by Joshua Klein
"You must have left the original code intact, or else you wouldn't need me to alter it for you" said Fed. "If you could have changed the code by yourself you would have."
Poulpe began to speak but Chow raised a small hand. Poulpe tried again and Chow turned towards him, frowning.
"Be quiet now, Poulpe" he said. Poulpe sat back into his chair, a pout spreading on his lips.
"Go on, Feed" Chow said.
"The only thing you could have changed was the input data" said Fed. He could feel his heartbeat, now, a steady rapid pulse, and it filled the quiet in his head as his understanding unfolded. "You play by the rules presented to you, Poulpe. Like in the Paris Hotel, with the sake. You've always worked on biologicals, on weapons. You must have done that now."
Chow was watching Feed now, observing the wheels turn, the connections grow as he plucked the truth from the scattered evidence in front of him.
"The code I wrote finds a way to match endomorphic tissue from the sample genome map you provided with the human brain, to intersect with the stem cells in the human body to replace the damaged tissue."
Poulpe had stopped frowning now, was watching Feed. His lips were slightly ajar, a surprised grimace. The two men sat still, listening.
"You couldn't change the code to make the genome map match with something else, or to intersect with some other kind of cell. I'm assuming you didn't think to defect until you got here and realized what kind of opportunity you had."
Chow barked a short laugh and clapped his hands once, delighted.
"The simplest thing would be to replace the genome map you provided for the octopus with one of the human brain" said Fed. "You already had access to the site in Hawaii, and the human genome is easily accessible from anywhere. You had a copy on your comm when we were at Xing's so you could verify our results in case we got them off the disk we stole."
"That's right" said Poulpe, his eyes emotionless disks. "I got one from your brother as soon as we landed."
He shrugged. "And so? What would be the use of it, Feed?"
Chow smiled, watching him.
"If you could get a cancer that took its signature from the hosts' stem cells it would be undetectable" said Fed. He was staring into the distance now, finding the answer. "And if it was mapped to replace human brain tissue instead of implanted endomorphic tissue it would attack the host's brain. It would convert the existing brain tissue to scar tissue, or muscle, or whatever the stem cell it found was designed to heal."
Chow laughed again.
"Very good, Feed!" he said. "I am very impressed! What is the best part is that the result would look like any of a number of neurological diseases. Enemies of the state will simply suffer from brain disfunction, the cause unknown, potentially hereditary. And as a virus it is safe to handle as it has no natural vectors for spreading. A perfect weapon."
Feed nodded. "We wanted to enable the world, and you found a way to cripple it."
"That is not entirely true; we simply wanted to empower the most appropriate parties" said Chow. "But this is unfortunately not enough; if everyone suffers from the same sort of attack it will seem rather obvious, don't you think?"
Feed didn't say anything, just watched the small man in front of him.
"It would be even better if we could modify your code to find similar, less obtuse attacks. Perhaps find ways to affect only certain gene lines? Certain families, for example, or only people of particularly troublesome bloodlines. Over time you could select survivors for individual traits and create an ideal state. A kind of utopian Darwinism, you see?"
Feed shook his head and drummed his fingers on his thighs.
"Give me the recombinant, Chow" he said. He wasn't asking; his voice was cold. He'd tried to imagine what Poulpe would come up with, what the worst-case scenario for the misuse of his code could be, and had been unpleasantly surprised.
"Certainly, Feed. It would be my pleasure; I am very curious to learn more about your code." Chow gestured widely with his hands, the pistol held out gently in the air. "Simply tell me you would be willing to work with me and we will share it all with you. We'll even let your friends go."
"You're already doing that" said Fed. Chow put his hands back at his sides and frowned lightly at Feed.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"The Otaku collected enough voice samples from you during their 'negotiations' to make an audio model of your speech patterns. Once you got on this train and into its faraday cage a preprogrammed recording was sent to your officers. My friends are already receiving medical attention."
