"Merde" shouted Poulpe, scrambling backwards, reaching to scoop the blood from his eyes. He started to hop up and down, his adrenal gland in overdrive, unable to hear in the echo of the explosion.
"Let me go! Let me go!" screamed Chow. He produced a gun from somewhere and snapped the butt hard against the side of Poulpe's nose, breaking it cleanly. The Frenchman released the Chinaman, dropping him to his feet as he struggled to see.
"Now. Go!" said Chow, pointing at the archway.
"To hell with you" said Poulpe, his fingers feeling the light grind of broken bone that he'd certainly feel most keenly later. He spat bloody phlegm at the smaller man's feet.
Chow bared his teeth and glared up at the Frenchman. He didn't need this right now. He needed obedience, he needed service. The sound of breaking glass rang out from the train tracks and they could hear the punk's whooping yells echoing from inside somewhere.
"You will cover me" Chow said. "And we will discuss later." He turned and checked his pistol before peering once, quickly, around the corner. Poulpe paused long enough to pull the semiautomatic rifle from the first soldier's belt, then jogged up behind Chow.
There was no one to see. The door to the first car on the second train had been ripped open with a crowbar, the windows along its near side shattered. As they watched they heard more windows breaking further down the train, out of sight.
"There!" said Chow, his pistol flashing as he shot down the near platform.
"What?" asked Poulpe. "What are you shooting at?" The dark gap between the near train and the wall was barely three feet wide, lined with electrified cables and rails and razor wire to prevent the homeless from sleeping there.
"I saw a someone" said Chow. He was jerking his gun straight-armed in front of him, left-right, left-right.
"You are nervous, Mr. Chow" said Poulpe. He flipped the safety off his own gun, considering his options. He wondered if Chow had reestablished contact with his data center, if his death would trigger a recording of audio or visual data.
Chow quieted, taking in their position, the lines of fire.
"What now?" asked Poulpe.
"The Fatchan are pursuing Feed now. They will not kill him" said Chow. "We have superior firepower, and additional assistance should be arriving shortly. We will wait for them to capture him and bring him out, then kill them and take him with us."
Poulpe grinned.
The sound of breaking windows was getting closer. The man across from Feed had unfolded his head from between his knees and was staring out the window and the dark tunnel beyond, the very picture of ennui. Feed pulled out of the data streams, listening.
"What the hell are they saying" he muttered to himself, the punk's chants getting louder. The door to the car they were in suddenly shuttered.
"Barbarian" said the man, his hands folded demurely in his lap. "They are chanting for the head of the barbarian."
Feed stared at him for one long second before the door to the car was pulled open, a red-eyed Chinese youth with a row of three green mowhawk stripes leading the charge. He had Feed's helmet in one hand, the top scuffed and speckled with green paint from the walls and doors he'd been bashing with it.
They only glanced briefly at the man in the suit, grabbing Feed and pocketing his gun, cries of venomous joy as they pulled his hands behind his back. The lead punk pushed Feed's head back against the wall, grabbing his jaw and forcing his mouth open by jabbing his fingers against Feed's cheeks. He stabbed a long flexible swab down Feed's throat and the punks fell silent.
The green-striped punk lowered the swab into a silvery tube connected to a tiny display. Everyone held their breath. The tube chirped and he shook his head, sadly eyeing Feed. They all sighed, issuing sad moans as they dropped him roughly back into his seat.
The man in the suit politely asked a question and the lead punk replied in kind. He said a few words, gesturing excitedly towards the track outside, and the punks immediately perked up. Nodded excitedly at the man in the suit they took up their hollering again, running out the exit door and back down the platform towards the main building. The train grew quiet behind them.
"What did you say?" asked Feed, breathless.
"I told them the foreigner they were looking for was black" said the man, nodding happily at Feed. Feed stared at him again, then grinned out of one corner of his mouth.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Li" said the man in the suit. "Please call me Li."
Feed's fingers fluttered against his thighs, data streams flowing again.
"You want to go for a train ride, Mr. Li?"
