The Bird and the Wyrm
Chapter 68

Chapter 68: 68

It was a long walk from the pond and its fish to the guest quarters but Bran took his time, choosing not to take any of the shortcuts he knew.

He nodded to a few people he recognised as he walked over one of the sky bridges that connected the various buildings. They nodded or smiled in return though no one talked to him. It had always been like that. Familiar faces, but no voice or name to go along with them.

He really should have invited Misha along, Bran thought to himself. Even if the little dragon didn’t like Malcolm, he probably would have still like learning about his research or, at the minimum, been able to see more of the manor.

Misha hadn’t been placed in the guest quarters of the manor and was instead stationed in the room beside Bran’s which made Bran wonder just how much his aunt knew about the pair of them. Of course, after his performance at breakfast she knew just how close they were, but she hadn’t when Misha had shown up out of the blue with a ragdoll Bran in tow. Or had she?

When Bran imagined what that scene must have been like, how much effort Misha had gone through to make sure he was okay, going above and beyond what even a good friend would do, it made Bran’s current course of action feel even more right.

He trusted Aunt Yeung and in her ability, but if he went through with her plan to fix the seal on him, then that would mean at least a few years absence on Bran’s part, and he was not willing to do that.

At first it had been because he thought Misha might move on without him, but he no longer worried about that. Now, he was worried that someone, Artemis or Morgan or whoever, might just snatch him away. Yes, he trusted his aunt to protect Misha and he trusted Misha to try to protect himself, but there was no way he was going to go take a nap while there was a very real threat out there.

No, he had to go see Malcolm and find out what he meant by a ’solution’ to the problem. Maybe it would turn out to be nothing, but what if it didn’t? What if he really could fix the seal on Bran without putting him out of commission for years at a time? Wouldn’t that be killing two birds with one stone?

Bran came to a stop outside a closed door at the end of the hallway. He knocked.

"Coming," said a voice from within, followed by hasty footsteps. The door opened. "Ah, Bran! Is it lunch already?"

Bran rolled his eyes at Malcolm’s question. "You’ve just eaten breakfast. Give the cooks a rest."

Malcolm laughed and opened the door wider to let his friend in. "I hope you don’t mind the mess. I’ve just moved in."

Bran ignored the plea. Malcolm was many things but one of them was not ’messy’. Even during the busiest times at the lab Malcolm had, somehow, kept everything neat and organised in a way that was inhuman, at least to Bran. Bran didn’t like things to be messy, but there was a limit to things, y’know?

The room was large by Pearl City standards with a generous amount of floorspace between the double bed and full-sized work desk. In the corner was a single duffel bag that likely opened up to elsewhere as there was no way the number of items neatly set out on the desk could have fit.

Bran went to the desk and picked up one of the items, spinning the orb at its end. "Is this the new prototype?"

"It is," said Malcolm. "But it’s not working right now. Some idiot forgot to switch power modes and fried the whole thing so I need to fix that."

"Ah." Bran put the device back on the desk. "You... mentioned something about a solution to my problem earlier," he casually said while perusing the other devices, devices that he avoided touching.

Malcolm grinned. "I knew you’d be interested in that," he said. "Come over here."

Bran left the table and went to stand next to Malcolm as he dug through his bag. After a few unsuccessful searches, he finally stood and held a crystal out.

Etiquette and trained instinct caused Bran to take the crystal - it didn’t look like an electrical device after all - but he immediately wished he hadn’t.

Even before the smile on Malcolm’s face warped into a sneer, Bran could feel the rush of cold up his arm as his qi was drawn out of him.

He gasped and went down onto his knees. He tried to drop the crystal but all sense had gone out of his hand and it refused to budge.

"You..." he managed to hiss as he looked up at Malcolm.

"Me," agreed the man, crouching as Bran hit the floor. "Have a good nap."

--

"It’s working!"

I squinted and saw that Yidi was right. The little charge light was blinking away at the corner of his tablet. "How long will it take to charge?" I asked him.

"A while..." he replied. "I just don’t understand how all the power got sucked out of it like that..."

"Bran’s a bit of a..." Actually, I wasn’t sure how to describe your ’ability’ to brick electrical technology. "Wait, did Tuesday tell you about it?"

"About what?"

"Uh, Bran disrupts technology just by touching them," I explained briefly.

"Oh! I see," Yidi sat back on the ground. "No wonder he said he had no phone."

"And no computer either," I added as I took a seat on the floor as well.

Together, we both stared at the small blinking green light on the cable connecting Yidi’s tablet to a shockingly modern looking power outlet in the wall. We were in a sort of room-slash-hallway just outside the kitchens. Apparently, installing an electrical system was too big a job so they’d just put it all here with wires to the solar panels snaking up the wooden columns and to the roof.

"How’s Tuesday going?" I asked after a while. I couldn’t quite remember where we’d left things. Too much had happened since.

"She’s good," replied Yidi. "She was pretty down for a while but she’s happier again now that Shengnü is up and running again."

"Sheng-Noo?"

"Shengnü as in a female saint. It’s the name for the digital network we’re building to connect all members of the jianghu in the country. It started as my little pet project but it’s grown so big now." Yidi smiled like a proud parent.

"Is it like the internet?"

"You can say that. It’s like a giant database of knowledge that will be able to be accessed nationwide plus a social media-like platform for beings to also connect with other beings."

"That’s amazing!"

Yidi laughed, clearly pleased with my response. "It’s still in the beta testing phase, so it’s not very impressive at the moment."

My ears perked up a that. "Testing? You mean... do you need people to help you test it? Can I help you test it?"

Yidi looked a little surprised. "It’s really barebones right now, but..."

"I know a little programming," I said quickly. "I don’t need a pretty UI. Just give me some documentation and I’m good to go."

"That..." Yidi started and I felt my heart drop, "would actually be really useful! Right now, it’s mostly just me and Tuesday and a few others, but we’ve all been with the project since the beginning so we’ve gotten used to its drawbacks. Having fresh eyes would be really helpful!"

I could have cried. Then a thought occurred to me. "Uh... does it require me to... know Chinese?"

"You don’t know Chinese?"

"I... want to learn, but I haven’t really learned much yet..."

"Oh, that’s fine then," said Yidi with a wave of his hand. "I have a rudimentary auto-translate system that I can try slotting in then... Hmm... might be good to get that all tested too..." He put a hand to his chin and continued mumbling under his breath.

I waited a bit, then decided I might as well come clean. "I, uh, also don’t have a computer... or a phone..."

Yidi looked at me sharply. "Do you also disrupt digital technology?"

"No!" I immediately protested. "I just..." I thought back to when I last saw my phone and laptop. "They all got destroyed when I first arrived."

"Oh that’s alright then," replied Yidi. "I’ve got a few laptops back in the office for debugging. I’ll give you one."

"That-"

But my excitement and heartfelt thanks was cut short by the sound of running feet.

"Misha Long," said a commanding voice.

Both Yidi and I turned to see Cheungyi in the doorway. She wasn’t panting but the tension in her body told me she was in a hurry.

"Master Yeung needs to see you now," said Cheungyi.

"Is, is something wrong?" I asked as I got up.

"She will explain when you arrive," the woman replied. "But be prepared for anything. Even battle."