(ID)entity (Phoenix Horizon Book 2)

by PJ Manney

  When the light hit his optic receptors, Tom 2 turned on, sat up, surveyed his location, looked at the two longshoremen, and in Mandarin said, “Nín hǎo.”

  Both screamed. One swung his crowbar in shock, but Tom 2 ducked, avoiding a costly accident. Apparently, neither worker expected a life-like android that engaged them right out of the box.

  “I am Tom 2, a self-activated robot,” he continued in Mandarin. “Thank you for releasing me to meet my masters. I have been programmed to go straight to their offices. I will do that right now, if you would please allow me.” He made a little bow of gratitude. The workers just stared.

  Climbing awkwardly out of the crate, Tom 2 headed for the door with a little wave. “Zàijiàn!” The workers didn’t try to stop him.

  He exited the airport shed and walked toward town, adjusting his GPS and following the maps. The city of Wenzhou had many skyscrapers, but also a preponderance of older, well-maintained buildings. He loaded up on a local cybercurrency, the Yāsuìqián, Mandarin for “lucky money,” then logged into the city’s network to do a little digging.

  Ringed by mountains on three sides and ocean on the fourth, Wenzhou had long enjoyed the advantage of geographical isolation. A small but flourishing agricultural and entrepreneurial center for a thousand years, it was so isolated that even Mao had ignored it during the depths of his revolution. Why bend a secluded region to a political will when it cost so much to get there and enforce authority, and for so little in return? After a millennium of business experience, the culture of Wenzhou thought little of supporting new businesses just to see what might succeed. China had decided decades before that Wenzhou would be a great place for economic experimentation in government-sanctioned capitalism. But the gray and black markets thrived, too, and the residents were a more independent-thinking, risk-taking, and community-minded lot than those in most other Chinese cities.

  The isolation even extended to the language: Wenzhouese was its own dialect, nicknamed the “devil language” by Mandarin and Cantonese speakers for its unintelligibility and difficulty to learn. Tom 2 did a quick analysis with the scant translation apps available for the rare dialect.

  Thankful for maps, he navigated the streets. Wenzhou was designed by businesspeople for their personal use and concerns. While the big roads made sense, the small streets began and ended arbitrarily in countless dead ends and weird loops.

  A female humanoid robot approached him and passed right by. It could have been a sexbot, but it was not as life-like as the American cousins, nor as technically sophisticated as Tom 2’s body. Other robots looked like trash cans on wheels, pack-animal couriers, or small scurrying machines that might be collecting ground-level intelligence for the government. No humans shoulder-checked or tripped the androids. Little kids petted the animal-like bots as they passed, then giggled and ran away. Tom 2 spotted three drones in the skies above. He hoped they knew he was here.

  Despite all these robots, there was a strange lack of high-tech companies in town, according to his research. The Wenzhouese were heavily involved in real estate, currencies, fashion, and small manufacturing. Their vast international network of business-owning relatives, especially in Europe and North America, meant that a lot of capital, imports, and exports flowed through the city.

  At a loss to make up for the drop in manufacturing output after a global recession and geopolitical restructuring, the Chinese government used Wenzhou’s networks and independence for more marginal and quasi-illegal activities, pumping capital into fronts for all types of money laundering and counterfeit goods.

  All the capital and contracts required a lot of blockchain entries to prove ownership and track the movement of goods. Did the financial blockchain sabotage originate here? Was that why the kidnappers were here, too? And how did Dr. Who fit into their plans?

  A uniformed policeman approached, dressed in the traditional summer outfit of the chengguang or City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau: a light-blue short-sleeved button-down shirt with black patches and silver embroidery, black pants, and black-laced shoes. He was of average height and build for the Southern Chinese, short compared to Tom 2. But his quick, penetrating, and analytical gaze suggested high intelligence, not some cog in the state surveillance machine.

  He looked up at Tom 2 and asked in Wenzhouese, “Are you Thomas Paine?”

  Tom 2 paused before answering. The chengguang were so notorious for arbitrary attacks and beatings that the word became slang for police bullying and terror. Even though he didn’t seem like a mere beat cop looking for a fight, Tom 2 would have to answer carefully.

