Five Deadly Rebels, a Kung Fu Sci-Fi Scripted Podcast. Hosted by Ian Tuason. Music by Wu-Tang Clan producer, Cilvaringz. This is Episode 2, The Third Chamber.
“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.”
The Book of Revelations 13:17-18
Chapter 3: Ambition Without Virtue
Tires screech, echoing off the cement walls and ceilings in the cavernous underground parking lot scattered with police cars, uniformed NYPD officers, and plain-clothed detectives standing inside a section of the parking lot blocked off with yellow crime scene tape. They all turn their heads to see Liu-Chin on his MTT 420-RR motorcycle, matte black, drift in a wide circle, leaving a long sweeping skid mark ending inches away from the yellow tape boundary.
Liu-Chin steps off the bike wearing no helmet, just a black dress shirt and black tie under an Italian tailored black suit, crisply pressed all the way down to his black designer dress shoes. He hangs his black backpack on the handle of his bike and presses his hands over his perfectly slicked black hair, parted to the side.
Liu-Chin is American-born Cantonese, handsome despite the scar running down the left side of his face, from his forehead down through his eyebrow and ending at his jawline. A tattoo of a giant black centipede runs up from under his collar, winding up the side of his neck, and ending over his right cheek in a pincered head.
Unbuttoning his suit jacket, the wooden handle of his silver-plated .357 Magnum dips heavy on his side holster. An intricate design of a Laughing Buddha is carved into the handle’s wood and painted white, red, and yellow.
Liu-Chin lifts the yellow tape and strolls under it when a fat NYPD detective in a brown suit marches at him, flashing his badge.
“You’re out of your jurisdiction, Queens,” he orders.
Liu-Chin snatches the badge from his meaty hand and slides it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“You know who I am. And now, I know who you are,” Liu-Chin says with an unwavering stare.
A couple of officers approach to stand behind the fat detective.
“Let him through,” the detective says after a long pause.
Liu-Chin winks and pats the detective’s chubby cheek, who lowers his head as Liu-Chin brushes past him.
Ahead, he sees a massive dead body slumped over on the hood of a pink Bugatti. The forensic team snapping photos of the scene scurry away as Liu-Chin approaches.
Liu-Chin steps into the pool of blood surrounding the car and faces the body slouching on its hood, its head lowered, its face hidden by the bill of its pink baseball cap. The intestines hanging out of its open belly are dry now, hardened and white. The body’s white jeans are completely soaked in red with no patches of white left anywhere on it.
Leaning over, Liu-Chin opens the torn flaps of the body’s ripped t-shirt and reads the tattooed words under each of its collar bones.
Iron
Fame
“Homeboy had it coming,” says a uniformed officer behind Liu-Chin, sipping coffee from a thermos. “Who you think did this? Nine Trey?”
Liu-Chin ignores the officer and adjusts his tie before turning away, knowing everything he needs to know.
Buttoning his suit jacket, Liu-Chin strolls back to his bike, indifferent to the chatter and stares from the cops around him, tracking bloody footprints on the pavement everywhere he steps.
Chapter 4: The Third Chamber
Groggy, Mickey wakes on his back on the cold stone floor of the chamber, dazed, unsure how long he’s been out. He turns his head to the side, looking around for the figure, but finds himself alone.
All looks the same, the candle lanterns burning on the stone walls, the high ceilings wet with moisture. Somehow, the trunk of a bamboo tree, green and sturdy, has sprouted from the stone floor and seemed to have grown through the ceiling, one long trunk, no branches or leaves.
Mickey staggers to stand up, his body trembling and sweating. He spits a silent curse at the alcohol withdrawal he knows is creeping up to consume him even stronger at any moment. He’ll soon need booze, any booze, or else suffer from the fever, the convulsions, the intense craving, the persistent aching that seems to never end—a form of cruel torture, Mickey had always thought.
“Oi!” Mickey bangs on the locked wooden door. Mickey kicks it, then kicks it again with all his might, but the wood is too thick and strong.
Mickey recalls crossing with the figure, and wonders how long ago it was. Had he been asleep for minutes, hours, days?
Rubbing his wrist, he remembers the intense pain that is all but gone now, not even a small trace of it left. And then he recalls his strange inability to lie.
“My name is Mickey.” Again, he attempts to say his name is John, but still can’t.
“My name is…” He pauses then musters sheer will power to scream out John but then, “Mickey!”
His knuckles pinch into the stone wall.
“Fookin’ piece of…fook! How?”
“I’ve recoded you,” a smooth, deep voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Mickey turns to see the figure standing in the center of the chamber holding a red silk sheet folded into a square, bands of cloth wrapped into tight cylinders, and a wooden bucket of water with a dry rag hanging from its rim.
“The water is for washing, child. You need not drink it. There’s a reservoir drain in the corner. You may bath over it.”
“How long you plannin’ to keep me here?”
“Until you are ready.”
“Are you gonna bring me down some food, or what?”
“In here, you will feel no hunger.”
Mickey squints, realizing he had not eaten for more than a day, but the constant grumbling in his belly has subsided.
“Where the fook am I gonna take a shit?”
“In these five chambers, you will not age, you will not eat, you will not urinate or defecate. But you will sleep, for that is all your mind needs. These are the five chambers outside of time. In here, you are only your mind, nothing more.
“I don’t know what the fook you’re talkin’ about, to be honest,” Mickey shakes his head. “And what do I call you.”
“You can call me Master.”
“Alright then. You got any booze, Master?”
“I do.”
“What kind?”
“Every kind.”
“Fookin’ A right! Leave me with a bottle and I’ll stay here as long as you want, broski.”
“No.”
“Then fook it, let me outta here.”
“Here, you will learn discipline, my pupil, for your mind and for your body, for both are the same here.”
“There you go again with that shit,” Mickey says.
The Master lays the garments and the bucket on the ground and turns toward the door.
“Why are you doing this?” Mickey says.
The Master turns back around to face him, “You are asking the wrong question.”
“Alright then, what’s the right one?”
“The correct question is why are you doing this?
“Pshh! I already know that. I wanna take names and kick ass, like you.”
“Closer,” the Master says.
“Why don’t you just fookin’ tell me then, broski, since you know everything,” Mickey says.
“You’re doing this because you’re a rebel in your reality. You see, my child, humans are hard coded to adapt themselves to the reality they’re subjected to. But for some, the rebels, they insist in adapting reality to themselves. Thus, the disruption of reality can only come from a rebel, like you, my pupil…” The Master pauses. “And so now you have the answer to your first question. For this is the reason why I am doing this.”
The Master presses his palms together in front of his forehead, and Mickey wonders why.
“Now, rest, my child. Meditate. When we are done, then you will know yourself, your true self, not the mask you wear now—the mask of flesh. You will earn your true face, my pupil.”
-----
Mickey sits at the kitchen table of his mom’s old apartment eating from a bowl of Fruit Loops gone soggy from milk, his favorite. He looks into the living room and sees his mom sitting on the sofa, facing the TV, her long scarlet hair falling onto the sofa’s backrest. An episode of Sesame Street is playing on the TV, Ernie singing a song about wishing to visit the moon.
“Mom!” Mickey’s heart fills up, feeling like it’s about to explode, how he misses her so much. He dashes into the living room but when he turns the corner of the sofa to face her, Mickey’s heart sinks into his gut. His mom sits faceless—featureless, only her freckled skin. Mickey shakes her shoulders, but she doesn’t move.
“John?” he hears his own voice call out behind him. He spins around and the TV is no longer there, only the large mirror atop his mom’s dresser, and Mickey finds himself in her bedroom now. He staggers towards the large mirror and sees himself aged—an old man.
Mickey stares at the deep lines that have formed around his different colored eyes, and tries to remember his name, but can’t.
“John?” he whispers. “Jim?”
