Tom Aston - The Machine

The chance to quiz Carslake about Semyonov arose in the evening. Carslake suggested he and Stone should “grab a beer”. His bottle of whiskey bought on the plane was finished and maybe the energy he needed to carry on insulting Ying Ning was flagging. The two of them left the house, and Stone started out towards the bus stop.

Carslake looked round as they tramped across the dirt in the darkness towards the streaming lights on the highway. ‘Fuck these Chinese chicks, man,’ he said. It made Stone smile. He wondered if Carslake ever got out enough to do that in the US, let alone here. Then he saw what Carslake had seen. Ying Ning shooting pool at a table, under a tree outside yet another cell phone store. She was surrounded by a cluster of lads, all smoking and wearing factory uniforms with the logo “YunDong Shoe Co”, laughing and joshing with her. A typical Chinese scene. For all China’s Olympics prowess, the only sport you saw in China was pool — snooker and pool everywhere. By the roadside, on the grass — on shagged-out tables in every town and tiny village.

And there was Ying Ning in the half-light, downing another pool ball, cigarette in mouth. Stone had asked himself a few times what Ying Ning was thinking. About him, about Carslake, about the Machine. Ying Ning gave him nothing, nothing of herself. He could only guess how she was thinking from her actions. Why was she hanging out with Stone? Why was she happy to hang out with Carslake? Stone might as well ask a tree. He only knew that she tolerated them, from the fact that she was still there. She tolerated them because she too wanted to find the Machine, and find out what they’d all been up to. Semyonov, the Communist Party, the “billionaire clique” Ying Ning always talked about — she wanted to find them out in some appalling conspiracy. And as soon as Stone or Carslake ceased to be useful, she’d be gone. She’d evaporate into thin air.

Ying Ning played on as a couple of local girls came past — single, factory girls too by the look of them, wearing shorts and flip-flops and carrying pails of washing. The lads at the pool table concentrated on Ying Ning. Didn’t even glance at the other girls.

The tall American shook his head as if in despair and made for the four track highway. He loped out in front of the headlights, yelling for a taxi in English, and waving both his arms around like a demented windmill.

‘And fuck these Chinese buses. I’m gonna get us a cab into town,’ said Carslake. ‘We got to go to the Fedex office en route, my friend.’

Which was good news. Stone had enticed Carslake to Sichuan with a promise of a look at a UFO site. But his main purpose in luring Carslake there was to get hold of a device and bring it with him to China. A device which was going to show Stone exactly what was under that mountain in Western Sichuan.

‘Time to come clean, Stone,’ declared Carslake. He’d barely closed the door of the cab. ‘What’s all this socialist brotherhood shit with you and Ying Ning? You’re no more an international revolutionary than I am.’

Stone met this with a blank look. It did its job. Carslake was quickly obliged to show his hand. ‘Your interest is weapons,’ said Carslake. ‘Which makes me think your interest out here is the same as mine.’

‘Which is what?’ asked Stone, deadpan again. Carslake had done his research. He was an interesting guy, this Carslake.

‘Come on, man,’ Carslake sneered. ‘These aren’t regular weapons. I’ve been digging around. You saw that horror show in Afghanistan. It’s the tip of the iceberg. There’s a freakin’ conveyor belt of technology coming out of ShinComm, and some of it ain’t for boy scouts. Technology like no one’s seen before, like it landed from Mars.’

Mars? Here we go . Stone readied himself for the alien speech. But Carslake had clearly started his work on ShinComm a long time ago. Even before Junko had confronted Semyonov at that press conference. ‘And where are they doing the work? The research?’ asked Carslake, his gravelly drawl suddenly gone. ‘Answer me that? Where are the labs? You told me you went to the Factory City. No labs there.’

Carslake was asking the same questions as Stone had back in Hong Kong. No wonder he’d jumped at the chance to come along.

‘Perhaps the labs are out there in Sichuan, in the hills,’ said Stone. Deliberately lame.

‘Yeah. And what do you see there? Nothing. Because it’s underground .’ Carslake was talking a mile a minute. ‘And then there’s Semyonov — I mean, question mark . Have you seen that guy? He learns fluent Chinese in three months, completely fluent. Then he writes with both hands at the same time.’

‘It’s a trick. So what?’ said Stone.

Carslake’s eyebrows shot upwards. ‘A trick? It’s not normal, man. You know it and I know it.’

‘No I don’t “know it”,’ said Stone, lying. ‘But what do you think? He’s on holiday from Venus or something?’

‘How should I know?’ shouted Carslake, looking suddenly affronted. He could see Stone was trying to draw him out. ‘I’m just saying. There are some non-human characteristics there. Remember what the chess champion said when the computer beat him for the first time?’

‘Gary Kasparov?’ said Stone. ‘He said it felt like playing against an “alien intelligence”.’

‘That’s right. And that’s what it feels like with Semyonov. Alien. Admit it, Stone. The guy’s a freakin’ billionaire. Twenty-nine years old. So where are the girls, where’s the yacht? And then to cap it all he gives away all his money.’ Carslake made hand gestures for emphasis, like he was handing out hundred dollar bills with a mad look in his eyes. ‘I tell you, Stone. It’s not human.’

‘Is that why they killed him?’ asked Stone. Carslake didn’t know, but Stone bet his ass the American would have a theory.

‘I didn’t say he was killed. I didn’t say he was alien either…’

‘You said both those things in your blog.’

‘Sure. But you can say all sortsa shit online,’ said Carslake. It was a good answer. ‘Let’s just say there was something alien about him. Maybe the Chinese thought the same and they killed him. That’s what we all think, isn’t it? They took his money and killed him. But, whatever. The cool thing is, the Machine is still there, and only Semyonov knew anything about it.’

‘So you think the Machine is real?’

‘Why else was Semyonov in China — at all? Semyonov was a very smart guy. He was looking for new things. Maybe China has made a discovery so gigantic, and they wanted Semyonov to help make sense of it. To exploit what’s there, to get at the technology and make it work. I get the feeling… we ain’t seen nothing yet.’

Stone looked back at the American, who stopped talking for the first time in twenty minutes. The driver glanced at them in his rear view mirror. You had to hope the guy didn’t speak English. ‘The Machine. What do you think it is?’ asked Stone, playing him along.

The wild look in Carslake’s eye came back. ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m here in China. And that’s the reason you’re here too,’ said Carslake, but he couldn’t help blurting his opinion. ‘OK. Something is found buried in a remote part of China. Something ancient and weird.’ Stone thought of the gravitational anomaly. ‘The Chinese, being the people they are,’ said Carslake, ‘Want to take advantage of the discovery. They don’t bother about making an announcement. After all, they've been working at that site since the Sixties.’

‘That was the middle of the Cultural Revolution,’ said Stone.