Jade Dragon

7. Sex and Zen

The red taxi hurtled along Nathan Road at a speed that seemed far faster than was sensible. On the dashboard, a warning clicker snapped at the driver like an angry cicada. The small man behind the wheel had stuck a piece of adhesive tape over the illuminated display that read “Slow Down Now!”

Fixx took it in his stride, at every intersection where the chorus of horns serenaded the wild turns the driver made. On the sunshade there was a photo of the diminutive cabbie in his younger years, grinning out from under a Kevlar army helmet on the bonnet of a burnt-out North Korean jeep.

The blocky cityscape of Kowloon seemed to go on forever, flat towers of pastel-painted apartment blocks and multi-level shopping plexes crowding in over the street. He peered up through the plastic bubble roof. The gaps between the buildings were festooned with huge signs folded out like clipper sails, some of them holographic but most made from steel plate and old-fashioned neon tubing. The riotous glow of advertising vanished up into the night sky. Here and there he could see where the uppermost levels were being used as apartments-long strings of washing dangling out, dropping soapy rain on the streets far below. According to the signs he could read, there were schools and churches up there too, even a public swimming baths. Most of the neon was directed at more commercial endeavours, though. At the ten to twenty floor mark there were restaurants, nightclubs, casinos and vircades; it was only on the levels that were in sight of the ground where the constant marketplaces of the megastores roared, day and night streaming out goods of every stripe. Fixx wondered where all the money came from, where all the purchases went. There were only so many consumers in this city, he imagined. The cab vaulted into a side road and down a narrow chasm between two massive city blocks. The constructs loomed overhead, layered with retrofitted floors in stripes like the layers of sediment in a rock face. The cab turned and turned again, jarring Fixx in his threadbare seat. He was having difficulty keeping track of where he was, the warren of alleys challenging his sense of direction.

The vehicle screeched to a halt in the sullen glow of a shuttered door. Fixx saw the street number he wanted over a caged lamp and he swiped a creditchip across the pay-sensor. The red car was gone before he reached the doorway.

The entrance led him downwards. The basement was uncharacteristically cool, a welcome change to the blood-warm Hong Kong night. He came across a thick hatch, the kind that submarines had to keep out the crushing pressures of the ocean. It spat out gusts of air and opened just as he was about to knock on it. Fixx ran a fingertip over the SunKings in their holsters, just to be sure, and entered. The first thing he noticed were the mixed scents; ozone, a faint whiff of old meat and cat piss.

“Hey, Fixx.” The voice was slow and agreeable. “Just hold still a moment.”

It was dim down here, hard to see anything beyond racks of skeletal metal shelves and the giant seedpod shapes of NeoSoviet bio-matter processors. Fixx noticed a wall of stripped TFT screens, some of them showing television channels, others with grainy feeds from street cameras. An emerald laser fanned the room, washing across him.

“Say something,” said the voice.

“How’s retirement treatin’ you, Lucy?”

There was a chuckle in the reply. “Joshua. It is you. That’s lovely. Come closer.”

Fixx relaxed-but only a little-and did as Lucy asked. He had the distinct and slightly unnerving sensation of walking into the centre of a web. Cables as thin as hair and as thick as his arm snaked along every surface, disappearing into holes laser-bored through the walls. They terminated in banks of glittering LEDs, arranged in a ring around a single object. Roughly the height of a small child, it was a khaki green cylinder made from heavy impact plastics. The glow from the machinery revealed hooded boxes holding numerous litter trays and pop-top cans of cat food. Fixx became aware of lazy slitted eyes studying him, maybe a half-dozen felines lounging on the warm spots atop the processor stacks.

“Spider to the fly…” The words came from a vocoder welded to the cylinder’s outer casing.

Visible along the surface of the object were a string of letters: USAMRID and then Mod. # LU(c). Panels had been removed since the last time Fixx laid eyes on the unit, and components removed.

“You lost weight?”

“Charmer. Just some modifications.”

Fixx found a folding chair and sat himself in front of the screens. He fingered a low-hanging wire. “Nice place you got here.”

“Better than where I grew up.”

