by Andy Oakes
Two doormen slumped bored in China Brand smoke. The Big Man discreetly flashing his badge. As ever the usual effect, their posture straightening. Riding at depth in their eyes a fear, un-named, but always just a knock on the door or a tap on the shoulder away.
“Relax, it’s not fucking official.”
A hand up, calming them.
“We are here to see, to see …”
A name scrawled in biro on the back of the hand.
“Comrade Cypherpunk.”
“Yes, we are here to see Cypherpunk.”
Feeling stupid. The next words, even more stupid, as if whispering the dialogue from a cheap, well thumbed and trashy detective paperback.
“Tell him that the Wizard sent us.”
Following the doorman, a lumbering walk into the darkness. Opening up, the vast space of the internet café. A thousand personal computers flooding the cigarette-indented floor of the aisle with multi-hued weaves. A thousand monitors exploding primaries colours. Shifting chameleon fingers over a thousand keyboard keys. Heads bowed in homage at the altar of the web.
Spray can graffiti set into the rear wall in fluorescent shrieking hues, the star of the People’s Republic in crude bite and hard-edged paint runs, now yellowed by nicotine. At its very centre, as if blight had affected this bloom, a black door. The doorman knocking twice. A splinter of yellow light. Holding a hard hand up, the doorman.
“Wait.”
Slipping through the gap. The door closing. A muffled conversation. Two, three minutes, the door opening.
“He is expecting you.”
The door pushed open. Piao, the Big Man, breaching a bank of smoke. Across the stained floor, trailing wires, piles of books, dissected electronic equipment, spilt floppy discs and CDs. The door closed.
Behind a large monitor, smoke was rising in a constant plume which wormed its way across the discoloured ceiling tiles.
“A friend of the Wizard is a friend of mine.”
Smells of the human animal encased in a fine silk suit.
“I was nervous about dealing with PSB, but the Wizard has assured me that you are, how should I put this …”
Talking in English. Clever. If picked up on a wire tap, so much more difficult to transcribe, and so much more time consuming.
“Tame.”
‘Tame’. Perhaps the most insulting word that Piao had ever heard used to describe him. Almost as bad in its mediocrity as ‘nice’.
‘You are tame, aren’t you?’
English, answering back in English. The language of kings, Coward, Shakespeare, the Beatles. Any excuse the Senior Investigator using it, as most Chinese.
“Some would not agree, Comrade. In fact, many would not agree. Including myself.”
Across the hacker’s face, uncertainty. Oxygen to an investigator.
“You are Comrade Cypherpunk? You are not what I expected.”
Soft fingers on the computer mouse, clicking out of a program. A victim’s computer stripped to the bone. A corporate server sliced and diced.
“I take that as a compliment. To surprise an officer in the PSB is not a regular occurrence. My life, it has schizophrenic qualities to it. By day an eminent university professor of mathematics, by night, ‘voila’, Cypherpunk. A mutually and financially beneficial relationship with the owner of this fine establishment. Hacking, it supplements a poor professor of mathematics’ pay. Without it I would be smoking China Brands like you, Senior Investigator.”
Blowing foreign cigarette smoke in Piao’s direction.
“So, you’ve come about the file. The encryption?”
“The Wizard felt that it would be impossible to break a, a …”
“A 40-bit encryption? Not for me, Investigator. Every encryption is breakable, although they would like to make you think that they are not. An encryption is just an envelope of data that only people with a key can close and open. And a key, in its simplest form, is just a string of ones and zeroes randomly generated by a computer. I was one of the first to break one in the late nineties. RSA Data Security Incorporated put out a challenge to break a 40-bit encryption product.”
Beside the computer a bowl of brightly coloured sweets. His fingers, with great delicacy, picking from it. Yaobang, picking one up, examining it in detail. Pills? Narcotics? The hacker smiling with rainbow teeth.
“Smarties. English confectionery. A hacker friend sends me some boxes every month. Good, and I am pleased to say, legal.”
Licking his fingertips. Red. Yellow. Green. Static traffic lights.
“Anyway, the 40-bit encryption provided to me by the Wizard, it took me three hours.”
