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Pain is the first thing he feels. In his body and his mind.
Shorter regains his consciousness slowly and painfully. The mist covering his eyes doesn’t go away easily, but even then Shorter can feel the light which is too bright, it wraps around him and hurts his eyes.
A minute goes by or, maybe, ten, and Shorter is able to focus his sight and open his eyes properly. He realizes that he’s bound by his arms and legs and tugs immediately in order to free himself. But his body fails to do so and, instead of a strong fling, it does something similar to an ordinary attempt to stand up. Shorter inhales deeply and lifts his head to look around.
A lab. Shiny with cold projectors, snow-white tables and hand-polished silence. A chair, which Shorter is bound to with thick straps; it hurts in places where they rubbed his wrists and ankles sore. Computers and lab devices. And a sterile table right in front of him with lab utensils here and there. Shorter can clearly see bottles with liquid drugs, syringes and some papers.
An assumption strikes his head like a needle and Shorter’s eyes widen with fear. His body shivers and the sore skin under the straps starts to ache again. Shorter inhales deeply through his clenched teeth and closes his eyes for a minute. He has to calm down and think rationally. Think how he can escape.
It takes a second before Shorter gets a hold of himself. He visually scans the whole lab, examines the chair he’s bound to and tries to figure out the knots. He’s in a bad position and has no arguments to calm himself.
Shorter puts his fingers together trying to get his hands into the smallest shape and pulls them out of the straps. If brutal force doesn’t help, maybe, he should try something else. A gentle rotation, a fling, and another one — his wrists feel like burning and start to bleed, but the straps are still in place. Shorter tries to do the same trick with his legs but fails almost immediately, and his foot cramps for a few seconds.
His hope becomes more and more translucent, it melts down, and a vile imagination makes him picture not the most pleasant things instead. What happens to all of them if they do to him what they want to do? Eiji is still out there, only God knows what status and position he’s in right now, and he needs help. Yes, he’s strong and courageous, but he’s still weaker than all of them.
Somehow, it’s now that Shorter recalls a little kitchen in his and Nadia’s flat and the sun that never abandons it during the day hours. A whole bookcase packed with old books in a narrow hallway. His room, which misses him sometimes for weeks. The Chinatown streets, so dirty and so home-like. Cheap noodles he likes to fry so much. His bike and the keys to it with a smudged trinket. A yearly stack of hair dye in the bathroom cabinet. His sister’s concentrated look when she reads. Ash’s sunny smile when he makes jokes.
Would it really end like this? Would he never see or feel any of this again? What happens to him, what happens to the others?
But that’s not what scares him the most, but what they will make him do before his death.
There’s no doubt, that’d be something as dreadful as the single fact of this bloody drug’s existence.
What happens to Nadia? To Ash? To Eiji?
Shorter just can’t leave them.
He tries again and again but is unable to free himself. The straps are too tight and he is too tired. He has to come up with something else. A second, third, and fourth option, but he has to get out of there.
All his thoughts disappear when he hears blunt hits behind one of the lab’s doors. It seems, he hasn’t had enough time and they’re starting the experiment immediately. Shorter’s lips curl into a nervous smile. Obviously, he doesn’t have even the second option. Obviously, his thoughts about escaping are just thoughts and they won’t let him do so.
Shorter shakes his head slowly, objecting to his own thoughts. No. He’s going to give up only when there won’t be any other choice.
Shorter tries to rip the straps again, roars with pain and tries even harder, getting more deep wounds on his wrists and legs. And freezes suddenly when the lights in the lab go dim, leaving in the weak spotlight just some of the tables. Shorter listens carefully and understands that the noise outside is gone.
The lab doors open with a short quiet creak, and someone’s shadow slips inside. Shorter can’t see the person who entered the lab, so he simply waits for them to come within sight. Something’s wrong.
A smooth silhouette approaches the tables inaudibly and passes them, getting closer to Shorter. Dim lamps enlighten a yellow fabric with an elegant pattern on it, and long black hair. Shorter recognizes Yue Lung and starts bursting with anger.
“What’s going on?” Shorter asks loudly. “What are you doing here?”
“Sh-h-h.”
Yue turns around and with gestures encourages him to remain silent. Then softly walks to the lab table in front of him.
He bends over the table a little and inspects it for some time, and it seems to Shorter that at one moment he just freezes there after reading something in the papers.
