Daylight on Iron Mountain (18 page)

As for Meg, he planned to marry her when he was twenty-one, as the law set down. They would have children together and climb the levels. That was his ambition now. That was why, twice a week, he spent the evening at the Institute for Linguistic Studies, polishing his Mandarin. Because that was what mattered now. The kind of thing that would help him get on.

For a time he had suffered. He had been locked into the past, unable to escape the weight of past memories, but now he was free of it. Now he saw that even the worst of it had meaning.

Like the death of Boy
…

That too he understood. There had been a place for Boy, back in the old world, but in the new… no. Boy would have suffered here. And it would have been wrong to let him suffer. Even so, the thought of it still saddened him.

There was a knock on the door.

‘Peter? Do you want some tea?’

He went across and opened the door. Mary stood there, Tom snuggled in against her shoulder.

‘I’ll come down… You want me to take him?’

‘Would you? I don’t want to disturb your studies.’

‘It’s fine. I’m taking a break. Here… come on, you rascal…’

Tom reached for him, clung on, all warm and snugly.

‘Mary?’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘I can’t wait to have my own.’

She smiled, then reached out to ruffle his hair. ‘You’ll be a good father, Peter. I think my girl is very lucky to have you.’

*

Jake looked about him, impressed by the changes that had been made.

‘Now
this
is better…’

The datscape he was used to had a floor. This, because of the nature of the experiment, was more like a giant fish tank.

‘You were right about the smell,’ Ebert said, drifting up alongside him. ‘It’s small things like that that we need to get used to. Experimentally, we’re used to simplifying to get an answer, but this demands the exact opposite, just as you said.’

Gustav Ebert was a tidy little man, with brushed-back steel-grey hair and the lithe muscular figure of a man who maintained himself at the peak of fitness. So he was in life and so he was in this avatar. ‘No frills’ as he said. He had no desire to be anything other than himself.

A mere three days had passed since that first abortive attempt. In between times Ebert had thrown both men and money at the project, making them work twenty-four hours a day to get the thing up and running as it ought.

And this was the result.

Ebert looked to him. ‘So how does it compare?’

Jake turned. This time the suit moved with him. Not exactly – there was still the very slightest of delays – but it was workable. A few final adjustments ought to do the trick.

But it was the datscape itself that was strikingly different. Before it had been a cartoon of itself, but now it had texture and richness.
Depth
.

‘It’s almost there,’ Jake said, reaching out to brush the surface of a nearby object, a veined, flesh-coloured thing which pulsed and glowed. ‘What is this, by the way?

Ebert edged alongside him again, reaching out to touch the thing, his gloved hand sinking into the surface a little way.

‘This, Jake, is an enzyme.’

‘Ah…’

Jake had done his homework. Enzymes were the biomolecules that catalysed the rate of chemical reactions in the body. Like all catalysts, they worked by lowering the activation energy for a reaction. They were, however, very specific – the keys to biochemistry’s locks, so to speak – and their activity was governed entirely by their shape. They were known to catalyse roughly four thousand different biochemical reactions. In fact, no complex chemical reaction occurred in life without them.

It was all a long way from stocks and shares. A long way from futures and the markets he had been used to.

Jake edged back, away from the enzyme, taking in the complex mass of shapes that surrounded it. From a little way back, it looked like a giant explos ion of brightly coloured wood-shavings. Living, pulsing shavings, true, yet the impression stuck. Right now he couldn’t tell it from any other cluster of living shapes, but he would, given time. And not just by its shape. It had, he realized, a very distinct smell.

Jake smiled. For the first time he felt really positive.

‘This is good,’ Ebert murmured. ‘Very good. I can see already how we could use this.’

He turned, drifting out slightly, gazing towards Jake again, his plain black clothes making him look like a ninja.

‘What do you think, Jake? Biochemistry’s very complex. More complex than any market. Do you think this system – this datscape – can handle that order of complexity, or are we going to have to beef it up? Take it to the next level?’

Jake laughed. ‘You know, I was thinking… the simple act of programming this is going to take forever. But… once it’s done, you won’t have to keep feeding it new information. Just use what’s already stored. And you would be able to be specific about what you used. What you’re looking for, I take it, are things you don’t expect. Reactions you couldn’t have predicted.’