And then he feels the cold stone floor at his side. A drop of water breaks onto his temple, and he wakens from the nightmare, curled up onto his side in a fetal position in a corner of the stone chamber. He’s drenched in sweat, trembling uncontrollably, his head throbbing, body aches gnawing at him relentlessly from his feet up to his neck.
“Your future and past haunt you, my child,” the figure appears in the chamber, or perhaps he’s always been there. “But the future nor the past cannot harm you, because they do not exist. What harms you is your imagination and your memory.”
“How long have I fookin’ been in here?” Mickey shivers.
“You’ve been here for no time at all.”
“I still don’t know what the fook you’re talkin’ about.”
“Know this, child, the pain you feel exists only in your mind.”
“My fookin’ body’s burnin’ up. I’m shakin’ like shit. This ain’t just in my mind, broski!” Mickey snaps.
“It is true, your symptoms are physical, but the pain is not. It is neither pain nor pleasure. It is simply a sensation that can be deciphered in your mind however you wish. Now, stand.”
“I can’t!”
“But you can speak. You can think. You can react with suffering, or not. It’s your choice how to decipher what it is that you feel. Now, stand.”
“I can’t!”
“Very well, but know this; you are not suffering from these physical sensations. You are suffering from your resistance and your desire.”
Mickey tightens his own embrace around his knees pressed against his chest and closes his eyes, wishing for oblivion.
-----
“Come, dear,” says an old Japanese woman, shaking Mickey’s shoulder.
Mickey awakens, still curled onto his side, his trembling somewhat calmer.
He opens his eyes reluctantly and sees the woman he had seen in the painting, smiling, slightly hunched, wearing the same kimono, kneeling beside him, holding up a steaming bowl of miso soup in both her chubby hands.
“Here, my dear, this will help.”
Mickey struggles to sit up. The woman lays the bowl on the ground and pulls Mickey up by his armpits.
“I don’t agree with my husband’s methods,” she says, shaking her head.
“Who are you?” Mickey sits up and crosses his legs, wrapping himself in his own arms to fight the chills.
“Call me Mrs. Nakamoto, my dear,” she says in an accent that Mickey couldn’t quite place, not Japanese nor American.
The old woman raises the bowl of soup up to Mickey who takes it from her. She smiles wider and Mickey imagines how much prettier she must have been in her youth.
“In here, your body doesn’t require nourishment, but you can still take the pleasure from it. Nothing wrong with that, right?”
Mickey brings the bowl to his lips and sips, then looks up at Mrs. Nakamoto with wide eyes, “What the fook?”
“Do you like?”
Mickey tilts the bowl and slurps louder, nodding his head.
“Well, anything tastes good when you haven’t eaten for a long time.”
“Not this fookin’ good,” Mickey says after swallowing.
“If my husband asks about this, can you promise not to tell him?”
“I don’t think I can promise that, to be honest,” Mickey says before another long slurp.
“Oh, yes. Yes, that’s right,” Mrs. Nakamoto chuckles, indulging in the sight of Mickey’s enjoyment. “In that case, no promises.”
Chapter 5: The Chinese Triad Motorcycle Club
Liu-Chin Chan stares up at the water stained ceiling of some basement in Chinatown, Queens, lying naked on his back on a stone alter, its edges decorated with small bowls burning incense as three tattoo artists work on him, one on his leg, one on his side, one on his chest and neck. The old Incense Master chants in Cantonese, walking circles around the alter, holding a white chicken clucking in his arms.
The pain from the three needles stabbing into his skin on different areas of his body was bearable for the first two hours, but six hours have since passed without any breaks, and Liu-Chin is starting to sweat.
Liu-Chin doesn’t care much for the initiation ritual he’s enduring, but it is necessary for earning a Red Pole rank in the Chinese Triad Motorcycle Club, a syndicate of young American-born Chinese gangsters who adopted the intimidation tactics of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, riding the streets of Queens in large packs, polluting the neighborhoods with the noise of roaring motors. But the CTMC doesn’t ride Harley Davidsons; they prefer the speed of sports bikes like the Kawasaki Ninja H2R or the Suzuki GSX1300 R Hayabusa.
The CTMC started out as a common street gang protecting Chinatown, Queens, and its surrounding blocks, from the Puerto Ricans infringing in their businesses, mostly prostitution, underground gambling, drugs, extortion, kidnapping, smuggling, and murder for hire.
Eventually, the 14K triad and its twenty thousand members worldwide took notice of the CTMC and made them an official chapter, resulting in these kinds of ridiculous initiation rituals, Liu-Chin thinks to himself, lying there, sweating in pain. The 14K even sent one Mountain Master from Hong Kong to oversee their whole operation from his comfy mansion far away in Connecticut.
Liu-Chin never saw him or knew his name. He took all his orders from Jin, his DaiLo. He wonders when Jin will finally show up so they can get this initiation over with.
The ritual required all recruits to choose animals representing the fighting styles of Shaolin kung fu—dragons, snakes, cranes, leopards and tigers, to tattoo onto their bodies, starting from their left foot, then winding up their leg, around their back, chest, and neck, and ending at their face. But Liu-Chin chose a centipede, a fighting style deemed too deadly by the ancient Shaolin monks, and was outlawed, forbidden to practice, though some, the rebels of those times, practiced in secret, until all were discovered and executed by the Shaolin, their scrolls set on fire, and then the centipede style disappeared from history, only to be whispered about as legend. Jin allowed Liu-Chin’s choice and even commended it.
Liu-Chin can hear Jin’s footsteps thud down the stairs before bursting through the door.
“Ha!” Jin shoots a wide smile at Liu-Chin, taking pleasure in his suffering. He’s short, even by Cantonese standards, his black suit crumpling at his wrists and ankles. The tattooed head of a crane peeks out from under his collar and covers the side of his neck, its long beak rising up across his cheek.
Jin asks the Incense Master in Cantonese how much longer they will be, who answers, “Not too long.”
“This is going to be fun, brother,” Jin presses his left hand on Liu-Chin’s sweaty shoulder, his pinky finger missing.
One of the tattoo artists stops, wiping the blood from Liu-Chin’s thigh and announces he’s done. Then the other two artists happen to finish at the same time. Liu-Chin sits up from the alter and eyes the centipede tattoo winding up his body.
“Get dressed,” Jin orders, and Liu-Chin walks to his black suit hanging in the corner and hastily dresses, its fabric stinging his freshly pierced skin.
The Incense Master places the chicken, a knife, a drinking glass half filled with red wine, a round tin plate, a rag, a lit candle, a rolled up scroll, a tiny wooden box, and a chopping board on the alter.
“Let’s get this over with,” Liu-Chin says, tucking his shirt into his pants.
“Ah, all you young punks don’t know anything about honor,” Jin swipes his hand up.
The tattoo artists gather their gear and run up the stairs in haste.
Liu-Chin faces the alter, knowing what needs to be done. He grabs the chicken with one hand and the knife with the other. He eyes the knife and is pleased to see its pristine sharpness. He runs the blade across the chicken’s throat as it flaps wildly, then squeezes its neck over the wine glass, blood pouring into it in a thin stream. He leaves the dying chicken on the alter, lying on its side, flapping weakly every now and then. Then Liu-Chin brings the cup up to his lips and drinks down the wine and blood mixture to the last drop.
Jin is quiet beside him, his eyes closed, listening to the Incense Master mouthing some kind of prayer. Liu-Chin unravels the long, thin scroll, staining it with some chicken blood, and reads the sprawling Cantonese script running down the paper—the triad’s thirty-four oaths—then hovers one corner of the paper over the candle flame until it catches fire. Liu-Chin drops the burning scroll onto the tin plate where it rolls back into a loose coil, its flames spreading through it. And without any hesitation, he presses his left hand on the chopping board, grips the knife tightly in his other hand, and slices across the base of his pinky finger, severing it off completely. Blood spurts out across the alter before Liu-Chin presses the rag hard on his open wound.
