Limit

by Frank Schätzing

  The best-laid plans of mice and men, thought Hanna. First there had been Thorn’s accident, and then this. All this should have been his job. He should have taken care of the package a year ago, but Thorn’s corpse was drifting out there somewhere in the universe.

  Expecting further disappointments, he unbolted the hatch at the back, opened the container and shone his torch inside, but there at least it all seemed undamaged. Hanna breathed freely again. If the cargo had been lost, that would really have been the end; everything else was mere inconvenience. He took the detector in his hand and checked the seams. Intact. No harm done.

  Carefully, he fetched it out.

  This simply meant that he would have to take the package across for deployment himself. No problem there. There was enough room on the grasshopper platform. For a moment he considered informing mission control, but time was running short. There was no alternative anyway. He had to act. It was best to be back in the hotel before the others started rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

  Best never to have been away.

  27 May 2025

  GAMES

  Xintiandi, Shanghai, China

  Jericho woke up on his couch next to two bottles and a glass streaked with drying red wine, and two emptied packets of mango chips. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. He sat up, a process which needed two attempts and which raised the question of how the hell this sodden, heavy sponge had got inside his skull. Then he remembered his good fortune. At the same time he felt some indefinable sort of loss. There was something missing that had grown as familiar as his own heartbeat over the years.

  Noise.

  Never again would he wake up to the hammering sound of high-rises being built around him. Never again would six lanes of early morning traffic rattle his eardrums before the sun had even risen. From now on he was living in Xintiandi, where admittedly there were hordes of tourists, but you could cope perfectly well with them. Generally speaking they never arrived before ten o’clock in the morning and then in the late afternoon they retreated, bathed in sweat and with aching feet, back to their hotels, to gather the strength to go out again in the evening to the restaurants. In the evenings it was mostly Shanghaians in the district’s bistros, cafés and clubs, the boutiques and cinemas. In Jericho’s new home, you hardly felt either invasion. That was the advantage of a shikumen house. Outside someone could be driving herds of dinosaurs through the streets, but inside all was peace and quiet.

  He rubbed his eyes. You couldn’t quite say that he lived here, not yet. There were still packed crates scattered through every room in the loft. At least he’d got as far as installing the new media terminal. Tu’s customer service team had delivered it the evening before, two cheery and helpful representatives hauling the thing upstairs for him and skilfully fitting it in with the decor so that it was hardly noticeable. Right after that, Jericho had had to set out for his surprise visit to Yoyo. It was only after he got back that he had got around to playing with his new toy, and celebrating his first night in Xintiandi while he did so. He’d gone to town on it, so the two empty bottles told him, though his only company had been Animal Ma Liping and the suffering children in their cages. He wondered whether Joanna would have liked this place, then decided not to even contemplate that.

  It was good not to need anyone else.

  He went to shower, and switched on his various appliances. Most of all he would have liked to unpack the rest of the crates, but since yesterday Tu Tian and Chen Hongbing had come to join all the other ghosts crowding the back of his mind, and they urged him on in his search for Yoyo. Dutifully, he decided to prioritise the case. He shaved, picked out a pair of light trousers and a shirt jacket, uploaded one of Tu’s programs to the datastick in his new hologoggles, and left the house.

  He would spend the next hour with Yoyo.

  Handily, one of the guided tours went through the French Concession, a colonial relic of the nineteenth century. It was right next door to Xintiandi, separated only by three levels of city highway. Once he had taken the underpass and come back up into the sunlight, he walked along the busy Fuxing Zhong Lu and activated the program’s speech recognition protocol.

  ‘Start,’ he said.

  At first nothing happened. The world on the other side of the lens looked as it always had. People scurried or strolled about. Business types communed with their mobile phones, their eyes fixed on the displays and wireless earbuds firmly in place as they crossed the street, somehow managing not to get run over. Elegantly dressed women came in and out of the chic little boutiques around, chatting to one another or on their phones, while less well-dressed women thronged the Japanese or American department stores. Groups of tourists photographed what they imagined were authentic examples of colonial architecture. Cars, mini-vans and limousines filled the roads, and dozens of the identical CODs, cars on demand, squeezed in among them on the way up to the speedway. Electric scooters and hybrid cruisers wormed their way into gaps in the traffic that were filled before they had ever really opened. Bicycles with rattling mudguards raced futuristic antigrav skates. City buses and vans crept along the packed roads, a formation of police skymobiles overflew the Fuxing Zhong Lu, a little further on an ambulance took off, turned in the air and flew west. Gleaming private cars and sky-bikes shot across the sky, following aerial guidance beacons. Everything rumbled, squealed or honked, music blared, advertising slogans and news headlines splashed across the omnipresent video screens.

  A quiet day in a calm neighbourhood.

  The double T of Tu Technologies appeared in front of Jericho’s eyes. The system’s projection technology fooled his retina into thinking that the logo was floating, three-dimensional, above the ground several metres away. Then it vanished, and the computer in the arm of the specs projected Yoyo onto the Fuxing Zhong Lu.

  It was astonishing.

