Ruse - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Cindy Pon is the author of Silver Phoenix, which was named one of the Top Ten Fantasy and Science Fiction Books for Youth by Booklist, and one of 2009’s Best Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror by VOYA. Serpentine and Sacrifice were both Junior Library Guild selections and received starred reviews from School Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews, respectively. She also wrote Want, which is a Freeman Book Award Honorable Mention and Ruse. She is the cofounder of Diversity in YA with Malinda Lo and on the advisory board of We Need Diverse Books. Cindy is also a Chinese brush painting student of over a decade. Learn more about her books and art at CindyPon.com.

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Ruse

CHAPTER ONE

THE BOMBING

LINGYI

Lingyi was their leader. And she was sending them headlong into danger—possibly even to their deaths.

She forced herself not to dwell on this, on every possible awful outcome. She needed to keep the surge of panic at bay. If Lingyi lost focus, her friends would pay for it.

It was a huge risk to blow up Jin Corp the same night they needed to save Zhou, but they couldn’t use the fire alarm ploy twice. It was tonight or never. Still, it hadn’t felt quite real before—a challenging game, a far-fetched fantasy. But there was a sense of finality tonight, when she had kissed Iris once before the group departed. They had all agreed to do this, had worked for months toward this end, but planning and doing were two very different things.

She feared for their lives.

Lingyi studied the nine video feeds pulled up on her wall screen. Three were from the body cams attached to Iris, Victor, and Arun, following their every movement. The other six were from Jin Corp, with one trained on the main entrance and lobby, one directed at the back door her friends would use, and another showing Zhou, who was slumped in a chair, unmoving. She toggled between various corridors and areas in Jin Corp with the other three feeds.

Lingyi paced the small area of her sitting room. Iris had always insisted they needed a bigger apartment, but Lingyi thought this was perfect. Cozy. She had chosen to orchestrate everything from her apartment tonight instead of their headquarters. Headquarters was too filled with the presence of her friends—echoes of them at every turn. She hadn’t expected to feel the same hollow emptiness in her apartment.

Iris wasn’t sprawled on their sofa, napping, with a hand tucked beneath her ear—her favorite pose. She was nearing the back entrance of Jin Corp, and from her body cam, Victor and Arun were right beside her. Lingyi tapped the screen that showed Zhou in that basement room littered with old machines. Flickering fluorescent light illuminated the space. She stared at Zhou, trying to detect any movement at all; the rise and fall of his chest, the jerk of a knee or shoulder, but saw nothing. There was no sound from Jin Corp’s feeds, and she was terrified for him.

“You there, boss?” Victor’s voice came in close and clear, as if he were standing beside her in the room.

Lingyi jumped. “Here. Everything looks good.” She made her tone light, not letting the anxiety slip in. They needed her confidence and guidance so they could do their tasks quickly and right. “The building’s quiet. Move fast. I won’t have access to the security system until the fire alarm is triggered.” If a security person happened to see them slip into the building, it’d only make things harder.

Iris used Daiyu’s access code to try and enter the building. Lingyi held her breath, her heart in her throat. After a few seconds, the door clicked open and they each filed in, letting it close securely behind them.

“Arun,” Lingyi said into her earpiece. “Zhou is in one of the rooms in the basement. Go down one level.”

“Got it, boss,” Arun replied.

They had gone over everything at headquarters earlier that day. But Lingyi couldn’t help but call out the commands, directing each of them to their tasks. It gave her a false sense of control. “You have twenty minutes once the alarm goes off,” Lingyi reiterated.

They knew, but Lingyi’s palms dampened with sweat from saying it out loud. Arun headed down a dark stairwell, emerging onto a long corridor filled with blank doors. It was dimly lit; he began trying the knobs. He didn’t expect to run into anyone down there. The majority of the doors swung open, revealing empty rooms filled with machinery and other junk stored below the building. He used the motion detector for the rooms that were locked to try and locate Zhou. Lingyi’s heart speeded up every time, but the detector never found him behind the locked doors.

Arun was cursing under his breath, and everyone could hear it. “I’ve already checked all the rooms on the right side. I need more time.”

He picked up his pace, running from one door to the next, his cam bobbing with the motion.

“I’m coming up on the fire alarm,” Iris replied. “The longer we hold off, the more likely we’ll be discovered.”

“Just five minutes.” Arun was panting.

Five minutes to give security a chance to glance at any of the cameras that showed Arun, Vic, or Iris skulking around. Five minutes could give them all away. They’d already discussed and argued over this earlier in the afternoon. Iris was right.

“We don’t have time,” Vic said in a grim voice. “Stick with the plan.” Lingyi knew Victor loved Zhou like a brother—it couldn’t have been an easy thing to say.

“He’s somewhere down there, Arun,” Lingyi said, her chest constricting. Was she issuing Zhou’s death sentence? “Iris, sound the alarm.”

Iris’s gloved hand pulled down on the red handle. A pulsing alarm immediately filled Lingyi’s earpiece. A soothing female voice broadcasted over the building’s sound system, “Attention. Please leave the building via your nearest exit. You have ten minutes.”

Lingyi swung into her seat at her glass-top desk, accessing Jin Corp’s main security system now that the alarm had been sounded. The building was in emergency mode. Even the security crew had left their areas. Lingyi watched as a few employees trickled out of the main entrance. At this time of night, they were mostly security and custodial staff.

Vic and Iris stayed out of sight as Arun continued to run down the basement corridor, trying doors. Lingyi checked on Zhou’s feed. To her immense relief, he had woken, probably from the blaring noise of the alarm. He looked around, slowly rolling his shoulders, possibly trying to get out of his bindings. “Hang on, Zhou, Arun’s on his way,” she said, even though she knew he had no way of hearing her.

“I can’t find him!” Arun shouted in frustration.

“Keep looking,” Lingyi replied. “He’s down there and awake!”

Arun began screaming Zhou’s name over the sound of the insistent alarm. But Zhou’s mouth was bound, and even as Arun shouted, Zhou gave no indication he could hear him.

Lingyi forced herself to turn her attention to the ground floor.

Vic and Iris were running down a wide corridor and stopped at an elevator. Seven minutes in, and the building already looked empty. There were a few stragglers hurrying toward their nearest exit. “The elevator is clear,” she said, toggling between the security cameras.

“Thanks, boss,” Iris and Vic replied at the same time.

They entered the empty car, and Victor punched the third- and fifth-floor buttons. He then adjusted the silver cuff link at his wrist. Vic had put on a sleek gray suit with a silver vest and blue tie knotted perfectly at his throat. Lingyi almost smiled, would have teased him under any other circumstances. Iris slipped out on the third floor, and Victor got off on the fifth and highest floor. There wasn’t enough time to set a bomb on each floor with only...