprised by the refusal, which is fair, considering Bai Haotian isn’t either. “Did they leave you out here?”

Su Nan arches an eyebrow, which just serves to make her already-sculpted face look even more angular, defined and set. “What if they did?”

Shouling shrugs. “You would think an organization as smart as the W.A.N.G.s seem to be would recognize talent and keep it close, not exile it to Unmarked space.”

“I’m a field agent,” Su Nan says bluntly, “And flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

“I was afraid of that,” Shouling says. “Liu Sang.”

Liu Sang drags his eyes away from Wang Can long enough to give Shouling an uncomfortable look. “Um.”

Shouling’s shoulders betray the lack of patience that is slowly starting to rise in him. “You know what to do.”

Su Nan laughs. “Does he have some sort of hypnotic powers or something? What are you going to do to me, force me to give you the location?” She shakes her head, pointedly curling her hands into fists. “I don’t break that easily.”

“Jiejie,” Wang Can says. “Wu Sanxing.”

Su Nan turns her head to him for a brief moment, and they have a conversation through their eyes, a back-and-forth too rapid for Bai Haotian to follow. Su Nan sighs.

“Is that really what you want?” she asks Wang Can, who nods eagerly. “Fine.” She turns back to Shouling. “You’ll get your information. With two conditions.”

“Name them,” Shouling says magnanimously. Bai Haotian wonders, not for the first time, what it is about Wu Sanxing that would make Wu Xie trust anyone. For her part, she feels as though this has all happened a little too easily, and it makes her nervous.

“We’ll take you there ourselves,” Su Nan says. “For one thing, you’ll need someone to get you past their security. For another, I’m not about to let you leak the coordinates to anyone else. It’s your ship, and your ship alone.”

Shouling shrugs. “As long as we get there.”

“Second,” Su Nan says, “You make me shouling of your ship.”

Bai Haotian’s jaw drops. That’s—no, she can’t—Shouling—

“Done,” Shouling says immediately, and Bai Haotian whirls on him.

“Shouling!”

“Bai Haotian,” he replies, and Shouling never calls her by her full name, and she hates it.

“You can’t—” she begins to protest, but Shouling doesn’t let her finish.

“It’s still my ship,” he says. “If we have a temporary captain, fine.”

“Temporary,” Su Nan says, as though the word amuses her.

“None of you will cause trouble,” Shouling says, both to Liu Sang and Bai Haotian, and Bai Haotian knows he’s also directing the words to anyone else who is listening in on their conversation, which is most certainly the rest of the crew.

“Wu Xie,” Liu Sang murmurs, and Shouling fixes his stare on him.

“Just be ready,” is all he says, and then turns to Su Nan and Wang Can, who is looking a little too gleeful about the whole situation. “Agreed. When can we leave?”

Su Nan’s expression doesn’t betray much, but Bai Haotian can see the sparkle of satisfaction in her eyes. “Well. We can leave now.”

It doesn’t feel as though they’re complete, even with the added bodies.

For one thing, Bai Haotian has had to modify all of the security controls for Su Nan, as Shouling signed over the ship to her, and she actually doesn’t like Su Nan very much anymore. As soon as the deed was done, Shouling—Wu Xie—went and locked himself in the library, and hadn’t been seen since.

Pangzi stationed himself outside, and keeps alternating between knocking on the door and yelling abuse. He’d been kicked out of the cockpit, and Su Nan is piloting. She refused to plug in coordinates, so they’re journey is going to be entirely manually flown, apparently. The whole situation feels uncomfortable and sketchy, and Bai Haotian doesn’t like it. There are intruders on her ship, and her security systems aren’t enough to keep them out, because they were let in.

Everyone else seems to agree with her that this isn’t Wu Xie’s best idea. No matter how desperate they are to get Li Cu and Zhang Qiling back, there shouldn’t be any reason that Wu Xie would give up their ship. He wasn’t even going to give it up for his uncle, his family members, so what makes Su Nan different? Maybe the fact that she has actual useful information, but Bai Haotian doesn’t think the trade is worth it.

Surprisingly, Liu Sang seems to agree with Wu Xie’s decision more than any of them. “We’re running out of time,” he tells Bai Haotian when she complains about the trade they’ve been forced into. “If this is how we get them back, then this is how we get them back.”

“We have time,” Bai Haotian mutters. “We could have figured something else out. They won’t kill them.”

“We don’t know that,” Liu Sang snaps. “And we only have two days until—” He cuts himself off, paling dramatically, as though he were about to reveal something that he shouldn’t.

“Two days until what?” Bai Haotian asks suspiciously, but she never gets her answer, because at that moment, Wang Can wanders in, his face lighting up when he spots Liu Sang.

Honestly, Bai Haotian does not know why he came along. Literally anyone else would have been more helpful, because all Wang Can seems to do is torment Wang Meng by putting Pangzi’s face on Kan Jian’s body, and then laugh hysterically when Wang Meng yells at him about it. It’s a very disturbing image, and Bai Haotian can see why Wang Meng feels a very strong dislike towards it.

Wang Can’s favorite person to be is Liu Sang, though, so Bai Haotian keeps having to squint suspiciously whenever she sees the Yincanguian to make sure it’s actually him. It’s already exhausting, and they’ve only been sharing their ship for about two hours.

“Do you have to do that?” she snaps at Wang Can. Su Nan might be in charge, now, but that doesn’t mean she has to show Wang Can any respect.

“He’s comfy,” Wang Can says, as though he’s talking about a sweater. Liu Sang looks a little ill. “His voice feels nice.”

Bai Haotian frowns. “Just look like yourself. We’ve never seen your real form.”

“Oh, I don’t have one,” Wang Can says flippantly. “I’m shapeless. I’m just a chameleon.”

“Then how do people recognize you?” Kan Jian asks, his curiosity apparently getting the better of him, which Bai Haotian can’t really be upset at him for, because she’s wondering the same thing, now.

“They don’t,” Wang Can says. “When I was in the W.A.N.G. compound, I had a number and a cell, so they just kept me separated from everyone else. And with Jiejie, we’re the only two people on the ship, so no matter who I look like, she always knows it’s me.” He leers at Kan Jian, his face popping into Kan Jian’s own for a brief second before returning to Liu Sang’s. “I could trick you, though. Very easily.”

Kan Jian looks upset, and Bai Haotian is about to be proud of him for realizing that Wang Can is an enemy, but then he asks, “You were a subject there?”

Wang Can looks briefly surprised that that is the thing that Kan Jian has latched onto, and Bai Haotian curses him a little for being so nice.

“Yeah,” Wang Can says after a moment. “I escaped, though.”

“How?” Bai Haotian asks before she can stop herself, and is momentarily ashamed of it. She tries to calm her guilt by pretending that she’s asking to gather information.

“Disguised myself as a guard and snuck out with Jiejie,” Wang Can says with a shrug. “By the time she figured it out, she couldn’t take me back, or she’d get in trouble for stealing me away in the first place.” He looks inordinately proud of this, but his information is useless. Li Cu and Zhang Qiling can’t shapeshift.

“How do you know Sanshu?” Liu Sang asks quietly, and Bai Haotian glances at him. He’s staring at his hands, as though he doesn’t really care, but his shoulders are tight enough that Bai Haotian knows he’s hanging onto every word.

“Wu Sanxing?” Wang Can repeats, and there’s something like a sneer that crosses his face, which isn’t exactly a shock. No one seems to like Wu Sanxing very much. “We… collaborated with him once. We owe him a lot, actually.”

“Is that why you’re helping Wu Xie?” Kan Jian asks. “To replay Wu Sanxing?”

“Something like that,” Wang Can says vaguely, and then morphs himself into a table, just as Wang Meng comes into the cargo bay, where they’ve all been hanging out so as to stay away from Pangzi’s Wu Xie Annoyance Tactics.

Wang Meng is carrying a basket of laundry, which he sets down on the Wang Can table. “Do any of you have any—” He shrieks as the table turns back into Wang Can, which sends the laundry tumbling, and Wang Meng staggering backwards as though he’s been shot.

“Surprise,” Wang Can says, grinning.

Bai Haotian rolls her eyes, ignoring him, and goes back to her laptop as Wang Meng begins shouting at Wang Can for terrorizing them.

“What are you doing?” Liu Sang asks, peering over her shoulder. He’s sitting on top of the crate that Bai Haotian is leaning back against.

“Tracking something,” Bai Haotian mumbles vaguely. What she’s really doing is mapping out their course, trying to figure out where they’re headed, hacking into the Wushanju’s own systems to see if she can get any idea as to where they are and where they’re going. If they can find the compound by themselves, they won’t need Su Nan and Wang Can anymore, and can kick them off the ship. She can’t say this out loud, though, in case Wang Can hears and reports back to his shouling, so she just burrows deeper into her screen, her eyes burning from the blue light blazing against them.

Just a little more time. She just needs a little more time.

They fly for another day, which quickly begins to turn into two. Bai Haotian doesn’t think that any of them sleep, especially not Shouling, though she supposes that she wouldn’t know. Wu Xie hasn’t come out of his library at all, even after four hours of Pangzi annoying him. The half-Titan had finally given up and stomped into the cargo bay, which appears to be the new crew headquarters, despite Wang Can’s constant and extremely annoying presence.

“I don’t know what he’s thinking,” Pangzi had grumbled, leaning up against the wall and glaring at the door, as though Wu Xie will walk through it at any minute. “He’s an idiot.”

“He’s just trying to get them back,” Kan Jian defended weakly, but Bai Haotian knew that he’s also not a huge fan of the new captaincy.

“Well, he could have done that without inviting two strangers on board,” Pangzi muttered. “The last time that happened, we almost died. A lot.”

Liu Sang wrinkled his nose. “That wasn’t my fault.”

“It was sort of your fault, Jinx,” Pangzi said.

 They’ve all been walking on eggshells, trying not to get in Su Nan’s way, which isn’t difficult. Their new shouling doesn’t do much captaining, instead staying in the cockpit, more like a pilot than a captain. Bai Haotian doesn’t mind; it gives them one less thing to worry about.

Wang Can, however, is everywhere, and as much as Bai Haotian doesn’t like him, she has to admit that he’s very good at the whole shapeshifting thing. She’s pretty sure she’s seen him turn into a plant. It makes it difficult for any of them to have a conversation, because Wang Can could be there, listening in. Bai Haotian supposes that that’s probably the point.

She’s set up camp in the kitchen currently, still running her diagnostics on their flight paths. She’s in there because if Wang Can decides to come in to bother her, she doesn’t want him in her engine room.

Everyone else is asleep at the moment, or is supposed to be, though Bai Haotian suspects that few of them actually are. Wang Can has taken one of the empty cabins; Bai Haotian had locked Li Cu’s manually to make sure that he couldn’t go in there, even by accident.

The fact that she’s in the kitchen ends up being a good thing, as it turns out, because it means that she’s able to hear when the library door finally opens, and Shouling emerges. Bai Haotian looks up from her work, a little shocked, and then mostly ecstatic, because she hasn’t seen Wu Xie in days, and even if he’s not fully in charge of the ship right now, she knows that just the sight of him will be enough to calm her nerves, maybe even enough so she’ll be able to sleep.

Before she can go out to greet him, however, she hears a different set of footsteps in the hall, and Su Nan’s voice, which says, “Finally making an appearance, Shouling?”

“You’re the shouling now,” Wu Xie says. He sounds tired. “Or did you forget our agreement?”

“I may be the shouling of the ship,” Su Nan says, “But you’re the shouling of your crew. They’re very loyal.”

“Yes,” Wu Xie says, and there’s an unmistakable note of pride in his voice. “They are. They’re a good crew.”

“I was surprised you agreed to my conditions,” Su Nan continues.

“I need to find the compound,” Wu Xie says, “I’ll do just about anything to get there. The Wushanju is a small price to pay.”

“Your uncle didn’t seem to think so,” Su Nan says. “Wu Sanxing was prepared to give anything for this ship.” She doesn’t sound as though this is a conversation, more like she’s baiting Wu Xie, goading him into something.

“When did you meet my uncle?” Wu Xie asks.

“A couple decades ago, nearly,” Su Nan replies. “He was with someone else. A woman.”

“Jiang Ning?” Wu Xie asks. His voice sounds like a frown. “They dealt with the W.A.N.G.s?”

“They didn’t traffic, exactly, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Su Nan says. “We made a deal. Never heard from him again, after that.” Her voice drops. “It’s a dangerous business, you know. The one we’re in.”

“Raiding?” Wu Xie asks, a little slighted. “It is if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“It is if you’re too soft,” Su Nan says, emphasizing the final word. “You know that already, don’t you? Your family has been doing this for years.”

Wu Xie is silent for a long moment, so long that Bai Haotian isn’t quite sure that he’s still out there. “How much do you know about my family?”

“Enough,” Su Nan says. “Enough to know that you’ve been playing around with things that you shouldn’t.”

Wu Xie’s inhalation is sharp. “How did you—”

“Like I said,” Su Nan interrupts. “Your uncle made a deal with us.” Bai Haotian shivers at the ice in her voice. “He didn’t follow through.”

Bai Haotian frowns, stepping closer to the door and pressing herself up against it so that she can hear the conversation better. She had known that Wu Xie’s family didn’t exactly hold the moral high-ground in a lot of situations, but she hadn’t expected them to be in league with a group that’s so obviously evil.

“I said I was going to kill him,” Su Nan says, “The next time I saw him, I swore I was going to kill Wu Sanxing. And then you turned up.”

“What are you waiting for, then?” Wu Xie snaps, his hackles raised. “If you want to get revenge on my uncle, you might as well do it through me.”

“No,” Su Nan says immediately. “You’re more useful alive.”

“Because of…” Wu Xie says, but doesn’t finish the sentence.

Su Nan must not need him to, though, because she just says, “I think you know how this is going to end. You should make a good choice, Shouling. We’re getting close now.”

“Why are you helping me?” Wu Xie demands suddenly, and Su Nan laughs at him, a high, hoarse sound.

“Am I helping you?” she asks, amused. “Am I really?”

With that, the sound of footsteps echoes in the hallway, and then the cockpit door slides shut; Bai Haotian can tell which one it is by how it creaks.

She peeks into the corridor, sees Shouling standing next to the library door, head bent toward the ground, hands dangling at his sides, shoulders slumped. The view of his profile makes him look older, a lot older, and more exhausted than he has any right to be.

He turns toward the kitchen and she ducks back behind the doorframe, racing back to her seat at the table on her toes so that she doesn’t make any sound, and slips behind her computer just as Wu Xie turns into the room.

He looks surprised to see Bai Haotian there. “Xiao Bai. You should be asleep.”

“Couldn’t,” she says, pushing away her computer and stretching, as if she’s been working all this time. “Don’t you need sleep, too?”

“I’m fine,” Shouling says, then immediately goes for the caffeinated tea, which does not validate his statement very much at all. “Don’t worry about me.”

Bai Haotian wants to tell him that she does worry, that they all worry, and that right now in particular, she’s very, very worried, but then she doesn’t. Instead, she just watches as Wu Xie makes his tea, heating up the water and steeping the bag almost absentmindedly, silent as they wait for the beverage to be made.

“Shouling,” she says, when the silence is too much, when it becomes oppressive rather than comfortable, “You… aren’t going to do anything, right?”

Shouling stops, his body gravitating in her direction just slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Bai Haotian says, because she truly doesn’t, not quite. Her body is fumbling from the lack of sleep. “Just… don’t do anything without us, okay?”

Shouling sighs, abandons his tea at the counter. He comes to Bai Haotian’s side and places a hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him, trying to read the expression on his face.

“You trust me, don’t you?” Shouling murmurs, meeting her eyes. “You trust me to keep you safe?”

“Yes,” Bai Haotian replies instantly, because that has never been in question. “Always.”

Shouling leans down to kiss the top of her head. Bai Haotian tilts her face downward, letting him.

“Best crew,” he says softly, just for her, and Bai Haotian loves him; not the crush that she had had when she had first met him, but a swift, burning, undulating love. She will find him in every universe, every time.

“Best shouling,” she says fiercely, wrapping her arms around Wu Xie’s waist and burying her face into his stomach, and Shouling lets her.

She wakes up the next morning to Pangzi shouting.

At first, she just blinks awake, peeling her cheek off of her arm, which she had apparently been using for a pillow for most of the night. Her laptop is still running, becoming a little furnace-like with all of the work that it’s doing, and Bai Haotian tries to pinpoint when she had gone to sleep. Sometime after Shouling had taken his tea and gone back to the library, but when exactly, she has no clue.

Pangzi shouts again, something with words this time, and Bai Haotian wonders what Wang Can’s turned into this time. Maybe Pangzi will punch him this time. That would be funny.

She wanders out into the hallway, rubbing her eyes and yawning, blinking Pangzi’s form into focus. He’s standing in the doorway of the cockpit, blocking out the view inside, and Bai Haotian wonders exactly what he’s doing there.

“What is it?” she asks. “Pangzi, you’re going to wake everyone else up.”

Pangzi doesn’t answer her, just bends over the control panel, and suddenly, Bai Haotian sees something flashing behind him, an alert on their windshield, and her heart drops to the region of her knees.

“What’s that?” she asks, her voice slightly high-pitched, a little frantic. “What’s happened?”

Pangzi doesn’t answer for a moment, but Bai Haotian doesn’t really need him to, because she knows what the orange pop-up on the screen means. She had fixed that programming herself, and knows that it says, in bold letters, SHUTTLE ACTIVATED.

“Fuck, Tianzhen,” Pangzi says, “What were you thinking?”

He pulls up video footage of the cargo bay, where their two shuttles are kept, one slot permanently empty, but there’s only one hanger occupied now; where their second shuttle should be is a blank space, empty and aching.

“He didn’t,” Bai Haotian says disbelievingly. “He said he wouldn’t.”

“He lied,” Pangzi says, his voice breaking just a bit. “He lied.”

Bai Haotian wants to deny it, but she can’t.

He’s left them.

She watches the screen with Pangzi, but the image on it doesn’t change.

Chapter Text

As near as they can figure it, the center of the universe is a black hole.

Not a hole. Not quite. More like a crater. A cavern. A cosmic maw so vast and gaping that it becomes a universe in and of itself, the tether point of all the galaxies and star systems and planets that exist, to keep them from crashing into each other, keep them in orbit. Everything is orbiting something else, even if they don’t know it, and what they are orbiting is a swanning, ceaseless void, a leashed monster, a corkscrew spiral of pull and slash and twist.

This is Hei Xiazi’s home.

There are things that are empty and dangerous and scary, and then there are things that know they are, and revel in it. Revel in the simple joys of being, alive, alive, of claiming the crushing corners of the universe and seeping into the empty seams of creation.

There are things that come awake in the dark.

Hei Xiazi is one of these. He crawled out of the hole in the universe centuries ago—millennia? It’s hard to say, exactly—and spent thousands of years resting from that alone, curled around the orbit of a tiny, uninhabited planet, hugging it tight and then, eventually, eating it, taking all the dust and rock and color and making it his own. He’d moved on, a few lightyears away, swimming through the black, plucking asteroids from next to stars and crunching them to pieces, growing more solid, a thin, ribbon-y string of darkness that could spread and swath and consume.

Oh, he’s there. There’s matter to him, something physical, but at the same time, there’s not, he’s not. He has consciousness, needs to, to be able to drag himself painstakingly through galaxies. He’s not a black hole, not nearly big enough. He’s a tiny pocket, and maybe he could eat through a star if given enough time, but he doesn’t really like light. There’s nowhere for it to go in him, except through, and that feels like burning.

He doesn’t know when he had gotten captured, or how, really, just knows that he had swam into some sort of light trap, been pinned into place by a million little beams of fire, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until someone had come and stuck him in a container with too much light and too thick of walls for him to chew through easily. He doesn’t need air, doesn’t need heat, but those things are nice, and give him something to hold onto, something to draw energy from.

They want to know how he works, and Hei Xiazi can’t tell them that he doesn’t know. He’s never had to think about it, because for him, he just is. He’s there, more powerful and more destructive than anything else in the universe, and if they give him enough time, he will break out without them ever finding anything to explain how something older than the stars and just as deadly can exist.

Then he meets Xie Yuchen.

Xie Yuchen turns off the lights. He lets Hei Xiazi rest. He feeds him, gives him air and lets him crush rocks into dust and swallow them whole, and lets him build up his strength, talks to him. Hei Xiazi has been able to understand language for a while now—he’s a quick study, he can hear, they didn’t think he could—but Xie Yuchen doesn’t know that, so when he talks to Hei Xiazi, all about his home and his friends and what brought him to this place, he doesn’t know that Hei Xiazi is listening, that Hei Xiazi understands.

He can’t respond, not really, because he doesn’t have the mouth or hands or eyes that Xie Yuchen does, can’t communicate with him besides the way that he moves when Xie Yuchen is in the room, the way he twists and writhes in the air. He likes to think that Xie Yuchen understands, maybe, that he’s trying to say something back to him.

He knows that Xie Yuchen understands when he reaches out, touches the darkness, feels it freeze his fingers, but not crush them. Hei Xiazi will not hurt him.

Xie Yuchen is very, very brilliant, and Hei Xiazi is fascinated by his delicate, fragile skeleton, his soft and squishy human parts, the way that he is a mote in the wind, just a tiny piece of… something. He’s small. He shouldn’t be able to catch the attention of Hei Xiazi, who is monstrous and extinguishing and going to break out of here.

And yet, Xie Yuchen does.

And then, at some point, Hei Xiazi has a body, a humanoid form, and he can talk to Xie Yuchen, who is staring at him with wide eyes, clutching his wrist, blood dripping from his palm, blood that Hei Xiazi sticks a limb out and catches.

“Hello,” he says.

He and Xie Yuchen are the Same, after that. Just a little bit. Just enough that it matters.

“I came to save my friend,” Xie Yuchen admits one day, when Hei Xiazi asks him why he’s here, because Xie Yuchen is like a flower, a living, growing thing, not one that should bring death, which is what the W.A.N.G. compound does. “He’s trapped in here, and it’s partially my fault.”

They’ve managed to keep Hei Xiazi’s human form from the rest of the scientists; Hei Xiazi will eat anything that is put in his cell, including video cameras, so it’s one of the only places in the base that doesn’t have security surveillance, only walls made of light, to keep him weak and contained. So he and Xie Yuchen, his little living flower, are able to talk freely, and that’s how they spend the majority of Xie Yuchen’s free time now that Hei Xiazi has a form that’s able to communicate.

“Ah,” Hei Xiazi says, and doesn’t ask more, because he can sense that Xie Yuchen will not be very open to talking about whatever friend this is. “I’m in here for larceny.”

Xie Yuchen doesn’t laugh, nor does he deny it; he’s used to Hei Xiazi’s sense of humor, or what passes as one, by now. “This isn’t a prison.”

“Might as well be,” Hei Xiazi says, letting his legs turn into black smoke; he still hasn’t quite gotten the hang of keeping this form up all the time.

“It’s imprisonment,” Xie Yuchen corrects. “But it’s not legal. You’re not in here because you did something wrong.”

“Or am I?” Hei Xiazi says cryptically, then goes and spawns hell near the ceiling.

Xie Yuchen doesn’t sound the least bit disturbed by this, which just goes to show how used he’s gotten to Hei Xiazi’s particular brand of antics as of late. “Come down from there. I have an idea.”

“An idea?” The last time that Xie Yuchen had an idea, it gave Hei Xiazi a body. He’s interested in Xie Yuchen’s ideas. “What kind of idea?”

“One you’ll like,” Xie Yuchen says, and he’s right.

When the Sheiling kid escapes the Gutongjing facility (Hei Xiazi only knows where they are because Xie Yuchen told him), the entire place loses its shit. It’s very funny. Hei Xiazi cackles as they try and get him from his cell into an even tinier box, all white and fluorescents, and then he screams, because it hurts.

Xie Yuchen is there at one point, whispering, “Sorry, sorry, it’ll be over soon.”

Hei Xiazi can’t say anything back.

Eventually, he reigns in his voice and condenses himself into a ball so tight that if he were to let go of his control for a fraction of a second, he could turn a galaxy nuclear. Then he’s able to hear what’s going on, why they’re so freaked out.

“It was just a baby,” a voice says. “We got it young; it wasn’t supposed to be able to think strategically yet. Or at all.”

“Well, I guess that’s another thing to add to its characteristics,” a different voice mutters. “Coherence and complex problem-solving at a young age. It’s kind of interesting, actually.”

“Yeah, interesting until we get the shaft for letting it escape,” the first voice counters. “And now they’re making us pack all this shit up and move to a different facility. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“It would have happened eventually,” the second says. “You know that they try to change locations every couple decades or so.”

“Still a pain,” the first declares, and the voices move on.

Hei Xiazi thinks that if he ever meets the kid who gave these bastards so much trouble, he’ll thank him personally.

The new facility is similar to their old one, except it doesn’t have nearly as much of the specialized equipment and testing rooms that the Gutongjing facility did. Hei Xiazi’s vacuum chamber isn’t there, for one thing, and he’s basically just tossed into a light-bound cell and left to rot. They don’t even do experiments on him anymore, which, okay, great, but it’s boring doing nothing.

“They don’t know what to do with you,” Xie Yuchen tells him. “You’re so far removed from what they’re looking for that they’re choosing to keep you here just in case, but they don’t actually have any plans for you.” He’s sitting on the floor of Hei Xiazi’s cell, sounding disgusted with the W.A.N.G.s, as he normally is.

“Nothing?” Hei Xiazi asks, because as much as he hates the W.A.N.G.s, he has to admit that they were very creative, especially about their torture—oh, right, sorry, scientific—methods. It’s strange that they can’t come up with some sort of trial to run with him. “They can’t think of anything?” He pauses. “Or you can’t think of anything?”

Xie Yuchen sighs, and Hei Xiazi knows he’s gotten it right. “Fine. I can’t think of anything. I’ve been trying to get them to hold off on you, because eventually they’re going to find out what I did, to give you a body, and then everything will be ruined.”

“I just won’t show them,” Hei Xiazi says, as though it’s that easy, but he knows that it isn’t, quite. He’s getting more and more comfortable with his humanoid form lately, and sometimes nearly forgets to change back when someone’s at the door. He’s gotten too comfortable with Xie Yuchen.

Xie Yuchen seems to recognize this, because his voice is doubtful. “You’re not that careful.”

“Maybe not,” Hei Xiazi says. He’s never had to be careful. He can crush things in between his hands—not hands—his—limbs? There’s not a good word for how he naturally appears.

Xie Yuchen asks, “Do you think you can be?”

“What?”

“Careful,” he clarifies. “Do you think you can be careful?”

“I don’t know,” Hei Xiazi says suspiciously. “What do you have in mind?”

Xie Yuchen, for a moment, seems as though he could be a wild thing, too. “A trick.”

“I do like tricks,” Hei Xiazi says.  

The W.A.N.G. compound’s mission, as far as Hei Xiazi knows it, is genetic selection, mutation, breeding, and hyper-analysis. He doesn’t know what some of those words mean, but he doesn’t think it’s anything nice. Xie Yuchen says that they started out studying all of the species in the universe in order to catalogue them so that different races would be able to coexist, and so that they could potentially find new homeworlds for aliens whose planets had been destroyed. That had quickly been warped and twisted into something like mad science, and the W.A.N.G.’s seem to have decided that they need to find the secret to immortality so that they can either rule the galaxy or destroy it.

Hei Xiazi doesn’t even know why this is. The W.A.N.G. scientists are all different species as well, though they are, admittedly, of the more common varieties. There has to be someone who’s heading the project, someone who wants all of this information specifically for their species, but fuck if Hei Xiazi knows who that is, and Xie Yuchen doesn’t know either.

“Believe me,” he says, “I’ve tried to find out. Dr. Xian is the closest I can get to finding a leader, and I don’t think he even knows.”

It’s a useless conjecture, so Hei Xiazi ignores it. What is he supposed to do? He’s just a universe pocket, crammed into a building. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to begin to take down some sort of corrupt organization.

Xie Yuchen does, however, he just doesn’t have the physical strength. They can’t just break out, because that would mean hurting and leaving behind a lot of innocent prisoners, and, like the Sheiling, just cause the W.A.N.G.s to regroup somewhere else. They still might, even after Xie Yuchen’s plan is fully finished; Hei Xiazi has no idea how many of them are out there.

The plan, as far as Hei Xiazi has seen, is simple; they get out as many prisoners as they can, one by one, and when they’re about to get caught, then they’ll leave. Xie Yuchen, very cautiously and very carefully, suggests pitting prisoners against each other, to demonstrate fighting skills once all other tests have been run on them, and designates Hei Xiazi as the final problem, as it were.

This is a lie for multiple reasons. The first is that most of the test subjects have been kept in captivity so long that they no longer have the strength or knowledge needed to fight back against any opponents, and either end up just circling each other in confusion, or being knocked out by the stupid gadgets that the W.A.N.G.s put in their bodies, attached to their bloodstream (that’s another point for Hei Xiazi’s natural Form; he has neither body nor blood).

Normally, they’ll pit some subjects against each other, pretend as though they’re doing it to take observations for science, and then, once they’ve had their fill of watching desperate, dying creatures try and take it out on each other, they send Hei Xiazi in to feast.

Hei Xiazi ate a planet, hundreds of years ago. He doesn’t need to feed for a while yet, and he doesn’t like eating living matter. It doesn’t agree with him. The scientists don’t know that, though, so they just watch as Hei Xiazi engulfs the test subject he’s supposed to be consuming in his Form, and is very, very careful not to actually kill them, until he’s put back in his cell. Then, Xie Yuchen comes and retrieves them, taking them to the other place that he goes when he’s not with Hei Xiazi. Hei Xiazi is not sure what he does then, just knows that Xie Yuchen eventually comes back and says, “They’re gone,” and Hei Xiazi believes him.

They’ve freed upwards of fifty prisoners that way, and while Hei Xiazi doesn’t know if that’s good for them, being out in the universe like that after being trapped for so long, but it’s at least better than being in here.

“How much longer?” he asks Xie Yuchen once. “How much longer until we get to go, too?”

“Soon,” Xie Yuchen says, breathless as he carefully records the details of their latest case, making sure that he doesn’t forget anything. “Soon.”

Hei Xiazi thinks that “soon” might be now.

His first hint that things are changing is that Xie Yuchen doesn’t come and see him for a few days. That doesn’t really mean anything, because Xie Yuchen still has to work so that his supervisors don’t get suspicious, but usually he’ll at least let Hei Xiazi know if he needs to disappear for a few days. Hei Xiazi is bored without him, and primarily amuses himself by seeing how far he can stretch across the room, which isn’t very far when he’s trying to keep from getting completely burned out by the lights.

The second thing is that, four days since he last saw Xie Yuchen, the door to his cell opens, and a tiny, dirty figure is thrown in. Hei Xiazi hasn’t shown his humanoid form to anyone besides Xie Yuchen, but the person looks young, and scared, and he’s obviously a test subject, given the gray clothing and laser screen in his wrist. He won’t tell anyone that Hei Xiazi isn’t just dark matter all of the time. He’ll keep his secret.

Having decided this, he pops into his human form, knowing that he’s done it by the way the world goes foggy and gray, everything blurring into one indistinct scrawl. It’s the one thing they couldn’t quite get right; since his True Form naturally absorbs light, there was really no way for him to figure out how to make his eyes work. He doesn’t know what seeing’s like anyway; that’s not how he figures out the world.

The kid introduces himself as a Sheiling, and Hei Xiazi asks him if he’s the Sheiling, and then feels even worse for him. 126789225521 did what no one else has been able to do on their own; he escaped the W.A.N.G.s, and now they’ve brought him back again. That must suck. They got his friend too, apparently, though this “Xiao-ge” doesn’t seem to also be a Sheiling, judging by 126789225521’s tone, and the unspecific way he describes him. Hei Xiazi wonders what the kid’s gotten up to in the four years that he’s been free. If he’s even been free; who knows, maybe he was captured by something worse?

He tries to distract 126789225521, because he can tell that he’s scared and upset, and he really is just a kid. Hei Xiazi’s kind don’t have children, so he doesn’t quite get the concept, but he’s been around other aliens for long enough that he recognizes that the young are something to be protected. Hei Xiazi has no idea how age works in Sheilings—no idea how age works in anyone, really, because he’s going to live for eons, and is just getting started—but by any other species’ standards, he seems young. Plus, he has a feeling he knows what’s coming next for the kid, and he wants to make his last moments as comfortable as possible. It’s the least he can do if he can’t get 126789225521 out of the compound.

Sure enough, after a bit, he hears the sound of people coming down the hall, and knows that it’s time for him to let the kid go.

“You should go wait by the door,” he tells him. “They don’t appreciate it when they have to come all the way in here.” It’s partially for that reason, and partially because he thinks that if 126789225521 gets any closer to him, he’s going to engulf him and keep him tight and safe, and they’ll never be able to make him let go.

He waits, once 126789225521 is gone, wondering if he’ll ever see him again. He doubts it. That’s not how things work around here. Xie Yuchen obviously knows about the kid, though, because no one else would have stuck him in Hei Xiazi’s room. Even though Xie Yuchen hasn’t said anything about it to him, Hei Xiazi has a sneaking suspicion that he’s planning something. Maybe there will be a chance, after all.

This is confirmed when, just a little bit later, the door to his room opens, and Hei Xiazi doesn’t even have the warning or the time to change forms. It turns out alright, because it’s just Xie Yuchen, breathless and panicked.

“They’re going to kill him,” he says.

“Who?” Hei Xiazi asks. “The Sheiling?”

“No,” Xie Yuchen says. “His friend. The one that he calls Xiao-ge? I don’t know if he mentioned him to you while he was in here.” He pauses. “Did you even talk at all?”

“Yes,” Hei Xiazi said. “He mentioned him. What’s going on?”

“They pit them against each other,” Xie Yuchen tells him, and Hei Xiazi feels something monstrous roar up inside of him, because if they knew that they were companions, that’s the cruelest thing he can think of. “They made 259900452587 hurt him, and now he’s…” Xie Yuchen swallows uncomfortably. “He’s trying to kill them, is the best way to put it, and they’re trying to knock him out through the control device. Somehow he’s resisting it, but they’re just going to kill him if he keeps this up.”

“They don’t want to keep him?” Hei Xiazi asks, confused. “For testing?”

“They don’t know what he is,” Xie Yuchen says, “And I guess it’s too much work to figure that out.” He sighs. “You have to get him.”

“Okay,” Hei Xiazi says, “I’ll get him.” He crumples up, bursts into full Form, and goes to swarm by the door, which Xie Yuchen opens, giving him access to the arena. It’s connected to his cell so that he can always be the final challenger, and so that they can put him back more easily once he’s done.

The arena is not as light-locked as his cell is, so he has an better time maneuvering, but it’s not dark enough for him to get to full strength. He takes a moment, screeching by the doorway just to seem extra scary to the scientists, and analyzes his surroundings. There’s a collection of collapsed shapes on the ground, two that he doesn’t recognize, and one that he can tell is 126789225521, very small and broken. He nearly snarls at that and goes to grab him, but remembers what his task is, and turns his attention away from the Sheiling.

There’s another creature in the arena, one that looks humanoid but is distinctly something More than that if the way he’s attacking the walls is anything to go by. He’s nearly halfway up to the window that a collection of scared scientists are screaming behind, and Hei Xiazi can smell the poison that they’re pumping into his nerves to try and get him to stop. Hei Xiazi doesn’t know how he’s still functioning, but the arm with the control device in it is black up to the elbow, and seems to be made up of static. Hei Xiazi doesn’t know what that means, but whatever it is, it’s obviously allowing him to remain conscious.

Hei Xiazi has heard of species that will tear themselves apart if something hurts their young, and he wonders if the Xiao-ge has taken 126789225521 in as his own, if that’s why he’s so angry. They might not be the same species—there’s a difference to the way that they Are, and Hei Xiazi can tell that they don’t have the same sort of insides—but they’re obviously family, and Hei Xiazi will not let them be torn apart like this if he can help it.

The Xiao-ge has reached the window now, and is pounding on the glass so hard that Hei Xiazi can see the material start to fracture. The scientists have summoned the security guards, and they’re rushing into the room, guns aimed at the spot where the Xiao-ge is trying to break through. If he manages to smash the glass, they’ll shoot him on the spot, and Hei Xiazi isn’t sure, but he doesn’t think that the Xiao-ge will be able to survive fifteen blaster shots to the chest.

He gives a scream and moves, swarming over to the wall and plucking the Xiao-ge off of it as though he’s not half-feral and a killing machine. He sweeps him into his tendrils, careful not to crush him immediately, and holds his breath, letting the cold of his form engulf the other creature. Hei Xiazi has found that it’s better to rapidly freeze the aliens that he saves, rather than stealing their oxygen; he can do both, but the former is significantly less likely to permanently kill something.

The Xiao-ge goes limp in his hold, and Hei Xiazi makes sure that none of him is visible before he twists away from the wall and rushes towards the still form of the Sheiling on the ground, limb extended to snatch him away too, but before he can, light assaults him from both sides, and he screams, compressing in on himself, trying to keep as much of him safe as possible. He wants to get 126789225521, but he’s still far away, and they’re shoving Hei Xiazi back towards his cell, more and more light beams pressing down on him, and they’re all concentrated, shit. That’s the worst.

He gives 126789225521 one last glance, but there’s nothing he can do. If he’s got the situation correct, though, the Xiao-ge didn’t kill him, and the scientists will still want him alive, if they can. They won’t get rid of him yet, not if he beat two other opponents before they sent the Xiao-ge in. He’ll be as safe as he can be in here, and Xie Yuchen will look out for him.

Hei Xiazi sends the Sheiling a quiet apology, and then swoops back into his cell, which immediately slams shut on him. He drops the Xiao-ge as gently as he can into one of the corners, then positions himself in front of him, exhausted. Even the dim control lights in here are almost too much, and he hisses, hunkering down and trying to repair the damage that was done to his Form.

Xie Yuchen better have a damn good explanation for this.

It takes Xie Yuchen a bit to return to Hei Xiazi, enough that he knows it’s nighttime when he finally sees him again. The rest of the facility has gone quiet and still, which means that’s it’s time for the sleep cycle, which Hei Xiazi doesn’t need.

He’s been trying to get the Xiao-ge to wake up and talk to him, but he’s just very cold and still, and Hei Xiazi hopes that he didn’t overdo it with the freezing thing. He knows his limits fairly well, but there had been a lot going on at the time. He transforms and nudges at the Xiao-ge with his foot, but he doesn’t move, so Hei Xiazi crouches down next to him so that he won’t miss when the Xiao-ge wakes up.

The Xiao-ge is solid, as far as he can tell, and when he pokes his arm, it feels like a normal arm. He can’t tell if the Xiao-ge is still doing the thing where it looks like he’s becoming goo, but he can’t feel anything out of the ordinary. That’s not saying much, however, so he pops back into his Form for a moment to make sure that the Xiao-ge hasn’t died.

When the room turns back into focus, he can see the Xiao-ge lying there, and his eyes are open.

Hei Xiazi quickly shifts back to his palatable body so that he can talk. 126789225521 understood the common language that everyone around here seems to speak in, so he’s assuming that the Xiao-ge will understand it too.

“Don’t freak out,” he says. “I saved you.”

He can’t tell what the Xiao-ge is doing, but from the sound of it, he hasn’t moved. “What are you?”

“I’m Hei Xiazi,” Hei Xiazi says. “I’m a prisoner here, too.”

“Prisoner,” the Xiao-ge murmurs, and then suddenly is in motion, so quickly that Hei Xiazi steps instinctively out of the way so that he won’t accidentally get attacked. “Li Cu!”

“What’s ‘Li Cu?’” Hei Xiazi asks.

“The Sheiling,” the Xiao-ge says. “The one in the arena.” Hei Xiazi suddenly feels a hand close around his neck, and he’s pinned back against the wall. It doesn’t frighten him, because he can dismantle this Form at any moment, and also he doesn’t actually need to breathe. “Tell me what you did with him. Now.”

