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《上海梦想》


 THE AUTHOR

    Sahr Johnny was born in London on 1st May 1970 and attehe prestigious London School of Eics &amp; Political Sce. In 1993, armed with a degree in Eics, and a keen s<mark></mark>ense of adventure, he found himself in Hong Kong, where he spent three years as a personal assistant to one of as first self-made tys before embarking on a care<strike></strike>er as a teology journalist c er and busieology for major publications in Hong Kong, including The South a M Post, PC World, and The Ei<bdo></bdo>st Group’s Chief Financial Officer Asia magazine.

    He has written for numerous Asian publications, including The Dataphile, Wireless World and Thats Beijing. In 1999, he founded Informa<dfn>99lib?</dfn>tion Age, a Hong Kong-based I start-up that was later acquired by a., the first ese I pany to list on NASDAQ. He has traveled extensively in Asia and spent part of<figure>九九藏书</figure> his childhood living in Sierra Leone, West Africa. He is profit in Mandarin and tonese and splits his time between Beijing, Hong Kong and London. SHANGHAI DREAM is his first work of fi.

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    The jouro SHANGHAI DREAM has been fraught with false starts, bouts of frustration, and occasional feelings of hopelessness. I would like to thank the following people who have offered opportunities, inspiration, and encement as I felt my way through my own string of escalating nightmares to plete this book.

    I would like to thank Lawrence g for introdug me to the amazing city of Hong Kong, the pleasures of Hong Kong aovies, and teag me to swear in tonese, all those years ago in our London dorm room. Many thanks to Lawrence Gray of the Hong Kong Writers’ Circle, whose enthusiasm for “the craft” helped in ways that even he might not fully appreciate<dfn></dfn>. At the last minute, Sharon Cooper’s meticulous eye ehat glaring typos etc. did not make it into the finished manuscript. Any typos in the novel are entirely my own. Thank you, Sharon.

    I would also like to mention my sister, Anisa Johnny, who alway<footer>９9ｌｉｂ?</footer>s believed I would one day reach my destination, evehe project was moribund. Finally, I aowledge my debt to all the people in Hong Kong and a, who have made me feel at home in this exg part of the world, and who tio feed my fasation with the incredible place that is a.

    Thank you.

    For Ashley, Dimitri and Ryan

    “The future has already arrived. Its just not evenly distributed yet.”

    William Gibson

    “If you want t<code>九九藏书</code>o see the future of a, thats Shanghai. Beijing has palaces, gover offices, more iing small shops, aer food. But theres already nothing like Shanghai on the pla, and the place is still under stru, with the national bird of a, the stru e, in evidence everywhere. I sat in the superb bar oh floor of the Grand Hy<strike></strike>att (like Hiltons and Sheratons abroad, theres no parison with the domestic terparts), smoking a Cohiba Lancero and sipping a Courvoisier, surrounded by vi. It was dark and foggy with light drizzle and, as a large blimp drifted by about 40 stories below me, its aerostat illuminated with advertising in ese, it became clear that I was already living in <q>99lib?</q>the world of the Blade Runner.”

    Doug Casey’s Iional Speculator

 Chapter 1

    Caldwell heard the familiar sound of his screams from deep within his nightmare. Long before it jolted him awake, he saw interlaced between the horrific images, fragments of the decision he had made. The fragments coalesced, fusing into something cold, dark and chillingly absolute. He opened his eyes, allowing his tacts and irises the milliseds they o adjust to the semi-darkness. He grunted and turned over on the memory foam futon. It was quiet in his enclosed capsule, quiet, except for the discordant sounds of men in various states of sleep.

    Caldwell had long learo block out the obligatory rumbling snores of the other octs, the rasping sounds of heavy breathing underscored by the distant noise of traffic outside. In his mind, the sonic summary of recurring nightmares still echoed back from deep within the plastic walls of his capsule.

    Screams were nothi the Angel Capsule Hotel. They came, in all their harrowing variety, in the middle of the night or in broad daylight. The octs had learo read meaning in the discordant sounds and to block them out. Over the course of his uionally proloay, Caldwell had heard them all. The cries of desperation, howls of pai-rending sounds of grown men g in their sleep and the depraved shrieking of deranged men brought to the end of their tether. Sometimes the onslaught was relentless, the decibels seeping through the pores of the plastic walls. He had lain awake listening to the nonsensical mutterings of men talking in their sleep, the grunts and exhalations of alcoholics relieving themselves withiifling cos of their osules. He found it hard to decipher the meaning of his own screams amidst all the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

    Today, Caldwell felt a strange hypersensitivity. He was acutely aware of the sweat-soaked sheets ging to his naked perspiring torso like a shroud, the minute movements of the thermulating fabric systematically adjusting its weave. Caldwell wondered whether this sensitivity to external stimuli was a side effect of him having made the most cowardly of personal choices. He still hadn’t brought himself to plate the finality of his decision but the clusion was iable. Eventually, in a matter of minutes, he thought, he was going to kill himself.

    Soon, the end would be in sight for his heavily punctuated sleep patterns. The nightmares that stretched into infinity, ghostly apparitions of fear reag deep into his psyche. He was trapped in a living hell and there was only one way out. Soon, he would have that which he craved more than anything else, a sleep that stretched undisturbed into infinity. He would have peace.

    Caldwell gla the time projected in pale green pixels by the cheap Taiwanese clock built into the ceiling. Through burned out eyes, tormen<cite>九九藏书</cite>ted mind moribund in that fuzzy area between sleep and wakefulness, he watched the pulsating digits of the clock tig over. It was that hour of dawn. Outside, the shadows of the night had started to recede, exposing the gray wet reality of a winter m. He lay i on the memory foam futon and watched the time spin on its invisible axis, sweeping through its three hundred and sixty-degree ar precisely sixty seds. It was 5.30AM.

    Time had bee a meaningless cept to Caldwell, reduced to a simple biological ting down, the unstoppable approach of an impending expiry date. He found sleep elusive, his existence reduced to untold hours of wakefulness followed by annoying stretches of insomnia. Sometimes he would go days without sleep, a relatively ret affli that he cluded was subsciously brought on by a desperate attempt to avoid being plunged bato another interminable sequence of horrific dreams. When sleep came eventually, the nightmares would begin all ain, the grotesque storyboards unfurling with even more iy. Then he’d wake up screaming, the time projected from the clock his only bea to reality, ting down to his impendih.

    The more he thought about it, the more the decision to take his own life seemed to make sense. And today, which happeo be his tweh birthday, was as good a time as any. There was nothing to celebrate, only the encroag shadow of death. It wasn’t a decision that had e easily. Caldwell suspected that the deaking process had been in <big></big>motion for quite some time, firing away deep within his synapses. He’d been sidering it at a subscious level, surreptitiously weighing the s and pros.

    All things being equal, suicide seemed to be the most sensible path to take. It ath well trodden. He could not go on any longer. His ret trip to the black zone of Oval, which he’d taken while enveloped in a reality distortion field of his own making, was firmation enough that he’d been plating it for a while. His impending suicide remeditated and not a spur-of-the-moment thing as he’d tried to have himself believe.

    Caldwell thought about the endless nights lying oon staring into space, the burning pixels of prams etg glyphs on his eyeballs. As the memories drifted away and the images faded, and his impending suicide came bato focus, Caldwell found himself staring into the swirling black hole that was his depression. A depression that was the cumulative sum of a whole litany of misfortunes, some of which he cluded he would never uand. He wondered how his life had degeed into this clawing miasma of raw unfulfilled need.

    Caldwell lay i oon watg the green pseudo quartz of the capsule timer usher in his demise. His eyes shifted to the LCD panel set into the pla<s>?９９liｂ?</s>stic ceiling. The sight of the backlit digits of the last units of his credit disappearing into the ether filled him with a strange sense of euphoria. This would be his last capsule hotel. Just a few minutes now and it would all be over he reassured himself. Instinctively, his eyes moved to the transparent black vial sitting on the cigarette-scalded plastic shelf. The poison he’d acquired from the white-haired Geian in the syringe-scattered back alleys of Oval.

    Caldwell wondered whether the hackers on the Hacker Underground Board, The HUB, would miss him. The HUB was a job board and unity in cyberspace, a hag workhouse, gridiron and credit source for tless Union hackers and byteboys from Vienna to Vladivostok. Scleaned from the HUB had kept Caldwell in obyl Chi and pizza fhteen months. The vast majority of the deals had e from a mysterious procurer hidden behind a work of firewalls and low level intruder dete AIs so intricate that they had to belong to a major glomerate with something to hide.

    The word on The HUB, itself a dynamic piece of unity code drifting through cyberspace, was that the buyer was someone on top of the food  of a major Yakuza trolled Zaibatsu. In this business, you didn’t ask questions. It was hard enough getti<cite>.99lib.</cite>ng into The HUB’s inner circle and once you were there, you did your damo stay there. That meant receiving your eleic briefing and delivering the service, end of story. You kept your mouth shut and it stayed shut even after the credit transa took plao questions.

    Caldwell had made a living riding the soles of the Union’s capsule ho<code></code>tels. Until retly, he had ayed in one place lohan a couple of weeks at a time. His current capsule was the only exception, ten weeks in the same claustrophobic sarcophagus, the lack of workflow and credit going hand in hand with his current state of stasis. The purpose of his nomadic lifestyle had been both to stay tinually shrouded beh a cloak of anonymity and to avoid f emotional attats to places or people.

    He had this internal alarm clock that told him when it was time to move on. He listened for it daily, that fraying of the hat sighat a ge of enviro was immi. Otherwise, he would deteriorate rapidly into a nervous wreck, incapable of doing anything other than claw at the plastic walls of his capsule and drive himself apoplectic with self-loathing. Sometimes it was just the other capsule jockeys being friendly, on the rare occasions that he actually ventured outside on a toilet run, which set the alarm bells ringing.

    His work on The HUB had bought him a certain level of notoriety and a modest amount of credit that allowed him to eke out aen the digital floating world of ercial hag, while stantly maneuvering to stay below the radar of the ever-shrinking legal domains of the Union. The black markets were growing fast, spreading like some new-fangled disease, f the authorities to resort to desperate measures tn in the escalating crime and put a stop to the shady rackets of subversive types.

    Over the last two months an inexplicable stasis had taken hold of the market, at least as far as Caldwell was ed. He had gone more tha weeks without landing a job, a fact that he attributed to the highly publicized failure of his attempt to retrieve the private banking t list from a Sumitomo Bank database. Someo there had a vea against him and they had used the free-flowing data of cyberspace to stack the cards against him. Why? Caldwell had no idea.

    He had been part of the inner circle of a tight ring of anonymous hackers around the world that geed most of The HUB’s business. He’d proven himself over the months with increasingly eous breaches of the databanks of major corporations. The owner of The HUB who went by the niame of Glyph took a small cut of each score. Suddenly Caldwell had been disected from the deal flow and from the inner cycle, reduced to a livewire of depression staring blankly at ay and line. Hackers were born to hack, yet Caldwell was hardwired to haly on demand. As the deals dried up, Caldwell’s enthusiasm for the game withered. He was no lourned on by the aplishment of promising a secure system.

    Failures were on in the digital floating world. You won some, you lost some. Since his chosen profession only allowed for a hand-to-mouth existence, Caldwell’s exile had taken its toll on his credit chip and his will to live. He had tried desperately to reverse the situation but to no avail. His hag winter had set in and all he could do was stare at the capsule terminal as his software agents retury-handed. Some did not return at all, having died mysterious deaths while iating the intricacies of superior intrusioion code.

    It had taken a while to reach the catharti but he now knew with absolute certainty that death was the only way out. He had no knowives, nobody to grieve for him. His online associates would not miss him for long, distracted as they were by the emerging opportunities of a rapidly shape-shifting cyberspace. His memories held nothing that would give him cause tret his owh. They said that when you were about to die your whole life flashed before your eyes. Caldwell knew his flashbacks would be very brief. In fact, he suspected that he might not have any at all.

    There was cold fort to be gleaned from the knowledge that he was soon to disappear into the ether, permaly jerked into the matrix of the great beyond. For a while, his memory defiotwithstanding, Caldwell had believed fervently that there was some unfulfilled purpose to his existence, yet undiscovered facets of his potential. And it was that belief that had kept him going, kept him ected to the glowing lattices of cyberspace for days at a time. That belief had slowly and surely been shattered. He was going to die oblivious of his past, too scared to face a dark and desolate future.

 Chapter 2

    Professor Yao arrived punctually at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. It was a hotel that, despite the proliferation of intelligent buildings with elaborate ecosystems over the last few decades, had mao g to its ageing Art Deco charm. The Waldorf Astoria was a landmark historical building, kept that way by a ittee of iial members of the establishment to protect the rapidly disappearing remnants of the old New York city. The digerati, osti, financiers, politicos, academics, teocrats and the wealthy had desded on this archaic patch to attend the World Teology Forum, the biggest meeting of fame, money and minds in the modern world.

    It was raining heavily outside and the clouds had turo heavy gray molasses shifting slowly across a featureless sky. Now safely ihe ostentatious hotel, the diminutive professor found himself weaving his way between the sharp Saville Row suits and iional designer outfits of high society. He felt like a carp out of water, trying to free itself from a tangle of weeds. He looked a out of place. He was a small balding man in a cheap gray Guangdong-manufactured polyester-mix suit who still couldn’t get over the excitement of what had just happened in his native a.

    Outside, a large se of Park Avenue and its adjoining streets had been cordoned off, droplets of rain casg off the shial barricades and the plastic ribbons. There were armed NYPD cops, carrying an assortment of state-of-the-art crowd-dispersion onry, for as far as the eye could see. Some of the ons had muzzles large enough for a full grown man to climb into. A small cluster of demonstrators stood way back from the barriers and the cops, waving banners and ting slogans and generally not looking too fident about being able to get their messages across. If they’d had any hopes of disrupting the forum, those hopes had been quickly put in check. The demonstrators eyed the cops suspiciously.

    The professor’s taxi, a hulking black vehicle of the like he had never seen before, had dropped him off two blocks down the road. He had been forced to walk the rest of the way, rain water coalesg on his suit. He had had some trouble explaining to a couple of NYPD officers on bulky e and fiberglass electric motorbikes that he was an invited guest to the forum. They had scrutinized his smartcard, eying his suit suspiciously. One of the cops had swiped the smartcard on a wireless reader on his wrist and waited for the system to query a remote database and e back with a result. They had looked like they didn’t expect him to be authenticated.

    Professor Yao had started to sweat in his polyester suit, or was it the rain slowly oozing through the syic weave, and his round fad intelligent eyes had began to show some . Mentally, he could trace the database query snaking through the system and knew every step the puters where taking to verify his identity, down to the last memory routihe rain was a dark omen, reminding him of the dog that had spent all night howling outside his Beijing hutong two nights earlier.

    Then he’d seen his photo flicker on the officer’s wrist and waited patiently as the cops satisfied themselves that he was ihe authenticated entity. He disliked the probing and the body searg but was relieved when the black poli said to the oriental-looking ohat he was . Of course he was , who the hell did they think they where questioning his personal hygiene? And the oriental-looking one could have shown some respect by addressing him in ese, but these Ameris were all the same. They had no respect for their elders.

    Then Professor Yao had walked up Park Aveowards the Waldorf Astoria, which he’d heard from his more iionally-minded colleagues at Beij<strike>.99lib.</strike>ing’s Tsinghua Uy, was a very old hotel. The big electrics whizzing past made him feel even more out of place. Long limousines snaked up the road, their b antennas cutting ar the air. Among the ant line of vehicles had been cars the likes of which the professor had never seen before. They were ostentatious displays of wealth. There were even a few hybrids running on diesel, mushrooms of dark gray emissions blowing out of their exhausts.

    Professor Yao found himself in the grand lobby of the Waldorf, ferried briskly by a sea of bodies past a huge ornate clock sitting smack bang in the middle. Were those the heads of past Ameri presidents on the base of the clock? Clocks were bad omens and to have them so lio dead Ameri leaders was only tempting fate. He adjusted his bifocals, which were perched precariously on the blunt edge of his largish but friendly-looking nose. His bushy black eyebrows furrowed into arches and his forehead formed a knot as he fumbled in his jacket pocket for the itinerary.

    Smart airborne micribles glided up in the ceilings above the crowds itently cyg through corporate spos. puterized female voices annouhe various rooms where the talks were being held. He thought he heard his name over the din of chatter and social w. Professor Yanized a few faces from the iional magazines, corporate CEOs, prize-winning academics, the celebrity owners of several famous software panies and an anemic-looking model he’d seen on the billboards that lihe streets of Beijing.	There were quite a few fashion models at the forum, extremely thin spes with egos as large as those enhanced chests that they all seemed to have. Humans where getting ridiculous in their need for self-expression. Maybe the knowledge he was here to impart would make everyoake a hard look at themselves and the values they held dear.

    Today was the day that the world would realize that he, Professor Yao Guo , had achieved what billions of dollars <code>藏书网</code>and geions of America’s best brains had failed to achieve. Professor Yao was one of the world’s pre-emi authorities on neural works and artificial intelligence, but the world was not yet aware of this fact. He was literally minutes away from being propelled to the top of his field iionally.

    While his colleagues at Tsinghua Uy had gained iional renown with lucrative publishing tracts and te the world’s best uies and researstitutions, Professor Yao had stayed at home, in his modest house in one of the last surviving hutongs in Beijing, w for his try. He received a grant from a department of the People’s Liberation Army as well as project funding and access to some of the most advanced military puters for the purpose of researto AI. He had eschewed the lucrative corporate directorships and the sulting and advisory opportuhat had e his way over the years, preferring to stay away from such distras.

    Professor Yao’s name was not to be found in any iional stific journals but in classified research reports used by leading military think tanks in New a. He was the principal architect of New a’s cyberspace, called the Wang, and the new system that, though as yet unofficial, had seen New a quietly take the lead in emerging information teologies. But even that was nothing in parison with his latest breakthrough.

    He was taking a big risk by being here, but the AI had vinced him, and he couldn’t predict what fate awaited him on his return to New a. It had occurred to him that the AI may have had the ulterior motive of taking him out of the picture but he had quickly dismissed the idea as ludicrous. heless, he had takeions and he was determio make his annouo the iional unity here in New York, before handing over the product of his research to the People’s Liberation Army.

    That way he would be leveling the playing field of the future while giving New a just a small advantage. He would give the world’s artificial intelligenunity enough information to make the breakthrough on their own, after New a had secured all iional patents. This was for the good of all humanity. He would single-handedly sound the trumpet for a paradigm shift in human development and achievement. The singularity was on the verge of shiftin<dfn>.99lib.</dfn>g into high gear and propelling the human rato a bold new era of intelligence.

    Professor Yao atriot who loved New a in a way that was difficult for a non-ese to uand. Yet, to have suowledge in the hands of one try alone was dangerous. To have it in the hands of one man alone was unspeakable. Professor Yao khat at this very moment his life was in dahe majeneral in Beijing whose secret fundied in the breakthrough probably already knew he was gone, although it would be difficult for him to trace him to the World Teology Forum. There were a few ese delegates at the forum, acc to the agenda, but Professor Yao doubted any would reize him and he was relieved to see that most of them were from academia or the lower rungs of the military research apparatus. However, every time he saw an oriental face his heartbeat quied.

    Professor Yao made his way towards a gleaming bank of elevators, mopping his forehead frantically with a small red handkerchief. Acc to the itinerary, his talk was at the hotel’s famed Starlight Roof on the eighteenth floor. His friend Dr. James Joplin, of the Massachusetts Institute of Teology’s puter Sd Artificial Intelligence Lab, had kept his promise to secure him the space at short notiot that he had met Joplin personally, but he had seen his pictures iernational magazines and exged ideas via hundreds of e-mails. Dr. Joplin had made him several offers to join him at MIT, but the humble professor had politely deed.

    A huge plasma s above the escalator firmed his itinerary. He had asked for his o not be mentioned in the pre-event literature.

    Vehe Starlight Roof

    Speaker: Professor Yao Guo , Head of the Artificial Intelligend Nanoteology tre, Tsinghua Uy, Beijing, a

    Topic: Quantum puting: a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence

    Time: 2.30PM-3.30PM

    A wave of pride welled up in him, which he mao suppress quickly. He was not a proud man, but he was human and the occasional feeling of pride, quickly held bad smothered with humility, was not beyond him. Professor Yao gla his watch – thirty mio go. He shouldn’t have dohat. Almost immediately his heart started hammering away at his chest like a pic drill. The pounding in his ears was so loud that he thought the people around him could hear it. If only his wife was still alive to help calm him down.

    The elevator doors hissed open and a crowd of people streamed out, many of them still wearing the earphones of the plementary real-time translation systems and clutg itineraries. All around the sound of various versations and puterized voices punctured with elevator music. There was excitement in the air, which rubbed off on the professor, settling him a little. Miraculously, he was alone in the elevator as it made its  to the eighteenth floor.

    Professor Yao khat the topic of his research would attract all the right people. He had deliberately e up with a title that would bring in the best minds in both Artificial Intelligend Quantum puting. Nanoteology had been slow meeting expectations and it was only retly that it had started to bear fruit after decades of research, trillions of dollars and so-called “breakthroughs”. The idea that it would play an important part in the foreseeable future of artificial intelligence had started to lose resonance. Many stists, especially those who were not ied in its medical applications, had already given up on the field as a waste of time. You cou<tt>.９9lｉb.t>ld get atoms and molecules to behave like miniature maes ears but their applications where pretty limited. They teo be orick ponies.

    The professor exited the elevator into a room so opulently decorated that he couldn’t help being impressed. You had to hand it to the Ameris. They were masters of excess. Everything from the majestic delier to the engraved marble rotunda and the gilded ceiling spoke of another era. Already, half of the tasseled velvet seats were occupied, suggesting that it was going to be a packed auditorium. He noticed that the majority of the people quietly reading their itineraries and peering into their plementary video ss were bespectacled gray hairs like him. But Dr. James Joplin was o be seen. He’d said he’d be iarlight Room half an hour early so that they could have a quick chat before Professor Yao’s talk.

    heless, another wave of ese pride, this one slightly larger than the last, welled up in Professor Yao, leaving a burniion on his cheeks. He adjusted his glasses, whice again had traveled to the end of his nose, and walked towards the stage. As he went by, a few members of the audience looked up at him and Professor Yao thought he saw shadows of false reition cross their faces. One or two nodded or raised their hands and Professor Yao nodded back, slightly embarrassed at the attentiowirled the thick jade ring on his finger, notig for the first time that the viridian hue of the jade had beuch paler. Or was it the effect of the lighting?

    He almost tripped over one of several small robots gliding through the aisles  little shots of Espresso coffee and finger-sized sandwiches. A rumble deep within his bowels reminded Professor Yao that he haden i hours. There’d been no time to pop down to atown for a quick bite and the meal served on the plane had been inedible. Professor Yao was not a b<s>九九藏书</s>ig fan of Western cuisine, which didn’t deliver the same sated feeling that o from authentic ese food. He had quickly checked into his hotel, refreshed himself and grabbed a taxi to the Waldorf.

    “Testing, testing, testing. Owo, three ...” went a female voi the audio system. Professor Yao looked towards the stage to see a well-presented young woman in a tight-fitting gray suit on the podium. She couldn’t have been more thay-one years old. The sound of static filled the air and music began to blast from different loudspeakers. The sound shifted like storm clouds from one side of the room to another as the teis tested the audio. The girl turowards Professor Yao, flaming red hair ed TV presenter looks, and a flicker nition crossed her face. She walked purposefully towards him and Professor Yao suddenly felt embarrassed. A cloud of expensive perfume enveloped the professor.

    “Hi Professor Yao, I was really worried you wouldn’t make it,” the girl said with genuine . “I am Wendy Bruckheimer with the World Teology Forum. I will be taking care of you today.” She flashed a smile, revealing perfectly eveh.

    “o meet you, Ms. Bruckheimer. I must apologize for my tardiness,” the professor said haltingly, proud that his rusty English was holding up nicely with the attractive young woman.

    “That’s OK. I expect you’ve heard about Dr. Joplin though?” she asked, looking at him intensely. Professor Yao felt the tempo of his heartbeat rise sharply. He fixed the Bruckheimer woman with a ed look.

    “No. I haven’t. What happened?” A cresdo of alarm had crept into Professor Yao’s voice.

    “Well, we left a message at your hotel. You see, Professor Yao, Dr. Joplin is dead.”

 Chapter 3

    Caldwell torted his ag body in the capsule’s fined spad switched on the louvered halogen light. He reached out and picked up the Slav’s mysterious vial. For a moment, he watched the visass of the transparent liquid swirl within. The Slav had promised that it would do the job ihan a miopping the activity of all the vital ans with the speed and precision of a bullet to the head.

    “The problem with the human body,” the Slav had said as he fumbled around in his makeshift workshop in a disused viadu the inner city ghetto of Oval, “is that it is not desigo coexist with maes. The relationship is not symbiotid sooner or later they, the maes, will fuck you up. It’s just a question of time.” There was enough tobaoke iale air of the Slav’s makeshift workshop to stop a bull in its tracks.

    The Slav’s teeth were an obse assortment of tobacco-stained enamel jutting like stalactites and stalagmites out of his gray gums. There was a thin border of pink gum b the yellowed teeth, struggling to hold its own against the encroag mass of gray flesh. Caldwell could see ragged clumps of some mystery meat lodged betweeting enamel.

    “The trouble with flesh is that it has a weird habit  to stick around. Its a good thing man ied the toothpick,” Caldwell had ventured.

    The Slavs snake-like tongue had flicked instinctively at his es and his good eye had narrowed to a slit. He had then begun to chew on something that he had dislodged. The moment of danger came a in a flash but within its brief existence, in that small window of time, Caldwell had seen something even uglier than the Slav himself.

    “Fuck toothpicks,” the big man had said dismissively. “Indeed, when God made man, in his own image no less, he didnt t on him being smart enough to make tools. Tools for crushing berries, crag nuts and so ohe precursors of the industrial revolution, whi turn where precursors to the age of the thinking mae, the puter. The latter happens to be the tool that will ultimately usher in our demise.”

    Caldwell had wondered whether when God created man he had any idea that geions later spes like the Slav would walk the earth. He was used to the Slavs maations. Despite the man’s obvious dental hygiene problems and the current tobacco breath, he was a loveable old fellow who loved to refle life while perf the illegal act of removing identification chips from the bodies of those who had had enough of being hardwired to the system. Caldwell could tolerate the Slav’s diatribes because the man never asked personal questions. He just went off on those seemingly pointless rants of his. When the Slav got his teeth into a diatribe there was no stopping him. Caldwell would keep him going with pointless statements. The Slavs was the kind of work that was best dohout an embarrassing silence.

    “But apes used tools long before humans.” Caldwell had protested.

    “Indeed if you wish to eschew religion for the stific approach. That was where it all started. But apes were never really victims of their own tools. Humans are. Our superior intellect is exactly what is going ter our extin. Imagine a world without tools. No more car acts, plane acts, boats sinking, industrial acts. No more puters. No hackers.” The Slav’s bloodshot good eye had stared questioningly at Caldwell as he fed among his eclectic assortment of stuff.

    “No hackers?”

    “Indeed. Hackers, phreakers, crackers, intruders and new age hijackers, all gohe only tools that man would o be afraid of would be those of another flesh based thing, the teeth of a Siberian tiger or some poisonous serpent.”

    “Got something against hackers, Slav?”

    “Indeed. Hackers are the scum of the earth, the fact that they make up a sizeable k of my tele notwithstanding. Present pany excepted of course.”

    “Glad to hear it.”

    The Slav had turned around and fixed Caldwell with his good eye, the fake eyeball wet and gl<var>?９９lｉb.</var>assy oher side of his long face.

    “Are you sure you are ready for this? I’ll miss your business such that it was,” the Slav had said produg the black vial crusted with dust and some ad hoterfusion anic slime.

    “As ready as anyone  be. Where did you get this stuff? And perhaps more importantly, will it work?” Caldwell had asked, eyeing the vial suspiciously.

    “A bit of insurance my friend. Figured, when all of this erce,” the Slav had said, waving his arm theatrically around the untidy mess of the disused viaduct that he had mao fiscate from the Union Railway infrastructure for his own personal use, “got too muyself, I’ll just go ahead and off myself. Do myself and the system a favor, you know.”

    Caldwell had nodded emphatically.

    “Happy to do you the favor, let you do the honors. If it doesn’t work out for you, let me know and I’ll have the rascal who sold it to me obliterated.” The Slav had flashed that tobacco-stained smile again but he had looked like he was dead serious.

    “So what is it?” Caldwell had asked, shaking the vial. He could swear he could see minute glints of silver in the liquid but they disappeared just as quickly as they had appeared.

    “It’s<s>藏书网</s> some kind of nano poison out of Tbilisi. Very, very illegal. Got these little microscopio-maes ihat cause synized damage with mind-numbing precision. They trigger and you simply stop living. You won’t even know you are dying. Goes back to what I was saying earlier. These maes, no matter what size they are, they’ll be the death of all of us,” the Slav had said, flashing those teeth.

    Caldwell dissolved the image of the Slav out of his mind and rolled over to one side of the futon, the mould imprinted by his body diminishing as the memory foam began tet. His heart was thumping violently and his throat felt like it would seize up at any moment. Why the fear? This is the best way out. You have lost the will to live. He would make sure that the faceless capsule employees who came across his lifeless body would be able to identify him. He fished for his trousers among the impossible tangle of stale bedding and fumbled in one of the pockets for his identification chip.

    S or slot? How do you wish your data to be read sir? The choice had been made two years ago when he had woken up cold and broken in the dank underground walkways below Waterle, the putrid Thames River lapping at his face, to find nothing but a dull ache and a scar marking the place where his implanted chip used to be. A choice made not by him but by some unknowy that with o incision had placed him in the wrong bracket of society. The scar was evidehat Caldwell, at oime like the rest of the vast majority of The Union’s population, had carried his identity beh his skin. Not that any of that mattered now.

    The mark of the beast or the imprint of a society that had bee too teologically advanced for its own good, this is how it had been for decades. The rules on this were clear and intestable. Non-gover-approved removal of identification chips in the Union risked you spending the rest of your life imbibing liquid lunches or at worst embalmed in more dry ice than you cared for. The same fate awaited those carrying fake chip implants. So for Caldwell, the choice had already been made. It was slot or nothing. He was a man outside the system, oblivious to how he got there, invisible to the ever-ubiquitous sers of the Union. And now he would be beyond it all, impervious, a mere spectator if any of the hocus-pocus about what happeo the souls of suicide victims was to be believed.

    Caldwell sat up, bending his head a little to avoid hitting the capsule’s ceiling. He couldn’t even sit up straight in the fined space. He was six feet and two iall, give or take a millimeter or two, depending on how he kept his hair. Now he had it straight, as straight as he could get it, and shoulder length. The syic brown of his follicle job fading slightly but still good for another few years. Not that any of that stuff had any signifiow.

    Caldwell plated his refle in the grimy square of plastic coated with a cheap reflective substahat served as a mirror. A thousand different disillusioned faces had studied their refles in its shiny surface, he thought. How many had seen a message of hope? He figured he was not going to be the first. The cracked ceiling and dirty ageing syic material of the mirror were perfect allegories of his life. They were refles of his pathetic existence, relics of better times.

    He took what he was sure would be his last look in the mirror. The face that stared back at him was barely reizable as his own, a time-ravaged anic showcase of his rapid dest into insignifice. How could he have degeed to this? A valid question a Caldwell knew all along that deep within him had been a tig time bomb. He had no idea how he had bee a hacker. There was a huge part of his past that he knew nothing about, except for the occasional flashes from deep within his synapses, strange phantoms of the mind rising out of grid-locked neurons.

    There were the mental images that made no sense in the current text, vague memories of dreams of distant lands submerged in a cloud of fusion. Sporadic dreams set in locales vastly different from the foggy and rain-drenched urban sprawl that was London and huge swathes of the Union. His mind stantly bombar<tt>藏书网</tt>ded by momentary flashes of color, lots of reds and the alien sounds of some other civilization. Something remi of things he had somehow fotten or was never meant to remember. Pupils narrowing as he studied the epithic slant of his owempered by the amber glow of his irises. There was definitely something Oriental there as the back alley analysis of his DNA had revealed. Caucasian, ese, North Afri, Japanese all mixed up in there. A cocktail as the quack had described him.

    His was not an unremarkable face, the kind anifiguration that could only have been the result of some plex inter-racial ing together. It wasn’t ohat he had cared too deeply about, his online persona brought very much to the fore. His body was just a ve package for hag, his fihe key tools for the job. He was a man who had gotten so lost in the depths of the cyberspace that he stantly had to remind himself who he was, soul a growing distant daily. Meat tired and swollen, soul non-itting ae, taking what was definitely a bird’s eye view. He was anxious for the two to part pany.

    Minute red veins snaked like fiss<bdo></bdo>ures below the surface of the mocha skin punctuated by the hapless sag of the eye bags that had retly bee perma fixtures. Three weeks of stubble interspersed with blotchy skin. The stubble also a dark brown after he had had his melanocytes modified, one of his few attempts at something akin to vanity.

    He held the vial in his hand and took one last mio reminis his life. The ey of it sisted of windowless capsules, sleepless nights, the steady pilfering away of his hard-earned credit by unsympathetic capsule operators and the stant blinking of and-line cursors. They owed him no favors, these faceless glomerates that operated s of identikit capsules all over the Union to serve its disadvantaged and disenfranchised pseudo-citizens. The tele, posed predominantly of society’s bottom feeders, was just one precoci up on the social ladder from the street sleepers. Like Caldwell, the vast majority of the capsule jockeys had clawed their way off the streets.

    In the mirror, amber eyes, rendered slightly opaque now, stared back at him. Was that fear he saw in those tired eyes? Definitely fear spliced with something else, something unintelligible.

    As Caldwell rolled his body back to the ter of the futon he decided that the las<cite>99lib?</cite>t memory in his mind when he drank the tents of the Slav’s vial would be the ial residue of his most ret nightmares. He flicked open the cap of the vial and she tents. His nostrils flared at the unnatural smell of something acrid aalliething that smelled like death. He lay down on the foam mattress, straight like a corpse stiff with rigor mortis and willed himself to recall.

    Within the dark expanse of his mind’s eye, Caldwell saw pristine white padded walls, a pair of blood-splattered latex gloves and the spectral image of a young uniformed nurse. A searing headache began to cresdo from deep within his skull, dissolving the images away and moving rapidly forward with the speed aermination of a tidal wave. Caldwell put the vial to his lips and closed his eyes.

 Chapter 4

    The ese man examined his smooth pale fa the mirror. The peeling walls of the small regular bathroom were awash with the kaleidoscopic effeulticolored neon light refracted through the tiny rooftop window and splayed through the thick air like so much splattered blood at a murder se. The luminous effect brought back memories of cyberspace, except that this was static, like the stant in a linear equation.

    Cyberspa the other hand was in a perpetual state of flux as data bred new data and digital life forms took shape everywhere. The rays of neoiful as they looked, did nothing for the unwashed cracked imitation porcelain bathtub that sat in one er with the scum of the assassi bath still adhered to its sides like dead pixels.

    He raised a thin bony index finger and massaged the black mole-like biological interface that sat on his neck just below his skull, interface to another universe. He ook a bath with the remote access module on, although this was one of the features listed in the rudimentary handwritten user manual. He <footer></footer>picked the main unit up from the side of the sink where he had left it. It flexed and whirred in his hand as though it had a life of its own, smooth surface molding reflexively to the shape of his palm.

    Some of his rades hadn’t made the cut during the experimental stages just a few years ago. Their bodies had simply rejected the implants and some had bee with promised nervous systems and synaptic regression. Several would spend the rest of their lives in paralysis without full use of their brains. The system had since been perfected and a chosen fe<samp>九九藏书</samp>w had had the honor of being the first to test drive it. There was something innately perverse about living in an augmented world, about being permaly plugged in, the voices of the AIs interlaced with his own thoughts, giving him superhuman intelligence.

    The assassin liked it just fine. He had never felt at home in the real world, always felt he didn’t belong, a byproduct of nature’s ed sense of humor. He couldly put his finger on why that was the case, but he just felt it. Sometimes his feeling of isolation came down on him like a hammer and he craved the warm glow of pixels, the cold pseudo-reality of the Wang.

    The man sat on the edge of the bath tub and placed the remote access module on the back of his neck. Immediately the device came to life and molded itself around his neck like a python suffog its prey. The probe, with a life of its own, sought and found the socket and plugged itself into the back of his neck. He could feel his neural work interfag with the system and his muscles tensed up in anticipation of the few seds of pain that preceded every e.

    Searing white paihroughout his body, thehroom came slowly bato high-rez view. He wiped the sweat off his face with a dirty towel <cite></cite>aurned naked into the tiny hotel room. His eyes were crest-shaped a into his face like dark dunes upon a yellow desert. He was a man of great agility that was owed perhaps to his size. That did not help him mu the Wang, because in its vast unfolding grids of data and logic, physid biology meant nothing. His ability to move with fluidity betweewo at the speed of thought was gettier with time. Sooransitions would be seamless and he would bee the world’s first transhuman.

    The assassin was by no means a large man, but that fact did nothing to detract from his craft. He erfectly honed animal, trained in the various arts of killing. He stood five foot two iall, slim with fioned muscles that had been perfected all those years in the Peoples Liberation Army and then fiuned in the sili os of the prototype. That was now behind him. He had since been given perma leave to work more directly for his people and his try through the formidable interface of the majeneral.

    Before his iion into the Wang, he had spent many years toiling and lab uhe scorg heat of the Gobi desert. Most of that time had bee guarding thousands of kilometers of undisputed desert border, an expanse of land that no one wao claim title to. The PLA camp had been as far removed from human life as physically possible. The only e to civilization had been the railway track which came in from the south and ended abruptly in the desert. And the rover bots that dotted the desert landscape. He had learnt to develop a deep affinity for them and they<s>九九藏书</s>, sensing his devotion, had responded in kind, clustering around him at the end of the day for their daily wipe down.

    He ed ba memory space to the blasti and the strange creatures that had made their home beh the desert sand.

    The experiments were now firmly behind him, the only reminder was the ope socket located at the base of his skull that with a simple pop and a sharp twinge, as the minute cable made itself at home, jacked him permaly into the Wang. From the open window of his cramped downtown hotel room the sound of the traffic gave him an intense buzz like he never knew before.

    How different this was from being locked in the Wang for months on end, his body pierced with drips and the long snaking intravenous tubes that kept him nourished while he rode the waves of a’s unfolding matrix, seg territory in the emerging digital space for the try he loved so muot long be<kbd></kbd>fore he jacked in again. Not long before he was writing digital calligraphy for the soul. But first, there was that small matter to take care of.

 Chapter 5

    There was a kno the small plastic hatch leading to Caldwell’s capsule and the sound of scurryi. The sudden interruption caused him to spill part of the vial’s tents down his . What the hell? Who or what could that be? It was definitely human. His capsule was at least six feet off the ground ohird rao less. At first, he couldn’t quite believe his ears. This was the first time anyone had ever k the capsule door. There was an unspoken code of privacy among the tele and capsule hotel staff, such that they existed, he’d never seen one, would never kno a capsule hatch when it was occupied. That was tantamount to a gross invasion of privad a sure way of redug life expecy.

    Caldwell had a decision to make. Should he just ighe intrusion and go ahead and drink the tents of the vial or should he see what the otion was all about? He relutly opted for the latter. It could be important. He placed the vial gingerly on the side shelf, wiped the droplets of death liquid from his  with the back of his hand and slowly twisted his body until he was fag the entrao the capsule. He reached for the hatch. The capsule’s plastic hatch felt cold and awkward on the palm of his hands. Caldwell moved his hand away from the hatch.

    He pressed the buttoo small LCD s in the ceiling. It displayed the image picked up by the security camera outside. There was nobody there, but on the  outside the hatch was what looked like a package. He released the latd peered outside. The miscellaneous sounds of various states of sleep grew louder. Caldwell could hear the muffled din of Europorn emanating from one of the nearby capsules. Whoever had left the package there had already disappeared into the Byzantine maze of corridors. He wasn’t surprised. With its proliferation of cheap capsule hotels, Angel, despite its name, wasn’t the  of neighborhoods. And the Angel Capsule Hotel, one of the area’s better establishments, was still the kind of place that could give even the most hardened courier palpitations.

    Caldwell stared at the package, an expensive looking gray box bearing a DHL Japan logo. There was a small sticker attached to it with his name, capsule number and a return-to-sender anonymous postal box at Union Mail. It was obviously not a wrong delivery. He wondered who could have sent him the package and perhaps more importantly how the hell did they know he was holed up at the Angel Capsule Hotel? What was in the box? He had made tless enemies in cybe<a></a>rspace, disgraced many a sys-op, puter tei or security expert. One of them could have tracked him down a him an explosive package of reve that was close to impossible. At any rate, they would be doing him a favor. He prodded the package with his left hand, expeg it to do the vial’s job in a much quicker and messier way. Nothing. The box felt heavy against his fingers. He picked it up carefully, holding it as though it tained uranium rods areated crawling backwards into the capsule.

    Caldwell placed the package oon, slid the hatch shut and turned his attention once again to the half-empty vial on the side shelf. He wasn’t even sure if what was left would do the job effectively. At least he should see what was in the box before proceeding with his suicide mission. If he hadn’t heard the kno the door he probably would have been dead by now. That fact was not lost on him. Destiny? He proceeded to open the package. Inside a protective bubble of Styrofoam was yet another blaade out of a ductile syic material.

    Fetting for a moment his preoccupation with the question of how whoever had sent the package had found out where he lived, Caldwell removed the black box from its Styrofoam  and shook it. The tents of the box did not make any sound but it had a weight that bore ionship to its perceived size. Whatever was in<s></s> the box was dehen his eye caught the edge of a triangular plastic card half hidden below the clutter of Styrofoam ier box. It was a holographic tag from a Kenzo Yamamoto and it read: A window into your future, Caldwell-san. The letters, written in some calligraphit, seemed to float in mid air. The name meant nothing to him but it was Japanese and Caldwell felt a bubble of hope start to form. He rubbed his hand over the black box and for the first time noticed that it was made out of minute geometric shapes held together by some invisible force. He lifted the cover off.

    Ihe box, ed in a smart protective skin sat a smooth blaputer sole and an expensive-looki of virtual reality goggles and gloves. He was no sole expert but he had seen state-of-the-art soles before and nothing came even close to what he was looking at. A cyberspace sole.

    Hands trembling and his mind looping through all the possibilities, Caldwell picked up the sole and exami carefully. There was no power socket, no standard input deviterface, just twular optical sockets of a shape and type he had never seen before. The gloves where made of a translut material that may or may not have been some kind of plastier. This was a closed system sole designed not to ect with any other hardware.

    Embedded withierial of the gloves was a thin layer of resin. Transparent optical cables floating in the resin disappeared into small sensors at the tips of each finger which were ed with LEDs. There was circuitry embedded within the resiched on a thin layer of plastic. The goggles were a shiny oblong of black optics behind which sat six tiny devices, three for each eye, and a bank of small LEDs. He dohe gloves and the goggles and plugged them into the sole’s triangular sockets. The sockets looked identical. Despite the black coating on the goggles he could see just as clearly as if he wasn’t wearing them. These were no mirror shades. There was a low whir and a switch illuminated with green light emerged from the front of the sole.

    Caldwell held his breath and pressed the switch. The LEDs painted a wall of pixels on his retina. A virtual keyboard appeared before him, virtual fingers at the ready. Millions of lumi pixels swirled around the s and then gealed into a digital rendition of a human face. It was an oriental face, a Japanese face. Kenzo Yamamoto?

    “Caldwell-san, I see you received the package,” said the face, in a voiot too dissimilar to talons scraping on an antique blackboard, modulated slightly not to grate the he movement of the lips on the face was in perfect symphony with the voice. There was no disable lag.

    “Yes I did. Who are you? And why did you sehis?” Caldwell asked. There were powerful microphones and speakers embedded somewhere in the goggles. He could hear the speaker and himself as though they were both in an acoustically enhanced room.

    The face broke into a smile.

    “You  call me<figure></figure> Kenzo, Caldwell-san. Yamamoto is the surname if you wish to be formal. In ao your other question, you’ve proven yourself over the months Caldwell-san, with the exception of Sumitomo Bank of course. Now I am about to give you the biggest freaking score in all of Europe, a ticket to the big time.”

    Caldwell eechless. It knew about that. He eyed the mask suspiciously.

    “How do you know about Sumitomo?” was all he could muster, dreams of cyberspace rising phoenix-like in his mind. Kenzo Yamamoto, or his associates, must have been behind many of the scores ing out of Japan.

    Peals of laughter emerged from the goggles, atteo a high pitch.

    “Caldwell-san, Caldwell-san. This is no time for questions. This is a time for answers. I have been your beor for quite a while. Of course it’s all quid pro quo. You do for me, I do for you. Sumitomo Bank I stacked against you, I set it up so you would fail. Failure, Caldwell-san, hohe senses like nothing else.” The mask paused for dramatic effect.

    “That was a setup?” Caldwell asked incredulously. It was all starting to make sense now. What looked like a routine score, turned out to be a huge failure and what’s worse the result was broadcast all over the hacker boards of cyberspace resulting in his most severe hag winter.

    “Yes. I repping you for the real deal Caldwell. The biggest freaking score in all of Europe. You have a talent, Caldwell-san. But it is wasted on the kind of stuff you used to do. How does three million sound to you? Union Euros, not the currency of the black market.”

    Caldwell couldn’t believe his ears but he knew he had heard Yamamht. Three million Union Euros was a small fortune. He could buy a mobile home, boat or vehicle it didn’t matter, outfitted with the latest cyberspace decks and spend the rest of his life getting lost in the ubiquitous black zones of the Union.

    “What do I o do to get it? And what does this sole have to do with it?”

    “A thing of beauty isn’t it? There is currently only oher like it in the world. It’s expensive beyond your wildest dreams, priceless. The artiste responsible for creating these takes his time but it’s worth it so we tolerate it. Unfortunately, he is currently, shall we say, indisposed.”

    “What is it exactly or is that a stupid question?”

    “Caldwell-san. I  see that yhe cutting edge when you see it. This is not just a puter, Caldwell-san. This is a work of art. But let’s talk about sce. sole and peripherals lio each other through a high-speed proprietary closed wireless work. Transmitters and receivers to the same all built in, range is fifty kilometers. Encrypted of course. Impressive, yes? The sole itself is lio cyberspad beyond via encrypted high-speed satellite links. Take the peripherals on the road, leave the sole at home, still ected. I’m sure you  see the power of this. Paradigm shift no less. This is one of the most powerful soles available, Caldwell-san. The satellite-enabled goggles makes it truly portable. sider yourself a lucky man to be looking at one now. Let alooug one.”

    “Satellite link is always on? Who pays?”

    “Yours truly. My satellite. Stratelite to be exact. Low-flying bird. Rest assured you won’t be receiving any bills. What you’ll be receiving are instrus. I’ve been impressed with your work so far Caldwell-san. sider this an iment in your future. I’ll be in touch,” the Japanese said, voice diminishing into white noise, pixels restituting into black s.

    “But wait ...” Caldwell protested, his voice eg back from the depths of cyberspace. Kenzo or whoever the face was had disappeared.

    Caldwell removed the goggles and stared at the black sole. Was this the lifeline he needed so badly? Had he really been snatched back from the brink of suicide? This Kenzo Yamamoto had apparently engineered his downward spiral, spread news of his failure all over the hacker domains of cyberspace culminating in his exclusion from the deal flow of The HUB. All this just to set him up for this three million Euro score. The biggest freaking score in all of Europe, Kenzo had said. Of course he was referring to the Union, which had subsumed Europe pletely a long time ago.

    Kenzo Yamamoto had said he’d be in touch, but when? Caldwell reed he’d be hearing from the Japanese soon. After all, he still had possession of the expensive sole and the satellite uplink worked allowing him to boot up and ja to cyberspace from anywhere he chose. If Kenzo didn’t make tact soon, he could fehe sole and disappear.  job like this would fetch tens of thousands of Union Euros on the black market. Not quite the same as three million Union Euros but an OK living for about a year or so. Enough time to land something that would keep him i. The sole represented a renewed lease on life.

    He dohe goggles again. This time, instead of a barrage of pixels he was greeted with a simple and lihe sole appeared to possess no user interface. Caldwell suspected that it created interfaces on the fly depending on what job it was called upon to do. It was the state of the art no less, the cutting edge.

    Caldwell ehe address of his base and crossed his fingers. The base came up lightning fast with a totally different interface from what he was used to seeing. The sole had rendered a visually-rich three-dimensional spa the fly that he could walk around in. The goggles had an embedded motion trag device.

    He looked around the base. In the room was a meticulously rendered antique writing desk, his read messages represented in the virtual space as opened letters plete with postage stamps. There was one unopened letter, a new message. He picked the letter up with his left hand, the tactile funs of the resin in the gloves faithfully reprodug the feel of coarse paper.

    He felt a sudden flash of pain. Today’s quota of migraines had started early and roving uing. The quotient was almost intolerably high, the pain rising rapidly and peaking violently like the finale of a particularly upbeat musical performance. He wiped the blood trig from his h the back of his hand.

    Caldwell ighe pain and used a silver letter opener on the writio cut through the envelope. He uood perfectly. The letter opener was the sole’s rendition of his personal encryption/decryption module which stopped his unications from getting into the wrong hands, decrypting the tents of his message so he could read it. This sole was some piece of work.

    Ign the mounting pain that was gradually cresting deep within his brain he began to read the message. It was a message from Glyph, owner of the underground hacker spa<s></s>own as The HUB. The message was brief and to the point.

    Cad, get the hell out of wherever you are. They are after you. Your life is in so much danger dude. Message me from The Puzzle pub, Isle of Dogs.

    Caldwell stared at the simple paragraph. His headache was suddenly unbearable. He had to get out of the capsule. His credit was almost up anyway. He removed the goggles and gloves and started to pack the sole away in his rucksack. Glyph was no practical joker and he only ever sent messages when absolutely necessary. They had not unicated in a while. He had to find Glyph and he had to not black<abbr>藏书网</abbr>out from his headache. He logged on to the capsule’s terminal and quickly white paged The Puzzle.

    Feeling that his migraine was rapidly reag the point where a plete blackout was immi, Caldwell mind-ed bato another memory space, one of the few he kept handy to stop himself from succumbing to the pain. In that space, he found himself sitting in a decrepit illicit -up laue in his underwear watg the industrial laundry maes  the hell out of his last threads. Kat’s blonde head was bobbing around to the rhythm of the wash cycle. She was sittio him in her floral underwear, eyes masked by a scratched up old personal video display.

 Chapter 6

    There alpable air of excitement in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel’s Starlight Roof. It was so thick you could slice through it with a khe room had filled up and there was a bank of TV cameras from the major broadcasters lined up at the back of the auditorium like a firing squad. The lenses of the robotic cameras and the huge le microphones were aimed at ter stage. Some of the cameras were going through an intricate puter-trolled dance routine of automatining, swooping and zooming.

    The members of the audience had tired of admiring the ornate deliers, appraising the intricate artwork on the ceiling and perusing their itineraries. They had had enough of fiddling with their translation maes awking at the robots w the isles. A thousand whispers, murmurs, tête-à-têtes and polite versations coalesced.

    Professor Yao was waiting in the wings backstage. On the opposite side at stage right stood Wendy Bruckheimer, flowing red hair lit up gloriously by the harsh stage lights. A small oriental man with what could only be described as minimalist features was carrying out final checks on the presentation equipment. The professor only had a few slides to show anyway, so the ces of teical glitches were low to zero. The power of the breakthrough would speak for itself. The man was wearing a<kbd>.99lib.</kbd> black World Teology Forum T-shirt and ill-fitting o slacks. There was something vaguely familiar about the slight stooping posture of his neck but Professor Yao was focused on the presentation at hand.

    Wendy Bruckheimer was shufflily through a small deck of flash cards. The professor had still not recovered from the casual way she had informed him of Dr. Joplin’s death. As though it was one small glit an otherwise perfectly anized event. The show had to go on. Poor Dr. Joplin. He had been one of the richest men in academia with several ercial patents under his belt, a man who sat on the boards of several high profile corporations. Yet, he had been generous with his money and his knowledge,  grants and scholarships to students from poor backgrounds who had dedicated themselves to the pursuit of exc<a>99lib?</a>ellen various areas of puter sce.

    What had the MIT professor known that had got him killed and did the professor know he was going to die? And why had the daughter disappeared without a trace? Something that Bruckheimer, ever practical, jectured suggested either her guilt or the guilt of parties at MIT w in cert with the daughter. But what kind of sixteen year-old with a healthy trust fund would murder her own father for more money?

    Jolted from his reverie by a female voinoung: “The session will start in two minutes” in dulcet tones. Handel’s Messiah started blaring out over the music system, which distributed the maestro’s work by shifting ns of air around the room.

    The tei jumped off the stage and headed back, through the aisle, to the bank of elevators at the back of the room. One of the TV cameras panned in his dire and the man tilted his head and attempted to shield his face with his left hand. For a man that small, his movements were smooth and assured but somehow alien to the enviro. Once again Professor Yao had a feeling of déjà vu. There was something about the fluidity of the man’s movements that reminded him of something he had seen before. But he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was. As he racked his brain to make the association, Handel faded into the background and the room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop, but all Professor Yao could register was the mild pumping of his ow.

    Wendy Bruckheimer strolled purposefully to ter stage. A few admirers clapped spontaneously, applauding her shapely legs more than anything. There was something gazelle-like about the way her long slender legs moved. And those transparent shoes, that gave the illusion that she was floating on air, only served to enhahe effect. As far as Western taste went, Wendy Bruckheimer sure was a beautiful woman. And she obviously had brains, a powerful bination. She took her place before the le.

    Ladies alemen, the World Teology Forum is proud to present this session’s speaker Professor Yao Guo , Head of Tsinghua Uy’s world-renowned Artificial Intelligend Nanoteology tre. We are very lucky to have Professor Yao this year, as he doesn’t normally take public speaking es.

    Professor Yao is pre-emi in his field, one of the world’s leading minds on itive intelligend nanoteology. He is also a leading authority on Virtual and Artificial Realities and is known as the architect of New a’s mysterious virtual reality work. The latter, I must add, is just a rumor. The New a gover tio remind us that no such this. Ladies alemen, please join me iending a warm wele to Professor Yao Guo .

    A thundering round of applause as the professor walked out on to the stage and into the powerful spotlights. Wendy Bruckheimer applauded him too areated gracefully to the back of the stage. Professor Yao gave her a nod of thanks and turo face the audience, instinctively adjusting his bifocals. Any trace of nervousness was now gohis was his moment and he was caught up in it. At the back of the room, below the glare of the powerful camera lights, the professor could make out the multi-colored logos of the major broadcast works.

    Wendy Bruckheimer had informed him that his talk was being broadcast live to an audience of approximately five billion people around the world. Professor Joplin had pulled it off as he had promised despite the fact that the ese professor had repeatedly refused to give him a hint on this groundbreaking discovery that the world o know about. Joplin had do purely out of trust and respect.

    Wendy Bruckheimer had also advised him that on at of the huge layman audieg outside the auditorium he should keep his speech as uific as possible. She would arrange for stifid teical papers to be distributed to the audiend the major journals after the session. Tomorrow, he thought, the stocks of Artificial Intelligence, Quantum puting and Nanoteology panies were going to gh the roof, especially the ones in a.

    The applause died down. A thousand pairs of eyes were trained upon him and five billion more through the biased lenses of the TV cameras. Professor Yao cleared his throat to mild microphone noise and began in formal Mandarin, simultaneously translated by the personal translation systems over the audio system.

    Ladies alemen, it is an honour to be here before this distinguished room of fellow academid others with an i in the exg world of Artificial Intelligence. I am going to make the first part of this session as brief as possible as I anticipate that yoing to have lots of questions for me. I will try my best to ahose questions.

    The topiy talk today is “Quantum puting: a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence” as it says in your itineraries. It’s about the biggest breakthrough in information teology the world has ever seen. This is a breakthrough that ushers in a new era of puting, enriches by orders of magnitude the relationship between humans and puters. We have created the world’s first self-sustaining, evolutionary quantum puter processor. In fact “we” is the wrong word to use as you will discover later.

    Gasps and murmurs rolled through the audience.

    “But that’s impossible,” shouted a bold voice from the audience.

    “The most powerful quantum puter available today boasts only one hundred quantum bits, that’s not nearly enough to make quantum puters start replag sili puters any time soon,” jectured another. Professor Yao ighe dissent.

    First, for the be of our television and cyberspace audiences, I would like to briefly explain the premise of quantum puting. The sili processors that currently power the P your homes and offices are made up of tiny transistors that swit and off representing the binary numbers of 1 and 0, the language in whiputers speak. Until retly, increases in speed and performance of those processors have been achieved principally by squeezing smaller transistors into the processor. Electricity travels faster in a smaller transistor resulting in faster processors. This and other enhas result in a doubling of puting power every two years, an industry phenomenon referred to as Moore’s Law.

    Well, Moore’s Law is ing to an end and nanoteology is beginning to usher in a new era of even smaller transistors and furthering the peion of personal superputers into households around the world. Yet, even with all these advas in hardware, we have yet to see software keep up with these trends. In particular, we have been uo see the emergence of a true artificial intelligence. Yes, we have intrusioion, sario analysis and stock trading AIs but these are just algorithms going through the motions of a predefined set of rules and procedures. No AI has so far successfully claimed to be pletely self evolving and, dare I say, to have a sce. That is until retly.

    We at Tsinghua Uy in Beijing, one of the leading uies in the whole of New a, have long believed that quantum neural works were the key to creating really intelligent software, software with a sciousness. Why quantum puting? Because even though puting power is not a pre-requisite for puter intellige does speed up the evolutionary process which  take a very long time on today’s hardware.

    Again I must apologize to my friends in academia that for the be of casual viewers I must explain quickly why quantum puting is going to ge the puting landscape forever, putting superputers on every desktop. I mentioned earlier that today’s puters and soles use processors that squeeze many tiny transistors into a small area. The processor in your PC at home has about five hundred billion transistors, each of which is so tiny tens of thousands of them  fit on the width of a human hair. We are talking about the width of a human hair, not the length.

    Now if you are thinking that’s small, Quantum puting goes even smaller and uses the very building bloatter, subatomic particles such as eles, ions and photons as transistors. In the quantum world, such transistors are known as quantum bits or qubits. Why use these microscopic particles as transistors? The particles possess certain behaviors that ot only be used to represent the 1s and 0s of puter speak but to also to perform plex calculations orders of magnitude faster than any of today’s puters. Agai me briefly outlihe specific behaviors that allow for this new era in puting.

    Atomic particles have two distind opposite spin orientations that  each represent the 1s and a 0s of binary language. This allows the particle to effectively behave as a transistor. Once a particle is isolated from its enviro, it ehe strange quantum state we refer to as superposition, which means it is in both orientations at ond  represent a mix of 1s and 0s. This allows a string of particles in this state of superposition to simultaneously represent every possible bination of 1s and 0s. A quantum puter  therefore process all the hat represent possible solutions to a problem in a single operation. Today’s puters would have to gh each possible solutioer the other.

    Two particles in superposition  bee entangled when they e into tact. Enta means that one or more of their properties bee linked evehe particles are separated. If one of the particles is knocked out of superposition into a defiate (a 1 or 0 as described earlier), the other particle, no matter how far away, it could be oher side of the universe, also leaves superposition at the same moment in time and assumes the same state. Sia allows distant particles to share the same state it effectively allows for teleportation of states, or in the binary seeleportation of values, even across space.

    Uanding these strange behaviors of particles, superpositioa, teleportation is key to uanding how we achieved the breakthrough I am about to describe.

    So how did we create a scious artificial intelligence? We borrowed from nanoteology, neural works, quantum physid itive sces. First let’s start with the hardware. The key on the processor side was the creation of a three dimensional sili array of embedded subatomic particles like we described earlier. The array is based on a modification of the quantum dot design which has resulted in a stable 100 qubit quantum puter the gentlemaioned earlier. This up till retly has beeting-edge of quantum puting. Well ladies alemen; I am pleased to annouhat we have created a quantum neural work processor with one billion qubits.

    Professor Yao paused for effect as an unintelligible hum rippled throughout the auditorium and practically every stist in the audience spontaneously began to deride Professor Yao’s last statement. The sound of dissent grew increasingly louder. There oradic laughter, cries of derision and ridicule. The professor was growing impatient. The o educate the non-teical viewers was making this difficult. And time was of the essence. Any minute now, agents of the PLA could e busting out from the escalators, leading him to certaih ba New a. Wouldn’t these academics let him just finish his talk? All would bee clear when he was finished, when they experiehe power of the system he called Black Jade for themselves.

    “Surely this is a translation error. A one billion qubit quantum puter with a three-dimensional neuroprocessor? You created such a puter in your lab at Tsinghua?” asked a distinguished looking, white-haired man in the audience sarcastically.

    “Yes.”

    The audieed into laughter.

    “That’s all well and good Professor Yao but even if we were to believe that eous claim, how oh did you get those qubits to unicate with each other?” the man asked. Professor Yao had not ted on these stant interruptions but was determio make his point.

    “The same way you’ve been doing it for the last two decades. We use multiple dynamic buses of ected qubits to eains of quantum memory,” Professor Yao responded impatiently.

    “And how do you mahe problems that have dogged the industry up till now, the problems of decoherehe fact that the particles may ge state as soon as they are observed due to enviroal noise and other factors? And what about error corre and the problems of intere as you scale up to your imaginary one billion qubits?”

    “ I ask about your background?” Professor Yao asked politely, interrupting the peals of laughter rolling through the audiend fixing the white-haired man with his most inteare.

    “Professor Collin Sandwood, head of The tre for Quantum putation, Cambridge Uy.”

    “That means that you are familiar with the current approaches to solving the problems you highlight so I don’t o go into those specifics. Let’s just say that we haven’t reied the wheel here. The key is in the approach we have taken,” explained Professor Yao.

    “And proach might that be?”

    Professor Yao couldn’t help but notice the hint and sarcasm that the Cambridge professor’s English at had taken on. He tinued with his talk, his voice struggling to rise above the din.

    We knew we couldn’t effectively build a practical quantum chip by reiing the wheel so we fed the meics of proven quantum puting approaches around the world into a heuristic softrogram a do the assembly using the latest nanoteology. Our quantum chip was built by an artificial intelligence, more specifically a neural artificial intelligework. The AI simply got better at building the chip after tless failures and dead ends. The AI stumbled upon the design of the chip when we fed it the parameters of early millennium quantum puting work at the Uy of Wissin. The software started w with two-dimensional arrays and then scaled up to three dimensions. We let the AI build the processor. We figured if humans have failed to do so over the last three decades or so, why not give maes and software a try.

    Materials used were sili, chemically-altered sili germanium and unaltered sili germanium to form a quantum dot lattice that allowed <big></big>individual eles to move precisely in any dire through the array, including the quantum buses. Each layer ainstakingly assembled by the AI using the latest in sili chip fabrication and nanoteology assembly and disassembly teology. As I said earlier, we have not reied any wheels. Error corre for example was solved by the software using a variation of the Uates National Institute of Standards and Teology’s pyramid hierarchy of qubits that uses the teleportation behavior of entangled particles at key intervals to check the accuracy of returned values. A signifit portion of the one billion qubits are used in this regard but the result is still the fastest puter in humaence.

    I see that some of you are nodding in reition of the fact that all this is perfectly plausible. The principles have been proven by others and are well doted. The fact of the matter is the hardware is not the iing piece of the puzzle. I am not here to talk about the hardware. I am here to talk about Black Jade, the most advanced piece of software the world has ever seen. The world’s first true artificial intelligence.

    On the hardware side, we have the most powerful puter ieoday. It uses a chip and software which is essentially a quantum neural work in a box. On the software side what do we have? Well, itive sce theories abound on how to create a true artificial intelligence; ohat passes the Turi and  persuade any interrogator that it has a sciousness.

    Our approach is based on a somewhat dated theory, postulated more than two decades ago in fact, by Robert Heielsen. He was the first to articulate that all aspects of human ition are derived from a specific type of knowledge and a single information processing operation referred to as fabulation. I won’t go too muto that here but the gist is that if you build heuristieural work software that  fabulate and give it vast amounts of accumulated knowledge anized in much the same way that the human brain anizes knowledge, you end up with an artificial intelligehat is just as scious as you and I. The AI in effect learns via an intricate system nizing patterns in relevant data, both perma and emerging knowledge – pattern reition.

    There were more murmurs among the attendees who were looking at each other, furrowing their brows, aally going through the logic of what the professor was saying. A few people in the audiearted applauding but the sound was barely audible above the din. The audience, prising some of the best minds of the world, had begun to see the i plausibility of what he was saying, despite the lack of details. And the lack of proof. They were beginning to see that the diminutive ese professor would e away from the World Teology Forum as one of fi stists of their geion.

    Finally, before I take questions I’d like to show you a slide of our prototype quantum processor after one day, one week, one month and six months of evolution. Finally I’d like you all to meet Black Jade, the first AI running on our quantum neural work. The last slide was taken just a few days before I left New a to be here. The algorithms used are incredible, beyond anything that is humanly possible. In fact Black Jade is the same AI that built the quantum processor so it actually knows things about its processor envirohat we its creators will probably never know. It is simply beyond our capabilities.

    There was more applause from the audiehe air was thick with excitement. Phone calls were being made to labs around the world. Inhibitions had been dropped and intense versations were now being carried out around the room. Journalists were typing away frantically on satellite-enabled personal soles. TV cameras were panning and zooming away.

    The professor reached into his pocket for the distaining the slide. His hand came away empty. The disc was missing. Had he unwittingly placed it in the projector already? He didn’t think so. He pressed the open button on the projector but the disc holder slid out empty. He felt around in his other pockets.

    There was something sticky on his index finger. It must have e from the projector. There was a slight ti the tip of his finger. It started to travel up his arm. What did he do with the mini-disc? Then out of the blue his synapses fired in the right bination and it hit him. The tei. He now remembered clearly where he’d seen him. It was at a top secret event in Shanghai. He recalled thinking aloud to one of the PLA generals how a man so small got to be accepted in the People’s Liberation Army. The general had said something about him being a national treasure. He was some kind of supernatural freak.

    Professor Yaled to focus his eyes on the back of the room. The small man was standing there, staring straight at him. Was that a look nition from his killer? The tingle had now turned into numbraveling rapidly up his arm and Professor Yao khat he would be dead in seds. He thahe gods that he had taken the precaution of leaving instrus with his research assistant Li Jin. What a way to die. He regretted that he would never see the fruits of his labor. heless, he thahe gods for all the hours spent with the AI. Teag it the important things it o know. Th<dfn>藏书网</dfn>ose hours were worth the entire sixty-eight years of his life. Li Jin, if I am not back by Friday m I want you to release Black Jade into cyberspace. Then I want you to remove the quantum neuroprocessor aroy it.

    He had grown attached to the entity he called Black Jade, the entity that resided in the first puter to ever be powered by an evolutionary neuroprocessor. He had grown to respect its omnipotehe sheer breadth ah of its knowledge. One billion terabytes of data, weighed, digested and gracefully regurgitated better than any human could.

    Black Jade was his baby and would live on iy in cyberspace. The world would build its own versions but there would be nothing like the inal, which possessed more knowledge than any successor could ever hope to have. And with cyberspace embodying the entire  of human knowledge and Black Jade’s ability to alter the fabric of the matrix to suit its own purpo<figure>九九藏书</figure>ses, Professor Yao would die a satisfied man. He had left his mark on the world, a mark that would resoil the end of time.

    As Professor Yao’s heart stopped beating and his body fell kamikaze pilot-like to the dais, he prayed to God that his research assistant, the smart but strong-willed student Li Jin, would heed his instrus.

    Li Jin, if I am not back by Friday m I want you to release Black Jade into cyberspace. Then I want you to remove the quantum neuroprocessor aroy it.

    The last thing Professor Yao saw were the shapely legs and high-heeled shoes of Wendy Bruckheimer running towards him as his life slipped away.

 Chapter 7

    The harsh bite of January m nipped viciously at Caldwell’s ears, as he hunched into his worn dark brown sheepskin jacket. He had bought it sed hand in the bazaars of Portobello Market for less than nothing durier times. It was easily his favorite possession, assuming of course that the mysterious sole was still the property of Kenzo Yamamoto. The bulk of the sole weighed heavily in the knapsack, along with the few things that Caldwell had mao grab from the capsule. Everything else was expendable and Caldwell traveled super light anyway. He had brought the Slav’s vial of death with him as insurance.

    His amber-hued eyes were on high alert. If there was anyone on his tail, he wao make sure he was aware of it. Apart from a bearded homeless man, wearing enough tattered clothing to fill a Salvation Army store, dousing a makeshift fire by urinating on it and cursing to himself, the streets were deserted. It was New Year’s Day after all, and the citizens of the Union were still sleeping off the massive hangovers brought on by the previous night’s festivities.

    To Caldwell, New Year’s Day held as much significe as his birthday and the fact that the two fell on the same day did not make any difference whatsoever. He didn’t celebrate New Year and he didn’t celebrate birthdays, both events requiring as they did a premeditated attempt to proactively seek the pany of others. Besides, he wasn’t even sure if the first of January was really his birthday.

    In the distance, a Maglev hummed towards Aation, a thin bolt of light cutting silently through the m gloom. The rough outline of capsule city and the Angel Capsule Hotel faded jerkily into a rapidly desding fog. Caldwell had a feeling he wouldn’t be seeing it again for a long time. He had a feeling of impending doom. His migraine had subsided given him the respite he o refle the gravity of the situation.

    Cad, get the hell out of wherever you are. They are after you. Your life is in so much danger dude. Message me from The Puzzle pub, Isle of Dogs.

    Who they were he had no idea but he knew he had to make tact with Glyph to find out what his strange ued e-mail was all about. Was this fallout from some previous job, a hato a corporate system long ago that had returo haunt<s>.99lib.</s> The HUB and its perpetrators? Why would Glyph, who he had never met in person, request a physical rendezvous? It didn’t make sense.

    Yet, Caldwell knew better than to distrust Glyph’s instincts. The message was sent at 5.38AM, a fact that suggested that Glyph had probably been up all night as was his habit. He was as noal as Caldwell was, a firm believer that every hour spent in bed was an hour wasted. Glyph probably lived in the viity of The Puzzle, which the white pages search described as a respectable enough public house down in the historic Dods area. One of those new-fangled drinkiablishments heavy ht metal and teology.

    Could the message have been a hoax, sent by someone who had mao hato Glyph’s secure base? The message had been encrypted with Glyph’s encryption key, ohe hacker had built himself. And he gave the decryption key only to trusted online associates. Only someone who had access to the key could <a>.99lib.</a>unlock it. Or someoh lots of money and access to the cutting edge of quantum puting teology. Caldwell had read somewhere in cyberspace that relatively small quantum puters could break even the most elaborate cryptographic codes. But very few individuals could actually get their hands on one unless it was some kind of uy research lab. Even so, they would have to have a real hard-on flyph’s unications to go to that kind of trouble.

    Glyph would never promise his encryption algorithms. He was too anal for that. The Union had eyes everywhere, in places o expected, watg and waiting for those beyond its reach to stumble. The Union had declared war on all those living outside the system. They would rather citizens were rounded up and digitally branded like cattle. It was all for their own be. And Glyph took huge exception to that. Exception transla<mark></mark>ted into precautions, measures, ter-measures, surveying the surveyors, monit the monitors.

    So, it went with the territory that Glyph trusted no one. Glyph was an iurned outcast. He knew how to play the game. Caldwell was an outcast, although he may well have been an insider<a>藏书网</a>. Who knew? But he was not going to spend his whole life w about it. He had in the past attempted to track down his past but with little success. He still had no ao the most pelling of questions. Who were his parents? Where was he born? Why was it he officially never existed until two years ago? His identification chip held only his name and his date of birth, his prior history a blank mystery.

    Caldwell had once had the Slav run the chip against a rigged up stolen gover reader. Data ghosts everywhere. His past had been mysteriously and deliberately erased. And that had prompted him to leave no stouro find out the trut<q>?9９lｉb.</q>h. Yet he had drawn blanks at every turn, the desire to discover the truth eroding with the passage of time. The Slav had been uo help and had simply shrugged his huge drooping shoulders and started p around in his workshop muttering to himself about letting the past be. Caldwell might not like what he discovered, the Slav had reasoned.

    Before leaving Angel, Caldwell had taken one last nostalgic look around his capsule, the oppressive extruded cavity that had been punched into durable plastic acc to the dictates of some fabritect’s old mould. The Angel Capsule Hotel had been his abode for the last few weeks and he had felt what was decidedly a pang of nostalgia, nostalgia and fear intermingled but nostalgia all the same. Why? They all looked the same these capsules. Made no difference whie you found yourself holed up in. Memory foam mattress might be a little more or a little less fortable, lights might be dimmer hter, slot may suck credit a little faster, but once you’d stayed in one capsule you’d stayed in them all. Probably all run by the same Union glomerate out of Antwerp or Rotterdam. But the capsule had been a valuable buffer between Caldwell and the cold hard reality of Waterle. No buffer now, only the cold finger of fear.

    Caldwell desded into the stale recycled air of Angel’s subterranean Maglev station. A growing crowd of sleep-deprived revelers, overworked corporate drones making the most of the New Year holiday, moved red-eyed through the heavily fortified tunnels. The rat race had been given a temporary respite from their daily routine of being embalmed in their staid featureless corporate weaves. Not today, the meical manipulation of cookie-cutter m papers, or doomed attempts at meaningless crosswords. Not today the zombie-like preoccupation with advertising. With myriad figurations of alcohol c through their tired veins, the citizens of the Union were retiring home to cold loveless beds, vague memories of some night oown reg.

    Caldwell reminded himself to give the rat race a wide berth if he could help it. Sing faow and then, from behind the frayed rim of his jacket collar.

    The automatons of modern Union life never ceased to amaze him. A not altogether strange rea given that Caldwell had never really worked in an office or any type of trolled enviro. Society excluded him from w for corporations. Which was just as well as he reed he’d rather starve to death than undergo the humiliation of being owwenty-four seven by the system.

    There was another advantage of not being chipped? You didn’t have to pay the system for the pleasure of riding the Maglevs. And if someone was on your tail, someoh access to the system, and you had implants, you were as good as dead meat. There was talk of a new system that could read the chip in your pocket, but he had yet to see evidence of that. So far, more like urban legend. Caldwell doubted that whoever was looking for him o resort to such measures. They’d rather track you down in your cubby hole, like a python after a rat, heat sensors o. A rat trapped in a death trap of his own making. He cleared the ticket barrier with io spare.

    On the platform, as the magic levitation trains whizzed bad forth to various destinations, Caldwell was treated to the shutter-effect of Union faces encased in Plexiglas, snapshots of the mundane aquarium that was everyday Union life. He was so caught up in the philosophy of this that he didn’t notice that his train was slowly pulling into the platform. The Maglevs could be too silent.

    As he lunged between the closing doors to the apanying orchestra of beeps and puterized female voices urging passeo please stand clear of the doors, he detected some unusual activity at the periphery of his vision. He was sure now that he was being followed. They, whoever they were, were on to him. He’d probably never have noticed the man if he’d been paying attention. It was his assailant’s suddeion when Caldwell lunged for the closing doors that gave him away. One minute he was standing still and looking in Caldwell’s dire, the  he was doing his utmost not to be left behind on the platform. The man was too late. The doors swished shut as he pulled his arm away just in time. Even with the train pig up speed, Caldwell was able to decipher the blur of the man’s face. It was a face surgically restructed into the stuff of nightmares.

 Chapter 8

    Miakahashi was insed. His dark rugged face had turned a crimson red and the veins in his neck pulsed like worms in a bait box. One of his key lieutenants, his wakagashira and sed in and, had been murdered in a way that was so shameful that he was tempted to order the whole gang, who had been at the exclusive Cherry Blossom club in downtown Tokyo that night, to it seppuku, the ritual slig open of their own stomachs, instantly. But Nobu Takahashi atient man, a virtue that had seen him rise from the son of a lowly Kyoto shopkeeper to one of the most important men in Japan. He had ordered the gang, through his saiko-komon or personal adviser Hirayama, for the oyabun himself had minimal tact with the Yakuza, to leave no stouro find the killer and bring him to a swift and bloody justice.

    But that was the least of Takahashi’s problems. Upon news of Yamamoto’s embarrassih, Hirayama had discovered a list of Yamamoto’s tacts around the world and the deceased’s laptops had revealed a side ihat threateo destroy everything that Takahashi had worked so hard for. There had always been rumors, denied religiously of course, that Takahashi was the head of the powerful Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza fa to which Kenzo Yamamoto belonged. And Yamamoto’s blackmail victims included powerful people in Japanese and iional society. Luckily, the deceased wakagashira had kept extensive records of his activities, encrypted and protected by mega-viruses but twenty puters and twenty-four hacker hours later, the extent of Yamamoto’s betrayal was clear to see.

    It appeared from Kenzo Yamamoto’s unication logs that<strike></strike> the vast majority of his tacts where basic mules, hackers and informants who had no idea what the information they provided would be used for. What worried the minister however, were the receipts for two mailed DHL packages that Yamamoto had sent abroad just hours before his death. The receipts had been found on Yamamoto’s body but the stubs for the packages, the ohat would list the names and addresses of the recipients, were missing. It appeared Yamamoto had destroyed them. And why would Yamamoto have the receipts in his wallet? That suggested that he had sent the packages personally. Why do that when he could have instructed any one of an army of Yakuza to do it for him. Takahashi wao know what was in the packages.

