‘Shall we have a look at the French Concession?’ The arm of the specs played the sound of her voice into Jericho’s ear via the temporal bone.
‘A little louder,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ came Yoyo’s voice, a touch stronger now. ‘Shall we have a look at the French Concession? It’s perfect weather, not a cloud in the sky.’
Was that so? Jericho looked upwards. It was so.
‘That would be nice.’
‘My pleasure. My name’s Yoyo.’ She hesitated and gave him a look that mixed coquetry with shyness. ‘May I call you Owen?’
‘No problem.’
Fascinating. The program had automatically linked up with his ID code. It had recognised him, realised what time of day to use in saying hello, and taken a look at the weather at the same time. Already the team at Tu Technologies had topped everything that Jericho had seen in the field.
‘Come along,’ Yoyo said cheerfully.
Almost with relief, he realised that she no longer seemed so exquisitely beautiful as she had the day before. In flesh and blood, laughing, talking, gesticulating, the ethereal quality that he had thought he saw on Chen’s wobbly video was no longer there. What was left was still quite enough to make a pacemaker skip a beat.
Wait a moment. Flesh and blood?
Bits and bytes!
It really was astounding. The computer even calculated the correct angle for the shadow to fall as Yoyo walked in front of him. He no longer wondered how the program had done it but simply concentrated on her walk, her gestures, her movements. His guide turned left, took a place at his side and looked from him to the street and then back again.
‘The Si Nan Lu brings together several distinct architectural styles, including those of France, Germany and Spain. In 2018 the last of the original buildings were torn down, with a few exceptions, and then rebuilt. Using the original plans of course. Now everything is much more beautiful and even more authentic than it used to be.’ Yoyo smiled a Mona Lisa smile. ‘The first residents here included important functionaries of both the Nationalist and the Communist governments. Nobody could resist the quarter’s generous charms, everybody wanted to come to the Si Nan Lu. Even Zhou Enlai held court here for a while. This lovely three-storey garden villa on the left was his home. The style is generally called French, although in fact there are elements of Art Deco here as well, with Chinese influences. The villa is one of the very few buildings that has so far escaped the Party’s mania for renovation.’
Jericho was taken aback. How had that got past the censors?
Then he recalled that Tu had talked about a prototype. Meaning that the text would be modified later. He wondered whose idea this deviation had been. Had Tu thought up the joke, or had Yoyo suggested it to him?
‘Can we visit the villa?’ he asked.
‘We can go and have a look at it from inside,’ Yoyo confirmed. ‘The interior is largely untouched. Zhou lived a Spartan sort of life; he felt that it was his duty to the proletariat. Maybe too he simply didn’t want the Great Helmsman dropping in to rearrange the furniture.’
Jericho couldn’t help grinning.
‘I’d rather keep walking.’
‘Right you are, Owen. Let the past alone.’
Over the next few minutes Yoyo talked about their surroundings without barbed remarks. A couple of turnings off the street, they found themselves in a lively little alleyway full of cafés, galleries, ateliers and picturesque little shops selling artworks. Jericho came here often. He loved the quarter, with its wooden benches and palm trees, the neatly renovated shikumen houses with flowerpots in the window.
‘Until twenty years ago, Taikang Lu Art Street was an insider tip in the art scene,’ Yoyo explained. ‘In 1998 a former sweet factory was converted into the International Artists Factory. Advertising agencies and designers moved in, well-known artists opened their studios here, including big names like Huang Yongzheng, Er Dongqiang and Chen Yifei. Despite all that, for a long time the area was still overshadowed by Moganshan Lu north of the Suzhou Canal, where the official art scene met the underground and the avant-garde and they all dominated Shanghai’s art market together. It was only when the Taikang Art Foundation was built in 2015 that the centre of balance shifted. It’s the complex up there ahead. Locals call it the Jellyfish.’
Yoyo pointed to an enormous glass dome that looked astonishingly delicate and airy despite its massive size. It had been designed to mimic biological structures, along the lines of the larger Medusozoa.
‘What was here before?’ asked Jericho.
‘Originally Taikang Lu Art Street ended in a really lovely fish market. You could buy frogs and snakes here as well.’
‘And where did that go?’
‘The fish market was torn down. The Party has a giant airbrush which it can use to remove history. Now this is the Taikang Art Foundation.’
‘Can we visit the studios?’
‘We can visit the studios. Would you like to?’
Yoyo went ahead of him. Taikang Lu Art Street slowly filled up with tourists. It became crowded, but Yoyo looked real and solid as she wormed her way between passers-by. Truth be told, Jericho thought, she actually looked more real than some of the others.
He was brought up short.
Were his eyes playing tricks on him? He concentrated entirely on Yoyo. A group of Japanese tourists approached, shoulder to shoulder, on a collision course, blind to whoever might be coming the other way. He had noticed that the computer had Yoyo step aside whenever there was the chance, but the group blocked the street on both sides. All she could do was drop back before them, or fight her way past. The Japanese, like the Chinese, didn’t shrink from barging their way through if they needed to, so Jericho reckoned that if Yoyo were really here she would be using her elbows. Avatars had no elbows, though. Not the sort that others would feel in their ribs.
He watched curiously to see what would happen. A moment later she had passed the group, without it looking as though she had simply walked through. Rather, one of the Japanese seemed to have melted away for a moment to let her by.
Irked, Jericho took off the specs.
Nothing had changed except that Yoyo had vanished. He put them back on again, fought his way through the groups and saw Yoyo a little further on. Standing on the street. She looked across at him and waved.
‘What are you waiting for? Come on!’
Jericho took a few steps. Yoyo waited until he drew level with her, and then she set off. Incredible! How did the trick work? He would hardly be able to understand it without an explanation, so he concentrated on trying to catch the program out. From a purely factual perspective, the programmers had done good work. The tour was well researched and thoroughly plotted. So far, everything Yoyo had told him was right.
‘Yoyo—’ he began.
‘Yes?’ Her glance showed amiable interest.
‘How long have you had this job?’
‘This route is completely new,’ she answered evasively.
‘Not long, then?’
‘No.’
‘And what are you doing tonight?’
She stopped and gave him a smile, sweet as sugar.
‘Is that an offer?’
‘I’d like to invite you for a meal.’
‘Pardon me for refusing, but I only have a virtual stomach.’
‘Would you like to go dancing with me?’
‘I would very much like to.’
‘Great. Where shall we go?’
‘I said I would like to.’ She winked. ‘Sadly, I can’t.’
‘May I ask you something else?’
‘Go right ahead.’
‘Will you go to bed with me?’
She hesitated for a moment. The smile gave way to a look of mocking good humour.
‘You’d be disappointed.’