Jiang ran, if a vigorous waddle with no apology counted.
One webbed foot tangled in the sleeve of his shirt. Jiang yanked free, lurched sideways, and caught his balance with both flippers spread wide. Behind him, the red-eyed man lifted one polished shoe from Jiang's phone.
"Aylin used to choose warriors," the man said. "Perhaps she has developed a sense of humor."
Jiang aimed for the avenue. His coat blocked one route, the dumpling bag blocked another, and his own trousers had become a collapsed fence. He climbed over a trouser leg, belly scraping wool.
The man watched him struggle.
That was worse than a chase. Jiang could feel the decision being made: how much effort did killing one penguin deserve?
His phone rang again.
The man looked down at MOM glowing across the screen. "She calls often."
Jiang barked at him.
"Is that a threat?"
Jiang put every insult he knew into the next sound. It remained a penguin noise, but a committed one.
The man's shadow reached first.
It stretched away from his shoes, crossing the alley against the pharmacy light. Thin black cords rose from it and felt through Jiang's abandoned clothes. One touched the employee badge. Another slipped into the torn shirt where Jiang had landed.
The cords were searching for him.
Jiang shoved his beak under the dumpling bag and flipped it. Cold dumplings rolled across the pavement. Vinegar splashed the nearest cord, which drew back with a dry twitch.
Useful information. Also dinner, apparently wasted.
He waddled between the dumpster wheels. His back brushed the metal undercarriage; the man would have needed to crawl. The shadow had no shoulders to stop it.
A black cord followed beneath the dumpster.
Jiang pecked the cord.
Pain cracked from the tip of his beak into his skull. The cord jerked away, and the hunter touched two fingers to his own mouth. Jiang had finally hurt the thing hunting him.
He liked that information much more.
"There you are," the man said.
Jiang burst from the far side of the dumpster and reached the sidewalk.
Midtown met him at ankle height.
Shoes struck the pavement in every direction. A rolling suitcase nearly took his head off. Gum clung to one webbed foot and changed his waddle into a desperate hop. Nobody expected a penguin to shoot out of a service alley after midnight, which meant every person noticed him half a step too late.
"Is that real?" somebody shouted.
A woman raised her phone. Jiang dodged around her boots and smacked into the curb.
The stone rose to his chest.
He jumped. His feet left the ground together, gained almost nothing, and dropped him onto his belly. Laughter broke out behind the camera.
Jiang twisted toward the alley.
The man walked into the crowd holding Jiang's phone. People gave him space without looking at him. A young man brushed his shoulder, shivered, and forgot what he had been saying.
The shadow slid between everyone else's feet.
Jiang attacked the curb again, hooked his beak over the top, and scraped both feet against stone while his flippers beat at empty air. A stranger in running shoes bent toward him.
"Hey, buddy. Need a hand?"
Yes, Jiang thought. Preferably my old pair.
The stranger reached under his belly.
Black cord wrapped around the man's wrist.
His friendly expression emptied. He picked Jiang up and turned toward the alley.
Jiang had spent less than five minutes as a penguin, but the body knew one honest response to unwanted hands. He drove his beak into the soft web between the stranger's thumb and finger.
The man yelled and dropped him.
Jiang hit the sidewalk on both feet, bounced against a newspaper box, and kept moving. The stranger stared at his bleeding hand with no memory of bending down.
The hunter had crossed half the distance.
Ahead, a food cart vendor was packing for the night. Steam rose from a steel tray. A cooler sat open beside the cart, its lid propped against a bag of melting ice. Jiang could smell sausage, onion, old mustard, and fish from somewhere farther down the block.
His empty stomach voted for the cart. Whatever judgment survived chose the ice.
Jiang ran straight at the cooler.
"No, no, no," the vendor said. "Where did you come from?"
Jiang struck the bag with his chest. It tipped slowly, insultingly, then spilled wet ice across the sidewalk.