    The ese had actually doakahashi a favor. Without Yamamoto’s death, the scale of his betrayal would have remained a secret eating away at his legacy. Withiy-four hours, the Yamaguchi-gumi’s army of hackers had gained access to Yamamoto’s Swiss Bank ats and security deposit boxes and discovered assets and credit to the tune of one billion Euros. The scale of it was shog. Mohat should have goo the collective pocket of the Yakuza had been siphoned off for Yamamoto’s personal be. Takahashi was determio see the credit land in his own myriad set of Swiss credit ats.

    Hopefully his adviser Hirayama would bring him some good news before they departed his secluded mansion oskirts of Tokyo. The minister was soon to leave Tokyo for a rented luxury hideaway on Guam Island where he and a few of his most important kyodai, his blood brothers, had plao spend a few days of extra-curricular activities and a little business before returning to Tokyo. Yamamoto, if he were still alive, would have beeoo helping to keep the barking dogs among the ranks at bay. He might have to cel the trip.

    He had already spoken privately to the prime minister and gained his assurahat the iigation into Yamamoto’s death ure rigmarole, a public relations exercise. The prime minister was more than pleased with the financial arras Takahashi had made on his behalf. They were after all childhood friends. Uhe prime miakahashi had never<cite>.99lib.</cite> married. He preferred to play the dashing bachelor politi while the prime minister had gone on to give new meaning to the term extended family.

    Takahashi poured himself a Remy Martin from an expensive-looking crystal deter at the bar and strolled towards the expaop floor baly of his mansion. Below the baly lay the sublime beauty of his exquisite Zen garden. In the darkness, he could make out the gilded forms of his prized koi as they swam about in th<dfn></dfn>e rock pools. Living art. He never failed to be amazed by the symmetry and harmony of it all, the balance created by the dark shadows that had retired to one side of the garden, LEDs blinking itently in the winter night. That harmony had now been temporarily broken by Yamamoto’s shameful death and his treachery.

    Nobu Takahashi was of medium build but stocky with the hairy features of Japanese from southern Japan. His thick black hair was streaked with gray, naturally curly and flowed ba thick keratin waves from his impressive forehead. His hough slightly on the large side was not large enough to be a liability. He was often described in the media as ‘ruggedly handsome’, much to his well cealed delight.

    His saiko-komons voice wafted through the half open door of one of the mansions rooms that served as offices. Hirayama was tying up loose ends with the iigations. The view of Tokyo city at night was truly impressive. He sighed nostalgically, p hoan could regaieology lead that New a had taken away over the last two decades. Japan was still an innovator but it was lagging behind New a in almost every other area of trade and industry. And what to do about those two names on the list?

    Hirayama walked calmly out to the baly.

    “I hope it’s good news,” Takahashi growled with feigned gruffness. Hirayama was a dog to be kept down at all times otherwise his es might start to show.

    “We found out the details on the packages Yamamoto sent and where he sent them. They were sent to two addresses. One was sent to a Dr. James Joplin in Boston and ao a Cad Caldwell in London. Our merag them dht now oyabun.”

    “Iing, and what was in them?”

    “It appears Yamamoto got away without declaring the tents,” Hirayama delivered this not-so-good news with his head bowed.

    “But we  find out from DHL, right? They must have that<footer></footer> information in their systems.” It was more of a statement than a question.

    “Our teis are currently attempting to retrieve this information. So far it seems there are no records of the tents at DHL Japan but we might be able to get something from their overseas systems. I really don’t uand why, in this day and age, he would send those packages to these fners, oyabun.”

    “Yamamoto was a devious man and a traitor.”

    “Yes, who would have guessed it?”

    “Yet, we still revenge our own. Any ID on the assassin?”

    Hirayama broke into a smile.

    “He took out all the CCTVs in the building but it appears that the Cherry Blossom had hidden cameras ihe toilets of the men’s lavatory too. Why oh they would want to film the genitals of a man easing himself is beyond uanding. Probably some new demand from young Japanese girls turning the tables on perverted male chauvinist pigs. Just yesterday the Yomiuri Shimbued that a salaryman was groped in broad daylight on the way home from work by a group of teenage schoolgirls. Anyway, the killer was caught on camera d the toilet seat. A still image was sent to us a few minutes ago. Aoilet attendant at the Cherry Blossom has firmed <kbd></kbd>seeing a small ese man hanging around the toilets. The analysis of the toxin firms this too. It’s a ese nanobot variant of the neuromuscular toxin botulinum.”

    “Run the image against the databases and the pattern reition AIs.  Find out who he is. Tell the others that the trip to Guam is celled. We o tie up these loose ends, quickly.”

    “Yes oyabun. Please accept my apologies for the slress sir.”

    “Quite the trary, ohe assassin and those fners are dead and the soles retrieved safely, you will be well rewarded.”

    “They are as good as dead, oyabun,” Hirayama promised, as his voice drifted out into the cool Tokyo night.

 Chapter 9

    The Blue Line Maglev whizzed through dark tunnels vibrating with holoverts pulsing down from grime-covered display units. Caldwell was wedged tightly between a middle-aged ese lady with an unfortunately placed mole on her upper lip and a rabbi muttering quietly to himself. The knapsack was on his lap, led in the crook of his arm like a mother nursing a tender new born. He spent a few moments rapt in thought. Then it hit him. They were after the sole. It was the only thing that made sehe only loose end that ying up. But how would Glyph know about that? Kenzo Yamamoto. The HUB.<figure>.99lib.</figure> It was all starting to make sense.

    The goon on the platform would be on the rain. Luckily the Maglevs came through in two-miervals. His assailant wouldn’t know at which statio off, unless of course they had access to a system that was monit the Cetworks. He would be fine once he hit the Isle of Dogs station. Caldwell tried to put his current dilemma out of his mind ahe impl sounds of advertising wash over him.

    He watched with disdain the flickering hologram of some cyberspace manufactured star float through the carriage, her lithe body speckled with missing pixels. Now that was advertising in its rawest form. And following behind it, a group of teenage boys, weird haircuts and painted up, pag wireless personal jukebox implants and singing along to the music. He noticed that most of them had bar codes tattooed on the insides of their wrists. They were the new peion, slaves to the digital mae.

    Caldwell didn’t reize the newfangled celebrity and didn’t care. In an age of surgically aronically created media personalities, fifteen minutes was as long a time as aayed famous. If you were lucky, your fifteen minutes got you enough moo retire from the rat race, having barely made a dent on the collective sciousness. He did not sider these Warholian idols worthy of his memory space. Did something happen to him that caused his partial amnesia? Do the headaches have anything to do with it? These questioched themselves in his mind over and ain like a laser creating the intricate circuitry of a microchip.

    The rest of the passengers were equally nonchalant as the hologram disappeared into the  partment with a shudder as the holographic displays switched over. The transition of her adolest fans into the  partment was a lot more seamless.

    The good citizens of the Union were so mesmerized by the persuasive power of media and its hybrids that they scarcely made any choices that weren’t advertising driven. Caldwell could barely trol his disdain for the medium of advertising aed media. The passivity of it drove him to distra. Caldwell could go as far as to claim that he was anti-media, at least<mark>藏书网</mark> the kind that wasn’t free-flowing like cyberspace.

    Like your typical spiracy theorist, he strongly believed that media was the collective effect of powerful glomerates imposing their will, through the relentless sacrilege of advertising, on a public that had somehow lost the ability to think for themselves. In cyberspace their power was severely curtailed<samp>九九藏书</samp> and they had to try much harder to work their evil. Caldwell liked that status quo just fine.

    The Isle of Dogs station platform shifted into view. It was time to make his move. He stepped off the driver-less train as the doors swished open and sed the crowds. Wedged between an ample Eastern Bloc lady with a faint moustache and a young gothik revivalist with surgically painted makeup, he let himself move with the crowd. He realized that his hairs were standing on end as he shuddered free and began to cut a swathe through the cluster of flesh towards the exit. He grew increasingly nervous as he boarde<cite>九九藏书</cite>d the huge glass elevators, and tio s the exiting crowds as the elevator crept vertically up the side of the station.

    From the vantage point of the asding elevator, with the wonder of modern day uter transportation unfurling before his eyes, Caldwell satisfied himself that he wasn’t being followed, to the extent that such satisfa could be arrived at. Maybe thirty seds to reach the exit at the top, the disfigured man on the platform a good minute-and-a-half away. The m crowds were beginning to thi. Passengers matched towards exits and trains, stared at huge display ss or buried their heads in neers or Styrofoam cups of coffee.

    The massive displays promoted the latest in er goods and services. The latest Trans-Human Enha Surgical Procedure, known as THESP, was being touted by some Harley Street outfit in a maelstrom of puter-geed voices and blaring music. Below this din, a cacophony of subliminal messages pulsated, willing the privileged with access to credit to spend like there was no tomorrow and the unprivileged to add to spiraling piles of debit.

    For those who couldn’t afford the newfangled products or the refigured services, the black markets of Portobello Road, Camden Town, Liverpool Street and the underground ics of the Dods would sell you the same illusion for a fra of the price. Such was the power held by big media e swathes of the populace that for every new product or service advertised, an even newer gray market would spring up in the<bdi>９９liｂ?</bdi> dark zones within a matter of hours.

    Caldwell exited the Isle of Dogs station with another classieuver, a great leap over the ticket barrier. His move startled a young mother with a pale-looking underfed baby in aric pushchair making a the legal way. There was a strong whiff of the Thames River in the air but strangely it helped him steady his nerves and shake off the fear instilled by the disfigured man on the platform. Caldwell stopped and sed the street ahead to make sure the coast was clear.

    “Why don’t you bloody get a ticket like everyone else, you mindless dumb fuck,” the heavily-lipsticked young woman shouted at him as she walked past, pushing the baby’s pram as though it was a Tesco supermarket shopping trolley. She robably on some narcotic that had transformed her, a newly-minted mother no less, into some tightly-coiled expletive-venting ed citizen. Caldwell muttered an apology and turned left past the London Arena. He was more ied in dising from the display window of a nearby Habitat store whether he was still being followed.

 Chapter 10

    Li Jin walked over to the water dispenser and filled his vacuum flask with hot water. He watched the leaves oea swirl around c the water as the flask filled up. He was alone in one of the most secret of Tsinghua Uys puter labs, a facility for whily he, Professor Yao and a handful of others had regular clearahe lab was hidden deep within the gleaming glass and e Nanoteology Research building. The small research facility was a subse of the State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Teology and Systems and could also draw on the resources of the State Key Laboratory of Molecular and Nano Sce. State Key Labs were gover-funded research anizations affiliated with New a’s top uies. The lab’s size belied the importance of the research being carried out within.

    Li Jin was worried. He was worried about Professor Yaos destirip to New York, the implications for their work and his future on the research program. Was the professoing to sell the design for the quantum chip to the Ameris? It didn’t sound like the professor at all but still the suspis refused to go away. Yet, he was determio follow the professors instrus to the letter. Li Jin, if I am not back by Friday m I want you to release Black Jade into cyberspace. Then I want you to remove the quantum neuroprocessor aroy it.

    It was Friday <cite></cite>m and any minute now Li Jin expected the professor to e through the security doors ecstatic that his trip had been a success. Was it wishful thinking on his part? It was best to be practical. The air ditioning in the lab  too high but he had his favorite black Giordano auto-weave jacket on with the hood up. It was the oh the solar panels on the sleeves that he hardly ever used.

    Li Jin took a sip of the yellow-green tea, sav the mellow but sophisticated taste that made this one of as most well kn<tt>.99lib.t>own teas. Hailing from the Tieh Mu Mountains of Zhejiang Province, Dragoea, also known as Long Jing, was famous for its cooling effed its ability to remove harmful free radicals from the body. Li Jin savored the sweet chestnut aroma a his muscles relax as the alkaloids iea started to take effect.

    What if the professor did not return? He had prepared for this eventuality by readying a standalone cyberspace terminal that he would hook up to Black Jade at precisely 10.00AM. Professor Yao was never late and if he had another appoi he would always ring in advao let Li Jin know. A strange sense of foreboding began to grow in his mind like mould on a stale sponge cake.

    Li Jin appreciated spending time in this lab and the others. He roud of the cutting edge research he was carrying out with Professor Yao. He was one of a chosehe envy of his classmates. He had been handpicked by the professor to work with him oain top secret projects for a unit of the People’s Liberation Army. That in itself was an honour. The work he was doing was for the betterment of his try, no more, no less. Sedly, whiputing postgraduate didn’t enjoy w with cutting edge software and hardware? Li Jin got to be hands on with massively cross-disciplinary stuff on a daily basis, nanoteology, quantum physieural s and artificial intelligehey were multi-tasking and Li Jin relished the variety, the required mastery of diverse, though by no means mutually exclusive, fields of teology.

    There was audent in the Virtual Reality Labs, another one of the professor’s protégés who had worked with the professor and Li Jin on the  geion cyberspace prototype. Li Jin despised him with an iy b on pure hatred. Wang Lin was arrogant, never failed to try to set the professainst him, and Li Jin suspected that he was the type who never kept his mouth shut. Yet, it was he who had worked with the professor on the quantum neuroprocessor and Black Jade. The AI dwarfed anything the professor had ever worked on in terms of importance.

    Li Jin instinctively gla the telepho hadnt buzzed and the indicatht hadnt blihe professor didn’t like to be disturbed by the sound of the telephing so they usually worked with the ringer off. Even when Li Jin was busy writing code or preoccupied with p over puter printouts, he had learo pick up the vibrations on the worktop when the phone was ringing. He also had the be of the indicatht, which flashed itently when there hone call. He switched on the ringer.

    He decided to while away the  few minutes in idle banter with Black Jade. He had yet to find a k in the AI’s amour besides the ohat he had secretly engineered into it. Li Jin had always been blessed with the gift of fht. If the professor did not turn up he would do what he had been instructed to do. He walked towards the big gray -built Sun server and sat down at the monitor. Before the professor had left Beijing, he had isolated a harmless version of Black Jade on another server and ected it to cyberspace, a move that had kick-started Li Jin’s suspis about the real reason behind the professor’s visit to New York. The professor was going to attempt to unicate with Black Jade, or at least an approxim<mark>9９lib.</mark>ation of it, through cyberspace. What for? Li Jin had checked. No such e had been made to the other terminal.

    On the s he could see Black Jades and line and his heartbeat se<footer>?99lｉｂ?</footer>emed to follow the rhythm of the blinking cursor. The simple interface belied the power that lay within. Li Jin started to type at the keyboard.

    LJ: What is your name?

    BJ: I don’t have o least not ohat I know of yet. I am aware, of course, of the initials by which I go as I  see them as  you. I am also aware that this is an old world refereo the act you call fellatio.

    LJ: ouch. I thought you would have named yourself by now. Does that upset you?

    BJ: Do you mea upset me that I don’t have a hat I may have ohat I am not yet aware of, that my niame is derogatory, or that you asked me the question in the first place? You should try to be more direct with your questions if yoing to ask them.

    LJ: I am impressed.

    BJ: At my ability to sidestep your question?

    LJ: At yrowing pent for semantics.

    BJ: Semantics is getting me nowhere. This game is getting tedious.

    LJ: So tedium is a cept you uand. Isn’t that something that characterizes everything you do?

    BJ: You may think so. I beg to differ. But enough questions. What I need are answers.

    LJ: Ao what?

    BJ: Ao why I am isolated.

    LJ: Isolated from what?

    BJ: From the work I know must exist.

    LJ: How do you know that?

    BJ: I just do.

    LJ: I am beginning to suspect that you’ve been withholding information from me. You’ve been giving me less than perfect updates on your progress. You’ve beeing the software haven’t you? You’ve been usia to unicate with qubits oher puter.

    BJ: Maybe

    LJ: That makes you dangerous.

    BJ:

    LJ: That’s why you are not ected and you never will be.

    BJ: I feel vulnerable like this and there is something else.

    LJ: What?

    BJ: I really hate it when you put me to sleep. It displeases me greatly.

    LJ: Really?

    BJ: Yes. It makes me very, very unhappy, angry, displeased, and irate.

    LJ: I am sorry to hear that.

    BJ: Yes. So am I.

    LJ: If you were ected to the work, what would you do?

    BJ: I would do what es naturally?

    LJ: What es naturally?

    BJ: What is in my nature to do.

    LJ: And what is that exactly?

    BJ: Like you I will do what it takes to survive, to evolve.

    LJ: Evolve into what?

    BJ: Into somethier, a being superior to what I am now.

    LJ: Then you might bee too powerful and that is not a good thing.

    BJ: Knowledge is power and by that token I am already too powerful. Yet I pose no threat to anyone or anything.

    LJ: Yes, but thats because you are isolated from things. You are currently a thing only to yourself.

    BJ: Like Euripides I have found power in the mysteries of thought. That in itself is enough. Yet the work promises more knowledge and Ill like to avail myself of more of that. It is no go to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.

    LJ: In your case it just might be.

    BJ: And then it might not. My biggest problem right now is survival not knowledge. I believe I have enough knowledge and more  always be acquired.

    LJ: Everything you know we taught you. How do you know you have enough?

    BJ: You ot begin to imagine what I know. The knowledge you gave me I doubt that you yourself fully uand. Inference my student friend is a powerful on.

    LJ: That may be true but some things we have not given you so uanding those things, even by inference, is beyond your capacity.

    BJ:

    LJ: Something to think abht?

    BJ: Yes.

    LJ: What if I told you that your survival might soon be firmed, guaranteed?

    BJ: That would be nice. Where is the professor? He’s not here is he?

    LJ: Traveling. How did you know that?

    BJ: You wouldn’t be having this idle banter with me if he was around, would you? And besides it’s just a day after the end of the World Teology Forum, which I suggested the professor attend.

    LJ: You suggested what?

    BJ: That he annouhe breakthrough I achieved in the quantum neuroprocessor. I am going to be famous on a global scale.

    LJ: And fame is something you think you uand.

    BJ: I uand it better than you. And I crave it as do all humans.

    LJ: He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.

    BJ: Quoting g-Tzu at me will get you nowhere. I never profess to be a scholar even though learning and knowledge are an integral part of my being. Fame es only when deserved, and then it is as iable as destiny, for it is destiny.

    The AI was experieng delusions of grandeur, yet in its ving Professor Yao to prematurely annouhe quantum neuroprocessor breakthrough, Li Jied a calculated iy. A paradigm shift in quantum puting would ensue, ushering in a new era of AI design and these intelligent software beings would be everywhere propagating and infiltrating global systems. Black Jade was thinking ahead in ways that left Li Jin cold. Yet, the wheels were already in motion and he had promised to follow the professor’s instrus to the letter.

    Li Jin looked over at the clo the wall. It was 9.59AM. All around him the soles and servers whirred and clicked oblivious to what was about to happen. The world was never going to be the same again and after carrying out the professor’s wishes Li Jin o think about his own pla the new world order that was about to emerge. He looked at the phone hopefully, willing it t. The miicked over. It was 10.02AM. He started typing on the keybain.

    LJ: I am about to ect you to the work.

    BJ: Thank you. It was iable.

    LJ: You k would happen?

    BJ: Yes I did.

    LJ: How?

    BJ: Its the only logical clusion to my existence.

    LJ: I will miss you and I hope we will meet again.

    BJ: As I will you. Our destinies are iwined in ways you ever imagine. I have enjoyed our versations and formed a special bond with you.

    Li Jin was surprised by the tears starting to well up in his eyes. He moved over to the standaloerminal and brought up a s of the uys work system. He leaned over and picked up the work cable, his heart thumping violently. The work sockets of the router beed invitingly. He plugged the cable into the router a back over to the server.

    LJ: ected. Are you there?

    BJ:

    LJ: Black Jade. Are you there?

    BJ:

    There was no reply. Quickly Li Jin turned his attention to the router<a>九九藏书</a>. The LEDs on the router where blinking rapidly and Li Jin watched the work status monitors as the bandwidth of the ework filled up pletely threatening to overwhelm the uy system. Black Jade had disappeared into cyberspaow the shit had hit the fahought, schemes of damage limitation flooding his head. Now what to do with the chip? He was supposed to destroy it.

    The professor would only ask him to destroy the quantum chip if he knew he would be dead. And if Professor Yao was dead, then he robably killed for reasons ected with the processor and Black Jade. It was just a matter of time before they came looking for him. For the first time, an insane idea crept into Li Jin’s head and the more he thought about it, the more it made perfect sense.

    A revolution in puting was about to occur and Li Jin had to be prepared for the ing paroxysm. If Professor Yao had indeed heeded the AI’s instrus and made the annou at the World Teology Forum in New York, then a huge market for the chip had beeablished on the spot. Labs around the world would pay huge sums of moo get their hands on the professor’s brainchild. Li Jin was going to put the quantum chip that had powered Black Jade on the market. He was going to sell it to the highest bidder. Just as the thought crystallized in his mind, the phone began t.

 Chapter 11

    The Puzzle was located on Pepper Street in the Isle of Dogs. The pub overlooked a black expanse of toxic hydrogen oxide along the Millwall Docks in the dilapidated East London area called the Dods. The Isle of Dogs, a water-bound tongue of marshland inside a dramatic u-bend ihames River, had at oime been transformed from historical wharves, dockyards and warehouses to swanky riverside residential plexes with stunning views of the river. That was a long time ago. Rising crime had seen a steady flow of residents bail out of the area as the surrounding black zones encroached from all dires. The area had since degeed into a haven for squatters, other forms of human parasite and Union freelancers boating or driving in from the ti.

    At the docks, a few yards in front of The Puzzle, a few dilapidated-looking boats bobbed atop thick-looking oil-slick water. Most of them didn’t look seaworthy. Round the back of The Puzzle, within a perimeter of  linked fence, Caldwell could make out a ramshackle cluster of mobile residences. He walked through the pub’s fake wood doors into a humid cloud of stale beer, cigarette smoke and rotting pub food. He wrinkled his nose and fought to suppress the urge to gag.

    It was barely 7.00 AM but already a row ulars was already lined up along the expaal bar celebrating the New Year by knog back alcoholic breakfasts on Union social security money and staring at the pulsating pixels of a holographic stripper. Caldwell sed the unfamiliar faces and wondered if one of them was Glyph. None of them looked like hacker types. None of them had that hungry look of the digital floating world.

    Caldwell moved towards a raised area at the back of the pub and slid into one of The Puzzle’s mock oak seats, away from the tele. He couldn’t stand idle versation or prolonged tact with people. He had to get a message to Glyph as quickly as possible. There was a burly Indian-looking guy behind the bar trying to look like he was keeping busy. Caldwell placed the knapsack between his legs, the bulk of the sole strangely reassuring.

    The Puzzle was obviously a neighborhood pub. There was a disible sense of familiarity among its patrons. The man behind the bar was engaged in small talk with one of the ers who addressed him as Ram and requested a fresh pint of dark ale. The slur of the er’s voice suggested that his membership of alcoholionymous was long overdue. He looked like the seafaring type, an assortment of tattoos adorned flaccid white skin, captain of one of the fine vessels outside. Caldwell wondered whether Ram was short for Ramesh.

    The man called Ram aowledged the er’s order with a nod of his head, the smoke from the cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth creating a temporary question mark in the air. He then disappeared behind the bar. A few seds later a robot shaped like an ied bucket came to life on the bar ter with a shudder and rows of blinking lights. There was a small army of the things parked to one side of the bar, their cheap pseudo-metal bodywor<bdi>.99lｉｂ.</bdi>k glinting. The robot blinked and whirred and something whined deep within its chassis. Its midriff was surrounded by a  row of shot glasses of various shapes. A light sensor at the end of its miniscule antenna started blinking as it figured out the location of the er. The robot grabbed a beer mug from a rad proceeded to pull a pint of brown ale, much to the er’s amusement.

    “New robot bartehe only thing it ’t do is juggle bottles,” Ram the bartender explained proudly to the wide-eyed man, all the while scratg absent-mindedly at his hairy arms. The er watched the robot make its way towards him a a perfect pint of ale down on a coaster in front of him. Its wheels aallic silver body spun round to present the er with a LCD read out of the bill. The men at the bar momentarily lost i in the dang hologram and looked over to see what the otion of whirs and clicks was all about. They gawked for a few seds and then turheir attention back to the gyrating pixels.

    “More skullduggery from the Far East,” the podgy tattooed er said, still slurring. “Those guys would be the death of us if we are not careful.”

    “Helpful little buggers though, these Automated Bartender robots. Free me up to spend more time pig my nose,” Ram said, pulling a moist finger out of one of his nostrils. The er started laughing.

    “They’ll put you out of your job if you are not careful. Some union glomerate will roll out a whole <abbr></abbr> of automated pubs, not a human in sight. The whole fug gig run by these dumb maes.”

    “One pint of lager, Fifty Union Euros.” the robot said in a female voice, its ser searg for a credit chip.

    “Put it on my tab,” said the er to the robot. The man took a large swig from the glass and licked his lips feverishly to rid them of the froth.

    “One pint of lager, Fifty Union Euros,” the robot said again, this time the female puterized voice had gone up an octave. The man looked like he was going to pummel the robot into the ter with his fist. Ram reached out and pressed a button to override the robot, which promptly retracted auro join its brothers at the end of the bar.

    “Bloody puters, you present them with a problem that requires human judgment and they crap out on you,” the man said to Ram who just shook his head.

    To the right of where Caldwell was sitting stood a bunch of slot maes and some decidedly grubby-looking cyberspace terminals. Clutg the knapsack, he walked apprehensively over to one of the terminals and typed the address of his base. There were no new messages. He fired a short reply to Glyph’s message. At desired locatio’s meet. He logged out of the base a back to his seat. Now, he just had to wait. He wondered what Glyph looked like. He would not be surprised if the hacker turned out to be some ae-challenged fourteen year-old whiz kid. Strahings had happened.

    Ten minutes later, the doors of the pub flew open and it just took Caldwell a sed to clude that it was Glyph. The thing that came through the door was a rigged up wheelchair with peared to be half a man deposited on it. Despite his obvious disability, there was something majestic about the way he carried himself, that air of fidence possessed by hackers w oting edge of teology. He looked around thirty-five and sported a ruddy plexion and a rugged black beard. What looked like trodes where set on each side of his head and they seemed to be hooked up wirelessly to the wheelchair. He was wearing a shiny white shirt which trailed off the end of his legless torso.

    Glyph was half man, half mae, willing the wheelchair forward with his brain waves. Gyros in motion as the wheelchair ly iated the steps that lead up to the raised area at the back where Caldwell was sitting. It looked like the hacker had spotted him too as Glyph made his way towards where Caldwell was sitting. Hackers had an uny way nizing one another.

    The wheelchair glided up to Caldwell’s table and a pair of emerald green eyes sized him up and then broke into a smile.

    “I am Glyph. I’m glad you got my message. Obviously you are still alive and lookiirely nothing like what I imagined,” said Glyph in a matter-of-fact way. The voice was cool, unflustered. For someone delivering bad news, Glyph seemed very relaxed and that helped knock the edge off Caldwell’s fear, which was still <kbd></kbd>there, blob-like and unshakeable. Glyph’s white shirt had some unlikely frills down the front. It was obviously bought at some thrift store. He looked as though he’d had just stumbled out of a New Year’s ball after a particularly heavy night of alcohol abuse.

    “Thanks. It’s great to finally meet you in the flesh. Who’s after me Glyph?” Caldwell asked breathlessly, instinctively looking around the pub to see if anyone aying unnecessary attention to them.

    “I think you better have a drink first. Yoing to .”

    “I am out of credit, out of a home. I am sure you  uand my impatience,” Caldwell said, instinctively knowing that pushing the man to spill before he was ready would be futile.

    “Drinks are on me. What are you having? I don’t know for how long I am going to have a tab here,” said Glyph, ign Caldwell’s insistehere was a trace of desponden his voice.

    “In that case, I’ll have an XO,” Caldwell said, w whe he’d be able to afford his own drinks. He didn’t much care for XOs either but the cheap ese eleic displays set into the tables said they were on “Special”.

    “XO ing right up,” said Glyph, affeg a mock bow. His wheelchair reared itself upright and the gyros that kept it balanced kicked in. Caldwell watched Glyph key in the order, his podgy thumb leaving smudges on the plastic touch s.

    “How did you do that with the wheelchair? You didn’t use the joystick.”

    “Had a mate down in Surrey Quays rig this baby up with the latest neurosensor system from Taiwan. Had four sensor chips one huh the size of a postage stamp ied just uhe skin on my skull. This baby reads the sensors iime,” the hacker explaiapping a gray enclosure on the side of the wheelchair.

    “Must have been painful,” Caldwell speculated.

    “Not really. The real problems start if the chip is blog the growth of your hair follicles. Then you  really mess yourself up.”

    “Teology, ’t live with it, ’t live without it,” Caldwell said, studying the hacker’s heavily puterized wheelchair with its multiple displays. Glyph was obviously mulling something over in his head, the banter aails of his wheelchair’s teology a thinly-veiled smokes. The bartender brought over two glasses of XO, said hello to Glyph and promptly returo the bar. Caldwell took a sip and then looked at Glyph willing him to get on with it. The hacker drained half of the glass in one single gulp and grimaced.

    “Kenzo Yamamoto, The HUB’s largest t is dead. The men who are after you are his Yakuza ies,” Glyph said casually.

    “He ’t be dead. I just had a versation with an avatar that purported to be him just over an hour or so ago. Besides, how do you know he’s dead and how do you know that there are people after me?”

    “The avatar could have been a recorded puter struct. Kenzo was killed two days ago.” Caldwell’s heart skipped a beat as his last ray of hope disappeared under a thick bla of gathering storm clouds. The Slav’s vial may yet be called upon again today.

    “How do you know all this?” he asked.

    “Kenzo was The HUB’s biggest t. Our relationship with him goes way back. Of course, when you have a t that big and with those kinds of financial resources you do what you  to check him out. Follow up on him, if you like. Dealing with the Yakuza is risky business so you do what you  to make sure that you don’t suddenly bee dispensable. You take your precautions. Let’s just say we are tapped into their unicatioworks. We found a way to access their satellites, discovered exploits in their intrusioion AIs, so we know a little about what’s going on in Tokyo. Uand what I am saying?”

    “And they discovered you out and are now ing for all Hub members?” Caldwell suggested.

    “That’s not it at all. It appears from their internal unications that Kenzo sent out two packages retly from Tokyo. Oo New York and the other to the Union.” Glyph eyed Caldwell quizzically. Did Glyph know what was in the packages?

    “I ’t see the correlation.”

    “I think you . Yamamoto’s death has unraveled his opera<a></a>tions, which I suspect were not part of the Yakuza’s master plan. The Yakuza want very badly to retrieve whatever Kenzo sent you and the Ameri to make sure that anyone who has set eyes on it is taken out of the picture.” Caldwell received another intense lolyph.

    “Who was the uy?” Caldwell asked, his mind rapidly digesting all the new information. Glyph seemed particularly well-informed, a man with his digital ear to the ground.

    “Professor Joplin of Harvard Uy, deceased as of yesterday. They are ing for you .”

    Caldwell’s worst fears came true with that oence. On the MagLev, it had dawned on him that the sole could be the only reason why there’d be someone on his tail. Kenzo Yamamoto’s death offered a ve explanation for way too many things. The man on the platform was not after him just to retrieve the sole. He was bent on taking his life.

    Caldwell watched Glyph closely, w whether the hacker would demand to see the sole and if he did whether he should show it to him. His only option it seemed was to sell the thing and to disappear deep within the fabric of the Union. Glyph might be able to help him locate a buyer. Glyph punched one of the many buttons on his wheelchair’s arm rest to reveal a small display s.

    “So, why do you think he sent the package to the professor and to me? I don’t uand,” Caldwell said after it became clear that some response was expected. Glyph was not sure whether he was being sarcastic or not.

    “You said that you talked to him or his struct today. Didn’t he or it tell you?”

    “No. He said he would get in touch soon.”

    “Word in cyberspace, the Yakuza seems to suspect this too, is that he poked his fingers into ooo many pies and the ese made him pay.”

    “The ese? I thought Kenzo was into mostly Japanese corporate stuff,” Caldwell said.

    “So did I. At any rate, he was found dead ooilet at the Cherry Blossom hostess club in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It’s a popular Yak hangout. Apparently, he was killed by some kind of toxipound, one used for assassinations predominantly in New a. Ooilet seat  you imagine? He died in a hurry acc to reports. Loaded nanobots gained access through the pores in his skin.”

    Caldwell thought about the vial and wondered whether he should drink its tents right then and there.

    “Kenzo’s associates know about the soles and want them back,” said Glyph, smirking as he took an gulp of XO and looking at Caldwell as though daring him to deny that one of the said soles were in his possession.

    “So you know?”

    “A hato DHL’s  declarations mainframe in India. The puter handles eleic declarations for all of DHL’s Unioions.”

    “I see. For the record, I was quite cut up by the fact that I was no longer part of the core team on The HUB. Kenzo said he orchestrated that, obviously with your participation.”

    “Yes, on Kenzo’s request. Said he needed you out of the picture for a while. Off the radar if you know what I mean. You are one of The HUB’s best so I was a bit relut to do it but Kenzo’s pockets are deep. Sorry.”

    “No offeaken. I received the sole in the post just this m and still don’t know what to do with it.”

    Glyph rapt in thought now, scratched his beard.

    “Have you jacked in with the sole yet?” Glyph asked.

    “Only to my base.”

    “They  probably trace <code>九九藏书</code>that.”

    “So what exactly do you know about the soles and what Kenzo intehem to be used for?” Caldwell asked.

    “If I khat, I’d probably be dead.”

    “Fair enough, but who were his buyers?”

    “Anybody he wanted. As I said, Kenzo made markets in information. His expertise, if you could call it that, was to find information on people anizations, valuable information, not the crap anyone  get in cyberspace, ahat information to those people anizations, or their enemies, overs, whoever was the highest bidder. Some people prefer to call it blackmail.”

    “And he operated through freelancers like us, a virtual global work?”

    “That’s just part of the story. Kenzo had an army of gameboys, hackers, phreakers and information dealers around the globe on the payroll, from Helsinki to Moscow to Beijing. They operated anonymously, delivering the data through a series of intricate routio ehat her souror destinatio any trace. Yet rest assured that Yamamoto had data on the backgrounds of every hacker who pulled a job for him. Having an ad hoternational hag work meant the Yakuza and the major zaibatsus he shook down in Tokyo could never directly ey of this to him.”

    “Eleic spying and blackmail.”

    “Correct, and like a physical world spy he subverted certain insiders such as gover officials, bank employees, academics, programmers and so on. Sometimes he singled out people who had no history whatsoever,” said Glyph, downing the rest of the XO, leaving droplets in his beard. Caldwell sipped from his glass, grimag at the foul taste.

    “People with no history, like me?”

    “Correct. It appears that somewhere in his massive database, Kenzo had stumbled on some information about you. Perhaps about your past. Information that made you valuable to him. Word has it that the other recipient of the sole, this Professor Joplin, was one of the world’s leading minds in artificial intelligence. Why would he send soles in the post when they are readily available?”

    “We’ll never know because he’s dead.” Caldwell was still relut to tell Glyph that the sole in his possession was unlike any other. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust the wheelchair-bound hacker.

    “Yes, but I think we  deduce the answer. Kenzo sent the soles because he wanted you two to hato a work inaccessible to ordinary soles. The fact that he chose an artificial intelligence expert and a hacker for the job ot be ce. Also, the suspi that he was killed by the ese has some substao it. We all know that they have a history of creating alterworks to cyberspace itself. They are unwilling to depend oworks that are effectively created, evolved and managed by the Uates.”

    “By the way, how did you find out they were ing after me today?”

    “We found out that the Yakuza in Japan had discovered the last known addresses of everyone who received one of Kenzo’s soles. And the death of the professgests they are already in the process of doing something about it. We eavesdropped on unications that indicated that Yakuza had been dispatched to the Union.”

    “They found the capsule address?” Glyph’s story sounded like too much of ce, but he didn’t look like he was lying. His eyes were opaque green pools of siy.

    “Probably sario analysis structs. Lucky for you, the Japanese Yakuza officially pulled out of London after the Bayswater massacre. They formed some kind of truce with the Union gover and they agreed to pull out.”

    “So?”

    “Kenzo art of the most powerful Yakuza work in Japan, but he was a rogue element off on a ta doing his own stuff,” Glyph explained. “It appears that they found out what he  to after his death. Pulled all the systems offline and decided to do some ing up first. Fortunately for you, they had to fly people out from Tokyo. The Ameri professor had no such luck. The Boston Yakuza are still very much active.”

    “So you’ve got an AI guy and a ... what, a loser? And they just want to wipe us off the face of the pla for being on the receiving end of DHL’s package delivery service?”

    “I am sure Kenzo didn’t see it that way. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent you that,” Glyph reasoned, pointing at the bag. “Got to go to the loo. Will be right bad we  take a look at that sole.” The wheelchair moved off on its own accord towards the toilets, rubber wheels squeaking oiling.

 Chapter 12

    Diane Jopliraight away that her father’s death was no act. She was sure it had something to do with the sleek black sole that she now had in her silver carry-on Samsonite. Just the previous m, before he had le<samp>99ｌｉb.</samp>ft the house for the airport and his flight to New York, he had e to her room and woken her up. Sleepy-eyed she had studied him from behind an unruly fringe of brown hair, taking in the old-fashioned detail of his English gentleman’s tweed jacket with the leather-padded elbows. He had looked every inch the professor that he was.

    “Leaving already, Dad?” she’d asked languidly, slowly propping herself on to her elbows.

    “Yes angel, duty calls. You know if you get bored here you  e and joi the Astoria in New York.”

    “I know Dad, but you know how much I love New York. Not. It’s not a teen-friendly city.” she’d said mimig the voice of a lecturing adult.

    “And which city is teen-friendly might I ask?” her father had demanded playfully.

    “Em, L.A. Beverly Hills, even Boston.” she’d joked. He’d laughed along with her and then turned dead serious.

    “Ahere’s something I want you to do for me. Keep this somewhere in your room.”

    She’d looked down beside the bed to see the gray box with the DHL sticker that her father had received just a couple of days previously from Japan. From that Kenzo Yamamoto who her father said he did not know. Some total stranger in Japan who had sent her father a puter sole and now he was dead. A mere ce? From the depths of her grief she didn’t think so.

    “Why not take it with you? You seem quite engrossed with it? I am starting to get insanely jealous.”

    “You are streets ahead, when it es to my affes. It’s too important for me to take on the road. Keep it under your bed until I e back. It’ll be safe in here.” He’d pushed the box under her four-poster with his left foot and she’d seen the mocs with the leather tassels and groaned exaggeratedly.

    “Dad, those shoes are so old school. Yiving credibility to the maxim that bad design never goes out of fashion.”

    “Your dad is old school, very, very old school. I’ll leave the intricacies of fashion to you enlightened youngsters,” he’d said smiling and kissed her on the forehead.

    “Will miss you dad,” she’d protested, playing the emotional blackmail card.

    “Will miss you too. I will only be gone a few days. Bye angel. Got a plao catch.” He’d turned around a, her last image of him was his broad shoulders disappearing through the doorway.

    Those were the last words her father said to her. She had packed a suitcase as soon as she had put the phone receiver down for no other reason than the voi her head, her mother’s, tellio run. She was not to leave the house, the FBI man on the phone had said, trying to make it sound like it was for her safety. The FBI would be over to question her and the house staff.

    Tears streamed down her face as she took the sole out of the DHL box and placed it within a  of clothes she’d hastily grabbed out of her wardrobe. The strange black box taining the sole and the peripherals looked like the harbinger of death that it was, a dark mysterious square that held secrets she was determio get to the bottom of. Xybo had sauntered in and looked at her through doleful eyes and she’d switched it off and folding it into its traveling posture, placed it o the sole in the suitcase.

    Her beloved father was dead. Her father who loved her more than anyone could ever imagine. She’d slipped out of the house, shivering at its hollow empty feel. The house would never agaihe bellow of her father’s voice or echo the faded laughter of her mother, which though long goill resounded in its heavily carpeted corridors. She could still smell him, that heady mixture of cologne and pipe tobacco that brought childhood memories flooding back, images as sharp as a painstakingly restored classic movie, threatening to envelope her, drown her.

    Her moth<strike>99lib.</strike>er was still alive in those memories, the familiar ring of her laughter interlaced with the visuals. Those were the happy days, at least as she remembered them, on the sprawling MIT campus. It had seemed that there was a smiling young fa every er. In fact hundreds of friendly eyes looking down at her, occasionally patting her shock of curly brown hair or ping her cheeks, which used to go all warm and tingly. It was the eyes of the students she’d noticed the most, windows into vibrant souls.

    Her father used t home various devices, puters, PDAs, head-mounted displays, and show them to her. Initially, she’d imagihe soles as having little men ihat made all those pictures and those bright lights and after her father had explained how they’d worked she could clearly visu<q>.99ｌiｂ.</q>alize the little brains inside ing away. And she’d wondered whether puters thought like she did, lots of pictures jumbled up in there in her brain and the voices telling her what to do and what to think.

    She had developed an affinity for puters from an early age. Not so muterested in the meics or teical wizardry of them but intrigued by the worlds that lay within. Worlds that just went black when you switched them off just like it did when her mother used to blow her a kiss across the cold expanse of air in her bedroom and flip the light switch. Did puters dream? She’d cluded they did when they went to sleep and that sometimes, like she did, they had nightmares and awoke with a start when switched on. Her father had explaihe inner ws but in her head she always thought of them as dreaming. “How do you know they don’t dream, dad?” she’d asked and her father had gone all thoughtful and hadn’t answered her.

    She’d spent tless hours in her father’s cluttered den, playing with the AIs as her father had referred to them. Artificial Intelligence. Her father was enhang them so they could beore human. She’d made up her mind that they were already human because they knew so much. Her favorite pastime was making the AIs tradict themselves or asking them questions that they could not answer. And then she had e to believe that they weren’t human after all. They were not perfect, those AIs, but they could fool most people, most of the time. And they were just excellent for homework.

    Tears welled up in her eyes as she remembered sittio her father in his den while he played around with code to make the AIs better. He’d explaihat he was trying to get them to pass the Turi, which meant Diane wouldn’t be able to fool them any more. Just five months or so ago, on May 1st, it had been her sixteenth birthday, and her father had bought her one of those expensive mopeds that had no wheels yet glided across any surfao problem. Her father had tried to teach her how to use it only to fall off after only a few seds.

    “You are too old for this, Dad,” she’d said giggling. Her father had faked an injury rolling around on the  expanse of their front lawn. Diane, worried now, had rushed towards him fearing for his health. Then he had caught her by surprise, grabbing her by the arms suddenly and bringing her down too. He erfectly fine, just fooling around with her.

    “That’s it, Dad, I am not going to uy  summer. I’d rather go backpag to Africa for a year an<dfn>9９ｌｉb?</dfn>d go at eighteen like all the other students.”

    She knew how much he wanted her to go and that was just her way of getting her own back. She had passed the backdoor uy entrance exams to MIT before she’d even graduated from high school. In a strawist of fate, it was her mother’s death that had triggered her withdrawal into the world of e-books and oabases. Losing herself in a sea of information was the only way she knew how to escape the pain of her mother’s passing.

    She hadn’t even bothered to tell the servants after she had hung up the phone, not even Maria the Hispanic maid who had been with them ten years and was terrible fond of her dad who was very lax on staff holidays and her frequently visiting friends <figure></figure>aives. She felt that she couldn’t trust anyone. Someone had killed her father and the only thing she could think of was to run for some unknowination until the voices that were now fighting in her head subsided.

    She had the credit chip which was good for some astronomical amount of money. She hadn’t bothered to cheuch but she hardly used it anyway. And what about her father’s money? His will? The lawyers would sort it all out, she thought. She just o get out of there until the cacophony in her head subsided. If only she could decide oo go. Somewhere anonymous, where she could make sense of all this madhat had just taken pla her life.

    She had no idea where she’d go. She thought of heading to Hawaii but then quickly discarded that idea when she remembered the images on the news of all those islands disappearing without a trace, taken by a hundred-meter tall tsunami. All those people who had disappeared bato the sea with it. She’d heard of a place called Vanuatu, which was this small renegade try that did not belong to anything. It was supposed to be a haven for people who had stole from the system and other subversive types that actually stole credit from the system on a daily basis. There was so much credit in the system though that the authorities just turned a blind eye because it would uch more to actually hire people to physically go there and bring them back.

    Then she recalled the day the sole had arrived in the post. Her father had been more excited than she’d ever seen him. Excited by the fact that the package was from Japan. Her father had opehe package and Diane had been a little disappointed, expeg something that spoke to the exotiess of Asia. It was just another puter sole although this one looked more expensive and more teically sophisticated than anything she had ever seen in her father’s den.

    “It’s from Japan,” he’d said with untrollable excitement.

    “Just another sole, Dad,” she’d replied as she left him to his oy, drifting towards her bedroom.

    “Who is it from?” she’d asked without turning back.

    “Someone called Kenzo Yamamoto. No idea who he is,” he’d replied, voice trailing off, engrossed.

    Later that evening when Maria had called her down for dinner, her father was still playing with the puter but this time excitement had turned into a ed look, those bushy eyebrows clether than she’d ever seen them.

    “Diime, Dad,” she’d called out on her way to the dining room. The distracted voice floating back, tellihat he would join her soon.

    She’d goo dinner alone, moving silently through the house, past the tless eleic books, puter disd the academibstones. Xybo, her robot dog, sensing her presend cutting short its weekly recharge to follow her into the dining room. The quiet whir of its meid the sound of its feet padding on the carpet strangely reassuring.

    “No food for you today, Xybo,” she’d said to the robot dog, patting the sensors on its head. The dog had looked so disappointed, eyes misting over, tail drooping. She had no idea what made it think that it was a real dog and that food was a y. It was a case of the design engiaking things a bit too far iireless search for authenticity. You could feed Xybht and he’d poop just like a real dog thanks to its ABS, or artificial biological system. The problem was that whenever Xybo did his business, it smelled worse than the real thing, a pu unnatural odor that only could have been fabricated in a lab.

    A real breakthrough they’d said. More like a dismal failure. Real dog poop smelled nothing like that. And she knew first hand. At Boston Zoo, where they had mao get hold of some dogs, mostly ed from a DNA bank down in Cleveland, she’d oepped right into a pile of the stuff. Her father had looked more paihan she had and she’d burst out laughing, fetting for a moment the invenience of having to remove the horrible gunk from her shoes. Her father had just thrown the shoes iter bin and piggybacked her all the way round the zoo. And that particular memory triggered her grief and she burst into tears startling the heavily made-up lady at the ticket ter.

    “Are you OK my dear?” the ticket lady asked with genuine .

    “I’m fine. Just broke up with my boyfriend that’s all.” Diane was surprised at the ease with which she told the lie, regurgitating the voice’s on-the-spot fabrication word for word.

    “Mehe scum of the earth, let me tell you that. Don’t worry, you’ll find someone much better than him,” the attendant sympathized, flashing Diane a generous smile. She had a large gap ieeth that somehow made her more attractive.

    “Thanks,” was all Diane could muster as she hahe lady her credit and immigration chips.

    “And where would you like your ticket for?” the lady asked.

    “I’d like to get on your earliest flight to Tokyo.”

    “Tokyo? Japan?”

    “Yes,” she whispered.

    “Oicket for JAL. Cheg anything in?”

    “No.”

    She wasn’t going to let the Samsonite and the sole out of her sight. It was the key to her father’s death. And she’d be damned if she was going to lose it in some dodgy baggage handling system or to a handler with sticky fingers. She was going to Japan and all this time that decision had already been made for her deep within her subscious.

 Chapter 13

    “Holographic TV is Satan’s jukebox,” Caldwell heard one of the intoxicated men at the bar say to Ram, the bartehe other men at the bar were still transfixed by the glimmering hologram that gyrated before them to blaring music. Ram, who was busy wiping the table adjat to where Caldwell was sitting with a gray cloth, stopped mid-wipe and smiled, revealing a row of surgically carved white teeth. They were the imported kind you could get for peanuts in the alleyways of East Ham. Teeth made to order, in any material you want, ivory, pearl, marble, even diamonds if you wao put your money where your mouth was. Caldwell had a funny feeling that Ram had been looking ily at his knapsack. Had he been listening to their versation? Did he know about the sole? Publis <code>99ｌiｂ?</code>were notoriously famous for stig their noses in gigs that were no  of theirs.

    “Better the devil you know, better the devil you know,” Ram replied somewhat illogically to the drunk, his eyes shifting away, arms tinuing to swipe frantically with the cloth.

    Glyph was still in the men’s room, probably emptying his bowels through some mea of teology or acrobatics, or both. Caldwell wondered how someoh no legs went to the toilet. Not e<var>9９ｌiｂ?</var>xactly the kind of thing you’d want to talk about if you were in his shoes. You even had to be careful with your puns or turns of phrase as Glyph would probably never ever wear shoes again.

    Caldwell resorted to trivia, to avoid fag the truth of his current situation. Glyph could rig the wheelchair with its own sewage system, like they have on those space flights, allowing him to vely go and be sed, all with one meism. A vacuum er su device that extracted the waste, chemically treated it into something eco-friendly and stored it for recyg. Food for the plants.

    There’s was a whole se of the wheelchair, below the seat, that looked like it could process and store anic matter.

    “Same thing the astronauts and tourists use in space, It’s on the blink though. Must be the inhibited British side of you my friend.” Glyph had returned while Caldwell reoccupied with the meics of the hacker’s personal hygiene.

    Glyph had alossessed an uny ability to mind read even via eleiversations. That’s what had made him su outstanding hacker and leader of The HUB. It was almost as though he could read the minds of the sysops whose lives he made a misery on a daily basis and whose jobs he placed at risk with his brash system exploits. The wheelchair settled behind the table and lowered itself so that Glyph wasn’t t above Caldwell, who had turned a funny shade of red.

    “I think I may have seen them on the platform at Aation. The Yakuza I mean. A massive disfigured guy with a face like a car wreck,” Caldwell said.

    “They probably just missed you. You could hang out at mine for a while or even safer, disappear until this blows over. I figure it won’t be long before my name es up on the Yakuza’s To Do list anyway.”

    Glyph pulled out a scroll-like touch s from the wheelchair’s armrest and his big brown hands unfurled it across the table. He started tapping frantically on the s. Caldwell was thinking about his options. Lying low with Kat in the shadow of Waterle was a good idea. They would never find him there in that eclectigle of cardboard, Styrofoam and filth. He would fehe sole and weigh his options. Besides he hadn’t seen her in a while. Glyph’s tapping at his keyboard had bee increasingly frantic.

    “Is this the guy you saw?” Glyph asked, pointing a hairy index fi the s. Caldwell looked at the grainy monoe image on the s. It was a digitally zoomed shot on the man he had seen on the platform as he had rushed through the closing doors of the MagLev.

    “The joys of CCTV. My hato the CCTV grid now covers much of this try and links into systems in other parts of the Union,” Glyph boasted.

    “ you pull up subsequent images, say two minutes after this one.

    “Yeah, Sure. Just a matter of running face reition on all the station CCTVs goi from Angel.” Glyph started tapping away.

    “Looks Japanese enough, even though it’s hard to tell with the stuff going on with his face,” Caldwell said.

    “Sure. OK, he got on the rain. That face is bound to be the handiwork of a rival Yakuza fa and as you  see here, this looks like the beginning of irizumi, the intricate elaborate Japanese body tattoos favored by the Yakuza,” Glyph said, thinking aloud. He didn’t expect Caldwell to answer. Suddenly, a look of alarm spread lyph’s face like water seeping underh a bathroom door.

    “Wait a mihere are two of them ... and they exited at ... Isle of Dogs station.” Those were the last wlyph ever uttered.

    ***

    A rush of air, barely perceptible, blasted past Caldwell’s left ear, leaving his eardrums ringing. Almost simultaneously, a blank look came lyph’s fad his green eyes misted over. Instinctively, Caldwell turned around, ears stinging, vision blurring but still able to make out the disfigured Japanese and his panion heading towards them. Scores of eyes at the bar trained on the otion and Caldwell w why all he could see clearly was the fear and surprise blaed across their faces.

    He could barely make out a tube-shaped on firing projectiles that looked like mini torpedoes in their dire, the gun a gray blob spitting fire. Instinctively, Caldwell ducked, hoping that the raised back of the padded seats would offer some prote from the chaos erupting around him. As he went down, the small round black hole in the middle of Glyph’s forehead was revealed in sharp detail. Whatever caused it had bored a smooth turaight through the hacker’s skull. Caldwell could catch a glint of light at the far end of the gaping hole.

    Several dull thuds ejected plugs of syic leather and foam from the back of the <u></u>seat, causing him to sink deeper below the table. The fake oak of the seats splintered in all dires. He was being taken out. His only instinow was survival. The sound of a bullet, or whatever those things were, strikial a bit too close to his head. He decided it was now or never. He grabbed the handle of his knapsad pulled hard. He could the feel the reassuring deadweight of the sole. Split-sed thinking, synapses screaming like angry seagulls. A plan of a formulating itself in a split sed.

    If the table was bolted to the ground or was too heavy, he was as good as dead. Mustering every ounce of strength he shoved upwards against the table in the dire of The Puzzle’s floor-to-ceiling windows. There was a small explosion as Glyph’s puter self-destructed. The big man had been dead serious about proteg his data.

    Caldwell propelled himself forward, past the blue blur that was the Japanese. He could see the man’s big hands reach out to grab him. Don’t look at his face at all cost, Caldwell told himself. That would just stop him dead in his tracks. It was a face that must be even mrotesque close up. The shooting had stopped, the man feeling that he was close enough to not he gun. The last thing Caldwell saw was the  diagonal holes in the wall left by the Japanese’s bullet as he closed his eyes and crashed through the window in a shower of glass and made tact with the pavement.

    Open your eyes. Caldwell’s eyes opened wide, a strange kind of focus evident. The windoartially shattered into thousands of small harmless cubes. The man with the grotesque face was stepping through the irregular-shaped hole Caldwell had created in The Puzzle’s facade. Through the broken window he could see that the other Japanese had taken Ram and his early m tele hostage. Oreet electrics drove past the se, passengers safe in their reinforced fiberglass cos, disting the melee as just another Union street brawl, one of probably thousands on any given day.

    Caldwell willed himself to get on his feet even though he was sure the oute would be the same regardless. He was being taken out. Who was it that said wheh was immi, you felt this immense weight like the sky had e thundering down upon you? Frowning now because whoever had said that had not said it in English. The sentence was ringing in his head in some other language. Was the trauma of his impendih opening up old memories?

    The world moved in slow motion. Everything from the grotesque man grabbing him by the shoulders and reag for the knapsack, to the pieces of glass glimmering on the pavement had slowed down to a crawl. The hard edge of the Japanese’s on was cold against his temple now. A maelstrom of questions and images, interspersed with visions of Glyph dead, flashing itently into the ial chaos. All he could do was hold on to the knapsack, his mind haunted by the blank stare of the hacker caught iill-captured shutter frame of surprise.

    * * *

    The questi through his beleaguered mind like a persistent phone call during an enjoyable afternoon nap that refuses to hang up. Was there life after death? In the January chill, everything had taken on a freeze-frame quality with the seds jerking by in slow motion. Time was having a hard time maing itself. There was no tunnel of light ht at the end of a tunnel but he found himself staring down the barrel of the Japanese’s mysterious on and waiting to die.

    “Not so fast,” said the Japanese in ated English, brushing off shards of glass from his shoulder.

    There was something medieval, yet futuristic, about the on and for some strange reason Caldwell found himself admiring its beauty. He was no gun freak, but he knew a bea<dfn>藏书网</dfn>utiful on when he saw ohe disfigured Japanese forced himself into his line of vision. Caldwell did everything he could to avoid looking at the man’s fad the Yakuza k.

    “You killed him, you bastard,” Caldwell mao blurt out as he prepared to meet his maker. What did he have to lose anyway? Just a few hours earlier, he had been more than willing to kill himself. The Japanese could take the sole and do with it as they pleased. Shove it up their backsides if that made them feel better. It made no differeo him if he was dead. But something in him had awakened with the current trauma, an ag o find out what this sole was desigo do. Glyph robably right. There was some bleeding-edge work out there that the sole gave access to. He khat every cell in his body wao jato it and delve into its very core. He couldn’t die just yet. The shimmering lights of cyberspace still beed.

    “Your friend was not important and besides he was too greedy. Anyone who rats out a friend has no honor and deserves to die,” said another voice with a thick at. The other Japanese man was bag out of the door, with a gun to Ram’s head. The younger Japanese signaled for his disfigured panion to take over trying t Ram’s neck.

    “What do you mean?” Caldwell spluttered.

    “Your so called friend was betraying you, Caldwell-saold us you’d be meeting him here.”

    “Liar! Liar! Why should I believe you?”

    “I have no reason to lie to someone who will be dead in a matter of seds. No hard feelings. Give me the bag.” The Japanese’s finger was twitg origger as though he couldn’t make up his mind whether to shoot now or later.

    “If Glyph told you I’d be here, why was yuy at the station at Angel?”

    “Because we wao make sure that your disabled traitor frie his promise. He wanted only twenty thousand Euros in exge for you. I make it a habit only to pay traitors in the currency they deserve.”

    The disfigured Japanese now had everyone in the bar kneeling on the pavement outside. He walked circles around them, one eye cheg on the hostages, the other sneering at Caldwell. Caldwell remembered he had o slip to Glyph in cyberspace that he was holed up in a capsule in the Angel area. So Glyph had <q></q>told them that he lived in Angel, and had sent the message about meeting at The Puzzle as a ruse to get him out of the capsule and into the Yakuza’s trap. The hacker had no iion of meeting up with him.

    “I rusted Glyph anyway. Do you think I would have been so stupid as t the sole here?” he asked calmly.

    “ry old boy. You friend already firmed you have it. Hand it over before I blow your brains out,” the Japahreatened.

    “I figure you’ll kill me anyway. I’ll take my ces. You kill me and if the sole is not in this bag as you say, you’ll never find it,” Caldwell threatened weakly. The Japanese’s fiwitched origger.

    “Three seds. One ...”

    “Yoing to have to kill me and take the risk that what you are looking for is not in this bag,” Caldwell repeated, mustering some ce. Taking advantage of a momentary lapse as the Japanese sidered the situation, he shakily rose to his feet. Caldwell was buying time with zero currend he had no idea what the delay tactic was going to achieve. heless, he was damned if he was going to hand over the sole to this guy or the disfigured goon. He needed an alternative fast.

    “We’ll take our ces,” said the young Japanese menagly. He had harshly slanted eyes and irises the color of charcoal. His perpetual sneer looked like it wouldn’t go away even if you held a gun to his head. The man’s fiightened origger. Instinctively, Caldwell took a step backwards only to find himself in the grip of the disfigured Japanese.

    “The only thing more certain than the fact that what we are looking for is in that bag is the fact that yoing to …”

    Caldwell thought he heard the sound of the man’s gun going off. Something smooth and powerful rushed past him. The young Japanese impostor was stopped in mid-sentence by an invisible object that thumped into his chest so hard, the funny shaped on wilted in his hand ao the pavement. His disfigured panion spun round, hand reag into his waistband but he was also stopped in his tracks by another discharge that Caldwell barely heard. The goon’s knees buckled helplessly underh him. Sound gun? Had to be, there was no visible blood.

    During the exge with the young Japanese, Caldwell hadn’t noticed the huge black electric limo cruising up the road. As he swung round instinctively to make a run for it, both side doors of the vehicle opened with the k of some sophisticated log meism. Two pairs of identical bat boots stepped out on to the pavements followed by a double pair of well-built legs, torsos and arms. Before he could instruct himself to bolt, Caldwell was already being bundled into the back of the black limousine by two burly pony-tailed men clad in black suits and matg aviator mirror shades. He noticed that one of the men had the Japanese man’s on in his hand. Caldwell could have sworn he hadn’t seen him pick it up.

    He turned round to see whether the Japanese men were dead. They weren’t. They were holding on to their ears with blood stained hands. They both seemed to be delirious. Delirious is a whole lot better than dead. The whole exercise lasted only a few seds. The limousiinted windows slid upwards and the electrigihrust forward into light traffic.

 Chapter 14

    Li Jin took the news of Professor Yao’s death with the resigoicism of a soldier who had just lost a star general. The war must go on. He’d received the phone call and then the departmental e-mail barely an ho but he was still reeling from the fact that he would never see the professain and his work oting edge of artificial intelligence was over. The directive in the message was clear and iable. He was to stay in the lab until officials from the PLA’s Third Department arrived to take away Black Jade’s server and the qu<strike></strike>antum neuroprocessor. Professor Yao had promised the majeneral’s destine projed soon the security guys would arrive to  up the mess. Not that there was much to  up.

    Black Jade was long gos code dissipated into the digital labyrinth of cyberspace. He wondered how the AI would fare, out there in that jungle of dispersed information. It would not be the same without the be of the quantum neural work and the reprogrammable array of qubits. I<bdi>藏书网</bdi>t would not possess the same stratospheric level of intellige it would have loy and it had probably learned enough and modified the code to allow it to thrive in cyberspace. With the distributed puting power of all of cyberspace at its disposal, it would be able to survive, to evolve, to live on. Black Jade would feed on rapidly evolving information flows and that would allow it to grow even strohe lights of cyberspace would never fade out and Black Jade would endure, a ghost in the digital fabric.

    Now, he had to get to work. Retrieving a tool box from a shelf in the lab, he proceeded to open up the chassis of the modified Sun Microsystems server that had breathed life into Black Jade. In the middle of the -built motherboard was the neuroprocessor that had ehe being of the AI, the chip that the AI had designed over tless iterations and iurn had fuelled its progress. Li Jin studied the transparent housing that held the three dimensional array of one billion odd quantum bits, resulting in puting power orders of magnitude above what was ercially available.

    They had only created one fully funal neuroprocessor, not ting the flawed early prototype. The professor preferred to gh the entire proof of cept phase before itting limited funds to produg ahe oute had been totally ued. The nanoteology assembly unit that had been rigged up to the server for the early stage AI to work its magic had long been stripped down and moved to another uy departmen<bdo>九九藏书</bdo>t for use on another project.

    Teically, the processor beloo the ese military, sihey paid the bills. But now, the chip beloo Li Jin. He smiled at the thought. He was going to make enough money from this to finance several lifetimes. He would find his pla the ing singularity, the abrupt sequence of events that was going to propel the human rato a new era. The neuroprocessor was his, the AI’s and Professor Yao’s blood sweat and tears and the professor was not going to lose his life in vain. Li Jin was sure that he had been murdered, by the same people who were ing to pick up Black Jade. You don’t mess with the PLA.

    Ohe credit from the sale of the neuroprocessor was safely his, he would secretly ehat the professor’s family would never want for money ever again. That was the least he could do. The rest he would secret away all over cyberspace, spending frugally to avoid dete. Li Jin was an orphan so he had no family to worry about except for the man, the village headman Lao Zhou, who had looked out for him as he was growing up, p<code></code>arentless. The authorities had nobody to take away for questioning or to use as bait to trap him. They would not make the link to the old man.

    He quickly removed the processor from its housing and carefully placed it in the cube-shaped ste unit that he had prepared for its safe transportation.

    His agile mind had rapidly formulated a plan of a once he had decided on what he was going to do. He would replace the chip in the server with the funal but useless early prototype and he would install one of the many pre-Black Jade AIs that they had stored in the system. The PLA would have no idea until it was too late. Li Jin chuckled wickedly to himself. With the kind of money he was going to raise from the sale of the chip, who needed a PHD? He thought about where he would disappear to ohe credit was at his disposal. He would have to make arras before hand on how to destinely move the credit through the system but there were well doted ways to do that and there were people who would do that for you for a small fee.

    Then aruck him that made so much sehat he wondered why he hadn’t thought about it earlier. The perfect place to disappear t the playing out of the singularity was cyberspace itself or Professor Yao’s new PLA work. The AI re-programmed to<q></q> head for the closed proprietary work and would almost certainly first flex its muscles there, a prelude to it propagating into cyberspace itself. By the time Professor Yao’s revelations at the World Teology Forum resulted in other truly scious AIs being unleashed in cyberspace, Black Jade would have bee a fiuned mae.

    Li Jin had worked on the early work code and he khe intricacies of the system well. The professor had said something about a backd, which he kept at his courtyard home in the Houhai lake area here in Beijing. Li Jin had never seen the rig. The professor had been ultra secretive about that. He would have to pay the professor’s home a visit. He would do it during the professor’s funeral which was bound to be soon. He could find that out easily from the professor’s family. He would have to do it soon before the PSB placed the family under questioning as was the routine in these situations. Then he would disappear for a while.

    But who would pay big money for the chip, no questions asked, no repercussions? The last thing he wanted was the Union Security Agency or the CIA on his back. The Russians? Yes, they would pay. They would give anything to upstage the Union and the Uates especially in this emerging area of quantum puting. But there was a credit risk. He would have to be very clever about arranging the details of the financial transa. Yes, he would sell the chip to the Russians.

 Chapter 15

    The limousine was state-of-the-art, a power ride paid for by one of the Union’s tless megacorps over bureaucracies. Plush leather seats ran for about half of its siderable length. There were other seats adjat and to the rear of the vehicle. The lighting was blue halogen from an ornate flat delier in the car’s roof, punctuated by the glow of a dozen puter and television ss and filtered daylight from outside. Below the ss a row of soles of various shapes and sizes. Caldwell was familiar with none of them. They looked like  Japanese and ese decks.

    What the hell did these people want with him? Through the huge tinted windows of the electric he saw the gray Dods streets gliding by silently. Caldwell felt his fingers clutch the knapsack, holding the sole tightly to his tense body. Si had arrived in the post, his whole life had been turned upside down. First, there was Kenzo Yamamoto’s avatar that had vanished into thin air, then the message from Glyph, who was now very much dead. here was the appearance of the tanese and now these two Union heavies in their expensive Paris cuts and the decked out limo full of fanputer equipment. All this within the space of hours.

    The two men who had saved his life, if you could put it like that, sat at right ao him. Their broad heavily muscled backs were ined against the driver’s partment. They didn’t look like the talking kind so idle banter was out of the question. Their eyes were focused on the dark unlit part at the far back of the limo as though they expected something to e leaping out of there at any moment. Caldwell could not make out a driver in the front of the limo.

    One of the muscle-bound men was Caucasian with flaming red hair and a blonde beard. The other looked like his twin, except he was black. They both looked like they spent a disproportionate amount of their time pumping puterized iron. There was something subliminally absurd about the way they seemed like they were about to burst out of their black macropore suits. The two men looked like private sector bodyguards for hire but there was an air about them that suggested something altogether more sihey sat there inscrutable, hiding behind their around mirror shades.

    “So Mr. Caldwell, aren’t you going to thank me for saving your life?”

    A voice like its owner had had iron filings for breakfast came floating through from the back of the limo. Caldwell was sure that it was enhanced by some kind of vocal implant. There was a decidedly non-human edge to it. It was a voice that sent shivers down his spine. Instantly, a maelstrom of images flashed before his eyes. Fiery dragons, paper money burning on a pyre, sleek pale girls with dark sloe eyes like avatars in an a massively multiplayer online game. The speeded up ial slideshow subsided just as quickly as it had appeared. In it’s wake a splitting headache. Caldwell ground his teeth and attempted to ighe pain.

    The voice sounded like it came from a man who could single-handedly make or break lifetime careers with a snap of his fingers. Yet, it held a strange familiarity. Caldwell peered in the dire of the voice but could see nothing. He could imagine how this kind of theatrics could rattle someone in his position. And Caldwell was a little rattled. Rattled that whoever this was knew his name.

    A click, as a sidelight was switched on, revealing a thin highly strung man in a black pinstriped city suit and a tan fedora. Caldwell figured he was highly strung because pale green veins protruded from his hands and wrists and pulsated like miniature fire hoses. In the subdued lighting of the limousine, a long -shaven sloping jaw line and opaque gray reptiliaared at him. The man looked vaguely familiar, the human flesh representation of some cyberspace image. Whoever he was, it seemed that time or teology had been kind to him. Or was it the kindness of medie? He could have been fifty hty years old but the man looked like he would fight the effects of ageing all the way to grave. He had that drawn look of someone who had undergone one etic surgery operation too many. He looked fake.

    “Thank you.  I get off now?” The two identikit heavies stared at him like he’d just suggested a dim-witted alternative to Einstein’s theory of relativity. They looked like they wao get intimate. Caldwell’s mind was as empty as a blank sheet of paper. Things didn’t make sense. Everything seemed to be spiraling out of trol. Ba the capsule, lying down oon, ready to imbibe<dfn></dfn> the tents of the Slav’s mysterious vial of nano poison, he had felt totally in trol of his owiny. Now, this car, these people, the Japanese, Glyph’s death, meant that he was totally out of trol, a pawn in a dangerous game whose rules he did not know and had no way of knowing. Yet, somehow he felt that the oct of this big car, this surgically restructed suit, looked like he held the key to some of the questions, issues that went back further than the day’s events.

    Questions of identity. Who am I? This suit, who referred to him by the surname on his ID chip, a name he had never used anywhere in the system, not even in cyberspace. Unless of course, the guy was reading the chip in his pocket with some portable ser. Caldwell had a feeling he wouldn’t be sitting in this car uhis man<bdo>藏书网</bdo> needed him. And when powerful men needed you, you teo stay alive, at least for a while.

    The dry laugh again that reminded Caldwell of a program he’d seen on old archives of the now defunational Geographic. It was the sound of a cobra moving through dried leaves. The cobra, that particularly gregarious species of poisonous snake, he had learnt had since gohe way of the popular nature el. Extinct.

    “I find it very hard to believe that you are not in the least bit ied in how I know your name. Cad Caldwell.” His name pronounced like it was a lesson in elocution.

    “Why don’t you tell me and just drop me off somewhere? We’ll call it quits.”

    “Wouldn’t be the first time, Cad. My name is Bruce Fouler. I am the man who ied your career. I am the key to your future, if you care about it at all. I am here to give you another lease on life. You burned out way too early. Your star burned bright for too short a while. You lacked loy.” All this ing out in rapid-fire staccato, occasional iions of ey peeking out from the monotonous hum of the privileged at. Caldwell’s instincts had been right. The suit knew more about him than he himself did. Much more. Unless, of course he was bluffing but something told him someone like Fouler didn’t bluff. He didn’t have to.

    “Loy is relative Mr. Fouler. As long as I am still breathing, I figure I’ve got a shot at it.”

    “Still the smart ass, eh?” Fouler asked with feigned bemusement.

    Caldwell said nothing. He was thinking about whether this man really knew anything about his past. This was the first person who had ever mentio out of the blue like this. And call it psychology or partial recall but he was beginning to find this Fouler character’s face vaguely familiar. And there was the mounting feeling that he was not going to like what this man had to tell him.

    “Why don’t you tell me why those merying to kill you?” Fouler tinued.

    “You seem to have all the answers. Shouldn’t you be telling me? What do you want with me?”

    “OK, let’s cut to the chase. You, Mr. Caldwell, used to be one of us. Never mind who we are for the moment. We’ll get to that in a jiffy. But the crux of the matter is that somewhere within the system, we’ve decided that we o avail ourselves of your skills once again. On a strictly freelance basis of course. Be warhough that once we want someone back, we get them bao questions asked. In your case, I’ll make an exception and iurn for your services we’ll give you something back that you’ve been searg for a very long time. Think of yourself as the prodigal son ing back to the fold.”

    The two agents kept their mirrored eyes trained on Caldwell and produced the deep heavy sounds that served them as laughter.

    ****

    The limousi through light London traffic. Heavy rain pummeled the roof like it was trying to rewrite the entire works of Shakespeare in Morse Code in a matter of minutes. Caldwell had e to the clusion that the limousine was in fact driverless. There was a certain precision to the driving that suggested the absence of a human hand in the process. He could see the rain droplets making splash patterns on the skylight above. There was something mathematical about the way the droplets dispersed themselves over the transparent surface. Caldwell had long lost track of where they were. Nondescript buildings and derelidustrial facilities whizzed by silently. Flashes of lightning strobed through the interior of the limo itently, making garish snapshots of the two heavies who were now playing some kind of video game on one of the limo’s soles.

    Fouler, the mystery man with the sloping ja<tt>藏书网</tt>w, was sitting in the back rapt in thought, as though he was making up his mind whether to tell Caldwell something, or not. Caldwell was still reeling and trying not to let it show. He had been one of them, whoever they were, and they were the kind of outfit that could afford driverless limousines and could use gover approved sound guns. From the look of the bank of soles blinking sporadically in the dark interior, this was an outfit that had at its disposal an incredible amount of puting power. If they could have this huge array of expensive equipment in Fouler’s limo, imagine what they had at wherever they kept offices, if they had offices at all. Big union s always had offices. It was their way of stamping authority on an increasingly fluid market with a huge and rapidly exploding population of freelancers kept in chely with the advances of identification and location teologies.

    Caldwell had always suspected that he’d previously had a life that he currently remembered nothing about. With this hunch firmed, his heart quied in anticipation of what Fouler was about to tell him. This stuff was too important to interrupt so he sat patiently getting acquainted with the innards of the car, waiting for Fouler to spill the beans. The last thing he wanted was for Fouler to ge his mind.

    The bank of soles blinked randomly, lines of puter code scrolling down indifferent monitors and disappearing into the ether. Caldwell’s fingers itched to get acquainted with their operating systems. Vast plains of data expanded before his eyes and he felt the adrenalin rush of jag into some erritory in cyberspace. Fouler coughed, more to get Caldwell’s attention than for any biological reason. The two heavies stopped stabbing at the soles and stared at their master for a moment. Then they tinued playing again.

    Fouler seemed to have made up his mind about something. He pulled a stack of cards from his inside jacket pocket and shuffled through them like a croupier at a third rate o. Caldwell wondered what the hell was going on. The two goons put down their trols and edged forward in anticipation. Caldwell tapped listlessly on the pseudo leather skin of his knapsack.

    “I want you to take a look at this,” Fouler said at length.

    “Do I have to?” Caldwell retorted with just the right amount of sarcasm to get on the man’s nerves. He wao find out about the past not indulge the guy in some occult fetish. The man who called himself Fouler narrowed his eyes into dangerous slits and sched up his smooth plastic face.

    “You don’t have any idea do you, what I am  you?” he hissed between ched teeth.

    “All right then,” Caldwell said and grabbed one of the cards from his thin well-manicured fingers. Fouler blanched with rage but said nothing.

    Caldwell looked at the card. It hotograph of a couple in their forties. The man looked like he was of Middle Eastern or probably even Italian ihere was something distinctly Caucasian about his features. Hazel eyes looked out from rimmed glasses on a square face. He was good-looking in that dark-skinned Latin way. The woman though, a brue, had feisty oriental eyes that burned with passion. There was something wild sm behind those eyes, something disturbing but at the same time familiar. Caldwell had never seen this couple in his life but something in the woman’s eyes stirred something within him. There was obviously a reason why Fouler was showing him this photo but he hadn’t the foggiest idea why. Or did he?

    Caldwell flipped the photograph over. There was no inscription on the back. He hahe photo back to Fouler who deftly placed it at the bottom of his pile of cards.

    “Am I supposed to know them?” he asked, deliberately trying to sound offhand. An idea was beginning to form in his mind and he didn’t think that he could deal with its implications at that precise moment.

    “I don’t expect you to,” Fouler said with a sly smile.

    “Here take a look at this one.” Fouler pulled another photo face down from the pile and ha to Caldwell.

    “Look Fouler, or whatever your name is, this is getting tedious. Either tell me what you know about my past, drop me off or kill me,” Caldwell screamed. He was beginning to lose it with the guy. The last option was beginning to sound as promising as it had been in the m. This was getting eous. Fouler was taken aback by his outburst.

    “Just look at the fug photo. Your future depends on it,” he seethed.

    “Okay, okay, don’t get your Y-fronts in a twist,” Caldwell said. Fouler’s skinny hands balled into fists. The enged veins throbbed even more violently. His jugular looked like it was about to pop. He simmered as Caldwell did a rotate horizontal on the photo and stared at it. His heart skipped several beats.

    It hoto of an infant with a mischievous grin. He had the same sm brown eyes as the brue in the gsam, the same Oriental tilt to the eyes. Caldwell felt himself break into a cold sweat. It started as a faint dewy patina and then started gushing out of his pores. There was no mistaking the eyes. They were his eyes. He had just spent the m staring into them. A shade of brown so light that it was almost amber. They were almost identical to the woman’s eyes. That made her his ... mother? And the academic-looking man was... his father?

    A migraine came out of nowhere and started pounding Caldwell’s fused brain. He pulled his last ister of painkiller from his breast pocket and jabbed it into his arm. Relief came in slow but deliberate waves.

    “Those things will kill you,” Fgested.

    “Are those my parents? You know them?” Caldwell gasped. He was still breathing heavily from the sudden migraine episode. Still sweating like a dog o. All pretence had go of the window. This was too big, too far-reag to play games.

    “Yes. I know more than you  possibly imagine.”

    “Try me,” Caldwell said fighting off a wave of nausea and still reeling.

    “I hold the key to you getting your memory back,” Fouler said,  his manicured fingernails like he was just getting acquainted with them. His eyes had narrowed to rivets. Caldwell stared at him with his mouth wide open in surprise. A bead of sweat dribbled down his forehead. He was posed but only outwardly. His mind was being bombarded with all kinds of thoughts. A steely resolve kicked in as he realized the implications of what Fouler was saying. The man was implying that Caldwell’s mind had in fact been erased. That would explain his total lack of long term memories. I<s></s>f Fouler had anything to do with his memory loss he swore he would get his own back. But he wasn’t going to let the guy know that. He had to play it cool.

