The Middle Kingdom Read online

  ‘Things are well, Howard. Progressing, as they say.’

  DeVore smiled at Berdichev’s understatement. SimFic, his company, was one of the success stories of the decade. It had been a small operation when he had bought it in eighty-eight, but by ninety-one it had been quoted on the Hang Seng 1000 Index, along with Chung Kuo’s other leading companies. Since that time he had made great advances, leading the market in the production of HeadStims and Wraps. In five short years SimFic had achieved what had seemed impossible and revolutionized personal entertainment. Now they were one of the world’s biggest companies and were quoted in the Top 100 on the Index.

  For a while they exchanged pleasantries. Then, as if at a signal, Berdichev’s features formed into a cold half-smile. ‘But forgive me, Howard. I’m sure you haven’t come here to talk market.’ He turned away brusquely, and looked pointedly at Wyatt. ‘Come, Edmund, let’s leave these two. I believe they have business to discuss.’

  Wyatt looked from Lehmann to DeVore, his whole manner suddenly alert, suspicious. ‘Business?’

  There was a moment’s awkwardness, then DeVore smiled and nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Wyatt set down his glass and got up slowly. Giving a small bow to Lehmann, he made to follow Berdichev, then stopped and turned, looking back at Lehmann. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, his eyes revealing a deep concern for his friend.

  Lehmann gave the slightest of nods, meeting Wyatt’s eyes openly as if to say, Trust me. Only then did Wyatt turn and go.

  DeVore waited a moment, listening to Wyatt’s tread on the steps. Then, when it was silent again, he got up and went to the table, crouching down to open the small green box. Reaching up to his lapel, he removed the tiny device that had been monitoring their conversation and placed it carefully inside the box. Lehmann came and stood beside him, watching as he switched on the tape they had recorded three weeks before. There was the cry of a peacock, distant, as if from the meadows beyond the room, and then their voices began again, continuing from where they had left off. DeVore smiled and gently closed the lid, then he straightened up, letting out a breath.

  ‘The simplest ways are always best,’ he said, and gave a short laugh. Then, more soberly, ‘That was unfortunate. What does Wyatt know?’

  Lehmann met DeVore’s eyes, smiling, then put an arm about his shoulders. ‘Nothing. He knows nothing at all.’

  DeVore peeled off his gloves and laid them on the table.

  ‘Good. Then let’s speak openly.’

  The Stone Dragon was a big, low-ceilinged inn at the bottom of the City; a sprawl of interconnected rooms, ill-lit and ill-decorated; a place frequented only by the lowest of those who lived in the ten levels below the Net. A stale, sweet-sour stench permeated everything in its cramped and busy rooms, tainting all it touched. Machines lined the walls, most of them dark. Others, sparking, on the verge of malfunction, added their own sweet, burning scent to the heavy fug that filled the place. Voices called out constantly, clamouring for service, while shabbily dressed waitresses, their make-up garishly exaggerated, made their way between the tables, taking orders.

  The two men sat in the big room at the back of the inn, at a table set apart from the others against the far wall. They had come here directly, two hours back, unable to sleep, the enormity of what they had done playing on both their minds. To celebrate, Kao Jyan had ordered a large bottle of the Dragon’s finest Shen, brought down from Above at an exorbitant price, but neither man had drunk much of the strong rice wine.

  Jyan had been quiet for some while now, hunched over an untouched tumbler, brooding. Chen watched him for a time, then looked about him.

  The men at nearby tables were mainly Han, but there were some Hung Mao. Most of them, Han and Hung Mao alike, were wide-eyed and sallow-faced, their scabbed arms and faces giving them away as addicts. Arfidis was cheap down here and widely available and for some it was the only way out of things. But it was also death, given time, and Chen had kept his own veins clear of it. At one of the tables further off three Han sat stiffly, talking in dialect, their voices low and urgent. One of them had lost an eye, another was badly scarred about the neck and shoulder. They represented the other half of the Stone Dragon’s clientele, noticeable by the way they held themselves – somehow lither, more alert than those about them. These were the gang men and petty criminals who used this place for business. Chen stretched his neck, and leaned back against the wall. Nearby, a thick coil of smoke moved slowly in the faint orange light of an overhead panel, like the fine, dark strands of a young girl’s hair.

