Soldier's Boy

Tales of Ba Sing Se

Jet's Tale

 

Song raised her arms over her head and stretched as she finally emerged from the small house in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se.  Yes, she'd been able to move her practise to the Middle Ring, but the move hadn't ended her obligations to her patients here.  She was just glad that Sora had had the sense to send for her when her water broke  — it had been a rough labour, but Song had managed to save mother and baby.

She yawned and slipped towards the Middle Ring, longing for her bed.

About three blocks from the wall, a tall, somewhat indistinct figure jumped off a roof to block her path.

Song's eyes narrowed, and her fingers curved around the bulb of the perfume mister she kept with her at all times; within lay not perfume, but a mix of water and spices that quite effectively could disable a grown man if sprayed into his eyes.  "Can I help you?" she asked coolly.

"I need to talk to you," he — the figure sounded like a teenage boy — replied.

The hair on the back of her neck rose, and her stance grew warier.  "About what?"

"Not here," he replied. "Just 'cause I was the only one following you doesn't mean no one's listening in."

O… kay.  The young doctor mentally weighed her options, then elected a course of action.  "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't," the figure replied, honestly. "On the other hand, if I was going to mug or assault you, I wouldn't've wasted this much time talking.  I would've jumped down behind you, not in front."

"You could be leading me into a trap," she pointed out.

"True. But I'm not."

She sighed in vexation.  "Fine.  But come into the light and tell me your name."

The teenager stepped forward, still keeping mostly to the shadows, as if he was used to being hunted and not entirely willing to be completely visible out in the open. "My name's Jet."

Her eyes widened.  "Jet?  Jet, the Freedom Fighter?"

"Not anymore, exactly, but yeah."

"…all right.  Let's go talk," she said.

"Are you okay with going up onto my rooftop?" Jet asked.  The doctor raised a brow at him, but nodded.  "All right, then." He led her back into the lower ring, to a building just like all the others on the street, then helped her climb up to the roof. "This way I can see if anyone's coming close enough to eavesdrop," he explained.

"That makes sense," she admitted.

"Have you noticed this city seems… weird?" Jet started, after checking all four sides of the building and drawing his swords, just in case, turning back to face her.

"I'm a doctor," she replied.  "I was ordered never to speak of the soldiers I've treated."

"It goes deeper than that," he told her, quietly, and told her everything he knew about the Dai Li dictatorship. "I'm trying to set up an information network. So far, I've got a couple people scattered through the Middle and Lower Rings, and a possible contact I'm going to try and get in touch with with unquestioned access to the Upper Ring. But none of them have your reach. Are you in?"

"Yes," she said, the ferocity in her voice startling her.

Jet grinned. "All right. Just keep your eyes and ears open. I'll be in touch probably every couple days to exchange. That's all you have to do."

Something in that grin touched a cord in her, and she grinned back at him.  "All right."

"Oh, one more warning," Jet said. "The Avatar and his friends are in the city. And he doesn't like me very much, and he's managed to piss of the Dai Li. So things might get a bit messy."

"I'm used to things getting messy," Song replied. "I'll handle it as it happens."

He nodded. "I should probably take you back to the wall."

"If you wish," she told him.

He led her, talking only enough so that they didn't look odd walking together, by a totally different path, back to the wall. "I'll be in touch in a couple days," he murmured, then vanished.

He's going to be in my dreams tonight, Song predicted, amused.  Her biological clock was quite insistent these days, so she ignored it.

 

*          *          *

 

Jet had been watching the child for a while. Ze** was sneaky, but he was sneakier, so he knew all kinds of secrets no one else knew. He knew roughly how often the child left the big house in the Upper Ring, and where the child tended to wander in the other parts of the city.

 For a long while — as long as he could afford — after Jiro had first approached him about setting up an information network, he stepped up his watching the kid, making certain ze would be on their side. When he was finally through stalling, he settled in to wait on one of the paths the kid usually took to the Agrarian Zone.

 Maddeningly, it was several hours before ze actually took it. It was perhaps because of his irritation at the delay that Jet nearly bungled the whole project.

 Without warning, he stepped out in front of the kid, blocking the path.

 The small child froze, like a six-year-old caught with her hand in the cookie jar, eyes wide. "We need to talk," Jet said, quietly, then stepped forward. The kid squeaked a little, then turned and fled.

 "Fuck," he muttered under his breath and started chasing.

 Now that the child wasn't really trying to be sneaky, ze was having more luck staying away. Jet's legs were longer, but the kid been wandering in this part of the city for years. His long legs were no match for hir* knowledge of the area.

 "Fuck," he said again, diving around a large rubbish bin. He heard the kid yelp again and finally caught up, finding hir sprawled on the ground, having fallen over a broken-down chair that had fallen off another rubbish heap.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

The small child squeaked again, turning around with a chunk of the chair, holding it straight out, eyes squeezed shut.

