"AWW COME ONNNNN!" Tòumíng yelled as the alarm blared through the room, red emergency lights flashing from the ceiling corners.
He and Ghost Claw turned toward the door, ready to make a run for it.
Four men blocked the exit. All of them pointing handguns directly at Tòumíng and Ghost Claw. Professional stance. Steady hands. The kind of security that actually knew how to use their weapons.
Tòumíng gulped, his earlier confidence evaporating instantly.
"Hands up! Both of you! Now!" The lead guard barked in Mandarin, his weapon trained on Ghost Claw's center mass.
Ghost Claw raised her hands slowly, her body language shifting to non-threatening compliance. Tòumíng followed suit, his arms going up, his heart hammering in his chest.
One of the guards moved forward cautiously and snatched the specialized container holding the blood ruby from Ghost Claw's cargo pocket. He examined it briefly, confirmed the contents, and stepped back to a safe distance.
"I'm sorry," Ghost Claw said quietly, her voice muffled by the gas mask but audible enough for Tòumíng to hear. She turned her head slightly toward him. "I'm really sorry for dragging you into this. This is my fault. You shouldn't have been involved in any of—"
She stopped mid-sentence, actually looking at Tòumíng's face for the first time since the guards had appeared.
This fucker wasn't hearing anything she was saying.
He was grinning. Like an absolute idiot. His eyes were wide, his expression somewhere between terrified and excited, the kind of manic energy that came from someone whose brain had completely disconnected from reality.
He looked like he thought this was cool. Like getting held at gunpoint by four armed men was somehow an awesome experience rather than a life-threatening situation.
"Comply!" Cupid's voice was urgent in Tòumíng's chest. "Put your hands up higher! Look scared! Hope they don't shoot you! And for the love of everything, CALM DOWN—your heart rate is at one hundred twenty beats per minute right now! You're going to have a cardiac event before they even decide what to do with us!"
But Tòumíng wasn't listening to Cupid either.
He turned slightly toward Ghost Claw, his grin somehow getting wider, and started giggling—actual giggling, high-pitched and slightly unhinged.
"You uhh..." He could barely get the words out through the inappropriate laughter. "You ever see Die Hard?"
Ghost Claw stared at him through her gas mask lenses, completely confused about what the fuck he was about to do.
Tòumíng cleared his throat dramatically, squared his shoulders despite his hands still being raised, and turned fully to face the guards.
Then, in the worst American accent Ghost Claw had ever heard, somewhere between a bad Bruce Willis impression and a stroke victim trying to speak English, he said to himself:
"Operation Die Hard."