by Tom Aston
Stone was woken by an odd sensation under the bed sheet. A light fluttering. A breeze from an open window? No. There was no breeze.
Instinct told him to lie perfectly still.
It stopped again. No fluttering. Then there was a barely-audible click somewhere by his knee. Was he hearing things? He lay motionless in the darkness.
There it was again, the fluttering. Definitely beneath the bed sheet. It stopped again. Stone felt something on his thigh. Then another click, soft, metallic like before. His subconscious already knew, well before he was awake. The image of the colourful metal bug which Zhang had shown him, stole across his mind. The fine shell in poisonous yellow, black and red, seven centimeters long. The spiked, black mandibles like miniature antlers. And the two stainless steel injector needles, which must now be millimeters from his thigh.
The creature was light and noiseless. It was moving, feeling its way — a tickling sensation moving up the inside of his left thigh towards his groin. Were its sensors seeking the heat of his body? Or following his pulse? Or the scent of his sweat? Shit. The aerosol from the bogus deodorant, sprayed liberally under his arms.
His mind raced ahead. If it worked by smell, and it had found him, it must know it was near its target. Almost certainly it would attack if he tried to grab or brush it off. It would latch onto his hand with the spiked mandibles, shoot in venom through the needles.
It reached the top of his thigh and stopped. Possibly confused by the hair. Was it detecting his pulse, seeking blood below the skin? It had stopped above the femoral artery in his groin. Stone made his breathing shallow to reduce his pulse strength. He willed his skin to be cold and inert. Not an easy thing in sweltering Shanghai.
The sharp mandibles grazed the hair of his groin. Where were the bug’s sensors housed? In the feet? The bug’s feet were warm and slightly tacky, six insect feet sticking lightly to his body hair as it moved, like lightly drumming fingers. It must have detected the bogus deodorant he had sprayed under his arms. It could have chemical sensors in those mandibles, seeking his under-arms. If he hadn’t been covered by the sheet he would be dead by now.
It stuck for an eternity near his groin. How long could Stone lie perfectly still like this?
The six feet moved off again. The tiny rhythmic crawling reached his abdomen, fluttering past his navel. Stone stilled his breathing again so as not to move his diaphragm. He held his stomach flat and hard. Maybe it had sensed his heart from the pulsing of the blood. It had felt the deep pulse from within his femoral artery, now it was following it, seeking the heart. Was it possible in that dark little world, that the device carried a knowledge of human anatomy? Stone knew that it was. It would be a trivial thing next to all the other programming which went into this thing. Even now those padded feet were feeling their way to the pulsing aorta and his heart. If it stopped near his heart he would have to make a grab for it. No other way.
The creature wandered diagonally across his chest, stopping for a few seconds to graze his nipple, as if to smell it with the mandibles. Was it confused? It could have jabbed in its death venom by now. He held his nerve.
Much good it did him. The bug was still on his chest, confused by the aerosol scent under his arms, to either side of it. It didn’t know which way to go. It backtracked slower than ever over to the left side of his chest and if it stayed there…
He had only one idea. He had to try it now. The was no time…
Stone threw back the sheet. The click. The shell flipped open and the gossamer wings sprang out momentarily, hovering. Stone’s body jackknifed. He caught the bug in the sheet and threw it to the floor, looking around for something to kill it with. Stone heard the door to the apartment slam.
Pulling on his jeans and boots, he stamped hard onto the fluttering device beneath the sheet, felt it crack open beneath his heel, then flipped on the light and scanned the place for more insects as he made for the door.
Stone slipped out of the apartment door and down the corridor and looked up. The elevator was descending past the fourth floor. Stone took the stairway, leaping down a flight at a time.
He’d missed the elevator by a few seconds. Darted outside, looking left and right. A figure walking away, fifty metres from him. Stone began to jog. The man glanced round and broke into a run, making for the shadows underneath the elevated highway again. He was fast, this guy, but Stone was faster. He was gaining. He could have him by the time they went under the highway — possibly sooner.
