face remains impassive. "I didn't think they would have time to deploy missiles."
A massive explosion rocks the city, green gas burning bright, rising at the skyline's edge. A cloud of flame, roiling and expanding. Unimaginable pounds of compressed gas going up in a roaring green mushroom.
"The Environment Ministry's strategic reserve, I think," Akkarat comments.
Hock Seng shelters in an alley as tanks and trucks rumble down Thanon Phosri. He shudders at the thought of the fuel burning. It has to be much of the Kingdom's diesel stock, all of it going up in a single orgy of violence. Coal smoke fills the air as stoked tanks surge past on clanking treads. Hock Seng crouches in garbage. Everything he planned has fallen apart in this moment of crisis. Instead of waiting and moving north as a careful unit, he left his valuables to burn for the sake of one long-shot risk.
Quit complaining, you old fool. You would have roasted, your purple baht and your yellow card friends all together, if you hadn't left when you did.
Still, he wishes he'd had the forethought to bring at least some of that carefully squirrelled insurance. He wonders if his karma is so broken that he cannot ever truly hope to succeed.
He peers into the street again. The SpringLife offices are within view. Best of all, there are no guards present. Hock Seng allows himself a smile at that. The white shirts have their own troubles now. He wheels the bicycle across the street, using it as a crutch to keep him upright.
Inside the compound, it looks as though there was brief fighting. A trio of bodies lie against a wall, seemingly executed. Their yellow armbands have been pulled off and tossed in the dust beside them. More foolish children playing at politics—
Movement behind him.
Hock Seng turns and jams his spring gun into his stalker. Mai gasps as his gun barrel buries itself in her guts. Mewls with fear, eyes wide.
"What are you doing here?" Hock Seng whispers.
Mai stumbles back from his gun. "I came to look for you. The white shirts found our village. People are sick there." She sobs. "And then your house burned."
For the first time he sees the soot and cuts covering her body. "You were in Yaowarat? In the slums?" he asks, shocked.
She nods. "I was lucky." She fights back a sob.
Hock Seng shakes his head. "Why come here?"
"I couldn't think of any other place. . ."
"And more people are sick?"
She nods, fearful. "The white shirts questioned us, I didn't know what to do, I told—"
"Don't worry," Hock Seng sets a soothing hand on her shoulder. "The white shirts won't trouble us anymore. They have their own problems."
"Do you have—" She stops. Finally says, "They burned our village. Everything."
She is a pathetic creature. So small. So vulnerable. He imagines her fleeing her destroyed home, seeking refuge in the only place left to her. And then finding herself in the heart of warfare. A part of him wants to be rid of her burden, but too many have already died around him, and he is obscurely pleased for her company. He shakes his head. "Foolish child." He motions her into the factory. "Come with me."
A furious stink envelopes them as the enter the main hall. They both cover their faces, breathing shallowly.
"The algae baths," Hock Seng murmurs. "The kink-springs have stopped running the fans. Nothing is being vented."
He climbs the steps to the office, shoves open the door. The room is close and hot and reeks as badly as the manufacturing floor from the long days without air flow. He pushes open shutters, letting in night breeze and city burn. Across the roofs, flames flicker, sparking in the night like prayers going up to heaven.
Mai comes to stand beside him, her face illuminated in the irregular glow. A gas lamp is burning freely down on the street, broken. They must be burning all over the city. Hock Seng is somewhat surprised that no one has cut off the gas lines. Someone should have done it already, and yet still this one flares, bright and green, reflecting on Mai's face. She is pretty, he realizes. Slight and beautiful. An innocent trapped amongst warring animals.
He turns from the window and goes to squat before the safe. Studies its dials and heavy locks, its combinations and levers. Expensive to manufacture something with so much steel. When he had his own company, when the Tri-Clipper ruled the South China Sea and the