But there is much more to this extraordinary figure than the prophecies. For this author, she is best celebrated as the first to draw freehand a faultless circle, using sable brush and oil of lampblack. Not content with the one beauty, she destroyed it in the quest for another. Employing methods that anticipate modern techniques of titration and colorimetry, she compared the quantities of ink in its circumference and diameter. The perfection of her hand can be judged from the result transcribed in Cisalpinus:
III. I IV I V IX II VI V...
(The expansion here becomes indecipherable.) We name this ratio pi (the initial letter of her name in Greek) in her honour.
18
WORSE
The physics of falling bodies is well understood, but not the metaphysics.
So mused Worse as he stepped safely back from the gaping elevator shaft. There seemed an urgent need of redress, and the makings of a disquisition came untidily to mind. A tribute to the author of the Principia. Arcane theorems of existence and uniqueness, addressing first Am I? followed by Am I alone? A homily on fallen man. Last lessons in futility and abandonment. The fall into love, and love’s disrepair. The fall as narrative, spoken one level at a time. Argument and irrevocability begin at 33; 33 is the cause of 32, and 32 of 31, and so number of annihilation. And the fall as enlightenment, which is to find one’s place in parable.
Here was the meditation of a falling man, admittedly compressed into five and a half seconds. Its conclusion might conduct to attentive listeners in the basement car park, but only silence returned to level 33. Metaphysics, Worse could safely surmise, had not interceded, and wholly temporal last words might have been more fitting. Perhaps, I don’t think you appreciate the gravity of your situation. Or, Here’s something for nothing, fucker. That’s why we call it a free fall. Worse instantly felt ashamed. Somewhere in the mass of any man there were surely atoms of goodness, deserving of (one could say) gravitas.
In any case, there was much to be said for a falling death. At least the physics was straightforward; the kinematic equations were easily solved and, as any thoughtful student would enjoy, linked immediately to observation. There was also kindness in the constants, a humane good fortune about the speed of things. Death came not so suddenly to be unforeseen, but without prolonged uncertainty either. There was none of the confusion and ambiguity and unpunctuality of a decline into terminal illness. There was no attendant metabolic or pharmacologic delirium. In the state of falling, certainty and lucidity made terror sensible, and a man could properly summon his readiness to die. In short, the speed of reason was in perfect harmony with the fall, knowing and comprehending into the final centimetres of awareness.
And falling was a true leveller. Feather and stone, man, woman—none slower nor less graceful than the other, all made equal by a universal law. Of course, for those inclined to human exceptionalism, that ideal was incidental to a humbling indifference of the natural world. For them, the romance of the dangerous height, the flirtation and fear and vanity of the climb, even the science of flight, were inventions of defiance. Nevertheless, if some commoner should excel, and overreach, there remained one uniform justice: that he who had risen further, fell further.
Worse stared at the void. It had proved ideal for bulky and awkward items. In seven years at the Grosvenor apartment, he had now disposed of two armed intruders along that same slight parabolic arc to their final resting place: an unlit, unvisited, concrete winch-pit. One day, he would remember to throw in a sack of builder’s lime as well, for antisepsis.
Bending down, he removed a screwdriver wedging the track, allowing the outer doors to slide faultlessly to a close. He examined the paintwork and door seals for traces of interference. Noting that the lift car was at the forty-first floor, he re-entered his apartment and secured the door behind him. In the bathroom he washed his hands and face, studying himself in the mirror. Before drying he washed again, more attentive to its sensations.
He collected together his assailant’s loose possessions and carried them to an office desk, where he switched on a bright reading light and began a careful study of each object. A slim wallet contained Australian and Hong Kong banknotes, a driver’s licence, credit cards, a hotel key card, and some club passes—not all bearing the same name. Separately were a rental car contract, car keys, some meal receipts, an airline boarding pass, a watch, and a mobile phone. The licence and the contract were both in the name of Zheng.
Worse examined each article before photographing it and setting it aside. Then, taking the mobile phone and camera he walked across a hallway into a long narrow, windowless room set up as a galley office. Along the right-hand wall was a bench bearing several computer terminals and assorted peripherals. Two of the CPUs were uncased. At the far end, looking more like a workshop than an office, was another bench covered by a sheet of thick black rubber. On this was a steel instrument rack containing oscilloscopes and other electronic test gear, along with a soldering-iron, a vice, assorted loose tools, and small tray sets of meticulously labelled circuit components. Most of the other long wall was furnished with shelving containing a technical library, manuals and reports. Just inside the entrance, on the left, a small table held a microscope and a fibre-optic light source.
Worse went to one computer and downloaded the photographs, encrypting them. Then he rolled his chair down to the workshop end and, removing the casing of the mobile phone and extracting the SIM card, applied fine probes to the circuitry as he watched first an oscilloscope and then a computer screen. Satisfied that he had accessed the phone ID data and downloaded its entire call register, he encrypted the files and reassembled the phone. Then he moved to another terminal.
