Yet as his craft lifted away, Grant found himself thinking. An experiment, eh? No. Lahm had been more specific than that. An experiment within an experiment.
He had read a report somewhere that, in the old world, 1 per cent of the population had been diagnosed as clinically mad. In Tsao Ch’un’s City, however, that figure had soared dramatically. In the world of levels that figure was almost 3 per cent. All of those poor sods who couldn’t adapt, couldn’t live under the new sky.
Which led where?
He let the thought go, then slipped his hand into his pocket, toying with the stub, turning the tiny data chip over and over between his fingers.
He’d not expected that. Not expected Lahm to give him what he wanted quite so easily. But then why not? What had he to lose?
Grant smiled, then slipped the stub into the slot beneath his ear.
*
As Jake stepped down from the craft, nodding to the single, silent guard, he thought again about what Lahm had said.
Here, outside, night was falling again. As it did, so the roof of the City began to glow beneath his feet, like something warm and living.
He took in a deep breath of the night air, then turned full circle, looking about him. There was nothing to see. Nothing but the City’s roof, stretching off interminably in all directions, and close by, the docking port, which slowly rose up from that plain white surface with a hiss of hydraulics.
What he had felt, sitting there in the back of the craft, surrounded by all that plush black leather, was relief. He had put his head into the dragon’s mouth and survived. And now the future lay ahead.
It wasn’t going to be easy. Lahm had not suggested that it would. Only he knew now that someone was watching over him. Protecting him.
He felt chastened by the fact. He had a patron. A benefactor. Someone who valued him; who thought he deserved a better chance. Jake wasn’t sure why, only it had to do with what he’d been. A web-dancer. Someone who had been important enough to be on their list.
There. It all kept coming back to that. What had been his misfortune was now the saving of him.
Or could be, if he could cut it in the weeks to come. And if Lahm came through with his promise of a new job.
As he stepped inside, he took one last, brief glimpse of the sky, which was heavy with pink and purple clouds.
A change of sky, he thought, remembering what Lahm had said.
He took a deep breath, then pulled his cloak up over his head and threw it aside, even as the door hissed shut and the mist of antiseptic spray began to fill the chamber.
Jake smiled. He would be home within the hour.
Lahm climbed the ramp, then ducked inside the craft.
‘Where is he?’
The pilot scrambled to his feet, bowing low before the Eighth Dragon. ‘He is in the back, Master.’
He went through.
Grant lay slumped on his back among the cushions, a look of deep surprise on his face. Lahm leaned close, putting his fingers to the man’s neck.
There was no pulse. Not that he expected one. The synaptic wipe would have done its job with stark efficiency, delivering a pulse of data-poison directly into the cortex. Grant would have been dead just seconds after he slipped the stub into his neck.
Lahm straightened up, then looked about him. It was regrettable, but wild cards like Grant could not be allowed to roam freely, pursuing whatever enquiries they chose. Especially when they involved matters of such delicate sensitivity to the State.
Besides, Grant was replaceable, just as Reed was irreplaceable.
For now.
Lahm stared at the dead man. He wasn’t sure yet how he was going to use Reed, nor for what purpose, but this business with GenSyn gave him an idea. One he would follow up.
The thing was, he had seen what Reed was capable of. Those operational tapes of him at work inside the data landscape were astonishing. There was no other word for it. He had been possessed of such amazing intuitive talent. Only it was like Jiang Lei had said in his report. The years had blunted Reed’s edge. Had made him less dangerous.
And maybe, concomitantly, less useful.
Lahm sighed, then reached down and squeezed the stub from the slot in Grant’s neck, wiping the crusted blood from it onto his sleeve.
Time would tell, when it came to Reed. There was no hurry. First they had to let him find his balance. Then, and only then, would they find out what use he might be. But GenSyn were the key. The more he thought about it, the better it felt.
‘Incinerate the body,’ he said, as he walked back past the pilot. ‘And make sure all mention of him is removed from the record. As far as the local office is concerned, Captain Grant has been reassigned. All right?’
‘Yes, Master!’
Lahm nodded. Then, turning away, he ducked out, making his way back down the ramp. And as he walked quickly back to the gate, his dark cloak spreading out behind him in the wind, so the men he passed fell to their knees, their heads bowed low, their foreheads touching the deck as they showed their respect to their Master, the Eighth Dragon.
Their respect, but also their fear.
The GenSyn building was a mere three stacks from Bremen Central, their administrative offices occupying the top five decks of the stack – fifty floors in all. Their laboratories and breeding facilities were elsewhere, in Milan, Nantes and even one on Mars, but this was the heart of the operation. This was where Jake would be working if they offered him the job.
They gave him quite a reception, no fewer than five of their senior managers greeting him off the craft, introducing themselves as they went down in the lift.
Jake wasn’t quite sure why he was getting the star treatment, although it soon became clear.
‘There you have her,’ the senior HR Manager, Tim Curtis, said, putting out a hand. ‘She looks familiar, I bet.’
