CHAPTER 4
"The skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations. With his forces intact, he disputes mastery of the empire and thus, without losing a man, his triumph is complete."
Sun Tzu
The Art of War
April 9, 2055 (Seven years earlier)
Islami Laboratory
Biryanodon, Balkistan
"I don't see anything." Mustafa Gaidar stared intently at the imager screen.
Dr. Eshaq Islami sat at a console next to the TinyTown, just arrived from the States. He tweaked the sensitivity controls of the quantum flux imager.
"Keep watching, Excellency. You will, soon--"
The image on the monitor sharpened slightly. In focus in the center of the screen was a rectangular grid, wavering in the aqueous solution in which the grid was submerged. Islami studied the image carefully.
"Deflection at the probe tip is steady," he muttered. "That's about as close as we can get. The grid is ready."
Fatima Farhad was a tall, thin woman, deep black hair and rimless glasses. She sat next to Islami at the containment control panel. "Solution parameters are normal. Pressure is twenty point two bars. Temperature right on the curve. PH normal. Concentration gradient is what we expected. Are we set?"
Islami idly rubbed his gray moustache. "Activation instructions are coded and set for transmission. I've checked them several times. Replication factor set for the template that's loaded. Safety systems armed?"
"The weapon," Gaidar asked. "--this is your template?"
"Correct, Excellency. A simple weapon…Russian-built PK-77 automatic coilgun pulser. I've programmed its atomic profile specifications into the transmitter."
Islami scanned the panel displays. Poised around the periphery of the insulated tank in which the grid was suspended, were three rows of six electron beam injectors each. At the slightest hint of trouble during replication, Fatima or Dr. Islami would quickly toggle the firing switch on the control panel. Several million electron volts of energy would flood the tank, stripping atoms from molecules, and electrons from atoms. Only a cloud of nucleus fragments would remain.
"Injectors are ready, Doctor," Fatima told them.
"How's our little friend doing now?" Gaidar asked. He slid a chair up closer to the monitor.
"I think he's a little anxious," Fatima said. "Quivering with anticipation, if you know what I mean."
Gaidar smiled at that and squeezed her hand.
In the exact center of the grid, a mass of spherical shapes pulsated with some inner rhythm. The mass looked like a bunch of grapes, hanging on a trellis. "ANAD's ready for duty, Excellency."
Islami smiled. "If I know you, Fatima, you'll be running ANAD ragged, replicating every jewelry and diamond template known."
Fatima patted the side of the tank. "ANAD has been my life, Doctor. We understand each other."
Mustafa Gaidar was jealous. "It is a crime in Balkistan, my dear Fatima, to displease your President. Surely you would not create a new lover from these molecules?"
Fatima squeezed his hand back. She didn't look at him, though. "We have no template for that, Excellency."
"Good. Then I suppose the original will have to do."
Islami sat at his keyboard. His fingers were poised. "Ready for activation, Excellency. Take your positions. Let's see if ANAD 2.0 lives up to its reputation."
Islami tapped out a short sequence of instruction on the keyboard. The computer sent the instructions to an acoustic converter. Pulses of sound energy, carrying the original signal, flooded into the compartment containing ANAD. The Autonomous Nanoscale Assembler/Disassembler received the stream of coded instructions. ANAD's processor decoded the signals in a fraction of a second.
The instructions said, quite simply, REPLICATE DOWNLINKED TEMPLATE COPY ONE CYCLE.
At first, there was little change in the image. Fatima Farhad fiddled with the gain and the resolution. Temperature sensors detected a noticeable rise in heat output from the center of the grid. Voltage levels oscillated, making it difficult to hold a good image on the screen. ANAD was breaking and reforming electron bonds at a furious rate, converting scattered atoms of molecules in the growth solution into fixed structural elements patterned after the template copy of the Russian weapon.
After a few minutes, the AFM image showed a noticeably growing dark splotch spreading across the grid. Fatima had reduced resolution to get a better perspective view of ANAD's work. Pressure, temperature and concentration levels in the solution fluctuated exactly according to the predicted profile. Gaidar and Islami surrounded Fatima, watching as the dark growth gradually filled the grid. Windows of data indicating sensor readouts tiled the top and sides of the image.
ANAD steadily built structure, following the template Islami had sent to it, extending molecule chains into the surrounding medium. As the exact atomic dimensions of the template were reached, ANAD's processor returned control of the replication program to the main program.
And the main program said simply TERMINATE REPLICATION.
"Program over," said Fatima. "ANAD has stopped replicating. I'm measuring now."
