The Sea Is Ours (21 page)

She wondered what her brother was doing now. Kian Boon was the Officer Commanding of a company of mechanized infantry, stationed near the Causeway. He'd been busy recently, with the Malayan Federation making war-noises across the border in the papers, and he hadn't been home for the past two weekends. She strained to remember Kian Boon's call, the night before. He usually made his daily calls from his office, but yesterday had been different. His voice was hushed, the sound of steam and hydraulics and the metal footsteps of walkers in the distance. He was out of breath, his personal radio kept falling to the floor and he had spoken as fast as one of his gasguns. He had used the words “Confrontation” and “riots”. He didn't know what was going on either, or why. He couldn't tell her where he was going. Something big was about to happen. She could hear the steel in his voice as he had said that, and the slight smile when he told her to take care. A harsh, drilling bell rang, and someone shouted “Captain Wong, sir!” He swore, rushed a farewell, and shut the line off. Silence.

Dai Ji was sure he'd be alright, though. Her Dai Kor was good. He'd studied biology in Chulalongkorn University on a Nanyang Forces scholarship, and spent two years on the border with Sarawak with the Sultanates' Army, defending the Sultanates from the White Rajah's incursions. He'd find a way.

The lift finally opened to a cloud of kretek smoke and several batik-clad Sultanate women, their tiny pet birdlikes buzzing happily behind them, stepped out. Dai Ji shifted back a little, letting the little metallic fliers hover around her and play with her hair as their owners wiggled into the lobby. She whistled at one that stopped in front of her face, calling up and tweaking an unsecured thread, and it flushed red for a brief second before reverting to its natural, iridescent green. It flicked its tongue out, catching beads of sweat dripping off her forehead and chirping in glee as it twirled in the air.

Dai Ji loved birdlikes; she'd seen her brother work with the larger mail-delivery versions before he'd joined the Nanyang Forces; watched him feed them concentrated sugar-water and smooth their feathers of metal and keratin back into shape after each flight with the Sultanates' Postal Service. She preferred spider casings, though. Casings were easy and cheap to build. Unlike lifelikes, they didn't have an integral live brain, instead using that of an animal “pilot”, and so required much less maintenance and life-support. More importantly, though, they were a decent source of income for any young, skilled Shaper. She'd made a few spider casings over the weekend, easily ten dollars' worth; there would certainly be willing buyers after Chalerm's demonstration. The Sultanate women whistled, and the birdlikes returned to their shoulders as they left. Dai Ji stepped into the lift and let the old gears take her up.

~*~

[II]

Dai Ji climbed the final steps to the top floor of the building, where the lift did not go. Approaching the ladder that led to the roof-access hatch, she reclined in her lifelike walking-chair and called up its threads. The goat-brain inside bleated as she forced the tarsal claws of its pneumatic legs to latch onto the rungs of the ladder. She undid the hacked padlock and chains, gave the hatch a rough push with a chair leg and pulled herself through the opening. She inclined her seat and dusted herself off, watching her crew climb in after her. There was Towgey, her twelve-year-old cousin and bet-collector; Ridzuan, the backup host and spider-seller with his Sultanates' Army-surplus load-bearing vest packed to the brim with spiders in their containers; the Chong twins, there to break up the occasional fight, and Chalerm.

Chalerm was the newest member of her crew. He'd replaced her old casing tester after the latter had been bought out by a ring from Clementi a couple of weeks ago; Dai Ji had personally locked them out of their meeting place with a few dead rats and a bicycle wheel, but she'd had to find a new tester. Chalerm wore the uniform of the fancy Thai school that replaced the old Singapore Institute after the British were expelled. His head was shaven, and his shirt had been deliberately left untucked. He palmed the casing he'd asked for as part of his fee; “Kiet”, he'd named it. “Honour” in Thai. He reached out to shake hands with his new boss, but she merely nodded at him.

“Chalerm, your first time for me right? Don't fuck up.”

Chalerm grinned and chuckled. “Can, boss. Can. This spider,” he flourished, “I catch myself. Put in my special container. Confirm win.”

~*~

Dai Ji heard the knocks. Thrice, twice, then thrice again. She checked her watch. It was one-fifty. Someone was just in time. She returned the pattern with a chair-leg, tapping sharply against the metal of the hatch, and then tapped twice. The almost-latecomer repeated the pattern, and Dai Ji reached out to open the padlock. The lock slithered open as she pulled its threads aside, and a lean, sweaty Chinese boy eagerly clambered up. She scowled.

