"Ma, it's me."
Jiang heard his own voice cross the fountain and wanted to tear it out of Gredudande's throat.
His mother answered at once. "Where are you? I heard shouting."
The creature watched Jiang tread water. It wore his tired cadence perfectly, even the little pause he used before a reassuring lie.
"There was a problem at work," it said.
Jiang's damaged flipper throbbed each time it swept backward. He tried the fountain wall again and slid off. Gredudande had his phone, his voice, and the one person who would keep talking until she knew he was safe.
Aylin's warning scraped through the Spirit Link.
Break the call right now.
Jiang's answer crossed the link as a honk packed with rage and no words.
I know. I am sorry.
Aylin's apology could wait. Jiang folded forward into the only weapon he had.
Underwater, the damaged flipper still hurt, but it could push. His feet opened behind him and drove against the pool. He circled once to gain speed, aiming for the hand that held the phone over the rim.
Gredudande kept speaking in his voice. "Go back to sleep. I'll call from home."
"Promise me," his mother said.
She asked for promises only after she had caught him lying.
Jiang struck the surface beak-first.
Water and penguin hit Gredudande's wrist together. Jiang clamped his beak around the sleeve and kicked. The cloth tore. His phone flew from the creature's hand, struck the fountain rim, and landed in the water.
The call stayed connected beneath the surface.
"Jiang?" his mother said from the sinking screen.
Jiang released Gredudande and dove after the phone. It turned through the white fountain light, close enough to save and still connected. He caught the case in his beak. The screen showed MOM, a spreading crack, and a red END CALL button built for fingers.
He stabbed it with the tip of his beak.
The line went dead.
Above him, Gredudande screamed with two voices.
Jiang surfaced near the center jet. The red-eyed man's arm hung in the fountain up to the elbow. Steam rose from the wet sleeve. His face sagged on one side, the borrowed expression losing its grip.
People around the plaza stopped filming.
"Sir, are you okay?" someone called.
Gredudande pulled back from the water. Jiang's phone remained in his beak, heavy and useless. He dragged it onto the base of the fountain jet and held one foot over it.
Sunlight caught the upper windows and turned them pale gold.
The creature looked east. Hatred moved across the dead man's face, raw enough to make every earlier smile feel rehearsed.
"She cannot hide you forever," it said in Jiang's voice.
Then the body folded over the fountain rim.
A woman grabbed his shoulder before he struck the pavement. Two men helped lower him. The red shine left his eyes and ran beneath the food cart across the plaza, too quick and thin for anybody else to notice.
Jiang noticed where it went.
It pooled under the cart, touched the paws of a sleeping stray dog, and disappeared into its fur.
The dog opened one red eye.
Sirens drew closer. People crowded around the abandoned body. A man in a suit pointed at Jiang and shouted something about rabies, which proved that New Yorkers could look at any emergency and select the wrong problem with confidence.
Blue text opened above the broken phone.
[First Trial Complete]
[Reward: Synchronization +3%]
[Current Synchronization: 46%]
Jiang waited for congratulations. The System offered none.
The System added another line.
[Energy Low: Feed Before Body Heat Fails]
His hunger answered with a cramp that bent him over the phone.
"Now?" he barked. "You schedule breakfast after the murder ghost?"
Nobody understood him. An emergency worker pushed through the crowd with a medical bag. Another pointed toward the fountain and spoke into a radio. Animal control would come next, followed by a cage, a news clip, and questions Jiang could answer only by biting somebody.
He had ended the call. His mother was alive. His phone had drowned, and Gredudande had heard enough of her voice to remember it.
Staying beside the phone accomplished nothing.
Jiang left the phone beneath the fountain jet and swam toward the service side. A maintenance ledge gave him a lower climb. He hooked his good flipper over the stone, kicked with both feet, and rolled onto wet concrete.
His left flipper refused to lift cleanly.
He tucked it close and waddled behind a hedge while the emergency workers searched the pool. The stray dog was gone.
The smell of fish found him before the street did.
It came through an open loading door across the next block, rich and oily enough to make thought difficult. A small seafood shop occupied the ground floor beneath a row of dark apartments. Its front shutters were still down, but a delivery van stood at the back with crates stacked on a handcart.
A broad-shouldered woman in a rubber apron checked each crate as a teenage boy carried them inside.
"Bottom one first, Tomas," she said. "Unless you want mackerel juice in your shoes again."
"These are my work shoes."
"All shoes become work shoes when they smell like mackerel."
Jiang liked her immediately. His stomach had less complicated feelings about the silver fish lying on crushed ice inside the nearest crate. Even the smallest one was longer than his beak. He crept along the van's shadow, keeping his injured flipper tucked.
The boy spotted him.
"Tia Rosa, there's a penguin."
"Carry the crate, Tomas."
"No, there's a penguin."
Rosa turned, saw Jiang beside the handcart, and set down her clipboard.
"That is absolutely somebody else's problem."
Jiang agreed. He reached for a sardine.
Rosa slapped a plastic scoop over the fish. "And those are my problem."
Jiang looked up at her. She looked down at him.
He tapped his beak against the crate, then opened it in what he hoped was a universal sign for starving.
"Oh, don't make a face," Rosa said. "I raised three brothers. You are not the best beggar I've seen this week."
Tomas crouched a few steps away. "His wing looks hurt."
Flipper, Jiang thought, though he appreciated the concern.
Tomas's phone chimed. A shaky video showed Jiang shooting across the crosswalk and vanishing into the fountain. The frame froze on his white chest and outstretched flippers.
"That's him," Tomas said. "People are looking for him."
Rosa pushed the phone toward his apron pocket. "Then people can carry the crates after they arrive."
"Call the zoo," Rosa said. "Then get me the laundry basket."
The word basket settled the matter.
Rosa selected a sardine and placed it beneath the upturned basket with one edge propped on the scoop. "One fish for one safe bird. That is a fair trade."
Jiang respected the offer. He rejected the cage.
Jiang lunged under the scoop, caught one sardine by the tail, and ran.
Rosa swore in Spanish. Tomas laughed hard enough to forget the phone in his hand. Jiang rounded the rear of the van with breakfast dragging between his feet.
He could have kept going.
The stray dog crawled out from beneath the van.
Its ribs showed through dirty fur. One front paw dragged. To Tomas, it probably looked sick and frightened.
Jiang saw the red thread wound through its eyes.
"Hey, puppy," Tomas said.
The dog lowered its head and moved toward him.
Jiang dropped the sardine.
He barked as loudly as his penguin throat allowed and charged the dog's injured side. The animal turned from Tomas, planting its supposedly useless paw with perfect strength.
There you are, Jiang thought.
The dog snapped at him. Jiang threw himself sideways, good flipper striking pavement, and felt its teeth close on empty feathers near his tail. Rosa shouted. A metal scoop struck the dog's shoulder and bounced away.
"Get inside now, Tomas!"
The dog ignored her. Its red eyes stayed on Jiang.
Gredudande's voice came through its clenched teeth, warped by the shape of the jaw.
"Your mother believed me."
Rosa stopped beside the van.
Jiang backed between two stacks of crates while the dog herded him away from the open shop and toward the curb. Across the service lane, a utility hatch stood open beside a worker's cones. The hole was narrow enough for Jiang and too tight for the dog's shoulders.
Tomas waited behind him; the hatch lay ahead, and his sardine remained beneath the van.
The dog showed him Jiang's own smile.
"Run again," Gredudande said.