“126789225521?” he asks. “The baby?”

“He’s not a baby,” the Xiao-ge says, sounding confused.

“He’s your baby,” Hei Xiazi says. “You were angry that they hurt him.”

“He’s not mine,” the Xiao-ge tells him, as though the very notion of ownership were distasteful. “Not like that.”

“Okay,” Hei Xiazi agrees, because it really doesn’t matter much to him, nor does he know all that much about it. “He’s not yours. That’s fine. Who’s is he?”

“His own,” the Xiao-ge says grumpily.

“He’s too little,” Hei Xiazi says.

“He’s nineteen.”

“Nineteen?” That’s even younger than Hei Xiazi had expected, what the fuck. “He’s only nineteen?” He scoffs. “That’s insane. He shouldn’t even be out of the nest yet.”

“What are you?” the Xiao-ge asks.

“Dunno,” Hei Xiazi says. “I’m me.”

“What species?”

“A species,” Hei Xiazi says vaguely. “I don’t think it has a name. I’m…” There’s really not a lot he can say about this, because if his kind do have a name for themselves, none of them know it; they’re all destined to be alone, from the moment they crawl out of the center of the universe. “There’s just me.”

That, for some reason, serves to make the Xiao-ge let go of him. “Oh.”

“You’re a Xiao-ge, though, aren’t you?” Hei Xiazi asks. “That’s what 126789225521 said.”

“My name is Zhang Qiling,” the Xiao-ge—Zhang Qiling—tells him. “I’m a Kylin.”

“Then what’s a Xiao-ge?”

Zhang Qiling doesn’t respond, and Hei Xiazi thinks he might have offended him.

“It’s a nickname,” he finally says. “Someone… important gave it to me.”

Hei Xiazi doesn’t know anything about nicknames either, but he thinks that getting one might be nice. Xie Yuchen had given him the name he has now, once they had become friends, and that’s been good enough so far.

Zhang Qiling sighs, and then asks again, “Where’s Li Cu?”

Hei Xiazi is regretful about that. “I had to leave him behind,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Zhang Qiling is silent again, and then says, “No. No, we have to get him out. He can’t think that I left him.”

“I could barely save you,” Hei Xiazi informs him. “They were going to shoot you if you broke through that glass. We got lucky.”

“Did you see what they did to him?” Zhang Qiling demands. “Where they took him?”

Hei Xiazi shakes his head. “They won’t kill him. I promise. You should’ve seen how upset they were when he got out the first time. There’s no way they’ll get rid of him so soon after getting him back.”

Zhang Qiling pauses. “You knew Li Cu when he was in here? Before?”

“No,” Hei Xiazi says. “I knew about him. He fucked their shit up when he left.”

Zhang Qiling makes a breathy little noise that could be a laugh, but probably isn’t. “Good.”

Hei Xiazi hears footsteps coming down the hall then, and apparently Zhang Qiling does too, because he stiffens next to him. Hei Xiazi recognizes these steps, though, so he pats Zhang Qiling on the arm. “Don’t worry. He’s a friend.”

“Who?” Zhang Qiling asks, just as the doors slide open.

“You know,” Xie Yuchen says. “One of these days they’re going to figure out that you aren’t actually eating the subjects, and then where will we be?”

“They won’t find out,” Hei Xiazi says confidently. “Zhang Qiling, this is—”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because Zhang Qiling snarls, and before Hei Xiazi can stop him, is lunging at Xie Yuchen, tackling him to the ground. Hei Xiazi twists into Form, sees Xie Yuchen on the floor with Zhang Qiling on top of him, and bursts himself in between them. He throws Zhang Qiling off, maybe a little harder than necessary, and the Kylin flies into the wall. He doesn’t seem hurt, however, just picks himself up and into a defensive stance, as though he’ll attack again as soon as Hei Xiazi moves.

Hei Xiazi screams at him, trying to use his advantage as the bigger, deadlier predator to get Zhang Qiling to stand down. This is his room, his scientist. Zhang Qiling isn’t allowed to hurt him.

Ah. Now he maybe understands why Zhang Qiling was fighting so hard for his Li Cu.

“I’m fine, Hei-ye,” Xia Yuchen says, and once Hei Xiazi is satisfied that Zhang Qiling looks appropriately calmed enough to not attack them again, he reverts back to his other form.

“He’s not like them,” he explains. “He’s on our side. He’s been rescuing subjects in here for years.”

“He’s one of them,” Zhang Qiling says suspiciously. “How can you trust him?”

“Because he gave me this,” Hei Xiazi says, gesturing to his body. “So I know.”

Zhang Qiling doesn’t answer that, but he also doesn’t try and kill Xie Yuchen again, so Hei Xiazi thinks that he’s gotten the message.

“Sorry,” Xie Yuchen says, and Hei Xiazi doesn’t know why he’s apologizing. “I should have taken my lab coat off before I came in. You’re smart to be wary of me.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Zhang Qiling says coldly. “I’m not some creature that needs soothing.”

Hei Xiazi wants to glare at him, because Xie Yuchen is trying to be nice, but he doesn’t know which direction he’s in.

“Fine,” Xie Yuchen says. “Anyway, you’re officially considered dead by the W.A.N.G.s, since Hei-ye technically killed you. You’re still alive, obviously. I have a contact outside, and once I let them know, they’ll come and—”

“No,” Zhang Qiling says.

Xie Yuchen stops. “No?”

“I’m not leaving,” Zhang Qiling says. “Not without Li Cu.”

“Li Cu?” Xie Yuchen asks.

“The Sheiling,” Hei Xiazi says, thinking that maybe Zhang Qiling should be more concerned with himself. “We can’t get him yet.”

“Yet?” Zhang Qiling prompts.

Xie Yuchen shuffles nervously. “I mean… of course we could try, but… they’re not going to let him go. They didn’t know what to do with you, and you were more trouble than you were worth. They’ve got years of research on 12678—I mean, Li Cu, and they’re not going to just allow him to be killed by Hei-ye.”

“Killed being metaphorical,” Hei Xiazi says helpfully, just in case Zhang Qiling thinks that they’re trying to hurt his baby. Wait, no, not a baby, apparently.

“I’ll wait, then,” Zhang Qiling says. “Our crew will be coming for us. They’ll find us, no matter what.” He sounds very confident when he says that, and Hei Xiazi wonders what a crew is.

Xie Yuchen sighs, so apparently he knows. “No one can find the W.A.N.G. facility if they don’t already know where it is,” he says gently, as if trying to make it better. “I’m afraid they won’t have much luck.”

“You don’t know our shouling,” Zhang Qiling mutters stubbornly, and that seems to be the end of the conversation, because Hei Xiazi hears him walk away, going to sit next to the wall and glaring at them. Hei Xiazi can’t technically see his expression, but can definitely feel it.

“Do I eat him for real then?” he wonders, and Xie Yuchen snorts.

“You wouldn’t,” he says, which is fair enough. He sighs, then pulls Hei Xiazi a few feet away so that they can talk in private, though it’s not very private considering they’re all in an open room together. “I can’t get 126789225521 out anytime soon. They’re… Dr. Xian has taken over his testing himself, and I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to work with him. The chances of me getting close are slim.”

“But not nothing?” Hei Xiazi asks.

Xie Yuchen sighs. “No,” he says. “Not nothing.”

Hei Xiazi nods slowly. “Zhang Qiling says that they have people who will come for them.”

“Yes,” Xie Yuchen agrees.

“So you should help them,” Hei Xiazi suggests. “If we have people coming from the outside, then we might be able to do it. Free everyone.”

Xie Yuchen is quiet for a moment. “That wasn’t the plan.”

“The plan can change.” Hei Xiazi shrugs. “We said we would get out of here eventually.”

“Not this soon, though,” Xie Yuchen mutters. “I’m… not ready yet.”

“How much time do you need?”

“I don’t know,” Xie Yuchen says, and he sounds as though he’s preparing to mourn something. “More than we have.”

Hei Xiazi sighs. “I’ll try to get more information out of him. You should go.” If Xie Yuchen is missing for too long, someone will get suspicious as to where he goes all the time, and then he won’t be able to come back.

“Alright,” Xie Yuchen says. “I’ll try and see if I can get to 126789225521.” He turns to leave, but Zhang Qiling’s voice stops him.

“Wait,” he says from over at the wall. “Just… is Li Cu okay?”

Xie Yuchen pauses, and Hei Xiazi hears him turn towards Zhang Qiling slowly.

“I hurt him,” Zhang Qiling says, slightly defiantly, as though they’re going to tell him that he didn’t. “Is he okay?”

“Yes,” Xie Yuchen says. “He’s fine. He hasn’t woken up yet, but he’ll be fine.” He stops, and then says in a rush, “I’ll try and bring him to you.”

Hei Xiazi curses him silently as he leaves, because Xie Yuchen should know better than to make promises like that.

It seems to have calmed down Zhang Qiling, though, because he goes quiet again, over by the wall.

“Thank you,” he says finally. “For saving my life.”

Hei Xiazi shifts uncomfortably. He’s not used to being thanked. Most of the subjects he’s saved are always too scared of him to say anything. He doesn’t know how to respond, so he just goes back into his Form, sitting in the middle of the room so that if anyone comes in, Zhang Qiling will be hidden.

Most of his time in the W.A.N.G. facility has been boring and listless, but now, he has someone to protect. It feels good. It feels like purpose.

Two days later, Xie Yuchen returns to their cell, his steps light and his voice crystalline.

“Li Cu told me about a frequency signal that could get ahold of your crew,” he tells Zhang Qiling, who doesn’t say anything in response, but Hei Xiazi has learned over the past few days that for Zhang Qiling, silence is an affirmative. “On a wavelength of 415.31? We were kind of busy, so he couldn’t tell me more, but he said that would be the easiest way to get ahold of them without anyone being able to track your ship’s call sign.”

“Oh,” Zhang Qiling says. “Probably.”

Hei Xiazi frowns at him. “Why don’t you know anything about it?”

“I’m assuming that’s the naming frequency,” Zhang Qiling says. “I never found out the exact number, but I know Li Cu remembers it.”

Xie Yuchen sighs. “Well, it’s our best chance. We don’t have anyone else to contact. If they’re still out there, I hope they’re listening.”

“They’re out there,” Zhang Qiling says stubbornly, and then goes back to sit in the corner, which means that he’s done talking for now.

Xie Yuchen is quiet for a moment, obviously considering the Kylin, but then he stops. He fiddles with a small, square device in his hand, which emits a series of beeps and then a low whine, and hands the thing to Hei Xiazi. “I’ll leave this in here,” he says. “It’s putting out a repeating message on that wavelength, so if someone out there is tuned in to that specific frequency, hopefully it will reach them.” He doesn’t sound very certain about this.

“We’ll give it a couple days,” Hei Xiazi says. “If no one responds, we’ll figure something else out.” He wiggles the little box at Xie Yuchen. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”

Xie Yuchen exhales, obviously frustrated at the slow pace they’re having to take, which Hei Xiazi can understand. The longer they keep Zhang Qiling here, alive, the more likely it is that they’re going to get caught. If they really are going to leave this time, Xie Yuchen is going to have to sacrifice his cover, and there’s no going back from that if they mess up. They won’t kill Hei Xiazi—they can’t kill Hei Xiazi—but they will kill Xie Yuchen, and Zhang Qiling.

“I have to go,” he says. “I’ll try to come back tonight to check if there’s been any answer.”

Hei Xiazi reaches for his hand and squeezes it in reassurance. “Be careful.”

“Mm,” Xie Yuchen says. “I’ve been careful for sixteen years. What’s a few more days?”

Hei Xiazi lets him go, and Xie Yuchen escapes through the door, shutting him in again. Hei Xiazi watches him leave, and wonders, not for the first time, what it will feel like when he’s able to leave this room of his own volition.

“You’ve been here for sixteen years?” Zhang Qiling asks.

“He has,” Hei Xiazi corrects him. “I’ve been here longer.”  

Zhang Qiling doesn’t have an appropriate response to that, apparently, which is fine. Hei Xiazi has no idea what a proper response would even be. Besides, it hasn’t felt like that much time to him. Decades are easily passed when you’re ancient and eternal.

“Why haven’t you ever left?” Zhang Qiling asks.

“First I couldn’t,” Hei Xiazi says simply. “Then I didn’t want to.”

“But now you have to?”

“Now we have to,” Hei Xiazi agrees. “If we can get help from the outside, we have a better chance of destroying this place for good. Before, with just the two of us, we didn’t have the capabilities to do anything like that. We just did what we could.” He goes over and sits next to Zhang Qiling, where he can feel him.

Up until this point, Zhang Qiling would move away when Hei Xiazi attempted to enter his proximity, but this time he stays still, allowing Hei Xiazi to be in his personal space. “That’s good.”

“Is it?” Hei Xiazi asks. He supposes it is, in terms of morality, but that sort of thing is all irrelevant to him. There’s survival, and there’s death, for you and for other people. Survival is good, but that doesn’t make it easy or joyous.  

“It is,” Zhang Qiling says softly. “Doing things for the sake of other people is always good.” The words sound like something that has been told to him, rather than something he knows inherently, and Hei Xiazi thinks that maybe he and Zhang Qiling have more in common than he originally thought. He hands him the little beeping box, and Zhang Qiling wraps a hand around it carefully, seeming happy for the connection to the outside world, one that will eventually reach his crew.

Zhang Qiling isn’t one for talking all that much, but Hei Xiazi is. He spent enough time being unable to talk to other people, and now that he can, it seems like a waste to ever pass up on opportunity for it. “What do you do? Outside, I mean. Your crew.” He still isn’t entirely sure what a crew is, because Zhang Qiling hasn’t explained it to him, nor has he gotten the opportunity to experience it for himself.

Zhang Qiling takes a moment before he answers, but it’s more like he’s trying to think of what he wants to say than ignoring Hei Xiazi. “We find things,” he answers finally. “That’s what my crew does.”

That sounds interesting and unspecific. “What kinds of things?”

“Things that we want to find,” Zhang Qiling says. “Last time it was a planet.”

“Ooh,” Hei Xiazi says. “I ate a planet once.”

“What?!” Zhang Qiling sounds suddenly alarmed, or at least alarmed for him. Hei Xiazi doesn’t think he’s heard his voice get louder than a firm statement. “You ate a planet?”

“There was no one there,” Hei Xiazi reassures him. “No one living, anyway.”

“How are you big enough to eat a planet?”

“It took a good few centuries,” Hei Xiazi says. “I didn’t just swallow it whole.”

That doesn’t seem to convince Zhang Qiling that he’s telling the truth. “How old are you?”

“Good question,” Hei Xiazi says, and then, because he doesn’t want to answer, changes Form and goes to float up next to the ceiling.

Zhang Qiling keeps watching him, but he doesn’t press for answers. He’s got the little transmission box cupped in both hands, gentle, like it’s a life, something precious.

Hei Xiazi mulls around the ceiling for a bit, and then gets bored, so he goes fuzzily back to Zhang Qiling’s side and transforms, lying on his back on the floor. “What’s your crew like?”

Again, there’s a long moment of quiet.

“The best,” Zhang Qiling says finally, softly. “They… they’re brilliant. All of them. They’re good.”

“They help people?”

“Yes,” Zhang Qiling says. “They try to.”

“That’s good,” Hei Xiazi says, and he means it.

Before Zhang Qiling can respond, though, the box in his hand buzzes, and they both look at it. It had been a long shot, an impossible one, even, and Hei Xiazi had honestly not been expecting to receive an answer at all, much less so soon.

The transmission crackles, and then a voice floats out, staticky and unintelligible at first. Zhang Qiling fiddles with a dial on the side of the device for a moment, and then they can hear the person on the other end.

“Hello?” the voice says, breaking with static every few words. “Liu Sang? Is that you?”

Zhang Qiling sounds confused. “Zhang Rishan?”

“Who are you?” the person, Zhang Rishan apparently, says sharply. “Where—Zhang Qiling?”

“Yes,” Zhang Qiling says, holding the box closer to his mouth as though that will help Zhang Rishan hear him better. “How did you receive this?”

“I’m tuned into this frequency at all times,” Zhang Rishan says. “In case Liu Sang ever needs to contact me. I knew he’d be able to reach me this way.” His voice sounds like a frown. “How did you find it?”

“It was a gamble,” Zhang Qiling says. “We were trying to reach the Wushanju.”

“Wu Xie’s ship?” Zhang Rishan sounds concerned now. “Aren’t you on it?”

“No,” Zhang Qiling says. “We were… it’s a long story. But we need their help.”

“Is Liu Sang there?”

“No,” Zhang Qiling repeats. “He’s safe, don’t worry.”

“Okay,” Zhang Rishan says, exhaling so sharply that the transmission buzzes out for a moment. “Good.”

“Where are you?” Zhang Qiling asks him. “Wu Erbai said that you disappeared suddenly, and that no one knew where you had gone.”

“That’s also a long story,” Zhang Rishan says. “I can explain it later. You said you were in trouble; what do you need?”

“Wu Xie,” Zhang Qiling says immediately. “I need Wu Xie.”

Zhang Rishan doesn’t speak again for a moment, and Hei Xiazi nearly reaches out to take the box himself, to make sure that he’s still there.

“Where are you?” he says finally.

“The W.A.N.G. compound,” Hei Xiazi chimes in helpfully, and the box goes silent so suddenly that Zhang Qiling fumbles with it, his surprise overriding his usual grace.

“Zhang Rishan?” he asks, voice pitching slightly higher than normal. “Zhang Rishan? Are you there?”

There’s no answer from the tiny device, and Hei Xiazi frowns. “Where’d he go?”

“I don’t know,” Zhang Qiling responds, an edge of nervousness to his voice. He obviously wasn’t expecting Zhang Rishan to suddenly disappear either, and Hei Xiazi wonders if the W.A.N.G.s found out about the transmission and cut it off. His skin buzzes, preparing to defend himself and Zhang Qiling if they suddenly come crashing in, ready for a fight.

Zhang Qiling is tapping the box, twisting the dial a degree or two in either direction, trying to tune it back into the wavelength. “Zhang Rishan!”

There’s a burst of static, so quick that Hei Xiazi’s hair stands on end, and Zhang Rishan says, “Listen to me. You can’t bring him there.”

“Of course,” Zhang Qiling says. “I don’t want to, but—”

“You’re not listening,” Zhang Rishan says, his voice so low and quiet that it’s almost harder to make out what he’s saying than it was when they had first made contact with him. “Under no circumstances should Wu Xie go to that place. They cannot know that he’s still alive.”

“Still alive?” Zhang Qiling asks. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t explain now,” Zhang Rishan hisses at him. “But if the W.A.N.G.s get their hands on Wu Xie, then they will finally have what they want, and none of us will be able to stop them.” His tone becomes flat and serious. “Zhang Qiling, you cannot let him come for you.”

Zhang Qiling stares at the box, apparently shocked by this response.. “He’s probably already on his way.”

Zhang Rishan is silent for a moment. “Then I will stop him.” There’s a beat, just an inhale, and then Zhang Rishan says, “I am blocking the frequency.” A moment later, the transmission device gives a high-pitched squeal and dies, not even giving off the whine that it had when it was trying to reach someone over the wavelength.

“Zhang Rishan,” Zhang Qiling says. “Zhang Rishan!” He shakes the transmitter, something like a growl rising deep in his throat as he does, and Hei Xiazi is almost a little bit scared of him. “What is he doing?”

“Who is he?” Hei Xiazi asks. “Who is Wu Xie?”

“My shouling,” Zhang Qiling answers, still glaring at the box as though it’s going to cave under the weight of his stare. “The one who’s going to find us.”

“The one you were trying to contact?”

“Yes,” Zhang Qiling says. He sets the device down next to him, discarding it now that it’s useless.

Hei Xiazi remains silent for a bit, letting Zhang Qiling work through whatever he’s thinking, but finally the unknown becomes too much, and he asks, “Are we going to try and contact him again?”

Zhang Qiling’s hands tighten into fists in his lap. “We can’t,” he says. “I don’t know why Zhang Rishan said that Wu Xie can’t come here, but if he did, then there must be a reason. I won’t…” He trails off, silent for a moment, before saying, “We’ll figure something else out.”

“What about you?” Hei Xiazi asks. “What about Li Cu?”

“We’ll figure something else out,” Zhang Qiling repeats firmly, and Hei Xiazi has no idea who this Wu Xie person is, but it’s very clear that Zhang Qiling would do anything to keep him from getting hurt, even if it means remaining locked up in the compound forever. Even if Wu Xie is his only hope, he very obviously isn’t going to budge, which has just made things much more complicated.

Lucky for them, complicated has never been a deal-breaker.

“Okay, then,” Hei Xiazi agrees. “We’ll figure something else out.” He leans forward, placing his chin in his hands and gazing at Zhang Qiling intently. “Any ideas?”

Zhang Qiling doesn’t answer, and Hei Xiazi knows it’s because there's nothing to say.

Chapter Text

Kan Jian has been promoted, and it’s the worst day of his life.

He feels like the ship is crashing again with the way his stomach is swooping. There’s something pressing up against the backs of his eyes, but he doesn’t want to cry about this. He still can’t quite tell if it’s real or not, because their Shouling would never leave them like this.

Would he?

Pangzi and Xiao Bai are still standing in front of the surveillance screen and Wang Meng is next to the wall, looking as though if he gets any closer the image of an empty shuttle bay will reach out and grab him. Liu Sang comes up behind him, and while normally Kan Jian would turn to greet him, right now he can’t even bring himself to move.

“What’s happening?”

“Wu Xie,” Kan Jian mutters, his voice choked, but he knows that Liu Sang will hear him regardless. “He’s… he left.”

“He what?” Liu Sang asks, pushing past Kan Jian and going between Xiao Bai and Pangzi to get a closer look at the screen. “When?”

“I don’t know,” Pangzi mumbles. “Sometime last night.”

Xiao Bai looks close to tears. “I saw him in the middle of the night,” she says. “He said he wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

“Well, that’s Tianzhen,” Pangzi says. “He’s constantly stupid.” His voice is harsher than it would normally be, and Kan Jian thinks that this time, Pangzi might be genuinely, truly angry.

“Where do you think he’s going?” Liu Sang demands, sounding as though he’s caught halfway between disbelief and the determination to solve the problem himself, like if he just tries hard enough, he’ll be able to make Wu Xie reappear in the cargo bay. “Why would he go without us?”

“He’s going to the W.A.N.G.s, obviously,” Pangzi says. “He probably got it into his head that it would be better for him to do it alone.”

“We’ll just go after him, then,” Liu Sang says. “Can you track the shuttles?”

Xiao Bai shakes her head. “It’s supposed to be a safety mechanism. If the shuttles are activated, it usually means that the main ship has been damaged or destroyed in some way, so the shuttles are needed for an escape. They don’t have call signs in the same way that the Wushanju does.”

Liu Sang frowns. “Do we know what direction to head in?”

“No,” Kan Jian says, stepping forward to join the rest of his crew in the cockpit. “Su Nan was flying manually, remember?”

“She’s locked the ship’s controls, too,” Pangzi mutters, running his hands over the panel. “We’re just floating, now.” He suddenly straightens. “Where is she?” he demands. “Where’s that shifter? Did they—”

“She went with him,” a voice drawls from the doorway, and then all turn to see the Liu Sang doppleganger leaning up against the frame, looking unsurprised by the development. “I’m still here, though.”

Pangzi storms over to him, grabbing Wang Can’s shirt in his fist and lifting him off of the floor. Wang Can doesn’t appear particularly alarmed, staring at Pangzi with a bemused expression.

“Did you know about this?”

“Obviously,” Wang Can scoffs. “This was Jiejie’s plan the whole time. She just had to get your Shouling off of the ship so that she could deliver him to the W.A.N.G.s and you all wouldn’t be able to cause any trouble.”

Pangzi freezes. “What did you just say?”

Wang Can laughs, and then shrinks, turning into Xiao Bai and slipping through Pangzi’s fingers before he’s back to being Liu Sang again. “The W.A.N.G.s have been looking for his uncle for years. So have we. Wu Sanxing won’t be able to keep outrunning them if they have his nephew, and Jiejie won’t have to live at the outpost anymore. If she has Wu Xie, they’ll let her back into the compound.”

Pangzi’s jaw quirks, stiffening in rage. “You don’t know Wu Sanxing. He doesn’t care about his nephew that much.”

“Doesn’t he?” Wang Can asks. He’s not running, even though Pangzi just threatened him bodily, and that makes Kan Jian nervous. The shapeshifter is way too comfortable even amongst enemies, which means that he thinks, or knows, that he has the upper hand. “You don’t have much faith in him.”

“He’s done nothing to earn it,” Pangzi spits. He turns away then, seemingly realizing that he’s not going to get anything else out of Wang Can for now, going back to the ship’s controls. “We’re going after him.” He presses buttons, hits the thrust lever, and the ship doesn’t move. “Damn it!”

Wang Can laughs, and it sounds nothing like Liu Sang, even though it’s still in his voice. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“You shut up,” Pangzi says. “Kan Jian?” Kan Jian darts forward, eager to make himself useful. “You’re the first officer; if Wu Xie’s left the ship, that codes it to you, right?”

That’s true, so Kan Jian tries to override the breaking system by pressing his thumbprint to the scanner, hoping his biological credentials will kick the Wushanju’s systems into gear again, but nothing happens.

Wang Can whistles from over by the door, and Pangzi, very reluctantly, turns to glare at him. Kan Jian follows his line of sight to the shapeshifter, who seems to think that this is all a very funny joke.

“Wu Xie wasn’t the shouling anymore, remember?” he says, lips quirking up. “He coded the ship to Jiejie.”

“And she’s gone too,” Pangzi reminds him. “So it should revert back to its original programming.”

“She’s not, though,” Wang Can says cryptically, but before anyone can ask him what he means, his form ripples, and then Su Nan is standing in the cockpit with them, holding up her hand an wiggling her fingers. “See?”

Quicker than Kan Jian can comprehend, Pangzi draws his blaster from its holster on his thigh and points it at Wang Can’s chest. “Unlock the ship right now, or I’ll shoot you and get it back that way.”

Wang Can doesn’t look panicked, even with a weapon pointed at him. He steps forward, into Pangzi’s aim, shape changing as he does, and then it’s Wu Xie who has the tip of Pangzi’s gun pressed to the spot over his heart.

“Shoot me, then,” Wang Can says in Wu Xie’s voice. “Shoot your shouling.” His eyes never waver, as though he knows that Pangzi could never hurt even the image of Wu Xie, no matter who it really is. “Go on.”

Pangzi quivers with rage, his blaster wavering at its point, and then, slowly, he lowers it. Wang Can has won.

He knows it, too, if the triumphant look on his face is anything to go by as he melts back into Liu Sang again. “Jiejie will call soon,” he says. “We’ll just be patient until then.” And then he walks out of the cockpit, going down the hall, whistling in Liu Sang’s voice, which makes Kan Jian shudder. Liu Sang always whistles with a purpose; Wang Can is just doing it to make noise.

“What the fuck,” Xiao Bai whispers. “What are we going to do?”

“Catch him off guard,” Pangzi says through gritted teeth. “Beat him into a pulp.”

“Not in my kitchen,” Wang Meng protests, but there’s none of his usual offense behind it, and Kan Jian thinks that if it came down to it, Wang Meng would beat Wang Can up in the kitchen himself.

Pangzi slumps into the pilot’s chair, closing his eyes and resting his forehead on one of his knuckles, pressing into it so hard that the spot around it begins turning red. “Xiao Bai.”

“Yes?” Xiao Bai responds, her voice strong and determined.

“Can you undo the biological controls?” Pangzi asks. “Reorganize the ship’s systems?”

Xiao Bai considers it, and then nods slowly. “It’ll take me a while, though. They’re supposed to be the main form of defense against unauthorized crew taking over the ship, so reworking the entire thing without permission is going to be difficult.” She looks slightly grumpy for a moment. “I also strengthened them to be pretty much unbreakable, which looks like it’s come back to bite us in the ass.”

“But you can do it?” Pangzi asks.

Xiao Bai nods slowly, and a light grin spreads across her face. “Just watch me.”

“Shit,” Liu Sang mutters from Kan Jian’s side, and Kan Jian spares a glance for him. The Yincanguian is staring at the floor, eyebrows pinched in the center as though he’s trying to work through some difficult problem. Kan Jian has no idea what he’s trying to figure out, but it looks as though it’s causing him distress. Kan Jian would ask, but he doesn’t think that Liu Sang will tell him. Liu Sang has never been particularly open to sharing his feelings, even less so lately, but Kan Jian knows that there’s something going on with him.

Well. If they’re stuck for a couple of days, maybe this will give him the chance to figure that out.

Pangzi holds out his fist for a bump, which Xiao Bai eagerly returns. “You do that,” he says. “The rest of us, we keep an eye on that shapeshifter until we can fly again. If he tries anything funny, we’ll lock him up in one of the cabins.”

“We could just lock him up now,” Wang Meng suggests hopefully.

Pangzi shakes his head. “I don’t know what kind of agreement he has going on with his shouling, but I don’t want to tip her off that we’re preparing to follow them if we have the chance. Better to keep quiet and keep an eye on him.”

Kan Jian is technically supposed to be acting shouling, but Pangzi has always been more like Wu Xie’s second, so they listen to him without any hesitation, and Kan Jian doesn’t mind. His first officer position is mostly for show, anyway, and Pangzi can’t pilot and be first officer at the same time.

Wang Meng huffs a little bit, looking stalwart and stringent. “He won’t be getting into my kitchen,” he says firmly, and marches off to go defend his territory. Kan Jian has no doubt that he can do it.

Xiao Bai bounces up and down on her toes a couple of times. “Try to keep him out of the engine room, if possible,” she says. “I’ll work as fast as I can.” She leaves the cockpit too, scurrying away, and Kan Jian hears her clattering down the ladder, obviously eager to protect their ship. 

Pangzi watches her go, and once their engineer has disappeared from sight, his shoulders slump, just a little, and he falls back into the pilot’s seat. “Fuck.”

“It’ll be okay,” Kan Jian offers. “Shouling is smart. He won’t let himself get in trouble for nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about,” Pangzi mutters. “He probably got it into his head that the only way to keep us safe is to leave. Idiot.” His words might be harsh, but the tone that they’re delivered in is anything but. It’s sad, and lonely, and Kan Jian’s heart wrenches. He wants to make Pangzi feel better, somehow, but knows that there’s really nothing he can do in this situation. The only ones who can make this better are the other two sides of the Iron Triangle, and they’re currently very far away.

“We’ll go check out the cargo bay,” he says, taking Liu Sang’s wrist in his hand. “Maybe he left some sort of clue.”

Pangzi hums in agreement, but continues staring at the floor, and Kan Jian knows that he wants to be left alone for a bit. He pulls Liu Sang out of the cockpit, shutting the door behind him. With any luck, that will give Pangzi some privacy, and keep Wang Can from bothering him too much.

“Do you think he really left anything?” Liu Sang asks, and Kan Jian sighs.

“No,” he says. “Probably not. But it can’t hurt to check.”

Sure enough, the cargo bay is just as Kan Jian had left it the last time he was in there, despite the fact that one of their shuttles is missing. He had slept in his assigned cabin last night, not wanting to be out on his beam in the cargo bay where Wang Can could find him, but he’s very much regretting that now.

They go and poke around the bay door, but the shuttle departure was clearly authorized, considering that Su Nan went with Wu Xie and she had control of all of the ship’s systems. Not for the first time, Kian Jian wonders why Wu Xie had agreed to that part of the deal.

“Nothing,” he says finally, after checking all of the locking mechanisms to make sure none of them were forced or damaged. “Did you find anything?”

Liu Sang shakes his head, even though his searching has mostly been just standing and watching Kan Jian look, which Kan Jian doesn’t mind. He’s mostly trying to get Liu Sang to talk to him, which he thinks that Liu Sang will do if they’re alone, and Kan Jian isn’t pressing him about it.

That’s what he’s learned about Liu Sang over the past few months; he tends to retreat when threatened, but if Kan Jian is gentle and comes at him in a roundabout way, Liu Sang will eventually unfurl his thorns and tell him what’s wrong. There’s no use asking him directly, but if Kan Jian can trick him into talking, then he’s much more willing to do so.

Kan Jian might appear to be more strength than skill, but he knows his crew, dedicates most of his time to learning them. It’s a trick he picked up from Shouling, who, without species abilities of his own, harnesses his crew’s and uses them as his own, combining and strengthening and putting everyone right where they need to be. It’s fascinating to Kan Jian, how Wu Xie seems to be able to tell exactly who is going to be needed where and in what capacity, and he’s very good at it. It helps that all of his crew members are good at what they do as well, but Wu Xie is a marvel, in and of himself.

Kan Jian misses him.

He can’t afford to think about that, though, not while he’s acting captain. If Wu Xie can’t be here, then Kan Jian is next in line, and he’s going to make sure that they are all present, safe, and ready when their Shouling gets back.

“There would have been an easier way to solve this,” Liu Sang mutters from a few feet away, almost to himself.

Kan Jian turns towards him slightly, letting him know that he’s listening. “Oh?”

Liu Sang, for some reason, looks almost guilty. “There’s always an easier way to… if we want people to do what we need.”

Ah. Right. That.

“You’re having problems with it, though,” Kan Jian says. Again, he might not be the smartest person onboard their ship, but he is observant. “If something is going to go wrong, then it’s best to wait. We can’t rely on you all the time.”

Liu Sang starts to say, “I’ve tried but I—” and then stops. “What?”

Kan Jian tilts his head to the side. “This is about you not being able to Compel, right?” He shrugs. “We’ve gotten away with plenty of things without Compelling people into them, and we can do it this time, too. If you need time, then we can give you that.”

Liu Sang’s mouth is open, just a little bit. “You’re… not mad?”

“Why would we be mad?” Kan Jian asks, genuinely curious. “If you could have Compelled Su Nan and Wang Can, you already would have. If you can’t, then you must have a reason. I trust you.”

At the word “trust,” Liu Sang stiffens up, and Kan Jian is afraid that he’s made it worse for a split second, but Liu Sang just whispers, “Really?”

“Really,” Kan Jian confirms, and steps towards Liu Sang carefully, making sure that he won’t startle him. “You’re a person, Liu Sang, not a tool. I don’t care what you can do with your voice.”

Liu Sang stares at him, some sort of emotion in the depths of his eyes that Kan Jian can’t quite make out. He swallows thickly and looks down at his hands.

Hug, Kan Jian thinks, but he doesn’t know if Liu Sang will appreciate that, so he settles for placing a hand on the back of his neck, a smaller point of contact, and squeezing. “Take your time,” he says. “We’ll be here while you do.”

Liu Sang doesn’t seem to know how to respond to this, but Kan Jian didn’t expect him to. He presses his lips together, and then blurts, “There’s something I should tell you.”

Kan Jian takes a step back to give Liu Sang space, to let him say whatever he needs to say at his own pace, but before he can, the intercom on the side of the wall crackles, and Pangzi’s voice calls, “Kan Jian?”

Kan Jian mimes for Liu Sang to hold on for a moment, going over to the wall and flipping the response switch. “Copy. What’s happening?”

“There’s something you should probably see,” Pangzi says, his words crackly through the intercom system. “Can you come to the cockpit?”

“Be right there,” Kan Jian says and disconnects the intercom, glancing over his shoulder to Liu Sang. “I should get up there. Can you tell me later?”

Liu Sang doesn’t seem very convinced that he can tell Kan Jian later, but he just nods. “Yeah. Go. See what Pangzi wants.” He gestures vaguely around the cargo bay. “I’ll take another look around here.”

Kan Jian smiles at him gratefully and then jogs out of the bay, down the hall and to the cockpit, pressing the button to open the door and closing it again as soon as he’s inside so that only Liu Sang can eavesdrop on them, not that he thinks he will. “Pangzi?”

Pangzi has his eyes fixed on the monitor screen, but he’s clearly been fiddling with the control panel, because pieces of it have been removed and are lying on the copilot’s seat, wires sticking out and buttons blinking. Kan Jian follows his gaze to the screen, which is showing a series of alerts and codes that he can’t quite follow, though he does recognize one. It’s a list of the crew members who have biological access to the ship’s controls, in descending order. Su Nan is first, obviously, followed by Wu Xie, but then it’s Kan Jian, and then Pangzi, Xiao Bai, Li Cu, Wang Meng, Zhang Qiling, and finally, Liu Sang, the entry for his biometric data dated about two weeks after they had found Yincangui.

“What is this?” Kan Jian asks, frowning at the screen. There’s no reason for Wu Xie to have put all of them into the ship’s systems; the biometric controls are meant for the shouling only, so that they have access to every area of the ship unconditionally. A first officer would normally be listed as well, in case the captain is indisposed, and they could then choose their own second if they became acting. Kan Jian has never done so, though Pangzi would be the obvious choice. But then Xiao Bai, and Li Cu? There’s no reason for them to be on the list, much less higher than Zhang Qiling, if the list was ranked by who is closest to Wu Xie, which was Kan Jian’s second guess. Obviously, the Wushanju isn’t a standard ship, nor has a standard crew, but there are still some safety protocols that should be followed, and this definitely isn’t one of them.

“What is he thinking?” Pangzi mutters, glaring at the screen. “Is he planning on everyone being killed off, one by one?”

“Maybe it’s just a precaution?” Kan Jian suggests, although he doesn’t really believe it himself. Shouling never does anything without reason, and this is very clearly a list made with some kind of intention behind it. 

“No,” Pangzi says, shaking his head. “Biometric controls are faulty at the best of times on a clunky ship like this, and Xiao Bai has already overrun most of the systems that would require them. Tianzhen knows that.” He frowns. “This is… something else.”

“It’s not in order of when we joined the crew, because then Zhang Qiling would be third,” Kan Jian muses, going over each name, trying to figure out the pattern that Wu Xie has put into place here.

“What, then?” Pangzi says, then groans. “Tianzhen, I don’t know what you’ve got going on in your head.”

Kan Jian has no idea either, but he doubts that it’s anything simple. Shouling does not half-ass his plans. “It’s something he’s been preparing for a long time,” he says, pointing to the dates on the screen, some of which range back years. “Years, in fact.” He glances at Pangzi. “Do you know about any plans like that?”

“No,” Pangzi says, almost a growl. He looks even angrier than he did earlier, upset that Wu Xie hasn’t trusted him with something that’s clearly important.

Kan Jian sighs. Might as well add it to the list of other problems they have to solve, because it doesn’t look as though that will be getting any shorter anytime soon. “What were you looking for in the first place?”

Pangzi glares at the screen. “I was trying to see if there was any sort of trajectory we could go on once we get the ship unlocked. Right now we’re adrift, but Xiao Bai will get that taken care of, and then we can go after Tianzhen.” He laces his fingers together and presses them in front of him, something in his shoulders popping as he stretches. “He can’t get away from us that easily.”

Kan Jian frowns. He understands Pangzi’s worry, he really does, but he also wants to trust his Shouling. He doesn’t think that Wu Xie would have done anything that would hurt them, not purposefully.

“What if… this is part of Shouling’s plan?” he asks tentatively. “Maybe we shouldn’t follow him. Maybe we should wait until he comes back.”

Pangzi stares at him for a split second, registering, and then he says, “If we don’t follow him, he won’t be coming back.”

Kan Jian takes a step away from him, slightly surprised by the vehemence in Pangzi’s tone. Pangzi seems to recognize this, because he mutters a “fuck” underneath his breath, softening quickly. “Sorry,” he says to Kan Jian. “You’ve just… you’ve never seen Tianzhen without Xiao-ge.” He gazes out the windscreen, at the black sea of space. “He gets lost easily without us.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know if he’s going to get Xiao-ge back, or to trade himself in, but either way, he’s not thinking clearly right now.”

Kan Jian bites his lip. He knows that Pangzi knows Wu Xie best, but he also knows that Shouling isn’t the only one not thinking clearly right now. Kan Jian is acting captain, and that means that it’s his job to keep their crew safe until Shouling returns. What’s left of it, anyway.

