by Mark Crilley
“No. Don’t sing it for them. Let them sing it on their own.”
Mei Jun frowned, then sat back and folded her arms, a have-it-your-way look in her eyes.
The children looked increasingly nervous. Billy had known that the question would throw them off balance a bit, but he certainly hadn’t foreseen this dumbstruck response.
They don’t know the song. They’ve never even heard it before.
“What’s the problem?” asked Billy. “It’s a popular song, right?”
“Yes,” said Mei Jun. “I’m sure they know it. Every Chinese child knows ‘Liang Zhi Lao Hu.’ ”
“All right, so let’s hear it.”
Mei Jun told them once more to sing the song. The children were at a total loss, as if they’d been asked to recite the Gettysburg Address.
The stray dog moaned and chased its tail.
“I don’t like this,” said Billy. “These kids are acting really stra—”
Suddenly, all at once, all three of the children began to sing “Liang Zhi Lao Hu.” They sang it in perfect unison, each hitting the notes at precisely the same moment. The song that they hadn’t known at all seconds earlier now came across as something they had been rehearsing for just such an occasion.
They know it now, but they didn’t know it a second ago?
Mei Jun smiled at Billy. “I told you they knew it. They’re good Chinese kids. Of course they know it.”
Billy drew his eyebrows together and rubbed his jaw.
Something’s not adding up here. These kids are hiding something from me, and it goes way beyond what they saw out there in the woods.
“You okay, Billy?” Mei Jun put a hand on his shoulder. “I think maybe you need some rest.”
Rest? No way. What I need is more clues. And more time to think.
“Yeah,” said Billy. “I could use a little break.”
CHAPTER 13
Billy thanked Mei Jun for her help with the interview, then excused himself, leaving her with the impression that he would take her advice and head back to the van for some rest. Instead, he wandered through the narrow streets and alleyways of Huaqing, trying to come up with an explanation for the children’s unusual behavior.
They were coached for that interview. Someone told them what to say and what not to say. Who would go to the trouble of interfering with Affy interviews?
Billy climbed a flight of concrete steps between two weathered wooden buildings, turned a tight corner, and passed a row of potted plants.
Why would anyone in Huaqing want to do that? Then again, it could be someone … not from Huaqing. Someone who doesn’t want AFMEC to find out what’s really going on here.
Billy considered the possibility of a plot against AFMEC. He’d studied a number of such cases in two of his favorite classes: Introduction to Creatch Sympathizers, and Anti-AFMEC Tacticians and Their Preferred Methods. Those who worked on behalf of creatches were known to pressure Affy interviewees into withholding information, and when they did, it generally meant some fairly serious anti-Affy maneuvers were under way.
It would have to be someone Chinese, or at least someone who speaks Chinese. If they’re on the list of identified AFMEC enemies, that narrows the field. There’s, what, three Chinese speakers on that list that I know of: Tengzhao Han, Kyang Min Ruzzbak, and Ilga Vobbling.
Han was an unscrupulous Chinese mobster who had joined up with the creatch sympathizers for his own personal enrichment. Ruzzbak was a Central Asian nomad who took up the creatch supremacist cause when Affys fatally wounded his grandfather in the remote Chinese province of Xinjiang. Vobbling was a native of Germany but had adopted China as her homeland at an early age. Her anti-AFMEC motivations were born of a twisted, anarchic desire to see creatches rule the earth: she attacked Affys as if it were a sort of blood sport. All three were still at large, and all three were known to have organized creatches in a variety of ill-conceived plots within the borders of China.
Not Han. Not his style. He wouldn’t waste his time in a remote village like this. He’s strictly a big-city operator.
Ruzzbak? A possibility. It’s hard to picture him coaching those kids—easier to picture him locking them up—but he could do it if it meant somehow giving the rogmashers an advantage.
Vobbling? Could be. She’s worked with mountain creatches before. Would she go to the trouble of coaching prospective interviewees? Seems like she’d have cut to the chase with an all-out attack by now.
