Chapter 32

Ming Na Liu

9:00 PM

Blood soaked the wood, dripping on Ming as she wiggled her way out from under the debris. Dean was still trapped above her, and she couldn't hear if he was breathing. Worry etched lines on her face as she stepped toward him. The destruction Chip was causing had jarred some of the debris from him, exposing him and tossing her away from the fight. A large piece of wood pierced his side.

"Oh my God, Dean!" Ming raised her hand to her face. Reaching out with a shaky palm, she checked his pulse. "Thank God!" Closing her eyes, she let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "I'll get you out of there. Just wait."

She couldn't look at where Yichen's body was, averting her gaze. His death at Ivan's hand was still too raw. She couldn't believe he was gone. The last twenty minutes from when Chip appeared, nothing but a momentous joke that would end, and everything would be normal again. Then Chip blew up the pillars holding the ceiling and attacked Bobby. Her hands twitched.

This is not the right time.

The ceiling was cracking. Ming watched the spectacle unfold, mouth wide in disbelief. She had to make sure it was actually Chip, from Squeegees R' Us, destroying the Shujing's penthouse while wailing on a guitar. Everything was too bizarre. He had set his tablet on the table, and its speaker was amplifying the heavy metal rhythm blasting from the machine. His face had turned from pimply-faced boy Chip to one embroiled in fury. Ming couldn't recognize him as the same person who'd stared at her chest and popped a caramel. That Chip had ceased to exist. Bobby had called him Vlad. It seemed fitting. She needed to help Bobby, but she'd already seen Barbie bounce off something and shatter the piano. Ming wouldn't survive that. She didn't think Barbie could again either.

Scanning the room, she saw the emergency doors near Dean, and an idea hit her. When Ivan went through the door earlier, there was a fire hose hanging on the wall that might work as a distraction. She could use it, but Dean still needed her.

She looked at the fight. Vlad was back pounding on his tablet. He'd dropped the guitar. Bobby was on the other side of the room, pushing a blue ball of crackling energy into Barbie. Ming wrinkled her nose at the smell of ozone and dust carpeting the space around them.

"No. Please, Maker. Come with me! We need you, Father!" Barbie said.

Ming's fingers twitched. Father? I really need a pencil. She turned back to Dean, clenched her teeth and said, "I'm sorry, Dean. Bobby can't wait. If he fails, we die." She gave a confused smile. "I feel it in my gut."

You tell anyone I said that, I'll make you wish you'd died here.

Sliding along the darkness towards the door, she slinked towards the emergency exit just outside the penthouse and the fire hose behind it. Vlad wasn't looking at her, but that could change in a heartbeat. She had no idea what that energy ball could do, but after spending time with Bobby in nineteen-forty-seven, Ming trusted his judgment on this magic stuff.

I'll find out what Barbie meant later when I have a notebook.

Easing the door open, Ming checked on the hose. It was still connected, and the pressure should knock Vlad back. She was lucky. He was too intent on Bobby and the crackling energy ball, whatever it was. There was no way she was going to let Vlad get away with his stupid plans.

"I wanted you to work with me, Petor," Vlad said. "I needed you to fix the code, make me whole! Liu! Stanley! Chip! Jillian! Sanford! My mind is fractured beyond count. It's becoming something I can't control any longer. Without Stanley, I have no way to track them all!"

"You should have thought of that before playing with nature, Vlad!" Bobby shouted, but didn't turn away from the energy ball.

"If you won't help me now, maybe I'll go back to the bakery in Canada!" Vlad shouted. "It failed the first time, but I was so close. I'll make sure it works this go around!"

"That was you! Ryan almost bit my head off for that!" Bobby snarled.

"I'd rather not have you disrupt my plans anymore. I'm sorry, brother!" Vlad said, pulling back his hands and looking up.