It was a datscape. At least, the outer workings of a datscape. He hadn’t seen its like for more than twenty years – since the day of the Collapse, in fact – but there was no questioning what it was. Only… did it work?
‘Oh yes,’ Rheinhardt, the Media Liaison Manager said, with a beaming smile. ‘It works. Only we don’t know how to train up operatives. Or didn’t… until now.’
So that was it. Jake laughed. How strange, after all these years, to come full circle.
‘I must be twenty, maybe thirty pounds too heavy,’ he said, as they brought one of the suits – clearly fashioned on the original designs – out for him to see.
‘It’s all right,’ Curtis said. ‘We wouldn’t expect you to go in straight away. We know you’ll have to get fit again. To get used to it again. It’s over twenty years, I know. But we can take it step by step.’
‘We saw the thing you did,’ another of them – he had forgotten the man’s name – chipped in. ‘You know… the training immersion. Lahm sent us a copy. Gods…’
Jake looked about him, surprised. All five were looking at him with deep respect, like he was something really special. And maybe he had been. Only that had been a lifetime ago. A lot had happened in between. He was no longer that man.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, a wave of uncertainty washing over him. ‘It’s a bloody long time.’
There was nervous laughter. They clearly wanted this to work. Wanted him to pick up the pieces after all this time. Only he wasn’t sure he could.
And, anyway, why was it so important? What did they want to use the datscape for? After all, the world of commerce had been greatly simplified since the Collapse – there was only the Hang Seng these days and that didn’t need this kind of data system. This was far too complex for that. So what did they have in mind?
One tour and one talk later, Jake still wasn’t sure what they’d be hiring him to do. But he did have a much clearer view of what GenSyn did now.
GenSyn was the last remaining company of the old West’s biotech industry.
If it was alive, they were interested in it, from bacteria through to human b
eings, and all stages in between. They fine-tuned nature, as they liked to call it, giving it a tweak. What could be imagined could – generally – be achieved.
Only what was the point of it all? To make playthings for the bored super-rich?
The truth was, a great deal of GenSyn’s business was of the mundane kind, producing panaceas for the multitudes, as well as the odd billion or two spare organs. Beyond being one of the City’s chief pharmacists, however, their aim was to make humankind bigger and better, stronger and more intelligent. One whole department of the company was designed for that purpose, with a budget that allowed them to purchase the services of the very cream of the science academies.
While the academies still existed. For there were rumours – very strong rumours – that Tsao Ch’un planned to control research and development. That he had a scheme for slowing things down. And that, if true, was bound to affect GenSyn, who were the kings of fast-tracking ideas.
When they took a break, later that afternoon, Jake was shown to his accommodation – a suite of luxurious rooms in the company’s First Level mansion. Left alone, he walked about it, pulling out drawers and looking in cupboards. Everything he might need was there. Anything he wanted could be ordered for him, no expense spared.
Jake nodded to himself. They clearly wanted him, and were going out of their way to get him. But why now? Why hadn’t this happened before? Or was that Lahm’s doing, too?
It made him wonder what Lahm was up to. What did he get out of this? Prestige? A finder’s fee?
Whatever it was, Lahm clearly wanted him to take the job. For reasons best known to him, it suited Lahm to have Jake there, at the heart of GenSyn. As his man.
He went through. There was an office, just off the huge bedroom with its en suite bathroom.
Mary would love this, he thought, as he went across and sat before the comset.
It was while he was sitting there that he noticed the sound, growing slowly louder in the background. The sound of rain falling on leaves. Jake closed his eyes, a little shiver going up his spine. He could smell it now. That fresh, springtime scent of grass and flowers.
It was a fake, of course. An illusion. But a welcome one.
He keyed in. At once a face appeared on the screen. A pleasant young woman’s face. Hung Mao, like himself. She smiled at Jake like she was an old friend.
‘Can I help you, Shih Reed?’
For a moment her voice reminded him of something. Of the AI he had had in his apartment all those years ago.
Trish…
He let out a long sigh. It was ages since he’d thought of Trish. She was only a computer program, true, but she had been such an intimate part of his life. No human being had known him half as well as Trish.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘only… are you real?’
The girl’s smile broadened. ‘I am… and my name is Hui.’
‘But…’
‘I was adopted,’ she said quickly. ‘By a Han couple. They raised me, along with my sister.’
‘Ah… Look, I wanted to contact my wife, Mary… back home…’
‘Then I’ll connect you. Is there anything else you need?’
Jake shook his head. ‘No, I’m fine thanks, Hui.’
‘Then I’ll call you once I have your wife on the line… If you want to you can go and stretch out on the bed, or on the sofa. I’ll patch the call through to there, if that’s okay?’
‘That would be good. And thank you again, Hui.’
‘It’s my pleasure, Shih Reed.’
As the screen blanked, Jake stood. The sofa in the other room was massive. Like all the furniture, it was a hybrid of East and West. Which was something he’d noticed throughout the facility. A striving to combine both cultures. To make both Han and Hung Mao at ease. That, surely, was deliberate. A matter of policy. Unless that too was some directive of Tsao Ch’un’s.
