New Shanghai stank of money and ambition in equal measure.
Gene hauled crates through rain that fell warm as bathwater, soaking through his work clothes until they clung to his skin. The docks stretched along the Huangpu—or whatever this dimension's version of it was called—where cargo ships with LED-lit hulls and hydrogen thrusters docked beside old wooden junks that somehow still floated. Neon characters flickered on warehouse walls advertising goods in languages Gene was still learning. The air tasted like ozone and cigarette smoke and something that might have been jasmine.
After two weeks, he stopped dropping crates.
His hands blistered, then callused. His back screamed, then hardened. The other dock workers—mostly men from territories Gene had never heard of, wearing coveralls that looked simultaneously decades old and impossibly advanced—stopped laughing at the soft American boy.
After a month, Gene learned the patterns. Which shipments went where. Which foreman to avoid on bad days. How to read the shimmer in the air that meant a boundary crossing was about to happen, when reality would fold and cargo from another dimension would materialize on the loading platform in a burst of displaced air and st
atic electricity.
New Shanghai was a contradiction that somehow worked. Art deco buildings from 1920s Earth stood next to structures that defied physics, their surfaces rippling with holographic advertisements. Women in qipaos made from smart-fabric that changed color with their moods walked past men in Western suits cut with impossible precision, the cloth embedded with tech Gene couldn't identify. Vintage cars with hydrogen engines purred down streets lit by both gas lamps and LED strips, while rickshaws equipped with anti-grav stabilizers wove through traffic.
The city had been built in 1842 by refugees who'd found a weak point between dimensions—people who wanted to preserve the glory of old Shanghai while embracing every advantage the multiverse had to offer. The result was a place where merchant dynasties that traced their lineage back centuries controlled trade routes across seventeen territories, where aristocratic families still mattered more than talent or wealth alone, where a man's connections could open doors that money couldn't touch.
Gene wanted in. Desperately.
After two months of dock work, his body was lean and hard in ways his Irvine gym membership had never managed. But more importantly, he'd started watching. Learning. The real game wasn't played on the docks—it was played in the restaurants where cargo manifests were discussed over eight-course meals, in the private clubs where trade agreements were sealed with handshakes, in the ballrooms where daughters of shipping magnates danced with sons of boundary watchers.
One night—though "night" in New Shanghai was relative, the sky shifting through shades of indigo and amber that Earth never produced—Lao Wei sat beside Gene during meal break.
"You're not completely useless," Wei said in his choppy English, spooning noodles from a bowl that steamed in the humid air. Around them, other workers ate quickly, their conversations a mix of Mandarin, English, and dialects that hurt Gene's ears to hear. "Surprising."
"Thanks, I think."
Wei studied him, eyes sharp beneath gray eyebrows. "Most rich kids quit after one week. You stayed. Why?"
Gene looked at his hands—scarred, stained, nothing like the hands of someone who was supposed to matter. "Because staying on the docks forever isn't the plan."
Wei laughed, a short bark. "Good answer. At least you're honest about wanting to climb."
-----
After three months, Chen Lao summoned him.
Gene climbed stairs that seemed to multiply as he ascended—a spatial trick, he'd learned, common in buildings owned by merchant families who could afford reality-bending architecture. Windows showed different versions of the city depending on which way you looked: old Shanghai preserved perfectly, current New Shanghai in all its neon glory, and occasionally glimpses of what the city might become.
Chen Lao's office felt like it had been transplanted directly from 1920s Shanghai. Rosewood furniture, scrolls on the walls, a radio that probably cost more than Gene's car back home. But the tea service was modern—cups that kept their contents at the perfect temperature, a pot that poured itself when summoned.
"You haven't quit," Chen Lao said without preamble. His English carried that British-educated precision that meant real old money. "You haven't complained. You've done the work."
"Yes sir."
"Your father may have been right about you." The old man looked genuinely surprised, which Gene found oddly satisfying. "Phase two begins tomorrow. You'll attend meetings. Sit in the corner. Say nothing. Just watch. In three months, I'll ask what you observed. If your answers are good, we discuss actual training. If not—back to the docks."
-----
Gene's second phase was harder than hauling cargo.