Fixx nodded. Lucy’s origins had been in a blasted wasteland in the Dakota NoGo, assembled by government techs with a budget too large and a shortfall of morals. They’d made her software self-aware in order to create better and more horrifying bio-toxins, but Lucy had other ideas.

She sent invites for her coming-out party to some sanctioned operatives who could help with her “confinement issues”. Fixx scratched his thigh absendtly, in the place where a bullet from that night’s work had raked him as they exfiltrated. Poor Haley Joel had died out there to liberate Lucy’s mainframe core. “You’re keepin’ busy?”

“Yes. This part of the world is data-rich. The Chinese have a thing about numbers. It’s a good fit for me, small beer for the most part but then I like the low profile. I’m trading information for wattage and bandwidth, plus my special projects.”

“Like the cats?” He gestured at a ginger tom that ambled past him with an air of regal disdain.

“I’m doing some research, collating data. I hope to Uplift them in a couple of years. In the meantime, I use local talent for any legwork.”

“Right.” Fixx noticed a replay on one of the screens: Juno Qwan stepping off a bus and into a glare of publicity. His eyes narrowed.

“Joshua,” Lucy began, “You didn’t come halfway around the world to reminisce. What are you doing out here?”

“Following an inklin’,” he said, still watching the screen. “I need to call in a marker.”

“Okay.”

“I need a vehicle and some walkin’ around money.”

A couple of lights blinked on the khaki box. “I can do that for you. Give me a second, I’ll talk to the boys in the Wo Shing Wo.” She paused. “This have something to do with that planeload of women who landed in Zhuhai?”

He flicked a glance at the machine. “You know about that?”

“Male-to-female ratios on the mainland are off the gauge, Fixx. Fem-smugglers are coining it in up country, so naturally folks will talk about it when a C-5 full of girlflesh goes rogue.”

“They deserved better. This way, they get to pick and choose when they have kids, not get locked in a breeder farm.”

Lucy chuckled. “Same old Joshua. Fighter for the underdog.”

Fixx looked away. “It ain’t about the women. That was just what you might call an ellipsis. I’m lookin’ for something different.” His eyes strayed back to the screen.

“I pay my debts,” said Lucy. “Car’s outside now.”

“Merci, mademoiselle.” He gave the cylinder a pat.

“Hey, you like her?” Lucy brought the images of Juno on to all her screens. “I’m running hacks of her new album for the Temple Market pirates. You want a copy?”

Fixx shook his head. “I prefer to listen to the real thing.” He tickled the ginger cat and wandered away toward the door. “Stay well, cheri.”

“Watch your step, Joshua,” called Lucy. “This place, they do things differently here.”

“You know,” said Frankie, “I think every man in the room hates me.”

Juno smiled, watching as his face wrinkled a little as he spoke, watching the look in his eyes that reminded her of a playful child. “Oh really? Are you such a bad guy? Should I not be dancing with you?” She let him lead her around the room, orbiting the musicians on their dais.

He returned the smile. She liked it. He had an easy way about him that came through when he stopped being nervous. “No, it’s just that every one of them wishes they were me, and they’d love to see me trip or impale myself on some potted plant.”

Juno laughed. “If it makes you feel any better, every woman in the room hates me too.”

“Maybe. But that’s because you’re the most gorgeous person here, not because you’re dancing with me.”

She gave him a mischievous look. “Are you sure?” It was strange. She’d met him tonight and yet she felt like they had been friends for years, that she knew all about him. The moment she stepped from the elevator, she’d wanted to be with him.

He laughed back at her, and it made her feel good to share that. “Aren’t I supposed to be nattering you?”

Juno shrugged. “I hear it every day. It’s nice to be nice to someone else for a change.”

Frankie swallowed hard. “You, uh, you can do that any time you want.”

And she was smiling again. There was something about this man, something that hovered at the edge of her thoughts, ephemeral and ghostly. He drew her, and Juno couldn’t be sure why. She tried to probe the impulse but it fell away, down into dark places where she didn’t want to follow.

He saw the shadow pass across her face. “Are you all right?”

She shook her head. “A little tired. It’s been a busy few days.”