“My God,” Yue exhales quietly in a few seconds. “There is my research here as well. They’re going to test the drug on you.”
“Yeah, I noticed that,” Shorter rudely reminds himself.
Yue takes something from the table and hides it somewhere in his clothes, after that he turns to Shorter. He approaches fast and takes out a knife. His eyes gleam with an objection for a second.
Shorter tries to rip the straps again, but this attempt simply brings more pain, so he just moves as far away from Lung as he can.
“Where’s Eiji? What are you doing?”
“Shut up or they’ll hear us,” Yue hisses and leans forward to Shorter’s legs with a knife. “I’m freeing you.”
“What?”
Shorter can’t hide the amazement from such a statement, just as he can’t notice Yue grabbing his leg and pulling one of the knots with a knife, cutting it almost without effort. Shorter’s leg is struck with pain and, practically immediately, relief of liberation. The blood fills his foot properly and Shorter feels like he can do at least something.
When Yue gets up, Shorter instantly strikes the dagger out of his hands and pushes the other as far from himself as he can. But he’s still bound to the chair and Yue keeps his feet firmly on the ground, so he can just hit him somewhere in the chest and freeze like that, not allowing to cut the distance between them short. Yue hisses with surprise or with pain and looks at him angrily.
“Why would I believe you?” Shorter roars. “Why are you here really?”
“You are trying to strike me with a leg, which was freed by me,” Yue says irritably, yet doesn’t attempt to come closer again. “There’re no guards near the lab, they were taken care of by me. The cameras are switched off by me. If you don’t want to believe me — don’t, but let me free you and I will leave with a quiet soul.”
“You don’t have a soul!” Shorter spits out angrily, trying again to free himself.
He never expected it to work, but he didn’t expect his wrists to hurt that much either. He clenches his jaw and slits his eyes, and his legs ache as well, so his “barrier” becomes weaker, and his voice — lower.
“Why are you doing this? Something didn’t go as well as planned so you improvise? Where’s Ash?”
Yue cuts short this flow of questions with a strong hit in Shorter’s leg, making him freeze in unexpectedness and pain for a few seconds. Yue picks up the dagger, freeing Shorter’s other leg and one hand.
“Shit, just do as I say!” he hisses and points the dagger at Shorter, making him focus his sight on it. It’s covered with blood and Shorter doesn’t want to think whose blood that is. Maybe, his own. “We will walk through the back door now and you will leave the building quietly. You will go towards the woods and meet your men there, they’re getting ready for a strike. I’ve freed Ash and I think he has already found Eiji. From that on — do as you wish.”
Yue cuts the last strap in a sharp move and Shorter jumps up from his place, ignoring his legs going weak.
“I know the safest exit,” Yue says.
Shorter gives him a heavy glum stare and nods. If Yue Lung has something in his mind and he needs to save Shorter first, he can be allowed to lead. They can figure out the reasons for him to do this later. At least Shorter will have a chance.
“Lead,” he nods. “But if it’s one of your games…”
“So you’re smart,” Yue confirms smugly. “But it’s beneficial for me to play on your side for now. Let’s go.”
They leave the lab quietly and Shorter’s look falls upon a guard’s body on the floor. A gun in his hand is the thing dragging his attention. He leans forward and takes it, checking the magazine.
“Shoot and they will hear us,” says Yue without looking at him. He has gone a bit forward and is checking the situation around the corner, leaning against the wall.
“I know,” nods Shorter with irritation. “But it’s more reassuring.”
Yue moves further and Shorter follows him. For the first time, he begins to wonder how this escape would affect Yue himself.
“So you’re betraying Dino?”
“Never liked that bastard,” Yue answers.
“That’s where our opinions concur,” Shorter nods. “But this leaves us with a logical question…”
Reaching another turn, Yue leans against the wall and looks carefully towards the next hallway, so Shorter becomes silent. But after detecting no threats there, Yue walks forward and answers the disrupted question:
“I wouldn’t have anything to do with him if it wasn’t for Wang Lung. Do you think that my voice in this “family” is worth something?”
Shorter wants to add something, but all his words stumble at the word “family” pronounced with unhidden anger and mockery. Shorter wonders about other things instead. Is it possible that the idea to blackmail him wasn’t Yue Lung’s?