As Islami and Gaidar watched, Fatima skillfully guided the imager in for a close-up view. Fatima scanned the length and breadth of ANAD's newly formed structure. In large measure, according to the template parameters, it seemed right. She placed the cross-hairs of the imager on one corner of ANAD's new creation, near the end of the 'pistol's' muzzle, and started a counter, marking the spot as zero. Then she maneuvered the imager back and forth, measuring the object's dimensions, its density, its surface tension. Tense minutes ticked by.
Gaidar, Islami and Fatima divided their attention between the image itself and the scale counter. When the measurements were done, Islami smiled broadly and leaned back in the chair to stretch the tension out of his muscles.
"Precisely on target," he crowed. "A beautiful sight, isn't it?" Islami rubbed his hands. "I declare ANAD 2.0 a resounding success."
Gaidar studied the image carefully, manipulating the resolution. "When can I see the weapon?"
"Right now, Excellency. If you wish." Islami pressed a few buttons to be sure the ANAD master was properly inerted and safed. He grabbed a wrench and began unscrewing a small hatch on top of TinyTown. "I instructed ANAD to move the replicant object into a lockout chamber and isolate it. That way, we can retrieve the device for study without violating containment control boundaries." In less than two minutes, Islami had the hatch off. It hung by a small chain to its flange. Islami inserted tongs and removed a PK-77 from its mounting scaffold, still dripping growth solution. He air-dried the weapon and placed it momentarily in a decontaminant box. It was quickly scanned for traces of toxic or viral particles but the box lit up green. The object was a clean replicant. Islami handed the weapon to Gaidar, who balanced it for weight and feel. He ran his fingers along the still warm barrel. "The finish…it seems perfect."
"The power of autonomous nanoscale replication. Surface defects come from macro machining on a lathe. ANAD works with atoms and molecules, much more precisely. The scale counters and probes tell me the device you're holding is within a few nanometers of a precise match to the template."
Gaidar marveled at the possibilities. He turned the pistol end for end, looking for flaws but there were none.
"This is a fabulous thing, Eshaq. A true miracle. Allah be praised. This is exactly what Balkistan needs."
He let Fatima handle the weapon. Islami beamed. "The manufacturing potential alone is beyond belief, Excellency. Anything we need: corn, potatoes, tractors, houses, anything at all…ANAD can produce. He needs only two things: the right instructions, instructions precise to the level of atoms. And a medium of growth. Simple elements to manipulate structure, to form what the instructions say."
Gaidar
took the weapon back from Fatima. Idly, he spun the chamber, methodically cycling the action. "Eshaq, you say ANAD can assemble anything, given the right medium and the right instructions."
"That's right, Excellency. Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that. Just coding the right instructions takes time. You must be precise in every detail: the right dimensions, the right geometry, the right bond energies between groups of atoms. It depends on the object. Even small replicants like this device involve algorithms of great complexity, petabytes of information. The software design must be accurate and readable, able to be executed by ANAD. It's kind of an art, and very time consuming."
Gaidar aimed the pulser at Fatima, who flinched and nudged the barrel away from her face. "Today, you have given Balkistan new hope. A new weapon. Perhaps, the ultimate weapon."
Islami knew enough to let the President and Protector of the Masses elaborate his vision.
"An idea, Excellency?"
"A plan." Gaidar sat down at the imager console. With a few buttons, he brought ANAD up to full power magnification. For a moment, he stared back at the precise rows and columns of ANAD's scaffolding. In the very center of the grid, ticked the internal clock of ANAD's own processor, beating like a heart.
"A plan," he went on, "to avenge our defeat at the hands of the Kurganians three years ago. A plan, perhaps you could call it a vision, to make Balkistan great again. Punish Kurgania, absorb her into our nation and make of all Asia a greater Balkistan. A new empire worthy of Genghis and Batu Khan. A thousand years ago, Eshaq, half the world trembled before the horsemen of the steppe country. With this--" he patted the imager console, "we can once again bring fear to our enemies. We can make a great empire from all our squabbling, brawling neighbors and unite our people in a glorious campaign."
Fatima was used to Gaidar's 'visions.' "Just what do you have in mind, Excellency?"
Gaidar smiled. "The ultimate weapon has no defense. The ultimate weapon is the weapon not even recognized as a weapon. This--" he got up and went to the TinyTown chamber--"is my valiant horse cavalry, Fatima. Dr. Islami, have you a map?"
Islami called up an atlas on a nearby workstation. At Gaidar's direction, he centered Biryanodon and Balkistan in the image, then expanded out to show the entire Eastern Hemisphere.
"Three years ago, Doctor, you created a programmable virus."
"Yes, Excellency, the Human Neuro-Receptor Inhibiting Virus. HNRIV. We put him to a test against the Americans' ANAD 1.0. Pine Bend water treatment plant, in Washington, D.C."