Within the building security profession, problems at the Grosvenor were well known. Over its seven-year life there had occurred, apparently at random, puzzling failures in the building’s communication and surveillance systems. At first, these were investigated thoroughly, and more than once declared eradicated, yet they still returned. Over time, because no catastrophic incidents had ever implicated security failures, and because on every occasion the faults seemed benign and self-limiting, the concern of the early years was replaced by bemused acceptance. For those in a position to know, these inexplicable ‘transients’ were part of the building folklore, and no longer elicited security alerts. Only to Worse, who had occupied his suite at the Grosvenor for the whole seven years, did their origin hold no mystery at all.
Entering a code, Worse called up a program labelled Peepshow; displayed before him was the complete building security status along with a fault listing. Cameras on odd numbered floors from 19 to 39 were still out. He now shut down surveillance in the basement car park, as well as interrupting central monitoring of elevator locations.
Collecting Zheng’s car key, he assembled a small toolkit together with a torch and a fresh set of gloves, and left the apartment. He rode the lift down to level 29, opened the door, and checked that the corridor was empty. Then taking the screwdriver from his coat pocket he created, within a few seconds, subtle but forensically incontrovertible evidence of interference with the outer door seal.
Back in the lift, he felt both good and bad. But calling to mind the unpleasantness of Bishop Mesmerides on 29, he was quickly relieved of ambivalence, and pushed express to the basement.
The descent was rapid and he imagined being in free fall, summoning a magical force to save himself. He relished the physical sense of deceleration and return of weight, enjoying the audacious power as his tiny frame of reference slowed to a precision stop. You should have thought of magic, fucker. But Worse was ever careful not to displease his single deity, the author of irony; simultaneously, he offered silent penitence to determinism and the natural world. As if his apology had been accepted, the doors opened and he stepped safely into the car park.
Worse knew exactly what to look for: the vehicle description and registration were on the rental contract. He also guessed accurately where he would find it. Zheng had
parked right beside the elevators in a bay reserved for commercial vehicles, oblivious to clearly displayed regulations about visitor parking. Worse had sometimes entertained capital punishment for people who did that, and felt a perverse gratification. At the same time, he was pleased that the car was in range of a surveillance camera directed at the lift station.
He walked past the car, studying it casually. For several minutes he stood half concealed behind a concrete column some metres away, watching. Still watching intently, he activated the remote unlock. Now confident that an accomplice had not drifted to sleep inside the car, he walked over and entered by the front passenger door, closing it behind him.
On first impression, the interior was bare. The only personal items were a refolded city map above the instrument panel and a screwed-up food wrapper on the passenger floor, which imparted a nauseating odour to the enclosed air. A portable GPS device was wired to the lighter plug. Using his torch, Worse examined every recess and storage site, but his only discoveries were a car manual and roadside assistance information in the glove compartment. He placed the map and GPS in his bag, mentally noted fuel gauge and odometer readings, and set about his next task.
Using a fine screwdriver, he levered off a loudspeaker grille in the fascia. On its underside he carefully positioned and secured with glue a barely visible pin-like object, then replaced the grille. The microphone had a short transmission range, and he next concealed within the upholstery under the driver’s seat a more powerful repeater incorporating a GPS beacon. Finally, he reached underneath the fascia and, by feel alone, disconnected audio output to the speakers. Now any conversation in the car would not be made inaudible by the sound system. Of course, Worse reasoned idly, the conversation might be nothing more than some blaspheming exchange over the lack of entertainment. To test the microphone he opened and closed the car door, then said quietly, ‘Why the Christ doesn’t this work?’ Followed more angrily by, ‘Did you switch it on, dickhead?’
Ensuring that he had left no visible traces of his visit, he stepped out of the car and checked inside the boot; it was empty. Then leaving the car unlocked with its key in the ignition, he returned to his apartment.
There was still work to do. First, using Peepshow, he searched for the closed circuit vision of Zheng arriving in the building and exiting the elevator on level 33. After making copies, he excised these segments and replaced them seamlessly with repetitions of featureless frames. Then he restored building security to fully operational status.
Next, he moved to a computer that was partly disassembled, with circuit boards on view. Wires connected exposed CPU components to other devices on the adjacent bench, and to a large flexible aerial attached to the wall. Here was the receiver for microphone transmissions, which were recorded for offline reprocessing and signal enhancement. From the other machine, Peepshow streamed video from the basement camera, so that audio and visual data would be synchronized. Finally, Worse programmed the computer to direct-dial his own mobile phone the moment the listening device was sound activated. In that way, wherever he happened to be, he could overhear events within Zheng’s car.
Satisfied, Worse collected his mobile and walked through the apartment to a balcony. It was now nine in the evening, and he looked downward, marvelling how a thousand tiny fairy lights in an avenue tree could coalesce into an impression of one. He imagined individual bulbs as information bits such that the illuminated tree displayed some complex message, the output of a computation, a solution. Yet by simple negation that meaning could be wholly reversed if one particular bulb, unresolvable to him, were to be extinguished.
His attention then passed to the traffic, and the anonymous, untidy, intriguing business of the city. His eye followed approaching cars, imbuing them with occupants and purpose, wondering who might be another Zheng, and which would turn into the Grosvenor, and for what reason.