“Okay,” is all he says in response, though, knowing that it won’t help to argue with Pangzi about this now. He can try to convince him to stay where they are until they hear from Wu Xie later. Besides, it might help for Pangzi to have something to do, some sort of action to take while they’re sitting here, helpless. “Keep looking.”

“Aye aye,” Pangzi says sarcastically, and swipes the screen with all of the biological credentials on it away, going back to scrolling through the coordinates the ship automatically logged as they flew through them, attempting to map out their journey so far.

Kan Jian leaves him to it, stepping out of the cockpit and shutting the door against unwanted intruders. He stands next to it for a moment, just breathing, trying to figure out his own course of action. This is limited to what he knows, and there are so many more things that he doesn’t, but he ignores those. The unknowns won’t help him. He has to lay everything out, see it clearly, before he can determine his next step. That’s what Wu Xie would do.  

Okay. So.

The W.A.N.G.s have Li Cu and Xiao-ge. They had Li Cu before. They also knew Wu Sanxing before, apparently, and made a deal with him, a deal that he broke (this is not very surprising).

Su Nan is a field agent for the W.A.N.G.s, and has been kicked out of the main organization for doing… something, which is probably also related to Wu Sanxing, considering that’s the reason that she and Wang Can came onto the ship in the first place. She’s taken Wu Xie and left Wang Can on their ship. Wang Can, who was once a test subject in the compound, but escaped with Su Nan.

Wu Xie is going to be used as bait for his uncle. If Su Nan delivers him to the W.A.N.G.s, that will be enough for them to forgive her past mistakes, so whatever deal Wu Sanxing broke has to be pretty important. The W.A.N.G.s didn’t take Wu Xie with them when they took Li Cu and Xiao-ge, though, so they either didn’t know who he was or didn’t realize his connections to Wu Sanxing.

Wu Xie went with Su Nan willingly.

Kan Jian grits his teeth. There’s something that he’s missing… something that just doesn’t quite make sense, and it all comes back to Wu Sanxing. It seems like everyone in the universe knows that he’s an opportunist, that he wouldn’t help his nephew if it went against his own self-interests, so why is Su Nan so confident that Shouling is who she needs in order to get back at Wu Sanxing? If it’s some sort of revenge plot, it’s not a very well-thought out one. She would have better luck getting to Wu Sanxing through the Wushanju rather than the nephew he abandoned.

He almost wishes that Wu Sanxing were here so that he could ask him, but that would mean that Wu Sanxing was on their ship, and that doesn’t seem like a very pleasant situation for any of them. He thinks that Pangzi might actually punch something if Wu Sanxing shows up.

Kan Jian sighs. The next best thing, then, would be someone else who had been present when the deal between Wu Sanxing and the W.A.N.G.s had happened. The trouble is that Kan Jian doesn’t know if there had been anyone else present, except for maybe Wang Can, but he doubts very highly that the shapeshifter will tell him anything.

His gaze wanders across the hallway to the shut door of the library, and then his brain stops for a second. The library.

There might not be someone he can ask, but maybe there’s something.

Kan Jian reaches the door in just a few steps, hesitating before he taps in the keycode on its panel. He’s been in the library before, loads of times, but never without Shouling there too. It seems like a sort of trespass to go in by himself, but this might be his only chance to figure out what’s happening, what’s going to happen. Wu Xie will forgive him. Probably.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he inputs the passcode and opens the door.

The library is dark and silent, all of the lights off, but when Kan Jian steps inside, they flicker to life, spreading across the room as he watches it flood into focus. It’s quiet in the library, which is to be expected, but it’s not nearly as familiar as Kan Jian knows it. For one thing, it’s clean. The library has never been organized in the entirety of Kan Jian’s time on the ship, and he has no idea what it means that it is now. All of the books are on their shelves; the trinkets and small objects that Wu Xie has collected around the galaxy are sitting on the desk and on top of the cabinet; all of the writing utensils are in their cup, and there aren’t any notes scattered around the room. It looks uninhabited, like no one has been in there for years, or as though it belongs to someone very fastidious, and Kan Jian knows that neither of those things are true.

His heart sinks, just a little, because he has no idea how he’s going to begin to find clues amidst Wu Xie’s belongings if he doesn’t even know where to begin. Normally, he’d at least have an idea of what Wu Xie was working on recently based on whichever papers were at the top of the stack on Shouling’s desk, but there aren’t any papers on his desk at all. It looks as though he’s even dusted.

Kan Jian thinks, What the fuck?

He circles around behind the desk, running a finger over its surface, half-convinced that this is all an illusion, but nothing wavers or changes. The desk is solid. This is really what Wu Xie had spent time doing.

He really had been preparing to leave them.

Kan Jian looks back to make sure the door is closed, because he doesn’t want any of the rest of the crew to see this. He doesn’t want them to know that Wu Xie’s exit had been premediated, apparently, because that would hurt. It feels so strange, so unfamiliar in here that it’s making him slightly nauseous, a curl of anxiety knotting in his gut. There’s nothing there to help him out. There’s nothing.

He takes one of the armchairs, unwilling to sit down at Wu Xie’s desk, and pulls his legs up to his chest, hugging his arms around his knees and pressing his face into them. He has no idea what he’s doing.

The tears do come then, and Kan Jian lets them. He cries for Li Cu and Xiao-ge, lost and alone; for Shouling, misguided and stolen; for the rest of them, stranded and floundering. They’ve been in bleak situations before, but this… this seems to be the worst, because before, at least they were together.

Kan Jian isn’t sure how long it takes him to stop crying. He’s tried to be as silent as possible, and must have done a passable job, because Liu Sang hasn’t heard and come in looking for him. Either that, or he’s too busy dealing with his own shit, which is quite likely. Liu Sang seems to have more shit going on than any of them.

He gives a shuddery exhale, uncurling in the chair and swiping the backs of his hands over his eyes. Nothing is going to get done like this, and if they’re going down, Kan Jian won’t give up until there’s absolutely nothing left for him to do. That’s not now. Now, he can go check on Xiao Bai’s progress, or see what Wang Meng is doing, or make sure that Wang Can isn’t somewhere making more trouble for them. There are still things for him to do, even if they all seem useless. He has to remember that.

He’s about to leave the library when a small, blinking light catches his eye. It’s coming from below Wu Xie’s desk, in the little cubby under the tabletop. Kan Jian goes over, pushing the desk chair back and kneeling down so that he can see what it is.

The light blinks innocuously at him as he tentatively moves in line with it, half-suspicious that it’s going to trigger a trap, but nothing happens. He sticks his hand into the opening, closing it around something circular, and pulling it out.

It’s a camera, one that could be attached to a computer or a datapad, or just used to record by itself. Kan Jian frowns, turning it over in his hand, wondering if Wu Xie left it to catch anyone who might come into his office, but when he checks the back, the memory card has been removed. At first, Kan Jian thinks that it’s fallen out, but a cursory glance at the surrounding area doesn’t reveal anything of the sort. He even sticks his hand back into the slot he had pulled the camera from, but there’s nothing in there either. 

The camera is definitely on, though, but Kan Jian can’t think of a reason why Wu Xie would leave it behind, and on, if he wasn’t trying to catch something. Maybe he had been using it before he left, but there was no one for him to contact, and he was in the library, with all of them just beyond the doors; what could he have wanted to record?

Kan Jian groans, half of him wishing that he had never made this discovery, because it’s only brought about more questions, not answers. He slides the camera into his pocket anyway; Xiao Bai might be able to tell what it was last used for, or get something else from it. If nothing else, he’ll at least have a reminder that Wu Xie does have a plan of some kind; he’s trying to do something, even if Kan Jian has no idea what it is.

He leaves the library as he found it, sliding the door shut behind him and shivering once he’s out. It had been a little too uncanny, being in there with everything put away and straightened out. He didn’t like it.

That’s the library checked. If Liu Sang has found anything else in the cargo bay, he hasn’t come to tell Kan Jian, so that’s a dead end as well. Pangzi hasn’t come up with anything out of the cockpit, and Xiao Bai has yet to report in about getting the ship ready to fly again. That means that Kan Jian’s next area of responsibility should be checking in on her or Wang Meng, or maybe attempting to find out where Wang Can has gotten off to, though that sounds the least pleasant out of all of his options. Wang Can can keep to himself, for all Kan Jian cares.

His decision is made for him, though, when there’s a beeping from the cockpit, and Pangzi shouts in excitement. Kan Jian runs the few steps to the door, sliding it open and nearly falling into the room in his haste.

“What is it?” he asks.

Pangzi’s standing at the control panel, both hands bracing himself on the edge, staring intently at the windscreen, which is once again showing an image of the cargo bay. Kan Jian tries to see what Pangzi’s been alerted to, and realizes that one of the bay doors is locking into the outside air filter, which means that there is a shuttle trying to dock.

“Shouling?” Kan Jian gasps, rushing to Pangzi’s side, nearly holding his breath. Wu Xie can’t be back already, can he?

“He must have overpowered her and turned around,” Pangzi says through his teeth, eyes shining with pride. “Tianzhen, you—”

The thought is cut off when the bay door fully opens, and a small, unfamiliar ship is on the other side, attached to the hull and waiting for the docking procedure to be completed. It’s not one of their shuttles, but it had hailed the Wushanju without error, almost as if it belongs there. It doesn’t matter, though; it’s not Shouling.

There’s a noise in the hallway, and Kan Jian looks over his shoulder to see Liu Sang tripping over his own feet as he backs away from the cargo bay, one hand on the wall to keep himself from completely falling over. His shoulders are pressed back, tight, as though he’s bracing himself for something.

“It’s not Tianzhen,” Pangzi says dully, the disappointment obvious in his voice. “I don’t know—”

“It’s Sanshu,” Liu Sang says, obviously able to hear them, even though he’s still fairly far down the hall. “It’s been a week.”

“What?” Kan Jian calls, leaving Pangzi to oversee whatever is happening in the cargo bay and jogging to meet Liu Sang outside of the kitchen. Wang Meng pokes his head out of the doorway as well, antennae up and curious. “What are you talking about?”

“He said he’d give me a week,” Liu Sang mumbles, one of his hands reaching out and catching Kan Jian’s sleeve. He slips behind Kan Jian as though he’s trying to hide behind him, as though Kan Jian will be able to withstand whatever is going to happen. “Time’s up.”

Kan Jian doesn’t have time to figure out what that means, because Pangzi comes up to them, stepping in front of the kitchen doorway and planting himself firmly in the hallway, his body taking up most of the room, a much better shield than Kan Jian is.

“I’ll handle this,” he says, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows and squaring his shoulders.

The cargo bay door opens as easily as though it were anyone else on their crew coming through it, and then Wu Sanxing, who Kan Jian has only caught glimpses of, is standing in the doorway, looking amused, but not exactly surprised, to see all of them waiting to greet him.

He looks like Wu Xie, enough that Kan Jian can tell that they’re related, but there’s none of the wit or enthusiasm that their Shouling has in him. Wu Sanxing makes Kan Jian want to take a step back, and when he looks down at his hands, he half-expects to see a knife there, even though the man himself is wearing an easy-going grin. His eyes are softened at the corners, but the irises are sharp as flint. It could be because Kan Jian has heard too many stories about him, but there’s nothing that could make him trust Wu Sanxing.

“An entourage,” Wu Sanxing says, gazing evenly at all of them in turn. “Lovely.”

“Wu Xie isn’t here,” Pangzi growls. “Your friends came and got him.”

Wu Sanxing’s forehead furrows. “Er-ge? He hasn’t sent anyone off planet in—”

“The W.A.N.G.s,” Kan Jian cuts in, making sure that Wu Sanxing can see him, knows that Pangzi isn’t the only one here to defend their home.

He’s not sure what reaction he expected Wu Sanxing to have, but he isn’t quite prepared for all of the color to rapidly drain from his face, his eyes going wide and startled, and it’s such a Wu Xie expression that for a moment Kan Jian stops, his breath catching and all the defensive energy rushing out of him.

“They did?” Wu Sanxing asks, his jaw jutting forward as something like hackles go up in his tone. “You’re sure it was them?”

“It was them in the first place,” Pangzi says, taking a step towards Wu Sanxing, his hands balling into fists at his sides. “They’re the ones who took Xiao-ge and Ya Li.” He towers over Wu Sanxing, all of his height being put to good use. “And you didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t know!” Wu Sanxing says, stepping backwards, his hands raised, and Kan Jian suddenly feels a lot better, seeing him falter. “I swear, I didn’t know that’s who took them. If I had, I never would have gotten involved with any of you.” He frowns, ducking his head, muttering, “They’re closer than I thought.”

“Yeah,” Pangzi says, “They are. So what the fuck did you do to piss them off so bad?”

Wu Sanxing doesn’t answer his question, just raises an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” Pangzi says. “It does if we’re going to go save Tianzhen. You should tell us what you know, because we’re flying in the dark right now.”

Wu Sanxing takes a slow look around the hallway. “It doesn’t seem like you’re flying at all.”

Pangzi straightens up so quickly something in his spine pops, and Kan Jian has a sudden urge to hold him back, because he has no idea how much longer Pangzi’s patience is going to withstand Wu Sanxing. “Fuck you.”

“It’s all the better for me,” Wu Sanxing says, as though Pangzi is having a polite conversation with him, rather than only several seconds away from knocking his lights out. “I thought I was going to have to chase you down for a bit; you were all over the place.”

“Why are you even here?” Pangzi demands. “Did you come to gloat? Or to get your dirty paws all over the Wushanju again?”

“Take note of the first part of that name,” Wu Sanxing says, any warmth or humor erased from his voice. “I think you’ll find I have more right to this ship than any of you.”

“What’s going on?” Xiao Bai says, and their engineer pops her head up from the lower deck, looking disgruntled. “I’m trying to work.”

“Your hacker?” Wu Sanxing asks, and Pangzi extends a hand towards Xiao Bai.

“Si Mei, come over here,” he says, and Xiao Bai obeys, trotting over to join them behind Pangzi, sending a questioning glance at Kan Jian, who just shakes his head. He doesn’t have the time nor the energy to try and explain things to her right now.

“I came for Haizi’s part of the deal,” Wu Sanxing says, as if the interruption had never happened. “It’s been a week, and I more than held up my end of the bargain.”

Pangzi narrows his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“I gave you the ship and the time to find your missing crew members,” Wu Sanxing explains, examining the wall as he does, scratching off some invisible mark marring its surface. “If you really want to stop the W.A.N.G.s, then you’ll let us go. I need Haizi’s… abilities in order to fix this. To get Xiao Xie back, since that’s what you’re most worried about it.”

“You’re not taking him,” Pangzi says, seeming to grow even broader, blocking them all from sight. “No one is going anywhere with you.”

“Pangzi,” Liu Sang says quietly, and they all turn to look at him.

The Yincanguian is staring at the floor, his hair falling into his eyes; it’s not up, like it usually is, and Kan Jian isn’t sure if that’s because he wanted it down, or if he hasn’t gotten a chance to pull it back yet. It makes him look… gentler, somehow, but Kan Jian knows that Liu Sang is anything but that, when cornered. Now, though, he just looks defeated.

“I promised,” Liu Sang mumbles, “That I would go with him to help him fix his problem if he got us off Jiaren.”

Kan Jian blinks, the news unexpected. He… Liu Sang had been going to tell him something earlier, but he hadn’t thought that it would be… this. He can’t leave them, not now. Not now.

“And you didn’t think that would be something worth mentioning?” Pangzi asks, his voice low.

“I hoped that we would have found Xiao-ge and Li Cu by then,” Liu Sang says miserably. “But we’re stuck here anyway; if I can find them with Sanshu, then maybe it’ll be worth it.”

“He’s using you,” Pangzi says, fully turning to Liu Sang, taking him by the shoulder as if that will knock some sense into him. “You don’t have to—”

“I do,” Liu Sang says. “I’m useful. If I can use my skills to help people, then… then I should do that, right?” It sounds like a challenge, like he’s daring them to say otherwise, but Kan Jian knows that the question is sincere.

Pangzi stares at Liu Sang for a handful of seconds, his expression growing more and more sullen as the time ticks pass. “Yeah, Jinx,” he finally says, sounding resigned. “You should help.”

Liu Sang nods, as though he’s been given permission, and says, “I’ll go… get my stuff.” He doesn’t have all that much, Kan Jian knows this, but Liu Sang turns and bolts up the ladder to the cabins anyway, without waiting for any of them to respond, probably so that they won’t be able to try and convince him to stay.

Pangzi watches him go for a moment, and then whirls around, grabbing Wu Sanxing’s collar in his fist.

“If he comes back with even a scratch,” he snarls, “I will make sure that you regret it.”

Wu Sanxing gives Pangzi a tight-lipped smile. “He’s more useful to me alive than dead,” he says. “I want him safe and functioning more than you do, trust me.”

Kan Jian frowns, because Liu Sang isn’t exactly functioning, or at least he hadn’t been. He has no idea what’s going on in his head, but he knows that there’s something up with Liu Sang’s ability to Compel, something that he clearly hasn’t told anyone else, and it worries Kan Jian. If he’s going out there with no backup, without full control of his abilities… then it could end badly.

Xiao Bai must think something similar, because she turns around and runs for the ladder, scrambling up it, after Liu Sang. Pangzi is escorting Wu Sanxing back to the cargo bay to wait, apparently uneager to let the man wander around anymore of the Wushanju than is absolutely necessary. Wu Sanxing looks as though he wants to go slinking around his former ship, but he lets Pangzi manhandle him back towards his shuttle, which is a smart decision on his part. Pangzi’s patience is not going to last for much longer. Wang Meng and Kan Jian are left in the hallway, shocked and breathless with what has just happened.

“He’s… he can’t really leave,” Wang Meng says, his fingers twisting themselves together. “We can’t let him.”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Kan Jian tells him, and Wang Meng’s chin trembles a little bit. He disappears back into the kitchen, and Kan Jian hears him begin to clatter around inside. He wants to go in there too, to throw something against a wall, but he forces himself to breathe, to calm down. He can’t grieve yet.

He waits by himself in the hallway, and it’s only a few moments before Liu Sang reappears from his cabin, the rucksack that he’s had since he first joined them slung over his shoulder, packed with whatever extra clothes and things he thinks he’ll need.

He seems surprised to see Kan Jian waiting for him, his mouth pursing just the slightest bit. “Are you… where’s Wu Sanxing?”

“Pangzi took him to his shuttle,” Kan Jian tells him. “They’re waiting for you there.” He frowns. “Where’s Xiao Bai?”

“She tried to convince me to stay,” Liu Sang says. “I said I couldn’t, and she went and locked herself in her cabin.” He glances towards the ladder, looking slightly abashed. “Tell her I’m sorry?”

“I will,” Kan Jian says.

Liu Sang nods, exhaling thickly and straightening his glasses. He looks almost like the stranger that they had met on Haruthul, the one who had snuck his way into their crew. Kan Jian can’t imagine the Wushanju without him, now. It feels like he’s always been there.

“You know you don’t have to go, right?” he says. It seems slightly useless, now, but he needs Liu Sang to know. “We’ll fight for you if you want to stay.”

Liu Sang’s eyes map out Kan Jian’s face, and he gives him a smile that doesn’t quite bloom. “I know,” he says. “Thank you. I have to go, though. I… owe him this much, at least.”

Kan Jian wants to say that he doesn’t owe Wu Sanxing anything, but he doesn’t know Liu Sang’s history with the man, not entirely. He has a feeling that whatever hold Wu Sanxing has in Liu Sang’s mind won’t be easily overridden.

“You’re coming back, though, right?” he asks quickly, wanting to make sure. “You’re not… leaving, leaving, right?”

Liu Sang scuffs his foot against the ground. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ll… try. I’ll try to come back.” He doesn’t look at Kan Jian as he says it, and Kan Jian thinks that this is a very final sort of goodbye.

Liu Sang might not like them, but if this is it, then Kan Jian is not letting him leave without being hugged at least once, so before Liu Sang can slip past him, he steps forward and throws his arms around him, pulling Liu Sang in tightly and trying to communicate how much he’s going to miss him through his touch.

“You know where to find us,” he says. “Your room will still be here when you get back.”

Liu Sang is stiff in his hold for a moment, and then, strikingly slow, hugs Kan Jian back. He doesn’t have nearly the same force, but it’s still nice, and Kan Jian files the feeling away in his memory, as carefully as he can. He wants to keep as many little parts of Liu Sang as possible.

Liu Sang falters, and Kan Jian is forced to release him before it becomes awkward. Liu Sang looks as if he wants to say something when Kan Jian sees his face, his lips parting, but then he seems to think better of it and ducks past him, head lowered as he nearly runs down the corridor and disappears into the cargo bay.

Kan Jian blinks, his arms still tingling with warmth, and then follows him.

He comes into the cargo bay just in time to see Pangzi place one of his hands on Liu Sang’s head and muss his hair a bit, a gesture that seems more tender than annoying. “Sure we can’t convince you to stay, Jinx?” he asks.

Liu Sang shakes his head. “I have to do this,” he says. “I’ll try to get them back for you.”

“You just look after yourself,” Pangzi says, his voice hoarse, and that, more than anything, makes Kan Jian want to cry. He’s had so many crew members taken from him recently, but this one… this one Pangzi’s letting go. “Make sure he brings you back, alright?”

Liu Sang nods, though the look he throws in Wu Sanxing’s direction seems doubtful, which is fair. Kan Jian doubts very highly that Wu Sanxing will be interested in anyone’s affairs but his own.

The human is already on the ship, getting it ready to fly again, and he whistles for Liu Sang to join him, something that Liu Sang turns towards a little too readily, in Kan Jian’s opinion. He seems almost eager. Maybe he is. Maybe he’s been waiting for his chance to leave the Wushanju all along, and just hadn’t had any better opportunities until now. Which. He has the right to leave, if he wants. Kan Jian just doesn’t want him to.

He watches silently as the shuttle door closes, and the departure thrusts kick in, shifting the ship into the air so that it can be ejected from the propulsion capsule on the side of the ship. Pangzi steps back as the air safety compartment slides open, and the shuttle is deposited inside of it. Kan Jian can still see Liu Sang through the window, and just before the door closes, Liu Sang looks back at him, and his lips curl up into the faintest approximation of a smile, one that Kan Jian’s never quite seen before.

And then the launch doors open, and the tiny craft is spat back out into space, taking yet another one of their crew members with it.

It’s silent in the bay after that, just Kan Jian and Pangzi, neither of them particularly inclined to speak. Even the normal rumble of the Wushanju’s engines is gone, considering they’re just idling in space, and it makes everything feel even more isolated than it already had.

Pangzi lets out a large breath, sounding as though he’d been holding it for about as long as Kan Jian has been holding his, waiting to see if something will change.

“Well,” he says, “I suppose that’s that, then.” He turns, and Kan Jian can see that he’s clearly trying for something, but is unsure of what that something could be. “I’ll go back to the cockpit.”

Kan Jian nods, unable to find the words to respond, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Pangzi just trudges past him, pausing long enough to clasp Kan Jian’s shoulder, and then walks out of the bay, his footsteps echoing in the empty spaces left behind.

Kan Jian lets out a shuddery breath, thick and hot with tears. Crying when he’s sad is so much worse than crying when he’s happy. It makes him feel better, sometimes, but lately he feels like there’s never going to be an end to all of the sadness that has built a home inside of him.

The cargo bay blurs in his vision, and he puts his face in his hands, letting himself mourn everything, just for a moment.

Kan Jian isn’t sure where to go after that. Everything seems just a little more useless than before, especially him. He kind of just wants to go and curl up on his beam in the cargo bay, but knows that if he does, he won’t be coming back down for a while. He can’t do that quite yet.

He decides on going to see Xiao Bai, who he hasn’t seen return from her cabin upstairs. She must be even more upset by Liu Sang’s departure than he is if she’s not pushing herself to get back to work on dismantling the bio locks.

It’s a little hard climbing up the ladder, because his feet feel so heavy, but he does, eventually making it to Xiao Bai’s door and knocking. She rarely uses her assigned cabin, like most of them, but it is one of the only places to find complete privacy on the ship. Kan Jian doesn’t receive an answer from inside at first, so he just knocks harder, then speaks through the door.

“I’m sad too, Xiao Bai,” he says, pressing his face close to the seal between the wall and the door so that she can hear him. “But Liu Sang wanted to go, and it wouldn’t have been right to make him stay.”

He expects her to call back, to say something like, he didn’t want to go, he just thought he had to, which is what Kan Jian is also thinking. There’s no sound from inside, however, which strikes worry in Kan Jian’s stomach. “Xiao Bai?”

He knocks a few more times, straining to hear any movement from the other side, but there’s nothing, so he pulls away, considering. Either Xiao Bai is ignoring him, or she’s not in there. He doesn’t know which one is more concerning; Xiao Bai must be very upset if she won’t even let him know that she’s alright, but if he missed her returning to the engine room, then he hasn’t been paying close enough attention to what’s going on around the ship.

He decides to check before he starts panicking and does something stupid like break the door down. The engine room is dimly lit when he gets there, little glowing pockets surrounding the engines and their radiators as Xiao Bai diverts whatever energy and power she can to rearranging all of the Wushanju’s command systems. It’s a little too hot for Kan Jian’s liking, which means that their ship is giving everything she has for them, like always.

“Xiao Bai?” he calls, and nearly jumps when the engineer’s head pops up from behind one of the power cores. Her hair is sticking up all over the place, and she has mechanical grease streaked across her face which definitely hadn’t been there when he had last seen her.

“Hi,” she says when she sees Kan Jian, ducking back down to continue her work. “What’s going on? I thought I heard shouting, earlier.”

“Yeah,” Kan Jian says slowly, coming through the maze of engines and tech to see Xiao Bai sitting on the floor, a series of wires and datapads around her. “Wu Sanxing came, remember?”

Xiao Bai takes a moment to register his words, partially distracted by her tech, and then she turns her face up to him, looking incredulous. “He did? What the fuck does he want?”

“Liu Sang,” Kan Jian tells her, frowning. “You were there, Xiao Bai.” Is she going crazy? Is he going crazy?

“No,” Xiao Bai says, shaking her head. “I’ve been down here the whole time. I heard stuff going on upstairs, but I was too busy to come a check it out.” She jabs a thumb over her shoulder at the computer monitor sitting precariously atop a power core, running lines of code at a million miles per second. “You can check my work, if you want. Everything’s being recorded and timestamped.”

Kan Jian blinks in surprise, because Xiao Bai had been upstairs when Wu Sanxing had arrived. She had seen him ask for Liu Sang, seen Liu Sang agree, run up after him… and never come back down. Liu Sang had been the only one to return from the upstairs. Just Liu Sang.

“Oh,” he breathes. “Shit.”

“What?” Xiao Bai asks, and then her eyes widen as she seems to realize the same thing that he has. “Wang Can.”

Kan Jian scrambles back, twisting to get himself turned around and out of the engine room, Xiao Bai following in his footsteps. They run to the ladder, climbing up it as quickly as possible, and dash down the hallway to the entrance to the deck with the cabins on it, nearly tripping in their haste.

Kan Jian flies down the hall to Liu Sang’s room, one of the last ones, and bangs on the door frantically. “Liu Sang!”

Xiao Bai is right behind him, vibrating with concern. “Is he in there?”

“I don’t know,” Kan Jian says, fingers fumbling for the button to open the door. Liu Sang hasn’t put a lock code on his room, as far as Kan Jian is aware, and he’s thankful for that when the door slides open easily, and he and Xiao Bai can go tumbling into the cabin.

At first glance, it seems empty, just Liu Sang’s bed and dresser, nothing missing or out of place, and then Kan Jian sees a familiar boot sticking out of the closet, attached to a familiar leg.

He yelps, pushing the closet door all the way open, and yanking off the blanket that has been draped over the figure lying inside. It’s Liu Sang, his eyes closed and body slumped over, apparently having been knocked out and then shoved into his own wardrobe, hastily hidden by the hanging clothing and the blanket from the bed.

“Oh my god,” Xiao Bai says, covering her mouth with her hands.

Kan Jian somehow fits himself into the closet, crouching by Liu Sang and tapping him on the cheek, shaking his shoulder to try and get him to wake up. “Liu Sang!”

It takes a few moments, but Liu Sang’s face twitches, he winces, and then his eyes open, squinting at Kan Jian.

“What the fuck?” he murmurs.

“Oh my god,” Xiao Bai says again.

“Are you okay?” Kan Jian asks him, helping Liu Sang out of the closet, keeping a hand on his arm both to make sure he won’t fall over, and to make sure that he’s still real and here. “What happened?”

Liu Sang’s glasses are gone, which seems to confuse him. “I’m not sure, I was packing, and then—” He shoots a strange look at Xiao Bai. “Didn’t you—?”

“No,” Xiao Bai says, shaking her head very emphatically. “I’ve been in the engine room the entire time.”

Liu Sang puzzles through this for a moment, and then groans. “It was Wang Can, wasn’t it?” He sighs. “Did he steal my glasses?”

“Apparently,” Kan Jian says, looking Liu Sang up and down. “You… you didn’t leave?”

“Not yet,” Liu Sang grumbles, nudging Kan Jian away gently and going to find his spare pair of glasses in his dresser. “Why would Wang Can come in here just to knock me out and take my glasses?”

“He did more than that,” Kan Jian admits uneasily. “He also… took your place with Wu Sanxing.”

“What?” Liu Sang whirls around to face him, his expression dismayed. “He… they’re gone?”

Kan Jian nods. “They left a while ago.”

“Why?” Liu Sang asks, almost to himself. “What is he—”

“Does it matter?” Kan Jian asks. “You’re still here, and Wu Sanxing doesn’t know.” He feels slightly bad that Wu Sanxing has apparently been thoroughly duped, but not bad enough to regret this turn of fate.

“Are we sure this is Liu Sang?” Xiao Bai asks suspiciously. “Not Wang Can?”

Liu Sang reaches into his shirt and pulls out his naming whistle. “He’s never seen this, so he wouldn’t know to shift it,” he says. “Is that proof enough?”

Xiao Bai stares at the whistle for a moment, then breaks out into a large grin. “Of course. I was just checking.”

Kan Jian can’t help it then, and throws himself forward, grabbing Liu Sang and pulling him into the biggest hug he can muster. Liu Sang squeaks.

“I’m so happy you didn’t actually leave!” Kan Jian wails. “I thought that you were gone forever!”

“I was going to,” Liu Sang admits after a moment. “I meant to.”

“Well, you didn’t,” Xiao Bai says, folding her arms, but she’s beaming at the both of them. “That’s what counts.”

Kan Jian finishes hugging Liu Sang—which is so much better than hugging Wang Can, how did he not realize earlier?—and turns to wrap his arms around Xiao Bai, who laughs and accepts his embrace. “He didn’t go!”

“I know,” Xiao Bai says, patting him on the back. “He’s still here.”

“What if Wang Can hurts Sanshu, though?” Liu Sang asks.

“Frankly, let him,” Xiao Bai says fiercely. Kan Jian gasps but doesn’t let go of her. “They can kick each other’s asses across the galaxy for all I care.”

Kan Jian might not have put it that way, exactly, but he generally agrees. “We have to tell the others!” he exclaims, grabbing Liu Sang by the wrist and pulling him out of the cabin. Liu Sang yelps, but doesn’t remove himself from Kan Jian’s grasp, and lets himself be dragged down the ladder to the cockpit.

“Pangzi!” Kan Jian exclaims. “Wang Meng! Look!”

Wang Meng peers out of the kitchen and then shrieks, both in alarm and happiness. He rushes towards them, his antennae wiggling wildly as he examines Liu Sang all over to make sure that it’s really him. When his suspicions have been alleviated, he shrieks again and places his hands on Liu Sang’s cheeks, unable to communicate his joy in words. Liu Sang looks slightly overwhelmed, his eyes large and unblinking.

“What is going on?” Pangzi shouts, the door to the cockpit sliding open. He gazes down at the pile of them for a second, obviously confused about Wang Meng and Liu Sang and Kan Jian all tangled up together with Xiao Bai cheering them on, but then he registers Liu Sang’s presence and says, “Jinx?”

“He jinxed Wu Sanxing!” Xiao Bai says gleefully. “Wang Can did! He’s still here!”

Pangzi lets out a roar of delight, squishing against all of them and scrubbing his hand into Liu Sang’s hair, much like he had when he had told the fake Liu Sang goodbye, though this gesture is much happier. Liu Sang tries to move away, but is pinned between Wang Meng’s palms, and has to settle for getting his cheeks pressed even more as they push their love into him.

Kan Jian laughs, his hand still holding Liu Sang’s wrist, and pulls Xiao Bai into their little huddle, feeling happier than he has in a long time.

Their joy doesn’t even fully disperse when they’re interrupted by the hailing signal, though Pangzi does have to break away to answer it.

“If that’s Wu Sanxing,” he says, a particular bite to his words that Kan Jian usually only sees when he’s fighting, “I’m going to tell him to go fuck himself.” He hits the acceptance button to connect them to their caller, inhaling so that he can tell Wu Sanxing off with as much force as possible, but suddenly stops.

The other four of them, out in the hall, stop celebrating long enough to look into the cockpit, and Kan Jian sees a vaguely familiar face on the screen, looking panicked and serious.

“Zhang Rishan?” Liu Sang asks, and then wriggles to get himself out of their pretzeled formation, going to stand next to Pangzi. “Where are you? I thought you were—”

“I’m fine,” Zhang Rishan says, though he doesn’t look nearly steady enough to be entirely okay. He’s wearing thick clothing, bundled up against something, and in some sort of spacecraft. The ship around him is clearly tiny, with hardly any room to move around; it’s more like an escape pod, and Kan Jian is kind of surprised that he’s flying it. Zhang Rishan seems like someone who would have a full ship at his disposal, but right now, he looks like he’s fleeing rather than flying. “Where’s Wu Xie?”

“Why are you asking?” Pangzi says, automatically suspicious, which isn’t surprising, considering the week that they’ve had.

“Is he on the ship?” Zhang Rishan says urgently.

“No,” Liu Sang answers, “He went to find the W.A.N.G.s.”

Zhang Rishan’s eyes go very wide and he collapses back into his seat, gazing off at nothing.

“Zhang Rishan,” Liu Sang says urgently, “What is it? What do you need Wu Xie for?” More tentatively, he asks, “Do you know the W.A.N.G.s?”

“Unfortunately,” Zhang Rishan murmurs, not entirely present for the conversation. His pupils are flickering, as though he’s seeing things that they can’t, rapid calculations flooding through his head. They watch as he thinks, and then looks up abruptly. “You have to get to him before they do.”

“Wu Xie?” Liu Sang frowns. “Why would they want Wu Xie?”

“Is Tianzhen in danger?” Pangzi asks, very seriously.

Something flashes red offscreen on Zhang Rishan’s ship, and he ducks out of frame for a moment, hissing as he makes some sort of adjustment, an automated voice giving warning messages as he does. When he reappears, he looks even more frazzled than before.

“I have to go,” he hisses, “I’m sending you the coordinates to the closest location that I have for the W.A.N.G. compound. I’ll try to get there myself, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Are you okay?” Liu Sang asks desperately. “What’s happening?”

Something explodes over Zhang Rishan’s head, outside of the domed shield of the spacecraft, and he flips a few switches, presses his throttle, sends whatever ship he’s in into a nose dive.

“I don’t have time to explain,” he says, glancing over his shoulder, tilting to the side as the stars blur above him. “The coordinates.” A series of numbers appears in the radar screen down by the ignition controls, and Pangzi hits a button to lock onto them. “Go, now. Find Wu Xie.”

“Zhang Rishan!” Liu Sang cries again, but there’s only time for Zhang Rishan to lock eyes with him before something else shakes his craft, and their connection breaks, leaving the screen blank, and all of them suspended, staring at the empty image.

“He’ll be okay, Jinx,” Pangzi says quietly, putting a hand on Liu Sang’s back. Liu Sang doesn’t say anything, just stares at the ground, his hands tightening into fists.

Kan Jian looks around at the group of them. Xiao Bai is examining the coordinates, as though she can figure out where they’re going based on those alone, and Wang Meng’s antennae are flattened back, obviously worried about whatever’s going on with Zhang Rishan. There’s a frantic, dismal energy hanging in the air. They’re all over the place. They need someone to bring them back together.

They need a shouling.

“Xiao Bai,” Kan Jian says slowly, “How close are you to getting the controls unlocked?”

Xiao Bai looks over her shoulder, her eyes moving up towards the ceiling as she thinks. “I was almost there. If you just want me to dismantle everything, maybe a couple of minutes. If you want to get things reorganized, though, that’ll take me more time.”

“How much of the ship will be functional if you don’t?” Kan Jian asks.

“Life systems and operations should be fine, but we’d have to fly manually,” Xiao Bai reports. “And I’d need someone to help keep the engines from overloading, since I’ll be breaking down all of the normal safety protocols that would normally prevent that.”

“I can fly her,” Pangzi says, his eyes glinting. “When has the lack of autopilot ever stopped us before?”

“I’ll help with the engines,” Wang Meng pipes up. “What do you need me to do?”

“Liu Sang, you help Pangzi in the cockpit,” Kan Jian commands. “You’re good at navigation, and I know you can fly.”

“I really can’t,” Liu Sang mutters. “That one time was a fluke.” He goes over to the copilot’s chair anyway, though, sitting down and examining the control panel.

Wang Meng and Xiao Bai have gone jogging down the hall, heading back towards the engine room, Xiao Bai explaining what they’re going to be doing as succinctly as she can.

“I’ll go make sure that our weapons are ready,” Kan Jian says. “Call me if you need anything.”

He’s about to do just that when Pangzi stops him. Kan Jian stares up at him, but Pangzi is just smiling warmly, his eyes hinting at something soft.

“Good job, Er-shouling,” he says, and Kan Jian’s heart squeezes.

Something shudders to life below them, and Kan Jian feels the Wushanju waking up. Pangzi takes his position in the pilot’s chair, strapping the belts over his chest and gripping the yoke in one hand, the other reaching up to hit the intercom.

“Ready, Si Mei?” he asks.

“Ready,” Xiao Bai’s voice confirms, and the Wushanju purrs in agreement.

Kan Jian positions himself in between the two piloting chairs, one hand on the back of each, and stares out into the stars.

“Let’s fly,” he says, and they burst into life.

Chapter Text

When he first arrives at the W.A.N.G. compound, Xie Yuchen is nineteen, exiled from his home, and his two best friends are dead.

Those are his concerns, from least to most important. He’s trying to ignore all of them; he’s supposed to be pretending that they don’t exist, because that’s his cover story. He’s a young scientist, newly graduated from a program that hardly anyone has ever heard of (which is because it’s made up), and has made it to the W.A.N.G. base through a series of connections that started with a distant relative and ended with a W.A.N.G. field agent. He’s not supposed to know anything about the Jiumen. He’s not supposed to know anything about the deal that the Wu family had just made with the organization. He’s not supposed to know anything about what happened before that.

His teacher always said that the best way to keep people from knowing your thoughts was to do your best not to think them, so Xie Yuchen is most definitely ignoring everything that has happened in the past month, the grief that he’s still trying to deal with. He’s lost everything. He’s never been more alone.

“Name?” a guard, who is checking him in, asks.

“Xie Yuchen,” he says, his Galactic thickly accented. His uncle had always insisted on speaking in the strange, ancient language that has been passed down through their family for generations, one that first originated on Earth, before the planet was lost in time and space. It’s a mark of pride for the Xie’s to be the only family of the Nine Bloodlines that can still speak in Earth tones, and Xie Lian Huan had made sure that that would continue to be the case.

Xie Yuchen supposes that it doesn’t really matter anymore. He probably won’t ever hear Earth tones again, unless he’s talking to himself.

“Position?” the guard asks.

“Researcher,” Xie Yuchen responds obediently. He’s not sure exactly what that entails, but he’s at least got the education credentials to pull something off. He’ll learn on the go. He has always been very good at that.

