Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘Who’s we?’

‘Us. Yoyo’s friends.’ Zhao looked at him. ‘What do you know about the girl? How much did they tell you?’

‘I know that she’s on the run.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘Why do you ask?’ Jericho raised his eyebrows. ‘Wondering if you can trust me?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And I don’t know if I can trust you , Zhao. I only know that this isn’t getting us anywhere.’

Zhao seemed to consider this.

‘Your knowledge for mine,’ he suggested.

‘You begin.’

‘Fine then. Yoyo’s a dissident. She’s put the Party in a fine old tizzy these last few years.’

‘True.’

‘As part of a group calling themselves the Guardians. Criticising the regime, calling for human rights, the odd act of cyber-terrorism. All ideas you can agree with. Until recently, she got away with it.’

‘Also true.’

‘Your turn.’

‘On the night of 25 May, Yoyo left her flat in a hell of a hurry and fled to Quyu.’ Jericho took a swig, put down his bottle and wiped his mouth. ‘I can only speculate as to why, but I should imagine she saw something online that scared her.’

‘All true so far.’

‘She was found out. Or at least that’s what she thinks. With her previous record, she must be more frightened of being exposed than of anything. She was probably expecting a visit from the police or the Secret Services that same night.’

‘Quyu is her fallback position,’ said Zhao. ‘It’s practically free of surveillance, no scanners, no police. Terra incognita.’

‘Her first port of call was the City Demons workshop. It’s just that it’s not safe there for very long. So she came here to the Andromeda, as she has done before.’

‘How did you find out that she was at the Andromeda?’

‘Because she posted a message to her friends from here.’

‘And you read it?’

‘It brought me here.’

Zhao narrowed his eyes mistrustfully.

‘How did you get hold of the message? Usually only the security services can manage something like that.’

‘Take it easy, little Zhao.’ Jericho smiled. ‘Cryptography is part of my job. I’m a cyber-detective; most of my work has to do with industrial espionage and IP infringement.’

‘And how did Yoyo’s father get hold of you?’

‘That’s really none of your concern.’ Jericho tipped cold beer down his throat. ‘You said that Yoyo has disappeared again.’

‘Looks like. She was supposed to be here.’

‘When did she vanish?’

‘Sometime today. Could be that she’s just gone for a walk. Maybe we’re worrying unnecessarily, but she usually says if she’ll be gone for a while.’

Jericho turned the bottle between his finger and thumb once more. He wondered how to proceed. Zhao Bide had confirmed his suspicions. Yoyo had been here, but that wouldn’t be enough to set Chen Hongbing’s mind at ease. The man needed certainty.

‘Maybe we really don’t need to worry,’ he said. ‘The City Demons let her know I was coming. This time Yoyo disappeared because of me.’

‘I understand.’ Zhao pointed his bottle at Jericho’s silver COD, gleaming in the sun in front of the Andromeda. ‘Especially given that you travel fairly ostentatiously, by our standards. CODs don’t come to Quyu often.’

‘Clearly.’

‘Could be that Yoyo was running from the other guy, though.’

Jericho wrinkled his brow. ‘What other guy?’

Zhao swept his hand further to the right. Jericho followed the motion and saw another COD parked at the other end of the factory hall. Startled, he tried to remember whether it had already been there as he arrived. He had been distracted by the surprise of reaching the Andromeda, combined with the realisation that Daxiong had been leading him by the nose. He stood, and put his hand up to shade his eyes. As far as he could see, there was nobody in the other car.

Coincidence?

‘Did somebody follow you?’ asked Zhao.

Jericho shook his head.

‘I blundered around half of Quyu before I got here. There was no COD behind me.’

‘Are you sure?’

Jericho fell quiet. He knew all too well that a person could be followed without his knowledge. Whoever had parked that car could have already been on his tail in Xintiandi.

Zhao got up as well.

‘I’ll check you out, Jericho,’ he said. ‘But my sense for the pure and good tells me that you’re clean. We’re obviously both concerned for Yoyo’s wellbeing, so I suggest that we team up for a while.’ He got out a pen, scribbled something down on a scrap of paper and passed it to Jericho. ‘My phone number. You give me yours. We’ll try to find Yoyo together.’

Jericho nodded. He saved the number and handed over his card in exchange. Zhao was still an unknown quantity, but at the moment his suggestion was the best he had to go on.

‘We should make a plan,’ he said.

‘The plan is that we commit to sharing information. As soon as one of us sees or hears something, we let the other guy know.’

Jericho hesitated. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?’

‘Just as long as you don’t expect me to answer.’

‘What’s your relationship with Yoyo?’

‘She’s got friends here. I’m one of them.’

‘I know that she has friends. What I want to know is what your relationship with Yoyo is. You’re not a City Demon. You know that she’s one of the Guardians, but that doesn’t mean that you’re one yourself.’

Zhao emptied his bottle and belched again.

‘In Quyu, we’re all in it together,’ he said equably.

‘Come on now, Zhao.’ Jericho shook his head. ‘Give me an answer or just drop the thing, but don’t try this romance-of-the-slums business on me.’

Zhao looked at him.

‘Do you know Yoyo in person?’

‘No, just from recordings.’

‘Anybody who’s met her in person has two choices. He falls in love, or puts his feelings on ice. Since she doesn’t want to fall in love with me, I’m working on the second option, but whatever happens, I’ll never leave her in the lurch.’

Jericho nodded and asked no more questions. He glanced across to the second car again.

‘I’m going to have another look round in the Andromeda,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘Perhaps I’ll find something that might help us.’

‘If you like. If you get into trouble, it wasn’t me who said you could.’ He clapped Jericho on the shoulder and went across the yard to the rusty delivery van. Jericho saw him speaking to one of the roadies, gesticulating. It looked as though they were talking about where the stage lighting should go. Then the two of them heaved another wheeled trunk from the van. Jericho waited a minute and followed them inside. As he entered the main hall, the sound engineer’s desk was just being set up. There was nobody on the balcony. He went up the steel steps, slipped through the grey door, pulled on a pair of disposable surgical gloves and went into Yoyo’s shabby den once more. The first thing he did was put a bug under one of the floorboards. Then he quickly scanned the piles of printouts, magazines and books. Nothing there gave him any clues as to where Yoyo might be. Most of it was about music, fashion, design, hip Shanghai, politics, virtual environments and robotics. Specialist literature that Yoyo probably read to keep up with work at Tu Technologies. He went to the table and sorted through the waste-paper basket underneath: torn packaging, scrunched up and smeared with leftovers. Jericho smoothed them out. Several were from a place called Wong’s World, and bore its rather inept logo, a globe on a dish, covered with sauce and served with what was probably supposed to be vegetables. The globe even had a face, and looked visibly depressed.