"He fought bravely," Gaidar told them.
"He did. The ANAD master took advantage of HNRIV's speed of mutation with deception countermeasures."
"And now," Fatima observed, "we have ANAD 2.0, which has the software kernel of HNRIV."
"And new capabilities of his own," Islami added. "New processor, new design end effectors, new bond energy attenuator to fit atoms together more easily--"
"Yes, yes, all this is true," said Gaidar. "Now I want to go further. Eshaq, build me a new ANAD. We'll call him INDRA…the Hindu god of battle. I've studied Pine Bend, your reports. I've studied our wars against Kurgania. I know what is needed. Build me another programmable virus. I have a vision: an intelligent mechanism, small like your HNRIV virus, but programmable. Controllable. One with even greater abilities than before."
"What kind of abilities, Excellency?"
"The ability to infect and influence its targets, selectively. The ability to kill its host quickly, if needed. But beyond that, Eshaq, I want even more. I want to the ability to also kill slowly, or not at all. Give me an ANAD with the ability to create specific neural 'appetites,' specific cravings, on command, under programmed control."
Islami was already visualizing structures in his mind. “It will not be easy, Excellency. It'll take time. And I'll need things."
"You'll get whatever you need. We are going to contaminate Lake Indrahani. Kurgania has no other source of fresh water for most of her people. Give me this weapon, Eshaq. And I will take Kurgania without firing a shot. Her people will be our sheep. And Balkistan will be feared as no other nation."
Mustafa Gaidar and Fatima Farhad left Dr. Islami's lab and rode back to the Presidential Palace. It dominated a low hill in the center of Biryanodon, behind crenelated red sandstone walls. From Gaidar's residential quarters on the third floor, the blue domes of al-Khoban mosque gleamed in the hard desert sunshine.
Gaidar's attention was elsewhere.
Fatima lay naked on the canopied bed, ready for him. They made love quickly, Gaidar plunging deep into a tight embrace. They coupled violently, throwing sheets to the floor, desires erupting from three years of separation.
"Fatima…" Gaidar's voice was hoarse. "Fatima, you don't how much I missed you--"
"I had faith," she told him, and pulled him tighter. "Duty first, then desire. I brought you our future, Mustafa. I brought you Balkistan's future."
Gaidar was soon spent. He rolled over on his back, eyed the minarets of al-Khoban. "If Islami does as I ask, we'll make the Kurganians pay. Three wars in twelve years. Now I, Mustafa Gaidar, will put an end to this humiliation."
Fatima stroked his beard, let her fingers catch his sweat-soaked hair. "You think Islami can do it? ANAD is so powerful. The Americans still aren't sure what they have, how to use it. Quantum Corps plays war games, trying to develop tactics."
Gaidar scoffed. "Already I have an agent inside Quantum Corps. He’s a Lieutenant named Caden…he’s worked himself into a position to do them great harm. When the time is right, I will show the world how to use ANAD. Think of it, Fatima: uncountable numbers of nanoscale replicants, able to assemble anything we can think of. Or disassemble. A new Golden Horde. Under my command."
"Our command, my darling."
Gaidar smiled at that. "Of course, dear Fatima, you are right." He sat up in bed, propped his head on a stack of pillows. "I have an idea. Let's develop an ultimatum for Kurgania. Right now. And, we'll need a plan for how to administer the territory, too."
"I'll get a tablet." Fatima padded over to a bureau, rummaged through a stack of papers and jewelry boxes, and located the thoughtpad. On a whim, she snatched up a half-empty bottle of wine as well. She returned to the bed with two goblets and poured a finger in each. "To Kurgania. To her capital of Dekhara. To Lake Indrahani and ten million Kurganian citizens soon to be under the complete control of ANAD 2.0." She kissed His Excellency and hoisted the goblet. "Your first conquest."
Gaidar savored the wine. "Pardon, Fatima. My second conquest."
When she looked puzzled, he laughed out loud. "Fatima Farhad, you were my first."
February 20, 2057 (Five years earlier)
Hong Kong Special Autonomous Region
4:50 p.m.
Mustafa Gaidar had come to Hong Kong to make a deal with the devil. Squeezed out of the Russian rackets by jealous competitors in old Muscovy, he had knocked around the Continent for the better part of two years, always one step of UNIFORCE and its hired eurocop deputies. Paris, Berlin, London, Monaco, Rome…high rollers everywhere, lots of big mouths and promises but not a single soul willing to invest a single lousy terran in the scheme of the century, the cheap bastards.
