“Just tell me I don’t look as bad as I feel.”
“You don’t look as bad as you feel.”
“Sure I do,” says Kim.
Kim sits hunched over her coffee, a wisp of hair falling in her face, her gray sweatshirt bunched up over her shirt. Everything is impressively wrinkled from a night of sleeping on the train.
“You look lovely.”
He launches out of his seat a bit, they are sitting opposite one another in a booth, and plants a kiss on her forehead.
“This is a helluva romantic getaway plan you’ve got going here, Sparky.”
“You have no idea.”
“No, but I’m getting one.”
She looks out the window. The dark landscape is moving very fast, punctuated by distant house and street lights.
“How fast are we going?”
His engineering genes kick in.
“About two hundred twenty miles per hour or three hundred fifty kilometers per hour.”
Kim averts her gaze from the foreground near the train, which goes by at a dizzying pace.
“Whoa. How far is Hong Kong?”
“About fourteen hundred miles. Non stop.”
“Uh huh. I left my algebra at home but I think my ticket said we arrive at 3 am.”
“Dead of night.”
“Just as long as we’re not.”
Zak has no idea what to do except get out of China. He figures on going back to the safety of Stanford and trying to get some help from his friends. During the night he has had time to review more of the files that Professor Xu was able to access and has found some references to UNK. UNK is a leaderless, international group active in defending open access to the internet and all sources of information. It also seeks to promote government and social institutions that make their actions open and transparent to the public. While advocating protest and activism, it has been branded a form of cyber-terrorism by many governments around the world, especially by those governments that the organization has at times targeted.
If Wang seems to be suggesting that the information on the drive, and the obvious leverage that it is intended to create, are to be given to UNK for some purpose, it is hard to see how that could be done. UNK is at least well known for being an organization without any structure. There is no head to contact, no one in charge. Nor does there seem to be any way to simply transmit the contents of the drive to someone in UNK. Zak and Kim haven’t taken any special precautions to hide, mask or encrypt any of their communications. Coming to China meant understanding that any effort to subvert surveillance could have serious repercussions, and most probably would result in retaliation directly from the Chinese government. They had been advised over and over that possession of any encryption other than the most common is illegal in China. Adding to that, Professor Xu had told Zak and Kim that the Triads would now be monitoring them, and further cautioned them that they should expect the American government to soon be looking over their shoulders as well.
Xu then taught Zak the use of Triad “logic bombs”, encrypted algorithms that prevent outsiders from accessing Triad computer systems. He would need to know this if he was to reach the contact given to him by the Professor. This would hopefully be someone who could help them get out of China without being detained. They reached the contact in what should have been a secure manner from their apartment, the Professor already having explained everything to the contact. This left only the necessity of choosing a place to meet.
The dining car is all stainless steel and molded plastic. At this hour the car’s lighting is subdued, inoffensive muzak plays, and only a few booths are occupied with travelers. The few of them in the car are absorbed in subdued conversation.
At the end is a counter and behind it a small kitchen with glass double door refrigerators, their interiors lined with attractively lit drinks. The train car’s windows are dressed with cream bunting fringed with gold tassel, a cut above usual trains. Between the booths and the counter are round, bar height, stainless steel tables with ring footrests, all of which are empty. The young attendant, dressed in a white shirt and orange vest, stands near one of the occupied booths with her eyes on the wall mounted tv screen. Zak has noticed that periodically the programming is interrupted to show a map of the train’s current location.
Kim follows his eyes.
“Where are we?”
“Shenzhen. We should be in a tunnel pretty soon.”
“Mountains?”
“Yeah. But then we drop into the alluvial plain of the Pearl River Delta.”
“Cool. We’re going to West Kowloon?”
He had said something about it when they got on the train.
“Yep.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s a peninsula that juts off the South coast of China. It’s called the New Territories and is part of the Hong Kong special administrative region. In other words, we’re leaving mainland China.”
“That’s a relief.”
“We’re not in Palo Alto yet.”
“Hmmm. Mr. Positive. I get it.”
She dips her fingers into a glass of water and reaches up to smooth down some of his hair, which has a serious case of bedhead, or train seat if you prefer.
“Am I being a wet blanket?”
“No. Just a wet head.”
Zak pretends to laugh.
“So we’re meeting some guy named Juan and Bruce Lee in loonie Kowloonie?”
“At the Bruce Lee.”
“We’re meeting some guy named Juan at the Bruce Lee.”
“That’s right.”
“Thanks for clearing that up.”
“No problem.”
“What’s this place called?”
“Avenue of the Stars.”
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely.”
“So we’re going to someplace called Avenue of the Stars and we’re going to look for Bruce Lee, is that right?”
“You got it.”
“Sounds fun.”
“We can only hope.”
Kim shoves her remaining uneaten food around with her fork.
“Where is the West Kowloon station?”
“In the Jordan District of Kowloon.”
“And where is the Avenue of the Stars and the Bruce Lee?”
“In the Tsim Sha Tsui District, also in Kowloon.”
“The what?”
“Tsim Sha Tsui, but you can call it TST.”
“Big of you.”
“I thought so.”
“Is this like really far, between the Jordan District and the TST?”
“No, not really. We can walk.”
“Walk? In the middle of the night? I’d rather cab it.”
Zak shakes his head.
“Not many cabs at this time of night. By the time a cab gets to us, we’ll be better off walking. We really can’t afford to wait for them. We need to be at the Bruce Lee by 4 am.”
“Well, where are we walking?”
“Just down the main drag, Nathan Road, to the Cultural District and the East Promenade. We turn at the clock tower.”
Kim spontaneously cocks her head.
“I don’t know about you. You’re just a little too on top of it. You’re the guy who always gets the girl, aren’t you?”
Zak’s eyes widen in surprise.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She pauses pensively, looks up at him from her deep slouch.
“You know, I’m never going to make it easy for you.”
“It?”
“You know what I mean. I hope I never make it too easy for you.”
“No chance of that.”
“Good to hear.”
Chapter 16
On Fire Page 15