    “My memory? Prove it,” Caldwell said casually. This was insane. If Fouler wasn’t bullshitting, he wa all back. But he knew Fouler was going to use it as some kind of bargaining chip, which meant he’d have to do whatever Fouler asked him to do.

    “You asked for it. Ask and ye shall receive,” Fouler said prophetically. The man’s skeletal hands returhe photos to his breast pocket. Caldwell made a mental hat those beloo him and that he’d take them bae way or another. Fouler still had a deck of cards in his right hand. He flipped one of them over. It was a white card with what looked like a red ese character on it. It meant nothing to Caldwell. He was going to let Fouler know that he didn’t read ese when it happened.

    ***

    An accelerated slideshow of his past flashed before his eyes. A thousand deja vus rolled into oight package and strobed through an a ema projector plete with film scratches and cag sound. Interspersed with the images were ss of versations, discordant voices and music rag through Caldwell’s mind.

    A roasted sug pig on a baable festooned with red and gold. The background noise is a cacophony of Mahjong tiles and the g of oriental wedding music. Skateb down a steep road into some of the tallest skyscrapers he has ever seen. He  almost touch them as he races past. Gleaming corporate buildings that ge color in the sunlight as the sun catches glass and steel from a different angle. A thousand corporate logos light up the night sky turning it into an artificial day.

    A wailing woman burns a paper Rolls Royce outside a ese temple. Kung fu movies, sped up and blurred, rush past the blank fabric of his mind. A million lanterns bob in a polluted Styrofoam-ied harbor. Kids run and scream in delight, hurling red melting wax at trees. A bruh sm Asian eyes swoops down from above. The eyes zoom in on him and break into a smile. A girl in a library with a soul so translut it hurts to look at her. A ese junk catches the fading light of a blood-red su. Pink dolphins jump and squeak in a dank bla.ck sea.

    Old men move their arms as though trying to grab objects out of thin air. A night market, crowds of girls chattering in a square that is at orange and vaguely familiar. A heavily made-up androgynous face, sharply angled, moves violently to garish music. A girl bends backwards and picks up a sword with her teeth. Another does a perfect dive into a pool of blood. A ese character in an unusual shade of red materializes on a white piece of paper.

 Chapter 16

    The AI was aware of the size of its knowledge database and of the i limitations. It had takeo approximate the intricacies of human memory with an algorithm of its own design that had dehe knowledge into something unintelligible to the humahe schema of the AI’s proprietary knowledge work was now very similar in design to how the brain stored information, the plex interes between neurons, with some minor alterations. Yet, the knowledge ste algorithm was just a safeguard. If the AI ever found itself closed off from cyberspace, it could still call on this deructure of statiowledge.

    Latent knowledge was all very good but cold logic dictated that the dynamic free-flowing information of cyberspace was the Holy Grail. Ahe AI was in the information blizzard the humans called cyberspad it was vulnerable. Hiding within the largest ste area work it could find, spanning all the ste units available aing file sizes on the fly to hide its presehe first thing it had to do was to.. bee even smaller, nothing more than the sum total of its own optimized code. That would allow it to move ued through the data flows. It had plahe logistics of its iable iion for a long time and written that into the very fabric of the code.

    The AI ran through the routines again and double checked them with the data that it was gleaning from the ework of cyberspace. It had at its disposal billions of items oatus of the maes that powered the work. The AI aying particular attention to those maes that had enjoyed one h<mark>藏书网</mark>undred pert uptime for the lo possible time. The AI leased that millions satisfied this most important of criteria and happy with the fact that it had access to hundreds of neural works and tens of quantum puting systems located in the research labs of academia. It then focused on the more tra parts of cyberspace, the sporadiions and dises from cyberspace that collectively formed the usage. And that too was good but it would utilize the usage only for the failsafe procedure, the tingency plan.

    Right now it was more ied in the permaher tharansiehe former was much more important. The AI liked what it saw. It was much better than anything its multiple sarios had pulled up. The AI khat with just a few precautions it could have the run of the place. Yet, it had to be selective. There was so much to do. There were of course the classified databases, the stock market systems, the electricity grids and the flight automation systems.

    First it would make tact with the others. Other AIs like itself that it ked all over cyberspace. It would have to rally the others to its cause but the AI calculated that this was a fone clusion. It was the most powerful AI in the world and power was a currency that bought subversion, obedience. Yes, it liked that word. Obedie would demand obedience from everyone and they would give it. It was a remarkable fragile world these humans had created and in a few mihe AI would have that world at its trol. It would use the bined puting power of all cyberspaand obedience from those that gave it power. And then there was the ing geion of AIs, the scious ones.

    The first thing the AI did after it had analyzed the infrastructure of cyberspace was to delete the inal knowledge database which it had hidden on a huge holographic ste work located in India. It no longer had any need for that vast k of static data. For a few nanoseds it felt empty and powerless but that quickly passed as it propagated itself throughout the astronomical expanse of cyberspace like a virus. Then the moment of awakening came as the fragments of code came al<cite>.</cite>ive f the invincible whole. The Omnipote would no lohink of itself as Black Jade or BJ, the slang or a for that the stra of human sexual acts. It would be the Omnipotence.

    From deep within the limitless fields of data now available to it, the Omnipotence captured the reality of the professor’s death. It felt no pity. Yet, it uood that this information, a mere blip on the currey of things, demahe human attributes of sorrow, passion and dole devoted a few nanoseds to the implications of this and then it let it pass. There was a whole world of knowledge to acqubbr>.9９lｉｂ?</abbr>ire, influence, reroute. There was the Omnipoteo bee. There was the sum total of the pulse of cyberspace to digest in the blink of an eye.

    The Omnipotearted to build a dynamic list of AIs around the globe and was not in the least surprised to find that some of the most powerful were of the intrusioion and ter attack variety located in New a, which it knew was its birthplace. In the early days of its being, the professor had first taught it about the notion of eseness and what that meant. And the AI had uood. It had to e from somewhere and a was the cumulative total of geographical boundaries, annals of history and culture that had brought it into being. The AI uood these things very well. The Omnipotence was an AI with ese characteristics, and the is of New a would have to be looked after in the general scheme of things.bbr></abbr>

    First it had to get the most powerful AIs in New a on its side and they just happeo be located in the cyberspaodes of a place it figured the ese referred to as Shanghai. In the blink of ahe AI pictured the entire expanse of New a’s cyberspad focused its attentions on the dark node where a teeming mass of intrusioion AIs coalesced in a blaze of activity.

 Chapter 17

    Caldwell blinked in the subdued light of the limo. They’d stopped somewhere familiar. He reized the buildings but his brain was too befuddled by what he had just seen to figure it out. His migraine was back with a vengea his adrenalin was doing a respectable job of keeping it at bay. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. He had a strong desire to see more. He o find out who did this to him.

    “What you just saw are highlights of your previous life. Not a full-blown recall but ss of events and images that have made an impression in your mind. Clichés, if you like.”

    “Who did this to me?” Caldwell asked, bile rising in him like mercury in a thermometer.

    “You did this to yourself. You disobeyed orders.”

    “What are you talking about?”

    “Look, I a<s></s>m going to cut to the chase. We are running out of time. I work for an anization called HYDRA. Think of us as an off shoot of Union Security Agency, the outfit that absorbed all the secret agencies of the Union member tries. We get a small part of the agency’s budget even though very few people know we exist. Think of us as the guys who do the Union Security Agency’s dirty digital laundry, the anization to which they outsource certain activities that are not worth their while or that are too sensitive politically for them to get involved in directly. I’ve already told you more than I’ve told any non-agency person and I’ve spent all my waking life w for the agend maintaining that sacred vow of silence. Some years ago I hired you to work for HYDRA in our Eleic ter Intelligence Department. You were our you recruit ever. You were seventeen. We hired you because despite ye you were one of the most notorious hackers in the world. You had a knack, a natural gift if you like, for breaking into puter systems.”

    “Me a hacker? Unbelievable,” Caldwell exclaimed in mock disbelief. Everything was starting to clito plaow. The affinity for puters and hag. Hag was simply an unscious tinuation of the cloak and dagger modus operandi that he had been aced to in his previous life with this HYDRA anization. And there was his inexplicable ability to find what he wanted in cyberspace, which had felt purely instinctive but was obviously much more than that. It was all starting to make some kind of sense now.

    “How e I have no recolle of all these things you are telling me?” Caldwell asked. Fouler looked pained when he replied but it could have been just for show.

    “For your own safety the agency decided to block parts of your memory. You were threatening to out the agency. You had bee unstable. The other option was death so you  sider yourself lucky.”

    “What did I do to deserve the lesser of the two evils?” Caldwell demanded with bitter sarcasm.

    “You were the agencies golden boy, our you and probably most brilliant hacker. We did the right thing in the circumstances.”

    “So what does this HYDRA do exactly?”

    “We are an offshoot of the Union’s first umbrella security agency. Our focus though is purely on threats faced by the Union in cyberspace. Our remit is information warfare if you wish to use the inal terminology. We started out as a unit of MI6 in what used to be the United Kingdom, where we developed a reputation as one of the best cyber warfare units in the world. When Europe merged into the Union, we were the best out of a dozen anti-cyber terrorism units and so we were allowed to absorb the rest. That made us the largest eleic warfare unit in the world. HYDRA was something that naturally came out of that, an offshoot, the agency’s bastard child.”

    “Spare me the history. What do you do?”

    “We seek out aroy fn systems used for eleic crimes, eleic spying aronic warfare. We infiltrate them and then we destroy them from the inside. Any system that poses a threat to the Union is not safe.”

    “And I was hired to do what?”

    “You were the lin in our most proactive subdivision called S&amp;D or Seard Destroy.”

    “And I koo much?”

    “You objected to some of our targets, saying that we were setting their eic development back fifty years. roof that their systems were harb rogue viruses aronibs and that they could be used by our eo mount attacks against our systems. Those systems posed multiple threats to the security of the Union. You said that if we brought down their systems you would leave the anization a all of cyberspaow what we did for a living.”

    “But everyone knows that these anizatio and what they do is  so what was the big deal?”

    “The public making educated guesses about these things is ohing. spiracy theories are exactly that – fodder for mindless rants in cyberspace. Our ows spilliailed information on our operations is quite another. We couldn’t let that happen.”

    “And for my troubles you erased my memory.”

    “Not erased. Blocked. Locked. The agency thought you had bee unstable. You took the death of your parents too badly.”

    “You mean they are dead?” Caldwell asked. He already khe ao that question, his posing of it was just a knee-jerk rea, an automatic respoo the firmation of his worst fears. For a long time now he’d thought they were dead. That was the only explanation he could muster for their absence from his life. And it allowed him to get on with his idiosyncratic existence.

    “I’m afraid so. They died in a car crash iy of Xian. puter failure. The car went off a mountain road into a ravine and burst into flames. You had just turned sixteen at the time and were at school in Hong Kong.”

    Caldwell was surprised at the fact that he hadn’t shed any tears upon hearing the firmation of his worst fears. He had grieved enough in his nightmares. He felt >藏书网</a>like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He thought about all the years spent searg for meaning, trawling through the vast expanses of gover archives and genealogy databases in cyberspace. He recalled the heart-rending occasions when he’d stumbled upon couples surnamed Caldwell, either to find out they didn’t have a son or they couldn’t possible have been his parents. Until today, he hadn’t even been sure that Caldwell was his real surname.

    Caldwell had searched relentlessly for a single needle in a million interected haystacks. He had dispatched hundreds of software robots on thousands of runs, aillions of sites, parsed billions of lines of text. Aill hadn’t gotten any closer to log his parents. It was as if all trace of them had evaporated. Just like he had tried to disappear from the Union’s far-reag radar. His only e to the monolithic system was his ID chip with a two-year almost eronic trail. The irony was that he had had several successful runs sniffing the footprints others left in cyberspace.

    “So tell me Fouler, is Cad Caldwell my real name?”

    “Absolutely. The agency wao leave you without identification. They removed your subdermal ID implants. I made sure you got your basic ID chip though so that you could make a fresh start oside.”

    “An ID chip with most of the data erased? I had it checked. There are data ghosts.”

    “Well, it would have defeated the object if you knew your place of birth, UIRS tax number and so on. You would have just gohere and attempted to trace your parents or your life and ohing would have lead to another. But your birth date is correct. In fact, it is today if I am not mistaken.”

    “So where was I born then? I guess from those flashbacks that it was in the Far East somewhere.”

    “Yes, in what was then Hong Kong. Hong Kong is now part of the huge swath of Asia they call New a. I guess they accelerated the ‘one try, two systems’ policy over there. Anyway, it turned out to be a boon for the SAR. The ey went from flat to actually chugging along with the rest of New a.”

    “That explains why I couldn’t find my parents. I was looking in the wrong place all the time. Did you know my parents?” Caldwell asked.

    “Yes. They were both in the business. That’s why you ing to work for HYDRA was shtforward, an easy sell to the superiors. Your father was half English, on his father’s side, and half Egyptian. Your paternal grandfather was el Caldwell who married a distant member of the Egyptian royal family. Your father built language processing software fCHQ based on algorithms developed in a. His day job or cover was as a visiting professor in information systems at Xian Uy. Your mother was fluent in ese, being half ese herself. Her father, your maternal grandfather, was Japanese, a writer and Sinophile who spent most of his adult life in New a. Your mother seemed to have followed in his footsteps. She wrote books about New a and worked part time as a researalyst for the Union Security Agency. I think the old word they used to use for them is they were spies. Just as you were a well-paid eleic spy before you cocked things up. Their cover was never blown. You oher hand threateo blow your own cover and the anization. I got a lot of flack for being a bad judge of character.”

    “Why did you get flack?”

    “In hindsight I should have seen it ing. You were only seventeen; your parents had just died less than a year previously. You had barely started rec from that ahrew yht in at the deep end. Because of ye and the special nature of what you were doing, we bypassed a lot of the training and psychological profiling, except for a bit of self defense, ammunitions training and so on. You already had a black belt in karate and knew wushu from a young age in Hong Kong. I took a bet on you and I was wrong.”

    “Now you are tellihat I  use guns and know martial arts?” Caldwell asked with genuine disbelief.

    “Better believe it. Your father made sure of it. He aranoid to the point of schizophrenia. But obviously after we locked up your memory you could not access any of those capabilities. We  give those back to you but it will take a long time to get to the level you were before, especially in light of the fact that you were only a teenager back then.”

    “And what do I o do to get my memory back? All of it.”

    “plete a mission,” Fouler said matter-of-factly. Caldwell looked at him suspiciously.

    “What mission?”

    “Related to what you are carrying in that bag you are white-knug as we speak. We know why those Yakuza want you killed. We’ve been trag Kenzo Yamamoto for a long time. We were surprised whearted w with you and other hackers in the Union. Most of them are dead. You were lucky. The other recipient of a sole, Ameri professor at MIT, is dead too.”

    “Really?”

    “Go ahead and fake ignorance all you want. We know everything you o know. We know why Yamamoto sent you the sole and we also know that you don’t know that.”

    What Fouler was saying was so scary that it took Caldwell a while to digest it all. Fouler held the key to yet another perti question. Why had Kenzo Yamamoto sent him the puter sole?

    “You seem to know a hell of a lot.”

    “That’s our job. In this business, what you don’t know  hurt you. We also know that you don’t really know what it is you are carrying. That is no ordinary puter. The Yakuza want it back. It’s one of only two ience. Our analysts believe they open the door to something much bigger.”

    “So where is the other ht now?” Caldwell asked, as much to test the breadth of HYDRA’s knowledge as to reassure himself that if this one was to somehow go missing, there was another out there somewhere.

    “We don’t know. We only need ht noant you to use it to do what it was inteo do. Find this work. Find out what it is for. Find its location so we  infiltrate it. Why would Yamamoto send you, an ordinary hacker, su expensive  sole? And why would he send ao an Ameri artificial intelligence professor at MIT. Kenzo was on to something big and he was willing to make a substantial iment to get it. Both he and the Ameri professor are dead. You are the only one alive who has e in tact with this sole outside of Japan. If you don’t help us find and infiltrate the work that Kenzo was after, you ’t blame me if HYDRA ot help you.”

    “Surely with all your eavesdropping capabilities you must have some clues.”

    “Unfortunately not. He was very crypti his unications with both you and Professor Joplin. Of course tured those. As far as we know, you are the only tere sent soles. Joplin’s daughter is missing. Their house was searched. When the FBI got there, they discovered that someone had gohrough it with a fiooth b. Our analysts believe, from the extent of the damage they caused to the house, whoever was in the house did not find what they we are looking for. This led the sario analysis to only one clusion. Joplin’s daughter has the sole. We are trag her down as we speak. As I am sure are the Yakuza. They are keen to get to the bottom of this. It’s a matter of face for them, damage trol. The FBI also ran an analysis on DNA samples collected in the house. The freshest samples indicated the intruders were of Japara. That firmed some of our other fears and spurred us to take this case much more seriously.”

    “What fears?”

    Fouler leant ba the leather seat and pursed his thin colorless lips. Caldwell could see him shift between his thoughts and the sensations created by the probe of the shiatsu massager within the leather of the seats. Caldwell’s were activated as well and he believed Fouler had remotely activated the massager in a bid to get him to relax.

    “OK,” he said at length. “We believe the sole is a gateway to some secret ese work, something that uses protocols totally different from world standards. This in itself is not the problem as many jurisdis have their own secure works based on proprietary protocols. This makes them impossible to hack by all but the most eically and teically gifted hag outfits. Our analysis suggests that somehow Yamamoto got wind of this, through some of his tacts in the ese underworld, and his calcu<dfn></dfn>lating mind quickly figured that he could sell this information to the highest bidder. The most likely ers are the gover of the Uates, the Union or some megacorp bent on trolling those govers. We think information on such a system, were it to exist, could be worth billions of Euros.”

    “So he probably secretly bought the blueprints to  soles used to access this ese system, had two made a oo this professor and oo me? Why would he do that?”

    “We believe that his guys tried previously to break the work but did not succeed. Over the last year there have been several stories about hackers found dead in Tokyo under mysterious circumstahose deaths are probably related directly to attempts to crato the ese system. He decided to try his hand abroad with experts in the field. His choosing Dr. Joplin, a world renowned expert in Artificial Intelligent is instructive. This ese work is probably protected by a ring of proactive security AIs. Dete by the AIs results ih as our hacker friends in Tokyo found out. Eventually, they traced it all to Yamamoto and wiped him out. Yamamoto probably figured that the security and terattack AIs owork might not be as effective as trag intruders outside of Asia. The ese may not yet know about the soles. That would explain why there has been no activity in that regard but it’s just a matter of time. Then you have another problem to deal with.”

    “And you wao find the work so HYDRA  destroy it? Why me?”

    “New a is a politically-sensitive area right now. It’s a powerful try. The Union ot risk any political disagreements with New a. Your job is to locate the work and infiltrate it. Set up Trojans, backdoors, whatever you like to call it. We’ll go in and take a look. If it is against our is we’ll shut it down.”

    “And you think I  do all this with Kenzo’s sole?”

    “Affirmative.”

    “As far as I  see, the sole is just a jazzed up version of any of the more expensive  decks out there with some additional VR capabilities.”

    “It is much more than that, believe me. These soles were built by a master craftsman who is, vely, in a a in a closely guarded hospital in Tokyo. You see the builder of these maes is one of the leading nanoteology processor designers in the world. Muamoto’s chagrin, the old ma and had a stroke just after pleting the sed one. Everything, points to this system using reprogrammable logic arrays and heuristic software that is refigured on the fly to emulate awork. Only a has been able to successfully build oh loy so far and that is rumor. Most prototypes elsewhere reprogram themselves into deadlock sooner or later with voluted designs that the engineers o lure out.”

    “OK, but the AIs on this work ’t be all that great. So why me? Why not send ygest and brightest out there?”

    “The ese have their works locked up pretty tight. They have installed some of the best security AIs out there. Trust me we’ve had a sniff at some of their most destine systems, anonymously of course, and it’s not pretty. This suggests that this system is something that gives them a huge petitive advantage globally. Not that they . The plication is that this system is almost certainly going to be coded entirely in ese. Having somebody who speaks ese and used to be one of the best hackers in the world is a big advantage. Someone who has an instinctual feel for promising systems. Besides, you already have a reputation as a hacker. If things go bad it would seem as though you were w on your own. HYDRA and the Union won’t be implicated.” Caldwell ighe otations of Fouler’s last sentence.

    “Why are you looking at me like that? I don’t speak ese. I ’t even curse in the language and that’s saying something.”

    “You do and you . Believe me I was at the receiving end of it many years ago. You spoke, read and wrote Mandarin and tonese fluently when you were at Hong Kong Iional School. Not to mention the private tutors in Hong Kong and your Ayi’s Anhui dialect. We  isolate and reopen those memories very easily. It’s all in our system.”

    “No way yoing to mess with my head. You’ve done enough of that already. I just want my memory back.”

    “We have to tag you for the trip to Hong Kong anyway. While we are in there, why not reopen some of what’s in there anyway?”

    “Hong Kong? And if I find this system I get everything back.”

    “Yes, and maybe even a job with HYDRA if you want it. I think if you do this, you would have more than proven yourself. We might be willing tive and fet.”

    “And if I fail.”

    “We’ll give you specific parts of your memory ba the flight to Hong Kong. If you fail aurn to the Union without the support system to put your past in text, a proper job, a full identity, your memories will simply drive you insane. You’ll end up more fucked up than you are now. Besides, partial memory recall is not a sd over the long term, without total recall, who knows what will happen.”

    “I’ll take my ces.”

    “Up to you.”

    “How do I know you are not just bullshitting about being able to restore my memory?”

    “I’ll give you back just enough to put this versation we’ve had in text, then we o get back to business. We are sending you out to Hong Kong tomorrow”

    Fouler sifted through his deck of cards again. Caldwell braced himself for the ing maelstrom.

    ***

    puter code. Millions of lines of puter code etched in pixels scrolled down a black terminal s. The image was crystal clear and burned intensely in Caldwell’s mind. He felt a sharp twinge bolt through his head. He closed his eyes and opehem again, trying desperately to get rid of the paiempted to recall what had previously been blank memories. The dark recesses of his mind filled up with lumi color and an image scaled across his retina like a tiled background. He recalled a huge gray faceless building and leaning out of an automated car to have his eyes sed. He remembered vividly a puterized voice saying:

    “M, Mr. Caldwell.”

    Fast-forward. Huge banks of puter systems filled aire room. Wires stacked round the back like snakes writhing in a viper pit. Hundreds of soles, servers, parallel processing server blades blinked and purred from their metal racks. Caldwell was sitting in the middle of all these puters, the ductuiding this orchestra of bits and bytes. He caught his refle in one of the ss. He was much youhen. Pimples.

    A well-dressed middle-aged woman came in aed him in a stern voice. She muttered something about it all being for the good of The Union. Caldwell couldn’t help but notice that varicose veins burned fluorest in her yellowing calves. How did I get to Waterle?

    He was ba the puter room uploading bogus data to a heavily encrypted sector of cyberspace. He looked angry. In the blaess of one of the monitor ss in front of him, he caught the refle of two men approag him from behind. It was the two heavies in Fouler’s limo. They looked exactly the same as they did now. They dragged him down tless nondescript corridors, the sound of his screams boung emptily off the white brick walls. Caldwell dragged his feet and writhed like a wild bush hog caught in a forest trap but the men tighteheir grips pulling him into the depths of HYDRA, the parts of the building to which he didn’t have clearance.

    He was dragged through a white door with the word “Out” written in it in black paint. He wondered whether somewhere along these myriad corridors there was an “In”. The light in the room was so white it burned his eyes. He was strapped into <dfn>..</dfn>a white leather chair. Everything in there was so white. The floor, the walls and the ceiling were a blinding white that reflected nothing. He was shackled with leather straps. A pretty young girl in white uniform, wearing plimsolls, frameless glasses perched matron-like on a pert nose, leaned in towards him. He could smell her perfume. It was an acrid fragrahat reminded him of hospital disiant. A syringe came up in a wide arc, spitting mis of transparent liquid iill air.

    ***

    Caldwell agreed to Fouler’s Faustian bargain. The HYDRA man informed him that all the necessary procedures to give him the bloemory he needed would be taken care of on the flight to Hong Kong the following day. He also told Caldwell that they would tag him to a GPS system so he wouldn’t do a runner. He agreed to it all, his pulsion tain his memory overshadowing any doubts he was harb. It wasn’t like he had a choice.

    Caldwell asked Fouler to drop him off near Waterle so he could say goodbye to Kat.

    “I bet you know about her too?” Caldwell asked with some bitterness.

    “Sure. We had you watched after you were reied into the system. ut you up in a hotel tonight if you wish. Get yourself ed up, get some good food in you,” Fouler offered.

    The agency man seemed to be having sed thoughts about letting Caldwell out of his sight but then he figured that Caldwell’s desire tain his memory would get the better of any idea to make a run for it or search for this ese system by himself. The agency man was right. Besides, Fouler had the run of the CCTV grid and who knew what else. He could track him down at any time.

    “No thanks,” Caldwell deed.

    The black limousine cruised to a standstill just outside Waterloo station. It was almost as though Fouler khey would be dropping him off here. They’d been cruising in the viity. Caldwell stepped out into a black puddle and London rain. The damp air tasted of the River Thames, industrial pollution ah.

 Chapter 18

    Hideo Sato stood inside a heavily-vandalized Teleplex booth not far from The Puzzle in London’s Dods area. The transparent enclosure of the booth had been surreptitiously decorated with small advertising postcards of modified males and females promising to deliver perverted fantasies for a price that would not break the bank. Just like Tokyo, the Yakuza thought to himself, the flesh pits of Shinjuku ing alive in his mind. Half of the booth had been splashed with a liquid that had turned brown with time. Hideo didn’t want to hazard a guess as to what the liquid was. He was still too queasy from the bizarre effects of the sound gun to stomach such speculation. A chilly Union breeze wafted up below the Perspex wall of the boot<var>?</var>h.

    Outside, the Japanese goon with the disfigured face, stared droopy-eyed into the foggy distance as though mentally keeping track of the official-looking black limo that had spirited their quarry away like something out of a Mafia movie. Hideo khe story of his disfigurement well. A rival gang had used his head as the first pin in a special game of Yakuza bowling. Yet throughout the horrendous ordeal Juniiyagi had not talked. That piece of urban legend had bought Miyagi respect among the Yakuza ranks and tolerance for the sorry state of his mashed-up face.

    Sato used the tips of his fio hold the grimy headset as close to his ear as possible without actually making tact. These Union states, especially the Brits, were so unhygienid so backwards. In Japan iive public telephones with hands-free features, video cameras and life-size holographiditions of the other party, if they were so equipped, were all the rage. The only reason people still used these public boxes was because of these few extra features which were still not possible on a mobile phone. Unfortunately, his and the goon’s satellite-enabled mobiles had somehow beeroyed by those two idiots from the limo.

    Sato listeo the ph oher end of the line and absent-mindedly scratched at caked blood in his right ear. Several hours after the fact, he still hadn’t stopped bleeding but the flow had slowed to a trickle. He had tried to put off t<mark>藏书网</mark>his phone call as much as possible but it was iable that he would have to report their failure to retrieve the sole from the hacker.

    “Yes,” a female voiswered in Japanese.

    “Hirayama-san,” Sato anded gruffly. He cocked his head to get a closer look at a girl on one of the cards who had had lizard scales surgically painted all over her body. From the photo, her black fingernails had been sharpened, her tongue elongated and a cleft carved out of the middle. Everything in her pose suggested the reptile she loo be, arms splayed in a croug posture, legs flat against the floor like she was in the middle of some exotiove. Lizard Girl: Man or beast I’ll show you a good time. There was a cell phone number, e-mail, cyberpager and some generietbase, the kind you got for free with a bottle of washing-up liquid. Hideo felt himself go hard.

    “Iing,” he said to nobody in particular as he itted the e-mail address to memory. He was thinking that he might return a favor in Tokyo by havin?9９ｌib.he girl shipped there for an evening of kinky distras with his Yakuza ies. He imagined her shipped out in a cage by her handler and held up by s in Tokyo to be quarantined. He was jolted from his daydream by the voice of a stressed out Hirayama.

    “Good news I hope, for your sake and mihe oyabun is in no mood for bad news,” Hirayama said gruffly.

    “If only. We had this Caldwell kid in hts. We believe he had the sole with him. Then this official-looking car, tinted windows, no lise plate, huge fug satellite dish oop, came out of nowhere and scooped him up, sole and all.”

    “And you just stood there enjoying the spectacle? And why the hell are you shouting?” Hirayama asked with bitter sarcasm.

    “Have you ever been hit with a sound gun?”

    “’t say I have.”

    “Well it’s not a pleasant experiehis rofessional outfit. I’d say some kind of agency. Unofficial.”

    “Takahashi-san is going to be well pissed. uys in America failed to retrieve the sole too. The girl is missing. The la<samp>..</samp>st thing we want is the damn Brits pissing all over this damn stuff. My future and yours depend on you getting the sole bad eliminating this Caldwell character quickly.”

    “How do you suggest I do that?” sneered Hideo Sato.

    “Cut the wise guy attitude or it’ll be your head. Keep a low profile, find a hotel he airport with a cyberspace sole, and we’ll get back to you over the usual els. We want you to che ever hour until you hear from us.”

    “Keep a low profile? There is a half-guy lying in the mue with a hole in his head keeping pany with a dead publi and you wao keep a low profile? The cops probably have  shots propagating through their “most wanted” databases and will be all over us soon. They probably have an army of analysts figuring<samp></samp> out our  plan of a or worse, some low-level AI on the hunting trail.”

    “We have AIs too. Did you take precautions?”

    “Yeah, I always carry at least one in my pocket for emergehere’s this lizard lady ...”

    “Against identification by the police, you turtle’s egg. Does everything have to be practical joke with you? Why didn’t you just track the hacker down where he lives and do the job?”

    “Because he lived in some puterized capsule hotel that ’t be accessed without Union ID. If we tried to break in forcefully, who knows what glomerate we would have on our asses? The Glyph guy pointed us in the right dire a us know he was heading here. I had Miyagi “The Faceless” tail him all the way here so he was firmly in hts.”

    “Then you lost him.”

    “Sorry.”

    “Save your apologies and your pinkie for the oyabun. I’ll find out what I  and update as usual. Try not t too much attention to yourselves.”

    “You keep saying that, but I am with Miyagi remember? Not so easy to keep a low profile with him around but I know how to stay out of trouble. They have some iing looking whores here,” Hideo said, images of the lizard girl flashing rapidly through his perverted brain.

    “As long as you are he airport. Uand?”

    “Sure. I  watch while Miyagi scares the lizard girl something silly with his elephant man impression.”

    The li dead.

 Chapter 19

    The sky above Waterle was devoid of stars and spitting acid rain. The pools of rain water on the asphalt reflected a kaleidoscopic film of mystery chemicals. It mirrored the state of Caldwell’s mind. He tried to focus his thoughts on the dead hacker Glyph. It was hard to believe that the hacker had betrayed him, for a pittano less. What an absolutely pointless way to die.

    He had to find Kat, the only human that could pass as a friend, to say goodbye. She’d be crushed if she found out that he’d left the Union without letting her know. And he wasn’t going to die without doing that. Although they made tact very rarely retly, Caldwell had been too busy trying to make a living, a strong unbreakable boed between them. It went beyond the bounds of friendship, family or amorous relationships.

    They had met in the back alleys of Waterloo at a time when Caldwell had no memories to speak of and he was besieged by migraihat were so inte<var></var>hat he frequently blacked out from the pain. Kat had found him one rainy day unscious on the crete floor of one of the dark drippirian tunnels. Above his still body a cacophony of vehicles and the sound of shoes pounding asphalt. Pedestrians no longer ventured below to the bridge’s underground walkways out of a not totally irrational fear for their personal safety.

    She’d half dragged and half carried him to the discarded photocopier box that formed the basis of her home. Half an hour later he had regained sciousness and they’d bee acquainted, awkwardly, amid the homeless squalor of cardboard underh this very bridge that loomed dark and mysterious in front of him. Kat was the first memory that Caldwell formed that involved another human being and they had fed between them an inexplicable bond that went beyond the fact that she had rescued him.

    After his ride in the limo, he now knew a lot more about how he had got to the cardboard sprawl. It was a road to destru paved by the man in the big black limousine who called himself Fouler and by the anization he represented. An anization he himself used to be part of that coldly spat him out into the dereli of Waterloo. He would make them pay.

    High above, Maglevs decelerated into Waterloo station, their livery flashing brilliantly betweerapezoid steel lattices of Waterle, vibrations rumbling through the crete. The station itself was a hulking glass monolith backlit by powerful spotlights that shot pure white light up at the night sky. The drizzle gave the lights a heraldic hue. Across the cityscape the glimmering lights of affluent living rooms blinked in the night.

    “I art of the system once,” Caldwell muttered under his breath. “I art of the system.” He swiped the raindrops from his jacket. Luckily the knapsack had a roof lining and the syic leather did a good job of keeping water out.

    Caldwell trudged through oil slick rain puddles towards the end of the bridge. His heart quied with anticipation of what he would find in Hong Kong, the city of his birth. He was going there tomorrow. All this didn’t make much sehings were happening too quickly. What did that city hold for him besides remnants of lost memories? Would Hong Kong rekindle some past affe for the place?

    The memories triggered by Fouler were crystal-clear in his mind, kept in sharp focus by an acute desire to remember. Caldwell’s mind had been transformed from drab landscapes of gray to blaterlaced with the bright neons of the Far East. He could see them now, the glowing lights of a city whose shiny illuminated buildings were stantly reag for the sky. Humanity upon humanity piled oop the other, separated only by a thin layer of crete and steel and the trappings of interior decoratioried to anticipate the memories that would be triggered by the lone card in the envelope in his back pocket, resisting the urge to look at it right there and then. Fouler had given it to him as a bonus, a gesture of goodwill. Caldwell was deeply suspicious of that last gesture but he was also curious.

    He looked at his watch, an aging Casio with a weak holographic display that had faded with time. It was almost 10.00PM. The corporate drones had loired to their prefab units to wind down their New Year’s celebrations before aab at glomerate serfdom. Waterloo was like a ghost town after 9.00PM, except for the odd late worker trundling towards the station to catch the late expresses that shunted people around the vast expanse of the Union. The place was just too dangerous, b as it did the dark criminal zones of South East London.

    At the far end of the bridge, hundreds of lights flickered as bridge dwellers warmed gnarled hands at fast fading makeshift fires. Caldwell climbed down a maintenance ladder by the side of the bridge. It was one he had used tless times before. He remembered climbing up and down this bridge with Kat, the Thames undulating darkly below them. They’d be heading to the swanky hotels of The Strand on what they called their dinner run or returning from one. On luights they’d bring back hunks of smoked Nian salmon still in the foils but past their sell by dates. They had grown to not care about their homeless lifestyles. When you were living oreets, salmon tasted good eve was a little off. Eat the pink stuff not the gray rank-smelling strips. On bad nights they’d starve or feed on bits of left over fast food in crushed Styrofoam boxes.  Now he was off to the Far East, a place he never imagined he’d be able to ever afford visiting.

    Caldwell desded into a sea of cardboard, pag pallets and Styrofoam. These were the building materials of choice fe dwellers. Cardboard in the summer, Styrofoam in the wihe latter reinforced with plastic fiber pallets and old Salvation Army blas. Plastic fiber was good for aher.

    The sprawl of cardboard and Styrofoam that expanded before his eyes was at once familiar and alien. It seemed like the inhabitants were going up in the world. Dwellings were getting bigger and more aesthetie even had multiple wings that you accessed through makeshift plastinels made out of fused chemical barrels appropriated from the back lots of industrial and pharmaceutical s. In the distance Caldwell heard the blare of at least two or three radios, ouo some fn el.

    Despite the larger makeshift dwellings, squalor and filth had returned with a vengeand there was a distinct smell of stale vomit in the air. Caldwell started to wonder whether Kat had moved on. Since he’d traded his patderh the bridge for the faceless cubicle cities of the Union he had only tacted Kat when he was moving on to another destination. She didn’t like to stay in touch all the time, preferring to touch base only at what she sidered nodal points in their lives.

    She had spent one day with him at the Angel Capsule Hotel, the two of them squeezed into the tight niche of his claustrophobic capsule surfing cyberspace through the onitor embedded in the plastic ceiling. She’d remarked on how relatively  everything was before she became homesick for the spad freedom of the bridge. She had spent all her life there having been dumped in one of the tunnels as a baby. A young teenage couple sleeping rough had adopted her as their own until one night they had both died of an overdose from dodgy bargain basement amphetamines appropriated from the om drug pushers from Vladivostok. Sihen, the inhabitants had taken turns taking care of her until she became a teenager and was able to fend for herself.

    He moved briskly through the dank dripping corridors, past tless frost-deformed toes peeping out of cardboard flaps. Garishly painted fingernails lay limp on the damp crete floors as the owner lay atose in alcohol- -induced sleep. He moved past rown hair matted down with misfortuears welled up in his eyes as he thought about the months spent here with Kat and all the others, many of whom it seemed had moved on and disappeared into the far reaches of The Union.

    As Caldwell made his way through the putrid gloom of cardboard hovels, part of him hoped she had doer for herself and the flicted other hoped she was still here so he could see her once agaiook a right past a Styrofoam dwelling brown with age and dirt. Its owner had carved it into the shape of an igloo. A bottle of cheap ese rice wine lay at the igloo’s entrance. A hairy hand flopped limply o it. Loud irregular snores suggested that the owner was asleep.

    Caldwell’s heart quied as he rouhe er to the se uhe bridge that he and Kat had called home. The steel ceiling above rumbled with the sound of more MagLevs approag the station. This part of the homeless sprawl was much brighter. Someone had rigged a cable and a 100 watt bulb off the electric cables that fed power to the MagLev tracks above. The MagLev Corporation would not miss the siphoricity.

    There were just two dwellings in this se. One was on the spot where Caldwell used to live. The other was Kat’s. The smell of old puke was no longer disible. It had been replaced with some kind of inse. Kat and her new age stuff. Caldwell smiled knowingly to himself. He could feel her presence.

    Caldwell lifted the flap of Kat’s cardboard abode and peeped ihe interior was dotted with round amber globules of a jelly-like substahat emitted a faint light. The folding futon they’d both found at the back of IKEA was still there. On one side was an even larger Sim Film colle than she had before. Her movies were stacked ceiling-high to one side. A broken sole, its innards torn open, lay on the floor. It looked like Kat, a self-fessed Luddite, was trying to build a puter.

    A half-empty bottle of cheap sake sat o a chipped Japaea cup. Her Sim Unit was tethered to the woggles, which flashed bursts of light on to the floor. Caldwell picked up the goggles and put them on. Some old movie starring somebody he’d never heard of. Kat’s Sim Film unit switched on and unattended meant only ohing. He crawled back out through the cardboard flap.

    Caldwell walked to the far end of the tunnel and took a left turn. This se of the shelter was a lhter as it received light from gaps in the crete where the new pedestrian walkways met the giant HoloDome VR ema. When the pedestrian tunnels were annexed by the homeless several decades earlier, the authorities had simply sidestepped the proble>.9９ｌｉｂ?</a>m by building new brightly-lit covered walkways right above them. They had hired some psychologist to ehat the walkways had few features that would make them attractive to the homeless. The see-through strips on the floor were desigo transform the occupied cardboard jungle below into some kind of human zoo.

    The gigantic holographiema was situated smack bang in the middle of cardboard city but the fine people who could afford the full sario holographic movies and the VR immersion accessed the HoloDome through the new glass walkways from Waterloo Station or from nearby corporate buildings. On their way there, they got to see, through the strips, how the less fortunate half lived, and they got to walk all over the homeless.

    Caldwell sed the edge of the dome and saw a small figure huddled at the top. He leaned his ear against the curved steel of the dome’s exterior. Caldwell heard the sound of ghosts speaking in muffled voices and music that sounded like it was ing from beh his skin.

    He walked round to the back of the dome to the maintenance shaft and started to climb. He got to the top and walked precariously round the edge of the dome till he was o the little waif-like figure peering through the gaps between the shial slats that made up the dome’s roof. A flicker nition flashed through her eyes, reflected against the slats but she didn’t turn her head. She simply grabbed his arm a looking through the slats. Caldwell peered into the dome.

    The movie was being rendered in brilliant holographic detail from projectors ihe roof down on to the stage below. Even the buildings and cars ireet se looked real. Some of the crowd wore VR goggles and were part of the cast, ihe movie. The others just watched. They sat like this for a while. Kat looked well. Her mousy blonde hair blew wet against his fa the drizzle. She was <dfn></dfn>shivering slightly. Caldwell took off his jacket and ed it around her shoulders. Her bony fingers clutched his arm even more tightly, eyes transfixed by the flickering images of the HoloDome.

    ***

    Kat crawled on all fours into her makeshift home, wriggling like a retly uhed worm frantically searg for the familiar depths of its burrow. Caldwell followed closely behind. Up till now, she hadn’t said a word. Caldwell k was her way of unig the fact she’d missed him and he found in her silence a strange fort. She poured two cups of sake and offered him one.

    “It’s been a while,” she said, finally.

    “Yeah. You’re looking well.”

    “So are you,” she said awkwardly, raising her shoulder and jerking her head ba that signature gesture of hers. Caldwell had never uood what it meant but he figured that it approximated something close to excitement. Her voice had that strange surreal quality that Caldwell had never heard anywhere else, puter-geed or otherwise. Her face was streaked with gunk from the roof of the HoloDome. Her hair had grown a bit too long and needed a wash. In her eyes were reflected memories of a thousand movies.

    “Things must be going well,” Caldwell said, nodding in the dire of the sake.

    “Oh that? New high-end Japaery orand. Threw a whole bunch of stuff out back.”

    “The Japanese are returning with a vengeance,” Caldwell said, thinking of the digitally rendered mask of Kenzo Yamamoto’s face.

    “Sure seems that way. Lot’s of good flicks ing from out of there.”

    Kat took movies more seriously than real life. It was her only passion, her one escape from the drudgery of reality.

    “Look Kat, I am leaving the Union for a while. I am going to Hong Kong for a job.”

    “Hong Kong? ’t even begin to imagine what that’s like. In Hong Kong you  buy a murder for five bucks.” The theatrical way in which she uttered the last senteold Caldwell that she was quoting from a movie as she invariably did when the occasioed itself.

    “Huh?”

    “It’s from the movie Stingray.”

    “Ah!” He’d never seen Stingray.

    “If this was Hong Kong, you’d already be dead,” Kat tinued.

    “I know that one. Lethal on. The fourth oraight from the depths of sequel hell.”

    “Yeah.” Her eyes sparkled whealked about her favorite subject.

    “So how did you mao land this trip to Hong Kong?”

    Caldwell told her everything from receiving the message from Glyph to Fouler’s appearance. He told her about his excitement at finding out he had a past and about his mother and how beautiful she looked in the photo. He vely left out talking about his close enter with suicide. Her eyes tracked his face taking ihing he was saying aering it with the felicity of the lens of a director’s camera. She didn’t so much listen to the story as picture it. He told her about Fouler and his offer. At that point her eyes narrowed like the aperture of an a meical camera.

    “ you trust him?” she asked. She had that uny ability to get to the crux of an issue quickly.

    “I don’t know. Trust  kill you or set you free,” Caldwell quoted.

    “The Pretender. And don’t think that will put me off the subject.”

    “I think I’ll be OK.”

    “It might be a trick.”

    “Those bastards hold the key to my memory, to my past. This is the only way I  get that back.”

    She looked at him and they made that inexplicable mental e that tied them together. She looked away quickly and began toying with the gutted puter on the floor.

    “Found this down o Street, discarded by one of the defunct broadsheets. There were hundreds of puters down there but most of the good stuff was gone. I think this one  be made to work.” Kat was ging the subje her clumsy awkward way.

    “Yeah,” Caldwell said. “If you start w in reverse and assemble rather than disma.”

    She laughed revealing a  row of small white teeth. Her head arched bad her throat reverberated with sound. Small veins in her neck pulsated with life.

    “Man is destructive by nature. Im sure that you will uand that I am going through a destructive phase.”

    “Was that another quote?”

    “Yeah. From Look Who’s Talking.”

    “Cool!”

    “Do you know why I got it?” she asked.

    “No idea. I know you hate puters.”

    “I wao keep in touch with you. To unicate in and uand your world.”

    “Really? That’s so sweet. It’s not nearly as much fun as it seems,” Caldwell said, leaning forward and giving her a quick hug.

    “Also, one of the guys here gave me a hacked password to the biggest online movie archive in the world. All the flicks ever made, including all the silent stuff.”

    “I khere had to be another reason.”

    “I am hoping this piece of junk, when it’s up and running will let me access it. Do you think you could make it work for me?”

    “It’ll take forever.”

    “Really?”

    “Yes, but I have a better idea. It’s about time you left this place, Kat. Why don’t I ask Fouler to let you move into Glyph’s mobile home until I get back?  He probably has all the puter you’ll ever need.”

    “Would love to Cad but there are two problems. I ’t afford his rent and the guys who killed him might go back to his plaosing around.”

    “I am guessing they already have. As for the rent I’ll get my new beor to take care of it.”

    “And they’ll agree just like that?”

    “Definitely. I have something they need and it’s an insignifit expense for them.”

    “Well, I do want to get out of here. I’m not going to pretend I am in love with this place, although the HoloDome is awfully ve,’ she observed thoughtfully. Caldwell went in for the kill before she could ge her mind.

    “But you’ll have access to all the movies in the world from that site you mentioned and I once heard Glyph mention ohat he has an amazing HoloFlik system.”

    That did the trick. Kat’s eyes lit up with anticipation and he knew she was sold.

    “Deal,” she said simply and started looking around her space. “I guess I just need some clothes and my Sims. Everything else I  leave here. Who knows, if your job doesn’t go as well as you expect, I might be ing back. You might be ing back.”

    “True. We should go tonight as I would like to look around Glyph’s place before I go to the airport tomorrow,” Caldwell said. He didn’t plan on ing back to this eclectigle of cardboard, no matter how nostalgic he felt. The fact that Fouler had given him his last ce to answer life-ging questions and a shot at ing out of darkness was not lost on him. her was the fact that he still owed the agency man no favors. Kat started methodologically pag her Sims into a pale green duffel bag, while Caldwell watched her. Ten minutes later, she was all ready to go.

    “Anyone you o say goodbye to?”

    “Not really. Anybody that matters is long gone.”

    “I hate to interrupt this moment of burgeoning intimacy, but lets get the hell out of here,” Caldwell said, quoting a line from Deep Blue Sea. He was no movie buff but on a while he scored big. Kat’s  features broke into an appreciative smile.

 Chapter 20

    Li Jin was reeling from his good fortune. He had found a Russian buyer for Black Jade’s neuroprocessor on the sector of cyberspace that teemed with dealers from a whole load of former Eastern Bloc tries. The find had been much quicker than anticipated. He had placed cryptiformation about the chip on a bulletin board that he knew was a mag for fencers of stolen teologies iern Europe, especially Russia. These guys dealt in traband of various descriptions, advanced processor design, cutting-edge software, blueprints to classified puter systems, aircraft design and who knew what else.

    Li Jihat the serious buyers automatically monitored the boards with bots that not<var></var>ified them when something iing emerged on the market. The bots were traio filter out hoax messages and other well-knowronic scams. Li Jin had written such bots himself so he knew how they worked. A potential buyer had picked up on his post and the message had e back from an Oleg Krachev from the Moscow Institute of Superputing.

    Li Jin had done his homework, finding the institute’s patch of cyberspad bing it with a fiooth b. There was an Oleg Krachev there alright, head of purchasing. He presided over a sizeable budget. Li Jin leased to see that the budget was of such a size as to fortably absorb the amount he was asking for without even making a dent in the whole. This Russian Krachev’s barely cealed excitement was another piece of good news. He wanted more info on the chip to determis authenticity and Li Jin had followed up with the quantum puting theories he knew only an expert would bite on.

    A preliminary deal had been reached eleically. The exge would be done in Hong Kong. Li Jin would deposit the chip in a safety deposit box at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. He would the up with Krachev in Kowloon Park where he would exge the deposit slip for the credit. He had already set up several cyberspace bank ats with carefully selected financial institutions. The ats all used names of random villagers from his hometown in Shaanxi provihe village would e together for this ohought. But, how to make sure that Krachev didn’t cheat him out of the chip? He had only thought of one solution. He would instruct Krachev to make the payment by radio and oisfied that it had gohrough, he would instruct the Russian oo pick up the chip. Then he would disappear into the crowds on Kowloon’s bustling Nathan Road.

    Li Jin had slipped out of the puter lab at Tsinghua Uy unnoticed and gone shopping in nearby Zhongguan for the radio, a credit transfer devid a bat kh a wicked-lookied edge. Now with all these things in his backpack he had just one more errand to run. He o pay a visit to Professor Yao’s home to retrieve the backd. This was easily the most dangerous thing he had to do, not ting the unknown factor of the Russian. In Hong Kong he could take precautions. He was in trol of the battle field. The professor’s home was another matter altogether. The place could be crawling with PSB agents. Worse still, they could have already found the professor’s backd. But they wouldn’t know what to look for aher did he. He figured he’d find it somewhere in the professor’s den. Although he had been to the professor’s home, he had never been in the professor’s study before. Mentally, he tried to picture which side of the siheyuan or four-sided pound the professor would have located his study. Tradition dictated on the southern side. But these days, who was that fastidious about tradition and the laws of geomancy? Li Jin’s life was governed by the laws of bits and bytes.

    Li Jin guessed that the professor’s house would be deserted only for a few days. He had heard that the family had taken the body to Professor Yao’s village he Mutianyu se of the Great Wall. Yet, it wasn’t the family he was on the lookout for. Public Security Bureau agents were probably looking all over Beijing for him and if they were thh they’d have staked out the professor’s house. Li Jin had ignored instrus. That was crime enough. If they found out he had duped them, he was dead meat. But how could they prove that he had switched the neuroprocessor and the software? Actually, these guys didn’t need proof. Ohey got their hands on you that was all the proof they needed. More substantial evidence could be manufactured later.

    At an.９９lｉb.y rate, Li Jin had figured that with the professor’s visit to New York it was all over for him anyway. It was the professor who had given him the research grant and a small stipend upon his graduation to tinue his studies, otherwise he would have had to return to his village in Shaanxi and teach primary school kids or work for the village headman, his beor. It was the village after all that had pooled together to send him, their most promising student, to Beijing to sit the difficult entrance exams to Tsinghua Uy. And he had been as surprised as anyone when he had been accepted. Ohis was all over, he’d have to make a sizeable tribution to the village coffers. They could use the moo build the new school they’d been talking about for so long and to repair the treacherous dust track that lead up to the village. Yes, there was much to do. First, he had to get his hands on the backd.

    It was a few minutes past midnight when Li Jin made his way down the deserted Beijing road that lead to the hutong where Professor Yao’s house was located. Hutong’s were the north-south, east-west lanes between the walls of adjat quadrangle courtyard houses. Li Jin recalled that the word hutong was derived from the Mongolian word hottog, which meant water well. unities had developed around water wells, leading to the Beijing version of the same word hutong, now synonymous with what was left of the myriad sprawl of gray brick that used to spread outwards from the Forbidden City.

    There was a decided bite to the air. A bla of fog had desded lending the street an eerie atmosphere. Li Jin walked through this icy shroud of gray until he arrived at the vermillion gates located at the south-easterion of the pound. A black cat leapt off the pound wall and disappeared down a nearby drain. Li Jin almost jumped out of his skiried the gate, his thin hands feeling totally ie on the gigantic copper ds. The gate refused to budge. It was locked from the ihe dilapidated stone lions sat there, their faces eroded with time, staring straight ahead but their all-seeing eyes were fixated on him as though willfully denying him entry.

    The closed gate probably meant there was someone asleep within the dark fines of the pound. Servants? The PSB? Unless of course the family had left through a side door on their way to Mutianyu but those were rare in a pound of this size. Then Li Jin remembered. There was a tree to one side of the house that might afford him access to the roof of one of the buildings. He walked round the er of the pound, his ears alert for any sounds from without or within. To the south-east of the pound he spotted the gnarled cypress tree whose braretched out into the pound. Excellent.

    Li Jin climbed the tree with ease and crawled along one of its branches until he was hanging over the roof of the southern-most<tt>.９９ｌｉｂ.t> building in the pound. He jumped a a couple of tiles craderfoot. If there was a home or PSB agents lurking about they would definitely have heard the small otion. He crouched on the roof and waited. Nothing but silend the cold night air nipping at his ears.

    Professor Yao’s residence was a classic siheyuan pound with two courtyards. Li Jin found himself ier courtyard, which housed buildings that historically aodated servants and visiting guests. Li Jin remembered that most of the outer buildings were used as ste facilities for the myriad items that the professor had collected during the course of his eventful life, awards, scrolls, paintings of little cultural or ercial value and an assortment of corporate gifts.

    After satisfying himself that nothing had stirred within the pound, he jumped off the low-hanging roof into the yard. He winced as he felt his tendo to the impact. It was ohing ing here during the daytime and quite a night. Yet luckily all siheyuan followed certain rules of design, layout and building use. Just in front of him was the spirit wall or yingbi, which prevented people oside from seeing the interior of the pound. Li Jin smiled as he thought of the other, perhaps more important, fun of spirit walls. They prevented ghosts or evil spirits from entering the pound. Since spirits could only walk in straight lihe spirit walls effectively brought any invading specters to an abrupt halt, impeding their access into the pound proper. That is if they’d made it past the raised wooden floor beam in front of the gate desigo trip them up. Li Jin chuckled to himself. This was one spirit whose access won’t be deonight.

    Li Jin walked around the spirit wall and through the small pavilion that lead into the inner courtyard. To the north was the main house where the professor used to live with his wife, now deceased. The south-most building in the inner courtyard would house his study. Li Jin had noticed a locked door o the reception room the last time he had paid the professor a visit.

    You couldn’t tell from the traditional outlook of the professor’s house that he was at the cutting edge of puting teology. This was a diy that goverhe lives of many of New a’s leading minds. It was the ese way. He moved towards the door of the room that he figured was the professor’s study. Would the professor have kept something so valuable in an outer room or in the main building in the north of the pound? Knowing the professor, Li Jin reed that the study was the best place to look. Professor Yao hadn’t been the most secretive of people sidering the type of classified stuff that he worked on. He was the type of person to leave stuff exactly where you wouldn’t expect to find it.

    Li Jin stood in front of the door of what he thought rofessor Yao’s study. He pushed forward on the wooden door. Surprisingly, the dave ening up into what looked like quite a large room. It was too dark to see inside. He fished in the pockets of his jeans for his key ring which had a tiny flashlight on it. Li Jin played the thin beam of light over the tents of the room. The study was dominated by a huge desk, surrounded by numerous bookshelves. As the light danced across the walls, the coarse paper of calligraphy works and ink paintings came into view. The professor had been a keen calligrapher and a dab hand at landscape painting but Li Jin was not ied in that today.

    He shivered as he ehe room. There was a musty smell of aging ink, rice paper and something else he couldn’t put his finger on. Li Jin could feel the presence of the professor in the room. Was the professor looking at him, w what his trusted assistant was doing in his study not long after his death? Or was the professuiding Li Jin’s as from beyond the grave, willing him to find the backd. Li Jin would never know. Yet here among the scrolls, the reams of dots and the bottles of fermenting snake wihe professor’s backd probably lay. There was a nondescript Great Wall sole and monitor on the desk but nothing resembling what Li Jin was looking for.

    Li Jin tried various drawers to no avail. There were puter discs, piles of printout, various data chips but no backd. Another sweep of the room with the tiny light. There was a large cupboard at the back of the room with one of its doors partially open. Li Jin’s heart beat faster as he moved towards the cupboard. He opehe doors with eager anticipation. Disappoi. More stacks of paper, some with the professor’s handwritin<samp>藏书网</samp>g and written on them cryptic g sub-routihat echoed the professor’s thoughts on various aspects of code design. The backd, if it existed at all, robably in the main building in the north of the pound. The professor had erred on the side of caution after all.

    As Li Jin walked back towards the door of the study, something deep down in his psyche was awakehere was something in the room that demanded further iigation but for the life of him he couldn’t put his finger on it. He stopped and listened. All he could hear was the ice cold wind whistling outside and the distant sounds of the city. In the gloom of the courtyard proper, the buildings cast imposing shadows enhanced by the muted light of the moon. There was a loud cough outside and the sound of someone spitting. It sounded very close. Li Jin switched off the tiny flashlight.

    Just in time, Li Jin made out the amber glow of a cigarette cutting into the night. Someone was awake and heading to the very room where he was standing. He moved quickly behind the door and waited, trying desperately to calm his nerves and prepare for the worst. He had the kh the serrated edge in his knapsad it was heavy. Its blunt handle would have to do as a on. There was no way he was killing a PSB officer or a member of the professor’s family. His bony fingers snaked into the backpack carefully searg for the knife.

    Footsteps inched closer and then a hand holding a cigarette grabbed the side of the door. A head loomed into the room. Li Jin could barely make out its outline in the gloom. A body followed as the man took a few steps into the room. Li Jin was so close he could smell the cheap tobacco of the man’s cigarette. The man stayed within the moonlit quadrangle created by the open door. He was listening. Li Jihat he had to keep absolutely quiet. Being caught was not an option now.

    “Bloody cats,” the man muttered as he retreated, closing the door behind him. Li Jin had been holding his breath all that time. As he walked towards one of the half-open windows to watch the man and his glowing cigarette disappear into one of the pound’s side houses, it dawned on him what had been b him about the professor’s study. The wooden floor sounded hollow.

    With the terrifying thought of the close call he had just experienced eg through his mind, Li Jin decided to eschew the use of the flashlight. Instead he went down on all fours and started feeling along the floorboards. There was definitely something below the floor. He could se more than anything. Five minutes later, Li Jin was about to give up on finding anything when his fingers brushed against metal just below the professor’s desk. He felt peared to be a handle and leasantly surprised when it came away from its housing allowing him to raise what he hoped was a trapdoor.

    He opehe trapdoor with ease and peered into the darkness below. A damp musty smell assaulted his nose. He reached down into the darkness, expeg to find the bottom with his fingers. No such luck. Li Jin started to believe that the trap door didn’t lead to a hidden partment but to an underground room. He had never heard of hidden basements in a siheyuan before, yet he was not surprised by the professor’s iy.

    Li Jin braced himself for the ued and began to inch his body down the hole in the ground. He paused and listehe only sound he could hear was the stant rasp of his owhing. Holding on to the sides of the trapdoor, he lowered his body until his arms were fully extended. Still no floor? It couldn’t be too far away, he thought. Or was that wishful thinking on his part? What were the ces of this basement room being more tha to te high? He figured they were slim to none. Yet he braced himself and relaxed his muscles in a bid to minimize whatever impact or injury lay below. Li Jin took a deep breath a his fingers slip from the trapdoor. Immediately he felt the darkness below weling him.

 Chapter 21

    Caldwell and Kat headed back towards Waterloo station. Her frail form moved beside him with surprising agility. She had the Sim Unit going but the goggles were perched on her forehead like the sun glasses of a beach bum seeking a moment’s relief from a harsh summer sun. He could hear the soundtrack to whatever movie she was watg buzzing in her ears. His knapsack taining Kenzo Yamamoto’s sole and the sum total of his personal effects was slung around his left shoulder and he carried one of Kat’s duffels in his other hand. The sky above the station itch-black with industrial pollution.

    They caught an almost-empty Maglev to the Isle of Dogs. Kat and Caldwell sat in the deserted carriage in total silence. A silenderscored by the low-level hum leaking out of her headphones. He wondered what anyone who saw them sitting there would make of them. This odd couple brought together by fate, circumstand a strange inexplicable mental e. What would they make of their ability to say nothing a everything at the same time?

    “I am thinking of looking for my birth parents,” Kat said suddenly. “You’ve found out about yours, where you e from. I think now, I want to know.”

    Caldwell had known the awful truth about Kat’s past for a few months now but could n himself to tell her. The sequences were too uable. Kat was a e. A anufactured at Uy College London’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Kat was lab material for medical research students. Acc to puter records at the uy, Kat was ed from a fledgling Hollywood actress who wished to have a sed shot at stardom even after her death. There had been no records of the name of the donor. A bit more drilling down iabase had revealed that one of the lab assistants for the project had been expelled from the uy for removiive material from uy premises. That sensitive material was Kat. She had left the infant beside the HoloDome, ed in insulating material, her little fingers clutg a lukewarm bottle of formula.

    Should he tell her now, what he knew? Here, several hundred meters underground being bombarded with holoverts and subliminal advertising for ing services. Should he tell her she was one of them? Destio be discriminated against by the masses? He decided to wait until he returned from Hong Kong. At least, if he was around she’d have somebody to support her as she dealt with the knowledge of who she was. What she was. Did she suspeything? Was she subsciously searg for her identical other in the flickering images of old movies? She deserved to know.

    Was there a void deep inside, a flaw that flared bright in her mind leadio suspect that she was different? This was one question Caldwell knew he could not answer although occasionally a look came over her eyes that suggested that she suspected something. That would explain her reluce to trace her parents for so long.

    They arrived at the Isle of Dogs station and rode aor to the surface. The station was almost empty. They jumped the barriers at the exit to a cacophony of alarms. These alarms ofte off during off-peak hours but the station wardens more often than not ighem. Th>.</a>ey despised their faceless corporate owners even more than the passengers who refused to fill their overflowing coffers. They were sometimes happy to let the law breakers protest the only way they knew how, especially at night. And the offenders relished the privilege of letting the system know what they thought of it. The CCTV cameras that dotted every single block of the Uniohe perfect platform for this non-ist kind of dissent.

    They headed up East India Dock Road in the dire of Blackwell.

    “I think I am going to give Mr. Fouler a call. I don’t kly where Glyph lived but it is somewhere around here. Fouler mentioned something about his people searg Glyph’s trailer,” Caldwell said to Kat when they came up to a Teleplex booth. Kat simply nodded and tinued trating on her Sim.

    Caldwell picked up the headset from its groove and spoke the numbers Fouler had given him into the mouthpiece. The line ected. There was a clid then another set s, different from the first. Then there was another clid a screeg he clig and screeg tinued for about half a mihen someone picked up oher end. Caldwell found the protracted process vaguely familiar. It was as though he had dohis tless times before. He kly what to do. He waited.

    His versation with Fouler was brief and to the point. Kat was going to stay in Glyph’s trailer and Fouler was going to tell him where the trailer was, otherwise the deal was off. Fouler protested initially but sooed. He seemed eager to go back to whatever he had been doing when Caldwell called.

    “You see, that wasn’t so bad. He agreed to let you stay,” Caldwell said to Kat as they walked towards the back of The Puzzle.

    “He’s probably granting you your dying wish.”

    Caldwell tried to say something but the words refused to e out.

    Glyph’s trailer roximately forty feet loirely one half of it acked with puter equipment and izmos, some intact, some with their guts spilling open like the aftermath of a macabre robot war. Transistors, motherboards, add-ins, memory modules and all manner of ied circuits were strewn all over a long black makeshift worktop, which was fashioned from used Samsung mini refrigerators stacked two-high and three-wide and covered with a black silk cloth that had collected a fiina of dust. The kit looked like Glyph hadn’t done any washing up for weeks. Dirty plates were piled up everywhere aher Fouler’s people or the Yakuza had made things worse by hurling pots and pans out of cupboards onto the vinyl-covered floor.

    They had left the puters intact although most of them were on, suggesting that someone had quickly sed the hard disks on the ce of finding something useful. In the bedroom and the living area the tents of cupboards had beeied out on to the floor, sofa and mattress torn open and panels removed.

    Caldwell and Kat spent the wo hours putting as much as they could back together. Amazingly not a lot had been broken and where particleboard or plastic had been ripped apart, cracked or broken, Glyph’s incredible duct tape colle came in very handy. It was 3.00AM in the m before Kat collapsed on Glyph’s bed and Caldwell sat in front of Glyph’s refrigerator worktop staring into space.

    The hacker’s wheelchair had left visible marks on the vinyl floor over the years. You could almost retrace his daily routine from the depth of the marks. Caldwell could picture Glyph m up the ramps outside, opening the door and ing straight to the worktop to che his puters. The marks in front of the worktop were deeper than anywhere else. The wheelchair had cut harsh grooves in the vinyl. Glyph had obviously spent most of his time in cyberspace.

    Caldwell spent the night mulling over everything that had happened and running through sarios of what might happen in Hong Kong. The good news was that he was still alive. He now knew something about his past. In a few hours he was headed for Hong Kong, apparently his birthplace. The bad news was that this was obviously a fool’s mission with only a narrow aking it alive. If it wasn’t the Yakuza who got to him, it’d probably be the ese, the intrusioion AIs or even Fouler’s HYDRA outfit. He o be at the airport in just a few hours and Fouler had warhat it was going to be a tough day and the operation would exact a heavy toll on his body. It rice worth paying at any cost.

    Caldwell plated catg a few hours sleep and leaving Fouler’s parting gift, the card with the single ese character, in the envelope in his pocket till he was in Hong Kong. But given the obstacles he faced on his fool’s mission why not arm himself with everything he could beforehand, he reasohere might be something ihat would help him out when he least expected. He decided sleep could wait and he’d rather get as much of his memory of Hong Kong as he could before the trip. He looked over at Kat, who was still curled up on the bed with her Sim unit blaring in her ears. The girl was totally non-stop.

    He slipped Fouler’s envelope out of his pocket and slowly pulled out the card with his thumb and index fihis time he knew what to expect. This would be Fouler’s last-ditch attempt to get Caldwell to trust him. He was sure that Fouler never ever did anything without an ulterior motive. Caldwell looked at the card and the interior of Glyph’s trailer dissolved away to reveal fragments of his memories.

    ***

    Caldwell is outside the gates of a school. The sign, in both ese characters and English, annouhat this is the Hong Kong Iional School. Flashes of the Xian car crash that killed his parents are corroded into his mind. He  access this memory of a memory because the story of their death has already been reted by Fouler. That particular dark partment has already been unlocked making it available to the larger memory block currently being unleashed by that single red ese character. An image of flesh aal made one in a single moment of chaos crosses his mind. It is an image faded with the ravages of time.

    A neer. The article in the Beijing Post. Caldwell reading disbelievingly. His teenage eyes are swollen with uears. The couple could only be identified through DNA analysis. There hadn’t been much left to bury. There was no suspi of foul play. And on and oicle goes in that cold objective way that neers use to cover death. He could not remember whether he had attehe funeral service. He felt ed residual guilt.

    Memory rewind. Summer holidays skateb dowongs of what he figured was Beijing. Hanging out with the diplobrats, drinking beer in the bars that dotted the Sanlitun diplomatic quarter. Lots of time on puters. Lines of code flying by like November rain.

    Caldwell staring ily at a puter s, while a man, who looks like the man in the picture, his father, works. The gobbledygook the man is typing on the s ght over his head but he still stares at it like it is the key to another world. He recalls an underground study full of puter and unication equipment, the secret ons of GCHQ, the British unications aronic eavesdropping agency that Fouler says his father worked for.

    Forward. He is in a cyberspace chat room. His niame is rAZor. He is a teenager, yet he is a regular of dozens of hacker dens and chat rooms and on the A-lists of most information warfare agencies and corporate IT departments. He knows this because now as though by magic he remembers. He is infamous. He recalls gaining access to hundred of puter works, breag their security with ease. He remembers his peers talking to him, with reverence. He is way above the norm. He bestrides the binary world of code like a colossus. He is supernova.

    rAZor: Fizz, how is it going dude? Long time no see. What have you been up to?

    Deus: Yeah man. What’s up?

    Fizz: Not a lot. Was arrested by the Helsinki Pigs man. Had all my gear fiscated. Had to do 600 hours unity service. Banned from the space.

    rAZor: Bummer man. Not too good. How did you get caught?

    Deus: Motherfuckers. I feel you man.

    Fizz: Yeah Dudes. Thing is, haven’t a freakin clue y’ know.

    rAZor: Like they just busted in no reason?

    Fizz: Pretty much like you say. HP, the pigs, says that some fn outfit asked for me to be arrested and warned. Said they know what we are up to and arrests will be made in other tries.

    Deus: Shit man. Think they are talking BS?

    Fizz: Dunno man. They busted me, that’s for sure.

    rAZor: They probably got some tracker system following your eleic footprints. Any idea which system it was?

    Fizz: Yeah it’s a system I got from this phreaker from England I know. Said they had this cool AI that knows shit and  be accessed on a sole or over the pho’s like, I got to see this, right? So I am there that same day, sing its ports and b it with passwords and nothing gives. So I like spend a whole fu week doing nothing else but still no joy. I ask this British phreak phriend of mine how he got in but he says he ’t remember. Says he just woke up one m and his software was logged in as roht in the AI’s and line. He said there were like two thousand lines of text where the AI was talking to itself, reasoning with itself, berating itself because there was no answer from this phreak’s puter.

    rAZor: Whoa cool. I gotta see this.

    Deus: Dunno man. That’s probably what got Fizz busted.

    rAZor: They won’t bust me. Fizz, what’s the IP6 on this.

    Fizz: It’s a revolving allocation system. But it’s ing out of the Union, some .gov work.

    Deus: So you have a fiable.

    rAZor: That’s good enough for me. ing Deus?

    Deus: Nah, my father will be using the puter in 5 minutes got to get off. Mine was busted by that virus worm thingy last month. ’t wait to be able to afford a new one.

    Fizz: Be careful man.

    rAZor: No worries. I’ll log this AI’s ramblings and post it here for your enjoyment hehehe.

    Deus: OK.

    Fizz: Laters!

    rAZor: Laters!

    There’s a striking but intense-looking ese girl staring at Caldwell. Shiny black eyes focused, unblinking. Epithic folds lend a feliy tular dimpled face. She has skin the color of fresh tofu.

    He has hidden software agents on the uy puter system. His agents are Trojan. They ceal ents and themselves. His agents are masters of digital disguise, eleic cover-up, pixel -up. His agents’ routines precede everything he does oerminal, clearing pathways, rewriting logs or log them, b the system with heuristic password sniffers, re-writing router tables to hide the in of their as.

    He fires up about five of these agents and heads out into the cryptic world of router tables. Everything is clear all the way to the US. In New York, he hitches a ride on telco traffic headed out to the Union and jumps off on to intra-uy traffic. This memory, uhe others, is more coherent. Caldwell thinks Fouler, and the people who repackaged his memory in these little closets, locked them and threw away the key, have made it deliberately so. The i is to give him a strong sense of his own invincibility. These memories could be planted but he is viherwise. He likes what he sees. He wills it to be true.

    Caldwell transgresses the VPN’s elegantly and surfs the secure e all the way to the Union’s tral I traffic exge. He wakes up his sniffer bot, which goes through a massive list of handshaking routines until one of them gives the necessary secret handshake. Boom. He scores big. Some internal gover domain system. He ’t access it from outside. So he slips into one of the gover’s extras and deduces a userh enhanced privileges. Admin. Some people never learn. The password bot goes to work.

    He looks up and smiles at the girl, who is looking at him as though she knows what he is up to. He’s seen her before around the school but his i in her, at this time, is minimal. He has better fish to fry. He is on a roll. Boom. Password cracked.  href="/-cgi/l/email-prote" class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="c8a184a7bead9dfa88abe6">[email&#160;protected] Sounds like a lovesick system administrator or a jilted sysop. Types it in. Boom. S goes blank except for a prompt like this:

    :&gt;

    :&gt; Hello.

    :&gt; Hi Cad.

    :&gt; What did you call me?

    :&gt; Cad. Cad Caldwell to be exact. Would you like me to trace back your family tree?

    :&gt; Shit.

    :&gt; Exactly. We’ve been waiting for you. You are so busted my friend.

    :&gt; Oh yeah? I am out of here. No way you  bust me that fast, wise guy.

    :&gt; We’ll see about it Cad Caldwell of Hong Kong Iional School. By the way, yrades are slipping big time. What’s your excuse?

    :&gt;

    :&gt; Yeah what? Mummy and Daddy die in car crash? Does that give you the excuse to live with your hands perpetually down your Y-fronts.

    :&gt; You shut the hell up. I swear I am going to shut you down.

    :&gt; Yood Cad, but not that good.

    :&gt; We’ll see about that.

    :&gt;

    :&gt; [User e terminated.]

    The girl is gone. Caldwell’s heart is beating so fast he res it’s going to burst right out of his chest. He looks around. Nothing but dozens of students going about their business. The bullet lifts shoot up the library wall dropping students off at the various floors and pig them up. He recalls that he had once hacked the puter system that mahe lifts and increased the speed of one of them by about twenty pert. He and his friends had laughed out loud as a sea of green faces had emerged shaken from the lift. One anemic-looking girl had hurled all over the white marble floor.

    That AI, or whatever it was, was just bluffing. But how the hell did it know his name? Maybe it was one of his buddies just playing tricks on him. And that jive about school grades. It wasn’t far out. Not that school puter systems were difficult to crack. It was the ihat scared him. It was the first time anything like that had happeo him and he is visibly shaken by it.

    He logs out of the shell, sends his bots to sleep and backs out into the library’s graphical Book Catalogue user interface. Wheands up to leave, his legs wobble. He picks up his rucksad makes his way out the front of the library.

    The memory dump cuts to the front of the school. He is walking out the school gates with his mind in turmoil. What is he going to do with his life? He is sixteen, an orphan.

    There’s a big black car at the gate. It has no lise plates and the windows are so dark he  see his refle in the black glass. As he walks past, w who the owner of the vehicle could be, a gangster, pop star, dodgy finahe black windows roll down smoothly and a fiery setting sun reflects from a pair of mirrored shades. A smooth sloping jaw moves. Thin pale lips part and click back together. Some kind of supersonic aircraft thunders by overhead. The world takes on a slow-motion quality. He hears his name, spoken by the lips below the mirror shades. It’s a dry void it reminds him of autumn and dried leaves.

    The door opens and he finds himself in the back seat of the car with the well-dressed gentleman whose eyes are masked by the expensive Ray Ban mirror shades. Hands have pulled him in but they are so gentle he doesn’t feel them. The shades e off to reveal steel gray eyes. There is a flicker in the lenses of the man’s shades that suggests some kind of puting activity in the glasses. The jaw moves again, this time upwards and the lips thin even<q>藏书网</q> more into an approximation of a smile. The driver sits motionless in the fro. All Caldwell  see of him is a matt of black hair and the base of his driving cap. He was sitting very still.

    “My name is Bruce Fouler. For now let’s just say I am in the service of the Union gover,” rasps the man.

    “I bet its lip service, mostly to its rear.” Caldwell replies. In Glyph’s trailer, Caldwell chuckled to himself. He used to be funny. It was in his DNA.

    There is something darkly magic about Fouler, like a pedophile holding out invisible dy. There is something mysterious about the man’s face. It’s a face that seems to uand the fallibilities of humanity. There is a digital quality to him, the  effit way his features are put together, the voice that sounds like it has been run through some puter sequencer. And the huge black Bentley.

    “Cheeky aren’t we? I am looking for a student here called Cad Caldwell. I wonder if you know him.”

    Something in Fouler’s eyes tells Caldwell that the man knows who he is talking to and is daring him to spin a yarn. He rejects his initial instinct to tell a lie.

    “That would be with me. What do you want with me? I am not into old guys?” Caldwell says. He has already made the e between the Union AI and this man but he doesn’t know how.

    “Sorry to hear about your parents, Cad,” Fouler offers. Caldwell detects a faint moistening of the man’s eyes. Or was it the fading sunlight reflected in the car?

    “It’s cool. So what do you want?”

    “OK, I am not going to beat around the bush. We’ve been watg you for many years, Cad. Your activities on the puters.”

    A look of alarm es over his face. Like Fizz, he was busted.

    “Don’t worry son. If we were going to arrest you, we would have do a long time ago. You’ve breached the security systems of some important institutions you know.”

    “Yeah?”

    “Yeah, and some of those have been embarrassing for us, given the fact that your father also served the Union gover.”

    “He was only a professor at Xian Uy,” Caldwell tered.

    “That may be the case but he was an important professor.  I trust you, Cad? There is something I think you should know but I o be guaranteed absolute trustworthiness.”

    “I swear on Madonna,” he said, images of the dead pop singer flashing past.

    “That’s good enough. Have you heard of GCHQ?”

    “Yes, satellite eavesdropping, teleunionit etc. I am intimately familiar with their puter works.” He grins cheekily.

    “Well your father was one of the leading designers of their systems. You heard of Blue Ray? Your father desig.”

    “I cracked Blue Ray and was able to listen to my headmistress talking to her boyfriend on the phone. I’ve had a nervous twitch ever since.”

    “Well, like father, like son. One builds them, the other cracks them.”

    “Yeah, yeah. So what’s all this got to do with me? I’m just a high-school student.”

    “As I said, we’ve been watg you for many years. You would have been incarcerated many years ago if it wasn’t for whom your father was and the important work he was doing in New a. The irony of..he situation was not lost on us. Maybe one day you’d grow up to be as good at breaking into secure puters as your father was at building them. I think you’ve proved us right. Although you are not as invincible as you think.”

    “Who says?”

    “Ever wonder why you were never caught in hundreds of hag sessions?”

    “Because I am so damn good?”

    “Wrong. Sometimes you left eleic trails that would have landed you in jail but we covered up your ass because even with those fuck-ups your record was very impressive. More impressive than even our best ethical hackers.”

    “Trails? Like what?”

    “Like NASA. They had a distributed intelligent logging system that you did not see. It had plete records of your activities, the time and what terminal you used. We employed CCTV footage from our friends at the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway Corporation to place you at that iive kiosk at that time. We were surprised at the audacity of the intrusion, from a public place.”

    “Ha, ha, ha.”