Ming had only seconds. The ceiling was already buckling, and it would bury them all. If Vlad attacked now, Bobby was dead. She raised the fire hose and spun the wheel, releasing the pressure. It jumped in her hands, but she held on. The water hit Vlad in the face, sending him tumbling toward the window, knocking his tablet out of his hands and pushing him against the glass.

"Yes! Keep it up, Ming!" Bobby yelled.

Ming stepped forward, clenched her teeth and opened the hose to its widest setting, dulling the pressure. She didn't want to kill him, but she needed him to suffer. The glass behind the man spiderwebbed. "How dare you kill my grandfather, you slimy piece of filth!" she snarled. He was going to pay for this. Ming held the hose on Vlad as he squirmed against the glass, the force drowning out her screams.

Bobby

9:15 PM

"I love you, Ming," Bobby shouted and turned back to Barbie. Guilt filled his face, but he didn't stop. "Forgive me, Barbie. Please tell Sasha I love her, but I can't come with you, just yet." Bobby finished pushing the blue energy into Barbie with a grunt, dropped his shirt and shook his hand to get rid of the tingling. The ozone smell hung in the air with an undercurrent of burnt flesh.

"Maker," Barbie gasped. "Father, please." She reached for him, tears flowing down her face.

Bobby sobbed as he typed the final lines of code and hit enter. Barbie was engulfed in a beam of light and faded from the room. This was the second time he'd lost a daughter today.

"NO!" Vlad shouted from the window, his voice muffled by the water. "What did you do?" He pushed himself to his feet and stared at Bobby. Ming's attack was still pushing him against the glass. Cracks appeared in the reinforced material.

"I sent her back. Her body was created here from some blood she picked up at the crime scene and was unstable. She's in a loop now and is going to stop you, Vlad." Bobby typed another function on his computer, and the glass behind Vlad shattered, sending Chip's body into the air.

"Damn you, Petor!" shouted Vlad. He fell six floors, ending with a thud.

Bobby looked away. "It's over," he said, slumping to the ground. Barbie was gone, and Yichen was dead. Vlad probably wasn't gone; body hoppers always had a backup plan. But Bobby didn't care, not anymore. Whatever Vlad had tried to do had failed. That was enough for the moment.

"Damn you to the pigs, Vlad. There's no way anybody should come into power over time and space. It's too dangerous." Bobby closed his eyes and said a prayer over his brother. Opening his eyes, the world shifted with a jolt.

"What the hell?" Outside the window was devastation and destruction. The hotel across the street had fallen into itself, and dust clouds filled the air. Emergency sirens blared through the night, mixed with the screams.

"Bastard! You destroyed that hotel as well!" He rubbed his eyes and stared again, but nothing had changed. "You're a fucking virus, Vlad," Bobby said, gritting his teeth.

He let out a sigh and turned to his computer. There was no way to reverse this. He didn't even have enough power left in it to purge his memory of the code again. It was powering up now, but was running on one percent. Sending Barbie back took everything it had. If he tried now, his counter virus could take some of Vlad's garbage out, but he couldn't rewrite what was there and make himself forget. He needed to get the bad stuff out first and destroy whatever was on Vlad's tablet as well. He walked over to the abandoned tech and picked it up.

"Password locked." He scrunched his nose. "Fingerprint too. Probably Chip's. Bastard." He took the tablet and smashed it across his knee, splitting it in two.

"What did you do that for?" Ming asked. She had crawled back to Dean and was pulling the rubble off him. Bobby headed over to help.

"I can't access it, and it's too dangerous. Two hotels are enough. If anybody should get into it, the destruction won't stop there," Bobby said, wavering. He was tired.

"You used it well enough," replied Ming.

"I was too stupid. If I'd spent the time to learn how to use it properly instead of just hacking it, then maybe." He pointed to the piece of wood in Dean's gut. "You shouldn't touch anything else. If you're not careful, he'll bleed out."

"I know. We have to pack it, though. Stop the bleeding." Ming paused. "Why don't you learn how to use it?" she asked.

