Capitalist Airfares Are a Rip-Off

A yellow taxi stopped in front of them.

The window rolled down, and Slug poked half his head out. "Get in! Quick!"

Sing Sing took one look at the car, and his face darkened.

"You call this a pickup?"

"What did you want? A Hongqi motorcade and a gun salute? Getting a taxi that hasn't had its annual inspection was an achievement in itself!"

Sing Sing leaned in and looked around the cab. Old newspapers and chip bags littered the back seat.

"All right. Hard work and simple living are our fine tradition."

Riptide climbed into the back with Anton on his shoulder.

Lorna bent down and got in. The hem of her hospital gown slid up, exposing her long thighs.

Sing Sing rested his hand on the door and paused for half a second.

Lorna turned and stared at him. "Seen enough?"

"I was checking you for external injuries. Our work unit takes employee health very seriously."

"I haven't signed a contract yet."

"Prospective employees are employees too. Don't be so narrow-minded, Comrade Little Lorna."

"You just called me a spendthrift woman."

"That was a term of endearment. Our Chinese culture is vast and profound. You wouldn't understand."

Slug slapped the steering wheel. "You two, could you flirt somewhere safer? If we don't leave now, Stryker's men are going to put us in the ground!"

"Drive!"

The taxi shot forward as Slug hit the gas.

The car had just turned the corner when two black SUVs charged out from the other end of the street.

"They've caught up!"

Sing Sing glanced through the rear window. "Two cars, at least eight people!"

Riptide held the unconscious Anton tight. "I'll deal with them."

"Deal with them, my ass! You're injured, and your brother's still out cold. Spin around a couple more times and you'll throw up your stomach."

Lorna raised her hand, green light glimmering at her fingertips.

The hoods of the two SUVs behind them began to shake.

Sing Sing hurriedly stopped her. "Stop! I'll do it."

With a flick of his wrist, two fruit knives flew from his hands. Tires burst one after another.

Lorna looked at him. "Just how many things have you trained in?"

Sing Sing raised a hand to straighten his collar. "Not many. Slaughtering pigs, cutting meat, peeling apples, dodging city inspectors, submitting fake invoices."

"That last one counts as a skill too?"

"Of course. You'll understand when you join the work unit. Reimbursement is an art."

More than twenty minutes later, the taxi turned into an alley in Chinatown.

Slug parked behind a foot massage parlor. Its sign read "Fortune and Prosperity Wellness Center."

Lorna looked at the sign. "This is your secret base?"

"The tackier it is, the safer it is. Who'd think agents were hiding in a foot massage parlor?"

Sing Sing nodded. "Makes sense. Last time I hid at a pork stall, nobody checked there either."

"Is your organization really reliable?"

Sing Sing pushed the door open and went in. "Very reliable. Being down-to-earth is our specialty."

There wasn't much space inside.

A few old sofas stood in the front room, and a meridian chart hung on the wall.

Slug led them through to the back room and lifted a carpet, revealing a hidden basement door.

The basement actually looked the part.

There were two computers and several satellite phones, with a map of New York and several wanted photos on the wall.

A simple bed stood in the corner.

Riptide laid Anton on the bed.

Anton was still unconscious, his breathing steady.

Sing Sing reached out and felt his forehead. "No fever. He's stable for now."

Riptide's voice was hoarse. "Is he going to die?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"I rarely make guarantees." Sing Sing withdrew his hand. "But I promised to take you out of here, and I won't let your brother die in the United States."

Riptide lowered his head and said nothing more.

Slug rummaged through a wooden cabinet and pulled out a medical kit. "I've got medicine to stop bleeding, antibiotics, glucose, and two packets of isatis root."

Lorna couldn't help herself. "Can isatis root treat genetic rejection?"

"No, but drinking it puts your mind at ease."

Sing Sing gave him a thumbs-up. "That's the human touch of Eastern medicine."

Sing Sing sat down at a computer and opened a flight booking page.

"We're screwed."

Slug leaned over. "What's wrong?"

"Airfares to Beijing have gone up."

Lorna nearly crushed the corner of the desk. "We just escaped from Stryker's lab, and you're most worried about airfare?"

Sing Sing slapped the desk. "What do you know? Economy went from six hundred and eighty to twelve hundred! This is robbery! Capitalism really is a sea of suffering!"

Slug reminded him quietly, "You've got two wanted Mutants and an unconscious man. You can't get on a regular flight like that."

That was the real problem.

