Tom Aston - The Machine

‘ Billionaire founder of SearchIgnition, Steven Semyonov was tragically killed in an auto accident a week ago. Conspiracy theorists in the blogosphere in the US remain convinced of foul play on the part of the Chinese authorities. A recent online poll for MSNBC revealed that eighty-nine per cent of respondents thought Semyonov had been lured into giving up his fortune to China and then crudely assassinated after he arrived in the People’s Republic.

Despite public doubts over his death, any evidence that this was anything other than a tragic accident remain elusive. Hundreds of the world’s media have descended on the intersection in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, bringing with them retired investigators from the LAPD and forensics experts posing as cameramen. Not a shred of evidence has been found to suggest that the super-intelligent billionaire was the victim of anything other than driving on the wrong side of the road. Psychologists have also put in their two cents, pointing out that deaths from head-on collisions are usually the result of suicide bids. But again, there is no hard evidence to back up this theory.

The investigative frenzy has been turbocharged by the revelation about the death of Antonio Alban, a fellow member on the board of SearchIgnition Corporation with Semyonov until little over a week ago. Rumors are emerging from senior staffers at SearchIgnition, who refuse to be named, of continual fights and disagreements over the direction the corporation was taking. Semyonov, the rumors say, was supported by Alban in pushing for a different vision for the corporation, based on completely new technology. He was opposed by other board members who simply wanted to leverage the stranglehold SearchIgnition already enjoys in the market for Internet search systems.

Boardroom battles are not unusual in Fortune 500 firms, but it appears Antonio Alban, VP of Vision and Semyonov’s only ally on the ten man board of SearchIgnition Corp, may have been murdered. Alban was discovered with coronary heart failure in the restroom at Mountain View’s exclusive French restaurant, L’Eventail . The death showed every sign of natural causes, but the autopsy findings at three separate labs now reveal traces of sodium tripentol in the tissues of the Alban’s heart muscle. The chemical agent, used in coronary surgery and in lethal injections to stop the heart, can only have gotten there by foul means.

Stone felt like laughing. Bloggers had picked up like lightning on the speculation Stone had begun about the Machine, but Virginia Carlisle was still lagging behind, dumbly following the narrative she’d probably agreed on at a news meeting a week ago. Meanwhile the bloggers and Internet sleuths were going after the real story. At least one blogger known to Stone had repeated the location in Western Sichuan Stone had posted online for the Machine. Was Carlisle even in China anymore?

With Alban known to have been murdered, the speculation over Semyonov’s death will only increase. The attention of the Internet’s community of amateur sleuths has now turned to the real reason for Semyonov’s defection to China. Did Semyonov simply want to build another business empire in China based on search technology? Or, as Chinese officials have been briefing in private, have Chinese scientists made a discovery of such importance that Semyonov simply had to become involved? At any rate, with the Mountain View PD expected to open a homicide investigation on Antonio Alban, the attention has shifted from the examination of tire marks at an intersection in China, back across the Pacific to California, only a few miles away from where Steven Semyonov held his final press conference just days ago.

Something to be thankful for, at least. Virginia Carlisle and her cohorts would indeed be heading back East across the Pacific and the spotlight should be off for a few days.

‘Why she doesn’t tell us about Semyonov?’ said Ying Ning. Perceptive. Right on the money as usual. The whole thing was more confused than ever after that news report. It made no mention of the Machine, Semyonov’s weapons trading, or even the death of Junko Terashima, who had been one of GNN’s own staffers.

Carlisle and the mainstream media couldn’t grasp that the whole enigma revolved around Semyonov himself. They should be looking at the kind of person he was, his motivations. GNN must at least have some kind of obituary file on the man, but they had barely even shown that. There had been no information about Semyonov the man at all. Instead the mainstream media, TV and newspapers, were obsessing with the idea of foul play by the Chinese, even though by Carlisle’s own admission, they’d analysed tire marks and angles for days and come up with nothing. Carlisle had admitted to Stone herself that she’d seen the body. Why no interviews with people who knew Semyonov, building up a picture of where the great brain was heading?

To make it worse, Antonio Alban, the man who could shed most light on what Semyonov had wanted to do with SearchIgnition, was dead too. Silenced by a hired hitman.

Stone shook his head and set off towards the exit, but Ying Ning stopped once more. Pulled him back. She was pointing at the TV screen. Virginia Carlisle was still there with that gorgeous mane of hair.

Stone was happy to watch, but why had Ying Ning stopped? Why was she so concerned with Carlisle?

Then Stone saw what Ying Ning had been pointing at.

Virginia Carlisle reporting from Chengdu, China

Chengdu. She was there already. Carlisle was right there, in Sichuan, and she had arrived before them. Stone had underestimated her.

Fascinating. Stone already had an idea what had brought her here, but he’d find out soon enough.

— o0°0o-

On the bus into town from the airport, Ying Ning started talking Tang Dynasty poetry again.

‘Your friend Ms Carlisle reminds me of another poem. Called Song of the Lovely Women, also Du Fu. Du Fu is watching the women of the super-rich of those days. It’s like a party for Berlusconi, or Trump, or some billionaire. There are fine women bearing noble names. Du Fu is star-struck by the women. The clothes, the hair, their confidence. Du Fu’s description of them in the poem is almost erotic. But all that money wasted on clothes and fine scent — it disgusts him too. He hates the lovely women, and he envies them. But mostly he desires them.’

‘How does that remind you of Carlisle?’

‘Not her,’ said Ying Ning with her trademark wry smile. ‘You. It reminds me of you. You talk about her. Your feelings to Carlisle are like Du Fu’s for the lovely women in the poem. You are jealous of her, and you’re disgusted by her money and clothes. But mostly you desire. Like Du Fu — you say you despise, but really you desire.’

So you’re jealous of Virginia, Miss Ying Ning ? thought Stone. It was unusual for Ying Ning to express any emotion, even in such an indirect manner as this. Nonetheless her description of Stone’s feelings about Virginia Carlisle was creepily accurate. For Stone had already decided himself to track down Virginia Carlisle in Chengdu.

‘Ying, that reminds me,’ he said, after a pause. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’

A wicked smile spread across the Chinese girl’s features.

Stone approached the desk in the knowledge that the average Chinese hotel clerk believes implicitly what a European person is saying. Even better if the tone is Hong Kong Officers’ Club circa 1950, and no attempt is made to speak in Chinese.

Stone spelled out his name as if to an idiot child. ‘My wife has checked in already and I need a room key,’ he said. The clerk offered the key card with a pleasant smile. ‘Oh, and what room is that?’ asked Stone. It disturbed him how well the arrogant foreigner voice worked. And how easy it was to slip into the role.