Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 (54 page)

It was less than
an hour since Chen had come from the singsong house; not time enough
for anyone to have discovered Liu Chang's body or for the girls to
have undone their bonds. Nevertheless he moved quickly down the
corridors—shabby, ill-lit alleyways that, even at this early
hour, were busy—knowing that every minute brought closer the
chance of Herrick being warned.

It was two years
since he had last been below the Net, but his early discomfort
quickly passed, older habits taking over, changing the way he moved,
the way he held himself. Down here he was
kwai
again, trusting
to his instincts as
kwai,
and, as if sensing this, men moved
back from him as he passed.

It was a maze,
the regular patterning of the levels above broken up long ago.
Makeshift barriers closed off corridors, marking out the territory of
rival gangs, while elsewhere emergency doors had been removed and new
corridors created through what had once been living quarters. To
another it might have seemed utter confusion, but Chen had been born
here. He knew it was a question of keeping a direction in your head,
like a compass needle.

Even so, he felt
appalled. The very smell of the place—the same wherever one
went below the Net—brought back the nightmare of living here.
He looked about him as he made his way through, horrified by the
squalor and ugliness of everything he saw, and wondered how he had
stood it.

At the next
intersection he drew in against the left-hand wall, peering around
the corner into the corridor to his left. It was as Liu Chang had
said. There, a little way along, a dragon had been painted on the
wall in green. But it was not just any dragon. This dragon had a
man's face; the thin, sallow face of a Hung Moo, the eyes intensely
blue, the mouth thin-lipped and almost sneering.

If Liu Chang was
right, Herrick would be there now, working. Like many below the Net,
he was a night bird, keeping hours that the great City overhead
thought unsociable. Here there were no curfews, no periods of
darkness. Here it was always twilight, the corridors lit or unlit
according to whether or not the local gang bosses had made deals with
those Above who controlled the basic facilities such as lighting,
sanitation, and water.

Now that he was
working for the Seven, such thoughts made him feel uneasy, for it was
they, his masters, who permitted the existence of this place. They
who, through the accident of his birth here, had made him what he
was—
kwai,
a hired knife, a killer. They had the wealth,
the power, to change this place and make it habitable for those who
wished it so, and yet they did nothing. Why? He took a deep breath,
knowing the answer. Because without this at the bottom, nothing else
worked. There had to be this place—this lawless pit—beneath
it all to keep those Above in check. To curb their excesses. Or so
they argued.

He set the
thoughts aside. This now was not for the Seven. This was for Axel.
And for himself. Karr's hunch had been right. If Ebert had been
paying for Axel's debauchery, the chances were that he was behind the
death of the girl. There were ways, Karr had said, of making a man
think he'd done something he hadn't; ways of implanting false
memories in the mind.

And there were
places where one could buy such technology. Places like Herrick's.

Chen smiled. He
was almost certain now that Karr was right. Liu Chang had said as
much, but he had to be sure. Had to have evidence to convince Axel
that he was innocent of the girl's murder.

Quickly,
silently, he moved around the corner and down the corridor, stopping
outside the door beside the dragon. At once a camera above the door
turned, focusing on him.

There was a
faint buzzing, then a voice—tinny and distorted—came from
a speaker beside the camera.

"What do
you want?"

Chen looked up
at the camera and made the hand sign Liu Chang had taught him. This,
he knew, was the crucial moment. If Liu Chang had lied to him, or had
given him a signal that would tip Herrick off...

There was a
pause. Then, "Who sent you?"

"The pimp,"
he said. "Liu Chang."

Most of
Herrick's business was with the Above. Illicit stuff. There were a
thousand uses for Herrick's implants, but most would be used as they
had on Haavikko—to make a man vulnerable by making him believe
he had done something that he hadn't. In these days of
response-testing and truth drugs it was the perfect way of setting a
man up. The perfect tool for blackmail. Chen looked down, masking his
inner anger, wondering how many innocent men had died or lost all
they had because of Herrick's wizardry.

"What's
your name?"

