The arsonist known as the Virus is still on the run after a confrontation with Korean authorities last night. Details of the event are sketchy, but eyewitnesses reported seeing a group of armed men apparently launching a raid on the Sola Motel just minutes before a fire broke out on the fourth floor. That fire claimed more than a dozen lives and is assumed to be the work of the Virus. In an emergency press conference, the police denied any involvement in the Sola Motel incident. According to their official reports, police teams had the fugitive surrounded on an open street when an unidentified accomplice used a vehicle to break the police line, injuring several officers in the process. Bystander videos from both events have gone viral on several sites, including Naver, Baidu, and Youtube and appear to show a person lifting a police van…

Kris switched off the radio as his GPS guided him to a stately villa, and he pulled his car into the villa’s tiny lot. He adjusted his cuff links and tie, smoothing his hair in the reflection off his window. He noted the care taken to preserve the privacy of the villa’s occupants— trailing vines and tall flowering bushes hid the windows of the first floor from view. The door, Tiffany stained-glass set in mahogany, opened into a small, marble-floored foyer, the smell of old money wafting on every breath. Kris toed the smooth floor despite himself as a young woman in a tailored pink nurse’s uniform approached, her platform heels clicking.

“Mr. Wu?” she smiled, perfect teeth flashing as she bowed in greeting. “The tour of our facility has just started. Please follow me.”

Kris followed obediently, admiring the rear view as she led him down a hallway with vaulted ceilings to a spacious sitting room, hardwood gleaming from every surface. They joined a pair of couples who were standing just inside the room’s entrance, listening to their guide’s rehearsed spiel. With one glance, Kris tallied the tiny group to have a robsworth of over a hundred thousand, and that was just from the men’s watches. He hadn’t gotten a good look at the brand names on the women’s purses, but judging by the stitching on the handles, there was probably a few hundred grand hanging off of their arms. He didn’t pickpocket anymore, that was for snot-nosed street kids trying to prove themselves, but the sight of all that money just dangling out in the open brought back memories.

The occupants of the sitting room milled around in various states of dress, some in pajamas, others dressed in more typical daytime clothes, and one elderly man in a full tuxedo, the once-crisp white shirt stained and creased with daily wear and tear. A pink-clad nurse stood behind a dispensary disguised as a wet bar in one corner, handing out shot-glasses of medication to the line of patients forming up in front of her. A pair of orderlies stealthily made their way across the room towards the line as Kris’s group watched in fascination. The orderlies’ starched white uniforms and imposing size parted the sea of patients like sharks, conversations stuttering off into silence in their wake. They sidled up to either side of a young man standing near the front of the medication line, effectively trapping him between the dispensary’s sturdy wood and the line of curious patients still awaiting their daily allotment of mind-altering drugs. The young man held still for half a second, then made a dash for the door.

“How did they know he wasn’t going to take the medication?” The richer of the two husbands in their group turned his bespectacled, judging gaze to their guide, the director of the psychiatric center.

The doctor returned the look with a self-assured sniff and straightened his double ed suit. “Our staff is fully capable of assessing mood and anticipating the actions of some of our more unruly guests. Yixing has been a tenant of ours for quite some time, so our caregivers know him well enough to act preemptively.”

Kris squinted in disbelief at the rangy kid currently writhing about in the middle of the floor. He had the larger, much less flexible orderlies bellowing in pain as they contorted themselves into impossible stances to stay on top of him. After a brief but impressive struggle, they managed to immobilize the kid and stab a needle into his thigh. The cocktail needed only seconds to take effect, and the burlier of the orderly pair gathered Yixing into a weirdly gentle cradlehold and carried him out of the room, past the wide-eyed observers.

“Yixing goes back to his room to rest on days like these,” the director explained in a creamy tone. “It’s best if he doesn’t interact with the other patients when he’s agitated. When other patients act out, they receive similar treatment. Maintaining our atmosphere of civility and healing requires the removal of a few problem personalities from time to time, as I’m sure you can agree.”

That sounded like a steaming pile to Kris, but the rich people were nodding in agreement, no doubt making plans to rid themselves of weird uncles or druggie daughters posthaste. He tuned out of the doctor’s blather about caring and compassion, drumming his fingers against his arm as he surveyed the room again. Boss had been crystal clear on the purpose of this trip: find the rogue heroin dealer, burn his operation to the ground, and, if time allowed, cut out his tongue. There was no universe in which ‘I couldn’t find him’ satisfied those requirements, and Kris rather liked his ears where they were. He chewed a fingernail as he mentally paged through his options.

