James Swallow - Jade Dragon

“Zen, zen,” sang the girl. “I’m the quiet mind inside, pretty voice.” The crowd erupted into a storm of cheers and Fixx blinked as he felt a light rain on his face. “Touch” was the song that had made her career, the hit that had stayed at number one on the Billboard chart like it had been nailed there. “I’m the perfect smile,” Juno crooned, the Hyperdome singing with her. “Touch my thoughts and flow, there’s no world we can’t know.”

As the bassline kicked in, the stage went supernova white. Lasers fanned across the arena, cutting shapes, numbers and letters into the misty air. The holograms of Juno morphed and changed, flickering between her different outfits. Her face came forward off the holotank podium and wove patterns of fire above them. People cried out in surprise and tried to touch them. Angels. Fixx could see angels up there, made from glass and light.

The skin across his face was tingling and Fixx shook his head, hard. When he ran his fingers through his close-cropped step-cut they came back wet. The artificial rain was warm, speckling the shoulders of his coat. He could see some people tipping their heads back and welcoming it with outspread arms.

“Sea of stones, sand waves,” Juno’s voice echoed in his skull. “Harmony, come with me.”

“This is wrong,” he said aloud, but his voice vanished into the roar of the crowds.

“Taste the blue,” sang the girl, each word a shock to his heart.

The glass angels in the rafters fell toward the crowds and as they came they changed; bright wings became masses of writhing serpents and faces fell apart into knots of maggoty flesh. Fixx struggled to find his guns but the press of people about him was so great he could barely move. Juno was still singing, and in the spaces between the words a woman in lolicon gingham shouted “Isn’t she great?” into his ear, wild with the thrill of it all. “My eyes are golden!”

“Star at dawn, bubble in the stream. Zen, zen, I’m the quiet mind inside, pretty voice.”

The laser fans turned to ropes of blue and green fire. Crossing in the air, the beams fell into the masses and laid lines of screaming, burning bodies in their wake. The smell of burnt flesh reached Fixx’s nostrils and sense memory engulfed him in a flood. For one shuddering instant, he was – there with Cajun Pork Cathy and her Longpig Boyz out on the rusted Gulf Coast oilrigs as they did the work of the Dark Ones, turning ferryboat passengers into chum for Deseret’s blood rites. His guns hot in his hands. Cathy’s head clean off at the neck. Crimson fountain. The Queen of Cups, inverted. Screaming. The meat smell.

Fixx snapped back as the crowd picked him up. He was driftwood in the swell, the panic alive about him. The operative shouldered against the flow and slid back, standing his ground as the screaming hordes washed around him. The lasers sputtered and shrieked, darts of murderous coherent light striking like thunderbolts. The angel-things fluttered and shredded into storms of snakes, vanishing as they fell or slithering into shadows.

As “Touch” reached its crescendo and faded, the sound of sirens pealed over the crash of feet and breaking glass. Fixx shook his head, the wet fog clutching at his mind, making him feel drunk and slow. Fat droplets spattered about on the floor, sparkling in the spotlights.

More men in the talking shirts were sweeping Juno and the band off the stage. Impossibly, there were fans in the circles and the skyboxes on their feet and applauding, tears of elation streaming down their faces. Fixx threw himself at the mojo barrier and fell short, rebounding off the metal with a tingle from the stunner field.

Juno Qwan saw him. She turned and looked at him with those eyes, the porcelain face that clogged every instant of television airtime, every billboard and viddy. Fixx tried to find her name but his throat tightened. The girl looked down on him, beatific and empty.

Then the men in hoods were taking her away, and darkness settled inside the dome like the end of the world.

Tze discarded the suit like a shed skin and dressed himself once more in the kingly robes of blue and gold. The only conceit to the present day world were the handmade Italian shoes beneath the flaring curve of fabric. There were many vices that Mr Tze granted himself, but sometimes the simplest were the ones that provided the most pleasure. The shoes fitted him as perfectly as if he had been born with them, and with a sigh playing about his lips, the CEO of Yuk Lung Heavy Industries dismissed Deer Child and gathered himself.

He viewed the painting of the battle at Tsing-hsien on the far wall, cocking his head so that the clock concealed in the artwork became visible. Time, then. Time to consult once more with the players in the game.

Tze spoke a command word and the window glass went opaque, painting the room with thick pools of shadow where the light of the lanterns failed to reach. The door opened to admit the Hi woman and he gave her a cursory nod.

“Sir,” she replied, her mechanical smile snapping on, then off.

Tze glanced at his hand, the one he had used to press Francis Lam’s fingers into the blades of the ghost knife. “We have a moment before we begin…”

“The augurs report a perfect match, sir.” She knew what questions he had before they were voiced. Tze liked that about Phoebe Hi. It was one of the reasons why she wasn’t dead. “Genotype correlation is very good. Professor Tang was positively beaming when he gave me the news.”

“I imagine he was,” Tze noted dryly. “Where is Francis now?”

“Alice has taken him to Alan’s apartment. She suggested we allow him to take the residence for himself. A good solution. Far easier than setting up another secured environment from scratch.”

Tze nodded. “Commend her. Forward thinking should be rewarded.” In the middle of the room was a shallow ceremonial bowl. The executive mumbled a cantrip beneath his breath and bit into his knuckle, letting a couple of drops of blood fall into the brass basin. “Link,” he said to the air, and from hidden slots in the ceiling a cluster of projector heads emerged on silent spider legs.

A series of holograms blinked into life around the room, appearing in a circle around Tze and the bowl. Most of them were human, but one or two were simple black monoliths bearing the character for “silence”. Hi found her place among them and bowed.

Tze gave the phoenix-eye salute. “Kindred, I have good news. Our pattern continues unaffected by the trials of recent days.”

“That is gratifying to hear,” said a figure in the uniform of a general in the APRC. “Contemplation of other conclusions was very nearly implemented.”

Tze studied the man for a moment. Other conclusions, indeed. He knew for a fact that the general had prepared an attack by stealth bomber on this building, in case Tze did not give the answer he wanted. The executive bowed. “We move forward along the path the Dragon cuts for us. His ascendance is cemented.”

A grim-faced woman in a blue Highrider jumpsuit drifted forward a little; the distance it had travelled from LaGrange orbit made her signal grainy. “What about the field test? I’m eager to hear the results.”

“Your keenness is appreciated,” said Tze. “Data is still in the midst of collation,” he threw a look at Hi, “but early signs are good.”

The Highrider nodded, her image pixellating. “Encouraging.”

“But, the replacement…” said another man, a rotund Japanese in a Happi coat emblazoned with corporate logograms. “The quality is adequate, neh?”

“Very good,” said Hi, unable to stop herself from blurting it out. “I would go so far as to say superior, even.”

Tze silenced her with a gesture. “I have given Ms Hi my leave to ensure that the pattern continues to unfold as it must. The resources of my humble clan are at the disposal of this Cabal through myself and through her.”