“I’ll say. I’m surprised to see you here, straight off the plane and up for a party. I thought you’d rest a while first, get over your jet lag.”

“There are pills for that,” she said with an airy wave. “And I wanted to celebrate coming home.” They swung past one of the windows and she took in the city beyond the tower with a sweep of her hand. “I love Hong Kong so much. I feel like I’m seeing it for the first time.”

Frankie followed her gaze. “Yeah. I… I know how you feel.”

“I’m just so glad to be back.” She felt it like an ache in her chest. “I don’t ever want to leave again.”

He frowned, and it spoiled his face. “I heard at your last concert… There were problems.”

“Would you mind if we didn’t talk about it?” she replied automatically. “I don’t want to dwell on… on dark things.” The gloom at the corners of her mind shifted and she blinked it away. Remnants of memory, faint and fading like afterimages, glistened in her thoughts. The droning murmur of the jetliner engines. A grey numbness. Water on her lips and face. Juno shuttered the pieces of recall, turning away from them. Back here. Back to Francis.

She let herself fall into his gaze. He had kind eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, the words catching in his throat.

“You’re not happy,” she said. “Tell me why.”

And he did; he spoke about Alan, about the way he’d been torn from the comfortable-but-mundane life he knew in America and spirited back to his homeland, about his fears and uncertainties. It spilled out of him in a rush, and Juno listened to it all. Frankie needed someone to confide in, and she found herself touched that he chose her. On an impulse, she leant in and stole a kiss from him.

“Wah,” he managed. “Uh. Thanks.”

“You seemed to need it.”

He smiled again. “You’re not what I expected. In Los Angeles, I dealt with people from the entertainment sector sometimes, stars. They were always so hostile, so anxious. But you… You’re alight. It’s like you’re radiating warmth.”

“There’s that flattery,” She blushed. “Those people? I feel sorry for them. They’re afraid-of losing, of falling out of favour, of wearing the wrong clothes. But not me. I have exactly what I want. I get to do what I love.” Of its own accord, her hand traced his cheek. “Make people happy.”

Frankie coloured. “It, ah, it’s working on me.”

“Juno, darling,” The music came to a gentle finale and Rope was there, nodding politely. “I hate to press you, but there are people here-”

“Oh, of course,” said Frankie, disengaging. “I, uh, I’m sorry if-”

Juno drifted away from him, and sent him a dazzling smile. “Don’t be. We’ll talk more later.”

Frankie watched her melt into the partygoers and blew out a breath. He licked his lips. His palms were sweaty and his pulse was racing. The moment Juno was gone from him he felt almost a physical need to have her close again. He shook off the sensation and snared a drink from a passing waiter. The tumbler of Glen Fujiyama went down in a single jolt.

“Quite something, isn’t she?” Mr Tze crossed his line of sight, four girls in unfocussed disarray following him in a loose gaggle. “It’s hard not to fall for a woman like that.”

“She’s a fantastic dancer,” he said lamely, bereft of anything better to say.

Tze laughed, a brusque bark of sound over the music of the string quartet. “Of course she is.” The executive gestured at the girls with him. “Francis, some of us are retiring to the private suites. Perhaps you’d like to join in?”

“Are you Mr Tze’s protege?” asked one of the women, the hint of a predatory smile on her doll-like face.

“He may well be, Nikita,” said Tze. “Francis has a shining path set out before him.”

Frankie gave a shallow bow. “Thank you, sir. I’m, uh, grateful for the opportunity.”

The girl, Nikita, extended a hand to him. “You’re coming, then?” The other women giggled.

His stomach knotted with disquiet. Tze’s women looked at him with calculating eyes. Frankie felt like he was beneath a microscope or pressed on to an auction block. “Perhaps later,” he mumbled. “I’d, ah, I’d like to enjoy the party some more.”

There was the very smallest flash of annoyance in Tze’s expression, but then it was gone so fast Frankie wondered if he had imagined it. “Of course. Later.”

Nikita tossed a last look at him as the group vanished into the depths of the atrium, to the chambers and rooms hidden in the shadows.