Moving closer, the Senior Investigator.
“You have done it? You have unlocked the file?”
“Of course. This conclusion was never in doubt.”
His fingers across the keyboard. Data slowing. Pausing. Stopping.
MINISTRY OF SECURITY
473309169972
Carefully hunting through a topple of floppy discs next to the computer. Precise writing on perfectly placed labels.
“The advantage of having a mutually symbiotic relationship with a business man who owns a thousand computer Internet Cafés.”
Clicking the floppy disk into place in its drive. A whir of activity.
“It took 250 powerful workstations trying 100 billion possible keys each hour to break this encryption.”
PASSWORD ACCEPTED
Removing the floppy disc.
Yaobang helping himself to a Smartie. Gingerly licking it. Smiling. Throwing it into his mouth. Helping himself to a fistful of rainbow colours. The professor, a sideways glance.
“Not the red Smarties, Investigator. The red ones are my favourite.”
Using his hand as a plate, the Big Man sorting the colours out. Throwing the red ones back into the bowl of Smarties. The rest, he crunched open-mouthed.
The professor inserting a CD-Rom.
“What the fuck is it?”
“Images from a remote sensing satellite, Ziyuan-2, ZY-2. It was delivered by a Long March-4B rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launching Centre in the northern Shanxi Province on October 27th.”
The image rising up. Cloud to misty ribbons. Land. Paddies. Roads.
“ZY-2 orbits the earth every 94.3 minutes at an altitude of between 294 and 305 miles. It produces, as you can see, high definition digital images comparable to the sharpest images produced by American and European commercial satellites. ZY-2 can focus down on objects less than half a metre in diameter.”
The hacker’s hand back into the sweet bowl.
“In other words, from 300 miles up in orbit, in the right conditions, it could read the headline from a newspaper that you were holding. The ZY-2 was launched as a civilian earth monitoring system, in fact it has a secret military designation of Jianbing-3. It can be used for planning combat missions, targeting missiles at American forces in Japan, or for preparing aircraft strikes on Taiwan. The images on this file, however, are of our People’s Republic.”
Yaobang’s eyes nervous. Tapping the monitor with walnut knuckles.
“Spying, we’re spying on our own country, our own fucking comrades?”
“No, not spying, remote sensing. Satellites, used for analysing environmental changes. Natural resources, minerals, ore, crop planning. It is used a great deal nowadays. The file you gave me holds several hundred satellite images and other associated data.”
A click on a virtual button and the frame rising toward them. Shifting left. Cloud, rearing up. Lakes. A splintered bed of forests. Orchards. Tossed oceans of corn field. The hacker watching their eyes widen as he spoke.
“This is what I believe you are looking for.”
A new image filling the screen. An ocean of wheat, old gold. A single track road dissecting it. Gated at its beginning and its end. At the very centre of the fields, a verdant oasis. With an emerald nail, Piao pointing. Around the oasis, bordered onto the wheat fields, a double black hairline. Cursor pul
ling a box around the area of interest. Cursor over a virtual magnifying glass.
25% … 50% … 75% … !00% … 125% … 150% …
The double hairline, now double tram lines and concrete posts. Razor wire fencing, electronic surveillance topped.
“Take the picture out again. Take the frame out. This area. Yes, show me this area.”
Rectangle pulled from nothing. At its centre, smudges of grey brown. A mosaic of flat rooftops.
“Can you scan along?”
“Of course, anything for the PSB.”
Scanning west. Accommodation blocks? Recreational facilities? Scanning east. Long buildings, low buildings … strings of pipes and electric cabling. A factory? A laboratory?
“What are they, Boss?”
The hacker replying.
“It’s called Facility – 4. A lao gai that has a history that goes back before the Long March. Very secret. Very forgotten about. It also has another name, Righteous Mountain.”
Looking at the Senior Investigator.
“I cross referenced in Ministry of Security sites. Righteous Mountain is barely mentioned, and no one ever leaves it. An estimated 5,000 inmates, but I can find no trace of anyone that has been released from Facility – 4 in five years.”
“I would like a tour.”
