Annie headed home. Iris didn’t.

  She watched the cab lights vanish into traffic, then swung back onto the bike and let the engine settle under her. She reached down without thinking and scratched behind Wulong’s ears. He leaned into it, a low sound in his throat that barely counted as a purr.

  Her hand drifted to her jacket pocket again, searching for the lighter. She pulled the last stick from behind her ear and set it between her lips.

  The rain had eased, leaving the streets washed and hollow, sound dampened to a distant hiss. The night felt too open, like a stage after the audience had gone home.

  Iris sighed. She found the lighter, thumbed it on, and brought the flame close. The tip of the smoke caught the light, paper whitening, waiting.

  She stopped.

  Something moved at the edge of her vision.

  A delivery bot trundled down the slope across the street, squat and boxy, wheels humming softly as it followed a route no one else could see. Its casing was scuffed, one panel replaced with a mismatched plate, a paper charm taped crookedly to its side and left there long after it had stopped doing anything. It didn’t hurry. It didn’t hesitate. It simply went where it was told.

  Suddenly, its path shifted, subtly enough that Iris almost missed it, a smooth correction that didn’t match the slope or the curb. It passed around an empty patch of pavement as if that space carried weight the map hadn’t accounted for.

  At first glance, there was nothing there. Iris squinted, then saw a gecko flattened against the wet concrete, no bigger than her thumb, pale and almost translucent under the streetlight. It hadn’t moved. Probably cold. Probably waiting for the night to finish passing over it.

  The bot cleared the space and continued on, pace unchanged.

  “Huh,” Iris muttered. That wasn’t how they usually failed.

  She lowered the lighter and the flame died with a small, final click. She took the cigarette from her mouth and tucked it behind her ear again.

  Tonight sucked, and if she smoked the last one, it would suck even more.

  She sat there a moment longer, listening to the bike idle, to the city breathing in its sleep. The pressure behind her eyes didn’t fade.

  If anything, it crept closer.

  Iris rolled her shoulders, jaw tightening, and finally accepted what she’d been circling since Man Mo. Waiting wasn’t an option. Neither was pretending this was just a bad night.

  She straightened on the bike and thumbed the ignition, the engine answering immediately, eager in a way that felt almost judgmental.

  “If the monks can’t help,” she said quietly, “someone else will.”

  She hesitated long enough for the engine to dip, then rolled on the throttle before she could change her mind.

  The bike eased forward, cutting cleanly into the empty lane. Streetlights slid past in measured intervals, reflections stretching and snapping beneath her tires. The city didn’t resist. It adjusted.

  She set her course without bringing up the full map. She didn’t need it. Finding Wei was easy enough.

  Behind her, the gecko finally moved, skittering toward the shelter of the curb. The patch of pavement the bot had avoided stayed empty a moment longer, then vanished into the night like it had never mattered at all.

  She leaned into the throttle and let the bike pull her out of the quiet.

  Central rose to meet her in stacked reflections and half-lit glass, streets knitting together as if they had been waiting for her to choose a direction. She took the ramps she always took, the ones that shaved minutes without advertising the fact.

  The lights around Ritz Hotel Hong Kong were subdued at this hour, tasteful and expensive. The driveway curved in a slow, deliberate arc, stone pale and clean under recessed lamps. Iris rolled in and let the bike idle just long enough to make a point before killing the engine.

  A man leaned against one of the pillars by the door, jacket open, shoulder pressed to the marble like it belonged there. He was smoking. Real tobacco. No hurry in him at all.

  A couple of street punks drifted too close, voices carrying, curiosity edging toward the kind of mistake that got corrected fast.

  “Fuck off,” the man said mildly, eyes still on the ember.

  They did.

  Iris walked past without looking at him. He flicked ash onto the stone, and completely ignored her.

  Inside, the lobby swallowed sound the way only money knew how.

