Tom Aston - The Machine

Stone hadn’t noticed this artistic faux pas . And beneath this unprepossessing Fragonard or whatever it was, there was a cluster of polo players in white jeans and coloured shirts, playing video games. They’d pulled their Eighteenth century reproduction chairs up under a logo’d black canopy, incongruously playing motor racing games on wide screens.

‘The more money your guests have, the more tasteless it has to be?’ asked Stone.

‘Something like that,’ said Rupert, turning to go. ‘Anyhow, gentleman and lady. I must leave you. You’ll be sharing a room in The Seasons, with the TV crews.’

‘How come he spend so much time with us?’ asked Ying Ning.

‘Checking us out,’ said Stone.

Rupert called to them over his shoulder, ‘Mr Oyang has a large suite at the Shui Hu. Quite unusual. You should take a look if you get the chance!’

Stone would be doing just that. In the next half-hour if possible. The less time he spent at the Country Club the better — for whole host of reasons.

Rupert had said that Oyang’s suite in the Shui Hu Hotel was “unusual”. He wasn’t kidding. The room felt about as big as a tennis court, and the decor was half Jane Austen movie and half Santa’s grotto. It had an effeminate languor about it, that lazy feeling unique to very expensive places. Perfect for Oyang, in fact.

Stone was shown in by a fellow dressed up like a butler, who was very obviously carrying a handgun beneath his jacket. Oyang looked at Stone for a good minute when he walked in, but he didn’t show any surprise. In fact he didn’t show any emotion at all. Just sat there on the furry white sofa. It might have been real fur, too.

‘We went there, to the Machine,’ said Stone.

Oyang seemed distracted, compared to last time. Something on his mind. ‘You did? It was fascinating I suppose,’ he said.

Fascinating? Stone’s mind filled with the image of the monks, and the truck, and the driver getting his head stoved in. ‘Fascinating’s not quite the word. We didn’t discover what the Machine is. But there’s definitely something out there, a thousand metres below the surface. Is that what you flew me here to talk about?’

‘Yes. No. You know it isn’t,’ said Oyang.

Of course it wasn’t. He had a guilty conscience, Oyang, and was suddenly feeling very threatened by what Stone had posted on the NotFutile.com site. But Oyang didn’t look worried. He looked distracted if anything. Like he’d taken one too many valium.

‘Semyonov said it was somewhere out there,’ said Oyang. ‘It is quite fascinating.’ Oyang looked anything but fascinated. ‘I suppose I knew there was something,’ he said. ‘Semyonov went out there to Sichuan twice in the last year, to the Machine. He always came back with something exciting.’

‘What do you mean, “exciting”?’ asked Stone. Oyang had just repeated that the Machine was out there in Sichuan, and he didn’t look like he was lying.

Oyang was playing with an ivory chess set, turning the pieces around in his fingers. ‘Do you think they will kill me?’ he asked.

‘Who would want to kill you?’ asked Stone. ‘The people who killed Semyonov?’

‘Yes. The Gong An ,’ said Oyang. His hands were shaking slightly. ‘It was the Gong An who sent that Switzerland story to your web site. No one in Switzerland would leak information in such a way.’ He’d still barely looked up at Stone. ‘And besides, it’s completely false. None of Steven’s money was sent to Switzerland.’

‘Then you’ve nothing to worry about,’ said Stone. He’d actually found himself comforting Oyang. As though he should put his arm around the man or something.

Oyang turned the chess piece in his long, feminine fingers. ‘The Gong An knows about the Machine,’ he said. ‘Of course they do. I knew as soon as they killed Steven. Steven said the Machine was so powerful, it would change the world. But the Machine destroyed him, and now it will destroy me.’

Oh dear. It was even worse than it looked. Stone allowed a suitable pause.

‘Be sensible Oyang.’

‘I knew as soon as I saw the Japanese woman at the press conference. In San Jose. I knew it would go this way.’

‘What is the Machine, Oyang?’

Oyang’s face was blank and resigned. He wasn’t listening. Just shaking his head.

‘The Machine, Oyang? Don’t you want to know what’s going on there? What Semyonov was doing there?’

‘How should I know? Semyonov told me nothing but stories. Anyway, it’s over. I know what the Gong An sent to NotFutile.com, Stone. They told you that I had to stop taking from the Machine, or it would destroy me in the same way it destroyed Semyonov. Isn’t that true?’

He was a clever guy, Oyang. But right now he was gibbering, confused. ‘I think maybe the Machine is just a story, Stone, just a kind of a legend Semyonov made up to confuse me about what he was doing.’

‘You don’t really think that.’

‘Why shouldn’t I? I don’t know whether the Machine exists or not, and neither do you. But I can see what comes out of it. For over a year, the Machine gave and gave and gave. Maybe it did the same with Lin Biao in 1969. Now Lin Biao is dead, and Steven Semyonov came to China for it, and he is dead too. Now they’re after me. How much more of a warning do you need?’

‘You’re saying the Machine gave and gave,’ said Stone. ‘What did it give you?’

‘Power, money. You know what it gave me, Stone,’ said Oyang. ‘You’ve seen it. Do you think technology like that came from nowhere? That it grew like bean sprouts out in Sichuan? Be serious. Anyway, I don’t care anymore. Sometimes I think that Steven was using all those visits to Sichuan as a smokescreen. That there is no Machine, that everything came from his imagination. Nothing has come from the Machine since he died.’

Oyang was a bright fellow, and he’d worked with Semyonov closely. He said he didn’t care, but he cared more than anyone. Like half the world, he had been in awe of Semyonov. Semyonov’s intelligence engendered a kind of dumb hero worship. Admiration without understanding. An intellectual crush. Stone had seen it at that party in Hong Kong — both women and men with that dreamy look in their eyes. Like dogs looking up at their master.

Oyang, because he was closer to Semyonov, had had it worse than most. To Oyang, Semyonov was still the untouchable white Buddha. Unknowable.

Now, however, with Semyonov gone, Oyang was lost. His power had gone, and with it his nerve. He was terrified the Gong An would kill him, and Stone’s bogus post on NotFutile.com had sent him into a tailspin. Which meant Stone had been right, at least partially. Maybe Oyang was telling the truth when he said that Semyonov’s money had not been transferred to Switzerland. But Stone would bet that plenty of other money had found its way into Oyang’s private accounts in Lausanne. No wonder Oyang was paranoid.

‘Oyang,’ said Stone, taking a calm tone again. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

Oyang said nothing.

‘Have you been a naughty boy? Have you been ripping off all those ideas and technology, wherever they’re coming from? Have you just been taking the ideas, from the Machine or ShinComm or wherever, and selling them? Making some fast money?’

Oh dear. That one hit a nerve. Oyang stood bolt upright, energized for the first time. ‘Get out of my room before I call security. My man is armed, you know.’

‘Get a grip Oyang,’ said Stone. ‘It was always going to come out. Some stuff has been patented, some not. Nanotech processes used for crude drug smuggling, beautiful technology diverted to grubby weapons sales. You’ve been creaming millions off from Semyonov’s technology, haven’t you, Oyang? And sending the money to Switzerland. Now Semyonov is dead, and it’s all starting to unravel on you.’