Future Quake

Chinatown was huge; it actually encompassed a whole bunch of neighborhoods.

Old Wang lived on Mott Street, which was more or less the center of Chinatown.

Not long after he stepped outside, he spotted a rusty old van that was practically ready for the scrapyard. A pretty head of wavy blond hair poked out. "Wang, over here! Get in!"

This wasn't a kindergarten bus, so he wasn't getting on... Old Wang shrugged, gave a light leap, and slipped inside.

"I really envy your beautiful moves," Skye said in clumsy Chinese.

Though she was half Chinese and half American, she had grown up in the United States and didn't know Chinese at all.

Everything she was learning now was picked up after meeting Old Wang.

And Old Wang had talked her into it.

Skye was an orphan. She had been abandoned at an orphanage as a child. This year, she was nineteen, exactly one year older than Old Wang. She had gone to school and dropped out, and anyone who got close to her ended up unlucky—a true "lone star of misfortune," complete with a "bad luck aura."

She was independent, confident, stubborn, cheerful, sociable, and especially skilled at hacking. It was both how she made a living and a way to search for her parents—

Being abandoned as a child was an eternal pain in her heart.

She wanted to find them and ask why they had abandoned her.

Was I not lovable?

Did I eat too much?

Did I... bring you trouble?

She had kept working toward that dream until she met Old Wang.

Three years ago, a white girl had pursued Old Wang. A few black guys who were after the girl got angry and tried to teach Old Wang a lesson in the middle of the night, only to get taught a lesson by him instead. They spent over a month in bed recovering. The white girl was so scared that she avoided Old Wang whenever she saw him, and if she couldn't avoid him, she pretended not to know him.

It hadn't been a big deal. That girl wasn't even pretty.

The key was that Skye, who had run away and was living on the streets, saw it happen.

At that moment, Skye was utterly awestruck.

Because she had no parents, she was often bullied at school and outside. With her outgoing personality, she quickly got familiar with him and went up to ask Old Wang to teach her martial arts so she could protect herself after learning them.

After learning that she was the future Quake, Old Wang agreed without a second word. He also told her that since she was half Chinese and half American, either her father or mother had to be Chinese, so she needed to learn Chinese. Otherwise, how would she find them?

And so Skye became Old Wang's student.

Skye had originally wanted to teach Old Wang hacking as payment, but after two days of learning, his head hurt. His intelligence was limited; he simply couldn't learn it!

Besides, there were other ways to repay him.

After they had spent a few days together, Old Wang asked Skye to help him find the Heart of Azeroth.

He had assumed that with Skye's skills, it would take no more than a few days to find it.

Unexpectedly, it took three whole years.

"Practice hard, and you can do it too."

Old Wang looked around and frowned. "Ke Ying, you've had this van for a year, right? It was already over a decade old when you bought it, wasn't it? If you parked this by the roadside unattended, sanitation workers might mistake it for trash and toss it into a dumpster!"

"Try asking a sanitation worker to throw it away! What dumpster could even fit it? And this isn't a van. This is my mobile office. Buying it and modifying it cost me ten thousand dollars altogether... Fine, it's a van. It's also my home."

Skye argued back, then her mood sank. She shot Old Wang a vicious glare. "I'm warning you: if you call me 'Chloe Wang' again, I'll send your information to S.H.I.E.L.D. and have Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. come after you! And money! Money! Money! I need to make money! I need to support myself! Do you know how long I spent looking for it? How many chances to make money I missed?"

"I haven't killed anyone or set anything on fire. S.H.I.E.L.D. has to follow the law, doesn't it? Fine, fine, the law serves the rich. You don't need to lecture me."

Old Wang automatically ignored the main point of Skye's words. He leaned over and took a deep sniff by the beauty's shoulder. Before Skye could get angry, he put on a stern face and stared at the laptop with utmost seriousness. "Stop messing around. Let's talk business."

"There were no surveillance cameras eighteen years ago. They only started becoming widespread in recent years, and this happened too long ago. It really wasn't easy."

