I checked the camera feed again. He was standing a row away, his hand inside his pants. It looked like he was masturbating as there was a rapid back and forth motion near his zipper. Was he getting off on inflicting pain? The mockery of his actions infuriated me. I scoured the ground for my gun. I didn’t know where it’d flown off to and I didn’t have the time to look for it.
My combat training had been limited because I’d always intended to be a media guy. Even with all the survival lessons I’d taken, hand-to-hand combat had never been a focus of what I’d learned. As the saying went, desperate times called for desperate measures. If I could get his glasses off, then I could set off a light bomb and paralyze his motion. My lenses would protect me.
I charged straight at the butler. He grinned, took his hands out of his pants. I crashed into him, but before I could grab his glasses, he slapped me back and followed with a kick. I cringed, not so much at the pain, but the thought of where his fingers had just been.
The light bomb was in my right hand, ready to set off. I just needed those glasses to come off. I rushed him again, ready for him to kick me. He was flexible and more agile than I would ever be. But I was counting on that. Sure enough, the kick came to my cheeks. I let myself stumble and when he came for another kick, I ducked. This surprised him and left an opening for me to grab his body and pull him down. I ripped the glasses off and set off the light bomb.
The power of a star scintillated blindingly.
The butler screamed in agony.
I got up and searched the ground for my gun. It was lodged onto a booth called Street Fighter II. I picked it up, fired at the butler’s neck, paralyzing him for at least a day.
I went to the two in chains and used my blade to cut through. The woman, who’d been blinded, leaped at me. I tried to pull her off, but as she had no clothes, I could only pull her hair. To my surprise, it stuck no matter how hard I pulled. Was this-was this real hair? In the bright light, she looked more like Beauvoir.
“Do you know Beauvoir?” I ventured, even though it was a far stretch. Her white hair reminded me of the package Larry had me retrieve from Dr. Asahi back in Los Angeles.
“That’s the name of my sister,” she said, eyes shut. “Unless you mean the author.”
“We need to get out of here. Hold onto me.”
I held the woman’s hand and she held onto her companion’s arm as we made our way out. I grabbed the Pinlighter and placed it back in my pocket. I streamed the recorded information into my lens and the network in case anything were to happen to me.
When we were back upstairs, I picked up two thin rugs and wrapped them around both to cover their naked bodies. “You should be able to see again in a day or so.”
The woman tried opening her eyes but shut them again.
I asked her, “Do you have real hair?”
“No,” she said. “There’s no such thing as real hair.”
I felt her hair again. There was no doubt. The man had a wig that clearly came off. He was coy, looking away, not saying anything. I looked back at the woman. Was she afraid of telling the truth? “What’s your name?”
“Plath,” she answered. “How do you know my sister?”
“She saved my life.”
“Then you are our friend?”
I ignored her question and said, “We need to get out of here.”
“Did she send you to get me out?”
“No one sent me.”
“Then I can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t leave,” she insisted.
“You’re a slave here.”
“I know what I am,” she answered. “I can’t leave until my task is done.”
I looked at her hair and knew I had to talk with Rebecca and Dr. Asahi again. Larry’s reaction to the package came back to me. Skeletons, he said after the explosion.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean where did you grow up?”
“In Los Angeles.”
“Where in Los Angeles?”
“At the Chao Research Facilities before they closed them down.”
I didn’t know they used to have their own research facilities in Los Angeles, especially with the Absalom Institute there.
“Can I take a sample of your hair?” I asked.
“Why?”
“I need it.”
“For what?”
“Research for Chao.”
She nodded.
I took out my Pinlighter, tugged on her hair, recording how strong it was and how the roots were embedded in her scalp.
“Ow,” she said.
“Sorry.”
I cut off a handful similar to the amount Larry had in the capsule and put it in my pocket.
“You want to stay too?” I asked the man.
He looked helpless. “Where would I go? Russ takes good care of me.”
At that moment, Russ approached with a smile until he saw me.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded. “Where’s Manny?”
“Why does this girl have real hair?” I asked.
He turned around and ran away. I raised my gun and aimed. As I fired, Plath pulled on my arm. The shot was completely off.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“You can’t hurt him,” she said, her eyes partially opened even though it was causing her pain.
“You care about him that much?”
She didn’t answer me. My legs hurt too much to give chase. Still, I limped after him. By the time I got out the front door, it was too late. He’d jumped into a car and driven out through the gate. I recorded the license plate, hoping I could track him later if I needed.
Plath and the man were still in the lobby. They didn’t look like they were going anywhere. Should I try to force Plath to come with me? Honestly, I didn’t know if I had the energy to even make it to the taxi and seeing how protective she had been of him, doubted she would be of much help.
