“Slice the little girl’s arm off Boss!” Someone cheered in the background.

“YEAH! He killed forty of us that night!”

“An arm is cheap compared to the money we lost when he fucked us!”

“You know what Ted, you’re right, we lost three million credits that night, maybe we should take the little bitch’s arm off to send a message.”

Those words were met were glorious cheers, the ones you’d hear whenever a boundary was struck during a cricket match. It was loud and bombastic, further my desire to slit their throats one by one.

“No no.” Akatani said, tilting his head, scratching his ‘chin’. He then looked back towards the camera, flashing a grim smile. “Alright Cypher.” He said, face uncharacteristically cold. “I believe I’ve made my point. You know how serious I am. So listen up, if you want to see your wife and daughter again. Get to this address.”

A GPS Location immediately popped up on the phone’s screen. I then added it to my internal GPS signal and began following the white line. When I double-checked, the damn location was in someplace far worst compared to Farvont Bay.

Xiaohan, Silent-Dragon Territory.

◆◆◆

A cabbie brought me to the outskirts of Xiaohan. It was a short trip, about forty-five minutes through the skylanes. As the cabbie circled in the sky, I peered through the window, watching the lights below.

The majority of the lights down below were yellow and red, leaving a faint tinge of orange, as smoke trailed from the streets into the sky. It was like watching the smoke change colour one second after the other, with no real solidity to it.

The cabbie brought the car down on the far side of Xiaohan. A large face appeared to my right. A statute with fat cheeks and elongated ears with a pair of matching earrings. The statute was sitting down in the lotus position, with their hands clasped meditating.

A relic from the old world or a replica made in its likeness I should say. “The Living Buddha” was called, whoever that was. I didn’t know much about the Han, but I knew the first Reavers were Han men and women.

The Silent Dragons created the Reavers as an assassination squad to kill their rivals. They may have started the Reaver, but they didn’t perfect it. That was done by the corporations, adding cybernetic enhancements at will.

It was a cruel thing to do to any individual, but people needed to feed their families. Once you met the requirements, you were sold off, to become a Reaver.

The cabbie brought me to the side of the building, as the congestion of the air traffic was too much for him. I dropped from the cab, landing on the roof with a loud thud.

The bricks from the roof were brown but filled with grime which made them look grey. The scorching light of the Display screen beamed across the borough, shining light and information toward everyone. I hadn’t noticed that the building I chose to get off had a sign, as it was the wall on which the Display screen was on the other side.

I tried reading the screen displayed, but I knew nothing about Chinese, so I nodded as if knew what the characters meant, only to feel the furnace-like heat strike my entire right side, making my arms itch till I got out of its beams.

The trek down was thirty flights of stairs, was smoother than I expected, but it made me winded. Once I reached the bottom floor, thick mist and haze waft around Xiaohan as if the borough itself was some giant cigar, which was polarising when compared to Farvont Bay.

I’ve heard of the ‘Dragon Mist that circumvents throughout Xiaohan, but I never experienced it and it was more ridiculous than I anticipated.

I tried switching to my X-Ray vision, to get a better gauge of my surroundings, but that was completely futile. The mist was just too thick. It even had a smoky taste combined with its acidic scent

The sidewalks and roads were narrower than normal and were one-way streets. Beggars and Parrows a-like sift through garbage bags, hunting their next meal. Hookers and Pimps stood beside each other propped against the alley walls, licking their lips, looking for the next job.

I have heard a saying. ‘Farvont for lights, Xiaohan for Bites’

The way I see it, the Silent-Dragons couldn’t give two shits about ‘their’ Burrough. The only thing that mattered, was credits and lots of them.

Farvont Bay was clean, whilst Xiaohan was not.

A chiming bell rang, every two seconds, and fireworks cracked up into the sky. That explains traffic congestion. I thought, passing an old lady whose eyes had been surgically removed whilst she shook her left hand, begging for credit donation.

The urge to help was there, but with preying eyes all surrounding me, I avoided it, believing it to be a trap for some bigger fool. Kindness is always good, but in the wrong place, it gets you killed.

A young child, twelve by my estimation sat further down, leg lapped across a thigh, as one of his legs had amputated, along with his wrist. No doubt to pay off his family’s debt. The Silent-Dragon’s were that cruel, preying on their own, for profits.