All of his sources had pointed him to this psych center as the source of the ‘unicorn’ that had been up all of the local business. He’d used up his supply of acid tipped needles, so he doubted any of them had been lying—not purposefully anyway. He’d bought his way into this exclusive tour expecting to find an enterprising staff member dealing out of the center’s bottomless supply of top-shelf pharmaceuticals. Kris would have introduced himself, informed the moron that this clinic sat firmly within the territory of the Hong Kong 14K, and gotten his knives a little dirty to demonstrate the organization’s dissatisfaction with direct competitors. His point would have been made, and he would be back home before daybreak. But this place was locked down so tight there was no way for him to snoop around without a perky nurse appearing to ‘assist’. He needed a better way in. He resisted the urge to start biting his thumbnail, remembering of the stack of bills he’d forked over for the (pointless) manicure and (dope as) haircut Boss had insisted on for this job. Maybe fresh air would help.

A shining Bugatti pulled into an empty spot in the clinic’s parking lot as Kris lounged against the wall, baking in early morning sun. Kris followed it with his eyes— even in a lot full of Porsches and Ferraris, a car that luxe stood out. A middle-aged white man in a crocodile golf shirt and khaki’s emerged from the car, then pulled a large bundle of fleecy blankets from the back seat. Kris affected a bored, disinterested air, wishing he had a smoke or something to make his standing outside seem less conspicuous. Fortunately, the gweilo breezed by Kris like he was just another plant on his brisk march to the entrance. Kris got a glimpse into the blankets, though, and realized the man was carrying a small girl. He didn’t know how she wasn’t dying of heat , swaddled in all that fabric in this heat, but her knitted beanie and lack of eyebrows were a telling clue. As they disappeared into the clinic, Kris peeled his now-sweaty back off of the wall and followed them inside.

Nurse Rear View stepped into his path at the foyer, blocking him from following them further.

“Can I help you, Mr. Wu?” she asked brightly. “The rest of your tour is upstairs, viewing our guest suites.”

“I want the tour they’re having,” Kris said, moving to follow the father-daughter pair again.

“They’re going to a private consultation,” the nurse explained apologetically, still blocking his way. Kris rolled his eyes. A super-rich dad with a cancer kid in a psych hospital? They were here for miracle drugs. He pulled out his wallet, slipping out a one-thousand HKD note. The nurse’s eyes glittered.

“Put me on the schedule.”

Kris bounced his heel against the edge of his chair, checking his watch again as he sat in a plush waiting room. The nurse had practically pounced on his money and deposited him here, but an hour later, he was beginning to wonder if he should have torn the bill in half first. Then in walked Pill Pusher, the orderly that had carried Yixing away earlier. He settled on the couch across from Kris, crossing his legs and arranging a clipboard across his knees.

“I understand you’d like a private consultation?”

Kris’ eyes narrowed. Pill Pusher was fishing for a code word, probably the name of a reference or a current client. Of course an operation like this would have some security. “Mandoo Wang told me I should visit,” he said, studying his nails. “Life hasn’t been any fun lately, so I’m looking for a little spice.”

Pill Pusher’s eyes traveled up and down Kris’ frame, taking in the tiny diamonds winking in the trim of his shoes and the platinum-graphite weave on his watch. “I think we can fix your problem,” he said, scribbling something on his clipboard. “Your prescription should be ready tomorrow morning. Cash on delivery.”

Kris smiled tightly. “How about today?”

Pill Pusher shrugged as he stood to his feet, tucking the clipboard under his arm. “Our prescriptions are made-to-order to guarantee quality. I’m afraid tomorrow morning is the earliest it will be available.” He turned to leave.

Kris sighed. Honestly, he would never understand how people just turned their backs on their fellow human beings. It was such a dangerous thing to do. His butterfly knife was out and pressed against the Pill Pusher’s carotid artery before the orderly could take two steps, and the man froze, his hand outstretched to towards the waiting room door.

“Made-to-order?” Kris said pleasantly. “I’d love to see how.”

Pill Pusher swallowed hard as the knife left his neck, touching the indentation it had left behind to check for blood. “This way.”

The orderly led him to the top floor of the villa, Kris’ unfamiliar presence drawing more than a few looks from the patients and staff as they walked past. Pill Pusher stopped in front of a door marked ‘Supplies’ at the very end of the hall, and reluctantly gestured toward it. Kris couldn’t help but notice that the patient room right across from the supply closet was marked ‘Z. Yixing.’ “You first,” he told his guide.

As suspected, the supply closet was not a closet at all and held no supplies. Instead, a masked orderly, Pill Pusher’s partner-in-crime from that morning, looked up in surprise from the batch of rose-colored unicorn he was squirting into fancy little jars.

“Uh,” he managed, and Kris wiggled his knife in the air. “Oh.”

Kris closed the door behind them and ambled over to perch on the prep-table. He picked up one of the jars.

“How much does one of these go for?”