"Tong
Chou," he said, using the pseudonym he had used at one time in
the Plantation, knowing that if they checked the records they would
find an entry there under that name and a face to match his face.
Apparently they did, for after a long pause, the door hissed open.

A small man, a
Han, stood in the hallway beyond the door. "Come in,
Shih
Tong. I'm sorry, but we have to be very careful who we deal with
here. I am Ling Hen,
Shih
Herrick's assistant." He smiled
and gave a tiny bow. "Forgive me, but I must ask you to leave
any weapons here, in the outer office."

"Of
course," Chen said, taking the big handgun from inside his
jacket and handing it across. "Do you want to search me?"

Ling Hen
hesitated a moment, then shook his head. "That will not be
necessary. However, there is one other thing."

Chen understood.
Again, Karr had prepared him for this. He took out the three
ten-thousand
yuan
"chips" and offered them to the
man.

Ling smiled, but
shook his head. "No,
Shih
Tong. You hold on to those for
the moment. I just wanted to be sure you understood our house rules.
Liu Chang's briefed you fully, I see. We don't deal in credit.
Payment's up front, but then delivery's fast. We guarantee a tailored
implant—to your specifications—within three days."

"Three
days?" Chen said. "I'd hoped . . ."

Ling lowered his
head slightly. "Well . . . Come. Let's talk of such matters
within. I'm sure we can come to some kind of accommodation, neh,
Shih
Tong?"

Chen returned
the man's bow, then followed him down the hallway to another door. A
guard moved back, letting them pass, the door hissing open at their
approach.

It was all very
sophisticated. Herrick had taken great pains to make sure he was
protected. But that was to be expected down here. It was a cutthroat
world. He would have had to make deals with numerous petty bosses to
get where he was today, and still there was no guarantee against the
greed of the Triads. It paid to be paranoid below the Net.

They stepped
through, into the cool semidarkness of the inner sanctum. Here the
only sound was the faint hum of the air filters overhead. After the
stench of the corridors, the clean, cool air was welcome. Chen took a
deep breath, then looked about him at the banks of monitors that
filled every wall of the huge, hexagonal room, impressed despite
himself. The screens glowed with soft colors, displaying a thousand
different images. He stared at those closest to him, trying to make
some sense of the complex chains of symbols, then shrugged; it was an
alien language, but he had a sense that these shapes—the
spirals and branching trees, the clusters and irregular pyramids—had
something to do with the complex chemistry of the human body.

He looked across
at the central desk. A tall, angular-looking man was hunched over one
of the control panels, perfectly still, attentive, a bulky wraparound
making his head seem grotesquely huge.

Ling turned to
him, his voice hushed. "Wait but a moment,
Shih
Tong. My
master is just finishing something. Please, take a chair, he'll be
with you in a while."

Chen smiled but
made no move to sit, watching as Ling Hen went across to the figure
at the control desk. If Karr was right, Herrick would have kept
copies of all his jobs as a precaution. But where? And where was the
guard room? Or had Herrick himself let them in?

He looked down
momentarily, considering things. There were too many variables for
his liking, but he had committed himself now. He would have to be
audacious.

He looked up
again and saw that Herrick had removed the wraparound and was staring
across at him. In the light of the screens his face seemed gaunter,
far more skeletal than in the dragon portrait on the wall outside.

"
Shih
Long . . ." Herrick said, coming across, his voice strong and
rich, surprising Chen. He had expected something thin and high and
spiderish. Likewise his handshake. Chen looked down at the hand that
had grasped his own so firmly. It was a long, clever hand, like a
larger version of Jyan's, Chen's dead companion. He looked up and met
Herrick's eyes, smiling at the recollection.

"What is
it?" Herrick asked, his hawklike eyes amused.

"Your
hand," Chen said. "It reminded me of a friend's hand."

Herrick gave the
slightest shrug. "I see." He turned away, looking around
him at the great nest of screens and machinery. "Well . . . you
have a job for me, I understand. You know what I charge?"

"Yes. A
friend of mine came to you a few months ago. It was a rather simple
thing, I understand. I want something similar."