He had almost forgotten his intention. Raising the mobile to his ear he pressed a button. Immediately he heard a familiar thump, then: Why the Christ doesn’t this work? Did you switch it on, dickhead?
He went inside to begin filling a spa bath, poured a glass of wine, and made some phone calls. Returning to the bathroom, he placed his own and Zheng’s mobiles within reach of the spa and dimmed the light. Undressing, he threw his clothes more with rejection than direction into a laundry basket, then stepped into the bath, progressively sinking into hot, slightly soapy water. He sat motionless for several minutes, before sinking further until his feet were in contact with the far end, and he began to float. Then he closed his eyes and for the second time that day imagined falling. He submerged his head, and after a full minute began to push his feet against the spa wall. As the force increased he experienced again the reassimilation of his inertial self that had occurred in the lift.
But something was different. Within the darkness, into his weightlessness, came a new, unwanted companion sense. Ill-defined yet insistent, it grew stronger and more urgent until it enveloped and compressed him, entering his body and bursting into meaning as profound asphyxiation. He sat up violently, his face in air instantly cold, eyes open, lungs filling with new breath. Zheng’s phone was ringing.
19
ZHENG
Worse stared at the phone, both attentive and incurious. He had expected a call, and his preparation was thorough. A computer had opened a dummy connection and initiated a trace; already, in the workshop, there would be valuable caller identification and location data.
The ringing stopped as, by design, a messaging service switched in; Worse was not inclined to advertise the state of affairs. This was also a signal to close out the day’s business, attend briefly to ordinary chores, and get some sleep.
His mind had been playing with the notion of representing a person as a set of attributes, analogous to characterizing a material object by its physical and chemical properties. Then at any point in time that person would be fully described for the purpose of, say, argument. From this point of view, he already knew a great deal about Zheng, and he was confident of discovering more.
But the idea had limited usefulness. His thoughts advanced to a different metonymy, one better subserving explanation and prediction with respect to events and behaviour. This was the idea of a person as the centre of a defining complex of implications changing over time. Beginning before birth and ending after death, this existed in parallel to ordinary biography and objectified everything causal connecting the person to the world. The implicative signature that he might label Zheng would persevere, though radically changed, after the man’s death. The ringing phone was an illustration of this, and he felt the same distaste and trespass on his private space as he had with Zheng in person.
But for now, those emotions could be put aside. The importance of the model was that Worse should consider himself a variable in Zheng with essentially unknown logical connections. Further analysis could wait until morning; without checking the results in the workshop, he retired for the night.
By midmorning, Worse had a comprehensive picture of Zheng the man. Five days earlier he had flown to Perth from Hong Kong, rented a car at the airport, and immediately driven south. There were no credit card or other data to indicate exactly where he went, except for the purchase of petrol about two hundred kilometres down the coast. On the basis of the odometer reading, petrol usage and some telephone evidence, he probably drove quite some distance further. These facts were consistent with a stored GPS entry for a point west of Margaret River. He had returned to Perth two days previously and checked into The Excelsior, and his return flight was booked for twenty-four hours hence.
For the time being, Worse planned to conclude his research by hacking into Hong Kong bank accounts associated with Zheng. One alias account showed a number of deposits ranging from twenty to fifty thousand US dollars, going back about three years. Some looked reasonably traceable, given a little effort. But Worse’s attention was fixed on the most recent, credited ten days before, and this one was entirely d
ifferent. Worse knew a lot about electronic money transfer, how to conceal it and how to uncover it. Much of his consulting work over the last few years was concerned with exactly that. And within a few seconds of trying to identify the origin of this payment it was clear that here was very sophisticated concealment indeed. He played with it for about an hour, peeking, pushing, unwrapping, poking, tricking, cajoling. He learnt a little, but not enough, and certainly not what he wanted. He decided that he would resume the task later with special software.
Meanwhile, there was something comparatively easy that he could do. Returning to the accounts page, he withdrew the fifty thousand dollars last credited, dragged it through some muddied cyberspace, and rinsed it squeaky-clean on the other side. Mr Zheng had generously donated to a police charity.
During all these investigations, Worse was continually evaluating his own security. It was clear that Zheng knew where to find him, but careful reconstruction of the previous day’s events, along with no evidence to the contrary in the man’s effects or electronic communications, strongly suggested to Worse that his personal appearance remained secure. Not only would this simplify management of his safety, it constrained the possibilities regarding the identity of Zheng’s paymaster; Worse was also canvassing hypotheses of motive.
The conclusion regarding his own identity, though provisional, afforded some confidence for his next project. He hacked into the security system of The Excelsior and planted appropriate camera faults. Then he changed into a business suit, pocketed Zheng’s room key, gathered the remainder of the man’s belongings in a briefcase, and set off for the hotel. It was five blocks distant, and Worse chose to walk. He entered via the lobby, took an elevator to the ninth floor, and found Zheng’s room. Checking that the corridor was empty, he inserted the key card and stepped inside.
The Weaver Fish Page 13