Or maybe Ming was just being obstinate.
She frowned at the beautiful clouds. After all, a Xiao-Qinlao union made perfect sense. Together, they would form the largest manufacturing conglomerate in the world. But how would such a merger impact her father’s company? Jie Qinlao could have merged with Xiao years ago, yet had chosen to remain independent.
She turned from the window. More importantly, what would it mean for her? There was no chance the new board created from the merger would allow an untested young woman to remain as CEO. Based on her impotent performance so far, Ming wasn’t convinced they’d even let her remain on the board at all.
For now, she had the voting bloc to stave off a takeover, but she needed a win, and she needed it soon. Her step-mother’s support of Ming to become CEO had been welcome, if unexpected. When she was honest with herself, Ming wasn’t sure she could fulfill her part of Sying’s bargain. To teach Ruben how to be more like their father? How was she to do that? She hardly knew the man herself.
Ito pulsed her on her private channel. “Your mother is here.”
Wenqian Qinlao’s maglev purred into the office. She sagged against the side of her chair but offered an engaging smile. Her bright eyes searched her daughter’s face. “How are you, Ming-child?”
Her first instinct was to chide her mother for using her childhood pet name, but in that moment, she took comfort in the personal connection. “I don’t know how father did it, Mama.”
“Your father used to say the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time—and to start with the tail.”
Ming resisted the frustration she felt. She didn’t need patronizing proverbs now, she needed a business deal to save her job. Doing her best to keep her tone neutral, she said, “That only works if you have an unlimited amount of time, Mama.”
The old woman shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t paralyzed. “You need a break. I have a surprise for you. Something to take your mind off your work.”
“I’m meeting Danny tonight.”
“Cancel it.”
“Mother.” Ming tried to wring the impatience out of her voice. “I need to keep up appearances. ”
“Nonsense,” Wenqian whispered. “Tell him you need a night off. Blame it on me.”
A night off sounded wonderful. She’d seen Danny nearly every night since he’d shown up at her door after the memorial service. Night clubs, restaurant openings, art gallery parties. Wherever there was a gathering of paparazzi, Danny was sure to be there. She wasn’t sure he actually worked at his family’s company. He just seemed to party his way through life.
Ming had even allowed him into her bed when she felt she couldn’t hold him off any longer and still keep him interested. The sex had been transactional, a way for her to maintain control of their relationship, and as infrequent as she could make it. The encounters had been in the dark—something Ming insisted upon—and only served to accentuate the loneliness she felt after breaking up with Lily.
And she’d had the gall to call Sying a whore.
But each interaction cemented their relationship even further in the eye of the public and would make it harder for her to break away when the time came. The weight of expectations was a constant, concrete albatross around Ming’s neck.
To hell with it. She pulsed a message to Danny to cancel their date.
“Come now, Ming-child. My car is waiting on the roof.”
• • •
The aircar rose swiftly in the darkening sky to the highest traffic lanes, the ones normally reserved for cross-country travel. Traffic was light as usual, since only the richest citizens in Shanghai could afford personal air vehicles .
“Where are we going?” Ming asked. Her mother smiled but said nothing.
Stonewalled again.
Ming peered down through the rips in the cloud cover, where the frenetic density of Shanghai’s city lights gave way to the more sparsely lit countryside. They were headed west into the growing twilight. Ming turned to Ito. “Do you know where we’re going?”
He shrugged, but a grin played around his lips.
Half an hour later, the aircar coasted down into the clouds. Gray mush whipped past the windows until they broke into the clear. Below, a lake shone like glass.
She knew this place. Jie Qinlao had grown up in a tiny hamlet in the Sichuan province, a mountain gathering of homes barely deserving the title village . This was a region of dying mining towns, where automation engineers and maintenance techs, people who rarely went below ground, held the few remaining jobs.
