Chapter 3

Three men and one woman came out of the high-speed motors. The men looked like they were preparing to debut as a band, hair dyed red, yellow, and green like traffic lights. The woman was dressed the same as the delinquent girl, wearing a jacket and a bra. Perhaps the style was popular among the city's delinquents.

They had all burst in from out of the blue; however, standing in a line in the back of the speakeasy, none of them dared to say a word.

After some deliberation, the "traffic lights band" sent the woman to speak on their behalf. She was the type of person who could withstand the bitter cold for the sake of fashion, but when met with the icy glare of the man standing by the back door, she was outmatched. Trembling, she spoke hesitantly.

"That guy was using a weird shielding device, we lost his mark..."

The man stared at her in silence, causing her to sneeze so hard her lungs nearly flew out of her chest. The boy, who had finally calmed down just a moment ago, was startled by the fierce sneeze, and promptly returned to noisily crying from his spot on the ground. However, one look from the man holding the cigarette was enough to scare the boy into trembling silence.

"Call the cops. Stop standing here and embarrassing me, get in." The man held the boy whose crying he had stopped with mere eye contact in one arm, looked at the disheveled girl in the corner of the room, and spoke.

"You too."

The group of riders followed him one by one as if they had been pardoned after committing a crime. The girl stood up and hesitated for a moment, but the warmth of the speakeasy quickly persuaded her. She touched the wound on the back of her hand, dragging her luggage in with her.

The atmosphere in the speakeasy was pretty retro, so that even the decay felt deliberate. The sweet smell of rum filled the air, and jazz music lightened the mood of the room. The speakeasy seemed to be closed at the moment, as there were no waiters or bartenders to be found. The only one there was the man who had opened the back door, presumably the owner.

He's pretty cocky for the owner of such a tiny bar... the girl thought, unsure. She thought she saw something move on the shelf beside the table but dismissed it as a trick of the light, until her gaze met a cold eye. She jumped in alarm. On the shelf sat a dark green lizard.

"Don't worry, it's too lazy to bite anyone," The owner placed the boy on a bar stool opposite the girl, "What do you want to drink?"

The girl answered: "Beer."

The owner looked her over: "How old are you?"

Now that he was in the light, the girl could properly see his face. Although the contours of his face were deep, she could tell he had Asian blood. He still had some stubble on his jaw. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and his shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a solid chest and chiseled abs. He noticed the girl was looking at him, and casually fastened up a few of his buttons. Hidden under his shirt was an old, thick scar along his neck, extending all the way from his Adam's apple down to his shoulder, making him seem all the more dangerous. He squinted slightly through his cigarette smoke. One could say he was totally careless with his appearance, but despite his unkempt and bearlike looks, his dark grey eyes lent him a dignified presence. Those eyes were unusual, evocative of a dense foggy gorge, secluded and melancholy.

The girl's eyes met his, and she instinctively looked away.

She answered plainly: "Fifty."

The man stared down at the girl: "Don't be stupid."

She was a little delinquent who no one cared about and who had never feared anyone or anything, but for some reason that she couldn't explain, she couldn't even bring herself to argue with the owner of this little speakeasy. Those dusky eyes made her nervous— not the kind of nervous women felt when they met handsome men, but that kind of nervous naughty kids felt when they were caught by teachers or late newbies felt when they looked at their boss.

She lowered her head and gave another answer: "Twenty-five."

Before she could realize what was happening, a white light swept over her. She scrambled to cover her face with her hands: "What are you doing?!"

A personal terminal appeared above the man's wrist, then an identification file floated in mid-air. He blew smoke out of his nose and read the girl's name: "...Jingshu Huang?"

The girl was agitated: "Who do you think you are, checking my ID without permission?"

The owner didn't give a shit. He just smiled.

"Jingshu, huh? Nice name, same as the wife of the secretary-general of the IU."

Saying "the wife of the secretary-general of the IU" was like saying "Scientists named a black hole after Pixiu's* small intestine" to the girl — never heard of it, totally irrelevant to her.

*a Chinese mythological creature

Still, she still knew that not just anyone could easily check someone else's ID. She gave the man a wary look: "Are you a cop*?"

*Jingshu actually says "Did I run into a cop?"

referring to herself as lǎoniáng, a form of self-address

that's used by middle-aged or older women,

probably to make herself seem older/more important.

He paid no mind to her bluntness.

"Born in August, 259. Just a sixteen-year-old brat, huh?"

The girl became increasingly furious.