Skye sighed. She certainly wasn't going to admit that her skills had been lacking before. Now that she had joined Rising Tide, her hacking skills had skyrocketed, and with help from other members, she had finally found that necklace.

"Thanks for your hard work." Old Wang was distracted as he placed both hands on Skye's shoulders and kneaded them. "Shoulder massage, back rub, cupping—the full service. Want it?"

"I want it, I want it, I want it all!"

Skye snorted. "The one who stole your necklace eighteen years ago was Chen Tian, a repeat offender from your Chinatown. Chen Tian sold the necklace to Li Xuan, who ran a gold shop. Li Xuan owed gambling debts, so he mortgaged the gold shop to Lu Han from the Chinese Gang. Seven years ago, Lu Han was beaten to death, and the necklace was taken by a man named Sun Yaoyuan, who sold it to—"

"Get to the result." Old Wang's head hurt from listening, and his hands pressed down a little harder.

"Ow, ow, ow! Lighter! The first few are all dead, for various reasons. The necklace is in the hands of the Fifth Street Gang in Los Angeles." Skye clicked her mouse, enlarging a profile picture of a black man who looked incredibly muscular.

"Peter, the Fifth Street Gang's second-in-command." Skye moved the mouse again, and a window popped up with detailed information.

"Los Angeles?" Old Wang was troubled now. "That's a bit far!"

The travel costs would be expensive.

Besides, the name Fifth Street Gang sounded familiar somehow.

"Crossing the entire United States, and you have enough money for a round-trip flight."

Skye closed her laptop and made a gesture toward the door. "I sent you the information. You can get out now. You know my bank account number. Remember to transfer the money!"

"You want me to get out after I got in? What do you think this is, a kindergarten bus? Besides, I only know how to transfer money in games. I don't know how to transfer it to a bank account!"

Old Wang shifted into a more comfortable position and snatched Skye's laptop. "What's the password? Is the game still on the D drive? You don't have any dirty movies, do you? Which teachers are in them?"

"I'm not going with you!"

Skye turned to face Old Wang, her expression extremely serious. "The Fifth Street Gang controls Fifth Street in Los Angeles. There are dozens of them. They have cars and guns, and they've got blood on their hands. I still need to stay alive to find my parents! I'm not like you. I'm a normal person, a nor-mal per-son!"

You're the abnormal one. Your whole family is abnormal, Old Wang grumbled inwardly.

The descendant of an Inhuman and a madman, the future Quake—how could she call herself normal?

Of course, he couldn't say that yet. Otherwise, there would be no way to explain it.

Old Wang opened the laptop, found "Happy Chick," and said while making it lay eggs, "I only have a thousand dollars. A round-trip flight would use it all up. How am I supposed to live afterward? And I'll still need you for intelligence work. Drive me there. I'll pay for gas. Otherwise, shall I treat you to a hotel room, dinner, shopping, and a movie?"

"The order is wrong... Get out!"

"No!"

"If you don't get out, I'm calling the police!"

"Then I'll tell the cops you're a hacker, that you provided technical support for last month's bank robbery, that you were involved in that major smuggling case the month before, and also that twenty years ago—"

"It wasn't me! You're lying! I didn't do it! I wasn't even born twenty years ago! If I had done that stuff, would I be driving this crappy van? I'd be driving Bumblebee!"

"That only matters if the police believe you! The police serve the rich. Do you have money?"

"You, I..."

"Do you want abilities like mine? Maybe even stronger ones?"

"Yes!"

"Help me this once, and I'll help you. How about it?"

"Deal!"

"Then go drive. I'm going to play games for a while."

"...Shouldn't we make a plan?"

"Didn't that Peter post the Heart of Azeroth online? Contact him. Say you're interested and arrange a place to trade!"

"And then?"

"Then we rob him! Are we really going to buy it? I don't have money!"

"Is that necklace really that important?"

"Of course. That's my Golden Finger!"

"Isn't it a necklace? How did it become a finger, and a golden one at that?"

"...It's a cheat!"

Story start time: 2008, before Iron Man 1 begins. The protagonist is eighteen, and Quake is nineteen.