James Swallow - Jade Dragon

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The red taxi hurtled along Nathan Road at a speed that seemed far faster than was sensible. On the dashboard, a warning clicker snapped at the driver like an angry cicada. The small man behind the wheel had stuck a piece of adhesive tape over the illuminated display that read “Slow Down Now!”

Fixx took it in his stride, at every intersection where the chorus of horns serenaded the wild turns the driver made. On the sunshade there was a photo of the diminutive cabbie in his younger years, grinning out from under a Kevlar army helmet on the bonnet of a burnt-out North Korean jeep.

The blocky cityscape of Kowloon seemed to go on forever, flat towers of pastel-painted apartment blocks and multi-level shopping plexes crowding in over the street. He peered up through the plastic bubble roof. The gaps between the buildings were festooned with huge signs folded out like clipper sails, some of them holographic but most made from steel plate and old-fashioned neon tubing. The riotous glow of advertising vanished up into the night sky. Here and there he could see where the uppermost levels were being used as apartments-long strings of washing dangling out, dropping soapy rain on the streets far below. According to the signs he could read, there were schools and churches up there too, even a public swimming baths. Most of the neon was directed at more commercial endeavours, though. At the ten to twenty floor mark there were restaurants, nightclubs, casinos and vircades; it was only on the levels that were in sight of the ground where the constant marketplaces of the megastores roared, day and night streaming out goods of every stripe. Fixx wondered where all the money came from, where all the purchases went. There were only so many consumers in this city, he imagined. The cab vaulted into a side road and down a narrow chasm between two massive city blocks. The constructs loomed overhead, layered with retrofitted floors in stripes like the layers of sediment in a rock face. The cab turned and turned again, jarring Fixx in his threadbare seat. He was having difficulty keeping track of where he was, the warren of alleys challenging his sense of direction.

The vehicle screeched to a halt in the sullen glow of a shuttered door. Fixx saw the street number he wanted over a caged lamp and he swiped a creditchip across the pay-sensor. The red car was gone before he reached the doorway.

The entrance led him downwards. The basement was uncharacteristically cool, a welcome change to the blood-warm Hong Kong night. He came across a thick hatch, the kind that submarines had to keep out the crushing pressures of the ocean. It spat out gusts of air and opened just as he was about to knock on it. Fixx ran a fingertip over the SunKings in their holsters, just to be sure, and entered. The first thing he noticed were the mixed scents; ozone, a faint whiff of old meat and cat piss.

“Hey, Fixx.” The voice was slow and agreeable. “Just hold still a moment.”

It was dim down here, hard to see anything beyond racks of skeletal metal shelves and the giant seedpod shapes of NeoSoviet bio-matter processors. Fixx noticed a wall of stripped TFT screens, some of them showing television channels, others with grainy feeds from street cameras. An emerald laser fanned the room, washing across him.

“Say something,” said the voice.

“How’s retirement treatin’ you, Lucy?”

There was a chuckle in the reply. “Joshua. It is you. That’s lovely. Come closer.”

Fixx relaxed-but only a little-and did as Lucy asked. He had the distinct and slightly unnerving sensation of walking into the centre of a web. Cables as thin as hair and as thick as his arm snaked along every surface, disappearing into holes laser-bored through the walls. They terminated in banks of glittering LEDs, arranged in a ring around a single object. Roughly the height of a small child, it was a khaki green cylinder made from heavy impact plastics. The glow from the machinery revealed hooded boxes holding numerous litter trays and pop-top cans of cat food. Fixx became aware of lazy slitted eyes studying him, maybe a half-dozen felines lounging on the warm spots atop the processor stacks.

“Spider to the fly…” The words came from a vocoder welded to the cylinder’s outer casing.

Visible along the surface of the object were a string of letters: USAMRID and then Mod. # LU(c). Panels had been removed since the last time Fixx laid eyes on the unit, and components removed.

“You lost weight?”

“Charmer. Just some modifications.”

Fixx found a folding chair and sat himself in front of the screens. He fingered a low-hanging wire. “Nice place you got here.”

“Better than where I grew up.”

Fixx nodded. Lucy’s origins had been in a blasted wasteland in the Dakota NoGo, assembled by government techs with a budget too large and a shortfall of morals. They’d made her software self-aware in order to create better and more horrifying bio-toxins, but Lucy had other ideas.

She sent invites for her coming-out party to some sanctioned operatives who could help with her “confinement issues”. Fixx scratched his thigh absendtly, in the place where a bullet from that night’s work had raked him as they exfiltrated. Poor Haley Joel had died out there to liberate Lucy’s mainframe core. “You’re keepin’ busy?”

“Yes. This part of the world is data-rich. The Chinese have a thing about numbers. It’s a good fit for me, small beer for the most part but then I like the low profile. I’m trading information for wattage and bandwidth, plus my special projects.”

“Like the cats?” He gestured at a ginger tom that ambled past him with an air of regal disdain.

“I’m doing some research, collating data. I hope to Uplift them in a couple of years. In the meantime, I use local talent for any legwork.”

“Right.” Fixx noticed a replay on one of the screens: Juno Qwan stepping off a bus and into a glare of publicity. His eyes narrowed.

“Joshua,” Lucy began, “You didn’t come halfway around the world to reminisce. What are you doing out here?”

“Following an inklin’,” he said, still watching the screen. “I need to call in a marker.”

“Okay.”

“I need a vehicle and some walkin’ around money.”

A couple of lights blinked on the khaki box. “I can do that for you. Give me a second, I’ll talk to the boys in the Wo Shing Wo.” She paused. “This have something to do with that planeload of women who landed in Zhuhai?”

He flicked a glance at the machine. “You know about that?”

“Male-to-female ratios on the mainland are off the gauge, Fixx. Fem-smugglers are coining it in up country, so naturally folks will talk about it when a C-5 full of girlflesh goes rogue.”

“They deserved better. This way, they get to pick and choose when they have kids, not get locked in a breeder farm.”

Lucy chuckled. “Same old Joshua. Fighter for the underdog.”

Fixx looked away. “It ain’t about the women. That was just what you might call an ellipsis. I’m lookin’ for something different.” His eyes strayed back to the screen.

“I pay my debts,” said Lucy. “Car’s outside now.”

“Merci, mademoiselle.” He gave the cylinder a pat.

“Hey, you like her?” Lucy brought the images of Juno on to all her screens. “I’m running hacks of her new album for the Temple Market pirates. You want a copy?”