CHAPTER 78: 78

"Wow! This thing is ancient!"

"I know! I’m shocked it still works."

"Same..." Xu Yidi adjusted his glasses as he looked hard at the ports of the decade old smartphone. "I miss headphone jacks."

"Same..." Commiserated Misha.

The pair looked a moment longer then were interrupted but a small snake girl sitting down at the table with a tray. There were two cups of tea on it, or at least, there had been before all the tea got sloshed out.

"Careful!" exclaimed Misha, but Yidi had a surprisingly quickly reaction time and lifted the phone out of harm’s way.

"Sorry..." said little Gou Wun.

"It’s okay," replied Misha. "Did your mother ask you to bring these?" he then asked, indicating the former cups of tea.

Gou Wun nodded enthusiastically.

"That’s very kind of you," Misha added. "Can you find a piece of cloth to help dry this off?"

The little snake girl beamed then scampered off and returned moments later with said cloth. Misha thanked her again and cleaned up.

Once everything was settled again, Misha and Yidi got back down to business: getting Bran’s old smartphone linked up to Shengnü.

"Do you have the Wi-Fi password?" asked Yidi.

"Nope."

"Okay. I’ll hotspot you over to my phone first then..."

They were back in the dining hall again but it was between meals and so empty and ready to host nerdy discussions. They’d already debated the possibility of getting Shengnü running on such an old bit of hardware so the only thing was to actually try it.

"You said this is Bran’s old phone, right?" said Yidi as he plugged in a micro-USB cable into the bottom of the phone then the other end into his laptop.

"Yeah," replied Misha.

"You two seem close. Maybe later you’ll wear each other’s clothes."

"I already wear Bran’s clothes."

Yidi laughed. "Forget I said anything then. Okay, here we go." He used the command line to navigate into the memory of the phone.

"What’s that program for?" asked Misha as Yidi started a progress bar.

"Oh, just a little thing to check if the software is compatible," Yidi replied.

"If it’s not, can we upgrade the firmware of the phone?" Misha asked.

"Hmm... We can try, but I’m not entirely sure. Have you backed its contents up yet?"

"No. Can you help me do that?"

"No problem." A file explorer window opened and a few more new progress bars flashed across the screen. "Done."

"Thank you."

"You are welcome." Yidi pushed the laptop and phone further in to the table and sat back. "Now we just have to wait."

"What’s the ETA?"

"At least an hour."

"That long?!"

"I’m surprised it’s not longer."

"True..."

Misha stared at the screen of the laptop. The single remaining progress bar blinked and moved about a single pixel. He glanced at Yidi next to him.

"Hey, Yidi," he said. "What does the SSD know about the Hundun?"

Yidi was questing about in the near empty tea cup for more tea and choked. "Where’d you hear that name from?"

Misha shrugged. "Around," he said. "Aunt Yeung. Gou Ngaam," he added in a quieter voice.

Yidi looked uncomfortable.

"Is it confidential?" asked Misha.

"It’s, well, it is, but I can tell you, the file is really small," replied Yidi. "The SSD technically hadn’t even started operating when the sealing operation on the Hundun took place..." He suddenly clapped a hand to his mouth.

Misha chuckled. "Don’t worry. I’m not fishing for information. Actually..." He made a little show of looking around the empty room to see if anyone was listening, "I might be able to help you get some information."

Yidi leaned in. "What do you mean?" He had a gleam to his eye that Misha thought looked promising.

"You remember Zhan?" he asked.

"Zhan? You mean, that kid Yeung Serng Yin squashed earlier?"

"The very one. Now, I know where he is right now, well, roughly, and I want to ask him a few questions. The problem is, Cheungyi is guarding the entrance, but if-"

"I help you get past-"

"I can try needling him for information that the SSD wants. Just give me a list and I’ll get it done."

Yidi sat back, arms folded as he regarded Misha. "Why?" was his simple question.

"Why do I want to talk to him?" asked Misha.

"Why do you want to team up with the SSD," clarified Yidi.

Misha had been hoping Yidi would immediately jump on the opportunity and not consider the ’why’ but such was life. He smiled to himself. It was probably better this way. Better to have smart people on your side who can point out how things can go wrong than stupid people who’ll only say ’yes’.