Chow's hand flew to his cuff and he tapped, persistently, listening to nothing. Feed was right; the train was built from titanium and steel, even the windows netted with thin metal wires. Normally an internal antenna ran down the center of the train and re-broadcast any signals from inside - but Feed had obviously turned it off. They were in complete radio silence.
"Very nice" said Chow. "But it won't do you any good. They may be provided with medical care, but your friends are still captured as enemies of the state. I cannot ensure their release without being physically present and verifiable."
"I know" said Fed. "Mr. Li?"
The man in the suit straightened, stretching out his arms and back before turning towards them and giving a little bow. He smiled sheepishly, hands raised, and shuffled over to sit next to Feed.
"Who is this?" asked Chow, his pistol quietly trained on Li until he had stopped moving. "Your lawyer?"
"Something like that" said Fed.
"Please" said Li. "It's terribly embarrassing that I am here at all. It is a very unfortunate coincidence."
"What the hell are you talking about" snarled Chow. "Who are you?"
"Please excuse me" Li said to Feed. "There isn't an appropriate way to say this in English." Then he turned and murmured several short words to Chow.
Chow turned white. Not just pale, but completely white. The blood seemed to have entirely emptied from his body. He didn't blink or move, or even seem to breathe.
"It is you?" he murmured.
Mr. Li held up both hands in front of him. "Yes, but please, as I said, this is just an unfortunate coincidence! I was riding this train to see my granddaughter when this nice young man defended me from some misinstructed youth."
"They were Fatchan" said Chow wanly.
"I know" chuckled Mr. Li. "Entertaining, isn't it, the amount of confusion which can come from within one single organization. You can see why I am such a busy man."
"What is this?" asked Poulpe. "Who is this stupid person?"
Mr. Chow nodded at Feed. "You have all this recorded, don't you?" he asked.
"Audio, visual, plus heat and pulse. It's all been streaming real-time to Otaku servers" said Fed.
"I see" said Chow. He coughed, then pulled himself up straight. "It seems that there has indeed been a misunderstanding."
"What's going on?" asked Poulpe. "You must tell me now; why are we talking with this person?"
Chow bowed towards Mr. Li, ignoring Poulpe. "I am sure we can reach an agreement. The virus I mentioned earlier is still a source of untapped potential revenue. Perhaps together we can find a way to share it."
"What?" coughed Poulpe. "You can't do that! I have a percentage in that!"
"There is no more virus" said Fed. The three men turned to look at him.
"I said there is no more virus" said Fed. "I designed a counter virus and launched it once you told me what you had planned for it. The Otaku have already published their analysis on the threat, and the world hacker community is sure to launch similar exploits shortly. Your government would seem grossly negligent if it didn't launch defenses against that sort of attack now, and without a distributed dataset there's no way you'll reverse engineer what was already in place."
"But it's still on everyone's computers… " protested Chow.
"Not anymore it's not" said Fed. "I wrote it, Mr. Chow. Don't you think I would know how to get rid of it?"
&n
bsp; The four men sat quietly for a long moment before Mr. Li raised a hand and began to laugh demurely behind it. "You are a very enterprising young man, Feed" he said. "It is my pleasure to have met you."
"Me too" said Fed, softly. He was tired. The train began to slow. "This is our stop."
Outside the landscape had slowly turned from a blur to a long mountainscape. Over the fields surrounding the train and before the mountains stood one of the oldest and most impressive of man's attempts to defend himself from invasion; the Great Wall of China.
"It was antiquated by the time it was built" said Mr. Li. They stood and walked to the doorway side of the train, looking out at the incredible landscape before them.
"I think you will have to reconsider this" said Poulpe from behind them. "You don't know who you are dealing with; I have important connections, Mr. Chow, and you, Mr. Li, cannot just"
"Don't be a dick, Poulpe" interrupted Feed. "You bet on the wrong team and now you're done."
"To hell with you" spat Poulpe. "You think you can just erase all our work, take it as your own and walk away? I have worked hard to make this… power. I will own it, Feed. And you will help me."
Poulpe shoved Mr. Li and Mr. Chow aside as he reached out and grabbed Feed by the neck. His exoskeleton whined slightly as it picked him up, rocking only slightly as the train came to a stop.
