Soul Heist - The Missing Mentor

Chapter 12 - Karate Kick

It was the most mind-boggling trip, defying Danian's perception of reality and playing dodge ball with his tummy. He felt dizzy, like he'd just stepped out of the world's craziest roller coaster, even though he'd no memory of insane vertical loops or scary drops.

The first contours of his new surroundings materialised, turned from semi-transparent to opaque, through fifty shades of grey into a dark, wooden, almost chargrilled wall. Danian noticed footsteps behind him and swirled around to look into Naoto's spellbound face. Since his friend looked like he was about to throw up, Danian quickly took a step back. His backpack bumped into something shoulder-high, softish, that grabbed his arm and pushed him firmly aside.

"Watch your step," Tammy said in a stern but friendly tone.

"Did we just teleport?" Danian asked.

"From Bali to Macau in the blink of an eye. No customs, no security."

"Quantum teleportation works through entangled particles, but this is on a whole different scale," Naoto muttered mostly to himself.

Danian ignored that. It occurred to him that he'd never been to China before, let alone Macau. That was if they were actually in Macau. He slowly regained his footing and, with it, his sense of humour. "Did you see, before you got sucked into this void, how everything started to look like glass? I think that's why I didn't see Tammy." He paused. "Or because she's a head smaller."

"Very funny. I probably should have twisted your arm a bit more."

"Let's keep that for later." Indira had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and reminded them that Naoto believed he could crack the encryption on Kenzo's notebook with the help of a quantum computer. "I pray we'll find clues about Kenzo's whereabouts in his data files. Let's hurry."

She walked across the small, wood-panelled room towards the faint light that fell through the cracks of an ancient door frame. Danian had to bend not to knock his head when he followed the girls through that door into a larger room that was lit by candles and smelled of oranges. With nobody else around, all four squeezed around the back of an altar, dodged the old Chinese lanterns that dangled from the ceiling and stepped outside.

Night had fallen, moon and starless. Spotlights lit some of the surrounding buildings. A few people hustled across the main square of what appeared to be an old Chinese temple.

"We're in the oldest temple in Macau," Naoto declared triumphantly, holding his mobile phone up.

Danian scoped their surroundings and saw the modern spire of a TV tower pointing into the cloudy night sky. Suddenly the whole scenery was lit up by lightning, quickly followed by a rumble of thunder so powerful, the ceramic roof tiles of the temple behind them reverberated from the sound.

They started rummaging through their backpacks, pulling out rain jackets, apart from Danian, who'd absentmindedly packed his cotton surf poncho. That wasn't going to be any good in the rain. Tammy, already wearing a camouflage, waterproof jacket with the hood pulled tight around her face, offered him a spare rain poncho. Danian happily accepted. He watched as she appeared to tug a bright pink tent cover out of her backpack. Reluctantly, he pulled it over his head but was unexpectedly rewarded by Indira smiling.

"It looks cute on you," she said, and he couldn't pick up a nuance of sarcasm in her voice.

"Dress to impress!" Surely not a knight in shining armour, but if he'd to pose as jester instead to win Indira's heart, Danian would begrudgingly keep this abysmal poncho right next to his favourite t-shirt stack.

Heavy rain started hammering down on the cobblestone street, lined with slightly run-down high-rise residential developments and the odd colonial-style building in pastel colours. The roads, which all had Portuguese names, quickly filled with water. Danian fought against a gust that almost ripped his pink poncho into pieces when Indira stepped next to him, raised her arm, and hailed down an antiquated taxi. Tammy, Indira, and Danian squeezed into the back. Naoto rode shotgun. He showed their destination on his phone to the incredibly old taxi driver who wore white gloves and a matching face mask. He grunted disapprovingly. When they left the narrow road and the shelter of the buildings, the car's wipers looked like they would surrender to the onslaught of rain any second. After a short cruise along the main road close to the water, they turned into a maze of tiny one-way streets with not a single ninety-degree corner.