  Jericho had seen plenty of holographic projections in his time. The specs were one continuous curve of glass fibres, and they worked like a 3D cinema that you could carry around on your nose as you walked. The whole system had nothing in common with the early, bulky virtual reality viewscreens. Rather the computer added objects and people into the actual surroundings just by producing them on the glass lens. You could see someone who was not physically present. These could be real people or synthetic avatars, and the program could bring them closer or further away. In electronic environments, they could hardly be told apart from people who were actually there. The problems began out in the real world, when the computer had to combine the avatars’ movements and reactions with real-time events. They looked transparent against complex backdrops or if there was movement going on behind them. The illusion was broken completely if real people walked through the space where the avatar appeared to be. They simply walked straight through them. Your cheery chatty virtual pal paid no attention if, while they were talking, a truck ran them over. If you moved your head quickly, they would trail behind like ghosts. The system had to continuously scan and upload the real surroundings and synchronise them with the program to bring appearance and reality back together, and so far the attempt had seemed doomed to failure.

  Yoyo, though, appeared one simulated metre away from Jericho, on the pavement, showing none of the telltale phantom characteristics of other avatars. She was wearing a close-fitting raspberry catsuit and discreet appliqués, her hair was plaited into a double ponytail and she was lightly made up.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Jericho!’ she said, smiling.

  Pedestrians hurried past behind her. Yoyo blocked them from view. Nothing about her looked transparent, there were no fuzzy edges. She walked in front of him and looked straight into his eyes.

  ‘Shall we have a look at the French Concession?’ The arm of the specs played the sound of her voice into Jericho’s ear via the temporal bone.

  ‘A little louder,’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ came Yoyo’s voice, a touch stronger now. ‘Shall we have a look at the French Concession? It’s perfect we
ather, not a cloud in the sky.’

  Was that so? Jericho looked upwards. It was so.

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘My pleasure. My name’s Yoyo.’ She hesitated and gave him a look that mixed coquetry with shyness. ‘May I call you Owen?’

  ‘No problem.’

  Fascinating. The program had automatically linked up with his ID code. It had recognised him, realised what time of day to use in saying hello, and taken a look at the weather at the same time. Already the team at Tu Technologies had topped everything that Jericho had seen in the field.

  ‘Come along,’ Yoyo said cheerfully.

  Almost with relief, he realised that she no longer seemed so exquisitely beautiful as she had the day before. In flesh and blood, laughing, talking, gesticulating, the ethereal quality that he had thought he saw on Chen’s wobbly video was no longer there. What was left was still quite enough to make a pacemaker skip a beat.

  Wait a moment. Flesh and blood?

  Bits and bytes!

  It really was astounding. The computer even calculated the correct angle for the shadow to fall as Yoyo walked in front of him. He no longer wondered how the program had done it but simply concentrated on her walk, her gestures, her movements. His guide turned left, took a place at his side and looked from him to the street and then back again.

  ‘The Si Nan Lu brings together several distinct architectural styles, including those of France, Germany and Spain. In 2018 the last of the original buildings were torn down, with a few exceptions, and then rebuilt. Using the original plans of course. Now everything is much more beautiful and even more authentic than it used to be.’ Yoyo smiled a Mona Lisa smile. ‘The first residents here included important functionaries of both the Nationalist and the Communist governments. Nobody could resist the quarter’s generous charms, everybody wanted to come to the Si Nan Lu. Even Zhou Enlai held court here for a while. This lovely three-storey garden villa on the left was his home. The style is generally called French, although in fact there are elements of Art Deco here as well, with Chinese influences. The villa is one of the very few buildings that has so far escaped the Party’s mania for renovation.’

  Jericho was taken aback. How had that got past the censors?

  Then he recalled that Tu had talked about a prototype. Meaning that the text would be modified later. He wondered whose idea this deviation had been. Had Tu thought up the joke, or had Yoyo suggested it to him?

  ‘Can we visit the villa?’ he asked.

  ‘We can go and have a look at it from inside,’ Yoyo confirmed. ‘The interior is largely untouched. Zhou lived a Spartan sort of life; he felt that it was his duty to the proletariat. Maybe too he simply didn’t want the Great Helmsman dropping in to rearrange the furniture.’

  Jericho couldn’t help grinning.

  ‘I’d rather keep walking.’

  ‘Right you are, Owen. Let the past alone.’

  Over the next few minutes Yoyo talked about their surroundings without barbed remarks. A couple of turnings off the street, they found themselves in a lively little alleyway full of cafés, galleries, ateliers and picturesque little shops selling artworks. Jericho came here often. He loved the quarter, with its wooden benches and palm trees, the neatly renovated shikumen houses with flowerpots in the window.

  ‘Until twenty years ago, Taikang Lu Art Street was an insider tip in the art scene,’ Yoyo explained. ‘In 1998 a former sweet factory was converted into the International Artists Factory. Advertising agencies and designers moved in, well-known artists opened their studios here, including big names like Huang Yongzheng, Er Dongqiang and Chen Yifei. Despite all that, for a long time the area was still overshadowed by Moganshan Lu north of the Suzhou Canal, where the official art scene met the underground and the avant-garde and they all dominated Shanghai’s art market together. It was only when the Taikang Art Foundation was built in 2015 that the centre of balance shifted. It’s the complex up there ahead. Locals call it the Jellyfish.’