For the first time that morning, Ebert smiled. It was a frosty smile, as brittle as glass, but a smile all the same.

‘That’s precisely what I’m looking for. The unexpected. Not the usual metabolic pathways, but whole new ones. Things we can then go on to use commercially.’

‘Then you have your answer already. This, good as it is, would be totally inadequate. Think about it. You’re planning to map out biochemistry itself. To put every last tiny bit of it in the mix. For that you’re going to have to take this system apart and refashion it. You’ve got to make it a lot more subtle; to make it a much more accurate reflection of reality. Yes, that’s right. Reality. Only giant size. Reality you can walk around and through, yes?’

Ebert nodded. His eyes were glowing now as he looked at Jake. ‘That’s
precisely
what I want. And you’ll help me get that?’

‘Yes.’

Jake looked back at the complex shape that hung there pulsing before his eyes, and smiled. ‘You know what? I’d forgotten what a high this was.’

Prince Ch’eng I was twenty-two and, being the fifth son of the Head of Minor Family, he was to have a grand ball that evening to celebrate his betrothal to the beautiful Princess Teng Liang, with only the elite of the elite invited.

Ch’eng I’s father, Ch’eng So Yuan, was not a real prince. His ancestors had not even been aristocrats. But they had been high-ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party, and in the final years of their power, when they had made the deal with Tsao Ch’un that had spelt the end of their own kind, he had granted them the title. He let them keep their accumulated wealth while offering them protection from the common law that ruled all other citizens. They were thus a special class, affluent and refined, but powerless, like winged drones on the hottest day of summer.

Powerless, yet still influential.

Ch’eng So Yuan was an avuncular big man, well-liked among his own class. That in itself was unusual, for there were many camps within the court and many potential reasons therefore for disliking such a high-ranking prince as he. Nevertheless, he was liked, partly because he never carried a grudge and partly because he gave the best parties in the whole of Chung Kuo. Parties that went on for days. Legendary parties, famous for their debauchery.

Of camps something should be said. How many? More than a dozen but less than fifty was the informed guess, but only four of them really mattered, and everyone, it seemed, was a member of at least one.

That morning, even as Prince Ch’eng I stood at his mirror trying to decide whether to wear the peach silk or the turquoise, Lahm was stepping down from the jet-black Ministry craft, walking out onto the windswept landing pad. He smiled and then bowed respectfully to Ch’eng I’s father, who stood just across from him.

Ch’eng So Yuan smiled, then returned the bow.

‘Tobias… I am so glad you could come, dear friend. How are you?’

Lahm embraced the older man, then stepped back. ‘I am well, Prince Ch’eng. I still get the headaches, but…’

Ch’eng So Yuan nodded, as if he understood, then turned, indicating that they should go inside.

Leiyang, Prince Ch’eng’s palace, was not as impressive as Tongjiang, nor was it anything like as large, but it
was
outside. That was another thing the Minor Families shared with Tsao Ch’un, Shepherd and the Seven – the right to live outside the City’s walls. Less than two
li
from where they stood, the City rose from the plain, running clear into the distance where, in the east, at the extremity of vision, one could see the peaks of the Lo Hsiao Shan, misted in the dawn’s light.

‘I’m glad you came early,’ Prince Ch’eng said, as they walked slowly down the path that threaded its way through the water gardens. ‘I wanted to talk to you. About the project.’

Lahm nodded. The comment seemed vague, but Lahm knew precisely which project Prince Ch’eng meant. He was talking about the clones. About GenSyn’s attempts to breed viable human copies.

Not ‘breed’
, Lahm corrected himself in his head.
Grow
.

‘I’ve set aside an hour for our discussions.’

‘An hour?’ Lahm was surprised. Particularly on a day like today, when all manner of things needed to be attended to. ‘Just you and I?’

‘And a few close friends…’

‘Ah…’
Other princes, he means. Members of his so-called ‘golden brotherhood’. All of them hoping to benefit in some way from this.

‘But first… breakfast. You haven’t eaten, I take it?’

Lahm smiled, letting the big man put an arm familiarly about his shoulders, smelling the scent of peppermint on his breath.