Billy stepped to one side of the alleyway to allow an old man to pass with a rusty blue bicycle. Through a small window at eye level he saw an empty birdcage swaying on a chain.
Let’s not forget about Jarrid Glurrik, though. He was a language whiz: Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, you name it. And if I’m right that he’s still alive—a big if, for sure—coaching interviewees would be right up his alley. He was a cloak-and-dagger guy, big-time.
As he climbed another flight of lopsided stairs, something caught his eye. It was a simple quarter-inch-thick black cable, snaking its way up a gutter on the side of a battered old building a few doors down from the marketplace. Billy had seen this sort of cable before: it was the type of thing you could buy in an electronics store for hooking up your stereo system. He tried to follow the lower end of it, but it disappeared into a neatly drilled hole in the wall beside a padlocked door. The other end of it ran up to the top of the roof and out of view.
What the heck is a cable like this doing in a backwater Chinese village? This looks brand-new. Like it was put here just yesterday.
Billy looked up to the roof.
If I could get up there and see what it’s attached to …
Just then an old man came down the alleyway with a cartload of vegetables. He was coughing and moving at the leisurely pace of someone who didn’t much care whether he reached his destination. Eventually he passed, leaving Billy alone in the alley.
Billy glanced over his shoulder and then stacked a few nearby crates one upon the other. He hoisted himself onto the roof. The cable went clear across to the other side of the building. Billy looked around to make sure no one was watching from any of the several windows within sight of him, then climbed across the roof tiles on all fours. A chill wind blew across his back. The dark gray tiles were cool to the touch and somewhat brittle with age. Billy had to move quickly but carefully to avoid damaging anything as he followed the cable’s path.
Billy knew he was taking a pretty big chance. If he was going to go by the book, he’d have to ask permission from the village leaders before doing this sort of stuff. Still, if Ruzzbak or Vobbling was pulling the strings behind the scenes, it was going to be permission denied, no question.
Sometimes you have to break the rules.
When he reached the crest of the roof he saw the wire twist off to the right—across a narrow gap between two rooftops—and continue in a straight line to the top of a concrete warehouse in the center of the village. Billy again checked for unwanted witnesses, then quietly made his way from one rooftop to the other, hopping quickly over the shadowy alleyway below.
At this point the climb became more hazardous. The roof tiles were loose and crumbly, and any misstep would result in a very noisy and destructive tumble straight down to the street. Billy swallowed hard and kept moving, making his ascent one gingerly footstep at a time.
He was now high enough to get a good view of most of the village. Rooftops receded on all sides, brown and gray against the pale blue mountains beyond. Nearby telephone lines served as perches for several rows of pigeons, some of whom cocked their heads at Billy for a moment before turning their attention back to the late morning sky.
The cable led Billy higher and higher, until finally he came to the side of the warehouse, at four stories the tallest building in the village. The cable went straight up the two stories that stood between Billy and the top of the warehouse, then disappeared over the edge of the roof. Billy checked for onlookers.
He was now on a patch of roof ove
rlooking the village marketplace. He could even see the table where he and Mei Jun had eaten breakfast that morning. Fortunately there was a drainpipe leading up to the top of the warehouse, and it was just far enough to one side for Billy to scale it without being seen by anyone below. Doing his best not to make a sound, he gripped the drainpipe and started climbing.
The rusty fixtures holding the drainpipe to the wall creaked and groaned as Billy made his way up, foot by foot. When he reached the edge of the roof and pulled himself over it, a gust of wind blasted him in the face and threw dust in his eyes. It took a full minute of furious blinking and eye rubbing to regain his vision, but when he did he was rewarded with a clear path to his goal: the cable weaved across the concrete surface and finally came to an end at the top of a ten-foot-tall aluminum tower. The tower was capped by a toaster-sized black box with miniature megaphone-shaped speakers protruding from it on four sides.
Billy crossed to the tower and climbed up to get a closer look. The box’s surface was a smooth semigloss material unlike anything Billy had seen before. It had no markings of any kind: no manufacturer’s logo, no MADE IN CHINA, not even a serial number. The speakers were just over three inches in diameter. The entire apparatus, tower included, was utterly free of any sign of weathering. It looked to have been installed within the past several days.
