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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.
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