Lian sat by the edge, knees drawn in, her hair slick against her cheek. The bandage on her arm was already soaked through, but she didn’t bother to change it.
Kai crouched a few feet away, the glow of his laptop lighting his face. His wet hoodie clung to him, and steam rose faintly from the device as rain hissed against the keys.
“You should come inside,” Lian said, not turning. Her voice was even, as if she were simply stating a fact.
“You’ll fry that thing.”
Kai didn’t look up. “The fan’s holding. I’ll be fine.”
Lian finally stood and walked over. She stopped just behind him, arms crossed. “How bad?”
Kai exhaled through his nose. “Whoever this belongs to didn’t want anyone touching it.”
“Can you break it?”
“I can try.” He hesitated. “But it’s going to take time.”
She nodded and knelt beside him.
“I didn’t think he’d have something like this,” Kai murmured. “A trafficker. He’s supposed to be low-end.”
Lian brushed water off her shoulder. “Low-end people don’t last long. Someone was paying him to move information.”
“You think LSK?”
“I think we stop guessing and wait until it opens.”
She said it simply, but Kai heard the fatigue underneath. Her eyes looked older in this light. She didn’t sleep much. He knew she wouldn’t tonight either.
He saved the decryption process and closed the laptop. “We need dry power. The backup cell’s dead.”
“There’s a storage room below. Mei said it’s empty.”
“Mei’s definition of empty worries me.”
Lian gave a short smile.
They climbed down into the stairwell, water dripping through cracked cement. The building smelled of mold and rust. Inside, old desks were piled against the wall, tangled wires scattered across the floor.
Kai found a power strip that looked half-burned but functional. He plugged in the portable cell and crouched beside it, watching the tiny light blink red. “Two hours,” he said. “Maybe less.”
Lian sank onto a crate and stretched her leg out. Her boots left a dark mark on the concrete. “You did good.”
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Kai looked up, uncertain she was serious. “We almost died.”
“Almost doesn’t count.”
He smirked. “You’re starting to sound like Dad.”
That earned him a look. Not angry—more like she was measuring whether to reply. She didn’t.
Lian leaned back, her eyes closing for the first time that night. “Do you remember when we used to come to the docks? The old ones, not Kowloon. Before everything.”
Kai thought for a second. “Yeah. You always made me count the ships. You said if I lost track, I’d lose my share of the candy.”
“You were terrible at counting.”
“I was six.”
She smiled faintly. “You were stubborn at six.”
He laughed under his breath. “You were worse.”
The air in the room shifted a little after that. They didn’t talk about the past much. The present was heavy enough.
Two hours passed like that. Kai worked while Lian cleaned her knife. When the cell finally blinked green, he opened the laptop again. The decryption bar had advanced to ninety-seven percent.
Lian came to stand behind him. “That was faster than expected.”
“Maybe they used a local key,” Kai said. “Whoever encoded this wanted it to be read by someone nearby.”
“Or wanted to make us think that.”
He didn’t answer. The screen flashed. Then a window opened but one line drew their eyes immediately: Contract_Alpha.LSK.
Lian leaned closer. “Open it.”
He did. The file was text-based, a list of numbers, payment entries, and two initials beside each name. Most of it looked meaningless. But at the top, above all the columns, was a timestamp and a client tag.
“‘LSK Operations — Tier 3 Clearance,’” Kai read aloud.
The room seemed smaller now. The air heavier.
“This confirms it,” Lian said. “He was working under their payroll.”
Kai scrolled through. “There’s a name attached or a code. Something like HKS-4. Looks like a handler ID.”
“Can you trace it?”
“I can try. But we’ll need a connection, and if I do it wrong, they’ll see me.”
Lian straightened. “Then we do it somewhere else.”
He glanced up. “Where?”
“Mei has a safe line near Sheung Wan. She said she could patch it through an old telecom relay.”
Kai frowned. “That’s across the harbor.”
“Then we move at dawn.”
He looked at her, hesitant. “You think she’s still there?”
“She said she doesn’t leave until she gets paid.”
He smiled faintly. “Sounds like Mei.”
Lian gathered their things, wrapping the data shard in cloth before tucking it into her vest.
As they left the room, Kai stopped at the door. “Lian.”
She turned. “What?”
“You ever wonder why it’s always raining here?”
She blinked, surprised by the question. “Because it’s Hong Kong.”
“No, I mean—really raining. Like it never stops.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Maybe the city’s trying to wash itself clean.”
Kai looked out the stairwell window where the streetlights flickered through the downpour. “Seems like it’s not working.”
“Then it’s not trying hard enough.”
Her tone carried no edge, only a simple truth. She started down the stairs. Kai followed, his steps quiet behind her.
Outside, the rain greeted them again, cool against skin still raw from the night before. The city hadn’t changed much.
