Jade Dragon
James Swallow
My fellow Americans,
I am speaking to you today from the Oval Office, to bring you hope and cheer in these troubling times. The succession of catastrophes that have assailed our once-great nation continue to threaten us, but we are resolute.
The negative fertility zone that is the desolation of the mid-west divides east from west, but life is returning. The plucky pioneers of the new Church of Joseph are reclaiming Salt Lake City from the poisonous deserts just as their forefathers once did, and our prayers are with them. And New Orleans may be under eight feet of water, but they don't call it New Venice for nothing.
Here at the heart of government, we continue to work closely with the MegaCorps who made this country the economic miracle it is today, to bring prosperity and opportunity to all who will join us. All those unfortunate or unwilling citizens who exercise their democratic right to live how they will, no matter how far away from the comfort and security of the corporate cities, may once more rest easy in their shacks knowing that the new swathes of Sanctioned Operatives work tirelessly to protect them from the biker gangs and NoGo hoodlums.
The succession of apparently inexplicable or occult manifestations and events we have recently witnessed have unnerved many of us, it is true. Even our own Government scientists are unable to account for much of what is happening. Our church leaders tell us they are holding at bay the unknown entities which have infested the datanets in the guise of viruses.
A concerned citizen asked me the other day whether I thought we were entering the Last Times, when Our Lord God will return to us and visit His Rapture upon us, or whether we were just being tested as He once tested his own son. My friends, I cannot answer that. But I am resolute that with God's help, we shall work, as ever, to create a glorious future in this most beautiful land.
Brought to you in conjunction with the GenTech Corporation.
Serving America right.
[Script for proposed Presidential address, July 3rd 2021. Never transmitted.]
Ladies and Gentlemen, at this time Virgin SubOrbital would like to announce that our flight is entering the descent phase toward the Hong Kong Free Economic Enterprise Quadrant and our arrival at Chek Lap Kok SkyHarbour is on schedule for seven forty-five pee-em, local time. Your cabin staff wish to remind you that there is still time to make any purchases of perfume, smoking materials, caffeinated products, cyberware or pharmaceuticals from our in-flight dutyfree catalogue; simply press the blue dot on the datascreen installed in your seat arm. Passengers are free to move about the cabin and take drinks at the upper deck bar or use one of our recreation pods in the discreet cabin. However, we would ask all clients to note that once the seat belt sign has been illuminated, all passengers must return to and remain in their seats as the aircraft makes its final approach to Chek Lap Kok. For your comfort and safety, neural induction coils mounted in the headrest of your seats will automatically engage to help minimize any discomfort due to pressure changes in the cabin. In the event of an emergency landing, these coils will also lull you into a dreamless, peaceful sleep while the cabin is flooded with ShokFoam™. Should you have any questions about today’s flight, please feel free to discuss them with one of our polylingual flight attendants. We know you have a choice when selecting the carrier for your company’s international transit needs, and we thank you for choosing Virgin SubOrbital today.
1. Once Upon a Time in China
Frankie worked his jaw and frowned, shifting slightly in the depths of the padded acceleration couch. The conformal cushion gave a sensual sigh and moved to accommodate him, but he fidgeted again. The book he’d loaded into his palmtop remained unread, his attention unable to hold past page six of What Gangcults Can Teach Us About Management. Stuffing the computer into his carry-on bag, his eyes returned to wandering over and around the smooth lines of the airliner cabin. On some level he felt like he was failing to project the right image. The other men and women in their seats, each an arm’s length away from the other and surrounded by an expensive halo of legroom, all seemed so at ease in here as to be profoundly bored with it all. Moving so she wouldn’t know where he was looking, Frankie observed the lady in pinstripes with the Eidolon cheek-tatt. She was still having the same conversation she’d started as they came out of boost phase from LA-Double-X, in poppy little spits of subvocalisation that weren’t real words, talking to a dermal mike in her larynx. A privacy masking field made it impossible for him to figure out what she was so animated about, but by the way she kept miming a gun-forefinger extended, thumb a falling hammer-it was clear somebody back in NorCalifornia was getting reamed. Next to her was a large man who looked like a sumotori, forced into a black Ozwald Boateng suit that might have made an elegant pup tent in another life. The big fellow was engrossed in the screen he gripped with fat sausage fingers; the sound was on direct beam, but Frankie could see the tanned face of ZeeBeeCee’s Tammy Popeldouris engaged in serious conversation with Juno Qwan, while the idol singer’s new vid played picture-in-picture.
A gentle swell of turbulence rocked the liner, reminding him where they were. He sniffed the air; the same canned, conditioned taste that the atmosphere in the office had, that the airport lounge had too. The cabin was seamless in muted reds and pale cream, matching almost perfectly to the decor of the executive embarkation area at LAXX, and no doubt to the egress lounge at SkyHarbour and any one of a hundred other airports around the world. Usually that sort of thing made Frankie feel safe, the idea that the corps were helping to maintain a homogenous profile across the world, so that anyone could find a Buckstars or a MacDee no matter if you were in Manchester or Mumbai… But all of a sudden it seemed too plastic to him, just a veneer over a dangerous, unfamiliar place. He looked away, forcing down the little flutter of butterfly nerves rolling around in his gut. He was supposed to be a professional; this sort of giddy rush was the kind of thing a single-term window gazer would experience, not an echelon executive like him.
I should be making the most of this, he thought. It wasn’t every day he got to fly transcontinental; what with the shifts in the fuel markets and the rise of franchise terrorism post Y2K, aviation had moved back to the rarefied state it was in at the dawn of commercial flight-when only the military and the very rich could afford it.
Frankie let out a controlled breath and, for what must have been the hundredth time during the flight, he unfolded the photo.
There they were, the two of them with big, goofy grins on their faces on the upper deck of the Star Ferry, the lights of the city a rainbow blur behind them. He tried to remember who had taken the picture-one of the other grads, maybe that thin girl from Foshan who got posted to orbit? They both looked so happy there, fuelled by too many bottles of Tsingtao and the elation at making the cut at the corporate academy. That was before the company had parted them, sent him to the other side of the world while his brother got to stay home and rise like a rocket through the ranks of the head office. Frankie felt the bite of resentment and instantly flattened it. No. Alan deserves his success. Deserved it. He was always the more diligent of them, and Frankie knew it. While Frankie had toiled to make any kind of advancement at the Los Angeles division, Alan Lam had caught the eye of the upper tiers and skipped entire grades on his way to the top floors.
Not that any of those things mattered now, a morose inner voice reminded him. When the summons from Yuk Lung Heavy Industry’s headquarters had pinged into life on the LA branch office d-screen, there was a moment when Frankie’s supervisor had automatically assumed it was for him. Burt Tiplady, all one metre sixty of his arrogant, noisy self, had swaggered over to take the comm, oozing smarm. Burt had been waiting for four years to get cherry-picked by Hong Kong. The look on his face when he realised the message was for Frankie, not him, was worth every day that Lam had weathered his bellicose presence; but try as he might, Frankie couldn’t rekindle that feeling right now. The cold hollow that formed as Burt passed him the screen to read had overwritten that one moment of elation.