The Incense Master snatches the severed pinky from the chopping board and lays it into the tiny wooden box. He closes its lid and announces in Cantonese that the ritual is complete, handing Jin the small box.
The pinky ritual isn’t a traditional triad custom, but adopted from the Japanese Yakuza, believing in the power of its gesture.
Jin opens his eyes and sees Liu-Chin pressing the rag into his left hand.
“You fucking idiot,” Jin says. “You did the wrong hand. Now, do the other one. Now.”
Liu-Chin forces a smile as Jin starts chuckling. “Where does that thing go?” Liu-Chin points at the box with his eyes.
“To the Mountain Master.”
“What’s he going to do with it?”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe eat it or some shit,” Jin snickers and pats Liu-Chin on the shoulder, still pressing the rag on his hand. “The boys are waiting at Rol San. Let’s drink.”
Liu-Chin turns to the staircase, but Jin stops him. “Brother,” Jin raises his left hand missing its pinky, tucks his thumb over his palm, lifting three fingers into the air. “Welcome to the Club.”
Liu-Chin removes the rag from his hand and does the same, a single trail of blood running down his forearm, a gesture binding him to the triad.
Chapter 6: The Cross Body Block
The Master, surprisingly agile in his three-piece suit, presses into Mickey with a series of muay Thai body kicks, his legs swinging at Mickey’s sides like baseball bats. Mickey blocks each kick, bringing his knee up to his elbow, creating a wall of shin and forearm protecting his body, bones clashing onto bones. Mickey backsteps to gain balance, but the Master’s assaults advance with his every backstep, forcing Mickey to defend.
The Master drops low, and Mickey knows he’s been set up. He tenses his muscles as the Master shifts his weight to his back leg then springs it forward with a knee strike aimed at Mickey’s core.
Mickey thought to bring his knee up to his opposite elbow for a cross body block that the Master had taught him, but on impulse, Mickey parries the Master’s knee with an inside forearm block, then takes a painful left hook to his chin, knocking him onto his back. Mickey pounds the ground with his fist in frustration.
The Master straightens his stance, adjusting the wrinkles in his three-piece suit.
“A cross body block was the correct move,” the Master says.
“The block is shit,” Mickey spits, jumping back up onto his heels wrapped tight in bands of cloth. His fingers peek through similar cloth wraps winding around his knuckles and wrists. Sweat drenches the red silk sheet tied around his waist and under his loins, secured by a hard knot on his pelvis.
“The block leaves me with no fookin’ counter,” Mickey protests.
“But you blunted my attack.”
“Aye, just to take more, like a fookin’ bitch,” Mickey argues. “You said every move should open a counter. There is no fookin’ counter using that fookin’ block.”
“In that variant, returning to even footing offers you the highest positive expected value.”
“The block is shit,” Mickey spits.
“Return to your stance,” the Master squares up. Before Mickey realizes, the Master presses into him, unloading straight front kicks, straight cross punches, downward sweeping elbow strikes, forcing Mickey backwards and in circles around the chamber. Mickey notices a pattern as the Master’s attacks target his core, forcing Mickey’s arms to tuck at his sides to protect him from abdomen and liver shots.
Then the Master crouches low and yells, “Cross body block!” as his knee drives upwards into Mickey. But Mickey is ready for it. He parries the knee with an inside forearm block with all his strength, forcing the Master to spin, revealing his back, vulnerable.
This is Mickey’s chance, he thinks, firing a straight cross at the back of the Master’s head, but the Master, letting his momentum spin him full circle, unloads a vicious backfist at the side of Mickey’s head before his blow can land, dropping him unconscious.
Mickey wakes up a few minutes later, flat on his back.
“What have you learned, child?” asks the Master standing over him.
“The block is shit,” Mickey turns his head and spits out blood onto the chamber floor.
The Master reaches out his hand and pulls Mickey to his feet.
“Your effort was sound, my pupil.”
“You fookin’ expected it,” Mickey scoffs, wiping the blood from his lips with the back of his wrapped hands.
The Master nods. “But do not fret, my pupil. I’ve seen the counter attempted before.”
“Did you fook up the broski’s head like mine, too?”
“No, I watched the counter fail from the same perspective as you have watched it fail.”
Mickey’s head perks up.
“I’ve collected data over thousands of years. You are but a child, my pupil. You will learn. The cross body block is the correct move, according to the math.”
Mickey nods, acknowledging that he hears what the Master is saying, but not understanding what he means at the slightest. And then the Master lays his hand on Mickey’s shoulder, and he’s taken aback by it—it’s the first time the Master expressed any form of affection. “One day, you may find a better counter and prove the math wrong. That is my wish for you, my pupil.”
The Master steps back, placing his palms together in front of his forehead, and Mickey does the same. The Master turns and moves toward the chamber door, leaving Mickey standing there, feeling that the Master had left him with something very important to ponder, but he has no idea where to even start.
-----
Mickey kneels in the center of the chamber floor, sitting back on his heels, his palms pressed together in front of his face.
Deep bruises cover both his forearms and elbows, the skin of his shins bright red. The green bark of the bamboo trunk sprouting up through the chamber is all but splintered and peeling off, revealing whitish wood behind it, stained with dry blood.
Mickey no longer has any perception of the time he has spent in the chamber. He meditates on his breathing, on being present in this moment. The past doesn’t exist, the future doesn’t exist, there is only the now, and only the chamber.
He hears a heavy thud on the floor in front of him. When he opens his eyes, he sees a 1.75L bottle of Jameson Triple Distilled Irish Whiskey, its maroon cap still sealed onto the thick neck of the huge green glass bottle, standing upright on the floor in front of him.
“You’ve earned this, my pupil,” the Master says, standing at a distance.
Rising with the bottle in his hand, he twists open the cap and pours the whiskey into the reservoir grate at the back corner of the chamber. He sits the bottle on top of the grate, its label facing away.
He then approaches the Master, facing him, dropping into a narrow muay Thai stance and raises his wrapped fists.
“Attack me core, Master,” Mickey says.
The Master presses his palms together in front of his forehead, then drags one foot back and curls his hands into fists under his faceless, turquoise head.
“Let us begin,” the Master says.
Chapter 7: Operation Blood Rain
Liu-Chin enters the truck stop diner off Interstate 587 in upstate New York, slouching, his Baltimore Oriole’s cap tipped low over his eyes, the tall collars of his Prada raincoat pulled up high, covering the centipede tattoo on his neck and cheek. He shoots sideways glances around the diner. There’s one trucker eating breakfast alone at the bar, and Captain Winfield is sitting in a corner booth. Both his hands are wrapped around a steaming coffee mug. Bringing it up to his tightly pressed lips, he scowls at Liu-Chin as he approaches.
“Captain,” Liu-Chin sits down opposite him.
“You’re late,” scolds Winfield.
“Sorry.”
“What you eating?” says Winfield, his wind worn skin looking as tough as his leather jacket.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“I ordered us eggs.”
“I don’t eat eggs.”
“You don’t eat eggs?”
“I prefer pancakes.”
A server approaches the booth, refilling Winfield’s mug.
“Listen, honey, can you please change one order of eggs to pancakes for little miss fucking pancake over here? Thank you.”
The server nods and saunters away.
“What’s with the hat? Who are you, Cal Ripken Jr.?” chides Winfield.
“Who?”
“Take it off.”
Liu-Chin lays his cap on the table.
“Now, listen…” Winfield lifts his mug to his lips, a fifty-five-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe watch dangling on his wrist. “There’s been chatter on the mountain man’s wire; he’s worried about informants in the club.”
“Informants? No, impossible. We’re loyal to the death,” says Liu-Chin.
“Oh, it’s we now?” Winfield bellows. “Well, we planted some fake intel when we got a warrant on the old man’s mansion up in Connecticut. Turned the place inside out. I want you to tell your DaiLo to set up a meeting in Queens with the old man; he’ll come, trust me.”