‘Breakfast would be good, Prince Ch’eng. I have the appetite of a fox.’

Halfway around the world it was night. In the grand suite of the Jefferson Hotel, two men were sat playing
wei ch’i
on a carved oak board.

The game was halfway through, but already it was decided.

‘Do you want to play on?’ Jiang Lei asked, smiling, knowing for a certainty now that he was beaten. ‘It seems… how should I put it… fairly obvious that you’ve won.’

Shepherd looked up from the board and returned the smile. ‘I was thinking,’ he said.

‘Thinking?’

‘About the next phase of the campaign. I think we should switch things. Do the unexpected.’

‘Which would be?’

‘To establish a new bridgehead, on the north-western seaboard. Three separate armies. Vancouver, Seattle and Portland. We take those cities and spread out, linking up to form a single block, from the Pacific to the Rockies.’

Jiang sat back a little, the game forgotten. ‘Why the change of plan?’

‘To allow us to consolidate, here in the east. And to keep things fresh. Our men need a challenge. And a change of air.’

‘Let me think about it…’

‘Fine. But not for too long. Chung Kuo’s public expects…’

Jiang Lei looked down, not seeing the board, staring instead at the map in his head. It made good sense to change things about. To slow things down here and distract their enemies with a new front. And they did need to consolidate. There’d been an increase in acts of terrorism this last month, so that too needed to be dealt with. But three separate armies…

As if reading his mind, Amos answered him. ‘Three separate attacks will make it far harder for them to call on their neighbours for assistance. It’ll mean they’ll be watching their backs, looking to see whether the others are still fighting on or have capitulated. In short, it’ll put the shits up them. Three new bridgeheads… they won’t be expecting that.’

Jiang Lei nodded. He could almost sense the despair in his enemies’ camps. Their time was up and they knew it. Even so, they were determined to fight on. To the last man.

‘Okay,’ Jiang said, after a moment. ‘But one alteration to your scheme. We send a force inland. To Spokane. A fourth bridgehead, to which the other three might link. While the others are fighting their way inland, that fourth force could push inward from the east. We could squeeze our enemies between them.’

Shepherd smiled. ‘A good old-fashioned pincer movement, eh? I like it, Jiang. It’ll put the pressure on. We could drive them south. Imagine it… refugees flooding California from the north as well as the east. It’ll stretch them thin, see if it doesn’t!’

Jiang Lei nodded. Only he wasn’t smiling now. He was thinking of the
suffering this new phase would create. Of all the families driven from their homes, and their young men dying by the hundred thousand. And for what?

For the idea of America.

‘Okay,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s what we’ll do. I’ll notify Tsao Ch’un.’

‘P’eng Chuan… how delightful to see you…’

The great hall at Leiyang was packed. So much silk and jewellery had not been seen for many a year.

Lahm bowed as P’eng joined their circle.

‘Master Lahm…’

P’eng Chuan was no friend of Lahm’s. As Sixth Dragon in the Ministry, he was nominally Lahm’s superior. What’s more, he was connected. His wife was a Minor Family princess and two of his brothers had married similarly. But it was his nephew, P’eng K’ai-chih, who was the thorn in Lahm’s side, for P’eng was looking to get his brother’s boy elected in Lahm’s place. He was using his family’s considerable wealth and influence to try to prise it from Lahm’s grasp.

P’eng looked about him at the others, then addressed Lahm again, his manner sneering, arrogant.

‘I’m told GenSyn are having problems with their latest project, Master Lahm.’

Lahm bristled. It was not the kind of thing one said at such a gathering. The arsehole clearly meant to provoke him.

‘Really?’ he answered, smiling, as if at a friend. ‘How so?’

‘The man they’ve hired… one of yours, I’m told… has proved too old, too slow… all rather a waste of time, neh, cousin?’

Lahm looked down. It was outrageous! To discuss his business, out in the open! What did P’eng mean by this? Besides, it wasn’t true. Not if what Wu Chi had said was so. And why shouldn’t it be?

‘Forgive me, P’eng Chuan, but I fear your source is quite mistaken. Things are well. Master Ebert is now involved and—’