"Fuck you, Poulpe" hissed Feed through clenched teeth. His hands were wrapped around the Frenchman's armored wrist. The train stopped completely. "We rescued you, and you sold us out."
The train sighed as it decompressed, the air in the car filling with the smell of cut grass. The door behind him slid open and he got one long look at Poulpe's face, at the look of shock and fear there as he stared past Feed and out at the platform beyond. Tiny metal splinters had sprouted from his nech; tranq darts, Feed assumed. Poulpe began to shake a little, sweat sprouting on his forehead, and a voice came over a loudspeaker behind Feed.
"Customer 587B3S1 you are being reclaimed by the state of Disney by and for services owed there. You will come quietly. You know your rights pursuant to Article B of the Disney sovereignty agreement and are free to enjoy those services as defined in our agreement. You will have a nice day."
Feed realized Poulpe was whispering; "please Feed please you do not understand what they will do to me it is not right Feed please oh please do not leave me with them it will hurt Feed so much please help me… "
Feed slowly lowered himself from Poulpe's shaking arm, his trembling amplified by the suit. The stench of urine rose from the Frenchman as he let him go.
"Poulpe" said Feed. "Fuck you."
Poulpe began to cry - real, frightened tears as he slumped forward and into the arms of the mechanized suits of the Disney guards. He was broken, Feed realized, a broken person returning to a broken state.
"Please sign here" said one of the Disney men as he boarded the train, his face hidden behind the wide white eyes of the mouse. He held out a tablet to Feed along with a little pen with Mickey's head on the end in molded plastic. Donald Duck slow-mo'd a disco in the background behind Feed's name as he wrote it in careful strokes.
"What will you do with him?" Feed asked. The man didn't answer, just stood there a moment, faceless behind the mask. A long minute passed before he straightened, nodding at Feed.
"We will reintegrate him back into a happy, productive member of the Disney team" the man said. It sounded sad, the way he said it.
The disney troopers had plugged a handheld unit into Poulpe's exoskeleton and had let it carry him to a huge truck pulled up in the parking lot next to the platform. The doors shut behind them, the remaining Mickey Mouse men marching off the platform and down to their convey. Mr. Li stepped out of the train, nodding slightly to Mr. Chow who returned the gesture with a deep bow. The train slid out of the station and disappeared into the distance, leaving behind a silence broken only by the sound the chirping of crickets in the rice fields in front of them.
"The next train will be a couple hours" said Fed. "I had to shut all of them down. Sorry."
"That's no problem" said Mr. Li. "It's been a long time since I last came out here."
They stood quietly, breathing the warming air of dawn.
A small car appeared, trundling up the road toward the station. As it got closer they could see a tiny figure waving from the front passenger window. Feed raised an eyebrow at Mr. Li.
"My granddaughter" Li said. He looked at Feed in mock surprise. "What, did you think I was on the train just for you?"
Feed slowly pulled his gloves off, sunlight breaking over the wall to warm his chest, the sweat on his face evaporating as the day arrived. The car pulled up in front of the platform and Mr. Li began to walk towards the steps.
"I've taken the liberty of negotiating with Chow on your friend's behalf" said Mr. Li. "They should be released and given the best medical care available."
"Thank you" said Feed. The weight of the last few days had begun to descend on him, a giddy joy at realizing he was alive and was likely to stay that way, if only for a while.
"My pleasure" said Mr. Li. A little girl in a pink fairy costume jumped out of the car and ran up the steps and into his arms. He called out to her in Chinese, waving brightly at the young woman getting out of the driver's side. They exchanged a few words, the woman looking curiously at Feed over her father's shoulder and nodding.
"Would you care to come for tea, Feed?" asked Mr. Li. "I don't get to meet people like you often enough."
Feed looked out over the rice fields, past the gently smiling Triad leader and his smiling granddaughter and off towards the Great Wall. He sighed and peeled his goggles backwards off his head, dropped them lightly onto the cement of the platform.