The two orderlies exchanged looks. “Fifty?” Pill Pusher lied.

“Is five thousand what you meant to say? I think you meant five thousand.”

The orderlies exchanged looks again. “Five thousand for the first dose. 5% pure.”

Kris dipped a pinkie into a bag of white power lying open on the table and took a , smacking a little at the bitter taste. “High quality,” he approved. “At least you’re not stealing our business with baby powder. What’s the other 95%?” Mandoo said unicorn gave highs more intense and longer-lasting than pure crack, but if it was only 5% horse, what was the magical horn?

Pill Pusher’s eyes wandered over a tray of red-filled test-tubes, so Kris reached past him and picked up one up. “Zhang, Yixing -- 05/08 -- Type A,” he read. He picked up another tube, and the label was the same. “You’re cutting heroin with this guy’s blood?” Kris asked incredulously. “Is that why you’re charging so much?” He pried the rubber stopper out of the test tube with a little pop and sniffed the contents. “Is he the messiah or something?”

“Or something,” Pill Pusher muttered.

Kris raised his eyebrows at him. “Don’t stop now.”

“It heals people,” Pill Pusher admitted, shrugging off the glare of his partner. “He’d find out eventually.”

The gweilo and his daughter popped into Kris’ mind. “You found the cure to cancer, and you’re selling it for five thousand HK a pop?!”

“Temporary cure,” Pill Pusher held up his hands defensively. “Whatever they’ve got always comes back. Usually they relapse in 24 hours, sometimes it can be longer. It’s hella addictive, but you can’t take another dose until the first one wears off.”

Now Kris was afire with curiosity. “Why not?”

“It’s fatal,” Pill Pusher poked one of the vials of blood. “Take more than one drop of Yixing’s blood, and, cold or cancer, you’re a corpse in less than a day.”

Kris gingerly stoppered the vial he was holding and set it carefully on the table. He pulled out his cell, pointing the tip of his knife at Pill Pusher and his partner for silence as he thumbed the speed dial. The phone only rang once.

