Tom Aston - The Machine

That oil and alcohol gel sounds kinky, huh? But the people at the mansion confirm they never knew Semyonov to have any relationship, sexual or otherwise.

Although Semyonov retired to his bedroom for many hours, staff suspect he never slept. He often appeared to meditate, but for only a few minutes.

Semyonov is known to have learnt many languages, seemingly without effort. Staff say he would sit in front of two or even three television shows at the same time, in different languages. Recently he watched two or three channels at a time in Chinese.

Semyonov never allowed himself to be X-rayed, either at airports or hospitals.

Does something strike you about all this? Is it just me? This guy was NOT FUCKING HUMAN!!!!!!!!

No wonder the Chinks killed him off. Coal truck my ass.

But supposing Semyonov was killed in that “tragic accident”? OK. I’ve got one question for you guys in Beijing: how’s that autopsy going, boys? Notice anything, shall we say, different?

Stone left Virginia Carlisle’s sumptuous rooms on the forty-third floor and took the elevator down. Interesting what Virginia had said back there about Stone always looking for trouble. Stone had started this because someone had goaded him with the video of Hooper’s death. He’d been determined to avenge him by nailing Semyonov.

Perhaps Virginia had a point. What Virginia didn’t get, however, was Stone’s need to understand — to figure out what was happening. Semyonov might be dead, but Stone felt farther than ever from figuring out what had gone on in the whole business.

Ground floor. Stone stepped out of the hotel elevator and strode over to the reception desk. He was now persona non grata in Hong Kong and China, or would be by the following morning. If he was going to stick around, it was only polite to stay beneath the radar. Going back to the hostel was out of the question. But there was somewhere else to stay where they wouldn’t think to look for him.

‘I’d like a room please. Not sure how many nights,’ he said, offering the passport straight from Carlisle’s large envelope. He also waved the Amex card at clerk. ‘I’m with GNN,’ he said. ‘You can charge the room to the same account as Ms Carlisle. Room 4314.’

That GNN credit card she had given him was solely for the sole purpose of keeping tabs on him. Did she really think he’d be stupid enough to use it? Even here?

Stone went up to the room, ordered room service and took a shower. It felt good, it really did. Stone was almost surprised. He tried to think when he’d last indulged himself like this. Like… never.

– o0°0o-

After a lunch of lobster at Ms Carlisle’s expense, Stone felt like a different man. In fact he could see how the pampered international traveler like Carlisle came to feel so self-important. Imagine all that obsequious attention, all that servility, day after day. Over time, it would do something to a man. Perhaps even to him. Stone had often felt that soft luxury was a kind of vice which could ensnare people. It ought to bring out the puritan curmudgeon in him. It ought to but… but he’d leave the puritanism for another day. The fact that Virginia Carlisle was paying for it all made ordering lobster on room service just about acceptable. And it did taste good.

Finally he got down to business. Carlisle thought she’d just hired Stone to do a job for her. All she’d done in reality was give him some cash, a passport, and a charge card he wouldn’t use. First of all he sent off a little research project to a couple of his students back in England. Find out the real ownership structure of New Machine Technology Corporation.

Then, Stone had to figure out where he was going next. He’d come here to link up with Junko Terashima and build the story that would destroy Semyonov. But not only was Terashima dead, Semyonov was gone too. So maybe Stone should slope off back to Europe with the bits of Terashima’s files that Virginia had given him. That would put him on the right side of Zhang’s twenty-four deadline to leave Hong Kong. He could take himself off and continue his research into the part the Special Circumstances and SearchIgnition were playing in all this.

On the other hand, Hooper had recently had an executioner’s bullet drilled through his skull, and Junko Terashima had been killed in a way that would have won a nod of approval from Charles Manson. Stone felt in no mood to meekly obey the deadline set by Zhang, or anyone else. He wasn’t about to go home, just as things were getting interesting.

As for the option of staying put and doing some more “research” … who was he kidding? Staying in one place was the riskiest thing he could do. And there were the questions, sprouting and spawning almost by the hour — where were the weapons coming from? What was Semyonov doing in China? And what hell was the Machine, that Semyonov had spent twenty-five billion to get his hands on it? Those questions were luring him on into Mainland China. In Hong Kong he faced arrest and possibly another “chat” with Professor Zhang. In China, on a false passport, Stone could be shot as a spy.

But then, there had been many times when Stone could have been shot. It was not the kind of thing that had ever bothered him that much. Stone took out his laptop, logged into the anonymized NotFutile web site, and began to type.

http://stone.blogs.notfutile.com

RIP Junko Terashima

Amid the press ballyhoo surrounding the death of Steven Semyonov, the murder of the young journalist Junko Terashima has barely been mentioned.

Terashima was the reporter who confronted Semyonov about his weapons activities a couple of weeks ago. She was fired as a troublemaker by GNN, but was so convinced of Semyonov’s guilt that she went off to Hong Kong to confront him. Lured away fromSemyonov’s announcement event, she was murdered in the backstreets of Hong Kong just minutes before Semyonov declared he was giving all his money to the Chinese.

Now Terashima’s files have been leaked to NotFutile.com. They include two very significant contacts in Mainland China. To protect the safety of these Chinese citizens, NotFutile cannot reveal their identities. Nonetheless, we intend to pursue the story Terashima was working on.

It should at least be possible to smoke out Ying Ning using the posting on the NotFutile.com web site. But it was this Robert Oyang that Stone really wanted — the man Terashima had gone to meet in Hong Kong. According to Junko's files, Oyang had been Steven Semyonov's closest associate in China.

Chris Ostrovich had hooked up his laptop to the fifty-inch high definition screen in the office meeting room. He had on screen the grisly video Stone had sent to Virginia Carlisle. He was forcing himself to examine it, stopping and running and replaying, and at the same time talking to Virginia on a Skype link.

‘ I know, Chris ,’ she said, ‘ It’s a real video nasty. Stone sent it this morning, through his anonymized email server. ’

Ostrovich was a vision technician at the GNN Online web site. He was watching the footage in Los Angeles. ‘I’m not sure what’s going on, Ms Carlisle. I’ve watched parts of it fifty times. Gonna give me nightmares.’ He flinched as the video began again, and the camera settled on the girl in that crummy hotel room.

The question was all about the video file format, but it was impossible not to get distracted by the pictures. The young woman was seen against the grey wall of the hotel room, standing on her toes and stripped naked, hands tied to the light fitting. That was bad enough, but there was terror in her eyes. Ostrovich still had to look away when it zoomed onto her face. The pretty eyes disfigured by pain and fear, staring at someone or something. And then the ululation and writhing of the poor woman as the man came to her and sprayed her naked body with that weird aerosol — her neck, her breasts, between her legs. She screamed as he did it. What was it? Acid?