"I don’t agree with how Whale Toes is doing things," said Misha plainly. "I’m not doubting their motivations, but I think that being so secretive is going to end up making things hard to achieve."

"To rescue Bran."

"Right." Misha looked at the progress bar on the laptop. It was almost half way. "And I think... the SSD would probably benefit from more transparency."

Yidi was quiet for a moment then he unfolded his arms. "You’re completely right," he said. "Whale Toes has a long history of being forced to do things secretly, so it’s understandable why they’re like this, but..."

"Yeah." Misha turned to Yidi and held out a hand. "So... deal?"

Yidi took his hand. "Deal."

--

Bran walked slowly through the open doors of the offices and peered behind each column of cardboard boxes that formed ant hills just about everywhere. He was starting to really wonder about those boxes. Did the people who work here put them here because they were moving in or because they were moving out? He’d opened a few and found them to all be stationary. Who needed that much stationary?

He finished checking behind the last stack then moved to the next office.

He heard the sound of small shuffling feet which made him smile. Carefully, making sure not to scare away his quarry, he slowly made his way around the first stack and...

"Found you."

"Ah!" shouted the little boy, falling over. He quickly got up again then grinned. "You’re so good at this!"

"I have practice," replied Bran. "Alright, can you tell me your name now?"

The little boy pouted then nodded. "My name is Mikhail," he said in a clear voice. The name came as a surprise to Bran as he’d been assuming the illusion would be called Misha. Then again, from what he could remember, Misha was a diminutive of Mikhail, so perhaps it still worked out.

"Okay, Mikhail. What are you doing here? Where are your parents?" asked Bran.

Mikhail planted his hands on his tiny hips. "That’s two questions. So you need to play..." His voice trailed off as he attempted the arithmetic.

"Two more rounds?" Bran offered.

"Yes!"

Bran crouched down on the ground so that he was at eye level with little Mikhail. "How about you tell me what you’re doing here first, then I’ll play two rounds with you?"

Mikhail’s mouth twisted as he considered this option. "But that’s the same as before," he pointed out.

"No, I’m going to play an extra round with you. One question, two rounds. If I ask another question, then that will be another two rounds."

"So that’s..."

"Double the rounds."

Mikhail’s mouth widened into a very wide smile. "Okay! What I’m doing is..." His voice trailed off and Bran half feared that he wasn’t going to get an answer when the child suddenly looked to the door. "Mummy’s here!"

He rushed out the door and Bran rose and followed behind him.

"Mummy!" shouted Mikhail with glee.

Bran stood by the door and watched as the child ran past him then gasped.

Down the corridor was a giant mass of flesh and eyeballs slowly advanced, squelching as its massive size struggled to fit into the narrow space.

"Mummy, I made a new friend today!" gabbed Mikhail in front of the Nameless Beast. "See?" He pointed.

The vacant eyes of the monster quivered then slowly rotated to all focus on Bran.

"His name is Bran! He’s here to set us free!"

Bran woke with a start. He was lying face up on the sofa, heart racing and blanket slick with his own sweat.

He shivered and threw the cloth from him and got up, eyes darting around the room. There was no monster, no eyes, and no little boy.

He shut his eyes and forced himself to breath normally. After a few moments, he opened his eyes again.

Had all that earlier been a dream, not an illusion? His eyes settled on the cardboard boxes stacked around him. They’d looked exactly the same earlier.

Carefully, he got up onto the sofa and checked the top of the closest stack. The box, while orientated the same way as the one earlier, had an intact swath of tape holding it closed. Bran considered things for a moment, then picked at the tape with his fingers and got the box open.

Just like last time, the box contained stationary and he dropped the pens back into the box feeling a little disappointed then noticed that not all of the box was relegated to pens. There was one section full of box cutters.

Immediately, Bran popped open the smaller box and pulled one out. It was a flimsy looking thing but the blade looked sharp enough. He clicked the blade back inside and slipped it into his pocket. Flimsy or not, a blade was a blade and he was good with those.

Feeling energised, Bran dropped down off the sofa and headed to the door.