So he took his pride and hyperjetted off to Hong Kong, where after taking the tube up from Chek Lap Kok, he strolled about the neon-lit waterfront, trying to locate the Lucky Dragon’s Ear Flim Palace.
Just shy of high tea, he made a few inquiries, then headed up to Kowloon City and found the place soon enough. It was tiny, little more than a closet, draped in papier-mache lanterns left over from the New Year’s parade, blazing brightly in the gloom of a late February afternoon. Gaidar pushed past a go contest in front and entered the arcade.
It was a quiet crowded place with a low hum from rows of cocoons--every last one of them lit up and occupied by flim fanatics, each encapsulated in his own coffin-sized pods, ea
ch engorged in a full-immersion fantasy like so many chrysalises struggling to be born into something else.
"Please, may I help?" The proprietor was old, wrinkled like rice paper, a white goatee and spectacles dancing with projected retinal images from some dragon western he'd loaded into a hip-pocket player. "A special today…marked down…twenty terrans…two comedy and lively opera…only one booth left for you--"
Gaidar didn't want a flim. No time. Full immersion was for the brain-fried, the cortically challenged louts who sucked up everything and never lifted a finger to make something of themselves.
Like making deals. Gaidar was sitting on a scheme to make mouths water and he knew it. He looked around the parallel rows of pods, peeking through the safety ports, watching the brain-fried dance and sing and fight and fornicate, jacked in with a dozen or a hundred more just like them.
Gaidar gave up looking. "He said he would be here."
The proprietor's crinkled face crinkled even more. "And who is that, most esteemed and honorable visitor?"
"The runner. Escorial's pipe man. Shaio Hong Ser."
"Ah, yes, the Red Hammer." The proprietor led Gaidar to a flim booth in the back. He pressed a recessed switch and the cocoon parted. A black-haired man, greasy beard, was inside, suspended in mid-lunge. He turned around, momentarily disoriented when the proprietor paused the story. Greasy-beard and the proprietor exchanged glances. Then he jacked out and exited the cocoon, sweaty and slightly disheveled from slaying dragons in faraway places.
His name was Yang.
Gaidar shook hands, explained his interest. "I want to meet Escorial. I've got an offer to make. He'll be interested."
Yang was toweling himself dry. The proprietor came back with a tiny porcelain tray of drinks. Yang hoisted one and downed it in one gulp.
"Lot of people want to meet Escorial. Hundred deals a day. What's the offer?"
"It's for Escorial, I told you. He and I meet. Man to man, no spectators. What I've got is for Escorial alone."
Yang seemed to shrug, then flicked the proprietor away, scurrying back for more tea. "Suit yourself." He straightened his jacket, rolled his sleeves back down and gruffly combed greasy hair over the flim port behind his ear. "Escorial's not here anyway. I'm the pipeman."
Gaidar hated dealing with sycophants. Flim trash or neuro-junkie, strung out on scope or just gutter garbage, he knew the type well. Yang had the same dazed look but he was husky and broad, big in the shoulders. Gaidar wanted to reach through the prick's throat and rip out the last unbuzzed piece of cortex he could find, if there was any.
Instead, he decided to play the game. The Eternal Defender of the Purity of Balkistan had now fallen to this…dealing with flimmed-out dim bulbs…just to get an audience with a crook, for God's sake.
What else could the world do to a man descended from Genghis Khan himself?
"Look, pung-yo, you want to take responsibility for Red Hammer losing business, that's your problem. I can go it alone, build my little empire, and bleed Escorial dry inside of six months. You tell your boss that. If he wants a cut after he's seen what I've got, it'll be too late. Today's the day to cut and deal. After today, there is no deal. If I walk out of here without hearing an offer, I'm competition." Gaidar's eyes narrowed. "And I eat competition."
Yang considered that, waited until the proprietor had served them both tea and grunted.
"Only one way anybody sees Escorial."
Gaidar tasted the jazzed-up protein mush that passed for "tea" among flim addicts and made a sour face. "I'm listening--"
"Glasseye."
"What's that?"
Yang snorted. "For a Hong Kong businessman, you're pretty thick, aren't you? I put you out, see?" Yang pulled out a blisterpac of tablets from an unbuttoned pocket. "Glasseye. Neuropyrmidine. Freezes you like a statue. Unconscious. Paralyzed. Like a sack of rocks. It's the only way you get to see Escorial. The man likes his privacy."
Gaidar didn't like the idea. But he liked the thought of leaving Hong Kong with nothing to show for the long trip even less.
"I suppose I have no choice. How long?"
Yang shrugged, pulled out two tablets. "Works in a minute. You'll be out for two hours, if you don't go coma. You wake up and feel like I dropped you off Victoria Peak. But you'll get over it."
