The Tiger Flu

Chapter 28 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 1 of the node “Minor Heat.”

Velma ushers Kora into Kiri’s clinic. Kora’s hand is rapidly getting worse. Kiri unwraps the bandage to reveal that the wound is scabby, purple-black, and drenched in pus. Velma asks if Kora will be okay; Kiri does not answer and gives Kora a pain-relieving tea. Kiri cleans the wound and sews up the punctures, but she is concerned about infection.

In a few hours, Kiri sees that the wound is turning red “in a disconcerting way” and that Kora’s thumb is turning black at the tip (185). Kiri recalls she has a duty to protect Kora and to stop the gangrene from eating away at more than the hand. She gives Kora more tea to sedate her and then uses a large, hot, flat knife to amputate Kora’s infected hand. Later that night, leaving Kora to heal, Kiri cannot sleep and goes for a walk. She moves stealthily, tiptoeing down the hall and into the night.

Chapter 29 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 2 of the node “Minor Heat.”

In a stupor from the pain-relieving tea, Kora dreams about frantically rubbing a potato to relieve an itch on her hand. When her eyes blink open, she realizes that her right hand has been amputated and screams in shock. Tania and Velma are there by Kora’s bedside when she wakes up; Tania puts a hand over Kora’s mouth, and Velma explains that Kora had gangrene. Despite Kora just undergoing an amputation, Velma wonders if Kora still wants to go to the tiger party that night. Tania informs Kora that the whole school is going. Kora does indeed want to go, but Tania thinks it’s a bad idea.

Kora drinks some whiskey-laced forget-me-do tea, which unexpectedly triggers the projection of Isabelle Chow contained on the scale that Kora found in the shrine by the water. In the projection, Isabelle cries and angrily addresses an unknown person, telling said person that “LïFT is still only at eighty-five percent verisimilitude” and saying things like “how could I have ever called that charity case my best friend” (193). Tania explains that there is gossip everywhere and that the scale is only meant to embarrass and humiliate Isabelle. She snatches the scale from Kora.

Kora slips in and out of sleep, dreaming of Uncle Wai’s rooftop garden and his harvest of potatoes. When Kora wakes from her dream, she realizes that a mewling is coming from underneath her bed; it is the missing catcoat. The catcoat has a note that says “I dare you” pinned to its ear. Kora picks up the catcoat and slips it on, and makes her way out into the night, toward the Pacific Pearl Parkade for the party.

Chapter 30 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 2 of the node “Minor Heat.”

Kiri goes on a walk and notices durian trees growing along the boulevard. They remind her of the Grist Village and how they had to take great care to cultivate them. It makes her homesick. On her way back to the Cordova School, Kiri is approached by a man with “eyes bright green, like he’s drunk too much forget-me-do” (201). The man menaces Kiri, asking if he can walk alongside her; when she says no, he continues to pursue her anyway. Kiri tells him to go away or she’ll hurt him, and finally she grabs his arm and presses hard into a point on his arm called the “meridian of vision,” which gives him a searing pain in the eyes. Rubbing his eyes, the man tells Kiri that her sister is already at the party and she should join her. Kiri thinks he must be referring to Calyx, and when she returns to the clinic, she finds that both Calyx and Kora are gone. She takes out a disk she took from the man, which contains the same invitation projection that Kora received. Kiri grabs weapons—a hunting knife and a sleeve of all-purpose needles—and rushes to the Pacific Pear Parkade.

Chapter 31 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 2 of the node “Minor Heat.”

Kora heads to the Pacific Pearl Parkade wrapped in her catcoat. Outside the parkade, which is made to look like a tiger out of tin cans, hawkers are selling food, clothing, bicycle gear, scales, and a street drug called N-lite. Myra tells Kora to take the N-lite from a vial; it is the only way to “see the truth” of the parkade (206). Kora reluctantly snorts some N-lite up her nose; she gives the rest to Myra.

