Floating City (69 page)

‘Watanabe-san,’ Nicholas said, but there was no response. The tech’s eyes were mere slits, but the pupils were dilated and unfocused.

Nicholas listened to Watanabe’s heartbeat and pulse. Both were unnaturally slow, as if he were slipping into a coma. And unless Nicholas was mistaken, a faint bluish tinge was coming into Watanabe’s lips. Nicholas was about to call for an ambulance when he noticed the fingers of the tech’s right hand. They were curled inward in a curious kind of clawlike gesture.

Quickly, with some alarm, Nicholas pried open the stiff digits in order to get a look at the palm. He had seen these same symptoms before on someone lying along Vung Tau, the beachfront southeast of Saigon. Peering at Watanabe’s palm, he found what he was looking for: a tiny puncture wound, dark blue around its edges.

Nicholas remembered the oddly clawed hand on the snorkler who had washed up on that beach in Vung Tau. The man, already dead, created not a ripple of notice.

He had asked a local fisherman what had happened and he was told that the unfortunate man had been lanced by a Banh Tom. The innocuous-sounding ‘prawn pancake’ was, in fact, a dangerously poisonous stingray, indigenous to the Andaman and South China Seas, whose skin was striped like a tiger prawn’s – or the ocean bottom where it lay flat as a pancake and camouflaged, waiting to paralyze and kill its prey.

Perhaps the snorkler had reached out for a particularly beautiful shell lying on the ocean floor. Whatever, he’d had the singularly bad joss to touch a Banh Tom and had been stung on the hand. ‘See here’ – the fisherman had pointed at the palm of the snorkler’s hand – ‘the blue spot shows the poison.’

Kappa Watanabe had been poisoned by the venom of a Banh Tom through a tiny needle that had punctured his palm. Why? Nicholas used a nail to strip open the skin at the wound site, bent over it, and began to suck out as much of the venom as he could, spitting the stuff onto the floor. Then he stripped off his bow tie, used it as a tourniquet around Watanabe’s wrist. Had he done enough to save the man’s life? There was only one way to tell for sure.

Bending over Watanabe, Nicholas closed his eyes. And opened his
tanjian
eye. The world appeared to go into eclipse as he plunged into Tau-tau. A kind of darkness descended like a veil. Nicholas opened himself to Akshara, the Path of Light, whose philosophy was built around the ability to transmogrify energy, more specifically thought, into physical deed.

The discipline taught that there was at the center of all things
kokoro,
a membrane upon which certain repeating rhythms were beaten. Like chants or mantras, these rhythms excited the membrane
kokoro,
causing in the adept an altered state in which psychic energy could be harnessed. In the end, Tau-tau was not so different from the power of Tibetan mystics, Chinese ascetics, or the shamans of many different tribal cultures. All drew energy from the same ancient source from which man, as he became ever more civilized, had been driven.

But for Nicholas, Akshara was imperfect because embedded within the esoteric psychic discipline were dark kernels of Kshira, Akshara’s black other half, a discipline that had killed many of its adherents – or turned them mad. Nicholas had made this terrifying discovery while battling Do Duc Fujiro. Since then, his inner struggle – and urgent search – had been to overcome Kshira by merging it into Akshara in a fusion known as Shuken, before the dark path overtook him. Shuken – the so-called Dominion – sought to negate Kshira via integration into a whole that was at least partially mythical.
Tanjian
scholars disagreed on whether Tau-tau had ever been a whole of darkness and light or was ever meant to be. Those skeptics doubted that Shuken had ever existed.

But Nicholas had to believe because there was a great danger, growing like an evil flower inside him. Each time he involved Akshara more fragments of Kshira loosed themselves in his psyche. Soon, he knew, if he did not find the path to Shuken, it would be too late. Kshira would claim him as it had his
tanjian
mentor, Kansatsu.

Sounds echoed and re-echoed, suspended in the liquid of time. It was like being underwater, being able to hear as whales did over a distance of miles, sounds so acute they impacted upon the skin with a physical presence. The world itself seemed simultaneously close and far away, a bowl from which Nicholas could pluck a single element – a voice, an insect’s flight, the path of a vehicle – and dissect it with the most minute scrutiny.