  The officer asked again in Mandarin.

  Tom 2 took an intuitive leap, which he hadn’t done as a robot yet. “Yes. And I’m here to help. And you are?”

  “Cai Shuxian. And we hope you can.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Through Talia’s and Veronika’s MR glasses, Major Tom monitored them and Ruth as they dodged gurneys, residents, nurses, and family members in the crowded, aging hallways of Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center. The women wore green medical scrubs and forged ID tags with full hospital access around their necks. Even though the practice of medicine was supposed to have become more automated, with robot gurneys, robot nurses, and robot surgeons, the reality on the ground in a huge municipal hospital had not improved much since the twentieth century. Sick and helpless bodies were tended by the healthy. Dead bodies were mourned and removed. The only visible difference was that doctors, nurses, and administrators communicated through electronics.

  Ruth opened the door to Room 345, and they quietly entered. She shut the door behind them.

  “God, this is creepy,” whispered Veronika as she and Ruth approached the bed.

  Hugging the walls, Talia would not approach the bed.

  “Talia?” asked Ruth. “You okay?”

  Talia nodded. “Brings back memories. I haven’t been in a hospital room since . . . ” She couldn’t say the rest.

  Ruth nodded. “Since Tom died. Me neither.”

  The room was darkened by the nursing staff out of habit, but it didn’t matter. The young man lying in the bed wouldn’t be disturbed by light.

  Part of the patient’s head was shaved. The rest of his straight black hair, neat but greasy, was combed away from his incisions. His goatee and mustache had overgrown. His skin had the gray pallor of the seriously injured. The only sounds were the beeps and whooshing of the resuscitation machine and monitors.

  Ruth waved her forged tag at a sensor and logged into the electronic chart. Major Tom read the chart through Veronika’s glasses. He didn’t want to leave any more electronic footprints on the original files than he had to, even though Veronika invented a self-destruct program to protect their IDs. All the data would disappear the moment the team walked out the doors.

  This was their guy: Rosero, Edwin—male, twenty-one, six one, 195 pounds of pure muscle, only slightly atrophied by his injury and immobility. Worked in a gym. Motorcycle accident, hit and run. Head trauma to neocortex. Persistent vegetative state. Neocortical death.

  “He’s really a vegetable?” asked Veronika.

  Ruth rolled her ticky eyes. “Vegetative state. Not vegetable.”

  “Sure he can’t hear us?” asked Veronika.

  “P-p-positive,” mumbled Ruth. “Neocortex ECoG is flat. Nobody home. But autonomic system still good. Relatives aren’t claiming him. Doctors will pull plug tomorrow. No organ donation. Headed for crematorium and disposal.”

  Veronika tentatively touched his exposed hand.

  “Chilly.”

  The hand twitched. Veronika yelped and yanked her hand back in shock.

  “He knows we’re here!” she said.

  “No. Involuntary reflex,” said Ruth.

  “You’re sure?” said Veronika.

  “Yes! Stop kvetching,” said Ruth, her mouth twitching in rictus. “He’s sp-p-plendid. Talia? Call Steve for the ambulance.”

  Talia text messaged
Steve, Ready? You’re the only one I trust for this.

  He messaged back, Promise me again I’m not a stooge. That I make my own clinical and ethical decisions. I don’t want last time to happen again.

  Promise, she messaged back.

  They often forgot that Major Tom monitored their conversations. He didn’t like to eavesdrop, but too much was on the line. After Steve’s ethical pushback, which had begun three years ago when Tom’s brain-computer interfaces were installed, there was no way he’d let Steve stop this now.

  After the women prepped Edwin Rosero for transport, the team transferred the young man’s body, along with the necessary life-support equipment, into an ambulance. They looked as official as the rest of the hospital staff, and their data checked out, so the LAC+USC medical staff ignored them.

  The moment they exited the building, all their data disappeared, just as Veronika had planned.

  They loaded the body in the ambulance. Steve arrived and joined them inside. Ruth and Veronika knew that much remained unsaid between Talia and Steve, and they kept their mouths shut.