Gaidar held out his hand. Yang dropped the two tablets in his palm. Gaidar popped them both and washed it all down with tea. It was bitter, brassy in taste.
"Best sit down here, friend." Yang guided the Balkistani expatriate to a seat. Already, he was jazzed, then wobbly and dizzy. He sat down in a heap, his vision blurring into a tunnel, his heart revving fast, turbocharging before the crash.
The crash, when it came, was like slipping off a cliff, floating and feathering downward, forever downward. The last thing he saw was Yang's wavering face, as the pipe man reached out to rifle through his pockets.
The smell of salt air was strong, that and wet grass, leaves, tree smells, cut bamboo, drying fish. The sensations came in a rush, flooding in, and Mustafa Gaidar enjoyed identifying them one by one, until a sharp guttural voice intruded on his reverie.
"Wake up, diablo. This is not a pleasure cruise."
Gaidar blinked hard and the source of the voice gradually materialized into view.
Luis Escorial was mostly beef, black-haired, sporting a luxurious black moustache. He glared down at Gaidar, handing him something liquid in a cup.
"Drink."
Gaidar hesitated. Escorial picked up Gaidar's hand and physically inserted the cup in it. "Drink, estupido. It cuts the glasseye."
Gaidar drank. In a few minutes, his vision sharpened and the cotton padding in his head seemed to dissolve. He finished the cup--the liquid had a metallic taste--and realized he was on a boat--a yacht actually, anchored off a small island in an otherwise isolated bay of turquoise water.
"It's called Ap Chau," Escorial interrupted, anticipating the question. "Used to be known as Robinson Island, when the anglos ran things."
"Quite scenic." Gaidar stood up, still trying to clear his head. The bay was a cool, mist-shrouded enclave, a bowl surrounded by humps of green mountains, shadowy sentinels at night.
"And easily defended," Escorial added. "That's Mirs Bay, or Tai Pang Wen in the local Cantonese dialect. Lovely place. Full of sharks."
"I don't swim."
"But you do pester my pipe man," the Colombian muttered. "Why do you want to see me?"
Gaidar accepted mint tea from a white-jacketed steward. The yacht was a four-deck beauty, with polished wood and brass everywhere. Her life rafts were monogrammed in gold stencil: Orient Star.
"To make you a fortune."
Escorial laughed, an explosive expectoration that wet down everything in range. "I…? No comprendo. A fortune is like a beautiful woman. Easy to lust after. Hard to keep. Why am I interested in you? Perhaps, I have fortune enough."
Gaidar paced the deck railing, carefully noting the stewards hovering nearby…and the black jackets beyond them. Escorial's goons--Guangzhou tong, from the looks of them. The Glorious Defender of Balkistan tapped the side of his head.
"What I know…you also need to know. My knowledge can make you as rich as the Caliph of Baghdad, rich beyond words. Or destroy you and all of Red Hammer, just as easily. I've come with an offer."
Escorial watched this strange man strut about the yacht. An offer?
"What can you offer me?"
"I have an agent inside the U.N. Quantum Corps," Gaidar told him. "At their base in the USA; Table Top Mountain, it's called. My agent tells me the Quantum Corps is planning a little operation in this part of the world. I can offer intelligence on what the Corps’ planning. And I’ve got a little proposal to make beyond that…something that Red Hammer could take on that would expand the business a little…to pretty much the entire planet, actually.”
Escorial frowned. The Quantum Corp
s enforced United Nations mandates on nanoscale systems, ferreting out threats from infinitesimal adversaries, man-made or otherwise. Escorial knew of the Corps. He'd developed a grudging respect for them over the last several years. Red Hammer didn't operate for long where the Corps put its foot down.
"What kind of operation, amigo?"
"There's a bust in the works. An infiltration/penetration operation, right here in HK. Your scope works are here. Quantum Corps knows that. They’re planning to drop in uninvited, insert some twist into the genome of your mother strain. Bollix up your whole master gene set, every last nucleotide, so the strain won't replicate. You'll be out of the scope business in weeks."
Escorial was incredulous. He didn't believe Gaidar. It was some kind of trick. "Twist. Not possible. Do you think we are stupid? The scope lab is well hidden, and the local tong well paid for protection. It's a hoax." He squinted suspiciously at Gaidar. "You are playing some kind of angle here, no? What do you want?"
Gaidar shook his head. "I've even got the dates and the times of the operation. The duty list of troops assigned. The order of battle…."
"Let me see all this information…show me you're not just some kind of conniving storyteller."
