Chrysalis

50

On the twenty-seventh floor of the Chrysalis spire, Wing Kaupei had opened a bottle of Perrier Jouët Belle Époque brut and was now waiting for the storm of tiny bubbles in its neck to go quiet. Once they’d receded below the gold-foil capsule, she reached for the tall crystal flute that sat on a nearby table and poured herself a large glass.

The expensive champagne had been in her refrigerator for a month, purchased at the high-end wine store on the main concourse awaiting this special moment.

She glanced over at her Sentinel earpiece, flung across the room. This wasn’t the moment she’d planned to celebrate, exactly — but it was indeed special.

Wing was no stranger to witnessing failure or tragedy. At Tsinghua University, she had been accepted not because she could afford tuition, but because she was the most promising student. On her way to winning full scholarships in molecular biology, she had seen many brilliant young people fall by the wayside. She was young herself, and seeing the dreams of others shattered with machinelike precision was unnerving. To compensate, she lost herself in physical activities, kung fu and especially — after that deadly art was banned by China in 2017 — competitive diving. Her family was originally from the Shengsi Islands, where her father was head of a large fishing cooperative, and Wing had spent much of her childhood in the water. Fearless by nature, she excelled at the technical aspects of the highest DD dives from the ten-meter board, and her mastery of the difficult inward tuck made her a contender for the Olympic team — until her unique skill set attracted the attention of State Security instead.

For three years she was sent away, first to learn the forbidden arts of espionage, then to practice them in service of her country. Her skills in biology and pharmacology, as well as her innate courage and athleticism, made her valuable — until the day she learned her father’s fishing cooperative, after protesting its takeover by a corrupt provincial leader, had been ruthlessly broken up and her father sent to Qincheng Prison, where he’d died under mysterious circumstances shortly thereafter.

This — and the unknown fate of her mother — had been deliberately kept from her to ensure she continued functioning at peak efficiency. But her headstrong, courageous, and at times impulsive nature caused her to go underground, and — hope replaced by cynicism — sell her services to the highest bidders.

In time, rebelliousness ebbed and she found a job that reawakened nascent intellectual interests: biochemical research at the Chrysalis labs. Here, she could bury herself in her work and even practice competitive diving: the Torus boasted a world-class pool, and she enjoyed perfecting the various elements of the sport: the approach, the flight, and the entry into the water. She was attracted to the grace, control, and elegance of the flying dive in particular, and disappointed that it was a lost art, infrequently performed in competition.

She finished her champagne, set the glass aside, and rose from the sofa. The French doors to the balcony of her private quarters — a perk of a scientist who’d attained her level — were partially open, the curtains fluttering in the crisp evening breeze. She walked past them and onto the balcony, grasping the railing and letting the smells of autumn, intensely fragrant at this altitude, fill her nostrils and rustle her hair. Several floors above, she could see the outlines of the large parapet where she’d spoken to Cardiff. Remarkable how little time had passed since then. She’d told him she clenched the railing due to fear of open spaces, but this was a lie: whenever she found herself far above the ground, she balled her fists instinctively, muscle memory of gripping the rails of a diving board rising up from her limbic brain.

Cardiff. He was a fool. But then, she was an even greater fool. She had found peace in the Chrysalis labs… but when a conglomerate that had employed her during the dark years reached out once again, she realized that, by chance, a perfect opportunity was literally at her fingertips. The Neanderthal vectors, the potential modifications — and the money they offered — proved simply too much to pass up. Agreeing to their proposal, and giving up the peace she’d found, had been the biggest mistake of her life.

Whether through lack of discipline, or years away from the espionage business, she had chosen two imperfect candidates for the necessary jobs — Cardiff and Prawn. Clearly, she had not sufficiently considered their characters. That mistake was hers, and she owned it. But the mistakes that killed those two had been their own shortcomings: conceit, impatience, and fear. And by way of collateral damage, their mistakes had doomed her as well.

She glanced at the darkening valley around and below, hands flexing automatically as they gripped the railing. She’d read about Jeremy Logan and some of his more headline-worthy accomplishments, and when she’d seen him with Dr. Purchase in BioCertain, she’d guessed why he was at the Torus. But he was wrong if he thought he could save her — or save anybody. For the thousand clients, it had been too late ever since their individual devices were most recently refreshed — and for herself, she knew the man calling himself Reginald Bryant was here for one reason only… and even were she to evade him, there would always be others. It had all scattered beyond her control.

And now, with the instinctual athleticism she’d always been blessed with, she pulled herself up onto the railing and balanced easily upon it. The unimpeded view was breathtaking in the afterglow, and the night wind that had teased her hair a moment before now teased her ankles. As more and more lights came up in the Tower, she knew people might notice her. A shame that, if they did, they’d be too ignorant to appreciate her mastery of technique.

She took a deep breath, mentally preparing in the way she always did. And then, crouching slightly, she launched herself into space.

Immediately, she knew her initial mechanics — angular momentum and dive trajectory — had been well executed. There was nothing stopping her from achieving her favorite position, the nearly forgotten flying one-and-a-half. From the initial swan dive, she used the force of her approach to fold her limbs into a pike position, and her momentum to complete one and a half rotations. As she came out of this — eyes open, as she’d been taught — she saw the well-illuminated entry point was still quite some distance below her. This meant she could concentrate on maintaining the simple beauty of the flight — body vertical, arms tucked close — until at last the unappreciative earth claimed her.