The guard nods slowly, typing in the information onto a data pad, and then holding it out to take a bioscan of Xie Yuchen’s fingerprints and retinas, both of which, he’s been informed, will be used for the security measures around the compound. The W.A.N.G.s haven’t yet moved away from biological data and controls, which are very secure, but also very easily dealt with. In Xie Yuchen’s opinion, a combination of organic and mechanical information is needed to thoroughly keep anything locked down.

Combinations of the organic and mechanical are what got him here in the first place, though, so he resolutely does not think about this opinion either.

“You know what your mission is?” Er-ye had asked him before he left.

Xie Yuchen was clutching the straps of his backpack. He had only just stopped crying an hour before, and didn’t want to start up again. “To keep them from figuring out what we know.”

“Yes,” Er-ye said. His teacher’s eyes were firm and dark, gazing at Xie Yuchen as though he were trying to catch him in a lie. “What else?”

“To make sure Wu Sanxing doesn’t fuck up the deal.”

Er-ye gave him a look for the language use, but Xie Yuchen didn’t feel inclined to being polite. “In a manner of speaking, yes. What else?”

“Um.” Xie Yuchen didn’t know, so he didn’t say anything else. That was all the instruction that he had been given by his Dashu.

“Take care of yourself,” Er-ye said softly. “You’re my best student. I would hate to have wasted all of those years on you.”

Xie Yuchen straightened up, just a little. He nodded. He bowed. “Yes, Er-ye.”

At the W.A.N.G. compound, the guard assigns him to a room, one that he’ll share with a few other scientists, at least until he rises through the ranks enough to earn the privilege of privacy. He’s got time. He’s planning on being here for the rest of his life, or until the W.A.N.G.s are no longer a threat to the Jiumen, whichever comes first. Those were his orders, and that’s what he’s going to do.

It’s punishment, at the root of it, and he knows that, but Xie Yuchen deserves to be punished.

Xie Yuchen is not very popular at the W.A.N.G. compound.

That’s fine. He doesn’t need to be. He’s there for a specific reason, and while friends might help him in getting around security measures or gathering information, it’s not like he doesn’t have time to spare for figuring everything out.

He sits alone in the cafeteria. He completes the tasks assigned to him, which are mostly blood studies and lab tests. He’s not allowed to be in rooms with subjects yet, still too new to the organization to have those credentials. He does his work, silent and sure, and, whenever he gets the chance, he wanders.

It’s a balancing act, staying where he’s supposed to be so that he has a plausible excuse if someone catches him, but also going further and further each time, so that he can map out the facility as best he can. He has a notebook that he keeps tucked in the back of his waistband where he records everything, under his blankets at night, writing in the dark as best he can, so that no one will be the wiser. He doesn’t dislike his roommates, but he’s fairly certain that they will snitch on him to get some bonus points with the higher-ups.

That’s how he finds 000000000044.

Each test subject, he’s learned, is assigned a twelve-digit number that corresponds with the time and location where they were found. It’s not exactly an easy way of designating different subjects, but they can’t call them by name, partially because half of them don’t have names, and partially because that would be a connection of familiarity, which is prohibited at the W.A.N.G. compound. So numerical designations it is.

When he finds 000000000044, Xie Yuchen’s been sent to retrieve a dialuric compound from one of the storage rooms, and sprints most of the way there so that he can use the rest of his time to look around. He hasn’t been in this section of the facility before. He wanders around for a bit before he comes to a door, completely unguarded, which isn’t overly suspicious. The tech on the subjects’ cells is fairly unbreakable, so guards aren’t constantly posted outside of each of them. They don’t have the manpower for that.

Xie Yuchen examines the control panel next to the door. There’s the standard unlocking system, with the thumb and retina scanner, but there’s also a number pad above it. Xie Yuchen has seen these on some of the other equipment; the scientists will type a code into the keypad, which acts as a command. He’s never seen one on an entire room before. He wonders what it does.

There isn’t much time left, so Xie Yuchen leaves the room behind, but it occupies his thoughts for much longer than it takes him to walk back to his work station.

He still hasn’t found what he came here to find, but he’s getting closer.

It takes him two years to gain enough trust to be able to wander the facility by himself.

He does things that he’s not proud of. The subjects in the compound are all thin and weak and unable to run away, even if they got the chance. The tests aren’t necessarily painful, at least not all of the time, but they’re invasive, and cruel for that reason alone. Xie Yuchen tries his best to be kind, but he doesn’t have that luxury if he wants to fulfill his mission. He has to make sure that the W.A.N.G.s trust him implicitly if he’s going to do what he needs to do.

And eventually, he does that. He finds his cyberhuman in one of the lowest storage bays, shut off and limp in his crate, and the relief that fills Xie Yuchen almost brings him to tears. It’s been two years. It’s been two years, and it’s going to be so many more, but he’s come at least one step closer to making up for his past mistakes. Maybe he can do this. Maybe he’ll be able to save his family and everyone else he’s ever known.

The problem is, he’s starting to get to know others, and that’s distracting.

He’s allowed in rooms with test subjects now; not alone, but he’s allowed inside. There are a few that he favors, who try and smile when they see him. He likes the younger ones, too, even though seeing them make his hands shake. They shouldn’t be in here, but they are, so he tries to give them as much as he can,

At night, he sneaks down to the basement and lifts the lid of the crate. The cyberhuman is still limp and quiet, because his most important functional circuitry was torn out of his chest, leaving it all stringy wires and splintered metal panels. Xie Yuchen sets him up so that he’s sitting on a makeshift chair of scrap wood, as though this is a completely normal meeting, as though they’re both alive and safe.

Xie Yuchen talks to him as though his is. It reminds him of the friends he doesn’t have anymore. Well. Sort of doesn’t have.

“I’ll bring you back,” he tells the quiet body, cold and still. “I promise. Then we’ll both get out of here.”

That’s the other thing. Xie Yuchen has been here for two years, and while he’s still dedicated to the mission he was set, he’s come up with his own. It doesn’t conflict with his original task, exactly, because his new, personal goal is to destroy the W.A.N.G.s entirely, and if he can’t do that, then he’ll destroy as much of them as possible. He just needs a little help.

The problem with that is that the only person who would help him, probably, would be the cyberhuman, but he’s not currently online, and Xie Yuchen has no training in how the mechanical components work. He was in charge of the biological research, considering that he had the strongest connections to their human side. It was the other two who had the tech knowledge, who were really the masterminds behind the project, and Xie Yuchen was just… there. He helped, but he doesn’t have nearly enough skill at present to bring the cyberhuman back to life, at least not quickly. But he was there for the entire process, and he thinks that, given time, he might be able to replicate it.

In the meantime, though, he’s going to need to find an ally.

That’s why he goes back to 000000000044’s chamber, more often than not. He stands outside it, because he still doesn’t have the clearance to enter cells without permission, but he thinks that he might be able to get that, soon, though soon is relative. He could be here for another fifty years. He could be here until he dies.

Everything moves slowly, but Xie Yuchen is nothing if not patient. He cleans up the cyberhuman’s circuitry, cutting into his sleeping schedule. He stands quietly in corners and observes the higher-level scientists discuss codes and subjects and testing plans. He sits outside 000000000044’s cell and wonders who exactly could be in there. He waits and waits and waits.

And then, during the sixth year he’s in the W.A.N.G. compound, he gets his chance.

Xie Yuchen is promoted, gets almost unlimited access to the files and areas of the W.A.N.G. compound, and throws himself into his work more desperately than before, even though time is the one thing he isn’t short on. He’s still cautious, because he has to be, but he thinks that it’ll be worth it.

000000000044 turns out to be even more of a mystery than Xie Yuchen had originally expected. No one knows exactly what it is, only that it’s strong, and old, and probably deadly. They’ve kept it under lock and key for years, using concentrated ultraviolet beams to keep the thing from growing and attacking and destroying the compound, which most of the other researchers suspect that it can do. Xie Yuchen isn’t too sure; if 000000000044 was capable of that, why hadn’t it already done it?

So, eventually, Xie Yuchen goes to see the mysterious creature, and it’s nothing like he expected. 000000000044 is a twisting, screaming void, darkness brought to life and shoved into a tiny, cramped room. Xie Yuchen thinks that maybe he should be scared, but he isn’t. 000000000044 doesn’t hurt him the first time he comes in, nor does he any of the times after that. It shrieks, slams against the walls, but it never comes near Xie Yuchen.

Xie Yuchen desperately wants to find a way to communicate with 000000000044. There has to be some way, he thinks. He just has to discover it.

His other project gets put on hold for a while, because Xie Yuchen is ablaze with trying to puzzle out this latest enigma. He feels slightly insane, as though his brain is moving too fast for the rest of the world, like things aren’t keeping up. He gets all of the files they have on 000000000044, as well as for any subjects that were found near its origination. He reads everything that he can, makes his own notes. He runs tests, which are very unofficial, and very much illegal, and if he were to get caught, he knows that his position would be terminated immediately, or worse.

It takes him nearly another year, but Xie Yuchen has already had a hand in figuring out the impossible, and it doesn’t take him very long before he makes the connection between the cyberhuman and 000000000044, figures out what might be able to cross the barrier. The way they had figured it out, back on Jiumen, was by accident, and it was horrendous. Xie Yuchen is doing this on purpose, so it’s different. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

As far as he can figure, 000000000044 learns from absorbing information, literally. Every time they’ve run a test on it, given it something, the creature has sucked it up, and then changed to match it, or used that energy to do something else. It’s strange. It reminds Xie Yuchen of a black hole, which they suspect is the creature’s home. If 000000000044 is a little living piece of a black hole, then… then that’s nearly too much to comprehend. He has no idea how that’s even possible.

What he does know, though, is that 000000000044 can use what it’s given to manipulate itself, so Xie Yuchen offers it the only thing he has on hand: himself.

When he slices open his hand, lets his blood drip on the floor, and extends it towards the creature, he’s not really sure what to expect. 000000000044 reaches out with a thin, twisty tendril of ink-black smoke, slides under Xie Yuchen’s skin. It makes him shiver, because it’s cold, but it doesn’t feel bad.

There’s a moment of silence, and then, rapidly, all of the darkness condenses into one point, and when Xie Yuchen blinks, there’s a person standing in front of him, looking very human, with shaggy, dark hair and unseeing eyes.

000000000044 looks around—or, well, he moves his head as though he’s looking, and then makes a noise that sounds like an approximation of a hello.

“Hello,” Xie Yuchen replies, and 000000000044 repeats it, the word making more sense now that he’s heard it spoken aloud. “My name’s Xie Yuchen.”

000000000044 hisses at him, which Xie Yuchen doesn’t think is a name, but he hisses back, curiously.

000000000044’s face lights up, and he smacks himself in the face with a flailing arm, as though he hasn’t figured out how to work it yet.

“Can I touch you?” Xie Yuchen asks. 000000000044 doesn’t answer, just goes very still, so Xie Yuchen takes that as a yes and walks over to him, reaching out his arm slowly so that 000000000044 isn’t startled by the sudden contact.

He doesn’t. He’s firm and real underneath Xie Yuchen’s palm, if a little chilly, and Xie Yuchen blinks, feels as though the floor is falling out from under him, because here, in front of him, is a miracle.

“Hmm,” he says, feeling very small, suddenly. “Well. Interesting.”

“Interesting,” 000000000044 repeats, and Xie Yuchen laughs.

It’s taken him sixteen years, in total. Sixteen years of work, of sneaking around, of hiding who he really is, and it might all come crashing down in a matter of moments, because some stupid part of him has decided that it needs to save this Sheiling and his friend.

Xie Yuchen hadn’t ever worked with 126789225521 when he was with them the first time, and he had been duly impressed with his escape, just like everyone else had been. That’s what had originally given him the idea to help other subjects escape. If one adolescent Sheiling could do it, then Xie Yuchen, with all of his accesses and credentials and the very large piece of space that he had befriended, definitely could.

Except for now the Sheiling is back, and has someone else to worry about, and Hei Xiazi has apparently adopted them both, and Xie Yuchen is trying to get to the arena again before anyone can think anything of the fact that Hei Xiazi was loosed on a subject they were supposed to be testing.

He comes through the door, where a battalion of armed guards are confusedly pointing their weapons at nothing, unsure of what they should be aiming at. The glass observation window is cracked, near to shattering, and Xie Yuchen is admittedly stunned by the amount of damage that 259900452587 had done.

He goes to Dr. Xian’s side. The head researcher is glaring down into the arena, fingers crunched up on the windowsill, rage simmering underneath his gaze.

“Sir?”

“I’ll be taking over 126789225521’s testing,” Dr. Xian says quietly.

Xie Yuchen thinks, shit. “Personally? Are you sure?”

“He obviously needs some special attention,” Dr. Xian says, and Xie Yuchen realizes that this has quickly turned into some sort of vendetta.

He winces inwardly, and silently promises to try and visit the Sheiling later, to warn him about what’s coming. He’ll need to tell Hei Xiazi this too. And 259900452587, though maybe he’ll omit the part about the testing changing. He doesn’t want to upset that particular prisoner any more than necessary.

He watches as a pair of guards come and collect 126789225521 from the dirt. He’s limp as they haul him away, and Xie Yuchen wonders exactly what 259900452587 did to him.

Guilt is not a new emotion, nor is it strange to manage. Xie Yuchen has been wracked by guilt for years, and it’s not going away anytime soon. Not until he finishes up here, so he looks away from 126789225521 and goes to Dr. Xian.

The head researcher has his knuckles white on the sill, eyes glaring straight ahead, laser focused on the still bodies in the arena.

“Was it your idea to send in 044?” he asks quietly.

“259900452587 would have gotten in and killed all of you,” Xie Yuchen says instead of answering directly. “It was the most strategic route to minimize damages.”

“That’s not your job,” Dr. Xian says.

“Sorry, sir,” Xie Yuchen says, folding his hands behind his back. Sending Hei Xiazi into the arena had been a gamble, a bigger risk than Xie Yuchen typically likes to take. He can’t let his connection to Hei Xiazi slip out, or they won’t let him see him anymore, and who knows what will happen then. Xie Yuchen has to get Hei Xiazi out. He has to. He can’t lose him before then.

Dr. Xian sighs, but doesn’t pursue the issue any further. Instead, all he says is, “You may return to your former duties.”

“Yes, sir,” Xie Yuchen says, his fingernails digging into his palms. This is going to make things considerably harder. It had been a good bit of luck that he had been assigned to the Sheiling when he had been recaptured, and he has a feeling that 259900452587 is not going to cooperate if Xie Yuchen doesn’t assure him of the other subject’s safety.

He leaves the room before Dr. Xian can think any more about how Xie Yuchen had gotten 044 to go out in the first place, and hopes that their cover will hold for just a little bit longer. He’s close to something, he can feel it, but he had been expecting at least several more months, if not a year, before the final stage of their escape plan would be enacted. However, it seems suspiciously as though things are going to be sped up considerably.

He doesn’t go and see Hei Xiazi and his new friend right away, because that would be incredibly revealing, but once the rest of the compound has begun their night cycle, he heads down to the lower cells, armed with a stack of papers and the excuse that he’s going to return things to the archives, which he will do, eventually. The W.A.N.G.s have both hard copies and digital files of all of their research, both of which can be destroyed at the press of a button if they’re compromised.

He leaves the papers outside of the 000000000044 cell and types in his passcode, waiting for the door to slide open before he steps inside. Hei Xiazi knows his footsteps and won’t attack.

He gets attacked anyway, because he didn’t remember that there’s currently another occupant in the cell, but that’s fine. He probably deserves it, a little bit.

Hei Xiazi makes 259900452587 back down, which isn’t entirely necessary, but appreciated. He’s still smoking when he changes back into his human form, though, so Xie Yuchen has to reassure him that he’s still in one piece.

“I’m fine, Hei-ye,” he says. Hei Xiazi gives him a look that reeks of doubt, but is distracted by berating the other test subject.

Xie Yuchen does his best to explain things, learns that 259900452587’s name is Zhang Qiling, and not Xiao-ge, like the Sheiling—Li Cu—had said. Xie Yuchen thinks that it’s nice to have something to call all of them besides their assigned numbers.

He promises Zhang Qiling that he’ll try and get Li Cu for him, which is a stupid promise to make, and he leaves the cell feeling more stressed than usual, which isn’t the way that he normally leaves his meetings with Hei-ye. Hei Xiazi is the one thing in this entire godforsaken place that even remotely soothes his nerves, and it’s unnerving that he feels worse going out than he did going in, but there’s nothing for that.

Xie Yuchen prepares for a myriad of sleepless nights. He returns the papers to their proper files, and then goes to the basement.

His project is right where he left it, propped up on its chair, quiet and still, and Xie Yuchen allows himself to relax, just a fraction, as he gathers the small bundle of tools and equipment that he’s filched over the years, and sits across from the cyberhuman, starting again from where he left off.

After sixteen years, he’s so, so close. He’s fixed the chest paneling, reattached all of the wires and components, and sealed that compartment off. He reworked all of the joints and oiled the metal parts and made sure that the plates seared into the skin are snug and attached nicely. He’s tested the sensory inputs, made sure that the cyberhuman will, theoretically, be able to move once he wakes up.

The past few years have been the most difficult, because they’re the most delicate. The first time, it had taken Er-ge months to even come up with the equations for the brain robotics, and nearly a year for him to program them. Xie Yuchen had taken years to recall the full equation, and even more to implement it. He’s just now finishing, and there are still so many tests that he wants to run, and so many things that could go wrong.

“I don’t know if we’re going to have time,” he tells the silent form in front of him, placed in between his knees as he works on the back of his head. “It’s taken so long to even get this far. I might only have days left, Da-ge. I don’t know if I can do it.”

The cyberhuman says nothing, because he can’t, but that’s fine.

“Zhang Qiling is strong,” he says. “He has a crew out there, somewhere, so maybe we’ll get help from them. They don’t know where we are, though, and I don’t know how we’ll tell them.” He sighs. “So it might just be you and I.” He could contact Xiuxiu, but Xiuxiu doesn’t deserve to be put in danger like that, even if she would do it without a second thought. Xie Yuchen will get in touch with her only if absolutely necessary.

“The Sheiling is named Li Cu,” he says offhandedly, stripping a piece of wire so that he can twist it into another one. “He’s young, but he’s brave. He’ll make it out with Hei-ye, I’m sure of it.” He pauses. “I think that Zhang Qiling and I will make sure of it. We’ll stay behind, if we have to.” He will. He’ll die, but as long as Hei-ye escapes, that will be enough for Xie Yuchen.

His back begins to ache from being hunched over for so long, eyes getting blurry from focusing so closely, and when his watch beeps to let him know that roll call will be happening in an hour, his hands are stiff and creaky. He sets down his tools, stretches every part of him that he can.

“I’ll come back tonight,” he says through a yawn, shifting the cyberhuman so that he’s leaning against the wall, and covers him with the dusty sheet that he’s used for years, to keep him hidden.

“See you later, Da-ge,” he says, and leaves.

It takes a while for him to see Li Cu again, and it really only happens by coincidence. He’s going to the lab to work on a stronger dose of the sedative that they use in the wrist plates to knock the subjects out; after the disaster with Zhang Qiling, Dr. Xian had decided that they needed to make sure that they had some higher concentrations, in case they came across another subject that could take enough of the drug to kill most living things, and still remain conscious.

He’s carrying a tray full of the drug, on his way to replicate it, when he sees Li Cu walking towards him, boxed in on either side by two guards. The Sheiling looks tired, head drooping towards the floor, hands cuffed in front of him. He’s quiet, and Xie Yuchen can’t see any fight in him.

It doesn’t take him long to come up with a plan, as stupid as it is, but Xie Yuchen might not get another chance, so he picks his battles.

When he passes by them, he purposefully knocks into the shoulder of one of the guards and pretends to stumble backwards, the collection of vials dropping from his hands and smashing around Li Cu’s feet. The guards both jump away, avoiding the splash zone, but Xie Yuchen gets liquid spattered over his shoes as well.

“You idiot,” he says, even though he was the one to knock into the guard. “Don’t you have eyes?”

“Sorry, sir,” the guard says, looking at the mess that has been created around them. The guards are little more than hired guns, and don’t have the courage to argue with the researchers, because that will get them terminated, in every sense of the word. People don’t typically leave the W.A.N.G. compound and live to tell about it.

“Hurry and go get something to clean this up,” Xie Yuchen orders. “If we move, it will begin to seep into our skin.” The guards look at each other hesitantly, so he barks, “Do you want this subject to die of acid radiation poisoning? Go!”

They nod hurriedly and take off down the hall without insisting that one stay to guard Li Cu, who doesn’t look as though he’ll try anything anyway, and Xie Yuchen doesn’t waste anymore time.

“It won’t hurt you,” he says under his breath, trying not to move his lips so that the security cameras in the halls don’t catch him speaking. “I lied.”

Li Cu doesn’t even look up at him, but Xie Yuchen doesn’t necessarily want him to. If he can explain things without looking as though they’re having a conversation, it will be much easier to hide.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” he says. “Hei-ye and I. We’ll make sure you get out.”

“What does it matter?” Li Cu mutters, voice so quiet that Xie Yuchen has to struggle to hear him. “I don’t want to go.”

“What?” Xie Yuchen asks, shocked, because that’s the last answer he was expecting.

Underneath his hairline, Li Cu whispers, “I said I wouldn’t leave without Xiao-ge. So I’m not.”

Xie Yuchen blinks, startled. “You… what?”

“They said he’s dead!” Li Cu exclaims, his eyes snapping up to glare at Xie Yuchen, despite being red-rimmed and watery. “You killed him. I’m not leaving without him, so I won’t go at all.”

“I…” Xie Yuchen’s ever-present guilt rises up again, and he has to swallow a few times before he hisses, “They lied. He’s not dead.”

Li Cu looks as though he’s going to strike, but Xie Yuchen’s words stop him, and he looks up at him fully, his eyes moving back and forth rapidly, studying Xie Yuchen’s face as though he’ll find traces of a lie there. He doesn’t say anything, obviously aware of the cameras, and Xie Yuchen thinks that he’s smarter than he’s probably given credit for.

Xie Yuchen hears footsteps approaching, and quickly whispers, “I need to contact your ship. How?”

“Why would I tell you?” Li Cu demands, stubborn. “You killed Xiao-ge.”

Xie Yuchen doesn’t have time for this. “He’s not dead. And his real name is Zhang Qiling.”

Li Cu stops. “How do you know that?”

“Because he told me,” Xie Yuchen says. “You call him Xiao-ge, but his name is Zhang Qiling. He’s a Kylin. And he’s not dead. Now tell me how to contact your crew so that we can get you out of here.”

Li Cu still looks stunned. He bites his lip, then ducks his head and says, “415.31. If they’re listening on any wavelength, it’ll be that one. They won’t be able to find them with it, either.”

Xie Yuchen nods, holding the number in his head carefully so that he won’t forget it. He assumes “they” means any other W.A.N.G. operatives who might catch them. It might also mean Xie Yuchen, who hasn’t really done anything to earn Li Cu’s trust yet.

“Cooperate with them,” Xie Yuchen tells him. “Don’t give them a reason to hurt you.” He straightens up, calling to the guards who are just now rounding the corner, cleaning supplies in hand and one of the janitorial staff in tow, who is wearing a hazmat suit. “It took you long enough!”

The guards mumble apologies, not sounding very sincere, and they get all of the mess cleared up, the glass from the broken vials swept away.  Xie Yuchen can feel Li Cu’s eyes on him the entire time, probably wondering if he’s made a mistake by offering that particular information to a W.A.N.G. researcher. Xie Yuchen doesn’t blame him. He’d be uncertain too.

He does contact Xiuxiu, in the end, and she tells him he’s an idiot.

“I know,” Xie Yuchen hisses into the tiny communicator that he only has because he made it illegally a few years ago. “It wasn’t my idea.”

Xiuxiu’s voice is crackly, but reassuring. “I thought that you weren’t planning on moving yet.”

“I wasn’t,” Xie Yuchen says. “But things got complicated.” He sighs. “Just… be in the area, okay? I might need you to take some people, if things go sideways.”

“That includes you, right?” Xiuxiu asks, and when Xie Yuchen doesn’t answer her right away, she repeats, “Right?”

Xie Yuchen shakes his head, because Xiuxiu can’t see him. “Yeah,” is what he says out loud. “Including me.”

Huo Xiuxiu came with him to the W.A.N.G.s, sort of. She was from Jiaren, too, but her family had been working on keeping secrets within the organization for much longer than Xie Yuchen’s family had. She was technically a field agent, but had been stationed so far out, in such a remote part of the galaxy, that she hardly ever had new subjects to bring in, and so Xie Yuchen conscripted her into taking subjects out. She knew where the compounds were, and if her ship was spotted in orbit around the station, it wouldn’t be too suspicious, or at least that’s what they had hoped when they first began to plan this whole thing.

Xiuxiu has been helping him get subjects out for years now, and she’s his second closest friend after Hei Xiazi, though they’re probably honestly tied. He hasn’t seen her in person, ever, and thinks that it might be nice to do so, when this is all over.

Xiuxiu sighs. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

Xie Yuchen hasn’t slept in three days. “I never do stupid things.”

Xiuxiu signs off, and Xie Yuchen takes the communicator down to Hei-ye. He’s tuned it to the 415.31 wavelength, and hopes that Hei Xiazi and Zhang Qiling will be able to get something from that.

He can’t stay long, because Dr. Xian has called him for a meeting, so he drops off the device and then leaves, heading to the head researcher’s office and hoping that he hasn’t been caught somewhere he isn’t supposed to be. That would be just perfect.

Dr. Xian is sitting at his desk, several holographic monitors up and running around him, various charts and graphs sprawled across the interface. He looks intense, nearly glaring at all of the information in front of him, and he doesn’t look up when Xie Yuchen comes in.

“Researcher Xie,” he says, tapping on one of the screens to bring up more detailed information for one of the charts. “Thank you for stopping by.”

“It’s not an issue,” Xie Yuchen says, putting his hands behind his back so that Dr. Xian won’t see them trembling. “What is it that you wanted to see me for, sir?”

Dr. Xian tears himself away from the screens and stands up, and there’s something… off about him. Something different. A little more frazzled, a little more harried than normal. It makes Xie Yuchen nervous.

“We’re getting close,” he says. “To the Ultimate discovery.”

Xie Yuchen honestly has no idea what that is, but he keeps his face impassive. “Sorry?”

Dr. Xian stares at him for a long moment. “You know the mission of the W.A.N.G. organization, don’t you?”

Xie Yuchen nods. “We’re meant to discover as much as we can about the universe, and use it to benefit ourselves and the living organisms of the universe.” Saying it leaves a sour taste in his mouth, because that’s most certainly not what they have been doing. Not in such an innocent way, at least.

Dr. Xian nods impatiently. “Yes, that’s the mission, technically. But our founder… has been looking for something for a long time. A way to override the greatest enemy to life. Do you know what that is?”

“Death?” Xie Yuchen guesses, because even though Dr. Xian is being horribly philosophical, it’s a fairly simple question. He’s had a lot of time to think about things like that over sixteen years.

“Exactly.” Dr. Xian looks pleased with Xie Yuchen’s answer, which makes him feel slimy, somehow. Like he’s getting approval he doesn’t deserve, doesn’t want. “We’ve been searching for a way to overcome death, to extend manner of life in all forms. Some species are better at it than others, which is why we study them particularly closely.”

“… I don’t understand,” Xie Yuchen admits. “Everything dies, eventually. We can’t stop that.”

“That’s what most people think,” Dr. Xian says, “But the right combination of genetics, of specific traits, could extend life in certain species indefinitely. That’s what we’ve been trying to do, for as long as our organization has existed.”

“For who?” Xie Yuchen asks. He knows it’s bold, but he can’t help it. “There has to be someone behind all of this.”

“Of course there is,” Dr. Xian says. “You’ll be able to meet him, soon, I promise.”

And that doesn’t sound very much like an opportunity that Xie Yuchen wants. “Sir?” he asks. “Why are you telling me this?”

Dr. Xian turns his back for a moment, gazing out of the tiny porthole window at the stars rotating around them. “You have… certain experiences that would make you a valuable contribution to the main research team.”

Shit.

Shit, shit. “I do?” Xie Yuchen tries to keep his voice from trembling.

Dr. Xian nods, still not looking towards him. “Your personal projects,” he says, and Xie Yuchen freezes. Dr. Xian glances at him over his shoulder. “You didn’t think that we missed those, did you?”

“I…” Xie Yuchen is floundering. He’s been caught. He’s been caught. Sixteen years, and he’s been caught.

“Don’t be frightened,” Dr. Xian says, which, wondrously, does not do much to assuage Xie Yuchen’s nerves. “You’re not being punished.” He chuckles. “We would be remiss to waste talent like yours.”

“Oh,” Xie Yuchen says cautiously. His fingernails are pressing grooves into his palms. “Then…”

“We’ll let you continue your experiments,” Dr. Xian explains. “To be quite honest, none of us really expected anything to come of that cyborg project, so it’s wonderful that you managed to find some way to begin to fix it.” He peers at Xie Yuchen. “You’re human yourself, correct?”

“Yes,” Xie Yuchen manages. “I’m from Jiaren.”

“The same planet we sourced the cyborg from,” Dr. Xian says with a nod, and Xie Yuchen hates that he’s using that term for Da-ge. He’s still human, after all. Xie Yuchen has pinned his hopes on that for sixteen years. “Did you know about their research?”

“No,” Xie Yuchen lies. “I left early to get my education elsewhere.” That part of his cover story, he hopes, has held up, because if Dr. Xian finds out just how close Xie Yuchen was to that particular project, he’s fucked.

Dr. Xian nods. “You’re the only human that we have on our staff here, so it makes sense that you would be drawn to that particular project.” He goes back to his desk, takes out a datapad. “How close do you believe you are to having it functional again?”

Xie Yuchen doesn’t like this. At all. “It’s hard to say.”

“If we make that your main focus, what would your estimate be?” Dr. Xian says, and then, very pointedly, “We’ve been observing your progress for a while now. You’re close, aren’t you?”

The truth is that yes, he is. He’s very close. The past few days have been a blur as he tries to get everything finished in a crunched timetable, but he didn’t know that he was being watched. How long have they known for? How much do they know?

“A week,” Xie Yuchen says finally. “Maybe more.”

Dr. Xian nods. “Excellent,” he says, and then presses a button on the side of his desk. The door to his office opens, and a pair of guards are standing there, framed in the entryway. They come over and stand on either side of Xie Yuchen, whose stomach has taken residence near his shoes.

“They’ll escort you to your new workstation,” Dr. Xian says, his voice as neutral as if Xie Yuchen really were getting a promotion. “You’ll be able to return to your rooms if you wish, but I’ll expect to see some sort of result within the week.”

Xie Yuchen swallows and nods, stiffly. He grits his teeth to keep his jaw from trembling. Everything’s falling apart. He doesn’t know how much of what he’s just been told is the truth, and how much is a carefully crafted lie. He knows how the W.A.N.G. operatives work. He knows what they say to people in order to get them to cooperate, and he knows that he doesn’t have a choice right now. Not if he wants to survive this.

“You may go,” Dr. Xian dismisses, turning back to his holographic screens, pulling up a video feed which is—Christ—Xie Yuchen, sitting across from Da-ge and talking to him. There’s no audio on the feed, thank God, but it shows that they have been watching him, and for a while now. It shows that he’s failed. He wasn’t supposed to ever see Da-ge again, much less return him to functionality. He’s fucked.

The guards take him by the arms when they realize that Xie Yuchen isn’t going to start moving on his own, turning him around and leading him out of Dr. Xian’s office. The hallway swims in front of him, which makes him grateful for the support, because his legs aren’t exactly feeling steady right now, and his brain is whirring clunkily, trying to put together all of the pieces he’s just received, and shape them into something that doesn’t end with all of the people he cares about dying.

Again.

They make their way down into the testing hallways, and they round a corner, and for the second time in recent memory, Xie Yuchen comes face-to-face with Li Cu, who is with his own set of guards. He looks momentarily happy to see Xie Yuchen, and then he recognizes the people with him, the strong grip they have on his arms, and his face falls.

Xie Yuchen begs him, silently, not to say anything, not to make a scene, and Li Cu must remember what he told him last time, because he doesn’t say a word as they walk past each other, even though Xie Yuchen can practically feel confusion and concern radiating out from him. He wonders if that’s a Sheiling trait, and almost laughs. He’s still thinking like a researcher, even after all of this. Even though he doesn’t want to be.

His new "workstation," as Dr. Xian had called it, is one of the empty testing rooms, with an examination table and computer and tool closet against one wall. Da-ge is laid out on the table, as still and lifeless as he ever is, but Xie Yuchen feels something stuttering in him at the thought that someone else has had their hands on him.

The guards leave him in there, and when they go out, the door locks behind them. Xie Yuchen can hear it, and he knows that his passcode and all of his clearances are probably useless now, at least until he can deliver something of worth. Not being put in handcuffs was probably a formality; he’s as much a prisoner as everyone else, now. He glances around the room, makes note of where the cameras most likely are, and calculates how much time he has for a breakdown.

Not much, is the answer, but he allows himself a moment to place his hands on the edge of the examination table, bending over and trying not to lose his head entirely. He’s fine. Things are fine. He’s still alive. They don’t know about Hei-ye, or Zhang Qiling. He can make this work. If he’s going to, however, he’s going to have to rely entirely on himself, because no one else knows that he’s here, except Li Cu, and there’s not much that the Sheiling can do. Xiuxiu should be coming, and hopefully Zhang Qiling and Hei-ye will have contacted Zhang Qiling’s crew by now, but he can’t put too much on any outer support. And if that’s the case…

If that’s the case, then it’s a good thing that he remembers the past so thoroughly.

He’s been trying to figure out what went wrong, back then, to avoid having it happen again. He’s gone over all of the small, little moments again and again, rummaged through his memories for any sort of clue that he can use. He’s quickly running out of options, but there is one that he knows will work. He burned those codes and commands into his brain so that he would make sure to do the opposite, to modify them so that their work didn’t end in death and destruction this time, but if destruction is going to be the only thing that gets them out of here, then, he thinks, destruction will have to do.

He gives himself another count of seven, and then rolls his shoulders back, straightens up, and goes over to the tool cabinet, trying to find the things that he’s going to need to make this work. He can’t give them time to figure out what he’s doing—again—so he’s going to have to be quick.

“Alright, Da-ge,” he mutters, sitting down on the stool next to the examination table, and turning the cyberhuman’s head to the side to access the brain paneling. “Let’s get to work.”

Xie Yuchen has only ever had one subject die in the testing room.

It was no one’s fault, really, but that doesn’t mean that Xie Yuchen doesn’t blame himself, and rightly so. He may not have wanted to do any of the things that the W.A.N.G.s ordered him to do, but it doesn’t change the fact that he was the one to do them, and so he is complacent in that way, at the very least. It’s a larger sin than most on his list, and one that he thinks he’ll end up paying for dearly later.

The subject was one that they didn’t have any data on, a hydrogen-based lifeform that was made up of a filmy membrane, their organs on full display. They didn’t appear to have bones, and instead used gas manipulation to move and function. They were fascinating, and Xie Yuchen had actually been excited to work with that particular subject, because he had never seen anyone like them.

The test that they were supposed to do—Xie Yuchen can’t even remember exactly what it was now, because it hadn’t mattered, in the end. What had mattered was how the subject screamed as their insides boiled, as they shattered into a smoldering pile of liquid on the floor. They hadn’t known how delicate the subject was, how easily they would be affected by changes in temperature.

Xie Yuchen spent a good hour throwing up in his room, choking around sobs. He still remembers the smell, or lack of one, rather, and that makes him even sicker; the idea that nothing was left to prove that there had once been a living creature in the same spot. It’s one of the worst things that he’s ever been a part of.

For some reason, that’s the memory that haunts him as he works on the circuitry, as he attaches things to coding equipment, as he welds and mends and stitches as gently and carefully as he can. He does have to admit that the progress is faster with actual, useful tools, and he doesn’t have to worry about snapping the one delicate screwdriver he’d been able to steal.

Someone brings him dinner, and he doesn’t care. The chime of the night cycle goes off, and he doesn’t care. He’s putting together a spinal cord, he’s rebuilding the cell structure of a pair of warm, dark eyes, he’s wrapping the body in blankets so that it warms to approximately the same temperature as a human might be. He hopes that when he wakes the cyberhuman up, the leftover biological repairs will take care of themselves, but he doesn’t want to give him more to do, because he’ll have enough to worry about at that point.

His eyes are thick and swollen and gritty with sleep, and Hei Xiazi must be worried, because Xie Yuchen had promised that he would be back that night, and he broke that promise. He’s going to break a lot of promises, he thinks.

But, with any luck, no one else will die that doesn’t deserve it.

He passes out late into the night, unable to keep his eyes open any longer, and dreams about fire, about buildings cracking and crumbling and falling to ash; strong, sure hands dragging him away from someone that he loves; his uncle’s voice in his ear; Er-ge sobbing somewhere nearby. He wakes with a start, but he’s still alone, Da-ge’s body draped out in front of him.

He’s almost back. He’s almost back. Xie Yuchen almost has him, and he won’t let him be lost on his own, this time.

In the very early hours of what would be their morning, Xie Yuchen fits the last piece of paneling back into the cyberhuman’s chest. He dressed him, at some point in their journey, in a spare W.A.N.G. jumpsuit, and now, with all of his pieces and parts back together, it almost looks as if the man could be sleeping, just resting, instead of being brought back from the dead.

Xie Yuchen stares at him. His fingers are shaking. He can’t… he’s not even sure this is real, he’s so tired. It’s been sixteen years. It’s been so long.

He glances towards the camera, built into the wall, makes a few final calculations. He’s going to have to be quick if he’s going to get Hei-ye and Zhang Qiling and Li Cu out, and he can only hope that there will be someone waiting for them outside, someone who will be able to take them away, to save them if Xie Yuchen cannot.

This is his penance. He’s made his peace with that. This is his penance, and his pride, and his apology to the people he left behind, a long, long time ago.

He hooks Da-ge up to the artificial blood packs that were hanging innocuously in the cabinet, unaware of exactly how important to him they are. The IV line begins to pump fluid into him, and Xie Yuchen holds his breath, sending the final ingredient, a jumpstarting spark of electricity, into the delicate electrical work, hidden away in the skull.

He waits, looking at the monitors that are attached to Da-ge’s skin; watches as the heartbeat starts, half-mechanics and half-biorhythm; watches as the blood pressure stabilizes; watches as activity begins in the brain.

Something shudders in the distance. At first, Xie Yuchen thinks that it’s his mind playing tricks on him, because the W.A.N.G. compound has always been ridiculously stable, but then there’s another shudder, and then alarms begin blaring from far away, all power diverted to the emergency functions, which means that the monitors shut off, a shower of sparks raining from the electric field attached to Da-ge’s head as it shuts down.

Xie Yuchen looks towards the cyberhuman in alarm, but he doesn’t need to be worried. Da-ge’s eyes are already open, the muscles in his face twitching as the codes in his brain send signals to them, waking everything up, getting it ready to move. His fingers twitch, and then Da-ge sits up, tearing free of the electrodes plastered across his chest.

Despite himself, Xie Yuchen smiles. This may be the beginning of the end, but, oh, what a beginning it is.

“Hi, Lao Yang,” he murmurs, gazing at the reborn person in front of him. “Welcome back.”

From far away, something explodes.

Chapter Text

Wu Xie’s life has largely been, up to this point, exceedingly boring.

He’s the heir of a very strict and very traditional and very rich family, which means that he hasn’t really had to worry about very much, at least not in terms of survival. This is disappointing, because Wu Xie has spent ages thinking about how exciting it would be to constantly out-run danger, to never know where the next strike was coming from, to never think about the dull monotony of life because it just didn’t exist. He’s been making do with his Sanshu’s stories, but childhood is winding to a close, and Wu Xie thinks that maybe now he’ll finally get to figure out exactly what life could be.

