Hong Kong

by Mel Odom

  “Hey,” Gobbet called. She stood over the body of the girlfriend who lay in the middle of the floor. “We’ve got problems. Security just arrived in the hallway.” She pointed at the monitor over the door.

  Onscreen, four guys in sec uniforms took up a standard two-by-two formation like they’d been doing it for years.

  I took out a trank gun and got ready. “We can’t wait them out. We’ve got to move.”

  “I got Sleeping Beauty,” Duncan said as he lifted the Plastic-Faced Man to his shoulder.

  “Don’t kill him,” I said.

  “Not till after we find out where Raymond is,” he agreed. “After that, I’m doing what needs doing.”

  I didn’t argue. Gobbet and Is0bel drew trank guns as well, and Gobbet nodded.

  I opened the door and Gobbet threw a shimmer into the group of men. She’d explained that she could put some, maybe all of them to sleep, but she couldn’t guarantee it.

  Two guards stumbled and fell as I leaned out and shot a guy who looked dazed. Gobbet took out the remaining one, and they were all asleep when we passed by.

  We took the service elevator down, already hacked by Is0bel, and headed out to the van parked in the alley. I took the driver’s seat and pulled out into traffic.

  Chapter 78

  The Prosperity Project

  We found a nice, quiet spot on a rooftop that Racter and Gaichu had secured. Both of them waited while we prepared for the interrogation. The Russian looked pleased, like he was happy for us. Gaichu’s pale face was expressionless. For all I knew he could be thinking of eating what was left of the Plastic-Faced Man’s brain.

  “We clear?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “Of course, my friend,” Racter said.

  Gaichu nodded.

  The Plastic-Faced Man’s face wasn’t exactly plastic, just as Kindly Cheng had told us. Overlapping silver and bronze wafers embedded in the synthetic material caught the light and winked as Is0bel moved his head so she could jack into the port surgically implanted in the back of his skull.

  “You ready for me to bring him back online?” Is0bel asked.

  I looked at the zip ties encircling our prisoner’s arms and legs, thinking there was no way he could escape. I nodded.

  “Once I do this,” Is0bel said, “be aware that we’re on a timer. I can’t prevent his memories from erasing. I can only slow the process down.”

  “Do it,” I said. “It’s time we got some answers.”

  She tapped her keyboard, and almost immediately the Plastic-Faced Man’s eyes blinked open. He looked at the zip ties, then at everyone standing around him, and he smiled.

  “Well, this is interesting,” he said in a well-modulated voice. Kindly Cheng had said it was synthetic too, and could be altered. “I don’t recall ever having been in this situation before. Usually I simply awaken to find myself in a strange new environment, wondering what happened.”

  “It’s an odd way to live, don’t you think, Mr. Lee?” I asked.

  His smile grew larger. “You know my name, too. Very impressive.” He flicked his eyes over us again. “Looking at the lot of you, I think it’s safe to assume that a violent extraction of information is the next order of business?”

  “Oh, you can bank on that, asshole,” Duncan said.

  “So you chose to grab me in an intimate moment. I suppose that’s wise. Only moderate resistance…but the girl paid for it, didn’t she?”

  “She’s sleeping off a troll-sized headache,” Gobbet said.

  “We have a problem,” Is0bel said as she looked down at her deck. “Dreamland’s neural inhibitor software isn’t interacting with this guy’s cortical implant the same way it worked with her own. The memory loss is coming on sooner.”

  “Is there anything you can do?”

  “To stop it?” She shook her head. “Nothing. This is way beyond me. We’re talking about software I didn’t write interacting with two different pieces of headware I’ve never seen before. We’re lucky if this works at all.” She tapped her keyboard. “I’ll try and key in some buffering routines or something to slow it down as much as I can, but I wouldn’t put money on it. Start asking your questions.”

  “Tense,” the Plastic-Faced Man said. “Very tense.” He smiled again. “I guess I’ll answer your questions…rather…slowly.”

  “I wonder what’s under that mask of yours?” I looked at Racter. “I suppose Koschei can remove the synthetic.”