The deeper I went, the louder the bell chimed, but with a bigger dong. The firecrackers lessened, but the sound of horns and drums thumped like a horse in an open field, accelerating and decelerating.

A lot of people would ask why stay Xiaohan, but would you honestly leave your home? Regardless of anything? I highly doubt it. Most people weren’t that brave, they were cowards and only cared for the next hit of Haze.

That’s exactly what I smelt, the moment I turned right, hitting the centre of Xiaohan. The epi-centre of Bridge City’s finest drug…Haze was produced in Bridge City.

Longquan, The Dragon Circle.

A giant Dragon statute was carved into the entirety of the plaza. It swirled from left to right, having its scaly body connected to the surrounding buildings, making it seem as though these buildings were made specifically for the dragon

The Dragon’s eyes were gold plated, with ivory-coloured teeth growling through its blood dripping maw, giving it a menacing aura. The scales of the dragon’s body were emerald on its underbelly which made it look like armoured skin. The outer parts of its body were purple, but stained giving it a glass-like sheen, one I’d never seen before.

Everyone wore masks and cheered, and screamed, celebrating the festival at the highest degree with adults and children alike running around the haze as if it were second nature.

Below the dragon, adults sat on a fountain, eyeing the sky as if it never existed. Haze trance I thought, Is this what truly happens within Xiaohan? Then I want nothing more to do with it.

I manoeuvred through the crowd regardless of their drunkenness and inebriation. It was a struggle, but I fought my way, as claustrophobic as I felt.

Sadly though, that battle had pushed me to the side where an empty alley had taken place. The white GPS line pulsed towards my direction, but I was the alley was in the complete opposite direction.

That is when my anxiety caught hold of me. I knew I couldn’t get through the crowd, so the best way for me to get through was to go around it

I jogged down, crunching dead leaves beneath my shoes. It was fit and luckily the wall here was short enough for my climb. I pushed my back up against the wall and began side-stepping across the small space.

The fencing of the wall was crooked, but not horrible. Once I got a decent amount of distance across. I jumped to the ground with a small thud and ran up another wall, and began side-stepping once more.

Three dogs came charging toward me, gnarling their teeth at me. That surely didn’t help my anxiety. It even made it worst, as I felt my chest grow tight as thoughts of Hannah popped into my head. She doesn’t like dogs I mused, holding onto the wall, slowly making my way across.

I slowed my pace, matching it with sudden pain in my chest and gradually made my way to the end of the wall. I hopped down, to a longer and wider alley.

On my right, after landing I saw a caricature of a man holding a dagger in his hand. A second caricature was running from the dagger wielder. I wasn’t sure what I meant, but if there was humour to it, it was a loss to me. I walked down the alley, noting a rusted door and a junction box to the left. Shouldn’t that be on the side? I thought.

At the end of the alley were a set of boxes, that covered it. I knelt and peeped over the cover, I realise I was behind the Dragon statute and was met by multiple men, who wore black suits. Half of them were cybernetically enhanced and all had cigarettes dangling from their mouths. Triads.

“I’m telling you, Zhou, Li doesn’t give a shit about who wins tonight, Master Kwon has this match easily.”

“That’s bullshit Cheng, and you know it.”

Shit…my path is blocked I thought.

The GPS Line went past the Triads, down another alley, turning right. If I could reach the roof and climb amongst the Dragon’s body, it would’ve been easy, but that meant I’d have to break in.

I thought about it for a minute, then decided on the best course of action would be to get on the Dragon’s body, hoping my body wouldn’t be too heavy.

Wires from the Junction Box went directly inside the rusted door building. I dressed back, looked up and ensured that the building was close enough to the Dragon’s tail.

The Junction Box was faded as ever, making it difficult for me to decipher which company it belonged to. I snapped it open and read the lines and flicked my short knife open, heating the blade and making a small incision on the wiring, not having time to verify if this would work.

I looked up at the window of the office, noting it went off. The best part was, that I’d noticed that they were no generators in these parts, which made my plan all the easier.

Once I got to the rusted door, I stuck my blade into the hinges of the door and slowly saw them off in a straight line. I edged the entire door, ensuring my entry would be as smooth as possible, which it was when I tilt the door to the side.

The building was a warehouse for dolls. I could smell the Haze immediately, which men that this was a front and I walked myself into some bullshit. Or have I?