"Up here--" Gaidar tapped his head. "All the proof you need." He decided to pay out a little more line. "One week from tomorrow night, 0300 hours, the Lion's Rock tunnel at the Kowloon wall…990 Boundary Street. You want the exact navsat coordinates too?"
Escorial's frown deepened. He pointed to a chair beside the yacht railing. "Sit. We will talk as civilized businessmen." A finger snap produced a nattily dressed Cantonese steward, bearing a tray of plum wine and five-grain spirits.
Escorial studied Gaidar carefully. Businessman or hoax? Spy from a rival tribe or traficante with a new angle? He couldn't afford to brush this off…not when the Balkistani expatriate seemed to know the precise location of the scope works. The rest of the Ruling Council would not be so forgiving if their primary source of revenue were interrupted, or hopelessly scrambled.
Still, it seemed unconscionably bold for Quantum Corps to risk an infiltration op right in the lap of East Asia's biggest criminal cartel. Bold or foolhardy, perhaps. Could they bring it off? More to the point: could Escorial risk the possibility the amigo was not telling the truth after all?
Prudence said no. Prudence and his well-developed sense of self-preservation.
"And what is this proposition you make?"
Gaidar tasted the woo-liarng-ye, sucking at the fiery spirits until his throat burned. His eyes watered but he swallowed the liquor and leveled an even gaze at Escorial.
"I offer you one thing and only one thing. Intelligence on Quantum Corps operations is a bonus. What I’m really offering is an opportunity to lock into place a source of income that can only grow, that will last forever and that can’t be shut off.”
Escorial sneered back at him. “You are truly loco. There is no such business.”
“Ah, but there is…are you not in the addiction business?”
Escorial rubbed at his black moustache, twisting the ends idly. “Red Hammer has many interests, that is true—“
“You remember the HNRIV episode a few years go…how my agents managed to infect the water supply of Washington D.C. with a nanobotic disassembler?”
Escorial nodded uneasily. “That was your doing--?”
“What if I offered you a way to expand this idea, to, let us say for the sake of argument, the whole planet? Re-infect the world with a souped-up version of HNRIV, let it play out for a few months or a year, then offer the terrified victims an antidote. Only this antidote will be a modified INDRA nanobot, able to seize control of its victim’s limbic system and manage pain and pleasure circuits either remotely or under programmed control. What else can the poor victims do but accept your generous offer? Ideally, you would work through third parties…say, pharmaceutical companies, drug labs, that sort of thing. I can help arrange this. And in this way, over time, Red Hammer assures itself of a nearly limitless supply of neuro-buzz addicts. A business model to end all business models. Income growth forever.” He winked at the traficante. “And a truly captive market, eh?”
Escorial looked dubious. "Assuming for a moment, that you are not a lying, sniveling swindler, what price would you ask for all this?"
Gaidar shrugged. "I want no money."
Escorial laughed, another explosive outburst. "Then perhaps I have already died and stand before the heavenly saints. No money--"
"Sponsor me for partnership," Gaidar said. He finished his drink. "Partnership in Red Hammer."
"You're no heavenly saint," Escorial concluded. "You're just plain loco."
"If I can give you warning of Quantum Corps movements against you, or sabotage the bust altogether, you and your Red Hammer colleagues would be loco not to extend me an invitation. I offer you protection. Guaranteed. No one else can keep monster-D or bad gene sequences out of your product. No one else can keep Red Hammer scope the champagne and caviar of neuro-buzz. I can. And I offer you vast new markets…as a full partner.”
"And how, exactly, would this be done?"
Gaidar smiled. "A bit of a trade secret, you understand, compadre. But here's the gist: it's called Serengeti. Understand me: Serengeti is part mechanism, part organism. A nanoscale, autonomous, intelligent, programmable virus, if you like. And the world has never seen anything like it.”
"Serengeti --?" Escorial rolled the name around his tongue. "And why have we not seen this before, amigo?”
“Because its brain is based on something that hasn’t existed for a hundred thousand years. And it killed every last man, woman and child the last time it was let loose.”
"Really? So many promises, amigo--"
"Guarantees." Gaidar held out his hand. From the steward's tray, he had picked up a sampling of duck's egg. "This is Quantum Corps' version of Serengeti. It's called ANAD." Gaidar crushed the eggshell in his hand. Yolk ran through his fingers onto Orient Star's polished deck. "My agent inside Table Top has already weakened ANAD, 'poisoned' it, if you will. Trust me, ANAD will be no match for Serengeti.”
Escorial sniffed, finished off his drink. "You're either courageous or foolhardy."
"Perhaps, a little of both. You will now offer me a position on the Ruling Council of Red Hammer?"