And in this state he reached into the bowl of the world and plucked out Watanabe’s psyche, attaching himself like a lamprey to a shark’s sandpaper skin. He was with the tech now – though he could not know it – a part of him. And Nicholas knew he was dying. The dose of venom that had been introduced was far more concentrated than that found in nature. Enough of it had already moved past the entry point, the tourniquet’s barrier, and had entered Watanabe’s bloodstream.

Element by element, as he had been taught by Kansatsu, he went through the tech’s blood, observing as the nerve toxin swept along, until he isolated the substances he needed. Moving his psyche to different organ sites within Watanabe’s body and brain, he stimulated the production of antibodies, hormones, complex neuropeptides that would naturally inhibit the poison. Only when he was certain the tech was stable did he ascend backward into the cool, monochromatic light of normal reality.

Nicholas, emerging fully from Tau-tau, called for security and, when the three men came at the run, had them move Watanabe to the company infirmary. ‘Get some ice on this as soon as you get him upstairs,’ he told one of the security officers. ‘When the ambulance arrives, tell them this man has been poisoned with a form of nerve paralyzer. And I want you and another man with him at all times, even in the hospital. Don’t leave his side. Got it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the officer said as the elevator doors closed.

Nicholas sprinted for the chairman’s elevator, used his key, punched up the fortieth floor. An icy dread gripped his heart. Watanabe should not have been off the R&D floor. What was he doing in the men’s room on the mezzanine at the same time that the American Cord McKnight was in there? Nicholas thought he knew, but he needed confirmation, and that would only come at Watanabe’s workstation in R&D.

The elevator door opened and he stepped out onto the main floor of Sato International’s Research and Development division. He found the night-shift manager, told him in broad strokes what had happened. ‘Get a security detail up here on the double,’ he said. ‘I want the main corridor manned night and day. I’m going to be fiddling with Watanabe-san’s computer, probably taking it off network, so make sure the internal alarm is overridden.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the stricken man said. ‘Right away.’

‘Also, get me the man in charge of transferring the CyberNet data.’

‘That was Watanabe-san.’

‘His supervisor, then. Tell him to meet me at Watanabe-san’s office.’

‘I’ll find Matsumura-san immediately.’

Nicholas followed the night manager’s directions and found Watanabe’s office without difficulty. The tech’s computer was on. It showed that the downloading of the CyberNet data was still in progress. On the other hand, when Nicholas accessed the menu for the main data bank and punched in his access codes, he discovered that the CyberNet data had already been transferred to the core. That meant despite all the safeguards that had been put in place, someone had made an unauthorized copy of the proprietary CyberNet data.

Returning to Watanabe’s program, he saw that it was off-line the R&D network. Watanabe had somehow run the CyberNet data through his own program. That meant he could have made a minidisc copy. Theoretically, this should have been impossible. Nicholas’s own techs stateside had assured him the version they were sending contained an encryption that prohibited unauthorized copying. He could not, however, refute the evidence of his own eyes. Watanabe had found a way to defeat the encryption.

‘Linnear-san?’

A slender, pale-faced man with wire-rimmed glasses and almost no hair had appeared. ‘I am Junno Matsumura.’

‘You are Watanabe-san’s supervisor?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Nicholas brought him up to speed.

His eyes were wide behind the lenses. ‘I can’t believe what has happened.’

‘That makes two of us. I’ve found that Watanabe-san took his terminal offnet. Can you tell me if any other terminal was offnet at the same time?’

‘Let me check.’ Matsumura bent over the terminal and, using the trackball mouse with lightning speed, went into the core data banks. ‘None, sir. Only this one was offnet.’

Nicholas breathed a bit easier. That meant that whatever Watanabe was up to, he did it on his own. So now Nicholas knew what Watanabe had been doing in the mezzanine men’s room: passing the copy he’d made of the TransRim CyberNet data to Cord McKnight.

‘Should I destroy the CyberNet data on RAM here?’ Matsumura asked.

Nicholas thought a moment. ‘I have a better idea.’ He told the tech what he needed done.

‘No problem,’ Matsumura said eagerly. ‘It’ll be my pleasure.’

