‘Shit,’ she murmured. ‘I dozed off.’
‘Yeah, you look like a slaughtered animal. All that’s missing is the knife-handle sticking out of your chest. Come on, Pocahontas, get a cup of coffee down you. We’ve got something! I think we’ve really got something!’
28 May 2025
ENEMY CONTACT
Quyu, Shanghai, China
At around one o’clock, Jericho had had his fourth phone conversation with Zhao, who was at that instant watching a mass brawl and assured him that he was enjoying himself enormously.
Net-junkies came and went. Some made the move to the honeycomb sleeping modules. Almost the entire population of the Cyber Planet was male – women were a vanishingly small minority and most of them were pretty long in the tooth. For Jericho, the only halfway healthy-looking people were the users of the full-motion suits and the treadmills, who were forced to take a bit of exercise as they explored virtual universes. Many of them spent their time in parallel worlds like Second Life and Future Earth, or in the Evolutionarium, where they could pretend to be animals, from dinosaurs all the way down to bacteria. Some of the reclining figures moved their sensor-covered hands, drew cryptic patterns in the empty air, a clue that they were attempting to play an active part in something or other. The overwhelming majority didn’t lift a finger. They had reached the terminal stage, reduced to being observers of their own extended agonies.
Strangely, the atmosphere had a cathartic effect on Jericho, in which Zhao’s defamations melted away to nothing. The net zombies seemed to stir themselves, letting him know it just took an insignificant effort of will to end the status of his loneliness; they pointed at him with desiccated fingers, accused him of flirting with sadness, of having walled himself up in the past and brought about his own misery; they sent him back to life which, so far, hadn’t been nearly as bad as he thought. He made a thousand resolutions, soap-bubbles on whose surfaces the future iridesced. In a strange way the Cyber Planet brought him comfort. Then, as if on cue, Zhao called, claiming he just wanted to know how Jericho was getting on.
He was getting on just fine, Jericho replied.
And again he waited. Even though he had plenty of experience of staring stoically at a single spot, the comings and goings in the market were starting to bore him. People ate and drank, haggled, hung around, hooked up, laughed or got into arguments. The night belonged to the gangsters, it was here that they brought the day’s bounty back into the cycle of greed, albeit quite peacefully. He started to envy Zhao his punch-up, decided to rely entirely on the scanners for a while, connected the hologoggles up to his phone and logged in to Second Life. The market vanished, making way for a boulevard with bistros, shops and a cinema. Using his phone’s touchscreen, Jericho guided his avatar down the street. In this world he was dark-skinned, he had long, black hair and he was called Juan Narciso Ucañan, a name he’d read years ago in some disaster novel or other. Three good-looking young women were sitting at a table in the sun, all with transparent wings and filigree antennae above their eyes.
‘Hi,’ he said to one of them.
She looked up and beamed at him. Jericho’s avatar was a masterpiece of programming, and even by the high standards of Second Life, unusually attractive.
‘My name’s Juan,’ he said. ‘I’m new here.’
‘Inara,’ she said. ‘Inara Gold.’
‘You’re looking great, Inara. Do you fancy a totally awesome experience?’
The avatar that called itself Inara hesitated. That hesitation was typical of the woman hiding behind it. ‘I’m here with my girlfriends,’ she said evasively.
‘Well, I’d love to,’ said one of them.
‘Me too,’ laughed the other one.
‘Okay, let’s the four of us all do something.’ Jericho Juan put on a wide smile. ‘But first I need to discuss something with the most beautiful one. Inara.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because I’ve got a surprise for you.’ He pointed to an empty chair. ‘Can I sit down here?’
She nodded. Her big, golden eyes looked at him steadily. He leaned forward and lowered his voice.
‘Could we be undisturbed for a moment, beautiful Inara? Just the two of us?’
‘It’s not up to me, sweetie.’
‘We’re just going anyway,’ one of the girlfriends said and got to her feet. The other sent a snake-tongue darting from between her teeth, fished an insect out of the air, swallowed it and gave an offended hiss. They both spread their wings and disappeared behind a puff of pink clouds. Inara struck a pose and stretched her ribcage. The fabric of the tight top she was wearing started to become transparent.
‘I love surprises,’ she purred.
‘And this is one – Emma.’
Emma Deng was so surprised that she momentarily lost control of her clothes. Her top disappeared completely, revealing perfectly formed breasts. A moment later her torso turned black.
‘Don’t go, Emma,’ Jericho said quickly. ‘It would be a mistake.’
‘Who are you?’ hissed the woman who called herself Inara.
‘That doesn’t matter.’ His avatar crossed his legs. ‘You’ve embezzled two million yuan and passed on company secrets to Microsoft. You can’t cope with more problems than that all at once.’
‘How – how did you find me?’
‘It wasn’t hard. Your preferences, your semantics—’
‘My what?’
‘Forget it. My speciality is hunting down people on the net, that’s all. You’ve been transmitting for so long now that it was easy to locate you.’
Not true, but Jericho knew that Emma Deng didn’t have the knowledge to see through his lie. A refined little girl, who had used the fact of her intimate relationship with the senior partner in the company she worked for in order to cheat it for years on end.
‘If I want,’ Jericho went on, ‘the cops will be at your door in ten minutes. You can run away, but they’ll find you just like I did. We’ll get you sooner or later, so I advise you to listen.’
The woman froze. Outwardly she had as little in common with the real Emma Deng as Owen Jericho had with Juan Narciso Ucañan. If you examined her psychological profile, it was very likely that Emma would opt for a body like Inara Gold’s, almost one hundred per cent. Jericho was definitely pleased with himself.
‘I’m listening,’ she muttered.
‘Okay, the honourable Li Shiling is willing to forgive you. That’s the information that I’m supposed to pass on to you.’
Emma laughed loudly.
‘You’re taking the piss.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Christ, I might be stupid, but I’m not as stupid as that. Shiling wants me to rot in hell.’
‘That’s not unthinkable.’
‘Great.’
‘On the other hand Mr Li seems to be missing the delights of your company. Particularly in the genital region, he’s been finding life a little dull since you left.’
Inara Gold’s beautiful face reflected unconcealed hatred. Jericho assumed that Emma was sitting in front of a full-body scanner that transferred her gestures and facial expressions to her avatar in real time.
‘What else did the old fucker have to say for himself?’ she hissed.
‘You don’t want to hear.’
‘I do. I want to know what I’m letting myself in for.’
‘A refreshing dip in the Huangpu, with your feet encased in lead? I mean, he’s furious! Your second-best option is that he’ll hand you over to the authorities. But according to his own personal testimony what he’d really like is for you to go on giving him blowjobs.’