To do so, though, he’s going to have to get off Jiaren, and his parents aren’t exactly thrilled by that idea. Nor is his Ershu, who basically runs the planet, and the Jiumen at this point. He’s not the official leader, but he commands enough respect to get his own way from everyone else. Wu Xie’s father, on the other hand, doesn’t want anything to do with anything exciting, and mostly spends his time with his wife, in the library, or out tending the garden. These are incredibly boring activities, unless Wu Xie is allowed to read fantasy novels or splice genomes to create new varieties of exploding snapdragons, which he typically isn’t.

So he needs a plan to get off Jiaren, but first, he needs to get his friends.

Lao Yang is situated on the wall of the courtyard when Wu Xie finds him, which is where he often is. He’s eating a pear, legs dangling, juice going down his fingers. He’s gazing up at the sky, whistling a song that Wu Xie doesn’t recognize.

“Lao Yang!” he calls. “Get down from there!”

Lao Yang looks down, and his face breaks into a smile. He jumps off of the wall, landing on both feet, and grins at Wu Xie. “Xiao San-ye,” he says, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Wu Xie rolls his eyes. “You already knew I was coming. Besides, we have to go break out Xiao Hua, and if we don’t do it now, your uncle will have our heads.”

Xiao Hua has been grounded by his uncle, again, for staying out too late, again. Lao Yang is technically also underneath Xie Lian Huan’s guardianship, but he escaped punishment, even though he was out even later than Xiao Hua had been. Lao Yang is an adult now, though, and also Xie Lian Huan has never cared much about where Lao Yang goes off to.

The two of them steal back across the courtyard, crawling through the hole in the back garden wall, which connects the Qi compound to the Xie’s. The Qi compound is abandoned, since no one lives there anymore, and is mainly used for storage and growing crops. It’s also used for Lao Yang, Wu Xie, and Xiao Hua to experiment in, but no one is supposed to know about that.

Xiao Hua’s window is right next to the wall, so Wu Xie and Lao Yang have a good vantage point underneath it, and all it takes is Lao Yang throwing the core of his pear at Xiao Hua’s window for their youngest friend to push it open, frowning down at them.

“Finally,” he says, “You took forever.”

Lao Yang snorts. “Next time, don’t get grounded.”

Xiao Hua pauses with one leg already out the window, staring down at them incredulously. “And who’s fault was that?”

Lao Yang grins at him, his face going bright and bold, and Wu Xie shakes his head.

“We don’t have time to argue,” he says. “Come on.”

Xiao Hua hops out of the window, years of practice allowing him to land nimbly on the lawn; his room isn’t even two stories up, so he’s fine. Then, the three of them creep back under the wall, over into the compound, and into the shed that’s supposed to be locked, but Lao Yang picked it years ago.

Inside is their workshop—well, it’s sort of a workshop. It’s mostly a table filled with Lao Yang’s tinkering, a bookshelf with all of the books that Wu Xie’s snuck out from his family’s library, and Xiao Hua’s notes and test tubes, bubbling with their chemical compounds and whatever else he makes in there. It’s where they work, but it’s also where they fuck around, rich kids with too much time on their hands.

Xiao Hua immediately dashes over to his side of the shed and looks underneath the desk, where he’s been growing several species of mold. He clicks his tongue disappointedly. “A8576 hasn’t grown.”

“You checked on it last night,” Wu Xie points out. “Of course it isn’t going to grow that much in twenty-four hours.”

Xiao Hua gives him a thin look. “I crossbred it with mint. That should double the growth time.”

“Why?” Lao Yang asks, already putting together a tiny little robot that Wu Xie thinks is supposed to be able to suck water from clouds (he’s not sure what the purpose is beyond that, but suspects that it has something to do with playing pranks).

“For fun,” Xiao Hua answers with a shrug, grabbing his microscope from the desk and examining the fuzzy underside of his desk.

Wu Xie shakes his head at the pair of them and goes over to his desk, which he had fallen asleep at the night before, so everything is rather disorganized. Sanshu had let him have his journal the other day, and Wu Xie is busy copying it down so that he’ll have his own version when Sanshu inevitably leaves again.

He doesn’t know how long his uncle is on-planet for this time; could be days, or it could be months. Wu Xie’s currently working on a plan to get Sanshu to take him along, which mostly involves doing the hard research, the one that involves books. Sanshu always says that that type of work bores him, that he’d much rather look up things in databases, or ask people. Wu Xie thinks that if he can find something useful among their considerable family tomes, his uncle might let him join him in his quests.

“Speaking of fun,” Lao Yang says casually, “I want to go to the Hellhole later.”

Wu Xie looks up, interested. Xiao Hua does too, though for a very different reason, because he says, “Moss?”

“Not for moss, you weirdo,” Lao Yang says. “To swim.”

Xiao Hua makes a face. “Swimming is prohibited there.”

“Yeah,” Lao Yang says, “Because no one likes having any fun.”

“No,” Xiao Hua argues, “It’s because there are too many rocks. You can’t swim safely. Rules exist for a reason, you know.”

Lao Yang rolls his eyes. “Isn’t it also against the rules to grow acidic apples in the orchard?”

“I… well, yes,” Xiao Hua admits. “But that’s different. It’s science. It’s advancement.”

“This is advancement too,” Lao Yang says. “Advancement of my mental fortitude so that I don’t die of boredom.”

“You’ll die from drowning if you go swimming in the Hellhole,” Xiao Hua mutters under his breath, stroking the leaves on one of his Zyberan tomato plants.

Lao Yang ignores him. “Xiao San-ye? Are you in?”

Wu Xie considers it for a moment. On one hand, Xiao Hua is right, and it could be dangerous. They could get caught. On the other…

“I vote for fun,” he says.

Lao Yang crows, and Xiao Hua groans.

The Hellhole is aptly named. It’s a large, cavernous crack in the ground, one filled with warm, fresh water. It would be the perfect place for a swim, if there weren’t jagged rocks lining the sides like teeth. Swimming is frowned upon because of the number of casualties that occurred from people jumping in, but it’s also something of a rite of passage for most of Jiaren’s teenagers. Sanshu had told Wu Xie about cliffjumping into the Hellhole with his brothers and the Xie’s and the Chen’s, laughing as he recalled it, and had even managed to get Ershu to crack a smile at the memory.

Wu Xie isn’t worried, not even when they get there and see how dark the water is, how deep the stretch of the cavern goes. Plenty of teenagers have jumped into the Hellhole and been fine. They won’t be any different.

Xiao Hua doesn’t seem as certain. “Do we have to jump?”

“There’s no other way to get down there, Hua-er,” Lao Yang points out, which he is right about. It’s a good two and a half meters from the bank they’re standing on to the surface of the water, a straight drop, so it’s jumping or nothing. There’s a craggy bit of cliff on the other side so they can climb out and do it again, but climbing down would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Xiao Hua peers over the edge and swallows. “I’ll stay up here.”

“Coward,” Lao Yang says, nearly falling over as he pulls his legs out of his pants, revealing his swimming clothes beneath.

“Clever,” Xiao Hua retorts, spreading out his towel and sitting down on it very particularly.

“Yeah, whatever,” Lao Yang says, waving a hand at him. “Xiao San-ye?”

In answer, Wu Xie quirks an eyebrow up at him, and then runs to the edge, leaping off of it into the sky without a beat’s hesitation, the pull of gravity clutching at his body as he falls. Lao Yang whoops from behind him, and he has a moment of breathless sunlight streaming past his eyes before he’s plunging into the water, a flurry of bubbles bursting up as his body displaces the surface.

It’s dark under the water, dark and quiet, and he only takes a moment before he kicks upwards again, spitting water and shaking his hair out of his eyes, grinning up at his friends on the cliff. Lao Yang is laughing uproariously. Xiao Hua is glaring over the edge with thinly veiled anxiety. Wu Xie gives them a thumbs up, and then splashes out of the way as Lao Yang rockets off of the side of the Hellhole himself, his legs flailing as he does, yelling the whole way down.

When he resurfaces, he splashes Wu Xie in the face, then turns to call up to Xiao Hua. “It’s fine! Nothing to be afraid of!”

Xiao Hua pulls a face at him, not looking convinced in the slightest, and goes back over the edge to sunbathe. Lao Yang laughs, and turns to Wu Xie. “Race you to the other side.”

They take off, swimming as fast as they can. Lao Yang wins, but only because he grabs Wu Xie’s ankle and drags him backwards.

They spend most of their afternoon in that manner; jumping from the cliff, splashing around in the water, and trying to convince Xiao Hua to join them. Xiao Hua steadfastly refuses, which is honestly sort of impressive, given how much Lao Yang is cajoling him, but the Xie heir turns up his nose at each suggestion of cliffjumping and reads a book on his tablet.

Finally, the sun is beginning to set, and they’re hungry and dehydrated, the kind of tired that only comes after a very good day.

“Once more?” Wu Xie asks Lao Yang, who nods, heading towards the edge.

Wu Xie follows, sticking his toes out over the edge a little bit and flexing, looking own as he does. He’s not afraid of heights; there’s something exhilarating about being up so high, and knowing that you are the only thing keeping yourself from going over the edge.

He turns to Lao Yang, wondering which of them is going to jump first, but Lao Yang is frowning, his forehead creased, and his face seems paler than it did a minute ago.

“You okay?” Wu Xie asks, trying to get a full glimpse of Lao Yang’s expression, which is half-hidden by his hair.

His friend turns to him. “Yeah, I think—” Whatever he thinks is unknown, however, because before he can finish the sentence, he blinks, and then, to Wu Xie’s horror, his eyes disappear towards the back of his head and he falls.

The problem with this is that they are on the edge, and Lao Yang doesn’t fall back onto solid ground. Instead, he tips over the cliff, plunging headfirst towards the rocks below.

Wu Xie doesn’t even think. He lunges off the cliff after Lao Yang, stretching out his body to try and do something, to move him or to knock him forward, anything, and he sort of makes it. His body knocks into Lao Yang’s limp one, sending them both twirling, right before they hit the water.

Wu Xie feels the side of his leg hit a rock, and his side scrapes along the jagged edge, tearing the skin away. He screams, and then chokes on water, and fumbles around, blind, for a moment before he gets his bearings and shoots upward with a gasp.

He can hear Xiao Hua screaming from the clifftop, and he looks around for Lao Yang, spotting him a few feet away, floating facedown. He paddles over as quickly as he can, ignoring the pain that lances along his side, and grabs Lao Yang, flipping him over. He’s unconscious, but there’s no blood, and he doesn’t appear to have hit any of the rocks.

Wu Xie lets out a sigh of relief, just as his side protests at being used to keep two people afloat, so he flips over onto his back, Lao Yang held up on his chest, blood filtering through the water.

“Xiao Hua!” he calls up, squinting to make Xiao Hua out against the sunlight. “Go get help!”

Xiao Hua doesn’t argue for once and just turns, disappearing over the edge before Wu Xie can say anything else. Good. He’ll go get someone, and even if they get in trouble for swimming where they weren’t supposed to, at least Lao Yang will be fine.

He hopes.

The lacerations on his leg and side sting, and he breaths in through his teeth as they float there, trying to keep them both adrift with only one leg and one arm, paddling towards the side of the Hellhole with Lao Yang clutched tightly in his shaking fingers.

“It’ll be okay,” he says, more for himself than anything else. “Xiao Hua is getting help. And I’m here. It’ll be okay.”

It’s not okay.

Xiao Hua had come back quicker than Wu Xie had expected, bringing with him Sanshu and one of the Xie cousins, along with a medical team that arrived shortly afterwards. They get Lao Yang out of the water, carefully, unsure if he’s hit his head or damaged his spine somehow, and load him into a medical vehicle. Wu Xie is pulled up the cliff too, the lacerations on his leg and side bleeding freely, the water on his skin tinged red. “It’s worse than it looks,” he tells Xiao Hua, who makes a sharp gasping sound when he sees the jagged cuts on Wu Xie’s body. “It hardly even hurts.”

“You’re shivering,” Sanshu points out, his voice stern and worried. He’s frowning in concentration, and Wu Xie sort of wants Sanshu to pick him up, like he did when Wu Xie was little.

Instead, his uncle helps him limp further up the grass and back to the house, where his mother fusses and puts antiseptic on the jagged scrapes along his leg and ribs, and bandages them up until Wu Xie looks like a half-wrapped mummy. Xiao Hua tags along, wringing his hands and muttering nervously to himself.

“We won’t get in trouble,” Wu Xie tells him, his head lying on the table. His mother finished administering her first aid and went to make them something to eat, not because they were hungry, necessarily, but because she wasn’t sure of what else she could do.

“I’m not worried about that,” Xiao Hua hisses. “I’m worried about Lao Yang. And you. Mostly Lao Yang. He just… fell over.”

“I know,” Wu Xie says shortly, irritated and in pain. “I went over after him.”

Xiao Hua gives him a wobbly look. “Yeah, and that was stupid.”

“It saved him from bashing his head in on a rock,” Wu Xie shoots back fiercely. “What’re a few cuts compared to that?”

“You scared me,” Xiao Hua says petulantly. “I… you both went over. You both fell.”

“It’s fine, Yuchen,” Wu Xie says, closing his eyes, exhausted, and Xiao Hua makes an affronted noise.

“Er-ge,” he says, “Promise you won’t do something like that again.”

Wu Xie looks up at him tiredly. He knows that Xiao Hua just wants to know that he won’t be left alone, that he won’t have to do things by himself, but Wu Xie can’t promise him that. Lao Yang can’t, and Wu Xie can’t, so Wu Xie just doesn’t say anything.

Xiao Hua leaves shortly afterwards, and Wu Xie eats dinner in a daze and then goes to bed, where he sleeps fitfully, unable to get comfortable with his skin raw and torn.

He meets Xiao Hua the next day in their workshop, just the two of them. Lao Yang’s desk is quiet and empty, and Wu Xie tries not to look at it.

“Did they say anything?” he asks Xiao Hua, who would have been told anything first, probably, considering that Lao Yang is his actual cousin.

“No,” Xiao Hua says. He doesn’t look as though he’s slept very well either. “They won’t tell me anything.” He sighs. “Dashu did say that he woke up last night, and was supposed to be discharged today, but I don’t know when—”

“I’m already out,” a familiar voice says, and Wu Xie and Xiao Hua turns to see Lao Yang standing in the doorway, looking pale and drawn, but awake and alive.

“Lao Yang!” Wu Xie says, getting up and hobbling over to him as quickly as his stiff, tender body can manage. “You’re… are you okay?”

“Sort of,” Lao Yang says, looking Wu Xie over. “They told me you jumped after me when I fell in.”

Wu Xie shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah. Of course I did.”

“Thanks,” Lao Yang says hollowly, and they fall silent, the three of them staring at each other without any idea where they can go afterwards, like a machine that has lost a spring or a cog and is ticking valiantly, but uselessly, along.

“Did you get in trouble with Dashu?” Xiao Hua finally whispers.

Lao Yang rolls his eyes. “Is that all you care about? Rules?”

“I…” Xiao Hua shuts his mouth with a click. “No.”

“He was just worried,” Wu Xie says, trying to mediate between the two. “We both were.”

“I didn’t get in trouble,” Lao Yang mutters, going over to his desk and plopping himself in the chair, knocking over several of his machines as he does so. “Wouldn’t even matter, anyway.”

“What does that mean?” Xiao Hua demands. “Are you saying that you’re going to go back to the Hellhole or something? After all of that? What if you fall off again?”

“I didn’t fall off,” Lao Yang says.

“You did,” Xiao Hua replies, crossing his arms over his chest angrily.

“Did they say why?” Wu Xie asks softly. “Because you didn’t just fall. You passed out.”

“What?” Xiao Hua asks, his eyes going wide. “You… you passed out? I didn’t know that.”

“Stop looking at me like that,” Lao Yang says snarkily, pushing Xiao Hua’s concerned hands away. “Yeah, okay, I passed out, and fell over the edge, and Xiao San-ye had to jump in after me. Whatever. I didn’t die—” He cuts off abruptly, throat bobbing as though he’s trying not to let something out.

Wu Xie and Xiao Hua exchange a look.

“What did they tell you?” Wu Xie asks softly, trying to step further away so that Lao Yang doesn’t feel cornered. “Whatever it is, you can tell us.”

Lao Yang looks at him, and for the first time that Wu Xie has ever seen, there’s something despearate and scared in his eyes.

“I can’t,” he whispers. “I don’t want to say it out loud.” Xiao Hua looks as though he’s torn between being confused or worried, and Wu Xie bites his bottom lip.

“It’s already been said out loud once, hasn’t it?” he asks gently after a moment. “When they told you? So it’s… it’s already real. You saying it out loud won’t make much of a difference.”

Lao Yang considers that for a moment, and seems to agree, because after a second, he clenches his fists on his thighs, and whispers, “I didn’t die, but I’m going to.”

“What?” Xiao Hua says. “Sorry, I don’t think I heard that right.”

Lao Yang glares up at him, fierce and frightened. “I’m dying, Hua-er. Degenerative brain condition. They were able to get me back this time, but it’s a ticking time bomb up there. At any moment, I could just—” He snaps his fingers. “Like that.” When the other two don’t say anything, he continues. “It’s going to eat away at me first, though. Chew through my bones and my tendons and my skin and my—”

“Stop,” Wu Xie says, feeling sick.

Xiao Hua’s mouth has dropped open. He gapes at Lao Yang for a handful of seconds. “You’re… you’re not serious.”

“I am,” Lao Yang says. “Dead serious. Get used to it.”

Xiao Hua’s eyes darken, and he turns around sharply, going to the door and slamming it open, passing through into the sun and not even shutting it again behind him.

Wu Xie looks at Lao Yang disapprovingly. “Da-ge.”

“What?” Lao Yang demands. “What? It’s my fucking death, Wu Xie, I’ll handle it how I want.”

“He’s just worried about you,” Wu Xie says.

“Yeah, so?” Lao Yang spits. “What use is that going to be? He can’t cure me with worry, can he?”

Wu Xie stops, the phrasing of that thought scratching at his thoughts. “Hmm.”

Lao Yang frowns up at him from where he’s slumped in his chair, and when he sees the look on Wu Xie’s face, he sits up straighter, a furrow in his brow as he searches. “What’s with the look?”

“What look?” Wu Xie asks innocently.

“That’s your idea face,” Lao Yang says. “You’re thinking about something.”

Wu Xie nods, gingerly walking over to his own workstation and sitting down, careful not to disturb his battered side. He pulls out a notebook, turns to a fresh sheet of paper. “Not worry, but maybe something.”

“What?” Lao Yang asks, pushing his chair closer by scootching it forward with his heels. “What are you talking about?”

“A cure,” Wu Xie explains, already scribbling notes as he thinks. “We might not be able to cure you with worry, but there is something that we can do.”

Lao Yang stares at him for a moment, then snorts. “Yeah, okay, sure, Xiao San-ye. You’ll cure me? You and Hua-er, who have no medical experience between you?”

“You already said,” Wu Xie answers absentmindedly, “There’s nothing that the doctors can do for you. Medicine’s not going to work. But robotics…” He holds up the sketch that he’s lined out on the sheet of paper, a rudimentary circuit board, curved in a way that could almost fit over a skull. “Robotics might be able to.”

Lao Yang stares at the drawing for a second, and then his eyes travel over to the layers of circuitry and gadgets that he has sprawled around their workshop. His eyes narrow just a little bit, and Wu Xie knows that he’s thinking about it.

“You think it’s possible?” Lao Yang asks after a minute.

Wu Xie shrugs. “If you want to find out, you might not have a better chance.”

A slow smile creeps across Lao Yang’s face, the one he’d worn when he suggested going to the Hellhole. “You know, Xiao San-ye, I think you’re more adventurous than your family gives you credit for.”

“Thank you,” Wu Xie says primly, taking his notebook back, chewing on the end of his pencil as he studies it. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”

“Then we’d better get started,” Xiao Hua’s voice says from the doorway. Lao Yang and Wu Xie look over to see him framed there, arms folded, looking displeased, but determined.

“You don’t know robotics,” Lao Yang says doubtfully.

“No,” Xiao Hua agrees, “But I do know biology.”

“Plant biology,” Lao Yang retorts. “I’m not a plant.”

“Genetics are similar in all living things, if you want to think about it philosophically,” Xiao Hua says. “ But I’m also good at human genetics, and you know that.” He rolls his eyes a little. “Dashu wouldn’t have let me study it if it didn’t have something to do with the Jiumen.”

“Aren’t there some sort of doctor rules about not messing with life?” Lao Yang asks, a bit mockingly.

“Maybe,” Xiao Hua says. “But there’s also rules that say I’m not allowed to let my best friend die. Not while I can still do something.” His eyes blaze, as though challenging them to tell him to stop.

Lao Yang looks at Wu Xie, who shrugs. “I don’t have the credentials to modify cybernetics in terms of biology.”

Lao Yang nods slowly, his mouth turned down, but in an amused sort of way.

“Well then,” he says, “I guess I won’t be dying as soon as I thought, after all.”

It’s not easy. Wu Xie knew that it wouldn’t be, but he didn’t realize how not easy things would get. He and Lao Yang and Xiao Hua are all something adjacent to genius in their respective fields, mostly because they have nothing else to do on Jiaren except study niche interests, but even for them, it’s slow.

Xiao Hua has to compile all of his notes on human biology, all of his knowledge about medical advancements throughout history, and the history of cyber augmentation in particular. Doctors have been transplanting organs using synthetic replicas for centuries, but there are still exceptions, and the brain is one of them. Unless someone wants to undergo a complete personality change, or worse, become unresponsive, doctors mostly leave the brain alone.

“I’m not a neurologist,” Xiao Hua mutters one evening, a stack of textbooks piled next to his desk. A creeper vine is trailing down them. “But maybe that’s a good thing. Could be that scientists think the brain is too complex, and forget that it’s still an organ made out of the same stuff as the rest of us.”

“If you fuck up my brain, I’m kicking your ass,” Lao Yang calls.

“Your brain’s already fucked up,” Xiao Hua retorts, and then looks horrified. “I… no, wait…”

“Cruel!” Lao Yang says, pointing his screwdriver at Xiao Hua. He’s gotten to the point in his grief where he makes dark jokes about his condition, which had been relieving at first, and then got tiresome. “I’m a dying man, and you want to insult me when every breath could be my last?”

Xiao Hua frowns at him and dives back into his books, but Wu Xie can see his fists clenching under the table.

“Don’t tease him,” he admonishes Lao Yang, turning away from the holo-board he’s using to map equations out. “He’s saving you from getting your brain squashed by my poor attempts at surgery.”

Lao Yang makes a face. “Yeah, I don’t want you anywhere near my head with anything sharp.”

“Might not have a choice,” Wu Xie says. He is also at the point where making dark jokes is the most efficient coping method for this sort of situation. “What if Xiao Hua’s hands fall off?”

Xiao Hua looks up in alarm. “Why would my hands fall off?”

“You never know with these things,” Lao Yang says sagely. “Life is finite, my young friend.”

“Yours will be especially finite if you keep bothering me,” Xiao Hua mutters, and the other two cackle.

Lao Yang’s task is building all of the parts, which Wu Xie thinks is good, for more reasons than one. The major one is that neither he nor Xiao Hua have the capabilities needed to build full cybernetic components. The other big one is that he thinks it gives Lao Yang something to do, some sort of control over the situation, and it seems like that’s something he needs.

“How’s it coming?” he asks, two months into their work. Xiao Hua is asleep at his desk, hugging one of his potted plants, and Wu Xie is taking a break from staring at the list of chemical formulas that make up artificial blood transfusions. If they can synthesize that in their own lab, it will be cheaper than outsourcing it.

“Good,” Lao Yang hums, his giant magnifying goggles over his eyes, the side of his cheek bitten in concentration as he fiddles with the tiny wires that he’s folding into the circuit board he’s building. It’s incredibly tiny, barely bigger than Wu Xie’s thumbnail, and Wu Xie is abruptly glad that he doesn’t have to do any of that work.

“Yeah,” Lao Yang says, so Wu Xie apparently said that out loud. His friend sets the tiny panel down and turns away from it so that he can look Wu Xie in the eye. “That is a good thing, Xiao San-ye. You were never the best with smaller details.”

“I am,” Wu Xie protests, “Just not physical ones. Or ones that require my hands. On paper it’s simpler.”

“On paper, I’m dying,” Lao Yang says simply, twirling a piece of wire in his fingers. “But here? Maybe not.”

Wu Xie frowns, tapping on the edge of the desk. He doesn’t like being reminded of Lao Yang’s imminent demise, but he also knows that it’s not about him. It’s Lao Yang’s death, and Wu Xie only hates the reminders because there’s nothing he can do. Yet. Still, he would appreciate it if Lao Yang didn’t bring it up quite so often.

“Maybe not,” Wu Xie confirms. “If we can pull this off.”

“We will,” Lao Yang says, though the words lack confidence. “We three can do anything. And then we’ll leave, and go travel, and never let any of our stuffy, annoying relatives tell us what to do again.”

“Xiao Hua won’t like that,” Wu Xie points out.

“Xiao Hua just doesn’t want to admit that his uncle is a stuck-up priss,” Lao Yang scoffs.

“He’s your uncle too.”

“Yes,” Lao Yang says, “But only on paper.”

Wu Xie chuckles, because that joke is funny. He sits on the floor, curling up against Lao Yang’s legs. “Where should we go first?”

“Far away,” Lao Yang says softly. “Somewhere far.”

“Okay,” Wu Xie hums, already dreaming about stars. “We’ll go somewhere far.”

Wu Xie’s part is the programing, and it’s coming along nicely. He’s always liked equations and puzzles, putting things down and twisting them until they work out, and this might be the greatest puzzle he’s ever had. He’s already filled up three notebooks with strings of numbers and variables and code that he’s worked out, just waiting to be tested.

Still, it’s not enough.

“What have you been up to lately, Xiao Xie?” Sanshu asks, coming up behind Wu Xie as he sits at the breakfast table, half-asleep in his congee. “Haven’t seen you around much.”

“I’ve been with Lao Yang and Xiao Hua,” Wu Xie answers, thinking about chemical equations and electric equilibrium.

“Ah,” Sanshu says, sounding slightly awkward. “Right. It’s a shame, what’s going to happen. I’m sorry.”

Wu Xie frowns. “What do you mean?”

Sanshu stares at him for a moment, then says, “You know, the…” He raps on his own skull with his fist, giving a little whistle, which Wu Xie only assumes means that he’s referring to Lao Yang’s condition.

“He won’t,” Wu Xie says determinedly, picking up his spoon and eating faster. If he wants to get to work, he doesn’t have time to waste daydreaming at the breakfast table.

Sanshu is quiet for a moment, then sighs and sits next to Wu Xie. “Xiao Xie,” he begins, and Wu Xie really doesn’t want to have this talk. “I know that it’s hard to accept things like this, but… the universe is a big, scary place, and not a lot of things make sense in it.”

“I’m twenty-years-old, Sanshu,” Wu Xie reminds him.

“I know, I know,” Sanshu says, holding up his hands. “But the first time you lose a friend is never easy. Trust me. It’ll help, though, if you make the best of the time that you have left instead of pretending as though the end is never going to come.”

“I’m not pretending,” Wu Xie mutters, scraping his spoon around in his breakfast, suddenly not as hungry as he was a few moments ago.

Sanshu gives him a sad look. “Just try not to be delusional, okay? Your friend needs someone to help him through this, not to act as though it’s never going to come in order to make him feel better.”

“I’m not pretending,” Wu Xie says fiercely, pushing back from the table and storming out of the house, into the yard, towards the Xie compound.

He loves his Sanshu, he really does, but the man has an irritating habit of floating between fairytale and reality, and never seems to be in the right one when Wu Xie needs it. And sure, maybe human cyber augmentation is more of a fairytale than reality, but Sanshu hasn’t seen everything the universe has to offer. He doesn’t know everything.

To be honest, Wu Xie isn’t sure why Sanshu is still around. He’s been on-planet for more than six months at this point, since right before the accident at the Hellhole and Lao Yang’s diagnosis, and that’s far longer than he usually stays. Wu Xie has never known his third uncle to remain grounded for more than a few months, usually a handful of weeks at most. He wonders what Sanshu is waiting around for—if he’s waiting around for something.

It doesn’t really matter, in the end. Sanshu has never stuck around for Wu Xie before, and Wu Xie doubts he’ll start now. He’s not bitter about it, exactly; that’s the way it’s always been, and even though Sanshu always returns with stories and trinkets and treats, Wu Xie knows better than to imagine that he’ll actually stay, or that he’ll take Wu Xie with him, even if that’s what Wu Xie wants most in the world.

He goes into their workshop. Xiao Hua and Lao Yang aren’t even there yet, but their presence is always noticeable. Xiao Hua has a bunch of chemicals on his desk at all times, figuring out how to synthesize blood and brain matter and other fluids, just in case, as well as making notes of genetic codes and how they can translate those into computer code. That goes to Wu Xie, and he’s got his electronic tablet running programs 24/7, as well as notebooks and whiteboards filled to the edges with equations and ideas and tests.

Lao Yang, for his part, has created a light, aluminum based alloy that will hopefully hold and adapt to skin, but will also allow for a set circuit board. Wu Xie had helped out with those bits, too, and Lao Yang has been helping Xiao Hua with the different biological components. There’s parts of all three of them in this project, and Wu Xie calms down, just knowing that his friends are still there, that they haven’t left, and even if they had, he’d still have the most important parts of them, their minds, right at his fingertips.

He sits down with a sigh and gets back to work, his brain already diving into the mound of numbers and symbols that he has to go through in order to figure out how to make Lao Yang’s nerve signals communicate with the computer code they’re going to pump into there. He wonders if he could give Lao Yang something cool, like ocular implants, or maybe a laser. That would be neat.

It’s ten months into their work that Lao Yang starts to deteriorate rapidly.

At first, it’s just small things, like his hand getting shaky if he works too long, or his vision getting blurry from squinting down at the tiny mechanisms for so long. Wu Xie takes on helping him fiddle with things, being his eyes and hands and letting lao Yang direct him to the end. Sometimes Xiao Hua will help, good at delicate work, given that he’s able to repair fern leaves with a special synthetic glue, and piece back together roots that have rotted away from each other.

While Lao Yang still has his mental facilities, for the most part, he begins doing the smaller augmentations, helping to repair the muscles and tendons that are slowly falling apart. He shoots wires and sheets of metal into his skin, grafting over them with the aluminum alloy. When his knee gives out, they replace it with a metal knob, a simple surgery that only takes about half an hour. When his bones begin to get brittle, Wu Xie helps inject Lao Yang with synthetic bone marrow, and mechanical fluid that can help reconstruct it, something that was designed by Xiao Hua to assist in corn crossbreeding.

Wu Xie suspects that Lao Yang has added other modifications to his body too, ones that he does on his own, or ones that Xiao Hua helps him with. He suspects this because there are modifications that he helps Lao Yang with that they don’t tell Xiao Hua about. Lao Yang is nearly more cyber than human, at this point, but it seems to help, gives him some stronger days while they race against the disease.

However, the memory gaps come next, and while Lao Yang never forgets them, he does forget what they’re doing, more often than not. Luckily, he has been the most focused on their project, aware that his time is short, and so his parts are nearly done, and when the memory gaps come, he has his notes and his friends to fill him in on the details.

But then it gets to the point where his brain begins sending pain signals to every part of his body, despite the fact that he isn’t even hurt, and he’s not quite able to make it to the workshop very often. Some days are better than others, and the others Lao Yang spends in bed, half-feverish and dazed. Wu Xie and Xiao Hua visit him there, update him on their progress, and then return to the work as soon as they can.

It’s during one of these days that Xiao Hua says, “What if we fail?”

Wu Xie is carefully molding the paneling to a plaster cast of Lao Yang’s skull—work that should have been Lao Yang’s job, but he’s far too sick for it now.

“We won’t,” he answers, tongue poking out as he guides the thin, delicate metal to conform to the ridges of the fake skull.

“We might,” Xiao Hua says. “We’re just… we’re not even professionals, Er-ge, we don’t know what we’re doing. What if we fuck it up?”

“We won’t fuck it up,” Wu Xie answers. “We can’t.” He pauses, looks over at Xiao Hua, who looks small and tired in the light from his desk lamp. “Why? Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

“No,” Xiao Hua mutters. “I just… I’m scared. Of getting my hopes up, and then losing him all over again.”

“We won’t lose him,” Wu Xie says, going over to their youngest and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, feeling the need to be the comforter here, without their Da-ge around. “He’s Lao Yang, remember? He always comes back.” That is what the nickname means; an old itch, one that you can never quite get rid of, whose main purpose is to be as annoying as possible.

Xiao Hua snorts, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Yeah. Okay. I’m just… I’m tired.”

“Yeah,” Wu Xie says, resting his head on top of Xiao Hua’s. “Me too.”

Lao Yang and Wu Xie and Xiao Hua are friends because they have no other options.

Not just because that they are all heirs—the only ones in their age group that are regularly on Jiaren, the only ones their guardians will let them be around without worrying about some sort of negative influence (though Wu Xie suspects that Xie Lian Huan secretly believes Lao Yang to be a bad influence on his other nephew). They’re also each other’s only options in terms of wit, of cleverness. It seems a bit arrogant to say, but Wu Xie is bored half the time, conversing with his family and the other members of the Jiumen—basically anyone who isn’t Xiao Hua or Lao Yang or Sanshu. They’re all focused on one thing, which is the organization, and that’s not even an exciting thing.

At least Sanshu leaves the planet, and comes back with different experiences. He’s not the smartest out of Wu Xie’s uncles (that would probably be Ershu), but he’s cunning in a different way, a way that Wu Xie doesn’t necessarily admire, but one that makes him curious. Sanshu is interesting because he’s unpredictable, and that is so far removed from everything else on Jiaren that Wu Xie is drawn to it, like a magnetic field.

Lao Yang and Xiao Hua are different. They’re friends because they fascinate each other; Wu Xie has no problem admitting that his uncle doesn’t find him nearly as interesting as Wu Xie does him. But Wu Xie is intrigued by Lao Yang’s fearless bluster towards life, and Xiao Hua’s quiet stringency, and he knows that they like his skills too, the little bits of knowledge that he collects like shiny pebbles. They interest each other, and that is where the bedrock of their friendship lies.

Sometimes, privately, Wu Xie worries that this makes him heartless. Lao Yang is dying, and Wu Xie is treating it like a problem to solve. They all are, because they’re all too similar. They don’t have practice making friends with other people, with normal people. Wu Xie wonders if he would even be friends with Lao Yang and Xiao Hua if they didn’t give his brain something to do, some sort of trick to dissect.

Wu Xie is cognizant of his flaws, and he wonders if an inability to love, purely, wholly, truly, is one of them.

One year, seventeen days, and twenty-two hours after Lao Yang is diagnosed with his condition, Wu Xie finishes the programming.

He almost doesn’t believe it when he does, but he checks the numbers, checks them again. He runs his code through the simulation that he’s programmed, and then twice more. He plugs in a variety of variables, everything he can think of, but it all comes back the same; it will work.

“Oh,” he breathes. “That’s it.”

He’s alone in the workshop; it’s close to midnight, and Xiao Hua had to go home to meet his curfew. Lao Yang hasn’t been to their hiding place in the Qi compound for days. Wu Xie is here, though, and he’s figured it out.

They could… they could be done. They could be ready.

His eyes are gritty from a lack of sleep, and when he stands, cautiously, his legs are so tingly and numb that they nearly give out, but the result on the page, on the screen of his tablet, remains the same.

Theoretically, this will work.

Theoretically, they’ve saved Lao Yang.

Wu Xie takes a stumbling step backwards, a buoyancy in his chest that he’s smiling too hard to wave away, and he crouches down, wrapping his arms up around his head and rocking back and forth, just a bit, enough to keep him grounded.

This is it. This is it.

They’re ready.

“Are you sure?” Lao Yang asks, his voice clear, albeit weak, as they help him across the grass and under the hole in the wall.

“I’m sure,” Wu Xie says. “I’ve run every test I could think of. I’ve programed it all in there. We just need to do it.”

Xiao Hua swallows nervously. He’s on the other side of Lao Yang, hand on his elbow. “I… shouldn’t we maybe get someone to help us?”

“Like who?” Wu Xie asks.

“I don’t know,” Xiao Hua snaps. “A doctor? Someone who actually knows how to do brain surgery?”

“That’s your job,” Lao Yang says. “Aren’t you the one who reconstructed Dashu’s prized bonsai after the cat got to it?”

“That’s different,” Xiao Hua mumbles. “Plants don’t have brain stems.”

“But they do have regular stems,” Wu Xie points out, and Xiao Hua groans.

“I don’t need to be responsible for destroying all of your brain functionality,” he whines.

“You won’t,” Lao Yang says, “You’ve been studying neurology for more than a year now. Besides, would you rather get reported to the authorities and arrested for planning illegal organic modifications?”

“No,” Xiao Hua grumbles. “I still think we should—”

“Xiao Hua,” Wu Xie says, “You’re good enough. You know what you’re doing, and you’re going to do it.”

“That’s not the same as a full medical degree,” Xiao Hua complains.

“People get illegal modifications done all the time,” Wu Xie says. “You’ve at least got the knowledge and the wherewithal to not make a complete mess of things.”

“You say that,” Xiao Hua mumbles, “But I could fuck it up very easily.”

Lao Yang sighs, and stops walking. “Do you not want to do it?” he asks. “Because if you don’t want to, then we won’t.”

Xiao Hua looks guilty. “No,” he says, “I want to.”

“I trust you more than any doctor,” Lao Yang points out, linking his arm through Xiao Hua’s, partially for encouragement, and partially to keep himself upright. “It’ll be done soon, and then we’ll be able to publish all our research and go lecture on cyber augmentation all over the galaxy, and get rich and famous.”

Xiao Hua snorts. “Yeah, sure. That’s the end goal here.”

“Could be a perk,” Wu Xie points out. “Getting off-planet.”

“See?” Lao Yang says, “Plenty of benefits.”

Xiao Hua sighs. “Fine.” He inhales deeply, and Wu Xie sees him try to keep his hands from shaking. “Let’s do it, then.”

Lao Yang smirks, a hint of his usual smile, and pats Xiao Hua on the arm. “Good.”

Xiao Hua and Wu Xie have turned the workshop into a surgery room, complete with plastic sheets surrounding their operating table, sterilized equipment, and a system for tracking Lao Yang’s vitals during the procedure. It’s as professional and as well-equipped as they could make it, which involved a lot of sneaking around the compounds on Jiaren and filching supplies from everywhere they could. Their mission has not been without sacrifice, but Wu Xie knows that if they explain it, in the end, it will probably be worth it.

Lao Yang looks around the room and whistles. “I’m impressed.”

Xiao Hua is already pulling on scrubs, frowning as he does up the ties. “We weren’t just going to cut you open on your workbench.”

“You could have,” Lao Yang jokes. “Probably wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“You could get dust in your brain!” Xiao Hua exclaims, sounding horrified.

“An improvement, then,” Wu Xie says, and Lao Yang smacks him, too weak for it to have any real sting.

Xiao Hua shakes his head and goes to wash his hands, and Wu Xie helps Lao Yang onto the operating table, getting all of the electrical nodes ready to attach.

“Thank you,” Lao Yang murmurs as Wu Xie unbuttons his shirt, shivering as the cold wires touch his skin. “I don’t think I ever said it.”

Wu Xie shakes his head. “Thank us afterwards.”

Lao Yang glances in the direction that Xiao Hua disappeared to. “If I don’t get a chance, though—”

“You will,” Wu Xie says, not looking at Lao Yang in favor of concentrating on what he’s doing. “So you can thank us afterwards.”

“Xiao San-ye,” Lao Yang says, “You and I both know that—”

“Shut up,” Wu Xie says fiercely, his hands gripping the edge of Lao Yang’s sleeves. They’re shaking, just a little, and he swallows hard, not wanting to display how nervous he is, but Lao Yang is his Da-ge, and while they both have to be confident for Xiao Hua, Wu Xie can show Lao Yang some sort of vulnerability, just this little bit. “It’s going to work.”