Nicholas left him to it and went back downstairs. As he headed to the bank of elevators, he was pleased to see two security men on guard. Downstairs, he spoke briefly to another security guard. He learned that Watanabe had been taken to the hospital under tight security. He gave the guard instructions, then re-entered Indigo. The demonstration had concluded, most successfully he imagined, and the guests were busy digging into the main courses. He located McKnight, sitting next to Tōrin, calmly dissecting his brace of lacquered whole roast squab.

Nicholas slipped back into his seat, murmuring his excuses. Koei was tuned to his psyche and, though sensing his tension, knew not to question him in public.

The dinner proceeded without incident. Koei, a charming and accomplished hostess, had kept Nicholas’s guests entertained in his absence. Now he did his part, all the while keeping an eye on McKnight. The ministers were predictably ecstatic about the digital video network. After the HDTV debacle they were relieved to have a Japanese project launched so successfully.

‘What happened to your tie, Linnear-san?’ Kanioji Nakahashi asked. He was one of the ranking Socialist Party representatives in the Diet, the Japanese legislature.

‘I lost my napkin, Nakahashi-san, and had to wipe the squab grease off my mouth before the American McKnight could accuse me of being a glutton.’

Everyone at the table roared with laughter, especially Nakahashi, who enjoyed a good joke at the American’s expense better than the next man.

The dishes were cleared, dessert was served along with coffee and liqueurs, and conversation devolved into that form of meaningless small talk endemic to all receptions of any nationality.

It was past eleven when the guests began to depart. Nicholas had surreptitiously dropped the keys to their car into Koei’s hand and had whispered in her ear that he would be home later. Keeping well back in the throng, he followed McKnight and a whole band of people out into the mezzanine and down the wide, sweeping metal staircase into the lobby.

Outside, the rain had turned to mist. Still, a field of umbrellas flowered open as the guests waited for their cars and limos to pull up. McKnight was no exception, stepping to the curb to take possession of his white BMW. As he did so, Nicholas looked for the security guard he had spoken to earlier. He found him a hundred yards from the jammed building entrance, standing over a big black Kawasaki motorcycle with a futuristic, swept-wing silhouette.

‘Your bike’s all ready for you, sir,’ the guard said to Nicholas. ‘I got it out of the storage lot, topped off the tank, and fired it up as you asked.’

‘Do you have the package?’

‘Straight from Matsumura-san.’ The guard handed over a small Styrofoam-wrapped parcel. ‘He said he thinks you’ll be more than pleased with the results.’

Nicholas thanked him, donned the helmet draped over one handlebar, and stepping on the throttle, took off after McKnight’s white BMW. The American was alone in the car.

Nicholas kept well back in the traffic as he trailed McKnight through Tokyo’s clogged streets. He fit right in with the fleets of sleek motorcycles, as kids, joyriders, and gang members swept through the rain-slicked streets with a wild thrumming of powerful engines. Now and again, a pale, crescent moon peeked out from behind wispy clouds. The mist remained.

It looked as if McKnight was headed for the crowded Ginza. If he made the Ginza Yon-chōme crossing, which was so vast it was like the intersection of the world, Nicholas knew there was a chance he might lose him. But instead, McKnight turned off before he got to the wide avenue, doubling back toward a different area of Shinjuku.

In the seedy Kabukichō area, he headed across the railroad tracks, then swerved abruptly. His tires screeched as they slid on the wet tarmac, then the BMW made the cut and, rocking on its shocks, disappeared into a narrow side street.

Nicholas nosed into what was known locally as
shomben-yokoch
ō
,
Piss Alley. It was lined with bottomless bars, sleazy nightclubs with raunchy sex shows, and none-too-clean
yakitori
shops, which stood as slack-jawed as the vagrants who drifted by outside. Halfway down the block, Nicholas saw the white BMW being driven off by a valet. He didn’t know such services were available from the establishments of
shomben-yokoch
ō
.

He parked the Kawasaki, began to walk down the block. Which place had McKnight gone into? There were so many of them, jammed side by side, it was impossible to tell from the street and he did not think he had the time to poke his head into every dump.

But there was another way.

He entered into Akshara, reality sliding away like a dream turned sideways, colors coronaed, then bleached out by the inner light. And he was with McKnight as he cruised a sleazy bar filled with gunmetal smoke, dark swirls of mingled conversation, and very bad drag queens.