His feet lost their grip.
He threw both flippers out, expecting another fall. His belly met the ice, his feet kicked once behind him, and the city began to move.
Fast enough to frighten him.
The rigid body that made the curb impossible held straight over the slick ground. His feathers shed the water. A flipper pressed left and turned him around the cart wheel with room to spare.
The vendor jumped back. "That penguin knows what he's doing!"
Jiang wanted that statement entered into the public record.
Blue text flashed at the edge of his sight.
[Adaptation Recognized: Penguin Reflexes]
The spilled ice ended at the corner.
Jiang shot off it, crossed a strip of dry pavement, and struck the sloped metal of a curb ramp. Momentum carried him into the crosswalk.
A taxi horn punched through the night.
Yellow filled his vision. Jiang dug both feet against the road and spun. The taxi clipped the end of his left flipper, throwing him toward the next lane. Pain ran from the joint to his chest.
The driver braked and leaned on the horn again. "What is wrong with this city?"
Jiang rolled upright beneath the taxi's front bumper.
The shadow cords reached the crosswalk.
They stopped where the taxi's headlights struck them. The man stood at the curb among a crowd of people filming Jiang. His pleasant face had tightened around the mouth.
Light and witnesses mattered.
Jiang tucked that away beside vinegar and beak pain.
The walk signal changed. Shoes entered the street from both sides. Somebody grabbed for him; another person shouted that the zoo had lost a bird. Jiang used the moving legs as cover and pushed across the rest of the avenue.
His clipped flipper dragged lower than the other.
The plaza fountain waited beyond the crosswalk, water shining under white lamps. A waist-high rim surrounded it. To Jiang, it might as well have been a fortress wall.
He reached the stone and searched for a low point. There was none.
Behind him, the hunter stepped off the curb.
The crowd had given Jiang light. Now it gave the hunter bodies to borrow.
A woman lowered her camera and walked toward the fountain with her arms open. A delivery rider dismounted and approached from Jiang's right. Their faces held the same vacant patience.
Jiang backed against the rim.
"Cute little guy," the woman said.
The delivery rider reached for his damaged flipper.
Jiang jumped at the stone. His beak struck the rim and slid off.
The two borrowed people closed around him.
He smelled water. Cold, chlorinated, close enough to touch if he could get his useless land body over one slab of rock.
Jiang lowered his head and charged the woman's shin.
She caught him against her coat. The black cord around her wrist tightened. Jiang twisted, drove both feet into her thigh, and pushed. With his beak over the rim, he hooked one flipper across the wet stone.
The damaged left side nearly folded.
He kicked again. Belly, chest, then feet scraped over the top.
Jiang fell into the fountain.
Water closed over his head.
His body knew what to do before panic could waste the chance. Flippers swept back with real strength. Webbed feet steered. The rigid torso that had betrayed him on every curb became a clean blade through the pool.
He streaked across the fountain, cut beneath a decorative jet, and surfaced at the far rim.
For one glorious second, being a penguin made sense.
The borrowed woman stopped at the water. Her hands shook. Confusion returned to her face, and she stumbled away from the edge. The rider blinked at his own parked bicycle across the plaza.
His pursuer remained on the other side, holding up Jiang's phone when it began to ring.
Jiang tried to climb out. The wet stone defeated his beak, and his damaged flipper failed when he put weight on it. He slid back into the pool.
The blue text returned.
[First Trial Unchanged: Survive Until Sunrise]
"Wonderful," Jiang honked. "Love the clarity."
A woman's voice brushed the inside of his thoughts, faint and rough.
Jiang, listen to me.
He went still in the water.
Do not let Gredudande speak to her.
Aylin's voice. He knew it without knowing how.
Across the fountain, Gredudande accepted the call.
"Hello?" Jiang's mother said through the speaker. "Jiang?"
Gredudande listened to her once.
Then it answered in Jiang's voice.
"Ma, it's me."