The internet cafe was almost empty at this time of the day. Yet the air still smelled like cheap cigarettes, day-old noodle soup, dried up soda cans and feet. She chose a seat near the front door, not just so that she would be able to see a small portion of the docks area from where she was, but also because of the fresh air.
“Alright, lady, your tea.” The owner of the internet cafe, a bald, slightly obese man in a dirty white shirt handed Gloria a plastic bottle.
“I didn’t order tea.” Gloria frowned, and moved slightly away from the bottle instinctively.
“Well, it’s on the house. Since you’re new here.” The owner chuckled, then looked Gloria up and down: “Drink it. It’s good.”
“Thanks, but I’m really not thirsty, or hungry.” Gloria pushed the plastic bottle back. She already knew it was not ordinary tea, the label looked very similar to a known brand in the city - it had the same style, same font, same color, but just off by one letter.
“Alright, suit yourself.” The owner seemed offended, then took the drink and waddled back to his table.
“And while you’re at it, maybe check the traffic on all the machines because some perv is hogging everything with their porn!” Gloria raised her voice at the owner’s back. Her voice made a thin man with messy hair sitting on the opposite row to panic, click around his screen and close up several browser windows all at once.
Time passed rather peacefully after that. No one came over to bother Gloria again, and the speed of her internet access seemed to have been mostly reasonable, which allowed her to get on the city archive website for some impromptu research on the docks area of the city. She was able to learn quite a bit through this research, for example, how the docks area had quite a violence-filled history of operation, because it, for a very long time, had been the only post for trading certain goods between the South Eastern District and the other two districts.
Now that the evening had come already, the entire area was almost completely empty. There was still a small group of people hanging around. And they seemed to have dispersed into different areas in the docks.
Gloria stood up, went outside and took a look at the docks area from a distance. Some people there seemed to have gone into the darkened warehouses. This made her feel a bit uneasy - because this was no time for anyone to work at the docks. The night was getting late, the streets were mostly quiet aside from occasional cars driving by. Why would anyone be in the docks at this time? There were almost no lights there.
“Hey, miss, you want to log off?” The owner asked Gloria from inside the internet cafe.
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“No! I paid for five hours! I’ll pay through tomorrow if I want. I’m just here for some air!”
“Okay, whatever you say.” The owner went back to his desk.
The off feeling she had when she was on the delivery run earlier had not gone away. If anything, it had only heightened. The strange and arcane tension in the air had become more intense, so much so that she could almost feel something was about to happen.
Gloria stayed outside, even though the air was getting chilly. She soon started walking around, while also continuously checking on the docks area. When she was passing by the shut doors of a local breakfast shop, she saw two men, in gray and low profile clothing, sneaking into a side corner in the docks area.
“What the hell?” Gloria stopped, stood where she was to observe the area for a few minutes. She could not see much of anything from where she was. She needed to get closer.
With just a short moment of consideration, she rushed back into the internet cafe, dropped a few small bills on the owner’s desk: “Keep my computer till 4 AM in the morning. I should be back in an hour or so. If I am not back in two, call the collective patrol team on the docks area.”
“What do I get out of it? ” The owner looked up from his magazine with scantily clad women on the pages and cover.
“Count the bills, they should be enough.” Gloria narrowed her eyes: “... and maybe a cake.”
“Fine. No promises. I get sleepy sometimes.” The owner faked a yawn.
“Buy yourself some coffee then.” Already expecting this, Gloria put down another small bill. And when the owner was about to take it, she grabbed the owner by his wrist with her Qi concentrated on her fingers.
“Ouch! Aaaah!” The owner recoiled and moaned, but at the same time, two of the guests stood up, with long shiny knives in their hands.
“You’d better call, count two hours. Otherwise I’ll be back and bring tons of trouble.” Only having squeezed for a quick moment, Gloria let go of the man’s sweaty wrist.
The owner did not say anything and just watched Gloria grab her jacket and rush out of the door. And almost the exact minute, something crashed into a wooden warehouse in the docks area, causing it to shake and almost completely collapse.
“Shit!” Gloria accelerated and started running through the street - she could see some people were fighting amongst some of the old warehouses, a few of whom had the glow of Qi surrounding their bodies.
But, just when she reached the other side of the street and the entrance to the docks area, a horrifying cold aura exploded from above and propagated through the air and every inch of her bones and muscles.
She looked up, and instantly saw a blob of energy gradually forming in the air. Red, blood red, faint, slightly glistening and flickering but becoming more and more solid. It then took the shape of an arch, spanning across the sky right above the docks area.
“Blood Rainbow!” Gloria yelled, not really caring if anyone heard her. She immediately turned back and started running towards the internet cafe.
The guests in the internet cafe and the owner all appeared to be quite surprised when she made it back in less than a minute’s time.
“Blood Rainbow!” Gloria practically screamed: “Close the door, bring out everything you can, NOW!”
“What?” The owner and one of the knife-carrying guests rushed to the door and looked at the sky through the window. “Fuck! Fuck!”
“Bang!” They slammed the door shut, and used several chairs and a short table to bar the door. The owner then rushed into the back of the room and came out with a wooden buddha statue and placed it in front of the now closed main door.
“The carpet! The carpet!” One of the guests yelled, pointing at a piece of old carpet at the center of the room, under several computer desks.
All six people in the room pushed the desks aside and lifted the old carpet. Under it, was a small circle with symbols inside, drawn with red paint. One of the knife carrying guests rushed into the back room and took out an incense burner, while the other ruffled through a storage locker on the side and took out some incense sticks.
Sitting around the circle, looking at the three incense sticks in the lightly rusted burner covered in dust, Gloria felt little relief.