The girls make their way through a huge crowd; they are there for a “devil’s revel” and “memory share” (208). One section of the parkade has been opened to create a wide auditorium-like hall. At the front of the hall there is a stage. Marcus Traskin, the lord and CEO of the Pacific Pearl, sits on a stone dais at the front of the stage. He is covered in knowledge scales, making him “the largest public mainframe in Saltwater Flats” (209). Music begins, and the N-lite transfixes everyone in a vision that reveals the entire history of Earth in vivid detail. Kora notices her brother at the far edge of the room; he raises a hand and beckons her to follow him as he makes his way further down the winding parkade. Kora pulls her catcoat tight as she and Myra make their way through a dense crowd of tiger men toward K2.

Several spiraling floors below the hall, Kora and Myra find themselves abruptly in a nice office lobby, with white tile floors trimmed with a border of black stars and a bank of elevators in front of them. Each elevator has a dial that spins and flaps, from floor one to 36. Kora and Myra observe a group of women, all of whom bear a resemblance to Kora, go into one of the elevators, guided by six tiger men. The elevator with the women goes up, and when it comes down on the opposite bank, the doors slide open and release a “foul odor of ammonia, sweat, and rotten onions” (213). The elevator is now filled with fish and roses. A group of tiger men come and neatly gather the fish and roses to cart them away in wheelbarrows.

Suddenly, Myra yanks off the hood of Kora’s catcoat, exposing her to the tiger men and shouting, “She’s here!” (213). The tiger men yank Kora from the catcoat, which shrieks in pain. Kora calls Myra a traitor as she is ushered to an elevator.

The elevator opens, and Kora is in disbelief with what she sees: She is somehow atop the Woodward Building, back at her family’s rooftop garden. She sees Charlotte and Uncle Wai standing in front of a dead goat, hung upside down by its hind legs. Charlotte and Wai argue, and when they notice Kora, they shout at her to get away, that for everything they’ve sacrificed, it is not for her to end up there (215). Charlotte and Wai push her back into the elevator.

Kora sobs as the elevator descends. The doors open on a lower floor and reveal Isabelle Chow, the CEO of HöST, who is an “astonishingly tall and beautiful woman” (216). Isabelle explains that Charlotte and Uncle Wai have “left their bodies” and are being held captive; she says her parents—she refers to Uncle Wai as her father—have been “uploaded” to Quay D’Espoir on Eng (217). Marcus Traskin has taken Chang from Isabelle, she says, and all the virtual cities she built for common people. Isabelle assures Kora that her parents are safe, and if she wants to join them, then she needs to kill Marcus Traskin for her. She further instructs Kora to go back to the Cordova School when the party is done and befriend the doctor from Grist Village. The elevator doors close and then it descends. When the doors open again, Kiri is standing there waiting for Kora.

Chapter 32 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 3 of the node “Minor Heat.”

Kiri barely recognizes Kora when the elevator doors open because she is so filthy and bloody. Kiri wants to abandon Kora, but she realizes that Kora may be her last hope at saving the Grist sisterhood. Kiri tells Kora that they must get out of the Pacific Pearl Parkade; she does not know what kind of experiments they are performing there, but Kora is in danger. Kora whines that her mother and father (whom she previously knew as her Uncle Wai) are alive, that she saw them, and that she cannot leave the parkade without them.

In the elevator, Kiri yanks the bloodied bandage off the stump where Kora’s hand used to be. She observes, “There, at the end of a slimy grey stump, grows exactly what I’d hoped. A new hand. Small and raw, it is nevertheless perfectly formed” (221). Kiri is ecstatic, since this confirms that Kora is a “new starfish” (221). Kora curses Kiri when she sees the new hand, accusing Kiri of “hideous Grist magic” that caused it to form (221). They hear soldiers approaching. Kora tells Kiri that she must help her kill Marcus Traskin, as that’s the only way to bring mother and father back—and that she will not move from this spot unless Kiri agrees to help. Kiri reluctantly agrees, and they flee.

