Evinrud - 16

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The Difference Between a Secret and a Lie

Part 3 of 5

Making my way to a club in the San Li Tun. Four MRT stops south and two blocks on foot. It’s called Bada Hutong, after Beijing’s 18th century red light district. Last year one of the owners wanted to rebrand it The Silicon Suite. Something to do with the electronics industry and money and all that fake tit, but Bada Hutong is an institution , the name stuck.

‘The funny thing is neither name is meant to be ironic,’ Gabriel had laughed when he told me the story.

It’s a pretty exclusive men’s club, probably the most exclusive open smorgasbord of pussy in Beijing, but I’m not really experienced enough to know for sure.

I’ve been there twice with G and once on my own. Hopefully they recognize me. I doubt they get many patrons rocking up to the front door on foot but there’s a company ID and plenty of money in my pocket.

It’s probably not what G meant when he said ‘find a girl’ but what am I supposed to do?

I’ve always been a loner…. never had much to say. In bootcamp I was everyone’s favourite s%&t taker, for a while at least.

‘Your looks are wasted on you man, do you even like skirt?’
‘Reece is too busy making love to the mirror to make love to a girl.’
‘What do you really like doing with that boot polish pretty boy.’

They called me ‘Priss’… and that was to my face. Eventually I cracked it and beat the cr*p out of one of them in the mess hall. They left me alone after that. And it was that incident that drew Gabriel’s attention.

Right now I can see my face reflected in the window of the MRT. Two seats back there’s a hot girl with red lips and pale skin and one of those new-age blunt hair cuts. Our eyes meet in the glass for a second before I turn away.

I suppose I could smile. Wring my lips into an encouraging upturned curve…but what good would that do? The minute she started talking to me I would freeze… fall on my face like a got shot bunny.

At least when you pay for it you don’t need to make conversation.

It’s my stop. The girl with the hair cut watches me as I step out onto the platform and into the crowd. Another date I’ll never have.

Street level is a swarming mass of bodies. The night markets are packed and my supposed fifteen minute walk is becoming more of a thirty minute shove. Crowd maneuvering is clearly another skill in which I’m lacking. On an air motor, the only thing you need to dodge is the architecture.

I’m pushed onto a side street and into a man carrying a box of sauce bottles. The sound of breaking glass and high pitched Mandarin follows. And there’s a friggen dark glob of wet stinking sauce soaking into my left book.

‘F*#k,’ I scream, which puts an end to the high pitched Mandarin. The man I knocked in to is now picking up the handful of bottles that survived the accident. He is avoiding looking at me.

I don’t know where it comes from, this sudden anger that scares the hell out of it’s witnesses.
I pull a couple of large bank notes out of my pocket and place them in front of the surprised fellow. I can see a south facing alley a little further up the side street. It’s a far more appealing option than heading back to the main drag.
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Sketchbook - 15

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Evinrud - 15

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The Difference Between a Secret and a Lie
Part 2 of 5

So I’m sans air-motor and stalking the streets. It’s been my home for the past three years but it’s a new city to me. A different Beijing from the one I knew riding the airmotor or gazing out the window of a stretch or company vehicle.

The intensity surprises me. The smells, the sounds, the people, there’s an energy you can’t ignore, it’s right in your face.

‘Pretty boy walking’ the sheboys on Eighty-Eighth Street have started to call out whenever I get too close. They’re less than a block from my building and I didn’t even know they existed before this week.

Tomorrow it will be six weeks exactly from the date of the crash. Forty-two days since we rained hell on the outskirts of town.

They tell me that physically I’m pretty much healed. I’m training three hours a day with the physio, two hours with the kendo master. There’s a couple of nasty looking scars on my torso, which the company doc says I can have cosmetically faded in time. I think I’ll keep them as a reminder.

This extended ‘holiday’ is a result of my weakened mental state. The Doc says my thought processes have become too reliant on the Cy and that I need my mind to heal from the trauma of the crash alone.

First time in four years they’ve worried about that. Something stinks.

Last week they gave me two days in the pulse with Evinrud. The Doc and a couple of scientists poked around the whole time, testing us. But it was so routine it was suspicious.

We were fine. If anything we were better than fine…..stronger. The air-motor was pretty messed up in the crash. They completely replaced the panel work and both auxiliary engines, of course. But something else had changed. The white coats had altered the Cy, upgraded more than just his body.

Bin the crafty bugger started sprouting about hybrid genetic tissue adaptation and improved bioengineering. He knows I’m a dumb cluck, he likes to put me in my place by confusing me. The white coats said nothing.

Evinrud is the only one who could express it to me and he was holding back aswell. He was definitely faster than pre-crash and the connection felt tight almost immediately. It used to take us days training in the pulse to reach that level of physical harmony.

Then they took him away.

Now instead of Evinrud I’ve got a bloody colostomy bag thing connected to my intravenous legrope. Thank f*$% I only need to wear it when I sleep.
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