This thing is superhigh-tech, whatever it is. It looks like it was put here by extraterrestrials.
Billy carefully stepped from one side of the tower to the other and examined the device’s upper and lower surfaces, to be sure he wasn’t missing anything. There was little left to see, though: no bolts, no seams, no sign of how it had been put together. Billy placed one hand on top of the box. It was slightly warm, with a barely detectable vibration emanating from within. He put his ear against each of the speakers. He heard a hum, low and steady, like a brand-new computer.
What is it? Some kind of PA system? The speakers are so small. They don’t look like they’d pump out enough volume to be heard past the edge of the roof, much less down at street level.
Billy checked his watch: 11:45. Time to get back to the van and trade shifts with Ana. He pulled out his viddy-fone and took a dozen or so photos: the box, the speakers, the tower, and its relation to the rooftop. He then jotted down some quick details in a pocket-sized notebook about the dimensions of the entire structure.
Okay. That’s all I can do for now. I’ll show this stuff to Ana and see if the two of us can’t figure out what this thing’s used for.
And who’s using it.
Billy returned to the edge of the roof and made his way onto the drainpipe. His mind was already racing, trying to connect the speaker-box thing to the various anti-Affy suspects he’d come up with so far.
That thing was state-of-the-art. We can take Ruzzbak off the list, then. He doesn’t have the know-how to deal with hardware like that. So there’s only two possibilities: Vobbling and Glur—
GRRRAAAAAK!
All at once the drainpipe broke away from the side of the warehouse.
CHAPTER 14
The drainpipe teetered briefly, then dropped like a falling tree. Billy leaped off, trying to land on all fours, but it was too late. He caught a sickening glimpse of a rooftop rushing up to meet him, then …
FFWHAM!
chak chak chak chak
… chipped pieces of tile shot into the air as he smashed, shoulders first, onto the surface of the roof, then rolled sideways straight down toward the marketplace.
With only a second to spare, Billy maneuvered himself onto his back, jammed both feet into the gutter at the roof’s edge, and halted his slide. Dust and tile chips rained down all around him, tumbling past and whirling off into the marketplace. Billy pictured the puzzled faces of the villagers below, craning their necks, asking one another, “What the heck was that?” in Chinese.
For a moment he just lay there, inhaling, exhaling, his heart pounding like crazy. He shielded his eyes and checked all the windows within sight of his current position. From what he could see, he had miraculously managed not to attract any onlookers. At least, not yet.
A minute passed. When no faces appeared at any of the windows, Billy quietly rolled onto his stomach and crawled, inch by inch, back up the roof. He soon found a four-foot concave circle of smashed tiles where he’d first landed. Thankful that he had not gone straight through into some grandma’s bedroom below, he turned his attention to the drainpipe. It was now nearly horizontal. The lower end was still attached to the warehouse, but the rest of it jutted out at a severe angle, displaying several fresh dents and scratches.
Can’t leave it like this.
Billy propped the drainpipe back up, straining and suppressing a grunt as he struggled under its weight. Finally it reached the tipping point and he was able to move it back to its original position on the warehouse wall. It had been attached to the wall in three places. The two higher fixtures were beyond Billy’s reach, but he was able to jam the rusty bolts of the lower fixture back into the concrete. It was a pathetic stopgap measure—the next rainstorm would probably bring the whole thing right back down again—but it was the best Billy could do at the moment.
He checked his watch: 12:03.
Time’s up.
The trip back across the rooftops was mercifully uneventful. Billy breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped onto the crates and climbed back down to street level.
Talk about luck. If anyone had seen that, it would’ve gone straight into Ana’s evaluation report at the end of the creatch op. I’ve gotta be more careful.
Billy went to the van and joined Ana for a light lunch of niu rou mian: beef noodles. Billy told Ana about the PA system and showed her the photos he’d taken with his viddy-fone.
“It is pretty high-tech-looking for a place like this,” said Ana. “Any theories?”