On Ming’s fifth birthday, her father had brought her here. He’d built a mountain retreat, and staffed it with locals, including groundskeepers, gardeners, farmers, and all the men and machinery needed for a completely self-sustaining estate. He’d even taught her how to fish on the lake. Ming had not been here since that one visit.
The aircar flared and landed gently on the rooftop pad. Wenqian drove her maglev past a line of retainers who bowed as they passed. “Follow me,” she said. Her augmented mechanical voice sounded odd among the night sounds of nature.
The tiled hallways were stylish, illuminated with hidden lights. The whispering whir of her mother’s chair and the steady tread of Ito’s boots escorted them deeper into the structure. Ming’s annoyance had turned to curiosity, then emerging memories of having been here before. In spite of herself, Ming enjoyed the intrigue of the moment.
A short elevator ride took them to the ground floor of the house. Ming smelled salt water when she exited. A pool? They turned a corner, entering a room with a high ceiling. It might have been a gymnasium at one time, but now it was outfitted with a lab and a room-sized glass box filled with water. A man and a woman in white lab coats sat behind a monitoring console.
In the water, wearing a breathing mask, was Lily.
Ming stopped short, stunned.
She closed the distance to the tank slowly, then extended her fingers to touch the glass. Lily mirrored her from the other side.
“Surprise!” she said, waving her hands. Her voice, amplified through the mask, projected from speakers mounted above.
Ming opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again as her heart caught up with her eyes. Lily was dressed in a two-piece bathing suit. Ming devoured her curves, the contours of her white flesh. It was all she could do to keep from crying.
“What are you doing here?”
“It was my doing,” her mother whispered behind her. “I’ve hired the best bone doctors in the world, the best gravity rehabilitation specialists. We’ll find a way for you two to be together. You need someone, Ming-child. Not that Danny Xiao.” Wenqian’s voice, even synthesized, was laced with distaste. “Someone you can love.”
“Get out,” Ming said softly.
Wenqian gasped. “I’m only thinking of— ”
“Get out!” Ming screamed. “All of you! Now!”
She whirled on the room, her eyes blazing. Ito guided Wenqian’s away from the tank. Everyone, family and medical staff alike, hurried from the room.
Ming strode to the console. She found the controls for the cameras and recording devices and shut them all off.
“Are you angry with me, Ming?” Lily’s voice sounded plaintive through the speakers. Instead of answering her, Ming shut them off, too.
She turned back to the glass box. Lily, unable to be heard, pressed her hands against the glass, a stricken look on her face. Ming stood, staring at her former lover through the glass.
Lily was as beautiful as she remembered. Her hair floating like a halo of spun gold. Her breasts firm in the water, her nipples teasing against the bikini top. Ming’s mind cascaded with hungry memories. She felt the renewed ache of loss at the sight of her lover behind glass.
She pointed to the top of the tank and climbed the ladder. Lily’s head popped up. She removed the mask and slicked her hair back. “You’re angry with me,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, and Ming noticed dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. How much pain mus
t she be in, suffering Earth’s gravity for the sake of a lover who’d rejected her?
Ming shook her head slowly, holding back tears. She stripped off her clothes and stepped into the water.
The tank was warm, body temperature, and tasted of salt. Ming sank to the bottom, then pushed back to the surface where Lily floated, waiting. She’d removed her bathing suit, and the two were both naked now, together. Ming reached out and pulled Lily in to a tight embrace, kissing her deeply. Lily’s fingers roamed over Ming’s body.
“How much does it hurt?” Up close, Ming could see most of the small blood vessels in Lily’s eyes had ruptured.
“I’ve been here two weeks. It’s getting better … a little.” Lily’s hands traced Ming’s hip. “They say after maybe six months of regular osteo-drugs and exercise I should be able to stay outside the tank overnight.” She kissed Ming again, then pulled away, flinching. “Do you mind if we put on masks and stay submerged? Being out of the water gives me a headache.”
Ming said nothing, but slipped on the extra mask and joined Lily below the surface.
“Are you angry with me?” Lily asked again. The masks had a built-in diaphragm which let them talk. Her voice underwater sounded hollow and muffled.
