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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.
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