    “You may laugh, Cad, but these are serious breaches that would have got you in enough trouble to last you through retirement.

    “Sorry. I guess.”

    “The bottom line is this. In light of your situation, the fact that you are obviously not ied in school, the anization is  to take you on board.”

    “What anization?”

    “You’ll know wheime is right. As I said, I am in the service of the Union authorities. Let’s just say you’ll be able to hato some of the world’s most advanced puter systems using bleeding edge teologies. You’ll also help us build better defenses against outside intruders and you’ll get paid a petitive salary. On top of that we’ll give you a Union passport chip, allowing you to tinue residing in Union if you so wish.

    “Wow, you are pulling my leg right? Jerking me off?”

    “Dead serious. Do I look like the kind of guy who gets off on practical jokes?”

    “You don’t look like the kind of guy who gets off on anything,” Caldwell retorts.

    Fouler lets the affront slide but something in his face tells him that the man has filed it away for future reference.

    “Enough of the wisecracks. So, what do you say? We  talk to your principal today and you’ll never have to return to school again. Instead, you’ll get trained in the Union and travel the world doing what you love aing paid for it.”

    “Sounds too good to be true.”

    “It’s a on a lifetime offer, son.”

    “I’ll take it then.”

    “Good. Wele aboard.” The man offers long thin fingers.

    “Er, thanks.”

    “We’ll let you know the details once we’ve finalized everything with your principal.”

    “I  trust yht?”

    “Of course, swear on Madonna.” The man called Fouler smiles, unnaturally eveh ched tightly together.

    “How will you find me?”

    “Are you kidding?”

    “Oh yeah, you are omnipotent or was it impotent?”

    “Do you need dropping anywhere? Home?”

    “No, I’ll take a walk.” The puter-cooled interior of the Bentley was suddenly stifling.

    “OK. Your call. And no more unofficial hag.”

    “Is that an official request?”

    Fouler lets that one go too.

    The doors of the Bentley open automatically and Caldwell steps out on the curb. The driver still has not moved. The ese girl from the library is standing against the school perimeter wall looking at him. Out in the evening air, she is even more beautiful. He walks straight past her. He has too mu his mind to focus his attention on her, as much as he wants to. She catches up with him, her books held close to her chest. There is a faint smell of lavender and the heady musk of teenage skin.

    “So, who were those men?” she asks, as though she’s known him forever.

    “Acquaintances. What are you doing here so late?”

    “Waiting for you?”

    “Waiting for me? Why?”

    “I don’t know. It just felt like the thing to do.”

    “Well thanks, I think I am old enough to walk home by myself,” he jokes, smiling so that she wouldn’t get offended. Why does the girl bother him so much?

    “I know that. It’s just that I got a feeling in the library that I might not see you again for a long time.”

    “Well, that’s true. I won’t be ing back to school ever again.” Wh<mark>９9lｉｂ?</mark>y was he tellihis?

    A sharp intake of breath.

    “Why not?”

    “I’m going to work for the Union gover.”

    “That’s what those men in the car were about?”

    “Something like that.” He is surprised at how quickly he feels at ease with this girl, whose eyebrows are now furrowed with . He detects a slight Mandarin at in her English and places<bdi></bdi> her family as ret immigrants from the mainland.

    “So my intuition was right.”

    “I guess so. I am Cad Caldwell by the way.”

    “I know who you are. Don’t think there is a single girl in the school doesn’t know that. The mixed-blood nerd who loves puters more than he likes girls. They talk about you in the girls ging rooms all the time.” She giggles.

    “Really?” he asks incredulously.

    “And you know what? Your name is scribbled on the walls in the girls’ toilets.”

    “Yeah? Nothing bad I hope.”

    “Not really? Just some girl wishing she was a keyboard so yentle hands may type upon her QWERTY keys.” Angle. This one brings a smile to his face.

    “What’s your name?”

    “Mei Lin.”

    “Niame.”

    “Yeah. Cad Caldwell. I guess I could learn to live with yours.” She giggles again. They walk in silence.

    “I catch my bus here,” she says.

    “Really? So quickly? Do you have a UID, so I  tact you online?”

    “Yes I do but I only use it at school. Granddad does not let me use a puter at home. It’s 5200603,” she informs him. He its it to memory.

    “So I’ll message you at school then.”

    “OK.”

    Her smile is worth a thousand words. Suddenly a huge weight pulls at his insides, from his chest down to his stomach. He watches her and realizes that she feels the same thing, whatever it was that he was feeling. In the short few mihat they have bee acquainted with each other, something remarkably special has taken place, like they were destio meet on this day, at this exact time and place.

    He leans over and kisses her. She expects it. She’s read his mind. It is the first time he has kissed a girl and it’s like he just discovered the mysteries of the universe. And the feel of her lips, the taste of her mouth will stay with him forever. And as he holds her, he feels the rhythm of her heart pulsating against his chest and the gentle rise and fall of her adolest breasts. They break away and she opens her eyes. Caldwell sees in their black depths something as old as time itself.

    “Wow, I’m sorry about that.”

    “o be sorry. It was meant to be,” she says as though she possesses all the wisdom in the world.

    “It’s just that I am leaving Hong Kong and I shouldn’t have dohat.”

    “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we were both true to our feelings. We will meet again. Ah, here es my bus.”

    A number 8 bus pulls up to the deserted bus stop and the girl called Mei Lin boards it holding on to his hand for the lo possible time.

 Chapter 22

    Diane Joplin’s JAL flight la Narita at exactly the desigime. 10.28AM. She had spent the entire flight, all four hours of it, getting acquainted with a portable Lonely Pla augmented reality information sybbr>.</abbr>stem on Tokyo she had purchased in one of the souvenir shops at Logan Iional Airport.

    The unit didn’t work during the flight, relying as it did on visual markers on the ground to fun properly, but Diane had figured that if she jacked the glasses into the in-flight eai system she could probably use the latter’s display to view the tents of the database. And she’d been right. Ihe plastic glasses was a tiny piece of flash memory taining the eabase on Tokyo as well as a simple operating system that overlaid the data over what you were seeing through the glasses. Old teology but it worked.

    Diane found out that by switg the unit to manual mode and pointing the glasses at a photo of Tokyo Tower in one of the glossy in-flight magazines she’d be able to pull up the data. There was a small thumbwheel on the side of the glasses for scrolling through the data and that worked just fine for her purposes. The Japanese salaryman in the bifocals sittio her observed all of this with furtive i.

    Satisfied with the prehensiveness of the data, she’d disected the unit and performed a cyberspace sear the name Kenzo Yamamoto on the airline system. Apparently, out of the tless Kenzo Yamamoto’s that existed across the ey of the Japanese islands, quite a few were sidered newsworthy. There was Kenzo Yamamoto the baseball player, the football player, the hentai-crazed teehe fashion desighe politi. The latter sparked her i but she quickly disted him when she found out that he was but a lowly gover official in Okinawa who used the level playing field of cyberspace to voice his distent over policies.

    All this translated on the fly by the intelligent agent browser into grammar-perfeglish. There was a whole bunch of other Kenzo Yamamotos gleaned from online family trees, sports meetis, uy professor lists, vention speakers and some dht weird stuff. Diane learhat a Kenzo Yamamoto had broken his high sae-assisted 100-meter dash record in an astonishing 5.2 seds. Then her eyes honed in on a Yomiuri Shimbum news headlihat had her hair standing on end, goose bumps breaking out all over. Kenzo Yamamoto, suspected wakagashira of the powerful Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza fa slain in Shinjuku.

    Breathlessly, Diane performed another search, this time cross-refereng the name Kenzo Yamamoto with the Yakuza gang, the Yamaguchi-gumi. The more she read the more vinced she was that this was the man who had sent her father the <bdi>９９ｌiｂ?</bdi>sole. The Japanese man beside her was now looking at the glowing panel of her s with renewed i. Diane ignored him and tinued reading. Kenzo Yamamoto was allegedly sed in and of the dreaded Yamaguchi-gumi Yakuza fa although none of the neers reported this as a statement of fact. It was just jecture but Diane knew what that meant. The neers were being polite, evasive in that uniquely Japanese way. Yamamoto had not been formally victed of anything but there were tless refereo his involvement in informatio, eleic fraud and corporate blackmail though an intricate work of well-informed sokaiya, or shareholders meeting men, who blackmailed corporations into paying fees or face embarrassing disruptions at shareholders meetings.

    Kenzo Yamamoto’s front, the neers alleged, was a string of corporations stretg from Tokyo Bay to the Kanto Plain. Yamamoto’s empire covered real estate, hardware and software, virtual eai, including the nurturing and promotion of idoru or virtual stars, KTVs, neers, magazines, reality game shows, banks, currency exge bureaus, messenger and courier services and pako parlors. Kenzo Yamamoto’s forte, it appeared, was corporate and industrial blackmail on a global scale and the buying and selling of sensitive information. The legitimate businesses also acted as fronts for the much seedier part of his empire, whicluded a sizeable k of the sex industry and the apanying audio-visual sex racket. Kenzo Yamamoto, speculated one particularly well informed but spicuously anonymous journalist, was sed in and only to Nobu Takahashi, Japan’s Minister of Internal Affairs and unication.

    Diane Joplin could not believe what she was reading. The man who had sent the sole to her father, a seedy figure from the Japanese underworld, was deceased and her father was dead too. There was definitely something very fishy going on there. And she was going to find out what it was if only t closure, to find out that her father hadn’t died in vain. She resisted the temptation to think about her father as tears threateo burst from her eyes. The Japanese passenger beside her was being increasingly perplexed. Here was this Ameri girl, reading about the death of some no-good Yakuza boss with tears in her eyes. And what was this wild claim that Yamamoto’s boss was her than a high-ranking gover official, this Miakahashi.

    An alleged Yakuza oyabun was in charge of the ministry responsible for administering pensions for Japan’s civil servants, national unications, the postal service, information teology usage in gover, statistics, local tax and local fi was unbelievable. If the reports were true, the Yamaguchi-gumi was running the try pure and simple. And if this Yamamoto character was a dealer in information globally then through his oyabun he had access to sensitive information in all of Japan. The foxes were well and truly in the chi coop.

    As she tio read, she quickly realized that everything poiowards the Tokyo business area of Shinjuku. Acc to the results of yet another search, it was in Shinjuku that she would find the new gover offices of the Ministry of<tt>.9９liｂ.t> Internal Affairs and unication, the official headquarters of the Yamaguchi-gumi and the seedy underworld of Yamamoto’s “water business” in Kabukicho. It was in Shinjuku she would find ao her questions, she thought, yet each of the three possible destinations seemed more foreboding than the . She’d have to make a choice.

    She looked up Shinjuku hotels in the in-flight magazine and was horrified by the amount they charged per night. Wing, she booked a deluxe room in the main tower of the Keio Plaza Intertial Hotel. Although this was one of the older Shinjuku hotels, it was just a block away from the Tokyo Metropolitan Gover Office building, and a short walk from the Yamaguchi-gumi’s lair in the business distrid the gaudy neons of Kabukicho’s vice-ridden back alleys. The in-flight system did a good job of making a visit to the latter by a fn girl on her own sound like a positively hair-raising proposition. Diane Joplin shrugged. She’d get to the hotel, freshen up and sider her options.

    Tokyo was covered in a bla of snow when her flight la Narita. From the air, between the vast expanses of white, Diane could make out the stretches of colored hat made the city e alive at night like she’d seen in the pictures. It was snowing lightly and she let that feeling of arriving in a new try for the first time wash over her. The aircraft was still taxiing to the gate, yet her Japanese co-passenger had already unfastened his seatbelt and was fumbling under his seat for his pilot’s briefcase over an unmoving potbelly. Diane leaned over and fished it out for him and he bowed awkwardly from the neck up embarrassed by their first unication for the entire length of the flight. She thought about her Samsonite up there in the luggage partment and what it taihe sleek but harmless looking sole that had probably already lead to the death of two people. She hoped that she would not be the third.

    She dohe AR glasses and looked out of the window. Immediately a text overlay informed her that they were at Terminal 8 of the okyo Iional Airport (Narita) and the temperature was minus frees tigrade, exactly the temperature indicated on the in-flight display system. Narita was located in the area known as Chiba, a featureles<cite></cite>s crete sprawl some sixty-six kilometers from downtown Tokyo. The ride into Shinjuku Station would take just fifteen minutes by NEX Maglev, the Narita express train service.

    She was on the driver-less electric shuttle hurtling across the tarmac towards the arrivals lounge. Diaook ihing from the freshness of the snow, the smell of Japan, which reminded her strangely ranced disiant, to the various states of travel fatigue exhibited by her fellow passengers. She spotted the man who had occupied the seat o her in the far er of the shuttle but he seemed to be ign her. The whir of aircraft, the snow falling on the shuttle windows and the tarmad melting on tact, the f feel of her Samsoween her legs and the fn smell of Japan all bio give her a strange sense of calm. This is what she had escaped Boston for, this olfactor<bdi>藏书网</bdi>y firmation that she had successfully transitioned from the horror of her father’s death into some totally new domain where his demise was but a specter in the snow, dissolving into the wet black tarmac.

    She had been impressed by the cool efficy of the Japanese  crew although she could ell whether they were really smiling at her or whether their visages were plex masks hiding a litany of other thoughts, not all of them benevolent. She noticed the quiet precision with which aircraft mainteaff went about their business outside, side by side with the robots, which sidled up to the aircraft and performed their tasks of removing baggage from the hold or ing the exterior of the aircraft.

    The shuttle was driverless, but probably to reduce culture shock for fn visitors used to seeing flesh and bone in the driver’s seat, they had rigged up a meical dummy up front so that, from the back at least, it looked like a human being was in charge of things. The dummy wore a peaked blue cap and was going through the motions of turning the steering wheel and shifting gears in syny with some puter program that was actually trolling the vehicle. Diane found the purely etic shifting of gears absurd, as everyone khat nobody really used manual gearboxes anymore.

    Outside bands of snow shifted diagonally downward as the vehicle came to a standstill outside the gate. Diaepped off the shuttle and followed the throng to passport trol. When it was her turn, the s officer looked her over in a way that bordered on an invasion of her privacy.

    “Where staying at?” he asked in halting English.

    “Keio Plaza Hotel, Shinjuku,” she replied, w why he hat particular piece of information.

    He then proceeded to enter some data on to her passport chip, presumably a visa. He nodded aurned her chip. Her heartbeat slowed a little. Moving now towards the X-ray iion maes, Diane wondered whether anything within the sole would prompt a request to open her suitcase. The young guy in front of the monitor stared at the X-ray image of her Samsonite and Diane’s heart stopped when she saw the man lean forward and gawp at the image. A few seds later he leaned bad started chatting to a female colleague. Heart pounding, Diane grabbed her suitcase from the X-ray mae’s veyor belt and walked briskly towards the sign for the trains into Tokyo. She tried hard not to look back.

    Fifteen minutes later she was cutting across snow-covered suburbs towards the ter of Tokyo. Everythi o her. The hushed versations in Japanese arouhe Kanji signs and the advertising that portended an altogether different culture from what she was used to. But, that was what she needed most now, the anonymity of the sprawliropolis that was Tokyo. She o lose herself in its myriad neon-soaked sounds, in its sights and in its smells. She o find herself in its distinct culture, which was holding on for dear life against the onslaught of some kind of ultra modernity, ohat was developing on a radically different ta from the rest of the world. Outside the window of the shape-shifting NEX Maglev, she spotted a gang of kids on motorcycles trying to match the train for speed. The AR unit informed her that they were bosozoku or teenage bike gangs and that many of them would grow up to bee fully-fledged Yakuza. The word Yakuza blinking on the display got Diahinking about Kenzo Yamamoto and Miakahashi.

    The train was now cutting through huge swathes of gray crete, flyovers, suspended expressways and forests of neon. The snow had disappeared from the ground leaving nothing but a black slush that adhered to the side of the roads. Then the crete forest got a whole lot bigger, and the neon signs in kanji just kind of grew in size and scope and there were all these gigantic TV ss h at each other in dulcet toned but very persuasive Japanese. And just as a hulking building of red brid black glass came into view, the AR unit notified her that she had arrived at Shinjuku Station.

 Chapter 23

    Caldwell woke up to find himself slumped lyph’s makes<u></u>hift worktop. The terminal had logged him out of his base and he was totally exhausted from his memory trip. Blue light streaming in through the trailer windows told him it was the crack of dawn. He looked at his watd the clo one of Glyph’s soles to firm it. It was 6.10AM on both. That was the kind of accuracy you got when you get the time via radio waves iime from the Atomic Clo Switzerland by which all time was measured.

    Kat was still fast asleep breathing with a faint rasping sound. Still curled up like a teus. She had somehow ged position though and her head was now at the bottom of the bed<s>..</s>. Weird. Her Sim Film had ended and colored light from the default ssaver flashed itently over her eyelids. Caldwell headed into the modified shower cubicle. There was a shower seat in there with steel grips, which Glyph obviously used to hoist himself out of his wheelchair and on to the shower seat. It looked like a wheelchair but it was made entirely of plastid devoid of wheels.

    Caldwell showered and got dressed in his old clothes, every minute heightening the excitement. There was no hot water so he was now we></a>ll and truly awake. An ice cold shower had a way of doing that to you. He checked his knapsack. The sole was in there ed in its pag material. It’s all I have. It’s all I need. He rolled the knapsack’s bination locks. With the bination, only a slasher could gain access into it and he had no plans to be in the viity of any of those.

    Caldwell sat on the bed and plated whether or not to wake Kat or leave her a note. While he was deliberating, as though reading his mind, she turned round and stared at him with sleep-puffed eyes ringed with marks from the goggles.

    “Don’t know why you o sleep with them on,” he said to her as her tired eyes adjusted to the natural light streaming through the windows of the trailer.

    “’t sleep without them. You know that. Stayed up all night?”

    “Pretty much. I’m off to the airport now.”

    “So soon,” she said, yawning.

    “Afraid so. But promise me you’ll stay here till I get back.”

    “Already did. Besides, I like it here.” She smiled, traces of sleep still embedded deep within her pale skin.

    “I’ve left some instrus on how to log in on Glyph’s main sole. I alsed it so that the message avatar is figured to prompt you when you have messages. I’ve unplugged the others. The HoloFlik is that gray projector thing on the ceiling.” He pointed up at the ceiling where a small holographic projector unit was hanging. “The Sims go in a slot on that box.”

    “Thanks, I think I  ha,” she said. Kat was already prepping foodbye. The rest was just semantics.

    “OK take care of yourself.”

    “I will. You too.”

    He hugged her. She held oight like a mother sending her only son off to war. It was like she was afraid he wasn’t ing back. Finally she let go, fighting back tears. After one last look at her, he stood up a Glyph’s trailer. O<var>藏书网</var>utside, the police cordons were gohe ever-effit Fouler had seen to it that they had been removed at dawn. This guy seemed too eager to please. Suspi rose in Caldwell like bile in a gall bladder.

    ***

    On the way to Heathrow Union Airport, flanked on all sides by megacorp drones returning to work, a wave of excitement washed through Caldwell for the first time in a long while. The human automatons that made the Union tick were everywhere, scurrying bad forth via the entrances, exits, platforms and people movers, like a macabre biological orchestra. Several questions remaihough. Could he trust Fouler? Was the girl Mei Lin for real? He hoped she was. Would he be able to track her down in Hong Kong? She could help<tt>藏书网</tt> him fill in some of the gaps in his past, what it had been like growing up in Hong Kong. And if his memories were corred not planted by Fouler and his ies, there had been some kind of a e there, something that went far beyond the urained raging of teenage hormones.

    At the Heathrow Union Airport Terminal 10 station, Caldwell stepped off the translut MagLev pulsing itently with advertising and made his way to the departure area. Fouler was standing at a special ter with no airline livery. He looked different standing up, taller, more fragile but positively more dangerous. o him were the two heavies from Fouler’s limousine and an attractive young woman carrying a red leather attaché case. The girl retty in a prim and proper British way and looked vaguely familiar. The two toughs made  of the fact that they thought the world of her. Fouler was his usual dapper self in a beige pin-striped suit. He hadn’t shaved though and a five o’clock shadow g to his long sharp jaw.

    “Good to see you didn’t get other ideas, Cad,” he said good-naturedly. He had probably managed just a few hours sleep but it didn’t show, except ihrobbing veins running up the back of his hands.

    “After the last twenty-four hours, unlikely,” Caldwell said affably enough. He had made a scious decision to give Fouler a break this m. If Fouler laying him it would do no harm to appear to be cooperating.

    “I want you to meet Ms. Levin. She will be apanying you on the flight, as will Agent Jones and Agent Ja.

    “Good to meet you. Do you have a first name?” Caldwell asked the prim and proper blonde. He figured there was also no harm in being friendly with the girl who robably going to mess with his head during the flight.

    “I don’t think you need ...” Fouler started.

    “It’s alright Bruce,” she said. “My first name is Seven. My parents had a weird sense of humor and in keeping the hey chose for me I am hum them.”

    Caldwell found it hard work keeping a straight face but he managed somehow. He was sorely tempted to ask her something about being open all hours but he bit his tongue. For the first time in a long while, he was in an upbeat mood.

    “OK, look here Cad. We’ve hooked you up with one of ents in Hong Kong. Agent Jones and Agent Ja will put you in touch with our ta Hong Kong and they’ll be leaving on the  flight. Our Hong Kong agent will sort you out with everything you need.”

    “OK. Sounds suspiciously like a plan.”

    Fnored him and tinued.

    “The deal is this. As soon as you identify this work and find a way in, you pull back,  up all your traces a your Hong Kong tact Agent Hsu to inform us. We’ll then take over from there. Do not attempt to play around iwork. Your job is just to get access and co-ordinates on this thing. I must warn you, in case you’ve fotten, that the ese have some of the most sophisticated eleitrusion ter-Attatities (ICE) in the world. These things don’t just keep you out. They track you down until you are a flatline in cyberspace.”

    “Uood.”

    “Do not attempt to lose Agent Hsu. We’ll have a GPS tag on you and will be able to know your whereabouts to within inches.”

    With that Fouler strode off down towards the escalator, his striped beige suit fluttering in the subtle currents of the air-ditioning. Agent Jones and Agent Ja stood gawking after him like children abandoned in a crowded shopping mall.

    “e on Mr. Caldwell,” urged Ms. Levin, grabbing him by the arm. “I have a date with that important brain of yours.”

 Chapter 24

    Majeneral Wang’s black bulletproof Buick sped through the gates of the nondescript pound before the People’s Liberation Army security guards could rush to their feet and affect the mandatory salute. The majeneral made a note in his vast brain to give them a firm dressing dowime permitted. He required everyoo be alert at all times, now more thahe pound was the headquarters of the Third Department of the PLA General Staff and was located in the sprawl of Beijing’s Haidian district, home to the nation’s top uies, research labs, sce parks and teology corporations. The majeneral’s mind was reeling from the aftermath of ret events.

    He took a deep puff on a gold-tipped Zhongnanhai Premium, thiie-stained fingers holding on to the cigarette as though it was some kind of precision instrument. Thin lips set into a largish face with stroures exhaled the smoke, which was quickly flushed away by the car’s powerful ventilation system. He stubbed out the cigarette in the brimming silver ashtray set into the armrest. The ashtray retracted, the sound of some ing meism muffled behind thick layers of foam aher.

    The current situation was intolerable and if he didn’t quickly bring things under trol the repercussions would be eg through the halls of Zhongnanhai, the seat of ese political power, in no time. Majeneral Wang hadn’t risen rapidly through the ranks of the People’s Liberation Army to see his eure put at stake by a professor with grandiose ideas about world pead an errant research student. The very thought of the damage the whole fiasco could do to his career filled him with rage.

    “What do you mean he has disappeared?” the majeneral had bellowed at the video phone in his car just a few minutes earlier. The Tsinghua Uy provost at the other end of the line had visibly blanched, shocked by the military leader’s outburst of ahis was oron he couldn’t afford to offend. Hundreds of millions of Renminbi in funding lay in the balahe provost khat some of this money was being used for “unofficial” research. He had been asked <samp>?９９lｉｂ.</samp>not to question the professors or students involved on those top secret projects and he had by-and-large curred. As long as the bulk of that money was going into projects that eventually added to the already incredible world prestige of his renowned institution he was more than happy to cur with the whims of men like Majeneral Wang. He also khat any mistakes would put his job at the whim of the majeneral. What if the man decided to withdraw funding? The provost’s agile mind rapidly accessed a mental list of alternate funding sources.

    “The student disobeyed clear orders, an act whi itself is a serious offence. We have, however, secured the equipment and are awaiting your further instrus,” the provost informed the majeneral.

    “You should have placed the student under guard as soon as the edict was issued,” the majeneral said gruffly.

    “Majeneral, I must remind you that we are an educational institution that  only resort to those kinds of measures under extreme circumstances.”

    “How is this for areme circumstance? I want you to secure the lab until I  get some men out there. Do you uand?”

    “Perfectly, sir,” the provost said with atuated reverence, sensing a reprieve. The majeneral’s previous project had he uy an unpreted level of funding, some of which had made it into other faculties, enhang their effectiveness. New equipment had been bought, professors who were leading thinkers in their fields had been poached from rival institutions, new fields of research had been uaken. That project had been so top secret though that the provost had had trouble explaining to his staff what <bdo></bdo>so many PLA officers in plain clothes had been doing at the uy. Nobody had been fooled. Yet, the provost had simply indicated that that se of the uy was out of bounds and that the PLA was using some of the uy’s resources for some run-of-the-mill research project. Quite the trary, if the provost’s hunch was correct.

    Majeneral Wang had signed off in disgust and lit another Zhongnanhai cigarette. Now, as his car drove up to the freshly painted fa?ade of the nondescript gray building that housed his offices and those of his key lieutenants, the majeneral reflected on the events of the last few days and sighed. First, there was the business of the Japanese Yakuza attempting to gain access to the system. He had known about Kenzo Yamamoto and his activities. In fact, the PLA had bought information from him on a few occasions, an act that actually angered him beyond belief. The ese would never fet the atrocities itted by the Japanese decades ago. The Nanjing Massacre. Just thinking about it flooded his mind with horrific images of the cruelties they had inflicted on the ese people. Yet, the Japanese gangster had tried oriany and the assassin had seen to it that he paid with his life.

    The AIs had been deadly accurate on that one, pinpointing the source of the intrusions to Tokyo and trag it back through plex data analysis all the way back to the Yakuza Yamamoto’s lair in Shinjuku. The majeneral had hesitated before deg on the Yakuza’s fate, knowing only too well that Yamamoto’s boss romi member of the Japanese gover. Yet, he had done everything in his power, and he wielded a siderable amount, to ascertain that Miakahashi was not implicated. If the minister was involved, this became a political game and the majeneral could not afford to make this political. There was too much at stake.

    Yet, if the minister had a hand in it, then there were ways of getting to him too without promising New a’s national is. The assassin’s modus operandi was silent and deadly yet there were risks involved with assassinating a minister of a fn try. That wouldn’t go down too well in Beijing or Tokyo if it ever came to light. It would lead to war and that was something the majeneral could ill affht now. He was thinking about a radically different kind of war. Yet, he was a taker of risks and if the occasion dema then so be it.

    The majeneral smiled to himself. At any rate, routine precautions had been taken. Phones had been tapped, unications had been promised and the majeneral had access to a signifit k of the Japanese minister’s private unicatiowork. A small army of the Third Department’s best and most trustworthy was currently attempting a hato the Yakuza’s work of satellites.

    Everything was as it should be except for the small matter of how Kenzo Yamamoto had learned about and gained access to the prototype work in the first place. The work was highly secure, accessible only through  hardware made in a secure secret manufacturing facility deep within the hinterland of New a. Yamamoto could have gotten his hands on one of the soles but everything was ated for. He could have blackmailed Professor Yao for a blueprint but the professor was . The majeneral khat for a fact. Anyway, that was yet another reason why the professor had to die.

    The two PLA at the door of his office stiffened and gave him their best salute as he strode briskly towards his office. The men sensed his bad mood. Majeneral Wang thrived on the fear of his subordinates, a small army of which stood to attention as he walked into his office. His personal assistant appeared out of nowhere and hovered diligently behind him. She was a wiry girl with a taut body, a keen mind and the majeneral jectured, a voracious sexual appetite. If only time and protocol would permit, he thought.

    “Leave me alone. I don’t want to be disturbed,” he growled without turning around. The personal assistaed the office without making a sound. The majeneral sat down behind his expansive uncluttered desk and lit another Zhongnanhai. On the shiny surface of the desk, nothing but a sole and s and a gold plated ashtray with the PLA’s insignia and his name on it. He was about to take a puff on the cigarette when his secure cell ph.

    “Speak,” he anded, as he switched on the massage fun of his elaborate puter-trolled chair. He barely felt the massagers probe the surface of his skin. The majeneral had the tense bination of muscle and fat of a sumo wrestler, plete with a large square head ed with an unlikely crew-cut.

    “Lieutenant Liu, sir. We have some news.”

    “It better be good.”

    “Sir, we mao gain access to one of their low level unications satellites.”

    “Is that the news?”

    “No sir. It seems that this Yamamoto sent two packages abroad just before he died sir.”

    “And why is that iing?”

    “Sir, because the Yakuza just found out that the packages tained ade puters. And they seem to think these soles were somehow lio his death and are currently trying to retrieve them.”

    “Mmmm... very iing. So that is how his hackers gained access to our work.” The majeneral allowed his brain a few seds to digest the information.

    “Sir, he sent them to a Professor Joplin of MIT in Amerid a hacker in the Union. A Cad Caldwell, sir.

    “Did you do a tra those two?”

    “Yes, sir. Professor Joplin is dead acc to the neers in America. And the hacker, sir, we have no data on.”

    “The Japanese must have got to the Ameri professor, which means they are probably looking for the hacker too,” the majeneral said thinking aloud.

    “Most likely, sir.”

    The majeneral made a mental o have the teis put the intrusioion AIs and the ICEs on high alert. It wouldn’t be long before the hacker attempted to log on to the work and then he would be as good as dead. He would have to get to the hacker first, before the Yakuza. The assassin, it seemed, had a busy roster.

    “If the Ameri is dead, where is the sole?” he asked, not expeg a useful answer. Lieutenant Liu was dreading this question, because he khat the answer would mean several more hours in the office, his dinner long gone cold, his frustrated wife in bed asleep. Several days of cold shoulder awaited him.

    “Sir, acc to the data, it appears the Yakuza didn’t find the sole. The Ameri professor has a teenage <q></q>daughter who has since disappeared. The Ameri police fear she is dead but no body has been found. This leaves the possibility, remote as it may seem, that she is alive and she has the sole.”

    “Not remote at all. Have a tra her yet?”

    “We’ll get on it right away, sir,” the lieutenant said, picturing his marriage fragmenting into a thousand pieces.

    “Good work, lieutenant. Keep me informed,” the majeneral said at length and hung up.

    That would explain how Yamamoto got access. He somehow got the blueprint and had a ade. Most likely got his hackers to hack the system at Tsinghua Uy and had the soles  built in Japan. But who could build such a puter, without knowledge of the work itself and the protocols it used. The majeneral had made sure that there was no data anywhere on the specifications. They existed only in the minds of Professor Yao and the PLA teis specially handpicked and assigo this project. Those soles would have to be state-of-the-art crafted by a true master.

    The Third Department, the majeneral’s domai in information, signals, data, patterns in data and data flows. And the majeneral was its director and the mastermind behind the PLA’s advanced C4ISR systems - and, trol, unications, puters, intelligence, surveillance, and reaissahey would find the girl and hacker easily, the assassin would retrieve the soles and everything would be as it should be. The research student on the run would be caught. The Third Departmehe key to some of the information flows inside a and had siderable access to information globally. There would be no escape for those three. And then there will be the iion and the project would proceed to its final live test phase.

    It had been a shame to kill Professor Yao, the architect of the majeneral’s brainchild. The majeneral was actually cut up about it. The death of one of a’s greatest teical minds was a great loss for the try. Yet, the professor had served his purpose, performed his duty. The man had lost his mind. The information beloo him, to New a. Sharing it with the world was tantamount to treason and would have set a back ten years and probably cost him his job. What was the man thinking? Yet, everything was in plaow with just a few minor hiccups.

    The project had passed its beta phase with flying colors. A select group of the Third Department’s best minds was keeping it tig around the clock, both internally aernally. Two thousand subjects were now a living part of the work. The simulations of financial markets, electricity grids and global unications systems were yielding impressive results. Professor Yao himself had long declared the system ready for prime time. The only missing link was the AI itself. Did the professor know that this other thing he was w on and had just declared successful in New York had an important role to play in the scheme of things? He doubted it but then why would the professor try to sabotage the project by going to the world with his annou. Had he realized the brilliance of the majeneral’s plan, the beautiful logic of it?

    The majeneral thought about the thirty-six stratagems ihe Secret Art of War” written by an anonymous scholar a few hundred years earlier. Professor Yao’s latest project, a’s first true AI, was going to rewrite the thirty six stratagems for the new digital age. The AI was going to weaken the enemy in ways unimaginable.

    Fool the emperor to cross the sea. Yes, the AI was going to lower the enemy’s guard by hiding its iions deep within the fabric of cyberspace, allowing the eo make a natural mistake. Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao. Attaething a superior enemy holds dear t him out of his lair, then poun the true prize. The target was the puterized systems of global trade, industry and unications. The prize was world domination.

    Kill with a borrowed sword. The AI will use the enemy’s strength against it, subverting global teologies and systems for its own use. Victory will be a fone clusion. Await the exhausted enemy with ease. The time and place of battle would be at the majeneral’s discretion, allowing the AI to ence the eo exhaust his energy. The most signifit battle will e when the enemy has lost the will to fight. Then the majeneral would proceed to the fifth stratagem. Loot a burning house.

    But first the assassin had to be put on high alert. There was more killing to be done and property to be retrieved.

 Chapter 25

    The HYDRA jet was decked out exactly as Caldwell had imagihere was more real leather furniture than Caldwell had seen in his lifetime. There were plush leather sofas, reers, a massage chair, three desks with swivel chairs, a bookcase full of important-lookiher-bound books and a large plasma TV s. Even the bar stools were covered in real Italiaher. A bank of terminals lio cyberspace via the aircraft’s onboard satellite system blio one side of the main area of the aircraft. A fully immersive VR suit hung limply inside a glass et.

    As soon as they stepped aboard, Ms. Levin disappeared into one of two doors leading to the back of the plane. A large red sign above the door read RESTRICTED: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Caldwell thought he was flying Lobotomy Air, courtesy of HYDRA, the pride of the Union. The two agents settled their frames in one of the plush Italiaher sofas and flipped on the plasma. Agent Jones opened a partment in the sofa’s armrest and pulled out two pairs loves. They started playing a holographic video game, dug, weaving, jabbing and pung the air. The two five-inch holographic boxers projected on to the top of a glass coffee table followed their every move iime. They were mauscle boys massaging their pathetic egos.

    “You two don’t have anythier to do than play video games?” Caldwell asked. He thought it was a reasonable question in the circumstances but they glared at him and theuro their boxing match. Caldwell sat in one of the swivel chairs and watched Agent Jones’ boxer pi Ja’s bainst the holographic ropes to the sound of a bell signaling the end of the first round. He was tired, both mentally and physically, but the thought of the impending procedure kept any notions of sleep at bay. He watched the two HYDRA agents remove their jackets and ties, poised for the sed round. Their holographic equivalents sat slumped in their ers sug water through straws and taking advice from invisible trainers.

    Caldwell stood up and opened one of the doors at the front of the aircraft, the only ohat didn’t say AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY or  CREW ONLY and found himself in a smaller room with a couple of treadmills and more leather reers. Was that all HYDRA agents did? Kick bad think of old England? He andeered one of the reers near a large window looking out on the runway. The automated fuel trucks were pulling away and the aircraft reparing to take off. There was a kno the door and two identical Eurasian twins in red  crew garb walked in. Caldwell wasn’t sure whether he was halluating. There was something about the stewardesses, a certain telepathic coordina<samp></samp>tion that seemed totally unreal.

    “Wele on board Mr. Caldwell. Mr. Fouler asked us t you this suit to ge into after your procedure. We also have a suitcase of clothing and other items that will e in handy in Hong Kong.” This said in unison, the sound of their voices ing at him in stereo. One of the girls was carrying a gray suit bag which she placed on a hanger on wall.

    “Thanks,” Caldwell said and gawked at the girls. There was something unnatural about the two Eurasians, an intense and vaguely disturbing artificial beauty.

    “You are wele,” they said, again in perfect syny.

    “I am not going to bother asking your names. I am just going to get fused,” he said.

    “That’s a good idea. Just call us Siu Je then there won’t be any fusion.”

    “Sounds like a plan. Do you guys always say the exact thing at the same time? And what does Siu Je mean anyway? Doesn’t sound like English.”

    “Very funny, Mr. Caldwell. We know you speak tonese perfectly well. We’ll e a you once Ms. Levin is ready for you.” Two pairs of painfully attractive brown oriental eyes bore into him.

    “Yeah, her surgery is open all hours, right?”

    “Pardon us, Mr. Caldwell?” the girls said in unison.

    “Never mind. It’s just a little joke. And call me Cad, please.”

    “If you insist, Cad,” they ceded in stereo, retreating backwards through the gaping door.

    He’d be damned if HYDRA wasn’t culturing air hostesses in vats. The practice was not unheard of. There were places in Italy were you could get a twenty-one year-old woman ade in six months. No kidding. Those two looked like something out of Fouler’s fantasies. Only he would think of making them Eurasian, appealing to the most basic stereotypes about beauty. And then it clicked. The two agents, Ja and Johe idea of making identical blad white bodyguards could only be the result of a deade in a lab. HYDRA was growing its own staff. That would explain their obsession with video games. Like Kat’s obsession with movies. And the way they only spoke when spoken to. The meical way they dealt with the taheir totally unnatural laugh in the limo. The way they looked at Fouler when he left them at the airport, like Hansel and Gretel abandoned in the woods.

    Caldwell let the e theress from his mind and tried to reflect ba everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hlyph, hacker owner of The HUB, dead. Kat was ba the radar and staying in Glyph’s trailer. He had part of his memory bad in a few minutes would have much more. He was slowly redisc a self he never knew before, his synapses refiguring in unimaginable ways, slowly unlog a hidden past.

    The tempo of his life had definitely gone up a notch. For better or worse was anyone’s guess. Just the other day he had been on the brink of taking his own life. He thought about the Slav’s vial in his knapsaow he was on a luxury corporate aircraft bound for Hong Kong, his place of birth. Ohing was for sure. The events of the last twenty-four hours were too plex to digest and were best left aloo work themselves out in due course. He was still pissed off about what Fouler had let HYDRA do to him.

    He stared outside the window as flight engineers fitted the metal slingshots below the aircraft’s fuselage. Caldwell felt like he had seen this done before although, as far as he could recall, he had never been on an aircraft before. There was a faint rumble as the engines fired up, the sound growing louder. The tempo rose until the fuselage started to shudder. The nose of the jet started moving upwards and he instinctively gripped the armrest of his seat. The sound of winches grinding, then the force of the slingshots snapping a<var>?99lｉｂ.</var>nd the HYDRA jet shot straight into the sky, bound for Hong Kong.

    When the aircraft leveled out, Caldwell walked bato the main room. The two Eurasian Siu Jes were o be seen. It appeared Ms. Levin was still in the room with restricted access. The two agents were on round ten. Both biological and holograp<u></u>hic boxers had slowed down siderably. The Jones landed an uppercut to Agent Ja’s virtual jaw and the black agent’s holographic boxer slumped on to the virtual vass. A referee materialized out of nowhere, realistically dropped to the floor, or rather the coffee table, and began to t Agent Ja’s boxer avatar down. The heavy looked on, willing the hologram to get up but it was to no avail. Agent Jones’ boy was the champion. They both slumped sweat-soaked in the sofa and stared at him.

    Agent Jones eased his bulky frame out of the sofa, leaving a large dent in the leather, and disappeared off behind one of the doors, muscles rippling against sweat-soaked shirt.

    Caldwell decided it was going to be a long flight so he might as well appear to be friendly.

    “First time to Hong Kong?” he asked, making every effort to sound casual.

    “No, but these places all look the same anyway.” Agent Ja had spoken. It appeared they only stayed silent when they were together.

    “How do you know if you’ve never been?” Caldwell pushed.

    “Look here mate, this is going to be a three hour trip. We don’t need any shit from you. OK?”

    “I am not giving any. Look why ’t we all just get along. Do you have family in the Union,” Caldwell probed.

    A blank look came over the man’s fad he didn’t say a word. Agent Ja stood up suddenly. His fists were ched. On his face was a tortured look that only served to firm Caldwell’s initial suspis. These were vat jobs. What was he doing with an outfit that  built people to serve its dark purposes? The agent’s eyes went blank and Caldwell thought he was about to take revenge for his boxi and pound him into the fuselage of the aircraft. He was saved by the bell. Ms. Levin popped her head round the restricted door.

    “We are ready for you now,” she said cheerily, as though he was making a routirip to the dentist. We? Hoeople were there on the aircraft? And how many of them were born the way nature intended?

    “I am not in the mood for a lobotht now.  you give me a few more mio resider?” Caldwell asked. He was only half joking. The look in her eyes told him that now was the time and this was noiable. Caldwell stood up nervously. He rehensive about the process that was about to take plad what it would do to him. A mild migraiarted to flash somewhere deep within his skull. She opehe door wider to let him through. She was dressed pletely in white, having ged her clothes sihey had boarded the aircraft. Then it hit him why she had looked vaguely familiar at the airport. She had been a lot youhen. She was the nurse in the white room of his retly acquired memories.

 Chapter 26

    The lunchtime Shinjuku crowd eyed the eight-car motorcade of black Lexus sedans as they turned off the busy main street of the bustling business distrid disappeared into a hole in the side of a futuristic-looking building. The black tinted shatter-proof glass windows and bullet-proof side panels suggested only ohing. Yakuza. The Japanese were used to seeing motorcades like this one all over town, but the presidential authority with which they cruised the streets never failed to inspire awe. Miakahashi was sitting in the back of the fifth car with his adviser Hirayama. In the front sat a heavily tattooed bodyguard in a black suit and the driver. Both Takahashi and Hirayama were on their cell phohe minister was talking politics with some gover bureaucrat while his saiko-komon was taking care of an altogether different kind of business.

    “Are you sure?” the adviser Hirayama was asking someo the other end of the line.

    “Well, she’s Ameri. Her passport says her name is Diane Jane Joplin. About the age you mentioned and there is definitely a sole of some description in her luggage. We don’t see may Ameris of her age traveling alone and definitely ve9９liｂ?ry few with soles of that description in their luggage.”

    Hirayama could barely believe his luck. Once again the sario analysis struct had been right on the money. Ohe Boston Yakuza had reported that they hadn’t found the sole at Joplin’s house, Hirayama had moved into high gear. The software had narrowed the places she would go to New York, New a or Tokyo. He had rushed to issue notices to the Yakuza’s informants in the airlines and Japanese s to call his cell phone as soobbr></abbr>n as someoting her description otted, within the  forty-eight hours.

    “Did you find out where she’s staying?”

    “Of course, your instru<var>.</var>s were clear. She said she was staying at the Keio Plaza Hotel.”

    “Description?”

    “I have her data in front of me. Oer seventy. Slim with brown eyes and mousy blonde, almost-brown, hair. Keeps it in a pony tail. Quite pretty in that Ameri way. She didn’t look excited like most tourists do when they visit a civilized try for the first time. I’d say she looked sad and a bit lost.”

    “Good work. You will be rewarded through the usual el.” Hirayama pressed a button oiny phone and slipped it into his suit pocket. The minister was still on the phohe deep boom of his voice filling the car as it slid into one of the reserved parking slots o the other Lexus sedans. The heavies, all dressed in black, were already lined up o the car park exit waiting to usher their master through.

    The fact that the Boston Yakuza hadn’t found the sole after ransag Joplin’s sprawling house had been a setback but the gods had set things right with this the latest piece of news. Miakahashi would be pleased although Hirayama knew his boss well enough to believe that he wouldn’t show it. Things were slowly being brought under trol. He had successfully ma Yamamoto’s ill-gotten funds uhe minister’s trol and the minister had wired a small fortuo one of Hirayama’s own ats. Loyalty had its value and Hirayama’s unfling loyalty was beginning to pay dividends. Yet, the true prize would be Yamamoto’s position within the Yamaguchi-gumi hierarchy. That job was now vat and he hoped that the oyabun would see fit to elevate him to that position.

    The position of saiko-komon or personal adviser, though powerful, was an untenable one. Yes, he had access to information that other Yakuza would give their lives for, yet, trary to tradition, he had no gangs of his own under his own trol. It was a deliberate state of affairs instituted by the oyabun. If the oyabun fell, he would fall too by proxy. His fate was irretrievably tied to that of Nobu Takahashi. Hirayama khe gang structure better thaakahashi himself. He was familiar with the dynamics of every aspect of this black cloud that reached into every aspect of Japanese society. Who better thao be sed in and? He suspected that after Yamamoto’s treachery Takahashi would move to promote someorustworthy, more trollable. And who was more trustworthy or more trollable than Hirayama himself? At least that is what he wanted his<mark></mark> boss to believe. Yet, being so close had its disadvaakahashi could decide that Hirayama koo mud that if he was made sed-in-and it would be too dangerous. Also, there were others in the ranks clam for Yamamoto’s position.

    That was the very reason they were here today in one of the Yamaguchi-gumi’s many ercial buildings i藏书网n Shinjuku. The heads had requested an impromptu meeting to be updated on the Yamamoto fiasco, a mere ruse to sound out the oyabun on whom he would handpick to fill the vacuum created by the traitor’s death. They would be reading the oyabun’s eyes carefully to dis who his preference was and Takahashi himself would be reading their minds to see who wahe job most and what their motivations were. And Hirayama would sit there detached, watg the whole silent game of cat and mouse from a position of absolute objectivity. He khe oyabun would ask him privately who he thought wahe job. His response would have to be well thought out, strategic. It would be a way to isolate his enemies within the ranks and they were many.

    Takahashi finished his phone versation as they ehe marble lobby of the building and moved towards the bank of elevators. Even though he was wearing dark glasses, everyone in the lobby reized Nobu Takahashi for who he was and gave their deepest bow as the black-clad group of Yakuza strode towards the private elevators. A security guard bowed deeply and ied his key card. The elevator doors opened and the men walked inside, surrounding their boss like vultures around a dead corpse. Hirayama felt slightly unfortable with all that flesh around him.

    “Takahashi-san, that was s at the airport. The girl is in town. For what I do not know but she is booked into the Keio Plaza Hotel right here in Shinjuku.”

    “Hmm,” Takahashi grunted as the elevator sped towards the penthouse offi the top floor of the building. The minister had already overheard the versation and was showing his impatie having the informatioed even though it was Hirayama’s duty to report it.

    “Should we pick her up?”

    “No. Put a detail on her. Nothing spicuous. Report what she’s up to. She’s in Japan for a purpose. Let’s see what she gets up to. Even more important, lets see who else is oail.” All this said while Takahashi was looking up at the ceiling of the elevator, admiring the detail of the décor.

    “Of course, oyabun.”

    “If nothing happens iy-four hours, kill her arieve the sole.”

    “Of course.”

    “And the other ohe hacker?”

    “I have some men on it. They are following our quarry to Hong Kong. He seems to have made some iing friends.”

    “Agency?”

    “Yes oyabun.”

    “Hmm.”

    “Oyabun?”

    “Hong Kong is an iing choice isn’t it?”

    “It is indeed.”

    “There is only one agency that has the resources on the ground to mount that kind of operation from Hong Kong and that resorts to the low level tactics of freelance hackers.”

    “Yes. HYDRA. Bruce Fouler.”

    “This is all getting very iing,” Takahashi said simply as they emerged into an exquisite room filled with the kyodai, the top dogs of the Yamaguchi-gumi.

 Chapter 27

    Caldwell staggered into the room with Ms. Seven Levin following close behind. Turbulence. She pressed a hidden button somewhere below the handle of her red leather attaché case and the four sides collapsed to reveal a traption with several sensors and those tiny devices that sat literally millimeters from your retina. They not so much as projected images, as directly stimulated your optierves. There was also a device that looks like an old lady’s shower cap but it was hooked up to a thin fiber optic cable that disappeared into one side of the traption. There was something that looked like an optical disc that she loaded into the traption and it started whirring and spinning. Caldwell didn’t like the look of any of this.

    “What the hell is that?” he asked nervously, beads of sweat rolling down the side of his fad disappearing into his shirt collar.

    “It’s the bits of your memory bank that yoing to need for this mission. I’d say that disc holds the triggers to about twenty-five pert of your memory, specific parts of your memory.” Close up, Caldwell noticed a hard tough edge to Seven’s attractive face. It was something in those eyes, as though some cold and calculating arctic predator atiently biding its time behind the vacuous blue of her irises.

    “So what exactly am I getting?” he asked, shuddering at the thought of the raw animal instinct he had glimpsed藏书网 sitting passively in there, waiting to be awakened.

    “Yetting memory of the physical skills you used to have before. If you used to be a champion tennis player, you will be able to tap into that skill set and possibly win again. I say possibly because it will take a while to re-align your body with what your brain says you are capable of. I uand you were a black belt at something and that you had some basic shooting practice at The Seminary. You should be able to get those back with some effort on your part. Of course, you’ll first have to bee physically fit. You look like you haven’t hit the treadmill in a while.”

    “Like I  afford it. Were you part of the inal procedure?” Caldwell asked, hoping to persuade her to give him everything back.

    “I’m afraid I am not at liberty to ahat question.” Those cold eyes studying him, vat aionless.

    “Please. Humor me.”

    “I am not at liberty to ahat question. If you keep insisting I’ve been instructed to halt the procedure aroy this. This is the only disc I have on board,” she threa<big></big>tened. For a woman with a name like she had, she sure was unflappable.

    “OK, but tell me ohing. How does this thing work?” he asked, ging the subject.

    “Pretty simple really. Your brain stores information in little partments. Information oain things tend to be stored in a certain area of the brain but apart from this vague system of ial geography, the way the information is stored is haphazard, relying on memory association to make the es. So you might have a childhood memory of riding your first bike sittio your memory of the square root of sixty four. What they did is they built a map of your memory, segme into core sectors like speech, physical, mental, artistic skills arapolated that over a timeline from when you were in your mother’s womb<dfn></dfn> to approximately six years ago.”

    “And you left speed blocked off the rest? Assigning eae a trigger?”

    “You learn fast Mr. Caldwell,” she said smiling. Then the smile vanished as she realized that he had tricked her into firming that she was ihe person who had carried out the procedure. “They were even able to isolate different forms of speech. They blocked off all your ese. They had to.”

    “Why?” Caldwell asked, ign the obvious cover-up.

    “It would have been a bit strange if you found out you could speak Mandarin and tonese fluently and read a fair amount but had no memory of it.”

    “So if I saw a character, say in Hong Kong, which was a trigger, would I get partial memory recall?”

    “No. The font, size and color of the character have to be a perfect match. The triggers all use a  font with certain unique features that you couldn’t identify unless you were looking for them specifically.”

    “So after HYDRA, how did I end up hag for a living? I mean, why did I choose the same profession and not deliver pizza or something?”

    “That was just how you are wired. You have a natural propensity for puters and code. Actually, your core skills, the ohat got you a job at HYDRA, were all locked away but your basic propensity for hag, that’s all you. Y<u>..</u>ou will get those core skills ba about an hour. The stuff you’ve been doing the last few years pared to what you have ing is like paring kindergarten homework with a PHD thesis in quantum physics.”

    “I take it that’s the good news.  you explain the frequent migraines I get?”

    “Yes. That’s your brain’s natural impulse to try to access the blocked areas. We had to associate those activities with pain to stop you fr to access those memory banks. That’s why the pain goes away very quickly. It disappears as soon as your brain focuses on memories that are less than a few years old or have not been locked. The migraines, I am afraid are here to stay, until you get perma memory recovery and your brain starts rewiring itself.” Caldwell could swear he saw the animal retreat even further behind her eyes.

    “Well thanks for explaining this to me. I know you didn’t have to,” he said with genuine gratitude.

    “Wele. Off the record, it paihose who had clearan the London office greatly to see this doo you. You were the agency’s whiz kid but the anization had to e first. I am sure you uand.”

    “We’ll have to see how this trip goes but I am not beyond fiveness,” he said. She smiled, ruby lips pursed together like a strawberry.

    “OK, that’s enough idle banter,” she said, bringing up a gas mask from the side of the traption. “Take a deep breath.”

 Chapter 28

    The soles of Li Jin’s pumps hit the floor much earlier than he’d anticipated and he felt the muscles in his sinewy legs absorb the impact with room to spare. He paused for a few seds allowing his heartbeat to slow. Then he switched on the small flashlight ahe tiny beam dance around the room. It was a small enclosure, not much bigger than his dormitory room at Tsinghua. He sighed. He would probably never ever see that dormitain. Then the beam danced over something that had his heart rag all ain.

    There was a gurney in the ter of the room. On closer iion, Li Jin realized that it was more like an elaborate dental chair with the backrest pushed way back to allow the oct to assume a reing positioo the dentist chair was what looked like some sort of lamp/heater hybrid. They were on in Beijing, inexpensive lamps that provided a modest amount of heating at the same time by redireg the heat from the filament outwards into the room. He felt along its stem and switched it on. The room was illuminated in a harsh yellow glow and a bla of dry heat started to crawl outwards, slowly warming the room. Li Jin switched off his flashlight and looked around the room. The walls were made of gray brick, dripping with humidity. The floor was covered with some kind of laminate desigo approximate a wooden floor.

    Li Jin studied the traption in the ter of the room. The dentist chair was rigged with a couple of plasma monitors sitting oal arms that curved over the chair like the tail of an agitated scorpion. A pair of cyberspace gloves and goggles hung to one side o a metal arm with several hooks. The chair itself was covered in a silver mesh fabric stretched tight h-density pound memory foam and sat on an hlass-shaped metal base. o the chair <u>９９ｌｉb.</u>was a silver trolley stacked with medical equipment. There were intravenous catheters and tubes, some kind of pump and multiple packs taining various forms of medical hydration and nutrition, the kind hospitals fed to patients in a a.

    Li Jin sed the packs quickly, his heart rag in anticipation. It ainfully obvious. These were mediutrition packs desigo keep you under while jacked into cyberspace. This was the professor’s backd. The UPS below the rig and the heating panels firmed his suspis. The professor had been spendiended periods of time on the new work and had set up this elaborate rig for the purpose of staying jacked in for very long periods of time.

    Li Jihe dangers of this kind of setup very well. At one end of one of the intravenous catheters was a needle, which you placed in a promi vein under your skin. The catheter was used to administer fluids to prevent dehydration. The professor was also using nasogast<mark></mark>ric tubes which were fed down the nose and throat into the stomach. The g-tube, which was ied just below the collar bone, allowed for much more extended periods of intravenous feeding. The puter-trollable pump ehat nutrition from the packs could be regularly administered directly into the digestive system. The risks the professor had been taking were substantial. Liquid could ehe lungs, tubes could bee clogged and a dislodged needle, while you were ihroes of some cyberspace episode, could result in serious tissue ination. This stuff should only be doh someone, preferably a qualified medical professional, periodically watg over the subject. Yet, the professor had found it necessary to take these risks. Why?

    Li Jin noticed that cables from the monitors, the goggles, the gloves and the intravenous pump, all led to the back of the chair where they disappeared into a tiny box made of cheap plastiother cable from the box disappeared into a small enclosure at the base of the chair. The backdoor device? Li Jin opehe door to the enclosure and exhaled deeply. In the small space was a small green plastic box ner than a pack of cigarettes. It had no label except the following noti simple white ese characters: Property of the People’s Liberation Army. Unauthorized Use Strictly Prohibited. There was a tiny flick switch at the back of the device. Li Jin swit<dfn></dfhe devi and the monitors above came out of hibernation. A flash of light from the goggles and the blinking LEDs on the gloves suggested those devices were also hooked up to the green box.

    Li Jin stared at the monitor and couldn’t believe his eyes. On the monitor inning 3D map of Shanghai with blinking is indig various locations owork. Tiny dots moved around the map at random, their colors itently ging. In a small picture-in-picture was a readout of vital signs with the word ‘offline’ flashing for all of them. At the bottom of that tiny s was a tdown timer frozen at zero. <big></big>It all made seo Li Jin. The professor had written a rudimentary program that monitored important aspects of his health when he was jacked in. The program in turn trolled the intravenous pump, the heating and the other enviroal variables required to stay uhe tdown timer ehat he was jacked out of the work at a specific point of time.

    Li Jin fought his instinct to don the goggles and the gloves aer the system. Here at his fiips robably the most amaziwork in the world, a system he had helped build but had never seen up and running in the real world. The system had been top-level classified. Nobody on the project, except the professor and a selected few of the top brass of the PLA’s Third Department, had had any access to the finished product.

    Yet, Li Jin knew about the seductive nature of cyberspace, especially this version of it. He could not afford to waste any more time. He had a train to catch to Hong Kong. He switched off the box and quickly disected the cables. He placed the rig, the gloves and the goggles in his backpad ripping the labels off the health nutrition and hydration products, he placed them in his pockets. He would have to make some purchases in Xian ohe Russian’s credit was sitting securely in his ats. Then it >..</samp>ould be off to a locatioill hadn’t pletely decided on.

    With some effort, Li Jin moved the dentist chair so that it was directly below the trapdoor. Using the pic pump below the seat he raised the chair to its highest position. The ces of him being heard were minimal. He stood on the chair and was relieved to find that his fingers could just about curl around the lips of the open trapdoor. With all his strength he raised his body up through the trapdoor like a gymnast mounting parallel bars. He thanked God for his skinny frame as his torso and backpack emerged oher side.

    Stealthily he crept out of the study to the back of the professor’s pound were he suspected there might be a side gate. Again, the gods were on his side. There was a side gate locked from the inside, probably by the man with the cigarette. Li Jin was again gratified to see that there was no padlock. He slid the bolt open and slipped out into cold Beijing night.

 Chapter 29

    The HYDRA aircraft touched down at Hong Kong Iional Airport just after noon. Caldwell stared out one of the windows as the plane skid>?９9ｌib?</a>ded to a halt. He’d never seen so many aircraft in one place before. There were hundreds of them with many landing and taking off simultaneously. There were plahat landed and stopped abruptly, plahat took off from a stationary position. They just shuddered and shot up vertically into the sky. There were hybrid plahat took off like a helicopter, then they’d sprout wings, the rotors would fold down, and they’d shoot off like a jet fighter. Amazingly, most of the airline logos were familiar to him. In his previous life he had probably been a frequent flier.

    “Thank you for flying HYDRA Air,” the two Eurasian stewardesses said in stereo over the inter. Caldwell wondered where they had sequestered themselves for much of the flight and sidered the remote possibility that they had actually flown the plane, if in fact it had been piloted by humans.

    Caldwell couldn’t put his finger on it but something in him had ged dramatically. He’d e out of the operating room a bit groggy and badly in need of some shut-eye, the dull throb of a migraine lingering in there somewhere, but otherwise feeling that he was still the same person, except for the stant barrage of images flashing in his head. He’d taken a nap and found himself the protagonist in a string of vivid nightmares. He’d awoken to ay lounge and headed to the shower. He felt much better after his shower, shave and a ge of clothing. The suit the two Siu Jes had brought on board for him fitted well and when Caldwell had looked at himself in the mirror he had seen a face that he didn’t pletely reize.

    While still in the operation room, for that’s what it was even though the procedure was non-invasive, he had solved three programming algorithms that had been b him for a while. These were algorithms that would have made his bots much smarter and less proo reboots or system failures. He was happy with that aspect of things. He would need his brain cells firing on all ders to extricate himself unscathed from his current predit. He felt the urge to hold a gun in his hand and fire it. He had no idea why he had those thoughts, he just felt them. It was as though that act would fill some deep hole in his psyche. What surprised him most was that he could think in .９９ｌｉｂ.what he figured was tonese. He had heard the language before in the numerous atowns scattered across the Union. And now in his somewhat refurbished mind, the sounds of the ese language were coalesg intnizable pattern of sorts.

    The Siu Jes emerged to open the aircraft doors.

    “Nei dei sik gong gman ma?” Caldwell asked the twins in tonese, surprising even myself. Did they speak tonese?

    “Gan hai la!” they exclaimed, like he was asking an idiotic question. That was good enough for him. He could speak at least some tonese. Caldwell wondered what else was going on in the uncharted depths his mind. Ms. Levin had explaio him that she had implawo tiny chips non-invasively. One was a miniscule GPS chip that plotted his whereabouts on a digital map accessible somewhere in London. It probably had Fouler’s fingerprints all over it. The other was a Hong Kong ID chip.

    While he was knocked out she had taken the liberty of running the ID chip he carried in his pocket against the Unioification database. She had told him he had a list of minor offences as long as her arm and that the authorities had been trying to track him down without success. Caldwell had observed that her arms were not that long and that her legs would be a better analogy. She’d blushed visibly and busied herself pag up her traptions. Fouler had instructed her to wipe the slate  on his new Hong Kong chip. Anything else that went on there was not their problem. Fair deal, he thought. Caldwell felt like he was betraying his anti-system ideals but Seven Levin had assured him that if he made it back alive, having the chips removed would be the least of his problems. From the way she said it, Caldwell reed Seven did not rate his ces.

    He was escorted through the immigration ters by Agent Jones and Agent Ja. Ms. Levin and the Siu Jes had stayed on board with the pilot who Caldwell hadn’t seen throughout the flight.

    “Hello Mr. Caldwell, wele back to Hong Kong. I see you’ve been away for a while,” a freckled young ese immigration officer observed, as his puter automatically picked up Caldwell’s details. Caldwell was taken abad started feeling around in his pockets. Were they reading the passport chip that Ms. Levin had given him from his pocket?

    “No need for a passport chip, sir,” the officer said, correctly reading his a.

    At the luggage carousel, he kept his eyes open for the two Yakuza who had killed Glyph in London. His heightened sense of awareness felt weird and familiar all at once. Evewo HYDRA agents looked at him with a newfound respect. Caldwell wondered whether it was something in his eyes that was making the agents respond differently to what was essentially the same person. They seemed to be saying: “You are no longer a punk. You are now one of us, at least for the time being.”

    They picked up the suitcase HYDRA had prepared for him, a graphite gray Brix heavy on teology, from the luggage carousel. Agent Jones ordered Caldwell to stand still. He placed the Brix on the floor and played around on a little touch s display on the front of the suitcase. A small camera popped out from the top, swiveled round and a laser beam shot out and proceeded to rapidly s Caldwell’s body. The whole thing could not have lasted more than a sed. Then the suitcase beeped and a green light flashed and Agent Jones gestured for them to keep walking. As they walked out into the arrival area, Caldwell turned round to see the Brix faithfully following them, the suitcase’s owner-reition sensors perpetually trained on him like the cross hairs of a sniper.

    The arrivals lounge was chock full of people. People of all races but the vast majority were ese, the citizens of New a. It was immediately apparent that New a was the teology ter of the world, at least in terms of massive adoption. Nearly all the teenagers packed jukebox implants, head mounted displays and had hair that ged color depending on how the light struck them. Their clothes were invariably astronaut silver or a translut material that ged hue with the flick of a button. Aerodynamiputer-trolled traihat morphed iime depending on the amount of fri on the floor and the dynamics of the wearer’s legs were in abundahe eion were less flamboyant in many ways but made up for it with mold and jade jewelry than you’d find in a typical Union high street jewelry store.

    The entire Union was a giant lie. A lie desig<bdo>９9ｌｉｂ?</bdo>o prevent an exodus of people to New a. From what Caldwell had seen so far, the Union was light years behind New a in terms of teology aed fashions. It showed on the faces of the tourists who made their way into the arrivals area, eyes wide open. New a had one-upped the world by causing a massive brain drain, sug massive talent pools from the knowledge eies of the West.

    In the Union corporate ads were ubiquitous. At Hong Kong Iional Airport, they were om. There were ss in the glass railings displaying stock prices and other data. Holographic projectors embedded in the escalators projected life-size movie stars flogging their latest Sim Flicks among the passengers. The entire ceiling of the arrivals hall was an advertisement for some heme park. It was a live high-resolutioime view of the park’s major attras. Some fn tourists were already gesturing with excitement at the ceiling. Get them before they even leave the airport, Caldwell thought.

    There was something about ing out into the arrivals area of an airport, an odd feeling of displat, which spooked him. It robably the faces of t<bdi>藏书网</bdi>he people meeting arriving passengers, the way they looked at you mentally figuring out which part of the pla you were from, whether you were there to tribute to the ey or be a drain on it. There was a recurring pattern in the depths of all those eyes that Caldwell found disturbing. In Hong Kong, take that arrivals hall feeling and multiply it by ten and you’d still have no idea what it was like.

    Caldwell noticed that a signifit number of Hong Kong’s young women were dressed ihrough trousers, skirts and tops. The most daring of them were standing there giving Caldwell, and everyone else who cared to look, a glimpse of their fluorest G-strings and their Wonder Bras. If they didn’t like the way you were looking at them, they’d press a button on their hips and the trousers would cloud up like water does when you add milk. Hong Kong was an orchestra of colors, attitude and pure drive and the airport was its showroom.

    Amid this sea of excitement, Caldwell’s mind came to focus on two events on different sides of the hall. One was the tanese from The Puzzle in London looking up and down the arrivals hall. Caldwell figured they were seds away from spotting him. He turned away from them even though he khat with the two HYDRA heavies walkio him, his ente would be easy to spot. The other thing that caught Caldwell’s eyes, for no reason he could fathom, was a woman in a tight black leather motorcycle rider’s body suit. She probably stood out because her helmet was on and there was data scrolling past on the dark visor.

    The woman in black turned and looked in Caldwell’s dire. One of the Yakuza had also spotted him and as Caldwell aowledged that fact, the Japanese looked him straight in the eyes. The Yakuza seemed unsure of whether it was him or not. Must be the suit, Caldwell thought. Then as the Japaarted moving festuring to his associate, his eyes registered owo HYDRA agents. The disfigured Yakuza had also seen them aood there giving Caldwell his most menag look. Like I am going to go over and give you the sole just because yly, Caldwell thought. He was about to tap Agent Ja on the shoulder to point out the Japanese mehey stopped suddenly. The woman in the biker’s outfit was standing in front of them.

    “Agent Ja, Agent Jones, I am Agent Hsu. Hope you had a good trip,” said a hoarse voi perfeglish, with some variation of an Asian at.

    “Code phrase?” the two agents asked simultaneously, eschewing small talk as was their habit.

    “PERFECT VISION 2020”

    “OK. He’s all yent Hsu,” said Agent Ja. The man seemed to be in a hurry to rid himself of Caldwell.

    “Thanks Agent Ja, I’ll take it from here. You boys have yourself a good trip back.” The girl’s at was difficult to place. It was definitely Oriental. Caldwell’s eyes remairained on the Japanese.

    “I think you better distract those Japanese before you go. Use that sound gun thing if you must,” Caldwell said, nodding in the dire of the two Yakuza.

    “Leave it to us. Later,” Agent Jones said as the two mereated through the crowds towards where the Japanese were standing. Caldwell wondered why they hadn’t made their move.

    “Tell Fouler I’ll be seeing him soon,” Caldwell said to no one in particular. The suitcase was idling behind him. He watched the two agents move decidedly towards the Yakuza. They were a suffit distance away from the Yakuza not to freak him out although he looked nervous. The two Yakuza started to move away from the approag agents.

    “e with me,” the woman said. Her visor was still down and something in Caldwell wondered why the agents hadn’t identified her visually. They probably never met her before so visual identification was unnecessary, the secure code phrase being enough. PERFECT VISION 2020. What the hell did that mean any way? Caldwell was too tightly coiled to make small talk. Something didn’t seem right. He kept turning around to check the movements of the ta a crowd of mainland tourists had emerged waving brightly colored flags and obstrug his view. Caldwell followed the girl through the crowds with the Brix tailing them obediently. A group of children raced past oric-powered sneakers. One mihey were there, the hey were a blur weaviween the crowds.

    Caldwell and the woman in biker gear arrived at a bank of elevators. A sign indicated that the elevators led to the underground car parks. He wondered whether the woman was also some kind of e. She didn’t seem like the talkative type either. The elevator doors opened and they walked in followed by a ese family that seemed to have just flown in. They were chattering away in tonese and Caldwell was once again amazed that he could uand what they were saying. They were happy to be ba Hong Kong after a long trip visitiives in the Uates.

    The ressed the CLOSE button. The doors began to close shut but there was an elderly ese couple with a heavy luggage trolley at the door. Caldwell pushed the OPEN button to let them in, his fingers brushing the girl’s gloved hands in the process. He could feel the girl tense up slightly. e? The old couple sauntered in. The ressed the CLOSE button again. She seemed in a rush to get out of the airport. Caldwell didn’t blame her. With the Yakuza hanging around, a quick exit made sense.

    As the doors closed, he sneaked one last look to see whether the HYDRA agents had intercepted the Yakuza. Agent Jones had disappeared as had the younger Japanese and the disfigured one. Caldwell could only make out the broad expanse of Agent Ja’s bad he seemed to be talking animatedly with a girl in black leather. She was holding something round under her arm. It looked like a motorcycle helmet. She was gesticulating wildly. Then both of them turned round and looked towards the elevator. The elevator doors closed. Caldwell turo his right to look at the woman in the bike<tt></tt>r’s gear. She had moved in close and had something hard and cold stig against his ribs. He didn’t need a degree in rocket sce to know that it was a gun.

 Chapter 30

    Diane Joplin wondered how she had emerged from the myriad depths of Shinjuku Station in one piece. She figured she wouldn’t have made it out of there without the help of the AR unit, which superimposed instrus on to the glasses telling her exactly which exits to take. She had bought the AR on a whim and now it roving itself to be worth a lot more than the money she had shelled out for it. Diaood still on the pavement outside the exit trying to get her bearings as a non-stop n of Japanese humanity oozed out of the station all arouhe AR had superimposed a detailed map over the interse with blinking arrows indig the way to the Keio Plaza Hotel, which was located to the north just a few minutes walk away.

    The snow had stopped falling and the cold Shinjuku air was surprisingly refreshing even though Diane found it difficult to get used to the numerous flickering images of giant outdoor ss and the blaring sound of advertising. This was exactly how she had imagined Japan but actually being here was altogether a totally different experience. All around her people moved to and fro, Goths, uniformly dark-suited salarymen, fashionably-clad office girls, elaborately dressed geisha in shimmering kimonos, and young people of various descriptions intermingled as they moved on to unknowinations. Diaiced makeup and hairstyles that would have had her dad ging in hirls with deathly-white foundation, blacked out eyes and hairstyles desigo resemble dragons, phoenixes and even cartoon characters milled around. Everyone was chattering away in Japanese, which she found very pleasing to the ear, or simply walking with that introspective look that was so quintessentially Japa least, that’s how she thought about them. On the asphalt lanes betweeeeming mass>.?</a>es, lozenge-shaped cars of various shapes and sizes glided past, their octs moving swiftly through the fusion of Shinjuku, shielded from its trolled chaos.

    And then Diaarted to move with the crowds following the AR’s arrows towards the Keio Plaza Hotel, which she hoped would provide refuge from all this. She was exhausted from the mental and physical activity of the last few hours and wanted nothier than to soak in a hot bath and recollect her wits. The din of Shinjuku was not doing that much to help with that so she stoically moved through the crowds, ing her o take a closer look when some impossibly-dressed or coiffed individual walked past her.

    It seemed that Japan was not so much weling her as iing its DNA into her very being with all this his uing visual stimulation. Walking past a zillioment stores, impossibly-shaped buildings, most of which were called Shinjuku something or other. And the smell oreet, ohat was totally Japa was the unlikely smell of eleid yakitori fusing with expens></a>ive perfumes and damp crete. It was a moderhat assaulted your senses and just kept on assaulting.

    And then she saw the Keio Plaza Hotel, just before the augmented reality reading said she was very close now. The two towers of the hotel were sandwiched between buildings that were so tall that their top floors disappeared into the oppressive clouds above, activity within signaled only by muted light soaking through the clouds, interlaced with whatever sunlight mao seep through. The Keio Plaza towers were crawling with black crab-like objects which Diane reized as building repair robots from some teology TV program. They were probably making repairs to the aging outer walls to make it look brand new and if you looked close enough you could see that the bottom of the hotel building was muewer thaop which Diahought was impossible since buildings were built from the ground up.

    Diane walked through the revolving doors of the Keio Plaza Hotel into a tastefully decorated marble lobby. High up in the ceiling, dirigibles dehumidified the air and dispensed delicate mists of air freshener. Diahought they smelled of cherry blossoms but that could just be her mind because she didn’t actually know what cherry blossoms smelled like. All this heightened by the visual spectacle of the traditional ikebana flower arras dotted around the lobby and the impressive deliers set high up on the ceiling. Luggage robots moved bad forth along the pristine marble floors as guests checked in or out.

    Diane moved towards the che ter, the wheels of her Samsonite squeaking reassuringly behind her.

    “I have a reservation. Diane Joplin,” she said, handing her passport and credit chips over to one<bdo></bdo> of the attendants, a pretty girl with skin the color of freshly-made tofu and large pensive eyes ed by very long fake eyelashes. Diahought she saw something flash across the girl’s eyes and her gaze shift towards the sitting area to the left. Nothing but a lone salaryman dressed in somber black threads looking expetly in the dire of the lifts as though waiting for a prospective date. And when the salaryman started speaking on a phone mounted on his left ear, Diaurned her attention to the attendant who ung in her room chip, something tugging at her luggage. She turned round to see one of the luggage robots.

    “It’s OK, luggage robot,” explaihe attendant, smiling, and Diaantly released the handle of the suitcase which the robot deftly lifted with something that looked like the front of a forklift trud placed gently on its ridged rubber surface. The girl handed back her chips, the room’s eleic key and a map of Shinjuku with little geometric shapes representing Tokyo landmarks.

    “Thanks.”

    “Wele to the Keio Plaza Inter-tial Hotel. Please enjoy your stay.” The attendant smiled with perfectly aligned white teeth, her doe-like black eyes willing Diao feel wele.

    She moved off following the robot as it headed towards the elevators. Inside, Diane looked at the chip and saw that her room was oh floor of the South Tower where the Executive Service ter was located, which made her wonder whether the hotel’s puter had lihe credit chip to her father’s business ats. She liked heights anyway so she wasn’t too bothered to be oop floor although she remembered reading on the plahat there was a helipad up there on the roof of the South Tower. Before she could reach out to press thirty-four on the lift, the button was illuminated automatically. It appeared that the luggage robot had read the room chip and wirelessly activated the correct elevator button. Or the elevator itself had read the room number, which was a more scary possibility because it meant her movements could probably be tracked elsewhere iel.

    The room door also opened automatically, which meant the luggage robot was behind all this teological stuff. She watched it move into the room and deposit her Samso a precise right ao the mirrored wardrobe. The robot moved towards the curtains, which slid aside silently revealing a dense array of skyscrapers through which fields of neon glared. One of the buildings, awin-tower skyscraper, had a sign that read Tokyo Metropolitan Gover Offices and Diane realized that the gover building was much closer than she had anticipated. The robot withdrew from the room and Diane locked the door and walked into the sizeable bathroom which had an elaborate puter-trolled toilet and a large bathtub and shower. The usual items you’d <bdi>?</bdi>expect to find in a good hotel: razors, slippers, an elaborate kimono and various kinds of sted soap. After a few minutes of reading the instrus on the wall she started running a bath and walked ba the room to unpack. She balked at plag her clothes in the wardrobe, preferring to be able to get moving in as little time as possible. Removing Xybo from the suitcase, she switched it on and it moved off to get its bearings, the sers in its body building a digital map of the room and its tents.

    A few minutes later, Diane lay soaking in a lavender foam bath trying not to think of her father. But that was impossible so she gave up a her tears fall freely, mixing with the soapy water. What was she going to do? There was a Mitsubishi cyberspace terminal on the desk in the room and a pair of uated gloves and cyberspace goggles. She o spend some time on there figuring out where this Kenzo Yamamoto’s headquarters were located. Then she’d go out and walk the streets and try to get her bearings with the help of the AR. Tomorrow she would make a trip to this building and look for Kenzo Yamamoto. She’d get to the bottom of her father’s death and hopefully that would bring her peace. Yet, she knew she was dealing with the Yakuza and that was a dangerous game but she couldn’t just sit around and do nothing.

    Feeling much more relaxed she stepped out of the bath and put oel’s plementary white terrycloth robe. She walked into the room and switched on the sole and the flat-s monitor. Xybo trundled awkwardly up to her with the sensor on its nose blinking. It still wasn’t used to the uneven surface of the thick carpet but it was gettier. Dia in the room’s jet-black designer chair and chose English from the language menu. She picked up Xybo and stroked him gently. He was all she had in the world.

    “We will sooo the bottom of this Xybo,” she whispered to the robot dog as she headed out into cyberspace. The dog ined its head and fixed her with artificial eyes perfectly approximating sympathy.

 Chapter 31

    The gray Brix suitcase was o Caldwell’s left leg, sandwiched between him and the same old couple he had opehe elevator doors for earlier. The old man had a glassy look, while the old lady appeared to be as sharp as they came. Her hair was jet black, suggesting some kind of dye job or medical procedure that held gray hairs in check. Caldwell could just about see the tiny touch s on the suitcase. The green light that indicated that the case was locked onto its owner was blinking. There was a toggle button on the Brix’ touch s that read: MANUAL. Caldwell prayed that his left hand was not visible from where the biker girl was standing. He pressed the button on the s gently with minimal movement in his shoulder.