Stone closed to within twenty metres of him, then dropped his pace. Using his fitness. He would keep the guy an even twenty metres in front and run him until he was exhausted. When the fellow turned to fight, Stone would have him retching from exhaustion.
Stone ran on bare-chested through the hot night air of Shanghai. There was no traffic. They ran back across a dual track road, then into side streets. The man was turning, doubling back, trying to lose him. But Stone was too close for that. This guy was not getting away.
Onto the riverfront, the Bund. Again the man turned back. It was that or jump in the river. Stone followed into a side street. A dead end. This was it. There’d be a weapon, of course. Stone would have to strike fast and hard.
The fellow jogged to a stop and turned. Exhausted, feeling for the knife in his back pocket. Stone kept momentum. His foot landed a high, flying kick in the man’s chest, thumping him to the ground. Stone grabbed the knife. Then took him by the collar. Not much of a hit man, this guy. But then all he’d done was to bribe the superintendent into giving him a key and shove the robot bug inside.
Stone shouted questions at him in his crude Chinese, but got nothing. ‘Ni wei shenme? Shei yao mousha..?’ The bastard was gasping for air. Probably couldn’t understand Stone’s ragged Chinese anyhow. Stone dragged him over to the wall in frustration and slammed him up against it. Let’s see if he understood a blade in his throat.
Something stepped between them, shoved Stone backwards. Then fetched the gasping man a wide, swinging blow with the back of the hand. There was a torrent of words in violent Chinese, like a ten second interrogation. The voice was Ying Ning’s. The guy didn’t answer. He looked suddenly furious and threw a fist at her. Not so exhausted that he wanted to take this from a woman. Only to be kicked hard between his legs and take another contemptuous blow from the back of her hand.
Stone stood back to enjoy the show. Incensed at being struck by a woman, the guy lashed out again. Again, his blows were parried and his feet taken from under him by a very neat martial art move, so fast Stone could barely see it in the dark. Ying Ning was hot-shit at Kung Fu or whatever she was using. She stood over the man and spat hard in his face.
Perhaps the spitting and the back-handed slaps were part of her own brand of martial art. The art of Ying Ning. It was effective, anyway, Stone would give her that.
Ying Ning fired more questions at the man, but got no answers. After a minute or so she stood back, hand on jutting hip and spat copiously at the man’s face once more. Suddenly like the whore in the Snake Market again. She lit a cigarette and turned round to Stone.
‘Come, Rockhead,’ she said, and strolled back to the motor scooter, rolling with her trademark insolent swagger. She threw Stone her helmet to hold, gestured to him to get on the back. ‘We go to your apartment.’
‘Who was he?’ asked Stone.
‘Too scared to speak,’ she said over her shoulder. She was holding the cigarette, glowing red in the fingers of her throttle hand as she went along. It was an electric motor, almost silent, and they could speak easily. Finally she spoke, ‘He try to kill you, Rockhead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Maybe you should kill him. He was weak. Should be safer, I think.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to kill people,’ he said.
Stone’s mind went bizarrely to the therapist and his “rules for living” after leaving the army. Don’t kill any more people was one of his rules, though it wasn’t one the therapist was expecting.
Yin
g Ning snorted. ‘You killed plenty people, Rockhead,’ she said. ‘I see in your eyes. You should kill him, before he back next time and kill you.’
There was a lot more to this girl than over-active saliva glands and a talent for social networking.
At the apartment block, the night porter nodded politely to Stone, showing no surprise that he was returning with a woman. Like he’d shown no surprise when Stone chased an assassin from the building. On second thoughts it was understandable since the guy had given the assassin a key in the first place.
In the elevator Stone turned to Ying Ning.
‘Who is trying to kill us?’ asked Stone. ‘This wasn’t a professional. It wasn’t the Chinese government, and it wasn’t Special Circumstances this time. And yet he used the robot bug, just like the one in Hong Kong.’
Ying Ning shrugged. She had a look as if to say the threat of death for her was an every day thing, and she was OK with that. She'd take things as they came. Stone had seen that look before a few years ago. In the mirror.
‘When did you first kill someone?’ he asked.