He doesn’t ask. The situation is not right, and it seems that another turn is not clear. Yue stops and with only gestures tells Shorter about the two enemies. Shorter fastens his steps but still walks almost inaudibly. Yet he doesn’t have a chance to come alongside as Yue makes a lightning-speed move forward. Shorter hears a muffled hit of something heavy against the wall and jumps from round the corner. He practically stumbles at the first man, already made harmless, and sees how Yue nimbly ducks under the hand of a man threatening him with a gun. With a loose, as it seems, strike he kicks the other’s weapon out of his hand and pins him in the neck with a needle. If it wasn’t for a momentous gleam of light, Shorter would never notice the needle at all.
Yue holds the second harmless man near the very floor so he wouldn’t make much noise and hides his needle somewhere inside the wide sleeve of his usual vibrant outfit.
“Is it always like this for you?” Shorter doesn’t know how to describe what he has just witnessed and doesn’t know how to call it properly but admits frankly to himself that even one-on-one and in a close fight Yue remains a threatening opponent.
“Without spilling any blood?” asks Yue smugly. “Quietly? Easily?” Shorter doesn’t answer, so he carries on: “Not always. But yes, I wouldn't use anything else if the choice was mine every time.”
Shorter suddenly recalls the other Yue Lung. That Yue Lung who has been lying unconscious in a bed at Dawson’s house, who has looked at them confusedly and shily, who has helped Ash in his search for information about the Banana Fish. Was it Yau-si Dawson, just another of his roles, a social grandstanding, or was there at least a bit of the real Yue in that personality? What did he feel that day? Why did he choose that path?
A row of gunshots and someone’s loud screams are heard from somewhere in the house; Yue and Shorter freeze to listen to it.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Ash,” Yue states. “Let’s go.”
“It’s coming from a different direction,” Shorter notices.
“There’s a load of guards there, you are in no condition to pass,” answers Yue in a dry tone. “I will lead you out of the house and you’ll be free to do whatever you want.”
Shorter hesitates for a few seconds, but still follows Yue Lung, who has gone a bit forward. They pass several turns quietly, take care of a guard around the next one, and finally reach the exit.
“It’s closed,” says Yue after pulling the handle. “As expected.”
Shorter visually estimates the door’s hardness, comes closer to take a better look and to examine it by touch. Shit, it’s solid. Too strong to knock it out. That’d be doable only at a price of his own shoulder and Shorter still needs both of them.
He pulls out a gun and aims at the lock, noticing Yue’s discontented look in his peripheral vision.
“Do you have any better ideas?”
“Aim better and be ready to run,” Yue sighs. “You will have a few minutes after the shot.”
Shorter nods, makes several steps away from the door, and takes aim again.
“What about you?”
Yue is stupefied by the question and doesn’t answer right away.
“Me? I can take care of myself,” he says with a frown on his face. “Shoot already.”
Yue manages to cover his ears with his palms a second before the shot. In his mind he gives Shorter some credit — the lock was shot at the first attempt.
Shorter opens the door, slitting his eyes from a bright light, and runs out on a small porch. A perfectly trimmed green lawn, flowerbeds, and a garden walk paved with white stones. It has a low garden wall and a short steep climb toward the woods behind it. Several minutes would be more than enough.
Yue also leaves the building, stops near the wooden column holding the marquee, and examines the yard with one quick look. Shorter steps down the porch and unexpectedly — probably, for both of them — turns around.
“Why did you do this?” he asks, looking Yue Lung right in the eyes. “I know that you have your own plans, but I’m almost certain that saving me wasn’t a part of that.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Yue answers after bearing his look and smoothly nodding as if he respected the acuteness. “But… I studied the compounds of the Banana Fish and its effect on the human body thoroughly,” he sighs at the edge of inaudibility and looks away. His voice is two, or maybe, three tones quieter. “You don’t deserve to die like that.”
Shorter looks at him for a few long seconds, considering this answer, and then nods silently, turns, and walks away. This is different from his image of Lee Yue Lung. He gets the feeling as if they have never really met before, as if everything Shorter has known about him is not true. But now, sadly, he doesn’t have time to think about this. He has to save himself and the others. But there is something he truly wants to say as his goodbyes.
Shorter decides to spill it and sharply turns around on his heels.
“Thank you, Yue.”
But the porch is already desolate.