“What kind of meeting?” Liu-Chin questions.
“The takeover kind,” Winfield sips his coffee, holding his stare at Liu-Chin from over the rim of his mug.
Winfield slides a folded piece of paper across the table.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my new number. Text me on this one, not the other one.” Winfield leans forward, his inflated gut pressing against the edge of the table, “Give me the address, the date, the time. Then on the day, when he’s on the way there, text me, ‘Hey baby.’ When he’s at the meeting, text me, ‘Wanna fuck?’ And then just hold tight for me and the boys.”
Winfield was always so eager to work in the field, Liu-Chin often noticed, unlike most captains shouting orders from behind a desk. That was one thing he respected about him.
“Listen, I’m going to make you a lieutenant when this is done. You earned it. And one day you’re going to make captain, you know that, Woo?”
Liu-Chin looks around nervously.
“What’s wrong, Woo? Forgot who you are for a second?” Winfield laughs, chugging the last of his coffee before standing up and throwing two twenties on the table. “Now, don’t fuck up.” He zips up his jacket and waddles away.
“Your eggs are coming,” Liu-Chin yells over his shoulder.
“You have them. I hate eggs.”
-----
Things always came fast for Elliot Woo. He learned at a grade ten level when he was in grade two, and was sent away from his public school in Queens to start grade three at a school for gifted students somewhere upstate. Year after year, at the top of his class, he graduated early at eleven years old, and finished high school in two years, getting full scholarship offers from Ivy League universities at thirteen. Elliot chose MIT and earned his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering degree at seventeen.
After his graduation ceremony, the opportunities were endless for Elliot. He could have worked for the US Air Force designing faster military aircrafts or developed systems for space travel for NASA. But instead, Elliot chose to enter the 24-week program at the NYPD Police Academy.
That’s where Queens Finest discovered Elliot. Queens Finest was a syndicate of corrupt cops stretching across every precinct in Queens. And Elliot knew everything there was to know about them. Queens Finest were so feared that cops from the other four boroughs stayed out of their way. Even the tech startup company headquartered in Queens had to pay weekly tribute to them until they received a third round of venture capitalist funding and moved their offices across the country to California, and then stopped paying tribute all together. But sometime after the company went IPO, making the CEO founder a billionaire, the CEO came home one night to his Silicon Valley mansion to see the floor littered with his dead pets—four purebred dogs, three African gray parrots, and one cat. After that, the CEO continued to pay triple the tribute halfway across the country, plus interest.
Queens Finest wore the same NYPD uniforms, wore the same badges, but they weren’t the same NYPD. They all wore Patek Philippe watches on their left wrists, the only sign that they weren’t really NYPD. They were simply the law in a lawless borough.
Queens Finest ran everything in Queens except for Chinatown, held strong by the Chinese Triad Motorcycle Club, which gave Queens Finest the biggest hardon. Even if they murdered a few Red Poles and DaiLo, more would be organized by their Mountain Master who was untouchable. They knew the only way to annihilate the CTMC was from within.
So, when Captain Winfield, who ran the undercover unit in Queens Finest, met Elliot in the academy, he recruited him two weeks before his graduation simply because he was Chinese, spoke Cantonese fluently, and was unknown to the CTMC.
Winfield offered Elliot to lead an operation to infiltrate the highest ranks of the CTMC, which would likely take years, but would secure him with a lieutenant position in Queens Finest. Elliot agreed without a second thought, and Operation Blood Rain was born.
For the operation, Elliot legally changed his name to Liu-Chin Chan, a name he was proud of—a name he chose himself. Winfield chose his new birthdate though, making Liu-Chin one year older so he could throw him into Rikers Island as an adult charged with assaulting a police officer. That’s where Liu-Chin laid on a thick Cantonese accent and made like a young Chinese immigrant, struggling with his English, despite grading perfectly in every English essay and exam he’s ever taken. But it was easy for him to act the part; he learned the art of deception quickly, like everything else he’d ever learned in his life.
Queens Finest knew the CTMC inmates would protect him in there, just for being Cantonese. The street beef between the Puerto Ricans and the CTMC extended well into Rikers Island. One day, when a full on brawl erupted in the common room between the two sects, Liu-Chin found himself facing up against a large Puerto Rican winding back for a devastating punch. Before he could throw it, Liu-Chin struck his throat with the webbed blade of his open hand, breaking his windpipe. He followed up with a straight cross from his other hand, landing solid on the Puerto Rican’s chin, knocking him onto his back, unconscious. When the guards finally came charging in with their pepper spray and shields, breaking up the brawl, they saw the Puerto Rican dead on his back, drowned by his own blood.
Liu-Chin made a name for himself then and there. Two days after being released from Rikers Island, he was called in for a sit down with a CTMC Vanguard recruiting new members.
Things always came fast for Liu-Chin Chan.
-----
Two Vanguards, five DaiLo, including Jin, and four Red Poles, including Liu-Chin, make a big deal about rising from their seats around the long table in the conference room of some unleased office building floor, bowing low below their waists, when the Mountain Master, short and frail in an oversized suit, enters the room in his wheelchair pushed by the Deputy Mountain Master and two DaiLo bodyguards at his side.
The Deputy Mountain Master parks the triad elder at the center of the long table and all rise up from their bows, backs straight and proud.
The Mountain Master gestures for all to sit down and all comply, except for the four Red Poles assigned to stand guard behind their superiors, their backs facing each of the four walls of the room. Liu-Chin’s back faces the large windows opposite the room’s only door. A Vanguard welcomes the Mountain Master in Cantonese as Liu-Chin slips his hand into his pocket, feeling for his phone, texting Winfield blindly.
The Mountain Master doesn’t say a single word as thirty minutes pass, the Deputy Mountain Master grilling the room about whacking every new recruit and Straw Sandal in the club, just to be safe. Jin protests, slamming his fist onto the table, vouching his life on certain recruits that were named.
Their voices grow louder in debate then stops abruptly when automatic gunfire rings out from a few floors below. All at the table rise, except for the Mountain Master still in his wheelchair, his back facing the room’s only exit, his DaiLo bodyguards shielding his back with guns drawn. Everyone in the room is aiming their handguns at the exit, no one speaking a word as automatic gunfire approaches louder and closer.
Liu-Chin stands the furthest from the exit, everyone’s back facing him. He grips then regrips his fully loaded fifteen round pistol with both his clammy hands, aiming at the exit like everyone else. He hears the blood pulsing between his ears when he notices the Mountain Master, the only one facing him, lock his eyes onto Liu-Chin for a long moment. Liu-Chin sees a subtle change in his expression, and he knows, almost for certain, that the old man understands what’s to come.
Fourteen shots pop from Liu-Chin’s pistol in rapid concession, and fourteen bodies crumple, dropping one by one like a wave from one side of the room to the other—Jin, the Vanguards, the Deputy Mountain Master, the DaiLo, and the Red Poles, all but one old man who only slouches deeper into his wheelchair, blood spurting out from his right eye.
The sound of bodies thudding onto the floor above Winfield, along with his unwavering trust in Liu-Chin’s competence, sends him storming up the staircase, down the hallway and crashing through the door of the conference room.
Winfield sees Liu-Chin standing among the dead bodies, his pistol drawn down, still smoking in his hands. Winfield lowers his assault rifle and scans the room, a look of triumph swelling in his eyes.
“Chinatown is ours,” he whispers to himself. Winfield doesn’t even notice Liu-Chin raising his pistol again. He fires the last bullet in his chamber that enters the center of Winfield’s forehead, exits the back of his head, and embeds itself into the wall behind him.
“Chinatown is mine,” Liu-Chin whispers.
To be continued next Wednesday in Five Deadly Rebels, Episode 3: The Five Deadly Rebels, anywhere you get your podcasts. To learn more about the podcast, visit our website at five deadly rebels dot com. This has been a DimensionGate production.