The meetings happened in rooms that screamed old money—private dining rooms in restaurants that had been operating since the original Shanghai, offices in buildings where your family name determined whether you could even enter the lobby, ballrooms where crystal chandeliers had been retrofitted with holographic displays that could show cargo manifests and trade routes across all seventeen territories simultaneously.
The people terrified him.
Merchant lords who controlled shipping across multiple dimensions, their families so old they still kept ledgers written in classical Chinese. Boundary watchers who enforced passage rules with the kind of authority that came from having government backing across worlds. Information brokers who sold secrets that could topple territorial governments. Criminal syndicate representatives who dressed in thousand-dollar suits and discussed murder the way other people discussed the weather.
Gene sat in corners, took mental notes, and tried to become furniture.
The meetings flowed between Mandarin, English, and dialects he didn't recognize. They discussed tariff disputes, territorial politics, which boundaries were becoming unstable, which goods were suddenly valuable because of conflicts in territories he'd never heard of. Gene watched who deferred to whom, who interrupted whom, whose opinion shifted the room's consensus.
At one meeting—held in a penthouse restaurant where floor-to-ceiling windows showed the Bund in all its art deco glory, now studded with LED lights that pulsed in sync with market data—a woman walked in and every conversation stopped.
Zhao Xian.
She was maybe thirty, wearing a qipao made from fabric that seemed to contain its own light source, cut in a style that was simultaneously traditional and impossibly modern. Her hair was pulled back severely, showing cheekbones that could cut glass. She moved through the room like she owned it—which, Gene would later learn, her family kind of did. Fourth-generation merchant dynasty. Educated in three different worlds. Controlled transport across twelve territories.
She glanced at Gene once—a flicker of assessment that lasted maybe two seconds—then ignored him completely.
But during the meeting, as discussion heated up over a disputed shipment, Gene noticed her eyes kept returning to him. Not attracted. Curious. Assessing him the way you'd assess a minor piece on a chess board that might become relevant later.
Gene felt something shift in his chest. Not attraction exactly—though she was stunning in a way that made breathing difficult. Something else. Recognition, maybe. She was what he wanted to become. Connected, powerful, moving through rooms like gravity bent around her.
After the meeting, she approached him.
"You're Chen Lao's new project." Not a question. Her English was flawless, accent impossible to place.
"I work for him, yes."
"You sat there for two hours without fidgeting. Most new people can't manage ten minutes." She studied him with unsettling directness. "You're either very disciplined or very scared."
"Both."
She laughed—actually laughed, a sound like cut crystal. "Honest too. Rare." She handed him a card made from something that felt like metal but flexed like paper. "If you survive Chen Lao's training, look me up. I could use someone with discipline and honesty. Those qualities are worth more than people think."
After she left, Wei appeared at Gene's elbow. "Careful with that one. Zhao family's been controlling transport since New Shanghai was founded. She's killed at least two people I know of. Pretty face hides a sharp knife."
"Noted."
But Gene pocketed the card. And that night, lying in his mediocre apartment in the Chinese quarter where rent was cheap and the noodle shops stayed open till 3 AM, he didn't dream of his parents.
He dreamed of Zhao Xian.
Not sexually—though she was beautiful enough to short-circuit most men's brains. He dreamed of moving through rooms the way she did. Of having people's conversations stop when he entered. Of mattering.
He wanted what she had. And if he was being honest—completely, brutally honest—he wanted her to notice him. To see him as something other than Chen Lao's pet project.
Gene stared at the ceiling of his apartment, listening to the sounds of New Shanghai at night—thrusters firing as cargo ships departed for other dimensions, music from clubs that catered to the merchant class, the perpetual hum of the city's tech infrastructure.
Six months of dock work behind him. Three months of watching ahead. And one clear target: become someone worth Zhao Xian's attention.
He'd climbed before—worked his way into Lin Yue's circle in Taipei, convinced Steven Chen to take him on. But this was different. The stakes were higher. The game more complex.
And Gene had never been good at walking away from a challenge.
Especially when the challenge wore a qipao and controlled transport across twelve territories.
He fell asleep planning his next move, Zhao Xian's card tucked in his wallet like a promise.