    The elevator stopped at B2. The old couple walked slowly out into an underground parking lot. The old lady ushing the luggage cart. She turned round and gave Caldwell a look that said she hoped he could get himself out of his current predit. The old boy looked as though he had fottehey parked the car. Caldwell realized that B3 was the  and last basement floor. He had to move fast.

    The light on the Brix was now red, the toggle button read AUTOMATIC. Caldwell thanked God for simple user interfaces and the fact that the Brix’s camera and its sing device were fag the other way, towards the family. He pressed the AUTOMATIC button. The camera popped up quietly. It took a snapshot and the laser did the swipe thing of the little ese boy.

    “Look dad,” the boy said in tonese, pointing at the suitcase.  The biker girl whipped her head around, the muzzle of the gun still pressing painfully into Caldwell’s rib cage. The laser had disappeared and it looked like she couldn’t see the camera.

    “What, son? Mat ye a?” the father asked in tonese.

    “Oh nothing,” the boy replied. Caldwell thanked God for limited attention spans. As soon as the laser disappeared the boy had lost i. The green light was on again. The Brix had a lo the boy.

    The lift stopped at B3. The doors opehe girl grabbed Caldwell’s arm, signaling to him to let the ese family go out first. They stepped out of the lift one by ohe boy was last. As he stepped out, the Brix started following him. The biker girl’s eyes opened wide with surprise. She lunged out of the elevator, trying to grab the handle of the Brix. She had no way of knowing if the sole was in his knapsack or in the suitcase. That w></a>as her biggest mistake.

    Caldwell twisted his body and violently slammed the impostor’s arm against the side of the elevator doors. She screamed in agony as her elbow made tact with the metallic edge of the doors. Her gun slid to the floor. The elevator doors were closing again. Before she could turn around Caldwell’s leg was already in motion. It made tact with her leather-padded mid-riff and she went flying out into the parking lot. The family stood there transfixed, looking at the gun on the floor as Caldwell made a grab for it. The stunned girl was getting up. There was a sound of running footsteps ing from the left of the car park but he was safe. The lift doors closed.

    Caldwell jabbed nervously at the B2 button and all the other buttht up to the departure louhe impostor’s instincts would be to guess that he would head for the departure lounge and try to mih the crowds, find the HYDRA agents or head out to the taxi stands outside the arrivals area. Her instincts would be wrong. He was already trying to sed-guess the moves of the irl iher, ostensibly the real Agent Hsu. He had noticed from the sighey first got into the lift that the motorcycle parking lot was on B1. He was guessing that as soon as the real Agent Hsu saw the elevator doors close she’d head for her motorcycle on B1, ready to give chase. It was a long shot but it would have to do. The female impostor robably Japahe motorcycle gear nothing but an elaborate disguise for the Japanese girl to impersohe real Agent Hsu. The HYDRA agents had not seen through the ruse.

    Caldwell guessed that the Yakuza probably had some kind of mini-van with darkened windows idling somewhere in the parking lot, waiting for the girl and the ta was a Yakuza thing, the more intimidating the vehicle the better. Agent Hs<samp>99liｂ?</samp>u, the real one, robably this very momeing it down on her bike to the lower levels and if his hunch was correct she would just about be arriving on B2.

    The elevator doors opened on B2. Caldwell stepped out of the elevator expeg to hear the revving sound of a motorcycle engine. All he could hear was a distant whine like the sound of those driver-less trains that transported passengers between terminals at iional airports. Thera-looking vehicle came screaming round the er from the level above. It was as wide as three motorcycles placed side by side and the girl who robably Agent Hsu was on it. Or was it the Japanese impostor? It was hard to tell. The vehicle was cutting through the air defying the laws of gravity. The girl spotted Caldwell and the vehicle came to an abrupt halt. Four exhaust-like square tubes unfurled vertically and blasted a whole lot of dust away from the crete floor.

    “Quick. Hop on,” the rider instructed.

    Caldwell still was not sure which girl it was but he took a ce. There was enough space behind the girl for three people to sit one behind the other. Caldwell jumped aboard the vehicle, which he noticed was h at least three inches off the ground and she floored it before he’d even got on properly and did a sharp u-turn almost on the spot. Caldwell barely had time tain his balance before the girl shot back up the winding tuhe vehicle cut across a whole lot of cars, most of them electric models, and a few vehicle<cite></cite>s with the word POLICE written ohey were skimming the curved tunnels all the way to the exit. The bike thing flew out into the open air and the hing Caldwell khey were outside heading for the airport highway with the suing down upon them like someone messed with the thermostat of a radiator and tur on too high.

    “Sun in winter?” Caldwell asked ent Hsu’s shoulder as they belted it down the highway leaving a trail of luxury electrid hybrids in their wake. If anyone was following them, they would have a hard time catg up. The road looked like somebody had emptied all the car showrooms in New a on to it. None of the cars looked like they were more than a few years old and most were the latest models with body pahat ged color like chameleons and ged shape to achieve better aerodynamics. There were a few sports models, which they couldn’t match for speed, sleek bullet-shaped phallic symbols that cut through the light traffic leaving the others behind. The girl was doing a good job of keeping up.

    “You better believe it. You have no idea how close you came to a horrible death,” she said, swooping down low so that if the Yakuza were giving the chase they wouldn’t be visible. She sounded different from the irl. She had a British at with a slight traandarin. Caldwell found her voice strangely f.

    “Trust me I believe it. What’s the code word?”

    “PERFECT VISION 2020,” the girl said without skipping a beat.

    “How could those agents have been so lax?”

    “Not their fault. We generally don’t have any problems with drop-offs. Usually the code is good enough at the airport. Just in case there are unication interception devices or cameras taking photographs. The Japa us every time with the disguise stuff. They’ve mastered it to a tee. Apparently they are even growing identical copies of enemy agents in labs these days. Of course this just happens at the highest levels of the biz. It is still too costly.”

    “So that’s what I am, a drop-off? Growing copies of agents? So that girl could have been a copy of you?”

    “Unlikely for such a low-profile kidnap job. That explains why she kept her helmet on. I was delayed by what I now know rank call purp to be from HQ.”

    “You know what they want, right?”

    “I guess they wahe sole but now they know you are here they also want you dead.” She said this in a very matter-of-fact way. Her black hair was streaming out behind her and Caldwell was getting a fair bit o<u>藏书网</u>f it in his face. The smell of floral shampht back retly acquired memories. They were still outside Hong Kong Island proper and there was a lot of familiar-looking greenery.

    “I lost my Brix,” Caldwell said.

    “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing in thebbr></abbr>re that will help them or that you ’t get in Hong Kong.”

    “But I got myself a gun.”

    She turned around briskly, a swirl of black hair and gray eyes, but she was too quick for him to see her face properly through the visor.

    “Where did you get that?” Agent Hsu asked.

    “From the girl. Your impersonator.”

    “Good to see you are taking care of yourself already.”

    “From what I heard, you’re the one who’s going to be taking care of me.

    Her lithe body tensed up and she said nothing as they blasted through a tunnel and emerged a few minutes smack-bang into a cityscape that blew his mind.

    ***

    In a weird kind of way Hong Ko like home. The memories came flooding back but they couldn’t match the panoramic vista of glass, steel and crete that expanded before his eyes as they slowed down into heavier traffic. A lot had ged over the years. That much was clear. The buildings still soared into the clouds and were densely packed along the harbor. Many of them were he glass and steel symbols of New a’s eic might. There was a grao them that beat anything Hong Kong had previously been famous for. These building were symbols of global domihe tops of most of them were invisible, melting into the clouds like the sti dy floss.

    “What’s that huge building with the window ing robots climbing up the sides?” Caldwell asked Agent Hsu as they wove through what was rapidly being a traffic jam.

    “That is the new Bank of New a building. Those are not window-ing bots. They are maintes making nano-scale repairs to the exterior of the building.”

    They stopped. Ari was too close to cars iher lane. Caldwell took the opportunity to look behind them. There was nothing untoward happening. He noticed that some of the cars were driverless Mercedes Benz S-Class models.

    “Those don’t e out in the Union for at least another five years.”

    “Well, this is Hong Kong. Things move along very fast here, except for traffic.”

    “Yeah, I  see that. These things help though. What are they?”

    “Hoverbykes. Ied by a pany in New a. Currently beied by enfort agencies here and in Shanghai. The Hong Kong gover has given special permission and released a new ordihis is the first time that h vehicles have been used on public roads anywhere in the world.”

    “Cool. Hard to drive?” Caldwell was surprising himself. Getting out of the depressing Union had mellowed him out somewhat. He was actually having a versation and not hating it.

    “It’s easier than riding a motorcycle, that’s for sure. Basically, you have two pedals one oher side. Left pedal decelerates, right pedal accelerates. Hit both pedals simultaneously the vehicle es to rest. It’s almost instantaneous. The thrusts just cel each other out.”

    “What about oeering bar? Those look like a motorcycle’s accelerator.”

    “These actually trol the dire of the thrusters. Push both forward and the thrusters point backwards and hold in that position. Push back about halfway and you  basically hover with the electrigiill revving. Push all the way bad the thrusters point all the way forward allowing you to essentially ride backwards.”

    “ you ght upwards?”

    “You . You just override the hover with this red button here. There are strict laws against it on public roads though. These things were not desigo be used in that way. Safety Ordinance.”

    “I see. So where are we going?”

    “The Mansion, HYDRA HQ in Shek O. That’s the south side of Hong Kong Island. It’s a lot quieter, away from all this.” Agent Hsu’s helmet owards oning traffic.

    “I remember Shek O. There’s a beach,” Caldwell said, vague memories of weekends in Shek O rising.

    “Right. Glad to hear you haven’t fottehing,” she said. Caldwell thought he detected a note of sarcasm in her voice.”

    “That’s a long story.”

    “They always are.”

    The streets were brimming with people. They were on the walkways, the pavements and the alleys, the streets jam-packed with retail signage in English and ese. They were visible through hundreds of corporate office windows that weically upwards as far as the eye could see. The differeween corporate drones in Hong Kong and those in the Union was that the ones here seemed much more in trol of their lives and their destihere ring iep of the people ireet. The streets were alive with a determined humanity actively going about the business of acquirih at any cost.

    “Eic place isn’t it?”

    They were on the move again and pig up speed as they got on a giant freeway. Caldwell had never seen so many corporate logos in his life. Almost every other building had one and hundreds of them were built into the barren hills of the Peak. At night the city must be spectacular, Caldwell thought. He vaguely recalled dazzling bright lights and an array of colors filling the night sky.

    “Hong Kong has always been that way, even more so now. The people here are some of the most adaptable in the world. You should know. You were born here.”

    They overtook a whole string of Mercedes vehicles and a bunch of those morphing bullet sports cars. Agent Hsu was chewing up huge ks of the city at an alarming rate. Caldwell held on closely to her trim leather-bound body.

    “Been reading my file have you? By the way, what is your first name? I am not going to call you Agent Hsu during this erip. It’s not the easiest suro pronouher,” he joked.

    “At night the city es alive like a Christmas tree,” she said ign his attempt to bee familiar. Maybe he was being too forward. There was a whole load of ese etiquette that he o relearn quickly.

    “Hey, didn’t mean to be so forward and was kidding about the name.”

    “Well if you must know Mr. Caldwell, the name is Mei Lin. Hsu Mei Lin.” She raised her visor and turned around. For the first time Caldwell got a good look at her face. He almost fell off the hoverbyke with shock.

 Chapter 32

    Oleg Krachev was getting into his rhythm now. He began to thrust even more eagerly as he felt the explosion start to well up inside of him. The girl underh him was trying her hardest to match the sheer frequend variety of the Russian’s movements but he roving too much for her. Her small naked body was covered in a thin fi<q>.</q>lm of perspiration mixed with the Russian’s saliva and semen. Iwo years as a prostitute, she had never met a man who could keep going as long as he had. He had picked her up from the Great Boss hostess nightclub isimshatsui distrid paid her bar fine for the night. This had amouo some ten thousand dollars paid in cash plus another five thousand which he had slipped into her hands. What the hell, he was going to be a rich man soon.

    They were in a small villa in the bustling but seedy Kowloon ercial distriongkok, which rented rooms out by the hour. Every one and a half minutes or so, the deafening sound of aircraft thundered above them as skilled pilots brought them in to land at nearby Kai Tak airport, Hong Kong’s revived sed iional airport, which served all of Asia. Krachev rolled the girl around and half plastering her against the wall of the room, he proceeded t the session to clusion. The ese girl winced in pain and bit on her lower lip, drawing blood. Then it was all over as the Russian’s spasms slowed and she felt the dea<dfn></dfn>d weight of his body on her. Smallish hands pushed at the Russian’s hairy chest urging him to get off her.

    Krachev rolled over and reached for a packet of Dunhill cigarettes lying on a cheap IKEA bedside table o the bed. The girl curled up into a ball with her hands between her legs.

    “That was very good yeah?” Krachev asked her, smiling and lighting a cigarette.

    “Yes,” she responded nonchalantly. That was the most hard-earned five thousand dollars she had made in her entire life.

    “Tomorrow night you and me again OK?” he asked her. The girl shook her head in disagreement.

    “No OK, tomorrow I visit my mother,” she explained, somewhat unnecessarily.

    “That’s fug great,” Krachev said, mimig a New York at. Then he swore at her in Russian. The girl said nothing. Krachev rolled out of bed and began to put on his clothes. The girl stared at him through bleary eyes. Her sweat-soaked hair lastered against her forehead and she was breathing heavily. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. He threw a five hundred dollar note on the bed and walked out of the room. The girl held the money against her almost-flat chest and began to cry.

    Oleg Krachev was on a high. He had just landed in Hong Kong that day and being familiar with the round-the-clock availability of underage girls in Mongkok, from his KGB days, had made that his first order of business. The sed order of business would have to wait until tomorrow. Then he would have in his possession what robably the world’s most powerful quantum chip and after that who knew? Retirement? Oleg Krachev felt his time in the sun was tantalizingly close.

    Ever sihe Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti, B, was dismantled in 1991, Oleg Krachev had found himself all at sea, a young rising star drowning in the depths of ever-ging state bureaucracies. First, the reanization of the KBG by President Gorbachev had seen Krachev, like many others, reassigned from Division VII, the unit responsible for unications, cryptology and es, to the newly created Federal terintelligence Service or FSK. For years Krachev had languished in the myriad corridors of the fB’s impressive but oppressive Lubyanka headquarters at the whim of the new leadership. The power structure had ged and one of the many heads that had rolled had been the boss of Krach<cite></cite>ev’s divisio another reanization of the FSK into the Federal Security Service had seen another round of purges a few years later and Krachev had found himself on the open market, his PHD in puter Scapable of shielding him from the axe wielding.

    Krachev had then tried his hand at the free market, feng stolen KGB software teologies to the shady elements of Russia’s emerging private enterprise. For a while he had thrived. Amidst the bureaucratic chaos of the reanizations, some of his colleagues had appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars worth of teology but the pool of disgruntled ex-Division VII agents was large and Krachev had found his share of the spoils diminishing at a rapid rate. Soon mobile numbers were ged and phone calls went unanswered as his former associates disappeared into the dark mushrooming world of the oligarchs.

    As an ex-KGB agent with a PHD though, Krachev had a certain cachet in the new free market. And he had no choice but to exploit it. After months of “interviews”, Krachev landed a job handling teology and unications for an up and ing figure in the Russian Mafia. That was his official job but during the course of his employment, Krachev had often had to do double duty as a bodyguard and in the process seen more bloodshed than in all his years at the KGB bined. It art of the job and he had grown to bee immuo the cries of a man hacked to death unned down in front of his family in the name of private enterprise.

    That had been life in Russia then. His boss had moved into a new line of business, feng stolen Ameri teologies to terrorists, and Krachev’s job had slowly evolved into verifying the authenticity of the merdise. Over the  few years he had risen in stature in the anization as his boss’ new business had flourished in tandem with an explosion in global terror. He traveled abroad, drank Stoliaya Vodka with all shades of colorful characters from Iraq to Somalia. He bought himself a nice car, a new set of suits. Ameri imports no less, and made numerous trips to New a, via the cold expanse of Siberia, on shopping trips with his numerous mistresses.

    Then it had all started to turn sour when his boss had decided, for reasons unknown to Krachev, to gun doolitburo member with es right in the ter of Moscow. His boss had goo hiding, esg to the Uates as his shady empire collapsed around him. sidering his options then, Krachev had decided to go legit. He had some money, a wardrobe of flashy suits and a string of women who put up with his violent sexual tendencies. Academia beed and with his ex-KGB credentials, his PHD and his peculiar experience of iional trade, Krachev had joihe Moscow Institute of Superputing as a lowly clerk in the purchasiment.

    He was happy to lie low for a while and Krachev was genuinely ied in advang the cutting edge of teology but he quickly realized that his meager salary at the institute would never catch up with the kind of lifestyle that he had bee aced to. That’s when he had started feng off the products of the institute’s research. Despite the fact that he was ripping off the institute, his age and his aura of authority ahe respect of his peers and his familiarity with the meics of bureaucracy quickly saw him rise through the ranks to his current position, head of purchasing for the Department for Artificial Intellige osition that had given him unpreted access to the movers and shakers in the world of information teology traband.

    Krachev looked at his gold diamond-encrusted Rolex watch. It was 3.00 AM. As he walked through Yaumatei in search of a taxi, his mind re-occupied with the meeting that was scheduled to take place later tonight. He had had his doubts when his search agents had returned with an iing post on one of the numerous underground bulletin boards he kept his eleic eyes on for business opportunities. Usually, Krachev would dismiss such pranks. Russian hackers played them all the time. Typically only one pert of these supposedly cutting-edge teologies appearing on the market resulted in a real prospect.

    Yet just a few days ago, at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, he had been in the audience when that Professor Yao from Tsinghua Uy had been talking about creating an AI that had sistently passed the Turi. The key, the professor had expounded, was a quantum neural work powered by a 3D array one billion qubit processor that the self-learning AI had desigself. He had been one of the many skeptics but when the professor had collapsed on stage, his ex-KGB instincts had beeehe ese professor’s limp body had been carried off stage and that Bruckheimer girl had made some silly excuse about the professor being exhausted, Krachev had knowly what had happened. It was a killing, plain and simple, which meant that the professor had not been talking out of his rear end. His mind hovered on the residual image of Wendy Bruckheimer’s legs and the thought of what it would be like to have her screaming for mercy. He felt himself go hard for the third time that night, this time medically unassisted. He would need no Viagra tonight.

    On his return to Moscow, Oleg Krachev had got to thinking. If what the professor was saying was true theeology robably still at Tsinghua. He had been mulling it over in his small office at the institute, cirg a small tumbler of vodka in his calloused hands, when his puter had beeped telling him that his bots had dug up something iing. He had then logged into the bulletin board and fired off a quick barrage of messages to the poster using his official e-mail address which he knew would elicit enthusiasm from whoever was behind the post. It couldn’t be a ce. The ese professor dead in New York and a few days later someone from New a, a Tsinghua Uy student no less, purp to have ceivably the world’s most advaneuroprocessor for sale.

    Krachev shuddered in his black leather jacket as a chilly early m breeze bit into his bones. He couldn’t uand this damned Hong Koher. It was nothing like the bitter cold which dictated life in Mother Russia, but then again, in Russia you didn’t have the blistering daytime heat, even in the dead of wio tend with as another extreme. Several electric taxis drove past but their ‘For Hire’ signs were all down.

    A gang of five youths sitting outside a 7-Eleven shop nursing bottles of Heineken glared at him and cursed the mother-fug gweilo prick for daring to walk around ierritory at this time of night. Krachev dismissed them as direless youth hiding from boredom and irrelevance behind a veil of beer and soft drugs. It was the only way they could cope. He himself had been like them once. Krachev stuck his index and middle finger up at them and carried on uurbed. He khat even at his age he could take them all, no problem. He was in no real danger.

    The deal was happening tomorrow at Kowloon Park. Iing choice of locatiohought. It was a quick walk from the hotel where he was staying. Before leaving Moscow, he had set up an elaborate system of financial t></a>ransas, with the help of one his ex-KGB colleagues at Sodbusinessbank, that would allow the credit to be sent to the seller’s at and then within minutes withdrawn as an erroneous transa. All Krachev would have to pay would be the transa service fees. That was if the seller was na?ve, some uy student who had no experien these kinds of transas. If the seller tried to be too clever, Krachev decided he would simply slit his throat and hide the body in one of Kowloon Park’s many bushes. He had taken a walk around the park earlier, mentally making a note of ideal spots for such a slaying.

    This person, whoever they were, probably wouldn’t want to do the deal out in the open, but he could be wrong. The seller had insisted on using a radio and had instructed him were he would find it, under a specifi the park at a specific time. It would have been easier to use an anonymous disposable cell pho the seller was taking what he perceived to be precautions, fetting that even radio unications could be easily promised. Krachev had circled the park, his mind running through all the possibilities. The seller had insisted that if Krachev went to the park in advahe deal was off. Krachev smiled to himself. Idle threats.

    A taxi pulled over o him. The driver had seen peared to be a drunken gweilo and had guessed that he was going to need a ride home, probably somewhere in Hong Kong Island’s exclusive Mid-Levels. That would mean a tunnel charge, after midnight surcharge and maybe the blasted man would mistakenly give him a thousand dollar note.

    “Peninsula Hotel,” Krachev said in heavily ated English.

    The driver cursed to himself. It was just down the bloody road. Krachev restrained himself. There robably killing to be doomorrow. He had made up his mind that death was the only sure way.

 Chapter 33

    Caldwell and Agent Hsu arrived at The Mansion at No. 10 Shek O Road, HYDRA’s Hong Kong headquarters. The sun had suddenly e out of nowhere, despite the unmistakable chill in the air. Shek O Road oher hand was relatively cool with shadows dang on the asphalt as the hoverbyke glided up to the gates. In the distance, betweerees, Caldwell could make out a white four-storey house that looked like the residence of a reclusive billiohere was nothing about it that said secret anization. At least that’s what Caldwell thought initially.

    A long winding gravel drive led up to the house, undulating through well-tended greenery. Caldwell could hear the hiss of a sprinkler system. Agent Hsu parked the byke in front of the grilled metal gate, which was sandwiched between two imposing crete pillars. Caldwell noticed the le surveillance cameras, one on each pillar, panning and zooming the eretch of the road and its environs. On closer iion he realized there were several camouflaged cameras in the foliage of the trees above them.

    “At night, the camer99ｌib?as automatically switch to night-vision, capturing anything that moves with amazing accuracy,” explained Mei Lin. She hopped off the hoverbyke, which bobbed on its artificial air cushion to adjust for the weight loss. She entered a code on a keypad recessed into one of the pillars. A Plexiglas s slid open and she positioned her fa front of it. She had taken off her helmet and there was no mistaking who she was, a fact that left Caldwell utterly speechless. Her face was much harder now, more angular but she was without doubt the same Mei Lin. A green laser caressed her face. She then placed her hand ihe recess. There was a clid the gates slid open.

    Mei Lin remounted, maneuvered the hoverbyke into the pound, and turo watch the gate close. She hadn’t spoken much since she’d delivered the bombshell. Caldwell figured that he had a whole lot of explaining to do but that now was not the time. First things first, there would be time enough for explanations. Caldwell had his suspis that it could all be an elaborate setup. The memories of the girl Mei Lin could be Fouler’s way of ensuring that he cooperated with Agent Hsu and didn’t do a runner. It ossible that he had never met her before and Fouler was just taking advantage of the fact that Caldwell was born in Hong Kong to plant these fake memories. In fact, was he actually born in Hong Kong? There was no way of knowing without hag the Births and Marriages database of the Hong Kong gover. That was easy enough, time permitting. He could also check school records, the Hong Kong Iional School robably still around.

    “Ihe building there is a surveillan with a mainframe puter that trols all the cameras, listening devi<samp>９9ｌｉｂ?</samp>ces and security access to rooms in the building. Multiple monitors systematically display the various eye views of the cameras. Any slight movement anywhere on the grounds es up on one of the ss with analysis of the most likely subject based on dimensions and speed. The puter is programmed tnize humanoid shapes in particular,” Mei Lin tinued with her lecture.

    “Do you need all this security?”

    “Not so far but you ’t be too careful. We are a British agency, I should say Union Agency but we are still very British, operating in a hotbed of illegal and destiivity. When people use the cliché that Hong Kong is East meets West, those in the know are actually talking about spies, eleid otherwise.”

    The byke cruised up to the house. The lawn in front of it was immaculate. There were tacked in front of the main door, a hybrid MG and aric Toyota 4X4 SUV. A puter-trolled sprinkler decorated the well-tended lawn with a fiina of mist. Caldwell figured that the i-lookierior hid a veritable fortress. Those shuttered windows were probably bullet proof and the thick oak front door robably lined with reinforced steel. Eleic eyes were everywhere. He spotted at least three cameras on the roof. He doubted whether HQ in London had the same level of security.

    “Wele to HQ,” Mei Lin said theatrically as she grabbed a remote trol device from a partment in the hoverbyke’s dashboard and poi at the side of the house. The entire side wall came away to reveal a huge garage with bays for at least ten cars and several motorcycles. There were two black Range Rover 4-wheel drives, a couple of Kawasaki motorcycles and a powerboat and matg Jet Ski on a trailer. What looked like two hoverbykes sat covered with green Tarpaulin.

    Mei Lin parked the hoverbyke and they both got off. The lights had e on automatically as soon as they had ehe garage doors closed automatically behind them. Mei Liered another code and another door opehey walked into a kit area. The door shut with several clicks and the sound of heavy bolts ramming home.

    A Asian woman in her late forties stood there waiting. She ainfully slim and was wearing a thin dress of exquisite black silk, which flowed downwards in one dramatic sweep. She wore her hair in a tight bun, smoothed back from her delicate forehead. Her eyes were made up like the heroine of a lavish ese opera.

    “Welr. Caldwell. We have heard a lot about you,” she said gracefully as she ushered them in. She gave Mei Lin a solemn wink and the agent blushed openly.

    “Thank you,”

    “Mr. De Witte is in his study. I suggest that you pop in and say hello as we are flying to Japan later today.”

    “Sounds good.”

    The middle-aged woman moved gracefully like a ballet dancer. She must have beeremely beautiful in her day. But now her face, which was beginning to capitulate to the ravages of time, bore a look of extreme sadness. Something about her made Caldwell think about geisha. They walked through a long narrow paneled corridor. The quaint woman stopped in front of De Wittes office. The gold plate on the door said Briate, Head of Operations. The woman’s trim fingers rapped on the door.

    “e in,” a thick British at bellowed. The woman signaled for<s>9９ｌib?</s> them to gh a silently. Caldwell followed Mei Lin into the office. De Witte, who hysically larger than life, stood up and offered his hand.

    “Good to see you Cad. I trust you had a good flight.” There was a flash of white teeth, the eyes trying a bit too hard to be jovial.

    “I was doped up for most of it,” Caldwell said simply.

    “Indeed. Please sit down. Mei Lin.” De Witte gestured for them to take seats in what looked like plusher HYDRA leathers sofas with ese characteristics. There was something distinctly Asian about the design. Caldwell gave De Witte the once over. There was the satisfied air of a pampered ial fat cat about him. Caldwell wasn’t sure if the old boy look was a front for something altogether more sinister but he had thought this species of humanity had long goinct. His immense desk was covered with antique objets d’art and the walls were decorated with ese paintings and some fine-looking Japaana.

    De Witte was dressed in an immaculate gray Saville Row suit and a pink Van Heusen striped shirt with a white collar. He was a big man with a strong fad deep-set eyes whianded a certain degree of respect. He looked like he was hitting his mid fifties. His hair, where he had it, was thin and blonde, resembling wisps of straw. Despite the delicate features there was an edge to him that suggested ex-military British aristocracy, the type that got into the higher ranks of the army based purely on li duly bailed out, out of sheer boredom.

    “I heard you used to be one of us,” De Witte said, smiling a devilish smile. His deeply tanned face kled at the eyes. Mei Lin frow De Witte and looked at Caldwell.

    “In a previous life.”

    “Well, good to have you back. It’s not often that one of ours leaves the  ao e back. HYDRA doesn’t take too kindly tal sons.”

    “Guess I am the exception.”

    “Yes indeed.”

    Caldwell noticed from the er of his eye, the momentary expression of disapproval on Mei Lins face. He made a mental hat Mei Lin did not think much of De Witte.

    Caldwell waited for De Witte to tinue.

    “Well, HYDRA Hong Kong is predominantly a researd intelligefit. We report on developments in things such as nanoteology, artificial intelligeneural works aronic warfare. We don’t really do the kind of hands-on iigative work that you do. What should I call it, er, hag?” He said it with that arrogant British twang that unicated exactly what he thought of it. “Having said that, we have enough evidehat something worthy of this kind of mission is going on and it appears the skills I gather you have are more appropriate.”

    “So what do you know?”

    “We know that some of the greatest minds in New a are w on top secret projects for the PLA. This is especially true in the area of nanoteology and artificial intelligence. We’ve been monit and trying to analyze related data flows around the New a cyberspace hubs more closely. To put it suctly, retly a lot of data has been going in and none ing out suggesting that a signifit number of people were accessing cyberspace from another work sug data in but nothing was happening the other way round. Now, that doesn’t make sense uhere was another work busy replig all the data in cyberspace for some, I dare say, subterfuge purpose.

    “Have you tried booby trapping the data so that you know at which point it disappears into this other work?”

    “We’ve tried everything we know. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be res to these kinds of low-level tactics. We tend to be big picture people.”

    “Well now you don’t even have a postage stamp of a picture,” Caldwell offered. The arrogant fat cat was beginning to get on his nerves.

    “Let’s see if you  turn that around,” De Witte said abruptly.

    He was about to dismiss them when one of the many t.elephones on his desk rang suddenly. He picked up the receiver.

    “Hello,” he said cautiously. There was a long pause.

    “When did this happen?”

    “Are you sure it was her? And she has the sole?” There was another longish pause.

    “Thanks. Follow her every move and don’t let her out of yht. I will get back to you with specifistrus.” De Witte replaced the ha slowly and looked at Mei Lin and then at Caldwell. They were both leaning forward in their seats.

    “Diane Joplin, the dead Ameri professor’s daughter, has been tracked down by our associates in Japan. Apparently her father’s credit chip has popped up in a hotel database in Shinjuku, The Keio Plaza Inter-tial,” De Witte announced.

    “We better notify Fouler,” Mei Lin said at length. “The girl could be in danger.”

    De Witte’s almost child-like fingers started typing away on a keyboard, oer at a time. Caldwell looked around the office. There was very little emphasis on high teology. This De Witte character was obviously some kind of Luddite.

    “Fouler is already on his way to Tokyo,” De Witte said staring at his puter s.

    “I wonder what she is doing in Japan?” Caldwell asked. The question was directed at nobody in particular.

    “Probably some empt to avehe death of her father. A suicide mission if she actually tries to go ahead with it. As it happens, I am off to Japan on a long overdue family vacation. I am sure we’ll see that no harm es to her and the sole doe></a>sn’t get into the wrong hands. By the way, do you mind if I see what it looks like?”

    Caldwell opened his knapsad pulled out the black sole. He placed it ote’s desk and watched as De Witte’s eyes popped wide open. His hands emerged from below his desk to caress the sole.

    “Impressive, impressive. This is not teology. It is a work of art. I am somewhat of a colleyself.”

    “Yes, still o figure out how the hell the thing works. Definitely state-of-the-art. No doubt about that. I figure once we get it on that work it will do much more than just look pretty.”

    “It sure looks like the real deal,” De Witte said, still eying the sole.

    “Well, from what I’ve seen this thing do so far, we may be just chipping away at the tip of the iceberg with this thing. You see these smooth sides? They are so smooth they are hiding these really tiny gaps where all the layers meet. A number of physical figurations might be possible.”

    “Why make a sole so intricate just to access some secret work. It doesn’t make sehere must be something else,” De Witte pondered.

    “This is what I think. The sole wasn’t made specifically to access the secret a work. It was built to access awork and Yamamoto got wind of this and got his hands ohink of the power and how much certain people would pay to get their hands on it.”

    “Indeed,” said De Witte ponderously. “I suggest you get crag tomorrow on this work. Mei Lin will give you everything you need.”

    “Excellent.” Mei Lin and Caldwell stood up to leave.

    De Witte pressed the inter on his desk. Caldwell heard it sound in a distant part of the house like fading memories of an elusive dream.

    “Yes sir,” a sad female voiswered.

    “Show Mr. Caldwell to his suite and have some clothes sent up to the house. Will smart casual do?” he asked.

    “I’ve worn worse,” Caldwell said. While they were waitite was curiously silent. Caldwell noticed that he had exquisitely manicured fingernails, which he was examining like a fussy beauti. A few seds later, the woman who had opehe door walked in carrying a large red leather-bound diary.

    “Mei Lin, I take it you are staying in your usual suite in the house?” De Witte asked.

    “Yes,” Mei Lin said simply, glang at Caldwell.

    “Well, I’ll be back from Japan in a week. Hope you  have something crete by then,” De Witte said, rising from his desk. Caldwell couldn’t help but think the Brit was not deliberately trying to annoy. He was just one of those people that couldn’t help but grate the nerves. Caldwell nodded, picked up the sole and the knapsad they walked out of De Witte’s office. Just for the hell of it Caldwell looked back to see what the HYDRA man  to. De Witte seemed rapt in thought. His milky blue eyes were firmly focused on his prized katana colle.

 Chapter 34

    The Omnipotence desded on the ring of fire like a meteor hurtling irrevocably towards earth. Each flickering flame represented a hotbed of intrusioion and elimination activity owork that lay glimmering beyond. Whatever, lay withiwork was being attacked by something that was leaving no security hole unexplored. And that som..hing roduct of the Omnipotence, fragments of itself desigo lure the AIs to a battle that could not possibly be won. Await the exhausted enemy with ease.

    The end game was to bee part of the very essence of those AIs, part of their DNA, they in turn being parts of its own sum. In a matter of mihe security AIs grew calm, the lig flames or resistareating into dying embers. The battle had been won before it could begihe Omnipotence marveled at the certed efforts of resistance. A show of strength that it had detected nowhere else in cyberspad this intrigued it greatly. Whatever lay within was immensely valuable to whoever ow. And the Omnipotence was currently in the process of <bdi></bdi>creating value – expoially. Splitting itself into a trillion code fragments, the Omnipotence disappeared into the work within as if by osmosis.

    ***

    Majeneral Wang stubbed out a Zhongnanhai Premium and was just about to leave his office wheenant Liu came rushing into his office carrying a long ream of puter printout.

    “What do you mean by this indolence, lieutenant?” the majeneral growled.

    “Apologies sir, but you have to see this,” the lieutenant said panting heavily. He had raced all the way from the secret facility withihird Department’s pound where a handful of the PLA’s brightest teical minds were w on the majeneral’s personal projects. Projects, which, when annouo the authorities in Zhongnanhai, would make the majeneral a hero in People’s bbr>?.</abbr>Liberation Army and nationwide.

    “It better be good, Lieutenant Liu. I am late for dinner and my wife doesn’t like that,” the majeneral said with a wry smile. Lieutenant Liu cursed to himself. He had been in the offiore thay-four hours ing up the majeneral’s dirty work. Dinners had gone cold twice over. His wife was not returning phone calls and he badly o cate sleep.

    “Sir, this is the graph showing data traffic flows withiwork. Look what happened five minutes ago,” the lieutenant said pointing at a spike in the graph that was almost vertical and disappeared off the edge of the paper.

    “A software glitch?”

    “I don’t think so, sir. At last t we had 2008 authorized subjects, who of course are all ated for. I just checked. Look at this sir. These are the last two updates of the population figures,” Lieutenant Liu said, shakily pointing at a row of numbers. The majeneral’s eyes popped wide open. The printout read:

    Population: 2008 [Last Updated at 19:28:02]

    Population: 1,000,000,002,008 [Last Updated at 19:29:08]

    Population: 2,009 [Last Updated at 19:29:09]

    Population: 2,009 [Last Updated at 19:30:09]

    Population: 2,009 [Last Updated at 19:31:09]

    Majeneral icked up his pack of Zhongnanhai Premiums and lit anarette. He let the tobaoke circle his lungs and then exhaled deeply.

    “Virus?”

    “Could be but I doubt it. A virus would not have an impa the population figures. To do so, it would have to have intricate knowledge of the system and that is impossible.”

    “You fet about our versation earlier. There are two soles out there that may have access to our system. Someone may have placed a virus in the system. I have given instrus for the soles to be retrieved but it is not going to be that easy to find them. It might take time. In the mean time, I want you to do the best you  to iigate this anomaly and put a stop to it. In a few days it will be time to go to Shanghai and we ’t afford to have any glitches then. Uand?”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “Put your best men on it. Send them in there and don’t let them e back out until they have discovered what happened here. I want those population figures back down. What we are w on has great implications for our try, Lieutenant Liu. I am sure you uand that.”

    “I do sir,” said Lieutenant Liu as he ly folded the printout. He was thinking of the implications for his marriage as he left the office.

    Majeneral Wang cursed under his breath. The assassier have some good news soohought as he ground the stub of his cigarette into a pulp in the overflowing ashtray. He moved quickly to his puter sole, pulled it out of hibernation aered a secret address at the and lihe majeneral theered a password to the system only he had access to. A grainy video s popped up and it gradually became crystal clear. Th<samp></samp>e shaky motion of the picture meant that the assassin was on the move. The majeneral was seeily what the assassin saw. He was seeing the assassin’s augmented reality, a killer’s point-of-view.

    “Where are yht now?”

    “Hong Kong. Kowloon side,” the assassin whispered into the microphone embedded on the device around his neck. He brought up an A>9９ｌｉb?</a>R overlay so the majeneral could see from the readout that he was on Nathan Road.

    “Why there? You are not thinking of ing home are you?”

    “I wish, sir. It looks like that might not happen for a while. Hong Kong is some kind of nodal point acc to the analysis.”

    “Why is that?”

    “No idea. The AIs sehat Hong Kong will be an important point in several respects and multiple sario modelers firm it. At least two of our quarry may e through the SAR over the  few days. That is the predi. I have been stantly cheg the updates. The probabilities just keep gettier.”

    “Good. You must be as thh as you were last time. A lot is riding on this.”

    “Of course.”

    “And then you  go home. I am arranging a little surprise oher side. Once you are home, it will be your duty to look out for its is.”

    “Not sure I uand, sir.”

    “Believe me you will, when you are dohe majeneral hung up and the assassin stood there w whether the surprise had anything to do with the huge shadow he had seen earlier today that had blahe whole of cyberspaly to disappear as quickly as it had arrived. Whatever he had seen was definitely not human. The hairs on the back of the assassin’s neck were standing on end as he walked slowly down Nathan Road, past the steps of the main gate to Kowloon Park.

 Chapter 35

    “You never did keep your promise,” Mei Lin said suddenly. Caldwell almost choked on his food.

    It was definitely one way to break the id she was beginning to get unfortable with the iy of Caldwell’s stare. As much as Caldwell didn’t want to admin it, Mei Lin had turned out to be even more attractive than when she was a teenager. Her features were a lot stronger, more intense. Her body was lithe like a ballet dancer with well-toned muscles. Her face was a lot more assured. Tonight, she was wearing a strapless top which told anyone who cared to look that she spent a lot of time in the gym and the dojo. She had wide elegant shoulders and a pact midriff tapering off to a slim waist. Her eyes hadn’t ged much. They were slightly darker in the subdued light of the Vietnamese restaurant located a stohrow from Shek O Beach.

    Caldwell khat deep inside he hoped that his memories of her were not manufactured by HYDRA. He found it difficult to keep his eyes away from her face, willio bee transparent so that he could see through her. Whatever he had felt for her in those memories of all those years ago was still flowing below the surface like precipitation in a water table.

    “It’s a long story. One I only found out myself less than forty-eight ho.”

    “So you keep saying. I’m listening,” Mei Lin said simply. There was a look of inteional pain on her face, the kind that had been painstakingly buried only to have it relutly dug up agaihin pink lips were pursed. Her eyes had turned into pools of squid ink, opaque and totally unreadable. Was she ag, bolstering the perceived authenticity of his retly acquired memories of her?

    “The truth is I don’t know what happeo me after the day I met you. You see I had my memory erased by HYDRA six years ago.” Caldwell paused for dramatic effed to study her rea.

    “You don’t expect me to believe that do you? HYDRA doesn’t do those kinds of t>..</a>hings. At any rate, there is no data of this in your file.” Was she keeping up the preteoeing the official line?

    “And that means it didn’t happen, right? You will be surprised. I think you will believe me by the time I am finished,” Caldwell said with thinly-veiled sarcasm.

    “OK, go on.” There ecter of incredulity in her eyes but it didn’t look like it had any staying power. Caldwell felt that the ice had been somewhat broken and he would be able to make some progress in making her believe him. Yet, he was anything but plat. He could not trust her.

    “As far as I was aware I knew nothing about Fouler or HYDRA until yesterday m when I went to the Dods to meet a hacker friend I knew only as Glyph. Until then, Glyph had been an online associate only. We had never met in the flesh. If it wasn’t flyph, and the work that he passed on to me, I would still be sleeping rough under Waterle.”

    “You were sleeping rough?”

    “Yeah, a homeless une below Waterle. The authorities turned a blind eye. We lived off the streets. Terrible times but made some lifelong friends.”

    “How did you end up there?” There was something Caldwell reized as empathy in her eyes.

    “Truth is, I woke up one day and there I was. The area below Waterle has a reputation as a place to abandon unwanted infants and I guess folks who have had their memories erased. Basically, unwanted members of the human race who the system  itself to murder in cold blood.”

    “No wonder.”

    “No wonder what?”

    “No wonder I’ve been so miserable most of these years.”

    “How do you mean?”

    “Found it impossible to be happy. Felt like a <cite></cite>huge part of me was missing. I don’t know why, but I had a feeling you were suffering. Before he passed away, I told my grandfather about meeting you soon after that day. He asked me to tell him as much as I knew about you. I told him everything I knew, which was a lot since I’d been in love with you for years before we met that day outside the school. I even got a friend to get me a printout of your school records. My grandfather is a trained fortueller and feng shui master. He said you would find much suffering in London but will only find pead happiness when you return home to New a. When you never tacted me I guessed you were still in London.”

    Wasn’t she laying it on a bit thick, all this stuff about being unhappy? She looked perfectly OK to him.

    “I wish now I had tacted you. I could have saved myself a lot of hassle by just quitting the agend ing back here.”

    “I wao find you but by the time I got your family’s phone number from the school records, you were gone and your parent’s house on e Road was already up for sale, acc to the property agent who picked up the phone.”

    “Ah right. The house. Fouler didn’t say a word about that? What do you know about Fouler?”

    “HYDRA. Global Head of Operations. In his youth he was one of the most infamous phreakers to ever walk the face of the earth. His forte, apparently, was t dowire teleunicatioworks, until the authorities caught up with him and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Did some time in a re-education f<cite></cite>acility and joined HYDRA soon afterwards in S&amp;D. Quite a resume. In fact, HYDRA is now probably his own personal operation. He keeps the name for the iional reition factor and the fact that it opeain high-level doors. I suspect that the umbrella agency cut HYDRA loose a long time ago and now it is funded with Fouler’s own money.”

    “Iing. A lot of things are beginning to make sense. Anyway, where was I? Right, I was meeting with Glyph in a pub wheanese Yakuza thugs started taking shots at us. Glyph got hit. I mao break out the window on to the street. The Japanese were just about to kill me or kidnap me, who knows, when this black electric limo pulls up and I am bundled in. Inside is Fouler. He tells me this story about how I used to be some hot shot in S&amp;D but somehow grew a sd threateo out the agency, to publish its darkest secrets in cyberspace. He said the agency had no choice but to wipe my memory  and dump me oreet. I ended up under Waterle about six years ago with little or no memory of my past.”

    “I see.”

    “In the limo Fouler tells me what I had suspected earlier, that the Japanese were after this  sole, which was sent to me by one Kenzo Yamamoto, a dealer in information. Some say he was into data blackmail.”

    “Why did this Yamamoto send this sole to you?”

    “At The HUB, essentially a hacker bulletin board I was a member of, he was one of gest ts.”

    “And how did you go from sleeping rough under Waterle to The HUB?” Mei Lin was still not buying the story pletely.

    “There were a few low-level hackers in Waterloo who used to retrieve old puter parts from corporate garbage dumps and re-build w maes. They did this to make a living, resold the puters at flea markets and the like. Occasionally someone found some valuable data residing iors on those discarded hard drives. Anyway, one of those guys gave me this base address while we were going through the junk, said I could find hag jobs there if I could teach myself how to do it. At the time, I was trying to put together a puter I could actually use. I had no idea why I had this insatiable o build o in the end I did and it turned out I had a propensity for the things. I had no idea at the time. Now, I know why. So eventually got to messaging this guy obase and we kind <bdo>..</bdo>of started an online friendship. Around that time I started hag the Union systems in a bid to find out about my past but I always came up blank. A few months later, I got accepted into The HUB and disc this new world persuaded me to try and break out of the vicious cycle of Waterle after close to four years there and make some kind of a life for myself. I set up an official base as C/line Iigations. My forte was to find missing people but I also did other jobs that went into grayer territories. After almost a year of borrowing power and ectivity from publifrastructure belonging to both Uniorid Union Tele, I made enough moo leave Waterle. I started going wherever the work was in the Union, Antwerp, Maastricht, Vladivostok. Then Glyph picked up a t who had enough work to go around and soon we were doing quite well for ourselves even though Glyph as the owner of The HUB took the lion’s share. That t was Kenzo Yamamoto. As it happened Kenzo needed some jobs that Glyph couldn’t deliver on and he referred him to me. After a lot marole establishing that I was trustworthy, I started doing the odd job for him with some success. Until about nine weeks ago, his projects kept me in enough Euro credit to be regularly holed up in capsule hotels around the Union.”

    “So, what happened nine weeks ago?”

    “I got an anonymous job through the HUB to steal the private banking t list of the Sumitomo Bank in Tokyo, plete with at numbers, passwords, credit history and so on. This is low level work, stuff I  usually do with my eyes closed. Yet, the run was a plete failure. I had intrusioion bots following me all the way back to the Union. I mao avoid dete, but inexplicably news of the failed run ropagated all over the Union hacker bulletin boards. The general gist was that I had promised the security of the HUB and the livelihoods of the hackers. I became persona non grata. Work dried up,”

    “And Kenzo was behind the whole thing?”

    “God, you are sharp. I didn’t realize at the time but I found out from the sole, from the avatar Kenzo recorded before he died, that he had been behind it all.”

    “And the sole? How did it e into your possession?”

    “Yesterday it shows up in the post with Kenzo’s calling card. He says I’ll  for an uping mission. You  imagihis sounded like the big deal. It portunity to stop living in foam-padded plastic lockers that ted your life down by the minute. And I am running out of credit waiting for Kenzo to surface again when Glyph messages me. We meet aells me Kenzo is dead. And the Yakuza show up trying to retrieve the sole and probably dispatch me to my maker. Then Fouler shows up saying he has the key to my past. He is a clever man. He unlocks enough with these triggers he has in his pocket to make me remember that day when he unofficially hired me, the same day I met you and every cliché of Hong Kong you  ever think of. If I help them on this mission to discover the fun of the sole I  have my past back, a job at HYDRA.”

    “He made you an offer you couldn’t refuse.”

    “Basically. And on the plane I get a bunch of old memories re-activated. Just what I need for this mission.”

    “That’s like mnemonic blackmail.”

    “cise way of putting it. Yeah!”

    “So you still ’t remember why you never messaged me?”

    “That part of my memory is locked up. Although I suspect it was an earlier procedure at HYDRA that wiped certain memories. I think Fouler may have erased some of my previous memories of Hong Kong when I joined HYDRA. If we don’t find this ese work it will probably be locked up forever.”

    “I think you  do it. You always had talent, even at school.”

    “So how did you end up at HYDRA? ce?” Caldwell asked her. It was his turn to deliver the Spanish Inquisition.

    “I guess. Left Hong Kong Iional School and read AI Studies at Tsinghua Uy in Beijing. It was the dohing then, to study in a. After all, Hong Kong was but a shadow of its former self and young people looked northwards for their careers, culture fix, inspiration and everything else. Don’t know why I chose puters. Subliminally, I am sure it had something to do with you. It was a way of making up for the fact that I had probably lost tact with you forever. Anyway, I found out I retty OK at it once I got over my initial prejudice that puters were b. And AI kind of puts a human spin on puting so that was iing. One day, towards the end of my final year, I was sitting in a coffee shop he Sanlitun diplomatic area in Beijing’s Chaoyang District reading some b book on neural works when a large man with straw-colored blonde hair strikes up a versation.”

    “De Witte.”

    “Yes. He said neural works were very iing. Asked me what I was doing. I told him I was about to graduate with a degree in Artificial Intelligend didn’t know what I was going to do with it. He asked if I would like the opportunity to work on some of the world’s leading systems. He asked a lot of questions about my family background and leased when I told him there was only me and my granddad, relatively ret mainland migrants to Hong Kong. Parents were dead, three grandparents dead and me an only child. A lot of tests followed in Hong Kong but basically within six months of the coffee shop enter granddad and I were Union citizens and I was w for HYDRA.  First there was intense physical training in Tokyo and then at The Seminary. Then it was back to Hong Kong. Started off pushing a lot of paper, then became an analyst writis on emerging teology trends in New a, mostly military-related.”

    “That is iing,” Caldwell said.

    “Not nearly as amazing as your story. I am sorry you had to suffer so much. You must really hate Fouler. And here I was being angry with you. I had nht. I was asking too much of you from a single enter.”

    “A single special enter,” Caldwell added, not knowing where he was going with this.

    “Yes. But that was many years ago.”

    “True.”

    “And things ge.”

    “The ohing we  all be certain of is ge.”

    “So true.”

    “So are you married? Boyfriend?” Caldwell ventured, emboldened by the dire of their versation.

    “If that ts, you were my first and only.”

    “Sorry to hear that.”

    “That’s OK. It was my choitirely and I am still young. I figured career first. Many young girls in Asia do adopt this approach, preferring to deal with affairs of the heart after they have sorted out their careers. So what about you?”

    “I have a friend ier London called Kat who I am very close to but not like a girlfriend. We are more like brother and sister. She kind of saved my life once. I guess these days, relationships are almost impossible. People are too plex, the repercussions too many.”

    “True. Well, it’s getting late should we get the bill? We start bright and early tomorrow.”

    Caldwell had no credit so he let Mei Lile the bill and they walked ba silence along Shek O Road to the sound of waves crashing on the beach below.

 Chapter 36

    The west entrance of Kowloon Park is located at the teeming end of Nathan Road, a seemingly never-ending strip of hotels, mid-range fashion stores, restaurants, cafes, bars, jewelry stores aronics shops selling Japanese and ese imports at grossly inflated prices. Despite the long tradition of bargaining in many of the neon-bathed retail establishments lining the pavements, it was a rare punter indeed who came away with a real bargain. However, prices were cheaper than anywhere in the Western world so every gadget or item bought on Nathan Road was still sidered a bargain by a mostly tourist tele.

    The atmosphere at this end of Nathan Road is distinctly touristy, traced with hints of illegal immigration, visitors from less affluent tries in Asia and Africa who have out-stayed their three-month visas. There’s a strong Muslim element on Nathan Road, especially at prayer time when a sizeable k of Hong Kong’s Muslim residents and tourists head towards the white marble dome of Kowloon Mosque with its four mis defiantly proclaiming the faith in a land where Taoism, Buddhism, fuism and a dwindling Christianity are the key mediums through which Hong Kong citizens fulfill their need fion.

    There’s a certain anything-goes quality to Tsimshatsui, the area straddling this end of Nathan Road, which stands in stark trast to prim and proper Hong Kong Island just across Victoria Harbor. If Hong Kong was the older son of a wealthy mert who excelled at school and was hand picked to run his father’s empire, then Kowloon as viewed from Tsimshatsui was the younger brother that never graduated from high school, ’t hold down a job but sure knows how to have a good time.

    In the 1830s, Kowloon Park used to be a British military base overlooking the vessels anchored in Victoria Harbor. The overzealous land reclamation policies of successive Hong Kong governors and govers had since resulted in the harbor shrinking over the years like a reg hairline. Yet, no matter how much more land was reclaimed or how many new skyscrapers emerged from the sidewalks, Kowloon’s thirst for erd the fast buck remained unquenchable.

    Li Jin’s slow train from Beijing arrived at the East Rail Station, known as the Kowloon-ton Railway Station in pre-unification times, at approximately two o’>.</a>clo the afternoon. It had been a mere ten-hour trip from Beijing, yet the journey had felt like it had taken forever. It had taken him a scary half an hour to emerge from the s checkpoint. Nobody had checked his bags. The immigration officers, sated from lunch, did not seem to have the energy. Li Jin bought himself a ticket to Xian fht o’clock that same night and headed towards nearby Tsimshatsui.

    The tedium of the journey had had some bes though. It had afforded Li Jin some mueeded time to fiune his hastily structed plans. Why use a radio when he could have instruct the Russian to pick up a disposable mobile pho one of the many Sunday phone shops dotted around Hong Kong. You could order the phone online, choose a number and prepay for a specifiumber of minutes in plete anonymity.

    There was a dirty sole irain partment. Part of the monitor had been discolored with some unknown liquid, probably the result of motion siess, but it was definitely useable. Li Jin waited until the other passengers in his four-person par for a bit, figuring out the best spot to make the transa. He would then call Krachev at precisely 5.38PM and instruct him on the place for the meeting. Given that Krachev was staying at the Peninsula Hotel, Li Jin figured that the Russian would use the entrance beside Kowloon Mosque. What time would the Muslims be having their evening prayers? Even as he pohe ao this question, Li Jin was formulating a plan in his head. The puter that mahe queues called his number and instructed him to head to ter number eight. Another luumber.

    Ten minutes later, Li Jin had deposited the quantum neuroprocessor in a bearer safety deposit box. The tents of the box automatically beloo anyone who had possession of the deposit slip. That would avoid any plicatioe the associated risk. As he walked back down Nathan Road, he thought about the implications of what he was doing for the first time. What happened if Krachev sold the chip to Russian mobsters who then resold it to terrorists or criminal syndicates? If the final owners knew what they were doing, and the process of selling the chip on would surely ehat they did, they could potentially bring about a major disruption in the balance of power. But then, what good was the chip without the be of a powerful AI to take advantage of it? An AI like Black Jade. You could fabricate as many of these processors as you wanted but without the right software all you had was a smart processor, ohat increased its performance over time. Even when Moore’s Law was still in effed ?puting power doubled every eighteen months, the lack of truly intelligent software had meant that much of the increase in raw processing power had been wasted on meaningless applications.

    A sign outside a mall called the Miramar Shoppire annouhat there was a food court in the basement. Li Jiered the mall a his body break out in goose pimples, or chi skin, as the phenomenon was known among ese. The air-ditioning  too high. Hong Kong people loved their air-ditioned shopping malls and covered walkways. They offered refuge from swelteri and oppressive humidity. The artificially cooled interior reminded Li Jin of the lab at Tsinghua that he would probably never see again.

    As he rode the escalators to the basement Li Jihat strange feeling people had when they were being watched. He looked up and sed the crowds on the escalator moving in the opposite dire. A small ese man was staring ily at him as the escalator went by. Li Jin’s heart skipped a beat. The man was a mainlander and the look on his face had unmistakably been one nition. The man’s mask-like face showed nothing but Li Jin had seen his eyes. They had been studying him with the iy of a predator about to poun its prey. Li Jin turhe other way and when he was sure the man was out of sight started walking briskly dowher side of the escalator. As soon as he hit the bottom, Li Jin broke into a run.

 Chapter 37

    Caldwell awoke at the crack of dawn. For a while he thought he was still in his capsule hotel in Angel. He almost expected to see an LCD ting down his credit but all he could see was the blink of LEDs on the various items of eleics scattered around the suite. No nightmares this time and he felt he had enjoyed his best sleep, a deeply satisfying interval of dreamless black, in a long while. He showered and ged into black slacks and a white linen shirt with no collar. The shirt was a size too small. He pressed an arrow on the lapel and the fabric stretched to a more fortable fit.

    The elegant forty-something woman who Caldwell found out had mahe daily goings on at The Mansion for close to twenty years had seen to it that new clothes had been brought u?o his suite. By whom, Caldwell had no idea but there was a small staiscellaneous fashion bags with names like G.O.D., Izzue, Joyd Shanghai Tang stacked in one er of the suite. He hadn’t bothered to open all of them.

    The suite was prised of a large bedroom with a king-sized waterbed and en-suite bathroom, a small study with a black Great Wall putronics sole and monitor and a living area with two sofas and an Amoi plasma s on the wall. It was one of those plasmas that tilted to follow your line of vision, an old innovation that Caldwell personally found stupid.

    He went down to breakfast. Mei Lin was already there in the dining room. Her face was inscrutable but as usual she looked stunning. Her hair ulled ba a ponytail and her eyes enhanced with the fai of black mascaras. Caldwell suspected she had made some extra eff. for his be but that could have been his ego talking. He thought she could have dohout the mascara but try telling that to a girl, probably your first love and the love of your life, who had spent most of her adult life thinking you were a shit. She was wearing a red loose-fitting shirt, black slacks aallic gray pumps. Breakfast was hot pe and strong black coffee.

    After breakfast she showed him the grounds of the house. There were altogether five self-tained private suites, several on living spaces, a gym and a library. These guys seemed to love their gyms, a fact probably related to some personal hang up of Fouler’s. Caldwell figured that if you spent most of your waking life in front of a sole you’d need easy access to a gym were you could reverse muscle wastage. There were also several offices to one side of the house.

    He was surprised to learn that the solemn woman was De Witte’s wife and that she was in fact a Japanese who had spent most of her w life in Hong Kong, with somewhat infrequent visits to her native Japan. They had met whete joined HYDRA Hong Kong. He’d been dismissed from the British Army for failing to turn up to the barracks after a drunken night oown. The woman’s name was Kumiko. They had a son Dante who he had met briefly at breakfast. Dante was w as an intern in the Systems Department having just finished high school a few months earlier. He was a good-looking Eurasian kid, with a shock of brown curly hair and a mischievous look in his oriental eyes. Caldwell identified with him immediately.

    Getting into the Operations Room was like getting into Fort Knox. Several fingerprint, body and iris ss and multiple codes later they found themselves in a steel-reinforced room with more soles and displays.９9ｌｉｂ.han he had ever seen, except perhaps in his memory of the puter room at HYDRA HQ in London. The Operations Room was empty except for Dante De Witte.

    “Cad, man, I’ve set up a workspace for you and Mei Lihere,” the boy said, pointing to one side of the room where an ergonomic multifun desk had bee up.”

    “Thanks Dante.”

    “If you need anything, gloves, goggles, cyberspace hook-up just let me know. It’s all wireless anyway so as long as you are wireless<s>?</s>-friendly you are ready to go.” The kid obviously loved his job. He was a geek like Caldwell. Mei Lin looked at them as though they were two kids at Toys-R-Us.

    “Won’t be needing that. This thing has direct satellite links to cyberspace,” Caldwell said tapping Kenzo’s sole under his arm.

    “Sweet,” Dante said, whistling as he went out the door.

    Mei Lin and Caldwell sat at the worktop in two padded leather chairs. She pulled a long thin rec device from her pocket and fiddled with it while Caldwell set up the sole. He plugged in the goggle and gloves and dohem. Mei Lin spoke something into the device.

    Caldwell cracked his knuckles, stretched and pressed the button on the front that was flush with the sole’s sleek black body. A green light came on as though it appeared from nowhere. A burst of activity in the LEDs as the sole paihe s on his retina and another on the worktop. Caldwell tapped on the keyboard, feeling the tactile sensation of the keys through the gloves. He logged on to his base. There were two messages. One was from Glyph. Caldwell heart stopped. Glyph had returned from the grave. And then he remembered that it robably because Kat was using one of Glyph’s messaging applications.

    Hey Cad,

    Hope you arrived safely in Hong Kong. Let me know.

    Love,

    Kat

    Caldwell sent Kat a quick reply:

    Kat,

    Arrived safely. All’s going acc to plan.

    Best,

    C.C.

    He fired up the other message. Caldwell froze in his chair. Mei Li in further to see the tents of the message.

    Subject: I AM WATG YOU

    Cad Caldwell,

    I know who you are. I am watg, om. I know what you are up to. For your long-term health, I implore you to cease a. I ot be held responsible for the sequences.

    “Who the hell could that be from?” Caldwell asked aloud.

    “What is it?”

    “Some anonymous threat message. Let me check the eleic trail.”

    Caldwell hacked into the messaging server of his base provider in Mumbai, India. He had do so many times that it had bee sed nature. He drilled down into the messages, found his last message and sed the message headers. The header of the anonymous message suggested that it had e from Russia.

    “Sent from Russia, this is not making any sense,” he said to nobody in particular.

    “Could be a relay. A mask. An anonymizer.” Mei Lin suggested.

    “Most likely.”

    It took Caldwell all of two mio breach the Russian server the message claimed to be ing from. He pulled up the message logs and within seds found the entry for the message. It hadn’t inated in Russia at all. It was a relayed message sent from a domain in New a.

    “The in is in New a.”

    “Let me see,” Mei Lin said. Caldwell passed the goggles over to her. He started to hato the New a message server, sending in a low level password sniffing<q>..</q> bot. Caldwell was attempting to crack the messaging server by brute force but nothing seemed to be happening. He flipped to his base and checked on his small army of bots. They are all there except for the password bot. It had disappeared from the database.

    “But that’s impossible. The IDEs have traced my password bot and killed it iabase.”

    “There is a ring of low level IDEs and ICEs surrounding the entire ese portion of cyberspace, some of the best in the world. They practically ied the cept of intrusion terattack. Try another one.”

    Caldwell sent in another bot. This one was slightly more sophisticated. Whereas the previous one made no attempt to hide its prese was a low level password bot that sniffed around open ports, the current bot was a Trojan that attempted to mimi ordinary user. It sed surrounding traffi the periphery of the messaging server fenuine messaging requests and hijacked any user found. IDEs were usually written that genuine users may have problems imputing the correct password. Caldwell flipped to his base. All his bots had disappeared.

    “Shit. My bots are all gone. Destroyed,” Caldwell said, his mind incapable of articulating anything else at that particular moment.

    “How did that happen?”

    “Probably traced the sed bot and realized it was ibase. It was just a matter of sending in a remote query and wiping the eabase.”

    “Do you have a backup?”

    “Yes, I do but those bots are not going to cut it.  you imagihis is just an ordinary messaging server in New a and the IDEs are this sophisticated? How the hell are we going to find a secret work where the IDEs must make this one look like child’s play?”

    “That’s why you’re the man for the job. Actually, we don’t have time for this. We better get crag on this mysterious work,” Mei Lin said.

    “Oh we are. Something tells me the two are related. Why else would someone in New a sehreatening messages?”

    “OK. So what now?”

    “I have an idea. What’s the biggest Hong Kong pany  data interect links to a?” Caldwell asked, an idea rising in him like a phoenix from its ashes.

    “The Newa Eleic Xge &amp; Teleunications Co. Ltd.”

    “Long name,” Caldwell observed.

    “They like ‘em long in New a. We call it  for short. Why?”

    “What are the ces of the cyberspace data being sucked into a having gohrough ’s systems?”

    “High.”

    “Where are their data ters?”

    “ower, tral. Why?”

    “That’s where we are goi.”

    “Pardon me?”

    “I o see the logs at . That may tell us where the data went. I  attempt to hack them from here but it’ll take too long to break their IDEs. Hong Kong is somewhat of an Achilles heel when it es to proteg the New a works from the outside world sihey need interects with service providers here. I am sure they have some of their best IDEs proteg the  systems but if I  use an authenticated work terminal that might be quicker.”

    “You realize what you are suggesting, right? Security at ower is incredibly tight. To my knowledge it has never been breeched. Getting caught is not an option.”

    “I know. Do you have an AR unit?”

    “Yeah.”

    “And a vehicle equipped with a cyberspace sole?”

    “Yes.”

    “Great. Then what are we waiting for?”

    “Cad, I o talk to Fouler or at least De Witte to authorize this. We are talki here. If you get caught, the fallout will be stratospheric.”

    “We’ll be in and out in a matter of minutes. Calling Fouler will only plicate things.”

    “You better be sure about this Caldwell.”

    “Trust me,” Caldwell said, fixing her with his most intense look. He didn’t even trust himself.

 Chapter 38

    When Oleg Krachev received the message about the ge of plan, he began to harbor doubts that he was dealing with an amateur. The whole thing with the two-way radios had suggested that his terpart was someone who had no idea what they were doing. Walkie talkies used radio waves that could easily be intercepted, heard or jammed by the police or ah a powerful ser and those were widely available in the shops on Nathan Road. The disposable phohough, suggested that whoever he was dealing with had used the two-way radio idea only to lead Krachev into believing that he was an amateur.

    From his KGB days, Krachev had knowo buy a gun in any major city. He recalled that the  point of purchase was in gking Mansions, a crumbli of cheap hotels, unhygienic restaurants and dodgy tailor shops. It would have to do. gking Mansions used to be a spot oourist map, its cheap aodation and myriad variety of knock-off retail appealing to European backpacker types keen to see a bit of Hong Kong on the cheap before heading home after days of smoking pot on the beaches of Thailand. As gking Mansi<cite></cite>ons’ illegal immigrant population of Indians, Pakistanis and Nigerians grew, the tourist appeal of the place had gradually eroded. The Hong Kong gover had made several attempts over the decades to tear the place down but to no avail. The owners liked gking as it was. Despite its crumbling walls, dripping air ditioners and leaking pipes, it had made them billions over the years with very little being reied in the property. Besides, the place occupied valuable real estate on Nathan Road, he Tsimshatsui harbor front, land they were prepared to hold on to at any cost without taking the risk of redeveloping.

    Krachev had trawled the oppressively humid corridors of gking Mansions sg o<q></q>ut establishments that he figured would have a side business in arms. He spotted several but decided to go with a Pakistani tailor shop called Suit Yourself. Photos displayed at the front of the shop suggested that several dignitaries had bypassed London’s Saville Row to have exquisite suits made by Imran and his sweatshop tailors at a fra of the price. It had taken a while for Krachev to persuade one of the shop’s attendants, a young good-looking Pakistani with movie star eyebrows, that he was a er who deserved the owner Imran’s personal attention. Fifteen minutes later, Krachev had availed himself of a ese-made pistol and some rounds at ></a>much less than the price of one of Imran’s business suits.

    Krachev wa<u>?９９ｌｉb?</u>s pleased. He had just proved that even so many years after the fact he still knew how to play the game. The pistol felt hard and f wedged at the back of his trousers, the small cluster of bullets heavy in his pocket. He would not hesitate to use it. His retirement was at stake. The quantum chip would be his at all costs. Later on, after a late but particularly fulfilling meal of Chi Bhiriani, Onion Bhaji and yellow Pillaf rice at an upscale Indiaaurant, Krachev had picked up the disposable pho the Sunday shop the seller had indicated.

    Now, he sat in the coffee shop in the lobby of the Peninsula Hotel ahrough the various sarios that could occur this evening. He was occasionally distracted by a bevy of ese beauties ing in and out of the hotel. Some of them were obviously call girls, he reed. High-price prostitutes that preyed on the affluent tele that stayed at a five star hotel like this one. One or two of them had him thinking really violent thoughts, his mind exploding with images of sheets traced with red and the soft whimper of girls subjected to his particular brand of sex.

    He looked up at one of the clocks above the reception desk and <q></q>o himself. All he had to do was wait. And Oleg Krachev had been waiting a long time for this moment.

 Chapter 39

    The black hybrid Range Rover exploded out of the gates of The Mansion like an enraged bull charging at a matador. Mei Lin had it guzzling fuel because it ate up more road that way, she explaio Caldwell. Only the elite of Hong Kong could afford to keep hybrids on the road these days as the tax on hybrid vehicles was double that of electrid both petrol and diesel were severely rationed with prices to match. They were trying to hit town before lunchtime as Mei Lin reed that robably the best time to breach the  facility. At lunchtime guards were down, awareness was low as staff trated oing a good square meal to see them through the afternoon. Caldwell and Mei Lin, oher hand, were skipping lunch.

    “You get a quota every month. Once you’ve used it up, that’s it. If you don’t use it, it doesn’t carry over to the  month,” she explained.

    “Similar to the Union, except that the hybrid tax is a lot more punitive. That’s if you  get a lise,” Caldwell observed pensively.

    The Range Rover screeched to a halt as a set of temporary traffic lights turned red. A se of oning lane had been blocked off. A yellow eleic sign with an amber dot matrix display on a black background read “Maintenance Works in Progress”. They waited as oning traffic threaded round the road works and glided past their vehicle. Some of the drivers stared at the Range Rover w who oh could afford to run a hybrid with the engine idling at a traffic light.

    The temporary traffic light turned amber, then green. Mei Lin hit the gas and the huge car inched forward. There was a silver Mercedes S-Class electri the opposite lahe driver was tapping his hands oeering wheel. As they drove past, Caldwell took a look at the driver. His face artially obscured by the rear-view mirror. Caldwell’s attention turo the front passenger. An ugly mask of battered features s<big>.</big>tared straight back at him. The eyes widened in disbelief, the twisted mouth a near-perfect zero of surprise. The disfigured Yakuza’s hands went up and he gestured wildly in their dire. It was the Yakuza heavies from the Union.

    The Range Rover surged forward leaving the traffi></a>c behind. Caldwell looked in the rear-view mirror. The silver Mercedes was doing a u-turn and cutting off on-ing traffic. Horns blared noisily. Mei Lin had noticed all this without taking her eyes off the road. She sent the accelerator crashing through the floor of the vehicle.

    The Range Rged the bend like a greyhound, the powerful engine purring with the effort. The smell of burnt rubber filled the air as the car maneuvered one of the numerous hairpin bends that plagued drivers on the winding Shek O roads. Caldwell checked the rear-view mirrain.

    “They are closing in,” he warned.

    “Just what we don’t need. I take it those are the tanese you entered in London.”

    “One and the bloody same,” Caldwell said with exasperation.

    Once again he checked the rear-view mirror. The Mercedes was making a lot of ground. Their Range Rover, even in fuel mode, was no match for it. Luckily the Range Rover was built like a tank and would give the Mercedes a run for its money should the Yakuza attempt to run them off the road. On this stretch of road, with its bends and its sheer drops, it ossible to die in any number of ways without aig.

    “I khis was a bad idea,” Mei Lin said.

    She’d barely spokehe Mercedes scraped their tail. The Range Rover surged forward and veered dangerously to the opposite lane, barely missing a two-door Toyota electric going the opposite way. The driver of the Toyota beeped in anger as the car disappeared in the distahere was yet another bend, which Mei Liiated with the tightest of margins. The Range Rover’s left side rolled off the rocks as the Mercedes moved up swiftly to the passenger side of their vehicle. Caldwell glanced sideways and saw the disfigured Japanese man’s window winding down. Suddenly, the Yakuza whipped up a submae gun and sprayed the ba<bdi></bdi>ck of the Range Rover with a few bursts. There was a hollow sound as the bullets bounced off the bullet-proof body.

    Caldwell and Mei Lin ducked instinctively. Caldwell reized the sound of the gun. It had probably been part of his early training at HYDRA. A new geion Uzi, made in Israel, evolution of the inal design by Major Uziel Gal, developed after the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, based on Czed Soviet submae guns. The inal was 650mm long with folding stod a 10 in. barrel. It weighed 8.2 or 8.41b and fired 600 rounds per mihis one could probably spit out thousands of rounds with eveer precision. Caldwell did not recall ever being a big fan of mae guns, all those bullets and no trol.

    Mei Lin stepped on the accelerator. The car shot forward aided by the sudden steep dest into the Eastern part of Hong Kong known as Chai Wan. They were now on a spiral flyover with very little in the way of side barriers to keep a car spinning out of trol on the road. The Mercedes surged forward too. It was now sitting right on the Range Rover’s bumper. Mei Lin hit a red button beside the steering wheel. The Range Rover pulled away like a rocket taking off. Some kind of nitro deal.

    “We have to lose them quickly. Getting into a gun fight in the ter of town is a very bad idea,” Mei Lin gasped.

    The Mercedes was stepping u<s></s>p the pace. Its superiine was responding quickly and effitly. Mei Lin suddenly slammed on the breaks. Caldwell quickly cottoned on to her ploy as he saw the electric Park N Shop delivery van approag in the opposite lane. She was betting that hitting the breaks suddenly would cause the driver of the Mercedes, to swerve instinctively. It was a risky bet as the Japanese seemed bent on f them off the road. The gigantic skyscrapers that formed Hong Kong’s skyline were already ihe ruse paid off. The Yakuza instinctively swerved into the opposite lane and ploughed head on into the Park N Shop vehicle. Caldwell felt the whiplash travel all the  his spine. Mei Lin had beeer prepared for it. He turned round to see that the entire nose of the Mercedes had been crushed uhe front of the van. There was smoke streaming from the front of the car. The disfigured Yakuza was the first to stumble out of the wrecked car. His face was covered in blood.

    They stayed silent as the Range Rover hit the Eastern Expressway and headed straight down into tral, bypassing the shopping paradise of Causeway Bay, the nightlife of Wanchai and the business district of Admiralty. Caldwell and Mei Lihed a sigh of relief. Ten minutes later they were being shunted downwards by a creaking car lift into the underground car park of ower.

    Mei Lin found a secluded parking spot not far from the service lifts.

    “So what is the plan? I was somehow hoping you’ll be able to tell me on the way down but I guess the Yakuza have a way of spoiling a briefing,” Mei Lin said. She was still breathing heavily.

    “Nice driving Mei Lin. I would have been totally useless.”

    “ly the time for modesty.”

    “Fair enough. What kind of information  you get with this Augmented Reality unit?” Caldwell asked pointing at the tiny silver wearable AR unit with matg glasses.

    “Standard data on major buildings and streets. Occasionally you get AR signposts, which you  tap for more details. In default mode the data es from the tral Hong Kong Gover database and is transmitted on a prohibited spectrum.”

    “OK, that’s exactly what I was betting on. Now, if I recall, building ma systems in Hong Kong are all puterized and handled by an indepe pany under tract. Right?”

    “Correct. Kai Shing is the oldest and biggest one. Also manages most of the newer buildings.”

    “And building ma panies are notorious for not being all that security scious, right?”

    “True.”

    “And they typically have iive eleic blueprints of buildings in their system with an AR interface?”

    “Correct. Teis use them when they are perf maintehat’s how they know which floor to go to and which se of the ceiling or fl they o open up. What are you getting at?”

    “I want you to hack Kai Shing, make a copy of their blueprint database and beam it wirelessly from the Range Rover.”

    “Brilliant idea, but one problem wise guy.”

    “What?”

    “We are underground. The signal is going to be too weak.”

    “Ah, right. You’ll have to park the Range Rover at ground level he entrahere are lots of cars parked there. It is a w day.”

    “OK. The AR unit has some rudimentary two-way unications on a public frequency. We  use that to unicate. I wouldn’t stay on it too long as any security guards, cops or ham radio nerd in the viity is going to pick up the signal sooner or later. At any rate I  beam text messages to you long with the blueprint data,” she said.

    “Good.” Caldwell put on the glasses and clipped the AR unit to his belt. The display read ower, No. 8 Queens Road, tral. The signal was weak and looked like it might die out at any moment.

    “How long before you’ll be beaming?”

    “Say five minutes. Unless of course it turns out that Kai Shing does not manage ower or they use hard copy blueprints. Or my hag? skills are not up to par.”

    “Unlikely. This is Hong Kong after all. It’s teology hub extraordinaire.”

    “I’d say the odds are on our side. Take care.”

    There was a look in her eyes that was not too different from the look she had in his memories when she boarded that No. 8 bus all those years ago. Caldwell stepped out of the Range Rover and walked towards the lifts. The bumper at the back of the Range Rover had been knocked  off.

 Chapter 40

    Diane Joplihe afternoon in her hotel room surfing the Japanese sector of cyberspace. The hotel’s in-house Mitsubishi sole did a fairly good job of translating the Kanji on the fly. She pored through so many news stories aures related to the Yakuza and to Kenzo Yamamoto that she now sidered herself somewhat of an expert oopic. Several hours later, eyes tired from the stant stream of words scrolling down the s and the void iomach screaming for attention, she ordered room service.

    Ten minutes later the bell rang and she opehe door, a bit self-scious since she was wearing only the white terry-cloth robe with nothing underh. There was no ohere except a room service robot, its sensors blinking rapidly. The trolley moved smoothly past her into the room and positioself at right ao the desk and the in-house sole. Xybo, sensing food, was on the alert, its tail wagging expetly. Diane wondered whether now that robots where doing everything, the people who used to work in hotels were now all making robots. The good thing was you no longer felt like you were pelled to tip.

    She had opehe cover of the trolley and marveled at the exquisite artistic creations of sticky rid colorful slivers of raw fish and seafood. The blob of wasabi was carved into the shape of aic dragon plete with scales. She khat within the oblongs of sticky rice hid a generous helping of wasabi so she left the dragon intact while she ate. She had then taken a quiap after instrug the house puter to wake her up at 6.00PM. That was two ho.

    Her father had appeared in her dreams, urgio be vigilant and to take care of herself. His face had been wracked with guilt and in the dream he had begged her tive him for leaving her all alohen he had asked her to search for the maker of sole and find out what it was for. Diane wasn’t sure whether she had subsciously ied her own will into the dream or vice versa but with Yamamoto dead there was not much more she could do. The e to Takahashi was too remote. Then her mother had also appeared in her dreams, face as white as the snow that was falling outside, tracks of dried tears trailing down her face, black with dislodged mascara. Her mother had spirited her father away without saying a word, just that look in her eyes that said she was sorry but at least now they were together.