  Talia leaned in, kissed Steve, and took his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she said.

  He squeezed her hand but avoided her eyes. “You always say that. And it never is.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The view of the Wenzhou basin from the Dongtou Islands was impressive. Twisted, bulbous mountains and atolls rose from the sea like the famous eleventh-century Chinese landscape A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. Its classic style was no mere artistic affectation. The landscape was torturously vertical and surreal.

  Tom 2 and Cai Shuxian stood at a large picture window in an empty dining hall full of round tables and banquet chairs and hung with festive red drapes, lucky banners, and gold-leaf trim. The window afforded a 180-degree view of the mainland and ocean. Cai had escorted him to this abandoned hotel complex in Dasha’ao on the southwest corner of Dongtou Island. Tom 2 wondered why this place was important and scanned every way he could: ultraviolet, infrared, black and white, underwater surveillance, satellite imagery. He zoomed in and out, panning all cameras as far as their mounts would allow. He searched the net for any relationships that might matter. But nothing was obvious.

  Major Tom and Miss Gray Hat had run Cai’s face through governmental and private security facial-recognition databases, but it would take some time. China was successful at burying their intelligence personnel. People like Cai often had no imprint either on the web or in social media. Thousands of data operators did nothing all day but use search algorithms to scrub the Chinese net of information. Cai and his lot were the ghosts of the information age.

  Tom 2 asked Cai, “Why me? Why here? Why now?”

  “You are a fascinating technological specimen,” said Cai. “A type we haven’t yet perfected ourselves.”

  “So I’m a future template? You plan to keep me?” asked Tom 2.

  Cai looked placidly out at the ocean. “No. It is enough to observe your capabilities.”

  “But that doesn’t answer ‘why me?’” said Tom 2. “Why are you interested in Thomas Paine?”

  “In Wenzhou,” said Cai, “it’s all about guanxi: relationships. Our city, national, and international networks are built on guanxi, more than any other city in China. Major Tom is now part of those relationships, and we value that.”

  “Okay, so you won’t answer the question,” said Tom 2. “A Virginia-class sub surfaced fifty miles off the coast of Wenzhou this morning. Why here?”

  Cai sighed. “Yes, we should have assumed you’d see that.” He pointed east. “It discharged passengers onto a vessel bringing contraband fish in with a government official’s permission to the processing plant. Beijing will turn a blind eye to the activity.”

  “What’s contraband fish?” asked Tom 2.

  “Here, whale shark is popular. Wenzhou still finds many uses for it. Lipstick, vitamin supplements, shark leather, shark fin soup.”

  “Is the boat here yet?”

  “We don’t think so,” said Cai.

  “And who exactly is ‘we’ again?” asked Tom 2. “As much as the uniform fits, you’re no chengguang.”

  Cai bowed his head slightly. “It is my fault that I failed to convince you.”

  “Are you Ministry of State Security?” China’s intelligence and security agency was responsible for all domestic, foreign, and counterintelligence gathering, as if the FBI, CIA, DHS, and NSA were a single entity. As such, they were extremely centralized and powerful.

  Cai ignored the question. “We’re monitoring activity offshore,” he said. “Based on its course, the fishing vessel carrying the new passenger is likely to dock here on Dongtou Island first, then proceed to the Port of Wenzhou. Extra passengers, especially one as unusual as Dr. Who, are likely to be noticed at the city port. And a commercial fishing boat docking on Dongtou is unusual. It’s a tourist area. Fish is processed on the Wenzhou mainland.”

  “And ‘we’ is . . . ?” asked Tom 2 again.

  Cai laughed.

  Tom 2 needed more information on the islands. He and Major Tom had analyzed a variety of maps from different years and compared them chronologically. There had long been many islands off the coast of Wenzhou, but there were more now than had been there twenty years ago. The manufactured islands were China’s first imperial move of the modern era and edged into the territorial waters of Taiwan. After years of “are they or aren’t they,” China had finally told Taiwan, “You’re mine now.” Taiwan had little choice. Other island nations followed.