Lao Yang is quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” he says finally, “It will. Don’t worry, Wu Xie. It’ll work.”

Wu Xie sniffles, tries to ignore his real name in Lao Yang’s mouth, and finishes getting him prepped. He grabs the IV needle they’ve prepared and expertly slides it into the vein near his elbow, just like the simulations taught him to do.

Xiao Hua returns, only his eyes showing. “Ready. Er-ge, you should go get dressed.”

Wu Xie nods, tapping on the bag of anesthetic that he’s just hung on  the IV stand. “Get him hooked up to this, will you?”

Before he can disappear to go put on his one surgical gear, though, Lao Yang grabs his wrist. “Xiao San-ye.”

Wu Xie turns back to him, just barely. Lao Yang looks as though he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, just nods and lets Wu Xie go.

Wu Xie goes to collect his own clothing, scrubbing up, trying not to cry and de-sterilize his outfit. It might be cowardly of him, but he didn’t want to be there as Lao Yang fell asleep. It seems too permanent for his comfort.

By the time he gets back, Lao Yang is lying on the table, his eyes closed, an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Xiao Hua is organizing their supplies, making sure that all of the pieces they’re going to need are within reach, and taking deep breaths to mitigate his panic.

“You’re ready,” Wu Xie tells him without preamble. “You’ve simulated this a million times, and you’ve been successful for almost all of them. It’s the real thing now, but it’s no worse than the holograms.”

“It is,” Xiao Hua mumbles, but he seems to calm down a little bit, taking a final steadying breath, and then picking up his scalpel. “Okay. Let’s go.”

This is the easiest part of Wu Xie’s job; he’s there to act as an assistant, to hand Xiao Hua things and to make sure that Lao Yang’s vitals are stable throughout the surgery. All of his work is essentially done, and Lao Yang’s definitely is. It’s up to Xiao Hua now.

Xiao Hua holds the scalpel, poised over Lao Yang’s skull, which was shaved a few days ago for the procedure, though he had told Xie Lian Huan that it was just because it was too tiring to care for, and his uncle had believed him. He lets out a shaky breath, and then gingerly places the blade against the skin, drawing a thin line across it. Their x-ray tech is up and running, UV lights beaming across Lao Yang’s skull and showing what’s going on inside. The disease has taken up a large, dark splotch across it, nearly a third of Lao Yang’s brain space, and Wu Xie winces, wondering how that must feel. Not good, he expects.

“Alright,” Xiao Hua says, his eyes on the display screen that’s showing him what’s underneath the skin, “Beginning extraction.”

This is Wu Xie’s least favorite part, because Xiao Hua will have to carve the destroyed part of the brain out of Lao Yang’s head, and that could go wrong in a myriad of ways. They’ve scan-mapped it enough so that they have a theoretical idea of where to cut, and Wu Xie watches with bated breath as Xiao Hua does as he’s practiced, the medical bots guiding him through the process, slicing the dark, rotting cells away from the brain. It’s fascinating, in a horrifying kind of way; Wu Xie has never seen a brain before, much less one that is still alive. He wonders if Lao Yang can feel anything, if he’s dreaming. If he is, Wu Xie hopes that it’s a good dream.

The operation nears the sixth hour, and Wu Xie has already gotten Xiao Hua water and held tools and watched the monitors for far longer than he’d like. He’s started going to check the door to make sure that no one is coming looking for them, but that doesn’t seem likely in the first place, so it’s sort of a useless endeavor. Still, it feels less useless than just sitting there while Xiao Hua does all the hard work, his breathing measured and even, all of his focus on the task at hand. Wu Xie tends to get lost in his work sometimes, but this is the most concentration he’s ever seen in a person.

Things are going fairly well, though; all of the results of their projections and simulations have come to pass so far. Xiao Hua is doing remarkable work.

He finishes with his current task, sitting up and wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Here it is.”

Wu Xie knows what he’s talking about; the most difficult part of the surgery, the one where they cut off Lao Yang’s central nerves and reattach them to the computer-programmed panel, which will replace the section of his brain that had been destroyed by the disease. The reconnection is the hard part, as everything is tiny and delicate, but the scary part is that, for a moment, Lao Yang will essentially be brain dead.

Xiao Hua already knows all of this, however, so Wu Xie doesn’t need to remind him. Instead, he just nods. “Do it.”

Xiao Hua inhales deeply and bends back over the opening in Lao Yang’s head. His face is separated from the surgical site by a thin plastic sheet, which is nice; even though Wu Xie can see it, it just looks like their friend is sleeping, and Xiao Hua can’t see his face, which helps to separate him from the personal part of their work.

The minutes pass swiftly. Wu Xie winces as the brain activity goes dead on the monitors, but is quickly distracted by Xiao Hua’s instructions, asking him to hand over panels and pieces, making sure that everything is right where Xiao Hua needs it. He tries not to space out, but he’s also done this hundreds of times in simulation, and knows the procedure just about as well as Xiao Hua does, though his hands aren’t nearly so refined as to be able to do the reconstruction work.

Finally, though, Xiao Hua has everything put together, all of the wires nestled into their proper places, and is able to fit the flexible aluminum panel over the hole in Lao Yang’s skull, where he binds most of it in with a synthetic glue to promote cell growth, so that hopefully Lao Yang’s skin will grow into the panel to hold it there.

“Alright,” Xiao Hua says, swiftly moving to the other side of the table, “I just have to connect it here…” He finds the nanoinjector they have prepared, and readies it. Then, with precise shots, he plunges four electrical capsules into Lao Yang’s chest, which will connect to the pulses of his heart and send energy remotely through the bloodstream to the brain panel. The electrodes have wires that snake out to the surface, and they fit another panel over them to protect it.

“Seal it,” Xiao Hua says, and Wu Xie puts the final line of glue down, pressing gently along the seams so that the panel isn’t going to come up around the edges. Then, and only then, do they allow themselves to relax.

Wu Xie looks over at the monitors. All of Lao Yang’s vital signs appear correct, with the exception of the brain activity. “Ready to start it?”

Xiao Hua nods silently, and detaches the electrodes from the injector, allowing them to begin their work, and then the pair of them watch the monitors with bated breath, waiting to see if their work has been worth it.

There’s a few minutes of nothing, the lack of brain activity making Wu Xie nervous, and then, a faint beep echoes through their makeshift operating room, and a line appears on the monitor. It’s there. Lao Yang is there.

“Oh,” Xiao Hua breathes, pulling down his surgical mask and coming over to Wu Xie’s side to get a better look at the screens. “We did it.” His legs shake, and Wu Xie has to grab him around the waist and pull him close to keep him from falling over.

“You did it, Hua-er,” he says, squeezing Xiao Hua tightly. “You saved him.”

Xiao Hua shakes his head, but his grin is blinding. “I can’t believe it.”

“Well, you had better,” Wu Xie says. “It’s right there. Possibly the first ever major brain augmentation in history.”

Xiao Hua shrugs modestly, but he’s clearly pleased.

“We just have to wait for him to wake up,” Wu Xie says decisively, pulling Xiao Hua back onto his stool, and Xiao Hua leans against him, head resting on his shoulder, spent entirely. “It shouldn’t be long now.”

The two of them sit over the body of their friend, hardly able to tear their eyes away, not wanting to miss something, if it were to happen.

And soon, something does.

The activity on the monitors spikes, briefly, and Wu Xie glances up at it, watching the lines scrawl themselves on the screen. He feels Xiao Hua tug at his shirtsleeve, and when he looks back, Lao Yang’s eyes are open, staring straight up at the ceiling, blanky, but open.

“Lao Yang!” Wu Xie whispers excitedly, leaning over him. “You… are you awake now? How do you feel?” Lao Yang doesn’t say anything, so he turns to Xiao Hua. “How long was recovery supposed to take?”

Xiao Hua shakes he head. “That was the part the simulations couldn’t tell. It could be instantaneous, or it could be weeks.” He leans forward, peering into Lao Yang’s face. “The fact that he’s awake at all is a good sign, though.”

Wu Xie nods, only half-hearing the answer—his brain got caught up on instantaneously. “Lao Yang?”

Lao Yang’s eyes flicker, and then slowly move over until they’re pointed at Wu Xie, his pupils dilating a bit in the bright lights that they set up for Xiao Hua to operate with. He looks as though he could be lucid, but his expression is entirely too blank to tell.

“Lao Yang?” Wu Xie asks again, and Lao Yang moves, his fingers twitching, and then a full shudder runs through his body, as though it’s waking itself up. Then, more quickly than Xiao Hua or Wu Xie are expecting, he sits up, so fast that the electrodes come unpeeled from his chest, and he swings his legs over the table, standing up fluidly, without any of the weakness he had displayed before.

Wu Xie and Xiao Hua stumble backwards, which might be the wrong move if Lao Yang needs them to support him, but it doesn’t look as if that’s the case. Lao Yang is perfectly steady on his feet, his face still neutral as he looks between them, the shiny metal parts of him gleaming under the lights.

“What’s wrong with him?” Xiao Hua whispers.

“I don’t know,” Wu Xie says uncertainly. He reaches a hand out towards Lao Yang, tentatively, trying not to make any sudden movements so that Lao Yang doesn’t—

The door of their workshop flies open, letting in the daylight from outside.

“There you are!” Sanshu’s voice says. “Xiao Xie, what are you—”

Wu Xie doesn’t hear the rest of the sentence, because as soon as the environment changes, Lao Yang’s face twists, contorting, and he grabs Wu Xie’s wrist, yanking him forward and pulling his arm downwards so sharply that Wu Xie hears a terrible crack, and then he screams, falling to his knees and cradling his broken arm to his chest.

“Shit!” Xiao Hua exclaims, looking between the two of them with wide eyes, as though he’s not sure who to go to. “Er-ge—”

His decision is made for him, because Lao Yang goes for him next, Wu Xie drags himself up off the floor, clutching his damaged arm to his side, leaning against the operating table to keep himself upright. He musters his strength, and fumbles for Lao Yang, but he’s already moving away, his hand around Xiao Hua’s throat, lifting him so high into the air that Xiao Hua is immediately breathless, struggling for air.

“What is this?” Sanshu shouts. “Xiao Xie, what—”

“Sanshu?” Wu Xie chokes, pain blinding him. “Don’t—”

“Don’t,” Xiao Hua gasps, and then his eyes roll back and his feet dangle.

Lao Yang begins to carry him towards the wall, and Wu Xie throws himself at Lao Yang’s legs, hoping to knock him off balance and release Xiao Hua, but Lao Yang just shoves him off, kicking him so hard that Wu Xie hears something crack as he flies backwards, and Lao Yang’s leg buckles, right as the base of Wu Xie’s skull slams into the edge of the table, pain ricocheting through his head and turning everything fuzzy. The table tips, electrical wires flailing and sparking as their machines fall. One of Xiao Hua’s beakers falls over, there’s the sound of glass smashing, and then heat roaring to life, immediately eating away at the wood of their workbenches.

Wu Xie hears Sanshu shout for him, and blinks blurrily at the ceiling, which is wavering in and out of focus. Lao Yang drops Xiao Hua, because there’s another figure running towards him, and the cyberhuman can’t get away with only one fully-functioning leg. Xiao Hua’s form slides to the wall, coming to a still and quiet halt. Wu Xie can’t tell if he’s still breathing.

He tries to drag himself forward, but he can barely twitch. In front of his blurring vision, Sanshu is grappling with Lao Yang, and Wu Xie knows that his uncle is good at fighting, but Lao Yang doesn’t even seem to care about any of the strikes that he takes. Sanshu punches him so hard that his head snaps to the side and he falls, but he immediately tries to get back up again, despite the open split on his cheek. The fire that’s begun blankets them in oranges, tossing shadows around the room. There are shouts from outside, other people noticing the smoke and hearing the commotion and coming to see what’s wrong.

Sanshu is fast, and he pins Lao Yang to the ground, straddling his waist and catching his fist as he reaches for the chest panel, the most obvious part of Lao Yang’s modifications. Wu Xie tries to say, “Don’t!” but it just comes out as a gurgle, and all he can do is watch as Sanshu takes the chest paneling and tears it up, ripping the wires and the electrodes from Lao Yang’s heart and shutting off the power signal to his brain.

Wu Xie can’t see Lao Yang’s face, but his best friend immediately starts to still, limbs twitching as the power drains out of him, until finally, he too is lying on the ground of their workshop in the midst of all their scattered dreams.

Sanshu is breathing heavily, one hand holding the torn panel, wires sticking out of it like severed tendons. He stares down at Lao Yang for a moment, and then gets off of him, scrambling over to where Wu Xie is lying.

“Xiao Xie!” he says, but his voice is warped and muffled. “Don’t… out, you… stay awake…”

Wu Xie can’t obey him, and Sanshu’s face blurs into darkness, heat licking away at the edges of him.

Xiao San-ye!” Lao Yang calls. He’s standing on the wall that he favors, waving at Wu Xie, bright in the sun. “Come over here.”

Wu Xie laughs, running towards him, and without warning, Xiao Hua is at his side, looking younger than Wu Xie remembers,

“Da-ge!” he calls. “Da-ge, wait!”

Still laughing, Lao Yang walks on tripping feet along the wall, like a cat, and Wu Xie grits his teeth, runs faster, because there’s something about Lao Yang’s gait that is off, something that feels unsteady, and right as Wu Xie thinks that, he blinks, and he’s next to Lao Yang on the wall, right in his space, and Lao Yang windmills his arms around. Wu Xie reaches out to steady him, but it’s too late.

Lao Yang tips over the wall and falls

Wu Xie watches him drop, and there’s not familiar grass and courtyard below him, but a great, spiraling black hole, one that sucks Lao Yang in faster than Wu Xie can scream. Then Xiao Hua is being yanked in after him, even though Wu Xie knows that he wasn’t up there at first, and then Wu Xie, too, is falling, his hands outstretched, for his friends, for something to grab, but everything is pulling, everything is stretched, and—

Wu Xie wakes up.

He has a prolonged moment of confusion, because he doesn’t quite recognize where he is. He’s in some sort of bed, the blankets pulled up to his chest, and he can hear voices outside of the room, ones that he knows.

“… well, what the fuck do you want me to do about it?” one of them asks, and Wu Xie recognizes it as Sanshu’s.

“Get rid of the issue,” Ershu hisses. “You have friends who do that sort of thing, right? Space criminals, or whatever you are.”

“We’re not space criminals,” Sanshu says, but it’s an old argument, and he doesn’t continue it. “And I don’t deal in human trafficking.”

“You won’t be,” Ershu says. “We’ve been watching him, and… his hair is growing back.”

Sanshu is silent for a moment. “What?”

“Whatever they did to him is refusing to let him die, “Ershu says. “Everything is gone, all of his vitals and brain activity, but his body has yet to start decaying. The parts of it that haven’t been modified, that is. For all intents and purposes, the boy should be dead, but he’s not.” He sighs. "The same can't be said for the Xie heir. Lian Huan sprinted him away, but... well, I haven't heard anything, but it doesn't seem good. The real concern, however, is Xie Ziyang."

“He’s not dead, though,” Sanshu says. "According to Lao Xie."

“No,” Ershu confirms. “They… Xie Lian Huan has never seen anything like it. Er-ye has never seen anything like it.”

“Of course Lao Xie hasn’t,” Sanshu snorts. “That bastard has seen less of the universe than Da-ge. I’d be surprised if he knew anything about—”

“Is now really the time for that?” Ershu scolds. “Our nephew is… if anyone finds out that he knows this type of thing, then…”

Sanshu sighs. “We’ll just have to keep it a secret, then,” he says. “Okay. I’ve got a friend who might know someone who can help us.”

“Help you,” Ershu corrects. “Don’t drag our family, or the Jiumen into this.”

“Fine,” Sanshu says. “I’ll do it off the grid. But I’m taking Xiao Xie with me.”

“What?” Ershu exclaims. “No. You can’t.”

“He won’t be safe here!” Sanshu argues. “Once the rest of the Jiumen figure out what’s happened, they’ll make sure to exile him, or worse. If you let him come with me, then he’s just been dragged off on an adventure with his Sanshu.” Ershu doesn’t reply, so Sanshu says, “At least until things have blown over. It’s the easiest way.”

“Are you going to tell him, then?” Ershu says harshly. “What he’s done?”

“I’ll tell him what he needs to know,” Sanshu says. “Don’t worry. He’s always wanted to fly with me. He’ll be thrilled.”

Ershu sighs, and Wu Xie blinks foggily at the ceiling. He wants to go, but not like this. Where is Xiao Hua? Where is Lao Yang?

“Alright,” Ershu says. “Take him and the… thing. Do whatever you need to do, as long as it can’t be traced back to us. I’ll contact you when it’s safe for Xiao Xie to return.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Sanshu says sarcastically, and the voices disappear.

Wu Xie attempts to sit up, but even just thinking about it sends his head spinning, and he has to close his eyes to get it to stop. That reminds him that he’s actually still tired, and that sleep is very good, and before he can stop himself, he’s slipped back under.

When he wakes up again, he’s on the Wushanju, his uncle at the helm, and he doesn’t remember overhearing any conversations.

“What happened?” he asks one evening. “To…” He’s been dancing around the topic, because he knows deep down that it’s something bad, but Sanshu has yet to tell him. They’ve only been gone for a few days, but it’s seems as though it’s been lifetimes since he left Jiaren.

Sanshu freezes, though it’s hardly noticeable. His hand twitches, and then he very carefully puts his utensils down, staring at Wu Xie, which immediately makes him suspicious. Sanshu only makes eye contact when he’s trying to lie.

“What do you remember?” he asks.

Wu Xie shakes his head, because he remembers all of it. He remembers the operation, and then he remembers everything going wrong. He remembers how Xiao Hua had looked, lying on the floor with firelight sweeping over his face. He remembers Sanshu with Lao Yang’s body underneath him, wires sprouting out of his chest.

“I just need to know what happened to them,” he says. “What… are they okay?”

Even before Sanshu says it, Wu Xie already knows.

“I’m sorry, Xiao Xie,” Sanshu says. “They’re gone.”

Wu Xie nods and stares down into his bowl, blinking tears back.

“Yeah,” he says, “I think I sort of… yeah.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Sanshu asks, a bit awkwardly.

Wu Xie shakes his head and shoves more noodles into his mouth so he won’t have to say anything.

“Well, hey,” Sanshu says. “You’re here with me now. You always did want to go on adventures with your Sanshu, right?”

Wu Xie shrugs.

Sanshu continues on as if nothing will deter him. “As soon as I finish this job with A-Ning, we’ll go exploring, okay? I’ve got a good one for you, a good quest.”

Wu Xie looks up, interested despite himself, and maybe, just a little bit, to avoid having to think about what he can’t ever get back. “What is it?”

Sanshu’s eyes glitter dangerously, and Wu Xie knows that he’s about to learn of something wonderful.

“Have you ever heard of Yincangui?”

And now, sixteen years later, he wakes up in the copilot seat of one of the Wushanju’s shuttles after abandoning his crew, exactly like Sanshu had abandoned him for Yincangui. He wants to say that it’s different, because he’s doing this for his crew, to bring people back to them, but deep down he just feels hollow.

“Took you long enough,” Su Nan mutters and he starts, having forgotten that she was in the pilot’s chair. “Have a nice nap?”

Wu Xie sits up, stretching, and trying not to let on as to how stiff he is. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he’d been up for the past two days, stealing a few hours at a time in his desk chair, which isn’t exactly conducive to a decent amount of rest.

“Where are we?” he asks instead of answering Su Nan’s question.

“Close,” Su Nan says. “Do you know what you’re going to do when we get there?”

Wu Xie nods. “I’ll turn myself in in exchange for Li Cu and Xiao-ge. And you’ll take them back to the Wushanju.” He eyes Su Nan, trying to see if there’s any dishonesty in her posture. “You will take the back to the Wushanju.” He phrases it as an order rather than a question, but he doesn’t know how effective that is.

Su Nan just nods, looking bored. “Yes, yes, I’ll make sure they have the family reunion that you want. I don’t care about any of them.” She gives Wu Xie a side-eyed glance. “The W.A.N.G.s, however, might not agree. You might not be valuable enough for both of them.”

Wu Xie knows this. What would the W.A.N.G.s want with one human, even if that human could get them something they’d apparently been after for years? He’s definitely not worth both a Kylin and a Sheiling, but maybe whatever information that Sanshu has will be.

“Why are you still with them?” he asks Su Nan, who stiffens ever so slightly. “You can’t agree with what they’re doing, can you?”

“It doesn’t matter if I agree with them or not,” Su Nan says. “They gave me a life and a purpose. I owe it to them to deliver you.”

“If they gave you so much, then why are you at some random outpost in the middle of a dead galaxy?” Wu Xie asks, and that’s enough for Su Nan to turn on him.

“Because your uncle decided to fuck up our deal!” she snarled. “Everything would have been fine if he had just come through on his side of the bargain, but instead he disappeared. I was supposed to track him down, but I failed. That outpost was my punishment.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Wu Xie says. “He lost his memories. We all thought he was dead. And besides, Yincangui isn’t even that good. The whole treasure thing is a myth.”

He’s expecting Su Nan to scoff at that, to pull out some W.A.N.G. bullshit about their Yincangui mythos, but instead she just frowns at him. “What the hell is Yincangui?”

Wu Xie’s mind is already halfway to his next argument, but Su Nan’s words make him stop. “What?”

Su Nan shakes her head, turning back to the pilot’s controls. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. The W.A.N.G. organization isn’t interested in treasure.”

“You… weren’t trying to find Yincangui?” Wu Xie asks, since that was part of the reason that he had gotten Su Nan off the ship in the first place, so that she wouldn’t be a threat to Liu Sang.

“Fairytales are useless,” Su Nan says sourly. “We don’t have time for things like that.”

“Then what did Sanshu promise you?” Wu Xie blurts, utterly thrown off by this new information.

Su Nan laughs coldly. “He didn’t tell you?”

“He didn’t tell me plenty of things,” Wu Xie says. “If I’m going to be handed over to satisfy his debt, I should at least know what it is I’m paying for.”

Su Nan considers this, then sighs. “For the cyberhuman.”

Wu Xie feels as though he’s been punched clean through the chest. His head aches suddenly, a phantom pain at the back of his skull. “The what?”

“Wu Sanxing gave us the cyberhuman, but it was deactivated,” Su Nan explains, completely unaware of the tsunami that is flashing over Wu Xie’s head. “He told us that he would give us the knowledge on how to replicate the process as well, but he went back on his word, and then he disappeared. He must still have the secrets, otherwise he wouldn’t be avoiding our organization so thoroughly.

“Oh,” Wu Xie says faintly, his mind racing. He’s… all this time, he thought that the W.A.N.G.s would be looking for information on Yincangui, but really, they’re looking for him. “You mean that… you have the cyberhuman?”

Su Nan nods. “That was the original part of the deal. Useless, though; whatever damage was done to him was too great for us to fix without knowing the exact modifications that were made.”

Wu Xie’s heart sinks; for a moment, he had caught a glimmer of hope, a small hint that maybe, maybe Lao Yang was alive. Maybe Wu Xie hadn’t failed, entirely, but that was too much to hope for. Again, he was still alone.

This though… this could be enough to save both Li Cu and Xiao-ge. If he promises to give the W.A.N.G.s the information, the codes and science that he’s kept close for years, then maybe that will be enough to let them go.

Surreptitiously, he activates the beacon that he stole from Xiao Bai, the one that he’s been clutching in his sleeve the entire flight, and attaches it to the bottom of his seat without Su Nan’s notice, returning his hands to his lap once he’s done. The Wushanju might not be able to rack the shuttle normally, but he knows that Xiao Bai will be on the lookout, and that she’ll find her beacon, no matter where in the universe it is.

Wu Xie isn’t stupid, and he isn’t heartless. He was never going to leave his crew with no way to find him again.  

“Here we are,” Su Nan says suddenly, and Wu Xie looks out the window just in time to see something glitch across the sky, like a scribble of static, and then the W.A.N.G. base appears in front of them, stretching across space.

It’s an incredible feat of astraltecture, and if Wu Xie weren’t so angry at the organization for stealing away two of the people he loves the most in the universe, he might be inclined to marvel at it. The compound is built around a central hub, which is a sphere, like a core. Wheels of space-grade plastic rotate slowly around it, probably to simulate a planet’s axis. They loop over and around each other, lights blinking along the sides, and Wu Xie can see the shimmer of a forcefield around the entire thing. It looks like a creature with hundreds of eyes and tentacles, lazily floating through the cosmos, and Wu Xie wonders how it has gone unnoticed until now.

“We’re in Unmarked space, right?” he asks Su Nan, mind craving information even at the worst of times.

Su Nan nods, not saying anything in response. There’s a beep from her console, a message coming in, and she turns on the communication channel.

“This is designated W.A.N.G. airspace,” a bored-sounding voice says. “State your employee designation and purpose.”

“Wang Nan,” Su Nan says. “I’ve got a special delivery for Dr. Xian.”

The intercom is silent for a moment, and then the voice says, “Wang Nan, you are not cleared to enter the main W.A.N.G. facilities. Please exit this airspace and—"

“Trust me,” Su Nan interrupts, “He’ll want to see this.”

The intercom goes quiet again, for a longer extent this time, and Wu Xie is just about to suggest that Su Nan tries contacting them again when the guard’s voice comes back.

“You have been given clearance to dock,” they say. “Please proceed into the hanger with caution. Someone will be waiting to escort you.”

Su Nan mutters something that sounds like “finally,” and then guides the shuttle over to the loading bay.

They wait for a few anxious moments as the door slides open, and then they’re inside, the interior of the facility just as gleaming and white as the outside. Su Nan sets the shuttle down gently, and Wu Xie can see a group of guards come running in, all dressed in black space Kevlar, lining up in front of the ship. Wu Xie recognizes their uniforms as the ones that had invaded the Wushanju, and the sight of their blasters sends a nervous tingle up his spine.

“Don’t double-cross me,” Su Nan hisses as she grabs Wu Xie by the back of his collar and drags him towards the door of the shuttle. “Or your missing crewmates will be the least of your worries.”

Wu Xie narrows his eyes at her. “Don’t touch them.”

“Cooperate and I won’t have to,” she says, just as the shuttle door slides open and they exit, down the ramp and into the W.A.N.G.s loading bay.

Wu Xie is immediately surrounded by blasters, all aimed at him, and his does his best to look incredibly bored with the threat, just to show the W.A.N.G.s that they don’t hold all the power here. Unfortunately, they don’t really seem to care.

“What are you doing back here?” one of the guards asks Su Nan.

“I found what they wanted me to,” Su Nan says flippantly. “So I came to report in.”

The guard glares at her, sending Wu Xie an unappreciative glance. “Really? After fifteen years?”

“Yes,” Su Nan says. “Now move, Wang Cen. Dr. Xian is expecting me.”

Wang Cen doesn’t look convinced, but he does move to the side, allowing Su Nan and Wu Xie to pass, going into the hallways. Wu Xie tries to keep track of each of their movements so that he’ll know which way to run if he needs it, but all of the hallways look the same, and there are so many turns that he’s not entirely confident that he’ll be able to remember his way back.

“Where are your prisoners held?” he asks.

“Subjects,” Su Nan corrects him crossly. “And shut up.”

Wu Xie rolls his eyes, but obeys, not wanting to get too far onto her bad side. If it comes down to it, she might be the only ally he has in this place, at least until he finds Xiao-ge and Li Cu.

Finally, they arrive in front of a sliding door that looks similar to the ones in the compound on Gutongjing, with the same sort of security panel. One of the guards presses the keypad, and Wu Xie hears something beep inside, alerting whoever is in to their presence. A moment later, the door slides open, and Su Nan marches in, dragging Wu Xie with her. Wang Cen follows them, but the rest of the guards stay outside, apparently unneeded.

The only other occupant in the room is a man with glasses and a thinning hairline. He’s standing in front of a series of monitors, looking over them, and Wu Xie can see different rooms on each one, with people in gray jumpsuits performing activities, observed by scientists in white coats. Subjecst, then, as Su Nan had called them.

The man turns around, smiling benignly at them. “Wang Nan,” he says, “I didn’t expect to see you back at this facility.”

“I’ve got Wu Sanxing’s nephew,” Su Nan says bluntly, shoving Wu Xie forward so that he stumbles a little bit, glaring at her over his shoulder.

“Do you?” Dr. Xian asks, staring at Wu Xie with a bemused expression on his face. “Why?”

“So that we can finally catch him,” Su Nan says. “Like we’ve been trying to do for years. If we have his family, he won’t be able to outrun us any longer.”

“On one condition,” Wu Xie interrupts, wanting to make sure that his desires are heard before he gets locked up and used as bait. “You can have me, and I’ll contact my uncle, as long as you let the subjects that you took from my ship go free.”

Dr. Xian stares at him for a moment, and then bursts out laughing, though it sounds too proper to really be a laugh. Wu Xie and Su Nan exchange looks, and Wu Xie begins to have the sneaking suspicion that Dr. Xian will not acquiesce to this.

Sure enough, Dr. Xian eventually straightens up, chuckling a little as he shakes his head. “This is… extremely amusing,” he says, and Wu Xie wants to punch him, just a little bit, because of how damn smug he sounds. “The irony is delightful.”

“What irony?” Wu Xie asks, not willing to keep his mouth shut any longer than necessary. Dr. Xian doesn’t deserve his silence.

“We’ve already got the information we need,” Dr. Xian says, mostly speaking to Su Nan. “One of our researchers has been working on the cyborg for a few years now, and he’s made quite a lot of progress. We expect to have it up and running within the week.”

Su Nan’s eyes widen, but it’s Wu Xie who steps forward, feeling as though the ground is tilting underneath his feet. “Lao Yang?”

That, at least, seems to take Dr. Xian by surprise, if the expression that flashes across his eyes is any indication. “You know the cyberhuman?”

“I…” Wu Xie knows that he shouldn’t say, shouldn’t give this card away, but he’s been thrown so off-balance by this that he doesn’t know how else to react. “I… am aware of him.” That’s not even close to being the truth, but he can’t let Dr. Xian know exactly how well he knows Lao Yang, if Lao Yang is who they’re talking about.

Dr. Xian nods, as though this is simply a very interesting piece of gossip. “Well, that is a surprise,” he says. “Though, considering that you’re Wu Sanxing’s nephew, it makes sense that he would have told you.”

“Exactly,” Wu Xie snaps, crossing his arms. He doesn’t have time for whatever this is. He needs to get to Li Cu and Xiao-ge, and if that means showing his hand, then fine. Desperate times. And besides, he’s got a tracker blinking back in his shuttle. He’ll have backup soon enough. “And I guarantee that I know a lot more about it than whichever researcher you  have working on him. So let Li Cu and Xiao-ge go, and maybe I’ll think about helping you.”

“Li Cu and Xiao-ge?” Dr. Xian asks, unconcerned.

“The Sheiling and the Kylin that you took,” Wu Xie growls. “Give them back to me.”

“A Kylin?” Dr. Xian frowns. “Well. That is a waste then.” He sighs, walking around behind his desk and waaving a hand through the holographic monitors, dispersing them. “I wish we had known that sooner. That might have been a bargain I would be willing to strike, but I’m afraid that it’s impossible now.”

Wu Xie rolls his eyes. “Yes, right, because you don’t believe that I have the information you want. I’m telling you, though, that—”

“No,” Dr. Xian interrupts him, which is remarkably more annoying than even his normal method of speaking is, “It’s impossible because the Kylin is dead.”

And that, more than anything, is what Wu Xie has been fearing, dreading, since the moment that Xiao-ge was taken from him.

The corners of his vision go blurry, and he can’t hear anything over the rush in his ears. Dr. Xian’s figure suddenly seems much more menacing than before, even though he’s sitting down. Wu Xie blinks, and then blinks again, and then, before he can feel the hole that’s been carved into his chest, he lunges over the desk, grabbing Dr. Xian by the collar and yanking him forward. “You’re lying,” he says through gritted teeth. “He’s a Kylin. He can’t die.” 

Dr. Xian doesn’t look frightened, just stares Wu Xie directly in the eyes. “He became extremely protective during a combat exercise. It was necessary for us to use lethal force.”

“No,” Wu Xie said, shaking his head, his fingers trembling as his breath skips over itself in his lungs. “No. He’s not dead. He can’t be. He comes back. He comes back.”

“If there is anything left to come back,” Dr. Xian says quietly, as though it’s a secret meant for Wu Xie alone. “And I can assure you that there wasn’t.”

Wu Xie feels his heartbeat quicken, his breathing getting light and fast, and he pulls back his fist, ready to drive it into the doctor’s face, again and again, until he tells him the truth, but someone seizes his arm, and someone else pulls him away around the waist, and he’s forced to let go of Dr. Xian’s collar, kicking and shouting nonsense at him.

“He isn’t!” A voice that sounds like his is screaming. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t!”

Dr. Xian stands up swiftly, adjusting his tie and looking at Wu Xie with something like pity. “It seems that you cared for him.”

Cared?

“Care” is perhaps the mildest term he can think of to describe his feeling for Xiao-ge. He cares about knowledge, about books, about plants and food and stars. He cares about fairness. He cares about life.

He loves Xiao-ge.

Something hot and wet slides down his face, and Wu Xie’s knees give out. He realizes that Su Nan is the one who yanked him away only when he’s on the floor, slumped there in shock, one hand held above his head, still in her grasp. He looks up at her, because maybe she’ll have something different to give him. Maybe she’ll say that it’s not true.

Su Nan’s face is as blank as it ever is.

“And…” Wu Xie clears his throat, tries speaking again. “And Li Cu?”

“The Sheiling is fine,” Dr. Xian says. “The Kylin, as you claimed, died protecting him.”

Wu Xie has to close his eyes, barely able to stop the wordless sound of grief that threatens to leave his throat. He purses his lips together, keeping it tightly within, and tries to swallow down all of it. Li Cu is still here. Li Cu still needs him, and he’ll be damned if he lets him down again.

He can mourn later, when Li Cu is safe, when he is back on his own ship, when he can tell the others, tell Pangzi—

How is he ever going to tell Pangzi?

With shaking fingers, he reaches into the pocket of his coat, fingers closing around a smooth, round shape that he had placed in there earlier. It had been one of three things that he had taken from the Wushanju, besides the shuttle. A computer chip, the tracking device, and this.

The pads of his fingers find the button, fit into the shape of the device, and he presses down on it, feeling the device vibrate as it begins to tick down.

Fuck it, he thinks, I’m done.

“Fine then,” Wu Xie says, voice so quiet that Dr. Xian twitches to lean towards him so that he can hear, and Wu Xie is glad that he’s captured this much of his attention, at least. “But I’m taking Li Cu.”

He sends a silent apology to Xiao-ge, his beautiful, lost, brilliant one, and then he throws the grenade.   

Chapter Text

Hei Xiazi says, “What was that?”

Xiao-ge looks up from where he’s had his head ducked down for the past hour. Hei Xiazi is nice enough, but he talks a lot, or at least he does whenever he has a mouth. Xiao-ge is used to conversation, it makes him miss Wu Xie and Pangzi.

He listens, trying to figure out exactly what Hei Xiazi is referring to, and that’s when he hears a low rumble, the after-effect of an explosion, coming from further down the compound. He gets to his feet, throwing a questioning look at Hei Xiazi before remembering that he can’t see him. “What was that?”

Hei Xiazi’s unseeing eyes are lit up. “Is Yuchen finally doing it?” he asks, bouncing up and down on his toes, his stomach turning into black fuzz. “Are we getting out?”

Xiao-ge doesn’t know that answer to this. He has not been made privy to Hei Xiazi and Researcher Xie’s plans. He’s still not entirely sure how much he trusts them, to be quite honest, but they are his best chance of escaping, at least for right now. “What do we do?”

“Ohhhhhh,” Hei Xiazi says, his voice drawn-out and excited. “Oh, this is it. This is it.” He bares his teeth. “Time to goooo,” he says in a singsong-sort of voice, which, very unhelpfully, doesn’t answer any of Xiao-ge’s questions. He twists, floating up towards the ceiling, coalescing there, and Xiao-ge remains on the floor, staring up at Hei Xiazi as all the black particles of him bunch up, buzzing.

He has no idea what Hei Xiazi is going to do, but is sent stumbling back when the other alien lets out a screeching sound and drives himself into a dive, becoming something like a knife as he rockets towards the door. Upon impact, the limb that he had pointed towards the barrier to their freedom bursts, sending Hei Xiazi into a flat mass, which hovers in front of the door for a moment. There’s a cracking sound then, and Xiao-ge watches as their prison wall crumples, ever so slightly, until there’s a horrendous groaning noise, and Hei Xiazi splits the metal open like the peel of a fruit, leaving a gaping crater in front of them.

Xiao-ge’s eyes widen, and he stares, dumbfounded, at the door to their prison. “You could do that this entire time?”

Hei Xiazi returns to his human form, brushing his hands off and cocking his head towards Xiao-ge curiously. “Yes,” he says, “Obviously.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

Hei Xiazi shrugs. “It wasn’t time yet,” he explains, with the sort of voice that he might tell a joke in. “I had to wait for Yuchen to be ready.”

Xiao-ge doesn’t have time to begin to explain why this is frustrating, so instead, he shakes off his shock and goes to the hole, crouching towards the bottom of it, just in case someone has heard and come running to stop them, and peers out.

The hallway is quiet, except for the normal sounds of the facility running. There aren’t any guards, or scientists, and Xiao-ge wonders exactly how far down in the compound they are.

Hei Xiazi comes up behind him. “Is the coast clear?” he says, very loudly.

“Yes,” Xiao-ge hisses, trying to get him to be quieter, but Hei Xiazi is apparently unconcerned about stealth, because he just clicks his tongue happily and steps out of their jail cell, stretching his arms out to the side and exhaling heavily.

“Mm,” he says, “That feels good.”

Xiao-ge follows him, albeit significantly more cautiously. “How long have you been in there?”

“Oh,” Hei Xiazi says, “Long time.” He rotates his head in a half-circle, scanning the ceiling for potential threats, or perhaps sounds. “Let’s go. I want to find Yuchen.”

“I want to find Li Cu,” Xiao-ge says in response. “Do you know where either of them are?”

“Only one,” Hei Xiazi says, as though that is not a problem in the slightest. “I suppose we’ll figure it out.”

Xiao-ge supposes that they will.

He’s far more cautious than Hei Xiazi is as they set out, staying plastered to the walls and peering around every corner before emerging. The other alien just ambles casually down the corridors, hardly even pausing before he rounds bends, which is extremely anxiety-inducing and also annoying, even more so because they don’t actually come across anyone for the longest time, and all of Xiao-ge’s caution is useless. The only thing that actually happens is that they find an elevator, and, at the same moment, an alarm begins blaring.

“Attention all W.A.N.G. operatives,” a robotic voice says over the siren and flashing red lights that blanket the hallways, “We are under attack. Secure all stations and prepare for battle.”

“Huh,” Hei Xiazi says, “Who do you think that is?”

Xiao-ge doesn’t answer, too busy studying the elevator doors, which are definitely going to be locked down now.

“Why do they even have an attack alarm?” Hei Xiazi wonders unhelpfully. “I thought that they were supposed to be doing science.”

“They have guns,” Xiao-ge informs him dully. “Obviously they’re military.” He shakes his arms out before he puts his fingers into the slit of the door, straining to pry them open. The metal creaks, giving just a little, before it settles back into position, unmoving. Xiao-ge tries again; he needs to go up. Up is where the action is happening. Up is where Li Cu is.

Hei Xiazi leans in close, studying his attempts. “What are you doing?”

“Trying… to open…” Xiao-ge says through gritted teeth. “Are you going to do… something?”

“Oh,” Hei Xiazi says. “You’re right. I could.” He considers the door for a moment longer, then places a hand on it. Xiao-ge’s fingers get very cold for a moment, and then the seal on the door gives a sigh and collapses, allowing him to slide them open with a bit of monumental effort, revealing an elevator shaft, dark and dry.

