Son of Heaven

by David Wingrove

‘A personal one this time…’

  The image changed. Seeing who it was, Jake grinned.

  ‘Hey, that’s Hugo…! What the hell is he doing?’

  ‘It’s a charity show… for the Campaign For Legal Representation. He’s written a new piece, for electronics and orchestra. They’re going to perform it next week.’

  Jake was in two minds about Hugo’s charitable activities, but he kept that to himself. If Hugo wanted to be a liberal, let him be one.

  ‘I’m surprised he didn’t say…’

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ Trish said, as the image faded, the pixels breaking up like the dissolving pieces of a puzzle.

  The screen was now filled with the image of a windswept field of grass of that perfect shade of green Jake found most relaxing. The same green that, in the datscape, represented ‘liquid’ cash.

  He smiled. ‘Thanks, Trish… We’ll speak later.’

  ‘Sure thing, Mister Reed.’

  Jake turned away. He ought to have been speaking to the chef, sorting out the menu for tonight, only he didn’t feel like it.

  No, what he felt like was seeing Kate. Only Kate had things to finish off.

  He walked through, into the bedroom, then stretched out upon the low, Japanese-style mattress.

  The room, like the rest of the flat, was minimalist. Jake didn’t see the point of surrounding himself with things when you could hire whatever you wanted and have it delivered at a single command. Why keep things when someone else could store them for you?

  And by now, on what he was earning, he could afford to have things shipped from anywhere. Almost anything he wanted. Jake closed his eyes. The session today had been exhilarating. He hadn’t enjoyed anything quite so much in ages. Anything ‘outside’ that was.

  So maybe he’d do some more, after all. Take up Carl’s offer. That is, if Hinton let him.

  He closed his eyes. Found himself thinking about China.

  There was a Chinese painting on the wall. It had been here when he’d moved in and he hadn’t bothered to have it removed. As far as he knew, it was an original, on loan to Hinton Industrials from one of their clients.

  He spoke to the air.

  ‘Trish… what is that painting?’

  Trish knew without asking which painting he meant.

  ‘It is Emperor Hui Tsong’s copy of Lady Kuo Kuo’s Spring Outing. The original was by Chang Hsuan in the eighth century.’

  Jake rolled over and looked at it. It was very pretty. The stylized horses, the faint pinks and lime greens of the ladies’ skirts, the whole thing, in fact, demonstrated a highly delicate sensitivity.

  ‘Have you told me this before, Trish?’

  ‘Several times.’

  ‘When I was drunk, you mean?’

  ‘I wouldn’t wish to comment…’

  But there was the faintest hint of amusement in Trish’s reply that implied that he had indeed been drunk. As you’d expect, perhaps. Jake had, after all, programmed her himself.

  Oxygen generators… now what’s that all about?

  The latest space launch did interest him, however. Since the space race had begun again in earnest thirty years back, it had been a matter of national pride. As a student at the academy, he had had pictures of astronauts on his wall. Americans, Russians, Chinese, Europeans, including one or two pure-born Englishmen. Those were the new heroes. And when he’d graduated at eighteen, it was an astronaut he’d really wanted to be, not a login.

  Logins… sounded so prosaic. And so unreal, from what he’d heard. But he knew better now. This world of theirs depended on logins. Without them things would grind to a halt. Astronauts, romantic as they were, were a luxury.

  Hugo, of course, thought otherwise. He thought them the saviours of the world. Or, at least, the pioneers of new and better worlds.

  Jake, however, didn’t believe that. He thought it was a lot of sentimental bullshit. He’d seen first hand what really happened. Seen how the moon-based ore companies had trebled and quadrupled their profits these last few years.

  Brave New World, my arse, he’d say. It’s the new Klondyke.

  There were colonies on the moon already. The Chinese had six, the Americans four, the Russians a further two. The EU had built one, but there’d been an accident and they’d all died. And now there would be colonies on Mars.

  Jake stretched, relaxing, wondering what it was like up there.

  And after Mars?

  Jake felt a faint vibration in the tiny insert behind his ear. He sat up.

  ‘Kate?’

