Frank Schätzing - Limit

Because the problem – an undulating, proliferating, all-enveloping, truly uncontrollable monster of a problem – was that China’s creative elite would go on cannibalising itself so long as a nationally and internationally accepted and implementable system for the protection of intellectual property rights remained elusive. It had always been obvious that capitalism, practically reinvented by China, was based upon property rights, and that an economy whose most important asset was knowhow couldn’t exist without the protection of brands, patents and copyright, but it hadn’t really interested anyone – not, that is, until the day when they themselves became victims of the situation. By now, the country suffering the most economic damage at the hands of Chinese espionage was China itself. Everyone was digging around in other people’s front gardens, and with electronic spades wherever possible. The hunting ground was the global net, and Owen Jericho was one of the hunters, commissioned by other hunters as soon as they got the impression that they themselves were the quarry.

Once Jericho became part of that network without which no favours would be done and no trade negotiated in China, his career ascended like a rocket. He moved five times in five years, twice of his own free will, the other times because the houses he was living in at the time were to be pulled down for reasons he could no longer remember. He moved to better areas, wider streets, nicer houses, getting ever closer to realising his dream of moving into one of the rebuilt shikumen houses, with stone gateways and peaceful inner courtyards, located in the pulsating heart of Shanghai. Even though he had to make compromises along the way, he had never doubted it would happen at some point.

One day, his bank manager asked him what he was waiting for. Jericho replied that he wasn’t quite there yet, but would be someday. The bank manager made him aware of his bank balance and said that ‘someday’ was, in fact, now. With the revelation that he’d been working so hard he hadn’t paid attention to the possibilities now open to him, Jericho left the bank and teetered home in a daze.

He hadn’t realised he had come so far.

With the realisation came the doubts. They claimed they’d always been there, but that he had avoided acknowledging them. They whispered: What the devil are you doing here anyway? How did you even get here?

How could this happen to you?

They told him that it had all been for nothing, and that the worst position anyone could ever find themselves in was that of having achieved their goals. Hope blossoms beneath the shelter of provisional arrangements, often for a whole lifetime. Now, suddenly, it had become official. He was to become a Shanghaian, but had he ever wanted that? To settle in a city he would never have moved to without Joanna?

As long as you were on the journey, said the doubts, you didn’t have to think about the destination. Welcome to commitment.

In the end – he lived in a fairly prestigious high-rise in the hinterland of Pudong, the financial district, the only drawback of which was the fact that more skyscrapers were being constructed around it, that and the noise and a fine brown dust which settled in the windowsills and airways – it took a further eviction by the city authorities to shake him from his lethargy. Two smiling men paid him a visit, let him serve them tea and then explained that the house he was living in had to give way to an utterly amazing new-build. If he so wished, they would gladly reserve an apartment in it for him. But a further move for the duration of the coming year would, much to their regret, be unavoidable. To which end, the authorities considered themselves overjoyed to be able to offer him an apartment near Luchao Harbour City, a mere sixty kilometres outside Shanghai – which, for a metropolis lovingly embracing other towns in the course of its expansion, wasn’t really outside at all. Oh, yes, and they wanted to start work in four weeks, so if he could – you know. It wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened, and they said they were very sorry, but they weren’t really.

Jericho had stared at the delegates as the wonderful certainty of having just awoken from a coma streamed through him. Suddenly, he could smell the world again, taste it, feel it. He shook hands with the baffled men gratefully, assuring them they had done him a great service. And that they could send whomever they wanted to Luchao Harbour City. Then he had phoned Tu Tian and, in keeping with matters of decorum, had asked whether he might know someone who knew someone who knew whether there was a renovated or newly built shikumen house in a lively corner of Shanghai, vacant and which could be moved into at short notice. Mr Tu, who prided himself on being Jericho’s most satisfied client as well as his good friend, was the first port of call for questions such as these. He managed a mid-size technology company, was on good terms with the city’s powers that be, and happily declared that he would be willing to ‘keep an ear to the ground’.

Fourteen days later, Jericho signed the rental contract for a floor in one of the most beautiful shikumen houses, situated in Xintiandi, one of the most popular areas of Shanghai, and which could be moved into right away. It was a new-build of course. There weren’t any genuine old shikumen houses left, and there hadn’t been for a long time. The last ones had been torn down shortly after the world exhibition of 2010, and yet Xintiandi could still be classified as a stronghold of shikumen architecture just as in similar fashion the old town of Shanghai was anything but old.

Jericho didn’t ask who had had to move out to make it vacant. He hoped the apartment really had been empty, put his signature on the document and didn’t give any more thought to what favour Tu Tian might ask for in return. He knew he owed Tu. So he prepared for his move and waited humbly for what was to come.

And it came sooner than expected. In the form of Chen Hongbing and an unpleasant commission which there was no way of getting out of without insulting Tu.

Shortly after Chen left, Jericho set up his computer terminal. He washed his face, combed his dishevelled hair into some semblance of order and pulled on a fresh T-shirt. Making himself comfortable in front of the screen, he let the system dial the number. Two T’s appeared on the screen, each one melting into the other, the symbol of Tu Technologies. The next moment, an attractive woman in her mid-forties was smiling at him. She was seated in a tastefully decorated room with lounge furniture and floor-to-ceiling windows which offered a glimpse of Pudong’s skyline. She was drinking something from a tiny porcelain cup which Jericho knew to be strawberry tea. Naomi Liu would kill for strawberry tea.

‘Good afternoon, Naomi.’

‘Good afternoon, Owen. How’s the move going?’

‘Fantastically, thank you.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it. Mr Tu told me you’re having one of our big new terminals delivered.’

‘Yes, this evening, I hope.’

‘How exciting.’ She put the cup down on a transparent surface which seemed to sway in thin air, and looked at him from beneath her lowered lashes. ‘Then I’ll soon be able to see you from head to toe.’

‘That’s nothing compared to the excitement of seeing you .’ Jericho leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Anyone would swear that you’re sitting right here in front of me.’

‘And that’s enough for you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’m worried it might be. It will be enough, and you’ll see no reason any more to invite me around personally. I think I’ll have to convince my boss not to deliver the thing to you after all.’