“Yeah,” said the other man distantly. “Listen, could you… give me a moment?” He looked at the grave.
Ko nodded and followed Fixx toward the trees. “Sure, man. Say your goodbyes. ”
“Thanks, Ko.”
“You’re welcome… Francis.”
He reached out a hand and let his fingers wander over the stone. It was cool and solid, and the action made his eyes prickle with tears. Frankie had hoped that his fingers would pass through the marker, ghost-like, that perhaps he might suddenly realise that all this was in his head. He wanted so much for it to be some horrible dream, a broken fragment left over from Tze’s invasion of his thoughts.
But no. Juno was gone, the dancing, laughing sparkle in those haunted eyes snuffed out. The tragedy of her life brought to the inexorable closure that had been written into her DNA from the start.
Numbly, in the hours after he and Fixx escaped from the tower, Frankie paged through the reams of data he had drained from Tze s computers. There, bereft of the security lockouts that had blocked his path before, was the scope of Project: Juno in all her synthetic glory. Yuk Lung and RedWhiteBlue had manufactured her from raw flesh, manipulated and changed her to make the perfect idol. With callous precision, they adjusted her look and personality to touch a baseline of human attraction across the broadest spectrum. She was made so everyone who saw her, everyone who heard her voice would find something to like about Juno. Something to love.
He recalled Tze’s words: Quite something, isn’t she? It’s hard not fall for a woman like that.
It wasn’t enough that they had used the girl, and not just her but a whole rank of clone-sisters, treating the Junos as disposable assets just to sell records; Tze had perverted her further, making her the face of his scheme, using her to spread the use of Z3N.
Frankie took a shuddering breath. Tze was correct; Juno was created to make people fall in love with her, and Frankie had, harder and deeper than ever before. But did she love him too? Perhaps, he told himself, perhaps she was so carefully machined that he only thought she cared for him. It was obvious now that the Hi woman and Tze had brought the two of them together to keep Frankie distracted from what was really happening. So easy to see it now in hindsight.
His vision blurred a little, and for a second there was the ghost of her face before him, smiling up from the silk sheets, meeting his lips in a kiss.
In that moment, he knew it for sure. Frankie gave Juno the one thing she had never found in her lonely, sad existence. Truth, and she loved him for it.
Frankie bowed his head and wept silently.
Fixx put the cat on his shoulder and the animal made a short purr in its throat. “Hush up, Pinkeye,” he told it.
“Cute pet,” said Ko, in a way that showed he didn’t mean it.
“Just walking him for a friend. ”The op pulled a small metal rod from his pocket. “Here.”
Ko took it and his eyes widened. “The key to the ’Vette?”
“Yeah. It’s just a loaner, mind. Get you over the boundary into China, to someplace where you can use those jet tickets and not get spiked. She’s pre-programmed, just let her go when you’re done and she’ll find her way back to me.”
The youth weighed the key in his hand, studying the little chrome skull dangling off the ring. “What you gonna do without any wheels?”
“Ah, don’t worry ’bout me.” Fixx took a deep breath of the morning air. “I kinda like this place. They do things different ’round here. Gonna stay put for a while, rest up. See how the cards play.”
After a moment, Ko said, “I’ve never been out of Hong Kong, not really. Trips to Bangkok, a week here or there. I don’t know anything else.”
“Yeah, you do,” said Fixx. “You got what you need to get by, slick. Never doubt that.” He tickled the cat under the chin. “Me and Pinkeye, we’re gonna take a stroll. You look after your sis, now.” He turned and walked away down the gentle slope.
“Hey,” called Ko, “maybe I’ll, uh, see you around?”
Fixx spoke without looking back. “Never can tell.”
Feng sat cross-legged on the bonnet of the Korvette, watching the skyline. Ko found a smile unfolding on his face at the sight of the swordsman; after taking Tze’s head in the statue park, it had felt like something had gone missing from his soul. He hadn’t seen the warrior since.
“Hey,” he began, patting his pockets, “you wanna smoke? Think I got a pack of Peacefuls here-”
“I quit,” said Feng. “Filthy habit.”
Ko blew out a breath. “You saved my life up there. ”
“Perhaps I did.” The soldier jumped off the car. “Or maybe you did it. Maybe that festering turd Second Lei was right all along, that I don’t exist. Perhaps, I’m all in your head.”
“No,” said the youth. He didn’t like where the conversation was going.
Feng smiled. He looked better than usual. No stubble, clear-eyed, standing up straight, armour polished. Ko imagined this was how he would have looked on some feudal parade ground, noble and proud. “Or maybe not. It’s a strange world, Ko. I have as many questions about it as you do.”
“The bones in the statue… That was you.”
“Indeed.” Feng pointed toward the peak. “Buried up there now with all those other luckless fools. Not quite the funeral I wanted, but I’ve learned not to be choosy. After all this time, an end is an end.”
Ko’s chest felt tight. “You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question.
“I’m free,” he said. “Free to go.” Suddenly, Ko couldn’t find any words. Feng nodded down the road a way. “Look there!”
Ko saw Frankie at the door of a car belonging to the Durdenists. In a moment, the man had bypassed the lock and slid inside. With deft movements, he disabled the alarm, and as the irate owners came running, Frankie gunned the engine and roared away in a snarl of smoke. The shaven-headed men spat and swore, and the car vanished over the hill, sounding its horn three times.
When Ko looked back at the Korvette there was only Nikita, sleeping fitfully in the back seat.
He took the road over Tai Mo Shan at twice the posted speed limit, turning into corners and switchbacks until Hong Kong vanished beneath the tree line. The Korvette blazed through warning signs shouting to slow down. Ko ignored them all, a wolfish grin forming on his lips as the needle on the dashboard moved inexorably toward the redline. Skirting the fake folk villages and tourista snares, he aimed the black bullet of the car at the Shenzhen border crossing, allowing the vehicle’s on-board navigator system to construct a route deeper into China. “Guangzhou,” he told the drive-brain. “Plot us a speed course to the airport there. I don’t want to stop for anything.” He saw strobes in the rear-view as two APRC jeeps struggled to catch up with him.
“Ko?” said a sleepy voice. “Where are we going?” Nikita shifted on the edge of wakefulness.
“Just a little country drive, Niki,” he told her, “Everything’s fine.”
She pointed out through the windscreen. “Look, Ko,” she said dreamily. “I can see blue. ”
Above, through the clouds, he saw it too; a pale cobalt sky, drawing them towards it. “Yeah. That’s where we’re going.”
Ko pressed the accelerator to the floor and left the jeeps choking on exhaust fumes.
Colonel Tsang walked gingerly through the cavernous interior of the wrecked building; the engineers assured him the stone stub that was all that remained of the Yuk Lung tower was in no danger of collapsing. Still, he was wary. The ruined skyscraper reminded him of an ancient burial mound, heavy with dust and the scent of death. There were pieces of torn cloth everywhere, and his boots crunched on shards of plastic. He nudged something with his toe; it appeared to be part of a porcelain mask. Tsang glanced at the sergeant and his men, each bearing a rifle and a sensor wand. “Anything?”
The sergeant frowned at the scanning device in his hand. “Sir, I’m not sure.”
The man came apart in a ripping shower of gore, cut in two. Tsang cried out in shock as a tattered shape like a heap of rags flashed through the other greenjackets, cutting them down. The colonel was rigid with shock, his hand an inch from his holstered pistol.