  There was a moment’s silence, then Kate’s voice filled his head.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart… I’m incoming… I’ll be there in five…’

  ‘Thought you had things to do?’

  ‘I did. But I cancelled them. You sounded needy.’

  ‘Needy?’ He laughed. ‘I could have sent for one of the company women.’

  ‘Over my dead body.’

  He smiled at that. ‘See you in a bit.’

  ‘See you.’

  They cut contact.

  Jack sat there a moment, wondering just how he was going to play this. Should he tease her? No. It was too big a thing for that. Well then, maybe he’d just hand her the sealed packet the permit had come in.

  Yes. That was it.

  And afterwards? Did he ask her then? Or did he take her to bed? Show her how much he wanted her, then ask her, in the afterglow.

  Jake let out a long breath. This was the start of it. The permit meant they could get married and have children. Without it the whole thing was a non-starter. Any child they’d have had would have been outside the protection of the legal process, would have been ‘unprotected’, and whether you agreed with that or not – and there were many, Hugo included, who didn’t – it was how things were.

  Yes, the permit was the key. It opened doors.

  ‘Hey…’ Hugo said as he stepped from the lift, handing Kate the flowers and Jake the wine, ‘something’s up, I can sense it.’

  Kate looked to Jake.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Wait till the others are here.’

  Hugo let Jake take his coat. As he turned back he saw that Jake was smiling.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw you earlier, on the news…’

  ‘Oh, the campaign… you don’t approve…’

  ‘Someone’s got to help the UPs. But I was more interested in the piece. You didn’t tell me you’d written something new.’

  Hugo shrugged, as if it was nothing. It wasn’t that he was modest, he just kept things to himself. It had always been this way, since their schooldays. You always had to drag out of him what he was up to.

  ‘Where’s Chris?’ Kate asked, as they went back inside the apartment. ‘I thought he was coming with you.’

  ‘He’ll be along. Something cropped up, last minute. You know how it is…’

  Chris was Hugo’s partner. He was ten years older than Hugo and ten or twenty million Euros richer, but you wouldn’t have known it.

  As the door irised shut, Hugo made an exaggerated gesture of sniffing the air.

  ‘God, that smells wonderful! You got a new chef, Jake?’

  ‘I thought I’d try Bellini’s… I was there today.’

  ‘At Bellini’s?’

  ‘Yes… making a new immersion for the firm.’

  Hugo looked impressed.

  ‘Remember that piece you helped me write… you know… about being inside the datscape?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘That’s what we used. The director, Carl, loved it. So much so, in fact, that he gave me his chip to hand to you. Says he’d like to work with you sometime.’

  Jake handed him the chip. He’d not had time to look at it himself.

  Hugo stared at it a moment, then slipped it away in his pocket. ‘Serendipitous,’ he said. ‘I was about to look for a director… for the new piece.’

  ‘Well, Carl strikes me as a good man. He’s keen, intelligent…’

  ‘Gay
?’

  Jake laughed. ‘No… at least, I wouldn’t have said so.’

  Kate reappeared at that moment with drinks. She had put on an ice-blue, full-length dress for the evening, and had tied her hair back in a bun, giving her a classical, almost Grecian appearance.

  ‘You look stunning,’ Hugo said, accepting his glass with a nod. ‘Not only that, but you look like a girl with a secret…’

  ‘All in good time,’ Jake said. But Kate was blushing now.

  ‘I won’t spoil things,’ Hugo said, as if he already knew.

  Trish’s voice rang out. ‘Your other guests are here, Mister Reed. They’ll be touching down in approximately one minute.’

  Jake looked to Hugo and smiled. ‘Trust Jenny to make an entrance…’

  They went out onto the roof to watch the hopper set down. It wasn’t a ‘taxi’ or a company hopper, but one of the big military versions, similar to those Jake had seen on the news item, the craft bristling with heavy armour.

  As Jenny and her partner, Alex, stepped down from inside, two uniformed guards saluted Alex, then stood back as the door hissed closed and the craft lifted, merging into the darkness.

  They came across. Jenny was giggling now.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Alex said. ‘Just thought I’d cadge a lift.’