“But just a virtual tour. Righteous Mountain does not seem the kind of place that you would wish to visit in person.”
Scanning north. A generator plant? A water purification processor? Scanning south. Workshops? Storage facilities? A warehouse fed by heavy piping. Refrigeration? Air-conditioning? A garage, several cars parked at its rear. Four wheel drive. Two Sedans. And unmistakably, the long stretch of gloss black of a Red Flag. On the edge of the monitor a small rectangle of lush viridian foliage.
“Pan along a bit more. A bit more. That is fine.”
Lines of exuberant flora, scratched between them, runs of silver water.
“Must be drugs, Boss. Must be. It all fucking fits.”
“Not what the remote sensing data says. Just rice, no cannabis or poppy. And as far as I know growing rice in our People’s Republic is not yet against the law.”
Yaobang’s finger tapping the screen.
“It’s a small paddy though, Boss. Not enough to feed me and my cousins, let alone the inmates of a lao gai.”
The Senior Investigator nodding.
“Show me this section again, this time in more detail. More. A little more.”
Filling the screen, details so fine. The red and white alternating paintwork on the drop-barrier. Acute angled wording on a stop sign. A guard’s olive-hued moon of peeked hat. Heavy black rifle slung over his shoulder.
“A little more.”
At the very furthest range of the satellite’s capabilities. Geometric lines, expanding around, blurred but recognizable, red stars.
“Fuck me, Boss. PLA.”
“These images, Comrade Hacker, you know their precise location?”
“Of course, it was a part of the data on the file.”
“Good. Then we shall have a little competition between technology and detective work. I shall write on this piece of paper the area that I think that we are looking at. And you, Comrade Hacker, can tell me if I am correct.”
The professor smiling.
“Technology every time, Investigator. Every time.”
On the paper …
The plains around Lake Dongting and Lake Poyang The ‘two rice bowls’. Jiangxi Province.
On the screen …
Poyang Lake, Jiangxi Province
“Shuihuzhuan. Lands of ‘The Water Margin’.”
Carefully folding the paper, the Senior Investigator and placing it in his pocket.
“Where are your 108 heroes, now that you have so many thieves on your marshy lands ?”
Making himself more comfortable. Stretching out his legs.
“I think, Comrade Cypherpunk, that you have much printing to do. The file on Righteous Mountain looks very large.”
Removing his jacket, loosening his tie. Helping himself to a handful of Smarties. Smiling. From the hacker, a less certain smile.
“Anything else that I can help you Comrades with?”
Piao, Smarties in traffic lights across his palm.
“The Wizard, there was something else that he was exploring for us, something that was given reluctantly to me. But the Wizard has, has …”
“The Wizard has lost his fucking voice,” Yaobang interjecting.
A handful of Smarties to mouth.
“A nasty throat infection. And he has hurt his hand so that he can’t write. And his computer is broken.”
Shaking his head, the hacker.
“An unfortunate series of accidents. So what exactly would you like me to do?”
Writing Piao, handing over the slip of paper. As the professor accessed a search engine, typing in the words, reading them out aloud.
“Mao Zedong. August 20th, 1933. Southern Kiangsi.”
A flight of websites blinking to screen.
“Here, my PSB Comrade. Technology at its very best. It a speech that was made by Mao Zedong in Southern Kiangsi on August 20th, 1933. A speech made at an economic construction conference. I will print it off for you.”
Through the chatter of the printer, Piao dredging his memory.
“I know this speech. It was made during the period when Chiang Kai-shek was launching five large scale onslaughts against the Red area, centred on Juichin and Kiangsi. Encirclement and suppression campaigns they were called. The Great Helmsman at their very centre like the calm eye of the hurricane.”
The last of nine pages falling into the hacker’s fingers. Dropping them onto the Senior Investigator’s lap.
“The speech is entitled, ‘Pay Attention to Economic Work’.”
Red Smarties across his palm and across the paper in a scarlet slash.
“As our American cousins say, Comrade Senior Investigator. Enjoy.”
*
Reading as the Big Man drove. An obscure route that would shake off all but the best tails.