‘I was seventeen, a factory girl,’ said Ying Ning. Didn’t miss a beat. 'My boss said I had to work late. Told me to come to his office, and then he raped me. I cried for days, but I had to work, and he was laughing. It took him a month to try it again. I killed him with a screwdriver.’
She had a look on her face as if to say andI never looked back…
— oO0Oo-
Stone checked the apartment again. He had no intention of going to sleep and risking another exotic adventure with a Japanese hornet. He took out the computer and placed it on the table. He’d use the time to figure out what Semyonov’s riddles and rhymes had meant. He had a sudden desire to research variations in the earth’s gravitational field on the Internet.
Only a couple of minutes later, the door opened from the bathroom and a figure emerged into the half-light. Stone continued at the computer, but felt the cat-like, velvet steps coming towards him. Ying Ning. She was standing behind him, silent.
‘Worried I’ll kick you out for snoring?’ he said, still looking at the screen. ‘Go ahead and get some sleep. You’ve had a long day following me around Shanghai. I promise I’ll stay handy with the fly swat.’
A slender arm appeared past his right shoulder. The long, black nail of Ying Ning’s index finger rested on the power button on the laptop and then pressed. The screen went black, and the same index finger had found its way under his shirt and was running up his breastbone.
‘You should take a break, Rockhead.’ She slid round to sit on his knee, pulling the shirt off over his head. Her thighs felt light on his. ‘You need to take it easy. Let me help you…’ Ying Ning’s fingers were gently massaging his neck, the nails trailing seductively over his shoulders. Her eyes looking into his. Her hand reached up to his hair. Her head leaned to one side, and she kissed him with melting lips.
She knew what she was doing, this girl. And Stone would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted.
Chapter 36–10:45am 3 April — Shanghai, China
No woman enjoys rejection. Even if she is a manipulative person with unknown motives. Like Ying Ning. She especially dislikes it if she is a strong-willed person used to getting her own way. Like Ying Ning. Yet Ying Ning had accepted rejection from Stone as if he’d turned down a drink at the bar or a game of Scrabble, rather than the offer of sex.
Stone sat at the table explaining the scribbled note in Semyonov’s writing to Ying Ning. She was sceptical, unco-operative, difficult — but no more than usual. Stone was being careful because of what happened when they arrived back at the apartment. Maybe that was her plan.
Stone had a theory that the numbers near to 9.8 could only refer to the constant of gravity. They were variations in the earth’s gravity which could help him find the Machine, maybe even explain what the Machine was. ‘There are two questions here,’ Stone explained to Ying Ning. ‘First — where is this place? And second, why is the gravity field different at this one spot?’
Ying Ning was looking through maps of Western China online, trying not to look like she was listening. But she was listening. She was listening intently.
‘We think of the earth as a ball-shape, a sphere,’ said Stone. ‘The earth’s gravity should be the same at any point on the sphere. But it isn’t. Gravity varies slightly between the equator and the poles. That’s because the earth is not an exact sphere. It’s slightly fatter around the middle at the equator, and that means the force of gravity at the equator is a little stronger. The force is on average 9.8 metres per second per second, but at the equator it’s roughly 9.83, whereas at the poles it’s 9.79.’
Ying Ning was looking at a gravity map of the world, with a look as if to say, ‘You expect to believe this stuff.’ But she was listening intently. ‘What else causes the variation?’ she asked finally. ‘There are tiny variations all over this map.’
It was true. Stone had seen this the night before. There were areas of red all over the map where gravity is stronger, and blue where it’s weaker. The red ones were the mountain ranges where there was more “stuff” in the earth. It was very clear with the Andes mountains. Other places, typically the deep oceans, had lower gravity.
‘Many variations are caused by what is under the surface, said Stone pointing at the map. ‘See here. India is an area of low gravity. So is much of China. Only the Himalayas and Tibet in between have higher than average gravity.’ Most of China was colured in blue.
‘So what does it all mean?’ asked Ying Ning, looking again at her online maps. She was already looking intently at a map of Western Sichuan Province. She’d already spotted what he’d seen. ‘If Semyonov’s figures, the one’s that Oyang gave you, are something to do with gravity, why are they important?’