They make it to the mouth of the tin-can tiger sculpture outside the Pacific Pearl Parkade, which is still packed with tiger men, all wearing the same dark blue uniform. Kora has an open scale that connects her to K2; it beams a warning signal. Kora insists they go back into the parkade to find him. Kiri thinks it is a trap, but she agrees, and they go back inside. They scuttle through a dark hallway toward the blinking light where K2 is. They find him down a very narrow hall, in a small and dimly lit electrical room. He is tied to a chair and firmly gagged. They untie and ungag him, and try to convince him to escape with them, but he says he must stay because Marcus made him a “wonderful offer” that he cannot refuse (227). Marcus is going to help save Saltwater City, K2 reports, because he has a cure for the tiger flu. Kora and K2 argue, but Kora cannot convince K2 to come with them. Kiri ties him up again.

Chapter 33 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 3 of the node “Minor Heat.”

The soldiers are getting closer to Kora and Kiri’s location in the Pacific Pearl Parkade. They try to flee, but they are surrounded by soldiers. It becomes clear that K2 reported Kora and Kiri’s whereabouts to Marcus Traskin’s henchman. Kiri hisses that K2 is a traitor, and Kora is stunned. K2 apologizes, but he had no choice but to “save her life” by reporting her to Marcus; he saved her from the LïFT (229).

The door to the electrical room flies open as the soldiers apprehend Kora and Kiri. K2 explains that he controls the tiger farms now; Kai Tak—who Kora thought was her father but is her uncle—left them to K2 on the condition that he dispose of Kora, Charlotte, and Kai Wai. Now that Everest is dead, Kai Tak invited K2 to run the cloning company Jemini with him, which means they can clone as many test subjects as Marcus wants for the LïFT upload. They also control the tiger wine factories, which means they can infect as many people with flu as they want; and since Marcus controls the cure, they will always make a profit. K2 says they have built the “perfect money machine” (229). He and Marcus will be the richest men in Saltwater City and on Chang; soon they will also take over Eng. Kora reminds K2 that she is also the granddaughter of Lennox Ko, so part of those factories belong to her.

K2 explains that Lennox Ko willed Jemini to Kai Tak, and then to Kai Tak’s eldest son, Everest, and then to K2, but only in the event of their deaths. If K2 dies, only then will Kora inherit the factories. When Kora asks why Lennox Ko would have willed Jemini to his younger son, and K2 says it is because Kai Wai is a “wife stealer” (230). Kora does not believe him. Guards restrain Kora and Kiri with binds.

Chapter 34 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 3 of the node “Minor Heat.”

Kiri and Kora are thrown into a damp, windowless cement room that reeks of fish and ammonia. Kiri wonders if Glorybind is still alive on Eng with Kora’s mother and father.

Kora’s growing hand itches, and she asks Kiri why she did this to her. Kora is disgusted at the sight of her small new hand. Kiri explains that she saved her life by cutting off the gangrenous hand—Kora should be grateful to Kiri. Kiri also explains that, since Kora is a starfish, it is not Kiri’s doing that she is growing another hand; with this revelation that Kora is a starfish, it is confirmed that they are “gene genies” related by their original Grist grandmother, Grandma Chan Ling (234). Kora does not believe that she is a “dirty Gristie” (234). She is determined to escape and take back Jemini for Kai Wai, and then become “Lady of the Flu” and make Kiri pay for what she did to her (234).

Kora refuses food for 15 days. She sulks and stares at Kiri, which bothers Kiri. On the 15th day in captivity, Kora eats two fish and, after more staring at Kiri, she spontaneously apologies, though she does not say for what. The seasons change from Minor Heat to Major Heat, and then to Autumn Begins and finally to Limit of Heat. Kora continues to stare and stare at Kiri. On the fourth day of Limit of Heat, Kiri smacks Kora hard across the face to get her to stop staring. They tussle, but finally Kora gets tired and retreats to a corner of their cell.

The season changes from Limit of Heat to White Dew to Autumn Equinox. It has been 54 days since Kiri and Kora were first trapped in their cell. On the 54th day, Kora tells Kiri that, on the night of the tiger party, she noticed women who looked like Kiri, meaning Grist women, going up the elevators as people but coming down as fish and roses. Kora insinuates that the fish they have been eating for 54 days might be Grist women. Kiri is distraught; she shouts that Kora must be lying, but in her heart, Kora knows it’s the truth. Kiri convulses and retches, disgusted at the thought. Kora comforts Kiri as she cries, saying that “it’s not them anymore” (240).