“Boss. We need to talk about unicorn.”

~~~

Kris spotted the black, imported sedan driving down the street and flagged it down, guiding it to the empty parking space he’d been guarding. As soon as it parked, he slid into the passenger seat and bowed as deeply as he could to the driver.

“Mr. Yong,” he greeted, holding out a bottle of his leader’s favorite iced coffee. “Did you have a good trip?”

The short, balding man eyed the coffee for a moment, then accepted it grumpily, the seams of his Armani suit straining with the flex of his muscles as he tipped it to his mouth. Half of it disappeared in a single gulp, and he dropped the bottle into the cup holder by his side. “You were supposed to handle this on your own,” he groused. “But you make me come all the way down here to hold your hand and ask me if I had a good trip?”

Kris maintained his respectful bow even though it was giving him a major neck cramp in this tight space. “I thought you would want to see the operation here in person,” he explained. “I’m sure you won’t find this to be a waste of your time.”

Yong snorted in derision. “Are you willing to bet your hand?”

Kris raised his head slightly, stiffening. “Eh?”

Yong took another long swallow of the coffee, leaving only the dregs to slosh in the empty bottle. “You show me what was so important that you had the gall to call me personally and order me down here. If I don’t like it, you start learning how to write lefty.”

Icy sweat beaded on Kris’ brow at the threat. Yong kept an axe in the trunk of his car, and Kris had seen him rubbing flecks of burgundy from its sharp edge more than once over the years. “Follow me, sir,” was the only thing he could think of to say, and he slid out the car.

Walking swiftly, he led his boss to the top floor, and pushed open the door to the supply closet.

“These are the two I told you about, sir,” he explained, waving a hand toward the two orderlies he’d left gagged and hogtied on the floor. “I looked at their record books. Over half of their clients used to buy from us, and the rest are rich or foreigners or both, looking for a miracle cure rather than a high.”

“Gullible morons,” Yong said simply. A day ago, Kris would have agreed. But he’d in the few hours it had taken his boss to get here, he’d tracked down the gweilo and his daughter to a hotel in the tourist district. One look at the daughter, her face practically glowing as she bounced around the hotel lobby had been enough to confirm everything the orderlies had told him. One look at the father, and he knew the gweilo would buy a little glass jar every day for the rest of his daughter’s life or until his wallet ran out, whichever came first. Once the 14K took over the unicorn operation, they would drain that gweilo dry.

“You have my attention,” Yong said, rolling one of the vials of blood between his fingers. “Let’s see the results.”

Kris tapped his fingers together, trying not to betray his confusion, but Yong saw through him. He plucked a syringe from a box on one of the shelves, and expertly filled it from one of the dose jars. Then he tossed it to Kris and threw his chin toward the two orderlies. “Impress me.”

Pill Pusher started scooting away from Kris immediately, caterpillaring his way across the room. His partner was much slower on the uptake, so he became Kris’ guinea pig. Kris dragged his blade across the man’s arm, drawing a shrilly cry and a deep-welling line of blood. Then he injected him with the contents of the syringe. The high hit in four seconds, the man’s eyes rolling back in his head, skin flushing as he sagged into the euphoria. The long cut closed up a few moments later, the blood bubbling a little as it flash-hardened into a scab, then cracked apart, revealing healed flesh and only the faintest of scars.

Pill Pusher stared from his spot on the floor as Kris straightened from his crouch. Judging from his slack jaw around the sock stuffed in his mouth, they’d never tried out unicorn’s effect on injuries. Too bad. If they’d gone legit with this stuff, they’d be filthy rich instead of tied up in front of triad boss.

“You said more than one dose is fatal?” Yong tossed another one of the jars to Kris. “Let’s see that too.”

Kris looked down at the orderly he’d just shot up. “You want me to kill him?”

“Never carry a gun you haven’t seen work.” Yong quoted his personal philosophy.

Kris grimaced, and leaned down to inject the second dose. Nothing happened.

“I think it takes time.” Kris said, nudging the still breathing orderly after ten minutes. “Like a regular overdose.”

“Unfortunate,” Yong said. “When he dies, you keep your hand.” Kris was tempted to stomp on the guy’s head right then, but that wasn’t sportsmanlike. Yong pulled out his phone, dialing a number. He nodded to Pill Pusher. “Untie him. I want to see the source.”

Kris loosened the ropes around Pill Pusher’s limbs and the orderly scrambled to his feet, rubbing feeling back into his arms and legs and pointedly not looking at his partner on the floor. “Boss wants to see Yixing,” Kris told him, prodding him forward. “Don’t give him a reason to kill you.”

Pill Pusher lunged across the hall, pushing open the door to Yixing’s room and waving them hurriedly inside. Kris walked quickly. Yong strolled across the hall, as if he was daring someone to spot and challenge him. Probably he was. He carried an axe in the trunk of his car.

Yixing’s room was more opulent than any apartment Kris could afford, even on his generous monthly allowance. All of the furniture was leather and hardwood, although all of the corners were rounded and surfaces smoothed. A massive tv stretched across one wall, a collection of old and new gaming systems scattered beneath it, hundreds of games packed into the bookshelf beside it. A patio window led out to the screened-in balcony overlooking the mountain, and a stack of books lay outside, the light wind ruffling their pages. One-of-a-kind plush toys and collectible action figures were scattered across the floor, a million dollar minefield that Kris tried to pick his way through, wincing every time Yong crushed something irreplaceable underfoot. The boss went straight to the bed, a telltale lump under the scrunched satin bedding giving away Yixing’s position.

Yong tried to peel back the comforter, but Yixing was either awake or the heaviest person in the world, because the bedding didn’t budge. Pill Pusher dashed forward, leaping onto the bed in his haste to be of assistance. He picked up the entire blanket bundle and shook it out, dumping Yixing onto the bed in a towheaded heap. Kris expected the kid to stay still, cowed by his boss’ intimidating scowl. Instead, Yixing shoved Pill Pusher off of the bed in retaliation for the forced de-blanketing and promptly rebundled himself. Kris caught a snicker before it left his lungs. Even though it was hilarious to see Boss utterly ignored like that, he carried an axe in the trunk of his car. The second time Pill Pusher dumped Yixing, Kris joined the fray, trying to hold Yixing down. It was like trying to pin down a yowling, oiled eel with teeth and a viciously hard skull. Kris was forced to put his all into it, sitting on top of the long-limbed boy and pretzelling his arms and legs into a submission hold. He held Yixing still, panting, sweat dripping into his eyes and making his suit stick to him in the most uncomfortable places, as Yong took his time looking into the boy’s eyes, his phone held to his ear. Finally, finally, he straightened and Kris, muscles burning relaxed his hold on Yixing. Yixing slithered away like greased lightning, collecting the blankets again and sequestering himself under the bed. Kris flopped down on top of the bed as Yong spoke something in Korean to the person on the other end of the phone.

“Write down this address,” Yong said, switching back to Cantonese, and Kris fished a pen out of his jacket to write down a U.S. address on his palm.

“Take the kid to that address,” Yong instructed. “All the papers you’ll need to travel will be in the usual locker at the airport by sunset. Don’t miss your flight and don’t make any noise abroad.”

Kris’ jaw dropped open. “Y-you want me to go? Here?” He shook his palm at his boss. “Where even is this? What is yoo…yoo tah… yew tah…yoot—”

“Figure it out,” Yong said on his way out. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the supply closet.“You get to keep your hand.”