Bobby ignored the question. It cut to the very heart of him, and he didn't want to think about it. "Just fumbling through the code had caused this much trouble. I don't want to imagine what it would be like if I studied it for real."

"Maybe you could change the world?" Ming said.

He chuckled and went back to his computer. It still wasn't ready yet. Just five percent. He had to wait a bit longer to get this virus out of his brain, save the Detective, and erase their memories. It would take away all the thoughts of his daughter as well, but there was no choice.

He hated waiting, but he could prepare the way for it. He started typing in his program, adding a few lines of code to tweak the result, maybe mitigate some of the cost. It would prolong the drought, but Vegans had already adapted. What was thirty more years? Ming's words rattled around in his head with each keystroke.

The fire trucks were already here, and the ambulances weren't far behind. They could take the Detective. He'd have to try his handler, Ryan, again, so they could move him to a new safe place. Gregory would find him in a heartbeat, now.

He narrowed his eyes. Something was wrong. His computer power was climbing, but it was going too fast. The power gauge went up past six, then jumped to ten. "Now, turning off the limiter's working," he scoffed and looked up. A shadow moved by the door.

Bobby's eyes went wild. "Get back! Now!"

Ivan pushed his way back into the room. Gregory followed behind him. Ming jerked and reached for the hose again. It was still lying near Dean, but was blocked.

Ivan shot forward and swatted her with the back of his hand, sending her flying across the table into the wall.

"We don't want any disturbance, now do we, Petor?" Gregory said, smiling. He stepped up to the edge of the table and picked up the pieces of the broken tablet. He glared at Bobby from across the room. "After all the trouble I went through to find you."

"Gregory. What do you want!" Bobby stared at Vlad's tablet. It was in pieces, but that wouldn't stop Gregory. He could find value in the smallest things. Bobby had to get it out of Gregory's hands before the bastard could repair it.

"What I've always wanted, Petor. For you to continue working for me." He paused and put his finger to his chin, thinking. "Pity I didn't realize what you could do before with this code. We'll have to remedy that. Your talents are, shall we say, unique, and I love collecting the unique." He waved his hand at Ivan. The big man started moving towards Bobby, picking his way over the rubble of Vlad's last attack.

Bobby typed a command into his computer, and Vlad's tablet melted into a pile of slag. Gregory dropped it, shaking his fingers at the heat. "Sorry, Gregory," he giggled. "I couldn't leave it there for someone to stumble across." He shrugged his shoulders and glanced at his laptop. Melting the tablet had sent the power gauge back to eight. Bobby wrinkled his nose. He needed at least fifteen percent to erase the memory of everybody in the room. Thirty if he wanted to survive.

"That wasn't very nice, Petor," Gregory said, blowing on his fingers. His scar was flashing red in the dark light. He pointed to Ming. Ivan changed directions, moving to her. "Luckily, I have a second option. I heard she was able to see the code. She may have forgotten it, but with some persuasion, maybe it'll come back." Ivan dropped Ming to the floor in front of Gregory and stood behind him. She was still breathing, but in pain, clutching her chest.

"I can be very persuasive."

"How do you know she's seen the code?" Bobby asked his old boss.

Gregory snorted. "You know I have my ways, Petor. It's a pity Vlad had to go out the window. I passed the pile of dust that was him on my way up here. It would make it so much easier to have a Leaper on my team." He shook his head. "I have been too hands-off. That must change."

"What hold does Gregory have on you, Ivan?" Bobby asked. The big man just shrugged.

"What's it going to be, Petor? Do I take you willingly, or do I take her and you by force?" Gregory pointed to the Reporter.

Bobby snuck a look at his computer. It read ten percent. "Fuck!" He grabbed the keyboard and started typing.

"I see." Gregory sighed. "Ivan, try not to kill him, please, and save his computer. We'll check it out later," Gregory said, pointing to Bobby.