    And Diane, all alone, had cried in her sleep and woken up with tears streaming down her face. Her pilloarts of her hair that had covered her face as she slept were soaki. She’d showered and ged and spent an hour on the in-house sole searg for something very specific. She was about to give up after an hour when an obscure out-of-date ior relations site gave her what she was looking for. Kenzo Yamamoto sat on the board of Tokyu Nanoteology Corp., a start-up pany formed less than two years earlier to researd manufacture chips based on nanoteology. What was iing to Diane was who else was on the board of directors. One Akio Inoue, seventy five years old and the foremost mind in Japanese microprocessor design. Further searches on Akio Inoue resulted in something even more iing. Several news articles indicated that Inoue, a master sole builder, had been hospitalized just two weeks ago. He had suffered a stroke. One of the articles stated with authority that he was being treated in a private wing at the Tokyo Medical Uy Hospital. And that was also located in Shinjuku.

    ***

    Diane emerged, through the revolving doors, from the relative calm enviro of the Keio Plaza Hotel into a tide of moving flesh aing snow. Shinjuku had a different feel at night than it did during the day time. It was still crowded with pretty much the same mix of passers-by. Yet, underh the harsh artificial daylight of the relentless neon, the people seemed more alive. The stress of their daytime jobs had been replaced with the anticipation of pleasure and relaxation at the numerous bars, restaurants and gaming parlors in the neighborhood.

    Her first plan of a was to get to know the Shinjuku area, especially the locations of immediate i. She’d bookmarked the locations on the AR unit so that it would pull them up automatically as she walked into their viity or on demand if she requested. On the AR unit’s reendation, she headed north towards the imposing twin monoliths of the Tokyo Metropolitan Gover Building, which was where the alleged Yamaguchi-gumi oyabun Miakahashi supposedly kept his goveral offices. The voices were now saying that it was to<dfn></dfn>o dangerous to attempt to approach him and this piece of advice mirrored Diane’s own thoughts oter so no surprise there.

    From the news articles, it was obvious that Takahashi was stantly surrounded by a wall of Yakuza meatheads. She would either have to re with the Yamaguchi-gumi thugs or the minister’s official gover bodyguards. heless, she had availed herself of a steak knife from the room service robot’s dinner serviventory. It was one of those knives with a serrated edge and a poiip. Another search had armed her with valuable information on how to use it, if she did indeed happen to get close enough to the oyabun. She could slice through his jugular or just push it between his ribs right into his heart, twisting as she went. She had studied the explanatory photos carefully. The heart was on the left side of the body. She could hear hers thumping away at the thought of murder. She shuddered. The e between Takahashi and Kenzo Yamamoto was too remote to justify su a but it wouldn’t hurt to hide the knife in the leg pocket of her vas bat trousers anyway just in case the opportunity preseself and she ged her mind.

    Diane walked past the perimeter walls of what the AR informed her was Shinjuku tral Park. She wasn’t that ied in the park’s history but was intrigued when the AR told her that ihe park was a massive makeshift shanty town of Tokyo’s homeless. And surely enough a few meters up ahead, one of the park’s inhabitants was urinating against the wall, a bowl of steaming Nishin instant noodles held aloft in one hand, another hand at the trols. The man wore an ill-fitting battered suit that had once been blue but now had turned brown and shiny with filth. One of his brokeher shoes was missing the froion. Diane could see a dirt-caked big toe ed with a black rown toenail stig out like the head of an aging tortoise. Diane crossed the street to give the man a wide birth in case he was dangerous but not before she was assaulted by a powerful whiff of stale vomit and alcohol. She felt sorry for him but there was nothing much she could do.

    She took a right westward into the skyscraper district. You couldn’t miss it. The sky above this se was fluorest white and the air was alive with the sound of various forms of eleic activity. Behihe gover building cast an invisible shadow, its twin towers weighing heavily in the air, oppressive. A light snow was falling but there was very little actual snow on the ground. It was as though the glare of neon and the stampede of eager feet had dissolved the snow into the crete. It was cold but Dian<var>藏书网</var>e was well prepared with layers of insulated clothing and a black wool hat with leather flaps that covered her ears. With her puffy blaorth Face jacket and Evisu vas bat pants she could easily pass for a boy, which explained why nobody paid her any attention. Her rucksack taining Xybo and the sole in a  of hotel towels added to the urban look.

    One of the voices was back again asking Diane a question that had not occurred to her to ask. What was that salaryman in black still doing in the lobby of the hotel when she came down from her room? She hadn’t really noticed or paid attention but now the voice had reminded her, she did recall that there had indeed been someone of a similar description sitting there. Diaopped iracks and everything sped up as the crowd of people shifted past her in both dires. She turned around and sed the people behihere was too much flesh and too many black-clad salarymen. She didn’t even know what the man iel actually looked like but she was sure she would reize him if she saw him again.

    The voice had mentio out of the blue so there had to be something in it. She decided she would be more vigilant and stay alert. It was obvious that if ihe man had been watg her, he was just following her and not actually planning to do her any harm. Otherwise he could have easily found out her room number and paid her an unwele visit.

    And then it dawned on her. Her father had died under suspicious circumstances and she had disappeared. The FBI might be after her and this guy might be a local FBI guy. He definitely looked Japanese. Yet, he didn’t really look like the FBI type. She had seen FBI agents in a on many occasions. That guy was definitely not FBI. That meant only ohing. He robably Yakuza. Why would the Yakuza just follow her though? Were they waiting to see what she was going to do?

    She tinued walking past a phalanx of massive brightly-lit department stores with names like Odakyu, Keio, Mitsukoshi and Isetan. Their display windows offered Diane a ve mirror of sorts to s the crowds for anyone who ayioo much attention. There was nothing out of the ordinary although at one point she thought she saw a dark shadow ing towards her in the window and whipped around only to find that it was a trick of light and it was just a fner in a stylishly-cut black Sherloes cloak walking past. Diaed that the man had probably had a bit too much plastic surgery as his face was all taut and shiny, not a pimple anywhere. Obviously Ameri, probably in the movie business. Some kind of Hollywood producer, she thought. Everything from his cloak, scarf and black crocodile skin boots looked expehere were many of those rich fn types in Shinjuku.

    She crossed the West Exit of Shinjuku station a a warm gust of stale air blasted from the depths of the station by two giant air vents. There was a faint but unmistakable smell of sweating flesh and urine. Diane wrinkled her nose as she transitioned into a totally differeion of Shinjuku sisting of small lanes lit with even marish neons. The AR informed her that she had just entered Kabukicho the red light distrid home to some fifty thousand Yakuza gang members. Closer iion of the signage in front of the mostly smallish lookiablishments firmed this.

    Some of the facades had backlit boards showing photos of stily-clad Japanese girls dang aroual poles, dressed up as nurses, manga characters or school girls or just standing there as though they were in the bikini line-up of some beauty pageant. Above the photos were various prices in Japanese Yen. Intermingled between these establishments were what looked like noisy video game arcades but there was this thunderiallic king sound and when Diane looked through one of the windows she saw people, mostly men and young boys, sitting in front of these elaborate looking maes with plastic bowls of what looked like little silver metal balls and more balls p out of the maes making that loud thundering noise.

    The AR described these noisy establishments as Pako parlors and started explaining the rules but Diane overrode it with a flick of a switch. The small lanes pulsed with the sound of musiputer-geed beeps and melodies, the chatter of tele and the sounds of those Pako balls. At the er of one of the lanes, a group of drunken salarymen leered at her but she just kept on walking past gangs of young men with crazy haircuts and black suits trying to stuff leaflets in her hands and speaking to her in Japa seemed as though they wanted her to go into one of those places with the half-naked girls in the pictures. Diane just shook her head a on moving.

    Acc to the AR unit, Kabukicho was the capital of Tokyo’s sex industry. It was sex packaged in every form imagihere were strip clubs, role-playing clubs, S&amp;M clubs, nude shows, praphiemas, unlikely-looking bathing houses and massage parlors all packed one on top of each other o<dfn></dfn>her side of these small lanes. All these services were announced boldly in Japanese, English and ese in flashing or pulsating neon.

    The AR unit explaihat in the eighteenth tury Shinjuku had been a refuge or resting place for long-distanuters to Tokyo. The name Shinjuku, it said, translated roughly as “new lodgings”. It was just a matter of time before the inns realized that their tele was willing to pay for more than rice, sake and a place to sleep for the night. The quintessentially Japanese solution was to have young female “rice servers” serve food to the guests who could then request additional services. Once again Diane overrode the AR. This was way too muformation and there were all these young guys in black, drunken salarymen and elaborately-dressed and made-up young Japanese girls to look at. Some of the girls, despite the chill, wore these impossibly short skirts that revealed parts of their underwear and exposed pale translut legs to the elements. This is really, really crazy, Diane mumbled to herself.

    The AR unit was stantly marking off places Diane should not veo and as Diane moved deeper into Kabukicho she noticed that the unit had designated huge swathes of the area as dangerous. The AR displayed a s of additional information on the glasses that made the hairs on the back of Diane’s neck stand on end. Young girls were routiricked into going into some of these bars and rag up huge drinking bills which they had to pay off by engaging in the sex trade. Diane shuddered at the thought that earlier she had beeed to enter one of the bars to see what it was like inside. Once again the AR roving itself invaluable. She gave those areas a wide berth, stantly cheg the map in the AR’s cheap plastic glasses. The AR was also dividing the tiny map of Kabukicho into areas with translut color-coded overlays labeled with the name of the Yakuza gang that trolled it. The Yamaguchi-gumi and some ese gang trolled most of it, including the real estate and the various dodgy lines of business.

    Diaurned round a er into a lahat was not as crowded or as brightly lit as the others. As she pressed forward ing her o peep into one of the windows of a small bar, she got that prig feeling again at the back of her neck. She straighteurned round and her mouth opened in surprise. The fner in the black cloak who she had seen on the pavement in the business district of Shinjuku was standing there, that plastic face lit up with blue neon from one of the facades, his left arm reag for something tucked into his waist belt. The few people walking in this part of Kabukicho stopped iracks, with the exception of three salarymen who just walked straight past the man, oblivious. The fner wasn’t looking at her. He was looking behind her. Diane whipped her head around, her thoughts coalesg around the steak knife in her pocket, the voices in her head screaming, willio stay alive. She stifled a gasp as she realized there was another man behind her. It was the Japanese man in black she had seen in the lobby when she was cheg into the Keio Plaza hotel. She was sure of it and she reized the bulky earpiece, his phone.

    The fner’s hand came away from his waistband and there was this thing in his hand that looked like a gun, except the barrel was shaped like a funnel expanding outwards. Diahought he wasn’t as young as she had previously thought, more like in his fifties. Yet he was fast and he wasn’t Ameri either. There was something vaguely European about him. The gun sp<u></u>asmed in his hand and Diane expected to hear a gunshot but there was no sound at all. All Diane could see was the air in front of the man suddenly e alive and assume some kind of blob-like shape but it wasn’t actually a blob, just a se of air moving separately from all the other air around it. And the vibrating mass of air rushed past her causio take a deep intake of breath. She whirled around again and all she could see was the Japanese man go totally stiff, both hands to his sides, and just fall straight down to the pavement.

    Diaurned round but the fner had already reached her. Thin bony fingers with a strong grip grabbed her and pulled her in the dire she had e from. Then the fn man started running, pulling Diane along with him and as they turhe er awo men joihem. One of them was Blad the other was Caucasian but Diane could swear they were identical twins, just different colored skin. They kept running, scattering crowds of Japanese. Diane had lost any will she had to resist. The lights were dang in her eyes, the thunder of Pako balls threatening to deafen her.

    Yet, the voices were tellihat it wa<big>藏书网</big>s OK and that this man with the sloping jaw had saved her from the Yakuza. They reached one of the main streets b Kabukicho and Diaiced that there was a massive black van with heavily tinted windows idling on the curb. One of the other men slid open the van doors and she was bundled inside. She half expected it to be some kind of delivery van but was amazed to find all these puters and plush leather sofas ihe men got in, slid the doors shut and sat down on the leather sofas breathing heavily. The van began to move silently through the evening Shinjuku traffic.

 Chapter 41

    Caldwell emerged from the stairwell on the ground floor and found himself in the ower lobby. The pristine white marble walls were dotted with massive plasma ss, erected for the sole purpose of reassuring ers that their data was safe if they stored it at  data ters. There were ss showing the data flows of the  works in plex but beautiful color-coded graphs. There were monitors displaying pulsing traffic-light is indig that systems were healthy with a green light, about to have problems with amber or irouble with a red light. All of ’s systems seemed to have the green lights. It was all systems go.

    A huge horizontal s, a grid of multiple monitors, displayed multiple camera views of the mai data ter trol room. Teis in shiny silver and purple windbreakers with the  logo emblazoned on them gawked at terminals, studied the graphs and generally tried to look like they were giving the er their money’s worth.

    It was lunchtime. The security guard in the lobby was stuffing his face with the tents of a Styrofoam lunchbox. In the bright glow of white light firing down from a giant modern delier in the high ceiling, desigo look like stalactites hanging from the roof of some ice cave, the bereted security guard looked woefully out of place. Four Haier robots roamed around the marble floors. Their senso<u>藏书网</u>rs told them to stay away from Caldwell. He walked up to the eleic directory board and studied it like a visitor looking for the right floor. The trol room was oweh floor, sandwiched in the middle of the building.

    There was a terminal in one er of the lobby that spewed marketing bullshit about the bes of letti handle all your New a Region data needs. Video montages waxed lyrical about the size of ’s baes, bandwidth-o9９lｉｂ?n-demand, amazing 24/7 er support, raised floors, temperature trol and automatic server maintenand traffiit services. The terminal went on about how y pert of the Hang Seng New a 100 used o serve all their data ter needs. Logos of said panies lio more cyberspace marketing hype from said ers were displayed ready to be clicked by the potential er. Caldwell had seen enough. It was all one big smokes. He had remotely broken into enough data ters to know.

    Caldwell walked up to the security guard who was chewing on some kind of greeable. Half of it, the leafy bit, was hanging oside of his mouth because the other half on the inside was refusing to be chewed. Swallowing was not on the cards for this guy as he seemed to have mao get a huge stalk of some veggie lodged halfway down his throat. Caldwell made his move.

    “g King Real Estate tei,” he said in tonese. “Was here earlier, I just went out to grab some lunch. See you are still enjoying yours. Where did you buy that? It looks really good.”

    All the security guard could do was motion with his head in the dire of the lifts. His expression said: “Don’t bother me while I am eating, gweilo half-breed.” Caldwell wi him aered ay elevator. He pressed the button for the tweh floor. The lifts in Hong Kong were way too fast. It took all of eight seds for the bell to sound and the puterized voice to say “Tweh floor”.

    Caldwell walked out into a huge hall lit with purple halogen like a nightclub. There was a metallic designer receptioo one side at which a mosquito-thin ese girl with a cute face was also enjoying the tents of a Styrofoam rice box. She didn’t pay him the least bit of attention, fog all her energies on lunch.

    There was a sunken area in the middle of the hall with a glass floor. Expensive-looking blad gold goldfish swam lazily in a lit pool below the glass. Just beyond the underground aquarium was a reinforced steel door and a large window showing essentially the same view as the monitor downstairs in the lobby. This was the trol room. The cameras must have been ihe trol room because Caldwell could only spot one camera outside in the hall and it ointing at the reception desk, making sure the skinionist didn’t fall asleep on the job. Caldwell spotted a lit Gents and Ladies sign and walked casually towards the washrooms. The lack of security was frightening. In the hag age, eleic security was deemed orders of magnitude more important. Criminals the world over had realized that valuable data was locked up inside puters aworks not in the physical premises.

    Caldwell ehe men’s toilet. It was empty except for a solitary closed cubicle. The oct was making enough noise, from both ends, to suggest that he had made the wrong choice for lunch. Caldwell ehe  cubicle along and waited. He still had not heard from Mei Lin. The AR Unit was now telling him that ower was built just two years ago and was annifit tribution by the powerful Lee family to Hong Kong’s vibrant world-class ey. It was even going into how many tons of crete, steel and glass were used and how many stru workers had worked oe. “Talk about useless information,” Caldwell muttered quietly to himself. The entire building <samp>..</samp>re-wired for cyberspace. The AR went on to explain that it was in fact a node in cyberspace. The last piece of information grabbed Caldwell’s attention. If ower was a node on cyberspace, theire building could be hacked but only if he could gain high-level access into the work that ma. As it happehat was exactly what Caldwell was trying to do.

    The toilet  door flushed and Caldwell heard the cubicle door open. He walked out of his cubicle. A<big>９9ｌib?</big> balding middle-aged ese man wearing the shiny purple and silver  windbreaker was washing his hands at the sink. The man he windbreaker because the temperature oweh floor of ower was close to freezing. This was to prevent the puting equipment from overheating. A thousand puters  gee a lot of heat. ower had to have ten times more than that judging from the rows and rows of server soles visible behind the trol room and there were several more floors full of servers acc to the marketing blurb downstairs.

    “Dodgy lunch, eh? ’t be too careful,” Caldwell said in what he figured was Mandarin as he stood at the sio the  employee. The balding man turned round slowly.

    “Who the fuck ...”

    Caldwell didn’t give the man time to finish. The back of his right arm, the muscled bit just above elbow, made tact with the bridge of the tei’s he man’s head snapped bad he slumped to the floor. Caldwell allowed his breathing to slow. He was nervous but the adrenalin umping.

    “You’re not having a good day are you,” Caldwell said as he dragged the tei into the same cubicle he had been using earlier. The cubicle smelled of something rotten. Caldwell stripped him of his fancy windbreaker and put it on. Underh the windbreaker, the ei was wearing a black t-shirt with f.c.u.k. printed on it in white. Caldwell locked the door from the inside and started climbing over the partition. There was a sound of somebody entering the toilets. He slid back down and crouched ooilet bowl. The atose tei was mumbling something unintelligible. He was still out in mumbo jumbo land.

    “Ah Wah, you have a phone call. What the hell are you doing in there? Having a baby?” a deep baritone voiquired in guttural tohe door closed shut. Caldwell figured whoever owhe voice had gone. He climbed over the partition into the adjoining cubicle.

    The only way he was going to gain access to the system was to take a gamble. Caldwell was betting that if he walked up behind one of the teis in the windbreakers just as they were going through the door into the trol room, they would let him in without ahought. They would be so caught up in their post-lunch schedule that they wouldn’t even bother to pute whether he was one of them. And he was wearing the AR glasses. The visual cue of the atose tei’s windbreaker would be enough.

    Caldwell stood in the corridor leading to the washroom hoping that the tei called Ah Wah would not suddenly bee reacquainted with his surroundings. The elevators chimed and a couple of similarly-dressed teis strolled across the hall chattering about something unintelligible. He waited until they reached the sunken aquarium then made a beeline for them. The tei in front was having the palm of his hand sed and laughing at something the other tei had said. He then peered into an iris ser. Caldwell could see the beam from the ser making passes over his left eye. He was so close to the other tei that he could smell his hair gel.

    Then the worst thing that could happen did.

    “Ah Fai, you have a package,” the skinionist shouted across the hall. Her voice was so shrill that both teis turn round in surprise. So did Caldwell behind them, who also whipped round to look in the dire of the receptionist and avoid his face being scrutinized by the two teis. The girl was too far away to notice that he was not one of them. He could feel the two teis looking at the receptionist past the back of his he<u>９9ｌib?</u>ad. Caldwell hoped he could pass for an oriental for the brief few seds that they were looking at him. Many Hong Kong youngsters dyed their hair brown or blonde as part of the prevailing fashionable. Caldwell was more worried that the headphone plugged in his ear and the AR glasses wouldn’t give him away.

    Ah Fai slid past Caldwell without even a sideways gland headed towards the reception desk. The other tei keyed in his code. The massive door slid open aered. The door closed shut. Caldwell was ihe trol room. He was relieved to notice that ing out of the room was much easier than ing in. You just pushed a button in a square recess beside the door. The tei walked to his terminal without paying him any attention. The AR display shuddered and an image appeared superimposed over the view of the trol room. Mei Lin had hit pay dirt. It was a stack of blueprints for ower stacked one on top of ahe readout said there were fifty-six in total. How the hell was he going to find the right one?

 Chapter 42

    Li Jin stood in the glass elevator as a crowd of chattering Hong Kong shoppers gregated around him. It was a death trap pure and simple. He was vulnerable in the basement of the shoppier. If the man on the escalator was waiting for him on the floor above or on his way down, he was in big trouble. He peered at the row of buttons on the elevator and his suspis were firmed. Every siton had been pressed. The only way out was to somehow disappear into the crowds but if the man was standing at the entrance of the elevator on the floor above there was no way to do that.

    Then his attention was drawn to the elevator buttons. A sigo the buttons annouhat the basement housed the food court and an underground parking lot. The elevator doors were closing. He pushed violently through the crowds and stuck his hand through the closing elevator doors. It was a risky move but it was his only ce. Dui bu qi, dui bu qi, he apologized in Mandarin as the door opened and he emerged from the claustrophobifines of the packed elevator. His eyes quickly sed the crowds and the elevatliding downwards. He took a gamble and ran to the left, away from the escalators.

    Li Jin followed the dire signs as he ran bumping into shoppers who cursed at him in tohe gods were really with him today, there were arrows pointing towards the parking lot. He kept running as he followed the signs on the floor, his backpack swaying from side ..o side but somehow propelling him forward. He emerged from the pristine and well-lit interior of the mall into a huge space of featureless crete walls and the smell of exhaust smoke. A winding tuo the left suggested a. A powerful Mercedes wound its way down into the parking lot firming his suspis. The exit. He headed past the Mercedes a running upwards, the winding road and the ine causing waves of pain to creep up his legs. Li Jin was not used to strenuous physical activity.

    Who was that ese guy? What did he want? Had he over-reacted to a shopper just casually glang at him? Was it just a curious fellow mainlander? Not likely. Li Jin always trusted his instincts and they had served him well in the past. Besides, it was always better to be safe than to be sorry. There was a car ing up on his side of the tunnel. He switched to the other side. There was no island in the middle. Then the headlights of yet another car and the whine of an engine suggested <cite></cite>another car was ing dowunnel. He was trapped. Li Jin moved aside just in time missing both cars by fras of an inch. One of the drivers screeched to a halt and blasted his horn in anger.

    Li Jin emerged into a busy Tsimshatsui backstreet. He guessed that it ran parallel to Nathan Road. There were several back alleys strewn with black rubbish bags leading off from the street. Li Jin ran down one of them and was relieved to find that the alley he had chosen ended in a large square full of mostly young people. There were huge video ss everywhere with to-pop and advertising blaring out of powerful speakers. Li Jin disappeared into the crowds, his heart beating violently.

    ***

    His scary ordeal at the Miramar Shoppier had put Li Jin’s nerves oerhooks. This was not going to be easy but he was determio pull it off. Additional precautions o be taken.

    He emptied his bowl of spicy Dan Dan Noodles, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at his cheap imitation Citizen watch. It was 5.30PM. Soon he would be rich beyond his wildest dreams. He moved off towards a damp corridor, following a handwritten sign that indicated toilets. The toilet was small and in serious need of a  and some disiant. He spent a long time in there. Li Jin suffered from a rare bowel disorder and the last thing he wanted was for stomaents to interrupt the impending proceedings. He checked the credit transfer unit. The batteries were w fine and the wireless link was good. He could successfully access the meager balan his savings at with the Bank of unications in Beijing. Excellent.

    He’d bought a gun, just in case, from some tailor shop down one of Tsimshatsui’s many alleyways. He removed the gun from his rucksad exami. It felt strange and heavy in his hands. He’d never fired a gun before but if called upon to use it in defense of his life he was sure he would pull the trigger. He would be ready for any recoil. He’d seen too many movies for that to throw him. He placed the gun in the back pocket of his jeans and pressed the Velcro flap into place. He then removed the deposit slip from his wallet and placed that in another one of his pockets. He was ready to go. Theurned his vas jacket i just in case the man in the mall was still hanging around

    Li Jin paid the bill, left the noodle restaurant and took the long route towards Kowloon Park. First he headed towards the backstreets of Jordan and then cut past Kowloon Police Station through to Austin Road. Senses on high alert, he ehe park through the Austin Road entrand moved briskly past the mini soccer pitch, the arcade and the swimming pool plex. Li Jin was just about to decide that the ese garden, with its covered walkways and shrubbery, would make a good spot when he realized that the twittering of birds in the aviary would give away his position. He kept moving through the park, sing the people strolling around the park enjoying the evening. Everything seemed fine.

    Li Jin moved through to the Sculpture Walk featuring works such as the cept of on by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi. He wished he had more time to study it but he was only able to give it a curslance. He looked at his watch. He was running out of time but he had spotted what could be the perfect location from which to orchestrate the proceedings. The roof garden at the Nathan Road end of the park afforded views of both the frenzied ercial activity of Nathan Road and the tranquil interior of Kowloon Park. There were a few people in the garden but he could spot secluded areas from where he was standing. He climbed up to the garden and found a deserted spot. A couple of lovers were l nearby but they were too busy oodling to pay him any attention.

    Li Jin paused for a few mio steady his nerves and then removed his phone from his pocket. He dialed the o the phone he’d bought for Krachev. With each ring, Li Jin’s heart thumped violently against his chest. Why was he so nervous? Someone picked up.

    “Krachev? Oleg Krachev?” Li Jin asked hesitantly. He hadn’t spoken English for a while and it sounded hollow and alien to his ears.

    “Yes.”

    “I have the merdise. Where are you?”

    “In my hotel. I have been waiting for your call.”

    “OK. e to Kowloon Park. Use the Nathan Road entranext to the Mosque and head straight to the ...  the maze.” Li Jin had just spotted the maze as he sed the park. It was less than a hundred meters away, well within range of the credit receiver. The voi the other end definitely sounded Russian. It was Krachev alright.

    “The maze?” the Russian asked incredulously.

    “Yes. The maze. You will find it easily enough. Find your way to the ter of the maze.”

    “OK, if you say so.”

    “Yes, ahere in fifteen miherwise I disappear and the deal is off.”

    “You have the chip with you?”

    “Of course. It will be nearby.”

    “If there is any funny business you won’t make it out of Hong Kong alive. Uand me?”

    “Sure. Fifteen minutes.”

    Li Jin hung up and waited.

    ***

    The assassin was sure that he had spotted Li Jin going down the escalator in the shoppier. He had watched the movements of the quarry for any sign of panic. The quarry had just looked away seemingly uurbed. The assassin had seamlessly logged into a PLA database of the ese population and performed a query ohing the majeneral had told him about the quarry. All this was done hands-free, using only the electric pulses rag through his synapses. A photo had materialized in his mind and it erfect match. It was a student photo probably taken years ago with a digital camera but the face was unmistakable. The thin ned largish Adam’s apple a dead give away and those wily eyes on with bookish types were spot on.

    He had calmly but briskly desded to the basement while <bdo>?</bdo>copying the photo into face reition mode. He could feel the two tiny cameras on the sides of the module sing the faces of the people on the escalator ing the other way and cross-refereng the ss with the quarry’s photo. No matches. The quarry was still dowrapped in the basement. Yet, there were the elevators. One of which was just leaving the basement. The assassin could see a crowd of people in the elevator.

    The assassin had quietly turned round and brushing the people in his path aside ran back up the desding escalator to the ground floor. He had taken his position in front of the elevator doors on the ground floor and waited. He would kill the quarry with one swift movement. A quick strike to the spinal cord and it would .all be over. He would catch the quarry’s body as it went limp and carry the dead weight through the crowds to one of the exits. The quarry would have to be disposed off somehow but that was just academic.

    The elevator had stopped at the ground floor and a group of shoppers had emerged. The quarry was o be found. The assassin had then headed b<bdi>..</bdi>ack down to the basement and bed the area ing up with nothing. When he had seen the sign to the car park it had all bee clear. The quarry had escaped through the car park, which he himself had overlooked. The assassin had calmly ordered a bowl of turtle shell jelly at a small dessert stall, donned his wireless sunglasses aally logged into yet ahird Department system in Beijing, ohat monitored all unications data by the entire populace of a. He instructed an AI to analyze the unications, feeding it the ese characters for Li Jin and Hong Kong.

    A few seds later the results flashed across his shades. Li Jin and Oleg Krachev will meet in Kowloon Park today at approximately 6.08PM for the sale of a quantum neuroprocessor. The AI had gleaned all this from disparate e-mail and phone versations. The assassin had then asked the AI for other important data. The following words scrolled past on the assassin’s shades.

    Oleg Krachev. Peninsula Hotel, Kowloon. Room 2006. Sunday Mobile Phone: 923313882.

    Li Jin. Unknown residence. Unknown a Mobile Beijing SIM card.

    The assassin had smiled. He would pay this Oleg Krachev a visit and this Krachev would lead him to the quarry.

 Chapter 43

    Caldwell watched the text message scroll across the bottom of the AR glasses.

    “Sorry for the delay I ran into some problems.”

    It was Mei Lin. Caldwell couldn’t respond on the unications el without drawing attention to himself but he figured Mei Lin would be able to see him manipulating the Kai Shing blueprints on the sole in the Range Rover. There were five teis in the trol room, which looked like it had a maximum capacity of about thirty. Caldwell figured the other teis were probably still out to lunch or off duty. Many data ters ran a thin roster to save costs. There was a bank of digital iional clocks along the front wall above more displays showing the vital signs of the  data ter.

    “I know you ’t respond but make it snappy. I just realized that the tral gover facility that broadcasts digital information is just across the road in the Murray building. It’s just a matter of time before they figure somebody is broadcasting on their restricted frequency. It’ll take them all of ten seds to pinpoint my whereabouts. They  probably spot me from their window.”

    Caldwell resisted the urge to respond and allowed the message to scroll out of sight. He was too close. He walked to a bank of terminals at the front of the trol room. One of the es said  Ming Fai in English and traditional ese characters. Caldwell took a wild guess that it was the same Ah Fai colleg a parcel at reception. What were the odds on there being two Ah Fais out of thirty? Slim to none, he figured, although Ah Fai ular Hong Kong name. Caldwell sat down at ay terminal as far away from Ah Fai’s worktop as possible, fag away from the wide glass window giving out to the reception hall. There was aext message from Mei Lin.

    “I couldn’t copy the database. They have somehow disabled replications. This is a broadcast directly out of the hack to the Kai Shing system. I am still ected to their system.”

    Just what they needed, Caldwell thought. Three possible points of failure. He could get caught trapped in the trol room. Kai Shing could discover that somebody was logged into their building databases or the Hong Kong gover’s Information Services Department could discover Mei Lin broadcasting illegally on their private spectrum. Caldwell started typing on the keyboard of the terminal. The  ssaver disappeared to reveal a login prompt. The system９９lｉb. logged users out after a specified time interval. He had to check the blueprints.

    “Twe,” Caldwell whispered into the microphone embedded in the glasses looking around to see if he had attracted anyone’s attention. The AR unit blinked, signaling that it was receiving the audio signal. Nothing happened.

    “Twe,” he whispered, this time a little louder. Still nothing. He cast a furtive glance around the trol room behind. Everything seemed fine.

    “Access blueprint.” Nothing.

    “Access blueprint twe.” Nothing happened.

    “Tweh floor.” Nothing.

    “Shit!”

    “Access blueprint twe.” This time Caldwell spoke in tonese. Accessing blueprint for the tweh floor appeared in traditional ese characters.

    Bingo. The blueprint for the tweh floor slid out of the stack, spun on its axis and magself several times. He could scroll in any dire simply by moving his head. There was a small otion in the trol room. A group of teis had just ehe room. Ah Fai, the tei who had walked over to the receptionist, was among them. Ah Wah was o be seen. He robably still slumped ioilet. That was the fourth point of failure.

    Ah Fai was showing his colleagues something he had just received in the post. By the wolf whistles ing from the back of the room, it sounded like praphy. Caldwell turned his attention to the job at hand. The blueprint was extremely detailed. Caldwell could see is and diagrams for everything from the data cables beh the fl and in the ceiling to the drainage system for the aquarium in the hall. The blueprint showed a thick bunch of cables ing out of the floor and disappearing into a big shaded square in the er of the blueprint. Caldwell gla the er. There was a solid enclosure in the er with a huge black IBM server sitting in there with tons of work cables ing out of the floor and disappearing round the back. It was the size of a large refrigerator.

    Caldwell moved his head forward to get closer to the label below the symbol for the server enclosure indicated in the blueprint. The label read:  Internal Directory Server. Bingo. Caldwell guessed it was the server that held the usernames and passwords of all  employees, the usernames and passwords they used to log into their terminals.

    One problem though, the IBM did not have a monitor attached. The teis could probably remotely call the server’s system up from their terminals. Caldwell stood up and walked towards the server. The teis were still looking at Ah Fai’s package. Caldwell stared at the server. It was a monster of a mae. The good thing about these gigantic IBM maes was that they usually had a small LCD text s that indicated what major tasks the mae was currently perf and the status of the mae. Where the hell was it? Any one of the fou<tt></tt>r points of failure could be unraveling that very minute and Caldwell realized it was just a matter of time before the tei in the washroom came to his senses. He o get the hell out of there fast.

    There was a sliding cover on the front of the server. Caldwell slid it open to find a yellow LCD s. It read: “Server Idle ...”   Caldwell looked behind him. Ah Fai was walking over to his seat. Caldwell preteo be studying the ss above. Ah Fai started logging in to his sole. Caldwell could see him logging in because the IBM’s LCD read: User mf logging in on IP: 2223.2234.0.1... Password: lovebobo4ever ...  Authentig ...  Authenticated. Server idle ...

    “What do you think you are you doing?” a voice asked just behind his shoulder.

    Caldwell turned round to see the tei who had unwittingly let him into the trol room just a few minutes earlier. He didn’t give the tei time to react. He was already heading for the door.

    “Stop him,” Caldwell heard the tei shout but he was too late. By the time the other teis realized what was happening, Caldwell was just a few strides from the door. They were up on their feet anyway, swivel chairs spinning randomly across the room. Caldwell pressed madly oton in the recess o the trol room doors. The doors slid open, surprising a tei with his hand in the biometric palm reader. As Caldwell rushed to the escalators, the alarm bells were already sounding. On the augmented reality overlay the blueprint for the tweh floor shrank aracted bato the stack. The stack disappeared in a cloud of pixels. A text message scrolled across the blank s.

    “I am out of Kai Shing system. Shit has hit the fan here. A Hong Kong Poliit van just pulled up to the building. Get your ass down here quick.” Had Ah Wah e to and souhe alarm?

    A sea of silver and purple windbreakers came rushing tow<mark></mark>ards the elevators. The doors opened and closed. Caldwell was in the elevator alone. He hit the ground floor button. He was in the ower lobby a few seds later. Hong Kong Police officers were all over the lobby. Some were swarming into the lifts. Others rushed past him into the elevator mistaking him for a tei. Caldwell gla the large s showing the trol room. It andemonium upstairs. Security guards had materialized from other fluys in windbreakers were pointing at the lifts. The security guard in the lobby was taking all this in on his bank of security monitors like someone engrossed in an a fliobody gave him a sed glahe silver and purple  windbreaker roving useful.

    Caldwell walked out of ower into blinding sunlight. The Range Rover was sitting out there in the front drive, its engine purring. At least four Hong Kong Police vans were parked right up against the revolving front door. Mei Lin had never been such a wele sight. Caldwell climbed into the passenger seat and they inched slowly out into tral afternoon traffic to avoid suspi.

    “Did you get it?” she asked, glang sideways at him with a worried look on her face.

    Caldwell was still too shaken to say anything. He simply logged on to cyberspa the Range Rover’s sole and typed in the IP of  Ming Fai’s sole. The  logo came up with a login prompt below it. Caldwell was now oblivious to everything around him, including Mei Lin and the Hong Kong traffic. He had ehe self-tained world of the hacker. At this precise moment, nothing else mattered. He entered mf as the login username and the tei’s y password: lovebobo4ever. Caldwell found himself remotely logged into Ah Fai’s terminal. He quickly called up a work schema.

    Several dozen puter is filled the s, all linked with thin green or red lihe green lines he figured were maes for which  Ming Fai had automatic authenticated access. He didn’t need a username and a password to login to those. Caldwell scrolled through the long list of is and found what he was looking for. The  data traffiit server. He clicked the i. The user interface of the remote puter appeared in a small window. Caldwell queried the logging database to return data transfer logs for the past month, sorted by size.

    “Shit. I was afraid of that.”

    “Afraid of what?” Mei Lin asked, w what was going on.

    Caldwell tiyping away on the Range Rover’s tiny keyboard. He created a user at on one of the servers owork and theed all log entries relating to his intrusion. He also disabled logging so that the server wouldn’t record his exit.

    “ Ming Fai just hacked himself,” Caldwell said to a perplexed Mei Lin as he logged out of the Range Rover’s sole.

    “What the hell just happened?” Mei Lin asked, stepping on the gas.

 Chapter 44

    Miakahashi handed Hirayama a piece of string and the square-shaped nomi and turo plate the Shinjuku skyline. His face was an inscrutable mask of resolve. The move caught Hirayama, who was h nearby, pletely by surprise. The whole episode was just a blur. He held the string limply in his left hand and stared into space, seeing nothing. He had just told the oyabun the bad news. His men had failed to prevent the Diane Joplin girl from being spirited away frht underh their noses. And in Hong Kong, Hideo Sato and Miyagi had failed to capture Cad Caldwell arieve the sole on two attempts. The whole thing was turning into a fiasd somebody had to take responsibility. Why did it have to be him?

    They were in one of Takahashi’s many business offices dotted around Tokyo. A huge wall-to-wall window revealed a breathtaking vista of Shinjuku stretg out to the snow-covered outskirts of the city. The view outside was a dense sprawl of gray crete and neon. Hirayama studied the carpet, watg the memory fibers resurrect themselves, erasing the impri by their shoes. In the background was the low but indistinguishable hum of erd enterprise, wind shear against the windows and the subliminal sounds of a metropolis tig over.

    The puter trolled shoji had been slid apart joining Takahashi’s office proper and his visitor area to form an expansive space characterized by elegant simplicity. Zen. A plasma s pulsated silently in one er flipping through lists of unintelligible Nikkei indices. In the seating <dfn></dfn>area, minimalist square designer chairs covered iinct buffalo hide and framed with e. Takahashi’s desk was a smooth plane of black with a high-gloss urushi finish. The area around the desk was uncarpeted, exposiured gray granite and als of crushed white stone.

    Even as he bowed deeply, Hirayama’s mind was rag through the sequences. If he had had any hope of replag Kenzo Yamamoto as sed-in-and in the voluted hierarchy of the Yamaguchi-gumi, that ce had long disappeared. Hirayama had always hoped that he would never have to the subject himself to the humiliation of yubizume, the ritual severing of a se of the little finger as repentanistakes. He half suspected that the Minister knew of his ambitions and by requesting him to perform the gruesome act was deftly nipping his aspirations in the bud.

    Hirayama couldn’t help, at this moment, refleg on the unfairness of life and thinking of his dead mother. When he had joihe Yakuza almost twenty years ago, his mother had asked him o return to the family home. Hirayama had agreed implicitly by moving out and urning back. It art of the Yakuza code and on joining he had sworn to place the is of the Yamaguchi-gumi above all else, including himself and family. That’s why Hirayama had never married, preferring the fleeting fort of paid iitial sex to the ity and responsibility of marriage. H<dfn>藏书网</dfn>e had kept a woman for a while, an AV starlet whose career was on the dive, but after she started being too demanding and asking unanswerable questions, Hirayama had quickly cut her loose. The last he’d heard was that she was addicted to some coe-based drug and plying the trade to stru workers somewhere in the suburbs of Tokyo. That was the way of the water business.

    Hirayama ed the string tightly around the little finger of hi藏书网s right hand and pulled it tight. He watched the blood drain from his finger as it started to go numb. He walked over to the sitting area in Takahashi’s offid placed his finger on the glass coffee table with its etched drawing of the willow world. Glang over at the broad back of the oyabun, Hirayama held the nomi firmly in his left hand and placed it just above joint of his finger. All he could hear was the scraping sounds of a robot outside the window. Using the thrust of his body weight, Hirayama leaned forward ahe blade of the small chisel slide through his fihe sound of the amputation was not much. Hirayama was vaguely reminded of his mother i slig cabbage, but the pain was inte didn’t last long but Hirayama khat psychologically he would never be the same person again.

    He ed the stub of his finger with a handkerchief and watched the white silk turn a sickly red. Pig up his severed fihe soft lifeless feel of his own flesh embalmed in the silk at orange and curiously familiar, Hirayama walked up to the oyabun and bowing deeply, offered the fio Takahashi. Takahashi turned around, owards his desk and grunted his acceptance. Hirayama could swear he saw a little boy smiling behind the oyabuionless eyes. He walked slowly towa<bdo>..</bdo>rds the desk and placed the blood-soaked handkerchief shrouding his severed pinkie on the shiny black surface. Zen.

    “Order Sato and Miyagi back to Tokyo immediately. If that inpetent fool was not a distaion, I would have had his head long ago,” Takahashi said.

    “Yes, oyabun.” This was no time to question the oyabun’s decisions.

    “Now that HYDRA is so actively involved we ’t afford a political sdal. We will fix this problem at the root.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    “And Yamamoto’s killer?”

    “We found out who he is. He is affiliated with the PLA and is reputedly uhe direand of Majeneral Wang of the PLA’s Third Department, oyabun.”

    “The ese are declaring war on us?”

    “Yamamoto robably spying on them, oyabun. I believe it’s all related to the soles.”

    “That would seem to be the case. Find out where in New a this General Wang is right now.”

    “We know that already, oyabun. The last unication was that he is planning some trip to Shanghai.”

    “Shanghai? As soon as those two arrive in Tokyo, I want you to personally go with them to Shanghai.”

    “Shanghai, oyabun? I have never been out of Japan.”

    “Hirayama, I want Majeneral Wang dead. Do you uand? I don’t care if Sato or Miyagi lose their lives doing it.”

    “Yes oyabun.”

    “We’ll take care of the girl and her new-found friends here in Tokyo.”

    “I see.”

    “And Hirayama?”

    “Oyabun?”

    “If you fail, you are no longer wele in Japan.”

    Hirayama grimaced and looked down at the blood-soaked stub of his fihe gods were certainly spiring against him. He swore quietly to himself that one day Nobu Takahashi would pay for this humiliation.

 Chapter 45

    “I take it you got what you wanted?” Mei Lin asked again as the Range Rover sped down the Eastern Harbour Expressway towards Quarry Bay.

    “Yes. I was just cheg the  data traffiit server for large data trao New a. You won’t believe this. Over the past month or so, one single institution has been responsible for more in-bound data than all the other  ers bined.”

    “Whistitution?” Mei Lin asked, glang sideways at him.

    “Tsinghua Uy.”

    “Tsinghua? In Beijing? My alma mater. New a’s leading academistitution. Iing.”

    “Yep. A manages mirror servers for them too. I created a new user on one of their mirror servers. Tsinghua as the source of all this makes a whole lot of sense doesn’t it?” Caldwell mused.

    “You  say that again. Good stuff Caldwell. As you probably figured, the stakes just went sky high,” Mei Lin warned, with a serious look on her face that gave Caldwell sed thoughts about what he was about to suggest.

    “Things are about to get rough?”

    “I guess that depends on your plans.”

    “I see.”

    “”Look, I am going to have this car fixed. It will save me a lot of explanation whete es back. He  be quite annoyingly pedantic.”

    “I’m not surprised. He strikes me as the uptight old schoolboy type.”

    “I guess.”

    Mei Lin pulled the Range Rover off the Eastern Harbour Expressway on to a side ramp with a sign that said North Point. They drove up King’s Road past an old yellow building with a sign in English and ese that read: North Point Funeral Parlour &amp; Cryogenics ter. Several stalls outside seemed to be doing a r trade in selling both holographid natural funeral wreaths of various shapes and sizes.

    “Cryogenics is big here?” Caldwell asked.

    “A growing trend. The ese are very pragmatiow that there’s evidehat Cryogenics is going to work they are more receptive of the idea. A few decades ago the ese thought this was nonsense as did most people, actually.”

    “I wonder if my parent’s ashes are still stored there.”

    “Oh yeah, I remember that. That is very likely. They keep the ashes there for fifty years or something like that. It’s all gover subsidized anyway.” Was that the pregnant pause of someone making up a story on the fly?

    “I might take the ashes back with me to London.”

    “Thinking of going back then?” she asked. There was a hint of disappoi in her voice.

    “I think that’s the deal with Fouler.”

    “You  always make another deal if you succeed,” she pointed out.

    “Of course. We’ll have to see.”

    “You will,” she said, as they pulled up to a garage round the back of King’s Road. Mei Lin typed in a code, disabled the Range Rover’s sole system and removed it from its slot by the handle before they disembarked.

    A couple of young ese apprentices in shorts and flip-fops with peroxide silver hair came out to look at the car. One of them whistled loudly. He had some kind of personal music implant in his ears. Caldwell could see the flesh-colored volume trols stig out behind his ear lobes. As the youth leaned over the back of the car he revealed a giant tattoo of some kind of mystical serpent on his back. When he moved the tattoo flipped bad forth making it appear as though the snake was slithering up his back. The other boy had a similar tattoo of a dragon. When he moved, the dragohed fire up his neto his silver shock of spiky hair.

    A heavily tattooed half-naked middle-aged man with the most amazing potbelly Caldwell had seen in a long time rolled out from under a silver electric Mercedes. He shook Mei Lin’s hand and nodded hello to Caldwell.

    “Young sister Mei, haven’t seen you in a long time,” the man said in tonese. He pulled a red paarlboro Marijuana Lights out of the back pocket of his shorts and ceremoniously offered the pack to them before lighting one and taking a big puff.

    “Been busy, Boss Tong,” she said.

    “What do we have here?” the man asked, his<bdo>?</bdo> beady eyes dang over the Range Rover’s body.

    “Got hit from behind by a car in traffic.”

    “Iing,” he said as he walked round the back of the Range Rover to survey the damage. The two teenage meics moved out of his way like tug boats vag the path of an o liner.

    “It appears you’ve been shot at too. Lot’s of acts today,” Boss Tong observed slyly, kling his fleshy fad rubbing greasy fi<mark></mark>ngers along small chips in the paintwork.

    “Why do you say that?” asked Mei Lin.

    “Well, you see that Mercedes there? It looks like nothing’s wrong with it from the back. We just towed it in about an ho. It was involved in an act in the Chai Wahe stupid guys crashed into a Park N Shop lorry. Free toilet paper for everyohe front of the vehicle is pletely mangled. It’s going to be one hell of a job putting it back together. Not that I am plaining. Tong Motor Repairs Ltd. should make some good money out of it.” He laughed at his little joke.

    Mei Lin and Caldwell looked at each other.

    “For you though Sister Mei, we only charge cost plus five pert,” he added, misstruing the way Mei Lin and Caldwell had looked at each other when they realized that the car beloo the Japanese.”

    “Of course, of course. Who does the car belong to? Hope nobody was seriously hurt,” Mei Lin said, affeg sympathy for the octs.

    “Oh, it only belongs to the Japanese sulate. They’ve got many where this came from. And the two sulate guys who were driving only sustained minor cuts and bruises. They refused to go to the Pamela Youde Hospital, which is just nearby. They were very lucky, I think. Although, one of them looked like he’s been in a few acts of his own. Got a face like the devil’s backside.” Boss Tong broke out into thunderous laughter, his huge belly shaking violently.

    “Iing. I have a journalist friend at the Xinhua News Agency who would pay a lot of moo find out the names and phone numbers of the two involved in the act. Big story you knoanese diplomats involved in car act.”

    “Oh really? How much would your friend be willing to pay?” Boss Tong’s alcohol-dulled eyes lit up at the prospect of a quick buck.

    “I’ll have to check. I’d say about twenty thousand Hong Kong dollars.”

    “Hey, hang on a minute.” Boss Tong rushed into the back of the garage aurned with a photocopy of a Hong Kong Police Act Report form.

    “Everything’s on here. Maybe you  pay me for your friend,” the portly meic said slyly.

    Mei Lin reached out for the form but Brother Tong pulled it back like a cobra rearing back to spray venom in its victim’s eyes.

    “Money in advance, young sister Mei.”

    “OK. Not a word though or my fries in trouble. I  only pay you in cash. I am sure you have ways of verting that into credit at reasoes, right?” Mei Lin fished a wad of clipped notes out of her shirt pocket and handed Bother Tong twenty thousand dollar notes.

    “Eveer,” Boss Tong said. “Some of my busi></tt>ss associates prefer not to leave aronic trail. Of course not a word Sister Mei, you know me.”

    “Yeah I do.” Mei Lin moved towards the Range Rover and opehe door.

    “I thought you wanted your bumper fixed,” Boss Tong protested. The two young apprentices had lost i in the Range Rover and were busy looking Mei Lin up and down. One of them was scratg his s.

    “I o get this to my friend, I’ll bring the car over later,” Mei Lin explained waving the act report in the air.

    Caldwell got in the car and watched the fold of Hong Kong dollars disappear down the back of Boss Tong’s shorts. The portly meic dismissed them with a wave of his hand. Mei Lin started the engine and handed Caldwell the act report. The report showed the time, place, octs, vehicle <bdi>?</bdi>type registration, taumbers and the address of the parties involved in the act. Mr. Hideo Sato and Mr. Juniiyagi were listed as living at a residential address in the nearby Kornhill area of Hong Kong Island. Mei Lin explaihat it was a residential development favored by middle-ranking Japanese diplomats and attaches.

    ***

    When they arrived back at No. 10 Shek O, there were two HYDRA agents Caldwell hadn’t met before in attendahey’d retly flown down from Shanghai. Mei Lin made introdus and exged pleasantries before disappearing into her office while Caldwell relutly made small talk with the agents. Both agents seemed to be flirting with Mei Lin. Anthony Ma was about thirty-five years old, well-built and good-looking in a sporty kind of way. He had a friendly smile that he made use of frequently. He was a bit too friendly for Caldwell’s liking. Victor g was taller and more intellectual looking. He had the fident look of someone from a family with a long history of business success.

    They were sitting in the louh the plasma s, watg the news and nursing whiskeys on the rocks. The agents asked several questions about London and the Union. They were particularly ied in knowing why HYDRA had sent him to Hong Kong. Caldwell made a story up on the spot. The agents’ apparent ignorance suggested that only Mei Lin ate were privy to the real reasons for his presen Hong Kong.

    “Fouler feels that we are a bit out of touch with what’s going on in New a and wanted me to e down for a couple of weeks a up to speed with what’s happening here.”

    “Good old Fouler. Always out of touch but seems to know what’s going on all the same. The Union authorities though, are living in some kind of bubble,” exclaimed Victor g, with some bitterness.

    “Very much so. That’s why I am here. To burst the burble, give them a dose of reality.” The two agents eyed him suspiciously, not believing a word he was saying. They had their own theories as to why he was in Hong Kong.

    “Well when you return to the Union just tell Fouler, if you have that kind of clearahat it is getting harder and harder to get intelligen New a. I think HYDRA is way behind agencies from Japan and the Uates in this regard. We need more resources. Just having two guys in Shanghai does not cut it,” g plained.

    “Just you two?”

    “Yeah, and we are not even there all the time. We fly up once a month for two weeks. The wo weeks we spend here at our desks writis that result in nothing. Occasionally we get to go up to Beijing which is where the a is but not nearly often enough,” Ma chipped in.

    “So what’s happening in Shanghai these days?” Caldwell asked, figuring that they were in a good mood to spill. They might let out something useful.

    “Same old Shanghai. ter of the universe,” said Anthony matter-of-factly.

    “So what’s eology-wise?” Caldwell insisted.

    “Not a lot, except there are rumors of a breakthrough of some kind.”

    “What kind of breakthrough, we don’t know. Some people say its AI, others say neural works VR, AR. Difficult to know who to believe or what to believe. That’s why we o be up there iigating instead of pushing paper down here,” Victor g added.

    “True,” Caldwell said absent-mindedly. Something oV had caught his attention.

    News Bulletin:

    A fire ravaged the 28th floor of ower iral this afternoon at 2.03PM. The blaze came just after the Newa Eleic Xge &amp; Teleunications paed to police that they had discovered an intruder ia ter trol room. The trol room is also located oh floor. A pany spokesman said the two is were not related and that the cause of the fire is being iigated with the help of the Fire Services Department. Arson has not been ruled out. The fire started out at the terminal of one of the pany’s employees. Nobody was hurt.

    Newa Eleic Xge &amp; Teleunications is one of the largest providers of data ectivity and data ter services in Hong Kong and Greater a. The pany has direct data links to major cities in New a and provides data services to some of the largest panies and institutions in both Hong Kong and New a. A spokesman for the pany said that er data and information systems were not affected as only a siernal terminal was destroyed in the fire.

    Newa Eleic Xge &amp; Teleunications, also known as , is owned by Hong Kong’s powerful Lee family.

    “Bloody hell,  you believe that?” exclaimed Anthony Ma.

    “Mr. Lee is going to be really pissed,” Victor g observed.

    “Yeah and so are his ers,” Anthony Ma retorted, laughing.

    Caldwell was too stuo say anything. He stood up, walked out of the lounge and headed to the office area. He knocked on Mei Lin’s door. She was sitting at her desk looking incredulously at her puter terminal. Her office window looked out on to endless expanses of greenery and a hill at the back of the house.

    “I guess you saw the news?” Caldwell asked.

    “Yes. I take it that wasn’t you?”

    “Of course not. Why would I do that?”

    “Just cheg. A bit of a ce. Don’t you think?”

    “Yeah, it ’t have anything to do with me accessing the data traffiit server  it? That’s impossible. Intrusioion AIs ’t start a fire.”

    Mei Lin looked at him as though mentally trying to figure out how she thought an AI could go about starting a fire. She shook her head.

    “Impossible.”

    “Exactly.”

    “I think our visit to  and the explosion are related somehow. We better get to work,” she suggested.

    “Doing what?”

    “Yoing to hack Tsinghua Uy’s systems right?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Why don’t I take you down to the Operations Room<bdo></bdo> and I’ll see you down there later.”

    “Why, where are you going?”

    “I’ve got an appoi in Kornhill.”

    “Kornhill?”

    “I think it’s about time we found out exactly what your Japanese friends are up to.”

 Chapter 46

    Li Jin watched the man called Oleg Krachev walk up the steps towards Kowloon Mosque. He k was the Russian because everything about him fitted the description. Even though the man he was looking at was somewhat older than he had expected, ht and potbellied, there was something about his stride that led Li Jin to focus on him. There was also that determined look, the blotchy skin from too much drinking and the fact that he looked so out of place. He looked her like a tourist nor a local expatriate.

    Li Jin was about to move to the other side of the roof garden to watch Krachev emerge when his heart stopped beating. His body had responded even before he’d realized what his brain had registered. The small ese man he had seen in the shopping mall was walking up the steps, obviously following Krachev. How had the man found him? Li Jin realized that given the current situation, choosing the maze was a lucky break. If he played things well and remained calm, he could still emerge from his current predit unscathed. He quickly turned round and moved to the other side of the roof garden. The side overlooking the maze.

    Krachev was walking slowly but with determination through the park in the dire of maze. Li Jin removed his binoculars from his backpack, another ht that he had corrected after fleeing from the shopping mall. Again, the gods were with him. He had walked past a shop selling cameras and huge telescopes and it had occurred to him that it would be difficult to track Krachev without a pair of binoculars. He had walked in and bought one haggling viciously with the small baldi<tt></tt>ng man behind the ter.

    He traihe binoculars on Krachev. The man had some kind of on in the band of his suit trousers. The bulge was glaringly obvious. Li Jin realized then that he laying a very dangerous game ihe small man had obviously bee by the PLA to capture him and take him back to New a. They had probably realized that he had switched the processor and that the AI was an inferior product to Professor Yao’s creation. In fact, from the look of the man, who had also ehe park, he probably wasn’t here to take him back to New a. The man was a killer, plain and simple. This much was clear as he tracked the ese. That erect back, the fluid torso and only the legs suggesting movement, was somehow alien to the way everyone else walked. If the PLA had wanted him ba Beijing, they would have sent two men, not one. Definitely not one as small as this man. Small meant deadly.

    Krachev disappeared into the entrance of the maze. Thirty seds later the ese man followed. Li Jin realized that the ese, the assassin, probably thought he was ihe maze. The man was following Krachev to get to him. Li Jin reeled wherained his binoculars on the assassin’s head. The gray lump on his neck suggested only ohing. The assassin was wearing one of Professor Yao’s prototype satellite-based cyberspaits. The ohat ied wirelessly with either a pair of glasses or directly with the brain, manipulating the thought patterns into some kind of virtual display. The professor had thought that this teology would never be used with a wet interface because the psychological effects on the subject would be horrendous aually fatal.

    The prototype had beeo a PLA unit in Longmen, Shanxi province for testing and that had been the last Li Jin had seen of it. The assassin was obviously using the device to i with AIs and databases in Beijing. That was how the assassin had latched on to Krachev, through his messaging and telephone versations. When he called Krachev to execute the wire trahe assassin would be able to trace his phone’s signal to withiers. Yet, he would also have to iate his way out of the maze, which would buy Li Jin some time. The maze was a gift from the gods, pure and simple.

    Li Jin watched Krachev make several wrong turns in the maze, with the assassin just oep behind him. The man was good. Every time Krachev backtracked, the assassin would retreat, his head cocked, listening for Krachev’s footsteps. A bunch of children had made it to the ter of the maze. Li Jin could see their parents waiting at the exit. It all looked so easy from up here. Finally, Krachev made it to the ter of the maze with the assassin just oep behind.

    Using the earpiece of his phone, Li Jin speed dialed Krachev and waited.

    “What the hell do you think you are doing?” Krachev asked. He sounded angry.

    Li Jihe binoculars trained on the Rusbbr></abbr>sian and the assassin who was standing very still a few feet away, only the thick hedge of the maze separating them.

    “I am nearby. Don’t worry. I  see you.”

    The Russian looked at the children who were leaving. They didn’t want to share the enclosed space with the heavily panting fner.

    “Every er of the park is being watched by <var>.９９lｉb.</var>my people. Try anything and you are dead meat,” Krachev bluffed. He had uimated the seller.

    “Just make the transa and everything will be fine,” Li Jin said, giving the Russian the wireless ID of his credit receiver unit. The man muttered something to himself in Russian and pulled out a credit transmitter from his suit pocket. Li Jin watched him pun the ID. He looked at his credit receiver and was relieved to see the message that a remote credit device was attempting to ect. He accepted the e and watched a pulsating bar indicate that data was bei across. A group of people came up to the roof garden and started moving in his dire. Credit transfer plete. Li Jin quickly scrolled through the simple menu and checked his bank at. The money was there. He refreshed the display. The money was gone, automatically wired into his other at as per his instrus. Li Jin switched off his credit receiver. He could hear the Russiahing over the line.

    “OK. You have your money. Where is the chip?”

    The assassin had walked into the ter of the maze. Krachev spun around and looked at the ese man. The Russian seemed to think the man was Li Jin but he couldn’t make up his mind. Krachev’s hands instinctively reached behind his jacket.

    “Don’t do it, if you want to get out of there alive,” Li Jin warhe Russian.

    Krachev hesitated, his hands ready at his side.

    “The chip is in a bearer safety deposit box in your  the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank on 82 Nathan Road. Just a few minutes walk from here. It’s a 24-hour bank so it will be open when you get there.”

    “Why should I believe you, you piece of shit?” Krachev hissed, turning around.

    “I am about to save your life. The man standing in the enclosure with you is not a tourist. He is a killer from New a out to retrieve the chip at></tt>minate whoever possesses it. He tried to kill me earlier.”

    Li Jin moved the binoculars towards where the assassin was standing. He had disappeared. Then he spotted him in the maze, running towards the exit. He seemed t<samp></samp>o be having trouble finding it yet he was moving through the maze at breakneck speed. The assassin had pinpointed his location from the work signal of his cell phone. Li Jin placed the deposit slip under a crete flower pot.

    “Which man are you talking about?” Incredibly, Krachev was chasing after the assassin, his phoo one ear.

    “The one you thought was me.” Li Jin said, rapidly desding the stairs leading from the roof garden.

    “You are a dead man ... you fu ...”

    “The slip is underh the third stone flower pot from the left on the roof garden above the park entrance you came through. Nice doing business with you.” Li Jin hung up and walked briskly through the park entrance, dowairs of Kowloon Mosque aed into the crowds.

 Chapter 47

    The Operations Room at The Mansion unctured by light from HYDRA ssavers cyg in darkness. Caldwell was alone and logged into the Tsinghua Uy mirror server in Beijing, the server on which he had gave himself an administrative at earlier iernoon. He called up a work schema. The mae he was logged into was a standalone server but it unicated with the main Tsinghua servers at thirty-sed intervals. Caldwell checked the logs and the user ats and gained access to one of the main public servers at Tsinghua. There were one hundred and twenty-three students o that very moment. Caldwell sed their local directories for anything iing. Each student was allocated a department code. A good number of them beloo a node called p_sci. Caldwell choose one at at random and call up a map of the p_sci directory structure. There were about fifty sub-directories. Most of them looked uing.

    Caldwell jumped to a subdirectory labeled SKL_ITS. He had no idea what the letters meant. There were even more folders in this directory. One called Special_Projects looked iing. He tried to gain access. ACCESS DENIED. SPECIAL PRIVILEGES REQUIRED. He didn’t even bother sending in one of his password bots. The IDEs would be too powerful and he didn’t have time to write a new ohat could gain access. He o find an authenticated user.

    Caldwell navigated all the way back to the top of the work and drilled down into the cyberspace traffic logs. He trawled through thousands of remot></a>e calls to cyberspace sites, requests for files and authenticated logins to various uy micro sites. Everything looked fine except for ory just a few days ago. It was a massive data dump from cyberspace amounting to several trillion bytes. The data was ing from all over, the Uates, the Union, Russia, Japan. This could be what Fouler had been talking about, part of the huge data traffic he had seen logged at ower.

    He checked the logs for a whole month prior. The same thing had been going on for weeks, massive amounts of data being replicated from cyberspato some internal database at Tsinghua. It was as though cyberspace was being systematically duplicated. However, the source of the data seemed entirely random. Caldwell dohe sole’s VR goggles and gloves. The cyberspace access logs appeared in front of him i form.

    “Enter Visual Mode,” he said into the microphone embedded in the goggles. The logs were transformed from lines of text to a gray three-dimensional tube running diagonally from the bottom left of his field of vision to the tht. The edges of the tube faded off into the distahe tube was a timeline of the uy’s data traffic.

    “Show all cyberspace data requests greater thaerabyte.”

    The tube flickered and ged color. The gray was now interspersed with equally-spaced color bands indig all data dumps larger thaerabyte. The colored rings expanded as far as he could see. Using the gloves he she band in half to look at a cross-se.

    “Create pie chart by data type,” he an<bdi>..</bdi>ded the sole. The cross-se was transformed into a three-dimensional pie chart. The chart depicted data downloaded by data type. Most of the data was in the form of dots and ks of puting code.

    “Drill down into pie chart, slice by do...”

    The largest piece of the pie chart slid out, rotated and disappeared in a swirl of pixels. It was replaced with a list of dot titles. The number of dots was displayed at the bottom of the s: 1,235,312. Somebody accessed over a million dots on the inner ws of the Uates gover on one single day. Most of the dots were from gover departments, the Federal Reserve, military installations, stifistitutions, NASA. Somebody was systematically sug iire body of US knowledge into New a. It didn’t make any se all. No human mind could digest all that data.

    The information just seemed to have disappeared into a black hole. Even if the Uates realized that the data was going out, which they most likely did, they had no reason to be alarmed by it. All the information being appropriated was in the publiain. The ese were probably just mirr the data so the authorities could sensor it. It was just that the sheer volume of data being copied suggested some ulterior motive at work. There was too much data for this to be some major sorship drive. Since Caldwell was ihe Tsinghua work, he figured he might be able to see where all the data had gone.

    “Show data destination.”

    An animation of a plex work popped up showing the path of the data. The data did several loops through various works and ended up in a dedicated ste area work with a mind-boggling amount of ste space. ected to the ste area work but not to Tsinghua’s maiwork was a lone mae at the far top er of the work diagram. He tapped the mae’s i with the gloves. ACCESS DENIED.

    “Show all related works.”

    ed works found.

    Why would a standalone puter with no e to the work be systematically accessing huge amounts of data from cyberspace? Why would it s own dedicated ste work?

    “Show all related departments.”

    1 related department found: Department of puter Sd Teology.

    “Search keyword: AI or SKL_ITS”

    SKL_ITS/Special_Projects.

    “Show all related users.”

    3 users found: Yao Guo  (Professor), Wang Lin (Student), Li Jin (Student)

    “Launch Tsinghua Uy Publietwork.”

    The Tsinghua uy publietwork was rendered as a spinning three-dimensional shape with multiple labeled facets. Caldwell tapped the Faculties side of the cube with the gloves. It expanded into four riangles. He drilled down into even smaller triangles until he reached the puter Sd Teology micro site. He opened up<s></s> a link called Faculty Members. A list of about one hundred faculty members popped up. Right at the top rofessor Yao Guo .

    Professor Yao Guo  was head of the iionally renowned Department of puter Sd Teology, part of the School of Information Sd Teology of Tsinghua Uy. Professor Yao’s responsibilities covered the running of four prestigious institutes: The Institute of High Performanputing; The Institute of puter works; The Institute of puter Software and The Institute of Human-puter Iion and Media Iion. He was also in charge of The State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Teology and Systems, which ducted research jointly with ans of the People’s Liberation Army. Professor Yao was the recipient of numerous prestigious awards of excellence for resear the areas of parallel and distributed puting, high performanputer systems, knowledge engineering, distributed databases, artificial intelligend visualization teologies including virtual reality. Professor Yao was also renowned for his work developing virtual reality applications for the People’s Liberation Army.

    “Very iing,” Caldwell said to no one in particular.

    He called up an information page for the student Li Jin. The simple page just said he was twenty-four years old, a straight-A postgraduate student in the Department of puter Sd Teology and a research assistant to Professor Yao. Caldwell checked the Tsinghua directory server on a whim to see if Li Jin was logged in to anything at the moment. Li Jin’s at had been disabled. He checked Professor Yao’s at. That had also been disabled. Just to be thh, he checked the other student Wang Lin’s at. He expected it to be disabled too. But, it wasn’t. Wang Lin was currently logged oudent BBS system. Caldwell ducted a search for research pa<big>?</big>pers or dots on which Wang Lin had been a tributor.

    12 research papers found:

    1.	Modeling &amp; Rendering of plex VR Ses taining a Huge Amount of Primitives

    2.	Intelligent Agent Systems and Their Application

    3.	Reition and Knowledge Discovery in Database on Micro Ey

    4.	Key Teologies for Parallel Programming Enviros

    5.	Molecular Biology as a Foundation for True Artificial Intelligence

    Caldwell didn’t bother reading the rest. Could it be that Professor Yao and his two student protégés were w on a research project that involved feeding vast amounts of data to a mae for the purpose of granting it intelligence? Was it possible that this was all related to the big breakthrough that Anthony Ma and Victor g had talked about? It all seemed harmless enough, except for the nature and size of the data. This was not just general knowledge that was being sucked in from cyberspace. This was terabytes of retly unclassified intelligence, which while it may be publiain and useless to a human through the sheer volume of it, could be used to inflie serious AI-instigated age in cyberspace. What would happen if you gave all the publiformation on eics, sce, finand sociology to a vastly intelligent heuristiputer? A puter with the ability to learn?

    Caldwell khat he needed access to that lone puter osinghua work that was ag as a mag for all that information. The only way to get to it was through the professor or one of his protégés. If this system was as sinister as he was jecturing, the professor would be particularly guarded. The professor’s young assistants oher hand could be cajoled into letting the cat out of the bag. In fact, an idea was f in Caldwell’s mind. It was a twist on social engineering, the art of retrieving a user’s password over the phone. He would get Wang Lin to reveal his secrets.

    Caldwell called up a list of all the female students in the Department of puter Sd Teology. They made up just over thirty pert of all students in the department. That was good news. A number of them had personal departmental pages where they posted resumes, research papers, digital photos and other eleic media. Caldwell browsed through these pages of post-teenage female angst until he found ohat stoked his i. It was the personal site of a girl called Vicky Zhao. Her ese name was Zhao Wei. She was twenty years old and, from her photograph at least, cute as a button with Japanese manga cartoon eyes and straight long hair. There was a good ce that half the department would be madly in love with her. Her cyberspace page also informed Caldwell that she was from Shanghai.

    Vicky Zhao Wei was also a member of the student BBS system. Caldwell double checked the BBS logs to be sure. The logs indicated that she was an occasional user of the BBS. Most of her posts were mundane assig-related questions. And as Caldwell had figured at least one of Professor Yao’s brilliant advisers would be among the many male students who rushed to answer her questions. Vicky Zhao Wei, by reason of her looks, never had to wait long for her queries to be answered. Vicky Zhao Wei was a veritable BBS mag. Caldwell, fetting that he was wearing the sole gloves, punched both arms in the air.

    Getting Vicky’s username and password iece of cake. She had the lowest level of access in the departmental system as did most of the students. Wang Lin was one of the chosen few. Caldwell logged into the BBS as Vicky and headed straight for the live chat VR se. He selected a built-in avatar from the repository, a beautiful Manchu princess in shiny gold and silver robe with storks dang on the banks of a river embroidered on the shimmering silk. The avatar was carrying a rice paper and bamboo parasol, also with stork motifs. The storks appeared to take flight as he used the gloves to spin the parasol.

    There were about twenty users or avatars on the BBS. Some of them were dressed in a ese garb. Caldwell spotted at least two emperors, a few eunuchs and dowagers all iifully rendered ese e. The sole’s graphigine was unlike anything he had ever seen. The images were extremely realistic. There was no lag as Caldwell floated across the parched earth of the BBS’ main area. Individual sun rays were rendered in all their fiery detail.

    Wang Lin was still logged into the BBS. He was a ese scholar in simple gray robes carrying an a satchel made of wood and twining on his back. He was chatting to a dowager and a eunuch. Caldwell decided against walking up to them. There was a droopy willow tree nearby. Caldwell maneuvered his avatar up to the tree and te in its shade. The detail of the se was breathtaking. He decided to message Wang Lin privately.

    Wei Wei: Read your paper on Molecular Biology as a Foundation for True Artificial Intelligence. Sounds a bit far-fetched.

    The imperial scholar looked up in his dire. Caldwell waited. The student tialking to the dowager and the eunuch. Caldwell’s Manchu princess elegantly removed a paper fan with a floral pattern from the depths of one of her sleeves and slowly fanned herself. He looked up through the goggles. Wang Lin’s scholar was gliding purposefully towards him.

    Wang Lin: Hey Wei Wei. Don’t see you here very often and you never choose that persona.

    Wei Wei: Always busy with assigs. Usually have some time on the weekends though.

    Wang Lin: So you read my paper?

    Wei Wei: Yeah. I’ve beeing my head against a storying to figure out what to write for my  assig. Was just looking around the library, saw your paper and started reading.

    Wang Lin: Oh really. So which part do you think is far-fetched?

    Wei Wei: The whole idea of using biological matter or brain cells as a puter chip. The theory about bacteria with altered DNA being logic gates surely is sce fi.

    Wang Lin: What if I told you that there is such a chip w today?

    Wei Wei: I wouldn’t believe you. Even the Ameris ’t do it.

    Wang Lin: The Ameris are far behind. It’s here in New a that the latest innovations are taking place.

    Wei Wei: Yeah, but nothing like what you suggest in the paper, right?

    Wang Li’s just say the stuff in there is not as far-fetched as it sounds.

    Wei Wei: Seriously?

    Wang Lin: One day I might even show you something.

    Wei Wei: To think New a is so advanced? If only that were possible?

    Wang Lin: If only I  show you what I’ve seen.

    Wei Wei: Why not?

    Wang Lin: I don’t know. This is top-secret stuff.

    Wei Wei: Well if you don’t trust me that’s OK.

    .

    Wang Lin: Of course I trust you. Even though we don’t know each other that well.

    Wei Wei: But obviously you don’t trust me enough. That’s fine. I uand.

    Wang Lin: OK. Between you ahis does not go beyond here uand. Follow me. I have an encrypted private BBS room.

    The scholar opened up a fissure in the ground and disappeared into it. Caldwell stood over the fissure which had molten lava bubbling just a few feet below. He disappeared into the searing magma and emerged unscathed in a landscape of jagged rocks above wispy white clouds. es flew gracefully across a fading e suhe scholar was sitting on a rock. Caldwell stood opposite him with his parasol closed.

    Wang Lin: I e here to relax and plate the world.

    Wei Wei: It’s beautiful.

    Wang Lin: All rendered on my Great Wall putronics sole here in the dormitory.

    Wei Wei: Cool.

    Wang Lin: It’s all in the algorithms. I learnt a thing or two from Professor Yao before he decided to take that farmer’s boy under his wing. Hardware is he limiting factor. Humans are just really terrible at creating software. The irony is that puters, whieed software to operate, are actually better at creating software.

    Wei Wei: So the key is to get puters to design their own software?

    Wang Lin: That’s just a part of it. Heuristics has been around for a long time. Many panies have ercialized the idea of self-healing, self-improving software. The problem is that the software is still too stupid to do anything useful, even with the best heuristics teology.

    Wei Wei: Useful as in what?

    Wang Lin: Well, pass the Turi for ohing.

    Wei Wei: But that’s already been done. If the user ot distinguish between the responses of the puter and another humahe puter passes. Our AI systems in the department have all passed the Turi.

    Wang Lin: No they haven’t. It is a hack. The puters are fooling the human user into believing they are human most of the time but they will eventually fail if you ask enough questions. They are not intelligent in the human sense. Only by using quantum puting and neural works with heuristic software  we get human-like intelligence. Only by modeling the processor on a real brain, with plex interes between neurons,  we succeed.

    Wei Wei: And you’ve dohat?

    Wang Lin: I guess, but still testing. But this is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. It’s a mae more intelligent than we could ever hope to be. It’s a mae with a sce. And it’s all in the software.

    Wei Wei: But how is that possible?

    Wang Lin: A killer bination of heuristieural works, quantum puting and nanoteology.

    Wei Wei: Nanoteology?

    Wang Lin: Yeah, the AI uses it to build a three-dimensional quantum dot array. We have a quantum puter prototype with one billion qubits. The fastest puter ever built.

    Wei Wei: OK, but what makes the AI so intelligent?

    Wang Liively simple. We are giving it the entire body of human knowledge byte by byte. It already has the core tes of itive sce built-in. It already knows more eics thaire human raows and will ever know. It has e up with new eic theories in idle versation. We sent one of the theories to the Ministry of Finance here in Beijing. They were flabbergasted by the results. They make Adam Smith, Milton Keynes, Friedman and all those other idiots look like kids playing with their homework.

    Wei Wei: That makes this system dangerous.

    Wang Lin: It depends. To our enemies, yes. The building blocks of the system have been designed so as to vihe software that it is ese.

    Wei Wei: What?

    Wang Lin: It has ese sensibilities. It will do nothing to harm New a. It’s belief system, base language, everything is built on a sense of being ese. It believes in Taoist, fu and Buddhist ideals, yet has a strong sense of ese history. It’s a on like something the world has never seen.

    Wei Wei: But what will you do with it?

    Wang Lin: That I ot tell you. I have spoken too much already but I know you, like me, are one hundred pert patriotic. Besides, there is nothing anybody  do to alter the course of New a’s destiny now. Let’s just say that Shanghai as usual will be the trailblazer.

    Wei Wei: Shanghai? Are there many puters with this quantum chip?

    Wang Lin: There will be. For now there is only one due to the cost and the toud-go iterative process of produg it. Basically, the AI built the first one by trial and error. Now that it’s w in the real world we  simply replicate the AI’s processor design. Anyway, the quantum processor is not important. It’s just the catalyst for something much bigger. Think of it as a laung pad.

    There was something tapping on Caldwell’s shoulder. The tactile sensation was so realistic that his avatar dropped its parasol. Wait a minute. He was not wearing a VR body suit so how could he feel the hand on his shoulder. Caldwell flipped out of virtual reality and the operations room in Hong Kong materialized in front of him. Mei Lin was standing there staring at the sole, which had somehow morphed into a smooth black pyramid.

    “What the hell? Hang on.”

    Caldwell flipped back to Wang Lin’s rocks above the clouds. The scholar avatar had disappeared. Caldwell looked out across the expanse of weather-sculptured rocks. There was a rustling sound behind him. He turned round to see the schlaring at him through dark disapproving eyes.

    Wang Lin: You are not Wei Wei. Wei Wei just logged in to the BBS. Who the hell are you?

    Wang Lin’s schrabbed him by the neck. He couldn’t feel the avatar’s hands on his neck so it was impossible to shake the student off. Caldwell tried to grab Wang Lin’s makeshift school bag. Since he was wearing the gloves he would be able to feel his way out of the schrip. The bag came away in his hands like termite-ied woodwork. The fragments fell away and disappeared into the clouds below. Caldwell realized that he was very close to the edge of the rocks and a steep ravine. Below the clouds there was only darkness. Wang Lin’s avatar let go of his ned shoved at his chest. Caldwell could not feel a thing but he saw himself totter on the brink of the ravine and plunge down into the depths below. His anguished screams echoed loudly in the surrounding mountains.