Chow wasn't getting any response from his comm, not even from the encrypted military lines. Something was jamming him, but he couldn't leave the building to find out who or how. He didn't have time to ponder the issue as the punks came bouncing jauntily down the platform towards them, their loud whoops echoing ahead of them.
"Please prepare, Mr. Poulpe" said Chow. Poulpe raised an eyebrow. He was positively bored stiff. Wearing military armor and all was certainly exciting, but it wasn't much use if all you did was stand around. The suit was made for close-quarters killing, something he had yet to do.
The punks rounded the end of the near train and stopped as they saw Chow and Poulpe. The lead punk had Feed's helmet slung over his shoulder and dropped his arm as he saw them, the helmet now held in front of his crotch in awkward unease. He said a few words to Chow, nodding and bobbing. The rest took up the gesture, blinking back sudden tears towards the barrel of Poulpe's gun.
"What are they saying?" asked Poulpe.
Chow said several words forcibly in Chinese and the boys looked even more distraught, glancing at each other with comical frowns. The lead boy turned back to Chow and shook his head, saying a few words before Chow interrupted him with more demands. This time the boys looked the very picture of desperation, clutching their heads and glancing back and forth at each other in mutual agony.
"What?" demanded Poulpe. "What's going on?"
"They said the barbarian wasn't in there, that the foreigner they were looking for is black" said Chow. "Feed tricked them. But this okay good, we can use them… "
Poulpe interrupted him by firing the gun's entire clip into the crowd of young men, the jerking bodies bouncing under the impact, laying silent and smoking when he was done.
"What..?" gaped Chow. "What did you do that for?"
"They were stupid" said Poulpe. "You said so yourself." He felt better now. He'd been wanting to do that for a long time, and had found it rather gratifying.
The train began to pull out.
"The train! The train!" called Chow. "Quickly!"
Poulpe nodded and calmly followed Mr. Chow in stepping through the sea of bodies and across the platform. He had to break into a slight jog to catch up with the last car, then stepped in and casually tossed the semiautomatic out behind him. It was empty anyway, and he didn't have any more clips. Things were looking up.
"I think your friend is getting upset" said Li, pointing out the window at the door to the engine cab ahead of them.
"I know" said Fed, looking out the other window through his goggles. "He'll get over it."
Outside Esco had been tapping at the keypad lock for a good five minutes, trying to stealthily get into the train so he could drive off with it. Cessus hadn't been able to access the controls remotely and neither had any of the Otaku, so it was a big surprise to him when the train suddenly began to lift and then slide forward.
He was surprised, but not stupid. Despite operating in radio silence Esco knew more than to try to cling to the outside of an accelerating maglev as it was heading out of the station. Instead he let go and carefully shuffled back and out of the tunnel entrance, leaning low as the cars silently swam past. It disappeared down the tunnel and out of sight.
Esco sighed and pulled himself up onto the platform. He was wearing a black combat suit, nylon webbing holding an assortment of gear, his face blacked out with charcoal.
"Very pretty" said a deep voice from the end of the platform. "You dress up just for me?"
Esco nodded a greeting to Marcus and stepped over the steaming bodies at the end of the platform. He slumped down on the passenger side of the golf cart Marcus was driving, avoiding the crutches slung between the seats.
"Nice ride" he commented wearily. "Damn fool locked me out."
"He's just like his brother" said Marcus as he drove the cart down a corridor and towards a service entrance in the back of the building. "Always doing shit his own way."
They drove in silence for a few hundred yards, Esco wiping the stain from his face and accounting for his gear.
"Got two of them" he said. "Pulled off a twenty-yard shot on one of them, took out his comm with my pistol until they were all together, then lured him out in front of a wall mine. Idiots did it exactly by the book, just like Tonx said they would."
Marcus nodded. "Lucky for you. Those boys got good intel, if nothing else."
Esco grunted agreement. "You heard from them? I've had radio silence since just after they first saw Chow."
"Nothing" said Marcus. "I haven't heard anything from anyone."
Esco looked at Marcus out of the corner of his eye, then looked the other way, watching the tiles slowly slip by under the tire's thick tread. "They'll be okay" he said.