“And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.”
The Book of Revelations 13:17-18
Chapter 3: Ambition Without Virtue
Tires screech, echoing off the cement walls and ceilings in the cavernous underground parking lot scattered with police cars, uniformed NYPD officers, and plain-clothed detectives standing inside a section of the parking lot blocked off with yellow crime scene tape. They all turn their heads to see Liu-Chin on his MTT 420-RR motorcycle, matte black, drift in a wide circle, leaving a long sweeping skid mark ending inches away from the yellow tape boundary.
Liu-Chin steps off the bike wearing no helmet, just a black dress shirt and black tie under an Italian tailored black suit, crisply pressed all the way down to his black designer dress shoes. He hangs his black backpack on the handle of his bike and presses his hands over his perfectly slicked black hair, parted to the side.
Liu-Chin is American-born Cantonese, handsome despite the scar running down the left side of his face, from his forehead down through his eyebrow and ending at his jawline. A tattoo of a giant black centipede runs up from under his collar, winding up the side of his neck, and ending over his right cheek in a pincered head.
Unbuttoning his suit jacket, the wooden handle of his silver-plated .357 Magnum dips heavy on his side holster. An intricate design of a Laughing Buddha is carved into the handle’s wood and painted white, red, and yellow.
Liu-Chin lifts the yellow tape and strolls under it when a fat NYPD detective in a brown suit marches at him, flashing his badge.
“You’re out of your jurisdiction, Queens,” he orders.
Liu-Chin snatches the badge from his meaty hand and slides it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
“You know who I am. And now, I know who you are,” Liu-Chin says with an unwavering stare.
A couple of officers approach to stand behind the fat detective.
“Let him through,” the detective says after a long pause.
Liu-Chin winks and pats the detective’s chubby cheek, who lowers his head as Liu-Chin brushes past him.
Ahead, he sees a massive dead body slumped over on the hood of a pink Bugatti. The forensic team snapping photos of the scene scurry away as Liu-Chin approaches.
Liu-Chin steps into the pool of blood surrounding the car and faces the body slouching on its hood, its head lowered, its face hidden by the bill of its pink baseball cap. The intestines hanging out of its open belly are dry now, hardened and white. The body’s white jeans are completely soaked in red with no patches of white left anywhere on it.
Leaning over, Liu-Chin opens the torn flaps of the body’s ripped t-shirt and reads the tattooed words under each of its collar bones.
Iron
Fame
“Homeboy had it coming,” says a uniformed officer behind Liu-Chin, sipping coffee from a thermos. “Who you think did this? Nine Trey?”
Liu-Chin ignores the officer and adjusts his tie before turning away, knowing everything he needs to know.
Buttoning his suit jacket, Liu-Chin strolls back to his bike, indifferent to the chatter and stares from the cops around him, tracking bloody footprints on the pavement everywhere he steps.
Chapter 4: The Third Chamber
Groggy, Mickey wakes on his back on the cold stone floor of the chamber, dazed, unsure how long he’s been out. He turns his head to the side, looking around for the figure, but finds himself alone.
All looks the same, the candle lanterns burning on the stone walls, the high ceilings wet with moisture. Somehow, the trunk of a bamboo tree, green and sturdy, has sprouted from the stone floor and seemed to have grown through the ceiling, one long trunk, no branches or leaves.
Mickey staggers to stand up, his body trembling and sweating. He spits a silent curse at the alcohol withdrawal he knows is creeping up to consume him even stronger at any moment. He’ll soon need booze, any booze, or else suffer from the fever, the convulsions, the intense craving, the persistent aching that seems to never end—a form of cruel torture, Mickey had always thought.
“Oi!” Mickey bangs on the locked wooden door. Mickey kicks it, then kicks it again with all his might, but the wood is too thick and strong.
Mickey recalls crossing with the figure, and wonders how long ago it was. Had he been asleep for minutes, hours, days?
Rubbing his wrist, he remembers the intense pain that is all but gone now, not even a small trace of it left. And then he recalls his strange inability to lie.
“My name is Mickey.” Again, he attempts to say his name is John, but still can’t.
“My name is…” He pauses then musters sheer will power to scream out John but then, “Mickey!”
His knuckles pinch into the stone wall.
“Fookin’ piece of…fook! How?”
“I’ve recoded you,” a smooth, deep voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Mickey turns to see the figure standing in the center of the chamber holding a red silk sheet folded into a square, bands of cloth wrapped into tight cylinders, and a wooden bucket of water with a dry rag hanging from its rim.
“The water is for washing, child. You need not drink it. There’s a reservoir drain in the corner. You may bath over it.”
“How long you plannin’ to keep me here?”
“Until you are ready.”
“Are you gonna bring me down some food, or what?”
“In here, you will feel no hunger.”
Mickey squints, realizing he had not eaten for more than a day, but the constant grumbling in his belly has subsided.
“Where the fook am I gonna take a shit?”
“In these five chambers, you will not age, you will not eat, you will not urinate or defecate. But you will sleep, for that is all your mind needs. These are the five chambers outside of time. In here, you are only your mind, nothing more.
“I don’t know what the fook you’re talkin’ about, to be honest,” Mickey shakes his head. “And what do I call you.”
“You can call me Master.”
“Alright then. You got any booze, Master?”
“I do.”
“What kind?”
“Every kind.”
“Fookin’ A right! Leave me with a bottle and I’ll stay here as long as you want, broski.”
“No.”
“Then fook it, let me outta here.”
“Here, you will learn discipline, my pupil, for your mind and for your body, for both are the same here.”
“There you go again with that shit,” Mickey says.
The Master lays the garments and the bucket on the ground and turns toward the door.
“Why are you doing this?” Mickey says.
The Master turns back around to face him, “You are asking the wrong question.”
“Alright then, what’s the right one?”
“The correct question is why are you doing this?
“Pshh! I already know that. I wanna take names and kick ass, like you.”
“Closer,” the Master says.
“Why don’t you just fookin’ tell me then, broski, since you know everything,” Mickey says.
“You’re doing this because you’re a rebel in your reality. You see, my child, humans are hard coded to adapt themselves to the reality they’re subjected to. But for some, the rebels, they insist in adapting reality to themselves. Thus, the disruption of reality can only come from a rebel, like you, my pupil…” The Master pauses. “And so now you have the answer to your first question. For this is the reason why I am doing this.”
The Master presses his palms together in front of his forehead, and Mickey wonders why.
“Now, rest, my child. Meditate. When we are done, then you will know yourself, your true self, not the mask you wear now—the mask of flesh. You will earn your true face, my pupil.”
-----
Mickey sits at the kitchen table of his mom’s old apartment eating from a bowl of Fruit Loops gone soggy from milk, his favorite. He looks into the living room and sees his mom sitting on the sofa, facing the TV, her long scarlet hair falling onto the sofa’s backrest. An episode of Sesame Street is playing on the TV, Ernie singing a song about wishing to visit the moon.
“Mom!” Mickey’s heart fills up, feeling like it’s about to explode, how he misses her so much. He dashes into the living room but when he turns the corner of the sofa to face her, Mickey’s heart sinks into his gut. His mom sits faceless—featureless, only her freckled skin. Mickey shakes her shoulders, but she doesn’t move.
“John?” he hears his own voice call out behind him. He spins around and the TV is no longer there, only the large mirror atop his mom’s dresser, and Mickey finds himself in her bedroom now. He staggers towards the large mirror and sees himself aged—an old man.
Mickey stares at the deep lines that have formed around his different colored eyes, and tries to remember his name, but can’t.
“John?” he whispers. “Jim?”
And then he feels the cold stone floor at his side. A drop of water breaks onto his temple, and he wakens from the nightmare, curled up onto his side in a fetal position in a corner of the stone chamber. He’s drenched in sweat, trembling uncontrollably, his head throbbing, body aches gnawing at him relentlessly from his feet up to his neck.