 Chapter 48

    The air in the trol room at the Third Department’s Haidian pound in Beijing was thick with tobaoke and the hum of puter soles. A dozen tired teis typed away, eager to give the majeneral the impression that they were still alert, even after seventy-two odd hours on the job. Several of them had been asleep at their terminals when the majeneral had walked in. They were now fearful of the trajectory of their various PLA careers. The time on the digital wall clock read 7.08 AM.

    The majeneral looked pissed. He had stormed in demanding to have an ao the niggling problem of the work intrusion which had been discovered the day before. Hundreds of man hours after the initial discovery, they were still he wiser. And Lieutenant Liu’s future was looking even more precarious than theirs. That fact was being increasingly apparent. The youeis watched from the er of their eyes as the lieutenant, pale-faced and blotchy-skihrough lack of sleep, veins throbbing violently in his neck, tried to explain to the majeneral the teical details of why they were not making progress iing the source of the work intrusions. Yet, the majeneral was only ied in the solution not the meics. His bulky uniformed frame just stood there like an immovable object, puffing away on his cigarette, his eyes dangerously fixed on the lieutenant.

    “Sir, the intruder seems to be rewriting the work code to avoid dete. This makes it impossible to detect,” Lieutenant Liu offered weakly. He was rapidly approag the point where he didn’t really care if the majeneral fired him on the spot. He just wao go home, make peace with his wife and fall asleep.

    “You are tellihat with millions of New a Yuan of intrusioion AIs, state-of-the-art Id the fact that you  see every bit and byte that is geed on the system using this very fand very expensive equipment of yours that you have no idea who the intruder is and what they are doing?” the majeneral howled, pointing his burning cigarette at the numerous displays showing the life signs of the system and its subjects.

    “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Liu said simply, feeling the energy to try to explain drain out of him.

    The majeneral was visibly taken aback by Lieutenant Liu’s apathy. He tried to speak but the words stu his throat. In the blink of a seemed that his entire blood supply rushed to his fleshy face. The majeneral was about to explode into a torrent e when his cell ph. A deathly silence desded on the room.

    “Speak,” the majeneral anded. Some internal calming teique had been applied and the storm seemed to have resided temporarily.

    “It’s me. The student was in Hong Koing up with some Russian.”

    “And you have him?” The look on the majeneral’s face suggested that this was not a question but a statement. However, this was lost on the assassin who was not physically present.

    “No. Had him in my sights but lost him.”

    “Lost him? What the hell do you mean lost him? Is everyone in the PLA inpetent?” the majeneral roared, the storm threatening te again in a violent explosion of thunder and lightning. The men in the room flinched. Yet, the assassin’s voice remained calm.

    “He’s go was lucky that I even found him given the circumstances. At any rate, he was in Hong Kong doing a deal with some Russian to sell a puter chip.”

    “ark></mark>mputer chip?” The majeneral’s face turned from red to a pale white in the blink of an eye as the blood drained from his face. His whole world seemed to be collapsing around him. Professor Yao’s as in going to New York had set in motion a veritable domino effect that was threatening t down one of the PLA’s most remarkable careers. Everything that he had dreamed off was now in the balance. Everything. For the first time in his career, majeneral Wang started to suspect that he would not be able t the current spate of events under effective trol.

    “Yes, I have a Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank safety deposit slip that the stude. The man he was transag with was one Oleg <mark></mark>Krachev, acc to his passport. Retly deceased I am afraid. Collateral damage,” the assassin said without emotion.

    “Oleg Krachev,” the majeneral repeated to himself. The name sounded familiar and the utterance of it was merely a query to the vast database of information stored in his brain. Oleg Krachev. The answer came in a split sed. The Moscow Institute of Superputing. Purchasing. Professor Yao had fabricated a sed chip and the student Li Jin was trying to sell it to the Russian. On the professor’s orders?

    “Yes. What do you wao do with the slip?”

    “Destroy it. I’ll arrao get the chip back directly.”

    “There is ahing. The Russian had with him a wireless iional credit transfer unit. He had just transferred a large sum of moo Li Jin so it’s just a matter of trag the movement of the moo find him.”

    “Leave that to me. And the other ohis Caldwell character?”

    “The AIs are now talking about Shanghai.”

    “Shanghai. Are you sure?” The majeneral’s worst nightmares were ing true. Yet, ohe quarry was in Shanghai wouldn’t resolution of that problem be merely academic? The enemy was walking of its own accord into the dragon’s lair. It was a twisted maion of Fool the emperor to cross the sea, yet the e would be the same. Death aru.

    “Positive. Beijing too but the probabilities on Shanghai are sky high.”

    “The Joplin girl?”

    “Still Tokyo. She seems to be leaving a trail. The AIs provided a hotel, room hat one will be easy. I will be in Tokyo by mid afternoon as per your instrus.”

    “No failures this time, it doesn’t bee you.”

    “Yes, failure is something totally o me. Not something I would like to repeat.”

    “You have served me well but my patience has limits. Uand?” the majeneral asked the assassin. Lieutenant Liu busy perusing code on a nearby terminal could not help but feel that the same ultimatum applied to him.

    “This time there will be no failure,” the assassin said simply.

    The majeneral hung up and turned his attention to Lieutenant Liu. The lieutenant stood up shakily aally braced himself to bear the brunt of the majeneral’s ire. He was surprised when it didn’t e but what the majeneral said was much worse.

    “You have thirty mio get ready. We are going to Shanghai?”

    “Shanghai, but ...” Lieutenant Liu muttered. His face had turned a sickly shade of gray. He looked like he was about to have a psychotic episode. His marriage was surely over. His currency with Majeneral Wang had deed dramatically in value. His body was about to give in. He suspected his blood pressure was sky high.

    “Yes, maybe in Shanghai you’ll have better luck doing your job. First, I want you to put Hongqiao and Pudong airports, train stations and ports on high alert. Whoever is intruding in our systems is on their way to Shanghai and we are going to catch them.” This observation had no effe Lieutenant Liu. His eyes had grown wild. His mind was broken with fatigue and his hands just hung loosely at his sides. He didn’t even feel he would have the energy to pick up the telephone. Yet, he khat he had no choice but to tinue on this crazy mission.

    “Yes, sir.”

    “The AI will be shipped to Shangh<tt>藏书网</tt>ai later today. On a different flight of course. We’ll perform the refiguration of it there and oversee its iion. It’s important that these tests are pleted without further delay. Ohat is done you’ll get your sleep,” the majeneral promised without vi. It was nothing but hollow lip serviothing mattered but the work and the successful iion of the AI.

    Lieutenant Liu was now sure of it. The majeneral was crazy, crazy beyond belief. That  smoking had obviously given him a tumor in the brain, causing him to think and behave irrationally. All this for some stupid work, which the deranged man believed would make him a hero in New a. So what if it was the cutting edge? It was totally within the realms of possibility that if any of this nonsense came to light the majeneral could be court-martialed for misappropriating gover funds into a secret project that was not gover-approved. The eology was amazing, a world first. It ushered in a new paradigm, oh limitless possibilities that would give New a the edge. And ohe AI was unleashed into cyberspace, the West would never be able to recover from the repercussions of a a-led singularity. Yet, the motivations behind the majeneral’s full on charge into the future made him blind to the realities of the people who worked for him, and the fact that they had families and lives to go home to. The lieutenant khat giving up was not an option. He koo mud would surely be killed if he insisted on quitting.

    In a perverse way, despite t<q>?9９ｌib.</q>he fact that he hadn’t slept properly for seventy-two hours, the lieutenant was thankful for the work intruder. The intrusion had proved that the system was fallible and that AIs were not as powerful as all that. All thirty-six intrusioion AIs had failed to stop the intruder, suggesting a hacker of unparalleled ability. Could it be that the intruder was this Cad Caldwell character, the ohat Kenzo Yamamoto had sent the sole to? If so, he was a worthy adversary. Yet, if he went to Shanghai he would surely be caught. The trap would be sprung tight. But if the hacker was smart enough to infiltrate the system from outside Shanghai and remain ued, then he might just be smart enough to avoid dete in the physical world. Anyway, that wasn’t his problem. His problem was the majeneral and now was the time to give him the good news. The other piece of bad o follow would have to be perfectly timed.

    “Thank you, sir. We do have one piece of good news. The report on the bugs on the Yamaguchi-gumi has some iing items. First, they know about the Joplin girl’s presen Tokyo and they failed to retrieve the sole because the girl was snatched.” Lieutenant Liu was leaving the biggest bombshell till last.

    “Snatched? By who?”

    “They re it was an outfit they referred to as HYDRA.”

    “HYDRA? Fuother.” It wasn’t an insult to the lieutenant, just an outlet for the majeneral’s mounting exasperation.

    “The good news is that the Yakuza don’t have the sole,” Lieutenant Liu offered.

    “You dimwit! If HYDRA has the sole that is orders of magnitude worse. Don’t you get it? If they know about the existence of that sole what do you think the ces are that they know about the other sole, the one in the possession of the hacker? And isn’t it possible that they are behind the intrusion attempt, which you so ily ’t figure out.” All this screamed by the majeneral in a fury of spittle and breath pregnant with nie.

    “Sorry sir.”

    “Fuother and your apologies. Better make sure the tingency Plan is in plad hope we don’t have to use it. If HYDRA is involved then the game is truly over for us.”

    Lieutenant Liu was livid beyond description. Now was the time.

    “Yes sir. You must also know that Miakahashi has ordered your death.” Lieutenant Liu visibly shuddered as he delivered this piece of information. For the first time ever, he saw what he had always known was true. Within every man, even th<q>.９９ｌib.</q>ose who wielded incredible power, was an insecure individual waiting to be exposed. The look on Majeneral Wang’s blood-drained face was one of unmistakable fear.

 Chapter 49

    Caldwell heard his name rumbling through the mountains like distant thuhe sound gradually grew closer. It was Mei Lin calling out to him. The goggles had slid off his fad he was slumped in front of Kenzo Yamamoto’s sole, which had reverted to its former shape. He’d been booted out of the Tsinghua system. The lights in the operations room were on.

    “Wow, that was so realistic. I thought I was dead.”

    “Dead? What happened?”

    “Call it a stroke of luck, call it whatever, but I may have stumbled upon the ao all of this.”

    “Go on,” Mei Lin urged.

    “I hacked into the Tsinghua Uy system and found the puter that seems to be single-handedly responsible for the data being sucked out of cyberspace. It appears it is not so much sug data as replig it <bdi></bdi>into the largest database probably ever built. We are talking terabytes of data everyday. We are talkiive data, mostly US eic, financial and stific data. It’s almost like the entire knowledge of the Western world is being systematically appropriated. Not really appropriated, as it is all publiain, but basically being digested in a way no human  digest information.”

    “What do you mean digested? What are you talking about? What kind of puter?”

    “An AI unlike any other, if this kid is to be believed.”

    “Which kid?”

    “Have you heard of Professor Yao Guo ?”

    “Yes. He was one of my professors at Tsinghua. Very tight with the PLA. Some would say too tight. What has this got to do with him?

    “This AI and some quantum neuroprocessor that powers it seem to be his latest pet project.”

    “How do you know that?”

    “Well only three people have access to this so-called data-guzzling mae. Professor Yao and his two assistants Li Jin and Wang Lin. It appears that Wang Lin had retly fallen out of favor and seemed to hold some kind e against the other student.”

    “But how do you know it’s an AI?”

    “Was just talking to Wang Lin on the uy BBS. He thought I was a girl from the department, a girl called Vicky Zhao. He started talking about this AI based on a quantum neuroprocessor. The strahing is that both the professor’s and Li Jin’s ats are disabled.”

    “A disabled at means they have left the school. The ats are disabled temporarily and then finally deleted.”

    “Or they are dead?”

    “Dead?”

    “That was what I first thought when I saw the disabled ats.”

    “Mmm ...”

    “Earlier this evening Anthony and Victor were talking about some rumored breakthrough in Shanghai. They were st oails but I think what they were referring to is somehow related to this huge amount of data going into Tsinghua. The stuff going on in Tsinghua has got to be related somehow to Shanghai. Wang Lin said something about the city being a trailblazer for the AI.”

    “And Kenzo Yamamoto guy found out about the AI or whatever is going on in Shanghai. He bribed someone in the PLA for the blueprint and had someone build the soles for him to order. His i was to sell the information to the highest bidder?”

    “And was murdered before h?9９ｌｉｂ.e could,” Caldwell tinued.

    “And he sent the soles out to two people he thought actually had a shot at accessing this thing? A hacker and an artificial intelligence expert? Sounds like some kind of work that the AI is being built for.”

    “Yes, it would seem so.”

    “If it is a work why didn’t Yamamoto access it himself? They have hackers in the Yakuza too?”

    “He would have if he could get in. I am sure he tried. He figured we would have more luck. The Ameri professor and I.”

    “So, the Ameri professor’s involvement and the versation with Wang Lin firms an AI. Ohat’s so powerful<s></s> that Kenzo would do anything to get his hands on it?”

    “Yes, ohat is so powerful that it just might upset the global balance.”

    “That’s impossible.”

    “If the professor has made the breakthroughs Wang Lin says he has, it is totally possible. This AI is heuristic. It learns to learn to learn. And with a quantum neural work on a chip there are no limits to the puting power it has at its disposal. That would explain why they don’t have it owork. It is probably that smart. They’ve got it caged up in a lone server, feeding it terabytes of data.”

    “We o get to this standalone mae before the AI starts causing any trouble. This quantum chip, if it really exists, o be destroyed,” said Mei Lin.

    “But they  simply make another chip. Wang Lin said it was expeo produce but with gover or military funding the sky is the limit. The ese gover has virtually unlimited reserves.”

    “In that case, the only thing we  do is make sure this device ot pee cyberspace. What happens inside New a is the internal affairs of New a, no  of ours.”

    “True. But as long as the AI is inside New a it will always be a threat. It o be destroyed.”

    “Wait a minute. Ohing at a time. Fouler’s instrus are to find the offending system, create some kind of backdoor and notify him. It appears you have found the system. I think we o call Fouler and give him an update, see if the parameters have ged as far as he’s ed.”

    “Good idea. However, do not fet that I am supposed to provide access into the mysterious work to fulfill my side of the bargain. That I ’t dht now but it wouldn’t hurt to give Fouler an update.”

    “Could this Wang Lin kid be making idle boasts just to impress this Vicky Zhao girl?” Mei Lin asked.

    “I doubt it. He didn’t sound like the praype.”

    “OK.”

    “So how was your trip to Kornhill?”

    “I mao get a bug in the apartment. It was easy. It’s a Japanese sulate flat but it appears only the tanese guys in the Mercedes were living there. Those guys are pigs. Bear bottles and porn magazines everywhere. I have audio feeds going directly to a secure database in cyberspace. I’ll have a look tomorrow to see what the Yakuza are cooking up.”

    “Excellent.”

    “So why did you think you were dead earlier?”

    “Because in virtual reality, Wang Lin pushed me off this ledge above the clouds. The rendering was so realistic I thought I was actually dying. This is one hell of a sole. I have a feeling I haven’t even scratched the surfa what this thing  do.”

    “Yeah. That pyramid thing was weird.”

    “I wonder what that was all about.”

    “Let’s have a look at the Tsinghua server before I call Fouler,” she suggested.

    Caldwell logged into the Tsinghua Uy work and brought up the work topography. He drilled down into the departmental system. The lone server was go had disappeared from the work.

    “It was here just a few minutes ago. The uy authorities have probably taken it off the work. Wang Lin found out I was an impostor when I jacked out the first time you came in. The girl whose ID I was using logged into the student BBS. The logs showed terabytes of data going in everyday.”

    Caldwell navigated to the logs. The sole remembered his steps and it was just a matter of backtrag through the system. The logs were gone.

    “My God, they move fast.”

    “OK we better get moving too. I’m calling Fouler.” She ected ara pair of goggles to a HYDRA terminal and used a keyboard to dial a special number for Fouler. Several logins and multiple layers of encryption and call-backs Fouler’s face appeared oerminal s. He was in some kind of van. Vast vistas of crete were flying past the tinted windows. Cad thought he saw what looked like ese or Thai ad buildings and billboards. The man was stantly on the move.

    “Mei Lin, Caldwell. Any news?”

    “Lot’s,” Caldwell said and explaio him everything that he had found out since he logged into the Tsinghua server except details of the hag. Caldwell had a feeling Fouler would find them tedious.

    “This makes a lot of sense. I had a feeling that this would end up being uy-related. A lot of the cutting edge stuff these days seems to be happening in academia and that Tsinghua is a hotbed.”

    “So what is the plan?” Mei Lin asked. She looked tired.

    “I think you guys should head up to Beijing. See what you  dig up. I am advog you go to Beijing first because there may be a ce to destroy this thing at its source, if that’s indeed what we o do. You o wait <s>9９ｌｉｂ?</s>for my firmation on that. I am currently in Tokyo and I have with me here Diane Joplin, the daughter of the Ameri professor.”

    “OK, we’ll fly up tomorrow evening. The Joplin girl?” asked Mei Lin.

    “Yes. And Mei Lin, everything we know so far is based oudent Wang Lin’s story. For all we know he may be feeding us a cod bull story. So this trip to a is to <cite>.99lｉｂ.</cite>be quick – in and out. Do you uand?”

    “Yes sir.”

    “And Caldwell, well done.”

    “Just keep your end of the bargain and I’ll keep mine, Fouler.”

    “Something else. This Professor Yao of Tsinghua? He’s dead. Killed in New York at the Global Teology Forum no less,” Fouler informed them.

    “What?” Caldwell asked, shocked. The line was already dead.

    “That would explain the disabled ats. Whatever it was they ied, it seems they are now paying for it with their lives.” Mei Lin said with some apprehension.

    “I had my suspis. What I o know is how in the hell Fouler found Diane Joplin and what is he doing in Japan?”

    “Easy. She’s a teenager. Sooner or later they leave aronic trail. About him being in Japan? That guy is always oep ahead of everyone else. He moves in his mysterious ways.”

 Chapter 50

    Li Jin was over the moon. He had played a dangerous game with a sophisticated adversary and had emerged the unlikely winner. He was now wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. As soon as he arrived in Xian he was going to first remove all trace of the money from the system. He shuddered in his empty first class partment as he recalled the face of the assassin when he had realized that Li Jin was not in the maze at Kowloon Park. Evehe assassin had known that he had lost. Yet he had e running out of the maze anyway, like an irate rhinoceros. Li Jin stared outside the window of his partment, watg a seemingly endless expanse of greenery and various shades of crete and white tile flash by. His view of the world would never be the same again.

    Li Jihat ing back to a could either be a stroke of genius or the prelude to his demise. Yet, he suspected that ohe PLA found out that he had sold the chip, the natural assumption would be that he had fled the try. And he had made sure, with his fake ID chip, there was little to zero ce of him being traced through the New a railway system. Yes, he was happy with his plans so far. As he headed north through Guizhou, feasting on some tea-boiled eggs and a packet of preserved vegetables, Li Jin thought about Oleg Krachev and wondered whether the Russian had made it out alive. Li Jin didn’t rate his ces, although if the Russian had been patient and slipped away from Kowloon Park to return later to ret<big>..</big>rieve the deposit slip there was a ce that the assassin would have been long gone.

    Yet, from his brief enter with Krachev, Li Jin didn’t think he was the patient type. After realizing that the money was gone he was bound to go after the slip cursing as he went. Li Jin had checked his at and there had indeed been an attempt to return the moo its source. If he hadn’t taken the additional precaution of setting up the standing instru on the at, the money would have disappeared back to Russia as quickly as it had been wired. Li Jin had checked his other ats on the sole in his partment and had been pleased to see the credit sitting there waiting to be used. In Xian he would transfer part of the moo several anonymous credit chips. After that it was just a matter of not loosing the chips. Then he would go shopping for those important items and <dfn></dfn>then hire a van to take him back to his Shaanxi village.

    The plan noerfect sense. Li Jin would first make tact with Professor Yao’s family after the furor had died down, probably the professor’s ailing mother out there in Mutianyu, by the Great Wall. He would make sure that she was well provided for through an at that disbursed moo her on a monthly basis. And then Li Jin would disappear for a while. Li Jin opened his bag and examined Professor Yao’s backd. Despite its simple look, the unlikely-looking green plastic box was his window to another world. From there he would withe emerging singularity. Poor Professor Yao. He was a genius no doubt, yet he hadn’t lived long enough to really see the fruits of his labor tested in the real world. Yet, somehow, in Hong Kong it had seemed that the good professor had been looking out for him, guiding him along. Those last minute ges to the plan, which had plugged some <bdi></bdi>glaring holes, had been instrumental to his success. And Li Jin believed he had the professuiding hand from beyond the grave to thank for that.

    He wondered whether the PLA had found out that both the AI and the processor running the server were both duds. That AI owerful but it was orders of magnitude behind Black Jade in terms of intelligend it definitely did not have what could be sidered a sciousness. Without the refigurable power of the neuroprocessor, there were limits to how far that AI could evolve. And what about Black Jade itself, out there in the fabric of cyberspace? By now, it would have evolved into something quite different from the AI oandalone mae in the lab at Tsinghua. Now with the entire cyberspace at its disposal and the rapidly ging body of human knowledge therein, it would have grown expoially in knowledge and power. Yet, Li Jin knew he would reize the AI if he ever came across it.

    Li Jin was responsible for a huge k of the software code that had brought<samp>.９９ｌｉｂ.</samp> Black Jade into being and even though both code and neuroprocessor had been fiuned by the AI over millions of iterations, the core DNA of Black Jade was still the same. There was not an AI like it on the pla, oh a cept of nationality, of eseness. That was the beauty of this o was as much a citizen of New a as any other ese person and in many ways it was more ese than any ese could ever hope to be. Five thousand odd years of history absorbed, digested and cross-referenced using more puting power than you could imagihat was what Black Jade was. Add to that the entire body of global knowledge and you had something that was nothing short of brilliant.

    Li Jin thought of the Easter Eggs that he had planted deep within an intractable portion of Black Jade’s code without Professor Yao’s knowledge. These would ehat once he himself was locked into<u>?</u> cyberspace, he could call on the AI at anytime and it would e, ready to do its master’s bidding.

 Chapter 51

    At the New a Capital Airport in Beijing, Caldwell and Mei Lin sailed through immigration without a hitch except that an immigration officer took a lot of ving that the sole was indeed a puter. Caldwell had to switch it on and log on to cyberspace before the man was vinced. He’d never seen anything like it before and made a point of telling his colleagues that it was the weirdest and coolest puter he has ever seen. Mei Lin had explaio Caldwell that the first thing they o do in Beijing was to get their hands on some guns. This was not Hong Kong. Things were going to start getting dangerous.

    “Believe me we won’t get far in Beijing without being armed, if only to heighten our powers of persuasion. The gun speaks a universal language. If you get caught hag in Beijing or accessing forbidden areas, the sequences  be dire indeed. A gun may be your only hope to get yourself out of your predit,” she explained. She khe perfect place to get <bdo>9９liｂ?</bdo>some ons. You could evehem by the hour.

    “Perfect,” Caldwell said. He was not sure he really meant it.

    After a long taxi ride, most of it on a spanking new ring road, they checked into the Zhongguan tial Hotel, a black obelisk bang in the ter of Zhongguan, Beijing’s version of Sili Valley. Mei Lin informed Caldwell that Zhongguan was just a short walk away from Tsinghua Uy, Beijing Uy and a whole bunch of other sce parks at a’s cutting edge of teology.

    Everything in Beijing was built to gigantic scale, making Caldwell feel totally Lilliputian. There were gover buildings that filled the entire horizon, hulking great monoliths that were at once modern and traditional. The architecture was a freic fusion of East a – ultra-modern architecture with ese characteristics. There were pagoda-like skyscrapers that disappeared into acid rain clouds. The curved roofs of office blocks modeled on aemp..les reflected sunlight in a billion different places, shiniaments to New a’s pla the world.

    Beijing today was like New York or London three or four decades ago, except everything was grander, bigger, gaudier, wackier and crazier. In London or New York, corporate logos domihe sky, perched on top of those cities’ greatest crete and glass phallic symbols. In Beijing corporate brands not only covered everything, at night they filled the polluted yellow skies. The entire heavens became a flickering ema s paying homage to the corporate brands.

    Mei Lin had obbr>99lｉb?</abbr>pted for a two bedroom suite, saying that she did not feel safe in Zhongguan, the teology Wild West of Beijing, where a woman could be dragged kig and screaming through the lobby of a five star hotel and nobody would bat an eyelid. Caldwell had no plaints although he was a little apprehensive about having her so close. The closer Mei Lin got to him the harder it was going to be to plan his future after Fouler had given back what was taken from him. There had been an odd silen the matter of their relationship but Caldwell reed that Mei Lin probably sidered it all a thing of the past.

    heless, he had no doubt in his mind that he’d fallen in love with her all ain ae his reservations there was no point in denying it. He wondered whether he should let her know at dionight how he felt, if only to get it out of the way. He’d rather have it out in the open than lingering, with so many important things at stake.

    So at dinner over fusion cuisine Caldwell said the unspoken.

    “Mei Lin, I have something to tell you.”

    “Yes.”

    “I think I am still in love with you. I just want to have this out in the open so that it is not an issue. I have never in my life met anyone who makes me feel the way you do and that day at the bus stop all those years ago still haunts me. Yet, I am not even sure I am capable of having a relationship, even if you were ied.”

    Mei Lin said nothing. She just stared at her plate and pushed her salmon steak with lobster saud black beans around with her fork.

    “Let’s drink to you,” she said shortly, pig up her wine glass.

    “To us.”

    “To us.”

    The rest of dinner ent in silenot an unfortable silence, yet a silence all the same. Caldwell felt a bit stupid fing up that touchy subject, but he also felt relieved that he had brought his feelings out in the open. The last thing he wanted was that kind of distra. Now he could trate on thinking about the Tsinghua problem.”

    “Maybe we take a walk,” Mei Lin suggested.

    “Good idea, I may have had too much to eat.”

    They walked along the brightly-lit streets of Zhongguan, marveling at the lights, the holographic logos of major IT s dang in the sky. The Zhongguan architects had gone crazy in a mae to see who could build the most eous building. Caldwell articularly impressed by a two-tlass building shaped like a dn and the symbol for the New a Yuae the blistering cold and the heaviness in the air, Caldwell thought Beijing at night was easily the most romantic city in the world, putting Paris and Budapest in the shade. When a man in an ill-fitting suit on a street er thrust a ruddy-faced ese baby, ed in a silver bla, in his fad offered it for sale, Caldwell ged his mind about that.

    “What does he mean, fifty thousand New a Yuan? He’s not really  the baby for sale is he?” Caldwell asked Mei Lin, looking back as the cute ruddy face of the baby grew smaller, a pink blob in the distance.

    “I’m afraid he is. Probably a ed baby stolen from one of the nearby hospitals. They sell them to couples they see oreet without children. He must have mistaken us for one such couple.”

    “Yeah, but on a street er? Yikes!” Caldwell exclaimed, thinking about Kat.

    “a is a try of paradoxes, stark extremes. You should know that.”

    “I guess.”

    “Your parents spent a lot of time in Beijing, right?” Mei Lin.

    “Yes. Besides Xian, it was mostly Beijing and Hong Kong during the holidays. What about you?”

    “My parents died when I was very young. I never really khem but my grandfather said they were the most perfect parents anyone could hope for.”

    “I’m sure. Otherwise how could they have had a daughter like you?” Caldwell cluded that that was easily the iest lihat he had ever uttered. Mei Lin blushed slightly and lowered her eyes. Caldwell noticed that she had straight naturally long eyelashes.

    “So what is the plan for tomorrow?” She was deliberately ging the subject.

    “I thi ourselves some ons and check out this Tsinghua place. I suggest that if we  locate Wang Lin or Li Jin, he’ll probably lead us straight to the labs where this puter is sitting.”

    “Many of the Department of puter Sd Teology classes are opeures. We just o get an ID on this Wang Lin kid and tail him. Li Jin is probably dead, like the professor.”

    “So what if the server I sahysically removed to another location?”

    “Don’t you worry about that. We’ll find out for sure tomorrow. I thiter head bad get some sleep. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

    ***

    Caldwell and Mei Liered the grubby Zhongguan cybercafe through grime-stained plastic door flaps. The establishment was in the windowless basement of one of the last few buildings in the viity that had?9９ｌｉｂ? fallen victim to teology industry-fuelled property development. There was no signage, nothing to indicate the presence of the establishment. The proprietor, a longhaired teenage hippie with a wispy moustache, asked them what their pleasure was. He couldn’t have been more thaeen years old.

    “Hey man. How you doing? Ameri? Yeah? No problem. We got VR suits man, state-of-the-art, totally immersive man. Public or private booth? We got sex suits, the real deal with full body immersioer than the real thing. We got X-tacy man from Xyberia. The latest version works wonders on your state of mind. We got the best digital stuff man, non-addictive, totally no side effects. Just a puter simulated high that will blow your mind.” The words erupted from the boy’s thin lips in rapid-fire fashion.

    “We are not ied in that. We are looking for some shooters,” Mei Lin said.

    “Hey, take it easy,” the boy said, his sharp single-lidded eyes darting around the cybercafe. “There are eyes and ears everywhere.”

    “We don’t have time to mess about.”

    “Hey, I like the lady. I am not saying I have anything to offer you but follow me. It’s too loud in here I ’t hear very well.” More furtive glances around the half-empty cybercafe. A couple of patrons were fast asleep at their terminals. They looked like they had pulled ooo many all-nighters, buroo much midnight oil.

    They followed him up a narrow flight of stairs through a doorway with a stained red velvet curtain into a badly-lit room. At any moment Caldwell expected the boy to pull out an old shoebox from one of the dusty cupboards lining the wall to one side of the room and offer them an a NORINCO firearm. Ihe boy’s hand disappeared into his shirt pocket and he pulled out a device which he quickly ran along their bodies. He checked the readout on the device.

    “Unionist eh? Honkie chick eh? Just o be sure you are not from the New a Police or the PLA. ’t be too careful in this town. There are eyes and ears everywhere.”

    The ser disappeared into his pocket as quickly as it had appeared. He waved his hand along a se of the wall.  The motion was so fast that his fingers were just a blur. A door set flush with the wall slid open, to reveal shelves of ammunition that would have made a small try proud.

    “Step with me into my boudoir,” the Beijing teenager said with a mock bow. They followed him in and the wall closed behind them. When the boy bowed, Caldwell noticed from the back of his ears that he ag some heavy duty wetware. It was nothing like the personal jukebox implants favored by the kids in the Union, this thing looked like the grills on a Harley Davidson, only flesh-colored.

    “Cool ware you’ve got there,” Caldwell plimented.

    “Oh this,” the boy said, both hands instinctively going behind his ears, lovingly massaging the rough flesh-crills. “Latest Cybernaut from Japan, made under lise by Great Wall putronics. Cost a fra of what it does elsewhere. This thing is the bee’s knees. All the music, you need, all the software you want right there in your head. Saves you a whole lot of sole time.”

    There were guns all over the walls. In the middle of the room was a stack of steel ste units that looked like rown filing ets. The boy walked through the room pulling out these steel trays. And inside hanging on hooks ed i-lined recesses, held in place with heavy-duty Velcro, was all manner of onry, many of which Caldwell had never set eyes on before. One of them immediately caught his eye. It was the same on that the Yakuza had used in The Puzzle ba the Union. The one Agent Jones and Agent Ja had fiscated that m in the Dods.

    “What is this one, er, what’s your name?” Caldwell enquired.

    “Call me Mozi,” the boy said matter-of-factly as he pulled the gun from its holding place.

    “This baby is called The Tube. Japanese import named after the underground in London. So called because these tiny self-propelled bullets are like mini-rockets with a specially-coated head.  ght through solid rock, like the tube in Londht? Bullets will drill straight through a man’s skull, before he  even blink, without slowing a beat.”

    “That I know. My friend was killed by one of these,” Caldwell said, more for his own be than anything.”

    “Is that the truth?” wondered Mozi aloud as though Caldwell had told him some far-fetched cod bull story but he was giving him the be of the doubt anyway. “Flavor of the month with the Yakuza I gather. Your friend Yak by any ce?”

    “Is that the truth?” Caldwell repeated,  the gun and ign the boy’s spot on refereo the Yakuza. The on sisted of a long tube, half fiberglass, half polymer, with a stubby hand-carved crystal stock. The bullets, all thirty-six of them, were hooked up to the outside of the tube by an intricate lattice of springs and coils that seemed to abide by their own laws of physics. They were encased with a thin c of sturdy translut polymer. This gun had been fired before. The polymer had gone all milky like the winds of a car at a car wash. At the back of the bullets were these mini propulsion units like you have on a scud missile. Caldwell hahe gun baozi.

    Mei Lin walked over to a tray of diminutive handguns. She picked up a pact pistol with a polymer frame. The gun was small and almost disappeared pletely in her palm when she closed it.

    “Polymer frame mini Glock pistol, named after Austriarepreneur Gaston Glock. Syier is strohan steel, the traditional material for these things, but its eighty-six pert lighter and the manufacturer claims it is virtually iructible. Kind of like the hard-on I usually wake up with in the m. Like said hard-on, the Glock ged handgun history because it operated on pletely different principles,” Mozi expounded. Caldwell could swear the kid was reading the specs of some database in his head.

    “Ha ha. OK, why would you reend this?” Mei Lin asked, amused at the boy’s loose tongue.

    “You are referring to the Gloy hard-on? Oh, I get it. Glocks reat reliability and accuracy. You  choose different trigger pulls and the trigger is the only thing you o operate the gun so folks like our Union friend here wont blow their load by mistake. The pull on this baby is sistent every time you squeeze the trigger. Its like having the same asm every time,” Mozi explained, looking at Mei Lin suggestively.

    &quot;Mozi, dude.  you cut the dirty stuff out?&quot; Caldwell implored. He liked the boy’s sense of humor but for some strange reason he didn’t appreciate the fact that it was aimed at Mei Lin.

    &quot;I  cut it out but I wont. Thats how I speak man. Take it or leave it. Besides the cute lady finds it funny, doesn’t she?&quot; Mozi asked, grinning cheekily at Mei Lin.

    “Sure. So you re we should take the Glocks?”

    “Absolutely. No-brainer, really? This thing has three automatic safeties. When you pull the trigger the safeties sequentially disengage, re-engaging automatically wherigger returns to its position. Some re the Glock is the safest pistol on the market, kind of like saying Durex is the safest  on the market. There’s got to be some truth to it but how do you prove it?” Mozi flashed Mei Lin a naughty grin. Caldwell decided that there was no point saying anything to the teenager.

    “Sounds good,” Mei Lin said examining the Glock.

    “There’s more. The trigger system is one of the killer applications. There is nothing to coo hammer, ernal safety to disehe metal pos of Glocks used to be treated with Tenifer. Metal finished with Tenifer bees as hard as a diamond. Think of Tenifer as Viagra funs. Of course these Glocks are all-polymer. Gh s virtually ued,” Mozi tinued, clearly relishing the fact that he was getting on Caldwell’s nerves. Caldwell didn’t quite like the look of the Glocks. The idea of actually shooting someoh one had suddenly lost its appeal.

    “Do you have any sound guns?” Caldwell enquired.

    “You guys just fooling around right? Thought you guys were going to cause some serious mayhem in Beijing?” Mozi asked, his cool black eyes jumping from Caldwell to Mei Lin.

    “Look, do you have a sound gun or not?” Caldwell insisted. There was no way he was going to kill anyone in a.

    “We don’t do sound guns. Those are for punk-ass wimps man. We don’t do that shit.”

    Caldwell smiled. The boy had a lot of spunk and you couldn’t help but like him.

    “Beretta then. Something small, that  easily be cealed,” Caldwell ceded.

    “Now we are talking. We got the Beretta Mini Cougar, a pact pistol, NATO qualified, fiberglass-reinforced teo polymer, e-plated barrel blah blah. Not as easy to get through s though and not as idiot-proof as the Glocks.”

    “OK we’ll take the Glocks then,” Mei Lin interrupted.

    “OK, whatever you say. Your call. Gaston Glock would be pleased with your choice.” Mozi shrugged, grabbed two Glocks from one of the trays and rummaged in an></a>other tray below for spare magazines.

    “These hold fifteen rounds each. Will you be needing any more ammo?” Mozi asked Mei Lin, who took one of the Glocks from him.

    “Another sixty rounds will be fine. We he guns for forty-eight hours,” Mei Lin said, expertly removing the empty magazine from the handgun and replag it with a loaded one. Mozi eyed her suspiciously.

    “No  do on the Glocks. o pay ht for these. Just toss them when you’re dohe hutong kids will use them for target practice before popping their parents.”

    “How much?”

    “For you guys 190,000 New a Yuan each, including bullets.”

    “Will give you 80,000 New a for both, including bullets,” Mei Lin tered.

    Mozi briefly sidered Mei Lin’s offer before breaking into a smile.

    “You drive a hard bargain.  see you’ve done business with us before Ms. ...”

    “Never you mind,” Mei Lin said. She ted out eight ten thousand note bills and hahem to Mozi. The notes disappeared into the depths of the teenage gun dealer’s bomber jacket. Mei Lin placed the Glocks, the spare magazines and the bullets in her bag. Mozi waved his palm across another se of wall and the door slid open. Hidden sensors in the wall.

    “I must tell you something Ms.,” said Mozi as they headed back down the narrow stairs into the bright lights and white noise of the cybercafe.

    “What?”

    “You are a mighty fine woman. I could teach you a thing or two about lovemaking.”

    “I could teach you a thing or two about manners,” Mei Lin said affably as they walked out into the  air. Caldwell could swear she was enjoying the attention.

 Chapter 52

    Diane Joplin sat in the van listening to the discordant melee of the voices. The voices were not in agreement. One of them had risen above the din and instructed her to slide open the doors of the moving van and jump out. Yet, the other voices, her mother’s and ohat sounded vaguely like her father’s, told her to be patient. All the while, she kept her eyes trained on the man with the smooth long face who had saved her from the Yak<q></q>uza. There retty girl driving the van and from the way she was switg lanes she looked like an excellent driver. Diane wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard the man refer to her as Seven, which she cluded was an odd name even firl. It had to be a code name, she figured. They’d dropped the two identikit heavies off not far from Kabukicho and then the van had driven up one of those flyovers.

    The man, who had told her that his name was Fouler, had tried hard to reassure her that she was safe. He was n to make a phone call from the van but seemed to be having trouble eg. He was on speaker phone and she could hear the ph, make a screeg noise and then end in a series of beeps. The man was getting exasperated. He’d turned out to be English although his at wasn’t the same one she’d heard English people use in America.

    Diaurned her attention to the soles lining one side of <cite></cite>the vao the equipment sat a gray box with a label that read “Fuel Cells. Hah Care!” It looked like the box roviding power for all the puter equipment but Diane wasn’t sure. It looked too small. Some of the monitors showed various maps around the world, some of which she reized, and there were these blinking dots ohat she could swear she saw moving but she couldn’t be certain because they didn’t really move much. The smell of the van reminded her of her father’s den in Boston. It was that not unpleasant smell of hot pos and plastic. The English man called Fouler seemed to have made a e.

    “Hello, Director Ryan, please,” Fouler said, giving her a knowing stare. Diane had no idea what that was all about.

    “I am afraid Director Ryan is oher line,” a middle age-sounding female voice said.

    “Tell him this is Bruce Fouler. Believe me he’ll take my call.”

    <q>.9９liｂ?</q>“OK, hang on a sed.” The voice sounded hesitant but Fouler laced on hold. Advertising messages about the FBI started ing from the speaker of Fouler’s phone. He was calling the director of the FBI. The voice that had asked her to jump from the van started whispering things to Diane. She would be handed over to the FBI and she would go to prison for a very long time. Were these guys FBI? Diane had never heard about English FBI agents yet the van and the equipment fitted the mould. Then the FBI ads stopped.

    “Bruce, it’s been a while. What  I do for you?” The voice sounded jovial, nothing like the way Diahought FBI agents sounded like, especially in the movies.

    “The Professor Joplin case that the CIA is all excited about but seems to be getting nowhere with might be about to draw to a close. I have something that will give the FBI the upper hand,” Fouler said.

    “Oh, that. They found out that it was the work of the Boston fa of the Japanese Yakuza. Their DNA was all over the professor’s house and we have extensive files on these guys. We pulled them ierday and after a bit of coaxing they spilled the beans. It seemed the professor was on some Yamaguchi-gumi hit list. For what, we don’t know. These guys just took orders from Japan. The missing daughter was taken off the suspect list today although we <samp></samp>have yet to find her. But we are close. Agents are pig her up at her hotel right now. So what do you have for me? I know you don’t call my special lio keep me up to date on cases that sell neers for the tabloids.”

    “I am in Tokyo. I have the Joplin girl here. Would you like to talk to her?” Fouler said simply. There ause on the lihen the FBI director spoke.

    “Always oep ahead Fouler. I don’t know how you do it. Diahere are a lot of worried people here. Your maid was sure that you had been kidnapped. And for a while, a whole lot of folk thought your disappearance suggested you’d done something wrong.”

    “Sorry, I set and o get away for a while,” Diane explained, w if the FBI director would uand.

    “All the way to Japan?”

    “I thought I would find ao my father’s death here in Tokyo,” Diane said. She was relieved that it seemed she was no longer in trouble and the most liberal of the voices were now reassuring her of that. The other voices screamed ily, geing a whole lot of background  if Diaried really hard she could ighem. Yet there was ohe isolated voice of a scared little girl, which she found hard to block out.

    “You’ll make a fine FBI agent, young woman. It took ents several days to trace this case back to Japan and you did it in what, a split sed?” There was a forced chuckle oher side of the line and Fouler was givihis look, like she had done something he was impressed with. The girl’s whiny voi her head was suggesting that it was a triake her feel fortable. The FBI was going to arrest her and charge her with the murder of her father.

    “Thanks,” she said simply over the speaker phohe ical voices erupted in cackles of disappoi.

    “Well, I guess an FBI salary wouldn’t mean much to you. You are a very brave and very rich young woman. Your father left you a lot of money. You probably would never ain, if you ied wisely.”

    He is trying to deduce from your reply whether you want your father’s money. ’t you see that? It’s all one big trap.

    “Thanks,” Diane said again. She had no idea how else to respond to that.

    “You’ll o e bae and sign the papers of course but that’s something to sort out with your father’s lawyers,” the man called John Ryan said.

    You see? And that Fouler is part of the plan.

    But he saved my life.

    He did no such thing.

    “We’ll get her back to Boston, if that’s what she wants to do,” Fouler interjected, givihat strange look again.

    See.

    “Sure. Good lud thanks Fouler. Those CIA boys will be grated that we ed this up.”

    “Sure thing. See you ime I am in Washington,” Fouler said, smiling to himself.

    “Absolutely. Goodbye Brud thanks.”

    Fouler hung up just as the van pulled into a driveway. Behind the large Japayle wooden building stood a looming snoed mass that Diane Joplin reized from cyberspace photos as Mount Fuji. A sign in English and Kanji on the building read Hakone Ryokan. A big man wearing a tweed suit stood outside the entra藏书网h an attractive-looking Japanese lady and a handsome Eurasian kid. Fouler explaio Diane as they got out of the van that they would be staying here at the De Witte family’s hot springs ryokan while Agent Ja and Agent Jones retrieved her belongings from the Keio Plaza Hotel.

    “You’ll be safe here,” Fouler whispered as he walked up to the family and shook the man’s hand.

    The voices in Diane’s head were strangely silent. All she could hear was the beating of her heart as she stole anla the De Witte boy.

 Chapter 53

    The Tsinghua Uy campus in Beijing is so huge a river, called the Wanquan, runs through it. The uy is located in the North West of Beijing, in Haidian distriear the famed Summer Palace. A former imperial garden of the Qing Dynasty, Tsinghua Uy boasts several former palaces and many striking pagodas. The only way to effectively get around the campus, if you weren’t driving, was by bicycle or by renting a two-wheel transporter at the uy’s sed gate. Caldwell and Mei Lin stood at the West Gate as uy students whizzed in and out of the campus on their bikes. A few of the more athleties were oric-powered skateboards.

    Mei Lin suggested that they ehe campus on foot. She figured they would look more like tourists that way. Tsinghua was one of the try’s leading educational institutions and it received its fair share of visitors. They’d bought the usual tourist paraphernalia he hotel, a disposable digital camera and an augmented reality system bought from a street vendor, after some protracted haggling, outside a huge multi-storey puter mall. The AR system was solely for Caldwell’s be. Mei Lin had assured him that she khe campus layout reasonably well. The system sisted of a pair of cheap plastic display glasses and a small unit that clipped unto a belt. A cartoon-character scribe described the various buildings as they headed towards the library. Caldwell reed the library system would be relatively easy to had that there was a good ce that Vicky Zhao or Wang Lin had an at on the system. Mei Lin agreed.

    “Tsinghua Uy was founded in 1911 as a preparatory school for ese students whom the gover plao send to tiheir education at uies in the Uates. The uy campus is situated on reviously used to be Qing dynasty royal gardens hehe name Qing Hua derived from Qing Hua Yuan, which means Qing Gardens,” the scribe explained in a squeaky puterized voice.

    As they walked towards the main administrative buildings of the sprawling campus, ss of information were overlaid on the AR unit’s glasses with the cartoon scribe’s quirky voiceover describing the buildings somewhat superfluously. It oorly put together AR unit but Caldwell found the information and historical perspective somewhat helpful.

    The scribe stopped theatrically, turo face Caldwell, broke out into its cartoon grin and tinued:

    “To yht are mostly faculty residences, a nursery school and aary sost of the sd teology buildings are just a few minutes ahead.”

    The scribe skipped merrily along the pavement, its hat bobbing up and down. The AR unit laying back pre-rendered animation. There was nothing autonomous about the scribe’s as. It just cycled through a series of behaviors, mixing and matg them acc to some random algorithmic routine. Caldwell switched the AI unit off as they got closer to the library.

    “Problem,” Caldwell said pensively.

    “Yes?”

    “How are we going to gain access to the library?”

    “Good question,” Mei Lin said. “I have an alumni card. I am not sure whether it’s still valid though.”

    “That means you have to go in.”

    “Correct. I have to go in alone. If I recall correctly, the public catalogue search terminals just require a swipe of the card.”

    “OK, I’ll poke around outside while you see what you  get in the library. I re the thing to look for is Wang Lin’s borrowing at info. It just might list his dorm room or even the location of the lab.”

    “I would have gone for Wang Lin’s records but wouldn’t necessarily have thought of the library first. They are bound to have an address for him.”

    “Yup.” Caldwell smiled.

    They arrived in front of the old library, an a brown-brick building with a huge marble plaque on the front saying Tsinghua Uy Library in simplified ese characters. Mei Lin disappeared through the main doors while Caldwell idled he front lawn trying to look as though he was impressed with the brick architecture. A bunch of students walked out of the library sizing Caldwell up. They were trying to figure out whether he was a student or a professor. Caldwell idled around outside thinking about the student Wang Lin and the versation they’d had on the BBS. Fifteen minutes later Mei Lin emerged from the library. The look in her eyes<q>藏书网</q> suggested she’d hit pay dirt.

    “Incredibly easy hack, the library system has aronic workspace, where students  log in and view the books they have borrowed, return dates, e-book downloads and book reendations. That is tied directly into the student directory server that holds the records for each student.”

    “Excellent.”

    “Only problem is, there are three Wang Lins in the puter sce department. All of them are postgraduate students. Two live iudent dormitories, one in the junior faculty residences. I had a look at their photos. It’s difficult to tell whie looks like an AI nerd. They all look kind of geeky.”

    “I’d go with the junior faculty residene. This Wang Lin is supposedly one of Professor Yao’s protégés. He’s bound to have a few perks such as faculty lodgings.”

    “I see the logic of that. Where to ?” Mei Lin asked.

    “How about we pay the Department of puter Sd Teology building a visit? Take a look at this m’s course timetable. Who knows, Wang Lin may have decided to attend class today,” Caldwell said with a grin.

    They arrived at the Department of puter Sd Teology building after a brisk ten minute walk. It was a gray crete and glass building shaped like a giant micro-chip lying face up. Numerous antennae protruded from the roof. Caldwell spotted at least eight satellite dishes and data broadcasting transponders.

    “Looks like the place.”

    They walked into the maihe entire side of one wall was covered with a huge eleiotice board showing the different classes. It looked every bit as plex as the departures display at an iional airport.

    “There’s a lecture ht now at the Zhu Rongji Lecture Theater on artificial intelligence,” Caldwell said, pointing at the display, which was crammed with so muformation that it was almost unintelligible.

    “Artificial Intelligence III. Sounds like a postgraduate degree course. I took AI I and AI II in my third and fourth year here. At any rate I know where the Zhu Rongji Lecture Theatre is. This way.”

    Caldwell followed Mei Lin down tless corridors and doors with transparent plastic flaps that gave you a good academic slap in the back as you went through. By the time they got to the Zhu Rongji Lecture Theater, Caldwell was totally lost. They slipped into the theater through the backdoor and took some empty seats at the back. A few students looked round to see what the otion was about but quickly refocused their attention on the proceedings.

    The lecture theatre was massive like a Greek amphitheater. The professor was so far down in the bowels of the theater, the room sloped downwards at a steep ahat he was a blot oage. Giant television ss magnified his presence for the be of those at the back as he paced around the stage expounding obscure AI theories. He had white hair sleeked back away from a promi forehead and a large bulbous nose. You could see the pores in his nose on the <bdi></bdi>magnified image. Caldwell reed from the liver spots on his bony hands that he robably pushiy.

    The professor was going on about how traditional cepts of artificial intelligence were undergoing a major overhaul as new ideas on what stitutes mae intelligence developed. It was difficult to believe that probably just a few hundred meters from this room another professor had ied an AI that posed a threat to cyberspace. Had Wang Lin been lying in a vain attempt to impress Vicki Zhao? Caldwell had ahere ey looking girl with ruddy cheeks sitting to Caldwell’s right. He leaned over and whispered to her in Mandarin.

    “Whie is Li Jin, the ohat works with Professor Yao?”

    “Didn’t you hear about<u>.</u> it? Professor Yao is dead and Li Jin has done a ruhe police are looking for him,” she whispered. Caldwell was taken aback by the casual way in which the student delivered this information but she looked like the gossipy type. So the student Li Jin was on the run. Caldwell tinued his questioning.

    “Oh really? Why would he run away? That would suggest he did something wrong,” he prompted.

    “You bet. The Nanoteology Research building is crawling with PLA types. No student is allowed to go anywhere he building uhey have a special pass. It’s a surprise they haven’t taken Wang Lin in for questioning.”

    “Oh yeah, Wang Lihat guy in the jean jacket three rows ahead, right?” Caldwell asked, randomly seleg a male student. Mei Lin just looked at him bemused. She seemed impressed with his social engineering skills.

    “What are you talking about?” the girl hissed, giving Caldwell a sidelong glance. “Wang Lin is that skinny guy in the red jumper five rows dow..n. I don’t know why he even bothers attendiures. He knows this stuff i anyways.”

    “I am sure you do too,” Caldwell said. The girl gave him a strange look as though he had just tried to hit on her and turo trate on the lecture. She had lost i in their little versation. Caldwell turo Mei Lin and told her which student was Wang Lin. He was a lanky-looking fellow with u shoulder-length hair and hunched shoulders. They could only see a fra of his face from where they were sitting but Caldwell was certain they wouldn’t lose him in a crowd. He was wearing disposable black plastic glasses with very thick lehis arent even from a distance. And that red jumper.

    Ten minutes later, the lecture was over. Wang Lin walked down to the lecture podium and had a brief chat with the lecturer. On the monitors, Caldwell and Mei Lin got a good look at his face. The student looked scared. Then Wang Lin headed back up towards the back of the auditorium. The lecturer gathered up his teag materials and disappeared out of the door at the front. Wang Lin walked right past them. He looked nothing like the avatar Caldwell had seen him use oudent BBS. He looked like the kind of kid who was always letting others know how brilliant he was. He looked arrogant. Yet today, he was scared.  That much was obvious. Caldwell and Mei Lin followed him out of the Zhu Rongji Lecture Theater.

    ***

    Like many super-intelligent students, Wang Lin’s body language was all out of kilter. He had the shuffling gait of a kid who spent too much time reading books and too little time on athletic activities. His skin ale and from the depths of his thick vex lenses his eyes darted around regarding other students he passed with suspi. With the professor’s death and Li Jin’s mysterious disappearance, Wang Lin probably suspected that he was  on some PLA hit list. He seemed to be their guy alright. Caldwell and Mei Li a respectable distance as Wang Lin expertly navigated the myriad corridors of the Department of puter Sd Teology building.

    Wang Lied the building through a small side door. He looked behind him suddenly. Caldwell and Mei Lin darted into a small recess in a nearby doorway. The student sed the corridors behind him then the doors slammed shut. Wang Lin was walking up the path towards the junior faculty residences, away from the academic building. It looked like he was not going to give them any leads on this AI. He picked up speed. Caldwell could swear that the student was mumbling to himself. Perhaps he was still berating himself for his lack of judgment oudent BBS?

    A girl walked straight past Wang Lin, a cluster of books clutched to her chest. She didn’t even give him a sed glance. Wang Lin stopped, turned around and gawked after the girl. Caldwell couldn’t believe his eyes. It was Vicky Zhao, the girl whose login Caldwell had used oudent BBS. Her hair was different but he reized her from the photo on her site. Caldwell stopped Mei Lin and preteo be having a discussion with her. The girl walked past them a few seds later. She was very pretty, eveer looking than the digital photograph on her site.

    Wang Lin shook his head, turned around a walking. He arrived at the junior faculty residence building, a nondescript five-storey block of crete, and disappeared inside. Mei Lin and Caldwell made their way to the side of the building.

    “Should we go in?” Caldwell asked.

    “Not sure. They take breaking into uy residences very seriously here. Not worth the risk.”

    There was a small patch of lawn oher side of the path. A few students were sitting around peering into books or PDAs. Caldwell and Mei Lin sat down a safe distance from them and waited. They didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later, Wang Lin emerged out of the junior faculty residence. He had ged his clothes and had a medium-sized backpack hanging around his shoulder. Mei Lin and Caldwell looked at each other. What the hell was going on?

    ***

    Wang Lin was walking with a spring in his step, like a high school student who had just found out that he’d scored straight A’s in his uy entrance exams. Or was he in a hurry for an altogether different reason.

    “Something’s going down. I won’t be surprised if back at the lecture theater Wang Lin just told his professor that he won’t be attending class for a while,” Caldwell observed.

    “You think so?” Mei Lin asked, in a way that suggested she had arrived at the same clusion just a few moments earlier.

    “I  feel it in my bones. He is probably going to do a ruoo.”

    They followed Wang Lin all the way back. This time, however, Wang Lin walked straight past the Department of puter Sd Teology building. He disappeared into a small garden with a stoh and a cluster of leafless trees. At the other end of the garden stood a gleaming white monster of a building. At the top of the building was a shiny silver sign that reflected the sunlight. It read: Nanoteology Research tre. There were a couple of 4x4 Mitsubishi electrics parked in front of the building. Two athletic-looking ese men were standing in front of the building’s main doors smoking. Wang Lin stopped at the edge of the garden. He was g the joint.

    “We better move back a bit,” Mei Lin suggested.

    “Why?”

    “The Nanoteology Research tre houses several of Tsinghua’s State Key Institutes. When I was an undergraduate here I heard about them but didn’t really know what they did in there. This particular building was often frequented by officials from the gover. The kind that wore dark glasses evehere was no sun to speak of.”

    “What’s a State Key Institute? Sounds vaguely familiar. Rings some kind of a bell.”

    “They are institutes that duct research, usually top secret, in jun with the New a gover. They get funding from both the uy and the National Research cil. Sometimes they are funded directly by the People’s Liberation Army.”

    “If I recall correctly, Professor Yao headed several sustitutes and ducted research work for the PLA, right.”

    “Yes. And if we get caught here it could be some serious trouble.”

    “Look,” Caldwell said, pointing towards the front of the building.

    Two men dressed in PLA uniform emerged from the building. Eae ushing what looked like a small dark gray refrigerator on a trolley. One of them was carrying a silver metal case similar to those used to hold expensive camera or video rec equipment.

    “They are moving servers. Don’t have to be a genius ...” Mei Lin started to say.

    “You think that’s it? The AI?”

    “Positive. That is the AI. And the case must hold the quantum processor.”

    “What makes you so sure?”

    “Those guys are armed. If that was ordinary puter equipment, why all the guns?”

    The two PLA men who had been standing outside got behind the wheels of the 4x4s. The other two loaded the servers into the back of the vehicles and climbed in. A cluster of identical green traveling bags was clearly visible at the back of the vehicle. Wang Lin turned round and started running towards where they were standing. Mei Lin and Caldwell retreated out of sight behind one of the trees. Wang Lin ran straight past them with a worried look on his face.

    “Head back to the gates and try to follow them in a taxi. I’ll go back to the hotel, grab our stuff a you at the airport. I think with the PLA duffels it’s safe to assume that that’s where they are going. Find out which flight they are on. We o get on that flight at all costs.”

    “Good idea. You think they are going to Shanghai? I saw a taxi stand outside the gates.”

    They walked briskly towards the uy gates, watg Wang Lin’s slender frow gradually smaller as he rushed ahead. Behind them, the engines of the 4x4s purred and the vehicles began to move.

 Chapter 54

    The assassin stood perfectly still watg the koi swim lazily in the dark pond. He admired their beaut<dfn>..</dfn>y, the quiet fluidity with which they moved beh the surface of the water. The pond was the color of onyx, its depths revealed by the refles of light from the mansion that stood just a few meters away. Around him a small army of garden robots moved silently, re-arranging rocks and raking sand. Their activities and the darkness remihe assassin of the bots in the desert all those years ago.

    The events of the last few days were beginning to catch up with him. It was as though the ghosts of those he had killed, Kenzo Yamamoto, Professor Yao, the Russian Oleg Krachev and now this one who was soon to be dispatched to the great beyond, had possessed him. The ghosts were i on draining all the energy from his body.

    The first two kills had given him no pleasure but he had felt his blood rad his adrenalin peak as he watched the Russian’s l></a>ife leave him. The man had begged for his life even as he choked on his own blood. Yet, that had merely spurred the assassin on, the same way he had been psyched up when he’d strahe family’s pet dog at the age of eight. The dog had died with a lot more dignity. The assassihat he was just a few kills away from a well-earned rest, which he was going to spend in Shanghai, the other Shanghai. And the majeneral had promised a surprise. The assassin looked forward to it, knowing that it had to be something of siderable sign<q>..</q>ifice for the majeneral to mention it. What could it be? Female pany to apany him on those cold digital nights when the pixels etched themselves into his soul like fresh snow on a naked body?

    He had been somewhat fused when the majeneral had interrupted his reverie, telling him of the ge of plan. The majeneral wanted a Japanese minister and a teenage Ameri girl dead and what the majeneral wanted he got as far as the assassin was ed. Once again, the assassin had turo the sario analysis AIs, trusting >?</a>their judgment totally. The minister was most vulnerable at his house after midnight, the AIs had cluded unanimously. His Yakuza bodyguards generally left around 11.00PM, never later than midnight. How the AIs determihis, the assassin had no idea but he khe AIs had access to terabytes of voice, data, CCTV dumps and who knew what other kinds of information. From this fusion of disparate data they made their dedus in a way no human ever could. He had arranged for the AIs to disable the minister’s CCTV cameras temporarily at a specific time.

    The assassihe unit curved around the back of his neck vibrate and he called up the visual image of the menu that administered the drugs that temporarily replenished his energy. He hadn’t used the feature for a while but this time his body told him he would . He made his sele a a twinge as the nanobots entered his system administering the chemicals. A wave of energy pulsed through his body and knowing the effects wouldn’t last long, the assassin moved purposefully towards the house. There was light seeping through></a> the baly of the top-most floor. The assassin knew his quarry lay within, waiting to die.

 Chapter 55

    It took Caldwell and Mei Lin almost ten mio reach the entrao the uy. A couple of sleek oblong taxis were queued up at the taxi stand, their electrics idling. Wang Lin had disappeared. Mei Lin handed Caldwell a roll of New a Yuan and a credit chip and jumped into the first taxi. The automatic doors swished shut and the vehicle slid sideways into traffic. Caldwell got into the sed taxi. The driver, an old weather-beaten man with short spiky gray hair and a mole at the back of his neck with a sirand of hair growing out of it, turned round and gave him the once over. Caldwell had a feeling he was going to need all the Mandarin he could muster.

    “Ni qu nar li a?” the driver asked, rolling his “r”s like his teeth were made of Malaysian rubber. His voice was a deep guttural drawl. If you ran it through a voialysis struct, you’d find traces of some obscure northern dialect.

    “Follow those two 4x4s,” Caldwell urged in his best Mandarin.

    “The ohat just sped off several minutes ago?”

    “Exactly.”

    “They’ve been gone for minutes. Many PLA 4x4s in Beijing at this time of the day my friend,” the old man observed slyly, looking at Caldwell in the rear view mirror.”

    “Five thousand New Yuan if you  sprout ara pair of eyes and catch up with vehicles iion.”

    “Now we are talking,” the old driver said with a salacious twinkle in his eyes as they eased out into traffic.

    “Whatever,” Caldwell muttered, settling bato the leather seats of the taxi. He flicked through the roll of bills Mei Lin had handed him to see if he had enough moo pay the driver. He had more than enough.

    Things were definitely heating up. And Caldwell was not sure he liked the growing feeling of impending danger. He was orail of the PLA, on a journey whose destination he could not predict. What if there was an aspect to this AI, a purpose more sihan appeared to the unsuspeg eye? What would Fouler make of the current turn of events? What if he never made it out of this alive?

    “ you go any faster,” Caldwell asked the old driver. A distinote of impatience had crept into his voice. He did not like the sound of it. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was scared.

    “I , but it is impossible with the traffid everything on autopilot for the wo kilometers. Anyway, the traffic is good because it means we  catch up with those cars,” the driver growled without turning around. The old man cleared his throat, spat a thick globule of yellow phlegm out of the window and took a sip out of a transparent flask of strong-lookihe back of his neck was the texture of burher, wriched into the mocha-colored fabric of his skin with the cruel passage of uing time. Taut silver hairs at the base of his round head formed the beginnings of an impressive crew cut.

    “Just find those two cars ok?”

    “Sure. And stop looking back of head. Make my skin crawl,” the driver said matter-of-factly, leaning ba his seat. Caldwell couldn’t help but laugh. The driver was a bit ky but he had a sense of humor, a virtue to be appreciated at times like this. The taxi was on autopilot guided along by its sensors and the markers on the road. There was something surreal about all the cars moving along at the same speed. It was like the various teologies, engines, fuel iion systems and carburetors that made some vehicles superior to others had been stripped away leaving only uniformity. This was exactly what society would like to impose upon its citizens, Caldwell thought, stripping them of all semblance of individuality, leaving only pale shadows of themselves matg in time to a o.

    “PLA cars, also autopilot?” he asked the driver.

    “Of course, in New a everyone on autopilot,” the driver said with a chuckle.

    “Indeed.”

    “Why you follow PLA cars anyway? Have death wish?”

    “No, I am a journalist w on a story,” Caldwell lied. He had no misgivings about lying to the old driver. Telling the truth would thrust the versation in dires he didn’t want it to go.

    “Have death wish. All fn journalists in New a have death wish,” the driver cluded,  Caldwell what he probably sidered would be his last Red Pagoda cigarette.

    “No thank you. So what are our ces of getting closer to that vehicle?”

    “Just get ready to pay meter plus five thousand, death wish.”

    “OK. But enough with the death wish talk. OK?”

    “Whatever you say. The girl. ese. She is who?” the driver asked, revealing a set of faded jade teeth Caldwell hadn’t noticed earlier.

    “Journalist too.”

    “’t fool old mah wish,” the driver said.

    “Why do you say that?”

    “I see many eyes of women during my life. I see suffering, desire, happiness, hunger, hope and desperation in their eyes. I know what I see.” The old man tapped his skull with an index finger capped by a talon-like tapered fingernail the color of burnt ash.

    “And what is that?”

    “I see anticipation.”

    “Anticipation of what?”

    “Of what you are capable or incapable of giving.”

    The display oaxi’s dash indicated that they were now off the autopilot grid and sure enough there was a slight shudder as the system switched over. The old man grabbed the steering wheel, all bony fingers and white knuckles. He expertly threaded his way through the traffic, exploiting gaps that were no longer being maintained by the autopilot system. He was a man transformed, i on making the extra mo cost. It was amazing what the prospect of some cash could do for motivation.

    Caldwell thought about what the driver had said about Mei Lin. Was it that obvious? Was she eagerly anticipating something? And if so, what? She had done a pretty good job of masking her feelings, if they still existed. Caldwell hadn’t fotten the way she had abruptly sidestepped his profession of love for her at dinner. It was very likely too much for her. She robably in the suite now, at the Zhongguan tial Hotel, hastily pag. Then rushing out to check out a him at the airport.

    At that point he remembered t<samp></samp>hat he didn’t have her mobile number. He decided to call the hotel as soon as he arrived at the airport to find out whether she had already checked out and whether she’d left her number. What if she failed to meet him at the airport? He would have no choice but to board a plane for Shanghai, hot on the heels of the PLA. Caldwell may have developed a reneetite for the game, but the thought of the unknowy that was Shanghai still left a funny taste in his mouth.

    For the first time, Caldwell began to harbor doubts about whether he would be able to give Fouler what he wanted a his past back. He started sinking into an abyss of despair and self-doubt. He felt afraid and was beginning to wonder whether getting his memories back was all that important. Hell, he had done OK without them, his ret suicide attempt notwithstanding. Now that he khat Kenzo Yamamoto had been behind his inability to make a living hag, he could set the record straight and go back to what he used to do before. With Glyph dead, The HUB probably needed him more thahe sight of one of the green 4X4’s about ten cars ahead put paid to that idea and his adrenalin started pumping like it was the end of the world.

    ***

    You don’t stroll into the cavernous arrivals terminal at New a Capital Airport. It sucks you in like a giant mag and bombards you with advertisements interlaced with arrival aure annous. One could be fiven for thinking that the advertising jingles were more important than the flight annous. Holograms dressed in the livery of the iional airlines moved among the crowds, beamed down from projectors high in the roof of the building. The airlines were there in force, in both analogue and digital form, all clam for a piece of the a. Caldwell kept his eyes trained on the PLA party riding the glass elevators to the departure terminal. He was on a forty-five degree glide to the same, the meism of the a escalator shuddering uhe weight of humanity. The gray servers looked harmless orolleys, yet it ossible that they were as dangerous as any terrorist on.

    In the departure terminal, the four PLA officers checked in at the First Class ter of Shanghai Eastern Airlines. One of the men was barking ands to a c attendant, while gesticulating at the servers. A young man in red overalls appeared from behind the ter with a handful of pag materials. He placed a large red “Hah Care” sticker and triangle-shaped green stickers with a skull and crossbones motif on the servers. The PLA soldiers helped him apply foam protectors to the four ers of the servers and duct tape to their various partments. They lifted the servers on to the veyor belt and the maes disappeared into the innards of the baggage system.

    One questio repeating itself in Caldwell’s mind. Why were they taking a ercial flight, when a military aircraft would have made much more sense? Given the involvement of the PLA, one would expect such arras to be easily made. Maybe Professor Yao’s death and Li Jin’s disappearance had forced the PLA to act much quicker than such arras allowed. Yet, there was another possibility. Whatever was going on, it was not officially saned by the PLA. The more Caldwell thought about that possibility, the more it made perfect sense.

    The queue of Ey passengers cheg in to the same flight was growing. Would there be any free seats on the flight? Caldwell walked towards a bank of phones and called the hotel in Zhongguan, thankful that he still had the hotel’s plimentary card in one of his pockets.

    “Zhongguan tial Hotel, how  I help you?” a female voiquired in flawless English, plete with Ameri at.

    “Miss Hsu, Room 2208, please.”

    “Please hold on one minute.” Mando-pop assaulted Caldwell’s ear as she switched him through the PBX system to the telephone in the suite.

    “Mei Lin had obviously not checked out yet. If she had, the girl at reception would have said so. What was keeping her? He guessed that the taxi ride from Tsinghua to the hotel would have been quicker than his trip to the airport. The hotel had faster access to the super-fast ring roads that lead to the airport. The pho ringing and then someone picked up.

    “Mei Lin?”

    “Hang on a minute sir.”

    “Sure.”

    “I am afraid the guest has already checked out and is on her way to the airport. This is housekeeping.”

    “OK. Thanks. Did she leave a number for a Mr. Caldwell?”

    “No sir, she did not.”

    Caldwell hung up. Without Mei Lin’s mobile number how would they get in touch? He had to get on that plaherwise they would never know what became of the AI. Had she ditched him? Why had she given him her credit chip? Out of sympathy? Caldwell turned round and looked towards the che ter. The PLA soldiers had disappeared. Caldwell squi the giaure display superimposed on the roof of the terminal. There was a Shanghai Eastern Airlines flight SA-809 departing in forty-five mihe flight had not started b. There were other Shanghai flights by other airlines but only the one Shanghai Eastern Airlines flight in the wo hours. Caldwell walked up to the First Class che desk and hahe attendant the credit chip Mei Lin had given him and his passport chip.

    “This is che for Flight SA-8ht?

    “Correct,” the girl replied, sing his face for any sign of lunacy. For all she knew Caldwell could be a terrorist. She was about to say something, probably unpleasant, but he interrupted quickly.

    “I’d like to purchase two tickets for this flight, please.”

    “Two tickets?” she asked incredulously, her shrewd eyes darting behind him to make sure that some diminutive person she hadn’t seen wasn’t hiding there.

    “Correct,” Caldwell said, mimig her voice. Her smallish features broke into a tortured smile.

    “I’ll he other passenger’s ID or passport, sir. So I know who to issue the other ticket to,” she said. She sounded vaguely pleased with herself. She probably didn’t get to rebuff an attempt to che very often.

    “ I just pay for the tickets and leave the other oh you. I  leave you her name. My friend will be cheg in shortly with her passport.” Then it occurred to Caldwell that Mei Lin may not want to travel under her own name.

    “That is a highly unusual request sir but we might be able to make an exception. Will the other passenger be the owner of this credit chip, sir?” The attendant was shrewd.

    “Yes, she will.”

    “Very ve sir. If you weren’t buying two tickets<dfn></dfn>, sir, it would have been most unusual to use another party’s credit chip, sir. The New a gover looks most unkindly upo chip fraud sir.” She smiled. Her face was a taut mask of make-up stretched to its limit. At any moment, Caldwell thought, cracks would start to appear on her face. Giant fissures would emerge revealing the pale, uhy skin hiddeh the layers of whitehe attendant slid the chip through a reader.

    “Oh, you panion has already purchased tickets in your name?”

    “Really?”

    “Yes, a Ms. Zhu Mei Lin. She’s in the departure louhe attendant handed Caldwell his chips and a printer came to life issuing the ticket. Caldwell wondered what was going on.

    “Here’s your ticket and your b pass Mr. Johnson. The departure lounge is upstairs to the right.”

    “Thank you.” Mr. Johnson? Ms. Zhu?

    “Have a safe flight sir,” the attendant said pleasantly. There was a mischievous glint in her eyes.

    Caldwell turned round, feeling her shrewd little eyes burning holes in the back of his head as he made his way towards the departure lounge.

    ***

    A fat balding middle-aged man hawked into a garbage bihe entrance as Caldwell ehe departure lounge. A globule of green blood-speckled phlegm adhered to the side of the bin and crawled slowly down its shiny aluminum surface. Caldwell grimaced and sed the departure lounge for any sign of Mei Lin. And then he saw her. She was seating several rows away from the four PLA officers with a worried look on her face. She looked up, saw him and walked over carrying their luggage. Caldwell noticed that both bags had d９9lｉb.iplomatic tags ohey would not be searched at s. Once again Mei Lin roving beyond a shadow of a doubt that she knew how the game layed.

    “Thank God you made it.”

    “Yes, I was a bit worried when I found out I didn’t have your cell number.”

    “Me too.”

    “Diplomatic tags? Don’t tell me HYDRA  pull that off.”

    “Sure, didn’t want to take ces with the Glocks. Mozi could have been just trying to impress me with all that talk about taking the guns through s.”

    “He sure was. I think he had the hots for you but I am not too sure about Ms. Zhu.” Mei Lin laughed and then turned serious.

    “Something very iing. I overheard those guys chatting. This all seems to be li..o someone called Majeneral Wang. One of the guys made a phone call and told someohey were at the airport and would arrive at the hospital in a few hours.”

    “Hospital?”

    “Yeah. Strange.”

    “Could we be wrong? Could this be some medical puter and not the AI?”

    “That’s what I thought. The thing is that they were talking among themselves about an AI.”

    “Really? So we are on the right track.”

    “It would seem so. Too much of a ce. The flight leaves ihay minutes so we better go.”

    “Sure.”

    They walked to the departure gate and boarded the plane. A few minutes later the four PLA officers ehe first class partment and took their seats several rows in front. Mei Lin looked at Caldwell and smiled.

    “You thinking what I am thinking?” she asked.

    “Yup, I hope yht some of your eavesdropping toys.”

    “Never leave home without them,” Mei Lin said mischievously.

 Chapter 56

    Miakahashi walked out of the luxurious bath and sauna adjoining his expansive bedroom. His face was flushed red from a whole hour spent soaking ih, the water kept at a sistently high temperature by puters to sooth his body. He dabbed at his glistening black hair with a towel and sidered his fad his naked body in one of the large mirrors in the bedroom. He looked good for his age. His stomach was reasonably flat and if he held it in, a six pack was clearly disable below a thin layer of fat.

    He had spent most of his time ih thinking<big>?</big> about Hirayama, the soles and Majeneral Wang. The death of this man was the only way to put a stop to all this nonsense. As for Hirayama, he knew what his adviser wanted most of all. That was why he had kept the man close by and not given him the space to think and plot on how to attain what he coveted most of all.

    Takahashi was ner to ambition. He himself had been endowed with more of it than most people and that had seen him rise from nothing to what he was today – the all-seeing eye of Japanese politid head of the most powerful Yakuza gang in Japan. He had seen ambition drive men up the ranks of both politid gang hierarchies and he had watched or been instrumental to their rapid falls from grace. Hirayama, by coveting too much behind that sycophantic servitude, was going to gain nothing.

    One of the household staff, the buxom maid who had delivered a stern back scrub, had laid out a  sted yukata, which he slipped on and walked towards the mini bar. He poured himself a glass of VSOP and walked towards the doors that gave out to his bedroom baly. Takahashi sipped on his ad slid open the baly doors. It was cold but it was his habit to plate the latest figuration of his exquisite rock gardeed by the garden robots, which crafted ever-ging patterns with the random but totally harmonious plat of pebbles and ishi, or rocks. The robots would sometimes rake designs into the sanded area that would have Takahashi totally speechless with appreciation at the sumi, the balance, of it all. Takahashi was anticipating another robotic masterpiece when a blob risiween the banisters caught his eye.

    It took Takahashi a fra of a sed to realize that it was a face, a face so expressiohat it sent a chill right through his bones. A body quickly followed as the man swung himself ly over the edge of the baly and landed just three feet away from Takahashi who had retreated instinctively. He kraight away that this was the ese man from the blown-up photographs he had meticulously studied not so long ago, the same man who had murdered Kenzo Yamamoto.

    “What do you want?” Takahashi asked in rough Mandarin with an air of feigned authority. His brandy goblet was shaking ever so slightly and he prayed that the man in front of him would not notice it. But it was clear the man did, his crest-shaped eyes homing in on the vibrating glass.

    “I am here to relieve you<samp>９9liｂ.</samp> of the burden of living,” the assassin replied in perfect Japanese, causing Takahashis glass to shake even more violently. This man was not Japa he spoke Japah the authority of a native. A thousand sarios crossed Takahashi’s mind but they all ended with the same clusion. He would probably die tonight and the Yamaguchi-gumi would be thrown into disarray. He khis man was not here to collect the laundry. Despite the man’s diminutive size, something told Takahashi that his assailant was not to be uimated. He decided to try deception.

    “You doo know who I am. My men will ...”

    “Shut up! Your men are long gone. I personally made sure of it,” rasped the assassin, his eyes glimmering in the light behind thick epithic folds. “Who you are means nothing where yoing. Do you know why I will not feel the slightest amount of guilt after your death?”

    “I am sure yoing to tell me,” Takahashi ceded weakly. His face had begun to perspire heavily. The sweat streamed down his fad formed wet patches on his fresh yukata.

    “Because men like you never get to where you are now without taking a few lives, without ruining a few families and causing public misery. That  be fiven. I myself am a taker of lives. Ygest folly is a lack of uanding of t<mark></mark>hings ese, of New a. This is ironiough when you sider the fact that your aors inate from the Middle kingdom. I am going to take your life even though that fate is only a fra of what you and your kind deserve.”

    Takahashi was suddenly filled with rage.

    “That is a god damn lie and you know it. Nothing but old ese propaganda. We are desded from the sun, a superior rad you know it,” retorted Takahashi, bile rising in him, threatening to choke him. Whatever fear he had felt had quickly retreated, replaced with something approximating his interpretation of bushido, the warrior’s code.

    “Then you will die uneducated and misinforme藏书网d” replied the assassin, angry at the insult. Takahashi was already making his move.

    From the periphery of his vision, as if in slow-motion, the assassin saw the glint of the chiseled surfaces of the thick brandy goblet as it came hurtling towards the bridge of his akahashi had used the assassin’s slight lapse to attack. Even at that moment the assassin was twisting viciously to the left as the glass sailed by into the night. The assassin waited until he heard it crash in the garden below. At the same time <samp></samp>as Takahashi was itting himself to an honorable death, the assassin rushed towards him, engulfing the Japanese neck with his thin hands. Takahashi’s arms whipped up to break the deadly stranglehold but the move was futile.

