Page 140 of Coldwire
40LIA
I step into Chung Yin’s house, an unsteadiness shaking through my knees as though I am a fawn newly birthed from the womb.
It smells like fresh baking. Without speaking, Chung closes the door, then gestures for me to follow him through the living room. The afternoon is warm, sunlight heavy along the backs of the armchairs. A fur throw has been left at the foot of the couch. A golden retriever snoozes within its soft fabric.
“That’s Dou Dou,” he says. “He’s two years old.”
I eye the dog. I can’t find it within myself to summon any affection.
“He’s not real,” I say.
Chung casts me a careful look. I’m not entirely sure how to read it. We enter his kitchen. He gestures for me to sit at the table, a small square surface. The top is painted green. The legs are painted an overripe banana’s yellow. If he lives here, he must live alone—there are no signs of other occupants. One set of running shoes by the door. One jacket dangling from the coatrack.
I slide out one of the ladder-back chairs, taking a seat. They’re similarly painted, split green-yellow between the surface and the legs.
“I’m sure,” Chung starts, putting the kettle on, “you have many questions.”
We’ve been speaking Medan since I stepped through the door, butnow he switches to Atahuan. If it weren’t for the physical evidence in front of me, I might think I was suddenly speaking to my dad. Their cadences are nearly identical—the sort of mannerisms that develop over time, over the critical years when someone is deciding who they are. I wouldn’t have picked up on this when I was younger, but now I wonder how long Dad and Chung really have known each other, whether they might have met earlier than I thought.
Dou Dou pads over, whining in question. Chung clicks his tongue at the dog. He reaches for a mitt while the kettle boils, bringing out a baking tray of treats from the oven.
I’m initially unresponsive. Chung shakes the treats into the dog bowl in the corner.
Somehow, where I end up starting is: “You’re missing.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s what the news is saying, isn’t it?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I draw my knees up to my chest. “How can you be missing? They should see your user ID active in Kunlun’s servers.”
Chung sets down the tray, then grabs a towel hanging from his oven. It’s stitched with lotuses along the edges.
“They can’t see my user ID in Kunlun’s servers because I asked to be hidden.”
He is exceedingly nonchalant. The kettle clicks to signal it has finished boiling. Chung reaches for it.
“Coldwire,” I say. “You made it with the ability to hack StrangeLoom and rewrite its code. You asked it to go in and hide you.”
“Correct.”
I pause. Then, “Did you make me, too?”
That’s what I ask. NotWhat am I?NotWhat did you do?I want to clarify the matter of ownership first.
“I coded you,” Chung says. His hand is steady as he pours water into the teacups. “I renamed you. But I suppose I didn’t actuallymakeyou.”
“You’re speaking in riddles.” Every element of this final posting has slotted into place only because of Chung’s doing. From the moment the academy assigned me this task to my arrival on his doorstep. “You were the one who wanted me here, weren’t you? You deleted Operation Coldwire. You made yourself go missing. And you plasteredmydigital signature across the entire mess.”
Chung sets my tea down in front of me, on top of a coaster. Beyond the kitchen window, a yard stretches across the property, growing neat rows of flowers. I catch a glimpse of climbing string beans too, wrapped around one of the wooden support beams.
“Yes,” he says, taking a seat. “It was a lure. I know how NileCorp likes to operate. I went to the academy too. It’s where I met your parents.”
He says “your parents.” As though Dad remains my father after he’s lied to me all my life. As though I should have some claim to Mallory, who I don’t even remember.
“Dad never told me he went to the academy,” I say.
“He had it scrubbed eons ago. The academy was younger then, so it was easier to withdraw the files. Bad look for a politician when his attendance wasn’t mandatory.” Chung pushes the cup of tea toward me. I don’t move to take it. “We did our postings back then just as you do them now. I knew that if NileCorp perceived something relevant emerging about a cadet, they would look into it. Forgive the subterfuge.”
The banners that showed themselves to me. The errors left in the metadata that meant only I could access his spaces.