I hobbled out the front and exerted all my strength to get to the cab. “Train station to Shanghai,” I ordered. Where I really needed to be was the hospital again. I took off my pants and removed the armor. The skin where I’d been shot was black and purple, an island of dead cells floating in a violet death. How many funerals were taking place inside my body, how many loved ones lost? I lay back and slept for the drive to the train station.
X.
I dreamt about being a cricket again, only with much larger antennae. There were a few that were the size of small dogs and groups of them were whispering conspiratorially. I was furious that my apartment was infested with them and didn’t know what I should do to get rid of them as I hated fumigations. Beauvoir actually carried two of the cricket corpses, fought one off and tossed it into the living room. I startled at the sight of crickets so big until I woke up.
I’d arrived at the train station and my cab was gently trying to wake me with a cooing ring tone. My hands went instinctively to my thigh and shoulder, rubbing the area where the wound had been. I could still feel the shock and jolt of the hit. I was lucky to be alive.
What next? I’d have to talk with Rebecca and find out how much more she knew than she’d let on. I noticed the news screen had the image of several factories on fire. The text below read, “Zhang Zhang Factories Under Attack.” I turned the audio on and listened to the account of the explosions that had caused tremendous damage. “We still don’t know what’s going on,” the reporter was saying. “But preliminary reports indicate explosives were used.” This was the Colonel’s company. Had Chao Toufa actually made a move to attack her? That was crazy, but this meant war.
I got out of the cab. My muscles felt sore. I was worried about the fighting that would ensue with the Colonel probably unleashing a full assault on Chao Toufa. Then it hit me again that Larry was really dead. It was hard to accept, especially as I knew there was a doppelganger out there. Should I confront him? Should I expose the truth? I had my exchange wit
h Russ recorded and I had enough friends in the media to ensure that the message would get out there. But my mind kept on going back to Plath’s hair. It was real. She could grow hair. No one in the past 25 years could grow hair. How was this possible? How much did Larry know? Was this what had been haunting him? Was he trying to expose the truth? Or cover it up? Is that what got him killed?
No matter how I spun it, it depressed me to think that hair was the reason he had died. This should have been a cause for celebration among the people of the world. Someone could grow hair again! But I had the feeling there was something darker connected with this whole mess. Did Chao Toufa have the most realistic hair in the world because it was real? No wonder the Colonel couldn’t figure out the formula. But if they did have real hair, why hide it? Why hadn’t anyone else known about it? And why was Russ keeping Plath as a slave?
I bought a ticket and leaned against the wall, my thighs sore. My hands were shaking. I was exhausted. I needed a long, long rest. I hadn’t slept since the day before the convention. But I didn’t feel safe going back home. I had to find out what Dr. Asahi had learned from that hair sample, even though I had a pretty good idea what she’d found.
I thought about the Great Baldification. Everyone at that moment realized there was no God. I didn’t mean a Creator or a spiritual being that brought cosmic order. I meant the genie we’d hoped would save mankind from itself. It was a wakeup call, but all these years later, most people still hadn’t heard the alarm.
9. The Faceless
I.
I ordered a drink at the station bar after I arrived in Shanghai because I couldn’t stop shaking. A hard shot of whiskey didn’t help. If it hadn’t been for the armor, I’d be a cripple or worse. I asked the bartender for an er guo tou that was almost 60% proof. That gave me a buzz and calmed my nerves momentarily.
I called Rebecca.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
I didn’t know how much I could trust her or how to broach the topic of the conversation I’d overheard her having with—I didn’t even know who she’d been talking to.
“There’ve been a lot of developments,” I said, keeping vague.
“Developments?”
I’ve been shot at, I found out Larry is dead, and there are people who can still grow hair. “Can I see you, right now?”
“Of course,” she replied.
“I’ll be there in an hour.”
The communication ended and I grabbed a taxi. As soon I got in, I passed out.
Honestly, I didn’t remember how I got up to her unit. All I knew was when I got through the door, I headed for the bed and passed out again. I dreamt the whole time about running away from someone who was trying to shoot me.
II.
I woke up and found I only had my underpants on, bandages around where I’d been shot. I felt groggy and my head was a murky maelstrom. Two more days of sleep was what I needed. Rebecca was standing next to the bed, nudging me softly.
“How long have I been out?” I asked her.
“Four hours. Some guys came by and wanted to see you.”
“What did they look like?”
“You can see for yourself. They look like they have masks on. I told them you weren’t here but they’ve been persistent.”
I looked through the door camera and saw four of the faceless men waiting at the door, goons that looked identical to the one I’d seen driving the Colonel’s limousine in Beijing. Who were these men before they’d signed on to become anonymous brute force for strangers? Some of them might have been soldiers like me without family fighting their way for every inch. Did their lovers cringe when they saw their blank faces that barely moved? Seeing them talk was like seeing sock puppets.
“Is there another way out of the building?” I asked.
“No. Who are they?”
“Friends from Zhang Zhang.”
“That’s the hair company that just got attacked,” she said.