  ‘It’s like death,’ he said, looking across at Jyan.

  ‘What?’ Jyan said lazily, looking up at Chen. ‘What did you say?’

  Chen leaned forward and plucked a bug from beneath the table’s edge, crushing it between his thumb and forefinger. It was one of the ugly, white-shelled things that sometimes came up from the Clay. Blind things that worked by smell alone. He let its broken casing fall and wiped his hand on his one-piece, not caring if it stained. ‘This place. It’s like death. This whole level of things. It stinks.’

  Jyan laughed. ‘Well, you’ll be out of it soon enough, if that’s what you want.’

  Chen looked at his partner strangely. ‘And you don’t?’ He shook his head, suddenly disgusted with himself. ‘You know, Jyan, I’ve spent my whole life under the Net. I’ve known nothing but this filth. It’s time I got out. Time I found something cleaner, better than this.’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ Jyan answered, ‘but have you thought it through? Up there you’re vulnerable. Above the Net there are Pass Laws and Judges, taxes and Security patrols.’ He leaned across and spat neatly into the bowl by his feet. ‘I hate the thought of all that shit. It would stifle the likes of you and me. And anyway, we hurt a lot of people last night when the quarantine gates came down. Forget the assassination – someone finds out you were involved in that and you’re dead.’

  Chen nodded. It had meant nothing at the time, but now that the drug had worn off he could think of little else. He kept seeing faces; the faces of people he had passed up there in Pan Chao Street. People who, only minutes later, would have been panicking, eyes streaming, half-choking as Security pumped the deck full of sterilizing gases. Children, too. Yes, a lot of them would have been just children.

  He hadn’t thought it through; hadn’t seen it until it was done. All he’d thought about was the five thousand yuan he was being paid for the job: that and the chance of getting out. And if that meant breaking through the Net, then that’s what he would do. But he hadn’t thought it through. In that, at least, Jyan was right.

  The Net. It had been built to safeguard the City, as a quarantine measure to safeguard the Above from plague and other epidemics, and from infiltration by insects and vermin. And from us, thought Chen, a sour taste in his mouth. From vermin like us.

  He looked across, seeing movement in the doorway, then looked sharply at Jyan. ‘Trouble…’ he said quietly.

  Jyan didn’t turn. ‘Who is it?’ he mouthed back.

  Chen groomed an imaginary moustache.

  ‘Shit!’ said Jyan softly, then sat back, lifting his tumbler.

  ‘What does he want?’ Chen whispered, leaning forward so that the movements of his mouth were screened by Jyan from the three men in the doorway.

  ‘I owe him money.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A thousand yuan.’

  ‘A thousand!’ Chen grimaced, then leaned back again, easing his knife from his boot and pinning it with his knee against the underside of the table. Then he looked across again. The biggest of the three was looking directly at them now, grinning with recognition at the sight of Jyan’s back. The big man tilted his head slightly, muttering something to the other two, then began to come across.

  Whiskers Lu was a monster of a man. Almost six ch’i in height, he wore his hair wild and uncombed and sported a ragged fur about his shoulders like some latterday chieftain from a historical romance. He derived
his name from the huge, tangled bush of a moustache that covered much of his facial disfigurement. Standing above Jyan, his left eye stared out glassily from a mask of melted flesh, its rawness glossed and mottled like a crab’s shell. The right eye was a narrow slit, like a sewn line in a doll’s face. Beneath the chin and on the lower right-hand side of his face the mask seemed to end in a sunken line, the normal olive of his skin resuming.

  Ten years back, so the story went, Whiskers Lu had tried to come to an arrangement with Chang Fen, one of the petty bosses of these levels. Chang Fen had met him, smiling, holding one hand out to welcome Lu, his other hand holding what looked like a glass of wine. Then, still smiling, he had thrown the contents of the glass into Lu’s face. It was acid. But the man had not reckoned with Whiskers Lu’s ferocity. Lu had held on tightly to the man’s hand, roaring against the pain, and, drawing his big hunting knife, had plunged it into Chang Fen’s throat before his lieutenants could come to his aid. Half-blinded he had fought his way out of there, then had gone back later with his brothers to finish the job.

  Now Whiskers Lu was a boss in his own right; a big man, here beneath the Net. He stood there, towering over Kao Jyan, his lipless mouth grinning with cruel pleasure as he placed his hand on Jyan’s shoulder, his single eye watching Chen warily.