He swiped away the information displayed on the personal terminal. A robotic hand belonging to him brought out a bottle of milk and poured two glasses, placing them before Jingshu Huang and the boy across from her, and then stroked the lizard in a strikingly human way. Unfortunately, the lizard was cold-blooded, so it wasn't fond of the metallic hand. Mr. Lizard shrank back and climbed away slowly.

"What's a minor like you doing sticking your nose into other people's business?" The owner asked, "Hanging around late at night with your makeup messy as hell. Where are your parents? Did they abandon you?"

"What's the goddamn problem with being sixteen? Mind your own fucking business! I'm a Black Hole." She pounded the table, "Shut the fuck up and give me some beer! I'll pay for it, okay?!"

Everyone in the room stared at the girl. Even the music stopped for a second when she finished her words, as if sensing the shift in mood. The red-haired guy from the traffic lights band choked on his beer, while the green-haired guy wiped his face with his sleeve: "You're a what, now?"

It was common knowledge that the government of the Eighth Galaxy was worth about as much as a disposable lunch bag. By analogy, the government of each planet here was not even equivalent to waste paper. The police stations were merely guideposts that no one took seriously. However, in the absence of a real government, someone had to be in charge, so gangsters took control of whatever regions they could. These gangsters formed an invisible government on every planet.

The "invisible government" of Beijing-β was known as the "Black Hole". Their financial income came from protection fees, and occasional murder and arson jobs. The mysterious leader of the Black Hole was named Lin. It was unclear if his name was "Lin" or "Lynn," but he was called B4* anyway. When the topic of his origin came up, everyone had their own theory. Some said he was a wanted man, and some said he was an interstellar pirate.

*In Chinese, he's actually called 四哥, or "fourth brother,"

literally, but this doesn't mean brother in the biological sense.

In this case it's a respectful way of referring to

him as the leader of the gang.

In only a few years, Lin became notorious within the Black Hole, having risen to the position of the previous leader's confidante, and subsequently becoming the group's leader himself. How did B4 climb to the top of the food chain? People passed around stories, of course. Tales full of scheming and courage; no one knew if they were true or not, but even so, these stories were endlessly popular with people of all ages and walks of life throughout the Eighth Galaxy. Every young delinquent wanted to be the next B4. They dreamed of the Black Hole like children in the First Galaxy dreamed of the Black Orchid College.

The young Jingshu bragged."A Black Hole. You're on Beijing-β, how can you not have heard of the Black Hole?"

The motor-riding woman couldn't help but laugh: "Is B4 that poor? To use kids?"

The girl frowned and was about to retort; however, before she could say a word, the man rubbed his hands and gave an order to the robot hand: "Call Bixing Lu."

The robot hand gave an "OK" gesture, talking in a plain voice: "Calling Headmaster Lu."

The girl was shocked: "How-"

"How could I know your school?" The owner then answered his own question, "All the kids claiming to be a Black Hole are that bastard's students."

The robot hand vibrated after his words. "That bastard" picked up.

The plain voice of the android became a man's voice, low and gentle: "How rare. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

The owner answered shortly: "Come over. I found something of yours."

"Oh?" The headmaster Lu said with a smile, "What did I lose?"

His voice was lazy and self-satisfied, and he spoke like he was singing, but his enunciation was perfectly clear; the end of his sentence had a playful, affectionate lilt to it. He didn't sound like a serious headmaster.

"A kid called Jingshu Huang. Check if she's one of your students."

The robot hand fell silent, then the voice became much more serious, not like a midnight DJ anymore, but a news reporter: "What? What happened? Where are you?"

A silver sword flashed above the man's wrist before he could answer. Putting on his jacket, he stood up and spoke to the hand: "In the speakeasy. Stop chit-chatting, just come and take the girl away."

Then he hung up, reaching out his arm. The robot hand fell from the pedestal and molded itself to his arm like a wristband— exactly like a well-trained parrot!

Jingshu Huang was stunned, never having seen anything like this in her backward galaxy before.

"Penny, keep watch," the man said as he left through the back door.

Right after he left, a middle-aged man in a police uniform stepped into the speakeasy. He smiled courteously at the strange motor trio.

"What happened? I heard he needs me for something."

"That one," The woman called Penny pointed at the boy, "Lost kid. Just take him away."

"Okay, okay, of course. You can trust me, Miss Penny," The police officer, who was more like a little brother, took the boy and comforted him like he had done this a thousand times. Then he looked around, even more courteously.

"Hey....was B4 here just now?"

Jingshu was almost shocked to death.

Penny looked at her, amused.

"Unfortunately," She pointed at the open back door, "You just missed him."