He watched the party diffuse, the people drifting away or coming together into small knots of murmured conversation. He spotted Juno’s manager but each time he crossed the atrium to find him, Rope was gone when he got there. The pillars of creamy green jade and the artfully strewn furniture made the chamber difficult to navigate.

As Frankie crossed and re-crossed the room he became aware of a shift in the mood around him. The melange of genteel conversation and light amusement had faded, and in its place was a shady ambience, a sense of secrets and harsher humour. Startled, he happened on a couple in one of the booths engaged in slow, mechanical sex while a dozen silent spectators watched. Both of the performers were blindfolded with silk ties that bore the YLHI corporate logo, and their hands were fixed to a seat frame in the same manner. The spectators were breathing in a chorus of rhythmic, gasping breaths. One of them offered Frankie a tray of blue capsules and he shook his head, backing away.

He stumbled into Alice and half-stuttered an apology. She eyed him. Somewhere along the way she’d lost her ornate jacket and the red silk blouse she wore was open, revealing a glimpse of breasts beneath.

“Hungry?” she asked. Her eyes were glassy but there was a challenge in her flat tone.

“No.”

“Liar.” She pushed into his personal space, crowding him. “You want something more plastic, is that it?” Alice walked lazy fingers over his jacket and pulled his glass from his hand, swigging the contents. “Go on then,” she snapped, turning her back on him. “Go play with your dolly.” Alice wandered away, unsteady.

Frankie glanced around. Suddenly it seemed everywhere he looked, there were bodies pressing bodies and the taint of drug haze in the air. He felt flushed and uncomfortable. Sure, he’d been at corp raves dozens of times, seen drink and drugs and sex tossed around like party favours, but here it seemed… darker.

Cautiously, he walked out of the atrium proper and into the shadows.

Tze closed the door behind Nikita and nodded at the other girls. They had been here before and they knew how things were going to play out. Nikita flashed him a look, a heady mixture of fear and arousal in her dull eyes. He showed her where the suite’s small bar was and ordered her to make some drinks. She did so, eyeing the door now and then, thoughts of bolting warring with her baser, more avaricious instincts.

He wandered about the room as the other trio took items of equipment from the hidden compartments beneath the wide, burgundy-coloured sofas. Tze feathered the dimmer control on the discreet lighting control panel-he liked the gloom to be thick and warm-and started the recorders concealed in the walls and the ceiling.

There was a bowl of blue capsules on the low table in the corner, and next to that a flat metal case the size of a hardcover book. It was cold to the touch, condensation speckling the surface. Tze tapped it lightly and the lid sighed open, letting a waft of white vapour escape before he reached in and took out two glassy rods. He glanced up. The girls had the rig fixed up, straps and spars dangling from the rings fixed to the ceiling. They played a quick game of rock-scissors-paper and the blonde was the winner. Nikita returned from the bar with two highball glasses and she stopped short as she took in the scene. The other two girls were stripping the blonde, binding her into the cruciform support frame.

Nikita blinked and backed away a step as Tze crossed to her and took his drink. “Hard to know what to think, isn’t it?”

The other women giggled, and began to toy with one another, taking capsules from the bowl.

Tze rolled a blue caplet between his fingers, and despite herself Nikita licked her lips when she saw the glittering Z3N embossed on the side. There were hundreds of the pills in the receptacle.

“Don’t be shy,” Tze smiled, offering her the tablet. The smile turned into a laugh as her free hand shot out and snatched the Z3N capsule. She washed it down with a sip of her drink.

“Good,” he said. “We’re getting somewhere.” He nodded to the other two women. They opened a cabinet on the far wall to reveal a dozen mirror-bright arcs of surgical steel within. Giggling, they each selected a curved blade, wicked and sharp as a raptor claw. Eyes glinting, they descended to the blonde’s bare flesh and began to cut on her.

The private chambers ranged away along the darkened corridor. Each had lights above them, some dark but most illuminated. When Frankie pressed his ear to the doors, there was nothing but silence. A chill went through him. The rooms were soundproofed. Anyone could be doing anything in there and nobody would know. He turned in place, his hand trembling, and then at random he tugged at a handle. To Frankie’s surprise, the door opened without resistance, and brought with it a draught of potent human scents. He peered in and his throat went dry.

