Son of Heaven

by David Wingrove

  ‘No… it’s gone. The AI – Trish – has packed up. I don’t know why, but…’

  ‘They targeted Jake,’ Hugo said, stepping past him. ‘They shot down his hopper and erased all his files.’

  Chris turned, aghast. ‘They did what?’

  Jake shrugged. ‘It’s been a tough day. But look… do you mind if I try to reach her from here?’

  ‘No… go on,’ Hugo said. But his attention was taken by Chris, who was still busy packing his bag.

  Jake went through into the living room again, then spoke to the air, addressing Hugo’s AI. ‘Hal… it’s Jake… get me Kate…’

  There was a ten-second delay and then Kate appeared on the wall screen, twice life size.

  ‘Jake… thank god… I was so worried.’

  ‘Hi, sweetheart, I’m at Hugo’s. Chris gave me your message.’

  ‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been frantic. I contacted Hinton, but no one there seemed to know what was going on.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose they did. But look… can you get over here? We’re going to go with Chris… and Hugo, I guess… down to their cottage. Until things blow over.’

  Kate looked round at that. ‘I don’t know… I’m at my parents. They’re really anxious about things. My sister’s coming here… maybe you could…?’

  ‘You want me to come to you? Sure. I don’t know how, but… maybe Chris and Hugo can drop me on the way. I don’t know how it is on the roads.’

  ‘Can’t you get a hopper?’

  ‘Uh-uh… no chance of that. The big people are commandeering all of those.’

  Kate swallowed and looked down. She seemed close to tears. ‘What happened, Jake? What in god’s name happened?’

  His mouth was dry. He didn’t want to say. Didn’t want to scare her even more than she was scared already.

  ‘It’s going to be okay, my love. I’ll get to you, don’t worry. It’ll all blow over, believe me… You just hang in there until I see you again, okay?’

  ‘Okay…’ But her voice was small and frightened, and as he cut the connection, Jake found himself wondering if he would ever see her again.

  The approach roads to the western gate were jammed. No one was being allowed in or out. Which was why, an hour on, they were still there, in Hugo’s apartment, trying to work out what was best to do.

  They had been following it all on the news. Had seen the panicked crowds, both inside the enclaves and out. And now there was new footage of Griffin’s assassination, showing the killer, a big, shaven-headed American in his mid-forties.

  They had argued over that – whether he was a Chinese hireling or just a deadbeat with a grudge, but as yet no one was making any threats of war.

  For the moment, then, things were all right. Not good, but better than they’d looked like being an hour back.

  ‘Let’s leave it a bit,’ Chris said, getting up from the sofa. ‘Let things cool down, then make our way.’

  ‘Maybe I should try Hinton again,’ Jake said. ‘See if they can’t get us a hopper.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Hugo said, bringing a fresh bottle of wine in from the kitchen. ‘I reckon they owe you one, don’t you?’

  He did. But whether they thought that way was something else.

  Jake hadn’t heard from Hinton since he’d left Lampton’s, two and a half hours back. He’d let them know where he was, but no one had contacted him.

  ‘Hal,’ he said, ‘get me Hinton… no, get me Sir Henry Lampton… specifically him. Tell him who I am…’

  ‘Will do, Mister Reed.’

  They waited, sipping wine, the wall screen showing silent images of chaos. Then Hal spoke again.

  ‘He says sorry, that he can’t speak right now. But he did ask if you needed transportation…’

  ‘Good man!’ Chris said, raising his glass. ‘Well done, Sir Harry!’

  Jake stood, addressing the air. ‘Tell him thanks, and that, yes please… if we could have a hopper at this address… say in fifteen minutes?’

  ‘Will do, Mister Reed.’

  ‘Well?’ Chris asked, setting his glass aside and looking to Hugo. ‘Are you staying or coming?’

  Hugo smiled. The fact that nothing had happened yet had reassured him. If there was going to be war it would have happened by now, surely?