Riptide was wanted.

Lorna had just escaped from the lab. Her file was probably flagged all over the internet by now.

"Are there any smuggling boats?"

Slug shook his head.

"There is one, but it doesn't leave for another three days."

Seeing that they couldn't leave anytime soon, Sing Sing's eyes darted around as he thought of something else.

Sing Sing turned to Lorna. "Little Lorna, do you know anyone?"

Lorna froze.

"What do you mean?"

"Mutants. Ones on the run or having a hard time. Preferably ones who don't eat too much."

Sing Sing curled his fingers as he counted them off. "Moving bricks, fixing bridges, digging holes, generating electricity, cooling things down, dredging silt—it all works. The stranger the ability, the better."

Lorna pursed her lips. "You have a broad definition of strange."

"Of course. Toad's practically a model construction worker in Guizhou now. There are no useless abilities, only personnel officers who don't know how to assign jobs."

Lorna lowered her eyes, and a figure appeared in her mind.

But this person...

Seeing her reaction, Sing Sing perked up. "You do?"

Lorna said nothing.

Sing Sing pushed off the floor with both feet, sliding over to her in his chair. "Come on, tell me! Sex, age, ability, job preferences, and can they work overtime?"

Lorna raised a leg and braced it against the chair, stopping him from coming any closer.

As she stretched out her leg, her hospital gown slid up a little farther.

Sing Sing turned toward the meridian chart on the wall. "Ahem. See no evil, see no evil. I'm a respectable man."

Lorna snorted. "I do know a Mutant. A woman. Her ability is very unusual."

"How unusual?"

"Unusual enough that I don't want to talk about it."

Sing Sing got anxious on the spot. "How am I supposed to assess her for a job if you won't tell me? I need to build a candidate profile!"

"You'll understand when you meet her."

"Where is she?"

Lorna thought for a moment. "Before I was captured, she was in Chicago. She should still be somewhere around there."

"Chicago?" Sing Sing quickly opened the flight page.

The next second, he clutched his chest again.

"Flights from New York to Chicago have gone up too? These airlines are bastards!"

"If I save another hundred dollars, I can buy Old Mo ten jin of locusts when I get back."

Lorna looked at Riptide.

"Who's Old Mo?"

"Toad."

Lorna could hardly believe it, and her expression turned very strange.

She had always thought the agent named Stephen Chow was a somewhat capable madman.

Was there really a Mutant willing to go back with him?

"Is he really tightening bolts?"

Sing Sing took out his phone and pulled up photos of the construction site.

In one photo, Toad wore a hard hat, his face smeared with dust.

A group of workers stood around him, giving him thumbs-up.

In another, Toad held a bowl as big as a washbasin. His smile was ugly, but he looked very happy.

Lorna stared at the photos for a long time without speaking.

Riptide leaned over too.

Looking at Toad in the photos, he relaxed his shoulders a little.

That guy had always huddled in a corner back in the Brotherhood.

Nobody paid him any attention.

Nobody had really treated him as one of their own.

Now, in this photo, Toad sat among a crowd, with a piece of red paper stuck to his hard hat that read "Outstanding Tongue Worker."

Lorna handed the phone back to him.

"Can you really give us a life like that... where you're from?"

Sing Sing put away his playful grin. "I can't promise you'll be happy every day, or that nobody will talk behind your backs."

"But you'll have contracts, wages, food to eat, and a place to sleep."

"If anyone bullies you, I'll be the first to beat them up."

Lorna didn't respond, and the basement fell quiet for a while.

"Um..." Slug broke the silence. "Are you going to Chicago or not?"

Sing Sing stood up. "We're going."

Riptide rose. "I'll go with you."

"No." Sing Sing put a hand on his shoulder. "Your brother needs someone with him right now. You stay here."

"I owe you," Riptide said quietly.

"Don't give me that." Sing Sing waved a hand. "Once we're back home, just spin those wind turbines for me and slack off less."

Riptide frowned. "Spin wind turbines?"

"A wind power project. You'll be responsible for dealing with windless days."

Riptide: "..."

He suddenly felt that his former identity as a killing machine had been quite respectable.

Lorna picked up the jacket on the table and put it on.

It was a black leather jacket Slug had dug up somewhere. It was a little short, ending right at her waist.

"Keep staring and I'll charge you."

Sing Sing promptly reached into his pocket. "Can you issue an invoice?"

Lorna nearly lost it.

"Get lost."