Jet sighed, and squatted next to hir. "Look, I don't want to hurt you. I'm sorry I scared you. I really just want to talk." The frightened child opened one eye nervously, hands shaking a little. "Really," he pressed. "I need your help."

"Wh-wh-what k-kind of h-help?" ze asked, not lowering the now-wavering makeshift club.

He hesitated a little. Talking about this in a blind alley was so fundamentally stupid, but he doubted very much that the kid would willingly follow him into the safer Agrarian Zone, where he'd been planing to have this conversation. "...Come up to the roof?" he finally suggested.

The child stared at him for a minute, then nodded a little. "Ok-kay."

Ze stood up and followed him up a fire escape to the roof of the building to their right. Ze refused to let go of hir 'weapon,' and kept a certain distance between them upon finally reaching the rooftop. "What d-did you w-want to t-talk about?" Hir blind panic seemed to be fading, replaced by a more rational wariness. Jet was privately relieved, that might actually work in his favour.

"This city is…" He trailed off, looking for the right word.

"Secretive," the child supplied, still wary.

 "To a seriously freaky extreme," he agreed, then hesitated. "There's a war going on."

 "I know," ze said, head tilted, studying him. "You shouldn't talk about it. They'll come for you and take your mind away."

 "I'm not asking you to talk."

 "Then what are you asking me to do?"

 "Listen."

 The kid was silent for a minute, but finally lowered the club a bit. "Listen?"

 "You can move in and out of the Upper Ring at will. I'm trying to set up a network throughout the city. It was almost breached a while ago, did you know that?" Headshake. "Well, if they break in for real, the city will be totally unprepared." He clenched his fists. "I want to fix that."

 "And you need someone in the Upper Ring."

 "Yeah."

 The kid watched him for a minute, and it was interesting to watch the way hir face flickered through a million expressions. There was a lot of fear, a lot of fear. That worried him. If ze's too scared to act...

"H-how d-d-does this work?" the child asked

 He relaxed again. At least ze's seriously considering it. "You just keep your eyes and ears open. I'll meet you every few days to hear from you and pass on what everyone else has told me. I'll introduce you to a couple other members of the network, too, so you can maybe have an idea if we've been compromised. I'm the only one who'll know who everyone is."

The child was silent for a long minute. "M-my name's R-r-ran."

"I know."

There was another long silence from Ran, and Jet got twitchy again. I'm going to get a no, the kid's going to say it's too risky…

"Okay," ze said, in a very small voice. "Okay."

"I'm Jet," he offered, relieved.

"Okay."

"Are you sure about this?"

Ran nodded a little, hugging the club.

"…Do you want me to walk you home?"

Headshake. "G-going out to the Agrarian Zone for a while. Alone. P-please?"

"All right…"

"I'm leaving now."

He nodded, and watched Ran climb off the roof. He counted to ten, and then followed.

The child was sneaky, but he was sneakier, and the Agrarian Zone was easier from him to hide in than the city. Ran didn't spot him when checking to make sure no one was looking. Clumsily, ze twisted one hand. A string of wheat stalks died, shimmering water flowing out of them to surround hir hand. Ran twisted it again, and the water danced around the child. Ze smiled.

Jet stared at Ran, the revelation of this last secret revealing just how much danger the child had already been in, even before he'd added to it. Part of him felt guilty, for adding to that trouble. Part of him felt relieved. As he watched the secretive noble play with the water, he realized that, if this child got caught, being outed as a spy was quite possibly the least of the many dangers ze faced.

 

 

*          *          *

 

A few nights later, Jet once again interrupted Song's walk home. This time, he wasn't alone.

She raised an eyebrow at him.  "Is this going to become habit?" she asked, stowing her mister.

"Might be," Jet said, casually, bringing his much-shorter companion forward. "This is Ran, my contact in the Upper Ring. Everyone in the network knows one person besides me, just in case."

His companion stepped out of the shadows, and bowed. "Hi."

"Hello," she greeted the smaller woman, smiling.  "My name is Song."

"Nice to meet you." The smaller girl — despite her lack of height, she was probably about thirteen — grinned back.

"Ran will get in touch with you every couple days, too," Jet explained. "You're easier to find and approach than she is, otherwise you'd take turns making contact. If either me or Ran doesn't contact you for a week, that's when you know something's gone wrong, and destroy all evidence you have of this network. 'Kay?"

"I understand," Song answered him, tugging lightly on the end of her braid.

Jet grinned a little. "All right, then. Unless you've got anything to report, I'll see you in a couple days."

"Just that some of the wall guards are disgusted with Long Feng and his Dai Li."

The boy sighed. "Doesn't surprise me. Ran, you coming with me?"

The little teenager shook her head. "I'll find my own way."

"Fare well, both of you," said Song.

"You, too," Ran said, bowed again, and flitted off down a sidestreet. Jet waited a few minutes, then gave Song a little wave and vanished.

She sighed as heat flooded her cheeks.  "Bad body," she murmured, and continued for home.