Hei stood at the edge of the rooftop, hoodie soaked through. From this height the city looked like one big circuit board, every building a cell in a dying battery.
It felt honest, at least.
His phone buzzed. He checked it.
One word from Yin:
"clear"
He exhaled through his nose.
Slipping the phone back into his jacket, Hei turned from the roof's edge and descended the fire escape without a sound. No more than ten minutes later, he had pried open the lock of a third-floor apartment with a modified screwdriver disguised as a voltage tester.
The door gave with a click. He slid inside.
The place smelled like mold and microwaved curry. Something was playing on the TV—something bright and cheerful with voices he thought far too shrill for this hour.
Apartment 3C. Name on the mailbox: **Nakamura Hiroji**. Forty-eight. Divorced. No kids. Pharmacological research, mid-level admin. Could be any number of reasons someone wanted him gone. Corporate sabotage. Silencing a leak. Internal politics.
But that part didn't matter.
He gets the contract. He fulfills it. That's all.
Nakamura was seated at the kitchen table, back to the door, watching an old quiz show with a plate of some noodle dish and a can of beer. He turned just enough to see a shape in the doorway—barely had time to rise from his chair before Hei closed the distance.
With a practiced flex of his wrist Hei let slip the wire from his gloved hand, and he looped it around the man's neck. Exactly like a garrote. Then he yanked back hard, bracing his back heel for leverage.
Nakamura thrashed, scraping the chair legs across the floor. He tried to yell but his voice was stifled.
Hei's eyes flashed as his powers activated, and he surged a steady current through the wire. There was a sound like bacon hitting a wet skillet. The man spasmed for a moment, then sagged limp. Smoke curled from the neckline of his button-up while Hei waited seven seconds. Checked for a pulse he knew wasn't there. Then he cut the wire loose, wiped it down, and slipped it back into his sleeve.
By the time he left the apartment, the game show had cut to commercial. The sound of the fire alarm pooled in the hallway like water from a burst pipe.
No witnesses. No trace.
But it would make the news by morning.
---
Half a city away, in the belly of a decommissioned warehouse, Yin floated silently in a half-filled porcelain bathtub, surrounded by at least a dozen mismatched electrical appliances.
She blinked once. Disconcertedly.
A shimmer—barely visible to the naked eye—drifted through the puddle near the entrance. A surveillance specter, one of hers.
It told her what she already suspected:
Someone was coming.
She tilted her head, listening. Watching.
There was a man.
He was talking into a headpiece:
"I'm here. But it can't be this easy," he said. "Can it?"
…she reached for the cordless microphone taped to the inside of the bathtub.
Back in the alley, the intruder halted.
He had crept toward the warehouse's side door, gun in hand, his breath fogging in the rain. But something wasn't right. If this was really the base of operations of a legendary contractor, as he'd been told, there had to be some kind of advanced security measures in place. Or the whole place could be rigged to blow.
Then there was the doll. She could be watching him this entire time.
He pressed his back to the wall, eyes darting to check every shadow. If it was really the Electrician's doll in there, it couldn't be this easy. Someone would have clipped her ages ago. There wouldn't be such a huge bounty.
And then he heard it–a voice.
His own voice:
"Shit. I think she's in there. The ghost girl."
He froze. Turned. No one behind him.
The voice came again. Closer.
"I said hold position—! Don't go in alone!"
"What the–" Panicking, he burst inside and hit water. Cold. Ankle-deep. The room was darker than black.
At the same time, a wire was pulled.
A trap had been sprung.
The realization hit him too late.
The last thing he saw was a girl with silver hair sitting in a bathtub lit by a trickle of moonlight.
She looked at him. Said nothing.
…then the toaster landed in the water.
—
Hei returned not much later.
He dropped the duffel bag he used to carry around all his gear by the door and took a seat on an upturned milk crate.
"Any trouble?" he asked, yawning.
Yin gave a nod.
Hei immediately straightened.
His face, his entire demeanor became sharp. Focused.
"Show me," he said.
Raising one pale arm, she pointed wordlessly to the far corner of the warehouse, where a folding table had been set up sometime during the hour Hei had been gone. There, beneath the dull fluorescent glow of a flickering work lamp, sat the intruder. He was slumped in a chair with a teacup balanced delicately on one knee, three plush animals flanking him: a bear, a rabbit, an octopus.
His mouth had been forced open to an impossible width, locked into a mute scream grimly destined to long outlast the body itself. Someone, for reasons unknowable, had also set a little paper party hat atop his head.
Nearby, the toaster that had done him in sat on a silver tray. Completely fried.
Hei glared. Then stood and walked over.
Their uninvited guest been a young guy. In way over his head, that much was apparent. Standard surplus-store soldier gear. All swagger, no discipline. Nor was there any mistaking his affiliation on close examination: a faint burn scar in the shape of a brand behind the man's ear—three hash-marked lines inside a circle. Contractor identification. A street-level hire.
Sloppy, Hei thought. But a warning still.
It meant he had to vanish again.
Hei crouched and opened the man's jacket. There was a small sealed envelope tucked in the inner lining, so discreet it could have very well been placed there without the man's knowing.
Perhaps this was his true objective, also without knowing.
He held the envelope up to the light, squinting as he examined it. No name, no address. Quaintly adorned by a red wax seal, the insignia it bore matched the one present behind the man's ear.
"Was he alone?" he asked Yin.
"Talking into a headset," she answered.
Hei grunted. Then I guess they'll know their message has been received.
Setting the curious envelope aside for now, Hei returned to the crate and pulled two convenience store meals from his bag—one curry, one mackerel—and handed Yin the curry.
"Thanks," she said.
Hei smiled. "Hope you're still hungry."
They ate in silence, the rain tapping gently against the corrugated metal roof.
They packed in silence, too.
Hei worked the warehouse like a man on the run from a bitter memory. All that stayed behind was the bathtub, the corpse, and the folding table.
Hei thought it amusing.
Let them find it. Let them wonder.
He crouched beside an open suitcase and began fitting in the smaller devices, wrapping wires carefully around their bases with a kind of care and precision as though they were surgical tools. Mostly they were scavenged goods—dumpster finds, thrift-store rejects—things he restored as a hobby. Only exceedingly rarely did they double as ammunition.
The toaster was last. Would require a full rewire, and it wouldn't be the first time. He began to set it in sideways, pausing as Yin approached.
She was barefoot, and dressed in what he liked to imagine was her favorite outfit, a long purple strap dress, over her white one-piece bathing suit. Her silver hair was still damp, but brushed neatly over one shoulder. She was clutching a pink plush toy whale against her chest. Without the slightest syllable uttered, she stepped over the edge of the suitcase and sat down, knees drawn to her chin. Her expression didn't change as she slowly shrank herself as far as she could into the padded corner, arms folded in a loose, practiced tuck.
Hei, frowning, zipped the other half shut partway.
He knelt beside her.
"I'm sorry," he said, softly.
Yin didn't answer. Really, she'd never made any indication before that she minded this arrangement. Just until they were at the new place. But still, it felt wrong every time. Like she deserved something better, even if she would never ask for it.
Sure, he could try to put on an act. He could say she was his foreign girlfriend; that worked well enough on train inspectors and nosy landlords. But anyone who knew what a Doll was—what they really looked and behaved like—would see it in her stillness. The way she followed without hesitation, her total absence of will. All it took was one person who knew the signs, one whisper to the wrong kind of buyer, and they'd both be whisked away to some testing facility, never to be seen again. If they were fortunate.
Hei gave the side of the suitcase a gentle pat.
"Later, I'll buy you a new buddy. Promise."
Yin blinked. Then closed her eyes.