Herrick looked
back at him, then looked down. "A simple thing?" He
laughed. "Nothing I do is simple,
Shih
Tong. That's why I
charge so much. What I do is an art form. Few others can do it, you
see. They haven't the talent or the technical ability. That's why
people come here. People like you,
Shih
Tong." He looked
up again, meeting Chen's eyes, his own hard and cold. "So don't
insult me, my friend."

"Forgive
me," Chen said hastily, bowing his head. "I didn't mean to
imply . . . Well, it's just that I'd heard . . ."

"Heard
what?" Herrick was staring away again, as if bored.

"That you
were capable of marvels."

Herrick smiled.
"That's so,
Shih
Tong. But even your 'simple things' are
beyond most men." He sniffed, then nodded. "All right,
then, tell me what it was this friend of yours had me do for him, and
I'll tell you whether I can do 'something similar.'"

Chen smiled
inwardly. Yes, he had Herrick's measure now. Knew his weak spot.
Herrick was vain, overproud of his abilities. He could use that.
Could play on it and make him talk.

"As I
understand it, my friend was having trouble with a soldier. A young
lieutenant. He had been causing my friend a great deal of trouble; so
to shut him up, he had you make an implant of the man committing a
murder. A young Hung Moo girl."

Herrick was
nodding. "Yes, of course. I remember it. In a brothel, wasn't
it? Yes, now I see the connection. Liu Chang. He made the
introduction, didn't he?"

Chen felt
himself go very still. So it wasn't Liu Chang who had come here in
that instance. He had merely made the introduction. Then why hadn't
he said so?

"So Captain
Auden is a good friend of yours,
Shih
Tong?" Herrick
said, looking at him again.

Auden . . . !
Chen hesitated, then nodded. "Ten years now."

Herrick's smile
tightened into an expression of distaste. "How odd. I had the
feeling he disliked Han. Still. . ."

"Do you
think I could see the earlier implant? He told me about it, but. . .
well, I wanted to see whether it really was the kind of thing I
wanted."

Herrick screwed
up his face. "It's very unusual,
Shih
Tong. I like to
keep my customers' affairs discreet, you understand? It would be most
upsetting if Captain Auden were to hear I had shown you the implant I
designed for him."

"Of
course." Chen saw at once what he wanted and took one of the
chips from his pocket. "Would this be guarantee enough of my
silence,
Shih
Herrick?"

Herrick took the
chip and examined it beneath a nearby desk light, then turned back to
Chen, smiling. "I think that should do,
Shih
Tong, I'll
just find my copy of the implant."

Herrick returned
to the central desk and was busy for a moment at the keyboard; he
came back with a thin film of transparent card held delicately
between the fingers of his left hand.

"Is that
it?"

Herrick nodded.
"This is just the analog copy. The visual element of it, anyway.
The real thing is much more complex. An implant is far more than the
simple visual component." He laughed coldly, then moved past
Chen, slipping the card into a slot beneath one of the empty screens.
"If it were simply that it would hardly be convincing, would
it?"

Chen shrugged,
then turned in time to see the screen light up.

"No,"
Herrick continued. "That's the art of it, you see. To create the
whole experience. To give the victim the
feeling
of having
committed the act, whatever it is. The smell and taste and touch of
it—the fear and the hatred and the sheer delight of doing
something illicit."

He laughed
again, turning to glance at Chen, an unhealthy gleam in his eyes.
"That's what fascinates me, really. What keeps me going. Not the
money, but the challenge of tailoring the experience to the man. Take
this Haavikko, for instance. From what I was given on him it was very
easy to construct something from his guilt, his sense of
self-degradation. It was easy to convince him of his worthlessness,
to make him believe he was capable of such an act. That, too, is part
of my art, you see—to make such abnormal behavior seem a
coherent part of the victim's reality."

Chen shuddered.
Herrick spoke as if he had no conception of what he was doing. To him
it was merely a challenge, a focus for his twisted genius. He lacked
all feeling for the men whose lives he destroyed. The misery and pain
he caused were, for him, merely a measure of his success. It was
evil. Truly evil. Chen wanted to reach out and take Herrick by the
throat and choke him to death, but first he had to get hold of the
copy and get out with it.