  The hostess looked up as Iris crossed the threshold, her smile blooming into place a fraction too late. The AR overlay caught, teeth freezing mid-gleam, eyes slipping half a degree off alignment before snapping back. For a heartbeat, the illusion showed its seams. Then it smoothed itself out, all warmth and welcome.

  She bowed.

  “Good evening,” the hostess said, voice bright, practiced. The air around her shimmered faintly, recalibrating. “Elevators are to your left.”

  Iris didn’t slow. She didn’t comment. She’d learned a long time ago that pretending not to notice was the fastest way through.

  Wulong padded along beside her, claws clicking softly against the marble. A passing guest glanced down, frowned without knowing why, then looked away and walked faster.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The hostess held the bow a second too long, as if waiting for a response protocol that never arrived. When Iris passed, the AR smile twitched again, correcting itself in her wake.

  The elevator doors slid open at Iris’s approach. No questions. No prompts. The interior lights dimmed to a polite amber as she stepped inside. Wulong followed, tail flicking once before he turned and sat, facing the doors like he expected them to argue.

  They didn’t.

  The doors closed with a soft chime and the lift began to rise. The numbers climbed without sound, reflections stretching across brushed metal walls. Iris caught her own face in it, fractured and doubled, then gone as the car shifted.

  When the doors slid open, Ozone felt abandoned.

  Not closed. Just emptied out, like the city had inhaled and forgotten to breathe back in. For a place that sold itself as the highest bar in the world, it was missing the one thing it depended on. Noise. Laughter. The comfortable arrogance of people who believed altitude made them untouchable.

  Waiters moved between the tables on quiet feet, smiles loaded and unloaded by habit. Their AR menus flickered as they passed Iris, static crawling across translucent glass like something trying and failing to organize itself. Each glitch carried the faint scent of incense and hot circuitry, ozone sharp at the back of the throat, as if the storm hadn’t left so much as sunk into the wiring.

  The windows showed the city far below, lights smeared by lingering moisture, Hong Kong laid out flat and fragile beneath them.

  Ozone, for once, didn’t feel above anything at all.

  The hostess reappeared at Iris’s side as if she’d been standing there the whole time, posture perfect, smile carefully dimmed. She didn’t ask for a name. She didn’t ask for confirmation. She inclined her head and gestured toward the far end of the bar, where the light softened and the glass grew thicker.

  “This way.”

  They walked past tables that pretended not to watch them. Wulong padded along, silent, eyes catching reflections that didn’t belong to anything solid. One of the waiters hesitated as they passed, tray dipping a fraction before he corrected it, expression smoothing over the misstep like it had never happened.

  Wei sat alone near the windows. This time, without tea. Just his hands folded on the table, fingers interlaced, gaze fixed on the city below like he was counting something only he could see. The light from outside cut clean lines across his face, leaving the rest in shadow. He looked composed in the way that meant he wasn’t.

  ”Your shipment is delayed too?” Iris joked. The hostess stopped a respectful distance away and bowed, deeper this time.

  Wei didn’t look up right away.

  Iris stopped across from him and waited. She’d learned that part early. Wulong sat at her feet, tail curled neatly around himself, still as a statue someone had forgotten to bless.

  Finally, Wei spoke, eyes still on the glass.

  “You’re early,” he said.

  “You’re awake,” Iris replied. “We’re both having a night.”

  That earned her a glance. Brief. Measuring. He took in the unlit cigarette behind her ear, the tension she wasn’t hiding as well as she thought, the fact that she’d come in through the front like she owned the place.

  He leaned back slightly, exhaled through his nose, and gestured to the chair opposite him.

  “Sit,” he said. “Tell me which rule you’re about to break.”

  Iris dropped on the sofa. A low wash of sound rolled through hidden speakers, more felt than heard, tuned to smooth edges and sell the idea that everything here was under control. The windows gave off a faint, constant hum as they held back the difference between inside and out.

  Below, the city was still shedding the storm. Water ran in thin lines along rooftops and down unfinished concrete, pooling in construction pits where cranes stood frozen mid-task, booms angled like they’d been interrupted in the middle of a thought.

