She was pretty in a way I wasn’t used to. Not like most you girls bowing to the latest beauty trends, indulging in temporary body modifications from reshaping their noses to plumping their lips, or hips, or rears, depending on what was in. You boys kept pace with pec implants and by buying new, chiseled jawlines. But fads came and went, and the yous altered their looks as often as the seasons. The meis, lacking the funds for such drastic changes, resorted to painting their faces in bright colors, using semipermanent tattoos, and dyeing their hair.

Taipei’s youth had become chameleons. If we couldn’t change the dirty smog that smothered our city, we could at least control how we appeared, each metamorphosis more colorful and extravagant than the last.

She finished her water and cast a wary glance my way. “What’s your name?”

“Seriously?” I laughed.

She lifted her shoulders. “I’d guess you’re one year older than I am. Eighteen. Born in the Year of the Horse.” She nodded at the black clothes strewn on the few pieces of furniture in the room. “Dark Horse, I’ll call you.”

I almost smiled but instead pulled out my butterfly knife and began the familiar pattern of flipping it between my fingers and spinning it in my hand. It helped me to think. She tensed, clutching her thighs. She was afraid I might take advantage of her. I wouldn’t, and I had to fight the urge to reassure her, to explain.

“Why so Ro?” Her throaty voice broke my reverie.

Why so Romeo?

She didn’t mean Romeo as in romantic; she meant Romeo as tragic.

I took in my surroundings through her eyes. I lived in an abandoned laboratory that used to belong to Yangmingshan University, an experimental “home” run on sustainable energy. Back when some thought we could still salvage our planet by “going green.” We might have, if enough people had cared. But they hadn’t. The rich were too rich, the poor were too poor, and the middle class—let’s be honest—were only poor people with bigger houses, driving better cars. Now that the majority of us didn’t live past our forties, we cared even less.

My current home consisted of just three rooms: the office, a bathroom, and this main chamber, which included the small kitchen. It held a large, round dining table with a couple of mismatched stools, the ragged turquoise-and-yellow sofa that was at least four decades old, a metal desk, and the wooden chair she sat in. Large windows flanked the southern wall, revealing a thicket of jungle beyond.

I tossed my knife three times, savoring the snick and snap of the blade and handles, before shrugging. “It’s easier to kidnap in black.”

Bad joke. I think her eyes actually smoldered.

I jumped up and grabbed my ancient MacPlus from the desk, opening it. “Put your helmet back on,” I said.

“Why?”