“Oi, Rotan. What time already?”

“Dai Ji, one fifty only! Still got time lah.”

Dai Ji sighed and waved him in, watching him disappear into the crowd. Towgey was running from one person to the next collecting bets. The first half's fighters were gathered in the middle of a circle of children and teenagers, parading their casings. There was a couple, two young Nanyang Forces officers on home leave; Chai, the cocky fifteen-year-old with a tiny, badly-done dragon tattoo under his left armpit; Margaret, the Eurasian convent-school girl who wore a jacket, even in the heat, to cover up her pinafore; and Aminah, who helped Shape Ridzuan's spider-containers and was pretty handy with casings herself. The match-list drawn up on the board pitted Chalerm's “Kiet” against Margaret's “High Spirits” as the first match of the day. Kiet was heavy and energy-hungry, but fast and optimized for short, fluid movements. High Spirits, in contrast, was light, slim and covered in cockroach-based sensor hairs, designed to outlast its opponents and whittle them down.

Dai Ji checked her watch, then rang a bell. The circle quietened as the Chong twins brought out a large folding table from behind a cistern and opened it in the middle. Chalk lines drawn breadthwise marked the distance from the centre, and two chalked semi-circles on either end were labelled “spider here” in Chinese, Thai and Jawi. A cardboard barrier down the middle shielded each side from view of the other. Chalerm and Margaret laid their empty casings in their semi-circles.

Kiet opened with a pneumatic hiss at the touch of Chalerm's hand. Chalerm removed a container from his bag, a jam jar with holes in the top nestled within a slightly larger jam jar filled with water and sealed with waterproof skinfilm. The spider inside seemed rather lethargic as Chalerm tapped it out into his hand, but livened the moment it touched the warmth of his skin. Blowing gently, he coaxed it onto the spongy padding in the casing's head. It stopped moving as the padding enveloped it. Kiet's lateral lines, lifted directly off a mackerel, iridesced blue and green as it stirred. Chalerm stroked its abdomen, feeling the threads fold in around the spider and its mind settle into the casing's circuits, and it raised its forelegs in response. Taking a small phial of sugared water and a needle from Towgey, he pricked his finger, squeezed a drop of blood into the phial and poured the mixture onto the padding. Across the table, High Spirits was fuelled up and ready to go, with one of Margaret's favourite spiders inside and preening itself with a hairy foreleg. Chalerm tapped Kiet's head, and it hissed closed.

Dai Ji made one last call for bets. A small group of Malay children, no older than ten, ran to Towgey with a total of five dollars between them to put on Aminah for later. Towgey looked around briefly, saw nobody else and nodded at Dai Ji. She announced the contestants and their casings, then rang the bell. The two challengers stepped away from their corners. She rang the bell twice again, and the barrier was lifted.

~*~

Kiet and High Spirits spotted each other immediately and threw up their forelegs. Kiet strode towards the centre in smooth, measured steps, waggling its abdomen in the air, and tapping its long, thick forelegs on the ground. High Spirits made a zigzagging advance, darting from side to side, and suddenly leapt forward when less than a chi remained between the two; Kiet thrust its face forward to meet the charge, clinching High Spirits' fangs with its own before the latter could dart back. Dai Ji stole a glance at Margaret, whose lips were tightly pursed. As High Spirits attempted to jump, Kiet snapped its forelegs shut around its pedicel and tugged in the opposite direction. There was a small crack, and High Spirits' second left leg fell off. Steam puffed from the wound as it sealed itself, but High Spirits was already in motion, leaping not against the pull, but into it.

Kiet reared up onto its hind legs, balancing against the push. Its chin resting on High Spirits' fangs, it marched forward on its third and fourth pairs of legs, forcing High Spirits to support its weight while pinning its jaws open. High Spirits' fangs were stuck in Kiet's chin, trapped in the tough carapace. It wrenched its body, trying to topple Kiet, but the heavier spider shifted its weight in time with its opponent's movements. Both spiders staggered around the arena, searching for a weakness.

The crowd was shouting; most of them had bet on Margaret's seasoned spider trouncing the new tester who had paired Dai Ji's casing with a spider unused to it. The few who had bet on Chalerm were cheering loudly. High Spirits' fourth left leg snapped and buckled, and it slipped. Taking advantage of the situation, it pushed off to the left with its right legs, sliding free of Kiet. It was leaking steam in a few places, its carapace cracked and its fourth left leg dragging uselessly on the ground. It retreated, hampered by the damage, towards the side of the table. Kiet waited, forelegs open, in the middle, as its defeated opponent surrendered. Chalerm glanced at Margaret, his mouth curling into an apologetic smile.