“Your future and past haunt you, my child,” the figure appears in the chamber, or perhaps he’s always been there. “But the future nor the past cannot harm you, because they do not exist. What harms you is your imagination and your memory.”
“How long have I fookin’ been in here?” Mickey shivers.
“You’ve been here for no time at all.”
“I still don’t know what the fook you’re talkin’ about.”
“Know this, child, the pain you feel exists only in your mind.”
“My fookin’ body’s burnin’ up. I’m shakin’ like shit. This ain’t just in my mind, broski!” Mickey snaps.
“It is true, your symptoms are physical, but the pain is not. It is neither pain nor pleasure. It is simply a sensation that can be deciphered in your mind however you wish. Now, stand.”
“I can’t!”
“But you can speak. You can think. You can react with suffering, or not. It’s your choice how to decipher what it is that you feel. Now, stand.”
“I can’t!”
“Very well, but know this; you are not suffering from these physical sensations. You are suffering from your resistance and your desire.”
Mickey tightens his own embrace around his knees pressed against his chest and closes his eyes, wishing for oblivion.
-----
“Come, dear,” says an old Japanese woman, shaking Mickey’s shoulder.
Mickey awakens, still curled onto his side, his trembling somewhat calmer.
He opens his eyes reluctantly and sees the woman he had seen in the painting, smiling, slightly hunched, wearing the same kimono, kneeling beside him, holding up a steaming bowl of miso soup in both her chubby hands.
“Here, my dear, this will help.”
Mickey struggles to sit up. The woman lays the bowl on the ground and pulls Mickey up by his armpits.
“I don’t agree with my husband’s methods,” she says, shaking her head.
“Who are you?” Mickey sits up and crosses his legs, wrapping himself in his own arms to fight the chills.
“Call me Mrs. Nakamoto, my dear,” she says in an accent that Mickey couldn’t quite place, not Japanese nor American.
The old woman raises the bowl of soup up to Mickey who takes it from her. She smiles wider and Mickey imagines how much prettier she must have been in her youth.
“In here, your body doesn’t require nourishment, but you can still take the pleasure from it. Nothing wrong with that, right?”
Mickey brings the bowl to his lips and sips, then looks up at Mrs. Nakamoto with wide eyes, “What the fook?”
“Do you like?”
Mickey tilts the bowl and slurps louder, nodding his head.
“Well, anything tastes good when you haven’t eaten for a long time.”
“Not this fookin’ good,” Mickey says after swallowing.
“If my husband asks about this, can you promise not to tell him?”
“I don’t think I can promise that, to be honest,” Mickey says before another long slurp.
“Oh, yes. Yes, that’s right,” Mrs. Nakamoto chuckles, indulging in the sight of Mickey’s enjoyment. “In that case, no promises.”
Chapter 5: The Chinese Triad Motorcycle Club
Liu-Chin Chan stares up at the water stained ceiling of some basement in Chinatown, Queens, lying naked on his back on a stone alter, its edges decorated with small bowls burning incense as three tattoo artists work on him, one on his leg, one on his side, one on his chest and neck. The old Incense Master chants in Cantonese, walking circles around the alter, holding a white chicken clucking in his arms.
The pain from the three needles stabbing into his skin on different areas of his body was bearable for the first two hours, but six hours have since passed without any breaks, and Liu-Chin is starting to sweat.
Liu-Chin doesn’t care much for the initiation ritual he’s enduring, but it is necessary for earning a Red Pole rank in the Chinese Triad Motorcycle Club, a syndicate of young American-born Chinese gangsters who adopted the intimidation tactics of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, riding the streets of Queens in large packs, polluting the neighborhoods with the noise of roaring motors. But the CTMC doesn’t ride Harley Davidsons; they prefer the speed of sports bikes like the Kawasaki Ninja H2R or the Suzuki GSX1300 R Hayabusa.
The CTMC started out as a common street gang protecting Chinatown, Queens, and its surrounding blocks, from the Puerto Ricans infringing in their businesses, mostly prostitution, underground gambling, drugs, extortion, kidnapping, smuggling, and murder for hire.
Eventually, the 14K triad and its twenty thousand members worldwide took notice of the CTMC and made them an official chapter, resulting in these kinds of ridiculous initiation rituals, Liu-Chin thinks to himself, lying there, sweating in pain. The 14K even sent one Mountain Master from Hong Kong to oversee their whole operation from his comfy mansion far away in Connecticut.
Liu-Chin never saw him or knew his name. He took all his orders from Jin, his DaiLo. He wonders when Jin will finally show up so they can get this initiation over with.
The ritual required all recruits to choose animals representing the fighting styles of Shaolin kung fu—dragons, snakes, cranes, leopards and tigers, to tattoo onto their bodies, starting from their left foot, then winding up their leg, around their back, chest, and neck, and ending at their face. But Liu-Chin chose a centipede, a fighting style deemed too deadly by the ancient Shaolin monks, and was outlawed, forbidden to practice, though some, the rebels of those times, practiced in secret, until all were discovered and executed by the Shaolin, their scrolls set on fire, and then the centipede style disappeared from history, only to be whispered about as legend. Jin allowed Liu-Chin’s choice and even commended it.
Liu-Chin can hear Jin’s footsteps thud down the stairs before bursting through the door.
“Ha!” Jin shoots a wide smile at Liu-Chin, taking pleasure in his suffering. He’s short, even by Cantonese standards, his black suit crumpling at his wrists and ankles. The tattooed head of a crane peeks out from under his collar and covers the side of his neck, its long beak rising up across his cheek.
Jin asks the Incense Master in Cantonese how much longer they will be, who answers, “Not too long.”
“This is going to be fun, brother,” Jin presses his left hand on Liu-Chin’s sweaty shoulder, his pinky finger missing.
One of the tattoo artists stops, wiping the blood from Liu-Chin’s thigh and announces he’s done. Then the other two artists happen to finish at the same time. Liu-Chin sits up from the alter and eyes the centipede tattoo winding up his body.
“Get dressed,” Jin orders, and Liu-Chin walks to his black suit hanging in the corner and hastily dresses, its fabric stinging his freshly pierced skin.
The Incense Master places the chicken, a knife, a drinking glass half filled with red wine, a round tin plate, a rag, a lit candle, a rolled up scroll, a tiny wooden box, and a chopping board on the alter.
“Let’s get this over with,” Liu-Chin says, tucking his shirt into his pants.
“Ah, all you young punks don’t know anything about honor,” Jin swipes his hand up.
The tattoo artists gather their gear and run up the stairs in haste.
Liu-Chin faces the alter, knowing what needs to be done. He grabs the chicken with one hand and the knife with the other. He eyes the knife and is pleased to see its pristine sharpness. He runs the blade across the chicken’s throat as it flaps wildly, then squeezes its neck over the wine glass, blood pouring into it in a thin stream. He leaves the dying chicken on the alter, lying on its side, flapping weakly every now and then. Then Liu-Chin brings the cup up to his lips and drinks down the wine and blood mixture to the last drop.
Jin is quiet beside him, his eyes closed, listening to the Incense Master mouthing some kind of prayer. Liu-Chin unravels the long, thin scroll, staining it with some chicken blood, and reads the sprawling Cantonese script running down the paper—the triad’s thirty-four oaths—then hovers one corner of the paper over the candle flame until it catches fire. Liu-Chin drops the burning scroll onto the tin plate where it rolls back into a loose coil, its flames spreading through it. And without any hesitation, he presses his left hand on the chopping board, grips the knife tightly in his other hand, and slices across the base of his pinky finger, severing it off completely. Blood spurts out across the alter before Liu-Chin presses the rag hard on his open wound.
The Incense Master snatches the severed pinky from the chopping board and lays it into the tiny wooden box. He closes its lid and announces in Cantonese that the ritual is complete, handing Jin the small box.