He didn’t know, and neither did she. But they could still find the location.
‘If you look at this gravity map of China,’ he said, ‘You’ll see that most of China is blue, meaning slightly lower than average gravity — apart from the Himalayan mountain range. And apart from this one spot.’ Stone pointed to a pin-prick sized red spot on the map. It was so small it looked like a mistake, or one bad pixel on the screen. But it wasn’t. It was a small spot of higher than normal gravity.
Ying Ning had an atlas of China open at the same region as the red dot, and she was circling place names.
‘This tiny anomaly in the gravity field,’ Stone went on, ‘Was picked up by a satellite. There’s nothing above the surface there, no mountain. So there must be something under the surface at that spot, something very large and very dense.’
The Machine?
Ying Ning said nothing. She didn’t need to. She’d already written down Chinese characters alongside Semyonov’s numbers. Looking sure of herself.
??? Tieshi Lin 328 19.2 9.8229
?? Field Well 15 8.3 9.8218
??? Silvermine Field 169 15.9 9.8229
?? 2 Trees 3 Trees 97 6.7 9.8219
?? Sitong 44 0.7 9.8249
Stone would have done the same if his Chinese had been up to it. If these figures were correct, she’d got the precise location. The centre of the “gravity bulge” was located near to these villages. Just how near was provided by the figures. They were the bearings and distances of the anomaly from each of the place names Semyonov had written down.
Ironstone Forest was just an English way of saying the village of Tieshi Lin. The characters were iron, stone and forest. Two trees three trees was a way of saying Lin Sen, whose name contained the character for tree — twice, then three times. The anomaly was 19.2 kilometres from the Tieshi Lin at a bearing of 328 degrees, and it was at 6.7 kilometres from Lin Sen, bearing 97 degrees. The other bearings and distances were written in the same way. Semyonov had made a very accurate pinpoint of the location in the far West of Sichuan Province, near the border with Tibet.
The last name on the list was virtually on top of the gravitational bulge, only 700 metres away. Stone took
the map from Ying Ning and placed his finger on the map. ‘That’s where we’re going.’
Oddly, Ying Ning didn’t look too sure about it. She changed the subject. ‘This place too dangerous,’ She said, then she paused and came to the point. ‘We go to Sichuan, yes?’
‘To find the Machine?’
She shrugged as usual. ‘Could be.’
An hour later, Stone sent a message via the secure NotFutile.com email server.
Found the Machine. Bear 128 degrees, 43 km from village of Tieshi Lin, Western Sichuan. See what you can discover re gravitational/magnetic anomaly nearby.
Fancy a trip to China?
Meanwhile, Ying Ning was still looking at the map. She had circled a location in the map heavily in black pen. It was the last name on the list. Stone asked her what the characters meant. Sitong.
'The name means Death Hole,' she said.
Chapter 37 — 7:05pm 2 April — Mountain View, California
Jessica sipped at her twenty-eight-dollar glass of Pinot Noir and made eyes at him. Ekstrom hadn’t expected a law firm partner would be so obvious. If this woman didn’t put out tonight he’d feel compelled report her to the Trade Commission for false advertising.
Ekstrom had met Jessica three days before. This was their first dinner, in a party of ten at the upscale French restaurant, L’Eventail. Jessica wasn’t bad looking. Not up to Ekstrom’s usual standard, but not bad. About five-seven, good body. Signs of cellulite beginning on upper-thighs. A few grey roots on the day he’d met her — since dealt with. All in all a good average. Whatever. She was a lawyer. She was single. But most of all she was a friend of Antonio Alban. No one would look twice at Ekstrom while he was with Jessica.
‘Your friend looks familiar’ said Ekstrom, making conversation.
‘Antonio Alban,’ she replied. ‘He’s been on TV a lot lately.’
Ekstrom raised an interested eyebrow.
‘SearchIgnition,’ she explained. ‘He’s VP of Vision at SearchIgnition.’