Chapter 35 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kora’s perspective on Day 8 of the node “Autumn Equinox.”

Kora and Kiri hear a key turn to their cell, and Calyx appears at the open door, along with a group of soldiers. Calyx’s belly is swollen; she is clearly pregnant. One of the guards informs Kora and Kiri that Calyx is now the consort of K2 and mistress to the rest of the soldiers. The guards bring Kora and Kiri up many levels to the very top of the parkade, where Marcus Traskin sits in front of a giant oak desk.

Marcus informs Kora that her uncle, Kai Tak Ko, is dead of the flu, which means Kora is now the inheritor of Jemini and its vast accompanying fortune. He further explains K2 lied to Kora. Kai Tak illegally wrested Jemini from Kai Wai, who didn’t fight back because he was guilt ridden after stealing his brother’s wife (Charlotte). Marcus implores Kora to fight back and take the company that is rightfully hers. Kora says no, that her brother would not lie to her; Marcus calls her a foolish girl for not understanding that K2 wants her dead.

Suddenly, the doors to Marcus’s office burst open, and K2 comes in with his soldiers, along with Calyx. Marcus tells K2 that Kora has refused his proposition; K2 says he caught Marcus red-handed trying to wrest Jemini from him. With that, he cues the tiger men soldiers to fire at Marcus, and they shoot him until he is a “bleeding heap of scale and muscle” (246). Kora screams, and K2 tells her that, since she did not betray him, he will spare her life. She and Kiri must leave immediately and never return to Saltwater Flats.

Kora and Kiri head to the Cordova School. Kiri tells Kora that they need to make plans to go to New Grist Village immediately after collecting their things. When they reach Cordova, Velma greets Kora and Kiri and lets them know that there have been a lot of changes at the Cordova School since the two of them have been away. Most of the girls have been killed or “uploaded,” she reports: “Most of the girls have taken the LïFT and gone to the happy after life after” (249). Now it is just Velma, Myra, and Tania left. Velma says she will prepare a feast of fish and tiger wine for Kora and Kiri.

Velma disappears into the kitchen, and Kora sneaks out of the Cordova School. She returns to the shrine for Isabelle Chow, aiming to communicate to Isabelle that Marcus Traskin is dead, in hope that Isabelle will reunite her with her mother and father. Kora plugs in another scale, though in this one Isabelle is angrily addressing someone whom Isabelle once called a “sister” but now considers a traitor. Kora does not know who Isabelle is addressing, but she realizes that she cannot speak to Isabelle directly through this shrine—it is just a site for gossip. Kora implores the statue of Isabelle, “Give me back my mother and father” (251).

Chapter 36 is set in the Saltwater Flats and is told from Kiri’s perspective on Day 8 of the node “Autumn Equinox.”

Kiri packs her things from the Cordova School clinic. When she arrives in the kitchen, Velma has prepared a large dinner of fish and tiger wine. Kiri refuses the fish, but she takes a slug of the tiger wine. When Myra and Tania return from their foraging and join them for dinner, they inquire where Kora is. Velma offers to go look for Kora and runs throughout the school to find her.

Not finding her anywhere in the building, Velma scurries outside to search for Kora but is captured by Pacific Pearl Parkade police.

Kora returns from the Isabelle shrine, entering Cordova through a back door; Myra furiously tells Kora that the police have taken Velma. Kora wants to attempt to save Velma, but Kiri warns that it is too late—Velma is already lost to them. If Kora attempts to save her, the police will take Kora too. Kora watches as the police corral Velma into a cordon with a group of Saltwater citizens; suddenly, a bomb rips into the cordon where Velma is being held. Velma, along with everyone else held in the cordon, is dead. Myra is angry at Kora, holding her responsible for Velma’s death. She vows to make Kora pay for getting Velma killed.