  “Koschei is a wonder,” Racter said as he patted his drone.

  One of Koschei’s arms lifted and a surgical blade slid out of a housing.

  “I was joking,” the Plastic-Faced Man said. “Of course I’m going to give you what you want. My clients know I’m a professional, and that I take extraordinary precautions to protect their secrets. If those precautions were compromised, it was due to an extreme circumstance. You can ask your questions. I’ll answer them as efficiently as I can. When we’re done, I’ll shake hands with a stranger and walk away wondering what just happened.”

  “Why is Josephine Tsang trying to kill us?” I asked.

  “She believes you’re here to destroy one of her special projects.”

  “Prosperity?”

  “Yes, although technically there’s more than one prosperity. Prosperity Tower is Tsang Mechanical Engineering’s corporate headquarters. Prosperity is also one of Josephine Tsang’s pet projects. Which one do you want to know about first?” The Plastic-Faced Man smiled. “Tick-tock.”

  “I want to hear about the Prosperity Project.”

  “Well, that’s going to be challenging. You see, the Prosperity Project is Josephine Tsang’s best-kept secret. And the best way to keep secrets is to not tell anyone. Even someone whose memory can be wiped. All I know is that Prosperity is something built deep inside Kowloon Walled City. Some kind of experiment her son was working on.”

  Duncan looked like he’d just been punched in the face. I knew he was still hoping the old man’s hands weren’t as dirty as the rest of the Tsang family’s hands were. His voice sounded savage when he spoke. “Is Edward Tsang still alive?”

  The Plastic-Faced Man looked up at Duncan and those synthetic features suddenly twitched.

  “Guys,” Is0bel said, “a status bar just popped up. It isn’t moving yet, but you never know when it might take a jump.” She stared at her screen. “It’s stuck at zero right now, but the wiping process is starting and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  “Give me your deck,” the Plastic-Faced Man said. “I’ll show you something.”

  Is0bel glanced up at me.

  “This is a calculated gamble,” the Plastic-Faced Man said. “You’re running out of time and holding all the guns. I have information you want and am betting that if I share it with you, you won’t kill me when this is over. The person I will be afterward is completely innocent of whatever I have done to you. I don’t believe you will kill an innocent man.”

  I didn’t have a choice. Not really. “Go on. Let him have it.” I leaned down and cut his arms free up to the elbows.

  Chapter 79

  Mother and Son

  The Plastic-Faced Man took the deck and focused on it, then his eyes unfocused, and I knew he’d jacked in. The trid function built into the deck came online, and images formed in the air a few centimeters above it.

  The image showed a small weathered man, possibly in his seventies, strapped into a high-tech chair. Electrical cables connected him to a bank of computers and equipment behind him.

  “Dad…” Duncan whispered, confirming what I was already thinking. It hurt me to see how old he looked in that chair, and how helpless he was.

  “This is from when I first brought the asset to Prosperity Tower,” the Plastic-Faced Man said in a distant voice. “After I took him from the teahouse on the dock.”

  The view shifted, swinging around and letting me know we were seeing what the Plastic-Faced Man had seen.

  An older woman in expensive clothing step
ped into view and spoke, but the audio didn’t quite pick up her words. As she came out of the shadows, I recognized her.

  Josephine Tsang said, “I wanted you to be gentle with him, Mr. Lee.” She actually looked concerned. “He looks as if someone Tased him.”

  “I assure you, Mrs. Tsang, I was gentle. He walked out of the teahouse under his own power.”

  The old man moved his lips a couple times before he got any words out. It was painful to watch. I’d never seen him when he was infirm.

  “May I have some water, Mother? My throat feels like it’s on fire.”

  “Yes, of course, Edward.” Josephine Tsang patted the old man’s cheek. “I’ll have someone bring you some ice chips.”

  “Your son has apparently been through some sort of ordeal,” the Plastic-Faced Man said in the recording. “He appeared demented at times. And he’s been mumbling about stopping something. Prosperity, I think.”

