“What kind of things did she tell you?”
“Well, this Christmas Bride you visited with, she knows a lot more about him than she let on that time she came round to see us. She holds him in awe.”
“Krom, in awe?”
“Yes. And she hinted that they’re mainly interested in you because of your father.”
“They?”
“She didn’t go into detail. That’s the word she used. It’s like she belongs to some splinter group that lives off crumbs that the main group throws them. It seems at that camp you visited, in its heyday, well, there was an awful lot of sex and no contraception. Your putative father was particularly active, a real alpha male. A lot of the enhanced kids were from his stock. They didn’t know how to bring up freaks. Most died-this Asset survived. That makes them interested in you.”
“For my genes?”
“Maybe. Or maybe something else. Maybe for who you are. You see, I saw it tonight with Krom, and I’m sure I’m right about this. They have a problem with their product. Those creatures can switch their programming at the drop of a hat. It’s impossible for them to have any lasting allegiance to anything. That’s the weakness in the program. They’re too smart and accomplished to take ordinary humans seriously, including the ones who created them. And after a certain tipping point they evolve much quicker than us.” She shuddered again. “I know they’re taking over, I can sense it.”
“So how can I help them?”
“They think that with your genetic and emotional connection to your father, and since you’re a mature man…”
“They want to enhance me?”
“I don’t know. That was my first reaction. Krom can be subtle, she dropped little hints and left me to put it all together. After tonight and what you witnessed before on the river, we know that there exists a technology arising out of the LSD experiments fifty years ago that actually works.”
“So it seems.”
“Think about it for a moment. You insert such people into key positions, just like secret services use moles. But these people rise to the top in everything they do, whether commercial, industrial, military-they have to, because they really do leave the rest of us behind by a very long stretch, which gets longer with every breakthrough.”
“So you end up with a whole world controlled by talented psychos-where’s the change in that?”
“The talent-it’s just monumental. Wasn’t that the point of the fight tonight? A world-class Muay Thai fighter swatted like a fly?” She lets a few beats pass. “She said something else, I’m half-afraid to tell you because you just won’t believe it.”
“That’s one hell of a tease, Chanya. What did she say?”
“That certain world leaders were already enhanced-not like the Asset, but in minor ways, using spin-offs from the new technology.”
“And?”
“Well, one of them lives very north and very west of here in a country that has a history of similar experimentation.”
“Why so coy about it?”
“That’s how she put it. She wanted you to know that, I’m sure.”
“So we’re talking north?”
“Northwest. Very far.”
“Russia?”
“She wouldn’t specify.”
I’m watching the night go by out of the cab window, trying to take it all in. “You think Krom is a product of the Chinese version of the experiment?”
“Maybe in a mild way, yes, that’s my guess. While I was with her she had to answer a call. She speaks fluent Mandarin, Sonchai-she was just pretending to be at intermediate level that evening with Chu, so as not to make you suspicious. Why would a Thai cop be fluent in Chinese?”
“So she finally admitted outright that the Chinese have foisted her on Vikorn-muscled him to take her on, a spy in his camp?”
“Sort of. Like I said, she used deniable hints, avoided specifics.”
“But why is Goldman so keen to sell his product to the Chinese? Shouldn’t he be all secret about it, like in a nice old-fashioned arms race?”
“Not race. Think arms sale. When my enemy needs to buy my technology to fight a third party, he becomes my friend-but don’t tell anyone. Think maybe the Chinese already have a product of their own, but perhaps not so advanced. So the U.S. has a super-smooth version that can just about go to cocktail parties and run multinationals and attend Republican conventions without eating people’s livers for hors d’oeuvres. Better they sell that to the Chinese than have the Chinese continue with their own R amp;D-or buy from someone else.”
“The Russians?”
She shrugs. “Krom made it clear the PRC is in a hurry. It has to do with the U.S. dollar. It’s a mathematical certainty that it will collapse within the decade-the inevitable consequence of a planet-wide Indian rope trick called quantitative easing: those are her words. There will be riots and chaos worldwide. And China controls a quarter of the world’s population. In the West the tightening has already started, even today there’s a greater sense of personal freedom in a third-world shantytown than a modern first-world state-sooner or later people will start to notice. The captured elephant doesn’t freak until it feels the chain.”
“But still…”
She inhales deeply. “It’s like I said, something big is about to go down. I have no idea what, except it will include a lockdown on individual freedom. She hinted that oligarchs and world bankers are on the committees that run these programs.” She paused. “You know, there must be something extra they do to their assets, some form of higher consciousness, like they’ve learned how to steal a measure of enlightenment.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Krom. When I made it clear I couldn’t do sex with her, I thought she was going to explode. I actually feared for my life. I suppose she thought that by going back to her flat I was consenting.”
“What flat? Where?”
“That’s another mystery. She owns a one-bedroom apartment on Sukhumvit at On Nut, but it was clear she doesn’t live there. Probably just uses it for pickups.”
“So where does she really live?”
“She didn’t say. Pretended not to hear the question. Anyway, as I was saying, she had to make a huge effort to control herself. I really thought I was finished. Instead she went into a kind of trance and started to talk.” Chanya smirked. “Know what? She started to sound like you.”
“How?”
“This is what she said. She said the human being is the only creature aware of death, which is another way of saying our consciousness in its true form is a product of the tension between the two, life and death. If you can’t go down to the wire with your own annihilation, then you’re never fully human. That used to be what religions were for. The hidden purpose of modernism is to offer a cop-out that turns us into manipulable dolls. No one grows up anymore. Everyone is immortal. When the entire species is stuck at the mental age of thirteen and a half with heads full of noise and football, that’s when they take over. Not long to go. Pretty much there already. That’s what she said.”
“What else?”
She shrugs again. “She kept referring to that batch-she used that word. They have fierce, childish emotions. According to her, it wasn’t Goldman but the Asset himself who ordered the bombing of those old men. The Asset doesn’t like it that your mutual father left the camp. To him it’s like a violation of some sentimental value, some idealized childhood that probably never happened-they just programmed him that way, not realizing what the consequences might be. To him your father has to be some old tough jungle guy from out of a Stallone movie, not a small-time dope hustler. The Asset chose a moment when he thought those old men would be out at the market to have those kids plant the bomb. He wants the oldies back in the camp.”