‘The growing intensity of the revolutionary war makes it imperative for us to mobilize the masses in order to launch an immediate campaign on the economic front and undertake all possible and necessary tasks of economic construction …’
Across the sheets, beats of mustard streetlights, glare and feints of headlights.
‘Only by extending the work on the economic front and building the economy of the Red areas can we provide an adequate material basis for the revolutionary war, proceed smoothly with our military offensives and strike …’
A puddled track between factories stacked back to back.
‘… and set up public granaries and storehouses for famine relief everywhere. Each county must establish a sub-department for the regulation of food supplies, with branch offices in important districts and market centres.’
For some minutes parked beneath the tree line of the Huangpu park, lights switched off. Yaobang’s eyes alert to any car that might be following them. Satisfied, lighting a China Brand before driving off.
‘We must do our best to develop agriculture and handicrafts and increase the output of farm implements and lime in order to ensure a bigger crop next year …’
Reading, re-reading the speech three, four times. And with it, trying to pull threads together. Threads that were separated by over seventy years. What did a scientist’s father, his daughter’s body interred into the cloying soil of a cemetery, share with Mao Zedong as he planned, and with his Red Army, fought his way out of the enemy’s fifth ‘encirclement and suppression’ campaign? What did this grieving scientist father have in common with the Great Helmsman, who in 1933 had spoken these words while in the violent throes of constructing a nation’s revolutionary and economic pathway?
As they pulled into the yard of the Happy Smile Bakery, headlights fading, the Senior Investigator fumbling through his pockets. Dropping a pencil in the dim light, hunting it
down with eager fingertips. Frantically underlining a tract of the speech’s text with a blunt lead.
‘… that without building up the economy it is impossible to secure the material prerequisites for the revolutionary war, and the people will become exhausted in the course of a long war. Just consider!’
“You got something, Boss?”
‘Rice is cheap in the autumn and the winter, but it becomes terribly dear in spring and summer. All this directly affects the life of the workers and peasants and prevents any improvement.’
“Boss?”
‘And does it not affect our basic line – the alliance of workers and peasants? If the workers and peasants become dissatisfied with their living conditions will it not affect the expansion of our Red Army and the mobilization of the masses for the revolutionary war?’
Neatly folding Mao’s speech to the seventeen counties, placing it deep into an inside pocket.
“You’ve got a link, Boss?”
The Senior Investigator smiling as he jumped down from the Liberation truck, walking toward the bakery and 15,000 mooncakes, the best in the old French Concession. As the door banged shut and the smell of sweaty cousins and molasses assailed them, two words, both of them lost to the Big Man’s ears.
“Oryza sativa.”
Chapter 33
Nanjing Road, ‘China’s No.1 Street’, 350 stores, 1,000,000 shoppers a day. With the traffic running blind from the Bund in the east, to the 1,000 year old Buddhist Jingan Temple in the west.
The start of Nanjing Road East … the architecture of old Shanghai. North and south of the street, the atmosphere of the 1920s. On the right at No.422, Duoyunxuan, opened in the Qing Dynasty and famous for its calligraphy and stone rubbings. On the left, nineteen storeys of what used to be Tian Yun Luo, the first amusement arcade in Shanghai, now the Overseas Chinese Store and the Shanghai No.2 Television Station. At 490 Nanjing Road East the Zhang Xiaoquan Scissors Store. 1,000 different designs of scissor. Right-handed, left-handed, no-handed. The Maochang Spectacles Store with 1,000 different designs of spectacles, reading glasses, bi-focals, monocles. On the opposite side of Nanjing, the Shanghai No.1 Foodstuffs Store. Locals still calling it the Sun Sun Company, as it was before the liberation. 250 different types of tea. Further west, on the left-hand side, the Yunan Road Night Bazaar open from dusk till 10 p.m…. for fen, hundun tang, ravioli soup, shaomian, fried noodles. The haunt of dry-mouthed taxi drivers, noodle-craving PSB. At No.830, the cream-coloured building, the No.1 Department Store. The largest store in China that has 3,000 salesmen selling over 30,000 different items to over 250,000 customers every day.