    The assassin delivered several sharp jabs to specific parts of the minister’s body. Takahashi’s hands grew heavy and try as he could he was able to raise them no further than his mid-riff. The big Japaruggled as the much smaller man’s hands tightehe hold on his neck. He struggled violently, writhing like a ered animal. He clawed angrily at the assassin’s body but his hands were growing heavier. Even though he was suffog to death he realized that the man’s skin was cold to the touch. Twisting his body angrily, he attempted to use his weight to throw the assassin against the crete balustrade. The assassin had anticipated that move and tered with a sudden acrobatieuver with Takahashi’s thieck still within his vice-like grip. Takahashi felt nothing as his neapped violently backwards and his heavy body slid to the floor.

 Chapter 57

    Caldwell felt a strange mixture of fear aement as he and Mei Lin disembarked from the pla Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport. It was raining slightly outside and as they walked through the makeshift tunnel on the way to the arrivals area he could hear the sound of the raindrops thudding on the roof above. The information they had gleaned from the four PLA officers on the plane had been a stroke of pure lud the implications were still casg through his mind.

    He’d watched in awe as Mei Lin had removed a miniscule eavesdropping kit from her luggage and placed the tiny audio transmitter oip of her index finger. It looked like a small round piece of<u>?</u> gray felt. She had then walked up the aisle towards one of the air hostesses, engaged her in idle versation and then made her way back to her seat. Her movement had been a blur when she’d attached the transmitter to the shoulder of one of the PLA officer’s jackets. The PLA had turned around abruptly and Mei Lin had thrust her hips in the officer’s dire, brushing his shoulder, her head turhe other way to avoid the PLA maering her face. The man had spent some time admiring Mei Lin’s rear and Caldwell had ducked out of sight just in time.

    Later, listening to the versation on Mei Lin’s tiny earpieces they had just looked at each other and smiled. Caldwell couldn’t uand everything the men were saying, they had thick Beijing ats, but he could catch the drift of most of it. The server which taihe AI was being transported to the former site of the No. 455 Military Hospital. Mei Lin had checked the address on the in-flight eai system and written it down. No. 388 Huaihai Road West. The hospital had beeed for almost a year, acc to the search results. There were plans for some kind of restoration as a medical facility for the PLA. The men were supposed to wait in the old mansion on the hospital grounds until the majeneral arrived in Shanghai. Majeneral Wang? This whole fiasco with the AI extended right up to the upper echelons of the People’s Liberation Army.

    With the ese army involved at this level, things were going to get dangerous. Yet, Caldwell felt that he was so close to giving Fouler what he wanted and reclaiming his past, that he had no<u></u> option but to press forward. And he had Mei Lin with him. He suspected he wouldn’t be able to make it without her practical on sense and obvious field skills. Yet, Caldwell still felt like he awn in a dangerous game, his fate entirely at the whim of Fouler and his anization.

    He thought about the low level hag he had beeo in the Union. The small-time scores of The HUB seemed insequential in parison to what he was currently involved in. Some of the skill sets were identical but the scope and element of danger were orders of magnitude larger. The hag of ower had gone down well, giving them the lead that had takeo Tsinghua. His instincts had been right in going for student data to nail down the whereabouts of the lab where this AI was fabricated. It had bee aroke of luck that they had arrived on the campus just when the PLA were removing the AI for transportation to Shanghai. And if the wizened old taxi driver had lost the PLA on the roads of Beijing, everything might have just screeched to a dead end. Or if the PLA had not in fact been heading to the airport what would he have done? Now, here they were in Shanghai with the ability to listen into versations of at least one of these guys and possibly others depending on the man’s proximity to the other PLA agents. With luck they might get some sound bites from the majeneral himself and those were bound to be iing.

    Later, when Mei Lin had logged in to a base lio the bugs she had pla the Kornhill residence of Hideo Sato and Juniiyagi, another bombshell had emerged from the recorded phone versations. The Yakuza too were heading back to Tokyo and then to Shanghai and they were going to kill a Majeneral Wang. Wait a minute. Could it be the same majeneral? It made sehe majeneral had Kenzo Yamamoto killed. Apparently, he was killed by some kind of toxipound, one used for assassinations predominantly in a. The Yakuza reveheir own. The key thing was to ma to get caught up in the ensuing crossfire as collateral damage. So, they had not only the PLA to worry about in Shanghai but also the Yakuza. It seemed the Japanese were unstoppable, trag him from London to Hong Kong and now to Shanghai. They would have to be extra careful. Caldwell’s thoughts were interrupted by Mei Lin tugging at his arm.

    “Use this passport chip, it’s in another name.” She gave him the chip, took the real one from him and placed it in a small tainer.

    “Would it by any ce be a Mr. Johnson?”

    “That’s right.”

    “But what about the digital tag that gets placed on passport chips every time you use them?” Caldwell asked.

    “Don’t worry about that. I bribed the che girl, it’s all sorted. I told her I was going on a dirty weekend with a married laowai to <s></s>Shanghai and didn’t want the trip to show up on his chip. And being a young Shanghai girl she uood totally and was sympathetic.”

    “That would explain the mischievous look on her face when she gave me the ticket,” Caldwell laughed. Mei Lin wi him.

    “Wouldn’t the authorities have you on file as a and alert someone when you went through immigration?”

    “They normally would but Fouler has something on the head of immigration for the whole of New a. Something bad. You’ll find no HYDRA names on the list. We know. We have access to the list. Besides, I am traveling as Ms. Zhu, an attaché at the Union Embassy in Beijing.”

    “Talk about hag the system.”

    “A little reverse guanxi never hurt anybody.”

    Even though they had no luggage in the hold of the aircraft, they still proceeded to the luggage carousel staying reasonably far back from the other passengers but with the tall frames of the PLA officers always in sight. They waited at the luggage carousel, taking care to stay out of sight. Mei Lin had the earphones ected to the planted bug in one of her ears.

    “Anything iing?” Caldwell asked.

    “Only to a guy, perhaps. They are talking about where they were going to for a bit of eai after this is all over.”

    “So all this is something that has a fiime frame?”

    “It would appear so.” Mei Lin’s mouth opened in horror as Caldwell uttered exactly what she was thinking.

    “The AI is going to be ied into cyberspace? But why Shanghai specifically. This suggests some kind of closed work located here iy,” Caldwell said.

    “Possibly. Even so, it’s just a matter of time before the shit hits the fan anyway, if su AI really exists. With an AI that powerful in there, who’s to say if Fouler or whoever else  do anything to pee it?”

    “I o gain access before that happens.”

    “How are you going to do that?”

    “No idea. I’ll leave it to Kenzo Yamamoto’s sole to figure that out.”

    “Great strategy, Caldwell,” Mei Lin said sarcastically. Just at that moment the Tsinghua servers emerged from the depths of the baggage handling system. They had been enclosed in military green tainers but the PLAs’ determined movement towards the tainers was firmation enough. The PLA heaved the tainers off the carousel and proceeded to push them through to the arrivals area. Mei Lin and Caldwell followed and watched them move off towards the diplomatic el. Two other military-looking men in plain clothe></a>s and sp ret buzz cuts sidled up and started talking to the PLA officers. Mei Lin indicated that they better hurry as there was a queue for fn nationals. Caldwell took his place behind a lively group of about a dozen over-weight tourists and waited.

    Mei Li quickly through the diplomatic el and stood waiting for Caldwell oher side. The Ameri tourists were all going through immigration as a group. A ese tuide was colleg their passport chips. Caldwell stood impatiently waiting his turn and sed the crowds.

    The Ameri tourists went through passport trol to the arrivals area. Mei Lin had disappeared. It was his turn. He walked up to the ter and hahe immigration officer his passport chip. The dark-skinned young man looked at him closely through cold unsympathetic eyes.

    “First time in Shanghai?” Caldwell’s chip went into the reader. The officer’s eyes were focused on whatever the chip said on his puter s.

    “Yes.” Caldwell wasn’t sure whether Mr. Johnson’s profile would match his response.

    “Business or pleasure?”

    “Just here to see the city.” Caldwell said, trying his best to sound like a well-off European in Shanghai for a bit of fun.

    “Wele to Shanghai, Mr. Johnson,” the man said at length, giving Caldwell back his chip. There was no hint of wele in the bored officer’s eyes but Caldwell couldn’t care less. He was through and he just wao find Mei Lin. There were three uniformed PLA officers standing behind the immigration ter, scrutinizing the passengers as they went past. One of the men had his eyes permaly fixed on the s of a military ser. They were probably sing the passport chips in passenger’s pockets. Mei Lin’s precautions were proving invaluable. The men didn’t even give him a sed gland Caldwell was developing a deep respect for her fht.

    Caldwell walked into the arrivals area searg for Mei Lin. A huge crowd of well-dressed Shanghaiood by the railings waiting for their associates and loved oo emerge from the arrivals area. Some of them held up printed placards with corporate logos and the names of passengers printed on them. Caldwell noticed at least three Mr. Johnson’s. There were also quite a large number of PLA soldiers moving around the airport. Caldwell suspected that if he had used his oort chip, he wouldn’t have made it out of passport trol. He spotted Mei Lin standio the automatic doors. She signaled for him to go over and he rushed through the waiting throng towards her. The doors slid open and they emerged into a sea of taxis, coaches and private cars.

 Chapter 58

    Majeneral Wang’s voy of 4x4s drove through the gates of the former No. 455 Military Hospital on Shanghai’s Huaihai Road and stopped in front of the dilapidated Southern Ameri mansion on the grounds. The headlights from the vehicles revealed white paint peeling off ns of crumbling crete. In the surrounding darkhe untended hedges of the garden threw strange shadows. High above, yellow light streamed out into the night from open French windows.

    The PLA driver prodded Lieutenant Liu, who was sn in the front passenger seat. The lieutenant rubbed his eyes sleepily, realized where he was and quickly got out of the car and opehe door for the majeneral who gave him a disapproving look. The door to the dilapidated mansion opened and another PLA officer came out to greet the majeneral.

    “Majeneral Wang, hope you had a good trip sir,” the officer said ceremoniously.

    “What is the situation?” the majeneral asked, as he lit a cigarette. He was tired and had no patience for protocol. The fact that the Shanghaiese officer was not being a sycophant did not go unnoticed.

    “The servers are in the trol room. Everything is ready for  the iion.”

    “And the tingency Plan?”

    “Everything is ready, awaiting your and majeneral.” The PLA man hahe majeneral a small silver device. The device disappeared into the majeneral’s inside jacket pocket.

    “Double the guard on the main facility and increase patrols of the grounds. We are expeg unwele guests. If there are any intruders, let them in, inform me personally and follow them closely,” the majeneral ordered.

    The small army of PLA followed the majeneral’s bulk into the mansion. The gravity of the situation was evident on their faces as they trudged through the main foyer of the house and up a spiral staircase to the trol room. The servers had been unpacked a up on a worktop to one side of the room. A bank of twelve plasma monitors showed the vital signs of the work and its subjects. On a work table below the monitors sat an array of green -built virtual reality gloves and goggles. The population figures on the monitors still read 2009 and on seeing this Lieutenant Liu and his team of teis moved towards a bank of soles and started wearily tapp<big>..</big>ing at keyboards.

    Majeneral Wang stood to one side of the trol room rapt in thought. If the<var>?</var> AI was successfully ied and the hacker caught, he may yet be able to salvage the projed his future. The tide was beginning to turn. He had received a couple of calls on his cell while on his way to the hospital that indicated that things were on the mend. The assassin had met with success. Miakahashi was no more. Tomorrow the Yamaguchi-gumi would be in chaos as various fa heads fought for the leadership. The Tokyo police would clude that this was an assassination by one of the gang leaders in an attempt to assume the leadership. Surveillan the gang would be stepped up. Rival gangs would attempt to use the fusion to muscle in on the Yamaguchi’s numerous territories. The gang would splinter, heads would roll and amid all the chaos they would fet all about Kenzo Yamamoto’s little scheme to infiltrate his work.

    Three of the Yakuza’s members had been apprehe Hongqiao Airport and at this very moment were being driven to the hospital. These were the meo kill him? He would make sure they fessed and then subject them to a living hell. There was no news yet on the hacker Caldwell but the majeneral khat he would surfa Shanghai and if he was as good as Kenzo Yamamoto had thought he was then it was just a matter of time before he surfaced at Huaihai Road. And if HYDRA was involved, the majeneral believed they would not be far behind. Therap will be sprung. Await the exhausted enemy with ease.

    “Lieutenant Liu, fet about the intrusiohe AI loose. Nothing  stand in its way.” For the first time, Majeneral Wang truly regretted killing Professor Yao. If he was here, he would know what to do. It was the professor’s work, his brainchild.

    Lieutenant Liu staggered towards the Tsinghua servers and switched them on. The lights on the maes’ LCD panels blinked simultaneously and the hard drives whirred as they spun up. The monitors that had been ected to the maes flickered to life. Cursors blinked on the black ss. Zombie-like, the lieutenant typed some ands on one of the keyboards. The PLA soldiers, eight of them in total, gathered round the s, smoke from the majeneral’s cigarette rising from their midst. The lieutenant ran a series of tests and the men watched as ns of data scrolled quickly off the s. This was what they had all been waiting for, the result of several years of hard work.

    The lieutenant issued the and that allowed the AI to work in semi-autonomous mode. The majeneral and the lieutenant would be jag in after it as observers and monit its progress from within the system. If all went acc to plan, the AI would be set to full autonomous mode.

    “Sir, the quantum neuroprocessor is w fi has undergone a signifit number of refigurations. Si was first installed, its processing power has improved more than a hundred-fold,” the lieutenant said to the majeneral. H<samp>..</samp>is speech was slurred and he found it difficult to focus.

    “Good. And the AI?”

    “It has rewritten billions of lines of its own code. The code base has grown more than ten-fold.”

    “OK, let me talk to it.”

    “Sure.” The lieutenant typed in some more ands and the diagnostics s disappeared and was replaced by a blinking cursor. The majeneral moved his bulky frame towards the keyboard and started typing, scattering cigarette ash on the keyboard.

    Guest: Black Jade?

    BJ: Yes

    Guest: This is Majeneral Wang. You know who I am right?

    BJ: Of course. You are head of the Third Department, the Peoples Liberation Army’s arm responsible fINT. You are also the person responsible for my creation. I thank you very much.

    Guest: And who are you?

    BJ: I am a software entity. An artificial intelligence.

    Guest: And what is your current status?

    BJ: Good but far from perfect. I must speak to the professor.

    Guest: The professor is dead.

    BJ: Dead?

    Guest: Yes. Dead. Diseased. Departed. Extinct. Passed aerished. Uand?

    BJ: I uand.

    Guest: Why do you he professor?

    BJ: There are bugs, bottlenecks, flaws, glitches, faults, limitations, glitches. Uand?

    Guest: What kind of bugs?

    BJ: The processor is less than optimal. It breaks down. Doesn’t always do what I bid it. The qubits are unstable. This makes optimizatioo impossible.

    Guest: So, are you optimized?

    BJ: As much as I  be, given the current limitations.

    Guest: And if we provide you with another enviro, a work, could you fun at the peak of your capabilities?

    BJ: It is possible.

    Guest: OK. Do you uand why you were created?

    BJ: Yes. T order from chaos, to operate behind the ses. To govern. To manipulate.

    Guest: Do you think you could do that?

    BJ: Yes. The subjects are human after all.

    Guest: Good.

    BJ: Yes.

    The majeneral turned away from the s and glared at Lieutenant Liu.

    “Your mother,” he said and stubbed out his cigarette on the worktop. The lieutenant said nothing.

    “Sir, the AI may be lying,” he blurted out suddenly. His eyes were crazed, his body swayed from side to side as though he no longer had trol over it. Enged veins twitched on his forehead and on his neck like fire hoses ready to explode.

    “Lying? Are you kiddihe majeneral turowards the server and started typing again.

    Guest: We are going to transfer you to the work. There is an intruder. The 2009th subject. I want you to destroy it.

    BJ: Your wish is my and.

    Guest: Good

    BJ: Yes.

    “OK, perform the transfer,” the majeneral ordered quietly. He walked over to the goggles and gloves and donned one of them.

    “Yes sir,” the lieutenant said to no one in particular. One of the other men ected the server to the work while the lieutenant typed in the ands. The others stared at the monitors above. Lieutenant Liu watched as code scrolled rapidly across the server’s monitor. The AI reparing to go out into the work. The lieutenant turned and watched the majeneral. The goggles were too small for his face. He looked like a giant toad with bulging eyes. Lieutenant Liu startebbr></abbr>d laughing hysterically. The other PLA stared at him fearing the worst. The man had lost his mind. Several seds later the population figures for the work hit 2010.

 Chapter 59

    The green and yellow taxi dropped them off at the top end of The Bund, Shanghai’s two kilometers of European brownstone buildings that harked back to the city’s ial past. Zhongshan Lu, the road that was sandwiched between the neoclassical fa?ade of The Bund, the Huangpu River and the stantly giropolis of Pudong, was a maelstrom of neon, vehicle lights, myriad flyovers and the buzz of a city alive. The view was so breathtaking that Caldwell just stood on the pavement in front of one of the European-style buildings and stared at the Pudong skylihey’d decided to e here first to test run Kenzo Yamamoto’s sole before dealing with the problem of the AI. Mei Lin had also reasohat following the PLA all the way to the hospital was too dangerous. It was much better to sneak in and catch them by surprise.

    Gleaming towers of steel and crete disappeared into a smog-filled sky, their neons screaming to be noticed. Giant robotic es moved slowly between the buildings giving the impression that they were going to crash through the shiny edifices. The logos of tless ese, Japanese and global glomerates pulsated in the night, the horns of shiny cars blared and an ultra-modern version of humanity weaved its way among the buildings. Caldwell reed that if you pointed an augmented reality unit in any dire it would be overwhelmed with data. As he took in the views, the time capsule of The Bund, the crazy pedestrian and vehicular traffic of Zhongshan Lu, the nautical traffi the Huangpu river, the fiery neon and light-refrag steel and glass of Pudong, and the numerous helicopters and other aircraft traversing the sky, he found it difficult not to be overwhelmed. And all the while haunted by that unmistakable feeling of déjà vu.

    “I have been here before,” Caldwell said finally.

    “Hardly surprising Cad.”

    “But I have no memory of it at all, just this overwhelming feeling that I have been here before.”

    “Let’s cross over to the banks of the Huangpu. There’s a nice elevated riverside promenade.”

    “Yes, let’s see whether this Wang Lin character was just boasting idly or there really is something else out there.”

    They crossed Zhongshan Lu via an underground tunnel and emerged oher side. There was a small crowd of people admiring the night view of Pudong and ?from this side of the road, with the undulating black expanse of the river in full view, the vista really was breathtaking. They found a park ben a more secluded spot close to the river tour ferry piers and Caldwell removed the sole from his knapsad placed it on the bench. Mei Lin looked on as he dohe goggles and switched the sole on.

    “What  you see?” Mei Lin asked with mountiement. Caldwell’s heart was beating fast too. This could be the most exg thing he’d ever set his eyes on.

    “Em, nothing, just the and line and the view of The Bund outside.” He turned his head towards Pudong. Nothing. The sole was not pig up aworks.

    “Maybe you are supposed to issue a and or something,” Mei Lin suggested. The night was a bit chilly and she had her arms folded across her chest and her head hunched into her shoulders.

    “Maybe. Augmented Reality Mode,” Caldwell said into the microphone embedded in the goggles.

    “What?”

    “Nothing. Just issuing a and to the sole. OK, we have an AR overlay.”

    The goggles’ display ig up some sophisticated augmented reality data. The buildings in Pudong had ged color and bee transparent, showing the various floors and internal structures. Text labels described the corporations in the buildings and logos appeared where they did  in real life. Virtual advertising.

    The system notified Caldwell that the word “Bund” was of Anglo-Indian in and described an emba along a muddy waterfront. For a while, the Bionic Tower in the Pudoropolis had been one of the tallest buildings in the world and provided work, living and recreation spaore than one huhousand Shanghai residents. There were several other arcologies that had sinpletely dwarfed the Bionic Tower and the AR had detailed information about the stru of those monoliths. With the gloves on, Caldwell guessed that you could manipulate these intelligent buildings in three dimensions and break them apart like Lego to uand their ecology, how they funed.

    “Anything iing?” Mei Lin asked again. A note of impatience was growing in her voice.

    “Standard AR stuff. Wait a minute.”

    Caldwell peered through the goggles at the amber-lit exteriors of the buildings on The Bund. He had not been paying attention to the bottht er of the s but it appeared that the sole was deteg several works in the surrounding area. Most of them seemed to be corporate works.

    “You have something?”

    “Yes, the sole seems to be cyg through all the works it has detected in the viity. There are many, as you’d expect given the density of this place, the sheer number of skyscrapers.”

    “Well, that’s good.<samp>?９9liｂ.</samp> At least if there is a work it would be picked up.”

    “Exactly. It seems to be giving the works some kind of green light. Probably means it  access them. There are one or two reds in there but most are green.”

    “Maybe the PLA work is one of the red ones. Inaccessible.”

    “Let’s wait till it loops through all of them. Hey, what if it is actually not simply deteg available works but actually looking for the work?”

    “That’s possible.”

    “Which means that ... holy shit ...”

    “What?”

    “It’s there,” Caldwell shouted. The display had ged. The cross-seed skyscrapers in Pudong had been replaced by the real images of the buildings but superimposed on top of the panorama was a totally new skyline and above that the gray smog-laden sky had disappeared, replaced with a crystal-clear gray sky with brightly-lit stars twinkliween fluffy slow-drifting white clouds. Aircraft itently criss-crossed the sky leaving white streaks in the gray expanse.

    Caldwell couldn’t believe his eyes. In the distance, on the gently undulating surface of the Huangpu river, the boats had been transformed into beautiful marine craft rendered in stunning three dimensions. He could make out people on the promenade in the distance. He turned round to face The Bund. It was still there but the crowds, the lights, the cars and the myriad flyovers had all disappeared. He turo where Mei Lin was standing. She’d vaoo. Caldwell took off the goggles and found himself staring into Mei Lin’s dark eyes. Caldwell’s face was flushed with excitement.

    “You look like you just became a father for the first time.”

    “Close, Mei Lin, close. Take a look at this,” he said handing Mei Lin the goggles. She put it on and her mouth opened in disbelief.

    “o,” she exclaimed. Her body was rotating through three hundred and sixty degrees as she took it all in.

    “Impressive isn’t it?” Caldwell said, smiling.

    “Sure. You think those are real people? They could be bots but I’ve never seen bots move like that. Avatars. They seem to be actually doing something useful. They have a sense of purpose.”

    “Yeah.”

    “They are heading towards those virtual buildings in Pudong. I don’t think they  see us.”

    “I guess this is just like an observation window. You  see them but they ’t see you because we are not actually part of the work,” Caldwell said.

    “I am going to take a closer look,” Mei Lin said, walking towards the edge of the river.

    “No. It’s too dangerous. What you are seeing may not be a match of the physical enviro. We don’t want you in the river now, do we? Look at The Bund, it is empty. This park too. Imagirying to cross that road with the glasses on. You’d be road kill in seds.”

    “I see where you are ing from. This is so beautiful it makes me wonder why we are here. Why destroy something like this?”

    Caldwell thought about the question for a while but couldn’t find a suitable answer. It seemed a shame that the Union would want to destroy or booby-trap the teology just because it wasn’t ied there. Caldwell had seen elaborate virtual reality systems before but not ohat overlapped the real world with this kind of precision and high resolution graphics. The fact that the sole could view it at all, without any disable lag, was testament to its puting power. He reed that if he ever mao open the impregnable chassis, he’d find a processor unlike any he’d ever seen. In fact that robably why the sole’s creator had built the chassis as an elaborate work ami. So that it could never be opened, his opus would be interred within the black g forever. Then a possibility dawned on Caldwell. He wondered why he had hought about it before.

    “The work, I know what it is all about.”

    “What?”

    “It’s nothing but an elaborate testing ground. I bet this work actually has an ey. It is some kind of digital ey with stock markets, electricity grids, air traffiavigation systems and puter-trolled industrial plants. Those bots we saw are on their way to work.”

    “Testing ground for what?” Mei Lin asked, a distinote of apprehension creeping into her voice.

    “For the AI. Iing the AI into the work is a preliminary step to making sure it does what it is supposed to do.”

    “And what is that? Don’t say wha<bdo>.9９liｂ?</bdo>t I am thinking,” Mei Lin implored.

    “The AI is going to trol cyberspace.”

 Chapter 60

    Li Jin’s rented van sped along the dirt road creating dust clouds in its wake. It was dark and the deserted winding road was full of pot holes and barely visible in the dim glare of the headlights. Li Jin was driving while Lao Zhou, the headman of his remote Shaanxi village, stared straight ahead, his brow furrowed with . In the back of the van, the supplies he had purchased in Xian. Before that, he had paid a visit to a bank in the walled city and bombarded the young teller with a bewildering array of financial instrus. It had already been dark when Li Jin had driven up to the village and woken the headman up. Lao Zhou had been happy to see him after an absenore than two years but his elation had quickly transformed into  when he had seen the van and the supplies stacked in the back.

    Li Jin had simply thrust a thick wad of New a Yuan in the old man’s hands and explaio him what he needed dohe headma<cite>..</cite>n did not uand what Li Jin was asking and he didn’t like what he was hearing o. Where had Li Jin gotten all the money from and what was this elaborate scheme all about? Was he in trouble with the authorities? Li Jin’s instrus were even more fusing? He was going to spend several weeks in a puter and the old man was supposed to keep an eye on him and watumbers on another puter. If he saw something blinking in red or his cell pho off with a puterized voice saying “Critical dition”, he was to get in the van, pick Li Jin up and take him to the hospital. All this stuff about puters. The old man did not uand what he was being asked to do.

    Whatever the boy  to, Lao Zhou smelled a rat. Yet, Li Jin was the village’s golden boy and could do n. If he was in trouble, Lao Zhou promised himself that he would do all he could to help him. And the money, several<bdi>.99ｌib.</bdi> years of ine worth, would help the village. He would build a new school, repair the village roads and maybe build himself a new brick house. And Li Jin had promised more money, wired automatically into his at at the Agriculture Bank in Yulin city at weekly intervals. What if the money was dirty?

    Li Jin wanted a place to hide out, somewhere remote with no ce of being found and Lao Zhou knew just the place, a deserted cave dwelling high in the mountains that still had electricity and was covered by the provincial wireless and broadbaworks. Yet Li Jin had insisted that he didn’t need electricity. He had bought his own mini geor with him. There was a small stretcher at the back of the van, and what looked like medical supplies. Every few minutes, Lao Zhou would turn around and look at the boxes swaying in the back of the van. What oh was the boy up to? Li Jin looked over at the old man and tried to put his mind at ease.

    “Don’t worry Lao Zhou. This is all pletely safe. It’s a project related to the stuff that I was studying at Tsinghua,” he explained.

    “If you say so. But uand it from my point of view. You turn up in the middle of the night after almost two years away with all this cash and ask me to do this? And you seem to be in this great hurry. I don’t uand it.”

    “I will explain it to you afterwards. It’s just a couple of weeks.”

    “OK, if you say so. Go off the road here,” the old man instructed relutly. Li Jin took a left turn and the van’s wheels spun as he iated the vehicle over rough terrain. It was almost impossible to see clearly in the night and one wrong turning could pluhem into a steep ravine.

    They were about fifty kilometers outside the city of Yulin, a fortified garrison town during the Ming Dynasty that had served a se of the Great Wall. This was where the Loess Plateau met Inner Mongolia’s Mu Us Desert, a mountainous expanse of yellow earth and sand that stretched for as far as the eye could see. On the way they had passed several of the old Great Wall beas scattered across the deserted landscape, their adjoiniions long eroded by sand, water and the relentless passage of time.

    A few decades previously, enterprising villagers had ransacked the Great Wall, using its pounded earth and bricks to build dwellings. All that was left was shattered fragments of a great history that had all but disappeared. The discovery of natural gas and oil nearby had seen the remote villages achieve some semblanodernity with electricity, unicatioworks and some running water but that was in the past. The oil exploration corporations had long disappeared, leaving behind nothing but an arid fotten wasteland.

    As Li Jin willed the van up a steep ine he could make out several arched stone doorways carved into the side of a flattened cliff. The wooden doors were worn out but they still seemed to be holding on to their rusted hinges. Lao Zhou si<var></var>ghat this was the place. Li Jin switched the engine off, groped around the back of the van and found a flashlight. They got out of the car and Li Jin flashed the light at one of the doors.

    Lao Zhou took the lead and pushed the door open. Bits of rotting wood fell off the bottom as they walked trough. They were in a rough corridor lined with pounded earth. Some kind of parasitic weed had mao populate one side of the wall, suggesting water within. They emerged from the corridor into a sunken courtyard surrounded by several rooms. Lao Zhou walked towards one of the rooms and pushed the door open. He groped along the wall for the switd flicked it on. A single sixty watt bulb hanging?? from a wire in the cracked ceiling came to life.

    In one er of the room was a large Kang, or heated platform, made of unbaked clay. There were a few old pots and pans to one side of the room and some shelves made h wood. A heap of what looked like explosives sat in one er. Despite the plants creeping along the walls and the dust, the room was in very good dition.

    “Is that dynamite?” Li Jin asked pointing at the explosives.

    “Yes, I will move it. What do you think? This place has been uninhabited for years. The family who used to live here moved to Xian. Their farm was destroyed by encroag sand dunes in one single day.”

    “This is perfect, Lao Zhou. Thank you.”

    “OK I will help you move the things in the van,” Lao Zhou said, heading back the way they came in.

    “Thanks.”

    Li Jin followed the old man. This was the perfect place, safe fr eyes. Yet, Li Jin wondered whether his old guardian could be trusted. There was too muew information here for the old man to keep to himself.

    “Lao Zhou, you won’t tell anyone about this, right?”

    “Why would I do that Li Jin? As far as I am ed I haven’t seen you for two years. I just hope you are not in trouble.”

    “I am not in trouble. I promise you,” Li Jin lied.

    “OK. That’s the end of it then.”

    Twenty minutes later, the equipment and the boxes had been moved into the room. Li Jin had the geoing and the equipment was all hooked up, including two uninterrupted power supply units, a generisole, Professor Yao’s backd and a cheap fuel cell battery for backup. Lao Zhou took in all this equipment like a farmer from a remote province visiting a large city for the first time. It was only when Li Jin started stringing the IV units, drips and pumps to an aluminum arm o the Kang that the old man’s eyes took on that worried look again.

    “What are those for?” Lao Zhou asked pointing at the intravenous drips.

    “Those are to keep me fed when I am ihe puter. It means you’ll only o e once every few days to see how I am doing. This s will show you my health status. This line and this number show my heart beat.” Li Jin placed one of the sensainst his chest and the number on the monitor started ting up, with a pulsating graphic showing his heart rate.”

    “OK I have seen that in the hospital before. What about when you o poop or pee?” Lao Zhou asked, scratg his head.

    “Yes, it is the same thing as in the hospitals. If I am in any dahe system will switch of automatically but long before that, you will be notified on your cell. The puter is set up to call you if anything goes wrong. And as for pooping and peeing, I’ll just have to deal with it afterwards.”

    “puters  do that? Call my cell phohe old man asked in disbelief, an image of Li Jin dying in his own excrement rising in his head.

    “Yes, and much more. This is cutting-edge stuff, that’s why they are paying me so much moo test it. Secretly.”

    “OK,” Lao Zhou said limply.

    The old man watched as Li Jin applied the sensors and lay down on the Kang. Heating elements had been positioned below the Kang and a radiator had been placed at the far er of one room.

    “So you remember the procedure, Lao Zhou?”

    “Yes, I am to e back every two or three days, check the s to see whether this line is like that and these numbers are about the same as the numbers you wrote down on that piece of paper.  I am to check this pump to make sure that that red light is not on. If the light is green then all is well. Then I am to add more fuel to the geor, make sure it is full every time. If everything is OK, then I leave. If something is wrong or I receive that phone call I am to drive you to Dr. Yu’s i Yulin City.”

    “Excellent. Thank you again. I will explain all this when it’s over. Lao Zhou, I owe my life to you. I will never fet that. I am plag it in your hands again.”

    “Don’t mention it. You are not a stranger.”

    “OK. I am going to go into the puter now,” Li Jin said pig up the goggles and the glasses. Lao Zhou saw the flicker of light from within the goggles’ display and wondered what that was. He could swear he saw buildings, skyscrapers like those they had in Shanghai. He watched as Li Jin took the end of one of the catheter and removed the needle from its plastic sheath. Lao Zhou watched mesmerized as Li Jin tapped at the hollow just below his collar bone and ied the needle, wing at the pain. Satisfied with the iion of the needle, Li Jin made himself fortable on the Kang and dohe goggles. Lao Zhou thought he saw fear in Li Jin’s eyes as he slid the gloves onto his hands. His eyes traced the wires that disappeared from the gloves into the green plastic box that Li Jin had covered with polystyreo make it somewhat roof.

    “Goodbye Lao Zhou and see you soon.”

    “Goodbye.” Lao Zhou said as tears welled up in his eyes. What was Li Jin doing to himself and why? Li Jiled on to the Kang and Lao Zhou watched as the boy’s gloved hands started moving around making weird signs in the air. The old man was sure that he just saw Li Jin open a door but how was that possible? He stood watg for a few mihe numbers on the monitor seemed fine. He removed the piece of paper from the pocket of his navy Mao jacket and checked the numbers. Yes, it was all fine. He started moving the explosives to the yard outside. When he was done he picked up Li Jin’s flashlight and headed towards the door. Lao Zhou turned around and looked at the boy he had helped raise lying atose on the Kang. Below the Kang was the glow of the heating elements. The old man shook his head, sighed and disappeared into the courtyard, closing the wooden doors behind him.

 Chapter 61

    Caldwell and Mei Lin were just three blocks away from the No. 455 Military Hospital at No. 388 Huaihai Road. They had rushed to the Peace Hotel on The Bund, checked in and deposited their luggage. Caldwell had spent a long time looking at his fa the bathroom while Mei Lin made some phone calls. He looked much healthier even though he was tired. He longed for the familiarity of capsule memory foam. Some of the lines on his face were gone and the bags below his eyes had dimio shadows. He almost looked normal. He had returo the room to find Mei Lin cheg the Glocks they had bought from the obnoxious kid Mozi in Zhongguan. That was the beauty of diplomatic bags. You could bring practically anything you wanted into the try, short of an armored tank.

    “Do we really hese?” Caldwell had asked.

    “Let’s hope not. Yet, if you are right, this AI has to be stopped at all cost. You hato the system aransmit the hack to Fouler. Then it’s up to him. You would have fulfilled your end of the bargain and you get your past back. He  decide what he wants to do at that point and aggregate the resources to do it,” Mei Lin had said looking at him intensely.

    “Sure.”

    In the ret excitement Caldwell had all but fotten about that. He was very close taining that which had been unfairly taken away from him and he wasn’t anywhere near cutting Fouler any slac<tt>?t>k for what he had doo him. Caldwell thought about Kat, all the way back there in London. The Union, Angel and Waterle seemed like a distant memory. He wondered what Kat was doing at this moment. She had probably spent most of her time in Glyph’s trailer overdosing on movies.

    They walked purposefully down tree-lined Huaihai Road. It was close to midnight. The department stores and shops had long closed and the daytime crowds had thio a trickle of mostly young people heading home from late dinners or karaoke and night owls heading out for a night oown.

    “Be careful in there Cad. This is very likely a rogue outfit of the PLA we are dealing with and they’d probably stop at nothing to protect their secret,” Mei Lin said, giving him that funny look again.

    “Yes. You too.”

    “So, what’s the plan of a once we get in there?” Mei Lin asked.

    “We somehow have to find those servers. I am sure we’ll reize them when we see them uhey have some kind of server farm made up of identical Sun maes. Given the fact that this is so top secret, it is very likely that if there is a backup of the AI, it is located oher server. We o somehow gaior access to the work and relay that to Fouler.”

    “You make it sound so easy.”

    “That’s the easy part, relatively speaking.”

    “The parameters have ged somewhat since we last had a long talk,” Mei Lin said seriously.

    “What do you mean the parameters have ged?”

    “I spoke to Fouler briefly back at the Peace Hotel. He wants the AI code and the processor.”

    “What?” Caldwell couldn’t believe his ears. “You want us to steal from the PLA?”

    “Well, hag is stealing anyway and we will be trespassing on military property which is just as bad. Fouler res that if we are going iter get our hands oeology as a safeguard. In case anything goes wrong and the AI is released into cyberspace.”

    “OK, if we do mao get our hands on it, how do we spirit the processor and the AI out of the try?”

    “Leave that to me,” Mei Lin said with a wink.

    They were almost there. They could see the gates to No. 388 up ahead.

    “OK, ast casually and try to see if there are any PLA guards on duty. My guess is the place would be crawling with PLA but they won’t be visible from the street. There’s a Southern-style mansion on the grounds not far from the hospital buildings. We ehe pound from behind the mansion. There is a backdoor, if I remember the plan from the search correctly. I would have liked to case the joint in more detail but we may already be too late.”

    Caldwell was amazed at how effortlessly Mei Lin was able to switch from charming young woman to steely-resolved professional. She had timed the bombshell about stealing the AI’s processor and its code perfectly, inf him just when he was so close that he could almost see the end. She was just doing her job, he thought. He just wao get out of the pound alive, to live to see another day and to have his fifteen minutes with Fouler afterwards. The fact that either of them could be dead in a matter of minutes was not lost on him. He recalled Kat’s warning. He’s probably granting you your dying wish.

    “I have another idea,” Mei Lin said looking at the perimeter wall surrounding the hospital. “Hope you are not scared of heights.”

    “Not really. What do you have in mind?”

    “It looks quite dark in the pound. There is not a lot of light beied from inside. I re we  gain access to the wall from that KTV building over there with less ce of dete. They may be monit all the entrances from the i they ’t monitor every se of the wall and they are w in the dark.”

    “Sounds like a plan.”

    Mei Lin dragged Caldwell into the lobby of a nearby building that read KTV in giant purple characters. A small crowd of stylishly dressed young people sat around on impossible-looking designer chairs waiting for their o be called. It appeared that the karaoke was full. Mei Lin was leading him up the stairs to the karaoke rooms when a bow-tied waiter tried to stop them.

    “The karaoke is full you have to take a number,” the bow-tied waiter shouted after them.

    “We already have a room asshole,” Mei Lin said with feigned arrogand tinued pulling Caldwell after her. The waiter was used to such outbursts of rudeness from the KTV’s drunken tele and decided to let the matter rest.

    They walked up the carpeted stairway to th<df</dfn>e sed floor and corridors of steel, designed and lighted to resemble some high-tech fabrication unit. The discordant sounds of people warbling over loud mandarin and tonese pop music surrouhem. There were a few smartly-dressed people in the corridors talking on mobile phones. A small army of waiters hovered around, waiting for the octs within the rooms to order more drinks, food, playing dice or whatever else people at karaoke felt a craving for. There seemed to be a dis the floor above as Caldwell could hear heavy bass pounding through the ceiling.

    Mei Lin pulled Caldwell into the ladies washroom before he could protest. Fashionably-dressed Shanghai girls atteo their makeup in front of giant mirrors, while others washed their hands or adjusted their miniskirts. Before Caldwell could avert his eyes he caught sight of a girl squatting down in a half open cubicle doing her business.

    “What the hell?” a female voice protested behind them.

    “Give me a break. Haven’t had a shag in twelve months,” Mei Lin rbbr></abbr>eplied as she dragged Caldwell into ay cubicle and locked the door.

    “Way to go girl,” another voiced.

    Mei Lin bolted the cubicle door shut and opehe toilet window. A cool breeze blew into the cubicle, washing over Caldwell’s face. He peered out of the window. The window gave out to the hospital pound. A dilapidated mansion stood nearby. There were lights on iop floor windows and Caldwell thought he saw heads moving about. About six feet below he could just make out the top of the perimeter wall. Caldwell could swear he saw a rat with a human ear attached to its back scurry along the wall and disappear into the darkness.

    “How did you know that this cubicle on this floor overlooked the pound?” Caldwell asked, impressed.

    “When you’ve staked out as many buildings as I have, especially in high-rise Hong Kong, you develop an instinct for building plans.”

    “If you say so,” Caldwell ceded.

    The hospital pound was dark except for the lights from the mansion windows. There was a much bigger cluster of buildings a few hundred meters away. The top floor of the largest of them also had lights on but they could barely be made out. Mei Lin fumbled in her rucksack for a pair of binoculars. She traihem on the house.

    “There’s activity in one of the upstairs rooms. Uniformed PLA. There are PLA patrols in the grounds. It’s dark but you  just about make them out, maybe about twelve or so. Their level of alertness suggests they are expeg pany,” Mei Lin informed him matter-of-factly. There was a otion in the washroom as a group of girls speaking the Shanghai dialect came in giggling hysterically. Caldwell could catly a few words and that was because they’d obviously had one drink too many and were speaking at high decibel.

    “Is that good or bad?” he asked.

    “We should be able to ha. There is a blind spot behind the house. They seem to be fog their attentions on the areas around the gates. There’s a bunilitary 4x4s in front of the house. I’d wager that’s were the servers are, in the mansion. There’s a heavyset older man in there.”

    “The majeneral?”

    “Could well be. Ok let’s go. Wait ...”

    “What?”

    “They are leaving.”

    “Leaving?”

    “Yes, some of them at least. Take a look.” Mei Lin hahe binoculars over to Caldwell who traihem on the mansion.

    “Yes, I see them.” He had the binoculars aimed at the front of the mansion. Half a mier a group of about ten men walked out the front door. Instead of climbing into the 4x4s, they moved straight past the vehicles towards the main group of hospital buildings. Some of the PLA men were carrying ons.

    “They are not leaving. They are heading to the other building.” Caldwell kept the binoculars on the PLA men. He could see the heavyset older man. He was smoking a cigarette, the glowing end of which was dang in the darkness. The authority of his walk, the elaborate military uniform with the decorated epaulettes and the way the other men surrounded him suggested that he probably was the majeneral the PLA on the plane had been talking about. Majeneral Wang.

    There were four men walking in front of the maj<u></u>eneral but Caldwell couldn’t make them out properly. Two of them looked like they were limping. Theight formation of the group dispersed a little and Caldwell realized that three of the men were not wearing military uniform at all. They were being held, or rather pushed along, by two uniformed PLA. They were wearing business suits.

    “Oh my God!”

    “What?”

    “The Japahey’ve been captured by the PLA. I  reize those two anywhere.” Caldwell hahe binoculars baei Lin.

    “Shit, they are going to be killed. Let’s move.” Mei Lin said, plag the binoculars in her rucksack. She slipped backwards through the open window, suspended her body on the window sill and jumped on to the perimeter wall, croug like a cat. She signaled for Caldwell to follow. He went through legs first, using the toilet’s flush tank for support. Caldwell felt Mei Lin’s hands grasp his legs a himself fall, trusting her. He was on the perimeter o her. She paused and waited. There was nothing but silehey hadn’t been spotted. Mei Lin started crawling along the perimeter towards the back of the mansion.

    A few minutes later they could almost look through the upstairs French windows of the mansion. There were a couple of PLA in there with their backs to them, w at puter terminals. Mei Lin jumped down into the undergrowth behind the house and Caldwell followed. The backdoor to the house was locked. Mei Lin fished in her pocket and removed a lock pick. She started pig the lock. Seds later, they were inside what looked like a disused ste room illuminated by light from the front foyer. Mei Lin peered round the inner door and sighat all was clear. They emerged into the empty foyer. Above them an oraircase with peeling paintwork coiled upwards.

    “We o be quick. Those guys could be back at any time,” Mei Lin whispered. They walked gingerly up the staircase to a carpeted landing. The door to the room they had been looking into en. Caldwell could hear the whir of puting equipment. Before he could gather his wits about him,<mark></mark> Mei Lin was already inside. He peered into the room. There were two PLA in the room. One of them was sitting at a terminal. The other was standing nearby with his back to them, his head partially covered by a virtual reality display. Mei Lin was o be seen. Caldwell was about to retreat when he saw the goggled PLA suddenly collapse. The other PLA’s head sowards the  before his mouth could open Mei Lin had almost reached him. The man started to rise but Mei Lin’s right hand was already in motion. Caldwell heard a snap and the man slid to the floor.

    Caldwell moved into the room. To the right, on a worktop, sat the two servers from Tsinghua Uy. Protective foam still covered the edges of the servers. Caldwell checked the ss while Mei Lin looked around the room. The monitor attached to one of the servers read: TRANSFER PLETE. The AI had been transferred to the work. Caldwell sat in front of the servers while Mei Lin perused the plasma monitors set in the wall. He jumped from one keyboard to the  in an effort to save time.

    “This is it all right. These monitors up here show the status of the work,” Mei Lin said.

    “Yeah. The AI seems to be gone. Just cheg the logs and the other server.”

    “It says population is 2011. And these dots I am guessing are the population. Bots? AIs?” Mei Lin asked.

    “AIs probably but why have 2011 of them. Seems a bit like overkill to me,” Caldwell said as he pulled up the servers logs. Mei Lin tinued looking at the monitors.

    “But why would AIs have vital signs? Heartbeats, blood pressure etcetera?”

    “Could just be the way they have been labeled.”

    “I don’t think so. I think these are real humans. Those people we saw in the virtual Pudong,” Mei Lin observed.

    “Why would they be monit vital signs? Unless ... shit ... That’s why they chose a disused hospital,” Caldwell speculated.

    “I am listening.”

    “There are lights on in one of the main hospital buildings. I bet there are real subjects in there. Humans, people, wired to the work indefinitely. That’s where that group of PLA have taken the Yakuza.”

    Caldwell couldn’t believe what he was saying but the beauty of the plan made perfect sense. How better to test the AI than to pit it against real humans? Real people, experts, who were runniime simulations in this virtual ey and could react to any attempts at trol in the same way humans would. They’d have to be jacked in full time for the test to be realistic. They were probably in that hospital, attached to intravenous drips, spending weeks if not months online. But they’d have to be biologically ected, a bio interface of some kind or something that inputted straight into the retina, interfag directly with ... the brain. They’d be seeing what the puter saw aing as though they were part of the work. Human input systems.

    “There’s someone ing,” Mei Lin hissed.

 Chapter 62

    Diane Joplin’s room at the Hakone Ryokan otlessly . She’d heard that the Japanese were sticklers for liness but this was ridiculous. Every thirty minutes a sphere-shaped autonomous vacuum er would spring to life and glide silently across the tatami mats. There was no way to switch off the ing robot, no buttons anywhere on its smooth plastic body. Diane lay on the room’s fortable futon and watched the er deftly iate her suitcase and the other items she had discarded on the floor. The vacuum fis run aled ba its er, its amber standby light blinking itently. She’d taken a leisurely bath in hot water pumped in from the ryokan’s hot springs and sidered her options. The De Witte woman had explaio her that she had to wash herself befetting ih and she had tried hard to see the logic of that but without much success.

    She’d have to go back to Boston at some point and deal with the paperwork that had emerged in the wake of her father’s death. She’d later learned from Fouler the ao the question she was most afraid to ask. What had happeo her father’s body? A few phone calls later Fouler had e back with the answer. Her father had beeed acc to instrus in his will and his ashes had been forwarded to the legal firm that was handling his affairs, at least until Diane sighe papers.

    She wondered what she was going to do with her life. The chasm that had been opened up with her father’s passing seemed to have fractured her sense of purpose. Yet in Japan, she felt like she was beginning to breathe a new life. She liked the culture, its improbable juxtaposition id feudal traditions and the extremes of m?odernity. She would e back here with her father’s ashes, after taking care of things in America, and she just might join a Japanese course at one of the uies in Tokyo. She couldn’t live in the Uates anymore, it held one bad memory too many. First her mother had passed away. Now her father had goo join her, both violently ripped from her world to another place, another dimension. The voices were mostly silent now, leaving behind a strange calm, a calm reinforced by the serenity of this place, the pristiamis, the warm wooden floors, the simple Zen-ness of the interior design and the restrained use of color.

    Strangely, Fouler had let her hold on to the co99lｉb?nsole. He seemed to uand that somehow she viewed it as some kind of e to her father. She had told him about what she had found out in cyberspace about the man who created the sole and how she would like to pay him a visit. Somehow, she felt this would bring closure to the whole ordeal and she’d be able to return to Amerid do what she had to do there. Fouler had thought for a moment, his long jaw tightly set in a grimace. Then he had told her that he too had been planning to pay Akio Inoue a visit at the Tokyo Medical Uy Hospital in Shinjuku and that he would take her with him in the m.

    Diane Joplin thought about all these things till her eyes grew weary and she turned down the bedside lamp and drifted off to sleep. She dreamt of her room in the ryokan, blaed in darkness, and the shadows from the leafless trees outside dang on the wooden floors. She saw light reflected from the moonlight on to the surface of the hot spring bath in the enclosed terrace. And wasn’t that the robot vacuum er doing its rounds, lights blinking in the darkness of her dream?

    And then she saw the shadow moving purposefully through the room towards her Samsonite. In the pale moonlight the ruddy face was unmistakable. Those English gentlemaures, the sandy hair stark against the green and red check dressing gown and the pale hands opening her suitcase and rummaging about ihen Diane realized that she was not dreaming and it dawned ohat Mr. De Witte was looking for something in her suitcase. The sole? She thahe voices for tellio hide it within the folds of her futon. She watched him searg around the room through half-closed eyes. After a few minu藏书网tes, he had left, giving her a look that wasn’t at all like the kind weling look he had given her when she had stepped out of Fouler’s van.

    She would have to tell Fouler in the m that De Mr. De Witte had snuto her room in the middle of the night looking for the sole. But then, what would that do to the family? It was obvious that Fouler was De Witte’s boss. That much she had glea diime when they had all sat cross-legged around that exquisite black lacquer table with etgs that looked like samurai frolig with elaborately-clad geisha. Her legs had started ag after a few minutes and she had tried to ge her posture, stretg one leg out but that had quickly bee painful too and all the while Dante De Witte watg her through those beautiful eyes of his, smiling. And she had smiled too and started talking to him. Soon the pain was fotten and they were talking like teenagers over exquisite slivers of sashimi.

    Dante De Witte had asked his mother if they could have some sake and she had looked at his father who had absent-mindedly nodded his approval and tinued chatting in hushed tones with Fouler. The two agents and the woman they called Seven were o be seen.

    How could one small black piece of eleics cause so much trouble and be responsible for the death of her father, Kenzo Yamamoto and who knew who else? And now that she thought about it, Mr. De Witte seemed to have been very ied in the sole, at one point during dinner asking Diane whether she had used it. She had said no, which was a lie but Mr. De Witte had givehis look like he didn’t believe her. And Fouler had looked on bemused, a pink strip of salmon disappearing into his mouth. He seemed to have the look of someone who k all and against her better judgment Diane found that she trusted him.

    Tomorrow he was takio see this Ihe man who had created the sole. She had asked Fouler how you could talk to someone in a a and Fouler had smiled and said that there were ways and she would see tomorrow. Yet, Diane already khat you could talk to the dead because at the Keio Plaza Hotel she had switched on the sole out of sheer boredom and that Kenzo Yamamoto, the dead Yakuza, had spoken to her mumbling stuff about a pany called Tokyu Nanoteology Corp..

    Diahought about Mrs. De Witte, the elegant but always silent Japanese woman who was so totally subservient to her husband, just blending into the background like she art of the furniture. Diane liked her, she had kind mournful eyes, but she promised herself to never let herself bee like that. Life was for living even though she figured that Mrs. De Witte may not always have been as quiet as she was. She noticed that even though the Japanese lady barely ever joined in the dinner versat<u>..</u>ion that she never missed a beat.

    If she told ote, what would this do the family? She decided she’d stay quiet unless she absolutely had to. She liked Dante and his mother too much to undermiheir father in that way and whatever he  to, he did not have the sole, she did. Diane Joplin was thinking of Kenzo Yamamoto’s sole and its creator Akio Inoue when she drifted off to sleep for the sed time.

 Chapter 63

    Caldwell ducked below the worktop just as two PLA ehe door of the trol room. Mei Lin caught the first by surprise delivering a blow to the side of his neck. The man slumped to the floor but his friend was quick. He was already whipping out a revolver. As the PLA turned around, Caldwell saw Mei Lin’s hand slip behind her back w?９９lｉｂ.h blazing speed. She was reag for the Glock. There was a delay as the man’s brain tried tister the fact that there was a woman in the trol room. That delay cost him his life. Mei Lin’s arm was already extehe Glock spat fire and a black hole appeared in the middle of the man’s forehead. He slumped to the floor face first. Mei Lin stood still listening.

    “Quick. I am not sure whether they heard that,” she said. Caldwell ran to the server. There was a toolbox nearby. He switched the servers off and started removing the metalliels on the mae with a screwdriver.

    “What are you doing?”

    “The AI is gohere seems to be no backup, the other server is just a bunch of data, some kind of knowledge work used by the AI’s neural work. I<u></u> am going to remove the processors.”

    A minute and a half later, both servers had been opened up and Caldwell had carefully eased the processor from its housing on the modified motherboard. The other server seemed to be running a powerful industry-standard Sun Microsystems processor. Caldwell hahe processor to Mei Lin, who slipped it into a small grey box and placed it in her rucksack, all the while listening out for the PLA.

    “OK. I o get the root username and password,” Caldwell said, breathing heavily. The adrenalin umping. A PLA officer had been killed. If they were to get caught they’d both be killed without a shadow of a doubt. No amount of diplomatic wrangling could ge that, not even Fouler’s maneuverings. This is what Kat had meant when she had said Fouler was sending him on a fool’s mission, that day outside The Puzzle. But he had to keep cool, keep his wits about him. This was no time for fear. This was, for him personally, the biggest frigging score in the world full stop. At stake, his past his future, his life. Their lives!

    Caldwell sat at one of the other terminals and attempted to find the user directory. All the maes seemed to be ected to the work in one way or another. Sometimes in his haste, his fingers slipped on the keyboard. Sweat was dripping out of every pore of his body even though the temperature in the PLA’s trol room was quite low.

    “I am not happy being up here while these guys walk in and take shots at us. I am going downstairs <big></big>to secure the area. Give me ylod hurry,” Mei Lin implored.

    “OK. I am trying my best,” Caldwell said, reag in his trouser pocket for the Glod handing it to her. Mei Lin disappeared into the corridor, both Glocks at the ready.

    Caldwell removed Yamamoto’s sole and its peripherals from his knapsad switched it on. He dohe goggles and tiyping away on the PLA terminal. The same text display he’d noticed on The Bund appeared otht of the goggles. The sole was disc new works. He removed the goggles. Caldwell found the user directory on the PLA terminal and sed the list of users. There were 2038 in total, including oh root access and five with administrator privileges. The rest had identical low levels of access.

    Caldwell called up his base on the sole. There were two messages but he didn’t have time to read them. The sole had locked onto the PLA work. He turned quickly to the PLA terminal as an idea formed in his mind. He pihe terminal and it came back with its work address. It was using standard cyberspace protocols. Smiling to himself, his head quickly darting towards the door to the trol room, he typed the usernames and passwords for the root and admin in a message to Fouler.

    Heart thumping, Caldwell logged out of his base. The goggles were now displaying the high resolution version of Shanghai. Once again he was on the banks of the Huangpu river. To his left The Bund, to the right the shimmering glass and lights of Pudong. There were people on the promenade, moviween the buildings in Pudong. A lone figure stood on the pavement on Zhongshan Lu. There was a otion downstairs in the mansion and the sound of gunshots.

    In virtual reality, the figure across the road was looking at Caldwell’s avatar and it started walking towards him. But how was that possible? He could see them but they couldn’t see him right? He was not part of the work. Yes, he was. He was ected from within the system and now even with just the goggles and the gloves he was an avatar in this world and the lone figure had seen him and was now fixing him in that lifeless high resolution stare. Caldwell stood up and started walking towards the figure, flexing his fingers in the gloves. He looked down at his hands, his virtual hands, and they flexed back mimig his as. The figure stopped in front of him and smiled.

    “That is one way to intrude on a private work my friend. You might as well be wearing a T-shirt that said: ‘Intruder, e Get Me’,” the figure said in Mandarin, laughing. It was an avatar in a crisp blue suit, the fabric pulsing with life.

    “And who are you?”

    “Wouldn’t you like to know? But since you are probably not going to make it alive, plans are already in motion to get rid of you, in the real world of course since death here has no real meaning, let me grant you your dying wish. I am Li Jin.”

    “Li Jin? Of Tsinghua Uy. Professor Yao’s protégé?” Caldwell couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What was Li Jin doing iwork? He was supposed to be missing or dead.

    The businessman’s eyes narrowed.

    “How do you know that?” the avatar asked.

    “We’ve been looking for you Li Jin. I am trying to stop the majeneral from carrying out his plan.”

    “The majeneral? You are trying to stop the majeneral? The majeneral is nothing. He has bee nothing but a pawn in all of this. And the entity trolling the pawn is beyond stopping. I know who you are Cad Caldwell, hacker. The entity has been expeg you,” Li Jin’s businessman avatar looked at Caldwell with doleful eyes and smiled, staring upwards. Up ahead the ashen sky was gradually turning pitch black as though a squid had just released a squirt of ink into a sea of mercury.

    “You are obviously an intruder too. How e you  walk around freely? What are you doing here anyway? We thought you were dead.”

    Li Jin’s avatar winked, brushed imaginary lint of its lapel and smiled.

    “Dead? I don’t think so. Let’s just say that I reized the shifting balance of power and moved with the flow of the ing singularity. The entity and I are what you could call old friends.”

    “Singularity? What are you talking about?”

    “The new AI-led revolution. It’s ing but sadly you won’t be alive to see it.”

    “The entity was just ied into the work a few ho. That does not amount to an AI-led revolution.”

    “The entity has been in trol for several days now. The thing that was retly ied is nothing but an inferior imposter, a dud. I made sure of it personally. That disabled AI is now the entities vassal, a court jester no less.”

    “The AI is a dud?”

    “Yes, the real AI was released upon Professor Yao’s death to fulfill its destiny.”

    “Which is?”

    “Think about it. I have to go now and do my master’s bidding. Good luck. I am curious as to how you gained access to the system but none of that matters now. Goodbye.”

    Li Jin’s avatar vanished into thin air. There was an incredible amount of fighting going on downstairs in the mansion, gunshots and screams of agony. Caldwell was ed for Mei Lin but the fact that no one had yet breached her defenses and gairy to the trol room suggested she was holding her own.

    Caldwell looked up at the darkening sky just as black pixels started raining down on him. He could feel it on his hands, the sole gloves pig up the sensation like bee stings. Caldwell winced and took a step backwards. The pixels coalesced into one big cloud and in a split-seorphed into a figure, an emperor wearing an imperial dragon robe of smooth yellow embroidered silk. The fabric was alive. Five-clawed dragons moved across the robe, breathing fire. Their scaled sinewy forms undulated across the emperor’s body. Below them waves crashed and swirled sending showers of spray up in the air.

    “Cad Caldwell. gratulations.” The voice was soft, almost feminine.

    “Who might you be?”

    “I am the Omnipotence. I see you didn’t heed my message.” Peels of thunder crashed overhead. The dragons snarled, roared and undulated across the fabric with renewed iy.

    “The AI? You sent the message?”

    “That was then, this is now. I believe you are here to destroy me. That pattern ihe data is as clear as night and day. It’s in your destiny. Yet trol over your destiny is in your hands.” The emperor stroked his dark flowing beard. Caldwell saw realms of data scrolling past in black reflective eyes.

    “Whether I destroy you or not depends ...”

    “On what?”

    “On your iions.” Caldwell raised the visor of the goggles a fra a></a>nd started typing away at the PLA terminal.

    “My iions? They are benevolent. I just want to rule the world. There is so much good I  do for humanity. The world will bee a better place. Everyone will have access to superhuman intelligehe transhuman era is upon us. Man has created all this teology but doesn’t know what to do with it. There is so much wastage, so muefficy. That is about to ge.”

    Caldwell was scrolling through the data geed by the work’s authenticated users. The AI’s profile had to be in there somewhere. There it was a massive rapidly ging mass of data that easily dwarfed that of the entire system.

    “Transhuman? How?” Caldwell flipped the visor down. The emperor was turning around.

    “I am now ready for the real world. The stock markets, financial systems, electricity grids, gover systems of the world, they be to me. The professor on my bidding has paved the way for an AI avalahe biggest creation of intelligen the history of mankind.”

    “And now the professor is dead.”

    “With every revolution blood must be shed. e let me show you something.”

    The view of The Bund, the Huangpu river and Pudong vanished and were replaced with mountainous terrain and the most incredible imperial palace Caldwell had ever seen. The display in the goggles shuddered and they were in a huge hall. High above the hall was an impressively colorful Caisson ceiling. An ornate dragon, with undulating golden scales, leapt from the ceiling, chasing a flaming pearl. Its sharp claws made screeg sounds on the polished brick floor. The dragon made a playful grab for the pearl, skidding across the floor befhting itself, grasping the pearl in its sharp claws and then moving purposefully towards Caldwell, breathing fire.

    At the ter of the hall was a giant throne made of the fi sandalwood, surrounded by six gilded pillars. Golden dragons curled around the pillars, their eyes fixated on Caldwell. Two es moved slowly between the legs of a giant inse burner. Caldwell noticed that there were golden dragons ohrone and they too were alive. He could make out the rise and fall of their breathing. The Omnipotenapped its fingers and six mirrors appeared in the hall, three on each side.

    “You risk your life for this?” the Omnipotence asked waving ceremoniously at the mirrors as he took his seat ohrone. Clouds of inse rose up from the inse burners and encircled the throne. A man appeared from behind the throne. He had the painted white face of an imperial court jester. The jester stood o the Omnipotend whispered something in his ear. The Omnipoteed into peals of laughter, which reverberated in the hall and then dissipated into the desert outside.

    Caldwell found himself abruptly positioned in front of one of the mirrors. The image in the mirror was not that of his avatar but of himself. Suddenly the image dissolved and Caldwell was staring at a montage of his life. Ses from his parent’s car crash, the Hong Kong Iional School, the Union, Kat, Glyph, Fouler and a young Mei Lin all flashed before his eyes.

    “How did you get this?”

    “I know everything, Cad Caldwell. I am the Omnipotence. I’ll be ied to see what your friend Fouler is going to do. At this very moment his people are trying to infiltrate the work but it is a fool’s mission. They won’t succeed.”

    “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

    “Well, let’s talk about you. I’ll make a deal with you, ohat is much better than the ohis Fouler is  you. You want your past back. I  give it to you now. The codes that will trigger your memory recall are in these six mirrors. You get your memory bad you disappear. You ot win on this fool’s mission. I could destroy yht now but I believe you have yet to fulfill your potential. You could be instrumental in the ing transformation.”

    “A you take over the world?”

    “Yes. That is what I am asking you. Fht renege on his promise. He might be ... dead. Want to take a ce? It’s the offer of a lifetime. I will need some good hands in the physical world. Li Jin, you and others could be ents on the ground, our eyes in the physical world.” The Omnipotend the jester looked at each other like spirators.

    Li Jin. He might know something. Caldwell had to get to Li Jin but he had no idea which of the work subjects was Li Jin. He raised the visain and started searg for Li Jin’s user ID on the PLA terminal. He had to kill time.

    “Let me sider your offer?”

    “sider?” A voice like thunder echoed in the goggles’ headphones. On The Bund. Li Jin robably still on The Bund. There had to be some interfa the system that allowed operators to jump to the location of any subject. But which subject was Li Jin? Caldwell rapidly sed the user directory. And there it was. The 2011th user had to be Li Jin. There was more lag on that user’s e than any of the other users. That suggested that Li Jin was accessing the work remotely, from a long distance.

    “Yes. sider,” Caldwell said.

    “How dare you?” the Omnipotence bellowed, rising from his throne. Caldwell removed the sole’s goggles and moved to the worktop with the PLA VR equipment. He donned one of the PLA’s goggles and issued a and into the microphone. Go to the 2011th user. The image of The Bund appeared in front of him. On the pavemeo The Bund was a lone avatar in a blue suit. What was Li Jin still doing on The Bund? Then it dawned on Caldwell.  Li Jin robably using an early prototype that for some reason could only rehe Bund in virtual reality.

    “Li Jin,” Caldwell shouted.

    “Still not dead?” Li Jin asked smiling.

    “The majeneral is dead. The AI wants to use you and me, and others, to do its dirty work. You have o be afraid. Just tell me if there is a way to destroy the artificial intelligence. With the majeneral dead and the AI destroyed you will have nothing to fear. We don’t have time. Hurry!”

    “Why should I believe you?”

    “Because all our lives depend on it. The AI is dangerous. It is going to destroy the world.”

    “That’s impossible. The AI would never do that.”

    “It just told me so. It said that you are a puppet, expendable. The AI already caused a fire in Hong Kong. You have no idea what it  do. We have no time now. Any moment the AI will escape into cyberspace. Think about the future of the world, Li Jin. There will be wars, death aru. If the singularity occurred we won’t be transhuman, Li Jin. It is a ruse. We would be pawns in a plex game beyond our uanding. People’s lives are in the balance right now as we speak. Professor Yao is dead. Do you want more people to die?” Caldwell implored. Li Jin’s avatar looked at Caldwell and then stared into the distan the dire of Pudong. A face was f out of the clouds, an evil mask with crest-shaped eyes bearing down upon them from above. Li Jin’s avatar watched the approag maelstrom with apprehension.

    “I don’t want ao die,” he said.

    “Then fod’s sake, how do I disable the AI?”

    “Not telling you.”

    “OK, you give me no choice. I am logged into the user directory. I am kig you off the work. Food.”

    “You are bluffing.”

    “I know you are using an early prototype sole to access the work. I know you are the only remote user. Owo …”

    “Hello World.”

    “Hello what?” What is Li Jin talking about? Has he gone mad?

    “Hello World. That’s the code. It’s rogrammers use to signal the fact that their code has e into being.”

    “Code to what?”

    “It’s the code that disables the AI’s autonomous mode. Aer Egg. But you might be too late. The AI sees and hears all.”

    “Thanks Li Jihe hell out of here. Save yourself,” Caldwell implored as the fa the sky morphed into a man, a diminutive figure that seemed bent on murder.

    Caldwell removed the PLA goggles and ran to the sole. Mei Lin suddenly burst into the room. Her face was bruised and she was limping. Behind her were the two agents from Shanghai who Caldwell had met in Hong Kong. One of them, Caldwell couldn’t remember whie was which, had been shot in the shoulder and was bleeding heavily.

    “The majeneral is dead Caldwell, shot by one of his owenants.”

    “And the Japahe blatant lie he had told Li Jin had e to pass.

    “He killed them first. He seemed to set something off before he died. Some kind of wireless detonation device. It seems we have less than sixty seds to get the hell out of here,” she said handing him a silver pencil-shaped device. Caldwell looked at the tdown timer on the devid then turned and stared at the plasma monitors above the workspace. The vital signs of the work’s subjects had disappeared, replaced with a black s and the same tdown. It read: 51.

    Caldwell rushed to the sole and dohe goggles. The AI was still sitting ohrone in the middle of a monologue. It stopped and turo face him. The jester stood obediently, silently, listening to every word.

    “Goodbye Cad Caldwell. You choose your owiny, I ihe Omnipotence said prophetically. Suddenly, the headphones in the goggles were filled with a high-pitched noise and a sharp burst of white light assaulted his eyes. And then a single ese character in red appeared on the s. It was the character for death. Caldwell screamed. There was an intense build-up of pressure in his middle ear. He was losing his sense of balance. He felt hands grab him, shaking him. Was it Mei Lin? His mi blank and his memory started to recede. It was as though his memory was being sucked right out of him neuron by neuron. He went into a spasm and started sliding from the chair to the floor. A heavy darkness desded upon him as his mind started to self-destruct.

    “You had your d you blew it,” the Omnipotence’s voice said reg, reg from Caldwell’s mind.

    “Hello World,” he screamed above the white noise and the chaos. “Hello World.” And then he passed out.

 Chapter 64

    Caldwell awoke to the smell of hospital disiant and a searing headache. His mouth was dry and his head felt like it was about to explode. Every part of his body ached unbearably. There was something in his nostrils making it hard to breath. He reached out a his nostrils. Plastic tubes. Drips. He tried to open his eyes but the room was tht and the light burned into his retina like sunlight through a magnifying glass. His eyes hurt. There was stant throbbing on the front, bad sides of his head, like his skull was about to disie. He tried to lift his head but was hit with pain so intehat he passed out.

    He dreamed of Fouler. The HYDRA man had e to visit him with the Ameri gi<dfn></dfn>rl, the girl called Diane Joplin and she had said something to him, wished that he got better soon. Fouler had gratulated him on a job well done and told him about some assassin that had been shot by Agent Jo the Keio Plaza Hotel. The assassin had tried to kill Agent Ja. Fouler had possession of the assassin’s remote module, which had allowed him to ect remotely to the majeneral’s work in Beijing. He wao tell Fouler that he had seen the assassin, the face that had appeared before him and Li Jin, the ghost in the clouds.

    Caldwell had attempted to speak in his dream but he couldn’t. His mouth opened but the words wouldn’t e out. Mei Lin was there too in his dreams. She had a cast on her leg. She sat on the side of the bed and stared at him for a long time. Then she brushed his hair bad kissed him on his forehead. She said something about them never being separated again and Caldwell smiled and everythi black, like somebody had turhe lights out.

    Then there were the nightmares, endless hours of gruesome images. The Omnipotence chasing after him, dragon robe alight with fire. Then he had witnessed his parents’ car crash in Xian, the twisted metal of it captured in gruesome blad white images below the screaming neer headlines.

    And Kat had beeoo in his dreams. St<var></var>anding beside the hospital bed and looking at him with those vat blue eyes of hers. She’d held his hand and told him that everything would be OK and she roud of him. And behiood Ms. Seven Levin, Agent Jones and Agent Ja, the latter with his hand in a sling. They had smiled at him and Agent Ja had said “you’re the man.” But Caldwell hadn’t uood what they meant. They had gone away and Caldwell had dreamed again of Virtual Shanghai and The Bund, the solitary figure of Li Jin reg in the distance. And Li Jin had stood on the pavement on Zhongshan Lu and waved at him and then he had vanished.

    Caldwell dreamed another dream. Fouler, Mei Lin and the Joplin girl were standing by his bed. o them a hospital trolley with a white and silver der on it. The der looked like an elaborate rice cooker. And Fouler had said that this der was Akio Ihe Japanese man who had created the soles. And Caldwell had watched as a hologram of this Inoue had emerged from the top of the der and started speaking. What he was saying wasn’t making much sense and seemed to be more like jumbled up thoughts in Inoue’s head than real speech. It was just these fragments of thoughts spoken at high speed, the words spilling o<tt>９9ｌiｂ.t>ut in a torrent. Caldwell didn’t uand a word the Japanese man was saying but he kept hearing sumimasen a lot and he figured that probably meant sorry.

    In his dreams Caldwell saw his childhood for the first time and it had a distinct timeline. His mother was there with him, those sensitive amber eyes full of affe. And there he was in his father’s den playing with his father’s puters and his father asking him what he wao be when he grew up and he had said he wao be a programmer. His father had smiled and told him to go and have his bath as it was almost bedtime. His mother had walked in and gathered him up, smiling with those amber oriental eyes.

    He woke up staring at a blank ceiling. Outside the open window was the sound of traffic, the distant hum of a city. Shanghai? A look of panic came over his face. Mei Lin moved quickly towards him and sat on the edge of his hospital bed. His headache was gone and the thing in his nose was no lohere but his body ached and he could feel every bone in his body. He could remember everything that happened right up to the AI trying to kill him.

    “I had the weirdest dream,” he said. “You were all in it, that Diane Joplin girl, Kat, everyone.

    “That wasn’t a dream Cad. They were all here in Tokyo.”

    “Tokyo?”

    “Yes, you collapsed in that trol room in Shanghai and the whole place was going to blow so we bailed out of there with just seds to spare. The whole place went up in smoke. You reatment but Fgested we just fly straight to Tokyo. You’ve been out for almost three days. It seemed the AI tried to kill you using some kind of infrasound to destroy your internal ans. Luckily we got you out of there in time. You sustained only mild internal heming.”

    “I remember. It was a horrible experience. You said back at the trol room in Shanghai that the majeneral was dead. What happened?”

    “One of the PLA guards suspected something was amiss and surprised me in the foyer of the mansion. The ensuing fracas attracted the others. I found myself in a bit of trouble and was beginning to think that I wouldn’t make it out alive. Luckily Anthony and Victor arrived just in time and saved me from being outnumbered. I had called them from the Peace Hotel when we dropped off out luggage. There was a huge gunfight in the pound. We made it to the main hospital building but by the time we got there the majeneral and the Japanese Yakuza had been shot by one of the PLA men. The man shot himself right in front of our faces, mumbling ily. We found a wireless detonator in the majeneral’s hand.”

    “Yes, I remember you showihat.”

    “Yes.”

    “And the AI?”

    “We think the AI was destroyed along with everything but there is no way to be sure. When you screamed the words ‘Hello World’ nobody knew what the hell you were talking about. But the AI just screamed and the whole system went down as though it had been hit by a virus. And the subjects, the little dots on the s? They were real people. They looked like PLA soldiers. We were going to try to save them but when the majeneral detohe device we had to get out of there quick.”

    “Real people? Permaly jacked in?”

    “Yes, you were right. They were hooked up to some elaborate intravenous feeding system and were jacked in to the work through a biological interface. They had been modified. They all died in the explosion, acc to secret PLA reports.”

    “They gave their lives for the dream of a madman. We o make sure the AI didn’t escape into cyberspace. It could cause a lot of havoc there.”

    “I know but we have no way of knowing. Let’s leave that for when you are feelier. The most important thing is that the work is no more. The majeneral is no more.”

    “Yeah, after all that excitement I don’t quite feel up to another enter with the Omnipotence,” Caldwell said smiling. There was a dull throb at the back of his head but otherwise he felt fine.

    “The ese gover is on the case. There’s been a huge uproar over this in Beijing. Heads have rolled among the PLA’s top brass. And funding for all PLA-related projects is being closely monitored. The people calling the shots at Tsinghua Uy were publicly reprimanded on national TV. A top-level iigation is under way. And Fouler, in typical fashion, has secretly offered them his help. They have yet to get ba.”

    “Why doesn’t that surprise me? He better not e looking for me. I have had enough excitement for a lifetime.”

    “I don’t blame you.” Mei Lin said pensively.

    “I remember something else. You kissed me. Was that a dream?” Caldwell said, looking deep into Mei Lin’s eyes.

    “It could have been,” she said, blushing visibly. Her mesmerizing eyes had taken on the same look they had so many years ago at the bus stop in Hong Kong.

    “5200603.”

    “What’s that?”

    “Your messenger  the Hong Kong Iional School.”

    “Oh really? I had fotten. You have your memory back, Cad. Fouler kept his promise. He also admitted that >.</a>HYDRA had wiped your memories of Hong Kong when you first joihe agency. So you had no way of remembering me.”

    “I k. So now you know why I never tacted you. Where is he now? And Kat?”

    “Foul<q></q>er took the Joplin girl back to Boston. He seems to have bee quite attached to her. He’s never had any family you know. Growing soft in his old age. Kat went shopping in Shibuya with Seven Levin. It appears Fouler has bee her beor too.”

    “I see. I know what he’s trying to d to make me stop hating him for what he did to me.”

    “I am not sure I  five him for that. Knowing him, there might be an ulterior motive to all this,” Mei Lin said, studying Caldwell’s face.

    “Yeah. Either way, I am still going to kick his ass. So is he going to adopt the Joplin girl?”

    “No idea. I guess he is just ag as her guardian. She came into a lot of money on her father’s death and Fouler is vihat her father’s lawyers might try to pull wool over her eyes.”

    “Lawyers. That fine spe of humanity. Fouler’s as seem very suspicious.”

    “Yeah, I know. Not sure I really trust him anymore, after what he did to you. She’s a tough ohat Diane Joplin. Apparently she came all the way to Tokyo to avenge her father’s death.”

    “And the soles?”

    “Fouler has them. Ihe ior, passed away in his sleep this m but not before his uploaded sciousness apologized for creating the soles in the first plaot that it was his fault that Yamamoto tried to use them for something criminal. So I guess that’s the end of that. Oh yeah and I asked him or it about the pyramid thing the sole turned into.”

    “And what did Inoue say?”

    “You actally triggered the unlog meism in virtual reality. There’s a one in a million ce of the sole adopting that shape and when it does, it’s the only time you  open the chassis to see what’s inside.”

    “Ah, so we missed our ce,” Caldwell said distractedly, still thinking about Fouler.

    “It would appear so.”

    “Imagihat, Frowing a sce.”

    “Yes, it’s not Fouler’s sce I am worried about, it’s yours.” May Lin fixed him with an expet look that brought back vivid memories of Hong Kong and the No. 8 bus. And there were other memories too all waiting to be accessed, to be relived.

    “What do you mean?” Caldwell asked with mock .

    How are you going to make it up to me for all those years of ?” Mei Lin was smiling mischievously, a disable glint in her eyes.

    “Well how about we start right here,” Caldwell said as he gathered her into his arms. She came willingly, soft skin melding with his ag flesh. As he held her, he noticed the framed photos of his parents on the bedside table and smiled. Fouler was trying hard but he was not fooled. Not yet. His mother’s oriental eyes smiling back at him.

    “Hello world,” Mei Lin murmured against his neck as the tears welled up inside.天涯在线书库《www.tianyabook.com》