  Hong Kong hadn’t finished cleaning itself up yet.

  Wei finally shifted, fingers loosening where they’d been laced together, and the room seemed to wait with him.

  Iris spoke first.

  ”I need my fix,” Iris said, a little too quick. “I’m out and I can’t afford to be.”

  Wei’s eyes lifted to her at that.

  Not sharp. Not surprised. Just tired, like she’d finally said the honest version instead of the polite one.

  “That’s a new way of putting it,” he said. “Don’t you normally get your enchanted dope in Man Mo?”

  ”They are not being cooperative,” Iris shrugged. He leaned back, chair barely whispering against the floor, and studied her properly now. The unlit cigarette. The set of her shoulders. The way she’d come straight in instead of circling.

  “You know I don’t deal in cures,” Wei said. “Only trades.”

  “I know,” Iris replied. “That’s why I’m here.”

  For a second, the bass rolled through the room again, slow and expensive. Someone laughed too loud at a table behind them and then immediately quieted, like they’d remembered where they were.

  Wei tapped two fingers against the tabletop, once. Thoughtful. Calculating.

  “The monks really can’t get it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Shipment’s delayed. Nobody knows how long. And before you ask, yes, I tried waiting. Didn’t suit me.”

  “That tracks.”

  His gaze drifted, briefly, to Wulong sitting at her feet. The kitten met it without blinking.

  Wei looked away first.

  “Alright,” he said. “If you want to go shopping without a receipt, you need a prescription.”

  Iris nodded. Rules of the engagement were crystal clear since day one.

  "What’s the deal? If it's not cutting throats or moving bricks, what use is a courier to you?"

  He didn't answer right away.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was gravel wrapped in silk.

  "My daughter lands at Chek Lap Kok in one hour. I need her here, in this tower, before the sun breaks."

  Iris blinked once, then barked a short laugh. "That's cute. Normal drive is ninety minutes on a clear night. You're asking me to shove it into thirty in post-typhoon gridlock. Try again. You'd need teleportation."

  His eyes fixed on her. “I need a driver. No prediction matrix can model a bike at 320 klicks with a passenger in Kowloon traffic.”

  Iris drummed her fingers against the tabletop. A bead of condensation slid down the glass wall beside her, catching neon from the harbor below. One hour. Sunrise creeping closer by the minute.

  She swallowed a curse and leaned forward. "So you suggest I break every traffic law between here and Lantau for a prescription?"

  Wei shrugged. Iris studied him. The tattoos under his skin shimmered faintly, restless in the bar's dim light. He wasn't bluffing. He didn't need to. Men like him never did.

  Wei didn’t answer right away. He let the silence stretch until the bass filled it again, until the city below shifted another fraction closer to dawn.

  “I’m suggesting,” he said at last, “that you do what you already do. Only faster. And with consequences I care about.”

  Iris exhaled through her nose and leaned back, sofa creaking softly. She glanced at the windows, at the harbor lights still smudged by rain, at the cranes frozen mid-gesture like they were waiting for permission to move again.

  She leaned forward. "Just so you remember - " her grin came quick, sharp, "-I don't drive town cars. I drive a bike. One hell of a dangerous tool to strap your daughter onto. You sure you're not worried?"

  Wei's gaze didn't flicker. The ink under his skin glowed faintly, restless. "There are matters more pressing than comfort. She must be within the Ritz wards before dawn breaks. That is all that matters."

  Iris studied him a beat longer, then sat back with a sharp exhale through her nose. "Faster than sunrise, on two wheels. Guess we'll see if your faith is justified."

  Wei inclined his head once, slow as gravity. No smile. No blessing. Just acceptance. Iris looked down at Wulong.

  “Not this one,” she said quietly.

  He tilted his head.

  “You hate wind. I need both hands. And I don’t feel like explaining you to traffic cops.”

  Wulong flicked an ear. Considered. Then jumped on the sofa and nestled in it like he was the patron, not Wei. Wei didn’t comment.