  Alex was Security. ‘Plain clothes’, as he liked to call it. But Jake knew he was special forces. Jenny had told him when they’d first started going out together, three years back.

  Back inside, Kate brought more drinks, then looked to Jake. ‘Have we got to wait for Chris?’

  ‘Oh, no, don’t…’ Hugo said. ‘You know what he’s like… it could be ages before he gets here. Just tell us…’

  ‘Tell us what?’ Jenny asked, intrigued. She was wearing red, but otherwise, she and Kate could have been twins.

  Jake looked to Kate. ‘You want to tell them, or shall I?’

  She blushed and looked down. ‘You do it…’

  ‘Okay… but before we do, I think something special’s called for… a bottle of the eighty-one, possibly. No… let’s go mad… two bottles!’

  There was laughter.

  Jake went out to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a tray of glasses. He had obviously prepared for this moment.

  As they took their new glasses, Jake looked across at Kate and winked.

  When he’d told her earlier she had gone very quiet. At first he thought that maybe she had a problem with it. Then he realized what it was. She was crying. Crying with happiness.

  They had made love, gently, tenderly, like it was the first time. They couldn’t conceive, of course – Kate would have to go to the clinic to have the implant removed – yet it felt different. It wasn’t just sex any more, it was creating.

  They had ‘created’ once more before showering and getting ready for their guests, but Jake had never seen Kate so happy, so bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked. Hugo was right. She looked stunning.

  As he raised his glass, the others copied him.

  ‘To my future wife…’ he began.

  ‘A permit! You’ve got a permit!’ Jenny squealed, almost spilling her drink in her excitement. She put her glass down then rushed to hug Kate.

  ‘Oh, you darlings! You precious darlings! I am so happy for you!’

  Hugo was grinning in a kind of ‘I told you so’ fashion, as if he’d known all along – which was quite possible, knowing Hugo. Alex, meanwhile, had a calm smile on his features. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘I’m really pleased.’

  Kate met Jake’s eyes, then raised her glass to him. ‘To my future husband…’

  ‘Oh, Jake…’ Jenny said, tears in her eyes now. ‘Don’t stand there like a lemon… kiss her…’

  He kissed her. The others cheered and raised their glasses high.

  ‘To Jake and Kate,’ Hugo said, looking about him. ‘May they have health, wealth and happiness… and many children…’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ Alex said, nodding vigorously.

  But Jake only had eyes for Kate.

  Sometime in the past, Jake had been at a party. It was a firm ‘do’ – Hinton had thousands working for them at all levels – and they had hired Hampton Court Palace for the evening, flying their employees in along a protected corridor over the ghettos of Wandsworth and Wimbledon.

  He’d spent an hour talking to colleagues, making an appearance, ‘networking’ as they called it, though why he, a rogue creature of the datscape, should need to ‘network’ was beyond him. To be frank, he had been bored. Bored shitless, as he’d later recalled when telling the tale. He had decided to seek out his line-boss and then leave. Get a good night’s sleep and get in early – make the firm some profits before the sun came up.

  It was then, as he’d crossed the room, having spotted old George Hinton, to whom he nominally reported, that he ran into her – almost literally.

  She had turned and stepped backward, even as he made to move past her in the crowded room. As he later said, he didn’t have a chance.

  ‘She literally threw herself at me.’

  It was Kate, of course.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ she said, her face an agony of embarrassment. ‘I really, really didn’t mean to do that.’

  Jake had picked himself up and, putting his hands up as if to ward off any further assault, answered her. ‘No, that’s perfectly fine… you didn’t see me… I was moving very fast…’

  ‘Very,’ she echoed, but she was smiling now that she could see he wasn’t angry with her.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Kate…’

  It was almost a whisper. People were watching now, amused by this sudden entertainment, and Kate clearly didn’t like being the centre of attention.

  Jake liked that. He had liked it immediately.

  ‘Well, Kate… I’m Jake, and I am really pleased I bumped into you.’

  She seemed surprised. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yes, actually, I am.’

  He had been a login only eight weeks back then. A novice, making up with keenness what he lacked in skill and subtlety. And Kate? Kate was the daughter of the chief exec of one of the City’s biggest insurance companies. One he knew by touch and scent. A very ash grey kind of company.