As High Spirits crawled under the table, Dai Ji rang the bell. The cardboard barrier was lowered. Chalerm and Margaret retrieved their casings and bowed to each other before switching them off. Margaret opened her casing and gently shook her spider free; it limped around uncertainly for a moment, then hopped with glee back into its box. The sugar water drained out of High Spirits' rear end in a thin line onto the ground. Kiet's reserves were almost dry; with a little prompting, there was a brief stream, then nothing. Chalerm's spider slipped back into its jar, where it curled up in its leaf. The fight was over.

~*~

As Towgey distributed the winnings, Rotan sighed. He looked at his new casing, Heavy Jumper. Its neural circuits, built from scavenged chicken heads and the brain of a macaque that he'd found killed by a roadwalker, sang at his touch, but he didn't know if their construction was anywhere close to Kiet's in complexity. If he managed to win enough, he'd save up for one of Dai Ji's casings.

The air roared. Rotan felt a wave of heat wash across his back, and he almost dropped Heavy Jumper in surprise. He ran to the edge of the roof, peering over to see what had happened; below him, the wet market had caught fire. A plume of dark smoke was rising from a crater in the ground, where the butcher once was. Several shop-carts close to the explosion had been shredded, their contents scattered burning on the ground together with the bodies of several shopkeepers, while the survivors fled the burning market on foot. Already, the Nanyang Fire Corps' sirens were wailing, and their red, armoured elephantines thundered out of the nearby Jurong District Fire Station.

Rotan screamed in Malay, “Bomb! Bomb! Downstairs got bomb explode! Run!”

~*~

Five seconds after the blast, Dai Ji was already in motion.

The rooftop access hatch was wide open, lock smashed by the twin officers. She skittered across the rooftop on her walking-chair, looking for her crew. She sent Ridzuan to watch the hatch and keep people moving in an orderly fashion, and then jabbed Towgey, cowering on the floor, with a chair leg. She shouted just to be heard. “Go! Help them get out!”

Dai Ji grabbed Chalerm and Margaret, who were standing shell-shocked, and shoved them towards the exit. Rotan ran past her, a pale-faced Chai clinging tightly to his hand, while Aminah led the crowd of Malay children who had bet on her ahead. Towgey picked kids older than he was off the ground, sending them scurrying for the access hatch. The crew who laid out the table were busy folding it up and keeping it behind the cistern. Dai Ji ran past them with a curt nod. She found a boy, barely seven, hiding behind a vent, and screamed at him.

“Want to die is it? Then? Don't hide here, go! Go!”

Her fury shook the little boy out of his fear, and he ran. She made a final tour of the rooftop before heading for the hatch herself. Her walking-chair reclined all the way back as its legs latched on to the rungs of the metal ladder; she descended vertically, strapped in, into the top floor of the Reconstruction Trust block.

Forty-odd children, young men and women waited in the lobby. Dai Ji looked at them, and they looked back expectantly. She shouted, “Oi! Stand here for what?”

The crowd scattered, heading down the stairs. Dai Ji waited until they had gone before she began to make her way down. Her chair-legs quivered slightly; noticing this, she focused, steadied her grip on the threads of the walking-chair's brain and forced it down the stairwell.

[III]

Dai Ji sat in her room. Her homework lay blank in front of her. Mathematics, Chulalongkorn-Ministry of Education Joint Advanced Level. Normally it would have been done by now, but she had merely scratched the paper with her pen. Her radio played the latest chart-toppers from China and the Sultanates. The Nanyang band Gwei Ngeow was on, and the crisp guitars dislodged her.

There had been military men at the wet market after the blast. She had seen them as a pair of medics looked her over. Police officers, manning the cordon in their neat brown fatigues, had waved them through. They had been unarmed, but wore thick, segmented armour with the Nanyang insignia but without a unit crest. They picked through the remains of the butcher stall, fishing out a rodentlike which leaked green fluid. Dai Ji saw two of them pass an organic wand over it, and then drop it into a skinfilm bag. They lifted a large, red object out from beneath the rubble and attempted to transfer it into a second bag. It was slippery; one of them dropped it on the floor, and it shattered, spilling grey matter and green fluid. Dai Ji turned away to vomit. A medic caught it in a bucket and wiped her mouth with a clean cloth. She watched a team of medics load body after body into an ambulance; later, she learned that there were twenty-seven dead, the bomber included.