Chapter 86

Chapter 86: 86 Zhan’s words hung in the air and we continued our slow descent of the mountain in silence. It wasn’t exactly a companionable silence, but it was at least one that let me think things over. From what I could tell, it seemed like Zhan was saying that my belief that I am a dragon is what is limiting what I can do, but that couldn’t be right. If it was, surely you or your Aunt or Gou Ngaam would have told me. You all knew both English and Chinese and I was pretty sure you all knew about the concessions translators had made in their work. And yet, while I found it hard to believe his words, there was something inside me that told me that it was true, but how could it be? I watched as a small bird flew high up above the green canopy then darted down and disappeared into the brush. In the air, it was unmistakable, yet as soon as it had some vegetation behind it, it became impossible to see. Perspective, context, perhaps that’s what this was really about, I started to think. Aunt Yeung and Gou Ngaam were natives to this place, so for them ’dragon’ meant loong. For you, since you’d grown up here, it was likely the same. None of you thought to tell me about this problem because you couldn’t see the problem because you didn’t have the problem. But for me it was different. I was a loong, yes, but I’d been raised in the West and the concept of a ’dragon’ was inextricably moulded by that, making anything connected to it inevitably affected by it. Perhaps Zhan was right. "That person on the phone, is she a colleague of Yidi’s?" asked Zhan, shaking me from my thoughts. "Huh, oh, yeah, Tuesday," I replied. I noted the casual use of just Xu Yidi’s first name but chose not to comment. "I have no idea what she was calling about. Seemed important though." Some leaves slid away from under me and I grabbed at the low hanging branch nearby to stop myself from falling. I was really starting to consider if I should do the whole dragon, I mean loong, thing and just forget about giving you the first ride when Zhan spoke again. "I think I might know why she called," said Zhan. "Eh?" I slid forward again and Zhan raised an arm to grab me back. "Remember the deal?" he asked after I’d steadied myself. "You help me with my goal and I tell you what you want to know, well, here’s what you want to know, or at least, what I know." I looked at him and he looked back at me. He was actually being reasonable. "I remember." "Good." He started walking again and I followed. "What do you want to know?" It was understandably overwhelming to suddenly be given so much power, but I forced myself to keep to my priorities. "Where is Bran?" I asked. "I can’t be exactly sure," was Zhan’s reply, "But Morgan should have brought him back to The Unity headquarters." "Unity? Wait, you work for a game developer?" That was an unexpected turn. "Game developer? No, ’The Unity’, not just ’Unity’." "Have you been sued about the name?" Zhan glared at me then turned back to focus on pushing through an especially thorny bit of brush. "I didn’t name the organisation, okay?" "Why’s it called that though?" I asked, following in his wake and hoping we’d not look too weird once we arrived back in civilisation. "For the Unity of Mankind," said Zhan airily. "It’s some ideology the top guys have. I don’t really get it." "So... The Unity is... a religion?" This was beginning to sound more and more like an anime. "Not a religion, not officially anyway, but not totally not a religion either? I don’t really get it, so I’m not the best person to explain it." "Okay. So what does The Unity do?" "Before today, not much, but..." Zhan looked up at the sky. "It should be past twelve now. So, my guess, is that right now The Unity is the hottest trending topic in tech. That phone call," he raised an eyebrow toward the phone still held in my hand, "was the SSD freaking out about the presentation." "Why? What is The Unity presenting?" "Physical computing. Magic for the masses." Had Zhan been someone else and I hadn’t been on this rollercoaster of a ride since coming to Pearl City, I’d have naturally assumed those words to just be marketing buzz words, you know, the kind to appeal to venture capitalists with too much money and time on their hands, but since that wasn’t the case, I took them seriously. And by that, I mean I was shocked. "You mean... The Unity is... What? Selling magic? Bottling magic?" Yes, I was shocked, but I was also very very curious. "How does that work?" "They’ve developed some like... special paper and a mini printer and a phone app or something where you put what you want the spell to do into the phone and it’ll print out the spell on the paper then you can directly use it. I don’t really know how it works though." "I feel like you don’t seem to know much in general..." "Shut up. I just... work in a different department. Problem solving, that kind of thing," said Zhan hotly, though I could from his reaction that I was actually right. "You’re a fixer," I offered, hoping to placate him enough to be able to ask more questions. Zhan thought over the word a moment then nodded. It was an acceptable description. "So... why did you want to capture me?" I ask. "Or do you still want to capture me?" Zhan waved a dismissive hand. "No need. Morgan’s got Bran, so we don’t need to grab you anymore." "How’s that?" I asked as we finally hit a flat bit of land. From the sounds of traffic we were probably about ten minutes away from civilisation. "You know how spells work, right?" "Inscription, medium, power source," I immediately replied. "Right, well, The Unity’s product has the inscription and medium covered, but-" "You want me to become the power source," I finished. "Something like that. Again, I’m just a fixer," Zhan said with a shrug. I didn’t push the point, couldn’t really. Those words, while simple, had triggered a cascade of thoughts in my head, though the one at the top was the confirmation that my father really had meant to harm me. No, not just harm me, but to... to harvest me, use me like a battery. The thought made my stomach feel both sick and cold and for a while I just followed Zhan in silence. "What about Bran?" I finally asked. "He’s not a dragon. He’s just a human. He shouldn’t be a good source of power, right?" Every fantasy story puts the power level of humans pretty low afterall. "No, he’s not going to be a power source, but he’s still going to fix that problem," replied Zhan. "As to how... I really have no idea. You’d have to ask someone else." On one hand I was overwhelmed with all this new information Zhan had given me, yet on the other, I was also finding myself disappointed that he didn’t know more. I’d kind of been assuming that cracking him would ’solve the case’, so to speak. So I decided to ask the one question closest to my heart. "Ling... is she alive?" Zhan clearly hadn’t been expecting that. He tripped on a bit of root and I quickly grabbed his arm. "You know Ling?" he asked as he steadied himself and I let him go. "Uh, kind of," I said. "She’s my mother." Or, at least, I thought she was. Who knew whether that was still the case. "Your... Okay, that makes things a bit awkward then." I couldn’t help chuckling at that. "So, she’s alive?" "Last I saw." "And she... wants to capture me too?" Zhan didn’t immediately reply. "Your family’s messed up," he finally said. "Yeah." I eyed him. "So is yours though." He shrugged. "I guess that’s just how life is." I guess that’s just how life is. Such simple words but they captured for me something I’d been trying to put my finger on since coming back to Pearl City. Life is complicated and yet the standards or stories or just descriptions we have for how things are supposed to go are so much simpler. You’re supposed to be born into a two parent family, one man, one woman, then you have a nice childhood, grow up, go to school, go to university, get a job, and on and on and on - but really, who has that kind of life? I used to feel quite bad when I looked at my life and saw all the ways where it didn’t conform to ’the narrative’, but now I know that any description, any standard, is always going to be far simpler and far less realistic than real life. Real life is messy and that’s just how it is.