Fog Read Free Page A

I increase my speed and let my mind wander.
    So here I am, at the edge of the Indian Ocean, chasing a beautiful girl while carrying combat paraphernalia on my back, a sniper rifle in my hand, a .40 calibre pistol strapped to my thigh, and a large knife at my hip. Yi-Ting wears her loose cotton pants and shirt, she’s unarmed, smiles a lot, and is as fast as a deer. The two of us must make for a curious sight.
    ‘Are you okay climbing this?’ I huff when we reach the cliffs.  
    ‘Are you kidding me?’ She rolls her eyes.
    I love the lilt of her voice and how her words taste. Sometimes, I beg her to speak her wild mix of languages for me, and when she does, it makes my tongue prickle. The dominant Min dialect tastes of a handful of berries tumbling through a wooden bowl — round, soft, and quick, with a tardy sweetness and a slight rasping across my palate. The Japanese fragments mixed into it are softer, strewn with grating dshee sounds that spread flavours of unripe plums in my mouth. When she speaks English, her linguistic flavour seeps through and I find myself adopting her speaking patterns just to taste her from a distance.
    I dig my fingers into the rock and begin pulling myself up. I’m not allowed to sling my rifle over my shoulder, Runner said. If not for the weapon and the weight on my back, I’d be up there in a flash. But one-handed and with a shitty centre of gravity, the wind could probably blow me off the cliffs.
    I climb and kick very inelegantly, scraping a chunk of skin off the side of my right hand, until finally I scramble over the edge.
    Yi-Ting stands with her hand on her hip, her pants showing a pale gap between waistband and shirt. My heart pounds a double beat. I long to see more of her smooth skin but right now I’m dirty, sweaty, and ridiculously red-faced. She’s too pretty, anyway. She’ll never let me kiss her, even if I polish myself.
    I inhale a deep breath and tackle the final stretch of the run. Only two kilometres on flat terrain left: stupid muscle-producing exercise. After that, sharp shooting. Runner wants me to be exhausted, trembling, and hypoglycaemic to see how my aim is under simulated battle conditions. I’ll probably plop my bullets into some poor gull high up in the sky instead of the targets on the ground.
    After half of the final distance, my legs and lungs burn, but I don’t slow down; I’m probably too slow anyway. Yi-Ting runs like a dancer. She doesn’t appear the slightest bit tired.  
    ‘Yi-Ting?’ I manage through elaborate breathing. ‘Tell me about your flights. I need a distraction.’
    She chuckles and slows until we run next to each other. ‘I’m both Ben’s and Kat’s apprentice and in my third year.’
    She always begins her stories like this. You can tell she’s proud having two mentors; she keeps them both busy and happy with her performance.  
    ‘I switch back and forth between the two, but this is the first time the three of us are working together. Kat teaches me everything about communication and intelligence. It’s exciting but too much sitting on my bum for my taste. With Ben it’s much much more fun.’ She grins. ‘I love flying.’ Then, the corners of her mouth pull down. ‘Only…the bombs.’
    The bombs. I still can’t wrap my head around this gentle girl throwing huge packs of explosives down at BSA camps. Or Ben! Compared to the serious Kat, he’s a fun guy. I’ve never seen him angry or sad, and the mop of tight blonde curls make him look like a small boy, harmless and funny.  
    Ben and Yi-Ting pull off all kinds of dangerous things with his small solar aircraft. The machine is so quiet you hear it only when it’s about to slam right into you. I once saw her fly a loop while Ben cheered from the ground. My stomach was about to blow lunch just from watching.
    ‘What about the cooking?’ I grunt. I need a break and probably shouldn’t spend the little air I’ve got left on chatting.
    ‘My dad is a cook. I was