“How are you doing that?” Xiao-ge demands breathlessly, staring at Hei Xiazi’s hands, which look completely normal.

“I suck the air out of it,” Hei Xiazi says, as though that’s a perfectly normal explanation. “Or maybe I’m making it cold? It’s hard to tell if I’m not really paying attention.”

You’re not really paying attention? Xiao-ge wants to ask, but knows better than to try and understand any of Hei Xiazi’s thought process. Instead, he rubs his hands together, blowing on them to prime his skin, and then leaps up onto the elevator cable, pulling himself up the shaft in long leaps.

From below him, Hei Xiazi laughs gleefully, and then turns into a whirlwind, spiraling up over Xiao-ge’s head, making his hair fly around his face and turning the shaft into pitch. Xiao-ge watches him reach the top, and without even being asked, punches the door out, just as Xiao-ge launches himself off of the cable and grabs onto the edge of the entrance with one hand, pulling himself out of the hole just as Hei Xiazi transforms back, landing back onto the floor in a crouch.

Xiao-ge allows him a small, impressed look, and Hei Xiazi whistles.

Unfortunately, this has alerted the three soldiers who are at the other end of the hall, as there are, apparently, guards on this floor. One of them shouts, and Xiao-ge ducks as blaster shots begin firing their way. Hei Xiazi doesn’t even bother, just looks down in annoyance as the shots pass right through him.

“Rude,” he says, and then goes careening down the hall.

Xiao-ge follows him, sprinting forward and leaping up onto the wall, using it to push himself into a dive, tackling the closest guard and sending him skidding across the floor. He punches the man in the face, snapping his head to the side, and the guard immediately goes limp underneath him. Xiao-ge grabs his blaster, rolling over the limp body and coming up firing, hitting another guard with a stunning blast. Hei Xiazi has the other in a long, tentacle-like limb, and is slamming him into the ceiling. The guard chokes and goes still, and Hei Xiazi tosses him casually to the floor.

“They’re not very good, are they?” he asks, and Xiao-ge’s lips quirk.

“Li Cu,” is all he says in return, feeling slightly more grounded now that he has a weapon in his possession. It’s not his sword—that’s back on the Wushanju—but Pangzi would appreciate this blaster, he thinks, and it will be helpful in taking out many of the guards before they realize that two of their prisoners have escaped.

“Do you know where he is?” Hei Xiazi asks, looking around as though there are going to be signs on the wall advertising the direction to Li Cu’s prison cell.

Xiao-ge shakes his head minutely, forgetting once again that Hei Xiazi can’t see that, but Hei Xiazi doesn’t seem to mind. Xiao-ge studies the hallway that they’re in, trying to see if he recognizes anything about it from when he had met Li Cu in the cell block, but everything looks frustratingly identical.

He sighs, the alarms grating on his nerves, and, hardly thinking, he raises the blaster, flipping the setting over to kill, and shoots the flashing light, sending the hallway into semi-darkness, and the siren, blessedly, quiet. Hei Xiazi laughs creakily.

Xiao-ge is about to suggest their next course of action, but before he can say anything, his ears catch a faint thudding sound, trailing through the walls and the vents of the compound, coming from somewhere above and behind him. He immediately turns, running to the end of the hallway and straining to listen.

HERE, is what the thuds say, HERE, HERE.

“Li Cu,” Xiao-ge breathes, just as Hei Xiazi arrives next to him.

“What?” Hei Xiazi says, frowning as he listens.

“We have a tapping language,” Xiao-ge explains. A little glowing sphere has started in his chest. Li Cu is smart. “He’s telling me where he is.”

Hei Xiazi yelps happily, rising up off the floor a bit in excitement. “Let’s go get him, then!”

Xiao-ge doesn’t waste any more time. He briefly checks to make sure the coast is clear, and then darts out into the next hallway, Hei Xiazi right behind him, ears following the thudding sounds, which beat the same message out, over and over again.

HERE. HERE. HERE.

They weave through the corridors, and Xiao-ge is both elated and confused to find that they leave the sounds of conflict behind as they go. It makes it easier to hear Li Cu’s message, but that also means that whatever is going on further down in the compound will remain a mystery for a little longer. If it’s their crew, Xiao-ge doesn’t want to be separated from them any longer than necessary.

He knows that Hei Xiazi thinks that the noise is Xie Yuchen, but Xiao-ge hopes that it’s the Wushanju, finally come for them. Obviously he doesn’t want Wu Xie anywhere near people that are going to hurt him, nor does he want the rest of his crew there, for that matter, but the selfish part of him is desperately happy that they might be here.

(Zhang Qiling was used to being alone, but Xiao-ge isn’t, not anymore. He might not say it, but it’s comforting to have people.)

“Over here!” Hei Xiazi says, having picked up Li Cu’s message and begun to follow it himself. This is good, because Xiao-ge had most certainly gotten distracted. Hei Xiazi stops in front of a door, halfway down the latest hallway, and presses the side of his face to it. “I think he’s in here.” He bangs on the metal. “Baby!”

“Not a baby,” Xiao-ge says, and then knocks on the door himself. STAND BACK, he says, repeats the message, and then takes several steps away, aiming the blaster at the locking mechanism.

“Will that work?” Hei Xiazi asks.

In answer, Xiao-ge is already firing, melting the keypad into a lump of smoldering metal. He hears the locks come undone and swings the blaster around, rushing for the door and prying it open, Hei Xiazi using his strange, semi-corporeal fingers to help.

They finally get the door shoved back, probably bending the mechanisms and ensuring that it will never close properly again, but it doesn’t matter, because no sooner has Xiao-ge climbed inside the gap that he’s nearly knocked off his feet again. His instincts send a brief warning at the unexpected attack, but he quickly realizes that he’s not being hurt, just hugged.

“Xiao-ge!” Li Cu says, though his voice is muffled from being buried in Xiao-ge’s chest. “You! I thought you were… they said…” His arms are squeezing Xiao-ge around the waist, and Xiao-ge has a moment where he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, but they find their place on Li Cu’s back as he returns the hug, gently.

“I said I wouldn’t leave without you,” he says softly, which just makes Li Cu hold onto him tighter.

Hei Xiazi makes a cooing noise from behind them. “Aw.”

Li Cu pulls away from Xiao-ge in surprise, checking to see who is with them, and his eyes widen. “Hei-ye? What are you doing here?”

“I saved your Xiao-ge!” Hei Xiazi says proudly. “Look! See? He’s right here.” He steps forward and pats Xiao-ge on the shoulder. “We’re friends now.”

“Oh,” Li Cu says, looking at Xiao-ge for confirmation. When Xiao-ge gives him a small nod, he awards Hei Xiazi a small smile. “Cool.”

“Cool!” Hei Xiazi exclaims, an expression crossing his face that makes it seem as though that is the best compliment he’s ever been given. “Cool!”

“I heard the explosions,” Li Cu says, gazing up at Xiao-ge. “Is it…?”

“I don’t know,” Xiao-ge says. “Maybe.”

“We have to go see,” Li Cu says determinedly. “They might need help.”

“No,” Hei Xiazi corrects. “We have to find Yuchen.”

“Who?”

“Researcher Xie,” Xiao-ge clarifies.

Li Cu doesn’t look exceedingly pleased by that, but he nods begrudgingly. “Do you know where he is?”

Xiao-ge doesn’t, but Hei Xiazi nods. “I can feel him.”

“What?” Li Cu asks, pulling a face.

Hei Xiazi just hums in confirmation. “I know,” he says simply, and then wanders back out into the hall, clearly expecting them to follow.

Li Cu looks at Xiao-ge, obviously wanting him to take the lead, so Xiao-ge gives him his best reassuring smile, though that gesture has never come easily to him. He turns to follow Hei Xiazi, but a hand grabs his sleeve.

“Wait,” Li Cu says. “Do you… do you think that’s really them?”

Xiao-ge knows that he can only be referring to the explosions that they’ve been hearing, the cause of the alarms, and he wants to say yes, wants to believe that their crew has come for them, but he also remembers what Zhang Rishan had said when they had gotten ahold of him, just by chance. If Wu Xie comes here, they will kill him. Xiao-ge doesn’t know how, or why, Zhang Rishan knows this, nor what it means, but he hopes that Wu Xie won’t have put himself in danger for them.

Li Cu, however, knows none of this, and his eyes are wide and hopeful, so Xiao-ge doesn’t say anything and hopes that’s answer enough. Li Cu has read into his silences plenty of times; he’ll just have to do it once more.

(It’s better that way, Xiao-ge thinks. There’s less of a chance that his words will be able to hurt.)

By the time they get out into the hallway, Hei Xiazi is already halfway down it, whistling lightly as he walks, as though he’s enjoying himself greatly. Xiao-ge doesn’t know how long he’s been held captive for, but it must have been a while, considering that Hei Xiazi is taking to the blank walls of the W.A.N.G. compound as though they are the most interesting things he’s seen in ages.

“Where are we going?” Li Cu asks, jogging to catch up to them. He eyes Xiao-ge’s blaster, and then flips his scales out so that they pattern over his arms. “Where’s your friend?”

“Down,” Hei Xiazi says vaguely. He stops in the middle of the corridor, and Xiao-ge watches as he turns in a slow circle, as though he’s looking for something. “Ah!” He jogs away from them, over to one of the walls where the halls split in two, rounding a bend as though they’re curving around something large and circular. “Here.”

Xiao-ge stares at the wall, which looks the same as every other one, but Hei Xiazi seems to know what he’s looking for, because he just feels along the wall, humming to himself.

Li Cu stops at Xiao-ge’s side, watching Hei Xiazi for a moment, then taps a finger against Xiao-ge’s wrist.  IS HE CRAZY?

Xiao-ge truly doesn’t have an answer for that.

“Here we go,” Hei Xiazi says, and suddenly turns into his black, spitting ball of darkness before he shrieks up into the ceiling vent, bumping against the metal. Xiao-ge can hear him rattling around in the wall for a moment, and then it crumples in on itself, a huge gust of wind sucking in through the hole like a vacuum. Li Cu yelps, the wind tunnel nearly knocking him off his feet, and grabs onto Xiao-ge’s arm to stay upright.

The wall crunches in a little more, and then Hei Xiazi’s head appears, poking up into the hole. He grins toothily at them. “Come on.”

Xiao-ge frowns, sticking his head into the wall and looking around carefully, trying to make sure that this is a place that he and Li Cu will actually be able to travel in, and not one that is only fit for creatures of darkness. What he finds is a giant circular shaft, like the elevator, but much, much larger. There are light panels stretching far above them, stripes surrounding the walls, with ladders and walkways circling around the shaft itself, probably for maintenance. In the center of the entire thing is a long, glowing tube, which illuminates the rest of the area in a dirty, whitish-blue light. The platforms around the edge are stories apart, and look as though they’re only supposed to be accessible from each floor, rather than climbed between inside the shaft. Xiao-ge stares down, but the light tube travels so far down that it disappears into darkness before Xiao-ge can see the bottom. When he glances up, he thinks he can see the shadows of the ceiling, but it’s hard to tell.

“Wow,” Li Cu says, his own head stuck through the wall so that he can see himself. “What is this?”

“The compound’s center,” Hei Xiazi explains, and Xiao-ge sees now that most of him is black and floating, with only his chest, arms, shoulders, and head in humanoid form. “All of the wings are centered around the power core. This is what keeps everything running.”

“Wow,” Li Cu says again, staring up towards the ceiling with his mouth open. “That’s… wow.”

Xiao-ge flicks his eyes downward, and Hei Xiazi says, “Yuchen is down a few floors. This is the quickest way, and the least likely to get us caught.”

Xiao-ge studies it dubiously. While it might be okay for Hei Xiazi to plummet down the shaft as easily as walking, he and Li Cu are going to have a much harder time if they have to drop between each of the platforms, or find some way to climb down the sleek metal panels.

Li Cu apparently notices Xiao-ge’s doubtful expression, but takes it the wrong way, because he says, “I’ll be okay, Xiao-ge. It’s not that dark in here.”

Xiao-ge hadn’t even thought about that, and mentally kicks himself for forgetting something so important. “It’s dangerous.”

“Is it?” Hei Xiazi spirals downwards a bit. “Oh. Maybe.”

“It’ll be the fastest way, though,” Li Cu argues. “If we have to go through the entire compound, we’ll lose too much time. Besides, we might find something that can disable the compound’s security, or at least wreck some shit.”

“I like how this kid thinks,” Hei Xiazi says appreciatively, and the corners of Li Cu’s mouth turn up, ever so slightly.

Xiao-ge takes another look over the railing of the platform that they’re currently standing on, and sighs. “Do you think that we can make it down?”

In answer, Hei Xiazi spirals up and into the shaft, making a twisting ribbon that hisses when it gets too close to the energy core, and then shoots down towards the darkness.

Li Cu leans over the edge to watch him go. “Wow.”

Xiao-ge puts the strap on the blaster over his shoulder, slinging it onto his back so that his hands are free for climbing. “I’ll go first,” he says. “Only step where I do.” Li Cu doesn’t argue, and Xiao-ge flexes his fingers, then jumps over the platform railing, hanging there for a moment as he takes stock of their options. Some of the flashing lights are embedded into the walls, little edges sticking out, and Xiao-ge is able to grip onto them with his fingers and toes, holding himself against the wall. He stays there for a moment to make sure that they aren’t going to snap off and send them plummeting to their deaths, then nods up at Li Cu.

Li Cu opts to go underneath the railing, his hands all scaly for better gripping as he cautiously steps onto the wall, just after Xiao-ge, and they begin their descent.

It’s slow going; Xiao-ge isn’t about to try and take things fast and risk Li Cu falling, even if he could probably leap from the platforms and take the impact. Li Cu can’t, though, so they’re forced to take the hard, slow route.

Every so often, Hei Xiazi reappears, buzzing next to their heads before he shoots back down towards their goal. Xiao-ge isn’t really sure what he’s doing, but he appreciates that someone else is there, just in case. He doesn’t know how much help Hei Xiazi will be if one of them falls off the wall, but with any luck, he’d be able to catch them.

They take a break on one of the platforms after they’ve climbed down five stories. Li Cu hisses at his own fingers, which are cramping up from gripping things so tightly, and Xiao-ge readjusts the weapon on his back, which has been banging into his shoulder blades as they’ve climbed down.

“Are you okay?” he asks Li Cu, who nods, grimacing just a little.

“I’m fine,” he says, standing up and rolling out his shoulders. “Just stiff.” He nods towards the wall again. “We should keep going.”

Xiao-ge nods, and they return to the wall. The climbing is both easier and more difficult this time; easier because they already know the pattern and the rhythm to their footholds, and more difficult because they’re already tired. Li Cu keeps panting heavily, making little sounds of discomfort and shaking his hands out before he reaches for another handhold, and Xiao-ge can feel his anxiety mounting, though he’s not entirely sure why.

It turns out his instincts are correct, however, because just as they’re between the seventh and eighth platforms, there’s a creaking noise, and one of the maintenance doors opens, letting in two guards, both with blasters. They pull them out and immediately aim for Xiao-ge and Li Cu, shooting downwards. Xiao-ge doesn’t know if their weapons are set to kill or not, but it doesn’t really matter, because a stun will result in their death anyway, if they fall off of the wall.

Xiao-ge lets go of one of his handholds, yanking his own blaster forward and firing upwards, hitting the guard in front, who yelps and collapses backwards. In the next second, the other guard’s blaster shot hits the wall right next to Li Cu’s fingers, and he yells as they blister from the heat. His feet slip; the one hand he has still secure on the wall isn’t enough to keep him in place, and Li Cu falls.

Zhang Qiling tosses the gun back, which bangs into his side painfully, and lunges to the side, just as Li Cu drops past him. He manages to get his fingers around Li Cu’s wrist, stopping his descent so abruptly that his shoulder wrenches and he nearly falls himself, but Li Cu is left hanging, dangling over the abyss.

“Xiao-ge,” he whispers fearfully, and Zhang Qiling’s fingers tremble, having trouble holding both of them.

“Hei Xiazi!” he yells, but there’s no column of darkness that comes to rescue them, and Li Cu’s skin is getting clammy, beginning to slip through Zhang Qiling’s fingers.

He grits his teeth and tightens his grip,, but forgets about the guard that is still above them, reminded only when a blast hits him in the shoulder. The heat and the injury start his blood pumping immediately, working to counter the stunning effects, but the impact and moment of paralyzation make his fingers spasm, loosening their hold just a little bit, and Li Cu’s hand slips from his grasp.

“No!” Zhang Qiling shouts, reaching out uselessly as Li Cu falls, his hand outstretched, his eyes wide with terror, and Zhang Qiling thinks for a second about leaping off the wall after him, for no other reason than because he has no other options and living with failure sounds worse than the alternative.

Before he can make that choice, however, a door opens and someone appears on the platform below him, diving onto their stomach and grabbing for Li Cu, managing to latch onto his fingers just before he disappears below them.

Li Cu stops again, swinging from his savior’s grip, and looks up. Zhang Qiling can see his face go from frightened to disbelieving, his mouth falling open, and then his face crumples as he says, “Wu Xie!”

“I’ve got you, Ya Li,” Wu Xie says. “I’m not going to let you go.”

Li Cu makes a little choking noise, and then reaches up to grab onto Wu Xie’s arms with his other hand, helping to pull himself back onto the platform, where he’s immediately wrapped up in a hug, clinging to their Shouling so tightly that Xiao-ge can see him shaking.

The moment is interrupted by the guard deciding to try and fire at them again, but before he can do so, a thick column of black smoke roars up between him and Xiao-ge, swallowing up the guard and then spinning away to the other side of the chamber, where Xiao-ge doesn’t know what happens to him.

He lets go of his handhold, jumping the rest of the way down to the platform that Li Cu and Wu Xie are on, landing in a crouch. Wu Xie looks up at the sound his feet make, and immediately pales, shoving Li Cu behind him and reaching into his coat. “Stay back.”

Xiao-ge blinks at him.

“I don’t know how you did it, but this is just cruel,” Wu Xie says, his voice low and devastated, one arm holding Li Cu back, who just peers around him in confusion.

“Wu Xie?” Xiao-ge says. “It’s me.”

“No,” Wu Xie says. “No, don’t say that. Your organization killed him, and I’ve seen enough to know that you have things that can change their faces. So back off.”

“Wu Xie,” Li Cu says, “It’s really Xiao-ge.”

Wu Xie shakes his head, nudging Li Cu to start moving away. “It’s not, Ya Li. I’m sorry, but they have things that can look like anyone. They said—”

“It’s really him!” Li Cu protests. “I promise! It was all a trick, they didn’t actually—”

“The only place we haven’t made out is in the cockpit,” Xiao-ge blurts. “Because Pangzi would kill us.”

Wu Xie freezes in his tracks.

“Oh,” Li Cu says, “I did not want to know that.”

“Xiao-ge?” Wu Xie whispers, a myriad of expressions crossing his face, starting from his eyebrows and going all the way down to his fingers, which shake. “You’re…”

“Not dead,” Xiao-ge finishes for him.

Wu Xie’s lips part, just slightly, as he reaches out for Xiao-ge’s face. Xiao-ge stands still, not wanting to frighten Wu Xie off, but he doesn’t need to worry, because Wu Xie suddenly dashes forward, throwing his arms around Xiao-ge and burying his face into his shoulder.”

“Fuck, Xiao-ge,” he whispers. “I thought you were dead. They said you were dead.”

Xiao-ge shakes his head, ignoring the way the tip of his blaster is digging into his hip, and hugs Wu Xie back, pressing his nose into his hair and inhaling deeply. Wu Xie smells a little dustier than normal, a little sweatier, but still like himself, and it’s the most wonderful thing Xiao-ge has experienced in days.

“What the fuck?” Hei Xiazi’s voice says in a stage whisper to Li Cu. “What are they doing?”

Wu Xie whips his head around, still not letting go of Xiao-ge. “Who are you?”

“This is Hei-ye,” Li Cu says, gesturing to the now-human Hei Xiazi, who waves, grinning. “He saved both of us.”

Hei Xiazi pulls his head back, looking at Li Cu in embarrassment. “Well, not really. I mean, sort of, I guess, but—”

“Thank you,” Wu Xie says seriously, which shuts Hei Xiazi up for the first time that Xiao-ge has seen.

“Mm,” Hei Xiazi mutters, and then bursts into his other form as he goes to hide behind Li Cu.

Wu Xie starts back in Xiao-ge’s grip. “What the fuck?”

“He does that,” Li Cu explains, looking at Hei Xiazi over his shoulder, poking at him with a finger and then yelping when a tendril of black smacks his hand away.

“How did you get here?” Xiao-ge asks.

“I came with a W.A.N.G. agent,” Wu Xie replies, and Xiao-ge immediately goes tense. “No, it’s fine. She took me to see the guy in charge, and I blew up his office, and ran.”

Li Cu’s smile bends over his face. “Cool!” He looks around, as though expecting someone to appear with them. “Where’s everyone else?”

Wu Xie shifts uncomfortably, finally breaking himself out of Xiao-ge’s hold. “I… left them behind.”

Li Cu stares at him for a moment, his nose scrunched up in disgust, and then he comes over and slugs Wu Xie in the arm. “What the fuck.”

“What?!” Wu Xie exclaims. “Ya Li!”

“You can’t just leave everyone behind,” Li Cu complains. “Pangzi’s going to be so mad at you. Kan Jian probably cried.”

Wu Xie sighs. “I know, but I had to. I couldn’t drag them into danger here.”

Xiao-ge doesn’t know if he agrees with the execution, but he understands Wu Xie’s motivation. If it had been him, he probably would have made the same choice.

(He and Wu Xie are similar in that way. They’d much rather make the people the love hate them than willingly lead them into danger.)

 “Then we’ve got to go back and tell them that we’re alright,” Li Cu says stubbornly. “They’ll be worried.”

Xiao-ge exchanges a look with Wu Xie. It probably is not going to be that simple, though they would like it to be, but he’s not going to tell Li Cu that.

“Where’s your friend?” Li Cu asks the Hei Xiazi cloud.

Hei Xiazi’s head and shoulders turn back, and Wu Xie makes a shocked, curious noise. “Just a couple more floors down. Easy.”

“Okay,” Li Cu says, already heading towards the wall determinedly.

Before he can throw himself onto it to begin climbing down, though, Wu Xie says, “Ya Li, wait!”

Li Cu turns back to him, slightly impatient, which Xiao-ge doesn’t blame him for. He’s just as eager to get out of this place, but not if that means that anyone else is put in danger.

Wu Xie takes something out of his coat pocket. “I need you to keep this safe for me. If I’m not there, only give it to Pangzi.”

Li Cu frowns, looking down at Wu Xie’s hand. Whatever is there is too small for Xiao-ge to make out over Wu Xie’s shoulder.

“What do you mean, ‘if you’re not there?’” Li Cu demands. “You’re going to be there.”

“Yes,” Wu Xie says, “But just in case.” He gives Li Cu what must amount to a reassuring smile. “Besides, you’re better than my pockets anyway. I don’t want to drop it in here and have the W.A.N.G.s find it.”

“It’s that important?” Li Cu asks, a little doubtfully.

“It might be,” Wu Xie says cryptically.

Li Cu rolls his eyes and takes the thing from Wu Xie’s palm. “Fine. But I’m giving it back as soon as we’re out of here.”

“Okay,” Wu Xie says agreeably, sliding his fingers across the back of Li Cu’s head and burying them in his hair. “Thanks, Ya Li.”

Li Cu doesn’t say anything, but the way that he leans into Wu Xie’s hand a little says more than any words ever could.

“Let’s go,” Hei Xaizi says, already floating in midair, glaring at the power column irritably. “We should hurry.”

“Lead the way,” Wu Xie offers.

Hei Xiazi glances at Xiao-ge. “Why does he do all the talking?”

“He’s Shouling,” Xiao-ge says.

Hei Xiazi’s face lights up. “Oh! You’re the Shouling!” He gazes at Wu Xie with a new level of interest.

“Yes,” Wu Xie says slowly.

“Let’s go,” Xiao-ge decides. He slings the blaster back again, making sure that it’s at least resting somewhat comfortably before he steps over to the wall, eyes already seeking out the handholds, and climbing on.

“You go next,” Wu Xie says to Li Cu, which Xiao-ge agrees with.

This descent is easier than the last two, if a little quicker. Zhang Qiling is on edge, worried that more guards are going to show up and start shooting at them again, and that this time he’ll lose both Li Cu and Wu Xie, but they make it down with little trouble to the platform where Hei Xiazi waits for them.

“Thank fuck,” Li Cu complains, stretching his fingers out. “I don’t want to do that again.”

Hei Xiazi seems ready to barrel through the wall, but Wu Xie shakes his head, motioning to the switch on the wall that, when pressed, unseals a door and slides it open.

“They don’t have passcodes inside the core,” Wu Xie explains. “I guess they assumed that no one without sufficient clearance would ever try to go inside.”

“That was stupid,” Li Cu says flippantly.

Xiao-ge looks out of the door first, surveying the hallway to make sure that everything is clear. The alarm is back, red flashing lights and the wailing siren throwing everything into chaos, and Xiao-ge’s jaw tightens against it.

Hei Xiazi snakes a tendril down the corridor, looking around the corner, and almost immediately snatches it back. “There’s people coming!” he says, and then turns back into his natural self, buzzing angrily as he prepares to attack, but before he can, the entire hallway is flooded with light, so bright and glaring that Xiao-ge has to close his eyes.

Hei Xiazi lets out a terrible shriek, and Xiao-ge cracks his eyes open, though they’re watering terribly, and sees the darkness coalesce into Hei Xaizi’s human form, which falls to his hands and knees, panting in pain as a troop of soldiers round the corner. They’re all wearing their black Kevlar armor, with thick, dark goggles in front of their eyes so that they can see amidst the horrible light.

“Xiao-ge!” Wu Xie says, a little hoarsely, and Xiao-ge crouches to the ground, trying to get away from the blinding light, and listening to figure out where their enemies are, but with the sirens going off in his ears, it’s hard to pinpoint anything.

“Shit,” Li Cu says, and then reports, “My heat vision is fucked. There’s too much warmth coming from the lights.”

“Subjects!” one of the guards says, though Xiao-ge can’t see him. “Stand down and prepare to be taken into custody.”

“Fat fucking chance!” Li Cu shouts at them.

This does not impress anyone. “Operatives, set weapons to stun,” the same guard orders, and Xiao-ge hears the familiar click of blasters.

Hei Xiazi moans in pain, and Xiao-ge uses the sound to take a wild shot. By the thud that follows it, faint under the sirens, he assumes he hits a target.

“This is your last warning,” the guard says, and Xiao-ge tosses the gun aside, preparing to rush at the guards and hopefully take some of them out in close proximity, but before he can, something whistles through the air above his head, and one of the lights goes out, smashing into pieces, giving them just enough shadow to open their eyes.

“Duck!” a wonderfully familiar voice calls out from behind them, and Xiao-ge does, peering up through his still-teary eyes to see a bolt appear in the shoulder of one of the W.A.N.G.s, who cries out and falls back.

Xiao-ge looks behind him and sees two figures standing at the end of the hallway, one with his hands outstretched, one with a modified slingshot pointed directly at the soldiers. They’re outlined by the white lights, as though they’re edged in gold.

“Hi,” Kan Jian says, right before he takes aim and shoots another bolt. “Sorry it took us so long.”

The guards are getting their bearings back after being surprised by these newcomers, and begin firing, though their shock leaves their shots erratic, and Wang Meng glares at them.

“Fuck you guys,” he says, and then tosses a globe of acid at their feet, which splatters onto their shins and leaves most of them hopping around in pain, weapons forgotten.

Xiao-ge helps Kan Jian pick the rest of them off with his blaster, finally finding the intercom speaker and the lights and shooting them into silence. The hallway dims so drastically that Xiao-ge has to blink the spots out of his eyes before he can get a good look at the people who have shown up.

Wu Xie is staring at their other crew members with wide-eyes. Kan Jian still has his slingshot out, making sure that none of the W.A.N.G.s are going to get up, but Wang Meng has already rushed over to Li Cu and is smothering him, looking as though he’s trying to absorb Li Cu into his own body.

“Ya Li!” he wails, petting his hair and running his hands all over Li Cu to check for injuries.

“Meng-ge,” Li Cu says, not even trying to get out of it. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Wang Meng tells him fiercely. “Don’t you ever apologize. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“No,” Li Cu mumbles. “You came and found me. Again.”

Wang Meng’s lips tremble, and, overcome, he settles for squeezing Li Cu even tighter.

“Shouling,” Kan Jian says quietly, acknowledging Wu Xie, who is pressed up against the wall, still stunned.

“Kan Jian,” Wu Xie says, like his tongue is too thick in his mouth. “Hi.”

Kan Jian’s smile breaks crookedly onto his face. “Hi.”

Xiao-ge goes over to Hei Xiazi, who is sitting against the wall, looking slightly paler than normal. “Are you alright?”

Hei Xiazi nods. “Just give me a second.”

Someone clears his throat next to Xiao-ge’s shoulder, and he looks over to see Kan Jian standing there. “I thought you might like this,” the first officer says, and reaches around to grab something off of his back, something that Xiao-ge immediately recognizes as his sword.

He quickly takes it from Kan Jian, a little more aggressively than is probably necessary, but he can’t find it in himself to apologize when it feels as though a piece of him has been stuck back into place. Kan Jian just smiles, so Xiao-ge knows that he understands.

“How did you get here?” Wu Xie asks. “The controls…”

“It’s a long story,” Kan Jian says with a sigh. “Wang Can is no longer on the ship, though.”

“What?!” Wu Xie exclaims.

“Your Sanshu came and took him,” Wang Meng says bitterly, still holding onto Li Cu.

“What?!”

“Kan Jian?” a voice says, crackling out of the com on Kan Jian’s belt. “Did you find them?”

“Pangzi?” Wu Xie says, his voice breaking a little on the last syllable.

“We did,” Kan Jian confirms into the com, and then has to hold it away from his ear as Pangzi begins shouting.

“TIANZHEN, YOU FUCKING IDIOT. WHEN YOU GET BACK ON THIS SHIP I SWEAR TO GOD THAT I AM GOING TO SIT ON YOU UNTIL YOU GROW A BRAIN AND STOP WITH ALL OF THIS SELF-DESTRUCTIVE NONSENSE—is Xiao-ge there?”

Xiao-ge gives a small nod before he realizes that Pangzi isn’t actually there, and won’t be able to see it. “Pangzi.”

“Thank fuck,” Pangzi says, the relief clear in his voice. “And the kid?”

“I’ve got him,” Want Meng reports.

“Literally,” Li Cu grumbles, but makes no move to try and change that.

“Li Cu!” a different voice exclaims, overriding Pangzi’s channel. “Are you okay?”

“Bai-jie!” Li Cu says, “I’m fine. What are you doing?”

“We’re tracking down the shuttle,” Liu Sang’s voice explains. “We figured that, if you weren’t there already, you’d need someone to have it ready to fly.”

“What’s Pangzi doing then?” Wu Xie asks.

“Distracting,” Kan Jian says, and as if on cue, the entire compound rumbles, and warning message starts echoing somewhere farther away from them, since Xiao-ge had shot out the intercom system. 

“What do we do now, Shouling?” Kan Jian asks, and everyone turns to Wu Xie, who looks startled.

“You…” He frowns. “You’re still asking me?”

“You’re the fucking Shouling, are you not?” Pangzi gripes. “Suck it up and do your damn job.”

“What he said,” Wang Meng agrees.

“I’d put it somewhat differently, but yes,” Kan Jian says.

Wu Xie looks at Xiao-ge, who shrugs, but knows that Wu Xie will know that it means always.

“I don’t know what a Shouling is,” Hei Xiazi says, pushing himself halfway up the wall, “But I can’t turn back right now. If you have an idea, I’ll follow your lead.”

There’s a moment where Wu Xie just looks in between them, as though he’s trying to find a lie in them somewhere, and when he doesn’t find one, he nods, letting out a breath.

“Okay,” he says, and Xiao-ge can see the gears in his head click into place. “Hei Xiazi, you said that your friend was on this floor?”

Hei Xiazi nods. “He’s a few corridors away.”

“Right,” Wu Xie says. “We should split up—”

“No,” three people say at the same time.

“Strength in numbers,” Kan Jian points out.

“What about stealth?” Wu Xie asks.

“Sticking together,” Wang Meng says stubbornly, and Li Cu nods.

Wu Xie sighs, and then looks to Xiao-ge. “What do you think?”

“Together,” Xiao-ge says, surprising even himself as he does.

(But it’s not really that surprising, is it? He’s softer now; Zhang Qiling might not have wanted to stay in one group, but Xiao-ge certainly does.)

Wu Xie gives him a level look, then nods. “Okay.”

Kan Jian, as the nicest person Xiao-ge knows, goes over to Hei Xiazi and helps him fully to his feet. “Are you good to continue?”

“Yeah,” Hei Xiazi says, rocking his head back and forth, shaking all over like a dog. “I’m going to get him.”

With that, Xiao-ge takes point, running forward until he reaches the corner and can peer around it, making sure that no one is in sight before he waves the others ahead. Wu Xie is the first to go around, slinking past Xiao-ge, Kan Jian close at his heels. They’re followed by Li Cu, who is sandwiched into the line by Wang Meng. Hei Xiazi comes last, though when he passes Xiao-ge, he twists into his other form, flying over the other’s heads, and Wang Meng barely stifles a scream.

They ignore the bodies that lie behind them—with any luck, they didn’t kill all of the operatives, but Xiao-ge finds that he doesn’t really care one way or another.

Hei Xiazi takes the lead now, slipping down the hallway. Suddenly, he darts around the bend, and Xiao-ge hears an unfamiliar scream that’s followed by a sharp crack.

“Oh,” Kan Jian says, going rather pale.

Xiao-ge rushes forward, but the column of smoke that is Hei Xiazi is already depositing the body of a guard against the wall.

“Was he the only one?” Wu Xie asks.

Hei Xiazi doesn’t have the mouth to reply, nor does he have the chance. A trio of W.A.N.G. scientists run down the hall, falling over themselves, screaming.

Xiao-ge goes into a crouch, aiming his borrowed blaster at the scientists, but they don’t stop, heading straight for them. Xiao-ge nearly pulls the trigger, but Wu Xie’s hand on his back stops him, and he holds his fire.

The scientists sprint past them, barely even noticing their group. All of their eyes follow the W.A.N.G.s, but the scientists are gone nearly before they can register it.

“What the fuck?” Li Cu mutters.

Xiao-ge is inclined to agree with him. He turns to keep them moving forward, but from around the corner, a figure appears, walking slowly, but steadily. One of their hands is hanging at their side, swinging back and forth limply, as though its owner doesn’t have control over it anymore. They’re staggering just a little, but moving forward with purpose. It’s slightly unsettling, emotionless, and if this was what the scientists were running from, there must be something much more dangerous about them.

Xiao-ge levels his weapon again, and he can hear Hei Xiazi moving above him, like he’s coiling to strike.

“Xiao-ge,” Wu Xie says, sounding surprisingly hoarse, voice catching on his tongue, “Wait.”

Xiao-ge does, freezing in place. Wu Xie puts a hand on his shoulder, like it’s the only think keeping him steady.

Wu Xie doesn’t seem to notice any of the strangeness of the person in front of them. Xiao-ge traces his eyeline up to the figure’s face, and Wu Xie’s breath stutters, his face going white.

“Lao Yang?” he whispers, and Xiao-ge recognizes that name from when Wu Erbai had confronted Wu Xie, back on Jiaren.

Lao Yang, if that’s who the figure truly is, doesn’t seem like he recognizes Wu Xie in return. In fact, it’s more like the opposite—his expression is devoid of knowing, devoid of anything at all, actually, and it’s unsettling.

He’s still just making his way towards them, slowly, and Xiao-ge can hear Kan Jian shifting nervously behind him. He raises his blaster up again, more as a precaution than anything else, but Wu Xie lunges towards him, knocking the weapon to the side.

“You can’t shoot him!” he says in a fierce hiss, surprisingly insistent. “Don’t.”

“The W.A.N.G.s were afraid of him,” Kan Jian says hesitantly. “He’s got to be dangerous, right?”

“Maybe not,” Li Cu argues. “The scientists would probably be scared of me and Xiao-ge if they saw us, but we’re not dangerous.”

“You’re not dangerous to us,” Wang Meng corrects. “He might be attacking any potential threats, no matter who they are.”

“No,” Wu Xie says, “We’re not killing him.” He’s still staring dead ahead, not taking his eyes off of Lao Yang, who is steadily getting closer, though he hasn’t seemed to spot them yet. Xiao-ge doesn’t know how, because they aren’t exactly well-hidden, but he doesn’t want to jinx it by pointing that out.

He’s about to suggest that they try and sneak past the stranger, but Wu Xie stands up and, before Xiao-ge can stop him, begins walking towards Lao Yang, his hands up in an attempt to appear non-threatening.

“Lao Yang,” he says, “It’s me. It’s Xiao San-ye. I don’t know how you got here, but I promise that I’ll help. I’ll take you home with me. I promise.”

Lao Yang’s left leg clicks, and something whirs mechanically as his eyes focus on Wu Xie, and he stops.

“That’s right,” Wu Xie says. “You know me.”

Xiao-ge thinks that he’s done it for a moment, that Lao Yang has recognized him, but that moment passes almost immediately as Lao Yang begins to run forward, directly at Wu Xie, no friendliness in his eyes at all.

“Wu Xie!” Xiao-ge shouts, still not entirely sure if he’s allowed to shoot or not.

Wu Xie doesn’t even seem to hear him, and Xiao-ge is about to say fuck it and fire anyway, but before he can make up his mind about that, a metal disk flies down the hall and hits Lao Yang in the side, knocking him off-course.

“That’s Hei-ye!” Researcher Xie’s voice says from further down. “You can’t hurt him.”

Hei Xiazi shrieks, high-pitched enough that it sounds happy, and floods down the hall to encompass Researcher Xie, who doesn’t die from his hug. When Hei Xiazi stops swarming, Researcher Xie jogs down the hall, looking dolefully at Lao Yang, who had lost his focus when his trajectory was altered, and is once again staggering forwards.

“Sorry about that,” Researcher Xie says, turning to face them, and that’s when all the blood drains from his face so quickly that Xiao-ge is slightly afraid he’ll pass out.

He’s distracted, though, by Wu Xie stumbling backwards, Researcher Xie’s shock mirrored on his face.

“What’s happening?” Kan Jian whispers as they watch the two men stare at each other.

Wu Xie breaks first. “Are you real?”

Researcher Xie lets out a hollow, disbelieving breath. “Er-ge.”

“I thought you were dead,” Wu Xie says, glancing over his shoulder at the stuttering Lao Yang. “Both of you.”

“We thought you were dead,” Research Xie echoes. “Well, I did, at least. Da-ge… didn’t think much at all the past few years.”

“Have you… this whole time?” Wu Xie whispers. “You were here?”

Researcher Xie looks down, and then gives a small nod.

“Oh, Xiao Hua,” Wu Xie says, “I’m so sorry I didn’t know.” He steps forward, cupping his hand on the back of Researcher Xie’s neck and drawing him forward. Researcher Xie’s breath shudders, and he tips forward to rest his forehead on Wu Xie’s shoulder, his back slumping.

Xiao-ge feels extremely out of his depth. Hei Xiazi makes a whirring noise about him, and Li Cu whispers, “What just happened?”

Wu Xie seems to hear that, and he turns towards their group, smiling just a little, his eyes wet. “This is Xiao Hua,” he says. “I mean, Xie Yuchen. We grew up together.”

Hei Xiazi becomes human again, frowning at Researcher Xie. “You never told me about him.”

Xie Yuchen looks mildly uncomfortable. “It was… hard,” he said. “And I didn’t want anyone to overhear me. It would have been too dangerous.”

“You grew up together?” Kan Jian asks. “Then you’re from Jiaren too?”