  That was how it had begun. Accidentally. And now this.

  As Kate cleared the table, he watched her, pleased that he’d done so well. She was grace personified and, as far as his bosses were concerned, the perfect partner for such a high-flier as he. Now, when he got an invite to a Hinton ‘bash’, it was for ‘Kate and Jake’, as if she too were an employee.

  ‘Kate…?’

  She looked to him from the doorway, pausing, the tray full of dirty plates balanced tremulously. ‘Yes, my love?’

  ‘Have we any of that glorious stilton your parents bought us?’

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  And she was gone.

  Jake turned, looking to Alex, who was facing him. Alex was staring down into his brandy glass, slowly swirling the dark liquid about. Sensing that Jake was watching him, he looked up.

  ‘You’re a lucky man, Jake. A very lucky man.’

  ‘I know…’

  ‘Looks, brains… she’ll be a good mother, too, I bet… but d’you know why you’re so lucky?’

  Jake shrugged. ‘Go on… tell me.’

  ‘Because she’s kind.’

  It was a very un-Alex kind of thing to say. Alex was always so formal, so… closed. But he had drunk a lot tonight – they all had – and he had loosened up considerably as the evening had progressed.

  ‘She is,’ Jake said, nodding his agreement.

  He looked to Hugo. ‘Have you given up on Chris?’

  ‘I don’t know… he’s probably buggering some poor little office junior…’

  ‘Hugo!’ Jenny protested. ‘He’d never…’

  ‘Oh, wouldn’t he.’ But they could see he was teasing. In truth he trusted Chris absolutely. Chris was, after all, the love of his life. ‘Jake… about what you
were saying earlier… about the Chinese…’

  ‘The Han,’ Jenny said. ‘They call themselves the Han.’

  ‘The Han, then… Do you really think they’re still our enemies? I mean… it’s been more than fifty years since they joined the global economy. They’re fully integrated into our world. I mean, it’s their world too, only…’

  ‘What the fuck are you trying to say?’ Alex asked.

  ‘I don’t know…’ Hugo shrugged. ‘It’s just… well, I deal with a lot of them… you have to… more than half our sales are in the Far East… only I’ve never felt I’ve got close to any of them. I can’t say, even now, that any of them are my friends.’

  ‘We don’t mix,’ Alex said, leaning forward, his face serious now. ‘Half the cases I deal with these days… well, I can’t say, of course… but I know who’s at the bottom of most of them. The Chinese.’ He looked to Jenny. ‘The Han. Horrid and Nasty, we call them. And you know what? They are. They’ve got whole armies of hackers, hacking away at our data. Stealing it or corrupting it. Like burglars, breaking in and sniffing our dirty underwear.’

  Jenny looked appalled. ‘Alex…’

  ‘I know. We do it, too. Only for them it’s like a mission. They don’t have ideas of their own, they steal ours. Always have done, ever since they came out of the dark ages and started to trade again.’

  Hugo sat forward at that. ‘Oh, unfair, Alex… You can’t say that. They’re every bit as creative…’

  ‘As us? See how we talk “us” and “them” when it comes to the Han. We don’t talk about the Yanks that way.’

  ‘No, but the Yanks are us. Genetically. They’re Europeans. The Han…’

  ‘Are Ha-han, o-o-ho…’ Alex said, doing his best Elvis Presley impersonation.

  There was laughter, but beneath it there was a sudden, darker edge to things.

  Kate reappeared, carrying a large platter filled with various cheeses.

  ‘Oh, Kate,’ Jenny said, jumping up to help her. ‘They look wonderful!’

  ‘You wouldn’t catch a Han eating cheese,’ Alex grumbled. ‘Just bloody noodles…’

  Jake looked down. He wished now he hadn’t mentioned it. Wished he’d kept it to himself. But there was some truth to what Alex was saying. If they weren’t enemies, then they most certainly were rivals. He knew that from the datscape. When it came to the acquisition of raw materials, China was voracious. Was a giant mouth that demanded to be fed. It was the only reason they were out in space…