  ‘I’ll come…’

  Chris beamed. ‘Good… there’s my darling boy… now go pack a bag… quickly now…’

  Alone with Jake, Chris looked to him. ‘You want dropping off at Kate’s parents, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘You think we’ll get through this?’

  Jake shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I… What I saw in there scared me, Chris. Tsao Ch’un’s a man who’s not afraid to take great chances. As for the guy who’s working for him… the one who’s providing all his programmes…’

  They’d not really talked about this.

  ‘Go on…’ Chris said. ‘What about him?’

  ‘It’s just… I’ve never encountered anything like him.’

  ‘Him? You’re sure it’s a him?’

  Jake nodded. ‘Yeah… there’s something coldly masculine about what he does. Some unforgiving logic. My guess is that he’s infiltrated a lot more than we’ve yet realized. If what he did to the datscape’s a taster, then I reckon he’d have no trouble disabling the whole of America’s defence system.’

  Chris laughed at that, but his face, his eyes particularly, were serious. ‘What, like, shut things down? Stop them using their technology?’

  ‘Precisely that. He has the capability. And my guess is that he wouldn’t start what he can’t finish. It wouldn’t surprise me if, when push comes to shove, the Americans find most of their switches and buttons are connected to diddly-squat!’

  ‘So you don’t think there’ll be a war?’

  ‘That’s not what I said. There might not be a shooting war… but then there doesn’t need to be, not if what the Chinese plan is simply to destroy our infrastructure. They can do that without firing a single weapon.’

  Chris stared at him a moment longer, not sure whether this was truth or paranoia. Not that Jake knew himself. But his feeling for it was strong. And it was just that kind of feeling that Hinton had paid him for all these years. To outguess the Market.

  ‘So what’s going to happen?’ Chris asked finally.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered truthfully. ‘But let’s hope I’m wrong, eh? Let’s hope to god I’m wrong.’

  The hopper Lampton sent them was one of the big military cruisers, complete with heavy-duty armour, guns and guards.

  The three of them sat in the back, in the luxury of the spacious hold, looking at each other and grinning.

  ‘Good old Jake,’ Hugo said, relaxing for the first time in hours. ‘We knew your connections would come in useful one of these days.’

  Jake smiled and nodded. But it made him think. ‘What about Jenny?’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Chris said, wriggling back into the plush black leather seat, getting himself comfy. ‘Alex’ll look after her. He’s a captain now, after all.’

  ‘Makes me glad I’m not straight,’ Hugo said.

  Jake looked to him. ‘And why particularly do you say that now?’

  ‘No children. I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d had kids, what with all of this happening. It’s bad enough looking after yourself. If you had kids…’

  Jake nodded, falling silent. It was an awful thought. To think you might not be able to protect them. He swallowed, his mouth gone dry again.

  ‘Jake?’ Chris asked.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What you were saying… I can’t see it. One man, manipulating it all. Writing programmes… it seems…’

  ‘Impossible?’

  ‘No. Just unlikely. And the Americans… they’ll have their own geek geniuses, no?’

  ‘Almost certainly, only…’ Jake shrugged, not knowing quite how to persuade them. ‘He’s just so good. It’s like… well, just the way he
backs up everything he does with something else. Fail-safes. Ingenious counter-measures. The man uses a whole palette of effects. You can’t predict him. Everything you think of he’s thought it through beforehand and has an answer.’

  ‘And yet he failed. He tried to kill you and he failed. He tried to erase you from the records…’

  Jake looked to Chris and nodded slowly. ‘Yes, but that was pure accident. It was chance, pure and simple. And you could argue that he didn’t need to kill me… just take me out of the game for a time. Which is what he did. So…’

  ‘They should kill him. Send a squad in… special services... and kill the bastard.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jake said, ‘they should.’

  He hugged them, Chris first, then Hugo, then jumped down onto the lawn, turning to wave goodbye as they lifted into the late afternoon sky.

  In a moment they were gone.

  Jake turned. Kate was waiting for him by the back door, her parents just beyond her, inside the old mock Tudor house.

  He’d been afraid he’d never see her again, never touch her, but there she was.