The room was so dimly lit that it was barely possible to be sure of what he was seeing, but he could make out the forms of men-one of them was one of the APRC officers he’d seen before, wearing nothing but his uniform jacket-coiled on the floor and snarling like animals. He saw flashes of female flesh in there, and violent rutting caught between the motions of sweating, scratched bodies. Someone was crying, and the sound of it drew Frankie’s attention to the ceiling. There was a man up there, ebony screws as fat as a finger holding him in place where they punched through his ankles and wrists. Skin hung off him in flayed strips, wet red meat showing in the half-light. The unfortunate’s face was twisted in agony, tracks of black tears crossing cheeks laced with complex scars. Frankie recognised the man: Ping, from the airport, the careless one who had lost the escort car.

He retreated in shock, forcing the door shut, and his heart almost stopped when he realised there was someone towering over him in the corridor. A hulking mass of a man, it was another of Tze’s masked guardians.

“Participants only,” rasped the figure. The Mask was white and black, hanging there like an apparition. The stylised face belonged to Judge Bao, a character from the Peking Opera stories of the Song Dynasty.

“In there-” Frankie gasped.

“What are you looking for?” said the guardian.

“Juh-Juno-” he managed.

Judge Bao pressed a hand into the small of his back and guided him away. “Over here, sir. I’ll take you to her.”

Frankie stumbled on, his mind reeling, the healing scratches on his hand stinging.

Nikita’s face was waxy with shock underneath her make-up. She was aware that her lip was trembling, and in the back of her skull she could feel the first cool tendrils of the Z3N hit unfolding. It seemed unreal, some horrific vidshow instead of a real performance happening in front of her. Tze’s women were opening up the skin of the blonde in turned petals of pale flesh. When the stink of copper touched her nostrils she gagged and stumbled back a step.

Tze’s broad hand shot out like a striking cobra and enveloped hers where she held the glass. “No, no. You’re not going to leave.”

She tried to deny him, but he closed his hand tighter, crushing the skin and bones. The glass made a cracking sound.

“Don’t lie to me.” He squeezed and the glass shattered. She cried out as the fragments bit into her palm.

Nikita looked to the others with a pleading stare, but they were busy drawing intricate shapes on each other in spilt blood, a confusion of lines and symbols.

Tze took a handful of her blouse and ripped it off her. He drew his finger through her cut hand and used her vitae to draw a design on her trembling breast, just above her heart. Two discs, one larger than the other, connected by a line that was in turn bisected with an arc. Tze unbuttoned his shirt to show her the same shape rendered as a tattoo on his chest. The lines were made of dragons, eating each other’s tails.

“Please don’t kill me.” She forced out the words.

He smirked and showed her the glass rods. They were long and thin, rough-hewn. Nikita was reminded of icicles. Inside each of them was a reservoir of actinic blue liquid, glittering like stars. In spite of everything, her mouth immediately flooded with saliva.

“Pure,” said Tze, seeing the reaction in her eyes. “A thousand times more potent than the weak tea you’re used to.” He jerked his head at the girls, who were scooping handfuls of capsules into their mouths, crunching them down like candy.

Then he moved, quick as lightning, and buried the first of the needles through the middle of the pattern he had drawn on her. Nikita crashed to the floor, a white-hot shock rushing though her. She glanced up, hovering on the edge of awareness, in time to see Tze stab himself with the other rod.

Nikita s world broke open, drowning her in floods of chilling blue. Tze loomed over her, a towering god wreathed in noxious smoke and shimmering darts of painful colour. From behind him, tendrils of liquid night emerged and snaked over and around his body. They stabbed out and penetrated her, rushing through her flesh and savaging her mind. She could not speak.

Tze displayed a terrible aspect. “Greedy child. You wanted to taste my air, dared to know the glory of my world, yes? It will be my pleasure to give it you. Shall we see if your pitiful cattle-mind can grasp such beauty?”

He dominated her senses, blotting out everything. Tze opened the Stygian halls of his psyche, and let the horrors within rush to fill her.