  Standing straighter, Josephine Tsang grimaced. “Yes, well that won’t be happening.” She looked back at the old man. “We won’t be stopping Prosperity, Edward. I want you to get that out of your mind. Do you understand?”

  “I understand perfectly well, Mother,” the old man said. “There’s no need to shout. But I won’t give up. Prosperity must be stopped. All those poor people…”

  “I know, Edward, I know.” Josephine Tsang sighed. “Those poor people. I’ve done a lot of good to make up for it since you left. Shelters, hospitals, all sorts of good work. And now it’s time to do something for you. Something I should have done a long time ago, perhaps.”

  A man in a white lab coat walked over to the old man. Josephine Tsang nodded to the doctor and he placed a chrome apparatus on the old man’s head.

  “What is this, Momma?” the old man asked. “What are you doing to me?”

  “I’m fixing you, Edward.” Josephine Tsang walked over to the old man, smoothed his hair, and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “All you can see is failure. You’re incapable of seeing the good in what you’ve done.”

  The guy in the white lab coat pressed a button on the chair and a mechanical arm swung out to wrap around the old man’s head, holding it in place. The arm glowed cobalt blue and a high-definition, three-dimensional image of a brain appeared on the wall behind him.

  “I’ve been inspired by Mr. Lee here,” Josephine Tsang said. “We’re going to do some editing of your memories. To relieve you of your burden.”

  “No, Momma,” the old man said weakly as his voice started failing him. “Wait! I’ve figured out what to do—” His eyes closed, and his mouth hung open.

  Josephine Tsang turned to face the cam head on, looking into the Plastic-Faced Man’s face. “Your payment will be made according to our agreement. Once the rest of them are dead.”

  The Plastic-Faced Man looked up at us, once more in control of his body. “I’ve taken a big risk showing you that.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass,” Duncan exploded. Then he turned to look at me. “You see? I knew it! I told you Raymond’s alive! Tsang’s holding him at Prosperity Tower.”

  “I know,” I said. “We’ll get him. Stay focused.”

  “He may be alive,” Gobbet said, “but it looks like his mom’s gonna erase part of his memory. Just like Johnny Plastic here. She’s gonna try to fix him.”

  “What kind of mother would do that?” Is0bel asked. Then she looked at her deck. “Shit, shit, shit!” She clacked keys on the keyboard. “That’s it. He’s wiping.”

  The Plastic-Faced Man’s head dropped for an instant, then he looked back up in surprise. “Oh, hello.” He glanced down at his bonds. “Well…isn’t this awkward.”

  “What do you want to do with this guy?” Duncan asked in a hard voice. “He’s got no memory, so it’s probably safe to let him go, but Auntie said he should take a dirt nap.” He drew his sidearm. “All the same to me.”

  I shook my head, knowing that it wasn’t all the same to Duncan. The Plastic-Faced Man was responsible for the old man being in Josephine Tsang’s hands.

  But I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that with his memory wiped, the Plastic-Faced Man wasn’t the same person he had been just a few moments ago.

  When I’d been in lockdown, I’d wanted a second chance. Didn’t everyone deserve one? That was what the shadows were all about.

  I shook my head. “Let him go. I think we’re safe.”

  Duncan looked at me for a long moment, then shrugged, realizing his heart wasn’t in killing the guy, holstered his pistol, and walked away.

  I used my knife and cut our prisoner free, then helped him to stand.

  “I do appreciate it,” the Plastic-Faced Man said. “Whoever you are.” He hesitated for just a moment, then shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away like he had no particular place to go. I wondered how much of the last few hours would be his to remember.

  “What are you going to tell Kindly?” Gobbet looked nervous. “She said to kill him.”

  “I’ll tell her the truth,” I said. Now that we were finally getting the lies out of the way, I didn’t want to start them up again.

  Chapter 80

  The Darkness in the Soul

  Some force or thing came for me on the MTR ride back to Heoi. It came for all of us, actually. I just didn’t know that at the time.