  Jake picked his bag up and began to walk towards her, and as he did, so she began to come to him, walking at first, then running, throwing herself into his arms.

  ‘Oh, Jake…’

  He lifted her up, whirling her about, kissing her as he did.

  She smelled so good.

  ‘Thank god,’ she said, smiling up at him. ‘I thought I’d never see you again.’

  It was on his lips to tell her everything that had happened to him. But why trouble her? She’d only be more anxious.

  ‘Well, it’s okay now,’ he said, gently kissing her brow. ‘I’m here.’

  They went across. Charles and Margaret were smiling, welcoming him.

  ‘Jake,’ Charles said. ‘Rum old business with the Market, eh?’

  ‘We’ll talk,’ Jake said. ‘Later on. I’ll tell you what’s been happening.’

  Charles picked up quickly on what he meant. ‘Ah… right… Margaret’s done dinner… you fancy some?’

  Jake hadn’t eaten in god knows how long. ‘I’d love some. If there’s enough…’

  ‘Oh, there’s plenty,’ Margaret said, stepping closer so he could kiss her cheek. ‘And well done, you. The permit… It’s wonderful news!’

  He’d quite forgotten. The permit… Of course. Not that it meant that much any more. No. Everything had changed. Who knew what the future would bring?

  Dinner was pleasant but polite. Barely a word was said about what was happening outside in the real world. And for once that suited Jake. He felt tired. Mentally exhausted. What he really wanted was to sleep for eighteen hours straight. But that wasn’t going to happen.

  As Margaret cleared away the plates, Jake looked to his future father-in-law.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, boy?’

  ‘I wondered if I might ask you a favour… whether I might log on to your computer?’

  ‘Of course… help yourself. You know where it is. Maybe I’ll join you, if that’s okay. Have a word about things.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The two men got up and, after giving Kate a kiss, left the room.

  Charles’s study was on the first floor of the house, at the back, next to the box room. Jake had often stayed in here when he and Kate had started seeing each other and they’d gone through the charade of pretending not to sleep with one another.

  As Jake sat at the console, keying in his details, Charles sat in the chair nearby and lit up a cigarette.

  ‘So what do you make of all this, Jake? Can’t understand it myself. The Market was as right as rain. Strong and healthy. But now…’

  ‘Oh, Christ…’ Jake said, as it rejected his password. ‘I forgot… I don’t exist…’

  ‘What’s that, boy? Don’t exist?’

  He turned to face the older man. ‘It’s a long story, but if you’d log me in on your account…?’

  Charles came across and typed in his code. ‘There… that should do it.’

  ‘Thanks…’

  Jake turned back. Brought down the Hi-Five search engine and typed in ‘TSAO CH’UN’, then ‘WEI CHI’.

  ‘It’s all very complex,’ he said, as the machine showed up the best matches. ‘All I can say is that they’re going to have to reconstruct it all from scratch.’

  ‘Reconstruct it all? What do you mean?’

  There was a picture on-screen now of a youngish-looking Han – Tsao Ch’un, he realized – looking on as an older middle-aged man sat at a wei chi board, leaning across to place a stone. The caption read, ‘Central Committee Member Tsao Ch’un looks on as reigning All-China wei chi Master, Chao Ni Tsu, plays the winning stone.’

  Jake typed in ‘CHAO NI TSU, WEI CHI MASTER’, then ‘COMPUTER TRAINING’.

  ‘I mean,’ Jake said, turning to face Charles again, ‘exactly that. It’s been destroyed. Attack programmes have turned the datscape into a wasteland.’

  Jake saw the shock in the other man’s face. Up until eighteen months ago, Charles had been part of that world. Until he’d taken early retirement for his health’s sake. And now, it seemed, it was gone.

  ‘What are we going to do? I mean… all of us… if it’s gone…’

  Charles had grasped it at once. If there was no Market, there was no wealth. Everything everyone had was suddenly illusory. Nothing was worth anything. Aside, that was, for basics. And how would they get hold of those?