The pinky ritual isn’t a traditional triad custom, but adopted from the Japanese Yakuza, believing in the power of its gesture.
Jin opens his eyes and sees Liu-Chin pressing the rag into his left hand.
“You fucking idiot,” Jin says. “You did the wrong hand. Now, do the other one. Now.”
Liu-Chin forces a smile as Jin starts chuckling. “Where does that thing go?” Liu-Chin points at the box with his eyes.
“To the Mountain Master.”
“What’s he going to do with it?”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe eat it or some shit,” Jin snickers and pats Liu-Chin on the shoulder, still pressing the rag on his hand. “The boys are waiting at Rol San. Let’s drink.”
Liu-Chin turns to the staircase, but Jin stops him. “Brother,” Jin raises his left hand missing its pinky, tucks his thumb over his palm, lifting three fingers into the air. “Welcome to the Club.”
Liu-Chin removes the rag from his hand and does the same, a single trail of blood running down his forearm, a gesture binding him to the triad.
Chapter 6: The Cross Body Block
The Master, surprisingly agile in his three-piece suit, presses into Mickey with a series of muay Thai body kicks, his legs swinging at Mickey’s sides like baseball bats. Mickey blocks each kick, bringing his knee up to his elbow, creating a wall of shin and forearm protecting his body, bones clashing onto bones. Mickey backsteps to gain balance, but the Master’s assaults advance with his every backstep, forcing Mickey to defend.
The Master drops low, and Mickey knows he’s been set up. He tenses his muscles as the Master shifts his weight to his back leg then springs it forward with a knee strike aimed at Mickey’s core.
Mickey thought to bring his knee up to his opposite elbow for a cross body block that the Master had taught him, but on impulse, Mickey parries the Master’s knee with an inside forearm block, then takes a painful left hook to his chin, knocking him onto his back. Mickey pounds the ground with his fist in frustration.
The Master straightens his stance, adjusting the wrinkles in his three-piece suit.
“A cross body block was the correct move,” the Master says.
“The block is shit,” Mickey spits, jumping back up onto his heels wrapped tight in bands of cloth. His fingers peek through similar cloth wraps winding around his knuckles and wrists. Sweat drenches the red silk sheet tied around his waist and under his loins, secured by a hard knot on his pelvis.
“The block leaves me with no fookin’ counter,” Mickey protests.
“But you blunted my attack.”
“Aye, just to take more, like a fookin’ bitch,” Mickey argues. “You said every move should open a counter. There is no fookin’ counter using that fookin’ block.”
“In that variant, returning to even footing offers you the highest positive expected value.”
“The block is shit,” Mickey spits.
“Return to your stance,” the Master squares up. Before Mickey realizes, the Master presses into him, unloading straight front kicks, straight cross punches, downward sweeping elbow strikes, forcing Mickey backwards and in circles around the chamber. Mickey notices a pattern as the Master’s attacks target his core, forcing Mickey’s arms to tuck at his sides to protect him from abdomen and liver shots.
Then the Master crouches low and yells, “Cross body block!” as his knee drives upwards into Mickey. But Mickey is ready for it. He parries the knee with an inside forearm block with all his strength, forcing the Master to spin, revealing his back, vulnerable.
This is Mickey’s chance, he thinks, firing a straight cross at the back of the Master’s head, but the Master, letting his momentum spin him full circle, unloads a vicious backfist at the side of Mickey’s head before his blow can land, dropping him unconscious.
Mickey wakes up a few minutes later, flat on his back.
“What have you learned, child?” asks the Master standing over him.
“The block is shit,” Mickey turns his head and spits out blood onto the chamber floor.
The Master reaches out his hand and pulls Mickey to his feet.
“Your effort was sound, my pupil.”
“You fookin’ expected it,” Mickey scoffs, wiping the blood from his lips with the back of his wrapped hands.
The Master nods. “But do not fret, my pupil. I’ve seen the counter attempted before.”
“Did you fook up the broski’s head like mine, too?”
“No, I watched the counter fail from the same perspective as you have watched it fail.”
Mickey’s head perks up.
“I’ve collected data over thousands of years. You are but a child, my pupil. You will learn. The cross body block is the correct move, according to the math.”
Mickey nods, acknowledging that he hears what the Master is saying, but not understanding what he means at the slightest. And then the Master lays his hand on Mickey’s shoulder, and he’s taken aback by it—it’s the first time the Master expressed any form of affection. “One day, you may find a better counter and prove the math wrong. That is my wish for you, my pupil.”
The Master steps back, placing his palms together in front of his forehead, and Mickey does the same. The Master turns and moves toward the chamber door, leaving Mickey standing there, feeling that the Master had left him with something very important to ponder, but he has no idea where to even start.
-----
Mickey kneels in the center of the chamber floor, sitting back on his heels, his palms pressed together in front of his face.
Deep bruises cover both his forearms and elbows, the skin of his shins bright red. The green bark of the bamboo trunk sprouting up through the chamber is all but splintered and peeling off, revealing whitish wood behind it, stained with dry blood.
Mickey no longer has any perception of the time he has spent in the chamber. He meditates on his breathing, on being present in this moment. The past doesn’t exist, the future doesn’t exist, there is only the now, and only the chamber.
He hears a heavy thud on the floor in front of him. When he opens his eyes, he sees a 1.75L bottle of Jameson Triple Distilled Irish Whiskey, its maroon cap still sealed onto the thick neck of the huge green glass bottle, standing upright on the floor in front of him.
“You’ve earned this, my pupil,” the Master says, standing at a distance.
Rising with the bottle in his hand, he twists open the cap and pours the whiskey into the reservoir grate at the back corner of the chamber. He sits the bottle on top of the grate, its label facing away.
He then approaches the Master, facing him, dropping into a narrow muay Thai stance and raises his wrapped fists.
“Attack me core, Master,” Mickey says.
The Master presses his palms together in front of his forehead, then drags one foot back and curls his hands into fists under his faceless, turquoise head.
“Let us begin,” the Master says.
Chapter 7: Operation Blood Rain
Liu-Chin enters the truck stop diner off Interstate 587 in upstate New York, slouching, his Baltimore Oriole’s cap tipped low over his eyes, the tall collars of his Prada raincoat pulled up high, covering the centipede tattoo on his neck and cheek. He shoots sideways glances around the diner. There’s one trucker eating breakfast alone at the bar, and Captain Winfield is sitting in a corner booth. Both his hands are wrapped around a steaming coffee mug. Bringing it up to his tightly pressed lips, he scowls at Liu-Chin as he approaches.
“Captain,” Liu-Chin sits down opposite him.
“You’re late,” scolds Winfield.
“Sorry.”
“What you eating?” says Winfield, his wind worn skin looking as tough as his leather jacket.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“I ordered us eggs.”
“I don’t eat eggs.”
“You don’t eat eggs?”
“I prefer pancakes.”
A server approaches the booth, refilling Winfield’s mug.
“Listen, honey, can you please change one order of eggs to pancakes for little miss fucking pancake over here? Thank you.”
The server nods and saunters away.
“What’s with the hat? Who are you, Cal Ripken Jr.?” chides Winfield.
“Who?”
“Take it off.”
Liu-Chin lays his cap on the table.
“Now, listen…” Winfield lifts his mug to his lips, a fifty-five-thousand-dollar Patek Philippe watch dangling on his wrist. “There’s been chatter on the mountain man’s wire; he’s worried about informants in the club.”
“Informants? No, impossible. We’re loyal to the death,” says Liu-Chin.
“Oh, it’s we now?” Winfield bellows. “Well, we planted some fake intel when we got a warrant on the old man’s mansion up in Connecticut. Turned the place inside out. I want you to tell your DaiLo to set up a meeting in Queens with the old man; he’ll come, trust me.”
“What kind of meeting?” Liu-Chin questions.