"I think" he said, stopping to take a deep breath, "I think I'd like that."
Chapter 64
When Tonx opened his eyes again the first thing he saw was Feed sitting next to him. He was wrapped in a thick wool robe but his eyes were twinkling, waiting for Tonx to say the first word.
"Where am I?" asked Tonx.
"Don't remember a thing, do you?" Feed smiled, obviously enjoying himself. "They warned me that might happen. You're in a hospital, Tonx."
"Hospital?"
"Yep. Do you remember leaving China?"
Tonx heaved a sigh and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "I remember being trapped in the tunnel with Cessus and smoking some vicious big joints. Thought I was going to die down there."
Feed grinned wide. "Uh-huh."
"But I didn't, huh?"
"Nope" said Feed. "You didn't. Neither did I, or anybody else."
Tonx started; "Where are they? Where's my girlfriend? Is Cessus okay?"
"Calm down" said Fed. "It's not good for you to get worked up just yet."
He checked the monitors over Tonx's bed before pulling the blankets up around his brother's chest.
"Everyone's okay. Cass took out one of the soldiers and kept the other one busy while I got away. They conked her on the head and threw her in a prison truck, but that's it. Turns out she's a good shot with a pistol, you know that?"
Tonx grinned a little as he settled back into the bed. "Yeah, I knew that."
"Cessus stuck with you until you passed out, kept you from bleeding out" Fede said. "Eventually the soldiers dug you up and he handled it from there. Gave them instructions and everything, kept things working until you got to the hospital."
"What about Marcus?" asked Tonx.
"He's fine. He and Esco 'disappeared' for a day or so after the main event, won't tell me where they went" said Fed. "That was a hell of a trick, Tonx, calling Esco and Baby in like that."
Tonx shrugged. "We needed backup, needed an ace up our sleeve. And I was worried that Poulpe would do exactly what he did. Having them run a second cover nobody knew about meant we had a fallback plan."
"Good thing" said Feed, sighing. "I'm glad you did it, I just wish I could have known about it earlier."
"It was too much
risk" said Tonx, staring out the window at the bright blue sky over the snowy mountains in the distance. "If they'd have captured you there wouldn't have been any angles for us to use to get you back… "
"I know. It was a good plan. But next time I want in, all right?" said Fed.
"Sure" said Tonx. He swallowed, closed his eyes for a second. "Baby and Esco made it okay?"
"Yeah. I scared Baby half to death by hijacking his rail gun just before he shot down the 'copters, but he didn't know there were tanks sneaking up on his rear. He swears he almost gave up being a pilot."
"You hijacked his gun? There were tanks?" asked Tonx.
"Yeah. The network Cessus had tied the Otaku hacks through was a public access network's sub layer" said Fed. "'The best place to hide something is out in the open,' you know? When the Otaku slammed gridlock on the city it only left one route open, for Chow. The Tanks could force the lights to change in their favor, of course, so I could see them coming by the network traffic they caused in resetting the system's changes. Baby was too intent on reading the data in front of him to try to interpret the noise, so I had to help him out a little."
"And you hijacked his gun" said Tonx flatly.
"Yeah. Scared him pretty good, but he was going to ice the 'copters and there was no reason for it. So I crippled the tanks and used the explosion as a distraction" said Fed. "I invited him here with us but he insisted on going back home to Puerto Rico for a vacation. Said he'd had enough crazy foreigners to last him a while."
"Heh" chuckled Tonx. "So everything worked out with Chow?"
"Uh-huh" said Fed. "Mr. Li handled everything. Otaku now works directly for Big Circle, and Chow's got a new job acting as a proponent for opening up the Chinese networks. We got the recombinant from him and I deleted the virus from the networks, so there's no evidence of how we got it, which is just the way they want it."
"We got the recombinant?" asked Tonx, trying to sit up a little in bed. A look of panic crossed his face. "Shit, I need to get up. I need to call Pharoe… "
"Relax" said Feed. "Chill. I took the liberty of hiring a friend of yours to handle the business side of things until you recovered - I got him under retainer and everything."