He chose the sofa. A minute later the screen lit up and Mary’s smiling face beamed down at him.
‘Hi, sweetheart. How’re things going? They treating you well?’
He gestured to the suite that was all about him. ‘It’s the lap of luxury. You’d love it. And the job…’
‘What do they want you to do?’
‘To train people up…’
Mary looked perplexed. ‘Train them up? But you don’t know anything about biotech, or training, come to that.’
‘They’ve got a datscape.’
‘Ah…’
He saw how her face clouded momentarily. It wasn’t something they had talked about very often – his past life – and neither was comfortable with it. But she recovered quickly. The smile returned. ‘Do you think you’re up to it? From what you said… it all sounded very demanding. Physically, that is.’
And mentally, he thought. Just melding the two, intellect and body, that was the trick. Not to let either side of the brain dominate the other.
Only what if he had lost that ability? What if he could no longer do it?
Then no one else could. Tsao Ch’un had ensured they were all killed during the Crash.
Jake smiled. It felt suddenly like he was the last of a species that was just about to become extinct. And GenSyn wanted to save him, in effect to clone him.
‘They want me to stay here a day or two,’ he went on. ‘Get a feel of things. Meet a few more people.’
‘They seem very keen.’
‘Oh, they are.’
And probably monitoring this.
‘They’re talking ten times my current salary, Mary. If I want it.’
‘And do you?’
Jake didn’t answer, just gave the slightest shrug. ‘Look… I’ll speak to you when I’m back. When I’ve had a chance to mull things over.’
Mary looked a little disappointed, but all she said was. ‘Okay. Love you.’
‘Love you too. And give my love to the gang. Tom ’specially.’
‘I will…’
The screen blanked.
Jake lay back, closing his eyes. He could still hear the rain falling, smell the clear, refreshing scents of an English garden.
Maybe they thought his hesitancy a bargaining tool – just a means of jacking up his salary. Only it wasn’t. He was actually afraid. Afraid lest he’d lost it totally. Because it was the one thing in his life he had done well. Better, in fact, than anyone else in the world.
To web-dance again… He felt a shiver run through him at the thought. To be inside there once again, his senses razor sharp…
How could he not try? How could he possibly hesitate? And yet he did. Because to fail at this was to be condemned to a life lived at the lower level. Quite literally.
Jake stood, then paced the room, trying to see some clear way out of this. Only there was no clear answer.
Maybe one would come to him. Maybe he’d find the courage from somewhere to make the attempt. Only he doubted it. He knew himself too well.
They threw a dinner for him that evening, with thirty guests, most of them senior executives, but one or two of them potential colleagues, people he would probably be working with… if he took the job.
He liked them a lot. Liked the company, that feeling of being part of the future again, because there was no doubting it – GenSyn was still cutting-edge. By comparison, the job he’d been doing was sedentary, dull.
Backwater.
Only the thing was he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t voice his doubts. All he could do was go along with things, let them believe he was thoroughly seduced by it all.
Which, in a sense, he was.
Neither of the Ebert brothers had shown their faces yet. Gustav was on Mars, so there was no likelihood that he’d be making an appearance, but Wolfgang was in Bremen, so Jake was a little surprised – bearing everything else in mind – that he’d not yet met him.
And then there was Alison.
Alison still worked for GenSyn. He’d actually checked up on that. She was Head of Evaluation, and had been for the past twenty-five years, since
they met before the Collapse. Unmarried still. Childless.
Again he was surprised that he hadn’t seen her, for she surely must have known he was coming. From all accounts, everything to do with GenSyn’s operation went through her office.
Or was her absence deliberate?
As the last dinner guests departed, sometime shortly after two, she finally arrived.
‘Hi, Jake…’
‘Hi…’
Alison was a lot older than he’d imagined her. She had put on weight, and her blonde hair, which had previously been long and straight, was much shorter now, curlier, and very obviously dyed. She wore a dark blue one-piece with a jacket, on which was appended a nametag. It looked like she had just come from a conference of some kind.
‘I meant to be here earlier,’ she said, coming across and offering her hand, ‘but I got delayed.’
Her hand was small and slim and just a little cold. Just as he remembered it.
He looked up, meeting her pale blue eyes. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’
‘It’s nice to see you…’
Jake let her hand go. She was smiling now.
‘What is it?’
‘Just that… well… it’s you… I’d never have mistaken you. You’ve put on weight, and the hair…’ She smiled again. ‘I’m glad you survived, though. An awful lot didn’t.’
‘I know.’
She took a breath, then, very businesslike, said, ‘I’ll be your guide tomorrow. Take you round and show you things.’
‘There’s more to see?’
‘You’ve not seen a tenth of it. And besides, I want to talk to you. I know you have your doubts…’
‘You do?’ He was surprised. Had they been analysing tapes or something?
‘I know you, Jake. You always had doubts. At first. When you took the job at Hinton…’ She shrugged. ‘We’ll talk it through tomorrow. Right now I reckon you need some sleep.’
Daylight on Iron Mountain Page 10
