White Hawk and Sable Swan: A Martial Romance of the Far Future - Part VI

This is the sixth part of an ongoing serial, written in honor of the Swords of St. Valentine initiative. Here are Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five. Updates every day.

The crowd bubbled as it poured away.

“Did you see that?” laughed a schoolgirl. “What a great fight!”

“I knew he would pull through,” smirked a college groupie. “That’s our White Hawk, always the showman.”

“I was ready to shoot him, is what I was,” snarled a salaryman. “Do you know how much money I had on the bastard?”

They were wrong, all wrong. So wrong, in fact, that the thought made Xu Hai want to kick someone. She pushed her way in the opposite direction, towards the ring. Desperate for a glance of the retreating champion, by now surrounded by a posse of men in black suits.

“White Hawk! Please, wait! I have to talk to you!”

One of the bodyguards turned to look at her through his smartshades, but the champion, collapsed on his colleagues’ shoulders, seemed insensate. He spoke a few words to the man behind him, who peeled off from the rest.

“Sorry, Miss, but we can’t let you get near him. His body is highly stressed from the championship bout. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t speak to you.”

His voice was firm, but kinder than it needed to be. She cast her eyes at the ground, bunched her fists, and said, at last:

“Will you send him a message from me? It’s important. It’s… it’s about my father.”

The bodyguard glanced back at his home posse, hesitated, then rubbed the back of his head.

“Make it quick. I’m recording now.”

His smartshades flashed red. Xu Hai took a deep breath.

“White Hawk, you don’t know me, but you might know my father. My name is Xu Hai, and I’m the ninety-seventh successor to the Xu Style of Scything Rain. I want to meet you, if possible. I’ll be at the Peony Nightclub on Chrysanthemum Street every night from now on. For the whole of next month and the rest of this.”

The fight had been anything but great. In fact, it was nothing but an unscrupulous scramble. Turned, perhaps, by a stroke of genius, but nonetheless an unworthy display. The White Hawk had to know it already, but she didn’t dare to say it. She had to see him.

“I hope I’ve reached you,” she said, feeling hopelessly inadequate. “Thank you very much.”

She nodded. The bodyguard’s shades winked back to black.

“You’re the Sable Swan’s daughter,” he said, wonderingly. “I used to follow him everywhere back in the day. He was brilliant. What happened to him?”

“Things,” said Xu Hai. “I’m sorry that I can’t tell you more.”

“No problem,” said the bodyguard. His voice was far away. At last, he said:

“I’ll make sure that your message gets through to him. It’s an honor, Miss Xu. Please, send my regards to your father.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Xu Hai. “I will.”

She couldn’t.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to her father. They spoke almost every day, if only to quarrel or make snide jabs at each other. It was that Xu Deng looked upon his old tournament days with the same attitude as a reformed and married prostitute.

“Sometimes I miss my fighting days, Hai-er. Then I wake up, and I realize that you’re still in my house. The feeling tends to pass after that.”

Not only that, but she wanted to do exactly the same thing. And he was fine with letting her.

The more she thought about it, the more complicated it became. It was why she settled for an attitude of sullen defiance instead. It was easier. That way she could push and claw at everything her father stood for, without ever considering if he could possibly have even the hint of a point behind his sleazy, criminally neglectful exterior.

She took off her shoes, pressed her palm against the biometric lock and let the cameras scan her. When she walked into the living room, she was greeted by a rustle of clothes and a wet squeal.

“Don’t worry,” said Father. “It’s just my daughter. Say hello, Hai-er.”

“Go to hell,” said Xu Hai, stomping past the sofa, and kicking the new girl’s red stilettos aside for good measure. They hit the vintage OLED-screen and bounced.

“Such an unfilial daughter,” moaned the new girl. “But you’ll be careful with me, won’t you, Mr. Xu?”

“I make no such promises, young Miss,” grinned Father, in the boyish voice Xu Hai hated to hear. He was never playful around her or Mama. He was a slovenly, sarcastic son-of-a-bitch who happened both to be very rich and very good at martial arts. It was all he was good for.

It’s plenty to be good for, came a voice in her head, just as she was climbing the stairs as loud as she could. What do you want to be again? A playfighter in a gilded cage?

She remembered the awed voice of the security guard and gripped the rail, tightly, biting back a vicious curse. She felt like if she squeezed hard enough, it would turn, abruptly, into Father’s throat.

That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

So you want to kill your father. Lovely.

In her room, she put her holophone in its desk dock, turned up her retro-trance as loud as she could, and called up her email client. She scanned the list, looking for the crucial keywords. Perhaps today…

-Offer Of Employment At The Peony Nightclub: Quick Response Needed-

“Oh, ancestors. Thank you so much.”

She sent her saved biometric scans across and filled out the contract.