Escorial laughed. "I will do no such thing. First, discussions will be held. There will be questions, many questions. Investigations. Tests and trials. More questions. To make alliance with Shaio Hong Ser is no easy task."
"My offer stands only today. Tomorrow, I cannot protect you from the Quantum Corps. And my proposal goes to the next bidder.”
Escorial rubbed his chin thoughtfully, sizing up this arrogant man of the desert. A bluff? He knew he could not afford to ignore a threat like this--Quantum Corps or no, scope was Red Hammer's treasure, the pearl of the neurotraficantes.
He motioned for Gaidar to follow him. "Come."
They descended carpeted stairs to a lower deck and came to a small compartment, forward of the sleeper cabin. Rattan curtains were drawn around the perimeter of the compartment. A round oak table dominated the center; the table supported a concave hood arching out from its center, arching out over the table to form a circular shroud.
"Sit," Escorial commanded. Gaidar sat.
Escorial sat beside him. A recessed keypad slid out. Buttons were pushed. The black concavity brightened with streaks and squiggles of light, then its myriad pinpricks of light dissolved into an image, grainy at first, then clearer.
It was a three-D textured image of a stone wall, marbled with quartz and calcite. Animated icons and cartoonish creatures fluttered across the field of view. They were avatars. Symbolic representations of real people, jacked in to the tele-immersion image. It was the most vivid flim he'd ever seen.
One of the avatars turned face-on into the view and swept into the
foreground, alighting on the rubbly ground of the image. It was an avatar of a Buddhist monk, draped in saffron robes and tao beads.
Escorial spoke first. "Your Eminence, there is a threat to our interests. The scope works may be in danger. A visitor has come. He offers protection. And he proposes a new business venture. In exchange for this, he desires alliance with Shaio Hong Ser. Indeed, he desires full partnership."
The monk-avatar's cherubic face changed expression, adapting a pixilated frown of vexation.
"Name this visitor. I will assign an identity."
"He is called Mustafa Gaidar, Eminence."
The monk-avatar gestured with its hand, a fluttery symbolic sequence of hand motions. The image of the stone wall flickered, then vanished, to be replaced by an image of a darkened cave, a dark vault of rough hewn walls, icy stalactites, with the blue flame of a fire casting animated shadows in a central firepit.
The monk-avatar materialized out of a tongue of flame and sat cross-legged beside the fire. He spread his hands for warmth, then spoke into the flame.
"I am the Portal-Keeper. I have assigned an identity to this visitor. During this session, the visitor will be displayed to all as a hawk, predator of the high desert. He is to be called Hawk."
"As you wish, Eminence."
The Portal-Keeper, still in monk-avatar robes, stared into the flame, continuing to warm his hands. His robe had turned blood red in the firelight.
"You propose a partnership, Hawk. Why?"
Gaidar explained his proposition briefly, outlining how the HNRIV plague would be set loose, how the antidote would work. He let slip a few more details from his agent at Table Top Mountain.
"Twist would be devastating to your scope. Twist kills scope, renders it useless. There's no way you can replicate, no way to deal, when the strain's been scrambled. With scope that has no buzz, who'll buy from you? Who will work with Red Hammer? Your markets, your territory…all of it will be taken by others. Red Hammer will be crushed. Picked apart."
The Portal-Keeper’s image froze, seemingly paused, in thought. But the voice went on. "An apt description for a hawk. Prey and predator…the yin and yang of our world. He who is not predator must be prey." The avatar levitated itself into the air, then hovered over the fire just beyond the flames' reach. The avatar rotated so that its face was now fully in view. The Portal-Keeper's eyes closed. "It is written that, when the mouse trusts the hawk, the end of the world is near. Shaio Hong Ser is a living creature, Hawk…born of pure minds, unencumbered with bodies or earthly concerns. We must survive. The Eight-fold Way lights our path. Persistence and patience are our bedrock. Deceit is our soil. Master of the First Level?"
"Yes, Eminence?" Escorial replied. Even as the Portal-Keeper drifted across the view, another avatar blossomed out of a fissure in the rock wall. A pair of luminous blue eyes floated into the foreground, peeking around the point of a stalactite.
"Ah, General Zhang is here. Zhang….you've been listening?"
The Zhang avatar blinked, blood red corneal veins striating the eyes. "An odd proposition, Eminence. Why does Hawk want to be part of Red Hammer anyway? Who's to say this fellow won't help himself to our genome or hijack our buzz addicts and go into business for himself?"
"Or sabotage the whole works?" A third avatar had materialized in the background--a horse/centaur-like beast galloping up from the background shadows.
Escorial nodded at the newest participant. "Good evening, Souvranamh." To Gaidar, he turned and added, "Opium traficante. Bangkok's biggest, before he joined the Hammer. Souvranamh is third level."