Nikita looked at the truth of him in the eye, and she shattered.

Juno blinked and realised that she hadn’t heard a word of the twittering platitudes of Phoebe Hi. She found herself staring into the depths of the champagne glass in her hand, locked on the shifting shapes of the rising bubbles. They shaded black as she watched them ascend, turning into tiny ebon pearls. “Juno?” said Phoebe. “Did you hear what I said?”

She nodded, tearing herself away. The conversation area, raised up above the main level of the atrium, was secluded and quiet; but the singer suddenly felt enclosed in there, the long shadows around the delicate lightstands growing even as she watched them. Her stomach turned over and she shivered. Juno’s hand wandered to the back of her neck, where her skin felt cold and clammy to the touch. There at the corners of her vision, dark motes swarmed, just as they had when she tried to touch her memories of the disastrous concert. She shifted uncomfortably, the wide sofa too big around her. Juno felt lost in it, tiny and small.

“I… I’m sorry.” She forced a smile. “Perhaps it’s just travel fatigue. ”The words seemed like a lie. Colour was bleeding out of her vision in little increments, and there was a pressure in her ears. There were only a handful of people in the room, but she felt like there were thousands crowded around her.

“Can I get you something?” Hi was watching her carefully.

“Juno!” She turned at the sound of Frankie’s voice-and for a moment, the gloom around her retreated. He saw the look on her face as he approached, and his kind eyes clouded. “Are… Are you okay?”

“Better now,” she said, with genuine feeling. On an impulse, the singer put the half-full glass down on a table and stood up. “I think I’m going to retire for the night. ”

“I’ll arrange transport to your hotel-” said Hi, but Juno shook her head.

“No. Frankie’s taking me home.” She took his arm and guided him away.

“I am?” he said, nonplussed.

She almost ran as she led him by the hand up towards the helipad levels. The shroud of unease dogging her retreated, and she gave Frankie a brittle smile. “I want to go,” she said. “Please?”

“Of course,” he replied, sensing her disquiet. “But I don’t have, uh, clearance for a spidercopter. ”

“I’m Juno Qwan,”she said. “I get anything I want.”

Hi frowned as Rope sat in Juno’s vacated seat. He toyed with her glass. “You’re not going to intervene?”

She sneered. “Why would I? It was my idea in the first place. It’s an ideal way to expedite two problems at once. ”

He shook his head. “You haven’t lived with the talent as closely as I have, Phoebe. You don’t see the variables, the off-pattern behaviour.”

“This is a necessity,” she said, an edge in her tone. “The talent will do what it is told to do.”

Rope covered his derision with a sip of champagne.

When it was over, when the women began to clean themselves down, Deer Child entered and dutifully handed Mr Tze a fresh robe.

“I have ascertained the origin of the stolen smartcard,” said the Mask. “It belonged to a grade three accounts executive in Section F. What manner of severance package would you prefer me to implement?”

Tze gestured at the bloody walls. “Bring him up here. Keep him for our next recreation.”

“As you wish.” Deer Child gave a slight incline of his impassive porcelain face toward Nikita’s pale, trembling form. “Disposal for this one?”

Tze considered the question for a moment. “No,” he said finally. “Throw her back. An object lesson to be seen and considered by any other pickpockets or grade three executives with poor judgement.”

“Your will.” Deer Child picked up the catatonic girl and carried her away.

Tze watched them go, fingering the spot where the wound in his chest had already healed.

See these mighty buildings, all shall be torn down, shattered, splintered, split.

[static]

The Earth herself will tremble and the masses will go hungry.

Their bellies bloated, skins hanging in folds.

The sky will open upon itself unto darkness.

These are the birth pains. No flesh will be spared.

No flesh will be [static]

No lives will be spared but for the Elect. No lives but the Cabal. And they will know The Coming.

And the Beast will task his agents to a mission to gather together their cohorts.

The city of the sleepers will dream in their name, [static] war between the agents of blood will conclude. The new void will rise to smother the old.

Intercepted transmission #5932-02, recorded by Maritime Offensive Force submersible Ameratsu, broadcast location unknown.