“The takeover kind,” Winfield sips his coffee, holding his stare at Liu-Chin from over the rim of his mug.
Winfield slides a folded piece of paper across the table.
“What’s this?”
“It’s my new number. Text me on this one, not the other one.” Winfield leans forward, his inflated gut pressing against the edge of the table, “Give me the address, the date, the time. Then on the day, when he’s on the way there, text me, ‘Hey baby.’ When he’s at the meeting, text me, ‘Wanna fuck?’ And then just hold tight for me and the boys.”
Winfield was always so eager to work in the field, Liu-Chin often noticed, unlike most captains shouting orders from behind a desk. That was one thing he respected about him.
“Listen, I’m going to make you a lieutenant when this is done. You earned it. And one day you’re going to make captain, you know that, Woo?”
Liu-Chin looks around nervously.
“What’s wrong, Woo? Forgot who you are for a second?” Winfield laughs, chugging the last of his coffee before standing up and throwing two twenties on the table. “Now, don’t fuck up.” He zips up his jacket and waddles away.
“Your eggs are coming,” Liu-Chin yells over his shoulder.
“You have them. I hate eggs.”
-----
Things always came fast for Elliot Woo. He learned at a grade ten level when he was in grade two, and was sent away from his public school in Queens to start grade three at a school for gifted students somewhere upstate. Year after year, at the top of his class, he graduated early at eleven years old, and finished high school in two years, getting full scholarship offers from Ivy League universities at thirteen. Elliot chose MIT and earned his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering degree at seventeen.
After his graduation ceremony, the opportunities were endless for Elliot. He could have worked for the US Air Force designing faster military aircrafts or developed systems for space travel for NASA. But instead, Elliot chose to enter the 24-week program at the NYPD Police Academy.
That’s where Queens Finest discovered Elliot. Queens Finest was a syndicate of corrupt cops stretching across every precinct in Queens. And Elliot knew everything there was to know about them. Queens Finest were so feared that cops from the other four boroughs stayed out of their way. Even the tech startup company headquartered in Queens had to pay weekly tribute to them until they received a third round of venture capitalist funding and moved their offices across the country to California, and then stopped paying tribute all together. But sometime after the company went IPO, making the CEO founder a billionaire, the CEO came home one night to his Silicon Valley mansion to see the floor littered with his dead pets—four purebred dogs, three African gray parrots, and one cat. After that, the CEO continued to pay triple the tribute halfway across the country, plus interest.
Queens Finest wore the same NYPD uniforms, wore the same badges, but they weren’t the same NYPD. They all wore Patek Philippe watches on their left wrists, the only sign that they weren’t really NYPD. They were simply the law in a lawless borough.
Queens Finest ran everything in Queens except for Chinatown, held strong by the Chinese Triad Motorcycle Club, which gave Queens Finest the biggest hardon. Even if they murdered a few Red Poles and DaiLo, more would be organized by their Mountain Master who was untouchable. They knew the only way to annihilate the CTMC was from within.
So, when Captain Winfield, who ran the undercover unit in Queens Finest, met Elliot in the academy, he recruited him two weeks before his graduation simply because he was Chinese, spoke Cantonese fluently, and was unknown to the CTMC.
Winfield offered Elliot to lead an operation to infiltrate the highest ranks of the CTMC, which would likely take years, but would secure him with a lieutenant position in Queens Finest. Elliot agreed without a second thought, and Operation Blood Rain was born.
For the operation, Elliot legally changed his name to Liu-Chin Chan, a name he was proud of—a name he chose himself. Winfield chose his new birthdate though, making Liu-Chin one year older so he could throw him into Rikers Island as an adult charged with assaulting a police officer. That’s where Liu-Chin laid on a thick Cantonese accent and made like a young Chinese immigrant, struggling with his English, despite grading perfectly in every English essay and exam he’s ever taken. But it was easy for him to act the part; he learned the art of deception quickly, like everything else he’d ever learned in his life.
Queens Finest knew the CTMC inmates would protect him in there, just for being Cantonese. The street beef between the Puerto Ricans and the CTMC extended well into Rikers Island. One day, when a full on brawl erupted in the common room between the two sects, Liu-Chin found himself facing up against a large Puerto Rican winding back for a devastating punch. Before he could throw it, Liu-Chin struck his throat with the webbed blade of his open hand, breaking his windpipe. He followed up with a straight cross from his other hand, landing solid on the Puerto Rican’s chin, knocking him onto his back, unconscious. When the guards finally came charging in with their pepper spray and shields, breaking up the brawl, they saw the Puerto Rican dead on his back, drowned by his own blood.
Liu-Chin made a name for himself then and there. Two days after being released from Rikers Island, he was called in for a sit down with a CTMC Vanguard recruiting new members.
Things always came fast for Liu-Chin Chan.
-----
Two Vanguards, five DaiLo, including Jin, and four Red Poles, including Liu-Chin, make a big deal about rising from their seats around the long table in the conference room of some unleased office building floor, bowing low below their waists, when the Mountain Master, short and frail in an oversized suit, enters the room in his wheelchair pushed by the Deputy Mountain Master and two DaiLo bodyguards at his side.
The Deputy Mountain Master parks the triad elder at the center of the long table and all rise up from their bows, backs straight and proud.
The Mountain Master gestures for all to sit down and all comply, except for the four Red Poles assigned to stand guard behind their superiors, their backs facing each of the four walls of the room. Liu-Chin’s back faces the large windows opposite the room’s only door. A Vanguard welcomes the Mountain Master in Cantonese as Liu-Chin slips his hand into his pocket, feeling for his phone, texting Winfield blindly.
The Mountain Master doesn’t say a single word as thirty minutes pass, the Deputy Mountain Master grilling the room about whacking every new recruit and Straw Sandal in the club, just to be safe. Jin protests, slamming his fist onto the table, vouching his life on certain recruits that were named.
Their voices grow louder in debate then stops abruptly when automatic gunfire rings out from a few floors below. All at the table rise, except for the Mountain Master still in his wheelchair, his back facing the room’s only exit, his DaiLo bodyguards shielding his back with guns drawn. Everyone in the room is aiming their handguns at the exit, no one speaking a word as automatic gunfire approaches louder and closer.
Liu-Chin stands the furthest from the exit, everyone’s back facing him. He grips then regrips his fully loaded fifteen round pistol with both his clammy hands, aiming at the exit like everyone else. He hears the blood pulsing between his ears when he notices the Mountain Master, the only one facing him, lock his eyes onto Liu-Chin for a long moment. Liu-Chin sees a subtle change in his expression, and he knows, almost for certain, that the old man understands what’s to come.
Fourteen shots pop from Liu-Chin’s pistol in rapid concession, and fourteen bodies crumple, dropping one by one like a wave from one side of the room to the other—Jin, the Vanguards, the Deputy Mountain Master, the DaiLo, and the Red Poles, all but one old man who only slouches deeper into his wheelchair, blood spurting out from his right eye.
The sound of bodies thudding onto the floor above Winfield, along with his unwavering trust in Liu-Chin’s competence, sends him storming up the staircase, down the hallway and crashing through the door of the conference room.
Winfield sees Liu-Chin standing among the dead bodies, his pistol drawn down, still smoking in his hands. Winfield lowers his assault rifle and scans the room, a look of triumph swelling in his eyes.
“Chinatown is ours,” he whispers to himself. Winfield doesn’t even notice Liu-Chin raising his pistol again. He fires the last bullet in his chamber that enters the center of Winfield’s forehead, exits the back of his head, and embeds itself into the wall behind him.
“Chinatown is mine,” Liu-Chin whispers.
To be continued next Wednesday in Five Deadly Rebels, Episode 3: The Five Deadly Rebels, anywhere you get your podcasts. To learn more about the podcast, visit our website at five deadly rebels dot com. This has been a DimensionGate production.