  ‘Kao Jyan… How are you, my friend?’

  ‘I’m well,’ Jyan answered nervously, shrinking in his seat. ‘And you, Lu Ming-Shao?’

  Whiskers Lu laughed gruffly, humourlessly. ‘I’m fine, Kao Jyan. I killed a man yesterday. He owed me money.’

  Jyan swallowed and met Chen’s eyes. ‘And he couldn’t pay you?’

  Lu’s grip tightened on Jyan’s shoulder. ‘That’s so, Kao Jyan. But that’s not why I killed him. I killed him because he tried to hide from me.’

  ‘Then he was a foolish man.’

  The big man’s laughter was tinged this time with a faint amusement. His eye, however, was cold, calculating. It stared challengingly at Chen from within its glass-like mask.

  Chen stared back at it, meeting its challenge, not letting himself be cowed. If it came to a fight, so be it. Whiskers Lu would be a hard man to kill, and the odds were that Lu and his two henchmen would get the better of Jyan and him. But he would not make it easy for them. They would know they had fought a kwai.

  Whiskers Lu broke eye contact, looking down at Jyan, his thin lips smiling again.

  ‘You owe me money, Kao Jyan.’

  Jyan was staring down at his tumbler. ‘I have a week yet, Lu Ming-Shao. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Oh, I remember. But I want my money now. With interest. Twelve hundred yuan I want from you, Kao Jyan. And I want it now.’

  Almost unobtrusively, Whiskers Lu had slipped the knife from his belt and raised it to Jyan’s neck. The huge, wide blade winked in the faint overhead light. The razor-sharp tip pricked the flesh beneath Jyan’s chin, making him wince.

  Chen let his hand slide slowly down his leg, his fingers closing about the handle of his knife. The next few moments would be critical.

  ‘Twelve hundred?’ Jyan said tensely. ‘Surely, our agreement said…’

  Jyan stopped, catching his breath. Whiskers Lu had increased the pressure of the knife against his flesh, drawing blood. A single bead trickled slowly down Jyan’s neck and settled in the hollow above his chest. Jyan swallowed painfully.

  ‘You want it now?’

  ‘That’s right, Kao Jyan. I’ve heard you’ve been borrowing elsewhere. Playing the field widely. Why’s that, Kao Jyan? Were you planning to leave us?’

  Jyan looked up, meeting Chen’s eyes. Then, slowly, carefully, he reached up and moved the knife aside, turning to look up into Whiskers Lu’s face.

  ‘You mistake me, Lu Ming-Shao. I’m happy here. My friends are here. Good friends. Why should I want to leave?’ Jyan smiled, then swept his hand over the table, indicating the empty chairs. ‘Look, you’re a reasonable man, Lu Ming-Shao. Why don’t we talk this through? Why don’t you sit with us and share a glass of Shen?’

  Whiskers Lu roared, then grabbed Jyan’s hair, pulling his head back viciously, his knife held threateningly across Jyan’s throat.

  ‘None of your games, Kao Jyan! I’m an impatient man just now. So tell me and have done with it. Do you have the money or not?’

  Jyan’s eyes bulged. Lu’s reaction had startled him. His hand went to his pocket and scrabbled there, then threw three thick chips out onto the table. Each was for five hundred yuan.

  Chen forced himself to relax, loosening his tight grip on the knife’s handle. But he had seen how closely Lu’s henchmen had been watching him and knew that they’d had orders to deal with him if it came to trouble. He smiled reassuringly at them, then watched as Whiskers Lu let go of his grip on Jyan. The big man sheathed his knife, then leaned forward, scooping up the three ivory-coloured chips.

  ‘Fifteen hundred, eh?’ He grunted and half turned, grinning at his men. ‘Well, that’ll do, wouldn’t you say, Kao Jyan?’

  ‘Twelve hundred,’ Jyan said, rubbing at his neck. ‘You said twelve hundred.’

  ‘Did I now?’ Lu laughed, almost softly now, then nodded. ‘Maybe so, Kao Jyan. But you made me work for my money. So let’s call it quits, neh, and I’ll forget that you made me angry.’