“I don’t know what that thing is for, Ana,” said Billy, “but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t put there by anyone from Huaqing. I think this village has been infiltrated.”
“Infiltrated?”
“Someone’s getting to these villagers before we do and coaching them on how to respond to our questions. The kids this morning were acting really weird. Nothing they said was spontaneous. It was like they were reciting memorized answers fed to them by someone else.”
“Hm,” said Ana, apparently unwilling to agree or disagree with Billy’s take on things. “I’ll keep that in mind during my interview this afternoon. Mei Jun and I are going to go talk to that farmer who found the footprint.”
“Be careful, Ana. I think we’re up against more than just rogmashers here.”
“Okay, Billy,” said Ana after she finished her noodles and rose to leave. “See you at six.”
It was a long, quiet afternoon. The creatch detector remained utterly blipless and Billy was left with nothing to do but try to piece together what little information he had so far. Mei Jun stopped by late in the afternoon and they exchanged ideas about who they’d interview that evening during Ana’s watch.
“Here’s my advice,” said Mei Jun. “Go straight to the village leader: Mr. Hu.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. In Chinese society the people at the top always have the best information. If there’s anyone in this village who knows what’s really going on, it’s Mr. Hu.”
“Think you can set up an interview with him for tonight?”
“Leave it to me, Billy.”
At eight o’clock Mei Jun led Billy through the shadowy streets of Huaqing toward Mr. Hu’s home. Night had fallen, and many villagers had lit the red paper lanterns hanging above their front doors. A heavy mist had rolled into the village, muting the already dim light of the streetlamps and making it impossible to see what lurked down darkened alleyways.
When they reached Mr. Hu’s door, Mei Jun rang the buzzer.
“You’ll like Mr. Hu,” she said. “He’s a nice guy. Very generous. See this?” She pointed to a jade brooch on her lapel. It had been c
ut and polished into the shape of hyacinth, and a life-sized one at that. “He gave it to me when I first came to the village.”
There was a sound of shuffling footsteps; then Mr. Hu threw the door open and spoke the usual Chinese words of welcome: “Huan ying, huan ying!” He looked to be well over sixty years old. He had closely cropped white hair, thick glasses, and a big black mole on one side of his chin. His movements were smooth and agile, like those of a man half his age.
He ushered Mei Jun and Billy into a dark hallway, where they removed their shoes and put on slippers. He then invited them to have a seat in his study, a room lined with books and framed examples of Chinese calligraphy. Against one wall was a large marble table with paper, ink, and a rack of timeworn bamboo brushes.
“Mr. Hu is a real calligraphy master,” said Mei Jun while Mr. Hu excused himself to put a kettle of water on the stove. “Look here,” she said as she pointed to one of the intricate red squares at the bottom of a nearby scroll. Billy recognized it as the impression left by a chop, a Chinese name stamp. “That’s his name: Hu Baiyong.”
Billy examined the delicate strokes of black ink that danced across the scroll in lively columns. He knew from his own clumsy attempts at writing Chinese characters that people only reached this level of skill after decades of practice.
Man. This guy is good.
Mr. Hu returned, joining Billy and Mei Jun around a lacquered black table. He and Mei Jun exchanged a few sentences in Chinese. Billy recognized the word guai wu—monster—from a Chinese video game he’d played once. Otherwise, he had no idea what they were saying to one another.
Mei Jun turned to Billy and translated. “First of all, Mr. Hu wants to thank you for coming to Huaqing.”
Billy smiled at Mr. Hu and gave him his best no-need-to-thank-me-it’s-my-job nod. At the same time he noted Mr. Hu’s oddly expressionless face. He didn’t look particularly glad to have Billy around.
“Mr. Hu also wants you to know,” continued Mei Jun, “that as village leader he feels responsible for the lives of everyone in Huaqing. He has been here since the days of the Great Leap Forward. He knows everyone in the village. Has seen their children grow up. Their grandchildren grow up. He promises you he will do everything he can to help you protect Huaqing from anything that threatens it.”