Ming shook her head. “Not you.”
“I want us to be together, Ming. We belong together.”
Ming sighed. “My life is complicated now.”
Lily laughed, a harsh gurgle. “Danny Xiao, you mean.”
Ming’s eyes flashed. “That’s business. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She regretted her harsh words as soon as she said them.
Lily traced Ming’s arm with her fingers, her touch feather light in the water. “Let me stay. I’ll live here in this house, in this tank, for now. I’ll get stronger. You can visit on weekends. I love you, Ming. I need you.”
Ming stripped off her mask in a burst of bubbles and Lily did the same. When their lips touched, Ming could not taste where her lover began and the water ended.
• • •
Ming’s hair was still damp when she took her seat in the aircar for the trip home. She let the silence build in the cabin as they rose into the midnight sky. The clouds had cleared, revealing Shanghai as a yellow glow on the horizon, infecting the otherwise dark, peaceful countryside.
“Thank you, Mama,” she said finally.
“I only did it to please you,” came the whispered reply.
“Now, send her back. Immediately.”
“Why?” Wenqian switched to her amplified voice and her tone was harsh, judgmental.
Because you’re hurting her, was what Ming wanted to say. That sounded humane, but it wasn’t the truth.
“She’s a liability,” Ming said. She watched the lights of a small town pass beneath them. Ahead, Shanghai and her life there loomed like a gilded prison cell. “She’s a weakness that my enemies will use against me.”
“I’ll see to it.” Wenqian’s whisper-voice again. “I only wanted you to be happy. I’m sorry, Ming-child.”
“And don’t call me that anymore,” Ming snapped. Her mother retreated farther into her chair.
She felt Ito watching her. Ming met his heavy gaze and set her jaw. He could chastise her if he wanted, but this was her life and she would live it by her rules.
Ito delivered a barely perceptible nod, then turned his eyes forward again.
Chapter 14
William Graves • Miami, Florida
Miami was lost.
Graves stared at the big screen. Jansen stood by his side as always. Together they watched the Atlantic Ocean easily top the seawalls built less than five years earlier.
Billions of taxpayer dollars spent with the assurances of the Army Corps of Engineers, now unable to hold back the fury of Hurricane Victoria, the second major storm to hit southern Florida in as many months. A wall of oceanfront condos succumbed to the raging sea, swaying, leaning, then finally toppling into the pounding surf.
The remote camera died.
Graves felt hollow, empty inside. The scale of the devastation pressed him down like a heavy weight. Miami had been mostly evacuated, but many obstinate Floridians had stayed in their homes, afraid of looters.
“Shall I have the evac troops fall back here to Tampa, sir?” Jansen asked. The eye of the massive storm was projected to cross the bottom half of the Florida peninsula. Their job here was done until the storm had cleared the area. Then he could start the recovery and rebuilding process—again. Assuming there was to be any rebuilding this time.
All along the US coastlines, the rising oceans had eaten into cities. The larger population centers, including Miami, had spent money on seawalls, elaborate pumping systems, and levees. All a waste once Mother Nature upped the ante. Now, monster hurricanes were judged on a scale of 1 to 10, not 1 to 5.
New Orleans had been the first major city to go, which surprised no one with its history of routine flooding. Then Houston flooded for the third time in a hundred years, another gimme to the prediction crowd. One by one, coastal cities submerged, becoming modern Atlantises: Myrtle Beach, Annapolis, Fort Lauderdale. The list got longer every year.
And now, Miami was slowly being eaten away by the sea. Maybe not this year. Maybe not in ten years. But in his lifetime, it would become a sunken city as well. Graves was sure of it.
“I need some air,” he growled. He spun on his heel and exited the mobile command center trailer.
Outside, the atmosphere was heavy with moisture. A ragged wind whipped cloud fragments across the pewter sky. To the south, a wall of bulging blackness hugged the horizon. They were set up in the deserted parking lot of a big-box store. Graves paced the cracked pavement, trying to purge his dark mood.