The Portal-Keeper acknowledged the virtual presence of the others. "A question for Hawk, then. A question of trust. And motives."
Gaidar preferred direct visual; avatars could never capture the nuances of face…lines tightening at the mouth, eyes focused or evasive. But there was little he could do. Red Hammer preferred symbolic.
"Motives are slippery. Only interests never change. My interests are to regain my sacred homeland of Balkistan. Bring enlightenment to greater Balkistan, to all of Asia." His face darkened. "And to exact revenge. It was Quantum Corps that took my country away two years ago. I am fifty generations descended from Genghis Khan. To lead a great ordu on a great quest…that is my destiny. Red Hammer can help. Only the Quantum Corps stands in my path. So--" Gaidar gestured at the avatars in front of him, "--our interests are parallel. They converge…on a common enemy. By helping you, I help myself. There can be no stronger bond of mutual interest than that."
"Hawk speaks wisely," Zhang's eyeball said.
"Indeed," said Souvranamh's man-horse, "the Portal-Keeper has assigned this identity with wisdom, has he not? Who is more patient and persistent than the predator of the high desert? Who is swifter of flight?"
"Or keener of eye?" added Zhang.
The Portal-Keeper drifted, sitting cross-legged, away from the fire. Several minutes passed in silence. The monk avatar positioned itself in a craggy recess at the top of the cave.
"Then it is settled. Hawk, listen to me: the proposition is acceptable to the Ruling Council. I have consulted with the Old Ones. We will make this alliance. The archives of the Old Ones are filled with knowledge useful for this venture. I will see that it is provided. Hawk, you may walk in the garden of the Red Hammer. And…if your stratagem is successful…if our scope is undamaged, and this proposal increases our market, measures will be taken to make you a full partner. Be advised: to sit with the Masters of the Four Levels will be an arduous task. But our judgement is clear: Mustafa Gaidar, known as Hawk, must be given the chance. Trust must be given. Master of the First Level?"
"Yes, Eminence?" Escorial replied.
"Render to Hawk all necessary assistance."
"It will be done."
The Portal-Keeper began to waver, pixellating at the edges of the avatar. "The Vispassana will be our guide, insightful meditation and trust our companion on this path. The Old Ones look down upon all of you with satisfaction. Soon enough, they will return. Go now…and end the scourge of this Quantum Corps."
The monk-avatar winked out. Then, one by one, the others pixilated down to points, signed off and vanished.
Escorial sat back with a thoughtful frown. A luminous glow gradually suffused the hood, ending the session.
"We have our orders," the Colombian said. "Come."
Gaidar pushed back and followed him topside. Orient Star rocked gently in swells lapping the shores of Ap Chau Island. Overhead, a light sea fog dimmed the stars of an early February night. It was shin-nian, end of the New Year celebration, now the Year of the Ox. Escorial snapped his fingers. Two men appeared instantly.
"I must return to my hotel," Gaidar told him. "To make arrangements—it’s the Natani, Queen's Road Central. And I'll need the full genome sequence of your scope mother strain. Serengeti will have to be programmed ahead of time. There’s a lot of work to do, a million details.”
"First things first, Hawk." Escorial took two glasseye tablets from one of the men. "Back to Kowloon…the same way you came. I decide what details you know and when you know them. For now, you're an ally, not a partner. We don't give up our secrets to just anybody. Are you linked?"
Gaidar subconsciously touched the mastoid bone behind his ear. He'd seen the WORLDNET socket that Yang sported, a wireless neural jack that was a broadband pipe, neocortex to Net. He shook his head.
"No man of the steppe country needs a jack."
Escorial scoffed. "Then we'll have to teach you the old-fashioned way. Here--"
Gaidar took the glasseye tablets and downed them dry in one gulp. He glared back at the Colombian, who smirked, stroking his moustache.
"I'll run a patch while you're out. Direct drop to your n-gram reservoir…hippocampal drop. You can sort it all out later. Once you get your gear, speak out loud this phrase--" he handed a scrap of paper to the Balki dictator. "It'l
l activate the right n-grams; massage the data into consciousness. Your hippocampal zone will know how to find the scope works, how to find me even. For now, I’m your contact. All you have to do is access it."
“The Portal-Keeper…I would like to meet him someday. He seems a wise and thoughtful fellow.”
Escorial smirked. “It’s said he’s not even human…but you didn’t hear that from me. Just relax—“
But Gaidar was already wobbly, pitching forward. Escorial caught him by his shoulders and guided him down to the deck.
Johnny Winger and the Serengeti Factor Page 5