Excerpt: Hong Kong SAR Contracts A Vapor Infestation, As Told By Homer Lou, The Director, And A Vapor

He had not been there for five minutes before nearly choking on his mocha because a Western man and a Western woman walked in together.

As in, the same Western man and Western woman he had been watching in the little courtyard-park-ish thing outside that space museum over on the east-ish side of Tsim Sha Tsui.

He hunched lower over his laptop, desperately hoping they wouldn't notice him. He probably could just leave, especially since while he was trying to sort out what buses to take and when, he didn't have to be doing that right at this second. But somehow he doubted that would help at all since hey, if they could fight that well, he was pretty sure they could notice a short little Asian man trying to make a quick exit.

He didn't look at them. Didn't so much as breathe in their direction.

He really, really hoped they wouldn't notice him. Them seeing him in the first place before had been embarrassing enough, but to land in the same really, really tiny restaurant? Really embarrassing is what it was, and not at all something he wanted to go through again. Once was bad enough, thank you.

They ordered their drinks, and he thought the woman also ordered a sandwich.

Not that he was listening.

He wasn't looking at them. That meant he wasn't listening, either.

Yeah, right. He heard them walk by, and hoped his turn in the other direction to check something in his bag was a good enough cover to not let them see his face. He ended up not taking anything out, and barely remembered to look annoyed in time to make it seem like he had forgotten something, should they be looking.

He wasn't sure if they were or not.

And that was what was killing him. At least in the park-ish thing he knew they had seen him, and thought it was funny that he was watching them, amazed by their sword-y prowess. Or thought he was stupid.

And why did it matter what they thought anyway?

A useless question. It always mattered, even if it didn't make a lick of sense.

So he pretended to be completely engrossed in centamap.com, making especially sure to use the Chinese language version even though his written Chinese wasn't that fantastic, at least not for this sort of thing. Fiction, he could handle with ease. Maps, not so much. But he hoped that the Chinese characters cemented the fact that "HEY I'M ASIAN" and made them think that he was staring at them before because they were Western (actually, this was much more likely then he would've thought a week ago).

And while he appeared to be carefully studying bus schedules (maybe they weren't familiar with Centamap and would think it was completely for something else?) he did not at all keep a careful ear out for what they were saying.

But just because he wasn't trying to hear doesn't mean he didn't end up hearing anyway.

“Sa, enyl se-usae tae, ffaesa tae’esesy na?” the woman inquired cheerfully, he thought, with a rising tone. What language was that? The bit before the “aysa” was particularly odd, sounding like a weird mix between an “h” and an “f” and the exaggerated sound you make when you breath out in cold air so you can see the mist from your mouth. He’d never heard anything like it before.

“Rynanae tae na?” the man replied, another question and that was all he could figure out.

“Sa, rairejeusae tae, ffena enyl sa tae! Ffena ladtod taeaikasete.” Ladtod. The way she said it, it sounded an awful lot like laptop. He really hoped she wasn’t pointing at him. There wasn’t any way for him to tell.

“Saaa, ffai ffena tae’esesy.”

Alright, that was it. He couldn’t take it anymore. As casually as physically possible, he packed up his laptop, drank the last drops of his mocha, and left.

He thought he heard laughing as he did.

---------------

What a boring day, she thought. Things were even quieter than usual, which wasn’t encouraging in the least. She had given Ere - Erin and James the day off, because quite honestly the those two are just stressed and, well, she needs them, and she needs them able to work and not just sit around and stare into space like they both do whenever they’re tired which by the way is really rather creepy, even for her, who - she is told - enjoys this activity quite a bit.

Perhaps they’re just not accustomed to quietness, to nothing-happening-ness, her and her house. She can’t say they’ve had a whole lot of experience with it, nothing and quiet and peaceful. Partly, anyway, there always seemed to be something that needed doing or helping or fighting.

