So how long had Benedikt been lingering outside the alley, listening to their conversation?
Twenty-Four
In a factory in the east of the city, on a dreary Thursday afternoon, the machines go quiet at once. The foreman lifts his head from his desk, dazed and sleep-fogged, a thin trail of drool smeared across his chin. He wipes at his face and looks around, finding no workers before him, only their crowded tables and their materials laid out in a mess, strewn onto the floor.
“What is this?” he mutters under his breath. Their deadline is tight. Don’t the workers know? If they cannot deliver their materials within the week, the big bosses at the top will be angry.
Oh, but the workers care not about such matters.
The foreman turns around, and with a start, finds them standing behind him, armed and at the ready. One slash, that’s all it takes. A knife over his throat and he’s twitching on the floor, hands clasped around the wound in a futile attempt at holding the blood in. The red seeps regardless. It does not stop until he is naught but a body lying in a scarlet pool. It soaks the shoes of his workers, his killers. It is carried from street to street, the faintest red print pressed upon crumbling pavement and into the roads of the Concessions, marring stains upon the clean white sidewalks. This is what revolution is, after all. The trailing of blood from door to door, loud and violent until the rich cannot look away.
But the revolution is not quite there—not yet. The people are trying again, but they are still scared after the last uprising was quashed, and no matter how loud they rage, their numbers are small. They cannot be heard in Chenghuangmiao, where two girls sit at a teahouse and plan a heist, sketching charcoal upon paper while the cold breeze blows through the window. There is a momentary shout, and the one in the glittery Western dress stiffens, leaning out the teahouse, body half dangling out the second floor in search of trouble.
“Relax,” the other says, brushing a crumb off her qipao. “I heard the police stopped the riots before they got very far. Focus on finishing your outrageous plan for stealing our own vaccine.”
A sigh. “Have they stopped the riots? It looks as if another is starting here.”
The heir of the Scarlet Gang tips her chin toward the scene outside, where a small group is holding signs, calling for unions, for the ousting of gangsters and imperialists. They make their plea, speaking as though it is a matter of connection, of garnering enough sympathy until the tide turns the other way.
But the city does not know their names. The city does not care.
A group of White Flowers comes along then—an ordinary bunch, nothing more than muscle and eyes for the gang, keepers of the territory. The shoppers nearby hurry away, certain that they should not witness this, and they are correct. A thick cloud blows over the sun. The lapping pond water underneath the Jiuqu Bridge darkens by a shade. The White Flowers peruse the scene, whisper among themselves, and then—quick as only a practiced maneuver can achieve—they raise their weapons and shoot half the group dead.
Up in the teahouse, the girls flinch, but there is nothing to do. The remaining protesters scatter, only police officers are already waiting, ordered in by the White Flowers. The surviving rioters kick and hiss and spit, but what good will it do? For now, all their fury can do is burn holes in their chests.
“I used to think this city I am to inherit was descending into one ruled by hatred,” the girl says into the cold wind. “I used to think that it was our doing, that the blood feud ruined all that was good.” She looks at her cousin. “But it has been hateful for a long time.”
Hatred has been lurking in the waters before the first bullet was fired from Scarlet to White Flower; it’s been there since the British brought opium into the city and took what wasn’t theirs; since the foreigners stomped in and the city split into factions, divided by rights and wrongs that foreign law put into being.
These things do not fade away with time. They can only grow and fester and ooze like a slow, slow cancer.
And any day now, the city will turn inside out, corrupted by the poison in its own seams.
It was concerning how many messengers Benedikt had paid in the last hour, but Marshall tried not to jump to any conclusions. He was already having a hard time finding a good hiding spot, staying far enough that Benedikt would not feel watched but close enough to pick out what was going on.
“Are you planning a takeover?” Marshall muttered. “What could you possibly need this many White Flowers for?”
As if hearing him, Benedikt looked up suddenly, and Marshall ducked fast, pressing along the roof wall. They were near headquarters, in the busier part of the city, where the street corners were loud and the alleys were crisscrossed with hundreds of bamboo poles hanging laundry to the wind. Even if Benedikt thought he caught movement from afar, Marshall was confident that his best friend would merely think it to be a trick of the eye, triggered by a large frock waving with the breeze.