  ‘Oh god… does Kate know?’

  Jake shook his head. ‘Like everyone, she knows there’s been a bit of trouble… but not the extent of it.’

  He turned back. On the screen now was a picture of a man in his early twenties, taken some thirty-odd years ago. He was a Han… or maybe he was Japanese. It was hard to distinguish in this case. But from the caption this was Chao Ni Tsu, and the piece that followed related how he had qualified from Cambridge with a double first in Computing Science, then gone on to write his doctoral thesis at eighteen. Aged twenty-three in the picture, he had now formed his own company.

  Jake smiled, then magnified the face, so that it filled the screen.

  So there you are…

  Any doubts he’d had were gone. This was his man. This was the enemy they had to fight.

  Cambridge graduated, eh?

  Jake cleared the screen, then turned to face Charles again. The older man was watching him now.

  ‘You fancy a brandy, boy? A large one?’

  Jake nodded.

  ‘Good… because I most certainly do. And while we drink it, I want you to tell me everything. From start to finish, leaving nothing out.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And it’s Charles, boy. If I’m going to be your father-in-law then I’m having none of this “sir” shit, all right?’

  Jake smiled. ‘Yes, Charles…’

  ‘Jake?’

  ‘Yes, my love?’

  ‘Come to bed.’

  He turned and looked across the room at her. She had pulled back the sheets and was sitting up, her small, perfectly formed breasts revealed by the moonlight.

  Jake sighed. He didn’t know what the coming days would bring, but at least he was lucky enough to have this.

  He went across and, slipping from his robe, got in beside her, taking her in his arms and kissing her.

  They made love, quietly, as of old, conscious of her parents, there on the other side of the wall in the bedroom next to them. And afterwards they lay there, Kate’s head on his chest, her hand laid gently on his shoulder, while his arm lay about her back. As if nothing were wrong. As if the world hadn’t changed between the last time they had lain here and now.

  After a while he could hear her gently snoring. She was asleep. But Jake couldn’t sleep. There was too much going on in his head.

  Careful not to wake her, he slipped out of bed and, putting on his robe again, went out onto the balcony, looking out across the enclave towards the City.

  You couldn’t see it
properly from this far out, only a vague kind of glow on the horizon, but the noise of rioting went on, muted but still there, on the edge of hearing.

  After Kate and her mother had gone up, Charles and he had had another drink and watched some news.

  If you could believe what was on the media, things had calmed. The PM had announced that the Market would open in a week, and that measures had been taken to stabilize the situation. And maybe that was so. Only Jake didn’t believe it.

  Charles, after what he’d told him, had been subdued. He had tried to put a brave face on it, but what Jake had told him had clearly sapped his spirit. He had looked ashen.

  They had agreed not to tell the women just how bad things were; to play it by ear and see what the next few days brought.

  ‘We’ve a country place we could go to,’ Charles had said, ‘down in Dorset. We could load up the car and go down there.’

  Only Jake wasn’t sure that’d be any better than here. At least here they had a well-stocked freezer and a larder full of food. And the enclave itself had sturdy walls. There were far worse places one could be in times like this, and there wasn’t the added risk of travelling halfway across the country.

  No. If he could, he would persuade them to sit tight and ride things out. And who knew, maybe the world would organize against this threat.

  One thing nagged at him, however, and that was how easy he had found it to locate Tsao Ch’un’s man – his Go-playing computer expert, Chao Ni Tsu.

  Wouldn’t the man have hidden himself? Or at least made it much harder to find out who he was and what he looked like?

  Knowing how devious the man was, how adept at anticipating, Jake would have expected no less. The man liked to leave smoke trails wherever he went, so why not this?

  What if it were misinformation? Stuff he’d put online to satisfy his enemies’ curiosity without revealing anything real.

  A faint breeze blew across the garden, rustling the branches of the trees. Within it was the sound of voices, shouting, closer than before.

  Jake frowned, looking over to his left, past the scattered rooftops towards the nearest gate, less than a mile distant. It sounded like it was coming from over there.