It was odd to be in this sort of place. Where fighting isn’t normal. Not that she thought fighting should be normal or good, it’s just something that was. A normal fact of life. Someone attacked you, you attacked back. And people would attack you, of course, on account of things like house or race or allegiance.

Not good. Not bad. Just was.

And it just wasn’t here and it was just weird. It wasn’t even that it was good or bad - well, it was bad because killing someone meant you’d need to go to jail, but what some people don’t realize about fighting is that it doesn’t actually matter if you kill or hurt or even touch your opponent, it was all about the impression and intimidation and clear demonstration of skill was just more important and oftentimes few encounters even resulted in an actual fight and it was really more of stare-off but it didn’t work if you didn’t know what you were doing.

Which no one does here, and it drives her crazy. It drives them all crazy. These people walked around not knowing what could happen to them if they didn’t prepare but the problem was no one else prepares either so it didn’t matter but then what would happen if someone who did know what they were doing came along and it’s just terrifying. Not for her - she knows what she’s doing, better then anyone else - and not for Erin or James - they know what they’re doing, too, though not as much as she does - but for them.

Because if there’s one thing she and Erin and James do, they protect people, and protecting people is a whole lot easier when the people work a bit towards protecting themselves.

Why did they end up here anyway. James may be brilliant, brilliant beyond brilliant beyond brilliant, but he seriously screwed up here. Maybe even the most brilliant of brilliant of brilliant of brilliant people couldn’t anticipate everything, but the least he could’ve done was anticipate the worst.

Not that anyone had the vaguest idea what the worst could maybe be, but if anyone would’ve know it would’ve been James (or maybe Gauss, he’s incredibly brilliant as well, but he doesn’t participate in these sorts of things, so he doesn’t really count), and he didn’t and that just wasn’t great for any of their confidence.

Though it wasn’t that James didn’t feel bad about it. Both she and Erin had noticed how he worked harder, thought more, went off into his own world with shifting eyes like the flashes in Chuck or something and bursting out with mutters and scrambling for pen and paper. And so they all felt a bit bad for him, and no one really had any hard feelings, even though their job was even harder now then ever before, and they haven’t even figured out how to get home yet.

Well, if things were going to be this slow, she may as well get some work done.

Sa:

Asyd/Yff/Urusaed. Ffong Kong. Sydysaite Aserlath Seraff laesysaite tae.

And she shook her head. The problem with doing work was you needed something to do work about. Nothing had happened today so there wasn’t even anything to write about.

Maybe that was the downside of living in a society that normalized, that was, doing and fighting and intimidation and skill. You didn’t know how to do anything else and now that today there wasn’t any doing or fighting or intimidation or skill she really didn’t know what to do with herself. Maybe that was why Erin and James ran off with swords the first chance they got - though she was technically their boss, they were both older, far older than her, and knew a bit more about being outside and away from the doing and fighting and intimidation and skill.

They all knew power and this place just didn’t recognize actual power. They cared about items and things and money and influence without ever bothering to back it up with something real and they have no idea how close they are to completely slipping away in the wake of what she knew was far more real.

---------------

It smiled to itself, suppressing a laugh. Musn’t overplay its hand, it wasn’t time to let them know it was here, not yet.

But things were still going nicely, better then it expected considering what it was up against. It had never been up against her, it had certainly heard more then it ever wanted about her and what she was capable of.

But it had thought it was safe because not one of them had thought that even she was capable of making it over here, so far way from her base of operations. Even they could only communicate over such distances, so when did she find out how to actually travel, to handle things personally?

It must be the one they call their Surysaite. He knew of her cunning but she wasn’t that sort of cunning, she knew of people and living things, not questions of science and space and technology. The Surysaite, however... He was rumored to be quite brilliant, though perhaps insane in that light. They would have to keep an eye on him as well.

But that was something for the minions, who were currently scurrying around making mischief, as it had ordered.

It smiled. Things were going well, indeed.