“They think I’m involved in that,” I told her, looking at the camera view again.
“Are you?”
“Of course not. The Colonel—that’s their owner—thinks I have some say in what happens.”
“According to the news, it’s been bloody retribution out there,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Chao Toufa had several of their facilities attacked. More than eighty people have been killed in explosions.”
I looked at Rebecca and she appeared so vulnerable in her t-shirt and trainer pants. “I shouldn’t have come here.” My leg felt like a broken pylon. “Where’s the armor?”
“Sorry. I took it off.” She eyed the bruises on my body. “What happened?”
“I got shot.”
“By who?” she asked, startled.
I stood up and started putting on my armor. “Can I ask you a kind of weird question?”
“Uh, sure,” she replied.
“Do you love Larry?”
Her body took on a defensive slant. “Why do you ask that?”
“A yes or no would be great.”
“It’s a complicated situation.”
Should I show all my cards or balk? “I know the real Larry is dead,” I said. “I know the Larry you took me to see is an impostor.” Even as the words came out, they sounded like a joke. I didn’t believe them, or didn’t want to. Was there really a difference? “I overheard you talking to him in the bar,” I said, even though I hadn’t been sure it was him.
“Nic—” she started, confirming my suspicion.
I cut her off. “What do you guys want from me?”
“Who says we want anything?”
I’d been a fool for thinking she had been kind to me out of the goodness of her heart. “Does it have something to do with the package Dr. Asahi sent?”
“I don’t know what’s in the package.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. What was in it?”
I slowly put my leg into the armor but had to do it carefully as fast motion was causing cramps. “You may not believe this, but there are still people who can grow hair. Chao Toufa is somehow connected to them, but I don’t know how.” If she wasn’t trustworthy, if she was working for Chao Toufa, it would only be a matter of time before she betrayed me. Then again, it wasn’t like I had much of a chance even if she wasn’t a traitor. I needed information and revealing what I knew seemed the best way.
“That’s impossible.”
“That’s what I thought too. But it’s real,” I said.
“Is that why Dr. Asahi was so desperate for me to find you?”
“Dr. Asahi?”
“After Larry’s death, they couldn’t find you so they asked me to look for you. But after they used the new Larry to replace the old one, they lost interest.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you love Larry?” I asked again.
“Not the real one,” she answered. “His name used to be Harold Lew before all the surgery. He used to be an actor. We were friends until Larry—the real Larry—died. Then Harold and me became lovers.”
“I know Harold,” I answered, recognizing him as a minor actor in some of our films. He did have a resemblance to Larry, although he was a few inches taller. Image facilitation could have easily fixed physical differences.
“He’s changed a lot. I don’t think he can separate himself from Larry anymore.”
“You knew it was a lie but you didn’t say anything?” I demanded.
“They told me it was to maintain the future of the company and our facility. It would only be temporary until they set up a proper exchange of power.”
The armor fit me snugly and I picked up my strap of light bombs. “What was the point of keeping me around your place earlier?”
“I wasn’t trying to keep you. They just wanted me to keep tabs on you and make sure you didn’t cause any problems. I’m sorry. I know you’ve been through hell. And Larry—Harold’s a different guy now
. He loses his temper all the time. I think he’s sleeping with other women too.”
“Do you know how Zhang Zhang is connected and why they care about me?”
“The only thing Larry and Dr. Asahi told me was to keep you distracted.”
I sighed. “Can you call the police downstairs?”
“That’s the weird part,” she said. “I called them earlier and they told me everything was fine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those men have clearance to be here,” she answered. “I told security that I wanted them out of here but they said there’s nothing they can do.”
That meant they had some arrangement with the police and wouldn’t be killing us here as news of any deaths inside a prison-complex condominium would cause property values to drop drastically.
“If someone could grow real hair, why wouldn’t they announce it to the whole world?” she asked.
I didn’t tell her the business-driven answer that instinctively came to mind, but I think she saw it in my eyes.
“Profit?” she asked. If she had known about the existence of hair beforehand, she did a convincing job faking that she didn’t.
“What are the chances of them breaking through that door?” I asked.
“Those doors have three layers of titanium. They’ll withstand most explosives. Short of laser beams, and I mean the pure crystal kind, I don’t think they’re coming through.”
“Are there security overrides?”
“There are, but those are just for emergencies,” she answered, though a sliver of doubt had slipped in.
“Can I speak with them through here?” I asked as I strapped my paralysis gun into my belt. She nodded. “Hello, gentlemen,” I said through the communicator. “What can I do for you?”
“My boss would like to see you,” one of them said.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course,” he answered in the same tone as the one from Beijing.
“Patch her through.”
“She would like to see you in Bangkok.”
“I bet she would, but I can’t go to Bangkok right now.”
“She has allowed you eight hours to arrange matters before she insists you depart for Bangkok.”
“That’s generous of her.”
Bald New World Page 18