  Chen narrowed his eyes, watching Jyan, willing him to let it drop. But Jyan was not through. He turned and looked up at Lu again, meeting his eye.

  ‘I’m disappointed in you, Lu Ming-Shao. I thought you were a man of your word. To ask for your money a week early, that I understand. A man must protect what is his. And the extra two hundred, that too I understand. Money is not a dead thing. It lives and grows and must be fed. But this extra…’ He shook his head. ‘Word will go out that Lu Ming-Shao is greedy. That he gives his word, then takes what is not his.’

  Whiskers Lu glowered at Jyan, his hand resting on his knife. ‘You’d dare to say that, Kao Jyan?’

  Jyan shook his head. ‘Not I. But there are others in this room who’ve seen what passed between us. You can’t silence them all, Lu Ming-Shao. And you know how it is. Rumour flies like a bird. Soon the whole Net would know. And then what? Who would come and borrow money from you then?’

  Lu’s chest rose and fell, his single eye boring angrily into Jyan’s face. Then he turned sharply and barked at one of his henchmen. ‘Give him three hundred! Now!’

  The man rummaged in the pouch at his belt then threw three slender chips down in front of Jyan.

  Jyan smiled. ‘It was good to do business with you, Lu Ming-Shao. May you have many sons!’

  But Whiskers Lu had turned away and was already halfway across the room, cursing beneath his breath.

  When he was gone, Chen leaned forward angrily. ‘What the fuck are you playing at, Jyan? You almost had us killed!’

  Jyan laughed. ‘He was angry, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Angry!’ Chen shook his head, astonished. ‘And what’s all this about you borrowing elsewhere? What have you been up to?’

  Jyan didn’t answer. He sat there, silent, watching Chen closely, a faint smile on his lips.

  ‘What is it?’

  Jyan’s smile broadened. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Thinking, eh?’ Chen lifted his tumbler and sipped. The calculating gleam in Jyan’s eyes filled him with apprehension.

  Jyan leaned forward, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘Yes, thinking. Making plans. Something that will make us both rich.’

  Chen drained his tumbler and set it down, then leaned back in his chair slowly, eyeing his partner. ‘I’ve enough now, Jyan. Why should I want more? I can get out now if I want.’

  Jyan sat back, his eyes filled with scorn. ‘Is that all you want? To get out of here? Is that as high as your ambitions climb?’ Again he leaned forward, but this time his voice hissed out at Chen. ‘Well, I want more than that! I want to be a king down here, in the Net. A big boss. Understand me, Chen? I don’t want safety and order and all that shit, I want power. Here,
where I can exercise it. And that takes money.’

  Heads turned at nearby tables, curious but lethargic. Chen looked back at one of them, meeting the cold, dispassionate stare that was the telltale symptom of arfidis trance with a cold look of loathing. Then he laughed softly and looked back at Jyan.

  ‘You’re mad, Jyan. It takes more than money. You can’t buy yourself a gang down here, you have to make one, earn one, like Whiskers Lu. You’re not in that league, Jyan. His kind would have you for breakfast. Besides, you’re talking of the kind of sums you and I couldn’t dream of getting hold of.’

  Jyan shook his head. ‘You’re wrong.’

  Chen looked down, irritated by Jyan’s persistence. ‘Forget it, neh? Take what you’ve got and get out. That is, if you’ve still got enough after paying Whiskers Lu.’

  Jyan laughed scornfully. ‘That was nothing. Small change. But listen to me, Chen. Do you really think you can get out?’

  Chen said nothing, but Jyan was watching him closely again.

  ‘What if all you’ve saved isn’t enough? What if the permits cost more than you can pay? What if you run into some greedy bastard official who wants a bit more squeeze than you’ve got? What then? What would you do?’

  Chen smiled tightly. ‘I’d kill him.’ But he was thinking of Pan Chao Street and the quarantine gates. Thinking of the huge, continent-spanning City of three hundred levels that was there above the Net. He had hoped to get a foothold on that great social ladder – a place on the very lowest rung. But he would have to go higher than he’d planned. Up to Twenty-One, at least. And that would cost more. Much, much more. Maybe Jyan was right.

  ‘You’d kill him!’ Jyan laughed again and sat back, clearly disgusted with his partner. ‘And be back here again! A kwai. Just a kwai again! A hireling, not the man in charge. Is that really what you want?’