Marcus grunted, a meaningless sound. "Listen, you ready to relax?"
"Hell yes" said Esco. "Been in China almost a week already and haven't seen anything but train stations and shipyards."
"Good. I know this nice private club, members-only kind of place. Normally it's women only, though."
Esco pursed his lips, nodding solemnly. "I think I can deal with that" he said.
Marcus returned the nod. "All right, then. You like that style, the one where they dress up like Chinese school girls?"
Esco turned and gave Marcus a broad wolfish grin before the two men broke into deep, howling laughter.
The maglev picked up speed, the tunnel giving way to the pre-dawn city, high cement walls cradling the train interspersed with plexiglassed view ports as they made their way out towards the country. The air howled dimly in the car behind them, a high-pitched whine as the wind tore through the ragged glass of the broken windows.
Eventually Chow's balding head appeared, thin black hair swimming in a bolus around his brow. Even then he managed to appear calm and in control, stepping through the doorway holding his pistol in front of him as though it were a tobacco pipe, and him just wandering into his study. Poulpe came behind him, little bits of white cotton fluff sprinkled across his arms and legs, splattered brown stains from dried blood slicked over the clothing beneath his military exoskeleton. He saw Feed and reached up one long, metal-wrapped arm to pull back his hair as he bowed, slightly, in Feed's direction.
"We meet at last, Mr. Feed" said Chow, glancing briefly at the man in the suit who sat slumped, motionless, against the window opposite them. "Who is he?"
"Some salary man with a death wish" said Fed. He stuck out his little finger and put his thumb towards his mouth, miming drinking from a bottle.
Mr. Chow shrugged. "No matter." He gently lowered himself across from Feed. "We will speak English. You are coming with us, Mr. Feed. It is my hope that you will do so willingly. It has been very expensive, finding you."
Feed watched Chow for a moment, trying to get some information from the smooth blank gaze the Chinaman gave him. He turned to Poulpe.
"What are you getting out of this, Poulpe?" Feed asked the Frenchman.
"Oh, the usual" said Poulpe, smiling. "Defection privileges; diplomatic immunity, political asylum, protection and safe passage. I have a new employer now, you see, one of the few who can protect me from the old one."
"Traitor" said Fede flatly.
"Yes I am" said Poulpe. "And if you're a clever boy you will be too."
There was a sudden hissing sound as the car behind them released from theirs and slowed, trailing away behind as they picked up speed.
Feed turned back to Chow. "You are Harry Chow?"
Chow bowed slightly. "Yes. You have written a very impressive virus, Feed. It took me a long time to figure out how to use it once we'd seen it start."
"You have the recombinant genome from its first run. Seeing it complete its results must have helped."
Chow smiled then, a broad grin that revealed unnaturally even teeth.
"I was surprised when you did not determine this immediately" he said.
"In the heat of the moment one misses the simplest things" said Fed.
"I would like to learn more about this code" said Chow. He was warming to his subject now, his hands spread wide in front of him in a gesture of generosity. "We have used it a little, but I think there must be a way to limit its use of its hosts. If we could throttle its resource load it may be possible to keep it deployed publicly. China is a big place, and it seems only correct to use its resources as effectively as possible."
"You would like to use your country's computers as a giant distributed network" said Fed.
"Yes" said Chow. "But the people will not stand for this without price cuts. They are already very frustrated with the filtering and controls. Your virus was very stealthy, and I must believe it can be made to alter itself according to the abilities of the host."
Fede nodded. "Sure. But it would take a long time to change it. And I won't help you."
Chow's smile disappeared. Poulpe coughed.
"Please reconsider, Feed" Poulpe said. "The Chinese use strong motivational tactics. It would be a shame for your friends to suffer because of your obstinance."
Fede cocked his head, staring at Poulpe in sudden realization.
"You relaunched the code, didn't you?" he asked.
Poulpe glanced at Chow, back at Feed. "We have found other uses for it, yes" he said. "But that is not your concern… "
"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?"
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."