  We sat spread out in the train car, all of us tired from the last few hours, deep into our thoughts about how things had gone with the Plastic-Faced Man and what we now faced, and no one wanted to talk. Duncan tried to engage me, but it was a half-hearted effort at best, one I had no part of, and he quickly gave up. I didn’t think he really wanted to talk, either.

  Thoughts of the old man stirred in my mind, and I felt conflicted. When I’d been a kid, I’d grown to resent how he’d stepped in and changed my life and Duncan’s. Every kid out on the street dreamed of such a thing, but none of us really believed it would ever happen.

  Except maybe Duncan did. He had no problem believing in the old man, and that was what eventually created the rift between us. I couldn’t believe in the old man.

  In the long run, I suppose both of us had turned out to be right. Duncan got the old man for years. Raymond—or Edward, I guess—had stayed there and taken care of him.

  But in the end, he had cut and run, coming back to Hong Kong and all the trouble waiting for him there. He’d run, and deserted Duncan. Worse than that, the old man had drawn Duncan and me into the whole shit storm, dunked us in past our eyeballs, and disappeared.

  That wasn’t entirely fair, and I knew it. The old man had asked for help, and he’d figured we’d be able to help him do whatever it was he’d decided to do. He just hadn’t counted on how evil and treacherous his mother could be.

  The old man had fled Seattle, chased by his own demons. He’d lived with them until he couldn’t ignore that insistent siren call any longer.

  The weird thing was that I understood why he’d done it. Why he’d run. I hadn’t been able to leave my demons behind, either.

  Me and the old man, we were more alike than I’d thought. Seeing that weakness in him had turned Duncan away, but I was drawn to saving him even more.

  As the car jerked and vibrated, I leaned my head against the window and stared at the concrete tunnel rushing by in the soft glow of the train’s subdued lighting. I breathed out and fog covered the transplas.

  I went away—

  —and I stood out on the street in the thick humidity. A thick layer of clouds filled the sky, stirring sluggishly as the storm above threatened to reach down and smite the sprawl. An ozone stench hung around me. Amber light flared to life in the black clouds.

  The thick air laid a quieting hand over the street noises, and made me feel alone in spite of the shadows growing around me. A strange thumping arose, and it took me a second to recognize my own heartbeat.

  I got my bearings, not even wondering where the others were, and headed toward home. I wanted to return to the Bolthole. I thought the team would b
e waiting for me there.

  Before I’d taken a dozen steps, vertigo twisted my head up and it was everything I could do to simply stand there. My heart struggled to beat, like my chest was closing in on it. Everything around me grayed out until I couldn’t see anything.

  I concentrated on taking my next breath and slowly drew it in.

  The first breath was hard, but it got easier after that. Panic fired every nerve in my body. Fight or flight. That basic response hardwired into my system and honed in the Barrens. I was at the mercy of my own fear, but something else was pushing the buttons.

  I forced myself to take a step, then another and another, till the feeling passed and I was moving again. Before I knew it—

  —I was back in the Walled City. The stench of mildew and plaster and wet dog filled my nostrils and coated my tongue with sticky fur.

  I told myself it was just a dream. A nightmare that had risen from the events of the last few days. I tried to shake my head and wake up. I closed my eyes, thinking I’d wake up on the train.

  But when I opened my eyes again, I was still there in the murky, lethal darkness of the Walled City. Standing in an intersection, I looked around, trying to figure out where I was, looking for the way home.

  Instead, the tenement buildings leaned toward each other, like trees bending in a strong wind. They blocked all the streets but one, and I followed it because I knew just standing there wasn’t safe.

  The way felt familiar, but I didn’t recognize the area other than it looked like so much of the Walled City I’d already seen. Claustrophobia and an impending sense of doom shivered inside me. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. The street looked like a long, dark tunnel, and I kept waiting for something to jump out of the darkness, knowing I would be defenseless before it. The wind blew cold through the decaying neighborhood, but sweat still covered me.

  The low rumble of giant gears meshing rose around me, drowning out the beating of my heart. The street shook beneath my feet. Within a couple steps, I felt like I’d been stripped hollow, squeezed dry of everything inside me. Hunger dawned inside me, spreading like a slum fire.