He was so weary of the disaster treadmill. Destroy, rebuild, repeat. All those lives lost, property destroyed. This was his third trip to Miami in as many years, and the outcome was always the same. In a few days, with heartbreaking optimism, millions of people would return to the city and attempt to rebuild their lives. A year from now, another storm—maybe bigger than this one—would destroy their lives again.
Graves set his jaw. Not this time. He had the power to declare a city uninhabitable, and this time he’d exercise it. Damn the politicians. He was tired of attempting the same mission over and over and never accomplishing anything.
The whir of an approaching aircar drew his attention to the leaden sky. A four-seater corporate model slowed, then descended rapidly to the ground. A lean man dressed in a dark suit and tie emerged. When Graves locked eyes with him, he detected the flash of an implant in the man’s right eye.
“Colonel Graves?” he shouted over the wind. “I need you to come with me, sir.”
“And you are?”
“Adamms. Secret Service.” The man flashed his ID.
Graves gestured toward the mobile command post. “I’ll need to—”
“Already been taken care of, sir,” Jansen called from the steps. “The situation’s in good hands, sir.”
Graves returned her salute and slid into the aircar. Beige leather, real wood trim. Definitely not a military model. Adamms sat across from him and looked out the window as they lifted off.
The command post grew smaller behind them. At this height, the pregnant darkness of the far horizon loomed even larger. A fat raindrop splatted on the clear roof of the car.
“Where to, Mr. Adamms?”
The man did not answer him.
• • •
The car flew straight north for a while. Graves assumed they were headed back to DC. Somewhere over the Carolinas, the pilot made a sweeping turn to the west and ascended into a high-altitude, cross-country transit lane.
Graves watched the countryside blur by. Interstate highways crossed the land below like gray synapses connecting clumps of city-nerves. He spotted a good-sized town approaching as they passed over Tennessee, wondering how many of Miami’s refugees would move into that state to start a new life.
Tennessee becam
e Arkansas. Looking down, he saw no evidence of state lines, but Graves knew there were state governments talking about setting up border controls to manage the flow of refugees. The worse the weather, the more nervous people got. He dreaded what he knew to be inevitable. It was only a matter of time before another Vicksburg happened.
“We’re headed to Kansas, sir.” When Adamms wasn’t shouting across a windy parking lot, he had a pleasant speaking voice.
“What’s in Kansas?”
Adamms pulsed him a data packet. “The Joint Chiefs have selected you as their representative for this test.”
Graves settled his data glasses on his nose and leaned back into the soft cushions. Atmospheric Alteration Through Enhanced Bio-Seeding . He skimmed through the report. High altitude dispersal … nanite-enhanced bacteria … carbon-reduction projections. He blinked the report closed and stowed the glasses in his breast pocket.
“Well, that’s ambitious,” he muttered.
Carbon reduction in the atmosphere through environmental engineering. The Holy Grail of climate control. A worthy goal, but about seventy-five years too late. Better to invest in figuring out how to levitate cities now.
He resumed his watch of the countryside. There had been a scheme like this one, what twenty years ago? By the multi-billionaire inventor … Taulke was his name. Graves had never seen actual scientific results from Taulke’s experiments, but he did recall how the newsfeeds had taken turns lampooning him, then shitting on his science.
The guy went off to Mars after that, he remembered. Smart man. Might as well find a new planet , Graves thought, his frustration in his present never-ending mission front and center in his mind. This one’s toast .
The aircar descended into flat green country—exactly what Graves imagined Kansas would look like. He saw a pair of military drones flash by the window. They were armed.
He raised an eyebrow at his companion.
“Test area’s been cordoned off,” Adamms said. “We’re the last to arrive. Twenty square miles of zero human intervention. Total news blackout, too.”
The Lazarus Protocol: A Sci-Fi Corporate Technothriller (The SynCorp Saga Book 1) Page 11