  Yoyo pointed to an enormous glass dome that looked astonishingly delicate and airy despite its massive size. It had been designed to mimic biological structures, along the lines of the larger Medusozoa.

  ‘What was here before?’ asked Jericho.

  ‘Originally Taikang Lu Art Street ended in a really lovely fish market. You could buy frogs and snakes here as well.’

  ‘And where did that go?’

  ‘The fish market was torn down. The Party has a giant airbrush which it can use to remove history. Now this is the Taikang Art Foundation.’

  ‘Can we visit the studios?’

  ‘We can visit the studios. Would you like to?’

  Yoyo went ahead of him. Taikang Lu Art Street slowly filled up with tourists. It became crowded, but Yoyo looked real and solid as she wormed her way between passers-by. Truth be told, Jericho thought, she actually looked more real than some of the others.

  He was brought up short.

  Were his eyes playing tricks on him? He concentrated entirely on Yoyo. A group of Japanese tourists approached, shoulder to shoulder, on a collision course, blind to whoever might be coming the other way. He had noticed that the computer had Yoyo step aside whenever there was the chance, but the group blocked the street on both sides. All she could do was drop back before them, or fight her way past. The Japanese, like the Chinese, didn’t shrink from barging their way through if they needed to, so Jericho reckoned that if Yoyo were really here she would be using her elbows. Avatars had no elbows, though. Not the sort that others would feel in their ribs.

  He watched curiously to see what would happen. A moment later she had passed the group, without it looking as though she had simply walked through. Rather, one of the Japanese seemed to have melted away for a moment to let her by.

  Irked, Jericho took off the specs.

  Nothing had changed except that Yoyo had vanished. He put them back on again, fought his way through the groups and saw Yoyo a little further on. Standing on the street. She looked across at him and waved.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Come on!’

  Jericho took a few steps. Yoyo waited until he drew level with her, and then she set off. Incredible! How did the trick work? He would hardly be able to understand it without an explanation, so he concentrated on trying to catch the program out. From a purely factual perspective, the programmers had done good work. The tour was well researched and thoroughly plotted. So far, everything Yoyo had told him was right.

  ‘Yoyo—’ he began.

  ‘Yes?’ Her glance showed amiable interest.

  ‘How long have you had this job?’

  ‘This route is completely new,’ she answered evasively.

  ‘Not long, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And what are you doing tonight?’

  She stopped and gave him a smile, sweet as sugar.

  ‘Is that an offer?’

  ‘I’d like to invite you for a meal.’

  ‘Pardon me for refusing, but I only have a virtual stomach.’

  ‘Would you like to go dancing with me?’

  ‘I would very much like to.’

  ‘Great. Where shall we go?’

  ‘I said I would like to.’ She winked. ‘Sadly, I can’t.’

  ‘May I ask you something else?’

  ‘Go right ahead.’

  ‘Will you go to bed with me?’

  She hesitated for a moment. The smile gave way to a look of mocking good humour.

  ‘You’d be disappointed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t actually exist.’

  ‘Get undressed, Yoyo.’

  ‘I could put something else on.’ The smile came back. ‘Would you like me to put something else on?’

  ‘I want to sleep with you.’

  ‘You’d be disappointed.’

  ‘I want to have sex with you.’

  ‘You’re on your own there, Owen.’

  Aha.

  This was definitely not t
he official version.

  ‘Can we visit the studios?’ he asked, repeating the earlier question.

  ‘We can visit the studios. Would you like to?’

  ‘Who programmed you, Yoyo?’

  ‘I was programmed by Tu Technologies.’

  ‘Are you a person?’

  ‘I’m a person.’

  ‘I hate you, Yoyo.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’ She paused. ‘Would you like to continue the tour?’

  ‘You’re a silly, ugly goose.’

  ‘I do my best to please. Your tone is not appropriate.’

  ‘Pardon me.’

  ‘No need. It was probably my mistake.’

  ‘Slapper.’

  ‘Asshole.’

  World Financial Center

  ‘Yoyo is pretty much in demand, isn’t she?’

  Grand Cherokee gave Xin a knowing wink as his fingers swept across the smooth surface of the steering deck. One by one, he let the computer check the Silver Dragon’s systems. It promised to be a perfect day for a roller-coaster ride, sunny and clear, so that despite the omnipresent blanket of smog passengers would still be able to see such distant buildings as the Shanghai Regent or the Portman Ritz Carlton. The skyscraper façades reflected the early morning light. Tiny suns came and went on the bodywork of the skymobiles that swept in graceful curves above the Huangpu. Away from the shore, Shanghai blurred together into the vague suggestion of a city, but on the other side of the river the colonial relics of the Bund stood out all the more clearly in a brightly coloured row of palaces.