  “So this isn’t about the annexation of Taiwan, the Philippines, or, say, the entire Western Pacific?”

  “Taiwan and the Western Pacific have been ours for centuries.”

  “Tell the Taiwanese, Japanese, and Filipinos that.”

  “We do.” Cai smiled.

  He was right. According to the maps, hundreds of new islands now encroached on Japan’s territorial waters. And the Philippines were officially annexed, surrounded by new Chinese islands with landing fields and military bases.

  “What do you believe is the significance of the message we intercepted?” asked Tom 2. “‘Doctor is ready. Meet Qi Jiguang.’ I know who the historical Qi Jiguang is, but . . . ” He attempted a shrug.

  “The Chinese coast is fourteen thousand five hundred kilometers long,” explained Cai. “Over nine thousand miles. That’s a great deal of coastline to monitor. The only oceanfront statue of Qi Jiguang is on this island. Since we’re looking for submarines and fishing boats, this is the only logical location. And the boat’s course is heading straight for it.”

  “Do you think it’s state-sponsored, or gang piracy?” asked Tom 2.

  “Possibly both. As in Qi Jiguang’s day, many pirates are still supported by the Chinese government,” said Cai. “There’s much money in it, especially for the sons and daughters of the powerful. One must tread carefully and know when to stop investigating to make any progress. The government wants both law enforcement success and personal protection from it.”

  “So if we meet them, we don’t know if they’re independent or paid for by the government.”

  Cai paused in thought. “Truly, no. And it doesn’t matter. Both are correct. And incorrect. Depending on the day, the weather, and the latest headlines.”

  “Understood,” said Tom 2. “Corruption is commonplace here.”

  Cai bristled for the first time. “Your own banks, and your once ferocious Phoenix Club, hired the same scions of our Politburo for leverage into China’s economy. I’d say you have as much corruption as we do.”

  “I do not represent the former United States. I have nothing to do with the banks or the club,” said Tom 2. “I’m here to save Dr. Who.”

  “We know you believe that. We read your book.” Cai grinned. “Or what’s left of it.”

  “Why say ‘believe that’?”

  “Everything is about money,” said Cai. “And therefore, banks. And governments.”

  “
Or cryptocurrency farms in the Chinese hinterlands.”

  Cai bowed his head.

  “And you didn’t have anything to do with either her kidnapping or my story’s alteration?” Tom 2 continued. “Dr. Who would be valuable to you. As would rewriting history.”

  “Of course we’re not responsible,” said Cai. Based on physical tells, he seemed to believe this. “Eliminating the Phoenix Club did China a great service. You are a revolutionary hero to many here. That is why we are helping you now. And if we wanted Dr. Who, we would never have caused so much trouble to acquire her services. She’s more valuable to us back with you.”

  “So what’s the next step to find her?”

  “We will locate where her ship is and make sure we’re there to meet it before they can make landfall,” Cai said. “Perhaps someone will let us know.”

  “And why would they do that?”

  “Because, as I implied earlier, Dr. Who is not the reason you’re here.”

  Tom 2 sent all his sensory data to Major Tom’s servers, as well as to Ruth, Miss Gray Hat, and Veronika. Veronika had moved onto the Zumwalt as an official member of the gang.

  “Well?” Tom asked her.

  “Oh my God, this dome is, like, the most bitchin’ thing ever!” said Veronika. “Like holodeck meets floating in womb space. And, like, so efficient and organic.” She had made a nest inside a 3-D dome and had combined her MR glasses with the dome’s capabilities. The heightened reality blew her mind.

  “Focus. China,” said Tom.

  “Sorry, dude . . . I’m not sure what to believe yet,” said Veronika, simultaneously typing into the air inside her cocoon.

  “I think she’s coming to the Chinese mainland via islands off Wenzhou,” said Tom. “But I don’t think it’s the Chinese in charge of her delivery.”

  “Are they selling her? To the Chinese?” asked Ruth.

  “No idea,” said Tom.

  Miss Gray Hat voice messaged the group, “Don’t trust them. There’s a bigger game. Working on it.”