Xie Yuchen nods. “My family and Wu Xie’s were fairly close.” He glances at Wu Xie. “I don’t know if they still are or not. I haven’t heard from them in…”

“Not as much,” Wu Xie mutters. “I thought that they blamed me for your death, and so they cut ties with our family.”

Xie Yuchen lets out a short bark of laughter. “I thought that your family would blame me for your death, and that’s why they made the deal with the W.A.N.G.s.”

Wu Xie goes very still. “What?”

Xie Yuchen blinks, startled. “How do you think Lao Yang and I got here?”

“I assumed that you… brought him,” Wu Xie says.

Xie Yuchen shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I came afterwards.” He nods down the hall to where Lao Yang has just about made it to the corner. “Your Sanshu was the one who sold Lao Yang to the organization.”

“What?” Wu Xie whispers, twin spots of color appearing high on his cheekbones, his anger flushing the skin.

“You didn’t… know?” Xie Yuchen asks.

Wu Xie shakes his head, but his eyebrows are pressed together, and he looks as though the floor has been yanked out from under him. “No. I didn’t.”

Xie Yuchen exchanges an awkward glance with Hei Xiazi, probably because no one else has been there. Hei Xiazi clearly doesn’t know how to respond, which Xiao-ge can sympathize with.

The com on Kan Jian’s belt crackles.  “We’ve made it to the shuttle,” Xiao Bai’s voice says. “Where are you?”

Xie Yuchen starts at the unexpected sound. “Who is that?”

“Our crew,” Li Cu says proudly. “I told you that they would hear the signal and come for us.”

“What signal?” Kan Jian asks. “The only person we’ve gotten a message from is Zhang Rishan.”

Li Cu frowns. “But we called you on the naming frequency.”

“That was Zhang Rishan for us, too,” Xiao-ge says, realizing that no one had told Li Cu that fact yet.

“Oh,” Li Cu says, looking slightly downtrodden.

“It’s okay,” Kan Jian says, “We came anyway, right?”

“You should be coming here right now,” Liu Sang says grumpily over the com. “The docking bay is crawling with guards, and Xiao Bai and I can’t make it onto the shuttle on our own.”

“We’re on our way,” Wu Xie says, and Kan Jian relays the message. Wu Xie turns back to Xie Yuchen. “You’re coming with us, right?”

Xie Yuchen frowns. “You want me to come with you?”

Wu Xie nods. “Of course. You and Lao Yang.”

“And Hei-ye,” Xie Yuchen says without missing a beat.

“Duh,” Li Cu scoffs. “He was always going to come.”

Hei Xiazi grins, a little unsettling since he can’t focus on any one of them, so his eyes stare listlessly into the middle distance. “I would have stowed away if you hadn’t offered.”

“I don’t know if Lao Yang can,” Xie Yuchen admits. “He’s… he’s still the same as he was back then.”

Wu Xie sighs. “We’ll have to talk about all of that later. Is there a way that we can deactivate him once we get to the shuttle so that we can take him with us?”

Xie Yuchen nods slowly. “All of the finishing touches were put in pretty hastily. We should be able to take out the vital points fairly easily.” He smirks, just a bit. “If not, we can always take your Sanshu’s route.”

“Don’t say that,” Wu Xie says, his voice darkening. “I don’ even want to think about how pissed off I am at him right now.”

“Us too,” Wang Meng offers, “He tried to take Liu Sang.”

“What?!” Wu Xie exclaims.

“We don’t have time for this!” Liu Sang groans through the com. “Just get up here!”

“I don’ know if climbing again is going to be a good idea with all of us,” Wu Xie says.

Xie Yuchen shakes his head. “I know this facility inside-out,” he says. “I’ll get us where we need to be.”

“We’ll follow you, then,” Wu Xie says, reaching out and squeezing Xie Yuchen’s shoulder. The other man stares at it, as though he’s not quite familiar with the touch, but shakes it off just as quickly, and goes after Lao Yang, creeping to the edge of the hall and peering around the corner.

The rest follow him, and even though their group is fairly large, the lack of operatives in the hallways that they go down keeps them from getting caught. Xiao-ge doesn’t know if the base just doesn’t have the manpower that he thought it did, but somehow, he doubts that that is the case.

“Does this seem too easy to you?” he hears Kan Jian whisper, though he’s not sure who exactly he’s addressing.

Li Cu replies, “Yeah, but maybe they’re just stupider than last time.”

His words almost immediately backfire on him, because from down the hall, Xiao-ge hears footsteps, and then Xie Yuchen is turning around, dashing back towards them with his eyes wide. “There’s a whole troop coming.”

“We need to hide,” Wu Xie says. “We don’t have the firepower to take them out.”

“What about your friend?” Wang Meng asks.

“He’s not that powerful,” Xie Yuchen explains, examining the hallway for somewhere to hide. “He just can’t feel pain anymore, which is what makes him dangerous. There’s nothing to tell him to stop.”

Wu Xie looks sick. “That’s what we did?”

Xie Yuchen looks apologetic, but he doesn’t have time to fully explain. The footsteps are getting closer; they’re running out of time.

Xiao-ge looks up, spotting a grate in the ceiling. “The vents.”

“No,” Li Cu says immediately. “No, no, I’m not going back in there. Not again.”

“You don’t have to stay inside,” Wu Xie tries to reassure him. “Just for a minute.”

Li Cu grimaces. “Are you sure that’s… do we really have to?”

“Look,” Kan Jian says brightly, “Wang Meng and I will go in first, okay?”

Li Cu doesn’t look very happy about that either, but they don’t have time to walk him through this, so Xiao-ge leaps up, grabbing onto the grate and pulling it onto the hinges, leaving an opening just big enough for them to get through.

Kan Jian gives Li Cu a reassuring grin, and then allows Xiao-ge to help him up, scrambling into the grate and swiftly turning around to lift Wang Meng up with him. They shuffle around for a moment, rearranging, before their heads poke over the opening.

“See?” Kan Jian says, “Everything’s fi—”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Instead, another metal grate slides out of the side of the opening in the space of a second, clunking into place firmly. Kan Jian’s eyes go wide in surprise.

“Kan Jian!” Li Cu shouts. “Meng-ge!”

“They must have upped the security measures in the ventilation system after you escaped last time,” Xie Yuchen says with a curse. “Shit.”

Wang Meng is already trying to melt the grate with his acid, but doesn’t seem to be having much luck.

“Are you okay?” Wu Xie calls up to them.

Kan Jian nods. “We’re fine.” He glances over his shoulder. “We can follow you from up here and hopefully, the vents will lead into the shuttle bay at some point.” He wiggles his com. “Xiao Bai can track us and let us know where we are.”

Wu Xie nods seriously. “Okay. If you can get out at any point, do it, or if you get to the loading bay before us, find Xiao Bai and Liu Sang and get to the shuttle. Be careful.”

Kan Jian gives him a little salute. “Of course, Shouling.”

“We still need to hide,” Xie Yuchen says urgently.

Wu Xie waves their two crewmembers away, and Xiao-ge can hear them as they begin to slither their way through the vents, hopefully towards a place where they’ll be able to be reunited.

Li Cu looks miserable. “Fuck.”

“They’ll be okay,” Wu Xie says. “Probably safer than us, huh?”

“Lao Yang!” Xia Yuchen says, dashing down the hall in an attempt to corral his friend back towards them, managing to get him redirected down a different hallway in the opposite direction of the footsteps. He disappears that way, and Hei Xiazi follows.

Wu Xie, Xiao-ge, and Li Cu stay back, pressed up against the wall. Xiao-ge marks the footsteps getting closer, and prepares to fight, unsheathing his sword—he’s missed his sword.

Just as the footsteps are about to catch up with them, though, a voice says, “The tracking systems caught them! They’re in the vents!”

“Shit,” Wu Xie says, but he can’t do anything about the crowd of soldiers already going back the way they came, obviously heading to go and capture their friends. “Do we have any other way of contacting them?”

Xiao-ge suddenly remembers the radio that he still has in his pocket, and digs it out, tossing it to Wu Xie, who beams at him.

“Xiao-ge!” he says, “Brilliant!” He rips the side panel off, poking around at the wires inside. “I’ll just recalibrate it to the Wushanju’s systems, and—”

“What’s happening?” Xiao Bai’s voice suddenly says. “Everyone’s leaving—"

“They’re talking about the vents,” Liu Sang says. “Kan Jian, you have to get out of there.”

“How?” Kan Jian hisses. “They’ve locked us in here, there’s no way to—"

“We’ve got a problem over here too,” Pangzi says, sounding slightly reluctant to add to their troubles. “They’ve strengthened the shielding system, and there’s no way that I can get the Wushanju through to help you. You’ll have to get to the shuttles, or dismantle the security systems for me to provide backup.”

“Fall back, Pangzi,” Wu Xie says.

“Shouling!” Kan Jian cries, sounding relieved. “How are you—"

“Xiao-ge had a radio,” Wu Xie explains. “Pangzi, don’t worry about us; just keep the ship in one piece.”

“Not worry about you?” Pangzi demands. “Tianzhen, how the hell am I supposed to—"

“I’ll provide backup,” Zhang Rishan’s voice interrupts him, which makes all three of them flinch back in surprise. “My ship is smaller than yours, Wu Xie. It can fit through the gaps.”

“Zhang Rishan?” Wu Xie asks. “What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood,” Zhang Rishan says drily. “Kan Jian, Wang Meng, I can provide you with outside support. Can you get to one of the disposal bays?”

“There’s one just a few systems down,” Xiao Bai says. “I’ll send it to you.”

“Got it,” Kan Jian says. “Wang Meng, can you—" A suspicious sizzling noise echoes over the channel, followed by a clanging sound. “Guess so.”

“We’ll continue making our way towards the bay,” Wu Xie says. “Wang Meng and Kan Jian, get out of the facility as soon as you can, and go with Zhang Rishan.”

“What about you?” Pangzi asks, obviously not quite out of range yet, despite being fired upon by the W.A.N.G. defenses.

“We’ll be fine,” Wu Xie says. “Xiao Hua knows where we’re going.”

“Who?”

Hei Xiazi appears at the corner again. “Keep up! Yuchen says that he knows a shortcut.”

Wu Xie tells their crew to be careful again, then cuts the connection. Xiao-ge keeps his sword unsheathed as they cautiously move forward, breaking into a run once the coast is clear. Xie Yuchen and Lao Yang are still steadily making progress, and when the rest catch up to them, Xie Yuchen points towards a door with a square observation window in the center of it.

“If we cross the observation deck, then we’ll only have to go up another level to get access to the shuttle bay,” he explains. “The deck is built to offer visual confirmation of approaching vessels, so that’s why they’re so close togther.”

“If it’s visible, won’t that mean we’re at risk of being spotted?” Wu Xie asks.

Xie Yuchen shakes his head. “I doubt that they’ll have eyes on the observation deck itself; if there are people there, maybe, but it’s usually avoided during solar storms and things like that, just in case the glass breaks. If they think we’re really under attack, no one should be there.”

Li Cu eyes the door suspiciously. “That doesn’t really seem like it’s the best option, then.”

“Maybe not,” Xie Yuchen agrees, “But it is the quickest. And right now, we need all the time we can get.”

Wu Xie nods. “Alright. We’ll do that, then.”

Xie Yuchen nods, and keys in some code for the door, which slides open. Lao Yang wanders in first; as long as they stay out of his eyeline, he doesn’t attack them, which Xiao-ge finds odd, but helpful.

He goes next, sword drawn, so that he’ll be able to take out anyone waiting for them inside without having to use a blaster and risk striking the glass that surrounds the observation deck. A single shot probably wouldn’t damage it irreparably, but any structural damage is the last thing that they need.

The observation deck is empty, however; it’s a wide, rectangular space with black flooring, a deep blue length of carpeting going from one side to the other. Other than that, though, it’s just curved glass windows, rising up and over the top of the deck, looking out onto the rings of the W.A.N.G. compound. Xiao-ge has never seen a space quite like it; most free-floating stations would be fully enclosed, and not nearly as big as the compound is.

He hears footsteps behind him as Wu Xie catches up, once Xiao-ge has determined that the area is relatively safe. “You seem to trust them,” he says, and Xiao-ge glances towards Xie Yuchen.

“He helped us,” he says simply, knowing that Wu Xie will take whatever he needs to take from that. They don’t have the time for Xiao-ge to tell Wu Xie everything that has happened in the W.A.N.G. compound, nor does Wu Xie need to know, at least not now. Maybe when they’re back on the Wushanju, once everyone is safe.

Xie Yuchen has the other door opened, pressed to the side to let Lao Yang through without being seen, which is slightly awkward. Xiao-ge and Wu Xie reach him next, and Xiao-ge peers through the door, watching Lao Yang as he trips forward without difficultly.

“Hei-ye,” Li Cu says, “Come on.”

Xiao-ge glances back, and sees Li Cu and Hei Xiazi standing by the edge of the window. Li Cu is holding Hei Xiazi by the arm, but Hei-ye is gazing out into space, one hand resting on the glass, his fingertips just barely touching it. His eyes, while always distant, seem lightyears away.

“It’s so close,” he murmurs. “It’s been so long.”

“We’ll be out soon,” Li Cu says. “We have to go now.”

Hei Xiazi nods dully, allowing Li Cu to pull him away from the observation window, his eyes still fixed on the night sky,. They head towards the rest of them, standing in the doorway, but before they reach it, the door slides shut.

Wu Xie’s eyes widen, and he lunges forward. “Open it!”

Xie Yuchen is frantically hammering the buttons on the keypad, but nothing is happening. “I can’t.”

Li Cu has run to the window, his fingers splayed out against it, eyes wide and panicked. He shouts something, and Xiao-ge can see Wu Xie’s name.

“Don’t worry, Ya Li,” Wu Xie says, even though Li Cu probably can’t hear him. “We’ll get you out, okay? Just hold on.”

Li Cu frowns, opening his mouth to say something else, but then he whips around, and Xiao-ge can just make out the arriving battalion of soldiers over his head.

Wu Xie bangs against the door. “Li Cu!”

Xiao-ge looks around desperately, trying to find some way to get the entrance open, but Xie Yuchen is still pressing keys uselessly, and there doesn’t seem to be any other ways of dismantling the mechanisms.

Xie Yuchen must sense his intentions, because he says through gritted teeth, “It’s vacuum sealed in case of a breach. There’s no way that we’re going to be able to break through it.”

At that, Wu Xie resumes banging on the door, even though Li Cu can’t hear him, and with his back turned, can’t see him either.

The W.A.N.G. operatives at the other end of the deck aim their weapons, and Xiao-ge’s hand tightens on the hilt of his sword, even though he’s completely helpless. Li Cu has backed up so that his shoulders are pressed to the doorframe as the first shots begin going off, and then he disappears as he ducks for cover. Hei Xiazi is in front of him, absorbing the closest shots, seemingly without damage, but then the squad begins to advance towards them, still firing, the blasts becoming more concentrated, and closer to Li Cu, who is far more vulnerable.

Hei Xiazi takes a step back, glancing over his shoulder to Li Cu, even if he can’t see him. He reaches a hand forward, which turns into a column of smoke and wraps itself around one of the guards, smothering him, but there are plenty more, and they keep advancing. Stray shots begin to ricochet off of the glass.

“Xiao Hua,” Wu Xie says, his knuckles strained and white against the window, “Please.”

“I… I can’t do anything,” Xie Yuchen mutters, sounding wrecked. “They must have turned off access to all of the general codes. The only one who could open this is Dr. Xian, at this point.”

“Fuck that,” Wu Xie says, walking over and ripping the top part of the keypad away, revealing its inner workings, wires and switchboard. He begins pulling things out, twisting others together.

Xiao-ge looks back through the window to the observation deck, just as one of the blaster shots sends a crack weaving through the glass. Immediately, lights begin flashing, warning of a seal breach, but the soldiers don’t seem to pay it any mind.

Xie Yuchen looks up when the sensors go off, his eyes darting back and forth, trying to reign in some form of control. “Shit.”

On the other side of the door, Hei Xiazi has turned towards the crack in the glass as though he’s stalking some sort of prey. He reaches a spindly limb towards it, his hand turning to darkness. The smoke disappears through the tiny, tiny space, which is apparently enough of a gap for him.

Hei Xiazi turns back towards the door, his eyes unreadable. He grins slowly, the expression sliding across his face like an eel through water, and then it’s as though he dissolves, melting into a puddle of darkness that sweeps over the floor, bursting up onto the walls and roaring inwards, towards the guards. They finally stop firing in shock, their heads tipping back as the tidal wave of Hei Xiazi dives down onto them, and then the window is covered in darkness, so pitch-black that Xiao-ge can’t see anything through it. Frost crackles on the window pane, and even through the soundproof seal, he thinks he can hear the roar of wind and pressure and space.

And then the darkness is gone, and through the window, all that’s left of the observation deck is a hole in the other side of the compound, and cracked and splintered support beams. The floor has been torn away, along with all of the glass, leaving no indication that there had ever been anything there except for the broken parts left over.

“No,” Wu Xie mutters. ‘No! Li Cu!” He runs back to the window, but stops short, staring at the empty space beyond the door. “No.”

Xiao-ge’s heart has dropped somewhere below his feet. He… they were close, weren’t they? How could… they’re just…

“He’s not gone,” Xie Yuchen says softly, which makes Xiao-ge turn to look at him, though Wu Xie remains frozen. “Hei-ye is space. He can survive out there, and he would make sure that Li Cu does too.”

“The deck is gone,” Wu Xie says, so quietly. “And you’re telling me that’s fine?”

“Trust me,” Xie Yuchen says, grabbing onto Wu Xie’s arm. “If you ever did before, trust me now. I promise that Li Cu will be okay.”

Wu Xie’s head drops to the floor, his breath coming out in a stuttering spurt, fists clenching in on themselves. He doesn’t speak for a moment, and when he does, Xiao-ge almost doesn’t hear him. “I did trust you.”

“Okay,” Xie Yuchen says, just as softly, “Then just do it again. One more time.”

“If he’s dead,” Wu Xie says, and then lets the threat hang.

Xie Yuchen must know what the implication is, though, because he just nods and gives Wu Xie’s arm a slight tug. “We should catch up to Lao Yang. The shuttle bay is just one floor up.”

Wu Xie doesn’t look back at the door, just turns and leaves, but Xiao-ge remains staring at it until Wu Xie is too far away for comfort. He tries to find Li Cu, out amongst the stars, but there’s too much debris floating around. He can see the body of a W.A.N.G. guard drifting towards the center hub, knows it by the uniform, but there isn’t a small figure in gray, which can only be hopeful, he supposes.

It’s cold out there. And it’s dark.

There's nothing else he can do.

He ends his vigil and follows Wu Xie.

Xie Yuchen is telling the truth—the shuttle bay isn’t too far away, even if there are several hordes of guards to fight through, but between them all (Xie Yuchen produces a thick wrench that he swings like a cudgel), they manage.

Xiao-ge is worried about Wu Xie. His Shouling is still on his feet, at least, but the dead-eyed precision that he fires his stolen blaster with is concerning. Xiao-ge has never known Wu Xie to be dispassionate about taking a life—cold, yes; angry, yes; but never apathetic.

That’s the way he is now, though, firing without even really seeming to see his target. He doesn’t miss, though, so he must.

Eventually, they come to the door of the shuttle bay. It looks as though it has been shoved open, like an invisible force is preventing it from closing, and Xiao-ge is very glad that they have Xiao Bai on their side.

The guards in the bay must have been warned by their fellow soldiers that they were coming, because some of them are very nervously standing guard at the door, weapons aimed forward. The rest, however, are lined up defensively in front of the Wushanju’s escape shuttle, yelling and shooting and generally falling to chaos. An officer stands behind them, shouting orders, and then periodically ducking for cover whenever something whistles past him, exploding above his head.

It’s only because Xiao-ge knows what to look for that he finds Liu Sang and Xiao Bai crouched beneath the craft, Xiao Bai grinning maniacally, and Liu Sang making strange shapes with his mouth, once again pretending to be a full army for them.

Xiao-ge points the pair out to Wu Wie, who nods silently, then looks to Xie Yuchen, who is busy clutching the back of Lao Yang’s jumpsuit so that he doesn’t wander into the fray.

“I have a plan,” Wu Xie says.

‘Is it a good one?” Xie Yuchen asks, poking around at the back of Lao Yang’s head to try and get him to stop moving.

In answer, Wu Xie jumps into the doorway before either of them can stop him, hands raised. “Don’t shoot!”

A stray blast flies next to his shoulder as one of the guards startles at his sudden appearance, and Wu Xie ducks. He stands up again, annoyance flashing across his features. “I said don’t shoot.”

The guards exchange confused glances, and Wu Xie takes the opportunity to wave Xiao-ge forward. Xiao-ge comes, taking his position at Wu Xie’s side, inexplicably feeling safer than he has in over a week despite all of the guns currently trained on him.

“We were brought to this facility as personal guests of Dr. Xian,” Wu Xie says, and Xiao-ge can’t help but twitch an incredulous eyebrow at him, because that bluff is a little too wild, even for Wu Xie. “He’ll be upset if you shoot us.”

“Set weapons to stun,” the officer in the room orders, giving Wu Xie an apologetic grimace. “No offense.”

Wu Xie shakes his head, smiling understandingly. “None taken. You’re just doing your job.” He gestures with his head to the shuttle. “Do you mind if I send my officer over to tell our crewmates to stand down?”

The office seems doubtful that this is the truth, but before he can refuse, one of Liu Sang’s frequencies blasts over his head, and he yelps, ducking down into his soldiers, and nods frantically.

Tell them to get ready to fly,” Wu Xie taps out on the floor with his foot, and Xiao-ge carefully sheathes his sword, glaring darkly at the officer, who swallows thickly.  He walks with measured strides to the shuttle, Liu Sang and Xiao Bai’s anxious faces waiting to greet him.

“Xiao-ge!” Xiao Bai exclaims in a whisper. “You’re okay!”

“Ouxiang,” Liu Sang says, relieved.

“Any word?” Xiao-ge asks, and Liu Sang nods.

“Kan Jian and Wang Meng got out,” he says. “They’re fine. Pangzi too.”

Good. “Shouling says to get the ship ready,” Xiao-ge relays, then gives the both of them a small, and what he hopes is encouraging, smile before he stands and returns to Wu Xie’s side, listening to Liu Sang and Xiao Bai scramble aboard the shuttle as quickly and as quietly as possible.

Wu Xie is still smiling calmly, and Xiao-ge can just catch a glimpse of Xie Yuchen watching them nervously from behind the door as he returns, half of him distracted as he fiddles with something at the base of Lao Yang’s neck. There’s a click, and then Lao Yang goes limp with a sigh, Xie Yuchen diving forward to catch him.  

“Fantastic,” Wu Xie says, turning his eyes back towards the guards. “Now, we’ve been instructed to take this cyborg away for more testing.” Xie Yuchen takes that as his cue and drags Lao Yang out from behind the door, unable to put his hands in the air because they’re full of unconscious cyberhuman. “This is one of your scientists, right?”

The guard doesn’t look convinced. “Yes, but—”

“But nothing!” Wu Xie snaps, suddenly angry, and the officer starts back. “Are you going to make me report you to your superiors?”

The guards don’t move, and the officer frowns. “We’ve been instructed to not let anyone out of the facility until the escaped subjects have been located.”

“Do you see any of them with us?” Wu Xie asks crossly.

The guard eyes Xiao-ge, who is unfortunately still wearing the test subject’s jumpsuit. He turns back to Wu Xie, coming around the soldiers in front of him. “Do you mind showing me some credentials?”

“Do you mind not aiming your weapons at us?” Wu Xie snaps back, obviously recognizing that his ploy isn’t going to work for much longer. He crooks a finger behind his back, indicating for Xie Yuchen to move, and then says, “Xiao-ge.”

That’s what Zhang Qiling has been waiting for. He draws his sword, the steel scraping on the hilt in a familiar voice, and leaps forward, slicing the officer’s chest open. The man falls with a cry, and the other guards scramble backwards, some of their guns going off involuntarily. Zhang Qiling ducks past most of the stunning shots, feels one hit his shoulder, but it’s easy to shake off, and he twists into the midst of the soldiers, cutting down one with each breath he takes.

In the corner of his mind, he can see Wu Xie and Xie Yuchen dragging Lao Yang towards the shuttle, hoisting him up the stairs and into Xiao Bai and Liu Sang’s waiting arms. Zhang Qiling takes another stun to the knee, but cuts someone’s jugular in exchange, spinning around before the strike has fully landed to kick another person in the chest, and even with his leg weakened by the stun, he’s still powerful enough to send them stumbling backwards into three others, all of them crashing to the ground.

And then, suddenly, his senses perk up for barely a second before pain shoots through all of his limbs like fire, sending him to his knees. Zhang Qiling grits his teeth and glares down at his forearm, where the device that they put into his wrist has been activated, flashing bright green as it pumps poison into his bloodstream. He’s overcome this once, though, he can—

The pain doubles, just as he’s about to stand up, and he trips again, landing with his sword stabbing into the ground to keep himself upright. He looks up, glaring, and sees an unfamiliar group of scientists standing in the doorway, one of them holding what looks like a remote. He’s holding a button down on it, and as Zhang Qiling watches, he presses it again, which sends the pain rocketing up from an eight to an eleven.

“Xiao-ge!” Wu Xie shouts, and Xiao-ge realizes that he’s on the ground, his cheek pressed to it. He has no idea when he fell over, but there are blasters being aimed at his face now, and whatever is being done to him hurts, so much—

“Dr. Xian!” Xie Yuchen calls coldly. “Stop.”

Dr. Xian looks towards the shuttle, unimpressed. “Researcher Xie. You have proven to be a disappointment, haven’t you?”

“Let them go,” Xie Yuchen says, sounding somewhat desperate. “Just let them go, and I’ll stay.”

Dr. Xian raises an eyebrow. “You think that you’re worth more than a Kylin?”

“Not me,” Xie Yuchen says, “But my brain is.” He steps forward, away from Wu Xie, who grimaces at him, a silent plea to stop. “You want what I know, don’t you? So let them go, or I’ll…” Quicker than Xiao-ge thought that he could move, he grabs a gun that’s been left on the floor and places it to the side of his head. “I’ll make sure that you never get it.”

Dr. Xian does not look amused. “You think that we can’t replicate your results?”

“Maybe you can,” Xie Yuchen says, unblinking, staring at Dr. Xian as though he’ll be able to convince him with his eyes alone. “But who knows how long that will take?”

Dr. Xian sighs, then rolls his eyes, letting up on the button of the remote, and Xiao-ge gasps, his entire body numb with shock as the pain disappears. “Fine. The human can leave. The Kylin stays here.”

“No!” Wu Xie shouts. “That’s not—”

“Okay,” Xiao-ge croaks, pushing himself up to his knees. “Deal.”

“Xiao-ge!”

Dr. Xian smiles, a cruel, sly thing. “Excellent.” He looks to Xie Yuchen. “Drop the gun and come over here.”

Xie Yuchen sighs, and takes a moment to glance at Wu Xie. Xiao-ge doesn’t even bother lifting his eyes to see Wu Xie’s face, because he knows that what he’ll find there will hurt more than the pain of the drug. He just follows Xie Yuchen as he slowly lowers the gun and walks to Dr. Xian and the group of scientists.

“Xiao Hua!” Wu Xie yells, running after him, but he’s stopped by a pair of guards. “Fuck you.”

Dr. Xian doesn’t seem to care. Once Xie Yuchen is in front of him, he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a familiar black disk and slapping it onto Xie Yuchen’s neck. The scientist sighs, crumbling almost instantaneously. None of the others bother to catch him, and he hits the floor, hard, legs folded awkwardly underneath him.

Wu Xie seethes. “What did you do to him?”

Dr. Xian raises a cold stare to Wu Xie. “I suggest you take advantage of my generous hospitality and your friends’ sacrifice and leave while you still have the chance.”

“I’m not going anywhere without them,” Wu Xie barks.

“Wu Xie,” Xiao-ge says, “It’s fine.”

Wu Xie glares at him. “Shut up, Xiao-ge.”

He bolts, darting to the side, underneath the arms of the guards that had stopped him, as though he’s trying to make a beeline for Xiao Hua by going around the rest of the them. Before he’s even made it halfway, someone shoots him in the legs, and Wu Xie falls, his momentum sliding him into the wall, where he knocks against it with a cry.

“Wu Xie!” Xiao-ge shouts, trying to get up again, but the remote turns back on, and he collapses once more underneath the weight of the pain.

Through the haze, he can hear a slight tapping noise, and through his blurry eyes, he notices Wu Xie’s hand moving, knocking something on the floor.

DON’T, he’s saying, DON’T.

Xiao-ge isn’t sure if Wu Xie is talking to him or not, because he can’t do much of anything right now, as encompassed by agony as he is. He grits his teeth, somehow manages to push himself up, just a little, but not for long. Gravity is grabbing onto all of his limbs, even though they’re in space, and the gravity is entirely artificial. It’s like ropes are encircling every part of him and keeping him tied to the floor. He can barely feel the pain anymore, all of it turning to white noise in his blood, but he still can’t move.

“Well,” Wu Xie pants by the wall, and Xiao-ge thinks that he’s straining for something, though he doesn’t know what. “I’ll just stay here, then.”

He reaches up and grabs onto the lever on the wall, yanking down on it, the dead weight in his legs helping pull it down, and immediately, the back of the shuttle bay opens up, the vacuum of space beginning to suck out everything that isn’t tied down. The guards all yell, running towards the door and the other walls, attempting to find somewhere that has an air seal around it. The poison stops for a moment, as Dr. Xian must let up on the button in surprise, and Xiao-ge drives his sword into the ground harder, clutching onto it as the air shrieks past his body. He looks over at Wu Xie, who is close enough to the lever that he’s protected by an air seal as the Wushanju shuttle get heaved out into space, tumbling through the doors just as someone manages to reverse the process and shuts the bay again, sealing off everything from the deadly exterior of the compound and catching a couple of guards who had been sent flying towards the exit.

Xiao-ge’s body is caught up by gravity again, but that’s okay. They got the rest of them out. Everyone else is safe.

Zhang Qiling can rest, for now.

Dr. Xian marches over to Wu Xie. “Your escape is gone.”

Wu Xie just tilts his head back, laughing. “Yeah. Well.” His voice is filled with relief, which Xiao-ge understands.

(The only way that he would be more relieved was if Wu Xie had gotten away, too.)

He must not be pleased by the flippancy that Wu Xie is showing, because Dr. Xian takes another one of the black disks out of his pocket, crouching down beside Wu Xie, who simply stares at him, drumming his fingers on his thigh, his legs still and unresponsive.
“Just wait,” the head of the W.A.N.G.s murmurs. “You’ll wish that you had gotten out while you still could.” He presses the disk to the side of Wu Xie’s neck, and Xiao-ge watches his eyes roll back, his body falling lax before he can quite comprehend what is happening.

Dr. Xian straightens up, nudging Wu Xie with a toe and looking rather displeased. He glances around the shuttle bay and sighs. “What a mess.” He snaps his fingers, and a couple of the guards who are still on their feet, albeit shaken, come over, picking Wu Xie up underneath the arms and dragging him towards Xie Yuchen, who is still unconscious, bent on the floor where he was left.

“As for you,” Dr. Xian says, and Xiao-ge had nearly forgotten that he was there, as hazy as the world has become. “I think you’ll be staying with us for longer than we had expected.” He smiles, but there isn’t even the resemblance of warmth in it.

And then, Zhang Qiling sweeps his feet out from under him.

Dr. Xian is thrown to the ground, yelling as he lands, but Zhang Qiling has already pushed himself up, sprinting for the door, passing Xie Yuchen’s still form as he does. The guards and scientists around him are too startled to even try and stop him, and Zhang Qiling bursts into the hallway, shaking off the residual effects of the drug as he runs, even as he feels more of it being shot into him, and honestly, how much do they have in that panel?

He tears down the halls, skidding a little on the corners, Wu Xie’s last message tapping through his brain.

DESTROY IT, he had said, DESTROY IT ALL.

Zhang Qiling knows about destruction.

He finds one of the doors that leads to the interior power core, sticking the point of his sword into the crack that turns it from wall to door, and prying it open with as much force as he can, barely caring about the horrible screeching noise it makes as it protests being split away from its origination point. He pushes until there’s a gap, wide enough for him to slip through, and then shrugs his way inside, staggering onto the platform. He doubles over to catch his breath for a moment, and then straightens up.

The blue-lit core of the facility stares back at him, huge and pulsating, silent. Zhang Qiling breathes, steels himself, and then hefts his sword like a spear, reeling back and throwing it with everything he has left in him, directly into the center of the energy core.

It sticks, burying deep into the column, and something sizzles. Even further down, Zhang Qiling can hear something explode, and the entire facility begins to shake as power begins to leak out of the core, hissing into the air and turning everything bright and prickling.

“No!” Dr. Xian screams, and Zhang Qiling looks over his shoulder to see the man standing in the hole in the wall, gaping in horror at the damage that Zhang Qiling has done to their systems. He seethes, snapping his head to Zhang Qiling, and then jabbing his finger onto the remote that controls the thing in his arm.

Xiao-ge crumples, the barest sound escaping him as the pain comes back and his legs give out. He lands, much like Xie Yuchen did, some of his limbs bent underneath his body uncomfortably. He scrunches his fingers against the floor, gritting his teeth so hard that a muscle in his jaw pops, but it all just keeps coming.

Dr. Xian’s footsteps approach through the haze of pain and the strange sense of energy pouring out around them, his face cold and furious. “How dare you?”

Xiao-ge glares up at him, unable to muster the energy to even pretend that he has the strength to pull himself up. Something catches in his throat, and he coughs, spitting up a dark, metallic globule onto the floor. Once his airway is clear again, he takes a rattling breath, grins up at Dr. Xian with teeth dyed red. “Do your worst.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Dr. Xian says mildly, holding up the damn remote, again. “We will.”

He hits the button, and Xiao-ge doesn’t even have time for his blood to begin to heal him. He feels the drug rise, right up to his brain, and then everything floods over into black.

It’s cold here.

And it's dark.

But at least there’s Wu Xie, somewhere close. At least he’s saved the others. And if those two things are true, then Xiao-ge, even in the face of death, will smile.  

Chapter Text

For the first time in a long time, Wu Sanxing’s life is going according to plan.

According to his plan, at least. His life has been going according to other people’s plans for a very long time now, and Wu Sanxing is sick of it. First it was his parents, and then it was his brothers, and then some eleven-year-old had wiped his memory and plopped him on a rock and he had lived a very nice life as a farmer or some shit, but that hadn’t been his plan at all.

Wu Sanxing’s plan had been to get whatever dangerous stuff his nephew had gotten himself into as far away as possible, maybe for money, and then never go back to Jiaren again. Which had sort of worked out, just not in the way that he had expected. Or that anyone had expected.

But now he’s got said memory-wiping-eleven-year-old on his tiny, not-the-Wushanju ship, and even though he’s like twenty-five now, Liu Sang still hasn’t figured out how to tell people no. Which is all the better for Wu Sanxing; if Liu Sang’s abilities are as good as he thinks they are, then they’ll be able to get whatever they want, whenever they want. Just swanning across the universe, picking up whatever shit they like, and throwing away whatever shit they don’t.

Yeah. That’d be good.

“Where are we going?” Liu Sang asks, which is the first question he’s had since he boarded. Most of their conversations thus far have been Wu Sanxing attempting to ask Liu Sang questions about what the Wushanju has been up to and getting one-word answers for his troubles.

Wu Sanxing sets the ship to autopilot, leaning back in his chair. “I suppose I should explain everything to you, shouldn’t I? Since you’re going to be helping me out and all.”

Liu Sang nods, his eyes glued to the windscreen as though it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. He’s very still and quiet, which Wu Sanxing supposes years of trauma will do. Not that he’d know; he’s never still, and very loud.

“Did Xiao Xie ever tell you about Lao Yang?” Liu Sang shakes his head. “Well, long story short, Xiao Xie had these friends, and one of them got sick, and so the other two decided to give him an entirely new life by making him a cyberhuman, which, as I’m sure you can guess, went remarkably well. They fucked it up, turned the kid into some sort of monster cyborg, and he went on a rampage and nearly killed both of them. Well, he did kill one of them. Xiao Xie turned out fine, but once the Jiumen found out, he wasn’t going to be safe on Jiaren for much longer. Those bastards really like their own bloodlines, and anyone killing anyone else was not going to be an easy fix to get out of, you following me?”

Liu Sang nods.

“So I took Xiao Xie and the cyborg kid, and told Er-ge that I would fix everything and keep Xiao Xie off-planet until it all blew over. And I did! Mostly. A-Ning—you remember her, right?—she knew about this organization that was completely top-secret, and would take any sort of scientific achievement or creature or what-have-you, and no one would ever hear about it again. And so I was like, ‘great!’ and we managed to negotiate a pretty good deal out of it too.”

Wu Sanxing laughs, slightly embarrassed. “Well, the thing was, that, even though I gave them the cyborg, I didn’t tell them how to replicate the process, and I guess they couldn’t figure it out themselves, so they came after me. Xiao Xie would have known, but I didn’t want to tell him that I’d sold his best friend and biggest mistake to an underground science organization, and besides, I doubt he would have agreed to tell them anyway. Which meant that the Xie kid, the one who’d been killed, was the only one who could save my ass, unless I gave up my nephew.” He side-eyes Liu Sang. “And I know what you think about me, but I’m not going to sell out my family, not to people like that. I do have a moral compass, you know.”

“Uh huh,” Liu Sang says, playing with a thread on his pants.

“So,” Wu Sanxing says, “I had to find Yincangui. To get back the other one so that I could get the W.A.N.G.s off my tail. You’ve only had to deal with them for a hot minute, but let me tell you, they are persistent. And not in the fun way, which meant that I also had A-Ning up my ass because they were going after her, too. So when I found a lead to Yincangui, I snapped it up, and you know the rest.”

“Right,” Liu Sang says vaguely. “So now we’re… what?”

“Well, you and I both know that Yincangui isn’t real,” Wu Sanxing says. “I mean, it is, but not in the way that I need it to be. So you’re going to come with me to see the head of the W.A.N.G. organization, and ask him nicely if he’ll stop chasing me down.”

“Ask him nicely?”

“Well.” Wu Sanxing waves a hand around, flapping away the incongruencies of his statement. “You know what I mean. Your voice thing. Compulsion, right?”

“Right,” Liu Sang mumbles, “Of course.”

“C’mon,” Wu Sanxing says. “It’s not like it’ll take you that long. You can even get your friends out, too, if you want.”

Liu Sang doesn’t even seem to brighten up at that. “Yeah, I guess.”

“What’s with the long face?” Wu Sanxing pokes him in the side, but Liu Sang just frowns at him. “I think I liked you better when you were eleven. You were more easily impressed.”

“Sorry to be a disappointment,” Liu Sang says drily.

Wu Sanxing shrugs. “You grew up. It’s what people do.” He turns back to the controls, making sure that they’re still on track. “I’ll bet your Bai-yi would have liked to see it.”

“Bai-yi?” Liu Sang asks.

“Su Baiyin,” Wu Sanxing says.

“Of course,” Liu Sang responds, looking out the side of the window again, resting his chin on his hand. “Bai-yi.”

Wu Sanxing hums, grabbing the ship’s yoke with his right hand, and, very quietly, sneaking his left hand down to unbuckle his holster, where a small knife is pressed against his thigh, underneath his satchel of identification paperwork. Liu Sang doesn’t even flinch at the noise, and Wu Sanxing distinctly remembers his hearing being better than that.

“I’m going to get some water,” he announces, standing up from the pilot’s seat and heading for the back of the tiny ship. “Do you want anything?” He pauses for a moment. “Pound cake?”

“No,” the Thing-That-Definitely-Isn’t-Liu-Sang says, “I’m fine. What’s pound cake?”

“Nothing,” Wu Sanxing responds, pulling his knife out and creeping up quietly behind the passenger seat. “Nothing at all.”

TO BE CONTINUED...